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via-whitmore · 3 years

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Fic: you’re too intact (Giles/Ethan PWP)

Oneshot for the @buffyversegiftexchange and @ Aspasiathebloody

CONTENT WARNINGS: Consensual breathplay/choking, powerplay, nonconsensual voyeurism, magically infused sex

Read on AO3

The truth of it was Ripper was never cut out for glam. By the time Bowie killed Ziggy, he was grateful the sequins and feathers were drifting to the stadium floor in spotlight and fading smoke. Ziggy was the beacon out of the dark of archives, tea rooms, and graveyards but he had no desire to start dressing like a peacock and learning to apply lip liner. He believed his mask was more subtle. The working class hard knocks dropout was easier to live in until he could forget everything they’d wanted him to be. So what if his parents hadn’t run a grocery? When he said anarchy he saw the Council building going up like Guy Fawkes day. He had his tower to pull down, same as any of the born East Ender. The death he’d seen would wake these alley brawlers screaming in the night. He deserved London. He deserved punk.

Ethan, on the other hand, would not let glam die even if he had to keep it alive single handedly under his own skin. Ethan taught Ripper much of this--the deserving. Ethan had the ability, with magic or without, to be so a part of London that he could wear its shadows like a skin while simultaneously being a bonfire in the gray rain. He wore the safety pinned leather jacket and the pink boa and lipstick. This was not always good for his safety. And much of their gang’s lives were taken up with cracking skulls over Ethan’s appearance. But he taught Ripper about dancing on the line between wanting to disappear and demanding to be heard. It was Ethan who stole Ripper his second guitar and their record player. It was Ethan who suggested Ripper sing lead vocal while he took the role of mosh pit disciple.

Now here they were. There was no place to fuck in the one room squat they were calling a flat unless all six of them were doing it together. Nominally, nebulously, the lines broke down into Deidre and Tommy, Randall and Phillip. Now, Ripper supposed, he and Ethan. One or the other had decided they wanted to fuck alone together. Ripper couldn’t remember who’d set his eyes on whom amidst the tangle of limbs and made the decision. He would never be able to even after it all turned to ash. They might still get pulled in on public indecency but this was the first year sodomy itself wouldn’t get them arrested. At least on paper.

“Someday we will all be free,” Ethan had said, tone flippant but eyes shining.

It was the kind of thing one could only say without irony at eighteen, no matter how disaffected one was trying to look. Ethan always believed in a future and his ability to move into it. Ripper was trying only to think about the now.

And now had Ethan up against an alley wall, the boy’s legs wrapped expertly around his back. Ethan was biting into the leather that covered Ripper’s shoulder to stifle his moans. It was not the first time, but one of the first. The first time, Ripper never would have done what he did next.

“Stop my breath,” whispered Ethan.

Ripper didn’t know what he meant. He covered his inexperience by reaching down into Ethan’s jeans, where the two of them rubbed together, and pinching the bare cock with two fingernails. He hushed Ethan’s scream by shoving his thumb into the boy’s mouth. Ethan could smell himself on fingers that were callused not only from guitars and fistacuffs. He would never ask where they came from. He pulled at the hand and placed it over his nose and mouth as Ripper expertly got his own jeans down just enough, Ethan supporting all his own weight. Something flashed in Ripper’s eyes, the barest spark of a question. Ethan nodded. Ripper reached into his pocket, smeared his fingers with lube, and began to play expertly against Ethan’s hole.

“Oh God! Oh God!”

Only Ethan knew what he was saying against Ripper’s palm. Sex was the only time he ever called down what was a fiction at best and an old bastard at worst.

What could I call down and move through this man’s hands? Ethan thought distractedly. What could I make with them? What could we make?

Ripper was rod-hard against Ethan without so much as a kiss in return. Ethan rubbed against him like a cat, slid down, and turned against the wall; presenting his ass. He never wore underwear. He reached into the pocket of his lowered jeans and pulled out a black scarf, tied it around his eyes, and listened to the sound of unzipping. The deep grunt Ripper gave as he pulled his cock out and slicked it thrilled through Ethan’s body. Under the layer of body heat and the cool mist, Ethan could feel the low current of dormant magic rolling off the other man’s taut body and touching deep inside to meet his own. In his personal darkness, he felt Ripper reach out and brush a fingertip against the scarf and into his curls. Then he slid a palm under Ethan’s silk shirt and stroked up his spine. Ethan’s breath deserted him at the shockingly tender touch, his jaw falling. He wanted to buck away from it and dissolve simultaneously. There was someone gentle underneath all the fury roiling in this man. Ethan had no use for gentleness.

Liar, liar, he thought. That’s okay, beauty, we can make you anyone you want to be. All masks become real with enough time.

He was forgetting the drab surroundings, retreating into a plane of only sensation under the hands. Then Ripper pinned him with all his weight to the wall and slipped inside him. He exhaled a hot breath on the back of Ethan’s neck. When Ethan howled, the palm came back against his lips. He licked it playfully. Ripper gave him a moment to adjust, to just let them feel one another, before he drew out slightly and struck into him.

“Faster,” Ethan begged after the third such movement.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” growled Ripper, but he picked up his pace.

Maybe he could sense how best to please Ethan. But it was a shaky assumption. He wasn’t used to this, Ethan could tell. No dirty little quickies in the hay with the stableboy at the country house. Maybe there had been a mean older boy in the dormitories. Or maybe there hadn’t been anyone at all. The thought added another layer of delight over the mounting pleasure and the low scald of magic.

“I could do anything to you,” Ripper hummed hotly against his ear. He sounded less commanding and more incredulous at the idea. Seeming to sense the slip in his guise, his voice assumed a harder edge. “Leave you here blind in a heap. Like a rat in the gutter.”

Ethan nudged the hand away from his mouth. Ripper obviously didn’t know enough to hold his turf.

“You’re in the gutter with me now,” he answered breathlessly.

Ripper didn’t know how to reply and so licked the back of Ethan’s neck. He crested Ethan further and further towards release but it wasn’t quite enough. He knew how to put the cherry on the cake.

Ethan knew how to bend a lover’s will with a spell. It did absolutely nothing for him. Devoting himself to chaos had been a way to rid himself of the controlling impulse inherent in magic. Molding the world to one’s desires was too...available. Ethan wanted to be Puck, not some Old Testament god.

He wanted the chance to give himself over to this mess of a man walking between selves. But sometimes, one had to grease the wheels just a little to see what the outcome would be.

He sent the message to Ripper’s hands where they pressed on the wall above his head, not to his mind exactly. The idea needed to be Ripper’s. Ethan was no beggar. The hands slid down and began to gently massage the sides of Ethan’s throat. He sighed encouragingly.

There was the barest instant of a halt while Ripper considered and even the fear Ethan felt added to the closeness of orgasm.

“That’s what you want?”

“Hurt me.”

“I--”

The illusion of Ripper broke for just that breath. Ethan wasn’t worried. All things with time.

“I’ll teach you.”

It could easily have been a disaster. Ethan might have had to think through the brink of orgasm to loosen a less experienced partner’s hands and avoid danger. It was his own fault. He hated asking for what he wanted; all the discussion. But he certainly didn’t want brain damage. But Ripper knew and somewhat hated that he knew. Old combat training came back. He mentally worked backwards from the desire to subdue an opponent, placing cupped hands on either side of Ethan’s neck again. The flutter of his rapid pulse beneath his fingers excited Ripper and pulled him back into the moment. He squeezed gently, moving his forefinger to apply some moderate pressure just below the trachea. Ethan’s legs tightened spasmodically around Ripper’s body and he bucked as he came. Ripper released his hold quickly, clutching Ethan close as he shuddered and muffled his cry in Ripper’s neck.

“Got you,” Ripper gasped. “I’ve got you.”

It was a long moment before Ethan wrapped his arms around Ripper in return.

