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letspurpletogether · 5 years

Text

Teasing (m)

→ Pairings: Jungkook x Reader

→ Word count: 3.6k

→ Summary: The one where your study partner is just too cute you can’t resist teasing him.

↳ Warnings: pwp, (like zero plot istg...) explicit sexual themes, fingering, some dry-humping, unprotected sex, inexperienced partner, sub!jungkook, noona kink, some fluff if you squint. I didn’t proofread this so I apologize for any spelling mistakes.

“Are you cold?”, Jungkook asks you after he sees you shudder again.

“I’m good”, you wave a hand in dismissal, you eyes glued to the laptop’s screen where the word document with your group’s assignment is opened, almost done. You’re freezing, actually, but there’s nothing to do about it considering you’re already wearing one of his fluffiest hoodies over your shirt. “Let’s just wrap this up real quick. We still need a better conclusion”.

Normally there is nothing in this world that can drag you away from your bed on a Sunday winter’s afternoon, but this assignment is worth 70 percent of your final grade and if you want to keep your scholarship you can’t afford less than a 4,5 for this essay. It was Jungkook’s idea to meet at his dorm, but he forgot to mention the heating system at his dorm was a little broken.

While you are sitting at the small blue couch right in front of his single bed, the laptop over your legs and a knitted blanket Jungkook had lying around his room threw over your shoulders, your partner sits down on the floor, legs crossed. Books and notes scattered around him and on his unmade bed, a bottle of banana milk half finished in his hand. He looks a lot younger than he is in his oversized black hoodie and the sleepy expression on his face as he sips from the red straw.

“We could finish it tomorrow, noona”, he suggests. But you are quickly shake your head in dismissal.

“We have to turn this in tomorrow. There is no time”

Jungkooks whines.

“We don’t have class with professor Kim until after lunch, noona. We have time”.

“If you want to sleep be my guest. I’ll see myself out when this is done”, you retort and hear him scoff.

“I’m not going to sleep with you in my room still working!”, he pouts. You can’t help a small chuckle leaving your lips at the sight of him with his pink-tinted cheeks. “Come on, noona... We’ve been over the essay half a dozen times already, it’s good. A single conclusion paragraph is good enough”.

You sigh and close the laptop. He has a point, but your perfectionist ass is always in search for the extra bit. Maybe you can try to polish it up by yourself tomorrow at first hour before leaving for your first class and give the poor boy a break. He’s never been one for academic writing, Jungkook always did better with the arts. He was quite good, even got some of his sketches published on one of the campus magazines.

“Fine...”, you stretch your arm to grab the laptop’s case and then proceed to secure it inside. “If you are that tired I guess I can leave”

“That’s not- !”, he looks down, a hand comes to his face in a poor attempt to hide his obvious blush from you “I didn’t mean it like that... You- you can stay...”. He whispers that last bit, but you still catch it.

“Stay?”, you smirk and look at him with amusement. Jungkook refuses to meet your eyes, he’s so cute when he’s embarrassed like that. “Stay where? Should I sleep in your bed then?”

He shoots his head up, like a deer caught in headlights. His doe eyes stare at you as if they couldn’t believe what you just said. His face’s gone completely red by now.

“I-“, he captures the red straw between his lips to avoid your question but ends up chocking up before he can swallow.

He puts it aside, coughing a couple times to get his breathing back to normal. Then he gives you a sheepish look.

“If noona wants to sleep here I can take the floor”, you can’t help but chuckle at his suggestion. Messing with him is always easy. He’s too shy, too cute sometimes that it’s hard to resist teasing him a little longer. But alas, you take pity on him and laugh it off.

“I’m just joking, relax”, you tell him and stand up from the couch to gather your things.

You hear him chocke out a forced laugh and turn your face to check his facial expresion. A hand rubs his neck, and there’s that tiny head tilt he does whenever he’s nervous. He notices your eyes on him so he immediately stands up and offers his help.

It’s when you are ready to leave that you remember that you are still wearing his hoodie. A last chance to push his buttons and watch his cute face contort in embarrassment.

“Oh, hold on...”, you hand him your bag. “Let me give this back to you before I steal it”

You step back to grab the hem of the hoodie and pull it over your head.

“You don’t-” The motion drags your shirt along a little, leaving your mid drift exposed to Jungkook’s eyes.

He knows he shouldn’t be staring at you again, but God! You’re so hot sometimes it drives him insane. And the worst part is that he knows you don’t see him as anything more than a kid. It’s not like you’ve rejected him or something, despite your constant teasing and flirting, he is convinced his not your type. He’s seen it: mature and elegant, with their life all figured out. Very much like that Seokjin dude you dated a few months back. Jungkook knows he’s the opposite and he doesn’t have the balls to ask you out anyway.

The last thing he wants is to make things weird between the two of you. If you stopped talking to him, then he’d be devastated.

You take off the oversized hoodie, and Jungkook notices something odd about the way your boobs bounce softly when you fix your shirt. And is with a racing heart that he realizes you are not wearing a bra.

All this time? Does that mean you walked in here like that?

”...W-Why aren't you wearing a bra?! , he doesn’t think before he speaks. “This is a boys only floor, noona!”

You look at him a little baffled at his outburst.

Why does he sound so scandalized? You are in your pajamas anyway, a long T-shirt and some joggers. Why would you use a bra when all you want is to be comfortable?

You smirk and raise one eyebrow.

”And why are you looking at my boobs, Jungkookie?”, you coo.

”I'm not! Well- I am but it's not...” he's completely flustered now, stumbling on his words. He covers his eyes with his palm and lets out an anguish whine. ”They’re just there!”

You chuckle and lean closer to his form. Just enough so you can whisper into his ear. ”Your such a little perv, Kookie... Fooling girls with that innocent act of yours when you are like this... tsk, tsk, tsk”.

“Oh my God! That’s not-”, he takes a deep breath and shies away from you. “Noona, don’t say those things...”

He plops down on his bed, now covering his embarrassed face with both hands. He blushes even harder, that even down the neck of his shirt you see that he’s completely flushed.

You can tell your little act affected his blood flow in more than one way also, by the way he bring one hand to his pocket to fix his pants. It only makes you want to push him even more, but you don’t know how much he’s going to take before he kicks you out of his room.

So instead, you sit next to him and try to calm him down.

“I’m sorry, you’re just too easy to tease, baby”, you half-joke, a hand goes to pat his broad back. A soft whimper comes out of his lips at your casual use of the term of endearment and you chuckle, delighted “I won’t do it again”

Jungkook takes a deep sigh and lowers his hand from his face.

“You’re so mean sometimes, noona”, he says and looks up to meet your eyes for a brief moment before looking away.

You give him more reassuring pats on his back.

“Sorry, let me make it up to you. Would you like that?”.

“How?”

“What would you like me to do, hm?”, you ask.

It’s actually an innocent question. You are thinking about buying him some of those lamb skewers he loves, or getting him a new sketchpad, maybe a coffee. But when eyes meet and you find yourself enraptured by the way his pupils visible dilate, obscuring the warm brown from his eyes.

He licks his lips, your eyes follow his tongue’s movements and your are suddenly aware of how close you two actually are.

He smells warm, like a sunny day. All the heat that irradiates from his honey skin you can feel it through your palm. You lick your lips and lean closer, your hand tracing figures of eight on his back. He shudders, but doesn’t draw back. On the contrary, he moves a little closer to your until the outside of his his knee touch yours.

The shift in the mood is obvious the next time he speaks.

“Noona...”, his voice is a husky whisper.

“Yes, Kookie?”

“Can I...”, his eyes linger for a moment on your lips, as his pink tongue prods out of him mouth to moisture his own. He’s so cute and he has no clue to what that little tongue of his does to you. “c-can I kiss you?”.

Kiss you? Did innocent Kookie really just asked if he could kiss you?

Oh, my...

He doesn’t even know what he’s getting himself into.

Your hand moves from his back to his cheek and you run your fingertips over his soft skin. You cup his cheek and like a puppy he closes his eyes, keening into your touch. So compliant, so cute, you think to yourself.

You don’t answer him. Instead, your body moves forward and you press your lips to his as your other hand comes to cup his other cheek. Jungkook’s breath hitches in his mouth when your lips meet, but he soon melts into you.

His lips are soft as they start to move awkwardly to match your rhythm.

You bite his lower lip, earning a gasp from him. That’s when you take the chance to prod your tongue past his lips. He tastes sweet like banana milk.

And he moans into your kiss.

You want nothing more than to ruin him, to hear him moan and beg for his release. But maybe not just yet... you don’t know if he’s ready, if he had any kind of experience. He’s a handsome guy, you know there are half dozen girls in your semester that are after him. But he doesn’t pay attention to them, it’s like he is not interested at all. That makes you wonder if he could be a virgin still...

However, it’s the hand that’s creeping up your shirt and grabs a breast without hesitation that makes you realize he is not. He kneads and pinches one nipple between his fingers making you moan on his lips.

Before he can make you moan again, your hands land on Jungkook’s shoulders and you push him back onto the mattress. He gasps as you move to straddle him, pinning his wrists to the mattress.

Jungkook looks at you with heavy lidded eyes, his lips red a swollen from your kisses. His breath hitches in his throat when you lower yourself on his lap and grind against his growing bulge.

You lean down to press a short kiss against his jaw and pull back to watch his worked up expression.

“What now?” You ask with a playful smile.

“Huh...?”

“Did you just want to kiss me, Kookie?”, you tease him further. He swallows hard.

“N-no...”

“No?” You coo. “What else do you want to do, hm?”

“I want- I want to...”, he can’t seem to find the words, so you have to do it for him.

“Do you want to touch me again, baby?”. A needy groan leave a his throat.

“Y-yes...”

“Where?”, he’s blushing out of control, and bites his nether lip so hard for a moment you think he might draw blood. You release one of his wrists and run a hand down his chest. “Use your words or noona is going to get her things and leave”

“No! Please... don’t leave... don’t-“

“Then answer me”, you hand slips under his hoodie and shirt, to find his warm skin, rippling with lean muscle. You can’t wait to strip him and cover his skin with love bites. “Where do you want to touch me, baby boy?”

“I- I want to touch your tits, suck at them...”, he admits with closed eyes. You busy yourself with trailing kisses down his neck.

“What else?”

“I want to touch your legs... “, his free hand moves to your thighs. “And your ass...”

“Is that all?”

“N-no, I... I want to touch...”, he opens his eyes, now clouded with lust and need. “I want to touch your pussy... I- I want to fuck you, noona”.

And the cute bunny surprises you again for a second time tonight. He’s bolder than you thought he’d be.

“You want to fuck me?”, You feign surprise to rile him up a bit more. “Such a dirty boy, baby”

He bites into his own lips and lets out a shaky breath.

“Noona, please...” he grips the fabric of your joggers, and the hand that’s still trapped in your hold tightens into a fist. “I’m so into you.. I- I really really like you, y/n. Let me... please let me have you...”, his cute and desperate confession has a streak of arousal shooting through your body, right to your core.

You smirk.

“Then take me”.

He nods and raises his head to capture your lips in his again. You free his wrist and he wastes no time grabbing a handful of your ass, prompting you to grind down against him. God you are so wet, you are sure it’s already begin to leak down your pants. You slide up and down over his clothed length with ease, his hard cock providing you delicious friction.

It’s with great difficulty that you manage to break from his kiss to get rid of his yellow hoodie along with his shirt in one tug. His skin is beautiful: lithe muscle in such a sweet honey color and you can’t help yourself. You want to taste him, and so you lean forward and leave a wet kiss between his pecs, and go down from there. He sighs. You quickly make your way to his left nipple and trap his hardened bud between your lips, while you hand finds the other one and tugs at it.

Jungkook cries out, you note he’s very sensitive and wonder how well would he do with the toys you have stored back home. You keep kissing, pulling, bitting twisting to elicit more of those beautiful sounds.

You are no longer bothered with the cold as you keep grinding down on him.

“Ahh... that- that feels good...”, he manages to speak between chocked cries, and tangles his fingers into your hair. “Noona... please...”

You pull back to discard your own shirt and wink at him when you toss it aside. Jungkook lowers his gaze to your exposed breast and licks his lips in anticipation. It doesn’t take too long before you are both naked, hands all over each other. Jungkook is sucking at your nipple whilst he other is being taken care of by his hand. Your hand wraps around his throbbing length, pumping it just enough to make him shudder.

He wraps his arms around your waist and rolls you over the mattress, so that he can feel your body flushed against his. One hand traces the curve of your hips, tracing a beeline towards your core, while he used the other for support.

He uses two fingers to separate your lips, moving them up and down to coat them in your slick. You pull the hairs at his nape when he decided to slip two of them inside your heat at the same time. He moves them in and out, squelching sounds filling the room along with your own labored breaths.

“Do you like that, noona?”

“Yes, baby... it’s feels amazing. Keep going”, you move your hips in circles trying to follow the rhythm of his hand. He makes you arch your back every time the heel of his hand brushes against your engorged clit.

He adds a third finger.

You are so ready for him, a gush of slick cover his hand and trails down between your butt cheeks. The coil of pleasure begins to tighten at the pit of your stomach with each thrust of his fingers. You need to have his dick now, or you might lose your mind.

“Jungkook...”, you call for him, but he’s too busy working you up over the edge that he doesn’t hear you. His fingers curve inside you, brushing against your most sensitive spot. He curls them again, every time white sparks of pleasure shoot through your body. His lips busy sucking a hickey on your neck. “Ahh... fuck-“

You grab him by the wrist. He raises his head to look at you.

“You need to lay back, now”, you say, out of breath. He grins, his bunny teeth showing making him look too adorable considering what he’s being doing. He nods eagerly and retreats his fingers from your pussy with a wet sound.

He positions himself on the bed, back against the mattress and you crawl up his body again.

The swollen and red head of his cock already oozing precum when you grab him to pump him a few times, before guiding his cock to your soaking entrance. However, the head just nudges past your lips when he stops you with a panicked expression.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

He takes a deep breath, as you sinking back to your heels. Jungkook sits straight and you examine his face, hoping to read whatever it is that made him change his mind. The red in his cheeks intensifies as he makes a poorly attempt to hide it.

“I- I don’t have condoms...”, he sounds defeated, and you can’t help but chuckle, reaching for his face to brush the fringe from his eyes. “And I’m not sure if I- if I can pull out on time”.

“I’m on the pill, Kook...”, he nods absentmindedly like doesn’t fully understand what you just said. You throw your arms around his shoulders and press your lips to the corner of his mouth.

Jungkook lets out a pleased sigh.

“Does- does that mean we can still do it?”, he asks and you align your faces together.

“Do you want to?”

He nods.

“I am, I haven’t- I mean... “ he mouths something you can’t quite understand. “I’m tested, I’m clean”

“I’m clean too”, you caress his chest and shoulders with a soft smile. You lower a hand between your bodies and circle his length. Jungkook closes his eyes and sighs his pretty face relaxing in pleasure. “Do you trust me?”

“I do”, he breathes.

You tilt your hips upwards, supporting your weight on your knees and guide his cock to your opening. The head nudges at your entrance, glistening with your mixed lubricant, and your hands come to hold his shoulders as you begin to sheath him inside of you.

You caress his chest, leaving a small peck on his lips before pushing him back on the bed. The stretch feels so good already and he’s not even fully in yet. Jungkook’s hands come to gently fondle with your breasts as you sink down completely with one thrust.

“Fuck... noona...”, Jungkook gasps as his eyes roll to the back of his head.

His thick veiny cock stretches you open, and you start moving. You keep slow pace at first, enamores with the soft sounds spilling from Jungkook’s lips as he moves his hips to meet yours. But a particular hard thrust has you clenching around him and he moans loud.

“Ahhh, shit... faster, noona... please”.

His fingers dig into the skin of your hips and he thrust up again.

He doesn’t need to ask you twice as you start to bounce up and down his cock, grinding your click against his pelvic bone every chance you get. A slapping sound every time your ass meets the seat of his lap. The bed creaks loud under the movements of your lovemaking, sure the room next door has to be empty or you would’ve heard complains by now.

Jungkook moans your name over and over, the bright flush on his sweat-covered skin tells you he’s probably close already.

“Are you going to cum for me, Kookie?”, You clench your muscles around him again, and he cries out. His breathy moans are the sexiest thing you’ve ever heard, and as you keep grinding onto him you can feel your own pleasure start to peak. But you don’t want to come yet, you want to see his pretty face when he comes firsts.

“¡Ngh...! I- Ahh...”, he swallows hard, taking a deep breath. His hands leave soft touches on your hips and move down your thighs. “I’m really close, noona... if you keep doing that I’m-“, you clench again and his eyes go blank with pleasure. “¡F-fuck...!”

