#pretty sure he’s supposed to be like. a 30-something stoner

[metamatronic]

my phone dude design is making me cackle

[1990stae]

Go Dance ~ myg

- series : opposites attract

- pairing : fboy!yoongix x carefree!reader

-genre : angst 

- word count : 1.5k (its short im sorry)

- warnings : drinking, dirty dancing ? cursing/swearing, its a pretty chill chapter. unedited

-a/n : IVE NEVER WRITTEN ON TUMBLR BEFORE SO IM LIKE LITERALLY TERRIFED SO UH, FEEDBACK IS AMAZING YES PLZ GIVE ME THAT

--

Friday Sep 28 , 4:30 PM

“ yn c’mon, we never do anything anymore, why not just, this one party..”

“Because the last time I let you boys drag me to a party, there was some guy groping me for half the night because you thought, and I quote , ‘you two would be cute.’” you looked at Jin lightly before sitting down next to Jimin at the table. 

The boys had taken you to your favorite coffee shop as a small bribe to get you to join them tonight at some frat party you were not interested in. You had already decided to go of course, but Taehyung had already gotten you snacks and makeup from Walmart and you wanted to see just how much more money you could get them to spend before they caught on.

“I’d need new clothes for the night, all of mine are old.” you mentioned, taking a small bite from your cakepop.

“I can buy you something, as long as it’s not too expensive.” Jin pipped up. 

“Are you sure Mom? I dont wanna spend your money.” 

“Yea for sure. It's just a small outfit. Isn't it?” Jimin let out a snicker as Jin finished his sentence.

-

Friday Sep 28 , 8:47 PM

“You’re not wearing the outfit I bought ?!” Jin exclaimed as you pilled into his car, sitting next to Tae in the backseat.

“ I said I was wearing jeans and a  hoodie. You thought I was joking?” you baited, seeing your friend realize what you had done.

“Hyung, how did you not see what she was doing? It was quite obvious.” Jimin told Jin as the car began moving.

Jin said nothing and turned on the radio as he drove towards the campus housing. You lived a few miles away in an apartment with Taehyung, so the drive was short and sweet. 

As you approached the house, you could feel the bass shaking lightly. Stepping out of the car made it more noticeable. The ground below you shook lightly as you walked alongside your friends up to the house. 

The lawn was littered with people dancing and smoking, all sorts of things you thought were better done where the police couldn't catch you. Once you and the boys reached the house you could feel your ear drums bursting at the noise. It wasn't a pleasant sensation nor was it a good song. You sighed and continued following Jin through the house. Stopping in the kitchen.

“Joon!” Jin yelled over the music, throwing his arms up.

“Jin! You guys made it.” He hugged Jin loosely before turning to his friends. Two of which you recognized.

“This is Hobi, Jungkook, and I'm sure you all know Yoongi.” Namjoon patted Yoongi's shoulder lightly before turning back to Jin. Yoongi took a small drink from his cup before looking around, avoiding you and your friends. 

“Right, this is Taehyung, Jimin, and Yn. Nice to meet you all.”

You heard a small scoff and looked over at Hoseok. He seemed uninterested by the situation, but to be fair, so were you.

“Joon, I'm gonna go dance. I’ll see you guys later?” He asked his friend. 

“Yea! Have fun Hyung!” Namjoon told Hobi before watching his friend disappear into the crowd of moving bodies.

You looked around before finding the solo cups and alcohol, moving over to make yourself a drink. Mixing the Coke and Rum in a cup evenly before hearing Tae speaking to Jungkook about some class they had together. 

“Coke and Rum? Seems boring.” a voice mentioned.

“Thanks, I try,” you replied sarcastically before looking up from where the voice had come from. He kept his drink close to his chin as he spoke.

“I didn’t know you and your friends knew what parties were.” he spoke, this time following it with a sip from the cup.

“ aren't you supposed to be sober? Healthy athlete or whatever.” You commented as you turned your body outwards, leaning onto the counter behind you and watching your friends converse about school and work.

“I don't drink” You looked up at him confused as he brought the cup down to your nose, “it’s Coke. I thought loners were always wasted. What's with the half assed drink?”

“I came here with three other people. What about that screams loner to you?” 

“Loner, stoner, same difference really.” he brought the drink back up to his mouth before taking a sip.

“Why are you here if you don't drink?” You knew he was popular, and that he often went to these types of parties. But you only went when forced, and your plan was always to get waisted. 

He looked upward towards the crowd of dancing bodies, “because girls do,” he said to you before sitting his drink down and moving into the room crowded by people.

Jin noticed the separation of you and Yoongi and moved over to where you were standing, taking your drink from your hand and taking a quick drink before handing it back.

“I'm guessing that didn't go too well.”

“Whatever could you mean? It went amazingly. We’re getting married this spring.” you said with a side eye, moving your attention down to your phone and swiping away the notifications.

“He’s really not that bad, yn. Give him a chance. He’s just a bit cocky ya know?” Jin tried, looking at you with small, pleading eyes.

“Why do you want me close to him? He’s pretentious and annoying.”

“Don't ask questions. Go dance,” Jin grabbed the drink from your hand before pushing you away from the counter. You sighed and moved to where you saw Taehyung and Jimin dancing. 

-

Friday Sep 28 , 11:24 PM

Once the three of you were together you felt ease rush over you, being with two of your best friends at a party was a feeling you enjoyed. A feeling you felt to cherish. Tae and Jimin were two of the most free spirited people you knew and being around them just seemed to make you feel free as well.

It wasn't long before you three were joined by Jin. Laughing at the people who seemed to lack rhythm and coordination. Jin mocking their dance moves to make you all smile. Jimin and Tae avoided the girls who came up to them. 

Out of the corner of your eye you noticed him, surrounded by girls, as he practically just stood there, enjoying it. A small scoff escaped your mouth as you watched his eyes scan them as they moved around him. 

The situation was corny and gross enough with him finding you in the crowd, your head turned toward him. This small thing boosted his ego, an ego that was already inflated. A smirk planted on his face as he began moving against the bodies surrounding him, holding eye contact with you for the entirety of the song that happened to be playing.

Jimin seemed to notice the smug expression on Yoongi's face as he pulled you closer into him and danced with you pressed to him. 

One of your favorite things about the friends you kept, was that they never seemed to ask questions or doubt each other, just simply followed along. So when Taehyung's arms snaked around you as he stood in front of you, and Jin moved closer into you, you thanked whatever demon or devil sent them to you, because as you turn your attention away from Yoongi and towards your friends who were, in all honesty, helping you do a softcore porn at this point, you heard the girls around him make sad noises. 

By the time the song had ended, Yoongi had disappeared from the living room and you didn’t particularly care. 

“So, who were we seducing?” Tae asked you, shifting away from the close position. 

“Everyone, we were fucking hot.” Jin remarked.

“Yoongi was being a bitch, didn’t think our little yn should have to put up with a bitch boy playing games.” Jimin told the boys before smiling at you.

“I believe whatever we were doing seemed to work because.. Mr. Min is missing and you’re still here. “ Jin teased before walking back to the kitchen, followed by you and the other two.

“I’m bored, can we leave?” you said, pouring yourself a new drink and facing them. They looked as tired as you did. 

“Leaving so soon? No after party?” Yoongi's voice chimed from behind the counter.

“Hmm, yea i think so. There isn't anything interesting here, besides the boys,” you paused and brought your cup up to your mouth, “and there aren't many interesting boys either.” 

You walked out of the house, followed by your friends and all settling into Jin’s car. 

It was tradition, to say the least, to spend nights at your and Taes apartment after late nights, and although it was only a little after 12, no one felt like going home alone. 

You oddly enjoyed this party more than the others you had been to, which was saying a lot seeing as you never liked attending the ‘popular kids’ parties. Not until now.

[imaginetonyandbucky]

The Buy In

Chapter 2: Taking Out the Trash

by @dracusfyre

“So who exactly are these cops hassling?” Bucky asked the next day as he met up with a man called Kenton at a bodega on 6th. “The shops? Dealers?”

“The ladies,” Kenton 'call me KT' said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. KT was stocky and short, with an aggressive undercut and stud in his lip, looking more like an emo kid than a mob enforcer. “We don’t have dealers here.”

“Really? None?" When KT nodded, Bucky asked, "How come?”

When KT eyeballed him skeptically, Bucky said, “Look, it’s my first day, alright? I’m not from around here.”

“Everyone knows the boss hates drugs,” KT said, hitting the button for the crosswalk. “Like, hates. A few years ago he tried to run all the dealers out, but they kept coming back like weeds. Too much demand to keep them out for long, you know? So the boss figures, you don’t kill weeds by cutting them down, you kill them at the roots. So he started targeting the users, not the dealers. First, he bought up the local methadone clinic, set up a rehab house nearby, brought in a bunch of fancy docs. Puts the word out that anyone who wants to dry out can stay for free and gets a sweet deal when you get your ninety-day chip.”

Bucky frowned. “I remember that. The mayor cut the ribbon on the facility, right? I thought the city set up that clinic.”

“Ha!” KT said it like that, an actual ha. “The boss let them take credit for it, sure. But it was his idea and his money. Once he got the clinic up and running, he put the word out to all the dealers, making them an offer: sell him all your goods, give him your client list, and you get a new job that pays twice what dealing does.”

“What happens if the dealer doesn’t take the offer?”

“One day they find themselves on a cargo ship to Madagascar,” KT said, matter of fact. “Or Indonesia, or Kamchatka.”  Bucky doubted that but kept it to himself; it was way more likely that the dealers got dumped in the river while Stark’s organization sold the drugs at a markup. But it was a good story. “Stoners can stay if they grow their shit locally,” KT continued, “but the party bros looking for bumps gotta get it somewhere else. But God help them if they make trouble, because the boss sure won’t.”

“Huh,” Bucky said, noncommittal. “So what are we doing today? Waiting for the cops to show their faces again?”

“Pretty much. Gonna talk to the ladies, then we’ll hang around and see if the pigs come back and let them know that their behavior is not appreciated.” A few more blocks down, KT knocked on an unassuming red door and led Bucky into a whole new world. He’d known when KT said ladies that he’d meant prostitutes and had braced himself for the worst: bare mattresses on the ground, barred windows, dull eyes and needle tracks. But what Bucky walked into looked more like the Waldorf than any brothel Bucky’d ever seen during his brief tour on Vice. Bucky tried not to stare as he took in the thick carpet and tasteful furnishings around the room, with women scattered around in groups chatting. Along one side of the room was a classy bar with mahogany wood and brass furnishings that had a few customers already despite the fact it was barely 5:30. KT approached the bartender, a petite but statuesque redhead with pinup curls wearing a corset that had, if Bucky’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, knives where the boning would be.

“Evening, Widow,” KT said, and the bartender gave him a grin as she slid a beer to the man across from her.

“Evening, gents,” she said, voice pure Georgia drawl. “So did the Iron Man himself send someone down to check on his chickadees?”

“Iron Man?” Bucky echoed in confusion. “You mean the Mechanic?”

“You must be new,” she said with amusement, and KT nodded. “He’s got lots of names, honey. He likes getting them and giving them. Bet he gave you a name, didn’t he?” she said, crossing her arms and leaning on the bar to give him an appreciative once-over. The pose made her look like she was going to spill out of her corset; didn’t do a thing for Bucky, but behind them the man with the beer walked into the back of a couch. “What does he call you?”

Ridiculously, Bucky felt his ears get hot. “Blue Eyes,” he said. “Probably like Jimmy Blue Eyes, I guess, but I don't know why. My name's not James.”

“It’s cuz of them pretty blue eyes of yours,” Widow said, and she laughed as Bucky felt the flush spread to his neck. “He must have taken a shine to you.”

“We're here about those cops you mentioned,” KT cut in, giving her cleavage a glance of appreciation but staying all business. “Stop teasing the help and give us the rundown.”

Widow gave Bucky another sultry smile and stood up straight. As she picked up a glass and rag and started polishing, the Georgia peach act fell away; her movements going from languorous to brisk. “Like I said to the boss, it was Rumlow and Rollins again,” she said, and Bucky’s eyebrows went up as even the accent disappeared. “They must think they got a pretty strong krishna to keep coming around here. They’ve got some of the new girls rattled. Came in just the other night trying to get a 'law enforcement discount,'" she said with a sneer, "and the only way we got them out of here without violence is Hawkeye got them too drunk to know if they were coming or going.” Widow tilted her head towards a man at the far end of the bar who looked like he was passed out, hat drawn down low over his eyes. “I wouldn’t have asked for backup if they weren’t cops, but.” She shrugged, and Bucky understood. Low level patsani, or even higher level enforcers, could disappear, but not a cop. “They also wanted a cut of what we pay to the Boss and wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell them it didn’t work like that.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked. "Doesn't work like what?"

Widow and KT shared a look. “He’s new,” he reminded her, and Widow smiled.

“Around here you don’t pay up, you buy in,” she said. “You’ll see.” She stepped away to take an order before Bucky could ask another question, so he turned back to KT.

“What are we going to do about the cops when they show up?” Bucky asked. Most times dirty cops got away with shaking down illegal businesses for money because it’s not like a bunch of criminals were going to rat them out to Internal Affairs. “Ask politely?”

“I have a few ideas,” KT said, sounding unconcerned. Bucky waited for him to say something else, but he apparently didn’t seem like sharing, so Bucky grunted and turned to scan the lounge.

While they’d been talking, a few more men, johns, Bucky assumed, had trickled in and were in conversation with the women, each of which were giving every indication that the man they were sitting next to was the funniest and most interesting man in the world. Guess that was one appeal of this place, Bucky thought; a man would never strike out here, and they probably spent good money to maintain the illusion that they were getting laid on their own merits. “Are all of the Boss's brothels like this?”

