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marvelfilth · 8 months

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Dookie the Matchmaker

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x f!reader

Warnings: mention of blood

Summary: She curses herself for forgetting to ask for your name, but she thinks it's better this way. She can't afford to get close to anyone. Not after Amber. Not after Quinn and Ethan.

Masterlist

Tara falls in love.

It happens slowly, gradually. At first, she doesn't even notice, just keeps sending you awkward smiles and brief glances, long enough to be considered friendly, but not long enough to make you question her.

She sees you regularly during her economics class - it was one of the electives, and Sam made some good points about choosing it, so she did.

You're never late, always showing up a few minutes early, taking your seat near the window and drawing doodles in your notebook.

Tara doesn't even remember when she first started noticing you, she just knows that one day she walked in and her eyes zeroed in on your seat, corners of her mouth curling up at the familiar sight of you hunched over the desk, chewing on your pen.

You're never absent, so when she was forced to miss one of the lectures she ventured to you, hesitantly asking to borrow your notes.

She keeps telling herself she did that because she is an outcast now, no one in her class is willing to talk to her and seats closest to her always remain empty, but honestly she just wanted to hear your voice and maybe see you smile at her, if she's lucky.

Turns out luck was on her side that day, because the smile directed at her was wide and inviting, and you gave her your notes without a question.

She curses herself for forgetting to ask for your name, but she thinks it's better this way. She can't afford to get close to anyone. Not after Amber. Not after Quinn and Ethan.

She convinces herself that the looks she regularly receives in the halls don't bother her. She pretends she doesn't hear harsh words muttered behind her back. She sits at the farthest table at the cafeteria with Chad and Mindy by her side, looking away when she feels people staring.

She can't ignore the shove she receives after she hurries away from her economics class.

She looks up and fights the urge to throw up.

It's one of Ethan's friends, all bulky, tall and angry. Other students walk by without a second glance, and his lips curl in a way that makes her shiver.

She takes a deep breath and looks him straight in the eye, straightening her shoulders.

"What's going on?"

You're the last one to walk out, looking between them in confusion, one hand in your pocket, the other on the door behind you.

He smirks and cocks his head to the side, and she really really doesn't want you to see this.

"Are you deaf?" You ask, more forcefully this time, and to her surprise you choose to stand by her side, your shoulder brushing against hers in silent support.

"Just want to have a little chat. You should leave." He jerks his head at you, but you don't budge, your eyes narrowing.

"After you, Matthews."

You look at each other for a long moment, and Tara's about to finally speak up, tell you to just leave it and go, when he scoffs and walks past you, shouldering you harshly.

You roll your eyes and make sure he leaves, before turning to her with that warm smile and kind eyes, asking if she's okay, offering to walk her home.

She shakes her head, whispers a quiet thanks and rushes away, not looking back.

Later that night she cries in Sam's arms. No words are said out loud, but she knows her sister understands, can feel it in the press of lips on her temple and the tears that disappear in her hair.

Next morning they visit a dog shelter and come back home with another family member.

The dog doesn't take well to strangers.

Mindy and Chad, who are now living with them, shriek when they first see their new pet, jumping on the counter when the Doberman starts barking loudly. In the end, Sam is the one to calm everyone down, because Tara is too busy wheezing on the couch.

It takes two months for the dog to get used to the twins and they complain the whole time. But even they can't deny feeling this new sense of security.

"Dude, she's so good." Chad rambles on and on about some girl days later, while Tara picks at her salad distractedly, her thoughts on you and the shirt you decided to wear today. It showed off your arms and she idly wonders if you play any sports, but doesn't allow her mind to wander further.

Mindy laughs loudly and shakes her head.

"I'm telling you. You should've seen her, she's crazy." He exclaims, gaining attention of nearby students.

He doesn't look away like Tara does, instead he looks them in the eye and waits, daring them to say something. They never do, because Chad is Chad. And Tara is… well, she's just Tara.

"Okay, we got it. Or do you want everyone to know?" Mindy chuckles, elbowing her brother.

Chad takes a sip of his water and grins proudly. "As matter of fact, yes, I do. She's amazing and everyone needs to know that. I think she's in one of your classes, you need to introduce us," he directs at Tara to which she shrugs, trying to hide her sudden interest.

You're the only person she notices, and if you're the one he's talking about she has no desire to introduce you.

If she could, she would keep you to herself.

She blinks, surprised by her own thought and quickly shoves it into the deepest corner of her mind.

She finally understands what he was talking about when she sees you during basketball practice, practically annihilating the other team. She gulps and pointedly ignores the looks Mindy and Chad keep sending her, her eyes on your lean body as you send yet another ball through the hoop. You smile when your teammate slaps your back good-naturally and send her a wink, making Tara swoon in her seat at the bleachers.

You don't notice her at all, your eyes never stray away from the court, your chest glistening with sweat, making the smaller girl lick her lips.

"Are you drooling?" Mindy smirks.

Tara rolls her eyes and doesn't grant a response.

She spends the rest of the day wishing that wink was directed to her.

When she sees Matthews again it doesn't go the way she thought it would go.

You burst through a door, looking ragged and breathless. Tara runs into you, your eyes widening in alarm before you quickly hide your hands behind your back, and Tara immediately tenses up, unconsciously taking a step back. A moment later Matthews walks out of the same door, his nose bleeding profoundly. He blanches when he sees you, and backtracks, shutting the door behind him with a loud bang.

You shift sheepishly and apologize for startling her, but Tara doesn't hear any of it, all of her senses focused on the way your chest rises with each breath, the way your tongue darts out to wet your lips in a nervous gesture.

Tara blinks rapidly and curses quietly. She mutters a lame excuse and almost sprints out of the building, away from you, away from her unwanted feelings.

That night Sam tells her something that makes her heart skip a bit.

"We can't live our life in fear. Maybe… maybe you should give them a chance. But not before I meet them, of course."

The words leave her with a warm feeling in her chest. She doesn't know how Sam found out, but she's grateful nonetheless.

The problem is, she has no idea how to approach you. It wasn't easy to come up and ask for notes and you were strangers then, she wasn't fully aware of her feelings. Technically, you're still strangers, but you've saved her ass multiple times now and all she's done is run. So yeah, no one can blame her for not knowing how to approach you after she so carefully avoided any interaction with you for so long.

It happens right after she steps out of her favorite pizza place after picking up her order.

One moment she has a tight grip on the leash, pizza box in other hand, and the next, her dog is sprinting like there's no tomorrow, easily tugging Tara behind him.

The brunette struggles to keep up, pizza long forgotten in favor of trying to stop her dog, both of her hands getting white from the tight grip she has on the leash.

"Dookie!" She shouts, trying to stop her dog. "Dookie, stop!"

With one last harsh tug from the doberman she is forced to let go of the leash, huffing and sprinting after the dog. She is already panting, and by the time her dog rounds the corner she has half a mind to call Sam and make her chase the dog down herself. After all, it was her sister's idea to get one.

There's a yelp right before she rounds the corner and she runs faster, almost bumping into the rough concrete, panic coursing through her veins.

She stops in her tracks as soon as she sees you.

"Hey, buddy," you say, giggling.

The leash previously held in Tara's hand is now wrapped snugly around your legs, effectively keeping you in place. Her dog, the traitor that he is, is jumping at you in joy, trying to lick your face.

Now that she's sure no one's hurt, she takes a moment to get her breathing under control and to observe her supposedly very scary guard dog making you laugh. She can't help, but be jealous of the way her dog so easily got your attention.

She thinks about calling Sam, or Mindy, or even Chad, because she can't do this. She can't walk up to you when you're looking so breathtakingly beautiful, laughing unabashedly, your eyes glistening in the sunlight.

But she has no other choice now, seeing you nearly topple over when Dookie decides to make another lap around you.

"Stop it!" she whisper yells at the dog as soon as she nears the two of you.

You look up, surprised, and blink, before a grin overtakes your features. You try to face her and realize you can't even turn when your legs don't move an inch.

She bends and picks up the leash, embarrassment painted over her features. "I'm so sorry. He's never done that before," she chuckles awkwardly and tugs on the leash.

You yelp when the movement causes you to trip and fall into her arms, and she catches you without missing a beat, holding you while you regain your footing.

Her dog barks happily from behind you.

"Sorry," you mutter, trying to pry away from the leash, but the dog doesn't move from the place near your feet, drool dripping over your shoes.

Tara's sure she looks positively horrified at the sight of your drool covered shoes, her face feels like it's been set on fire. She crouches in front of you and begins to unwrap the leash, and you try to help her as much as you can, much to the dog's displeasure.

"There. All done." She gets up, her eyes darting around the street. "I'm really sorry about this. Don't know what's gotten into him, he's never tried to kidnap anyone before." She realizes just how true the words are as soon as they leave her lips.

Dookie hates strangers. It took Chad and Mindy almost a month to even pet the dog, much less cuddle with him like old friends, which is what you're doing now. She hums in thought, barely managing to hide a smile.

Dookie's approval means Sam's approval.

You laugh, shaking your head. "It's fine. Seems like he just wants to play. You're Tara, right?" You look up, squinting from the sun and the sight almost takes her breath away.

Her face burns and she curses herself for not even giving you her name after all the times you've saved her. But it seems you don't mind at all, smiling softly and looking away like you don't want to pressure her into having a conversation.

She decides she's done being afraid.

"Yes. And you're Y/n," she mumbles, suddenly shy. "And this is Dookie," she adds, gesturing to the dog jumping at your feet.

You get up from your crouch, laughing. "Dookie?"

"Short for Babadook. It's my favorite scary movie." She looks away momentarily, tension taking root in her shoulders as she awaits your reply.

"I hate scary movies." You make a face, shuddering.

She exhales with a chuckle and looks back to where she came from. "Wanna go look for the pizza I threw somewhere down this alley?" She asks jokingly, but she really really hopes you'll say yes.

"I'd love to," you smile, a red tint on your cheeks.

When she comes back home with a spring in her step and a happy grin in place, Sam smiles knowingly and gives her a hug that feels like home.

#tara carpenter x you #tara carpenter x y/n #tara carpenter x reader #jenna ortega x you #jenna ortega x fem!reader #jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega x y/n #tara carpenter x fem!reader #tara carpenter #jenna ortega #dookie the matchmaker

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okkotsuus · 1 year

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Can you write the seeing your ex as your boyfriend qwith nagi, shidou, sae, and kaiser?

ex encounters (bllk pt.3) !

features: seishiro n. ryusei s. sae i. michael k.

contents: nagi and ryu are adults bc i need them to be out of blue lock. ig hurt comfort. established relationship. strong language. shidou is himself. violence (shidou). killing threats (shidou). banter. sae treats the ex like rin when he gets back from spain <3. theatrics (kaiser). being physically imposing (all but sae’s shortass). in the kaiser one the ex doesn’t try to get back with the reader. 2.2k words

tw for the exes: childhood lovers. overbearing. falling out of love. got beat up by shidou. narcissist. can’t take a goddamn hint. accusations of cheating. cheating. lack of trust. invasion of privacy (phone). yelling. throwing things. control issues.

pt.1 — pt.2 — pt.4

nagi would be one of two things: annoyed or just not caring. he’ll most likely go from not caring to annoyed if your ex continues to persist or gets too familiar.

you were waiting outside of the stadium for nagi, he had just had a game and you were driving him home because driving was ‘a drag.’ the game had just let out so there were crowds of people pouring out. when something brushes against you, you ignore it; thinking it was just someone who didn’t realize you were standing there while walking past. but when it becomes a repeated tap, you turn in mild annoyance.

y’know, your boyfriend’s soccer game is not really the place you would have expected to see your childhood boyfriend. well, you kind of planned to never see him again, as you had moved far, far away from that town for university. but life was a bitch.

“y/n, hey! didja see the game? that nagi guy was super cool!” he was the exact same, just a little sharper around the edges. but that didn’t mean you exactly wanted to see him, you weren’t friends and you didn’t want to be: plus you already had a boyfriend who you loved very much.

“yeah, he is.” you kept as curt as possible, trying to communicate how little you wanted to talk to him. but you did remember that he was quite pushy with something he wanted. and your memory tends to serve you right, including now.

“say, how about you and i go get a drink? i’d love to catch up with ya!” you hesitated, very much not knowing what to say. thankfully whatever higher power there is decided to be merciful on you and send reinforcements.

reinforcements in the form of your boyfriend, seishiro nagi. “hey, y/n- oh, who’s this?” nagi idly walked to you, allowing you to notice that the stadium had completely cleared out in the time that you had been speaking with your ex. your ex sort of just stares at him for a moment, vaguely starstruck.

“oh my god you know him? that’s all the more reason to get back together with you!” your eyes widen, surprised at his boldness. nagi just stares at the dude, standing closely at your side. he thinks the guy will just eventually go away; but you know better.

“actually, he’s my-”

“let’s go get that drink now, you can bring him too!”

“i’m their boyfriend, you’re annoying.” with that nagi drapes himself over you, resting his head on your shoulder. your ex tries to sputter out a response but the lidded glare that nagi shoots him from behind you quickly shuts him up, leaving him to stumble away.

you just giggle as nagi huffs, grumbling about “how pesky” that was. you turn to rest your forearms on his shoulders, tracing his sleepy face with your eyes. he presses a kiss to your hairline and decides to finally address you.

“glad i didn’t have’ta fight that hard for ya, would’ve, but it would’ve been so tiring…”

shidou would straight up kill the guy if you let him, like you have to physically restrain him or pspsps him back to you like a mf cat so he doesn’t actually murder somebody.

shidou had left you for just one minute to go “take a massive dookie” as he proclaimed so very loudly in the middle of the diner. you were exasperated, but remained in your seat while idly sipping at whatever drink he ordered; payback for publicly embarrassing you yet again.

while he was gone, your food came out, as per policy: it was brought out by the cook. the cook who had, by the spin of a wheel, turned out to be your ex. to be honest, there was nothing wrong with him, the two of you just mutually fell out of love. well, at least you thought.

because here was your ex chatting you up, holding the serving tray which was long emptied of the ordered food. “how’ve you been bab- sorry, y/n?” that’s suspicious. you just mumbled out a one-word response and continued sipping your boyfriend’s drink.

“what do we have here? some bastard swooping in on what’s mine while i went to take a shit!?” shidou’s loud voice booms from the other side of the diner, you began to rapidly chug his drink as payback for the scene you knew he was about to cause.

your ex sort of just gawks at him for a moment, most likely due to what had just come out of his loud-ass mouth. also due to his physicality: he was like a male model with his bigass, lion-esque eyeliner and dyed hair, not to mention the atrocious fit he picked out just because he knew you hated that shirt. shidou was a sight to see, you really wished you didn’t have to look at him, especially since he insisted on making your life a living hell.

shidou sort of lunged at the guy, you felt bad, you really did. but what were you supposed to do, jump in front of him and go “stop!! this isn’t you!!” you would rather die.

“I’LL KILL YOU FUCKER!!” you finished his drink and set it down, letting out a refreshed sigh as you finally decided to deal with your man-child roach boyfriend. he was currently shaking your ex by the collar, a bruise visible just under his left eye.

you grabbed shidou by the back of his collar and yanked, you hoped it would end up ripping that horrendous shirt but it sadly did not. shidou just looked at you, still shaking him.

“pspsps, drop it, don’t make me get the spray bottle.” immediately your ex was released. he kind of just sat on the ground next to the reeling man, who stared up at you through his antenna bangs with a deadpan. you were constantly done with him, but he was also constantly done with you.

“y/n, what the fuck?”

“shhh… good boy, now go pay the tab so we can just leave before the police get here <3” shidou just grumbled and went to go pay the astounded cashier while you wolfed down your food. if you were gonna risk an obstruction of justice charge at least you were gonna eat those damn hash browns.

shidou returned and you dragged him away from his food, which he had brought a box for. while he yelled about that you just kept pulling him out; which he let you.

“i’m not gonna apologize for defending what’s mine, yer mine and the world should fucking know it.”

sae would be so deadpan, to the point where you even begin to wonder if he actually cares. once he gets tired of trying to give your ex a hint he just tells him that he’s “lukewarm” and pulls you away.

the last thing you expected was to be getting hit on by your boyfriend’s opponent. the striker for the team that sae was playing against just happened to be your ex. what can you say, you like soccer players, no shame in having a type.

what you also didn’t expect was for it to be while you were literally standing next to sae, like: your ex sauntered up to you, saw you were with a guy, and proceed to try and rizz you up. it would be funny if you didn’t hate his guts. he’s and egotistic maniac off the field and he sucks on field. its like a child bragging about something their parents did; he gets spoonfed easy shots by the rest of his team.

“hey y/n, whatdya say after we win; you come back to my place? i’ve been meaning to try to ask you out again…” this was the fifth time now that he’s asked that, all of the other times you just dodged it or changed the subject. but you were seriously getting annoyed, and sae’s lack of interest was getting to you.

“no. i have a boyfriend.” he just scoffed at you, clearly not believing you.

