anklebiters

bunny. 20s. esfp. former writing blog, current multimuse blog sort of thing. "i try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose."

[er-fightmaster]

Quit Playing Games With My Heart || Jack & Marley

[taysjardine]

keiynan-lonsdale‌:

Jack hadn’t gone out that night intending for some girl to make a lasting impression on him. He’d gone out to see what fun he could have and what little white lies he could tell to entertain himself. What he hadn’t expected was a kind, gorgeous and seemingly crazy-rich stranger to sweep him off his goddamn feet. In the days after meeting Marley, Jack had watched almost every video on her channel trying to find out more about her. He’d thought about her all the time. He had felt the rollercoaster-like sensation of his heart being in his stomach when he got the ‘Marley Grey has followed you back’ notification on twitter and instagram.

Why would a girl like that be interested in him? He’d asked himself a thousand times. They’d only known each other for a few hours and she’d let him drive her ridiculously expensive car. She was either really freaking nice, or a sucker. Either way, Jack was intrigued, and Harry’s tutelage had taught him to chase opportunities like this as far as he could. If he told himself it was about the money and not about her, that it was all one big scam, it was easier to not worry about rejection. Or at least it should have been. For the first time, Jack wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted.

After a few weeks messaging back and forth, he found an opportunity to ask her to meet him again.

'Hey. I saw your birthday is coming up. Happy 21st btw. :) I know this really cool 21 and over arcade-hipster-bar place in the Art District. Do you maybe wanna go with me?’

He typed and re-typed the message about fifty times, obsessing over emoticons and words and tone before he said screw it and hit send.

@ardenscho

Marley was a remarkably busy person, multiple meetings or appearances and tons of filming eating up most of her free time. It was hard to find time to connect with new people when she barely had time for the friends she already had. But for the last few weeks, she’d somehow managed to squeeze in time to respond to every message Jack sent her. She wasn’t even particularly sure why. She’d never been much of a romantic, even when her mom had been alive. She didn’t flirt, her hookups were few and far between, and there were no videos of serious past relationships to be found on her page. So her interest in talking to this guy was unusual at worst, fun at best, not even sure if it was butterflies in her stomach so much as it was the thrill of finding someone she connected with. But he was cute, and he was nice to her, and he seemed genuinely interested, or at least very good at faking interest.

She had a merch meeting today, working on her next line, and pushing to drop the prices as much as humanly possible, so it took her awhile before she was able to check her phone again. And when she did, she hated the excitement that shot up like a thrill from her toes to the tip of her nose when she saw a notification from Jack, asking if she wanted to hang out. Or more realistically, probably asking her on a date, if she were to be honest with herself.

She thought about her response for probably far longer than necessary. It’d been awhile since they’d seen each other in person, which was way different than the messaging they’d been doing, and that one stomach dropping moment where she’d accidentally liked a two year old photo scrolling in the deep on his Instagram. But he’d taken the time to reach out to her and learn her birthday and talk to her and… what was the harm, really?

She responded as she got into her car, starting it up, and trying not to overthink her response.

“From my videos you’ve seen I’m atrocious at video games, so is this just a ploy to beat me at something? Either way, that sounds like fun!”

And she hit send, exhaling a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

[er-fightmaster]

At Your (Streaming) Service || Jack & Marley

[taysjardine]

keiynan-lonsdale·:

If you wear a mask long enough you can forget who you are underneath it. Jack had worn multiple masks. He’d pretended to be more things and more people than he could list off the top of his head. A lie here, a con there, sometimes it was hard to remember who Jack actually was, so when the little nuggets of truth just fell from his lips without so much as an internal question about it, Jack couldn’t help but be a little surprised at himself.

“It was a long time ago,” he said with a small shrug, not cold but with some healthy level of indication that he had made peace with the whole thing, at least as much as a person could. “I was like… nine?” He wasn’t looking for sympathy. He wasn’t even looking to manipulate her. He wasn’t above using the orphan card for a quick buck, but this wasn’t that. It was something else. An attempt to connect.

“I’m sorry you’ve been through that too. Believe me, I know how much it sucks.” He left the part out about his adopted dad for now. It was too much all at once. What were the odds he’d meet a stranger at a party he’d broken into and find out they’d gone through the exact same thing he had? The universe had a funny way about it sometimes.

