#this is gonna take up 100% of my mental real estate for weeks

[floralquafloral]

Watch out it's random splatoon headcanon time again

I was thinking about splatting and respawning recently, and @acid-hues used no less than Three looking emojis when I asked if anyone would want to hear my thoughts about how that stuff works, so here goes. Warning for potentially fatal quantities of pseudoscience, since I'm not a biologist or a chemist, just a goober who likes the squid game too much ;P

1. What is splatting?

Splatting is a reflex in inklings and octarians that occurs when they're been critically injured. It allows the cephalopod to escape and recover from a potentially fatal situation, effectively unharmed. Almost all of their body mass is liquefied to ink in a similar process to squid-form transformation, but it's all lost, resulting in the characteristic splatter. The only remaining structure is the "squid soul", which isn't actually a soul so much as a balloon-like vessel that can (under the right conditions) develop into a whole inkling body again.

2. What is a squid soul?

Squid souls aren't actually incorporeal souls, they're just very complicated (and lightweight) biological structures that contain all the mechanisms and information necessary to create an inkling body. Kind of analogous to an egg: given food and time, an egg can turn into a whole animal. Squid souls are just a great deal more precise, in that they generate an inkling body almost exactly as it was before, including the brain and all the inkling's memories and such. The squid soul itself, like an egg, isn't really comparable to an actual inkling - the soul can't talk, or eat, or think. The squid soul doesn't have a brain, and it only has just enough nervous system to seek out a location where it can respawn into a proper body. It uses a rudimentary form of the same senses that allow for the Turf Map. Because the squid soul isn't conscious, getting splatted kind of just feels like a very violent form of teleportation.

More information on the processes & technology behind respawning under the readmore :)

3. How does a squid soul respawn?

Squid souls can only develop into a proper inkling body if they can access two things: A bunch of biomass, and a bunch of electricity. Biomass is necessary because almost all of the inkling's original body has been exploded all over the place, so you need a bunch of stuff to make a new one. A large enough well of pure ink can contain all the necessary material for a body, but most respawn tech uses solutions of ink with other useful things dissolved into it. Respawning from a well of pure ink doesn't feel very good. Pure ink doesn't contain a very good amount of vitamins, iron, etc., so the new body will probably have less of that stuff in it than the old one.

Electricity is necessary to separate different compounds out of the ink, and to provide the energy required for some of the chemical reactions that need to take place - you can't just mush a bunch of ink together and get a body out of it.

4. What could prevent a successful respawn?

This part is pure headcanon, since there's nothing from the base game that relates to this, as far as I'm aware.

Some sources of injury won't trigger the splat reflex; the most common example is prolonged exposure to small amounts of water. Getting caught in heavy rain for hours can dissolve the body without ever triggering the splat reflex, so you just... don't come back.

Old age or severe illness can inhibit the reflex as well. If a young and healthy squid gets hit by a bus, they will explode and come back at the nearest respawn point. If someone whose splat reflex isn't working gets hit by a bus, then they just get run over, which very bad. Alternatively, in some cases the splat reflex could fail to generate a squid soul, so you'd just explode and not get to respawn, which would be exceedingly terrible.

For the kind of squid who would sign up for Turf Wars, there's basically no chance of this stuff happening, but there are still mandatory physicals before you can sign up for a Turf War just to make sure.

Lastly, of course, if someone gets splatted too far away from a viable respawn point, the squid soul will expire after only a few minutes.

5. What kind of tech allows for a respawn?

There are four different places you can respawn in-game: In the online battle maps (5.1), in the Octarian domes (5.3), in the Deepsea Metro's test stations (5.4), and from a Grizzco Tank (5.5). There's also presumably some way to respawn if you just, like, fall out of a tree and get splatted in the public park or something (5.2). There's also the floating respawn-thingies from the Splatoon 3 trailer, but since I don't know how they work in-game yet I don't have anything to make headcanons around. 🤷‍♀️

5.1. Turf War respawn pads: They're cheap to make, they work quickly, and they can handle dozens of squids getting splatted during a single 3-minute battle with no need for oversight during the game. It's worth remembering that the squid soul isn't sapient, it has no regards for the rules of a Turf War - so what prevents someone on Yellow Team from respawning at Purple's base? The answer is that, under most circumstances, the biomass requirement for a respawn can only be met with ink that matches your colour. Different colours of ink have different chemical compositions, so a squid soul that's seeking out a viable location to create a yellow squid won't be able to sense the purple respawn pad as a viable location.

The limitation of the Turf War pad is that they're not perfectly reliable. Occasionally it just won't appear as a viable respawn location to a squid soul, so someone will end up respawning outside the battle, which forfeits them from the match. (i'm only including this because i'm proud of coming up with an in-universe explanation for disconnects)

5.2. City respawn pads: Outside of inksports, it's still a good idea to have respawn pads all over the place so that if someone gets splatted they have somewhere to respawn. City pads, unlike Turf War pads, are designed to be 100% reliable and work for any ink color. Their natural drawback is that they require constant oversight. "Respawn operator" is a job you can have in most major population centers, that mostly involves sitting around, making sure nothing looks broken, and greeting anyone who shows up at the pad.

Getting splatted outside a battle isn't especially common (splatting someone outside a battle is a pretty serious no-no), so any given pad in the city will usually only get 1-2 respawns a day, if any at all. When someone shows up, the operator is supposed to write down their name, the time they respawned, and the reason they got splatted. If it was because of something legally messy like a road accident, they'll have more work to do to get that sorted out. If it was because of a Turf War pad failure, they'll contact the Judds to get that cleared up. If you were with someone when you got splatted, it's common courtesy to send a text or call once you respawn so they don't have to worry; since you won't have your phone with you when you respawn that's something the operator is also supposed to help with. Respawn operators are pretty helpful in general - if you tell them "I don't know how to get back to my house from here", they can usually give you a map or directions or something.

To allow for anyone to respawn at a City pad, they're filled with a very bright and saturated brown ink solution. This colour is unique in that basically any other ink colour can change into it very easily; if you get splatted while you've got red ink, you'll show up at the city pad with brown ink. This is why bright brown ink isn't frequently used for inksports (definitely not because the developers didn't want it to look like they're using poop for turf wars).

5.3. Octarian Checkpoints: As electricity is a precious and scarce resource for Octarians, their respawn pads are designed to use as little of it as possible. An Inkopolis respawn pad has a current running through it constantly, which combined with the large amount of ink, allows squid souls to perceive it as a viable respawn location. In contrast, Octarian checkpoints don't offer any ink or electricity when inactive. They only switch on when a nearby Octarian soldier gets splatted, using a signal transmitted by the Octarian's equipment. When they turn on, they temporarily fill with ink and run an electrical current, allowing the soldier's octo soul to make its way over and respawn before the checkpoint shuts down again.

The signal receiver of the checkpoints has a vulnerability that allows it to be overridden, which will fill it with any colour of ink solution and render it unable to receive power-on signals. The Hero Tanks worn by Agents 3 and 4 do this automatically when the agents get close to a checkpoint - this is why they're black before an agent gets close, then change to match their ink colour. However, once the checkpoint is overridden, it still doesn't provide electricity, and in fact can't be activated at all. The Hero Tank allows them to be used regardless by putting an electrical charge into the squid soul itself, so that it only needs the well of ink solution. It can only store up to three respawns worth of charge, though. If an agent gets splatted while the battery is empty, they're toast.

Octarians, of course, can't respawn at a checkpoint that's been overridden, not only because it won't power on but also because it doesn't match their ink colour anymore. Only one checkpoint will receive the power-on signal when an Octarian gets splatted, so when an overridden checkpoint is the one that receives the signal, there will be nowhere on the base for the Octarian to respawn. Instead, they'll end up in another dome, or in a civilian respawn pad. The agents aren't murderers, okay?

5.4: Deepsea Metro Test Station Checkpoints: The testing stations in the Deepsea Metro are adapted from Octarian checkpoints, but with some tweaks to reflect the different priorities of Kamabo Co. as opposed to the Octarian military. Metro checkpoints have their remote-activation functionality stripped out, and instead permanently activate once the test subject reaches them, filling with ink solution and receiving a constant electrical current. They probably still have the same vulnerability as the Octarian checkpoints, but Agent 8's has no means of exploiting it, and no reason to anyways - the checkpoints are already configured to match her colour, since they're there for the express purpose of respawning test subjects.

Because Metro checkpoints always match Agent 8's ink colour, the sanitized octarians in the test courses have nowhere they can respawn. Instead, they are simply replaced as needed.

5.5: Grizzco Tanks: I'll be honest, I can't come up with any good explanations for this one. The way it traps the squid soul inside it probably has to do with the same interference that blocks the Turf Map, but the explanation for why you have to shoot it to activate a respawn is beyond me. The best I can do is list what can be ruled out:

It's not because it's using the ink from the shot for mass. If the Grizzco tank itself doesn't contain enough ink for a respawn, then there's no way a single Inkbrush swing would output enough to make up the difference.

