Beyond the stage

Oh, the humanity! — The band members ranked by their people skills

Pearce. No contest. But even taking all else into consideration, she keeps them progressing past “obligations with bare minimum contact”. Progress is slow and imperceivable at times, but it’s there.

Shiloh ranks near the top of course, and it’s not hard to see why, but he uses this power for evil.

Bae is also a contender, and only uses his abilities for evil about 50% of the time.

(Which begs the question, is it better to go with the one who you know will only twist the situation to his own gain, whatever that might be— or the one who could flip at any moment?)

Everett knows himself very well, but other people’s motivations are often foreign to him. He finds it difficult to relate and refuses to fake it in this area.

JB, for all her brashness, knows how to keep people coming back. Love her or hate her, they just can’t stop talking about her and certainly won’t forget anytime soon.

Nate… okay, in all fairness, his way of dealing with other people is actually highly effective, when handing this group… but remove him from the unique humans that make up his team and he’s going nowhere fast.

Pran knows basic decency and how to behave in polite society, the problem is he looks at it and goes ‘nah’. Despite this, if somebody does manage to get past the walls, he won’t put up much resistance after and is a highly effective sounding board.

Jeremy often deliberately provokes others for his own amusement. And even when he doesn’t… He tends to alienate people no matter what, and his results get markedly worse when he’s actively trying to win them over.

Punks

I was at a Palestinian solidarity gig last night & the one Palestinian artist who was going to perform had COVID so the organisers asked around to see if there were any Palestinians who'd like to say a few words instead.

A local guy who was born & raised in Gaza offered to speak. He started with "I'm an engineer. i'm not a poet or a politician. I don't... do public speaking… I had no idea what to say when I came up here. So i'm just going to tell you about the street I grew up on."

And then he did! He went down the street building by building. He told us about the ice cream shop on the corner, the grocery shop, the charity that supports people with intellectual disabilities. He told us about the people who he knew growing up, the families who still live in the different houses. He told us about the university buildings and about his friends who quit being accountants to start a band together. All on that street.

All of which is gone now, by the way. Bombed to dust.

the mountain goats make music for people who spent their entire lives convinced they would die before they were 17 except now they're 26 and they have a job and friends and hobbies and they're not sure what they're meant to do now that they've survived

I just wanna say bc I KNOW you're somewhere on tumblr, to the teenage girl who attended Take Your Kid To Work Day at an office building in Ontario, Canada circa 2013 and had a conversation with a middle aged woman in which you showed her your Black Veil Brides fanart and fanfics and ship content and told her about different fanfic tropes including a/b/o verse bc she happened to know who Panic! at The Disco and Fallout Boy were and thus you felt the need to show her your bandblr ship art, that was my fucking mother and I had to clarify all that to her including looking my mother in the eye and trying to explain a/b/o verse without sounding like a lunatic.

It's been 10 years and I still regularly sent evil energies in your direction. Since you'd be probably two years younger than me and thus legally an adult now, please know if this post reaches you it's on sight.

pros and cons of breathing????? before medley and 8 ball?????

MY FAVORITE DAY

hello i would like to let you know that "i'm with that band" lives rent free in my mind. i am only letting myself read it in very small chunks because i want to savor it and if i read too much at once i will overdose on serotonin. cool story cool writing thank you for your service

Holy heck this is legitimately so sweet and one of the most meaningful comments I’ve received about my writing ever, I’m so grateful people are reading and even more glad that they’re enjoying it.

Thank you so much for going the extra mile of reaching out and telling me, it means more to me than you will ever know.

This is real parents' choice, not the BS “Parents choice for mine AND yours” that Mommy Fascism League supports.

The 51 kids should not dictate what books/media the other 29,949 have access.

spiderband + the squinty™

bonus:

Even if it was for one year in fifth grade <3

Extra points for leaving in tags for how many years and if you still do