Day one in Chicago is already going off without a hitch. Please note my heavy sarcasm.
Saturday is the best self care day, so why not treat your self? I decided I wanted to see some crazy fish, so I hopped in an Uber and asked them to take me to the aquarium. Instead of taking me to an actual aquarium they brought me to the “Old Town Aquarium”...which is actually just an exotic fish store.
That’s close enough, I guess?
The moral of the story is...I should probably get a license and stop relying on Uber.
Yo, Chicago did you order one cute mother fcuker? Trap this Mouse in venue three right after my girl @discobritts. You don’t wanna miss her set you might see a familiar face.
therachelberry★ hello, chicago! a few days off before another nonstop week of performing calls for some relaxing and sightseeing - where should i head first? #wayouttour2k18
Under the read more are the set lists and schedules for the Chicago, Illinois show! Feel free to use the set lists for reference as to who’s sharing a stage, which songs are performed, etc. Each show we’ll be changing up the people who share a stage and orders of performance.
Due to a chance of rain, the Chicago show is going to be the first indoor show. There will be three venues, all in the same location, rather than three stages. There are vendors, DJ’s between sets, and etc. Feel free to use your imagination! The show will last from 6-12 PM, and each band will perform for 45-60 minutes.
You can read more about indoor music festivals here!
Below is how you can get points for your band/team!
Each time someone posts/reblogs about the show - photos, instagram, twitter, music posts, etc. - we will give the band/artist ten points.
Each time someone posts about a band/artist, we will give the artist that’s been posted about and the poster ten points. For example: @tinacc tweets: Rachel Berry’s set was great! Almost as good as ours 😉 (Rachel and Tina would each get ten points.)
We will give ten points for every gossip/confession we receive about a band/artist on the gossip blog, on the day of the show.
We will give ten points for each anon answered on the day of the show.
We will give twenty points for every starter - f2f or dash starter - that mentions the show.
We will give thirty points to both bands in the event of a surprise collaboration.
We will give thirty points for every show based self para - watching or performing.
Those with a character not in a group can still get points - and their player decides which band to give the points to!
The bands with the most points will get an encore in the nextshow! If you have any questions about this, message the admin team!
Please tag all posts in regards to this show with #wayoutchicago ! You can begin using this tag now, and continue to use it up until we post the next set list.
The following are the points from last show’s contest:
Reflective Smoke - 260
Cool Cool Cool - 220
Mercedes And The Oracle - 120
Rachel Berry - 100 + 10 from Sebastian = 110
Les Ladies - 90 + 50 from Kurt = 140
Eureka Serpent - 80 + 10 from Will = 90
Puddle of Peace - 70
Wilde - 40
Mousetrap - 0
Indigo - 0
Santana Lopez - 0
VENUE ONE:
Act One - Bone Apple Tea
Colonic
Gold Chain
Tickle My Taint
Good With My Hands
The Craft
Business Is Pleasure
Prone Cobra
Robot Dick
Act Two - Puddle Of Peace
Honey
A Dark Congregation
Molasses
City Traffic Puzzle
Tidal Wave (unreleased single)
Don’t Wake Me Up
Lions Roar
The Artist
Magnolia
Crawling Towards The Sun
Unsafe Safe
Not Your Concern
Break The Sky
Hospital Bed Crawl
Wine Red
Act Three - Rachel Berry
hummingbird heart ( original )
animal love i ( original )
animal love ii ( original )
if it makes you happy ( cover - sheryl crow )
don’t make me believe ( original )
honey ( original, unreleased )
different colored eyes ( original )
most girls ( cover - p!nk )
i knew you were trouble ( cover - taylor swift )
uuu ( original - unreleased )
skin and bones ( original** )
palisades/storm ( original** )
Act Four - Cool Cool Cool
Turn Into
Gold Lion
Heads Will Roll
Hey (Pixies Cover) (Dedicated to Noah Puckerman)
Black Tongue
Y Control
Warrior
Runaway
Warrior Woman (Yoko Ono Cover)
Cheated Hearts
Mysteries
Maps
Dragon Queen
Soft Shock
Zero
Shame And Fortune
Despair (Unreleased song from future album) (encore)
who // rachel berry && mason mccarthy @wayoutmason
when // monday, october 1st
where // chicago, il
what // rach & mase explore the city and bond over their disaster existences
a/n // uncomplete but wanted to post anyways ~
mason.
