#《 my friends are still riding the high from the episode that recently released 》

[tuesdayscanons]

Do you ever feel tempted to take on a muse from a fandom you don't really interact with anymore/lowkey dislike because there's a character who would have so much potential if the creator actually let them be a nuanced/fleshed out character, but they're only interested in making them a one dimensional cardboard cut-out and it bothers you so much?

[twig-tea]

GL odds and ends 29 December 2024

The end of the year kicked my ass, but I wanted to get one last one of these out for 2024! The last one before this was 10 November. If you're interested in GL older than that, check out my GL rec list through Feb 2024 and my #gl recs tag for the other odds and ends posts. New series marked with an asterisk*.

Currently airing (with thoughts up to 29 Dec):

The Fragrance You inherit 5/8 (Japanese, Friday/Saturday-ish, no official distribution but fansub on @isaksbestpillow's blog [thank you Siiri!] I have been really enjoying this show and have been writing when I have time (last post was for ep4). At its core this is a gentle show about kind people who love each other doing their best, which is always my favourite thing. Subs are on pause for the moment so you have time to catch up before the finale!

Pluto ep 11/12 (Thai, Saturdays 9:30 AM ET, YouTube) This plot continues to be absolutely wild. There's a lot of discourse around Oom this week, to which I'll just say: Setting a test to see if the people you love will hurt themselves in order to make you feel better is not loving or healthy behaviour, even if your motivations are understandable and sympathetic. Namtan is doing a great job making these twins feel like different people, and she and Film are still gorgeous together. And I have no idea what's up with the messy lesbian sides, but I'm on the side of all of them need a time out! I've been pretty dialed out of this show because it's not my thing, so I'm not that invested in any of the relationships going into the finale, but it's been a wild ride and it seems to be holding together for those who enjoy the high drama of this plot.

*Petrichor ep 5/10 (Thai, Saturdays, 10:00 AM ET, iQIYI) The procedural aspects of this show are unfortunately not well executed, but Engfa and Charlotte have fantastic chemistry. I'm also really loving seeing Na and Max again even though I am very worried about getting too attached to their characters. It's always hard for me when a show is about a police officer trying to do good work in a corrupt system because the only takeaway I can accept is that that is not possible lol but I'm enjoying seeing these two on my screen every week (except this week, because we sadly did not get a new episode today).

*Mate, 6/12 (Thai, Tuesdays, WeTV (uncut version)) This one is hard to describe. It seems to be trying to do for trauma in a GL what Love in the Air and Bed Friend did in BL--show a realistic depiction of trauma in one of their characters and have them fall in love, and be taken care of and healed that way. But that also makes it extremely hard to watch. The trauma flashbacks and trauma responses is rough. The main character is not very likeable but that's kinda the point, I'm not minding that part of it so much. There are a lot of things I like about this show, so I don't want to discourage views. Just go into this one informed, and make the decision that's right for you.

*INTP 1/? (Korean, Fridays (?), YouTube) This is the latest short series from RedQ, who produced some of my favourite GL short series including More than or equal to 75 degrees C, and To the Ex who Hated Me. No info on how long it will be or if it will be weekly, so that Fridays release schedule is a total guess. The setup of this one reminded me of Semantic Error if SangWoo realized he was attracted to JaeYoung at their first group assignment meeting.

Recently Completed:

Apple My Love 6.5 50-min eps (Thai, Oct 12-Nov 16, GagaOOLala and YouTube) I ended up feeling like this one bit off a bit more than it could chew, as much fun as I had with it, it was a wobbly landing. I was ok with the ending at the end but I spent a lot of time watching the finale uncertain about how I felt about all of it. There's a 30 min "episode 5.1" that is an important bridge between episodes 5 and 6 (and also includes a 10-min fingering scene, thank you show) that I think resulted from either poor pacing or realizing they needed to set up the episode better? It was odd but something to make sure not to skip. The show does a lot of what I love about Kongthup's latest BLs: it avoids the worst drama pitfalls and calls them out in the show itself when it uses them, and it is largely about being kind to its characters who are figuring themselves out. Warning for extremely hard to watch secondhand embarrassment in the first couple of episodes lol Kris is such a cringefail lesbian I love her. With the caveats above, if you don't mind secondhand embarrassment and want a comedy GL and are willing to be a little patient with the ending, give this one a try!

The Loyal Pin 16 65-min eps (Thai, Aug 4-Dec 1, YouTube) Anin was the bravest right through to the end. I really liked a lot of this show, but I found the pacing a bit uneven and the finale a little rough. It's hard, because I actually am happy with the way the show ended--it makes perfect sense and was where I was hoping they would get to the entire show. What I didn't like was how we got there. It seemed wild that Pin and Anin didn't at least talk about this possibility before we got there; and didn't feel like we ever resolved the disparity between the two leads, though the show was aware of it the whole time which I did like. And you may have seen the shouting about the prank in the finale, it was in really poor taste. In the end, this show was beautiful, gave a platform for promoting Thai culture (food, clothing, history), and had excellent intimacy. I really enjoyed the slow burn between Anin and Pin, and I loved that every character had and used the agency they had, but that the show was realistic about what was in and outside of their control. If you want a slow-burn and high-heat romance and are willing to be a little frustrated for the sake of the drama, and/or you really like a pigtail-pulling romantic dynamic, you should watch this show.

Red Whisper 8 10-min eps (Korea, Oct 2-Nov 11, YouTube) Honestly this show never got better after what I wrote about it a month ago about how its portrayal of bisexuality and nonmonogamy was upsetting. For the record one last time: Not all bisexuals are nonmonogamous, and entering a monogamous relationship under false pretenses and then acting like your partner is being unreasonable by not wanting an open relationship is shitty behaviour. This one is sadly not recommended.

The Nipple Talk 10 30-min eps (Taiwanese, Nov 8-22, GagaOOLala) I highly recommended the first half, and so I am so sad to say that I can't say the same for the second half of the show. I was really enjoying how much the show seemed to support a mix of monogamy and nonmonogamy, but the second half of the show leaned heavily into 'everyone wants a monogamous relationship when they meet the right person', which disappointed me. The show also tried to introduce some themes that felt very dated in terms of how they handled them (e.g. HIV) and I ended up just not really liking the Pony character as a person by the end. The lesbian relationship was super messy in a way that I did not find fun too. Mama was the best part of this show, and I hope we get more characters like them in future (better) shows!

*Soul Sisters 24 12-min eps (Chinese, iQIYI) This entire show dropped this week so I binged it in one go. The basic setup is a GL version of Meet You At the Blossom, except the gender fuckery lasts for most of the series and they don't actually ever get to kiss. I loved this little show; it is a frenetic, very silly and censored comedy, so calibrate your expectations accordingly. But it walks the line in a way that is palatable (or was for me, anyway). Without giving too much away, it is an open happy ending. The caveats for this one are that there is no wasted tape, so the pacing is rollercoaster fast, and the cuts are sometimes jarring. But it's a surprisingly beautiful show for the budget, and I really appreciated all of the ways they came up with to give these women shippy moments. Also, good lord this main character is so competent, which is a major weakness of mine. I had a great time!

*Whisper Me a Love Song 12 25-min eps (Japanese anime, Apr-27 Dec, HiDive) This started airing in April but there was a delay and the last episode didn't air until yesterday. High school lesbians in a band having embarrassing confused and misunderstood feelings all over the place (with good endings including a kiss for at least one of our couples). I appreciate that this anime is not playing with the 'are they friends who joke about wanting to touch each other's boobs or are they more' line, they outright say they want to be more than friends and then kiss. The music is good too! Recommended if you are feeling like a high school dramedy with good tunes that stays pretty light and is in the 'bubble'.

Recent One-offs, Side Couples, etc.:

My Hot Butch Roommate (actually a 2-parter) aired on bilibili 1, 2) and was subtitled by @douqi7s on YouTube (1, 2) These two are very cute, and this little short does a ton with the very tiny 5 minutes of total runtime it uses. Give the original bilibili uploads a stream so they get views, even if you watch the YT subbed version!

Fufuknows put out a new lesbian short titled The Choices of Two Lesbian Couples in Love on YouTube This was a great short (11 min) film featuring the story of two couples at different stages in their relationship, and the different choices they make about their futures. I really enjoy Fufuknows as queer short filmmakers, and I appreciate that they regularly include lesbian and wlw content in their bi-weekly (as in, every other week) fictional shorts that they produce and release. This one is recommended!

Aim's Lesbian plotline in the new Love Sick 2024 remake concluded (this was not a plotline in the 2014 version and it's one of the changes I really like and that I think works really well) Spoiler: she doesn't get a romance happy ending but her story ends with acceptance from her friends about who she is, which was lovely to watch

There was a brief of-the-week lesbian couple who wanted to marry in Spare Me Your Mercy Spoiler: their story is tragic, which is par for the course in a murder mystery

I am suspecting wlw sides in See Your Love I may end up eating these words but I was getting vibes, and so I'm putting this out in the universe now in hopes I'm right lol

There is a new Korean shorts production company on YouTube called Lovememory (Their first BL ep is out and the GL, First Love, has a trailer)

Mom Ped Sawan started airing but I don't have a source so I can't give any info or links unfortunately. If anyone knows of a subtitled source for this show, please let me know!

My Ex's Wedding came out in Thai theatres waiting for an international source for this too

Korean short film What's In my Bag was uploaded to Matchbox I haven't seen it yet but the trailer is on YouTube if anyone is curious! The film is available now for a small fee on Vimeo (runtime 12 mins).

Sastra film app YouTube channel has several short Cambodian GL series that come out weekly Honestly they are not to my taste but I don't like gatekeeping GL especially from smaller markets. I check in on these time to time and if there are any that I think are great I'll give them a shout-out

Ditto above with JPC media YouTube channel for Thai GL shorts if there are any that stand out to me I'll say so; that being said I haven't had time recently so if I've missed anything good let me know!

Starting soon:

Us the series, Thai, 18 January 2025, most likely YouTube (as this is a GMMTV show) Caveat that this date is a rumour, see comments

Fragrance of the First Flower s2, Taiwanese, 18 February 2025, GagaOOLala ok this isn't that soon but I'm just so excited we're getting this second season after all!

It is so, so nice that we have this much GL to keep track of, I can't complain! This covers a whole month of content and it was a month I was very distracted from my QL consumption so while I always welcome anyone pointing out stuff I missed, I would particularly appreciate it this round.

[bluebelleisabelle]

Update on my blog!

Hi everyone <3

As the months have gone by, you may have noticed that I’ve posted less and less frequently about Monster High, and I’ve been reposting/making other content for things that I’ve been passionate about recently. I just wanted to come on here and update you on what’s going on with my blog.

Especially because of how active I was in the g3 MH fandom (providing access to links and posting frequently about my favorite characters), I thought it important that I update all the monster high fans that have been interacting with my account for the past few years. You’re all so so wonderful, and I intend to continue to engage with your content and remain your friend/mutual.

To clear things up before I continue… I will still be posting the g3 MH episodes! And my episode list will continue to remain as my pinned post, making it accessible for everyone. Because of my interest being focused on other things, I may require a little bit of support from you guys in finding links to the episodes when they release. You all have already been super helpful and supportive when it comes to sending me episode links, and I would love if you could continue to do that for me as more episodes come out <3

I know of other mutuals that explore different fandoms aside from Monster High, so what I am doing is in no way unusual. I absolutely love hearing what my mutuals are passionate about outside of our shared interests. But I still wanted to update you all. Especially since my blog (for years) was solely focused on Monster High. Things may be a little bit different, but I’m still the same ‘ol me! I still love Monster High, and I’ll be watching the new episodes when they release <3

For anyone who may be curious (if you haven’t already noticed), I’ve gained an interest in the indie animation series The Amazing Digital Circus, and will likely be posting a lot about that. This may result in a change to my profile picture/name/etc (but I’ll have the same username, no worries. Just look for bluebelleisabelle… I like to keep things consistent lol). At this point, I consider my blog to be multi-fandom, with a particular focus on TADC right now. I promise I’m still the same person, and I absolutely adore all the MH mutuals I’ve met. I’d love to continue chatting with you all! Never hesitate to reach out :)

I’d considered making a separate blog for TADC, but I’ve heard that sometimes issues can pop up with having more than one blog. I didn’t want to risk any one of my blogs being deleted or something. Mainly, I’m using my blog as a space for me to post about things I’m really passionate about, and for you to come along with me for the ride. And I’m sure that I’ll still make the occasional MH post ;) You all are wonderful!! Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk <3

[crazed-reviews]

Review: Spirit Untamed "Miradero Festival Lucky and Spirit" doll and horse from Mattel

Recently, I've reviewed a few dolls from DreamWorks Animation's television series Spirit Riding Free, which ran from 2017 to 2020, about a 12-year old girl from the city named Fortuna "Lucky" Prescott, who adjusts to life on the frontier, and befriends a wild stallion who she calls Spirit.

In 2021, DreamWorks released a new film, called Spirit Untamed, which was essentially a reboot of the series. It was basically a modified and extended version of the series' first episode, "Lucky and the Unbreakable Spirit". It followed Lucky as she moved from the city to Miradero, meets and befriends Spirit, and becomes friends with two girls, Abigail and Pru. It also added new elements, such as a group of thieves that steals horses from Spirit's herd, which Lucky, Pru, and Abigail bring upon themselves to save.

Overall, it was a cute watch, and I'd probably rewatch it. The animation alone was great, Lucky and Spirit's bond was sweet, and Abigail had many funny lines like she did in the series, and she wasn't as airheaded as she was in the series, which I liked.

In 2020, prior to the release of Spirit Untamed, the toy company Mattel released several dolls based off the main characters in their outfits from the movie. They've since extended their line to have playsets, as well as the characters in many other outfits.

Today, I'm taking a look at the Miradero Festival Lucky and Spirit. My sister received it for her birthday the other day, and let me review it. It retails for $24.99, but it was purchased on sale for $13.99.

Note: this review mentions spoilers for Spirit Untamed. This set alone is a bit of a spoiler, but I digress. Proceed with caution.

Here's the pair together. I think they look pretty cute together! Spirit seems to be a touch small in scale to Lucky (or maybe it's Lucky who's large compared to Spirit?), but not small enough to look weird, like many other Mattel fashion doll horses. (like how some Barbie dolls tower high over their tiny horses).

Here's Lucky as she came out of the package. She's wearing a pink dress with purple ruffles trimming the bottom and top.

I think it's a decent rendition of the dress Lucky wears to the Miradero Festival at the end of the movie. In the movie, it had once belonged to her late mother, but her aunt tweaked it to fit Lucky. The doll is wearing a simplified version of the dress, but looking at the dress, I don't feel like it's lacking.

The ruffle on the top of the blouse has pale purple flowers that match the flowers on Spirit's saddle pad. The bottom ruffle has three thin wavy lines in the same light purple as the flowers. The waist is trimmed with a purple ribbon "belt". The skirt is a touch longer in the back than the front, which is shorter to show off her boots.

Lucky also comes wearing a pair of brown boots. I'll touch on those more in a moment.

Lucky has 7 points of articulation, with movement at her:

Head

Shoulders

Hips

Knees

Her articulation reminds me of the small Just Play Spirit Riding Free dolls, except Lucky feels much sturdier and more flexible than those dolls, which was a pleasant surprise.

Here's a closeup of Lucky wearing her headband, which looks like a circlet of pink roses. It seems like an odd choice, but is still cute. In the movie, she had two flowers clipped into her hair on either side.

Lucky has tan skin, green eyes, and pinkish brown lips in a slight smirk. This particular doll's lips are printed a touch high. I'm not a huge fan of the line painted on the right corner of her mouth, it clashes with the molded intent.

Overall, I really like her face! I wasn't a fan of it at all from the stock photos I had seen of her, which made her smile seem a bit gremlin-like. I will say, her smile seems a touch wide. In the movie, Lucky's mouth was actually pretty small, she only had a wide smile like this once or twice. However, I'm giving it a pass, since I believe Mattel was going off of the promotional images, a lot of which showed her with a wide grin.

Lucky also has reddish brown hair with a center part that goes past her waist, with a slight curl to it. It's actually very soft, though quite unruly. I had to break out my spray bottle and comb to get it somewhat neat for photos. It's also incredibly thick! I haven't seen a Mattel fashion doll with such densely rooted hair in like a decade, so I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, she could probably stand to have a bit less hair!

Here's a better look at Lucky's boots, which once belonged to her late mother. They're brown, with molded heart indents and flames, which are painted red. They slip off with a slit in the backs, and stay nice and snug on Lucky's boots. They bare a great resemblance to Lucky's boots in Spirit Untamed. Unfortunately, I was unable to say the same thing about Just Play's Spirit Riding Free dolls from 2017. The small Lucky dolls had plain black boots with no painted or molded flame pattern, so these are a great step up.

The flames are much more subtle than Lucky's boots in Spirit Riding Free, which had orange, red, and yellow flames, as well as shooting stars on the sides. At first glance, they just look like swirls.

And here's Spirit! He has a (very long) rooted mane, and a molded forelock and tail. He's mostly unarticulated, but has articulation at his neck, which can look up, down, and a bit to the left and right.

I feel like he resembles Spirit from Spirit Riding Free more than Spirit from Spirit Untamed. I think it's his the combination of his "nice" eyebrows, forelock, and color that makes him resemble the series Spirit more than the movie Spirit. In the series, Spirit's quite orange, and has a shorter, neater forelock, and a generally pleasant expression. In the movie, Spirit's a more yellow buckskin color, with a longer forelock, and intense, thick eyebrows, paired with heavy... eyeliner?? Spirit needs to give me his makeup and eyebrow routine.

He has a slightly bendable clear clip attached to his back, which looks like the top of a doll stand. It's for Lucky to stay secure while sitting on him. It looks a bit unfortunate without Lucky sitting on him, just a stand protruding from his spine.

ETA 3/15/23: As it turns out, the clip IS removable! It slides in and out. Just took me two weeks to figure it out, haha.

I kind of wish it was removable, but I imagine kids would lose it quite easily, and then he'd have an unfortunate hole in his spine.

I noticed Spirit had a molded symbol on his raised hoof. It looks to be a silhouette of Spirit and Lucky in a semi-circle. I've noticed this sane symbol on other Spirit Untamed merchandise, so I assume this is the new logo used for official Spirit merchandise and stuff, rather than the galloping horse that was used for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and Spirit Riding Free merchandise.

Here's Spirit wearing his wreath/necklace thing, and saddle pad? Blanket? I'm not sure.

The wreath looks like a variety of flowers, and matches Lucky's circlet. It has no closures, and is just molded in a circle, so it needs to be contorted a bit to fit over Spirit's ears. The blanket is purple, and has alternating pale purple and orangy pink flowers. It has an elastic strap that goes across his stomach to hold it in place, and a T-shaped hole to fit it over the doll stand waist clip.

Spoilers for Spirit Untamed below:

Towards the end of the movie, Lucky lets Spirit go back to his herd and be wild and free, so he didn't actually go to the Miradero Festival with her. Even if he did, I doubt he'd wear this. Maybe in the series, (in later seasons, he ended up a lot more chill, and occasionally let Lucky put a wreath on him) but in the movie, he's a lot more firm, standing his ground about not wearing tack or anything of the like.

It still makes for a super cute matching outfit with Lucky though, haha. I'm a sucker for matching rider/horse outfits and tack. Sorry, Spirit. You're just really cute in this, so you'll be wearing it.

Here you can see the hole in the blanket. It lifted a bit here, but usually lays pretty flat.

Here's Lucky sitting on him without his tack. Using the clip, she has a tendency to float a few centimeters above his back, rather than sitting flesh against it. Thankfully, her dress masks it, but I imagine it's much more noticeable on the Lucky dolls that have pants.

If you just plop her on him without adjusting her dress, it likes to ride all the way up to her hips (after all, you wouldn't typically ride a horse in a dress). It takes a bit of maneuvering, but her dress can actually lay quite nicely on Spirit's sides while she sits on him.

Lastly, here's Lucky and Spirit with all of their outfit pieces on. They're really an adorable pair, and I may have to buy myself some of the Spirit Untamed dolls (the Picnic Friends Lucky and Spirit set is tempting...)!

They feel like decent quality, and while not perfect, bare a good enough resemblance to the movie characters they represent.

I can imagine many kids (and teens such as myself, as well as adults) having lots of fun with this pair, imagining new adventures for Lucky and Spirit to go on.

I definitely recommend this pair. I do believe they're worth full retail, but are even better on sale.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

April 2021 Part 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. 

Ongoing Series - Thai

Second Chance Ep 3 - this is proper YA, they are dealing with actual high school issues, picking uni, first crushes, online dating, etc... We even got a senior prom trope which almost never happens in Thai stuff (just the freshman uni competition variant). Standard plot pacing means PaperFah’s kiss was too early, might indicate we’re moving to uni in the second half of the series? Tropes included: let me feed you, hand hold, black & white striped shirt, floppy drunk & first kiss. 

Y-Destiny Ep 3 - the first MaxNat ep. Such fun to see them playing different characters. This one is enemies to lovers, tutor/student, but it’s using the “poor little rich kid loose cannon” archetype. Nat is doing his best, but it’s leaving me cold. Lots of tropes tho: boyfriend’s closet, floppy drunk, pillow clutch, the loom & water bottle. 

Lovely Writer Ep 8 - solid installment, good use of many tropes. I really like the leads and I’m glad there isn’t much side dish action, SibGene gave us: punish, touch your face, boyfriend claiming, kissing, sleep cuddling, symmetry, rooftop, cheek kiss, hand hold, and pillow clutch. 

Call It What You Want Ep 3-4 - couldn’t find the subs, don’t really care, will watch if it crosses my radar, otherwise I’m just not into it.  

Brothers Ep 11 - the “everyone wants Chol” show continues (but WHY?), he and Tri are cute together, and now I kinda just want Prab to end up with the twins. I’m confused by the teachers, but Boston showed up (from UWMA), and my boys KhunKaow got together (YES!), so I’m ultimately delighted with the episode. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 2 - the makeover happened, and we go from cute with glasses and braces to cute without them. (I’m reminded of those 90′s Pygmalion teen movies where the girl has glasses + ponytail and then *GASP* does not and *GASP* she’s HOT. This was the BL version.) Meanwhile, writers better be careful with Pi, he’s getting too tsundere to like. Did you see they gave AJ a 2gether music intro & pick up line? Well, it’s actually his brother JJ who plays Ohm in 2g. I cackled. GMMTV - you so cheeky. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai 

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 5 - half way point. My poor confused babies. It was a really sweet episode... if what happened before hadn’t happened in the way that it had. Also, these boys have a GREAT friendship but are probably the worst advice givers ever. 

Most Peaceful Place (Vietnam) Ep 3 fin - so cute! Our boys confessed and got together. There was an adorable mutual kiss (I love me a mutual, like Ingredients). Afterwards, they actually seemed to communicate with each other about both sex and their relationship. OMG. How original for BL! This was the last episode, so the series is short, but I still enjoyed it very much. RECOMMENDED. 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 1-2 - oh boy this one is rough, we started out with homophobia child abuse and moved on to family drama + drunken dub-con one night stand. But production values and subs are better than normal for Vietnam (You Are My Boy levels) + our queer babies are out & proud + it’s higher heat + I’m weak. So I’m watching. 