“Do you want to come inside, baby?”, you push back his fringe that’s already drenched in sweat and keep up a steady rhythm. Jungkook nods fervently in response, unable to speak properly and you lean down to kiss him. You tongue plays with his, and you suck on his lower lip before whispering to his ear. “Fill me up then, baby”.

That seems to be enough to throw him over the edge.

“Noona, fuck, fuck, fuck...¡Agh! ¡Ahhh-!” he chants, holding onto your hips with both hands to keep you still as he starts thrusting up again until his release hits him.

The coil of pleasure down your abdomen that grew even tighter watching Jungkook come undone is about to snap. The way his cock pulses between your walls sending shivers down your spine. A high pitched moan leaves Jungkook’s mouth, his eyes shut, eyebrows furrowed and his mouth hangs open. Warm stripes of semen coat your inner walls as he keeps bucking his hips to yours, and you start moving again, to help him riding out his orgasm and chasing your own.

You bite your lip when Jungkook’s thumb finds your clit. Using his own release as lubricant that’s now leaking out of you, he circles the sensitive bud before applying direct pressure with the pad of his finger. You’re almost there, almost... “Ah... Jungkookie... Like that, just like that”, Your moans join his breathy whines as he begins to feel the pain of overstimulation.

“Noona, please... ‘s too much- Ngh!”. His voice sounds ten times sexier when he begs, whining and crying for you to come all over his sensitive cock. That’s what finally makes you reach your high. White sparks of pleasure flash before your eyes as your orgasm washes over you.

You moan your lover’s name and your nails rack down his chest.

“Shit, shit... Ahh... Ngh...”

You roll your hips, riding out your orgasm until you come down completely. Jungkook is trembling under your touch. Tired and spent, he winces when you slide off his member and let yourself fall next to him in the narrow bed.

For a moment there’s only silence and the sound of your labored breaths.

You bring a hand to your forehead to wipe the cold sweat off your skin. You are suddenly aware of the room’s temperature again and a shiver runs down your spine. Jungkook notices and rolls over to wraps your in his arms before pulling the blanket over your bodies. The warmth of his body pressing against your back makes you feel so contented, more than you’d dare to admit out loud.

“That was...”, he sighs and his nose nuzzles against the crook of your neck. “I’mma ask professor Kim to give us more assignments like this”

You chuckle and turn your face around to give him a peck on the lips. He grins like a little boy.

“You are too cute for your own good”

“Only for you, noona”

2019 © letspurpletogether.

#jungkook smut #sub jungkook #sub!jungkook #noona kink #bts smut #bts scenarios #bts imagines #baby boy jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook fluff #teasing #jungkook x y/n #jungkook x you #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #jungkook x noona #noona!reader #jungkook lemon

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bittybattybunny · 4 years

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I need more fluff before angst steals the show!!! Of all the food Hattie's shared with him, what is Snatcher's favorite? Do Snatcher and Hattie ever swim together? Has Hattie cried in front of Snatcher (and how did he respond)? Does Hattie enlist Snatcher's help to build the BIGGEST, most impressive sandcastles? Thank you for all the wonderful content for this AU, I'm LOVING IT

Oh don’t worry! It actually takes a bit before we even hit the angst in the au! I just like teasing about it because I’m living for the reactions. The fic is actually like 70% fluff with 25% angst and 5% suffering. There’s just some BIG angst moments that will hit. So don’t worry much when i’m being a lil gremlin with the angst! I just like writing it. (gods if you want angst you should hear what I’ve done to my oc Kai. Poor girl doesn't catch a break)

I just find a bit of angst makes the fluff sweeter.

also im gonna be wordy so---

okay in order!!!

Snatcher’s favorite so far has been the spicy chips she brought him! He loves spicy foods that burn his mouth to hell and back because he’s never got to experience that in the ocean eating raw kill, nor as a prince because they worried for his health (his guard would sneak him snacks sometimes; and even taught him to cook) when he becomes human; she introduces him to hot sauce and he never goes back. Poor Eclipse hates spicy food and he keeps cooking it and its suffering. He adores spicy hot Doritos and flaming hot Cheetos.

Yes all the time! Hattie loves swimming with him as he will let her rest on him when she gets tired. he also takes her to places most people cant get to because the sharks and such prevent entry! He scares sharks away just by swimming near them so he’s the best safety! He helps her find lots of cool seashells and such and even cleans them out if they have something living in it still! He even eventually helps her mother get used to the water so all three of them go swimming! (well, Hattie will swim with Snatcher, Eclipse kinda just, hangs onto him afraid of sinking.)

She has! A few times. Actually I was just writing a scene with her crying with him but that relates to a big angst so I won’t share that.

But she’s cried from falling on the dock, he freaked out and had to check her over. He did his best to wipe her tears however he was covered in salt water and made it worse. She wound up laughing in the end from his frantic attempts to comfort. She’s also cried when she was lonely as her mother had to stay at the doctor’s longer than normal and he wrapped around her until she fell asleep. When he’s able to be human again, she’s cried during thunderstorms, and he lets her curl up with him. This isn’t for a number of chapters still obvs since it’s human snatcher but have some dadtcher:

“I already did!” She beamed, running over in game to show him. Her mother’s blue and grey house was surrounded by black roses. “I put black ones for now. But I really want to get blue roses someday.” She grinned ear to ear, gasping and dropping her controller as the lights went out with lightning. She crawled into the poor man’s lap pulling the blanket close.

“It’s just a storm.” He said but, he kept his voice low and wrapped his arms around her pulling her close, “It will pass. You’re mom will come home, we’ll all go for a swim or something.”

“Can i just. Stay here for a little bit?” She whimpered as she clung to his shirt. She buried her head under his chin, tears on her eyes, “Please, snatcher?”

He sighed, “Well, Clearly I’m not throwing you outside.” He got up, holding her, “God, how does your mother swing you around without breaking a sweat all the time?” He groaned. Carrying her to the kitchen, “Does Eclipse keep candles around?”

Hattie shook her head from in the blanket, holding fast, “Mom doesn’t like fire.”

He stared at her, “She doesn’t like fire. She hates water. Does your mother like anything other than you and raw meat?” He sighed, “Then is there some.. Other power lights? Something without the main lights?”

“I think we have flashlights in the closet.” She recalled, “But mom keeps them with her work gear mostly.”

Giving a curt nod, he made way to the closet setting her down so he could rummage. Ropes. Climbing Gear. Shovels. Was that tnt? He stopped and turned to the blanket claude girl squinting, “Kid I didn’t ask because it’s never been on my head. What. DOES your mother do exactly?”

She clung to him as thunder snapped and shook her head, “Mom’s a dog trainer!” She beamed through her tears, “She helps train service dogs and police dogs!” She grinned.

He held up the, what he assumed was an explosive casing, “You don’t need a bomb for a dog. I don’t think?” He paused, he wasn’t even sure. He never trained a dog. They didn’t even really do that when he was a human. Well hunting dogs. But that was a family thing.

“It could be stuff from when she and Grampa DJ go out.” She thought on it, she had the blanket half over Snatcher as he felt through the closet, “They go off on adventures and come back all dirty, but I like when they do, because mom won’t have to work for a long time and I can hang out with her! Sometimes she brings me cool stuff.”

“That so?” they must be doing something dangerous, feeling in the dark he looked to the child, “So what’s a flashlight look like?”

“It’s the little thing I keep on my shoulder when I’m diving.” She stated.

“Got it.” He felt around finding it and handing it to her, “Okay do the magic.”

Taking the flashlight she clicked it on right into his eyes, illuminating the gold colors. He hissed, revealing his fangs and covered his face with his hands, “KID!” He growled.

“Sorry!” she aimed it away and used a hand to hold his shirt, “Can we go back to the couch…”

Rubbing his poor eyes, he got up holding her hand. Walking past the dead tv, he grabbed her switch from the dock, and picked up her discarded controller.He set them on the side table before grabbing her and falling back on the couch with her on his lap.

“I’m playing now.” He stated, putting the controllers on the main console. He set off on the island, to mainly fix Hattie’s flower power.

She rested against his chest, holding the light so it was aimed at the ceiling bouncing it off the white walls, “I worked hard.” The rain pittered outside as her voice trailed off. Soon enough as he kept one arm around her, the other focused on the game, she fell asleep. He sighed and pulled the blanket over her more. he gave her head a light kiss as he held her close. Thunder rolling outside.

It’s more like she builds the biggest impressive sand castles on him. he’ll just be napping on the beach and she’ll start piling sand on his chest and then he’s stuck there because he doesn’t want to ruin her hard work!

Ahhh thank you!!!! I’m really enjoying creating the content!!!! It’s been a while since i actually had this much fun just. doing this kinda thing. I don’t think I’ve really been this excited and worked up since gods i think when i first create Bells and Whistles (it used to be a fancomic for Summer wars, but I wound up pulling it away and it’s all it’s own standalone. I’m planning to tackle that after I finish Little Contractor and The Moon Guardian and the Lost Prince)

Like seriously this had been keeping me sane while I try not to panic at work everyday. Gotta love being super prone to panic attacks...

But it’s been a blast, plus I’m able to do something I love that I’m not super confident in! (I’m pretty shy about my writing; but everyone's been so nice and it’s uplifting and makes me want to write more)

Also it’s like really good for me art wise. I’ve gotten way better at posing and hands and such with all the sketches I do (plus the comic I’m doing for Eclipse and Snatcher) it’s so much fun!!!

Also i love reading comments and tags.

Yes im reading every tag you guys add. all of them.

Sorry i got a little wordy--! :’3c

#anon #the little contractor ask #not art #should i tag snatcher and hattie since the ficlet??#fan fiction #the little contractor #word vomits all over this poor ask #but hope that helsp your fluff!!!#also for teh record this is actually the chapter snatcher learns eclipse isnt human

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designsfromtime · 4 years

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Is the Customer Always Right?

If anything, I am guileless when it comes to offering all ya’ll a behind the scenes peek at what a “day in the life” of a historical costumer can offer. Sometimes I worry about coming off as ungrateful when I share a problematic situation, but I believe being honest allows me to embrace my humanity, and gives you all permission to do the same. It looks like fun creating all these gorgeous costumes, and it is! - - but there is an unfortunate ugly side to owning your own business: Dealing with entitled and difficult customers.

My career has taken many twists and turns over the last two or three decades. Before I retired in 2012 at 52 and began designing costumes full-time, I was a medical transcriptionist. I owned my own transcription service as well as working for a huge opthomalogical practice back in California. As such, I have taken many, many training seminars in customer service. It’s been drilled into my head that for every one person who is dissatisfied they will tell ten more people.

With those statistics in mind, I have endeavored to focus on customer service both in my tenure as a medical transcriptionist, as well as today in my costuming business. But the fact of the matter is that not every client will be a good fit for your particular business or your personality, but I do feel somehow I have failed clients even when they become overly demanding and, dare I say, self-centered, and I have to cut them loose.

Look, I get it! Plunking down 2K for an entire ensemble is a HUGE investment for any client! I don’t take any of my clients for granted - ever. I endeavor to give each client equally of my time and attention. As a general rule, I am extremely conscientious about responding quickly to messages and inquiries. I go to great lengths to explain my process and educate about cut, textiles, and construction of historical clothing and lay out what they can expect, even though I find myself repeating the same spiel over and over.

I’ve mentioned this several times before, but I have heard the horror stories from both clients and cast mates: costumers (even those touted as scions in the costuming forums) taking a client’s money and receiving their fabrics, only to ghost on them and not respond when the client tries to get them to honor the commission and actually MAKE the gown they paid for, or they do not respond to the client’s requests when asked to refund the money AND return their fabrics only to find this same “costumer” has not only ignored them but used THEIR fabrics for a gown which they put up for sale on Ebay. Another nightmare story is about some of the vendors on Etsy who promise to ship a gown by a certain due date, take the client’s money and when that date comes and goes and the client contacts them they LIE and say, “It’s in the mail!” - Only to learn that they haven’t even finished it! Worse, when the gown arrives it started falling apart the first weekend they wore it at faire and she paid $600 for it! Then there is the account of a vendor in the Ukraine who ran out of velvet to finish a client’s Italian gown and rather than waiting and reordering the fabric, they made the gown but SCRIMPED on the fullness of the skirt and shipped it as is without consulting the client. In THOSE situations I would agree that the customer is RIGHT. I haven’t found myself in the same situations as these “costumers” because I would NEVER treat a client with such disregard - but I have found myself in a nightmare scenario more than once that involves the client becoming difficult for no justifiable reason.

I’ve been fortunate that in the seven years since opening my studio here in WA I have only had FIVE clients who made me want to pound my fist against my computer screen and question why I am in this business. Yes, they were that frustrating! One of those instances I wrote about in a post called “When It All Goes South” I’ll spare you the details of the other four, but usually the common denominator has been that they didn’t respect my time and my busy schedule, or the efforts I made in the consultation process. That sounds very benign, but a to relate a situation that happened this week wherein I spent 1.5 months exchanging 70+ detailed and lengthy messages, and provided them with dozens, and dozens and DOZENS of fabric options and they kept asking for more, and more, hoping that one of them will fall into the Goldilocks zone, it became frustrating. We hadn’t even gotten half way through the consult process because the client was stalled on fabrics. I didn’t mention the fact that after she paid her deposit she changed the style of the gown multiple times. *face palm*

You may be reading this and shrugging your shoulders and asking “What’s the problem?” The problem in the case I just described is that choosing fabric is only the FIRST step in the design process, but also I have deadlines imposed by the clients. If they don’t comply I can’t meet those deadlines. Until a client chooses their main fabric I cannot begin to offer any ideas for the overall design aesthetic, nor can I choose a complimentary color for their sleeves and forepart, not to mention the embroidery pattern to be used, or sussing out whether or not they will need a trim that may take up to 4 or 5 months to ship - such as the case of a gold bouillon trim I ordered from India recently which she stated she was interested in using, not to mention it requires 4 to 6 weeks of hand tacking! The expectation of this client was that I would be an endless fountain of “options” - and because she was investing 2K I should spend as much time as she wanted footering around window shopping for fabrics while her timeline is ticking away. When after a month and a half I began to draw a boundary and tell her I need a decision if she expects me to meet her deadline because there is a ton more work I need to do on her consult, she felt I wasn’t giving her ENOUGH of my time and stated that because I was pressed on time for current engagements I could not offer any additional efforts to her as a client. This, after spending MORE time than is usual with this client, I am to blame?

I learned from an extremely difficult client in 2018 not to allow a bad situation to malinger and hope for the best. In that particular case it went from BAD to WORSE, and I had to dig in my heels and refuse to bend to her ever growing ridiculous demands. If I cannot work with a client in the consult phase, and I’m pretty damn patient ya’ll, then I have learned the actual construction process will only unravel further.

As a side note, normally by the time I’ve exchanged two dozen messages with a client, I have their fabric sorted, and I’ve sourced a complimentary color for their sleeves and forepart, found their trim and/or the embroidery pattern, sketched their gown, and presented them with a design board. Sooooo. . . I offered this particular woman a refund on her “non-refundable” deposit minus my consultation fee of $100 for the hours and hours and HOURS of research I spent over that 1.5 months offering her more and more options to consider. She was pissed that I was unwilling to allow her to take months to decide, and no amount of “explaining” the urgency or my time constraints seemed to sink in. No matter what I said she is convinced that “I” was the problem.

So, is that situation a failure on my part? Should I be willing to set aside another client’s commission to cater to this woman’s demands? What’s more, is the customer ALWAYS right?

There is an oft-quoted catchphrase in the business world that states: “the customer is always right.” I’ve heard that in many training seminars. Lalana showed me comic wherein it stated “The Costumer is always right.” I laughed, but there is a prevalent attitude that WE must meet the customers’ needs even if it means we often go to ridiculous extents to please them. However, treating customers like they are always right can be self-destructive for entrepreneurs like myself and here’s why.

In an article by “Entrepreneur” they offer FIVE reasons why the customer is NOT always right and why:

1. Businesses Have Limited Resources

Entrepreneurs like myself are not omnipotent, neither are employees - or in my case, my assistant Lalana. Most businesses, especially the fledgling ones, operate with limited resources including limited time, funds, and energy. Every business experiences its share of grudging customers, who, no matter what might be done to satisfy their needs, will continue to complain.

Feeling guilty and culpable for such petulance is actually unwise and it affects your business in a negative way. If the necessary steps have been taken to address the issues of a customer, then a business owner should close the matter and move on.

'Businesses are not dependent on individual buyers. It is actually immature to spend all the energy to satisfy someone who does not intend to be happy. It is important to address the requirements of hundreds and thousands of other regular clients, and also show solidarity with the employees,”

2. It Adds Misery to Employees

Any business will invariably have its share of malicious, rude, snappy consumers. Amongst 50 customers there will at least be 5 who will end up rubbing you the wrong way. Now, reacting to such folk with appeasement and guilt is utter naivete!