“You’re good,” he gulped.

“You’re a manipulative little shit. And if you ever control me again, I’ll break your fucking jaw.”

“Promise?”

Ethan batted his eyelashes. Ripper pushed him away with a sneer. As Ethan stumbled backward, Ripper disguised catching him by the shoulder by steering him onto his knees.

“I gave you what you wanted.” His voice caught, then turned hard. “Your turn.”

Ethan grinned. As he obliged, neither of them knew someone out in the night rain had watched the moment with a hidden set of animal eyes. He admired the look of the two punk lovers. Watching them in the first fumblings of sticky submission almost made Spike wish he could still breathe. He did not know he stood several feet from a boy trained in every way to tear him apart. He did think perhaps it was time for a new look for such new and brazen times; something to lure such kids in their dark clubs.

It’s not the place of this work to ask if the boy would have done so had he caught the vampire staring. He only tossed back his head with a silent cry against the brick and let the cold air expand his lungs before he did up his pants and offered a hand to the one on the ground. Then they walked through the mist past the one who had been watching.

They raced each other up the stairs to their squat like children. They took off their damp clothes and didn’t bother to put on new ones. Ethan covered his surprised squeak when Ripper pulled him down to lay at his side on the mattress. If they fell asleep together, it wasn’t anyone’s business.

#I ACTUALLY DID IT #liv's fic #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #btvs #rupert giles #ethan rayne #buffyversegiftexchange

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

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SnK 125 Thoughts

Things Eren’s Plan Has Made Better:

Open, infuriated communication between people living under fear of imminent death! :) :) :)

This chapter makes me laugh. Almost nothing good happens within its pages, and it’s delightful. Eren’s stated intention of killing off the outside world is actively disrupting even the imitation of peace every society in this universe has.

He’s fighting for the protection of Paradis? See all these dead Paradis people who were just minding their own business. See also all these living Paradis people who are minding their own business into a civil war.

He’s ending the Eldian cycle of titanization? Nope, still got the inheritance problem to work out, and if the rest of the world dies, that just means nine people are forever going to be killing each other over it.

There is nothing in this chapter that is worth any of the carnage Eren has inflicted.

So I can’t wait to find out what it’s really about.

There’s a bad plan, and then there’s this.

No part of the world is untouched by Eren’s decisions, and even the people he’s claimed to be interested in protecting are actively suffering from what he’s done. Unless Eren’s sanity is such that he is pursuing a future where there is no one but him and a pile of bodies, there is no outcome here that he’s said he wants.

Which is good, because it means that we’re not done.

If this were a video game, and Eren was a character inside it with an open strategy guide, his choices would be the mark of a player looking to pick the worst possible ending.

[Eren] enters a farmhouse for the night, looking for shelter. [Eren] is discovered, and met with a warm meal.

[A] Say thank you for your meal.

[B] Throw the potatoes in the kind, elderly housewife’s face.

[C] Kick the table over and murder her young children.

[D] Commit omnicide.

Eren wants the D, so any other possibilities are out.

Paradis isn’t safe. Eren and Zeke invited global scorn at an international event.

Paradis isn’t safe. Eren woke up thousands of titans who remake the landscape by going out for a stroll.

Paradis isn’t safe. Every citizen living on the island has their own thoughts an opinions on what this is, and if they vocalize them the wrong way in front of the wrong person, they’re being subdued with violence.

Plus, at this point, the rest of the world doesn’t even know the titans are coming. The only people who are going to spend their last time on this planet in hours (days?) of petrified fear are interned Eldians, who are screaming warnings at everyone and getting beatings back. At best.

Eren announced his plans to every Eldian. They, unlike their non-Eldian counterparts, are privileged with knowing exactly how they’re going to die, and how little everyone is working to prevent this outcome.

If killing the entire rest of the world does work out, Eren’s actions have made it so that the people who have grown up in internment camps spend their last days even more miserable than they were to begin with.

Naisu.

As Pieck and Magath discuss, there is no way to stop this. Everyone on Paradis is in shock, starting fights, or pulling dying people from rubble. Staring out at the horizon in horror. There is nothing anyone alive can do about this.

Submit, and be free. It’s over.

Or fight and die.

That’s always the case in this world, isn’t it? Fight against insurmountable odds, and fall with your pride intact, or decide that this burning world is a good place to rest.

The remains of Marley’s military giving voice to that offends my sensibilities, somewhat. Magath actively pursued lighting this fire. Without his assistance, this never could have happened. The fact that he thought he was only scapegoating Paradis and eliminating his country’s military hierarchy so he could take control does not particularly make it better.

But the will to fight doesn’t belong to only people with squeaky clean morals. This, unfortunately, is not a story where only the protagonist side gets to have good philosophical views.

Landing Magath on yet more pages of this manga. Cheers.

And of course, we have the turnaround where Floch, a member of the Survey Corps, is now arguing that the fighting is done now. While there’s still titans roaming the world, causing death.

He’s never been a very good Scout.

“What’s so bad about submission...?”

Submission, Floch, is bad because it leaves fucks like you having the last word. It leaves people who smile about genocide because of how it improves their lives free to spread that poison and think that this kind of atrocious violence is a good thing.

The man Floch claims to speak for has never known how to submit to anything.

Eren’s love of the world, and of freedom, is not isolated. He doesn’t want his freedom. He wants freedom as a concept to reign. Humans are born free, and anyone who tries to disagree with that doesn’t matter. That’s been his view from the start. That’s the startlingly intense perspective that has him killing people when he’s nine.

The Paradis Eren’s current choices are making is not a Paradis worth fighting for.

So what do we get? Paradis finally, truly being the last bastion of humanity on the face of the planet? A rebellion of thought rising to object to the ideals that led to this tragedy? A final chapter where our heroes have the chance to save one island from itself while the rest of the world burns?

That’s awfully limited.

Not to mention that there are always survivors. People on the outside would always live, and they would always remember what’s been done to them.

Really, nothing done here has changed anything.

“In the worst case... we’d have to repeat the last two thousand years of conflict surrounding their power. All on this tiny island.”

Humans in this world are not particularly good at avoiding the worst case scenario.

One particular human appears to be actively pursuing it.

None of his supplied reasons currently support this being a good plan.

The only thing Eren will get out of this is death, and his public statement is against that--for Paradis.

Paradis has not been excluded. It’s just going through a more specialized kind of death than the rest of the world is getting.

So in conclusion for this part of the post, everything Eren has done has made the world worse, done nothing to progress his stated goals, and is just such a collection of bad ideas that a valid explanation is that Eren has completely lost his mind and there is no logic moving this train.

That being a boring story, we’re looking down the barrel of some hardcore Reveals to liven things up.

Bon excite.

I’m not going to bother with chronological order this month because why, but also because I think there’s a good chance I’d forget to mention Hange and Levi if I waited until the end.

So. How ‘bout that Hange and Levi. Both being alive.

Genuinely, the most surprising thing to me about this is that Hange not only located a horse, but somehow found Levi some quality bandages before he started bleeding out. How that has turned into finding it in their best interests to approach Magath and Pieck remains to be seen, but I guess the Marley-Paradis dream team is not as dead as it should be.

Like. I don’t disagree that stopping Eren is a priority.

I just really have no interest in forgetting that Marley is The Worst. On the whole, I think the manga’s been rather good about balancing the humanity of the characters with their vile chosen actions, but. I like having a clear focus of hate, and don’t feel a need for them to be further humanized?

Especially when, as Bad as all Eren’s actions are, MARLEY THREW THE FIRST DOMINO AT THE HOUSE OF CARDS, SPARE A SECOND TO THINK ABOUT HOW THAT FUCKED UP PEOPLE BESIDES YOURSELVES YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES.

They can share The Worst crown when Eren steals it. That works.

Anyway, yay Hange and Levi. They join the realm of the officially not dead.