Her asking him to go get food was an opportunity to cut out of this conversation. He didn’t take it. Instead he followed her, taken aback by the number of people who recognised her. Jack hung back, snapping a couple of pics of her with fans who seemed to have been waiting around the parking lot area for this very reason. It wasn’t like the outside of a movie premiere or anything, but it was a healthy little spattering of people, which made him curious about just how ‘lucrative’ her business was.

He was about to get a pretty good indication of it.

“This… this is you?” His eyes pretty much popped out of his head. He stepped closer, almost afraid to touch it, let alone get inside. “You drive a Tesla Model X? I don’t know a lot about cars, but I know this is gorgeous.” Exhaling, he managed to slide inside without absolutely freaking out, but only barely. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be extra. I’m usually a lot cooler than this,” he joked with a little laugh, almost embarrassed. “I’ve just never met anyone with a car like this.” And he never would’ve thought people made this kind of cash just on YouTube.

Marley still found it difficult to talk about her mom, which in turn made her feel guilty, like she was doing a disservice to her mother, not keeping her memory alive. But nobody could really prepare you for the way it felt to lose a parent at such a young age, let alone in general, and she was finding as the years passed since the accident that there really was no right way to grieve.

So when Jack said he’d lost his parents when he was nine years old, she felt the air leave her lungs for a moment, her own understanding of the feeling when she was only sixteen making her empathize for how that crushing loss could feel at an even younger age. She had the tendency to wear her heart on her sleeve, and she was sure the empathy was on her face. “Wow, that’s...” she stopped for a moment, not even really sure what to say. She could guess he didn’t want her sympathy, and he didn’t have it anyway. He had her understanding.

Marley took a breath, and continued. “I was sixteen. She bought me my first camera.” And she didn’t say anything else, because really, he hit the nail on the head. It sucked. There wasn’t an eloquent way to say it, no need to write an essay about it. It was as simple as the fact that it sucked, and Marley was glad he’d shared that he understood, even if their situations weren’t the same. It made her feel a connection to him, which was nice, actually. She didn’t normally leave events like this feeling good about the conversations she had.

His reaction to her car made her smile. She didn’t indulge much in luxuries, considering some of the nice clothes she wore for events were normally just on loan from brands, and she preferred to invest her money into making her channel better, but her car was something she’d absolutely had to have, as silly as it was. “I do indeed. And trust me, I’m not much of a car expert either, but I had to have this gorgeous thing.”

Marley let out a laugh as she slid into the driver’s seat, her music automatically playing at a low volume as the winged doors closed around them. She typed Chipotle into the car’s navigational system as she put on her seatbelt. “It’s impossible to be cool about this car. You should’ve seen the look on the salesman’s face when he handed me the key and I started crying.” She pulled out of the parking lot, letting autopilot do most of the work, though she focused on the road and the wheel. “You wanna drive it? After we eat, I mean.”

[er-fightmaster]

At Your (Streaming) Service || Jack & Marley

[taysjardine]

grantgustins:

He supposed it was his turn to be studied now. It was only fair. Her gaze was subtle, but Jack was hyper vigilant. For a moment, he instinctively ducked his gaze, acting as if he was just looking down to pick up his drink. He could hold a conversation and act like the most confident person on the planet when he was pretending to be somebody else, but being himself, that made him nervous. He was surprised it had taken him this long.

The nervous sensation passed quickly though. She was just curious, probably because she was constantly talking to people who knew all the ins and outs of the YouTuber life whereas he knew nothing. “Sorry,” he chuckled. “I probably sound like an absolute idiot. I’ve just never had a reason to think about any of this stuff before.”

It sounded scary, putting your entire life online like that. He didn’t have any idea when he would ever feel comfortable sharing that level of intimacy with someone, let alone the whole world. “I guess it’s a bit different than just finding and adding someone on facebook unprompted,” he said with a small shrug, accepting her card gladly. Marley Grey. He glanced at the info for her social medias, promising himself he’d check them out later, then he slipped the card in the breast pocket of his shirt where he knew it wouldn’t fall out or get lost.