Word of Honor (China) Ep 25-27 - honestly not much happened, lots of back story. Things are looking dire for the ghosts unless they can turn the Scorpion (I LOVE HIM, he’s my precious deadly baby). Don’t know how they managed to make loosing a battle with an immortal sword god ex-friend cute... but they did. Did some calculations and at 36 eps, mathematically speaking, ep 30 will be the equivalent of a standard BL ep 11. Should I be scared for next week? 

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) Ep 1-2 - it’s so effing adorbs, soft bois do old fashioned tropes like arranged marriage + evil stepsisters meets the more modern fake relationship + secret identity in a surprisingly comfortable mix. It launched with baby is a floppy drunk, forced proximity, performative I saw you feed him, and some fun gay panic. It’s a lot lighter and faster paced than I was expecting, but this is Korea so I don’t know why I’m surprised. 

Stand Alones 

K-pop band OnlyOneOf dropped a new MV that is basically BL bait, using many of the tropes we know and love. I promise I’m not trying to lure anyone into K-pop I just thought it was interesting how consciously they’re yaoi dipping. 

Spin-off We Best Love Fighting Mr. 2nd, Shou Zhen | the Only Love Letter Once Written (SERIOUSLY WITH THE TITLES TAIWAN?) anyway there’s a something or other 25 minutes featuring Pei Shou Yi and his boy that aired Friday. It’s about 10 minutes of reboot footage with 15 min of new content, mostly set in the past. It entirely rests on Chih Tian Shih’s acting, fortunately for us he’s great. However, it doesn’t substantially change or add to these characters’ arcs from the finale of WBL season 2. I don’t know if there will be more or if this was just an extra footage fan service. 

COLOR RUSH GOT ITS MOVIE!!! Okay this is almost the tipping point for me to get Viki Standard. It’s listed at 1:56 minutes long but the original series had only c.120 running time - that is a lot of new content. Although i was disappointed by To My Star’s movie I loved Wish You’s, so I am hoping Color Rush got Wish You level treatment. That said, I feel Color Rush the series is damn near perfect already, hard to improve on perfection. 

Breaking News

Close Friend the series got an updated trailer featuring MaxNat (no subs) so if you like them in Y-Destiny or in Why R U get ready for them to play different characters again, this time for a sports romance segment. Like Y-Destiny, Close Friend looks to be another series of vignettes (Original trailer) coming April 22. 

2gether the movie (Thai trailer) was intended release April 22 but is now postponed due to a surge in C19 cases in Thailand.

Tell the World I Love You, a Thai BL movie that was supposed to release last week, is similarly delayed.  

My Ride has been postponed indefinitely with no airing date. 

The Miracle of Teddy Bear got a teaser vid, no eng subs. 

Gossip

Thai BL actors Nanon (Bad Buddy), Yoon (YYY), and Mark Siwat (LBC, Bite Me) have tested positive for C19. Press releases stated they’re fine, tho filming has paused fore their various projects, obvs. (No word on whether Nanon’s current project was Bad Buddy or not, although it seems likely given his recent Arm Share episode.) 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

[scotianostra]

Happy 58th Birthday, singer and actress Lorraine McIntosh born 13th May 1964 in Glasgow.

Lorraine was brought up in Cumnock, Ayrshire from about the age of three.  She has been a member of one of Scotland’s favourite bands Deacon Blue since they formed in Glasgow in 1985.

Lorraine didn’t have an easy upbringing, she lost her mother and she said her Dad coped for a while then fell apart, hitting the bottle he started missing rent payments which led to them being evicted, she said the council waited until she had turned 18, a week after that the were out. In an interview for The Big Issue Lorraine poured her heart out saying………..

“I got a phone call from a social worker saying I wasn’t to go home, as dad had been evicted. I was at the bus stop with my friend, but couldn’t get on the bus. She phoned her mum and I ended up staying with them at first.  No clothes, no nothing. We lost everything. It just got put in the street. And the saddest thing was I lost all my mum’s things, her clothes, wee bits of jewellery, all put on the street. Gone.”

I empathise with this entirely except I actually got home from school and found all our belongings on the street after we got evicted, I was 13 at the time………..

Lorraine was a regular on the Scottish soap, River City, she has also appeared in three  episodes of Taggart  playing different roles, more recently she turned up on Outlander last year as Mrs. Sylvie, the owner of a popular brothel in the town of Cross Creek. Also last year  Deacon Blue’s 10th album, City Of Love, shot to No 4 in the UK album rankings the week before lockdown, giving the Glasgow outfit their biggest chart success since 1994.

During the pandemic, as well as coping with the strain of lockdown, Lorraine, who lives with Ricky in Glasgow, was taken ill with coronavirus in the early stages of the outbreak.

She said: “It has taken quite a while to get over it completely. I was in bed for three weeks, and then recovered.”

In 2020 Lorraine joined up with the Simon Community’s Nightstop campaign, to encourage people to open their homes to vulnerable young people. The Nightstop service offers young people aged 16 to 25 a safe place to stay when they find themselves in a crisis. All the volunteer hosts are fully vetted and trained. Since starting in Glasgow last year, eight families have provided 96 nights of emergency accommodation. She and her husband, Deacon Blue frontman Ricky Ross, are considering signing up as hosts – but only if the Simon Community think that their high profile won’t get in the way.

I really like Lorraine, and Ricky’s humanity,  specifically Lorraine visited Rwanda  two years ago to raise awareness of sexual violence against women when she was moved to tears by the testimony of victims. She has recently spoken out against the plan to send refugees coming to the UK to the country and  said the country was still recovering from a genocide inflicted during the civil war in 1994 and for ministers to consider sending asylum seekers there is deplorable.

On her trip, she heard of shocking conditions, including child slavery, youngsters being burned to death, and rape being used as a weapon of war to destroy communities.

On her final day in Rwanda, she made a pilgrimage to one of the most infamous genocide sites in the country called Nyamata where thousands were slaughtered in and around a church.

She said: “I was unprepared for the sight of thousands of items of clothing from the fallen folded and piled up on the church pews. The ceiling pockmarked with bullets and a line around the bottom of the wall which our guide tells us is the blood line from the carnage. A river of blood. In the gardens outside 50,000 people lie buried.

On the music front, Deacon Blue recently played The Hydro in Glasgow to a sell out audience. The band released their tenth studio album entitled Riding on the Tide of Love in February this year, they next play in Scotland on July 9th on Edinburgh Castle Esplanade, they have other gigs before and after this throughout Europe. 

[tapping-away]

My take on a potential Santa Clarita Diet season 4, in the form of episode synopses because I’m terrible at committing to writing long things, but I also really wanted to explore how a fourth and final season could have gone. Let me know what you think of it.

Santa Clarita Diet S4

1. Joel is now a zombie; things are pretty good, he’s a bit looser, a bit more carefree, slight undertones of being a bit more dangerous than anticipated. Sheila and Abby decide to keep a close eye on him (sorry I didn’t go into a lot of detail here, wasn’t sure how to start it all off)

2. Sheila and Abby think maybe things will be fine; it takes some getting used to, but they end up having a lot of fun and think that’s just how it’ll go; Joel gets his motorcycle back out and starts using it; he and Rick talk motorcycles, and Joel is revealed as bisexual as he flirts with Rick. He goes for a ride and comes back at night, when no ones awake, covered in blood under his helmet and jacket; there’s a report on the news the next day of a brutal crime scene and a missing person, Joel turns the tv off before anyone else sees it

3. Abby begins questioning her relationship with Eric and struggles to figure out how she feels for him; learning her father is bi has made her start to consider other options she hadn’t had time to consider before then; Sheila learns about the murder that happened in the next city and is starting to worry; she goes to their storage unit to get more food and is shocked to find there’s another body in there; Joel reassures her that it was a bad person and that it wasn’t planned, but it worked out; Sheila can’t argue when she knows she’s done the same; She keeps it from Abby

4. Abby is flirted with by Winter who then asks her out and is uncertain how to respond. She tells Winter she’ll let her know; Eric notices acting odd when he comes by and Abby tries to steer the conversation away, to Eric’s confusion; Sheila tries to talk to Joel about where he was two nights ago and he says he’d just been out riding until he ran into a supposed drug dealer who he killed; Sheila asks Anne and Rick about the bloody crime scene that happened and what they know about the missing person, she learns it was someone from Joel’s high school and gets further suspicious of her husband; Joel says he had nothing to do with it and gets angry that Sheila suspects him, and Abby overhears while on her way to talk to her parents about things; Joel storms out when Abby starts questioning him as well. That night Joel pulls up outside an apartment building, he takes off his helmet and grins

5. Joel doesn’t come home the next day and Sheila and Abby are getting very concerned, they talk to Eric and try to get back in contact with Dr Wolf. Learning that they found the reason for the metamorphosis, the clams, Dr Wolf decides to look into them and attempt to figure out a true cure. Sheila goes looking for Joel with Abby and Eric, and is concerned when she’s a tv displaying news of another reported bloody scene with no body in sight. Joel is revealed to be at Ron’s place

6. While at Ron’s, Joel starts questioning him, revealing that he thinks Ron or someone Ron turned is behind the murders happening in town. Ron tries to deny it but Joel terrifies him into revealing that he turned Chris and Christa, he doesn’t know their connection to the Hammonds but did tell them everything about being undead. Joel remembers what Sheila said about the first person who got killed being from their high school and realizes Chris and Christa are responsible. He threatens Ron with death if someone else dies because of what he did or if Sheila or Abby end up hurt. Ron is left terrified and makes a phone call.

7. Dr Wolf calls Sheila and tells her she managed to locate some of the clams and is running tests. She posits the theory that the undead could possibly be able to consume the clams instead of humans, after seeing a clam ingest a finger of an undead person. Sheila is excited at this prospect but still hopes to find a cure. Abby and Eric talk about what’s been going on after Eric sees Abby staring at Winters name in her phone. Abby admits she isn’t sure about who she is anymore or how she feels about him, and Eric- while clearly disappointed- tells her that she should take the time to figure things out and that he’ll always at least be her friend. They hug but before Abby can do anything with the number, Joel finally returns. She runs up to her dad to confront him, and follows him into the house with Eric. Sheila thinks it’s only Abby and starts talking about Dr Wolfs findings before she sees Joel. The episode ends with them all looking at each other

8. Sheila tries to make up an excuse to keep Joel from realizing she is looking for a cure, uncertain of how the new him would react, and is shocked when he seems almost hopeful about the idea of not having to murder people anymore. Abby demands that Joel say where he’s been and if he had anything to do with the murders, to which Joel is still angry they suspect him but tells them that he went to Ron’s to ask if he had anything to do with it. He reveals that Ron turned Chris and Christa and told them everything, and that he thinks they’re behind the recent murders happening. Sheila wants to tell Anne or Rick but Joel is worried about what would happen if they did, as weapons won’t work and it could result in zombies being discovered by the police. Eric reminds them that that might happen anyway if there are any clues found that lead to the true culprits. Joel and Sheila decide they’ll have to kill Chris and Christa, but Abby doesn’t want to leave Christian an orphan even if she hates him. The family are unsure what to do.

9. It’s two days later and the Hammonds are still undecided on what to do; meanwhile there have been two more murders that have occurred- making four total- of someone from their high school. Anne is getting suspicious of the fact the Hammonds went to school with the missing victims, but her faith in Sheila has her believing that it’s a devil of sorts trying to go after Sheila. Abby meanwhile decides to call Winter after deciding she wants a break from all the weird shit happening. She sets up a date for that same afternoon and ends up kissing her. Abby finally gets a chance to talk to her dad about the fact he’s bi and discuss her own uncertainty of where she’s at. The two reconnect over the conversation as Joel shows he’s still her dad even if he’s different, just like Sheila is still her mom. Cut to Dr Wolf in her lab as she manages to synthesize a cure that completely reversed the undead state

10. Sheila talks with Joel about Abby and about what they should do. He says they’ll figure something out and that Abby will be fine. Eric comes in at the same time Abby appears and it’s a bit awkward , but Eric reveals that Dr Wolf is on her way there with a synthesized potential cure and with some of the clams in a farm to see if they can eat them instead of people. The Hammonds are overjoyed at the idea of getting anywhere closer to normal, but before they can get too excited there’s a knock at the door. Joel goes to answer it and is promptly stabbed in the chest and shoved out of the way to reveal Chris and Christa, who close the door behind them. They reveal to the Hammonds and Eric they are the ones behind the murders and that Ron called them after Joel left to warn them that he was on to them. Joel, after yanking the knife out, asks them what exactly they plan to do. Chris says that they are going to frame the Hammonds as the murderers, kill them, and set the house on fire to make it look like they went on the run after disposing of evidence. Abby tries to get them to see sense, tells them to think of their son, but the two seem indifferent to what may happen to Christian. This makes Joel and Sheila furious, and Joel tries to stab Christa- who’s closer- with the knife, but Chris manages to pull a gun on Eric before Joel can do more than cut Christa’s face. Abby is terrified and Eric tries to tell her it’s okay, but Chris hits him with the gun to make him be quiet. As this is all happening, Dr Wolf arrives outside but hears the commotion and tries to figure out what to do. She notices Rick in a police car next door. Inside a stalemate is happening as the Hammonds try to get Chris to release Eric. A knock at the door interrupts them all.

11. Chris and Christa tell them to answer the door, as the fact their cars are outside would make it suspicious if they don’t answer. Joel goes to the door and finds Dr Wolf on the other side. She hurries to pretend to be someone from the neighborhood and makes conversation while subtly asking Joel what’s happening through her phone text. Joel mouths the word ‘zombies’ at her and gestures to the newspaper sitting at their door with the murders on the front page. Dr Wolf seems to understand and opens her briefcase. She hands Joel a syringe and mimes poking it in the neck. Joel realizes she wants him to use it on Chris or Christa to because Dr Wolf said that previous tests resulted in death of the clams and that working tests still resulted in pain during the transformation back. She also gestures at Rick next door and Joel nods at her, telling her ‘You’d be better off asking my neighbor Rick for help about that kind of thing.’ Agreeing to her getting Rick to help. Joel closes the door and hide the syringe in his back pocket, before walking back. Outside Dr Wolf makes her way quickly to Ricks house and knocks on the door, proceeding to tell him that she thinks someone dangerous is in the Hammonds house. Back inside Joel returns and says it was someone new to the neighborhood asking for directions, and that he sent her away, tacking on that she introduced herself as a doctor or something so the others know who it actually was. Joel moves towards Sheila and Abby and shows them the syringe, while Chris and Christa talk about what to do next. Joel catches their attention telling them to let Eric go and take him hostage instead, saying that a bullet to the brain is just as effective on him as it would be on Eric. Christa doesn’t think it necessary but Chris overrides her in an urge to have his old rival in such a vulnerable position. Joel walks forward and suddenly yanks Eric out of the way before jamming the needle in Chris’ neck. Chris’ gun goes off as he collapses in pain. Joel turns to go after Christa next but she’s coming at him with the knife, right before she can stab him another shot goes off and Joel turns to see Sheila holding the gun Chris had. As Christa falls dead, Rick comes in with Dr Wolf and takes control of the situation. He asks what’s happening and the Hammonds tell the truth, for once, that the murderers aren’t them and that they were about to be framed. Rick calls in backup after cuffing Chris, telling the Hammonds that he’s glad none of them were hurt. They all hug, including Eric, the screen fades to black. Two months later shows things back to normal again, as Abby comes down in the morning to tell her parents she’s going out with Winter on a date and has plans with Eric later as well and so won’t be home till night. They tell her to have fun, and not to do anything they wouldn’t do. The scene ends with Joel and Sheila shown either eating normal food or eating the red clams, implying the cure didn’t work or that they didn’t take it.

[1dffchallenges]

Growing Pains

Written By: @rosegoldsweetpea​

Characters: (Daniella/Harry)

Summary: When a wish on a sixteenth birthday candle goes wrong, Daniella finds herself ten years into the future. Navigating a new boyfriend, her best friend who is no longer her best friend, and her crumbling relationship with her family, Daniella finds out that adulthood is not everything she ever imagined.

A “13 Going on 30″ AU

Warnings: Language

I had boobs.

I should preface this by saying that I’ve technically always had boobs. They existed before this moment. But they had always been tiny. They were what my mother affectionately called “mosquito bites.” As I held my new boobs in my hands, however, I could tell these were not mosquito bites. These were actual boobs that I saw on models in magazines. I wasn’t wearing a bra— which I hadn’t needed to wear anyway because the size of my boobs had always left something to be desired. Lifting my silk sleep shirt away from my boobs, I examined every inch of them. Sure enough, there was a small scar underneath, like someone had cut my boob open with a knife. 

“I got a boob job?” I whispered to myself.

“What did you say, babe?”

Along with suddenly having boobs, apparently there was someone in my house.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, the one thing my father taught me to do whenever there was a stranger around me. The man standing behind me had floppy brunette hair and tattoos covering his arms. Definitely not someone who would ever be allowed in my house, per my father’s rules. In fact, I think my father would have an aneurysm if I ever brought home a boy that had tattoos. This mystery boy’s eyes widened when I screamed in his face. “Babe, are you okay?” He moved like he was going to rush over to me and I took an immediate leap back.

“Who are you? Why are you in my house?” My voice screeched out, reaching an octave I knew was probably unpleasant to his ears. 

His eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?” He moved again, but I was quick to mirror his movements, scooting backwards. I nearly fell on my ass because there was a couch in the way of my step, but I managed to right myself before I did any real damage. “Daniella, are you okay?”

“How do you know my name?” I asked, grabbing the nearest object to use as a weapon. It happened to be a pillow, so it wasn’t very effective, but it made me feel better. I could throw it at him and block his vision while I found the kitchen in this place and got a knife. “Who are you?” I asked again.

“Liam. Your boyfriend of three and a half years.”

“I don’t know a Liam!” I argued, throwing the pillow in his direction. I didn’t stick around to see if he caught it or not before I was tumbling through the house. I wasn’t familiar with the layout of this house, like I had been with the floorplan of my childhood home, which I was fairly certain I had fallen asleep in last night. This was some kind of apartment, decorated with too many neutrals for my taste. There was a giant mirror I passed by, decorated around its edge with swirling cream wood and gold accents. I managed only a glance in its reflection as I moved, but what I saw made me stop in my tracks. 

In the reflection was me, only it wasn’t me. Last I remembered, I did not have a boob job, my hair was short, and my eyebrows had looked horrendous because I had accidentally plucked them too much. This Daniella had long hair that fell to her lower back and her eyebrows looked like they had been recently waxed. And then there was, obviously, the boob job. “What the hell is going on?” I exclaimed, sure that this mirror was some fancy one that only Bill Gates owned. It showed you what you wanted to look like. Or, if it was a real mirror and not a billionaire one, it was obviously broken or something. 

“Daniella, sit down,” Liam said placatingly, his voice soft and soothing. He didn’t touch me, which I appreciated, but he kept his arms out in the likely case that I would fall to my knees as I dragged myself to the tan couch in the middle of the living room of the random apartment. “Do you need water? Did you have a bad dream?”

“I don’t know what’s happening,” I stuttered out, my breathing coming quickly. I hadn’t had a panic attack since I was thirteen, when I had thought my best friend Harry was going to move away. “Where am I?”

“You’re in your apartment.” Liam gently sat on the couch next to me. “I woke up and you were gone. Then I came out here and you’re just standing in the living room. Do you think you had a sleepwalking episode?”

I didn’t sleepwalk. At least, I didn’t think I did. But this Liam guy was insinuating that I did, in fact, sleepwalk often enough for him to be concerned about it. “You’re really my boyfriend?” I asked hesitantly, my breathing still shallow. “You didn’t try to drug me and kidnap me, right?”

“What?” The word left his mouth in such a surprised and offended tone that I knew it wasn’t true. “No.”

“Tell me facts about myself, so I know you aren’t just lying,” I demanded, trying to keep my tears at bay and my breath from coming in and out shallowly.

He didn’t even take a second to think. “Your name is Daniella Araceli Rodriguez. Your birthday is February first. Your mother’s name is Alejandra. You once threw up on a cast member at Disneyland. When you were younger, you wanted to be a veterinarian, but then found out that they were the ones who euthanized animals and you started crying. You broke your arm in the seventh grade because your old best friend Harry dared you to flip over some monkey bars and you fell.” 

Okay, so obviously this boy knew me. Either that, or he was a fantastic stalker. 

“Liam, I think I’m going crazy,” I whispered, assured at least a little that this Liam guy actually knew me. “The last thing I remember is my sixteenth birthday. My friend Harry was there, and some girls from my school. Gianna’s brother was bringing beer...” I trailed off.

“How about I call Gianna? I’m sure she’d be able to help you. I want you to stay on the couch until she gets here, okay? I don’t think it’s a good thing you can’t remember anything.”

“I’m still friends with Gianna?” I asked breathlessly.

Liam’s brows furrowed again. “Babe, Gianna is your best friend. I’m gonna go call her, okay? Maybe she can call into work for the two of you.”

I could do nothing but nod as Liam stood from the couch and made his way over to the kitchen counter. I could see his phone resting there and a little tiny key rack with two sets of keys in it. Obviously, this Liam guy and I were very close. Close enough, I noticed, for us to live together. Upon my survey of the apartment, I realized there were pictures of us plastered everywhere, as well as a pretty cocoa-skinned girl with wild curls. Her face was familiar to me, albeit a little bit older. So Liam hadn’t been lying. I was really still friends with Gianna.

Harry was nowhere in the pictures.

This was weird to me for two reasons. First of all, Harry loved being in photos. Though we had both been pretty nerdy in high school, he was the life of the party. So I found it hard to believe he would have stayed out of the pictures that were now decorating my living room. The second reason I found it weird was because Harry was my best friend in the entire world. 

The circumstances of my friendship with Harry went as follows: we met in kindergarten when a nasty first grader had stolen my lunch in the cafeteria and Harry had stood up to him. The first grader ended up punching him in the nose. I had felt so bad that I had burst into tears and held up the end of my shirt for Harry to use as a tissue to block the blood as we awkwardly stumbled to the nurse’s office. Our mothers had arrived there at the same time, Anne Styles freaking out because her son’s nose was bleeding and my own mother Alejandra freaking out because the bottom of my shirt was bloody.

The next day, I asked my mother to make another sandwich and pack extra oreos. I sat next to Harry at lunch and thanked him for being so nice. And thus, our friendship had begun. 

It only grew stronger when I realized that he lived down my street, just a short walk and even shorter bike ride away. There wasn’t a day that went by where I wasn’t begging my parents to ride down to Harry’s house. Their answer was usually different renditions of “if Anne is okay with it, then we are too” and since Anne Styles was an angel on Earth, she was usually okay with it. 

“Babe,” I heard Liam say from the kitchen. He seemed to be off the phone, if him holding it in his hand was anything to go by. “Gianna called the both of you out of work and is on her way here.”

“Okay,” I mumbled, “are you gonna be here too?”

A guilty look crossed his face. “I...can be if you need me.”

“What do you do?”

He looked concerned again. As he should be. If he was telling the truth and we had been dating for the past three and a half years, shouldn’t I know what he did for work? “I’m a foster care recruiter.”

My mouth fell open. I was sure I looked like a fish. I was apparently dating someone who was incredibly good-looking, seemed nice, and worked as a foster care recruiter? “That sounds like a pretty important job. You should go.”

“You’re pretty important to me, too,” he argued.

“I’ll be fine. Really. I...remember Gianna and I’ll probably be more comfortable with her around anyway.” He still looked hesitant, so I reached out and grabbed his hand in my own. His fingers dwarfed mine. “Go. I’m fine. Hopefully Gianna can help me sort this out.”

