reserved seat

i end the night alone, dancing under the city light / (it's okay, it's alright)

[tokycinn]

it’s me again :( this time i’m introducing jonah tanilon, ville city native & ((oblivious)) walking bad luck charm. once again, i have some necessary and some unnecessary links for him (bio, info, pinterest, playlist) and anything else worth knowing should be below the cut.

abt jonah

half filipino half white, born & raised in [redacted country]. full name is jonah tanilon but friends are free to call him jt even tho he officially left that nickname behind when he was like 16 (also nicknamed ‘jet plane’ or just ‘jet’ from that time he performed big jet plane by angus & julia stone at that high school talent show... no he didn’t win, let’s not talk about it)

raised by a good ol’ hippie-slash-rocker dad and a realist mom for the first fourteen years of his life, which were pretty decent! his parents were very clearly in love and while they didn’t have much in terms of money, they had plenty of #happiness

tw death unfortunately jonah’s dad passed away in 2010 and that really changed his entire dynamic with his mom... they were both grieving, but rather than comforting each other, they started drifting apart. each endured the pain alone while wondering why the other only seemed to care about themselves end tw

& such was the beginning of jonah’s bad luck. he used to be a big dreamer ((and he had potential in many of the paths that he pursued)) but life kept knocking him down. grades started falling which was first pinned on him going through the grieving process, but it... never... ended... and all of his early-decision college offers fell out from under his feet, business at mom’s salon started decreasing & bills became harder to pay ((again, initially pinned on only having one income as opposed to two, but...)), random bad shit started happening to him ((every pair of paints ripping in the same place (behind the left knee), spilling every cup he’s ever held in his LIFE, having ridiculous mishaps and breaking bones by doing the most mundane shit ever fr))

so... if you can’t tell....... he looks like a klutz but he’ll swear that his luck just SUCKS!!! if something bad can happen, it WILL happen to jonah tanilon!!! “hope for the best but expect the worst” mindset

that said... he’s not really a negative guy? in fact, he’s almost sickeningly optimistic because he’s kind of had to learn to find the silver lining when his life’s been so shitty for the past eleven years and counting.

not sure what his life’s purpose is - original dream was to be a rockstar & he pursued music ‘til he was around 21 but shit kept going wrong ((ordered a new guitar, it was destroyed in transit but since he didn’t have “proof” that he wasn’t the one to break it, the company wouldn’t replace it / the studio his band was recording their ep at literally burned down in the middle of the night / one of the band’s most important gigs ended up not happening because they were cut from the lineup at the last minute (the night of) and such)) so he gave up on that one...

also tried out filmography, was briefly enrolled in college as a film & cinema studies major even but ummmm some shit happened and his camera got absolutely SHATTERED while he was halfway through filming his yearly project so <333 ditched that one too. dropped out on the spot because he was so frustrated

spent some time helping his mom as a beautician at her salon ((mainly doing nails, skin treatments but occasionally doing haircuts/colorings too)) and that was... alright, but he kinda can’t stand his mom so then he left the country for a while

and now he’s back <333 been living in center point for almost a year and his luck’s been looking up more and more ((re: he has add-on 4n, in which he’s siphoning luck off of everybody he comes into contact with)), from getting a letter and a check from a public library about how he won that short-film contest 7 years ago but they forgot to send him his cash reward to being on month 5 of never paying for fast food because the person ahead of him has already paid for him

other: mommy issues / skater boy who used to have a new broken bone every two months but he’s Good! now / unmedicated adhd ((very restless, Nice Guy but short-tempered, forgetful, always tired but always awake)) / currently fostering a pair of rescue mutts that bark like crazy every time they hear the doorknob turn but they’re pretty chill other than that / wears a huge grin that gets him compared to the cheshire cat and/or the joker on the daily / inspired by jonah simms (superstore), winston (new girl), that one coffee shop owner slash former singer from hometown cha cha cha, miyake from “landscape with flatiron” by haruki murakami & some other nameless murakami protagonists

[aseaofquotes]

Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

[tokycinn]

yiseuuls:

( ... )

“up, let’s go up,” she finally says, her smile strained as she makes her way up the stairs, “what type of ghost do you think is here? what if it’s some sort of chef,maybe i could get an interview with them?” she chatters on — a habit of hers when her nerves took over, “ wouldn’t that be a great selling point?”

the next level is much of the same, upturned furniture from decades ago, dark shadows encompassing corners, broken glass, a light blub that’s been burnt out for ages.

