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tojiluv · 2 days

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EYES DON'T LIE — choso kamo [chapter ten]

description: in which a girl unwittingly becomes involved with a handsome stranger in a club, oblivious to his true identity of being in a famous boyband… OR in which you and Choso must conceal your secret meetings from your friends and his bandmates, especially from his younger brother and your best friend, Yuji.

warnings: nsfw MDNI. fem! receiving. vaginal fingering. praising. doing it in the car. swearing. choso calls you 'angel' & 'pretty'. choso's a tease.

notes: i know i said i come back in two weeks but that didn't happen lol, so sorry! i'm back now and hope this chapter makes up for it, especially for being the longest chapter i wrote (4000+ words). this is my first time writing some form of smut, so bear with me as it may be cringe.

Yuji was home.

Yuji's return sent shockwaves through the house, jolting you and Choso into a frenzy of panic. Adrenaline coursed through your veins, propelling you to disentangle from Choso with a racing heart, desperately attempting to compose yourself.

Choso's eyes widened in alarm, his mind racing for a solution as he cast furtive glances between you and the entrance. "Shit, hide!" he stated urgently, his voice barely audible amidst the impending footsteps, while he frantically attempted to groom his disheveled appearance.

Grabbing your bag, you hurried towards the nearest door, your mind racing to find a hiding spot with limited options. With no choice, you slipped into a nearby closet near the kitchen entrance, your heart pounding as you closed the door behind you with a barely audible click. In the darkness of the closet, you pressed a hand over your mouth, struggling to steady your breathing as you strained to listen for any indication of Yuji's presence. Outside, you heard the muffled sound of Choso's greeting, his voice strained as he feigned nonchalance.

"Hey, Yuji! Back so soon," Choso remarked, his tone forced and unconvincing.

"Yeah, the game ended early. Thought I'd swing by and relax," Yuji replied, his footsteps drawing closer to the living room where Choso awaited.

Your heart raced even faster at the approach of Yuji's footsteps, dread pooling in the pit of your stomach as you silently prayed that he wouldn't uncover your hiding place. Peering through the slits of the doorway, you watched as your best friend casually dropped onto the couch, tossing his bag aside with a heavy sigh.

Meanwhile, Choso attempted to maintain his composure, engaging Yuji in conversation to divert his attention away from your concealed presence. Yet, beneath his facade, you detected the strain in his voice, a palpable tension mirroring your anxiety.

Choso quickly glanced at your hiding spot before turning his attention to his brother, feeling a bit relieved that he was distracting Yuji. He knew the risk of being involved with you, especially as Yuji's best friend, but he was willing to take that chance. Everything had been going well, and he was determined to keep it that way.

"I thought you were crashing at Megumi’s tonight?" He inquired, trying to coax his brother out of the room and assist your escape.

Yuji glanced away from the TV, his brow furrowing in response. "Didn’t you want me to come back after the game?"

Choso cursed inwardly, realizing his mistake. Indeed, he had instructed Yuji to return home post-game. If only he had known about your arrival beforehand, he would have urged his brother to prolong his absence indefinitely, especially considering the recent developments between you and him moments earlier.

Meanwhile, you attempted to remain utterly still, refraining from making any sudden movements, alarmed even to shift within the confines of the cramped closet. Your gaze remained fixed on the sibling duo, observing Choso's persistent attempts to usher Yuji away.

Yuji scrutinized his older brother, his expression puzzled. "Are you alright?" he asked, noticing Choso's unease.

The older male nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, why?"

"Because you're acting all jittery," Yuji pointed out, his keen observation catching Choso off guard. He waved a dismissive hand, attempting to brush off his brother's concern.

"Nothing's wrong, just thinking about something. Don't worry about it," he replied, hoping to divert his attention elsewhere.

Yuji hummed, though he was not entirely convinced, he opted not to pursue the matter further. Shifting in his seat, he felt an unfamiliar object pressing against his back, retrieving it from beneath the couch cushions. As he held up the item to inspect it, Choso and your hearts plummeted.

A Cherry Flavoured Lip Gloss.

"What's this?" Yuji asked, scrutinizing the lip gloss before turning his gaze towards his brother for an explanation.

Your eyes widened in realization, fumbling through your skirt pockets only to confirm that the lip gloss in question indeed belonged to you. It must have slipped out during the make-out session with Choso on the couch, the intensity of which had him tugging at your clothing.

"Shit…!" You mouthed, worried by the unfolding scene. However, matters only escalated as your previous movements accidentally shifted a broom, causing it to collide with the closet wall with an unmistakable clang.

You stifle a gasp, your heart pounding furiously, as both Choso and Yuji swivel their heads toward the source of the disturbance. One wears a concerned expression, while the other's face contorts with dread, drained of color by the knowing sound.

"What was that?" Yuji questioned, rising from his seat.

As Yuji began to investigate, you held your breath, every passing second feeling endless and dreadful. The closet felt increasingly suffocating, the darkness closing in as you awaited the approaching confrontation. At one point, it felt as though your eyes met Yuji's through the doorway as his hand was inching towards the closet door. You instinctively pushed deeper into the confined space, your stomach churning at the thought of facing your best friend.

"It's mine!"

Choso interjected loudly, blurting out anything to stop his brother's movements.

Yuji turned around, tilting his head curiously. "Huh?"

"The lip gloss, it’s, uh.. mine…" Choso mumbled, his cheeks aflame with embarrassment.

"...Really?" Yuji's skepticism was noticed as he inspected his brother.

Choso nodded curtly, averting his gaze in mortification. "Y-yeah! I’m experimenting with a new look for the upcoming tour."

If only you weren’t in the closet, you might have laughed at Choso's awkwardness. Yuji merely nodded, though there was still some uncertainty. Sensing his brother's weariness, he let it go, thinking Choso's strange behavior was just because he was tired.

He moved away from the closet door, giving you a moment of relief, and gave the lip gloss back to Choso, who quickly put it in his pocket, his cheeks turning slightly pink.

"Well, I won’t judge you for that," The youngest chuckled. "I'm heading upstairs to get some rest. Are you staying down here?"

Choso let out a tired sigh, exhausted by everything that had happened. He shook his head and said, "No, I think I'll go out for a bit. I'll be back soon."

“Alright then. Stay safe, big bro!”

As the pink-haired male climbed the stairs and said goodbye to his brother, he vanished from sight. Finally, the sound of Yuji's fading footsteps brought a wave of relief, and you slumped against the closet wall, letting out a shaky breath.

Outside, Choso quietly exhales, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion. "That was way too close," he murmured, his voice barely audible from where you stood.

You stayed silent, wrestling with the weight of the close call. The realization of the dangerous situation you had narrowly avoided washed over you, along with a surge of guilt. What were you doing, sneaking around with your best friend's brother behind his back? However, amid your self-reproach, you couldn't ignore the inexplicable attraction that had drawn you to Choso, like a moth to a flame. The memory of his lips on yours, his touch sparking a passion within you—it lingered, weaving a spell that defied rationality.

Outside, Choso's voice pierced through your thoughts, breaking the hold of your internal turmoil. "Are you okay?" he asked, his tone soft with concern.

"I'll manage," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper. "But what now?"

Choso glanced towards the staircase before cautiously opening the closet door. His gaze lingered on your lips, noticing a hint of misplaced lip gloss staining your skin, before returning to meet your eyes.

"I'll take you home," he stated simply, though his conflicted expression betrayed his words. "It's best to avoid any further complications with Yuji around."

You inwardly sighed, acknowledging that he was right, as you swiftly emerged from the closet, hurrying towards the front door with Choso in tow, grabbing his keys.

Disappointment gnawed at you, realizing that your attraction to the dark-haired male had only deepened, though now you were uncertain if you would get another chance to pursue it.

The car sliced through the darkness, tension thickening the air. You stared out the window, watching the lights blur past, lost in your thoughts. Confidence had deserted you when Yuji returned home, leaving you too shy to speak to the man beside you.

Choso's grip on the steering wheel tightened, his jaw clenched with resolve. Annoyance creased his features, stark against his usual carefree demeanor. You couldn’t tell if he was annoyed by the sudden predicament or regretting your earlier interaction.

The silence hung heavy, broken only by the engine's hum and your heart pounding. Each moment dragged on, tension and desire simmering beneath the surface. As the car slowed to a stop outside your apartment complex, you felt his gaze linger on you. Unbuckling your seatbelt, you turned to face him, your gaze lowered.

Then Choso spoke up, his lips twitching slightly. "Cherry lip gloss, huh?"

You looked up at him, perplexed. "What?"

He fished the item from his pocket, handing it to you with a small smirk as your eyes widened. Reaching for it, your fingers brushed against his for a fleeting moment before you pulled back.

"Oh, yeah..." you muttered, examining the product before sighing. You felt a bit deflated from the previous encounter, yet it seemed like Choso knew exactly what you were thinking.

He chuckled softly, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes as he glanced at the cherry lip gloss in your hand. "Well, I guess we can say that's one way to leave a lasting impression," he quipped, a playful smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.

You chuckled a bit, nodding in agreement. It struck you how such a small thing had left a memorable impact for both of you, despite the fear you both felt in that moment. You were grateful that Choso took the situation lightly, easing the tension with his playful banter. As a result, you felt your shoulders relax, the weight of the previous tension dissipating.

"I don’t know what to say, but I’m sorry if I caused any problems for you," you said, wanting to make sure he wasn’t upset.

“No need to apologize. You didn’t cause anything, so don’t think like that,” he reassured you. Choso leaned back in his seat, ruffling his hair that was out of his usual style before gracing you with a grin. “Then again, I do believe you owe me one,”

You raised a brow, crossing your arms. “What for?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, I did tell Yuji that it was my lip gloss,” Choso admitted with a smirk, recalling the earlier exchange.

You remembered that but decided to play along. Humming, you shrugged, “I never heard you say that. Are you sure this isn’t exactly yours?” Choso scoffed, seeing through your playful act. “You’re funny. But nope, it's not mine. I ain’t a cherry type of guy.”

“What’s wrong with cherries?” you mused. Despite being home, you didn’t even think about leaving, not wanting the night to end just yet as you continued to engage with the older male.

He shrugged, “Nothing, just not my preference.”

“Well, I think you’re missing out. It's one of the best flavors to use,” you stated, opening the tube to apply a bit on your lips since it was rubbed off earlier. Unbeknownst to you, Choso gazed at your lips as you applied the product before closing it and putting it away.

He hummed, tilting his head before shifting closer. “Really? If you say so, maybe I should try it.”

You were a bit surprised but didn’t question him before pulling the lip gloss from your purse without a thought. “Oh, sure! Just be careful with the– Hmph!”

Choso's sudden movement caught you off guard as he leaned closer, his breath warm against your skin. Before you could react, his lips captured yours in a gentle yet intense kiss, sending a jolt of electricity coursing through your veins.

Time seemed to stand still as you melted into the kiss, the world fading away until there was nothing but the heat of his lips against yours, the soft brush of his fingers against your cheek. The taste of cherry lip gloss lingered on your lips, a sweet contrast to the fiery passion that ignited between you.

In that moment, nothing else mattered except the intoxicating sensation of being lost in each other, the weight of the world lifted as you surrendered to the irresistible pull of desire.

As the kiss deepened, a soft sigh escaped your lips that mingled with Choso's ragged breaths. Every touch, every caress spoke of longing and longing, a silent promise of the passion that simmered just beneath the surface.

