#this is popcorn and he's 10 and a brat

[stillnotyourmusebitch]

I can’t stop thinking of demon! Adam going through development and reaching the point of like,, doing something nice without anyone telling him to do it, purely for the sake of doing it. Something he never would have done before. Even if it’s something as small as sitting down with you while you’re watching your favorite movie or show and not shitting on it the whole time, just to keep you company. Or something like that. I dunno. I’m just a sucker for slow burn subtextual romance.

THAT, and the reader seeing his face beneath the mask, looking him the eyes, and smiling a little. Even if they say nothing. I feel like that would stick with him.

Exactly. Demon!Adam lives in my head rent free now. I know this weren't a request of sorts but I kinda wrote something for this

random ficlet below

Demon!Adam x GN!reader (Fluff)

DemonSinner!Adam is something that plays on my mind a lot. He still doesn’t believe in the whole redemption shit that Charlie is laying down but if it gets him a glimpse of seeing heaven again he is willing to try.

-----

Adam was bored and needed something to do that would put off the inevitable “therapy” session with Lucifer’s brat later. So that must be why he finds himself outside your room. He knocks lightly on your door. You didn’t answer, he knocked again louder this time. Still no answer. So he opens the door and peers in.

“Hey errr (Y/n) Charlie asked me to check on you.” A blatant lie but he won’t tell you that.

He sees you’re watching TV.

“Huh? What no shitty nickname this time?” You mumbled around a mouthful of popcorn. Adam walks over and flops down on the couch next to you.

“Oh yeah, nah I didn’t really feel like it.” He grabs a handful of your popcorn.

You quirk a brow.

“Also Charlie said nooo giving nicknames to people that demean them and also who don’t want it and people were given names to be used blah blah blah.” He shoves the popcorn into his mouth. “So what are we watchin?”

“I'm watching a movie I really like so if you're staying either shut up or fuck off.” You sink back into your blanket cocoon.

*10 minutes later*

“What the fuck! This guy clearly likes her but she goes for the other bozo. Is she blind . . . . as well as ya know hot.”

You choke on your drink. You didn’t think that this would be his kinda thing but here he was emotionally invested in the film you had picked. You had really wanted to just wallow in your depression by binge watching trashy romcoms but what was really making you feel better was watching the ‘dickmaster’ himself rooting for the underdog to open up about his feelings to the lead woman.

You go to grab some popcorn but see the bowl is empty.

“Gotta pause.” You go to stand but he stops you.

“I got this.” He hides the good deed by quickly saying “And I need to piss anyway.” You pass him the bowl.

“Not in the popcorn I hope.” You rearrange yourself back in your blanket burrito.

“HAA, You nasty but don’t watch without me. Coz that is a dick move.”

“You know all about those.” You mutter into the blanket. But Adam had gone to the hotel kitchen to make popcorn.

You chose to scroll on your phone until he got back. There were a few messages but you didn’t really feel like answering them. You flop on your side. You can always move when he came back.

While you waited in silence for Adam. You think back on how he really was getting better. After seeing him slowly open up to Charlie’s ideas and seeing that he can be a good guy when it suits him. You smile to yourself.

Your door slams open.

“Okay I’m back bitch.”

Nevermind looks like he has thrown up his walls again.

He lays out the armful of snacks and the bowl of popcorn that looks way bigger than the bowl he left with. He sees you on your side.

“You comfy down there?”

You groan and slowly sit up again. He sits back down but wraps an arm around you and hugs you into his side and nothing more.

“Okay we can continue now.” He grabs the popcorn and rests it on his lap.

You set the movie going again and snuggle just a little bit closer. For popcorn reasons of course not that Adam was nice and warm and you felt safe next to him.

“Clearly she don’t know a good thing when she sees it.” You pipe up after about three minutes into the film again. You had seen this film so many times but there was one scene that always brought out annoyance in you.

“Right!! She needs to open her eyes this guy clearly loves her for who they are and not some fake ass bs that other . . . what?” Adam stops mid-sentence looking down at you resting against his chest.

You blink a few times before realising you are staring “Huh oh nothing.”

You focus back on the screen in front of you.

The climatic end of the film was approaching and the main lead were confessing their love and as the credits role you can here someone crying. You glance up and see Adam wiping away tears.

“You okay.” You sit up and reach for the tissues on the table to hand them to him.

“What!!! I’m fine. Of course I’m fiiiine. Shut up bitch.” He grabs the tissue box from you.

“If it helps I cried the first time I watched this movie.” You wrap the blankets tighter around yourself.

“I . . . ah . . shit.” He saw you curling further in on yourself. He feels guilt crawling into his stomach. “Sorry, I’m . . .Ugh. Look I’m bad at these feel your feelings crap that Charlie spouts. But it was a good film and yeah I cried but . . .”

“It don’t make you any less of a man.”

“Yeeeah I know. Of course I know. I’m the first man.”

“Huh back to that are we.” You bump shoulders with him, making him laugh.

He pulls you back into his side “So what are we watching now?”

------

I really didn't mean for this to be as long as it was. I'm sorry

#jamie replies #sleeplessdreamer14 #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel adam #adam hazbin hotel #hazbin adam x reader #hazbin adam #gender neutral reader #sinner!adam #adam x reader #i dunno why i'm taggin it this way #hazbin hotel x reader

[writingoddess1125]

Theater Brat pt. 3 🎭

Buggy x FemReader

Some more Angst then Fluff but still fun!

You felt like your head was pounding, groaning softly as you felt yourself come to. Was it the alcohol from the party in Tangerine town?.. but you don't remeber drinking that much?.. It wasn't until the image of Buggy's eyes on you that evening that everything came to and you snapped your eyes open finally.

It was almost pitch black but with a single spotlight on the ground about 10 ft from you, yourself seated on what could only be described as a wooden red throne. Sitting up you see you're dresses in a far too expensive gown, very similar to one from your favorite musicals but dyed a sky blue color as well as jewelry hanging down from your ears, neck and wrist. Even a ring placed on your hand which was gold with a sapphire in the center.

A sense of panic hit your chest as you tried to sit up- far too quickly as the ache in your head returned. Making you sit back down on the chair.

"Sorry, those Muggy Balls can cause drowsiness and headaches.. I thought I gave you the smallest one I had but- seems it was still too strong" You heard a all too familiar voice say, turning to see Buggy standing just to the side of the throne. Leaned against it as he used one of his knives to clean under his nails-

"B-Buggy what the hell? I agreed to go with you- why did you?"

"To make it easier, it's harder to sneak a person put instead of just kidnapping them while unconscious. Way quieter" He said with a crooked grin, Leaning back up and walking around the throne like chair. Looking you over like a predator who had finally caught their prey.

"And the costume?.." You questioned, swallowing thickly as you saw his eyes linger over your form.

"Just a gift, for your care of me while with the Strawhats" He said with a smile. His hands playing with your hair as he stepped to your left and sighed contently at the sight of you.

"Bring it here!" He yelled at some shadows in the corner, before a grand desk was brought out and set infront of you by two of his crewmates. The finest of pens, pencils, paints and paper also set upfront of you, as well as a bowl of fine sweets you had once expressed enjoying and even popcorn.

You couldn't help but feel both flattered and a little scared how much he had thought this threw. Your favorite snacks, your favorite drinks, he had truly listened to it all and you hadn't even realized it.

"I have prepared my best show yet, and as promised. No 'Gore' or anything to scare you Doll' He said teasingly, which surprisingly drew a chuckle from you.

"I hope you enjoy, and I do want to see what you can draw up for me" He said with a wink as he stepped back from you and into the waiting spotlight.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls here to witness the greatest show of all! Buggy' Circus of Delight!" He announced, the lights coming on all around you as flocks of different acts came out in at first a symphony of chaos. Before they organized in a perfect rehearsed fashion.

Act after act was done perfectly, from the dancing Lion, to Buggy's juggling act which even included his own head that made you laugh st your seams. Musical numbers of your favorite songs, Acrobatics, Contortionist and everything under the sun.

By the end of it you were Grinning ear to ear and applauding the group.

"That was absolutely wonderful! You all are very talented and lovely, I'm impressed" You praised, which earned received smiled from the crew. Buggy walked over to you and leaned against the chair again to see what you had made, Grinning widely at the drawing you had conjured up.

"Perfect-" He muttered, You looking up at him to see his eyes on you and not your painting. Blushing a bit as you smiled.

"I'm glad you like it Buggy! I wanted the highlight the diversity and talent of your show" You said, cheerfully, however you were surprised when Buggy detached his hand and gently grabbed yours. Looking to see you had removed the bracelets and ring-

"You took them off?" He questioned, raising a brow at said jewelry on the desk.

"Oh I didn't want to get ink on them or scratch the paper" You admitted with a calm shrug. He frowned slightly.

"If they were damaged or you don't like them I'd get you new ones" He said with a shrug, Acting like the jewelry wasn't that important or hard to find.

"(Y/N) I promise I'll give you anything you wish for. Nothing is too expensive for you" He said, his eyes glowing with that same emotion as before- one you didn't know until now... obsession.

"There is no need for that, I promise. Besides Buggy this stuff is lovely but far too expensive for me. This could cost most people a fortune and I have never worn expensive things" You emphasized, but saw Buggy smile and pick back up the ring and slide it back on your finger. Giving your hand a gentle squueze.

He waved over his crew members who brought his throne over- you realizing he must have had a second throne for you either brought up or made as his own was sat next to you, his hand still holding over yours. As if also rehearsed a large meal was brought out and set on open spots of the desk. You noticed how much this seemed to be planned- the show, dress, jewelry even the lunch and snacks gifted to you... it was perfectly planned.

"Say what did you think of the juggling?-" Buggy said quickly, pulling your mind from yout questioning thoughts like he could read you so openly.

You and Buggy talked for a while, eating lunch together and tlaughing. Buggy expressing delight in the artistic rendering that you had made and even flexing his arm to show that he was way buffer then most, laughing you to break out in giggles which he clearly enjoyed

"This has been delightful Buggy, But I must get back to my crew" You said with a happy sigh having enjoyed the day greatly despite the scary start, not catching the darkened look that grazed Buggy's eyes.

"Alright, But it has been a long journey and show for you. How about you take a bath and rest a little? I have a room you can use" He said with a kind smile, which seemed off in a way. However you nodded non the less.

After the very nice bath and having a few snacks you laid in the massive bed. Dressed in the nice pajamas that one of the crew members dropped off for you.

You looked around, noticing something you hadn't noticed before. The gold looking bolts on your window so it couldn't be opened, how secure this room was and separated it was from the crew quarters. Paired with something that immediately caught you eyes- painted directly above your head was a blue bird- around its closed wings golden lines wrapped around it..

"A golden cage..." You whispered, dread filling your soul as you looked around. The expensive clothes laid in the cherry wood draws, the massive sleigh bed that was filled with the finest of of pillows and silk blankets. All the art supplies and trinkets you could ask for.. This was your cage- He wasn't going to let you out.

Rushing to the door you try the handle, feeling the door not give way and the handle not budge. Locked.. from the outside. Rapidly you started to pull at the handle, feeling tears well in your eyes as the realization fully set in.

"Oh Gods..." You gasped out, fear running through your body as you stood back. Realizing what was happening to you- A prisoner of Buggy, his own personal friend that he would never let go of-

You started to bag against the door and cry out for release but your please were ignored. Instead silence only following you- As fear crept into your system you sat at the stool near the window looking out at the sky and crying silently.

It was a few hours before you heard the sound of the door being unlocked. Watching as Buggy stepped in with a large tray of food and drinks that was clearly ment to be shared, a smile on his lips.

"I see you're settling in well- a few of my Freaks mentioned you had started to bang on the door and rattle the nob.." He said, his gaze hardening a bit while his voice stayed jovial. Watching you as you stood up from the easel and a painting you had started after crying.

"Buggy why are you keeping me here? This isn't what we agreed to! You said I could go"

"Did I?-" He said with a amused smile. You couldn't tell if this was a punishment for his imprisonment or a reward for your presence, Clearly it was as clouded to you as it was to him- He simply smiled seeing the confusion and fear in your eyes and brushed it off. Instead walking to the record player in the room and putting on one of the records, slow music began to bleed through the horn and filled the room with song.

"You're my person (Y/N) I can't let you go that easily"

Stepping forward towards your shaking form he gently wrapped one hand around your waist and another holding your hand. Guiding you to follow him in a gentle sway-

"I promise, I'll make you happy. Happier then anyone else-" He said calmly, his hand holding your tightly as the two of you swayed to the music. A few tears running down your cheek and felt his lips kiss them away slowly. Smiling against your cheek as he pulled back just enough to look you in the eyes as the music began to come to a end.

"and I'll kill anyone who dares try to get in my way"

#x reader #one peice x reader #buggy the clown x reader #buggy one piece #buggy x reader #one peice live action #one piece

[tenko-thinks]

Okay okay now the pregnancy prompt with the Hantengu clones please? 🍿👀

(Would Urogi's result in an egg 🤔 Bonus if Urogi's has wings too and starts flying after like two months or something lol)

MAMA ( NON GENDERED ) THE POPCORN PLEASE. These will be shorter bc there's four mfs on this post

The Hantengu clones with a pregnant s/o + Fathering hcs

Cws : pregnancy, labor and childbirth ( nondescript ) , karaku is . Like that , sekido has like some implied toxic behavior but what do u want from me

Sekido

Pregnancy with sekido... Godspeed ladies and others with the ability to get knocked up.

He notices the change in your demeanor almost immediately. You avoiding him and being skittish.

Of course it pisses him off, figuring you're hiding something from him. He'll grab you by the arm and yell "out with it! There's no way a mortal like you would be stupid enough to cheat right!?"

And when you say you're pregnant he thinks he might be wrong on that assumption until you tell him without a doubt that it's his. Then he's just... Stumped? Doesn't know how to process that information.

During the duration of the pregnancy he's skeptical. And keeps tabs on you constantly. The idea of a demon siring is so unheard of it's only natural that he'd worry about loyalty.

God awful when it comes to handling hormones and mood swings. He doesn't know how to soothe you and ends up frustrated with himself which leads to an explosion on the other clones. Never you. He knows stress could kill the child, after all. He's not daft.

Even if he grumbles, sekido is very willing and happy to massage your ankles and any other soreness from your body.

When labor comes knocking? Sekido is snapping at the other three constantly as they flounder around uselessly. Flailing with the midwife watching them like a group of crazy people.

It's too silent comparatively when you're screaming in agony and all he can do is hold your hand while Urogi and Karaku offer platitudes he can't.

