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p-osie · 5 years

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josh peck’s relationship test

author’s note: i wrote this for myself, with my own name inserted, so it’s not super universal, but i’m sure you can make it work. i just love me some david, hope you do too.

summary: y/n and david film a relationship test with josh peck, then can’t keep their hands off each other in the tesla on the ride home :)

warnings: smut xoxo

“I already hate this,” I say, sitting next to Josh and tucking my feet under my legs.

Josh and David both look at me. “Why?” Josh asks, serious, looking expectant.

“Because now I can’t cuddle David,” I say, popping my voice up an octave and making puppy eyes at David.

Josh pouts his lip and David wracks with laughter, clapping his hands.

Jason’s on the other side of the room, behind the camera. “That’s an intro.”

As Josh scrolls through his notes, looking for the first question, I put my eyes on David.

“Hey,” I whisper seductively, loud enough for the camera. “You look so hot right now.”

“Whoa, Y/N,” Josh scolds, not looking up.

David ignores him, making his face go slack, copying my whisper. “I was just about to tell you the same thing, you steamy little slut.”

“David, ew–” Jason pipes, but I lean into it, sticking out my tongue and leaning towards him. We pull away, right before our mouths touch, both laughing, Josh still uncomfortable.

“We can go, if you guys want,” Jason jokes.

David pulls on Josh’s arm. “Yeah, that would be great, actually.”

At this point, I almost pee myself laughing, my hands covering my mouth.

“Can I please just ask you guys the questions?” Josh groans, still hamming up how uncomfortable he is.

“What’s David’s favorite food?”

“Oh, God. I have no idea,” I lean forward, staring into space, feeling both David and Josh watching me. “He posts about food so much. He loves so many different types of food…”

I pause for a second. “Actually, yeah. He doesn’t have one.”

Josh gives me a sad face. David cracks his gum, irritated. “Babe. Come on. Buffalo Wild Wings.”

“Oh, as if. You haven’t had B Dubs in months.”

“So?” David argues defensively. “It’s still my favorite.”

“Ugh, fucking– whatever.” I pretend to be mad.

“David?” Josh looks down at my boyfriend.

“Josh?” David mimics, leaning his head briefly on Josh’s shoulder.

“Who’s Y/N’s celebrity crush? Slash hall pass?”

“Jeff,” David jokes, turning to me.

“Stop,” I groan, flopping against the couch. “I hate this joke. It was a year ago!” David laughs at me, then composes his face as he stares into space to think for a second.

“Um– what’s his name– Noah something? Noah Centineo?”

I blow him a kiss. “Good guess, but no cigar, baby boy.”

David groans, then looks to Josh. “Who was it?”

“Harry Styles,” Josh tells him, pretending to look sad for him. David starts banging his head against the soft back of the couch.

“Stupid! Fuck!” he yells. “I knew that!”

Josh starts to ask me the next question before David stands up and throws a burst of dabs all in a row before sticking a whip at the end, hyping himself up. “Can’t! Miss! Another! Question!” he yells.

“Y/N, where did you and David first kiss?”

I smile, beginning to blush, and I watch David and his expression becomes almost the same, his cheeks flushing pink as he waits for me to answer.

“James Charles’ Tesla,” I whisper, almost not in the room because I’m remembering.

“It’s him,” Corinna taps me on the arm. “It’s David.”

“What? Where?” I whip around, almost spilling my drink.

Corinna laughs, but there he is, David Dobrik. There’s almost a glow about him, his big smile and laugh as people perform for his outstretched camera, people orbiting around him. The iPhone flashlight helps, too.

I inhale. “This is stupid. I feel like a dumb fangirl.”

Corinna shakes her head at me, rolling her eyes. “Y/N, it’s not like he doesn’t know who you are. You’ve been talking, he’s not just gonna not realize you’re here or not recognize you. You have green hair.”

I chew on my lip, still watching him. “You have a point.”

After a few moments, David stops recording. The flashlight is turned off. The people that have been clinging to his side starts to dissipate, and then he’s not David Dobrik. He’s just David.

“Okay,” I tell Corinna, downing the rest of my drink. “Fuck it.”

“Whoa, whoa,” she says, a bit of panic in her voice, catching my arm. “You sure you don’t want to make him come to you? Play hard to get?”

I pause, glancing at him. He still hasn’t realized I’m here. “Should I? I don’t really have the patience for that.”

“Y/N!”

I turn at the loud voice, and there’s James, a big smile on him as he comes toward us.

“James, thank you so much for having us,” Corinna reaches out to him first, hugging him. She starts gushing about his makeup, and I glance again at David, who has his eyes on me now. He must have heard James shout my name, and is moving through people, his floppy brown hair standing out as he snakes between the bodies.

“Hey,” he says, smiling broadly. “I thought that was you, greenie.”

“Hey,” I say back, smiling up at him, feeling the alcohol rush into a redness on my cheeks. Before I even decide to say it, I’m saying– “You know, you’re cuter than your hilarious DMs would indicate.”

But he leans back in laughter, his smile booming loudly. “I can’t tell if I should be flattered,” he tells me, close now so that I can hear him in the din of the party.

I’d almost forgotten that Corinna was distracting James until a long-nailed hand taps David on the shoulder.

“David!” James interjects, grabbing both of our shoulders. “Do you want to see my Tesla? It’s the new one.”

David’s face drops in total shock. “Yes. Absolutely,” he looks down at me again. “Come on. The new model is super cool.”