It's not using the kinetic energy from the shot to trigger some sort of chemical reaction. Getting hit by a Steelhead bomb or a Flyfish missile don't revive the player, even though they surely have more kinetic energy than something like a Bloblobber bubble, which can.

The weapons themselves aren't providing an electrical charge. If Grizzco could modify a Splattershot to output enough electricity to enable a respawn, then the tank would be capable of doing that itself without needing to be shot.

Whatever it is, it's probably not very good for you long-term to respawn like that. Grizzco just gives off those vibes, like working there is totally gonna mess up your health when you're older.

[mittensmorgul]

I recently read a fic on ao3 and it was funny and great and then I thought of a few major changes that would make it even more hilarious. Problem is, I don't know the etiquette here. Should I just go ahead and write my own version? Add a link to the original story and credit it as inspiration? It was based on a prompt so the idea isn't exclusively the author's I suppose. Anyway I'll only be borrowing the start scenario (which is the prompt) and there will be no other similarities. Please help

Hello there. I’m gonna start what I expect will be kind of a long essay by saying there is an awful lot to unpack here… Starting with the fact that there is a chasm of difference between taking inspiration from a prompt fill fic and imagining an entirely different scenario, and starting that from a mentality of “I can do better than you.” The first is at the root of all of human creativity. We all bounce off one another and take inspiration from each other, and the entire history of human storytelling is essentially one long conversation. But the second part of this historically leads to fisticuffs. No, really. Google “famous literary feuds” for all the reasons why.

It’s not so much a difference in practical terms, but in your approach and understanding here.

So this is why I saw this ask in my inbox late last night and decided I needed to go to sleep rather than trying to answer you right away. But now I have coffee, so let’s give this a try. :P

I’d start by asking what the source of the prompt was. Was it a tumblr post? A prompt from a prompt list? Even one of those “pick a pairing and a prompt and I’ll write a short ficlet” posts? If so, you’re probably free to use the prompt by going back to the original fic prompt list. People publish those as jumping off points to write fic, and they actively WANT people to use them this way.

If the prompt, however, was given to a specific author by someone, you might want to at least ask that author if it would be okay for you to write something of your own based on the prompt. And at least try not to frame it as “I can write something better than you did” when you ask. That’s just rude and demoralizing for the author who’s already published a fic for that prompt, you know?

I get fic ideas all the time from random places, but there’s a different etiquette for each of them.

Sometimes a random tumblr post will give me an idea, and I’ll go talk to the OP privately, both because it’s FUN to talk about someone’s wild headcanon with them, and because you’re approaching the person who had the initial idea with courtesy and in the spirit of collaboration, rather than from this place of “stealing their idea.” The first builds good fandom feelings, while the second tends to do the opposite. I have a couple of experiences here that will hopefully illustrate the difference.

A few years back, when Lizbob was running the Great Meta Scavenger Hunt during s12, it led to the creation of the Great Fic Writer Scavenger Hunt. The theory behind it was that any number of authors could take the same fic prompt based on a single trope paired with a single distinctive character trait and the results would all be entirely unique stories. The intent was to prove that just because an idea had been written before, it becomes a new story when written by someone else, you know? And it was TRUE.

http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-great-fic-writer-scavenger-hunt/chrono

We had DOZENS of authors participate, and despite all writing “the same story” every week, NONE of the resulting stories were even remotely the same.

On the other hand, I posted an insomnia-inspired headcanon a few months ago, and within five minutes after posting it, my insomnia brain– with an assist from a more rational point of view thanks to lizbob– had taken that little notion and spun it out into long fic in my head. I went back to my original post to laugh at myself in a reblog, announcing that I was gonna write long fic of the thing and for people to stay tuned for more, but other folks had already reblogged the original with comments to the effect of, “Someone should write this fic!” The worst thing was that other authors were tagged into it. As if my highly specific headcanon was suddenly communal property. Because the implication behind it– whether it was the truth or not– felt like “I like this headcanon, but have decided that I don’t want the OP to actually write this story because I like XYZ author’s writing better.”

And I know that was not the intent of the folks who added those comments to my post, but as someone who actively writes fic for this fandom, it felt like a slap in the face.

Now if those same people had replied, “OP please write more of this!” or “What a cool idea!” or even if they’d come to me privately and said, “Hey this is a cool idea, do you mind if I use it to write a longer fic?” I would’ve been HAPPY about it.

Can you see the difference here, anon?

The result was a rather frustrating back and forth where I was told that because I posted the idea in public it was effectively free real estate for anyone else to squat on. I mean, isn’t that what we’re all doing with the source material we base all our fan creations on anyway? We don’t ask the Supernatural writers for permission to use their characters, their settings, their intellectual property to create our own stories and art, right?

But the difference here is apparently too subtle for some folks to grasp. The Supernatural writers aren’t part of our fandom community. And the culture within fandom operates on different rules. Fandom creators are not source creators, and yes we all collectively “steal” from the same source, but it sort of defies the underlying premise that fandom creators as a whole are operating on the same level to suggest that “stealing” from another fandom creator is the same thing.

From my understanding, the entire point of fandom creators doing what they do is to build a community together around the thing we all love. There is a way to do that in good faith, through collaboration and the free sharing of ideas and creations.

I hope this makes sense.

The result of all of that was that I set aside another project I’d been wanting to write and instead began spite writing my own headcanon post. It was like pulling teeth at first, because there was so much Bad Fandom Feeling attached to the concept that the words just didn’t want to come. It’s FINALLY flowing now, though (after several months of the aforementioned teeth-pulling), and is nearing 18k words. I’m hoping it’ll be done and ready to post by the end of March, so I can FINALLY go back to writing the thing I’d originally wanted to work on before this nonsense blew up.

I’ve also unfortunately been one of the authors tagged in on someone else’s headcanon post in the past. I know the folks who do this think it’s flattering, and they’re just excited about an idea and want to read more of it, but the correct etiquette is ALWAYS to approach the OP in PRIVATE before taking their idea and writing it yourself, or pointing another author in the direction of the post and suggesting they write it for you.

I can guarantee you that 99 times out of 100, the OP will actually be flattered you enjoyed their idea so much you want to read more of it if you frame it from a place of appreciation and excitement, rather than from a place of selfish entitlement or superiority.

I’ve talked about this before, but this is how I have always approached fic writing. I got my first idea for a long fic from the Valentine’s Day Collab fic that Winjennster ran back in 2015. I told her I had an idea based on her prompt that I wanted to write as a much longer fic than would fit into the 3k limit for the collab, and she told me to go forth and be fruitful with my words. Actually, I think her exact words were more like “HELL YES! YOU DO THAT!” or something, but the spirit was the same. :P

The next fic I wrote (Project Beyonce) was inspired by a series of tumblr crack posts about “what sort of tumblr blogs would each member of TFW run?” And I reblogged them with commentary about how this would make a hilarious fic, because they were that sort of “conversational thread” of crack headcanons where that sort of addition was more than welcome. Not to mention I was already on friendly terms with the other participants in the thread, so it wasn’t strange for me to zoom in out of the blue and announce I was writing fic inspired by those posts. Even though my fic was set in an AU, and the only commonality was the fact that Dean and Cas were on tumblr. Nothing else about my fic was even remotely similar to the canon crack headcanons from those posts, and I don’t think that anyone involved in the original threads was upset that I’d written fic based on Dean being Cas’s favorite tumblr anon…

My first DCBB (Revenge of the Subtext) was inspired by a crack post made by @nicelimabean. One single sentence about Jensen and Jared walking into a con dressed like Sam and Dean and covered in dirt and blood, and suddenly I had 80k of fic running through my head. I sat there and stared at her post for like five minutes and then went immediately to the chat bubbles to ask– nay, beg– to use her post as a fic prompt for the DCBB. We talked it over for a good long while, both of us growing more excited as the ideas spun out, and long story short, not only did I make a wonderful fandom friend, she ended up beta reading for me and being an ongoing source of encouragement and support in fandom. We even met in person at a con (!) and spent the weekend cackling about how everything felt like a reference to RotS (since at the time we were the only two people on the planet who’d read the fic or even knew what it was about, because DCBB rules of secrecy).

Since then, I’ve gotten ideas for fic from tumblr (and always asked the OP for permission to write their idea– like for fic such as Plotbunny which was based on the combination of ideas from @bluestar86 on a WONDERFUL way to confirm Dean’s bisexuality in canon and Lizbob’s long desire for an Easter Bunny episode, combined with the fact that Easter fell on April Fool’s Day last year… to ideas for The Terminal Job based on chats with @truebluecas about an airport AU WHICH I AM SO SORRY STROB I STILL HAVE IT ON MY LIST TO WRITE AND I SWEAR I WILL WRITE IT EVENTUALLY D:

I’ve also had the reverse happen, where someone read one of my fics and was inspired to write their own fic based on Revenge of the Subtext. They approached me in private with the idea and asked for my blessing to write it. Honestly, I was FLOORED that anyone would be inspired by my words like that, and eagerly encouraged them to write their idea. I’ve also had people give me fic ideas in comments on AO3, in chats both on tumblr and Discord, which turned into longer conversations and eventually more fic (or at the very least to ideas on my To Be Written list). But I always ALWAYS ask permission from the other person or people before writing their ideas. And I have NEVER been told that I was not permitted. People are usually PLEASED that their ideas are deemed worthy by another writer, you know? It’s exciting!