A daughter. Small and so so frail compared to her father. Resting in his arms as you recover from the task of birth.

Sekido has never claimed to be a perfect man. And he will never claim to be a perfect father.

He snaps at the little girl often . And will often apologize by offering her gifts. Words have never been his strong suit.

He gets worse as she ages. Not towards her , but the idea of her getting older. Relying on him less.

Protective and stern dad. No boyfriends.

Karaku

"How much sex have you been having without me??"

Punch him in the mouth first of all. But he's a tease through and through. Especially if you're a monogamous sort.

He "accuses" you of cheating despite knowing well and good you almost certainly haven't. Especially when he hardly lets you leave your home. He just likes getting you defensive and huffy!!

He's honestly pretty surprised though! Demons aren't supposed to have kids! Boy is your womb built different!

Karaku pouts when your hormones make you anything else other than horny. It's the one he's best suited to handling!! And you're just gonna be a bitch because your brain chemicals are off kilter? Weak.

Despite being a brat he's actually rather attentive. Being a creature of pleasure, Karaku is the most adjusted to being around humans and interacting with them. So he knows how to placate you!

Likes to tease about silly cravings you have though. So long as he thinks you can handle it.

Labor? Karaku has left the building in order to scream into the wilderness give him 10 minutes. He wants to not overwhelm you while you're busy pushing something out of you.

When he returns he's ignoring sekido's glower in favor of returning to your side and helping you through the process.

And as his son is born all he can think about is how gorgeous you are. All exhausted. But so much stronger than so many slayers hes faced! He thinks at least.

Kara is a fun dad kind of guy. One who prioritizes play over discipline or academics. So those will fall to you for the most part. He's not incapable. Just... annoying?

You have come home to Karaku lodged in a half broken wall because he thought it a good idea to hand a three year old his uchiwa.

You know that meme of the mom scolding the kid , the dad stepping in and proceeding to get scolded? Yeah that's karaku.

Aizetsu

"It's sad, knowing you're lying to me."

Is his dead ass reaction, and bro just straight up starts to walk away. You have to grab him and insist several times you went to the doctor and confirmed it!! You even have the doctor's note!

Aizetsu still doesn't believe it until you start to show symptoms. Only then does he stop sulking about your cruel prank on him.

Holds your hair back as you suffer from morning sickness. What a champ. Even if he's grossed out.

He's the most attentive and empathetic of the clones!! The best at giving words of affirmation when you're crying over silly things. Or when he tells you he won't let you eat rocks.

Sometimes if you're lucky you can catch a glimpse of a smile when he's looking at your bump growing. He likes having his hand there. Assuring himself that it's real and not some dream.

Aizetsu speaks to your stomach often, telling your child about his day and asking questions. He has full on conversations with them!

To be honest... labor? Aizetsu will probably black out and/or faint throughout the entire process. Coming to when Karaku is shaking him about how cute his new daughter is.

And he nearly ( does ) break down at the revelation that he has a little girl.

When he holds her for the first time he whispers to her how he'll never let her suffer or even know sorrow. While you're unconscious.

He stays true to his word as well. Whenever his daughter fusses he's there in an instant. Calming her. Feeding her. Whatever it is she needs. You wake up quite often to the sight of Aizetsu cradling her against his chest while waiting for you to wake up.

She becomes a spoiled princess because of it. But he wouldn't have her any other way. After all, he wants her happy.

Urogi

At first, Urogi is perplexed. Head cocked n all.

Now, to have eggs would insinuate having a cloaca and being fertilized. And I'm assuming you to be human.

So really it's more awe in how you are able to carry his children in the first place.

But he's ecstatic! Beyond excited!

Of course he'll have to ask around for advice but he's doing the best he can!! Running errands for you, making sure you're comfortable, etc

His method of dealing with your hormones is to try and make you laugh. In any way he can. Jokes. Silly faces. Shock. So long as he can get you laughing!

Instinctively he makes a nest out of all of your blankets , pillows and towels. A place for you and his chicks to be safe! And warm!! Incubated!!

Insists that you birth in the nest! It's the best for the babies. Is what his instincts are telling him.

He wants to touch your bump, but with his talons he settles instead on resting his head on it. Listening for any movement and smiling in awe at how they move around.

Urogi handles labor surprisingly well. He's territorial of course, so the other three aren't allowed in. Only you, him and a midwife.

He cheers you on the entire time. Offering his arms to squeeze as to not harm you with talons. He'd much rather you not bleed out in the nest while giving birth. Especially because you got a vein with his claws.

Yet he hears two little cries. Apparently the first had been silent until her little sister had also escaped you.

And the first thing he noticed were the beautiful downy wings on their backs. Only paired with talon like feet. Much more human hands. Unlike his own.

He watched you hold them. Listening to the chittering chirping noises they made.

Oh what a day to be the clone of joy!

And he continues to think that when his two little girls are attempting ( in vain ) to flutter after him. Wings still far too downy to do any proper flying.

Preens them incessantly!! Hair and wings !! And he's elated to watch you do the same. Caring for them the same way he taught you to care for his!!

When the day they begin to fly at the age of three? He knows what anxiety is. Watching them clumsily flutter about like a hawk, and saving them any time they begin to falter.

It makes you laugh, how nervous he gets about something that used to absolutely drive him wild with excitement when they were born.

#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #demon slayer x reader #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #kny x reader #sekido #sekido x reader #aizetsu #aizetsu x reader #karaku x reader #karaku #urogi x reader #urogi #kny urogi #kny karaku #kny sekido #kny aizetsu

[gatitties]

Gifts

─ Dbd x gn!teen!reader

─ Summary: you want a Christmas present and you know how to use it a lot

─ Warnings: none

8 < 9 > 10

The entity's realm was a cold place, there didn't seem to be any change of seasons beyond slight changes in temperatures, The Entity didn't care about it either, it's not like she wanted to take care of the people she had there, they were just mere puppets, so they could entertain her, killers or survivors, they were all replaceable.

How you found out you were on new year's eve was baffling to her, it only snowed a little bit in that desolate dark forest where she kept her puppets, and it's not like it hadn't snowed a few other times before, but you had that mentally detector, you just knew, you knew it was Christmas, or New Year, or just that time of year was close or had just passed, it was your sixth sense.

That, and that your fyp was completely related to that kind of thing, mystery solved, new problem found, gifts! Where were your Christmas presents? Besides all that family stuff blah blah blah… you didn't have your loved ones here, even though you could see some survivors as siblings or even parents (maybe even some killer), so most importantly were the gifts.

You were a spoiled brat, you weren't going to hand out handmade gifts or anything like that, you weren't going to be any more godly around this time, because it didn't feel like those days, so you went on with your daily shit, just making a little deal with the entity. You would stop sabotaging the games on both sides for a week.

Oh yeah, both survivors and killers realized how influential you were, if they offered you something you liked, depending on the person, you would sabotage a trial in favor of killers or survivors, basically the respective group would win 10% more chance of a victory if they managed to get you to collaborate either on one side or the other.

Could this be a little immoral? After all, you were part of the survivors but… you didn't discriminate against anyone! Or rather, you weren't going to deny the benefits they offered you, which could range from getting Meg to record a stupid video with you to Anna teaching you how to throw axes, you'd even sell yourself for some cookies, but who cares? Well, The Entity, but you didn't give a shit about her.

The thing is, you kept your promise, denying the blackmail you were offered for a whole week, it was hard not to accept your favorite dessert when The Trapper offered it to you, or even the offer to see Ace dressed as a chicken, you had to deny it for one higher weight ratio.

You were currently in a trial along with Ada Wong, Leon and Mikaela, the killer was a relatively new one, just like Ada, Albert Wesker, or aka "depression fuck me hard but I fuck it harder", yes, a your eyes this guy was some kind of uncle who was divorced like eight times and has five children scattered around the world without knowing where they are. You guessed correctly, Albert couldn't stand you one bit, but don't worry! His heart will soften with you just like the others did, otherwise this wouldn't be a fanfiction hehe.

But he still hates you, even though he wasn't focused on you in this game, having Ada and Leon here he just wanted to take his rage out on them while you and Mikaela were doing generators, more her than you, because you were an idiot for post-apocalyptic romance and Leon and Ada seemed to be having that right now

"This is better than the Turkish romance series that my mother watches…"

You grabbed a handful of popcorn from a bag that had mysteriously appeared in your hands, plot necessities!, You watched as they both ran from Wesker holding hands, your mind traveling to those kinds of scenes in other movies you remembered, only that in those movies the killer doesn't have statistically more speed than you in a general way, you saw like the permanent red light of the murderer illuminated the two figures more and more.

It was time to make use of your Christmas gift!

You grabbed one of the Orbeez pouches that you had hanging on your waist as ammunition, pouring a decent amount into the chamber of your personal pistol, smiling maniacally, you aimed with complete concentration at the back of Wesker's neck, without thinking twice about an amount of small balls impacted against the man, distracting him for a few seconds enough so that the blow he was going to launch did not reach Leon.

"Damn brat-"

He didn't even have time to turn when more balls flew towards his face, directly into his glasses causing it to fly away from his face, you gained his attention once and for all, hoping there weren't too many generators missing because you were still terrible at chasing.

"Nerf or nothing old man!"

You jumped off the balcony you were on, as he approached your position, you ran as fast as you could, blinding Wesker by shooting him right in the eye (taking his glasses off in the process all those times). You only stopped when your Orbeez ran out, you couldn't reload your Nerf gun with anything else so it didn't take long for you to be put on a hook, but it was worth it because you won that match, at least the other three came out unscathed, you were sacrificed under the angry look of the man in black.

New weapon unlocked!

Nerf gun.

New perk unlocked!

You ensure 10% victory if you are offered something of interest (works mainly with food)

#dbd x reader #dbd x platonic reaader #platonic reader #gn reader #teen reader #reader insert #albert wesker #ada wong #leon kennedy #dbd

[poupeesdecirque]

Travel Blog - Part 3!

Connichi Sunday & Monday after

3rd September - Connichi Sunday

Last day of the Con, Carousel festival, group photos and being a circus brat

Last day at the convention started for be completely in the hotel as this time it was real hair time and I could fully dress up before getting to the convention hall.

It was quite early and I decided to head out for doll photos with Road - the only doll I had with me. The park itself was sadly full of garbage, I took Road out to some flowers and the morning sun helped with pics.

I picked up my friends then and we went to the convention meeting some more D.gray-man cosplayers and I actually got some photos!

I feel like there were even more dgm cosplayers on sunday??

After doing some silly pics with Red @adragonstale and I decided we wanted more and I remembered there was a carousel festival happening, after a quick google search we saw it was just a 10 minute walk from the convention location and...

Of course we got there. I got Popcorn which we shared later on, but ofc used for pics first.

I felt melanchony hitting hard during the afternoon, we checked some more vendors and I got a wig for a future teen!Mana cosplay from a store that sadly closes down now. As we sat down and I took a little nap while resting my head on my knees some creep wanted to take photos... between my legs. Luckily my friends were with me and told that asshole off. The worst is that this bastard wanted to argue that everyone "does this" and was offended my friend "ruined" his photo with pointing his middle finger into the camera.... seriously what is with Wiesbaden and those creeps?!

We headed out for dinner later on, the restaurant took forever we almost ordered take out there.

Then we went back to the con and did some more photos, slowly letting the evening end.

But it all came to a sudden ending as a swat team arrived and the whole city's police becauste some asshole called and told he would *do a thing* in the park.

That left a bitter taste for me as I was completely nervous then, it didn't help my hotel was next to a police station.

But well I was completely knocked out that evening.

Monday 4th September

Traveling back home, cleaning, cosplay aftermath, plans

Monday was the first day of the weekend I was sleeping long enough to actually need my alarm to get up. I traveled back that day, the drive back was actually shorter??? Like from the start it was told to be 30 minutes shorter to begin with. Weird.

The scenery was very beautiful.

Back home it was unpacking and seeing how much dirt I had collected with my cosplays. The cosplays were partially very stained and needed a good wash, especially the shoes.

Tested the wig I got very quickly and will work on my variant of teen!Mana later on.

I think I will finalize the cosplay for next year's bookfair, it's the same base as Nea but the wig needs some work and I want to make a new bag as Tim doesn't fit for Mana. I want to do a bag that looks like the Earl.

My next convention will be the Polaris in Hamburg, but just for one day (Saturday) - I will most likely doing an Allen variant, I will aim to redo his jacket for the runaway variant and hope I will make it in time.

I'm sure I need my friends closer if I will attend the Connichi again as I just need the emotional support and safety with those creeps and drug abuse around the location of the convention. It's a convention yes, it doesn't feel like the Connichi to me, the people were lovely though.

There are a lot of things that I truly missed about it feeling like the Connichi which starts with the fact we always got those cute tickets in the mail - since last year you had printed/mobile tickets; BUT last year you at least had the option to get a collector's ticket and got it via mail but this year they didn't even send it you had to pick it up... which felt very wrong having not the type of ticket you grew up with.

The missing main Manga and DVD publisher, missing small publisher and overall lovelessly arranged convention hall didn't help much. Yes you can spy on people when you go onto 2nd or 3rd level as the building is brighter with the windows and it's nice to have 3 entries and not just two (but wait we actually had 3 as well before covid, so, that's not even an argument), I missed the fact that the safety guards and medics checked the park, which they did in Kassel. I think it would have avoided a lot of called ambulances and that situation on sunday as well. I know they don't need to do that by law but ... well.

Also not having free public transport but a coupon for getting into a champange producer fabric tour doesn't compare at all (like wtf, then at least give us the Anime Cinema for free and not for an additional price). There is no free parking spots at all, you have to pay for all. Overall the convention is less central and more expensive while lacking a lot of things they had in before even within the programm. It has changed a lot and not all for the "omg new shiny building with space", if you lack the important vendors the space will remain empty and that is just very off putting.

It's nice to have more restaurants in a short distance but if the Matsuri wasn't lacking serious good food options this year we would have eaten at the con and not at restaurants. It was just tiny very overpriced snacks, last year you got good filling lunch/dinner options for an okay-ish price.

Overall: people were amazing, the con was seriously lacking a lot, people matter more for me though.

#travel blog #con #connichi #connichi 2023 #cosplay

[soobskies]

Hi :> I'm still new to tumblr so idk how to use it but for now I'll post a soobinxreader story

You were always labelled as the nerd kid in your expensive school, who only got in with a scholarship. Soobin on the other hand was known for being the rich and cool kid who has atleast 10 dates a day and also the principals son.