We follow James out of the crowded living room, through a side door and down stairs until we’re in a low-ceilinged garage with white walls and fluorescent lighting.

It’s a sleek navy blue, almost black, Tesla model 3.

James makes squealing noises. “And I got a custom license plate, too.”

I look down and see JAMESCH on a plate near the base of the car.

“Holy fuck,” David says, still flabbergasted. I look up at him. One of his hands is in his hair. “James, please let me sit in it.”

“Sure, sister,” James tosses him the keys, and David catches them with one hand. My girl brain makes my knees shiver slightly.

“Get in with me,” David murmurs down to me, still marveling at the car.

I chuckle. “Sure, Dave.”

When we climb into the car, David turns on his camera immediately and points it toward us. “Hi sisters!” he says, doing James’ signature wave.

I laugh, then hold up a peace sign, pretending to pose.

“So we’re in James Charles’ new Tesla Model 3 right now. And it’s– Y/N, what would you say it’s like?”

I raise my eyebrows, acting impressed, looking around the interior of the car. “It’s insane.”

“Insane,” David repeats. “I mean, this awesome screen. Look, he even named it Sistermobile.” David points to the screen behind the wheel. It does, in little white letters, say Sistermobile.

I laugh, leaning on the console to see. “I guess he has to stay on brand.”

He tilts the camera so it’s just pointing at me. “Plus, it comes with a hot girl.”

I laugh again, even harder, though I melt on the inside. “That’s absolutely right. I was designed by Elon Musk to work as a functioning backseat driver to go with every Tesla vehicle.”

He laughs, makes one or two more jokes, and then switches off the camera. “Where did they go?”

I look up. He’s right– we’re alone in the garage. James and Corinna are gone.

I turn back to face him. “Just us, I guess.”

“Finally.” He breaks into a big smile.

I mock a guffaw, leaning on the console. “Have you been wanting to get me alone, David Dobrik?”

“Absolutely.”

He’s leaning on the console now, too, his breath starting to fan across my face. I look up at him through my lashes. My blood feels like it’s beating inside my cheeks. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have ulterior motives.” It doesn’t come out as confident as I want it to.

He giggles slightly, and I can really feel it on my skin. I can feel the vibration of his words as he says, “Like what?”

He can’t stop looking at my lips, and I don’t think I can, either. “You tell me, you’re the one who obviously has them.”

“Let me think.”

I wait for his eyes to flicker down to my parted lips one more time, and then I close the distance between us. His mouth is warm and soft, and I quickly feel all my breath leaving me. Then his hand is in my hair, and his lip is between my teeth, and all too soon, the Tesla begins to honk.

We look up to see James holding the keys, standing with a hand on his hip, the sleeves of his SISTERS hoodie bunched up around his forearms.

David smiles. “That was a really nice moment.”

“Hey, David?” Josh turns to him, smiling. “What’s Y/N’s favorite movie?”

David claps his hands triumphantly. “Easy. Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

I soften. “Aw, baby.”

He leans forward to look at me. “I know you, babygirl.”

“He knows you, babygirl,” Josh mimics, staring me down. “But it’s time for our lightning round.”

I lean forward, looking directly into the camera, totally focused. Out of the corner of my eye, I see David copy me, and I smirk a little.

“Y/N– David’s favorite salad dressing?”

“Ranch.” Next to Josh, David does a little yes, baby.

“Yes. David– Y/N’s favorite dessert?”

“Cheesecake.”

“Y/N– David would want Shawn Mendes or even more Shawn Mendes.”

I laugh. “More Shawn.”

David laughs, his voice thin and high. “I love him.”

“David– what bothers Y/N the most about your relationship?”

David throws up his hands, and at first, I panic. I almost hadn’t let Josh ask the question.

He surprises me. “This is so easy,” David looks at me, gesturing, completely forgetting that we were in a lightning round, clearly settling into a long answer. “So, Y/N is from California, and I’m from the Midwest, and for college she went to– you went to Iowa– Iowa?”

“Iowa City? The University of Iowa?” I fill in, unsure where he’s going.

“Yeah, the University of Iowa. Which is, like, the rival school of ISU, where I almost went. So, if I had gone to ISU, we would have been in the same state, and Iowa City, where Y/N went to school, is sort of, like, the place to be if you want to party,” David explains.

“A lot of frats,” I add, heartwarmed, realizing what he’s saying.

“So, if I’d decided to go to college at ISU, we totally could have met,” he makes eye contact with me. “And she hates thinking about that. She hates that we could have met earlier and we didn’t.”

I look at Josh, who looks almost as heartwarmed as I do. “So you guys were totally fated. One way or the other, you were gonna end up together.”

“No, actually, I made sure we ended up together,” I joke. “I moved to LA so I could find him and make him fall in love with me.”

Josh laughs, but David raises his eyebrows. “That’s not too far off, babe.” I slap his arm.

Josh guffaws a little, still thinking about the story. “You know, that’s not actually what she said, but that’s really–”

“Wait, what?” David looks at me, bewildered. “That’s not what you said?”

“No,” I laugh, covering my face. “I don’t want to say it now.”

David grabs my shoulder in mock anger. “Tell me!”

I giggle more and more, hardly able to talk. “It was– that– you don’t–”

David gives me a look, realizing what I mean. “That I always wear a condom?”

I nod, dying laughing. Josh looks incredibly uncomfortable again.

“I hate you.” David stands up, pretending to walk out of the room. I fall off the couch.

