#ALSO not to mention there's actual record of me eating shit on the pit and billie noticing

[f1xmeinfortyfive]

it's that me depresso or whatever that sabrina girl sings on her song

[fundy-simp]

Fundy/GN!Reader - Two Days [11,010 words]

Fluff! For this anon! You were lucky enough to join your European friends on their trip to England and in the process you got to meet your wonderful boyfriend Fundy. Oh, you also got to get the wrath of TommyInnit witnessing his friends in a relationship. (/lh I love Tommy) I have so much fluff for this idea guys, I’m going to write some really cheesy bits for this and I’m going to love it >:] Also there’s a very intimate scene in this, not spicy or heated but idk I felt like I should mention it just incase. Ignore the botched plane stuff, lines that are off from the vlog, and the slightly rushed ending, I was getting a little frustrated with how long this was taking <//3 I promise tho I still love the request and I’m very happy I could fill it in a way that I’m at least mostly happy with. Anyways as always please feel free to scroll past if anything about this makes you uncomfortable :)

Your fingers tapped on the arm rest, leg bouncing as you grumbled, how long does it take a plane to land? Immediately you laugh at yourself, it takes a while. You need to calm down, it’s not like your one plane landing away from your closest friends and the man you quite honestly see as the love of your life! Of course not. It’s just a normal first ever trip to England. This is absolutely fine.

...

You’re entirely lying to yourself, your heart feels like it's going to explode as it beats in your ears. Fundy’s going to be there, the man who’s brought you endless hours of joy and smiles. The man who’s pulled you out of countless panic attacks. The man who you’ve had to lovingly bully into making sure he eats and drinks enough. The man who you’ve fallen asleep in call with countless times. The man who all you’ve ever wanted to do to is yank into a kiss and never let go.

Fidgeting with your seatbelt for a second, you groan and you pull your hands up to your face, resting the heel of your palms on your eyes. You all have known each other for months and logically you know it’ll go fine. But your brain isn’t known for listening to logic, or you for the matter, so when anxiety starts to boil in your stomach you’re not surprised. So many things could go wrong you couldn’t even begin to list them.

It took the plane actually touching the ground to land for you to pull your hands off your face and realize you didn’t hear a single thing the pilot just said. Quietly you waited for them to say your good to go as you readjusted your mask. Good god, your fidgeting is starting to annoy you, what are all of your friends going to think? You sigh as you feel the plane finally stop, waiting till you see other people standing up before standing up yourself.

Slowly the passengers started to leave the plane and carefully you followed behind, trying not to get too close per social distancing and all. Nervously you pat your hands on your thighs, waiting patiently while the flight attendant checked your temperature. Once you got the okay you shuffled off the plane, your eyes scanned over everyone in the airport, looking for any of your friends.

After a few scans you finally spotted Wilbur, how it took multiple tries to spot a man who towered over everyone is beyond you, but aside the point. As you started to jog towards him you see Tommy pop up next to him, "Ayyyee y/n!!" he basically yelled and Niki shushed him, whispering something to Tommy before you see him huff. The scene made you smile, he was definitely just as loud as you expected him to be.

“Hey Tommy!” you replied, you’re still anxious but actually seeing your friends in its own way has calmed you down. Once you get over there Niki pulls you into a quick but tight hug before Wilbur flung an arm around your shoulder.

You couldn’t see his smile, thanks to his mask, but you could recognize the way his eyes were crinkled. “Hey, y/n! How was the flight?” he asked as he started walking, pulling you along with him.

“Oh it wasn’t-” You looked around for Fundy, frowning slightly when you didn't find him, “It was okay. Where- Where’s Fundy?” You asked, unconsciously rubbing your knuckles together, you know he wouldn’t lie to you but a lot of previous relationships made an uncomfortable pit grow in your stomach.

Tommy from the other side of Wilbur let out a bark of a laugh, “That dumbass overslept and missed his flight!” he shrugged, “Don’t know why he still bothered getting another flight but he should be here soon.”

“Yeah, he’ll be here. We’re gonna go get your luggage then we’re heading to his terminal.” Will said as he gave your shoulder a couple of pats, “Don’t worry your lover boy will be here soon!” he couldn’t help but laugh at his own lighthearted teasing while you turned red.

You could hear Tommy gasp as Will said the second part, oh god. You guys never told Tommy you were dating, you both managed to keep it under wraps for an upwards of five months. “You and Fundy are dating?!?!” He yelled, earning himself another glare from Niki that he ignored, too lost in his own laugher, “Oh my god, this is gonna be so great! I’m going to make this so awkward.”

Groaning at the sound of Tommy’s ‘I’m definitely causing mayhem and you can’t stop me’ voice, you sigh and pull Wilbur off of you before looping around to Tommy. He was definitely taller than you but that didn’t stop you from hooking your arm around his neck and pulling him down to your level “Tommy. My main man. My good friend. My best bud, if you will... I swear if you ruin anything within the first thirty minutes, I will personally assure we leave you in an alley after 9 pm.” You gave him a stern squint as he just stared at you. After a few seconds and Niki and Wilbur giggling, you give him a noogie before letting him go, “I’m joking, I’m joking! But, seriously, at least thirty minutes.”

Tommy huffed as he ran his hand through his hair a few times, “Bro what the fuck?” He stopped for a moment, seemingly remembering you asked something of him “... Fine. But you owe me one!” He insisted, you just rolled your eyes and agreed.

By now you had all made it to the baggage claim and you carefully looked for your backpack to make sure you didn’t grab someone else’s by mistake. Once you spotted it you quickly ran to grab it before returning to the group who had moved and sat on one of the rows of benches in the middle of the room. You could see Niki mumble something to Wilbur before he nodded, “You guys whispering gossip without me?? God, my own best friends would really hurt me like this huh?” you say dramatically as you pulled your backpack on.

The two immediately shook their heads, “No, no! Of course not, how could we live with ourselves if we did?” Niki replied, her voice sounding just as dramatic as yours. You both cracked into giggles, them falling into her words as she spoke “But anyway, Fundy might be a little longer so we’re just gonna wait here.” she patted the seat next to her and you happily plopped down.

The next ten minutes were filled with Tommy talking about basically anything he could get away with, future video ideas, Dream SMP plot, at one point you're pretty sure he started talking about SMP Earth, but you couldn’t be sure. It was a nice filler conversation, sometimes one of the others would jump in and say something but you just stayed quiet for the most part, stuck in between the weird middle ground of anxious and very, very tired from your trip.

When you accidently started to doze off you felt someone carefully wrap their arms around your shoulders. “Oh, Fundy...” You say quietly, leaning into the touch for a second before almost jumping out of your skin, “Holy shit, hey Fundy.” You said pulling yourself out of his arms before jumping over the bench to tackle him in a hug. “You’re actually here. Oh my god.” you are trying your damnedest not to cry as you finally learn just how comfortable his hugs really are.

Fundy holds onto you a little tighter when he hears little hics come from you, changing his stance just enough to be sure you both don’t fall, “I'm here, y/n. I really, really am.” he said quietly, burying his face in your hair. “I love you so much.” he pulled you away from him, pulled down his mask so he could place down light kisses everywhere on the exposed skin of your face, making you giggle.

“I love you too, dork.” You reply before pulling your own down and tugging him into a kiss, it was a slow one, full of unfamiliarity and so much love. It made your heart flutter more than he already did and you honestly didn’t think that was possible.

When you both pulled apart you were forcibly reminded by Tommy making very exaggerated gagging noises that you two were, in fact, not alone. “My eyes! Wilbur my eyes!! It’s so gross it's blinding me!” The teen jokes, still fake gagging. You and Fundy just rolled your eyes while you pulled your masks back up, neither you expected anything different from him.

Wilbur just sighed and lightly shoved Tommy, “Great job, you lasted almost five minutes, that’s a record I’d say.” Tommy just replied by flipping Wilbur off which sent the whole group into hysterics. He tried to defend himself but all his sentences just devolved into laughs so he gave up. All you can think about is how this is home, laughing so hard with your friends that you cry while you lean on your boyfriend.

Once everyone calmed down Fundy made sure his backpack was on fully before stepping over the bench. Niki let out a laugh as she jokingly scolded him, "The bench really isn’t that long, you could have just walked around, you know?"

Fundy just shrugged, "I mean, y/n just did it! I'm just following their lead!" he said, a shit eating grin on his face that made Niki sigh.

You chuckled as you walked around and the rest of the group got up, "Well, who's hungry? I know y/n hasn't eaten in at least five hours so why don't we go get pizza or something?" Wilbur suggested, fishing his keys outta his pocket.

“Fuck yeah, pizza!!!” Tommy yelled excitedly, quickly stealing Wilbur's keys and sprinting away.

Will stuttered for a second before running off after Tommy, "Motherfucker, not again! Get back here, you aren't even old enough to drive!!"

You, Fundy, and Niki followed after the two, laughing at their antics. Fundy softly entangled your guy's fingers, placing his forehead on the top of your head for a second in place of a kiss. "Oh my God, you guys are already attached at the hip-" Niki said, laughing more, you know it's lighthearted teasing but it still makes you blush.

"Aw, come on Niki! I thought you'd be the one to not tease us!" you said in a joke whiny tone, hiding your face in Fundy's shoulder.

Niki started to laugh harder, "Oh- Oh hell no, this is just the beginning!" she said, you couldn't see her face but you could absolutely hear the devilish grin. You lightly bonk your head on Fundy's shoulder a few times out of embarrassment which caused him to giggle. Oh. That's so much cuter in person, holy shit.

Sighing, you hear Tommy scream making you snap your head in his direction, Wilbur had him by the wrist, wiggling his keys out of his fingers. Tommy let out a loud laugh as he basically sprinted away from Wilbur to the doors of the airport. “Oh, we got outta here faster than I expected....” you mumbled mostly to yourself, watching Tommy fling the door open at full force and quickly close behind him.

“It was probably longer than you think, you were just too distracted by a certain Dutch to realize it.” Wilbur said while he pushed the door open with his shoulder, lingering long enough for the rest of you to walk though.

"Shut your dirty crime mouth, Soot." you say through a groan, you weren't actually mad, of course, but if they were going to be like this this entire trip your pretty sure your just going to stop existing.

Fundy let out a quiet laugh at your behavior before responding to Wilbur, "I don't know, I feel like this is a win for me! I get all of y/n's attention and you called me 'a certain Dutch' instead of other things." he smirked, still laughing a little.

Wilbur snapped his fingers, "Oh yeah! Of course my bad, a certain furry was distracting you y/n!" he said happily, as he directed the group towards his car and Tommy who was basically already there.

"Noooooo!!!" Fundy grumbled as he brought his free hand up to his face.

Tommy stood at the car now, trying to open the front seat door “Shut up furry boy, I want pizza!” he shouted, trying the door again.

A mischievous grin crossed your face as you lifted his hand up near your face, "It's okay babe, I love you even though you're a furry!" you teased him, which made him groan.

"No no no no no! Stop it!!" he pulled his hand out of yours, causing you to frown, before he crossed his arms and stopped in the middle of the parking lot "I'm not a furry and you know it y/n!! My own partner for fucks sake." You could tell from his high pitched voice that he was joking but you still felt a twinge of guilt in your stomach

Carefully you grabbed his wrists and tried to pull his hands from his face but he pulled against you, “Noooo, sweetheart I’m sorry.” You say in a soft voice, now trying to pull his hands away with a good portion of your body weight. “Baaaaabe, please...” you pleaded, you could feel him tense and shuffle his feet to better support your weight, his hands still not moving. “Oh, this is just unfair now!” you say exasperated.

Fundy tried to keep his pouting bit up but quickly broke into a laugh, it was the fox esque laugh he normally did, it still makes your heart flutter “Unfair!? You’re the one supporting, like, all your body weight on me!” You giggle as you start to lean down towards the ground more, making him wobble for a second before steadying out.

“Holy SHIT, I was supposed to make it awkward but you guys are doing a fine job on your own! What the fuck guys?!” Tommy complained. You turned his way to see him grumpily crawling into the back seat of Wilbur’s car, “Now stop being in love, it’s gross and I want pizza!” He shouted as he slammed his door.

You immediately let go of Fundy, almost stumbling to the ground out of embarrassment, “Listen! In my defense this is the first time I’m meeting my boyfriend! I feel like this is warranted.” you said as you got up and made your way over to the car.

“Y/n you’re gonna have to sit in the middle seat, I’m pretty sure the other two tall bastards would die if they sat there.” Wilbur said as he checked everything up at the front.

You shuffled into the middle seat, trying your best to not get into Tommy's bubble too much as Fundy sat down next to you. The drive was relatively short, only about ten minutes, and he felt even shorter when you absentmindedly cuddled into Fundy. He happily wrapped an arm around you as he rested his head on yours.

Tommy tried to complain about being stuck in the back with you two but Wilbur derailed him and got him to go on about their trip to an arcade yesterday. If you’re honest you weren’t paying attention at all but he seemed very excited about his vlog guns and you were glad he was having fun. Sighing, you lean into Fundy just a little more and he hummed quietly, if the car ride was any longer you’re pretty sure you both would have fallen asleep like that.

When Wilbur pulled the car to a stop you both begrudgingly leaned up from each other and everyone filed out of the car. Quickly you guys made your way into the restaurant, you and Fundy ordered your pizza first, just a simple medium where it was half his favorite and half yours. After they handed you your table marker you went and sat down, you and Fundy had your own both while Niki and Wilbur had one near and Tommy sat at a table by himself.

Fundy looked at the table marker in disbelief, “OH- Y/n, y/n. Holy shit, look at what table number we have.” he looks at you, quite literally making the pog face at you, which makes you giggle.

“What is it?” you ask, trying to push your giggles down as he showed you the table marker, it was bright yellow and had 69 written on it, “YOOOOOOOOO!” you said much louder than you meant to, making him break out laughing.

“Guys- Guys, you need to see this.” Fundy insisted as he turned towards the rest of the group, presenting the 69 table marker. Everyone fell into a heavy giggle fit, laughing more at another’s laugh causing a laughing feedback loop.

You bang a fist on the table a few times, struggling to breath, why were you laughing so hard? You had no idea, but man, the serotonin it gave you was wonderful. Eventually you all calmed down, the other three going back to their conversation while you and Fundy finally calm down. Silence grew between you two, it was comfortable but you’d be lying if you didn’t want an excuse to hear your boyfriend’s voice. You dig into your mind, looking for a conversation topic for a few moments before finally finding one. "So how was the plane?" you ask him, absentmindedly putting your hand on the table to tap some random tune.

His eyes flicked to your hand, smiling a little as he recognized the tune, one of Wilbur's songs, "Terrible if I'm honest, I'm unbelievably exhausted but it's okay. I'm here with you so it doesn't bother me at all." he said softly, his eyes full of love.

Blush creeped onto your face, something about him prioritizing you always made you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Before you could reply Tommy spoke up from his table, "That is the worst and cheesiest shit you could have said, you fuckin’ Simp." he was deadpanned for about two seconds before he cracked up in his bark of a laugh.

"And what about it Child Innit? You couldn't talk to someone you were interested in if you tried." Fundy retorted but his words lacked any bite to them, still it made you giggle as you heard Tommy sputter. Your friends bickering has always been the funniest and oddly coziest things.