Your first impression of him was a mean jerk since he always had a bunch of girls around him always acted like a brat towards everyone even the teachers knowing he could get away with everything since his dad was the principal and just show his puppy dog eyes at him.

At lunch time soobin was hanging out with his friend group until taehyun suggested an idea to make a bet with soobin "If y/n falls for you in a month you get 10k from each of us" Since Soobin had alot of pride said "I could do it in a few days." sarcastically.

While you were studying for your upcoming test in the library an unexpected visitor came in, when he came closer to you you thought he was going to talk to the pretty girl behind you and went back to reading your book. Then suddenly you heard someone pulling out a chair infront of you, it was Soobin. "Would you like to-" before he even finished his sentence you replied with a cold "No." "But I was saying-" "I'm not interested"

"Why not" he asked "I don't even need to explain how you're always not up to anything good" you said while proceeding to read your book. He kept tugging on your shirt and just sat there until he knew you wouldn't even budge.

The next day in the cafeteria yeonjun asked "How is it going? With you and y/n?" "She didn't even let me finish my sentence!" Soobin said, scoffing.

At the end of history class, he came by to your seat, attempting to ask you again. This time you don't interrupt. "Would you like to go out with me?" he said softly. Remembering the times when he used to bully you, you said "No" He asked "Why?" You simply just said "Attitude, try to change a bit" "If I change would you agree to go out with me?" You teasingly said "Maybe"

After a few days, you notice some things changing about soobin. How he refuses to go out with some girls, tries to be nicer to the people around him. One time he even helped arrange the books in the library, you found him so sweet but then remembered it was all for you to go out with him.

It's been a few weeks since he last asked you that question, until he finally asked again. You thought hard about it then said " Why not?" His face lit up with excitement hearing those words come out of your mouth. Accidentally pulling you in a hug, you didn't want to pull away, you liked his presence.

He planned a movie date with you. It was a horror movie and you were easily scared. Gripping into his shirt, holding his hand and trying to hide your face with the box of popcorn. He found you really cute that way, so mesmerizing to look at. "Y/n" he slowly whispered your name "What is it?" "I love you" then pulled you close to him.

After the movie ended you went to a cafe and got some coffee, , sitting on the table you couldn't stop noticing how soobin keeps looking at you every now and then.

When he drove you home he kissed you on the lips infront of your door, his lips were so soft and you could still taste the chocolate drink he had earlier. You waved goodbye to him and you just couldn't sleep after that. All you had in mind was S O O B I N

The next day at school you and soobin were inseparable. You both were having a great time until his friends showed up. "So you finally got her to fall for you? Here's your 40k" Taehyun said loud enough for you to hear. "What is this all about?" Soobin tried to stop taehyun but he said " It was all a bet" Those words shattered your heart to pieces and you run to the bathroom. Tears falling for your eyes, thinking about the good times you had with soobin, it was all... Fake.

The next few days soobin wouldn't stop trying to call, text and explain to you. You wouldn't give in, promised to yourself that you will never fall for anyone again. After you avoided him, soobin never dated anyone else in the meanwhile. He was determined to explain to you.

He went to the library where he knew you would be there. And of course, as soon as you saw him you were already getting out of your chair, soobin held your hand just before you were about to leave. "Please, just let me explain" You were silent, wanting to give him a chance to speak up. "Yeah, it was all a bet at first but when I started changing my attitude, I learnt that being nice and kind was better than being a jerk like in the past, in that moment I fell for you, wanting you in my presence. I wanted to tell you about the bet but I was afraid that you will hate me, please forgive me." he said, tears almost falling from his eyes. You couldn't help but melt from his words. "How about we start again?" you said. Both of you walked out of the library, holding hands.

#txt fanfic #txt x reader #soobin x reader

[angelsaxis]

It’s noon in Los Angeles toward the end of the Plague Year, and I’m lounging on the patio of a swanky three-floor mansion, watching a scrum of teenage boys perform trending TikTok dances. Arranged in a tidy delta formation near the jacuzzi and pool, the five boys smile into the glare of a ring light, at the center of which is affixed a smartphone recording their moves. These boys possess a teenybopper cuteness and, because they’re between the ages of eighteen and twenty, they have noisomely strong metabolisms and thus go shirtless pretty much all of the time, displaying either the ectomorphic thinness of trees or greyhounds or, in one boy’s case especially, the sharply delineated musculature of a really big insect. They bite their lower lips, and their expressions are—I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe them—precoital.

Dances that go viral on TikTok, the video-sharing service that has become the most popular app on the planet, tend to be easily replicable, so the choreography is pretty simple and—no offense to the boys here but—kind of cheesy and lame. It’s as if the entire art form were based off the hand jive or the Macarena. For example, when the vocalist sings “throat bay-bee!” each boy makes a cradle with his hands, as though shushing a recalcitrant infant. And then during the next lyric—“I’m tryna bust all on ya”—each turns to the side and humps the air with the gracelessness of a jackrabbit. Wearing a motley assemblage of billowing hoodies and prestige sneakers, these boys are residents of something called Clubhouse FTB—or Clubhouse For the Boys—one of the most popular collab houses that have sprouted up in Los Angeles.

(rest of article under cut)

Also known as content houses or TikTok mansions, collab houses are grotesquely lavish abodes where teens and early twentysomethings live and work together, trying to achieve viral fame on a variety of media platforms. Sometime last spring, when most of us were making bread or watching videos of singing Italians, the houses began to proliferate in impressive if not mind-boggling numbers, to the point where it became difficult for a casual observer even to keep track of them. There was Hype House and Drip House and a house called Girls in the Valley. There was FaZe House (for gamers) and Alt Haus (for outcasts) and one called Byte House, the first of its kind in the U.K. Perhaps the most recognizable was the Sway House, tenanted by a cohort of shaggy-haired bros whose content consisted mostly of lifting weights and pretending to have sex with their smartphone cameras. Essentially, they were the Brat Pack of Gen Z, replete with bad-boy antics and dangling, cross-bearing earrings.

For the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been dwelling among the influencers at Clubhouse FTB, enduring bouts of dick jokes and long glugs of White Claw, the sort of chaffing male camaraderie you’re apt to find in frat houses or hunting lodges. Among the various House Rules, which are enumerated on a whiteboard in the dining room of this mansion, are boldfaced injunctions to wake up by 10 am, to refrain from drinking Sunday through Thursday, to hold house meetings every morning at 11:30, and to “finish brand deliverables before inviting guests.” Unlike some other houses, the Clubhouse isn’t owned and operated by the influencers themselves but is overseen by outside investors. In exchange for posting three to five videos per week to the Clubhouse social-media accounts, the boys receive free room and board, plus whatever brand deals they can get based upon their “relevance.”

“When coronavirus hit,” Baron Scho tells me during a break in the action, “I was like, all right, I’m gonna get TikTok famous.” Baron was living in Galveston, Texas, and studying something called “maritime business”—think: port shipping; think: barges—when he started posting videos of himself four or five times a day. Despite the drab backdrop of his performances—a dimly lit bathroom with a popcorn ceiling—his grooves were both riveting and infectious, earning him plaudits from several TikTok stalwarts. Then he did a dance to Travis Scott’s “Out West,” and things got nutty after that. Now he’s nearing a million followers, and he figures that with impending brand deals, he could maybe start bringing in “like seven thousand dollars a week.”

Christopher Romero, an angel-faced nineteen-year-old, tells me that he “literally came from nowhere,” by which he means Greeley, Colorado. One day after school, bored by his video games and feeling a little lonely, he decided to hop on an app called YouNow, a broadcasting service where users could stream live content. “I would just talk about my day, and I only had maybe like five viewers. I remember for a hot minute it was just like a steady five.” Within weeks, he had a devoted fan base of some twenty thousand viewers. “Bro, when I was asleep,” he says, “I’m not even kidding, I would have like two thousand viewers just like watching me sleep.” His burgeoning fame didn’t quite click for him, though, until one day when he and his mom were at Walmart, and somewhere between the generic-brand T-shirts and the economy-size packages of Bounty and Rolaids, a group of shrieking girls accosted him and just about demanded that he take selfies. Understandably, his mother was flummoxed. “She’s like, ‘Why are these girls freaking out? Why do they want to take pictures with you? What is happening?’ And I finally just told her, ‘I’ve been livestreaming on this app.’ ”

Now, on the pool deck, the boys tussle and roughhouse with the zeal of Labrador puppies, slugging each other lovingly in the shoulders and then retreating with giggles like ninnies. As one boy gets chased, he shrieks, “Yo, bro, bro! I was just kidding!” They’re so caught up in their own antics that they hardly even notice my presence. In this way, I can float among them like a ghost in a Henry James novel, loitering on the edge of the patio as they arrange a post for Instagram. In some sense, they are like college boys anywhere, except that they live in a seven-thousand-square-foot mansion, a residence whose value is roughly $8 million and whose rent is $35,000 a month—which, it must be said, is more than half of what I make in a year as a tenure-track university professor.

The pool deck looks out on the undulant topography of Beverly Hills, with the steeple tops of pine trees etched in the distance. All this would seem idyllic if it weren’t for the noxious blots of smoke from the wildfires that have been enshrouding California, which lend the sky a kind of disaster-movie ominousness. The West Coast is on fire. Fifty thousand Americans are contracting COVID every day, and the economy is drawing ever closer to a very steep precipice. Against this apocalyptic backdrop, it’s been strange to watch these kids gambol and twirl, since it reminds you of nothing so much as Nero and his fiddle. When I ask the boys whether they’re concerned about the state of the Republic, they rub their noses and look up from their phones. “What? Nah, man,” one says. “Things are getting better every single year.”

According to a poll released in 2019, some 54 percent of Americans between the ages of thirteen and thirty-eight would, if given the chance, become a social-media influencer. A whopping 12 percent believed that this term already fit them.1 Once the purview of heiresses like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, it seems that influencing has become fully democratized, making a Jay Gatsby out of every intrepid Jimmy Gatz. Or as one collab-house press liaison puts it to me: “It’s the new A-list celebrity except it’s attainable for anybody. You can be in Cleveland, Ohio, alone in your bedroom, and you can get a million followers overnight. That’s fucking crazy. That’s never been possible. Wealth, fame, status has never been more attainable for anyone in the history of the world the way it is right now.”

Amir Ben-Yohanan, the CEO of the Clubhouse venture and a real-estate mogul from New Jersey, describes the state of the collab-house industry this way: “It almost reminds me of the old days in the U.S. when people got on their horses and buggies and went west for the Gold Rush. And everything was uncharted territory, and they got to California and Colorado and they marked their territories and said, ‘This is mine.’ And they started digging, and some of them made a lot of money and some of them didn’t succeed, and it was totally unregulated . . . and what dawned on me was that the social-media market is a lot like the Wild West. There are a lot of kids running around. And there aren’t any patterns to the behavior. A lot of people are just dropping out of college and moving here literally with a bag and the hopes of becoming an influencer.”

Whereas the average college grad rakes in $50,000 a year, an influencer with more than a million followers could net that much in a month. And at a moment when virtually every other industry is shrinking if not flatlining, the influencer marketing industry is projected to be worth $15 billion by 2022 and currently accounts for roughly 15 percent of the total global ad spend. Indeed, it seems the influencer economy has infiltrated every last sector of the market, with Hollywood casting Instagrammers for their massive online followings and pop stars seeking out TikTokers in the hope of achieving virality. From a certain vantage, then, these influencers aren’t so much celebrities as they are prototypes of laborers in the new passion economy, a glittering premonition of where the world seems to be heading. If the collab house owners are doing more than profiting off these youngsters—Clubhouse takes as much as 20 percent of their earnings—perhaps they are also tutoring these young people in the rigors of this system, preparing them for the psychic demands that this new world would ask of them. “We really see ourselves as an influencer university,” Christian Young, one of the Clubhouse co-owners, tells me.

As bizarre as it might seem to compare a collab house to a university, the metaphor gets repeated enough times throughout the weekend to make me wonder whether it’s codified somewhere in the venture’s mission statement or in the annals of its corporate propaganda. Later in my visit, Chase Zwernemann, the twenty-one-year-old VP of talent management, will tell me that “we really see ourselves like influencing professors.” And if this weren’t enough, under the Clubhouse aegis is a trio of TikTok houses, each of which corresponds, apparently, to a different level of academe. There’s Clubhouse BH—the grad school—which is meant for “our more seasoned influencers.” (If this phrase conjures for you images of geriatrics taking selfies in suggestive postures, please know that by “seasoned influencers” they simply mean people who have been in the business a while and have thus reached the ripe old age of twenty-two or twenty-three.) Beneath that is Clubhouse FTB, which apparently serves as the undergraduate program. And finally, there’s Not a Content House, the high school of the Clubhouse venture, one meant to appeal to an even younger demographic.

If the repeated deployment of this metaphor makes me wince, it is perhaps owing to my job as a university professor, a vocation that I’ve considered to be in opposition to these forces. For the past thirteen years, I’ve taught a course called Living in the Digital Age, which mobilizes the techniques of the humanities—critical thinking, moral contemplation, and information literacy—to interrogate the version of personhood that is being propagated by these social networks. Occasionally, there have been flashes of student insight that rivaled moments from Dead Poets Society—one time a student exclaimed, “Wait, so on social media, it’s almost like I’m the product”—but it increasingly feels like a Sisyphean task, given that I have them for three hours a week and the rest of the time they are marinating in the jacuzzi of personalized algorithms.

As someone who suffers from Churchillian spells of depression, it was easy for me to connect this to the pervasive disquiet on campus. In the past ten years, my email correspondence has been increasingly given over to calming down students who are hyperventilating with anxiety—about grades, about their potential marketability, about their Instagram followings. The previous semester, for instance, during a class on creative non-fiction, twenty-four of my twenty-six students wrote about self-harm or suicidal ideation. Several of them had been hospitalized for anxiety or depression, and my office hours were now less occasions to discuss course concepts—James Baldwin’s narrative persona, say, or Joan Didion’s use of imagery—than they were de facto counseling sessions. Even students who seemed happy and neurologically stable—Abercrombie-clad, toting a pencil case and immaculate planner—nevertheless displayed unsettling in-class behavior: snacking incessantly during lectures, showing Victorian levels of repression. The number of emotional-support service animals had skyrocketed on campus. It seemed like every third person had a Fido in tow, and had you wandered into my lecture hall when we were still holding in-person classes, you might have assumed that my lessons were on obedience training or the virtues of dog-park etiquette. And while it seems clichéd even to mention it, the students were inexorably—compulsively—on their phones.

