sorry but why is this person allowed to post their "purebred" wild animal

Ok but like, what if MC's fandom starts to make ships with MC and the guys. Just think about the ship wars, the fancams, the fanarts, the absolute CHAOS when the brothers find out. It would be even worse if they start shipping MC with the undatables, one day everything is normal and the next day there are ship wars fighting over MC x Barbatos vs MC x Solomon (who are both very smug about it)

The MC's Fanclub are… Shippers?!

Perhaps… The italics blurb has been fulfilling its greater purpose all along…? Perhaps in its state of existential angst, it has in fact developed a plot of its own… An arc of introspection and self-discovery in which its own longing for purpose has forged a meaningful identity… It now has… a story…

Lucifer

As if they couldn't get any MORE frustrating…

He's not an otaku. He's not a part of ship culture. He's not even sure why anyone would care about who dates who around this school, but apparently it's a big deal to some people...

He only became aware of their interest in him and the MC's relationship through some very… subtle clues…

Like the groups that would follow them around in the hallways with their phones out.

Or the multitude of fan rumors about their relationship that Satan spams him with from time to time just to irritate him.

"MC refused hug from Luci in halls today!! Are they bout breakup??? 🥺"

"Tots got pic of kiss today!! Relationship upgrade??"

"IS ARE MC+LUCIFER SECET LVRS?!? PLEASE RESPOND"

It only got worse after he found out the MC gets shipped out a loooooot….

If he had to pick his least favorite ship, it'd be MC x Mammon. He can kind of see it with any of his other brothers (admittedly, Levi is also a little mystifying) but the idea of them ending up with Mammon makes his skin crawl...

He once found a drawing of the MC and Mammon in an… explicit position in one of the classrooms and he was so disgusted that he wouldn’t even touch it. He just set fire to the paper outright. Disgusting...

Mammon

Shipping, eh…? More money making opportunities!

Has some passing idea of what shipping is from Levi and, from what he knows of it, shippers eat cutesy couples stuff right up!! If all he's got to do to make bank is to look all couple-y around the MC then sounds like a win-win to him!

He'll happily pose for a photo or two (paid in advance) of him throwing his arm around the MC or something. Want him to hold their hand? Sure thing!

But since this is still Mammon we're talking about, the second MC actually starts getting into any of it he'll still turn into a blushy, stuttery mess...

For WEEKS the headline picture on so many of their fans' blogs was an image of him turning beet red while the MC kissed him on the cheek. (A fan really got their money's worth there... 😏)

Though he doesn’t exactly like the MC getting shipped with other people, he'll still totally sell pictures of any of them together. He almost paid off an entire credit card with the money he got from the t-shirt sales of the MC and Satan!

If he had to point to one ship he doesn't like it's either MC x Asmo or MC x Levi. His opinion, but Asmo won't treat them right and they could do waaay better than a shut-in. Like him. Ship the MC with just the Great Mammon, got it?

Leviathan

… Lowkey super active in the MC shipping community but is a self-shipper to the extreme.

Like, he never uses his real name on anything (and would probably die from embarrassment if anyone ever found out) but a lot of their fans probably know a couple of his aliases.

He does everything from mod forums, runs a couple blogs, even anonymously posts his own work of him and MC that are totally not his secret fantasy dates or AU versions of themselves, shaddup.

It’s a lot easier for him to keep his involvement secret because he’s hardly at RAD, but the few times he does show up he tries to keep an eye out for anybody prowling for pictures so he can get in a good pose and save the image later.

Mind you, his version of a “good pose” rarely gets more spicy than linking pinkies, but even then he’s still lit up a Christmas Tree throughout.

Naturally, he’s also not a big fan of any ships that aren’t just him and MC and he can find a reason to be jealous at almost anything. But he keeps a special corner of hate for MC x Mammon and MC x Diavolo. Like, the first one doesn’t even need an explanation but MC x Diavolo?? Really??? Do those two even talk?? (please, please, please make sure they never actually talk because a guy like him versus literal royalty? He’d lose MC for sure….!! 😫)

Satan

He hates to actually agree with Lucifer on something, but their fans are starting to get out of hand...

Knows what shipping is in concept, he may have done it once or twice to characters in his books, but he was kind of surprised how it could evolve into such a… group activity?

He was pretty quick to pick up that the MC’s fans had a bit more interest in them together than they did when they both were apart…

I mean, those hideous shirts that Mammon was pedaling were kind of a dead giveaway…

Considering he finds their fanclub all rather annoying, even without their bizarre interest in his love life, when they started actively meddling with him and the MC he was ready to smash some heads.

No. He will not stop for pictures. No. What things they do together is none of your business. No. He has zero interest in seeing your explicit fanart and if you don’t start running that will be the last question you ever ask.

He DOES, however, appreciate the cringy “annoy Lucifer” ammo. They could keep that up for a lifetime... 😏

He doesn’t have a least favorite ship because he doesn’t care about any of this, leave him alone. (That’s a lie, it’s MC x Lucifer. He pokes fun at Lucifer, but he can’t stand it either. Big shock, I know 🙄).

Asmodeus 

Oh he is shamelessly a part of the community, are you kidding?? 

He could practically call “Shipping the MC” one of his favorite pastimes. He’ll openly gossip with their fanclub about who they’ve been with, who they’re seeing, who’s got a chance, etc… He lives for this shit!

He’s the only person who knows that Levi is also in the community and what his aliases are (not because he told him, but because Levi’s not as subtle as he thinks he is… Who else would call themselves “SupremeRuri666” and speak mostly in outdated chat lingo?) but he doesn’t out him because he thinks his very obvious crush is kind of cute. 

Plus, Levi needs the outlet waaaay more than him…

Doesn’t stop him from constantly trolling him and getting into arguments over who the MC would be better with though (the two are “virtual nemeses” as far as Levi is concerned).

Appreciates all forms of expression that comes out of the community (especially the saucy kind 😏) and will happily feed into his own shippers without a care in the world.

Truthfully, Asmo will say that there isn’t a ship he doesn’t like but if someone mentions one that he thinks is kind of “eh,” he’ll just add himself into the mix. “Oh, you like MC x Barbatos? Well how about Asmo x MC x Barbatos? That sounds loads more interesting doesn’t it??”

Beelzebub 

Oh, Beel… Sweet, sweet Beel… Beel doesn’t even know what their club is doing…

Because Beel has a reputation of being pretty protective of MC - and against the fanclub in general - the club keeps a healthy distance… but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to sneak in some picture or make a SHITLOAD of fanwork about them.

Between classes and practice Beel is a busy guy, so sometimes he just doesn’t notice that there’s people hiding behind trees when he’s out with MC. 

Honestly, his complete ignorance of it all makes it even cuter because when he acts sweet, it’s not just for the camera. That’s the real deal.

Mammon was the one who eventually let it slip that there was even shipping happening and Beel was… kind of creeped out because isn’t this stalking? But also kind of weirdly happy(?) that MC x Beel was so popular… Very conflicted boy here.

He never actually acknowledges the community, though, and just keeps on being Beel (which still gave the fans more than enough material so all’s well that ends well?)

Beel genuinely doesn’t have a least favorite ship (because he believes the best ship is whoever makes the MC happy) but his second favorite under himself is probably MC x Belphie. They look very cute together...  😊

Belphegor 

Ride or die, Beel x MC x Belphie. 

Just kidding (kind of), Belphie isn’t into the shipping but if asked he’d be pretty okay with that one.

His campaign against the MC’s fanclub and their attention stealing ways means that he found out about their shipping thing only slightly ahead of Beel when Mammon was trying to get pictures of them napping together…

Honestly, he couldn’t care less if a bunch of weirdos were weirdly invested in their relationship, but he’s not about to let Mammon just make a quick Grimm off of it. Belphie makes sure that he gives him NOTHING to work with. 

Since Mammon is the main dealer, the shippers in both the MC fanclub and Belphie fanclub aren’t nearly as well fed and pretty desperate for anything... You best believe he plays that to his advantage (because it’s okay if he does. He’s not Mammon).

Really helps that MC x Belphie is legitimately a very cute looking couple, carried by Belphie’s cuteness alone if nothing else. Add an adorable MC and you reach levels so cute it could actually melt people into puddles of goo... They could be a registered weapon.

Least favorite MC ships are any that don’t involve him or Beel. Any others may as well just not exist, he won’t even acknowledge them. MC x Who? Yeah, that’s what he thought.

D&D Quotes Without context

Miscellaneous Edition, for those quotable lines from between sessions

"All I wanna do, is fork a giant woman! A giant woman!" "Jonni, I'm pretty sure she is some type of undead, probably a vampire. Are you sure that is a good idea?" "If I don’t get turned into a blueberry it won’t be my worst date." "Okay, but if you have to defend yourself just don't burn the place down for once." "Oh, Nyx. Sweet summer child. I never make promises we both know I won’t even try to keep." "Jonni, if I wake up to my bed surrounded in flames again I'm short-sheeting your next bed every night for at least a month." "I know you're trying to score here, but Lady Dimitrescu's daughters are literally vampires AND bugs. I can overlook one, but as a Paladin, it is my sacred duty to burn this place to the ground and stir the ashes."

"We don't let Marshall make breakfast anymore." "Those waffles are well-fortified." "I'm going to be charitable and call it hardtack." "We can use these waffles as melee weapons." "Well if we need to deflect siege engines they'll be good to have." "This is still carbon based and digestible by human systems without any poisons." "I can't serve this. It'll cause ... death." "Marshal we've been over this. This Pizza has 10% less of a lethal amount of grease." "Plus they signed the waivers when they bought a ticket. It's fine." "And don't forget to push the Cakeon." "Cakeon being slices of cake wrapped in bacon." "The special sauce is a mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, ranch, horseradish, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and anything unfortunate enough to fall into the mixing vat."

"You do have a copy of the legal code I requested in my letter? As landed gentry you should actually have legal avenues to... I'm sorry did you say Burning child?"

"First I'm going to nail a crossbow bolt through your heart. Then I'm going to mount your balls to walls on opposite sides of this chamber." "I need Three Barrels of Butter" "Are you serious? Those Claws could crush an elephant in full plate!" "You're Right!" *Turns to first person* "We might need more than three barrels of butter."

"So Ioun is the patron of poor college kids. that scans "

"its hardtack or a mug of molten cheese-fried... something in a woven mug of bacon. your choice."

"Welp, all this coke ain't gonna snort itself..."

"Right hand me that dress and the bail money. I'll get Jonni." OOC: Well I mean they allow men in the city. Its just no men live in the city. "I stand by my statement. I'm allowed to look pretty every now and then." OOC: And dragons are the most unprejudiced lovers of anyone after bards.

OOC: Well I mean come on, its Ravenloft: saying a place is of death and madness is like making the observation the day ends in y. "Going out. Getting laid." "Jonni, she’s a werewolf." "Going out, forking a werewolf." OOC: Well Lycanthropy isn't usually sexually transmitted. Its just that Mercedes is a biter. OOC: ...I don't have an appropriate response to that.

"You seriously think I’d turn on my friends for a pile of gold?!?" "sigh I’ll show you my tits. "Hot damn, let’s get these murders done!" "No, Jonni, stay good. Besides, there are plenty of other girls who will do that without asking you to murder us." "Hmmmm… this is the moral quandary of my life…" "I’ll give you five bucks." "Scales tipped!" "Phew, I thought I was going to have to cover her next trip to the topless bar." "No, no, I have the bail money right here."

Nyx: So what’s the inside of Jonni’s head like? Edmund (with thousand yard stare): Imagine every ladies only smut magazine you’ve ever heard of going on forever into infinity while everything is on fire. Food was good though.

"It’s cool. They stole it." "And you know this how?" "Magic." “90% of Ravenloft deaths are mysterious vanishings.” "Why does everything come out covered in glitter and … is that …" "Lube. I’ve got a few theories." "Please don’t share them."

OOC: This is a plan that ends with Strahd having fewer brides, his castle is in flames, and he’s lost his cape.

OOC: Our team consists of a horny pyromancer, a gnome who can fillete you in five seconds, an HP lovecraft protagonist with actual magic backing them up, a literal slab of iron with a face, and a guy with a "I went to the eternal city of Ryleth and all I got was PTSD and this lousy T shirt". Gorbash smashing his shield into their face: "Have! You! Considered! Therapy!" OOC: Good news is you guys will no longer be the most conspicuous guys at the masquerade now. Jonni: Challenge accepted! "Nyx, the bounty on stealing his fake mustache is still on."

"Vanilla is the king of flavors. What does it say about society where vanilla is considered just 'regular'?" "That they have a lot of vanilla." Lash: "Don’t you want wishes?" Jonni: "Do I need wishes to get to see you naked?" Lash: "No?" Jonni: "Fuck ‘em." Vesh: "Oh dammit its my arranged fiance." Pit Fiend: "Milady." Vesh: "An extra wish to whoever punches this douchecanoe in the nards." Jonni: "I wish…for Bigby’s clenched fist of nard punching."

Soth: "Oh, gods, why am I on fire and why is Immigrant Song playing?" Jonni: "Take a guess." Hazlik: "Okay, so its a partridge, stuffed inside a chicken, stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey, and the whole thing is fried on a stick. Congratulations, that's the most horrible thing I have ever seen, and I once crossbred an elephant and an owl." "I give him the 'itis, and we run like we stole something." OOC: ...weirdly Curse of Strahd has stats for Strahd zombies but not Strahd Skeletons. Or Strahd's skeletal Steed. Strahd once went to a branding seminar hosted by Bane and it changed his life.

"Are we on a high enough floor that if I throw him through the window he'll be killed by the fall?" "Oh, but when I say stuff like that it’s all 'Jonni, murder is wrong.'" "When they say pick your battles they don't mean to pick all of them. That's too many battles Jonni. Put some back." OOC: He's technically already got a symbiote. OOC: They can get married. Gorbash: "I'm increasing the rent." Venom: "Can I keep the pool table?" Gorbash: "I'm not a monster." Giant Brain: "Jonni… I have summoned you here for… WHY AM I ALREADY ON FIRE! PUT ME OUT! PUT ME OUT!"

"Hello We're the party-crashers. This is Jonni, she's here to steal your women and burn your shit down. That's Nyx, she's going to repatriate certain items from the premise. Marshal over there, is here to studiously ignore our shenanigans. This is the New Guy. He seems pretty chill. I'm Gorbash... and I have been distracting you."

"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly. Jonni: "Hold up. Trying to sex a spider." Nyx: (throws her hands up) And then Jonni wakes up with a spider venom hangover webbed to a wall waiting to be eaten. Jonni: "Eh, I’ve had worse one night stands. I’m not a fucking blueberry." OOC 1: Hey, where does your weed elf grow [her] crops? OOC 2: She probably just grows them in the room she hasn’t paid rent on. OOC 3: Because I was also considering a circle of spores druid tortle. OOC 2: We could be partners! We could turn this into road to el dorado staring Cheech and Chong. OOC: Wait, I just realized five people are hanging out in a pirate bar, and none of us are rogues. We are gonna need someone to get thieves tools. OOC: We have a barbarian with a big stick.

"Are we Foxhound now? Blunderbuss Octopus." OOC1: You want to put the stoner in charge of food. OOC2: Eyup. OOC1: I see no way this can go wrong! OOC3: We need the four basic food groups. Beans, Bacon, Whisky, and Lard. “We pray to Almighty Darkseid! Give us a sign! Thumbs up, for the triumph of the human spirit! Thumbs down to begin the everlasting reign of darkness!” “Where did you find this guy?” “Me? I thought you hired him.” OOC: Yup, nature, arcana, history, investigation and religon at +6. MJ got baked and watched the Discovery Orb a lot. Tordek: "But we have a cleric, Jozan, over there." Strahd: *sigh* Snaps fingers, and suddenly one of Strahd's brides sucks Jozan out the window, cue screaming. "Oh look, you suddenly have an opening, how fortunate." Tordek: "We also have a druid...." Vadania: "SHUT UP, TORDEK!" Edmund: "I think the first order of business may be to discuss your Human Resources strategy..." Strahd: "I have a guy for that too."

