#me sees a pic i’ve posted before big brain energy he looks so cute post it again

[baekhyunlooks]

[dickytwister]

HEY do you maybe have like an oc page or could you tell me something about all your ocs because i'm Interested and you have my full attention :eyes:

AHSJDKGLHL that's so sweet i'm nfjghl???? i don't have an oc page bc i'm the embodiment of an old man being given an iphone after 50 years of using a rotary phone but !!! i can yell abt them a bit aaa thank you for asking abt them 🥺🥺💚

i put everything under the cut bc dear god i have a lot to say abt my kids and i'm not gonna make everyone scroll through that HHHHHH haw 🤠🤠

elliot fletcher

- he's my deputy in fc5!! he's from waverly in iowa and he's just...very tired nfjfkhl give my poor man a break

- everytime his radio crackles he ages 10 years and if it's john talking add another 10 years

- he keeps the three heralds alive but he doesn't care abt joseph <3

- gets in trouble bc he's impulsive af nfjghl when jacob is close to the cage?? ram his face in the bars. when john leans like rlly close in the confession scene?? headbutt 😌🙏🏼

- the only people who know abt his past are earl, grace, faith and john, the rest just kinda speculate and elliot lets them believe what they want bc not only does he rlly not want ppl to know the actual truth, it's also very funny to listen to the stuff they can come up with

- speaking of faith he often seeks her for advice and sometimes they get high together and he gets teary eyed bc she's just... very nice to him and when all you see everyday is violence it's overwhelming to be shown a little bit of kindness 🥲🙏🏼

- he's in love with john but also he'd kick him across the county if he could but also he'd give his life for him

- after the bombs and all he unlocks his final form and becomes A Husband™, complete with a beard, a scarf and bad jokes that make john want to officially marry him so he can divorce his ass

- fun fact i came up with the name elliot fletcher bc i thought it sounded neat but recently i found out there's a trans actor called elliot fletcher too??? like what were the odds ngl that's so cool

carter quill

- this is my character in the marvel dnd game my brother is dming!!

- his parents are peter quill and kitty pryde and he inherited his mom's powers (so he can become immaterial and stuff uwu) and his dad's tiny pebble brain~

- he grew up on a ship with the guardians so his family is just... a bunch of uncles, one of which is a tree

- he's part of an initiative called the peacekeepers with isaaq cage (luke cage's and jessica jones' son), finneas "zorn" reeves (brock rumlow's and sinthea shmidt's son), lu "highway star" khan (the mandarin's son), alexis "hex" pythagoras (doctor strange's protégé) and ev-lin (ronan the destroyer's daughter who also happens to be carter's bully when they were 11 HHHHHH)

- everyone agrees that carter is just... a puppy. a little labrador. so overexcited. head empty. he doesn't know what's going on but he's having fun with his friends and that's what matters <3

- he died once and went to hell for like 66 years bc he held a bomb while it was exploding but he got better and he doesn't remember most of his time in hell but also he's a lil traumatised

- he wears cute skirts sometimes and also froggie themed clothes 🥰🥰 he's terrible at applying nail polish and it ends up smudged most of the time bc he can't sit still for more than two minutes without going insane but he still likes it

- he has a pet bird called ink!! he thought it was a nice name bc his last name is quill so u know,,, ink,,, quill,,,, he inherited his dad's terrible humor also

- he's fruity and has a big fat crush on one of his teammates 😳😳👉🏼👈🏼

- he strictly refuses to kill, so he uses stunt energy guns and a three section staff to fight!! he accidentally killed someone once and threw up

- he knows asl and is fluent in it!! he's also very bad at reading measurements when cooking (and reading in general) so he relies on their proto-ai, dadji, to help him cook and he listens to audiobooks a lot!!