“if it’s this guy, i’d expect better from you. unless you wanted to seriously downgrade after dating me!” he began to laugh so obnoxiously that you swear you were about to pop a vein.

a tongue clicked next to you and you saw your boyfriend glowering at the man, as if he were scum on the bottom of his shoe. “you’re lukewarm. i’ll beat you five to zero.”

with that, sae pulled you away from your fuming ex. his hand was gentle in holding yours, contrasting the chilling expression he had displayed on his soft features just seconds earlier. he leads you to your seat in the vip section and goes to warm-up.

sae proceeds to crush your ex 5-0, scoring every single goal. his team is a bit confused but guesses what’s going on when sae counts out the remaining goals to the opposite team’s striker like a countdown.

when the game’s finished, sae walked up to the divider and hops it, pulling you up by your hand and looking directly at the camera.

“this is y/n, they are my significant other, don’t hit on them unless you can beat me at football, like [ex’s name] tried to.”

kaiser would be more offended than you. this dramatic mf would create a whole scene, he’s the one freaking out about it and you’re trying to calm him down. i hate his bitchass.

you had known kaiser for a long time before you started dating him. you met him while you were still with your ex in fact. one thing that your ex hated the most was the fact that you knew him, claiming that he was always trying to ‘get with you.’

he even went as far as to go through your phone to try to find evidence of you cheating on him. but when he looked through your texts with kaiser, he only found our that you already knew that he was actually cheating on you, which was true. your ex had been hitting up others, one of them messaging you after he posted you on your birthday.

you broke up with him that night, because you were already planning to and because you were so mad he looked through your phone. he lost it. you had to shut yourself in the bathroom while he threw dishes and shouted, you called kaiser in tears and had to have him sneak you out of the bathroom window. it was the worst night of your life.

so now when he stands in front of you, while your hand is intertwined with the man who made him so insecure, you were prepared for whatever shitshow was about to happen. what you didn’t expect was kaiser to lose his shit.

“the hell you think yer doin’ here, can’t believe you dare to show your rat face in front of them again.” his voice is cold as he glares at them with his chin tilted up in disgust. you were more amused than anxious now, it was truly endearing that he cared this much.

“tch. i knew you were cheating on me with him, should’ve never let you talk to this bastard.”

“ex-fucking-cuse me?” kaiser was rolling up his sleeves to his elbows and beginning to approach your ex, who began to shrink back. kaiser was not the least intimidating person: his tall stature and lithe muscles coupled with his calculating cerulean gaze made a dangerous figure.

in an effort to keep the peace, you tug at the back of his shirt. he stops immediately and turns to you, gaze turning from hollow to warm so fast that it almost gives you whiplash. you can visibly see his pupils dilate as his gaze reaches yours, just that was enough to fall in love with him.

“c’mon mein Kaiser, don’t let someone like him bother you…” his form loosened, clearly in agreeance. you ex began to shout obscenities, but when the cruel blue gaze reached him again, it was quickly silent. he left in a storming rage, deciding to play it safe.

your boyfriend rests his hands on your hips and rests his forehead against yours, his lashes fluttering shut.

“can’t help it, meine liebe, anyone who dares to hurt you deserves the wrath of dein Kaiser.”

okkotsuus 23

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ohayopoko · 3 years

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To my mutuals and my readers…

I truly am sorry yall had to see me down in the gutter checking bitches like this, I really am. I apologize to y’all cause I know y’all come to my blog for a good time, for some good smut😏 and lately it’s just been drama and that’s not what I’m about.

However, I will NEVER apologize for the way I handled that situation and def AIN’T apologizing for no shit I ain’t start because I was more than nice and understanding in the beginning and I tried to ignore and let the other party play victim because they couldn’t understand the foreign action of taking accountability for their own actions.

Now, I don’t know exactly what the streets are saying about me because I really do not care to indulge in internet beef w a unstable dookie mouf weirdo bitch, but let me just clear something up because mfs throwing dirt on my good name like I did something wrong;

1. I did not send minors to interact with NSFW blogs

In MY blog rules I state that minors CAN interact with MY blog simply because it is the internet and people are gonna do wtf they wanna do. That does NOT mean my blog rules apply to other blogs and whoever is spreading the rumor that I told minors it was okay to interact w nsfw blogs can literally go kill themselves.

2. I did NOT send minors porn links and this accusation just goes to show how sick and mentally fucked up in the head the person accusing me is.

3. I didn’t send mfs to bully anybody, anything that person got was in direct consequences to the content they put out on their blog

I was over the whole situation until this morning I woke up and saw the person tagging me in shit and accusing me of sending people to send her death threats or w.e I didn’t fully read everything I just skimmed but apparently the person thinks they’re sending hate on my behalf and I promise y’all, I never cared that much about a bitch to cyber bully ha okay?

Let’s also remember I never willingly interacted with this person she hmu one day begging me to support and reblog her writing and it was beyond weird so I brushed her off but then they followed me and joined my gc’s kept interacting- they just became a fan so I decided to humor them and try to be mutuals since they were showing so much initiative.

For those who are confused abt how this all started keep reading but dis da last time I will mention this drama on my blog cause I hate giving roaches clout but basically, Aii so boom-

Now, when they were boasting about their racist!Eren fic in the “Pink Punani Groupchat” which I was barely ever active in I jumped in and I was like “What? No” and when we were discussing why it was offensive and hurtful to some this person left the gc and they only came back when one unfortunate user started to praise their racist smut again. Now I will admit the gc got staticky and I tried my best to be respectful because everyone there was my mutuals but it got out of hand and the arguing went on because the person got defensive and refused to take any accountability or understand where everybody else was coming from.

I also had a private chat w the person and I explained to them how I felt when I saw the racist!Eren content, I explained this fandoms mistreatment of black women, I explained how I would not be the only one who’s uncomfortable with that kind of content and I explained how it could hurt or impact other black girls scrolling on tumblr who could come across it because the warnings weren’t explicit enough.

Nobody in the gc shat on her writing, nobody in the gc insulted her either we gave praise and constructive criticism and the first thing I said to her when we stepped out of the gc to talk was “respectfully ur writing is bomb, u always drop hot shit,”

During the conversation they acted as if they understood and they were remorseful and I tried to sympathize and put myself in her shoes too and that was last thing I said to her regarding the situation. In the gc we discussed it a bit more and they got defensive all over again and started attacking people then they left the gc the next morning.

The whole situation left me so drained I deleted both gc’s and I blocked the person but my mutuals let me know they were spinning shit on their blog to make us look like we attacked them, berated them and bullied them.

Again, I let ha rock and it was like 2 or 3 days after I found out she was stalking my friend Myah on her social media platforms and she kept unblocking her to send hate then blocking her again and it was weird because she thought it was Myah harassing her when we literally left her the entire way alone after the whole gc situation.

So I took it upon myself to address the person directly and yes, I was disrespectful and no, I do not care. I also do not give a fuck that she’s receiving death threats about her racist smut it’s not my business and I did not send anybody talk shit about ha motha’s neck. I wasn’t even worried abt ha yall think I’m worried about ha motha’s neck?😭✋🏾

This is the LAST time I will be addressing this situation on my blog, this is the last time I will be putting energy into a group of chopped bitches who can’t read the room cause they obviously could never get like me or get close to me so they gotta throw dirt on my name and paint me out to be the bad guy ringleader or some shit man idk idc but anyways

I said what I said, I’m standing on it and can’t no bitch knock me off. 🗣

All anons and submissions pertaining to this situation will be deleted💓

#cause ik yall wanna know what’s going on #I’m sorry to my followers they had to see me snatching bitches like this

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lallyloo · 3 years

Text

It’s Complicated

(This was just supposed to be a short little thing but it kind of got away from me..)

By the time the 3pm video call happened, Spencer had already talked to his parents. They were old hippies who didn’t know how to Zoom, so they just called from their landline. Brady stayed on his bunk while the phone call happened, trying to mind his own business, but he heard enough to know that Spencer’s parents really wanted him to come home, quarantine be damned, and they spent most of the call arguing. Spencer tried to tell them that even if he could come home it was too late to travel, and it was safer for him to just stay at school anyway.

The call ended quickly and Spencer suggested drinking after that.

They did a few shots before connecting to Brady’s aunt’s Zoom call, and when they did introductions he called Spencer his roommate. It was technically true, but it felt like there should’ve been another word for it – and Brady wasn’t sure yet what the word might be.

They fooled around a lot. Got naked together. Jerked off. Sometimes if they got too drunk they spent a lot of time kissing. Brady liked that a lot. Sometimes they’d wake up cuddled together on the same bunk and Spencer would slick himself up and fuck Brady nice and slow.

Sometimes Brady felt like he loved him.

They never really talked about it, and Brady wouldn’t say Spencer was his boyfriend, but he also wouldn’t say he wasn’t. He didn’t like to think about it too much. It was complicated.

So ‘roommate’ was the word he went with.

They’d put their masks on earlier in the day and managed to socially distance their way across campus to a little convenience store. Brady had been searching the freezer when Spencer came up beside him with his arms full of snacks.

“Dude,” Spencer held up a box of Ding Dongs, with his hand over the word ding. “Check it out – dongs!”

Brady laughed and high-fived him. It was stupid, but sometimes Brady liked stupid.

They bought the snacks and Ding Dongs, along with some frozen TV dinners and a tub of ice cream. They’d both been hoping for pie, but they knew it was a pipe dream when they were getting their Thanksgiving supplies at a campus convenience store.

When they got back to their dorm room, Spencer tried his best to shove the ice cream in the frost-coated freezer of their mini fridge, while Brady read the instructions on their tv dinners so he’d know when to start cooking them.

Spencer’s phone call happened shortly after, and then Brady was breaking out the vodka and trying to distract Spencer with a drinking game. Spencer suggested the Thanksgiving theme and they did a couple shots before the Zoom call, just to get themselves loosened up a little.

When the inflection in Spencer’s voice changed and he went a little nasally, Brady knew the alcohol was kicking in.

Just before three, Brady went down to the common area and put their dinners in the microwave so they’d be ready in time to join the family. He was a bit nervous about bringing Spencer to dinner, but a bit excited too.

When he got back to the room Spencer was wearing a dress shirt and his fake leather jacket.

“Dude, you dressed up?”

Spencer glanced down at his outfit. “Gotta make a good impression, man!”

“You obviously haven’t met my family.”

“I’ve seen your mom on your computer.”

“Yeah, so you know she’s nuts.”

Spencer shrugged. “She’s still your mom. I gotta make a good impression.”

Brady wasn’t sure if Spencer was forgetting the shot glasses and the fact that they planned to get completely shitfaced over dinner, but he didn’t have much time to think about it because the clock in the room said 3:01 and they were already late.

Brady set the TV dinners aside and quickly joined the video call. Spencer sat down a few seconds later, sliding in beside him in his pleather jacket, and they ended up having a great time. Brady’s family was ridiculous enough to encourage several more shots, and they got good and drunk while they ate some hot food. It was nice. The food wasn’t much different from their terrible cafeteria food, but somehow eating it together at a family dinner made it taste better.

Brady was feeling a little sappy by the end of it, and he was sad to miss out on his mom’s pumpkin pie, but watching Spencer smile at him from beneath an ice cream mustache seemed like an okay trade-off.

When Brady finally logged off and closed his laptop, they were both drunk and full and happy.

“You wanna lie down?” Spencer was looking at him with heavy eyes.

Brady nodded. “Yeah, dude.”

Spencer slipped off his jacket as they made their way to his bunk, and as soon as he was lying down Brady crawled in beside him.

They spent a good long while reliving the Zoom dinner and laughing about it.

“My Uncle Gary with that stupid turkey hat..”

“Turkey! Drink!” Spencer raised his hand as if he was still holding a shot glass but quickly remembered they were done drinking.

“It was turkey noises, drink.”

Spencer just waved him off with a smile. “Whatever dude.”

They talked about his Uncle Philip and Aunt Diane and Brady told a story about his younger cousins and how one Christmas they nearly set his grandma’s tree on fire.

The mention of Brady’s grandma suddenly had Spencer in hysterics. “Oh man, she was talking about her dookie!”

“Dude. Sick.” Brady grimaced. “Let’s not talk about it.”

When Spencer’s laughter died down he swiped his hand over his forehead, trying to get the hair out of his face. Then he looked over at Brady and smiled.

Brady smiled back at him.

He really liked Spencer but Brady secretly thought that his hair was pretty bad. It was too long, and cut weirdly, and dyed an inky black color which seemed to clash with his reddish beard. Brady didn’t even acknowledge the blue tips. It was just a weird combination over all.

He would never want to tell Spencer what to do or how to cut it, but the alcohol seemed to be making him brave. Or making him an asshole? Brady couldn’t really decide.

“Dude, you ever get tired of your long hair?”

Spencer seemed to consider the question for a moment before replying, “yeah maybe sometimes, like when I’m eating, and when I’m trying to watch tv, and when I’m sleeping.”

“You think–”

“And when I’m in class and the prof is writing stuff on the board.”

“Do you think– ”

“And when I need to brush it.”

“Dude.”

“And when– ”

“Dude.”

“Yeah dude?”

“What if.. like.. what if I cut it?”

Spencer didn’t respond so Brady continued.

“I’m good at cutting hair, I cut my hair all the time.”

When Spencer still didn’t reply, panic started to hit Brady a little. He wasn’t aiming to hurt Spencer’s feelings, but he was suddenly afraid that maybe he had. He silently cursed the stupid alcohol making him say stupid things.

“But if you don’t wanna” Brady stammered, “that’s cool too.”

“Yeah, dude.”

“Like, yeah that’s cool?” Brady asked carefully.

“I mean, like, yeah you can cut it.”

“Are you serious?”

“For sure,” Spencer nodded, pushing hair off his forehead again. “But we gotta wait until we’re not drunk. You got those shaky hands, bro.”

Brady raised a hand up to take a look at it. Spencer was right – his hands always trembled a little but it was worse when he’d been drinking.

He lowered his hand and looked over at Spencer. “Tomorrow?”

“Sure dude, in the morning.”

Brady smiled. “Awesome.”

He convinced Spencer to get up with him and they walked to the communal bathroom together to pee and brush their teeth. It was still pretty early, but Brady knew with the alcohol in their systems and the Thanksgiving dinner they’d both be passed out long before midnight.

When they got back to their dorm room Brady pulled his shirt over his head and Spencer unbuttoned his dress shirt and tossed it on the floor.

“You wanna kiss or something?”

“Yeah, man.”

Brady followed Spencer back to the bunk, and kissed him until he was too tired to keep his eyes open.

Brady woke to the feeling of Spencer’s hand on him, smoothing over his back, and when he opened his eyes the room was bright with morning light.

“You awake?” Spencer asked and Brady nodded into his pillow.

He secretly liked their early mornings together. The inflection in Spencer’s voice was different, softer and calmer, with less of the nasal twang he always had when they drank. Most mornings Spencer’s hands would be on him and they’d touch a bit and fuck, and Brady would happily go along with everything. It was in those moments he thought maybe he was in love. Maybe Spencer was his boyfriend.

But as the day went on Brady would push those ideas away. They were roommates.

It was complicated.

Brady thought back to the conversation from the night before and he really wanted to ask Spencer about his hair, but being sober made it a little more difficult and he definitely didn’t want to risk hurting Spencer’s feelings. So Brady kept quiet and just rolled over to look at him.

Spencer’s hair was pure chaos, a messy black and blue mop on his head, and maybe Brady gave himself away by staring at it, but Spencer was soon grinning at him.

“You wanna get the scissors?”

“Only if you want to, man.”

“Yeah, dude,” Spencer ran his hand through his hair, giving it a shake, “go get them.”

Brady jumped out of bed and searched his desk drawer for the scissors he always used on his own hair. He grabbed a towel from the closet, and a comb, and then pointed to his desk chair.

“Sit there.”

Spencer did as he was told, and Brady draped the towel over his shoulders and pulled it closed over his chest.

For such a chaotic pile of hair, it was surprisingly free of tats. Brady combed through it, brushing it down over Spencer’s face, completely covering his eyes. He needed to see where to cut and how much, and when Brady felt like he was ready he paused to look at Spencer.

“You ready?”

He could see Spencer’s mouth form into a grin beneath the smooth black hair. “Yeah, man, go for it.”

Brady went for the blue tips first, happily lopping them off, and then he surveyed Spencer’s head again. The loss of the blue tips left him with some sort of bowl cut and Brady considered it for a minute before moving around Spencer and snipping away at the sides and back.

Black hair continued to fall as Brady cut, and Spencer sat quietly, and if he was worried about his hair he didn’t say so.

Brady managed to cut the sides short, uncovering Spencer’s ears which he was pretty sure he’d never seen before. He stood in front of Spencer and looked back and forth, trying to make sure he’d cut everything evenly.

Then he nudged Spencer’s knee, pushing his legs apart, and he stepped between them.

“Time for the front,” Brady said, taking a deep breath. “Hopefully I don’t wreck it.”

“You won’t, man.” Spencer placed his hands on Brady’s bare hips and left them there as Brady started cutting.