Mason linked his arm through Rachel's as they left the art museum; it had been refreshing, and educational, which were once things he would have turned up his nose at, but with the chaos of tour so far - he'd appreciated the relative quiet, and the no-pressure, no strings company that came with Rachel. Plus, she talked almost as much as he did, so there weren't any uncomfortable silences; just thoughtful ones, spent in front of the installments, and even those only lasted until Mason decided that they should play 'keep, screw or toss' for each painting, to judge whether they'd keep a certain painting for themselves, screw the subject, or throw the whole thing away. Needless to say, it was hilarious.
"So what're we feeling for lunch?" Mason asked, double-checking the map on his phone to make sure they were heading the right way - toward the Bean was their only direction, and Mason didn't want to take a wrong turn and end up getting stabbed in a back alley of Chicago. Especially not with Rachel - he'd feel so bad if she got stabbed because he got them lost.
rachel.
To say things had been hectic was one hell of an understatement; Rachel had tried to calm most of the storm down since her fit, but even she couldn't fix everything. She still hadn't apologized to Tina - her feelings were, admittedly, very hurt after their fight - but everything else seemed to be righting itself. She felt better, more comfortable.
Happier.
"Italian," Rachel demanded, because it was her favorite and when she was feeling any sort of strong emotion, she wanted nothing but carbs and more carbs. "At a cute local place, preferably - I don't want to hit a chain we can go to anywhere." Her nose scrunched up as he looked up options, Rachel leaning over his shoulder to pursue them herself before pointing at one, "here, Bella Notte - it's got a cheesy name, so I'm sure the bread is delicious. You in?"
mason.
Mason glanced at her, quirking an eyebrow. "No, actually, I figure you'd scope it out while I hit the Chipotle down the block," he deadpanned, though the grin on his face clearly said he was kidding. "I never pass up Italian. I love any food I can eat my weight in and barely notice. Plus I feel like we should do a compare/contrast thing for when we're actually in Italy," Mason added with a laugh, leading the way to the restaurant; the Bean was apparently just down the next block, and they had plenty of time.
"Think this is like, owned by Nonna, goes back for generations to the Italian Chicago mafia?" Mason asked as they stepped into the restaurant - it was dim and everything was richly colored and, in Mason's opinion, bordering on tacky, but fortunately Mason lived for tacky, so he just smiled. It wasn't crowded, which Mason was also grateful for; while he was hardly ever upset about being recognized, it was nice to just be a person sometimes.
"Two, please," Mason said to the server who greeted them; he thanked her quietly as they sat, and Mason let his attention drift from the menu to Rachel and back again. "You said you'd been to Chicago before, right? With an ex?"
rachel.
It was nice to be with Mason, he could make her laugh with dumb jokes and she never had to worry about if he was making fun of her or not. She could see what Kitty and Ryder saw in him; he had such a genuine heart, it was hard to imagine him ever hurting anyone he cared about. And Rachel was pretty sure she was lucky enough to consider herself in that spotlight now too.
"Nathan," Rachel nodded, the name only barely leaving a bitter taste in her mouth - though that probably had more to do with Sebastian's sudden appearance in her daily life than anything else. "He was from Chicago, so we'd come and visit when we had time. He wanted to move to the city, but I could never leave New York. Not permanently. Not even for someone I was engaged to."
She chewed on her lip for a moment, debating her next question; he claimed he had no deeper feelings for Ryder, none that would be reciprocated at any rate - but she was more concerned about his feelings for Kitty. "What about you?" she ventured carefully, "any exes whose hearts you've broken that I should keep an eye out for?"
mason.
Mason's eyes flicked up to her, a sly smile on his face. "I object to the accusation," Mason said, playfully haughty, as he set the menu. "I try not to break hearts," Mason said carefully, "and the people I've been with aren't gonna be coming at you with a spork or anything." Mason shrugged. Usually, Mason would leave it at that or further avoid the question, but.
But Rachel already knew about Kitty.
And that made everything more complicated.