"When someone as smart as him talks with himself, it's not crazy...They call it monologing." "I thought it was soliloquy?" "No, soliloquy is when you're talk at someone else when your talking to yourself." "Most people would run from a demon, you run towards it to study it." Professor: "THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING! A FROGHEMOTH, AND RIGHT UP CLOSE, IT WILL BE AMAZING TO SEE THIS PERFECT KILLING MACHINE IN ACTION." OOC: Also note the Professor is Lawful Good, Archie is Chaotic Good, so collectively they balance out to Neutral good. OOC: That's good. "The incinerations will continue until morale improves!" “You never incinerate the women!” “Because I’m fucking them!” “I… was not expecting you to be so honest about that…”

"You got what you wanted....but you lost what you had...." "Yes, I'm familiar with how capitalism works."

OOC: Dragons are like, “That’s Krandor the shiney. He only fucks other dragons. Weirdo.”

Gorbash: "D'awww, so tiny... perfect size... FOR PUNTING!" *boots tiny mind-flayer into the horizon*

"Dracula hasn't been spotted in almost recently. Whats he gonna do, destroy all we know and love like he definitely can?" "... my god you people are too stupid to live." "What are you doing in my house?" Gorbash: "...well Edmund has been reading your books, I've been sorting through your armory, Nyx and Irost has been going through your other shinies, Marshal has been cleaving anything monstrous that gets too close, and Jonni has been lighting things on fire to stave off boredom." Gorbash: "Okay Marshal, Jonni. Rock, paper, scissors over who gets [to kill] the bishop."

Jonni: "Did you really think this would make up for what you did?" Nima: "I… killed everyone you grew up with." Jonni: "Yeah, and I’m still not forgiving you for what you did to Eddie." Nima: "I am missing some key context here…" Nima: "Also I committed identity theft on you by having my new undead army tell everyone you are running the show." Jonni: "Oh, no. You’ve fooled the boar tribe. Who still haven’t figured out shitting in a hole." Nima: "Yeah I noticed that. I ruined two pairs of shoes attacking their camps."

The Rumor Around Hogwarts (prologue)

Hi everyone!! This is the prologue and it is pretty much exactly what the author wrote and I don't take credit for it. I made a couple of changes to the chapter but it is towards the end so if you want to skip through you can until about the last paragraph to find the part about Y/N L/N. Enjoy!!

Male reader insert for now, future addition of they pronouns as it will lean more towards a non-binary insert with the only change being less reference to Y/N as a young boy and more gender neutral terms. Still masc/male aligned.

Previous // Next

Prologue:

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.

The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters. Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had two small sons, too, but they had never even seen them. These boys were two good reasons for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with children like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair.None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.

"Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive.

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar -- a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realise what he had seen -- then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive -- no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.

But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes -- the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt -- these people were obviously collecting for something... yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.

Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the bakery.

He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying. "The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard--" "-- yes, their son, Harry--" Mr. Dursley stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.

He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking... no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son called Harry. Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew was called Harry. He'd never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey Or Harold There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her -- if he'd had a sister like that... but all the same, those people in cloaks...

He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drill that afternoon and when he left the building a five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside of the door.

"Sorry" he grunted as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realised that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary his ace split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passerbys stare,

"Don't be sorry my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating this happy, happy day!"

And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.

Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination.

As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw -- and it didn't improve his mood -- was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.

"Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly.

The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.

Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!"). Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:

"And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin. "Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?" "Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early -- it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight."

Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...

Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Er -- Petunia, dear -- you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you?"

As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister.

"No," she said sharply. "Why?"

"Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..."

"So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley.

"Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd."

Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son -- he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"

"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.

"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it?"

"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree."

He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.

Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did... if it got out that they were related to a pair of -- well, he didn't think he could bear it.

The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind... He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on -- he yawned and turned over -- it couldn't affect them...

How very wrong he was.

Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.

A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known."

He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again -- the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.

"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall."

He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked.

"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly."

"You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.

"All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here."

Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.

"Oh yes, I've been celebrating, all right," she said impatiently. "You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no -- even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent -- I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."

"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."

"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors."

She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"

"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"

"A what?"

"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."

"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone--"

"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this 'You-Know-Who' nonsense -- for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort." Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."

"I know you haven't, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of."

"You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."

"Only because you're too -- well -- noble to use them."

"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."

Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what they're saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?"

It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.

"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are -- are -- that they're -- dead."

Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.

"Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..." Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder.

"I know... I know... " he said heavily.

Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill the Potter's son, Harry. But he couldn't. He couldn't kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power somehow broke -- and that's why he's gone."

Dumbledore nodded glumly.

"It's -- it's true ?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"

"We can only guess," said Dumbledore.

"We may never know." Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"

"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?"

"I've come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They're the only family he has left now."

"You don't mean - you can't mean the people who live here ?" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore -- you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son -- I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry Potter come and live here!?"

"It's the best place for him," said Dumbledore firmly. "His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he's older. I've written them a letter."

"A letter?" repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He'll be famous -- a legend -- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future -- there will be books written about Harry -- every child in our world will know his name!"

"Exactly." said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn any boy's head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won't even remember! Can you see how much better off he'll be, growing up away from all that until he's ready to take it?"

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes -- yes, you're right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry underneath it.

"Hagrid's bringing him."

"You think it -- wise -- to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"

"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore. "I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to -- what was that?"

A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky -- and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.

If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild -- long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"

"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got him, sir."

"No problems, were there?"

"No, sir -- house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. He fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."

Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over his forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.

"Is that where -- ?" whispered Professor McGonagall.

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "He'll have that scar forever."

"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?" "Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map o

f the London Underground. Well -- give him here, Hagrid -- we'd better get this over with." Dumbledore took Harry in his arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house. "Could I -- could I say good-bye to him, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.

"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "You'll wake the Muggles!"

"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it -- Lily an' James dead -- an' poor little Harry off ter live with Muggles--"

"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Harry gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.

"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."

"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back. G'night, Professor McGonagall -- Professor Dumbledore, sir."

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.

"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply. Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.

"Good luck, Harry," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone.

A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley... He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter -- the boy who lived!"

The boy who lived, however, was not the only threat to Voldemort's plans. There was another baby boy who would grow up to be extraordinary. His fame would not reach the height of Harry Potter, but he need not be the boy who lived for he will be the boy who decided to speak.

        "I heard a rumor"

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun manga summary - ch.73 - Uraboras Prison

New chapter - new characters! We’re back in the underground prison and the first new character we meet kindly introduces himself as Inp Rocky. I guess we’ll be with him for a while. He was well known in his home town but one blunder... I mean, a mix of somewhat bad condition and wrong timing got him a 15-year sentence for the looting of scarce food rations.

///////beginning my personal rant//////// Now I think we need to stop here for a moment. This is, I believe, a second time the food shortage being mentioned. However, we only learn about it from the background (at least for now) characters. Our protagonist is blissfully unaware of the problem and we can’t blame him since there is plenty of food in Sullivan’s house and he doesn’t know any other places yet. But Sullivan is a high ranked demon, which means low-ranked ones must have it drastically worse. What about Iruma’s classmates? Even among the Babylus students, one has to have a higher rank to eat better food. But how about their families? I don’t think M!Ik will ever reach One Piece level of drama but there are some angsty undertones that WILL be addressed at one point, mark my words. /////////back to the manga//////////

We got some explanation about Uraboras Prison: The Walter Park staff is also working as prison guards for roughly 1600 inmates and the fortress is well equipped for that. The Prisoners's job is manual labor and providing mana. Their mana is an energy source for the park above. However...

Rocky: But... The laughing voices coming from that park seriously piss me off / Making our anger a source of mana that is powering it is seriously sick. Prisonner1: Ikr Prioner2: Well... there is one weirdo that volunteered to come here tho... Kirio [2-year sentence]: Weirdo it’s a bit... Rocky: Whaaat!? You wanted to come here!? Why!? Kirio: Well... I...

He says he likes to hear people laugh and it makes him calmer (I call bullshit), them cough up some blood and is carried to the infirmary by a big guy named Batsu. Together with Rocky, for some reason. Instead of the infirmary, they are carried to the arena-like room and we got to see some other inmates (with longer sentences). Rocky realizes three things: one - this is a fighting room for demons in their evil cycle, two - those demons are all bad news and three - they’re totally going to become sandbags for said demons. Or not.

They are actually pretty chill bunch? While the big guy - Dododo (or Dottsan, as they call him) is fanning Kirio. They invite Rocky to sit with them. Turns out they wanted to talk and this place is perfect for secret meetings because guards don’t come there. He’s lucky because they will let him in on the secret plan. What plan, you ask? Obviously, there is only one kind of plan you can have in prison - escape plan!

Prison break trope! Yay! Me approves.

And how they plan to do this? They have allies outside. A group of demons known for committing various crimes - “Six Fingers Group”. They are a famous group of atavistic* demons and there are a lot of stories about them (like “Destroying of the Demon Bridge” or “The Great War in Demon  Valley”). 

And their next target is Walter Park - curtesy of Kirio who is in contact with them! Or rather his “Acquaintance” who has connections... Anyway, the deal is to help Six Fingers with their little “festival” and in return, they will help with the escape. As for how they going to help - they only have to do what they are doing anyway - providing mana. 

Batsu: We are secretly sending mana as instructed/ to a place specified by Six Fingers./ We don’t know how they are going to use it, but.../ “Destroying Walter Park” is the “festival” they’re talking about 

Kirio is all happy to inform, that the Grand Escape Plan will be carried out today. The park will be consumed by hellfire and they will escape. Then the happy voices will turn into the screams and the time of despair will come

Kirio: I’m so excited!

Seriously fuck you.

It looks like we have another happy act of terrorism in the menu next chapter! Can’t wait for this plan to be ruined by school kids again!

T.B.C.

*I believe scanlations group (Desu vult) that was releasing chapters of this manga translated  元祖 返り as “ancestral return” which is not wrong per se, but it sounds a bit like a rough translation so I decided to use the word atavism/atavistic instead cause its definition better fits for what the meaning here is. If you disagree or have a better idea - I will be happy to hear from you :)

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 tagged by @anathenma WOO GIRL <3

rules: tag 10 followers you want to get to know better

name: Lauren

gender: Female

star sign: Virgo Sun || Leo Moon || Leo Ascendent, which basically means I have the usually quiet reserved personality of an analytical, organised virgo on the fact of things, am usually the goofy, chill friend amongst my friends, and don’t like to take anyone’s shit, but if I am disrespected, I’m a sensitive six foot flower and withdraw from the world until I can get over it. xD I don’t like conflict.

height: 183cm/6 feet 

age: 27 (YIKES XD)

wallpaper on my phone: (I had to check XD) A calendar of May 2020 stylistically arranged around ribbons

house: Slytherin

ever crush on a teacher: Both my parents and my uncle are teachers and consequently I knew every teacher in my school as actual human people and not ‘crushes’ growing up. So no. XD

coolest halloween costume: I went as the Starbucks logo one year when I was eight, a gigantic Lady Luck die one year with a top hat covered in poker chips and cards. I had some good ones I made: I was creative as fuck when I was 9-11 especially, and I had to be, because I was already around 5′7 and people assumed I was just some weirdo dressing up to get candy (Hearing ‘AREN’T YOU A LITTLE OLD TO BE TRICK OR TREATING’ at eleven CRUSHED me XD)

Favorite 90s tv show: 

Okay. So there’s one’s I watched actually as a child of the 90s, and ones that were just always ON in the 90s that I ended up watching. It’s debatable whether these are actually good NOW. XD

That being said, the background ones were Saved By the Bell (ZACH MORRIS IS TRAAAAassssh~~), Boy Meets World, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond.

As a kid, I loved the Aladdin Animated Series, The Hercules Animated Series, CHIP AND DALE RESCUE RANGERS (Which didn’t really hold up sadly but still has the best theme song of all time, fight me), and Timon and Pumbaa.

One I rarely caught but really liked was All That, The Wonder Years, Sabrina the Teenage Witch- occasionally Fresh Prince.

Out of all of these, I still have a super fond spot for Saved By the Bell, especially with the ‘Zach Morris is Trash’ series on Youtube (Seriously, go watch it. It’s fucking hilarious and basically breaks down how much of a serial killer in the making Zach Morris is XD). The clothing is ridiculous and no one really dressed like that in the early 90s outside of commercials and TV (unfortunately). Maybe one shoddy item out of the bunch. Meanwhile Saved by the Bell is like LETS PUT IT ALL ON. XD It was terrible once they got to college, but it was stupid and fun and made me feel ‘cool’ watching it because I was like three and being like, “YEAH, IT’S BRIGHT AND THESE PEOPLE ARE COOL AND I CAN FOLLOW THE PLOT. I’M MATURE.” XD It’s literally still the only one of these I actively watch now in the form of Zach Morris is Trash, so I’ll go with it. xD

Last kiss: Never had a consensual kiss. Make of that what you will. xD

Have you ever been stood up: Nope.

Favourite pair of shoes: 

I have terrible plantar fasciitis from sports, so I’m a shoe snob, and have to have properly fitting/constructed shoes. It depends on what I’m doing in them, really. I got a pair of trail running shoes for trail running during COVID, but they’re not the most aesthetically pleasing. I’d say the best mixture between comfort and style are either a good ol’pair of black ankle boots with a slight heel (so I can be 6′2 and intimidate people with my height muhahahaha), or more practically on a day to day basis, I have a pair of Reeboks that are 90s-styled with pastel pink and blue triangles on the side. They’re pretty dope. xD

have you ever been to vegas: No, but my parents have. Basically, they said you tire of shopping after two days, and then you’re just stuck inside hotels and shopping malls there. If you’re not a gambler, drinker, or have a ton of money to splash out on stage shows, I don’t think it’s particularly worth going.

favorite fruit: Mango or raspberry, but they’re super-expensive in the land of Maple Syrup so I usually don’t get them any other way other than frozen in smoothies.

Favourite book:

 I could never choose a favourite book. It’s literally like choosing between children. It’s my microcosmic version of Sophie’s Choice. xD Tasteless joke aside, it’d honestly depend on the occasion. There’s a huge difference between entertainment reading, literary exploits, and educating yourself through books as a whole. 

My ‘plane’ book (which I’m terrible at flying, so that was a joke), as in, an easy, fun, instantly rereadable read to read on the plane when I used to have super long fifteen hour flights to Australia, was always Mario Puzo’s ‘The Godfather,’ because I also had a huge crush on Michael Corleone. 

But it’s also not the ‘best’ book and literally spends an inordinate and honestly disturbing amount of time on the fact that this poor woman in the story (which thankfully in the film, it gets cut down), but the bridesmaid Sonny Corleone has sex with, and how you see his wife indicating his ‘size’?

THAT’S LITERALLY AN ENTIRE SUBPLOT OF THIS BROAD’S STORY I SHIT YOU NOT BECAUSE NOTHING IS ‘BIG’ ENOUGH FOR HER AFTER HIM AND THEN YOU FIND OUT SHE HAS A MEDICAL CONDITION AND GOOD FOR HER SHE’S ABLE TO FIND LOVE AGAIN BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARIO PUZO XD IT WAS A LOT OKAY.