It didn’t take long, just a few cuts, but Brady went slowly – holding out pieces and trying to cut things a bit jagged so Spencer wasn’t left with a blunt cut straight across his forehead. When he felt like he was done, Brady ran his hand through Spencer’s hair, trying to force it into some sort of style.

“If you put some wax in it I think it’ll look pretty good,” he said as he removed the towel from Spencer’s shoulders.

“Do you have any?”

Spencer glanced up, and Brady’s only response was to stare at the green eyes looking back at him. He’d seen Spencer’s eyes before, of course, but never so clearly.

“Dude, you’ve got nice eyes.”

“So do you,” Spencer smiled. “They’re so blue.”

“Yours are green.”

“I know, man.”

Brady leaned in to kiss him.

It was the first time they’d kissed without being drunk first.

Spencer’s hands strengthened their grip on Brady’s hips, and Brady couldn’t keep himself from touching Spencer’s face. His beard was still wild and scratchy, and it still clashed with his black hair, but it didn’t really bother Brady.

His hands moved lower, sliding down to Spencer’s shoulders and touching over him and when Spencer sighed against his mouth, Brady slid down onto his knees and unzipped Spencer’s jeans.

Brady had seen his dick before, usually when they jerked off or after Spencer fucked him, but they generally didn’t touch each other that way. But Brady knew what Spencer looked like, how long he was, and that he was uncut. Brady liked the way Spencer’s cockhead hid sometimes. He’d always been interested in it, wanting to explore because it was different from his own dick, but they never did that kind of thing, with his face in Spencer’s lap and Spencer watching him.

Brady thought maybe they should start.

He paused before reaching beyond Spencer’s zipper.

“Is this okay, man?”

Spencer just nodded slowly, “oh yeah, dude..”

Brady was slow about it, wanting to touch and look, and he watched the way Spencer thickened in his hand and the slit of his dick peeked out a bit as the hooded skin uncovered it. Brady gripped a little tighter, sliding Spencer’s foreskin down to uncover the wet cockhead underneath. He tried it again a few times, sliding the skin up and over the head of Spencer’s dick and then back down, pulling it taut as Spencer’s cock strained and leaked.

Spencer was sighing above him, “ahh Brady, please..” so Brady leaned forward and took him into his mouth.

Spencer’s dick was slick and salty and Brady licked over him, thinking about the way he liked his own dick sucked and trying to emulate it. Brady took him as deep as he could before realising it made him gag and he didn’t like that much, so he focused on licking and sucking on the end, using his hand to jack Spencer’s foreskin a bit. Spencer was writhing above him, making soft little whining sounds as he gripped the arms of the desk chair.

“Oh god, dude,” he gasped, “oh Brady, please, please keep going.”

So Brady did. He licked and sucked until Spencer was whining and coming down his throat. Brady had tasted his own jizz before and Spencer’s wasn’t much different, and it didn’t make him gag like the deep throating did. He moved his mouth over Spencer one last time, leaving him wet and licked clean, and Spencer leaned down to hold Brady’s face and kiss him.

“Oh man, you taste like me.”

“Obviously,” Brady grinned, “you just jizzed in my mouth.”

“I sure did,” Spencer smiled back, and then he slid down from the chair and joined Brady on the floor.

Spencer gave him a soft push, “lie down.”

Brady laid back and watched as Spencer knelt over him and loosened the ties on his joggers. His dick was tenting the fabric and Spencer looked at it before looking up at him.

“Can I suck you, dude?”

Brady’s eyes went wide. “God, dude, YES.”

He watched as Spencer pulled his joggers down and his dick sprung free, and then Spencer’s mouth was on him, wet and warm. Brady wanted to buck his hips up because it felt so good, and maybe Spencer knew it, because his hands moved to hold Brady’s bare hips again, pressing him to the floor as he took Brady’s cock as deep as he could. Spencer nearly gagged on it, and then he pulled his mouth back and completely away to watch the trail of spit and precum stretch between his lips and Brady’s cockhead.

“Spencer,” Brady gasped, wanting his mouth back, and Spencer moved down again, sucking over him nice and slow.

He’d had his dick sucked before, plenty of times, but Spencer’s mouth on him felt different. Sweet almost, and it gave Brady an odd feeling in his chest. He reached down to touch Spencer’s head, running his fingers through the fresh haircut, and Spencer glanced up at him, his green eyes soft and wanting as he smiled around Brady’s dick.

Brady watched him a little longer, enjoying the way Spencer’s lips moved over him, sucking him a little deeper each time. And when Brady felt himself teetering on the edge, he tipped his head back and pushed his hips against Spencer’s hands as he pulsed inside Spencer’s mouth. Those wet lips stayed tight around him, sucking every bit of jizz out of him until Brady was spent and unable to move another muscle.

Spencer flopped down next to him and after a moment he felt Spencer’s hand reach for his and they entwined their fingers.

“We should do that all the time.”

“Yeah, man.”

“Like, every day.”

“Yeah.”

Brady looked over and smiled at Spencer, and Spencer grinned back at him as he leaned in for another kiss.

It wasn’t really that complicated.

Brady was pretty sure he was in love. And Spencer was definitely his boyfriend.

#dude bro boyfriends #brady/spencer #rhink fic #but not exactly #they're randl characters #they were roommates #my fic #rhink #spencer/brady #sprady

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monofpoke4life · 3 years

Text

What Goes Around...

The discord I’m a part of had a Secret Santa, so here’s the zagr fluff I wrote. Please Enjoy.

"Stupid Zim! Stupid Dib! Stupid stupid field trip," Gaz growled as she hastily wiped away her silent tears. Her words echoing off the empty bathroom walls.

She shivered as she wrapped her arms around herself tighter, providing what little warmth she could for her bare upper half. Her cheeks flaming with what had happened earlier.

Her eyes closed as what transpired just five minutes ago replayed in her head.

She waded out into waist deep water to cool off, and to give her Game Slave a break. She was enjoying the contrast of the sun on her face and shoulders and the cool water at her waist when she heard it.

The fucking insane screaming of her brother and Zim, as they fought about who knew whatever it was they were fighting about. Rolling her eyes, she dove under, and resurfaced a moment later, content to ignore them and resign their blathering to the background as always.

That had been her first mistake as she took the chance to subtly adjust her bikini top, frustrated that she tied it a tad too tight. She should've paid more attention, and then maybe she wouldn't be in this damn mess that she now found herself in.

Suddenly, she made her second mistake as she heard Dib's annoying screams rapidly growing closer, and turned around just in time to see Dib flying at her.

Her wide eyes narrowed as she regained her composure to briefly glare at the proud green bean, on the beach, who had just yeeted her brother in her direction.

With a sigh, she had stepped back to avoid getting crushed by Dib's average-but-fun-to-tease large head, and that's when she stepped into her third mistake. She should've taken more than one step. She should've gotten the hell out of there! But no. She calmly waited so she could taunt him about it.

However, whatever clever remark on the tip of her tongue was lost as a flailing Dib made contact with the water with a sickening slap of skin, and his hand desperately reached out to catch himself on anything he could use to pull himself up with.

A gasp escaped her lips as she was suddenly jerked forward by her bikini top. A millisecond later, as Dib disappeared beneath the murky lake water, there was a tug, the tearing of fabric, and then weightlessness. The unsettling kind that let her know that her brother wasn't hanging on her anymore...because there wasn't something to hang onto anymore.

Her eyes squeezed shut at the part of the memory. Her cheeks burned, her throat grew tight, and her teeth ground together at the memory of her practically punching herself in the chest in her attempt to cover herself. She didn't have time to punish her brother as she took off to the closest building, the bathrooms, where she now found herself locked within.

"Fucking bullshit," Gaz snarled and slammed a fist into the side of the stall. She hated to act dramatic like one of her ditzy classmates that this was, "the end of the world," but it was! Oh it absolutely was! At least, it was to her reputation.

Now, after this horrible incident, even if they were still scared of her, they would still snicker at the memory of the girl who flashed the lake. No matter how many beatings she gave or threats she made, her reputation would forever remain tarnished for the rest of her time at school.

"When I get out of here those idiots will pay! Not even gnats will find their entrails when I-"

Her rant was cut short as she heard the restroom door open.

With a frown she quietly pulled her legs up to rest her feet upon the seat as she didn't want anyone to know she was still here. She just wanted to hide or evaporate into the ether. Just anywhere but there, and just forget about that day.

As the women did their business and gossiped afterwards in front of the mirrors as they primped their hair and reapplied makeup, Gaz quietly sighed and buried her face into her knees.

This was the worst day of her life, and it couldn't get any worse.

"LITTLE GAZ WHERE ARE YOU?"

"AHHH!"

"A boy!"

"This is the girl's room!"

"Get the fuck out!"

"You filthy, flabby skinned hyoomans cannot tell the mighty ZIM what to do! I shall leave when my business is done!!!"

As chaos graced her ears, Gaz groaned and gently hit her head against her knees repeatedly. Apparently things could get worse, and the dookie was going to hit the fan.

"We're getting security!"

"Begone MOPS!"

Gaz couldn't stop the snicker from escaping her lips at the misspoken meme as the door banged shut behind the pack of screeching harpies.

As the door bounced open, and slowly drifted shut, Gaz became hyper aware that she and Zim, who was apparently looking for her, were the only ones left alone inside.

Wanting to get this done sooner rather than later, Gaz lowered her feet, straightened her back, and crossed her arms over her chest, as she growled, "What do you want, Zim?"

At the sound of her voice, Zim pivoted on his heel, boots scratching against cement, and strutting towards her stall.

"My reasons, Little Gaz, are my own," he sneered, as she watched his boots stop in front of her stall and turn around. Not daring to take a chance at looking at her. Smart guy. For once.

Gaz opened her mouth to say something back, but stopped as a breeze from the open window sent a chill down her spine.

Shuddering, Gaz barely heard the sound of ruffling clothing, but she did hear the slight jostle of the stall door. Her head snapped up, and her eyes widened. There, hung over the door and held in place, was Zim's outer, magenta tunic.

"What's that for?" She growled impatiently. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, especially seeing it without an ulterior motive. Not that she didn't try to see one. However, she couldn't think of one. It's not like he planned this. He wasn't smart enough for that, especially with how hard he tried to get out of this field trip. Not to mention to have the brains to understand she'd be vulnerable in a moment like this.

It was silent for a moment, before Zim awkwardly cleared his throat.

"A soldier should not be caught without armor."

Okay...maybe he understood more than she thought.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously before she stood up, gently yet quickly, plucking it out of his grasp.

The material wasn't so bad. This would do to fetch her things so she could properly change. Maybe she'll just maim him a bit.

However, as she began to pull it over her head, she froze at what he said next.

"I-I...Zim is sorry."

"What?"

"I threw the Dib-weasle at you on purpose in the hope that you would doom him. I did not anticipate the loss of your chest thingy."

Her fists clenched the alien material, pulling it down and into place, as she slowly inquired, "If you knowingly messed up, then why are you here? Shouldn't you be running and screaming?"

"Hmph, Irken Invaders never run."

"Then what was last Thursday?"

"...A strategic retreat."

"A very loud strategic retreat."

At that, Zim grew silent. Clearly throwing a silent fit that she had a point, Zim refused to acknowledge her statement, for that would mean admitting she, a "stinky human" was right.

She merely smoothed out the wrinkles of the sleeveless tunic, and quietly basked with a smirk upon her lips. At least something got a predictable response from him. But, seriously, what was up with him? First the tunic and now an apology? What was next?

Gaz opened the stall and Zim immediately jumped back. His back brushing against the adjacent sink. He looked back and tugged at his light-pink, long sleeved shirt to make sure it didn't come into contact with any sink water. Finding none, he instinctively wiped his gloved hands against his black leggings.

"You never answered my question, Zim."

"Eh? What question?"

Gaz took a deep breath, one arm still crossed over her chest, as the tunic, which made a nice coverup, was still quite thin.

She took a threatening step forward. Zim gulped at this, as she elaborated, "Why aren't you 'strategically retreating from me?"

At this, Zim straightened his back and shoulders, arms clenched at his sides, and eyes closed. He looked like he was ready to face a firing squad, and with the wrath she's inflicted upon him in the past, that comparison was highly accurate.

He raised his chin up high, sweating bullets, as he finally answered. "To run from you is pointless. I know no matter where I go, no matter where I hid- retreat to, you, Little Gaz, would find me despite my far superior Irken training. I came to you, sparing your pitiful human time and effort, in hopes that you may hurt me less than you normally would."

Ah. That made sense. Zim would do anything to save his own skin.

"Turning yourself in? That's all?" She inquired with suspicious eyes and incredulous brows raised. Shouldn't he be bragging and begging for extra mercy for the "peace offering" he provided as well?

At this, Zim's eyes opened, suddenly relaxed, as he shrugged.

"Erm eh, yeah that's about it."

"Nothing else you did to escape a nightmare world of pain?"

"Nope. Nothing."

Gaz glared at him, and watched his every movement, watching for his body language to give himself away as usual. However, he just stood there, blinking owlishly at her.

Her cheeks started to feel warm, but she easily fought it down as she quickly closed the short distance between them.

"Ow!!!" Zim yelled in pain as his hand flew up to his throbbing shoulder. Despite, "surrendering" himself to her punishment, he glared indignantly at her as she pulled her fist away.

"That, whiner, is for throwing Dib at me and causing all of this!"

Her free hand pulled back again, and Zim froze with his eyes clenched shut, expecting another hit. However, the pain never came even as he felt an arm wrap around his shoulders. He squeezed his eyes tighter as he was jerked sideways, probably to be kneed or something, and yet nothing happened except his side bumping into hers.

Zim's eyes flew open just in time to see her release him from her one-armed hug.

He didn't get a chance to fully process it, as Gaz softly said, "And that's for lending me this. I can actually get my stuff from the buses now and change. Thanks."

"Oh, heh heh, of course. Totally did that on purpose. You may praise Zim more, Gus."

As Gaz opened the door, she frowned and rolled her eyes before she asked, "Hey, where is my brother anyway?"

"The Dib-feet? He ran into the forest when you ran in here."

She huffed. Of course he did.

However, this information made her smirk to herself, and when she opened the door, the sight beyond her made her smirk widen.

"Ya know, maybe when I find Dib, maybe I'll doom him a little extra. Just for you."

Out of the corner she watched him punch the ai as he exclaimed, "Yes! Just as I planned! Victory for ZIM!"

She rolled her eyes with a small smile at that, before she began to the long treck to the parking lot.

Zim came to the doorway and stood, watching her go with his chest puffed in pride.

She gave a wave as she, not even looking back, called, "Thanks again, Zimothy."

At the use of her demeaning, non-Zim name, Zim began to throw a small gremlin fit. However, he didn't get very far, didn't even get to scream or yell, as the women from before, with park rangers, swiftly approached him.

"There he is, officer! That's the little pervert who went inside the girl's restroom."

Meanwhile, as Gaz kicked a pinecone along the asphalt, she snickered as Zim's screams could be heard from off in the distance. Maybe she'd make it up to him some day, but for now, she'd bask in the karma freebie the universe gifted to her.

#Invader zim #gaz membrane #gazlene membrane #zagf #zagr #dib membrane #dib #discord secret santa #what goes around comes around

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hottestthingalive · 4 years

Text

Of Brothers and Bad Guys

They become the bad guys. They are the snake in the garden and the back-stabbing duke, and far away, they know Anxiety is the darkness in Thomas’ mind when they can’t be. It is an idea that makes Duke cackle with delight, that even when unable to speak to their host, they still scare him.

(Once upon a time, Duke would have worried for Anxiety, alone and hated by the Light Sides, but now he simply laughs. A part of him, a part that perseveres even when the shadows attempt to tear it out, wonders if this is a change for better or worse.)

Once upon a time, Anxiety promises that everything will be okay. And Anxiety has never been a liar.

The story of how the snake, the duke, and the darkness find their happy ending.

Notes: This fic turned into really just platonic anxceitmus with a sprinkling of angst. A sprinkling.

I’m a liar.

I hope you enjoy, anon!

Warnings: Cursing, a bit of gore + disturbing imagery.

Also, some of the sides may appear unsympathetic here: they are not. They are human (or, well, sort of) and also children, and they make choices or do things they don’t quite understand or control. No one in this fic is a bad guy! That’s... kind of the whole point.

Ao3

—

The Mindscape splits when they are children.

Well, children in the loosest sense of the term, considering no one really knows how old they were, exactly. Janus thinks it was when Thomas was about thirteen, Remus cackles and names a different age every time, and Virgil refuses to answer the question, usually diverting their attention to something else. He’s good at that, Remus muses.

In the end, none of them quite remember when the Mindscape divided, or their age at the time, and for a very simple reason: Patton, who controls Thomas’ memories (and to some extent, their own) wants more than anything to forget it.

They just know the split was when they were small, small enough that the hand Remus — but he wasn’t Remus then, just Creativity — sets against the barrier between the halves is small, the nails not yet painted or jagged or covered in dirt. It is the hand of a child, the hand of a boy staring with horror across a rift in Thomas’ mind at his brother, his twin, his other half both figuratively and literally.