That my students followed the accounts of these influencers made me curious about their manner of living. And as the enrollment numbers at my university continued to worsen and two of my former students emailed to say that they were dropping out of college and moving to L.A., I spent much of last summer cold-calling publicists, wanting to see where the nation’s young people were heading. I swiftly discovered that the influencer industry had become a piñata for COVID-related outrage, with a number of New York Times stories characterizing these creators as incorrigible Dionysians. The Clubhouse in particular had become a repeated target. Several of their neighbors in Beverly Hills had filed a report with the local police department claiming that, despite quarantine, Clubhouse BH had hosted a party of “over a hundred” people, with cars blocking both sides of the street and even parking in several neighbors’ driveways.

All of this led me to reasonably expect that publicists would be wary of press inquiries—let alone the kind of immersive, fly-on-the-wall piece I was proposing. So I was somewhat surprised to find, one morning in August, an email from the Clubhouse at the top of my inbox. For reasons I cannot explain, their publicists were strangely receptive to this idea. They wanted to know how long I’d stay and when I could come out. They seemed to be under the impression that I wanted to learn how to become an influencer myself. The kids would be more than happy to help me make an account, they said. “Plus, if you get three influencers to tag you in a post,” they said, “you could have half a million followers by the end of the week.”

When I return to Clubhouse For the Boys the next morning, the guys are slumped at the kitchen table, slurping groggily at their just-cooked Cup of Noodles. Apparently, last night they went to Saddle Ranch—a chophouse on Sunset that has become a hot spot for influencers—where they had a mighty piss-up and are thus now epically hungover. “Barrett,” Baron says, “last night was comedy. These four random girls were here at like two-thirty in the morning, and the next thing you know they’re topless in our hot tub, four girls that we’ve never seen before.” At this point, Baron looks at Chase, the media liaison, and asks, “Can we tell him shit like this? Is that how it works?” When I look over at Chase, he’s holding an espresso cup and saucer, and he stares back at Baron with such withering froideur that he resembles one of those Dust Bowl farmers in a Dorothea Lange portrait.

Beyond whatever else I might think about Baron’s statement here, what’s revealing to me is how poorly these guys were prepared to interact with a journalist. Despite Christian Young’s claim that the Clubhouse is an “influencer university,” it’s clear within minutes of my arrival that the guys don’t know what they should say on or off the record, or that they can decline to comment if they’re uncomfortable with a question. It occurs to me that the Clubhouse management actually cares very little about the long-term fates of these kids. After all, there’s a fungible supply of well-complected youngsters constantly streaming into Los Angeles. Only a very small percentage of these kids will actually make it in the industry; the rest of them, Amir tells me, will eventually just “cycle through.”

The precarity of their situation prompts me to ask the boys the following unkind question: Are they wary at all about deferring college? “Fuck college!” Christopher says. “College can wait. I can always go when I’m like thirty, so I’m just gonna ride this out. Ride this wave. See where this house takes me.” Baron agrees. “I don’t know if I’ll finish college. I might, but if I don’t and this is working out, then everybody else can just suck me.” I found that the anticollegiate mood was rife among the influencers. One of the Clubhouse’s founding members, Daisy Keech, relinquished a soccer scholarship at the University of California, Davis, to chase stardom in Los Angeles. And here at FTB, DaeDae Wilson and Sam Dezz are also eschewing university despite the fact that both were offered spots on sports teams at top-flight academic institutions—basketball at USC for DaeDae and soccer at Auburn for Sam.

Perhaps the riskiness of this decision helps explain why the boys are so eager to assure me of their long-term creative capital. “People don’t realize that this industry is a really big commitment,” one of the influencers, Brandon Westenberg, tells me. “That you’re going to do this like every single day.” At first, I sympathize with his wilting fatigue until I remember that, well, all jobs are something you commit to doing every single day. “It’s exhausting,” he continues. “It doesn’t seem exhausting, like a little fifteen second video, but you gotta think of concepts, and there’s a lot that goes into making videos before you stand up and do it.”

Over Brandon’s shoulder, in a little dining area on the opposite side of the kitchen, the boys keep a whiteboard of their various working ideas. Among them are the following:

hoops challenge desert video pranks skydive roasts tuxedos bath robes roommates control my day hide n seek

“It’s like waking up every day and coming up with a school project,” Brandon continues. “Like you’re trying to impress your teachers. You’re trying to impress everyone who watches the video, and you want everyone to like it. You don’t want to post anything that doesn’t represent you, and if society’s standard is us—as being the Chosen Ones, as being good-looking kids or whatever, as being the new entertainment—then there’s standards to it. Everything you post has to be likable.”

There’s no clearer evidence for this than TikTok’s Creator Marketplace, where brands can shop through a catalogue of youngsters with the same breezy efficiency that they might otherwise experience when browsing for a J.Crew sweater. Listing influencers’ most pertinent statistics, the marketplace allows brands to search any number of specifications—country, topic, audience age, average views, etc. For example, if I wanted to add an influencer named Meghan McCarthy to my campaign, I’d know that she has 3.7 million followers, that her posts garner an average of 615,000 viewers, and that 58 percent of those people live in the United States and some 80 percent of them are women. Because these kids know that brands are hunting for the widest possible exposure, they have good financial incentive to comport themselves in ways that will meet that specification.

When I ask the boys to describe the amount of money they receive from brands, they use words like “absurd” and “absolutely ridiculous.” For instance, Christopher Romero just did a TikTok video for a Louisiana-based chicken franchise called Raising Cane’s,2 for which he and his girlfriend, Madi, were paid $14,000 and $60,000, respectively. The video features no stylized pyrotechnics, no rococo ballet of intricate choreography. Instead, the couple does that cutesy Lady and the Tramp–type thing, where they each start munching on one end of a chicken tender until they meet in the middle for a kiss. About this brand deal, Christopher says, “I’m obviously grateful, but it’s honestly crazy to me. Like, yo, this is a ten-second video, and you want to give me how much money? And Raising Cane’s is already a big brand by itself—everyone knows how good it is, so I’m wondering, like, why do you even need this?”

“Because you’re a walking billboard,” Gio Valencia says, chucking him on the shoulder.

“Is that right?” I ask. “Is that how you feel?”

“I feel like I’m a walking museum, bro. Like when we go to the mall and we walk in, and people are just staring at us—like, low-key, taking videos—it’s like I feel like I’m literally a walking art piece. It’s just like, Why do I feel like this? I’m just, like, a normal person shopping.”

“Do you want to be in a TikTok?” Gio asks, sometime before noon that morning. He says this with the gentle-voiced decorum of a duke asking a governess to dance. For a second I wonder whether he’ll reach for my hand. “It’s just fun,” he says. While I never would have dreamed of asking the boys to include me in their content—lest I earn that most ignominious of labels: clout chaser—I nevertheless admit that during my trip to L.A. I did entertain certain gauzy-edged daydreams about possibly busting a move in a Clubhouse video and thereupon earning praise from millions of TikTok users. But now that it’s actually happening and Gio is wrangling Baron and Christopher to help him, I am undergoing such booming levels of pulse-in-ears trepidation that I can’t help feeling like the millennial that I am.

Huddled in a quorum on the basketball court, under smoke-clotted skies that block out the daylight, the boys begin scrolling through possible audio, trying to choose a song with easily retained choreography—I get the sense that the boys don’t really rehearse their dances. Christopher pauses over a number where the TikToker in question turns to the side and, in the manner of a pugilist warding off blows to the head, raises clenched fists over his face and proceeds to thrust his hips blindly, with prurient torque and velocity.

“What about this one?” Christopher says.

“Uhh,” I say. Do the boys know anything about academic tenure? I explain that this year I’m going up for a promotion to associate professor and that I’m worried that my university’s administration, which has become Scrooge-ish, money-wise, in light of the COVID pandemic, might not take too kindly to a video of one of their professors dry-humping nothing for the entertainment of TikTok viewers. But this candid hand-wringing elicits only squealing guffaws from these kids—who are kind of delighting in the prospect of my professional demise and keep enjoining me to “just do it.” Eventually, Christopher says, “Okay, okay, what about this one?”

The song we choose is “Whole Lotta Choppas” by Sada Baby, a snippet of trending audio whose fetching bass line makes you think of drop-tops with hydraulics or roller rinks on Saturday nights. And even though these lyrics strike me as an opera of misogyny (“Ooh, lil’ bitch wanna ride it / Told the bitch, don’t get out her body”), the corresponding dance is innocuous and tame compared with the twerking and Elvis-grade hip-flicking that would have been required by the boys’ other options.

Readers of a certain vintage might well remember the seminal scene from the 1985 Tim Burton comedy Pee-wee’s Big Adventure in which the titular hero, on a quest to find his stolen bicycle, wanders into a Texas biker bar and cues up “Tequila” by the Champs. He proceeds to jump onto the bar and do a little jig where he pumps his fists twice in front of his torso and then twice behind his back. Anyways, the dance to “Whole Lotta Choppas” is essentially Pee-wee’s “Tequila” dance, which might be why I’m able to execute the choreography on our group’s first attempt and to do so with what I’d humbly suggest is Baryshnikov-ish panache. Once we’re finished, the boys hunch over the smartphone and laugh insouciantly at our antics, and just like that, the content creation is finished. “And that’s how you make a TikTok,” Christopher says.

“Yo, what should we use for the caption?” Gio asks.

Some of the boys rattle off possible options until DaeDae comes up with the winner. “What about ‘New FTB member: Barrett from Harper’s?’ ”

The other boys respond with a spontaneous festival of backslapping and self-congratulation. DaeDae keeps uttering, “You like that? That’s what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying!” And some of the other boys are high-fiving and chest-bumping like we just won the national championship.

I use this overblown celebration to hustle to the bathroom, whereupon I engage in what’s become consummate social-media behavior: I sign on to TikTok and wait for the comments. Mere minutes have passed since Gio uploaded our vid, and already it has garnered tens of thousands of viewers. It has been liked two thousand times, which is probably more pixelated attention than I have ever received for my writing. What is this feeling? A weird admixture of exposure and veneration that makes me feel half like Jennifer Aniston and half like a Chippendales stripper. There is something a little hostile, a little sneering, about a lot of the early comments, sort of in the same rhetorical vein as “Dance, monkey, dance!” But I confess I’m delighted by the attention and can’t help feeling the palliative glow of immediate recognition.

When I refresh the page, I see that one user named mskatiechilds has posited that “Barrett from Harpers is a star,” a declaration that is punctuated by a little nova-shaped emoji. And now through a web of harebrained connections to which I will not subject you here, I begin to suffer the delusion that in response to this video, Chris and Amir might recruit me, that, I don’t know, I’ll become some sort of in-house influencer professor or something, descanting airily about Plato and Foucault, spending my evenings fireside, reciting Plath and Longfellow. A vision overtakes me in the bathroom, of all the influencers sitting like preschoolers on the mansion’s carpet while I lecture, wearing tweed, lit by a ring light, as together we reimagine the purpose of “influencing.”

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If this strikes you as unreasonable or ridiculous, go check out the TikTok account for sutherlandphys, operated by one Chris Sutherland, a physics professor at the University of Southern California who has two million followers and who makes videos with captions like “Im the type of professor to pretend I dont understand your question just so I dont have to answer.” He even has his own merch line, featuring hoodies and tees that look like university apparel and have a slogan that reads sutherland phys est. 2020.

This reminds me of something that Amir told me earlier in the weekend, that the collab-house phenomenon will be the model for brands moving forward and that someday all major businesses will have their own influencer residences—the McDonald’s collab house, the Jeep Wrangler collab house, or even, god forbid, the Viagra collab house. How long before other industries will be forced to embrace this trend? How long before newspapers have collab houses? How long before universities get their own influencer mansions, with professors made to compete for students’ attention, blending course material with sad TikTok dances?

It is raining ash while we play basketball. On the far side of the house, the boys have a half-court hemmed in by pine trees (plus an adjacent putt-putt course), and while some unseen speaker plays J. Cole and Lil Baby, the boys are trying unsuccessfully to arrange some three-on-three. As we shoot around and warm up, the boys finally summon the courage to ask about my age, and the resulting investigation goes something like this:

baron: How old are you? me: Guess. baron: What! Come on, Beanie Barrett. We told you everything about us! What is up, bro? gio: Twenty-four? Twenty-five? [Gio is a prince.] baron [Rubbing his chin appraisingly while looking me up and down]: Okay, I see you look younger because of your sense of style—like the glasses and the beanie. I see that. So I’m gonna picture you in like a tux or something. Like a worker’s outfit.

At first, I assume that by “worker’s outfit,” he means the raiment of the proletariat, some sort of rumpled denim jumpsuit in the style of, say, a custodian or a mechanic. But then I realize that his own source of income is so wildly far from your standard nine-to-five that by “worker’s outfit” he simply means a businessman’s suit and tie.

“You’re probably like thirty-six,” he says, the little bastard.

Even though we haven’t started playing yet, all the boys talk prodigious levels of shit. “Bud—who’s trying to get dunked on?” (DaeDae). “I’m a daddy on the court. Y’all know what the fuck is going on with me!” (Baron). “Yo, fuck that clip. Look how much height I have on you, fam.” (Christopher). I suppose I find it interesting that their Barnumesque hype-manning continues even when there are no cameras rolling. But a few minutes later, after we pick teams, something strange happens. For reasons I cannot identify, most of the boys scatter and disperse, wandering in the direction of the jacuzzi and pool, looking like left fielders distracted by butterflies. Only Baron and I remain on the court. “What happened?” I ask. Shirtless, dribbling at the top of the key, Baron sighs and says, “Honestly, man, this happens all the time. They all have ADHD. They haven’t been in school in like four years, and they haven’t had responsibilities, so their brains are fucking mush, bro. . . . It’s just like we pick teams for fun all the time.”

However true that is, and whatever else you might say about the education these kids are receiving, it’s clear that their hedonistic coursework—yacht content, poolside content, White Claw content—doesn’t include the rudiments of critical thinking. Take for just one example the moment during dinner when, as one boy is telling me about his ambitions to become a rock star, Baron looks up from his smartphone and says, apropos of nothing, “Yo, Hitler invented sex dolls.”

The room is overtaken by a gust of silence, while all the boys nod and chew stoically, a mute encouragement to go on. “That’s why they all have blond hair and blue eyes,” he says.

“Wait,” I say. “That can’t be right. Who says?”

“TikTok, man.”

Some frantic googling later that day will reveal that this supposed Nazi initiative—apparently called the Borghild Project, whereby German troops were given collapsible plastic dolls in their infantry backpacks that could be inflated and used (so to speak) in lieu of visiting prostitutes—is a hoax, one that was summarily debunked back in the early 2000s. Obviously, this has regained traction, though, in the unregulated wilderness of TikTok.