KT looked around like he was seeing the place for the first time. “Yeah,” he said, lifting one shoulder carelessly. “Boss invests in his people.”

Bucky supposed that made sense. Better margins in higher end prostitution. Still, it was strange to feel like he was hanging out in a hotel bar, complete with tipsy-looking couples disappearing into elevators to hook up. It was after 9 when the cops showed, still, stupidly enough, in uniform. Bucky suppressed the urge to curl his lip in disgust; these guys represented everything Bucky hated about his job, full of arrogance and spite and a thinly veiled hunger for violence. They were bullies, pure and simple, and Bucky hoped he would have a chance to punch one in the face. He could get away with it, too, if he told his superiors it was necessary to maintain his cover.

KT saw them the same time Bucky did; as they came closer to the bar, he slid off his barstool and put himself in their path.

“Who are you supposed to be?” The lead one sneered, looking down at KT, who was a good six inches shorter than the officer. “Are you supposed to be protecting these whores? You?”  Bucky came up behind him to back him up and read the officer’s badge. Rumlow. He memorized his badge number and that of the second officer, Rollins.

“Welcome back, officers,” KT said with a faint smile. “How can we help you?”

“Last time we asked nicely for our money, and we didn’t get it,” Rumlow said, coming closer so he was looming over KT. “We also asked for some trade, and didn’t get that either. We’re not going to ask nicely again.”

“Let me buy you a drink,” KT said, taking a step backward and gesturing towards the bar. “And let’s have a conversation, yeah?”

“We’re not here for no fucking conversation,” Rumlow spat. “We’re here for our money and a good lay, not necessarily in that order.”

“Fine.” KT’s friendly tone disappeared and his posture changed, going from relaxed and open to a coiled, snakelike tension, ready for violence. Bucky had seen that stance before, in his hand to hand combat training class at the academy. “We’ll cut to the chase.” Widow was watching them intently, a throwing knife already in her hand. Movement out of the corner of his eye proved that the man, Hawkeye, wasn’t as passed out as he appeared to be; Bucky could see light reflecting off the barrel of something, aimed at Rumlow. “For you to be coming in here like this, swinging your dick around, two things gotta be true: you must have protection, some fish big enough that you aren’t afraid of the Mechanic, and that big fish knows you’re here and doesn’t care. If that’s the case, then your boss and my boss are going to have problems. But if either of those things is not true, you are in a world of shit.”

At that, Rollins stole an uneasy glance at Rumlow, who was still trying to stare down KT. It was quick, but it gave the game away – and KT knew it, because suddenly he smiled and relaxed, which made Rumlow scowl harder. “Busted,” he said. “It’s not going to be hard to find out who your protection is, officers. And I don’t think they are going to be happy that you are picking fights with the Mechanic. Am I right?”

“Fuck you,” Rumlow snarled, and swung at KT. But the smaller man was ready, and KT stepped to one side of the swing, then grabbed Rumlow’s wrist and pulled at the same time that he put a hand on the back of his head and shoved, sending the man stumbling. Textbook judo move, to Bucky's eyes. As his partner got his feet under him again, Rollins went for his gun but Bucky already had his hand on it, shoving back down into its holster.

“Let’s keep it a fair fight,” Bucky said in a low voice, and Rollins listened because Bucky’s other hand had a knife slid up under the bottom edge of his bullet proof vest.

“Don’t make this any worse than it already is,” KT was saying, Rumlow’s face bright red with fury. “The Boss will let bygones be bygones if you leave now and don’t come back, but if blood gets shed...” He shook his head.

Rumlow’s face was red and Bucky could tell that he was furious at having been humiliated by someone smaller and lighter than him. Bucky was afraid that he would go for his pistol, but instead he put his hands up like he was in a boxing ring. KT smiled faintly and just made a “come here,” gesture, and that’s when Bucky knew he was trying to piss him off. And it worked; Rumlow lunged, swinging with a tight haymaker that would easily have broken KT’s jaw.

If it had connected, that is. But instead of trying to block, KT dropped to one knee, ducking under the swing, and hit Rumlow in the dick with an elbow as he scooped his leg and stood, throwing Rumlow to the ground where he curled around himself, cursing incoherently with pain.

Bucky whistled long and low, smothering a laugh. KT laid that asshole out in seconds. He released Rollins and said, “You can have your turn now, if you want.”

“That’s assault on an officer,” Rollins snarled, trying to help Rumlow to his feet. “I should haul you down to the station for that.”

“Your buddy clearly started it,” Bucky said. “It’s not like you don’t have witnesses. I’d get out of here before he does anything worse.” Bucky didn’t know if it was the fact that Rumlow still couldn’t stand up straight or the way that everyone was staring at them, but Rollins seemed to know good advice when he heard it, because they did leave, shouting threats the entire way.

“Did you get all that?” KT called out after the door slammed shut behind them, heading back to the bar where the Widow’s knife had disappeared like she’d never drawn it in the first place.

“Every second,” Hawkeye rumbled, sitting up. The barrel that Bucky had seen was a high-end camera lens, not a gun; he’d been videotaping the whole encounter. “Uploading it to YouTube now. That should get them off the streets for a while.”

“That’s how the Boss likes to settle things,” KT said with satisfaction. When he noticed Bucky looking at him with confusion, he said, “Listen here, because this is important: the Boss doesn’t like us to kill people. We don’t do this whole ‘send our guy to the hospital, we send your guy to the morgue’ thing, got it? We send them to the poorhouse. The poor bastard gets so tied up in lawsuits, repossessions, revoked passports, suspended licenses, and investigations that he wishes he were dead. Then the Boss goes after the poor bastard’s boss, and that boss’s boss…mobsters, dons, whatever you want to call them, they don’t mind dying, but they never, ever want to be broke. You start threating their bottom line and they pay attention.”

“Seriously?” Bucky said skeptically. Stark’s file said that he had plenty of blood on his hands.

“Seriously. You might get a pass if you don’t start it, but if it happens again, he cuts you loose, and believe me, it doesn’t take the cops long to track you down. They are hungry for anything they can get on the Boss.”

“You don't say,” Bucky said blandly. "So now what do we do?"

"We're going to stick around until the ladies close up shop, make sure those two don't get any bright ideas to circle back." KT pulled out his phone and started typing in it as he got back on his barstool where the ice in his drink had barely had time to melt. "Hawkeye usually makes sure the clientele behave themselves, so you can have a drink, but don't proposition any of the ladies while you're working."

"Right." What a strange goddamn way to run a criminal enterprise. After a moment, Bucky took a seat beside him and accepted a drink menu from the Widow, whose mouth was curling like she could read Bucky's thoughts. 

"You'll get used to it, Blue Eyes," she said. "I got a good feeling about you."

[takemebacktowheniwassane]

Oh, Incorrect Quotes Generator

-

Alana: Anyone d-

Connor: Depressed?

Jared: Drained?

Evan: Dumb?

Alana: -done with their work... what is wrong with you people...

-

This one's a bit more?? Um?? Non-kid friendly TTvTT

Zoe: Guys, is having a penis fun?

Connor: It has its ups and downs.

Evan: It's gets a little hard sometimes.

Jared: IT'S A PAIN IN THE ASS!

Zoe: Jesus fuck, you guys.

-

Evan: You're a loose cannon, Jared.

Jared: No, I'm not. I'm a cannon, maybe. But a loose cannon? Is that what you think of me?

Alana: I think you play by your own rules.

Zoe: No way, he thinks rules were meant to be broken.

Evan: Those are all attributes of a loose cannon.

Jared: No, I'm just a reckless renegade. Connor is the real loose cannon.

Connor: *Smashes a chair*

-

Evan, trying to convince Connor to join the group: You know... I just thought it'd be good to have someone to come along who's... strong!

Alana: And loud!

Zoe: And grumpy!

Jared: And oblivious to reality!

Connor:

-

Alana: What did you guys get in your yearbooks?

Zoe: 'Prettiest smile!' :)

Evan: 'Nicest personality!' :)

Jared: 'Most likely to start a bar fight.'

Connor: 'Least likely to start a bar fight, but most likely to win one.'

-

Zoe: Bridge the generation gap by combining old and new slang into one!

Evan: Tubular AF!

Alana: Mood to the max!

Connor, annoyed: Groovy, I hate it.

Jared, just as annoyed: If she breathes she's a square.

-

Evan: You KIDNAPPED Connor?! That's illegal!!

Jared: But Evan, what's more illegal? Briefly inconveniencing Connor, or destroying our dreams?

Evan: Kidnapping Connor, Jared!!

Zoe: Evan, listen, whatever I may think of you right now- these people need you to inspire them!

Evan: What, to KIDNAP PEOPLE?!?!

Zoe: To work together!

Evan: TO KIDNAP PEOPLE!?!?

Jared: Evan, I thought we both agreed, a stoner is not a people.

-

Alana: Evan, stop! This isn't you! You've gone mad with power!

Evan: Well, of course I have.

Evan: Have you ever tried going mad without power?

Evan: It's boring.

-

Evan: .. .----. -- / ... --- .-. .-. -.--

Jared: What was that??

Evan: Remorse code.

Jared: I'm even angrier at you now.

-

Connor, high off his ass: I'm at least 10 times funnier and sexier than you.

Evan: But 10 times 0 is just 0.

Zoe: Then I guess the jokes on you, because he can't do math.

-

Jared: I can explain.

Evan: Can you?

Jared: If you give me 30 seconds to think of a lie.

-

Jared: If you were to vacuum up jello, it'd make a neat noise.

Evan: I beg to differ.

Jared: Then beg.

-

Jared: This is such a bad idea.

Evan: Then why are you coming along?

Jared: One of us needs to be able to talk the cops out of arresting us when this all goes terribly wrong.

-

Connor: *Accidentally hits Jared in the face*

Connor: *Can't decide between saying 'I'm fucking sorry', and 'Are you okay'*

Connor: ARE YOU FUCKING SORRY??

Evan: What is wrong with you?!

-

Evan: This is bothering me.

Jared: Well, you are digging up a corpse.

Evan: No, not that. That's, uh, pretty par for the course, actually.

-

Jared: You're the love of my life, and my best friend. I would do anything for you.

Evan: I want you to eat three meals a day and have a decent sleep schedule.

Jared: Absolutely not.

-

Jared: I was arrested for being too cool.

Connor: The charges were dropped due to lack of supporting evidence.

-

Jared: Name a more iconic duo than my crippling fear of abandonment and my anxiety. I'll wait.

Evan: You and me.

Jared, tearing up: Okay.

-

Jared: God, give me patience.

Connor: I think you mean strength.

Jared: If God gave me strength, then you'd be double dead.

-

Connor: I prevented a murder today.

Alana: Really? How did you do that?

Connor: Self control.

-

Jared: I am not out of control! I am a law abiding citizen!

Evan: Name one law.

Jared: Don't kill people?

Evan: That one's on me. I set the bar too low.

-

Alana: Whaddaya call a fish with no eye?

Jared, not looking up from his phone: Myxine Circifrons.

Alana:

Alana: A fsh

-

Evan: I turned out perfectly fine!

Zoe: This morning you thought a ghost made your toast!

Evan: I DIDN'T PUT THE BREAD IN, Y O U DIDN'T PUT THE BREAD IN-

-

Jared: WHAT'S YOUR TYPE

Evan: Anything, honestly. But nerds especially.

Jared, desperately as Evan bleeds out: YOUR B L O O D TYPE

Evan: Oh! B positive.

Jared: DON'T TRY TO CHEER ME UP, JUST TELL ME YOUR BLOOD TYPE

Evan:

-

Evan: It's dark in here...

Jared: Don't worry dude, I've got this

Jared: *Stomps his foot on the ground*

Jared: *Heelies light up*

-

Evan: Treat spiders the way YOU want to be treated!

Jared: Killed without hesitation.

Alana & Evan, simultaneously: nO-

-

Miguel: Let's watch Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

Connor: Okay?

Miguel: And make out during the scary parts.

Connor: The-

Connor: The scary parts-

Connor: Of Sharkboy and Lavagirl?

-

Evan: Can you PLEASE be serious for 5 minutes??

Jared: My record is 4, but I think I can do it.

-

Evan: So that's my plan.

Jared: Are you fine with constructive criticism? I don't want to sound mean.

Evan: Sure, go ahead.

Jared: It fucking sucks.

Evan: That's not constructive criticism.

-

Jared: Fuck.

Alana: We've got to work on your cursing.

Jared: Why? I'm pretty good at cursing already.

-

Connor: Lol heads up if you try to make a candle with food coloring, the food coloring will just sink to the bottom of the glass, and when the flame eventually reaches the bottom all the food coloring will catch fire and become one giant tall flame that you cannot possibly blow out and the glass will start to crack and then you'll throw your tea on it in a panic and then the extremely hot food coloring will boil and sizzle horribly and then the glass will shatter. Please take my word on this lmfao

Evan: What did you do-?

Connor: A MISTAKE-

-

Larry, with his back turned: I've been expecting you.

Connor: How did you do that without turning around?

Larry: I'm gonna be honest, the first couple of people I did that to were not you.

-

Evan: How petty can you get??

Jared: I once edited a Wikipedia article to win an argument I was wrong about.

-

Jared: Today is a day of running through hurdles.

Alana: Aren't you supposed to jump OVER hurdles?

Jared: Whatever. Fear is only something to be afraid of if you let it scare you.

-

Jared: May I sit there?

Evan: That's my lap.

Jared: That doesn't answer my question, Evan.

-

Jared: So.. are we flirting right now?

Connor: I'm LITERALLY stabbing you.

Jared:

Jared: That does not answer the question

-

Aftermath of the last one- lmfao-

Evan: I'm begging you, please go to the hospital-

Jared: Oh, i'm sorry, is this OUR stab wound? Stay out of it.

-

Jared: Do you have any skeletons in your closet?

Connor: Do you mean literally or figuratively?