Creativity (not him, not the Green Creativity, a different boy wearing all reds and whites instead, his brother) looks horrified too, but Morality, with his hand over his mouth and fear in his eyes, takes his hand and pulls him away. The not-but-also-him-Creativity follows. Logic presses his palm against the barrier too, his mouth wide in shock, glasses askew. Morality turns and calls for him.

“Go,” Creativity (the bad half, the scary half, the dark half) hears Anxiety say behind him, sad and solemn and scared all at once, and after a moment Logic nods, and waves, and turns to follow Morality.

“What happened?” Deceit asks, fast and scared and loud. “What did he do?!”

“He didn’t mean to,” Anxiety says quietly, pulling Creativity (but is he Creativity? Who is Creativity? How can Thomas have two of them? Why isn’t he with his brother?) to his feet. Anxiety’s tug on him is gentle, but insistent, and soon Creativity-but-maybe-not finds himself trailing behind the other sides, his hand wrapped in Anxiety’s. “Morality has no idea what he’s doing, Dee, he’s got so much power and no idea how to control it.”

“He did this to me!” Deceit screams, gesturing to the yellow scales that have begun to emerge from his skin, the eye that looks more yellow every day, the pupil that’s already changing shape. “And now he’s shoved us into… into… here! Wherever this is!”

“The Dark Side,” Bad-Creativity (?) whispers, and Anxiety’s grip on his hand tightens, though he does not respond.

“Listen,” says Anxiety, who reaches out to grab Deceit’s hand as well, “it’s gonna be okay.”

“You don’t know that,” snaps Deceit, and Creativity-but-not-but-is-but-only-sorta can’t decide whether to laugh or cry, so he does both, tears streaking down his face even as a weak giggle escapes his throat.

“I do,” Anxiety answers, Anxiety who has always tried to care for and protect Thomas, and all of his sides, too. Kinda-Creativity understands, sort of, why he and Deceit were sent away (he supposes they had offended Morality’s sense of, well, morality) but it doesn’t make any sense that Anxiety would get sent with them. He wonders briefly if it’s some sort of trick, and then looks at Anxiety and sees the tears threatening to spill from his eyes, and knows it isn’t. Anxiety thinks he’s all secretive and strong, but King Creativity (he had a name, Kinda-Creativity knows, the only one with a real name like Thomas, but he can’t seem to catch it) had always been able to read him. Now, so can Kinda-Creativity.

“We have each other,” Anxiety continues, “and I believe in you, and I believe in us. It’s going to be okay.”

“You promise?” Deceit asks, his voice small.

“I promise,” Anxiety nods, and Kinda-Creativity is being hugged, all three of them wrapped together. He feels Deceit’s tears mixing with his own, and Anxiety’s soft grey sweatshirt brushing against his neck, and he is not alone. He is not King Creativity, not anymore, and he does not have his brother, but he is not alone.

It gives him hope.

—

Anxiety takes care of them after that; he is the only one who will. Deceit is angry all the time, constantly scheming — trying to pass through the barrier, trying to talk to the other sides, trying to contact Thomas in any way — and he forgets to eat. And sleep. And Kinda-Creativity is pretty sure he’s scratching at his scales a little too much.

As for him, well… He’s Creativity. Kinda. But so is his brother. He can’t call himself that anymore, not really.

He thinks about ‘King’, but that isn’t right either. That was him, yes, but that was really all of Creativity, him and his red-white brother both. Prince feels wrong, more suited to the other half of him.

He considers others. They don’t feel right.

He goes to the barrier. He looks for his brother. He does not find him.

But apparently he isn’t taking care of himself as well as Anxiety would like, either, because he finds himself at the kitchen table with Deceit, grilled cheese and tomato soup shoved in front of them, glasses of water besides them, and Anxiety glaring at them menacingly from the other side of the counter.

“Eat,” he says.

They do.

As for Anxiety, well, he knows the other side goes to the barrier sometimes. He doesn’t know why. Kinda-Creativity hears him crying once, from the couch, when he’s pretty sure Anxiety thought the rest of them were asleep. He purposefully steps on the creaky part of the stairs, and Anxiety sits up, scrubbing at his eyes, until he looks almost normal. “Creativity?” he says, trying for a smile. “What’s up, bud?”

“I’m hungry,” Kinda-Creativity says, though he isn’t.

“Okay,” Anxiety nods. He’s smaller than Kinda-Creativity, is smaller than all of them as far as he can tell, but he still manages to look so old. “Let’s get you some toast.”

“With blood as jam!” Kinda-Creativity exclaims, but Anxiety laughs and shakes his head.

“How about regular butter and honey?” he asks, and smiles in the way that means he’s about to do some serious mischief. “You’ll never believe where honey comes from.”

Kinda-Creativity does believe, and torments Deceit with it for the next week. But Anxiety seems to forget why he was crying as they snicker together, and he thinks that’s good.

Anxiety takes care of them, guards and protects Deceit and Kinda-Creativity in the way he used to do for all of the sides.

But sometimes, he forgets to take care of himself, too. So Kinda-Creativity does it for him, makes sure Anxiety eats and drinks water and sleeps, even if these things aren’t technically necessary for them to survive. This is what Anxiety does for them, so it must be good.

And when Anxiety hears about his King dilemma and the list of titles Kinda-Creativity is considering, he says offhandedly, “Aren’t dukes always the evil bad guys in every story? That always seemed unfair.”

“And it sounds like dookie,” Deceit snickers from where Anxiety is tending to the growing scales, and the long scratch down his face.

“Well, I’m not a bad guy,” Kinda-Creativity says, “but I like the idea of being a duke-ie.”

He grins, and so do the other sides.

He’s Duke after that, and Anxiety and Deceit adjust to the new name quickly. Even his door in the hallway of the Dark Side (for that is what they have begun to call them, the Dark Side and the Light Side, names of Duke’s creation) changes to have his new name etched across it.

They are not evil. He knows that, and he knows Dee and Anx know it too.

He’s gonna prove the Light Sides wrong, and he’s not gonna do it as a King, or as a Prince, but as a Duke.

(Besides, Dee’s joke makes him laugh every time.)

—

One day, Anxiety finds a way across the barrier.

He says there’s a door. Duke and Deceit can’t see it, no matter how many times Anxiety tries to show them, but they see the results: Thomas listens to Anxiety now, knows of him and about him, and his influence is obvious.

Duke wonders how Morality feels about that. The thought makes him snicker with delight.

“Morality isn’t bad,” Anxiety has always insisted, “he doesn’t understand what he’s done. I’m sure he didn’t mean to.” Duke isn’t sure he believes that, but he trusts Anx, and so he doesn’t argue.

It is Anxiety’s belief in the Light Sides that leads neither Duke nor Deceit to think him crossing over to speak with both them and Thomas is a bad idea. When Anxiety returns one day and punches the table with a sickening crack that indicates something has broken (Duke hopes it is the table, even as he thinks about how cool broken bones are), eyes glowing black and fist coated in darkness, both realize that might not have been an entirely correct assumption.

“Anx?” says Dee, stepping forwards, and Anxiety turns. For a horrible, brief second, Duke thinks he’s going to hurt them, the ideas crawling into his mind once again that remind him he is something other than Creativity, something darker, something more intrusive.

Anxiety merely moves forwards, pulling both of them into a hug, the darkness around his fingers vanishing as he clings to his family.

“Yo, Anxie,” Duke mutters, far more scared than he feels like letting on, “what happened?”

“You need to hide yourselves,” says Anxiety after a moment, arms dropping to his sides as he steps away.

“What?” Duke exchanges looks with Deceit, who looks equally confused.

“Dee, you can tell Thomas the two of you don’t exist.” Anxiety’s normal grey sweatshirt is streaked with black, a darkness that covers the whole surface with only hints of the grey poking through. As Duke watches in horrified fascination, the grey surfaces in lines, crossing the sweatshirt. “Listen to me, okay, because if you don’t, things are gonna be bad.”

“What’s happening to you?” Deceit asks slowly, staring at Anxiety’s face, where darkness is beginning to drip from his eyes, coating his cheeks. “Anx-”

“Deceit, listen to me!” Anxiety snaps, and his voice reverberates in a way Duke has never heard before. Even he seems shocked, his hand leaping to his mouth, but when the moment passes, Anxiety only looks more determined.

“We’re the Dark Sides to them,” he says, spreading his arms as if to show his new outfit. “The bad guys. And Thomas believes the others, of course he does, and the moment he saw me he decided I was bad, too.”

“You look like a monster,” Duke tells him, blunt and unfiltered as always, and Anxiety just laughs.

“I know,” he whispers, his hair straightening and darkening, falling over his eyes. “And I can’t let it happen to you.” He turns to Deceit, a plea in his storm-clouded eyes. “Hide yourselves. The barrier began to break when I crossed it, so make sure Thomas can’t find you unless he can accept you for who you are. Not you two, not any of the others on this side of the Mindscape.” He gestures to Deceit. “Look what happened the last time Morality profiled one of us. We can’t risk Thomas changing you forever.”

“But what will happen to you?” Dee asks, tears already leaking from his human eye. “We need you, Anx! You’re… you’re our brother, you’re supposed to take care of us!”

“You don’t,” Anxiety tells them, the darkness leaking from his eyes almost like tears of his own . “And I’m not. You’re going to be okay, alright?” He hesitates, and sighs. “I’m going to go back over there, try and get Thomas to listen to me, to… He knows about me now.”

“You’re leaving us,” Duke says, and Anxiety just nods. The room looks darker, now, especially around Anxiety, and he realizes distantly that the shadows are coming from the other side, like paint dripping from a canvas, like blood dripping from a wound.

“I have to,” he answers simply. “Dee, please.”

“That’s not okay,” Duke snaps, stepping towards him. “You promised everything would be okay, and that’s about as okay as tearing out our hearts with your bare hands and feeding them to kids, that’s like frying up our eyes with them still in our skulls, that’s like killing us!”

“I’m sorry,” Anx whispers, though he is already backing away. “I’m so sorry, Du. I love you guys, okay? I love you so much. And I’m so, so sorry.” He looks past Duke then, at Deceit. “Do it, Dee.”

The final words sound like thunder, and before Duke knows it, Anxiety is sinking out, Deceit snapping his fingers in a quick, panicked motion, and a feeling of icy numbness washes over him, like he’s been erased.

“Why would you do that?!” he screams, turning on Deceit, who looks far more scared now, snapping over and over, though nothing happens, nothing is fixed.

“I didn’t mean to!” Dee cries, and the shadows that he’d seen dripping off Anxiety swarm up both of them, changing them.

Anxiety never returns. But Duke and Deceit are alone after that, alone with the other sides who hide in the dark, the ones who were never their friend, not like Anxiety was.

Anxiety’s room is still in their side of the Mindscape, but it’s closer to the barrier now, almost phased between the two halves, and whenever Deceit and Duke try to enter or open the door, they’re thrown back into the common room with a noise like thunder. They don’t see Anxiety for years, after that, though they can sense his presence and they know he affects Thomas, influencing his decisions in ways the old Anxiety never would have condoned.

In the end, Anxiety’s sacrifice doesn’t mean anything at all. The other two are changed far less dramatically, but they are changed, and no longer have their friend, their brother, to keep them good.

Thomas begins making his videos a few years later, of his Light Sides, and of Anxiety too, who appears in one of the early episodes and never leaves. Duke and Deceit (though they have names, now, Remus and Janus, just like all the other sides have names) know of Sanders Sides, of course, for every side knows of such an important thing in Thomas’ life, and when Anxiety appears Remus rages. Thomas has only nightmares that night, full of awful things happening to his friends and failure and a grey sweatshirt dripping with darkness.

Janus, meanwhile, is quiet, the sort of silence that makes Remus think of the word plotting, as he watches the series progress and adjusts his new yellow gloves with a decisive hum. Remus does not ask about it, for he knows that Janus will likely include him in any plans he might make, and although he is impulsive and loud and spontaneous, Thomas’ Intrusive Thoughts can also be very, very patient.

The Dark Side is still full of shadows, ones that remain perfectly still and normal on most days, and that writhe and pulse and move about on others. They are tinged with the darkness now, him and Janus both, and sometimes Remus sees it seeping from under the door of Anxiety’s room, the shadows unable to fully escape but attempting to do so anyways.

“Only Thomas could get into that room,” Janus tells him when Remus starts planning to break the door down one day. “It’s not possible.”

Remus grumbles and eventually moves on to his next idea, for he never expects Thomas to actually need to enter Anxiety’s room.

When Anxiety (no, Virgil, he calls himself Virgil now, and how did they not know that?) ducks out, or tries to, everything changes. He’s accepted, by both halves of Thomas’ mind, and suddenly the divide between them seems weaker than it ever has been. Janus and Remus suddenly find themselves able to influence Thomas far more, the power that had hidden them weakened with Virgil’s newfound famILY.

(Make sure Thomas can’t find you unless he can accept you for who you are, Virgil had told them, so long ago. Thomas trusts Anxiety, now. He can trust them, too.)

It takes months, (far too many, in Remus’ opinion) but Thomas grows to know every facet of himself, including Janus and Remus. Virgil meets them once again, and he is angry and scared, and Remus’ heart breaks once more and reforms cold and angry.

It takes even more time, but eventually the barriers between the Mindscape dissolve, Remus and Janus’ rooms are suddenly along the same corridor as the so-called ‘Light Sides’, they have movie nights and meals and quiet mornings with the others, they are accepted by Thomas. They are no longer alone.

And so, one day, Remus finds himself walking down the stairs (for their home in the Mindscape, or the bottom floor, at least, mirrors Thomas’ own home nearly perfectly) and sees Virgil alone in the living room, doing something on his phone. The other side spots him, scrambles to his feet, is about to sink out, and something in Remus’ chest screams.

“We need to talk,” he says, uncharacteristically serious, and the contrast between the words and Remus’ usual personality has Virgil pause long enough for Remus to make it to the couch, perching on the armrest.

“I’m not gonna yell at you,” he tells Virgil, when the other side still looks to be on the verge (ha, verge! Patton would like that one) of sinking out. “Well, I might. I’m very mad. I just want to know why, okay? You left us, and you came over here, and…”

“I know,” Virgil sighs finally, sitting on the other arm rest, legs dangling off the side. The other side won’t make eye contact with Remus, instead glancing down at his short, bitten nails, but still, there is something in his voice that is purely Anxiety, no matter how much his body language isn’t. Or is, for though his behavior seems strange to Remus’ idea of the Anxiety he knew, it is quite typical of anxiety, lowercase edition. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” he blurts out, and he can feel the shadows seeping out from under his fingers, crawling across the couch, inching their way towards Virgil. For his part, the literal embodiment of Thomas’ fears and worries doesn’t seem scared by the darkness approaching him, only concerned, and so, so apologetic.

He hates that look on the other side’s face, and he’s pretty sure Virgil knows it.

“You were more of a brother to me than my own brother ever was!” Remus tells him, voice approaching what can only be called screeching. “And then you just… You left, to try and help us, I get that, but then when everything was okay again, you chose him.”

“Yeah,” Virgil says, and reaches out to touch one of the shadows. It curls around his fingers, sinking into his skin, and he winces. “I thought I was protecting you from… this.”

“Well, you failed,” he snaps, merciless, cold.

“I know,” the other side nods, and Remus realizes his hands are shaking, that he-who-was-Anxiety is more nervous than he has ever seen him. “I am so, so sorry, Re, I…”

“It hurt, when you left,” Remus says after a moment, staring up at the ceiling and counting the cracks. “It was like you’d torn out our hearts and dumped gasoline all over them and set them on fire and then shoved them back into our chests. Spla-woosh.”

“I fucked up,” Virgil says bluntly, and then hesitates. When he speaks again, his voice is far quieter, as if it could shatter at any loud noise. “I didn’t leave you for Ro, though. You’re my brother, too, Remus, or you were, I guess, and I… You’re always going to be important to me, okay? It’s not okay that I left, but I did think I was doing the right thing, and I never meant to choose the Light Sides over you guys, or anything like that. If I had known I had a choice, I would have chosen you, no matter what. And… I really am sorry.”

“...Stop saying you’re sorry,” Remus grumbles finally, breaking the silence that has settled between them after Virgil’s words. It is the closest to an admission of forgiveness Virgil will get, and they both know it. “Gotta save some for Jan, right?”

“I don’t think it’s possible to run out of apologies,” Virgil tells him, a hint of a grin playing at his lips. “And I am.”

“Yeah, I got that,” he rolls his eyes, and opens his arms wide, twisting so both of his muddy boots are on the couch cushions and he’s facing Virgil fully. “C’mere, emo nightmare.”

Virgil is staring at the stairs again, though, and Remus turns to look at them too, his neck cracking sickeningly as he does. Janus is there, his expression unreadable.

“I’m so sorry,” Virgil says once more, and Remus barely sees Janus move, only realizes he has when the other side collides with Virgil, tugging him into a hug, and using his extra arms to pull Remus in as well.