Making employees believe that the customer is always right, is tantamount to making them feel dejected. Between supporting your employees and taking sides with an intolerable, enraged customer, it is best to choose the former (the employee). Customers must get this message that though they are important they are NOT indispensable, while supporting employees always pays extra dividends.

"With constant support from the owners comes a sense of loyalty amongst the employees who then provide better service to customers. It's axiomatic that happy employees always go an extra mile to make customers happy."

3. Customers Are Not Omniscient

The creator of a business and the team that works with him know best about the product or service they offer. But customers are often upset because the products don't function the way they want them to - or in the case of my costuming business, they may have expectations around how much time I am able to spend in a consultation, or that through no fault of our own we cannot accommodate their specific vision they have of a particular gown. In the recent experience, the client kept asking for color combinations that are not available in the fabrics she insisted upon. All I can do is offer an alternative and try to compromise by offering options. But the attitude that a client knows best leads to an expectation that I be willing to go to any extent when they demand unrealistic or even ludicrous things.

Often customers will try to establish that they know better and try to share opinions or advice on how a product should look or work. Irrespective of the sector of the business, it is risky to give customers the liberty to think they cannot be wrong.

The key is to establish with customers, in a very amicable way, that the maker of the product is the final authority - In my case that would be ME. I go to great lengths to educate customers on my products and service in order to help them understand my expertise or why I use a certain procedure. I won’t take on a project that I am not passionate about, but more especially when my knowledge is discounted and they wish me to create something that doesn’t fit into my design aesthetic I will decline the order because there needs to be a state of sympatico between designer and customer.

4. It Pits Management Against Employees

The message that the customer is always right, is demoralizing, and results in bitterness against management and indicates that the organization favours the customers more than the workforce. In reality, taking the side of the employees generates happier customers because your employee, or yourself, will have a more positive attitude.

5. You Don't Want Every Customer

Not all customers are indispensable and businesses must accept that. It is better to let go of a persistently complaining and abusive customer who only end up creating stress amongst the employees (or myself). This is irrespective of the amount the customer pays for your product.

Disgruntled customers can wear away your spirit, involve a very high quantity of resources, and add to your stress levels. It is sometimes sensible to lose a customer for protecting the company and its workforce.

"To stay in business for a long time, entrepreneurs need to avoid unreasonably disgruntled customers. Getting rid of bad customers might cost a little profit, but it's healthier in the long-term goals of the business,"

The full article can be found here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308548

While these “talking points” are focused on the Management versus Employee relationships, they are valid across the board for a small business owner whether or not you have employees. All of the angst and frustration and demoralization felt by employees or managers who are forced to capitulate to an over-demanding or self-centered and entitled customer is just as keenly felt by me (the owner). It puts me in a grumpy negative head space and it effects my attitude in the studio, which in turn affects Lalana who has to put up with my grumpy ass, and wears down my energy to the extent it affects my usual generosity to the rest of my clients. 2K in commissions just isn’t worth the hassle!

So, while I’m still working through the guilt and the regret of having to cut loose a client as I did this week, I’m learning that my work will speak for itself, and for every ONE client I have a negative experience, I have MORE who actually appreciate me and are reasonable enough to understand I have deadlines and they are 50% responsible for the success of their commission. I may not be in a place of full acceptance that I could not have made this particular client happy, but I feel justified in drawing a boundary that just because a client spends 2K in my store, it does not give them permission to behave like an entitled premadonna.

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fred-frederator-studios · 4 years

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Dale Pon, R.I.P.

Pretty much the most famous media advertising campaign in history is “I Want My MTV!” –the May 2020 Google search returns 184,000 results, more than 30 years after the last flight ran– and it was the result of the brain of Dale Pon.*

* As I explain in detail in the pieces below, writer extraordinaire Nancy Podbielniak was the word spark for the campaign; it was George Lois who suggested ripping off “I Want My Maypo!” Dale Pon was the person who took these notions and turned them into brilliance.

Dale persuaded me and the powers that be at MTV that he could make it work, Dale who convinced MTV programmers to recording artists to participate for no fees. It was Dale who took the paltry budget allotted and strategized how to maximize the network’s cable distribution. And finally, it was Dale Pon’s dogged persistence and genius that caused cable operators across America to beg us to please stop running the campaign before all the telephone operators quit in frustration from all the people “demanding their MTV!!!”

My great friend –and better mentor– Dale Pon, passed away from difficulties due to Parkinson’s and Covid19. There’s no way to convey all of the ways people expressed their sadness to me today, but one of them probably encapsulated things best by saying “Complicated but brilliant, creatively inspired, strategic like chess master , we were lucky to have been touched by his talents...” All too true.

Dale could be –to say the least– a challenging personality. Determined to win, he could be a bulldozer crushing an ant. Warm at his core, he could be beyond generous will all he had at his disposal. Unlike many others with talent and raw intelligence, he was quick to share his remarkable thinking, lavish in his ability to elevate the talents of the shy and uncertain, and as bountiful with praises as he could be lacerating with his critical observations. He loved as deeply as he was able, and a constant explorer for the meanings of life.

When it came to the work, there was no one better at understanding media, and getting fans interested in its rewards. I don’t know if it was his methodologies and personality, or the fact that media promotion wasn’t all that well respected in the ad biz, but Dale didn’t have too much of a profile in the advertising world. I think, ultimately, he was much more focused on the work than on the publicity. So, things being what they are, what I’ve collected seems to be the most comprehensive look at his career, at least the parts that I’ve directly touch. By no means is it comprehensive, I know nothing about his radio days in the early 70s, and little about his work after I joined the cartoon industry. But all of what I have is yours, below.

I’ll lead with what a few of his colleagues and friends wrote a few years ago for Dale’s birthday. And then, below that, all the various campaign pieces (written from my perspective, of course) I’ve recalled over the years.

.....

April 2016, on the occasion of Dale’s birthday.

Dale Pon, my mentor and friend. Fucking smart.

Dale Pon’s been on my mind lately, as he is almost every day, because of the ways he taught me to think about …. um,everything. I’ve written about some other important mentors before, but Dale’s influence was so staggering I could never figure out how to sketch it out in anything shorter than book length.

“Dominate the space.” (He was referring to graphic design, but it might have served as a life philosophy).

“Of course, there’s an absolute truth.”

“You remember the first thing you see, but the last thing you hear.”

“The power of three.” (Broke that rule with this list.)

“Advertising is a frequency medium.”

“You make album tracks. I make hit songs.”

I’m not sure that he ever thought of himself as particularly quotable, but as you’ll see below, I wasn’t alone in internalizing. There were hundreds more bon mots, most of which he probably forgot as soon as he said them but stuff I’ve never been able to shake off, to this day.

His resume doesn’t do him justice, but quickly… For 40 years, Dale Pon was at the forefront of media programming and promotion for many of the major media companies, CBS, NBC, Viacom, Storer Broadcasting (where we met). He specialized in radio throughout his career, but when Bob Pittman moved into cable television, he prevailed there too (“I Want My MTV!” is still returns hundreds of thousands of Google search results, 30 years after it went off the air). He was wildly successful in an advertising agency partnership with ad legend George Lois, before setting up a solo shop, Dale Pon Advertising, in New York City.

Dale was brash and loud, very, and he certainly wasn’t to everyone’s taste. The friend who first recommended me for one of his jobs called in a rage when he quit and said if I really needed a gig so badly… I knew Dale’s work from its supremacy of the metropolitan subway system for the New York country music powerhouse (a paradox if there ever was one) WHN Radio, but it hadn’t occurred to me that actual human beings created advertising, or that it took any real brain power. Dale quickly disabused me of that notion, as he sent me to his tailor to buy me my first three piece suit (more appropriate for Park Avenue media than the cut off shorts I wore to our interview).

Most of all, he was really fucking smart. And deeply, articulately, astute about media. He could tell the story of radio stations or television networks better than anyone, and persuade their audiences to fall profoundly in love, by sticking to the basic human emotions like truth, desire, love. (My favorite? “Love songs, nothing but love songs” for WPIX-FM, directly appropriated for an Off-Broadway show). He didn’t end it there, with a creative, strategic and statistical brilliance that combined, to quote Bob Pittman (from another context completely) “math and magic.”

What I appreciated most was his intense, almost overwhelming desire to teach me everything he knew at exactly the moment I was desperate for his knowledge. In fact, as I observed him with myself and others over the years, it would be fair to say that if you wasn’t interested in being taught, Dale Pon wasn’t interested in you. And, not for nothing, it went both ways. He’s was as incisive a questioner and listener as one could want. Curious, intrigued, dying to know anything on almost any subject. In my case, it meant that we generally spent six or seven days together all the years we were together in two different media capitals. Whew!

Difficult? Challenging? Exasperating? You bet. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything.

Dale’s the one who changed the course of my work life, and as Scott Webb says below, “he changed me.” It’s because of Dale that I stumbled on my understanding that I wasn’t a music guy after all, or even a TV baby, but a pop culture sponge. I wouldn’t had the chance to participate in any of the culture shiftings I got to observe first hand. Who knows, maybe I would’ve stumbled through a life of complete dissatisfaction. That’s how profound his influence was on me.

Dale’s birthday recently passed by, and stuck for cogent things to say about him, I reached out to a few friends who’ve crossed his path and might be better at expressing themselves than I ever could. You’ll notice they’re pretty powerful personalities themselves, but Dale made an impression. Boy, did he make an impression. (I left out some of those controversial moments and unproductive comments.)

Well, our friends didn’t let us down. They got to the heart of the matter in ways I never could. Thanks everyone.

…..

Herb Scannell: Mythical.

Dale Pon is mythical.

He’s the man who “wanted his MTV” and got the world to say the same. My friend Fred always claimed that he learned whatever he knew from Dale and whatever I know I learned from Fred so it all comes back to Dale. Or blame them both. Happy Birthday Dale! Forever young!

…..

Bob Pittman: The Mad Scientist.

Dale Pon is the mad scientist of advertising. Full of passion, always with a breakthrough idea and the urgency to get it done quickly with no compromises. He made a huge contribution to my successes at WNBC Radio, MTV and even Six Flags theme parks. One of a kind….happy birthday to him from a big fan!

……

Scott Webb: “Most people don’t know how to think.”

Dale Pon didn’t just change my life he changed me. He encouraged me to be brave and fearless and never stop solving problems. He is one of the smartest people I have ever met and the teacher I will never forget.

You never know how things are going to happen. After 4 years at Sarah Lawrence, one of the most expensive liberal arts schools, I was clueless about a career. My secret wish was to write comics (mostly because I had no talent to draw). Unlike most of my class at SLC my parents were basically working class folks with a yankee work ethic who expected me to not move back home after graduation.

One January evening, I was talking with my friend Betsy K who had just graduated. She had just returned home from job hunting in the city. She had an interview at WNBC Radio; they weren’t hiring but were looking for interns. “What’s an intern?” I asked. I was so naive.

I immediately fell in love with the energy of the radio station. I had to work there.

“You’ll be working for Dale Pon. He’s very demanding. Do you think you can handle that?” asked Buzz Brindle, a WNBC program director. Me? Of course! I’ve got my Yankee work ethic and my Sarah Lawrence education. I thought I was ready for anything. But I was not ready for Dale Pan.

Dale was bigger than life, louder than anyone else in the company and frequently slammed the door to his tiny office. I found him brilliant, charismatic and intimidating.

My first big assignment for Dale was to create a chart of all the radio stations in New York and rank them by ratings performance over the past 2 years. I wanted to do a great job for him but the truth was that I was terrible at chart making. I was a liberal arts comic book kid and he had me doing statistical analysis and I knew if I did a bad job I would probably face his famous wrath behind a slammed closed door. But despite my inept chart building, Dale painstakingly taught me how to read the Arbitron reports and methodically went through my work and instructed me how to correct it. I learned more from him over that 5 month internship than I had in my last 2 years of college. But my lesson wasn’t in statistical analysis or radio promotion. Dale had high expectations of me, he believed in me and he was demanding in the pursuit of excellence.

A lot of people at the station didn’t like Dale mostly because he would raise his voice to make a point or because he was passionate about his beliefs, or would not hold back his opinion when something was mediocre, pedestrian or just plain stupid. Dale expected greatness in people, work and business. His mission was to win and often people found that difficult to embrace. I, on the other hand, found it awesome. I guess he reminded me of the comic book heroes I admired so much - characters who were extraordinary and could do things other people thought were impossible. Most people at the radio station were happy to have a job and get a paycheck and could care less about being #1 but for him that was all that mattered.

It didn’t hurt that he was so smart and insightful. He had the uncanny super power of understand exactly what the problem was – and he taught me that creativity was the ability to solve problems in fresh, innovative and smart ways.

“Do you know why I hired you?” he asked me at the end of my internship. “I didn’t want to hire one of those kids who studied advertising or media in college. Those kids have been ruined. They show up thinking they already know everything - and they haven’t even had a job yet. You didn’t know anything but you were willing to learn and think. Most people don’t know how to think.”

Those were some of the most important words I ever heard. They lit a fire of confidence and trust in myself that did not exist before and served me throughout my life, not just in work but in life.

…..

Bill Sobel: He yelled at me on the phone…no idea why.

…..

Noreen Morioka: “Good creates things, and Evil destroys it.”

There is no doubt that we all have a great Dale Pon story. Dale never did anything average. He did everything in extremes. Whether you were laughing so hard that you couldn’t breathe or wanting to shake him like a rag doll, Dale is unforgettable.

One of my favorite Dale Pon stories is when he was pitching a new name for a network. Since the channel was going to be all re-runs of a lower level, Dale named it Trash TV. I loved it, but when I presented my designs, he thought what I did wasn’t trashy enough and proceeded to get another designer to put flies swarming around the proposed logomark. When he presented his concept to the network president, he stopped at the building dumpster and pulled out garbage to bring up to presentation. Needless to say, the meeting didn’t go well, and the president was furious that Dale brought garbage into his beautiful office. Stern words were exchanged on both sides and security was called to take Dale and garbage out of the office. He called later to let me know they were going to search for another name. The network changed their name several times since then, and each time Dale would just smile. We all knew his solution was genius.

Like you, Fred, Dale taught me a lot. He taught me never to settle, always come back stronger and most importantly what the difference between good and evil was.

“Good creates things, and Evil destroys it.” Thanks to this simple Dale Pon-ism, I live my life by.

I will always have a deep respect and love for that guy. Happy Birthday, Dale. You are the true original.

…..

Tina Potter: So thoughtful.

Dale is a magnanimous gift-giver. I once told him the Chrysler Building was my favorite building in NY, and the next time I saw him, he brought me a beautiful framed B&W print of the building! So thoughtful. I still have it!

……

Judith Bookbinder: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

I learned a lot from Dale in a very short time.

Dale taught me that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

If you want to make something happen, figure it out or find someone who can do it for you.

This simple wisdom is something that has served me throughout my professional life.

…..

Ed Salamon: Directness and Simplicity.

I always appreciate the opportunity to say something nice about Dale, but the stories that first came to mind involved women, drugs, and fistfights. Or were otherwise too self-incriminating. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

The genius of Dale’s creativity is its directness and simplicity (like “I Want My MTV!”). Unfortunately that sometimes resulted in it being underappreciated.

When we worked together at WHN Radio I once heard our boss say to Dale at the end of the day “We need a new ad campaign slogan for the station by tomorrow. Take twenty minutes tonight, walk around the Village and come up with something.”

When I later started The United Stations Radio Network with Dick Clark and others, we hired Dale to create the logo, which he agreed to do out of friendship for only a nominal fee. The logo was a distinctive type face, with the letters stuck together (“united”). Some in the company commented that it was too simple; others appreciated its genius.

……

Tom Freston: A great bunch of guys.

Dale is a great bunch of guys. Argumentative, persistent, a perfectionist, fun, difficult, and smart as hell….winning, ultimately, most of his arguments. Happy birthday.

…..

Therese Gamba: “Work smarter, not harder.”

Long before there was “Better Call Saul” it was “Better Call Dale” when you were faced with a creative challenge. Dale had a long term relationship with MTV Networks having been part of the launch team for that iconic channel. So when The Nashville Network had to be relaunched as the new home of the WWE (then the WWF), oh and it had to be done in three months, there was only one person to call.

My first meeting with Dale was over lunch at the Mercer Kitchen. Fred had prepped me that Dale liked metrics and to be ready for a lot of questions. But as anyone who’s met with Dale will tell you, you can never be fully prepared for the hurricane of creative energy that is Dale Pon.

I was prepared with my Venn diagram of the overlap between TNN’s current viewers and the WWE’s viewers (no surprise, not a big cross section). Then the questions started in what felt like a ping pong match at warp speed.

Two hours into the lunch I had held my own and received the nod from Dale that I was on the right track. I was exhausted, relieved and thrilled to have passed the test. I learned that once you’ve basked in the glow of Dale’s approval, you were hooked. I also learned that I had become a member of an exclusive club, “Dale’s World.” My fellow club members all know the stories, share the memories and still live by what he taught us.

