#please stop commodifying every second of my time

[lizabeans]

is everything capitalism more than it used to be or am I just seeing it more as I get older

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Secrets ~ 1

Warnings: noncon sexual acts later in series

This is dark!Bucky and dark!Steve and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: A buried family secret comes to light thrusting you to the forefront of an old alliance.

Note: Bruh, other series are still going. At least one update a week for existing series in future, I promise! Probably more. 

This was semi-inspired by The Princess Diaries but obviously we’re not going highschool. 

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

You found it hard to focus on the lecture. You copied the slides without processing the words. You couldn’t tear your mind from the unusual stranger. The one who had slipped from the room not ten minutes earlier. The one no one else seemed to notice; even the professor as she outlined the fall of the Roman Empire.

You did because you were early every week. You sat in the same seat, pulled out your notebook and pen, and put your phone on silent. You’d worked too long to screw this up. Years of saving and scrounging just to pay the application fee, bursaries awarded for your volunteer work and nearly forgotten extracurriculars from high school.

So, you noticed. The man sat in the back row with not a possession before him. Silent, discerning, and to be frank, a bit too old for the student body. Even you, after several years away from academics, thought so. You used the reflection in your phone screen to watch him and when he stood and left without cause, you angled it after his departure.

Perhaps he had come to the wrong room. Or maybe he had got the wrong time. He could be an older student or a guest speaker. Whatever he was, he was gone and you needed to focus. You didn’t have much time outside of class to revise your notes. Between your job at the campus bookstore and your intern position at the museum, you didn’t have time for anything beyond a few hours sleep.

You packed up as the lecture came to an end. Tuesdays, Professor Halren went over the week’s material and Thursdays you had a class discussion on the assigned articles. Basic, simple, but at least eighty pages of reading a week. You climbed the steps between the rows of tables and passed through the upper doors. The east entrance down the rear stairwell was the quickest exit.

You tossed your bag in the passenger seat of your crummy used Honda, parked in front of the burger joint several blocks away from campus parking. It cost you more to park on-site than it did for the beat-up contraption itself.

You drove to the museum and got out, your lanyard around your neck denoting you as a volunteer. You usually worked the help desk or handed out pamphlets for upcoming tours. Most of the time it was quiet enough for you to study in between visitors.

Sheila was the curator on duty that night. She kept to her office, saying she trusted you to direct the rare patrons who arrived on a Tuesday night. As expected, it was dead. You wandered around with textbook in hand, occasionally looking up to check that you were alone.

There was a man by the chart of Greek gods and their relations. A spiderweb with no end. You closed your book and quietly set it down on the nearest bench as you kept an eye on the man. It was him, the one from the lecture hall. A frightening coincidence. He leaned closer to the diagram then turned away, walking, no marching along the wall and rounding the corner into the next section.

Your heart was beating; in confusion and fear. You followed, carefully not to let your shoes click as you did. As you reached the next corridor, he was nowhere to be seen. You continued on, around corner and corner, on and on, looking up and down the walkways. He was gone.

You came back to the bench where you left your textbook. You glanced around one last time and opened it. Behind the cover was a ribbon, a tricade of red, white, and blue, a star emblazoned three-quarters of the way up embroidered in gold and silver. You’d seen it before but none so new as this.

You held it up and felt it between your fingers. You closed the book again and tucked it under your arm. You went to the next wing; medieval history. You walked along the timeline of European kingdoms, below each was a display of royal families of each. 

The same ribbon, aged and frayed, laid beneath the kingdom of Astrania, marked by the house of Rogers. A long storied bloodline thrust in and out of power by civil wars and politics well into the twentieth century. A country that stood still, one of the few who still lauded a monarch, as famous as the Windsors in England and beyond. The last vestiges of long lost era.

You shoved the ribbon in your pocket. It was likely a souvenir from some commodified tour of the country. A forgotten novelty sold for pennies and shoved into a used textbook. You shrugged and headed back to your usual spot among the ancient civilizations. Strange things happened. That was life.

���

You spent your few hours before midnight writing up your rough draft for Life and Death in Ancient Greece then finally crashed. You slept on your back, uncomfortably; a heavy, exhausted sleep. You woke to voices. Your mother’s and another. One you didn’t know.

You checked the time, it was barely seven in the morning. You grumbled as you sat up. Your mother’s tone set you on edge as her voice rose. You stood and crossed to the door. You turned the handle slowly, listening through the crack of the door as you eased it open.

“You get out of my house.” She snarled. You’d never heard her sound so vicious. “I am not that person anymore. I never was.”

“You can hide behind a name,” The deep voice replied evenly. “It doesn’t change your real one.”

“My father is dead, his name died with him.” She hissed. “I won’t tell you again to leave.”

“Or what?”

“I’ll call the police, asshole.”

“I’ve been sent here under the banner of diplomacy, what are they gonna do?”

You stepped out as the argument continued, your mother growing angrier as you tiptoed down the hallway to the kitchen. She grabbed a frying pan from the dish rack as you stopped in the doorway and she waved it at the man standing on the other side of the table.

“I’ll just have to make you,” She warned. “Now go--”

“Mum,” You rubbed your eyes. “What’s going on?” You looked to the man as he turned to look at you. It was the same man from the day before. You recoiled and pressed yourself to the wall. “Who is that?”

“No one. He’s leaving.” She edged around the table and drew back the frying pan.

He didn’t move. She swung and he caught the pan as his palm deflected it away from his head. He wrenched it away from her and tossed it away.

“Sit down, your highness,” He glared at your mother as he clanked the pan against the table.

You frowned and looked at your mother. Her eyes glinted at you and she shook her head.

“You will not tell my daughter what to do,” She scowled. “Not in my house.”

“You can send me away now, but I’ll be back.” He looked around the kitchen. “Looks like you can afford a fine lawyer, indeed.”

“Lawyer?” Your mother spat.

“There’s a contract, Princess,” He sneered. 

“There is no kingdom left. No crown, no throne.” Your mother neared and grabbed your wrist, drawing you to her. “My daughter does not belong to anyone.”

“Your own father signed the accord. We paid our dues, even after his fall, we expect you to fulfill your end of the contract.”

“My father is dead,” She pushed in front of you, shielding you from the man. His square jaw twitched and his blue eyes glimmered defiantly.

“As his heir, you would acquire his responsibility. She is his first born granddaughter.” The man asserted. 

“She has no title.” Your mother insisted. “You can see we have no wealth, no holdings. We are displaced; we are common.”

“Princess Karissa of Ecklun,” The man addressed your mother, “Her daughter, Duchess of Brey. You needn’t land to uphold your titles… and your obligations.”

“The contract is old. Outdated.” Your mother countered. “There are other duchesses. Real ones.”

“The contract is legal still, it has been upheld to this point and there is no clause for annulment. Unless of course you have the funds to buy out the agreement.” He challenged. “Fifteen million, with interest.”

Your mother was silent. He hand squeezed your wrist. 

“I never received any of these payments you claim to have made,” She said.

“In a trust, as stated in the contract, to be accessible upon the day of marriage.” He declared. “If you insist, however, I can return with my legal council… and a military escort.”

Your mother let out a long breath. She released you and shakily pulled out a chair from the table. “Sit,” She gestured you forward and drew another chair out. “I’ll entertain your… discussion.”

You stepped forward and sat and she did too. The man across from you lowered himself into another chair and set down his briefcase on the floor. He reached inside and drew out a bundle of papers. He slid them across to your mother.

“If you’d like to look over the terms,” He smirked. “You’ll see all is as I said.”

“He couldn’t find another bride?” She spat as she ignored the contract.

“Not legally.” He insisted and looked at you. “Forgive me. I didn’t introduce myself, your highness. James Barnes, I am a representative of the Astranian court.”

“I don’t--” You blinked. “I don’t understand what’s--”

“Yes, apparently your mother has created a convincing ruse here in this… slum,” He sighed. “What do you know of your grandfather?”

“Don’t talk to her.” Your mother snipped. “Talk to me.”

“She must know--”

“I will explain. That is my responsibility. My right.” She sneered and grabbed the papers. 

She flipped the first page, then the second, she continued as she hastily read through it. You peeked over her shoulder but she kept turning away to block you. When she finished, she turned it face down.

“You signed it, Princess,” The man said.

“I was sixteen.” She said. “I was still a child.”

“You were a married woman.” He returned.

“A girl forced into a ring.” She slapped the paper. “And you would have me do the same to my daughter?”

“You already did,” He said plainly. “And she is older. Quite a few years, in fact.”

“It took you years to find us,” She grinned. “You think you’ll be as lucky again?”

“You are being watched. You have been watched.” He pushed his shoulders back. “We have waited long enough.”

“Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” You said.

The man, Barnes, looked at you. Appalled.

“I will,” Your mother squeezed your arm. “Mr. Barnes.” She turned back to him, her head held high. “Might you allow me some time to prepare?”

“To run?” He challenged.

“If we are being watched as you say, that should not be an issue,” She sniffed. “You must understand the circumstance.”

“I do understand your negligence,” He raised a brow. “One day. That is all I can allow you.”

He left the contract and stood. He took his briefcase and nodded to the table. “A copy for your records.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card and flicked it onto the document. “My information should you require it.”

He bowed his head and turned to leave you. The door opened and closed loudly as he strode out the back door. You sat, perplexed, and reached for the contract. Your mother caught your hand. She turned to you and drew your hand back with her.

“Honey,” She said softly. “I need you to listen to me. Just-- don’t talk, just listen.”

“Mum, I--”

“You’re going to hate me. I know that hate, I felt the same for my own father. I would not blame you for hating me even more than that.” She said grimly. “But please, there is much I need to tell you. That I should’ve told you before.”

“I don’t-- I don’t understand.” You sputtered.

“So just listen,” She pleaded. You nodded and your stomach bubbled nervously. “You’ve heard of Ecklun? You were always so fond of history.” You confirmed and she continued on. “And Astrania. Occasional allies until the dissolution of the former… but that all doesn’t matter.” 

Your mother hung her head. 

“My father knew the tide was against him. He tried to rally his reinforcements, he made promises to those he thought could help. He was the king, you see? He was dethroned, we were all thrown out of the country. I tried to… stay with him. Tried to make him move on but he wouldn’t. So after I had you, I left. Your father didn’t want to let go either and he refused to come with me.”

She touched her cheek and shuddered.

“It was all gone so I thought that meant it was over. Everything. The promises, the debts.” She shook her head. “I tried so hard to start over. For you. But… Your grandfather promised you to the heir of Astrania to fund his personal guard. The same that ejected us from our home.”

She twined her fingers together then pulled them apart. She gulped before she found her voice again.

“That heir is now in power,” She could barely look at you. “And you… you are to be his wife.”

“I-- no, they can’t-- it--”

“I thought I could stop it. I didn’t think they’d want it still but-- I always hated how backwards it all was. Bloodlines, lineage, privilege… It was all so ridiculous.” She huffed. “I-- tried. I failed.”

“You ran once, we can--”

“That man found me. I am not foolish to think he did not come with back-up. I have seen what happens when you undermine others. I have seen the ugliness of it. I can’t say what’s worse; to let them have you or to refuse and suffer further. You don’t know how-- I was stupid enough to think I could ever outpace them.”

You gaped at her. Shocked, angry, sickened.

“And now I can’t stop them.” She uttered.

“You didn’t tell me,” You breathed. “You should have told me.”

“I’m sorry--”

“I have school, work...I… No, they can’t. I have a life!” You stood and the chair wobbled.

“Honey, please,” She got to her feet. “I know how it feels. Trust me. My father, he did the same--”

“So what? Family tradition?” You scoffed. “They can’t make me. I’m staying. I’m going to school, I’m working. I’m not--”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I won’t go!” You shouted.

“They’ll make you.”

“How?”

She looked at you. Her face was grim, her wrinkles more apparent than ever before. She didn’t need to say.

“They can’t--”

“They’ll find a way.” She muttered. “They always do. I’m so so sor--”

“So I’ll make them drag me,” You said. “I’ll fight it.”

“It’s treason--”

“It’s the twenty-first century!”

“Not there. It’s not the same as here. There’s no one to stop them.” 

You didn’t know what to say. You hit the table and swore. You stormed from the room and slammed your door before you fell onto the bed and screamed into your pillows. 

It was a dream. It had to be a dream!

[maplefiasco]

All of the Fire I've Swallowed

Holy crap, I actually kinda finished something. And have it ready to go for Scoundress Saturday and everything! Title comes from “Take Me To War” by The Crane Wives

Han/Leia. Rated T. Pre-ESB. Three times Leia took something she wanted.

(Posted below, or if you prefer, you can read it on AO3 or on FF.N)

The first time she kisses Han is a mistake. Yet another in a long line of bad impulses she seems to have around him.

Their mission had been quick and simple, just her, Han, and Chewie picking up a shipment of medical supplies. But it was still a surprise when it turned out to be one of those rare missions that go smoothly. No unexpected Imperial checkpoints to shoot their way out of; no bounty hunters ambushing them at some key moment.

It's just so damn rare to get a win these days. When they actually do, it feels like the whole galaxy is hers to conquer, shape, do with as she sees fit. Today, a couple crates of bacta. Tomorrow, the galaxy.

Chewie's busy in the cockpit, so it's just the two of them in the main hold, both flush with adrenaline and a strange light giddiness. Han had even hugged her after the jump to lightspeed. Even more alarming, she had hugged him back. And now, watching him re-scan the cases for tracking devices (can't be too careful, sweetheart), she tries to remember why it is she goes to so much effort to avoid him, keep him at a distance.

If Leia is being truly honest with herself, which she usually is. Though not on this subject. On the subject of Han, she is coy and elusive with herself, watching herself from a safe distance with a silent smirk most of the time. But for this one brief moment, she allows herself to be open to the possibility of admitting to herself that maybe, possibly, theoretically... kissing Han Solo is the kind of thing she wants to do.

And why not, this new carefree and confident voice in her head asks. If she wants to kiss him, she can. It doesn't have to change anything or ruin her life or break her heart. Like any other mission, she can have an objective, achieve it, and then get out before it gets dangerous. Not everything in her life has to feel like the end of the galaxy. Or maybe it should, given her particular lifestyle these days, in which case she should seize every moment, right? Either way. This feels like a moment. An everything-is-good-and-also-maybe-there's-no-tomorrow moment.

Han is oblivious to her epiphany and how it will shortly affect his mouth. He gives her a good-natured wink and turns off the scanner. We're officially not being tracked. Told ya you were being paranoid as if it hadn't been his idea to do the second scan. Propelled by lingering adrenaline and newfound resolve, she takes a step to close the space between them and kisses him. Whatever she lacks in buildup or seduction, she thinks she makes up for with straightforward enthusiasm.

(Once, when she had been nine or ten, young, but old enough, she had joined her parents on a tour of Isata, a continent far from Aldera and its vibrant hustle. Every day that summer, they visited farms and villages, posed for holos with the locals that would later be broadcast across the planet. It was the first time in her young life Leia had felt on display. Commodified. Today the royal family saw the largest auberal harvested on all of Alderaan. Why it's a few inches taller than our little princess. Up next, your weekend weather forecast.

They had been touring yet another a village, stopping to meet the owner of a frozen joral cream shop. The midsummer sun had hung high and oppressively bright. Leia's elaborate braids had been damp and heavy against her neck with sweat, the hairpins jabbing her scalp every time she moved. The shop owner had offered her a joral cream, any flavor. It would be my honor to serve our sweet princess something as sweet as she. Just name your flavor, your highness.

She had been trained for this. Repeatedly. She knew her line by heart. Thank you, but I could only enjoy it if you give it to a child in more need than me. All summer she had parroted her script and curtsied to Isata's finest confectioners, toy makers, and bakers. What generosity! How compassionate and unselfish the princess is! And then she watched them pull their temptations out of her reach. She hadn't minded, mostly. The affectionate pat on her head from her father was a reward in itself.

But that day, the sun, the constant pressure of being on, all of it, had bested her. She had stood there, boiling in her dress's heavy puddle of fabric. Across the shop sat a girl about her age. Her bright hair swept back in a loose braid, her simple dress breezy on her skinny limbs. She was barely paying attention the royal procession in front of her, so enraptured in her half-melted joral cream. Leia had watched her devour the frozen treat with envy, how she caught the stray drips of melted juice before they could trickle down the cream's flimsy stick and onto her tight fist. Her lips were stained purple, and when she slurped on the cream it echoed all the way across the shop, each a satisfied pop of tangy, cool fruit that Leia could feel on the back of her stale tongue.

At that moment she had so longed to be that girl. Why could she, princess and therefore (as she understood it at the time) most important girl on all of Alderaan, not be as free and natural as the next village girl. She felt her parents' keen eyes on her, waiting to hear her well-rehearsed line. But wasn't she just as hot and hungry as any other girl? The day was already so long, and yet so far from over. Didn't she need a respite as much as anyone else? Why couldn't she, just once, have the simple pleasures that everyone else got to have? The sudden longing and unfairness of it all overrode her royal training. Starblossom flavor, please!

Her mother had laughed and smiled her most diplomatic royal smile, the one that didn't entirely reach her eyes if you really paid attention, thanked the shop owner profusely when he stretched across the counter to bestow Leia with the stick of sweet frozen cream. But when she met her mother's eyes, she knew she'd pay for this defiance later; a stern speech about how one behaves and what one represents that will undoubtedly go on for too long, stirring in her equal parts guilt and boredom. But at that moment, it had only made the joral cream taste all the sweeter.)