“You’re not even twenty-one yet and you have business cards. I’ve barely got a high school diploma.” He said the words with a mix of admiration and playful self-deprication. There were a lot of voices in the room, so he couldn’t make out every word she was saying in the recordings, but what he could see and hear made it easy to understand why people liked her.

“I guess? I try not to make snap judgements about people.” That was an absolute lie. The whole premise of surviving while being a con man was that you were able to make quick judgements about people. “At least not ones that I’m so set on I can’t change when I get to know someone, but living in an orphanage when I was younger gave me good instincts about other people.” That part was true. Maybe too true for him to have given up that information so freely, but it was too late now.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Marley said sincerely, finishing off her soda and grabbing a few napkins to wrap her glass straw in and tuck carefully back into her purse. “The usual response is skepticism, or amusement, like this isn’t a real job. Curiosity is a welcome change.” Even her father had been doubtful before she dove into the world of creating internet content, and she couldn’t say she blamed him. Putting your life out there was a risk, but it was one that had paid off tenfold.

While she was humble, Marley certainly wasn’t one to downplay her own abilities, knowing full well that she was both good at what she did, and an appealing person for marketing and to fans. So she shrugged, tucking her camera back into her bag as well. “Everyone’s good at something, right? I’m very lucky that what I’m good at is very lucrative. Who knows, maybe someday soon the concept of YouTube will be obsolete and I’ll be out of a job.”

The tidbit was so unexpected that she was sure the surprise showed on her face before she composed herself. The casual way that he mentioned growing up in an orphanage told her that Jack had at least made some level of peace with it, and she doubted he was looking for any sympathy from her. She did feel a pang of empathy though, her own mother not even gone for five years yet, the ache still very fresh. She doubted it was something that ever went away, but probing him for more information certainly wasn’t the way to make friends. “My mom taught me similar lessons about other people before she died. I suppose we have that in common.”

She’d been at the party for hours now, having arrived early to be part of the setup process, and now with things winding down and people getting steadily drunker, she was ready to call it a night. “God, I’m starving. This appetizer small bite crap just doesn’t do it for me. Do you want to get food?” She didn’t really wait for an answer, figuring there was only so much entertainment he could find in a room full of people he hadn’t heard of, and that he would much prefer to go get something real to eat. She started to one of the side doors, not feeling social enough to leave the main way, knowing she’d get stopped a lot.

When they stepped outside, Marley was greeted by a few fans who were clearly hoping to meet some of the people outside, one of them even wearing some of her merch. She happily stopped to talk to them and take a few photos, giving hugs freely. Socializing with fans was never something she was too tired to do. “Sorry about that,” Marley said as they walked to her car. “I’d talk to them for hours if I could. Oh, this is me.” As she approached her black Tesla, the driver’s side door opened for her, and she pressed the button to open the passenger side as well. 

[er-fightmaster]

At Your (Streaming) Service || Jack & Marley

[taysjardine]

elodie-yung:

He usually would have internally rolled his eyes at this kind of thing. Nothing against anyone who wanted to be eco-friendly or environmentally conscious. Obviously it was a good thing. He wasn’t an idiot, and selfish as he might have been, he still used his recycling bin and took the bus or train most of the time. It was just that most people, when they talked about championing a cause like that, they tended to get a bit preachy. Jack didn’t like to be lectured.

Marley was different though. She said everything in a way that made you want to listen. She didn’t seem like she was judging or that she thought she was better than anyone. She just seemed like someone who cared. It was a feeling you didn’t get from many people, especially when you were as cynical as Jack was about other people’s good intentions. He’d been that person. The one that made you feel comfortable and appreciated and then screwed you over. He liked to think he had a pretty good eye for bullshit. Marley didn’t trigger a single alarm bell. The opposite, actually.

“That’s really cool,” he replied, and actually meant it for once. “People pay you to do that sort of thing? Spreading awareness and stuff? I guess it’s better than a commercial.” People usually fast-forwarded through those or went out of the room to use the bathroom or make a cup of coffee. People actually sought out YouTube videos.