Jared: The fact that I have to specify...

-

Evan: Jail is no fun. I'll tell you that much.

Connor: Oh, you've been?

Evan: Once. In Monopoly.

-

Evan: Your right.

Jared: That's... an unusual phrase for you. Did you just learn it?

-

Jared: Petition to remove the 'd' from Wednesday.

Connor, high: Wednesay.

Jared: Not what I had in mind, but i'm flexible.

-

Alana: Man.. I only ever see you awake. Don't you ever shut down or stop running?

Jared: Oh, i'm always running.

Jared: The question is from what.

-

Evan: Top 30 reasons why Evan is super sorry! ..Number 5 might surprise you!

Jared: Top 30 anime deaths. Number One: YOUR FUCKING ASS RIGHT NOW!!

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Witches, Chapter 9: snippets of a day at the WAA, except the day is April 20, and nobody’s making weed jokes because all of them but Athena have something else to associate with this particular day.

Actually Clay’s making weed jokes but he doesn’t work here. You don’t even go here!

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

Apollo wakes in the morning, before his alarm, to the refrain of “I’m Clay Terran and I’m fine!”, which means that he isn’t fine, at all, and also that Apollo isn’t going back to sleep even if he had time. 

He rolls out of bed and pads into the kitchen in time to watch Clay, considering the coffee maker on the counter, turn away from it and grab an energy drink out of the fridge. “Rough work week so far?” he asks.

“Not your level yet,” Clay replies, “but pretty damn close.” He cracks the can open and drinks from it for four entire consecutive seconds. “The director’s been getting progressively more unhinged since Monday morning, and then that gets Mr Starbuck anxious, and then there’s a feedback loop, and then yesterday I was around to get to hear the director and one of the robotics engineers yelling at each other and she told him to go fuck himself - which, honestly iconic, you go, Aura, do it for all of us—” He pauses for breath and another sip of caffeine. “But it’s. Y’know. Not good, all considered.”

“Sometimes I feel like you shouldn’t be telling me all this,” Apollo says with a laugh.

Clay shrugs. “Whatever, dude - you know the director and Mr Starbuck, and I’ve only signed NDAs for tech stuff and the like. Nothing about fun personnel, uh—” He waves a hand and nearly knocks over a glass that was left on the counter by the sink. “Eccentricities. Anyway I hope you didn’t want to eat before work, because we have caffeine, and that is it.”

Apollo nods. He was supposed to do the grocery shopping on Sunday. Then Trucy dragged him out and it turned into three exhausting days of chasing yokai.

And the chase isn’t over, either. He’s relieved, the part of him that isn’t hypocritical and dead; ease his conscience for the low low price of tramping through the woods to find an actual giant bird monster and being forever afraid of how Blackquill managed to eavesdrop on that conversation. (He would swear Taka wasn’t there until it was.) That, and the higher price of knowing that it took the chief prosecutor to get them to move, that without him, and Blackquill, Apollo would’ve just stayed laying in the dirt. Athena might’ve gone mad, though.

“Maybe I’ll just get brunch at Eldoon’s,” Apollo says.

Clay feigns gagging, which turns into a real cough when he tries to stop too quickly. “It’s what you’d deserve.”

Apollo flips him off as he leaves the kitchen to shower and do his hair; Clay remains there to get caffeinated and scream. He has migrated to the living room when Apollo returns with dried and gelled spikes. “You know what day today is?” Clay asks.

All month, Apollo watched the calendar, watching the date come closer and closer. The twentieth of April, and a year ago, something. “The anniversary of me getting my boss arrested and starting down a path that ends with me working at the world’s worst law office, and you driving us on a road trip to pull a soul out of a tree stump?”

Clay blinks. “Dude,” he says. “No. It’s the day that we’re obligated to make stoner jokes even if you’ve never snorted a weed in your lives. Four-twenty bl—”

“Fuck you,” Apollo interrupts, very solemnly. Clay cackles. “‘Snorted a weed’, are you serious—”

Clay throws his empty can at him. Apollo catches it and hurls it back, missing Clay entirely and bouncing it off the coffee table. “Trying to give you something to think about that isn’t how fucked your life got this time last year! You’re welcome, dude!” Apollo snorts. “Or I’d try to regale you with more stories about the Center imploding but we’d be here for the rest of our lives.”

“Oh.” It’s not the route that Apollo would go for distraction, but that’s because he isn’t Clay, and that’s how they manage to be both best friends and a mostly-functioning household. “I’m gonna pass on that when I see Trucy, though. Not sure the thought counts when it’s weed jokes but her biological dad’s death was the thing happening last year.”

“Hard pass,” Clay agrees. “Just scream for a while.” He snaps his fingers. “It worked for us!” 

It wasn’t the twentieth, though, Zak’s death. It was a few days before: a weekend interim, and Apollo notified late Sunday night that Phoenix Wright wanted him to head up his defense. He slept for about four and a half hours. And if he remembers correctly, the actual date of Zak Gramarye’s death, in the early hours of the morning, was the seventeenth. 

And surely Trucy remembers that. A few days ago she would’ve started thinking of that. A few days ago - the seventeenth, Sunday, she called him up and told him he had a job and that job was coming with her to Nine-Tails Vale. Was that her choice of distraction - which makes him her choice of company. Because Jinxie was working, and Athena wasn’t here yet and Phoenix was picking her up. But surely Trucy has other friends?

(But Apollo’s the one who knows. Just like with Klavier; coincidentally, someone else Apollo needs to check in with on this particular day.)

“When does screaming not work?” Apollo asks, going to get the grocery list from the kitchen so that he can deal with it after work, try to set his life back to a normal schedule.

-

Trucy lies on the couch, her feet dangling over the arm, already there in the office under the dimmed lights when Apollo walks in. “Hey,” she says, without moving, without looking up, and most worryingly, without the mask of a smile forced onto her face.

Apollo drops his briefcase next to the other couch, unwilling to bother getting to his desk right now. “Hey,” he replies, sinking down into the cushions. The lights flicker like a blink and have a warmer tone to them on their return. 

Trucy’s hands unclasp and the blue mitamah falls onto her chest. “We met a year ago today, remember?” As if Apollo could forget. She handed him a playing card and he stepped out of one world into the next. 

“I didn’t know who you were that day, though,” Apollo says. A girl in a top hat handing him suspicious evidence; that’s the way Phoenix fell, too. 

“Yeah, Daddy didn’t tell me your name either,” Trucy says. Of course he didn’t. It stings more than it should. “Said to give it to the red guy with the hair and the bracelet.”

So those are his most prominent characteristics - those and his voice. “I see,” Apollo says, spinning his bracelet around his wrist. Trucy watches with big staring eyes, the mitamah back cradled in her hands. So damn complicated for both of them. “This bracelet was my mother’s,” he says. Clay knows this, Clay and no one else in this hemisphere. “It’s the only thing I have from her or know about her.”

Trucy blinks. She raises her head up an inch and falls back. “Not even her name?” Apollo shakes his head. “My mother’s name was Thalassa.” This, Apollo knows. Phoenix told him. “Everything I know about her, someone had to tell me. Daddy, my other daddy, didn’t like to talk about her, but Uncle Valant said that she had the most beautiful singing voice and that’s why I’m so good at it too.” Pause. Looks away from Apollo, again opening her hands to ponder the mitamah. “I can sometimes hear this - humming, kind of? Like some faint echo voice. Like she’s still trying to sing to me.”

Apollo can only remember how unnerving he found the sound. Unnerving, and more unnerving for the way he wanted to keep listening. A siren’s song, reeling him in. Better not to say that. Better to let Trucy just have any comfort she can take from it. 

She closes her eyes, faced turned to the ceiling. “I want to be a stage magician,” she says. “Like Uncle Valant. Do tricks that entertain people, not trick them to hurt them and be selfish. He made a career out of it alone for seven years. Sort of. Somewhat.” Her eyes open, remaining fixed above her. “But I bet I could. I just have to find my audience here. My Youtube audience is good but not really enough, but I bet I can make a niche. Like you have a niche, all the most impossible and complicated cases.”

Her tone is that of talking to herself, of talking without wanting response. Apollo leans against the arm of the couch. Not even 8:30 in the morning and they’re both exhausted and sad. What a week, and only half done. “Like we generalize that people in LA don’t trust magic but that’s just a generalization, you know? I want a spotlight. Disappearing acts, escape the coffin before the sword goes through - all that. Not just like Uncle Valant did, working in the wings for Lamiroir and Prosecutor Gavin.” She finally props herself up on her elbow. “I wondered if Prosecutor Gavin brought Uncle Valant on to try and ask him about Daddy’s last case, when Daddy disappeared. But that would be a really sneaky thing to do and Prosecutor Gavin is too pretty to be that sneaky.”

“You think so?” Apollo asks. “I think he knows he can get away with it because he’s pretty and everyone’s too distracted by that.” In a literal magic way. He’s pretty because he’s sneaky, and sneaky because he’s pretty, all because he’s glamourous. And all it cost him was his birthright. 

“Are you texting him?” Trucy pushes herself up the whole way, her eyes narrowed and assessing whether she can leap the coffee table between them to rip the phone from his hands. “Don’t tell him I said that!”

“I’m not telling him you said that!” Apollo is too complicit in that to be able to mention it. “You just reminded me that I was going to tell him about this last case.”

“That’s gonna be a really long text,” Trucy says. 

“It’s not like I’m gonna put the entire trial transcription in it!”

You would not believe the case I just went through.  Also, have you ever met prosecutor Blackquill?

“It’d be simpler to ask him on a date and just tell him about it.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Why not?” Trucy leans forward and Apollo instinctively presses his back into the couch and pulls his phone close. He can only begin to imagine what she would do if she got her hands on it. “You’d be able to see how he’s doing with…” She swallows and slumps backwards. “Y’know.”

He does, and speaks past a lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

All three of them, inextricably linked. And Apollo should be the one who has it together, at least relatively speaking, in this regard. It wasn’t his family. 

(Just reminds him of it. Take solace in the fact that Nahyuta and I look nothing alike. Don’t think about the fact that Dhurke looked nothing like Nahyuta, either.)

-

Athena whirls into the office at 9:05 am with what Apollo now understands is her base-level excitability. He and Trucy cleaned up the residual evidence of their feelings before she arrived, anticipating her arrival. Lock it all away; Athena doesn’t need to know what they’ve been through. Trucy reattaches her smile; Apollo shoves his phone back into his pocket. “Am I late?” Athena asks, stumbling straight into the couch. “I’m sorry! It won’t happen again!” 

“You’re not late unless Daddy’s here before you,” Trucy says. “No need to apologize! We’re all friends here!”

Athena, beaming now, ventures further into the room, her eyes casting around with the same attentiveness she used for a crime scene. Her gaze lingers on the portrait of Zak above the piano, and then the piano itself, table as it is for Trucy’s smallest stage-magic props and a small half-finished canvas that Vera left the last time she came to visit and they ended up playing blackjack instead of Trucy doing her homework and Vera her painting. That was two weeks ago. Not much gets done promptly if it isn’t for a case. “Do we have desks or do we just work from the couches?” Athena asks. “Because I mean, I totally—”

“Next room,” Apollo says. 

“Oh,” Trucy says, suddenly downcast. “That means I don’t have a desk anymore.”

“You never use a desk,” Apollo says. “You just work on the floor.”

“Oh,” Trucy says again, brighter now, and she follows Athena back to the desks to point her to the right one. “Yeah. I do. Anyway!” Athena dumps her bag on what is now her desk. “Welcome to the Wright Anything Agency, Athena! I was planning a speech over the weekend and then the case happened and you weren’t even at the office, so I’ve forgotten it by now. But that’s the WAA way! That’s Daddy and Polly’s court style, make it up as they go!”

“I resent that statement,” Apollo says. 

“Yeah, I saw it right from the bench these past two days!” Athena doesn’t sit down in the chair and instead hops up onto her desk, kicking her heels off the side of it. “I kept thinking we didn’t know anything and we were gonna sink, and then bam! Apollo’s turned it all around again!”

“That’s what he does best!”

“Ah,” Apollo says. The girls both grin at him, this once, alarmingly sincere. “Th-thanks.” He’d rather be properly equipped for a major case, the way he’s occasionally fortunate to get a client not accused of murder, and so not have a worrying number of adrenaline spikes per court session - but he’ll take what he can get.

“Speaking of court,” Trucy adds, crossing the room and flinging herself into Phoenix’s desk chair, the momentum rolling her back into the wall, “Daddy said that we’ve got to track down the real Tenma Taro now, too?”

“He mentioned that?” Apollo’s heart leaps back up to his throat. And just after he had his confidence bolstered, too. 

(Phoenix came back from the Prosecutors Office and called it “an unfortunate necessity”, but none of them could argue that it wasn’t a necessity. For their consciences; for the proper administration of justice; for the safety of the entire town of Nine-Tails Vale. Mayor Tenma might be its guardian wrestler-yokai, but he’s also the mayor of Tenma Town, and herding a yokai back to its prison is not a one-man job. Phoenix and his fae friends have the plan, or will at some point; depending on how much demonic activity they see out of the Vale, the timetable will move up or down. “Ideally, we deal with it in June, wait for the summer solstice,” he had said. “Fae powers fluctuate some with the seasons; yokai shouldn’t be much different. Hit it when it’s weakest, if we’re lucky.”)

“A little bit.” Trucy shrugs. “But I can help too! I’ve never known anything to get out of my panties if I didn’t want it too, so if we need a more secure place than the Forbidden Chamber—”

“Why did they have to be magic panties?” Apollo asks. “Why couldn’t it be magic literally anything else?”

“Don’t look a pair of gift panties in the waistband—”

“Enough!”

-

Phoenix arrives some time after 11, bleary-eyed though he has coffee in hand. “‘Morning, everyone,” he says, sounding as dead as he looks. He blinks a few times. “Athena. Truce. Apollo, how’re you doing?”