Josh turns to me, still laughing on the floor, then to David as he sits back down. “Why does he wear a condom? Why do you wear a condom?”

“To be fucking safe!”

I wheeze, sitting back up next to Josh. “For the record,” I look into the camera. “I am not trying to get pregnant so I can steal all of David’s money.”

“Sure, babe,” David interrupts, rolling his eyes and then flashing a big smile as we all laugh.

When we finished filming, Paige comes out with a sleeping Max and, smiling, says that we should probably go, so he can sleep. Whispering, we agree, and tiptoe over to Max to kiss him lightly on the forehead. David almost gets too distracted, his hands wandering to Max’s little socked feet, but I curl my hands around his waist and jostle him gently.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he whispers. “Just can’t get over him.”

“I need some alone time with Uncle David,” I whisper into his neck, a bit lower, just for him. Paige stifles a laugh as David whips immediately to me, drawn.

That’s mostly it. We whisper goodbye to Josh, hug Jason in the street. He gets into his car, and we get into David’s. I turn to him as the Tesla turns on, his left hand on the wheel and the right on my thigh, as usual.

“It’s really sweet that you remember that.”

“What? The Iowa thing?”

“Yeah.” I wrap my hands around his, interlacing our fingers.

He squeezes my hand, but gives me a sort of of-course-I-remember look.

“Of course I remember,” he tells me, pushing some of his curls out of his face. “You’ve talked about it enough that it would be bad if I didn’t.”

“Do you wish that was how we’d met? In Iowa? I feel weird that I don’t know, even though we’ve already talked about it.”

David sucks his teeth, thinking about his answer as he looks down at the backup camera. “Is it bad if I say no?”

I guffaw playfully. “Yes!”

“No, no, wait,” he backpedals. “Think about it. I would’ve been back and forth all the time, since you can’t drive, and that would have gotten super annoying for both of us. And having classes. And we would have been totally different people. What if Old David and Old Y/N didn’t like each other?”

I shiver. “I think about that sometimes. How we might not have fallen in love if we’d met at any other time.”

He squeezes my hand again. “Don’t think about it, love.”

He starts to pull his hand away, beginning to back out of his parking space, but I catch it before he can bring it to the wheel. He looks up at me expectantly, so I lean over the console and kiss him. His hand comes off the wheel to hold my face to his, while I loop my fingers into his shirt collar to bring him closer.

When he pulls away, my head spins. I feel like a teenager. I blink hard, and he chuckles at me.

“You’re so amazing,” he says softly, his thumb on my cheek. “My perfect girl.”

I tighten my grip on his shirt and pull him into me again.

When he pulls into his driveway, the lights are already on inside, and we can plainly see Natalie moving around in the living room, even from inside the Tesla. My mind immediately deflates from the somewhat flirty car ride over, his hand having teased my thigh the whole way. David sighs, mirroring my thoughts.

“I don’t want to have to talk to Natalie,” he mumbles.

“Neither do I,” I admit, looking at him. “Sorry, Natalie.”

“Can I– can I just–” I wait for him to finish, but instead he unbuckles his seatbelt and leans over the console to kiss me again, his hand crunching a fistful of my hair as he holds my lips to his. He breathes heavily into it, and I smirk slightly. I love the effect I have on him.

So I toe off my shoes and gracefully climb into his lap. His breath is against my mouth, my hands holding myself up by his chest. His hands move down, and start to slip up into my shorts. My mouth is on his neck then, biting and sucking under his ear and jaw.

“Y/N, no. You know the rules,” he scolds me, pulling me back lightly by my hair. He doesn’t let me leave marks on him.

But instead, I ignore him, leaning forward to nip into his jugular again.

“Y/N–“ He wants to scold me again, I can tell, but he’s hardening and moaning beneath me, so I don’t stop.

After a moment, he brings his hand up to my throat and pushes me away until I’m against the steering wheel. I arch, reaching up to hold his hand in place.

“You’re not listening tonight.”

I whine in response, needy, grinding my hips against his. “Baby,” I beg.

“What is it?” his fingers tighten around my throat.

“Please,” I wheeze, my eyes fogging looking at his smirk.

“Please, what?”

I hum out a whine again, because I don’t know what I’m asking for. I let my tongue fall out of my open mouth, and then his fingers are off my throat and buried into my mouth.

“God, your fucking mouth, Y/N. Your mouth.” It’s his turn to moan now, as I run my tongue over his fingers.

“Do you want my mouth?” I whisper to him, leaning forward to press my lips against his ear.

“No,” he tells me bluntly. “Take off your fucking hoodie.”

I wiggle to sit facing away from him, and swivel my hips as I pull the hoodie over my head and leave my shorts in a pile next to the brake.

He grips my ass as I raise to straddle him again, but he’s pushing me forward, bending me over the wheel and pulling me apart with his thumbs.

“Fuck,” he praises, still holding my pussy open for him to admire, and then his fingers are deep inside me, curling and writhing.

“David!” I call back to him, feeling him screwing with my soft g-spot. I’m about to start fucking myself on his fingers when his mouth is wrapped around my clit.

I yelp in surprise. He sucks and licks as he fingers my g-spot and kneads my ass.

“David– David–” I moan out. He smiles against me, biting my clit lightly before he starts to suck and lick it in earnest, a pearl of flavor he’s been craving.

The pleasure shoots through me like daggers. It’s winding and twisting like roots, radiating from where David’s mouth moves hungrier and hungrier against me.

I’m about to cum when he stops. I whip around angrily, when I see him leaning his chair back as far as it will go.

