#running around and screaming on stage while the audience loses their absolute shit

[ujuro]

Lmao all this singing discourse STILL going on and the next idol release on my list to listen to is the single by the rebooted bellring shoujo heart, a group notorious for having maybe the worst vocals possible and also maybe the best idol group ever

[simp-ly-writes]

"I'll have you know..."

Ask: who was a feared overlord that decided to eventually take a backseat in the power struggle and everything? Because of how long ago she was on top of everything, others tend to forget how evil they are...

Pairing: Vox x overlord!Reader

Warnings: mentions of blood and suggestive themes.

A/N: Sorry for the delay @matrixbearer2024! Hope you all enjoy~

Masterlist | Taglist | un-edited.

Hazbin Hotel Masterlist

↳ Back before television was trying to kill the radio star, you were on the up and up becoming one of hells most feared overlords- picking your way up through the ranks and eventually demoting many names before you in hells history. Yet overtime the constant displays of killing, blood stained underneath your fingernails and lack of social life ate away at you- forcing you to drop it all much to the publics shock and awe

↳ Over the next few years, many other up-and-coming overlords did their best to come take over your position and you allowed them to think they did because in the meanwhile you were finding much richer entertainment than their potential screams while sitting in the audience to one of your closest fellow overlords, Vox.

--

Without the need for the laugh and clapping cue to play, you were rolling around in your seat to his dry humor and... interesting threats. The crowd was forced into a hypnotic state alongside all the viewers tuneing in for the night while you shook your head, fighting to keep the smile off your face as they cut to a commercial break, Vox waves you up on to the stage with a smile.

He helps you up the last few steps before guiding you into his chair as he leans against the desk to converse with you, "So, what brought the smile out earlier in the crowd?" The TV man asks you as you raise your brow, "just amused with your," you wave your hand around Vox's appearance, "displays of power. Remember how well that went with me the first time," you giggle out as Vox groans, hands moving to cover his screen with embarrassment.

"I was just trying to... impress you then," he tries to redeem himself while looking through his fingers as you crack your head back now, cackles coming out from the back of your throat as Vox thanks himself for hypnotizing the crowd earlier so they would not see the feared overlord like this. "Erm- impressed is one way of putting it love," you read out and pull his hands away from his face as you calm one another down by rubbing small circles to the back of his gloved hand.

"And on that note, we are coming back from commercial break in 20 seconds, back you go now" Vox pulls his hand away with a small smile, ushering you off stage as you mockingly protest with a grin to his laughter before sitting in-behind the camera crew.

"Welcome back, now on tonights news- the Radio Demon appears to be back! And who gives a shit, do any of you?" Vox points towards the silent crowd as they all lifelessly stare back at him with open mouths. "By the sounds of that, no one gives an absolute fuck- just as any sane mind should!" You roll you eyes at the statement, thinking to yourself, he really is not over that lost contract- is he?

--

↳ When you and Vox are out on the streets one night together grabbing a bite to eat with the rest of the Vee's. A group of up-and-coming overlords swarm your group- trying to force you all into the sewers below them.

You are doing your best to not lose control of your power- of the souls you had collected in that past life of yours but as you soon become overwhelmed, watching as Vox's screen fractures against a brick wall with nowhere to escape to- your mind gives up control in that moment.

Shoving the guys off you- you call forth a few souls linked in contract to you that join the battle as your size only grows with every last breath of the enemy. Stopping and laughing to the sounds of skulls cracking against your boots, twirling around your fingers to strangle another while devouring their very soul. On-lookers run away in horror at the sight, the once feared overlord was feared one more with such hellish displays of power.

Yet Vox, beated, bruised, and trying to pick of the peices of glass in order to repair himself later was out of breath at the sight of you in your true demonic form. His heart hammered in his chest, fuck you look so fucking hot like this, drummed in his head like a broken reccord as Valentino casted him a questioning glance while shooting down another swarm coming up from the sewers.

"Everything alright there Vee?" The studio director asks while reloading his weapon as Vox staggers to a stand, brushing off his coat tails before they both duck out of the way as your claws sweep across the street, a horror-filled amusement park ride the attacks were on while you flung them around and into the side of a building without a second thought.

Twisting back around, you send Vox and ensemble a wink before turning down the street to find the organizer of this attack. Velvette turns around from snapping one of their necks, waving her hands in disgust as she calls for Valentinos handkerchief.

Hands clean she points a finger to Vox, signaling up and down with her eyes, "You may want to sort that out, darling. Does not look good for our image- being all stood proudly and that- would steal from Valentinos side, no?"

Going bright red, Vox forces himself into the wire systems and back to the headquarters where you are already sitting, waiting for him in the living room, freshly showered and a set of coffee on the table. "Do hate the smell of blood, gets in the way on my appetite, what about you?" you casually ask while patting the seat next to you as Vox waddles his way over with wide-eyes.

"Umm... yeah," Vox manages to output, not meeting your eyes as you tilt your head at him in confusion, his breath hitching as more of your skin is exposed as you mutter an ah. Now understanding the issue, "If I had known my true form got you this riled up- sweetheart this would become a weekend special~" you tease, looking the way his screen flickers and his system overheats.

Valentino and Velvette soon burst into the room just as you reach over Vox's lap to grab a blanket for the man. Letting out one last wink, you smile widly at the remaining members as you recall your old stories.

↳ Taglist: @jtcat305 @amarokofficial

[cheesecakeingfriends]

Charlie stumbles upon a gay bar + doesn’t recognize Drag Queen!Pim at first

Charlie x Drag Queen Pim

Charlie started to go to gay bars when he was dating Zoey, actually. She enjoyed drag performers and though he was reluctant at first (a bit of internalized homophobia there) she insisted on the fact they were both bisexual so why not? (Charlie had never used that word, he just told her "I mean, everyone's kinda into guys" and she did the math for him)

After they break up (a mutual thing, kind of "hey, this isn't working, is it?" while cuddling on the couch and they're cool), Charlie keeps going to gay bars just to get drunk. At least that's what he tells himself.

Gays are cooler to be around when you drink, you see. It's... It's a science thing. Google it. No, he's not looking for a hookup, he's just here to drink. Really.

(Not that a lot of men approach him, anyway)

One night he walks into the bar and it's absolutely packed. A drag night, apparently. He even runs into Zoey who is already with a girl??? It's only been like two years, but go off, I guess. Good to know she could replace him so quickly. They're still cool, though. Just... Yeah, that's cool.

Anyway, the club is blasting Dolly Parton??? Curious. That isn't usually the type of music they'd play, even for a drag show.

He can barely see the performer but everyone is going crazy for her. She's small to the point she almost gets lost in the crowd and wearing a big blonde wig and a sparkly country outfit. It's adorable.

He kind of stares mesmerized for a while. And like, it's a normal reaction isn't it? He's never seen an audience go this insane over 9 to 5, so she's got to be pretty exceptional.

"Hey, isn't that Pim?" Zoey suddenly says.

At first Charlie laughs it off. Like, yeah, right, Pim doing drag at a gay bar. But then he looks closer... holy shit, that really is Pim. And Pim has seen him too, losing sense of the stage and falling off it.

Charlie thinks of getting to him, but he doesn't feel like doing the whole "what were you doing at a gay bar?" convo and some of the staff is already helping him, so it's probably alright.

That Monday at the office, he finds out Pim in fact broke his arm, oops

Both are awkward af, completely aware that the other recognized them and also what was that??? But Charlie feels the urge to apologize because yeah, that was probably his fault, he didn't mean to invade or anything.

Pim sits him down and explains that he's been doing drag for about three years? Apparently, he heard Charlie and Zoey gush (I mean, not gush, alpha males don't gush, but you get the point) over a really amazing performer, which made him curious. And next thing he knew he was doing it.

Charlie tells him he's very good and also can't help but comment that he thought he was straight.

Pim reassures him he's straight; he just loves the artform. Charlie says the same.

(Spoiler: they were not straight)

Charlie becomes Pim's biggest fan, he goes to all his performances and insists that he'll kick any dude who makes him uncomfortable's ass (he will most-likely not succeed, but he'll try). Pim finds it super endearing.

Then along comes Pim's gay awakening and he actually starts seeing a guy after his shows.

Charlie is so normal about it.

Of course they end up having a screaming "weren't you straight?"/"weren't *you* straight, Charlie? why do you care so much?" match at the break room.

(Allan hates gay people now.)

Let's just say Pim won't be seeing guys who aren't Charlie for much longer.

[plegdoctor]

UK2UR Review

Well bing bang fucking bong

TL;DR - Had the best night of my life, screamed so loud I broke sound barriers, they were all amazing

Would like to preface that the pictures aren't great because I was proper up in the balcony, Lawrence called our seats "the real nosebleeders" and recommended that we all get helmets. So yeah, apologies

So I went to the Oxford show (4th Feb 2022) and let me tell you, before I even entered the building I could have died happy. While showing my covid pass, Ellie stuck her head out of an open window and was singing at the queue and then, when I got beneath the window, Cherry popped her head up, waved to us and said hello. I lost my shit, eyes went saucer like, shouted hi at her, and I'm counting that as me talking to Cherry Valentine. They both looked so perfect as well, like Cherry looked real but also not real, I will never get the image of her out of my head.

I also saw a glimpse of Sum-Ting but she disappeared before I got in.

Can confirm that they are selling merch! I got a signed Veronica print and a tour shirt. The guy we went to was cash only but I saw someone beside us paying with card so I'd recommend taking a bit of cash tbh just in case because I didn't so my lovely friend used theirs. But that's not the point.

It started at around 8:15, they started by coming out in groups (Tia, Joe, Ginny; Cherry, Sister, Veronica (and yes, I lost my mind); Asttina, A'whora; Ellie, Tayce, Bimini, Lawrence) and then Lawrence got up on the mic

They are SUCH a good host, so so funny, and I'm thrilled to announce that they still have "Can't go five minutes without mentioning Ellie Diamond" syndrome because they said "We haven't had any arguments or disagreements backstage yet.... probably because Ellie Diamond didn't choose the running order." So Diamondchaney fans, come get your content babes

(Another highlight was them going like "When we were discussing who was gonny host, Joe and Ginny were like 'oh, I host' and I was like 'I HOST and I won so give me that mic babes'" oh and then they were also listing some achievements of some of the girls and ugh it was just such a found family moment)

Asttina performed first and I didn't even get any pictures because I was so mesmerised by her, I couldn't keep my eyes off for even a second. It was so beautiful, she looked incredible, she's a *dancer* and she let you all know it. 10/10 from Asttina.

Ginny made me CREASE laughing. So before they come out to perform, they show their entrance and some of their meet the queens, and during Ginny's video i could see them at the side of the stage on their phone

The whole first part of their performance was walking on, getting applause and cheers and then fucking off and repeating the process. I was dead, it was brilliant. They then got on the mic, ("Rupaul didn't want me here but you all did! I hope she's watching! She's not.") talked to us all a bit ("Any Veronica Green fans here?" *Me, screaming my head off* "Makes a first.") And performed their I'm over my overdraft song. ("This is a song for all the working class people in the audience. And we're in Oxford so that's like three of you.") 10/10 for Ginny Lemon, bonus points for the Princess Diana handbag

Tia was next and fuck, she is tall. She came out looking STUNNING, sang Don't Start Now, then sang a bit of Outside In (side note, idk if it was just where I was sat but a surprising number of people didn't seem to know it, I was bouncing up and down screaming the lyrics) AND THEN put on a Boleyn costume from Six and SANG NO WAY AND WHEN I SAY I LOST MY MIND OH MY GOD I CLUTCHED MY FRIEND'S ARM GOING "ITS THE BOLEYN COSTUME ITS THE BOLEYN COSTUME" @tiaskofi you are going to absolutely lose it. 10/10

During the interval, my friend turned to me and said "we were going 100 for all of them, and then Veronica came on and you somehow got louder". When I say I think I broke sound barriers. High pitches came out of my mouth that I didn't even know existed. I think there were dogs howling in Scotland. Because Veronica was next and I was on the floor. She was INCREDIBLE. She looked amazing, she sang Diamonds are Forever, and then Holding out for a Hero (SAILOR VEE SAILOR VEE she wasn't in the sailor Vee costume but) and I screamed the house down. Cannot describe how amazing she was. I almost cried, at one point I forgot to breathe and almost started hyperventilating. I would give anything to see her perform live again, truly phenomenal. (Also one her her earrings flew off while she was dancing and she just kept dancing. I love it) 10/10

Joe Black and thus came my friend's turn to make all the dogs howl. Joe's performance, aside from being obviously amazing (and his vocals were chefs kiss), was really funny. The dancers looking so perturbed, Joe being lifted, the cackles. All of it was great. Something very found family that I noticed was Lawrence standing in the wings and absolutely creasing at Joe's performance. 10/10

I truly wish that my friend took a picture of me watching Cherry because I was slack-jawed. She looked amazing, her costume and performance seemed very linked to her gypsy heritage which I absolutely loved considering the topic of her documentary (which, if you haven't watched yet, definitely do so!!) And then she started doing Woman and oh. Oh. Oh. The floor? I was on it. I turned to my friend to say "I'm in love with Cherry Valentine" and they could do nothing but agree. Also, something extremely wholesome is that during the video, when she said about being a mental health nurse everyone started cheering. I didn't even take any pictures because I was so busy watching. 10/10

Cheeky little interval, in which I leaned over the balcony and saw Gottmik.

*Lawrence Chaney voice* why has Sister got an axe? Sister Sister entered the stage dragging a body behind her, at which point I went YES. She did Crazy (amazingly, might I add) but it was honestly one of the funniest acts of the night. The dancers came out as her lovers that she murdered, and with each murder the axe got comically bigger. Cannot describe how creased I was, honestly. I really hope someone films it and puts it online because it's truly fantastic.

A'whora wasn't kidding when she said her choreo is intense. It was insane. She looked amazing too, so so beautiful. It was very her, I liked it a lot. I am pretty sure she did a fortnite dance though. 10/10 still.

ELLIE. Oh my God she was amazing. Her makeup and costume were so intricate, her like dancing and everything was great. At one point she pulled her tail off (it was still attached at her wrist) and she just looked at it bemused and shrugged and I've never stanned so hard, I truly love her. She got such a big cheer and it made my heart so full. 10/10

Tayce. Tayce. TAYCE. I couldn't look at anyone or anything but her. Breathtaking. Amazing. Unbeknownst to me, she apparently had some NSFW going on behind her in the video but did I notice? No, I was far too concentrated her. She's so so mesmerising. What a gal. She's so beautiful guys. 10/10

Bimini.... Bimini was the moment. Came out, looked amazing, and then the pole dancing started and I haven't thought of anything since. I gasped, I gaped, I was terrified for their safety. It was nothing short of incredible. Honestly I was far too focused on them for the first part to pay attention to the song, but then God Save This Queen started and y'know what, I think that screaming that in a theatre full of people fixed all my issues. It was the best vibes, I've never felt happier. It was mindblowing. 10/10

AND LAWRENCE LAWRENCE LAWRENCE Lawrence in a spacesuit doing a whole space performance, with a feature from Victoria Scone. I LOVED it. Another performance where I was just too mesmirised to do anything but stare and scream and clap. 10/10 from our favourite winner.

AND THEN FINALLY THE LIPSYNCS OH THE LIPSYNCS.

Bimini and Joe looked amazing, Valentayce was alive and well, the Asttia dip made me ascend, Ginster were of course so funny, Veronica coming on to do a little covid bit broke my heart, BING BANG BONG BITCHES, Joe came out with H&M bags while Tia forward rolled onto stage, LAWRENCE X LAWRENCE TIME, why did I fully live my life screaming Jess Glynn lyrics at Sister I was honestly a bit embarrassed of myself, YDHTSYLM honestly.... I think it has revived my Taywhora writing because the tension the fact that they got so close and I thought they were gonna kiss they're really doing this for the taywhora shippers, ELLIE AND TAYCE DID THE ELLIE DIAMOND 8 COUNT, and then our final three doing I'm still standing. You know who wasn't standing? Me. I was on the floor.

When they did their final group performance, am not ashamed to admit that I shed a tear or two. It was so found family, it made me so happy, A'whora and Veronica interacted and I yelled. Fuck me, I've never had such a good time to be honest. I loved the end where we were cheering for them all in turn, Bim got the biggest cheer but they all got massive cheers and you know I was there screaming like a banshee for them all. (Also Lawrence made sure to do their impression of Ellie asking Ru to say Ellie in a scottish accent when they told us to clap for Ellie and the only thing I could think was that Diamondchaney are THRIVING) Oh I love them, I love it! UK2 has my heart for ever and ever.

Also Veronica and Tayce had a moment at the end so I'm officially starting to ship Verontayce

ALSO LAWRENCE DID A SPLIT AND ALL THE GIRLS RUSHED TO HELP THEM UP AND THEY RIPPED THEIR TIGHTS OR SOMETHING AND ASTTINA FIXED IT. SOFT SOFT SOFT.

It was majority good vibes, however on the way out I heard two rancid takes: One guy walked past me going "I love Ellie Diamond but" and then someone else said that she disagreed that season 2 was the best because she preferred season 3. bit tasteless innit luv x

In conclusion, if you have the opportunity to go, DO IT. If you're going, I am so so excited for you, you have such a treat ahead of you! If you can't or you're not going, then fear not because I saw a camera at the side of the stage during Cherry's performance and I will bet anything I have that it's for God Shave These Queens. I wish I could go again, honestly would give anything. It's fantastic.

[batarangsoundsdumb]

hae interrogationes multae respondeant quia demens .

if you read this entire ask post you deserve a gold star and financial recompensation

Um, Obviously because when you’re adopted by a white guy you automatically become white duhhh

this is about this post lmao and yeah youre absolutely right, you have to hand your poc card in when you get adopted by a white guy.

Do you think Cass would listen to Yanni, the YouTube channel epic symphonic rock, or some other stuff? There's some cool mashups but idk if that's up your alley, I kinda feel like I'm pushing it with my weird taste of music by recommending an orchestra cover of metal, but i just love that sort of thing and mashups :P @harvestyourcherries 

i haven’t heard of that? but in my personal (correct) opinion steph listens to classical music, and then both modern and older, and then also stuff like black sabbath, iron maiden, but also hardrock and hardcore. i like the idea of cass just liking the most extreme screaming songs full of noise and then also listen to pachelbel’s 370th sonata yanno? THANK YOU for the rec tho

speaking of ur cass playlist hc...reminds of the time (yesterday) i found 2 playlists randomly on spotify from the same user. one was abt 3 hours of instrumental/classical "dark" & "nostalgic" music. the other almost 11 hours of nothing but hardcore bass/synth/electronic music. just an incredible tightrope act to put on in public. the synth one was also called like "psalms for synth sluts" which is Also incredible

tbh i LOVE synth SO MUCH like for no reason at all but then also cannot handle a poppy electronic beat lmao. but this seems like the kinda thing i’d do but just in one (1) playlist bc i just sort songs by vibe instead of genre? that’s how i end up with britney spears and billy ray cyrus in the same playlist. 

Oh, I want Kate Kane playlist next! It would be amazing if you could do one when you have time and will 🙏

how rude would it be of me to just say no? like sorry kate but idk you and also you seem way too keen on the us military for an institution that homophobically targeted you? (and also commits war crimes) but let’s unpack the fact that the institution that caused the death of your mom and sister and also got you blacklisted for being gay is still one you align with???

'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' --- when i tell you i fucking screamed LOL!!!!!!! i can imagine the cameraman not knowing if he should cut to commercial or keep it on these two weirdos fighting on stage (bruce definitely ruffled dick's hair/noogied him right?? 

about this post but yeah lmao. this cameraman just turns to like the audience to get a reaction and it’s just multiple moments of CLEAR shock.

you are the only funny person on this hellsite

how egotistical is it for me to say that i get this ask multiple times a month? bc it literally happens so often it’s hilarious to me.

Wish there was more john/Bruce content 😔😔😔 was so hungry I actually looked at canon media 😔😔😔 (Justice League Dark babeeeyyyyyy)

check out batman: damned for some mediocre content but at least it’s john/bruce (also very interesting story and stuff, just got very >:( over this weird part where harley quinn tried to r*pe bruce or something? it’s not for everyone)

dick grayson but he's nicki minaj

his anaconda don’t want none,,, unless...... 

Dick Grayson was never a cop, he played Marshall on Paw Patrol

you are SO right. also paw patrol is a fucking good show idc. that shit could’ve been the new steven universe on this hellsite.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS1lI0bLI7-/?utm_medium=copy_link

...

why do people keep reposting my CONTENT. if you are not funny yourself don’t just grab shit off of tumblr and post it on insta,,, get a life. sidenote: should i start an insta and get all these ppl to take my content down that would be funny as hell.

Might I suggest for a Gotham City Meme: something about the true crime fandom thirsting for the rogues gallery

ok can i just say something slightly controversial?? no? i don’t find true crime ppl who are into criminals funny, that shits disturbing irl im not gonna bring that into my very chill universe.

i may have never seen a 'jason cleaning guns in sink' fic but i do know he WOULD

THANK YOU

bestie im sorry to say this to you but while you can, and people do wash their guns in the sink, that is a lot of lead in a very vital part of the kitchen.

people tend to do it in the bathtub.

WHY???? like damn why do you even have guns

i dont think i read many gun sink fics exactly but i have read lots of fics where jason cleanes his guns in the living room. usualy dissembles them and cleans them with a rag i think

lmao fair enough, like i think that’s a large part of what i remember as well.

if you say you've seen/read gun sink fics I believe you. I think those of us who didn't see them are lucky or maybe didn't search for fics by tags or something idk

i mean ive never sought them out but i HAVE seen them,, like definitely i know almost for certain.

saw your tags and I'm interested in Steph/Kara now. They would be the most chaotic couple <3

literally thoooo, i have a wip where they get together in a zombie apocalypse and like UGGGHhhh i am so in love with them.

I am the Breece anon. Thanks for the recommendation; am reading now. I’ve always been a hardcore Superman fan because I love my pure himbo farm boy. My logic is, if one Bruce is a Broose, then multiple Broose are a herd of Breece. And this is a hill upon which I will perish.

fair enough,,,, like moose, meese, goose, geese, bruce, breece. i get your logic and i stand by it as well. (glad you enjoyed the comic recs!!!!)

It's a beautiful day in Gotham, and you are a group of horrible Breece

OH my god dude lmao

there only being 42 fics on ao3 for tim and bernard is honestly so sad i need more

it’s like twice that now!!! we did it lads. (tho very sad that my fic isnt number one but like number 4 :((((  )

i'm too late you already did the poll lol but may i suggest bethy (bernard + timothy)

shit dude that wouldve been so fucking funnyyyyy. think ppl have just stuck to timber tho, tim/bernard kinda died down recently and i think it’s too bad, they’re a great couple and i love them.

Wait, hear me out

Bernothy @redlightofdawn

great recommendation (lmao this ask is from like a month ago) but very sorry to announce that NARDTH is the superior shipname

Wait, we know that bernard likes milfs (Tim's step-mom) but what about dilfs? gilfs?

Wait no, I regret sending that ask

these were two seperate asks and they’re HILARIOUS. in my personal opinion tho,,, milfs, gilfs, dilfs are just about vibes and bernard is just attracted to sexy ppl who may sometimes be milfs, dilfs, or EVEN gilfs.

crime in bludhaven would drop to half if nightwing had a boob window. in this essay i will-

WHERE’S THE ESSAY ANON, WHERE’S THE FUCKING ESSAY

Wait if Barbra and Tim r at opposite ends at all times what happened to Barbra once everyone’s Tim’s ever love before started dying lol

she won a lottery ticket and spent 2 weeks on a resort in the bahamas before returning home and finding out that the joker was arrested for tax evasion and then spent a month staying at her big tiddie goth girlfriend’s house before conner came back to life and she broke her pinkie playing table hockey.

Why is the opposite end thing so funny and compelling to me. Tim comes back from his depression quest for Bruce and Babs is now a literal god

lmao when tim loses his spleen barbara reaches nirvana.

Are you still taking music recs because I have three songs that remind me of Jason that I think you'd like

send to me or lose a toe

🌸 ⭐ put this star into the inbox of your favorite blogs. it’s time to spread positivity! ⭐🌸😋

thanks, i wont tho on account of i wont.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMduBy3Sr/

⬆️

This is the whole of Blüdhaven and everyone anywhere.

Nightwings ass alone saves more people in a calendar year and does more for so society than most heroes do their whole career.Also u are one of the funniest tumblr pages out there. The vibes are unmatched and the memes and tags ✨send me✨.Thank u and goodnight @julia-flow 

fanksss also lmao.

That's going to be a little bit difficult to explain, but

There's some music that you listen to and you think, "oh my gosh, I can perfectly imagine Dick Grayson singing this song, with the same voice as the singer because that voice matches with Dick Grayson"?

oh yeah totally lmao. i have a lot of songs that i think are just entirely dick grayson yanno? kind of all of my playlists have that vibe, but i really find bleachers to fit with dick? idk.

"Lois lane/Superman" fics this, "Lois lane/Clark Kent" fics that, (/lh) let's get into the real good stuff. Some people ship Lois, Clark, and Superman as a throuple. Most popular fic tag for sure

yes totally, i think they’d be absolutely killer on ao3 and clark gets so fucking embarassed about it.

I miss your post, hope you’re doing okay!!

haha this was like 2 months ago, but i was doing fine then too! just didn’t have a lot of inspiration in terms of content.