"Is that what Kitty told you?" Mason asked, tilting his head slightly as he watched Rachel's face. "That I broke her heart?"
rachel.
"No, of course not!"
She probably objected too fast, but it wasn't what Kitty had said at all. But there was a thin line between discussing something that wasn't her business in the first place and overstepping her bounds completely - she didn't want to betray Kitty's confidences, but if Mason liked her and was holding back -
"I can just tell, how she talks about you. She cares about you a lot. But as fun as you are, you keep a lot to yourself. Maybe it's because you're not front and center like us - we wear our hearts on our sleeves. You can hide things better." She met his eyes, hoping he could see the earnestly in her own. "I just want her to be happy, Mase. And if you want her, I just think you should go for it. That's all."
mason.
Mason tilted his head the other way, perhaps just slightly unnerved by her entirely correct observation. It wasn't the first time someone had called him evasive, and it wouldn't be the last, but it had nothing to do with the position of the limelight - and everything to do with the audience. Too many times he'd been singing for the rafters, only to have the house lights come on and reveal he was alone, again, so he'd learned that it was far, far simpler and far less costly to save his breath.
"It's not that simple, is it?" Mason asked with a wry smile. Even setting aside Kitty's 'boyfriend' being on a one-way path to the friendzone, they'd never worked as a couple. It was like they always had all the pages of their story, but half of them were in the wrong order or glued in upside down, and it never seemed to take long for them to make each other crazy. Mason wasn't exactly dying to bring that to tour. Even more than that, there was part of him that knew he was being cowardly - that for however much it made him feel like the king of the world when Kitty looked at him the way she did, it came with pressure, and with pressure came failure, and with failure came being alone, again, and Mason definitely wasn't sure he wanted to bring that to tour.
"But that's what I want too," Mason added with a soft sigh. "And I know she--she thinks that I'm..." Mason gestured vaguely with one hand, then sighed again. "I guess that I want her to be happy more than I want to risk making her unhappy." Mason finished, kind of lamely, then shook his head, shaking himself out of the confusing back-and-forth that started in his head every time anyone so much as mentioned Kitty's name. "What about you? I can't help but notice you're here with me, and not sitting down with Mr. and Mrs. Evans for afternoon tea?"
rachel.
Rachel listened intently, but she had learned, many times over the years, that it wasn't always what was said, but what wasn't. There was more to the story, she knew - she was only getting to know Mason, to know Kitty. She had their best intentions at heart, but maybe pushing them to be together would only hurt them both in the long run. And that wasn't what she wanted at all.
Her nose crinkled as the tides turned to her - she was afraid of that, and grateful for the arrival of their food. She took a moment, spinning spaghetti on her fork while she thought about her own answer. She could be just as evasive as Mason when she wanted to be.
"I told Sam I was sleeping with someone," Rachel admitted, "not who, of course, but I think it might have made things better while simultaneously making both of us a little less excited about this venture. It seemed so nice in theory, back in New York while drawing up contracts and paperwork for it. But in reality...tour is crazy, and I'd rather be with someone I can be with, instead of just someone who I appear to be with. You know?"
mason.
Mason nodded thoughtfully - he'd never considered a fake, PR relationship as something people actually did - he heard gossip about it, obviously, but he thought that was just the fans going nutty and reading too much into little looks, or lack thereof. But here Rachel was, talking about contracts and describing it as 'nice', when to Mason it sounded hellish even at that point.
"Can you get out of it?" Mason asked, after swallowing his generous bite of garlic bread - Rachel was right, it was delicious, and obviously fresh-made. "Like, if neither of you are vibing it. Can't you go to your people and shred the whole thing?" Mason shrugged. "People break up all the time. You can tell everybody it's nobody's business but the two of yours and that you're still good friends. Or that tour made it impossible to date. 'Cause that's actually true." Mason chuckled and took a bite of his food, free hand absently tapping out a rhythm on the table as he thought.
"Do you actually wanna be with the person you were with?" Mason asked, his mind drifting back to his own escapade the night before - sex made things so much clearer and so much more confusing, all at the same time, and Mason wasn't even someone who put that big a premium on it. "Like, even if it's not, y'know, public knowledge or whatever. Like do you want to be with them in a non-naked way?"
rachel.