He pulls on my thighs. “Bring it to me.”

I almost don’t know what he means, but then I realize that he can’t look at me, that his eyes are trained on my dripping pussy, his tongue out of his mouth.

I smirk and reach down to recline his seat the rest of the way.

My breath comes out in pants, in the passenger side now with my legs draped over him, completely naked. David’s cock is partially exposed, him panting too, his hoodie discarded in the backseat.

“That was incredible,” he wheezes.

I poke him with my toe. My skin in covered in a sheen of sweat. “One of our best.”

“We’re gonna end up telling our grandchildren about that.”

“Christ, that’s gross.”

David laughs, then turns his head to look at me. He has serious sex hair. “Hey. Come here.”

“I just ‘come here’-ed for about twenty-five minutes.”

He makes a kissy face, so I lean forward and let my lips touch his.

It’s incredibly chaste, even with my lack of clothes and David’s cock so close to me. They’re little pecks, loving and clean and innocent.

“David,” I say, leaning my forehead against his. “I love you.”

His hand comes up to my neck, holding me in place. “I love you more.”

#david dobrik #david dobrik smut #david dobrik x reader #david dobrik x y/n #jason nash #josh peck #vlog squad #jeff wittek #jeff wittek smut #vlog squad smut #youtube #youtuber #youtuber smut #david dobrik owns me

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bonesandpoemsandflowers · 4 years

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So here’s a thing that happened, tumblr.

Many moons ago, I was in the Neuro ICU for a while. I was actually in there twice--for a week at first, then out, then in again for about two weeks. In between: “Nothing’s wrong! It’s resolved!” As you might imagine, given the spoiler there about how I went to the Neuro ICU twice: in fact, Something was wrong, and it was not resolved (then).

(it is resolved now, thank you)

This post is not actually ABOUT that, but we must start there, out of order.

This is a post about art and rivers and boys in cars. But we start in the Neuro ICU.

I don’t like talking about this time in my life. I would have been skittish and mysterious ANYWAY--I was raised like that--but I’m extra skittish and vague about my timeline because I don’t want to talk about it, you know? I survived something I had no business surviving. I had to relearn how to walk. That took months and that was the easy part. Because I am a big tiddy goth girl, and because I was very young then, people love to assume that the problem was drugs, and I did it to myself, as if that somehow makes anything less tragic.

I was 23 years old with a brain bleed due to a congenital defect, and even at the time, I had to defend myself: no, I’m not on drugs, I don’t do drugs, I didn’t do coke, I’ve never done coke.

I am also Colombian, which, I suppose, might play into their calculus about the coke, but WHO KNOWS. I was busy gibbering and almost dying at the time, which left little energy for noticing potential microaggressions.

Is it a microaggression, I guess, when you’re dying? Who knows.

I have never even been drunk, tumblr. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t snort. I never have. This is mostly because I’m a paranoid loon with an off again, on again anorexia, ya know, thing, so occasionally I get really hung up on irrational concepts of bodily purity. People think it’s a flex when I try to explain this, that I’m relishing in some kind of moral superiority. I’m not. I admitting to SEVERAL defects (“quirks”) of personality there. The eating disorder. The deep distrust: I will not be vulnerable in the presence of others, I will not dull my senses, I will not allow myself to be weak. A certain perfectionism. A certain tendency towards slow burn self harm. Grand ideas made of nothing that sometimes take hold.

My point is that this big disruptive thing happened.

I survived, which is AWESOME. And yeah, I had to relearn how to walk, and some other things, but you guys know that I do yoga and aerial silks and lyra and ran off to Thailand to train kickboxing for a summer on fighter street and I STILL do not shut the fuck up about it.

So, cool, cool cool cool cool.

And I don’t even want to talk about that part, the medical drama, the body horror, the institutional whatever. My neurosurgeon was fantastic and like a week after my discharge I was high as SHIT on prescribed painkillers my caregivers insisted I take and wrote him a gushing effusive letter about how he was MY HERO because I was ALIVE and anyway that basically makes you BATMAN, DOCTOR LEWIS, I FUCKING LOVE BATMAN.

Again: high as fuck, ok.

My point is: I hate talking about this.

Because once you’re a survivor in people’s minds, that’s all you are. You are reduced to this one event that had very little to do with you. You are defined by this thing that happened to you.

And this isn’t even the weirdest thing that’s happened TO me! But still. Happened TO me. Not something I did. Not my action. Barely even my reaction.

But again, personality flaws. What does it say about me that I look at social norms about comfort and inwardly I snarl that I want no one’s pity?

Except I’m not actually that mean. I don’t snarl.

I just withdraw.

This is a tactic that has served me well in life a BUNCH of times. Is it always the answer? No. Is it often worth a shot? Listen. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Sometimes you flee an abusive home life because that’s the only option, and you don’t want to die. Hypothetically speaking: sometimes all you can do is run.

But sometimes you flee people with mostly good intentions, maybe.

This is all very high minded but what’s prompting me to write this isn’t exactly the upcoming (many year) anniversary of the event. It’s something way more mundane and dumb.

I have not logged into my facebook account since this happened. I never bothered deleting the account(s), either. I presume they still exist. I have no idea HOW to log back onto them, and, more importantly, no desire.

“So what?”

So, okay, back when I had my first stint in the Neuro ICU? Like, totally out of nowhere, I just disappeared from people’s feeds. (you all know I do this) Somehow part of the story got out and SOMEHOW, I have no idea how, a small group of my friends managed to independently track down the hospital I was at. And this is on next to no info, across state lines, like--I have no idea how the fuck they did it.