- idk what else to say abt him except like two games ago he was in the hospital bc lu got hurt and he wanted to get him muffins from a coffee shop across the streets but he panicked when faced with the selection so he bought one of each and came back to the hospital room with like,,,, twenty muffins

- i found this pic of his face claim and it honestly just radiates his vibe so here have it

thorgran galvish

- he's my dwarf enchanter from another homebrew dnd game!! in this universe (and maybe others idk shit abt actual dnd HHHH forgive me) enchanter dwarves are lowkey enslaved bc of their rare link with magic

- thorgran blew up a wall and ran away to the surface so now he's a fugitive and he's constantly on the run uwu trust issues ensue

- he loves the sky so much?? especially at night?? he knows abt constellations, but he thinks they're just whatever you see in the stars and doesn't know there are like,,, actual constellations so he sits on the roof of a tall building sometimes and finds his own constellations

- he also tries to draw them but he rlly sucks at it aslkdsgl that doesn't stop him from filling his journal with little stars and drawings!!

- during my very first game with him he found his rival, who turned out to be a 16 years old teenager?? millennial/gen z rivalry

- agh i don't have much abt him yet bc i've only just started to play him but he's my beefiest boy and also a dilf 🥰🥰

theadric "elder" montajay

- yet another character from the same universe as thorgran, but this time it's a funky little halfling bard

- his instrument is the violin!! he tried every other instrument and his mom was very supportive despite how bad he was at all of them. his community was raided and his father died, so he inherited his violin and that turned out to be the only instrument he could play

- took his love of the economy to the next level when he decided to fuck every gang leader he could find to control their operations and ruin their organizations so the money they hoarded could be put back in circulation

- accidentally fell in love with a half-orc gang leader and was abt to tell him the truth abt what he was doing but was exposed by the first person he'd cheated so he had to run without explaining himself to his lover smh ://

- "i don't wanna fall in the slutty bard cliché," i say before immediately giving elder the tightest leather pants and opening his shirt to show his majestic chest hair.

- surprisingly good with kids?? anyone younger than him who looks sad becomes His Child and he turns into a lil mama, tasting the food of an inn first to assure it's not poisoned, giving hugs, soft shit like that ngl he's just a mom 😔😔

- we abandoned the game he was in but we left off when he'd just escaped a dwarven prison with his new child and others owo anyway slutty bard with chest hair?? that's just the witcher's jaskier

scylla

- my gay pirate lady!! i don't have much abt her either bc AAA BRAINROT but !!! i still love her very much

- she's a hybrid between a human and a psaarinch (fish folks in our homebrew universe uwu) and she looks very human except she has like shark abilities?? she can smell blood, taste with her skin, breathe underwater for like two hours or smth, sharper teeth,,

- she started off as a privateer but like what was the kingdom gonna do?? track her down to make sure everything she did was legal?? nah man she got that sweet fleet and became a pirate

- she beats men up in inns and gives their wives a good time <3

- she's very close to her crew and they're kinda just a big family

- she fights with those s-shaped staffs?? but they're actually blades ngfhl she's very agile and looks like she's dancing when she's actually fighting

- fun fact she's my second shark oc the first one was called maito and she was a yellow lantern in a dc game we did (the main difference between them is that maito loved men while scylla is very much a lesbian 😌🙏🏼)

i have like so many more of them but that's already such a long post and i don't wanna do too much NGL if u wanna know more hmu i'll yell some more 😎😎🙏🏼🙏🏼

[alwaysxyou]

ive been trying to write a post for two days now and i just?? don’t even know what to say but !!! i fucking met louis here is a big ole fucking ramble about it!!  