You stop tapping the table and lean over it to lightly smack his shoulder, "Come on that was just uncalled for!" you say though a laugh, which makes him laugh.

Finally your food gets there and you both dig in, it wasn't until you took the first bite that you realized just how hungry you were. Thanks to that, the pizza didn't last long and soon the space was filled with your friend talking again. Wilbur was asking what to do next, since he really didn't have a plan, Niki suggested they go walk around town to find something to do while Tommy suggested that you all go to Wilbur's and watch Hamilton since he hadn't seen it yet.

A little to your surprise, Wilbur agreed with Tommy, mentioning how Fundy looked like he was ready to drop like a bag of cinder blocks and you had to agree with him. So once you all were fully done, Fundy paid for your pizza, Niki insisted on covering all of them but he wouldn't let her. As you all packed up to get back into the car you watched Fundy slip the table marker into his pocket, putting a finger to his lips while you both giggled. Finally, you all piled back into the car and headed to Wilbur's, which was a much shorter drive than you expected, you were much too used to America's commute times for this.

Once you were they're you all followed Wilbur up to his apartment, carefully you pulled your shoes and mask off before flopping down on his couch and getting comfortable. Fundy followed after you like a lost puppy, a little tell tale of when he got tired is that he got clingy, it was undeniably really cute. Once you sat down he sat down next to you and cuddled into you, wrapping an arm around your waist and craning his neck slightly to rest on your shoulder.

You pulled an arm up to ruffle his hair before turning and placing a soft kiss on the top of his head. He just hummed, stifling a yawn. Pulling your arm down, you turn to Niki who sat on the other end of the couch, "So how have you been Niki?" you ask, it's been a while since your last one on one conversation with her.

"Oh I've been okay!" she said happily, her eyes vaguely watching Tommy and Wilbur fight over the TV remote, "Been thinking about getting into art again, I'm not really sure yet though." she continued, trying not to laugh when she saw Wilbur basically sitting on top of Tommy, remote in hand.

A smile spread across your lips as you also tired not to laugh, mostly not to disturb your almost sleeping lover, "Oh really? That's great to hear!" you say as Tommy curses Wilbur out, insisting that he should have just let him pull Hamilton up, "I think you should go for it, especially if it makes you happy! I bet your fans, especially fanartist, would love it." you encourage her, you didn't interact with the Minecraft Youtuber fan community often, but a hunch told you that you were right.

"Maybe, maybe..." she nodded, it was hard to explain but you could tell she seemed at least a little more sure of herself now. By now Wilbur had let Tommy off of the ground as he pressed play on Hamilton. You've never seen the actual musical but you've heard all the songs enough to know them by heart, whether that was a good thing or not you couldn't tell.

Once the musical started playing the Wilbur and Tommy scrambled to the two recliners on either side of Wilbur's couch, getting comfortable for the long show. You frankly didn't watch it all that much, mostly just listening as you closed your eyes and rested your head on Fundy's. All your movements were deliberate, you were being very careful and highly aware just to make sure you didn't jolt him awake. Not that you were sure he was asleep, but you'd rather be safe than sorry.

You basically spoke it into existence because within the next five minutes you notice his breathing even out and the hand on your hip becomes loose, limp even. You silently curse to yourself as you realize just how badly this is going to hurt his neck. After debating with yourself for what you would call way to long you decide to catch Niki's attention, "Psst, Niki, Nikiiiiii," you say quietly, dragging out the second 'i' till she looks over at you, "would you mind if Fundy rested his feet, well legs- he’s fuckin’ tall- his feet would be more on the arm rest- on you? I don't want him to hurt his neck." you say gesturing to him.

She gives you a quick nod and you lightly shake Fundy's shoulder, "Hey baby, lay your head down in my lap, I don't want you hurting your neck." you whisper, he grumbles some but listens to you. Once his head is in your lap he pulls his legs to his chest and seemingly falls back asleep. Noticing this you look up at Niki and shrug, she shrugs back with a soft smile before turning back to the musical.

Carefully you run your hands through his hair and he unconsciously leans into the touch making you smile. He's a lot more fox-like than he'll ever admit but that's okay, he doesn't need to admit it for it to be cute. With your boyfriend much more comfortable you happily turn your attention to the screen, absentmindedly messing with his hair as you sing along to the songs under your breath.

When the musical ended Tommy let out a loud cheer, which caught everyone off guard and definitely made you jump which in turn made Fundy jump awake. “Oh shit- What happening?” he asked as he sat up and straightened his legs while rubbing his face.

“You passed out during one of the best musicals ever, dickhead.” Tommy replied deadpan and all Fundy replied with was a very confused and tired face. Tommy scoffed and looked away, making you laugh, how and why that boy was always so dramatic you don’t know but it was undoubtedly entertaining.

Shrugging, Fundy leaned over and placed a soft kiss on your cheek, “Hey, babe.” he said, lingering just long enough for you to place a kiss on his cheek back before leaning away again. “So what’s the plan now?” he asked, yawning.

“Well, Niki did suggest we walk around and just look for stuff to do, so why don’t we do that?” Wilbur asked, “Especially since now Fundy’s had a nap and all.” he stood up and stretched, groaning quietly.

Fundy followed after him, much to your surprise, and as he stood up he looped his arm in yours and pulled you up with him. You halfheartedly groan but don't stop him, "I'll be honest I've barely seen the ocean, let alone literally any other country." you mostly mumble, processing just how embarrassing that is to say to a bunch of Europeans.

Tommy shot up from his seat, "You've never seen the ocean??" he basically screams, getting a lighthearted smack from Wilbur, "Guys. Guys. We gotta go to the boardwalk, y/n would love it, it's considered-" he faked gagged, "-romantic."

You roll your eyes but don't argue, slightly leaning on Fundy for a few seconds before you lean up and gently place a kiss on his lips. There was a slight second of surprise on his face before it melted into a lovestruck look as he looked down at you. Your heartbeat was in your throat, that is a look you'll never get used to, a look that says you're the only person in his world, or at least the only one right now.

Before you could kiss him again Niki lightly shoulder checked you, oh shit, when did she get up? "Get your shoes on lovebirds." she said, you looked around to see the other three were basically already to go and scramble away from Fundy, your face going bright red.

You quickly make your way to your shoes, pull them on and put your mask on, and open the door for the others. The other three filed out, Wilbur waiting by the door frame and once you shut the door he locked it. “Aye, y/n, do you mind if I vlog? I’m a vlogger now!” Tommy asked as you all made your way to the street, he dramatically dragged out how he said ‘vlogger’ making you laugh a little harder than you meant to.

“Go for it big man, I don’t care if Fundy doesn’t.” You reply, threading your fingers in Fundy’s while the group starts walking, Tommy and Wilbur leading the group.

Fundy shrugged, “Since y/n’s okay with it, go crazy.” he agreed, Tommy let out a cheer and shoulder checked Wilbur just to mess with him. You can’t help but chuckle, “What’s so funny?” Fundy asks.

Waving your free hand you laugh a little more, “Oh, just seeing Will and Tommy in person reminded me how I thought they were actually brothers before we all got close.”

He looked at the two in question, squinting his eyes for a couple of seconds before he nodded, “Yeah! I see it, they definitely act like it.” he said as they burst out into a Hamilton song, Niki laughing as she joined in. Before you knew it Tommy had pulled out his phone, recording their shenanigans with a bright smile on his face.

It was all really loud and energetic so you and Fundy just quietly watched as the chaos unfolded. Tommy picked random times to start vlogging, catching half conversations and shots of the town. It all felt familiar even though you were the only one who didn’t really stream or do youtube, but it reminds you of when you just chill in their streams, mostly in the background to vibe. After a bit of wandering around you all ended up at a little food stand, getting a small snack before you went onto the boardwalk.

Once you all finished your snacks, Tommy started recording again, “I never know what I should record with these things.” he said, turning to look at Wilbur who just shrugged.

“The trick to making a good vlog is to just record everything, like just go up to people and ask ‘Hey, can I vlog?’“ Wilbur said, talking slightly with his hands.

Tommy groaned, “But then I look like a dickhead-!”

“Not if you ask!” Wilbur insisted, interrupting the teen. “Record your feet as you walk and go up to people and ask them random questions.” he continued, you watched the look on Tommy’s face turn mischievous as he turned the camera to Fundy and you.

“Hey! Fundy! What do you think of women?” Tommy asked, the phone all too close to Fundy. He stumbled for a slight second before pulling up the 69 table marker, barely holding a straight face as he tried to not laugh. “Oh- Oh my god! That is so incredibly offensive. Is that- Is that all women are to you Fundy?” Tommy asked while he cackled, causing everyone else to laugh with him. “Sexist Fundy!! Sexist Fundy and his sexist by association partner!” He joked.

That made you lose your mind, something about being sexist by association was the funniest goddamn thing you’d heard all day. You leaned onto Fundy as you struggled to breathe, instinctively you repeated the joke under your breath as you laughed which somehow sent the group into another laughing fit as Tommy tired to move on with the bit.

Eventually you all dropped the bit and happily spent the next two hours just wandering around the boardwalk and talking about whatever came to mind. Around the hour mark NIki had to leave, giving you all light hugs before she left on her own. The other hour was basically Tommy’s podcast, not that you were complaining, it was nice to listen too as the topics naturally jumped between each other and you did make sure to add your input when you felt like it was needed. It wasn’t until Tommy had gone on a long ramble about the youtube algorithm that you actually started to tune out. You swung your hand that held Fundy’s with a little bit of force, a smile in your eyes as you looked out at the ocean. “Really pretty, huh?” Fundy asked, knocking you out of your thoughts.

“Oh yeah, I’m so used to fields I never thought oceans would look this pretty...” You say quietly before you turn to Fundy and squeeze his hand in yours, “But I’d say you're still the prettiest thing I’ve seen by a long shot!” You whisper to him, your voice soft with adoration as you watch his face go red under his mask.

He quickly looked away from you, ducking his head a little, “Then you should really start investing in mirrors if you think I’m the prettiest thing.” he replied just as quietly, his voice a little unsteady. It was cute to watch him flirt, how he tended to tiptoe the line of stuttering, rarely looking you in the eyes when he said it.

Your face heats up as you tilt your head, “Oh, really?” You ask, “I feel like I nee-” you go to continue before Tommy screams, making you jump and everyone to stop in their tracks. Your head snaps in his direction as his phone starts to ring, which true to his brand his ringtone was able sisters.

The rest of you stayed mostly quiet, absentmindedly you teetered from leg to leg while you tried your best to not eavesdrop on Tommy's conversation. Which was a much harder task than you’d expect, whether Tommy had his call volume all the way up or his dad is where he gets his loud persona from and you could hear his dad say he’d be at Wilbur’s to pick him up in a little under an hour. Tommy said okay and quickly hung up, probably to avoid his dad saying anything that embarrassed him which made you chuckle. He swiped at his phone a few times before holding his phone up near his face, “Okay, we gotta finish this vlog up! Wilbur, it was nice hanging out with you and-” He turned the camera to Fundy, laughing at his annoyed look, “-and sad Fundy.” He turned to the sky in front of you guys.

Quickly, Tommy and Wilbur devolved into banter as they ended the vlog and Fundy drags you to a bench on the side of the boardwalk. “Tommy was right though,” he says quietly and he wrapped an arm around your shoulder, pulling you to rest on his shoulder. “the boardwalk is pretty romantic.”

You giggle as you lean into him more, “And you’re pretty cheesy.”

“Oh, so you get to call me the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen, but I don’t get to say that walking on a boardwalk with the love of my life is romantic?” Fundy grumbles but there’s no bite to it.

“Well yeah! That- Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait.” You interrupted yourself, finally processing the words he just said, you bring your hands up to his face and cup it lightly, “Fundy- Fundy did you just call me the,” you swallow thickly, it’s not a problem if did, it’s just. You weren’t expecting him to care as much as you did already, multiple past relationships had taught you that you fall too hard and too fast for others to keep up, even if they wanted to. “The love of your life?” your voice drops to a whisper, like you hadn’t been dating for five months already and he could reject you right here, right now.

Fundy couldn’t help the light chuckle that left him and he brought his free hand to rest on one you had on his face, “Of course,” his eyes soften as he watches shock and blush spread across your face, “I had fallen in love with you the first time I heard your voice and I only fall more everyday.” He rubbed his thumb on your hand, you thought you’d pass out with how your heart soared at the lovestruck look he gave you, “Hell, y/n I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen in love with you more every second of this trip.” he moved to kiss the top of your head before remembering the masks and just resting his face in your hair.

Any and all words had completely dropped out of your head, “I… I don’t know how to respond to that…'' You mumbled, moving your hands from his face to wrap your arms around his waist as you bury your face into his body.

He hummed quietly, rubbing your shoulder, “And that’s fine, I already know you love me, don’t worry.” he yawned at the end of his sentence, snuggling into you more as he closed his eyes.

“How are you still tired?” You ask in a mumbe, surprised.

Shrugging, Fundy holds in another yawn, “Maybe you should just stop feeling as comfortable as home does, then maybe I won't be so tired.” He replies, while his words held weight his voice was soft.

Lazily, your gaze fell to the horizon, then to an arguing Wilbur and Tommy, you couldn’t hear them but you could assume they were arguing over something trivial. “Never,” you reply quietly, “if feeling like home to you means I get to hold you in my arms, then I never want to change that. I can deal with a clingy sleepy Funs for the rest of my life, frankly I think it’s cute.” you can feel him tense from embarrassment under you.

He quickly relaxes and grumbles and hides his face in your hair more, “I’m going to never be tired again out of spite now.” he said, mumbled by your hair.

You can help but laugh, your entire body bouncing with it as you replied, “Yeah, sure love. Whatever you say.” As hard as he tried he can’t keep a straight face and he quickly falls into giggling with you. After a bit you both calm down, simply enjoying each other's company while you don’t have any of your friends to, albeit lovingly, bully you. Neither of you are really sure how long you sat there, but before you knew it Wilbur was shaking your shoulder.

“Get up lovebirds or the offer to my guest bedroom is void.” He said in a dead tone, if you couldn’t see him you possibly would have believed him but his eyes said the opposite.

Sighing, you wiggled your way out of Fundy’s arms and tugged him up with you, intertwining your fingers. “Oh nooo! Whatever should we do! Fundy, my love, he’s going to make us sleep outside on this cold Brighton night!” You dramatically lean on him, bringing your hand to your forehead, suppressing a smile as you watched him try not to laugh.

Wilbur smirked as he puffed out his chest and touched it with just his finger tips, “It is all going to plan! Thy shall perish by sunrise!” his voice sounded like a rich british person making it impossible for any of you to keep a straight face, Fundy was the first to double over in laughter, you and Wilbur followed close behind.

Slowly the wheezing calmed down and you all came back to your senses, wide smiles plastered onto your faces, “Wait, did Tommy leave?” You ask, frowning some.

Stretching his arms above his head, Wilbur nodded, “Yeah, his dad picked him up while you and Fundy were having your moment on the bench. He didn’t wanna interrupt you guys.” he shrugs.

You can’t help but grumble, “Damn, I at least wanted to say goodbye to him!”

Reaching over, Wilbur lightly pats your shoulder, “Ey, don’t take it personally. You know he’s a busy guy, plus you know he cares for you.”