(Footnote: I also suffered through his horrific sequels because I love Michael Corleone and will take him in any form he comes in, even horrifically written Sicilian backhill exploits that were never told to us in the original book and were clearly just written because Puzo needed another pay check but I digress.)

Horrific subplots aside, I really enjoy The Godfather for its sheer pulpiness. The book is essentially what Andrew Lloyd Weber is to musicals. xD (Yes, I come with musical theatre burns. Fight me.)

In terms of a piece of literature that I think is amazingly well done? Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, or Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Stupidest thing you ever done: 

Um, maybe when I was at Cambridge I tried to dye my roots to match the rest of my ‘blonde’ hair at the time, and it turned out bright orange? And because it’s Cambridge, they had this super-strict attendance policy, so I was literally trying not to hyperventilate because it was running close to class (which was across campus) and I was trying to find some way to remedy my hair without it falling out/ someone asking about it. So, I grabbed a toque-cap-thing despite it being literally one of the hottest summer on record in the UK (It was like 35 degrees, it was MENTAL), and had to sprint to class all the way on the other side of campus from my college dodging dodgy tourist groups blocking the sidewalk while I went. Then when I sat down inside, I had to be weirdly rude and wear my hat inside the lecture hall even though the professor was looking at me (it was a specialised program in German Literature) like, “Are you going to take that shit off?” xD THEN I tried to dye it back to brown, and it literally looked like mud mixed with a runny egg had exploded on the top of my head; it was AWFUL. XD So FINALLY I did my research and found a salon, but by THAT point I had done 250 pounds worth of damage to my hair (WHICH IS LIKE 400 DOLLARS CANADIAN AT THE TIME), and I almost had a heart attack and thanked my lucky stars that I had money put away so I could give my parents the ‘parent price’ when they asked why they hadn’t seen me on FaceTime or Skype for like, three weeks, and I replaced my face with a photo of John Cleese from Fawlty Towers, which they tease me about to this day. xD

The other dumbest thing I ever said was when I was so desperate for friends in grade six when I moved to a new school (and because being American was ‘cool’ at the time, apparently), I told everyone I was a dual citizen because my mother LITERALLY GAVE BIRTH TO ME ON THE BORDER CROSSING WHAT. XD And bless this poor bespectacled girl named Mara (who was actually a little class friend of mine), who just said timidly in the back, “That’s not how citizenship works.” xD It basically came out of attempting to be cool and failing, but I’m still SO embarrassed about THAT one that I’d never admit it to ANYONE besides shouting it out into the Tumblr black hole. xD I’m still embarrassed to THIS DAY.

All time favorite shows: 

 I’ll go for the original run of The Twilight Zone, which has some schmaltzy episodes (I’m really not a fan of any of the episodes entirely dedicated to the Space Race or the weird cowboy fanaticism of the fifties/ sixties, or anything that’s overtly like “ALIENS DID IT SO THERE”), but I LOVE their psychological horror episodes or Dystopian episodes. It’s when Rod Serling’s writing and narrative voice is the strongest and most prophetic, and the twists are usually the best. Other shows have tries to imitate it, or reboot it, but I really think the original, due to Rod Serling’s unmatchable voice, in every sense of the word. There’s lists of some of the greatest episodes, but I remember LOVING the episode ‘A Stop at Willoughby.’ The twist literally made me clap my hands in horror and delight, it was amazing. xD

Other than that? Off the top of my head, Mad Men and Band of Brothers, even though I haven’t rewatched either in ages.

last movie you saw in theaters: 

Oh God, before all THIS hit? Probably Rise of Skywalker. I get agoraphobic and itchy if a movie theatre is too busy, and we only have really pokey sort of ones nearby that you’re guaranteed to see someone you went to high school with (terrible), so now that I can properly drive I go out to the big redneck theatre out in the boonies. I miss living in Montreal though, because when you live in a big city like that downtown (and can actually afford to live there), you could see blockbuster movies at like ten in the morning. xD Which would be AMAZING because I’d go to see any of the early Avengers/Marvel movies when they opened, the day of opening, and it was literally me, one old man who fell asleep halfway through and sat near the back, and maybe an elderly couple on a morning date to the movies. xD I get really annoyed with obnoxious movie-goers, and I’m really picky about just being completely absorbed in the movie, so I tend not to go unless I’m guaranteed that space. 

tagging: Anyone who wishes to tag me back so I can learn about them <3

Pooh Characters as Queer Environmentalists

No seriously.  I had a very vivid dream involving all the Winnie The Pooh characters as a group of enthusiastic (and queer) environmentalists who meet once a week to talk about environment things because they’re nerds.

Starring Christopher Robin, Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Gopher, Eeyore, and Piglet.

·       Christopher Robin

o   33 years old

o   Head/leader/founder of the Environmentalist Group

o   Really interested in saving the whales

o   Chill dude, but kind of an airhead

o   Everyone thinks he’s some kinda office worker

o   One day someone accidentally found out that he’s the CEO of some green-planet organization and runs this group for fun to see what kinds of ideas he can get and to see what people think of environmentalist efforts

o   He always credits people for their ideas, but people assumed that he just worked for the company, not that he ran the damned thing

o   A pansexual icon

o   Has been to every single pride event that their city has ever had

o   Rumour has it he started the pride events

o   Wilder rumour has it he threw the first stone at the Stonewall Riots

o   Even wilder rumour has it that he’s an immortal vampire who survives on the blood of homophobes

o   He won’t deny any of these rumours but has yet to confirm it

o   Has a genderqueer partner that literally nobody has met

o   Seriously, not even Pooh

·       Pooh

o   29 years old

o   Really wants to save the bees

o   Like, REALLY wants to save the bees

o   Vegetarian, but because he doesn’t like meat

o   Massive sweet tooth; dentists hate him!

o   Ace/Aro

o   Loves children, wants to adopt his own someday

o   Babysits Roo all the time

o   Kanga and him are best friends

o   He brings little sweets for Roo every meeting

o   Perhaps a little bit of a pothead but he’s not addicted

o   He just smokes a joint once in a while to chill out

o   A stereotypical “make love not war” hippie

o   Nice to everyone all the time

o   Cries when someone is mean to him

o   Gets uncomfortable when people hit on him

o   Christopher’s little brother

o   A visual artist; uses lots of colours and sells his art at galleries and markets

·       Tigger

o   27 years old

o   ADHD

o   Like SUPER ADHD

o   Gay

o   Hit on Pooh once but when Pooh got uncomfy he backed off

o   Thought maybe Pooh was uncomfortable with gays and was confused and sad

o   When he found out Pooh was Ace/Aro he totally understood

o   They’re good friends now

o   Really wants to save rainforests and trees

o   A freelance writer; his books are elementary school Magic Treehouse shit

o   Very much into fantasy shit, his non-children’s series’ lore is always the deepest mindfuck ever, how the hell did he even come up with that

o   Bestselling author tho

o   Kinda famous tbh but he doesn’t like media attention

o   He just thinks everybody should have fun all the time

o   Does he vape? Probably.  Has anyone ever actually seen him do it?  No.

o   Does he sleep? Probably.  Has anyone ever actually seen him do it?  Once.

o   Kanga caught him powernapping when she came into one of the first meetings really early, but all she did was put a blanket on him and leave to go to the convenience store or something to stay out for a bit longer so he could rest

o   He didn’t know who it was until a bit later he figures it was her since she’s always knitting and it was a very pretty knitted thing

o   That’s his momma figure now

·       Rabbit

o   25 years old

o   Vegan and very in-your-face about it

o   “Bugs are important to the ecosystem but boy do I hate them in my garden”

o   Scifi enthusiast

o   Post-apocalyptic things slightly terrify him because he believes that’s how the world is gonna go

o   A bit of a conspiracy theorist

o   Genuinely believes the government is vaguely spying on everybody

o   Did Bush do 9/11?  Who knows… but the moon landing was real, and the earth is round, don’t be dumb

o   Just identifies as queer, doesn’t like labels

o   A very organized person but when he’s very upset perfectionism scares him bc he thinks he’s not ever gonna be good enough and will mess things up on purpose

o   Has a long-distance boyfriend

o   A farmer

·       Kanga

o   38 years old

o   Divorced trans woman

o   Has a 5 year old son that she fostered as a baby and adopted when he was 4

o   Recycles aggressively

o   Calls everyone “dear”

o   Uses reusable bags and plastic containers all the time

o   Knits a lot, everybody always gets scarves or mitts or hats for Christmas

o   Usually in the design of ‘planet earth’, but also makes pride flag designs and takes requests for fave colour schemes

o   Vegetarian but not aggressive ab it like Rabbit is

o   You know what she is a bit aggressive about? Recycling

o   If you throw something that’s recyclable in the garbage in front of her...

o   Lord help you

o   Last man who did that was never seen again

o   Okay that’s a lie, he was seen two weeks later

o   But he was advocating for a save the whales organization on the side of the road and wearing all thrift store clothing

o   She traumatized him into throwing himself into the environmentalist pit headfirst

o   Thinks Gopher is just a big softie; is the only one who is super nice to him all the time (besides her son, and Pooh who is nice to literally everyone)

o   Kinda has a thing for the grumpy man but won’t admit it

o   She’s like an accountant or something, nobody knows what she does for a living but she seems to be well-off

·       Roo

o   The adopted 5 year old son

o   A little bit spoiled, but not just by Kanga, by everyone in the group

o   Loves sitting in on the meetings

o   His first sentence at 15 months was “recycle that!”

o   Loves blue because of recycle bins

o   Literally wears nothing but blue

o   Will accept things that are less than 100% blue as long as its more than 50% blue

o   Also likes things with pink on them

o   Thinks Tigger is the coolest person ever

o   Doesn’t understand all of Tigger’s books but reads them anyway

o   Except the non-children’s ones of course

o   Reads everything he can get his hands on

o   Don’t let him get his hands on anything inappropriate for a 5 year old

o   Asks a lot of questions

o   Everyone adores him

o   His mama is his favourite person on the planet but also Mr Tigger is so cool

o   He likes Mr Gopher too, he thinks Mr Gopher is great because of “how happy Mama is when he’s around”

·       Eeyore

o   23 years old

o   Has depression

o   Trans boy

o   Just really wants friends

o   Wants to help the planet

o   Is a massive pessimist that thinks the world is doomed

o   Very smart boy

o   Talks about CO2 emissions and carbon taxes

o   A university student studying some kinda chemical engineering

o   Very quiet

o   Bit of a crush on piglet tbh

o   Has a big love for superheroes without powers because he loves the idea of things being solvable through hard work mixed with passion and technology

o   Except he doesn’t believe it because his depression makes him super pessimistic

o   Also a big tech nerd

·       Gopher

o   45 years old

o   Landlord of their meeting place

o   Grumpy ass old man

o   Sometimes people are grumpy right back to him and he’s ok with that

o   Actually a soft spot for these weird hippies and joins them sometimes but says its because he wants to make sure they’re not damaging the place (they know that’s a big fat lie but won’t say anything)

o   Will fight anyone who mocks them

o   Has actually fought someone who mocked them

o   Has not told them about said fight

o   Especially adores Roo

o   Thinks Kanga is a bit of an odd woman but also thinks she’s very pretty

o   Repressed bisexual

o   He thinks nobody knows he’s bi but eventually when he kinda mentions it he realizes everyone knows

o   Specifically, Piglet and Kanga are super supportive

o   He definitely actually has a crush on Kanga, who knitted him a bisexual flag scarf once

o   He wears it all the time but will vehemently deny that it’s the same scarf when called on it

o   Big brawny weirdo

o   Was a football player in college and can definitely bench-press everyone

o   Works construction now, which is why he’s still in good shape

o   Actually a brilliant man, can architect and calculate like nobody’s business

o   Will help Piglet with his mathematics homework in exchange for Piglet teaching him more things about the LGBT+ community

o   After a while he realizes that perhaps genderfluid fits him well but Piglet is sworn to secrecy

o   Has a daughter who is institutionalized for her mental health issues that grew beyond his care

o   Piglet reminds him of his daughter and he’s very protective

o   That’s why he legit fought that asshole who mocked the “little F****t hippies”

o   He was almost arrested for assault on that one actually

o   The cop was a buddy of his and 100% believed the “defense of those who can’t defend themselves” explanation that Gopher had

o   Got off with a warning and fined for “disturbing the peace” or some mundane BS

·       Piglet

o   21 years old

o   Gay and demiboy

o   Anxiety disorders through the roof

o   OCD

o   Recycling is a compulsion

o   Reducing energy consumption too

o   He checks his lights all the time

o   He walks or bikes everywhere

o   He says it’s to reduce CO2 emissions

o   He’s just scared of vehicles

o   Has some kinda PTSD but nobody knows the source

o   He got into a massive car accident when he was little

o   Because his father was angry and speeding

o   His mother died in the accident

o   But nobody knows this!  Someday he will tell them tho

o   Today is not that day

o   Tomorrow is not that day either

o   But someday

o   Crush on Eeyore

o   Also a university student

o   Studying mathematics because it makes sense to him

o   Gopher reminds him of his grumpy old gay uncle who died when he was in high school

o   Feels like he can actually not double-check or cross-reference anything that Gopher teaches him because he trusts him a lot

o   Still will sometimes check everything if he’s having a bad day

o   Gopher doesn’t mind, he understands that Piglet has a lot of anxiety issues

o   Has an exception in his uni file to be able to take twice as long on his exams and tests and get an extra few days for assignments because he checks every single answer 3 times

o   His OCD number is 3, everything is 3, he turns his lights on and off 3 times, etc

Modern!Red Dead AU x Reader (Part 1/?)

((Let's go friends, lets get this bread.))

It’s always the era of art, isn’t it? You’re a college student that has found yourself living in the Northcountry of New York. Living here was like taking a step back in time almost a 100 years ago. You’re going to college for art, but you aren’t sure if thats a major for you.

There was a large bustling town surrounding your college, and another one across town. It was to big to be called a town, honestly, but two small to be called a city so it was somewere in between. There was plent to do. Movies, coffee shops, video game lounges, vape shops, open parks with art in them. It was beautiful.

The first person you meet is a young man and his friends laughing in one of the smoking gazebos. You were also going to smoke anyways so you suppose it was time to meet some new friends.

This is when you met Arthur Morgan, John Marston, and Charles Smith. They went to the college on the otherside of town for music... Which was funny because none of them looked like the musical type.

“Why are you wasting the air here and not at your own school?” You asked. John, the one that looked half way between a drug dealer and a drug addict, said, “Well... My girlfriend goes to school here. And we can’t smoke on campus at our school,” 

Oh. If anyone out of this odd bunch was anything normal, it was Charles. He was cool and quiet and didn’t say much other than, “Were are you from?” You told them how you lived about seven to eight hour from home. Turned out so did he. 

Arthur and John were locals. They’d grown up in the wild North country. The mountains of New York were such an odd place. Arthur didn’t talk much but he did talk about this place called Java Barn. “It’s a live music venue. It’s not actually in a barn. It’s in a old autobody shop on our campus. There’s a show tonight. You should come,” He was so stern when he talked. What a weirdo. 

“What's it like?” Charles told you it was a place were local musicans, students, and very underground and unknown bands played. It was a mix between and indoor slash outdoor music club. 

The Java Barn opened at 9:00pm but they told you to show up at 10:00

That’s when you got to meet everyone else. You thought this was a local student thing, but it turned out to be a wild and open event that any body could go to.

Found on the college campus across town stuck in a alley way between two low buildings, you found it. There had to be more than 200 people there. Scattered around in the alley while loud music blasted out of the open garage doors. 