Like Falco!

Hell. Talk about awkward. Connie and Falco are both easily identifiable through their hearts. Connie’s has just been through a few more brutalities than Falco’s. He’s worn down and bitter, whereas Falco still as his eternal fount of optimism going for him.

Sasha’s dad is right; Connie will hesitate. It’s in his nature. He’s found the one thing in the world he can bring back from this war, and he’s desperate for it, but Falco is a little boy, awake and thanking him.

Connie joins the Survey Corps back when it’s a death sentence. He doesn’t run away from the hard things. He fights and protects his friends, and that’s done nothing except break him down into someone who’s considering killing a child to save his mother.

I don’t think there’s much suspense in Connie’s eventual choice. That’s not to say that Falco’s free from danger (even if Connie decides against it, deciding against something after you’ve put too many of the steps in motion... yeah), but it isn’t even a full chapter before Connie’s being confronted with the nature of his work (protecting people) and the nature of this choice (killing person).

However, there are a bunch of people wandering around on horseback in the middle of nowhere. We’ve got Connie and Falco, soon to be joined by Armin and Gabi, as well as Hange, Levi, Pieck, and Magath.

None of them are going to wind up near the walls. All the tension will have to be derived from their interactions, but what’s there? Hange, Levi, Pieck, and Magath have the most reasons to throw down, but also the most experience to know that maybe it’s time to talk. Connie’s future decision is practically written in stone, so why bother taking Falco out into the boonies? A dramatic reunion between him and Gabi isn’t going to do much we haven’t seen already. Quality bro moments for Connie and Armin? We could have done that back anywhere.

We have a cast divided in terms of geography, but not much else. Only Floch’s gang is perfectly fine with what’s going on here. Everyone else is in favor of figuring out a way to fight it. Throwing a bunch of pairs out in the woodlands when none of them are going to be fighting seems like wasted panel space.

tfw massively secret reveal in the woods like whoa and it’s a race to bring it back to the rest of the cast and explain that not all hope is lost and things are magically better

I sense a plot.

Hopefully this part of it involves less dead children.

Also, it’s impossible to tell because non-populated Paradis always looks the damn same, but there’s a chance that any number of the horse groups could be near Historia.

She gets a whole mention this chapter.

Almost like someone cares about her.

That’s two separate people in two chapters.

Whoa.

But also there’s the whole setting sun thing, and sitting outside doing nothing but glaring at the sun is a patented timeskip Historia activity. So maybe now she’ll finally have something to do.

No one else really has that, admittedly. It’s all a lot of watching Eren’s plan, thinking, “gee that’s bad,” and dealing with the fallout of who is already dying thanks to Eren’s plan. Everyone is very busy, but not providing constructive solutions to anything except pulling people out of buildings.

Based on the world as it is explained to us, there is nothing anyone can do against Eren.

Manga please. Please give me the explanation that changes this. We know it’s there.

But yeah, that creates a very anticlimactic dead space where everyone’s solving the problems in front of them, and shrugging at everything else. What else is there, really?

I think I’ll be in the minority when I make the comment that this chapter brought back more of my pity than disdain for Floch.

He’s a crappy person doing crappy things, and someone should probably shoot him in the head sooner as opposed to later. That would not be a bad thing to have happen. He’s invested in raising an empire that no one in the world needs.

He’s also alive through freak chance that left him the sole survivor of a suicide charge, and when he managed to bring his commanding officer to the people who could save him, and bring some sense to the chaos, his actions are invalidated.

Many things could be solved with Floch if he ever was implied to feel a fraction of empathy for people not himself.

That said, it’s... very glaringly obvious that this is his radicalized response to trauma.

The volunteer he kills is left with a mangled hole in his face.

That’s how many of Floch’s comrades die in Erwin’s last charge.

For their pride and obligation as Scouts, and their belief in Erwin’s strategy, they charge. And they all die.

Except for Floch.

Floch’s turned into many things over these four years. A liar is high on the list.

But this moment, and when he talks to Jean, strike true.

Jean’s in shock. Too much has happened, and he understands far too much of it. He’s completely blank, and that is a surface Floch can speak to. Floch knows, and has never forgotten, the shock and trauma the fight can cause. He knows how to put comfort, when he talks to someone like that.

“It’s over.”

He can talk about the rise of a grand new Eldian Empire all he wants, but he’s only smiling when he’s talking to Jean. He isn’t smiling over the new beginning. He’s smiling when he tells a quiet, horrified audience that the fight is done.

Floch’s not a good person. He’s lost in a variety of ways. The war of thought between Eldians and the rest of the world stripped him bare after the battle in Shiganshina flayed him, and he let all of the rot consume him.

All because he happened to live through one of the bloodiest fights in their island’s history.

He should probably be punched in the face and killed. Whichever order.

It’s still a sad fucking story.

-glances at Armin and Mikasa-

HEY SPEAKING OF

This chapter is just the rest of the 104th who haven’t officially experienced it going through their complete mental collapse.

Armin’s in hysterics while trying to hold himself together. The fact that he can still do that second part puts him at the top of the tier list. Mikasa’s lost, with her only avenue left being explaining to Armin why him running off isn’t actually going to fix anything. Connie’s out on his own, contemplating child murder. Reiner’s unconscious and better off for it. Jean’s a wreck. Annie’s spent four years in a dark hole and can’t even win a fight with Hitch. Historia’s main contribution to this arc is being sad. Eren directly caused more than half of all this.

Our Heroes.

Armin has always been the idea guy. He’s the person you ask when you don’t know what to do next. Mikasa doesn’t know what to do about Eren. Eren is literally the most important problem to solve in this world, even outside their emotional complications, so Mikasa asks Armin, her smartest friend, what to do.

Cue the waterworks. Armin goes ballistic, and just like everyone always has, yells at Mikasa for caring about the only family she has left.

She’s taken aback when Armin says he doesn’t know what to do. For the rest, there’s only sadness. She can’t even offer comfort or a denial when Armin takes in everything he’s just said and says he isn’t the one who should have survived Serum Bowl.

Mikasa and Armin have always chased after Eren. Together. They’re the most stable part of the trio. Now Eren’s destroying the world, and the first thing Armin does is lose it with his other best friend for looking to him to be her stabilizing force like he always has.

In Trost, Armin comes to realize that his friends have never looked down at him for the reasons he looks down on himself. Mikasa and Eren love him for his own good qualities. More people start to realize how smart he is, and as the plot progresses, more and more pressure piles on, with people coming to depend on his brilliant mind.

It fails him here. The one thing he’s always been able to offer simply isn’t there. Just like against Bertolt, where all he could come up with was sacrificing himself.

If that had worked the way he thought it would, Erwin would still be here. Solving all the problems Armin can’t.

Mikasa and Armin lose their best friend, and Armin flips out on the one he has left, when what they both really need is those few days of sleep and some damn hugs. Leaving both of them rather ashamed of themselves and isolated.

They’re soldiers. Their job is to keep going.

Also Mikasa’s scarf is gone, and I’d assume Louise has it, but I’m unsure of what the Drama value of that will turn into. Put a pin in it and wait.

Probably the most ominous content goes to Shadis.

The idea that the Yeagerists have the island, so blend in until it’s time to rise up... that is a horrifying potentiality. The time it will take for the Yeagerists to have control of the island is probably slightly more than it will take for Eren to destroy his first city (assuming that’s what he’s up to). If our next climax is going to be a rebellion taking the island away from the Yeagerists... we’ll see a hell of a lot of damage first.

I guess that’s a given, with where the plot is headed, but it’s still appalling to think that Paradis has come so far only to be thrown back into cages when their walls walk away.

I really hope that Shadis isn’t pulling a foreshadowing card. I’d feel more comfortable if his scene came before the scene in Marley, so it could more cleanly be marked as a link to them, instead of a link of what might come to pass in Paradis.