Dale always said “work smarter, not harder.” That mantra has never failed me just as Dale never failed to be supportive, inquisitive and completely one of a kind!

Happy Birthday dear Dale!

(From left): Dale Pon, Anne Grassi, Scott Webb at WNBC Radio, circa 1980.

Alan Goodman: “I’ll give you 50 bucks to fuck up this guy’s haircut.”

Two stories about Dale Pon –

1. I was in Paris with Dale (who ran our advertising agency – my mentor was now my supplier) and MTV’s VP of Programming, Les Garland. Dale and Les weren’t pals. How tense was it? We had dinner together one night in Paris and Les bought us all expensive Cuban cigars. Outside, Dale waited until Les split off to go to his hotel. The first second Les was out of sight, Dale pitched his cigar in the gutter.

We had flown on 10 hours notice so we could shoot Mick Jagger saying “I Want My MTV!” Dale had already shot a number of other MTV generation stars shouting the line, and some were even biggish. But Jagger was THE “get.” We knew that once Jagger blessed our campaign by participating, we’d get anyone else we would ever want. (We did).

We waited around the hotel a couple of days until we got the bat signal that Mick was ready, and raced over to his hotel to set up. Very quickly, what was supposed to be Dale’s shoot had become Les’ shoot. Dale was pissed, rigid with anger, sequestered with me in the adjoining room forced to watch the proceedings on a monitor. I went over to him to try to diffuse the situation. I can’t remember what I told him. But I remember his response, word for word:

“Do you think I need to hear any of this right now?”

I realized why I was in Paris. I was there, as the client, to witness who threw the first punch.

I had spent every single day of the past four months in the office trying to figure out how to do a job I had no idea how to do. I was exhausted. I had zero interest in the kind of politics and shenanigans that network executives pull, and I didn’t want to be there. That’s it, I decided. I’ve had enough. I’m a writer. I have a talent. I can make a living. I will get back home and I will immediately quit.

I said nothing. I smiled through the rest of the shoot. We stopped at a bistro after we wrapped, and had a lovely dinner and wine with the crew. It was a celebration. For good reason. We had Jagger. I stayed quiet. Silent, even. No one knew of my plans.

When we reached the hotel, Dale drew me aside and sat me down.

“You’re not going to quit,” he said. What?! Huh?! How did he know? On top of everything, the man can read minds??!

“You’re not going to quit. You are at the very beginning of something that will change the world, and you will have a great career. You have to stay there and be a part of that and do what you do really well. You cannot leave. Do you understand? You cannot quit.”

He went up to bed. I went home the next day, and didn’t quit. Instead, I stayed and helped make the thing that changed the world. And it was the beginning of a great career.

2. I went to get my hair cut at Astor Place one day. I walked up to my guy, and there in the chair was Dale. I didn’t know Dale used my guy. Dale looked up at me, looked at the barber, and told him, “I’ll give you 50 bucks to fuck up this guy’s haircut.”

…..

Scott Webb (unedited): “He didn’t just change my life he changed me.”

You never know how things are going to happen.

I was a few short months away from graduating from Sarah Lawrence College with no idea what I would do for a job. I was a kid who had grown up reading and loving comic books. After 4 years at one of the most expensive liberal arts schools I was clueless about a career. My secret wish remained to write comics (mostly because I had no talent to draw). Sarah Lawrence was a great place for me. It was there that I understood how to learn. I was naturally curious and SLC exposed me to a world of ideas and brilliant people (students and teachers). But Sarah Lawrence was not a place where I could start a career path. 5 months from graduating I felt the looming pressure of finding a job and making money. Unlike most of my class at SLC my parents were basically working class folks with a yankee work ethic who expected me to not move back home after graduation.

One January evening, I was talking with my friend Betsy K who had just graduated. She had just returned home from job hunting in the city. She had an interview at WNBC radio with a guy named Buzz Brindle. She said they weren’t hiring but were looking for interns. “What’s an intern?” I asked. I was so naive. She explained that an internship is where you work for free - for experience and to get your foot in the door. WNBC was part of NBC - one of only 3 existing TV networks at the time and my eyes lit up at the idea of of doing anything with a big media company. So I lined up a meeting with Buzz to see if I was intern material.

Buzz was sweet and avuncular and I immediately fell in love with the energy of the radio station. I had to work there. “We’re looking for interns in the promotion department” Buzz explained and I just nodded as affirmatively as possible. “You’ll be working for Dale Pon. He’s very demanding. Do you think you can handle that?” Me? Of course! I’ve got my Yankee work ethic and my Sarah Lawrence education. I thought I was ready for anything. But I was not ready for Dale Pon.

I interned at the station 2 days a week and It appeared I was the only male in Dale’s promotion team. I reported to a woman named Anne Grassi but Dale was the boss. Dale was bigger than life, louder than anyone else in the company and frequently slammed the door to his tiny office. I had never worked in an office before. I found him brilliant, charismatic and intimidating. The other interns and I would huddle in the conference room where we did our work and wait for our next assignment.

I did many things as an intern but my first big assignment for Dale was to create a chart of all the radio stations in New York and rank them by ratings performance over the past 2 years. This was no small task - this was way before computers in offices - and required me to go to the NBC research department to collect dozens of Arbitron ratings books and laboriously extract the data he wanted and lay it out graphically. I wanted to do a great job for him but the truth was that I was terrible at chart making.

I was a liberal arts comic book kid and he had me doing statistical analysis and I knew if I did a bad job I would probably face his famous wrath behind a slammed closed door. But despite my inept chart building, Dale painstakingly taught me how to read the Arbitron reports and methodically went through my work and instructed me how to correct it. I learned more from him over that 5 month internship than I had in my last 2 years of college. But my lesson wasn’t in statistical analysis or radio promotion. Dale had high expectations of me, he believed in me and he was demanding in the pursuit of excellence.

The chart was part of his battle plan to make WNBC #1 in the NYC market and when I understood the big picture of what he was doing I felt even more inspired and willing to do anything in the service of that cause.

It didn’t hurt that he was so smart and insightful. He had the uncanny super power of understand exactly wha the problem was - and he taught me that creativity was the ability to solve problems in fresh, innovative and smart ways. “Do you know why I hired you?” he asked me at the end of my internship. “I didn’t want to hire one of those kids who studied advertising or media in college. Those kids have been ruined. They show up thinking they already know everything - and they haven’t even had a job yet. You didn’t know anything but you were willing to learn and think. Most people don’t know how to think.” Those were some of the most important words I ever heard. They lit a fire of confidence and trust in myself that did not exist before and served me throughout my life, not just in work but in life.

.....

Susan Kantor and David Hyman were on the opposite side of their relationships with him, Susan as a long time account executive in Dale’s agencies, and David as a client. Drew Takahashi, a trusted friend and wonderful creative partner.

I’m particularly fond of the pull quote from David’s recollections. Having had hundreds of restaurant meals with DP over the years, waitress confusion was probably my overriding remembrance.

Susan Kantor has traveled to the upper heights of television since her time with Dale Pon in the 1980s. But when you read her memoir below he prepared her well, as he did with all of us.

Drew Takahashi is a director who co-founded (Colossal) Pictures, San Francisco, one of the most creative production companies of the 1980s and 90s, and one of the key creative suppliers to the first decades of MTV.

David Hyman became my head of marketing at the MTVi Group when the company purchased Sonicnet.com, one of David’s early digital music endeavors (he’s gone on as founder of MOG, one of the seminal digital music streamers).

…..

Susan Kantor: “Lead, don’t follow”. Love, Dale”

Hands down, Dale Pon was my most influential career mentor. Ridiculously smart, enormously passionate, admirably courageous and truthfully a little scary.

We would all brace ourselves for the moment the elevator doors opened and the sound of his fiercely determined walk in his trademarked cowboy boots could be heard. With the first, “good morning” would come a rapid fire interrogation of where we were at on all the “to do’s” he had just given us an hour ago. “Why isn’t it done yet?”

Leslie Fenn-Gershon and I used to joke about putting a Valium in his Perrier so we could get through the day.

When I got to the office in the morning there would often be a “note”, on my chair written with red Sharpie marker on yellow pad lined paper (pre-email), from Dale. His handwriting, had as much conviction as his spoken word. These encouraging notes were meant to guide, remind, teach, mentor or simply, to show his appreciation - often complimentary, occasionally piercing. I still have them.

“Lead, don’t follow”. Love, Dale

“Let’s make things happen!” Love Dale “

“There are children and there are parents. Be a parent.” Love, Dale “

“Everyone wants to be told what to do. Tell them.” Love, Dale “

“We had a good day today. Thank you for your help.” Love, Dale

As we chased rock stars around the globe helping MTV and VH1 revolutionize the music industry, and traversed across the county to position many TV and radio stations in their market, Dale always imparted the importance of what we were doing and demanded we do our very best, every day.

He recognized my innate work ethic, enthusiasm and willingness to do whatever it took to learn and succeed – he also knew how young and naïve I was. Ripe for mentorship and direction. I got both, and then some. The Dale Pon “boot camp” was not always pretty, but it was always colorful, impactful, memorable and most importantly, meaningful.

Not only did he teach me all about advertising and the importance of finding the unique selling proposition and saying it as simply as possible so people would remember it, he showed me the world and how not to be intimidated by it. He made me self-aware of my talents and my shortcomings. He also taught me there was no substitute for doing the work.

To this day, I love you Dale and I thank you for believing in me and giving me the chance of a lifetime.

Belated birthday wishes and hope to see you again soon!

…..

Drew Takahashi: “…he gleefully pushed me to do stuff I hated.“

After seeing you and the MTV crew took me back to good/bad old days. I realized I missed Dale Pon.

Back in the day I didn’t know he was a mentor. I only knew he gleefully pushed me to do stuff I hated. In the end I realized you and he knew what was better for me than what I knew. Someday I’ll learn my lesson.

Steve Linden and I went to shoot with Dale for WNBC [AM]. He asked us to meet him at Windows on the World bar for drinks and dinner. He showed up two hours later and Steve and I were suitably toasted. Then he insisted we join him in a very alcoholic dinner. I was so hungover the morning of the shoot I didn’t know how I could direct the talent, Don Imus. Dale apologized for needing to shoot something first so we didn’t roll my spot until the afternoon. Saved my ass.

Many more memories. The weirdest was him in the Colossal bathroom cleaning crabs of their guts for a surprise picnic in the middle of our animation camera shoot.

…..

David Hyman: “[He] always confused the waitresses.”

Here’s mine:

Dale came up with the name of my company, Gracenote. I think that just came really easy to him.

For a while he was a really great teacher to me. I stubbornly couldn’t take the occasional abuse that went with it, even though it was probably good for me. I was honored to be asked as the voice over for a $30 million tv ad campaign by Dale and encouraged to do voice over work. Thrilling to be informed I had career chops outside of sales & marketing.

Dale is the only person i know that would always order two margaritas for himself (at the same time). It always confused the waitresses.

.....

With Dale Pon @WHN Radio. 1977, New York City.

It was against all odds, but my late 70s stint in country music radio hooked me up with a mentor who made the difference.

Before I got to New York’s 1050 WHN, I was aware of the station. Well aware. Sometime in 1976, my friend/future partner/father of my beloved nephew and niece, Alan Goodman, asked me whether I’d seen some giant subway posters (the top photo above). Of course, I’d noticed them, with large portraits of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, The Eagles, Charlie Pride, Loretta Lynn, Kenny Rogers, Olivia Newton-John, Linda Ronstadt and seemingly dozens of other traditional and contemporary stars of the era. There were so many, they seemed to be everywhere. And, they were gorgeous, well designed, in a sea of drop-dead-New York graffiti, hum drum posters, homeless campers and mess, standing out like nothing we’d ever seen down there before. Too bad it was for music we couldn’t stand.

After I got the job with the station’s creative director and ad man, Dale Pon (another story for another time), I found out a bit about the thinking at the station and the advertising campaign. How did a city that was the home of the most sophisticated popular music of all time –to the likes of Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Frank Sinatra– welcome the shitkickers in and become the second most popular radio station in the United States (or the world, for that matter)?

Dale was the supremely gifted Vice President of Creative Services, and he introduced me to Ed Salamon, the station’s innovative program director (Neil Rockoff was the General Manager who brought them together), who used a Top 40 radio approach* to country radio, upending the entire (typical New Yorker’s) notion that country music hadn’t evolved since Hank Williams.

No ordinary radio promotion guy, Dale had been a media buyer at Ogilvy, a radio upstart (a mild description) when the world switched from AM to “progressive” FM, and run radio ad sales teams. In the 80s, he would go on to successfully run his own advertising agency, and together we started one of the most famous media campaigns of all time, “I Want My MTV!”).

Dale Pon wasn’t going to promote the station as cowboy boots and hats, like the last team did. He wanted big ratings for WHN, big ratings. They all did.

* If you’re interested, Ed’s written a book that details his contrarian, and wildly successful, methods called WHN: When New York Went Country.

WHN Radio illustrations from top to bottom, all creative direction by Dale Pon 1977: New York City subway station double truck posters (L-R) Olivia Newton-John (obscured), Linda Ronstadt, Elvis Presley; Olivia Newton-John; Kenny Rogers; Television/Radio Age cover ads; Linda Ronstadt double truck subway poster.

.....

I Want My MTV! Early 1980s, New York City.

MTV had been on the air for six months and we’d fired the storied Ogilvy & Mather and hired Dale Pon’s LPG/Pon (a joint venture with George Lois) at my insistence. Now they were presenting their first trade campaign for advertisers and cable operators and my first big decision was being called into question. America is fast becoming a land of Cable Brats! “It’s audacious! Outrageous! Just like you guys.” George Lois was a big talker, a big seller, and a bit of a smart ass, loudmouth. He was also smart. Even though I knew he designed the “cable brats” thing, it was my brilliant mentor Dale, who’d never steered me wrong creatively or strategically, who was behind the whole thing. His ex-girlfriend, and now one of my best friends, Nancy Podbielniak, had written the copy. Besides, I agreed with Dale that generally trade advertising was a waste of time and bigger waste of money. Consumers were where it’s at, and weren’t all the tradesmen we were hopping to reach consumers too? If we had a knockout punch of consumer advertising our job would be done. I knew he was keeping his powder dry for the big show.

America is fast becoming a land of Cable Brats! There’s an incorrigible new generation out there. They grew up with music. They grew up with television. So we put ‘em both together – for the Cable Brats, and they’re taking over America! They’re men and women in the 18 to 34 age range advertisers want most – plus the increasingly important 12 to 17 segement. The Cable Brats buy all the high volume, high ticket, high tech, high profit products of modern America. They’re strong-willed, cunning, crazily impulsive – an advertiser’s peerless audience. They look and listen and they want their MTV. And they buy, buy, buy. Rock'n'Roll wasn’t enough for them – now they want their MTV. (The exploding 24-hour Video Music Cable Network (and it’s Stereo!)

George was certainly right. It was audacious, and it was a touch outrageous. Somehow, the tone wasn’t quite right, but after the crap Ogilvy had done for us, it was way better. Besides, hidden in there was the sand grain that was going to lead us to our pearl.

.....

I Want My MTV! 1982, New York City.

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I WANT MY MTV! took the phenomenon that had taken over the imaginations of young America and supercharged it into a famous brand with just about everyone in the country. I just googled [in 2010] “I Want My MTV” and it popped up almost 4,760,000 results. Pretty amazing for an advertising campaign that ceased to exist 22 years ago.* Pretty potent. The whole thing was the work of my mentor and friend Dale Pon. He’d been my first boss in the commercial media, at WHN Radio in New York when it was a country music station. He’d recommended me for my job at Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, as the production director of The Movie Channel, and eventually as the first Creative Director of MTV: Music Television. We’d fallen in and out over the years, but in late 1981, when it came time for us to hire an advertising agency again –at first, the top dog had vetoed Dale as not heavy enough for a company like ours– with a lot of help from my immediate boss Bob Pittman, I was able to convince everyone that Dale understood media promotion better than anyone else in America. Anyone. Besides, didn’t he have “insurance” with his partner, legendary adman George Lois?

Dale Pon (via MTV: The Making of a Revolution)

No one had ever encountered an ad executive like Dale, because he had the unique ability to be completely and analytically strategic –”math and magic” Pittman might call it– and be wildly, and intelligently, creative at the same time. An almost unheard of combination, especially in media advertising. Sure, he had a volatile nature, in advertising that was often a given (look at his partner). But it was his strategic, creative abilities that really set him apart.