Is that question just for him or all of them, and Apollo the last to be listed? He wouldn’t know how to answer that question today were it anyone else asking, either. “Uh, fine,” he says. Phoenix’s eyes narrow slightly and drift around Apollo, assessing him in some way. “Except for the part where Athena’s making us up a workout regime to prepare for yokai-fighting.”

There is a moment's delay, Phoenix still pondering him, and then the words must finally hit and he laughs. “Athena,” he says, “are you really trying to get everyone in on punching Tenma Taro?”

“No!” she says indignantly. “It’s a couch-to-5k plan, basically. So that everyone’s got enough stamina to run away from yokai when we have to bait it out, and then you can run a race with me after!”

“We’re not using people as bait,” Phoenix says. “Overruled.” Athena raises her hand like they’re in a classroom and Phoenix is their teacher and not a lenient boss and absent mentor. “No, not even if you’re volunteering to be the bait.”

Athena lowers her hand. 

-

3:43 pm, Apollo’s phone buzzes, removing him from the outskirts of Trucy and Athena’s discussion, continued from the prior afternoon, about how one actually manages to purchase a vehicle (they don’t know) and heckling Phoenix for not having a driver’s license. At this point Apollo realizes he doesn’t know how or if Athena is driving legally in America and decides that he’s rather glad for any distraction.

-heard some unfortunates had to face him -you and fraulein??

Something about the messages bothers him, something he can’t put his finger on. 

Not Trucy. Agency has a new girl who just passed the Bar and she and I had to deal with the crazy magic murder samurai. Everything about it felt like an unplanned hazing ritual

He expects an answer right away; once Klavier starts talking, he usually keeps going. A minute ticks past, then another. Apollo figures out what isn’t right. Fraülein isn’t properly accented. Klavier usually takes more care than that. Appearances are too important to him, even - or maybe especially - when Apollo can’t see him.

Another minute. Apollo doesn’t look at the calendar. He looks at Phoenix, hunched over some books to study for the Bar, as Athena recalls as much as she can about taking it earlier in the year, in Europe. Her, speeding along in her career, and him, trying to make up for seven years of lost time that never should have been.

Apollo sends another text.

Are you all right?

(It’s not too presumptuous a question to ask off of one typo, not today, and not when they both know full well that through text, Klavier can lie to him.)

-

Phoenix leaves not long after four, telling the girls now that he’s actually trying to read, they are far too loud and distracting and he’s going somewhere quieter. Apollo assumes he must mean his apartment, except Phoenix doesn’t take any books with him, and Trucy shouts, “Say hi to Mr Edgeworth for me!” so she obviously knows or guessed something more than Apollo could.

“And me!” Athena adds. “Wait, what happens if we get a client in the next hour and you’re not here?”

“You were emailing Edgeworth this morning,” Phoenix says to her. “Didn’t you include ‘hi’ anywhere in there? Anyway, you’ve got Apollo. Unless you think there’s magic involved, I’m not the one to ask for help.”

He waves over his shoulder and closes the door, leaving Trucy plunking away without rhythm at the piano and Athena wincing at each new out-of-tune note. And Apollo, waiting.

-

“I’m co-opting your office for study space, since you’re the one who’s pushed me into this,” Phoenix says. 

“All right,” Edgeworth says, which is the lack of reaction that disappoints Phoenix even though he expects it because they’re adults now and Edgeworth keeps himself so much more tightly guarded, except where his ability to fold paper cranes is concerned, still. Then he meets Phoenix’s eyes and a shadow crosses his face, left over from their conversation yesterday. Should I bring it up again, this matter of trust? that expressions asks, and then the decision, no, and the lines between Edgeworth’s brows smooth out some. “How’s Trucy doing?”

He had asked the other day, too, and the answer is still the same. “She’s been pretending that nothing happened, that there’s no significance to these past few days, even to me.” Phoenix sighs and slumps deeper into the couch. “I know she always opens up to me when she’s ready, but…” She might not. She hasn’t let him in to her thoughts about Zak beyond that one night after she and Apollo found Thalassa’s soul. He doesn’t know if there’s more than love and grief, if her feelings are turning conflicted. 

(Phoenix’s opinion of Zak isn’t conflicted. Neither is Edgeworth’s.)

“And Apollo’s hung up on it all too,” Phoenix adds. It was written plain on his face, if the Psyche-Locks when he said he was fine weren’t indication enough. (Though the one of the three did break when he talked about Athena’s hoped-for running regime.) “And I’m pretty sure I’m the worst person to talk to him about anything, and if I try I’ll dig myself deeper in his opinion.” Hell, forget saying anything. Existing around Apollo is probably a jackhammer to the bedrock at the bottom of the grave Phoenix has dug. Best to stay out of his way, let him and Athena now do their thing. He’s a smart kid. He’ll be fine. 

Phoenix doesn’t like the expression that Edgeworth is making again and pivots quickly to something he meant to ask at some point anyway. “And how’s this side of things holding up?”

“You don’t need to be so obtuse in asking,” Edgeworth says. “Gavin’s seemed fine. I lightened his case load last week and this, anyway, to give him room to breathe if he needs it.”

“That’s kind of you,” Phoenix says. Edgeworth’s frown returns, deeper than before, as though the implication is that he usually isn’t. “I’m glad you’re not holding a grudge.” 

(“Anymore” is the word they both know fits silently at the end of that sentence.)

“With the information I was given, you understand why I drew such a conclusion,” Edgeworth says. 

(And “if you had let me in, I would have acted differently” hangs in the air, a ghost over them both.)

Phoenix picks himself up to go investigate the law tomes on Edgeworth’s shelves. “I know.”

(The punchline: “And I’m not sorry because I’m afraid Kristoph would have killed you if you tried to get involved.” And then the words he won’t ever say, “I’d spend seven more lifetimes disbarred and disgraced than risk losing you again.”)

Behind him, Edgeworth sighs. And all he says is, “Though Gavin did call out today. I’m not sure that’s a good sign.”

“No,” Phoenix agrees. “I’m not either.” His hand twitches to move toward his phone instead the books in front of him. Give Apollo a call, tell him to check in on that. 

But he’s pretty sure Apollo wouldn’t appreciate him micromanaging his personal relationships, either. (Any more than he’s already given him nudges regarding Klavier. The way he wishes someone had nudged him to reach out to Edgeworth, not that he’s sure if Edgeworth back then would have accepted the offered hand.)

You can’t save everyone, whispers the bitter voice of his hard heart, calcified from years of drowning. Pick a priority, it sneers. Stop bleeding for every sad sorry soul that comes your way. Athena. Klavier. Vera. Blackquill’s blacked-out case file on his desk, not so much for him but for Edgeworth, who hopes they can piece the legal system back together if they just keep digging. 

And for once, he tells that voice to shut up, because if he can bleed he’s still alive. That’s how he can even know he is - not that he’s necessarily still human, but that he’s anything at all. 

-

“Do we have food at home?” Athena asks.

“We did,” Trucy says. “And it was enough for Daddy and me for a week. And you ate it all the past three days.”

It’s like in high school, in the last class of the day, with just a few minutes left on the clock and everyone getting antsy. Except it’s a law office, even if Athena is the age to still be in high school, and Trucy is still in high school. And yeah, maybe at the end of the day sometimes in the Gavin Law Office, some of them would be itching to go home. But they’d never dare show it. And Apollo still feels culture shock, sometimes, both from the memory of working for Kristoph, and from his concept of what he’s pretty sure a law office should be like.

He’s mostly used to it, mostly. It’s just odd, to have Athena here - another actual lawyer here. Like she’s part of an attempt to make this into a respectable business, but nothing else has changed.

“So what you’re saying is that as soon as we’re out of here I need to go buy more chicken,” Athena says.

“You want to do my grocery shopping too?” Apollo asks. “You’ve got the car for transporting it all.”

“If you give me your credit card, sure.” Athena’s grin says, in bold type, that she should absolutely not be trusted with anyone’s credit card.

“No.”

She blinks at him with poorly feigned innocence. “But that’s the fair way to do it, if some of your groceries are gonna be taking up the trunk space that I need to use for chicken.”

“How much chicken are you buying?” Apollo asks.

“I need protein for my workouts!”

“I can’t believe you got a gym membership here before you even looked for an apartment.” Trucy raises her eyebrow at him. Apollo considers what he just said and lays it against everything he knows of his new coworker. “Actually, I can,” he amends, and he has to laugh with her at her obvious pride in this fact.

She’ll be nice to have around. Good company. It gets quiet when Trucy isn’t around, and when it’s quiet he has even more time to wonder, to ask questions of people who he’ll never again see to answer them. And sometimes in the quiet he finds himself talking out loud, knowing there’s someone listening and not knowing how much capacity she has to repeat what he’s said. She can flicker lights and shatter mirrors; can she use a keyboard? An ouija board?

He likes the prospect of always having someone around who can talk back, even if he won’t be saying to Athena anything like the ponderings he’s put to Mia. 

“We’re heading out,” Trucy says. “It’s not quite five but I’m the boss here.”

“Okay,” Apollo says. “I’m trying to finish writing up what happened this case.”

“How’s that going?” Trucy asks. 

Apollo frowns at his journal and the ink that’s smudging in his haste to write. “It makes even less sense to me this way.”

“Oh, I’m glad I’m not the only one getting more confused trying to remember what all we just did,” Athena says. “What a needlessly convoluted murder plan.” She lingers with her foot propping the door open after Trucy has already gone out. “See you tomorrow! Good luck with your grocery shopping! Just remember I offered!”

“You offered to commit credit card fraud!”

The door closing doesn’t fully muffle her laughter. Apollo returns to his desk, finds that he’d left his phone there and in the fifteen minutes he had slowly migrated up to the front room with the girls, he missed several strings of messages, all from one particular person.

-have you ever been to kitaskis bakery -pretty sure its not even a money laundering fromt -but if it is its the best front I’ve eaten at -love to say it wins by being the only but - :| -lets not talk about that

He’s pretty sure that between the lines, all these read “not all right”. He keeps scrolling. The next set are timestamped just five minutes later.

-Vongole was mad I wouldnt give her muffin -so she ate salt packets -threw up the salt pakcets -now sticking her head in every trash can in the park -will update you if she finds panties -if she does I think this parkr is cursed -even if she doesn’t

Apollo closes his eyes and leans his head back until the ceiling lights bleed bright through his eyelids. He did ask, and here, the answer. Tossing his journal and pen in a drawer and deciding he’ll deal with the write-up tomorrow, he grabs his bag and heads for the door. If Athena isn’t arriving late unless she gets there after Phoenix, then Apollo isn’t leaving early if he’s the last to leave. 

The lights in the room blink out before he hits the switch, but when he looks back, they spring back on and again flicker off, like a question. “Yeah, I’m done for the day,” Apollo says. The blinds drop down over the windows and hit the sills with a loud clattering sound that makes him jump. Whether she meant to startle him or not, he has the urge to explain to her, justify himself. Better to be safe. Better to be sure. “Gavin’s finally lost his mind, I think.” 

He waves his phone screen at the ceiling. He has no idea how she knows what’s happening in the office, whether she can see everything or hear or something else, but he’s found himself imitating Phoenix, orienting himself toward the ceiling to address her. Their office, a shrine, and she, their patron god. The Holy Mother of the Wright Anything Agency.

The front door swings open for him, and the rest of the office darkens behind him.

[amplesalty]

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

A not so random review...

What’s this, content outside of the periods of October or December? Well, I guess you could call this striking while the iron is hot-ish, and trying to keep the ball rolling after I actually made it through a whole October for once. That and this is laying the groundwork for something a little further down the line.

Summarizing this as ‘the Indian dude from Van Wilder and the Asian dude from American Pie’ almost feels a little lazy but I think that’s literally how it was advertised at the time. Apparently John Cho’s character in Pie is who we have to thank for the popularization of the term ‘MILF’. As for Kal Penn, I had totally forgotten he’d worked under President Obama for like nearly two years.

It’s Cho I’m more familiar with though, primarilly down to his turn on the short lived TV show Off Centre that I would watch in the early 2000’s when it aired in the middle of the night on a Friday/Saturday and I had nothing better to do. That show was notable for having a lot of people from American Pie working on it and doing cameos. That and having Brit Sean Maguire in it for some reason. I think watching Cho on there is how I came to watch this because Chau rules, it says so on the wall. He was on FlashForward too, I keep referencing that. He’s arguably the more succesful of the duo, doing the new Star Treks over the past decade or so and he had that movie Searching last year which I think got a lot of buzz due to him being the lead and that was a first for an Asian-American actor. That and it takes place entirely over computer and phone screens so that’s a bit of a unique presentation. Kinda like Unfriended being done over Skype.

There’s a bit of an odd couple situation going on between Harold and Kumar, Harold being a more repressed, law abiding type (apart from the rampant weed use) and Kumar being the more outgoing, messy type who will shave his pubic hair in your room because you have the full length mirror and wont see any problem in that. After getting high, the pair have a craving for some White Castle and this starts our whole whacky adventure.

An adventure that wont include their stoner neighbours who would prefer to stay home and watch ‘The Gift’ because they get to see a topless Katie Holmes. Dude, it’s 2004, I’m pretty sure you can just look at them online by now. They later describe her tits as the opposite of the Holocaust which is certainly an interesting description. Try that as a chat up line, I’m sure it will end well. Their neighbours being David Krumholtz, notable for his role in Numb3rs or, more pertinent to this blog, the lead elf in The Santa Clause. Then there’s Eddie Kaye Thomas who was also in American Pie and Off Centre, I feel like he kinda fell off the face of the earth after that though.