The kiss soon turned into a heated session, your hands gripping his hair to pull him closer before moaning in his mouth as his hands slid down your backside to land on your skirt, gripping your ass in the process. Not caring for any peering eyes, you moved across the console to jump into his seat, maneuvering onto his lap as he roughly pulled your body against his own, the kiss barely breaking off. Your body felt too hot in a way that you didn’t want to lose the feeling, continuing to chase each other’s lips with much urgency.

You didn’t expect this to happen at all, especially after the incident with Yuji, as you thought maybe Choso didn’t want this to continue due to the close call. Yet, he proved you wrong, and you were glad he did, especially from the way he made sure to show you.

Pulling back a bit to catch your breath, Choso took the opportunity to glide his lips against your neck, nicking and licking at any surface he could get as you whimpered from the sensation. You could feel his lips tug up against your pulsing neck, knowing he was grinning from the way you reacted to him. Your body shifted, grinding against his lap, feeling that prominent area rising from your movements as Choso let out a low groan.

Your hand left his hair to grip his chin, pulling him away from your neck to capture his plump lips back to yours, humming in contentment from the way he felt against you.

Feeling his hands move past your skirt bottom, you knew what he was implying and were eager to feel it, too lost in the feeling of his touch. Choso pulled back from the kiss, his breath heaving a bit as his eyes were narrowed with a tint of desire swirling in his dark purple eyes. His other hand lightly tapped your waist as he tilted his head, amused from seeing your desperate expression of wanting to be touched.

”You want me to touch you, hm?”

You nodded fiercely, shifting your body lower to obtain some friction to attend where you needed it the most. But Choso wasn’t taking that as an answer.

“Use your words, angel.”

His words sent another wave of electricity through you as you gulped, trying to not melt into a puddle from the way he was looking at you. Swallowing the saliva that collected in your throat, you managed to speak, voice raspy from the heat that pooled in the bottom of your stomach. You tried to grind on him once more, whining as he kept you still by tightening his grip, a chuckle escaping his lips as he tsked.

"All you need to do is say the words and I'll give you whatever you want.” His deep, husky voice sent another jolt through you, the heat growing stronger and making you almost feel lightheaded.

"Choso, I.." Your voice trailed off, feeling a bit too shy and embarrassed at the situation to continue. But he was persistent, continuing to stare at you with an expecting look.

His thumb caressed the corner of your tinted cherry lips, waiting for your answer patiently. "Come on, angel. Don't go quiet on me now."

Gasping out as his other hand softly pushed and rubbed against your core, you bit your lip and allowed your eyes to flutter, needing him so badly.

This was torture.

“Please..” you whined lowly, rubbing your hands up and down his clothed chest.

He hummed. “Please, what?”

”Please touch me, Choso!”

Choso smirked proudly and cupped his hands against you, pushing your underwear to the side as his fingers skillfully spread apart your throbbing and dripping core. Just a single press against your cunt made you twitch and squirm, eager to feel more. He slid his finger up and down for a bit, enjoying the reactions he pulled from you, anticipating to see you come undone by his hands. He placed a finger against your swollen clit, pressing and rubbing against it a bit harsh and fast, causing you to buck into his hand at the sudden sensation.

“Already so wet for me,”

He glanced at you, keeping eye contact as pleasure spread throughout your body. You wanted more, needed more from the older man under you. You let out an airy gasp as he pressed further into your skin, pushing for more friction that made you shiver as you could feel yourself becoming more wet, watching him through your heavy eyelids.

His eyes, God, his eyes.

He never once looked away as he continued to torture you with his touch, not wanting to miss any reaction he received. Choso loved it all and didn’t want it to stop.

"Please, Choso... Stop teasing..."

You grind yourself further onto his hand, an action Choso couldn't ignore, especially the way your arousal coated his fingers. With a small nibble on the tip of your ear and his hand traveling up the front of your body, slipping underneath the shirt you were wearing to tighten his grip, you began to roll your hips along his wrist, silently begging for him to fuck you with his hands.

He eventually caved, curling two of his fingers inside your slit, the stretch adding another dimension of pleasure and turning you into a wailing mess. A drawn-out moan was heard throughout the entire car as you thrashed on top, back arching against the car’s steering wheel and fingers digging into his clothes.

"Look at you. So responsive and beautiful. Just for me."

His deep voice sent another shudder down your spine, your thighs quivering and threatening to close shut around his hand. Your hands moved towards his shoulders, gripping and holding onto them for dear life.

You couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. All that mattered was his fingers stretching out your cunt.

Choso watched in pure lust and hunger, a fire igniting inside him as his hand worked and pumped against your slit. You looked like a goddess with the way you were riding him, the way your lips parted and let out such sweet sounds, the way your chest heaved, the way your eyes were hazed over with pleasure, the way your nails dug into his shoulder, the way your head leaned forward and rested against his chest.

It was an erotic sight. And only he could see you like this.

You felt his thumb circle against your sensitive bud, the pressure sending a shiver of pleasure coursing through your body. It felt so good, and the feeling of his fingers moving inside of you made it even better. You couldn't help but let out a small whimper as his thumb pressed against the nub harder.

"You like that?" His voice was low and husky, sending a shiver down your spine. You couldn't do anything except moan and nod, too overwhelmed with the sensations running through your body. His fingers curled inside of you as your walls clenched around his touch, your breath coming out in ragged gasps.

“More..” You whisper breathlessly, too focused on the feeling to not notice his cunning grin.

“More, huh?”

How could he say no to your pretty demands?

It felt better than you expected as he picked up the pace, adding a third finger, slamming himself into your wet walls and pressing deep and far as his thumb rubbed against your swollen bud, sending your mind spiraling.

“Yes.. yes! Fuck, just like that!” you whimpered, a hand gripping the back of his head while the other slid down his shirt, feeling how toned his chest was and how it felt familiar in your hands.

His fingers continued to pound into you, deep inside your cunt until he curled them upwards, hitting that certain spot that made you moan much louder than before, panting heavily. Opening your eyes, you made eye contact with his heavy-lidded ones that swelled with much yearning from your position. Despite the position, you suddenly became shy from the intense contact before shoving your face into his neck, planting kisses that made him tilt his head for you to get more room as he sighed from the feeling of your lips.

He kept hitting all the right spots that made your toes curl and lips press harder into his irritated skin, letting out a few curses to show how much he affected you deeply with just a touch of his hand.

“S-shit, Choso.. Right there!” You paused the assault on his neck, placing your forehead on his broad shoulders for support, concentrating immensely on the sensation. The only thing keeping you from falling apart was his arm that gripped your waist firmly to hold you up.

The vulgar wet sounds of your cunt were loud, echoing through the car that filled with gasps and moans. The slurping sound of the wetness and the feeling of your velvet walls fueled Choso’s desire to make you cum on his lap. He groaned at the way your pussy swallowed his fingers whole, showing him just how much he affects you with just three fingers, and thought about how different it would be if it was cock inside you right now instead of his hands.

Fuck me. Choso knew the next time he saw you, he certainly wouldn't be only using his hands and especially, won’t be doing it in the car.

You suddenly felt that familiar feeling approaching, causing you to move your hips to align with his movements, chasing that exciting sensation as you moaned out his name.

“I’m so close… I– Ahh, Choso!”

This woman… Just the way you moaned his name got his cock stiffening harder than before, causing him to sweat a bit more from your shameless words that filled the car with your scent and breath. He could feel your walls clenching against his fingers as he continued to pound faster causing you to pull away from his shoulder, knowing you were approaching your climax.

You suddenly felt him release two of his fingers out of you, leaving only one as you whined from the loss of contact till you gasped. He replaced the loss with his fingers circling your clit faster to make you cum, leaving you in a moaning mess from the adrenaline. Eyes closed, you withered against his aggressive but fluttering touch. “Choso..!”

“Look at me…”

Yet, you didn’t hear his words at first, too focused on chasing your high. You felt the pressure building inside of you, something that you've felt once before with the very same man in the car at a different time.

You were close, so close.

"C-Choso.. I'm.."

He knew what you meant, his pace picking up as he pumped his fingers inside of you, his thumb circling your bud in a quicker motion. You were so close, the pressure rising inside you. You felt his other hand grip the back of your head, pushing it forward to his face as he repeated himself.

“Open your eyes for me, pretty.”

His deep tone forced your eyes to peel open, maintaining such passionate eye contact that your body withered from the tension. You knew at that moment that he wanted to keep his eyes on you, to watch you cum messily all over his hands.

And then, with a few more strokes of his fingers and a flick to your sensitive clit, it finally came undone.

The feeling washed over you as your body quivered, not paying attention to anything but the man in front of you that made you feel like you were on cloud nine. You didn’t even notice that your movements buckled you to hit the horn on the wheel behind you for a second, too lost in your overstimulating pleasure.

“That’s it, cum for me.”

You let out a loud moan as your walls clenched around his fingers, waves of pleasure crashing over you as you rode out your orgasm. Choso continued pumping his fingers inside of you, his thumb still circling your bud. You could feel your juices coating his fingers as they continued to work inside of you.

As you calmed down from the high, your chest heaved with small breaths as your tired eyes laid heavily against Choso's intense and dark purple orbs, the gaze making you shudder a bit.

"Fuck, you're so beautiful."

Choso's lips roughly found yours as his fingers slipped out, a groan of protest leaving you from the empty feeling. But his lips distracted you as he placed a hand on the side of your cheek, tilting your head back as his tongue found its way inside. The feeling of his tongue exploring and swirling against your own had you weak, knees buckling and nearly falling back if it wasn't for Choso's arm that caught you.

As you finally pulled away, breathless and flushed with desire, you found yourself gazing back into Choso's eyes that reflected the same hunger and lust that burned within your heart. For a moment, you simply sat there, lost in the aftermath of the kiss, the world around you fading into insignificance as you revel in the intoxicating rush of emotions that pulsed through your veins.

Your thoughts paused, breath hitched as you watched Choso bring the very same fingers that were just inside of you to place on his wetted lips. Sucking on each one individually to get a taste of you, he hummed in delight before pulling them out, licking his lips.

Choso leaned back in his seat with a satisfied smirk. "Well, I guess that settles it," he utters, wiping the smudge gloss from your lips.

"Cherries aren't so bad after all."

⇽ chapter nine | chapter eleven ⇾

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pliablehead · 7 months

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I guess if I want to write a travelogue/write up post about my 4-stop journey following the first chunk of Everything Everything's 2023 US tour then I have to just... do it!! If this is of interest to anyone other than me then GREAT and if not then it's still special to me to try to write down and remember everything I can uwu

FIRST STOP WASHINGTO-- wait, no, actually, first stop, on my way out of town, the local donut shop in my neighborhood, a place that I absolutely adore and patronize all the time with staff who mostly know me by now/some of whom are my instagram friends/etc. i'd checked with the Pittsburgh venue ahead of time to see if it was okay to send in outside food as a gift to the band even though they have a cafe/bar in their own right, and whoever I corresponded with said it would be totally fine, so I talked to the donut shop manager and set up a delivery of a dozen for the lads for Saturday before their show here. advance paid for that, as well as getting my own breakfast and coffee hehe, and then hit the road. OKAY FOR REAL FIRST STOP WASHINGTON DC!!! This was the second-longest leg of my Car Driving and it was definitely a wee bit exhausting but I had a podcast or two and a ton of E E on shuffle to bolster me through and I made it to my mom's friends' house, where I was staying, with relative ease. The venue was within a not-too-unreasonable walking distance too so after a change of clothes (I had very distinct and deliberate Show Outfits for each night that were fully separate from my travelin' clothes) and a bunch of fussing with the bracelets™ I headed over!! stopped for empanadas and a smoothie on the way and then queued up!!

aaaaahh this was such a nice fun queue. I was maybe about a dozen-ish people back from the front, down about half a block, and once I finished scarfing down my food this was my first real experience with doling out the bracelets. so fun! I'm glad it was basically an instant hit! AND I even got a few trades in this queue--one person gave me a Man Alive / Tin / E E bracelet with teeny tiny beads, super fun, and one person with a SHITTON of kandi stuff gave me one that had the name of a flower genus on it?? i think they said it was?? I love the colors on this one! And one person traded me a Blow Pop. lmao. I should eat that before it sits in my fanny pack for too long. I also really enjoyed chatting with the two guys right in front of me (Nick and Alex?), who were from south-central PA and had a couple other fandom touchstones in common with me (mcelroys/dnd/BDG! I love this Venn diagram!!) as well as a big love for E E. We didn't really see much of each other beyond the point of getting inside but I liked y'all a lot!! Hope you had as great a time as I did!!