I also don’t fucking know who they were.

I was told, at the time. I have a vague idea of who two out of (I think) four were, or might have been. I was kind of busy at the time, with the dying.

And when I say I don’t like talking about this time: I don’t like even THINKING about it. I avoid it.

Fleeing. See?

So I don’t have a memory of the names. I don’t have memories of the memory.

“So what?”

So, I know from groups other than this one, groups less dedicated than this one, that people actually get REALLY fucking mad at you for not accepting their get better soon wishes. And like, I get it! You were very worried and I did nothing to reassure you.

I WAS BUSY.

I was busy dying. Almost dying. Not dying. I was busy sleeping 20 hrs a day. I was busy being unable to walk. I was busy re-learning to walk. I was busy relearning how to write with pen and paper and for months I COULD NOT DO IT, do you have any idea how that feels to someone who is and has always been and has always wanted to be a writer? Fuck it. Fuck you.

The initial disappearance. I am not to blame.

But then doing nothing to reach out to anybody for YEARS and YEARS--

Okay, maybe a dick move on my part.

“So what?”

So I think one of the people who managed to track me down in the hospital was my best friend from high school, a terribly sweet Brazilian boy who mostly called me not by my name, but simply: The Devil.

I dig it. Always did.

And it’s high school, right. Everybody is thirsty as fuck for their friends, one way or another. We never dated--we were both always dating or pursuing other people--but we had the typical high school bestie unresolved romantic tension deal going on.

This is important so remember it for later: the problem was not attraction. The problem was not one sided unresolved sexual tension. I had a particular thing for how he looked while driving, shades on, one arm slung over the wheel in that terribly and typically male lounging driving pose that’s probably a safety hazard.

We spent a lot of time in his car.

I didn’t drive, at the time, because my mother didn’t allow me to learn, and I got kicked out of my house and disowned when I was 17. This dude spent a LOT of time driving me places. Boys in cars is practically a genre of erotic poetry, thanks to Richard Siken. This is because boys look Cool driving cars, wearing sunglasses, pretending they’re not paying attention to you while you know they are.

So he was fun.

More importantly, I guess, the fact that he picked my ass up at like 6 AM over and over and over again for a big chunk of my senior year is one of the few reasons I managed to graduate despite being technically homeless.

He was not a morning person. I am not a morning person. He did it anyway.

Why didn’t we date, I wondered, years later, for a fraction of a second, and then I forgot about it.

“SO WHAT?!”

So I’m grown up and happy and fulfilled and in a lovely long term relationship (remember! we’re buying a house!), so it’s not about “what if?” It’s that I’m happy and grown up and I write books sometimes.

But there it is.

I write books sometimes.

Artists are constantly stealing ideas from everywhere and this is good. Artists also steal from themselves, grubby little hands on secret parts of our hearts.

So I’m writing this book, right. My Great Work. My Break Out Novel. My SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS book. My “this is the thing I’ve worked the hardest on in my whole entire LIFE” book.

And in this book there is a male love interest. He is a political statement. I’m writing him as sexy and heroic as possible. I want this to be the MOST attractive man I’ve ever written.

Latino. Sexy as fuck. Not a criminal. Overly responsible. Action ready, and terribly nurturing.

Hot Single Dad and Reluctant Necromancer is my masterpiece. A passionate statement and stance against the depiction of Latino men in media. A war cry to examine our own subconscious biases. A weapon raised against an unjust system.

I stole parts of him from Frank Castle. I stole parts of him from Geralt. I stole (MANY) parts of him from this one IRL hot dad former Army Ranger guy, Mexican American with a tattoo on his arm of a jack o lantern one of his kids drew. I stole parts of him from this cute Marine in my DMs who gave me story advice about guns and gear. I stole parts of him from indigenous leaders from centuries ago, from the peoples he is descended from. I stole parts of him from every man I’ve met who worked in dog rescue. I stole parts of him from myself, hiding secret parts of my heart in the male character so that no one will know.

Lovely. All good so far.

I got like two whole drafts in before I was thumbing through some printed out pages, idly thinking: how funny that I don’t have any real life, personal to me models for this guy.

All my prior male love interests, you see, are based on someone. In the werewolf trilogy, they’re BOTH based on someone--different someones. The villain, too, is jokingly referred to as the “evil werewolf ex boyfriend” for a reason.

Everybody is someone.

So how funny, I thought, that necromancer hot dad lacks any references from my own--

OH, wait, fuck--

Overly responsible brown dude with sad dog eyes drives the female lead/occult specialist around while good naturedly complaining that she’s weird as shit.

Oh, damn.

And suddenly a bunch of teensy little backstory details made sense.

Cool.

“So what?”

Bonus round of self realization: my own understanding of this time in my life radically shifted, turning, lurching, sickly rotating on a new axis.

Why didn’t we date?

Somewhere between then and now, post ICU but pre novel writing time--

This one time I overheard somebody talking to somebody else and it had nothing to do with me but sight unseen, on the other side of the stacks in a used bookstore, one dude said to another: “you know that if you were lighter, you’d have a chance with her, right?”

How terrible, I thought, and I forgot about it.

Why didn’t we date?

Because my mother told me, when I was very young, that boys from Brazil were all very wild, and I should avoid them. And she told me this so early and so plainly that I never thought to question it. When I was older she took harder stances that I easily ignored because I knew they were wrong--don’t you dare bring a black boy into this house. You’re dating a Jew? I can’t believe you did this to me. What are you going to do next, kiss a girl?