Beyond using TikTok as a moneymaking platform, all the guys seemed to regard the app as a social and political godsend. Again and again throughout the weekend, they rhapsodize about TikTok as though it were a conduit for sustained grassroots movements. “When I was younger,” Brandon, who is nineteen, says, “I didn’t have this much perspective on the world. I didn’t get to see everyone’s opinions on things. What was it? Just the news? Facebook? As a kid, I didn’t have a TikTok. I wasn’t an eight-year-old kid with a TikTok seeing what everyone else is seeing. Now everyone feels like they have a voice, and I think that’s what people are afraid of.”

“Wait,” I say. “Who do you think is afraid?”

“The government,” Brandon says.

“You think the government is scared?” I ask.

“Yeah, because on TikTok we have voices,” Brandon says. “We’re a whole nation of voices. That shit’s scary.”

Chase, the media liaison and self-described “influencing professor,” agrees. Later that day, he will tell me that “we’ve been kind of lucky to have these outlets across the last few months because we’ve been more exposed to what’s really going on.” For instance, just a few weeks ago, he was at home scrolling through his phone as a ritual of pre-sleep entertainment, at which point he stumbled upon “some kind of documentary” about the apparently rampant levels of Satanism in the U.S. entertainment industry. The documentary offered a detailed exegesis of demonic iconography, which supposedly many directors embed in their TV shows and movies. “It freaked me out, one hundred percent,” Chase says, “because I’ve seen those types of things—those signs and symbols—in these entertainment people’s offices, and so then to see this documentary and to start putting the pieces together, I mean, it’s nuts, man.”

At this point, I nonchalantly inquire as to whether Chase could maybe brandish his smartphone and pull up the video in question, and I’m soon made to view something called “Out of Shadows,” which has been posted on YouTube by an account called—I shit you not—Thinqing QAnon. Later, when I ask Chase whether he’s ever heard about the QAnon conspiracy, he says no, but explains that the video must be legit because “it’s gotten deleted multiple times off the internet, which is insane.” Epistemologically, this is where we are as a country: when content gets expurgated because of blatant misinformation, it is taken as a sure sign of that source’s truthfulness.

Setting aside the boys’ wariness of actual, fact-checked news sources, I suppose I’m more interested in their faith in TikTok as a surefire political expedient. In some sense, they display the same dizzying naïveté as early Facebook adopters, who had utopian hopes for the platform, believing that pokes and likes would instantiate true democratic discourse. Perhaps this is why, when Donald Trump proposed banning TikTok last summer—a misguided geopolitical gambit against China (the app is owned by ByteDance, a company based in Beijing)—pretty much the entire network had a full-scale existential conniption. That may strike you as an overstatement, but one need only look at the TikTok posts responding to the proposed ban to see that these kids possessed all the ardor and zeal of a mob of bloodthirsty Jacobins. One user created a meme imagining a scenario in which they arrived at the White House gates wielding a saucepan. Another user bellowed, “They can pry TikTok from my cold dead hands!”

Even Taylor Lorenz, the New York Times tech reporter and reigning doyenne of influencer culture, added a panegyric, saying not only that “the app has become an information and organizing hub for Gen Z activists and politically minded young people,” but that it had also “rewritten the pop charts” and become “the place where brands like American Eagle, Chipotle, and others spend millions of dollars to reach the next generation of consumers.” TikTok, in other words, was an elsewhere of utopian plenty, an Oz of good intentions and good products, a happy marriage of democracy and commerce. That such eulogies failed to account for TikTok’s data-pillaging and suppression of content, to say nothing of its less than democratic algorithm, seemed never to occur to the boys. It was as though they were preemptively mourning the loss of an august and noble country, even as the one they actually inhabited was moribund and about to end.

Not to sound like an English professor or anything, but as a professor of English, I can’t help thinking of Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Benjamin suggests that fascistic governments aim to maintain the status quo by providing citizens with the means to express themselves aesthetically without reforming their lives materially. Thus the aforementioned government that Brandon thinks TikTokers have scared shitless actually, as Benjamin writes, “sees its salvation in granting expression to the masses—but on no account granting them rights.” More to the point, any countercultural voltage these influencers purport to possess gets nullified by the fact that they have clear incentives not to talk about controversial matters, lest they get dropped by their brands. “I don’t talk about politics at all,” Brandon says. “It’s like there’s always another opinion. It’s always better to be neutral. I feel like everybody avoids politics on social media. Besides that, though, everyone feels like they have a voice.”

One thing that is so reliably upsetting about spending time with these social-media influencers is that they are all so garrulous and kind that for a minute you can’t help feel that they actually like you and enjoy having you around. The boys continue to refer to me by my on-court cognomen, Beanie Barrett, and they punctuate this endearment by enlisting me in several complicated handshakes, which makes me feel like a high school freshman. But it’s especially discomfiting to realize that the influencers have a tendency to treat virtually everyone in their social orbit with the same kind of backslapping effervescence with which they have treated me, and that this stems from their inexorable online habit of entreating their viewers to like and leave comments on all their social-media posts, not because they’re sincerely interested in what their followers have to say, but because this kind of “engagement” with their content is the sole barometer by which brands—i.e., their employers—determine their online relevance.

At one point that weekend, Baron will say to me: “Yo, Barrett, man. I need this article. Is this gonna be about me? I need that blue check.” Getting “blue-checked” is this generation’s form of existential validation, sort of the way being knighted must have felt to merchants in the mid-fifteenth century. That securing this blue check requires incessant and frequently extreme self-disclosure, that it encourages likability, brand-friendliness, and a willingness to conform to one’s audience—none of this is mentioned. Because these influencers are laboring in a system that asks them to create themselves in full view of the public, all of the calisthenics of the body are willingly displayed for their viewers. Think of the most common forms of influencer content: There are makeup tutorials and exercise regimens and tips for heterodox diets. There are bathroom selfies and self-portraits in bed and endless I just woke up confessions. In a way, the essential premise of the collab-house business model is not far from that of pornographic entertainment. (Where else do talent and crew and cadres of management congregate in furnished mansions to produce intimate content?) Interestingly, but maybe not surprisingly, many TikTok influencers, including some here at the Clubhouse, have made the crossover from social media to pornography, using apps such as OnlyFans to post nude pics for their legions of subscribers.

That this is a chilling contradiction to the claim that TikTok is a platform for authenticity seems obvious. But I think the issue here is even more mysterious and complex. After all, these kids were very young when their parents gave them iPhones and tablets—they’ve never known a self that wasn’t subject to anonymous virtual observation. And so it may well be that whatever we mean by “authentic” here isn’t the standard definition that Rousseau and the Romantics first fathomed—a true effusion of your unvarnished personality—but is “authentic” in the sense that their identities have been made in perfect, unconscious sympathy with whatever their mob of online followers has deemed agreeable and inoffensive. Several times throughout my trip, I think I can see the toll this takes on them, a kind of pallid desperation that flickers across their faces. At one point, Brandon comes over and says, “The scary thing is you never know how long this is going to last, and I think that’s what eats a lot of us at night. It’s like, What’s next? How long can we entertain everyone for? How long before no one cares, and what if your life was worth nothing?” Wasn’t it precisely this kind of sadness that my lectures on Keats and Toni Morrison were trying so desperately to foreclose?

As naïve as it might seem, part of the reason I had become an English professor was that I believed I could influence, in however small a way, the shape of the next generation. Had you caught me in a more saccharine mood, I might have said that I was in the business of cultivating citizens, that the university was the linchpin of preserving the democratic tradition. And yet it was precisely this idea of a liberal-arts education that had been steadily eroded over the past decade, under the growing (and dubious) consensus that our students weren’t so much human beings with complex, variegated histories but potential members of the job market with certain workplace deficiencies—that the threshold into adulthood should be devoted to learning how to compete in an increasingly vicious economy. A few years ago, our Republican governor proposed amending the Wisconsin state system’s mission statement to suggest that the university’s purpose wasn’t to “seek the truth” or “improve the human condition,” but was instead, according to the legislature, “to meet the state’s workforce needs.”

So the truth is that the influencer economy is just a garish accentuation of the economy writ large. As our culture continues to conflate the private and public realms—as the pandemic has transformed our homes into offices and our bedrooms into backdrops, as public institutions increasingly fall prey to the mandates of the market—we’ve become cheerfully indentured to the idea that our worth as individuals isn’t our personal integrity or sense of virtue, but our ability to advertise our relevance on the platforms of multinational tech corporations.

And yet one of the sadder ironies about all my hemming and hawing is that I, too, frequently mobilize the very tactics of ingratiation that I’m accusing the influencers of. How about the fact that, as a university professor, my prospects for getting tenure rely, in large measure, on student evaluations, meaning that I have a forceful economic motivation not necessarily to challenge my students or give them the grades they deserve, but instead to make sure they feel safe and supported and to pad their grades so they don’t take out their animus on those crucial end-of-semester evaluations. So worried have I become about my numbers and long-term job security that I have lately begun to overhear myself talking to students with the same deferential manner as a RadioShack manager.

Call it the Yelpification of the academy. Call it the retail logic of higher education. I mention this only to observe that if we sneer and snicker at influencers’ desperate quest to win approval from their viewers, it might be because they serve as parodic exaggerations of the ways in which we are all forced to bevel the edges of our personalities and become inoffensive brands. It is a logic that extends from the retailer’s smile to the professor’s easy A to the politician’s capitulation to the co-worker’s calculated post to the journalist’s virtue-signaling tweet to the influencer’s scripted photo. The angle of our pose might be different, but all of us bow unfailingly at the altar of the algorithm.

Sunday is the big night, the weekend’s capstone soiree: a lavish dinner at BOA Steakhouse with all the influencers attending. Before supper, everyone gathers at the main house for a photo shoot and light collab, where the talk mostly consists of Trump’s looming TikTok ban. The FTB boys are here, swaggering and slouchy, loitering near the turquoise pool and acting like they’ll throw one another in. I ask Baron whether he’ll make any TikToks today. “Nah, man, it’s Sunday. It’s God’s day,” he says.

When queried about what he’ll do if TikTok gets banned, he tells me, “If that’s the case, then I’m going the fuck back to A&M.” By contrast, Christopher avers that he’ll just hop onto Instagram and YouTube as fast as he can, spreading his followers out to these more competitive platforms. “If it ends, it ends,” a boy named Connor Tanner says. (Six weeks from now, Chris and Amir will decide that the FTB venture is no longer financially viable, and they will kick the boys out of the house. The boys will scatter across Los Angeles—some will head back home—and Baron will post a TikTok in which he enjoins his followers to “engage” with his posts because he’s trying to afford his own apartment.)

BOA Steakhouse is a celebrity hot spot, and when we arrive at the cabstand, flinty-eyed guys in suits and matching face masks apprehend me and the photographer, warning us that “there’s famous people in there.” The subsequent two-hour affair is a plein air dinner that recalls nothing so much as a high school homecoming. The influencers Tessa Brooks and Jess Mars—who are apparently besties and who have been made to sit at different tables—keep blowing kisses at each other and saying, at performative volumes, “I miss you, lady.” Soon an FTB member arrives in a rakish outfit of exorbitantly priced streetwear—shredded jeans, a baggy tee, and a constellation of winking jewelry—and he says, “Yo, I saw Hollywood Fix outside. There’s paparazzi here.” An influencer named Britanni Johnson sits next to me during the appetizer and explains that she got famous when designers for a video game called Borderlands used her body as a model for one of the characters’ avatars.

Maybe it’s the heat or the prolonged inhalation of wildfire smoke, but I begin to think that the party is slowly coming off the rails. Everyone starts repeating the same dead phrases and stock answers, as if their personalities themselves were subject to the logic of memes. “Buddy!” people call me again and again. “One hundred percent!” they say. Three more people ask if this is “gonna be a hit piece.” Soon the patio takes on the raucous, sloppy quality of the fabled infield at the Kentucky Derby, and it’s clear that the influencers are now melting-face wasted. Tessa is making out with a videographer at a far table, and an influencer named Gigi Rossini is squabbling with a staff member as Chase tries unsuccessfully to intercede. In strapless taffeta, Teala Dunn shimmies over to Charly Jordan for a hug, and I’m asked to take a photo by a talent manager, a man named Jay Laurent. He wrangles all the women at my table into a scantily clad semicircle, and I give the requisite countdown before activating the flash. After I snap the photo and he winks at me, he says I should order anything I want, that the Clubhouse will cover everything. Once he leaves the table, Isabella Durham, seventeen, the youngest influencer at Clubhouse BH, sighs dreamily and says, without irony, “Gosh, he’s sweet.”

Sometime before our meal arrives, I get a text from a colleague who says that, between dwindling enrollment and the ongoing effects of the pandemic, our university has a $17 million budget deficit and that layoffs are expected in February. “We’re fucked,” he says. “Btw, nice TikTok.”

To say that I am flooded with despair in this moment is to describe nothing, but it seems important to note that my sadness isn’t just limited to the prospect of my unemployment. Because mostly what I’m thinking about are my students, those bleary-eyed twentysomethings in sweatpants and hoodies who frequently appear in the doorway of my office, sad in a way they cannot explain, desperate for something they don’t know how to have. That the view of personhood produced by the economy of influence is the same brass-tacks thinking that has infiltrated the university might be the single greatest repudiation of the pixelated world that we’re now asking them to inhabit. Whether they’re ordinary undergrads or social-media celebs, they all strike me as unbearably sad, and it’s a sadness that seems more than casually related to the ways in which we’ve defined what it means to be a person. In particular, I’m remembering one boy, who on a recent Zoom call explained to me that he spent the entirety of quarantine in bed, scrolling through TikTok and Instagram or binge-watching prestige television. What unnerved him most about this, he said, was that it wasn’t all that much different from how he behaved before the pandemic. I found myself rummaging through possible responses, trying to find something I didn’t essentially think was shit. “You’re looking for what the critic Kenneth Burke called ‘equipment for living,’ ” I said. I told him that I felt the same pressures he did, the same longing to escape, but there were books, good books that I trusted, that could maybe help with that.