Doot doot!

noot noot

I’m confused. What did DC do now? Like with nightwing? And another sibling? Please spoil everything for me

lmao they gave him a secret sister plotline where they had his dad cheat on his mom with tony zucco’s wife, bc dick’s life wasn’t traumatic enough yet.

sorry but it's so funny that batman is called "the dark knight" when the gotham city baseball team is called the gotham knights. it'd be like if a vigilante was running around new york called like "the scary yankee"

lmaooo no. but like yankee comes from dutch names or something so wouldnt it be HILARIOUS if gotham knights came from like german names and bruce would be running around called the dark KLAUS UND NIEK @graysonnightwing 

(not a batcest shipper) it’s so funny to me that the responses are “i’m a batcest shipper because i can differentiate fiction from reality and and it doesn’t bother me personally, but i understand why you oils think it’s weird” to “i wish all batcest shippers a very fucking die”

yeah lmaoo. i personally basically flipped my entire stance around to ‘i dont care please leave me and everybody else alone’ bc i think there’s really no point in starting a moral dillema over some fucking fandom bullshit. Please just,,, go home,,, log off, find a nice forest to have a little walk in and remember that somewhere in history, somebody probably died in the place you’re standing. and you will also die someday, and somebody will have to look at your internet usage and see you fighting multiple people anonymously while being named ‘nightwingsbuttchin200186′ like... calm down, we’re all gonna die this is not the thing to worry about.

so since like "wards" don't really exist in modern society almost all the batkids are foster kids, right? i used to work in the system and imagine: monthly visits from social workers and guardian ad litems, bruce having to get permission to take the boys anywhere out of state, calling their social worker at like 8 a.m. like "yeah dick broke his arm again... a gymnastics accident this time...." their poor social worker. bruce send her a huge bouquet and box of chocolates every month to stay on her good side

i imagine the social worker just getting into the case like ‘yeah let’s get this kid a good guardian’ and then ending up having to work with 22 y/o bruce wayne and his 50 y/o dad. and so this social worker is like ‘okay we can work with this, this is the best home i can find’ and then like it ends up landing on its feet and then the kid gets adopted and then they get a call a year later like ‘uhm so hi, this kid tried to steal my tyres can i adopt him?’ and like 3 years later. ‘okay so basically, my neighbours’ kid imprinted on me and now they’re dead, can i keep him?’ two years later it’s like ‘okay so this assassin child-’

ever since I saw that one post of yours, the meme that's something like "I know that abba's backup dancer got me" with a picture of discowing, I've been haunted. Every once in a while I'll be minding my own business then the image of abba's backup dancer dick grayson aka nightwing aka discowing will flash in my mind and I'll be frozen in place. Today at work I was in the middle of folding clothes and suddenly once again discowing entered my mind and I suddenly lost the ability to see anything except He. Thank you.

wow. the IMPACT.

Braver than any US marine man props to you🤝

this shit is about the time i wrote an article on batcest, like man,,, the fact that i didn’t get cancelled is MIRACULOUS. also like,,, uh if anybody on here did gossip on me,, send screenshots i’d love to see it.

Hello, just wanted to say your article was great. Thank you for taking the time to provide an unbaised answer. It should provide people with nuances they couldn't possibly conjure on their own.

May I ask where your username originates from?

yes you may (also thanks!!!) i thought it up when i was trying to find an original username bc i didnt want to be called like ‘timdrakes something something’ or ‘jason todd something smoething’ or ‘dick grayson something something’ yanno? so i thought batarangs, they sound so dumb and that’s my username story... now it’s my whole entire brand lmao.

yno that bit in kick ass where red mist asks kick ass if he wants a hit of his blunt, was that the inspo for stoner tim

no? it’s bc i think stoners are hilarious and drugs are great. (dont do drugs tho) 

How would u feel if someone actually wore one of those bruce or ollie pride shirts u edited

fenomenal next question.

Dick as lil huddy and Jason as James gave me radiation poisoning and now I’m screaming crying throwing up so thx for that

(Rico suave as Tim is perfect tho literally no changes needed)

i was so funny for that shit wasn’t i??? lmao i loved those weird ass fancasts

You're doing the Lord's work by providing us with all these Gotham/Metropolis citizens memes, thank you for being so relentlessly funny @nellethiel-aranel

you’re welcome!! i really enjoy making memes, but getting validation for my content and my memes is REALLY nice.

Bruce is such a slut in your memes and honestly i love that for him @rhodey-rhudert-rhodes-main 

he’s that much of a slut irl too dw.

Bruce and Alfred have an emergency pride flag for the batkids. Oliver Queen printed an emergency "I love my gay son" t-shirt and as soon as Roy told him he was dating Jason, Oliver started wearing that shirt everyday and Roy always cringes when he sees it. Oliver also has an emergency "I love my lesbian daughter" shirt just in case for Cissie.

lmao YES i had a post like this bc like all of their kids/family members are so gayy

stop bringing back batfam fancasts it is not real it is not real it is not- 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

oh yes it is my darling.

did discowing burn down the notredam because he hates the bees? @allulily

no he did it bc fuck the french.

im gonna beg for 1 thing and 1 thing only. please please please put physical by olivia newton john on dick's playlist

okay then beg. bc i wont. physical reminds me too much of glee and that hurts me mentally.

your playlist is sorely missing some Madonna. Specifically Into the Groove, Like a Prayer, and Vogue

i’m scared of madonna that’s why she’s not on there. she haunts me in my dreams.

suggestion: son of batman by aaron dews for dick’s playlist🤩

sorry, i listened to it and the vibe didn’t agree with me.

Hear me out, metropolis citizens sending rare pair fics of Clark Kent x Superman fics to Lois to edit

yes, absolutely hilarious. even more funny if they send like physical copies, no address attached and lois sends it back marked with red ink, SOMEHOW

Imagine all the smut Clark must of read editing the fics

clark reads smut confirmeeed

NOT LOIS READING SUPERBAT PORN AND EDITING IT A 2AM 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hc that alfred is a meta that boosts healing factor of the people around him. if the bats are injured as much as they seem to be they would be doing bat stuff MAYBE half the year. no one including alfred knows about this. whenever the kids move out they inexplicably dont recover from injuries as fast and feel better whenever they visit the manor they just chalk it up to homesickness. bruce just thinks he heals really fast. alfred thinks everyone doesnt take care of themselves properly @finchcollector

that’s actually such a great idea, but i think that alfred would find out and learn how to concentrate it better so he can help more people, bc he’s great and i love him.

One of your dickfast posts reminded me of that tweet that goes: 'so you've had sex how many times? Yeah technically that's not a bromance' lol that's dickwally or dickroy

literally tho. like that’s all of dick’s friendships. once it gets past a certain time dick is like ‘wow i wonder what it would be like to make out with wally, wally come make out with me’ and wally’s like ‘we’ve done this like 40 times, dick, you know what it’s like’ and dick is like ‘sorry are you complaining?’ and they just make out.

superfam and batfam associations??

-batman and superman

-dick/barabara and supergirl?

-conner and tim

-jon and damian

pls enlighten me I am confused

nope,,, uhm batman and superman, but dick and superman as well, and then conner and tim, jon and damian and steph + babs with supergirl

I came across a fic in which Wonder Woman calls Batman "Stella" (like Stellaluna, the children's book) and I can imagine the batkids hop on the trend and maybe copies of the book appear at random places (aka, everywhere Bruce frequents)

sorry can’t reciprocate that was the name of my high school chemistry teacher and it gives me nightmares to think about.

good human what are your pronouns?

wouldn’t you like to know?

I need me some gothamites preferring harley over joker memes

everyone prefers harley over joker youre just very fucked up if you dont

don't understand why people try to add like veteran policy to the batfamily

dick pulling out his veteran batfam member card so he can eat first: step aside, peasants

Do you know the song Simmer by Haley Williams? It (the first verse anyways) reminds me of Jason? It's about rage.

damn yeah i LOVE HAYLEY!!!! youre right thoo

Okay so I like listen to your stoner Tim Drake playlist 24/7 but would he listen to skegss? Also I keep adding songs mentally it’s killing me 😩✋🏼 Anyways,, I literally love and worship your playlist 😃🤞🏼 And uh yeah have a good day ✨

stoner tim drake playlist is lyfeeee. also dont know who skeggs is? i’m stupid? have a good day!!

All the Robins (and Batgirl) decide to trade costumes for one night just to fuck with Batman and all the villains in Gotham. @subspacecadet 

batman knows it’s them youknow but like,,, what does he call them? he’s like ‘red hood?’ and 3 people answer and he’s not about to compromise some identities so he’s just Pissed.

I aspire to treat cops the way my dad treats them. This man is a 45 year old Asian immigrant to the US and the treats them like his pets. He talks about them like unruly children. Sometimes he pays off local cops to shut up and stop acting racist. And usually it works. I don’t know why but I can see Oliver Queen doing this

vibes... and also yes? oliver queen handing a local cop a donut to shut the fuck up lmao. but yanno i commit enough crimes to not really want to ever see a cop ever, so they kinda scare the everloving fuck out of me.

seeing as tim hasn't aged in years, that means he was 17 at peak emo tumblr era. im back on my emo tim bullshit and im not letting it go

emo tim had a wattpad account send tweet

People seem to think that batman is so dark and serious when the rainbow batsuit is right there. He wore it with no shame.

dude the 60s were a DIFFERENT TIME

dick grew up in a circus, jason grew up on the streets, and tim was probably raised by the internet

all of them cuss every other word and you cannot tell me otherwise

bitch i KNOW but dc has to change to an 18+ rating if they want to sell comix with swear words in them so we gotta deal with imagining the swear words in ourselves

thoughts on teen titans and young justice

haven’t seen teen titans on account of havent seen it and young justice was LITERALLY my favourite thing ever, tho i do gotta admit it’s not at all similar to the young justice comics unfortunately. i really wouldve liked to see timmy bart kon cassie and cissie animated on tv!!

ew ew ew how to delete batcest shippers I genuinely digust them

log off tumblr?

Okay as poc who was called racist for calling an Italian pastabrain: in the batfam are Italians bit Damian just yells various insults about the others being Italian. Just him yelling “What are you doing you moronic spaghettihead!” At steph etc

huh? i meant real italians. homeboy is telling steph he hopes she chokes on her fucking garlic.

I think it's dumb as hell to pull the batman is the best fighter in the batfam argument because like it's just irresponsible of Bruce to let his kids fight when they couldn't possibly be on his league or something

fair enough, but also like who cares they could all kill you just sit down and take a beating.

lady shiva, thalia al ghul and Selina Kyle are all milfs @notanothertimburtonenthusiastugh 

unfortunately, i have to admit,,, you’re right

why tf didn't someone give joker a death sentence already? like he's a mass murderer...give him the electric chair treatment wtf

idk i think plenty of people would have tried to murder him already (boring answer is: he is a popular character so they can’t kill him off bc he brings in lots of money)

There’s no such thing as “ copaganda”.

all american media is propaganda. happy to clear this up for you

is it bad that I find lady shiva owa owa

no. find her as owa owa as you want.

aight I'm guessing the order of your favs in batfam:

1. tim

2. Steph

3. dick

4. Duke

5. the rest

you’re wrong but it’s cute that you tried, i generally don’t have favourites, but i have a special place in my heart for steph, tim, dick and cass. bc they were like my introduction to batfam. but damian, jason, duke, bruce, babs and alfred are NOT FORGOTTEN OR UNLOVED

oh my god i was literally just readily willing to believe that italians werent white ty for clarifying it was a joke im so dumb sdkvjskdfs

i mean some italians aren’t white? italian is a nationality as well as an ethnicity, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

since I saw so many people doing headcanons about the nationalities of batboys, I see Dick as an Italian.

dont know if youre serious or not, but sure.

super random but

jason 🤝 damian

old english

lmao fair enough.

tim absolutely has 1 gay uncle and his parents shit talk said uncle all the time so after bruce adopts him he specifically reaches out to this uncle to be like "heyyyy just so you know you majorly influenced my life yes i know i havent seen you since i was 5 and at the family reunion yes i know you dont remember my name idc thank you im gay too" and then they never talk again.

yuppp lmao that’s definitely something that could happen. i can also consider tim having no family members, like none. until he does like a dna test and he realises he has like an aunt living barely 2 miles away from him who’s like some illegitimate child of his grandpa.

I dare you one of them sends clark superman/clark fic and clark corrects the shit out of it and then goes like ps his dick is not that big, just telling as someone who has seen it. internet either explodes or goes who tf did he not fuck at this point.

i think everybody would call clark a buzzkill and try to cancel him over that.

so you're telling me Tim Drake wouldn't buy Starbucks?

no. dunkin donuts all the way

One of my favorite things is imagining people finding out jason came back from the dead and being like "oh no does he have magic powers now?!?!?" and he just pulls out a gun and tries to shoot joker

now he doesn’t even have the gun :) lmao

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

bruce gets codename ‘ugh’ everytime. he hates it.

crazy that tim being a 17 y/o ceo and a stoner who does brand deals are all actual canon things written in detective comics comics and not made up for shits and giggles by you, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb @rowdeyclown

SO CRAZY HUH?

batman au where everything is the same but his utility belt is bright pink

absolutely, but i raise you, his boots light up like sketchers when he kicks people.

unbeknownst to the superhero fandom writers in the dcuniverse, clark and BRUCE are one of the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag on ao3. clark writes the best lois x superman angst, full of unhappy endings and scenes that are a so detailed you'd think you were in the middle of a superhero beatdown. bruce made an ao3 account to fuel "the do the butts match" thing, and makes batman/bruce fics from time to time. he wrote a superbat fic as a joke but ended up making it REAL porny. @concrastinator

dude they’re WAY too busy for that. Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan on the other hand are the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag writing what is Mostly porn.

When the dining table topic gets to politics, Steph says "eat the rich" as the solution

bruce just silently takes away her fork and knife while she’s talking.

[saharzahids]

Starkid Rewatch: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals 🎼

Finally we have reached the hatchetfield series

My paulkins brain is ready let's gooo

I'm that one lady in the audience who's genuinely jamming out to the intro

Thinking back to how the intro was just foreshadowing the ending and that Emma gets infected too

🎶what an ass, what a bitch, what a cuuuuuuuuck🎶

I love how every musical with them has lauren and robert having a cute dance number

Paul was clearly set up to be the asshole character but we all chose to love him so they just went along with it

LATTAY HOTTAY ☕

Does she know i would die for her

I have very low blood sugar

Paulkins interaction here we go

Knowing that ted is the homeless man...

I don't know how it changes things here but somehow it just does

Reluctant friendship hcs for paul and green peace girl come through

Once again: props to June saito for understanding the duality of lesbian fashion

Hey it's everyone's favorite murder grandpa

Oh, look a new blouse

Pitch perfect whomst?

I love that for Bill it's never a question of alice being gay..it's never really that big of a deal. He just does not like deb

He even suggests other girls for alice

Its just really comforting for me to watch it be normalised so sweetly

Lah...dee...DAH. DAH. DAY?!

I will 100% believe this is the man behind the paul clones. He is so fucking unhinged look at him

🎶black coffee, I'm your coffee gal- NOOOOO!!!!!

He has to bend to half his height to meet her eye level i love them

Promise me you'll think about the implications!!

Jaime had no business being this hot during cup of poisoned coffee

They're constantly just holding hands or reaching out for each other it's too cute

YOU GRABBED THE WRONG ONE, YOU NOODLE!

The purest friendship

Ted casually jamming out to Robert's dance

[alien/turkey noises]

His brain fell out

Who is it? Professor hidgens! Don't lie to me whoever you are, I'm professor hidgens!

This is paul and...them

I'm going to...kick your...head

Iconic

Get you someone who looks at you the way paul looks at emma

Or even the way emma looks at paul really they're both equally soft

The biggest plot twist would have been if Paul had been the one to crash Jane's car

FUCK CLIVESDALE

So I guess I'm the supervillain? I don't think of you like that at all emma

I'm soft for them

Jaime i love u

Seriously her voice 😯

Jeff just jumping around while jaime sings like a goddess honestly same

Anyways paulkins are being all adorable in the background

I love how they're just screaming out for bill like fuck ted

I shot a charle-ton

Appreciate his jokes please

SING THE BEGINNING OF MOANA

The best starkid song honestly

Can we talk about how paul remembered most of the lines? Like emma and ted were just repeating whatever he said and bill was fucking singing the circle of life

Ted's voice cracking

I just realised he's sitting directly in front of charlotte's body and I know he's 90% an asshole but this fucking scene man

Like he cares just a little and we can all see it how he's trying to keep whats left of his friends from dying too

Honestly joey's acting here gets me

Height difference™

When he said "I respect her choices but..." I honestly initially thought some homophobic crap might follow but bill you absolute angel

He did not dissapoint

Bill Woodward 🤝 Steve harrington

If you get what I mean

(team i have no issue with you being a lesbian but please have better taste in girls)

Fancasting for denise or angela to play grace chastity in NPMD

Corey's expressions in this scene honestly breaks my heart

He just wanted to save his daughter 😔

prove it asshole, we're the army

he boop

WEAR A WATCH ⌚

I'm authorising you to use my firearm

Hidgens and mcnamara are both dramatic gays but with completely opposite energies

[foot sweep]

The way he skip-runs across the stage

Draco would be proud

For a 63 year old he can really work those hips

The audience losing their shit

Should I take this chair? I'll get the piano

The light slowly turning red as infected!mcnamara smiles

The audience slowly realising what the lyrics mean

Honestly iconic

One of my favorite moments in the show

So the last thing paul ever told emma was "byeeeee"?

Nah fuck that they both survived and are living happily in colorado running their pot farm

What ending?

The theatre being Paul's worst nightmare and starlight theatre being the place where he's killed, and starlight also being miss holloway's nightmare time? Methinks he might be her descendent of some sort

Watch out paul, he might kick your head

Mr. Davidson didn't want to be a mindless alien slave! He wanted to be choked by his wife!

Starkid stroking their villain takes a whole another level here huh

Jon slipping between normal talking to singing after every other word is pure talent

All jokes and paulkins related angst aside the ending is actually really amazing for a multitude of reasons

1. Inevitable is an absolute masterpiece of a song and it ties in all the previous songs that were there in the show

2. It provides context to the intro song (its all a fucking loop babey)

3. We get this one final moment of softness

4. Emma's scream perfectly harmonises with the ending of inevitable

5. It spectacularly breaks the 4th wall for the second time and integrates the audience as characters in the show

6. They never once break character through the whole thing

7. It proves once and for all that the hero of the story was never paul, it was emma. paul was just the final villain

That being said I am happily going back deep down in denial-town. You can find me drowning in a bucketload of paulkins fluff fics goodbye

[aww-writing-no]

For @winterhawkbingo Round 3, Square G1: Eddie Brock

Ao3 Link

Changement de pieds:

They were halfway through the Act III of Spiderman and final act of the performance when Eddie came spinning offstage and grabbed Clint’s arm as he went past. Clint held up his hand for a high five, but Eddie just sagged against him, sucking in deep gulps of air.

“You okay there?” Clint whispered, giving him a concerned look. “You don’t look great.”

It was hard to tell under all the stage makeup, but Eddie was looking paler than usual. Clint pressed a hand to Eddie’s forehead, realizing how useless that was after the fact. Of course he would be hot and sweaty after the performance he just gave.

Eddie looked up at Clint, desperation in his eyes. “I’m so fucking dizzy,” he whispered.

Clint raised his eyebrows in concern. Dancers got desensitized to getting dizzy while spinning at a young age, so if it was enough for Eddie to be mentioning during a performance it must be really bad. He glanced across the stage where Bucky, as Spiderman, had called up his army of spiders. The chorus was doing a bunch of chasés across the stage and Clint looked around to see if he could spot a stage manager.

“Can you keep going?” Clint asked, making sure to keep his voice low.

Eddie closed his eyes and leaned over further. Clint could feel him start to shake as he clutched Clint’s arm for support.

“I have to, right?” Eddie said, putting more pressure on Clint’s arm.

Clint continued to look around for a stage manager. Eddie looked like he was either going to puke or pass out, and he didn’t think it would be a great idea for either of those things to happen onstage.

It was almost time for Clint to stumble across the stage in a comedic moment to join the rest of the chorus of spiders, but he still couldn’t see any of the stage managers. It looked like something was really wrong with Eddie and Clint panicked.

“Give me your costume,” he demanded, ripping off his wig and running his fingers through his hair to flatten it out the best he could. They were just going to have to have a blond Venom in the second half of the act tonight because Clint was barely going to have time to put on Eddie’s costume, much less his wig. He started rapidly unlacing his tutu as Eddie unzipped his unitard with shaking hands.

Venom was also going to be in pointe shoes, Clint realized as he yanked the unitard on over his tights. He had about eight more measures before Eddie was supposed to be onstage, and he was just praying he remembered all the choreography from when he was doing that extra practice with Bucky.

“What is going on here?!” a stage manager hissed, finally appearing in the wings. Clint didn’t have time to answer her before he leapt on stage, but he heard Eddie throwing up and figured that should be enough of an answer.

Bucky’s look of shock as Clint appeared on stage was more realistic than artistic. “The fuck?” he mouthed when he was facing upstage away from the audience.

Clint gave him a tiny shrug before going into a fouetté jeté.

He lunged at Bucky, and Bucky jumped back, bringing his arms up to mimic shooting webs at him. Clint danced back, weaving as he went.

They repeated this a couple of times before Clint backed into the waiting arms of two of the other dancers. They lifted him up, and he beat his legs in the air. They lowered him down enough for him to kick off the floor and toss his legs backwards over his head. Thank goodness Wade and Junjie were there to guide his jump, because he’d forgotten about the pointe shoes and almost lost his footing on the landing.

Clint flung his arms back and the two spiders released their grips. He raised his arms and stalked towards Bucky, getting ready for the big finale. Bucky continued to mime shooting webs at Clint, who grabbed Bucky’s right wrist on one beat, then his left wrist on the next. Bucky twisted his hands to grip Clint and swung himself between Clint’s outstretched legs. Clint pulled Bucky back through, using the momentum to lift him in the air. As he came down from the lift, Bucky wrapped his legs around Clint’s waist and they dropped hands so Bucky could do a backbend. Clint held his waist and guided Bucky into a handstand.

From there Bucky flipped upright, facing Clint and raised his arms, flicking his hands towards Clint. The chorus surged to surround Clint, holding hands as they did a series of pas de chat in a tight circle around him. It wouldn’t have been so tight, Clint thought wryly, if he’d been in their number like he was supposed to.

As they formed a dome with their arms over their heads, Clint dropped to one knee. Their arms pulsed in time to the music, and Clint curled up on the ground, face pressed into his knees and arms wrapped around his legs. The music swelled and the circle of dancers opened to reveal Clint, who stayed curled in the fetal position. He hugged himself tightly as two of the spiders dragged him off stage before running back for their victory dance. It would be uneven without him, and he briefly considered putting his tutu back on to join them for a very late entrance before he looked up to see a pair of angry stage managers standing over him.

“What was that?” one of them whisper-shouted, shaking Clint’s abandoned wig in one hand.

“Eddie looked like he was dying and I couldn’t find either of you,” Clint explained as he got to his feet. “Is he okay?”

“He’s on his way to the hospital,” the other stage manager grudgingly admitted.

“That was still incredibly stupid and dangerous!” the first one continued to whisper-shout and shake his wig.

“Uh huh,” Clint said, raising an eyebrow. “Can I get my wig back?” he asked, holding out his hand so the stage manager would stop abusing his poor wig.

He handed it back to Clint, asking, “Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, but I’m not seeing what other options I had,” Clint explained. “It was either switch places with Eddie or go on with the chorus and have Eddie try to push through and throw up or collapse on stage. I think I picked the better option.”

“You’re not even the Venom understudy!” he said, glaring at Clint. “You or Bucky could have been seriously hurt!”

“The Venom understudy is Marcello, who was already onstage,” Clint protested. “Neither of you was here to tell me what to do, so again, I’m not seeing what other options I had.”

The stage manager was prevented from answering by the flood of chorus members streaming off stage. They were greeted by a bevy of quiet “what the fuck”, “what happened”, and “where’s Eddie”.

Before anyone could answer them, the chorus was running back onstage for their bows. Clint watched them go before turning back to the stage managers with a raised eyebrow.

The calmer of the two rolled her eyes and said, “go ahead,” with a deep sigh.

Clint shoved his bedraggled wig back on his head, and ran out for Venom’s bow after the audience slowed their clapping for Steve’s Mary Jane. The crowd roared as he came out, taking a deep bow before stepping back to hold hands with Junjie on his right.

Bucky waited a few beats after the applause died down before slowly walking out to take his bows. After he stepped back to join the rest of the company, he gestured down to the orchestra pit, up to the crew, and then took hands with Steve and Clint to lead the bows as a company.

The second after the curtain dropped, Clint found himself surrounded by Trocks demanding to know where Eddie was (Steve), why he’d taken over as Venom (Marcello), and was he trying to give him a heart attack on stage (Bucky).

Clint threw up his hands in a futile effort to stop the torrent of questions. “I don’t know what happened with him, he’s on his way to the hospital, and I didn’t know what else to do,” he blurted out.

“The hospital?”

“Is he hurt?”

“What happened?”

“Did you shank him?��

“Which hospital?”

“Are you sure you didn’t shank him?”

Clint put his head in his hands as the questions continued. “I don’t know guys,” he told them again. “I saw him for like two minutes and he said he was dizzy and looked like he was gonna pass out or puke, so I made him give me his costume so we could finish the show. I definitely didn’t shank him, what the hell Wade?”

The buzz of questions continued as the company trooped down to the dressing room. Most of them had just finished changing out of their costumes and washing off their makeup when the artistic director stepped into the room. The room slowly went silent as they all turned to look at her.

“As I’m sure you all know by now, Eddie had to be taken to the hospital after being unable to finish his performance as Venom tonight. He wanted everyone to know he’s going to be fine, but is being admitted for an emergency appendectomy. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it if you all keep him in your thoughts during his recovery.”