Nodding, you lean into Fundy again as you all silently come to the decision to start walking home. It was nice to listen to Fundy and Wilbur ramble on about things together, going from DreamSMP lore, to Wilbur's new album, to Fundy's new plugins, before looping back to music as Wilbur opened his front door. You didn’t really pay attention to what they were saying, just enjoying the noise of their voices.

As you all step in you pull off your shoes and masks, moving into the living room, “You can play my keyboard if you want Fundy.” You hear Wilbur say, visibly perking up at the idea, which Wilbur noticed, snickering as moved further into his house, “Seems like y/n very interested in the idea of you serenading them with your piano skills.”

Now they’re both laughing and you’re pretty sure this is where you sign your will and accept your fate. Quietly grumbling, you bury your face in your free hand, “Both of you shut your ups, I swear to god, I’ll go sleep in the airport.” you threaten, even though you’re all aware that’s an empty threat.

Fundy just laughs, letting go of your hand to wrap an arm around you “All you had to do is ask, you know.” you could hear the smile in his voice as he spoke which only made you blush more. Stupid cute boyfriend and his cute laugh and smiles and kind touches and- You pull your other hand up to your face and drag them down before pull them back up and through your hair.

You looked at Fundy with a loving but exhausted face, “You’re going to be the end of me, you know that right?” You say, only a little exasperated, you can still feel the heat on your face.

He smiled at you, it's warn, genuine, as he replied, “That’s okay, you’ll be the end to me too” he placed a soft kiss on your forehead. Smiling, you snaked your arms around him and pulled him into a kiss as he moved so that his hands so that they rested on your hips. Before you pulled apart you both could hear Wilbur yell something from his bedroom, office? Broffice. Chuckling as you finally did pull apart, Fundy pulled you to the broffice, Wilbur sat in front of his keyboard before noticing you guys and getting up.

He dragged you over with him and sat down, patting the seat for you to sit with him and you did, leaning on him lightly as he played a few short things to get used to the keyboard. It was nice to listen to, the small mistakes made you smile as you watched his hands, “Will, you should tell me where you got this, my keyboard is all wobbly. Makes playing certain songs hell.” he said, starting to play C418 Sweden.

Sighing, you close your eyes, sinking into the music and the warmth of Fundy pressed against you. Fundy switched through songs he knew carefully playing to be sure not to jostle you too much, you’re not sure when it happened but at some point you could hear Wilbur’s guitar. Quietly you hummed along while the two played, in the back of your mind all you could think about was doing this more often. Weekly would be nice, just a bunch of your friends get together and you listen to your boyfriend and best friends play.

Before you knew it Fundy was lightly shaking you awake, “Babe, come on, come with me to our room.” He says quietly. You let out a hum, letting him pull you up and along to your shared room. You hear some shuffling and zipping of bags as you halfheartedly try to rub the sleep out of your eyes. “Here, go change out of your jeans, sleeping in those isn’t exactly comfortable.” he said softly, shoving a pair of sweats and a t-shirt into your arms. You move over to the bed and set them down before stripping to change, which immediately makes Fundy squeak, “WOAH- Woah- I- Hold on!” Fundy stuttered out as he turned around.

You can’t help but giggle as you pull off your shirt, “Why are you so embarrassed? You’re my boyfriend, you know?” you tease him as you slide on the shirt he gave you, the first thing you notice is how big it is, had to be one of his shirts.

You watch him bring his hands to his face, you could see how red his ears were from here, “Well, I mean, yeah but I’m being polite.” He mumbled, ducking his head as he moved his hands to the back of his head.

Pulling off the jeans quickly before slipping on the sweats, you walk over to Fundy and loop your arms around his waist, resting your face on his back. “Okay, Mr. I’m Very Polite and Nice, I’m all changed. It’s time for bed.” You say, tugging him slightly towards the bed. He nodded and pulled himself out of your grasp, headed to the bed as he dragged you along. He flopped down and you soon followed, quickly he shuffled the blanket over you both and pulled you into his chest.

The two of you sat there quietly, relishing in each other's touch as you listened to the other’s heartbeat. It was almost overwhelming how much Fundy felt like home, how his touches brought a sense of calm you didn’t you could get to. It was weird, new, exciting even, in its own way.

Then the fact you were leaving tomorrow hit you like a ton of bricks. Your brain starts to spiral, unconsciously your grip tightens on the front of Fundy’s shirt. You feel like you can’t breathe. Your eyes blur as you feel Fundy grab your hand, steadying it- wait when did you start shaking? He rubbed soft circles on it, his other hand felt grounding on your back as you curled into him just ever so slightly more. Two days wasn't enough. One night wasn't enough. You don't know how you're going to breathe now that you've learned what it feels like to actually have him by your side. "It's not fair." you quietly grumble, the words barely comprehensible.

His grip on your shirt tightens as he places a kiss on the top of your head, "I know, I know babe..." his voice was soft as he spoke, "Let's just enjoy it while we have it."

All you can do is nod, your brain too busy trying to memorize what it felt like to have your head tucked under his chin and your arms around his waist. After a couple of cozy silent minutes Fundy started to hum a tune, you couldn't recognize it but you know he's sung it to you before. You could feel the hums in his chest, the scene felt surreal, like every other part of this day. You didn’t bother stopping the tears that pricked your eyes.

You fell asleep like that, him humming quietly and rubbing calming circles on your back. Trying your best you committed every touch to memory as you slowly faded into sleep, just barely catching Fundy whispering "I love you, y/n." as you feel into one of the most comfortable rests of your life.

When you woke up your arms and legs were entangled with Fundy’s gangly ones, his face softly tucked into the crook of your neck. You didn’t want to move and unless someone had a real good reason you weren’t going to. You’re pretty sure this is what heaven feels like, holding the love of your life close as the sun poked through the half drawn curtains making the whole situation feel all the more unreal. That moment was cut short as Fundy started to wake up, instinctively pulling away from you as he did so. You whine quietly and weakly try to pull him back, after a few seconds he listens and reburies his face in your neck.

The two of you laid there like that for a while, probably around an hour, before you begrudgingly tell him you both should get up. Fundy let out a loud groan as you slipped out of his grasp, you sat up and stretched your arms over your head, looking over at him who now laid with his arms stretched out from his body.

Wait. When did he take his shirt off? Of course you've seen him shirtless before but something about seeing it in person is fundamentally different. It felt so much more, intimate, than before. You hadn't even realized you were staring till Fundy spoke up, a laugh in his words "If your gonna stare might as well touch." his voice was low, still laced with sleep.

"Wh- I- Uh. Well. I mean-" you stutter out, looking away making him laugh more. After a few seconds you look back at him, he didn't move at all, which didn't surprise you. Silently you turn towards him, you glance up at him holding his sleepy gaze as your hand hovered over his waist. He gave you a small encouraging nod and you lightly touched him, his muscles involuntarily tense at your touch, shit your hands were cold weren’t they? You internally cringe at yourself but just as quickly as he tensed, he relaxed, letting out a quiet hum as your hand started to warm.

You felt so dumb, looking at Fundy like you were a child seeing fireworks for the first time holding the same hesitation, even as if you could burn yourself or worse, you could hurt him. Of course, you knew you wouldn’t hurt him but unfamiliarity and anxiety boiled in your stomach no matter how many times you tried to tell yourself it was okay. Looking up at Fundy you can see his face soften, a smile on his lips as he leaves you to your own devices, not wanting to interrupt whatever process you were creating.

Silently grumbling at the lack of direction and you go to place your other hand on him, only to realize just how weirdly you were positioned. You pulled away from him, earning yourself an eyebrow raise from your boyfriend which you just wave your hand at. Carefully you straddle his hips, earning a soft grunt from him but he doesn't stop you, somehow you manage to just completely blank just how close you are as you continue to run your hands over his chest.

Despite how inherently not innocent the scene looked out of context, in context it was the exact opposite. Your movements were filled with both boundless curiosity as you tried to commit the feeling of his soft, pale skin under your hands and endless hesitation as you tried not to do something wrong. "You know, you are really, really handsome..." you say quietly, it's still hard to believe you're actually able to touch him if you're honest.

Softly you cup his face, leaning down and placing soft kisses all over it, making him quietly giggle. Pecking softly at his lips before you moved on to his jaw, then his neck. It was odd, to get to this point of intimacy without there being some sort of sexual motive threw you off, but it was a much welcomed change of pace. Something about leaving light kisses on the neck and collarbone felt different when it was just reassurances of love.

As you sit up away from him he hums quietly, finally awake enough to really process what's happening. After another minute or so he sat up quickly, knocking you off balance and sending you back towards his legs. Before you hit his legs he grabbed your waist, pulling you close, the situation happened so fast that by the time you realized he was fully awake you were already in his arms, both of you giggling messes. Fundy rested his nose in the crook of your neck, you could feel the smile he wore pressed against your skin.

It was a calm and serene scene, one you hope to have again and again and again when you guys can be together more. While you were lost in thought he smirked as he blew a raspberry on your neck, making you let out a loud laugh, "WH- Wait- Hold on! I! Fu-Fundy, what the f-uck??" you struggled to ask through your laughter as he continued to assault your neck with raspberries, moving in between each one.

You pushed against him, trying and failing to get away from his attack. After multiple failed sentences, giggles, and barks of laughter he finally let you go, his face plastered in a smug but still genuinely happy grin. You wanted to ask him what that was all about but air was not being your friend so you just rested your head in his shoulder, struggling to catch your breath.

"I'm sorry, but after I let you pamper me while I was half asleep I thought I'd just keep the train rolling." he said as if he read your mind, his hands resting comfortably on your hips as he placed a kiss on your cheek. "I couldn't resist your laughter, I love it too much!" he said happily.

You let out a quiet defeated sigh, moving so now your cheek rested on his shoulder, your nose nestled in the crook of his neck. "Did Wilbur have plans for us today?" you ask quietly, part of you wished he did but another part of you is completely okay with laying in bed with Fundy till you needed to go to the airport.

Fundy thought for a moment, fingers tapping lightly on your hips, "No idea, honestly." he finally said, shrugging ever so slightly. "I should probably text him." he pulled one of his hands off of you and leaned to grab his phone off the bedside table. He moved his hand to your lower back and he leaned over you to see his phone. Melting into his touch you let out a quiet hum as you placed a hand over his heart, feeling his heartbeat through your fingertips as he typed away on his phone. You two sat like that for a few minutes before he spoke up, “Wilbur said he was gonna go get drinks with Niki, Phil, and Tristin later today, around four pm. We’re free to join but he also understands if you don’t wanna drink before your flight.”

Silently you thought, tapping your fingers lightly on his chest. On one hand it would be nice to chill out with Phil, especially since neither you or Fundy had met with him in person yet. On the other you know you, and if you were hanging around a bunch of people who were drinking you’re going to end up drinking as well. “As much as I hate to say it, I really don’t wanna drink before my flight.” You say sighing, Fundy just nods as he shoots a message back to Wilbur.

“Well since we’re gonna lay in bed all day…” Fundy started as he turned his body and flopped you both down onto your sides, both of you giggling messes. Carefully you moved your hands from his chest to his face, cupping his cheeks softly. “... You know you’re really, really pretty?” he whispered, grabbing one of your hands and placing a soft kiss on your palm.

You sputter and duck your head, trying to hide the blush on your face. “You may have told me one or two times…” You say quietly, mostly as a joke.

His head perks up, “Only once or twice?” He asked, you chuckle and continue the bit nodding. He gasped as he softly makes you look at him, he holds your face as he gives you a serious look, “You’re pretty, you are so goddamn pretty, y/n. I every fucking day think about how you are the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Any time my mind wonders it finds its way to you because- because, you just- y/n you feel like home. Whenever I’m with you, whether that’s in person or in some form of call, I feel like I should pinch myself and remind myself that I’m actually awake.” He stops for a second, taking a few breaths as your face gets redder making him chuckle slightly. “God- I am so in love with you. I- To quote you from last night: You’re going to be the end of me, you know that right?” he finishes his spiel.

You’re on cloud nine. Point blank. “Damn it, how the hell do you always know what to say?” you mumble before you snaked your arms around his neck and connect your lips. It wasn’t heated but it was passionate, full of emotions that didn’t have proper words but still needed to be communicated. Pulling apart you both were panting, only a few microseconds before you started laughing, “We are so cheesy, oh my god.” you say quietly through laughter, he joined you with a large smile on his face.

“Maybe we are cheesy, but we’re cheesy together so who cares.” he replied, placing a soft kiss on your nose.

You laughed harder, fingers messing with his hair by the nape of his neck, “You’re proving my point you fuckin’ nerd!” You basically cackled out, when you looked up the in love look in his eyes almost knocked the breath out of you. You tucked yourself under his chin, hiding your face as a hand still carded through his hair.

You two sat in bed for a few hours, scrolling through different platforms and showing each other funny or cute things. It was nice, cozy even as you fell into a simple routine, every once and a while you’d switch positions and continue with your scrolling. All too soon five pm rolled around and Fundy reluctantly brought it to your attention, “Hey love, your flight’s at eight right?” he asked quietly, you two were spooning, you as the little spoon as his chin was tucked over your shoulder.

Groaning, you nodded, “Yeah it is.” you say quietly, sinking into his touch more.

It was quiet for a few seconds before he continued, “We need to get up..” he slowly pulled away from you, making you whine but inevitably listen. Groggily, you make your way to your bag, pulling out a simple t-shirt and jeans. You stripped and Fundy did the same thing as last night, making you chuckle but you don’t say anything this time.

Once changed you walk over to him and lean up to give him a kiss on the cheek, “How mad do you think Wilbur would be if I made us some breakfast? Well, ‘breakfast’.” You asked, making air quotes around the second breakfast.

He hummed, thinking for a second before shrugging, “Probably not at all, but if he does it was my idea.” he said as he turned around and placed a kiss on your forehead, “I’m gonna shower real fast so just come knock on the door when it’s done.”

You nodded and peeled yourself off of him, making your way to the kitchen. You make some simple eggs and toast, not wanting to use too much food from your friends kitchen and when you finished fifteen minutes later Fundy was walking into the kitchen, “Aw man, you put a shirt on.” you say in faux disappointment.

He sputtered for a second before shaking his head, “We are literally about to leave and go out in public.” he said, grabbing one of the plates from the counter as he looked through the drawers for a fork.

Rolling your eyes, you lightly bump his hip with yours when he finally finds the forks, dropping the subject in favor of some comfortable silence while you both ate. Or at least partially comfortable, the fact of the plane ride still hung in the air, uncommented on but there. Fundy finished before you, placing his plate in the sink and giving you a kiss on the top of your head before heading into the guest bedroom. A few minutes later you finished your own food and you washed the dishes that you guys used, eyes falling to the stove clock: 6:30 pm. Sighing, you placed the dishes into the strainer and made your way to the guest room, “Fuuuns,” you whine more than really say, “we probably should go soon, since I wanna still say bye to Wilbur.”

He jumps at the sound of your voice, zipping up the bag in his hands on instinct, “Oh- Hey y/n!” he said quickly.

You walk over and lean on him as you look at your bag in his hands, “Whatcha up to, big man?” you asked, grabbing the bag from him.

“Oh I just, I wanted to give you something but I thought it’d be better for you to find it when you got home…” he said as you opened your bag up, smiling as you see one of his hoodies folded on the top, “I was just gonna give you one of my hoodies but it didn’t feel special enough, sooo…” he dragged out his words as you pulled out his iconic hoodie, “I gave you the hoodie.” he finished with a large smile.