This also goes for art inspired by fic, but in a slightly different way. If someone (anyone!) was inspired to draw something based on something I wrote, I will UNIVERSALLY BE THRILLED that my words inspired someone’s creativity in a different medium. But the key here is it’s a different medium. Nobody ever has to ask permission to art my fic. But that’s not the same as wanting to rewrite my fic into a different story, you know?

Not to mention, collaborating and asking permission and sharing the enthusiasm for an idea or a story like this with others has the potential to boost ALL of your creations. You could build resentment in fandom from other creators, or you can all lift each other up. Starting from the standpoint of communal excitement can result in mutual promotion of each other’s works, you know? Do you want a built-in cheerleader for your work, to build connections in fandom that will eventually support ALL of your works? Then your approach to sharing ideas this way is the key that could potentially unlock that door, or conversely lock it behind you. Your choice, really.

Wait, what was I talking about again? OH right. The whole entire point of fandom. We’re all of us in this same boat, sailing the seas of our chosen Source Material together. You can use your creative abilities for Good, to build communities up, or you can be That Asshole who tries to build themselves up while effectively shading or demoralizing other fandom creators in the process.

So what I’m saying here isn’t necessarily about your desire to write something based on someone else’s idea, but more about the approach you take to it. It costs zero dollars to be polite about it and approach it from a direction of good will and joy in creating for the thing we all love together, you know?

[bigyack-com]

What Happens When You Get Famous Off One Song?

MILTON KEYNES, England — Last summer, a teenager named Tom Austin decided on a whim to record a rap song. He’d never made music before. But even as he was writing down lyrics — picking out references from an iPhone note of random stuff he’d been keeping — he was strangely sure of himself.“I don’t want to sound bigheaded,” he said, “but I knew it would do bits.” (Translation: Mr. Austin knew the song would connect widely.)The result was “Mary Berry,” a delightful, deadpan ode to life in small-town Britain. The title is a nod to the 84-year-old former “Great British Bake Off” co-host. In the song, Mr. Austin says he “needs a girl like” Ms. Berry; he defeats a local man in badminton; pulls out a secret Android cellphone; performs his own circumcision; threatens to fight the TV host Piers Morgan; flexes his discount Slazenger sneakers; and announces, “Top thing on my bucket list is to slide tackle the Queen.” For his rap alter-ego he borrowed the name Niko Bellic, an Eastern European gangster character from the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.As Mr. Austin later wrote on Instagram: “I decided to make a song within like 2 days and then 3 weeks later I signed a deal for it, now it’s 2mil+ streams across 3 platforms CRUUUD.”This success seems both calculated and hilariously accidental. In the intro to the song, he offhandedly shouts out the flashy East London afrobeats group NSG; not long after its release, he was touring Britain as their opening act. He’s taking meetings and other “bits and bobs,” Mr. Austin said, and carefully planning a second single with a record label. He is now 19.In 2016, 13-year-old Billie Eilish posted the song “Ocean Eyes” on her SoundCloud and went to bed. She woke up to see it had accumulated thousands of plays overnight. She is now one of the biggest pop stars alive.The 16-year-old rapper Bhad Bhabie has built her career off a catchphrase-minting “Dr. Phil” appearance. The 13-year-old country singer Mason Ramsey has capitalized well off a recorded Walmart yodeling session. Their sudden, culture-saturating music moments would have been impossible before SoundCloud, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Now the music industry, social media and the influence industry at large are racing to adapt for, and borrow from, such overnight success stories.Tom Austin — or Niko B, for that matter, as he’s now calling himself, possibly to avoid litigation — is nowhere near as well known as Bhad Bhabie or Billie Eilish. His success, to date, is very much niche, and contained within Britain. But he’s at a crossroads each saw for themselves. He made a song. It did bits. What’s next?

Getting Down on Friday

A decade ago, instant virality could be a curse. Rebecca Black was 13 in 2011 when her uncanny-valley banger “Friday” — written for her in exchange for $4,000 of her mother’s money — exploded.“It took me years to get healed,” she said in a recent interview. “When you’re 13, nobody can explain to you how mentally extreme everything is.”Back then, she had vague dreams of Broadway, but no real career plan. In the years after “Friday,” she fended off all kinds of cynical business entreaties.Now at 22, she’s built a team around her that she trusts. And she’s back making music: “Sweetheart,” her latest release, is available on all streaming platforms. She’s also talking about her experience, and getting very positive reactions.“I had to figure out the long and hard way that nobody can give you this career,” Ms. Black said. “I had to do it in my own way.”In the years since “Friday,” it’s possible audiences have become less judgmental.While there’s still a bit of stigma associated with sudden virality, especially when it feels easily won, maybe we understand now that tunes can come from anywhere. Maybe we got tired of getting upset.Or maybe the latest generation got better at being ready. In the end, Bhad Bhabie has bangers. Mason Ramsey is a legit country radio presence. And Lil Nas X’s path to success was, on a much grander scale, similar to Tom Austin’s. He used meme knowledge and a social media base to turn “Old Town Road” into the longest-running No. 1 single in Billboard history.Ms. Black, as a pioneer, had no idea what was about to hit her. Teen creators now live knowing that any given thing they post might just change their life.

Crafting the Second Single on the Poets Estate

On a recent weekday on the high street of the tiny old town of Newport Pagnell, near London, Mr. Austin sat in a foofy coffee shop with a Realtree-style coat zipped to the neck. (He only opened it once, briefly, to remove a single key from a Prada fanny pack surreptitiously strapped to his waist.) He grew up, and still lives, in a humdrum subdivision down the road called the Poets Estate. He and his buddies used to skateboard, break into abandoned places, hang out at the kebab shop.And the rest of the time — “deffo, 100 percent” — he was on the internet. At 8 or 9, that meant building Lego animations on YouTube. (“Like, a skeleton horse chasing a guy,” Mr. Austin said.) By 14 or 15, it was prank calls and mock news channel stuff. He managed to build up a bit of a YouTube following, then switched his attention to Instagram, where he first posted cool-guy fit pics before having a revelation.“Mate, if I’m just showing you what I’m wearing, that’s not gonna get me anywhere. This is Instagram. You can’t deep it,” Mr. Austin said, meaning “take it seriously.” So he pivoted and started posting stuff like “me looking in the mirror, and in the mirror is this really buff guy,” he said. “It was the right turn to make.”Around the same time, inspired by the multi-hyphenate talent Tyler, the Creator, he introduced a clothing label called Crowd; he now sells to customers as far as Dubai. He used to work at a Subway, but quit when a Crowd pop-up netted him more money in one weekend than he’d previously made in a month. He even wrote an elaborate resignation letter: “Thanks to everyone even Carlos bye Marisa I hope I can transfer my sandwich making skills to my future day to day life.”As much as anything, “Mary Berry” was a promo for Crowd. (The video is full of Crowd clothes, and a post-video drop was his best-selling to date.) But it was also born of a generational D.I.Y. ethos: Why not do it?Mr. Austin points to Alex From Glasto, a fellow pasty British teen who won viral fame last summer when he was pulled onstage at Glastonbury by the rapper Dave to perform the hit “Thiago Silva.” Since then, Alex From Glasto has released his own single. “I was like, ‘No offense to him, but if this guy can blow up …” Mr. Austin said, trailing off.The making and release of “Mary Berry” was tied — breathlessly, naturally — with Instagram documentation: edited fake DMs from Drake asking to get on the remix, surreal footage of Mr. Austin surrounded by a platoon of life-size Mary Berry cardboard cutouts. “I did a video of me throwing a basketball out a window and then the Lakers being like ‘yo, we need to sign you right now,’” he said. The first Instagram Story tracking the journey is just captioned “about to become a full time rapper.”He also got friends who are big on Instagram, like @GullyGuyLeo, to post a snippet of the song.Then he landed attention of @ImJustBait, an influential British meme account run by a slick operator named Antz. (According to lore that Mr. Austin repeats reverentially, Antz started it without even having a cellphone. “He used his friend’s phone! Now he’s got, like, the most known Instagram page!”) Antz messaged Mr. Austin, saying, “yo, you’re jokes.” Now Mr. Austin is signed to Antz’s imprint, WEAREBLK, an entity created specifically to avoid the pattern of established labels profiting off viral successes they had no hand in creating.So Mr. Austin is now officially, and accidentally but not accidentally, an independent musician. At an appearance at the taste-making Boiler Room Festival, he heard people sing his lyrics back to him for the first time. His tour with NSG took him to London and Birmingham and Manchester alongside “mad big artists.”“I felt so bad because all these artists put in so much time and I’m just like, ‘what is going on,’” he said. The juvenilia-fueled song made the rounds and even got back to his grandma. (He said she texted him about one of the more anatomically graphic lyrics.)Next up, hopefully, is some money. “My dad’s a builder and he doesn’t work right now, which is tough. And my mum’s a teacher in a special needs school. So pay off my parents debt, that’s the very first goal,” Mr. Austin said. “And after that it’s like — whatever. Literally tomorrow I could try beatboxing, and then, a year from now I could be a really famous beatboxer. Anything I wanna do, I’ll just do it. Cause there’s no reason for me not to do it. So I’ll do it.” Read the full article

[girlwsoftsound]

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes || George Daniel Oneshot

Word Count: 6,079 Warnings: The usual borderline abusive behavior & drama that lies within Cinderella.  Summary: A cheesy, drama filled Cinderella Story fic centered around the one and only George Daniel.  Author’s Note: Got this prompt a while back asking for a Cinderella Story fic for one of the boys, and I decided to go all out on it (as you can see by the word count). Also, it was fitting because after writing this, I hit 100 followers, which is honestly a dream come true. So, this is my thank you to all who read my stories and send me great prompts like this. Love you all. Please feel free to send more requests here! Enjoy!