They serve as an early example of the cameos that this movie will through at you, which I suppose is fitting for a road trip movie, the story is just passing through all these locations so you get a brief look at these new characters before moving on. But there’s a ton of them in here, so many recognisable people from Fredd Willard, Ryan Reynolds, Christopher Meloni and…ugh, Jamie Kennedy. We’ll save the most prominent one though…

I wasn’t really feeling this at first, mostly because it takes a while for anything of interest to happen. Like, one of their early stops is Princeton because they’re trying to score more weed but most of the time is spent with Harold and this really boring group of nerds that seem to idolise him. Kumar hits it off with these two British chicks but we then get a prolonged sequence of fart jokes with them in the toilet playing ‘Battleshits’. I have no clue on how the mechanics of this game work, I guess it’s just whoever gets the loudest fart scores as a hit?

Things pick up when the movie starts embracing absurdity, like when Harold gets bitten by a racoon so they have to go to the hospital and Kumar swipes his Dad’s security pass so they can go steal medical marijuana. Only, they both get ushered into the operating theatre to operate on a guy who’s been shot.

Or the mechanic called Freakshow who has all sorts of boils over his face and a cuckoldry relationship with his wife who he invites our two heroes to have sex with.

Speaking of sex, they also happen to pick up a very horny Neil Patrick Harris who isn’t interested in their talk of White Castle and wants to go get laid at the strip club instead. The wikipedia page for the movie describes NPH as playing ‘a fictionalized version of himself’, would that be the part where he’s off his tits on ecstasy or the part where he’s attracted to women?

For all of it’s cameos, there’s almost an anti-cameo in the form of this cop who writes Harold a ticket for jay walking for taking like a step out into the road at 2am with no cars around. He just looks recognisable in some way but I can’t see that the actor has done anything of note. Maybe it’s just because he looks like a low rent Ron Burgundy.

The movie suddenly decides to develop some social commentary here with this heavy handed display of racial profiling where the police arrest an African-American man for a shooting in spite of the fact he’s at sleeping at the time. They’re processing him in his pajamas and night mask for God’s sake!

This does bring us the dream sequence of Kumar having a love affair with a big bag of weed though. You know the type, the slow motion running into each others arms? Well this goes a step further by having him fuck the bag, get married and then go through this marital strife where he backhands her for making some bad coffee before having to comfort her.

And then the pair get high with a cheetah and ride it around because NPH stole their car. You see what I mean about the absurdity?

Thankfully they do finally make it to White Castle, at about 7am, and indulge in a mammoth order of 30 sliders, 5 french fries and 4 large Cherry Cokes. And that’s just for one of them. Times that order by two and it all comes to $46.75. I know those burgers are only small but they still feels pretty cheap for all that food.

And for as much as this does feel like one big advertisement, they really go the whole hog by having this food seemingly give these characters epiphanies in their lives. Kumar is no longer satisfied with avoiding life, he’s finally going to knuckle down and nail one of those university interviews because as much as a stereotype as it is, there’s probably a lot worse things to be than an Indian doctor. And Harold finally stands up to his jerk boss who dumped all his work on him because those Asians just love crunching numbers.

He even gets the confidence to talk to the hot chick in their apartment building but it sucks that it took him until now to strike up a relationship because she’s going to Amsterdam for the next 10 days. Clearly this calls for another crazy adventure because you can’t just leave things like that for the best part of two weeks, plus you know what’s legal in Holland…only, knowing the title of the next movie, I don’t know if they ever make it that far…

I feel there’s a weird mix of tones with this movie, I think it excels when you have your far out moments of drug related dream sequences or cheetah based road trips but it’s pulled down to reality with these really harsh scenes of just explicit racism and this message of standing up for yourself. Again, knowing the sequel, that whole race thing seems to remain quite a strong focal point of the movie….

[wroef]

how would you characterize the finches (as in who are they a person, what is their personality like, their aesthetics, etc). you don't have to write essays, i'd just like to know what you think of each of them. that would really interest me.

mod milton just went to go get food which has left me unattended so (peace sign emoji)

(EDIT MOD MILTON GOT BACK FROM GETTING FOOD AND IM ONLY ON WALTER, you can’t tell me to not write essays i will anyway im trying to be as brief as possible this is just how i AM)

milton is the aesthetic dude so he can either reblog or go back and edit this with what he thinks everyone’s aesthetics would be, i’ll just give descriptions of them and their personality. also im only gonna do the ones with portraits!!

odin - probably has an attitude a lot like dawn? i mean, he uprooted his whole house to sail to america to try to escape the curse. so like, paranoid family man that wants to keep his family safe. also probably likes boating/fishing or something. he’s probably sorta like my dad in that he cares deeply about his family, doesn’t like really anyone else, and can almost be sorta hotheaded when it comes to something getting in the way of him and his family. i sorta get that vibe? idk

edie - probably like how mod milton has described her before, like a kooky but weirdly lovable grandma? like the kind that would babysit the kids and then give them a bunch of chocolate and candy just before sending them back to their parents or something. probably a sweet old lady but also the kind that’s like ‘youre too nice wtf’ because she’d also be weirdly paranoid and such because of the family curse. definitely a person you could sit with and hear all of her stories though.

molly - i feel like she’d be the kinda kid who’d eat bugs and stuff as a kid and break her toys to figure out how they worked. she reminds me a lot of me as a kid, just more happy? and more interested in sea stuff. i feel like she’d be the kinda girl that you’d have to drag away from the beach whenever yall had to go home. just super bubbly and sweet but with sorta a weird fascination with dissecting things and figuring out how the innards of stuff work together. also probably spends more time eating than doing literally anything else

barbara - definitely the cute blonde that everyone said ‘she’s gonna be big one day’ and she did. she probably woulda loved watching child star stuff and when she had the opportunity to be in a movie she begged edie to let her audition. as she got older and america ‘grew out of her’, she probably was a theater kid type in high school, just waiting for another big break and auditioning anywhere she could. definitely the kind to roll her eyes whenever she had to babysit her little brothers, but she still cared a lot about them.

calvin - the kid to have probably gotten his head stuck in a fish bowl pretending to be an astronaut more than once. he was probably a big nerd growing up about space, begging for stuff like a telescope or astronomy books or anything he could get his hands on. he was the kid who said ‘im gonna be an astronaut when i grow up’ and was actually gearing to do just that. he was probably amazing as heck at school and sam might have even had him do his homework more than once. so smart kid, very hardheaded. think of like, how the majority of the fandom portrays clay terran from ace attorney (if anyone around here plays AA?)

sam - perfectly content staying on the ground, thanks. total one-with-nature type kid, probably wanted to be a nature photographer before calvin died. after the fact, he probably geared himself more toward military because he figured the thought of achieving your ‘true dream’ was all bs since he had then lost two siblings trying to achieve their dreams. so he dropped the photography except for recreational usage, and focused on gearing toward the military probably because this is vietnam war time and he didn’t really have a drive to go for anything else. he liked the structure that being in the military gave him and raised his kids with the same strict schedule, but it was probably a combination of his general stubborn pessimistic personality (which was never shown around the kids, of course) with his history and being away from the kids for a lot of their younger years because of the USMC that lead to his and Kay’s divorce. i feel like ive rambled a lot about sam for someone who doesn’t like him. tl;dr bad dad but also sad dad?

walter - my poor, sweet, paranoid delusional baby. he was probably the type to, like molly, enjoy the sea a lot. he probably wanted to be a marine biologist growing up, and when barbara died because of the supposed ‘monster’, being exposed to that kind of trauma of literally hearing your sister’s last words as she screams while being killed, that would kinda fuck you up. i could see him locking himself in his room for days on end, eventually forcing edie to have to drop him out of school and homeschool him. it probably took him months to even be able to step outside of his room. when calvin died he probably re-shut himself in, just terrified of everything. it said in game he had been down there for 30 years, and since he died at 53, that would mean he retreated to the basement at 23 years old. possibly, when no one else was living in the house aside from edie, she and him worked together to create the bunker that took a few years to make before it was livable.

dawn - she probably took after her dad a lot, not in the fact of the hunting or other activities he enjoyed but more in the pessimistic view of life. she’s seen in his story reading a lot and i feel like that’s because she’s the quiet type that would rather submerse herself in a fantasy world in a book than she would interact with the real world. sorta like how the whole “sam seemed to go out of his way to meet [death]”, conversely, dawn tried to stay away from it as much as possible. she probably grew up wanting to explore and ‘see the world’ before she died, which was why she started joining volunteer programs to help people in other countries. she probably became more religious after her dad passed but hid it more when she got close to sanjay because of religious differences, which was why she and sanjay would have decided to raise their kids without religion. she cared a lot, but she showed it in a weird way; she was angry and paranoid, sure, but she did care. sorta like how i wrote odin.

gus - rebel kid. probably grew up with a resentment for his dad and saw him as the source for ‘mom leaving’ and such. gregory died when he was around 8 years old, which is just around the time hormones are about to go wild and puberty sets in, so he probably launched himself into a punk rock lifestyle to sort of rebel against his parents and deal with his grief in his own way when he felt no one else really understood him. since dawn was pretty hardheaded and stern and pessimistic like their father, gus probably didn’t feel all that comfortable talking to her, so he just bottled a lot of stuff up. sad baby

gregory - i feel like his story sums him up personality wise pretty well, idk, hes a baby

lewis - stoner kid. he probably grew up in india learning both english and hindi from his parents, and was generally a normal happy kid until his dad died. when he did and they moved back to the states, he would have been about 14, with milton at 10 and edith at 3. milton and lewis probably got along a lot for the year they were together in the finch house and while they were being homeschooled, and when milton disappeared he probably fell into a depressive state as he had no one else to really talk to around his age about the losses he experienced. not to mention as another anon said, he was the only finch to not really show any artistic talents, which further ostracized him from his family and everyone else. he probably took to drugs as a means to cope, which became a habit. when he graduated and isolated himself in his room to smoke and occasionally talk to edith, that’s when dawn signed him up for a job at the cannery to try to help coax him out and into a more healthy life, which of course backfired. overall though, he would have been a really nice person, if not sort of standoffish emotionally. he loved spending time with his siblings and his dad, though never really had much attachment to his mom. nice dude, 10/10, would smoke a bowl with him

milton - (in the words of mod milton: college art student doesn’t get sleep) ok thanks mod milton. ok so like. i see milton as being the super artsy kid in class, the one who’d say ‘i wanna be an artist when i grow up!’ and fucked around with paint all the time and stuff. as he got older he figured out how to make stuff work better (might have even been signed up for art classes) and figured out how to make landscapes and animate (with flipbooks) and such like that. he was probably a kid very eager to learn and discover new things, like how in an entire year he managed to find all the passageways in the finch house and disclose that information to lewis before he disappeared. very smart kid, practically a prodigy for his age in the world of painting and art

edith - sweet sweetheart baby child. probably grew up like the others, wanting to learn and figure out as much stuff as she possibly could. she took to drawing a lot and maybe even took pointers as a young 4 year old from her 11 year old brother milton before he disappeared. when he disappeared this probably raised a lot of curiosity in the young child and she wanted to learn more about her family history, but dawn wouldn’t allow it and edie wanted to respect her grandchild’s wishes despite her great-grandchild’s arguments. once they stopped being homeschooled (which idk what age that would be, i’d have to do math) and edith started going to public school, she may have been kind of insecure and introverted and kept to herself a lot of the time. when lewis died and she had to switch schools she probably gained more confidence from being in a place where no one knew her or her family history anymore and got herself a boyfriend which would lead to current situations in game.

I KNOW YOU SAID TO NOT WRITE PARAGRAPHS BUT THIS IS JUST HOW I DO MAN SORRY

-mod lewis

[brokehorrorfan]

It was announced last month that Stephen King and Richard Chizmar teamed up to co-write Gwendy’s Button Box. The 175-page novella will be released on May 30 via Cemetery Dance Publications.

Chizmar shared an excerpt from the book, which you can read below.

There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs. Every day this summer—yes, even on Sundays—twelve-year-old Gwendy Peterson has taken the stairs, which are held by strong (if time-rusted) iron bolts and zig-zag up the cliffside. She walks the first hundred, jogs the second hundred, and forces herself to run up the last hundred and five, pelting—as her father would say—hellbent for election. At the top she bends over, red-faced, clutching her knees, hair in sweaty clumps against her cheeks (it always escapes her ponytail on that last sprint, no matter how tight she ties it), and puffing like an old carthorse. Yet there has been some improvement. When she straightens up and looks down the length of her body, she can see the tips of her sneakers. She couldn’t do that in June, on the last day of school, which also happened to be her last day in Castle Rock Elementary.

Her shirt is sweat-pasted to her body, but on the whole, she feels pretty good. In June, she felt ready to die of a heart attack every time she reached the top. Nearby, she can hear the shouts of the kids on the playground. From a bit farther away comes the chink of an aluminum bat hitting a baseball as the Senior League kids practice for the Labor Day charity game.

She’s wiping her glasses on the handkerchief she keeps in the pocket of her shorts for just that purpose when she is addressed. “Hey, girl. Come on over here for a bit. We ought to palaver, you and me.”

Gwendy puts her specs on and the blurred world comes back into focus. On a bench in the shade, close to the gravel path leading from the stairs into the Castle View Recreational Park, sits a man in black jeans, a black coat like for a suit, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the top. On his head is a small neat black hat. The time will come when Gwendy has nightmares about that hat.

The man has been on this same bench every day this week, always reading the same book (Gravity’s Rainbow, it’s thick and looks mighty arduous), but has never said anything to her until today. Gwendy regards him warily.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“That’s good advice.” He looks about her father’s age, which would make him thirty-eight or so, and not bad looking, but wearing a black suit coat on a hot August morning makes him a potential weirdo in Gwendy’s book. “Probably got it from your mother, right?”

“Father,” Gwendy says. She’ll have to go past him to get to the playground, and if he really is a weirdo he might try to grab her, but she’s not too worried. It’s broad daylight, after all, the playground is close and well-populated, and she’s got her wind back.