Your face goes bright red as you pull it on, it smelled like him, like home, you’re too lost in the gesture to notice when Fundy pulled you close and kissed the top of your head. “You’re… You’re.” You didn’t know what words you were trying to find, you knew he loved this hoodie, he wore it all the time even, it felt weird, both very wrong and very right for you to take it, “Are you sure?” you asked quietly.

“Of course,” He hummed, “what better thing to remind you that I love you and that I’m here for you than my favorite hoodie?” you just stuttered in response and nodded, “Plus you look very cute in my clothes.” he said as he leaned away from you before he pulled you into a kiss, it took you a few seconds to kiss him back, the cogs in your brain fighting between stopping entirely and going twice the speed.

When he pulled away from you, you were breathless, “Man. I’m going to die without your kisses, what the hell…” You mumbled as you buried your face into his chest.

“Nooo, don’t die,” he replied dramatically, “if you die then how am I gonna kiss you when you come back?” he jokingly held you tightly, but a small part of you knew it wasn’t a joke, that he fully processed just how much he’s going to miss holding you.

You let out a sigh muffled by his chest, “Well, guess I’ll just live forever.” you said quietly, which made him chuckle slightly. You know it’s a joke but if you could find a way, you would. Just for Fundy. After a few seconds you reluctantly pulled yourself out of his grasp, zipping up the large hoodie before putting the backpack on.

Fundy let out a sigh as he patted his pockets, “Wilbur’s letting me drive you to the airport using his car.” He said as he pulled out Wilbur’s keys, showing them to you.

You nodded before you cupped his face and placed a soft kiss on his lips, “I love you so, so, so goddamn much, Fundy.” you whispered, placing your forehead on his.

“I love you too, y/n. And the distance between us doesn’t change that in the slightest.” he whispered back, his voice slightly shook as he spoke which made your heart hurt. Slowly he pulled away from you, grabbing your hand with his as he dragged you to the door, you both slipped on your shoes and masks before heading out to the car.

The car ride to the pub Wilbur was at with Phil and Kristin was quiet, not a bad quiet but quiet nonetheless. The radio played soft classical music as Fundy carefully drove the car through the town, you can’t tell if you’re surprised by that being Wilbur’s default station or not. Once you guys got there you quickly got out of the car, telling Fundy you’ll be back soon as you ran in and told Wilbur goodbye. It wasn’t all that much, you gave him a hug and promised to text him once your plane landed to let him know you were safe. You quickly said hi to Phil and Kristin, apologizing that you couldn’t stay longer, which they brushed off, saying that there’ll always be another time.

By the time you and Fundy were finally on your way to the airport it was a quarter past seven, the drive there was viscerally different than the drive to say bye to Wilbur. He drove with one hand, his free one resting carefully in your’s as he rubbed the back of it with his thumb. The silence was almost oppressive as you sat there but neither of you knew what to say, so you both stayed quiet. The silence stretched on into the airport, it was odd but somehow fitting. It was the first time neither of you could really bring yourself to break the silence.

Fundy eventually did, though. After you had made it through security, you two sat down on the benches waiting for them to call your flight number. It started with a laugh, a sad one, followed by a quiet apology, “I’m sorry I haven’t said anything y/n…” He basically said to himself, you’re pretty sure if you had even an ounce less of self control you’d start crying right then.

Carefully, you cupped his face, a sad smile in your eyes, “Don’t worry love. Trust me, I understand.” you replied as you rubbed your thumbs over his cheek bones. He silently nodded, wrapping his arms around your torso as he pulled you close. You moved your hands from his face and wrapped your arms around his neck, “It’ll be fine, just like Phil said to me in the pub today, ‘there’ll always be another time.’ I’ll visit again when this is all over, next time for longer.” You promise him, voice hushed so that only you two can hear it.

“Yeah, yeah. Of course, next time.” he said, it was so soft, as if he said it too loud something would curse against it. The two of you sat like that for a few minutes, enjoying the last time you’d hold each other for at least a long while. All too soon they called for your plane and reluctantly you pulled away from him. Quickly he pulled down his mask, looking at you for a long second before you do the same, softly he connected your lips, it was a slow and desperate kiss. One that knew you had to leave but so strongly wish you didn’t that you could have mistaken it for tangible.

When you pull apart, you smile at him, pressing a light kiss on his cheek before standing up, “I’ll see you soon, yeah?” you ask, fixing your mask.

He nodded, probably much more aggressively than he meant to, “Yeah, definitely.”

[pterodactylterrace]

Guys Like You Chapter 15

Title: Guys Like You

Chapter: 15

Chapter Summary: "Two lines means pregnant, right?"

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy, miscarriage, illusions to smut and a shitty ex, swearing.

{Prologue} {Chapter 1} {Chapter 2} {Chapter 3} {Chapter 4} {Chapter 5} {Chapter 6} {Chapter 7} {Chapter 8} {Chapter 9} {Chapter 10} {Chapter 11} {Chapter 12} {Chapter 13} {Chapter 14}

Everything seemed so similar to how it was the first time, years ago. The pit in her stomach, her pulse pounding in her ears. The feel of the wrapper when she opened it, the awkward positioning, wondering if she managed to soak it for the required amount of time, the unpleasant task of putting the cap back on the stick to keep urine from getting on anything else. All the same as the last time.

This time however, she also bore the scars from the previous experience. How her hopes had been crushed, how she'd been cast aside. She'd thought he would have been happy for some reason. He didn't use protection, so that meant he must have wanted to build a family with her, right? She had learned that wasn't the case. He was just a selfish prick. She'd waited for an ultrasound, just to fully confirm the life she had inside of her. She'd been thrilled to learn there were two of them. Twins, just like the rest of her family! He'd thrown the picture in the trash the second he realized what it was. He wanted nothing to do with her anymore. She was used goods. Worthless. Trash, just like the picture of her babies.

Now though, her boyfriend was waiting just outside the bathroom door. It had taken some urging to get him to leave the room, actually. It would seem the manner in which the test had to be taken had slipped his mind. An awkward staring contest had ensued before Faye had quietly asked him to leave so she could pee. A rare luxury she had as a mother, to be perfectly honest. He was quick to grant her some privacy after that.

She placed the plastic stick face down and scrubbed her hands thoroughly, wasting as much time as she could before she had to to open the door. Henry was waiting just outside, as he had promised, an unreadable expression on his face. Of course he would keep his emotions hidden for now. He was an actor, after all. No sense in letting her know how much he was freaking out as well, right?

"Well?" Henry asked softly, his hand automatically reaching out for hers, needing to feel her skin on his.

"It takes a couple of minutes to work..."

"Are you alright?" Henry asked softly, gently cupping her jaw and tilting her head to look up at him. Concern. A look she hadn't been accustomed to all those years ago.

"I don't know... I'm scared."

"I'm so sorry I put you in this situation." Henry apologized, carefully pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her. He needed to hold her in that moment, possibly even more than she needed to be held.

"I know you didn't mean to... It's just... well I told you about the last time."

"I'm not him, darling." Henry assured, resting his cheek on her head. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I know, and I keep telling myself that. It's just hard to forget what happened before. For some reason, I thought he would have been happy. I should have known better, honestly. He never thought about anyone but himself."

"I can promise you, I would be incredibly happy to raise more children with you, if that's what you want. If you decide you don't want anymore, that's fine. I'll just have to settle for spoiling Briar even more to make up for it."

"I always pictured myself having a few kids. After having to go through my entire pregnancy alone and the miscarriage, and then having to raise Briar by myself, though... it wasn't easy. It made me wonder if I was even meant to be a mother."

"You're a fantastic mother, Faye. Briar thinks the world of you, and you've done an excellent job raising her, but you don't have to do it alone anymore."

"It's got to be done by now... can you go check it?" Faye asked hopefully.

"Together?" Henry asked, slipping past Faye to grab the stick.

"No, just tell me." Faye requested, chewing the inside of her lip nervously.

"Uhh... two lines means pregnant, right?"

"What?" Faye yelped, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights.

"I'm just looking at the key! There's only one line!" Henry quickly corrected, his eyes going wide when he'd realized his mistake.

"Oh my God,  you asshole!" Faye groaned, throwing her arms around his middle and hiding in his chest.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that." Henry apologized, tossing the stick back onto the counter and holding her close.

"I'm so mad at you!" Faye whimpered, her voice muffled by his shirt.

"Would putting on your pretty new dress make you feel better?" Henry offered, smiling to himself at Faye's slow nod. "Then let's both get cleaned up. The sitter should be here in an hour, and I don't think answering the door wet and wearing nothing but a towel is a good first impression."

"You'd kill the poor girl if you did that." Faye snorted, tilting her head back and resting her chin against his chest.

"We need her to live. Someone has to watch Briar while we got get unreasonably drunk."

"Planning on drinking a lot tonight, my love?" Faye asked, raising a brow at him.

"Oh we are both definitely drinking tonight. It's a celebration and you've just been given the go ahead for drinking."

"But if we're both drunk, who's going to be the responsible one?'

"That's why we're hiring a sitter. We can both be irresponsible, at least for one night."

"Fine, but I'm taking the first shower." Faye sighed, pulling away and slipping down the hall, giving Henry a confused look when he followed right after, already stripping his shirt off the second he got into their bedroom. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Playing lifeguard." Henry taunted, shooting her a shit eating grin.

"Is that a polite way of saying jacking off while I'm showering?"

"Well you could always lend me a hand." Henry offered, already working on his belt.

"We only have an hour before the sitter gets here!"

"That forty five minutes more than I need." Henry growled, shoving the rest of his clothing down his legs, kicking them off, and snatching her up.

Faye felt the need to point out that his estimation of fifteen minutes had been a bit lean. It was almost half an hour before they reemerged from the bathroom. Henry tried to argue that they spent some of the time actually bathing, though he knew it was a pointless debate. All it took was Henry taking her dress from the closet, still in it's protective bag and laying it on the bed for her to drop the subject entirely.

"It's so pretty!" Faye sighed as she unzipped the bag, running her hands over the soft fabric. It was a soft grey dress, the skirt made of tulle and a structured corset like top to it. Henry had insisted she go with the grey after she'd tried on numerous other colorful options. All the color suited her bright personality, but clashed with her already brightly colored hair, and took away from the shimmer in her smile and the wide innocence she held in her eyes. In the grey, she shined. She was the center of attention instead of what she was wearing. It enhanced all of her wonderful qualities instead of competing with them. Henry had no doubt she would be the one on everyone's minds tonight.

Most of the drive there was spent with Henry trying to coach Faye on what to do. He knew how terrifying everything could be, and he knew people would have a lot of questions, mostly about who she was. He instructed her to just keep her eyes on him to avoid being overwhelmed by the crowd and the flashing cameras. He didn't expect her to talk to anyone, and advised against saying anything to anyone that was recording or looked like any type of journalist, especially without him there. He knew they tended to twist words and make mountains out of molehills, and he didn't want any more stress on her than necessary.

None of it felt real until the driver finally came to a halt, Faye spying the waiting crowd for the first time. Sure, she had been expecting some people. It was the season two premiere of a Netflix hit show. She just didn't know it would be this many. She wasn't a fan of crowds at the best of times. Now, she was debating on just having the driver take her back home.

"Eyes on me." Henry reminded her, smiling brightly when her brown doe eyes met his blue gaze. "None of that matters, it's just us." He assured, taking a slow deep breath which Faye mirrored before his door was opened and he stepped out, shooting a charming smile at the crowd as he buttoned his suit coat, the flashes of the cameras temporarily blinding him.

He turned back around and offered Faye his hand, seeming to relax more himself when she delicately rested her hand in his and slid from the car. Just as he expected, the cameras picked up into an absolute frenzy, everyone eager to get a picture of the mystery woman accompanying Henry Cavill at such an important event.

Brushing off their questions was easy enough for Henry, simply replying with "She's gorgeous, isn't she?" Whenever anyone asked who she was and moving along. That did nothing to quell the 'news' stories that popped up later that night and into the next day, all calling for who this mystery woman was and what her relationship to Henry was, however.

He had happened upon it by chance, just scrolling through his newsfeed on Facebook. It wasn't the title that caught his attention, however. It was the picture of her face, that bright smile he'd only seen in old pictures and those same wide eyes, now locked on someone else like he was the only man in the world. She thought she could just move on like that? Didn't that idiot know she was used goods? Nothing but a whore that would try to trap him into something for the rest of his life.

"That bitch!" He hissed, feeling his blood boil. Did she really think she could get away with embarrassing him like this? Going around and flaunting what being a whore could do for someone? No, he wasn't going to allow it. She was his, and it was time she stopped all of her nonsense and came back.

Taglist: @Xxxkatxo @Weallhaveadestiny @lunedelorient @summersong69 @mis-lil-red @lharrietg @amberangel112 @mansaaay

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 279: Here Comes the Airplane

Previously on BnHA: Gigantomachia gathered up the rest of the League and headed off to go help Tomura. Also he is now 80 feet tall. The heroes were all, “whoa this guy is really big, we should probably stop him and maybe even devote an entire chapter or two just to that,” and so they sent three whole people after him, which sadly is pretty much the exact sort of strategy I’ve come to expect from them by this point. Anyway so Mt. Lady tried to hold Machia off but kept getting flung aside, and Kamui Woods tried to catch him but was set on fire by Dabi who is just having way too good of a time setting all of the flammable heroes on fire today, and Midnight tried to put him to sleep but Compress threw a bunch of debris at her and so she fell like 80 feet. The chapter ended with Midnight being all “fuck this” and calling Momo, who ordered the rest of the child soldier squad into action as Machia approached. I’m not really sure what they’re gonna do, but I honestly don’t really care, because it’s Momo, and so, YES.

Today on BnHA: U.A.’s first-year hero students, who apparently had nine hours to prepare their battleground instead of the fifteen seconds we had all assumed, launch a complex multi-staged assault which is actually really fucking impressive because these kids are actually awesome. First they pin Machia down in one of Honenuki’s mud pits, and then they take turns making impassioned attempts to take out the other League members chilling out on Machia’s back. Unfortunately none of these attempts work because of Dabi, who’s working overtime while the rest of the League sits around shooting down each other’s escape plans. Basically a lot of stuff gets set on fire, and then the chapter ends with Mt. Lady pinning Machia to the ground while MINA, YES, MINA, charges at him covered in acid like some sort of video game boss that you need some kind of specific item to defeat. DID YOU KNOW YESTERDAY WAS MINA’S BIRTHDAY YOU GUYS. Anyway so this chapter is basically pandemonium from start to finish, and it’s great. It is a RUMPUS, y'all. A STRAIGHT UP HULLABALOO.