Black Cat is where I saw E E the first time I EVER SAW THEM, which was almost exactly six years ago from this gig, which is insaaaane. The space is kind of narrow so there's not a huge amount of stage barrier space right at the front, so Becky and I ended up pretty much at the front but almost aa-all the way stage left/Jeremy-side. coulda been worse hehehe. We kind of loitered and chatted with nearby folks, I think maybe becky checked out merch ahead of the show ? but I kind of just held down the fort, enjoying setup stuff, pete running around etc hehe. getting BLASTED by the AC, which was nice.

the ummmm the opener! our first experience with Pierre! I gotta say his general style is not for me, despite the fact that I do think he's very talented and good at the thing he's doing. this first night especially he was SO sweaty and I felt bad for him lmao, you could like see it dripping off him. i am so curious as to why/how he got paired with the boys for this tour, like, what aligned in such a way that this match was made, because my general vibe on the crowd/his audience/etc was that we the fans of the nerdy white english mathy rocker guys were not exactly his demo LOL. BUT i will say in DC I do think he had one little pocket of strong-contingency fans because I kept hearing big whoops and cheers coming from one specific audience spot and I loved that for him lmao. for some reason i cannot explain I actually almost found his backing/support musician guy (the guy who was basically his version of peter) more compelling. I wanna know THAT dude's story lol.

so when he finished up we had a little interlude aaaannndd the setlist appeared... hehe. I could def have peered up to look at it from where I was, but I was telling myself I wanted to be surprised, and was deliberately looking away........ until suddenly everyone around me was gasping and going HOLY SHIT and I was like, ugghhh okay, I will check JUST enough to figure out what that's all about, and what that was all about was immediately apparent because smack in the middle of the set were a Man Alive track (which we never get in the states bar MY KZ) and something that just said "New Song." AND LIKE, OKAY, THAT'S A JUSTIFIED HOLY SHIT. new song????? so now we had THAT to contend with coming up, and aaaaaaah. ahh. yeah holy shit indeed.

it's also while we're standing there that AG pops into view, (or maybe I first spotted him during Pierre's set? Chronology is irrelevant), back off behind Becky from me in the other direction, and we waved over at him to say hi and he says to us, "All four of them are bleached blond." And my gut instinct was to be like, I DON'T BELIEVE YOU, but also the truth in my heart was that there was absolutely no justification for not believing them, because of course they would, and sure enough these bozos roll out onto the stage and they are all four draco malfoy-ass bleach blond. God it looks a mess on Jeremy LOL and while the color/dye job wasn't bad on Alex, it was clear his finer hair wasn't holding up as well against the chemicals because it was just a fluffy riot mess. BUT GOD IT WAS REALLY SO INCREDIBLY STRIKING OF A VISUAL for them to be all be wearing all pure white/beige clothes and then to have this bleach-white hair and all of it catching and glowing under the stage lights... god... clearly the effect they were going for and it WORKED, IT REALLY DID. I think it looks so damn goofy (mostly on jez) out of context but it's ABSOLUTELY nailing the Everything Everything Gig Costumes energy/uniform thing that I felt like they'd drifted away from a little the past couple tour cycles, I'm so incredibly here for it

The set!!!! The gig!!!!!!! it wasn't a wildly different set from what we'd seen in CA last year, obviously RDF-heavy supplemented with a heaping helping of singles from the other albums too, but I remember thinking Leviathan and Pizza Boy were especially excellent aaaah. And Schoolin'! And the NEW SONG! The two pieces of it I IMMEDIATELY absorbed and retained were 'the image of a little yellow face to tell you that I'm sorry' and 'I love you like an atom bomb,' and I was spouting those two pieces back to anyone who wanted to talk to me about it for the rest of the night. I'm so lyrics-pilled/vocalist-biased. Which was.... Unfortunate, for this DC gig, because I do think the audio mix was pretty rough - at least from where we were standing so close to the front, I wonder if it was at least a tiny bit better further back into the crowd in the area the sound system was probably primarily calibrated for - and we were REALLY losing Jon in the mix, especially underneath how enthusiastically the crowd was singing along a lot of the time. We were on Jeremy's side of the stage and we were really just getting a LOT of Jeremy. (Which, the bass did sound absolutely fantastic, so hard to complain about that, at least, but still.) I was very thankful to be going to a few more gigs beyond this one so that this wasn't my only experience with it, especially New Song!!! Plus there were a bunch of other little tech difficulties too? Near the beginning of the new song, Jon's guitar strap came detached and wouldn't reconnect, and after struggling a bit with that he decided to just drift back and pass it off the stage to their tech guy--but he was still kind of singing/holding the mic, so as he moved on stage, the mic cable yanked the microphone stand straight over, too. Then the rest of the night that stand was pretty precarious and nearly fell two other times, only caught at the last minute by a true homie who was standing directly in front of it in the audience lmao. I think Becky yelled HIRE HIM! at one point. Annnnd also for like a whole verse of NOTLK jez's bass boards just kind of Gave Up. He tried switching to his other instrument but that wasn't working either, and then finally it all sort of came back online, so he played a little stretch with the wrong bass and then was able to switch back to the right bass when there was a lull in his part. SHAMBLES. lmfao. god it was a great gig though. SO FUCKING GOOD TO BE BACK I LOVE BAND UWAAAAAHH I WAS SO SWEATY AND HAPPY

afterrrr da gig, we needed very badly to drink water and so we managed to do that I believe, and we kind of loitered in the Merch Line Situation trying to figure out what was going on. I had kind of resolved not to buy merch until at least NY, part because I really didn't want to be lugging anything around with me for too much of my trip (esp on this night where I walked) and part because I'd read a post that Irving Plaza was among the venues who'd committed to not taking a cut of band merch sales and letting them keep it all, and I was like, well obvi that's where I want to spend my money. Plus it was cash only in DC and since I'd kind of told myself NY I didn't even have cash out, so it was nothing. BUT!!! homie Adrian whomst I had met at the DC Foals show last December had been there, a few people ahead of me in the queue and also rocking out yaayyy, and he was trying to get merch but the ATM inside the venue literally did not have any more cash left inside it to dispense because everyone was taking out so much of it to buy merch AAAH. so he reached out to me like 'you're going to more shows than just this one right?' and asked if I'd pick him up the stuff he wanted later and then mail it to him so he didn't have to contend with international shipping and I was like aaaah absolutely! yay gig comradeship!

so I think becky finally committed to getting in the merch line and I was mostly just waiting With Becky and there weren't a ton of people left because the venue was trying to clear out, but the handful of us who were still there, a wild Alex Robertshaw appeared up near the stage/bar. we vibed out whether he was receptive to Fan Bothering at this time but it seemed legit, so a bunch of us went over and socialized with him and took some pics, got some signatures, etc, woooo. We tried to vibe out from him also if the other guys were gonna be coming out, and when and where, but y'all know Alex is the awkwardest member of this band by a country mile and we didn't really have too coherent of a discourse at this point in time lmao. Not sure who talked to him about what at this point as I was just trying to hold down the fort and be Normal. I was able to give Alex the bracelet I'd made for him at this point (he was so cute studying on it and reading it ahaha - "rave-- kevin-- kevins rave KEVIN'S RAVE" and he smiled and I felt cool), and also meanwhile Pete was still running around stage doing roadietech type stuff and I sort of politely flagged him down like "do what you need to do if you need to do it but also: Hi lol" and I got to give him his bracelet as well! yay ♥. He complimented my shirt--I'd been getting a lot of compliments on it honestly, it's their Yellow Bird Project shirt that Jon designed some time ago, only I replaced the plain white sleeves of the original unisex tee with some sort of vermilion "girly fit" sleeves that are more comfy to me and kind of give the shirt a different look haha--and I sort of joked on that, said as much, oh, I swapped the sleeves out, "It's to cover up how sweaty I get." and Pete gave me a deadpan look and went "You don't even want to go there with me" and I was like "YEP I FEEL MUCH THE SAME" and I think we both enjoyed a moment of feeling very Seen about the sweatiness hehehehehe. I love Pete he is my heckin Friend With no additional merch purchases (merchases) (hm, no) the venue was finally for realsies ejecting us so we drifted back out into the streets and just like... okay... now what........ this was the point at which I think our Band Groupie-ing Crew became me, Becky, Danielle in the fox ears/tail, and a lanky youth named S.P. whom I'd talked to in line earlier while doling out bracelets (he had the good E E baseball cap; he asked for an Arc bracelet and I commended him for being an Arc fan, since I feel like they are a dwindling/rarer breed, and then I offered up my hot take that Violent Sun is just the second coming and second pass at Duet, which he thought was spicy, and then he asked for my most controversial E E take and I told him that I don't really like Tin very much and he told me he doesn't really like Shark Week very much and we agreed to disagree and have a good night LOL) (anyway I digress !). It was a warm enough night and none of us really had places to be so we didn't mind just loitering and trying to suss out some more Guys other than just Alex and Pete, but slowly but surely we became basically the only fans left sticking it out. so we stuck together! We split up to try to find if there was a rear stage door at the back and SP and I went one way (the long way RIP) and Becky and Danielle went the other way and it turns out the way that SP and I went was an alleyway just FULL of rats. Too many rats in DC!! People like to talk about rats in NYC but I saw WAY more in Washington just vibing out on the sidewalks and eating trash. I'm not anti-rat, they live there and deserve to live, but oh man it was just. I did not especially want a rat encounter LOL. The rat alley DID actually lead us to where the bus was though!!, but there was also a venue security guy there who was immediately like "Nope, back up, leave, bye" and we were like. understood have a nice day, and doubled around a different way to meet back up with the other two. wwwwelp.