“what type of ghost do you want to see?” 

“you know, you might be right.” the agreement comes easily, despite jonah having never really asked his mom ‘why’ — back then, he’d been immature enough to assume that she was giving him a hard time just because she could, saying no just to get under his skin. there’s a part of him that still thinks so.

still, he laughs under his breath while he joins her in watching the bug scuttle away. big for what it is, still small in comparison to the two of them, and yet it crosses his mind that if anything were to happen here tonight, the damn roach would be the last one standing. funnier still is the image his mind conjures of the creature breaking into his childhood home, his mom chasing it through the hallways with a can of raid.

“... but i could do something as simple as go outside to feed the dog and there was a pretty big chance i’d come back in with a beetle in my hand, so i don’t think it would’ve made much of a difference. unless she thought the bugs here might be possessed?” light-hearted humor fades into a question, but he doesn’t expect an answer; the bug is gone, and the topic disappears with it, replaced by vacation and alcatraz. 

as he follows her up the stairs, he considers sharing his thoughts on how cool that is, how her dad must be tons of fun, but there are two things that hold him back: first, her own focus on the topic had seemed to dwindle, and he’s not sure if there’s a deeper meaning behind it. second, he’s equally unsure if there’s a weight behind the past tense used to refer to her dad, so he just gives a hum of acknowledgement instead. it’s easier that way.

“i think there are different types of ghosts here, not just one — maybe we should stay the night? it’ll give us a better chance for you to find your chef ghost, and for me to find something really fuckin’ scary. that’s what i want.”

his steps falter and he waves his flashlight towards a mirror hanging on the wall. he points it at yiseul’s reflection beside his, already grinning like a madman. if there’s one thing that he’s consist in, it’s his immaturity. “well, damn. i guess i’ve already fulfilled my wish.”

[tokycinn]

planetearths:

( ... )

the board stops rocking. something about the past intrigues him the more he meditates on sentimental, some-few-years-ago emotionalism.

“remember when i asked you if we could be more than friends? how did you feel?”

he looks over at the concrete, then turns to face jonah.

“if i didn’t, would you?”

in retrospect, their relationship had never really been a question of ‘if’, just ‘when’. false confidence on jonah’s end, maybe — he’d started as somebody entirely out of his depths, no reason to believe he’d ever exceed the bounds of platonicity with luca and still expecting to anyway, laughing in the face of fate. don’t you know that he’s got a girlfriend? somebody had asked him once at a party, when they’d both been too high to think straight and he’d let his feelings slip. not really seeking advice, just validation. i don’t think he loves her, had been his response. (words left unsaid: but have you seen how he looks at me?)

he’s half-breathless when he takes his place on the curb next to luca, chest still heaving from trying to land the same trick a dozen too many times. he’s twenty seconds away from attempting a tasteless joke when luca’s voice breaks in and the chance for light-hearted humor is lost. 

“happy,” he says, missing the mark. there are so many better ways to describe how he’d felt, but he’s never really been good with words, even worse when trying to come up with the right ones for luca. it doesn’t help that there’s not much time to think about it while still sounding candid. he wonders if he’s ever given luca any reason to doubt him, if his affection had started to feel unattainable during time spent apart. silence thickens the atmosphere.

he rolls tender knuckles against the surface of his board, decides he should probably change the griptape soon. the sensation is enough to bring him back to the present. “at the time, it felt natural. you and i... i don’t know, i felt like we were supposed to be together, so when we were, i thought ‘finally’. you know what i mean?”

right. the love had come easily. a steady current that he’d never bothered resisting, couldn’t even if he’d tried — hanging out after class with no ulterior motives, getting used to it. entirely sober admissions of it’s you, it’s you, i don’t want anyone else, less sober pleas of it’s me, isn’t it? can’t it be me? (it should be me). of course he’d been happy when things had finally fallen into place and he’s happy to think about it now, but there’s a bitterness to it, too. feeling the weight of how hard life had kicked the both of them once they got too comfortable. he’s happy that luca still talks about him but defensive at the same time, knowing he’s not where he’s supposed to be. the confidence of twenty-two, twenty-three had been left in new york, abandoned on some subway.

