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rockstar-pornograffitti · 1 year

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Picture This

Part: II -> Part: I

Rick Savage X OC {Casey Spencer}

A/N: Comments and reblogs welcome! Also I’m doing a Sav POV on part of this chapter as the next one don’t worry.

Casey’s POV

I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, making me set down my camera for a second to see who’s trying to get a hold of me. Now is a good time because everyone in the band is eating and it’s kind of weird to take photos of people eating.

I glance down at the Home Screen and see it’s a text from my dad. He’s not the biggest on texting, only doing it when he doesn’t want to bother me or he’s sending me a photo of something. I click on the text to open it and sure enough it's a photo. It’s of him and my pure black stallion, who I affectionately named Black Sabbath, Sabbath for short. Yes after the band. It's not that weird, have you heard some of the names of race horses? I promise you Black Sabbath is normal compared to that.

I can’t help but smile at the photo, how I miss both of them, but mostly Sabbath. No offence to my dad who I love very much, but I miss the damn horse so much. So many great times riding him until the sun came down around the ranch. He’s my baby, and I know he misses me too, and I can’t wait to see him again when the tour passes through Montana.

I can’t help but smile again as I read the text my dad sent with it, “Missing our girl.” I text my dad back, “missing you guys too.” Then I lock my phone screen and look up to see Joe staring at me, with an amused look on his face.

“What?” I ask genuinely confused, why the hell is he looking at me like that?

“What are you smiling about?” Joe asks me, “Have a boyfriend back home?”

“God no.” I snort about to burst out laughing, me and a boyfriend from back home? Never, I was always the weird kid, no one ever showed interest in me and most of them are cowboys not my type. “I was texting my dad, he sent me a photo of my horse.”

“Your horse?” Sav asks, raising an eyebrow at me, obviously curious about my comment regarding a horse.

“Yeah, my black stallion, Sabbath.” I tell him, pulling up the photo of Sabbath my dad just sent me. “See, my horse and my dad.”

“He’s a pretty animal.” Sav comments looking at the photo on my phone. “So you own a horse then?”

“No, not technically. My dad owns him, but my dad gave me Sabbath as a birthday gift.” I tell Sav, sliding along my photos to find one of my on my horse.

“Did you grow up on a horse farm or something?” Sav asks, he seems pretty interested in this and I appreciate it, there is nothing I love more than talking about my life on the ranch and my horse.

“No, my dad owns a ranch. He raises cattle.” I tell Sav, as I find the photo I’m looking for and show him. “See, this is me riding Sabbath.”

Of course the photo has me in full cowgirl mode, with my boots, chaps, shades and cowboy hat on, with a rope by my side because that day I was out helping my dad and the boys with the cattle.

“You’re like a real life Cowgirl.” He says, sounding astonished, though I’d hardly call myself that, I mean I’m nothing compared to my dad who’s for sure a real life cowboy. I guess I do look like one in that photo though.

“Did you think I wore cowboy boots for fashion?” I joke, knowing full well it was a massive fashion trend among rock stars in the 80s hell if I remember correctly Joe had some.

“I did yeah.” He admits, “but it’s actually quite interesting.”

“I can assume you kill these cows, correct?” Phil asks, looking slightly horrified, probably because he’s a vegetarian and just found out his new companion grew up raising animals to kill them.

“Yeah, but they had a damn good life before.” I inform him, trying to make him feel a bit better about it. “It’s part of the life of a rancher.”

Phil still looks slightly horrified but at least he’s not giving me some lecture about how my family are murders or something, I appreciate it.

“Wait, Sabbath, like Black Sabbath?” Viv suddenly pipes up looking at me with an odd expression.

“Yeah, I named my horse after black sabbath, i promise you it’s not that weird.” I tell him, “You haven’t seen anything weird till you’ve seen race horse names.”

He still looks at me dumbfounded by that, and I have to say it’s pretty funny to shock everyone in Def Leppard so much by being a rancher's daughter.

“You see now Joe? I wasn’t texting some secret boyfriend, just my dad. Also I wouldn’t want to date anyone where I’m from.” I tell him, “I’m the most single person alive.”

“Good.” I hear Sav say beside me, and turn to look at him confused.

“What?”

What does he mean by good? Like it’s good I’m single? But why the hell would he care? It’s not like he likes me in that way right? I mean he’s nice to me, and we get along well, he even calls me love and I like him a lot. I mean I’ve had a crush on him forever, and he’s so much more amazing then I could have imagined but he’s Rick Savage. He’s the bassist of Def Leppard, one of the biggest rock bands to ever exist and I’m just a girl from Montana. I mean there is no way he’d like me in that way, so it can’t be that, though that’s typically what it would mean. What else could he possibly mean? Maybe he’s happy I’m single because I can focus better? Or maybe it was just unfortunately timed and he meant good for a whole different reason.

“I-I meant this sandwich is good.” Sav tells me, “it’s not good you’re single, love. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it’s okay, I like it.” I tell him, and it makes a lot of sense since it was just unfortunately timed, I mean of course he wouldn’t want me in that way. I can always dream though.

“If you’re happy that’s what matters, love.” He smiles at me returning back to his food.

I jump as I feel my phone vibrating again only this time it’s continuous, meaning someone is trying to call me. I take out my phone again and see it’s my dad, I can’t ignore my own father and nothing too exciting or important is happening, so now is as good as ever.

“I’ve got to take this.” I tell all the leppard guys as I get up and leave the room so I can have some privacy as I talk to my dad.

#the bitch writes #def leppard fanfiction #rick savage fanfiction #rick savage x oc #rick savage #def leppard #picture this

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mickgaydolenz · 1 year

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here is my dream, madam, please buckle up. it is fcking weird.

I was laying in my bedroom, it was nighttime and all of my lights were off. I was in staring at my ceiling while I picked and the wood of my bedframe and then my door opened and (this isn't even gonna sound real feel free to think I'm lying) Michael Jackson came in. wearing his red thriller suit, and he sat on the end of my bed and smiled at me (I think he smiled I couldn't tell all my lights were off) and he said. "alright, are you ready to go?" in his nic little Michael Jackson voice so I sat up and went to my dresser to and got dressed (JUST NOW REALIZING I CHANGED IN FRONT OF HIM UGH GROSS) and he took me outside to a car full of people and the radio was on really loud (OH WAIT I NEED TO TELL YOU ABOUT WHAT I PUT ON) (it was actual clothes that I own it was my Grateful Dead long sleeve shirt with my Hawaiian lemonade shirt over it and my pants that I painted things all over and I loved it so much I'm literally wearing that outfit right now) but I sit in the passengers seat and Michael gets in the drivers seat and smiles at me🥺like dude this was the sweetest most sincere smile I've ever received I don't even find him attractive but I blushed🥺and then he said "guys! This is Raya! she's gonna hang out with us tonight!" then PUNCHED THE GAS AND WE STARTED GOING LIKE SIXTY MILES AN HOUR IN A NEIGHBORHOOD and I kept trying to get his attention but the people in the back seat were really loud and the radio was still on so eventually I tapped him on the shoulder and told him to slow down and asked him where we were even going, and he said an art show and he was going the speed limit, but still slowed down and then started telling me about the art installments they he did and how excited he was to show me,and when we got there it was the typical thing y'know. all white with weird modern art but whenever Michael showed me one of his it was either super cool or super weird, like the one that I personally thought was cool was his Christmas tree made of recycled milk cartons complete with a soda can grinch, and we eventually lost his friends and it was just him and I wandering the installments and laughing occasionally, but his arm was around my shoulders?? I didn't think anything of it though because I do that with all my friends, I'm very affectionate so I just thought he was reciprocating, then we stopped at one that was that weird space cowboy of Miek Nesmith he did in the 80s or 70s I don't know for sure and we looked at it for a while and I told him who it was and stuff, then we turned around and MIKE was standing there holding a glass of champagne and he smiled and said "I'm glad you like the picture, it was for my album lost in my bathroom, but I never ended up using it. the wives said it sounded weird. have you met my husband?" and Michael (Jackson) and I just froze, uhm. Mike had a husband?? so out of pure curiosity I said I hadn't met his husband. guess who it was. seriously. take a second and guess........IT WAS FCKING RINGO STARR. but like young 20-something Ringo with creepy 45-year-old mike which made Michael (Jackson) and I both look at each other like 👀, because that looked a bit sketchy, but nonetheless introduced ourselves and were polite, but the worst part was when Ringo went to leave Mike grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him THE SLOPPIEST KISS I'VE EVER SEEN AND MICHAEL AND I JUST LOOKED AT EACH OTHER WITH FEAR AND SHOCK, AND RINGO DIDN'T EVEN LOOK LIKE HE ENJOYED IT, BUT MIKE'S CREEPY ASS SURE AS HELL DID BECAUSE WHEN HE WALKED AWAY HE WAS SMIRKING AND I NEARLY FCKING DIEDDDDD. so Michael and I got the fuuuck outta there and just started talking nonstop about how CREEPY that was. Michael said at one point "that Ringo kid definitely isn't there willingly." and I just nodded, then we stopped at a portrait of a naked lady draped across some bed and we giggled, which made old people glare at us, so we left, then when we found his friends we decided to go get some food, and went to a Denny's. and the people who worked there all had blue hair, and Michael held my hand from across the table?? then I woke up

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH RAYA WHAT THE FUUUUUUCKKKK AHAGAGAGAGAHAGAGAGAAGAGAGGAGAGAGWGAHAHAHAH

i’m fucking. crying. sobbing. what the fuck dude 😂!!!!! okay, okay, fuck, mj taking you on a maybe date(?) to a fucking art gallery!?!? incredible, what a guy. BUT!!!!! 40+ MIKE NESMITH WITH 20 SOMETHING RINGO 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢 BROOOOOOOOOO 🤮. the horrible. sloppy kiss. really hammered the yuck factor home…..

p.s my twin had a dream with mj once. he was helping them solve a murder….

#raya’s dreams :)#the mikes in your dreams are so cursed raya….#but also….not your dream low key high key being accurate. because mike’s third wife was like 20??? when they started seeing each other….#and he was……40 😩#rhubarb asks

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fungi-maestro · 2 years

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Mr. Seal, I have seen people talking about The Death of Vic Sage lately. I don't know what this is. What is it and is it good? I am very new to The Question and my favorite is Renee. I wanted to ask due to it being a hot topic in the tag for these characters.

The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage is a DC Black Label series that came out in 2019-ish. It follows Vic as he uncovers a conspiracy concerning a shapeshifting devil and cowboy reincarnation, all while under the influence of some serious hallucinogens. It also includes discussion of racism, both historical and current.

Some of the strongest criticism I've seen of this series is about the depiction of racism (combined with Vic being the only person in the world that can stop racism, apparently.) I would definitely say this is valid criticism. It's not a super great way for the narrative to frame it. They put a spin on it toward the end to talk about how Vic feels like he's the only good person in the world & seems to think he's the only one ever that can fix anything and how this isn't actually true, which felt like they wanted to talk about the white savior trope thing, but it seemed like the writing just shrugged at it. And then the story ended. Overall it felt like kind of a weak message. It deserves criticism for that, which I have seen people discuss recently and I agree with.

As far as whether it's "good" or not, this is something you'd have to decide for yourself. I liked some things, like the tie-in with plots and characters from the 80s run, the idea of The Question verses a monster that takes a million different faces & what that thing is supposed to represent in the human experience (bigotry and hatred that any person is capable of if they refuse to look at themselves and see it), and the entire thing with the hallucinating (a staple of the Question) and how it gives the comic a kind of dreamy atmosphere. Also, we get to see the amazing handiwork of Denys Cowan again, which feels right.

I obviously don't like the way they handled the Question's savior complex. I see what they were trying to do, but I felt like having him.... I shouldn't spoil it, should I? It made me facepalm when I saw him doing it. I wouldn't deprive you of that experience. But anyway some of the things he does in the comic seem antithetical to the point of the faceless, nameless Question in their mission to work behind the scenes. Maybe that's the idea, though. Vic is unreal levels of proud and arrogant in this comic. Way more so than usual. Slipping into Ditko territory, to be honest, and yet still within the realm of bizarre but standard Vic behavior. As Tot says, "Vic... You bastard."

Speaking of Tot, I am not a huge fan of him in this comic. He's fine, I guess, but he feels like he's only there to shake his head sadly at everything Vic says and does. Not very helpful. This isn't the old man I know and love. It isn't really the most important thing with the comic, though, so I guess I'll let it slide for now.

Anyway, my final verdict is that it's... Complicated. I think that would be the best way to describe it. It isn't super great, but it might be worth a read if you can approach it with a mind that is prepared to think critically about some of the themes and messages it presents. It's DC Black Label, so it isn't technically canon to anything, and I wouldn't consider it compliant to canon regardless. It has some good internal monologues for those that love them (I like them), and it has a section where it plays with The Question as a subset of a private investigator type character (which I appreciate as a detective connoisseur), but the clumsy and, in my opinion, tasteless attempt to tie it into current events combined with the portrayal of Vic with such a strange personality (definitely one of his oddball arcs) means this isn't a series that I would recommend if someone wanted an idea of what the character is. It's in the same category as PAX and that Frank Miller comic to me. Interesting, but not necessary to the character's story or personality building, and not for everyone.

TLDR; It's a hit and miss series. The artwork is good, some of the writing is good, but the parts where it is bad can easily outweigh the good. Read it for yourself if you want, but be warned for violent racism (I'm serious, please be warned for this. Do not go in without preparing yourself), and a weird characterization for basically everyone (I feel a little uncomfortable putting this here because of how not a big deal it is compared to the other warning. Still.)