So yeah, she kisses Han. And for a single, endless moment she tastes icy sweet starblossom.

The moment after that one, however, is flooded with cold reality. The rational part of her mind, having finally wrestled control back from her giddy idiot brain, went into overdrive. Every very real, very logical reason why this is a very bad idea hits her all at once. A wave of electric panic shoots up her spine, the tang of fruit and summer replaced with ash in the back of her throat. Already cringing, she opens her eyes.

He's standing perfectly still, eyes wide in surprise. This close she can watch the color in them change, from bright green to dark gold, literally watch his mind process what's happening while his face catches up.

The panic takes a quick jaunt through her entire body before settling in the pit of her stomach. Kriff damn hells.

She pulls back stiffly, the way one is supposed to back away from a feral sabercat if they cross paths with one in the wild. Maintain eye contact and don't show weakness. His lips curve up in something between a smug grin and a surprised O. She'll never hear the end of this.

Maybe if she looks aggrieved enough, she can act like what just happened didn't actually happen. Maybe she tripped. Maybe his kriffing ship bucked and bounced her mouth onto his mouth. Because that happens, right. Maybe–

He's full-on grinning now, so no luck there. "Why, Princess–"

"Shut up." Not her most diplomatic tactic, but her mind's blanking on anything more articulate.

"I haven't even said anything yet!"

"Well don't!"

"Hold on, you're the one who just kissed m–"

"No, I didn't, so don't even start." She stomps to the crew quarters and spends the rest of the trip working, definitely not just reading the same page over and over and avoiding him.

This seems to do the trick, because when they land and she finally emerges, he's carrying cargo down the Falcon's ramp, only nodding when he passes her. It's an offhanded, same-shit-as-always kind of nod. Nothing that would indicate that he now knows the taste of her lipgloss or the smell of her hair, which he almost certainly must.

He doesn't say anything and obviously she doesn't say anything. After a while, it's almost enough that she can convince herself it didn't actually happen.

The second time she kisses him, however, he's ready for her.

Remembrance Day was as good an excuse as any for the entire base to celebrate and let off some steam. Some low-grade cabin fever had been making the rounds at Echo Base; the remote location making everyone itch with isolation and anxiety. Why not bring out a few cases of alcohol and let the base run wild for a night. Shake off the nervous energy.

It's noisy and chaotic, the base a barely controlled riot of merrymaking. But in that good way that makes Leia's heart ache. Enthusiasm and camaraderie and everyone here, brought together by a shared mix of fierce dedication and naiveté to believe they can change the course of the galaxy all by themselves.

She's tipsy, not drunk, for the record, because royalty doesn't get shit-faced. A small crowd has ended up in the main briefing chamber. Not completely separate from the partying out in the hall, but adjacent to it.

By day, she's Commander Organa, down in the front of this chamber, presenting intel and passing out mission assignments like some school teacher of war. But now there's a forbidden thrill to being in this room at night, being in a purposeful room without purpose. The usual stresses and duty she associates with this room on pause for the night. It reminds her of playing tea party in the formal banquet hall as a child. Sipping air at the same seat her mother often led state dinners and entertained the galaxy's leaders.

They're holed up in a back corner, the harsh overhead fluorescents off, so the room feels dim and strange. Han doesn't share her reverence for a good briefing chamber. He rearranges the chairs with a casual disregard until they're better suited for social drinking and bullshitting.

She chats for a while with Shara about the pilot's current difficulties. Which are mainly adapting speeder engines for Hoth's temperatures, and getting a strong enough signal to call her parents regularly. (Not that her infant son is much of a conversationalist, but it's the principle, y'know? If he doesn't hear her and see her often enough, how's he going to remember who she is?)

Han and Wedge seem deep in something, their Corellian flowing too rapidly for Leia to pick anything up in the snatches she hears from across the room, especially in Han's thick Tyrenan accent. Luke's in between the two of them, nodding a lot, which means he's either better then she is with Corellian, or he's somehow even worse. At least it sounds lyrical, whatever they're saying, like all Corellian does. Every now and then Han catches her eye across the small crowd. He smiles and cocks his chin towards her ever so slightly. Like they're co-conspirators. Like the two of them share some precious secret only they know about. Her cheeks burn at the presumed intimacy of it. Not embarrassed, but something close to it.

It's well after midnight before the crowd starts to thin out. Shara and Kes had stumbled off in search of Endrolian ale and never returned. Luke, ever the farmer and habitual early riser, had called it a night. Slowly, then all of a sudden, it's just the two of them.

Leia doesn't miss the carefully effortless way Han approaches her, stretches and yawns, then drapes his arm across her shoulders, pulling her close. As if they do this every day. As if tucked under his arm is where she belongs. He's close enough she can smell the whiskey on his breath. "Well honey, you throw a pretty good party." He looks younger when he's not scowling, as he so often is. Softer.

She's far gone enough to enjoy this, thrill slightly at his domestic make-believe, even if a scant few hours ago she would have sooner bit his hand off. "I think it was actually Mon's idea."

"Then tell her she really knows how to run a Rebellion next time you see her." It's high praise from the man who usually only has two opinions about Mon Mothma. One, she's an idealistic fool. And two, she pays too well. But don't correct her on that count.

"I think you like our little Rebellion."

Han sighs before he answers as if it takes a moment to build up the courage to relent and say, "I guess I do." He catches her gaze, smiles his achingly Han smile. "Don't tell Leia, though. She'd be insufferable if she knew." Leia retaliates with a sharp elbow to his ribs. Enough to register, but not hard enough to actually hurt.

"Stars forbid we have one nice moment. If you could just be nice for–" she's gesturing sharply until he catches her hand, kisses the back of it, quick and amiably. A gesture of apology for the words he'd just said, and the ones he knows he's going to say next.

"See? Already insufferable."

She laughs despite herself. It's nice, this. Fighting for fun. (There's a word for that. Flirting. But admitting to herself that that's what they're doing right now is one step too far for her, even now.) It's a struggle to pinpoint the last person who teased her, treated her like Leia, as opposed to Commander or Princess. She knows it was before, before– well, even Luke still has a hint of awe in his voice when he talks to her sometimes.

It's as close as she's gotten him to admit to caring about the Rebellion and she wants to savor this victory. And it shouldn't be a turn on. She's on a base literally filled with sentients who care so damn much they're ready to give their lives to the cause. But it is. Because everything right now feels warm and soft. Because it's him. Because maybe she likes her men like she likes her political revolts. Hard-won and more difficult than they should be.

If she's thinking about kissing him again, it's his fault. For having that stupidly beautiful smile, and directing it at her while admitting he cares about the cause, saying he likes the rebels in a way that really means he likes her. It's not fair. Who grins like that, warm and somehow indecent all at the same time.

So really she has to kiss him, if he's going to have that face.

And it's like he's been waiting every moment for the past three months for this. For it. Again. Like he needs to prove himself after last time when he'd just stood there dumbfounded. Without hesitating, his hand cups her jaw, guiding her closer.

It turns out Han kisses the same way he flies, the same way he argues with her, the same way he does everything in life. Focused and intense and just a little bit carelessly pleased with himself. It's just as impressive and infuriating as anything else he does. He's... unhurried. Less interested in conquering her and more simply exploring, mapping her unfamiliar constellations so he can navigate by them in the future.

She leans further into him, doubling down on her own boldness as if that's the way to somehow regain control of the situation.

He only responds with an arm around her waist, until their bodies are flush against each other. This got away from her so fast. It's dangerously close to something she can't take back, if she even wants to. She feels lightheaded and fuzzy on the exit points.

A loud crash out in the hallway, followed by the sound of glass breaking, shatters the spell between them. Outside, people laugh and carry on, like everything's still normal.

This time her this-is-a-bad-idea brain is slower to pipe up, struggles to gather enough righteous indignation to push him away. He doesn't look offended when she does, though. He looks about as far from offended as possible. "Sorry sweetheart, but I think this time you have to admit you kissed me."

"Don't worry, it won't happen again."

He doesn't look convinced. But then, she didn't sound convincing.

They go three weeks and two days without any more kissing incidents. Not that she's keeping track.

It's either very late or very, very early. If anyone ever asked, not that they did, she would say she spent so much time on the Falcon because it was warmer than the rest of the base, short of her hanging out down on the fuel reservoir level, warming her hands against one of the large fuel pipes that keeps the entire base running.

But everyone seemed to know better than to ask.

Han had spent the evening replacing a motivator in the Falcon's shield generators. She was there under the pretense of needing somewhere warm and relatively quiet, somewhere with an endless supply of kaff, to review reports. Except most of the night had been her sipping kaff while passing tools to Han and watching him work. Grease-stained white shirt with sleeves absentmindedly pushed up to the elbows. Bare feet.

Working on the Falcon is a physical undertaking; throughout the evening he's done everything from dangle half of his body into an open panel in the floor, to bury himself in the sea of wires and circuitry that live behind the main hold's command station. Over the years, she's heard him declare that his blood and sweat are what hold the Falcon together. But it's fascinating to watch the act, the ritual offering of himself to his ship's wellbeing, see for herself how his declaration is in no way metaphorical.

She's on her seventh dossier (and fourth mug of black kaff) when he sidles up to the table, wiping his hands with a deeply stained rag. "Don't you ever take a break, sweetheart?"

"The emperor's not taking breaks. Vader doesn't take breaks."

He plops down next to her on the bench, his body close enough she can feel its warmth. "And isn't that what separates them from us? How we value life and," he waves his hand vaguely. "–actually getting to live it?"

"I promise to live my life after they're dead, how's that for a compromise?"

A wry smile graces his face as if he doesn't want to disturb the quiet of the ship by laughing out loud. "And what about the next Vader? And the Vader after that Vader? And the–"

"Alright, I get it." She pushes her mug of kaff around the table with great interest before she finally answers. "Someone has to do it."

"But ya don't need to do it single-handed, Leia. What about what you want?" He adds before she can answer, "And I mean you. Not what the Rebellion wants."

Maybe there's not enough left of herself for herself. She remembers who she was like one remembers a distant relative you met only briefly as a child, at holidays and weddings. 'Leia Organa' is just an abstract concept to her, another chunk of rock and dust floating around what had been Alderaan's atmosphere. If your home, where all the experiences and memories that made you you, is no more, are you no more as well? If you can't go back home, can't find those places again, can you ever reunite with yourself? Or are you destined to wander the galaxy as Not Yourself, until you eventually become someone else. If so, she's still getting to know this someone else who shares her name, who has no one and nowhere to return to, whose anger always boils just beneath the surface, who hangs out with dangerous men on their smuggling ships in the middle of the night.

She doesn't– can't say any of this. So she settles for turning her attention to him. "You can't talk. You're up same as me, still working."

"Ah, that's different. I'm working on my baby," he reaches out to pat the hold's wall affectionately. "Which is never really work."

She's witnessed enough times when 'working on his baby' was mostly just cursing and hitting it, then cursing at Chewie, then Chewie cursing at him, to know that wasn't true. But it's too late for pesky things like facts and reality.

When he finally speaks again, his voice is low and unfamiliar. He determinedly stares in a direction that is not her's. "Hey, y'know how you keep kissing me?"

Kriff.

"No, I–"

"Because y'know, if it's just getting caught up in a moment. That's one thing. I mean, I get it." He gestures to his lean, stupid body that she will very shortly push into another trash compactor. Then he adds, because he can't help himself, "I know how irresistible this package can be."

He leans closer, now firmly in her space. Surely they had an unspoken pact to never speak of this, and here he is, blatantly speaking of it. "But if it's not. If you somewhere deep down actually like me–" He doesn't even have the decency to wait until they're in some heightened, life-or-death situation. Or drunk. He really thinks they're going to have this conversation politely, at the table, over cold kaff.

She cuts him off in the tone she learned from her mother, her I'm royalty and you're not tone. "Of course I like you. Don't–"

"You know that's not what I mean. Come on, Princess." If he'd had a fraction of her diplomatic training, he'd know the proper protocol was to dance around the topic for a couple more years without ever directly addressing it.

"I– I like how involved you've become. With the Rebellion." His jaw clenches in silent aggravation. Too bad. He won't let her lie her way out, fine, but he's not provoking her into some heartfelt confession. "You have! You run missions efficiently... most of the time. You're reliable. Riekeen can't stop singing your praises–"

"I'm not talking about being another dedicated soldier for your cause. You have Luke for that. What you're describing is Luke. Is that what you want?" The air of betrayal in his voice is only half-teasing.

"I do not!" Invoking Luke is out of bounds and he knows it.

"You want Luke, but you don't want to scare him off. So you're using me as a cheap substitute."

"That's absurd. Don't you think I'd be with Luke right now if I wanted him? I don't want Luke."

"Then prove it," he challenges. It's a stupid dare to get her to kiss him again, she gets that. But he doesn't actually think she'll do it, does he? He can't. Which would mean he'd be so surprised if she did actually kiss him. She could kiss him, quick and cold, to shut him up and wipe the smirk off his face. That's fine. That's just beating him at his own stupid game, right. She takes a moment to pride herself on her own strategic ingenuity, then presses forward.

Damnit.

Apparently, he did think she'd kiss him. His mouth meets hers easily, his lips slightly open and encouraging. It's like the last time they kissed, but more. More intense, more real. Sharper and in full color. Her ingenious strategy immediately forgotten, she leans into him, kissing back.

She should–

She moves her arm to better reach him, sink her fingers in his hair. In the process, she elbows her forgotten kaff mug. "Shit," he hisses under his breath. Han reaches and fails to catch the mug before it tips and spills across the table.

"Is kaff on all my files?"

"And getting into the dejarik table wiring. Great."

"If this table wasn't so damn small–"

Han's already turning his attention back to her, muttering, "Forget it, I'll clean it later."

"–and surrounded by junk–" she stretches and shoves a box of tools off the edge of the bench behind him. If they're being messy and destructive, might as well go all in.

He catches the handle of the toolbox before it can hit the ground, only to throw it across the room. "Are you seriously starting a fight right now?! We coul–" A loud clanging stops them as a rogue hydrospanner falls down an open panel, hitting something down there with a sickening thud. A second later, smoke drifts up from the panel. "Okay, that's definitely the hyperdrive."

"You just broke your hyperdrive?"

"I can fix it later!"

"It's on fire!"

"Barely!"

The reality of their ever more compromising situation hits her. The sudden absurdity of it. How will she explain to Riekeen, Mon, Luke for crying out loud, how she died in a fire on the Falcon, in the middle of the night. Or maybe they'll survive, evacuate out into the hangar looking disheveled and compromised, where she'll only be able to wish she was dead. Or maybe nothing more will happen than Luke will stroll aboard in the next moment, hiding out and warming up before his early shift. All possibilities feel equally catastrophic. "That's it, I'm out."

"Because of a tiny mechanical fire?!"

"That's not it." Leia struggles to extricate herself from the table, his arm, the mess of tools and exposed paneling. All of it. Finally, she storms towards the Falcon's gangplank. "You can't go five minutes without breaking something." Hyperdrives. Ships. Nice, peaceful moments they were having. Unspoken agreements to kiss sometimes and not ask each other follow-up questions about feelings. Their whole tenuous friendship. The list goes on.

"Oh come on. You're not as blameless as you like to imagine, Your High and Mightiness."

"Don't try to pull me down to your level."

"Is that– fine leave, before I dirty your royalness with my level and my fire."

"That's not what I meant!" It's impossible to articulate what precisely she did mean, though.

"Great! Come back when you know what you want."

"It won't be you!"

Tomorrow morning she'll pick up her kaff-stained reports. When she does, she'll call him captain and stare at the bridge of his nose rather than make any real eye contact. She'll pretend she can't see his expression oscillate between wounded and annoyed. Then she'll get back to work. And if she finds herself entertaining any more bad impulses when it comes to Han, she'll sternly remind herself that it only leads to destruction and doom. Literally.

In the meantime, she ignores the fact that to her rattled, tired mind, the smoke in her hair smells like starblossom fruit.

[that-curly-haired-lesbian]

The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo + Taylor Swift: a master post - Part 6/6

Hi guys, welcome to the final part of my masterpost regarding parallels between Taylor Swift and Evelyn Hugo, the fictional actress from the book The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by author Taylor Jenkins Reid!

Before proceeding please be aware that there will be

 **MAJOR SPOILERS**

for the book ahead and please also read my disclaimer!

It’s very important that you read these in order so if you haven’t yet go ahead and check out the previous part right here, thank you and enjoy!

When Evelyn starts telling us about beard #6 she reveals that they got married in Joshua Tree (Pg. 295) which is you know, an actual place and all, but my first reaction was (perhaps understandably given this context)

“You got married WHERE, now?!” and then it took me quite a while to stop laughing and honestly, this is kind of too hilarious not to include!

Evelyn also points out on that same page that she wore an ocean-blue dress for the ceremony.

--

 Though Max Girard (beard #6 and legit husband #2) initially starts out as a non-bearding situation (in a desperate attempt to get over Celia) it soon becomes clear that Max doesn’t love Evelyn, he loves Evelyn Hugo™ He loves the idea of her more than the actual person, he loves the famous persona. Evelyn says:

  “I didn’t know how to tell him that I loved her too, but I wasn’t her.” (Pg. 298)

This is that age-old debate of Taylor vs. Taylor Swift™. The two are not the same person and sometimes it feels like (het in particular) fans have as hard a time as Max to make that distinction.