We loitered a bunch more and eventually saw Alex and his homies like, AT LEAST two more times, but we ultimately never saw anyone else. They p much confirmed for us that because this was the first night of the tour, they had a really intense load-out, and everyone was jetlagged to all fuck, that they probably wouldn't ever make it out, even though at least once Alex had said something ambiguous/optimistic enough to imply that they might yet, but really it just got SO late that we couldn't justify still being there for nothing instead of being like. asleep. lol. SP and Danielle got rideshares, Becky and I walked back as far as her hotel together, and then I hiked the rest of my way back too and went the fuck to SLEEP!!! FIRST GIG IN THE BOOKS!! WHAT A LOVELY NIGHT GOD IT WAS JUST SO BEAUTIFUL TO BE SEEING THEM AGAIN ngl I think the blond is really attractive on Mike with his darker brows/beard and I'm always a sl*t for jonathan so like. beautiful. finally some delicious fucking food

it was super nice of my mom's friend to let me stay with him!!! I was so delighted to see his cats again, I remembered them from the last time I was there like six or so years ago, they're sooooo floofy and beautiful aahh. he also provided me with a white noise fan without me even asking which was SO choice. zzzzz. My plan was to get up in the morning, get coffee someplace nearby at wherever he recommended, and then hit the road forrrr... Philadelphia!!! Night two!!!! I got some breakfast tacos at a hella legit place, messed up my coffee/milk/sugar ratio ever so slightly but not in an undrinkable way, and then frickin. autobot rolled out. This drive was not bad at ALL, I timed it pretty much exactly like I planned it to, which was to: get to my friend's place where I was crashing in philly with, ideally, enough time to take a small nap before I had to do anything else, because, god, despite being pretty exhausted and sleeping okay on the nice guest bed in DC, I had BARELY slept the night before I left just from Travel Antsiness and from both staying up way later and waking up way earlier than I meant to unintentionally, and a second little recharge zzz before I went and did it all over again really hit the spot.

It was soooo nice to see Mads again and to see Mr. Angus and also meet BENNY!! More host cats!! They are suuuch silly good little lads, Mads and I had a ton of Kitty Chat and just vibing out and talking about concerts and fandom and stuff, I was so thankful she let me stay with her and getting to hang out was icing on the cake of this trip! She pointed me toward the trolley I'd need to take to get to the venue, and after my baby snzzz and drinking a ton of water and suiting up in my Arc-inspired look (literally just a sweatshirt dress I bought specifically because it was color-blocked very very much like the jackets/outfits they toured Arc in, I saw it and bought it immediately lmfao) I journeyed into the city, hoping to just find a place to eat in the vicinity of the gig! I was way closer up in the queue this time, the people in front of me were really just like.... the usual suspects, Annika+squad and David+squad (incl. Becky, who'd apparently already been there when I got there but wasn't there when I arrived), and also a super-nice woman immediately in front of me named Robin who I MEGA hit it off with!!! Hanging out with her was such an awesome part of my experience at this gig!!! she's COMPLETELY Offline which is so powerful for her but I hope there's some capacity in which we can continue to be friends because she ruled.

There was a Dominican(? I think) place like one block down from the venue where a couple in front of me had gotten some stuff and so I ran down there to snag food too and holy shit this man gave me so much goddamn food. Just a HUGE pile of rice and beans and some pork ribs, and I got a pineapple fanta, and I just popped a squat on the sidewalk and ate as much of it as I could which was probably not even half of what he gave me but it wasn't even that expensive so god bless. Once I wasn't dealing with my food sitch any more I was freed up to pass out a bunch of bracelets again, and I even got a couple more trades, one that was just a bunch of black beads and a bunch of Xs and one that says 'BUSSY' which I am elated about, thank you so fucking much lmao. Also someone offered to trade me an ibuprofen LOL and I was like no that's fine the bracelet can be free... for now, but I will keep that in mind if I change my mind later LOL aaahhh i was just so excited to give the bracelets out it was such a good vector for socializing and making Friends and Gig Buddies. I did learn p quickly at Philly that I should have made way more Man Alive, GTH, and Raw Data feel bracelets because those were basically the first to go every night and then I got stuck with just sad unloved Re-Animators and AFDs :( I was trying to like! do equal amounts of everything to give everything the love because I love them all! but people got favorites out there damn lmao. I was happy to be able to give Robin the MY KZ one because she said that's the first song she ever heard by them and it's special to her because of that (and then also it's been in the touring set and she got to hear them perform it too yay!!! I don't remember if she said she'd seen them before but it had just been a very very long time, or what, idk, aaaah).

We were R I G H T on the stage at this venue, slightly more to Alex's side this time, and the lip/rise of the stage was not very high at ALL and it felt almost like... intimidating, or like it shouldn't have been ALLOWED, for us to be that close to the stage. :flushed emoji: jeez lmao. I didn't fuck w merch here either but some people around me did I think and I held their spots, and a nice kid from right behind me in the queue brought me a Liquid Death which was so incredibly sweet. Pierre's set passed much as it had in DC, lmao; his other musician guy had a sweet fit on, though, this like two-piece set that was a really really dark/muted camo, a blazer over a black top and then matching like athleisure-fit pants and black boots, it was a fuckin look. They had a song at the very end of Pierre's Philly set that I don't think they'd done in DC (and that I didn't get in PGH either, it turned out), and ironically that was actually probably far and away the song of his I enjoyed the most, so I got kind of into it there at the end! but MAN was I ready to see the boys instead. hnnnn.

LADS SO CLOSE TO ME. JUST RIGHT THERE AND SINGING AND ROCKING. the set was aaaalmost exactly the same as DC, but in Philly they shifted Bad Friday up out of the encore and back into the set proper, and then replaced it in the encore with Violent Sun, which I admit I'd been bummed to not see in DC because I think the Violent Sun/No Reptiles encore double whammy is so incredibly crucial to the vibe. Warmed me to have it back in. Obviously Pittsburgh had so many other contributing factors that put it over the edge, but if it weren't for all of those, I think Philly would've been my favorite/best experience of these four gigs. Jon was spicy (he sang so many of the Original Rejected naughty lyrics, this is where we got 'he's a vegetable now' for the first and only time and also the only gig of the four where he leaned into the 'Arch Jeremy' gag in Arch Enemy, hehehehe, plus also motherfuckin' distant past which is not uncommon), and we got way more of the New Song-- through the whisper network of Becky, AG, David, etc., etc., we'd pieced together enough info to know by now that apparently the title of the song was in the lyrics of the chorus, and so I think it was in Philly that we all pretty much determined/decided that this was Cold Reactor. I love you like an atom bomb and I've become a cold reactor. I wasn't diving as DEEP into SONG DECIPHERING as some other folks were, but I did like kind of working on it at my own pace and absorbing it into my heart and my understanding of the band and what they're about to start doing, and so this was really great, for me, here, beautiful, beautiful. I took almost NO pics and vids at this one because my phone was kind of dying but also mostly just because I was honestly having such an enormously great time and I didn't feel the need to try to do anything other than be present in my body at the gig and experience it live. you KNOW?? LIKE!! MUSIC. man. EDIT TO ADD: I forgot to mention a small tech flub that was actually so charming, where near the very end of Arch Enemy jon seemed to be having trouble with his guitar board in the front, and he spent so long in the outro squinting down at it and trying to resolve the issue that he didn't fully come in on the It's time to show your face! bit at the proper time, and he ended up just saying "It's time to show your face." right into the mic very unaffected and straight-up in his regular speaking voice at the very, very end when the song was basically over. lol. he is cute. everyone is cute.

(I WILL ALSO SAY I got the giggles SO BAD at david and amanda's gudetama they slipped onto the stage, oh my god--I was going to take a joke video just dramatically zooming in on it, as one does, except right when I went to do that it got caught up in jon's mic cable and just TUMBLED AND JOSTLED ALL OVER THE PLACE and that fucking GOT me and I was DYING and it was right at like. the serious, heartstring-tugging, fuck-yeah parts of No Reptiles where I'm supposed to be at CHURCH and instead I'm losing my shit into hysterics over this poor gudetama just rolling everywhere alksdhjglaksd, I had to bury my face in Becky's shoulder for a measure or more and try to recover, oh my godddd. EGGS!) -- (OH ALSO I LMAO I HAVE SEVERAL AUDIENCE MEMBER ~BITS THAT I AM DOING just like, clapping here or there, participating actively in certain parts of things, and one that I kept doing for some asshole clown reason was singing along with/lampshading Alex's quick backing vox on the second verse of Spring Sun Winter Dread-- Philly was probably the place where I was the most prominent/obvious/easy to see doing it, and it made both him and Jeremy REALLY snicker, ahahaha I'm sorryyyyyyy for being obnoxioussssss)

The merch/loitering sitch was sli-iiightly more locked down, in here; there was only so long Marty and I could pretend to be thinking about merch/hanging out with people who were actually in line but not actually being in line before they really truly wanted us to leave, and they were pretty pissed that I even left the venue with an empty/ice-only water cup, never mind any dreams of re-entry. The militant energy of the security at this venue compared to how relatively chill and normal DC had been (for two venues I would say of comparable size/seriousness) was def my least favorite part of the Philly experience. I was outside, finishing my water and chitchatting with some artsy youths who were also unimpressed with security, and Becky's messaging me like "they're in here!" and I'm like "well I'm not and I can't come back so you gotta tell them to come out here!" lmao. But they did!!! All the guys came out before too long and I very delightfully got to talk to everyone. I gave Mike and Jeremy the bracelets I'd made for them - THEY both apologized to ME outright for not coming out to chat the night before?? like hello you’re the band we’re the fans you don’t owe us anything - they kind of came toward my side of the door first, and talked and chatted some, vs Jon sort of peeling the other way to the other half of the loiterers - I honestly have lost track of the sequence of events here and what happened when, but it was largely unimportant hehe. (Gosh, but then I keep randomly remembering other unrelated details. Like, for example, Black Cat gave me their big ol' signature black cat hand stamp, and I'd been thinking, oh this will be fun to watch my four hand stamps stack from these four gigs, the way I got two together from The Altogether/Matt Duncan double feature back in July, and then Underground Arts put theirs on the INSIDE OF MY WRIST and not the back of my hand, and both Irving and T-Bird just did wristbands. BUMMER.) But mostly just Seeing Band, Talking To Band. This was when I overheard Alex definitely confirm to someone that the new song is called Cold Reactor, and he sort of half-seriously half-not said they just didn't call it that on the setlist in case there was another "New Song" they might want to decide to start playing there instead at the last minute, even though the longer this goes on the more confident we are that they're not going to do that and that Cold Reactor is gonna be a new single that probably drops once this tour is over <___< eyes emoji. Also, between Wednesday and Thursday we also knew that the bleach-blond hair is for Lore Reasons, which we assume are to do with Cold Reactor and the album it will be on, because of course it is. stupid. jonathan higgs I want to crawl inside your deranged pisces mind and meld with it vulcan style.

anyway, as far as my short term memory can be relied upon/will tell me is the truth, I think Jon was actually the last person I ended up in contact with on this night; I was drifting over toward him but someone else was still engaged in an active conversation with him, so I was like, well obviously I will wait my turn and let other people have jonathan time even though I'm the biggest jonathan girlie, I can just hang and go in when he frees up, and so I was turned slightly away from him listening in on other convos and talking to Becky and maybe Annika or a couple other people, and then suddenly there's a delicate hand on the back of my shoulder and Jon's right in my fucking ear ominously going "hello." askdjhgka. He was soooo cute and nice, I gave him the bracelet I made him as well (which was "I wanna be there" from Violent Sun and shades of re-animator orange) and he was immediately like Oh, of course you, are the bracelet distributor, and I was like hehehe yes, and he asked if I also had to do with the gudetama and I was like absolutely not I have no idea what is going on there lmfao. and I think amanda and david did take credit for it at that time of course so yes hehe. Ended up in a fun casual chitchat with Jon and Becky for most of the rest of the time here, with her trying to squeeze him for info about the new song and album and lore hehehe and him being his typical cryptic trolly cagey Jon, and it was all in incredibly good fun; he noticed her bracelet too, and she pointed it out like Yes I got the one that says This Is The Prophecy from big climb because it hearkens back to that bit they were doing on twitter from way before that song even came out so I gave her that one on purpose duh lol, and Jon says "Oooh yep I forgot about that. .. Album..." and mimed swiping his hair back like whoopsie lmao and it was such a silly little half-self-neg on Re-Animator lol, and so I said "WELP too bad! because the one I made from you is one of those too haha!" and he took another look at it as if to remind himself about it and then went "Well yeah that one's good" with a wryer wickeder laugh and I was like lmao tell us how you really feel. But like he's right violent sun is perfect and I actually labored so long over what I was going to have jon's say because he was the only person I didn't have a really solid concrete idea of what to make for and ALSO he was the only one I REALLY wanted to get PERFECT because it's important to me and yeah. so it was. reassuring for him to like the violent sun one. idk anyway.