The room burst out in a heated chatter at her announcement, but Clint whipped out his phone instead of joining in.

“Dude, did your appendix burst onstage???” he texted Eddie.

The text notification popped up a few minutes later.

“No but it was close/ Thx for going on/ Everyone ok?”

“NP, we’re fine, but HOLY SHIT MAN/ glad you’re gonna be okay”

Bucky walked over and peered over Clint’s shoulder. “Is that Eddie?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Clint said, tipping his head back to knock gently into Bucky’s.

“What the fuck?” Bucky exclaimed. It took Clint a second to realize he was reading the latest text from Eddie, not commenting about the head bump.

“Yea, after emergency surgery and a bunch of antiparasitics to kill off the tapeworm that was blocking my appendix” he’d written.

Clint squawked before texting, “THE TAPEWORM!??!?!?!” and a bunch of scream emojis.

Eddie replied with four sweat-smile emojis before writing, “guess I ate some undercooked meat” with a shrug emoji. “guess that’s why I was feeling shitty and losing weight too”.

“Oh my god,” Bucky groaned, beating his head against Clint’s shoulder.

Clint turned to face Bucky, who was looking absolutely miserable. “Hey, what’s with that face?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you’re having tapeworm appendicitis too.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, it’s just… he was my partner for how long and I didn’t see this? Was I that self-absorbed that I didn’t notice my dance partner’s declining health? The whole reason I kept doing all those extra practices with you was because Eddie kept saying he was too tired for the extra practices.”

Clint laid his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Hey, we’re professional dancers. We hide everything under a thick layer of pancake makeup and a smile, you know that. Besides, if we hadn’t done all those practices together I probably would have dropped you on your head tonight.”

Bucky gave him a wry smile. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. You probably wouldn’t have dropped me on my head, though.”

“Well, not by accident at least,” Clint joked, sticking his tongue out. “Hey, you wanna come with me to buy Eddie a get well basket and fill it with gummy worms?”

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER PRE-GAME 9/30/2020: 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE/CONFESSIONAL (2019)

Spoiler alert. Or whatever. It’s not going to matter, you don’t care.

So, I've been away for a minute. Just about any reason to be away from Tumblr is probably a good reason, but I have an especially good one. I'm finally working on a "real" writing project, which demands, and deserves, all of my attention. My social media abstinence isn't just a matter of time management, though. Once I had a long term obligation on my plate, I became very aware of how the short term satisfaction I get from posting mindless rants was eating away at the fuel I have available for sustained efforts. When I wind myself up with a 500-1000 word blog post, it generates a lot of electricity, but I blow it all as soon as I experience the catharsis of posting it, and I'm further pacified by ego-stroking likes and reblogs. Not to sound like a sanctimonious luddite--I mean, I'm still here, after all!--but it turns out that the staying focused on the long haul has been surprisingly revivifying. In fact, I haven't been talking about my big fancy project for the same reason; I don't want to lose any of the juice I've been storing up by wasting it on the shallow pleasure of describing it. Also such things should probably be somewhat confidential until they're approaching the publishing stage, but I digress! There is an actual reason I'm saying all this, that has more to do with this blog.

(Don’t get all excited, I’m not doing EVIL ED right now, I just need a relatable image.)

As I got deeper into my experience of "real" film writing, I started to reflect on the meaning of my personal writing. Like, the point of it. I tend to write in a sweaty, compulsive, sadomasochistic haze, in which I'm sometimes hyperbolically generous, and sometimes--perhaps more often, unfortunately--as nasty as humanly possible. Sometimes the movies deserve it, when they're lazy, pretentious, or otherwise demonstrate an open contempt for the audience aka ME. Often, though, I'm just creating an opportunity to vent my generalized rage and frustration. That can be very entertaining for myself and (hopefully) my teensy-but-devoted readership, but lately I've asked myself whether there isn't some negative tradeoff for all this amusement. In this phase of my life, it's reasonable to assume I'll make more and more friends and acquaintances who create things I don't always care for, but I don't necessarily think they deserve to be abused for it. As much as I have a right to say whatever I want, technically, I'd be embarrassed if I were caught just jacking myself off by making fun of their work in public. And more to the point, I don't necessarily want to contribute to the growing atmosphere in which people feel more afraid to try and fail, because the public so commonly misidentifies sarcasm and mean-spiritedness as intelligence and superiority, and that form of petty darkness spreads across the internet a lot faster than a movie can reach a wider audience. After all, I'm in the process of potentially turning myself into one of those well-meaning failures right now. I could stand to be a little more deliberate about how I speak, and about what, in general.

My father is an art critic, and once in an extra petulant moment, teenage-me asked him in an accusative tone what he thought the point of his profession was. He replied calmly that he wouldn't publish any comment that he didn't think the artist could make use of somehow. I don't know if he always stuck to that policy, but the thought sure stuck with me.

So anyway, over the last few months I've been giving myself a bit of an attitude adjustment, through a combination of personal reflection, and hard work on something meaningful/not for the internet. I've been feeling all proud of myself and shit, but today reminded me that any path to enlightenment is always marked by setbacks, doubt, and temptation. For today, in complete innocence (or at least a melange of innocence and ignorance, as I very much invite this type of problem), I managed to watch TWO (2) movies about an academic film-cum-psychology project, focused on a gang of college buddies who inevitably reveal what bad people they are under the unique conditions of the project, and then the project turns out to be run NOT by its presumed-dead originator, but by the originator's even-crazier lover. It's amazing how particular something can be, and still be utterly obvious and cliche. In my defense, I really tried to turn the second movie off, because it was...just instantly terrible, but the seed of suspicion had taken root--is this randomly selected movie ACTUALLY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS MOVIE?--and I just had to find out if this could be true. I suffered, deliberately, for another hour and a half, to confirm my awful hunch. I don't know how I would have felt if I had turned out to be wrong (better? worse?), but I don't have to worry about that now. Now I just have to worry about my overpowering impulse to be as ugly as possible about what I have personally subjected myself to.

(The completely deceptive poster for our not at all witchy or eerie opening feature.) 

In need of a passable time-waster this afternoon, I put on 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE. Released in March of 2019, Caitlin Koller's claustrophobic black comedy feels oddly like a product of 2020. A group of estranged, middle-aged college pals of the BIG CHILL ilk--which one of the characters calls out, out loud, just so ya know--come together for a fallen comrade's funeral, only to find themselves trapped in his widow's increasingly creepy cabin in the woods. Said comrade was driven to suicide by the failure of a psychological experiment he conducted that plunged its subject into madness, and if you don't realize right away that the obnoxious and unstable cast are the new subjects of their not-quite-dead friend's renewed project, then you're firing a lot slower than 24 frames per second. The dialog is often decent, aiding a handful of funny, natural performances...but it's hard to forget that you're just waiting for the conspicuously crazy widow to reveal that the "unexplained events" in and around the cabin are part of a controlled attempt to get the guests to devolve into their worst selves, which isn't such a difficult task considering the undesirable state they all arrive in.

It just made me ask myself, what was the point of this? Why do people make movies that are entirely predicated on the shock of the twist, knowing that if the twist isn't so shocking--or is baldly obvious from the start--then the whole experience just falls apart? Why not hedge your bets with a little more depth, or purpose, or style, or really anything more reliable than a smug attempt to prove that your script is smarter than your audience? Even if you do manage to pull off this dubious accomplishment, it reduces your movie to something like the experience of having somebody jump out of a closet and scream in your ear to "get" you. I've always felt concerned that if somebody ever tries to "get" me like that, I might just automatically punch them in the face. But anyway, whatever shred of good will this movie could have accrued with its plucky performances is blown away by the final insult, when the cops arrive to clean up the inevitable bloody mess. The responding officers are hilariously unimpressed and unsurprised by the byzantine scheme that has resulted in a shocking act of violence, because the cabin's "guest book", which our heroes all filled out, was actually the signatory page of a complicated waiver form granting full permission to the hosts to, like, do whatever the hell they want to everybody. Presumably this shit just goes on all the time, leading the local law to shrug off anything that happens to or because of the dumbassed lab rats who frequent the cabin? I dunno. I mean, what can I say? ACAB, I guess!

At the time, I managed to resist the urge to take to the internet and decry the crimes of this lame-o party joke. I really don't like the sensation that a movie is just trying to trick me into thinking something that isn't true. But, this isn't, like, an affront to cinema. People make annoying, below average movies all the time, and maybe you kinda have to, if you eventually want to make better movies. I imagine myself in the shoes of the people who actually put some elbow grease into this production, having to wade through the rantings of internet ghouls like myself while they're trying to see how their efforts are paying off. Making a movie is probably a lot harder than I think it is.

But that's part of the point I'm heading toward. I'm always amazed by people's willingness to pour huge amounts of energy and capital into something to which there is ultimately very little point. I mean, I have bad, unoriginal, boring ideas every single day of my life. But I almost never DO any of them. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to just get out of bed in the morning, let alone devote blood, sweat, and money to deliver unto the world material evidence of my personal mediocrity. I can't imagine thinking it would be worth it, for myself or the unfortunate people who are subjected to my project, to actually execute on my bad ideas. I'm being judgmental, but honestly, I don't even know if my attitude makes me better or worse than someone who accomplishes the task of completing and selling a movie that's mainly a waste of time. Movies are so complicated, and realizing them requires the consensus of so many people, that it's sort of incredible that there are people capable of making one that doesn't have a powerfully compelling motivation behind it. People who are able to do such a thing obviously have something that I don't, and it isn't just "consideration for the audience."

So, I could probably stand to be more forgiving--or just, less eager to absolutely flay someone alive on my dumb little blog because they so opened themselves up to my arsenal of elaborate insults. But like...not all the time. Sometimes, a movie really fucking asks for it, and in revealing itself to me, it has effectively signed a waiver giving me patent freedom to do whatever I want to it. CONFESSIONAL is the latest movie to give me such a gift. After the final credit rolled in 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE, I looked for a little palate cleanser. As little as I like movies that put their single egg in the motheaten basket of a "shocking twist", I also have a problem with what I identify as canned theater. Not that I think all movies have to be lavish productions, but I think they should try to do something that is natively cinematic. It's very rare that I'm impressed by anything that is literally all talk. So, I went in search of some more familiar form of trash to help me recallibrate, and trash is definitely what I got.

(Me crying over my own bad decisions.)

To be fair, I kind of should have known that I was in for a challenging experience. The 2019 found footage thriller CONFESSIONAL is more or less based on the "confessional" part of sleazy reality TV shows, isolating each cast member in a soundproof stall so they can spill the rotten contents of their guts. Unfortunately, I spotted a review suggesting that the movie succeeded, against all odds, at remaining visually dynamic despite the unchanging scenery, and I was intrigued. The reviewer was correct, impressively; the monotony of the coffin-like environment with its dark foam walls was the least of my concerns. Other problems superseded that threat, immediately. The plot concerns a group of college pals who come together to remember a recently deceased friend--a filmmaker who expired mysteriously while completing a psychology-tinged project in which she recorded all of her friends' most shameful personal secrets. Now, somebody else has taken over the project...someone who "has never been identified", according to an early title card in this movie-within-a-movie (EVEN THOUGH THIS PERSON WILL BE EXPLICITLY IDENTIFIED AT THE END OF THE MOVIE SO LIKE WHY), but who seems likely to be the decedent's ex-lover...who continues to expose their subjects' most shameful secrets on film. I mean, what the fuck? Did I somehow manage to pick a second movie with almost the exact same plot??? I couldn't believe it. I didn't know if I could take it. My prospects only got worse when the cast showed up and started talking. I tried to turn the movie off. I backed out and walked away from it, twice. But I couldn't leave it alone. I had to know if it was really the same movie.

CONFESSIONAL concerns characters who are contemporaneously in college, which actually goes a long way to making everything worse. Each of these walking cliches is connected in some way to Amelia, a film student whose mysterious death has created a campus scandal, leaving shattered hearts and lives in its wake. The living have each received a blackmail-flavored invitation to speak about the deceased in a tiny "confessional booth" somewhere on campus, where, predictably, they find themselves locked in until they confess whatever they know about Amelia, and their classmates. I don't know why practically every single movie about young people has to be so miserable, but this is one of those. I assume that it has something to do with the fact that youth is simultaneously so desired and so ignored. People in their teens and early 20s are so sexually coveted, yet so easily dismissed as individuals, that we wind up with all this media that panders to them relentlessly (or at least, panders to the legions of ticket-buying perverts who enjoy watching them prance around), without almost any consideration of how they actually think and act, and look. Movies like FAT GIRL and  WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE may be accused of their own form of pandering, a venal form of voyeuristic schadenfreude, but at least they reflect something of the awkwardness, isolation, and incompleteness of adolescence; something more than the dissociated, pornographic fantasies of adults who have long since forgotten what it was like to be powerless and ignored, or desired by people who don't even like you.

Not that CONFESSIONAL is supposed to be a work of grim realism, but it is most definitely rooted in a fantasy about college life that makes its contrived, message-y plot a lot harder to take. With almost the sole exception of "the nerdy one", every single character looks like a Bratz doll, oozing an exaggerated indecency that belies the movie's pretentious insistence on addressing the sex & gender Issues of the Day. What you get is a really good example of what happens when millennial characters are modeled, not on any actual millennials, but on other forms of marketing that are aimed at millennials, which are themselves just based on other preexisting youth-targeted commercials, et al ad nauseam. Even setting aside the deliriously slutty wardrobe choices, makeup appears to have been laid on with a trowel, coating each actor in a thick creamy layer of spackle that only makes any scars, pits, or other evidence of individuality look utterly bizarre. Accordingly, everybody preens, pouts, and generally behaves as if they're about to take off their clothes, which might be a huge relief given the profusion of chafing, cheapo mesh and straps they're laboring under.

So, ok, not every movie can have a great costume department, but the dialog here is a perfect match for the disastrous aesthetic decisions. Actually, this is the real reason I almost walked out on CONFESSIONAL. If I may ramble briefly, without substantiating any of my broad-ranging claims: Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, horror cinema seemed to suffer a degenerative slide away from genuine thrills and chills, and into a version of the genre that is best characterized as the Slutty Halloween Costume approach. Any sense of existential dread, revulsion, or bodily vulnerability was widely replaced by a cutesy, Hot Topic-y preference for fast fashion and sex appeal, in which bloodshed more facilitated an informal wet teeshirt contest than any real fear induction. Horror's new mall goth look came with an equally shallow, boring verbal affectation: a sullen, sleazy, tooth-sucking sarcasm, that ushered in a new era in which, instead of making fun of the scummy coked-out dialog in porno movies, we now expect everybody to just talk like that, because it's hot. There's probably a line to be drawn between this unfortunate development, and the boneheaded real-world trend of identifying "sarcasm" as an important personal selling point on dating sites, but I won't try to prove that here. For now, I will just say that as soon as I heard the CONFESSIONAL characters start to speak, with their sneering, insinuating tones, with the vocal fry, with the head wagging, the jutting jaws, the smoldering gazes, the juvenile dragging-out of horny grownup words like de-bauch-er-y...I almost lost my nerve. Listening to these little creeps hissing and spitting for 84 minutes is a lot like being hit on by some barfly who continues to bludgeon you with his hot breath and corny lines without ever noticing that you've thrown up into your pint.

Uh, anyway. So what actually happens in the movie. Why would anyone ever allow someone to record video of them revealing the ugliest, most embarrassing parts of themselves? Especially a kid, for whom popularity and reputation are often a matter of life or death--literally and specifically, in the case of this story. The flimsy reason is that the late filmmaker, Amelia, was the most awesomest girl ever. Everybody loved her, because she was so sweet, and so smart, and so cool, and so nice, and so deep, and so original, and so talented, and so sexy, and just like, the bestest most perfectest girl in the whole wide world. N.B. "The greatest of all time" is, perhaps counter-intuitively, a really bad quality that makes for really shitty, boring characters. For better or worse, Amelia is rarely on screen (and when she is, she's no Laura Palmer, frankly), so it's up to the viewer to just sort of imagine a type of person who could make you act against your best interests on account of you just like them so much. After all, so many of the characters were obsessed with her in some way, that it's like they're here to help you clap your hands and believe in this seductive, compelling part of the movie, that just isn't actually there on the screen. The anonymous antihero behind the confessional booth scheme slowly extracts from each character the selfish, destructive behavior that in some way contributed to the tragic loss of the most amazing person of all time--and part of the result is, if not a very interesting excuse for Amelia's death, then a story so wacky that I really wish they had centered the movie on it, instead of on the tawdry soap opera we're locked into. Even if that imaginary movie had been really bad, and it probably would have been, at it would at least have been entertaining.

Part of what leads up to the death of Amelia is the existence of a secret school fight club, led by a stereotypically sleazy gender studies major, named Major, who is out to prove men's inherent superiority. The club is called CFB, or Cock Fights Back, which is somehow a garbled pun relating to cock fights, and Trump's famous line of "locker room talk": "grab'em by the pussy" > "pussy grabs back" > "cock fights back". CFB is different from your ordinary fight club in that the fights are always between girls and boys, and the boys are always blindfolded, in order to prove that a fully-abled female is no match for even a handicapped male. To complicate things, a new designer amphetamine is gaining popularity on campus, called "odds-on", meaning that it makes you the odds-on favorite in your CFB fight. As awkward as that is, it also seems that men are never the guaranteed winners of these fights, which makes you wonder why Major insists on continuing to host them. As much as I would have preferred to watch a stupid movie about this stupid idea, I'm stuck instead with a movie in which Major is such an aggressive MRA because he's secretly gay, and he thinks that hating women is a great way to hide that...as if that isn't what we all openly suspect about aggro MRAs. Secret gayness is a big part of this movie, involving multiple characters, although it amounts to very little other than the perpetuation of some stale, harmful cliches about how unfulfilled homosexual urges lead to suicide, sexual abuse, and murder. CONFESSIONAL is just as reliant on this grim vision of gay life, as it is on its weirdly obtuse discussion of drug addiction, for the suffocating sense of self-importance that it uses to try to elevate itself above its porn-y trappings. None of the movie's hot button issues are given any real thought, but are only dragged through the mud to create the illusion that there's a point to all this, thus relieving the film of any sense of innocence that could have made its condescending sleaziness forgivable.

Admittedly, I can't really remember all the details of the film's tortured intrigue anymore, even though I basically just saw it. A lot of its meandering revelations just left me thinking, "Why did I need to know that? Why should I care?" I do know that about half way through this ordeal, I became really anxious about whether it would turn out that CONFESSIONAL did NOT have exactly the same plot as 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE after all, and I put myself through all this for nothing. But no, I was right to begin with. The wonderful Amelia's ethically dubious film project has been picked up by the unhinged lesbian character who loved her so much she wanted to become her, and killing Amelia and usurping her confessional project was apparently the best way of doing that. I guess exposing all the dark, violent secrets of all these tangentially involved characters was just an added bonus, or whatever. Ultimately, this ugly, ignorant PSA about something-or-other only deals itself further damage by relying so heavily on the potential of its clumsy twist to blow your mind, which it does not at all.

So that was it, that's how I burned a whole afternoon allowing my mind to implode-not-explode under the ponderous force of TWO (2) movies about exactly the same exhausted cliche that is still being peddled by certain pretentious assholes as fresh and exciting, and beyond the capacity of the audience to anticipate. There's probably a whole slew of other movies that employ this overly familiar "surprise", but I don't have it in me to dig them out of my long-suffering brain. Feel free to contribute in the comments. For now, I must prepare myself for the ordeal of Blogtober, during which I will *hopefully* choose my screening selections and words more thoughtfully than I have in previous years, when this blog was motivated by just as much abject misanthropy as these movies, which do nothing but willfully insult the audience's intelligence. Maybe today's detour into degradation will help me go forth toward more additive experiences, having purged several lungfuls of meaningless venom from my system, and this season will bring with it more interesting, provocative posts than the last. Or maybe not! In any case, I promise to keep trying my hardest to make it funny.

PS I actually love both FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. I’m “just saying”. 

[taebadam]

act 2 pt. 2

oh boy. oh wow oh boy. now we get to my absolute favorite: you oughta know. get ready folks cause i have so so much to say. alright. so we cut to frankie and jo in new york where frankie is thanking jo for coming to pick her up since she lost her debit card and she didn’t want to “break down and call home.” jo is mostly silent, nowhere near her usual sarcastic self. she responds to everything frankie says in this flat, controlled tone just simmering with anger below the surface. i’m just gonna transcribe this whole scene because it shows so many things: how much jo really cares about frankie even though she’s pissed, how much frankie clearly hurt her and how frankie really didn’t realize what she was doing. frankie goes “that was pretty crazy back at my house. in fact i’m surprised you even showed up.” jo responds with little to no emotion in her voice other than underlying anger, just tight and quiet and closed off like she’s trying so hard not to lose it: “i’m your best friend. i’m not going to leave you stranded in a neighborhood you can’t even name.” “but you’re mad.” “can you guess why? or are you so far up your own ass these days you don’t even know?” “i’m really sorry. i was gonna tell you.” “and yet you didn’t. because you knew what you were doing was wrong.” “i didn’t think i was gonna fall in love with him.” “love? well congratulations frankie. i’m glad you found something healthy and rational. i’m clearly not as legit as your fuckboi phoenix.” “that’s not what i’m saying jo i just didn’t think you and i were in an exclusive relationship.” “right. why would you take this… (gestures to herself) seriously.” “you know i didn’t mean it like that.”

and in comes the music. ok so a few things. as jo starts singing frankie is standing behind her and jo’s deathly still, her voice still quiet as she just stares straight ahead. they’re the only two on stage. you can practically feel the tension in the air. everyone in the audience is on the edge of their seat. frankie starts to turn around and walk away until the first mini drop when you can feel something building and you know shit’s about to go down: when the guitar comes in and jo starts “a perfect version of me.” as soon as that guitar hits frankie freezes in her tracks and the soft light on jo starts to turn red. and wow is it about to get good. jo stays completely still as frankie circles back around while we get to the first pre-chorus, the “the love that you gave that we made wasn’t able…” part. as she does the pre-chorus the red light begins to expand around her but she still isn’t moving. her voice, however, even though it is still thin and controlled is starting to grow as the anger just continues to bubble up. she sings the first chorus just staring out into the audience, unmoving, and the tension just KEEPS BUILDING. frankie begins to back away just a little, like she’s beginning to realize just how angry and hurt jo really is. but we haven’t seen anything yet. we get to the second verse and the red lights continue to grow more intense as jo finally, FINALLY starts moving. she turns to look at frankie, staring her down, but she’s still controlled, still holding herself back. her voice gets a little more raspy, a little more intense but still not enough and everyone is holding their breath. once we get to “did you forget about me” she starts to stumble away a little bit, those mannerisms starting to shine through and we just barely start to see her truly devastated, exposed, vulnerable self. when she sings “are you thinking of me when he fucks you” she grabs frankie forcefully before pulling away. she’s starting to show more of her anger both physically and vocally. the pre-chorus comes back and that raspiness to her voice only increases, anger now finally starting to show on her face and she moves back, away from frankie and turns to finally start powerfully singing (though not yet screaming as she eventually gets to) “and i’m here!” it’s at this point that the band really starts to get loud. they come in from the wings and the volume jumps up. powerful red light fixtures drop down from the ceiling, flashing violently and one by one the ensemble runs up over the course of the second chorus to flank jo on either side. frankie doesn’t know what to do. and we’re still not even at the climax. then everything drops out as the ensemble starts singing “ooh” for the third verse. jo moves to the front, clearly starting to lose it as the ensemble walks around behind her, circling and enclosing frankie. jo isn’t even looking at frankie anymore, she’s holding her head in her hands and walking, pulling at her hair, eventually starting to join in with the ensemble. then she begins her high harmony and the anger on her face becomes more and more clear and as she sings higher and higher the ensemble moves from frankie to come stand beside jo. they all stomp their feet on the last “ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah… AHH!!” and jo’s high note. holy shit. and now everything’s been released.

she begins to go full screamo, dancing with the ensemble, pointing and yelling at frankie as her anger and fear and devastation just all boil over. the band is now rocking out and the stage is bathed in angry red light. jo screams “well can you feel it” and her and the ensemble run to stand near the back of the stage in front of the band and just completely lose it. jo is screaming, singing her heart out, throwing her body around in desperation. you can see just how horribly sad and angry she is, how she feels abandoned and alone. you can see it in her face, her body, hear it in her voice. and then the chorus happens AGAIN for that final time and they all run to the very front of the stage, jo just completely losing it. she whips her head up and down, screeching with all her might, reaching out to the audience and just practically pulsing with anger and energy. it’s truly stunning. on the last line (you, you, you) she and the whole ensemble are jumping and the lights are flashing red and white and then everyone cuts out and it’s just her, screaming out into the audience with a voice of just pure raw emotion: “oughta know!!” and they all freeze. the crowd goes. WILD. both times i saw this she got a standing ovation. A MID SHOW STANDING OVATION LIKE WTF. and she absolutely deserved it both times. the amount of emotion she puts out on that stage. and her VOICE HOLY SHIT. honestly, that scene and song is a whole musical in and of itself. her range of emotion through those like 5 minutes, the way she builds in every possible way— stunning. words cannot describe how much i love lauren patten. also it just means so much to me to see women who are allowed to get angry on stage. i love it.

also important to note is that jo doesn’t have her beanie on in this scene? and i have a lot of thoughts on this. in most other scenes, jo is hiding behind a front. she’s sarcastic and tries to avoid showing any form of vulnerability. she wears her beanie like a suit of armor, really. we only see her without her beanie three times: when she’s coming back from the church social with her mom (which she was forced to do and clearly hated. and as soon as her mom is gone she puts the beanie back on immediately, like it’s something to hold on to), you oughta know (which is the only time, at least at this point in the show, where i think we really, truly see jo— when she lets herself go) and then the end (we’ll talk about this later).