“In that case,” says the man in the black coat, “let me introduce myself. I’m Richard Farris. And you are—?”

She debates, then thinks, what harm? “Gwendy Peterson.”

“So there. We know each other.”

Gwendy shakes her head. “Names aren’t knowing.”

He throws back his head and laughs. It’s totally charming in its honest good humor, and Gwendy can’t help smiling. She still keeps her distance, though.

He points a finger-gun at her: pow. “That’s a good one. You’re a good one, Gwendy. And while we’re at it, what kind of name is that, anyway?”

“A combination. My father wanted a Gwendolyn—that was his granny’s name—and my mom wanted a Wendy, like in Peter Pan. So they compromised. Are you on vacation, Mr. Farris?” This seems likely; they are in Maine, after all, and Maine proclaims itself Vacationland. It’s even on the license plates.

“You might say so. I travel here and there. Michigan one week, Florida the next, then maybe a hop to Coney Island for a Redhot and a ride on the Cyclone. I am what you might call a rambling man, and America is my beat. I keep an eye on certain people, and check back on them every once and again.”

Chink goes the bat on the field past the playground, and there are cheers.

“Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Mr. Farris, but I really ought to—”

“Stay a bit longer. You see, you’re one of the people I’ve been keeping an eye on just recently.”

This should sound sinister (and does, a little), but he’s still smiling in the aftermath of his laughter, his eyes are lively, and if he’s Chester the Molester, he’s keeping it well hidden. Which, she supposes, the best ones would do. Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

“I’ve got a theory about you, Miss Gwendy Peterson. Formed, as all the best theories are, by close observation. Want to hear it?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“I notice you are a bit on the plump side.”

Maybe he sees her tighten up at that, because he raises a hand and shakes his head, as if to say not so fast.

“You might even think of yourself as fat, because girls and women in this country of ours have strange ideas about how they look. The media…do you know what I mean by the media?”

“Sure. Newspapers, TV, Time and Newsweek.”

“Nailed it. So okay. The media says, ‘Girls, women, you can be anything you want to be in this brave new world of equality, as long as you can still see your toes when you stand up straight.’”

He has been watching me, Gwendy thinks, because I do that every day when I get to the top. She blushes. She can’t help it, but the blush is a surface thing. Below it is a kind of so-what defiance. It’s what got her going on the stairs in the first place. That and Frankie Stone.

“My theory is that somebody tweaked you about your weight, or how you look, or both, and you decided to take the matter in hand. Am I close? Maybe not a bullseye, but at least somewhere on the target?”

Perhaps because he’s a stranger, she finds herself able to tell him what she hasn’t confided to either of her parents. Or maybe it’s his blue eyes, which are curious and interested but with no meanness in them—at least not that she can see. “This kid at school, Frankie Stone, started calling me Goodyear. You know, like—”

“Like the blimp, yes, I know the Goodyear Blimp.”

“Uh-huh. Frankie’s a puke.” She thinks of telling the man how Frankie goes strutting around the playground, chanting I’m Frankie Stoner! Got a two-foot boner! and decides not to.

“Some of the other boys started calling me that, and then a few of the girls picked it up. Not my friends, other girls. That was sixth grade. Middle school starts next month, and…well…”

“You’ve decided that particular nickname isn’t going to follow you there,” says Mr. Richard Farris. “I see. You’ll also grow taller, you know.” He eyes her up and down, but not in a way she finds creepy. It’s more scientific. “I’m thinking you might top out around five-ten or –eleven before you’re done. Tall, for a girl.”

“Started already,” Gwendy says, “but I’m not going to wait.”

“All pretty much as I thought,” Farris says. “Don’t wait, don’t piss and moan, just attack the issue. Go head-on. Admirable. Which is why I wanted to make your acquaintance.”

“It’s been nice talking to you, Mr. Farris, but I have to go now.”

“No. You need to stay right here.” He’s not smiling anymore. His face is stern, and the blue eyes seem to have gone gray. The hat lays a thin line of shadow over his brow, like a tattoo. “I have something for you. A gift. Because you are the one.”

“I don’t take things from strangers,” Gwendy says. Now she’s feeling a little scared. Maybe more than a little.

[makesureee]

1-150 plz ty~~

omg holy shit that’s a lot and i’m on adderall this will be fun omg yay

1. Who was the last person you held hands with?some bitch ass bitch who’s dead to me

2. Are you outgoing or shy?DEFINITELY shy

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing?any three of my friends, whenever they happen to hit me up, my dog, and my fUTURE GIRLFRIEND WHERE ARE YOU

4. Are you easy to get along with?it depends how well you know me i suppose but i am generally kind, or at least i try to be

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?i do not like anyone so i just get drunk by myself

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?i reallyyyyy love masculine looking girls (could be short hair, shaved hair, tats, piercings, just an all around “gay” look, which is kinda funny for a straight guy XD) but i ALSO LOVE feminine girls fat girls skinny girls just…..GIRLSbut as far as finding people attractive even tho i’m straight boys can be hecka cute too and i typically find myself finding the more feminine looking bois cuteand as for anyone nonbinary or genderqueer it’s pretty much the same

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now?no but boy i sure hope so

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?fuck heteronormativity but uh no one really. i don’t like anyone. if you mean literally in general then i’m waiting for my friend to hit me up so we can smoke XD

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable?yeah but not for reasons you’d think

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?no fuckin idea

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say?“well i also gotta head back to my house so you’re good” cause my friend needed some time to get weed and food before i head over

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?Sad Clown - Kate MicucciPick a suburb, find a culdesac - Amy Bruce Spaceshowstraight kids playing dress up - the official suckersGot High and Still Got No Friends - Shelf LifeOld Maid Cards - Kate Micucci

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair?only if it’s someone i’m really really really comfortable with

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?nope. i believe in coincidence and probability

15. What good thing happened this summer?nothing honestly

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?fUCK to the NO

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?um…definitely?? without a doubt??? we’re so small we’re so small we could just instantaneously die any second bruh we’re dust in the breeze this question gave me another existential crisis i want a refund

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?lol no

19. Do you like bubble baths?i used to but now it’s just like……im hot and sweaty and can’t breathe why is the air so wet……

20. Do you like your neighbors?i don’t know my neighbors but i like them because their christmas lights are aesthetic and ONE OF MY NEIGHBORS just has like 20 FUCKIN DUCKS chilling in their front yard. they’re like 3 houses down across the street but if i leave my window open sometimes i can hear them having a good time

21. What are you bad habits?drug dependency/addictive tendencies

22. Where would you like to travel?i wanna go back to italy. spain would be nice. idk. like……the earth has so many places…..

23. Do you have trust issues?nah i’m very forgiving and it sucks

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?drugs!

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?how in the world do i pick

26. What do you do when you wake up?roll a blunt…and smoke it

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker?that question is complicated. i’m white, so ideally (in this corrupt awful world), it’s the most advantageous so i wouldn’t change as to have better opportunities and less judgement. however, hOLY SHIT ALL THE COLORS OF THE PEOPLE ARE SO COOL AND BEING WHITE LOOKS SO BOORRINGG so if we lived in a hypothetical world where every ethnicity was held at an equal standard yes a darker skin color would be cool

28. Who are you most comfortable around?nobody really. i’m not emotionally close to anyone right now

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up?no but one relationship i ended and the other party did not want it to end

30. Do you ever want to get married?marriage doesn’t really matter to me. just a certificate. if it can help with taxes and whatever, sure, as long as i can remain the important parts of my independence. but imo i don’t even think that marriage should give people tax benefits but you take what good things the fucked up world gives ya

31. Is your hair long enough for a pony tail? LOL YES BUT I’D LOOK RIDICULOUS

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?michonne from the walking dead is super attractive and i can’t really think of anyone else but i probably would not have a threesome with celebrities that’s too much pressure

33. Spell your name with your chin.samkel (THAT WAS CLOSE)

34. Do you play sports? What sports?ew

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?TV but like does netflix count

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?not really i have this ability to not like people unless i’m almost certain they like me and terminate all feelings for a person if rejected. i mean like, i liked someone in high school once and dropped hardcore hints but never outright said it so killed my feelings and they actually told me recently that they used to have a crush on me too XDD funny ass shit

37. What do you say during awkward silences?“i’m gonna play some music”

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?cute funny stoner who loves and accepts me for who i am and supports me and helps me grow and does pills with me and loves all my new favorite music i show her and WITH LIKE A ONE IN BILLION CHANCE i’d like her to be shorter than me cause i’m really short and that’s really killer on my self esteem….but like….if we were both super short imagine how cute that’d be…..we’d be like ruby and sapphire….we’d get made fun of and be the smol couple but we would be smol together

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in?my local headshops lolol

40. What do you want to do after high school?i’m already after high school but ultimately i want to be a glassblower and make bongs and shit

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?i don’t believe in blanket statements (lol that in itself is a blanket statement)

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?i’m awkward or anxious and don’t know what to say because i don’t know how to be a person

43. Do you smile at strangers?sometimes

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?NEITHER IF I AM NOT GUARANTEED TO SURVIVE but space even though i would still have massive panic attacks with that guarantee like i can’t even be on a road i don’t know by myself without having an anxiety attack

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?the hope that one day i’ll have something that makes me feel less empty

46. What are you paranoid about?holy shit EVERYTHING everyone hates me and i’m a disappointment to my parents and i’m super unattractive and everyone that sees me judges me and like these are straight up facts yo

47. Have you ever been high?i’m high right now

48. Have you ever been drunk?i’m drunk right now. just kidding on that one. i kinda used to be an alcoholic but i traded it in for pot lol. best decision ever. worst financial decision ever tho

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about?i put 12 shucks of corn up my asshole

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?black. almost everything i wear is black when will i not act like im in high school

51. Ever wished you were someone else?only always

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?confidential

53. Favourite makeup brand?none i ent wear makeup

54. Favourite store?i’m not a shopping person so i’d again have to go with my local headshop

55. Favourite blog?i cannot choose

56. Favourite colour?black

57. Favourite food?also cannot choose

58. Last thing you ate?i have no idea i haven’t eaten today

59. First thing you ate this morning?i have no idea i literally have not eaten today

60. Ever won a competition? For what?you bitches better wATCH oUT cause this guy got SECOND PLACE in his THIRD GRADE SCIENCE FAIR for a poster board about EVAPORATIONand eh i think i won an art show award or two in high school

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what?no i never even skipped class in high school cause with attendance you get exemption rights from exams~ now that i’m in college i skip occasionally tho lol

62. Been arrested? For what?dear god no i’d have a panic attack so hard i think the cop would feel bad for me

63. Ever been in love?yep

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?ugh ew ok so like i was bi at the time and so was he (but i wasn’t into this guy at all) but so anyway it’s after school and we’re behind it with our friends and we start walking away and he pulls me aside and the friends keep walking and his face kept getting closer to mine and in my head i’m just like dude…..why you….getting closer….that’s close….what…..oh….okay. that’s. lips. okay. it was like a gross quick kiss and then like when we talked about it and i rejected him hE WENT AND TOLD ALL HIS FRIENDS THAT HE REJECTED ME. luckily a friend i used to have and/or fuck jumped in while i wasn’t present and defended me cause that’s some straight bullshit.

65. Are you hungry right now?nah i’m on adderall

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?eh nah only because it’s harder to form a bond. not that i have strong bonds with my irl friends but we communicate more and smoke together

67. Facebook or Twitter?neither

68. Twitter or Tumblr?tumblr

69. Are you watching tv right now?no

70. Names of your bestfriends?lexi is me only best friend but even we aren’t suuuper close anymore

71. Craving something? What?fulfillment and happiness and a girlfriend

72. What colour are your towels?green

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?bruh…….9 ok but 2 are for my dog when she isn’t sleeping next to me on my pillows

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals?nah but i use my dog as a cuddle buddy. if she doesn’t wanna cuddle we just hold hands

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?i probably have a good bit lying around my room. idk maybe like 5-8 somewhere in a drawer or whatever

75. Favourite animal?cliche as fuck but like….dogs i love dogs i love themi illove them so much i lvoe dogs

76. What colour is your underwear?currently grey with black stripes lol

77. Chocolate or Vanilla?vanilla for sure

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?oreo!

79. What colour shirt are you wearing?black XD

80. What colour pants?BLACK

81. Favourite tv show?black. nah probably adventure time or rick and morty

82. Favourite movie?i don’t like movies that much

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2?have seen neither

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?nope?

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?who

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?stoner turtle

87. First person you talked to today?my adderall buddy. she texted me like the second i woke up some how

88. Last person you talked to today?she literally just texted me as i was writing that out soooo

89. Name a person you hate?i aint no snitch

90. Name a person you love?lexi cause that’s positive

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now?myself

92. In a fight with someone?never been, never want

93. How many sweatpants do you have?one

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?i had one but as of today i have THREE

95. Last movie you watched?suicide squad and it sucked but pretty colors tho

96. Favourite actress?ent got one

97. Favourite actor?nope

98. Do you tan a lot?not at all what is the sun

99. Have any pets?two! daisy and ko bear!

100. How are you feeling?i’m feeling okay. i’ll feel better cause now my friend hit me up but i’m rushing to finish this!