Though the link still stands.

Mr. Leonhart wants his damn daughter back, you fascist jackasses. Staying in line for a decade hasn’t made him forget that.

Anything I could say about Annie and Hitch would diminish my love of their time together. Hitch joins the MPs as a selfish brat, and she lives her truest self that way, but she also saves lives. When duty comes knocking, she sighs and opens the door.

Annie’s a selfish brat too. She’s not as immune to seeing other people as human as she wants to be. She would still kill everyone all over again to make it back to her dad.

Who was a right bastard until he realized he’d done fucked up.

After the long series of poor parenting we’ve gotten, it’s painfully refreshing for Annie’s dad to apologize to express how much he cares for her to her face. He might have fucked up everything else, but he was sorry and he said it. He actually took the first step in doing better, and a decade later, he’s still waiting to complete that journey with his daughter.

Yes, okay, the bar is so fucking low, but he still jumped it. The existence of genuine love at all is a long stretch better than certain other characters get.

Lots of waiting yet to come. Nothing can be done, and Colossal Titans take a long time to travel. If there isn’t a prompt list about what x character does waiting for the apocalypse yet, there should be.

Everyone in this chapter is really just waiting for everything to die. The extinction of the rest of the world is taken as an inevitability, with the only question being how you want to go down.

The world ends with a slow scream that keeps growing louder.

Someone needs to tell Eren to stop doing that.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 125 #Armin Arlert #Floch Forster #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post

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idolizerp · 6 years

Photo

[ LOADING INFORMATION ON POIZN’S LEAD RAP, LEAD DANCE ZEN…. ]

DETAILS

CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 20 SKILL POINTS: 02 VOCAL | 13 DANCE | 15 RAP | 10 PERFORMANCE SECONDARY SKILLS: Lyric writing

INTERVIEW

ZEN is made of contractual obligations and tightened puppet strings stitched to every joint in his body, invisible ties piercing bones, making him move to the whims of those who hold all the power. all because he signed his youth away, thinking he’d get a shot at making it big. alone. solo. a one-man act.

what he gets is a group. baggage. expectations to be a team player drilled into his head since the announcement of poizn’s lineup so many years ago.

for someone so selfish, so determined not to let anyone in, it’s a wonder how 99 ent. managed to shatter his resolve and replace it with a ghost of a boy, who would do anything they say to keep his ugly past buried, kept under lock and key, and confidentiality.

do as you’re told and we will make sure no one knows who you were. disobey and you will never get a chance at that solo you desperately want.

so he drowns himself in silent threats, fashions himself a persona for protection. (after all, ZEN is more shield than sword.)

ZEN is a collection of almosts. caught in between white lies and bits and pieces of the truth. every word he says is borne out of a calculation—a subconscious scheme—to memorize people’s shortcomings, their desires; to dig out their secrets and exploit them when he’s finished.

variety shows like his go-getter attitude. appreciates the way he chuckles at lame stories, encourages and draws from him exaggerated (often fabricated) stories about his members and their lives as trainees and as full-fledged idols. they like his sharp wit and clever savagery, praise his comedic timing and his natural capacity to read the atmosphere and gauge reactions.

so he digs himself a niche in the handful of appearances he makes on network tv during promotion cycles. smiles like his life depends on it. smiles until his cheeks hurt. smiles until the cameras turn off and he bows his farewells. smiles until he’s enveloped in the darkness of his room in poizn’s dorms and he writes himself sick.

he makes a name for himself until, one day, he goes off-script. disobeys. he steps over the line and says something he shouldn’t have. makes a joke about someone whos off-limits and way out of his league (practically untouchable) that falls flat—is misconstrued and taken as full-on offensive. it doesn’t matter if it was intentional. a mistake. the backlash he gets comes on the heels of fans turned antis, people who used to tolerate his edgy attitude and borderline controversial remarks, excusing it as him being witty and sarcastic. it’s part of his charm is not enough of a blanket phrase to save his hide or his damaged reputation.

99 ent. releases a statement, forces him to write a letter of apology and self-reflect. behind closed doors, he’s told to lay low. not show his face. so he does what he does best—he goes into hiding for several months, haunts the practice rooms in an attempt to pull himself back up. all the while the public divides itself cleanly into two: those who forgive and forget and those who remember and are out for his blood.

five years have passed since his juvenile blunder and he wonders if he’s safe. wonders if he’s forgiven. wonders if he can keep pretending this monotonous life is something he still wants. if the stage and the lights and the screaming fans are worth the way exhaustion creeps underneath his skin, seeps into bone, poisons the nerves.

wonders if anyone is capable of seeing through him at all.

(to the lost, lonely boy he keeps locked in his rib cage, in the tiny sliver of a bleeding heart he houses in the confines of his chest.

a boy buried under a man named ryu sungki, who is all too consuming, too much, too dangerous—a predator.)

SUNGKI wears danger like a second skin. walks a fine line between pure nonchalance and vague belligerence. uses people like pawns. tosses aside has-been’s and groupies like yesterday’s trash after he’s done. drapes layers and layers of distorted versions of himself that people love (to hate, to fuck)—he is whatever you want him to be. until the sun rises and he’s gone, as if he’d never been there at all.

he’s neither here nor there. an perpetual in-between. always lingering on this precarious divide.

SUNGKI cares for no one—not even his members—but himself. the climb to the top has always been a one-man war and he’s long since abandoned his comrades (those trainees back in the day who thought they could ride on his coattails, use him, exploit him. fools.) in favor of surviving. self-preservation nothing more than pure instinct to remain the last one standing.

he has no sympathy for the weak. can’t fathom setting himself aflame to keep others warm. he’s got chaos in his bones. he’s a storm in human skin and all those who stand in his way will always get caught up in his mind games.

don’t try to shape him into something pure. don’t try to save him. don’t play with hellfire if you don’t want to get burned. and, most of all, don’t fall in love with him.

because he will love you raw, broken, and dirty.

because he will kiss an i love you into your skin and murder you when he leaves and never comes back.

(haven’t you heard?

he’s the bad boy mothers warn their daughters away from.

he’ll love you like you’re his first, touch you like you’re the only thing that matters. he’ll turn your body into an altar, your mouth a confessional, and he will worship you like a sinner trying to find something holy—redemption—inside your body.)

BIOGRAPHY

ONE.

he’s born on a blazing summer day to two barely adults out of wedlock.

his mother cries. his father curses. and the nurses slip away, turning a blind eye to the sudden makeshift family of three.

the second time he wakes, he is home. and home is a tiny apartment in dalseo-gu, dirty dishes piled high in the sink, and week-old leftover takeout growing mold in the refrigerator.

home is also the cradle of eomma’s arms and a soft, tremulous whisper calling, sungki. sungki-ya~

for two years, it’s just the three of them in their little corner of the world and they try to make it work. his father juggles two part-time jobs to make ends meet: when the sun rises, he’s got his hard hat on and all sungki remembers is the hunch of his shoulder and the bend of his back; when the sun sets, father leaves dinner half-finished at a quarter to six, commuting his way to a gs25 in the heart of daegu for his closing shift.

his mother stays at home, trapped inside a dingy apartment with a fussy baby boy who doesn’t understand that she’s human too.

they scrape by stretching won to won. eat enough to call themselves half-full. sleep enough to trudge through another monotonous day. love each other enough to stay together for a little while longer.

TWO.

happiness comes in fragments.

it’s the sound of eomma’s soft humming, singing about canola flowers and the riverbanks of nakdong, of a love that caresses and warms the soul, of bygones and fleeting youth. it reeks of nostalgia and lost time—of a life she no longer gets to live.

it’s father smiling, lulled half to sleep by her gentle voice and sungki’s offbeat clapping and nonsensical babbling. it’s endearing. all kinds of tender and soft.

it’s endearing, still, when he starts to crawl, starts to walk, little legs struggling to hold him up, his voice stronger and louder. his babbles now strings of sentences and fragmented lyrics. he sings eomma’s sad ode to her younger self once in a voice made of honey and ripe with emotion he doesn’t quite understand and she cries.

it’s the first time since birth that eomma cries like that: all brokenhearted and hurting. sungki-ya, sungki…my beautiful boy.

it’s the first time sungki cries too.

don’t cry, eomma. it’s okay. sungki is here. sungki loves eomma. don’t cry, please.