“Would it be too weird or invasive or anything if I asked to look at your channel? I won’t do it in front of you if I don’t want. I’ll check it out later or something.” If he was on a video like that, watching someone else watch it would have been his worst nightmare. “Gotta get that adsense money indeed.” To be honest he had about zero idea what that meant, but he guessed it was something about getting paid for views. It had to be a heck of a lot easier than selling stolen iPhones. And less illegal. He guessed it was like acting or music though. Not everyone could be successful.

She was braver than he was, since she was already pulling out a clip for him. He settled in closer to her to get a good view of what she was looking at. He didn’t know anything about making videos, but it looked really great. Not like the grainy cell phone stuff he had come to expect. “You’ve got nothing to be not-confident about. Trust me.” That was such a troublesome phrase coming from him, but on this occasion at least, it could be taken at face value.  

Marley studied him for a moment as he asked her questions about her YouTube career, trying to pinpoint the weird vibe she got from him. It wasn’t necessarily bad, or even off, but there was something about him that struck her as unusual. Perhaps she’d been doing YouTube for so long now, that meeting someone who genuinely had no clue about how it worked in terms of building a career was surprising. Even fans had a general idea of how sponsorships and adsense worked, but Jack was either a really good actor, or had no concept of any of this.

“Pay me, send me free products to review, sponsor a video concept as long as I work their product in somehow,” Marley said, checking each off on her fingers. “Whatever works for their brand.” She never accepted sponsorships from companies she didn’t like or support though, which sometimes could hurt her profit a little bit, but she wasn’t in it for the money anyway.

His question was sincere but Marley couldn’t help but laugh a little anyway. “It’s hardly invasive to seek out someone who’s willingly put their entire life on the internet. Feel free.” She reached for her clutch, fishing around in it until she found one of her business cards that had all her social medias listed, with YouTube at the top. “My channel name is just my name, Marley Grey, but I was too excited to get business cards to just not hand them out when someone wants to see my videos.”

It was a little charming that he’d asked permission to watch her videos. People Marley met tended to fall under one of two categories. A lot of people already knew who she was, and had already seen her content, as well as already have their opinion of who she was formed in their heads before actually speaking to her. Then there was everyone else, who had no idea who she was but upon finding out what she did either wrote her off as a silly social media star, or immediately looked up her content to, again, form opinions on her without getting to know her. It was oddly nice of him to ask first.

Marley gave him a side glance, pressed a little close to him so he could see her screen. She took a sip of her soda, smiling around the straw at his words. “That’s bold of you to say so quickly, a pretty quick judgment. I’m glad I’ve made such an impression.”

[er-fightmaster]

At Your (Streaming) Service || Jack & Marley

[taysjardine]

elodie-yung:

“Good point,” he answered with a chuckle, almost embarrassed, but in an endearing way. At least he hoped. She had a little smile to her features that told him she was playing around with him. At least he hadn’t blown it completely yet. He watched her come alive as he shared his secret, that satisfaction that fell into place when she thought she had caught him out, but again, it wasn’t malicious. It was perfect. It fed her curiosity while also drawing her in, and now it was as if they shared this secret together. “Okay, well next time I impersonate someone I’ll have to check who’s pleasant enough,” he joked, grinning. “I’ll get your approval, don’t worry.” It was too early to try and ask for her number, but even if that had been where he was heading, he didn’t get the chance.

“What are you–” He almost protested as she pulled out the camera, but his words halted when he saw that she wasn’t pointing it at him, and had no intention of pointing it at him. Instead, she was filming her glass. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as claiming it was like looking at a car wreck, but it was a turn in the tables that Jack hadn’t been expecting, because now he was the one who was curious, and for additional reasons to the fact he’d just met a beautiful, funny and charming young woman.

Most boring video ever, she had joked, and while on some level he had to agree, the very fact she was doing it at all was oddly fascinating. He was left floored for a few moments, not quite sure what to say. But Jack was rarely speechless, and never for long. “So is that what you usually blog about?” His tone wasn’t mean or dismissive, just curious. “You scared me for a second,” he chuckled. “I hate being on camera.” It was partly true. Dysphoria was a bitch, and it had taken him a long time to feel okay with seeing himself in videos or pictures. But there was another side to it as well. Photographic and video evidence. He’d been up to too much shady stuff in his life to not feel a little paranoid about it. Nobody was going to arrest him for crashing a YouTube party, but those instincts were always there.