Taylor Swift the public persona isn’t Taylor Swift the person and that is perhaps the most true when it comes to Taylor’s actual love life vs. her fabricated one. There might not be a single fact more important to come to terms with in order to understand Gaylor Swift (and her reasons for being closeted) than that simple one. If you feel lost here, please go read this again!

--

    “When you’re known for being gorgeous, you can’ not imagine a faith worse        than standing next to someone and falling short.” (Pg. 299)

  And all the young things line up to take your place

--

In a letter to Celia:

  “I hope you will forgive me for being so blunt, but how did we make such a     mess of it all?” (Pg. 301)

Oh, we made quite a mess, babe

--

After years of being separated (yet again) Evelyn finally calls Celia and when they discuss the possibility of getting back together without having to hide Evelyn points out that:

                        “Everything has changed”

And as proof of this change she brings up the fact that Elton John is now proudly out (this part of her story is set in the late 80’s) to which Celia counters with:

  “’Elton John doesn’t have a child and a career based on audiences     believing he’s a straight man.” (Pg. 303)

Taylor may not have a kid, but she most certainly has a career based on audiences believing she’s a straight woman and that must be freaking terrifying!!

--

During that phone call Evelyn explains that she never stopped loving Celia and when Celia questions this by pointing out that Evelyn (in a non-bearding way) got married to someone else Evelyn explains:

  “’I married him because he helped me forget you,’ I said, “not because I     stopped loving you’” (Pg. 304)

He will try to take away my pain  And he just might make me smile  But the whole time I'm wishin' he was you instead

--

During a dinner following the phone conversation Evelyn tells Celia:

  “I spent my life hiding so no one would knock me off the mountain. Well, you     know what? I’m done hiding. Let them come and get me. They can throw me     down a well as far as I’m concerned.” (Pg. 313)

When Celia questions if Evelyn really means that Evelyn assures her that she does.

  “Any other line of thinking…It’s how I lost you. I don’t want to lose anymore.”

HELL YEAH, EVELYN IS DONE HIDING!! Also, the “I don’t want to lose anymore”-line reminds me of:

  Us traitors never win

And what I said about that line in my analysis of Getaway Car:

What she says I think is that people who pick their career over their love life won’t end up being happy, or “winning” at life in the long-run.

--

When Celia has made absolutely sure that Evelyn is truly ready to give it all up for her this time she suggests that they move to Spain together, she says she wants to spend her final years:

  “On a beautiful beach. With the love of a good woman.” (Pg. 314)

  Drinkin' on a beach with you all over me

--

When Evelyn leaves her sixth husband for Celia he is pissed off and threatens to out her and he does, to untrustworthy magazines and anyone who will listen. (No one believes him, but still) (Pg. 319)

The whole divorce is very bitter and the bitterness of it all kind of reminded me of one of Taylor’s particularly bad bearding situations.  But when Max goes so far as to basically say he made Evelyn’s career an even worse taste was left in my mouth……………..

--

In a conversation with Evelyn about their differing degrees of fame Harry says the following:

  “I’m only famous because you’re famous, Ev. They don’t care about me or     what  I’m doing unless it somehow relates to you.” (Pg. 321)

Here we once again have bearding 101, but also it reminded me of someone…

On page 325 Evelyn refers to Harry as:

   “My best friend, my family.”

And while this is obviously said platonically between those two it nonetheless made me think of something that I’m honestly still not over Taylor saying about Karlie!!

--

Towards the end of her career Evelyn meets a young man named Nick, he wants to be an actor and asks Evelyn for advice. She bitterly considers telling him:

  “You have to be willing to deny your heritage, to commodify your body, to lie     to good people, to sacrifice who you love in the name of what people will   think, and to choose the false version of yourself time and time again,   until you forget who you started out as or why you started doing it to   begin with.” (Pg. 326) (x)

--

Evelyn’s friend (and beard) Harry dies tragically in a car accident in 1989

While Taylor has always used the motif of cars/car rides in her music there are A LOT of car mentions on 1989, an album many het Swifties seem to believe to be about Harry Styles, interesting…

--

After Harry’s death Evelyn and Celia move to Spain together and out of the spotlight they finally get to openly be together and Evelyn “chose the rose garden over Madison Square” if you will and she was extremely happy. About her relationship with Celia during that time she says:

  “I cherished every moment we had to ourselves, every second I spent with my    arms around her.” (Pg. 344)

   When I get you alone it’s so simple

                           //

  I could've spent forever with your hands in my pockets

Evelyn describes her seventh husband and last beard (Celia’s brother) as so charming that most other women were:

  “Enchanted by him” (Pg.344)

Oddly specific word choice!

As happy as Celia and Evelyn were at this point in their lives something was hanging over them, Celia was sick and dying. Evelyn tells Monique that when Celia promised Evelyn she’d never leave her again:

    “We both knew she was making a promise she couldn’t keep.” (Pg. 346)

  Brokeeeeee the sweetest promISEEE that you neverrrrr should   have MADEEE

Listen to that you guys, that’s my goddamn heart breaking!!!

--

CELIA AND EVELYN’S WEDDING SCENE (pg. 347-349) IS SUPER SWEET!!!!!! A fun little detail is that New York (which is as we’ve previously established significant to the Kaylor relationship as well as the Evelyn and Celia one) was made relevant in a scene taking place in Spain (Celia’s shirt)

ALSO allow we to go into crazy fanfic territory here, but can’t you just IMAGINE the “we can get married”-conversation happening between Taylor and Karlie when same-sex marriage became legalized nationwide????

All wlw just want a wife #ConfirmedOnPage349

Seriously, if you wanna be punched in the feels today go read the wedding scene and imagine Kaylor in Evelyn and Celia’s place. (No one is sick in the Kaylor version, but they are deeply closeted and still at the height of their careers) oh, my fragile, gay heart!!

--

When Celia does die from her illness Evelyn describes her reaction with:

      “I fell to the floor.” (Pg. 350)

  I'm HERE on the KITCHEN flooOOOOr 

Don’t TOUCH MEEEEEE

After Celia’s death Evelyn truly stops hiding in the closet:

     “I could not keep my true self from coming out.” (Pg. 353)

  “It cost so much, caring. I didn’t have any currency to spend on it.” (Pg. 354)

  “People were still easily distracted from seeing how I felt about Celia St.     James, but this time was different because I wasn’t hiding anything. The truth   had been there for them to grab if they’d paid attention.”

  “But of course they got it wrong. They never did care about getting it right. The    media are going to tell whatever story they want to tell. They always have.     They always will.”

To me this is the essence of the Reputation era, Taylor having realized that she can’t make the media she the truth so she just avoids them and tells the truth to those of us who are paying attention. This time it’s different, because she isn’t hiding anything.

  There will be no further explanation. There will be just reputation

--

Evelyn saying it made her happy to spend money on her loved ones (Pg. 356) makes me think of Taylor being so extra with the fans ❤

--

  “No one is just a victim or a victor. That’s Evelyn Hugo for you, somewhere     in the middle.” (Pg. 366)

--

   “She’s painfully human to me now.” (Pg. 371)

Is that Monique saying that about Evelyn Hugo after finding out her true life story or is it me saying it about Taylor Swift after falling down the Gaylor rabbit hole? No one knows for sure…

--

  “Evelyn is going to die when she wants to and she wants to die now.” (Pg.375)

  I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now (Ooh, look what you made me do)  Why? (Look what you made me do)  Oh, 'cause she's dead!

                                //

  in the death of her reputation she felt truly alive

                     The huge difference between the death of Taylor Swift and the death of Evelyn Hugo is that Evelyn’s death is literal and Taylor’s is figurative.

Despite this Evelyn’s death is somehow every bit as cinematic as Taylor who just recently killed off her reputation in order to feel truly alive. They’re both still doing it on their own terms, literally controlling the narrative that is their lives up until their last breaths (figurative as well as literal)

  “Evelyn trusts me with her story. Evelyn trusts me with her death.” (Pg. 377)

Just as Taylor is trusting us with the death of her false reputation and the truth of her actual story and narrative.

  “The tears that come out of me feel as if they were decades in the making. It     feels as if some old version of me is leaking out, letting go, saying good-bye in     the effort of making room for a new me. Somehow both more cynical about   people and more optimistic about my place in the world” (Pg. 377-378)

Okay so this is a lot and it hit me right in the heart! I can only imagine this is just how Taylor felt when she decided that killing of her old reputation and public image was the right move. After everything that happen to her just before she decided to take a break to figure that stuff out (and everything that has happened for her entire career as far as bearding and hiding goes)I bet those tears felt decades (or at least a decade) in the making when they finally came. After all she’s been through in the industry since the age of 16 it’s no wonder if she feels cynical about people, but after taking the break to figure it out and deciding to COME out I’m sure she also feels optimistic now that she’s on the road to being herself publicly. She’s found her place in this world as out and proud and now she’s working towards getting to that place every day.

All these years she’s just been trying to find a place in this world and oh, Taylor, I am so glad you’ve found it! ❤

It must be such a relief to have made up your mind, to not have to be afraid anymore.

   “There’s still so much I don’t know about my father. Maybe he was gay. Maybe    he saw himself as straight, but in love with one man. Maybe he was bisexual.     Or a host of other words. But it really doesn’t matter, that’s the thing.” (Pg. 380)

This is an interesting quote, to Evelyn the word bisexual mattered a lot and to Celia the word lesbian did, as for Monique’s father we don’t know what he would have said on the matter concerning his own identity because he’s been dead since long before the book started. Ultimately Monique comes to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter what her father would’ve identified as, as long as she knew he loved her (which it has been shown throughout the book that he undeniably did.)

In the same way we could argue all day about whether Taylor is gay or bi or straight or a “a host of other words” for the time being we’re in much the same position as Monique, Taylor hasn’t told us and it’s not like we can just ask her, but does it matter? We all love Taylor and we know that she loves us. Her being in love with women and writing her songs about them instead of the men we were lead to believe were her muses doesn’t change that. In the end it’s not a big deal whether Taylor is gay or straight, we still love her, we came for her music that we related to and loved and then we ended up staying for Taylor, the person, because we fell in love with her and her storytelling. Who she loves doesn’t change that.  We love her and she loves us and that’s all that matters.

--

On page 382 GLAAD is mentioned by name as an organization that Evelyn gave most of her fortune to after her death.

The piece Monique ends up writing about Evelyn for Vivant summarizes the main theme of the both and to me it also summarizes what Gaylor Swift is about:

The TRUTH behind the SCANDAL that was her love life.

(Pg. 385)

And now for the final piece in this puzzle

And all our pieces fall  Right into place

🌈 🌈 🌈

--

Thank you SO much for reading all of these masterposts, I really hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed reading that amazing book and writing all of these parts!

[the-nysh]

I find myself unable to think of Bakugou in any way more positive than "dislike", because he reminds me too much of the people who made my life miserable when I was growing up. (Not that it makes him bad; it's just my emotions.) Do you've any advice on how to bend my mind around that? I don't need to LOVE him, just mentally separate "him" and "the people who make grade school suck for me" so I won't irrationally hate him, because I don't LIKE hating characters.

Hi there! I’m glad to see you come forward, especially tosomeone who’s a big fan of him, after happening to see how far you’veventured through my tags already (whoa dedication!) to seek possible answers or further clarity about this,especially if it’s something that’s still bothering you, oraffecting/preventing you from fully enjoying the series. Because of that, I cantell how serious and genuine you feel about this, so I will take this seriouslyas well. 

(Below, 1800+ words)

Another thing is that it’s okay to feel this way, your personal experiences are still valid,and there’s no obligation to force your feelings otherwise, or subject yourselfto content that may be uncomfortable for you. Please continue to take all theprecautions needed (blocking/blacklisting) for an enjoyable and productivefandom experience. But understanding that even if the characters may havecoincidental similarities to our pasts, they are not direct projections of us, the people in our lives, or our realities.Their world is not ours. So this awareness is another good step to have, tobegin seeing the story (and characters) more openly, objectively and closer tohow Hori originally intended.

Since you’re willing to learn more, and as you may have already seenfrom my content here, Bakugou (Kacchan)became my definitive fav character of the series, but not for thoselingering resentments mentioned. The compelling character I see is so much morebeyond that first ch’s established baseline, which was narratively placed and designedto contrast against who he becomes later on. As a means to gauge and appreciatehis growth and the journey of how far he’s changed into becoming a proper,well-rounded, better person and inspirationalhero. The kind of emotional narrativefocus that always gains my interest and priority to see develop. Already, theperson he is now at 215+ chs is not the same as who he was at ch1 (neither ishe the flanderized, fanon stereotype many have been misled or indoctrinated tofirmly believe he is), and he will keepon developing as the story marches on. I am fully on board to witness thathappen. 

The challenge now, is not letting his initial baseline impression(or the feelings from your own separate –but equally valid– experiences, oreven the vitriol from others) stain or cloud that entire slow-burn progressionof the story going forward. Otherwise the important milestones and insightsinto his character that Hori leaves along the way (which can sometimes bedifficult to see from Deku’s limited pov) end up getting obscured, ignored, oroutright rejected from an internalized feeling of ‘hatred’ that tends to blockout anything newly introduced that would challenge that preconceived perceptionof him. However, to mentally reject such change and prevent the valuedimprovement of a growing person (a learning child in his formative years, forinstance), to otherwise keep the status quo static and unmoving, to permanentlystay rooted exactly the same way as thestart…would in fact be a much more toxic/harmful mindset to have, and actuallydefeats the purpose of telling a proper story as well. 

Setbacks to that challenge unfortunately include thewidespread availability of biased mistranslations (even from official sources),poor/oversimplified characterizations from non-canon content(movies/novels/merch, etc) that’s not written directly by Hori, because all thesethings just reinforce and exacerbate the problem of inflating fanon stereotypesand those preconceived notions that people have already solidified in theirminds as true (when they often aren’t). It gets even worse, and ironicallyhypocritical, when those same people start feeling justified they can go out oftheir way to attack others (includingthe author) for how to ‘properly’ enjoy and interpret the series (for beingdifferent or ‘incorrect’ from the perceptions they believe to be right). Butwhat’s happened is they’ve begun to blindly act on feelings multiple levels sofar removed from what actually is (whatexists as presented within canon, vs what they believe in fanon, vs what exists separately that may beplaguing these people’s real lives), that by then, that kind of maladjustedsocial behavior is inexcusable. Stepping back and realizing when things start crossinglines irrationally out of hand, to prevent that kind of behavior from happeningin the first place, (and again, by taking measures to block/blacklist stuff thataggravates or makes you feel uncomfortable), is the much wiser approach toparticipating and enjoying fandom. So that no matter what happens or what otherssay, they can’t impact or ruin what you love about the series.

Which in my case, includes Kacchan’s character. Basedon what Hori has consistently presented in canon, I can conclude and freely admithe’s the only character I can fully trust. Amazing, right? Because he hasabsolutely nothing to hide. Everything he does (not through his harshwords/temperament, but through his genuine actions),is extremely forthright and honest. He does not half-ass things or hide anyother ulterior motives or malicious intent beyond his dedication to become the best hero. And he takes that goal very seriously. Striving for and expectingexcellence from himself (and all themental pressure that self-imposed perfectionism brings) and others. Currently in the manga that includes Deku now too, whomhe willingly goads (showing support in his own way) and checks in on for hisprogress too.

Remember his fights in the sports tournament, how he takesall challengers with equal commitment/opportunity (gender does not matter),provided they give him their best inturn as well, because to do otherwise –to go easy on them or hold back– wouldbe disrespectful and underestimating an opponent. There’s a very just and admirablehonor in that. Remember how he can’tstand anyone looking down on him, which includes how he misinterpreted Deku’sfeelings of admiration for disdain(he could not accurately read Deku’s intentions, and became so perplexed by himthat he assumed the worst: that Deku looked down on him instead). Considering the level of seriousness and effort he alwaysputs forth, to be confronted with the opposite would be personally insulting.

Remember when the villains invited him to join their ranks(because they misread and shallowly judged his character), he stuck to his idealsand outright refused their offer.(Boldly exploding villains in the face~) Risking death over playing it safe andlying to pretend to follow along totheir whims. (How brave and badass is that?!) Kacchan does not lie, cheat theeasy way out, or do things he’s not feeling or doesn’t agree with. Again, honesty. Becoming a villain, a traitor,or betraying those who’ve earned his trust? Absolutely no chance. Afterlearning AM’s secret and finally understanding/rectifying everything that didn’tadd up about Deku, would he go behind their backs by breaking promises? No way.Again, most trustworthy character. 

Rereading the story a second time over, but from his perspective, practically doubled myappreciation and enjoyment of the series. Thinking about how the foundations oftheir society impacted his world views at such a young age, to the very betrayal he must have felt thinking achildhood friend lied to him aboutsomething as important/vital as a quirk. (And if we already know how he feelsabout cheating liars…hmm, faithful loyaltynow feels like a valued trait.) Other factors include his relatable giftedchild syndrome, all the complexes born from that, and for how extremely intelligent,competent, and much more calmly calculating he is than his short temper may lead one to believe. How he was oncea ‘big fish in a small pond’, now thrust into the ocean to compete among evenother bigger fish, with the pressure to both succeed and prove himself…all whilehis previous world views are checked and challenged every step of the way.