The woman we'd seen running around doing a lot for them, including merch, who recognized us from DC the night before and was fun and glib about it, and who turns out to be: Tour Manager Sam, finally had enough of our fucking about and started very efficiently organizing us all into "everyone who wants a pic with themself + all four guys come get in Now and I'm gonna play photographer and then we all gotta go the fuck home" and I respected it SO much lmao, so we had sort of a rotating queue of group picture taking and then the guys all went back inside the venue (I kind of fingerguns'd Jon like "New York :D?" and he looked at me just SO Put Out and just deadpanned "Of course you're going to be there." of course!! lmfao) and we started talking amongst ourselves just out of reluctance to let the night end/social energy we still wanted to wallow in and that was cute and nice. I said goodbye to some folks who weren't going any further on the tour. I had such a wonderful night. Then, lo and behold, we turn around and Jeremy's up on the stoop of the venue, and he's like, I think I've locked myself out. I am locked out and I also don't have my phone on me. lmfao jez. he goes "I am going to blame jonathan" and we allowed him that. I was like, do you want me to TWEET AT SOMEONE LOL and he was like good god no they'll come back for me eventually, and then yes they did, and THEN we all left hahahaha. becky insisted on sticking with me part of the way to the trolley but I was like, it is coming in 14 minutes and it says it's gonna take me 12 minutes to get there I gotta GO!, and I freaking missed it anyway!!! and then I had to wait like OVER HALF AN HOUR MORE for the next one and i didn't even get ON the trolley till like 12:50 and it was soooo late before I was back at mads's place aiyaa. But, all in all, TRULY SUCH A GOOD NIGHT I JUST LOVE BEING IN AN ACTIVE BUZZY FANDOM SPACE AND MEETING FANS AND PARASOCIALING AND DANCING AND SINGING AND DOING ARTS N CRAFTS. you KNOW?? you know. you're on tumblr you get it.

The Philly to Jersey (pre-NYC) leg of my road tripping was set to be Thee shortest drive I had to make the whole time, so I let myself have time in the morning to keep snoozing and fucking about, even though I once again woke up way earlier than I'd hoped to and didn't ever make it back to sleep after that. But the tradeoff was still super nice and relaxing vibing with Madeline--I offered to buy her breakfast in exchange for the couch-crashin' and we got hella bagel sandwiches and cold brew from a place real close by her apartment, and scarfed 'em down while watching the most recent ep of Make Some Noise and just shooting the shit (again, largely about either fandom or kitty cats. We are simple folk). My sandwich contained salmon, a fried egg, and the most incredible sloppy caramelized onions, what a banger. The last truly good food I truly enjoyed before my mega super Travel Tummy set in and wrecked my whole shop metabolically speaking, rip. I took a little rinsy-rinse shower at her place too, and then finally made myself get up and Go to do the runaround silly business of driving to and parking in NJ, taking the ferry in to Manhattan, and then taking the subway to Allegra's place for NIGHT THREE IN NEW YORK CITY WOOOOO. I LOVE going to E E with Allegra!!!!! Once again I used her place primarily as a spot to change out of my car clothes and into my gig clothes (it's RDF night; I wore an oversized pale beige button-up shirt, actually left over from my Foals Antidotes costume from last halloween hahaha, gussied up with E E pins and jewelry) and to fuck about with bracelets. I made Allegra a special In Birdsong bracelet, the only one I did from that song :) because allegra is my special E E friend!! and she needs one of her special song!!! Fandom... is good. Allegra also had a kickass outfit. We stopped in at a tex-mex place she really wanted to try that was nearby the venue, and i got pretty nervous that it was gonna be a little late before doors for us to be hitting a sit-down dinner spot, but we rushed it along pretty well on the food and got our slice of dessert cake to go in a box and everything was A-OK. And I had time to hit a bodega for merch cash from the ATM and a pineapple soda for fortitude! let's GOOO irving plaza.

God, Irving was kind of a shitshow when it came to queuing and security though. There were a fair few people in line ahead of us, maybe just as many or slightly more than what I'd had in DC (definitely further back than Philly, although in line near us were the same also-eating-Dominican-food couple from the Philly gig, and I recognized them and was glad to see them again-- I FULLY DO NOT REMEMBER/DID NOT CATCH Y'ALL'S NAMES, AND I FEEL TERRIBLE BECAUSE WE HUNG OUT AND WORKED TOGETHER SO MUCH, i am so sorryyyyy), but then because it's not a sweet local friendly indie venue but is in fact Livenation As Hell, there's some person affiliated with the venue wandering up front offering some sort of VIP/fast pass line experience where you can just cough up some extra cash and get in your own special line and get to go in first regardless of how long other people have been queuing--you know the deal. Wack as hell. I think David and Amanda opted for this in some capacity, so I was happy for them about it, but a lot of the other people who ended up doing it had kind of rancid vibes of just like "concert-going" and not the very lovely communal sardine megafan energy everyone else had had thusfar. Also it put us where we were at in the queue standing in a place that just had a really terrible smell of sewage, which persisted almost the entire time we were there only to suddenly be replaced by a very powerful smell of bleach, as if whatever it was was suddenly being cleaned/sanitized. ICKY!! Annika was enough further ahead of us in line that I thought it might have only been over where we were but she said no she was definitely getting it too. new york city babey

Bracelet distribution got a little silly here, too, since the queue was wrapping SO far back and was being policed a little more stringently, but I had kind of figured I may need some kind of additional plan, especially since I'd decided not to wear my fanny pack (bum bag--fanny pack, says Jonathan Higgs in a derisive American accent, even as he's telling me he likes mine a lot, skdjshgalkj smh) since my shorts under my shirt had really capacious pockets and that just made for one less thing to worry about--I snagged a sheet of paper at Allegra's place, along with a gallon-size ziploc bag, and I put all the bracelets in there with a note that said to just take one if you wanted one and pass it back through the queue while we waited. It was kind of a crapshoot how effective I thought this was going to be, especially since I had to kind of wait to deploy it once there was a substantial queue BUT by the time there was a big queue it meant that I couldn't see exactly HOW big from where I was near-ish enough to the front, so I didn't know how far the bag was going to make it, if someone was going to end up stuck with my whole big bag at the back of the line (esp since I had a fair number of extra Philly bracelets left over that I lumped in with the NYC ones just because I still Had them).... whew...! BUT by the time Marty was there, he was further enough back from me that I asked him to kind of check up on it when it made it to him and keep passing it; and, by the time we were going inside, I could see zero sign of the bag itself but I DID catch a lot of people milling around me wearing bracelets, and one or two of them did stop me to thank me (since I'd indicated on my note in the bag that I was the person with green hair hahaha), and then I never saw 'em again, so I guess it was a relative success!! Yayyyyy!! WAY less conducive to making New Line Friends than the DC/Philly setup had been, but incredibly effective at making sure that all my bracelets found new homes rather than me having to take a huge handful home with me again and them just sitting in my house forever LOL. success! :)

tl;dr about the bracelets. not important compared to concert and band. WE GO INSIDE!! They have such dumb security/bag check. a gender-split process where the men get patted down by a dude guard and the women get patted down by a lady guard? In TYOOL 2023? you hate to see it. She felt the Sharpie in my back pocket and made me take it out and surrender it???? MY METALLIC BRONZE SHARPIE ? ? no sharpies in the venue I guess. Talked to at least one other person who got sharpie-confiscated too, but also at least two people who fully didn't and still had markers just fine. Absolute shenanigans. Allegra and I didn't quite get barrier due in part to fastpass line nonsense but we did end up right exactly behind Annika &co. with perfect sightlines, once again stage-left/Jeremy-ward-of-center. we don't hate it! my Philly pals to my left with David, Becky et al in front of them. Me fully surrounded by redheads. LOL.

this was the laaaatest show of my whole run, a whole lot of standing around just waiting for Band, and also definitely the energy of "trying to politely vibe to pierre kwenders's set because he can clearly see me and look straight at me even though I would much rather just skip to the bit I actually came for and don't necessarily need to see his set" just slowly increasing every night RIP lol. BUT WE MADE IT! ohhhh new york. EXACT same set as Philly but I couldn't even be mad about it because I was still so grateful to get a Man Alive song that wasn't just MY KZ (not that I don't love my kz obviously, but it HAS been in the set literally all eight times that I have seen E E live as of this Irving Plaza gig, and something else from that album is fun fresh delicious) (OH, SWEET THREEP OF FRIDAY EVENING, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW) and to be getting COLD REACTOR again, especially becaussseee by this point I knew just enough of the lyrics that I felt confident singing/mouthing along conspicuously with the parts that I Did know, aka I See You Sir I'm Doing The Thing Just Watch Me, god I wish I knew how to be not so fucking extra but then again no I don't. we did get saddled with some Rather Annoying audience members in our near vicinity--a couple I'd spotted in the fastpass line earlier wedged themselves hard between me and my tall redhead/mask-wearing homie from Philly, all like "ummm we're short :)" because they. were, but that didn't give them a right to be pushy and rude, and their vibes were kind of shit because the sense I got was they were mostly there because the girl really loved the band and the dude didn't know much about them at all, and also they were already drunk so early on in the set, and they were talking loudly with some other fans they'd just met and getting Lore™ explained to them and it was just a lot of. loud talking and shoving. in my vicinity. when I would have preferred for there to. not be. BUT Also materializing behind me was someone who said "I saw your bracelets on twitter do you still have any!!" and I had to be like UHHHH FUCK, NO, I turned them loose into the queue, did they not make it as far as you..?? and she sadly said no, and I was like, well the only one I have left is this one I just left on for tradesies/advertising purposes, and it says "akon in the butterfly house" so that's kind of a deep cut, if you're familiar-- and she went WAIT REALLY and seemed SUPER jazzed to get a Dave Sardine-ass bracelet and I was like OKAY YOU KNOW WHAT, GOOD, ACTUALLY, because I'd made four of these and I knew they were going to be the deepest cut/hardest sell and I was really really hoping that whoever ended up with them would actually get and appreciate them. so thank you, andrea, for being that person, and for appearing exactly when the bracelet needed it most. so glad to have hung with you this night. sorry that you too found yourself among the ranks of the sharpie-confiscatees.