IS IT MOMO LOVIN’ HOURS I THINK IT IS, YOU GUYS. ARE YOU EXCITED. I AM EXCITED

but first, the color page we were promised, in celebration of Six Whole Years Of This Bullshit!!

oh god oh god so much to love so little time

some of the rowdier characters are making MULTIPLE APPEARANCES IN THIS SHITSHOW, including Kaminari who appears to be in a record-setting THREE of these! who exactly was taking all of these pictures, and why are they so obsessed with him. also how many of these are going to be used as evidence in the latest Kami Traitor Theory posts and is it too early for me to get mad about it

“WE INVITED ENDEAVOR AND HAWKS TO OUR ‘BEING FANCY ON THE COLOR PAGE’ PARTY, EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE NOT U.A. STUDENTS OR FACULTY. WE JUST FELT LIKE IT.” listen that is fine, y’all don’t have to explain yourselves to me

Mirko however is not here, I assume because if she was, Horikoshi would have forgotten to draw all the rest of the characters again. she’s too powerful

Midnight is so sexy I don’t even ksdfnkl

ALL MIGHT LOOKING HAPPY GIVES ME THE STRENGTH I NEED TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE REST OF THIS WEEK. YOUR SMILE IS THE MVP

Cementoss’s face is the runner-up MVP and one of the greatest things I’ve seen in my life

half the people here seem to be attempting to flirt with whoever is taking the pictures. I am starting to suspect that the culprit is Momo. change my mind

for some reason I am really shocked to see Endeavor getting his drink on. and he’s literally the only one, too

Bakugou’s half-assed I SAID NO PAPARAZZI skills are no match for Tamaki’s legendary “I WILL LITERALLY DIE IF YOU CAPTURE ME ON FILM” abilities

I literally didn’t notice Deku until like three quarters of the page in. he sure does blend right in there

Tokoyami is approximately 97.3% done and ticking EVER CLOSER to full 100% doneness, and when that happens even I can’t tell you what is going to go down

do I even need to mention how sexy Aizawa’s hair is. apparently I do

SERIOUSLY THOUGH CEMENTOSS’S FACE

anyway, so that was nice! NOW ON TO THE MOMOLOVIN’

and we begin with FIRST YEAR CLASS B HONENUKI “MUDMAN” JUZOU just LAYIN’ SOME TRAPS IN THE WOODS, as one does

oh my freaking god Tokage

somehow her quirk didn’t freak me out quite this much the last time we saw her. she is really something. has she always had shark teeth

also WHERE IS MONOMA’S GROUP. I immediately want to know!! is he with the Shouto group? or is there yet ANOTHER student group we don’t know about? what would they even be doing

or did Horikoshi actually get three quarters of the way through writing this arc and then suddenly slap his forehead as he realized that if Monoma just casually copied Machia’s powers he would either DIE IMMEDIATELY or else become SUPER STRONG and also grow 80 feet tall and this would suddenly be a very different battle with the scales tipping decidedly in the heroes’ favor. and so he had to quickly write him out of the battle in this very half-assed way

anyway, so while I ponder that, Tokage is peeking the top of her head out over the trees and staring at Machia who is, you guessed it, still heading right their way! just like he’s been doing pretty much this entire time

and now there’s a whole page of reaction panels you guys. this is why Horikoshi tries to avoid these massive Endgame-style battles with every single hero known to man participating. hopefully we won’t have too many of these. like I mean thank you for the roll call and all but I’d like to get to the action now

Mineta of all people is stealing this entire page with that expression though. he is not fucking around. this is twice in as many chapters that he’s been a page-stealing face-making champ. dare I hope this could be the start of a new niche for him? lord knows it would be so much better than the old niche

also this page is just sweatdrops galore. these kids are so nervous. MANGA GODS PLEASE KEEP THEM SAFE, although I’m honestly not too worried about them compared to the adults. I’m sure I should be, but I just am not

all right so now Momo is explaining what those little canisters are!

okay but someone please explain to me how it is that they had time to stop and lay all of these traps?? not just Honenuki’s, but Mineta’s and what looks like some of Shiozaki’s work as well?? did Machia just STOP MOVING for like five whole minutes all of a sudden for no reason at all? while they were all sitting out here saying things like “with that speed...”? ????? ????????

also lol wtf. “we’re gonna have to make him eat it.” I still have no idea what their plan is, but it’s getting more entertaining by the minute I’ll say that much

okay so Momo says that if they can get him to swallow just one of these, then that should be enough to put him to sleep. oh my god this chapter is going to be AMAZING isn’t it

meanwhile Mineta is worrying about Midnight. I swear to god if they turn this into something where he’s only worried because she’s hot, I will take one of these canisters and shove it right up his...

okay good, Mina’s reassuring him that it’s gonna be okay, and then we’re just cutting to Machia stampeding in with Mt. Lady and Kamui still clinging to him

WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS EVEN DOING

“we’ll just stand here adjacent to him and just kind of watch as he rushes straight at the children.” someone help me, I’m having difficulty finding a synonym for “useless” that carries the full amount of emphasis I want to place on it right now. this requires a degree of language the human race is not yet capable of

OH SNAP

THEY GOT HIM YEAHHHHH

OH DANG, FOR REAL THOUGH!!

ngl, for a brief spiteful moment I was disappointed he hadn’t actually fallen on them :/

and they’re still JUST STANDING THERE, I CAN'T EVEN?? we’re getting to the point where I honestly think actual civilians might have been of more use in this situation

YESSSSS

TIME TO FIND OUT HOW MANY TENTH GRADERS GIGANTOMACHIA CAN TAKE IN A FIGHT

also, sorry to keep harping on this, but the juxtaposition of that earlier panel with all of the fully grown and experienced pros just standing in dumb awe, immediately followed by this panel of BRAVE BUT DETERMINED CHILDREN CHARGING IN AND YELLING “GO GO GO”, is just... it really is something. shit. if I was the HPSC and this was what I had to work with, I too might have seriously considered fudging a few age requirements in hopes of finding someone who could actually get the fucking job done

also what the hell is going on down there with Shishida and Satou and that third person? what are those Blackwhip-looking things?? I’m confused

ohhhhh no

Shiozaki is about to be sent flying through the air courtesy of her own hair vines omg

OH NO WAIT THE THREE TOUGH GUYS ARE STOPPING HIM. AHHH THE LAST ONE WAS KENDOU AHHHH

I still can’t figure out what the hell those are though lol. did Momo make some steel cables?? I feel like Machia would be able to break just about any kind of rope or chain they could concoct just by sheer brute strength alone

ah fuck

DON’T YOU GUYS GO RUINING THIS FOR ME!! THEY’VE GOT A GOOD THING GOING HERE, LET THEM HAVE THEIR FUN!!

although I do appreciate how they’re all “U.A.!!” in kind of this “oh shit, these guys we actually have to worry about” sort of tone lol

this look on Toga’s face is a bit concerning! well but Deku and Ochako aren’t here though, so I wonder who she’s gonna fight if it comes to that. huh

(ETA: seriously, does anyone have any idea what Toga is planning cuz I sure don’t.)

Shouji and Ojiro, who I might remind you are normal people with no enhanced physical abilities aside from extra appendages, appear to have somehow circled all the way around to Machia’s back and are now climbing up oh shit

oh and Aoyama’s there too! -- is Shouji carrying him omg

he’s using him as a human ray gun omggg. this is the most delightful thing I’ve ever witnessed

NOW SOMETHING IS BEING SHOT AT THE LEAGUE AND DABI’S STARING AT IT ALL “>:(” AND I’M PRETTY SURE THIS THING, WHATEVER IT IS, IS ABOUT TO BE SET ON FIRE, LET’S SEE

lds;afksjdl;fkj WERE THOSE JIROU’S EARJACKS??!!

okay you know what fuck you Dabi. you think it’s funny to set a little girl’s ears on fire?! don’t expect any sympathy from me when Aoyama lasers you in the face

WELL I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING BUT THEY’RE SHOOTING WHAT LOOK LIKE A BUNCH OF LITTLE TAMBOURINES AT HIM NOW

I ASSUME THEY ARE NOT ACTUALLY TAMBOURINES, BUT I REALLY DON’T KNOW, IT’S NOT LIKE THEY HANDED OUT THE RULE BOOK TO THIS THING AHEAD OF TIME

[HUGE EXAGGERATED GASPING SOUNDS]

oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my

OH MY GOD AND YANAGI THREW THEM WITH HER POLTERGEIST QUIRK!??

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS “ACK?!!” IS AND IT’S REALLY BUMMING ME OUT, BECAUSE THIS CAME WITHIN INCHES OF BEING THE COOLEST FUCKING COMBINATION I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE!?!?

(ETA: it would have laid them all flat in seconds. Kaminari is to be feared you guys.)

NO!!!!!

it is sincerely frustrating to me watching the League carelessly toss aside all of their painstakingly accumulated goodwill from the MVA arc in the span of just a few short pages. hey Compress, you think it’s cool to hurl a bunch of rocks at my six-and-a-half-year-old son?? I hope someone rips that cool robot arm off and uses it to punch you in the dick

here comes Sero!! and how are you going to die, Sero

what in the

did he just... sneeze them all into space

okay but hear me out, what if Shouda absorbed that impact. SHOUDA YOUR TIME HAS FINALLY COME. CLASS 1-B’S ASCENT TO GLORY

(ETA: watch this space!! Shouda is here for a reason mark my words.)

meanwhile on Machia’s back, Dabi is soliloquying about Machia’s quirk while his arm is doing... something

please forgive me for not being able to drum up any sympathy for poor Dabi’s arms right about now. quit trying to set all my kids on fire

wait whaaaaat lol

so I scrolled back up to the previous page, and... that was fire?? lord help me why am I still so terrible at being able to tell when Horikoshi is drawing fire as opposed to just air randomly whooshing through trees. I have really got to memorize that foossh sound effect

so can Gigantomachia just BREATHE FIRE now?? or was ALL OF THAT Dabi??? if it was the latter then at least he had the decency to wait until all of the kids got blown out of range before setting the whole forest aflame to keep them back. I’ll admit it, that was thoughtful of him as far as villain power moves go

OHO BUT YOU CAN’T COUNT MOMO OUT JUST LIKE THAT!!

AND NOW EVERYTHING AROUND THEM IS EXPLODING AHHHHHH DID YOU GUYS SET LANDMINES, BAKUGOU WOULD BE SO PROUD

once again I have to ask myself exactly how much prep time they had here. Horikoshi would have you think it was mere seconds, but that clearly cannot be the case?? maybe they set some of these up beforehand to catch any stray villains trying to flee the area?

lmao Spinner’s all “wait why doesn’t he just dig his way out”, because apparently Machia can tunnel himself under the ground. but Compress is all “um because we would die” and Spinner is all “oh right”

though I gotta say, it’s not like they’re that much better off as things are now, either. pinned down in the woods surrounded by fire and explosives. definitely a conundrum

oh snap Compress has realized that their presence is holding Machia back. don’t tell me Machia is gonna head off on his own and leave the rest of the League to square off with the kids

YOOOOOO HOLY SHIT THE HEROES ACTUALLY DID SOMETHING

there you go, League! free cannon fodder to get you all pumped and confident again!

DKFJLSDKJ

PLEASE LET THIS BE THE ACTUAL TRANSLATION OH MY GOD. THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE LINE IN ANYTHING AHHHH

“I’m leaving it to you, U.A.’s youngsters!” yeah, you and everyone else. ah well, can’t deny they get the job done

OH MMKJKYYYY GODDDDDDJJK

MINA COATED HERSELF IN ACID AND IS RUNNING AT GIGANTOMACHIA AND IS SHE ALSO ON FIRE??!?! SHE’S JUST RUNNING AT HIM LIKE A BIG OL’ FIERY BLOB???! QUEEN MINA???!! FIRE IS NOT HER WEAKNESS???! MINA??!! IS AIRPLANE?!??!!?!? MINAAAAAAA

holy fucking shit this whole arc is just one big Arc Of Ladies Getting To Do Stuff and I am 1000% living for it. THIS ARC IS MY FAMILY. I WOULD DIE FOR IT AND LEAVE EVERYTHING TO IT IN MY WILL. ahhhhhhhhhh

[artsybanchou]

I’m a big fan of 80s/90s anime and Ranma 1/2 played a big role in my childhood. The premise has sooooo much food for thought when it comes to looking at gender and specifically the performance of gender. I’m about to get INTO it, so, here’s your warning-- read more is a ramble. (LONG ramble)

Oh ho ho ho! WELCOME TO MY HELL!

Aight, so let me set the stage for you-->

Two people, who should not be parents, have a kid. The father, Genma, a fairly successful martial artist, takes their just-born son on a training journey without consulting the mother. By training journey, I mean that they travel all over the world with little to no money, either stealing from or scamming people in order to make sure they can eat, under the guise of training the son, Ranma, to become the greatest martial artist of the “Anything Goes” school of martial arts. One of the most frequent scams the father pulls is promising his son’s hand in marriage to various families in exchange for a dowry before running off with both his son and the dowry, never to be seen again. This-- inevitably-- comes back to bite them in the ass. But more on that later.

We don’t get to see a lot of Ranma’s childhood on the training journey, just the occasional incredibly horrific flashback to something that would become a national incident were it to happen in the real world. For example, at one point in time, his father finds a Chinese pamphlet of an ~ancient lost Chinese art~ that is INCREDIBLY POWERFUL!!!!! wow! It’s called Neko-ken. So he decides to teach his six-year-old this technique, although he can’t actually read Chinese so he does it based off the diagrams-- which detail a process of collecting a good number of cats, starving them for a few days straight, and then tossing his son, covered in fish sausages (possibly tied up, can’t remember), into the pit to fend for himself (and not be eaten alive) for hours on end. Surprise, surprise, Ranma comes out incredibly traumatized and with an intense fear of cats (something his father would’ve seen coming if he was able to read Chinese as the pamphlet says that someone would have to be crazy to try to teach someone this technique and that it causes severe psychological damage-- also could’ve been avoided if his father had any common sense or fatherly instincts, but hey that’s just asking too much of Genma). This is not the result his father wanted, so he tries to “fix” it by doing the exact same thing multiple times, just with different cat foods wrapped around his son because... I genuinely don’t know what his thought process was but yeah. So that’s just a tiny snapshot of what his childhood was like as well as how much of a massive idiot his father was. And since Ranma never interacted with his mother, guess who had the greatest influence in his development (yay........). (save him) (also this is based off my memory from watching the anime YEARS ago, so some small details might be wrong but the big, overarching “his dad is a terrible person” thing is still very much true even if some of these smaller details aren’t)

When Ranma is a teenager, his father brings him to a Chinese training ground full of cursed springs. The tour guide repeatedly tries to explain what exactly this place they’re visiting is, but the father and son pair are two hard-headed idiots and get right to sparring. Ranma knocks his father into a spring pretty quick only to be caught off guard when his father reemerges from said spring as a panda and grand slams our protagonist into another one of the cursed springs. Our manly man martial artist protagonist emerges from this spring as a dainty, busty teenage girl. /The horror./ The panic from both Ranma and his father’s deeply shaken fragile masculinities gives the tour guide enough time to reveal that they had fallen into the cursed springs of the drowned panda and the drowned girl (one guess who fell into which one) and that anyone who falls into a cursed spring will take on the form of the life form that drowned in it. They can return to their original bodies by being splashed with hot water but, from now on, every time they’re hit with cold (or even apparently lukewarm) water, they’ll change into these new cursed forms.

Now, I’m sure you all saw this coming from the type of man that Ranma’s father is based on everything I’ve said so far, but Genma is the worst(TM). So Genma is all, “no SON of MINE can be a GIRL! >:((((((” and Ranma, who has been raised for his entire conscious life by this man, and only this man, is also very much not Okay(TM) with this because he’s a man, a manly fighting man who was raised to be the manliest of fighting men who fight. He can’t be a GIRL. 