louis is literally an angel personified, and i mean that without any exaggeration. i was so fucking nervous waiting for the m&g (i also found out it was happening 30 minutes before so to say i was wildly unprepared is an understatement) and we were towards the front of the line, and we saw someone on his team and then oli walk out from behind the photo area and i started fucking SHAKING just a nervous wreck. we saw him reach out and shake someones hand, and then he walked out and walked onto the photo op area thing where the pics would be. he literally brightened up the area INSTANTLY, he moves so delicately and flamboyantly and has this insane energy of just light. he was clean shaved and wearing long sleeves and looked so cute and I legit was like?? wow I’m not gonna make it. he shook everyone’s hands and introduced himself before they started and then they started moving the line and it moved FAST and it was suddenly our turn. I walked up second and he saw my Harry bag and then immediately just reached out for a hug and I blacked out, I have no idea if he said anything to me. I’m super self conscious of hugging people cause of my size and he just didn’t hesitate to immediately want to hug me and my brain just shorted out, he makes you feel so fucking safe from the moment you’re near him, I didn’t feel uncomfortable or nervous or self conscious for one second while I was up there. his eyes are?? so fucking blue. genuinely piercing. like harry singing he gets lost in his eyes? yeah he’s valid like idk how harry survives. but so we pose for the pic and Louis KNOWS what he’s doing he knows how to subtly pose fans to get a good pic. we took the pic and the guys working there then try to rush you off but sara asked for him to sign her rovers jersey and he told the guys he was going to sign it real quick so they’d stop pushing. he finished and i put my hand on his arm to grab his attention and he just ?? looked directly in my eyes and he puts his full attention on you, the guys were trying to get me to leave and he just does not listen he legit only cares about the fans. i legit had one second so i just said “i just wanted to thank you for everything” (and i was wearing a pride shirt so..I hope he knew) and he said of course darling of course and hugged me again and then we left and I fell down on the wet ground genuinely sobbing and I was waiting for the polaroid to develop before realizing I was looking at the wrong fucking side and flipped it over and saw it and just started balling. after i collected myself i was able to weasel my way back up to where my friends were in front of the stage so i was like..3 people back and the show was just. so good. he was a bit under the weather but so bubbly and smiley at all the pride flags, he smiled at me holding mine up. and then he started walking forward down the mini runway they had and during KMM and i fucking LAUNCHED my pride flag on stage as he started to walk down and it landed in front of him and he looked down and looked at it and then back up to see where it came from. he went back to the mic and then left again to go down the runway and legit looked down to see where it was on the stage and put himself directly behind it (it was off center) and made sure to not kick it off and just stand guarding over it and i was fucking??? losing my mind. he is genuinely one of the kindest, most genuine, talented people i’ve ever met (met!!! i met him!!!!). light and hope and wonder ooze out of him and he is genuinely so special. friday was a fucking dream, and i love Louis so so so much.

[madzilla84]

VidCon London 2020

I wrote up some rambly thoughts on Vidcon, my trip, and Phil day!

I arrived in London the night before the others, last Thursday (a week ago?? WOT), so went straight to my friend’s place in London – we went to a pub near his for pizza, and while I was there I saw Dan’s cute tweet. After a few wines, it made me super emotional as you can imagine. I love him. <3

We had some more drinks once we got back, which made the next morning … well.

Friday – Day 1

YUP, HANGOVER. But luckily not a ‘can’t function’ hangover, so once I’d packed up I made my way over to the Airbnb (it was fuckin WIMDY) to leave the luggage (too early to check in). The previous occupants were a group of Lads who’d left the place in a state, so it was still being cleaned. HONESTLY BOYS SMH)

Then I headed to the complex’s on-site café (ooh errr) and spent some time trying to figure out what to write in the card I wanted to give to Phil. My roomies @yikesola, @ahappydnp and @calvinahobbes arrived a little later and we checked into the flat, and basically hung out and chatted until it was time to head to registration. Which was a good decision as the line was super small on Friday night. Gotta say, the feeling of seeing Phil so big and so central on all the banners and posters for the con made me feel so proud of him. As other people have mentioned, there was some – curiosity, I guess? Worry? – about whether it would be weird seeing him there doing his first event like this on his own in a *very* long time, but somehow it wasn’t, at any point.  

We spotted Martyn checking in further down the hall, which was probably the first moment it all started to Feel Real. We (slightly awkwardly at first in my case lol) met a bunch of online folks in the registration area, and tagged along for a cable car ride over the river (did I mention it was WIMDY) to the O2 arena for dinner. When we all sat down to eat I realised I was sitting opposite two friends from IDB! \o/ We headed back after the meal to hang out and PREPARE for what was about to come.