“George, if you do not get your butt down here, I’m going to make you do overtime at the shop!”

Needless to say, George Daniel’s home life was hell. Or rather, what he had to call ‘home’. When he was young, merely able to remember anything, George lost a lot of his family to a terrible accident. The only survivors were him, his uncle, and his grandmother. Seeing as he was still young, the courts put George with his uncle, whom they assumed would be the best choice to take care of him given his younger age and, save for the loss of his wife, relatively stable household. George had wanted to go with his grandmother, as she reminded him of his mother, was always more tender to him, and was still relatively young, but the courts did not care. Off he went to live in the countryside with Uncle Lou to start a new life.

For a while, that life was not hard nor a burden on George. Lou put him into a relatively well-to-do school and gave him basically free-roam on his property. George learned how to take care of what animals he owned, how to drive a tractor, and his favorite new skill, how to play the drums. Lou was not always a fun man, but he loved music. Drumming in no time became George’s favorite pastime. He believed he would finally settle in with his new ‘family’ once he grew to play well enough that Lou could appreciate it and give him songs to learn. That was, until Lou met Willa.

Willa seemed harmless at first. George first saw her when he was eleven. She had reddish-brown hair and dark brown eyes, and her voice was rather low for a woman, but Lou did not seem to mind. She was kind to George then. He got gifts from her occasionally, and she took him to the park to meet friends when he needed a ride. But then, Lou decided to propose to Willa, and Willa changed. Willa no longer was the kind lady who showed up with gifts and kindness. She transformed into a strict mother who cared about her own two sons more than George and changed Lou overnight. One night, George fell asleep thinking his life was not all that bad. The next morning, he woke up in his own personal brand of hell.

Willa made George work. Not like, work around the estate work. That work George was happy and familiar with doing. No, this work was mental. Refusing to pay for George’s school anymore with Lou’s money -yes, Lou no longer had a say in his financial affairs, or was too in love to care- George had to work to pay his way. Lou at her suggestion bought with the money meant to be spent on George’s education a shop, a diner along the edge of the city, and George was put to work on it immediately. He started out as a busboy, then cook, and then eventually a waiter. He hated it. God, did he hate it. If the rude people who came to the shop weren’t death themselves, Willa’s constant nagging of his performance and Lou’s bitching any time George did not pick up an overtime shift surely encapsulated it.

It hardly helped that the twin boys he was forced to share a home with, or step-creatures as he lovingly dubbed them, would go to the shop often simply to make his job harder. They would make ridiculous orders, and frequently complain just to mess with him. Being the kids of Willa, George had to make sure that all was well with them at any cost or else it’d be his head on the platter he served with. It essentially was hell. George wondered what being he pissed off to earn their presence in his life.

Working so hard did not offer George any free time, especially with school in the mix. It caused him to hardly have any friends, and those he did were merely friends in the sense that they’d partner with him in projects or speak to him at lunch. He also found himself hardly any time to drum. He would join the band at school and get at least a bit of practice there, but band was an after school activity, and he had to be at the shop by four every day. It would never work. George was forced away from it, and honestly anything remotely fun. Fun went to the creatures, and their mother’s money she stored only for their schooling and their dreams. They got to be on the basketball team, and baseball team, and golf team, and whatever the hell team they wished, along with any club they had time for. George loathed the fun they had. If he could have one slimmer of it, or even the girls they had fawning over them, he was sure life would be more manageable.

That was why, when it was mentioned to their school that there would be a dance, George all but sprinted to Lou and Willa to beg them to go. He just wanted one night, one chance to be a normal teenager without them getting in the way, or busting his head about work, or favoriting the twins over him. He stumbled upon the two ‘parents’ outside by the animals. They were fawning over Willa’s horse, a big ol’ white thing named ‘Ace of Spades’ with long white hair and a truly massive body. Willa always put the poor lad into competitions, but much like George, he often liked it best when he was able to roam free. George loved the moments he could take care of the beauty. He hated seeing him put up with Willa though. George would have to bear it to speak to her.

“Lou, Willa,” he said, bounding up to the two as Willa brushed Ace’s hair, “I have something to ask you.”

“Shouldn’t you be working?” Willa asked, eyeing the boy up and down. George had to fight himself to not bark back at her the snide comment swimming around in his mind for her.

“I’m on my way to, but before that, this is real important-”

“More important than your job?” Lou barked a laugh. “Did you get knocked in the head? Nothing should be more important.”

“Will you please just listen to m-”

Before George can finish his sentence, the familiar loud laughter and footsteps of the creatures approached. Drew, the older one by five minutes, and Troy stumbled up, nearly pushing George aside in the process. George brushed himself off as they turned to Willa.

“Can we have some cash?”

It disgusted George how Willa almost dropped Ace’s brush to pull out her wallet. “What for, loves?”

“There’s the Spring dance this weekend,” Troy announced, his voice high and mighty. “We have to look sharp to impress the ladies.”

“They won’t be able to resist,” Drew said with a laugh. “The theme is rock n’ roll, for Christ’s sake. It’s all about shagging.”

“And the Spring Queen gets to choose the fittest lad to be her king,” said Troy, winking at Drew. “Look fit, get the girl.”

Pulling a wad of cash out of her wallet, Willa tossed it to Drew. “Go for it.”

George fought back the bile that rose in his throat. “Can I have some?”

Willa scoffed. “You say that like you’re even allowed to go.”

“But I’ve been working overtime every day this week! And I’ve made double in tips than I did last month!”

“You do not have a choice in this,” Willa snapped. George looked over to Lou, pleading.

“Lou, c’mon, that’s hardly fair-”

“You listen to your mother.”

“She’s not my mum!”

“She’s the best you’ve got,” he growled, “so shut up and listen to her.”

“No, I’ve got my grandmother,” George yelled back, “and I would be with her not wasting away my life here being treated like shit if it weren’t for you!”

Drew chuckled. “Shut up mate, no one cares about you enough for you to even be welcomed at the dance.”

“Yeah,” Troy nodded, “you’d be lucky to even get looked at by another human.”

“Nice comeback, ya’ brat.”

“George!”

“What else are you gonna’ do to me?” George yelled, throwing his arms up in defeat. “What could you possibly take away from me that you already haven’t, huh? Is five years of life not good enough for you? Are all the years I’m going to have to fight to make up for what hell you’ve put me through not enough? Oh, I’m sorry I inconvenienced you enough that that doesn’t make up for what I did. And what have I done, exactly? Exist? Not die along with the rest of our family, Lou?”

Lou’s eyes narrowed. “Shut up, George.”

“Like you give a shit about them,” he said, eyes cold. “You used to, back before Willa came here and decided brainwashing you to let the twins here eat out of your ass was how she was going to dictate. Back before I had to fight to have an education, or passions, or a life. Honestly at this point, Lou? I’d prefer to have any of the people who died back over you. They would’ve at least cared about me enough to not let snakes like Willa come into our lives.”

The smack coming from Willa only enthralled George more. Laughing, he turned to the two boys who sat there, wide-eyed and judging. “Did that upset you, boys? Did it upset you to know the world doesn’t revolve around you? Does it upset you more to know that girls talk about how utterly boring you are behind your backs? How you aren’t really a good lay, but a cheap lay that they can always count on to be around because you’re just that easy?”

The punch George got to his jaw from Troy knocked him back a bit, but still did not stop him. “You’re real lucky she has me poor, Lou,” he growled with a wicked, now slightly bloody smile. “I have to still live off of your shitty waiter job to stay in school. Otherwise, I’d clue you in a bit more on what I’ve picked up over the years about you and your shitty life you’ve created for me, and then go right up to CPS and get your ass imprisoned. Willa, too. You guys would be lovely together in the pen. But alas, I can’t. I’m locked into my job, and your bullshit, and while these guys go impregnate a few poor souls, I’ll be waiting empty tables and just building up more fodder for how utterly shit you all are to make my future case. Sorry if that angers you,” he said, mockingly cold as he did a small curtsy for the group. “Sleep well.”