We’d already done our first trade campaign, the “Cable Brats,“ to the discomfort of most of the suits in the corporate marketing group (Bob and his team, me included, were in programming). But Dale didn’t buy into the efficacy of trade ads anyhow, so now were onto the big show, television advertising. The only problem was that we all recognized that an effective campaign would cost about $10,000,000. Our budget only had $2,000,000, and if we didn’t spend it quickly the corporate gods would probably take it away in the fall.

youtube

"I want my Maypo” commercials, created by John Hubley

Looking back, the core creative ended up being the most straightforward part. Dale’s closest friend and creative partner, Nancy Podbielniak had written the cable brats copy and had a tag line “Rock'n'roll wasn’t enough for them – now they want their MTV!” That rung a bell in George Lois, someone who never missed a chance to abscond with someone else’s good idea, and decided to rip off his own knock off of a Maypo campaign from the 1950s and 60s (animator John Hubley originated it as a set famous animated spots, and George had unsuccessfully knocked it off using sports stars) and presented a storyboard that completely duplicated his version. Rock stars like Mick Jagger were saying “I Want My MTV” and crying like babies, implying they were spoiled children being denied. No one was buying it until Dale let me know that there was no way he’d ask Pete Townshend or Mick to cry for us. “Pride! They need to show their pride in rock'n'roll! They’ll be shouting!” After a little corporate fuss we were able to sell it in.

AMERICA! DEMAND YOUR MTV!

Now, it was the next part that was completely and utterly brilliant. Because Dale came from the school that great creative was all well and good, but unless it could move the business needle, what good was it? In this case, the needle wasn’t ratings (cable TV didn’t have ratings in 1981), but active households, distribution for MTV. Cable operators were all relatively old guys who thought The Weather Channel was a better idea; they’d turned a deaf ear to their younger employees who were clamoring for us instead.

To dramatically simplify the strategy Dale organized, he decided to only advertise in markets where:

• There was enough penetration to justify a modest ad spend.

• But where there were critically large cable operators on the fence about taking MTV.

• And that we could afford a 300 gross rating point buy (three times heavier as any consumer products agency would suggest) for at least four weeks in a row (the traditional media spend would call for pulsing 10 days on and 10 days off).

The “G” in LPG/Pon was Dick Gershon. Along with data from our affiliate group, he crunched and crunched and crunched until he came up with a list of markets and dates we could afford. It was 20% of what we needed, but everyone figured if we could really start to knock off a bunch of cable systems, get them actually launch our network, the domino effect would solidify MTV’s hold on the market forever.

Strategy in place, the creative was back on the front burner. The basic campaign was a great way to get famous rock stars endorsing our channel, but where was the close? What would actually make the 'ka-ching’ we needed? Luckily, back in the day there was only one way to for a homeowner get anything from your reluctant jerk of a cable operator (they figure they held all the cards, why should they do anything to make life better for their consumers?). And what was it that young adults loved to do? Dale knew immediately.

No one alive in front of a television set in the summer of 1982 could ever forget

Pete Townshend, with the wackiest haircut of his career, shouting at the video camera:

“America! DEMAND your MTV! Call your cable operator and say, "I WANT MY MTV!!”

We shot the spots wherever the rock stars would have us for 20 minutes (they still weren’t really sure this MTV: Music Television thing was going to be good for them). Our director and producer, Tommy Schlamme and Buzz Potamkin, got together with some puppeteers to choreograph the 'dancing’ stereo television. I asked my partner to go into the studio to edit the music sections when they weren’t rocking enough, and –poof!– famous advertising.

Nothing to it, yes?

* For comparison, “I Want My Maypo” posts 112,000 results on Google. Or “Where’s the beef?”, another famous 1980’s campaign for Wendy’s returns 176,000 (or if you only use that phrase, which has been appropriated for all sorts of uses, you get 2,640,000).

.....

“Mee, mee, me, meeee!” MTV Networks Online, 1999/2000 New York City

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MTV got Sonicnet in the middle of another transaction they thought would be more important. But as the internet heated up in the business world’s consciousness, Sonicnet.com became something they thought to pay attention to. Which meant that, as president of MTV Networks Online, I was trying to help make the thing successful.

vimeo

MTV had also acquired a then-unique personalized radio application. Coupled with Sonicnet, we decided an ad campaign would supercharge the site, something large media folks like us thought was necessary. (It wasn’t.*)

Over a few objections, I hired my brilliant, challenging mentor Dale Pon to create our campaign. Dale had done our the iconic “I Want My MTV” for me in the early 1980s and constantly proved himself to be the most creative and effective media ad man in America. The stunningly talented and perfectly musical film director Tim Newman was already on our online staff (after turning his back on a career that included some of the greatest music videos of all time), so he was really the only person who we thought could direct the spots. Dale hustled our head of marketing, David Hyman, into his one and only –and perfect– voice acting job. (And, I should put in a word for the Sonicnet logo. Designed by AdamsMorioka, from a concept developed by Fred Graver.

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You can see for yourself that Dale knew how conceive big ideas to bring out the best from stars. With Tim in the director’s chair, the results were pretty stunning. And, to cap it, Dale really knew how to use MTVi’s clout to reach for the stars (like Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Joshua Bell, Jewel, Pat Metheny, Sheryl Crow, Beenie Man, Gang Starr, Faith Hill, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley, Al Jarreau, Alice Cooper, Blink 182, Kenny Wayne Shephard, Bon Jovi, Buck Cherry, Charlotte Church, Christina Acquilera, Dwight Yoakam, The Ruff Ryders, Eve, Johnny Resnick (The Goo Goo Dolls), kd lang, Buck Cherry, Kelis, Lindsey Buckingham, Melissa Etheridge, Moby, Seal, Sisqo, Static X, SheDaisy, Hillary Hahn, Charlotte Church, Yo Yo Ma, and Sting.)

This campaign, like every other one I’d worked on with Dale over the decades, was a hoot. One of the best things to come out of my one year in the early corporate internet.

…..

* IMHO, one of the great mistakes media companies made during Web 1.0, was thinking that their traditional audience reach would give them huge advantage in building web destinations. They’d made the exact same mistake in the transition from broadcast to cable. It didn’t occur to them in either era that a basic misunderstanding of the newest medium –not knowing what the audience wanted from the upstarts– would not attract anyone to their websites.

And, by the by, the same mistake has been made from popular websites bungling the transition to mobile. And, so it goes.

#Dale Pon

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queenmylovely · 5 years

Text

Day One

Summary: Joe mazzello x fem!reader. We shot Live Aid day one.

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: little bit of awkwardness, but just a meet-cute really

A/N: A little oneshot/meet-cute for a request I got! I was a dresser for a Midsummer at my uni last spring, so here’s me projecting lol. I tried to channel a shy person, lol jk it’s just how my awkward self would be. I hope you like what I wrote, and any feedback including likes, replies, and reblog are greatly appreciated!

Request: Happy Sunday! Can I please get something where joe meets a shy reader?

Perfect Performance, Masterlist

gif by @ohaladdins

🎥🎥🎥

It’s assumed that everyone in the entertainment industry must be outgoing and very extroverted. But, as a seamstress and assistant to a costume designer, you luckily didn’t have to be as you were generally very shy.

When your boss, Julian, was chosen as the costume designer for the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, you were super excited. Growing up, you had loved Queen and working in any sort of proximity to them would be a dream. Not to mention that most of your fashion sense revolved around the ‘70s and ‘80s in general. It was a perfect fit.

Julian started working on drafts and sketches as soon as he was hired and instructed you to shop for fabrics at antique stores and hole in the wall sewing shops. You gladly went about your tasks, buying things for the movie and maybe picking up some stuff for clothes you would make yourself, on your own dime of course.

Production started soon after, and you were making and tweaking racks and racks of original pieces, replicas, and antique finds. One day, you and the rest of the costume crew moved everything from Julian’s shop to the movie studio, and you knew that you were going to start fittings soon.

First up was the Live Aid scene, and you started dressing and doing fittings of extras. You had a short break while the 50 or so extras that your team had dressed were being blocked. Next, each of your team would be doing the first fitting for one of the actors that played the band members. You had been assigned to the one that was playing the bass player, an actor named Joe Mazzello.

While you were part of the industry, and certainly watched a lot of movies, you had never heard of any of the actors except for Rami Malek. And you only knew him from his parts in the Night at the Museum movies. You actually considered this a perk, since it meant you probably wouldn’t get starstruck while dressing them.

As you were re-tagging and hanging up some pieces that hadn’t been used, you heard footsteps walking into your work area. You turned around and saw a guy standing somewhat hesitantly at the edge, looking in. He was medium height with brownish-red hair, and green eyes with a slight glint in them.

“Oh, are you an extra? Am I early?” the guy asked you as he took in your appearance. You were wearing high-waisted light wash jean shorts with a red and white ringer shirt tucked into them. Looking down as he did, you smiled slightly to yourself. You supposed you did look like a lot of the extras you had dressed.

“No, um, I’m Y/N, your costume fitter. You’re right on time,” you reassured him, and he sighed in relief and came the rest of the way into your space.

“That’s good. I’m always worried I’m going to be late, so I end up being really early to things and sometimes that causes a problem,” he explained to you. You nodded back.

Walking over to the rack, you read the signs until you found the one that was labeled “Mazzello, J.” Pushing the other clothes aside, you grabbed his first outfit. It was a pink button down shirt with a wild pattern on it and light wash blue jeans. To be honest, it was something you definitely would pick out for yourself to wear. You handed them to him and pointed to the little changing area that had a curtain.

“You can change in there. Do you have an undershirt on?” you asked since he was wearing a sweater and you couldn’t tell.

“Yeah,” he replied, lifting the hem of his sweater slightly so you could see. It lifted his shirt with it and you caught a small glimpse of his stomach. You turned quickly to find your binder with your notes, trying to hide the blush that had instantly heated your cheeks.

“Okay, um, you should take that off too. John Deacon wasn’t wearing one during the show,” you told him as you checked your notes. You heard the scrape of the rings of the curtain on the rail and turned back around to wait. After a minute, he came back out. He was wearing the shirt buttoned to the top and tucked in tightly. You walked over to the shoe rack and grabbed the correct pair, handing them to him. As he pulled them on, you scrutinized the outfit to make sure everything was correct.

“So, do I look like him?” Joe said with a smile and quirked eyebrow.

“Very close,” you responded, turning back to your binder. You flipped to another page that had a picture of John Deacon in the same outfit and looked at the differences between Joe and John. Noticing what you were doing, Joe moved so that both he and the picture would be in you line of sight easily.

After seeing the main differences, you stepped over to Joe and began fixing them. As a seamstress and someone that had dressed many actors of all genders, one thing you weren’t afraid of doing was fixing someone’s clothes. You always made sure that the actors were comfortable, though, so you said a quiet “May I?” and waited for Joe to nod before you started.

First, you undid the very top button of the shirt and pulled the collar to open the shirt more. Next, you grabbed onto either side of the shirt next to Joe’s ribs and pulled up slightly so it would be a more loose and baggy tuck. Next, you knelt down to fix his shoes.

Out of habit, you assumed, Joe had pulled the pant legs down so they covered the top couple inches of the high-topped shoes. To fix this, you pulled up the pant legs so they bunched around the top of the shoe instead.

You stepped back and looked between him and the photo again and realized what you had forgotten. You reached into his ditty bag and pulled out a white belt. Joe took it from your outstretched hand with a smile and pulled it on.

Although you were used to helping people get dressed, him pulling on a belt was a strangely intimate moment that made heat flush your cheeks yet again. Since you were avoiding looking at his face, you missed the same heat color his cheeks a bright pink.

Once he was done, you took another look and said, almost to yourself, “Perfect.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he said and you looked up, not thinking he would reply. You made eye contact timidly, but he was smiling at you and that glint in his eyes was brighter than ever.

“They did a very good job when they casted you,” you told him quietly while averting your eyes, and he had to lean forward slightly to catch your words.

“Well, that’s mostly yet to be seen. Starting with Live Aid is the real test,” he joked, but he also seemed genuinely kind of nervous.

“I bet you’ll do great. They wouldn’t have cast you if they didn’t think you were up to the job. Plus, you’re practically a spitting image of him. Just on looks alone, you’re already doing a great job,” you told him, meeting his eyes with more confidence and offering a small smile.

Joe grinned back at you, glad for your words of encouragement, but waited to see if you wanted to continue the conversation since he could tell you were a little shy.

Just as you were working up the nerve to ask him a question, a PA stuck their head into your workspace to let Joe know that he was needed on set.

“I’d better be going. I’ll see you later; you’re my costume fitter all shoot, right?” he asked as he headed towards the exit.

You nodded in reply. He stopped in the doorway, giving you an infectious smile that you returned after a second.

“Good, I’m looking forward to being dressed by your capable hands,” he said with a wink before heading to set, leaving you with wide eyes, but a smile still on your face and a burst of giggles rising in your throat. This was going to be a wild ride.

🎥🎥🎥

Taglist: @somekindof-cheese @gwilyoubemine@deacytits @supersonicfreddie @siriuslovesmarlene @bowiequeen @acdeaky @deakysgirl @sunflower-borhap-boys @deakyfordays @queensilveryrog @happy-at-home @ceruleanrainblues @briarrose26

I just kinda created this taglist so if you would like to be taken off or added, just send me a message or ask!

Reminder that my requests are open! If you would like something in a sort of one shot format/length or blurb, etc. send it in! I’ll write for any of the Borhap or Queen boys (Freddie only platonically), Lucy, Patrick Murray, Gardner Langway and adult!Tim Murphy or possibly any of the other characters these people have played if I know enough about them!

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mst3kproject · 4 years

Photo

614: San Francisco International

I’d seen about fifteen minutes of this episode once, then I found something better to do. I never got back to it until just the day before I wrote this review, when I tried to sit down and watch it properly. I made it to the second ‘Urkel’ sketch before I got fed up and shut it off again. Now I’ve gotta watch the whole damn thing with no riffing… and man, this movie is boring. I’m not sure I have two pages of stuff to say about it. I’ll try not to get too repetitive but I make no promises.

It’s a big day at San Francisco International Airport, I guess. First they hold a staged emergency to scare the pants off some old white guys in suits. Then they’ve got to ship three million dollars for the Federal Reserve – that was a lot of money in the 70’s, which is why a bunch of thugs are kidnapping women as part of a complicated heist plan. Also somebody’s getting a divorce and some other guys hates hippies, and a twelve-year-old decides that flying doesn’t look that hard only to discover that oh, yes, it is.

As far as the actual episode goes, this one’s a ‘miss’ for me. The host sketches aren’t very funny (I have to admit I was never an Urkel fan either) and the riffing at times seems downright cruel. The jokes about how Davy’s stupid and his parents are breaking up because of him are deeply mean-spirited. And the movie itself is, as Tom Servo observes, just kind of brown. There’s not a single interesting or distinctive thing in it. It’s no wonder the episode is so colourless, when the movie gave the Best Brains nothing to work with.

There are several storylines running in parallel in San Francisco International. First there’s the scare given to the officials and politicians, which seems to result in the airport getting its runways upgraded. I’m not sure what that had to do with the simulated emergency, which was about a problem with the plane’s landing gear rather than the pavement they were to touch down on. The discussion of collapsing wheels and the demonstration of the airport’s emergency preparedness was so specific I thought it had to be foreshadowing of something, but it wasn’t.

Equally pointless is the guy who picks fights with hairy stoners… what the hell was that? What was he trying to accomplish? Did he just not like how the guy played the guitar? It’s impossible to say, because the scene comes and goes with no effect on the plot whatsoever. Again, it really looked like it was going to be foreshadowing – it takes some trouble to say where and when events happened, and I figured stoner guy would turn out to be an important witness in the heist or something. But no… it’s just there.

Then there are the main plots, which somehow seem equally pointless. Davy’s father is a workaholic jerk who just doesn’t understand why he should spend time with his wife and child. The better we got to know this guy, the more I wanted his wife to leave him, but of course I knew that doesn’t happen in movies. Sure enough, at the end they’ve supposedly reconciled and the whole family leaves together, but I’m completely unconvinced. The next time work calls, Davy’s dad is going to forget all the lessons he’s supposedly learned.

What brings the parents back together is Davy accidentally flying a small plane out over San Francisco Bay. This is one of the most contrived things I’ve ever seen in a movie. The whole sequence of events just makes no sense. Why was Davy even allowed out to wander around among the airplanes? What the hell made him think starting one up was a good idea? How do you take off by accident? I don’t have a pilot’s license, but I’m sure it has to be more complicated than driving a car and you certainly can’t start one of those without intending to! If Davy were younger maybe I could accept it as a game that got out of hand, but he’s twelve or thirteen and really should have more sense.

The A plot is, of course, the three million dollar heist. You’d think that somebody stealing three million dollars would be at least a little exciting, but it’s really not. The airport officials don’t seem very interested, the thieves look bored, and even the hostages aren’t really into it. The person who puts the most effort into feeling emotions about things in this storyline is the pilot who is forced to delay his flight to save his wife’s life, and he comes across as way more emphatic about the supposedly damaged nose wheel than about anything else. This may be the only time I’ve seen a character in a movie be a better actor than the guy playing him.