#seal.txt #ask #anon #book club #the question #vic sage #the question: the deaths of vic sage #it's one that gives you a lot to chew on as far as the main plot goes. but if you arent paying attention you might bite something sour #not ''might'' really. you will most likely. theres a few parts that are hard to read.#this is not a mindless reading kind of comic. not that you should be reading comics mindlessly anyway. but you get the idea.#anyway i appreciate the formality. i laughed when i saw the ask preview ''mr. seal''.#it makes me feel like an English teacher instead of some guy from the internet that likes comics #welcome to the world of the question! renee rules and she is a good choice for a favorite 👍#renee lovers and vic lovers are brothers in arms #go to the tag for the comic above if you want to see my comic caps and tag commentary from immediately after i read it

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realhankmccoy · 5 months

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Yes it's been a theme of my life that it's crystal clear that I want a Platonic relationship with someone and instead they're gonna pursue me like a I'm a piece of meat.

I still don't know how to resolve this. As a gay man, you're kinda stuck with gay men for friends -- maybe women, maybe a few straight men -- but all those groups including the gay men are what are called prejudiced.

All that straight white capitalistic male bullshit has been internalised by all groups and the only difference is to what extent people have cucked themselves to it.

This is the primary socialisation issue. All these people who think they can fix it with Trump's methodology -- sweep identity politics under the rug, never talk of it, start anew -- are dipshits and cucks, as the forceful aggression to silence and roll everyone back into the closet has always been there and is raging strong lately.

You really think you can cure racial tribalism with silence? That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.... the dumb white American idiot sees that black skin and runs screaming away from it, worse now than they did 40 years ago cuz everybody's such a self-castrated sissy toddler for Trump and Peterson.

Just watch an 80s film -- almost any 80s film -- if you don't think you castrated yourself for Trump and Peterson's protectionist 'you're the victimhood, you don't have to act like a man anymore, just be a sissy weakling rolling on the ground about the big bad woman who you can no longer take care of or care about' arms.

People don't know what I want to stick my dick into or not and don't seem to be interested in that. Well, it depends. I want this 20 yr old cowboy kid in Cheyenne who I've been talking about John Cena with, but I kinda feel like maybe those people are raging with diseases, and also, I abide by the Airbnb Rules.

But no, with a lot of people I want Platonic relationships... rolling on the floor suckin dick with every Tom, Dick and Harry who just wants to use me and shit all over me for a few seconds until they're bored and onto the next video game series or television channel of a person, as is their wont, is not my bourgeois backpacker way. I used to be looser in bed, but times have changed. It's a Trumpcucked America and I'm not about to just let some entitled King Baby cuck for Trump clumsily use me and throw me away in an environment this full of takers and so low on givers.

I can actually sense the energy, I guess, of when a male is looking to pluck berries and I'm not always in the mood to be plucked.

I might hold my nose and go to bed with fratboy assholes from time to time for the bodies, but what I really like is a crier.

It's Freudian -- didn't Trump's cucks read that part of Camille Paglia? I like a big alcoholic crybaby. That's what my dad was. I was totally in love with that alcoholic premature grey crybaby from The Woodlands, TX living with his parents even though he was bipolar because dun dun dun... my dad's an alcoholic premature grey bipolar crybaby living off his parents.

Even better, you know, if I can get one of those guys to apologise to me. That's me GETTING WHAT I WANT though I never seem to get what I want out of these people.

Could it be any more spelled out? No, it could not.

I WANT AN APOLOGY FROM A BIG ALCOHOLIC CRYBABY PREMATURE GREY BIPOLAR LOSER DEPENDENT ON THEIR PARENTS SOBBING IN MY ARMS AS THEY SAY I"M SORRY I"M SORRY I"M SORRY I LUV YOU DRUNK AND PASSED OUT ON THE FLOOR IN MY WALK-IN CLOSET SO THAT I CAN BE THEIR FATHER FIGURE

These people must not want it very much out of me if they can't even figure out how to unstrap the high heel pinching off their face and tell me they're sorry.

Anyhow, it's complicated tho because after Jeff, I wised up and realised wow, I'm just as stupid as these morons Camille was talking about who search out their father in other men without even realising it... like yeah, it's a really stupid move to fall for some spoiled rich kid in Texas who's bipolar and who's liver is shutting off cuz he drinks so much and gets fired from his jobs just like my daddy, isn't it?

But yeah, I was really that stupid and probably still am. Who knows what sort of stupidity is floating around in my head. I'm sure all sorts of self-destructive stupidity that will permanently keep me lower middle class and it's not at all something I feel ready to fix... I'm always tired and all this crap is like climbing a mountain, and you're expected to do that while treading water like a hamster in some brainless job with supervisors who are abusive because America's all a bunch of cucks who believe that a supervisor is supposed to be an asshole violent forceful socially inept piece of shit so that's what they keep generating, cuz it's short term solutions for these cucks about the proper use of violence that immediately becomes lazy routine violence to keep these cucks signfiicantly lazier than I am, even.

Yes, who even knows what stupidities in my head will wreck the rest of my life as it comes to an ignominious end.

I mean, even my simple pleasures that I've told myself will suffice to get me through the next years of drudgery are things like 'get some guinea pigs' and 'buy camo pants and take a vacation in Marshall, Michigan (pop 6800 or so) and did you know, kids

did you know

that Marshall, Michigan was named after John Marshall -- you wouldn't know who that is --

unless MY cowtown which was named after a fuckin' real estate developer

and if I had my way -- in the unlikely event that I rose to be mayor of my Marshall -- which will never happen due to me being a faggot and Trump's cucks making a giggly-eyed goofy game of status quo replication in which the faggot deserves to be ostracised and it's funny hahah -- I would rename the village to its originally name

which was

Bird's Ruins

and that would be progress, perhaps.

is Papa John's pizza as bad as Jesse says it is? I think i had it once and decided never again, but that was long ago. i could find out today.

Dancehall Days by Wang Chung is a good song except maybe the nostaliga built into the song gets to be a bit Much, don't you think kids?

i can't believe cucks of Trump think 'practical business skills' are something i admire or think people should have. What a cuck. I admire actual tangible skills, like how to design a house, play an instrument or write something sexy, not sissy toddlers who think cheapo gimme gimme is a 'skill'. They must be exceedingly corporate to even presume I would give a damn about a bunch of corporatist busywork posturing as serious business, anyway.

No wonder my dumb biological Brother just presumes I admire him or he's impressing me when he starts talking like a used car salesman. I just think he's an asshole, but I guess that's how these dumb Millennials think -- that they are very 'smart' and have 'great businesss skills' and i'm some sort of outmoded jealous loser.

I'm not a big Hunter S. Thompson fan at all -- he's overrated -- but hello kids, he wrote like 50 years ago about how America is just a shitbag country of used car salesmen. This isn't something I admire and never has been. It's not what I uphold. It's what you uphold with your entitlement and sleaze. You are mere replications of the American system -- take take take from the good people and the indigeneous and uphold whitey as better, like the American way has always been since the foundation of this shitbag country.

I'll let Trump's cucks lecture me on infantilisaiton maybe if they develop so much as one real skill that is more impressive than my skills. Even my dumb brother can't do that with all daddy's love and financial support behind him, tho. He thinks, what, he can attract a deer better than me? The way you attract deer is you bake some pancakes with maple syrup, maybe throw in some smores flavour into the pancake -- the deer will come running. You don't need to be planting red osier dogwood all day, jesus fuckin christ talk about overcomplicating it. Raise a deer in a pen and fatten it up yourself and put it down with a cattle prod if you want an interesting, homegrown way of killing the biggest buck, for fuck's sake.

It's all a game to these kids tho. It's all a snickering Bugs Bunny game of being stupid all damn day until you drop dead from being a cuck of the capitalist system. Britney Spears has learned scarcely nothing... she's still waggling her tits for freedom really rather than developing a skill, and of course everyone young and dumb is gonna cream themselves over how she's a business genius for it just like they did for the Kardashians. That's how sissy toddlers castrated themselves into Baby America, which we're now living in i guess -- and Baby America is as brutal as any King Baby on the Springer show. it just is a flop of phony posturing and hustle, and the world knows it.

Absolutely, I understand why a weakling cuck of Trump's would be furious that anyone would stand up for how gays are marginalised while selfishly whining about how hard itself has it. It can only do what's permitted, and instead of rationally identifying a real problem like a grown man would do

e.g. climate change, e.g. what goes into American food

a total weakling cuck would just be furious on behalf of the Man it castrated itself for, spewing the man's lines about how all these gays need to realise the status quo and be reactionaries who conform to it for the benefit of The Man.

how could i be attracted to a self-castrating sissy cuck? I just couldn't. I'm gay. I'm attracted to MEN. I know a man when I see it, not a babysoft self-castrated sissy cuck, which does nothing for my libido.

No, I need a MAN, one with the timeless, soft and manly touch of a Can Yaman... a man who understands what's always been sexually desirable in men.

A toddler trying to smash a square peg into a round hole is not attractive. I don't like based. I don't like square. I don't like cucks.

The Republicans always believe in NO, which they shout out in the most doofus and clueless ways. Why would some sissy toddler cuck replicating the status quo be anything other than a joke? I don't know why some parroting cuck relying on its parents for money and shelter would ever want to laughably get up on a chonky large alphabet blcok and stand on that and say one shouldn't rely on the parents for money. Like, what the fuck is this toddler talking about? There's no money from the patriarchy for me.. I"ve been financially independent of him for decades. Do these kids know what financially independent is? Of course not. Honestleigh, they're like 35 and still wholly dependent Valley Girls here.

So yeah, i do get why a total cuck would rally to defend the patriarchy's prerogative to throw blacks, women and gays out of the workplace and out of the family. That's the status quo. If you're so deeply cucked that it blows my mind that any toddler would want to chop off its own nuts, sissify itself and toddlerify itself for the man, that's exactly the sort of battle on behalf of The Man that such a cuck would wage. But they can't win these battles... it's so laughable because they're reaching the point of 'so deeply cucked that one is almost getting insight into how Heaven's Gate was able to castrate itself for the sky daddy'.

I can't even really have a Platonic relationship with purple-pilled cucks. They're just too ridiculous, and I cannot respect them on a Plantonic level because they're at least 10 planes of maturity below me, like something out of some absurdist Discworld tale by Terry Prachett, but they don't know it. They honestly think swallowing that red pill and turning themselves into an ideology-bound cuck liberated them or gave them insight.

That's as stupid as a secular person deciding that if they Koran-pill themselves they're suddenly gonna be superior to the secular. No, you just massively degraded your own mind. It's possible to read the Koran without cucking yourself to it, like secular people do. That's what I did. Get a clue, kids.

I'm absolutely certain that sissy self-castrated toddlers cucked by Trump will try to make money while retaining their status quo, reactionary and completely unoriginal values for Trump and hustle and make sure to keep Gawd as stamped into their value systems as Gawd is stamped on the American dollar. It sez it right on the back, In Gawd We Trust. That's a commandment, kid, and as a cuck of empire you'd better comply. Run around chasin it with a Bugs Bunny smirk and fuck over all them queers, women and Natives, it's your duty as a Good 'n Typical Good 'n Plenty American.

I'm sure I do make things 'difficult' for babysoft King Babies incapable of even figuring out how to sew a fursuit, let alone how to do anything adult. When you get to your teenage Home Economics years and sew that fursuit, you let me know, kid, and we can discuss steps you might take to consider Architecture, Science, or History as a profession. but ya gotta hit puberty first, and that's a long ways off.

If we can get you off the puberty blockers -- Jordan Peterson, Donald Trump, Camille Paglia -- that's a start. If you actually read Camille Paglia's books instead of just look for a cheap blurb that smells of power to lift up for a second like a Tucker Carlson would do, that's a start. There's a lot that would help you mature in those books. Ya gotta read em tho. Go read em all, including that one on Hitchcock's The Birds -- that one, more than any of her other books, should give you a sense of what it looks like when an adult is working on something. Sure, it's her driest, but you're going to have to learn that life isn't all

shits and giggles

in the adult world.

as for your cucked ideology holding you back from any insight into other people? I dunno, kid. you're just gonna have to drop it. having a temper tantrum because there's some gay man out there who says throwing people away for their body types, systemically, as the American empire does is Wrong -- that temper tantrum isn't gonna do anything other than reveal you as a cuck who's unable to understand social issues at all, for all you can do is cling to the legs of daddy figures and say 'daddy was right! daddy is good you're being bad!'

i'll take being 'bad' in the eyes of Trump's cucks any day. the xenomorph knows I want it extinguished, so of course it gets hysterical over me and spits and hisses and shrieks "NO! The only person who needs a daddy is Trumpself and Trumpself will always need one, a faggot must accept its fate for Gawd!'

I ain't accepting fuckall of that, and I don't believe in your Gawd, cuckboy. If you can't even invent your own god you're not very creative. Sit yourself down at your own drafting table and at least invent your own fictional deities, for fuck's sake it's not that hard. If you need so many daddies, at least invent some of your own.

All the daddy dicks can be yrs, just invent a Gawd with a 10 ft long hose that he keeps coiled up in his pants and is bashfully embarrassed about but engages in a severe personality change when it starts to harden up.

Fuck do i hate how these kids can't create and just want to roll around on the carpet as toddlers screaming for the man and demanding we all become cucks like they did.

I will never be a cuck, sorry ya freedumb-fightin kid but it isn't gonna happen. You're the cuck and you always will be a cuck until you look in the mirror and wise up to how you're photocopying in a lazy attempt for power -- you're photocopying yourself right out of the adult world and it is not becoming. It's tackier than even some of these photocopiers in India, who at least do it in 5 languages as they seek power.

I don't know why people want to jump into the cage trying to maintain a life-work-balance and participate for a trophy to hopefully become a winner under the American God. Why? Why would you do that to yourself? Why not innovate? Why preach freedom from the cage? Why do this to yourself:

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Anyhow, even though most of this guy's books aren't that good, I'm going to maybe watch some of this just so I can get the taste of reactionary Millennial snowflake out of my mouth. Icky.