"I suppose we could," Rachel shrugged, "but I haven't asked him if that's what we want. I just told him if he wanted to sleep with someone, or be with someone, we could call the whole thing off, no bad feelings. I'm sure we will before we were supposed to - it's only been two weeks, and we're already barely spending time together - but for now, we might as well keep up appearances, right?"
She froze when he mentioned Sebastian. Not by name, thank god, but it was bad enough that anyone knew about it. That he was back in her life, wrecking havoc just like he had years ago. A bad habit she never quit after Nathan, just like smoking. "Absolutely not," she scoffed, dipping some of the bread in her sauce, "he's a child. He's never someone I could be with in any real capacity. We fight, we fuck, and that's about it. There's nothing real there. It's habit, that's all. When I find someone else I'm interested in, that's when I can let him go - for good this time."
mason.
Mason thought maybe the lady doth protest too much, but he decided to take what she said as the truth - she clearly seemed to believe it, and Mason knew even less about her situation than she knew about his.
"Habits that make you feel good are the hardest to break," Mason observed - he'd seen enough people's habits end them in rehab or the cemetery to know it was hardly ever that easy to change destructive behavior. "Does he feel the same way about you?"
rachel.
"If he feels anything about me, I'd be surprised," Rachel rolled her eyes. Emotions were not something the two of them did, not in any capacity. Not with one another, at least. She'd never actually asked if he'd ever been in any serious relationship before - or if he'd had one while they were together, either. She didn't really know a lot about Sebastian.
"Do you ever think that maybe we're just not capable of having that normal, happy love? That we're too high maintenance, or too dramatic, or too...something? I mean, every time I even get the chance, I sabotage it anyways. Maybe I'm not meant for it."
mason.
Mason watched Rachel, a slight frown creasing his brow as she spoke. It was his instinct to deny what she said, at least on her count, but it was the 'we' that threw him - he'd said too much the other night.
"Maybe," Mason said with a quiet sigh. He was definitely too something; nobody could stand him for long all at once, and he'd never been able to figure out why. "I dunno. I don't even know what I'd do with--with like, a normal relationship, y'know? Like, I'm not--god, this sounds so Hot Topic 2009 Edgy, but like, I'm not normal, and I dunno how to be, and I don't know how to like...do the white picket fence thing." Mason shrugged one shoulder - it'd be nice to settle down someday with someone who loved him for and in spite of his many, many flaws, but he wasn't holding his breath.
"What do you mean, though? About sabotaging it?"
rachel.
"Nothing about our lives is normal, Mase, it's not just you." She didn't mean to drag him into her own worries, but the two seemed so similar that sometimes it was hard to ignore that he was probably going through the same thing she was.
She thought about his question, taking a moment before giving him an answer and letting the waiter clear away their finished plates, tearing up the last piece of bread as she did so.
"Okay, it's like this - I know that I'm not meant for monogamy, right? The idea of one person, for the rest of my life - it's restricting. I also know that I am very, very swayed by how much attention is given to me at any point in time - and that's where I tend to focus my own attention. So I cheat, and find it hard to express myself to those I think I could have anything real with, and make terrible decisions that end up blowing up in my face. Or letting other people do it for me. You know?"
WHO: Mason; mention of various other WayOut members
WHAT: Mason has always been a delicate balance of control and chaos.
WHERE: The hotel in Chicago.
WHEN: Late, late, late Tuesday, Oct 2.
WARNINGS: Mention of alcohol/substances and implied addiction thereof.
WC: 1.1k.
Mason was, in a word, pissed.
He stayed up long enough to see the Cubs lose - and while he didn’t care at all about sports, he cared a lot about the partying that came with it, and the sort of drinking that came after the home team’s loss wasn’t the sort of drinking that welcomed outsiders with no skin in the game. He didn’t want to mourn.
He wanted to fucking drink.
Mason had one rule, though, or at least one rule that was keeping him from that goal. He had enough experience with substances, and with people who depended on substances, to know it was a thin line, sometimes microscopically thin, between the people who had a problem and the people who didn’t. He knew enough to know that his partying wasn’t an acceptable answer to every bad mood he had.