The hug isn’t exactly soft (Remus is still wearing his morningstar, and Virgil is all sharp edges) or warm (they’ve always tended more towards the cold, the two of them and Janus) or particularly nice (they are a jumbled mass of sides, and there’s a few too many arms in the equation for it to be entirely comfortable) but it is perfect, all the same.

These are Remus’ brothers, no matter what has happened between them. They have been for ages, for longer than they have been not, since he was created from the ashes of Creativity and since he lost his other half to the sides that now have accepted Remus, too. They always will be, he thinks, with Janus’ scales smooth against his cheek and Virgil’s hair tickling his neck.

He wouldn’t change that for the world.

The shadows don’t vanish immediately, or even fully. Thomas’ Mindscape reforms once more, and instead of darkness and light, they coexist in shades of grey. There are no Dark Sides anymore, and there are no Light Sides. There are just the different parts of Thomas, coexisting.

They are no longer the bad guys, the three who had been in the dark; there are no bad guys, anymore, and perhaps there never really were. There are just Remus and Janus and Virgil, (and the other sides too, Remus supposes) and they are the snake and the duke and the darkness, but that does not make them Dark Sides or villains or bad guys.

They are simply family, a family that found itself in the shadows. And Remus thinks — no, Remus knows — that with them by his side, his best friends and brethren and brothers, he can do anything.

Virgil, in the end, was right.

Everything turns out okay.

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petewentzworld · 4 years

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Dear Past Self: Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz Interviewed

Why looking back once in a while is integral to embracing the future...

Pete Wentz is driving around LA, speaking to me over the phone about his newly-launched range of jewellery and apparel, Ronin.

As far as rock star business enterprises go, it’s certainly extravagant, and the website’s description of the rings, pendants and hoodies held therein – “born out of the idea of wandering, a samurai without a master, and the free dreams that accompany facing the world on your own” – adds to the initial sense that Wentz’s professional career may have ballooned into parody, the kind of project Connor 4 Real from Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping might have signed off on.

“We would go and sample products in the jewellery district in downtown LA, learning why one gold looks more yellow than the other,” he tells me when I ask about it. “It’s been a really interesting learning experience.”

But then Pete Wentz, to borrow Lana Del Rey’s favourite American poet Walt Whitman, is large; he contains multitudes, and some of those multitudes just happen to involve samurai-themed lockets. Among other projects, he owns a clothing company, a film production company, a nightclub, and a minority share in American USL soccer team Phoenix Rising.

“It scares me sometimes, watching him,” Patrick Stump once joked. “The two seconds you're not with that dude he's made 30 decisions that are going to affect our band for the rest of the year.”

Ah yes: he’s also, you may recall, the bassist in Fall Out Boy.

The band recently released a new single, ‘Dear Future Self (Hands Up)’, to accompany the release of their second career-spanning retrospective, ‘Greatest Hits: Believers Never Die – Volume Two’.

Such records are inevitably a time for bands to take stock of what they’ve already achieved and what value they might continue to offer the world, and the single seems to acknowledge that duality: “Dear future self, I hope it's going well / I'm drunk on cheap whiskey in an airport hotel,” Stump reflects on the new track. Like Janus, the Greek god of beginnings, endings, and Wyclef Jean collaborations, Wentz finds himself gazing in all directions.

In the near future lies a reminder of the past. Despite the fact that all three bands have new albums coming out, it’s perhaps an easy take to view next year’s ‘Hella Mega Tour’ – Green Day, Weezer, and Fall Out Boy performing at a number of stadium dates together on a triple-headliner bill – as a nostalgia trip.

Is it something Wentz worries about?

“I think about that for sure,” he says. “There’s a danger that, once you become known as one thing, the world knows you as that thing forever. When you’ve been doing art for 15 or 20 years you do have to think about your legacy, but it’s really important to remember why you did it in the first place.”

However cynical your view, it’s hard to argue that the band don’t deserve a victory lap with two of the most influential acts in pop-punk history. “It would be insane for us to turn this tour down because we grew up on ‘Dookie’ and the ‘Buddy Holly’ video – those things were super influential on the early years of our band. So this is wish fulfilment in that way. But then I think that’s why it’s important that we did the Wiz Khalifa tour, that we do remix albums, you know? We wanna do both.”

On musical terms, at least, Fall Out Boy have often done just that. Their first two albums, ‘Take This to Your Grave’ and 2005’s breakout ‘From Under the Cork Tree’, are perhaps their most straightforward in genre terms – but even then, ‘Dance Dance’ was arguably more playful and inventive than anything the cross-sections of pop, emo and punk had served up in the preceding decade. By the time 2007’s ‘This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race’ hit number two in the Billboard charts – their commercial peak to date – the band were already steadfastly toying with hip hop and R&B in both their production values and collaborators.

“I think that there was a time when we were doing that and people were scratching their heads a little bit,” Wentz says. As he rightly points out, the days of cultural tribalism in listener habits are all but dead now in the Spotify age. “I think genre has broken down so much more now, the way people listen to music, that people are more open to it.”

‘Make America Psycho Again’ is a fine example, a collection of remixed tracks from 2015’s ‘American Beauty/American Psycho’ featuring guest appearances from Azealia Banks, Migos and Big K.R.I.T. among others. The title, of course, is a direct reference to the campaign slogan Donald Trump was using in his Presidential election campaign at the time. I ask whether the band are cautious about straying into political territory.

“I don’t think you can avoid it anymore,” he tells me, picking back up after the signal drops on our international call. “We live in a time of super inauthenticity – people taking pictures of food that you don’t even know if they eat, people having fear of missing out – and so I think, in a weird way, to cut through you have to be super authentic. Which is, to me, what people like Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish, Skrillex, Kanye, and whatever do. You just gotta be who you are and cut through all the noise. And I think people are… maybe not more forgiving, but more appreciative of you being honest about that stuff.”

There was a period in the 00s when Wentz was unavoidable; the video for ‘This Ain’t a Scene…’ hilariously parodied the bassist’s newfound gossip-mag status – later compounded by his marriage to Ashley Simpson in 2008, and subsequent divorce less than three years later – but inevitably, it wasn’t always something he could brush off. In February 2005, Wentz attempted suicide by taking an overdose of the anxiety medication Ativan, and ended up spending a week in hospital recovering.

Today he still finds the pace of modern life extremely deleterious to mental health, not least dealing with the quagmire of social media on a daily basis. “Every day you wake up and there’s a new take, and it’s kind of relentless,” he says with a sigh. “It can get a little numbing when you look out across social media. It can feel really lonely.

“I think that now, more than ever, who you are and what you project into the world will inform your politics, how you interact with people, how you feel when you wake up in the morning. I just want to craft things that are important to Fall Out Boy, to insert something meaningful into people’s lives. That’s really, really what’s important.”

For all the extracurricular projects, it’s clear that Wentz’s heart still beats faster for Fall Out Boy. He’s ready to keep taking the band forward, he tells me. “But it’s got to be something interesting. It’s got to have a perspective. There’s something exciting about Quentin Tarantino being like, ‘I’m just doing 10 or 12 movies and that’s it’. It’s exciting because it makes every movie have meaning. So to me, whatever it is, the next thing has to have perspective, has to have meaning, has to have feeling.”

And what might that look like?

“Maybe it’s scoring a movie, I don’t know. It’s got to be something a little bit different, I don’t think it can be a straight-up album from us.”

Beyond the nightclubs and bling, Wentz is a remarkable philanthropist – a term which has perhaps been sullied in recent times for its application in sanitising billionaires, but which feels appropriate given Wentz’s personal history, and the fact that his work directly supports those who suffer from the same mental health issues that he’s battled over the years. His work as a spokesperson for The Jed Foundation’s ‘Half of Us’ campaign, a program aimed at lowering the rate of teenage suicide, has been invaluable. It’s the kind of supported he could have used 15, 20, 25 years ago.

“I think we live in a time where there is less of a stigma around mental health, and I hope the next generation will feel even more open to speak about it,” he tells me. “Knowing that you’re not alone and other people are going through similar things is so important for our culture to move ahead. So many times when I was younger I thought: am I the only person who feels this way? I think it can be less isolating to know that, hey, Jay-Z feels that way sometimes too.”

For Wentz, who now has three children, the idea of young people today facing those problems alone is terrifying: “I’m raising kids in this world, and I think it’s important for them to know that talking about this doesn’t mean you’re weak or alone. None of it’s weird, none of it’s you by yourself. Young people need to feel that they’re part of the community as a whole.”

Across such an extraordinary life and career, I wonder if he carries any regrets. There’s a brief silence on the line, one that transcends the usual delay carried between the pink-sunset streets of LA and the Cardiff Travelodge I’m calling home for the night.

“In my twenties I felt lots of anxiety and lots of stress about every decision that we made, instead of just living life. I’ve realised that sometimes you’ve just got to live life and trust that you’ll make it from A to B to C. Live through the ups and downs. I think that’s something important that we don’t always impart on young people.”

Spoken like a man who knows real gold when he sees it.

#pete wentz #fall out boy #interview

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harryandmolly · 5 years

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i could write it better than you ever felt it - FINAL

summary: fuck growing up. this is freedom, this is life, this is youth – 2007 Warped Tour style.

warnings: Language, vintage Something Corporate, oversugaring tea amidst Londoners

word count: 5.2k

A/N: this is it, fam! thanks for coming along in my time machine. I hope it’s everything you dreamed it would be. Shawn’s song is “As You Sleep” by Something Corporate, highly recommend a listen. thank you for everything you are and everything you give me. I love you guys.

Lucky 13.

The emblem of the 2007 Warped Tour has surrounded her all summer, but it feels especially present today somehow, on the last day of tour in Carson, California.

It seems a contradiction in terms, lucky 13, which Val supposes is probably the idea. She knows it’s a cheeky nod to the counterculture vibe that Warped Tour represents, but it also feels representative of her in some ways.

Val’s had a very contemplative and quiet three weeks since she gathered her things and walked out of that hotel room, leaving the scribbled note on the pillow behind her. She’s turned inward, no longer hounded by her conflict with Raf or Bea, able to focus on herself for the first time in a few months. And she’s picked out a few things that coincide with the theme of the summer.

Val is often reckless, and sometimes maternal. Val is book smart, and also street smart. Val embraces academia, but sometimes thinks she could drown herself in music and never read books again. Val is vibrant even when she is broken.

Humans are made up of contradictions, Val knows that as well as anyone. She is not suddenly realizing that she is not only one thing -- her dichotomies are not really news to her. But as she thinks about the people she loves most, she sees the way certain parts of their personalities bump up against other parts and fight for dominance, and she loves them more richly for it.

Humans are made up of contradictions and Val is embracing that from here on out. She arrived on the first day of Warped wearing a blink t-shirt with a textbook on Ming dynasty art in her trunk. All summer, she studied the ways she doesn’t fit in here in the scene anymore like she was looking for reasons to make a clean split and join her adult life across the pond. But the truth is, she failed. She looked for the ways that made her feel different from this world that she helped in her small way to build, but it’s as much a home to her as academia is and it will never truly feel foreign, no matter how many hours she spends crouched over a 9th century vase with a tiny brush. So her biggest contradiction, her inner strife over choosing academia over pop punk, it fades into her skin like her tattoo, as much a part of her as the dimple in her chin or the curls in her hair that she decided not to straighten today.

Val walks the grounds as the sun begins to fade. The last sets of the day are in progress or being set up. With earbuds in playing Boys Like Girls, she strolls between booths of merch people clinking beers and congratulating each other on a summer well done, between groups of kids comparing signed merch, between crew guys beginning to break down and pack away equipment to be pulled out next June for another go around.

She imagines who she’ll be next June.

She walks slowly on her way to Smartpunk. It seems her body is just as hesitant as her mind to attend this one last set, but she’s doing it anyway. She’s not sure why -- to prove a point to herself? To indulge in the talent one last time? To try to believe in a miracle?

She doesn’t like any of those options. She settles on curiosity and keeps her feet moving in uncharacteristically small steps.

She stands at the back, nice and far from any moshing action, by the All Time Low booth so she can sit on the edge of the table without getting grief from Vinny Vegas.

She wears a small smirk as the space around her fills in. It seems every Warped attendee is a Forefront convert now. She doesn’t blame them. But damn is it a far cry from their first sets in June.

They’re announced over the yelping cries of fans wearing out their last screams of summer. They hustle out in a group, with their tall, gawky frontman bringing up the rear as usual. He plants himself in front of the mic and swings one powerful arm above his head with a wild grin to wave as his adoring fans.

And it begins.

They put on a hell of a show. It’s not a given -- just because you’re good in the studio doesn’t mean you have the chemistry or energy to do well live. There are special bands that make a live concert a nearly religious experience -- her friends in Paramore and All Time Low among them. Forefront has gotten their sea legs this summer and won’t easily lose them now.

She takes the time to notice each member -- passionate, goofy Francis on rhythm guitar, hard-hitting, soft-spoken Seth on the drums, raucous pretty boy bassist Bobby. And then Shawn, switching between his keyboard and guitar effortlessly like he was born with a damn instrument in his hand, charisma leaking out of him all over the stage, making everyone in a fifteen mile radius certain that he’s born to do this.

She closes her eyes through the end of “Open End” and waits for “Swim” to start. When Shawn switches back to the keys at this point in the set, he usually engages in some chit chat with the boys or yammers on to the fans about how much they inspire him or whatever. But he’s quiet and the air around the stage is tense because everyone knows something’s up.

Val opens her eyes. He’s where she expected him to be, propped at the edge of his bench with his fingers resting over the keys, looking down at them frozen.

“We’re gonna play you a new one today.”

Val’s stomach falls out and flops into the dirt at her feet. She’s glad she’s sitting on the table because she can’t feel her legs. She overwhelmed by certainty that whatever’s about to happen, it’s going to be personal. And it’s going to hurt like hell.

Shawn is quiet for a few more electrically charged moments before he closes his eyes, rolls his shoulders forward and leans into the mic, singing before the instruments join him.

“Close your eyes and I will be swimming, lullabies fill your room, and I will be singing, singing only to you. Don’t forget I’ll hold your head, watch the night sky fading red.”

His fingers work furiously against the keys. The piano line is so intricate and shows off his talent for the instrument in a way she’s never seen. He keeps his eyes down at his hands as they dance, distracting him enough from the content of the lyrics so he can get through them without breaking down like he did when he wrote it.

“But as you sleep, and no one is listening, I will lift you off your feet, I'll keep you from sinking. Don't you wake up yet, cause soon I'll be leaving you. Soon I'll be leaving you, but you won't be leaving me.”

Val closes her eyes again and lets herself fall back into their last night, into their frantic lovemaking punctuated by irresponsible, unkeepable promises. She thinks about the weight of his legs between hers as she drifted off with him in the last full night sleep she got on tour. She remembers the way she let her hand rest on his side of the bed to try to tell when he left by how cool to the touch it felt.

“In the car, the radio leaves me searching for your star, a constellation of frustration driving home, singing my thoughts back to me, and watching heartache on TV.”

It feels so good to get this out, Shawn thinks as he hits each note just the way he wants it. This song came spilling out after their last night together in a way that felt too easy. After all that he put her through, he doesn’t deserve to have his art come easy. But art is never fair.

By the second chorus, Val knows the words. It’s hard not to zero in when you know they’re about you. She notes the way the crowd reacts, arms in the air waving at him like he’s Jimi Hendrix, cheering along, eating up everything he gives them.

Good, she thinks, he deserves it.

The lead into the bridge is still piano heavy, but his fingers know the strokes of the keys as well as his heart does, so he gets to sit up and look around, grinning as their fans cheer, watching the sky explode vibrant summer watercolors over the trees on the horizon. A thick, soothing breeze passes through.

He looks back through to where he saw her a few songs ago. He lets his gaze stay there long enough that she knows now that she’s been spotted. He licks his lips and leans into the mic, but keeps his eyes up at her, perched on the ATL merch table like she owns it.

He repeats the lyrics even though each word feels like tearing at scabs that won’t be healing for a while. He pours it all in, everything he has left, every piece of I’m sorry, every hint of thank you, every whisper of I love you, it soars out over the heads of the fans who love the words but don’t know the boy that wrote them.

They’re for her.

As the final note fades out under sweeping cries of gratitude from the scene kids that came to celebrate their home and community, Val stands, brushes the dust from her skinny jeans and secures her earbuds back in place. With a final nodding smile to Vinny, she turns from the stage and walks off in gigantic, loping steps to read about John Singer Sergeant and listen to Dookie on repeat.

+++++++

December 18th, 2017

Shawn doesn’t often fit most musician stereotypes -- he doesn’t drink too heavily, he doesn’t do any drug harder than weed, he’s kind of a serial monogamist.

But he does love a moody walk along a body of water.

With a pair of good headphones, a carefully curated playlist and a path along the water, Shawn can figure out anything. When he gets stuck on a song, he goes to the water. When he’s in a weird spot with someone he’s dating, he goes to the water. He doesn’t like to get too spiritual about it, but it does feel somehow clarifying.