Remmeber kids, the guy who came up with the term 'special snowflake' was a gay man. Pretty sure in clarifying himself in 2017 about 'Victorianism' in the kids, he was photocopying Camille Paglia, which was really fucking lame of him.

This interview's pretty fucking boring so far. Americans are so -- they gotta get out of the Wonderbread bag. Reading Lullaby, Survivor Haunted... all sorts of Palahniuk books, my thought was always that it all seemed so tepid to me. Lukewarm. White. It's very white in Washington state. That state produced a lot of great music, but seems like great writing is not their forte.

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#chuck palahniuk #snowflake #special snowflake #millennials #typical millennials #trump #cucks #trump's cucks #Youtube

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randomoranges · 8 months

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Summer 2023 Retrospective

Once more, summer break has come to an end and once more, I am reflecting on everything that I did and that happened over the past 7 weeks.

This year felt – different. It was almost as if summer never really got into the real swing of things. The weather was a clusterfuck, what with forest fires, smog, rain and cooler temperatures. Every time it seemed like it was over, there would be another storm, another air quality warning and somehow, it impacted the overall feel of summer.

However, this summer was also filled with lots of visits from friends and family and adventures. Between people visiting me and me visiting them, it occupied a lot of time (in a good way.) There were highlights to the summer; notably, going to see the Back to the Future Musical, getting to see my uncle twice, visiting friends, making new friends, celebrating the Lizard’s 10th year, seeing the Perseids, and adopting a sunflower. I also got to go to many new places in the city I had wanted to visit.

On the other hand, there were also some downers to the summer; my dad getting hospitalised again, the never-ending debacle with my plants and the weather.

Yet, there were also so many smaller moments that were pleasant as well. Out of the 37 days I had, I only had 6 days where I had nothing planned. (That’s insane.) I managed to go to the pool so many times, I did a lot of art and I read a lot of books. Even though I did not write at all, I still found other creative outlets, so I guess that counts. There are many things I never got around to doing, but I suppose that’s okay. Some can still be done post end of holiday and others can just be added to next year – hopefully.

I’m still not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. I never like the version of me I become under the duress of teaching and it seems that no matter how hard I try, I lose myself in the process. But – it’s a new school year and at least, I’m doing the same thing as last year so I know what to expect. There is less unknown. Hopefully, that will help.

As always, below is my little list of things I did over the summer – an old habit I’ve kept for over a decade now. More for me than anyone else, but it’s there.

Here’s to more adventures!

Pool: 23

Ice cream Hocheglacé Iconoglace Pineault Dolce Santanella Kem Coba Ca Lem

Adventures Maisonneuve Market Biodôme Observation Deck Quai des Commencements PAC Old Port Au pied du courant Ave Mt-Royal JT Food Trucks Eye balls E’s wedding Dad Fiasco First Official White Hair TM Sugar Sammy Plant fiasco Bonjour Montréal sign Navette fluviale Berlin Wall World Commerce Building PVM Ring RAMQ Lézard Bizarre 10th birthday NYC-PVD-BST Dinner with J Gogol Bordello Power failure/playing Pictionary in the dark Sunflowers! Strawberries! Chinatown Food trucks Bota Bota Spa Nails Edmonton + camping Did art Dusted room Cleaned out drawer Perseids Esplanade Louvain Sunflowers One Started Fic and a half Adopted a sunflower Dinner at Schtroumpf’s Showed Dad how to work the laptop Tea at the Ritz

People S visit Zia visit Les petites La gang du camp Uncle x2 S J + Fam Zia Edmonton gang T, M and errone else Schtroumpf and Aqua C

Food Chez Gérard Beaver Tails Usine à spaghetti Au p’tit doré Guillaume Les enfants terribles Oh Dumplings La beignerie Terrasse Nelligan Tea at the Ritz Bota Bota Spa

Movies/TV shows/ Books End of Miraculous s5 Spider Man Nimona x2 Nimona comic Q Force Melting Queen Qu’est-ce qu’on a fait au bon Dieu ? Barbie x2 BTTF Musical Miraculous Lady Bug Movie Gomens 2 x3 Qu’est-ce qu’on a encore fait au bon Dieu ? Best Men Christmas in Wonderland Cowboy Bebop s 1 2 Staged s1 A Dash of Salt and Pepper The Gay Best Friend Heartstopper s2 Rose à l’île Red White and Royal Blue movie Red White and Royal Blue book Around the world in 80 Days

#summer #summer 2023 #summer retro #estie qu'chuis pas down pour demain wow

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nutsonline · 2 years

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Rygar arcade for sale on craigslist

In my opinion, the Christensen artwork on this playfield should shine like the backglass does.Ībove all, I'm a very happy camper. And some idiot attached the Little Demon with too long screws.Īlthough very risky, I'm planning on taking the mylar off and clearcoating it. Has mylar, but has some wear in places without it. Luckily, I have a spare one that looks a lot better. Sadly, the backglass is flaking on the underside. Plus it's got all the goodness of an early 80's Bally, like multiball and speech. This ís Dave Christensen's last piece of art at Bally, though. Probably because it's the successor of one of the all-time classics. I always thought that this is a very underrated (or undiscovered maybe?) title. Long story short: I wasn't planning on getting another pin, as my small appartment is already pretty stuffed. (Now who on earth would cancel picking up a free pin?!) But, Bob told me that the machine wasn't free anymore: he did want to have some money for it. So I hung up, thinking 'argh! if only I had seen that ad a few minutes earlier!' A few minutes later though, I get a call from Bob, telling me the first caller has in fact cancelled. The seller (Bob) promised to call me back in case the first caller should cancel. but 2 days ago I picked up this baby! It was posted on Marktplaats (the Dutch Craigslist, sort of) for free pickup and I was the second caller. My guess is that the game broke in 1982 (some kind of licensing sticker with 1982 date on the backglass) and the game was just moved between warehouses since. It is also interesting that the plastics are not yellowed at all. Interior of the game and underside of the playfield is immaculate.The pics do not do game the justice as it was quite dark in his garage. All plastic are intact and so are all the targets/drop targets. The playfield is dirty, but once I clean it will be about 9.8/10 condition. He said that Star God and Space Shuttle were the best earners and very reliable. I have showed him the Zaccaria pinball app on my phone and he remembered operating Space Shuttle, Earth Wind Fire, Fire Mountain and Star God. He told me that he had various Zaccaria machines. He was an operator back in the days and he had operated lots of pins. Today as I picked up the game he told me than I can have all the Lost world stuff for $50 and I gladly accepted the offer. He parted it out about a year ago, but kept all the boards, backglass and fully populated playfield in really good condition. He had Lost World backglass sitting on the shelf and I asked him about the machine. I paid him immediatelly and told him that I ll pick the game next day. When I got there I could not believe the condition of the playfield. In my mind I was expecting a total wreck, but because he lives close to me I went there to check it out. I have called and the seller wanted $120 for it. I saw an add for non working Zaccaria Hot wheels yesterday.

Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons WhizBang Pinball, 2012.

The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard Data East, 1994.

The Walking Dead (Premium/LE) Stern, 2014.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Stern, 2003.

Tales of the Arabian Nights Williams, 1996.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Williams, 1993.

Six Million Dollar Man, The Bally, 1978.

No Fear: Dangerous Sports Williams, 1995.

Machine: Bride of Pinbot, The Williams, 1991.

Lexy Lightspeed - Escape From Earth Multimorphic, 2017.

Freddy: A Nightmare On Elm Street Gottlieb, 1994.

Elvira and the Party Monsters Bally, 1989.

Eight Ball Deluxe Limited Edition Bally, 1982.

Creature from the Black Lagoon Bally, 1992.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind Gottlieb, 1978.

Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy Bally, 1977.

Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy Bally, 1976

Attack From Mars (Remake - LE) Chicago Gaming Co., 2017.

#Rygar arcade for sale on craigslist

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thimbil · 3 years

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Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

#star wars #the bad batch #unwhitewashtbb #wrecker #crosshair #tech #hunter #echo

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boognish-worshipper · 3 years

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Midnight City AU

it took me forever to decide where to go with this chapter and i was literally getting fed up editing it 😭 i’ve been so busy with all the chaos goin on in my life rn too so yeah writing’s been feeling delayed over all but i decided to just finalize this one for rn and uhhh sorry if it seems funky or shortttt

//Chapter 3: Vanished

The next day, Trevor went back to Sterling Lake Park, after spending the night at Wade’s. He agreed to meet up with him there later, walking around the park with his earbuds in. As he threw himself down on his usual bench, he settled on listening to his usual playlist of his favorite songs. He scrolled through nosedivr once again, taking a photo of the lake. It was foggy, and the thick air sat atop the water. He liked when it was like that. A sturdy drumbeat thumped in his ears, making him feel whole. He paused it briefly, just to change it to a different song that was even louder, but with the lack of music he could now hear the crunch of gravel not too far away. He thought he told Wade to come later on? He looked up from his phone, pulling out an earbud. It was the guy from yesterday.

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

“Where’s Amanda?” He asked, glancing around.

“Uhh she’s.. not here today. I kinda came to see if you were here. I wanna get to know more people at this park if I’m gonna hang ‘round here more I guess.”

“But she doesn’t like me?”

“She don’t gotta know.”

“Well aren’t you Boyfriend of the Year.”

“Oh uh, we aren’t dating yet.”

“Thought she was your girl though.”

“She is, she is. But it’s nothing serious. Not yet. And I don’t know what happened between you guys but you don’t seem that bad, so if I wanna talk to you that’s more of a her problem than me.”

“Huh.”

Today Michael wore an eCola shirt, which was obviously made to resemble their old logo, with blue jeans. He had on a pair of red sneakers this time to match the color of the shirt. They looked slightly newer, compared to the pair he wore yesterday. He dressed nice for such a basic style. Trevor on the other hand, threw on an old, frayed Love Fist t-shirt, and messy jeans. He wore a different pair of boots, some kind of knockoff of a popular name brand. A pair of purple lensed circular glasses sat on his head, the nose pieces caught in his hair.

“So.. uh. Mind if I sit there?”

“Not like I own the bench or anything, go right ahead.”

He cautiously sat next to Trevor, hands in his lap. Trevor started one of his other playlists up again, settling on a mix of Paramore and Green Day. He left an earbud out, just so he wouldn’t be completely rude. He mindlessly scrolled, occasionally looking back at the lake or casting a sideways glance at Michael, who was looking at him funny. Sighing, he paused his music, putting his earbuds away.

“What.”

“I.. nothin’ man. I just, I dunno. What is the point of coming here?”

“It’s a public fuckin’ park man.”

“I know, but you said that you don’t even really like the people here, so what’s the point?”

“There is no ‘point’ to it. I just like time to myself is all. These guys don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them. They only start trouble when they see fit.”

“Ah… I see? What were you listening to by the way?”

Trevor stifled a groan, not really wanting to talk to the guy when he had time to freely plot his scheme.

“Pop punk shit. Ever heard of it?”

“Uh, no? I thought punk wasn’t supposed to be popular. Or fit in. Or whatever.”

“That’s merely the ideology, which I do follow, dear Michael. I just like the sound I guess. You know Paramore?”

“Not really. I don’t listen to that stuff much.”

“Then what the fuck do you listen to?”

“Not sure if it has a genre per say, but I like that song Radioactive goin’ around? Songs that sound like that I guess.”

“You like Imagine Dragons?”

“That’s what they’re called?”

Trevor could only stare at him. Was this guy living under a rock?

“Uh.. yeah. Y’know what- never mind, what else do you listen to?”

“80s music?”

No wonder this guy was unaware of who’s popular now.

“Amanda’s been trying to get me into groups like the 1975. I actually kinda like them.”

Trevor rolled his eyes.

“Of course she did.”

“They’re not that bad to be honest. She likes that weird alternative shit.”

“Yeah, I know. By the way, there is a name for that genre. Indie rock. Can’t stand the stuff.”

“How come?”

“You know, you ask a lotta fuckin’ questions.”

“I’m just tryna understand this shit here. I ain’t in the loop of all these trends.”

“Well, for your information I just find the style to be too slow and whiny for my taste. I like fast, upbeat, wild stuff.”

“Any recommendations then? I wanna impress Amanda by at least knowing one artist off that nosedivr thing she goes on.”

He raised a brow, not really wanting to share anything else knowing he would just repeat it back to her, but he shrugged and continued.

“Alright. Besides pop punk, I like experimental songs. Underground groups. Crystal Castles are my favorite.”

“Never heard of ‘em.”

“Wouldn’t expect you to.”

“Right.”

“If you want more indie rock shit though, I suggest listening to I don’t know, the Arctic Monkeys? That seems more like her taste.”

“These bands have such weird names.”

“I think bands have always been like that.”

“Hey wait a sec, I thought you didn’t like that stuff? How do you know the name of one of those groups?”

“Ugh… I guess I might as well say it if you’re gonna get with her, but we were friends at some point. She introduced me to those bands, but even then I didn’t really like it. We had a stupid falling out I’d rather not get into.”

“Oh.. sorry.”

“Eh, don’t be. Shit happens. You definitely seem like her type though, no wonder she got with you.”

“What’s her type?”

“Heh. As if I’d tell you.” He scoffed.

“C’mon man, please?”

“Nope.”

Michael frowned, slumping in his seat.

“Fine. Whatever. Not like I need to know.”

“You could at least pretend you don’t care.”

“I don’t.”

“You clearly do, bro.”

He sat arms crossed, turning a smidge away from Trevor. This was his opportunity to listen to his tunes again, but before he could Michael spoke up.

“Can I… can I listen to whatever you’re listening to?”