“anyway, of course i would’ve,” he answers belatedly, but with heavy conviction. like it’s a given. in his head, it is. “after meeting you, it wasn’t long before i realized that i wanted to be with you. not the first time that i saw you fall on your ass, but maybe the second? yeah, when you got back up and i had the realization that this guy’s got nerve.” so, maybe the chance for humor hasn’t been lost after all: it seeps in casually now, aiming to lighten the atmosphere. he wonders if it’s supposed to feel this heavy. “jokes aside, you were all i could think about but i didn’t know if the timing was right and i didn’t want to make you feel like you were being rushed into anything. that’s the only reason you beat me to it.” he’s smiling, smiling in a way that feels too real and too disingenuous at the same time. he still loves luca. of course he does. always will, definitely, but sometimes he misses the thrill of ambiguity. or maybe he just misses the beginning, a song that’s over now despite the melody carrying on every time that they’re together. he hates the sour note that they’d left off on, some undefined ‘break’. 

“if we could go back to that time but be as we are now, would you still ask?”

[tokycinn]

october ‘21, ft @yiseuuls.

they’d decided to come after dark. well, jonah had decided as much and along the way he had managed to talk yiseul into accompanying him — something he’d once thought of as arduous, but which has never truly amounted to more than a couple of pretty-please’s. she’s not as stoic as all of her formality makes her seem, nor as closed-off as a neighbor is inclined to think. he supposes that she just doesn’t like to do things alone. that’s fair, anyway: neither does he.

he points his flashlight at the floor a few paces ahead, illuminating dirt and dust. turns out that ‘open for visitors’ doesn’t really mean ‘clean’, but it’s fine. the smell of nature adds to the ambience, tiny twigs blown in through open windows cracking under sneakers. there’s a tour guide somewhere, a few rooms over maybe, a floor down. somewhere. it doesn’t matter right now because they’d chosen to go off on their own (“it’ll be more fun that way,” he’d promised) and he’s got the number to call if anything goes awry.

not that he expects that, of course. even with the fog setting in outside the windows, he doesn’t feel unsafe. heart races with anticipation, smile grows by the second. “i’ve always wanted to come here,” he tells her unprovoked as he pushes open a door to peer inside. the room feels stale and unwelcoming. “… but my mom would never let me, and eventually i just stopped thinking about it, you know?”

a click of his tongue carries the message ‘oh well’, and he guides her towards the staircase. this floor doesn’t seem to have much to offer, but they can always come back to it later.

“you think we should go up or back down?” the choice is hers. he’s as eager to explore the place as anybody, but underneath the enthusiasm, he’s just glad to have gotten her out of her apartment for once — might as well let her call the shots.

“i hope that we see a ghost. the media says that this place is super haunted.”

[tokycinn]

october ‘21, ft @f0ulfellow.

sunlight warming his face through the glass storefront, cool condensation trapped between a fresh cup of orange juice and his palm; it’s only eight o’clock in the morning, but jonah’s bright-eyed & bushy-tailed. surely it’s the runner’s high to blame, but he considers renouncing everything he’s ever known to be true in order to deem himself a ‘morning person’. he refrains from jumping the gun, though, and reminds himself that anything can be good in moderation.

the silence that he and inho are sitting in is comfortable, extended from the duration of their run (while jonah had tried to make a few comments, it wasn’t the best time to talk), but he still decides to break it anyway. “do you do this every morning?” he asks, finally lifting his head from from the menu long enough to look at his company — a few more minutes, he’d told the waitress after only putting in an order for a drink. i’ve never been here before. in the end, he settles on the dish that she’d tried to talk him into to begin with: eggs and avocado on toast. too fucking predictable.