Except he totally can. Because these two start taking advantage of Ranma’s feminine body pretty much immediately in order to continue running scams so that they can eat and whatnot while traveling. Of course, Genma constantly shames Ranma by saying things like, “I can’t believe my son is such a failure of a martial artist, being a girl! I’m so ashamed!” and whatnot at every opportunity but especially when they are in an argument and Ranma is winning or if he needs Ranma to do something for him. He frequently manipulates his son by using this kind of guilt-tripping language as though it’s Ranma’s fault that his body is like this. Nevermind that they both frequently profit off of Ranma’s female body for scams, Genma still puts Ranma down for having it and Ranma internalizes that because he’s 15 and his father is the only person he’s ever known.

And I’m sure we all hate Genma now, as we should, because fuck Genma. What kind of woman would ever marry Genma? (And we assume a woman is married to Genma because how could a man this bigoted do anything other than marry a woman all traditional and whatnot). If only Ranma wasn’t taken from his mother so young. Maybe he would’ve turned out a better person~ Well, uh, bad news, lads :/  So, by the time we meet Ranma’s mom in the series, we’ve known most of these characters for a chunk of time. It’s already quite well established how terrible of a human being Genma is. Ranma may or may not have started the episode out admitting he doesn’t know much about his mom after being asked about her. A standard set-up. I don’t quite remember all the details of the episode, only the important things-- here’s the important thing: Genma’s wife, Nodoka, made Genma swear something to her before he took their toddler on a training journey all around the world. He had to raise Ranma to become “a Man among Men” (and we’ll talk about how she defines manliness) and, if he failed, then both he and Ranma must commit seppuku. 

Yeah, that's right. 

If her son isn’t enough of a man by her standards then he has to commit ritual suicide.

Her son who now transforms into a girl every time he is touched with at least a ladle’s worth water that isn’t steaming.

(hey have i mentioned save Ranma yet? save him seriously)

Her definition of manliness? All the shit the misandrists of tumblr swear is the inherent evils to all men. She thinks her son needs to be unapologetically forceful in /all/ he does. Especially in his romantic forays :///// (yeah this is going where you think it is)

When she does decide he isn’t manly enough (because Ranma was being sexually harassed by an old man who forcibly put him in a sailor outfit, no im not kidding, happosai, said old man, is a whole other element of the show that like holy shit) and tries to get him to commit seppuku, the solution the cast comes up with is to have Ranma “peek” at (his friend? girlfriend? fiance? frenemy? roommate? it’s weird-- technically they’re the two romantic leads but their chemistry is like -5 because she constantly physically hits him for things that really aren’t his fault and just ://) Akane while she is bathing and that will prove his manliness to his mother so that he doesn’t have to literally die. Will having Ranma be a fucking voyeur prove his manliness to his mother, you ask? Yep. This is Manly(TM) and so Ranma gets to live another day. Yay. Once again, molestation saves the day. (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa) All of this is played off as a joke, for the record. No character is really acknowledged as being “a bad person” for any of this behavior-- not molester Happosai, not trying-to-kill-her-own-child Nodoka, etc. 

So these are the people who made Ranma. Who shaped this kid with the ability to spontaneously switch between male and female bodies (presuming he has water on hand). Also, obviously, Genma had more influence seeing as Ranma never saw his mother between the ages of two and (I think) 16(?), but. regardless, these are the people who shaped his understanding of gender. For all intents and purposes, our lad should be such a pressure cooker of toxic and fragile masculinity that he just about commits seppuku himself every time he ends up in his female body. 

But he doesn’t. In fact, Ranma is largely comfortable in his female body as long as his father isn’t trying to hold said body against him (wait did that come out wrong?). Ranma has no hesitations taking on his female form for something as little as a discount on ice cream. He makes the statement, “when it comes to eating out, being a girl is the only way to go”-- because he’s able to get an extra scoop for being “cute”

There’s a scene very early on in the series about exactly that which has always stuck with me. It opens with Ranma in his female body at a cafe with Akane and they both order fancy ice cream parfaits. Ranma is extremely excited and exclaims, “I’ve always wanted to try one of these!” 

Akane replies with, “don’t tell me you’ve never had ice cream before.”

And Ranma proceeds to explain that he’s never had ice cream like /this/ because it would be too embarrassing for a guy. When Akane asks if he isn’t embarrassed now, happily shoving huge spoonfuls of ice cream into his mouth, he responds with, “hey, I’m a girl now. It don’t count.” Akanes shoots back with a “REAL girls don’t eat like that” (because our lad is eating with such gusto-- he’s living, he’s thriving, he is demolishing that parfait and there is ice cream all over his face) 

He goes, “I’ll eat it however I want.” And then finishes the whole thing off and proclaims that he wants to order the chocolate one next.

Moments like that were the ones where I loved the show the most. We can see Ranma’s insecurities about his masculinity (thank you /soo/ much for that genma) in that he isn’t willing to perform an ‘unmanly’ action in public in his male body. He can’t be *seen* eating girly ice cream. But when he is admonished for not living up to feminine standards in his female body (eat more daintily), he just goes, ‘i’ll do what i want’. Young me really resonated with that, being born with a female assigned at birth body and growing up in Texas. 

It feels like there’s a trans narrative buried in the steaming hot mess that is this work by Takahashi Rumiko-- and it is abundantly clear that was never her intention so I wouldn’t exactly recommend trying to give her an award or anything. She said that she wanted to write a work with a male main character but was so worried about how many male readers she had, she made the decision to make (as she described) a half-male half-female main character (essentially so she could have her cake and eat it too if you will-- all the self aggrandizing fantasies of a male protagonist her male readers could imagine themselves as along with a copious amount of fan service-- the great majority of which was at Ranma’s unwilling expense in his female body which like ://////// (remember that old man I mentioned before??)--  with the female protagonist body). And, like, I’m not saying Takahashi Rumiko is a terrible person or anything-- I don’t know what her beliefs are, I only know her works which are quite old at this point. Takahashi Rumiko is a big deal in the mangaka world because she was one of the first big shonen mangakas who was openly a woman. Normally, men wrote shounen (which literally translates to boys) manga and women wrote shoujo (which literally translates to girls) manga-- the genres were literally divided along gender lines in terms of their intended audiences but also, to a certain extent, their creators. If a woman wanted to write/draw shounen, usually she had to use a pen name that sounded fairly masculine in order to not impact the perception of her work. Takahashi Rumiko was working in that environment so I would understand why she’d want to be careful but, at the same time, I still kind of hate a lot of the things that she normalizes in her works. Especially assault. Both physical and sexual assault she constantly used as a punchline. Not as much anymore. Her most recent work I’ve read was Rinne and the punchline with that one was that the male lead is super poor, literally penniless, and is constantly starving so hahahahha humor amirite? Pain being funny seems to be her through line now that assault is off the table. At least he isn’t constantly getting whole ass tables thrown at him by his love interest as though that’s supposed to be a cute relationship dynamic (Akaneeeeeeeee). I digress. Takahashi Rumiko’s works played a big fucking role in my childhood from Ranma to Inuyasha to Lum (which I encountered well into my teens and therefore didn’t jive with at all because I’d finally learned sexual assault =/= funny and this was one of her more dated works) and so on and just--  I don’t know if I can watch her older stuff the same way I used to. I’m scared to try, honestly. Because some of the ideas behind her works are so interesting-- like Ranma 1/2-- but then you have to sit through episode after episode of a teenage boy in a girl’s body being sexually assaulted by a remorseless old man only to try to fight back at which point he is physically assaulted but also he still has to grovel to and respect said old man because he’s his father’s master and therefore he has to learn martial arts from him but the old man is constantly wagering Ranma having to pose for him in incredibly skimpy outfits if Ranma wants to learn literally anything and alsso RANMA IS FUCKING FIFTEEN/SIXTEEN JESUS CHRIST IS THERE NO FUNCTIONING ADULT ANYWHERE IN THE VVICINITY SAVE HIM!

I NEED TO DIGRESS

It feels like there’s an unintentional trans narrative buried in this anime. It’s not a fun one (but most trans narratives aren’t either so). This is a boy who knows he’s a boy-- even when his body disagrees. He frequently asserts that “he’s a boy” even when in his female body because he is. He’s a boy. He’ll reference being a girl “in appearance” like with the ice cream parfait scene earlier, but when it comes to identity statements, he’s always a boy. This narrative is about him navigating gender presentation and societal assumptions in order to live however he wants. He’s constantly contending with his own forms of gender dysphoria, whether that be his own gripes about doing anything unmanly (eating ice cream) or the very real threat of his mother fucking killing him if he does anything unmanly (aaaaaaaaaaaa), and he navigates tons of threats by choosing how he presents himself.

There are characters that are in love with the male “version” of Ranma and want to kill the female “version” of Ranma (who, for the record, goes by the name Ranko) and vice versa. The Kuno siblings are a great example. Kodachi is in love with Ranma (and is not above literally fucking using date rape drugs on him to get to him) and wants to fucking kill Ranko whereas Tatewaki Kuno, her brother, is in love with Ranko (the lovely pigtailed girl, he calls her) and has literally sent assassins after Ranma. Ranma essentially has to choose between being sexually assaulted or physically assaulted every time he runs into either of them in terms of what body he is presenting. 

I feel like I should let you know, ye who have actually read this far, that Ranma is able to protect himself pretty well from the assault. Like, our boy ain’t dead. Later on he literally fucking kills a god because he’s really passionate about martial arts so he puts all of himself into it and god damnit does his effort show but, honestly, his ability to protect himself shouldn’t mean that it is okay to assault him. Assault is assault. And just because he can fight back doesn’t mean he always does. Akane, his main love interest, regularly sends him through roofs and across town with the force of her Up + B (aka magically appearing hammer), usually for things that aren’t his fault in any way. Akane actually came to the conclusion that Ranma was a pervert when she (fully dressed) walked in on him (naked because he was in the bath) even though the bathroom was obviously occupied. She constantly gets mad at him for things that are beyond his control and then takes her frustrations out on him by literally beating him up and he never fights back-- which is admirable of him but also made me never want to root for their relationship because that isn’t a red flag, my dude, that’s a red planet. the whole of mars is out here trying to warn everyone that this relationship is the most toxic thing since RoundUp.) 

Usually, when watching a show, you get really invested in the character’s aspirations. You want them to ‘get the girl’, ‘get the promotion’, ‘become the pokemon master’ and whatnot. All I ever wanted for Ranma was for him to fake his own death and run far, far away from everyone who ever knew him as “Ranma”. He’d have to fake his own death, obviously, because otherwise his father and Happosai would track him down because, for his father, Ranma is a walking meal ticket and, for Happosai, Ranma is a teenage girl he can sexually assault at any time. Those two would chase Ranma to the ends of the earth if they thought he was trying to get away from them so--

Ranma. Help him.

There’s so much more to dissect with this show. It’s kind of accidentally a great way to look at gender presentation, especially all the terrible negatives that come with constrained gender roles. I use He/Him pronouns when talking about Ranma because it is abundantly clear that he sees himself as a man and I respect that. Sometimes nonbinary-me is like, but think what a gender-fluid icon our boy would be-- literally switching perceived genders via fluids-- and I think that version of Ranma would be a lot happier than the canon one but, I think the canon Ranma is an important reflection of what a lot of people go through, cisgender, transgender, and beyond, when trying to parse what it means to present a gender and the roles you’re supposed to play. 

Maybe Ranma can go on a journey of self-discovery with his own gender after faking his death and escaping Nermina. 

I was all over the place writing this but this isn’t an essay and I’m not being graded so ha fuck you (excpet no not really fuck you because you either a) read this whole thing or b)scrolled down to the bottom to see if i’d get to the fucking point already-- which for the record, I don’t really-- and either way it means you were a little curious what I had to say so thanks I guess). None of this is exceptionally well-thought-out. I wouldn’t exactly stamp this with any kind of official gender discourse seal. It’s all just food for thought. 

[kariachi]

Been looking forward ot this one y’all- The Greatest Lake, which supposedly contains not just Hex (easily one of the funnest of the reboot’s villains) but also Kevin (who is, of course, the perfect being)! It’s bound to be wonderful, with a combo like that, and we’ll finally get an answer to the age-old question-

Does Hex go in the fucking pit

Another Kelly Turnbull episode! Which, again, means this is gonna be a good episode for story and visuals! I swear this woman is a fucking goddess.

You should’ve known better to cannonball around Ben, Gwen, we had a whole episode about this

Max has rented a speedboat for the sake of aquatic athletics

Attack of the killer lake. And here I thought you only had to worry about that if you were a Saturday

Erie’s gotten more handsy since I was last out there

Ben: Some bad guy must be trying to make me look bad at kneeboarding! Gwen: Yeah, that’s why you suck

Hi Hex

He’s not even paying attention, he’s busy reading

Hex: Stop bothering the beachgoers, we’ve got work to do Water Spirits: Sure boss

The Sword of MacGuffin. Of course. Of course that’s what he’s looking for. I love this show so much you guys.

Hex: *sees Ben* I see not even the sanctity of the Canadian border can stop your incessant pestering!

Just jumping straight to annihilation today

Welp, Hex having to choose between having an elemental army or blasting the Tennysons into the stratosphere

Hex: Fuck it, I got work to do and elemental armies to lead, my apprentice can handle this

Ben: “What kind of loser would actually wanna work with Hex?“ Kevin: “Hey!”

My son, y’all

Look at him

He’s got a matching hood and everything

And floaties

Floaties my son can’t even float

Dear gods save me this is too adorable

I mean he has a hood to match Hex’s that’s so fucking cute!

Even the Forever Dipshit didn’t even fucking bother to get him into the aesthetic! Of course I suppose Hex and Kevin’s aesthetics are easier to make work together

I swear Hex if you fuck this up I will have your head on a pike as a warning to any other adults that might run into Kevin, even if we’re mostly out of them

My booooyyyyy

Have I mentioned one of the floaties is a fucking giraffe one I mean my god

When you have to mute the show otherwise you will be overwhelmed because your son is on the screen and you are dying

Oh my fuck Kevin accusing Ben of being jealous that Hex took him under his wing lords preserve me

The thing is it’s not even like there’s nothing for Hex to build off with him I mean we all saw what Charmcaster was able to do with his poetry, if he can learn to make that shit work for himself he’ll be a true fucking terror.

Hex: “Not ‘intern’, apprentice. We’re sorcerers, not cubicle dwellers.”

How did these two even meet? How did this happen? How long has it been happening? Inquiring minds need to know

Oh look, a vaguely greek temple in Lake Erie.

Hex: “I haven’t had a plan work this seamlessly all summer. I’d be moved to tears if this eyeliner were waterproof.”

“Mr. Goth Wizard, sir?” my fucking god this child is too precious. Don’t fuck this up, Hex, for all our sakes!

Hex, leaving Kevin, quote, ‘in charge of destroying the Tennyson whelps’ while he heads for the temple so he can get this sword

Kevin is actually listening to what he’s told without the need for putdowns or belittling or any mouthiness on his part so far. This either a bad sign for how he’s taking the way these adults have been treating him so far or a good sign of how his time with Hex has been going

Hex: Have them destroyed by the time I get back Kevin: Don’t you wanna test the sword out in them? Hex: No, I want you to do as you’re told

And there we go, I’ve been here long enough it’s all a spiral from this point.