“Huh?”

“I wanna hear what you’re into.”

Trevor shot him a puzzled look.

“Uh.. okay.”

Wiping off an earbud, he handed one to Michael. He already had one in.

“Pick your poison cowboy.”

“Cowboy?”

“Just a nickname I give people.” He shrugged.

Michael settled on his experimental music, actually nodding along to the sound. They were closer than a minute ago, and it made Trevor uncomfortable for whatever reason. Maybe because he was never in such close proximity to strangers, but the other part of him didn’t care that much. Michael’s eyes were closed, smiling.

“You like it?”

“Yeah! Reminds me of synth stuff from the 80s, just more modern I guess.”

He smiled back at Michael, appreciating the fact there was someone else who liked the music he liked. The two listened to a couple different playlists he had, up until the moment Wade arrived at the park.

“Trevor! Hey!”

“Woah. Who’s your friend?”

“Hm?” He pulled out the single earbud, turning his head around. Wade had clown makeup on, making Trevor jump in his seat.

“Fucks sake. Hey Wade.”

“Ooh who’s this?”

He wasn’t sure if Wade freaked him out or not, seeing as the guy not only had matted locs, but many facial piercings as well. And the clown shit. He stood up to introduce them to one another.

“Wade, this is Michael. Michael, Wade.”

The way Michael looked at him was like a kid seeing a zoo animal for the first time. He looked bewildered, but not disgusted.

“Hi. What’s with the..?” He wavered a hand in Wade’s direction.

“Oh! It’s jus’ clown face. Not tryna scare ya or nothin’!”

“Uh huh… man. How have I never been around these parts? You guys are real different.”

“You got that right, Mike.”

“Seems like I’ve been missin’ out. I hangout with some dudes who would hate this place if I’m being honest.”

“I’ll have to meet ‘em sometime.” Trevor chuckled.

“They’re real cool guys. Didn’t expect our paths to cross, but anything’s possible in this fuckin’ city.”

“Oh yeah. Land of opportunities, for all types of wackjobs.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

A hand tapped Trevor on the shoulder.

“Uh, excuse me, Trevor, but are we still gonna talk about the Merryweather thingy-”

“Wade! Shut it-”

“What Merryweather thing?”

“Nothing, nothing. Not important.” He said, gritting his teeth, glare strong on Wade.

“Okay..”

“But you said we’d talk about it over icecream!”

“Later, Wade. Not right now.”

“Fiiine. Can we still get icecream though?”

“Sure. Promise. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay! Bye Trevor, bye stranger!”

Michael lifted a hand to haphazardly to wave goodbye.

“What was that about?”

“I told ya man, nothin’. Just going over some plans we’re making.”

“Is it about that special event being held there?”

“How you know about that?”

“Mandy told me.”

“Mandy… yeah. Figures as much.”

“She got an invite, and wants me to go as her plus one. I don’t know if I really wanna go though, I’m still pretty unfamiliar with all this.”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

“Seriously, what is your beef with those guys?”

“I told you, they start shit when they want. Taught ‘em a lesson and that was it. Nearly got me banned from this place, but it was kinda worth the looks on their faces.”

“You are.. quite peculiar y’know. Anyway, you mind showing more of that music? I was honestly gettin’ a kick outta it.”

“Uh, yeah.”

He sat back down next to Michael, handing him the same earbud as before. He clicked on one of his favorite Crystal Castles songs, Vanished. As they were listening, Michael furrowed his eyebrows.

“Hey wait a minute.. I think I’ve heard this before.”

“You have? I thought you didn’t know them.”

“No, I mean yeah I haven’t, but that’s not it. The lyrics. Vocals. I’ve heard them in a different song.”

“Oh.”

“Lemme think, lemme think, ah… I got it! Pass me your phone real quick.”

His fingers typed in the song title fast, pressing play right away. It was an indie rock song, much to Trevor’s dismay. But something stopped him from complaining, seeing how Michael’s face lit up.

“Yeah! This is it, Sex City by Van She. Y’know, I honestly think that’s neat.”

“What is?”

“The fact that a song you like, samples a song I like! Who would’ve guessed?” He said, eyes sparkling. Trevor didn’t notice how bright they were until now. The eye contact, along with the lack of space between them, made him feel stuffy again. He averted his eyes back to his phone, trying to loosen up a bit. As the song played, he savored in the sound, shocking himself a bit. The rock sound was there, but had an 80s sort of feel to it. The song finished before he knew it.

“So.. What’d ya think?”

“You know my thoughts on indie shit. Wasn’t for me, sorry.”

“Oh c’mon, you know you liked it.”

“Nope. Prefer Vanished.”

“Yeah, okay. Keep telling yourself that, but I honestly think they’re both really good. You think that too, I can feel it.”

“Whatever you say bro.”

He switched the song over to that Grimes song he listened to yesterday, the two of them sitting silently. It was a pleasant afternoon they shared. Suddenly Michael’s phone went off, and he yanked the earbud out.

“Ah shit. I gotta take this. Mandy.”

“Gotcha.”

Trevor grabbed the other earbud, putting it back in. He saw Michael wave his free hand around, looking close to hurling his phone right into the lake. Trevor assumed he must’ve been shouting as well, from the way other people were looking at him. Hanging up not much later, he returned to the bench, as Trevor put his earbuds away.

“Fuckin’ Christ.”

“So.. how’d it go?”

“She’s finally not mad at me anymore, but demanded I go take her shopping now. I swear, she’s gonna clear out my bank account or something.”

“How? You guys aren’t even dating.”

“I know, but I just can’t say no to her.”

“Uh huh.”

“Look, I’m sorry to leave so suddenly, but I really gotta go before she goes back to being pissed at me. See ya around?”

“I’ll be here man.”

Michael stood up, storming away. Seemed like he had a short temper, huh? He wondered to himself how long he was gonna stick around, seeing how Amanda’s dating history was… an extensive list. He thought back to last night, when he had seen that post of them, remembering the fact that no guy stayed for longer than a week. It almost made him bummed, seeing as he only had Ron and Wade for friends. Lester too, but that was on rare occasion. Shit. The plans. What time was it?

“Ah, fuck me.” He muttered. How did he let the day go by so quick?

He shot a text to Wade, telling him to grab Ron and meet at some icecream place. He did promise Wade after all.

Ron ended up meeting them there a little bit later, apologizing profusely before Trevor told him to just sit down and shut up. He did just that, almost apologizing once more.

“Now, let’s get down to business. Who do we know that would help us sneak into that club to cause sheer utter mayhem?”

Ron raised his hand excitedly.

“I could get Floyd maybe-”

“Definite fuckin’ no. He would have a heart attack the minute he set foot in there.”

This was getting nowhere. He tossed his head back to look up at the sky. As he did, he saw a couple walking out of the icecream place.

“Oh fucking hell.”

Was this guy following him or something? He snapped his head forward, trying to be a little more hidden.

“What? Trevor what is it?”

“Shh! Keep your fucking voice down Ron!”

He made all three of them lower their heads as the couple walked away, peeking over his shoulder to make sure they were gone. As he did, he could’ve sworn he saw Michael looking back at him. The both of them turned away as quick as possible from the split second of eye contact.

“Trevor?” Ron repeated.

“It was nothing. Just thought I saw someone.”

“Ain’t that the Michael fella I met today?”

“Nope. Don’t think it is.”

“Are ya sure-”

“Pretty fucking positive. Now, back on topic.”

The next hour or so still went nowhere. Wade had gone through two servings of icecream, and Ron started to get restless. Trevor was just bored.

“Ughhh there has to be something we can do!”

“I don’t know what to tell you Trevor. We’ll find someone, soon. There’s enough time isn’t there?”

“Yeah, but I’m not waitin’ til the last possible fuckin’ second to get a guy to help us out here.”

“But we still have time.”

“If you fuckin’ say so Ron.”

The three of them called it a night, as Trevor tossed around the idea of possibly getting Michael involved in his head. On one hand he wanted to out of spite just to make Amanda and the other hipsters mad, and on the other he didn’t want to screw up whatever new friendship he had started with Michael. Ron did say they had time to find someone soon. They weren’t exactly in a rush, but he still wanted to make sure their plan was concrete. They all went back to Wade’s, Trevor deciding to take a walk along the beach. He threw on the same playlist from earlier, watching the sunset. As he walked, he didn’t pay much mind to where he was going, bumping into someone.

“Ah fuck, watch where you’re going-”

“Shit, sorry man-”

As they spun around from the collision, he realized exactly who he had run into.

“Trevor?”

What the fuck?

“What the fuck? Are you following me or something?”

“Huh?”

“This is the third time I’ve seen you today. What are you even doing here?”

“Uh, it’s a public fuckin’ beach man.” He said, mocking the comment Trevor had made earlier.

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Hey, I’m just tellin’ you how it is. I didn’t purposely search for you, hell I didn’t even know you lived this way.”

“I do. So make like a tree and fuck off.” He said bitterly.

“Woah, chill the fuck out. What’s your deal? I thought we were cool man.”

“I don’t like being followed.”

“I just told you I wasn’t!”

“It doesn’t exactly seem like it. You just so happen to look for me this morning, and just happen to go to the same icecream place I went, and then I find you here? I mean Jesus-”

“I’m telling you, it’s all purely coincidence.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fuckin’ hell man..” He mumbled.

“Y’know, you’re as fuckin’ stubborn as Amanda is. I already told you-”

Trevor balled his fists, before jabbing a finger into Michael’s chest.

“Don’t fucking compare me to her.”

Michael threw his hands up defensively, not realizing he touched a nerve.

“Woah woah, easy dude. I didn’t think it was that bad between you guys.”

He exhaled loudly, unclenching his hands.

“It wasn’t. Isn’t. Just.. don’t compare me to her.”

Michael pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling hard himself.

“Look, I think you’re cool and all but you can’t flip out on me like that. I mean we are just getting to know each other y’know. I can’t have you wanting to bite my head off like that if I just so happen to keep running into you. I really am just trying to navigate the area better, so forgive me if I came off as some sorta fuckin’ stalker. Amanda went home and I had nothing better to do so I chose to walk over this way.”

“Hmph. Fine. Whatever.”

“So we good?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Now, since we’re already here why don’t we just hangout or something?”

Trevor folded his arms, trying to look like he didn’t want to spend another minute with him. It didn’t really work though, because he actually did want to talk to him more.

“If you insist.”

“Alrighty.”

The two of them started to head in the direction of the boardwalk, neither one speaking yet. After finding a bench to sit on as the sun sunk below the horizon, the silence was still there. This sort of thing was bizarre for both of them in different ways. Michael never really frequented these parts of LS, and Trevor never really hit it off with any kind of stranger. Ron and Wade were exceptions if anything, and he had known Lester for a while now. Yet there was something about this guy that didn’t make him feel like he was spending time with a stranger, even though he knew jack shit about him. He might as well try to make small talk.

“So I-”

“So uhh-”

They spoke over each other while trying to start up a conversation, making things feel a little more awkward.

“Shit sorry, you go first.”

“Nah nah you go.”

“Um. Okay. So.. tell me about yourself? We haven’t really talked about much besides music.”

“Yeah.. right. What do ya wanna know?”

“I just asked you to tell me about yourself, so it’s your job to decide what to say.”

Michael gave him a sardonic smile in response to that, partly because he wasn’t sure what to bring up about himself. It seemed like they were gonna be here a while if they wanted to say the most basic shit you say when getting to know someone.

“Well, I ain’t that interesting if you really need to know. I’m guessing you already know about my whole ‘affinity for the 80s’ thing, like the culture n shit that came from it. Real sick stuff.”

“If you say so.”

“Yeah. Anyway, if you really want to know plain shit about me though, I will tell ya that my favorite color’s blue.”

Trevor snickered at that.

“Pfft, seriously? We’re talking favorite colors now?”

“Hey man, you said you wanted to know more about me.”

“Uh yeah, but that’s so fuckin’ silly.”

“Maybe it is, but what about you? You got one?”

“Favorite color? You kiddin’?”

“I’m waiting..”

“Uh huh… I’ll give. Always liked the color red I guess. Like, in variety. Not picky about something as childish as that.”

“What’s childish about that?”

“Cuz only kids exchange that whole ‘oh what’s your favorite color?’ thing. It’s like if I were to ask you what your favorite dinosaur is.”

“Hmm.. I’d probably say a T-Rex.”

“Oh now you’re just pulling my dick. And no, I’m not telling you what mine is just because you did.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you though. That was all you.”

“Mm… shut it.”

“You got one though?”

“I’m not telling you!”

“Ah ah, I didn’t ask which one, I asked if you had one.”

“Well I don’t, so knock it off.”

“That’s fair. I won’t push.”

They grew silent for the second time that night, before Trevor mumbled something under his breath.

“It’s a pterodactyl..”

“What was that?”

He forced a breath through his nose, acting annoyed.

“It’s a fuckin’ pterodactyl. That’s mine. Okay?”

“Hah, okay. Any reason why?”

“You’re so nosy.”

“You’re the one who started this conversation about getting to know each other man.”

“Ugh, I know that.” He said, lightly shoving his shoulder.

“I think it’s cool that they could fly and shit. I like flying.”

“You like flying?”

“Loved it.”

“Wait, you tellin’ me you fly? Like, planes and shit?”

Trevor winced at the words, regretting what he just said.

“I did.. at some point. Air Force shit. They said I was one of the best they’d seen in a while but I.. left. Sort of.”

“Then why’d you leave?”

“I didn’t exactly leave on my own accord. More or less got kicked out.”

“How come-”

“I don’t like talking about it. I know we’re opening up or whatever the fuck but that.. that’s still too soon for me to want to bring up. Especially to someone I barely know.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He said, even though it really wasn’t. It’s not like Michael knew though, he really wasn’t trying to prod in a bad way.