after everyone has finished cheering (for a solid like 2 minutes holy shit), frankie runs up to jo looking at her phone in a panic. “jo!” she yells. jo turns around, clearly annoyed, “what? god do you even give a shit?” and frankie goes “no jo it’s my mom” and immediately jo’s there to help because that’s the kind of person she is and they run off stage in a hurry.

cue uninvited. wow. i know i’ve said this about so many things but honestly i don’t think i’ve ever seen such genius staging and choreography in theater ever. it’s absolutely mindblowing. so this is the scene where mj overdoses and the way they depict this is genius. we see a dark stage with a single spotlight on the couch in the center where mj sits and begins to sing. seconds later, heather comes up from behind her and begins to dance around her. this kicks off a stunning choreography that has you on the edge of your seat the whole time. dressed the same as mj, heather shows the agony and pain mj is experiencing, both mentally and physically, through dance. she throws herself around the couch, falling to the floor in agony and pulling herself back up again. mj and heather reach out to each other but never quite reach each other. elizabeth’s stunning voice as mj combined with heather’s astounding choreography as her body double just makes you really, truly feel the absolute pain she’s experiencing in every possible way. incredible. also, at the very beginning of the song, i kid you not when i first looked toward the back of the stage i thought there was a reflection or a pole or something? you can ~just barely~ see something behind mj but i truly thought it was a trick of the light for the longest time. but slowly, ever so slowly, the light grows and you realize it was bella, looking on and watching the whole thing as a ghost in the distance. and her harmonies are stunning. at the end of the song heather and bella leave and mj collapses on the floor, completely passed out. this is when steve enters. he sees her and we see him for a moment start to run towards her and the stage goes pitch black with a loud note from the band. a second later the lights come back on and this time we see steve on the ground w mj and nick on the phone talking frantically. the lights shut off again w another note and when they come back on we see an emt taking mj’s vitals. then they shut off one last time and when they come back on we’re in the hospital w mj and steve.

steve and nick have a conversation with the doctor before going into mj’s room featuring one of the best exchanges i’ve ever seen on stage. the doctor tells steve mj overdosed and she had multiple drugs in her system, different ones than she was originally prescribed, leading him to conclude she got them off the streets. steve is in disbelief. he replies “look at her. does she looks like a drug addict to you?” and the doctor replies “what do you think a drug addict looks like?” no response. incredible.

then mary jane. wow sean allen krill’s voice is just so so good and his performance is stunning. i cried. he climbs in bed with mary jane as he sings to her and it’s adorable. we also have a great exchange between the two of them when she wakes up. one of the lines from the couples therapy scene earlier was steve talking about how mj has to be the best at everything: “we get it mj. you’re winning… at candyland.” now as she wakes up steve is breaking down (also so great to see a grown man get emotional and cry onstage! yes!! fuck toxic masculinity!!) and he apologizes for not noticing something was wrong earlier, talking about how he messed up. mj, still weak and tired responds “im detoxing from opiates… i win.” such a good line. they discuss how they need to start communicating more, mj starting to come clean that she has some things she needs to work through and they discuss how she’ll be going to rehab. nick then walks in (frankie visited earlier during mary jane) and mj immediately goes “nick i was wrong. you need to go to the police.” and steve responds “mj. he already did.” they then discuss how frankie is currently downtown at the rally she organized: the rally for bella.

and now we’re at the rally, the setting for no. this is absolutely incredible. the whole ensemble is on stage, the band behind them, jo and phoenix on either side and frankie in the middle holding a sign that says “stand with survivors,” all surrounding bella who stands in the center with her head held high. after the song starts bella and nick have a brief interaction and honestly i was so so happy with how they did this. nick explains that he came forward and apologizes for not doing so earlier. and bella, rightfully so, STAYS ANGRY. i love to see women on stage being allowed to show emotion. she recognizes he did the right thing but she doesn’t immediately forgive him nor should she. she’s still hurt, and what nick did, or didn’t do, will affect her for the rest of her life: “why didn’t you stop him?” she asks. “i don’t know” he responds, “but everyone knows the truth now.” she then calls him out on his privilege, saying “because you said it. why wasn’t it enough for me to say it? you get to be the hero, like always. because of who you are, because of what you look like. they believe you.” “i��m sorry. if i could change anything about my life bella i would go back—” “yeah. so would i.” she walks away and the song continues. most of the ensemble members have solo lines where they stand center stage, their expressions solemn while the rest of the ensemble surrounds them, touching them, enclosing them. then we get to the second chorus and bella’s big part. she stands center again, belting her heart out as the ensemble, frankie and jo all grab their signs and stand by her side. these signs are stunning. some highlights include: “rape affects all genders,” “believe black women,” “tell your story,” “you’re not alone,” “teach consent,” “a call to men,” “don’t tell me what to wear, tell them not to rape,” and, my personal favorite, “don’t get raped” with the “get” and “d” crossed out so it says “don’t rape.” they slowly move toward the front of the stage as they reach the climax of the song, and stand in solidarity in a line across the very front. at the end of the chorus nick picks up the sign frankie was holding earlier, “stand with survivors” and moves to join them and stand next to bella, literally standing with survivors. chills.

now we get to the closing. as thank u plays in the background we once again see mj sitting on the family couch, writing the annual healy christmas letter. she talks about how inspired she is by frankie’s strength, how her daughter’s doing so much for bella who is a rape survivor “like myself.” she then discusses how bella’s case is going to trial and, even though andrew still got into a good college, bella gets to tell her story, “most of us never do.” frankie then sits down next to her and says “i didn’t know what you were going through mom. i guess i never saw you as a… person?” mj laughs. “you’re my kid that’s normal.” she then starts talking about how all she ever wanted was for frankie to fit in there and when frankie tells her she never wanted that mj goes. “i got it wrong. i’m going to start listening.” she tells us nick is taking a year off to be a witness in bella’s case: “he can’t change the past. but he’s looking inside himself to figure out why he didn’t do anything when he had the chance.” she talks about how her and steve are in therapy both couple and individual. and finally, she talks about her time in rehab and the incredible people she met and all that she learned, but how “recovery will last the rest of [my] life.” she cracks some jokes at the expense of the white, privileged, suburban lifestyle she once loved, commenting “i had spent so much time around all of you i forgot what it was like to talk to people who were kind and genuinely had empathy.” the whole family is sitting next to her on the couch now as she finishes up the christmas letter with “xoxo, mj.” as she finishes she goes “i think this will be my last letter” and when asked why she says, “because christmas letters are for assholes.” steve then asks “are you really going to send that” and mj replies “what have i got to lose?” before steve reminds her “you’re not at rock bottom anymore.” frankie then dares her to send it and nick agrees. she hits send in one impulsive click and yells “merry fucking christmas.” you learn begins to play in the background as steve laughs and asks who that went to and mj responds in this hilarious exaggerated whisper: “everyoneeeeee.”

now we have you learn. so beautiful. one thing that isn’t on the soundtrack is that before jo comes in she and frankie talk for a moment. they say they miss each other but we see that jo’s doing well, she has a new girlfriend and she’s finally starting to gain some confidence. she doesn’t have her beanie on!! jo then asks about phoenix and frankie responds “we’re good. we’re just friends.” and then the music starts back up again. as we get to the chorus the whole ensemble joins them and they’re all just rocking out, laughing, smiling, dancing and generally having the time of their lives. so so wholesome i love it so much. watch the video of their performance on good morning america it’s so so cute. the very end everyone slowly leaves and it’s just mj and frankie center stage, holding hands as the final note dies out. so so good.

the bows. omg. at the end they go back and jam w the band and it’s SO CUTE. also frankie and jo always dance off together as they’re leaving the stage. wholesome content.

let me know if there’s anything else at all you’d like to know!! or if anything wasn’t clear. or if you just wanna talk about it. i have many thoughts, some of which aren’t even in this ridiculously long post.

[dimples-of-discontent]

Thoughts on “Destiel is Real.”

So, I’ve been relatively scarce of late (except for when I went bonkers with reblogging deadly Cockles content...which I think I blacked out from b/c it was like being waaayyyy too high and it’s all their fault) because, if y’all don’t know, I have stage 4 breast cancer and am in chemo. I’m tolerating it really well but it takes a surprising amount of time, actually, especially since I’m still working 80% time and also living alone so doing house stuff etc. 

This is all to say that I’m weighing in on things belatedly a lot. Like, I do still want to analyze the Cockles JIB panel as a whole b/c, oh my, was there a lot there. But today I will settle for this piece of it. I apologize if this is reduplicating what smart folks said elsewhere right when it happened. I was also off Twitter to avoid having it bring me down so I might just be really unaware. But as soon as this moment happened I was like, “oh man we’re gonna argue about this for like 84 years.” So here’s my small contribution on what this reminded me of.

To me, listening to Jensen and watching him engage the crowd, inspired a lot of anxiety b/c it did definitely seem like he was pissed off. I just couldn’t tell with what or who, especially given firsthand context from some folks in the room like @bluestar86​ who wrote this account: https://twitter.com/bluestar861/status/1130255687290937344?s=21 about the general positivity Jensen and Misha had shown earlier (which is why Misha mentioned the shirt) and how the energy in the room was almost entirely positive. I totally believe that. But it didn’t reconcile easily with what I felt I saw from Jensen.

Until I remembered SDCC 2011. The one where Misha had been fired and all of them knew but none of the fans do. I wrote a long meta on that panel that I’m actually super happy with so maybe check it out? Anyway, this is how I described some of the dynamics:

The way everyone is sitting at this table isolates Sera and the body language from Jared and Jensen is openly hostile. Jensen especially pushes himself as far away as possible, defensively crosses his arms, leans away, doesn’t make any eye contact. Jared is also pissed and is functionally shielding Misha with his body while he does the first Cas question. Both of them are very protective and Jensen is more than a little hostile. They also both keep egging the audience on in their love for Cas/Misha, as when Jensen shouts “YEAH!” in affirmation of audience shrieks about the character. They want to show Sera what a piss poor decision it was to take Misha away from the fans…and from them. Whatever else you see happening these are some amazing friends.  

So, we had a remarkably angry Jensen at this panel and he was angry specifically because the network had made what he considered--both professionally and personally--to be a fucking terrible decision. But he couldn’t say that. He’s got NDAs and stuff to worry about. So instead he settled, among other things, from egging the audience on to show how much they loved and wanted more Castiel. 

Now I’m not saying the correlation is 1-1 with Destiel. But I am suggesting a thought experiment where something similar could be going on. And by “something similar” I mean “Jensen has inside knowledge about a thing the network has decided that he thinks is fucking stupid and that will hurt the fandom.” Like, oh for example, they’re not moving Destiel out of the subtext.

Additional fuel for this fire. Many have speculated that it’s network president Mark Pedowitz who’s the blocker. Jensen, earlier in the panel, asks the audience to applaud Pedowitz. That’s weird and he’s never done it before. True, Jared was talking about how Pedowitz says that they set examples for other shows and that Pedowitz is complimenting them on it so it was at least that in part. But Jensen is MASTERFUL at throwing shade while appearing to be doing the correct, professional thing. Witness his comments about Bob Singer and last year’s S13 finale. He’s done it with Eugenie and Sera too and probably others I don’t know about. Having the audience applaud Pedowitz if he knows something negative about Pedowitz--something the audience won’t like and that will actively hurt many of them--has a major bite of irony that I feel Jensen is perfectly capable of trying to engineer. (Or maybe there hasn’t been a final decision but he knows it doesn’t look good and why. Don’t lose hope! This is just speculation and a thought experiment.)

I’m going to put the JIB analysis under a cut, since it’s long and has lots of images. It ends with “The most similar behavior I saw was Jensen angrily getting the audience to cheer for something, even doing the same hand-raising gesture. In 2011 it was Castiel (”Go on! Show Sera how much you love the character she killled!”) and this time it was Destiel (”Go on! Show the network how much you love the ship they won’t textualize!”). That’s what made me think, initially, that he may know something about plans for Destiel that a) makes him mad, b) that he considers a bad decision by the network, c) that he thinks that audience will be hurt by.”

Anyway,

If you watch the JIB panel (starting about 12 mins in) you see, first, that Jensen wants Misha not to bring it up. He raises his hand at Misha which I first thought was him being like “shhhhhh don’t bring that up!” but which on repeat viewing I think was him actually just trying to get Misha to shut up so he could literally try to understand what she was saying. Once the audience reacts to Misha’s comment these are their faces:

Jared is absolutely looking at Misha like, “dude, why did you have to go and do that? You just threw a live grenade onstage.” Jensen is hamming it up gesturing at the audience to scream louder. 

Jared changes his face to “well, when you’re right, you’re right! What are you gonna do.”

Here’s Jensen. He’s looking grumpy. Now, is it fake grumpy, a recognized and favored persona that he has. Or is it actually grumpy? Or is it both”

I think it’s both. But I also think he looks sad. And concerned. Like, on behalf of the audience not for him. Now you can say I’m projecting if you want--this is all total rampant speculation--but look at his eyes. I think he’s upset that he has to talk about this at all (since he knows a little about the fandom conflict it sets off) but there’s something else. 

He pauses for a good, long time looking at the audience responding. And according to Saz and others the response was HUGELY POSITIVE! So why does he then announce into the mic with a grumpy fake laugh and what I honestly have to call sarcasm, “Destiel is real!” 

Note that Misha is not worried by this. If Jensen were actually legitimately furious I think Misha would look a little worried. But instead he looks amused and curious about where this is going.

This is Jensen asking “Is it?” for the first time. He looks intentionally confused - that’s the bit he’s doing. 

Here’s Jensen after the audience starts to audibly yell “Nooooo!!” His face says “WHAAAAAAT!?”

People then yell “yes” to drown them out and he asks, “Where?”

Second “where?”. Maybe he’s trying to get them to say “subtext” - a word the cast has great familiarity with and which was used in “Fan Fiction” and which they can joke around a lot about. That’s my guess. Maybe he has a subtext joke set up he wants to do with Misha. (Remember his tweet to Misha during “Fan Fiction: “you keep your subtext to yourself. I’m not that kind of girl. Wait...”)

They don’t - at least not clearly. Someone in the front row says, “Nowhere.” Misha says, “Help” (after mouthing something at someone in the audience that is probably “I’m sorry about this.” Jensen checks on Misha BUT disregards the fact that he’s looking over at the question-asker (who didn’t even ASK a Destiel question, just wear a shirt she liked) and asks “Where?” AGAIN.

Misha then takes things in hand and reaches out to tell Jensen, “don’t get into a fight with these people.” Jared is making a “Yikes!” face at the person in the first row who is continually yelling “Nowhere!”. 

Jensen does sit down, but he’s mad. He’s really tense and it takes him a while to shake it off. 

Who’s he tense with? The most obvious answer is the audience but let’s consider a couple things. 1) The audience was giving a mixed answer, including and sometimes more loudly the “Nowhere!” that you would think Jensen would want to hear IF he were angry/tense about the “Destiel is real” shirt or the audience’s support of it. 2) He was demanding consensus and an answer to where it was real EITHER to have them say “nowhere”--which they did so why not just stop?--OR to get them to say something like “subtext” to lead them into either a question or a bit about it.

So why keep pushing? Hoping to change the answer? Hoping to find consensus? Or maybe just hoping to get them to make a lot of noise about it for a long time (at which he succeeded). Now, Jensen is famously inconsistent about Destiel and also famously different onstage, especially for J2 audiences...though this, the most Holy Gay panel of all the panels, isn’t a place he’d shy away from, e.g. “What would Dean and Cas do on a trip to Rome? Everything I think of right now is inappropriate.” 

Which brings us back to “who’s he tense with”? Could it be only part of the audience? Which part? The part yelling “nowhere” or the part yelling whatever positive things they were yelling? I’m going to hypothesize, based on a LOT of other stuff that I’ve written about, that he’s annoyed with the negative folks spoiling it for everyone with their “nowheres” and is trying to get the positive folks to drown them out and give him a good answer he can run with. 

The fact that nothing coherent emerges is actually what gets him annoyed. And, by extension, the volume and persistence of that small part of the audience, which lets people like Pedowitz shoot down the idea of textual Destiel as something the viewers “don’t want,” annoys the living shit out of him because he sees the viewers all the time and knows that a majority of them either are ok with or actively want textual Destiel.  I imagine him thinking something along the lines of, “Why can’t these nice people just have what they want? It’s b/c of assholes like you.”

He definitely lets his emotions get the better of him. He was already not in the best place, thanks to circumstances I hope to write about later but which boil down to having his special panel with Misha (that he was visibly psyched for from the moment he got onstage, “I always have so much fun with you!”) taken away because he got some awkward wood from being choked and straddled. So with that grumpiness he was primed not to make the best decisions. He gets aggressive and confrontational when he’s pissed, which is a thing I don’t love about him, even though it’s very easy to see why, and maybe this was just his battleground of choice. 

To get back to the thought experiment about whether this is like SDCC 2011, though, I think it could be. I think it’s far more complex, given all the discourse surrounding Destiel and Jensen’s own sexuality. (Here’s a post I wrote in response to a question about Jensen and Destiel and bi!Dean that asked whether I thought he experienced them as about himself and Misha.) It’s tough, b/c each piece of evidence could go both ways (ha). Either mentioning Pedowitz for applause is excellent shade or total sincerity. Either Jensen is mad at the pro-Destiel audience and trying to get them to admit that they’re wrong, or he’s mad at the antis and trying to get them drowned out. 

The most similar behavior I saw was Jensen angrily getting the audience to cheer for something, even doing the same hand-raising gesture. In 2011 it was Castiel (”Go on! Show Sera how much you love the character she killled!”) and this time it was Destiel (”Go on! Show the network how much you love the ship they won’t textualize!”). That’s what made me think, initially, that he may know something about plans for Destiel that a) makes him mad, b) that he considers a bad decision by the network, c) that he thinks that audience will be hurt by.

Given his shift in attitude overall and the mood of the room as described by attendees, it seems plausible to me that his engagement was a performance, using the audience, of what it is the viewers ACTUALLY want. But it could also just have been a grouchy Jensen taking it out on an old, familiar punching bag - the topic he never wants to discuss onstage - Destiel.

[artificialqueens]

living on the edge of the law (biadore) - chapter 4 - lily2

bianca is beginning to feel something different develop and adore doesn’t want to speak of her issues and living situation, sasha is an angel and bianca’s statement of shea being an idiot only grows stronger each day.

— *.✧ Adore finished applying the final touches of makeup before jumping into her outfit, the usual look for a venue like this— like anywhere truthfully. She was beyond inspired by the grundge movement of the 90’s and loved her occasional dolled up moment but mainly stuck with her fishnets and short jean pair when performing, it wasn’t laziness like some people liked to try and point out, try and write about. It was called personal taste and not like she could crowd surf in a corset and a dress that fell to the floor. Feeling energized she bit her lip nervously looking at the vodka she guessed someone brought her and shrugged, knowing it was just a shot and it wouldn’t too much in a state where she was probably the least drunk even with a shot in her system, she wouldn’t get black out wasted, not today— not in a while she hadn’t, not since her and her best friend had argued so awful that she got wasted and collapsed in Tatianna’s bathroom, battered.  “This isn’t like that, me and Ganja are all good now.” She smirked before taking a small shot and shaking her head, running a hand through her curls and humming to the song blaring from the speakers before using the two minutes she probably had to warm-up atleast a tiny bit.  —  “Adore!” Tatianna yelled once she got home, dropping her keys worriedly in the usual place they sat, giving her dog a quick pet and smile before focusing her attention on trying to find Adore, it was unsual for her to not be in the living room or kitchen, snacking. “Adore!” She repeated before peaning around the couch just for fun before hearing a stifling cry and noticing the light in the bathroom on.  “Adore honey—” she grumbled knowing damn well what this would entitle, she tried to open the door but it was locked. She tried one more time for good measure before knocking aggresively, “Adore please open the door, please!” The girl sniffled and sobbed, “Go away, I don’t want to talk about it.“  “You don’t have to, I just to make sure you’re okay, did something happen?” The softened voice in her tone was enough for Adore to open the door, Tatianna’s brows immediately raised seeing that she had practically cried all her makeup off and her hair was an absolute mess of knots and tangled, three entire bottles of vodka laying around, only one with any substance in it. She wanted absolutely murder Adore for breaking the one promise they had but this wasn’t the time. Tatianna opened her arms like a mother would to comfort her child, “What happened?” She asked as she stroked her hair.  “Me and Laganja…"  That was a sentence that always started with trouble, she didn’t wanna ever say anything bad to Adore about her since she knew she had her questionable friendships as did Tatianna but she had to admit in the back of her head it always a worry: Laganja was much better than she was before, now she had a medicinal card! However her temperament was always an issue. When her and Adore clashed, they clashed, head on. “We started drinking, I know you’ll hate me but, but— we started drinking and then it escalated and we basically both broke down and I just don’t want to talk about it.” That was a pretty mellow and grey explanation but Tatianna really, really didn’t think it be the best idea to push anything out of Adore and she didn’t need to because only a minute later she was the one holding Adore’s messy hair so she could throw up in the middle of the night, in Tatianna’s toilet, of course. “You’re a real friend.” She threw up again and felt herself cry harder, Tatianna shushed her and told her to not talk while she threw up, quickly dismissing herself for just a second to bring two water bottles, it was bad to drink all that and then throw up, she forced an ever growing saddened Adore to drink water— not one of her proudest moments.  “We’re gonna talk about this tomorrow but not right now, I want you to just drink water and go to bed, please.” That was all Tatianna asked for and Adore nodded, the older girl helping her friend get up, shakily moving her towards her bedroom before she messily collapsed on the bed.  “Oh god I fucked up…” She sobbed, getting some makeup remover towelettes and wiping all her shit off, Tatianna combing through her hair, stubbornly attempting to detangle the small knots. “She’s been my friend for so long, I’ll talk to her when my head is straight.” She whispered to only herself really.  It’ll be all fine and good in a week, won’t it? That’s how it always is.“ Adore could almost laugh, her hands hanging onto her phone after she threw her dirty wipes on her nightside table, Tatianna quick to throw them away so the area wasn’t culttered.  The numbness of her entire body feeling absolutely awful as she raged in her bad, grasping her pillows and crying into them, drinking water periodically just trying to not throw up again, that would be a damn travesty.  "Hey, get some rest please, we’ll talk tomorrow."  Adore nodded, not taking her nose from the pillow and throwing herself against the bed, closing her eyes and moving around, "Okay.” She whispered back before Tatianna closed her door and left her nightstand lamp on, Adore blinking and being left with the worst fear she had: herself. —  “Adore you’re on!” One of the employees yelled, she nodded and put her phone near her makeup bag and was on her way, definitely curious to see the amount of people and their energy, that was the important thing. She would much rather have 1,000 who were passionately screaming than 10,000 who only clapped at the end of songs. She danced across the back of the stage smiling hearing an introduction by the club’s owner, a close friend of Tatianna and Laganja’s. She peaked over and gave a thumbs up to Bianca who seemed definitely less than flattered, sipping what looked like a vodka or some cocktail, she really wasn’t one to know these kinds of things.  “Please welcome, the lady of the hour, Adore Delano!” The crowd completely screaming and erupting in nothing but applause and praise, Bianca happy to see she definitely had fans and followers but that definitely didn’t stop her from plugging her ears before Adore stepped on stage, wearing basically what she expected: fishnets, short jeans and a tank, her long hair reaching all the way to her waist, “Well hello!” She yelled, laughing over all the escalated screaming. “Jesus, I expected about fifty of you to be completely honest."  Bianca had to snicker at her selfawareness, she seemed to fit right in style wise with what the general vibe of the club was, Bianca also feeling a bit overdressed now that she thought about it but not like she could change now, she stood patiently in the stands and heard Adore yell a, "This is a new one and I’m gonna preview it here, if it sucks I don’t put it on the fucking album!” A smattering of applause and screeches.  “This is called 27 Club! I’m not 27 yet but you know, Libra season is coming.” She whispered into the mic dimly, winking at no one in particular and feeling her cheeks redden seeing all the amount of people cramming near the stage to be near her, it wasn’t anything intense or overly concerning but it was something you had to take in a bit.  The music started and Adore flipped her hair and smiled into the stand, pressing her lips into the microphone a bit to close, surprised that the crowd was respectfully quiet enough, about as quiet as a mass of drunk teenagers and adults could be but still, it was something!

“Don’t wanna be a part of that scene, I heard

Of the curses with death

My life is falling into temporary sin

Cluster of roses and baby breath”

She begun to sing, closing her eyes and imagining that place again, the inspiration glaring into her eyes clear as day from the time she wrote it, humming the lyrics on Tatianna’s couch, strumming the same three chords on her bass guitar when she was at work as Adore was left with only her music and the Pomeranian, a match made in heaven truly.  A smile formed across the corners of her lips hearing the front row lose it when she begun singing, she opened her eyes a bit, clutching the mic with both hands near the stand, her legs and hips moving to the beat of the percussion.  Bianca wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, especially being dropped into the new job from managing her own best friend for six years. Her eyes immediately sprung open hearing the first damn word she sang, maybe she was a bit too harsh to Shea in the car earlier because now piecing the voice to the face made everything seem euphoric enough.

“I been trying and I been buying

And I’ve been lying and I’ve been crying

And that’s how I know”

Continuing she listened closely, getting a bit closer to the outskirts of the stage, really wanting to see the emotion and the face of Adore to the lyrics of the song, something was different. Everything was, her heart doing nothing but jumping jacks as she leaned against the pillar of the bar and smirked, seeing Adore make direct eye contact with her, she had to give a thumbs up and sit down, completely entranced.  That tone, that voice, the roughness: it was very opposite of Courtney but in a very good way, for her style of music and her look it was perfect. Setting her drink down she stared, head in her hands.  Adore grinned at the audience before she grabbed the mic and held the stand in one hand, leaning against it and almost practically throwing it into the audience who went absolutely wild seeing her drop to her knees and belt the next set of lyrics, staring straight at her audience, getting up and jumping around the stage, occasionally leaning down to give a hand to whoever could reach.