101. Do you type fast?YA DAMN RIGHT I DO I GOTTA FINISH THIS

102. Do you regret anything from your past?i regret like almost everything?

103. Can you spell well?the answer is no

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?nope

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?yep

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?yep

107. Have you ever been on a horse?ONCE WHEN I WAS LITTLE BUT I WANNA DO IT AGAIN but i’ve been on a camel does that count

108. What should you be doing?bagging my weed and leaving the house right now

109. Is something irritating you right now?myself as always

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt?nope

111. Do you have trust issues?i trusted you not to repeat a question so maybe i do now

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?A STUPID ASS BITCH I REGRET IT SO MUCH i never cry in front of ANYONE before that it had been THREE YEARS since i cried in front of someone but i trust horrible people

113. What was your childhood nickname?sammy

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?yep. i was born in florida, live in georgia. been to a few other surrounding states but nowhere far other than abroad

115. Do you play the Wii?nah

116. Are you listening to music right now?nah the album ended

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup?i don’t like soup

118. Do you like Chinese food?not really i wanna eat normal food with chopsticks tho

119. Favourite book?ew

120. Are you afraid of the dark?nah but i still get the creeps

121. Are you mean?some people seem to think so. i think so a lot of the time.

122. Is cheating ever okay?yes. i don’t do blanket statements

123. Can you keep white shoes clean?dear god no i avoid super messes but pretty much do whatever

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?fuck no

125. Do you believe in true love?i believe that love can be true but i do not believe that one single individual is your “soul mate” or “perfect match” or whatever. there are potentially thousands of people that you could fall madly in love with and it’s just probability and coincidence that allow you to collide with them

126. Are you currently bored?with my life yeah

127. What makes you happy?drugs and friends and dogs

128. Would you change your name?i have and it’s awesome now

129. What your zodiac sign?taurus

130. Do you like subway?never ridden one

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?heteronormative again and i don’t have a best friend but the only two female friends i have i would not have sex with, although me and one of them make cute jokes about dating and romance all the time

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?BRUH STOP REPEATING

133. Favourite lyrics right now?“you tell me all the reasons you hate meand it feels like you’re listing off the symptoms of a borderline personalityand I know I am not tetheredto all the behaviors or the thoughtsI know one day I could rise above it allbut for now my illness makes people think I really suckand I guess for a couple more years I need to suck it up”- Don’t Blame Yourself by Human Kitten

i relate hella cause i’m pretty sure i have bpd and i can’t afford health insurance so i’m just kinda here

134. Can you count to one million?fuck no

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?i never remember shit. that’s seriously not a lie i don’t remember

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?my door is always closed unless i’m home alone but eVEN THEN it’s closed if i’m sleeping

137. How tall are you?ew 5′2

138. Curly or Straight hair?mine? straight

139. Brunette or Blonde?brunette

140. Summer or Winter?winter

141. Night or Day?both or in between

142. Favourite month?october or december. i like the october vibe but like the december $$$$$

143. Are you a vegetarian?nooope

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?milk

145. Tea or Coffee?green tea with mint please!

146. Was today a good day?it was not terrible. first day of the new quarter. worked my ass off but made some money. aboutta go smoke. it’s been alright

147. Mars or Snickers?neither

148. What’s your favourite quote?too many good quotes

149. Do you believe in ghosts?nope i believe in science and facts homie g

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?“While some people will argue that this (A) may not exist or (B) is certainly not part of our physical forms, I’m going to go ahead and boldly state that consciousness (at the very least) is an irrefutable part of the human experience.” no shit that was Hannah Hart’s My Drunk Kitchen

[fraudulence-paradox]

08/22/17

          I dropped acid for the first time over the weekend (4 days ago). It was interesting. I’ve heard that people when they have an intense experience with it, especially their first time, begin dividing their life into “before acid” and “after acid”. I’m not sure it was quite that impressive, but it certainly was intense. I’ll try to keep to a timeline, but for obvious reasons, that’s pretty difficult. I was at J---’s parents’ cabin for the weekend with some friends. J--- and I had decided a while ago that we wanted to drop acid that weekend, to kick things off. We were sitting in the screened room out back, and I was very nervous. We lit a spanish prayer candle to “La Virgen de Guadalupe” for good energy. My hands were shaking as I pulled the two colorful pieces of paper, perforated and connected down the middle, out of the reflective first-class Canadian parcel bag the dark net delivered to us. I tore them down the middle, handed J--- his tab, and after some thought put mine under my tongue. They were something like 125 mics, and on the advice of our more experienced friend there, we held them under our tongues for 30 minutes. Around the 25 minute mark, (and the 10 minute mark for our friend N--, who had ingested close to 3.5g of shrooms), we made our way into the deep woods behind J---’s house. At some point on our journey out there, J--- and I moved the tabs from our tongue to our upper gums, again at J---e’s advice. I’m not sure if that actually does anything, from what I read, it’s pretty much all ingested as soon as it touches your tongue, but it was part of the ritual, which made it seem all the more spiritual.           We entered the woods, and looked at mushrooms and other flora in the woods floor. I was beginning to feel something like a mild weed high, and after a bit more time, colors seemed a lot brighter. That was more or less all I was expecting from what I thought was a pretty low dose, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. All of that may have even been placebo compared to what lied in store for us. At a certain point, when the mushrooms began hitting N--, he broke off our impromptu hike, and sat on the top of a cliff face, observing the woods below. I went up to join him, as the hill we were on, following a trail of mushrooms on the forest floor, was beginning to get rather steep. N-- and I perched on the cliff top as the rest of the group disappeared into the ever thick brush. It was at this point that I began experiencing, for the first time in quite a while, pure, ecstatic joy. I looked up at the trees, and watched the wind shake the leaves, seemingly aware of every moving part of every tree in the forest. I want to stress that even at this point, I still wasn’t tripping, it was merely the come up. For a long time, N-- and I sat on that rock, just listening to the beautiful silence of that West Virginia woods.           Eventually we decided we should head back to the cabin, in case the others got back. When we arrived, I was beginning to quite acutely feel strange. At this point, there was no way what I was feeling was placebo, it was real. Sort of a tingling sensation all over my body, with a strange anxiety, or more appropriately skiddishness, like I had just drank a lot of coffee. Staying still or sitting in a chair wasn’t really an option. A big part of the whole trip revolved around me assigning myself goals, and accomplishing them. The goal for that portion of the day, was get a guitar.           J--- had packed his guitar and banjo, but as we had arrived in WV in his parents’ pickup truck, and it was rainy on the way up, he had surrounded the soft guitar case in a cocoon of plastic wrap. I’m not sure why this memory sticks out to me so much, but I remember spending an eternity struggling with the wrapping, then realizing it was easier just to unwind it, rather than ripping it. I kept forgetting that, and having to rediscover it, and it felt like some sort of metaphor in my mind. I’m not sure what it was supposed to mean, but it felt significant. Like the universe was telling me something important.           Before I go on, I want to stress that as of right now, sober [fraudulence-paradox], base [fraudulence-paradox] (as tripped out me would go on to call me), does not believe in any sort of spirituality, or cosmic meaning or purpose. So dear reader, please take whatever you read next with a grain of salt, because the trip was quite brain bending. For the peak of it, I literally forgot what it meant to be “normal”. I’m still a little confused about it, but at the time, I was absolutely vehemently convinced that not only would I never return to “normal”, but that I was experiencing reality as it really was. But we’ll get into that momentarily.

          Now with guitar in hand, I returned to the screened in room, where N-- was sitting. I couldn’t get comfortable in a chair, so I eventually sat in the corner, all sprawled out, feeling electricity course through my extremities. I tried to play some chords on the guitar, but for some reason, all of the chords and progressions that I’d normally idly strum sounded foreign, and alien to me. It was confusing (I would later learn the guitar was out of tune, but even when tuned, it sounded frighteningly alien). I had to put the guitar down, and when I did, I took a momentary glimpse at the ceiling. The ceiling was made of cedar paneling, very natural looking. But as I looked at the roof, if I didn’t take my eyes off of it for a few seconds, the paneling appeared to ebb and flow, the patterns on the wood grain looked less like burned in curves and circles from years of wear, and more like ripples coursing across the surface of a pond that had a stone thrown in it minutes ago. The longer I looked at it, the more patterns and movement I began to notice. At a certain point, it looked as if the ceiling was made of completely clean wooden panels with no grain at all, but instead had paisley, fractal patterns projected on it. My only experience with psychedelics prior to this was with mushrooms, and I took pretty low dose. The only real visuals I got from them were rooms appeared to large, and fonts of things I was writing looked different from letter to letter. And if I really focused on any one thing, I’d notice it was all in my head, I could see what reality actually looked like. The scary, but maybe most mind opening part about acid, is you can’t do that. On a medium dose like I was on, I could look at the ceiling, or the pattern on some object as long as I wanted, but the fractals would only get more elaborate.           At this point, maybe 90 minutes had passed, and the rest of the group walked in. They all sat in the screened in room, and began packing bowls or vaping or whatever they were doing. I can’t remember, I was absolutely taken by the ceiling fractals I was seeing. J--- was lingering in the kitchen in the house, so I eventually pulled him out and had him look with me, to confirm how cool it was, and he also saw it. He saw something at least, I can’t know what was going on in his mind, but from that point on, it seemed like some portion of our trips had synced up. We were both seeing something cool on the ceiling, and our thought patterns were totally different than sober us. While we were all sitting in that room, I asked L---n if there was actually some sort of paisley print on the ceiling, I asked if what I was seeing was real. He responded in the best possible way he could have. Earlier that day he told me his brother had coached him up on how to trip sit, and it was showing. Because when I asked him if what I was seeing was indeed real, he didn’t say “nah, you’re tripping”, and he didn’t try to fuck with me by confirming that “yea dude, there are really fractals crawling around on the ceiling”, what he did was respond by saying, “well, what is real, [fraudulence-paradox]? Where do you think reality ends, and the trip begins?”. For whatever reason, that kicked the trip into high gear. Basically as soon as he said that, I began peaking. Something happened in my mind, and I completely lost touch with what was real. My mind was free from having any preconceptions before thoughts. It was like I was five years old, but capable of grasping these intense abstract concepts. It was like I could just sit and think without prejudice or bound.           N--- and I (mostly I) decided we wanted to go back out since we were tripping pretty hard, and to be honest, I was just getting antsy from sitting too long. I wanted to go explore everything. I wandered outside, and N-- lit some incense. We stopped at this large rock in J---’s backyard and hung out for a while. I took a watering can from under the deck we were all sitting on, because I wanted to start a drum circle and began to bang on it quietly while the incense burned. My mind was racing, grappling with the strangest thoughts and ideas. I don’t remember any specifics to be completely honest, but I think I was talking a lot about spirituality, and the universe, because J--- told me I was being a walking stereotype. It was probably true, but to be honest, it just felt nice to talk about all the stereotypical stoner crap. It felt like I could actually one hundred percent grasp entirely abstract ineffable concepts in my mind, free from language. But when I tried to verbalize them, it came out as stuff like, “look man, we all exist in.. reality, right? But where does this thing that’s experiencing reality exist? Is consciousness part of reality? Or is there something special and different about the thing that views reality?” But even less eloquent than that, because, c’mon, I was tripping balls. J--- seemed to think everything I was doing and saying was ironic, but to be totally honest, I don’t think I was capable of irony at that point. Everything I did on acid, had to be completely sincere. Everything I was experiencing was too beautiful and felt too true not to be completely, one hundred percent sincere. Even using a watering can as a drum because I liked the sound it made. I completely understand why hippies did everything hippies did now. Every form of expression, especially the esoteric, and non-permanent, like sound and dance, felt like they expressed these crazy, ineffable thoughts I kept having.

          Eventually, we left the “drum circle” and ventured deeper into the woods, leaving J--- behind. (He didn’t want to move around, he just wanted to lie down and probably look at the ceiling fractals some more--a noble goal.) We walked through the woods, and eventually made a sort of camp at the base of one cliff, and on the top of another. N-- was setting up his hammock, and I was just staring at trees. As I stared more and more at the trees, I began becoming acutely aware of every single boarder on every single three-dimensional surface of the tree. I cannot stress this enough, LSD didn’t make me see anything that wasn’t already there (well, okay, maybe the ceiling-fractals), it only made me notice the patterns and boarders of everything that was already in front of me. That was the part that was making me question reality so badly. I legitimately wasn’t seeing anything that was outside of reality, I was seeing more of it, somehow. It made me think about how there is this thing: reality. We exist in it, we experience it to some degree, but we can never really know what all of reality is. We are born into reality, but it was already there, and when we die, reality will still be there. Somehow this whole thought cycle (and all the subsequent tangents that came from it) made me very okay with death. I’m not very afraid of it anymore. At least, not as much as I was. I think it made me come to terms with it. We exist for such a short time, and while we’re here, even if we can only see a small part of it, with only five senses, that can be easily fooled, we get to observe reality. I think that’s really special. I don’t think people really think about how much of a gift consciousness is. Whether its some sort of spirit, that exists outside of reality, or its just the way the meat in our skulls shoots electricity, it’s undeniable that there is some sort of human experience, and I think to a great extent we all share at least that. As far as we know, humans, and maybe some other large fauna, are the only things that get to experience reality. I’m not sure why this was so poignant to me, but it was. That was the biggest thing I took away from the trip. We get to exist, and while we’re here, we get to see reality. And if we’re really lucky, and if we so choose, we can even effect reality. We can build, or destroy, or create. We are the masters of reality for a very, very short period of time, in a very, very small space. We can do whatever we want, and even though it’s all fleeting, we can experience it. Other consciousnesses can experience it. These were the thoughts going through my mind, in a wild frenzy. … (eventually write about going back for incense, getting john, experiencing death and birth thousands of times, leaving the woods for the last time, coming down) … ([fraudulence-paradox] note: clearly I didn’t. Maybe I’ll come back and edit this post someday)

          After we had built the fire, and J---’s friends from [college] had arrived, we passed around a bong. I thought that the LSD had more or less exited my system. I was feeling back to baseline consciousness pretty much. I could remember why I valued certain things, like not going to jail, disappointing my family, or not dying, which was a kind of disturbing thing I had forgotten earlier, but had remembered that “base [fraudulence-paradox] ” valued, so I probably shouldn’t mess them up for him. So I was feeling pretty sober. And what else is there to do around a campfire, but get a little high?          I had wildly underestimated how much acid was still kicking around in my brain, and after the third or so hit, I was right back to peaking. Honestly, I was mentally exhausted at this point, so instead of going with it, I fought it. That was probably the reason things began taking a turn for the worst. At no point do I think I had a “bad trip”, but more like Timothy Leary would describe, there were difficult portions, all of which happened after that bowl was smoked. I started to notice the same sort of heavy pattern recognition was happening in the stones around the fire as was happening in the woods earlier that day with the bark on the trees. I was watching the fire burn, and could pinpoint individual portions of the wood that were burning off, and splitting into charcoal. It was kind of like a very distracting superpower. It was kind of cool, until I noticed with my “super-perception” that living in one of the logs we had thrown into the fire was a whole colony of some sort of woodlouse. It was incredibly disturbing to watch as they all flooded out of the tiny holes in the log, only to be vaporized by the flames above. I witnessed thousands upon thousands of deaths, and even though they were insects, that really affected me. I eventually found some excuse to go back inside, and go to bed, despite it only being 11.