It was almost pitch black by the time their conversation got to that point, only distant streetlight and the nearby pier lighting up their surroundings. The whole mood had shifted, and both of them decided to just break it off there.

“Hey uh, I’ll probably see you tomorrow man. If I’m with Amanda I think I’ll just send a wave or something your way.”

“Got it. See ya.”

“Bye.”

Trevor stayed put, watching Michael leave as he turned down a random one way street. This guy was tripping him out and he couldn’t pin point why. It was getting late though, and walked off himself back to Wade’s. He’ll save that vexed question for another night.

//ahhhhhh i rlly did not know what i wanted to do with this….,,., sorry if this wasn’t as good as the first two !! i alrdy know i repeated a bunch of stuff in there and i feel like it got kinda sloppy so again, soz (including typos or whtevr)

but uhhhh anyway yeah i cut it off here bc i wanted to continue some of this shit in the next chapter ig lol,, more stuff to come soon god willing

#gta v #grand theft auto v #grand theft auto 5 #trevor philips #michael townley #ron jakowski #wade hebert #midnight city au

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acrosstobear · 3 years

Text

f1 drivers as classic halloween costumes

qualifying @ imola is on halloween. need i say more?

Lewis: Nurse, but not a sexy one. We’re talking hospital scrubs, lab coat, stethoscope, the whole shebang. Out here honouring our front line workers cause he’s literally the best person alive.

Valterri: Clown that thinks he’s being funny but actually, he’s a really creepy clown and is scaring everyone away. give George the merc seat thx

Max: He’s putting in minimal effort for maximum payout. Yes, he IS wearing a scary and/or gory mask with RBR team clothes. The whole getup sounds scary to me.

Alex: You know my wholesome child is wearing some kind of animal onesie. Don’t even try to deny it.

Seb: Mad scientist. With the Albert Einstein inspired crazy wig, the makeup to make it look like he was just in a lab explosion... You just know this is a good costume.

Charles: Sexy devil and here are my reasons: 1) red 2) sexy 3) devil. Even if I wasn’t talking about costumes, you’d know I was talking about Sharl.

Lando: You KNOW this kid is putting on a morph suit and calling it a day. Classic popular kid move. I still love him anyways.

Carlos: Cringey tourist in a Hawaiian shirt. I was running out of ideas tbh but he gives me happy, ignorant vibes, just like an American tourist.

Daniel: He’s either dressing up as a cop or as a fire fighter, but both would definitely be the sexy, shirtless version. I’m gonna have to move on before I picture this one too much.

Esteban: 80’s workout instructor. It’s the gay chaotic energy I AM SO SORRY.

Lance: Superhero — so wholesome and so common and you KNOW he’s got the really expensive exact replica version that you’d wear at Comic Con rather than the cheap Costco lookalike.

Checo: Cowboy. SUCH A DAD COSTUME. I’m picturing now it boots with spurs, wide leg jean, denim on denim and the best cowboy hat money can buy.

Pierre: The daintiest, prettiest, fiercest cat of all time. PLEASE imagine little ears sticking out of his hair!!! Whiskers drawn on his face!!! I’m losing it please help

Daniil: Skeleton. I have so few feelings about Daniil, so a skeleton seemed fitting here lol.

Antonio: Pirate. ITS THE HAIR. I cant unsee this and now I’m picturing Antonio in Pirates of the Caribbean and honestly? I’m not upset.

Kimi: Sheet ghost. He’ll forcibly participate, but he quite literally pulled the sheets off the bed of the hotel that morning and didn’t even bother cutting holes for eyes.

Romain: I mean... Who would Romain be if he didn’t dress up as a chef? There’s literally no other option.

Kevin: Witch, cause he’s devious and petty and wants to get revenge on us all. For reference, I genuinely like Kevin.

George: I have three words for you: DANNY. ZUKO. GREASE. Just thinking about this one sent me into another universe but GEORGE IS DANNY CHANGE MY MIND.

Nicholas: This man is a blank slate. He goes as the second half of a very cringe couples costume that he has absolutely no input in.

(BONUS) Hulk: THE HULK. IM PRETTY SURE YOU GUESSED THAT BEFORE WE EVEN STARTED.

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blazehedgehog · 3 years

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Are you finished with Rockstar, or just Grand Theft Auto?

Maybe both, I dunno. I feel really, really burned by GTA5 and how it became so deeply subservient to GTA Online. The little bit I've played of GTA Online at launch was bizarre and not fun. Rockstar funneling ALL new content in to that, including enough story content to rival or even exceed the singleplayer, really gets my blood up. Especially because everything I've ever heard of GTA Online is that it's a nightmare hellscape full of unstoppable hackers constantly running rampant.

I liked the act of playing GTA5 but there's no doubt that older GTAs were a lot better in a lot of ways, at least structurally. Since finishing GTA5, I've gone back and played GTA3 to completion again and it's amazing how that game just says "Here is an objective. Complete it in any way you have means."

The example I always use is that there's a mobster exiting a strip club and you have to kill him. The game doesn't care how he dies, just that he dies. Maybe you snipe him from a block away, maybe you barricade the alley where he's parked and blow up his car with a few grenades, or maybe he leads you on a car chase around the city.

GTA4 and especially GTA5 don't have those moments. They have setpieces. You drive to a location, you watch a cutscene, you follow the checkpoint markers, do what the text tells you to do, and listen to the dialog. The whole open-ended nature that these games were founded on has been almost erased in favor of being more "cinematic." And when that's good, I guess it's fine, but I can't help but feel like we've lost something intrinsic to why people originally cared about these games. I mean, it's a series called "Grand Theft Auto," where the most basic act was stealing the cars you wanted to drive, and more often than not GTA5 refuses to progress if you aren't driving the specific vehicle provided for the mission.

And especially now, with what the Hitman games have shown us as far as providing a space where you can tackle a single assassination from hundreds of different angles, GTA's insistence on locking you down to doing things because "that's what the story says to do" feels archaic. GTA3 may be a deeply old looking game and have ancient, clumsy controls, but mechanically it feels way more contemporary than GTA5 does.

And then there's the story. People have praised Rockstar so much for these "crime dramas" and as time goes on I just don't feel it. San Andreas was great as a snapshot of the early 90's. Though I haven't played it, I assume Vice City is similarly remembered for being a snapshot of the 80's.

GTA4 and GTA5 feel deeply unrewarding, especially in their endings. Like, great, GTA5 took The Sopranos and smushed it together with, I dunno, Reservoir Dogs and Fargo, I guess? It doesn't really do anything for me. Especially not when it's set in a world where you have advertisements for beer called "Piss Water" and airports where their greatest joke is "Runway 69." It's still trying to be a parody... of the thing GTA is trying to do for serious.

And the ending of GTA5! The last few missions feel like a slap in the face. I won't spoil too much, but you get an option of one of several endings and all of them are bad. The canonical ending basically spells out that these characters learned nothing, changed nothing about themselves, and only just barely moved laterally in their lives. The whole game's story was completely pointless. That's part of why I felt so burned, because I expected DLC to give better epilogues to these guys, and then GTA Online came in and wrecked shop.

These kinds of decisions have earned Rockstar sweeping critical acclaim, and one starts to get this kind of... I dunno, vibe, from Rockstar, where they feel like they have to make these big indulgent cinematic "prestige" games. You felt this with GTA4, where the controls were a sluggish, slippery, laggy mess because they wanted to make sure you "felt every step Niko Bellic takes." Until you drive more than 15mph in a Sedan and struggle to bank around turns because you might as well be steering an ocean liner.

Hearing how people turned on Red Dead Redemption 2 reminds me a lot of how I now feel about GTA4. They made a game that when viewed from certain angles could almost be described as bad on purpose. They wanted to make it slow, and laborious, and clumsy because "that's just what being a cowboy really was, maaaaan. We're making a statement about technology. It's important."

GTA6 could bring me back if it's a significantly new direction for the series, but it sounds like the probably-true rumors about that game triple down on GTA Online, something I deeply, deeply will never care about. I do not want a Grand Theft Auto live services game where I'm expected to complete missions with a squad of randos. I can count the number of online games that have hooked me on one hand. (Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead 2, Splatoon, and Fortnite. Full stop. And those first two were almost exclusively with friends only.)

But I just don't care. I don't care about GTA Online, I don't care about RDR2, I don't care about GTA6, I don't care about about Rockstar anymore. I feels like they fell off the deep end of loving the smell of their own farts (which mostly just smell like money, at this point).

They have lost me.

#questions #anonymous #rockstar games #gta5 #gta6 #gta online #red dead redemption screenshots

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lesbiancarat · 2 years

Note

Please cowboy svt lives free in my mind all day now. I cannot stop watching it and the same can be said to cowboy svt lol. You can always count on svt to bring something new to performances.

Welp o may have jinxed some stuff for svt joining rhythm hive lol. So remember the icons i mentioned? Welll... turns out you need to buy diamonds in order to get them. Now when I said about them earlier, I was talking about mainly that you could go ahead and spend the free diamonds you saved up to buy icons but for some odd reason (maybe I just realized this and it may have been added in an update before) they switched it that you must use paid icons for like 80% of the game items, icons included. You can't use the diamonds you saved up which is frustrating that you can't. Like what's the point of the diamonds people saved up like myself, if we cannot use them for something as silly as icons or stickers when that's locked by you have to pay for them. When I say I got peed off, I did lol. I went on twitter of all places and sure enough others are also complaining about it, being confused about why this was changed. It was one of the selling points that they were more fair with getting icons compared to superstar which is very limited and you need to spend alot of money sometimes. Speaking of money, the birthday themes omg. 70$ (for me at least) if you wanna have a birthday icon which is something others are annoyed with because the birthday icons from before were welp, free. You logged in on the birthday date and viola you got an icon but now for some odd reason hybe changed it that you don't get a fancy icon or something. Especially fans of svt were more confused because I was also under the impression that since svt are new, they will have free icons to complete the birthday theme from before. Alot is getting money grubby and its leaving me a bad taste. The fact stickers are also made by free and not free which I would be more chill with If it wasn't like I said, majority is behind paid diamonds. The diary idea is cool but does need to be worked on more imo? Its a nice way to be creative and unique for your like, home. They changed the ui so it looks more inviting but I need to get used to it lol. For some odd reason they removed a gameplay feature without making a statement about it? Its the mix stages which basically are 3 songs are selected for you to play and you earn rewards for completing them. Why its gone, idk. Maybe they are reworking it? Should have explained it because I was searching for it for so long lolol. Now gameplay wise I do agree that difficulty is up to debate. I read some fans called it too easy while for me, it is tricky so comes down to I guess how you play? Now for the beatmaps they feel kinda familiar but also no? Now granted the game has mainly newer songs and the last song I played in superstar was fear so I played the hard aka 3 star songs i remembered in superstar and I feel like some of it is familiar but also no? Then again its been a year so I could be wrong lol. I do like we can play full or short versions of the songs. Do my fingers fall off after I played clap full version? Yes but it was fun lol. Rhythm hive updates songs weirdly like sometimes you assume its the newer songs but they have yet to add a new bts song so expect songs being added in a random way lol. The cards haven't changed, it still isn't you can view by new cards or not which many are asking for this change. The fact they have it separate from artist is odd because they didn't have it like that when it first came out. Yes you had to pick your favorite artist but it was basically not changing. You just had say like txt music playing in the home of the game and it seemed like you got luckier with cards? I swore this helped me get better cards when having a favorite artist picked (its why txt is my best cards from this lol) but it functioned like the superstar games where you didn't have to worry about the other artist if you didn't want to like you said. You could have easily used their cards to upgrade to your favorite artist cards. I prefer this route because just like you, it helped me get into other artist for sure or I found new songs to bop to on a playlist! How are you enjoying the game if I may ask?

It is a new month also dino's bday so happy birthday to that lil buddy. They grow up so fast djjsjsjs (also know as the most chaotic month for birthdays if you like more than one group lol)

yeah i noticed the diamonds thing when i downloaded the app and hated it immediately dkfjg, but if they used to all be lumped together that's even more stupid. same with the birthday icons, i didn't realize they used to be free since i've only been playing after svt got added. but it really sounds like they decided to go from one extreme to another, with having a lot of content available for free and then suddenly making it super expensive. which is definitely annoying as a new user to see all this content behind a paywall but i can imagine how furious y'all must have been if you were used to certain features being free and they suddenly changed it 😭 obviously as users i'm sure we'd just prefer everything to be free but as far as my realistic expectations go i'm used to superstar and other non-rhythm mobile games where the majority of content can be purchased for free, but there's an incentive to pay for currency bc it takes so long to save up for certain items... so you're paying for the convenience and to speed things up, but you still have the OPTION of just saving up for something, which feels more fair

are the mix stages not the thing that's in the live stages? there's 3 different songs each day under the live stages that have little rewards so it sounds similar. or was it a different thing entirely? but yeah even if it was just moved to a different spot i definitely feel like they should have notified about it

as far as the difficulty, i feel like rhythm hive is definitely easier overall. like, i'm able to actually pass all the levels on hard difficulty, and most of them i can do so without missing any notes. whereas on superstar there were a good number of difficult levels i had no hope of ever beating. which on one hand is nice bc i don't have to get frustrated at not being able to beat a level, but on the other hand now that i've played the svt levels enough i kind of want more of a challenge. i will say the chapter levels at least add an extra difficulty since they have specific criteria to pass (im currently stuck on level 26... free me, i never want to hear rock with you again). and the types of quests are catered toward the difficulty of the gameplay. for example, a lot of the missions on superstar would require you to get 3 stars (aka not missing any notes), whereas rhythm hive has quests for all marvelous (hitting all the notes and with perfect timing), which is more suited for easier gameplay. although tbh i hate the all marvelous missions with a passion bc it basically forces me to play easy mode which is too boring for me dfdgk

i have been enjoying the game, i've been playing it almost every day and doing all of the quests and getting serotonin from upgrading my cards dkfjd. the gameplay was frustrating at first bc i felt the notes were too close together, but then i realized that putting it on 5x speed is more what i'm used to and it makes it a lot easier for me to play. i've been enjoying the gameplay since then. but i still can't say i'm glad they switched to this from superstar. part of that is just because it's a change--regardless of how good the rhythm hive is or could have been, it's still frustrating to have lost all the progress in upgrading cards, to have waited a year with no rhythm game, to have lost the particular beatmaps of songs, and to have lost gameplay for songs and whole artists in the transition. but there are also things about the app itself that are frustrating, mainly the paywall and the decreased difficulty

yes! happy birthday month to dino as well as dk and vernon! even within svt it's a busy month for birthdays dkfjhg

#melia.ask #📖 anon

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shefanispeculator · 3 years

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I'm slightly disappointed to log onto Zoom and find Gwen Stefani in Los Angeles. I wanted to see the ranch. Stefani spent most of the pandemic in Oklahoma with her fiancé and fellow The Voice coach Blake Shelton, with whom she has recently collaborated on a string of country radio hits, alongside a kitsch Christmas song. For a ska-pop superstar, it's a pivot, but Stefani and Shelton are cute together — picture-perfect in their opposite attraction.