“All of the legends

Die at twenty seven

They all went to heaven

All of the legends!”

Having the power of the energy and audience in her hands Adore completely let herself run loose on stage, tossing around the stand and taking the mic, wrapping the wire around her finger as she walked around the stage, continuing to sing as she occasionally would glance at a clearly hypnotized and impressed Bianca, only further motivating her to get on the floor, on the side of the stage before sitting on her knees and letting her left hand point and do whatever she wanted to as the right was holding the microphone steady, she tossed her hair, letting the light shine in her eyes.

“Since I was eleven

All went to heaven

All of the legends

I been trying and I been buying

And I’ve been lying and I’ve been crying

And that’s how I know

That I don’t wanna go!”

Fuck. Seeing her completely dominate the stage and be so confident and such a different person yet she wasn’t, she was the same from when they met but now she was in her element, doing what she loved and it showed with all the smiling and glances over to Bianca to make sure she was paying attention and god, she was.

“All of his dreams

Are in the fast lane scene

These habits go so fast, he can’t see

Baby lost his mind

Nobody gives in time

The drugs are worth it

Or so it seems.”

The lyrics were questionable definitely but Bianca’s mind more wandered toward sipping her drink, not taking a single eye off of Adore and her essence of performing. It was incredible how calm and collected she was to screaming fans as she completely sang her face off, sweating in her clothes and pushing her hair out of her face as the song’s energy increased and decreased, it was an entire rollercoaster in it’s music and plotline.  She was starting to forget all that was said and done early, the hair worked in its own wild way and she could almost feel Shea breathing on her shoulder and saying how she was right but she didn’t have a crush: she just had a new perspective on Adore and that was just as important, work and her safety came first after all.  Just remember, this is what you’re being paid to do: sit here, drink and make sure no one is on stage trying to kill her, that’s basically it. *.✧ Adore performed for about an hour though half of it was talking to her audience and interacting, it was remarkable some of the distances some of them came to watch her, the singer wished the best and promised to come back soon, politely thanking the club managers and owners before stepping off the stage and blowing a kiss to the wonderful patrons and fans.  She stepped off and found Bianca near her dressing room and felt herself lean against the door, next to her, “So did you enjoy what you saw from me?” She expected a half assed and rude answer but was surprised at the genuine nod of her head, “It was wonderful."  Adore laughed happily, feeling like she truly succeed for herself, her fans and now for Bianca who she was beyond eager to impress already only after a day of work.  "And the fans were so drunk and supportive that the lingering smell of alcohol blocked out your dirty ass tights!” Her sharp tongue quickly adding as Adore rolled her eyes, knowing it was indeed typical Bianca talking now and not the same Bianca she saw and who let her guard down though she didn’t know her well enough to know what exactly her true personality was.  “I’m too punk to wash them, what can I say!” Bianca’s turn to roll her eyes and completely dismiss her comment before biting the inside of her mouth, “Do you have a ride or do you just drive?"  "I’m gonna take a ride from one of the girls here, I wanna stay and watch some of the performers anyway, maybe get some free drinks.” She laughed at her own comment but Bianca wasn’t exactly sold on her reply, “Be honest with me, I can drive you home."  Adore’s hands tied behind her back and she gave a very polite shake of her head, "No really, it’s okay! I’ll be nice and sobered up, well rested when I come and see you tomorrow for the paperwork stuff!” She punched Bianca’s shoulder gently before entering her dressing room and blowing her a kiss, “Drive safe! See you tomorrow asshat!” She yelled before shutting the door in her face once again.  Bianca stood plainly, her gut said not to leave but she knew it she didn’t she would also fall drunk or asleep and not be able to leave Los Angeles so she decided to take Adore’s word and trust her to stay good and that she indeed had a ride. Walking to her car she unlocked the door and got into the car, closing the door before banging her head on the wheel, “I’m so fucking stupid!” She screamed, knowing Courtney and Shea were going to both laugh at her absolute misery and newfound emotions. I’m basically getting income by being emotionally played around! Absolutely fucking spectacular. *.✧ “Morning Bianca.” Sasha called from her office, barely even looking up from her laptop as Bianca gave her another large iced tea from Starbucks. “It’s from Shea isn’t it?” The Russian girl whispered with a smile across her face so pure Bianca almost wanted to flip the drink on her laptop and scream at her how bady Shea was hiding her feelings for her but she wasn’t paid enough to care, sure she was paid a large sum but until she was mobster rich she really didn’t want to do shit for anybody with a profit. “It is! A bit invasive of a question but what’s up with you and iced tea? Not a coffee person?"  Sasha laughed and took a sip, clapping happily at the fact it was sweetened perfectly to her taste. She brushed the thick blonde hair from her face, "My dad, before I moved obviously from Russia, he owned a tea shop and I constantly would pester him about tea and the process of making it, he sold loose leaf ones, the very nice quality stuff. My mother is American and just met my dad while studying abroad but I like to keep that part of me alive because its the one thing I have from Russia besides my citizenship and flags but, nothing really connects me as good to the motherland is all."  Bianca smiled and genuinely meant it, it was a very loving and cute story even if she could feel herself throw up in the mouth a little bit it was that cutesy but definitely admirable how proud she was of the art of Russian tea— if that was a real thing. "So how did you and Shea meet if you don’t mind me asking, you both seem close.” Bianca pulled up the chair usually meant for clients to get to sit next to Sasha, grabbing a pen just incase managers came in and they could pass it off as a discussion.  The blonde laughed a bit at her antics moving around. “I came to America just about when I was about a junior in high school, I was very lonely.” She admitted as she took off a picture of her and Shea all dolled up, must’ve been a party of some sorts. Sasha wearing what looked like a dress definitely inspired by Eastern Europe with the embroidery and tassles while Shea rocked her makeup and that damn leather yet again but in dress form! “Shea was in my European history class and then she asked me to go with her to her friend’s house, Monet, she had a grand party to celebrate the last summer before our last year."  Bianca couldn’t help but snicker, classic Shea to not mention all of this background knowledge. "The rest is history as they say."  Her words said one thing but her damn eyes, she stared at Shea with just about the most disgusting thing ever, nothing but love and admiration for her. "That’s very sweet.” Was all Bianca would possibly say without shaking the Russian and screaming about how badly Shea wanted her and for how long, it was only her second day she had to get into her employee’s good graces.  “How is Adore?” She asked curiously, not having to piece together that Shea probably told her all of their antics from the day before. “She is very talented, smells awful but she’s interesting to say the least.” This earned a light-hearted snicker from Sasha.  “I was just curious is all, I won’t take you all day so you can go and work and settle down but tell Shea thank you.” Bianca nodded, heading for the door, “Oh don’t worry, I will!” She yelled before closing it gently and walking towards her office, giving shake of the head to Shea from her office window, she groaned and mouthed: You fucking prune! Just talk to her!  Shea gasped and mouthed back a reply: You’re bold to talk, I will I promise! Bianca doubted her for every second but didn’t have the energy or willpower to burst into her office right now and talk about what just went down though it was a very nice, very uplifting start to the morning.  What she didn’t expect to see was Adore on her desk, sitting and staring at her little pinboard of pictures, locking eyes with Bianca who could only take it in and finally motion with a: “What are you doing on my desk with your dirty fucking tights yet again?"  Adore immediately jumped off and laughed, "I have more than one pair.” She quickly remarked before holding up a Polaroid picture and smiling, “Is that you two?” The picture was her and Courtney smiling widely, laughing and not even looking at the lens of the camera, both dressed fancy and arms on eachother’s shoulders, Courtney clutching an award in one hand.  She recalled the memory vividly and breathed through her nose, “Yeah. Year Courtney won best track of the year, it was a big deal and an even bigger after party and our friend, Morgan, she captured the picture because she goes around and fucks with that damn Polaroid, I don’t know why anyone would want to waste an entire gas budget on film for that thing but—” she shrugged, “Guess it was well worth it, it’s probably my favorite picture with her."  Adore was completely smitten with how honest and undeniably loving Bianca was talking about her friends or her memories, it was charming. "You’re so much more soft than you think, what’s up with your guard? Are you just scared to tell people how you really feel?"  "Whoa bitch, you’re not my fucking psychologist, don’t try and over analyze this shit. I have been best friends with her for years and am feeling a bit homesick, it’s normal, it’s not your concern.” And there she went again, raising the wall.  She dropped the papers aggressively on her desk and muttered something under her breath Bianca couldn’t catch. “I finally sat my chola ass down and filled out the paperwork like promised.” Bianca caught the slang and stopped her immediately, “Chola?” The laugher that came from Bianca was enough to make Adore smile just a tiny bit but enough to get her talking. “Yeah, I’m Mexican and a few other things, I’m basically just one huge mutt but my mom is full blood."  "You looked about like someone who was.” That earned a slap on Bianca’s shoulder, Adore not at all offended but finding it amusing. “For a name like Bianca Del Rio you can’t be making fun of me without looking in the mirror."  "Hey, my mom is from Cuba, my dad is from Honduras! I already know I would have a huge dick, no credit and that I have a tendency to take things that don’t belong to me! I am very well aware of my hertiage.” She corrected before Adore visibly easier her eyes and covered her mouth, laughing beyond words. “Holy shit.” Adore whispered before licking her teeth nervous, “So my singing was good last night?"  "It was wonderful, did you get home safe?"  Adore ignored the question, "I’m glad you thought so.” She looked around her new assistants room and tilted her head, “I think you should decorate it more, you think about painting it?"  "I really don’t, unless you volunteer tribute but I don’t know if I want you attempting to paint my damn walls, now did you get home safely or not?” Adore stuttered a bit and Bianca immediately grabbed her by the shoulders, “You’re so pretty…” Adore almost leaning in but Bianca raising a finger to her lips, “What did you do after I left?"  "Had some alcohol of course, I forgot to call my ride so I just kind of—” she sighed, “I walked until I found a hotel and slept there for the night, it was a nice hotel though!” Bianca wanted to completely melt down, how could it be the second day and already Adore had done something extremely stupid and would absolutely get Bianca fired in a second if she ran her mouth.  “Adore.” She groaned before snatching the paperwork and staring at the address which still didn’t have a damn thing filled in. “What’s going on?” The younger girl wiped her eyes and looked away, Bianca sitting her down and running a hand down her back, not really knowing what to expect from a blank canvas.  “I don’t have a house or an apartment! I live with my best friend but I just don’t wanna be annoying and I can’t live there forever you know!” She explained before Bianca wasn’t exactly sure how to reply to that. “Can you atleast for now please put the address? We can always change it and I can always help you find a house, once you start posting and making the music you’ll earn definitely much more money than you’re making now."  Adore paused before nodding, "That’s cool.” She cooperated very reluctantly writing in Tatianna’s address which was still in Los Angeles and a decent drive away but it was free living, it was her current closest thing to home after her mom freaked on her dropping out.  “Listen—” Adore said handing the paperwork back and lovingly putting a hand on Bianca’s shoulder, “I owe you for being so nice, something I’d never expect from you, last night and not just using me for the alcohol which I would’ve absolutely done, not gonna lie so I was wondering if I could take you to dinner."  "What kind of fucking date is this?"  "It’s not a date! It’s a get together dinner with my new assistant who was very kind last night to come.” Bianca wasn’t convinced about this idea, “It’s called being a decent fucking human being, I don’t deserve special treatment for that."  "Bitch it’s free food, do you always complain?” Adore raised a good point, tapping on her phone’s case impatiently waiting for a hopeful and gracious acceptance from Bianca. “I’m gonna say no and only because I swore to see my friend tonight, it might be suprising to you but I indeed have a life outside of work!” The girl laughed to herself, Adore frowning a bit disappointed. “Do you know when they want me in so we can talk about my new album? They seemed eager enough yesterday."  "Well, I actually got an email, they said anytime this week is fine as long as you call them and tell them in advance the time you want to meet, I’ll make the call as long as you promise me no showing up in fucking fishnets."  Adore opened her mouth but Bianca held her hand out to make the deal, shutting her mouth the libra sighed, "Alright, fine you hag."  "We have a deal! Thank fucking jesus for that! I have actual work to do then so if you could be on your way that would be amazing, I know I’m your assistant but now I legitimately have to make the call. Is tomorrow around noon okay with you?” “That’s fine, I just want some damn closure about this album is all.” She begun walking to the door before turning, staring at Bianca who opened her laptop immediately, clacking on the keyboard. “And Bianca—” she started before the employee looked up with intent, “I like that color on you, you look hot.” She winked before laughing, earning a well deserved flip off from Bianca who cussed her out in Spanish and in English, a bilingual experience!  Adore screamed, barely understanding half of it and closed the door smiling, Bianca being left in silence before staring down at her plain gold dress and looking around, opening the notes app on her laptop and feeling her cheeks get warm.  Buy more gold dresses, just buy gold shit. She leaned back into her chair and took a sip of her water, “Don’t even think about Rio, she is way out of your league." 

[convertidophoto]

A First foray in Space...

I’ve been thinking a lot about space lately.  No, not stars, blood moons, or black holes and the like but space as in venues, as in the common areas open to all.  The space where you, I, and others meet to interact. Yeah, that kind of space.  It seems to me that in some instances we are using it all wrong.  Perhaps you agree, perhaps you think I think too much, or perhaps you think I am thinking about something that requires no thought at all.  Well…as it happens at the gig Friday night someone brought up this very topic.  They asked me if I went to see (insert metallic HC band name here) at “the Post” the other night.  He said that it was one of the most violent shows he ever saw; dudes (yes nearly all men) were laying waste to each other while the band played. Oh, how the stars align.

 I am not sure where the kung fu dancing style at HC shows first appeared.  The acquisition of this fact is of little importance to me and I think I’ll live without that curiosity being satisfied.  What does concern me is what it portends for what I thought was a foundational principle of punk/hc/whatever-you-wanna-call-it (this thing we all do).  That principle being that a punk/hc show was our show and our space; it belonged to no one person or group; instead belonged to everyone who attended the show. The swinging arms, flying kicks, reckless thrown elbows, destroy utterly this idea by creating malicious enclaves [barriers] between the band and the audience.  I know, I know, I don’t get it, I’m old, I’m weak, or maybe it is that my kung fu just isn’t up to snuff, or maybe…just maybe, bear with me…cuz it might pain you to imagine such things…I’m right.  

Here’s the scene, you’re at the show really excited to see the bands.  Maybe you’ve heard the band, seen them before, or your ‘bro’ hipped you to them and you’re there to check ‘em out.  The band takes the stage, turns on their rigs, gives you cannibal come vegan snarl before launching into the sickest riff you’ve heard since that Slayer riff that sounds oh-so-close to what you’re digging now was released…then it happens.

Out of the darkness, you see what looks like a self-defense demonstration.  Fists and elbows fly without hesitation, that dude in the short-shorts is swinging his leg around with such speed that you are sure he’s part windmill.  Other participants tuck up and throw hands and mule kicks at imaginary attackers besetting them from all sides. Before you know it, the entire crowd has fled from the stage.  Cramming themselves into every inch of the periphery with arms held high to protect their faces from the mayhem.  The crowd forgets about Constipated Cookie Monster and the Beatdown Five providing the jams and who are pounding the stage like silverback gorillas in need of anger management.   When you finally feel comfortable enough to focus on the band you realize that the majority of the space for the crowd is monopolized by a dozen or so “dancers” and the remainder of the crowd is forced far from the band.  Mood killed and the show that you wanted to see so badly is now a bad memory which you wish never to repeat.

To many this sounds like an awesome time and mores the pity a typical show.  To others, myself included, this sounds absolute shit.  Whether or not the band is good or bad, is worth seeing again, or any other information gleamed from watching a band has been supplanted by the inevitable question, is staying in this room to see this band worth losing my teeth or getting knocked the fudge-out?  Those questions are nothing new and have been asked since the first guy staged dove (stage-dived? Oh, where are my punk rock grammarians at?) into the crowd.  What makes a substantive difference to me is the way in which space is used.

Punk/hc is visceral form of expression that in many cases lacks, utterly, any sense of subtlety.  As the form evolved from the late 1970s UK punk and The Ramones style retro-rock into 80s USHC the reaction to the music changed as well.  This is not unexpected as the inherit urgency of HC drives people to move without regard for themselves or others.  This trend continued with the expansion and popularization of HC.  The advent of crossover only worked to increase the ways in which the music elicited reactions in its expanding audience.  Pogoing was replaced by slam dancing and stage diving which became (?) moshing [whatever the hell that is anyway?!?!] by the late 80s.  Some bands eschewed the physical aspects of punk/hc and issued a challenge to their audiences (Fugazi) while others tired of violence that occasioned their shows and moved towards other audiences (7Seconds).  These changes coupled with the inevitable ending HC of other bands, the sound people wanted/loved/expected/demanded was hard to find.

Out of this vacuum came the explosion of late 80s HC bands, mostly SxE, who wanted to revert back to the pre-crossover style of HC and all that came with it.  At the same time, those people moved by the crossover thing kept progressing trying to make heavier and more ‘heavy and powerful’ records.  Then one day it happened, someone somewhere created the riff that played with just the right drumbeat moved people to stomp around then someone started swing their arms or legs and voila you have whatever-fudge kind of dancing they call it.  It may never have been equated before but punk/hc shows are a lot like real estate, location matters.  

The closer to the stage one can get at a show the better says I. Being able to see, to hear, and to feel (yes, we talking about feelings) the music is the purest way to enjoy any performance.  Plus up the front by the stage packed side by side with all the others wanting the experience, can create a collective sense of shared experience that remains bigger than any single show.  The shared sense of release, of elation, and of expression between the band and the crowd is strongest nearest the band.  The farther you move from the stage the less effect the band has on the room.

Not everyone wants to be up front smashed together being sweated upon, spat upon, spilled upon, jumped on, knocked around, and generally battered about while interacting with others also trying to enjoy the performance in its purest form.  Some people are not terribly interested in the bands performance; they are just there to dance, to slam, to mosh, or whatever the hell you call it.  The band is nothing but a soundtrack to release. Don’t get me wrong, to each their own…it’s not my thing (anymore) but I can see the necessity of just exorcising all the pent up emotions, piques, frustrations, and energies that punctuate life. Have at it y’all and ‘¡fuck it up __(insert name of city/state/scene here)___ style!’  All the young punks love a bit of that as the saying goes…

Behind the sing-a-long crowd and the dancing fools is the people who want to see the band, experience the music but would really prefer to be knocked around by kids who do not share the same fears about health insurance deductibles or the fragility of “old bones”.  In the back, there a bit more talking, visiting, seeing that person they’ve not seen since the last time (insert band here) played, also beverages flow freely and are consumed more responsibly (suggesting fewer spills not less liver damage).  Frankly, if one wants to be honest it is probably these people that bought tickets in advance and upon whose beer sales the venues counts to make a profit from the show. [drink up y’all!!]

I know, I know this a very general example and crowds are rarely described this easily.  The point I am trying to make remains apparent though.  The collective space of the show, the venue, is divided up amongst the crowd and inside the finite area the space is shared.  Everyone has their space to react and to interact with the band and everyone else in attendance.  If you want to be right on the stage as close as possible to be splashed with beer, sweat, and be spat upon by the guitarist from Night Birds or accidentally smacked upside the head by the singer of Scream or bass player of Econochrist (true stories y’all…for reals) then have it.  If, however, that is not your thing and you just want to go nuts dancing then back it up a few feet and go off.  Of course, if none of this appeals to you and all you really want to do is see that band that does it for you then you’ll likely be nearer the back.  Sharing is caring y’all, it isn’t always pretty or fair but it making use of a public space for mutual benefit.  In stark contrast to the above sits any live video of a beatdown/metalcore type band.  

YouTube is replete with videos where huge swaths of space are devoted to a dozen or so people engaged in what appears to be a synchronized martial arts demonstration or an attack by a swarm of invisible bees.  What is readily apparent at these shows is how the few “dancers” have pushed the rest of the crowd to the periphery of the venue.  There are few to no people at the stage experiencing the show.  All those people not “dancing” are trying to balance between watching the band and watching the dancers; undoubtedly they are doing so out of self-defense and for the inevitable train wreck that is foot to head or hand to head contact.  

In this exercise I see only one group telling another ‘this is how you will use this space, disagree at your own peril’.  Admittedly, I highly doubt any such an utterance emerged from the mouth or mind of any participant.  It never had to, the effect is the same.  What was once ours is now theirs and that isn’t cool.    

Slow your roll young blood…I’m not saying I know what punk is (can anyone really?) and I’m not saying anything negative about any individual, group, band, scene, etc. though clearly I am having a bit of a laugh at your silly asses.  What I’m saying is that what is happening with the use of space at some shows is self-defeating, selfish, and in the long-run a dead end for expression.  

Let’s really drive this point home shall we…no ambiguity, no mincing words, nothing left to chance or lost in translation…Lest you think I am picking on other forms of expression (personal or musical), or annoyingly kvetching about a style of music I don’t like (I’m not), let me be clear…I am only noting that the way in which the public space is used at one type of show occasioned by this style of dancing is not about shared use.  The way in which one small group dominates that space open to all appears to me to be antithetical to all that I believed punk was to be which was a liberating movement and a leveling force opening up avenues of expression to those previously shut out of venues for creative expression.  

QED vatos!

[fics-for-my-heart]

Soul Burn (p1)

Summary: The first time you touch your soulmate, your skin burns in that spot till you touch them again.

Word count: 1556

Warning: swearing, mention of crowd panic

A/N: I saw a post for a different soulmate type story and it put this idea in my head. Part 2?

Masterlist

Part One   Part Two  Part Three  Part Four  Part Five  Part Six  Part Seven  Part Eight  Part Nine  Part Ten

When you touch your soulmate for the first time, the contact area burns. Not like a fire burn, more like a tingling sunburn. No one knows what caused it, but people definitely noticed when it started happening. An odd story here, and a weird news article there. Eventually it was the norm. When you met a new person, you touched, just to make sure.

At 23, you weren’t sure you’d ever meet the one. Everyone you went to high school with had found their other half. It didn’t bother you much, you knew that when the time came it would happen, so you didn’t go around like some people and touch random strangers hoping to find them.

“Y/N.” Your best friend Julie waved her hand in your face. “Honey bunch are you okay?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah sorry. Distracted is all.” You turned back to the inventory list your boss had you filling out.

“Still wondering when you’ll get your burn?” She had met Mitch, her soulmate, on the first day of ninth grade while passing papers back.

“I mean, yes and no.” You shrugged, checking off a few boxes on the list. “I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever meet the one. But at the same time I’m kinda content with how life is, and just kinda going with it.”

She rested her hand on your shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll find them. Just gotta have a little hope. But! On a brighter note, convention weekend starts tomorrow and we are for sure going to have a blast.”

“You’re right, I always look forward to convention weekend.” With that thought in your mind you were able to make it the rest of the work day.

The next morning Julie was at your house bright and early and the two of you made your way to the convention center ready to completely geek out. When you got there, the line was long, but moving fast.

“Okay, so what do you want to do first?” Jul asked, bouncing in her toes trying to warm up in the cool air.

“Gotta get in line for Tara Strong obviously, and Doug Jones. Those are the two I for sure want to meet.”

“I think James Marsters and Matthew Lewis are on the top of my list. Oh look, we’re next.”

The two of you made your way into the much warmer food court that doubled as a waiting area before the doors officially open. While waiting, the two of you got a bite to eat and admired the Cosplayers.

“Seriously, I wish I had the talent and time to do what some of these people can do.” She pointed at a group of people who had come as Thor, Loki, and Hela. You pointed out some people who had come as Spiderman, Lego people, and even the astronaut from Doctor Who. By the time the doors opened, the excitement was buzzing through your body. It was always kinda mind blowing just how massive the event is every year. So many vendors, not to mention the ever growing list of celebrity guest.

After meeting the main people you wanted to meet and getting pictures with them, it was time to shop. The amount of amazing things that people made to sell was amazing. The investment of not only money, but time, made each handmade item special. You were trying to decide between two beautiful Harry Potter themed lockets when Jul started patting your arm fast.

“Oh my gosh, Y/N. Look. Looook!” Turning, you immediately saw what, well who, had your friend losing her mind.

“Holy shit. It’s Tom Holland.” Standing just across the walkway was the beautiful, floppy brown haired actor who you had liked since Spiderman. Your affection for him was nothing compared to how much Julie loved him, but you knew he was sweet and really did enjoy him as an actor.

Before you could say anything more, a voice came over the intercom. “Attention guest! We have a special guest joining us today! Tom Holland will be on the floor for pictures and autographs till three. He will also be attending the panel in room 140 at four. Hope to see you all there!”

“Y/N, I have to go see him!” Julie’s light green eyes were huge with the idea of getting to finally meet him.

You smiled. “Well, go quick before the line gets too long. I’ll be right here.”

She kissed your cheek and ran off to the quickly growing line. While she met her crush, you wondered around, buying some stuff for your parents and your brother. It wasn’t long before Julie returned, a smile plastered across her face and a photo clutched to her chest.

“Oh word. He truly is a gift from above. Honestly, if I didn’t know Mitch was my soulmate, I would secretly hope it was Tom. You should have seen him, A little boy was in front of me dressed like Spiderman, and Tom came around and got right at his level to talk to him. Even pretended to get webbed for a photo. It was beautiful. He was beautiful.” She gave a happy sigh and leaned into you.