George didn’t even look back and face the string of hateful words Willa had set up for him as he headed back to his room. He knew he would face hell for it later. Hell, the dance was as far of a fetch then as him winning the lottery. But, he was glad he said it. He was glad that, after five years of hell, he finally got to let Lou, the man in charge of protecting his family’s legacy, just how hard he had screwed up. The flash of fear in his eyes was all George needed. It made the possible tears and probable anger he would face the night of the dance all worth it.

~~~~~~

George felt no surprise the night of the dance with how he was set up. Door locked and barricaded, he had only a small thing of food and his cell phone to keep him company in his room for the entirety of the night. He didn’t get the pleasure of working the night, because ‘why should we give you money that could benefit you as punishment’. He simply got to watch the twins leave the house happily with some girls George knew wouldn’t be theirs by the end of the night, and sit in self pity all alone. It pissed George off. Then again, it forced Lou to have to spend the night alone with Willa as she obsessed over making sure he didn’t try to escape, so was he the true loser in this situation? Opening his phone, George chuckled. Poor bastard.

Something on George’s phone stopped the boy from playing Tetris, the only game the shitty old thing provided. It was a text from an unknown number. Opening the text, he read it in a whisper out loud.

“George, it’s Sandra, your grandmother. I got an email from a lad saying I could and should contact you on this number and that it was urgent. Is everything alright, love? I’ve been so worried about you.”

George could barely see straight. Who the hell texted his grandmother? How in the world was she able to contact him for the first time in five whole years? Fumbling, he hurried to type out a reply.

“Nan, I thought I’d never hear from you again. Lou’s new wife has me living in pure hell here. I’m currently locked up in my room because of her. Lou’s lost his mind. I miss you.”

Her reply a few minutes later hurt George to read.

“I told them he wasn’t stable enough to care for you. I’m so, so sorry George. I’m so sorry I didn’t fight harder for you. If I could, I would come there for you in a heartbeat.”

George was about to type out an equally as heartfelt reply when suddenly, he got an idea. He typed furiously.

“Nan, if I send you the address of the flat here, are you able to send me a cab? They’re currently keeping me from a dance, but I think if I can go, I can set something up that might get me to you. Okay?”

As soon as her yes came back as a reply, George was up and off of his bed. Reaching into his closet, he took out one of his old band t-shirts, a leather jacket he had saved up for the previous year, and a pair of roughed up jeans. He snatched a small bit of cash he had been saving up after he got dressed and opened up the window. He was on the second floor, but George was also tall. He tossed the belongings he needed down to the ground, and after carefully positioning himself hanging from the windowsill, he dropped. He made it to the earth without an issue. Snatching up his stuff, he ran as fast as he could towards the long wooded drive that led to their home. He waited until the trees lining the drive masked his location from the house, and sat there in the dimming night until the cab arrived. He got in, and without looking back, left the property. Lou and Willa could beat him up later for this. Tonight, he had plans.

~~~~~~

George arrived to his school hearing the loud sound of rock n’ roll blaring from its gym. He could pick out the song any day - Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin. Sure, it was an odd dance choice, but he didn’t complain. He hardly could. He tried to play the song multiple times when he still could as a kid. Sauntering into the gym, George noticed the dance was in full swing. Every boy was dressed in suits, and every girl had some sparkling dress. He stuck out like an odd ball. Some theme.

Not knowing anyone, and hardly knowing how to properly dance, he decided to grab a bit of punch and find himself a place to sit. He made his way over to the table with punch. His hand reached forward to grab the ladle for the punch, but accidentally found itself bumping into a much smaller hand across from him.

“Sorry love-”

“It was my fault, I-”

Both mouths fell silent. Across from George stood you, perhaps the most beautiful girl he had ever set his eyes on. You had on a midnight blue dress, not flashy but certainly eye catching. Your hair was braided, and in it tucked away was a gorgeous blue flower that matched the dress perfectly. George felt unworthy in your mere presence. He had no clue of it, but you felt the same about him as well.

“I-I’m {Y/N},” you said once you could catch your breath, holding out your hand to him. George carefully took your hand and brought it up to his mouth, giving it a small kiss. Upon seeing you blush from it, he smiled.

“I’m George. I-I hope I’m not too forward in saying this, but you look awfully beautiful. Truly.”

You blushed further, averting your gaze down to the punch. “Thank you, George.”

His name sounded wonderful on your lips. George felt his heart skip a beat. “I-I don’t suppose you came here alone, did you?”

You shook your head. “No, I came here with Finn McGill. I’m not sure if you know him, he’s on the golf team.”

A chill went down George’s spine. If he was on the golf team, he would know the creatures all too well. The thought of them even having a mere connection to someone as beautiful as you made his stomach churn. You gently placed a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look back over to you.

“He’s off dancing with some other girl, though. I only went with him because it saves face.”

George bit his lip. “Why do you need to save face? You look stunning, you’re sweet.”

“I also don’t tend to do what most girls trying to get Spring Queen do and talk only to mainstream, ‘popular’ kids,” you mentioned, eyeing him up and down. George blushed. He didn’t know whether or not to be embarrassed or blessed by your words. “Want to go sit and talk somewhere? I’m sure Finn will be hooked on that other girl for a while. She looked like she was dancing on him real good.”

George was amused. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you to go back and deal with whatever mess you had waiting you back at the dance floor with Finn, even with his nerves through the roof at having to actually talk to someone else, especially someone as beautiful as you. He had to give you a chance. Nodding, he waited until you both got punch before following you over to a small table just off the dance floor. After making sure to hold out your chair, the two of you dove into a pleasant conversation. You discussed everything from your favorite books to your favorite foods and favorite types of music. George of course went on a rant about the songs being played at the dance, telling you far more than you thought one person could know about them, though you did not mind. You countered by telling him right back about your favorites. It all seemed to be following swimmingly when, out of nowhere, George heard a familiar set of laughter come up behind him. He cannot move away quick enough to avoid Drew and Troy, sauntering up with their plastic dates by their sides and meddlesome smiles. You looked to them curiously, but George met them with a death glare.

“What are you doing here Georgie,” Drew asked, smirking and ruffling up his hair to George’s dislike, “I thought you weren’t allowed to go tonight?”

“Mom’s going to kill you when you get back,” Troy said, shaking his head. “You watch, she’s going to never let you see the light of day.”

“George,” you asked, gently placing your hand over his that was about to break the side of the table, “who are these guys?”

“Meet Drew and Troy,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “The people I have the misfortune of living with.”

“It’s not our fault your family died and forced you to live with us,” Drew spat. George felt the color wash out of his skin. Yours did the same, though instead of the empty feeling that overwhelmed George, you felt a fit of anger rush in to take the color’s place.

“How about you shut your mouth, you prick?”

Drew raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Don’t you have someone’s dick to go suck so you can win Queen?”

George could not even pause to process him doing it. All he knew was that one minute, he felt more rage than he had ever felt before, and the next, Drew was on the ground with a broken nose. You stood up at George’s side and watched slightly horrified as Drew wailed on the ground, his brother trying to stop the blood his nose began to gush. Though you were confused as to why George felt so angrily about his brothers, you knew he needed to get away. Grabbing his arm, you quickly rushed him out of the gym. He followed you out down one of the long hallways. You stopped him at the end of the second one you passed. He rested himself against a locker.

“What was that?”

“You did not deserve to be talked to that way,” George muttered, folding his arms. “He had to be taught that.”

“No- George, believe me, I’m grateful you did that, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” You sighed, bringing his face up with your finger so he looked at you. “What’s going on with them? Why weren’t you allowed to come here?”

George’s face fell even darker. “Their mother ruined what shitty life I had after my family died. I got put with my uncle and he remarried this lady and she took whatever I had left and spoiled those two brats. It’s been that way for five years, {Y/N}. You’ve probably never seen me because I’m lucky I can even make it to school. I pay my way here.”

Your eyes widened. “You pay it all?”

“She cut me off the moment she walked in with his ring,” George replied. “I blew up at them for it when the dance was announced earlier this week, and since they insist on ignoring how bad they are, they essentially made me a prisoner in my own house for tonight. I snuck out, though. That’s why those idiots were shocked to see me.”

“George, that’s-”

“Horrible?” he asked, kicking at the locker behind him with the back of his shoe. “Terrible? Borderline abusive? Yeah, believe me, I know.”

“You have to tell someone.”

“I plan on doing so tonight,” he told you. “After the dance. I’m going straight to the authorities and letting them know what they’ve done. My Nan lives not too far away, and she’s lovely and has money and a good house to care for me. The moment they find out what my uncle’s done, I’m going straight to her, and he’s going straight to jail.”