          As I lied in bed, I went through the most difficult part of the whole trip. I remember pretty distinctly, that it felt like my conscious, thinking mind, was entirely separate from the animal brain that controlled my actions (which is kind of normal when I’m high, but was amplified by the acid to the point where my conscious mind (left brain?) was having whole discussions with the animal id (right brain?). I’ve heard theories that the brains hemispheres are actually separate entities; the one with the language center controlling the body and any outward communication, and the other hemisphere controlling the logic, and sort of taking a back seat, unable to control the impulses). A sad-sounding song came on, on Pandora, and the “animal mind”, which for simplicity’s sake, I’ll call the id, began thinking about M----, and feeling sad. The “conscious mind”, which I’ll just call the ego, normally would disagree and think the id’s thoughts were all impulses. But what made this portion of the trip so difficult, was the ego conceding that it too was upset. It was thinking something along the lines of, “M---- made [fraudulence-paradox]’s id happy. And we liked her ‘ego’ too”. Over and over. All I could think about was “M---- made us happy”. The ego eventually convinced the id that if it ended, it wasn’t meant to be. We would eventually find someone who made [fraudulence-paradox] happy again. But all I could think about was how nice it used to be to have someone I could share the thoughts of my ego with; someone I could open up to, and not just show the impulsive id, but show the more sensitive ego. I think everyone needs that. It makes people happy, but moreover, I think that kind of trust in another human being, in another human being’s conscious mind, is something beautiful, and of supreme importance. Love is one of, if not the most important things to experience in life. Then, the ego had an even more disturbing thought. All my life, I’ve thought marriage was just how it ends. It was just an eventuality that couldn’t be avoided if I wanted to. The ego, or I, whatever, realized that marriage is not a guarantee. There is a real chance that I could just never find someone. Maybe I could settle someday, but there is no guarantee that I’ll just find someone who I love, and who loves me.

          Somehow, I settled myself down. I feel like it required the ego saying a lot of things to the id that it knew weren’t true, but that would calm [fraudulence-paradox] down. I don’t know. Eventually that weird split personality thing went away. I was back to normal when I woke up.

          Maybe that whole weird split personality thing was just my mind’s way of dealing with grief. I don’t think I ever fully came to terms with how upset the breakup made me. I dumped her, but it really felt like she dumped me. Something in the semantics of “I dumped her” made me think it wasn’t okay to feel sad. I’m not sure. I’m still sad, but it’s more of a dull pain. My ego was right. If we broke up it really wasn’t meant to be. But I know it’s still hurting him just as much as my id.

[wellmeaningshutin]

Short Story #24: Showbiz.

Written: 1/18/2017

The scripts were only to be handed out when filming took place, which was to be a week after auditions were done, and nobody really knew what the movie was supposed to be about, they were just excited to have a shot at being in a movie made by one of the most notable, up and coming horror directors: Frankie Toussaint, or, as he is more commonly called, Frankie T. Auditions themselves were very confusing, the actors were only asked to talk about themselves, there was a wide variety of people and no actual roles were known. The only consistent element that everyone, at some point in the interviewing process, was asked to scream. None of the actors were sure how they did, because it didn’t seem like the casting people wanted anything at all, but after a couple days actors were contacted and told that they got the parts-which were still undisclosed-and that they were supposed to gather in an alleyway in Chinatown on the following Monday at 10am, where a bus would come to take them to the filming location.

Margret, who had the problem of being pigeon holed into “sexy maid” roles, and only auditioned for the film for the sake of being able to do something different, was surprised to see that there was a woman there who looked very similar to her, only 20 years older. The woman would’ve been surprised, but there were also three other groups of strange pairs that looked like the same people, just at different times of their lives. Conversation was awkward until somebody finally asked if anyone knew what the movie was even about, then they were able to melt into a comfortable level of gossip until the bus came, 40 minutes late. The bus itself was pretty standard on the outside, indistinguishable from the others that swarmed the city, sides covered in gaudy advertisements, but the inside was a little bit different. Margret noticed first that when the doors opened there was a rose scent coming from the inside, and when she boarded she noticed that the seats were made with red velvet, and the ceiling contained black lights. All of these choices were confusing to her, but as she looked around an old Asian man with a large salt and pepper beard, who had introduced himself earlier as John, told her that the director was known for doing things to confuse his actors, the strange bus probably being only one of them.

Seating was empty enough for most people to sit on their own, however some of the younger people sat with their older copies, interested in getting acting advice. Margret’s elder turned out to have also had the maid type cast when she was younger, but never complained because it was still steady work. The problem, she explained, was getting older and having to have to start fighting for different roles, hoping month to month that you could pay your rent.

Frankie had been watching all this back at the film site. He had arranged for cameras to be set up on the back of every seat, and was watching a large wall of monitors, different conversations all going once, people sometimes obscured by the smoke he exhaled. Three days he was in the monitoring room, where he also had a bed, land line, toilet, shower, and computer set up. There were no lights inside except what shone from the monitors, his eyes were bloodshot, and the whole place reeked of cigarettes. He would only be greeted by bright light when his assistants would come in to bring in food, take out trash, get him more cigarettes, or other miscellaneous errands. This was his first film where he had full freedom, a large studio budget behind him, so he was guaranteed to be able to fulfill the artistic vision of what would surely be his last film, and an undeniable horror masterpiece.

Several years ago he had gained widespread attention from Revolver, an amateur film he directed that ended up contending for several awards at a prestigious film festival, although the controversy that came from it made sure that he would win none. The film was based around religious concepts of suicide and hell, and was mainly about a man who had decided to kill himself after his son drowned in a pool. The man had a revolver, spun the chamber, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger, all in the span of 30 seconds, which served as the intro to the film. However the man never died, and instead the audio from the spinning chamber was looped while memories of his child’s death, sins he had committed, and words such as “FAILURE”, “COWARD”, “SINNER” would show up in the screen, all in a frantic succession. After 10 minutes the intro was played again, this time with new audio that overlapped with the repeating, and instead of the visuals repeating they were instead overlayed onto the intro, which was now looping, so you would both see his sins, but also the repeating process of him getting the gun and going to kill himself. This repeated to a nauseating amount, and, in the last five minutes, the visuals were replaced by a scene of the gun finally going off, the inside of his head splattering against the wall, and his body lying motionless on the ground as the audio continued to loop, all until the movie just sort of ended.

Controversy from the film came when the director, during the Q&A portion, was asked if his religious beliefs motivated him to make the movie. He said, “My only motive was to display what I viewed to be a realistic interpretation of hell, the man wanted only death to free him from the world but instead he was greeted with an infinite and repeating life sentence.” When somebody in the audience said that it did not accurately depict Christian hell, Frankie simply said that “Religion is bullshit and its all made up anyways, so who cares.” And then attempted to prove his point by pulling out a live revolver and repeated the first 30 seconds of his film, but was tackled to the ground before he could finish the deed and instead sent a round into a light on the far wall. He was kicked out of the festival, put on suicide watch, and lifted up into fame.

His second film, which was made only two years prior to his last, was backed by an independent film studio and titled “Trip”. It started out with several youths meeting up at one of their friend’s houses because his parents were out of town, and they were going to get high. The first twenty minutes were very intentionally campy, and were also the only scenes that were advertised in the commercials, so a lot of people thought it was going to be a teen stoner comedy, and many went to the theater only to be surprised. After the main character, some tall lanky kid, one of those shy “always gets the girl in the end” types, took a hit of the joint, he noticed that nobody else is willing to smoke it, they all start laughing, and then the screen begins to shake violently. The rest of the movie is just fast moving, psychedelic visuals with the sounds of the main character’s thoughts playing over it. The visuals themselves are quick, intense, and rather jarring, some people would become nauseous. At first the protagonist would only be confused about what was happening, but the visuals would only grow more intense, and he would react to them in the same way the audience members would, sometimes a viewer would shout something that would be thought of by the protagonist only seconds later, voicing their fears. In the last twenty minutes he begins to question if they will ever stop, questions if this is what his life has become, forgets who he even is, and then deteriorates into blind screams of agony, both emotional and existential.

Frankie has an expert from a review review for Trip that he cut out from a newspaper and always carries around in his wallet, it reads: People can’t decide if the movie is good or bad, but all can agree that its more effective than the D.A.R.E. Program. He also had read plenty of praise from religious groups about how the movie successfully warned teenagers about the dangers of narcotics, and that lead him to make an appearance on a lat night talk show-a rare event since he almost never communicated with the public-saying that the movie was 100% fiction, and was intended to express not reality, but the distorted view that had been constructed during the Regan era. And, to prove his point once again, he decided, much to the host’s dismay, to light up joint,  but couldn’t find a lighter. Embarrassed that he forgot his lighter, he repeated his suicide attempt from the Q&A session from Revolver, but the host tackled him before he could even spin the chamber.

At that point in his career he was thought of as a cash cow in the film industry, his movies would bring in ridiculous amounts of viewers who were curious to see if the movies were actually as scary as they were said to be, who only went to spite the protesters who they thought of as pathetic, or who would take their kids to scare them away from drugs or suicide. He received offers from large studios, almost daily, for him to work with them to make another movie, but he never budged until he was guaranteed full control of his next film. Rumors had gone around that he only wanted to make one more movie, before retiring as a director, so eventually his demands were met.

Sitting in that control room, watching the actors on the bus, constantly ignoring phone calls, he was ready to make his last movie. Everyone thought the secrecy he devoted to the film was because he wrote an amazing script and was just trying to keep it as a surprise, like he did with the plot of Trip, but they didn’t know that there was never really a script. Some thought his behaviors were because he had a religious devotion to film, and that’s why he had scorn for Christians, because in his eyes they worshiped a false idol, but they were also wrong. Some thought he just wanted privacy, didn’t care about large studios and was basically just walling himself off from bullshit, but they were also wrong. What nobody was able to guess about Frankie’s next movie was that he didn’t care if it was ever seen, because the horror aspect of it wasn’t the movie itself-which was guaranteed to be disturbing to many-but the fact that they had trusted him with so much power without realizing who he even was.

It was an idea he got from the Jimmy Saville controversy. He was reading the story online, late to the party because of his isolated nature, and he realizing how horrible it was that he was supposed to be such a nice person, but was really just a horrible monster inside. There was an aspect about the story, though, that really bugged him: it had been too much of an open secret, and that really dampened the surprise. Then he got the idea for his current film, this was during the filming of Revolver, and although the idea almost sickened him he couldn’t shake it off. One  thing people never realized, because of his isolation, was that Frankie wasn’t too right in the head, there was something about him that he felt was evil. Constantly he would fantasize about hurting people who had done as little to annoy him, he connected too often with villains in movies, he had trouble understanding morals, and because of this, and various other things, he was isolated in the first place. Because of this dark thing inside of him he was worried that he was going to do something really bad, and when Revolver was met so positively he tried to kill himself, not to prove the point he cared about, but because he knew that idea might actually be possible. Instead he never died, was thought of as a tortured genius, and that idea was about to be made.

Margret woke up when the bus had stopped, apparently she dozed off after a couple hours and she was surprised to see that it was dark outside. She got up with the others as they moved off the bus and went into their apparent destination: an abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere. Although the walk up to it was unnerving, a lot of the actors were whispering, questioning what the hell was going on, she became relaxed when they found that the inside of the building was actually refurbished, well lighted, and had an appearance similar to a five star hotel lobby. There was marble flooring, pillars spanned around, counter tops and walls fit with mahogany, and from hidden speakers the sounds of harps played. There were plenty of couches and chairs, all made of red velvet, around and the actors relaxed for quite some time, talking more comfortably than they had on the bus.

She found a nearby bathroom and decided to take advantage of it since she had fallen asleep, missing the chance to relieve herself on the ride up. After she dumped everything out of her, she decided to wash up and reapply her make up at the sink. Frankie watched all of this, he was in the phase of his plan where he had to actively switch the monitors, from room to room. “Don’t bother with the makeup, you look acceptable as you are.” A voice said from somewhere in the bathroom, and it confused Margret at first, then she realized it was from a hidden speaker. “Tell the others to head into the back of the lobby when you all are ready to begin filming. There are rooms designated for each of you.”

Looking for a camera, she asked “Oh, what’s this movie about? Are we going to get scripts, or..?”

“Just head into the back.” He had to light up a cigarette, he was impatient to finally begin.

Margret went to tell the others and they all shuffled towards the back, finding a door that led into a long hallway. There were doors spaced out on either side of the hall, each with an actors name on it, placed on a cliched star. When Margret found her door and entered she was surprised to be in a small, cubed room, made completely of concrete that appeared to be painted in a bluish color. The wall to her left was made completely of thick glass, where she could see into the other room that, similar in build, was painted in a shade of orange. She was surprised to see the actress who looked like an older version of herself on the other side, and then she heard the door lock.