THREE.

he’s three when he learns the saddest words in the dictionary. it’s stay followed by please don’t go trailed after a whimpered, half-choked eomma is sorry.

three and still a boy (just a boy) when he learns to associate abandonment with the sound of the door clicking shut in the dead of the night, to dial tone, to come back come back come back’s left unanswered.

father tells him in drunken rages not to miss someone who won’t miss them. tells him with a fist to the face that he was not enough for someone like eomma to stick around for.

tells him, after, cradling his bruised body to his chest that he can’t deal with loneliness by waiting next to the phone, by the door, by making excuses, by praying. (because what’s god to a non-believer. what’s god to powerless people.) eomma is never coming back, boy. you chased her away.

sobriety comes in ripples; its effect turning every day into a perpetual hangover. a rinse-wash-repeat cycle that always ends with sungki taking the brunt of his father’s addiction to the bottle, watching him try to find solace in the bottom of a glass, grasping at redemption with cracked hands and blood in his mouth.

home becomes a cesspool of false hope regularly beat out of him. home becomes a dumpsite of bodies—all his; year round, for years to come. home becomes a space. just a space. void of happiness but full of struggles.

home is just home. until it’s not.

FOUR.

he leaves this hellhole inside four walls behind on a sunday.

abandons a man he no longer recognizes as his father. (hasn’t even called him that since the day he cracked his head open on the kitchen counter. the scar’s a nasty reminder; a permanent blemish for him to reminiscent about when insomnia and his father’s guttural sobs keep him awake at night.)

because the day the authorities come for him is the day he loses what’s left of a flimsy thing called family. child protection services come swooping in like belated grace and the courts deem his father unfit to care for him. mother is nowhere to be found—she hasn’t been in his life for the past decade, so he’s shuffled along an assembly line of cold and distant relatives who want nothing to do with a troublesome boy like him. who wash their hands clean of him by claiming too much responsibility, financial burdens of an extra mouth to feed. shuffled along until someone finally gives in. takes the plunge.

like this, he’s sent straight to the heart of the big city to live with his grandparents, people he’s never seen hair nor hide of; who were only mentioned in passing since his mother showed up on their doorstep pregnant and afraid.

seoul is a collection of bright lights, white noise, and too many people.

harabeoji is stern and righteous. nothing like his own father, who is wasting away, lost in the aftermath of failures and the monotonous routine that’s his life. sungki never saw him coming. never expects to be taken in with kind intentions and gentle hands. never knows what to do with his own hands but clasp them in his lap as he’s gestured to sit at the table by the stoic face of his grandfather and the kind eyes of his grandmother.

dinner is a simple affair: a heaping bowl of rice, a mountain of kimchi, a big pot of seaweed soup, and a whole thing of galbi. he must’ve made some sort of noise—animalistic and pitiful, perhaps—because suddenly, there are arms wrapped around him, warm and safe, and halmeoni’s voice saying, it’ll be okay. you’ll be okay, child.

it’s only then sungki realizes he’s crying.

brokenness is the scars the old couple notice littered and scratched along his back. a decade of untold horrors and bottled up pain.

loneliness is quivering hands slipping ‘round halmeoni’s waist, bunched around soft fabric and choking sobs of grief.

(eyes empty, face haunted. he’s just a boy who’s seen too much. felt too much. hurt too much. still a boy. broken, bleeding, and blue.)

FIVE.

harabeoji tells him to channel his anger—the innate violence—into something else. tells him to shape the tremor in his bones and the adrenaline in his veins into hypermotion. you must learn to control your temper. turn that negative energy into something positive—something that drives you, something that will help you in the future, harabeoji says the first time sungki tells him he’s a whole mess of pent up anger, a body full of hatred towards the world (towards fate and circumstance—for the life he’s been dealt. how unfair it all seems).

he’s thirteen and starving. wanting to put this twisting shard of despair and bleeding cruelty somewhere. anywhere. (he doesn’t want to be like his father. wants to learn to be good. better. stronger.)

so he finds himself a makeshift home in hard-hitting lyrics that speak of injustice and the world’s cruelty, that remind him that he’s one of many who don’t live in the lap of luxury, who don’t have the privileges that those who are more fortunate are born with. drowns himself in loud music and gravel-like voices who are just as angry as he is at the world.

soon, every day is a fight to build up his walls, his defenses, encasing his heart in maximum security. warning: danger ahead. no trespassing allowed.

halmeoni approaches things differently. handles him with care. his salvation comes in the wonky radio sitting on a dusty bookshelf; the only thing keeping him sane when he wakes up at the ass crack of dawn to deliver porridge to people’s doorsteps for what amounts to pocket change and comes home from the monotony of academia, shoulders heavy under the weight of meritocracy and sky-high expectations.

exhausted, sungki dreams of a language powerful enough to fracture jaws, punch through hearts to ignite the soul. dreams of stringing together words that can heal, that can hurt, that can make people feel.

he’s thirteen, still, when he uploads a faceless, free-styled cover of drunken tiger’s good life on youtube. it doesn’t garner much views—just a handful of comments noting the timbre of his voice, the swell of emotion, his potential. the views never go higher than four digits, but sungki makes do with the occasional passing encouragement for more. thrives on it.

one cover becomes two. then, three. five. eventually, he begins covering remixed western artists like jay z and kanye west. his english is mangled at best, his r’s still sound like l’s no matter how hard he tries and his accent still bleeds right through. gruff and rough around the edges. but he finds he likes it—sounding less polished, made of raw potential. a diamond in the rough.

SIX.

halmeoni passes on a spring day and harabeoji stops smiling. (he never stops caring, though. still present, still there. just merely existing now. drowning in his grief.)

sungki stops talking. stops. just stops.

he’s fifteen when he falls through the cracks of society. slips right through harabeoji’s fingers. sungki’s lost now, floating adrift in a sea made of sorrow and hatred for stupid things like fate and circumstances. bullshit. so sungki falls. lets himself plummet straight down. because when someone like him hits rock bottom, there’s nowhere else left to go but up.

at school, he turns himself into a loner; all sharp gazes with an intent to kill aimed at all those who dare to approach. defends himself against schoolyard bullies who picks fights with him, who don’t understand the meaning of do not disturb. defends himself against the harsh tongues of teachers who take one look at his face and his don’t give a shit attitude and declare him a lost cause, lecturing him in and outside of classrooms. like this, rumors start to whisper through the grapevine—ryu sungki’s a bully. he’s bad news. stay away from him. heard he’ll kill you if you even looked at him. heard he beat up someone for stepping on him. heard he talked back to kim seonsaengnim. heard he—all untrue. unfounded. missing context and his side of the story.

but when has anyone ever even bothered to ask him if all this was true. when has anyone ever tried to uncover the truth. when has anyone even cared enough to consider there is more than meets eyes with a boy like sungki?

never.

so sungki doesn’t try to change the narrative. because you can’t convince people to change their minds when they’re so set on believing what they choose to believe.

and a social pariah he becomes.

forever not belonging. forever feeling out of place. neither here nor there.

fitting nowhere.