ANYWAY, OTHER THAN THAT, THIS AUDIENCE WAS FIRE AND THIS GIG SLAPPED. We were finally in a space and an environment that REALLY lent itself to the crowd actually full on bouncing/dancing instead of just kind of wobbling and vibing and everyone in my immediate zone was really going hard. I LOVE this fucking BAND. I love every song by this band. I love when Jon just points the mic at the crowd and the entire crowd sings the whole song word for word and note for note. I love that Jon was still desperately trying to cram the name of the host city into the start of My Kz, despite the fact that "Washington" subs for "Lucifer" perfectly (he has done this both times I've seen them in DC lol) but "Philadelphia" is WAY too stupid long and "New York City," while a syllable shorter, scans metrically in an extremely busted way and you could have just said EN WHY CEE or. y'know. lucifer. but okay man you do you. Jon was just as rowdy as the rest of us lmfao. he was like, climbing up and down off Mike's riser, he was finding people who were taking photos/videos and staring directly into their cameras (me fucking included--I'm sorry, Jon, you can't make eye contact with me while singing the "When I saw you, I fell in love" part of Leviathan, I am pretty sure that is illegal and a crime against my humanity), and basically all the tracks from Get To Heaven (plus like, Cough Cough and NOTLK) blew the fucking roof off the place. I think he donked some My Kz lyrics hehehe he just skipped to the alt lyrics of the chorus too early without completing the standard chorus first at the end, and a little flubbo in NOTLK and a tiny stutter in No Reptiles too, everyone was just TOO ROWDY and he's THROWN LOOPY and man did we not care. I said multiple times to people on this tour that pretty much the closest things I've ever experienced to true Religion are a) being in an E E audience for No Reptiles and b) being in a Hedwig audience for Midnight Radio. they're the same spiritually in my heart and also like do people who love Jesus feel this way and is this why. insane. the cult leader imagery was Not Wrong!!!!!

I wanna MERCH! I got in the line not too long after the show wrapped, but true to reports I'd heard about the pre-show merch line, it was moving verrryy slowly, with just one guy manning it who was not exactly quick and a card reader that seemed pretty chuggy too (but hey, at least NY was taking card). I'd known I wanted the poster--it's got my favorite neon orange on it, it really really slaps, and I wanted something to get signed--but I let myself talk myself into a t-shirt too, mostly because I was REALLY excited to buy E E merch apparel that wasn't black or white. Yellow!! a really freaking good yellow!! I wish the yellow ones had actually had the tour dates on them like the black and white ones did but the yellow branding has been pretty exclusive to this leg of tour (i.e. vs the red branding of the west coast one last year) and it looks soooo good with my hair that I don't especially mind. I also knew that Adrian wanted a copy of Caps Lock On, but that he also wanted a shirt, but I hadn't heard back from him about which shirt or what size so I just got the book and my stuff and then bounced. Communique from outside was that Alex had surfaced but no one else, but that Alex had promised appearances by the rest of them, but that also Alex was already gone and unlikely to return by the time I made it outside. I posted up with all my friends from inside, god this was SUCH a good sardine squad this night, and it took some waiting but eventually the promises came true! All the other boys surfaced and we had some REALLY great fan chats and mingling this tiimmmmee. oh my gosh. A guy came with a Modern Bison CD that Jon and Jeremy were really truly overjoyed to see and to sign and take pictures with; I talked to Jeremy about the bracelets some more because he'd been wearing the one I gave him the WHOLE GIG IN NEW YORK SO LIKE THAT'S GONNA BE IN ANY PHOTOS THAT WERE TAKEN PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING, oh my gosshhh, he was so nice about it and enjoyed that his Arch Jeremy matched my Arch Emily, the vibes were impeccable; and then I got everyone to sign my poster, but of course Alex was gone already, so Jon offers to forge Alex's signature and goes "look it's like this" and draws some loopy scribble on there and I'm like, lmao, sure.

thing was... I had absolutely heard Jeremy signing something for someone else the night before talking about how he was getting really good at forging Alex's signature for him, since I guess it's normal for him to be the one that disappears the sneakiest (god he really is just the Justin Craig of this band, it's 1:1, huh), and so when I told Jeremy this, he was like "I'll do it" and I was like "no Jon did already do it" and he was going to just leave it then, like, oh, well, okay, but then he saw the mess Jon had made and he was like "--that's quite dreadful actually-- the trick is to not overthink it--" and so now my poster has two forged Alex Robertshaw signatures and zero authentic ones. l m f a o. (To be fair, I do have other things they've all four signed, and Jeremy's fake Alex is at least passable, and Jon's fake Alex is Absolute Dogshit Nothing. I am obsessed.) I even got Peter to sign! He was talking with another fan about a gift she'd given them in the past that had sadly been part of what they lost in their studio fire, it was really heartbreaking to hear. He also thanked me again for his bracelet and told me he planned to give it to his daughter and that she would love it. We took a pic together! Pete the GOAT.

While I was making the rounds with the other boys and other fans, Allegra mostly in tow, swapping sharpies among those of us who still had them, Becky was back with Jon, taking a couple videos for people who weren't there in NY to talk about stuff that they were curious about--I think in the context of Maria, Becky said something like, she thinks the hair is crazy, and Jon said into the camera something like, "If you think it's crazy Now, give it like two or three more weeks, and you're really gonna think it's crazy." SIR WHAT. If the blond is a precursor to something else happening I'm gonna be so the opposite of normal about it, and if the bleach is a stepping stone toward the boys dyeing their hair Other colors I am going to be PROFOUNDLY NOT NORMAL ABOUT IT, AND IF ANY MEMBER OF THE MANCUNIAN ROCK BAND EVERYTHING EVERYTHING HAS THEIR HAIR DYED GREEN ANY TIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE I AM GOING TO BE ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY INSUFFERABLE. tyler the creator unfollow me right now etc. etc. etc. The more I've thought about it I don't THINK this is what's up--my sense is that any Cold Reactor music video is probably already filmed and ready to drop alongside the single pretty quick after the tour ends, rather than being something they're going to film/put together entirely post-tour, so they probably needed the bleachblond for some energy similar to how I felt about them when they first walked on stage in DC, but Oh man...... OH MAN............ I digress. anyway.

following up from that, Allegra (I think? Or maybe still Becky and allegra was just Present) addressed the notion of the hair being related to the Lore, and like, did that mean lore for the single/the upcoming album ? ? which was what we were assuming, and Jon said some demented and ominous and extremely exciting phrase like, "The lore for this one is.... b o t t o m l e s s" in his always-startling real deep Jon voice, and that was the fucking sound bite of the evening, folks. FOLKS. ALLEGRA AND I WENT ALL THE WAY BACK TO HER APARTMENT JUST CONTINUALLY SAYING "THE LORE IS BOTTOMLESS!" my body is so god damn ready.

We bid farewells to all our friends for whom NYC was their final stop on this tour!! SAD!!!!!! Going to miss all the homies T___T it's not fair that we're not just all going to every single stop on this tour I don't think? it should actually be illegal for us not to be present when the band is performing?? the hugest RIP. Hugs exchanged all around. Me trying to say bye to Jon but he's engaged with someone else so I think I just awkwardly said "See you tomorrow" twice and then we left. becky maaaybe trying to last minute scramble to also come to pgh now despite not really having accounted for it in her plans originally ? ? I was not certain what she intended here but I supported her. yes. me, annika and AG for sure being there at least. we ride. Back to allegra's where I did, unfortunately, sleep ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLY/BASICALLY NOT AT ALL due to being so hot and stuffy in my little nest on the floor that it was making me nauseated, I think I got maybe 2.5 hours tops, but I didn't really have a choice because if I wanted to be back home in time to do ANYTHING other than just rock straight over to the queue for Thunderbird then I knew I was going to have to leave so GOD DAMN early in the morning to haul ass back to where my car was and then drive the seven hours to pgh. But I did exactly that!!!! bitch!!!!! Other than some issues like, managing to make a timely pit stop for gas/potty/coffee, I endured the miserable long roadtrip despite myself, raging my way through the poconos, downing the largest cold brew Wawa would sell me, having a truly tragic car vs quesadilla incident, etc. My BFF Francis even got on the phone with me for the last hour or so and we chatted and I got to give them the whole update on the tour thus far, so fun! They MIGHT try to go to the Chicago stop next week!!! if they feel like they can swing it, and I was like ok no pressure but also it's been an extraordinary experience for me thusfar and I highly recommend. So if you see Francis at E E Chicago please holler at them kindly from me!!! :) But at the very least they said they did want a T-shirt and venmo'd me money to buy them one, since I was already still gonna have to get one for Adrian. woooooo

I got home with, yeah, basically exactly enough time to shower, get my outfit together, and regroup before heading to the venue !!! I JUST BARELY missed the bus that would've gotten me there the most promptly, largely due to not being able to find another fucking Sharpie since irving plaza took my first one lmfao, and it ended up being quicker to walk there than to wait the 36 minutes it would've been for another bus or whatever. I still had MEGA travel tummy so I just snagged an apple and scarfed it down on the walk over. Annika was already there queuing! so we hung out in line together and waited and drank the waters we had definitely brought in from outside the bar and just vibed lol. and she was like, I heard them checking two new songs that haven't been in the setlist yet, and I was like ha ha lol like what, and she said, kevin's car and leave the engine room.

and listen, I was optimistic. that my social media obnoxiousness and well-known, easily observable public desires might yet sway them, because come on it's my hometown and it's the last show i'm gonna see on this tour and I sent them donuts, and those were MEANT as a KINDNESS and an ENTHUSIASM FOR DONUTS and not as a bribe, but if anyone wanted to interpret them as a bribe anyway whomst was I to say no, but like. just because I want the band i like to do a thing absolutely does not mean that they have to fucking do it. I want to be crystal clear that i have never at any point EXPECTED them to do this. i just. hoped. yearned in my heart of hearts. and also had very sound rationale for how possible/likely it was. Here's How Engie Room Can Still Win. yfm. but the soundcheck all but confirmed it in my soul for me. and I was like... glad, that she'd been there and caught it and could tell me about it, because it gave me time to like, come to terms with the reality of it, emotionally. AAH. AAAAAHHH, OKAY. BITCH, PLIABLE HEAD, IT'S ALL HAPPENING.

we lingered and watched the queue form behind us-- I spotted a kid I'd seen at the Philly show, god bless. Everywhere we turn, repeat customers. I was telling my work friend today, I feel like the US fanbase for E E is significantly smaller than the UK audience, but we make up for it in that we go fucking hard. Every US fan is a superfan. there are no half-assed american sardines. and that has been so BEAUTIFUL and means the WORLD to me to be sharing it with the other ones of you. Bracelet sharing rocked at this gig!! I had exactly as many as I'd set aside for Pittsburgh and no more, since all my spares had evaporated up at Irving, A new person ALSO HAD BRACELETS!!! LIKE, for realsies Made For Trading At This Show Specifically bracelets, it was suuuuch a delight, so in addition to my eclectic collection from the previous gigs I now also have one that says RAW DATA FEEL with some truly choice glow in the dark bric-a-brac on there as well, and my heart was so warm aaaaaah. fwiendship :) Also spotted in the pre-doors queue were the Pizza Boy costumed guy and a woman I met at Foals in 2019?? who I guess automatically recognizes me because of the green hair, but just. omg. the community!!!! I'm dying!!!!!!