So one afternoon in London when the sun is out and the Londoners are out with it, Shawn decides to join them. He’s there on business promoting the latest Forefront album with a Live Lounge performance on BBC Radio 1 with Nick Grimshaw. He’s jetlagged and a little turned around by the Underground system like he usually is when in London but he’s otherwise feeling just fine. He just needs a walk by the water today. He tries not to look too closely at why.

He bundles up in the Barbour jacket his mum got him last Christmas and sets off down the stairs into the opulent Savoy hotel lobby decked out with a Christmas tree in every corner and fresh garland wrapped around every non-moving object in sight. He smiles at it -- nobody does Christmas like the Brits. He’s looking forward to going home in a few days to see his mum and the rest of his family and decompress for a few weeks before heading back over to the UK to write and record their next album.

He gets reflective like this -- the combination of the water and the music offer him perspective he can’t usually reach otherwise. He tucks his hands in his pockets and sets off through the garden that opens up into the Victoria Embankment Gardens, usually lush and green in the spring and summer, full of life and people. He likes it like this, though, cold and quiet and almost like a little secret.

2017 has been good to him. Forefront played seven new countries this year on their world tour in celebration of their sixth studio album. He’s gotten a little better over the years about being more present in those moments rather than looking forward anxiously to the next album and the expectations that surround it. That attitude really spoiled the last few records, but the new friends he’s made in the industry have helped guide him through that. He’s even becoming friends with the Irish guy from One Direction now, though they had very different paths to the music industry. He seems like a cool guy.

Personally, 2017 wasn’t really a banner year. He broke up with Jess in April after almost a full year. He’s had a few of those lately -- relationships that start hot and don’t make it past a year mark. He should take a closer look at that and figure out why he can’t seem to stay in a relationship for longer than 11 months, but he’s too tired to think about it now. It’s been a long fuckin’ year.

It’s been a long ten years, actually, since Joy Ride. He thinks back to the show they played at home in Toronto over the summer to celebrate the big anniversary. They played the whole album start to finish, something they’ve never gotten to do. Being immersed in it like that brings back a lot of memories of that summer when everything really kicked off. Not all those memories are ones Shawn likes to think about.

He doesn’t think about Valentina much. It’s by design. He doesn’t even play “As You Sleep” as often as it’s requested. It just… doesn’t feel healthy for him. He’ll pull it out every once in a while when curiosity gets the best of him, when it’s been long enough that he forgets how sharply he still feels every word of that song. He usually regrets it.

He lets himself wonder about her sometimes, like today when he’s knee deep in nostalgia anyway. He still sees Raf and the other Streets guys. They went on a hiatus for a while around 2013 but are back again recording a new record somewhere in Malibu, from what Shawn’s heard. When he sees them, he doesn’t ask about her. He doesn’t want her knowing he’s asking. And he thinks sometimes he doesn’t want to know what she’s really up to, he’d rather imagine.

He falls into his favorite daydream. He likes to think she stayed in the UK (he always felt like that was the place for her to end up). Maybe she got a job in conservation at Oxford or Cambridge or some other hoity-toity university. Maybe she met a nice, polite, skinny, bookish English guy who looks at her like a miracle every time she speaks to him. Maybe they had a small wedding at his local church and his family loves her because she’s colorful and articulate. Maybe they have dogs -- sheepdogs or setters or something, good country dogs. And maybe they’ve had a little girl.

That’s where he usually shuts the daydream down. For obvious reasons.

But when he doesn’t, he thinks about her and who she might be. He thinks about thick, lush curls flopped over a tiny forehead. He thinks about pouty little lips and a chin dimple that matches her mother’s. He thinks about little feet that kick hard because she’d have to be strong, of course.

Now that he’s letting himself think about it, he thinks maybe she’d look kinda like the kid that’s staring at him, reaching out from her pram that’s parked next to the bench he’s strolling past. He smiles at her and she beams back with a grin that has only two teeth. It makes Shawn laugh.

He glances over at her lucky mum or dad.

And it’s almost like he expected it, like it had to be her. I mean, this kid really couldn’t have been anyone but Val’s. She’s just… so Val.

So when Shawn looks her over, from her sweeping dark curls and her leather trousers and her ankle boots, he’s barely even surprised to see her. He just tips his head back and chuckles at the universe.

“Hey mister,” she calls, and her voice sets his skin rough with goosebumps, “Can I have your autograph?”

Shawn lets go of where he’s holding on to the wrought iron fence above the banks of the Thames and walks over, his chelsea boots scratching at the frosty stone.

She doesn’t stand to greet him. She’s got a similar look on her face, bemused acknowledgement of fate and its tricks, like she was thinking about him too and they both somehow willed this to happen. Her long slender legs are crossed. She has one black leather-gloved hand in the pram in the grasp of her little girl who’s chewing on her finger and no longer paying Shawn any attention.

“Hey, Vally,” he sighs. He doesn’t mean to call her that, it just happens. She doesn’t visibly react beyond a slightly deeper dimple in her cheek, so he figures he scraped by with that one.

“Were you on your way somewhere?” she asks, glancing back as if she realized she might be taking him away from something.

He shakes his head. “No, I just-- I’m staying at the Savoy and I like these gardens. I just wanted a walk.” He has enough presence of mind to pause his music. He doesn’t bother to mention it’s an old Streets song. That she wrote.

“We like it out here. We live over by the Farringdon stop but we take the train out here because we like the waterfowl.”

Val looks down at the pram as she speaks. Shawn takes that as an invitation to acknowledge her more formally.

“Who’s this?” he asks breathlessly.

“This is Alice,” Val replies with as much pride as he’s ever heard from any mother, “Alice Fernanda Moreno, she’s nine months old and very hefty for her age because we run a body positive household and she loves mashed carrot and swede.”

Shawn lifts a hand and waves in that open-close way he does like he’s a big toddler himself. Alice kicks hard and squeals at him.

“She’s… so beautiful,” he marvels. Val’s smug smile tells him she agrees. Shawn doesn’t share his next thought because it feels like a line and he doesn’t want to go there.

Because she looks exactly like you.

“I picked out a real pretty one,” she jokes, tightening the wrap of the thick wool blankets around Alice as she yawns.

Shawn continues staring at her openly, trying to pick out features that could belong to any potential father, but as far as he can tell, Alice is simply a clone of Val. It’s Val’s throat clearing that brings him back.

“Sit, Mendes,” she suggests, patting the warped wooden bench. Shawn lowers himself on the other side of the pram as Val rocks it back and forth with her foot.

“She’s been fussy today, but it’s naptime. She has to give in eventually,” Val mutters like she’s reasoning with herself. Shawn grins.

“You have a daughter.”

Val doesn’t look up from the pram as she rocks it. She just nods and snuggles into her prim peacoat.

“I have a daughter.”

Shawn can’t bring himself to ask. She’s wearing gloves so he can’t see if she’s wearing a ring. He stays quiet and studies her instead.

She looks largely the same, barely even older than she did at 22. Her sense of style is maybe the only thing he can see that’s changed in the ten years since he’s seen her last. There’s something comforting in that.

He wonders if he seems different. He works out more now, eats right. He’s definitely put on a whole lot of muscle since he was scrounging for burger scraps on Warped. He’s gotten a few more tattoos she can’t see. He also has an actual stylist now, which is sometimes weird, but he’s elevated the black skinnies, Vans and band tees to black skinnies, $800 boots and silk button-ups. So there’s that.

He’s still got that lip ring though.

But… he wonders if he seems different. If he carries himself differently. If he comes off more confident, more calm, less wide-eyed and wondering.

Because she seems the same. She’s always glowed from the inside out like this. Maybe the glow feels a little stronger now. Or maybe it’s just because she glows through herself and her baby girl all at once. Shawn sits back and watches them -- he could bathe in it all day.

“You know it’s been ten years?” she breathes.

Shawn nods slowly. “I know. Kinda feels like 40.”

She laughs and a piece of him astral projects back to nights tangled up in her bunk kissing her neck and trying to keep her quiet so her brother won’t come mock them from outside the bunk curtain.

“It does,” she muses, “But sometimes it feels like fifteen minutes ago, too.”

Shawn tips his head back and sniffs, looking up through a tall pine as its needles shiver.

“Has your decade been good to you?” she murmurs. He lifts his head back up. She’s staring down at the baby.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s been great. We’ve toured a lot, done a few more albums. The guys and I, I mean, you know us, we’d push each other in front of a bus most days, but we’re brothers and maybe obsessed with each other, too. We’re on a great ride.”

Val lifts her eyes to his briefly, all too knowingly, and lowers them back to the pram. “That’s good.”

Shawn shakes his head. “That’s not even at all what you meant, was it?”

“Nope.”

Shawn goes quiet, contemplative. Val waits him out until he’s ready.

“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” he chokes finally, “Everything about it. Writing after Joy Ride, it was… it got bad. I mean, I was ok, like fundamentally, but I didn’t feel good. We had so many eyes on us. We had no idea what to do, just like no one else does. Some tours were great, some were bad. And the whole deal makes everything else harder. It’s hard on my family, my friends. I… I haven’t been in an actual good relationship in… five years, at least. This year was better. We’ve gotten our feet back under us. I let it all out in the last album, and that helped.”

“I know, I heard it.”

Shawn looks up from Val’s hands in the pram. For the first time all morning, he’s really, truly shocked to the bone.

“You did?”

Val doesn’t answer him exactly, just mutters something about needing to get the baby inside and announces they’ll head down the lane for a cup of tea. She leads them to a little corner coffee shop made for hipsters, not for women with very expensive prams, but Val doesn’t seem to care and parks in the corner by the fire. She layers down, stripping off her scarf and coat to a black turtleneck. Her cheeks go warm as she settles in and orders for them.

Shawn keeps his mouth shut and tries not to do the mental math of how many of the songs he’s released in the last ten years have been written about her, and exactly how many of them she might have noticed are definitely, totally written about her.

She folds her manicured hands together and looks up at him. His brain mercifully shuts off.

“It took a while after that summer for me to get there, but about three years later, I was around Oxford with some friends and I saw your latest album, on vinyl no less, in some indie record store. I suddenly got this feeling that I had to stop my whole life for a minute and go in and buy it. I bought it and the one that came before it, I said goodbye to my friends and I shut myself up in my flat for a couple days with a bottle of whiskey and just… let it happen.”

Shawn winces. “Wish you’d have just skipped over Making Midnight.”

Val smirks. “I wish I had, too.”

Shawn scoffs and leans back in his chair, mock offended. Val giggles and dumps an ungodly amount of sugar in her Earl Grey.

“I was glad to just hear your voice again, actually. I’d done a good job of avoiding it. Too good, maybe, because it was a real shock to the system when I heard it again.”

Shawn knows how that feels. He went through a Val cleanse too, a much shorter one because he doesn’t have her willpower. And then he heard a song she wrote with Alex Gaskarth for All Time Low’s Dirty Work and he let her back in.

“From then, I just bought your records when they came out. I really loved this last one. It really… I dunno, it just really felt like you, I guess.”

Shawn keeps his head down as he stares at his tea. He hears Alice coo. He looks up to see Val lifting her out of her pram to bounce her in her lap, baby in one arm, cup of tea in the other.

“God, it’s so fuckin’ good to see you,” he croaks, shaking his head a little, “Especially…”

He trails off, unwilling to finish. He ducks his head again.

“Especially with a kid I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to have?” Val guesses.

Shawn glances up and nods.

“Do you want to hear about this?” Val murmurs, ignoring Alice as she yanks at some silky curls.

Shawn chews on his lower lip. “Yeah, I think I do.”

It’s Val’s turn to look down. She stirs the mountain of slowly dissolving sugar at the bottom of her mug and sighs.

“She’s just mine. Last year I started to get a little anxious about my biological clock, especially given the last time I got pregnant. I saw a fertility specialist and we discussed my history and she agreed if I want to have children, it’s probably better to start now. So I went in for IVF. On the second cycle, I got pregnant with Alice. The pregnancy was complicated, but my doctor was a saint and did everything absolutely right. The birth went perfectly. So now it’s me and Alice against the world.”

Shawn slides his tongue against his lower lip, taps his foot impatiently against the leg of his chair. “Just you two?”

“Just us two,” Val replies easily, “There were a couple guys in and out before her, but I haven’t gone out with anyone since I got pregnant. I didn’t feel the need. I just wanted to focus on her. I’m glad I did.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes, reflective. Then Val stands and looks down at him.

“Would you mind holding her for a minute? I need to use the loo.”

Shawn bites his lip and nods, standing to complete the transfer. Alice is asleep in her mother’s arms, but, as Val explains with a chuckle, “she’s a snuggle whore -- she’ll go with anybody for a little cuddle.”

Shawn sits. Alice curls up against his chest and pops her tiny lips in her sleep. She radiates warmth from her little swaddled bundle. As he stares down at her, Shawn fundamentally understands why Val hasn’t needed anyone else in her life since Alice arrived. He thinks if Val let him, he’d never put her down.

Alice stretches a tiny arm out in her sleep and punches Shawn in the chest. He snickers, jostling his little bundle, but it doesn’t wake her. He starts to get comfortable, sliding down in the chair a bit so he can rock her, but Val’s hand on his shoulder startles him.

“It’s ok,” she says, “Keep her, if she’s not fussing. I’d rather she stay asleep.”

Shawn nods eagerly and strokes Alice’s back with his long, rough fingers. Val sits across the table with her elbows propped up like she’s physically restraining herself to keep from snatching her child out of his arms. It makes Shawn grin.

“You ok over there?”

Val blushes, caught. “It’s usually just the two of us. I don’t ever have to share her. I’m not used to jonesing.”

“I’ll give her back if you want,” Shawn mumbles reluctantly. Val giggles.

“No, it’s ok. She looks happy.”

Shawn hums. She does look happy.

“So are you working?” he asks quietly, not wanting to wake Alice.

Val nods. “We are, we work at the V&A in the medieval department. We just started back about a month ago after my maternity leave. The museum’s been very generous. They let me walk around with her strapped to my chest all day. She helps consult on various matters, charms my coworkers into letting me leave bottles of breastmilk in every fridge in the museum. I shifted from conservation to curation a few years ago, which is a steadier, more lucrative track. I think it’ll be better for us.”

Us. We’re working at the V&A. We started back at the museum. Shawn’s enamored. He goes pink and brushes through the curls on the back of Alice’s neck.

“Sounds like you’ve got a great partner here,” he quips.

Val is quiet for a minute. “We’re very happy together. But we get a little lonely sometimes. Like when it’s cold and mummy really doesn’t want to get out of bed but Alice is screaming bloody murder. Those are the only moments when this isn’t the greatest thing in the whole world.”

Shawn looks up. Val is watching him carefully. Before he can speak, she swallows and lowers her gaze.

“But we get along, you know. We’re ok.”

“Yeah,” Shawn says, “I know you are.”

They chat. They talk about Raf and his wife Rachel and their little ones -- Val and Alice will be heading across the pond to spend Christmas with them and her parents. They talk about Bea and how she’s spent five years with the same guy up in Edinburgh and she seems actually happy. They talk about their near miss at Alex’s wedding last April -- she came for the ceremony but had to skip out of the reception, Shawn the opposite. They chat through several more cups of tea, an array of pastries, and another nap cycle until it’s dark and quiet outside. Val stares mournfully out the window as she puts on her jacket with Alice back in her pram, gurgling quietly.

Shawn is silent, brow furrowed. He pays the tab with a ghost of a smile and thinks about walking back to his hotel to sit in his room with the TV to try to drown out this day. It’s… unappealing to say the least.

They walk to the door. Shawn holds it open for Val and Alice and considers that they probably look to anyone else like a young family that spent the day together and are headed home to a warm dinner and a cozy night in.

Val’s heart pounds in her ears faster than their boots’ steps on the crunchy ground. She wants to swallow the words, but she doesn’t think she can. Not with him.

“Would you like to walk us home?” she breathes.

Shawn’s smile is extraordinary. He looks up from Alice’s curious brown eyes.

“Yes, please.”

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Taglist: @smallerinfinities @the-claire-bitch-project @stillinskislydia @achinglyshawn @infiniteshawn @alone-in-madness @alone-in-madness @singanddreamanyway@accioalena @randi-eve @shawnitsmutual @embracehappy @itrocksmysocks @yslsaint @peacedolantwins2 @kitykatnumber

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes fan fic #shawn mendes fanfiction #shawn mendes fan fiction #shawn mendes fic #shawn peter raul mendes #shawn mendes angst #shawn mendes fluff #punk!shawn #warped tour shawn #dad!shawn

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nightcoremoon · 5 years

Text

for the record I'm not actually upset over the comments people are making. I've been doing the internet fight thing for 15 years. but here's an anecdote.

a couple years ago when Discourse™ first got its start, I saw a post. it said "saying 'my dude' is antiblack racist because it's just a watered down way of saying 'my n*gga'" except he actually said the word because op was black. and I was like. what the fuck am I reading. I check the notes and he's all like "if you're white you're not allowed to disagree with me". I'm like wha. granted there were a bunch of people who had said "I'm black and you're an idiot" and it died out and lo and behold if I say my dude I don't get crucified by black people so it's clearly not racist.

then a meme surfaced. you start ranting and raving in a really long sentence or something that's usually directed towards people who do or say bigoted things and then ending it with a comma and a soccermom name, KAREN. it was used pretty much everywhere by everyone. but then one strangely peculiar thing happened.

people started sending anonymous suicide baits to people who used that meme, because "that meme was created by black people so it's culturally appropriating black culture to use that meme if you're white". including one trans kid who was like 14, living in an abusive and homophobic household. he used it in a vent post. and in the notes at least three people were harassing him about it. he deleted his blog. I worry he might have killed himself.

the people who were sending the messages were in their early to mid 20s. to a 14 year old kid. because he used a black created meme. to vent about his abusive household. I shouldn't have to explain how fucked up that is.

anyway I'd come to his defense and made a post about how it's ridiculous to cyberbully a child because he used a meme he didn't have the license to use. and tumblr flipped out. I had hundreds of messages from people calling me a nazi. yeah sure a disabled mentally ill queer trans leftist is totally a nazi. right. they said I was racist, they said I was homophobic to gay black people, they said that I was a liar who fabricated that story I told earlier about that kid because by the time people were asking for receipts the post was deleted. I got suicide baited, threatened, the whole shebang.