He looked like he wanted to kiss me, but thought better of it. Instead, he pressed a hesitant kiss to my knuckles. “Alright. I’ll be back around six, okay? If you need me at all, call me. I’m serious, babe. My boss will understand.”

“I will.” Releasing his hand, I gave him a wobbly smile. I wondered if he could tell I was about to burst into tears. “I promise.”

Liam seemed as if he’d rather be shot in the foot than leave my side when I was so obviously going through something neither of us knew how to deal with, but he nodded and stood from the couch. He grabbed one set of the keys on the little rack and put his phone in the pocket, grabbing a blazer from a fancy and antique looking coat rack near the front door. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered pathetically.

And then the door closed behind him.

I spent the next twenty minutes trying to think about the last thing I remembered. We were having a sixteenth birthday party for me in the basement of my childhood home, and I had invited Gianna and a couple of her friends over. Obviously, Harry was there. We were setting up beer pong because Gianna insisted her brother would get us actual beer to play with. Harry had given me a beautiful mini-model of the house he was working on for his theatre tech class. It was pretty much his dream to become a set designer for theatre and cinema. He had produced a small strawberry cupcake from the fridge we had in the basement, which was my absolute favorite flavor in the world. 

What the hell had I wished for when I had blown out the candle? I couldn’t remember.

A knock on the door cleared the fog of my memory, and it was like I couldn’t stand up fast enough. It also felt like my legs were like jelly. By the time I made it to the door, I wouldn’t have been surprised if two minutes had passed even though the walk was only about twenty feet. Yanking it open, I was met with the familiar face of my friend from high school, holding two iced coffees and a little bakery bag. The second she saw me, she smiled.

“Hi, sweetie. You remember me, right? Liam said you were fuzzy on some things.”

I didn’t answer. I just threw myself into her arms.

“Oh thank God,” she cried out, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me as tightly as she could manage. “I would have burst into tears if you said you didn’t remember me.” We stood there clinging to each other, forgetting that the iced coffee was melting and dripping condensation down my back. “I brought you an orange cranberry scone, your favorite. Hopefully this helps.”

I didn’t remember orange cranberry being my favorite. But this was Gianna, and I trusted her a hell of a lot more than I trusted myself right now.

“What is the last thing you remember?” she asked me when we settled onto my couch, the coffee and scone putting something in my empty stomach and making me feel a little better. “And don’t even worry about Nick being upset. I told him that you were having a family emergency.” I didn’t know exactly who Nick was, but using context clues, I was able to guess he was my boss.

“The last thing I remember is my sixteenth birthday party.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Funny. I would have thought you wouldn’t remember that. We got absolutely plastered.”

I didn’t even remember that. Harry gave me his mini-model house, I blew out the candle on my cupcake, my mother and I got into an argument about something…

“I wished my mom would start treating me like an adult,” I said to myself, the words finally clicking into my head. Harry’s fingers, wrapped around the bottom of the cupcake wrapper, grinning as I closed my eyes and blew out through my mouth. Harry complained because I spit on him, but had gotten his revenge when he smashed the cupcake into my face.

“What?” Gianna asked.

“Nothing. Sorry.” My head was spinning. “What do we do?”

“We’re designers for Nicholas Jennings. We’re currently working on some pieces for his summer showcase.”

“Nicholas Jennings?” I breathed out. Nicholas Jennings had just been starting out his career when I was sixteen, but he had already been predicted to be one of the top designers by the end of the decade. He was known for his avant-garde looks that were still wearable for the workplace. “We work for Nicholas Jennings?”

“Work for him? Sweetie, you’re basically his muse,” Gianna stated excitedly. “His entire winter collection was based on that movie you recommended to him. The Iron Giant?”

Another thing that was familiar. Harry and I would sit on the couch in my basement and watch Iron Giant at least twice a week. He always made fun of me for crying, but I knew it made him tear up too. I could only imagine what Nicholas Jennings had come up with if he were using the film as a concept for an entire clothing collection. However, I doubted Nicholas Jennings had fattened himself up with oversalted and greasy, buttered popcorn when watching the movie like Harry and I had.

“And…” I leaned forward, as if it were a secret, whispering even though it was only the two of us in the apartment. “And I got a boob job?”

“And they look fantastic. I know you’re insecure about the scarring it left, but Liam doesn’t mind and your tits look great.”

My hands went up to cup them again, sure I was still imagining this whole thing. Gianna just laughed. 

“Listen, we are going to take today and research what’s going on, yeah? I was reading something about Kleine Levin Syndrome last week, which could be it, but Liam said you weren’t sleepwalking…”

Gianna’s voice trailed off as a lightbulb went off in my head. Research. Research like contacting the only person who could talk me through what the hell was going on at this moment in time. I ignored Gianna’s surprise when I abruptly stood from the couch and walked to the kitchen counter, where my phone was resting. I had an iPhone when I was sixteen, but this was some fancy one that didn’t have a home button. It took me at least six tries to get it open, but when it finally did, I didn’t hesitate to click the phone button.

Gianna stared at me as the other line rang, the little intervals between obnoxious dial tones spent biting my thumb nail. 

“Hey, it’s Harry. Sorry I can’t get to the phone, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you later.”

“Harry!” I shouted, surprised that he still had the same phone number and excited that this meant I could talk to one person who knew me better than anyone else. “It’s Daniella. I really need to talk to you, so call me back when you can. I have the same number. Er, if you don’t remember the number, it’s 205-1340.” I awkwardly pressed the end call button and tossed my phone back onto the counter.

“Harry Styles? That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Gianna stared at me with sympathetic eyes. “Sweetie, we haven’t talked to Harry since high school.”

I think she was expecting me to gasp or something, but instead I snorted. Yeah, right. Harry and I not talking? There was a higher chance I would spontaneously combust. Maybe we weren’t as close as we used to be when I was sixteen, but even that was highly unlikely. Harry was the one person I told everything to. “Okay,” I said, just to placate her, but I was still chuckling a little bit in disbelief.

She gave me a look. “Okay, but...don’t be surprised if he doesn’t call back, okay?”

“He’ll call,” I promised, more certain about this fact than anything else in my life. The most serious fight Harry and I had ever gotten into was when I had accidentally killed his goldfish. He hadn’t spoken to me for three weeks, and the only reason he finally did was because I went to go apologize and burst into tears. Harry was awful when someone was crying. 

“Which reminds me,” Gianna said after several moments, pulling out her phone, “I need to call Nick and say that we’re not going to make it to the party tonight.”

“Party?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. We were invited to the launch of Christian Siriano’s new collection. But Nick will completely understand if you aren’t feeling well.”

I was invited to a collection launch party? I felt the smile on the face widen. At least in the midst of waking up ten years older, I had a pretty decent life. “We don’t have to cancel. As long as you stick by my side, it should be okay.”

“I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“I want to go,” I promised. “Maybe it’ll help me remember something.”

Gianna looked uncertain, but also was biting her lip like she was considering my idea. After a few moments of considering me, she groaned. “Fine. But Liam will want to come to make sure that you’re alright. I’ll call Nick and Rachael.”

“Rachael?”

“Your assistant.”

“Right.” I had an assistant. Sixteen-year-old Daniella was snorting at me right now. “I can call Rachael, if you want to call Nick. What time is the party?”

“Not until eight.” She looked at her watch and sighed. “I’ve got to head out. I’m meeting a potential new employee for lunch. You’ll be okay here by yourself, right?” She looked so worried that I sent her a small grin. 

“I’m doing better. Seeing a familiar face helped. And I know Harry will call back and he’ll help.”

Her face fell. “Right. Harry will call.” She didn’t sound convinced. “Well, if you’re sure you’ll be okay, then I’m off. Call me if you need anything, okay? Or Liam.”

“I will, Gianna. I promise.” I couldn’t stop myself from reaching forward and giving her a giant hug. I honestly didn’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been here to calm me down. “Thank you.”

“I’m always here for you, sweetie,” she whispered, squeezing me back before releasing. “I’ll see you tonight. I’ll have my driver pick you up at around seven forty-five so you don’t have to worry about getting an Uber or anything.”

Gianna left, shutting the door behind her quietly. I could do nothing but stand in the middle of my apartment, staring at the home I’d somehow managed to create for myself, despite my not remembering it. I tried searching through the pictures on my wall to see if I had any with my mother and father, but before I could I remembered Gianna’s words about calling Rachael and took my phone out.

She answered on the second ring. “Hello Miss Rodriguez. How can I help you?”

It was then I realized I had absolutely nothing to say to her. “What are you doing tonight?” was the only thing that blurted out of my mouth.

“Um...staying here to work on that collection concept you asked me to?”

“Oh. Why aren’t you going to the party?” I questioned. If Rachael worked there as my assistant, then wouldn’t she have gotten an invite? Why would she willingly choose to stay and work when there was a freaking Christian Siriano launch party?

“I wasn’t invited, Miss Rodriguez.”

“Well that’s stupid,” I claimed. “I am officially inviting you.”

“You’re...you’re inviting me to a launch party?” She sounded confused, like I’d never interacted with her before. Which was insane. Had Gianna been wrong when she said Rachael was my assistant? “You’ve never done that before.”

“Sure I have!” I did not, in fact, know if I ever had. Then, I had the best idea ever. “Oh! Can you do me a huge favor please?”

“Yes ma’am. What do you need?”

“Could you find out where Harry Styles lives?” Surely Harry wouldn’t mind if I dropped by. I was getting a little anxious as the minutes ticked by without a reply, as Harry usually had his phone glued to him. Since we were both apparently twenty-six now, it was entirely possible he was at work, but I would still feel comfortable knowing I could see him in person rather than texting over the phone. 

“Of course. I’ll email you his address. Is there anything else you need, Miss Rodriguez?”

“Nope, that’s it, Rachael. Thank you! I’ll see you tonight!”

“Right…see you tonight, Miss Rodriguez.”

When I hung up the phone, I had no clue what to do. Being in a body I didn’t really know, in an apartment I wasn’t familiar with, was terrifying. So I decided to take the time to snoop around my own place, starting in the kitchen. I opened up cupboards and drawers, finding fancy chrome silverware and glass plates that were neatly stacked in the cupboard above my kitchen sink. The entire kitchen was decorated with black paint and dark wood, something I never thought my own kitchen would look like. It was sleek and modern and so far from my colorful blue-cabinet and white tile kitchen at my childhood home that it was almost shocking.

Opening up the fridge, I examined its contents. Inside was nothing but vegetables and almond milk. I was pretty sure I had never once had almond milk and there were purple vegetables in one of the drawers. Did purple vegetables even exist? I closed it, suddenly frightened of what Liam and I seemed to eat on a day-to-day basis. Moving out from my kitchen, I examined the living room with passing interest. The one thing I was really concerned about was my bedroom.

This room was nearly as dark as the kitchen, with canned lights dimmed when I flicked the light switch on. It was attached to a bathroom which had a heavenly looking tub. Deciding to start in the bathroom, I rummaged through some of the drawers, finding an expensive Tom Ford cologne that I assumed belonged to Liam. in my own drawers there was a variety of face creams and serums that I had only ever dreamed about purchasing when I was sixteen. 

Before I could examine my bedroom too closely, my phone chirped. I had honestly forgotten I was holding it, so the sound made me jump before I realized it was probably Rachael with Harry’s information. I tried to hurriedly unlock my phone again, still struggling a little with the technology, but managed to get Rachael’s new email opened.

Harry Styles, 515 W 52nd Street. Avalon Clinton apartment complex.

Grinning, I managed to quickly strip my silk sleepwear off and change into the first outfit I found, not bothering to even zip up my boots all the way as I exited my building.

~

Harry’s apartment complex was an incredible building. My jaw dropped when I saw it, figuring that to live somewhere like this, he must have been doing pretty well at whatever he was doing. 

I found the intercom well enough, pressing the button that had H. Styles written on it in cursive script. It crackled to life underneath my touch, and just like drinking a cool sip of water after being dehydrated for thirty days, hearing the deep baritone of Harry’s voice instantly soothed me. “Hello? Who is it?”

“It’s me!” I screamed, nearly sinking in the relief that this was the Harry that I was looking for. “Daniella!” 

“Shit, the fucking thing’s broken again. I can’t hear you, but ring twice if you’re from Amazon. I’ve been waiting on that package for days.”

I didn’t know what he had bought on Amazon and it was most likely important, but I didn’t care. I hit the button twice and the door immediately opened up. Once I checked to make sure I was headed towards the right floor, I scurried inside and into the lobby.

There was a front desk, and the concierge smiled at me when I walked in, but I was on a mission. I hastily made my way to the elevators, pressing the fifth floor button and willing the doors to close faster than they were. Sure I resembled a drunk cheetah with the rush in which I was moving, I almost crashed into Harry’s door when the elevator finally stopped and let me off on his floor.

“Harry!” I demanded, pounding on the door in a series of succinct knocks that portrayed my urgency.

The door swung open and I immediately took a step back. There, standing on the other side of the door, was my best friend in the entire world. Long gone were the shoulder-length strands of curly brown hair that I had grown up with, instead cut short. He had some glasses perched on his nose and something that looked like paint on his hand. He was wearing comfortable looking jogger pants and a white shirt, no shoes or socks on his feet.

In my pleasure to see him, it took me a couple of moments to realize that he did not look equally as pleased to see me.

“Daniella,” he said stiffly, opening the door a little wider and leaning on the threshold. “I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting this.”

I launched myself at him.

He let out a “oof” when our bodies collided, but I was holding onto Harry and suddenly everything seemed okay in the world. My arms wrapped around his neck in a vice-like grip, holding him to me like he might disappear if I loosened my hold even a little. He robotically moved his arms around my shoulders to hug me back, but his stiff posture turned soothing when he realized that on top of squeezing him with all my might, I was also sobbing. 

I prided myself on not being a weepy person, but this entire morning had warranted a good cry, in my personal opinion.

“C’mon inside,” he said softly, gently prying my hands off him. Once we were both inside his apartment, he shut the door and moved to his kitchen. I wondered if I should follow him. Just when I had mustered up enough nerve to take a step, however, he had returned with a tissue in his fingers. “Want to sit?”

I nodded and let him lead me to the colorful orange couch he had in the middle of his living room. Well...living room was a little bit of an overstatement. He lived in a studio apartment, so everything was an open floor plan, save for the small door I saw that led to a bathroom. His place had much more color than mine did, and I found myself jealous at the styling choices. This place was much more me.

“Feeling better?” Harry asked, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. This in itself was weird, considering sitting on a couch with Harry almost always ended up with us sitting as close as we physically could. This was because we were both blanket-hoggers and being close meant neither one of us was trying to jip the other out of their respective half of the blanket. 

“I don’t know what’s going on, H,” I told him, my voice cracking as the emotions of this morning hit me all at once. “I...I think I’ve got amnesia or something. I don’t remember anything past my sixteenth birthday. And then I’ve got Gianna telling me that you and I don’t talk anymore?” I looked over at him and let out a crazed laugh. “How crazy is that?”

“We don’t talk anymore, Daniella,” he replied. “We stopped being friends shortly after your sixteenth birthday.”

Tears gathered in my eyes again. “No, I refuse to believe that. We’re Harry and Daniella. You’re my best friend in the entire world.”

He looked genuinely sorry to be telling me this, but shook his head. “No, Daniella. Not anymore.”

This time, I let the tears fall. My fingers curled in on themselves, balling into fists as I tried to stop myself from biting them or ripping my hair out. We sat in silence for several moments, my heart racing in anxiety because here was Harry, the person I knew most in the world and who knew me in return, and he was saying that we weren’t friends anymore. The bike rides, the late nights watching movies, the careful and soothing hugs he gave me...they were all gone. This Harry didn’t know me, not like I knew him. And who was to say I even knew him anymore?

“Why?” It was the only question I could seem to let escape.

Harry sighed, rubbing his hands over the thighs of his jeans. “I don’t know, Daniella. We just grew apart.” 

“People like us don’t just grow apart, H.”

“We did.”

“There’s got to be a reason!” I exclaimed, and I could hear that my breathing was labored. My chest felt like it was constricting, like someone had taken hold of my lungs and was crushing them between their hands.

He sensed the anxious change in my breathing and his eyes widened. “Hey, hey, Daniella. Take deep breaths for me, okay?” His body shifted off the couch and suddenly he was on his knees in front of me, holding my arms in his hands. He was tall enough to nearly be at eye-level with me. “C’mon, Dani. Breathe. Can you tell me five things you see?”

I was sure I looked a mess, with tears streaming down my cheeks and on the verge of a mental breakdown. “What?” 

“Tell me five things you see, Dani. Count them for me.”

I still couldn’t breathe properly, so his words sounded muffled like we were underwater. But I managed to get the point of his demand. My eyes shifted from his impossibly green ones to find something to latch onto. “You’ve got yellow and red throw pillows on your bed.”

“Good. Count four more for me.”

It was impossible to ignore the soft cadence of his voice. “You’ve got granite countertops. You’ve got playbills on your bookshelf.” It made me wonder if his dreams of designing sets had really worked out. “You’ve got clay on the counter. And there are sculpting tools next to it.”

“There she is,” he said softly, a hand hesitantly raising to brush my hair back from my face, where it was sticking because of the tears. “Now count five things you can feel.”

“The couch. My nail polish. Your shirt.” I brushed my finger against the shoulder of it. “My hair. The paint on your hands.”

He looked down at them, as if remembering. “I scrubbed, but it wouldn’t come off.”

“Typical,” I choked out, giving him a tight smile. My breathing was beginning to even out and return to normal, but I still felt like someone had placed the weight of the world on my shoulders. “What happened, H? Tell me.” I had to know. I had to know why we suddenly weren’t friends, like we had been for our entire lives.

I heard a sigh escape him, but luckily his fingers didn’t retreat. I think if he pulled away, I might have started up on the attack again. “I don’t know, Daniella. We just grew apart. I guess it was you hanging out with Gianna in high school. You just stopped bothering with me. Or maybe it was the funeral—”

“What funeral?” I interrupted.

“C’mon Dani,” he whispered brokenly, “you know what funeral. Don’t make me say it.”

“I don’t remember anything, Harry. I swear to you. I woke up this morning and my...my boyfriend of three and a half years that I don’t remember at all was trying to get me to calm down because I didn’t know who I was. I look like me and feel like me, but at the same time...I don’t? For Christ’s sake, Harry, I’ve gone and gotten myself a boob job!”

He cleared his throat, his cheeks turning pink. “Obviously I hadn’t noticed, Dani. I’m not looking there.”

“It’s hard to miss them!” I was glad this seemed to get a laugh out of him, but he turned serious once again.

“You really don’t remember anything?”

“Not a thing past the night of my sixteenth birthday. The last thing I remember is you giving me my cupcake and then blowing out the candle and you trying to smash it in my face and then...nothing.”

His thumbs on my shoulders began to rub across the fabric of my jacket. It was cold in his apartment, but it was a comfortable kind of cool. To be honest, I hadn’t felt as comfortable this morning as I was sitting here now, with my best friend looking at me like I was something fragile that was about to shatter. At this moment, I didn’t care if he thought I was weak. If it meant that he would explain what the hell was going on and tell me that we could be friends again, I would cry a thousand more tears.

“Dani,” he whispered in a tiny voice, “I’m so sorry.”

“What funeral?” I asked again.

He flinched, like he was avoiding the question. Then, his arms moved to caress my face, anticipating my reaction to his next words. He cradled my cheeks like I was going to fall apart. “Your dad’s.”

I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him, processing his words. That couldn’t be right. I had just spoken to my father less than twelve hours ago, when he had helped me set up a board game table in our basement as asked if we had a couple minutes for a quick round of Operation. My father was always a sore winner. He had purposely jostled the table so I would hit the metal and lose my turn. 

“No, you’re lying,” I mumbled, but I knew deep down that Harry would never lie to me. He was honest to a fault.

“You...you weren’t at the funeral. You and he were in an argument of some kind and you didn’t show up.”

I shook my head, his hands moving with me as he cupped my cheeks. He anticipated the tears, catching them with his thumb the second they started to fall. “No, H,” I groaned out, the feeling of panic twelve times worse with the new news. “No, no, no.” I was a blubbering mess. He didn’t move from his spot, slotted between my thighs and holding my face tightly in his hands. “No, there’s got to be some mistake. I would have gone. I would have.”

“Maybe you did,” he said in a soothing voice, brushing my tears away. “I left pretty early. Maybe you just showed up late.” But we both knew his words were empty. He didn’t truly mean them. “Let’s get you a glass of water, yeah?”

“No!” I clutched onto his fingers, gripping them tight enough to leave bruises. He didn’t pull away or wince in pain. 

“Alright,” he said soothingly, “I won’t go anywhere.”

He allowed me to sit on his couch, crying my eyes out until there were no more tears that could possibly come. Last night, I went to bed with everyone I ever loved in the world content and safe. Now, I had lost my friendship with Harry, I didn’t remember this insanely nice boyfriend I apparently had, and my father was dead. I hadn’t gone to his funeral because of some stupid argument. What argument could have been enough to keep me from attending his funeral?

“What have I done to ruin everything?” I questioned in a teary voice, shaking my head at myself. What the fuck had I done in my life to deserve this? There had to be a reason.

“Don’t think like that, Dani. It wasn’t your fault.”

But obviously it was. Obviously there was something I had done to piss off the universe so much that they took the most important people away from my life. I stood up quickly, suddenly feeling like Harry’s apartment was suffocating me. He let me go without question, but his eyes were trained on me like he was afraid I was going to have another panic attack. “I have to go,” I stuttered out, my body moving towards the door before the sentence fully left my mouth. 

“I think you should stay here until you feel better,” Harry said, kind enough to worry about me even though apparently we weren’t friends anymore.

“I’m sorry for showing up unexpectedly.” They were the only sentiments I managed to get out before I was out of his apartment, rushing towards the elevator. I didn’t know why I was running away from Harry. All I knew was that it was imperative that I get out of his apartment and away from the life I’d apparently fucked up.

The elevator doors were closing when I heard him call my name. 

I let the tears fall once again.

~

Since I was a little girl, I had dreamed of getting invited to a party as fancy as a Christian Siriano launch party. Now, here I was, waiting for Gianna to pick me up for said party, and I felt like shit.

I had reluctantly gotten ready for the party, pulling out a fancy dress and one of my many pairs of heels that I already wanted to rip off my feet. I was already missing the Vans my mother had gotten me for my birthday that I had been wearing when whatever this weird dream had happened to me. Due to my low mood, I hadn’t felt like doing much to my hair, so it was just up in a high ponytail that would have to do. This weird twenty-six-year-old skin of mine didn’t need foundation, but I made sure to coat my eyelashes in waterproof mascara in case I started sobbing again, which I had in spurts since leaving Harry’s apartment.

My father was dead. The only reason I was even going to this stupid party and not on the soonest train ride back to my mother was because maybe something at this party would shake my memory loose and I would remember something. In reality, I wanted to curl up in a corner and cry some more. Still, when Gianna’s limo pulled up in front of my building, I plastered a smile on my face and opened the door with mock enthusiasm.

“You look amazing, sweetie!” Gianna said excitedly when I opened the door. She was wearing a bright yellow dress that set off the dark color of her skin perfectly, along with gold accessories. “Love that color on you!”

The first dress I had picked was a bright fire-engine red high-necked dress with tulle puffed sleeves. The shoes were a satin material in the same color as the dress. If I had been in a better headspace, I would have screamed because the label on the dress said Versace, but right now it didn’t matter who the hell had made the dress. I plastered on a smile. “Thanks. You look fantastic.”