You found the three pretty boys that you met earlier that day sitting way off to the side on a set of stairs that went to nowhere. They waved you over, John smiling and Charles getting up to greet you. They introduced you to the rest of their friends. 

There was a kid named Sean from Ireland who was far to drunk already. He was a drop out and didn’t want to go back home. So he lived with John and John’s girlfriend, Abigal, in an apartment in town. Abigal went to school for nursing, she said.

Charle’s was roommates with Arthur, who also lived in town. They had a third roommate who was a girl named Karen. She went to your school for criminal justice and she was a bit of a partier. She was also very very drunk and seemed to be gravitating towards Sean.

To your surprise you met one of your own fucking professors, It was Professor Van der Linde who taught your modern philosophy class, and your english Professor too! Mr. Mattews. You knew the two of them were friends, because you saw them always walking together in the hallways of your school, you didn’t know how good of friends though or that they were friends with students.

Was this a little unethical? No... No it couldn’t be. Right?

This party at the Java Barn was actully.... a lot of fun! You met so many people, drunk, stoned, sober, and they were all very nice. This little gang of people around the stairs off in the distance seemed like a big friend group.

There were other people too, a kid named Lenny who was in your art major. There was his friends Tilly and Mary-beth, and their friend Sadie who was a very loud and drunk lesbian who had to let everyone know who she was. You found out Tilly was also in the criminal justice major, and Mary-beth was in the english studies major. Sadie was to drunk to even communicate properly but someone told you she went to other college for psycology.

You also met some dropouts who still slugged around, named Bill and Micah who were fans of Dutch’s class and that was about it. There was also someone named Javiar but he didn’t seem interested in being friends with anyone really. 

You noticed other professors you had also at the gathering, even older people well into their golden years. It was so amazing and forigen to you. What on earth was this place that you had found?

They got you to drink, and smoke, and enjoy yourself. They were all so nice and you found yourself making friends very quickly. The music was loud and funny, it made you want to dance.

The girls all gathered together and laughed and giggled and dance and barked at any of the men that tried to squeeze in. You were dragged away by them to gossip in the bathroom. You’ve never had many friends, definetly no friends that were like this. 

You added everyone on snapchat, facebook, twitter, anything they had. It felt a little weird when Dutch and Hosea insisted that you refer to them by their names, and they gladly gave you their contact information.  

That night you walked home with Tilly and Abigal, they lived in the same dorm as you and didn’t even know it. It was beautiful walk because your campus was littered with nature trails seeing as it was in the middle of a forest. 

You didn’t have a roommate (lucky, the said) so when you got back to your half decorated room, you flopped down on your bed. You closed your eyes for a second, feeling tired but glad you took the risk and went out. Your phone was buzzing alive already. Your new friends hadn’t wasted a second texting you.

Smiling, ready for bed, you rolled over, still in the clothes you wore out and sunk into your bed, sleeping and waiting for what the next day had to bring.

Yakuza 6 beaten! This game is mechanically rough but the story is good. An interesting sendoff for Kiryu’s final adventure, to say the least.

Putting this under a read more because it got kinda long sorry

I’ve already talked at length about the combat mechanics and how I’m not a fan, but I’ll sum up my thoughts here a little more succinctly. Kiryu’s old Dragon of Dojima style he’s had for like 6 games now is replaced with this weirdo clunky fighting style that’s really slow. It gets better when you get the speed upgrades, but Yakuza 0 has this game beat by a long shot. The enemies, at least on Hard difficulty, love to swarm you all at once and all attack at once, making large group fights a real pain. The combat is at it’s best when you’re one-on-one with a boss, but previous games have done it better.

The introduction of Extreme Heat Mode is an interesting decision, but ultimately I feel it’s a misstep. A large amount of heat actions being locked behind a limited-duration ability is odd, and you can’t do your standard combos while in Extreme Heat Mode either, as your standard rush combo becomes essentially a Dempsy Roll. Not to mention, activating Extreme Heat takes a solid 2 seconds, which means setting up for specific heat actions is much more difficult. You’re still susceptible to flinch from enemy attacks while in Extreme Heat Mode, so wailing on your opponents isn’t feasible. The best method for crowd control is to grab and throw, or use Finishing Holds.

How you level up is also completely new. Gone are the Mind, Body, and Technique categories, gone are the sphere grids and multiple styles. There are now five aspects that you can earn XP points for: Strength, Agility, Spirit, Knowledge, and Charm. Just about everything gives you XP now. Fighting, eating, going to the RIZAP gym in Kamurocho, completing substories, filling out the completion menu, etc. Earn enough of these, and you can either level up your core abilities (health, attack, defense, evasion, heat) or choose to purchase skills, whether it’s new attack moves or augmenting your heat.

I don’t mind this new system, except for one thing: knowledge. There is no good way to get XP for knowledge outside of eating food (you don’t earn it from fights, and typically don’t get much of it as a reward for side activities), so you will be stuffing Kiryu full to the brim every single chance you get just to scrape together some knowledge XP. However, Kiryu now has a stomach capacity meter now. Eat too much, and you can’t earn XP from the food you eat. Being full or hungry doesn’t affect Kiryu outside of this though, thankfully, but it’s rather annoying. You quickly find out which restaurants are worth eating at for knowledge XP and ignore the rest.

Enough about the gameplay then. The story is pretty damn good. It’s like if Yakuza 5 was actually cohesive and paced well, lots of new characters and good drama. The stakes are probably the highest they’ve been for a Yakuza game, which I know sounds ridiculous considering the kinds of things Kiryu ends up getting sucked into, but it’s the truth. There’s a few older characters like Daigo, Majima, and Saejima that make what amount to cameo appearances, and they are quickly shuffled out of frame to make way for the new cast. I love all the new characters. The Hiroshima newcomers take some warming up to but they come into their own by the time the story concludes.

Side stuff this time is a mixed bag. New engine, new minigames. The railgun spearfishing game where you genocide fish was my favorite, the baseball management game not so much. Karaoke has finally gotten a much needed overhaul, making rhythms not a guessing game. All of the classic Sega arcade games from Yakuza 0 are brought over, as well as Puyo Puyo and a full arcade-perfect port of Virtua Fighter 5. I am fucking awful at Puyo Puyo. The batting cage game is a bit different now too, it’s more like how Shinada’s batting minigame was from Yakuza 5. Darts and Mahjong have also returned. Woo. I ignored hostess clubs as I always do.

The camgirl game is amusing on your first go but it’s be boring to play it over and over just to view all the different branching scenes, unless you’re into that sort of thing I guess. Substories are now all fully voice acted, to my surprise. There’s 52 in total, which is less than usual, but given how each one has a lot more time and effort spent on it makes up for it a bit. Unfortunately, some of them are tied behind stuff like the baseball management game, like the ability to be a regular at a hole-in-the-wall pub. Also, I don’t know if there’s anything else to the Cat Cafe thing if you actually find all the cats, because I didn’t bother.

The Clan Creator is the big new side activity for Yakuza 6, and it’s... kinda boring. The little story thread is that this bigass gang (led by New Japan Pro Wrestling members for some reason) is causing a lot of trouble, so Kiryu and some kids he meets up with form the Kiryu Clan to stop them. You recruit leaders to your ranks and slot them into a hierarchy, then set off on missions. It plays like a bare-bones RTS game where you send out troops, up to 6 of your leaders and your pick of generic gang members who specialize in different things (some are tanky brutes who can soak up damage but are slow, some stay back and shoot guns, some chuck grenades, etc). You send your gang up or down a street and have them duke it out with the enemy gang, occasionally using your leaders’ abilities to help turn the tide in your favor.

Unfortunately, it’s not exactly that difficult or that fun. I did use a code or two to unlock OP leaders (like Daigo with his ability to refresh your reinforcement pool), so maybe that’s why, but it was always a steamroll until the very last battle. Hell, I didn’t even have Daigo for a while and I was still cruising through it. But you’re encouraged to find and use codes, so I dunno. The little storyline was kinda boring outside of the goofy wrestling personas doing their goofy things.

I guess I oughta wrap this up. Overall, I still enjoyed Yakuza 6. But literally every time I was in combat, I was thinking about how much more fun Yakuza 0 or even Yakuza 5 was. The story is great, I loved the characters, but it’s brought down by the rough mechanics of this new engine and fighting style. I hope for Shin RGG they really polish its mechanics. I would not recommend this as a first Yakuza experience, but I think I would recommend it for people who have beaten 0 and Kiwami.

God I wish they port the PS3 games to PS4 WELL HEY

Do you have any Lindon headcanons, if so please throw ALL of them at me because I have zero and it's terrible. This was more Elrond-centric bc I've been trying to fill in that thousand-year gap between Elros and war but then I realised how LITTLE I can actually picture of... the biggest Elven kingdom in Middle-earth... Galadriel's off collecting fairie court campsites, and Celebrimbor's kickstarting a magic object Renaissance, and what's every other elf doing this millennium? I just don't know!

omg i’ve lazily on-and-off thought about making a wip list of vague Lindon headcanons before so this is the perfect excuse. hope you don’t mind me limiting this to just the timeframe you mentioned, or this post would be WAY too long, instead of just regularly too long:

First: observe, my Lindon tag! It’s not very long, but

This and especially this are some of my favorite headcanon visuals for Second Age Mithlond as a capital city. Starting as a giant camp for everyone who escaped from Beleriand, lots of flux, more like a RL city than most Tolkien cities: gorgeous, but very disorganized, patchwork, built up ad-hoc, happenstance and convenience slowly rising into districts. All the people stopping in it or passing through it, either east or west, leave another layer of their presence there. um….I still haven’t read invisible cities despite buying it because of bamboocounting like….months ago. Anyway it’s 90% turned to dust by LOTR.

With abruptly going from lush inland forested river-filled Ossiriand to this newly-formed bluff-edged shoreland with a huge new saltwater gulf splitting it down the middle, I headcanon it being a pretty big mess for decades. Before Galadriel took a lot of them to Eregion, I picture all the characters you mention spending a lot of time on fixing up – collecting and reuniting scattered people, building houses, establishing diplomatic ties and supply chains, etc.

eg: there is very little formality or ingrained institutions and no palaces full of comforts let alone luxuries for at LEAST a century, thanks

BUT, the fixing-up period being mostly a very happy time! Like, I think there was certainly a ton of hardship and stress with trying to keep people fed and housed in this chaotic near-post-apocalyptic situation while new villages and stuff were built, and fighting stray dark creatures who had also escaped, but still a lot of general relief and feelings of being insanely fortunate and curious exploration, finally free from being under constant overwhelming threat again even if this peace is quite a different kind from the peace before Morgoth returned, going hand-in-hand with the work, and building together as a conduit for bonding and feasting etc – and celebration and joy as deliberate defiance against the loss and grief and war they suffered. I think this real-world thing would fit it well.

Not a very big population at first, since not a lot survived at all, and most of the elves went to Eressea and most of the humans went to Numenor, and most of the Sindar who remained went east. I headcanon the early “kingdom” as more…scattered villages along the shore with a large but transient population concentration around the Havens because most of those were just looking for their friends and relatives and waiting for seats to open up on the constant flood of ships heading west, and when the passengers finally dwindle down this distribution has taken root and multiplied, but not a really powerful force until post-The Mariner’s Wife.

After the establishment period, now that it FINALLY isn’t a time of war, after centuries of it, elves start having babies all over the fucking place, and all the accoutrements that go with it. Dozens of new and half-forgotten festival days that are literally just giant bacchanalias, zillions of weddings, society shifting to be very oriented towards sex and romance and children and child-rearing, rather than warfare, etc. With this showing up a lot in their songs, and art, and lifestyle, etc.

One of the most delightful Lindon-adjacent nuggets in the Histories of Middle Earth I think is that elves of Lindon spent at least 50 years, if not more, ferrying the Edain to Numenor. I won’t repeat the tag ramble I appended to that passage here, but just… *blows kisses off fingers* it’s so absurd and fitting….I think of this as a big post-war self-image thing, the cataclysm and Morgoth’s defeat just so utterly scrambling their view of the world and their role in it. >_o

Speaking of that, not a lot of cultural continuity between the Noldor of the First Age and the Noldor of Lindon. The people of Cirdan and therefore at first for Gil-galad were the Falathrim, so I hc that especially after lots of Noldor left for Tol Eressea and Eregion the dominant culture of Lindon was a blendy Falathrim twist.

But that’s mostly just dominant as a plurality – the real “main culture” of Lindon is the hodge-podge mixture itself. Exiles who stayed because they wanted to, exiles who stayed because they are ex-Feanorians or otherwise can’t face going back or aren’t allowed. Descendants of exiles, mixed Noldor/Sindar elves who weren’t even born during the early Silm. Noldor who feel totally alienated from everything, Noldor who feel more connected to their fellow people of Sirion than to the Noldor generally. Survivors of Gondolin, survivors of Nargothrond, Sindar who didn’t want to go east, Edain who didn’t go to Numenor, Edain who are just waiting around to go to Numenor, Dwarves who had to leave the Blue Mountains due to them being broken up in the war, other peoples of all kinds, who all scrambled convergently to Lindon to flee the incoming war and water like ants. The areas of Lindon, and the districts of Mithlond, array themselves as reflections of, or deliberate eschewings of, the weird headlong rush into intertwining and splitting apart and morphing into new things that characterizes late Silm-era dynamics and groups.

In addition to pre-existing Falathrim attitudes about the sea, a major cultural/religious/etc tradition would spring up in Lindon in relation to the sea – the destructive, overwhelming, healing, saving, unfathomable, un-tameable, enticing, perilous sea that broke the earth, yet cleansed it, destroyed both enemies and homes, the place that now holds everything that Beleriand was in its depths, the place that deliverance came from. Kind of a less cynical but still very terrified version of Voronwë’s complete lack of chill about it. Sea-longing and going to sea and either never coming back or not coming back the same carves out a major place in their understanding of the world. One of the Standard Identities available to a segment of the popular in Lindon is like, “oh, he’s Waiting For A Ship,” An overlap of understanding grows between them and the Numenoreans over this. Ahem. Feel free.

eg: great Implied Significance for the new shoreline and the gulf of Lhûn as the place where Beleriand broke off and sank. References to these places as idioms to refer to being just past the furthest reach of a calamity, or a now-innocuous reminder of past calamity, or the duality of homecoming and escape

also eg: “lmao X is as unpredictable as the Lhûn amirite #microclimates”

the Numenoreans love them, but are sort of boggled by them. They have the same strange varied mixture and mood swings of cheer and gloom and Issues as the ex-Exiles and ex-Sindar of Tol Eressea, but the Numenoreans don’t entirely understand why they stuck with Middle Earth, for after a few generations have passed, the Numenoreans can only really guess, from their own lore, what having life experiences that were once concurrent with the long-distant sufferings of their Edain ancestors might be like. The Tol Eressean elves, on their island of release, are easier to understand, they’re sort of like us! But what of these weirdos back east – and that way lies the peril of like…you know. Everything wild, that Numenor is not

ETA: Later, when they realize the shadow has returned, this slow kind of infuriated disillusioned backslide…like, really? really? again? and the buildup back to war being really grim and depressing, though a minority of them always knew something like this would happen again. And rising conflict short of outright hostility with Eregion. People relearning to be soldiers again…or generals…

“Yo, this is appointment viewing”A UFC 218 preview

Joey

November 28th

Not since LAST November-December have we had two genuinely stacked PPV events back to back. UFC 217 brought the sizzle with three title fights, former champions and title contenders competing for standing and a loaded prelim slate with HWs and BWs looking to find their place in the world. UFC 218 heads to Detroit with just one title fight but with it a host of potential #1 contender clashes alongside a flat out good undercard with relevant fights and action fights all across the ledger. The headliner is a short notice clash between Max Holloway and Jose Aldo, a pretty damn good 145 lb title fight that could either solidify Max Holloway as a P4P great or reannounce Jose Aldo's return to the top of the division. Under it, all four main cards are REALLY on point with potential #1 contender clashes at HW, LW, Flyweight and SW. I can't begin to express my excitement for this bad boy much longer so let's just get right to it!