When I look up from my phone, everyone around the table is on their feet toasting one another with a kind of deranged jubilation. The news has just broken that Oracle, an Austin-based company, was the final bidder for TikTok, ensuring that the app will continue to be available in the United States. Democracy is dying, the university is crumbling, and ash is raining from the sky. But for now, at least, the platform and the entire ecosystem it spawned has been saved. “To the best house ever!” the kids shout, and as their glasses begin clinking, my mind goes strangely quiet. The darkness of the Los Angeles night swallows up their voices, blurs their faces together, and for a moment I lose all distinction between fact and fiction, between image and substance, between self and other. For a moment, I cannot remember who I am or why I am sitting here amid this sea of beautiful young people, all of them desperate for recognition, their whole lives ahead of them, empty at the absolute center. TikTok is a sign of the future, which already feels like a thing of the past. It is the clock counting down our fifteen seconds of fame, the sound the world makes as time is running out.

#angel reads #influecers #tik tok #harpers bazaar #angel posts #lots of good stuff in here

[myadalastdon]

CHRISTMAS PRESENT

evan peters X female reader

reader’s name- clover

2.1k words

"Ciara can you turn on a Christmas movie or something. What is this?" I ask my 8 year old daughter ciara.

"Sssh mom!" She shushed me. She was stuffing her face with popcorn.

"Okay that's enough. What are you watching? And if you don't tell me. You're going to bed early."I asked her sternly.

"Fine. I'm watching american horror story. Mommy please don't make me turn it off." She begs me.

"Okay fine. Please don't stuff your mouth with popcorn. You could choke." I said sternly.

"Ciara have you decided on what you want for your birthday?" My mom asks her. Her birthday is on Christmas Eve.

"Yeah evan peters. That's what i want!"

Mom looks at me and i shrug. "Mom she even wrote that on her christmas list."

"Honey. Who is that?" Mom sat on the couch next to ciara.

"Nana he's a actor. He's also my boyfriend." Ciara tells her. I let out a laugh.

"Well honey. He's a man. You can't get that for Christmas. Why don't you get more barbie dolls." Mom suggested.

"Nana. Can you go upstairs and watch family feud. You're bothering me." Ciara said with her eyes on the tv. Mom eyes widened. "I know she didn't."

"Cici you have one hour. When that goes off go get ready for bed." I said walking into the kitchen. Mom followed behind me.

"That little girl is something serious. I can't believe she actually told me to go watch family feud. I was actually watching hallmark." Mom said making me laugh.

"Well she's a bit sassy. I wonder where she gets that from." I say, pouring me a glass of wine.

"You. Growing up you were a brat. I guess little cici picked up your traits." Mom chuckles.

"Yeah i guess." I said shrugging my shoulders.

"So have you found anyone yet?" Mom changes the subject. "What do you mean?"

"A man. It's been years. Everything since your divorce you haven't been out. I'm worried about you dear." Mom says with worry.

"Ma i'm fine. I'm too busy. I have ciara. I don't need a man." I assured. She waves me off. "Clover honey. I see you everyday. You mope around. Especially when cici goes over to her friends house. You need to start dating again."

"Dating? Mom i'm not doing that. I'm perfectly fine single. Plus i'm not risking getting my heart broken again. That would be tragic." I said dramatically.

"Stop with the dramatics child. My only christmas wish is for my loving daughter to get a man." Mom says grabbing a tin pan full of sugar cookies.

Is my mom right?

And i do not mope around. I just do my job and take care of my daughter.

She is right. I haven't had any fun lately. There is no excuse. Because she could watch ciara or ciara could go to her friends house.

I guess i do need someone.

But the question is how will my daughter feel about that someone?

I don't think ciara wants me to have a boyfriend. She's always up under me or my mom.

"Cici." I called her name as i walked out of the kitchen.

"Yes mommy!" She answers with our cat ginger in her arms.

"How would you feel if mommy had a boyfriend?" I ask her, while sitting on the arm of the couch.

"I dunno. I would feel happy. Because you need a boyfriend. Wait mommy do you have a boyfriend?" She says as her eyes widen.

"No baby. I just wanted to ask you." I chuckle. I checked my apple watch. It was 10:30pm.

"It's time for you to get ready for bed." I reminded her. She lets out a groan. "But mommy. It's the weekend."

"I know that. You still have to get some beauty sleep. We have to go christmas shopping tomorrow." I tell her.

"Can i please watch tv for one more hour?" She begs.

"Yes. But turn it off at 12:00. I'll check on you. Don't try to watch too much of American show."

"Mommy it's american horror story!" She corrects me. "I already knew that missy." I kissed her

cheek.

"I LOVE YOU MOMMY!" She shouts as she ran up the stairs.

"I LOVE YOU TOO CICI." I shouted back.

What am i gonna do with this child?

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐃𝐀𝐘

It was the afternoon and we were on our way to the mall. "Ciara can you please leave your phone in the car. I know it's going to be an distraction."

"Mommy noooooo. I have to finish watching american horror story. I'm on season 2." She whined.

"I'm seriously ciara. Give it here." I said with my hand out. She sucks her teeth. Then put her phone in my hand. I slid her phone in my louis vuitton purse.

"Aren't you getting sophie and isabella something?" I asked her. "Yeah. Can i get them a build a bear?"

"Yeah sure. Come on. You know how the mall is around this time of the year." I tell her. I unbuckled my seatbelt.

I hopped out of the car. So did ciara. "Do you have your hat on properly?"

"Yes mommy. I have everything on properly." She says, rolling her eyes.

"Don't you want something under the tree this year?" I said cutting my eyes at her. She quickly nodded her head 'yes'.

"That's what I thought cici." I laughed. I pressed the lock button on my key pad.

"I hope we bump into evan peters." She crosses her fingers together.

"What's so special about evan peters. He must be the world's gorgeous man or something?" I said jokingly.

"Yes mommy. You are correct. He's also my boyfriend. If i see him. I'm going to give him the biggest hug ever!" She cheered.

"Why can't i get the biggest hug?" I pouted. She wraps her arms around me and pull me into a hug.  "Mommy you'll always be the first one to get a hug. Always and forever."

"I love you stinky." I said hugging her.

"I love you more mommy." Ciara says against my trench coat.

"Come on. Let's go to the food court. I know you're hungry." I said grabbing her hand.

"Yep! Let's go eat chickfila i want some nuggets." She says rubbing her stomach.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

"Mommy this is boring!" Ciara complained. As i picked out some more outfits for her.

"Give me a minute sweetie." My eyes scanned a pair of ugg boots. We were shopping in dillards. They had a good sale. I couldn't miss it.

"I'm definitely getting these. And their only 90 dollars. Definitely a deal." I said dropping the box in the shopping cart.

"Ugh. I'm ready to go home. This is so boring." Ciara pouted. I sent her a look. She quickly fixed her face.

"Can i watch tv on your phone then?" She convinced me. I pulled her phone out of my purse. "Put your headphones in and don't be loud okay?"

"Yes ma'am!" She says. Ciara is so spoiled. It's my fault though. I spoil her too much. That's what i'm supposed to do though.

Whatever she wants, she definitely gets. I don't know about evan peters though.

"Hey cici!" I tap her shoulder, catching her attention. "Uh yes mommy?"

"Does evan peters have any social medias?"

"Nope mommy." She shook her head 'no'. "Not even tik tok?"

"No mommy. He's an private man. He doesn't have time for social media." She says. I started laughing. I paid for everything. Ciara and i had so many bags. This is ridiculous. But it's worth it.

"Mommy are we going home now?" Ciara asked. We walked out of dillards.

"Yes stinky. We are going home." I said breathlessly.

"OH MY GOD!" Ciara dropped her bags. I panicked a little. She ran over to a stranger. Letting out a squeal. I'm pretty sure the whole mall heard her.

Embarrassed. I let out a sigh and approached ciara. She was freaking out.

"Ciara what are you doing. That is a stranger. What did i tell you abo━." Ciara had cut me off. "MOMMY ITS EVAN PETERS!"

"Oh my god." I slapped my forehead. This is who she cries about everyday.

"Excuse me. I'm so sorry about my daughter." I apologized to him. He looks up at me. Wait a damn minute now. I thought ciara was being dramatic. HE IS FINE AS HELL.

"It's fine. She's cute." He laughs. No because he is actually handsome. His hair was curly and messy. His eyes were brown and beautiful.

"Mommy take our picture." Ciara says snapping me out my thoughts.

Ciara gave me her phone. Evan and her posed. I snapped the picture. "Thanks mommy! Oh evan I didn't introduce you to my mommy. Her name is clover and she is the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world!"

"Hey nice to meet you clover. That's a unique name." Evan shakes my hand. God his hands are so soft. "Same to you evan. My daughter loves you. It was a nice pleasure meeting you."

"Aw thank you. Your daughter is a character. I love her." He laughed. "But it was nice meeting you guys to. Merry Christmas to you guys."

"Merry Christmas to you." I said softly.

"I'm definitely setting this picture as my lock screen." Ciara says to herself.

"Stinky lets go home." I said laughing.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

"Nana me and mommy. Saw evan peters at the mall. Look i took a picture with him." Ciara tells my mom.

"Jesus. That young man is handsome. He wasn't with anyone? I sure could have him."

"Mom ew. You're 55. Please don't ever say anything like that again." My face turned in disgust.

"Mommy i saw how he was looking at you. Maybe evan likes you." Ciara cooed.

"No cici. He's a stranger. He was probably looking at someone else." I said waving her off.

"Mommy likes him too." Ciara snickered.

"Yeah whatever. He definitely isn't my type." I said rolling my eyes playfully. "Cici. I guess you got your first Christmas gift. Evan peters."

"Yep! My boyfriend!" She says happily.

"Shit! We need more tape." I cursed. Ciara had her hand out.

Fuck!

I totally forgot about the pact we made when she was 5. That if i would say a curse word i had to put 5 dollars in the curse jar.

"Let me grab my purse." I groaned. I grabbed my purse, pulling my wallet out. I opened my wallet grabbing 5 dollars.

"Here. You better put in the jar and not in your pocket young lady." I gave her the five dollars.

"Hey guys. I'm going to run to the store. To grab some tape. Do you guys want anything back?"

"Yeah can we get some vanilla ice cream and strawberry pop tarts!" Ciara yells.

"Okay. Cici behave with nana now. And don't eat too much cookies." I said throwing my bubble coat on.

"I won't mommy!"

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

I was at the grocery store. I did come in here for tape. But that turned out into getting more stuff. Tonight was a girls night for everyone in the house. And i'm so glad ciara isn't whining about that american horror story show.

She's so obsessed with that show. I need to watch it at this point.

Rubbing my eyes, I reached for the vanilla ice cream. It was on the top shelf. I'm too short.

"Here. Let me help you." A deep voice said behind me. Jesus he scared me.

"Thank you." I said rubbing my eyes again. I'm so sleepy. The stranger turned around.

It's evan peters.

"So we meet again." He smirks. I laughed. "Yep that's crazy." He gives me the ice cream.

"What are you doing out this late?"

"Girls night." I told him. He nods his head. "What about you? Why are you out this late?"

"I have the munchies." He chuckles.

I know what you could munch on.

"Clover right?" He says. How does he remember my name.

"Yes?" I look up at him innocently. "I like you. We should hang out some time." He says catching me off guard.

He likes me?

We just met like some hours ago.

"Uh yeah i guess." I said shrugging my shoulders.

"Can i have your number?" He asks nicely.

"Yeah sure. Let me see your phone." He gives me his phone. And i lock my number in his phone.

"Thank you. I'll see you around."

He winks at me.

What a coincidence.

"He definitely is the one." I mumble to myself. I watched him as he walks away down the aisle.

[constellationcore]

do you have any content about dave and mark before mark died in the au? or maybe even some stuff about jonah, like hcs perhaps? love the informant au so so much :D

for sure !!

I think that Dave was kind of the original Mark father figure, and did a lot of the parenting where the Heathcliff’s should have. I’m considering writing a parallel fic with younger Mark, Cesar, and the mcpd friends in that same universe as kind of a lead up to the events of informant, but work is a bitch rn so that’ll have to wait a while. Maybe in lieu of that for now I’ll make an Interlude chapter with Mark and Dave, sort of like the other Interlude flashback chapters?

AnYway, now for some Mark and Dave hcs! :D

Mark worked during the summer for Dave to pay for his first guitar! He wasn’t particularly good with the software tech side of things, but was great with camerawork and helped film some of Dave’s mandelaTech video commissions! This was the period of time that brought the two of them closer together and when Dave stepped up as a supportive parental figure in Mark’s life. It was one of the highlights of Mark’s summer when he Dave could record him playing the first song he learned, Blackbird (which, side note, was the first song I learned to play on my guitar because I’m coping very healthfully I promise /lhj). He keeps the recording on an 8-track tape Dave made for him and plays it when he feels lonely.

As for TMC:I!Jonah headcanons, I’ll keep them short, because I plan on posting a bunch of them in a later post as well :)

He has decent 2000s level photo editing skills, and made compilations of pictures of him and Adam on their investigations, poorly photoshopped shots of the haunted places they went go to, and outtake shots I can only describe as similar to “Adam fixes the car while I eat chips”

As a fellow army brat, the whole “I can’t cope with the parental stress of existence so I’ll just do my own thing and hope it works” translates comically well to Jonah, so Military Mom and Saul Goodman Marshall were spoken into being

Has braces, but is an internal little hellspawn about it. Main man eats popcorn and chews gum. Dentists hate him. I don’t really have any reason for this, I just think it’s easy to forget that Adam and Jonah are still kids (or at the very least, on the younger side) in a very adult and terrifying world, and braces tend to make a face look younger/more childlike. Plus, I think they’re cute and it’s my au :)

Smokes weed, has asthma. A tragedy in four words.

Encourages Adam to use art to let out some of his emotions, loves to doodle in the margins even if they aren’t very good.

Sewed on a MCPD patch onto Josie’s service vest. He isn’t very good at it, but Ruth helped him out. He always wanted a dog, but without his parents home to take care of it he never got to have one. So he loves petting Josie when Thatcher lets him :)

Also, bonus if you read this far, Josie is supposed to be a stand-in for Joseph in his biblical interpretation. I planned for Thatcher to have a service animal, mans desperately needs one, but I think the idea of a Joseph “leading the people into the ‘holy’ land” character being a dog works pretty well, and I hope the buildup to that idea at the end of chapter 10 makes it more clear :D

#constellationcore writes #the mandela catalogue #tmc informant au #mark heathcliff #dave lee #jonah marshall

[racingliners]

F1 Re-Watch 2013: Round 4 - Bahrain

We plough on with the great 2013 season watch through of 2023 (trying saying that three times fast) with a race I know literally nothing about other than the fact Seb won 😅

So, let’s just jump in!