Kevin: *grumbles about how he better be learning some damn good magic to be putting up with this shit*

1) Ben picking Rath to fight in a lake. Because this child. 2) My son has spells. This is either going to be awesome or sad

Oh thanks show, cut to Hex why don’t you

The spell on the door takes so much mana to take out that the damn thing tried to eat Hex

And Max and Gwen have taken advantage of Kevin being distracted with Ben to take out Hex’s elementals

Hex is, how you say, not pleased

I really don’t know what he expected, given he can’t handle the Tennysons, but sure, your apprentice is gonna do better

Kevin is just having too much fun messing with Ben

I cannot help but feel, Hex, that you could’ve handled this whole mess smarter. Step one: I’m fairly certain apprentices aren’t supposed to be thrown out as a distraction while you go around doing magic without them

Kevin pls do not call your teacher a loser while he is in the area, given your track record...

Oh gods, he’s claiming Hex promised him the sword if this all works out and just, it ain’t

“You know he doesn’t care about you right?” Ben, honeybunch, I hate to have to actually say it, but so far with Kevin? Nobody fucking does. Like, that’s not even an armor-piercing question, that’s like stepping out and going “you know the sky’s still blue, right?” The closest we came to a non-Tennyson giving a rats ass about Kevin was Vin, and then he turned out to give more of a damn about having the approval of other adults than the did any child. Fucking Max is the most stable adult figure in his life by far and it’s not exactly a high bar to reach. Every other adult didn’t care about him, every single one, and if you’re gonna be trying to get through to Kevin with revelations then you may wanna figure that out!

*deep breath* I’m calm. I’m chill. I’m calm.

Kevin throws Ben into Hex on accident, not gonna end well

Oh lords Kevin’s not even using spells he was taught, he’s testing new material on Ben because of course he is

Although can we discuss the fact that he was doing well with it? Which means either he’s been practicing it on his own time or he’s got a natural talent for this shit, and given what his poetry did it could go either way

Oh lords ‘The Ancient Magi Code’ and talk of how he’s supposed to fucking follow it includes being expected to follow Hex’s instructions to the letter. Because we’ve all seen how well Kevin takes orders. I mean lords he was already getting aggravated about it earlier, even as he did it. He’s been positively behaving by his own standards.

And lo, arguing breaks out between the teacher who’s really not that good at it and who is very tradition focused, and the student who is very much an independent soul who doesn’t take orders well and needs a more... positive approach.

Welp.

Can we just discuss the growth, the difference between Kevin here and Kevin when he was working with the Forever Dipshit? There’s actual concern about having fucked up here, for one, which he never showed with regards to FD despite the fact that one tried to kill him at one point for not following orders exactly. Just, if nothing else it’s a good indicator of the difference between his relationships with the two, where one is a teacher and semi-reasonable at least while the other was just, a complete piece of shit. I mean Hex taught Kevin magic and practiced it with him, promised him a fucking sword, while FD just gave him a tv dinner and a bad attitude

“-unabashed, unrepentant incompetence!” Goddamn, Hex, breathe! Also the boy ain’t incompetent he’s just fucking 11. That’s at the low end for apprenticing, even historically, and you’ve also got the fact that he’s an independent little sod and that you’ve been treating him more like a minion than an apprentice today (it’s a big difference). This is a fuck-up, and the arguing back is annoying, but still the situation with him is manageable.

My poor son did not expect major consequences, such as being dropped as an apprentice and losing the fucking shit that was helping him use magic period

Hex, fucking done, is getting that fucking sword if it kills him so he can have one fucking success this summer

Kevin, as always, does not take such insults lightly. Cue ‘out for blood’ face

Ben: “I can’t stand you, and even I thought Hex was being a real jerk back there” Kevin: “Yeah, I was doing a pretty good job kicking your butt before he distracted me”

All said while the Tennysons are picking up a Kevin out of the lake. I swear this is just the only way this boy knows to interact with people

Okay I paused after Hex fucking unveiled the temple again sent the whole groups crashing to the bottom of the lake as an offhand consequence and y’all the look on my boy’s face when he hears Hex growling about needing that damn sword. The fucking sad puppy eyes!

Look at that face!! My poor baby! He is so sad and so hurt!

Ben and Kevin, working together to kick Hex’s giant water elemental’s butt

Oh my fuck mutual transformation sequence. wtf is this Sailor Moon?

Kevin, noticing Ben has armored aliens now: Bitch!

The problem, is that much as I try I can’t mention everything. There’s so much good

Kevin, as Bootleg: Get out the boat, I’m hijacking it Gwen: No Kevin: Okay *hijacks it with them inside*

Gwen: *incredible excited to now have a boat with a canon because Kevin is awesome like that* Max: *concerned about whether Boatleg meets safety standards*

“Useless child. I can retrieve the Sword of MacGuffin without his assistance.” I don’t believe anyone was claiming otherwise, Hex. Although I think you’re going to find it difficult to do with him actively working against you. I’m afraid they’re his only settings

Max, on the giant water elemental: Maybe it just needs a friend and a big hug Kevin: Unlikely

Gwen, coming in with the plan to save the day

Even as a boat Kevin is a very agile little thing

Here lies Hex, dead of lake

Oh my gods dark magic is against the rules of the lake

Kevin: That was probably my only chance to use a cool cursed sword. Thanks a lot, Tennyson. Ben: Bitch!

Ben making the valid point that Kevin was at real risk of having to suck up to Hex for the next several millennia

The fucking cop telling Hex to get with the century and invest in some waterproof eyeliner

This just in, both boys are equally shit at kneeboarding.

10/11, Hex doesn’t go in the pit, but he may wanna be careful the next time he shares an episode with Kevin

[momtemplative]

Saturday Afternoon, MACRO and MICRO

Definition of Macro: large-scale; overall. ie., THE FOREST.

Definition of Micro:  extremely small. ie., THE TREES. Definition of Macro, here: The wild world at large.

Definition of Micro, here:  The tiny home we inhabit, where we “shelter in place.”

MICRO—I sit here in our tiny RV that is parked in the driveway. It’s where I “go to write”, a creative parlor with wheels and a view of our magnificent choke cherry out the window that is just starting to think about blooming. (I don’t blame it for being hesitant.) 

Months back, Opal and her friend pretended this RV was a rescue vehicle for dogs—all dogs but mostly pit bulls, a breed Opal feels is highly misrepresented. From where I sit, in the passenger seat swiveled to face the rear, there are four black-and-white photocopies of gorgeous dog portraits staring at me. One pit bull in particular looks straight through me.

I’ve purposefully resisted straight-up news, aside from my nightly installment of “Good News Network” and NPR’s weekly “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” radio quiz show. But living without allowing for the outside to seep in feels unhealthy in its own right. Selectively permeable would be the proper thing to practice now. 

So I crack open my computer and dip my toes in the NY Times live coverage of the Coronavirus.

I can hear Jesse’s future voice in my head: How was writing?

Me: Good, but I’m feeling a tad suicidal now.

Him: Why?

Me: I read the news.

Him: Now why would you go and do that??

MACRO—“With President Trump having undercut the new guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by immediately declaring that he would not wear a mask himself, it was far from clear how many Americans would ultimately embrace the recommendation.”

MICRO— I return from the RV to find a house party of three people in my living room. Thankfully, my family did not get the memo that in this moment, life on the outside is complex and backwards. Ruth is on Jesse’s shoulders, no pants, shit-eating grin and fresh-cut bangs in her eyes. She shakes like a puppy with over-large ears and Opal twirls in her No ProbLLama nightgown to the Imagine Dragons song, Zero. Inside our little bubble, things are bumping! The sun floods the living room and even the anti-social cat seems obliged to hang out—from an appropriate distance.

MACRO—Governor Andrew Cuomo warns that, as infections passed 113,700 and deaths 3,500, New York State would reach the worst point of the coronavirus crisis within a week or so. He also said the state was using the machines for coronavirus patients at a rate that would exhaust its stockpile in just six days.

MICRO—Three boxes are stacked one atop the other in front of our door like a cairn. One box is for Jesse’s birthday next weekend, the others are for Ruth. 

It’s looking like COVID-19 will spit us out the other end proficient in at least one new talent—Opal’s is roller skating. She insisted on using my skates, which she found while foraging for activities in the garage like a squirrel for food. After a few days of wearing those up and down the down-stairs hallway, and back and forth on the sidewalk out front, I was certain the future for her ankles was bleak and we ordered her a pair on Amazon that were her size.

Ruth observed all this unfolding and with no intention of leaving empty-handed. Unfortunately, toddler-sized skates are much harder to come by. So, many weeks into the future, Ruthy finally got her own skates that go over her shoes and are, frankly, awesome. She also picked out the tackiest Olaf helmet—with a carrot-nose that actually protrudes—after instructing me to “search on Amazon for Olaf now please.” 

Each of those treasured items are contained in the boxes on our porch. I jump into our current porch-sanitizing routine (bleach wipes and spray lined up on the porch without apology)—wipe box, open, wipe down package inside, wash hands thoroughly. 

You can practically hear Ruth buzzing as suits up for a jolly, though quick to be exhausting, skate around the block. Her uniform killed, and would have worked as well for Halloween, Burning Man, a rave and a roller derby—mixed patterns for shirt and pants, knee pads and skates from Trolls, Olaf helmet. When she velcroes her final skate, I hear a faint, prayer-like utterance from Jesse: dear god. She is an eye-full that could save a life.

MACRO—Trump is getting help with the November election. His campaign just rolled out a new ad, titled “Hope,” featuring appreciative quotes from Gov. Cuomo and Gov. Newsom of California. With the lives of their constituents at stake, they’ve given him the made-for-TV sound bites he was never able to extract from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

MICRO— Thank god for these kids. If I were being force-fed the news then led to an empty house with, maybe, a roommate-peer who is also stressed and bloated with sad information, or if perhaps I were old and alone, I’d be struggling in an entirely different way. Sure, I have my moments of fantasizing about what it would have been like if COVID and shelter-in-place came at a time before or children, during a time when I could have relished cleaning and reading and making a weeks-long retreat out of an unsavory situation. But the fact is, these kids keep the scales level.

Not to mention the fact that affection is built-in. Even though Ruth is less interested in snuggling than she is in building block-towers or submerging every toy she owns in water, we seem to be touching constantly, in this or that way. Hugs from Opal and Jesse, snuggling on the couch for a show, holding hands on our walks around the block—it’s all-inclusive. The fact that this is not the case for everyone is something I am well aware of.

MACRO—Jared Kushner has embedded his own people in the Federal Emergency Management Agency; a senior official described them to The Times as “a ‘frat party’ that descended from a U.F.O. and invaded the federal government.” As The Washington Post reported, Kushner’s team added “another layer of confusion and conflicting signals within the White House’s disjointed response to the crisis.”

Kushner, you can’t shatter us.  Young girls in roller skates win every goddam time.

MICRO— Our block continues to be paradise. Any interest we had six months ago in selling this house has been waylaid and, thus, we are appreciating our home base in a truly different way. 

As we make our way down the block with two girls on their respective wheels, we holler at our beloved across-the-street neighbors, friends of 14 years. They sit, mysteriously, at a card table in their front yard, as if they are having an invisible garage sale. We exchange a boisterous, level-12-volume conversation from across the street, talking over each other and at the same time, expressing everything we possibly can in the tiny window we have while the girls scoot away on their skates. 

The corner that turns on to the bike path and is covered with ancient ponderosa pines smells musty and earthy and perfect. Like every camping trip ever taken. Every hike through the woods. A momentary dose of equilibrium.

When we circle back, our neighbors are still outside.  

One of them asks, “Hey, have you guys been wearing masks outside?”

“No, Governor Polis just suggests it for any public place—grocery, whatever.”

“We saw a few people driving by with them on.”

“Yea, so did we, we saw a few people out walking with them on, just outside.”

I guess the point is, if it’s not gonna hurt, you might as well do it. Hell, if we are in this far—as is shelter-in-place—then we might as well take it all the way. To pick up the slack for people who aren’t doing what they should be doing. (We are actually yelling all this in conversation across the street.) The idea that some people would still not be doing what they are supposed to be doing is ludicrous.  I’ve vented my rage at the college students of America over St. Patty’s Day, but they are all home by now, are they not? So who are we talking about here?

Fact is, as I just learned today, there are still five states that are not mandatory shelter-in-place. (I’m sorry, what??)

MACRO—“I can’t lock the state down,” said Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, which has recorded more than 600 confirmed cases and at least 11 deaths. “People also have to be responsible for themselves.”

MICRO— Opal has been loving her evening ritual of putting Ruth to bed. She says it’s one of her most ‘special times of the day,’ though it happens only a few times a week. She takes her little sister down by the hand, gets her jammies on and teeth brushed, reads to her, the whole precious nine yards. She does that tonight, leaving Jesse and I to the quiet of ourselves and our space-sans-kids in the family room. 

Jesse promptly dozes off in the rocking chair. I lie on the floor with eyes closed in star-pose, taking up some glorious space. These days are taking a toll. But it’s also true that I laughed so hard on four different occasions this afternoon that I buckled over twice, slapped a knee and wet myself. 

So much is going well in our tiny Microcosm that sometimes it’s easy to forget the Big Picture Macro. Ignorance is indeed not far from a certain cheap kind of bliss. It makes sense why people do it, why people feel the need to avoid discomfort. But, ultimately, the mind knows when it is missing something. The soul knows when it is being cut-off. Our beings can feel when humanity is suffering, whether or not we choose to admit it to ourselves in so many words.

“Mom!” Opal whisper-yells from down the hall. “Ready!” Meaning, she’s ready for me to come and finish Ruth’s bedtime with a song. But by the time I get to Ruth’s snug and utterly safe kid-room, she is fast asleep.

4/4/20

(all quotes in italics come from the NY Times live coverage of the coronavirus from the previous week.) 

[doomedandstoned]

THE DESERTFEST DIARIES: Destination Antwerp ‘19

~By Willem Verhappen~

Photographs by Stefanie Dörnbrack and Willem Verhappen

Day 1

The good beer, tasteful food and beautiful inner city, together with the fact that even though I live close to it, it makes me feel like I’m on vacation, make that Antwerp ranks high on my list of favorite cities. Every once in awhile my girlfriend and I like to spontaneously cross our southern border to go shopping (seriously, check out Chelsea Records if you're ever there) or watch a movie in their massive cinema complex. There is however one weekend when nothing can stop me from going to Antwerp and that's the weekend of Desertfest. For three days, Antwerp turns into the Mecca of all the music I -- and since you're reading this, probably you, too -- hold dear. So on the 18th of October I made my fourth pilgrimage to this epicenter of riffs.

My timing could hardly have been better, since my friends with whom I was going to share a hotel room for the next three nights showed up at pretty much the same time. After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we went downtown to meet up with some more friends and have a pizza and some beers.

With some proper groundwork laid, as we say in Dutch, it was time to head to the Trix, as the venue's called. There was some discussion as to whether it was faster to go by tram or subway, so we decided to turn it into a race. In the end, we still all ended up going by subway, since there didn't appear to be a tram going that way. I was told, however, that the subway was way quicker than the tram the guys took in previous years. That still counts as a victory in my eyes.

When we arrived at the venue, we were greeted by the sign shown at the top of this article. What a way to get your crowd hyped up for all the goodness that was to come.