You did not know what to say. Here, you spoke to George because he looked different and bumped into you and looked at you as if you were truly beautiful, not just another good shag option. Yet, he was so much more. He was pained, mistreated, powerful, but also so in need of love and a second chance. A new start. You had no idea what to say, but you knew what to do. Making sure to catch his eye, you carefully leaned him back against the lockers behind him and kissed him.

George felt all his anger melt away. As soft and gorgeous as you looked, you kissed ten times better. Sure, he hardly knew what to do with this being his first kiss, but the feelings he felt were too strong to get all nervous about it. He simply let his emotions, let you, take the lead, and allowed instinct to guide him. You had not kissed many boys in your past, but knowing them all, you could say with confidence that George’s instinct led him well. You saw George smile immediately after breaking the kiss. In that moment, you knew he needed to be loved more. You knew he needed his fairytale happy ending. Oh, how you hoped he’d get it.

A loud boom of the gym door closing made you both jump. The soft patter of heels made their way down the hall, until finally a girl in a soft pink textured gown reached the two of you. She looked at George with a bit of shock, but quickly dismissed it in favor of speaking to you.

“{Y/N} c’mon, they’re about to announce Spring Queen! You need to hurry!”

You looked at George with apprehension. He merely smiled and leaned forward to kiss you again. “Go on, win that thing. I’m not going anywhere yet.”

With a grin, you reached to squeeze his hand and then trotted off to join your friend, the pittering of both of your heels echoing off the walls. Sure, George had no idea of his words would be true. Knowing Drew and Troy, he probably already had the firing squad on their way over to take him and never make him see the light of day again. But he would be damned if he ever saw sadness or fear in your eyes. You did not deserve that. Pushing himself off the locker, George dusted himself off and then headed back to the gym.

The entire group in attendance stood eagerly awaiting the news around the stage at the far center of the room. Up there, George saw a gorgeous diamond crown and a larger gold crown nestled on  pillows beside two sashes, which he suspected were to signify the King and Queen. On the stage next to the Principal stood all candidates for Queen. You stood out to George like the moon on a dark winter’s night. The sight took his breath away.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming out tonight, and for voting for our new Spring Queen,” Principal Hews spoke, his grand voice bellowing through the room. “It is my great pleasure and honor to announce to you, this year’s Spring Queen…{Y/N}!”

The cheer George gave was louder than he had ever cheered before. You looked near tears as the crowd clapped and hollered, the losing girls slinking off the stage with catty sneers as you got your sash. You looked absolutely regal with your crown on. A true princess. George felt as if he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. He wanted nothing more than to pick you up and twirl you around just to see if he could make your radiant smile match the glittering gems on your crown in vivacity. He wanted to give every last cent he had to let you know you were truly worthy of that crown.

You wanted to give him a chance to do so.

“As my first decree as Spring Queen, I would like Mr. George Daniel to please come up here with me on stage.”

George’s heart stopped. Me? She seriously chose me? George got a mixture of confused and angered looks as he passed through the crowd of people to join you up on stage. No one knew him, and if they did, they hardly knew why you would choose him over them. One particularly angered boy had to have been Finn, for he flipped him off and mumbled something about him stealing his girl before George made it to the stage. Once he was there with you, all of the people faded away. Your smile blinded him to them.

“I hereby announce that George Daniel is this year’s Spring King.”

To an assortment of cheers and boos, you had George bend down slightly so that you could place the golden crown on his head. As soon as it was on, and George managed to get his sash on, the two of you made your way to the gym floor. There, you were to share a dance together. George felt like something out of a dream.

“May I have this dance, George?”

Grinning, George pulled you close to him and gave you a tender kiss. “It would be my honor, my Queen.”

And then, the music started. George never imagined himself finishing off the night dancing to ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’ with a beautiful girl like yourself, but he felt right lucky to be able to do so. He twirled you and held you close as if you were the light of his life. You held onto him and smiled back up at him as if he made your world perfect. Somehow, this big ol’ boy with a rough life completed your beautiful queen’s life. All at once, everything was different. Both of you wouldn’t have the fairytale moment any other way.

Like all fairytales though, there had to be drama. That drama came in the form of, as soon as the music stopped, George being torn away from you by none other than a very bruised and bloodied Drew  alongside Troy. He went to shove them away, nearly hitting Drew’s nose in the process, when he froze before the sight of an irate Willa and a smaller than life wilted shamble of the man he knew to be Lou. Willa snatched his arm, nearly throwing him forward with a slew of angered words. All eyes were on them, most consisting of shock and confusion at his treatment. You tried to follow them, but found yourself unable to catch up. George was up and gone, riding miles away with his family, his fairytale ruined. Looking down, you realized he did not even get to say goodbye. You also realized something equally, if not more sad. He never got to go to the authorities. Tears in your eyes, you tossed your heels aside and ran to your car.