For years he’d been valued and praised for only the promisingpotential and primary trait of his strong quirk. (The reinforcement for his badbehavior on the other hand? Not valued with the same proper attention.) Alreadythat’s an unfortunate consequence of their quirk-filled, hero-commodified society. Think of justhow shallow/fake groupies would be, or how annoying and hollow it would feel tohave people cling to him just for that (for talent and skills over his meritsas a person), and just how difficult forming genuine, natural bonds would be… (Becomingself-reliant now becomes another added pressure he has to juggle on his own.) Beforequirks had ever entered the picture and complicated things further, Deku was probablyconsidered the closest friend he had. Until…misunderstandings happened, andthen the only thing he wanted was for Deku to stay away from him. (A misconception is that Kacchan actively soughtDeku out, when it’s actually the opposite: Kacchan only reacted if Dekuencroached on him too closely.) Because he feared how Deku made him feel,forcing him to face his own shortcomings, and address perceptions of reality hedid not want to face. Because for someone he perceived as the weakest, to boldly goagainst that and do what Deku did (help him out of concern/kindness, but thatintent only read as pitying to him),made him feel even below that. And what’slower than the low of the weakest/most useless? Pretty ouch, so stop followingand stay back. Yet Deku just kept on coming back no matter what, for reasons hecouldn’t yet understand. (Deku felt genuine care and admiration for him, whichKacchan hadn’t realized, so gah, dramatic irony.) His changing feelings, correctinghis attitude, and clarifying his relationship to Deku, who continually challengesand defies his very worldview and perception of weakness, brings a whole otherfascinating draw to the series, which would take a whole other essay to fully analyze(but which many other fans have thoroughly done so already). 

Further considerations include his struggles facing other relatablefeelings. How he confronts the pain and weight of experiencing loss, survivor’sguilt, and assessing powerlessness and the inability to save situations beyondhis control. Internalizing self-doubt, hatred, failure, and inferiority…because‘if only he were stronger.’ What Isee is a child overburdened by expectations and responsibilities beyond hisyears…who has to learn to process and overcome many of those same feelings I’vealready gone through and had to come to terms with growing up. (The very reasonhe’s often and endearingly referred to as a ‘son.’) The majority of adults inhis life assumed he was already ‘strong enough’ and ‘fine’ on his own, theyneglected to give him proper mental guidance going forward (AM even admitsthis). And we unfortunately see the tragic consequences of that. But fortunately,things are getting better, and Hori’s story for him still isn’t over yet.   

Overall, what I see is the chance for an excellent,multi-layered, and well-written character to become even better. And that’s why his narrative is so particularly engaging. Doeshe remind me of the kids that once made certain social aspects of grade schoolinsufferable? No, because that’s not who he is; he’s so far removed and beyond them, that they’ve become extras whono longer matter anymore. Instead of lingering on such negatives, it’s insteadthe positive aspects about him that shine through even stronger. The fact heisn’t perfect, but deeply flawed and learning to address his shortcomings in nowmore productive ways. This progression and growth makes him interesting, and combinedwith the many other traits I’ve mentioned above, favored and loved bymany. Although ultimately I can’t change your opinion about him (that’s stillup to you to decide, and it’s ok to still dislike characters), hopefully I’veintroduced new ways of perceiving and appreciating his character for you. Tohelp see some of the positives that Deku always valued in him as a drivingsource of inspiration too: to strive hard despite life’s setbacks, and win. ‘He may be a jerk, but he’s amazing.’

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #69: Proud of Our Boys (11/2/18)

Technically, not a lot happened this week. Also, everything happened. Does that make any sense? I don’t know, everything’s been a blur since Tyler Joseph wore a pride flag on a Halloween show in the capital of the United States. Let’s cover that and more in this week’s Update!

This Week’s TØPics:

The Bandito Tour Continues

Tyler Visits the Live Lounge- Or, Rather, It Visits Him

The Best Interview of the Trench Era, Conducted by Fans

“My Blood” Moving Slowly but Steady Up the Charts

Major News and Announcements:

No new music, no new tour announcements, but plenty of other things going on this week.

Mark is helping to keep our lanes nicely watered, as he returned to giving us weekly doses of video content for the tour starting almost immediately after the release of last week’s Update. The first episode covers the planning for the tour, Tyler and Josh receiving the first physical copies of Trench, Josh’s unique method of opening CD cases, and Josh getting a nice head injury after falling off his riser during a rehearsal. Plus, there’s a pretty nice piano interpolation of “Morph” to kick the whole thing off. The second goes more into the depths of planning and staging the show, giving a glimpse of just how much of a diva Tyler Joseph is when it comes to getting every aspect of the tour right. It doesn’t exactly put him in the nicest light- he calls the prototype clip that drops his “Stressed Out” beanie “garbage”, clearly expects the crew to be as intimately familiar with his music as he is, and pushes pretty hard to get the transitions faster and faster. But hey, that approach worked to produce a great show, and Tyler makes sure to thank the crew in every Trees Speech.

I was wavering between whether to include the content from the BBC Live Lounge sessions here or in the Shenanigans section, but considering that we got three HD video performances and a high quality recording of a new cover, I’m gonna tie it in here. In-between the stops in Washington and Atlanta, Tyler flew back to Columbus solo to record a session for the world-famous Live Lounge from Newport Music Hall (because of course Tyler was that extra). Sitting at a gorgeous shiny piano and wearing an outfit that looks like a flannel traffic cone (in a good way, honest), Tyler played some stripped-down covers of “My Blood” and “Ride”, using brand-new vocal interpolations for both of those songs that are just incredible. Live Lounge is most renowned for its covers, and Tyler delivered there as well with his version of Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan’s classic “9 Crimes”. It’s an incredible rendition of a gorgeous song, and the fact that Tyler mentioned the track way back on “Drown” when “9 Crimes” was a brand-new song makes it land as even more heavy. The real kicker came just this morning, when Live Lounge revealed that they recorded one more song: we have our first high quality performance of “Neon Gravestones”. I still haven’t fully recovered, mate.

Performances, Interviews, and Other Shenanigans:

Touring continues to keep us well fed. As I mentioned in the opening, Tyler grabbed an offered pride flag during “Holding On To You”, which deeply affected the entire Clique, especially our LGBTQ+ family. So many kids in that community struggle with depression and lean hard on this band’s music to get through; this clear and pure gesture of support, while small, simply means the world. 

Outside of that show, there were plenty of other great moments from the tour this week. You can tell Tyler’s been tinkering with the format as he’s been getting feedback from the audience response. Despite how dedicated Tyler was to getting back to the stage for the end of “Pet Cheetah”, the big drop now starts while Tyler is still on the skybridge above the pit’s head, which makes way more sense. The ending of “My Blood” seems to be reduced to just getting the audience to fight to be louder than the other side rather than try to harmonize different bits. And Josh keeps writing city-personalized messages on his chest that he shows off to the crowd as he walks across the bridge, dramatically removing his jacket like something out of Magic Mike.

Also, Tyler tossed a frisbee in Boston and the boys discovered finger guns in Philly. Those were pretty cute moments, gotta share ‘em if you missed ‘em.

Interviews continue as the tour travels the nation. KISS FM Cleveland kept the tradition of B.S. first meeting stories alive with a deep dive into Josh’s talent as a painter, though that’s really the only thing you need to watch that interview for. Boston station ALT 92.9 does a little better, though he mistakenly attributes the backflip to Tyler and asks when Josh will get out from behind those drums... To his credit, the interviewer asks about how Jim is accommodated on the tour (unsurprisingly, the crew fights over who gets to look after him) and what Tyler learned from co-producing Trench with Paul.

The best interviews, however, have all been in the form of fan meet-and-greet conferences that have been finding their way online. There’s just something to the energy of these interviews that is so much better than the awkward and rushed ones in cramped green rooms hosted by radio station interns who obviously just Googled a few facts before they’re rushed in. These fans truly care about their band, and their questions were thoughtful and about so much more than just trivia. 

The best of these, I think, is from St. Louis’s 105.7, a station that’s always had pretty good relations with the band.

Tyler has tried to be more intentional about seeing the places they go on tour outside of the venues, with the mindset that he wants to have better stories to tell his kids (oh my God, please help me...). His favorite place that he’s visited? Hobbiton in New Zealand. I love these nerds.

Tyler and Josh talk about the origins of that gorilla suit that shows up in the “Ode to Sleep” video.

They talk about how one of the more difficult aspects of touring early on before “making it” was eating healthily enough to sustain regular shows when they were broke and the only places that were open to eat late at night after shows were Taco Bells.

Tyler tells a truly heart-wrenching story of being at his parents’ house and seeing his two baby nieces playing with (and vomiting on) the keyboard that taught him to play music and opened up the world for him. The obvious emotion in his voice as he talks about learning the “Pachelbel Canon” from staring at the keys for hours and the clear joy he felt at getting to share this private moment with Jenna... I still haven’t recovered.

When one fan asks how she might learn to overcome creative blocks in her career of graphic design, Tyler gives a really technical explanation of how he got past blocks when writing “Neon Gravestones” and “Pet Cheetah” before taking those lessons and extracting how they might broadly be used to help any artist “shock the system” by breaking habits.

Tyler says that he anticipates that “Legend” will be pretty tough to perform live. He further states that a lot of songs don’t emotionally affect him much because he has to worry about achieving the technical aspects of his performance. That said, “Neon Gravestones” has been really emotional for him, and “Holding On To You” is so driven into him now that he actually can think about what he’s saying.

Tyler views the two-man nature of the band as a challenge rather than a crutch to excuse the use of backing tracks due to how hard they have to work to keep audience attention. Tyler does appreciate the dynamic of having a bunch of people collaborate for music (as shown by the cover medleys), and he is not vehemently against the idea of adding members in the future. He’s just very happy about the way things are with just him and Josh.

Josh once again gets very open about his struggles with anxiety, particularly speaking in front of people, tracing it back to how he would even ask teachers to give him alternatives to giving presentations because it scared him so much. He’s come so far since the Vessel days where he just wouldn’t talk in most interviews at all, and I’m so proud of him.

Tyler is against the “Magellan” method of trying any and all new foods, preferring stuff he knows will satisfy his hunger (he mentions that’s been difficult to stick with now that he’s married to Jenna).

Tyler says that you can tell which of his songs started with lyrics before composing the music based on which have rapped lyrics. The raps are almost always poetry that he’s tried to incorporate into a song- otherwise, he almost always starts with the melody.

Another great conference-style interview comes on behalf of Philly radio station 104.5, whose fans also gave some great questions:

As tactfully as possible, Tyler passes on a question about what event specifically motivated him to write about “Neon Gravestones”, saying that he could not do so without violating the respect that he hopes underlines the message of that song.

Tyler tells a pretty rough story about a time when he was working at a restaurant to support the band and school, only to lose weeks of wages to a traffic ticket. It’s a scene that will definitely be in the band biopic in thirty years, but it’s also just a very thoughtful reflection on Tyler’s part about how unfair a feeling it can be to realize that our labor and time are so commodified.

Tyler used to be real annoyed that Josh didn’t like Russel Crowe as an actor, mainly because he admitted that he didn’t have a good reason for it (Tyler Robert Joseph always has a reason). Josh deciding one day that he’d like Russel Crowe because not doing so aggravated Tyler seems like a pretty neat microcosm of their entire personal and professional relationship.

Tyler and Josh haven’t noticed any bands “copying” them, no matter what music press looking for an easy descriptor might say because all they have to copy is “freedom to write whatever kind of song they want”.

Josh keeps himself grounded by searching “21 pilots” on Twitter. Tyler agrees, but also points out that their relationships to their families also play a big role (“our respective families, to clarify”).

Finally, on social media, Tyler keeps hopping on social media to troll fans and his own band account. I hate him so much.

Chart Performance:

Things continue to be a little quiet for Twenty One Pilots on the US charts. The tracks from Trench are slowly sliding off the Hot Rock Chart, with “My Blood” being the only track to gain traction in any region- radio. With that said, however, “My Blood” also managed to sneak onto the very bottom spot of the Hot Pop chart, suggesting that we are approaching a potential crossover moment. We’ll have to wait and see if that happens. (I can only assume until then that Tyler’s having to ignore a lot of phone calls about a radio edit that cuts that slow first verse to keep the general listener’s attention; watch for that.)

Upcoming Shows:

(Can you believe that all of Tyler’s meticulous planning for the marketing and promotion of this album cycle has been totally supplanted by Josh’s cute dog?)

On topic, there’s another host of important shows this week, so let’s get into it!

Show 13: State Farm Arena, Atlanta, GA (11/2)

Capacity: 21,000

After visiting his hometown with Josh yesterday, Tyler rejoins the touring crew today to play a show for the folks in Atlanta at the newly-renamed State Farm Arena. This is bound to be a special one: though the band has headlined the huge Music Midtown festival in the city, this is their first ever arena show in this major metropolitan market. It’s sure to be a real special show.

Show 14: Amalie Arena, Tampa, FL (11/3)

Capacity: 21,500

The band’s next stop is at a more familiar ground. The band played Amalie during the last arena leg. Twenty One Pilots actually has a pretty extensive history of playing shows in Tampa stretching all the way back to college shows from before they were signed. Tyler has some relatives in the Florida area, so expect some more cute moments from this show.

Show 15: BB&T Center, Sunrise, FL (11/4) 

Capacity: 22,300

The touring crew continues their journey south to the outskirts of Miami. Again, they’ve played BB&T before, but if there’s one thing this band has proven time and time again, it’s that they’re not ones to ever get complacent.

Show 16: Toyota Center, Houston, TX (11/6)

Capacity: 19,3000

It might surprise you to learn that the band has never played an arena show in Houston, despite the city being one of the biggest metropolitan centers in the United States. That oversight will be corrected on Tuesday with a show at the NBA Rockets’ home venue.

Show 17: American Airlines Center, Dallas, TX (11/7)

Capacity: 21,000

The last show before our next Update will be held in Dallas. Once again, this marks the second show Twenty One Pilots will have played in the space. Texas will continue to get plenty of love after this show, but we’ll get into that more next week!

-

Power to the local dreamer!

|-/

[belaborthepoint]

South Carolina Debate Transcript

GAYLE: Let's begin. Senator Sanders, we currently have a low unemployment rate. This means practically nothing since many people are working multiple part-time jobs with wages that barely keep them above the poverty line. But regardless, why would socialism ever be better than what Trump is doing for the economy?

BERNIE: Trump hasn't improved the economy for anyone other than rich people. We still have 87 million Americans who are underinsured or have no health insurance and 500,000 people tonight sleeping on the streets.

NORAH: Mayor Bloomberg, I'll let you defend capitalism.

BLOOMBERG: Trump should not be president. Russia is helping Bernie Sanders so that Trump will win. Russia gave Bernie Sanders a million donations of $27 to help him.

PEOPLE PAID TO BE THERE BY BLOOMBERG: (APPLAUSE)

GAYLE: Why would Russians want Bernie to be president?

BUTTIGIEG: If Bernie wins this nomincation, what you'll have is two people with very strong opinions, and they might raise their voices at each other when they disagree. Now imagine someone who's more relaxed, less agitated, more milquetoast. The kind of person who prefers honeydew melon to cantaloupe and doesn't like spicy foods. Right now, this is not about what we want for our country. It's not about health insurance, or wages. It's about just chillaxing, bro! Haha you know?

STEYER: Bernie is right. The problem is that he's wrong. What working families need is for basic needs to be commodified and privatized so that market has competition and capitalism can thrive. Donald Trump STINKS!

BIDEN: I'm not saying Bernie is responsible for mass shootings, but Bernie is responsible for mass shootings and he loves guns. In case anyone forgot, I was vice president under THE Barack Obama. And Bernie, he, let's talk about progressive. This was something that he wasn't. He, Bernie, he didn't -- progressive is getting, is doing things. And Bernie doesn't get things. Do. He doesn't do them.

BERNIE: Pete is funded by billionaires.

BUTTIGIEG: I will not allow this! I will no longer let this stand! I must let it be known that I also have donations from people who are not billionaires in addition to all of the donations that I do receive from billionaires. By the way, everyone please give me more money right now. As much as you are legally able to, give it to me now.

GAYLE: All right, all right. So, Vice President Biden, why don't black people like you?

BIDEN: Oh, you're actually wrong. They do. And if they don't, they should, because I deserve it. I worked like the devil's hotcakes. You shoot that spittin' pinjata wrestler like a hot diggity blubber nugget, and I mean that! I have come here and I plan to earn the vote and I plan to win it. I will win. You will vote for me or by dang, I'll splitterty splat the whole jib jab plipper plopper. You can count on that, folks.

(APPLAUSE)

GAYLE: Mayor Bloomberg. When you apologize for stop and frisk, it's sort of like you're not actually taking responsibility and you're trying to exonerate yourself for every terrible thing you've done? Can you admit that you, personally, carried out stop and frisk and it's your fault and your own actions are to blame?

BLOOMBERG: OH my GOD, ENOUGH with stop and frisk already!! You people are OBSESSED!! Give it a REST. Stop and frisk got out of control. I apologized, I talked to real live black people and I have nothing else to say about it. I don't have to justify myself.

GAYLE: Weellllll you actually kinda do though.

BLOOMBERG: I bet I can name more than one hundred black people. Ben Carson. Um. Give me a second.