SEVEN.

sixteen and sungki finds himself underground.

it’s where he finds a niche; a collective of misfits, outcasts, and the resentful strays. fits right in with his newfound allies in a world that spits upon them for not being book smart and upright.

creates himself a language, finally, that breaks the bones of his innocence. fractures souls, tearing hearts wide open.

he writes himself a storm. shaping feelings into words, into hard-hitting metaphors about fucking society and battling fate with a bottle of whiskey, numbing pain by chasing adrenaline, the heady kiss of skin-on-skin, and reckless teenaged rebellion.

his handful of faithful fans on youtube gobble up the once-in-a-blue-moon amateur cover made of a sultry voice crooning love, oozing sex, in the thrum of bass and a deep, raspy voice rapping about size zero and double standards, spitting fire about the disenfranchised and the little people constantly stepped on by the privileged. finds himself a small following seduced by his face cast in shadows and the mystery of a teenager who’s just a survivor, fighting fire with fire.

in the heartfelt, emotional-ridden lyrics he pens in the dead of the night, he digs himself a graveyard, fills it with the remnants of a lonely abandoned child of three and the ashes of a boy barely seventeen.

EIGHT.

he’s scouted leaving his part-time job bussing tables at a hwae restaurant one busy saturday evening. scoffs in the agent’s face when he’s handed a business card, crisp and clean. logo blazed all pristine and perfect across the front. scoffs at the thought of getting streetcasted for his visuals (puberty was a blessing in disguise; his body elongating, filling out nicely, his face losing the roundness of a child and becoming sharp cheekbones and a jawline that could cut. he’s all rough masculinity wrapped up in a leather jacket and ripped jeans, despite smelling like barbecue and raw marinated fish). wants nothing to do with the idol industry. doesn’t want to be a dancing monkey, molded and shaped into something beautiful and perfect in the eyes of the public, singing manufactured songs about bad girls playing hard to get and sex disguised as euphemisms made of clever wordplay and blanket phrases of love sung to generic beats.

he waves them away, shakes his head no, and wanders back home.

it’s only later that he finds the business card tucked innocuously into the back pocket of his jeans and another hiding inside his jacket pocket.

open invitations. temptations.

he sits on it for weeks. months. until harabeoji finds them tucked inside a dog-eared notebook filled with ballpoint ink and smudged lines of poetry and half-finished songs.

it comes as a surprise when sungki’s told to give it a shot. he’s doing nothing but cruise life, anyway. there’s no judgment. just plain fact. sungki has no intentions of going to university. of trying to climb his way up the corporate ladder or save lives with his bare hands. of working a good ‘ol nine-to-five day in and day out.

and with one year to go before he must decide which fork in the road to take, harabeoji asks him to give it a shot. go. do something. anything. you’re just wasting away, sungki. your halmeoni wouldn’t have wanted life to turn you into a ghost. not like this.

so he obeys. because harabeoji asked. because he thinks it’s what halmeoni would’ve wanted him to do—try, to live life, take chances.

he auditions at seventeen with halmeoni’s picture tucked inside his wallet, a microphone a centimeter from his lips, and a song with lyrics about building a home in someone, trying to find peace in the shape of their body, salvation in the press of their lips, redemption in the curve of their spine, love in the sound of their voice.

he makes it in. and it feels like victory.

congratuations, ryu sungki. welcome to 99 entertainment.

(he should’ve known it wouldn’t be this easy. should’ve known once inside, there would be no exit. not without leaving all damaged and bent out of shape.

should’ve known survival was never a one-time battle, but a lifetime of war.)

NINE.

trainee life is torturous. his friends from the outside more hauntings than they are people. the draw of fame and fortune turning them heinous and cruel. harabeoji is his only remaining pillar as sungki struggles year after year to weather the storms of evaluations, of the times he sings himself hoarse and dances himself broken.

he imagines it would be worth it when he finally debuts with the small handful who has bled alongside him. imagines somewhere down the line, the stage and the spotlights and the stadium of fans waving blinding lightsticks would be worth the fracturing of bones and the momentary losses of his voice and the blisters on his feet and the bruises on his skin.

one year into a life made of a revolving door of talent hopefuls and the diehard tryhards, he’s pushed into more intensive training and thrust further into the dog-eat-dog world of rap. it’s reminiscent of his wretched teenaged self—the empty threats, the penetrating i’m better than you, trash gazes of his peers. resentment is palpable and he feels it in the burn of their stares every time he makes gradual progress, makes splashes big enough to garner some praise and recognition from his trainers. he’s got an amateur foundation from youtube days, after all. his accounts now gathering dust, laid to rest in the aftermath of closed doors training and verging on three years of blood and sweat. (no tears. not yet. never.) they must have known about them—his potential, his meager repertoire.

he doesn’t shine so much as ignites under harsh criticism, his temper constantly held at bay (control, harabeoji’s stern voice whispers in his ears every time he catches a backhanded compliment or the passing insult over his improvement by those who’s been here longer, trained harder) by sheer willpower.

as much as he’s doing this because he sees no other possible future for him, he still has his pride. still wants to have something of his own. and he’d be damned if he fucked it all up because he couldn’t take the obvious goading, the taunts, the jeers, the not-so-subtle instances of sabotage.

no, sungki was much stronger than that. petty seniors in this closed world game of survival had nothing on the years he spent curled in on himself in the corner of a dirty apartment, wondering if he’d ever see the light of day. if he’d ever get to stand on top of the world. if he’d make it another day.

a decade and some years now and he’s made it. older, stronger, and meaner. selfishness and his greed to live—to be better than everyone—keeps him going, even as he raps himself hoarse. even as he pushes his body to its limits.

two years in and those who thought he wouldn’t make it past year one are long gone—cut because they couldn’t handle the pressure, couldn’t take the day-to-day scoldings to do better, to work harder, with their backs ramrod straight, their expressions schooled into something resembling obedience.

three years in and sungki’s still here. finds himself living in the practice rooms, his only companion are the booming loudspeakers playing the same song for hours on end, training his body to recognize the ebb and flow, the rocking rhythm of beats.

he’s not a born dancer. had no real foundation in the mechanism of dance. so day in and day out, he watches the choreographers’ movements like a hawk, trains his eyes to watch for every subtle movement, every roll of the body, every pop of his limbs. learns to mimic after weeks, months, of trials and errors—of forcing his body to twist, to pop and lock, to grind, to ride, the beat of the music.

it’s hard—he’s not going to lie. his body wasn’t made for endless days of practice and countless hours of repetition. he knows he lags behind, knows all he’s got is his anger and his notebooks filled with handwritten lyrics (half-finished songs he’s sure will never see the light of day. he’s a nobody, just a trainee. what power did he have to ask them to cultivate this skill left rotting in the wake of molding himself to a precise design, turning himself into something wicked and dangerous, yielding to every demand and command because he wants to make it. needs to make it.), so he works himself to the bone, trying to break his body’s resistance to moves that bend his spine too far, hurts his waist a little too much, makes the joints of his body ache.

he bites back every retort building at the tip of his tongue, pressing at the back of his throat, and grits his teeth.

even as sweat drips into his eyes, down his face, drenches his entire body. even when his voice is nearly gone. even if the exhaustion turns his eyes bloodshot and his temper near catastrophic, he holds himself back on tight reins.

because, perhaps, being a tenacious trainee with both bite and bark and raw potential is the only chance he has to ever making it in a cutthroat world like this.

and if sungki is anything since he’d been born, it is a survivor. do or die trying. and sungki had no intentions to die. so do is all he knows. all he is.

he trains and hones and breaks and climbs back up not knowing he’s being shaved to the wick, all his lingering bits of naivete whittled away to make him sharper, jagged and edgy. it makes him a target. an outlier. unpredictable and dangerous.

he trusts no one when he’s selected alongside a fellow trainee and thrown to the wolves in a rap survival show. expected to adapt and mold himself to the rules of the jungle. expected to take the heat and scrutiny with sharp wit and a charming smile.

their success comes with consequences. rumors that 99 ent. bought their near-winner positions sour their reputations, mars their impressions. but sungki doesn’t bat an eye. he’s no longer soft and vulnerable to the opinions of others.

his first taste of fame tastes like sin. like addiction. and he’s hooked.

when poizn debuts in 2011 with him in the lineup, sungki’s no longer the lonely boy of three who wasn’t enough for his mother, who wasn’t strong enough for his father. not the reckless youth who dabbled in the sins of sex and the burn of booze and cigarettes.

not an unmarred saint made to be put on a pedestal.

ryu sungki is more than that—he’s a guilty sinner pulling on the skin of a rogue with his face streaked in shadows, a wicked grin on his lips, and his voice crooning love.