Fights: 13

Debuts: 1 (Allan Crowder)

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 2 (Frankie Edgar OUT, Jose Aldo IN vs Max Holloway/Al Iaquinta OUT,  Charles Oliveira IN vs Paul Felder)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC):  13 (Jose Aldo, Max Holloway, Justin Gaethje, Eddie Alvarez, Alistair Overeem, Henry Cejudo, Sergio Pettis, Francis Ngannou, Michelle Waterson, Tecia Torres, Charles Oliveira, Alex Olivieira, David Teymur)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC:  1 (Angela Magana)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC:  11 (Sergio Pettis, Felice Herrig, David Teymur, Drakkar Klose, Alex Olivieira, Yancy Medeiros, Paul Felder, Tecia Torres, Max Holloway, Francis Ngannou, Alistair Overeem)

Stat Monitor for 2017:

Debuting Fighters (Current number: 41-35)- Allan Crowder

Short Notice Fighters (Current number: 23-34-1)- Jose Aldo, Charles Olivieira

Second Fight (Current number: 27-37)- Justin Willis, Dominick Reyes, Sabah Homasi

Cage Corrosion (18-13-1)- 0

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- We should begin with the main event which in my estimation an improvement over the Edgar/Holloway booking. To explain, while Edgar/Holloway is a fresh fight and one that would've been truly awesome, we've seen Frankie lose to Aldo twice. Aldo is the superior fighter of that we have no doubt---and so seeing Holloway/Aldo II isn't as fresh but it is a better all around fight. The first fight in my estimation is one of those clear examples of "sometimes stats lie, man." Everybody, almost like a chorus of geese on a cold Winnipeg morning, honks about Aldo winning the first two rounds and that's true but also irrelevant. Why? Because if you WATCH the fight, you can tell that the second round was a round where stats lie. Halloway had no respect for Aldo's power, he marched him down, he took to give (in my opinion he won the round) and by the end of the second round, their respective reactions heading back to their corners should've told you who was winning or about to win that fight. It wasn't Aldo.

2- I also don't buy the idea that leg kicks are some vaunted weapon which has been missing from Aldo's game and will be some deciding factor. For starters, it's not Holloway hasn't faced explosive kickers in the past. Second, it's not Aldo's leg kicks are the key weapon to what was his dominant run to begin with. They're a tool in the act but no more a tool than his amazing takedown defense and superb angles. LASTLY this is a guy who has been rocked/dropped in 3 of his last 4 fights. He's been finished in 2 of them. The only guy who hasn't finished him is a guy who has one KO stoppage in the last six years (love ya Frankie!). Aldo has plenty of ways to beat Holloway and Holloway has plenty of ways to beat him in return---but leg kicks? Not really seeing it. Aldo hasn't been this big leg kick monster since about 2013 or so. They're a sparsely used gimmick at this point.

3- I wonder if the UFC is as frustrated at the 155 lb scene as we are as fans. We have:

-A champion who doesn't seem like he's defending any time soon.

-An interim champion who seems to be torn between waiting for the neverending stop of the McGregor/UFC table dance and taking a fight that risks him losing the biggest payday of his life.

-Two fantastic 155 lb fights that could determine #1 contenders for titles that don't seem to be getting defended any time soon.

-Dustin Poirier sitting on the outside looking in after dominating Anthony Pettis plus depending on who you ask finishing/almost finishing Eddie Alvarez.

Making matters worser than the worst worse, you have Nate Diaz potentially malingering around, the looming threat of Max Holloway or Jose Aldo finally making a move up as well as a solid crop of 155 lb talent who aren't close to title shot contention but would in theory be closing the gap if the division wasn't held up at the top so much (the aforementioned Paul Felder, a suddenly resurgent Clay Guida, Anthony Pettis is still young enough to turn things around, too too early to write off Michael Chiesa and Kevin Lee after tough losses, Devid Teymur and the mystery that is Mairbek Taisumov).  At some point something has to give along these battle lines and I wonder if that means biting the bullet, admitting that there's a need for it and opening up 165 lbs.

3- I do think, title contention wise, it says something that Alvarez/Gaethje is 4th on the card underneath Pettis/Cejudo when it comes to relevancy. Could be nothing, could mean everything.

4- There's a lot of hype and pressure on Francis Ngannou. That's probably well deserved but as I've said perhaps one time too many, don't get caught up in the narrative if he loses. Once upon a time, Stipe Miocic got his first real big step up and he was iced in two rounds by Stefan Struve. Shawn Jordan once put Derrick Lewis on ice skates with a fat guy wheel kick. This will shock and amaze you but fighters do improve over time and at HW, nobody is ever truly a lost cause. Division lives for chaos.

5- I know I'm the weirdo in this regard but I'm really excited to see how Sergio Pettis handles the challenge that is Henry Cejudo. Of all the Duke Roufus products, Sergio is the one who seems to most fit the mold of what they want. Functional in every facet of the fight while still having the flash, sizzle and workrate to keep people interested. Cejudo's rediscovered his power recently and his boxing has looked world's better. I have cardio concerns with him as you always need to but Sergio Pettis has always had an aversion to guys who pack a shot on the feet. This fight could be really great.

6- Paul Felder's stock, which continues to go up and down depending on the time of year, is probably as high as it's been since he iced Danny Castillo way back in 2014. Felder has always been really talented but at 33, the clock's ticking on him really making a run. He's won 4 of his last 5 fights but the only guy who remains int he organization out of that group is Stevie Ray. His losses are two totally acceptable ones (a decision to Barboza where he could've probably won, a 3rd round TKO stoppage vs Francisco Trinaldo in Brazil) and one totally bemusing loss to Ross Pearson where he spun for the entire fight chasing a bonus and never got it. Felder's inconsistency is partially the reason why it's hard to feel overly confident in him vs Charles Olivieira. Do Bronx is always dangerous for a quickie sub and he showed that vs Will Brooks when he got his back and subbed him in the first round in April. Historically Charles has won to the guys he's supposed to beat and found creative insightful ways to lose to the guys he shouldn't. He's always in a fight until it's over and Felder historically leaves enough margin for error where  he could, in theory, give Do Bronx opportunities.

7- David Teymur thus far has passed every test put in front of him. He was successful in TKO-ing guys who he probably would've been fighting on the regional scene and then really broke out when he spoiled the Lando Vannata hype with a decision win in March. Teymur is one of those guys who mixes techniques well, never tries the same trick twice and has improved time and time again whenever he fights. He's a bit old for a prospect (28) and Drakkar Klose will probably be the bigger, stronger fighter but I'm excited to see what Teymur has added to his game during his time away. Dude has top 15 potential in my estimation.

8- There's going to be a lot of interest in the Waterson/Torres fight and fair play to it but I'm all about that Felice Herrig/Courtney Casey bout. I haven't been wow'd in Felice's more recent fights (never really impressed with Kish, thought Grasso won) BUT even having said that, she's finally matching her record with her boisterous personality. On the other hand, I'm all about that Courtney Casey violence. She debuted vs Joanne Calderwood on short notice and put it on her before she gassed. The same for her vs Seo Hee Ham where she started off hot and then the wheels fell off. She rebounded by finishing Christina Stanciu and has a "way more impressive in hindsight" sub of Randa Markos. A loss to Claudia Gadelha followed where she never seemed to get out of second gear and you could almost sense her upside would be "tough woman who lives on the outskirts of the top 10." She then went and beat the fuck out of Jessica Aguilar in a fight that wasn't competitive for a single minute of its duration. She is all action, all the time and Felice Herrig's size, grappling and developing hands are going to give her a real test. This fight is great.

9- Yancy Medeiros vs Alex "Cowboy" Olivieira is gonna be your favorite 90s gore action movie where it's all violence with no sense behind it. Just action figures ramming into one another.

10- Does the Ngannou/Overeem winner gets the "The UFC would like you to face Stipe Miocic on -insert date here-" sprung up on them?

11-  So Dominick Reyes is arguably the most exciting prospect at 205 lbs in a long long time---but I can't help but feel like Jeremy Kimball is going to be a step too far for him in his development. I kind of think the UFC thinks so too since it's buried on the FP prelims where a loss can almost be hidden.

12- Would a loss to Tecia Torres expose Michelle Waterson as being a PVZ-esque hype job?

Must Wins

1- Michelle Waterson

Might as well just flow from A to B, right? Waterson came into the UFC off a loss after the organization had been hounding Invicta to free her up for a while. She went 2-0 and WME-IMG actually signed her and took over as her media reps. The response off of that was a loss to Rose Namajunas where she was outmatched from the get go. Waterson says she went out for a while to get stronger and balance her aggression in the cage (she felt Rose just swarmed her from the jump and she was too timid on the feet) so hopefully we're going to see a new and improved Waterson.  She is still super markketable, talented and has exciting fights more often than not. A loss to Tecia Torres would be really tough on her career and would put a lot of things into question, primarily whether she's big enough for 115 lbs or whether this entire thing is really a new PVZ.

2- Eddie Alvarez

Alvarez exorcised a lot of demons when he beat RDA for the title and ended the bullshit about him just being a good fighter outside of the UFC who couldn't hang (loss to Cerrone and two ugly split decision wins weren't helping). He never had a chance vs McGregor where he was basically knocked out by the first left hand that landed. The last fight vs Dustin Poirier was, I suppose, the return of the Eddie Alvarez of old. He got hurt, survived, found whatever it is that makes him insane and then used it in the second round. A blatantly illegal knee ended the night for Poirier and Alvarez but for a BRIEF second, Eddie Alvarez was the man he was in all those wars. He's had a lot of wear and tear on his body from fighting great competition for little fanfare. The UFC version of Eddie Alvarez is a little smarter, a lot more chinny and the epitome of age kicking in too late to protect the body. Alvarez vs Gaethje really does feel like a battle between Eddie Alvarez retro and Eddie Alvarez off the shelf. Justin Gaethje has a ton of Alvarez in his game while being younger and hitting way harder---but does Eddie still have some magic left?

3- Dominick Reyes

205 lbs needs Dominick Reyes in the worst way. The under 30 LHW prospect got into the UFC on short notice after a viral headkick KO and he did little to disappointed in stomping out Joachim Christenson. Still I think we can admit that Christensen is ways away from being UFC quality and so Reyes still hasn't beaten someone of note. Jeremy Kimball isn't great shakes BUT he has a very deceptive record. He started his career 5-3 and since then he's gone 10-3 which includes a 1-1 stint at Bellator and wins over dudes with far more fanfare than he (TUF finalist Matt Van Buren, Cody Mumma and Chidi Njokuani all ring a bell). This is a sneaky test of Reyes' ability and I'm hoping he'll pass it.

Can't Miss Fights

1-  Justin Gaethje vs Eddie Alvarez

2- Jose Aldo vs Max Holloway

3- Francis Ngannou vs Alistair Overeem

4-Henry Cejudo vs Sergio Pettis

5- Alex  Oliveira vs Yancy Medeiros

Yes You Are’s Kianna Alarid on former band Tilly and the Wall, her Chicana identity and being featured on the Super Bowl

Through her alma-mater Tilly and the Wall, Kianna Alarid has seen it all. At one point, it felt like Kianna was on top of the world  with her songs plastered over ads (and even on the 2014 Super Bowl) as well as some high-profile features from starring on Sesame Street to dropping a track with Tiesto. But it wasn’t something that would last forever and as the indie-pop explosion Nebraska soon died out in favor of the more central Williamsburg scene, things started to slow and stagnate for Alarid. Searching the world but failing to find the right musical collaborator, combined with post-partum depression and a relapse from 8 years of sobriety, took a toll on Kianna. Starting anew and back on her feet, Alarid found herself in Kansas City, Missouri and formed her latest act Yes You Are. A rush of new energy and ideas came back to Kianna and now out of the woods it seems like things are looking up for Alarid again. After all, you gotta be doing something right if the 2017 Super Bowl wants to feature your music again. 

I last met Kianna back in 2008 during one of Tilly and the Wall’s last few shows, but it would be nearly 7 years later until we would catch up again, in a promo email. Since then we’ve been writing each other, and appreciating each others’ quirks on Instagram and Facebook, and a long time in the works we finally decided to get an interview down. We spoke candidly to Kianna about the last few years and what it all meant, that and other things among why the Kansas City Royals is the best team ever. 

Tell us about your beginnings and meeting your former band Tilly and the Wall.

When I was 15 I met Todd, Clark and Joel (The Faint,) but at that time I just knew them as Omaha's best skateboarders, along with my boyfriend at the time. I was very involved in the skate community and was always hanging out with them and found out that they were also musicians. I got very into the underground Omaha scene through them, listening to bands like Commander Venus, Norman Bailer and Simon Joyner. After a few years, my boyfriend and I broke up and I didn't see that crew for a while.

I started playing in my first real band when I was 18 with a few friends of mine. We were really into hardcore and metal at that time and wanted to write and play that kind of music. I only played bass at that time, I had never really sung, although I did rap during one song. I met a lot of people involved in that scene in Omaha and many of them had crossover relationships with people playing in the indie music scene. I started seeing my old friends around again who were no longer skating as much, and were way more focused on their new band The Faint and playing with bands like Bright Eyes and Cursive. I started hanging out with that crew way more when I turned 21 and started going to karaoke with a handful of them. We went all the time, sometimes 3 times a week. That's actually how I really started singing and came to realize I wasn't half bad.

 We were out at a bar one night when a few of them were taking about starting a new band, their old band was called Park Ave., and I basically invited myself to be a member of this hypothetical new band and they were like, right on! That band was called Magic Kiss and though it didn't last long, one of the members Jamie Williams and I became very close and we continued to hang out and write music together. She invited me over one day to meet these two weirdos, Nick and Derek, also musicians, who had just moved to town from Atlanta, Georgia. We all hit it off big time. We starting hanging out all the time, playing music and just having a blast together. We decided to become a real band soon after that and asked Jamie's old band mate Neely to join as well. That's how Tilly started, from my perspective.

Though you were born in Omaha, your family is from New Mexico and proudly wear the labels Chicano and Native American. Tell us what that identity means to you?

Both sides of my family are originally from very small towns and villages in New Mexico. I grew up identifying as "Chicano" which, according to my relatives meant "displaced" and wasn't used with the more commonly known definition of "Mexican-American". My family used the word more radically, to refer to a race of people specific to New Mexico, who were a genetic mix of the native people of that area, who had lived there for thousands of years, and the Spanish explorers who colonized the area in 1598. There was always a vibe of resistance surrounding the term and we had strong sense of culture relating to our indigenous roots. Kachinas, sand paintings, heavy turquoise jewelry.. these were all normal things in my world. I understand more now why "displaced" was used to describe our people, although possibly the word "outsider" could be interchanged. New Mexico is a very strange and magical place and has a very interesting culture, including a different sort of "singing" Hispanic accent and completely unique food. Not to mention all the UFOs and aliens.

At one point Omaha was to indie pop like Seattle was to grunge. What was it like to be in Nebraska during the height of the scene?