“because i usually do,” he starts, lying. sort of lying, anyway, but any amount of dishonesty points towards the same conclusion. he hardly ever runs unless it’s on a treadmill, but he skates plenty. even likes to say that he skates in the morning, but his ‘morning skating’ really just carries him the distance between center point apartments and the electrical company. whatever — it’s not like inho knows any better, and it’s not like it would matter even if he did. “… but i don’t normally see you, so i was just wondering.”

i was just wondering. a phrase that that been run into the ground years ago, always used exclusively with inho, usually when jonah was slipping into the back of his car alongside inyoung, lugging that old skateboard with him. always tracking dirt, cigarette smoke and the smell of alcohol. i was just wondering if you’d give me a ride home, he’d said, already buckled in. or sometimes it was i was just wondering if you could buy me some beer. it bursts back into his vocabulary easily now.

he half-waves at the waitress to get her attention, tells her he’s decided on the egg-and-avocado toast after all. when she takes the menu from him, she hardly looks surprised.

[tokycinn]

𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌, a study on jonah tanilon.

am i still young? can i dream for a few months more?   ⸻   7 tracks, 22mins.

1. hot mulligan, bckyrd

play in the backyard where the grass & spiderwebs grow up next to us say, what’s your interests? tell me how you plan to give up on all of ‘em hey, why’d we leave? coulda stayed for a while if we knew where we’re ending up

2. grayscale, young

i think i’m better than just giving up in the pouring rain i think i’d rather love than be a heart of stone that can’t be saved give it all ‘til it all gets better

3. neck deep, motion sickness

between the peace & the panic, i can’t break up the static i need a cleaner frequency i frequently burn out and vanish i’m on another planet there’s just no getting through to me out from the noise, i hear that familiar voice he says, “life is the great unknown”

4. hot mulligan, pop shuvit (hall of meat, duh)

so break down feel the weather in our knees no, we’ll never feel at peace for free it’s gone, it’s gone you wanted more, but all that’s left is less so call it quits

5. the maine, diet soda society

to be honest, i am full of shit but that’s alright because everyone else that i know is it’s just a tough thing for us humans to admit yes, we all have the question but we don’t know what the answer is the brain is a funny place oblivion is where i’m headed my mind is on the brink of going supernova

6. john the ghost, rolled down window

hand out the rolled-down window with the sunset on the west coast and goodbye sorrow, my oldest friend take it easy, i ain’t coming back again

7. the front bottoms, pale beneath the tan (squeeze)

all i ever wanted is something different, maybe by another name we could set ourselves on fire, there is cleansing in the flames so keep clapping, keep laughing, let ‘em know you’re still alive and if you feel like giving up, at least let ‘em think that you survived it’s not funny, but keep laughing ‘cause at least you don’t have to cry when you wake up in the morning and you know you’re still alive

[tokycinn]

the world is my diamond. october ‘21, with @ltuscter.

luck only extends so far.

of course it does — anything more than it already is and it would surely be classified as something akin to ‘magic’. it’s enough to let his board withstand even the worst of falls, but it’s not enough to stop him from falling once his body’s already been sent into motion, so his day starts with a melodic montage of i-can’t-believe-i-landed-that moments and it ends on the sour note of stitches holding three inches of skin together on his forearm.

he ought to be embarrassed. embarrassed, or sad, or even neutral. just something to show that he’s not proud of being a twenty-five year old man who still busts ass on a skateboard for fun, but the grin that he shows to the doctor is nothing short of giddy.

“i landed the laser flip,” he tells her. perhaps this could be the end-credits scene: bloopers that don’t quite match the music, a character failing to read the room. surely she’s tired, and surely she doesn’t want to make small-talk with him, and surely he could find better things to talk to her about even if she did. the necklace he’d found between the cushions of his living room couch, for example, considering he’s almost certain that he’d seen her eyeing where the pendant hung on his chest. the music slows down, he speeds up. wrong place, wrong time.

“the one i told you about last time. i know it probably doesn’t look like i landed it, but i swear to god i did — too bad no one was there to get it on video.” a sigh, then, “you think i should take off work for a couple days or am i good?”

[sabit2]

Visit Original Link

[lovestereo]

Visit Original Link

[luthienne]

walked by a couple today who had pulled out their lawn chairs and were sitting in the rocks in front of their house, picking them up one by one. i have no idea what they were actually doing but i’d like to think they were admiring each rock individually

[archirenaux]