Saturday - Day 2 - PHIL DAY

We started off by going for breakfast – naturally pancakes – and then headed across to the con. The first event of the day was the comedy panel that Phil was on, so we went across to the panel room early and ended up sitting through the panel before that one, ‘Out and Online’, which was probably – Phil notwithstanding – the better of the two I saw.

During that first panel – and really all morning up to that point – I’d started to feel increasingly nervous. I’d never met Dan or Phil before, and the fact it was happening imminently was suddenly hitting me. Not to mention it was very hot in the panel room that day, and – yeah. By the time the LGBT+ panel finished, I was just like the *screaming internally* meme.

The only other time I’d seen D&P in person with my own eyes was at Interactive Introverts – non-VIP, and I was quite far from the stage, so I couldn’t see them well, y’know? So when the panellists walked in for the comedy panel, I turned around and saw Phil properly in person for the first time. And… wow. I’m sure I hardly need to tell anyone on this forum how attractive he is, but I was just blown away by how beautiful he is in person. He just seems to, like, glow. 

And I was absolutely in love with his jacket, which I thought was new at first (it took me a while to place it was the one from the II promo photos). He just looked wonderful, and I went full Heart Eyes Motherfucker as he took his seat with the others. And once I’d actually seen him, somehow I felt less anxious and stressed. 

The panel was okay – I wasn’t familiar with the other attendees and I’m not sure theirs is the sort of content I’d necessarily watch – lots of prank vids and the like, but they def had some fans in the room. But it was obvious the majority of the attendees were there for Phil, and I noticed him looking around the room at all the people there for him throughout, making eye contact with lots of people. I’m sure he made brief eye contact a couple of times, which made me go !!!!! It was obvious the panelists were at quite different stages of their careers, which was a little dissonant sometimes, but also quite sweet – Phil was very encouraging to the younger, more inexperienced members of the panel, which was very lovely. Lucky them to have such a kind senpai.

After that we only had a quick break (mainly to down water after being boiled to death in the panel room) before it was time to get in line for Phil’s meet and greet. The wait for him to arrive was weirdly fast but also interminably long, and I spent most of it panicking about what I was going to say to Actual Phil Lester in a matter of minutes. 

But soon enough he arrived, shook hands with the photographer, did a lil hop to wave to everyone in the crowd who was waving at him, and then off we went.

I wasn’t sure what to expect – I’ve had pics before with celebs at conventions, and every con is different in how they handle photos. Some really rush you through, but this one was pretty good, I thought – you had plenty of time to say whatever you wanted to say, or give gifts – I thought we were supposed to leave them in a box somewhere, but no, we were to give them directly to Phil, who had a little table to put them on. Obviously I wanted to give him a hug, too, but would I be too awkward to ask for one once I actually got up there, I wondered?

But as it turned out I needn’t have worried; I could watch people meeting him from where we were in the line, and from the very first person, he opened his arms for a big hug from everyone who went up to meet him. Watching people running into his arms was making me really emotional – he just has such a great connection with his people. You could tell he was happy to be there and liked meeting us all. He took so many cute photos with people. We noticed he had a Sharpie and was signing things, which we hadn’t been told about beforehand, so I hadn’t brought anything special - ended up getting him to sign my con badge as a souvenir.

There were 3 of us, and @yikesola took one for the team and volunteered to go first. I watched how much fun they were having, how easily they chatted and hugged and posed for their cute photo and thought to myself, please don’t be a total buffoon when you go up there…

Soon enough it was my turn. Walking up for these things is always nervewracking and awkward – except this time, once it was time, Phil turned around, looked at me, smiled and opened his arms and I knew it would be okay.