“Get your ass in the car! Nick is so happy you decided to come tonight. Christian is looking forward to it, too!” She slid over in the seat as I situated myself inside the car. The second the door shut behind me, her driver was taking off to the destination of the launch party. “Liam is coming tonight, too. He texted me and said he wanted to surprise you, but I figured that with everything going on, a surprise is the last thing you needed.”

This was smart of her. If Liam showed up and started being as incredibly kind and sweet as he had been this morning, I might have thrown up. Did he know about my father? Had I talked to him about the mysterious argument that had estranged us? I felt the tears welling in my eyes again at the thought of it, so I choked them back and tried to focus on Gianna, who was talking a mile a minute about who would be at the launch.

“Rachael is coming too. She said that you invited her this morning,” Gianna said, looking at me to confirm. When I nodded, I was surprised to see a frown grace her features. “Sweetie, that’s fine and all, I’ve got no problem with Rachael. But she hasn’t exactly been to one of these before. And she’s a bit meek. They might eat her alive.”

I frowned. “Rachael is nice. I wanted to invite her.” I had no clue if Rachael was actually nice, but I knew she shouldn’t be excluded from the party even if she was meek and hadn’t been to one before. “Besides, she did a big favor for me this morning. She found Harry’s address.”

Gianna’s eyes widened. “No shit. Did you go and see him?”

“Yeah. You were right. We aren’t friends anymore.” The words hurt even saying them out loud. “When he answered the door and saw me...he looked annoyed, like I was something from his past he couldn’t shake off.” I guess that’s what I was, now. And even though he had been so sweet, trying to comfort me and holding me tightly, it didn’t change the fact that he hadn’t wanted to see me when I knocked at his door.

“Oh, sweetie. Things will work out, I’m sure of it.”

I wondered if Gianna calling me “sweetie” was a normal thing. I hated it.

We pulled up to the party, smiling fakely at photographers that were loitering outside as we walked into the building, clearing the security easily. The inside was decorated in bright avant garde styles, bleeding color into every corner of the venue. It was a beautiful setup that I would have been dying to explore if I hadn’t been so muddled emotionally. I was so wrapped up in the decorating that I jumped when arms wrapped around my waist from behind, pulling me close to a hard body.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, babe,” I heard Liam say in my ear. “You look absolutely beautiful.” I turned in his arms, immediately throwing them around his neck. I didn’t know anything about this man, but he had offered me kindness and hadn’t given up on me this morning, despite how hard I knew it must have been. He looked extremely pleased at my reception towards him, pressing a delicate kiss on the top of my head. “You need a drink?”

“Sure.” 

As soon as he had appeared, he was gone, Gianna headed over to the bar with him. And then I was alone, standing in the middle of the launch party twiddling my thumbs and feeling like I belonged anywhere but there at that moment. I saw someone moving towards me, a timid looking blonde with giant glasses taking up half her face. Still, she looked wonderful in her pale blue dress. 

“Hi, Miss Rodriguez. Thanks for inviting me,” she said softly when she made her way over towards me. Ah, so this was Rachael. She looked every bit as nice as her voice sounded, and I sent her a genuine smile.

“It’s nothing at all, Rachael. You look great.”

Her eyes lit up, and I wondered how terrible I had to usually be to have her look so terrified of me. “Oh, thank you Miss Rodriguez!”

“You can call me Daniella, Rachael. We’re co-workers, aren’t we?”

“Oh.” She looked surprised. “You told me to never call you Daniella.”

As if my night couldn’t get any worse. “Right. I wasn’t feeling myself that day. I apologize. Feel free to call me Daniella.” Suddenly uncomfortable with the revered way she was looking at me, like I was some kind of fashion god giving her access into the world I lived in, I gestured towards the bar. “Want a drink?”

“Sure!” she said quickly, smiling brightly. “Mind if I go with you? I don’t really know anyone here.”

Me neither, I wanted to say, but refrained. “Of course. C’mon.” Following in the direction Liam and Gianna had disappeared to, we made it to the bar with ease. “What do you want?”

“I’ll take a strawberry martini.”

I had no idea what cocktail I wanted. My alcohol experience consisted of sneaking shitty beer into my basement and champagne at my cousin’s wedding. “Make that two,” I told the bartender, smiling softly as he got to work. “Hey, Rachael, can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Miss Ro—Daniella,” she corrected herself. The bartender handed our drinks over and she immediately took a sip. I didn’t bother with mine yet, on a mission.

“Do you know why I wasn’t talking to my father when he died?”

She flinched. “Ah...no. I just remember reminding you about the funeral and...um...you weren’t too happy.”

How selfish was I in this new life that the idea of my father’s funeral made me angry? “Right. If you’ll excuse me, I’m just...going to go powder my nose.”

I left Rachael nodding after me as I walked through the venue. I saw my boss (I still couldn’t believe I worked for Nicholas Jennings) and tried my best to stay out of his sight, lest he greet me and ask me questions I didn’t know the answer to. Walking into different hallways and still not able to find the bathroom, I decided to just lean up against a pillar on the second floor of the building, looking down at the launch with a sense of bittersweetness.

I had seemingly gotten everything I wanted. At what cost?

The second I heard whispers, I ducked behind the pillar, not willing to join in conversation with people. However, I recognized the voices almost immediately as Liam and Gianna.

“I still don’t know what happened to her, Gianna. It worries me.”

“I know. It worries me too. But...we’re still going to tell her, right?”

I peeked out from the pillar and saw them standing at the entrance of the hallway, Liam’s hands wrapped around Gianna’s wrists. The lights were reflecting brilliantly off her dress.

“You want to tell her that we’ve been having an affair for eleven months when just this morning she didn’t recognize either of us?” Liam asked incredulously.

“I know the timing is shit. I know it, Liam. But I can’t hold my feelings in any longer. Besides, you know she was seeing Rachael’s boyfriend for that little three-month period a couple years back.”

“And we discussed that. I forgave her. Sleeping with your assistant’s boyfriend twice isn’t really the same as sleeping with your best friend’s boyfriend of almost four years.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I pushed off the pillar, walking in the opposite direction on my tiptoes so I didn’t draw attention to myself. The hallway swung back around in a circle to the staircase, so I quickly rushed down them when I was in the clear and made my way out of the building, letting the New York air cool my skin.

I hadn’t thought going to this party would make me feel worse, but I had been proven wrong.

Without thinking, I pulled out my phone and called Harry.

He picked up on the second ring. “Dani? Thank god. I was worried when you left earlier. That wasn’t exactly the best news to hear.”

“Do you want to get dinner with me?” I asked bluntly, ignoring his concerns. “I just...I need to get away from reality for a while.”

The other line was silent, and I was terrified he was going to reject me. He would remind me that we weren’t friends, that he hated me and thought I was selfish, and then tell me that he never wanted to see me again. The longer I heard nothing but his breathing, the more certain I was that these events were about to unfold. So I was surprised when I heard him say, “Sure. Meet me at Blue Elephant. It’s the Thai place a couple of blocks down from my apartment.”

For the first time that night, I felt a genuine smile spread across my features.

~

I tried not to laugh when the noodle from Harry’s pad thai dangled from his mouth, but the snort escaped me before I could stop it.

He had gotten to the restaurant much quicker than I had. He wasn’t lying when he had told me it was just down a couple blocks. He had raised a brow at my fancy attire, since he was just in jeans and a black shirt splattered with tiny little paint flecks. His fingernails had clay under them, which would have been gross if I hadn’t known it was because Harry spent nearly all his free time sculpting. The comfort of this sight nearly had me in tears again, but I shrugged it off in favor of ordering what Harry suggested from the menu. I had ended up with what the restaurant called “glass noodles,” which was their low-carb options that had lots of vegetables mixed in. Harry had gone for the classic pad thai, which if the way he was slurping was any indication, he enjoyed.

“How are you doing?” Harry asked hesitantly, like he was unsure how to ask the question.

I shrugged. “I woke up this morning not knowing anything about my life, not being friends with you, finding out my father is dead, and seeing Liam and Gianna discuss how they were going to tell me that they’re having an affair.”

“Shit. That’s terrible, Dani.”

The wry laugh left my lips before I could stop it. “The thing that kills me is that I deserve it. I let a stupid, petty argument that I can’t even remember keep me from the funeral. Apparently I slept with someone in a relationship. It was my assistant’s boyfriend, by the way. And I don’t know what I did to ruin our friendship, but obviously it was my fault.” I twirled some of my pasta around my fork. “I work for Nicholas Jennings as a designer. I just came from a Christian Siriano launch party. I managed to get everything I’ve ever wanted, but it feels terrible.”

“You didn’t ruin our friendship single handedly,” Harry assured. “It was the both of us.”

“I can’t even argue with you, because I don’t remember.”

He sighed, pushing his plate away from him. “It was your party. Everyone had left to go get beer with Gianna’s brother.” I sat up eagerly in my chair, ready to hear his version of events so I could decipher when it all went wrong. “I had just given you the mini-model for my theatre class and then I let you blow out the cupcake and smashed it in your face.”

“And?” I asked impatiently. “And then what? That’s the last thing I remember.”

His hand reached up to rub the back of his neck. “And then I kissed you.”

My mouth had been open, ready to comment on whatever he had said, but no sound came out. I stared at my best friend, who suddenly looked so embarrassed and small, and my heart ached in my chest. “You kissed me?” I whispered, food completely forgotten in front of me.

“I kissed you,” he repeated. “You had strawberry frosting on your face and you just...looked so beautiful. I’ve always thought you were. And there was a moment when you were trying to wipe it off that I thought I might have seen something in your eyes...but I was wrong. I kissed you and you pulled away. You looked so regretful, like you were running through a thousand ways to let me down easy in your head because you were always too kind to me. I tried to tell you to forget it, that it didn’t mean anything, but you were determined to talk about it.”

“Did we?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t let you. I knew the second I pulled away I had made a mistake. But you kept...pushing. And I got angry, said some things I didn’t mean. You got angry back, and said some other things. Then you shoved the mini-model in my hands and told me to leave. The glue was shit, so it crumbled a little. I’m sure it was an accident, but...after the rejection, it felt like it was on purpose.”

“Harry, I would have never—”

“I know,” he interrupted, giving me a hesitant smile. “I know, Dani. It was just me being pathetically in love with you.”

The words made me wish the ground would swallow me whole. “In love with me?” My voice was so quiet, I was surprised he heard it.

“Yeah, Dani. In love with you.”

The Harry from my memories suddenly shifted, as if with his confession I was seeing him in a new life. My quinceañera, when I had asked him to be my escort and he had to help me zip the back of my dress up. The first day of high school, when he had ridden his bike to my house and looked at me like he was seeing someone new. That moment he had just told me about, looking at him with strawberry frosting on his chin because I had managed to swipe some there.

Was there some other emotion hiding in those eyes every time he looked at me?

“I’m sorry,” I said, unable to say anything else.

“You don’t have to be sorry for not loving me, Dani. It wasn’t your responsibility.”

“But I should have fought harder for your forgiveness.” The tears did come then. I felt like that was all I had done today, just sob and sob. “I should have fought for us. I don’t want to be the person that doesn’t fight.”

I stood from my chair, slapping down a twenty dollar bill to cover the price of my meal. He watched me with clouded eyes, part-betrayed that I was leaving him once again and part-understanding that being in that restaurant was going to suffocate me with the weight of what had happened today. As I made my way towards the exit, he let me go.

I wondered if he would have before the night of my sixteenth birthday.

My lip wobbled as I hailed a cab, pulling out my phone to see all of the missed text messages from both Gianna and Liam. There was even one from Rachael, who had seen me leave in a hurry and asked if I was alright. My heart clenched in my chest when I saw her name across the screen. I wondered if she had any clue that I had apparently slept with her boyfriend. Assuming that she would have quit if she had known, I was going to guess she didn’t know. The texts from Liam were all variations of him asking me where I was. 

I couldn’t even be angry with him for cheating on me with Gianna. Who knew what kind of person I was now? What if I had pushed him away, like I had with Harry, like I had with my father? If he found comfort and love in Gianna, who was I to tell him he was wrong? 

My feet were carrying me somewhere I didn’t know, walking in the direction of my apartment that wasn’t home. When the first drop of rain splattered on my nose, I didn’t even feel it. 

I just felt numb.

~

The house before me was very non-threatening. It was a small thing, brick on the outside and a bright red door. When I was younger, the kids at school used to tease me and call it the “Three Little Pig” house, the one left standing at the end of the story that the wolf couldn’t blow down. I hated it when I was little, but I found it comforting now. Even with all that had changed in my life, this seemed to still be the same.

Knocking on the door shouldn’t have been terrifying, but it was suddenly the most scary thing I’d ever done. Before my fist could meet it for a third time, the red door swung open to reveal my mother, looking at me with a softness in her eyes that I was sure I didn’t deserve.

“Harry called me earlier. Said you might be coming here.” Her words were matter-of-fact, like there was no arguing. And there wasn’t. I wasn’t entirely sure how Harry had guessed that I was going to visit my mother, but I supposed he still knew me like the back of my hand. “Said you’ve got amnesia?”

I couldn’t stop the laugh that came from my throat. Amnesia was a weird way of putting it, but it was the only explanation I could give. I was sure “I’m really sixteen and just woke up in twenty-six-year-old Dani’s body” wouldn’t work with my mother. And then I was flinging myself into her arms and sobbing, like I constantly did now. “He said I didn’t come to Dad’s funeral,” I cried out.

“You didn’t,” she replied simply, but she held me in her arms and squeezed my shoulders like she had when I was younger. I hadn’t felt more like myself than in that moment, except maybe talking with Harry. 

“But why? That doesn’t make sense.” I clutched her to me, wanting nothing more than to melt into her skin and disappear forever. 

She sighed, rubbing my shoulders. “Come inside. We’ll talk.”

Minutes later I was sitting at the familiar circular dark wooden table from my childhood. My mother had poured us iced tea, a drink I had forgotten I loved until I took a cautious sip of it. We sat in silence for a few moments, just drinking as she stared at the wall across from me. Just as I was about to open my mouth and ask again what had happened, she began to speak.

“You really don’t remember anything?”

“No,” I promised. “The last thing I remember is Harry shoving a cupcake into my face at my sixteenth birthday party after I made a wish.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “What’d you wish for?”

I smiled grimly. “For you to treat me like an adult.” Awkwardly picking at a loose thread on my sweater, I looked away from my mother. I didn’t want to see the disappointment or hurt on her face when my words registered. “I...I didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah, you did. And you were right. Maybe if I had treated you like an adult, you would have...you would have come to the funeral.” She took a long sip of the tea, steadying herself. “You’ve got to know that we always planned on telling you. But we just never did. And that was on us. And you’d always struggled so much with your identity. Remember when you used to come home from school and cry just because you felt like you didn’t know yourself?”

I remembered those days well. The last one I could remember had been two days before my birthday. Harry seemed to fit in so well with everyone he met, and I just didn’t have that skill. I had come home crying to my mom, asking why Harry could manage to fit in everywhere but I couldn’t. 

“Two Christmases ago you were looking in the attic to help find some tree topper I had bought. You came down from the attic with that piece of paper in your hand and my heart stopped. I knew right then and there that you’d never forgive us.”

“Mom, it can’t be that bad.”

“Believe me, it is.” There were tears in her eyes now as she set her glass down. Her hands shook. “You...found adoption papers and letters from your birth mother. She had written to you every year on your birthday. Your father and I never showed them to you. And obviously...we never told you about the adoption.”

If there was one thing I did not expect for my mother to say, it was that.

“What?” I managed to stutter out, blinking at her in disbelief.

Her tears fell now, streaking the mascara on her bottom lashes and leaving horrible black lines down her face. “We always meant to tell you, you...you have to believe that. And you got so, so angry with us. You said you never wanted to talk to us again. You marched out and went back to New York to stay with Liam. And then your father got sick and I...I just thought we would have so much more time to make things right with you before he died. I called you to tell you about the funeral and you just didn’t care. And the shitty part was that I couldn’t blame you.”

My tears had stopped, simply because I was trying hard to process what she had just told me. My mother, the one who braided my hair when I was younger and kissed my knee when I skinned it, wasn’t my actual mother. And my father, who read me bedtime stories with funny voices and made me pancakes when I was feeling sad, he wasn’t my actual father. I had never felt less like I knew myself.

I laughed.

It was a short, stark sound in the silence between us. My mother had been staring at the ground and she looked up at me in surprise when she heard it. I couldn’t help it. I laughed again. I laughed until there were angry and frustrated tears falling out of my eyes. 

“Do you know what kind of person I am?” I didn’t give her the chance to answer before I started speaking again. “I’ve spoken more to Harry in the past two days than I have in the last ten years. I let him feel like I hated him. I slept with my assistant’s boyfriend and apparently haven’t told her about it. But I did tell my boyfriend, who is currently having sex with my best friend because of something I did, I guess. And now I find out I didn’t go to my father’s funeral because I was being an absolute bitch?”

“You had every right to be upset—”

“No! I didn’t have the right to not go to the funeral!” My lower lip quivered. The reality of the words set in with me then. I had missed my father’s funeral because of something as stupid as me being adopted. That didn’t change the fact that he had gone to all the little father-daughter dances my school held when I was young. That he had taught me how to swim and clapped when I could jump into the pool with no problems. That he had held me when the boy I liked called me ugly. “I didn’t go to the funeral,” I whispered brokenly.

My mother’s arms were around me before I had time to blink. She flung herself across the table and wrapped me in her embrace. I felt her tears on my shoulder, the tears the both of us had apparently needed to cry since two Christmases ago. When the pain got too uncomfortable, I moved out of my chair so I could be closer to her, on my knees on the kitchen floor. She slid out of her own seat, grabbing onto my shoulders and kissing my head.

“I’m sorry,” she kept saying, over and over again. “I’m so sorry.”

“I missed the funeral,” I repeated, my fingers digging painfully into her shoulder blades. If she was in pain, she didn’t show it. She just held me harder as we both kneeled on the kitchen floor.

~

New York was having a good weather day. 

I was sitting outside a little cafe, munching on an ice cream cone. It had been only hours since I’d left my mother’s house. We had talked, cried, drank wine that she had stashed in a cupboard, and cried some more. Even before the freak accident in which I had aged ten years overnight, it was the most I’d really talked to her in a long while. There was a dull ache in my heart because I wanted my father to be there, but my mother had kissed my forehead in the way he used to when I was headed out the door. 

“I love you, Dani,” she had said, with so much conviction that it had nearly brought me to my knees.

“I love you too, Mom,” I had replied. She smiled that big grin of hers, the one I used to tell her could light up the world. 

Now I was waiting for Liam and Gianna to arrive. I had called them both the second I got into a taxi from my mom’s house and was waiting to meet them. The cafe was the first one I had found (though it wasn’t as if they were lacking in New York), so I didn’t know if it was any good or not. If the ice cream was any indicator, it was fantastic.

“Thank god you’re okay,” Liam said from somewhere behind me, and then I was forced out of my sesat and engulfed in a huge bear hug. Liam’s hugs were nice, I decided. Maybe if I had met him when this weird thing hadn’t happened, I would have loved him. “Why didn’t you return any of my calls?”

“I was visiting my mom. Sorry,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

He pulled away immediately. “Your mom? Is everything okay? You haven’t spoken in—”

“Two years,” I interrupted, nodding my head. “Everything’s fine, just needed to talk some stuff out with her.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re okay.” He pulled me back into another hug, rubbing his hand on my back. “Do you want to sit? Have you ordered anything?”

“Not yet. I was waiting for you and Gianna to get here.”

“You don’t have to wait much longer.” Gianna appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and gave me a small hug. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, sweetie. Did you ever figure out what the hell was going on yesterday? Memory all back?”

“Not at all.” And that was still the frustrating part. I gestured to the little bistro table and watched the two of them as they moved towards their seats. I had never really had to examine how two people moved together before, but they moved like they were magnets. Liam hesitantly reached out his hand for me to hold and I saw the quick glimpse of something akin to heartbreak on Gianna’s face.

At least I knew the two really loved each other.

“So, what did you and your mom talk about?” Liam asked, his thumb making circles on the back of my hand. 

“Life. How things didn’t really work out the way I wanted them to.”

Gianna’s brow raised. “What do you mean, sweetie? You work for Nicholas Jennings. That’s like your dream job.”

“Yeah.” And look where that dream had gotten me. “But I mean in my personal life, not really my professional life.”

It was quiet for a few seconds. Liam awkwardly smiled. “We don’t really know what you mean, babe.”

“I know.” I composed my thoughts for a moment before hesitantly reaching out my other hand to stretch it across the table. Gianna was quick to grab it, but I could tell she still looked a little confused. “I’m not a good person. I see that. I don’t know how you two put up with me. But I like to think I deserve better than my boyfriend and best friend lying to me.” The color drained out of Liam’s face and Gianna was gaping like a fish, opening and closing her mouth as if she’d find something to say. “And you deserve better than the way I’ve obviously treated you.”

“Dani,” Liam said brokenly, but I shook my head.

“It’s okay. We’ve all got things we need to work on, I guess.”

And that was the truth. If there was anything I’d learned from the last two days, it was that I had to work to not be the bitch I had so obviously become in the ten years I’d missed. I pat Liam’s hand comfortingly before standing from the little table, allowing Gianna and Liam to digest what I’d just sprung on them as I walked away. 

I was in a city I genuinely loved. The sky was pretty and blue and I felt a little bit of the ice cream cone in my hand dripping on my fingers. Things were okay with my mom and I. I would never get back the memories I’d lost with my father, but I’d use him as an example on how to be better. I wished for nothing more than to go back in time to my sixteen year-old self to tell her what she was missing when she wished on that stupid candle. 

But maybe it wasn’t all bad, I decided, when I stopped at a hot dog stand to ask for some napkins and saw Harry ordering on the other side.

“Dani,” he said, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Hey. What are you doing?”

“Walking,” I replied, gesturing to his hot dog. “Looks good.”

“I’d ask you if you wanted a bite, but I know you don’t like mustard.”

The fact that he’d remembered something so insignificant made me smile. “Right.”

He finished up his hot dog and took one of the napkins I offered. “What’re you doing today?”

“Nothing much. Why?”

“Mind if I join you on your walk?”

I pretended to think about it for a moment, but it truly was just pretending. My mind was made up the second the question had left his mouth. “Only if you tell me what you’re doing for work. Don’t think I missed all the clay and stuff in your apartment.”

He flushed, the apples of his cheeks turning a cute pink color. I wanted to poke them, like I used to when we were kids, but didn’t know if it would be welcome or not. “You don’t want to hear about my job,” he said, like he had already decided it was going to be a boring topic.

“Harry, I always want to hear about what you’re doing.”

It was a statement he must not have heard from me in ten years, because he gave me a soft and hesitant smile, the kind of smile I imagined he had given me as kids through the lens of someone in love with me. It made my stomach warm to see it.

“Really?” At my enthusiastic nod, his smile widened a little bit and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. Well, shortly after high school I was just working for the theater department at the community college. It didn’t pay much, but it was a good experience for the resume. I worked there for about three years and then got into sculpting.”

“Which explains the clay,” I joked, reaching for his hand. I lifted it between us and gestured to the clay caked underneath his nails. He laughed, nodding his head at my observation.