WELL, Ma, as it turns out, I mean, not til college, but yes.

But the smaller, more mild statement was so much more insidious.

I wonder if he knew. I don’t think he did. I wonder if he figured it out later. I have no idea, because we were friends when we were still essentially children, and now we are grown. Not everybody thinks about this kind of thing, and I don’t blame them.

How much damage did I do?

Does it matter?

Does he know?

I know.

I know, now, that my rallying cry against a system’s unfairness is also a cry wrenched wetly from my own subconscious depths. YOUR biases against? Yes. But more accurately: my biases against.

“So what?”

So this kind of epiphany shit leaves you breathless about it and you wanna scream. You wanna SHARE it. You must infect others with this knowledge.

But you can’t out of nowhere foist this apology on someone. That’s selfish. That’s about redeeming yourself in your own eyes AND asking someone else to confront unpleasant emotions on your behalf, even though they’re the wronged party. Selfish. Tell me I’m not a bad person, baby. Tell me I never hurt you, not even a little. Forgive me if I did. Wade through this pile of astral shit for me just to make me feel better. Reassure me. Hurt yourself for me in the here and now.

So I’m not going to do that, obviously.

“So what?”

But there’s that other part of it, right? Not the apology. The surge of emotion. The realization that all those morning drives back then added up to something deep within me, something so foundational to my concept of care and maybe even the start of something like love--the knowledge that this person gently carved some ideals for you, so long ago, so subtly that you never questioned it, never even realized, because it felt so natural, because something about it is so inherently good and right.

Despite everything--despite society, propaganda, colonialism, the prejudice of my upbringing, my own unexamined complicity, ALL of it--

Despite everything, this person taught me something so deeply about love and the shape of it, something so foundational that I built all my art on it and didn’t even see the beams of it until halfway through my most ambitious and soul bearing undertaking.

This is how you care for another, went the lesson, and I wrote pragmatic actions over words romantic male leads all the way down.

This is what love might look like, and in my own life, ever ambitious, I chose a poet talented with words and actions and good fight choreography, because I think that’s sexy and dichotomies are mostly bullshit, or at least things that happen to other people.

But I didn’t learn what love looked like from my childhood home life, obviously. How could I?

Without you, though, without you and your mirror sunglasses at 6 AM and your exasperated teasing, devil, witch, bruja, without any of those, where would I have learned? How long would it take me, to find someone who would teach me a wholesome lesson?

I’m small and cute and predators love a victim with a lack of context. I give myself and my wit some credit, but what’s pattern recognition worth if you never get any good data points?

Deep lessons.

Again: this kind of epiphany makes you wanna scream. Who to infect, with all this new knowledge?

Maybe no one. Probably no one.

But maybe, just a little, you wonder--

How would that conversation even go?

Hey, so I wrote this book--no, it’s my fifth, not my first, but thanks--so I wrote this book, and there’s this character, right, and he’s--well, hahah, I mean, he’s not exactly--I just--funny story, really--no, god, no, you don’t have to read it--it’s just--he’s just--I mean, no, you, you’re just--forget it, actually, just--

Like, what the fuck is there to say?

“I couldn’t have written this without you.”

And

“Did you check on me? When you thought I was dead?”

and

“I’m sorry I didn’t notice, at the time, that I meant anything to you.”

or is it really

“I’m sorry I didn’t realize until now that you meant something to me.”

What to do with all this emotion? Or more accurately--like rivers carve out gorges, here is the shape of something that once was. This shape will always be here. Even without a single drop of water ever again: we see the river.

What to do with the shape of all this emotion?

I consult the great Richard Siken via a feat of bibliomancy. Advise me, O Oracle. The oracle is War of the Foxes (2015), turned over blindly in my hands, opened randomly to The Worm King’s Lullaby, pg 45, verse 1:

The holes in this story are not lamps, they are not wheels. I walked and walked, grew a beard so I could drag it in the dirt, into a forest that wasn’t there. I want to give you more but not everything. You don’t need everything.

This advice is too good. I close the book.

The advice does not tell me what to do, but it’s too good. The verse reaches into my chest and carves out my heart, slices it open. Inside my heart: pomegranate seeds. Tiny jewels, fit for a dragon, snacking on garnets and rubies, and the apple of Eden wasn’t an apple, because it was the desert, wasn’t it? It was a pomegranate. Something with scales, maybe snakes. The serpent, the devil.

What to do with all this love?

I swallow the pomegranate seeds. I buy myself some time. I want to give you more, but not everything. Do you need everything? I don’t know. I don’t have it to give to you, in any case. Does it matter?

Why are you doing this, me?

Because art is messy. Art is cutting yourself open over and over again. You clean up most of the mess, try to bottle the fluids and label them nicely or deliberately misleadingly, fit for someone else’s consumption, but either way, you’re bleeding.

Maybe this urge is bleed with me or maybe it is oh, you already did.

I swallow the seeds. I buy some time.

I’m not done yet. I’m not.

Maybe all this adds up to nothing.

Maybe if I do this right, it adds up to a lot.

Maybe if I do this right it will feel real, maybe what I want is to gift the shape of these rivers to somebody else, all emotionally intimately with strangers. This is a shape that love can be. This is a silhouette you may recognize.

Maybe that’s a tribute, or a tributary.