I walked over and hugged him, and he probably had to bend down quite a lot, lol. I reached up over his shoulder to hug him, which meant being on tiptoes, of course; as many people have said in the past, he didn’t let go until you did. He was so gentle. <3 I maybe hugged him for a little longer than I might usually with someone I didn’t know because of it; he just has such comforting and welcoming vibes. And no, before anyone asks, I didn’t notice what he smelled like – we were talking about it after and I don’t think any of us did. I don’t in general unless someone’s wearing reasonably strong perfume/cologne, I don’t think, unless I’m hugging them for a really long time. ANYWAY.

The now-famous jacket (which looked so good!!) was soft AF. I handed over my lil gift – he spotted the chocolate and was pretty happy about that.

I then had a little time to talk to him but, like, how do you condense into a few seconds what someone means to you, how much they’ve helped you or how much you appreciate them? So I ended up going with one of the main reasons I came to love Phil so much as a creator – someone around my age still making such fun content. I don’t mean it like, ‘wow, at your age!!’ lol, which I’m not sure he would have appreciated, more like – when you get to a certain age, people often expect you to leave certain interests and behaviours aside (we see it all the time with these ‘ew people over 30 in fandom?? Gross’ posts), and Phil is still being himself and doing what he wants and not letting that affect him, and I just think that’s really great and it’s meant a lot to me. So we talked about that a bit. He said you should be able to be creative at any age. <3 Talking to him wasn’t like I expected – I don’t know what I expected, really, but I thought he might have more of a – nervous energy, maybe? Or just a bit more – y’know, ‘AmazingPhil’? But no, he was chill and confident and had this ease about him that was so comforting in person. I know he’s an introvert and probably holed up on the couch for a week after meeting all those people (hard same), but he really is so good at talking to people and making them feel at ease; everyone looked so happy walking away from him.

About halfway through the convo I had to work really hard to keep my brain on track and not just descend into babbling nonsense because he was looking me in the eye and listening attentively and bruh!!! That is … a hell of a thing! Not only is he so beautiful, but he really listens, and cares about what you’re saying, and is actually interested and not just going ‘uh huh, uh huh …’ like other celebs can do. His expression and demeanour was so friendly and open and welcoming, and honestly I just felt like I could talk to him for hours.

We then posed for the official photo they took, and hugged for it – when I’ve had other photo ops in the past where I’m standing close to the person I’ve been prone to nervous giggling, but this time I felt really relaxed and happy.

And that was it! I reluctantly said goodbye and headed off and was so flustered I a) forgot my little card to collect my photo, the guy had to chase after me, though it looked like everyone was doing that because they were on cloud 9, and b) picked up someone else’s sequin Dan bag from the bag pile. (Which I immediately noticed because I had a keychain and pin on mine, but I mean they *are* identical.) We went to get food and download our photos and watch all the videos we took. Even though I now had pics, I still almost couldn’t believe it was actually real.

And, wow. We were just floating for the rest of the day. It was such a wonderful, positive experience and I’m so glad it worked out that I was able to meet Phil. I didn’t think I could love him more but after that day I definitely did. Obviously, because it’s me, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I said to him and how I said it and was it the right thing and did I say it right and lejslkdjkjfkdhks, but at the end of the day he was lovely, I said more or less what I wanted to say (of course there’s more I’d have wanted to say, but there’s never enough time), and it went wonderfully well. So I really shouldn’t worry too much.

We paid a quick visit to the AP shop booth in the Expo Hall – they didn’t have a ton of stuff but they had all the t-shirts (I think it was just all the t-shirts, corgi jumper, corgi keychains, glitch hoodie), so I bought the yellow Try New Things shirt from Sarah. (And got a free pixel Phil sticker; they really want to get rid of those huh)

The only other Phil-event for the day was his appearance at the Night of Awesome that evening, so we went along for that. Apparently the theme of the evening was ‘collaboration’, so most of the performers didn’t appear by themselves aside from a couple of music acts. But it quickly descended into madness – most of the performances were some sort of challenge which involved the loser getting a pie to the face or gunged – i.e. perfect Saturday night entertainment if you’re ten. So maybe it was more aimed at kids, I thought, until one of the music acts started swearing up a STORM and a load of horrified parents started dragging their kids out while I almost died trying not to laugh. There was a lot of TikTok stuff, but the animators challenge was pretty good and a couple of the music acts were great.