I didn't care. I was just irritated by the huge influx of messages. it was an inconvenience. after the life I lead, mean words on the internet from a spineless coward hiding behind the veil of anonymity are water off a duck's back. yes I might use fuckin profanity or italicized fonts or CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis, but it's because I'm a wordsmith. language is an art form. a keyboard is my brush. I'm proud of my ability to harness the english language and twist and contort it to my own specifications. I can use it for great good, in helping people through tough times with inspiring words that incite courage, for great funny, in jokes that might take some thinking and context to really understand (especially puns), for great sexy (talking dirty basically but only with certain people and when the time is right), or for insulting people. anyone who knows me knows that I'm a good person and that the only people who ever know what it's like to receive a tongue lashing are the ones who fucking deserve it. not the people who see a single text post taken out of context as a basis to judge my entire character on. but I enjoy it. I enjoy using words as weapons on the battlefield of discourse. it's because I'm good at it. beyond the abilities of most opponents which is unfortunate because it just sails right over their heads most of the time but still, my fellow intelligent company is able to grasp the meanings and intentions of both sides. I excel at this. and the fact that I don't take things personally (I'll certainly pretend to when it'll gain me the advantage) is just icing on the cake.

there is just one problem though.

I'm autistic and possess hyperempathy.

"what does that have to do with this?"

see, here's the thing. if some random person makes an offhand comment intended as a joke but didn't really have the "correct" amount of blatant humor injected into it, and you are the type of person to then go to them and tell them they'd be better off dead, they're just a retard who should stop posting, nobody cares about them, whatever, you are NOT the type of person to think "hmm this person's only 14, maybe I should reconsider the choice to send them a death threat" or "oh hey this person has depression, perhaps I'll remove that suicide bait part and replace it with rainbow lollipops and unicorn stickers :3". you don't give a fuck about all that. you just wanna reap destruction and watch the world burn. you wouldn't give a fuck if that kid commits suicide because you don't have any compassion or empathy. if you would send the kind of shit you sent me to anyone, and I had the chance to meet you in person, I'd make you swallow your own teeth.

these anons don't care how old I am. they don't care what my mental state is. they don't care about any of that shit. they only care about inflicting pain, deserved or not, and all over dumb shitposts. over "lmao if you break up over mario kart you're kind of immature and should work on your relationship skills :P". over saying Karen at the end of your sentence. over greeting a friend with "my dude". over liking steven universe. it doesn't matter what the topic of the day is. any excuse will do to go for the proverbial jugular.

the existence of these people is what pisses me off more than the actual things that they say. how dare you exist. how dare you spread hate. how dare you not be a paragon of human decency. if someone says something racist or homophobic or antisemitic or misogynistic or body shaming or pro fascist or bootlicking or genocidal or anything contributing directly to harmful actions towards people based on their demographics rather than the choices that they make, fuck 'em. you lost my compassion for you. you're a piece of old chewing gum under a table. you're a little chunk of dookie that didn't get flushed. you're a moldy apricot pit at the bottom of an unlined trash can. you made a conscious choice to be a bad person. if you are a literal nazi, I'd remove your bones and then put them back in the wrong places without any anesthetic. if you are bigoted because society brainwashed you, I'd call you character into question and point out your hypocrisy. if you made a dumb joke on a shitpost I'd just scroll past because I'm not gonna waste my time on you. but if you would tell a kid to kill themself, you bet your ass I'll tear into you like hungry wolves into a deer carcass with zero remorse or sense of your own feewings. if you want me to care about the feelings of terrible people, you have another thing coming. if they would hurt people who don't deserve it, they're on the shit list.

and I refuse to be told that I'm a bad person because of that. severe, yes. ruthless, maybe. evil? that's pushing it a lot. a little unhinged? I've not been hinged since I was 3 years old. an asshole? I vehemently disagree considering the people i'm rude to are themselves assholes; this isn't some edgy friedrich nietsche quote taken out of context. merciless? okay I'll give you that. but a bad person? fuck that and fuck you.

you don't get to judge my character because I'm ~mean~ to dickheads.

in fact I'm somehow more pissed off at those people than the people sending the shitty messages in the first place. lashing out I can understand because that was me once upon a time. but passive neutrality under guise as absolute good? you're attacking the reaction. you're centrists attacking antifa. you're part of the problem. especially when you use sneaky tactics that take advantage of good nature, "heyyyyy buddy, let's talk about your anger issues, are you okaaaaaay, taaaaalk to me, you need to apologize to the people who want you dead because you were mean to them and that means you deserve it". literal cult tactics. evil. actual legitimate active performed evil. or just an ignorant misguided fool that thinks he's the dalai lama. but... pride is a deadly sin after all.

anyway tl;dr i don't give a shit about the actual things you say to me. the only thing that pisses me off is the fact that you'd say those things to another person completely unprovoked, no matter who that person is.

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s-jatpfic · 3 years

Text

Green (dancing in the rain and naked cuddles)

Alex x Reggie

Green is some kind of separate reality focusing on Reggie x Alex in a love is overrated let’s just vibe way. The stories work perfectly fine without each other and every single one can be read as a oneshot, yet there is a storyline visible.

this part is not connected to the storyline

moodboard, playlist

700 words

warnings: mention of underage smoking, message me if you think i should add something else

———

“You won’t close your eyes tonight, will you?”

It was the first night the boys spend in the studio. Bobby went home a while ago and Lukes asleep on the couch so it’s just Reggie and Alex again cuddling up close. Reggie didn’t plan on sleeping, his body requires less sleep anyway, a trait he adapted over the past years, and since the brunette boy knows that Alex mind can be a major obstacle, he was just trying to comfort Alex with cuddles until Alex falls asleep.

“Don’t think I‘m able to”

“Come with me”

With that and a giant smile on his face, Reggie gets up, pecks a quick kiss on Alex lips and then takes Alex hand to get him of the mattress as well.

“But be quite, we don’t want Luke to wake up”

Being on the garages ground, Reggie grabs an umbrella and a boom box for which all the boys put their money together. With that and Alex, he heads outside far away enough so neither Luke nor anyone else in the neighborhood will be bothered by the music. Reggie puts the audio system on the ground and covers it with the umbrella hoping this will protect it from the rain. He presses play giving back the tune of Green Days latest record Dookie. Luke got it for his birthday but just as with everything else, one boys property is every boys property.

Their hands interlaced, Reggie starts dancing around in the rain and although Alex feels a little weirded out at first, he soon joins Reggie.

The dancing, if one could even call it like that, it’s more a jumping around and screaming the lyrics from the top of their lungs, really clears Alex mind.

Everything boiled up inside of him just disappears for a second, the occasional kisses he shares with Reggie also helping with that and it wouldn’t be one of their activities if it wouldn’t be for the THC and nicotine in their veins.

The world was forgotten, it’s just the two boys, the music and their soaking wet clothes now.

They end up laying washed-out yet pumped up with adrenaline on the ground, all giggly and smiling, their minds not able to worry about anything.

Only as Alex lips ardently brush over Reggies, he snaps back into reality. Reggies lips are stone cold, however, Alex still isn’t quite able to not kiss Reggie and Reggie isn’t able to not reciprocate this kiss.

“We should get back, we’re drenched to the bones and the boys gonna kill us if we end up being sick on New Year’s” Alex mumbles while getting up, slowly followed by Reggie.

On their way back, Alex is the one carrying the boom box while Reggie stumbles back a little.

Back in the studio, Alex puts down the portable music player and follows Reggie up the loft. It’s just as cold in the garage as it is outside cause at the end of the day it’s exactly this, a garage and not habitat for three homeless teenagers and their not yet a runaway other best friend.

After stripping down his wet clothes, Reggie is about to put on dry clothes. Alex smiles a the pink hoodie Reggie has in his hands and as much as he wants to see Reggie wearing it and as much as a half naked Reggie let’s his thoughts drift off, he manages to stop Reggie in his action and guides him under the covers.

“Trust me. It‘ll be warmer soon”

With that, Alex finally gets rid of his dripping clothes as well, hangs them over the fence so they won’t get moldy, changes into dry underwear and lays down next to a still shivering Reggie.

Other than as they went to bed a few hours ago, it’s now Reggies head laying on Alex bare chest, the blond one dreamily braiding through the brunettes hair.

“Not that- Not that I‘d mind but why aren’t we wearing clothes?” Reggie giggles then pecking Alex lips.

“To keep us warm, body warmth really does wonder”

“I’ll hope you’re right otherwise you’re gonna be the one explaining Luke why his best friends snuggle chest to chest in only underwear”

~franky

masterlist

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upthewitchypunx · 7 years

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Bands, White Bed Sheets

bands: talk about a song/band/lyric that has affected your life in some way.

I first heard Tilt when they opened for Green Day in 1994, right after Dookie came out and right before it blew up. I heard Cinder’s voice call me to the stage like a Siren and I stood there transfixed that such a brutal strong voice jsut soared over a driving clanging punk background. They broke up years ago but last weekend I was in Berkeley for the Lookout records 30th Anniversary celebration. I stood at Gilman Street and got goose bumps when I heard Past The Point. It’s kind of weird when I song weaves through your lie from age 16 to 39 and you are standing there drawing the same energy and filling yourself with the song and the crowd and in a place that is so much like a sanctuary for punks. I actually suggest the whole Till It Kills album, but this one is a good one.

youtube

We're tolerant to the wrongsDealt out with regularityOur toxic level is drawnFrom sheer lack of humanity

white bed sheets: what is your night time routine?

Get home around 5 or 6 and spend and hour or two cooking dinner with Jackie Cat and Ian B hanging out with me, listen to records, fix something broken, watch some netflix type thing, finish my beer, brush my teeth, and go to bed listening to Coast to Coast AM.

#tilt #go ask alex

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adambstingus · 5 years

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Puberty Sucks But Second Puberty Is Just The God-Awful Worst

As you somehow keep holding on when the rodeo horse of life tries to buck you off so it can face its ultimate foe (the rodeo clown of life), you’ll eventually reach a kind of second puberty. The first time, you transformed butterfly-like from child to slightly grosser child. Once all your body’s jagged edges and weird lumps settle into place, you enjoy a prime that’ll last about eight minutes, and you’ll be too drunk or high to remember it.

Second puberty will hit between 28 and 33. The physical changes you’ll undergo — the ones I’m experiencing now — aren’t too dramatic, but are different enough to be unsettling. It’s a harbinger of horrors to come. It’s like Batman getting that vision of the Earth reduced to a dusty wasteland controlled by Darkseid in Batman v. Superman. I want to be Batman in that scenario, but it’s become increasingly apparent that I am the wasteland. As evidence of my physical dilapidation, I present the following.

After 9 I Can — And Will — Fall Asleep Anywhere

I’ve been afflicted with a punctual form of narcolepsy. No matter how caffeinated I am, I will fall asleep instantly if certain easily met conditions are present:

1) I have recently eaten dinner after having made dinner, which I do every night.

2) Most of my weight is heaped onto something comfortable. The definition of what can be comfortable is wide enough to include leaning on a wall coated with satin paint (the most comfortable of paints).

3) It is at least 9 p.m.

When those three elements combine, I involuntarily enter, exit, and then reenter a deep state of unconsciousness that I will deny having entered if caught in the act. Vehement denial, punctuated with wild fits of slurred vulgarity, is another symptom of this recently acquired disorder.

g-stockstudio/iStock When one of my molecules touches one couch fiber after a late dinner.

If left untreated, the debilitating sleepiness can lead to waking up in a frightened daze at 3:30 a.m., not fully remembering how I got onto this comfy thing from wherever I ate dinner, be it the dining table in my apartment or the Five Guys a mile away.

Falling asleep early sounds great, but not when I have a wife whom I’d like to remain conscious enough to hang out with after work, because like an idiot I married someone I love and want to be around. Boy, I’m really paying for that dumb mistake.

I’m Suddenly Allergic To Life

To my recent unpleasant surprise, allergies aren’t something you’re stuck with your entire life. They are for some people, and my heart goes out to them. I don’t know why we don’t have annual telethons raising money to help lifelong seasonal allergy sufferers pay their Claritin and tissue bills. My mom’s side of the family is where this new nemesis of mine comes from. They didn’t feel the torment of allergies until well into their 20s. I followed a similar path.

Twenty-eight is when things started to go awry. Scratching one small eye itch could trigger an itch that could go on for days and stop just before I took a back-scratcher to my corneas. Things have ramped up since. One sneeze within 10 minutes of waking up is my body’s way of telling me I should sprinkle some blueberries and Benadryl on my morning oatmeal and call it a day. I don’t know what it’s like to breathe through my nose without fear that if I inhale too vigorously I’ll set off a chain reaction of sneezes lasting hours that very well could blow my brain out the back of my skull.

c8501089/iStock Why does this frighteningly appropriate stock photo even exist?

There’s such a wide variety of allergy pills and nasal sprays that finding the one that works best for me is nearly impossible. Once swallowed, some pills will take one look at your genetic makeup and go full diva as they refuse to work with that clown show of body. Have you ever torrented a band’s entire discography, only to realize you don’t have the time to listen to 73 albums, so you delete everything but the greatest hits? That’s shopping for allergy pills. One of the brands I’m not immediately familiar with might be a gamechanger, but I can’t risk blowing my life savings on an absurdly priced pack of pills with a brand name I didn’t see advertised during an award show or an NBA game. I’ll stick with the hits everybody can sing along to — Claritin, Zyrtec, Benadryl.

Xyzal.com They ran out of nonsense letter combos for pills halfway, so they restarted from the beginning of the alphabet.

Sorry, Xyzal, but I don’t know you, and I get the inkling that saying your name out loud summons a long-dormant demon. I just can’t take that risk.

I Can Drastically Change Pants Size In The Blink Of An Eye

Technically I’ve worn the same pants size since middle school, but that’s a little disingenuous. I’m a first-wave millennial; we were some of the last kids to think tripping over our very baggy pants was the first step to cultivating an air of supreme dopeness. If I go about my normal diet, everything will be fine. But one Taco Bell pig-out session, or more than one slice of pizza, or more than one beer, and soon I’ll reach the full potential of my middle-school-era JNCOs.

It’s so drastic that I want to take this show on the road. I’ll wow skeptical crowds by swallowing a slice of chocolate cake, and with a magician’s dramatic wave of my hands make any discernible separation between jawline and neck disappear before their eyes. They’ll be looking around for the wires or prosthesis, but they won’t find any. Some will call me a simple trickster; others a heretic. But the truth is that my metabolism is shit and I have to eat like a bird so I don’t look like a boar.

To make sure it wasn’t just me, I asked around. John Cheese told me that once he turned 40, his weight started fluctuating 30 pounds in both directions. He seriously has to keep two wardrobes: one for the fall when he shoots up to 235 pounds, and one for the spring when he drops back down to 200. If you’re thinking that weight change happens over the course of six months, think again. He gains and loses 30 pounds in a matter of weeks, changing absolutely nothing about his diet or exercise routine — the one he has aptly named “I Don’t Exercise, Ever.”

Please, if you’re in your early 20s, listen to me: Enjoy eating however much of whatever you want while you can, because within a handful of years, every ounce of junk food you eat will be converted into a pound of fat in the exact spot that determines your clothing size. Have fun jogging the width of Texas to burn off one bite of donut. When you’re young, your body is a furnace that instantly incinerates whatever you put in it. Eventually it will be a landfill where things slowly decompose over centuries, poisoning the groundwater.

My Shit Literally Never Stank Before I Hit My 30s

I don’t want to brag or nothing, but for a long time, I could’ve taken a hearty dump during a crowded house party and no one would’ve been the wiser. I left no odor behind. My body converted the stink into pure energy. I believe there was a point in my life when close study of my body’s internal workings could have led to the design of a more efficient internal combustion engine, thus slowing climate change, thus making my ass the savior of the human race.