GAYLE: Mayor Buttigieg, is racial profiling racist?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. Also, sorry that we're all white, that's kinda awkward. I mean, you know, I'm not black, obviously. I'm white. What else would I be? I'm a white man. I'm not a black woman. I'm not. I'm just, I mean, I'm a man. I'm--

GAYLE: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: I'm a man and I'm white. I'm not even a little bit--

GAYLE: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: I mean, look how white I am! Have you ever even-- I'm so white! I am a white. Man. I shouldn't even really be talking, cause I mean, you know, what do I know? I'm white! I shouldn't even really be talking about racial justice.

NORAH: Yup! Yes. Correct. Okay, moving on--

BUTTIGIEG: I am white.

BLOOMBERG: It's just a fact that racism exists, and we can't deny it. I just think we should all be acknowledging racism more.

BIDEN: I wrote that bill!

KLOBUCHAR: I am also white and I would also like to take a moment to speak about race. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, we're all united like three kids in a trench coat. We're all wearing one large garment. We are all three children standing on top of each other in a trench coat and pretending to be one adult, but really, we're children. I think we should provide childcare for everyone, and you know, I think everyone should be able to vote.

(APPLAUSE)

GAYLE: Senator Warren, why do you think Bloomberg is the worst candidate for the democratic nomination?

WARREN: Because he's literally a right wing republican who bought his way into this election and nobody trusts him?

GAYLE: True.

BLOOMBERG: In case you forgot, I was there for 9/11. I was inside of the twin buildings. I jumped out of the window of the 18th story through the burning flames and I died in the air from being on fire, but then, like a phoenix born anew out of the ashes of the old, I was reincarnated, and I became a democrat, because I love this country, and I love New York. Have you ever seen the movie Manhattan? It's my favorite Woody Allen movie, the one where he's 60 and dates a 17-year-old but it's okay because it's like quirky New York City people? Sometimes I watch that movie and I'm just like, wow, age knows no bounds. It's actually beautiful. I just love this city. This city is big. It's like a country. It's like a planet. I could probably be the dictator of a whole entire planet if I wanted to. Remember 9/11? Support our troops.

WARREN: Remember when you told a woman to kill her baby?

BIDEN: I wrote that bill!

BLOOMBERG: I did not say that.

WARREN: So why won't you let any of these women speak about their experiences?

PEOPLE PAID BY BLOOMBERG TO BE THERE: BOOOOOOOO!! Not all men!!!!  

BLOOMBERG: Look, I don't know what more you want from me. Three women in the history of my whole life didn't think I was funny and then they tried to sue me. I'm sorry that they have a bad sense of humor and are too sensitive. A lot of women get confused and have bad hearing because of their periods, and I'm sorry if they made up things inside of their little brains and got themselves all worked up over nothing, but there's really nothing I can do about that. There's no point in continuing to bring up that I've harassed over a hundred women because it hurts my campaign and will make it less likely that I'll be president, so let's please just get over it.

PEOPLE PAID BY BLOOMBERG TO BE THERE: (APPLAUSE)

NORAH: Moving on! Senator Sanders, can you explain the math for the spending plans of every single one of your proposals in a minute and a half?

BERNIE: Um, no. It's kind of nuanced and would take longer than that.

BIDEN: THAT'S the problem. We need soundbites. Not lengthy plans that you can read about in your own time. You can't expect people to READ.

STEYER: I have an opinion.

BERNIE: Every study shows that medicare for all will save money. It'll cost $45 billion.

STEYER: Excuse me? Hello? I just want to take a moment. I just want to say that what we have on our hands here is the choice between a racist misogynist and a man who wants to make healthcare available for everyone, and to me, neither of those options look good, and this is very scary.

NORAH: Cool, thanks...so back to the actual conversation. Biden?

BIDEN: It's about time. Okay, Tom Steyer, remember when you bought a private prison system that wasn't providing healthcare for the people being held there?

STEYER: But then I sold it afterwards!!

BIDEN: Back in my neck of the woods, my hometown neighborhood baseball team would call that "Holly Golightly." You're just a beautiful, chain-smoking vixen with a cat named "Cat," that's what you are, you little tease! You old fox!

STEYER: Guilty as charged, mister. Say, you wanna get outta this joint and mosey on over to someplace a little more...intimate?

BIDEN: Holly Golightly!!!

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GAYLE: Mayor Bloomberg, you're super fatphobic and are one of those people who use the phrase 'obesity epidemic.' Would you carry out fatphobic policies on a national level and continue policing everyone's eating habits and blaming health problems on fatness even though there's actually no direct correlation between weight and health and these ideas are just widely promoted by diet culture and the weight loss industry?

BLOOMBERG: Yeah, I'm still extremely fatphobic.

NORAH: Bernie wants to legalize weed. Discuss.

BLOOMBERG: It should not be criminal. Unless you're a dealer because then you are a bad and evil person. More importantly, we don't really know what marijuana is doing to our brains. Has anyone even researched this before? I don't even know what it is. Is it a plant? Does it grow on a tree? Who even knows! We need to get to the bottom of this. Research suggests that it is unladylike to smoke weed, and only boys do it. Boys are entering comatose states and waking up twenty years later after being cryogenically frozen, because of what marijuana is doing to their brains. It enters the brain cells, it rewires the neurotransmitters and emits electromagnetic currents that destroy your entire nervous system. Marijuana is killing our boys. We need to find out why.

BERNIE: Our criminal justice system is super racist and equates marijuana with heroine.

BIDEN: I wrote that bill!

BERNIE:  We're going to expunge people's records and help POC communities start businesses to sell legal marijuana so it's not just white elitist hipsters controlling the market.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NORAH: Senator Warren, why should we pull out our combat troops? How can we keep people safe?

WARREN: We're not keeping people safe or doing anything productive at all by keeping troops in Afghanistan.

GAYLE: Mayor Buttigieg, what would you like to contribute, as a veteran?

BUTTIGIEG: When I came out of the womb, I was in full combat gear. And just as sure as the hair on my chinny chin chin, I had a weird birth mark on my shoulder that was the exact image of the American flag. America used to stand for something. That's the America that I know and love.

BRENNAN: Senator Sanders, you've praised communism's ability to lift people out of poverty and acknowledged that socialist governments have done good things. Does this mean that you love authoritarianism?

BERNIE: Obviously not. I don't condone authoritarianism, I just think that Cuba did some things successfully.

BIDEN: So you think authoritariansim is good.

BERNIE: Do you know how logic works? No, I don't. I can say that the Cuban government has done certain things well and still condemn authoritarianism.

BUTTIGIEG: What is HAPPENING here?!? Is this the Cold War?!? What century are we living in that you can talk about the Cuban government with any kind of nuance?!? Who DOES that???! THIS IS INSANITY. What does Bernie think this is, the 1960s?? Are we gonna start dancing to rock and roll and being gay??? Wake up!!!!

BERNIE: Pete, do you really think universal healthcare is that radical? Or raising the minimum wage? Or providing affordable housing? Or raising taxes on billionaires? Or criminal justice reform? Or immigration reform?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. I just can't admit how moderate I actually am.

GARRETT: Senator Sanders, you claim to be Jewish, but you don't hate Palestine...what's the deal with that?

BERNIE: You know it is possible to be Jewish without being a Zionist, right? It's hard to ignore the harm that's been done to Palestinians.

GAYLE: Alright, final question. What's the biggest misconception about you, and what's your motto?

STEYER: The biggest conception is that I'm rich just because I'm rich. My motto is that I like to pour glue on my hands and then slowly peel it off because I know that I can always dig deeper and get to know myself on more levels.

KLOBUCHAR: Biggest misconception is that I'm not a party girl, because give me a few mimosas at brunch and I'll be dancing on the table! My motto is that I want to help people even though I'm a politician.

BIDEN: Biggest misconception is that I want a black woman on the Supreme Court. Wait no. That's my motto. Wait what? Okay, misconception is that I'm bald, while I actually have a gorgeous full head of long, flowing locks. Motto is "I get knocked down, but I get up again, you are never gonna keep me down."

BERNIE: Misconception is that giving people human rights is radical. The motto is the song "It's Possible" from the Rogers and Hammerstein version of Cinderella.

WARREN: One misconception is that I'm not always eating, cause I am always eating. I love snacks. Especially those big jars of peanut butter-filled pretzels. And my motto is, if someone asks you for a peanut butter-filled pretzel, just give it to them, okay? You can spare one peanut butter-filled pretzel.

BUTTIGIEG: Misconception is that I'm too milquetoast, when actually, I am a moderate amount of milquetoast. You want someone who's even keeled and doesn't have emotions all the time. My motto is that I'm like a priest, but like the young hot priest in the show Fleabag. Not like as a character, but just cause I'm young and hot and also religious.

BLOOMBERG: Misconception, that I'm tall. When actually I just take up space because of my male privilege and not my physical height. And the quote is actually a little ditty that I came up with myself that goes "I want to be president really bad please elect me now I have put a lot of money into this campaign and I want to win please vote for me so I can be president."

PEOPLE THAT BLOOMBERG PAID TO BE THERE: (APPLAUSE)

NORAH: Okay, cool...um. Yeah. Super Tuesday's coming right up. I sure up that everyone doesn't drop out and endorse Biden because the DNC desperately wants to defeat Bernie. But I guess we'll find out! Bye!

[onceuponamirror]

heart rise above

///// CHAPTER 13

summary: It wasn’t an experiment with freedom borne of some Americana fantasy; rather, a road trip of purely logistical intentions. The plan was simple. Drive from Boston to Chicago for his sister’s college graduation. That’s it.

Or, he drives a Ford Pickup Named Desire.

Mechanic!AU

fandom: riverdale ship: betty x jughead words: 75k chapters: 13/19

[read from the beginning] [read the latest]

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You're walking meadows in my mind Making waves across my time

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He realizes he has always been fascinated by bubbles.

He thinks most people probably went through a phase as kids where they liked them, enjoyed them, but for him, it was much heavier an interest—because the concept of a near-endless supply of anything was enough to appeal to the attention of the quiet little boy in threadbare sweaters.

In fact, one of his earliest memories is of just that thought. Sitting cross-legged in the itchy grass of the Andrews’ backyard, it was Archie’s birthday party, and even then, Jughead felt like an outsider and wondered why he’d been invited. Everyone else was playing on the Slip ‘N Slide and he’s always been afraid of water, so he’d sat off to the side in his oversized t-shirt, next to the babysitter on whom he’d later have his first crush.

She’d nudged him in the side and procured a bottle of bubble soap. Dipping a pink bubble wand inside, she’d pulled it up to her lips, and then her mouth formed a perfect o shape. He had inhaled, blinked, and then dozens of little circles of air and soap were blowing into the sun.

His mouth had too made an o shape, but accompanied by the softest o sound he’s probably ever made. He’d leaned back on his palms to tip his chin up to the sky and watch them float away in swaths. Running away was a notion he’d already become familiar with, but that’s not the feeling he got from watching the bubbles drift away, even as they left him there in the grass, growing smaller and smaller in their line of sight.

He knew, even then, that they were just something borrowed and being returned. Later, he would learn the color in a bubble was simple light refraction, but right then and there, it quick wink of time and magic, as he saw himself rainbowed in their reflection and felt briefly beyond.

One floated his way, and he broke it.

As he got older, and his habits got older too, he and Archie would test the limits of bubbles. He remembers getting stoned in the Andrews’ garage in a way they’d thought was the peak of stealth, passing a joint to Archie in one hand and the makeshift, tinfoil bubble wand in the other.

Jughead would try to smother his giggles while Archie took a healthy puff of the joint, suck it in for a moment, and then blow the smoke into the wand. A bubble would appear at the other end, filled with a tiny gray storm cloud. It’d hover above them, and with an itch he could never quite scratch, Jughead would always reach forward and pop it with his finger, littering them in soap and weed vapor.

“Jug,” Archie would groan, “why do you keep doing that? I wanna see how long it’ll last!”

He never did figure out why he couldn’t resist that urge to pop the bubbles. Perhaps it was just a preview of the personality trait labeled morbid curiosity that would come to define him. Or maybe it was the only slice of destruction he was allowed; the spoilsport in him, or the desire to end something before it ended by itself.

(By then, he’d already seen his share of ends, and this was the only lesson he’d learned.)

Later, older still, he’d learn a lot more about bubbles. About the science, the physics. It’d be a glow on his computer screen at three in the morning, hours deep into a black hole of Wikipedia articles, as he’d read about torpedoes and something called the violent collapse of bubbles that propelled them into devastation.

It’d been a strange moment, to realize something as innocent and as ethereal as the little bubbles blown into a backyard at a child’s birthday party could be darkened, turned inward, and used as weapons.

He’d write about them as literary devices too, in the last college class he’d ever take. He’d watch the words housing bubble fly across the eight o’clock news in his junior year of high school and wait for his father to find something new to blame.

And he thinks about them now, watching Betty Cooper helping her niece and nephew perfect their cartwheels in a backyard not at all unlike the place where his first memories live.

Because he’s written about them, romanticized them, intellectualized them, but he’s never actually felt like he’s lived inside a bubble before. Even in retrospect, having a full family unit until age fourteen didn’t feel like one because it was far too destructive to ever be lost in.

This is different. It feels almost too simple to describe what he’s feeling as happiness, but that’s what it is: a bubble of happy. He’s traced the dictionary up and down for something more profound than such a commodified word, but every time he comes up short.

It’s just happiness.

The way he feels like he can reach forward and tuck Betty up into his side without questioning it, or the way she’s already snuck him no less than three kisses this afternoon and the little smile on her face when she’d quietly thanked him for socializing with her family.

The way they haven’t talked about a damn thing regarding what’s between them, almost blindly, and clearly on purpose when he overhears her sister trying to bring it up. That’s the real mark of this kind of bubble, he supposes; the plausible deniability. But he’d laid her bare and she’d held him right back, and twice already, and he can barely stop thinking about when they’ll get to do it next.

Or, perhaps most of all, it’s the way when her nephew finds something in the back of the grass and he shows it to Betty, she leans down and whispers something in his ear while pointing at Jughead. And soon the little redheaded boy is scampering over to him, thrusting a tiny dandelion in his face and proudly exclaiming that he gets to make a wish.

He feels Betty’s eyes on him, and tries to remember how to talk to children. It’s been so long since his sister was this young, but she always is in his mind and it’s just like a bike. Jughead folds his arms playfully and tells him that he’d better think about it real hard first, better make sure he’s really visualizing what it is that he wants.

Arthur scrunches up his face until he says he’s thought his hardest, and then blows on the dandelion until almost all the seeds are picked up in the wind.

Jughead makes a wish too.

It’s a bubble, and he knows—he just knows—he’s going to pop it.

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After second helpings (and thirds, for himself) and the kids start showing the telltale signs of exhaustion, everyone starts packing things up. Even the penny dreadful stock character named Cheryl helps out, clearing paper plates and deigning him with an actual smile when he takes them from her to throw away.

“What the hell did you say to her, you witch?” He mutters to Betty after it happens. They’re standing in the kitchen while the rest of her family is tidying up the backyard and he’s just grateful Cheryl’s gone, even if she was being nice to him, because it means he’s finally alone with Betty. “Pretty sure that’s a totally different person.”

She smirks and helps him scrape off food into the compost bin. “That’s between girls,” she says, clearly deliberately being vague.

“Again, otherwise known as witchcraft,” he murmurs against her ear, coming up behind her. There’s a terrible joke on the tip of his tongue about the spell she’s cast on him, but that’s a little too on the nose, even for him. Instead, he wraps his arms around her waist, because he’s going to take the first inch he can get, even if it’s in front of a garbage can.

She puts down the paper plate and twists in his arms. Her hands come around his neck, and he feels it again. Happy.

“You want to stay, after everyone leaves?” She asks, and god, every time she says that little word—stay—he swears it adds a year on his life.

“Yes,” he tells her, his fingers scattering where they’re strewn across her hip. “I need to go back to the motel and get a change of clothes and probably shower, but I’ll come right back.”

“I have a shower here,” she says softly, and with that same kind of teasing innocence she’d used on her sister, winking through the veil of the Virgin Mary.

He groans. “I see what you’re doing, for the record, and it’s practically Draconian. But I want to try to work a little tonight, and I need my laptop for that. So let me go peacefully into the sweet night, and I’ll be back before you know it. Plus,” he adds, his voice dropping, “I only grabbed a few things when I left.”

She seems to catch his meaning and that’s the trick, because she unravels herself from his grasp and returns to her cleanup duties. And then she looks up at him, with that now familiar and thrillingly pleased, secretive smile. “Juggie?”

“Yeah?”

“Just bring the box.”

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They of course don’t go through a whole box of condoms, because neither of them is inhuman.

But—in their defense—they do make a decent stab at it.

That first night, he throws his things so rapidly into a bag that he barely registers what he’s bringing. It’s not until he gets back to Betty’s that he realizes he only brought the accidental System of A Down shirt that he solely still owns for the spare day he exercises.

He gripes when he pulls it out of his bag, but Betty promises them he won’t need clothes anyway, and, well, she ends up being right.

She rises annoyingly early for work on Monday morning, tells him to sleep and stay as long as he wants, and yes, she’s sure, her mother definitely won’t be home for days. Then asks if he’ll stay over again tonight, and tells him where they hide the spare key when he assures her that he absolutely wants to, and kisses him goodbye.

(They keep a key under the little concrete fairy a few feet away from the front door. It’s completely conspicuous, but he supposes an All-American town like Riverdale has never heard of a burglar.)