His laughter came up short when he realized that we were skin-to-skin, my fingers dancing across his knuckles to get a view of the clay. It turned his skin a light gray color, somewhat matching the color of the shirt he wore. “Yeah,” he said, and his voice sounded a little breathless. “Yeah, that explains the clay.”

I was hesitant to release his fingers, but I did. He didn’t move his hand away, however, just stared at me with those impossibly green eyes of his. I had always been jealous of them when we were younger. “Harry?”

“Yes?”

“If I were to hold your hand, would you hate me?”

His smile was quick and soft, and I realized there was a tiny little speck of mustard on his top lip. “If you had asked me at sixteen, I would have jumped at the opportunity. And maybe faint.”

I laughed. “I’m not asking sixteen year-old Harry, though. I’m asking twenty-six year-old Harry.”

“Right. Semantics. I suppose he’s fine with it too, if it means you’ll go out to dinner with him.”

Our fingers threaded together, still awkwardly hanging in front of us. His hand was warm and callused, and I could feel the texture of the clay. “I would love to go to dinner tonight. You can regale me with stories about how you fell in love with me when we were kids.”

He laughed, and our hands dropped to fit more comfortably between us. “It’s not very hard to fall in love with you, Dani.”

~

I was used to getting ready for a friend hang-out with Harry. For those, I knew what I would wear. It would be some variation of comfy jeans or leggings, a graphic tee of one of my favorite bands, and some Vans. I was familiar with that ensemble.

It was a little different getting ready for a date with Harry.

He had followed me back to my apartment, where I saw some of Liam’s stuff was already gone. It seems he wasted no time in seeking shelter with Gianna. I was honestly happy for him, if he was happier with Gianna. Harry sat on my couch and laughed while I tried on different outfits, seeing which one would fit his surprise restaurant better since he wouldn’t tell me where we were going. In each dress, he twirled his finger to signal he wanted me to turn in the dress before he disagreed and sent me back.

“Could you at least give me a hint on what to wear?”

“Do you have jeans at all?”

I poked my head out of the door to my bedroom, giving him a look. “I would never wear jeans on a date.”

“It’s a date with me. You know I don’t care what you look like.”

That made the butterflies in my stomach set off. Apparently, however, twenty-six year-old Daniella didn’t own a pair of jeans, so I settled on a casual sundress and slipped it on. It was a pretty orange color that looked good with my skin, and had little yellow flowers printed at the bottom. When I walked out into the living room, Harry grinned.

“Perfect,” he said, standing from my couch. “You look beautiful.”

If I were still sixteen and Harry was just a friend, the words wouldn’t have such an effect on me. But the truth of the matter was, my skin was warming, butterflies were flying, and my eyes were looking at Harry in a new light. “Thank you.”

“I have always wanted to say that to you and not have you punch me in the shoulder.”

“I wouldn’t have punched you in the shoulder!”

“Yeah...but you wouldn’t have looked at me like that, either.”

I wondered what expression was on my face to make his eyes go slightly dark and hazy. Letting out a short, breathless laugh, I grabbed his hand and led him out of my apartment. “Lead the way, since I have no idea where we’re going.”

The walk to the restaurant was spent talking about old memories from the past, Harry’s fingers intertwined with mine. There were several points where we had to stop walking so the two of us could laugh, bending over at the waist as we remembered when Gemma had put makeup on Harry or I had fallen into a puddle of mud at one of our family get-togethers. When we got to our destination, I stared at the theatre in front of us with a look of awe on my face.

“C’mon, I told the guys that I needed this place to myself tonight. I’ll give you a grand tour.”

He took the keys out of his pocket and opened the door. The lights were automatic, turning on when they sensed movement. We were in the lobby of the theatre, with programs from all the productions hung on every inch of the walls. Harry laughed when I took in the colors of all of them as he opened the door to the main stage.

“You’re a giant softie,” I breathed out when I saw that there was a picnic set up on the stage. “I’m telling Gemma.”

“She’ll never let me live it down.”

“That’s the point, Harry.” But I squeezed his fingers even tighter in mine. “It’s perfect.”

The theatre itself was beautiful. Unlike the harsh white lights of the lobby, the stage was lit with warm stage lighting that gave the place a pretty yellow glow. I took the stairs up to the main stage and sat down on a pillow Harry had placed there beforehand, unwilling to let our grip break when he moved to sit down on his own pillow. It was only when he started moving towards the picnic basket that I relinquished my hold on his hand. 

“Okay, I’ve got some pasta, a little cucumber salad, and wine. Because we all need wine.” He made a plate for me and then himself before reaching back into the picnic basket. “And for dessert…”

I wanted to laugh at the little cupcake, nearly identical to the one he had given me on my sixteenth birthday. I could tell it was what he was expecting. But I just stared at it, my throat going dry. Eventually, the smile slipped off his face and he set the cupcake on the stage. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“I know you didn’t,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I just...you deserve so much better, Harry.”

“Maybe. But who are we to decide that?”

“You deserve someone who hasn’t treated you like shit. Which is what I treated you like. I shouldn’t have let our friendship go just because I was scared that loving you would ruin things for us.”

“Dani,” he said softly, reaching out to take my hand in his. “It’s all in the past.”

“But it’s not. Not for me. For me, it was two days ago. And I know that it sounds crazy and you don’t believe me, but I...I’ve obviously made some choices that have hurt a lot of people and I don’t remember making any of them. I hurt you.”

“Yeah, you did. Look at where we are now, though. Look at where you are.”

“I just don’t want you to wake up and regret this tomorrow because you’re holding onto a sixteen year-old version of me.”

And that was the point of all of this. I couldn’t just forget that this weird time blip had happened, and I couldn’t forget that apparently I had made shitty choices for the past ten years of my life. I wished more than anything that I could go back to the night of my sixteenth birthday and just tell Harry that while I didn’t love him at that exact moment, I would be willing to give us a shot because really, it was Harry. I knew that I could fall in love with him if I just had the time. Maybe I already had been, secretly, and was just scared.

“We’re just...we’re not sixteen anymore, Harry.”

He nodded, his mouth tight-lipped and his eyes sad. I think it was because he knew what I was saying was true. We couldn’t change the past. “I know,” he whispered. “I just...having you back in my life was like this out of reach dream.”

“I don’t want to go the next ten years not talking to you, Harry. But I think you’ll be so much happier with someone else. Someone who doesn’t run away when you tell them you love them.”

The wry smile on his face made my heart break. He gently slid towards the end of the stage and jumped off, his feet hitting the ground with a thudding sound that echoed in my ears. He made it to the back of the theatre before he turned around, tears in his eyes and a small smile on his face. “Maybe in a parallel universe, then. I’ll see you around, Dani.”

The tears were already on my cheeks when the door shut behind him.

I didn’t feel like eating anything after Harry’s departure, but I picked up the cupcake gently, willing it to bring me back to the night of my sixteenth birthday, before I had royally screwed myself over. Setting it down with a sigh, I started to pick up the food items so Harry wouldn’t get in trouble for leaving food on the stage. It was only then that I saw the candle and lighter in the basket.

I cried as I stuck the candle into the cupcake and lit it with the lighter.

“I wish I could go back and do this all over,” I mumbled to myself. Shutting my eyes, I softly blew out the flame of the candle.

I kept them shut as I leaned back and lay on the stage, letting myself fall asleep.

~

“Dani?” I heard, and I opened my eyes slowly. The theatre was gone, the soft yellow light something harsh and white again. I took in my surroundings, noting the Jonas Brothers poster on the wall and the ugly pink color of them. I sat up quickly, looking around the room before I gasped and looked down at my chest.

No boobs. 

“Dani, you awake?” I heard someone say from the other side of the door. Immediately I was up, shooting like a bottle rocket as I flung my door open. Harry stood there, sixteen year-old Harry with his head of floppy curls and the spot of acne on his chin. He was holding something wrapped in a pretty pink box.

“Harry?”

His eyebrows furrowed as he stepped into my room, setting the pink box on my bed as I shut the door behind him. “You okay?” he asked. “You seem off.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I said, still looking around my room to reassure myself that I was actually here. “I...I think I had a really weird dream.”

“What was it about?”

“It was terrible, H. We weren’t friends anymore.” He sat on my bed and I moved to sit next to him, careful of the pink box that I somehow knew contained a little theatre set he had made me.

“Well, that’ll never happen,” he snorted. “But, let’s focus on something happy. Open up.” He handed me the box. I pulled apart the purple ribbon and opened it up. It was in an Amazon box, but sure enough, it was a beautiful stage designing set. “It’s Wicked, since I know that’s your favorite musical.”

“Harry,” I whispered, “it’s gorgeous.”

“You like it?” When I nodded enthusiastically, he relaxed. “Oh good. I was worried. Also, I got you something else.”

From behind his back he produced a pretty pink strawberry cupcake, complete with a candle. He took a lighter out of his pocket and held it up to me. “Make a wish, Dani.”

When the flame was lit, I closed my eyes. I didn’t bother to make one. There wasn’t anything more that I needed.

I was expecting the smash, and the cool feeling that followed. I was expecting Harry to double over in laughter as pink goop fell from my face. I was even expecting my own laugh as I wiped it from my eyes so it wouldn’t burn them. What I wasn’t expecting was for Harry to suddenly take my face in his hands and kiss me, the minty taste of his breath mingling with the strawberry of the frosting coating my mouth. The kiss was over before it had begun, and Harry stared at me in fear, like I was going to reject him.

Instead, I smiled.

“Harry,” I said softly, reaching out my hand to him. His own hands shook when he placed his fingers in mine. “Do you want to go on a date?”

When his shoulders sagged in relief and he nodded, I knew.

“Oh, and I really need to go talk to my dad.”

[i-am-very-very-tired]

In the wake of Tuesday’s shocking New Yorker exposé, several more actresses came forward with harrowing stories of sexual harassment and assault at the hands of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. One of these brave women was Angelina Jolie, who said the predatory studio executive had made unwanted advances to her in a hotel room around the release of 1998’s Playing by Heart, which was distributed by Weinstein-owned Miramax Films. “I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did,” she told The New York Times. Another was Gwyneth Paltrow, who alleged that, prior to shooting what would prove to be her breakthrough role in 1996’s Emma, Weinstein approached the then-22-year-old actress in a Beverly Hills hotel suite, put his hands on her shoulders, and intimated that they move to the bedroom for “massages.” She immediately left, disgusted. “I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,” she recalled to the Times. The testimonies of Jolie and Paltrow proved particularly disturbing because they proved that Weinstein had the power and influence to silence anyone—even Hollywood royalty. Jolie, after all, is the daughter of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight, and Paltrow the progeny of director Bruce Paltrow and actress Blythe Danner, and the goddaughter of Steven Spielberg. Another thing these two talented women have in common is their proximity to the actor Brad Pitt. Paltrow dated Pitt from 1994-1997 before breaking off their engagement, while Jolie was Pitt’s partner from 2005-2016. Their divorce is still pending. In the Times piece, Paltrow said that she’d confided in Pitt about the Weinstein episode, and that the actor proceeded to confront Weinstein at a film premiere and warn him to never do anything like that to his girlfriend again. (Pitt confirmed as much to the Times.)“Brad threatened Harvey. He got right in his face, poked him in the chest, and said, ‘You will not ever do this to Gwyneth ever again,’” a source told People, adding that if Weinstein did try anything again, the Springfield native told the portly New Yorker he’d get a good “Missouri whooping.” Many online were quick to praise Pitt, then a rising star, for giving a studio bigwig like Weinstein the business—something that precious few Hollywood men felt compelled to do both during the mogul’s three-decade reign of terror and after the sickening revelations came to light. But why, then, did Pitt continue to work with Weinstein not once, but twice: on 2009’s Inglourious Basterds and 2012’s Killing Them Softly? The Weinstein allegations have led to a broader discussion of Hollywood complicity—the power brokers who were not only aware of his despicable behavior but may have helped facilitate his hotel liaisons with a bevy of up-and-coming actresses. Paltrow told the Times that her hotel “meeting” with Weinstein was listed “on a schedule from her agents,” while the actress Rose McGowan, who reportedly agreed to a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein after a 1997 hotel incident during the Sundance Film Festival, tweeted out an alleged email sent from an agent to the actress Lindsay Lohan requesting a hotel “meeting” with Weinstein at the Peninsula Beverly Hills, the site of many an alleged Weinstein attack, for a cameo in an unnamed Scream sequel. The tweet has since been deleted.

While a parade of agents, executives, producers, and assistants were no doubt aware) October 10, 2017 @benaffleck “GODDAMNIT! I TOLD HIM TO STOP DOING THAT” you said that to my face. The press conf I was made to go to after assault. You lie.

George Clooney, a work friend of Pitt’s, claimed to The Daily Beast that he and many of his high-profile actor friends in Hollywood were unaware of Weinstein’s purported penchant for sexually harassing and assaulting women. “If you’re asking if I knew that someone who was very powerful had a tendency to hit on young, beautiful women, sure. But I had no idea that it had gone to the level of having to pay off eight women for their silence, and that these women were threatened and victimized,” he offered. But Brad Pitt knew. By his own admission, Paltrow informed him that Weinstein had sexually harassed her all the way back in 1996. While Paltrow explained to the Times how she felt she had to “suppress the experience” of being attacked by Weinstein, and, after being threatened by the exec, went on to act in several other Weinstein-shepherded films (including an Oscar-winning turn in 1998’s Shakespeare in Love), by the late-Aughts Pitt had the power to affect change. He was, as Clooney told Esquire, “the biggest movie star in the world… he’s bigger than me, bigger than DiCaprio.” He ran a successful production company in Plan B Entertainment, responsible for hits like The Departed. And yet, he opted to star in Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, which was distributed by The Weinstein Company. A source close to Pitt confirms to The Daily Beast that Pitt knew of the Paltrow incident with Weinstein but that “Quentin went to him directly to bring him into the project, and Brad did it because of the relationship and the contact. Interaction with Harvey was very limited.” The source, however, went on to explain that since every Tarantino project has been distributed by Weinstein, Pitt understood that Inglourious would be as well. They could not confirm whether Pitt knew at the time of his then-girlfriend Jolie’s alleged incident with Weinstein, and representatives for Jolie and Pitt would not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story. And, while Pitt’s interactions with Weinstein may have been limited, the exec’s involvement in the project was anything but. Weinstein, who’s earned the nickname “Harvey Scissorhands” for his tendency to demand film edits, usually shies away from meddling with Tarantino movies but was rumored to have demanded that its initial three-hour running time be cut down by at least a half-hour (its final running time: 153 minutes). Weinstein also launched aggressive Oscar campaigns for the film and Pitt, fresh off a Best Actor nod the previous year for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, doing interview after interview touting their credentials and flooding Academy voters with cheap, non-watermarked DVD screeners. You see, there was a lot riding on Inglourious Basterds. The Weinstein Company was in dire financial straits, having recently hired a high-powered financial advisory firm to restructure after incurring heavy debt. The film’s ultimate success, earning eight Academy Award nominations and grossing over $321 million worldwide, helped keep the company afloat. Following the release of Inglourious, Pitt agreed to star in and produce an adaptation of the book Cogan’s Trade, directed by Andrew Dominik and developed by Plan B. After a heated bidding war, the of Weinstein’s appalling behavior, it’s not entirely clear how many actors were—particularly big-name male actors who had, as Lena Dunham so eloquently wrote in the Times, “the least to lose and the most power to shift the narrative, and are probably not dealing with the same level of collective and personal trauma around these allegations.”

McGowan charged on Twitter that the actor/filmmaker Ben Affleck, who dated Paltrow from 1997-2000, knew full well about Weinstein’s reputation (McGowan starred alongside Affleck in Phantoms, released by Miramax one year after her alleged hotel incident with Weinstein). — rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan distribution rights to the film were sold to The Weinstein Company, who promised a $20 million ad spend. The film, ultimately titled Killing Them Softly, was released in 2012 by Pitt and Weinstein, earning a meager $15 million stateside. Our source in Pitt’s camp said that they were “unable to provide any context” about exactly why Pitt chose to collaborate with Weinstein again on the crime drama (and in a much more involved capacity) despite his ex-fiancée telling him that she’d been accosted by the exec, and that he’d allegedly—perhaps unbeknownst to Pitt, perhaps not—attacked his then-partner Jolie. The Harvey Weinstein sexual-assault scandal has not only underscored the remarkable courage of the women who chose to come forward, but the cowardice and complicity of the myriad men in power who didn’t. As Lena Dunham wrote, “Hollywood’s silence, particularly that of men who worked closely with Mr. Weinstein, only reinforces the culture that keeps women from speaking. When we stay silent, we gag the victims. When we stay silent, we condone behavior that none of us could possibly believe is O.K. (unless you do). When we stay silent, we stay on the same path that led us here. Making noise is making change. Making change is why we tell stories. We don’t want to have to tell stories like this one again and again. Speak louder.”

[honeymoonjin]

Please note, these works are mine. I won’t accept any translations (sorry, foreign language army) or cross-posting on accounts that aren’t mine. If you see a work of mine on Wattpad, it is not me. Please let me know so I can get it taken down. If you see a work of mine on AO3 under any account that isn’t honeymoonjin, it is not me and please let me know. The banners are not made by me, they are made by the incredibly talented @jamaisjoons​. Please do not read works marked with the crown ♔ for smut if you are a minor. These are intended for audiences 18 or above.

These fics are the b-side, my older works which I’m not as happy with as my newer stuff. I don’t want to delete them since some may still enjoy them, but I wanna start fresh with works I’m personally proud of on my main masterlist from now on, so these are the ones that didn’t make the cut.

♔ smut || ➴ angst || ✭ crack || ☯ fluff

〚 darlin’ 〛✭

❝ you’re an actress that needs to learn to ride a horse for your next role. jin’s the cowboy tasked with teaching you. ❞

〚 pine 〛☯

❝ you’ve been hiding your crush on your best friend jin for far too long now, but it turns out he feels the same. ❞

〚 transition 〛✭

❝ seokjin’s job as a grim reaper is to guide souls after they die, but you’re not interested in moving on just yet. ❞

〚 pasta la vista 〛✭

❝ in which you, a food critic, wonders how kim seokjin manages to stay in business, considering how terrible his food seems to be. alternatively, kim seokjin does not know how to flirt. ❞

〚 come dine with me 〛♔

❝ yoonji eating you out in the kitchen that is literally it. ❞

〚 daegu hold ‘em 〛☯

❝ yoongi loves spoiling his girl. you love having a sugar daddy. that’s called synergy. ❞

〚 baby fever 〛♔

❝ doctor min yoongi is your fertility specialist, but during the artificial insemination procedure he has some…unorthodox methods. ❞

〚 mi casa 〛☯

❝ when yoongi brings you home to spend the holiday season with his family, he finally realizes he’s in love with you. ❞

〚 curious ft kth 〛♔

❝ taehyung is unsure of his sexuality, and you and your boyfriend yoongi are only too happy to let him experiment with you. ❞

〚 땡 / ddaeng 〛✭

❝ when blackmailed by a sasaeng, you and yoongi decide to instead release a diss-track featuring audio from an illegally obtained video of the two of you having sex. ❞

〚 unravel 〛➴ ∙ ☯

❝ you just want yoongi to see himself the way you see him. ❞

〚 heavy 〛♔

❝ mafia leader hoseok is having problems with loyalty in his ranks. luckily, you’ll always be there for him to relieve a little stress when he needs it. ❞

〚 close enough 〛➴

❝ hoseok thinks you’re getting a little too close to the other members, and he’s sick of it. part two now available here! ❞

〚 us 〛☯

❝ amongst the publicity of being an idol, hoseok wants his proposal to be a private affair. ❞

〚 unwind 〛♔

❝ your boyfriend is about to give an important speech at the United Nations but isn’t handling pre-speech nerves too well. luckily, you know some ways to help him relax. ❞

〚 keyed up ft kth〛♔

❝ when your mutual roommate namjoon gets a little too strung out, you and taehyung offer to help relieve some tension. ❞

〚 hey mama 〛☯

❝ one-shot for mother’s day. you spend an evening in with namjoon and your two boys. ❞

〚 going up? 〛✭ ∙ ☯

❝ you didn’t expect to be trapped in a faulty elevator with the president of south korea, but it’s still preferable to having to take the stairs. ❞

〚 sick day 〛♔

❝ namjoon gets a week off work, but you don’t, and he’s starting to get a little frustrated. ❞

〚 tumble dry 〛♔

❝ when jimin overhears you confessing to jungkook that you want to ride his thighs, jimin allows you…on one condition. ❞

〚 radio silence 〛♔

❝ jimin wants to indulge in his exhibitionism kink on the grandest scale: while at the grammys. ❞

〚 appa 〛☯

❝ jimin comes home from tour to visit his newborn son for the first time. ❞

〚 breaking point 〛➴

❝ you don’t think you can continue being in a relationship with jimin anymore. ❞

〚 arrivals 〛➴

❝ things go wrong at the airport when jimin’s wife and daughter accompany bts on a flight. ❞

〚 keyed up ft knj〛♔

❝ when your mutual roommate namjoon gets a little too strung out, you and taehyung offer to help relieve some tension. ❞

〚 roomie 〛✭

❝ falling in love with your cell mate isn’t generally advisable. ❞

〚 confessions of love are best done sober 〛➴ ∙ ☯

❝ kim taehyung used to be your best friend in primary school, but he’s changed into a completely different person. while you drink yourself into oblivion at a party, he has something to tell you. ❞

〚 itty-bitty 〛☯

❝ after finally moving in with your just-married husband, you have some more exciting news to tell him. ❞

〚 curious ft myg 〛♔

❝ taehyung is unsure of his sexuality, and you and your boyfriend yoongi are only too happy to let him experiment with you. ❞

〚 green room 〛♔

❝ jungkook isn’t happy with how you acted while he was on stage. ❞

〚 high-rise 〛☯

❝ getting locked out on a rooftop when you’re meant to be going on stage in five minutes is less than ideal, but luckily Jungkook has his girlfriend to keep him company. ❞

〚 shark week 〛✭ ∙ ☯

❝ when you get your period while at a restaurant with your boyfriend and the rest of bts, you just want to grin and bear it, but jungkook seems determined to show off to his hyungs how supportive he is. ❞

〚 the name game 〛✭ ∙ ☯

❝ jungkook likes to think he’s a genius at coming up with baby names. you, his heavily pregnant girlfriend, would have to disagree. ❞

〚 roll credits 〛☯

❝ after a string of misfortunes and troubles, you find yourself crying your eyes out in a movie theater. luckily, the cute usher wants to make sure you didn’t miss the film. ❞

〚 the daily grind 〛☯

❝ jeon jungkook has a crush on the girl that comes to the coffee shop he works at, but she’s too invested in her studying to even give him a second glance. ❞

〚 makin’ monet 〛✭

❝ jungkook’s attention is caught by his roommate taehyung’s odd collection of fake paintings, and he’s determined to find the painter. part two available here. ❞

〚 love yourself: the collab 〛✐ ∙ ♔ ∙ ➴ ∙ ☯

❝ twenty-six authors, twenty-six songs. a collab me and @/jeonau created to celebrate the one year anniversary of lya. each song (plus four bonus tracks) has its own fic. ❞

⇥ masterlist here

⇥ pairings: several, at least one of every member x reader

〚 roll deep 〛✐ ∙ ♔

❝ six one-shots, pornstar au. ❞

⇥ masterlist here

⇥ pairings: one of each member x reader, yoonji x reader

〚 wouldst thou like to live deliciously? 〛✐ ∙ ♔ ∙ ➴

❝ jimin is sick of being a virgin, and the pressure of the first time with a girl, so he decides to summon a sex demon to get it over with. ❞

⇥ masterlist here

⇥ pairings: jimin x reader, namjoon x reader, yoongi x reader

〚 cum!bts 〛♔ ∙ ✭

❝ in the newest run! episode, the members compete to see which of them can make you orgasm the fastest. ❞

⇥ masterlist here

⇥ pairings: one of each member x reader

〚 sovereign 〛✐ ∙ ♔ ∙ ➴

❝ when you hear that your recently deceased grandmother left you her property in her will, at first you think that a dinky old cottage in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to mean much for you. but after spending a night there, you discover something far more valuable than the house itself: a hidden door that leads to another time, the same place but over 200 years in the past. in the late 18th century, there is a king who will die before his 21st birthday unless you can save him. will you help him, even if it means leaving your own life behind? ❞

⇥ masterlist here

⇥ pairings: jimin x reader, jungkook x reader

〚 lost in translation 〛✐ ∙ ➴ ∙ ☯

❝ you decide to uproot your life completely and move to korea to help teach english at a primary school. ❞

⇥ season one masterlist here

⇥ pairings: none so far

〚 seven 〛➴ ∙ ☯

❝ life with seven boyfriends isn’t always a walk in the park, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. ❞

⇥ part one || part two || part three

⇥ pairings: ot7 x reader

〚 dul, set 〛☯

❝ work can be tough. at least you have two boyfriends to come home to. ❞

⇥ part one || part two

⇥ pairings: hoseok x reader x yoongi

〚 spotlights 〛✭ ∙ ☯

❝ a fully interactive (~50 parts, 21 different endings) bts fic. you’ve been seated next to bts at a televised award show. will you end the night with a boyfriend or with a disaster? each member has 1 positive ending and 2 negative ones. ❞

⇥ entry post here

⇥ pairings: one of each member x reader

〚 enjoy your stay 〛 ♔ ∙ ➴

❝ working the graveyard shift at a hotel isn’t the most exciting job in the world, but your coworkers are certainly happy to have you here. ❞

⇥ masterlist here

⇥ pairings: jin x reader, jungkook x reader

〚 런닝맨 방탄 - running man bangtan 〛 ♔

❝ you and the other seven members of the popular variety show running man celebrate your 100th episode by completing various missions. ❞

⇥ part one || part two || part three

⇥ pairings: taehyung x reader, hoseok x reader x yoongi

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #299

“you look so beautiful tonight  /  reminds me how you laid us down and gently smiled before you destroyed my life.”