Country Gwen exists, her urban counterpart assures me, but on this particular MacBook she's nowhere to be seen. I'm not sure what crude regional stereotypes I was expecting (Stefani spitting sunflower seeds? Shelton line dancing in the background?) but I get Californian sunshine instead, illuminating a version of Stefani more familiar from my teenage years, when Love. Angel. Music. Baby and its follow-up The Sweet Escape spawned millions of fans, haters and imitators. She's platinum blonde, red lipsticked and wearing a black-and-white outfit that matches the decor. The checkerboard pattern can be traced back to an even earlier era, when Stefani and her No Doubt bandmates were '80s teenagers obsessed with two-tone acts like Madness and The Specials.

Cowboy boots wouldn't fit this picture, and nor would Stefani's glitzy showgirl outfits from The Voice, where she just wrapped another season as a celebrity coach. As she prepares to release her fourth solo record, and enters the fifth decade of an extraordinarily successful music career, Gwen Stefani is re-re-branding as... Gwen Stefani.

Top: Local Boogeyman, Pants: GCDS, Shoes: Valentino, Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own, Engagement ring: Gwen's own

"But what is that?" Stefani asks with seriousness, as we consider the possibility of some essential, inherent Gwen. "Everyone's interpretation of what I am and how I sing, I mean, that's what this era is about for me."

Said era kicked off late last year, with the music video for "Let Me Reintroduce Myself." It saw Stefani playfully revisit the wardrobes of album cycles past, from the ab-bearing tomboy tank tops of "Hollaback Girl" to the club kid blue hair mascara of '90s No Doubt. Her Harajuku Girls also make a return. The entire visual is a huge flex, not only for the sheer volume of iconic career moments recreated in dutiful detail, but the fact Stefani can still fit into the clothes originally worn during all of them. She looks eerily the same, frighteningly good, ageing in reverse at the same pace as her frequent collaborator Pharrell.

"It's really a blessing to be able to have such a long career, where there really is nothing to prove anymore."

Pop stars are expected to be young forever, in looks but also in their capacity to innovate new trends. Which makes the nostalgic music video a curious choice. Doesn't Stefani know by now that the cardinal rule of pop is to avoid repeating yourself? That even the hottest artists in the world are basically required by law to create completely new eras from scratch every six months in order to appease fans and maintain maximum TikTok-ready relevance?

Of course she does, but that doesn't mean she has to participate. Stefani isn't trying to chase down her contemporaries, despite clearly possessing the physical fitness required. "It's really a blessing to be able to have such a long career, where there really is nothing to prove anymore," she says. "It's a different energy. You know, it's really just about doing it to do it, as opposed to trying to make a statement or make a mark."

Corset: Ronald van der Kemp, Bracelets: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Engagement ring: Gwen's own

Even the Saweetie remix of her latest single "Slow Clap" happened on a whim, after the younger artist happened to post a video of herself vibing to Stefani's 2004 single "Luxurious" on Instagram Stories. They knocked out the song and accompanying video in a day. Neither seems bothered by the Old Navy meme. "It was just this little video that we did on the fly," Stefani says. "It just happened. It just feels good to put new stuff out there."

Stefani completed a two-year Vegas greatest hits residency in 2019, which gave her a sense of perspective on her own legacy. "You make a new record because that's what is exciting for you," she says. "But people really just want to hear the records after a while that were the backdrop to their lives, a 'Don't Speak' or a 'Just a Girl' or a 'Hollaback Girl,' or whatever it was for them. So, you know, it's hard — you can only be new when you're new, and that's just the truth, and I know that."

She says she was pleasantly surprised that "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" charted at all, and that she only found out it did when Shelton walked into the kitchen to show her the iTunes numbers. "I burst out crying with joy, because it was like, 'Whoa, really?' I think I'd set myself up to be quite realistic about where I'm at."

Stefani, endlessly polite and self-deprecating in conversation, which on her end mostly consists of endearingly earnest run-on monologues, says she still has "tons" of insecurities. I get the impression she has been trying harder to give herself credit lately. She recalls recently hearing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on the car radio and finding herself in awe of the song's timeless catchiness.

Suit: Balmain, Earrings and choker: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own

"But then I started thinking," she says, in a goofy Cher Horowitz tone. "Like, I have a few of those myself." She talks of this realization as a genuine breakthrough, which is a little worrying for a woman who has sold 40 million records. No shit, she has a "few of those." More of them than Lauper, actually.

More new music is coming along slowly, but I've caught Stefani on a day when the horizon looks closer than usual, and while things haven't quite fallen into place yet, she's feeling more confident that they eventually will. "I'm at the end," she declares. "The idea of going for a session and not being with my kids or the idea of taking time away from Blake doesn't fuel my fire like it did two months ago. I need to decide, wrap it up, put out the project."

Crucially, there's no rush. The album will simply arrive sometime this year, tracklist and title currently undecided.

"You're talking to me at a weird transitional time," Stefani says repeatedly throughout our conversation, which sometimes takes on the cathartic tone of therapy. But having time in the first place is a new feeling.

Bracelet and choker: Dana Kemp (The Residency Experience), Obsession necklace: Lidow Archive, Gold necklaces: Gwen's own, Clothing: Blumarine, Boots: Philipp Plein

NO DOUBT WERE A BAND for nine years before getting on the radio. Enough time for Stefani and bassist Tony Kanal to be in a long term relationship then break up and write a whole hit album about it. All of the Fleetwood Mac drama was resolved pre-fame, which enabled the group to capitalize on the surprise success of Tragic Kingdom singles like "Don't Speak" and "Just a Girl" with a world tour that lasted almost three years. Three more albums followed, and Stefani has reinforced her household name status in every decade since, launching a solo career and multiple fashion lines while never totally cutting the cord from her original musical project.

In other words, record executives have been dictating Stefani's schedule since the mid-'90s. She even sings about it on Love. Angel. Music. Baby opener "What You Waiting For," in which her biological clock ticks like a metronome. Interscope Co-Founder Jimmy Iovine, who discovered No Doubt and continued to work with Stefani on her solo output, was quick to point out that his client's prime childbearing years were also her last opportunity to cross over into pop stardom. And after her first record went number one, it only made sense to lay down some new tracks straight away.

"Whether or not I get the response that I would hope to get — because that's what I'm used to, because I'm so damn spoiled and I've tasted the blood of success — I still got to do the creative journey."

"I had the baby, the first one, and it was only like eight weeks after I had him, that Jimmy was calling me saying, you've got to go in the studio with Akon," Stefani recalls cheerfully. "Like, Akon wants to work with you. Like, no, I'm nursing my baby. But then I couldn't say no." And then? "We wrote 'Sweet Escape.'" And then? "I went on a world tour." And then? "In the month that I got home from that one hundred and whatever shows it was, I got pregnant with Zuma. So then that was that." (It wasn't. Admittedly: "Then it was like, No Doubt, let's do another record.")

Things are different now: "You can just drop singles and you don't have to put a record out. But if you want to put a record out, you can work on it slowly." But even as she talks of slowing down, speculating that she might not even go on tour after the pandemic ends, in the next sentence Stefani's back to admitting that there's more work to be done, that she wants to write a couple more songs for her new record, "just to make sure."

Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience) Choker: Chanel, Necklaces: Gwen's own, Gloves: Laurel DeWitt, Top: Local Boogeyman

"The creation is the thing that fuels me so much," she says. "Whether or not I get the response that I would hope to get — because that's what I'm used to, because I'm so damn spoiled and I've tasted the blood of success — I still got to do the creative journey."

Like any good lyricist, she reaches out to her listener, hoping to convey a more universal point. "It's just probably the same for you as a writer," she guesses. "You know, it's the anticipation. You're in it now. You're getting the information. This is what you live for. You're doing the interview and then you're going to write it. And that's going to be the challenge."

GWEN STEFANI WAS PUTTING out diary entry pop when Olivia Rodrigo was still in diapers and Taylor Swift was but a humble Pennsylvania Christmas tree heiress. She struggles to pen lyrics that aren't confessional ("I'm not a creative writer when it comes to like, 'Oh, let's just write a sad song about something that didn't happen to me'"), and occasionally re-traumatizes herself when performing old hits. Return of Saturn deep cut "Dark Blue" triggers "crazy, just horrible" recollections of a past relationship. Even "Don't Speak" felt emotional onstage in Vegas.

But after releasing an excruciating divorce album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like, in 2016, Stefani is back to writing happy songs only. She's getting married, after all. She won't be releasing any of her trademark breakup anthems anytime soon. "Girl," she laughs, "I think I've had my fair share."

Bow: Laurel DeWitt, Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Bracelets: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Shirt: Vintage Archive, Dress: Erdem, Tights: Capezio, Shoes: Marc Jacobs (Lidow Archive)

Stefani and Shelton's relationship has puzzled some fans. Shelton, a country radio phenomenon, never endorsed Trump in the 2016 election, but he did come close. Earlier this year, he was criticized for releasing a song called "Minimum Wage," about finding small joys during periods of economic struggle, at the peak of a recession.

Is Gwen Stefani a Republican now? She's not offended by the question, or really anything I have to ask. She has been famous for so long that she expects and even embraces scrutiny. "If you're going to be a star, that's what you get," she says. "You know what I mean? You get what you get, and you don't get upset, at all."

As for her politics, it's read-between-the-lines."I can see how people would be curious, but I think it's pretty obvious who I am," she says. "I've been around forever. I started my band because we were really influenced by ska, which was a movement that happened in the late '70s, and it was really all about people coming together. The first song I ever wrote was a song called 'Different People,' which was on the Obama playlist, you know, a song about everyone being different and being the same and loving each other. The very first song I wrote."

One of very few multi-racial bands playing stadium shows for hoardes of American teenangers in the 1990s, No Doubt did very literally embody those second-wave ska principles of inclusion. Stefani even wore bindis and saris on stage as a symbol of cultural exchange with Kanal, who is Indian-American, briefly kickstarting a white girl facial jewelry trend that it's safe to say would not fly in 2021.

Rings (left): Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience)

"The Specials and The Selecter and all those groups, and what they were doing in the late '70s was this whole kind of anti-racism, we come together, Black and white ska movement," Stefani elaborates on the band's founding principles. "And we were sort of echoing that in the '80s when we did it, we were like the third generation of ska."

Ska she's always happy to discuss, but Stefani was brought up to keep her electoral preferences personal, and that rule has held for her entire career. "The whole point of voting, is you have this personal space to feel how you feel," she explains. "I use my platform to share my life story and to engage with people and to exchange whatever gift I was giving. I'm not a political science major. I am not that person. Everyone knows that. So why would I even talk about it?"

"I don't need to go on Instagram and say 'girl power.' I just need to live and be a good person and leave a trail of greatness behind me."

It never has been. Looking back, it's weird that "Just a Girl" is so integral to Gwen Stefani's brand. She's never written anything else with remotely the same message, and or publicly identified as a feminist. To Stefani, it's just a song about growing up, and "all of a sudden you realize your gender." It wasn't meant as a protest or anthem: in fact, being her breakout hit, she didn't think anyone other than her bandmates and some local fans would ever hear it.

"I don't even know if I knew what feminist at that time was," she says. "I was very sheltered growing up with my family. I wasn't political. I wasn't angry." Even now: "I don't need to go on Instagram and say 'girl power.' I just need to live and be a good person and leave a trail of greatness behind me. Stop talking about it and stop trying to bully everybody about it. Just do it. And that's how I feel like I've lived my life."

WHEN STEFANI WAS GROWING up in 1970s Anaheim, her father got a job doing market research for Yamaha, which required frequent business trips to Japan. He'd bring home Sanrio toys, as well as anecdotes about the Tokyo district of Harajuku, where teenagers were dressing like Elvis, and "taking all these American things and making them Japanese." His daughter was entranced. "He would be telling me these things my whole life, like my whole life. I had a deep fascination."

So when No Doubt played Japan in 1996, Stefani describes, "It was a pretty big deal for me." The tour was the first time she'd traveled outside of the United states, save one trip to Italy when she was 21. "I just was inspired," she recalls. "It's a world away. And at that time it was even further, because you couldn't see it on the internet. I don't think a younger generation can even imagine what it's like to not have access to the world."

From then on, Japan became one of Stefani's biggest career motivations, especially when it came to her solo albums. If she could just write more hits, she'd get to tour there again, see the street style, visit the vintage stores. "If you read the actual lyrics [in 'What You Waiting For?'], it talks about being a fan of Japan and how if I do good, I get to go back there," she says.