If George couldn’t get himself free, then by all means, you would do it for him.

~~~~~~

“THE NERVE YOU HAVE.”

George stared at Willa, his eyes cold and sunken in as her words hit him. She had not quit yelling at him since he arrived back home. A bruise growing on his cheek signaled she had done even more along the way.

“You think you can disobey me like that? Like some ungrateful tramp?”

“What on Earth would I owe to you? You ruined my life!”

“Shut up,” she said, another slap rattling George. “It is your fault for ruining mine!”

“What are you even talking about?”

“We would be a perfect family if you weren’t in the picture,” she snarled, pushing at George. “Drew and Troy are model children, and your Uncle and I are in love. Without you, we would be wonderful. And yet we have to deal with you, and your horrid nature, and your horrid hair, and-”

All eyes in the room, including George’s slightly bruising ones, flew to the door. A few more knocks came, followed by a loud voice.

“Police, open up!”

The eyes suddenly all flew to George. He was a walking black and blue billboard, angered and easily able to talk out about what happened to him. If the police saw him, they would not be able to deny what was going on. George knew he was in trouble. He made it almost to the staircase before Willa threw Lou at him to catch him. Lou put a finger to his lips, and a harsh hand on the back of his throat. George followed him into the kitchen merely out of the pain from his hand. When he got there, Lou grabbed a steak knife and held it at him, eyeing the boy.

“Say one word and you’ll regret it boy.”

George stared him down cold as the man’s hand held his wrist down. “Why would I? I’d rather be dead than deal with you all one more day.”

“And let that poor girl at the dance know you bled out before she could save you?”

“You leave her out of this.”

George heard the door open. Willa spoke cheerfully, fakely so to the cops in the other room. “You’re pathetic,” he whispered, eyeing the knife. “You can’t possibly love her enough to threaten me like this. You used to love me.”

“Who says I don’t love you?”

“Probably the butcher’s knife at my throat.”

“It’s complicated George, you do things for those you love.”

“If you loved me at all, you wouldn’t let your ‘wife’ over there lie about me getting abused and mistreated here. You’d turn her in, not protect her.”

Lou shut his eyes and sighed. “But I am.”

“What?”

“George! George, where are you?”

{Y/N}. Your voice echoing through the kitchen, it took everything in George not to call out back. You sounded so terrified. So, so terrified. George hated that sound. He nearly let tears overtake him when, suddenly, his hand no longer was held down. George looked to Lou in confusion.

“What-”

“George!”

Bursting through the kitchen door, you ran in followed by the police to find Lou holding the knife up, and George standing like a deer in headlights. The police told him to drop the knife immediately, which he did followed by letting them willingly handcuff him. George did not know what to say.

“What...what the hell just happened?”

“I knew if you contacted your Nan, you’d alert someone about what was going on here and they’d rescue you.”

George’s jaw dropped. “You...you let yourself get caught?”

“I’m fucked up George,” Lou said, the other officer moving to go arrest Willa in the living room. “I love Willa. But you opened my eyes up to how horrid she was to you, so...I decided that the best thing would be for us to get out of here together. You were right, George. You were right. And now you get to live your life with your Nan how it should be lived. Take care of that pretty little thing by your side.”

George briefly looked down to your shaken face before looking back at Lou. “Lou, I-”

“Don’t speak,” he said defeatedly. “Just...go live your dream. Please, have a good life.”

With that, George watched as Lou, followed by an erratic Willa, were carried away into cop cars. Drew and Troy, though both not technically guilty of anything, went along in the cars with the cops, as they were still minors and could not live on their own even if they wished. They would probably end up at a foster home. George hardly cared what happened to them. All he cared about was the fact that, soon, he would have a new life. He would have his Nan, his education, and his freedom. A small kiss placed on the side of his arm reminded him that, to his delight, he also had you.

“Did you call the police?”

Nodding, you wrapped your arms around his waist. “After what you told me, I was so scared to see you taken away like that so suddenly. I went to them as soon as you left and got them to come over here. Are you okay?”

George nodded. “My face hurts, but I’ll be alright. I’ll probably have to go to the hospital with the medics outside just so they can check once they’re done dealing with all them, but I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“Now that I know my King isn’t hurt and won’t be any longer?” You pulled George down and gently kissed his swollen cheek. “I’m wonderful.”

“Wonderful.”

There was no time like the present to do what he wanted to do next. Picking you up, George twirled you around and, upon setting you down, gazed at your beautiful smile and kissed you deep, his hand moving to your cheek. You were his new dream. You were the key to his future, his rescuer with a dazzling smile. You saved his world and put the pieces back together because your kind heart told you to. George would spend every day with his newfound freedom thanking you for that. You would send every day thanking your lucky stars that you were able to.

George’s home life had been hell, but his future became the sweetest form of heaven.

And he lived happily ever after in your arms.

The end.

[nsb2717]

Your Mercedes is Right Over There... go get it.

It’s 8:30 a.m. on Friday, April 28th, 2017 and I’m sitting at a coffeeshop a few blocks from my house.  The surroundings are intensely familiar with a wall sized black and white mural of coffee fields, bags of coffee beans stacked in the corner, rustic tables and wobbly chairs.  The faces swirling around me are mostly those of strangers, however, a handful of regulars come and go and I recognize many of my neighbors.   For six weeks, eight hours a day this was my study hall.  With a large black cup of energy and a playlist of Cannonball Adderley, Stan Goetz, Thelonious Monk in my ears tuning out the buzzing world around me I scribbled notes, highlighted paragraph after paragraph and stressed about the future ahead of me as a real estate agent.   At the age of 40, I made the decision to leave the film industry.  I had spent the last 15 years, (off and on) working my way up from commercial production assistant to being one of a handful of location managers/ scouts in the state of North Carolina.  There are three key reasons for my departure from film, two of which I won’t go into. The major reason, if you are familiar with the film industry in North Carolina, you will well understand.  The 2014 sun set on the 25% tax incentive for film production devastated the industry in our state and forced many families to relocate or work in other states.  As a 4th generation Charlottean married to a 3rd generation Charlottean, relocating was simply not an option.

Although I tried to work in Atlanta, the distance and time away from my kids was too difficult.   One morning, after posting about my struggle to find a new career and the lack of work relevant to my experience, I got a private Facebook message from Matthew Jernigan, a real estate agent in Asheville whom I grew up with.   The message was short and to the point, “Hey, have you considered real estate? There’s a free career night discussion tonight at Keller Williams, you should check it out.”  And that was it.   Two weeks later, on January 12th, 2017, I stepped into my first real estate class. I was handed a phone book sized text book and another phone book sized study guide.   The instructor’s first piece of advice, “For every hour of class, you should be studying for two hours.”   All of the students quickly did the math. Class ran Thursday and Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm.   To save you from the calculation, she was recommending 32 hours of study time per week.  The class schedule was five weeks with a final exam on the sixth week.   Why am I telling you this?   Why should you care about me or where I am in my life?  Good question.   You shouldn’t.  UNLESS,  you’re considering a career in real estate or you are already a real estate agent.    If you’re considering a career in real estate, you’re gonna want to take notes. If you’re already a real estate agent, you’re gonna laugh and laugh and laugh. Today is officially my sixth day as a real estate agent.  Day 6.  Mental exhaustion and frustration and the overwhelming feeling someone put me in a washing machine and hung me up to dry is really the best way I can describe this exact moment.  

Seasoned real estate agents who have their name tags and websites and pipelines and flashy business cards and MLS number and yard signs and all those juicy tools in place to get in the game will likely forget (for good reason) how incredibly difficult those first few days, weeks and months truly are.   

For all you bright-eyed go getters with dreams of driving clients around in your black Benz showing off million dollar listings, just keep in mind they don’t just give you a Mercedes when you pass your exam.   It’s a hustle my darling.  So, in six days, what have I learned?   Get your pen and paper ready.  While the entire process is slow, you must wake up everyday with the mindset of moving at 100 MPH.   No one, literally, NOT ONE PERSON is going to do this for you or make you do any of what you will need to do in order to be successful.   Your success or failure is in your hands and at your fingertips.   With technology today, it is easier than ever to connect to hundreds, thousands, and millions of people with the push of a button.   The question is will you?  Can you? Are you willing to make the phone calls, send the emails, or knock on all the doors in your neighborhood?  The person sitting next to me could very well be thinking about buying or selling her house.  I have no idea unless I ask.    Which I did.   The answer was no.   “You will miss 100% of the shots you do not take”                                                                              -Michael Jordan

I don’t have my business cards yet.  I don’t have my website setup.  I don’t have my app or my MLS number.   I don’t have my black Mercedes.   But I do have my real estate license, and I can legally sell someone house.   My job is to find that someone.   

[mastcomm]

What Happens When You Get Famous Off One Song?

MILTON KEYNES, England — Last summer, a teenager named Tom Austin decided on a whim to record a rap song. He’d never made music before. But even as he was writing down lyrics — picking out references from an iPhone note of random stuff he’d been keeping — he was strangely sure of himself.

“I don’t want to sound bigheaded,” he said, “but I knew it would do bits.” (Translation: Mr. Austin knew the song would connect widely.)

The result was “Mary Berry,” a delightful, deadpan ode to life in small-town Britain. The title is a nod to the 84-year-old former “Great British Bake Off” co-host. In the song, Mr. Austin says he “needs a girl like” Ms. Berry; he defeats a local man in badminton; pulls out a secret Android cellphone; performs his own circumcision; threatens to fight the TV host Piers Morgan; flexes his discount Slazenger sneakers; and announces, “Top thing on my bucket list is to slide tackle the Queen.” For his rap alter-ego he borrowed the name Niko Bellic, an Eastern European gangster character from the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

As Mr. Austin later wrote on Instagram: “I decided to make a song within like 2 days and then 3 weeks later I signed a deal for it, now it’s 2mil+ streams across 3 platforms CRUUUD.”

This success seems both calculated and hilariously accidental. In the intro to the song, he offhandedly shouts out the flashy East London afrobeats group NSG; not long after its release, he was touring Britain as their opening act. He’s taking meetings and other “bits and bobs,” Mr. Austin said, and carefully planning a second single with a record label. He is now 19.

In 2016, 13-year-old Billie Eilish posted the song “Ocean Eyes” on her SoundCloud and went to bed. She woke up to see it had accumulated thousands of plays overnight. She is now one of the biggest pop stars alive.

The 16-year-old rapper Bhad Bhabie has built her career off a catchphrase-minting “Dr. Phil” appearance. The 13-year-old country singer Mason Ramsey has capitalized well off a recorded Walmart yodeling session. Their sudden, culture-saturating music moments would have been impossible before SoundCloud, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Now the music industry, social media and the influence industry at large are racing to adapt for, and borrow from, such overnight success stories.

Tom Austin — or Niko B, for that matter, as he’s now calling himself, possibly to avoid litigation — is nowhere near as well known as Bhad Bhabie or Billie Eilish. His success, to date, is very much niche, and contained within Britain. But he’s at a crossroads each saw for themselves. He made a song. It did bits. What’s next?