Ever done any drugs? Besides alcohol, no. How many people have you kissed? Three or four. What’s your favorite show to binge? I could only ever willingly *binge* Meerkat Manor and not get bored after like, two episodes. Do you watch porn? No, it's never appealed to me. What’s one of your fantasies? Being financially stable. :^) Do you have/would you get your nipples pierced? I've lightly considered getting one, but I really doubt I ever will. What’s the most overrated movie? /shrug. Let people like what they like. Tag someone you want to talk to but have been too shy to message. I'd love to get to know my Facebook acquaintance Courtlynn better; I've wanted to for a long time. I think we could be fantastic friends. We'll like each other's stuff regularly and occasionally leave comments, but we don't really talk. Do you like paper books or ebooks better? Paper ones, by a long shot. I just really like the feeling of a book and being able to clearly see how far in you are. I enjoy the smell and sound of turning pages. If you could live in a fictional world, what world would you pick? Probably Wonderland, realistically. I would say Azeroth, but too much world-threatening shit goes on every day lol. If money was no object, what would your wardrobe be like? G O T H Do you still have feelings for any of your exes? Yep. Do you drink? Very, very rarely. Almost exclusively during celebrations or on the once in a blue moon occasion we go to a sit-down restaurant. Do you read erotica? No. It would make me super uncomfortable. What color was the last candle you lit? I don't remember at all. Do you own a treadmill? No, but I want one. Have you ever signed up for a gym membership? Well, not exactly me. Mom and Nicole both had memberships to Planet Fitness, and I was able to come as a guest. It was just cheaper that way. What color was the last fish you had? That I owned or ate? Either way, idr. Is there a garbage can in your room? What color is it? No. If you play The Sims, do you download custom clothes, hair, etc? I don't play it. Does your animal sleep with you? Roman does, yes. He legitimately spoons with me lmao. Sometimes he'll move to the bottom of the bed, other times he'll sleep through most of the night there. Have you ever had to wear a hairnet? Yes. What is your favorite song to play on Guitar Hero or Rock Band? "Hotel California" by The Eagles on expert is so much fun and just feels good. The ending solo is just great. When you drink chocolate milk do you just buy the jug of it or the syrup that you can put into the milk? Almost always just the chocolate syrup. Do you own a robe? What color is it? No. What’s the worst abuse you have done to your phone? I know I've thrown it across the room once. Well, not my current phone, but a really old one. How did you meet your first love? High school. Well, you could maybe say Facebook. He sent me a friend request and I literally only accepted it because I thought it was another Jason. We talked via messenger some and then we ran into each other at school, and tbh I kinda knew I was fucked from there lmao. Have you ever worn the opposite sex’s underwear? I don't believe so, no. Have you ever kissed in a pool? Yeah. Are there any hobbies you have that you don’t perform in front of others? I absolutely cannot write in front of others, and I HATE drawing when people are watching. What do you do when you simply don’t know what to do? Odds are I'll probably be scraping the bottom of the barrel to find something in WoW that sounds even remotely fun, or I'll browse Facebook. How did you find out about your current favorite band? He's one of my mom's favorite singers/bands, so I grew up with some of his music, and when I was getting into rock and metal, I decided to go through her music case and listen to some of it. Ozzy's Black Rain album set the adoration into motion. Where are you most likely to go when you need clothing? The Internet or Wal-Mart, depending on what kind of clothes I need. When was the last time you tried to do something yet failed? I should have an answer for this very quickly... yet I'm unsure. I don't think anything *major* has happened in a while. Oh, this is a tiny thing, but I did look really hard for the pencil sharpener so my niece could finish coloring her drawing, but I couldn't find the damn thing for anything. Do you think your life is comprised more of success or failure? Lots and lots of failure. What’s one personality trait that’s not strong in you? Uhhh outgoing, ig. Are you a difficult individual to get to know? Considering I hide a lot about myself to try and be accepted, yes. When was the last time you opened up to someone and about what? Literally yesterday to my mom about this unreasonably massive fear I've had lately that she doesn't have much longer in her. I'm terrified she's going to get COVID or her cancer just comes back faster than we hope. To whom do you feel the most important? My mom. Is there something you want but might not ever have? Many things. What’s something you’re working to obtain? Mental stability. Do you tend to enjoy your dreams? No, considering they're usually violent and rarely just psychotic nightmares. Are there any projects or goals you’ve recently abandoned? Hm. What in life serves to keep you going? The hope it'll get better, and I'll reach a point of actually being happy and content with my life. What was the last good news you received? Nicole's trip to Maryland to bring back a baby was successful (if that sounds weird, she's a child social worker). He has a heart condition where if his heartbeat or something like that was irregular, she'd have driven all the way up there for nothing; the baby wouldn't have been able to take the ride. Are you more inclined to appreciate sweet or savory foods? Sweet. Are romantic relationships important to you at this point in your life? I mean I'd like to be in one, but I highly doubt it'd be successful, just given where I am in life. I'd be signing up for heartbreak. Who was the last person to apologize to you for something they did? I don't know. Probably Mom for something minor, like just bumping into me or something. Are you wearing a necklace, and if so, who got it for you? No. What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve done lately? Lately? Uh. I don't know, but I can guarantee to you it wasn't long ago at all, considering breathing embarrasses me, pretty much. Do you ‘think out loud’? Sometimes. Do you take gummy vitamins? No. How do you know the majority of the people you know? Former schools. Hell, or maybe various online locations. I just might have more online friends and acquaintances than in-person. Is there a random object you own that has a huge personal significance? I've talked about my pebble from my partial hospitalization program enough. Can you play electric guitar? I used to be able to play a little bit; I took guitar lessons for a short while in high school. Best I could do was the intro to "Crazy Train," but I'd still occasionally mess up. Are you one of those people who chew two pieces of gum, not one? Usually. Do you believe in ghosts/supernatural occurrences? Yes. Without the aid of mascara, do you have long eyelashes? Yeah. Is there a kind of music you listen to that helps you release your anger? Yes, usually songs that are also angry. How does it make you feel looking at pics with your ex and someone else? The only case this has ever happened was with Jason and his gf after me. There are no words to describe the fucking hatred I felt. I haven't seen pictures of him with an s/o in a long time, and I absolutely never plan on seeking them out ever again. What song are you listening to right now? "Rest In Pieces" by Saliva. If you’re not in college, why? I couldn't handle the stress anymore. Just couldn't. Do you own a studded belt from Hot Topic? I have a good number of old ones from high school, actually. I wore them all the time. I could never fit into them now. Favorite fictional character? Um, Darkiplier, duh. Most recent thing you are looking forward to? I think it's finally set in stone that I'm getting my tattoo redone soon. Thanks to my laptop saying "ha fuck you," it's not as soon as I originally planned since I had to pay to fix it, but Mom seems fine with helping me pay for my birthday. Not a guarantee that it'll happen on that date of course, given scheduling, but yeah. It should fucking finally be happening. How many stairs can you climb before you wanna pass out? This is too embarrassing to even answer lmao. Have you ever kissed someone with braces? No. Would you ever consider adoption? I don't want kids, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't. I feel like I'd personally need the "wow this is a part of me (and/or my s/o)" connection. Do you ever go hunting/fishing? I would never go hunting, and the only occasion in which I'd fish again is if Dad asked me. I don't like the idea of fishing for fun anymore, but that's like... always been our bonding experience, and I wouldn't tell him no. Do you know anyone who plays guitar? Knew. What are you currently sitting/laying on? My bed. Who are your godparents? I don't think I have any. Do you have any friends who are famous? I have two friends who are parts of bands, but idk how successful they are. I don't think either are like, huge. Nova Mortis if you're into heavy metal and I think Toukan does rap? When was the last time you stayed at a hotel? Hm. I have no idea. What side of a heart do you draw first? Uhhhh I think the left? What is your mom saved as in your phone? "Mama Bear." Do you want your tongue pierced? I had snake eyes for a while, but I took them out because I kept chipping my teeth. I miss that piercing, it was so cute, but it wasn't worth ruining my teeth. Ever made out in a pool? It's possible very briefly, idr. Do you like to have long hair or short hair? SHORT. SHORT. SHORT. Do you change your phone background a lot? Not really. Would you get back with your last ex if you could? Yeah. Have you ever been strip searched? No. Has the person you like ever seen you in your pajamas? Yes. What is your least favorite type of chocolate? White chocolate is way too sweet. Did anyone see your last kiss? It was at an airport, so probably. Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend? I mean, I do, but I don't really know how smart it would be right now. Is there anyone you wish you could fix things with? A few. Who IMed you on Facebook last? My friend Girt. Were you kinda scared of the goths in high school? Hell naw man, I looked up to them lmao. What size is your mattress? (single,twin,double,queen,king) Queen. Do you like spaghetti? Hell yeah. It was my favorite food as a kid. What about lasagna? No; I don't like the cheese at all. Have you ever been stung by anything? What was it? Mosquitoes of course, as well as a bee once. Maybe other things, idk. Have you ever worn contacts? (even just to try them out) Yes, but I changed to glasses because I had too much trouble putting them in and taking them out. Have you ever had any suspicious moles removed? No. Have you ever been screened for STDs? No. Did you have your tonsils taken out? No. Did you have your appendix taken out? No. Do you have any collector’s glasses or cups or mugs? What is a "collector's" glass or mug? Were you your parents’ first born? No; I'm the middle child. Do you have a child? Is the father still with you? No. Were you born perfectly healthy or with some (or a lot) of health issues? I was born healthy. Good 'ole days. Did you ever catch any bugs or insects with your friends as a kid? Ohhhh yes, my neighbor and I loved doing that. My favorite was catching fireflies with my sisters, though. Would you prefer to travel around the world by yourself or with a friend? With a friend. I'd get lonely. Do you know anybody who has been diagnosed with cancer? A whole lot, sadly... I'm despising that disease more and more every day that goes by. I know far too many people who have it or have died at its hands. Have you ever had to take care of an intoxicated person? No. Do you and your boyfriend/girlfriend fight a lot? N/A. Do not stay in a relationship where fighting is common. Would you ever share a site password with a family member or partner? I mean sure, depending on the site and person, and the reason they (may) need it. Has anyone ever told you they couldn't trust you? Hm... I actually don't think so? Who in your family has the prettiest eyes? Idk, I don't see enough of my extended family to know. What is an odd food item you would like to try, or have tried? I'm sure there's something I'd like to try, but nothing I think about with consistency, really... Most "odd" food I find unappealing anyway. When/if you drive, do you go the speedlimit? When I did, I certainly always tried to, but I was bad at maintaining a stable speed. I went up and down too much. Are you an aggressive driver? Or more passive-aggressive? I was dangerously passive at driving. Describe a hairstyle you had as a little kid? Well, I had long hair with bangs. What routine of yours would you most hate to break? Probably stopping getting a soda first thing in the morning... That is like so deeply ingrained into my day and is a motivator to get up in the first place. I want to change this to where I'm not allowed to grab one until I've had a full cup of water, but yeah, that hasn't happened yet. Has jealousy ever ruined one of your friendships/relationships? Honestly? I think it's possible that Jason totally split on me because of it. We were in this very unstable "friends" position after the breakup and hung out very briefly and awkwardly twice (which I'm pretty sure he didn't want), and I think one of our last attempts at conversation was who a girl he was talking to via Messenger was. No, before any assumptions are made, I didn't snoop. He showed me something on his phone and I just inevitably saw the little Facebook chat icon of a girl I didn't recognize. I don't even remember his answer. I just know it wasn't too long later I was blocked and everything. What is one restaurant you would NOT recommend? I personally am not a Chili's fan. What was your last conversation about? Mom and I were just talking about what a mush the cat is, haha. Who is your favorite person to debate or discuss with? Yo fuck debates, I got mad anxiety over that kind of stuff. Are you more likely to praise or insult yourself? Why? Insult. I don't even believe myself when I try praising, so it's not worth the effort. I have a billion and two reasons. Do you enjoy cloudy days? Why or why not? Honestly, not very much anymore. I've found that it actually does affect my mood. I like some cloud coverage, though. Would it bother you to be forgotten after death? Yes, even though when you think about it, most of us will be. I want to do stomething so badly; not even particularly something major, but just contribute to things and causes that matter and slowly change the world for the better. It's especially likely I will be forgotten though at some point because I don't want kids, so my blood isn't carrying on. Do you tend to prefer healthy or unhealthy snacks? Ugh, unhealthy. Has anyone ever asked you for diet advice? I think so, back when I started recovery and lost like 60 lbs fast as fuck. I wasn't even dieting though, just... came off awful meds. What age is your youngest aunt? Ummmm I have no clue. Do you like bowling? Yeah, it's fun, but I'm not good at it. Do you like roasting marshmallows on a bonfire? Totally. Do you prefer sweet or sour fruits? Sweet. How're your dancing skills? Rusted to the point of just not functional anymore lmao. What brand of batteries do you usually get? I don't pay attention to the kind Mom gets. Are any of your friends pregnant or have kids? A lot of my FB friends have kids. At least two are pregnant, but I only consider myself remotely close to one. I'm beyond worried about how she's going to be as a mom. Where's the strangest place a fast food restaurant was located? I've certainly seen some questionable placement in busy areas, but none that are super odd. Do you stay up all night on New Years Eve/Day or go to bed after 12am? I don't care nowadays; I just stay up until I'm tired like every other night.

[heliosphoenix]

State of the Planet: 2020 Edition.

I know what you're thinking.

"How can you even think of doing one of these for this year? After everything that happened? You can't possibly be trying to do your little feel-good writeup!" 

Well...you're right. I can't. That's right, State of the Planet is cancelled.

I don't really have to explain why, do I? I have no words to describe this year and I know you don't want to hear them anyway. I understand your anger, your frustration, your sadness, everything you're feeling, I get it.

This wasn't the year you imagined and almost certainly not the one you wanted. Thanks for being there the entire way, and I'll see you next year.

Okay, I'm just kidding. I couldn't do that to you folks, I just wanted to get some more mileage out of a dead meme.

I first started this missive several years ago when I noticed that people were developing a tendency to condense the previous lap around the ol Sun into a series of terrible, horrible, no good very bad events at the expense of anything good that may have happened. I don't know why this was done, maybe as a ways to ensure that the coming year would have to be better by default.

Well...we all saw how that worked out for this year, didn't we?

As you all know I prefer to do things differently. I prefer to go out on a high note and remember all the good things that happened in the past year. If nothing else, I think it helps remind us that as much as we want to bemoan and be pessimistic about the state of our culture, society, civilization and even species, there's plenty of evidence to suggest we're not doing so bad after all.

And even thought it feels like this past year the world went out of its way to teach us some rather harsh lessons, I'm still determined to find something good that happened. So let's take a look back at some of the good things that happened in 2020:

A circumbinary planet was discovered at the TOI 1338 system.

Luxembourg became the first country to make it's public transportation free.

The Bhadla Solar Park became the largest solar park in the world.

The BepiColumbo space probe departed for Venus, en route to an arrival at Mercury in 2025.

A fast radio burst was detected from a Magnetar in the Milky Way, the first time such an event has been detected in the Galaxy.

A team of British and Kenyan scientists discovered a microbe that can block mosquitos from transmitting malaria.

A black hole was discovered in the QV Telescopii system, at 1120 light years away it is the closest known black hole to Earth.

A 425 million year old fossil of a millipede was discovered in Scotland, one of the oldest fossils ever found.

SpaceX launched their Dragon 2 spacecraft on its first crewed missions, the first astronauts to launch from US soil since 2011.

The Perseverance rover was launched to Mars and is expected to touch down in February.

The Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE became the first operational nuclear power plant in the Arab states.

Wild polio was eradicated from the continent of Africa.

Skeletons of 31 prehistoric animals, including 200 mammoths, were found at a construction site in Mexico City, it was the largest finding of mammoth bones ever.

The 5.37 mile La Linea highway tunnel was opened in Colombia, it's the largest road tunnel in South America.

Kosovo, Serbia, Sudan and Bahrain all decided to normalize their relations with Israel.

Phosphine, a strong predictor of microbiological life, was discovered in the atmosphere of Venus.

Preserved remains of a cave bear were discovered in Siberia.

A 1634 edition of Shakespeare's final play, The Two Noble Kingsman, was discovered at the Royal Scots College's library in Spain.

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed on the asteroid Bennu and collected samples for return to Earth in 2023.

The Falkland Islands were declared free of land mines.

Molecular water was detected near Clavius crater on the Moon. 

An AI algorithm called AlphaFold was able to figure out the process of Protein Folding. 

The UN commission on Narcotic Drugs removed cannabis from its list of dangerous drugs.

The EU committed themselves to reducing greenhouse emissions by 55% over the next decade.

A Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn occurred, the closest one seen in the night sky since 1226.

Comet NEOWISE passed by the Earth and was the brightest comet in the night sky since Hale-Bopp in 1997.

Among Us became one of the most popular games in the world.

Half Life: Alyx was released, the first Half Life game in 13 years (FINALLY).

Joe Biden was elected as the 46th President of the United States.

Remember all that? Good. Because that's where I'm at.

You, dear reader, are in the future. Perhaps you're reading this in the final hours of 2020, or the first hours of 2021. Or maybe so much time has passed that both those years are now confined to the history books.

Perhaps everything I listed above is not enough to overcome all the bad things that happened this year, and that's a fair assessment. Maybe at the end of the day there's nothing that can overshadow the fact that someone in China who ate the wrong bat resulted in the entire world coming to a stop. If that's your feeling, then I understand completely.

But let the record show that those things did happen. In a year full of chaos and uncertainty and anxiety and dread, there were still moments where we could objectively punch our fists in the air and say "yes!" Even if only for a moment.

So now comes the part where I have to take all the things that we just went through and sum it up in a single word. Usually I don't think about this until the day of, but this time I've actually known for months what I was going to say:

The word is...Goodbye.

It sounds both strange and appropriate at the same time, doesn't it? As we close out this year, as well as this decade (reminder that 2021 is the real start of the next decade) we can look back and realize we've had many experiences. Both positive and negative. Hopefully they were mostly positive, even during this year.

But there is at least one experience we've all shared together, especially in times like these: saying goodbye.

I will confess to you all that I have a hard time saying goodbye. Hell, I don't even like the word. Whenever I end a conversation, I always use some variant of "see you later", since, to me at least, "goodbye" just sounds so final. Though with that said, I will also admit there's some people in this world that I had no problem saying goodbye to, and I don't mean "till we meet again", I mean "get lost." And I'd be lying if I said there weren't some people who felt the same about me, but I digress.

In the last episode of his show, Red Green delivered a monologue about saying goodbye. A monologue that I am now shamelessly ripping off for your reading pleasure. Not just because it's a way to get this done quickly, but because I think what he said is very true.

Red says that when it comes to your good friends and your family, you never really have to say goodbye. Why? Because they're always in your mind. And whenever you think about them, you're together again. I can tell you from experience that works rather well, even when it involves people that I don't want to think about. But even in that instance, where our last interaction was a negative one, I can't help but think back to all the good times we had together, and for a moment I reminisce. It's nice when it happens.

We've all heard the phrase "nothing lasts forever" and we tend to dismiss it as a cliché. But we're still constantly confronted with that reality, even if we never realize it. As Al Pacino said in Any Given Sunday; "When you get old in life, things get taken from you. That's a part of life."  

We've all lost things in our lives, and I just don't mean toys that have been sold or people that we love who are no longer on this mortal coil. I'm referring to the moments in our lives where we're forced to accept that our circumstances have permanently changed, and that the way things were can no longer be the way things are. This is why you shouldn't be having kids when you're in your 70's, and no one over the age of 50 should be naked in public.

On a more personal note, this year I got that feeling once again. It's not just because I'm most likely leaving one job behind for another job, but there were things in my personal life that shifted so dramatically that I knew things could never be the same again. And seeing as how, for the most part, I liked how things were, I'd be lying if I said that this change didn't cause me some distress.

But that's all a part of growing up, isn't it? As much as I may cringe about reaching 30 years of life on this Earth, I accept it all the same. Because, if nothing else, it's a reminder that I need to keep moving forward. Is it sad that the good ol days are now just memories and dreams? You're damn right it is. But that doesn't have to be a bad thing, because even if they're not what's happening now, they still did happen. And who knows? Perhaps the days to come will be just as good, if not better. In my opinion, that's something to look forward to.

And the same is true for all of us: if we want to live a happy fulfilling life, we have to keep moving forward. We can reminisce about all the fun we've had in days gone by, but it's just as important to be ready for the days yet to come.

I think that's why New Year's is such a poignant holiday for all of us. It's a tacit acknowledgement that we have to say goodbye to the old, so we can say hello to the new.

And at the risk of making this entry so long that by the time you're finished it will be 2022, I'd like to do that now.

To all the people that have been with me since my early days, thanks so much for all that you've done. I appreciate you sticking it out with me this far and I hope you'll continue to do so for many years to come.

To all the people that I've met recently and have decided to join me on this ride, welcome aboard. We're glad you could make it and we hope you'll stay a while as well.