Especially this one. This mood was very bad. He knew himself well enough to know that anything he imbibed, no matter how blissed or spaced out it made him, would crash and crash him hard, and he couldn’t afford that. Not on this tour. Not when it felt like the rug was going to get snatched out from under him at any moment.
If you really cared about the music, you’d be clean and professional. The words of the message echoed uselessly around his brain - he cared, he cared, he cared, he did, and he was trying so hard.
It pissed him off that he was being underestimated - doubly so. They thought this was partying, when by his standards he’d been taking it pathetically easy, and they thought it was ruining his career. He knew, objectively, he shouldn’t give a damn what some anonymous hater said online, that the people who mattered would say it to his face, but if one person said it more people were thinking it.
People had always found a reason to count him out. He wondered if he’d ever stop getting his feelings hurt about it - if the you can’t do it tag that followed him wherever he went would ever, ever completely disappear.
So Mason paced around his room, dug his nails into the palms of his hands, and did not open a bottle of the hard stuff. He paced, and did not grab something to cut a line with. He paced, and he paced, and he paced.
He was going to lose his mind.
Mason grabbed his headphones, found something loud in his phone’s library, and left his room, walking with a sort of pathological urgency past every one of his friends’ rooms - he knew, distantly, that Tina deserved a chance to talk him down from this ledge.
(He knew it was a ledge; he could feel himself teetering. He could feel himself saying, oh, you thought this was bad? He could feel himself bucking against their presumption. He could feel his self-control chipping away, and it was only spite, only his I’m going to prove you wrong, that kept it from shattering entirely. It was a ledge, and Mason didn’t know if he wanted to be pulled back or pushed over.)
He knew, distantly, that he could fuck Kitty into unconsciousness, but wasn’t that just another bad habit? Wasn’t that just a substitute for pumping himself up with something hard and heavy? Wasn’t she just as bad - or worse - for him than any of the drugs he’d brought with him on tour?
He knew, distantly, there were people he could go to. Ryder, or Jake, or even Rachel - all people who would at the very least distract him, in spite of whatever strange tension or awkwardness lingered between them all. He knew it, and he kept walking.
He walked until he found the hotel gym. It was shiny and metallic and deserted and Mason turned his volume up. There was post-game on one of the TVs and CartoonNetwork on another, and Mason ignored them both. It took a minute of searching, but he located a punching bag - a big, sturdy one. He fumbled with getting it set up and latched into place, and it occurred to him belatedly that he should probably have something on his hands. Tape or gloves or whatever it was that people used to keep from breaking their own knuckles.
And then Mason decided that he didn’t give a damn.
Thump thump. His fists hit the bag with a muffled sort of satisfaction, and Mason pressed his lips together; he was out of practice, but being out of practice was somewhat counterbalanced by the singleminded focus with which he hit the thing - over, and over, and over, and over, and over.
He hit it as hard as he could every time, because his sister was sleeping with someone who’d released his best friend’s sex tape. He hit it as hard as he could every time because his sister hated him. Still.
He hit over and over, because he hadn’t ever learned how to make a friend that didn’t want more from him than he knew how to give - he didn’t know how to make friends that stayed and even now, when they were trapped together in the same cities in the same buses in the same hotels, there were all sorts of fault lines, all sorts of rivalries and connections and boundary lines he couldn’t navigate, and he’d been here before.
He’d been here before, and he knew he wasn’t cut out for it.
Later, covered in sweat and with aching, pinking hands, Mason caught the bag instead of hitting it again. He was breathless and defeated and most of all, worn out. The anger had receded somewhat, and Mason switched over his music. He still wanted to drink, very badly, and he wanted something even more immediate and even worse for him even more than he wanted to drink.
But he’d learned a long time ago that proving people wrong was much more satisfying than proving them right. He’d learned that sure, nobody cared to know him as well as he knew himself, but he knew himself better than anyone else ever would. And he knew that he loved the music, and the hope of a hope of a chance at getting to put his own music out there was more intoxicating and more tempting than anything in any bar Chicago could offer.
For the moment, Mason’s better angels were winning out, and Mason almost found it in himself to be proud, instead of pathetically disappointed that he’d put off his own impending breakdown for a little while longer. His self-control remained chipped but functional for one more night, but Mason wondered how much longer he could force himself to be something he wasn’t.