“You’re probably right though. Blagging my way through a speech when I don’t have any idea what I’m talking about… actually, even giving any sort of speech is probably beyond my capabilities. I’m only confident one on one. Not room-full-of-people on one.” He moved in a little closer, nodding towards her camera. “Can I see what sort of stuff you film, or is it like super private? I’ve never met a Youtuber before. It must take a lot of confidence.”

“I am absolutely the approval you should be seeking out in this situation, so good choice.” There wasn’t a hint of arrogance to Marley’s tone, so much as she was stating a fact. She tended to view her fellow creators without any bias. There were plenty of straight, white creators who were perfectly nice and supportive of lesser represented voices, regardless of whether or not she actually liked their content. The YouTuber Jack was impersonating just happened to be one who not only wasn’t perfectly nice, but put out garbage content that gave being a creator a bad name.

Marley shrugged a little, giving her soda a little swirl with her straw. “I suppose. This is kind of part of a larger series, using more eco friendly things for a week. The straws were sent to me, plus I got paid, so I’m making it work.” She wasn’t offended that he hadn’t seen any of her content. The fact that he didn’t seem to know just what the whole purpose of this party was told her that he likely wasn’t much into watching YouTube creators. “My channel is kind of all over the place. Storytimes, challenges, tutorials, lifestyle, occasionally politics. Whatever floats my boat.”

She frowned a little. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I promise I never film anyone without their permission.” The exception of course was her vlog channel, where sometimes people just ended up in the background and there wasn’t much she could do about that. Before her mother had died, Marley had expressed to her that she was interested in starting a channel. One thing her mother had told her that stuck with her was to remember that while she was choosing to put her life on camera, not everyone around her had done the same. “Some people in here might, but I wouldn’t.”

Marley nodded as she took a sip of her soda. “Oh, I can completely relate. Every time I have to give a speech, I get really nervous. Or meet and greets. When I film my videos, I’m alone in front of my camera. When the numbers associated with my channel are finally real people in front of me, it can be a lot.” The surprise in his interest was written all over her face, and Marley found herself feeling a little flattered. It wasn’t often she got this reaction from people not familiar with YouTube as a platform. Some of her extended family tended to think she could get a real job, as if she hadn’t built a career with just a camera. “I don’t mind, as long as you promise to actually go and watch the finished product as well. Gotta get that adsense money.”

Marley switched her camera to view mode, scrolling until she found a clip where she’d been telling a story about her horrific experience at her senior prom. “I think I’m pretty confident, but it was weird getting used to just… essentially talking to yourself. I had no idea if anyone would ever want to listen.” She glanced down at the video on the screen, cringing a little. “And I’m awful at watching myself.”

[er-fightmaster]

At Your (Streaming) Service || Jack & Marley

[taysjardine]

elodie-yung:

They’d only just met, but she already struck him as having a quick wit and not taking any crap from anyone. “Well, I’m a very friendly person,” he answered with a grin to her little quip. It wasn’t a hundred per cent true, but also not a lie. How friendly Jack was typically depended on which persona he was playing and how his mood was, but that part was easy to answer. Her next question, the type of thing asked by someone who had keen observational skills, was a little more difficult.

‘What kind of videos do you make?’

She’d known he wasn’t familiar. Jack had known he couldn’t get away with pretending to be a famous YouTuber. The people at the front desk and the security on the door might have been fooled by the vague generic-white-boy resemblance, but the people who were actually part of the community wouldn’t. It was why he’d flipped his badge backwards, Paul Danger’s (ridiculous) name hidden from view. He’d also googled the man before he’d gone inside, then looked up the event itself, searching on his phone to have even the vaguest idea what he was talking about. It was an educated guess that a girl like Marley wouldn’t be into a vlogger who’d recently been dragged for online bullying, harrassment, and calling people the kind of words Jack would never repeat.