Getting Down on Friday

A decade ago, instant virality could be a curse. Rebecca Black was 13 in 2011 when her uncanny-valley banger “Friday” — written for her in exchange for $4,000 of her mother’s money — exploded.

“It took me years to get healed,” she said in a recent interview. “When you’re 13, nobody can explain to you how mentally extreme everything is.”

Back then, she had vague dreams of Broadway, but no real career plan. In the years after “Friday,” she fended off all kinds of cynical business entreaties.

Now at 22, she’s built a team around her that she trusts. And she’s back making music: “Sweetheart,” her latest release, is available on all streaming platforms. She’s also talking about her experience, and getting very positive reactions.

“I had to figure out the long and hard way that nobody can give you this career,” Ms. Black said. “I had to do it in my own way.”

In the years since “Friday,” it’s possible audiences have become less judgmental.

While there’s still a bit of stigma associated with sudden virality, especially when it feels easily won, maybe we understand now that tunes can come from anywhere. Maybe we got tired of getting upset.

Or maybe the latest generation got better at being ready. In the end, Bhad Bhabie has bangers. Mason Ramsey is a legit country radio presence. And Lil Nas X’s path to success was, on a much grander scale, similar to Tom Austin’s. He used meme knowledge and a social media base to turn “Old Town Road” into the longest-running No. 1 single in Billboard history.

Ms. Black, as a pioneer, had no idea what was about to hit her. Teen creators now live knowing that any given thing they post might just change their life.

Crafting the Second Single on the Poets Estate

On a recent weekday on the high street of the tiny old town of Newport Pagnell, near London, Mr. Austin sat in a foofy coffee shop with a Realtree-style coat zipped to the neck. (He only opened it once, briefly, to remove a single key from a Prada fanny pack surreptitiously strapped to his waist.) He grew up, and still lives, in a humdrum subdivision down the road called the Poets Estate. He and his buddies used to skateboard, break into abandoned places, hang out at the kebab shop.

And the rest of the time — “deffo, 100 percent” — he was on the internet. At 8 or 9, that meant building Lego animations on YouTube. (“Like, a skeleton horse chasing a guy,” Mr. Austin said.) By 14 or 15, it was prank calls and mock news channel stuff. He managed to build up a bit of a YouTube following, then switched his attention to Instagram, where he first posted cool-guy fit pics before having a revelation.

“Mate, if I’m just showing you what I’m wearing, that’s not gonna get me anywhere. This is Instagram. You can’t deep it,” Mr. Austin said, meaning “take it seriously.” So he pivoted and started posting stuff like “me looking in the mirror, and in the mirror is this really buff guy,” he said. “It was the right turn to make.”

Around the same time, inspired by the multi-hyphenate talent Tyler, the Creator, he introduced a clothing label called Crowd; he now sells to customers as far as Dubai. He used to work at a Subway, but quit when a Crowd pop-up netted him more money in one weekend than he’d previously made in a month. He even wrote an elaborate resignation letter: “Thanks to everyone even Carlos bye Marisa I hope I can transfer my sandwich making skills to my future day to day life.”

As much as anything, “Mary Berry” was a promo for Crowd. (The video is full of Crowd clothes, and a post-video drop was his best-selling to date.) But it was also born of a generational D.I.Y. ethos: Why not do it?

Mr. Austin points to Alex From Glasto, a fellow pasty British teen who won viral fame last summer when he was pulled onstage at Glastonbury by the rapper Dave to perform the hit “Thiago Silva.” Since then, Alex From Glasto has released his own single. “I was like, ‘No offense to him, but if this guy can blow up …” Mr. Austin said, trailing off.

The making and release of “Mary Berry” was tied — breathlessly, naturally — with Instagram documentation: edited fake DMs from Drake asking to get on the remix, surreal footage of Mr. Austin surrounded by a platoon of life-size Mary Berry cardboard cutouts. “I did a video of me throwing a basketball out a window and then the Lakers being like ‘yo, we need to sign you right now,’” he said. The first Instagram Story tracking the journey is just captioned “about to become a full time rapper.”

He also got friends who are big on Instagram, like @GullyGuyLeo, to post a snippet of the song.

Then he landed attention of @ImJustBait, an influential British meme account run by a slick operator named Antz. (According to lore that Mr. Austin repeats reverentially, Antz started it without even having a cellphone. “He used his friend’s phone! Now he’s got, like, the most known Instagram page!”) Antz messaged Mr. Austin, saying, “yo, you’re jokes.” Now Mr. Austin is signed to Antz’s imprint, WEAREBLK, an entity created specifically to avoid the pattern of established labels profiting off viral successes they had no hand in creating.

So Mr. Austin is now officially, and accidentally but not accidentally, an independent musician. At an appearance at the taste-making Boiler Room Festival, he heard people sing his lyrics back to him for the first time. His tour with NSG took him to London and Birmingham and Manchester alongside “mad big artists.”

“I felt so bad because all these artists put in so much time and I’m just like, ‘what is going on,’” he said. The juvenilia-fueled song made the rounds and even got back to his grandma. (He said she texted him about one of the more anatomically graphic lyrics.)

Next up, hopefully, is some money. “My dad’s a builder and he doesn’t work right now, which is tough. And my mum’s a teacher in a special needs school. So pay off my parents debt, that’s the very first goal,” Mr. Austin said. “And after that it’s like — whatever. Literally tomorrow I could try beatboxing, and then, a year from now I could be a really famous beatboxer. Anything I wanna do, I’ll just do it. Cause there’s no reason for me not to do it. So I’ll do it.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/what-happens-when-you-get-famous-off-one-song/

[mrdanielblack]

Get organized to sell more

Systems are the key if you want to sell more than anyone in your area.  Australasia’s top agent tells us how he performs at a high level.

Topic – View from the top

Mentor – Malek Younan

Be honest

Don’t take on any baggage

Do what you say you will do

Prop Tech with Joel Leslie – Back yourself with the right social strategy

Transcript:

Kevin:  The criteria for judging Australia’s top 100 residential real estate agents published by SQM Research was a series of indicators. I’m gonna look at the second in that series and that is sales numbers. The winner was “Malek Unin” from Wayward Gladstone Park in Victoria and he’s our guest this week. And just a reminder that we’re going to feature and extended, unedited video with Malek a little bit later in the week, so watch out for that. But for today, let’s take you to a discussion about his sales numbers. Okay, now I’m talking to you as an individual ’cause you are the winner of the award. Can I just acknowledge another one of the key steps that came from SQM Research and that is sales numbers, 76000. Now that’s better than one a week. I know you take breaks ’cause you and I spoke when you were actually on holiday, to set this interview up. So I know you take those breaks. So it’s probably closer to two a week. How important to you is getting organised?

Malek:   It is the key. It is the key. Time management in this industry, it is the absolute key. If you’re lazy, if you’re a person that wants to get up late, get home early, this is not the game for you. You need to be organised, you need to know what you’re doing. What I do is the night before, Kevin, you know I like my technology but I like pen and paper. So I sit there, before I finish up for the day I will write everything down that I need to complete for the next day. If it doesn’t get done, I will have to go back to it until it gets scratched off. But pretty much if you put it in your phone, you can’t physically scratch it off, and it’s a proven fact by psychologists that mentally you will finish that task before going home the next day. And that is what I do and that is what I’ve done probably for the last seven, eight years. And it’s allowed me to help me with- When you’re single, you can do a lot. When you’re married, it can get a bit less. When you have one child, and to have three children, a wife, a business, staff, management, time management is the key, Kevin. You’re absolutely right.

Kevin:  Yeah, okay. I think this is one of the things. All the years that I’ve been training, if you ask someone what is it you struggle with? They’ll tell you time management. It’s not you can’t manage time, but you can certainly manage what you do with the time you’ve got ’cause we’ve all got the same amount of time. So given that that’s the case, I learned a lot about you in setting up this interview,-

Malek:   Yes.

Kevin:  … in terms of how you manage your time, you’re very strict almost down to the minute. Which is one of the things I’ve noticed with a lot of really great leaders. So tell me how you go about organising your day in terms of priorities. What do you do?

Malek:   Well if you’re talking about business, this is what I’ll tell you. If you’ve got clients out there that want a lot of your time, you need to make sure you give them that time. Because when you take that business on board, Kevin, Whatever you promise, you need to deliver. That’s first point. Customer service is number one. I agree you might have a 75 year old that wants you to call them because they’re very nervous about a process, they haven’t moved homes for 50 years, and they want your time. You make sure, even if you say, “Hello, Kevin. It’s sunny today, how have you been? Is there anything that you need to know today?” And give them a rundown of what’s gonna happen that week. Then you have other clients which don’t need much of your time.

So you need to allocate the time to the right clients on what they need and deliver that. In terms of things that would make the business money, you need to be all over. Don’t waste your time on catching up on somebody and lets just have some coffee and just talk about real estate. Make those times obviously out of those times when you have that extra spare time with them. And do many productive things where it will pay the bills and give you that extra time with your family then at the end of the day for example like myself six weeks off or so and spend the time with them. Because some people say to me Malek I’m working so hard I don’t have much time with my family. You need to know what you’re doing with time it’s like you said everyone’s worth the same time. Again it’s about structure, procedure following through with what you promised and you’ll be fine. It’s a lot of hard work.

Kevin:  It’s interesting to hear you talk about not wasting time. But you can look for opportunities even if someone wants to have coffee with you there’s go to be something in it for you if you approach it in the right manner. In other words you ask them for are referral or you ask them what they are doing or get a lead. So if you are looking from an opportunity they are always around us Malik.

Malek:   Oh absolutely and don’t get me wrong I love giving. People say to me Malek what I’ve got someone [inaudible 00:04:14]. I’m putting you as one of my mentors. It’s one of the biggest compliments I have had. They go you’re actually one of my mentors when can I catch up with you next week. So I really lock in the time cause people that do that they want to, they’re passionate, obviously want to get somewhere. And they’ve actually looked me up, found me [inaudible 00:04:30] and I’m more than happy to give time for these kind of people, because at some stage I did the same thing when I was 20 21 23 years old and I love giving back, and making sure, I love seeing other people succeed. I’ve got two young guys in my office that have never done real estate. One of them worked at McDonald’s and one of them worked as a carpenter, and now they’re becoming one of the most top agents that are little bit sought after in the last three or four months in my office. And they’ve only worked there for seven months.

I had never had that training when I started, Never, no one put that time into me. But I love seeing other people succeed and I love giving back at the same time. It’s not all about the money but if you had to itemise it’s a money productive thing to need to put your time in, And the clients that need you more and others you need to fit them in, you need to give back to the community because, remember, when people sell in a community they are giving to you so you need to give back.

Kevin:  Tomorrow with Malek, we’ll have a look at his list-to-sell ratio which is well above the top 100 average it can tell you. And we’ll also talk about his feedback to sellers in the event that he finds someone who’s not, maybe, as motivated as you thought. That’s tomorrow when Malek returns.

from Real Estate Uncut http://bit.ly/2CVZ09Q