You probably read about the guy who crashed the performance to make an offensive anti-trans joke and then got chased out by security … when I figured out who it was later I wasn’t surprised, he’s done stupider shit in the past, but Vidcon didn’t react very well to it right away. Throughout the event I generally thought security and staff were very good, but they really dropped the ball on this. The music act gamely carried on though, as did a number of other acts after them, and *just* as everyone had pretty much lost the will to live, Phil randomly appeared on stage with Kian and JC (…no, me neither) along with a science Youtuber. Yay! I thought his bit was really cute; kind of random but that made sense when he explained the original plan had gone awry shortly before the show started. He was *so* into it and I thought it was so sweet how, again, he kept looking for his people in the crowd. He was so confident on stage and even when the stuff he was being asked to do was so random and weird he just owned it, went for it and made it funny. Thomas Sanders came on after science!Phil to do a very wholesome set which kind of saved the evening, lol.

And that was the end of Phil day! Naturally we had to order Domino’s in the evening after our emotional and intense day (and to recover from whatever tf most of that concert was). I feel like I’ve become some sort of addict, and now the rest of my existence will be sad and grey until I can hug Phil again (which might well be never). I have peaked. I also remembered what I like so much about (good) conventions; being with your people and feeling so free to express yourself and what you love - between the phannies and the fanders there were so many pride flags, and so many people walking around wearing merch. (Also it was the first con I’d ever been to where there were no cosplayers! Which is unsurprising given it’s youtube fandom, but still – new experience.)

Sunday - Day 3

Sunday we slept in after staying up until like 3am chatting (whoops), so I missed jacksepticeye’s panel but I did get to the Buzzfeed Unsolved/Watcher one, which was really funny. I wish I’d gotten to meet the boys but what can you do. I also went to the Expo Hall and met PJ (who was very nice, and friendly!! But had exactly that nervous energy I was talking about earlier, which I’m more accustomed to when I meet celebs at cons; Phil really is something special), and bought a few enamel pins, because ENAMEL PINS.

And then … the worst bit of any con, people started to leave. :( My 3 roomies left first, which was the worst bit of the weekend. I ended up tagging along with some twitter friends to get coffee, and we ended up sitting around for like 3 hours outside the cloakroom because no one wanted to leave.

We found out about Dan’s half marathon during this time, and I know people have this view of phannies like we’re all obsessive, invasive weirdos who just want to find out things for – I dunno, clout? But honestly everyone there was so proud of him and just like the whole weekend, it was great to be with people who understood. Like, I can hardly tell a co-worker that a youtuber I follow ran a marathon, they’d be like - okay, and…? So it was nice to sit there and sort of – celebrate it, in our own lil way.

We all parted ways on the train - I went back to my friend’s and watched Phil’s liveshow there, which was really a perfect way to end the weekend. I’m glad it sounded like he had such a nice time at Vidcon. Someone tweeted about him seeing all the people who had come to see just him and how excited they were to see him, and that warmed my heart. And hopefully his too.

The next day I returned to the Excel to have pizza lunch with the last two friends who were still in town, which really helped with the post-con blues, and then it really was it. Since then I’ve been hanging out at my friend’s flat and taking a couple of trips out to various shops or whatever, but I’ve mostly been tired and lazy and catching up on sleep a bit.