“I, uh…” He forced a chuckle, pushing some hair back out of his eyes. “I actually don’t have a channel. Can you keep a secret?” He moved closer to her, putting a finger to his lips and flipping his badge around to show Paul’s face. “I have a friend who works security and I was visiting him to drop off a book I borrowed. He mentioned that Paul wasn’t coming and thought it would be funny if I took his badge because everyone says we look alike.” Jack flipped the badge back over, paying the bartender for the drinks and ushering Marley away from the bar. An absolute lie. He didn’t know anyone working security, nobody had told him Paul wasn’t coming, and while Jack was a fairly intelligent person, he didn’t tend to read that much literature.

“Please don’t tell anyone. I mostly just wanted to see if it would work, have a bit of a joke about it. Usually he’s the last person I’d ever want to be mistaken for.” He took a sip of his drink and handed her hers. “If he does turn up now, he won’t be able to get in. That might be the funniest part.” On the off chance she actually liked the guy, he’d just have to eat crow and look like a bit of a jerk. There were worse things.

“Are you sure, if you have to tell me you’re friendly? You know, it’s like when guys say they’re a nice guy, they’re usually not.” Marley was just teasing, of course, she was sure he was perfectly friendly. But he was still someone she didn’t recognize among people she knew very well, and that had her a little on edge despite how nice he was being.

“I knew it!” Marley was almost relieved to find out that she was correct and he was a complete stranger, pleased to find that her knack for knowing who the creators around her were hadn’t failed her. It was ironic that he was asking someone in a room full of people who made a living by sharing their lives on screen if she could keep a secret, but she didn’t have much of a desire to rat him out, unless he was here to be shady. She wasn’t entirely sure if she believed him, but it sounded perfectly plausible. She had no reason to doubt him, anyway. “It’s a shame you couldn’t masquerade as someone a little more... pleasant.” She kept it diplomatic but her distaste for Paul was obvious on her face. Marley didn’t really have any beef with any other creators, but when one said or did something that was offensive, she was never afraid to speak her mind about it.

Marley took her drink with a thanks, stopping at a tall table where they could stand. She pulled a glass straw from her purse, dropping it into her drink. “Sorry, one second.” She pulled her vlogging camera from her purse, not at all self conscious about vlogging in public after four years of doing it, and considering pretty much everyone else in the room was filming in some way, it wasn’t unusual. Aiming her camera at her drink, she started talking to her audience brightly. “Okay guys, we’re on day three of using a glass straw instead of plastic and honestly, this might be my most boring video ever because I don’t have much else to say at this point. I like the way it keeps drinks colder, but it’s still a little inconvenient to have to worry about rinsing it out and drying it off when I’m out.” She turned the camera to face herself, taking a pointed sip of her drink with a goofy wiggle of her eyebrows before shutting the camera off and flashing Jack a bright smile. “Anyway. Sorry again. Forgot already you’re probably not used to the people you hang out with just pulling out their cameras.”

Paul not being able to enter a party she was attending did sound pretty amusing. “Well, you’re lucky we’ve already gotten through all the speeches and stuff, or it’d be much harder to fly under the radar. I wouldn’t stick around for too long, though. We’re an observant bunch.”

[er-fightmaster]

At Your (Streaming) Service || Jack & Marley

[taysjardine]

elodie-yung:

He hadn’t had any plans tonight, which meant he was really just exploring to find something to do. Jack didn’t like staying in. He got restless, and he didn’t like people knowing where to find him. It was funny, he’d been left his own house, a twenty-one year old with at least five false identities with bank accounts to match, and not only did he rarely stay at home, he’d also never felt more worthless. Being alone with his own thoughts, missing Harry, it just wasn’t the smart move, so he’d gone downtown to try his luck at some local clubs when he’d stopped outside the hotel.

“Excuse me, you got a light?” he’d asked of a young woman standing outside. His must have fallen out of his pocket on the bus. He’d only meant to stop, light his cigarette, and keep walking, but within two seconds of him standing there, someone had walked up to him looking as if they’d just stumbled on Justin Bieber. “Oh my god, are you Paul Danger? Can I have a picture with you?”

Jack didn’t have a clue who Paul Danger was, but he was smart enough to sell an opportunity when it presented itself. He’d said yes, posed for some pictures with everyone in the smoking area, and nodded at the bouncer on the door who’d already pulled back the velvet rope for him. “You’re one of them youtube kids, right? For the party? Check in at the front desk and they’ll show you where to go.”