“Well, we still have his panel at four that could be fun. Let’s go see a few more people. Get a bite to eat and go wait for some decent seats.”

Julie nodded, looping her arm around yours and marching off toward the line for a voice actor from Mitch’s favorite video game.

It was roughly 3:30 when you made it to the room for the panel and it was surprisingly pretty empty so you were able to get good seats. The volume of the room grew as people made their way to seats, but the moment someone stepped on stage it was quiet.

“Hello everyone, I’m Bill! Thank you for coming to this surprise panel, I see we still have some people coming in so I’ll take a moment to let everyone get settled.” A few shuffles of chairs could be heard then all went silent. “Excellent, So today we have Tom Holland joining us, so let give him a round of applause!” The room erupted in claps and shouts as Tom entered the stage, waving at everyone before taking a seat. “Well Tom, how are you?”

“I’m doing absolutely amazing. I had a wonderful time greeting fans and am so lucky to be here.”

“We are happy you could join us. You’re a busy man so let’s get right to it shall we? Spider-Man Two. What can you tell us?”

Tom made a cute scrunched face. “Honestly, not much. I know I’m in it, and Robert is in it, and Jacob and Zendaya. But truly that’s all I’ve been allowed to say. They are trying very hard to keep me mum about it.” The audience laughed.

“Well, I tried.” Bill stuck his hands up in defeat. “Any word on how Avengers Four is coming along?”

Tom gave a tight lipped nod. “Again, not much I can say on that either Bill. When I asked the Russo brothers they told me to just say “itsa coming” and nothing else.” He made a zip and lock motion across his lips. “But, I will say it’ll be epic and hopefully make up for the last movie.”

Bill and Tom went back and forth for a while, joking and laughing and eventually they opened the floor for questions. People asked all kinds of stuff, like what was it like getting to work with all these stars, and how does he take is tea. The interactions between him and everyone really opened your eyes to just how genuine of a guy is was.

After almost an hour, Bill announced that sadly it was time for Tom to go. He agreed to take a picture standing in front of everyone, so we all gathered close while Tom stood at the front doing the Spider-Man pose.

First, there was a scream, then some pushing. Everyone wanted to get closer. Somehow you and Julie got separated as you were pushed closer to the front. Suddenly your chest was getting tight, there were bodies everywhere and loud voices. Then, you were in the floor, more screaming, two sets of hands were on either arm pulling you up and out of the crowd. You were sat in a chair, one pair of arms let go, the others stayed.

“Are you okay?” Your eyes were closed and the voice was muffled by the ringing in your ears. You reached out and touched their arm, nodding your head and steadying your breath. “Okay, you stay here I’ll send someone over to help you.” You nodded again.

It started when the person let go. That feeling of a sunburn on your wrist, the burn. Your eyes shot open, scanning the swarm of bodies for the person who had touched you. It was no use though, with everyone running around it was a madhouse.

“Oh my gosh, Y/N are you okay!?” You looked up to meet the familiar green eyes of Julie.

You ghosted your fingers over your burning skin. “It happened. The. It. Julie, it happened.”

“Really?” She practically squealed. “Who was it!”

You locked eyes with her, watching her face fall at your reaction. “I don’t know.”

[queen-of-hearts92]

Revue Starlight 7: Living in the state of dreaming.

Her life is a play, is a play, is a play....

For the previous episode go here!

To go to the start of these posts, go to the Prelude!

WELL. THAT ESCULATED QUICKLY.

The tipping point is here my dudes. And it’s fucking, amazing! Absolutely incredible! Blew me out of the water! The storyboarding is amazing, the fucking music the lighting like everything is so well done I can’t believe it! I’m telling you guys, masterpiece right here!

Theres a lot to talk about regarding this episode so be prepared for a very very long post.

If you haven’t seen Revue Starlight or episode 7, TURN BACK NOW. I’m spoiling everything and you REALLY don’t want to be spoiled for this! 

If you haven’t seen this show yet, please PLEASE do so! Seriously, I can’t empathis enough! Don’t ignore this holy shit! Really! Seriously! I’m screaming this from the rooftops for a good reason, this is extremely good! It’s not yuri bait, it’s not an idol anime just, for the love of god don’t ignore this series! Don’t let this slide under the radar Western anime fandom! It deserves so much better than that!

Ok now that the PSA is done, here we go! 

The title and caption of this post is from the song “The State of Dreaming” by Marina and the Diamonds. It’s, pretty fitting for here for sure.

>*Daft Punk voice* One more time!

*deep breath* Alright, here we go.

We open the episode in the past, this is mostly a flashback episode. It’s March 3rd, 2018, the Starlight play is being performed and we get to see more than we ever have of the play. Claire and Flora ascend up a fuck ton of stairs to get the star together, they have to pass through seven other goddesses as they climb upwards. The seven goddesses all seemed to have tried reaching the star itself in the past but failed, and they tell Claire and Flora why they failed and to not seek the star themselves. Nana’s character refers to it as a cycle of despair. Claire and Flora make it to the top and it goes how we know it does, Flora is zapped down and Claire ascends without her. As the play ends sand (or maybe it’s supposed to be stardust) rains down from the ceiling, the audience applauds as the girls take their bows. We focus on a very happy Nana who says its bright.

Wow it looks like she just put them in a...gilded cage. *Foreshadowing intensifies*

We now go to March 5th, 2018, the play’s run is over and the girls are having an after party. We get several shots of the Venus De Milo here and throughout the episode. Junna and Sanai (head play writer in case you don’t recall) walk in front of a Venus and a small scale version of the star tower and make a speech, congratulating everybody on the play’s success. The party continues with the girls talking, taking pictures, eating, etc. We go to Nana who has her phone camera in front of her eyes, she’s taking pictures of her own.

She first takes one of Junna telling her good work, Junna gets flustered and says that this play was only the first year and they gotta prepare for next year soon. Nana then walks to Karen and Mahiru and takes their picture, Nana tells Karen she did a good job and Karen says Nana was really good too. Nana asks if Mahiru was nervous, she says she wasn’t thanks to Karen. Nana walks to Maya and Claudine congratulating them on a good job, Maya thanks her and Claudine says she did NOT lose to Maya thank you very much. Maya is like “ok let’s face off again at the next audition”. Maya then looks directly at Nana and tells her essentially that she would like to face off against her too. Nana seems confused, but no matter. Nana goes to Futaba and Kaoruko next. Futaba is like idk how to play a goddess but it worked out somehow, Kaoruko starts to tease her when they both notice Nana. The two run up to her and Futaba gives her a hug, she thanks her for helping her out during this whole play. Kaoruko also thanks her for the same reason. Mahiru and a few rando girls also thank Nana for helping them during the play production.

Karen picks up a banana muffin and comes up with Nana’s legendary nickname while Nana, Kaoruko, and Futaba are doing a message train. Karen reasons that Nana is like a banana because she’s sweet and good for everyone. Junna, who had just joined the group to get food, is confused. But Mahiru thinks the nickname is cute, Kaoruko and Futaba like it too. Kaoruko says its because Nana is tall like a banana, Futaba says its because Nana smells nice. Wow Futaba. Nana laughs, she also likes the nickname. But her laughter soon goes into crying, much to the alarm of her friends. Futaba and Kaoruko ask her what's wrong and Nana smiles and says she’s crying because she’s happy. It turns out Nana’s crying caused literally everyone at the party to notice. Nana says she’s glad she came to the school and says she’ll never forget this play. Internally Nana says she found her forever friends and her destined stage. On this day, Nana was reborn as a Stage Girl. Then we get the opening.

Ah yes, the message train. A theater kid tradition!

We jump to spring break, March 26th, 2018. All the girls but Nana and Junna leave the dorms to go home for break. They say bye to Nana, who has her camera phone in front of her eyes again, and watches everyone leave. We get a few shots in the empty dorm with Nana in the same pose, she comments that it’s very quiet with everyone gone. Nana goes back to her room, Junna is reading. Upon seeing Nana holding up her camera she’s like you’re taking pictures in our room why?? Nana responds saying that she needs to take photos of all the important moments for the next school festival. Junna asks if Nana was fine not going home, Nana is surprised by this question. Junna says she isn’t going back home until she graduates (reminder note: Junna’s parents don’t approve of her being at this school) so if Nana was just staying to look after her she probs shouldn’t. Nana smiles and, after offering udon, says she’s here because she wants to be here. Junna smiles and says yes to the udon.

Fellas is it gay if you take multiple pictures of your room mate everyday?

Now it’s a new school term, they’re second years. It’s April 9th, 2018. Nana is recording Junna finishing tying her school bow on, she’s like hey Junna got a speech for the new year? Junna is like hold on I’m the class rep I gotta not do anything embarrassing! She puts on a new pair of glasses and Nana says they are the same glasses but look like new ones. Nana and Junna go to school into their new classroom, Nana goes to the front of the room to record everyone. The girls in the class wave to her, Nana shifts to the back of the classroom.

Then, Nana realizes something is off. Mysterious creepy music plays as we see our girls and the girls in the class, Nana is doing a headcount. As the number 99 zooms slowly towards the camera Nana says two of her classmates are missing. The music cuts out, Junna tells Nana that the two girls had dropped out of school. Later Nana and Junna are in the locker room, Junna is removing the dropped out girl’s name tags from the locker. She laments that it’s sad this is the first task she got as class rep, but it’s time to move forward. Nana pauses before simply saying, yeah.

It’s now May 16th, 2018, the (regular as far as we can tell) auditions for the play have started. Nana stands in the back of the practice room with the camera in front of her eyes, through the camera screen we see Claudine declaring she’ll have a perfect victory over Tendou Maya. A picture is taken, Karen pops in declaring she’ll be Flora. Another picture is taken, Mahiru pops in saying if Karen is Flora then she’ll be Claire. The next photo adds Junna, Kaoruko, and Futaba to the mix, Kaoruko is like I’ll be in the main cast this time bitch! We go back to Nana, Maya appears next to her. Maya asks if Nana had a moment to talk after class and Nana says sure, Junna notices this exchange.

Kuro is best wingman pass it on!

And now...Now is when things start taking a turn.

Maya and Nana walk outside, Nana reminisces about the starlight play as they walk. The girls pass by several buildings, some girls are there and Nana waves to them briefly. Nana wonders if they could make the exact same play as they did last time. The music changes, Maya says that even if they have the same components as the previous play it won’t be the same. While Maya is speaking we see several other girls around the area. She continues saying that the girls (the ones who dropped out) chose their own path, with their own hardships. That sometimes there are people who can’t make it even when they try their hardest, so they leave the stage. Maya says she will challenge Nana for the main character in the play this time around. Maya tells Nana that she’s very talented so she wonders why she doesn’t step it up more. And then, after we zoom in on an empty locker, the music suddenly drops out and ALL the girls we saw earlier snap their heads up and look in the direction of the screen.

After that haunting sequence, which legit startled the fuck outta me, we go to Futaba and Kaoruko standing between two vending machines. Kaoruko is taking her time deciding something and Futaba tells her to just pick already. We go back to Nana and Maya, Maya says to Nana that if she doesn’t try to give her all and refuses to change. She will never forgive her. Nana is shocked.

Later nightmare fuel aside, the framing of this shot is so good oh man!

It’s now the evening, the sky is purple. Nana sits on a bench looking through her photos from the after party. Junna, Karen, and Mahiru come on in, they look at the photos and reminisce about the party and the play. Nana says how much she loved doing the play and the three other girls also say they loved it too. Nana wonders again if they can put on the same play, she looks at her photos fondly. Karen then is like, well I hope I can be on the stage again. She says the stage is alive and always changing, therefore it can’t be the same play at all. Junna points out they also are missing classmates hence it really isn’t possible to make the same exact play. Karen stands up on a bench, ripping open a bag of dried banana chips, and is like we’ll make a WAYY better play this year! Junna is like, you dumbass don’t stand on the bench! Karen says this is her stage now and it’s fine since she took her shoes off. Junna is exasperated. Nana tunes out of the conversation, staring at the sky.

Now Nana is in the changing room at the dorms, she’s lying down staring up at the ceiling. She wonders if they’ll be successful in creating a better play. She thinks the play they did in the past was perfect as is. And then, her phone rings with a VERY familiar ringtone. Giraffe has texted Nana for the first time, Nana thinks the giraffe is cute.

We go to Nana on a stage, a very bright stage of yellow light. Behind her is a piece of the prop star tower hanging out. Giraffe is standing in front of the real one, he greets Nana with a good evening. Giraffe asks if it was too radiant, Nana doesn’t really give an answer instead she’s like giraffe?? As Giraffe explains what a revue is, we get shots of the underground stage. It’s in ruins, the chairs are messed up, there's rust on the machines, everything is cracked and ruined to hell and back, and the whole thing is partly flooded. Or really it’s sinking. We also get a shot of the props from audition duels we’ve seen already. 

Nana is confused by what Giraffe means by radiance, he explains whoever shows the most radiance will get to be Top Star. After we hear a bizarre sound we get a shot of the tiara, Giraffe says that she will stand on in the Stage of Destiny if she gets Top Star and will radiant forever as an eternal star. Nana says she isn’t interested in that. Giraffe understands, so he offers her something else. What wish she did she have then? What kind of stage would she like to stand on? He says Nana has a radiant stage inside her, one so bright that she might not even be able to reach it. Nana asks if she could choose any stage she wanted, and Giraffe is like sure just join the auditions. Nana accepts joining them.

Hm, seems legit. Nothing bad will happen here.

It then cuts to, Nana winning against Maya. Nana stands in the light looking spacey and she speaks in a robotic dead sounding tone, Maya is shocked and said “so this is your true self?” she asks what made Nana change. Nana responds by asking if it’s too bright, because it’s too bright for her. As the curtain comes down, Maya asks why she’s doing this but all Nana says is she can’t reach it. Maya tries to ask what drove her to go to this extreme but she’s cut off by the curtain falling down on her. Nana claims position zero but, she doesn’t announce her name. Instead she says again she can’t reach it because it’s too bright. We see a shot of the rankings board, Nana is at the top at number one.

In the next scene Giraffe congratulates Nana on becoming Top Star. He asks if it’s too bright. Nana says yes. Giraffe asks what stage she desired, Nana says she wants to perform the Starlight play from the previous year again. Giraffe is like, alrighty then. The tiara drops at Nana’s feet on position zero, there are bright pink lights and a buzzing sound. The script with the frog on it we’ve seen Nana with before falls from the sky and we go to black.

Never underestimate the power of fruit.

The next thing Nana knows, she’s in class. The teacher announces that they will be doing the Starlight play for their three years, the class is excited. Futaba and Kaoruko don’t know what it is. Nana is like ??? what, she turns to Junna and is like hey wtf is going on. Junna is shocked and flustered at Nana using her first name, she calls Nana by her last name. Nana stares at her shocked. She realized what just happened.

She went back in time. It went from May 25th, 2018 to April 17th, 2017. We see the Starlight play being prepared and practice while Nana reveals something else. Nana going back to the past like this, isn’t a one time thing. No, it’s been done many times before by her. Nana….has trapped everyone in a time loop.

Holy shit.

Anyways, Nana has convinced herself that being in a time loop is a good thing. She has nothing to fear, no one has to grow up and feel the pain of being alive and growing. Nana says she’ll protect everyone, she’s doing this for everyone's sake. It’s fine. Nana smiles, whole holding the script close, in the bright yellow stage under the tower prop. There's a giant box with the number 99 painted on its side behind her. We learn that every loop she fights Maya, every loop she beats her. She makes the same wish. It all starts over again. But she still can’t reach the light, it’s still too bright.

And then, one day. Something different happens.

After winning again, Nana tells the Giraffe it’s still too bright. Giraffe (standing by a sudden random tree) says he has lost count in the number of times these loops have happened but he will grant her the same wish anyways. Nana asks him, why does he do this for her. Giraffe says when a Stage Girl becomes Top Star she releases a powerful radiance, a shining stage. He wants to see that, he wants to see shining stages. But, it seems like Giraffe has gotten bored of Nana’s same stage so. Something is gonna change it, or really someone. A knife is thrown down smack in the middle of position zero at Nana’s feet. It’s Hikari’s knife. Nana is shocked, she looks up and sees Hikari’s blue cape in the tree. Hikari herself stands under the tree, staring. The scene goes to black, Nana is back at the start of her loop wondering who the fuck that was.

COME TO THIS WEIRD STAGE TREE IN 5 MINUTES FOR AN ASSWHOOPIN.

Nana’s loop continues as normal, until. Until May 14th, 2018. Nana wakes up and knows something is off right away. We see the scene from episode 1 where Karen falls off her chair, Hikari is in the hallway with her suitcase. The teacher tells the class that they are getting a new transfer student, Nana is shocked.

Nana is like holy shit this is new. We then see a bunch of lines go by, they are time loops that have happened. When I slowed it down, I counted 60 lines total. So there have been 60 time loops, each one is a year and 5 months….Nana has been doing this for 60 years.

Jesus fucking christ Nana.

We then jump back to the present, the sun is going down while the girls walk home. Haunting music plays while Nana stares out a window at Hikari. She wonders how this change even happened at all, she wonders if doing the same play for 60 years really gets boring. Geez Nana, ya think? 

However, Nana says her world will never change. She says Hikari’s name, and turns creepily to the camera staring directly at it. She’ll put that girl in her play. No matter what. The episode ends.

The ending theme has no vocals.

Nana...what have you done...

>We never saw it cominnnng!

-Holy mother of fucking god. I. This. Was incredible. My mind is still blown! What an excellent twist! I love this show so fucking much! I told y’all this was something special! I fucking told you! Episode 7 proved it! They could fuck it up at the end but my gut feeling is still good! Fucking anime of the year!

--Also there were AMAZING shots in this! So much good storyboarding holy shit!

-In my episode one and five write ups I took note of the dates but at the time I said they “probably aren’t relevant”. WELL GUESS WHAT PAST ME. THEY VERY MUCH ARE RELEVANT! I picked up that the show was showing us dates but not why. Gdi.

-With time nonsense happening, I made timelines (here and here) so we can keep track of what’s going on. Will update as needed and put in future write ups as needed.

-I wanna address something real quick, a lot of people are quick to make comparisons to Madoka Magica and Homura’s time travel powers. I can see why people make that comparison but the time travel here isn’t really the same at all. Homura can start the time travel whenever she likes, sure it’s limited to going to a certain day but if say she was three days into the timeline and Homura decides to go back again she can. Nana can’t do such a thing. If Nana was three days into hers and she wanted to go back she can’t, she has to become Top Star to go back in time at all. Higurashi is a closer comparison but even that isn’t too close to Nana’s time looping either, without spoiling anything in Higurashi the length of the time loops vary and aren’t the same. It can go for many years or not. Funny I think this kind of time travel in the show is closer to the movie Groundhog's Day but instead of just one day it goes for a year lol. Another comparison I’ve seen is Steins Gate but I’ve only seen one episode of that anime so I can’t comment too much on it. 

Point being here is, not all time travel is the same and often isn’t compatible to each other. Nana’s time loops continuing lies solely on being Top Star, if she didn’t become Top Star no time loop will happen. It’s not superpowered base like Homura’s is nor is it like Higurashi’s which is….uh. Let’s say why the loops are happening are much more complicated than either of these shows. So, let’s stop saying Nana is pulling a Homura cause she isn’t (Homura also isn’t the first time traveler in fiction you guys, you can use other comparisons). Don’t mislead people into thinking it works like Madoka Magica’s ok? Ok.

-I feel silly now that I worked out the possible ranks in episode 5 cause as it turns out the ranking board is a lie and doesn’t matter as much as we thought it did! Maya isn’t really in first, she’s in second. Nana is first, Nana is the strongest of all of them. This means that poor Kuro is actually in third place, ouch. If she finds that out she’ll be very unhappy about that.

-Funny, I thought how this show was gonna go was Karen blasting through everyone and then they fight the evil tiara bullshit together but now that this time loop is involved, everything has fucking change. Everything! Nice!

-Interestingly, it appears there is no visual uniform difference between the years. As in first, second, and third years all have the exact same uniform. That’s not super common in high school anime I find, it’s nifty!

-There were some differences in the ending credits this time. In the past several episodes we’ve had a character sing the ending theme Fly Me to the Star. But not here, Nana doesn’t sing fly me to the stars. It’s only the instrumentals and Nana is with Giraffe instead of either by herself or with someone. Another difference was with Hikari’s hair clip, it’s usually a hand (probs Hikari’s) reaching down and touching it. But this episode, Nana is stepping on Hikari’s hair pin. I’m sure that implies nothing bad, oh wait yes it does. Hahaha she’s gonna fucking try and kill her isn’t she? Hikari is fucking screwed. ono

Another difference lies in the background, in the previous credits there’s always items that are related to whoever is singing the song slowly falling in the background. It always includes the Starlight play script but with Nana’s it’s JUST the Starlight play script and nothing else. Yikes. The last difference is at the very end, normally it has the girl(s) who sang the song standing in the spotlight. This time it’s just the frog Starlight script in the spotlight. Both of these things show how obsessed Nana is with this play, it’s consumed her entire life and her spotlight for that matter.

-After Nana wins the duels she doesn’t declare her name when claiming position zero. That’s very very odd considering everyone who’s declared position zero says their name right afterwards. Loss of identity maybe?

-At the end of the Starlight play it rained sand on the stage just like it rained water in episode two on kuromaya stage after they fight. Not sure what this means yet, instead it brings something else to mind.

-This series uses and brings up water a lot! There is several bodies of water on the campus, it’s raining after Karen’s duel with Maya and this reflection happens, it’s raining at the end of the kuromaya fight, the whole damn stage is surrounded by water, Hikari goes to aquariums in episode 4, swans are aquatic birds, we see the stage flooded in the past, and of course there is the goddess Aphrodite’s connection with water. She was born out of the ocean, you could even say she was reborn since she came from a nutsack (myths are fucking weird man). Water has a TON of symbolism behind it, it’s been used symbolically for centuries. It often symbolises birth or rebirth, cleansing yourself, purity, and there's a ton of mythos involving water and many religions practices that involve it. What’s not super known is that water as a symbol was used a lot in early sapphic literature, as were birds.

What this all means is hard to say but I think it does tie into the being reborn theme this show has. It’s a metaphorical rebirthing as we’ve seen it. Karen is reborn when she became a Stage Girl, Junna describes falling in love with theater as a child as being reborn, and Nana also refers to herself being reborn after the Starlight play after party. What being reborn really means in this show is being drastically changed by a life experience. I’m really excited to see this theme continued.

-The Venus de Milo statue makes a frequent appearance again (5 times!) and while I do think it still ties strongly to Maya there is something weird here, it seems like the statue is involved with the play somehow? It’s present at the after party, even being in front of the star tower so one would think it’s involved in the play somehow. But what? What does this statue have to do with this play? Is it cause Venus is also a star? Maybe? It’s hard to say.

-When Nana goes to the underground stage for the first time, it’s old and shitty. And flooded/sinking. Meaning this point is ground zero of when and where the duels started, it supports my idea of the stage being alive. I’ll elaborate on that point in speculation but I’ll say that the stage looking so fucked tells me it’s been a very long time since it’s been used.

--Also during these flashbacks, the Tokyo Tower isn’t in the underground stage at all. So, does this mean Hikari’s presences brought the tower there? It’s an important place for Hikari and Karen so that would make sense, the stage would have no reason to have it unless they are involved. But why? Since episode 8 looks like a focus episode on Hikari maybe we will have a better idea after that.

-Junna notices Nana and Maya talking in the practice room. I think that’s an important thing to note here cause I think Junna will be very important in getting Nana to stop the madness.

-Is the star in the tiara or the tower? Both? Or maybe the star just uses the tiara as a medium of sorts? This shit is mysterious man.

-The frog script Nana has, is it a soul gem/horcrux like thing? A timer? Can it affect reality? Looks pretty worn, I mean it has been through lots of loops. This script makes me go hmmm.

-I’m still shook by the fact Nana has kept all her friends in this gilded cage for 60 years! Nana what the fuck. Now you are probs wondering how anyone outside of the school would not notice that? I think, because Hikari and Karen went into the city, this time loop doesn’t just effect the campus it effects the city. Hell it might even effect more than the city. The whole country? The world? Like literally everywhere being time looped would match up to the lack of freaking out from outsiders. Like Nana, Nana the fuck did you do? Holy shit.

-Something I noticed right away, and got really excited, about is the fact Claire and Flora have to pass through seven gates/goddesses to get to the star. That’s just like Inanna’s myth! She had to pass through seven gates each with a gatekeeper to get into the underworld. Like holy shit that’s really cool that an Inanna has a reference again! Also the stairs were going up right? You could say, it’s a stairway to heaven? Eh? ;D

-The part when Maya and Nana are talking, we pass by all these girls. When it gets to the height of the conversation, suddenly the music stops and all the girls heads snap up and look the same direction. That scared the piss out of me! What the fuck was that?! I can’t figure it out? The best answer I got maybe is it’s something to do with the school or the stage and it didn’t like what Maya was saying? Maybe? Is this like the fighty Greek Chorus in the stage musical? Is that what happens when you get booted out from the auditions? Why did only Nana acknowledge the girls were there via waving? I?? I don’t know but that scene makes me very nervous.

--The part with Nana turning towards the camera at the end was creepy too. The shadows, the red, and the too fluid animation of her turning was all off putting but the real kicker I think is the fact she’s staring directly at the camera. Like is she talking to someone we can’t see or, is she addressing us the audience? Please no Monika I don’t wanna see anyone getting deleted.