Mainly what I find myself thinking about during this storyline is not ‘oh, are the hostages gonna be okay?’ or ‘where’d they stash the money? Can the security guys figure it out’ but ‘wow, airport security sucked in the 70’s.’ People wander around in restricted areas and nobody bats an eye. I know a lot changed after 9/11 but was it really possible back then to take a gun on a plane just by hiding it under your coat? Could unsupervised children really just walk into a hangar and nobody gave a shit? Maybe that’s why the heist storyline is so un-compelling – because it’s just so damned easy.

Or maybe it’s because we don’t know much about these characters, and the only ones we know much about we don’t like. There’s the guy who’s like the airport director or something, I think his name was Conrad, I don’t care… he arranged the safety stunt at the beginning, establishing him as kind of a jerk, and then he continues being a jerk by wandering around huffing about doing things ‘his way’. The head of security doesn’t fare much better, since the first thing we see him do is sneer about how Conrad’s boss can’t fire him. He becomes slightly more likable later when he fairly weighs up both sides of the businessman-vs-stoner duel, but this scene, as previously mentioned, comes to nothing, and the actor still plays it with only minimal personality. Even the guitar-toting hippie, who you’d think would at least be fun for the actor to play, is so dull he’s barely even a stereotype.

A lot of the reason why San Francisco International is like this is, of course, because it’s meant to be the pilot of a series. All of what would be the recurring characters must therefore be introduced and have a small storyline of their own. It’s supposed to be an appetizer, not a meal in itself, just enough of a taste to leave you wanting more. The problem, of course, is that it doesn’t leave you wanting more. I didn’t even want the rest of this.

I can sort of see why somebody might think an airport would be a good setting for an ongoing TV show. Airports see people from all over the world on vacation, on business, and on new chapters in their lives. They’re big, complicated places where a lot of things happen, and could probably work very well as a social microcosm. That does kind of come across in San Francisco International, but of course it makes all those things look boring, or at least as if they happen to boring people. Another problem is the associations people have with airports. We just don’t see them as the home of life-or-death drama.

When you think about the perennially popular genres of TV show – there are cop shows, hospital shows, spy shows, courtroom shows, and so forth. These are all environments that ordinary people rarely encounter, and they seem laden with drama because they’re places where people’s futures or even their lives hang in the balance. Airports, on the other hand, are somewhere just about everybody ends up at least a few times in their life, and they’re mainly a place where we’re bored and annoyed. Any drama there happens behind the scenes while we’re sitting around drinking bad coffee and waiting impatiently for our gate announcement. They’re not glamorous, and they’re not something we want to know more about. The series got cancelled after six episodes. I’m surprised it even made it that far.

I’m sure the right script, the right director, and the right actors could actually make this work, but San Francisco International didn’t have any of those things. The script is particularly weak, because of its lack of unity. The need to introduce all the recurring characters and their roles in the airport obviously exists, but that doesn’t mean all their storylines couldn’t tie in together somehow. It definitely doesn’t mean they’re allowed to look like they’re setting things up and not pay them off. And just now, I realized that there’s not a single joke in the entire thing. Most TV shows, even those that aren’t outright comedies, at least try to be a little funny sometimes. I guess humour would have been just way too out of place in this wasteland of boredom.

The best sum-up of San Francisco International is that nobody was into it. On every level, it feels like people were just turning in what they had to in order to collect a paycheque: the writer wrote a script that was long enough, the actors showed up and said their lines, the director pointed a camera at it, and they were all thinking about what they’d rather be doing right now. I feel the same way. I watched the movie, I wrote my review, it’s not great but it’ll do, I queued up my bonus material, and now I’m gonna have a cup of tea and go to bed. Good night.

#mst3k #reviews #san francisco international #70s

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grimelords · 5 years

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My August playlist is finished and while it does unfortunately begin with Tool it also has two of Elvis’ gospel songs on it so please believe me when I say it takes a turn! Everything you could ever want over three hours of music from 70s christian hippie cult music to a funky remix of Also Sprach Zarathustra to Ante Up.

If you’re interested in getting these emailed to you instead of having them mysteriously appear and clog up your dash, I’ve started a tinyletter you can subscrine to at tinyletter.com/grimelords

but in the meantime,

listen here

Lateralus - Tool: Tool is on streaming now and they've got a new album out and so it's a very nice time to reinterrogate a band that meant a lot to teenaged me that i have almost completely exorcised from my life since. What's interesting firstly is how much better it is to consume their music digitally than it ever was in any physical format. They apparently resisted making it available for so long for nebulous reasons of artistic control and intention, wanting a say in how their music is listened to - they design these long and overwrought albums to be experienced as a whole. My contention is that as a whole album, start-to-finish, is one of the worst ways to listen to this band. Tool have maybe 12 great songs across four albums and every single album is around 70-80 minutes, pushing the limit of the CD. Which means for every great song there's at least two ambient interludes, Bill Hicks samples, 90s alt comedy bits (Die Eir Von Satan is just menacing music and a menacing voice reading out a weed cookie recipe in german, now that's what I call comedy) that really add nothing to the experience of the album on a casual listen. Being actually able to listen to these songs on their own, and playlist them and pull them apart from the mire is so refreshing and makes experiencing this extremely exhausting band actually pleasant for once. That's not to say ambient interludes and sketches and whatever aren't worth it, I absolutely love that shit and a lot of my favourite albums are absolutely chock full of that sort of thing - just like, don't make me do it every time. Their new album seems to reflect this at least a little bit, with the more overarching themes and arcs of the previous albums replaced by more singular and self-contained long songs interspersed with dedicated 2 minute interlude tracks. The runtime blows out to an hour and a half unrestrained by physical limits but it seems to contain more actual music and less funny than any other Tool album which is a welcome change. I'm still lukewarm on the album itself, it seems to just be a complete rehashing of the ideas on 10,000 Days (to the point of almost note-for-note repetition of some old riffs and themes) which is a bit disappointing considering how long they've apparently been working on it. I'll give it more time because Tool albums always unfold over multiple listens but for now they kind of just sound like the dad-rock version of a once extremely edgy 90s band - which I guess they are now so that makes sense. As for Lateralus, I think it's their best song. The perfect combination of Joe Rogan spirit science woo-woo sacred geometry fibonacci sequence 'open your mind' bullshit and good old fashioned riffs, it's the best of both halves of Tool and great starting point if you've never listened to this band and are interested in becoming insufferable.

Mars For The Rich - King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: This album is so good and it's finally converted me to being a full time King Gizz guy so look out for a lot more of that in the future. It's a thrash metal concept album about ecological collapse forcing the rich to flee to mars and the poor to flee to venus where they lose their minds and fly into the fire. I spent a little while the other day obsessing over the insane vocal leap in this absolutely incredible song when he jumps down an 11th on 'mars for the riiiiiiich' somehow effortlessly.

Pattern Walks - Cloud Nothings: The interplay between Cloud Nothings second and third albums is something I think about a lot. Attack On Memory is a visceral experience of depression and living in your own head where Here And Nowhere Else is about being able to finally move past it, and living with it. There's a good quote from the singer on the Genius page for this song where he says "It was almost a response to “Wasted Days” on the last record. It ends with “I thought I would be more than this” over and over and this one ends with “I thought” over a beautiful bit of music which is an easy way to explain the way I was thinking when I was writing this record. I wasn’t as depressed as I was when I was making the last album. Before, I felt like nobody liked the band and I was doing it for three years. I was not in a good place. Now, I had more time to think about why I felt that way. It’s a positive song."

M.E. - Metz: Metz put out a B-sides and rarities album a couple of weeks ago and then they put out this Gary Numan cover on it's own for some reason. It's very very good! I love just putting a generally harder edge on it without taking anything away from the spirit of the original. I also, somehow, didn't realise that Where's Your Head At by Basement Jaxx was a Gary Numan sample until I heard this cover so we're all learning every day.

The Ocean And The Sun - The Sound Of Animals Fighting: Here's what's good: having the last third of your song just be a monotone voice reading from a CrimethInc anarchist zine over swirling guitar ambience. The drums are so good in this, Chris Tsagakis makes me want to muscle through the ska and listen to RX Bandits more, he’s just that good. The extremely crunchy part in the chorus especially, it switches through like three different distortions and sounds absolutely great. I’m a big fan of anyone that can make a very straightforward groove like the main one here really work just by absolutely leaning into it.

Uzbekistan - The Sound Of Animals Fighting: Uzbekistan is the most out-there and wild song on this album which was sort of mostly a way back into post-hardcore for TSOAF after Lover, The Lord Has Left Us.. which was perhaps a little too-out there for most. (seven minute closing track of a guy singing John Cage's Experimental Music essay over formless tabla and mandolin). The drums alone in this are worth it. The way they transition in and out of the super distorted electronic parts is so good. This song fortunately also has a section where someone recites poetry over electronic noise and a second voice whispers 'who holds your strings? wake up..." over the top near the end. I will love and defend dum-dum pretentious music until the day I die.

Gangsta - Tune-Yards: I love Tune-Yards and I'm incredibly interested in the way she interrogates whiteness. It's a complicated thing to get into in this playlist post but when she first turned up, a lot of people assumed she was african american just by the sound of her voice and music - it reaches and pulls from a lot of african music in a very postmodern sort of way and when people found out she was white, straight, cis and from New England it kind of felt like a betrayal for some people. On her 2018 album I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life she digs into it a lot in a way that becomes almost uncomfortable for what is ostensibly a pop album. An NPR article about it at the time said "Ever the student, the Smith-educated Garbus, who writes most of Tune-Yards' lyrics, designed an anti-racist curriculum for herself. She attended a six-month anti-racist workshop at the East Bay Meditation Center. She read the work of noted anti-racist educator Tim Wise and explored the activism of Standing Up for Racial Justice, a nationwide, progressive activism network dedicated to "moving white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority.". That's a lot. This song, Gangsta, from her 2011 album when all the hype was fresh feels like a pretty early look into the mindset she'd later fully fledge out of interrogating white identity and cultural appropriation while also participating in it. The lyrics are simple but they get to a simple point, "What's a boy to do if he'll never be a rasta?" is basically making the same point as Ras Trent by The Lonely Island except it's asking where else does Ras Trent fit? Can a white guy participate in anything like that in a way that's not cultural appropriation, and how can a culture like that participate in the larger world without being appropriated? It's 2013 tumblr discourse but it's still churning for a reason I suppose.

Ante Up (feat. Busta Rhymes, Teflon & Remi Martin) - M.O.P: An all time great Violence Song, in the same genre as Knuck If Ya Buck and X Gon Give It To Ya. Opening with "'this shit feel like a whole entire world collapsed" is such an insane way to open a song but the absolute whirlwind of threats that follows makes it feel warranted. "Fuck hip-hop, rip pockets, snatch jewels" is sooo good. I don't even care about this song I am just straight up robbing you. The absolute power in the rhythm of the overlapping getemGETEMgetem hitemHITEMhitem part is just so, so strong. It's like a VR experience of being fucking robbed.

Awake (feat. JPEGMAFIA) - Tkay Maidza: It seems like Tkay is finally nailing down her sound and she’s absolutely killing it. She’s been through a few different styles since she started out and now she’s really hit on something that’s very distinctly her with this and her other new song Flexin and I cannot wait for the album.

Big Head - Ms. Jade: Ms Jade had one album in 2002 and then basically disappeared which is a shame because she's got a very interesting approach. The star of the show is as usual, Timbaland. The man is a singular voice somehow making the tabla and a wikiwiki noise his signature sound. I love the drone of the raps interspersed with the vocal spikes and I love the chorus as the gospel vocals surge up from underneath. This whole song is just completely bizzare in its construction in a way that works perfectly and feels strangely.

Titanium 2 Step - Battles: Battles are finally back and I’m fucking bouncing off the walls. They’re a two piece now and it does not seem to have slowed them down at all which is very exciting. I can’t think of any band that has ever continued with only half of their original members and also moved forward radically every time. Everything about this song is great: the super strength drums, the hypercolour guitar and the vocals that are just screaming absolutely whatever you like whenever you like. It feels closest to Ice Cream, and Gloss Drop in general more than La Di Da Di but i’m so excited to see how the new album sounds - and how they adapt their old material live now that there’s only two of them.

Dancing Is The Best Revenge - !!!: I’ve never actively listened to !!! for no good reason, but plenty of times in my life I’ve heard a song playing and been like damn what the FUCK is THIS?! and it always turns out to be !!!. This is yet another example.

Skitzo Dancer (Justice Remix) - Scenario Rock: The first clap in this is one of the best sounds ever. Right after 'so you think you've seen and heard it all' everything drops out of the mix for this one very comedy clap and it makes me smile every time. The rhythm of the Disco!... Disco! Disco! part near the end is one of those things that's just always playing in the back of my mind, which as far as constant reminders go it's not the worst. I've also over the last week or so been a big fan of this 11 year old youtube video I found of some guy covering the bass on this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0DLAUaV3f8

16:56 - Danger: Danger had a new album this year that I don't think I gave enough attention to because I relistened and it's very good. He spends the majority of it refining his original sound but it's such a distinct and original niche that it works out great. The songs are so densely layered and frankly just sound so beautiful! Which is a strange thing to say about 80s inspired electro but it just does. The strings and timpani in this about halfway through are just a gift as well, I love it.

Also Sprach Zarathustra - Deodato: As part of my ‘thinking about Elvis’ I was looking up a live album of his called Aloha From Hawaii Via Sattelite which has a very good cover which doubles as an illustration of how my proposed international peacekeeping satellite will function, projecting an immense Elvis themed blanket of darkness over ‘troublemaker’ regions to immerse them in an eternal freezing night until they’ve settled down. Anyway his entrance music for this this concert in Hawaii is Also Sprach Zarathustra, which is a very very funny thing to do and I think gives an appropriate measure of his status at the time. When I told my girlfriend about this she directed me to this bonkers jazz funk version of it by Deodato which deservingly won a grammy in 1974 for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

Hollywood Forever Cemetary Sings - Father John Misty: I’ve resisted listening to Father John Misty for a long time because he just seems like a real asshole. A big brain man genius that saw what Lana Del Rey was doing and thought “what if.. me?”. But I can’t deny this song, it’s absolutely magical and as far as songs about fucking in a cemetery go it’s definitely one of the most singable.

Remember / Medicine Man - Yma Sumac: In reading about the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and who was buried there, I learned about Yma Sumac. Yma Sumac was a Peruvian soprano with one of the most incredible voices I've ever heard who was an absolutely huge deal in the 50s when Americans were clamouring for the exotic, real or imagined. She made extremely good mambo music and claimed to be descended from the last Incan emperor. Her popularity faded after the 50s and then for an unknown reson in 1971, ten years since her last album, she made this rock album. It is insane. It's the best example of 'voice as an instrument' that I've ever heard. She is making every kind of sound possible with a human voice and her range seems completely limitless. She's just as comfortable in a piercingly high whistle register as she is in deep guttural growls. About 2 minutes into Remember she just straight up jumps four octaves in a row just to flex. She also sings in a way in the second verse of Medicine Man that I've never heard before that sounds like she's blowing out her cheeks and then singing with her mouth almost closed. It's absolutey bizzare and I love it so much.

This Thing - King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard: Listening to the other album that King Gizzard put out this year is really making me appreciate how much of 180 Infest The Rats Nest was for them. This album is basically a Black Keys album of groovy fun songs about fishing for fishies with fantastic harmonica work and it makes it look even more like they just snapped when they did the next one.

The Warrior (feat. Patty Smyth) - Scandal: I've been very passively watching GLOW since the second half of season 2 and now I'm very passively watching season 3 and this song was the opening credits theme for the first episode. It fucking rocks I don't know why they don't just make it the theme song all the time. This sort of 80s hard-rock pop is very good when it's good and extremely bad when it's bad and I wonder if we'll ever see any sort of revival of it once 80s nostalgia nostalgia takes hold in 2030. Being a singer named Patty Smyth is very funny also. She's billed as a feature even though she was in the band because she left to try a solo career as soon as it was released, possibly even before. She is also John McEnroe's wife I just found out. What a life.

A Girl Called Johnny - The Waterboys: I found this song because I was googling to see if it's possibly to get a random album from spotify and instead foumd a guy on rateyourmusic who was generating random rym album pages and then listening to whatever came up if it was on spotify - which seems just as good. This was one of the albums he talked about and he seemed to like it so I listened and I did as well. Sometimes the best way to find new music is throw dice on the internet and see what comes up.

New Year's Eve - City Calm Down: The new City Calm Down is one hundred percent great and I have such admiration for them for making a complete left turn with their sound and sounding like a completely different band since their last album but being equally as great in both forms. It's very inspiring and it's also the second song of the month I've heard for the first time while walking around Richmond that's mentioned Richmond. Very spooky.