In the meantime, she decided she'd bring Japan to Los Angeles. "I never got to have dancers with No Doubt. I never got to change costumes. I never got to do all of those fun girl things that I always love to do. So I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls — because I never got to hang with girls — and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love. Those are my homies. That's where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku."

Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience, Gold Necklaces: Gwen's own, Top: Local Boogeyman, Pants: GCDS, Shoes: Valentino

Dancers Maya Chino ("Love"), Jennifer Kita ("Angel"), Rino Nakasone ("Music") and Mayuko Kitayama ("Baby") would go on to accompany Stefani for her next two album cycles, dancing on stage and in her videos while also making silent, but very well-dressed, awards show appearances. Kita, who'd grown up in LA, visited Japan for the first time on Stefani's tour.

In a 2006 interview with Blender magazine, comedian Margaret Cho compared the Harajuku Girls to a minstrel show. The backlash against them has been consistent ever since. Stefani, to this day, disagrees.

"If we didn't buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn't have so much beauty, you know?" she says. "We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more."

Hello Kitty merch was harder to come by when she was a kid, but in other ways, life felt easier. "I think that we grew up in a time where we didn't have so many rules. We didn't have to follow a narrative that was being edited for us through social media, we just had so much more freedom."

Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own, Dress: GCDS, Shirt: Faith Connexion, Tights: Capezio, Shoes: Marc Jacobs (Lidow Archive)

Stefani's penchant for rule breaking has always been apparent in her music as much as her aesthetic. Genre-wise, she's a randomista. The chart success of No Doubt's bouncing ska beats felt like an accidental post-grunge-era glitch in the matrix, and it's insane to this day that one of Stefani's biggest solo hits samples "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof, by way of '90s British dancehall duo Louchie Lou & Michie One. That another, "Wind It Up," features earnest Sound of Music yodeling.

"I just make up whatever comes out," Stefani says of her songwriting process. "I don't even know where it comes from. I feel like it just comes from the source. It's not trained, and it's not perfect, it's just real."

She looks back on the Love.Angel.Music.Baby era as unusually experimental and artistically fulfilling. "It was just a really incredible time, and a very creative time. I feel like it was just a really creative project."

STEFANI VIEWS HER CAREER success as mostly a matter of luck. Pop stardom is God-given and mysterious."Because the fact I made it, it doesn't make any sense," she reflects. "It's written in the stars. You know what I'm saying? I'm not the most talented. I'm not the most pretty. I'm not the most smart. None of those things. But I made it, right?"

Clothing: Blumarine, Bracelet and choker: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Obsession necklace: Lidow Archive, Gold necklaces: Gwen's Own

Every week on The Voice she watches objectively gifted musicians fail at becoming artists. "I watched people that went through that without seeing their faces, without knowing what color they are. And I chose the ones that pulled my heartstrings. And even though they were so talented, none of them have had careers. It's made me look at myself and even feel even more amazed by the fact that anyone cared or cares."

If all of this is actually so out of her control, then Stefani feels safe stepping back a little bit. "I don't have that fuel in me like I used to, because I already won," she says. And now she has other victories in mind. "Being a good human, a good mother. I want to have a good marriage. I want to be a good wife. I want to win at finding peace. I want to win at finding other hobbies that I'm good at."

But at the same time? "If I'm inspired, I'm going to try to do something with that inspiration." That's the most fun part: whatever else comes after has always been an amazing bonus.

The "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" era, whatever form it may eventually take, isn't a desperate grab at former glory. It's Stefani refusing to evolve for the sake of it. She's poking fun at the whole idea of having to compete with past personas alongside current ones, while acknowledging the fact she's grateful to still be in the game at all.

"You don't know what you're doing," she says, somehow both confident and resigned. "You're a cartoon of yourself at this point, and you don't know what people are thinking. They're wondering, what? Why are you still here? And I'm like, I don't know. They said I could be here. So I'm here!"

Photography: Jamie Nelson Styling: Nicola Formichetti Hair: Sami Knight Makeup: Michael Anthony Nails: Carolyn Orellana Wardrobe director: Marta Del Rio Production: Katrina Kudlick Digitatech: Sean MacGillivray Logo design: Luca Devinu Story: Kat Gillespie

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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scourgadow · 3 years

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im definitely not ripping off my friend by making a list of au ideas i have no siree //gonna slap this under a readmore cause i. well i say a lot. all of the time. i tried so hard to format this Good but tumblr fucked me up i am so sorry

so first-off i know i already have one WIP AU (Auckland) on ao3 so i wont talk about That one cause like. spoilers. i actualyl have it like 80% created so its likely gonna truly get finished for once and i dont wanna ruin shit

the other one ive posted about is something me and ben (catgirlrepublic) have worked on together its not at all close to done or anything but it's. a fun little crossover. Between jdate and my fuckinuhm. Original characters story “Untitled Villains Project”. the sketches of the comic version ive started is actually my pinned post 👉👈 its like the first chunk of the story, i think half of part 1? yea.

Tldr john fucking Somehow is able t oget into contact with a certain curious scientist from another reality who’d just love to study the Soy Sauce, most certainly not for her own nefarious purposes

John and Dave meet up with the scientist, her name is Boss, and her lab assistant, Toxic, and after a bit of a preliminary Vibe Check where john determines her trustworthy (which Dave doesnt agree with,) the two agree to be taken to the world UVP is set in. from there they stay in Boss’s lab (big old fucking abandoned military lab). John and Toxic are fast friends due to mutual love-of-chaos. John n Dave get to fuckin, camp out on an air mattress.

The day after they arrive, the two get split up, not exactly intentionally; big plot points of UVP are liek. Fueled by Boss sending Toxic to go fetch her “research materials,” which are usually important artifacts

Fuckin side note i guess i have to explain my dumb bullshit: Boss’s, uh, field of expertise so to speak is actually fckin, basically the scientific study of magic and superpowers n shit like that. This shit’s all real in that world. Toxic’s got fuckin superpowers, so do 4 other main characters, whatever. It’s got a bit to do with spirituality, iss Boss’s hypothesis. So she has Toxic fetch important artifacts that might have “energies” to them. The thing is actually way more fuckin complictated than that, this is just Boss’s initial hypothesis.

Motherfucking anyways. So Boss gives Toxic a job to do, and John get excited about how Cool that sounds, and ends up going with Toxic, leaving Boss and Dave alone. Neither is thrilled about this. But Dave and Boss get to have a bit of conversation (while Toxic and John are off bonding and having a good time) and come to a… mutual grudging understanding of some kind. They still dont like each other though lmao

Theres gonna be deeper shit going on but we havent sorted it out yet/tbh havent like Written For It in a while but i still like thinking about it a lot lol

Also pretty sure our endgame is john and dave steal toxic and bring them back with em lmao boss is kind of not nice and toxic would most certainly be better off in Undisclosed. Actually theyd fucking love it. Theyd become a local cryptid im sure. Undisclosed’s mothman is a teleporting spike baby.

I have. Another crossover AU that i might. Post something about for halloween? Maybe? If i have it finished?

Crosses over into, you guessed it, another one of my original-character projects. God, am i vain or something?

I promise this is just because i think blue and dave should get to team up to beat up some monsters

Quick briefing on my fuckinuh. Original character story, this one doesnt have a name (yet? Idk lol my work never actually goes anywhere sso who gives a shit). It centers around two grim reapers, Red (26, bi woman) and Blue (22, aroace agender asshole). In this reality or whatever, grim reapers function kind of like low-level office workers. They get told who’s going to die + when by some middle-management types, and upper management only involve themselves when punishment needs to be doled out. These Higher-Ups can be seen as analogous to Korrok; they’re decidedly not human, never were, and fucking terrifyingly powerful. Additionally, grim reapers are sort of .. designed to be “background noise” people. In reality theyre supernatural beings and, uh, look Real Fuckin Weird (the whole deal has a neon aesthetic im terrible at drawing uwu) but most humans just perceive them like extras in a movie. A body’s there but the camera’s not focused on it.

To the narrative: the shit starts when Red n Blue get relocated to Undisclosed. Relocation is something that just happens every now and then to reapers; they usually work in teams, but they get split up into different cities to avoid any strong bonds forming (a counter-union strategy from the Higher-Ups).

Red, Blue, John and Dave end up running into each other for the first time in a McDonalds where John n Dave are getting some 4am “hey, we just survived another horrific monster fight” celebration burgers. John and Dave are the only two people who can see how… strange Red and Blue are. Nobody else notices.

John unintentionally pisses Blue off, leading to Blue whacking him upside the head with a dildo bat. They all four get kicked out of McDonald’s. Dave and Red both are less than thrilled

Blue and John end up resolving their differences, somehow. Red and Dave briefly bond over their dumbass best friends being, well, dumbasses. They all part ways amicably.

somehow-or-other (idk yet) they end up running into each other a few more times, and eventually john invites them over to his place, and the four (plus Amy now!) get to know each other a little better

while there, Blue gets a text about some guy who's gonna die and John offers to drive them to where that's gonna go down. they take him up on the offer and get to have a bit of one-on-one conversation

after that ordeal though Blue has had Enough of people and bails, leaving John to head home alone

theres a sort of mirror-development going on with the five of em. Red, John, and Amy would all like everyone to get along, though theyre a bit tentative about it (John moreso than the other two, actually, jsut cause. well Red n Blue could still be Sauce Monsters). Dave and Blue on the other hand do Not like people enough for this shit, and Dave's not unconvinced theyre Sauce Monsters. he will not trust them until proven he should

the story's kinda nebulous but i got an idea for some Shit going down that involves both Sauce Monsters and also the Higher-Ups to have some fuckin absolute chaos go down.

Oops! All Trans

Everybody is transgender. Everyone

Ive actually workshopped this one both with ben (catgirlrepublic) and ghost (ghost-wannabe) lmao its a fun lil concept ive had from the get-go cause i mean. What’s an internet tran gonna do other than hit all their favourite media with the Everyone’s Trans beam

Dave transitioned post-high school and faked his death for it. People go missing in Undisclosed all the damned time, after all. He moved to the next city over, transitioned fully, then came back as a completely new man. Yes i know this doesnt exactly fit with the “everyone knows David from high school” thing alright, hush.

Anytime anyone brings up John’s old best friend (pre-transition Dave) John throws an entire fit like an overdramatic grieving widow. Full-on sobbing “why would you bring her up?! I miss her so much—” to the point that people just stop bringing up because Jesus Christ That Sure Is Uncomfortable KJHGFDS.

This is a scheme he and Dave came up with prior to Dave leaving, though Dave hadnt exactly anticipated John putting on this much of a performance about it— but it’s stopped Dave from ever having tto hear his deadname again, so hey.

Amy transitioned sometime in middle school/early high school. Her family was super supportive and loved her a ton and most people just know her as Amy. she was super shy her whole life really so. Yeah. people just dont think to bring it up lmao also i Feel Like big jim would absolutely wallop anyone who gave her trouble of any kind

John’s nonbinary (genderfluid specifically) and not exactly Interested in transitioning ? like hes fine with how he is. mostly.

he came out to Dave in high school but hes not out to anyone else exactly. Maybe his bandmates. Probably any other trans person in Undisclosed knows, too, cause theyre safe to tell lmao. Johns mostly a “he/him out of convenience” kinda nb who’s cool with any pronouns but does prefer they/them most. Dave and Amy use they/them when the trio are alone

Also this is a totally self-indulgent caveat that i think would be great, Dave’s actually agender but because he's transmasc and transitioned when he thought there were really only two options, and being Boy at least felt less weird than being Girl, he just kind of assumed he was a dude. It’s only through a lot of (like fucking years and years hes probably in his 30s/40s when he puts 2 and 2 together on this one) talks about gender with John that he realizes he actually feels like No Gender. Masc aesthetic with none gender.

I Just Think It’d Be Neat Is All Okay

Also Amy came out to Dave about being trans early on in them seeing each other and his response was to get very nervous before blurting out “me too” and then just being too embarrassed to talk about it for the rest of the day. Hes got a lot of hangups on talking about it actually it takes years for him to get comfortable in that

by contrast when Amy comes out to John about it his response is to yell “EYYY ME TOO” and give her a big ol hug lmao

I think itd be neatt if Amy ran a like. Transfem help/advice blog on tumblr. Kind of helped-with by John who can give her transfem nb insight for certain asks. I also just think that would be neat.

Cowboy AU - i put this one last cause its got drawings to it actually. Theyll be at the bottom

Basically just. Hey you ever watched a western. I think they look neat

This is another one me n ben have come up with lol

The soy sauce and all that shit still exist, im not sure where korrok fits in yet but ill figure it out

Theres no real like solid narrative yet ? but heres the barebones of everybody’s arcs.

John

Johns an absolute troublemaker, Of Course. Hes wanted in several towns for absolutely stupid shit. Hes a loner who shows up, causes chaos, gets drunk, does some drugs, runs away if people get too mad at him

He definitely had the same kind of deal with the soy sauce as in canon— he was at some kind of party, somebody offered it, he took it cause why the fuck wouldnt he, now he can see monsters and shit

Hes kind of a mooch also. Like. dont let him stay in your barn man he’ll never fucking leave and drink all your booze.