And finally, to all the people that are no longer here, whether they've merely left my social circle or left this mortal coil altogether, all I can say is that we've had a great run. Whatever our reasons for parting are irrelevant now and I wish you nothing but good fortune in whatever it is you decide to do. Perhaps, God willing, our paths will cross again some day. But even if they don't, I hope that every so often we'll think about each other and smile a bit.

And now I'd like to close with something different. Usually I ask you to comment below with something good that happened to you this year. You're more than welcome to do that. But if you're looking for a change of pace, may I suggest that you close out your 2020 (or open your 2021) by listening to this song from the great Ashleigh Ball and Michelle Creber (yes I know many of you are hoping to leave the Miniature Equines in the past, but I'm hoping you'll permit them one last indulgence).

https://youtu.be/XjkPH6sZM_o 

This is the song that inspired me to write this missive (along with the aforementioned Red Green) and as you're listening, I want you to think about all of those you said goodbye to this past decade. Think about all the fond memories you had together and give yourself a smile as the clock strikes midnight. Even if they're not with us today, we still have all the memories of them that no one can take from us, no matter what happens to the world.

And now the time has come for me to end this missive. Let the record show that this was my final word on 2020 as well as my expressed hope for charity, kindness and goodwill to flourish throughout the world in the years to come.

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends

.And 2021 shall restore amends.

[macgyvermedical]

Soup: a “Tesla + Bell + Edison + Mac” Medical Review

“You have a perfectly functional syringe pump with the PCA in the background, and you’re going to give him an injection with a metal needle? Also, if you’re gonna sedate him you might as well use the IV pump too??? Like, you have a whole ‘nother channel?? Most floor nurses would kill for that setup?” <--- From my notes on this ep.*

Awl - X-Ray + Penny - Duct Tape + Jack - CD + Hoagie Foil - Guts + Fuel + Hope - Wilderness + Training + Survival - Father + Bride + Betrayal - Lidar + Rogues + Duty - Nightmares - Seeds + Permafrost + Feather - Friends + Enemies + Border - Mason + Cable + Choices - Bitter Harvest - Kid + Plane + Cable + Truck -

In case you didn’t see it, the story went like this: After being knocked unconscious trying to prevent Codex from stealing an encoded map to a Tesla-era WMD, Mac wakes to find he’s lost certain memories of the event that are crucial to interpreting the weapon’s location. In order to recover the memories and stop Codex from getting there first, Matty calls on a friend at DARPA who studies experimental memory-recovery drugs. Drugged, Mac enters a dream state to track down the memories, where he encounters his mother, a man he recently chose to kill to save everyone in LA, his high-school bully, and a darker version of himself who thinks Codex’s directive to kill an eighth of the population to save the world might not be too far off the mark.

So there’s a lot to talk about here medically. For this post, I’ll go into the concussion and its aftermath, the drug and it’s administration, and the medical technology that the Phoenix infirmary seems to have at its disposal.

The Concussion/Amnesia:

Mac is knocked out by a blow to the head. He wakes up “a few hours” later in the Phoenix infirmary. I’ve talked about concussions before (see here, here, and here), so I’m not going to go into too much detail about them in this post, but essentially if someone’s out for that long, they’re in trouble.

It’s reasonably common to lose consciousness in a concussion, but it’s usually only for seconds to minutes, and if it occurs at all, that person needs prompt medical evaluation in an emergency room. Even if there ends up being no major complications, like bleeding in the brain or an increase in pressure in the skull, the recovery time for concussions with a loss of consciousness can be in the weeks or months range. Someone who’s out for “hours” is looking at a stay in a neuro ICU and probably severe and possibly permanent brain damage. Like, it’s a season-long arc at least.

Since we’re not seeing that level of medical need, I think it would probably be safe to assume that Mac wasn’t actually out for “hours” as stated. He could have been briefly unconscious, as shown in the house attack scene, but then had trouble forming memories after that, which caused him to not remember the ride back to Phoenix very well, if at all. These are still concerning enough symptoms that I would have taken him to an emergency department instead of to the infirmary, but at least with that scenario there’s a possibility what happened to him isn’t actively life threatening outside of a neuro ICU.

Unlike the extended period of unconsciousness, the portrayal of amnesia isn’t far off the mark for once. The amnesia that Mac suffers is actually pretty reasonable- trouble remembering the incident and the events just before it is common in head injuries, as is having trouble forming new memories after. Not only is accurate amnesia something that I didn’t expect out of Rob Pearlstein (writer of the infamous Guts + Fuel + Hope), but it’s something that fiction as a whole (including, I’ll admit, 1985 MacGyver**) tends to struggle with. So kudos for that specific part of this episode, Pearlstein.

The Drug:

Even if we assume Mac wasn’t unconscious that whole time, the brief unconsciousness and memory problems indicate that he still had a pretty significant concussion that needed medical care and monitoring. I’m guessing that as advanced as the Phoenix Infirmary is, it doesn’t have the capacity to do neurosurgery or intracranial pressure monitoring. That means the Phoenix medical team’s priority in this situation would essentially be to catch any major, life-threatening complication as early as possible, and if one happened, get Mac to a hospital quickly enough to save him.

The best and lowest-tech tool they have to this end is repeated mental status exams. Mental status exams have the patient answer a series of questions like “what’s your name?” “what day is it?” “where are you right now?” “what happened to you/why am I asking you these questions?”  followed up with a series of mental tasks like counting backwards from 100 by 7s or making a logical decision based on a given scenario. If Mac’s answers significantly change, from one assessment to the next, that could mean he’s in trouble. 

Because these assessments rely so heavily on Mac’s ability to answer questions and perform tasks accurately, and they’re really the only thing that’s going to catch a serious problem early enough to save Mac’s life, the last thing you’d want to do is give him a drug cocktail that would alter his perception of where he is and what’s going on around him. I’ll just… leave that there.

But let’s assume that for some reason they have a non-CT way of assessing whether Mac’s about to die from a brain bleed while in a drug-induced dream state (they do appear to have limited EEG capability- can anyone tell me if this would still be helpful in the context of the drugs?). I’m not going to talk too much about the drug cocktail itself, since it was stated as fictional (so, essentially, anything they say it does it can probably do), but since they do reference it as containing DMT, I invite you to check out the erowid experience vault for DMT for stories of other people’s experiences with it.  

I will, however, talk a little about the administration of the drug. In the episode, a syringe with a needle is used to deliver the medication. Though not explicitly shown, I assume Dr. Cheryl inserted the metal needle into one of Mac’s arm veins and injected the drug.

Something that fiction generally doesn’t understand is that inserting a metal needle into a vein in order to administer medication doesn’t happen in a medical setting. Ever. The ONLY way to administer a medication IV in a medical setting is through an IV cannula- a short, flexible plastic tube inserted into a vein, often just colloquially called an “IV”:

If Mac had one of these ^^^, the syringe could attach to one of the blue and white pieces and the medication could be injected without worrying that the needle could slip out of the vein (many IV medications must be injected slowly over several minutes, and that’s a long time to hold a needle still).

Before Dr. Cheryl gives him the drug, she takes his vitals and asks him some questions, namely whether he has ever had “a psychotic break”, then, without explaining further, asks if he thinks he will become violent.

Now, it does make sense to ask someone about their psych history when administering a drug known to have psych side effects, because those can be a lot worse or more likely for people with certain psych histories. Think about SSRIs and SNRIs- they’re good antidepressants, but when given to someone with bipolar disorder, they can greatly increase the risk of a manic episode, and that possibility has to be evaluated before the drug is prescribed.

The conversation should have started with Dr. Cheryl asking everyone else to leave the room. Asking if someone has ever experienced psychosis in front of their coworkers, is not only a serious breach of patient privacy, but could also be incredibly dangerous. If Mac had experienced psychosis, but didn’t want his coworkers to know, he’d either have to lie and risk side effects without being able to prepare, or feel pressured to release that medical information and possibly risk his job or reputation***.

Then she’d ask something to the effect of “have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness, been hospitalized for a mental health reason, or do you take any medications for a mental health problem?” And if the answer to that question was anything that would make the drug particularly dangerous to him, she’d probably tell him the risks and her assessment that it was a bad idea to proceed.

If there was no other option for some reason (I’d argue not the case in this situation), she’d tell him what the risks were, and only then would she possibly have to ask if he knew he might become aggressive, at which point they’d come up with how he’d like her to handle that possibility.

I know it’s not quite as snappy, but I would have really liked to see it.

Plus, unless it’s been asked off screen, Dr. Cheryl hasn’t asked him if he has any other health problems, if he takes any medications, or if he has any allergies, all of which could significantly impact how safe this drug could be for Mac.

Phoenix Infirmary Medical Tech

Now let’s look at some of the bits and pieces in the background of the episode. Particularly, I wanna talk about that chair, the IV pump, and the monitor.

So, chair first- it’s a dentist’s chair. It’s good for dental things and maybe some minor procedures (we have a slightly different chair in a doctor’s office I work at- we use it for things like implanting birth control, removing warts and moles, and providing wound care), but it’s not great for anything else. It’s especially not great if you have to sit there longer than a half hour. Considering we know from previous episodes that they have a full-on hospital bed somewhere at their disposal and possibly a couple of carts (narrower beds you see in the emergency department), I gotta say it makes literally no sense to put the guy who’s unconscious from a head injury in the procedure chair.

Next, the IV pump

We talked above about administering medications “IV push”- a medication “pushed” through an IV by a syringe, one dose at a time. Another way to give IV medication or fluids is via an IV drip or “piggyback”- the medication is diluted in a bag of saline or other IV fluid, and set to continuously run into a person’s IV. These are nice for doses of IV medication that have a lot of volume (like IV antibiotics) medication that wears off quickly and may need constant adjustment (like some kinds of sedation or some types of pain medication or medications that counteract shock), or just straight up IV fluids.

IV pumps control how fast the medication or fluid goes from the bag into the person. You can vaguely control this without a pump using gravity, a drip chamber, and a roller clamp, but if you need to know precisely how many milliliters of medication/fluid per hour is getting into a person, and you didn’t start your nursing career in the 1970s, you need a pump.

The one pictured above specifically consists of a central computer box (colloquially called a “brain”) where the pump rate can be programmed, flanked by interchangeable modules that each do a slightly different thing. The modules on the pump in the episode include an infusion pump, which essentially just pumps fluid from a bag hanging above it into a person, and a PCA pump. A PCA pump holds a syringe of medication (usually pain medication) and delivers a dose of it when the patient presses a button.

Honestly I think the whole things is just chillin’ in the background making the room look medical-y, but they really could have used it to continuously administer the drug or the sedation if they’d really wanted to incorporate it.

Side note, the modules are actually kind of heavy, so you have to balance them a little or the whole thing kinda tilts (see the screenshot from the episode). Also, for some reason if you stick an infusion module on the same side as a PCA module, the brain won’t recognize it half the time. Not sure if it’s a feature or a bug. Below is how someone who has ever once used one of these things would have set it up:

The other thing they have in the episode, and the last thing I’ll talk about before I let you get back to your life (I’m sure your cat misses you by now, mine sure does), is the monitor. 

I read several user manuals for this (real) monitor system in preparation for this post. I’ve concluded that it’s way, way above my med-surg pay grade, and usually used in operating rooms by anesthesiologists to monitor sedation level (so at least in theory they could be using it correctly? I’m as shocked as you are, really). I don’t even know what half those numbers mean (beyond the SpO2, heart rate, and respiratory rate), more than just being able to say they (surprisingly) do actually reflect real monitoring options on this thing. This leads me to believe this may be some kind of weird product placement thing? As if the gratuitous use of the Toyota backup cameras weren’t oddly forced enough.

Now, beyond the fact that this is a wildly high-tech, completely overkill machine for what is happening in the episode, the thing I would like to impress upon you is that regardless of the high tech-ness, every line on a monitor requires at least some attachment to the patient. Something measuring an EKG requires at least 3 leads on the patient. Something measuring oxygen saturation and pulse requires a clip on an ear or finger. Something measuring blood pressure requires a blood pressure cuff. Something measuring temperature usually means a probe somewhere the sun don’t shine. Mac has two little leads on his forehead. That is actually hilarious. He’d be covered in wires. He would have so much adhesive stuck to him.

In case you’re wondering, the heart/lungs/brain/person outline picture on the monitor just tells you how each part of the body is doing- like, the brain will turn yellow and then red if something starts going weird with the brain-related monitoring, same with the heart and lungs. It took an insane amount of searching to figure that out. I’ve been writing this post for 4 days now.

 *I had a much longer and rant-ier intro to this but I feel like I’ve complained enough on main about how the reboot dumbed down and politically neutralized an extremely opinionated and hardline character. I do really like this show, and the storylines are really interesting, but I need you all to understand how science-based and politically charged the original one was, especially in later seasons. You had such a platform for good here, CBS, and I’m hoping against hope the generic-action-show it’s become was some kind of weird, collective misunderstanding and not a censor problem. My main problem, having finished writing this post, is that he looks really weirdly good for someone who was unconscious with a head injury and then subjected to what was another few hours unconscious and hallucinating. Like, his shirt is still tucked in. Great update to the theme song, though.

**Twice. They played the bourne-style-amnesia storyline twice.

***At this point I can only recommend you watch the 1985 MacGyver Season 7 episode “Obsessed”- it’s a ridiculous-criminal-plot episode but the undertones are all anti-ableist (both criticizing the Phoenix Foundation board of directors’ ableism in assuming Pete is no longer fit to do his (desk) job after he loses his sight, and the pressure Pete himself is under to let MacGyver go because of mental health symptoms).

[smooshjames]

forget you not (iii)

uh-oh, uh-oh, here i go again (or: interviews and old friends)

word count: just under 4k

a/n: part 3 of forget you not! i was gonna post this yesterday and then i totally forgot, but it’s here now! once again, the band in this story is based on little mix and i didn’t write any of the songs referenced (this chapter’s songs can be found here, here, here, and here). at the risk of sounding annoying, i have a ko-fi if you’d like to donate, but don’t feel obligated to do so!! if you can’t or don’t want to that’s totally fine, thank you for taking the time to read my work regardless of if you can spend money on it or not. i hope you enjoy!!

warnings: angst (again)

previous parts: one, two

Sunday morning brought with it more Twitter notifications than you’d gotten in a long time. Your alarm went off obscenely early yet again; you had a full day ahead of you. The band was recording a new single which would be released sometime later in the year (the date was still up in the air) and you had decided to do it while you were in LA since you could work with a few producers that you’d never met before.

So, at five o’clock in the morning, you rolled over in your hotel bed and groped around on your nightstand for your phone. You shot upright when you saw how many notifications you had, a bolt of panic going through you at first. What the hell could’ve happened to result in so much activity?

You scrolled through a couple of your mentions before you got to a tweet from some gossip site. There was a photo of you from the concert the night before, probably taken by a fan if the quality was anything to go by. You were mid-note, your mouth open around a word, and it was pretty obvious that you were crying. The tweet read: “‘You never brought me flowers’! Y/N Y/L/N tears up while singing her band’s hit song Towers. Could there be a mystery man that caused her to get so emotional on stage…?”

Carly mumbled a good morning from the bed next to yours. You didn’t reply. You barely even noticed her leaving the main area of the room and heading into the bathroom; you were too busy looking through the replies to the tweet. They were all pretty tame, but you still felt a pit opening up in your stomach. You didn’t have any press that day since you were recording the new single, but the next day was chock-full of interviews and other promotional shit. Your Twitter feed was showing no signs of slowing down, and you really didn't want to have to explain to some random interviewer that you'd been crying because you still weren't over a breakup from five years ago.

“Everything okay?” Carly asked. You looked up, startled, and realized that she had come back from the bathroom. “You seem… distraught.”

You beckoned her over to your bed and showed her the original tweet from the gossip site. Carly gasped and took your phone from you, beginning to scroll through the replies. “Jesus,” she said. “This’ll be a shitstorm.”

“I know,” you replied. You glanced over at the clock on the nightstand and sighed; you needed to get up and ready for the day. Carly gave your phone back to you.

You muted your Twitter notifications for the time being, not wanting to be distracted while you were recording the new single. If an interviewer brought it up you’d just find a way to gloss over it.

You shuffled into the bathroom and did your usual morning routine. You decided to forego makeup for the day since you’d just be sitting around a studio all day, anyway. You dressed in comfortable clothes for the same reason. You figured it would be a little bit hard to focus on recording if you were in heels or tight jeans or something similarly uncomfortable, and you wanted to save your remaining nice clothes for the following day, anyway. Sweatpants and an old t-shirt it was.

Once you were dressed and somewhat ready to face the world, you and Carly grabbed your bags and went out into the hallway. Alexis and Piper were still in their room next door, but they let you and Carly in so that you could all sit and talk while they finished getting ready. Once you were all good to go, you met up with Michelle in the lobby and got into the car that would take you to the studio.

It was a pretty cool space; chill, with couches and chairs spread out around the mixing board where the producers would work their magic. You met the audio engineers as you were walking in, and everyone shook hands and went in to get to work. They seemed nice, and they definitely had a lot of cool ideas for what might enhance the song’s sound. You and the rest of the band had already worked out the lyrics and a basic melody, but the recording technicians had some ideas to really make the song pop.

The day passed in a blur of singing and listening and revising, and then repeating the process all over again. By the time you left, the sun was touching the western horizon and the song was almost finished; just a few final edits before it would be perfect and ready for release. “We’ll get it to Michelle in the next couple of days,” one of the producers said.

You were exhausted as you collapsed back into your hotel bed, but it was a good sort of exhaustion; the kind of sated tiredness that comes with a good day’s work.

You were flying so high, in fact, that you’d almost forgotten about all the Shayne drama. You fell asleep with a slight smile on your face, and your sleep was peaceful and dreamless.

***

That pleasant warmth of a job well done was ripped from you almost as soon as the next day began. Your first interview was with a local radio station, and it went alright for about five minutes; you exchanged pleasantries with the hosts, Joe and Maggie, and sat down between Carly and Alexis for your interview.

The hosts did their intro, introduced the band, and explained that you were currently in LA on the west coast branch of your current tour. Once that was done and the band had all said hello, Maggie turned to you, and the smile she flashed you was… strangely apologetic.

And then you remembered. Shayne, Towers, crying onstage. That apologetic smile hit you so fast it practically gave you whiplash.

“So, ladies,” Maggie said. “There was some interesting news about your concert on Saturday. You guys sang your song Towers -- beautiful song, by the way -- and Y/N… there were a couple of tears there, huh? Anything you can tell us about that? Is everything okay?”

From beside you, Carly opened her mouth, probably to say that you didn’t want to talk about it, but you stopped her with a hand on her arm. Her willingness to defend you meant a lot, but if you didn’t address it, it would just keep getting brought up. At least if you answered this you could do some damage control. “Yeah,” you said. “Um, I actually lived in LA for a while before meeting these lovely ladies and starting up the band with them. And while I was here, I was in a pretty serious relationship with a guy -- I won’t say his name for privacy’s sake -- and we broke up. I guess being back in LA and singing that song just… brought back some memories. But that was all; no new mystery man or anything like that, I’m afraid.”

There, that was a good enough answer. It held enough of the truth that you felt confident they wouldn’t press you for any more information, but you hadn’t told them the exact real reason. They didn’t know he was in the room, and they didn’t know who he was.

Maggie smiled and nodded, and Joe asked another question about the band that was unrelated to your love life, which brought a wave of relief sweeping over you. You smiled and laughed through the rest of the interview, chiming in with answers whenever it felt appropriate, and then said your goodbyes as the hosts transitioned into the next song

All things considered, that hadn’t been so bad.

Once you were out of the radio station headquarters and into your car, Michelle got back to business. “Alright, next up… another interview which won’t be broadcasted live. You guys are performing Think About Us while you’re there. Then we have an hour for lunch. After lunch, you’ll film a video with Smosh, and then another radio interview after that, and then you’re free for the day. Assuming everything goes to plan.”

You nodded and settled into easy conversation with the girls during the car ride to your next venue. You were pretty excited to film with Smosh; you hadn’t seen any of their recent stuff, but you were familiar with them in that you had heard of them and you knew they primarily made comedic content. You figured that would probably mean it would be a fun time to film there.

The next interview went just fine, and the performance went even better. For lunch, you and the rest of the team got food at a cute little bistro near Smosh’s offices.

When you arrived after your lunch break you were greeted by Ian Hecox, the president of the company. He was super friendly, greeting you all with handshakes and a warm smile. Once you’d all been introduced he began to lead you through the office space, explaining that you’d be recording an episode of their ongoing Try Not to Laugh series. As he launched into an explanation of the rules, a hand on your shoulder made you tense and whip around, surprised. This brought you face to face with…

“Damien?”

Your eyes widened almost comically as you saw the man standing before you. He looked a little different since you’d seen him last; his hair was longer and streaked with blue, and he carried himself a little taller, a little prouder. But he still had that same boyish smile, those same brown eyes. He was still Damien, and he was here.

“Hey, Y/N,” he said.

You laughed, shocked and joyful, and threw your arms around his shoulders, practically launching yourself onto him. He hugged you back tightly. When you pulled back, you punched him jovially on the arm.

“It’s so good to see you!” you said, a little breathless. “What are you doing here?

“I work here. I’ll actually be filming with you guys this afternoon,” he replied

“No way, that’s crazy!” You leaned back and perched your hands on his hips, surveying him, half disbelieving.

He nodded and opened his mouth to speak again, but Ian’s voice interrupted your reunion. “You two, uh… you two know each other?”

“Yeah,” you said, glancing over your shoulder. “I knew Damien… God, ages ago. We were really good friends.”

Carly’s eyes now widened in recognition. She smiled at Damien and raised her hand in greeting to him.

“Hey, Carly,” he said. He put his hand on your forearm and you turned back to face him again. The look on his face made your smile fade a little bit; he seemed nervous and a little sad. “Y/N, I should warn you --”

“Holy shit!” another voice interrupted you two, this one distinctively female. And also… strangely familiar. You turned toward the source and what you saw felt like two consecutive throat punches.

Courtney, Shayne’s new girlfriend, was standing across the room. She seemed to have just entered, and judging from the wide-eyed look on her face, she was just as surprised as you were. Standing directly next to her, staring at the floor by your feet… was Shayne himself.

You heard Damien mutter something under his breath, but your brain didn’t fully process what he said. You were too busy looking at Courtney and Shayne and wondering why the hell they were here. Before you could say anything, though, Ian stepped forward.

“Sweet, we’re all here,” he said. “Y/N, Alexis, Piper, Carly, this is Shayne and Courtney. Shayne’s gonna be filming with you guys this afternoon --” of course he was “-- and Courtney is --”

“Your biggest fan!” the girl interrupted him, and even despite the resentment you couldn't help feeling toward her, you had to admit that she was really sweet. She seemed like someone you might be really good friends with were it not for the fact that she was dating your ex, which made you feel even worse; she hadn’t done anything to deserve your hatred, but here you were hating her anyway. “You probably don’t remember, but I was at the concert on Saturday. It was super good, you guys crushed it.”

“I remember,” you said, because you didn’t know when to shut up. Courtney’s jaw dropped onto the floor. “Yeah, I remember. You guys came together, didn’t you?”

The accusation was clear, at least to those in the know; Carly went pale, Piper inhaled sharply, Alexis started coughing, Damien shuffled his feet nervously, and Shayne opened his mouth to speak. Before he could say whatever he wanted to, though, he seemed to think better of it and closed his mouth again.