TEN.

one year into poizn’s debut and he already hates it.

hates the flashing cameras. hates the delusional fans. hates being under 99 ent.’s thumb. hates pretending he’s got this nostalgic history with his members and a bright future where they’re all chummy and brothers and are in this together when sungki doesn’t feel an ounce of camaraderie. when all he cares about is how angry he is at being fooled by praises and encouragements. how he was tricked into believing he had the potential and the opportunity to debut solo, only to be shoved into a lineup with four other boys just as ravenous as he is.

hates everything about how he has to watch his mouth. watch his goddamn image. like he’s nothing more than a puppet moving on invisible strings. like he’s just a caricature made for pure entertainment, for the fans and the world to lap up.

rugged, roguish, and reckless. sungki seethes on the inside, even as he forces his body to bow at everyone and everything. the picture of obedience—a dog of this godforsaken industry.

this is what he sacrificed his youth for.

and he reaps what he sows.

two years in and he fucks up big time.

and 99 ent. retaliates by removing the possibility of a future solo debut they’d been dangling since the tail-end of his trainee years and threatens him to keep his mouth shut.

of all the things sungki thought he was incapable of, begging was one of them. and yet, in the aftermath of a stormy public waiting for him to show his face so they can pelt him with proverbial eggs and vitriol, sungki had found himself on his knees. head down, tail tucked between his legs, his dignity in shambles.

please, he remembers saying (remembers loathing) with a voice too small, too boyish. ragged. help me. please fix this.

and fix they did.

in return, they asked for absolute obedience. creates in him the very image of a faithful lapdog, a yes man, who doesn’t talk back. who answers at their beck and call. who does as he’s told, commands and directives followed to the letter.

sungki’s reputation is barely restored. he thanks them.

(inside, the hatred for his own weakness tears him apart.)

three years ghost by and he does nothing to attract negative press. lies as low as he can. makes the needed variety show appearances during promotion cycles. circumvents any subtle prompts about his juvenile mistake back in the day, apologizes over and over again with sheepish ducks of his head on camera, words twisted to form repentance to convey his reflection and his past immaturity. vows not to make the same mistakes again.

vows to shape himself into someone better.

vows revenge and comeuppance on a company who repeatedly baited him, using his ugly past, his past scandal, and his greed for a solo as ammunition.

he keeps his head down.

(all the while, he holds back a cruel smile. biding his time, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. to rise up.)

years four and five are formative.

he meets someone who levels the playing field. who sees through his facade and his chipped masks of tell-tale obedience. see the darkness wrapped around him like hapless shadows. sees the wicked curl of lips and calls him out on his bullshit.

it’s the first time someone does.

it’s the first time someone tries.

and somewhere deep down, sungki rejoices. just the tiniest bit.

because all these years of pretending and, finally, someone is smart enough to notice there lies a crack in his foundation.

smart enough to recognize a predator for what he is—cruel, cold, and callous.

you’re dangerous, she whispers brokenly into his neck as he cradles her close, skin-on-skin. full-on sin and dirty (not) love-making. but i’m not scared of you.

you should be.

so should everyone who dares to approach him, thinking he’ll love them all tender and sweet.

so should the world.

seven years in now and the masks are starting to fall one by one.

the lapdog business is getting old and he’s getting restless. jittery.

he’s tired of the years passing by relatively the same. monotonous. all routine. aches for change. aches for chaos. for a little bit of fun. drama. danger.

he tests the waters by goading his members. pushes boundaries, tests patience. drops the act little by little. on camera, he does his best to act as if years spent sweating it out in the practice rooms has forged a brotherhood no conflict can shake. behind closed doors, he ignores them. pretends they’re nothing more than colleagues (aren’t they?). scoffs at the label of family—he doesn’t have one. just harabeoji waiting in the wings, patient and waiting as he’s always been for sungki to soar, to make a name for himself.

that bit of bite begins making an appearance in magazine interviews and one or two variety show appearances where he’s asked the cliched question of where he sees himself in five years, of his goals and ambitions.

he drops hints about the desire to go solo, his intentions on becoming a household name. seven years being muzzled comes undone and, for the first time since the mistake that cost him his pride, sungki disobeys. deviates.

i want to be known as more than just zen, poizn’s charismatic lead rapper and lead dancer. i want something for myself. something to call my own. i want people to know me as ryu sungki.

(want the world to bow at my feet. want the world to chant my name. want them to see me.)

slowly but surely, he creates himself a storm and he the eye.

because his days of being obedient are coming to an end.

#id.bio #id.99 #id.poizn #id.seo kangjoon

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leighkhoopes · 7 years

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The first big meme of 2017 has arrived and it's List the Top 10 Albums That Influenced You As A Teenager. This was an almost impossible selection for me, so I gave myself some additional ground rules: these albums all came out when I was an actual teenager (13-19, to be precise) and I promptly wore them out something serious. These are also albums that I continue to listen to and enjoy to this day. I also took the *complete* album into consideration—almost all of these are total listen-throughs for me, even though there may be some other songs and singles that had more of an impact on my impressionable teenage brain.

So, here's the list, how old I was when they came out, and some thoughts, in no particular order:

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Sleater-Kinney - One Beat (2002) I was: 17, in between high school and college This was the first SK album I ever bought, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. It was on one of those listening stations at the local music store (RIP ear-x-tacy) and the opener with its urgent drums, spindly guitars and fantastic vocals and harmonies drew me in immediately. Apparently One Beat was their "political" album and that makes sense, but the infectiously jangly "Oh!" remains one of my all-time favorite songs to this day, and though I've listened to the rest of their catalogue, One Beat remains my favorite to this day.

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Christina Aguilera - Stripped (2002) I was: 18, college freshman Fun fact: I was one of those angsty teens who mocked pop music while hiding my secret shame at loving every bubblegum beat and boy band dance jam. When you're a teenager, you have to keep up appearances—I knew I wasn't one of the popular types, so I tried to be a "rock" kid and turned up my nose at what turned out to be some really great songs. My dear Ms. Aguilera changed all of that for me. I had already loved her first singles (You cannot deny "Genie in a Bottle," so don't even try) and her complete ownage of "Lady Marmalade" for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, so when Stripped came out in all its sexual and bold yet vulnerable and honest glory, I found the soundtrack to the twilight of my teenage years. Everyone knows about "Dirrty," "Beautiful," "Can't Hold Us Down," and "Fighter," but have you heard the soft sensuality of "Lovin' Me for Me"? What about the deep piano soul of "Underappreciated"? This album is packed with both gems and jams, and remains relevant to this very day.

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Eve - Scorpion (2001) I was: 16, high school junior I came late to the rap game, since I wasn’t allowed to buy CDs with parental advisory stickers until my senior year of high school, so I've made a lot of progress, but I didn't get the kind of hip-hop education most of my friends have besides what made it onto the radio at the time. This was post-Tupac/Biggie but pre-50 Cent, and the airwaves were mostly dominated by the aforementioned pop and its bad cousin pop-punk. So when Eve's basically flawless "Let Me Blow Ya Mind" featuring Gwen Stefani's damn near perfect hook and what I would learn is a quintessentially Dr. Dre beat dropped, all slinky and sexy and sassy, I was beyond obsessed. The rest of the album is on point, too: "Who's That Girl?" became an anthem for me because I could easily sing back "LEIGH's that girl!" (la la la-la, la la la-la); "Gangsta Bitch" was a sick collab with Trina and Da Brat; and "Got What You Need" is a great call-and-response banger courtesy of Swizz Beats and some other lesser Ruff Ryders rapper who is probably mad that Eve destroyed him on this track and probably in real life as well.