Cruel Summer - Taylor Swift: It's fucked up how good Lover is when ME! and You Need To Calm Down were so bad. It feels like they changed direction at the last minute and changed the tracklist dramatically because those two songs seem sort of wildly out of place, along with London Boy. It's so uneven it's basically two albums in one but when it's good it's extremely good. This song is fucking powerful. The way she straight up screams "he looks so pretty like a devil"? Amazing. What a crazy thing to shout. If you're interested I also resequenced Lover and took London Boy off it and it's a far better album in my opinion https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3LN1uAhp8BS8Ms4bgmHiVP

Kelly - Van She: I have no idea why but this is in the opening paragraph of Van She's wiki page: "Their label introduced them as a "new band from Sydney fresh on ideas, fresher than Flavor Flav, fresh like coriander, fresher than the Fresh Prince, fresher than fresh eggs."[2] Despite these claims, the band began with a sound very much rooted in the 1980s, heavy on synthesizer." which really makes me laugh. Van She had a very specific mid-2000s indietronica thing going that was really good as this song proves but they also did a bunch of remixes under the name Van She Tech that are very out there and completely different to the main band. Their remix of UFO by Sneaky Sound System I'm sure I've yelled about in these posts before, it's absolutely phenomenal. Anyway I guess what I'm saying is get you a band that can do both.

Shadow - Wild Nothing: Somehow I missed Wild Nothing back when they were a big thing and only listened to them this month. I listened to this whole album while I was doing housework and when it finished I though 'that was nice' and could not remember a single thing about it. That's the beauty of shoegaze! I had to listen to it about five more times for it to stick and now I'm getting more and more out of it every time, I love it.

Heaven's On Fire - The Radio Dept.: Years ago when I was having a major 'depressive episode' for about a fucking year I listened to this album Constantly and as a result for a very long time I couldn't listen to it without inviting megawatts of bad vibes back into my brain. Thankfully through hard work and time passing it appears I've fully healed my assosciations with this album which is fantastic news because it is delightful start to finish and worth getting obsessed with again.

Crystalised - The xx: It's nice to see news articles posted almost every day about which albums are turning ten years old. It makes me feel one million years old and viewing the world from a television in my hermit's cave. It feels hard to overstate just how much quiet influence the xx have had over the music landscape since 2009. Without The xx we don't have Royals and without Royals we don't have You Need To Calm Down, so. Something beautiful of theirs that I think is sad hasn't caught on in the intervening years is the idea of writing romantic duets when duets had been out of fashion for so long. They wrote a whole album of them and continue to! There's a beautiful contextual depth to it, in that it's two queer people singing not exactly to each other but with each other. In an interview they've called it 'singing past each other' which is a very nice way to put it.

Aspirin - Tropical Fuck Storm: I really appreciate the continual development of the guitars in Tropical Fuck Storm where they sound so pencil-necked and reedy in these angular little melodies and then sometimes explode into thick cacophanous howls, but what's especially good is in songs like this when they don't explode and instead just sort of sprout tendrils and crawl around each other. They're really drilling down on a very singular and very unsettling sound and I really love it. It is also a very interesting feeling to be walking around Richmond listening to this album for the first time and having him mention Richmond. Spooky even.

Pasta - Angie McMahon: "My bedroom is a disaster / my dog has got kidney failure" is an all-time great opening lyric for me. I love the way this song kicks up from the doldrums, like forcing yourself to do something just so you've done something today. Angie McMahon is so great and I'm getting more and more out of her album every time.

If I Had A Hammer - Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash: The way this song is performed here is so fucking cool. The guitar tone, June's voice and the general energy of it is just absolutely electric. It feels like Highway 61 Bob Dylan where it's still folk but it's got this massive power in it. The solo fucking rips in that very old fashioned way and when it finishes and that riff comes back in by itself it's just great.

Elvis Presley Blues - Gillian Welch: I was thinking about this song because I too was thinking about Elvis. I thought for a long time that the lyrics to this were ‘didn’t he die?’ and not ‘day that he died’ and I think I prefer mine more. Idly thinking about Elvis like “whatever happened to that guy? Must be old now. Wait, didn't he die? No way to know I suppose.”

Everything Is Free - Sylvan Esso: Rolling Stone had a very good article and interview about how this song about napster has had a resurgence and remained relevant through the streaming era which is a very good read. I love the original and really this version is very similar except for the one key difference where they really dig into the anger and frustration at the heart of it in the 'fucking sing it yourself' line. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/gillian-welch-everything-is-free-courtney-barnett-father-john-misty-725135/

It's Nice To Have A Friend - Taylor Swift: This is the strangest song on Lover and one of the best, I absolutely love it. It's a very old fashioned kind of Taylor Swift Love Story type song but it also has a a fucking trumpet reveille in the middle, so that really spices it up a bit. I also keep accidentally listening to this backwards - there's a few phrases like when she sings 'it's nice to have a friend' where the 'friend' lands on the offbeat but is accented like it should be ON the beat and because of the way the music is in this where it's just the steady pulse it's hard to tell whether the chime is supposed to be on the beat or on the offbeat. It feels like it sort of slides back and forth throughout the song depending on what everything else is doing around it. I don't know if that's intentional or not but it's a very interesting effect. This song is also, in my estimation, about a woman and is detailing a fantasy Taylor Swift is having where she can come out to the world with no fuss and enjoy a simple fairytale love story as a gay woman.

Psalm 42 / Chant For Pentecost - The Trees Community: I have a mental list of albums I google every few months to see if they've been added to streaming and by the grace of god one of them finally has been. Years ago I used to listen to this almost every night to fall asleep and I think it brainwashed me slightly in a delightful way, and now I finally have it back again! This is proper hippie music: a bunch of long haired new york christians who drove around the country in the early 70s in a school bus playing their elaborate and beautiful music for anyone who wanted to hear it. The multilayered, multi-movement construction of these songs is completely entrancing to me. It's not a hollow beauty, but one that brings new meaning to old words in the way they stretch and snap and waver throughout the song, moving past each other and through each other as it moves forward. I absolutey love it. Chant For Pentecost is a good illustration of the other side of them, a short song that starts sweet and turns almost maniacal. There's a wild-eyed feeling to the harmonies and the way this melody sits on a single tone for such long stretches before the frankly scary conclusion.

In My Father's House / Working On The Building - Elvis Presley: The backing vocals in these, and especially the bass vocals are so incredible. The way they work in the second verse of Working On The Building is so great, Elvis is the lead vocal but the middle harmony and somehow it just works perfectly. The harmonies is In My Father's House are amazing. The bass solo is mind blowing and the part about halfway through where Elvis swallows the mic and says "jesus died upon the cross [VRRMER] sorrow" is very funny. It's got it all.

The Greatest - Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell is an absolute masterpiece and this is the best song on it. Lana has always had a knack for this apocalyptic feeling but this is a whole other level. https://www.stereogum.com/2056565/lana-del-rey-norman-fucking-rockwell-review/franchises/premature-evaluation/ The Stereogum writeup for this album was really great, and really nailed my opinion of her whole character thing as well, but he described this song as her version of that video that Ted Turner commissioned for CNN to play at the end of the world and it's really a perfect description. The part at the end where she says 'Kanye West is blonde and gone' is so chilling to me. Like Kanye losing the plot makes sense because he's only a few months ahead of the rest of us. He’s been a thought and culture leader for so long and it only makes sense that he’s spun off into space in these last days before it all wraps up.

listen here

#playlists

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realtalk-princeton · 4 years

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@Sulpicia do you have any advice on how to achieve such a high gpa in the humanities, when essay grades can sometimes seem subjective and different professors have different preferences? for ex, do you recommend using office hours in a certain way?

Response from Sulpicia:

I think that one thing to keep in mind is that I’m in a humanities major where empirical exams often determine 70-80% of your grade in a class; while they’re not usually curved, the language exams I took had a pretty similar format between classes, and so with every class you’re more prepared to engage with the material in that way. I personally think the best thing you can do to do well in a humanities class is to do the work; coming into class having prepared and done the readings will mean you have things to say, which translates into a better class discussion; this then will inevitably inspire thinking about what to write about for papers, and will also give you a better idea of how your instructor responds to your thinking. I’m not pretending that I showed up to class prepared 100% of the time, but I think sometimes people take humanities classes here and don’t take them seriously and then struggle at the end because they weren’t really trying to understand things on a week-to-week level.

In terms of writing papers, I generally tried to be in contact with instructors as much as possible throughout the process. Going to office hours with an idea (or, better yet, an outline) is really helpful, since you can get feedback before you spend a ton of time writing something that is founded on a mistaken assumption (which was something I did a LOT in my thesis process) or following a line of argument that might not be as strong as you initially think/hope. I often tried to come up with paper topics early on and even when (as was inevitably the case) I didn’t write anything, I knew I a) had the green light from a professor and b) was passively thinking about the topic for a long time. I also tried to write about things that made me excited, since the best papers are the ones you actually care about.

I actually have not found that professors have hugely different expectations for writing, because at the undergraduate level, good academic writing is good academic writing. I’m not the best essay writer in the world, but here are some tips I have for essay writing that I’ve learned over the past few years:

- Structure is so important, and is something a lot of essays miss. You should have a clear thesis statement of 1-2 sentences for a term paper, and this should be clearly positioned at the end of your introduction. For a shorter paper (5-10 pages) this should be at the end of the first page or top of the second page, while for longer papers, a JP, or a thesis chapter, they can be a little bit further in. Overlong introductions are my weakness as a writer, but a good intro basically just needs to provide the context you need to set up your thesis statement. I would stay away from the “three-pronged” thesis you learned in high school, but your thesis should correspond with the structure of your paper by presenting your claims in the order you will address them.

- Structure is important in your main body too! Write an outline before you begin your essay that briefly sketches out the progression of your argument and what evidence you will use to prove each part of it. Use transition words to link together ideas, and make sure to regularly tie back all of your claims to the main idea of your paper. Don’t write anything that does not support your thesis or provide a counterargument that you can then mitigate or disprove. Always let your reader know where they are in your argument, and don’t be afraid to refer back to earlier parts of the paper.

- Every sentence should matter. When you’re presenting a piece of evidence or analysis, think about its relationship to the one previous. Is that relationship meaningful? If not, the sentence shouldn’t be there (or should be placed elsewhere in your paper). The ideal is that every piece of your paper will follow naturally from what immediately precedes it, guiding the reader on a nice walk through your argument.

- In the humanities, close engagement with primary sources is key. Yes, you need to use secondary scholarship. However, engagement with the “scholarly conversation” should be second to your unique contribution, which is your close reading of the text/images at hand. This was something I struggled with in my thesis, since I felt so pressured to read all the scholarship and lost my close focus on primary sources. The absolute first thing you should do when you write a humanities paper is sit down with the sources you’re analyzing and think about them. What questions do they raise for you? Why are they confusing or contradictory? How does this source connect what you discussed in lecture, precept, or seminar? What can one source say about another? If you can, annotate the source on a piece of paper or take notes alongside it.

From there, you’ll start to find your unique insights which will form the backbone of the paper. Then, if this is a research paper and not just a close reading, look at secondary sources. If you have your own opinions about a primary text, however naive, you’ll feel more confident looking at *the discourse*. Sometimes, this will answer questions you had about the text, and so you don’t need to do that work in your paper. Other times, it will give you more interpretive tools to understand a text (e.g. you might find that X feature of the writing is typical of a certain genre, and you can think about the implications of that on your text). Sometimes, it’ll show you that the scholarly consensus is, in your opinions, totally wrong; for example, one chapter of my thesis was inspired by the fact that I visual source I thought was straightforward and was going to use in another chapter had in fact been pretty clearly misread by scholars, so my new project became proving why my identification was correct. However, any engagement with scholarship should only work to support your argument; unless you’re doing a lit review or writing about scholarly history (in which case the scholarship is your primary source), you don’t just want to slap different people’s opinions next to each other.

- Use lots of evidence and use lots of analysis. Graders are not mind readers, even if they are familiar with the material you’re studying. Good essays will present a lot of evidence; one thing I find helpful is breaking up longer quotes into shorter sections and treating them separately. Every piece of evidence should also be given analysis about why a) it is proving whatever point you’re making in the paragraph and b) how this connects to your larger argument. Part (b) might be implicit, but many essays could be stronger by making clear, distinctive points. Obviously not every piece of evidence merits a lot of analysis, and you can feel free to draw together several quotes to make one larger point.

- Speaking of, make specific claims. This refers both to the evidence that you use and how you use it. It’s totally okay to make general statements about a work, or an author, or an artistic movement; you couldn’t write an essay without doing that. However, those broad claims need to (at least in part) be grounded in some form of evidence; this can come from a secondary source or from an illustrative quote from a primary source. Inexperienced essay writers will be too vague and general--while there are dangers in getting to hyper-specific, I think it’s important that if you make a claim in your paper, you point to the specific thing that made you think that way (this is also a good way to avoid misconceptions/bad assumptions in your argument). When you’re using evidence, you should also try to say something as specific as possible about it, rather than just continuing to string up evidence and restating your thesis. Your thesis statement is just a summary of your ideas; your reasoning should be more nuanced and complex than that one concept. The more specific you are the more original you are, which helps you make points.

- Revise, revise, revise! When I did HUM, I would write up to five drafts of each paper. As a senior, I’ve gotten a lot lazier about this, but part of the reason I could do that was because I had learned a lot from revising previous papers and knew what mistakes to avoid. I think that papers grow the most between a first draft and a second draft. My favorite way to revise (and this is what I did with my thesis, JPs, and many papers I’ve written at Princeton) is to take a draft, print it out (with professor comments, if applicable), and then go through and retype the whole thing into a blank document. Optionally you can mark it up yourself as well, which is probably for the best. I like this because it means you have to read every word of your paper and also don’t feel bound by its existing structure; you can move paragraphs or shuffle things around more easily. I also always find myself adding more things or rephrasing analysis, which improves the paper. You’ll never come up with every idea in a first draft, so it’s good to revisit the paper as much as you can.

- Ask other people to read your work. We all have bad writing habits, from overuse of certain words to repetitive syntax to skipping steps in our logic. These things are not always obvious to us, but are very obvious to other readers. If you can, ask a friend (or writing center tutor, or instructor) to read your paper and help you identify these “bad habits” so you’re more conscious of them in future drafts. They can also often help you see where you skipped a step in your structure or the logic of your argument, or where your treatment of evidence doesn’t fully make sense. This is not always an option, of course, but especially early on, having people who will frankly tell you what’s not working will be helpful to your development as a writer.

- Learn from your mistakes. Criticism, even of the kindest, gentlest, most constructive kind, is hard to hear. To be honest, I would sometimes put off writing my thesis for hours because I was so embarrassed that my advisor had seen a stupid mistake I’d made in my writing (which is entirely irrational, yes, I get it). However, it is very important not only to bask in the positive comments on your paper, but to look at any more constructive ones to see what you can do better next time. Every paper teaches you how to write the next one better. Keep old papers and use them as teaching tools; you might even find it helpful to pin a list of things you know you need to remember when writing next to your desk or on your computer desktop. Professors offer comments because they want you to do better and understand more, not because they want to tear you down (unless they’re really mean).

Anyway this was kind of long-winded, but hopefully at least a little helpful as Dean’s Date approaches (the one lesson I never learn is how to stop procrastinating). I don’t know if there’s a secret to having a good GPA. I don’t consider myself to be brilliant or industrious at all, really; I think I’ve been lucky, taken classes that suited my academic strengths, come into them prepared, and really spent time understanding what exams and papers are trying to assess and then crafting my responses accordingly.

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blondecarfucker · 5 years

Text

Ocean Eyes (Roger Taylor)

Roger Taylor x Reader

BoRhap!Roger Taylor x Reader

Fic Summary: You're new in town and a blue-eyed boy caught your attention. You grow up to be best friends, but the possibility of being more is always haunting the two of you. Reader is also an art student who draws Roger constantly.

Fic Note: So I wrote this for @yourealegendfred's 3k words song inspired challenge. I have been trying to write this for a while now, but the story was missing a middle part, and that's where @pigfish27 comes in with a beautiful request that was already very similar to my idea for the fic (with the reader being very artistic and such), and honestly, don't know how I'd write this without her idea, so thank you!! Thank you too for the challenge and song inspo, yourealegendfred. I chose this song because 1) I like Billie Eilish 2) Roger's eyes are very hypnotic. If it's your first time here, hi! I adore Roger Taylor and I write a lot about him, including a long ass, 17 parts at the moment, fanfic, so my masterlist is in my bio! Can't link it here or else Tumblr will avoid showing the post on the tags.