-Right after the creepy scene with the girls all fucking pulling an Exorcist, we go to Futaba and Kaoruko talking about something seemingly unrelated. Cutting from something so intense to something so mundane seems like an odd choice right? I was stumped too at first but I figured it out! Futaba and Kaoruko are between two vending machines, one is red and one is blue. At this point in the story we’ve learned that Maya and Nana are foils to each other, I’ll elaborate on the ways they are foils later but the super short version is Maya and Nana have a conflicting way of how to see the future. Maya prefers going forward, not dwelling on the past, and so she sees the future as a good thing. Nana on the other hand is afraid of it and sees the future as something bad taking what she loves away from her. The vending machines represent that split.

When you have a scene set up to be a clear split like this then it usually indicates opposite paths or choices or in this case opposite viewpoints. Also red and blue are very often used to show opposites. This is a crossroads, do we hang on to the past or let the future come? Which direction, or vending machine, should we chose? Or will be chosen really, whoever won that first audition duel would decide what path to take. Unfortunately Nana won, and she chose the past. Now everyone is fucked.

As for why Futaba and Kaoruko were the ones in the center, it has to do with the yin and yang parallel around them we saw in episode six. While those two are in sync despite being different, Maya and Nana's views of the future cannot be in sync or coexist together. A conflict will always come. In the scene after Maya and Nana talk, the sky is purple. A combo of red and blue, or in this case a collide. This foreshadows the duel that takes place on May 25th, it’s a clashing of view points.

-It’s obvious by this point that Giraffe is not a benevolent figure, all his actions are for him and/or anyone he is working with so he can gather starlight and see shiny revues. He doesn't care about stopping Nana, he's just bored and wanted to see what would happen if everything was thrown off balance. Giraffe is the Kyubey of the situation here, the devil in dealing with the devil. All for starlight and seeing brighter revues. This isn't a revolution, it's an experiment. Seeing Giraffe as a benevolent figure is the mistake Nana made, so we the audience shouldn't trust him either. I never trusted this fucking giraffe in the first place so it doesn’t surprise me that he is pulling this shit. But, if he is a Kirin then why? What makes a Kirin turn bad like this? Hm.

-In the Starlight play gears pop up again! Mmm love the gear motif. Also wow this fucking stage is impressive, how much fucking money does this school have?! Lol.

-So the Top Star position grants wishes it seems like? Can you wish for anything or just things related to the theater? If it can cause time travel on a possible world wide scale, then what else can it fucking do? I don’t trust this Top Star wishing, nope.

-The way Giraffe was talking about starlight makes me think that yeah the system does indeed gather and/or feed off of starlight. So, is Giraffe the Starlight Gatherer? The stage itself? The mystery continues.

-During the flashback while the stage is in ruins, we see props backstage that are from previous revues. The stars from Hikari and Junna’s stage, the cat in a baseball outfit from Mahiru’s stage, a lantern from Futaba and Kaoruko’s stage, one of the glasses buildings from Junna’s stage, and Maya’s stairs and pillar and chandelier and big ass bird from her stage (geez Maya, hogging space much?). Claudine’s is there too but its not grouped with the others, it’s right over here! It’s likely not with the other ones cause IT’S A FUCKING HUGE BUILDING. Kuro goes big or goes home. But the odd thing is, the duels haven’t even started yet. So what are these doing here? Have they been, preprepared?

-So we’ve been told that if you get booted from the duels then you lose the most important thing to a Stage Girl, knowing what we know now I really wonder what the fuck that could possibly be? The other girls had to have lost in the other loops for Nana to keep winning Top Star and we don’t see what happens to them at all. Is it a thing? Is it the starlight draining theory I’ve talked about before? I don’t know like, man these loops made everything more complicated lol.

-In the credits, Nana leaning towards Hikari and she’s also right over position zero! Fuckin, that foreshadowing man! I love it!

>So, about Nana, Maya, and Hikari.

There’s so much to talk about regarding these three that they need their own section. They are very deeply involved with this time clusterfuck. And, wow who knew that Nana and Maya would end up as foils to each other? That’s fucking wild.

-Nana

Let’s start with the one who kicked all this shit off. Oh poor Nana, I really do feel for this girl. For starters I don’t think Nana is evil at all, no she’s just a scared lonely girl who’s been preyed upon by the stage. She’s made a huge mistake, making a Faustian deal with forces that she doesn’t understand, and everyone pays the price for it including her. Nana’s backstory must be really fucked up, I mean I don’t think it will go too fucked up but it will be sad as hell I bet. She probably didn’t have any friends before coming to the school and I’m betting she either has dead parents or stage parents.

If she has stage parents then they likely pushed her into being the most perfect Stage Girl, being controlling and overbearing as hell. And they treated her like crap the entire way. Maybe Nana didn’t want to come to this school at first but when she did, oh look she has freedom for the very first time in her life. Nana having these kind of parents would also parallel Maya’s who are famous stage actors, and the two of them reacted differently to the pressure placed on them during their lives. I’ll talk more about their similarities later.

So after Nana came to the school she made friends for the first time, what she did was considered good enough and she got praise and loved by others. Positive attention is something Nana likely never had before so she ended up associating love and happiness with that specific point in her life, and this caused her to grow very attached to that point in time. Nana being so love starved made her crave going back to that time, in her mind that’s the time where she’s loved and appreciated and she can’t even imagine that she can get love and appreciation outside of that specific chunk of time. Hence she clings to it hardcore, and becomes upset when being told she can’t ever go back to that time. So when offered a way to go back she jumped at the chance, not considering the consequences this will bring. After Nana said she didn’t want the power Top Star gives you, Giraffe changes his tactics and says she can choose any stage she wants. Any stage at all. And so, we ended up here.

I totally understand Nana is coming from, it’s hard to leave happy past experiences behind. To never have the same ones ever again. It’s hard to grow up and be thrown into a cold adult world. Life changing is hard, and when you grow up sad and miserable you want to cling to any happiness you can get. I very much understand why Nana keeps this time loop going. That being said however, what she’s done is a horrible thing to do to her friends and it is so incredibly selfish of her to keep it going like this.

Nana has rationalized her time looping as she’s doing it for everyone's sake, to spare them any future pain. But, just cause she thinks that doesn’t mean it’s true. Her friends never asked her to do this and I’m pretty positive they wouldn’t want to be stuck in this time loop, but Nana never asks them or considers that hey just cause you’re afraid of the future doesn’t mean you should take away other people’s choices and make the choices for them! Nana resetting any character development is also a very fucked thing to do, like for example if she did reset it like normal now that means that Mahiru never detached her self worth from Karen. Futaba and Kaoruko’s relationship issues never got resolved. Karen and Junna would never become friends. Any development Maya and Kuro would’ve gotten would be tossed out the window. Nana is taking all growth away from them every time she resets, just cause she doesn’t want anything to change.

It’s cruel, keeping them in this gilded cage and never letting anyone move forward with their life or get over their hang ups. I have a feeling the other girls are going to find out about this, the fallout will be bad. Very bad. However at this point Nana is pretty overpowered with starlight and 60 years of experience, she won’t be easy to beat. The starlight itself I think, while very useful, is a corruptive dangerous thing especially when someone is overloaded with it. Maybe it’s even addictive. Nana and Giraffe appear to both be obsessed with it and this overload of starlight is likely making Nana’s mental state even worse. This is gonna turn messy.

I think Nana can still be saved, redeemed even! I’m pretty positive Junna will be a huge factor in that. Nana obviously has a crush on her, just look at all the pictures she takes of Junna alone. We haven’t seen these two a ton together but enough to know they are close friends with each other. There will be more in future episodes I think, it’s gonna be wild. Help us Jun-Jun! Go go save Banana! We need ya!

Nana is someone who represents the past, she can’t let go and she can’t/doesn’t want to move forward. She’s dragged everyone else into this bullshit because she is so afraid of the future. The future is unknown and scary. The past is easy and comforting, as well as predictable. But it’s stifling, no one can grow and change. It’s a gilded cage, and Nana has trapped everyone including herself in it. She has to let go of the past and move forward understanding the future isn’t hopeless and that she can still get positive attention and love going forward.

-Maya

Oh Maya, oh dear. Amists all this time looping is Maya, it’s unknown if Maya has any memories of previous time loops but regardless if she does or doesn’t it’s fucked for her either way. If she does remember all the loops then she’s been failing to stop this and reliving the same block of time for 60 years, it’s amazing she hasn’t lost her mind! If she only remembers some loops or bits and parts then there's probably this endless feeling of dread and paranoia plus the fact she keeps failing over and over. If she doesn’t recall anything at all then she’s been doing the same fruitless quest for years without realizing that it’s all pointless. Another possible idea is her memory slowly returns during the year then she loses AGAIN and it fades away no matter what she does. Jesus christ how horrifying. 8(

Nana always fights Maya for the Top Star and Maya always loses, mostly cause the cards are stacked against her. Not only does Nana have all that starlight power but she's been fighting for 60 years and remembers doing it. So Maya can’t ever beat her, she’s extremely outmatched. I can only imagine how stressful that would be if she recalls anything, remembering endless failure to break her and her friends out of this hellscape. If Maya does indeed remember, then she is likely aiming for Top Star not to really use it for herself but to stop the madness. If she wins she can break everyone outta the loop, but she keeps losing over and over and she keeps tackling the problem alone. We gonna need everyones for this task Maya!

Maya is someone who always looks to the future, always restless and never fully satisfied where she is in life. As someone who also rarely feels fully satisfied, this feeling is both a blessing and a curse. It gives you a drive for sure but it’s also painful in that nothing you do will ever be good enough. I can tell ya for sure that this feeling 100% comes from having anxiety. Wooo. This kind of drive however, ended up keeping her from making any sort of deal with Giraffe. I think Maya and Nana were the first people contacted and offered the deal, show off starlight and get your stage with whatever you desire. The system aimed to take advantage of the most fucked up of the Stage Girls, but the thing is. Maya has nothing to really gain from a Top Star wish. Any stage the Top Star could grant would not be good enough for her to want to make that wish.

So Kuro was right in episode four, it’s VERY weird that Maya is in these auditions at all. She wouldn’t go back to the past like Nana has, not for any reason. Maya wants to move forward, and she wants everyone else to move forward too. That’s why she pulled Nana aside to talk to her, Maya feels Nana is wasting all her talent and potential. That bothers Maya, a lot. She’s probably even offended by it. Maya greatly respects things like passion, growth, and determination so Nana damping her own growth when she can do so much more just pisses her off and that’s why Maya is so worked up during their conversation. She talks to Nana, and is very blunt about her point, because she isn’t going to stand by and let someone so talented do that to themselves. Hence I think it’s possible Maya first entered the audition duels to stop Nana from doing something foolish. It’s also possible she did it to give others a challenge, someone to defeat, but that still begs the question of what the hell will she do if she gets Top Star? We don’t really have an answer right now cause we are still missing info about Maya, but it’s a question to keep in mind.

Maya’s monologue this episode is about the beauty of choice basically, people choosing a path and doing their damndest to follow it. And even if they can’t get to their original goal and drop away from it, that’s fine because it’s their choice and they are still moving forward with their life. I think Maya really respects people who choose to rise to a challenge and face it head on. That’s one of the reasons why she fell for and respects Claudine, she’s willinging to confront and challenge Maya who is believed to be untouchable and Maya loves that there’s someone who can not only match her like that but keeps pushing to be even better than she was before. She loves a woman who can kick her ass (or tries to). Anyways, Maya’s monologue ties in well with her character. Also the Venus De Milo statues are back again because Maya plays quite a big role in this episode and in general. She’s the one Nana has to beat every time after all.

Y’all might be wondering why I referred to Maya as one of the most fucked up out of the girls, well I did say she likely had a similar childhood to Nana’s so. I can tell you from experience that you don’t get someone like Maya out of a happy childhood. Maya’s parents are famous stage actors so from the moment she was born she had expectations placed on her. Lots of pressure to be as good as they are, a very stressful thing to put on a child. I talked about her possible past in episode five’s write up so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much here. Like Nana she probably didn’t grow up with many, if any, friends and always had the expectations from others hanging over her head all the time. I think it’s possible what made Maya and Nana’s paths split is because there was someone in Maya’s life that positively influenced her and Nana never got that. I dunno who in Maya’s life did that and it could’ve been an event in her life instead, either way this would be the moment she was “reborn” as a true Stage Girl. This is a guess from what I know about Maya and Nana but I think it’s possible.

What Maya and Nana strongly have in common is loneliness. Maya is used to living her life alone at the top, she believes this is the cost of being at the top and that’s that. She’ll accept it and move on, but people are social animals. We need interactions with someone or we go mad from the isolation, so really Maya hasn’t moved on from that. But since Maya always moves forward to the future, she probably hasn’t reflected on that aspect at all so she just tries to keep going. However ignoring your emotional hang ups doesn’t work forever, but Maya isn’t going to ask for any sort of help or talk to someone about it. Maya probably never learned how to do that. Nana doesn’t do it either, she probably doesn’t think it’s important enough to bother anyone by it. Both of these girls got a lot to sort out and the stage can be turned around and used to help instead of harm! That’s what I’m expecting anyways.

Another comparison is their roles they have for the stage and system itself. Maya is a symbol of what the system wants, she’s talented and full of radiance. And while this gives her power, she’s still only a symbol. She can easily be taken down by the system. Nana’s role is an enforcer, she’s the true guard dog of the system. She enforces the status quo and literally prevents change coming into the system. Nana has a ton of power hence she can take down Maya, but Nana is still just a cog in the machine. The system uses her, she isn’t very free from it either.

Maya represents the future, she’s always looking forward and always aiming for progress. But you can’t look away from any ghosts of the past forever. Looking at the past can be painful, while looking at the future is hopeful. It’s going to be hard to watch Maya having to confront herself so to speak but she needs to do that or the past will weight her down and prevent her from moving forward like she wants to.

Quick note: If Maya isn’t aware of the time loops and finds out about them, she’ll be beyond fucking pissed. Like jesus christ heaven help you if a livid Tendou Maya is coming for ya!

-Hikari

Well, Hikari is full of surprises isn’t she? There’s still a lot we don’t know about this girl, but we did learn something huge about her. Hikari being here changes everything, like she fucks the entire loop up! The auditions started two days earlier than they normally do for starters. Hikari being here caused Karen to join the duels which causes more chaos. And at this point, as you can see on the timeline I made, we’ve passed the normal reset date! No wonder Nana is like fuck fuck what the fuck is happening.

We still don’t know why Hikari came here in the first place but my best guess is she was either told or found out that Karen is in danger so she came to save her. It’s likely Giraffe is the one who let her know, he was getting bored after all. He likely chose Hikari because she’d have a motivation to come and stay, the motive would be of course Karen. There’s a theory that Hikari comes from a timeline where Karen died thanks to the auditions so she wished to go to one where she never joined the auditions, and that caused her to crossover and crash Nana’s time loop. Why Hikari is so desperate is because unless she wins Top Star, this is her only shot to save Karen. It’s a pretty plausible theory! Regardless of why, Hikari is here and she’s causing change.

Hikari is the present, she changes both the past by crashing the time loop and therefore changes the future. She’s very much the wild card around here, who knows what else she will change?

Now here we are with these three girls all involved in this time fuckery, Hikari and Maya already conflict with Nana due to her desire to keep everything the same. But what about Hikari and Maya? Would they get along at all? That I find to be quite a mystery. The most interaction we have had is Maya’s reaction to her in episode one, which is this and this if you don’t recall. Knowing what we know now I have a guess actually. It’s a bit out there but, it’s what I got for now. When Maya loses her duel with Nana the curtain falls on her right? We’ve seen at the end of two and six’s audition duels that the curtain doesn’t automatically teleport you outta there, so. Maya could still be behind that curtain, how long she’d be there I dunno but it’s very possible she’s still there just off stage. If that’s the case then Maya could have seen Hikari backstage, maybe even spoke with her. There's enough time for a brief meeting since Giraffe rambles about starlight for a bit before Hikari throws her knife.

So, maybe her expression from Hikari looking at her is surprised and confused because Maya recognizes her. But because of time travel shit, Maya doesn’t know how or why she recognizes her. I imagine that would be very confusing hence why she looks like she’s thinking deeply in the shower, wondering why she recognizes this girl she’s never met before. The comment about Hikari’s heart later I think is just Maya being Maya and answering Kuro wondering if Hikari was rival material. I don’t think she’d tell anyone that she recognizes this stranger for pretty much no reason at all, Maya probably doesn’t want to sound nuts. Like I said, I know this theory is out there but at this point who knows what could happen?

I’m eager to see how this plays out, Karen is actually a wild card too since she’s never joined the auditions until now. But unlike the other three, the lack of awareness of how fucked this situation is prevents her from being too involved at the moment. I hope everyone can make it out of this ok, they deserve happiness!

>Speculation! Here we go! Here we go again! Now here we go again!

-Hikari maybe has fought before has already had something taken from her, that’s why she hasn’t been super successful during her duels. I dunno, throwing it out there cause at this point I’m very ??? a lot about Hikari.

-I think the stage is alive. It’s an eldritch location kind of deal, hence it can bend reality within its domain and shoot Hikari outside in episode three. Giraffe is it’s avatar of sorts, a means of communication. It lives deep under the school, and it’s probably been there a long time. Sleeping or maybe waiting? I think the stage is activated by something, the something I’m thinking of is the Starlight play. It plays songs from the play and has the same exact grey tower with the star inside so it must be closely related to it. When the play is assigned to a class is the time where it awakens. Judging by the state of the stage when Nana first goes there, it’s been a very long time since a class got this play. 

After it awakens, it decides on what girls will be chosen as Stage Girls. It chooses the girls with the most possible release of a lot of starlight, which it feeds off of, and then its studies the chosen girls. It can probably do shit like reading minds and such, hence it creates props for the stage girls. All ready to go. Then the time comes, the play is performed and in May the girls are summoned. And the revue commences! It feeds, it’s pleased. Guess we will find out what happens when it’s not please. O_o

-OK SO, there might be another goddess involved here. This one has less evidence so take it with a grain of salt. I’m thinking Hikari has a goddess association too, Ariadne. How I got to this is from reading about the circle of stars again. So Hikari’s hair decoration on her stage outfit is a circle of stars, Ariadne is strongly associated with these stars. The star crown either was put in the sky when she died or she wears it to make her immortal hence a goddess. Ariadne is known for leading Theseus out of the labyrinth/maze, in a way Hikari is doing something similar. Trying to lead Karen away from danger. Ariadne is the goddess of labyrinths, mazes, paths, fertility, snakes, and passion. Yup, another goddess associated with passion! Speaking of passion, there was an ancient cult that worshiped both Aphrodite and Ariadne, they had a sacred grove. Not a ton of info has been found about this cult but I do think it's interesting that we got the goddess Maya is associated with here. And if two major players have goddesses associated with them, then Nana must have one too.

Hers is harder to pin down right now, but underworld goddesses seem to suit her. Like Persephone, besides being an underworld goddess she is also the goddess of flowers, vegetation and springtime. She’s also associated with a fruit, the pomegranate. Another is Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld and sister to Inanna. She kept Inanna and her husband trapped in her realm until they were bailed out by Inanna’s sister in law. Now these connections are very loose and I might be reaching here so take both Hikari’s and Nana’s with a grain of salt. I’m gonna keep it in mind for the time being.

>Things I picked up on a series rewatch.

-Nana suddenly having an interest in Hikari in episode two became much creepier. Hikari glaring at her in the elevator also makes more sense. Nana cornering her to give her pudding was quite a power move lol. But I also think Nana was trying to befriend Hikari, remember Nana wants positive attention more than anything hence she tries the peaceful way first. I wonder if they talked to each other while dancing? I also still wonder if they dueled like I thought they did in my episode two write up.

-Several of Nana’s lines saying shit like “I’ve never done this before!” look so different now man.

-You can see Nana’s surprised reaction in episode one!

-Nana might be able to teleport? She pops up by Hikari twice so fast in episode two. I don’t know though??

-I get why Giraffe sat with Junna, Nana probably wants her crush to be as comfortable as she can be so she’s like “hey Giraffe pls sit with her”. Or that’s my guess anyways.

-Nana’s and Maya’s brief convo in episode three is quite different now. It can be taken two ways. If Maya doesn’t remember the loops then she’s probably happy Nana is finally doing something with her talent. If she does remember the loops at all she’s probably thinking “Oh this is new. Maybe she won’t pull that time travel shit this time.” *later* “I was wrong.”

-Her talking about the past Starlight play is so much more off putting now. Like dude, isn’t 60 FUCKING TIMES ENOUGH FOR YOU?! JESUS.

There’s a lot more than this most likely, but I forgot to write them down and I don’t have time to go through the episodes any more so this is what I got!

>THIS SHIT IS BANANAS, B-A-N-N-A-N-A-S!

Holy banana nuts, this show is soooo fucking good! Like holy shit it’s better than I even imagined! I’m very much looking forward to episode 8! I fucking, I’m so happy I chose to watch this series. This is fucking amazing holy shit! Spread this show like wildfire! Please! I’m ascending. Yes, oh my god! Bless! Bless this show! \^w^/

See you on the stage for episode 8!

[whatifexo]

Goodbye - Scenario Dump

Hello, everyone~ This is quite possibly the last thing I’m going to post on this blog. It’s a dump of three unfinished scenarios I wasn’t able to finish in the past 2 years. As you all probably saw coming, I can no longer find the motivation to continue updating this blog and writing on a daily basis. I could write a whole novel on why I’ve decided to leave, but I’ll keep it short: Life changes and so do we. These last 3-4 years with you all have been almost surreal. From your kind messages to our crazy drabble games, I really felt welcomed as a writer and contributor to the fandom. Thank you so much for sharing this creative space with me. I will miss you all dearly. For those who are willing to stick around with me a little longer, I’m actually way more active on this blog! I’m also working on writing a little fic there, and after it’s posted, we’ll see if I do more. But for now, that’s where you can find me.

And now, for the word vomit you’ve all been waiting for under the cut. These are unedited and unfinished so pls forgive me if you find errors, lol. Thank you, everyone! See you on the flip!

Red Carpet - Jaebum

New Year ’s Eve.

You’ve grown used to spending it with the familiar waft of cookies and hot chocolate, the crinkle of wrapping paper, and carols softly playing on the radio. This year, you spend the last night of the year alone, ironically so amidst the energetic chaos flying about backstage. At some point, you’d escaped the insistent hands of your stylists and bowed past several of your seniors, never lifting your head to make eye contact. Utmost respect meant quick greetings. No questions asked. No suspicions. No one took notice when you slipped out the back exit and ascended up the flight of stairs leading into the rooftop.

Nausea hits you as soon as you peer over the edge and spot the red carpet below, still bustling with activity. The flashes from the paparazzi are blinding even from far away. Around them, fans crowd behind the barricades, holding up signs and gifts. A wall of security stands guard at the sidelines. Sleek, black vans with tinted windows roll slowly down the street, dropping off the stars of the night. Just hours ago, you were one of the many idols who walked down that glamorous path.

Your stomach flips at the memory of the event.

There was an overwhelming response to your arrival, even more so when your name made headlines after your iconic debut stage.

______,The Rising Star. Korea’s Next BoA. The Nation’s Pride.

Crippling pressure weighed on you as soon as you first touched limelight. Your fans rapidly accumulated. Your albums sold out in mere days. You received offers for commercials and acting roles, you were invited to guest on entertainment shows. Your company’s sales soared, and in turn, they prioritized your promotions over your label mates’. After all of this, tonight, on the red carpet, they had asked you how you felt.

You now chuckle sadistically to yourself, grabbing onto the metal railing and hardly feeling the cold there.

They think you’re ecstatic. Absolutely thrilled and honored to be here amongst the leading celebrities of the country, ending the year with trophies and explosive performances. Tonight, the world expects you to live up to their expectations.

How can you possibly fulfill these demands when your stomach is in knots and your throat is chocked with anxiety?

Dropping your hands from the railing, you step back with wobbling knees. Your dress suddenly feels tight around your body, locking you in a wicked grip. The worst of your fears race through your head.

What if you don’t deserve all of this attention after all? What if you break on stage? What if your voice falters and cracks in the middle of your performance? What if your fans are disgusted by your self-composed songs?  

If they hate it…

The shock of this thought shoots through your bones like lightning, and you stumble back, your heel snagging in your long dress. You yelp in surprise as your body loses balance and falls backward, colliding with a broad and solid chest.

A pair of gentle hands catches you by the shoulders.  

“Breathe, sweetheart.”

The voice is deep and quiet. There’s familiarity in the man’s tone, as if you’d heard it before in a passing conversation. Your guard raises, and you pull away to face the stranger who you assume to be a passing senior or staff member.

“I’m sorry. I’ll head back in-“

“I don’t think taking a few breaths calls for an apology.”

Im Jaebum, leader of Got7, stares back at you inquisitively with a raised brow.

Your heart stutters in your chest. The last time you’d seen him, it had been in the dressing room hours ago, when he’d been sitting in front of the mirror having his hair styled. You were passing by in the hall and your eyes met briefly through your reflection on the glass. He looked startled, smiling politely before blushing by the tips of his ears. The staff had abruptly the door to his dressing room before you could react.

In contrast to then, the Jaebum in front of you now no longer seems so shy. Dark eyeliner accentuates his eyes, adding a heavy undertone to his gaze that warms your insides. You panic slightly under the weight of his undivided attention, eyes unnervingly focused and…concerned?

Surely, you must be wrong.

“If you’re questioning my motives, then yes, I actually did follow you up here,” Jaebum’s lips curve into a smile. Your face warms in response. “You looked sick and pale, and I know that look all too well.”

“You do?” you blurt out, eyes widening at yourself. You never do this. Never respond to your elders informally or entertain colleagues who made their advances. In revealing something more than your stage persona, you were afraid of exposing your vulnerabilities. So you became a shell. Bathed in the spotlight, but never letting anyone touch your core.