There was a slight will-call kerfuffle that nevertheless did not stop me from being dead center dead at the front right in front of where jonathan's mic was destined to be, and I was like. god. here we go. the home stretch. This was ABSOLUTELY the WORST place to be to be pretending to be interested in pierre's set, because he kept looking straight at me and dog I gotta admit four shows in I was feeling pretty tired. like, the energy of E E Itself was going to fully reinvigorate me, but nearly everything else on the planet was like totally disinteresting and I wasn't really up for it, especially when it's my semi-sex-repulsed ace-spectrum ass being just really put off by the suggestive gyrations of a performer that is not to my tastes. UM SORRY BYE HAHA. they didn't even play the one song I kind of liked. I managed to miss like two and a half songs of his set being still locked in the merch line at least lmao. literally WHILE I WAS STANDING IN THE MERCH LINE they sold out of the yellow shirt and I couldn't get me and francis matchies so I had to get them the black instead :( but thankfully they still had the one Adrian wanted because idk what I would have done if I had to scramble for a plan B with him on short notice haha. and I had EXACTLY enough cash for the two shirts left from the day before and I was paying Tour Manager Sam with it like oh my gosh I'm so sorry this is like my sweaty pocket cash from last night this is kinda gross and she was just like, No actually that's honestly exactly how I've been rolling as well and it is kind of gross so like agreed hahaha. She's the best. Idk how long she'll be tenured to them but I'd love to see her continue to exist in like their coterie moving forward. impeccable vibes.

also used merch waiting as a way to distribute more bracelets and get a drink of water! WOOHOO NOW I AM READY TO RECEIVE MY COMMUNION THANK YOU. they put the setlists down and there was a very small fraction of me that wanted to avert my eyes but like I. I had to know. and annika said yes there are new songs in the list. and I peered into the list and my song was there.

hey guys. hey guys? look, this was for me. I have to be honest with you. i manifested this. by being annoying on twitter. by being god's specialest costume-making donut-gifting bracelet-slinging weirdo. I'm owning it and it's mine. I was exactly EXACTLY right with "well, if they put Engine Room in they'll probably take Leviathan out, because they'd kind of fill the same role of slow moody song in the set, and then they'll probably swap in a different non-Man Alive song to compensate for Engine Room being there instead," and this is exactly what happened, and so then not only did I get Engine Room but I also got REGRET, WHICH IS ALSO AN EMILY THREEPWILLOW PLIABLE HEAD SONG, BECAUSE HERE THESE NERDLORD KINGSHIT BANDBOYS ARE IN MY GODDAMN BACK YARD, they're in my house and god it took me the whole fucking set up to then to just prepare, like I had to try not to think about it so I could enjoy what was right in front of me. God it was so fucking, fucking good. our position along the stage had Alex's stuff REALLY forward in the mix which was kind of new for me, but jon was just right there and every time I lifted my hands to dance and to yearn it was like, the only thing stopping me from touching you is my own sense of propriety and not any kind of physical barrier or distance, and the person immediately behind me was seeing the band for the first time and felt similarly about NOTLK as I did to Engine Room and those two songs were literally back to back in the set so we kind of screamed and cried and died together, I gave her a huge hug, and LOL SORRY NOT SORRY THAT I GOT MY KZ AND LEVIATHAN TAKEN OUT OF THE SETLIST FOR Y'ALL, PITTSBURGH, I DO FEEL KIND OF BAD BUT THIS WAS UMMM IMPORTANT TO ME, THANK YOU, goodbye. goodbye I left the planet. I thought I was going to cry and I nearly did but I didn't, but I did actually maybe start hyperventilating. like I'm glad I knew it was coming ahead of time because if it had been a full surprise I think whatever was happening to my lungs would have been exponentially worse and I may have even fainted.

(which, btw: jonathan. jon. when he came out on stage, he almost immediately got his mic cable caught on the edge of where his setlist was taped down, and in jerking it around, he whipped the setlist up off the floor and way upstage toward where Pete was; when he finally put it to rights and taped it back down, he just left it where it was at, far enough away from me that I definitely could not read it anymore; and like DID YOU DO THAT ON PURPOSE? TO MOVE IT OUT OF MY LINE OF SIGHT, TO MAYBE KEEP ME FROM READING IT? SURELY YOU HAVE TO KNOW THAT I'D ALREADY SEEN IT LIKE 15 MINUTES AGO. NICE TRY BUT IT'S TOO LATE I SAW EVERYTHING. i love him. i'm in physical pain.)

knowing this was my final one, I went so, so, incredibly hard, I let myself dance and mosh and scream and take way more pics and videos than I had before, I leaned on the lip of the stage, I had an absolute fucking blast. When the set was over a few other people who were more strategically positioned (i.e. people who had not had their most easily accessible setlists unceremoniously yoinked several feet away) snatched up the closest ones way quick; there was a general tension in the crowd at being able to see jon's, but it being further away out of reach, and one ballsy-ass kid (the "Kevin" person who'd accompanied the pizza boy person) actually clambored up onto the stage and ninja'd over and took it for himself, which inspired two copycats to do the same for some discarded guitar picks (and all of which definitely provoked a very loud, unimpressed, authoritative barking of "HEY!!!" from some security somewhere, like, they definitely shouldn't have done that!! yikes!!!!). I, instead, very patiently waited for an opportune moment to get the attention of their short king guitar tech as he was running around doing teardown, and someone else flagged him first and got pete's setlist, and in my final moments I got him to get me mike's. Gang, I'm gonna be real with you, I was not leaving my Pittsburgh hometown show in which they played Leave The fucking Engine Room without a setlist. there would've been blood or at the very least tears. so like. thank god lmao. Satisfied, we got some water and then headed out!!!

It was a long, chilly wait for the boys outside--god, the chilliness was REFRESHING, though, it's October for crying out loud, and DC and Philly and NY had all been muggy sweaty hot with no need for even long pants, much less a jacket, but I was glad I'd had the forethought to wear my flannel around my waist to cover up the YOU'RE GODDAMN RIGHT printed around the ass of my shorts on my walk over to deter questions, lmfao. We easily identified the spot on the side of the venue where we assumed the guys were coming out, it was all just a matter of time. (AG and I getting some confusing-to-parse messages from Becky? Idk my phone was SUPER dying so I was trying to leave it on airplane as much as possible, I didn't even make it to the end of the night, RIP needing to use my map all day in the car and even with it plugged in spending more than I was juicing of the battery. Listen i needed PICS and VIDEOS!!) I saw Jon first, and he almost looked past me before spotting me there because I was pretty close to the corner of the block, and I just stared at him, and said, May I hug you. and he said, of course! and I hugged him so long and so hard just like, thank you, I was extremely emotional then and I'm also getting extremely emotional now just typing about it, and he was like omg haha what for? Coming to your town? and I was like coming to my town and playing my SONG!!! And then he said something with the tone of a snarky teasy joke but that was like flusteringly truthful underneath about them legitimately rearranging the set quite a lot for me, and I have not stopped screaming internally since then, and Jeremy joked that I'd just seen the exact same set three times and they felt they ought to give me at least something new ha ha ha but like it wasn't entirely a joke, and I just don't even know how to process this. i am perishèd in the soil. anyhow.

I wanted both my setlist and my Supernormal EP vinyl signed by all the boys, and I managed this with relatively little doing ("A deep cut!" jeremy remarks of the supernormal, haha), but I didn't want to be crowding them and getting in the way of other people getting lad time, so I kind of took a backseat and just talked when the time was right, but Jon did kind of keep wanting to talk to me. We talked about the new song, and we talked about the donuts I sent over--oh my GOD, because I was like, they're from that place over there, you can see the big neon donut sign from here! haha, and he was like dyou know what, I knew that's where they were from, because I went over there earlier in the day and got one for myself, I got a huckleberry one and I came back with it and everyone was like, what's that, they were very jealous, and then not too long after that this box of loads of them just shows up-- And like I am a donut fairy psychic wizard. Also everyone who is ever in Pittsburgh should go to Oliver's donuts and eat their fabulously good products. I will shill for them literally any day of the week. This is the second band I have given Oliver's to this year. I cannot be stopped. ANYWAY. i honestly almost could have written that prediction on an envelope and sealed it, that they'd end up wandering in there on their own only for me to send them some too. i was so tickled that jon got the huckleberry one because it's their signature flavor and it's SO PINK and allegra and I had just decided the night before that jon higgs is hot pink coded. like, in the universe where they are dyeing their hair multicolors for the lore. anyhow. it's good shit.

i had SO much fun after this show, even though it was so chilly and dark and we were scrungling around on a literal street corner outside a wine and spirits store, I was like holding people's things so they could get pics and signatures, I was showing off my supernormal booty shorts, I was talking to Jon about lore----- ohhh, my god, I had exactly two bracelets left when the night was over, literally the end of my stash, and it was one Final Form FIRST BODY LAST BODY that I said, y'know, I'm going to save this for my bestie francis when I send them the shirt, because that's the lyric I wanna get a tattoo of, and it'll match with my PLIABLE HEAD bracelet, and it'll be another sort of besties matching thing; and my one lone AKON IN THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE bracelet that remained, where I'd kind of said, well, if this one doesn't find the right home tonight, then at the end of the night I'm going to give it to Jon too. So I dug in my bag and passed it off, and he was like "what does this one say.... kon... Akon... Akon in the house--what is--OH AND THERE'S A LITTLE BUTTERFLY ON THERE, God--" and he was GRINNING and he was SO TICKLED BY IT and Jez chimed in with just like "The attention to detail--" and Jon was like "this is my favorite one actually," he LOVED IT AND I WAS SO CHARMED AND EMOTIONAL ABOUT IT, and then he offered me up something like "you kno-ow, this, the song, of this, there's actually a reference to it in something, something you've never heard-- and--that you never will," doing his cryptic Jon troll grin, "the one thing that didn't make it," with the implied end of that sentence being "onto the album," and 'album' in this case being implied to be Raw Data Feel, which they have very publicly said that for once was an album where they just put everything on and didn't cull any songs or reserve any bonus tracks to release later or whatever. So I said, "Oh, from the one that we've been told had no cuts...?" also not explicitly saying RDF, and his answer to that was vague/nondescript enough but was probably an affirmative, but then he did follow that up with "that's lore that's SO far down the line, WAY WAY out there," and god, just, how deep does this man's brain and nonsense even fucking go. how far into the future is there LORE. BOTTOMLESS!!! I am obsessed with him. i cannot stress enough how blorbo he is to me.

The shorts came back up in conversation too ("Sorry, let me just look quite closely at your ass for a moment--" "It's okay, the shorts are designed that way--") and him saying, yeah, we do talk about some of the costumes still, and then segueing into asking if I had plans for this year and what I was doing, and I said, maybe, I'm not sure if I want to tell you, and he said, Is it to do with us, and I said, Neither confirm nor deny, and he said, Well if it's not, then, I want to know, with kind of a 'duh' tone ahahaha because like true there would be no reason to be coy if it was nothing to do with E E at all, and I explained that like I kind of have to have two costumes ("of course you do."), WELL because y'know the E E ones don't really play to or land with the general populace (a very cheeky "No!") so I have, just, one that's for going to parties, and one that's for fucking around on the internet. He seemed to find that acceptable hahaha.