Words: Nearly 4000

Warnings: a bit of angst in the beggining, SMUT, unprotected sex (it's not the 70s anymore kids, you know you should wrap it before you tap it), recreational use of drugs (that's up to you, but like, we all know it's the right thing to say "kid's, don't do it", so i'm saying it now). that are probably some minor errors cause im super sleepy

Ocean Eyes - Billie Eilish

I've been watching you

For some time

You remember the first time you saw Roger. You just moved to a new city, your 15th city in your 14 years, and you just got to school. Your mom promised you'd stop moving, but you didn't really believe her. You had no reason to.

So you got there, your school uniform ill fitting, and as you said goodbye to your mom in the car, you saw him. His hair was longer than the rest of the boys, his uniform shirt was creased, the first buttons open, his tie undone.

You watched him step on a cigarette butt on the ground as he held another one between his fingers. You couldn't believe how blue his eyes were behind all the smoke around his face.

Not only in color. He was joking with his friends, and you could hear them laughing, but he looked sad, his eyes unable to hide how blue he really was.

You recognized those eyes. Eyes like that looked right back at you every time you looked in the mirror.

He looked back into your eyes, too.

Can't stop staring

At those oceans eyes

But you only spoke for the first time in detention. You didn't knew why was he there; you got caught sleeping in bio again. You were drawing, trying to make time go by faster, when a hand pressed against your table. It was big in comparison to yours, and you noticed how callous it looked. You looked up and was met with his eyes.

"Could you borrow me a pencil?", he said, a smirk on his lips.

"Sure", you told him, and gave him one.

"What are you doing?", he said, as he sat back into his chair, scribbling something in a piece of paper in front of him.

"I'm drawing", you said. You only realised you sketched his hand a few minutes later. You looked at him, watching as he wrote something in the piece of paper. The word "drowse" covered the paper.

"Are you really drawing? Or are you watching me?", he said, aggressive after realizing you read what he wrote, moving the paper away from you. His eyes stared into yours. Angry.

"I can do both. I'm drawing you", you snapped back, and he looked surprised that you weren't intimidated by him. He smirked. "Do you want me to pose?", he asked. "Just look at me", you told him, sketching his eyes.

Burning cities

And napalm skies

Fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes

Your ocean eyes

You drew him a lot. He used to call himself your muse. You drew him drumming, his eyes narrowed at the effort. You drew him when he had his arms wrapped around some girl at a party.

You grew closer together, bonding over how you disliked that town. You couldn't believe this was the city that your mom settled on. Roger and you would complain about that as you shared a blunt on the side of the river behind your school, the sound of the running water muffling your complaints.

He liked how you never seemed uncomfortable around him, even when he was being cocky, and you liked how honest he was around you, never treating you like one of the girls he flirted with, just treating you as an equal to him.

No fair

You really know how to make me cry

When you gimme those ocean eyes

It wasn't until when you both moved to London for school that it happened for the first time. You both shared a flat, and you were sitting on the couch, drinking and smoking while listening to My Sweet Lord on repeat, and he was complaining, as usual. About the band he was in, about his classes, about the girls he was seeing.

You turned to him and said "God, Taylor. I don't think I can think of anyone else that complains as much as you do", and he scoffed. "Well, there's you. I can think of something else we could do", and you stared into his eyes, even more blue because of the redness around his pupils. And you knew what he was suggesting. You flirted sometimes, though you never really payed attention to it. But now, with the smoke clouding your brain, and his eyes staring deep into yours, you thought that he could do whatever he wanted with you.

And he did.

He moved his hand to your thigh, pulling you closer to him on the couch, as you kept looking into his eyes. He didn't break the contact, almost as if he was checking how far he could go before you stopped him.

But you never did.

I'm scared

I've never fallen from quite this high

Falling into your ocean eyes

Those ocean eyes

You were still friends with him, but you noticed a change in your relationship. Every time he'd come home with a girl after a gig, you felt an ache on your chest. You were used to that, emotional pain, but never before from him. You didn't realize how much influence he had over you. How much you could care about him.

And it was made worse by the fact that every few weeks, you would both fuck again - quick, messy, rough; you barely looked at each other. But you never really talked about it, not even joked about it to each other. "Don't overthink this", you told yourself in the mirror after a night with him, throwing water in your face, the bruises he made on your neck and cleavage staring back at you.

And even when those marks disappeared, you could still feel his touch on your skin. You forced yourself to go out with other people, but it was always him that ended up invading your mind.

He got further under your skin than anyone else; he wasn't just a good lay. He made you feel vulnerable, exposed, but also noticed. He saw everything that was wrong with you and was still there.

Cause the thing is, you knew his worst, too. His cheating on other girls - even with you, or when he'd call three girls in the same night just because he wasn't sure who would really come, and the three girls did, and he would then entertain two of them as the third waited on your living room, not in the mood for something groupal. The girls who waited on him to finish were usually pretty nice with you, since they visibly didn't care for sharing - one of them actually helped you pick an outfit to go out to a pub, one day.

And you were also used to his aggressive, drunk self that usually came before he started to vomit, and you'd always help him - holding his sweaty strands back, convincing him to take a cold shower, going out to the deli and getting him chips and a coke so he had something to eat before passing out. He'd done the same for you multiple times.

Or the first time you did molly together on a music festival - Roger bit his lips until they blead, and you kept dancing even after the sun went up again, burning your shoulders under the sun. The two of you took care of each other afterwards, and swore off molly.

You felt like a married couple, sometimes; only the two of you living in the same flat for nearly a year, occasionally fucking, knowing each other inside out. This thought only made it hurt more when you saw him with a girl that wasn't you.

And now, every time you fucked, you had to force yourself off the bed so you wouldn't sleep on his arms, no matter how much you wanted.

No fair

You really know how to make me cry

When you gimme those ocean eyes

I'm scared

I've never fallen from quite this high

Falling into your ocean eyes

Those ocean eyes

And then he brought a friend home one night - a guy that joined the band after the other guy, Tim, left. You know Brian, you even hang out with Brian when you go to Roger's shows and rehearsals, but you never really clicked.

Now this guy, Freddie, was almost a male version of you: very artistic, always scribbling something. Eventually, when Roger and you decided to move to a bigger flat, you invited Freddie to split the rent and live on the other room the flat had.

You felt close to Freddie, and you always helped each other out when drawing, borrowing pencils and brushes whenever necessary, and Roger just watched - he couldn't really participate in this new dynamic.

You even nearly stopped the casual fucking - the incidents, for the lack of a better word, would happen less often. It was almost like he felt Freddie was replacing him in every aspect of your life, but he wasn't - you and Freddie didn't see each other that way. But to admit it to Roger would be to admit you felt different with him, and you didn't want him to feel sorry for you as he rejected you.

Once you noticed that he feels replaced, though, you started to involve Roger in your drawings again - asking him to pose for you, drawing his car.

And that was good for you too, because you couldn't take him off your mind, now that you're getting less of him. He even started to show up in your school work, you knowing his face features so well that you drew him on everything.

One of your works was to remake pictures and cover art from pop culture with your own trace - and there was Roger's face in the same pose and with the same dim lights as Marlene Dietrich (one of Freddie's favourite pictures to the point where he has it framed in your living room), and there's Roger's face and body in the remake of the cover of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and there's Roger in the cover art for Aladdin Sane.

You didn't want to look creepy - and you know how creepy it was that you kept drawing your friend in each and every drawing and painting you did.

But you're used to drawing him - you started it when you were both 14. You knew the exact curve of his lips, the bridge of his nose, the format of his eyes.

I've been walking through

A world gone blind

Can't stop thinking of your diamond mind

And now you had to do oil paintings of the human physique - a nightmare for you, completely unaccustomed to oil paint. So you painted the body you knew best, and the one that you craved the most. It's been two months since the last time you had sex with Roger.

And one day, Roger came home and saw a painting on one of your easels in the living room - not an odd sight. But the painting itself caught his attention - a very detailed, realistic naked man. Once he got closer, he noticed how the man's skin tone was close to his, how he had the same haircut... the same face as Roger.

The realization hit him - you drew him naked.

He blushed.

Cause he always called himself your muse, but this was intimate - this was the way he'd lay in bed after you had sex. A part of your friendship that you never discussed.

He always thought of you as someone who's too cool for him - you never once looked intimidated by his jokes, flirting, whatever. You didn't really care. He thought you didn't give a fuck about the two of you - especially now that you had Freddie.

He tried to get mad at one of you two - but Freddie was too nice and a good frontman, so he couldn't fight him, and he could never get mad at you. All you had to do was say "Rog", in your husky voice and he'd be on his knees.

That was so unlike him. He was embarrassed, so he tried to play it cool. Pretend he wasn't hurt at the fact that you were probably fucking Freddie on his back.

But this drawing of him in a very vulnerable, intimate moment made him change his mind. Maybe you did care for him. Maybe those moments mattered to you almost as much as they mattered to him.

So he walked to your room, and knocked lightly on the door, getting in before you said "Come in". Because you never said it; you were listening to Purple Haze at maximum volume, only wearing a baggy white shirt with paint everywhere. He could see your black panties peeking from under it as you swayed your hips to the rhythm of the music.

He then looked to what you were drawing - he recognized his hair and body again. You were painting him nude, yet again. A devilish smirk appeared on his lips.

"Hey, Y/N", he screamed, and you jumped out of surprise, your eyes wide as you turned to face him. "Roger, what the fuck are you doing here?", you asked, trying to normalize your breathing.

"Oh, just checking out your paintings. It's a pretty hot guy you have as a model… I wonder who he is", he told you, ironic, walking closer to the painting.

You blushed for a moment, like a child getting caught. But you soon went back to your devil-may-care attitude - the one he was more familiar with. "Just painted the body I'm more familiar with", you shrugged, turning back to your painting so you didn't have to see his reaction. It's the first time one of you references the sex.

"It's fine. I'm honoured, really", he said, moving behind the easel so he could see your face as you worked. "My pleasure", you told him, dry. "I came here to offer my help, really", he told you, unbuttoning his shirt. "Thought you could use the real life model to make work easier", he grinned, and you looked at him. His voice sounded relaxed as usual, but his face looked tense. He was scared that you'd turn him down.

He looked so vulnerable, yet so beautiful - your bedroom had the best lighting in the house, and the sun on his skin made him look like Apollo himself, luminous.

"Sure. That'll definitely make the work flow faster", you shrugged again, but you felt a genuine smile forming as you saw him relax and start undressing.

Careful creature

Made friends with time

He left her lonely with a diamond mind

And those ocean eyes

And you painted him many times, for this project, for the ones that came after it, for your personal projects. It really made you bond again - but you didn't have sex anymore, which was confusing, cause you were seeing him naked more than ever, as he posed nude whenever you asked.

You were conscious that you were going out with even less guys, and that Roger was seeing less girls. Freddie was aware of your newfound chemistry, and always made jokes about how it felt to live third wheeling. You laughed, and Roger too, but you didn't knew what to do about it.

Then, one Sunday, Roger appeared in your doorframe, half dressed, a backpack open on his hands. "Do you wanna spend the day at the beach?", he asked, and you looked confused. "Roger, it's already autumn", you told him, and went back to scribbling. You were drawing his hands - now that he was wearing rings, they posed a new challenge to you.

"And what about it? It's better, actually. No one will be there to annoy us. You could paint me… C'mon, Y/N", he said, and you considered. It would be quite an impressive painting - the blue in his eyes and the blue of the ocean, the sand, his hair and skin mixing, too.

"Ok, Rog", you said, and started to pack your materials. "See you in my car in five minutes, then", he told you, and went back to dressing and packing at the same time.

The car ride there was a bit weird - you couldn't find a subject to talk to him, overthinking every idea he had. He wasn't starting any conversations, either.

Then once you got to the beach, you unpacked your materials, and he stood in front of you. "What should I do?", he asked, a bit insecure, and you let out a sigh. You didn't want to spend the afternoon in this uncomfortable feeling around him.

So you got up and said "Join me", as you started undressing, and wearing only your underwear, you jumped inside the cold water.

You screamed when the freezing sea touched your skin, and you soon heard Roger scream, too. "Y/N, why the fuck did you get me inside the water? It's freezing!", he screamed, and you laughed. "Thought you could handle some cold water, Taylor. But apparently I'm wrong", you told him, and splashed water on his face. "Oh, so you want war?" he asked, and started to tickle you.

You spent some time in the ocean, your bodies getting used to the temperature, joking and swimming. Once the sun got closer to the horizon, bathing everything in a golden light, you told Roger it was time to paint. You got off the water, and he followed you, watching your body as your underwear clinged to your wet skin.

But when you got to wear the beach towel was covering the sand - the perfect place for you to paint him - you were shaking, the cold wind taking away your body heat. "Hey, just a second", Roger told you before handing you a towel. After you dried yourself, he offered you one of his fur coats that was in his bag. You accepted it, the fur immediately conserving your body temperature, and you started to relax. Roger got another fur coat for himself, and also a bottle of tequila and a blunt from the bag.

"Cheers", he said, after drinking straight from the bottle and passing it to you. You drank, too, as he started to light up the blunt.

"How should I pose?", he asked, passing you the blunt.

"Just stay the way you are. It's perfect", you told him, and you started mixing the tones.

The painting was almost ready and the sun was setting as you got to Roger's eyes. He stopped posing for a moment so he could start a fire to warm the both of you.

"Thanks", you said, and he shrugged. "A way to apologize for barely passing you the blunt", he said, and you laughed. "It's okay, I barely passed you the tequila", you shrugged, too.

As you went back to painting, you were frustrated at his eyes. You just couldn't get their color right. He noticed you were stressed.

"Did I do anything wrong?", he asked, and you laughed. "No, Rog. I just can't get your eye colour right", you told him. "Why is that?" he asked again, and you shrugged again. "Don't know. They're usually pretty hard to get right, but I can do it most of the times", you said.

Maybe it was the reflex of the fire in his eyes. "I'll get a closer look at them, okay?", you asked, putting your work to the side and leaning into him, your weight on your hands and knees.

Roger looked at your body, warmly lit by the fire by your side, your black lingerie in contrast with the caramel fur. He knew how soft your skin was, and he craved feeling in on the tip of his fingers.

So he moved one of his hands so he could cup your jaw, and he saw as your breathing hitched. He hasn't touched you like this in months.

You moved one of your own hands to cup his face, and he felt the friction of the sand on your skin against him as you pulled him closer to a kiss.

None of you closed your eyes during the slow kiss.

You pushed him onto his back, and pressed his body against the sand with your own. You grinded against him as you kissed him again, and he closed his eyes as he groaned in response.

But you didn't want to hurry it - this was the first time you were fucking in months, yeah, but also the first time in felt so intimate - you were actually looking at each other during some of the kiss, and he caressed your waist under the coat, your thighs, with caring - he was not being rough for the first time. You could feel his bulge against your core, and you kept moving against it as you kissed him.

Until he had enough and started pulling your panties down, his index finger brushing against your skin under the elastic band.

You started pushing his underwear down, too, and his cock was already hard. You got on your knees, straddling him, so he could sit and take his boxers off. You then moved your bare core against the tip of his member. You both moaned.

"Just fuck me", he mumbled under his breath, his perfect lips parted. You leaned into him so you could kiss him as you pushed your body down his cock until he bottomed out inside of you.

You stayed there for a few moments, kissing him slowly, before you started riding him.

It was slow at first, and he kept his eyes on you, the electric blue driving you mad - everything around you seemed to pale in comparison. You only broke eye contact once one of you closed your eyes to moan or curse.

It was a different feeling - you could still feel the fabric of your bra against your breast as you kept riding him, moving faster and trying to keep a rhythm. You unclasped your bra, and Roger helped you off your coat and bra, and started kissing your breasts, but you could see he was having a hard time focusing on them, as you kept riding him. He was close.

But you needed to see more of him so you could come. "I need to see you", you told him, and he nodded, looking at you through his lashes and giving you a weak smirk as he took the coat off.

The cold wind was hard on your skin, but the temperature shock made you more turned on. Roger was even closer, and started to press sloppy kisses to your neck as leaned his head against your shoulder. You felt your legs burning of the effort of riding him, but you were now getting close, too, as you felt his skin against your hard nipples.

He moved his hand from your waist to your sensitive clit, and massaged it. You nearly screamed - the extra stimulation was what you needed to reach your climax, and he moved his hands to your hips to help you ride him through your high.

You felt tired and sleepy, but you kept riding him with his help, your head on his neck now, and he could feel your heavy breathing against his skin, and soon you could see the veins on his neck pop and his jaw clench as he reached his climax.

None of you moved for a few moments, until Roger felt you shiver in his arms, breaking up his embrace to get your coat.

You got off of him so he could get his own coat, but you didn't got up - you pushed him down again, covering your bodies with the coat as if it was a duvet. He chuckled as you put your head in his chest, and you look up only to see him facing you.

At that moment, the electric blue of his gaze made every other shade of blue around you even more intense - the sea and the sky. All because of his ocean eyes.

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