Within moments, Jack had been granted a wristband and a lanyard with a young man on the picture that looked vaguely like him. “My hair was terrible back then, look at this?” he teased with the woman at the front desk, distracting her with his charm as she compared their faces enough to cross Paul Danger (apparently his real name was Paul Harding) off the list. Within five minutes, he was at the bar. Once inside, he flipped the lanyard backwards, tucking it into his shirt and hoping nobody asked him too many questions. He was good at lying. He even found it fun, but with something like youtube, it’d be pretty easy to prove him wrong.

“Hey, can I get a J.D. and coke?” he flashed an I.D. that showed him to be over twenty-one, catching the eye of a young woman at the bar and giving her a pleasant smile. “Sorry, did I cut in front of you? Order whatever you want. My treat.” He turned back to the bartender. “And whatever my new friend here is having. I’m Jack, by the way.”  

Marley made it a point to know her fellow creators. She liked to know their basic stories, the purpose of their channels, and she also liked to know who she was mingling with, even if they’d never met. While a lot of people didn’t consider something like YouTube a job, Marley knew firsthand how much energy, time, and creativity was required to put out content that engaged viewers enough to keep you afloat. And if she was working hard, knowing firsthand that her nine million subscribers had come from 4 hard years of work, who was she to not support her fellow creators?

So yes, Marley was absolutely that person at every YouTube event who knew every creator in the room, regardless of whether or not she actually liked their content. So as she broke away from a beauty guru who wanted to talk about the latest PR package they’d both received from ABH to get something to drink from the bar, she was startled by a face she didn’t recognize. This hadn’t been a plus one event, tonight’s party all about celebrating just their own success, and giving feedback to the YouTube team about how the year was going. How someone who she was almost ninety percent certain wasn’t a creator had gotten in was beyond her. 

“I don’t think there was much of a line,” she replied with a smile, which quickly hardened slightly into a smirk. “Oh, we’re friends now? That was fast.” She wouldn’t say no to a free drink though, and she turned her attention to the bartender. “Same, but just the coke part. Still a couple weeks off from twenty-one.” 

While she waited for her soda, Marley swept her eyes over the boy in front of her, trying to place his face with the name Jack, but she had nothing. Either he was a new creator she didn’t know yet, or he wasn’t supposed to be here. “Marley. I feel awful that I don’t know what your channel is, I’m sorry. What sorts of videos do you make?”

[taysjardine]

alright i finally feel safe enough to post this but i got a new blog right here so if you still wanna follow me there it is otherwise it’s been real i guess

[taysjardine]

alright i finally feel safe enough to post this but i got a new blog right here so if you still wanna follow me there it is otherwise it’s been real i guess

[taysjardine]

alright i finally feel safe enough to post this but i got a new blog right here so if you still wanna follow me there it is otherwise it’s been real i guess

[sdfsd32435-deactivated20180128]

its literally so fucking crazy how mediocre ass shows about white people and maybe with some gaybaiting thrown in the mix will get tons of views and shit but shows with incredibly good storytelling (the get down), amazing original soundtrack (the get down) sang by the cast! (the get down) that happen 2 be abt non white people and just. one of the best shows ive seen in the past years (im talking about the get down part 1 available on netflix) will struggle 2 get attention bc yall cant be fucking bothered to care about non white people and our stories. it makes me so angry

[taysjardine]

don't let that one anon drive you away :( ily

it’s hard to ignore it though, since they referenced my twitter. i made my twitter when some shit was going down in my life so i could privately vent and talk to my closest friends. i’m super selective about who i accept follow requests from, and i tweet about things that are really personal and important to me, as well as post pictures of my face which i never ever post here. so basically someone i trusted with all this information, came to my blog, and anonymously threw it back in my face. that’s a hard pill to swallow, to know someone i trust would do that to me. so now i don’t really feel safe here, or on my twitter.

but ily, thank you.

[taysjardine]

just a heads up this blog is now slowly going to become an archive i may or may not get a new one who knows but if you’re determined to still follow me just hmu i guess!!!

[deep-sexts]

[ardenchosource]

Hanging around~ #bts#shooting #ootd

[forrestmankins]

[danger]