Anyway what I REALLY wanted with wearing the Supernormal shorts was a group pic of all five of us normal frontways, and then a group pic of all five of us facing backward/ass to the camera a la the picture of them outside the White House, where you could see the goof of my shorts but also all of their butts, but this was an ABSOLUTE DISASTER TO DO when it was so dark that phone cameras were taking everything long-exposure, and also they'd all had just enough beer to not really be following on what the bit was. Absolute shit results on the backwards pic because I couldn't, y'know, see to coordinate it, because I had my back turned. (Me yelling, "Not just MY butt, EVERYONE'S butts, come on!!" into the streets of Lawrenceville.) Utter failure. Didn't care. I love these fucking guys. The vibe was finally kind of winding down, closing-time energy, the guys still had to get on the bus to Boston right away even with tomorrow being their day off, it was a Boston day off and not a Pittsburgh day off where I could offer them free ice cream sadly, so they all sort of bowed sweetly out. Jon gave me his like, I Am Part Of The Band clearance ID badge from the venue, kind of out of nowhere, he was like "sorry this is all I have to give you, it's the least I could do," and I was like WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU'VE ALREADY GIVEN ME SO M-- YOU COULD DO WAY LESS ??? but I guess now I have that, too. I tried to give him the King Of Oil sign from my fatberg costume, which I'd initially brought because I thought it would be a fun photo taking prop but the photo situation was the aforementioned disaster so that never really came to any fruition at all, so I was just going to gift it to them, and he said "My suitcase is already so full of so much random shit-- that you've given us--" and then right as he was leaving he just said "Thank you for being such a weirdo" with a voice full of all the kindness and affection in the world and I just yelled "ANY TIME!!" and then oh so tragically the night had to be over.

it's been nice, though, because I'm so used to driving the long drive home at the end of an adventure and having that signify the end, of getting to the end of the car ride and having nothing beyond that but the rest of my regular life; and this time, I drove all the way home, but when I got there, the adventure was still happening, right in my neighborhood, right down the street, and all I had to do was walk back home alone in the dark and climb into my own bed at the end of a long and beautiful night. i can already tell that this is going to be one of my most special memories basically forever, and now every time I drive or ride the bus to and from work each day I will be passing by the place where Everything Everything performed Leave The Engine Room for me, and that's so profoundly special that I don't even have words to describe it. I love this band, I love the people in it and I love the people its gravity pulls in to orbit around it, I'm just so goddamn happy. I don't even know what to say or how to end this.

#everything everything #e e #RDF US tour 2023 #this has been a post #jonathan fucking higgs.#god.#they all just like. referred to me plainly by my name a lot more than i was expecting in a way that was overwhelming #like to one another/other people and not just to me directly #i exist???? sounds fake #i will be thinking about this week for a hundred thousand years #my pliable head IS a walking hope thank you so much for NOTICING!!!!!!#pics to follow maybe on here but maybe just on twitter #where I am yes you guessed it @pliablehead if people want to lurk and see #ok fucking goodnight

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hersweetrevenge · 2 months

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Hi there! <3 I re-watched Halloween Ends yesterday because I was upset and I needed Corey to save me, lmfao, and I wanted to ask you something that I've been wondering about. So, I have no way of getting the novelisation of the movie anytime soon, and you're kinda my only frame of reference for it; so I hope you don't mind me asking you this. When Corey is on his revenge killing spree, he kills those bullies at the mechanic shop. And Ronald is there. And then Ronald comes out to help the kids because of Terry. And only because of that. So, that makes me wonder... Did Corey plan on killing Ronald after he was done with the kids? Is that something that was elaborated on in the novel? Because I keep wondering about that, since Corey pretty much killed everyone that ever wronged him during that night, and Ronald was right there; but Corey didn't kill him (or didn't get the chance to, at least). Terry shot him by accident. But Corey killed his mom, of course. So, it'd make sense if he had at least planned on going after Ronald as well; even though he never actively wronged Corey (only passively, if we look at the way he just sat and watched while Joan abused Corey right in front of him, for example). But more so for completion's sake, y'know? They were on generally good terms, after all. I mean, in your latest post about the novel, you quoted that Ronald is "the loveliest thing" in Corey's life, according to Rohan. So, that makes me wonder all the more. OH, and... I fought with myself to include this point, but anyway- Corey takes the mask off when Ronald comes to help the kids, so that Ronald can see his face and know it's him. And it clearly disarms Ronald immediately and is the reason why Terry accidentally shot him instead of Corey, because he shielded him instinctively. Thus, I keep wondering if Corey meant for that to happen or if he took the mask off in order to assure Ronald that he wasn't actually in danger... It's such a seemingly insignificant thing that I'm thinking about far too much, but it's been bothering me that I don't know, and I was curious if the novel said anything about that at all, or if they just brushed over it there, as well. If they did, I'll just make up my own mind, of course, hdsfdjkfsk Anyway, I'm very sorry for rambling on about this, gosh! I love your blog(s) and everything you have to say about Corey and Rohan, you're awesome!!! Thank you for your detailed posts all the time, they keep me going! Take care! <3

ahhh hi !! thank you so much for sending this ask !! i love talking about this sort of thing more than anything lol and i’m sorry this took a little longer than i expected to reply, i was double checking like every ronald scene in the novel and cross-referencing that with behind-the-scenes details from making of, and re-watching the movie (i didn’t have to do that last one but like you, i needed emotional support from corey too 💗)

WARNING for discussions about (canon-typical) violence, murder, child abuse, abusive households, mentions of suicide and self-harm, and spoilers for the novelisation.

TL;DR – the novelisation does not elaborate on corey's intentions in any huge amount of detail, but it does provide some insight into a few different possibilities for ronald and corey’s relationship and what that would mean for corey's intentions.

general relationship

the novelisation actually gives some really specific details about the cunningham-prevo backstory, but also leaves a lot of aspects vague too.

joan married ronald when corey was 15, and she made it clear to ronald that he would "remain firmly on the sidelines when it came to corey's upbringing" which ronald "gladly" agreed to. so from the very beginning, ronald accepts he isn't going to be an active parent to corey, which maybe means he didn't believe he would do a good job anyway, or maybe he agreed it wasn't his place to parent corey in the same way joan does.

also, corey was already a teenager, he didn't need parenting in the same way a younger child would, which is partly why i think joan waited until corey was older to get remarried, because although being a single parent is difficult, she wouldn't want someone else in the picture as a father-figure for corey.

i don't personally see corey and ronald having a super close relationship, but there are multiple instances that show they are at least comfortable and familiar with each other (in line with what rohan said).

corey had a job before working for ronald, so we know ronald didn't have to give him a job. i hc that corey really wanted to do something stimulating instead of call centre work, and ronald agreed despite joan's grievances over it.

ronald doesn't seem too angry at him for being late, even though it is a regular occurrence (third time in a month).would he be so lenient on anyone who wasn't his stepson?

the gifting of the motorbike is a huge moment of course. that's a big gesture which, in the novelisation, also comes with some stilted bonding when ronald reminiscences that he used to "get laid [...], if you can believe it".

they have their united front moment over dinner when joan is trying to work a reaction out of them and neither gives her what she wants.

a smaller but still significant gesture is that corey uses dumbbells and a pull-up bar in his room to workout, which ronald bought him for christmas. very much feels like an attempt to help corey rebuild his self-confidence.

honestly though, rohan's comment about ronald being the "loveliest" thing in corey's life is probably right, especially as corey's life has been incredibly insular. as the town pariah with an abusive mom, his stepdad being cool about him being late for work is probably one of the best parts of his day.

but then on the other hand, there are moments which do not characterise their relationship very well, including multiple instances of ronald "ignoring" joan's abusive behaviour and not intervening.

to reiterate a previous point: ronald very willingly obliges joan's wishes of not "interfering" with corey's upbringing. her unfounded criticism and distrust of doctors, the school system and anyone other than her taking care of corey should have been a huge red flag (if, of course, any of that behaviour could have been inferred prior to their marriage).

ronald's passivity at being side-lined by his wife, allowing her to continue an unhealthy and unbounded relationship with corey.

when joan is berating corey for "sneaking around" and seeing allyson (the slap/kiss scene), she questions ronald as to whether he knew about the motorcycle, to which ronald stays completely out of it and doesn't answer her, despite her being furious with corey.

however it is a really difficult family dynamic to navigate, with so much nuance. i'm reluctant to say if ronald is a "good" or "bad" stepdad, or whether their father-son relationship is "good" or "bad", simply because their circumstances are so trying and complex. yes, joan has abused corey for a long time, but that abuse also extends to ronald in many ways too, resulting in him allowing (or enabling) joan's abusive behaviour in a flawed attempt to maintain the (toxic) status quo of the household.

did corey intend to kill ronald?

like i mentioned, there isn't any elaboration about corey's intentions in the novel, either through narration or extra dialogue. the scene happens almost exactly as it does in the film, with a few alterations and added background details. it's the surrounding details and plot differences that change my opinion.

i think movie!corey would have killed ronald if he had to. he knew ronald would be at home or at the yard, both of which were places he intended to go (to kill momma and the bullies). i'm not sure he had the same desire to kill ronald as he does the others, especially if he sees ronald in a good light, but to tie up loose ends he might do what is "necessary". i do find it very interesting that he lets ronald see his face though, and i can't decide if that is as a reassurance (he wouldn't kill ronald and ronald should know that) or because it just didn't matter (he's going to kill ronald so even if he sees corey's face, he won't be a liability to worry about).

however, i don't think novel!corey intended to kill ronald. in the novel, despite all of the extensive set-up of joan being abusive and corey's repressed desires to hurt her (and arguably ronald), there's no suggestion that corey planned to go back home as part of his spree and kill joan. if he wasn't going to kill joan after everything she did, i really don't think he'd have plans to kill ronald.

that's not to say there aren't implication in the novel that corey would hurt ronald too. there's a scene after the slap/kiss where corey can hear joan and ronald arguing about him, and once they've gone to bed corey gets a knife and stands outside their room, but ultimately doesn't go in. it isn't specified whether he wants to hurts just joan, or ronald as well.

michael's mask

ahh so when i was re-reading the scrapyard massacre in the novel to try and answer whether corey letting ronald see that it is him was a way of corey saying "you don't have to be scared of me" or even "you should be scared of me", i've come to a different conclusion about the mask.

“Who did this to you?” [Ronald] asked. “Him,” Margo said, pointing across the street. Ronald turned to find Corey twenty feet away on the other side of the fence, pulling Michael’s mask over his head. "Corey?" he muttered in disbelief.

the way the novel reads, i think that when corey puts the mask on in front of ronald, it's the first time he puts the mask on at all. if that is the case, it adds a whole other level to the transition between corey's kills as himself (or as the scarecrow) and his kills "as michael".

earlier, billy's sees "corey's shape wearing his prevo jumpsuit". it's fair enough that billy would assume it's corey without seeing his face, because they know that corey is there, but there's no mention of the mask either.

then, the way it describes ronald seeing corey put on the mask doesn't really indicate that corey was making sure ronald saw it was him. he's already "pulling on the mask" by the time ronald looks over at him; he wasn't waiting for ronald to look he was already doing it.

alternatively, the movie shows corey very deliberately stood there, waiting for ronald to see him and recognise him before he puts the mask on. i'm leaning towards it not being a gesture of reassurance but more of a last show of humanity to someone corey cares about -- "it's me, and i appreciate that you always treated me well, but this is the monster they've made me into".

in both versions, ronald jumps up to stop terry shooting corey. whether he was intending to shield corey or was just getting up to try and talk terry down, i think it says a lot about ronald as a character. he has been very passive this whole time, especially in scenes that take place at home, but in this moment he takes an authorative position to try and diffuse the situation. there's a scared kid with a gun, and his own stepson who he's starting to think might have done something awful, but this doesn't have to continue -- they can talk about it and calm down and whatever it is that has happened can be worked out.

#corey cunningham #halloween ends #ahhh thank you so much for this ask !! 🥰🥰 i've been turning it over and over in my brain for a few weeks now 😈😈#i'll take any excuse to go over the details again and connect established things in new ways #and thank you for including your point about the mask !!#the dilemma about whether he took the mask off and put it back on has not left my brain since i re-read the novel #which is really exciting because i didnt think i'd get anything knew to chew on this late in the game #i also noticed another pattern which didn't fit here but i wanna post about soon #i hope i covered everything you were curious about. my replies get so rambling --#-- i just throw in section headers to make it seem like i know what i'm talking about lolol #(and also thank you so much for being so lovely !! i love talking about corey and as always this is just my interpretation --#-- i'd love to hear your thoughts and honestly community discussion is what fuels so much of my posting because like this is our thing !! )

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