As I mentioned, I’m now a filthy addict. I will be … keeping an eye on future vidcons/events, for sure. >_> And I might be back in London in April, maybe. >_> many thoughts head full

[homosociallyyours]

a friend just posted a pic on fb of the coffee shop we used to hang out at, taken way back in the day. it’s just a shot of the place taken from inside, looking out the big glass windows and onto the street of downtown chattanooga. but one friend pointed out that she could see another friend’s van parked across the street, and one of the baristas came on and said he’d taken the photo and then proceeded to post a bunch more. 

anyway i’m feeling nostalgic so i’m posting about it. memories behind the cut. 

i started going there when i was maybe 15 years old. i don’t remember why, but it’s likely that the artsy nerd club i was a part of (we stayed after school to watch amadeus and monty python and we’d sometimes go to the local art museum) went there after a meeting one day. or maybe someone told me about it. anyway, it was my favorite place to go. i would drink pots of tea, always trying new things. 

on my 16th birthday my parents got me a teapot from there and a gift certificate to buy tea with. i had that teapot til it broke a year ago. 20+ years! it moved with me to and from college, to nyc, california, texas, and back to california. damn. 

anyway after i’d been going for a while i started talking with the owner. his name was ian, and he was pretty young. he loved tea and coffee and he had a roaster where they’d make their own coffee. it was loud and lovely, and for a long time it lived up front, right by a little elevated area with couches. when it was running you couldn’t hear anything and had no choice but to either shout or be quiet. 

ian encouraged my love of tea, and offered to keep track of everything i’d tried in a little notebook that was kept behind the counter. i got to make notes on every pot i drank, and i remember writing “terrible! grass!” after my first pot of green tea (it was oversteeped--my fault--and probably made with water that was too hot--their fault). i had my first pu-er there, and fell in love with its damp leaf flavor and that turned earth scent that it has. i drank multiple pots of jasmine pearls and wrote a caffeine fueled poem about it with a friend. i loved that little coffee shop. 

i don’t remember when i went from hanging out inside to hanging out outside, but i feel like i was 18 or so. the older people (they were probably barely 21-25, fucking babies) sat out there smoking and drinking coffee. i developed a crush one summer on a guy who made me think of arthur dent for some reason (don’t ask because i don’t know) and we went on one awkward date and didn’t kiss, and now i wonder what’s happened to him and if he, too, wasn’t straight. who knows? someone, i’m sure, but i can’t remember his last name anymore so is it even relevant? 

i’d never felt cool til i went off to college. it was like leveling up without trying, like when you’re playing a game and do one action and suddenly all your stats are refilled and you’re like...this is unexpected? but i’ll take it? i think that’s why i decided i could really sit with the outside tables. that and my bff, who was dating someone who was friends with a lot of those people, would show up sometimes and sit out there. 

(if you’ve actually been reading along so far, here’s where i’m gonna introduce you to a bunch of people i’ve never talked about before and will likely never mention again. just so you have fair warning.) 

the cast of characters shifted a lot, but there were always the constants. scott, the barista, who was much older than most of the people hanging out but looked young and seemed young. i look back with adult eyes and question the relationship we had, but at the time i just thought it was cool that someone so much older thought i was worth hanging out with. but he was 30 when i was 19, and man that’s a lotta years. he had a summer where he hit on my friend and i constantly, after his wife left him and he was kinda floundering a bit. but it never went past flirting and it never bothered me, though like i said it kinda does now. we were still hanging out when i was 21 and we’d go get beers after the coffee shop closed at ten or midnight. he’d turn up obnoxious music really loud and i’d sometimes help close. 

there was gabe and george, brother and sister in a family of people with names starting with the letter g. george was tiny and cute and either very drunk or very hyper from coffee at all times. gabe was a nerd who was usually quiet but loved to play scrabble, and we’d take the board inside sometimes and battle one another. he was much better than me, i won’t lie. liz and ever were both writers who would play with us sometimes. ever had changed her name at some point (to ever; any name she had before is irrelevant) and when we met she explained the meaning of her new name, which i won’t give because damn it’s very google-able. 