It was awesome! We were a very tight knit group of people and anyone you ask from that group will tell you, with shivers on their arms, about the night when everything changed. The Faint was set play this big venue we had always known to be a place for bigger, touring bands and everyone was excited to see how that would pan out. We all sat there, shocked and stunned as hundreds and hundreds of people kept arriving... people we didn't know or recognize. It had always just been us at the shows before... a lot of people, but you at least sort of recognized most of the crowd. This was different, it was just so many new faces. It was the first time anything like that happened and it just kept happening from there on out with Bright Eyes and Cursive and so on. At first we were just like, "Who are all these people coming to our friends' shows!?" Then it just blew up. It was so exciting to be there and help out and celebrate our friends' successes.

Of course, there’s the highs and lows of touring. What was it like battling with sobriety?

Addiction is a funny thing, it seems to easily go hand in hand with being an artist. It has been the downfall of so many incredible and gifted people throughout history. Drinking is such a normalized part of our society, so it seems pretty harmless in the beginning. I can see why its so destructive. Its a sneaky thing. I am a very intense person, so for me, it makes it a life or death choice. When you're faced with that reality, it makes it much more clear that you need to choose wisely. I want to live and I want to do my job for as long as possible, so I'm staying sober. To me, having drinks isn't worth missing my destiny.

 I like the fun and funkiness of Yes You Are. Tell us about how “Holy Ghost Explosion (HGX)” came about?

Well, I think all our songs are weird. We aren’t writing from a typical perspective and aren’t even doing this for any typical reasons. We have something to say but it can’t really be said.. so we dance with words in order to cause a certain phenomenon in a certain listener. Could it be you? “HGX” started as an nod to Timbaland and wound up as something else.. but still has that 808 vibe and a fun beat to get down to. Its a creeper and possibly its creepy too, depending on how you look at it.

“HGX” stands for “Holy Ghost Explosion”, which was the title of this viral YouTube video a while back of some Pentecostals really going WILD. Something about the name of the video stuck with us and we would up using it the song lyric. We had started referring to the song as “Holy Ghost Explosion” and then after some time, we just started saying “HGX” as that's how we would write it on set lists.

Honestly, I never would have taken you as a sports fan. Tell us about your newfound love for sports and more specifically, the  Kansas City Royals.

I grew up with jocks for parents and I just could not relate. They have always been die hard Cubs fans and baseball was always on our tv but i just couldn't get into it. It wasn't until I reluctantly watched the Royals play in the 2014 Wild Card game that I thought... "Wait, what is THIS? This is baseball? Holy sh*t!" I haven't really missed many games since that night. Learning the game and understanding it has been a huge revelation for me. I can’t really get into it here because it would take too long, but there is a poetry to the game of baseball that goes far deeper than meets the eye. I never would have guessed I’d become a sports fan but the 2014 KC Royals did some kinda alchemy in me and I’ve never been the same since. Its awesome. These games, these insanely high paid players… it all seems so insignificant on the surface, and possibly for some people it is. To those who have been touched by the metaphors of it all.. its very much something else. Its so beautiful. I even have a closer bond with my parents. I get it now.

Well, for a sports fan being on the Super Bowl not once but twice is certainly the honor. What was it like being on the Super Bowl not only with Tilly and the Wall but with Yes You Are?

We had no idea that our song was going to be on the Pepsi Super Bowl commercial. I was doing our taxes, tuned into the station that day and suddenly the song was on. I just sort of blanked out.. then my phone blew up. It was amazing to us, like a sign of some kind. We have believed in Yes You Are for so long and have just pushed steadily along through hard times and better times but for this amazing thing to be given to us… it certainly felt like a sign that something bigger and better is coming.

So it seems like you've done a lot in your career. What's next?

What’s next is putting out our debut album and getting our songs known throughout the universe and beyond!

Last question! I heard you're an MMA fan as well. What did you think of the Conor McGregor versus Mayweather spectacle? This is probably completely crazy but do you think you'd entertain the idea of fighting Floyd Mayweather if the chance came up?

No. Definitely no, I would not fight Floyd Mayweather! I guess I may entertain the thought of letting him beat me up for 100 million dollars though (laughs). I thought the whole McGregor/Mayweather thing was just that, a spectacle. I heard the fight was really good and I also heard they hugged like old, rich-ass friends afterward so, whatever (laughs). You know actually, I am a big fan of the Diaz brothers. They're such ninjas! Nate Diaz actually inspired me to start training Brazilian jiu jitsu at Kansas City BJJ but I stopped after a while because some of the chokes we were doing compromised my throat on more than one occasion. Those guys are killers (laughs). I had a sore throat for over a week and I just couldn't risk it. I miss it a lot though and I do remember my training and drills so... just saying.

Check out Yes You Are on Spotify below:

Surprise, I’m transgender! While this may be a shock to some, to others this might have been expected. I owe everyone reading this an explanation, and that will be conveyed through this long-ass story. I am sorry that this took so long to say, and I hope that regardless of how you may know me, that this does not change anything. (sorry I curse a lot in this… I wanted to stay as true to myself and this is most alike to how I talk and how I would say it. A lot of this is un-edited raw thought so with that said, have at it) Before we dive into the story, I would like to preface this by saying that I never wanted to be trans. I would also like to reinforce the fact that being transgender sucks and I almost wish that this was a choice, because I would love to wake up one day and just decide not to be trans. That day isn’t going to happen though, and I can personally vouge for the “it’s not a choice” argument. Trust me, being transgender has stopped me from doing quite a few things. If I could magically switch to being cisgender so I could live a normal life, I would. So, without further or due, here’s my story, in a terrible chronological order almost as bad as that in the movie, Citizen Kane. Let’s start from when I actually found out I was transgender. Any doctor’s favorite question is, “How did you know you were trans?”. The “transgender” term came to me by accident, as I was being the introvert I still kind of am, watching YouTube videos up in my room at my grandma’s house. I was 12 at the time, and while scrolling through the “recommended” section, a video titled something along the lines of, “How I knew I was transgender” popped up. By clicking on that video, I unknowingly opened up my Pandora’s box of shit. Listening to this trans man talk about his experience, as well as with his struggles with gender dysphoria as a teenager felt something freakishly close to what I was feeling about my own body at the time. The term “transgender” though, was just something too big for me. Having already dealt with Lyme disease the year prior to that, I really didn’t want any more problems in my life… so I pretended like I never even heard the word, or related to that dysphoria that the man talked about, and went on living my life suppressing every ounce of pain I felt. I figured I would only deal with it when I had to. Girls were getting boobs and hourglass bodies, and guys were getting squared jaws and broad shoulders, as well as facial hair. When it was my turn to step up to the puberty plate, I tried to do everything I could to mask the changes that were happening to me. Which is quite strange, because at the time I was also denying any possibility of being transgender. Periods were a nightmare (and still are), causing deep depression that was a mix between dysphoria and self-rejection, as well as many crying episodes. Luckily small boobs run in the family, and I was able to get through middle school and into high school wearing double sports bras to hide those “almost A’s”. To deal with the hair situation, I cut that shit short at the end of 8th grade, and braced myself for the reputation that it would bring me… *Cough* *Cough* Lesbian. All of the things that I was doing to hide my gender and my body really didn’t throw many people off. That’s not to say that they didn’t think it was weird, but it wasn’t unlike me to dress “construction casual” like the other boys. I was always the tomboy, often seen rocking some lacrosse shorts and some sort of athletic T-shirt all throughout elementary school. My best friend and I also only played with the boys during recess. That was until I was too much of a weirdo (was it the pony tail mixed with the basketball shoes and all male wardrobe?). I was ousted from that crowd and bullied pretty heavily. Even though it was terrible at the time, Im grateful for the experience, as it really did build character as well as a little confidence when I finally was on the other side of it. Anyways, flash forward to about 8th grade during the Emo ultra butch phase…At that point people kind of expected things like short hair and guys clothing from me. They just figured I was some uber lesbian that was finding myself. Little did they know that yes, while I did like girls, I didn’t like the fact that I was technically a girl, but in all fairness I wasn’t consciously aware of it at the time either. I think I did have an idea, because the term transgender lingered on my shoulder ever since I watched the video. I tried so hard to forget about it, but while on the inside I was working hard to convince myself I wanted to be a girl, on the outside I was already beginning my transition process. Remember that whole “Ill deal with it when I have to” plan? Yeah, well that “time to deal with it” bell rang right before my 15th birthday. It was right about that time when I slipped into a constant state of terrible depression. For the most part I should have been happy at the time, as I had a girlfriend who supported me in everything I did, and never batted an eye or questioned any of my “gender hiding” habits. While we did not end up working out, I am forever grateful to her for being the first person I was able to come out to, as well as for always accepting me for who I was, not as the gender I identified by, or the clothing choices I made. Anyways… September/ early October of 2015 was when it occurred to me that it was time to either deal with the situation at hand, or to commit suicide. I hated every part of myself… I didn’t fit in right on either side of the gender spectrum, and I had to accept the hard fact that I was transgender and that there was no changing it. For my 15th birthday, I bought some of my friends presents instead of accepting anything, as I figured I wouldn’t make it to my 16th birthday and I wanted to show my love and appreciation for them. So, in between that October to March of 2016, my depression was getting so bad that even the slightest things would result in the thought of “I guess I’ll just die… that’ll make things better”. My depression was playing a nasty game of Cuban missile crisis with my mind. Brinksmanship was the only thing that brought me to actually say the words “I am not comfortable in my own body, I am transgender.” It was either that or Depression was going to launch its nukes. I thought I opened Pandora’s box when I watched that YouTube video when I was 13, but boy was I a fool for not realizing that Pandora seems to have an unlimited number of shit filled boxes. See, the issue with telling your parents your trans is like, “Wow! I feel so relieved that the thing that almost caused me to kill myself is finally off my chest… oh wait, now I actually have to really deal with it.” The best metaphor I can think of to describe the situation is that it’s like peeling an onion. Each layer, while gradually getting closer and closer to the core, makes you cry and stinks up your kitchen. If only being transgender came with a pair of onion goggles that would keep the tears away. Unfortunately, the elves didn’t stop by to drop off my pair the night that I came out to my mom. Instead, I woke up many days to, “now what” conversations, and a lot, and I mean a lot, more crying. Here’s another thing that the Fairy (no pun intended) god mother doesn’t tell you about being trans. As far as I can tell from the experience I have, it actually gets way harder when you actively begin to transition, up until you’re on hormones for a couple months! If being trans was a plot structure graph, English teachers would have one hell of a time trying to explain all the rising actions, climaxes, and falling actions to their students. You know when you’re on a school break or summer vacation and your parents still have to go to work, so you stumble out of bed at like 10:30 only to find a giant list of chores you have to complete before your allowed to go out? I experienced something similar to that after I came out to my parents, except instead of the list being signed “XOXO -Mom” mine had something like, “Have fun bitch! -Your Superego”. The mental list that I had come up with for myself looked something like this: · Come out to close friends · Come out to my sister, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents. · Come out to the school administration · Come out to school · See a psychologist that can get me a testosterone letter · See an endocrinologist to get testosterone · Get both parents on board with testosterone I wanted to come out to my close friends first for two reasons… One was that my girlfriend already knew, so what would the difference be if the friend-group we were both in knew as well? Two was that I wanted to practice actually saying the words, “I am transgender” to my friends before I started playing tranny hot potato with my family. Telling my family kind of stood in the way of telling the school administration, as well as my classmates, because my sister, along with two of my cousins and I, all went to the same school together. “Hey Katie, I just heard someone say Kieran’s a boy now?” Needless to say, that would be a little awkward. The list got totally re-made many times, and as the list continues to increase in size, I’m sure it will also continue to change its order of priorities. The ever-changing list is like a fucking hydra… cut off one problem and two more shall appear. Over the course of a year I came out to many of my close friends, along with other acquaintances. Originally, this was a feat that seemed insurmountable, but with each conversation came more and more confidence. While I had yet to fully accept, and love myself, coming out to my friends allowed me to get in touch with a lot of feelings I was pushing away. Many of them wanted to hear my story, and wanted to understand what it was that caused me to feel this way. I began to recall all the situations that raised many gender crisis flags, some of which I had never felt comfortable to talk about until then. I told them my communion story… The one where I was so upset about having to wear a dress, that I ran off the church lawn after a couple pictures, and stripped out of my dress in the parking lot. It didn’t even phase me that I was completely nude in front of most of the town, I was just focused on getting that dress off. There are many stories very similar to the communion nightmare, and if you look back into family photo albums, you rarely find me wearing dresses or girly clothing. When I was 7 my second cousin was getting married in Washington D.C. and my entire family drove down for the wedding. In all the pictures, we have from the wedding, I can be seen wearing a pony-tail, blue polo shirt, a pair of khaki Capri’s and some super sexy blue crocks. I was that cousin… and no it was not because of the crocs. Sorry to jump out of chronological order here, but let’s jump to June of 2016, when it had been 3 months since I had told my parents and a couple of friends that I was transgender. I started seeing a new therapist in hopes of getting a letter for testosterone. Depending on where you live, or which doctor you see, the process for getting testosterone usually goes along the lines of seeing a therapist for x amount of time, seeing an endocrinologist, and then getting your testosterone recommendation letters and giving them to the endocrinologist who will, fingers crossed, write you a prescription for those goodie- good hormones. That’s the over simplified order because, let me tell you, that is never how easy it is going to be. So, I start seeing this new therapist, right? I’ll just make it clear that I personally hate therapy. That’s not to say that I have anything against the people who find therapists or therapy helpful, it’s just that the whole system doesn’t really work for me. As a passionate overthinker, as well as a person who has spent the last 6 years seeing therapists, I love to also psycho-analyze the shit out of myself. It’s such an awful habit, because I end up making myself more depressed than I was and then I’m stuck feeling like shit for the rest of the day. Going to therapy for me just sucks because when the therapist asks, “So maybe it’s the fact that you have X going on, its causing a lot of sad feelings?” and it’s like “Um no actually X was a small problem that made me feel let down as well as furthered my trust issues with people. Problem Y and Z are the things that are causing me to feel sad but there’s nothing I can do to change them so here’s a shit ton of my parent’s money, let’s sit here for another 45 minutes and bullshit the rest of this session.” It’s kind of sad when you get to the point that your therapist sucks so much, you have to psycho- analyze them to try and figure out what led them to their psychology major, and love of leather recliners and notepads. My favorite type of therapists are the therapists that haven’t spent any time in the chair themselves. They’re your stereotypical “so how does that make you feel?” therapists, the ones that always have their pen going. They stand out like a sore thumb to anyone that has seen their deal of therapists, as they struggle to remember small facts, and the DSMR is their only solution to your problems. Their psych evals start off with “ummmm… would you consider yourself to be a worrier?” and when they ask, “do you have any questions for me” they’re really saying, “please don’t ask me anything I have exactly 26.2 seconds until this appointment is over and I do not have the time nor the experience to answer anything, don’t let the door hit you on the way out kiddo.” Usually the only question I have for inexperienced therapists like this is, “where the fuck did you get you psychology degree?”. The 10 weeks of summer was a rushed mess between crippling depression and therapy appointments, and it was late August when my parents finally agreed it was time to go see an endocrinologist. Long story short, it is now February 23rd, and tomorrow I see a doctor that will most likely be writing my prescription for hormones (which according to predictions, should start in March). It has been an incredibly long journey, full of plenty of tears and new understandings. I know it will continue to be a long and tough road, but there is no way to properly express how grateful I am to be at this point. So now that you’ve heard my story, I’m going to switch gears to part 2 of this mini project. “Why?” Is a question I ask myself often. “Why am I transgender?” “Why am I like this?” “Why couldn’t I have been born normally” “Why can’t I just stop being trans?” “Why do I have to live my life like this”. To many cisgender people, being transgender seems like a conscious decision made by those who identify as a gender separate from that of the one they were given at birth. As a transgender person currently seeking medical treatment to help me cope with the life I am forced to live, I can assure you that this is not something people chose. It is not fun. It is not cool. It’s not exciting getting to live with a foot in both worlds. Do you have any idea how fucked up my ribs are from years of wearing sports bras and duct tape or ace bandages that were too tight? Try running in two, way-too-tight sports bras and tell me how you feel after about a mile. Those bruises that I’ve had since 8th grade? That sit right along my bra line? They don’t seem to be going away any time soon. My back hurts all the time from the binder I have to wear. When I forget to air dry it in time for school the next day, and I’m forced to wear the double sports bras again, I can’t get a full breath without being in terrible pain until 2:55 when I finally get home. Bathrooms are so much fun! There’s nothing being out with a friend and having to travel all around town to find a place with a single bathroom instead of having to deal with your traditional men’s and women’s rooms. Sure, I look enough like a guy to use the men’s room, but what happens when you see one of your schoolmates or maybe a family friend that knows you as female? Using the bathroom in school is super lit too. I usually have two options, one is to go during second period when nobody is down in the bathroom by the field entrance (oh and then not go to the bathroom for the rest of the day), or two is to go to the nurses and awkwardly ask to use their bathroom. While I have made an extreme effort to become close with the nurses, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty weird to go there to use the bathroom. To avoid bathrooms overall, I usually just don’t drink anything starting from 9pm at night, until 3pm during the next day. That usually never works out though. I take medication for ADHD that makes me extremely thirsty and dries the fuck out of my throat, so what ends up happening is I’ll go to bed at around 8 on a dose of Nyquil (or else I’m never able to sleep), and then proceed to wake up every hour usually around the exact same time, drink a crap ton of water, and then go back to bed. That’s usually fine if it’s a weekend, because I won’t go out until later in the day, but on schooldays this is terrible because it means that I’ll have to use the bathroom all day but I can’t. Another great thing about being trans? Trying to look as masculine as possible, following the “whatever it takes!” notion. Nothing like picking up some awesome eating disorders. Last year, anorexia/ binge eating, lead to orthorexia, and then finally led to a forever fucked up view of food. Oh, and you know what eating disorders do to an already fucked up stomach like mine? Fuck it up even more, so kiss and Dairy/ Grains goodbye. I hate eating outside of my house because I’m still scared of calories, and when I eat at home I have to eat worrying about every single thing I put in my mouth. If I get fat, I won’t look as masculine. If I get too skinny, the doctors won’t give me hormones because they’ll know I have an eating disorder. If only they understood that the eating disorders were caused by being trans, and hormones would rid of my eating problems because I would look masculine without having to starve myself (oh or work out every day and ruin plans because I need to go to the gym or else I feel like I can’t see my friends because I look too feminine) Of course clothes help, but they usually don’t look right on my disproportionate body. I also don’t gain muscle half as fast as regular ol cis guys do, so even when I bust my ass in the gym every day (looking like a scrawny fool to all the other guys there) I don’t see like any results which throw me into a terrible depression because what’s the point of going to the gym then? Oh, that’s right… if I don’t go to the gym, I won’t look like a guy, and I can’t eat then because I’ll look to feminine. Ruining things is also a really fun hobby! Whether it be relationships, friendships, ties with relatives, social outings, or maybe even just a car ride or just sitting around in your living room, you can always count on being trans to ruin shit. Who knows how your crush will take it when they find out your trans? Disgusted? Maybe, “That’s a shame, I would have dated you if you were cis”? It’s always a gamble, you can never tell how people will react. Close friends usually take it well, sometimes they just want to understand the whole thing. That’s totally okay with me, as it is my job to help people understand what being trans is, and it also helps me understand and come to terms with myself. Family is super tough. They’re the ones that mean the most to you, and even if you’re out to them, there’s always potential to ruin shit. You really can’t beat ruining dinner with your mom, like how I did the other night. We hadn’t had the chance to sit down and talk in a while, and after 15 minutes of me talking about trans stuff (cause you know the question “how are you” automatically segways into the trans shit) she slams her fists down on the table, starts crying, and says “please can we just talk about something happy in your life?” and then you start crying because you just ruined dinner and oh yeah, there’s nothing happy about living a life where you constantly want to kill yourself, because of how much you hate yourself. So, even when you dry your eyes and ask “how’s work going?” and your mom puts down her food and says she’s not hungry anymore, you realize not only did you just kill the dinner vibes, but you literally ruined dinner. My sister really loves to deal with trans stuff too! The second I try and correct her on pronouns, she rolls her eyes. That usually starts a fight. Monday night, it ended with me fighting back tears, saying “You know sometimes when you hate yourself so much, one of the few things that keeps you going is a pronoun.” She rolled her eyes again and laughed, and I started sobbing. If anyone wonders why my sister and I have a bad relationship, that’s why. I can’t imagine how hard it is for my immediate family. I wish I didn’t have to put anyone through this. I wish I could change so they didn’t have to deal with my mess, and so many tears didn’t have to be shed. I wish I was never trans. I wish I didn’t have to bind in order to feel a little bit better about myself. I wish I didn’t have to plan out every single thing about my day in school, like using the bathroom and avoiding locker rooms. I wish I actually could envision myself going to college, or living to see my next birthday. I wish my first reaction to things wasn’t “I’ll kill myself then I won’t have to deal with it”. I wish I could run cross country or track again. I wish I could use the bathroom without having to worry about seeing someone, or being afraid of being questioned or worse. I wish I didn’t worry about the pitch of my voice when talking to strangers. I wish I fit in with guys. I wish I didn’t ruin things. I wish I could drink water. I wish I didn’t have problems with food. I wish I could not worry about talking to girls because of the fact that I’m trans. I wish I didn’t have to work out in order to be able to leave the house. I wish I could be okay with myself. Now that you’ve gotten through all the shitty stuff, here’s some positivity. I know I say plenty of times that I hate myself, and that I think about suicide as an option for everything. Rest assured, while yes, some days are worse than others in regards to depression and suicidal thoughts, I still have hope. There are so many amazing things in this world and I acknowledge that killing myself, won’t allow me to see. I love making films and writing. I love making other people laugh, and laughing at my own jokes. I love to make people happy. Personally speaking, one of the greatest things about being in a relationship is waking up every day and thinking, “how can I make this person’s day awesome?”. I love seeing my friends succeed (and helping them out when they mess up). I love to meet people. I love talking to people, even strangers. I love hearing other people’s stories, and learning about people. I love hearing why your favorite animal is a flamingo, and I want to know the story behind what made you hate striped shirts. I love music, both making it and listening to it. I love to learn (although I hate learning in a classroom setting). I love to read books, read opinions, read the news, read different perspectives, read about religions, read about philosophies on life and our existence. I love bike riding, skateboarding, and running. I love exploring, and the trouble that it sometimes gets me into. I love adventure, as well as change. Even though I love adventure, I also love staying home and watching movies. I love hugs. I love to chill and watch Netflix. I love to sleep and I also love waking up early to work out. I love to suck at piano and guitar. I love to dance terribly. I love animals. I love being upstate and out in nature. I love San Francisco (but I hate planes so idk when ill visit again). I love (and really miss) good food. I love to bake. I love to cook. I love photography. I love my friends, I love my teammates and I love my family. I love so many things, I couldn’t possibly trade my life for all of the above. Look at the things I wish were different and compare them to the list of things that I love. The love list far outweighs the wish list. Seeing black or whatever the hell happens after you die, can never compare to the opportunities I have been given. My family and I might have our struggles, but whose family doesn’t. I’ve been gifted with a great education, an ADHD brain that allows for extremely creativity, a great family, amazing friends, and a world is filled with so many stories that need to be told, so many ideas that need to be here, and so many opportunities that are ready to be taken. To all of you who have made it through this entire thing, I want to say thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I genuinely appreciate the fact that you took the time to read this. I would really like to express that I do not want any sympathy from this, and that the whole point of writing this was to help people gain some perspective and understanding, as well as to come out to those that didn’t know I was trans. Just because we all may experience different struggles in life, it’s impossible to say that we all don’t have a list of things we love. Regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, social class, or disability, there will always be room for love. Once again, thank you for reading this, it really means a lot to me.