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The Kills - Keep on Your Mean Side (2003) I was: 19, college sophomore Somehow I got this CD for Christmas? I don’t remember how or where I heard about it, but this album for me is the perfect combination of sexy and scuzzy with raw guitars and sparse, swampy beats and endless, unbearable chemistry between VV (Allison Mosshart) and Hotel (Jamie Hince) that continues to this day. Fifteen years, four albums, and multiple side projects (and one very high-profile marriage and divorce) later, and I am one of those fans who firmly stans for them to live happily ever after in musical harmony and continuing rock n’ roll cuteness. They’re just SO PERFECT TOGETHER, OKAY? Anyway, this album is great, and you should listen to it if you haven’t already.

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2001) I was: 16, soon-to-be high school senior If I had to pick ONE album that was the most influential to me of all of these, it would be Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ seminal self-titled EP. It dropped right before my senior year of high school, when I was finally starting to figure myself out a little bit and realizing that I liked loud music by loud ladies that I could dance to and scream along to, regardless of genre or format. The Strokes, The Hives, The White Stripes, and all their ilk were kicking off a new rock revolution, but there were so few ladies out there making as much noise as I needed them to. Karen O was not a great singer, but the way she whispered and groaned and wailed over the wall of sound that Nick and Brian created with just a guitar and a drumset was revelatory to me, especially after I got to see them live a few years later, smushed up against the stage at the Southgate House and rapt as the speakers pounded in my chest and Karen sprayed beer and spit on all of us, and she leaned down at the beginning of “Our Time” at the end of their set, when I was exhausted and enthralled, put the mic in front my face and together we crooned “To break on through-ooh!” YYYs continued to put out some great music and evolve their sound not-so-greatly in the following years (sorry, y’all, but Mosquito was not good), but nothing seared itself so firmly on my psyche as Karen and me covered in sweat, singing what should have been an anthem for the pre-1990 Millennials: “It’s the year to be hated / so glad that we made it.” If that doesn’t sum up everything everyone’s ever said about those of us born between 1980 and 1999, I don’t know what does.

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Daft Punk - Discovery (2001) I was: 16, high school junior If there’s another album I had to name as one of my top all-timers, completely different but still equally influential, it’s Daft Punk’s Discovery. Daft Punk allowed me to embrace my love of dance and electronic music, and built a perfect unifying force among me and my friends, providing that anthem we’d been waiting for with “One More Time,” a song that still fills me with joy every time those first few beats fade in and I can’t help but smile when it drops and that surprisingly, beautifully warm vocoder voice comes in over the spaces between. The rest of the album is literally iconic as well, and really cemented Daft Punk as the arbiters of dance parties for everyone, all-inclusive, delirious and endlessly entertaining and ultimately joyful.

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Le Tigre (1999) I was: 15, high school sophomore I’ll admit it: I missed the Riot Grrl movement by several years, so Kathleen Hanna and Le Tigre were a new experience for me. I loved the edge and the anger in her voice, the fuzzy throwback sound and sampling that made it seem like something I could do if I just tried harder and wasn’t so shy and scared to raise a ruckus and my voice. One thing I’ve noticed about so many of these albums and groups is that I really liked stripped-down music with big sounds created by small groups of people: duos and trios make up the bulk of my favorite albums during this era. I got to see them live as well, when JD Sampson joined the lineup and became my introduction to confusingly, distractingly sexy nonbinary people, and it was at the height of the Bush era, in the middle of my college years, and while I didn’t feel the exhilaration of singing with Karen O, I felt the freedom of dancing my ass off and screaming until my lungs my ached, unafraid of who I might bump into with my unruly booty, unafraid of who I might offend with my burgeoning baby feminism. I was sad when they stopped recording and disappointed at their recent lackluster Hillary Clinton track near the end of the election cycle, but I’ve loved the resurgence of The Julie Ruin and the ongoing reinvention and determination Hanna continues to project in the face of so much bullshittery that permeates our world and culture today.

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The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium (2003) I was: 19, college sophomore At the Drive-In was another band I missed out on the first time around, but The Mars Volta popped up in my circles of smartass potheads once I started to find my tiny tribe of people in the rural Kentucky college town in which I lived for four years. I’ve always loved a man unafraid to belt out an anthem, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala golden throat soared over Omar Rodruigez-Lopez’s prog-rock symphonies and movements, and it sounded just as good when I was stone cold sober as when I was self-medicating in the name of social acceptance and anxiety avoidance. I will forever associate them with giant spliffs and endless laughter, letting the discordant sounds wash over me and and Cedric’s voice burn through me, as well as making myself a zombie prom queen Halloween costume under a waxing moon after a bad breakup, working some kind of dark magic to transform myself into someone no one would recognize, even if only for a night. There was always a sadness that permeated these songs, something that got lost in their later, more esoteric albums I could never get into, and there was something on this album that made me feel okay with being sad, allowing myself to feel my feelings that I tried to keep hidden for far too long.

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Ludacris - Back for the First Time (2000) I was: 16, high school junior Again, the most rap I had ever really listened to before high school was MC Hammer and Will Smith’s squeaky clean radio-rap, so Luda’s debut was a major eye-opener for overly-sheltered white suburban me. "What's Your Fantasy" and "Phat Rabbit" were titillating, sure, but also fantastic rhymes and beats, and "Stick 'Em Up Bitch" and "1st & 10" were darkly hilarious under their gangsta veneers. "Southern Hospitality" brought bravado to what could have just been another Neptunes beat, and throughout it all, Luda's flow was so sick and smooth, so full of wit and wordplay and unashamed sexuality, and I loved to blare it driving through my parents’ neighborhood, even after the speakers in my car blew out and sounded like nothing but surly vibrations as I dawdled on my way home for my 11pm curfew. If I had to come in at what I considered an unfair, oppressive time, I was going to wake up everyone else in the process. Yes, I was a not-so-secret dick when I was a teenager–weren’t we all? Side note: I'm kind of sad Shawnna never made it all that big, and this video is the absolute perfect time capsule of the year 2000.

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Peaches - The Teaches of Peaches (2000) I was: 16, high school senior I’ll also admit this: I fucking loved “electroclash.” That amalgamation of punk and dance music was everything to me, the perfect blend of rock guitars and big beats that enmeshed everything teenage me loved about being loud and dancing like everyone was watching and not giving a fuck either way. Peaches was gross and vulgar and rapped about sex with no emotion but pleasure, and she got even dirtier as the years went on, but The Teaches of Peaches was seminal and shocking and just the kind of thing a slightly crazed and endlessly awkward, horny teenage girl needed to hear to start embracing my own weird sexuality and rampaging hormones and confused feelings, instead of keeping them locked away and shameful like I was supposed to. Everyone knows and loves "Fuck the Pain Away," thanks to its cameo appearances in Lost in Translation and the Jackass movies, but "Lovertits" was always my personal favorite from this album. The moment that breakdown takes over is pure brilliance and one of my favorite moments in any song ever. Peaches dancing in front of the mirror in this video is teenage me, always and forever, singing to myself when no one was looking and finally finding away to sing to myself in public, out loud, and not caring who heard me. I'm still working on it, but I think these albums did a lot to push me in the direction I've gone and to get me where I am now as a feminist and a lover of music and dance parties for life.

Honorable Mentions:

Beck - Midnite Vultures (1999)

No Doubt - Return of Saturn (2000)

Madonna - Ray of Light (1998)

The Strokes - Is This It (2001)

N.E.R.D. - In Search Of... (2001)

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