He runs into Dave when they happen to just, cross paths in the same town. the bullshit John stirs up ends up involving Dave in a way that makes it seem like it's his fault too, and they both get run out of town

after that he just tags along after Dave. hes decided this guy's Cool he wants to stick around. Dave is pissed at first, but not enough to shoot him or anything, and eventually, John grows on him

Dave

Dave also is a loner but unlike John hes simply so fucking awkward and bad with people. He doesnt feel like he belongs anywhere so he just travels

He’s the stereotypical Lone Ranger tbh. He wanders from town to town, solving their problems, though hed deny its out of any moral obligation (it kinda is, a little bit, tbh. He does like feeling useful). He shows up, fixes things, leaves. He's kind of a legend but most people think he's hiding something dark. other people jsut know him as that guy who farted real loud in the middle of the saloon and promptly skipped town out of sheer embarrassment. you know how it goes with Dave

He ends up involved with the Soy Sauce when a snake (not Actually a snake,) bites him. The snake’s more like the wig-monsters, really. Anyway, it injects him with the soy sauce, he fucking trips balls in the middle of the desert, he can see monsters now

He runs into John and shit goes tits-up, as said, but they become traveling buddies after that. he'd never say so, but he's glad for the company, actually. it's nice. hes not used to companionship but he feels a strange kind of easiness hanging out with John....

not sure how the Monster Dave concept will like fit in to this reality but like. trust me i want it in here. I'll Figure It Out.

Amy

Amy’s been living in a town John and Dave end up passing through and she is very curious about these two new Handsome Strangers who claim to fight monsters and just kinda. Persistently tags along til they let her join for real

Her family’s all dead, unfortunately, just like in canon, and she’s been living alone for a few years before meeting John n Dave. she had nothing left in that town to stay for, she'd been fantasizing about escaping on wild adventures for a long time and this felt a little like a dream come true. (Dave still gives her a spiel about how Difficult it is, but really, her fantasies were pretty grounded-in-reality already. i jsut think thats how she is, yknow?)

Shes the first person to react to the whole “we see monsters” shit with a kind of “oh, okay. neat” kind of response lmao

John and Dave fix whatever the fuck is up with her town (maybe that’s where the Korrok shit can fit, who knows) and Amy ends up being integral to that. After, she insists they take her with them because “they need her now” and Dave just cant really say no. John too is very much "the more the merrier!" and hes actually glad to have another person along he loves people lmao

At the start she has long hair but after she joins them she chops it short with a knife for convenience

also she still is an amputee. justt. idk. it was a wagon/stagecoach accident rather than a car accident lmao. just to clarify since i hadnt mentioned it, i wouldnt rob her of her ghost hand or yknow. all of the significance to her character that Missing A Hand has. although also now im going to have to research what was used as painkillers way-back-when, but im betting shes still got, like, her pain pills, they probably had those, maybe i wouldnt have to try too hard there. old timey medicine could be WACK though,

Shitload

Yeah hes in tthis shit mostly cause i liked designing his cowboy self lmao

Hes a kid (like 16, 17, technically i think in those days that was more Young Man than Kid but whatever. Hes Young i mean.) who got possessed by the Worms out in the desert and, by his family’s perception, just went missing!

Hes also a wanderer, but he ended up at the same town john and dave met in, at that same time, and starts following them after, already aware of who/what they are.

He keeps his face covered 24/7. actually he covers a Majority of his self for reasons. kinda want him to be a slightly more horrifying Worm Entity rather than human idk,

I kinda dont have much for this boy yet sorry Shitload

images !

with some editing notes for me cause im doing a very specific aesthetic with this lmao. i might change some lil details/colours though ...... idk

im also kinda 🤔 about shitload's colour palette. i want things assoicated w the sauce to be black'n'red predominantly but i think his palette might mirror dave's too closely. also im working on a korrok design i jsut am too busy to draw it now

#jdate #john dies at the end #aus #erh. tthe hell do i tag this as #rambles.txt #long post #well let me know if youd wanna hear more or. or something #send an ask. or whatever #yaknow #:jazz hands:

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slashscowboyboots · 3 years

Text

The Stars Are a Part of Us: Different Speeds (Part 4)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Tag list @izzysdenimjacket @warrendemachokeme @awrestlinggirlwholoves80sbands @smokeandmirrorz @sodalitefully @roger-taylors-car @lost-in-the-80s @whisperess33 @shawolat @80snikki @rumoured-whispers

Warnings: Underage sex, drug use, drinking, implied violence. 18+ ONLY

Notes: Track #2 is by the sadly underrated Cowboy Junkies. It was released in '93, and I wondered if I should include in a fic set in 1987, but then I realized this is fiction and there's no rules! Yayyy! It's such a killer song I had to add it.

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

Checkout was at the ungodly hour of 11, and of course none of the band was anywhere to be found, just Karen perched on a chair in the lobby, still reading her book. Love’s Surrender was the title of it, and Izzy snorted through his nose. Surrendering was probably the last thing this uptight broad ever did.

“Fun night?” she asked, her eyes not leaving her page.

He shrugged. “‘S’all right.”

She lowered her book. “Heard you met Kasey.”

Izzy blinked. “Uh, um, yeah.”

She rolled her eyes, exasperation pulling down her mouth. “Oh, of course you don’t know her name,” she snapped.

“She didn’t know mine either,” he retorted. “She thought I was Axl.”

Karen sighed. “She blew him too.”

“Huh. I thought he was with Velvet.”

Her eyes met his. “Velvet insisted on it.”

Izzy furrowed his eyebrows.

“Hazing ritual. She made Kasey suck him off in front of everyone, then he announced that Velvet was better at it. Velvet always does the local talent dirty.”

Izzy closed his eyes. “Fuck,” he breathed, “you bitches don’t take any prisoners.”

She gave him a hard look. “You’re the wildest band in LA. Did you expect angelic whores?”

Izzy frowned, then said, “You’re not just here because of us, are you? You protect her from the other girls too.”

“No. She’s everyone’s little sister, although I’d kill one of them for doing something to her.” She narrowed her eyes at him again. “I’m here because I think I need to be. Cause if I didn’t, I’d be sitting this shindig out. This is definitely my last rodeo.”

“This is your third tour, isn’t it? You were with Def Leppard too.”

Her eyes widened, and Izzy nearly licked his lips in glee. “Steve is Steve Clark. I found out some dirt about you,” he smirked.

“Choose your next words very carefully,” she said in a low voice.

“You were a groupie. Were you running naked through the hallways too?”

She stiffened, eyes widening and her face going pale, and for a second Izzy thought she was going to slap his face. “No, I was trying to keep him from killing himself, you fucking asshole,” she gritted, then slumped down. “I thought a blow job would put you in a better mood. Guess you’re just a dick 24/7.”

“Sissy!” Celestia cried, flopping down on Karen’s lap.

“Hi, Sis. You and your beau doing all right?”

“Yeah,” Celestia answered, centering herself on Karen’s legs. She was taller than Karen, and was nearly crushing her. “Did I tell you he has an anaconda?”

Karen made a face. “Celestia, I don’t need to hear about that.”

Celestia giggled. “No, he has a snake! His name is Clyde. He has some bearded dragons too.”

Karen shifted in her chair. “That’s lovely, Sis. Who’s taking care of them?”

Celestia hung onto Karen’s shoulders. “Uh, he says someone named Yvonne.”

Karen took a deep breath. “Is that his girlfriend?” she asked gently.

“His ex.”

“Uh huh. And she still has custody of his pets?”

Celestia nodded.

“Then she’s not an ex. An ex would’ve poisoned them.”

“You think he still has a girlfriend?” Celestia gasped.

Karen shot another look at Izzy. “I think they all do. Probably a few kids they don’t know about too.”

Celestia leaped off Karen’s lap. “Omigosh! Slaa-ash! Do you have any kids?”

Slash took a sip from a styrofoam cup and pulled his top hat down over his eyes. “I don’t think so,” he muttered, throwing an arm around Celestia.

Izzy shook his head. “You have a really cynical view of the world, don’t you?”

Karen snorted. “I’m never wrong.”

Izzy took a drag from a cigarette. “Actually, you are.”

“Is he still seeing Yvonne?”

“Hell if I know. But I don’t have a girlfriend. Mine got married. And not to me.”

Karen looked down. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. You write a song about a woman, and she dumps yer ass when you’re drying out.”

“Was it ‘Sweet Child of Mine?’”

He shook his head. “I co-wrote the music on that, but no. I wrote ‘Patience’ for her.”

Karen’s eyes widened in amazement. “You wrote ‘Patience?’”

He stood up and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Yeah. And you’re wrong about something else too. I’m not a dick 24/7, although you’ll never find that out.”

Izzy leaned over his seat on the bus and looked down at Karen, still engrossed in her book.

“What do you do for fun on the road?” he asked her.

She didn’t look up. “I’m having a love affair with my vibrator.”

“Oh, ha ha, smartass.”

She turned a page. “You think I’m joking. It’s Japanese and has different speeds. I’ll never need a man again.”

Izzy didn’t say anything, but he could feel his eyes getting bigger. Guess you’re not the prude I thought you were.

“Wow, that shut you up,” she chuckled, looking up at him. “Are you bored on the road already?”

He nodded. “I don’t get fucked up anymore, and that took up a lot of time, y’know. I’m not scoring or getting drunk and now I have just…...time.”

“Yeah. Well, I like to read, and being with my sisters. Sometimes, I like to see the towns we’re in, get out of the hotel a little. I like shooting pool. I really like karaoke but I doubt if they have a lot of that here. I’ve seen your itinerary and it wasn’t promising, they’ve got you out in Bumfuck most of the time.” She knitted her eyebrows. “You’re a guitarist, why don’t you play guitar?”

“That’s what I did last night. I don’t know if I can do that every night.”

She cleared her throat. “I’m sure there’s a Kasey in every town. I doubt you’ll be bored for long.”

He shrugged. “That does it for you? Reading all the time?”

She looked up at him. “I rather enjoy being bored. There were many times I was on the verge of a heart attack, and I longed to be bored.”

“Steve kept you hopping, huh?”

She held his eyes for a long time, furious, then dropped her head. “Yeah, he did.” She looked up. “Is that what you want, me to talk about him? Fine. I was in love, he wasn’t, end of story.”

He saw the pain etched in her face, and he let it drop. He lit a cigarette and asked, “You’ve seen our itinerary?”

“Yeah. The record company doesn't have a lot of faith in you, do they?”

He shook his head. “They think we’ll be dead by the end of this week.”

“Those seem like good odds. Where’s your record at?”

“At?”

“The top 100.”

“I dunno, 101 I guess.”

“Is it moving up?”

Izzy blinked.

She sighed. “Okay, how big was your record deal?”

“Two hundred fifty grand.”

She sucked air between her teeth. “You know you have to recoup your costs, right? I’m guessing you have a slew of lawyers and a bunch of court fees too.”

Silence.

“Izzy. Have you talked to MTV?”

He shook his head. “They won’t play our video.”

“You made a video? For how much?”

“$75,000. With Nigel Dick.”

“Ooh, you used a name.”

“That’s bad?”

“Yeah, cause he’s the only one who made money from it.” She lit a cigarette. “Izzy, are you aware you guys are broke?”

“We're getting a per diem.”

“You’re in the hole is what you are. Who are you signed with?”

“Uh, Geffen.”

“Huh. So just one man owns your ass.”

“So what you’re saying is that we’re in debt to the record company?”

“Yeah, big time. I mean, Hoss, if your album tanks, you could be sued.”

He exhaled. “How do you know all this?”

“Because I paid attention when the suits showed up. I knew there had to be a reason for a record exec to leave his wife and kids to hump it all the way out to BFE to talk to the band.” She lit another cigarette. “”Pyromania’ started moving up the charts, and the suits came more and more frequently.”

“Def Leppard are millionaires. I mean, their music sucks, but they made a shitload of money off of it.”

“It took them awhile to make it, though. They had to pay back Mercury, plus they used Marilyn Monroe’s image in the ‘Photograph’ video and it cost them a bundle.” She shook her head. “Your attorney fees will keep you in the red for a while. Especially if you keep playing these podunk towns.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Karen took a drag. “Well, maybe the record company is looking out for you. They probably figure you can’t kill yourselves out here in the boonies.”

“IZZY!” Steven shrieked, slapping him on the back. “Howya doin’, brother?”

Izzy smiled. “I’m all right, man. How are you?”

Steven was nearly hopping up and down in his dingy white hi tops. “I’m so excited, man, we’ve got a gig tonight. We’re gonna ROCK Canada, aren’t we, Izz?”

“You bet your ass, Stevie.”

“You!” Steven shouted to Karen. “You, what’s your name? Donna?”

“Karen.”

“Yeaah, Karen. You really should fuck Izzy, girl! He’s cool. Like the coolest brother you could ever have.”

Izzy smirked. “She says she doesn’t need a man, she got a device with different speeds.”

Steven looked horrified, then he grinned. “Well, let him use it on you.”

Karen blinked, and Izzy cleared his throat. “Dude, she’s not into that,” he said.

“Too bad. Fuck, that girl I’m with is insane, man. She ate that girl Kasey out last night for like an hour, man. Then they sucked me off at the same time! I’m living the dream, Izz. I don’t want this tour to ever end.” He hugged Izzy, then went back to his seat and snuggled up to a sleeping Absinthe.

Izzy raised an ornery eyebrow at Karen. “So, different speeds, huh?”

“Absolutely not. And you can’t borrow it either.” Her eyes slid to Steven’s seat. “Coke always make him like that?”

“Yeah, he takes a while to come down. He’s pretty hyper to begin with.”

“Well, you should have a high energy set then.”

Izzy rested his arms on the top of the seat. “You’ve seen us play. What do you think?”

Karen fought a smile. “You don’t suck.”

“Says the woman who traveled with Def Leppard.”

She gave him the middle finger. “Keep it up, Hoss, and I’ll ram my Japanese precious where the sun don’t shine.”

Izzy puckered his lips and made obnoxious kissing noises, then said, “Promises, promises,” and flopped down in his seat.

#hello to all 5 of you reading this #i love you more than you will ever know #izzy stradlin x ofc #izzy stradlin fanfiction #guns n roses x ofc #guns n roses fanfic

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