so you probably didn’t notice but I haven’t been on the past couple days. Most is vague guilt about not catching up on everything because I’m a weirdo who tries to get through my entire timeline, compounded because staying away means it’s getting bigger.  Rest of it is because I’m torn between wanting to stay informed about current events and curling up in a ball and going “we’re fucked.  the US is fucked, every country that needs to deal with its fallout is fucked, nature itself is fucked . . . oh wait, that one comic probably has it right.”

on top of that my life has been kinda frustrating lately.

so my grandmother is getting worse.  

To recap, I spent eight years as her caregiver in a rural area without the ability to drive so I was covering meals and housekeeping on top of taking care of her (and three cats) with only a trip out maybe once a week(sometimes every two weeks) for groceries.  

She’d call me “spoiled” if we got to stop at wal-mart while we were out.  The town didn’t have a lot of options; it was the best bet if you wanted anything other than food or, like, home improvement materials.

I initially moved there because she said she’d take care of me when my depression was really bad, but then got angry when I didn’t take over the housework and do it to her precise specifications (ie: argued when she said to mix bleach and ammonia, didn’t vacuum the shag carpet in the right direction) and, y’know, generally was depressed.

I stuck with it for eight years because of a blend of guilt and incredibly stupid determination that I could handle it.

I could not handle it.

When she finally signed up for a nursing home, the assessment of her (with me assisting) had her deemed mostly independent.

Two days after being moved to the group home for her ability level, they sent her to the hospital to stay until a room in a full-care home opened up, because she was demanding enough to take the assistance of four staff members.

The new nursing home is very nice; big, private rooms, lots of caregivers and nurses, daily activities, their choice of good meals (marinated steak or baked trout for dinner, for example).

Of course she hated it from the start.  They wouldn’t let her decide her own medication doses (not pills, more like drinking pepto bismol from the bottle), they wouldn’t make meals to her specification after she rejected all the dinner options, they wouldn’t let her bring her cat . . .

The staff was pretty twitchy at first and called me a saint for putting up with her that long, but they adjusted after a while.

. . . until now.  As I said, she’s getting worse.  She’ll refuse to let them dress her and then complain they don’t dress her (both occurred during our visit), and she’s started attacking them(mostly clawing with her nails), claiming she has to defend herself.  One of them nearly quit.  They’re getting her these oven mitt things for the safety of the staff, and frankly we wouldn’t argue if they considered sedatives.

And the reason that I’m outlining this is because my counselor is being frustrating again.  She thought it would help to chart out my physical reactions and so forth for a situation that brings me anxiety, using visiting my grandmother as an example.  She’s convinced it ~means something~ that I feel a vague guilt over not being able to help her when I visit whereas my mother doesn’t.  And kept interrupting me when I tried to explain that it’s probably due to the fact that I spent eight years with her yelling things at me like “I wish there was someone who loved me enough to help me” when I was in the middle of something and she wanted me to get her another cup of coffee.

She is incredibly un-self-aware; every time that I get annoyed at her for something -- refusing to tell me the date when I’m filling out a form, interrupting me, whatever -- she turns it around on me and assumes I’m really angry at myself.

It got worse.  The form she was using had an example of someone who went grocery shopping, anxiety made their hands shake(physical symptom), worrying about people seeing the hands shaking(thought) made it worse, and they controlled it by gripping the cart handle(control method).  She said control methods were bad because they just make your anxiety worse, and that . . . seemed inherently stupid to me?  You’re anxious.  Your hands shake.  You grip the cart, you feel grounded, you don’t need to worry about people noticing your shaking, you can get your shopping done.  She said that gripping the cart would only make the shaking worse, and it might be that I don’t have that symptom but that really didn’t sound right.

I asked her what I should do instead of using my control method and she said we’d get to that another week.  I pointed out (after finally getting across the “stop interrupting me” point) that telling someone with anxiety that whatever they do to control it is bad and then not telling them what to do instead seemed inherently stupid because it would only add another thing to be anxious about.

I don’t think she really listened.

I’d find someone else, but . . . mental health around here is shit.  If you’re not suicidal it’s a six month wait before they even ask you what you’re looking for help with.

2016 through music.

I wouldn’t say that music has become less of a thing for me in 2016. Music is great, it’s how I’ve met a lot of people, but I feel I hit a lot more musical dead-ends than previous years. There was this point--multiple points--where I couldn’t really figure what music I liked. It was different from previous years, as I spent more time in search of new music, than having a lot of playlisted albums to listen to. 

Music did not necessarily feel less important to me, it merely was not quite the marker for passage of time as well as previous years. As a consequence, my music tastes were a bit all over the place: I feel I began the year listening to a lot of UK hardstyle and  grime, then I went through a period with very dark, industrial techno, gabber beats--not related to any life event, it was just what I enjoyed at the time. Beyond that, I dabbled in some folk and country towards the end of the year, with some rap/gospel-- a la Chance the Rapper, A Tribe Called Quest both releasing excellent albums. This year ended with a lot of musicals and show-tunes to finish it off.

January - Of all the celebrity deaths this year, nothing topped David Bowie for me on the 10th of January. I actually was listening to “Blackstar” on Spotify the days leading up to his death, after hearing to the title track premiere on BBC Radio in December. I make it sound like a competition, but no other death even came close in 2016. The thing about Bowie was how timeless his music was in its ability to be “pop” and just something off-the-wall completely. It was always so recognizably “Bowie” but never quite tame or relaxed, his music always seemed tense as if in some sort of dichotomy. So long, Starman.

Honestly, the only person that I would be more upset about is if Brian Eno died.

 Lazarus - David Bowie

February - From the sunny glory of January, I got into the groove of a lot of UK hardcore and classic happy hardcore. 

It was really warm this month. I remember trying to build my PC, and walking to R-’s house to borrow his battery pack. That same weekend, I was browsing the hardcore section at Real Groovy. I remember this story specifically because I told this story for Rd- at work. A 30yo.+ guy started chatting to me recommending <those> hardcore mixes--the ones with the salacious covers with cartoon fake tits with suspicious names like DJ Candylicious. I swear I didn’t know this guy.

The gateway into this genre was a RobDaBank mix I was listening to on Spotify, there was an Elf Kid track. I loved the flow and sense of genuine fun, I want to note that I liked it before it became super cool. I can literally trace it back to that one track which made me pull out old Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, Basement Jaxx, Skepta, DJ EZ albums, and ultimately into UK hardcore.

Golden Boy - Elf Kid

March - Early March when I went to see Sufjan Stevens. I went by myself because I bought my tickets incredibly late, it was amazing. The set was the material that dreams are made of, my dreams specifically.

He played through most of his new album with bombast and sincerity. There was a certain restraint to his set considering the content concerning the death of his mother. His encore set was a sparse affair with a three man band armed with mandolin, trumpet and double bass--tracks from Seven Swans, Michigan, Illinoise e.t.c.

I cried a little when Chicago played.

Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens

April - April was uneventful, I don’t remember very much specifically about these days. I know I actually completed Fallout 4, the first video game in years that I’ve committed time to actually complete. It wasn’t even that great of a game, I generally don’t have the patience or the time to commit to something like that. I tried to replicate this with The Witcher 3--multiple times in 2016, but I have not found success so far.

The Irish flatmate had just moved in and he made it clear that I lacked a certain finesse around preparing potatoes. He set down his phone, he often walked around the flat with music blaring from his phone as if to announce his entrance.