He rises a few hours later, still smelling her on his pillow, and takes his time wandering around the Cooper house to catalogue Betty’s childhood. He wouldn’t call it snooping, per se, but he might closely examine the books on her shelf—perhaps taking notes about what to recommend based on what she hasn’t got—or maybe admire her framed diploma from Columbia in the study, or he especially might possibly linger in front of her family photos and wonder what it would’ve been like to grow up with her.

Eventually, he decides to head back to his motel and grab an actually decent change of clothes, if nothing but to get some fresh air and hopefully some fresh perspective. However, if he thought leaving the first location of Norman Rockwell’s Home Improvement Show was going to help shake him from his euphoria of sex and post-sex, he was sorely mistaken.

Rather than stay in his motel and write while we waits for her to finish up work and summon him back, he decides to try something. It feels fluttering, even as an idea, but it’s something he’s always desperately wanted to experience, and he might not ever get the same chance again.

So he heads back to the Cooper house, retrieves the key from the little fairy, and lets himself back in. And then he sets up his computer on the dinner table, and works on his novel until he hears the lock turning.

He feels it then too, as she walks through the room, looking somehow more beautiful than when she left, and sees him sitting there; the little bubble of happiness expanding out of his chest and all across the kind of big house he’d never thought he’d sleep in.

“Honey, I’m home,” she says in a singsong voice as she drops her things onto the kitchen counter.

“Hello dear,” he plays back, “how was your day?”

It’s a game and they’re being wry and teasing, but it’s just what he was hoping for. It was why he came back when he did; he’s always wondered what it would feel like to be working from home and one day have a partner walk through the door and be happy to see him. He thinks it should be sad, that once again his greatest fantasy is nothing more than the simplest domesticity, but he’s so glad to see her that he doesn’t dwell on it.

“My day was good,” she says, in almost off-hand voice as she slides into his lap, one arm hooking around his shoulders and the other closing his laptop. And then she’s kissing him, and as is becoming habit with them, quickly grows to something more.

They have sex on the low kitchen counter that night, him standing between her legs and she’s her loudest yet, and he’s never once thought himself as insatiable in any way but regarding to food until now. After, having moved upstairs, he makes her come with his mouth and she returns the favor.

It’s almost too much to think about, how little they can keep their hands off one another. He’s fairly sure they’re both lost to the looming deadline and trying to get the most out of each other while they can through the guise of lust. 

He’s becoming increasingly aware that he is not ready to leave her.

He wants to tell her he’s not sure he can go back to life before her, thinks he has to tell her, but that would break the bubble and he desperately doesn’t want to. He decides he’ll do it, but not until he has to go. 

Instead, they make quesadillas at midnight in nothing but their underwear while the radio plays a tribute to The Best of the Seventies.

“Wow. Someone’s a major dork,” he tells her, grinning, watching her hips sway to along to some vague boogie-oogie, the spatula held up to her mouth as if it were a microphone.

Truthfully, this is a side of her he very much likes. He suspects she was a Taylor-Swift-Blasting-From-My-Bedroom type of teenage girl, and oddly enough, it’s not a turn-off for the person who stalked around high school with a pair of headphones and a Bright Eyes album.  

“Shut up,” she laughs, flipping a quesadilla, “or you won’t get any!”

“So I was looking through a drawer for a napkin, saw the aprons, didn’t see any that said Kiss the Chef. What have you got to say for yourself, Cooper?” he asks, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her stomach.

She giggles, and he’s half-sure he’s hallucinating it all but he’s not willing to blink.

Tuesday follows a familiar pattern; he goes for a long, solitary walk through town and then later makes sure to position himself as working away for when she comes home. The thrill he gets when they greet each other and talk about their days continues not to disappoint.

That night, however, they actually decide to have dinner at a normal hour, rather than immediately jumping one another, and eat while they debate whether the concept of the Great-American-Novel has to be inherently metafiction in order to be successful. The conversation actually turns him on a bit.

Afterwards, they cuddle up for a movie wherein more time is spent bantering through it than actually watching. She throws popcorn at his face and he kisses her when the music swells.

The eye of the bubble grows bigger in his chest.

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On Wednesday, she originally wakes at 5:30, which by now he knows is her usual alarm to get to the garage by 7, but he still growls when he hears the humming little harpsichord ring tone she uses. “No,” he murmurs into her neck, once she shuts it off and tries to get out of bed. “Sleep.”

“Juggie,” she whispers, half-warningly. “The garage.”

“Open late,” he grunts, eyes still closed. He pulls her closer against him, and thinks perhaps once describing this moment as reverence for the peach of her skin wasn’t far off. “C’mon, girl boss. Sleep in for once.”

She sighs, like maybe she’s thinking about it. He opens one bleary eye to find her looking at him with exasperation, or maybe affection. But there’s something else there too, like a nervous, flittering thought. “You’re a bad influence,” she tells him, even as she settles back in against him, her forehead pressed into his chest, and exhaling gently. “Just one hour. That’s it.”

He drops a kiss at the top of her hair. “Yep, one hour.”

She doesn’t set another alarm.

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Instead, they wake a couple hours later (a reasonable time for anyone to still consider morning, he thinks) because his phone has erupted in an uncharacteristic amount of text notifications. He makes a muffled sound, reaching over Betty to scrape around for his phone. And then he realizes that it’s not just his phone buzzing away, but hers as well. She seems to realize that at the same time and sits up, and together they check their messages.

“Veronica,” she sighs, at the same moment that he sees the litany of texts from an unknown number. Still, an invitation that feels more like a demand couldn’t have come from many people, and he probably would’ve guessed it was from Veronica anyway. He recognizes Archie’s number up at the top too and assumes that’s where the raven-haired princess got his contact information.

“Oh god, is it already after nine?” She mutters, looking at the clock on her phone. “I better text Joaquin and ask if he can work a few hours today. He’s usually got mornings free.”

While she does that, Jughead scrolls through the new messages, frowning. “She wants to throw a party tonight? It’s a Wednesday.”

Betty chuckles, clicking her phone off and rolling up against him. “You clearly don’t know Veronica very well yet,” she says lightly, smiling up at him. And then realizes that he’s still frowning. “What?”

“I probably won’t go,” he sighs, hating the way her face falls at this information.

“Oh,” she says softly, her eyebrows furrowing. “Is…is it because of your dad? You don’t want to be around alcohol?”

That would actually be a decent reason in comparison to the one he actually has, but it would also be a lie. He flops onto his back, pushing his hair back from his face. “No, no. I mean, being around drunken people isn’t my favorite activity in the book, but it doesn’t really bother me in a ‘Nam-flashback kind of way.”

She shifts a little closer. “Then what’s wrong, Juggie?”

“There’s just a lot of people in this group text,” he says carefully, not wanting to outright admit that he’s got the social anxiety of a jackrabbit, especially not to the woman he’s still expecting to come to her senses at any moment.

“Not that many,” she replies, grinning a little now. “You should’ve seen the invite list from her last party.”

“I know I’m a writer, but I can still count, Betts, and there a lot of numbers here,” he sighs. He scratches behind his ear, thinking about the lonely spot by the bonfire at Reggie’s party. “I’m not…great at parties, and especially not at ones where I only know three people. I don’t do well with small talk.”

“You know Kevin too,” she says, one of her hands rubbing distractedly at his stomach. She seems to have something of a preoccupation with that part of his body. “And Joaquin.”

He lets out another breath. “What about my favorite person, Persephone, queen of the underworld?”

“Cheryl?” Betty gives a half-hearted roll of the eyes. “She’s not in the text thread. And they’re definitely not there yet. So she won’t be lurking any more dark corners, waiting to bribe you for information.”

“She should’ve tried a bribe last time, she might’ve gotten a little more out of me that way,” Jughead says, which makes Betty smile.

“Oh. You’d say you’re open to bribes, then?” She asks, her hand on his stomach wandering a bit lower.

He pretends to look offended, but makes no effort to readjust her hand. “My stars, Betty Cooper,” he tuts, putting on an attempt at a terrible Southern accent.

“I’m just wondering what I can do to make you want to come,” she says brightly. “To the party,” she adds after a moment, because now he’s grinning. She whacks him in the shoulder. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“You go,” he tells her, shifting so that he’s leaning over her. He drops a kiss onto her jaw. “And you can come here after.”

She actually blushes, but curves her arms around his neck and meets his eyes. “Please, Juggie?” She asks, and he knows that’s it. “I promise I’ll protect you from small talk. And Ronnie said she wants to celebrate you two coming into town; it’s practically in your honor.”

What she doesn’t say is, it’s because you’re leaving this week, but they both hear it anyway.

“It is not,” he snorts. “It’s clearly in Archie’s honor, if anything. But…”

“But?” She repeats hopefully.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” he says, sighing heavily and smiling despite himself.

“Yay!” She squeals, pulling him closer so that she can kiss him fully and he thinks, distinctly not for the first time: worth it.

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They have a round of late morning sex—his favorite kind, he realizes, because he gets to see her fully in the rising light—and when she comes, it’s through a string of curses, which is new for her. He likes it.

Afterwards, she announces she has to get to the garage, even though she sounds begrudging and lingers the whole way through dressing. He considers asking her what’s bothering her, but he has an inkling.

The truck is supposed to be done this week.

So he can’t ask, because that definitely would pop the bubble, and watches her go. He dawdles in bed for a little while before showering and heads into the backyard to do some writing outside. The weather has turned humid again, and will be unendurable in the coming afternoon, so he wants to enjoy what he can.

Betty comes home earlier than usual, tenser and less willing to play the mid-century-couple game, and immediately trots upstairs for a long shower. Once she emerges, looking clean and refreshed and willfully cheerful, she parades outfits in front of him for tonight’s party. He’s apparently very unhelpful, because he thinks she looks beautiful in every one of them, but with some heavy prompting, he admits he likes her best in blue.

She pulls on a baby blue top and a short white jean skirt, while he dresses in the same outfit he’d worn for their date. It’d gone over well then, and his options are limited. Betty pulls her hair into her usual ponytail, but this time leaves several locks of blonde laying against her forehead, and they walk to Pop’s for dinner.

They sit on the same side of the booth and do their best to talk about nothing; she’s still got that fidgeting look in her eye, and he’s still not brave enough to ask if it’s what he thinks it is. After a while, Betty glances at her phone, sees a flurry of texts, and exclaims that they’re already late, so they pay and rush to Veronica’s apartment.

“Lonely Boy!” Veronica greets as she throws open the door, beaming at him. She’s wearing something he thinks might be a typical ensemble of a cropped black shirt with an equally dark skirt. “I wasn’t sure you’d come. Archie said it was a fifty-fifty shot.”

Betty grins up at him as Jughead shrugs and says, “Hope he bet against me, then.”

“Noted, for next time,” Veronica smirks, and then moves aside to beckon them into the apartment. “I’ve got IPA and lagers in the kitchen, and Betty—pour toi, a bottle of your favorite rosé is on the counter.”

Raising a cautious eyebrow, Betty laughs. “I thought you said rosé was only suitable as a brunch wine, unless, and I quote, ‘one was at the Riviera.’”

Veronica waves a hand and makes a dismissive sound. It’s just exaggerated enough for Jughead to realize she might be quite tipsy. “Yes, and that’s still all true, but I know you love it. And I already bought it, so! It obviously must be drunk!”

“You’re in a good mood tonight,” Betty observes as they follow her into the kitchen, and Jughead realizes this is true. Granted, he doesn’t have much of a barometer for Veronica at this stage, but the only emotions of hers he’s been exposed to are coquettish, coy, surveying, wary, and coy again.

“I am,” Veronica sighs happily. “I am.”

When she doesn’t say anything else, Betty snorts. “Are you going to tell me why? You quit your job, or something?”

Dropping a none-too-subtle look over at Jughead, Veronica just says, “I wish. No, no, I’ll tell you later, B,” and then flounces out of her kitchen with an announcement that she’s off to be a perfect hostess and that she expects to see them mingling soon. Betty rolls her eyes after her, but fondly all the same, as she digs around in a drawer for a corkscrew.

She pauses just as she’s uncorked the bottle in the same way Archie hesitates before grabbing a beer in front of him. “It’s okay,” he tells her, passing her the large wine glass Veronica had also left out for her and then cracking open a lager for himself. “Really. I promise, the trauma is a lot less obvious than that.”

“But you’ll tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable, right?” She asks softly, clearly dodging his attempt at a joke, her hand on its increasingly most common spot along his jaw. He nods, the bubble moving all the way up to his throat.

She fills her glass with the pink wine and then hooks her arm through his to lead him out of the kitchen. There’s a brief moment where he thinks she might’ve been about to hold his hand, but he’s not sure.

Veronica’s apartment is spacious, but he’s starting to wonder if most of Riverdale is this way. It has an open floor plan, with a relatively small but gleaming kitchen tucked away in the corner, and a couple of doors that must lead to bathrooms, closets, portals to the dimensional reality where he usually lives, and bedrooms, in some order or another.

Whereas Betty’s room had spoken volumes about the push and pull between the person put on display versus the person she truly was, Veronica’s sense of décor fully fits her personality: purple orchids, white vases, but just enough indoor palms and plush dark velvet to evoke a kind of smoky art deco lounge filled with literati and their muses of the century.

Faint music drifts absently through the apartment, and there are probably about twenty some-odd people in milling about across the furniture or leaning up against walls, including Joaquin and Kevin, the latter of whom immediately fixes a wide but rapidly narrowing eye on them. “Hey Kev, hey Joaquin,” Betty says, fidgeting slightly as a furtive smile digs at Kevin’s lips.

His eyes flick over to Jughead, down to the place where Betty’s arm is tucked through his, and back to her. “Hey,” Kevin replies, somehow managing to say quite a lot with that one word. No one says anything else.

“Okay guys, good talk,” Jughead drawls, if only to cut the tension. Joaquin snorts, and it seems to break the silent conversation-slash-staring contest between Kevin and Betty.

She turns to Joaquin. “Thanks again for covering me this morning, by the way.”

He shrugs as if to say no big deal, but Kevin’s head swivels towards him. “You worked in the garage this morning?”

“I overslept,” Betty explains, sighing when Kevin immediately appears to read between the lines.

“Hm, betcha did,” Kevin demurs, taking a long sip from his beer. Betty flushes—it’s true that technically she overslept, but Kevin’s meaning isn’t lost on either of them and to deny that they didn’t afterwards have sex would be a lie.

“We’re going now,” Betty says, falsely bright as her fingers curl around Jughead’s arm. She introduces him to people around the room as they pass through it; most of the people here are friends from work or people from high school, and she says she only really knows a few of them. She doesn’t like Veronica’s coworkers very much and cleanly avoids them, but they have a decent chat with a guy named Dilton who happens to be in town visiting his parents and apparently recently sold his first tech company for a sum he seems itching to announce.

As promised, Betty protects him from small talk. She’s a completely natural charmer, skilled in a way that he could spend decades honing but still never match. She deflects and switches gears like the driver of a car she herself built. Once again, he’s in total awe of her.

Eventually, they find themselves with Archie and Veronica again, and he feels like he can breathe a little easier. Soon after, Veronica and Betty disappear to refill their wine glasses, leaving him with just Archie—which would be fine, except Archie is being evasive and seems uncharacteristically nervous about something.

Jughead opens his mouth to ask him what’s crawled up his ass, but Archie has other ideas. “Dude, wait, you know what I got?” Archie scampers off to a set of hooks and digs around in his coat pocket, one of those bombers that is made to resemble a letterman’s jacket. He retrieves a little Ziploc bag and dangling it in Jughead’s face. “Look what I snagged from Reggie before we left.”

“You stole his weed?” Jughead laughs. “Do you have a death wish?”

Archie scoffs. “Whatever. He’ll never notice, he has so much of it. So, wanna smoke?”

Given that he’s almost done with his allotted beer, he might as well. “Yeah, gimme. I’ll roll it.” He sinks onto a couch and clears a space while Archie disappears back to his jacket and quickly returns with a grinder, some rolling papers, a lighter and leaves him to it, saying he’ll be back in a few. It feels almost like high school again—left to roll a joint in the back of a foggy party he’s never quite sure he agreed to attend. Only this time, he definitely knows why he’s here.

As if hearing her name in his thoughts, Betty plops down beside him, placing her wine on the table as her chin nestles into his shoulder. “Jughead Jones,” she says slowly, and slightly impishly. “You getting high?”

He finishes grinding up the weed and turns to look at her. “Please tell me you were a D.A.R.E. pledge,” he says, which earns him a whack on the arm and a smirk. Depositing the bits of pot into the valley of the paper, he runs his tongue along the edge to seal the joint and then pauses, realizes Betty is staring at it, her pupils blackened.

Jughead finishes his work and tucks it behind his ear as she watches him, biting down hard on her lip. His hand trails up her knee and onto her thigh in order to shift closer. “Got something to share with the class, Officer Cooper?”

She’s looking at him in the way that usually precursors the moment that she pounces on him, but instead she seems to straighten her shoulders with resolve to do the opposite. Disappointment surges through him, but he understands why she might not want to start something she can’t finish in a room full of people.

Betty reaches forward, plucks the joint from behind his ear, and nestles it between her lips. “Got a lighter?”

He quickly grabs it from the table and holds it up for her, flicking on the flame. She drapes herself into the pillows of the couch and takes a puff. He likes this look for her—not necessarily just the joint between her teeth, but the relaxed lean in her posture, the half-lidded and comfortable glow in her eyes as she blows a bit of smoke out of the corner of her mouth.

He has already learned she’s not a person easily unwound, so to see her draped into a couch and smiling lazily at him is enough to fill him with warmth.