Jaebum has thrown all of your practice out the window.

“I remember when I felt that way,” Jaebum nods, as if confirming something in your eyes. He’s reading you as easily as an instruction manual, and you can’t bring yourself to look away. “I felt something like it after Jinyoung and I stopped promoting as JJ Project.”

Jaebum’s gaze softens. He slides past you to look over the railing where the activities of the red carpet event have begun to dwindle. You watch his back and taut shoulders for a moment, hesitating. He could be up to something. Leading you to let down your guard so he can tease and torture you about it later.

You’ve heard stories during your training period. How seniors sometimes pressured rookie artists, manipulating the rules of seniority in order to bully the ones on the lowest of tiers. The end goal was to drive the rookies to quit, weeding out the competition so the ones at the top may stay there. It was a sick, twisted game played by a select few, but still a possibility in this line of business.  

But to be played by Im Jaebum?

You shake your head.

He’s better than this. You know it with certainty. Those eyes that met with yours in the mirror held the truth, and somehow, you know you can trust him.

Joining him to stand by the railing, you watch Jaebum examine his hands, calloused and stretched on the back of his palms. With a start, you remember watching an interview of Got7 weeks ago while you were on standby in the waiting room. Jaebum recounted a story of his stray cats in the dorm, each who had bizarre, yet strangely endearing personalities.

You find yourself smiling before he even begins to speak.

“I think my whole world fell apart and rebuilt itself when I re-debuted with the boys.” he folds his hands, toying with his fingers in awkward movements. “I hated them for a time just because they were new and inexperienced. But God, did they grow on me fast. I wanted to show off as their senior, but who was I kidding? I was still shitting my pants before our debut stage.”

You laugh out loud at this, and Jaebum turns to you, mirth in his eyes despite his unfortunate story.

“You know why they call me out for being so hyperactive out there?” he jerks his head to the side, referring to an imaginary audience.

You shake your head, and he sighs softly.

“Because I don’t think I’ll ever forget the energy of my first stage. As in, my first genuine stage. I was happy. I didn’t care about what others might think of me in that moment or afterwards. I was out there losing myself in my craft, and that’s the only thing I hold on to when I perform. That should be your only concern tonight too.”

His eyes dart over to the red carpet briefly, and you shiver, both from the chill of the night and the implication of his words.

“How did you know?” you stare up at him, wondering. In a matter of minutes, he’d figured you out. Related with your emotions and churning thoughts. Though all he did was talk about himself, you don’t think this is really about him. Not completely. Otherwise, he would have approached this conversation with much more arrogance.

No, that’s not it.

He’s comforting you.

The realization has your pulse quickening.  

“You can say I know from experience.” Jaebum grins with a degree of shyness, as if reading into your thoughts.

You hold his gaze for a few beats. The familiar flush on his ears has returned, but his eyes are unwavering. For the first time tonight, you let out an unlabored breath. Your heart is still running a marathon, but this time, in a good way. Jaebum is still watching you as you let your eyes flutter shut.

“Thank you.”

“For what? The pleasure is mine.”

There’s mischief laced in Jaebum’s voice.

You crack an eye open.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know.” Jaebum says incredulously, lips quirking into a smile. “I’m actually one of your biggest fans.”

The world freezes for a second.

The distant camera flashes halt to a stop, the sound of screaming fans dim to an acute noise, and the cold air lifts from your skin, warming your body from inside out.  Your vision blurs from the intoxication of Jaebum’s confession. His timid smile is all you can see.

“Why me?” you ask more to yourself than to Jaebum, recalling all the times you’ve quietly watched him with awe from behind the scenes, the charismatic leader of his team. Someone as occupied and charming as he wouldn’t have time to admire a rookie idol like you.

“Why not you?” Jaebum challenges, raising a brow.

“Because…” you struggle to reason with him. You’re not up to par with him. He’s several years your senior. You have not yet shown your full potential. “…because I’m me.”

“You’re being unfair, _______.” Jaebum chuckles, though his tone is bitter. “I didn’t come up here to get rejected.”

Your eyes shoot up to his in alarm.

“I wasn’t-“

“Rejecting me? I know, it’s hard not to.”

You barely manage to keep yourself from cringing.  

Jaebum, on the other hand, completely fails to hide his horror. Even in the dark, the dim glow of the moon is enough to expose his flushed cheeks.

Vicissitude - Part 3 (Chanyeol)

“Care to tell me why you haven’t been to work for the past three days?”

Kyungsoo is scary.

He entered the kitchen twenty minutes ago without saying a word, silently tiptoeing around you and your laptop at the table to brew some coffee. You’d almost forgotten he was there until he cleared his throat, paused for a solid few seconds, then dropped the big question.

You were hoping he wouldn’t notice.

But his low profile tendencies have a reason behind it, which is being highly aware of his surroundings and noticing changes.  Which you’ve clearly made.

You’re actually doing your homework.

A lot of it.

Along with other things.

“Oh, you know,” you say over the whirring of the coffee machine. “Places to be. People to meet.”

“In the middle of nowhere.”

You never knew Kyungsoo had so much sass in him. The quiet, deadly kind of sass that catches you off guard because he’s being so painfully casual for someone who’s about to pry for information.

And his back is still turned on you.

“I still haven’t gotten my paycheck, by the way.” you’re stalling, which is painfully obvious. “I’m going on strike.”

Kyungsoo finally shows his face after pressing a button on the coffee machine, the whirring immediately subsiding after he lifts the mug from the base of the machine. He studies you quietly without an ounce of emotion on his face, and you try to mimic the same neutral expression but you know you just probably look like you’re constipated.

“Paychecks come out every two weeks. And considering that you’ve also skipped out on the past few days…..” he doesn’t finish knowing that you understand the deal here.

No work, no pay.

You sigh, acknowledging defeat and turning back to your laptop to finish up that government paper you’re only halfway finished with because you didn’t actually start writing it until three days ago. Somewhere along the line, you’ve turned writing papers into a form of distraction.

In actuality, you hate writing. But it gives you something to do and think about other than the lingering touch of Yixing’s lips and the thin layer of guilt there that you’re still trying to figure out.

As usual, forgetting things isn’t as easy as it seems.

“Please tell me you’re going to go away soon.” you say without looking up from your laptop, because you know very well that Kyungsoo is still standing there with his coffee and he hasn’t shown any sign of movement.

He’s also making you think of things again which is bad. Very bad.

“I’m waiting.”

He wants answers.

He’s been hanging out with Baekhyun too much. He’s slowly getting just as annoying. And by annoying you mean being able to read right through you even with the façade you’re showing.

Are you really that readable?

“Then keep waiting.” you pull down your laptop screen and grab for your coat behind your chair, and only now does Kyungsoo set down his coffee in mild surprise.

“Where are you going?”

He sounds like your mom whenever you ask her if you can hang with some friends she doesn’t recognize the names of at any time past nine in the evening.  

Mind you, it’s only three in the afternoon right now. Therefore, Kyungsoo can’t call you out on this.

“On a walk.” you offer him a salute, which he doesn’t take very well as he scrunches his brows in thought back at you.

Amazing how much character development he can show within only a week or so after meeting him for the first time. There’s also the fact that you’ve somewhat taken a liking to him during your time at the lounge whenever you’d exchange random pleasantries in between working breaks.

Or how he randomly takes care of the people around him without much thought through simple things. Such as waking Baekhyun up every morning without yelling at him about his alarm that wakes just about everyone in the cabin except for him. And how he’ll diligently listen to Chanyeol’s guitar playing and actually give feedback unlike Jongin who merely offers a nod of approval whenever Chanyeol asks for his opinion.

The way he’d wash Yixing’s favorite purple hoodie every night and run it through the dryer because that’s how often that boy wears it.

Now he’s trying to ease off some of the burden from you too.

Except this isn’t his fight.

And he must realize it too with the way he’s fallen silent again.

That is, until you reach the front door and he calls out for you right before you slip outside into the freezing temperatures. You can’t help but stop and wait for his word of advice.

“If you can’t tell me, tell someone who deserves to hear it.”

~~~

Your little ‘walk’ lasts about ten minutes tops until you decide to turn right around and come back to the comfort of the fireplace indoors. It must be below zero degrees today, with the fog making it nearly impossible to spot anything more than a foot away from you.

You’d only gone out about half a mile or so, but twenty minutes later you’re still walking and slowly beginning to panic as time continues to stretch and you fail to spot the cabin or the others that should be nearby.

Your vicinity isn’t exactly at its best given the circumstances.

To add on to the already dangerous situation, you hadn’t brought your cell phone with you either.

Brilliant, _________, just brilliant.

You wanted to drift far away from your problems but you didn’t actually want to be this far away.

Not even a sign of civilization.    

You’ve never hated yourself more than you do now.

Another set of time passes, you have no idea how much, but by then your nose is frozen and you’re certain you’re only minutes away from getting frostbite on your toes. Along with that, you’re also left with some thinking time, and said thinking time encompasses just about everything odd and dramatic that has occurred throughout the course of this trip and what exactly you need to do to survive this and finally untangle the tangled affairs of your heart.

And just when you think you might die without clearing up your ongoing issues, salvation comes.

There’s a guy wearing a bright orange jacket walking in the opposite direction as you, and at first you think it’s Taemin because you’re very familiar with that jacket.

Though when you yell out and frantically flail your hands to catch his attention, you realize two things.

One, the guy is certainly not Taemin. His shoulders are too broad to be Taemin and he’s also a few inches taller than Taemin.

Two, Kyungsoo’s words of wisdom just slapped you in the face.

“_______? Are you okay? What are you doing out here? God, you’re freezing.”

There are hands on your cheeks. Warm ones. Warm hands in the middle of Arctic weather. And if you close your eyes long enough, you can almost picture home.

“Chanyeol, I’m cold.”

His hands slip from your cheeks and you hear the unzipping of his jacket, crunching of the snow, and then there’s fabric being wrapped around your neck.

You open your eyes, instantly regretting it after finding Chanyeol standing closer than before. While he’s focused on burrowing you underneath his scarf, you take in the bits of snow nestled in his bright hair and the urgency in his movements.

The deep line of worry across his forehead.

You don’t know what to make of this. You don’t know what to make of anything.

All you know is that you have to tell him something.

Anything.

“Let’s get you back inside.”

He’s tugging at your arm, and when you don’t respond, his hold slips to your wrist and he forces you to stumble after him.

He’s not asking any questions.

Which worries you more than the cold piercing into your skin.

“Chanyeol.”

“We’ve got about fifteen minutes before you start developing frost bite, but I don’t think we’re too far from the cabin. We’ll make it.”

That all sounds great and relieving but it’s not exactly why you called him in the first place.

“Chanyeol.”

“We should really pick up the pace, though. Just in case I’m wrong about where we are and we both end up-“

“Yeol.”

That seems to quiet him.

He slows his pace but doesn’t stop. You still consider it a small victory as his ears flare a hint of pink at his newly birthed nickname, and you feel yourself flush too. You aren’t concerned with that because your whole face is too frozen to show a hint of color anymore.

It’s just the embarrassed feeling that lingers.

That’s not stopping you.

You need to say this before you get back to the cabin and the magic of being alone and somewhat courageous out here begins to wear off.

“In sophomore year, my favorite instrument was the guitar.” you feel his grip on your wrist loosen which means he’s finally listening. You sniff and breathe out, watching your breathe puff out in a white cloud before disappearing into the fog surrounding the two of you like a heavy cloak. “And then I went out with Yixing.”

Chanyeol stops so suddenly you nearly walk straight into him.

He turns to face you, and as soon as he does you launch into an unpracticed narration of a story you haven’t told in a while and count down the minutes you have left before you really need to book it back indoors and possibly hide forever.

“I was ignorant to music until I heard him one day in the practice room, strumming some random song I wasn’t familiar with, and I don’t know why I stayed but I did until the very end of my lunch period and he looked up past the glass on the door straight into my eyes after the song ended. I knew I loved him the moment he sang to me that same song in front of the whole student council.”

Chanyeol’s eyes have gotten so wide his whole pupils are showing.

“People said things, of course. We broke the sacrilegious rule of seniors exclusively dating seniors. But that didn’t matter. I didn’t care as long as we were together. What really mattered was that he scored a scholarship in Europe and he was bound to leave the day after his graduation.”

You’ve started shaking and it isn’t from the cold.

Chanyeol reaches out towards your shivering fingers, hesitates, then stuffs his awkward hands in his pockets as a final resolution, and you mirror his position as you bite back tears.

“He gave me a note through his music player. Some sort of voice note on why he didn’t want to leave. But you see, I knew he had to. I wasn’t worth a promising future music career. There was so much waiting for him over there, but with me, he’d forever be stuck over here. I wanted to be selfish and that thought scared me.”

You’re almost done here. It’s obvious the ending sounds near and Chanyeol knows it too. He’s looking at you as if the world is falling. You’re glad the crisp, cruel air dries your eyes and snatches any chances of tears trickling down.  

“The last thing I heard from him was that he loved me. And the last thing I told him was goodbye.”

There’s a hole in this story.

Not a fairytale ending or a solution, but an important puzzle piece that you’ve missed. One that’s been there all along, hidden, unknown until you heard the gentle strings of the guitar again two years later.

And that single piece throws you off kilter. Rearranging everything else in a whole different picture.

What terrifies you the most is that it’s standing right in front of you.

“Was it, though?” Chanyeol’s voice has gone quiet in a way that you recognize because that’s what people sound like when they’re shattered. “Was it really a goodbye?”

Yixing and Chanyeol are friends.  

You weren’t aware of this and from the looks of it, neither was he, which means that Yixing has kept more secrets than you realize and maybe Chanyeol knows more than what you give him credit for.

You want to call it unfair that one day, you’re still stuck trying to get over the image of your first love and then in the next, he’s tugging at your heart again but it’s refusing to follow. Not anymore. There’s a new reason behind the pounding in your chest and you hadn’t expected to identify its source in the middle of nowhere.

Where it’s just you and the boy who’s asking if you’re willing to give the past a second chance.

“I don’t know.”

Chanyeol nods in slow motion, like he’s confirmed something scientifically. His feet are heavy when he turns, his boots driving deep into the snow, and you want to follow him and ask why he’s trying to solve a mystery that you feel is only a misunderstanding.

That would’ve been easier to do if you hadn’t seen him bite his lower lip before shutting you out.

He’s not the only one who’s made a breakthrough.

It doesn’t hit you suddenly, but it settles in as slowly as Chanyeol is trudging away. The image of Yixing trapping you that day against the shelves flashes through your memory, and you faintly remember closing your eyes, feeling tender lips that are certainly not Yixing’s.

You know how his mouth fits against yours already. You’ve always known.

The moment you closed your eyes and imagined someone else was a different story. Nowadays, you wish you never have to close them because there’s only one thing that enters your mind and it has nothing to do with Yixing.

Instead, it has everything to do with his friend, and what it would be like to melt against him.

Today - Jaebum

September 22, 2017

Contrary to what they say in trashy teen magazines, first love doesn’t always begin with a heart fluttering, innocent and graceful encounter. You feel obligated to correct that misleading piece of information. You almost mark it out with your pen, correcting the writer’s mistake, but then you remember that you’re not supposed to be the critic here.

You’re supposed to be searching for inspiration. Finding a subject for your next article. You’ve sat in this God-knows-where cafe for an hour, pouring over a pile of publications, desperate to find something. Blindly reaching for an unborn idea.

“Your stories have become bland.” Mark, your editor and usually kind companion, had delivered an uppercut punch before he even finished reading your last feature article. His blatant criticism shocked you. Not once has he ever complained about your writing. It quickly became a quest to please him again.

“This writing no longer sounds like you. Are you even enjoying this anymore?”

It’s not that you’ve lost interest. It’s just that sometimes, you find yourself holding back.  

“Write me something compelling and don’t even think of that promotion until you win me over.”

You didn’t think he was cruel enough to hang the managing editor title over your head. Additionally, he had struck a chord by sneaking in several romance pieces in your resources pile.

You get the hint.

In fairness, there used to be a time when you would eagerly compose romantic writings and hold on to love stories as if they were your own. Your former self embraced romance and took any risk that came your way. That was before he taught you to think twice. He taught you the reality to false beliefs. He taught you everything you know today.

These days, you’ve learned to choose your battles. Today, you find yourself surrendering to the nearly forgotten memories. As you read further down the advice column on first loves, clearly written by a young and inexperienced writer, you’re brought back to the first time you ever gave your heart away.

The very first meeting. When it was nowhere near how the fairytales described it, or how you imagined the love of your life would come to you.  

Because the weather is fair, because Mark is telling you to, because you don’t have much choice, you allow yourself to remember.

Just one last time.

~~~

September 21, 2013

The crash happens while you’re attempting to merge lanes.

You swear you made sure to look, not once but thrice, gauging the blurred lights on your side mirror and passing in front of the car that had seemed far away enough. You could say it was because of the rain. You could say that the pressure overcame you, that you were racing against the passing time that refused to wait for you.

A minute ago, you’d been accelerating without fear of the wet roads, pleading that you make it in time for your first internship. A minute later, you’re hearing the screech of metal and your body is being jolted forward. You don’t realize your car has lost control until you feel the wheels under you skidding sideways to a stop, just missing the guard rail, your life quite literally flashing before your eyes in an instant.

You find your hands shaking when you glance up at yourself through the crooked rearview mirror.

Except for your flushed cheeks, there are no signs of injury. No blood. All limbs intact.

The storm of honking behind you brings you back to your senses.  

“Are you fucking crazy?”

The driver of the other car is knocking on your window.

Drenched in rain, he has his phone pressed against his ear, probably calling for the police. Instead of worry, anger lines his face like the crack of thunderbolt.

His rude shouting somehow dissolves your fear and aggravates you, while a part of you admits that you’re mostly at fault. But your swelled up pride wins out over admitting your faults. The idea of losing even such a trivial and obvious battle as this one is utterly humiliating and embarrassing for you.

Especially since you just made a rookie mistake by trying to rush to work.

At least you’re willing to admit that you’re about to do something incredibly stupid.

Instead of rolling down the window and apologizing profusely or trading insurance information like what you’re generally supposed to do after a crash, you unbuckle your seatbelt and step out into the rain.  

The guy is in mid sentence on his phone--something about giving directions and reporting a crash caused by ‘a dumb bitch’--when you slam your door closed and look up at him with blazing eyes.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that the idea of courtesy died with the beginning of your very existence.” you shout over the roar of the storm, the cars whizzing by, and the driver’s angry conversation over the line.

He stops yelling into his phone for a moment, jaw dropping open at your brazenness. You can see that he’s pissed, absolutely insulted, and you can already tell what kind of response he has in store for you.

“What did you just say to me?”

He steps forward with a threatening glare, puncturing your personal bubble until your back hits the side of your car. From up close, you can tell that he’s young, maybe around the same age as you. The sharp angles on his face create an illusion of older age. You know better than to be fooled, because a proper adult wouldn’t choose to wear ripped jeans on a rainy day or drive at sixty miles in a forty zone. A proper adult wouldn’t stand in the rain long enough just to fight a reckless girl and get their clothes soaked.

You’re aware of all this, yet you’re still fanning the flames.

“It’s shitty enough that I’m late for my internship. But to get hit by a self absorbed asshole? I must’ve murdered a whole town in my past life.”

“Are you kidding?” the guy scoffs, pounding his hand against your car. “I think you’re forgetting who fucking swerved into my lane without even thinking about it!”

“If you care to know, I checked three full times and saw a clear road!”

“Well damn then, let me call an eye doctor for your blind ass while I’m at it!”

“My ‘blind ass’ happened to keep your speeding ass in check!”

“Fuck me, you’re one to talk!”

“I may have lost a very important job opportunity because of you!”

“And because of you, my boss is going to slit my throat once he finds out that I wrecked his company’s car!”

You’re close to throwing fists by the time the police and ambulance arrive. You only break apart when an officer threatens to arrest the both of you if you don’t stop disturbing the peace. This makes no sense to you as the thunderous sky and building traffic are nowhere close to peaceful, but you step back and allow yourself to get examined by the paramedics.

On the other hand, the driver that had hit you is preoccupied with inspecting his car, running his fingers over the dent on his hood somberly as if he’d just lost a precious member of his family. Obviously, he has more concern for his vehicle than an actual person.

“Insolent prick.” you mutter under your breath when he later joins you in the back of the towing truck.

“I heard that.” he hisses back, the driver next to you shifting uncomfortably at your exchange of hostilities.

It takes hours to settle your dispute and walk away as calmly as you can with your car totaled and many dollars to spend. You contact the internship (Mark)

You hadn’t even bothered to learn his name.

[darkisrising]

Burc’ya, by DarkIsRising

A drabble from Lando's POV, set during his visit to Mandalore in my story "Solus". Includes Lando/Luke and will need the context of the first story to make sense. You can also read the drabble on ao3 Burc'ya Luke Naberrie looks like shit.

Which is saying something as Lando has seen the young prince through any number of ill-advised capers. When Luke crashed his speeder in the lower levels of Galactic City after sneaking out from his mother’s rooms during a galactic summit, Lando had been the one he’d commed to find him—slightly singed and still bleeding—and bring him back up to where the oxygen was more breathable. When he’d gotten high off his ass on the Offworld heirs’ pleasure yacht and started screaming that he could hear the heat death of the universe and it was coming from inside the walls, Lando had been the one to extricate himself from the arms of a very good looking steward and bring him water until the drugs wore off. And when, inevitably, he got sent to rehab yet again for getting caught with a stash of death sticks and a thousand credits’ worth of spice in his cosmetics case, Lando was the one that waited by the industrial doors of the medic facility to give him a lift back to Naboo.

But never, not once in all that time, had he ever seen his friend look quite so hollow. So lifeless.

The blue eyes that usually dance with mischief are dull, gaze drifting everywhere and nowhere. His skin is sallow from his months living in a biodome instead of the blossoming fields and bright sun of his home planet while his smile—once so starlight-bright and wicked that it could shoot a blaster bolt of lust through even the most devout of Ketrian monks—wavers with uncertainty.

Luke Naberrie, prince of Naboo and darling of the scandal column, is many things but uncertain has never been one of them.

Which is all terrible to see, but absolutely nothing compares to what he’s done to his hair. Oh, sweet merciful Kiax what had the kid done to his hair?

The long, sun-spun hair that flowed like a waterfall to his waist when he took it down from the elaborate hairstyles of his native world—the golden hair that Lando liked to wrap around the flat of his hand several times over whenever they were deep inside each other’s bodies—is gone. Shorn off like a bantha pelt and left in uneven tufts, and Lando, who has seen pretty much every stage of rich-kid breakdowns over the years, knows that whatever has been happening in this blighted star system that Luke’s married into isn't good.

But Luke needs a friend more than a fashion consultant, so Lando grins his winning-hand grin. He runs his fingers through Luke’s disaster of a haircut and says with more fondness for the man than the look: “I like the hair, Naberrie.”

“You’re such a liar,” Luke says with the quirk of a smile.

“Only about things that matter.”

Luke’s eyes slide down his body like he’s been starved for the sight of beautiful things and Lando’s Aeien silk cloak and Karlini trousers are the tastiest snack he could hope to see.

Not that Lando can blame him. He follows Luke down the labyrinth of halls that make up the Manda’lor’s palace, eyeing the Mandalorians that they pass. The armor everyone wears is sexy in a one-night-stand-with-a-bounty-hunter kind of way, but none of it compares to the couture Luke is used to. Even the outfit Luke wears now—a simple black tunic and a fitted pant that only works because he’s wearing the right boots for it—is a far cry from the rich textiles that Luke is used to.

“So, do I need to have an audience with the king or something? Scrape and bow and all that?”

Luke is usually quick with a smartass quip, but now he just says: “No.” Short, clipped, and strange.

“Listen,” Luke says, pulling Lando into a corner by the wrist. “You remember that time Han needed a ride from Stewjon? And we were at that rave on Umbara?”

How could Lando forget? Luke had been dating an admiral’s son who clearly thought Luke was his flimsi-ticket to a rank of celebrity that had always danced just out of his reach. What should have been a fifty-six hour glow party in the eternal night of the shadow planet had become an endurance marathon of watching the admiral’s son fistfight every being that dared writhe up against Luke. When the comm had come that Han needed a pick-up Luke had jumped onboard the Falcon without a second glance back. Lando had asked how he could cheer his friend up, already cataloguing the alcohol and drugs he had on his ship. Instead Luke had touched his hip, turning a face smeared with glitter and eyeliner up to Lando and said: “Can you help me forget? Just for a little while?” and they’d spent the entire hyperjump in Lando’s quarters doing just that.

“What do you need to forget?” Lando asks, because if Luke had been unhappy on Umbara it’s nothing to his desolation here on Mandalore.

“Everything,” he answers. “Just. Everything.”

“Well that’s a tall order, but I’m sure I can figure something out.” The bottom lip that Luke has been worrying with his teeth releases, and slides into a smile of relief. Lando steps closer and then a thought occurs to him. “You sure you want to do this? Those Mandalorians carry a lot of weapons on their person.”

“We’re fine,” Luke says with a shake of his head. “So?”

This might be the highest stakes Lando’s ever attempted—bedding the husband of the king of Mandalore—but if it’ll chase the shadows away from his friend’s eyes for a little while it’ll be worth the mad dash back to his ship if—though in all likelihood when—they get caught.

“You know you’re nothing but trouble, Naberrie,” he laughs. But Lando’s a gambling man because he likes the rush of losing almost as much as the euphoria of winning, and so he gives Luke a cocksure smile and, after glancing around to make sure the hall is clear, he puts an elbow on the wall over his friend’s shoulder, boxing him in. “You’re just lucky I have a thing for trouble” he says and catches Luke’s mouth in a kiss. *** Mando'a vocab burc'ya- friend