she was a so fascinating to me, always talking about some feminist theory or philosopher, and i always felt so smart when we’d hang out. like a Serious Thoughtful Adult and not a kid. and liz was less serious but no less smart. she played scrabble a lot more and for a while we got pretty close. she took me out after coffee sometimes to a shitty bar with pool tables and tried to teach me how to play pool. she had her own cue and even though she was like 5′2″ she could break like nobody’s business. i never figured out how to do that part. 

alex would come with us sometimes. he was tall and handsome and rode a motorcycle, and was the first openly bi guy i ever met. one time he invited me over to his house and we laid around listening to the smiths and talking. he burned me a copy of their greatest hits that i still have, all scratched up so it probably doesn’t play anymore. he crashed his bike more than once driving drunk. dumb fuckin kid. now he repairs coffee machines and sails, i think. life is funny. 

a few other people ran in groups. meg and waide and the aforementioned jason and ardyce. some people called meg “big megan” and another megan (her family was really wealthy, rich southern politicians who knew the clintons and have a mention in sweet home alabama--the song, not the movie) was “little megan” because she was still in high school. i joked that i was medium megan, but the whole thing was awkward because big megan was fat and i was small fat and little megan was skinny. i’m gonna blame it on thoughtless dudes, but who the fuck knows? we all pretended not to mind it anyway. 

waide ended up being a connection with other people who i met later. my hometown is weird in that it’s actually a pretty big part of the southern punk scene, so a lot of punks i meet have spent time there, and anyone over a certain age probably spent time at the bar waide worked at (the stone lion, and then maybe also the pickle barrel) so he’s one of those people who i’ll end up mentioning even though we haven’t spoken in years. 

at some point a kid named ory showed up. i think he was 16 when he started coming around, and i used to call him puppy because he was excitable and silly, full of energy one minute and then mopey crashing the next. like a lot of people there he drank a lot and would be fucked up sometimes and make dumb choices. i always wanted to protect him. when i was 22 (and he was 19, i think) we ended up sitting together at the second lotr movie and having some kind of weird chemistry. that summer i drove him home one night and we had a super heavy make out with lots of clothed grinding. honestly the furthest i’ve ever gone with a cis straight(ish, he hooked up with a couple dudes but idk if he’d say he’s bi) dude and it was awkward in that we never talked about it? and then he came to visit me a couple years later in new york because he was in the navy, and he got super drunk and passed out on my couch and was a mess because he literally never stopped being a puppy. 

he’s fucked up now, fully cancelled bc he said shit about girls rock camp (really dude?) and also probably cheated on his wife on their honeymoon? idk, it was fb rumors and then he deleted. but i’d believe it, honestly. 

and then there were all these absolutely random downtown characters: dirty mark (a crusty punk who was drunk or high most of the time) and shirtless dave (yeah he really didn’t wear a shirt that much) usually came as a pair. sometimes dave hung out with a guy my friends and i called blue hair. he once hit on my friend and she panicked and gave him my number instead of hers because her brain didn’t make up a fake number fast enough. 

there was sandy the flower man, who just passed away a couple weeks ago. he’d get flowers from local florists and go around on his bike, stopping into the coffee shop or to bars with roses and carnations and daisies. people gave him money usually, but sometimes he’d just hand you a flower because he wanted to. i saw a picture from a memorial and there was a portrait of him that was sat on top of his bicycle, all of it surrounded with flowers on flowers. so pretty. it’s what he deserved. 

things changed around 2005 or so, i think. by that time, all the old baristas had left and the kids who came in were all weirdly religious and went to the christian college on the mountain. they made shitty coffee and sometimes played xtian rock and most of the old regulars couldn’t take it anymore. ian got sick around that time, too, and ended up selling the place. they stopped carrying much tea, if any. 

but they finally sold the space and moved in like 2015. i remember the first time i drove by and didn’t see the lights on inside. it felt like seeing a friend from grade school all grown up, maybe the kid you had a crush on but they have a family now and you don’t think they’d recognize you at all so you just have to walk away. gone. 

fuck this post is long as shit, i’m sorry for anyone on mobile. but damn it was good to get my memories out. 

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