She passes him the joint, and he falls back into the couch alongside her as he takes a light hit. “Hi,” he murmurs.

“Hi,” she hums back. The once-familiar hazy din of the pot is already settling above his thoughts and he wants to kiss her so badly, but he’s not sure what she’s comfortable with in front of her friends. He gets his answer quickly though, because she soon closes the space between them. It’s a short kiss; something sweet, and more like a promise, but there all the same.

Hand-in-hand, Archie and Veronica arrive back at the couch just as they’re pulling apart and he tries his best to ignore the smug, satisfied look on Veronica’s face. “Yo, pass that,” Archie says, and Jughead complies. He takes too big a hit and coughs as he releases his smoke, trying to pass it on to Veronica, who declines.

“Not my thing,” she says, one hand held up and the other grasping a nearly empty wine glass. She seems a bit surprised when the joint is then offered to Betty, but more surprised still when she actually takes it. “Uh oh,” she says, amused. “You’re going to regret that.”

“No I won’t,” Betty insists, her eye rolls already becoming more exaggerated.

“I wasn’t talking to you, sweetie,” Veronica replies, glancing at Jughead. “Fair warning, Stoned Betty is a very Emotional Betty.”

“Okay, I don’t get emotional,” Betty scoffs, but it definitely sounds defensive.

Still addressing Jughead, Veronica says, “Last time she smoked pot, she lied on my floor, made me put on Fleetwood Mac while she silently stared at literally nothing, and then immediately spent half an hour crying at the memory of the time she accidentally stepped on a snail, or something.”

“You’re exaggerating.” She pauses. “It wasn’t a snail,” she tells her friend, but drops her head closer to Jughead, her eyes slightly glazed over. “But, I mean, thunder only happens when it’s raining! Isn’t that so beautiful, Juggie?”

She is absolutely already stoned, and he tells her as much, raising his eyebrows. She shushes him and shuffles closer so that she’s fully curled up besides him on the couch. He smirks, draping an arm around her shoulders while he takes another hit of the joint.

One of the things he’s always liked about weed is the body high; the tingling awareness of every inch of skin and the blood moving beneath it; the organs in his chest inhaling and exhaling to the beat of his nerves. With Betty next to him, it’s like that feeling magnified ten fold.

He can feel his heart plucking louder than ever, but the album has flipped. It’s a song he’s never heard.

.

.

.

After they’ve passed the joint around to its last nib, Veronica says they have to get off the couch before they’re all forever fused to it, and insists they dance. Jughead laughs and says no way, but Betty is tugging on his arm and pulling him from the couch, all the while he tells her it’s not going to happen several times. Veronica twirls by her lonesome at what is clearly her favorite spot at the center of the room, and Jughead notes that she’s well past tipsy at this point.

“Oh, shit—hold on, I know what I’m going to play,” Archie says, and then scampers off. The music cuts for the briefest moment before being replaced by the one song Archie must know is sure to annoy him the most. The opening chords to Don’t Stop Believin’ filter through the room, and he groans loudly as Archie approaches them, his head bobbing.

“Boo,” Jughead drawls over the guitar intros, making Betty laugh. “How many bad pubs in Southie do you have to hear this song in before you’ll get sick of it?”

But Archie’s barely listening through his set of air drums. “You can take the boy out of Boston, but you can’t take the pub out of me!” And Jughead doesn’t have a moment to call out how little sense that makes before Archie breaks out into the first lines along with the song, “Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world!”

“Please, I will pay you to stop,” Jughead moans, but Archie is drunk, stoned, and deliberately lost in the song and just waves his pointer fingers in Jughead’s face as he sings, “She took the midnight train, going an-y-whe-e-ere!”

Suddenly, Veronica has thrown her arms around Archie and has joined him in belting out, “Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit! He took the midnight train going any-whe-e-e-re!”

“You two are a match made in hell,” he mutters, as Veronica drunkenly announces that she just loves to sing. A few people have moved into the circle, joining along with the lyrics, and he spots more getting up, even Dilton.

That’s the problem with this song, and really, why he hates it—other than the fact that Archie always puts it on whenever they’re near a jukebox—it’s the hypnotic spell it casts on every person in the vicinity wherein they’re physically incapable of not singing along like complete idiots.

While the first guitar solo takes over, he glances over at Betty by his side, biting her lip through a mischievous grin, and he realizes what’s coming next. “Not you too,” he sighs, but she’s already joined the crowd in their rendition of, “A singer in a smoky room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume!”

As the lyrics announce that for a smile they can share the night, Kevin appears out of nowhere and grabs Betty by the waist, dancing her out of Jughead’s grasp, while the beats of the instruments rise and Veronica and Archie start bouncing and singing the first chorus up at the ceiling. “Strangers! Waiting! Up and down the boule-e-e-vard!” 

Figures move between them like shadows on the wall, and as if in slow motion, the haze of pot and the faint buzz of beer in his eyes, he watches Betty throw her head back in laughter as Kevin dips her. He whispers something in her ear and she giggles even harder. The guitar swells and she looks so beautiful under the dim yellow light.

He has a thought that he cannot admit.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, striding through the swaying crowd to reach her just as the song buoyantly declares that they’re living just to find emotion and hiding somewhere in the night.

Kevin releases Betty in order to drag his boyfriend into the throng, and Jughead happily takes his place, one hand at her waist, the other grasping her hand. It’s possibly the magnetic build of the music, or maybe it’s just the room full of people spinning in circles and releasing the words into the air as their beers slosh around madly, or maybe it’s the pot, or the delight in Betty’s eyes when he touches her, but he finds himself joining in.

“Working hard to get my fill, everybody wants a thrill!” 

Archie whoops and hollers in loud approval when he hears Jughead’s voice in the fray and Veronica’s arms are waving in the air above her, and Betty is dancing with him, their fingers laced, and he loses his voice to the song. “You know the words, after all!” Betty laughs, as he rolls his eyes. 

“Every single person in the country knows the words to this song, Betts,” he says, trying to sigh and appear appropriately brooding, but then the lyrics surge again and the attempt is lost. 

“Some will win, some will lose! Some were born to sing the blues!” They all collectively belt it out at the top of their lungs, practically screaming this goofy, cheesy, terrible, bonding-with-strangers type of music that he definitely hates, except as he twirls Betty in his arms, he thinks he understands the appeal a bit more.

Another guitar solo runs through them and the room is alive with energy. He feels at once so one with the crowd—an unfamiliar feeling, to say the least—and equally alone with just Betty as she moves against him in an entirely new way; with utter, bubbling joy, her ponytail bouncing with her. The song urges everyone to don’t stop believing and to hold onto that feeling and that the movie never ends because it goes on and on, and on, and on—

And he agrees, especially as the moment pulls back and becomes fisheyed, just like the reflection in a bubble twenty years ago.

He spins her again, and the moment goes on and on, and on, and on.

.

.

.

The playlist is clearly Archie’s, because the music that follows next is a procession of the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, and otherwise vague, crowd-pleasing bar music—including one that leads to a terrible rendition of the song Come On Eileen. And despite having exercised his limit of what might be considered dancing, he has to admit he’s having a good time, even as the pot wears off.

Eventually, and with considerable effort on her behalf given her height, Veronica slings her arms over both Archie and Jughead’s shoulders and informs them that they’re low on beer and would they please go get more and that there’s a liquor store just around the corner and please again.

Betty throws him a worried look, clearly not sure what his limits are, but he just kisses her on the cheek and assures her it’s really fine, following Archie out the door.

“Sorry I’ve been self-imposed as persona non grata lately,” Jughead says, as they meet the late spring night air. “I’ve just been…busy. Writing.”

“Uh huh,” Archie muses. “Is that what you’re gonna call it?”

“Shut up,” he says, shoving Archie in the shoulder just hard enough that he stumbles a bit. “I mean, yeah though. I’ve been with Betty.”

Archie waggles his eyebrows. “So I heard from Veronica, who heard from Betty. Sounds like it’s going well, dude.”

It is, he thinks. He looks up at the dark sky and nearly imagines something translucent wiggling overhead, a bubble blown too big. They reach the liquor store, and he is almost thankful for the harsh white light of the fluorescent bulbs, because it feels like a dousing relief from the fog and warmth leftover from the party. He hangs back while Archie selects a few six packs and pays and then they’re on their way back to the apartment.

“Anyway, it’s not like I haven’t been hanging out with Veronica a lot too,” Archie says, grunting as he redistributes the weight of the beers in his arms. Jughead offers to take some, but Archie says he hasn’t been working out lately and that it’ll be good for him. “So it’s okay, dude.”

“Yeah, I just figure we get to see each other all the time, so I didn’t think it was really a big deal,” Jughead sighs. “And we’ll have the drive to Chicago, and back in Boston, and so on.”

Archie doesn’t say anything, and at first Jughead thinks it’s because he’s still trying to figure out the best way to carry all the beers. But then he realizes that Archie has put them down entirely, even though they’re still a block away from Veronica’s.

“Uh, about that,” he says slowly, scratching at his temple. “I have something I gotta tell you.”

“Gee, that’s not ominous at all,” Jughead tries to chuckle, but Archie’s face is rarely serious and it makes him hesitate.

“It’s good news,” Archie says quickly. “It’s… Okay, so I think I’m not going to go to Chicago. I can see my mom another time, and I wanna spend a bit more time with Ronnie here.”

Jughead sighs, because honestly he’s been expecting something like this for a while. Archie is already self-described as head over heels for Veronica and it’s definitely not unlike his best friend to throw away time with him in favor of a girl. And besides, he’d probably be extending his own trip if there weren’t such a specific reason for why he himself has to leave, so he can’t judge. Not really sure why he’d label that good news, but it is Archie, after all.

“Alright,” he says. “We wouldn’t really have had much time to do anything except drive, since we’ve been here so long. I get it. It’s cool.”

He turns to go, thinking that’s the end of it, but Archie is still rooted to the spot. “There’s something else too,” he says tentatively. “So…uh, I’m gonna move to LA.”

Jughead blinks, sure he’s heard him wrong. “You’re—you’re going to what?”

“I’m going to move to LA,” Archie repeats, much firmer now.

He stares at him, and then starts to laugh, even as his stomach sinks low. “What the fuck, Arch, no you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” he insists, his voice growing stronger. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and…it just finally seems like the right moment.”

“You’ve been thinking about it for a while?” Jughead repeats, scoffing derisively. “Yeah, okay, sure. Then why haven’t I ever heard you mention it before?”

“Because—” Archie hesitates, but seems emboldened by the mocking scowl on Jughead’s face. “Because I know I’m, like, your only friend, and I didn’t know how you’d take it.”

“You’re not my only friend,” Jughead spits, even though it’s probably true. Really though, who else does he ever hang out with? He ended things with Ethel amicably enough, and he sees her sometimes, but probably not enough to consider her a friend. Does he even count Reggie, especially if their friendship requires Archie’s presence to bring them together?

“Look, I’ve been telling you for a while that I’m, like, at a wall with work. I can’t keep doing these stupid local commercials forever, it’s really bumming me out. My industry is mostly in LA, and if I’m there, I can try to do songs for TV or movies, or something,” he says in a placating voice, and Jughead hates that Archie actually has a valid point. But then he adds, “And…you know, with Veronica moving there, it just seems like the right time.”

Jughead releases a choked laugh and throws a hand into the air. “There we go. You know, you almost had me there, trying to justify this as a career move. Jesus, this is ridiculous, even for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Archie says, his voice rising.

“I’ve been watching you pull shit like this my whole life, Arch. ‘Sorry Jughead, I can’t go to the Yankees game your dad saved up for because Pepper just really needs to see me,’ or, ‘Actually, Jug, I think I’m going to apply to Berklee School of Music because Valerie said she was.’ Take your fucking pick. You make these impulsive life decisions because of some girl you barely know, and then you’re completely confused at what went wrong when it blows up in your face!”

“I—okay, I applied to Berklee because of Val, but I went there because I love music, okay?” Archie is yelling now. “And fuck off, because none of that’s the same, because I love Veronica!”

Jughead slaps his hand hard across his forehead. “Jesus Christ—you can’t love her, you don’t even know her!” He yells, but as he hears the words come out, they sound oddly like a lie.

“Oh, yeah? What the hell do you know about it, Jug?” Archie snaps, his arms crossed. “You’ve never even been in love! Because you’re too much of a coward to ever try!”

“I’m not a coward,” he hisses, even as he feels as though he’s been sucker punched. A car drives by, the headlights passing over them as Jughead’s chest begins to stutter. He’s not a coward, he’s got issues. There’s a difference. Right?

“Yes, you fucking are,” Archie seethes. “Or it wouldn’t have taken you a million years to make a move on Betty when you were so clearly into her from the start. I mean, dude, have you even told her that you like her yet?”

“I—” Jughead feels all the words and breath leave his lungs all at once. “She knows I like her.”

“Have you actually told her that, though?” Archie scoffs. “Because Veronica said that Betty was really confused about what you wanted.”

He inhales sharply, indignation surging. “What the hell, do you guys talk about us? It’s none of your fucking business what—”

“Veronica was just asking because she wanted to look out for Betty, because she’s a good friend and a kind, protective person,” Archie interrupts, scowling madly. “And the woman I love.”

“You’ve known her for three weeks!” Jughead yells, almost delirious with exasperation. “You cannot love her! It doesn’t work like that!”

“Tell me how it works, then,” he snarls. “Go ahead. Enlighten your much stupider friend with a-a-all you know about love.”

His mouth opens and closes once. “It…takes work, and time—you—you compromise and grow, you don’t just—”

“That’s just a relationship,” Archie interrupts, smug with dark satisfaction for the moment wherein he understands something that Jughead doesn’t. “Love is the feeling when you look at someone, or how you feel when they walk in a room. It’s the way I know I’m not ready to say goodbye to her. You’d know that, if you ever even tried.”

He realizes Archie is right, and it sends his blood boiling. That kind of love is the thing one he’s always craved and all the while justified not looking for because it always felt so unattainably complicated, like a riddle with no end, and it cannot be that obvious or that simple. It just can’t.

He wants to punch Archie.

“Fuck you,” he says instead, and because he can’t admit to anything else. Jughead turns on his heel and storms away, with no destination in mind as long as it’s far fucking away from Archie and his childish fantasies about love and life.

“Yeah, well, fuck you too!” Archie shouts at his back.

His feet carry him past Veronica’s apartment, past Pop’s, past the turn off for Betty’s street, and onwards into the night. He stomps up the stairs to his motel room and slams the door shut loudly behind him, his fist punching uselessly once at the wall when that doesn’t satisfy him. He curses loudly and slides down onto the floor.

.

.

.

Later, he realizes he never actually popped the bubble.

In the end, Archie did.

.

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.

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.

[jonnyopinion]

Individually packaged sugar portions are stupid, and so are you, so am I, and so is everything else in world

A night shift became available suddenly last night, so on the way in I decided to treat myself to a coffee, even though I said I should probably stop doing that. Anyway, it caught my attention in doing so how Costa have adopted a policy of offering 25p off the price of your takeaway coffee if you bring your own reusable cup. This is surely a good thing, if it encourages people not to use disposable coffee cups, and might even signify the first inklings of high street giants of the potential profits to be made from the zero waste demographic. Naturally, however, I have a number questions.

First question: am I turning into my dad? Much to the amusement of my mother, particularly now that money is not the worry for them it once was, my dad has always an insatiable appetite for not spending money on things if he can avoid it. My mother calls it his "east Midlands streak" - the two of them originating from Derby, you see. I've never heard anyone else refer to people from Derby as unusually frugal (I thought that was Yorkshiremen, or is is it Scots?) but my mother knows a lot of things nobody else seems to know, and I respect that. The issue I am about to comment on with a borderline autistic level of pedantry is also just the sort of thing my dad would notice, and now, for reasons not entirely mysterious I suppose, I have started noticing too.

Not the only time this cup has ever, or will ever be used, probably.

Second question: aren't the cups that coffee comes in when you don't take it outside reusable?  They are, after all, reused.

Third question: why, then, is coffee you sit down for still more expensive than coffee you take away?  A medium "Americano" (that's black coffee, if you're old enough to remember when you could call it that) costs £2.30 "to go", and £2.50 to sit in.  Coffee to go comes in disposable cups.  So if you bring your own cup, it costs £2.05. I look the next logical leap, which is what, I have no doubt, had my Dad been there, he would have done too, and asked the "barista" question number four: what if I bring my own reusable cup but stay inside to drink my coffee?  Would this cost £2.25?  That would be a saving of 5p to drink my coffee in my own cup indoors, compared to drinking it in a disposable cup outdoors.  Would this be acceptable?  I'm willing to pay the extra 5p to sit indoors, offset against the saving of 25p saving both you the trouble of washing one of your own cups, and the ecosystem the trouble of accommodating more plastic.  It's win-win.  Is all of this consistent with your overall business model and this quarter's profit projections? Leave her alone Dad, she just works here. She gave me that "oh god not another pedantic weirdo customer why do they always talk to me I just want to go home and drink wine" look that nobody ever expects, but everyone always deserves.  (Be nice to people in customer service please, they hate you; they really, really hate you, as they have every right to do).  I shut my mouth and sat down. On the way down, I stopped off at the coffee accessories station, or whatever it's called where you get your sugar, napkins and so on - oh lord, that's probably exactly what it is called) to grab my usual handful of sugar sachets, when it hit me just in time: zero waste.  Individually packaged sugar portions aren't zero waste.  Alright, they're made of paper and so probably recyclable (or that weird plasticy paper, and so probably not) but still, they are wasteful, pointless, excessive.  Question five: would it be cheaper to offer a bowl of sugar on the table, just as cafes once did?  Six: what business advantages are there in offering individually packaged sugar portions, disposable wooden stirrers (question seven) and plastic spoons (question eight) when reusable alternatives exist, and did long before the likes of Costa ever came along?  Economists, I believe, refer to such considerations as "externalised costs" - i.e. costs not factored into overall calculations of profit for the business, since the price is paid by someone else: or in most cases, something else, i.e. the environment (i.e. everyone else). A zero waste option for sugar users was unavailable, so I took my coffee without sugar on this occasion.  (Well how about that?  Going zero waste is good for you, too!)