But it’s not about you, not really, so don’t get too big headed about it. This is about Art and something like Justice. Big things. This is a book about big things, about history and dogs, history and gods, crimes and lies, slaughter and slander.

Right, yeah.

An act of faith, an act of will.

I swallow the pomegranate seeds. I buy myself some time.

It’s not harvest season yet. Not yet, not now, not yet.

If not now, then when?

When it’s ready.

There is no ready. Perfection is an illusion.

Yeah, sure, but page count is REAL.

You’re evading. That’s another word for fleeing. Do you know that?

Yes. I do.

How long will you run?

Just a little bit more. Just a little. I promise.

#it was boiling / i run to the sea #'i wrote this book because REPRESENTATION also possibly an unresolved crush from high school i am pure LITERATURE'#i have done everything in my power to find you! except get on LinkedIn

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Pet ownership comes with many perks. There’s the unconditional love, the furry cuddles, the companionship.

In 2018, it can also come with an added advantage that used to be relegated to dog show folk and whose ubiquitousness is surely a sign of our times: making a nice income from them. The catch, of course, is that the pet has to be famous. Instagram-famous.

Today, there are tons of pets who’ve gained enough of a following on social media to earn the coveted title “pet influencer,” and they can command tens of thousands of dollars creating content for brands. And it’s not just pet food companies and vacuum makers; fashion brands like Ralph Lauren and upscale hotel chains have written checks for four-legged talent to appear in their marketing too.

As the pet influencers field has gotten crowded, a cottage industry has sprung up to help pets — or their owners, at least — manage their newfound marketability. Loni Edwards is one such entrepreneur: For the past three years, she’s been running her talent management firm, the Dog Agency, working with “the most influential animals in the world.”

Edwards — whose dog, known on Instagram as Chloe the Mini Frenchie, amassed so many followers that her death last year made local news — knows that striking the jackpot in the pet influencer space isn’t as simple as just creating an Instagram account for your photogenic Labradoodle. I sat down with her over breakfast to talk about the business of being a pet influencer and how she avoids clients who treat their pets unethically.

Chavie Lieber

First and foremost, how on earth did you get into this type of business?

Loni Edwards

I used to work as a lawyer, and was pretty unhappy. I quit my job and started a handbag company [with bags] that had phone-charging capabilities. Being an entrepreneur is pretty lonely, and so about five years ago, I got a dog to keep me company, Chloe. She was the cutest thing I’d ever seen, and I decided to start her own account so that I wouldn’t bombard people with photos of her five times a day.

She quickly amassed this large following. Within six months, she had 20,000 followers. People really liked her personality because I dressed her up and had her sitting next to me in business meetings. She was always smiling and was a sweet, adorable, ball of love, and her personality translated through the photos and by the way I wrote the copy.

Pretty soon, pet brands like PetSmart and Purina were reaching out to send us stuff and invite us to parties. I started meeting other pet owners, and realized there’s this new and growing pet influencer world. Every time I meet someone behind a celebrity pet and they’d hear I was a lawyer, they’d ask me for help on the contracts, to read over the terms and agreements they had to sign from brands. It seemed like this was a perfect way to match my legal background and obsession with pets.

Crusoe the Celebrity Dachshund, with his 2.9 million followers on Facebook, has book deals and a line of calendars. Crusoe the Celebrity Dachshund / Facebook

Chavie Lieber

What are your daily tasks as a celebrity pet manager?

I help grow a brand, whether it’s deciding if they should write a book or branching out in terms of content. I also connect them to the right companies and people. A lot of it is acting on behalf of owners. Brands used to DM pet owners, who have full-time jobs and couldn’t coordinate details. They also couldn’t negotiate rates or read a contract. It was a mess. Now I have relationships with both clients and the brands, so I have a standard of how to run things, and I take commission.

Chavie Lieber

Do you help pets become famous?

Loni Edwards

No. We’re super selective as to who we assign as a client, so they have to have a large following, they have to have really good engagement, and they have to have good-quality content. We take an influencer that has already proven themselves and then bring them to that.

Chavie Lieber

Can any pet become famous? Like, can a basic golden retriever really become a star?

Loni Edwards

The way pets become famous is all different, but what they have in common is that they stand apart to develop a following. So either they’re very unique-looking, or the copy is super witty — as long as there’s something, whether it’s that they are insanely cute or really not cute, that make people go, “oh my God,” and tag their friends.

Chavie Lieber

Can you give me some example of these pet personalities?

Loni Edwards

Ella Bean is basically a fashion blogger in dog form. The fashion community loves her. Popeye the Foodie is LA’s hottest foodie, who takes photos in front of amazing dishes. Food bloggers love him. Harlow and Sage, who are these two dogs that just cuddle all the time. Wolfgang, who is a guy that takes in all these senior pets and is the sweetest guy to follow. We just signed this cat, Bruno, who went viral because he is fat. Like, really fat.

Chavie Lieber

Do you work with other animals other than cats and dogs?

Loni Edwards

Yes, we work with pigs, monkeys, hedgehogs.

Chavie Lieber

What are some unique challenges you think people in the pet influencer space face?

Loni Edwards

Pets can’t work as many hours as a human. They need breaks, they get tired, and so we have to explain that to brands all the time. “No, the dog can’t do a five-hour meet-and-greet!” Sometimes, it also takes longer to create content because you can’t communicate with the dog to tilt their head this way. They’re not as human as we think.

Chavie Lieber

What was it like to get brands on board?