Courtney didn’t seem to pick up on anything unusual, though, because she just nodded happily and went on talking.

“Yeah, we did!” she said, slinging her arm around Shayne’s shoulders. If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve said that he stiffened as she pulled him into her side. His face tightened into a grimace, but you couldn't possibly imagine why. It was obvious that they were together. He didn’t need to hide that for your sake. “I was so fucking pumped when you guys sang Towers, you don’t even understand. That’s one of my favorite songs by you guys and you crushed it, especially you Y/N. Your part always hits a little different for me.”

Yeah, you and me both, you thought. But you smiled and nodded happily. “I’m glad you liked it!” you said. You turned back to the band and made eye contact with Michelle. She raised an eyebrow. You inclined your head just slightly toward Ian. She nodded; she knew what you needed.

“I hate to interrupt,” she said, “but we should probably get this show on the road. The girls have got a packed schedule today.”

“Of course!” Ian said. “Courtney, maybe you can harass them more if they have time when we’re done filming. But for now, Shayne, Damien, ladies, follow me.”

You hurried to catch up to the rest of the band. Carly and Alexis fell into step with you while Piper started walking behind you, obviously trying to shield you from Shayne’s gaze. You had another moment of profound gratitude for these girls; they took care of you when no one else would, they loved you when you couldn’t love yourself, and they always seemed to know what you needed without having to ask. That shared strength and love was one of the reasons the band had stayed together for so long.

Impressively enough, you managed to keep your shit together until you got to Carly’s. You didn’t bother texting her to let her know that you were coming. She’d let you in if she was home, and if she wasn't home, you knew her building code and where she kept her spare key.

Luckily, she was home; she let you up to her apartment without question.

Only once you’d crossed the threshold of your best friend’s apartment did you allow yourself to cry. You crumpled like a piece of paper against her and let out a sob so loud it bordered on a scream. Carly maneuvered you back onto her couch, sat down with you, and held you until you could talk. You were still crying when you pulled away from her, but you’d gotten out the full-body sobs.

“Honey, what happened?” Carly asked. You could hear the concern in her voice; it was rare that you showed up at her place unannounced, and even rarer that you started the visit by scream-crying into her shirt. She probably thought somebody was dead.

“Shayne got home from work and ended things,” you said. “Just… no warning, no ceremony, nothing. Three days ago he asked me my fucking ring size and today he told me that we aren’t working anymore. And I don’t understand because I thought he was happy! I thought we were good! I thought that we’d be fucking picking a date for our wedding, not for when I’m gonna come move out the rest of my shit!”

Before Carly could respond, your phone vibrated. You took it out and couldn’t help your tearful, almost-manic laugh at what you saw there; a text from Shayne, apologizing, asking if you would come home and talk. You went to reply, but Carly grabbed your phone and held it away from you before you could.

“Hey!” you exclaimed, lunging for your phone. She was an expert at keep-away, though, and you couldn’t even get close. You cursed yourself for all the nights out where you asked her to keep your phone away from you if you got too drunk. “Carly, give me my phone!”

“Promise me you won’t text him back and you can have it,” she said.

“That’s ridiculous! Of course I’m gonna text him back!”

“Is that a good idea?” she asked. She cocked an eyebrow. “If you can honestly tell me that you think it’s a good idea for you to say anything to him right now, I’ll give you your phone back.”

That knocked some sense into you. Immediately, the fight left your body and you sat back on the couch. She studied you for a moment and then leaned forward to set the phone on the coffee table. When you didn’t go for it, she relaxed and leaned back.

“Sorry,” you said. “I’m all over the place.”

“I know. It’s okay. That’s what I’m here for, right? Now, walk me through what happened.”

“He came home and he was being weird, and he was like ‘hey can we talk’ and then he basically just said that it isn’t working anymore and that he can’t be with me. He didn’t give me a reason besides that and I didn’t ask him for one. I just packed a bag and came here.”

Carly nodded, considering. “That’s really fucking weird.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long,” you said. At her shocked expression, you shrugged. “I’ve always said that he’s out of my league, right? It was only a matter of time before he got tired of me and realized he could do better. He probably realized that if we got married, he’d have a hell of a harder time getting away from me.”

“Were it not for the state of emotional peril you’re in right now, I would slap you,” Carly said. You let out a startled laugh; of all the things she could've said, you weren't expecting that. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say, and I’ve known you for a long time. If that was true -- which it isn’t, by the way, you’re the sexiest, most beautiful, smartest, funniest, greatest person I know -- it wouldn’t have taken him three years to ‘get bored.’ This is one of the dumber stunts he’s pulled, which is saying something. But this isn’t your fault. He’s the asshole here, regardless of his reasoning. If you want to talk to him and try to work things out, that’s your business. But whether or not things work out, this will always be on him. And I’ll be here every step of the way, buttercup.”

You nodded gratefully, even though you didn't believe her. You’d never been good enough for Shayne. This was always inevitable. Still, you put on a brave face for Carly. Better she didn’t know what you were really thinking. “You’re right,” you said. “Thanks, Carly.”

You could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t completely believe you, which wasn’t surprising. Carly always knew when you were lying. But she also knew when to let an issue lie. “Good,” she said. “Now, Bridesmaids or Legally Blonde?”

Ian led the group to a colorful sound stage. To the right was a partition, and behind it a bunch of strange props and costume pieces. To the left was a single stool, a piano, and some bongos.

The room was swarming with activity as crew people moved around getting everything set up and ready to go. Shayne and Damien led you over to the set. “Y/N, why don’t you sit in the stool for the intro?” Shayne said, the first words he’d said to you since you had broken up. His voice was professional and upbeat, betraying almost no emotion. “And then I’ll stand to your right, Damien will be behind me, and the rest of the band can be to your left.”

“Sounds fine to me,” you said, and you hoped your voice sounded less forced to him than it did to you. You sat on the stool, glad to be off your feet; your balance was suddenly fucked now that Shayne was next to you, and you were afraid you wouldn’t be able to keep yourself upright if you tried to stand for much longer.

Shayne went to go check something with a cameraperson, and the girls formed another huddle around you. Carly stood right in front of you, Piper to your immediate left, and Alexis just behind you. “Are you alright?” Carly asked.

“I’m sorry,” Damien said, cutting into the conversation before you could even think about how to answer Carly’s question. He was standing to your right, though he was a little farther away than your bandmates were. “I wanted to let you know before you saw him. I thought maybe it would be easier that way.”

“It’s okay, Dames. It’s not your fault,” you said. You reached over to squeeze his bicep, hoping to ease his mind a little bit, but the guilt didn’t leave his face.

“How did you know we would be here today?” Carly asked. You gave her a stern look, but she either didn’t see it or just didn’t care.

Damien fidgeted, nervous. You didn’t blame him; Carly was a force of nature when she wanted to be. “Um,” he said, “what do you mean?

“I mean that you had enough foresight to know that you could surprise Y/N and warn her about Shayne. So you knew we would be here.”

“We get a filming schedule at the beginning of the week,” Damien said. You looked at Carly as if to say There, see? A perfectly good reason. Now back off and let the poor boy breathe. But then Damien continued: “and Shayne told me about seeing Y/N on Saturday, so --”

He cut himself off, clamping his mouth shut as he seemed to realize what he’d said. Your gaze flew from Carly to Damien. For a moment, you felt thoroughly like a middle schooler; the he-said-she-said was something you thought would get left in sixth grade, but here you were nonetheless. Still, you couldn’t help the way your heart rate accelerated at Damien’s words. If Shayne had mentioned you specifically…

“What?” you asked.

You didn’t want to get your hopes up. You couldn’t get your hopes up. Shayne mentioning you didn’t mean anything. Besides, he had a new girlfriend now, anyway. He’d probably just done it since you and Damien were friends before shit hit the fan.

Damien didn’t get the chance to answer your question before Shayne returned from his conversation with the cameraperson. You were pretty sure he knew that you guys had been talking about him; it was pretty obvious by the way the conversation stopped short as soon as he got within earshot. But if he knew, he didn’t comment on it. He just walked over and took his place next to you.

Carly flashed him a look colder than the south pole and moved to stand on your other side, and then she plastered the brightest smile you’d ever seen on her face. You did the same.

“Alright, everybody ready?” one of the crew people asked. You nodded your assent. “Three, two, and… action!”

[thesimonkshow]

My thoughts on Folklore

This is about to be a long ass Taylor Swift post, so strap in for the ride.

I along with many others were going about their business (looking at Adam Driver gifs) before my phone alerted me to the notification that Taylor Swift was releasing her eighth studio album Folklore the very next day. Chaos everywhere, my sleep schedule went out the window as I went into the Swifties tag to see how everyone else was dealing with this news. So I eagerly awaited 2PM (Australian time) for the album to drop and after a few listens (sleep got the better of me through my first listen due to my previous sleep schedule), I eventually picked out some album highlights.

The 1 - I love how freely she’s cussing on the album (a point that will be reitriated throughout), and I know Gossip tabloids and casuals will be shooketh because they’d think Taylor & Mr. Alwyn have ‘broken up’ due to Taylor’s personable lyrics but this gave me Better Man vibes. Remember when the Bridge said ‘You might have bern The One if you were a Better Man’ and this is basically that without the angsty fire.

Cardigan - I LOVE how Alternative Folk fits Taylor’s voice, it sounds like she’s telling us a story and we are entrapsed by her. It also works perfectly with the love triangle songs, which I had to understand a bit through a few listens.

The Last Great American Dynasty - The moment I saw this track, I knew it would be epic. I pictured her taking the piss out of the Trump family, but what I got was an awesome song about the woman who owned Taylor’s Rhode Island house and the antics she got up to. I love the descriptors she used when describing the weddings and the party’s Rebekah & Bill had and especially the bridge of antics Rebekah got up to later in her time. The ‘And then it was bought by me.’ Part of the bridge, I love a good twist!

Exile - OH MY LORD. When I saw Skinny Love Bon Iver on this album, I knew this would be something and low and behold it was. The concept of the man in exile in her intro caught my attention but seeing it up close and personal was amazing. The vocals interlaced with each other was perfection, especially as Taylor responds to Bon Iver. I really connected it to the struggles of Seth Rollins in the latter half of 2019, how he seemed to be exiled from the WWE, how his initial opponent Kevin Owens was having his flaws disregarded to drag Seth down, the ‘Always Keep Fighting’ shirt that he wore (raising money for mental health chairties) adding insult to injury for Seth, who had even briefly deactivated his twitter to clear his headspace following attacks/death threats from a fellow wrestler’s fan base. ‘I gave you every sign’ rings true here, the man was struggling and no one seemed to care.

My Tears Ricochet - My WWE ass was happy to see another Wrestler reference after The Man. So this was an interesting look, but I got another story that intrigued me, a man having been involved in a tumultous connection with the songs narrator showing up to her funeral to save face. Listeners drew parraells with the recent Masters drbarkle with Scott Borchetta, head of Big Machine Records with whom Taylor was once signed to, and I have to say it’s a good perspective to take.

Mirrorball - This one took a while but I ended up loving the fact she could sing from a Mirrorball’s perspective and still make an epic song. I loved the part about always fitting in with the crowd because at functions/discos where mirrorballs are used, the lights will change to fit the mood and being a reflective surface, Mirrorballs will reflect the colour change.

Seven - This was a nice ditty about a past friend Taylor once had. I really loved the line ‘Please picture me in the weeds before I learned Civility’ it gives a more sophisticated parraell to Never Grow Up.

August - This is the second in the love triangle songs, and I loved the storytelling aspect as Taylor paints the picture of an affair that Summer Nights would quake in it’s boots if it heard about it. She sweeps up the adience in the Mistresses POV, showcasing the sweetness of love and the sting of toxcisity.

This is me trying - Where are those who said Taylor Swift plays the victim in her songs? Because this is for them. Taylor states in this her regrets of wasted potential, broken relationships etc. at the end of the day no matter how many awards she has, records she breaks, or money she possesses, Taylor Alison Swift is a human being, and we should give her boundries to grow and flourish.

Illicit Affairs - This track title also intrigued me, and whilst it does what the title says, and discusses the highs and lows of the secret passions of mismatched lovers, the second verse & bridge stood out to me the most. The way Taylor’s voice went up on him in the line ‘Leave the perfume on the shelf that you picked out just for him.’ Drew my attention as she later did the same thing on the word high, this had to mean something. And given that we don’t know the narrators gender, this could also be a song about a closeted gay man who’s found love but is struggling to accept this relationship. Whereas the bridge reminded me a lot of the Adam & Hannah breakup in Season 4 of Girls in the episode Sit In where Hannah denounces Adam’s nickname of kid, which he had called her by since the first season, with the episode before that showing her heartbroken that Adam has gotten a new girlfriend behind her back and thus turns into a mess locked in her apartment for a day and two nights. it was a heartbreaking part of the show, one that shifted it into a new era for better or for worse, and the entirety of this reasonated with me.

Invisible String - Around this point was where melotonin kicked in for me on my first listen, so I’ve heard this less than the other songs, but I love how it discusses her relationship with Joe & how for better or for worse, he is hers. It continued the theme with them on Lover of not having a great picturesque love, but having ups and downs like any couple.

Mad Woman - The calmer sister of The Man, she won’t throw big production and actions around, she can take you down with words alone. The track stings brutally as Taylor takes down sexism as it exists in our world today, and even sadly paints a visual of how it must have been for women back in the day fighting for equal rights. ‘Does a scorpion sting when fighging back?’ Line was annother connection, as I was reminded of Vanessa Ives from Penny Dreadful and how the animal symbology that stuck with her was a scorpion, used to great effect in the Season 2 finale in a confrontation with Lucifer’s makeshift doll of her. The chorus line ‘And you’ll poke the bear till her claws come out, and you’ll find something to wrap your noose around’ stuck with me on my listens, and really shows how men will strike and then run away saying ‘it’s a joke, she’s hysterical’ etc. the part about women loving to hunt witches also reminded me of a Doctor Who episode called ‘The Witchers’ and also reminded some listeners of how Demi Lovato took Scooter Braun’s side in the Licencing debarkle, in fact in the first part of the bridge, the song also has a double meaning. It’s also about the state of affairs following Taylor’s songs being stolen from her. The part in the bridge about the wives knowing about their Spinster husbands having affairs and not wanting to show their anger for fear of being outcast like the titular woman is angsty but so lyrically genius.

Epiphany - I had to listen to this a couple of times but once I realised what it was about, I was in shock. This is about her Grandfather Dean who she mentioned in the intro who fought in a war. The song paints the war setting with the helmet, the flesh wound and the rifle within the first few words, and I especially loved the line ‘And some things we don’t speak of.’ because it talked about how some soldiers develop PTSD from their experiences, yet don’t want to discuss them for fear of being perceived as weak. Also the outro beat sounds like a radar scanning for a plane, and the beat of the drum sounds like bombs exploding, really adds to the War theme.

Betty - This is the final track in the love triangle story as it tells the story of James as he fights to earn back Betty’s love after he has an affair with Inez. The eventual pitfalls of Illicit Affairs have come for Inez which causes her to tell Betty of their affair, which is a nice link. This songs gives a classic Greese/Christine/Cheesy 80s Film meets Trixie Mattel vibe which I loved. I also loved the callbacks to August & Cardigan, along with the casual F bomb droppings.

Peace - This is another sweet love song for Joe which calls back to Cruel Summer, Cornelia Street & Dancing With Our Hands Tied as Taylor struggles with the connection she has established with Joe, and contemplates escaping, but eventually knows she’ll stay. How the entire world will be on them, but she’ll be by his side through it all. Similar to Invisible String but different all at once and a perfect penultimate track to lead to the last song.

Hoax - The sweetness brings us to the double edged sword of a closing track. Giving a shattering realisation that love can be tricky at times, the references to Call It What You Want ‘I am ash from your fire’, The Archer ‘You know the hero died so what’s the movie for?’ & ... So It Goes ‘You knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score’. Taylor loves Joe so much that when they fight it’s as painful as when she became Pop Culture Enemy #1 back in 2016. But no matter what, she says herself ‘Don’t want no other shade of blue but you. No other sadness in this world would do’ relationships are always painful, there is no happy endings all round, but there is still love to be found.

All in all this is an incredible album & @taylorswift you have created magic and I hope you know that myself & all the Swifties are so proud of you for flexing your writing skill and crafting such a stunning album.

[d6official]

Day6’s Jae Park is leading K-pop’s vital mental health conversation for Dazed Magazine

The musician discusses his solo project, eaJ, and reveals how a panic attack led him to tackle his own mental health issues and launch a social initiative.

He may have played his father’s guitar in the living room as a kid, but a career in music always felt like a pipe dream for Jae Park. Raised in Cerritos, California, Jae was pursuing higher education when he got the chance to audition for a Korean American Idol-esque survival show. Through this experience, he was able to carve a space for himself in the Korean music scene by ultimately joining Korean rock group Day6 in 2015.

Making their debut almost six years ago, Day6 created a space for a different type of idol group, a band. The five-member group has each member on an instrument: a drummer, two guitarists, a bassist, and a keyboard player. The members are heavily involved with the lyric writing and production of their songs. A trip to one of their live performances will surprise you with a member shredding a solo on the electric guitar instead of an intricate dance break. Their first EP, The Day, peaked at number two on Billboard’s World Album Chart, and since then, each succeeding release has found a home in the top 10.

Outside of the day job, Jae’s been busy with various projects: he’s a part-time streamer on Twitch, a co-host on the How Did I Get Here (HDIGH) podcast and, most recently, a solo artist, posting a string of self-penned songs under the alias eaJ to his YouTube channel from early last year. These side projects give us an insight into his personality. HDIGH explores a playful side to Jae; he and his co-host begin with a topic, start by sharing their opinions and beliefs, and slowly, they spiral into a deep dive on Google, diverging into a completely new topic by the end of the episode. It leaves them asking “How did I get here?”

Feeling lost and uninspired, Jae began writing the tracks as a way to reconnect with his love of music. These solo tracks sound different to his work with Day6. While Day6’s high energy work is reminiscent of early 2000s pop punk bands like All Time Low, the aeJ project tracks are tranquil, almost dreamlike, revealing a softer side of Jae’s musicality.

But amid this new venture, Jae faced mental health challenges that he feels changed his life, beginning with a panic attack in the back of a taxi. In recent times, more K-pop idols have become outspoken about their struggles, but there’s still a stigma attached to the topic in Eastern society. Compared to artists in the West, K-pop idols are more reserved about their relationship with mental health. Jae believes that continuing this cycle of “toxic positivity” and perfection can be destructive to today’s youth, fueling the global prevalence of adolescent mental health disorders.

These confrontations with what he calls “feelings of death, doom, and finality” encouraged him to become a mental health advocate and, through that, From Friends was born – a clothing line created in collaboration with REPRESENT, which helped the star raise £100,000 for mental health charities.

We caught up with Jae to talk about his projects, mental health, and why From Friends was such a valuable experience to the 28-year-old artist.

You began the eaJ solo project last year. Could you talk a bit more about that?

Jae Park: I came to the conclusion that I’d forgotten what kind of music I liked. (I wanted) to find my identity, so I started spinning out track after track; it came almost like word vomit. I was throwing up all this emotional baggage I had (built) up over the years. I just ended up releasing it. I took everyone for the ride, because (I thought), ‘If I’m gonna make it, I might as well take you with me’.

Can you talk us through some of the issues you were dealing with at the time?

Jae Park: I ended up breaking down in a taxi ride on the way home from a video shoot for the eaJ project, on a song called “Truman”. At first, I felt my body go numb. And then my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. So I said, ‘Oh, panic attack… nice. I’m gonna die’. And this impending feeling of doom and death and finality was just drawing so close. And I started hyperventilating, I was freaking out. I told the taxi (driver), ‘I’m going to need to go to the hospital’. I was almost out of my mind when I reached the hospital; I’d been hyperventilating the whole time. They took me into ER, did all these tests, and told me there was nothing wrong with me. I was like, ‘You’re lying, there’s no way. There’s something physically wrong, I feel like I’m going to die. I can’t breathe’. Turns out I had some pretty severe panic attacks.

“(I wanted) to find my identity, so I started spinning out track after track; it came almost like word vomit. I was throwing up all this emotional baggage I had (built) up over the years” – Jae Park

Oh wow, that’s quite a journey. Especially when you’ve never felt that way before. Your brain is telling you, ‘Oh my God, you’re gonna die’. Sometimes the wires in your brain just get crossed a bit. And there’s not necessarily anything that causes it.

Jae Park: Sometimes there’s no trigger.

A part of your job is to almost seem like you’re perfect, right? Because people idolise you. And when you have these little cracks in the armour, it’s seen as a weakness. Could you talk about how you turned this thing that could be perceived as a weakness into something good, with From Friends?

Jae Park: This actually segues perfectly into what I wanted to talk about. That’s why it’s called ‘From Friends’. The mission statement is (about) extending a helping hand to whomever, wherever there’s a need. It’s very personal and it’s from a friend. Friends are people who tell you, ‘Hey, you don’t look like you’re doing well’, or, ‘Hey, you seem a little bit off’.

I thought this was something that was going to positively affect people. When the car incident happened, I thought, ‘Damn, if only someone had told me that a panic attack can make you feel like you’re about to die, that it usually comes with impending feelings of death and doom, and you start breathing really fast’. If I’d known those things, which I’m sure that 90 per cent of celebrities have gone through, I wouldn’t have freaked out as hard as I did. And I feel like that day carved a couple of scars in me that aren’t going to be healed in the near future.

What kind of reactions did you receive after the launch?

Jae Park: I definitely received a lot of positive reactions. And it’s incredibly rewarding to be a part of this. To be completely honest, in a big corporation (the idol group Jae belongs to, Day6, is part of South Korean multinational conglomerate JYP Entertainment, which has represented some of the biggest acts in the industry), it’s not the easiest to be able to start projects like this. It’s one hand to the next hand, and the next. Then it gets rejected, all the way back down and you do it again. It wasn’t easy, but it felt good. Especially when I used to read my DMs, a lot of people were like, ‘Thank you so much, I thought it was just me’. And it’s not just you. Those are the people I want to reach. Those are the people we wanted to educate, and let them know it’s OK not to feel perfect. Your idols try to look perfect because their company told them to look perfect! But I (guarantee) you, they don’t feel perfect.

What are your personal goals for 2021?

Jae Park: So I’ve been doing these unofficial releases on YouTube, and people liked them so I thought I might as well make a video. It was purely for entertainment, just to see how people would react. And I think I had a really positive reaction and I feel like I’ve garnered some of the respect that I wanted when starting the project. I’m planning an official release sometime soon.

I think my next venture is (for) my number one (job), Day6. We’re always working on an album. I’m, like, 99 per cent sure we have a solid album for you this year.

We’ve talked about mental health, your solo projects, and Day6. Is there anything else about yourself you think the world doesn’t know, that this ‘idol’ world doesn’t capture authentically?

Jae Park: I feel like I’m pretty damn transparent, especially these days, after the ‘incident’. I’ve probably shared every opinion that I have online somewhere; they’re always a little bit controversial. I’m known as a bit of a problem child these days in the K-pop realm. Something the world doesn’t know about me? I’m not sure if there’s anything. Everyone knows I’m a dumbass and I make mistakes; I am a hypocrite (who contradicts) what I’ve said the week before, because I feel different a week later. I’m just me, I’m just a human being, and that’s just how it is.

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