Baz Luhrmann - Wear Sunscreen (Mau Kilauea’s Tropical Remix)

May - A lot of late nights at work. I don’t even remember what I was working on that was so important to warrant late nights. I’m trying to be a lot better with leaving work if I don’t need to do it till the next day. The late nights, I listened to a lot of mixes, and Traumprinz’s RA mix really stood out to me as well as his Giegling mix. There wa s a lot of distractedness digging through his discogs and finding his EPs.

There Will Be XTC is my favourite track that I’ve heard this year. The drum loop is so simple and emotive, the whole track is just so heavy.

Traumprinz - There Will Be XTC

June - While I did say Bowie’s death was incredibly upsetting, I feel the death of Christina Grimmie was probably the most devastating death this year. I don’t think she is quite a celebrity, outside of youtube I don’t think she was particularly well known. The nature of her death was just devastating, and so completely bizarre that it really bothered me for days. The whole fragility and unpredictability of human life still really bothers me.

I remember going to work on Monday after following the news stories, and just completely numb. I don’t really follow her music much at all, she was a relic of a time past. The month just went by quickly marking the halfway point in the year, I worked on some pretty good projects.

Just a Dream - Christina Grimmie and Sam Tsui 

July - Family holiday in New York, we were all walking on the boardwalk at Coney Island and this was playing. It’s all a bit nostalgic, though I’d never been there before in my life. I’d seen the landscapes and the pier that reaches out into the water in so many movies.

The “Cyclone” ride was all the more exhilarating because I feared for my life and safety on that rickety timber framing, than any intended thrills. It was an excellent ride though, there is a certain art to it all.  

Kent Jones - Don’t Mind

August - A close friend got married this month in Devonport.

It was an awesome wedding, it made me really hopeful. The wedding was basically crowd-sourced, and put together for nothing. The entire thing was  fueled by the generous giving of the church I attend. In fact, the wedding date was only decided two weeks before because the church hall they were interested in had an opening.

I woke up early the morning of the wedding, and caught the sunrise from the North Head. The ferry I wanted to catch, I actually missed, and I sat in McDonalds, I bought two Egg and Bacon McMuffins. My headphones had Azealia Banks playing and I remember wearing my Sunday best while clambering up the grassy bank, trying not to mess up any of my clothes.

But oh my gosh, I love this track. It’s so braggadocio and so unashamedly AB.

Azealia Banks - Big Big Beat

September - I did my second Tongariro Crossing. A lot has changed since I did it last--dare I say, it’s a lot easier now, a lot of stairs instead of clambering up half-formed tracks. It was starkly empty compared to the summertime I completed last time. We hired crampons and ice-axes and climbed up Mount Doom. It was a great time, though the weather for long periods of time made it seem unlikely.  

In the car ride down, I sat with Colin. I fell asleep in the front seat, and did that thing where you jerk awake. I also assumed someone’s name wrong because he was Spanish and another guy in our group was Spanish, and they both looked the same. There were a lot of other episodes, including driving down a country road in pitch darkness for fun, and Lady Gaga was playing on the radio inbetween Te Kuiti and the backpackers.

Lady Gaga - Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) 

October - I ran a half-marathon this month, it was a week after my birthday. My training up to the marathon was a bit stunted with an injury two weeks before the run cutting my plans to a half. The entire run, I was listening to hardstyle, which I hastily downloaded beforehand. There was a Kutski mix from a Dublin show--I was mostly too tired to concentrate on it too much, I remember having to constantly increase the volume higher and higher to keep it having any relevance to my motivation.

Donald Trump won the US Presidential Elections as well this month. I’m probably more upset about it now, than I was on the day itself. His cabinet picks are <incredibly> establishment. It’s all rather disappointing, I just look forward to the resounding loss that the Republican are going to receive next election.

The second Presidential Candidate debate based within a town hall meeting, some writers suggested Donald Trump’s performance was akin to the single mom was summoned to the Harper Valley PTA. Donald Trump was the mirror that highlighted the imperfections of the Republican Party and I’m not sure if I agree. It’s a bit of a desperate comparison, but that Loretta Lynn album is great. 

Loretta Lynn - Harper Valley PTA

November - I went to a Nina Kraviz show. I followed a lot of artists on her Trip label and adored her sets on the BBC Radio Residencies. I actually missed out on tickets initially, I don’t keep up with local music gigs. I don’t keep up because I find Auckland, in general, to be very thin on culture per capita. I did end up snagging some at the last minute off facebook, someone was offering tickets and I messaged him within a minute.

It was great, I loooooove techno a lot. It’s dark, it’s cerebral, it’s spiritual--I just lose myself in it. I missed the set by Bjarki which I am slightly peeved about because I slept from 11pm - 1am because I’m not a weirdo who parties all night. I’m the weirdo on the dancefloor just in another world--actually, I guess there are quite a few of those but on ecstasy.

Ghetto Kraviz - Nina Kraviz (Regal Sad Remix)

The days seemed to be going by so slowly at work. Christmas felt all so close and yet so far away. Desperately slowly. I occupied my days with headphones at work, keeping a low profile and listening to Hamilton. There were days where I would listen to the soundtrack three times to mark the passage of time. When the third listen finished, it was time to go home. Wait For It really stood out on first listen, but Satisfied is the best track for sure, and there are so many good tracks in there. The whole track is just reminiscent of sitting at the office, which is an unfortunate thing. 

Wait for It - Lin Manuel Miranda

December - The last month before the new year. Contrasting the previous month, this seemed to all pass so quickly. Especially that last week, the entire office was rushing projects one after the other for three important client meetings.

At the end of year party, I think I was a bit intoxicated. I hadn’t eaten anything and drank two beer and left pretty early, forgetting my Secret Santa gift and my plane itineraries. I’m back in Wellington for Christmas, my brother is here as well. I’m kind of sick at the moment--I just started sneezing on Sunday, hay fever on Boxing Day, and it just never stopped with the running nose and sore throat.

The first day I felt maybe over 50%, we drove up to the Tararuas yesterday, and just jammed Eminem and twenty one pilots--all the greatest road trip music. I do like this twenty one pilots track a lot--though, I am extremely unlikely to watch Suicide Squad ever.

Heathens - twenty one pilots

Wow. That was long. Hi. 

tl;dr - playlist. 

Coronavirus Is a Golden Age for People Sucking Their Own Dicks

Welcome to Rule 34, a series in which Motherboard’s Samantha Cole lovingly explores the highly specific fetishes that can be found on the web. If you’ve thought of it, someone’s jerked off to it.

The links in this article may be considered NSFW.

*

Reddit user 6monthsuck is determined to put his time in social isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic to good use. Some of us are back into yoga now. Others are coping with homemade bread. A lot of people are suddenly super into regrowing scallions. Some are hard at work making unfulfilled horniness their whole personalities.

6monthsuck is using this time to try to suck his own dick.

"A lot of people in quarantine are two things: bored and horny," he told me in a direct message. "I'm no different. Self sucking seems to exist where those things intersect."

He recently came across r/autofellatio, a subreddit dedicated to the art of sucking yourself off, and remembered that he was nearly able to reach his own penis with his mouth when he was a teen. But he didn't keep stretching, and never quite got there.

Now, he's trying—as you might have already guessed based on his username—to suck his own dick within six months.

"Being able to do it requires a lot of stretching and most people aren't able to fit that into their usual routines. Lockdown is a pretty good opportunity to put in the time… I thought, this time, I'd try again," he said.

Once the stuff of urban legends, auto-fellatio—the act of sucking one's own dick—is much more popular than most people realize. If all you knew about it was the mythology of Marilyn Manson's removed ribs, or that Saturday Night Live skit where Will Ferrell discovers his talent in yoga class, you're missing an entire subculture of self-pleasure. It's not only possible for many people to reach their own dick with their face, but also suck, and even deep-throat themselves to completion.

"Through infinity to a new world"

Historically, the practice of auto-fellatio goes back thousands of years. Images of gods sucking their own dicks in plow poses are inscribed in the Book of the Dead of Henuttawy, possibly as symbols of potency and power. In medieval literature, depictions of people self-sucking were placed alongside images of anal sex, bestiality, and masturbation, possibly as reminders from the Christian church that sex without procreation was sinful and shameful.

Auto-fellatio has a long cultural history in modern times, too, mostly as mythos (in Manson's case) or homophobic or shock-value jokes. In the 70s and 80s, we have Ron Jeremy's famous ability to tongue-tickle his own dick. Porn star Vito Aras—known as Dr. Infinity—jumped up on a desk and threw his legs up over his head to suck his own dick in the 1975 film Every Inch a Lady, and went on to profess the wonders of self-sucking to anyone who'd listen, including in an interview in National Screw a year later.

“The release of sperm from yourself into yourself becomes the energy which can lead to infinity,” Aras said. “Self-generating energy will allow you to be anything you want. Through sucking on my own cock, I have created a human condition that is very stimulating… Control of one’s sperm leads to infinity, and through infinity to a new world.”

It's a belief system that's the inverse of what we see from groups like NoFap today: That sperm is an energy to be harnessed and used. But instead of repression, release. Into one's own face.

These larger than life figures paved the way for Al Eingang, one of the most prolific champions of self-suck content online, to help move the practice from mythical ability to something anyone might be able to do—or at least strive toward.

"It is its own, unique and enthralling thing."

Eingang, the creator and administrator of Solosuck.com, a platform for selling his videos as well as a repository of guides, resources, and active forums for students of self-suck since the mid-90s, has been able to suck his own dick since he was "10 or 11 years old," he said. It was as natural to him as using his hand. He said a genetic condition with a side effect of making him extra-flexible has also made it extra-easy to slip his own penis into his mouth since puberty.

Years later, people would write him letters calling him a god.

"Imagine having someone giving you head who can feel every sensation that you're feeling, so they can adjust what they're doing to provide you with perfect stimulation," Eingang told me. "There's a kind of feedback loop in action that can lead to long, deeply satisfying edging sessions. I can bring myself to the edge, and then just use the tip of my tongue on the most sensitive parts of my cock to gently keep me on the crest of the orgasm wave without tipping over into a full, final orgasm, for a really long time."

Eingang shot his first video, "A Young Man From Nantucket" in 1987, on a friend's Hi8 camcorder—the top of the line, at the time—and produced the whole thing himself, from filming the scene to editing in-camera. He mailed the tape to a few gay skin magazines, and the reviews came back breathless. Producers and directors from Christopher Rage to groups like the long-running jackoff club New York Jacks started asking him to collaborate on new content.

"At the time that I started doing it, there basically was no internet, there was no World Wide Web," Eingang said. "So when I started doing the videos, I thought, a small number of people will see it and it's never really going to have that big an effect on my life."

But as soon as the internet arrived in ubiquity, he started finding images of himself from the videos he'd made for those magazine reviewers, posted online.

"I decided, well, I guess this is happening, so I might as well put myself out there on the web." He started solosuck.com in the mid-90s, and has been running it ever since. "A Young Man From Nantucket" is still for sale on his site—and people still buy it.

Since the world went into social isolation, Eingang said he's seen a big uptick in video sales from his site. He hasn't made a new video since the 90s, but people are seeking out his content now—which he attributes to people being alone during lockdown.

"For me, it's not a substitute for sex with other people (which I love)—it is its own, unique and enthralling thing," he said.

On Reddit's r/autofellatio forum, which has more than 38,000 members, the increase in isolation-themed threads and posts by people trying it for the first time paints a picture of bored and horny guys putting their time spent alone to use.

"Aiming to selfsuck during this quarantine. Any pro tips for a beginner?" one user asks. "Just the tip! But plenty of time to practice in isolation," another wrote, with a photo of them reaching toward their erect penis. Others comment encouragement or suggestions: "Nice! You'll get there… practice makes perfect!" "Fuck yeh bro great work! Keep posting that progress :)"

"'Now, I'm seeing that maybe I am a total freak and a weirdo, but so are most other people. So I can feel okay about it.'"

On the forums at Solosuck, which has been running continuously for decades, people similarly trade advice and show off their skills and progress. There's crossover between Reddit and Eingang's solosuck.com community, where guys will refer Redditors to the dedicated self-suck forum for continued mentorship. It's a place where enthusiasts can find community and camaraderie, an escape from a society that otherwise might label them as gross or weird.

"One thing that I've just heard over and over again, and all the decades I've been doing it is, 'This has helped me to calm down… to figure out, well, I thought I was a total freak and a weirdo,'" Eingang said. "'Now, I'm seeing that maybe I am a total freak and a weirdo, but so are most other people. So I can feel okay about it.'"

How to suck your own dick: A brief guide

Reaching your own dick is a practice of patience.

"It's absolutely not going to happen overnight, and I think people often resort to brute force to try and bend their spine the sufficient amount," 6monthsuck said. "A good stretching routine done daily for a few weeks will provide you with noticeable progress, so I'd say give that a go and see how you feel afterwards."

Yoga videos for flexibility and long, warm baths have been 6monthsuck's strategy in the two weeks since his journey began, and he says he's gone from being four inches away from his penis, to about two inches.

Another member of r/autofellatio and a longtime moderator on the Solosuck forums, who goes by blacksunshineaz, said it took him months to get back to being able to just kiss the tip of his penis now, in his late 20's, like he could in his early teens. He recommends yoga and pilates, but also cautions people from rushing into it.

"Making contact for the first time is magical but you still need to get another inch or two deeper to actually be sucking it," he said. "Sadly, after all the years I've been practicing I don't think I'll get there."

"Practice very, very slowly, and explore different positions," Eingang said. "Be very, very careful about injuring yourself and just enjoy the journey as much as possible. It doesn't really matter how you get with it, as long as you're enjoying it."

It should go without saying, but be mentally ready for the finale. As former VICE writer Brian Moylan noted when he wrote on this topic in 2012 (in an article that became one of the most-read VICE has ever published), the sensation of cumming in one's mouth might be new to straight men, especially. One might think that this is the logical ending to what someone reaching their lips toward their own penis would expect, but for some guys, it's sort of like a dog that's finally caught its tail.

The mix of emotion and confusion from men who've never tasted jizz of any kind, let alone their own, is a common concern throughout auto-fellatio forums. For some "straight-ish men," Eingang said, an interesting moment of introspection happens. "They're like, 'I've got this dick in my mouth, it's my dick, but actually really enjoying this and kind of wondering what it'd be like to have somebody else's dick in my mouth.'"

That questioning is a natural part of exploring what turns you on, but for guys who previously thought of themselves as unflinchingly heterosexual, finding yourself enjoying a dick in your mouth is bound to be a little confusing at first.

A misplaced connection to sexual preference is at the root of a lot of the misunderstandings people have about self-suck, blacksunshineaz said. "A lot of guys worry about their sexuality for wanting to do this. 'Am I gay?' they ask. This is simply an advanced form of masturbation so your sexual orientation is irrelevant. A lot of people think the act is impossible, even though it isn't difficult to find proof it actually is." Most of the guys on auto-fellatio forums identify as straight, he said.

"In my view, the biggest thing people get wrong is actually believing that auto-fellatio is a kink at all," 6monthsuck said. "If everybody had really flexible spines, it would probably just be a standard form of masturbation. There's a reason why most men have at some point tried to suck their own dick, because they want to know what it would feel like." For him, it has nothing to do with sexuality, but with pleasuring himself in a novel way.

As more people find themselves alone with their own dicks and all the time in the world, places like Solosuck and r/autofellatio will only become more important for people asking these questions about themselves. And when they find those communities, they'll likely discover a place where others cheers them on.

"I'm always thrilled to know that I'm bringing more orgasms into the world," Eingang said of his decades of work with Solosuck. "In a complicated world, there are very few things that I feel are 100 percent, really wonderful… It really is just humans being the weird animals that we are."

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