Loni Edwards

Human-facing brands totally didn’t get it. When I started the agency, my first big focus was meeting with brands and convincing them that working with pet influencers made sense. I got a lot of looks. But Chloe would come to all the meetings, and so she helped sell the idea. They would look at her and see and feel a connection.

The first brand I worked with was Dyson. I had to convince them, but it totally made sense for me because dogs shed, and we clean up after them. I had similar pitches when I went to the Body Shop and Urban Decay. These are brands that don’t test on animals, so why wouldn’t they work with pets?

Same with Ritz-Carlton, since they are pet-friendly — of course they should want pet influencers staying at their hotels in Aruba and Puerto Rico, showing followers that it’s a pet-friendly hotel chain. Now, we work with brands like Dyson, Sony, Coke, Ralph Lauren, Barney’s, Moda Operandi, Neiman Marcus.

Chavie Lieber

What are the prices for a pet to land in a brand campaign?

Loni Edwards

The price varies and is usually tied to your follower number, where a scale of, say, 100,000 followers will get you a few hundred dollars and up. I have clients who have a few million followers and are getting $15,000 per post. There are a few variables to factor in, like if they’re creating video, because that’s a higher cost. People also make money off book deals and merch.

Chavie Lieber

Does the price vary when clients are posting on Instagram versus Instagram story?

Loni Edwards

Yes, story posts are less money than in-feed posts. So someone with 1 million followers would get a couple thousand dollars for a story post, instead of their usual $15,000 post. We are mainly creating content on Instagram, with a little Facebook and YouTube.

Chavie Lieber

I don’t understand why pets commend such a price, no offense. Why are they this valuable?

Loni Edwards

People like to look at pets on social media. Pets raise endorphins and makes people feel happy. They are adorable to look at and are easier to connect with than human influencers. There’s no barrier like jealousy. You can gush, “Oh my god, you’re the cutest little terrier” in a comment without feeling weird. It’s weird. to gush over a stranger.

As a society, we’ve evolved that we now think of our pets as our children. They’re such an important part of our lives, and that also has helped this become such a huge and important space. Human-facing brands want to work with pet influencers because they want to show that they align on the values of their consumer, and their consumer loves pets.

The owners of the Dog Agency client Maya the Dox now have their own line of pet accessories Maya the Dox via Facebook

Chavie Lieber

Do you find that people are buying animals specifically to make money off them on Instagram?

Loni Edwards

I do get a lot of requests from people who ask me to help get their pet famous. I get inquiries about what type of dogs people should buy, based on what is most likely to become an influencer and make money. They want to know, “[If] I get a dog that’s missing an eye, will they become an influencer?”

Chavie Lieber

How do you make sure you aren’t working with an owner that’s abusing their pet for fame? Like Toddler and Tiaras but, you know, fur and fortune?

Loni Edwards

It’s definitely become a thing. Since pet influencers have become more common, people are actively trying to make it happen for them, and all they care about is capitalizing on their pet. We do not work with those people.

Chavie Lieber

But how can you tell?

Loni Edwards

Oh, it is so easy to tell. You can tell when someone is hugging and kissing their pet, and asking to take breaks so they can give their animal a drink or something to eat or a chance to run around. The pet looks happy. It’s very different from the people that are yelling at their pet, “Sit! Stay! We’re getting a shot!” You can tell when all they care about is getting the photos so they can get paid. I can also tell by the way people write an email if they are in it for the right reasons.

Chavie Lieber

So what are the right reasons to you?

Loni Edwards

The right reasons are loving their pet. Being able to spend more time with them, being able to work with awesome brands that they love, and getting a middle or main income doing it. The pets enjoy this too, you know. Some pets love dressing up; others love meeting people.

Ella Bean in a campaign with Ritz Carlton Ella Bean via Instagram

Chavie Lieber

Do you think it’s wrong to want to make money off your pet?

Loni Edwards

It’s not wrong if you want to make money; it’s wrong to be in it if you pet doesn’t want to do it and you’re forcing them. Some dogs just want to be dogs. And at the end of the day, it has to be good experience for the pet too. It can’t be about being forced to act and perform so you can buy more clothes.

Chavie Lieber

What’s some advice you would give to someone who has a pet with a following and wants to monetize?

Loni Edwards

You want to be consistent and find the one thing that stands out about them, whether it’s if the dog is really funny or you are really funny but the dog is cute. Anyone can take photos and put them on the internet; it takes effort to develop a strong brand and to consistently engage with people and be the front of that community. A consistent brand voice is the most important.

Chavie Lieber

What are some ways you’ve evolved your business?

Loni Edwards

This year, for the second time, we’re running an event, PetCon. It’s on Saturday and Sunday, November 17 and 18, at the Javits Center [in New York City]. It’s a big pet event. There will be meet-and-greets with celebrity pets, brand shops, a dog adoption garden, an adoptable cat café, and a panel with the Animal Legal Defense Fund about malpractice and protecting your pets.

Super Corgi Jojo has landed ad deals with mattress brands.

Chavie Lieber

Who are the type of people who go to this event?

Loni Edwards

All different types! Last year, we had 10,000 guests! It’s for pet lovers and pet owners. And it’s also for aspiring pet influencers who want to network.

Chavie Lieber

Do you think the pet influencer space is too crowded now? I remember how novel Grumpy Cat was. Now I feel like there are a hundred Grumpy Cats.

Loni Edwards

I think there’s still plenty of room in the space. There will always be people who want to look at cute pets.

Original Source -> How to make your dog Instagram-famous, according to an agent for “pet influencers”

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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