And then I got older and my dookie stench roared in with the fury of a long-dormant demon named Xyzal awakening for the first time in centuries. I just wish I’d been able to appreciate what I had before it was gone. Hypothetically, if you and I were in the same room, and I were shitting in that room, you wouldn’t have known it until you heard the plop plop of the water, because I could never figure out how to muffle those. But by scent alone? Nah. Too ninja for you. You’d never know it.

I’m just happy my stink powers activated in the same era as the advent of Poo-Pourri. I don’t want to turn this column into an ad for a bottle of essential oils you spray in a toilet to conceal your turd funk, but that stuff is amazing. If I made the smells I do now 10 years ago without Poo-Pourri, I wouldn’t have friends and I wouldn’t be married. I’d be living in an adobe in the desert, where there’s nothing alive to offend.

My Teeth Are Sensitive Little Snowflakes

Every new transformation in second puberty comes with a small shame. Parts of your body are losing function and you can’t do anything to stop it. You can iron the wrinkles out of your balls to make them look 20 years younger, but you’re just filling pot holes in a road as it’s being carpet-bombed. All I can do is accept it. I’ve only just begun accepting every unfortunate transformation I’ve already mentioned. But my sensitive teeth and I will be locked in a mythical eternal battle between good and evil so grand it will one day inspire the creation of a religion. Wars will be fought in its name.

When my teeth suddenly became sensitive to cold temperatures, I felt I had fundamentally failed at being alive. I can’t belt out an “Aw fuck!” when I lick an ice cream cone without ceding some confidence. I can’t feel like I’m in the prime of my life when I double over in a blinding-white flash of pain because I made the fatal mistake of eating cold salami slices straight from the fridge.

It’s stupid to say I like eating, because if I didn’t like it, I’d be too dead of starvation to say it. But I’m certain I like eating a lot more than you do. Anywhere between 50-65 percent of my day consists of grunting orgasmically as I chew. So you have understand how crushing it is to have something that makes me so happy cause me so much physical pain. It got so bad that at one point my teeth would leave me screaming in pain if a cool breeze wafted across them when I smiled. My teeth were training me to fear happiness. That’s the psychical damage you lay on the person you’re keeping the pit you’ve dug in your basement.

There are toothpastes that help. But brushing too enthusiastically is one of the things that caused the sensitivity to begin with. I’m trying to mend a gunshot wound by shooting it. And that’s a good summation of the state second puberty has left me in. I’m just fucked forever, so I guess I should try to look at the bright side: I’ll get to watch my body spontaneously do weird things for the rest of my life, like I’m a living video game glitch.

Luis is perpetuating the cycle as he digs into a pint of Haagen-Dazs chocolate-chocolate chip. In the meantime, you can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

For more, check out 7 Creepy Physical Changes Your Mind Can Make in Your Body and 6 Freaky Things Your Body Does (Explained by Science).

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why ‘Big’ Is More Terrifying Than You Remember, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. You’ll be alright.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/puberty-sucks-but-second-puberty-is-just-the-god-awful-worst/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/180632214782

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allofbeercom · 5 years

Text

Puberty Sucks But Second Puberty Is Just The God-Awful Worst

After 9 I Can — And Will — Fall Asleep Anywhere

I’ve been afflicted with a punctual form of narcolepsy. No matter how caffeinated I am, I will fall asleep instantly if certain easily met conditions are present:

1) I have recently eaten dinner after having made dinner, which I do every night.

3) It is at least 9 p.m.

g-stockstudio/iStock When one of my molecules touches one couch fiber after a late dinner.

I’m Suddenly Allergic To Life

c8501089/iStock Why does this frighteningly appropriate stock photo even exist?

Xyzal.com They ran out of nonsense letter combos for pills halfway, so they restarted from the beginning of the alphabet.

Sorry, Xyzal, but I don’t know you, and I get the inkling that saying your name out loud summons a long-dormant demon. I just can’t take that risk.

I Can Drastically Change Pants Size In The Blink Of An Eye

My Shit Literally Never Stank Before I Hit My 30s

My Teeth Are Sensitive Little Snowflakes

Luis is perpetuating the cycle as he digs into a pint of Haagen-Dazs chocolate-chocolate chip. In the meantime, you can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

For more, check out 7 Creepy Physical Changes Your Mind Can Make in Your Body and 6 Freaky Things Your Body Does (Explained by Science).

Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out Why ‘Big’ Is More Terrifying Than You Remember, and watch other videos you won’t see on the site!

Also follow us on Facebook. You’ll be alright.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/puberty-sucks-but-second-puberty-is-just-the-god-awful-worst/

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tune-collective · 7 years

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Tigers Jaw's Charming New LP & Atlantic's Latest Cred-Carrying Imprint Are Alt-Rock's New Major Label Hopes

The beloved indie-punk band follows 2014’s ‘Charmer’ — released on scene staple Run For Cover Records — with the debut for new label Black Cement.

Tigers Jaw vocalist-guitarist Ben Walsh calls Saves the Day’s In Reverie his favorite record. The seminal New Jersey punk band’s 2003 release is best known today not for its intricate melodies — as Walsh would probably prefer — but as the prototypical punk band-screwed-over-by-major label cautionary tale. Saves the Day’s three previous albums — released through respected indies Equal Vision and Vagrant — upped the grassroots ante to the point where they seemed likely to follow like-minded bands like Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory to major label success. The opposite happened.

“They got dropped from [Dreamworks Records] the day the record came out,” Walsh remembers. The press archives technically place it a few weeks later, but the point remains — when majors court punk bands, there’s a boom-or-bust history with a lot more Dear Yous than Dookies in its wake. It’s especially jarring to hear this from Walsh because the Scranton, Penn. band’s latest album is coming out this spring on the brand new imprint of a major record label. It’s called spin and it’s arriving May 19 on a new Atlantic Records venture dubbed Black Cement.

The shock has nothing to do with Tigers Jaw’s credentials (Charmer was actually filled with cozy harmonies) and everything to do with punk’s almost non-existent relationship with the current major-label ecosystem and its especially volatile past. “We came from a generation of bands that formed shortly after the collapse of the seedy industry, big label, big 360-deal era,” Walsh says, thinking back to Tigers Jaw’s 2005 formation. “A lot of bands did get screwed over by major labels. [Tigers Jaw] was formed with this pre-conceived caution.” Brianna Collins, Walsh’s songwriting counterpart, likens that caution to “the image you have in your mind of a major-label person wearing a suit, buying steak dinners.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG3E0SAw4uA

The duo — Walsh alongside keyboardist-vocalist Brianna Collins — was wooed by a decidedly less destructive vision of strip clubs and A-list restaurant tabs, courtesy of chief ambassador and A&R rep for Black Cement, Will Yip. For the better part of the last decade, the Philadelphia-based producer built a reputation as the amicable, accommodating guiding light behind some of the alt-rock underground’s most influential albums — Title Fight’s Hyperview, La Dispute’s Rooms of the House, Balance and Composure’s The Things We Think We’re Missing and naturally, Tigers Jaw’s previous LP, crafted after three-fifths of the band (including founding songwriter Adam McIlwee) announced plans to go their separate ways. “Charmer for us was a transitional period, but [Yip] was so consistent and so creative and helpful,” Walsh says. “So it was completely a natural thing — ‘No matter who’s putting out our next record, we want to work with Will.’”

The feeling’s mutual. “There’s a Mount Rushmore of bands that are kind of the OGs in this world,” says Yip. His etched-in-stone core four includes Tigers Jaw, plus the trio mentioned above. “When Black Cement formed, Atlantic approached me [saying] we wanna do a label with these bands… [I said] ‘You can’t do this label without some of the OGs.’” Dave Rath, head of A&R at Roadrunner Records for the past decade, had long been fascinated by Yip’s corner of the rock world and spent over two years planning Black Cement with Yip. “Other labels are running away from rock while we’re running at it,” Rath asserts. Case-in-point: Atlantic now houses what figures to be the most punk and indie rock-oriented imprint of any major label alongside the hard rock-heavy Roadrunner and the pop-rock smorgasbord Fueled By Ramen.

So Yip’s world has a Mont Rushmore, but does it even have a name? These groups are all adjacent to those commonly placed within the so-called “emo revival,” but sound nothing akin to bands like My Chemical Romance and mascara-era Fall Out Boy that the three-letter word commonly evokes. (Neither do the core “emo revival” bands, for that matter, but that’s a discussion for another day). Punk or alt-rock? Those qualifiers are less incorrect, but no more compelling. Perhaps it’s most accurate to define Tigers Jaw’s world by what it isn’t. “It’s not like Mumford & Sons, that folky alternative stuff,” Yip says. “Mainstream rock radio really isn’t true rock music to me… I love a lot of stuff that’s on the radio. I love fun. — they’re my buddies — but I don’t think of them as a rock band.”

Rock or not, the fact Yip names a band that hasn’t been active in two years is telling of the genre’s place in Top 40 in 2017. And the dearth of non-folksy guitar extends even to alternative radio. Once the playground of established bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Linkin Park, this week’s Alternative Songs tally features only two electric guitar-driven songs in its top 10 and a guitar-less Linkin Park song at No. 22. “Guardian,” the yearning, Walsh-fronted first single shared from spin, sounds a little like pre-major label Death Cab For Cutie (one of the few traditional alt-rock bands left on radio these days) and virtually nothing else heard on the format these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxat0Y-l59g

But the label is trying. Rath confirms Tigers Jaw will be worked to alternative radio and with the band’s blessing, radio mixes have been made for “Guardian” and “June,” a sunlit guitar-pop nugget that’s yet to be released, but an even better bet to catch on. It features Collins on lead vocals; though a longtime member, the keyboardist didn’t get her shine as a vocalist until she ran away with the opening verse on “Hum,” Charmer‘s most popular track. This time around, she’s writing her own songs for the first time. “I just never thought I’d be capable of that role in the band,” she says. “The experience with ‘Hum’ was what started myself thinking that maybe I could really try to do this. [spin] was the first record Ben and I did completely on our own. Tigers Jaw had always been two primary songwriters and I thought I might as well give it a go.”

Collins, like Walsh, is aware of her scene’s brushes with the mainstream and that yes, it’s sometimes clicked. Fall Out Boy and MCR were among her early influences, and she happily remembers cheering on New Found Glory on TRL. But the playing field has changed a lot since the early 2000s. Aside from guitar rock’s struggles on radio, it lags mightily behind just about every beat-driven genre in the streaming game.

These will be uphill battles, but the live stage presents particular opportunity for Tigers Jaw. The festival circuit has long been a boon for underappreciated alt acts, and last year, Lollapalooza’s lineup even featured Modern Baseball and Pinegrove, the exact sort of indie-punk bands you’d expect Tigers Jaw to share bills with. Being part of the Atlantic family opens doors, too; both Walsh and Rath float the idea of Tigers Jaw playing with Paramore, longtime Fueled By Ramen members who’d figure to be on the road soon to promote the new album they’ve been teasing.

Major label life will be a unique challenge for Tigers Jaw, but their numerous successful muses prove the scene can indeed hang in a god damn arms race. Around the same time Dreamworks obliterated Walsh’s beloved Saves the Day, it vaulted a once-failed major label band called Jimmy Eat World to stardom. But at the end of the day, Yip assures, “Tigers Jaw does not need a record label in 2017, period,” just as Walsh stresses this wasn’t “some sort of Hail Mary move to blow up the band.” Tigers Jaw has spent over a decade nurturing a grassroots fanbase; now Black Cement gets to nurture one quarter of Yip’s Mount Rushmore.

“The coolest part about this record,” says Walsh, “is that it was totally finished before we signed any deal, before we committed to any label. The record is exactly how we envisioned.”

This article originally appeared on: Billboard

http://tunecollective.com/2017/03/25/tigers-jaws-charming-new-lp-atlantics-latest-cred-carrying-imprint-alt-rocks-new-major-label-hopes/

#altrocks #amp #atlantics #charming #credcarrying #hopes #imprint #jaws #label #latest #LP #major #tigers

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ruixzine · 7 years

Text

RUIX 2.0

youtube

Hey, pals. I’ve decided to bring back the Ruix blog. So let’s delve into the last nine or so months and I’ll fill you in on some lost time.

First of all, I’ve decided to resurrect the Ruix blog for a couple of reasons. I’ve recently been invited to participate in the music and film review blog for the record store, Twist and Shout, where I currently work. (More on them in a while). Before I do that, I’d kind of like to begin writing and producing content just for practice’s sake. I ain’t written shit for months and it’s starting to bother me. So, I’m going to start writing some thoughts out here. Some of it may be long winded and unnecessary, but hey... so is my personality, according to many of you. The other reason is because I realized that just because I moved out of Dubuque, doesn’t make me any less affiliated with Ruix. Ruix the zine, will hopefully always continue in some form or another whether I am contributing to it or not. But Ruix, as a concept, has always been about art and music, DIY aesthetic and above all, collaboration among friends and peers in our community. In that respect, I’ll always be connected to Ruix, so why not continue the blog from Denver? (Plus the word itself, ‘ruix,’ is a word my younger brother made up when he was a kid to mean penis, so there’s that).

Which brings me to my first point. My girlfriend Kim and I moved to Denver in August of last summer. Most of you reading this probably know that. We moved at a time when not only my brother and sister-in-law moved there, but also some of my best friends, so the timing felt comfortable. I also graduated from NICC last May and promptly got into the University of Colorado Denver out here so that I could pursue my bachelor’s degree in Media Studies. I also got into my “dream” school (I put that in quotes because I only recently decided it was my dream school), Emerson College in Boston which was super exciting and unexpected. However, I opted for Denver because I believe the average price for a one-bedroom apartment in Boston is around $200 million a month. So here we are. And honestly, I do not regret the decision in the slightest. It’s gorgeous out here, everyone we’ve met are super cool and I got a really rad job.

Oh that. Yeah, I got a job at one of the largest and most reputable record stores still left in this country, Twist and Shout Records. It’s a job that I love, that I’ve been doing for over a decade, I love all of the folks that I work with, I get a killer discount on shit and, as I said before, I get to do a little writing for them. If I had one gripe, it would be that the pay isn’t great (which is really less of a gripe and more of a factual statement about a common thing in retail) so I am on the lookout for a second part-time job as of late. So if anyone I know in the Denver area is reading this and has a lead on an investment banking gig or a lawyerin’ gig or maybe a CEO-of-a-Fortune-500-Company gig I can apply to, please let me know.

(But in all seriousness, I am actually looking for bartending or barbacking jobs at the moment).

I’m playing music, which feels good. I started playing with one Mr. Jeremy Brashaw back in October or so and it’s been a hell of an outlet for both of us, creatively. Recently, Drew Bissell, the aforementioned pal who moved out here at the same time, started joining us and the shit we’ve been coming up with has been incredible. It’s largely improv, with some written parts Frankensteined together to make for, what I like to call a cross between Pharoah Sanders and Lungfish... or something like that. Anyway, it’s great. And we hope to debut it live sometime in April when our pal Bob Bucko Jr. comes out here on his spring tour.

I’ve also been playing with a Denver garage band called The Trip that is made up of a couple of new pals that I met out here, one of whom I work with. We had our first show not this past Saturday, but last Saturday on February 18. (I missed a Tracii Guns/Phil Lewis reunion L.A. Guns show to rock with these guys. If you know me, you know that’s a big deal). Anyway, it was a really fun show that was NEARLY thwarted into not being so fun by a person literally shitting on the floor of the bar. I’ve been going to shows most of my life and playing shows for most of THAT time, and not ONCE have I ever seen literal fresh human shit laid upon the floor. It was during the second band. I was walking over to meet one of my bandmate’s wife and out of nowhere the smell hit us, as we were shaking hands. We all tried to brush it off and act like nothing was off, but then I started gagging and had to go outside which, in retrospect, I hope my friend’s wife didn’t take offense to. Kim was the one that pointed out the ACTUAL shit on the floor, being smeared around by oblivious dancing showgoers. The bartender came out with the mop bucket and the whole bit. The smell never really got completely out of there either. But all-in-all, it’s a pretty funny story to tell. And by the time we got onstage, the dookie was cleaned up and it smelled mostly like Pine Sol in there (which, in a way, is just as bad because I knew what that Pine Sol was covering up, but I digress). Popular consensus was that the culprit was a homeless (or homeless-looking, at least) dirtball that had already been kicked out once before, came back in and dropped a grudge-deuce in his JNCO’s, plopped it onto the floor in the middle of where people were watching the show, and bailed.

And THAT was how my very first show in Denver went down.

A lot has happened to both Kim and I since moving here and I don’t want my first entry back to be a TL;DR. So, I’m going to end on the shit story note. However, as I said, I plan on being back here more often to update you all and perhaps even relay some more stories from our first 6 months as Coloradoans as often as I can (maybe not every week, but often). I think I covered the most important bullet points, anyway. For now, I’d like to leave you with a recent obsession of mine, a song that has served as a soundtrack to much of our life since we’ve been here (for better or worse). Enjoy.

youtube

#ruix #ruixzine #Dubuque #Iowa #Denver #DENVERCOLORADO #colorado #denvershows #iowashows #dubuqueart #DAAC #bobbuckojr #thetrip

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