21st century urban coffee management and accessorising solutions.

I'm sure that somebody, somewhere - probably a whole committee of someones - have considered all of these questions, and many others, from every possible angle, and come to their conclusions for sound and defensible business reasons.  You would expect no less, and no more, under  'endless growth' capitalism.  Which leads me to ask my only real question here: under current economic models, are such things as offering tiny incentives to customers to reuse their own cups ever going to be anything more than shallow and meaningless gestures of caring about the deep and important environmental problems of wastefulness and sustainability?  Can capitalism ever make its peace with the growing trend away from consumption and towards zero waste, minimalism and truly subversive anti-consumerism?  Or will it, as it always does, incorporate these ideas, step by tiny imperceptible step smoothing them out until they remain available only as commodified "choices", compatible now with the existing paradigm but stripped of any power they might have had to really change anything? It remains to be seen, but here is a clue.  The barista, her only defence against my passive-aggressive onslaught of ridiculous questions about cups and pennies and sustainable business models, offered me a solution. Costa sell their own reusable cups for you to take away and bring with you next time. 95p each. Made entirely of plastic.

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[weirderaph]

The Geeks - The Double-Sided Sophomore Slump (2017; self-released)

Responses on The Geeks' The Double-Sided Sophomore Slump

In my head, I feel strange

‘Life is a Waste of Time’

A door opens and from the frame, muted moving images from one’s youth.

Obligatory Hipster Filler

If academic papers are now nothing more than sophisticated forms of shitposting (or peer-reviewed shit posts), then perhaps the Obligatory Hipster Filler is the introduction.

Our Mothers

Mine belonged to the years when doo-wop was mod but Mod would come much later, in what was to be (and had been) her elementary school years. And I will forever be under the impression that she handled that age better than me or anyone else. Perhaps the album was written for her kind (and we are their double-sided sophomore slumps).

Life is a Waste of Time

Paranoia: being under the impression that most songs are deliberately timed to end at exactly 4 minutes and 20 seconds. I still think this joke is funny, this is my life and I am not ashamed of it.

Do You, Too?

Awards are bunk, grades are not everything, and healhty relationships are for chumps. Tonight, I stuck double-sided tape at the back of my printed poems and stuck them to my badly painted wall. There was a time when I wanted to convert my tiny room into a tiny art gallery. I painted the walls museum white and every morning I wake up with eggshells on my face.

I Want You to Stay

This song reminds me of lives and moments only lived in the mind. Things that are not or could not be real. I wonder if the sensation of real-ness is also unreal, or, what does the unreal-ness make of the sensation of unreality.

The Girl Who Got Away

She says the bourgeois stay woke by painting fake irises on their eyelids with expensive make-up. Water has now been effectively commodified. She stays hydrated with dank memes.

I’m Leaving You Alone

The papers flutter inside a suitcase. This entire album has the power to remind of my own Age of Shame. Something more potent than nostalgia, the recognition that I’ve left that age behind and have become something else.

Nigel’s Swell Hair Gel

Do I really want to know what it’s made of? I am barely a music writer and only a lukewarm art writer. These years and moments in between are hopefully just a segueway to something better.

Please Say Yes

Somewhere in Point Nemo, two ghosts meet.

It’s Time to Go

Earnestness and simplicity in its lyrics; there is comfort in the image of a nighttime drive in a deserted suburb. Smooth road, warm like Mars against a stark black sky.

Ollie’s Stalker Song

Somehow the stalker is cartoonish, with a shiny ball nose, the reflexes of a rat, and a rubber spatula for a hand.

These Days

What is spoken now versus what has been said. In the midst of explicit statements is an evasion. I respond by remembering something painful.

Before It Rains

As with all good things and lovely moments, all slowly rolls into the acknowledgement that nothing and everything will outlast our consciousness.

The End (An Ode to Nihilist Memes)

If you take off the cross from an ordinary rosary, you are left with a tiny noose.

God is Fair, Brian Sangco is Not

The author is dead but that does not stop me from consulting the artist. A séance is in order.

- May Dy

Others: Weezer, The Buildings, Is That Ciudad? No It’s Not Available on Spotify

[tekmodetech]

It’s the Jons 2017! | TechCrunch

Comfortable New 12 months! It’s been a transformational 12 months in tech. The golden period of startups ended. Sorry about that. The tech business lastly rolled over a giant rock it had ignored and/or leaned on for years, and uncovered the squirming morass of sexual harassment beneath. We witnessed main AI breakthroughs, a cryptocurrency megaboom, actually actually self-driving automobiles, and 18 SpaceX launches.

However the Jons aren’t about these form of accomplishments. The Jons, an annual award named (in an awe-inspiring match of humility) after myself, have fun tech’s extra doubtful achievers — and hoo boy oh boy have been there a number of these this 12 months. So let’s get to it! With little or no additional ado, I provide you with: the third annual Jon Awards for Doubtful Technical Achievement!

(The Jons 2015) (The Jons 2016)

THE WHOLE WORLD OWES THIS GUY AN APOLOGY BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN HE ISN’T A LUNATIC AWARD FOR REVEALING THE TRUTH WHICH IS ACTUALLY OUT THERE, WELL KINDA, BUT STILL I MEAN HOLY SHIT

To Tom DeLonge of Blink-182, whose apparently delusional disquisitions a couple of secret Deep State authorities group devoted to monitoring UFOs and harboring mysterious and presumably otherworldly alloys in warehouses, and many others. and many others. and many others., turned out to be, extremely, not less than half true, per the New York Occasions’s revelation that such a program did exist till 2012. However wait, there’s extra! That program’s principals at the moment are employed by — that’s proper — DeLonge himself. WTF. Does this imply UFOs are actual? In all probability not. Was this program pure pork? Very presumably. Is that this nonetheless probably the most glorious story of 2017? You betcha.

THE IF YOU DISRESPECT THE SACRAMENT OF LINEAR REGRESSION ONE MORE TIME I WILL GET OLD TESTAMENT ON YOU AWARD FOR TRULY GODLIKE SELF-REGARD

To Anthony Levandowski, former “Alphabet self-driving automotive impresario” turned “Otto CEO” turned “Uber self-driving automotive impresario” turned “man within the dock staring down an entire heap of legal trouble which in flip unearthed much more jaw-droppingly bad Uber behavior,” however imagine it or not that’s what this award is even about:

Two years ago, ‘Levandowski based a non secular group, Means of the Future, to “develop and promote the belief of a Godhead based mostly on Synthetic Intelligence.” And other people say tech is secular! I for one stay up for a novel authorized protection arguing that the secular authorities ought to recuse themselves fully from his case due to their lengthy problematic historical past of bewilderment and suppressing God’s prophets.

THE IF WE COULD PUT DRM ON AIR WE WOULD AND DON’T THINK WE AREN’T THINKING ABOUT IT AWARD FOR COMMODIFYING THE UNCOMMODIFIABLE

It was dangerous sufficient when Juicero utilized DRM to juice earlier than flaming out spectacularly. Worse but when DRM was accountable for the virtual genocide of Second Life’s puffins and rabbits. However Reefill actually took the cake, or, as Marie Antoinette may put it, ate the brioche: they need individuals to pay for the suitable to unlock tap water stations. I certain stay up for our air filters that should be fed quarters/satoshis each few hours in order that we don’t should breathe the uncooked polluted mutagenic biohazard air of our courageous new DRMed dystopian future.

THE WE’RE VERY EXCITED THAT OUR TERRIBLE ARTICLE HAS STARTED SUCH AN INTENSE CONVERSATION THOUGH ADMITTEDLY ON CLOSER INSPECTION IT DOES SEEM TO CONSIST OF EVERY EXPERT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD TELLING US WE DONE FUCKED UP AWARD FOR OVERSTANDING YOUR JOURNALISTIC GROUND

To The Guardian — for many years, considered one of my favourite, most-trusted, most-read information organizations, for whom I’ve written myself — for his or her colossal WhatsApp screwup, which, inexplicably and indefensibly, took them 5 months to accept and semi-sorta-kinda-retract, regardless of an ongoing refrain of fury and horror from principally each safety knowledgeable alive all through that interval. For disgrace.

THE THROW THEM UNDER THE BUS AWARD FOR THE BUCK STOPPING, UH, OVER THERE SOMEWHERE

To Equifax’s former CEO, Richard Smith, who blamed the huge safety breach that uncovered 143 million Social Safety numbers and many others. on one engineer not doing their job, relatively than on, oh, say, the individual accountable for a company construction so pathological that the safety of the corporate’s information — and information administration is that this multibillion-dollar firm’s one job — wound up being delegated to a single individual with no oversight or backup.

THE IF YOU LIKED IT YOU SHOULD HAVE PUT A BLOCKCHAIN ON IT AWARD FOR BEST CORPORATE REBRAND

To the Lengthy Island Iced Tea comnpany, an unprofitable micro-cap soft-drink producer which eleven days in the past abruptly rebranded itself Long Blockchain Corp and promptly noticed its inventory soar 500%. Now that’s a pivot!

THE DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK AWARD FOR MOST TONE-DEAF ATTEMPT TO TURN DISGRACE INTO A BUSINESS MODEL

To former VC Justin Caldbeck, who retired in shame after an array of accusations of sexual harassment, after which, not 5 months later, tried to reinvent himself as a motivational speaker warning college students concerning the risks of “bro culture” whereas additionally sending more-or-less form emails to individuals “who’ve expressed public curiosity and a ardour for this house,” asking for recommendation concerning “the web site that I’m making which is meant to be a [information about sexual harassment] useful resource.”

THE IT SEEMS PRETTY WIFTY AT FIRST BUT ON CONSIDERATION MAYBE WE SHOULD HAVE THESE AROUND EVERY CORNER AWARD FOR MOST INNOVATIVE CONFERENCE FEATURE

To the MAPS Psychedelic Science convention I covered earlier this 12 months, and particularly its Therapeutic Oasis zone for these for whom, uhhhh, the stresses of, uhhhh, the subject material may need grow to be slightly an excessive amount of. However you realize what, the Ethereal blockchain convention just a few months later had a yoga and chill-out zone too. Is that this a pattern? Will future tech conferences embrace periods that consist largely of chanting in Haskell and new asanas named “The Drone,” “The Blockchain,” and “The Web Of Issues”? We are able to however hope.

THE YOU DO HAVE A HISTORY OF BEING A LITTLE UNCLEAR ON BASIC ECONOMIC CONCEPTS AWARD FOR SILLIEST MAJOR CRYPTOCURRENCY PROPOSAL

Observe that weasel world main in there, however, I imply, c’mon, in any other case we’d be right here all day: the federal government of Venezuela needs to challenge a Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency backed by 5 billion barrels of oil. That is apparently not a joke. It’s, nevertheless, very foolish. I’ll let “Marmot Man” Preston J. Byrne clarify exactly why:

That is absurd. The place an issuer will be recognized (say, a sovereign) and the factor being purchased and offered comes with authorized rights (say, dividends from oil manufacturing), you obviate the necessity for mining. For those who’re a rustic, the form of system you need to run is a permissioned system the place you management the validators, not an open system that may be hijacked by a bunch of nameless electrical energy thieves in China.”

THE MATH IS BAD AND MUST BE BANNED MMMKAY AWARD FOR FAILING TO UNDERSTAND THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRATIC POWER

To all of the clueless morons who maintain hoping to ban end-to-end encryption, most notably the present UK authorities. Repeat after me: encryption is math. What’s extra, many implementations of that math are open-source. You can not ban math. For those who drive some firms to take away math from their software program, individuals who need to use math will simply use totally different software program which does have math. All you’ll do is strip the advantages of math from the individuals for whom math is an ancillary relatively than major profit. Everybody will lose. Please cease being idiots.

(UK authorities readers: please substitute “math” with “maths” within the above paragraph to help comprehension. I’d assume this goes with out saying however, nicely, this doesn’t seem like the case in case you are a part of the UK authorities.)

THE HOKEY INTELLIGENCE AND TECHNICAL COMPETENCE ARE NO MATCH FOR IGNORANT BIGOTRY, KID AWARD FOR CONFUSING WANTING SOMETHING WITH BEING ABLE TO DO IT

To the alt-right’s “parallel Internet,” which has grow to be a land of: “ghost cities, with few lively customers and no apparent supervision. As expertise merchandise, many are second- or third-rate, with lengthy load instances, damaged hyperlinks and frequent error messages.” I’m shocked, shocked, that livid bigotry is inversely correlated with intelligence and technical competence.

THE PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, THE FINE PRINT IN THE CONTRACT, OR THE CURIOUS BEHAVIOR OF THE WEREWOLF IN THE NIGHT-TIME AWARD FOR MYSTERIOUS FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS

To the … a number of entities … a few of whom appear to be associated indirectly to the Bitfinex change, and the Tether cryptocurrency, who’ve apparently been engaged in an entire galaxy of shady, sketchy, manipulative, and/or market-warping cryptofinancial habits over the past 12 months or so, as doggedly and faithfully documented by but one other nameless entity generally known as Bitfinexed, by way of the latter’s Medium posts and Twitter feed. Received a bunch of free time and an curiosity in monetary skulduggery? Then I encourage you to dive down that rabbit gap and marvel at what you discover.

THE FEET, LEGS, TORSO, ARMS, AND HEAD OF CLAY AWARD FOR THE FARTHEST FALL FROM GRACE TO FARCE

To Julian Assange, who over the past seven years has gone from a radical “we open governments” cipherpunk hero to a more-or-less Putin apologist and obvious misogynist obsessed with Hillary Clinton who’s now fundraising by selling CryptoKitties. The road between whimsical and pathetic is, I’m afraid, someplace again thataway.

THE CALLING ME A CONSPIRACY THEORIST MEANS YOU’RE PART OF THE CONSPIRACY AWARD FOR MOST SELF-AGGRANDIZINGLY DELUSIONAL WORLDVIEW

Collectively awarded to Eric Garland, Seth Abramson, and Louise Mensch, whose breathless, incoherent, interminable, and constantly flawed Twitter tweetstorms, which principally attempt to remix actuality with badly written Hollywood authorized/political thrillers, exemplify an entire new form of train-wreck political efficiency artwork knowledgeable by spectacular lack of self-awareness.

Mensch is probably probably the most unhinged of the three, however Garland is first amongst equals, as a result of a) he apparently believes there’s a million-dollar conspiracy to label him a conspiracy theorist and b) within the months and months and numerous, limitless tweets since he first rose to prominence together with his “Guys, it’s time for some recreation concept” tweet, he has nonetheless, as far as I can inform, by no means really mentioned any recreation concept. As such his award shall include a bonus shaggy-dog bobblehead.

THE REALLY IT DIDN’T EVEN SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME TO BE HONEST AWARD FOR THE MOST ILL-CHOSEN TATTOO

“Welcome to the future: Your tattoo has a EULA…”

Welcome to the long run: Your tattoo has a EULA that notes it’s topic to DMCA takedowns, won’t work (and features provided that you pay $30 activation+$10 per 12 months), topic to getting hacked, and the app firm owns all content material you add http://pic.twitter.com/UODaIq2hTk

— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) December 23, 2017

THE THAT’LL SHOW THEM AWARD FOR THE MOST INEFFECTIVE ACT OF TECHNO-POLITICAL DEFIANCE

To your entire parliament of the Republic of Chechnya, who stop Instagram en masse in solidarity with their chief, notoriously brutal thug Ramzan Kadyrov, after he was kicked off the platform. As a consequence of this daring transfer … no, cling on, turns on the market have been no penalties in any respect, until you rely widespread mockery resembling this.

THE WORM HAS TURNED AWARD FOR THE MOST INEFFECTIVE ACT OF TECHNO-POLITICAL ADVOCACY

To PotCoin, a cryptocurrency that focuses on marijuana transactions, who sponsored former NBA nice Dennis Rodman’s January journey to North Korea within the hope of, and I quote, ‘one thing that’s fairly constructive’ occurring. I imply, in equity, nothing disastrous occurred, nevertheless it appears to me that peace has not but returned to the Korean peninsula regardless of Rodman’s GOAT rebounding abilities. Perhaps subsequent time?

Congratulations, of a form, to the winners of the Jons! All recipients shall obtain a bobblehead of myself made up as a Blue Man, as per the picture on this submit, which can likely grow to be coveted and more and more useful collectibles. (And evidently someday subsequent 12 months they are going to grow to be redeemable for JonCoin.) And, in fact, all winners shall be remembered by posterity forevermore.

1Bobbleheads shall solely be distributed if and when obtainable and handy. The eventual existence of stated bobbleheads is just not assured or certainly even significantly probably. Not legitimate on days named after Norse or Roman gods.

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