I say the only thing I know of this race is Seb winning, but I feel like there was some McLaren on McLaren violence at some point in 2013??? but idk which race it was

Also fun fact that was the last year Bahrain was a day race, as it was made a night race for 2014 onwards

Which does make you wonder who at F1 thought having a race in the desert during the day was a good idea... but alas FOM is always a circus no matter who is in charge

Anyway: starting grid!

Rosberg pole?????? alrighty then.

Seb P2 (🥰), Lewis P9 (5 place gridbox pen 🙃), Jenson P10, Dan P13, and Jev P16. The starting grid giveth and the starting grid taketh away.

[Formation Lap]: Medium and Hard tyres for this race, which makes sense bc we’re racing in a desert in the middle of the day

It really does feel wired seeing the track during the day bc that only really happens at testing and first practice now

Oh damn Seb was only 3 points ahead of Raikkonen in the drivers standings at this point??? spicy

It’s funny bc I’m sure when a lot of people think of 2013, they immediately go to Seb winning all the races in the second half of the season, but the first half was somewhat competitive, which imho makes Seb’s 9 consecutive race wins more impressive tbh

(but we all know I’m quite biased 😅)

oh not to be a carfucker on main but the sound of the V8′s as the cars roll up on the grid 😍

[Start/Lap 1]: asdfghjkl not Rosberg trying to instigate fisticuffs by forcing Seb to the side of the track at the start, causing him to lose a place to Fernando

Oh my god Di Resta’s up to 4th

aaaaand Seb take’s back P2 🥰

[Lap 2]: That was a bit of a messy first lap, I didn’t even take note of the Ferrari/Force India violence 

SEB TAKES THE LEAD INTO TURN 4

...or maybe not he went wide and is back into P2

v spicy though. I miss bastard brat Seb.

nooo Jev with a puncture 😭

[Lap 3]: Fernando watching Seb and Rosberg fight for the lead with some popcorn

SEB’S IN THE LEEEEAD!!! For real this time, a v pretty move through 5 and 6

I did not notice the McLaren’s up to 7th and 8th. noice.

And Fernando takes P2 off Rosberg

[Lap 4]: ...or does he? They swap round just before turn 1

Ouch, Lewis is down in 11th

Meanwhile Seb is just driving off into the distance, moisturised and unbothered

[Lap 5]: And Alonso makes a better shot of overtaking Rosberg with DRS and takes P2

[Lap 6]: Oh my god Di Resta got past Rosberg... IN A FORCE INDIA

Team Silverstone is Team Silvertoneing

Pit lane updates with Ted: Jev not only had a puncture but also had floor damage, and van der Garde pitted with no nose, unsure if the two are linked. Truly taking midfield spice to a new level.

[Lap 7]: Seb watch: he has a 3 second lead bc #JustSebThings

aaaand Alonso has a DRS issue and it’s stuck open 😬

oh it’s not just stuck open, the flap is open at the completely wrong angle... Scuderia Ferrari, clowning since 2008

[Lap 8]: Presidential alert the McLaren’s are FIGHTING

...Alonso’s DRS is still broken. 

[Lap 9]: Webber and Grosjean pit

and Massa passes Rosberg into turn 1

somehow, Paul di Resta is in P2.

Oh Team Silverstone just love the Bahrain circuit huh?

[Lap 10]: Rosberg and Jenson

with a bit of debris almost flung into Jenson’s path for good measure

Seb’s lead now 5.8 seconds. we love to see it.

[Lap 11]: And he pits!

Oh my, di Resta is now leading the race. Opinions on him as a pundit aside we love to see the midfield winning.

...I could swear that was GP (Verstappen’s current race engineer) on Di Resta’a team radio. If true I will add that to my F1 fun facts list.

[Lap 12]: Anyway, Jenson passes Rosberg for P7!!!

Oh the replay of Seb’s lap 1 pass on Alonso 😍😍😍

[Lap 13]: Speaking of the midfield winning, Bottas in his Williams is in P5, though he’s yet to stop

Oh man, this Jenson, Massa, Grosjean and Perez battle is GREAT

I mean it is a small DRS chain but there are some moves of attempts at moves going on inside it

[Lap 15]: Seb passes Raikkonen for P1 as Di Resta pitted, turn 1 is become the place to be for overtakes

DRS intensifies

[Lap 16]: So despite dropping somewhat like a stone in the early laps, Rosberg is in P4 after the first round of stops (will become P3 once Raikkonen eventually pits) and Jenson is in P5 (!!!)

The 2013 McLaren was a dog of a car so P5 is an absolute win

[Lap 17]: And Raikkonen finally makes his first stop, the top 3 is Seb, Webber & Rosberg

Jenson now up to P4 you love to see it

[Lap 18]: Ferrari’s woes continue, Massa has a right rear puncture, as well as damage on his front wing with the incident with Sutil at the start.

Also pit lane updates with Ted, Jev had to retire bc his car was so damaged 😭

“Can we make sure Nico [Rosberg] stops moving under breaking” adfjvbhdfuka Jenson the snitch

also a rare team radio where Jenson didn’t sound like static

[Lap 19]: Jenson’s actually holding pace with Rosberg??? I know for sure that McLaren did not have any podiums in 2013... and yet I’m getting my hopes up

[Lap 20]: JENSON’S INTO P3!!!!!

STOP THE RACE!!!!!!

jvbfajdsvhe the camera cut to the Merc pitwall

[Lap 21]: Seb’s lead over P2 (Webber) is now 14 seconds... bc #JustSebThings

Despite my earlier point, Seb driving off into the distance while the rest of the field squabbles behind him is a very good summary of the 2013 season tbh 😅

Lewis: “The rears have gone off, the balance is so poor” ah, the precursor to “Bono my tyres are gone” 

[Lap 22]: aaaand everyone do the pitstop shuffle *disco music plays over the circuit speakers*

I’m assuming this will be a 3 stop race for most people

Perez and Rosberg having some mild fisticuffs

and speaking of... Livery watch: McLaren’s chrome silver livery >>>> while I am a Black Merc apologist I would give an awful lot to see a chrome silver Merc livery, it would be so sexy

[Lap 24]: oh boy the McLaren’s are fighting again and Rosberg’s also getting involved

vadfjvbjd oh dear, Perez was trying to pass Rosberg with DRS down the main straight and Jenson decided to try and fit himself in-between them... FELLAS

Yes my beloved Jenson is a world champion but there is also not a single thought in his pretty little head

[Lap 26]: Seb makes his second stop, switches the mediums for the hards

Also going to make a point of how much I miss the Pirelli tyre rainbow and the different named compounds having different colours instead of the c1, c2 nonsense we have now

[Lap 27]: Di Resta and Grosjean squabbling over P2, which is a very wild sentence to type

and Jenson passes Perez for P6!

[Lap 28]: and Grosjean pits for mediums so he’ll likely be stopping again

Jenson and Perez are still squabbling

and a replay of Lewis getting into P10, he is not having a fun time

Pit lane updates from Ted: Metallica just wondered into the McLaren garage, much to Crofty’s delight

[Lap 29]: Jenson and Perez are still squabbling

[Lap 30]: Cut to Seb just to remind everyone he’s still there 😂

ahhhhh Jenson and Perez go side by side into turns 2 and 3

...and Perez lost a tiny bit of front wing as he touched the back of Jenson’s car

and all of this is over P5

Meanwhile Rosberg is watching off this unfold with some popcorn

On the one hand, it’s so good to see team mates be allowed to properly battle it out... on the other it’s stressful to watch

[Lap 32]: Man I didn’t even realise we were a way passed half-distance

sdvbsdv Jenson and Perez are still squabbling

oh dear lord they went side by side with Perez almost being forced off the track

VIOLENCE

Bahrain 2013 🤝 Bahrain 2014 teammates in silver cars with Mercedes engines having proper fisticuffs

[Lap 34]: Somehow, Raikkonen and Di Resta are still 2nd and 3rd

and Grosjean who passed Perez a few corners ago passes Jenson as well

oh and there’s Metallica in the McLaren garage

[Lap 35]: And Raikkonen pits, for what might be his second stop

as does Jenson for this third (?)

[Lap 36]: Lewis passes Perez for 6th, he’s yet to stop again

cut to happy Merc mechanics

[Lap 37]: Oh jeez Massa with another right rear puncture.

Ferrari’s not good, very bad, awful race

wow according to Ted the tyre failed in a completely different part to the first puncture, so that’s a fun fact

[Lap 38]: Meanwhile, Webber and Rosberg had their own little bit of fisticuffs

[Lap 39]: and Lewis pits for what I assume is his final stop

and Seb’s gap over Grosjean (P2) is almost 30 seconds... man

[Lap 40]: Perez and Alonso make their final stops

[Lap 41]: It’s very wild that despite all the feisty battles and trye failures and Jev is still the only DNF of this race and there hasn’t been a safety car

[Lap 43]: And Seb pits for his final stop, another set of hards

He comes out still in the lead bc he had such a massive gap over P2, and as Grosjean pitted right after

I... Di Resta is back into P3??? on merit???

Team Silverstone really are Team Silverstoneing

I could swear that Bahrain is one of their most successful tracks too like damn

[Lap 44]: Grosjean passes Webber, Rosberg passes Jenson, and Perez passes Alonso, all in sequence around turns 1-3

Lewis has managed to pull himself into the points after all the stops have played out, he’s in 8th behind Jenson

[Lap 45]: Rosberg makes his final stop, and Lewis glides pass Jenson for P6

oh that was Rosberg’s 4th stop apparently. Ouch.

Was James Vowles head of Merc strategy at this point? or were the 2013 Pirelli’s just a bit shit

[Lap 46]: I have also convinced myself that it is GP on Di Resta’s team radio dfvghabg

Jenson and Perez are once again squabbling. This must have been groundhog day for the Mclaren pit wall

Perez did get passed Jenson though, but in their squabble Alonso got past Jenson so he dropped places in about three corners

[Lap 47]: ...Jenson also makes a 4th stop.

Pirelli you can and will meet my fists

And Alonso, without DRS, passes Perez for P7

meanwhile Grosjean is catching Di Resta hand over fist on his new tyres

I didn’t meanting it in the starting grid summary but the Force India’s started from 5th and 6th so the position is legit on merit

[Lap 49]: The gap between Di Resta and Grosjean is just over 3 seconds with less than 10 laps left

Oh Pastor Maldonado, the grid is certainly a less chaotic place without you

Anyway, Lewis has been having a new lease of life in the second part of the race and is chasing down Webber for 5th

[Lap 50]: oof the gap between Di Resta and Grosjean is now 1.4 seconds.

[Lap 51]: and as they start the next lap make that 1.2

aaaand Lewis takes P5 at Turn 4 🥳

the Di Resta Grosjean gap is now 0.4 seconds

[Lap 52]: aaaand Grosjean takes P3 going into turn 1

Team Enstone also be Team Enstoneing

[Lap 53]: 5 Laps Remaining Klaxon

oh damn Webber got past Lewis and is back into 5th

[Lap 54]: Perez on Alonso squabbling 👀🍿

see now the spicy battle is fun bc Jenson isn’t involved

oof Perez did kind of push Alonso wide off the track though

[Lap 55]: and more spicy battles with Lewis and Webber for 5th, Lewis juuuust got past only for Webber to take P5 back

Meanwhile Seb set the fastest lap, unbothered, in his lane, flourishing

[Lap 56]: Webber and Lewis continue to scuffle

and Lewis takes P5!!!!

[Lap 57/Finish]: And Seb had such of a colossal gap that he’s already on the back straight

SEB WIIIIIIIIIIINS 🥳🍾🏆

Raikkonen P2, Grosjean P3, Di Resta P4, Lewis P5, Perez P6, Webber P7, Alonso P8, Rosberg P9 (after starting on pole, ouch) and Jenson P10

WHEW! That was actually a pretty great race! Loads of on-track action despite Seb doing a Seb and just shooting off into the distance (domination is only sexy when Schumi, Seb and Lewis do it fyi). There was a sense that you didn’t have a concrete idea about who would round out the podium until the closing stages, which is always fun. Also seeing Lewis storm through the field in the second part was very fun, while the constant McLaren on McLaren violence was STRESSFUL and I never want to relive it again. 

Would def recommed watching though, next up - Spain!

#F1 Re Watch #F1 2013 Re watch #F1 Liveblog #bahrain gp 2013

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (413): Thu 4th May 2023

I had Luna this morning and she got a good laugh out of repeatedly grabbing hold of the bottom of the sleeping bag I was wearing and dragging me off the sofa. I really hope that she's nearing the end of this phase where the thing she seems to find funniest in the world is me being in pain. I'm worried she's going to turn into the next Bam Margera and start getting her kicks from beating the shit out of me. Normally she want's to watch some stupid YouTube brat called A For Adalay but today I got a reprieve in the form of some stupid South Korean cartoon about two larvae that she wanted to watch for some reason. While she was watching this I booked myself a ticket to see the new Evil Dead Rising movie later on in the day. I still can't believe that I had never seen any of the original Evil Dead movies until this year. I've really been missing out and I think the first one might actually be the scariest film I've ever seen. I had a ticket for an 8:30 PM showing of the film but since I've got my trusty motorbike back I got there a little early. I popped into the casino to kill some time before the film started. I stuck £10 in the roulette machine and started putting bets on red / black for £2.50 a go. I started to win but eventually found myself back at £10 cashed out as it was nearly movie time. Just as I was about to leave I  remembered that I still had five pound coins in my bike trousers from when I paid that dickhead taxi driver the other day, decided to live a little and put it on 00. I watched in disbelief as the ball actually landed on 00 and I made a tiny profit of £180!! The only people more surprised than me where the two Chinese gentlemen sat next to me who started loudly pointing at the table and then at me as they exchanged words with each other that I actually couldn't understand but I'm guessing translated to "He just won £180 that lucky Jack the Ripper-looking bastard!". I left the casino absolutely fucking elated that I had just made more money than I would have made doing a days overtime and that the amount I had made had just covered the cost of my KISS ticket and my motorbike repair! I popped over to the movie theatre and remembered that since my diet doesn't start until tomorrow I could treat myself to some beautiful caramel flavoured popcorn (Hell with the cash I was carrying I could have bought the cinema's entire supply). There were only about a dozen other moviegoers in the screening room with me. I really can't remember the last time I went to see a movie where the theatre was actually packed with punters (I think it might have been the Adam Sandler film Bedtime Stories) but I'm not complaining because there's nothing I hate more than people. The movie was...okay I guess. Pretty much the same story as the first one except this time relocated to an apartment building instead of a log cabin. There were a surprisingly low amount of scares in the movie, even the jump scares didn't get that much of a reaction out of me. I genuinely thought about leaving half way through the movie because it just wasn't doing anything for my but I decided to stay and I'm glad I did because the rest of the movie was actually pretty goo. As with the original this film is very gory and surprisingly even though the protagonists are children not all of them make it out of this film alive which is unusual for a horror movie. The one thing I don't understand about horror movies about groups of friends being attacked in isolated places is what do the survivors tell the police at the end of these movies? The cops would have gone to the apartment after the events of the movie and seen that it was a bloodbath so I would assume that they would ask the survivors what happened and they would have to come up with something more concrete than "an evil book caused my family to get possessed and try to kill me so I had to woodchip them to death".

[the-firebird69]

It was the color the son of Schwarzkopf is not the man on the right but he played them after he got shot cuz he wasn't completely out but it's beginning of the end when it started happening a lot and Max inspired the revolution I knew all about Tommy F and we're tabbing keeping tabs on him they lost tabs recently started up again and he was a horrendous monster but they wanted that and they still do and these people are dying and they're putting up that they're part of the history as was our clan and we were living a symbiotic relationship and life. He wants to rebuild the theater and he wants to bring these guys to it in fort Myers and treat him to a nice fun day couple matinees popcorn ice cream and what they had back then roasted peanuts and they had other treats they're really nice and a nice dinner at the seafood place we don't have much time to do that don't be kicked out so I have to build it down in Australia I will send it there Tommy Allen says he's ready for the building so we're putting into Olympus now

Hera Zues she says that that push them to make all the stuff and it pushed us to try and take it and tell me if was supposed to do more and put it together and test it out and take and be the insulation against our people and I think that the story of Max is not over because to be the leader is to be a Target my husband says it and he believes it's true

More hard times for our son and daughter is it getting ready for it and gearing up for it it's going to be less goofing around a lot less jokes but these guys have done it for 10 years and I'm getting them hard just like the movie with Will Ferrell

Olympus

I can do it mother and father I have a little manipulative spoiled brat so I'll grow up pretty soon as you said lol

Zues

I'm here too I'm cutting you off you're going to try some ice skating with you guys so you can teach us how to do it the right way

Hera

We here is offering we're going to accept it he went on to try and get him to go there and they're calling it The Greek not to put up with his chicanery on the airport and the airlines is a little bigger like Dave

Olympus

[abookishdreamer]

Character Intro: Aidos (Kingdom of Ichor)

Nicknames- Mouse by Iapetus

Goody Two Shoes by Prophasis

Age- 10 (immortal)

Location- Mykonos, Olympius

Personality- She's generally quiet, introverted, & soft spoken- always keeping her emotions bottled in.

She's the goddess of shame, modesty, respect, and humility. At the tender age of 10, her powers/abilities include limited vitakinesis (healing), being able to induce feelings of embarrassment & shame in others, and being able to make some beings submit to her will (this ability doesn't work on deities more powerful than her or her younger cousin).

Aidos is the only child of Prometheus (Titan god of forethought) and Pronoia (an oceanic nymph & minor goddess of foresight). She has an older half brother named Deucalion (Deuce). She was born & raised in the state of Achaea. Her brother would stay with them on the weekends and holidays. Aidos is currently dealing with some serious stuff. Her dad was recently punished by the King, sentenced to serve his term in the Underworld. Crumbling under the backlash and overwhelming attention, her mother ended up having a nervous breakdown. Pronoia is now temporarily committed in a mental hospital. Aidos' temporary custodial parents are her paternal grandparents Iapetus (Titan god of mortality, pain, & death) and Clymene (Titaness of fame & renown).

She lives with her paternal grandparents at their estate in Mykonos. The place is a lot more grand & opulent than her family's cozy brick house. Aidos has gotten really close with her grandfather Iapetus. He sometimes stays in the Underworld to help and support her father. She's been too scared to ask him how her father is really doing. She & her grandfather go to The Silver Owl Bookstore together and they also stop by Hollyhock's Bakery to enjoy a slice of chocolate crunch cake. He also accompanies her when she visits Pronoia at the mental hospital. Aidos doesn't really have much of an opinion on her grandmother Clymene because she's barely met her! She's only caught glimpses of her (due to her busy schedule), but she does admire her beauty (especially her long red gold hair).

Fond memories of her life that Aidos likes to revisit are the times when her & her parents would pop popcorn and roast marshmallows at their fireplace. She'd join her father at his kiln in the basement and she'd go to jewelry making classes & sailing with her mother. She left her best friend behind- a mortal girl named Sofia (though they still keep in touch through texting & video chatting).

Aidos is currently looking forward to the annual Achaean Beignet Festival, where her grandfather is planning a trip!

Her go-to drink is a large hot chocolate from The Roasted Bean. She also likes lemonade, ginger ale, iced tea, berry mix juice, and lemon-lime soda.

Aidos & Deuce have been leaning on each other a lot since their father's punishment. She also likes the fact that his mom Celeano (one of The Pleiades) has been offering her support as well.

As far as her extended family, she has only spent significant time with her uncle Epimetheus (Titan god of afterthought), his wife Pandora (her aunt), & their two kids (her cousins)- Prophasis (goddess of excuses) & baby Pyrrha. Aidos thinks that Prophasis is a spoiled brat and a bit of a troublemaker. She adores Pyrrha and her pink cheeks. She knitted her a parka. Aidos briefly met her other uncle Menoetius (Titan god of rage, violence, & rash actions). She thought that he was a scary mass of muscles & tattoos! She did end up enjoying the steaks he made on the grill. She's aware of her other uncle, Atlas (Titan god of strength & endurance) and her cousins The Hyades and Calypso, but so far, she hasn't met them.

Aidos' favorite frozen treat is chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream!

She's currently on break from from school. Aidos attends an esteemed elementary school in New Olympus. Aidos has made a few new friends like Ersa (goddess of morning dew), Calleis (goddess of allurement), and Eulabeia (goddess of caution), but she has gotten especially close to Melete (goddess of thought & meditation).

At school her favorite classes are literature and history. Aidos hates how sweaty she is after gym class.

In the pantheon Aidos admires Sophrosyne (goddess of moderation, temperance, & restraint), Leto (Titaness of demurity & motherhood), Hestia (goddess of the hearth), Aletheia (goddess of truth), Eikono (goddess of iconography & literature), Hera (goddess of women & marriage), Athena (goddess of wisdom), Dike (goddess of justice), and Aeschyne (goddess of modesty & honor).

Her favorite meals used to be her dad's sausage penne and her mom's steamed mussels. Now, she's gotten to like her grandfather's garlic bread grilled cheese sandwich (made with mozzarella cheese and sprinkled parmesan cheese on top). She also likes the lobster mac n' cheese with beluga caviar that her grandmother had brought for dinner one time.

She was surprised a day after she moved in with her grandparents when Clymene gave her the latest smartphone from iCHOR Tech. Later that night, she heard her grandparents' notably loud argument about it.

In her free time, Aidos loves reading (books of many genres) and issues of Regalia and O Dianooumenos. She also enjoys knitting, sewing, doing lanyard, pottery, & has even become quite the painter. She once did a gorgeous painting of her mother and when she presented it to Pronoia, she burst into tears.

"Why is there a choice between being pretty or being smart?"

#my oc #my oc character #my character #oc character #oc intro #character intro #oc introduction #character introduction #modern greek gods #modern greek mythology #greek myth retellings #greek goddess #greek goddesses #greek mythology #greek pantheon

[cardioasscular]

happy april fool's day here's my dog with poorly-drawn-on-with-pencil-eyeliner eyebrows

#it's ok it's wet n wild brown pencil eyeliner and it comes off easy with makeup wipes #(I've done this before and i also use the eyeliner for myself lol) #dog #dogs #golden retriever #puppy #senior dogs #this is popcorn and he's 10 and a brat #and i love him with all of my heart #funny #funny dogs

[gentrychild]

Secret Villain AU? Izuku confronts the League just mad as hell. Not because of anything AFO or Shigaraki's actually done, but because having to take the time to deal with them is really throwing off Izuku's 10-year plan to take over japan.

Why would a villain go to study in UA? Well, for the same reason as everyone else: the network. Where else will you find heroes to corrupt, mad genius, businessmen of the future and just all the people who didn't make it to the hero course and who are very bitter about it?

And you know the saying: "If you can't get them to see things your way, steal their quirks."

Izuku sees a very grumpy purple teenager with a villainous quirk and he is immediately: "Oh, we're going to be best friends." "How about no?" "Okay, I guess you will have to find someone else to complain about how biased the entrance exam is and how people with flashy quirks are overrated in the top 50-" "Take a seat, new bestie."

He thought he was going to have to work in order to expose the corruption of the hero society and a new generation can help to change the world for the best but his new best friend immediately tells him how she wants to be a hero because quirk laws are bad joke, the son number 2 hero gives him his entire backstory the second time they meet and his class president tries to murder a villain on his own.

It's just perfect.

Well, it would be perfect if it wasn't for the LoV.

The more villains attack the hero students and the more Izuku's class is focused on them and forgets important things like inequality, disparity, the Commission being shady, and so on.

If you think Iida hates Stain, you should see Izuku after his little speech brought more recruits to the LoV. There is no "I don't respect Stain and can't abide by what he did but I understand him" mentality. Instead, there is a thirty minutes long video called "Here is why Stain is a clown and if you like him, so are you."

In his defense, he was a bad mood and this journalist should have known better than to ask him a question about the Hero Killer.

Izuku is now a honorary Iida brother and Iidaten sidekick.

There is a running gag of Shigaraki losing Decay like three times. Izuku keeps stealing it from him and AFO replacing it by back-up copies.

Izuku had plans for the Summer Camp! It was a time to make the bonds between his future recruits tighter! He could have recruited 1-B too! He had marshmallows and scary stories to tell around a bonfire! He made research for weeks so everyone would have a good time!

The official story is that Izuku was kidnapped by the League of Villains during the Summer Camp. Uraraka, Todoroki, Bakugou and Iida are very traumatized because they didn't manage to save him.

What really happened is an enraged Izuku managing to escape his friends' hold and jumping through a warp gate just to yell at Shigaraki about ruining perfect school memories that would shape the adults his colleagues in world domination will one day become.

The screaming match that ensued lasted for 40 minutes. Dabi brought popcorn from who-knows-where and the League was watching a very epic debate about villainous methods.

When it becomes clear that Izuku certainly won't be recruited (about five seconds after he gives Spinner his card), Shigaraki asks AFO to noumufy take care of the brat.

"I can either lead my criminal empire and control the underworld in several partsT of the world OR control my son. Not both."

There isn't even a Kamino battle. The official story is that Izuku escaped but really, things just got really awkward so Izuku left while Shigaraki raided the bar.

Before you ask, All Might is completely aware of Izuku's plan but since he is only legally a villain and plans for the Commission to stop messing around and for the conditions in which villains are created to disappear, he is just cheering from the side.

No seriously, we got lunch breaks where All Might is "How are your nefarious plans going along, son?" and Izuku is "Well, hypothetically in case we're being recorded..."

Aizawa doesn't know how All Might knows all the gossip in school, unaware that it's because he gets detailed retailing of what stunts the gremlins pulled.

Shigaraki tries to expose Izuku as a villain. It fails because he looks too innocent. (And those who know he is a villain are in his corner.) Bakugou can't help but to sympathize because he had a similar freak-out back when Izuku and him were four and his friend, who didn't even have a quirk at the time, told him that not all men are equal and how a society that failed so much of its members had to die so something better could live.

#5 headcanons game

[peachjaem00]

[10:20 pm] “If I only knew that you’d help me babysit my little sister, I would’ve asked you to be my partner way sooner,” Yangyang says while he sits next to you, putting the bowl of popcorn in the middle of the makeshift tea party. 

“Shh, don’t interrupt our party!” Yanting, his little sister, commands. Yangyang raises his hand in a sign of defeat while he tries to suppress his laughter. “As I was saying before we were interrupted.” She gives her brother a death glare, making you giggle. “Would you like more tea y/n?” 

“I would love to, Yanting.” You extend your little plastic cup towards her and she “pours” tea in it. You thank her with a smile and you give your “tea” a big sip. “Mmm, this is delicious.” The little girl laughs in excitement. 

You play for hours, never getting tired of the game. You talk with Yanting as if you were both old friends catching up after years of not being able to see each other. You pay your undivided attention to her while she tells you all the gossip happening in her school, who would’ve thought 4rd graders would be so interesting. 

You didn’t notice but Yangyang was looking at you with heart eyes, his smile was beaming and his heart was racing, filled with all his love for you. 

“Stop staring,” you say when Yanting leaves to get more guests, meaning she went to her room to bring more of her plushies down stairs. 

“No.” His tone is mocking and he laughs when you smack his arm. 

“I’m serious, you’re distracting me while your sister is talking.” 

“Oh, c’mon, who wants to know about some 4rd graders?” 

“I do!” He laughs harder by seeing your seriousness. “Don’t laugh, it’s very interesting, you would know if you only paid attention.” 

“I'd rather look at you.” You feel the heat coming up your face. 

“Ew, don’t be gross.” You both look at Yanting, you laugh at her comment while Yangyang rolls her eyes at her. 

“You’re just jealous because y/n loves me more than you.” He sticks his tongue out to her. 

“Umm, no they don’t.” She laughs at her brother. 

“Yeah, they do.” 

“No, they don’t.” 

“Let’s ask them then.” The Liu siblings look at you dead serious. “Do you love me, your boyfriend, more or this stinky brat?” Yanting smacks her brother's arm. 

“I obviously love Yanting way more.” 

“Ha! Loser!”

“Y/n!” he says in a tantrum, making you and Yanting laugh. 

“Big baby.” And even though you’re mocking him you get closer to him and then you kiss him. 

“Ew!” Yanting runs off upstairs.

You were about to get up to get the little girl but Yangyang stopped you. 

“I have to go and get her, let me remind you we are babysitting her.”

“You can go in a minute.” He smirks and then he kisses you again. 

“I’m coming down now, you better not be kissing or else I will throw up,” Yanting announces and you both laugh. 

“Okay you can come back!” Yangyang shouts back and he gives your lips a final quick peck. 

“God you’re both so gross.” She sits down. 

“Behave or else I’ll kiss them again.” Yangyang warns her. 

“No, please don’t.”

#ficscafe #yangyang #liu yangyang #yangyang fluff #yangyang timestamp #wayv #nct #nct u #nct 2021 #wayv fluff #nct fluff #nct u fluff #nct 2021 fluff #wayv timestamp #ntc timestamp #nct u timestamp #nct 2021 timestamp #yangyang au #wayv au #nct au #nct u au #nct 2021 au