The first band we got to see, was Monomyth. The band, featuring former Gorefest guitar player Boudewijn Bonebakker, plays an addictive mix of styles ranging from kraut- and space rock to more progressive and psychedelic exploits. The Dutch instrumental rockers might be reminiscent of acts like My Sleeping Karma, but with five people, there's never a boring moment.

After that first headbanging session, it was time for some more partying with desert rockers Nebula, where the title of their new album 'Holy Shit' sums up the experience quite well. This was followed by my first Duvel beer of the day and the Dutch '60s heavy psych inspired wolf pack named Temple Fang, both at the cafe. For a band that hasn't even released a single yet, they've got quite the following. Taking into account that two members used to be in the cult band Death Alley, gives some understanding as to why. Witnessing them live makes you a believer yourself.

As a music collector and lover of artwork, I decided to pay a visit to the merch area. I was very happy to see that my personal artwork favorites Branca Studio decided to take the car to bring some of their t-shirts to Desertfest. Now I finally have my very own "Doom life" shirt. Could my day get any better?

Of course it can! With some more cds and some less money in my pockets it was time to go to the main all for Truckfighters. When we walked through the door, one of my friends asked when the show had started. This was more than five minutes before the show actually started, but the hall was already crowded. This was the first time we had difficulties getting in before a band started playing, but it turned out to be only the first of multiple shows where this phenomenon occurred.

As you might know, Truckfighters was on a hiatus for a couple of years. Lucky for us, the Swedes have returned. I'm happy to say that the show hasn't really changed. You still get your high energy rock show lead by Ozo. Dango still runs through the crowd shirtless. There's still a different drummer than the last time you saw them. And of course, every place turns into absolute mayhem once they play Desert Cruiser. Honestly, the only thing that changed is Dango's beard. That's fine, but other than that, a Truckfighters show is perfect as it is.

Sadly, there wasn't much time to catch my breath, for after witnessing a bit of Beglian band 30,000 Monkies, Yatra was about to take the upstairs stage. I wasn't familiar with the Maryland doom crew, but someone (sorry, I don't remember who) recommended them to me. I cannot thank that person enough, for Yatra is by far my favorite discovery this Desertfest. It was the first doom band of the eveningThis trio spices up their low 'n' slow doom with a whiff of black metal dirt, just the way I like it.

Since I've never been much of a Zeal & Ardor fan, I decided to socialize and go looking for stories instead. That's when I ran into the Yatra gang, who were talking with Dango from Truckfighters. The latter mentioned to me that we can expect a solo record from his hand somewhere in the near future. Needless to say, this encounter needed to be documented, as shown in the picture above. Afterwards I decided to check out some Z&A, only to arrive when they started Devil is Fine. It was a good reminder of why I'm not a fan.

The first day ended with a banging show from Polish psych doomers Sunnata and a fun after party. I had to promise not to write about the after parties, even though I could write an entire article on just that. Let's just say that lots of fun and beer was had by all, up to the point where we were kicked out of the venue.

Day 2

Saturday started, not entirely unexpectedly, with a hangover. Usually I get over them pretty quick, but this one kept lingering on for quite some time. Not even the great sandwich I had, seemed to have any effect. The thing that eventually cured the hangover, was Bismut. The Desertfest website describes them as "instrumental psych desert metal", which is an apt description for these young Dutch hounds. We're treated to some heavy spaced out jams, mixed with some colorful shredding. Day two is a go!

The Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell put up one of my favorite shows this weekend. This is their second year in a row and third in total of playing here and if you've seen them live, you know why that is. The band are like the demented love child between Motörhead and Hawkwind (like that would ever happen), blasting some dirty biker rock, but with some stoner groove in there. It's also the first band I witnessed on the Canyon stage that made full use of the video screen.

Not every band can be a winner and if there's a loser this weekend, it's Fireball Ministry. Personally, I really enjoyed their distinct brand of desert rock, featuring vocals from both guitarists James A. Rota II and Emily Burton. The only point of critique is that Emily should stick to background vocals.

Even though the band gave their everything, they we're playing to a half filled hall at most, with many people leaving after a song or two with some just taking a couple of pictures. These pictures were of course from former Kyuss bass player Scott Reeder. This behaviour made the band look more like a freak show than anything else, which is too bad, since Fireball Ministry deserves better.

The Desert stage is far more crowded for Church of Misery. I can't say I'm surprised, since the Japanese quartet knows how to deliver a solid slab of old school doom metal. For 50 minutes, the band proved to know exactly how to keep heads banging in unison.

Following Church of Misery, I decided it was time to give the muscles in my neck some rest. And what better place to do that than in the food and relax area. This is like the school yard where all the cool kids hang out, drink beer and smoke, but mixed with a food truck festival. I'm usually not big on festival food, but the food here is certainly an exception. From homemade fries and vegan burgers to Mexican and tribal food, there's something here for everyone. It's a great place to just sit down, eat and talk to random people.

This moment of peace was very much needed ahead of Bongripper. This was one of the most crowded shows of the festival. The band created a most impressive wall of sound, or should I say wall of noise, during their show. Although the show was very impressive, I'm still surprised by how insanely crowded it was.

After the intense show from the Chicago doom crew, desert rockers Steak are a welcome change of scenery. They might be from London, but these guys sound like they came straight from the California desert, although with some Pink Floyd thrown into the mix. I was very charmed by their sound, since it sounds familiar, but with a British twist. Highly enjoyable.

At the Desert stage, we remain in the instrumental musical spectrum with Pelican. This was one of the shows I looked forward to the most. The post-metal from these Americans manages to find that sweet spot between heavy dark riffs and a touch of light. The hour of playtime was over way too soon.

The other band I was really looking forward to, was Dopelord. I'm not sure what's happening in Poland that's causing the rise of so many good old school doom bands, as proven by Dopelord's recent excellent 4-way split with Weedpecker, Major Kong and Spaceslug, but it's clear these guys are leading the revolution. This show had everything I love: great songs, heavy riffs, exploitation cinema on the background and rowdy crowd. There even was a new song, called 'Hail Satan' and some moshing during the epic 'Reptile Sun'.

On my way to Ty Segall & The Freedom Band, I heard some music coming from the Vulture stage that caught my attention. Crowhurst was supposed to be performing here, but they had to cancel last minute. Their replacement were the Antwerp locals Your Highness.

Earlier that day, I was told they were a doom band and that I would like them. That turned out to be very true. The band plays traditional doom metal, but with a hardcore ferocity. I clearly wasn't the only one who enjoyed their show, judging by some of the most intense mosh pits I'd seen all weekend. I was so entertained that, for the first time in four years, I missed a Desertfest headliner. Not that I mind, these guys are worth it.

There's no rest for the wicked and Inter Arma made sure of that. The death/black.sludge doom band pretty much set the Canyon stage ablaze. It was past midnight but that was no excuse to take it slow. Vocalist Mike Paparo was running the stage like a ravenous beast. The band was a great warm-up for yet another night of mad partying.

Day 3

Usually the last day of a festival is somewhat of a cooling down. Festival days are long days and involve lots of walking and a lot of things to take in, resulting in you being exhausted, both physically and mentally. For this Desertfest, being tired was not an option, since the lineup is nothing but spectacular. Luckily for me, I woke up relatively fresh. I still don't know how I pulled that off, but I'm not complaining.

Since not everyone was as awake as I was, the first band we got to see was Wolvennest. I've seen the band perform many times in the past four years or so and I've yet to grow tired of their music. Their excellent mix of black metal, doom, psychedelic and krautrock still entrances me every show. And every show, they seem to get better. At least it helped me clear my mind in preparation for the rest of the day.

Wolvennest may have brought me to a higher plain, but after that it's a slap back to reality, courtesy of The Progerians. Their sludge mimics their hometown of Brussels. It's dark and nasty, but with just enough melody to make it appeal to the masses. This makes it a good warming up for the impressive set from Lord Dying, although they look towards more progressive and psychedelic horizons.

Monkey3 is one of those bands that always manage to deliver. Their instrumental space rock usually attracts quite the crowd and that was no different here. Sadly, nature called, resulting in me not being able to get back to the Desert stage. On the other hand, I did get to see High Reeper. These guys manage to play an energetic, balanced mix of stoner rock and Sabbath-y doom metal. A perfect blend of old school and new school.

The NOLA sludge kickers of Eyehategod are on a roll today. The band is clearly in a good mood and frontman Mike IX Williams is playing the crowd like a fiddle. The crowd, on their turn, is eating the slow, nasty blues raw. This was without a doubt my favorite show of the day.

After EHG I'm in doubt, stay where I am and be assured of a good spot for tonight's headliner, or go and see Un. I decide on the latter, even though many people seem to be saving their spots. I don't regret it though, since the Seattle band delivers some beautiful, heavy funeral doom. Especially fellow Seattle natives Bell Witch come to mind while riding Un's emotional roller coaster.

When I got back to the Desert stage, some 20 minutes before showtime, I was happy to see that it wasn't as crowded as I'd expected. I managed to get a nice spot in the center of the hall before the countdown started for the band all of Desertfest was clearly waiting for.

At a quarter to 11, the famous audio recording leading up to the moon landing started playing. What happened next felt like a ritual. Joints were lit across the audience, with some also being passed along through the crowd. People moved towards the stage like Muslims to the Ka'aba.

At 11, the almighty Sleep took the stage. Even though it was my fourth time seeing them in 15 months, the band still manages to impress me. All through the weekend, bands have been projecting everything from band logos to movies on the backdrop, but not Sleep.

Sleep doesn't need a backdrop. Nor a dynamic light show, for that matter. Sleep is all about the music. And the music is all that matters. Witnessing a Sleep show is like witnessing a voodoo ritual. The band's goal is to get you in a trance, to get you to follow the smoke to the riff filled land. For 75 minutes the music is all that matters.

Black Pyramid holds the thankless honour to close off the festival after Sleep. Their psychedelic brand of metal sounds good, but honestly, Sleep is still stuck in my head. Judging from the size of the crowd, many people have decided to head home early, but not us. We stayed until the bitter end.

On monday morning, to my great joy, the headache remained absent and I was feeling relatively fresh. I was looking forward to my own shower and couch, not necessarily in that order, so I was packed and ready to go in no time. My friends had some more difficulties to get their motor running, so we ended up getting brunch at one of the countless Panos sandwich bars in the city. Of course, we ran into some familiar faces there. Going over the weekend, we could all agree it was a festival with many highlights and next to no low points. Another one for the books. Why can't all festivals be like Desertfest? I'm not being melancholic, I'm seriously asking.

[rougespecial-blog]

sweetheart hand pt. 2 // brian may

summary: a continuation of sweetheart hand. after the party, the (art) studio.

a/n: mostly fluff and then some smut. sorry for the delay! if tumblr hasn’t sorted out their tagging shit by now...... hm. this is around 5,400 words. i was thinking about this twombly work when i was describing the painting. also can you believe this image cause i can’t.

there’s something terrifying and invigorating in equal measure about a blank canvas. you stare the expanse of white down determinedly, crossing your arms and trying to conjure something up in your mind’s eye. it’s a beast of a thing, five feet tall and six feet wide, and anything you try to visualise comes up short. fuck it. you’ve been avoiding it for weeks. you’ll just have to dive in.

you’ve hit almost every mark of your normal afternoon pre-painting routine - the curtains are thrown back to let the natural light in, you’ve made yourself a strong cup of tea and there’s a note on the door in case anyone decides to call around. the only thing left is to take the phone off the hook. it’s an old bakelite monster with a rotary dial - you could afford to replace it, but you’re fond of its look. plus, the horrible, grating sound of its ring is reason alone to stop it from disturbing your painting.

well. not that you normally have any hesitations about it. you haven’t done anything so undignified as waiting around for someone to call since you were a teenager.

———-

it was only after you’d kissed brian on saturday night that you realised you’d probably been a goner since he leaned carefully against the kitchen counter and asked you for a glass of champagne. the hours you spent with him had been so easy, slipping by in what felt like minutes. there was a quiet measure in the way he carried himself, the deliberate way he chose his words even when he was speaking a million miles an hour.

and the kiss itself. not the first, really, but the second one. the one he pressed to the softest part of your inner wrist. watching you with those clear eyes, the whole thing so stupidly intimate that it made your breath catch in your throat. after that, there was no hope at all. you had mumbled something absently about fixing the record, pulled back - hesitant but dimly aware you needed to gather your thoughts for a moment. when you turned away from the record player he was standing there all tall and willowy, waiting for you, arms folded. there was the slightest tilt to his head, the way men ask questions. yes, you had thought, in response to nothing in particular. and you kissed him again.

when you found tom at the end of the night - or start of the morning, rather - and asked him to call a cab, he had taken one look at you and grinned from ear to ear. you knew you were probably an embarrassing colour, lips flushed and clothes slightly askew. you didn’t even want to think about the state of your hair. he was bitterly disappointed, though, when he started to interrogate you in the taxi home.

‘was he good?’ you shot him an incredulous look. ‘that’s none of your business.’ ‘oh, my god. you didn’t shag him?’ ‘don’t make me dignify that with an answer, please.’ ‘i can’t believe you.’

it was a reaction you were accustomed to from tom - the polite term for his taste in lovers would be indiscriminate - but you found that you couldn’t even muster up pretend-annoyance at his prying questions. you were too content, watching the city slip by and thinking that your memory of the past few hours already felt like the kind of vivid dream you have on the edge of waking up - the ones you want desperately to remember. you had just kissed brian - for an age, like a teenager - curled up on a loveseat, paying no mind at all to the few strangers in the room. his hands were gentle at your neck, in your hair, under your blouse. you’ve been a grown woman for a while now, and you still felt your stomach flip when he touched his mouth to the hollow of your throat.

———-

it’s monday morning, now, and you haven’t shaken the feeling. it’s elusive, almost intangible - somewhere between anxiety and anticipation, the feeling of closing your eyes before a kiss. you had taken a pen and scrawled your number on brian’s arm before you left, pressing your lips to the last digit, right at the crease of his elbow. as a joke, mostly. but he had promised he would call so seriously that you found yourself believing him. stupid, you know, the idea that he wouldn’t meet a hundred women as charming as you and twice as good looking every weekend. better to enjoy it for what it was.

still, you leave the phone on the hook.

you’re a little embarrassed with yourself as you make your way to your palette (more of a drop sheet these days, really) and begin to mix. you wonder briefly about the colour of embarrassment, but the more paint you pour the more you realise what you’re after is the colour of a glance. a colour that looks the way someone else’s mouth tastes. it goes on in broad strokes - you want to cover the canvas in it, to feel like you’re wrapped in it. the shade you end up with is a champagne pink like sunburn, streaked through with hints of a vivid red. a little derivative, maybe, but you can work more into it.

your studio is the ground floor of your townhouse, what used to be a fairly spacious foyer and sitting room. creating it had been a labour of love over an entire spring a few years back. your own handiwork, mostly, tearing out walls, painting, varnishing until you ended up with the space you wanted. a good half of the floor space is covered in tarpaulin, with canvases, paint and brushes strewn wherever you like. it looks chaotic, but you know where everything is at a moment’s notice and there’s no one here to ‘helpfully’ tidy up after you - one of the main reasons you had to stop sharing a studio with tom. the rest of the room is still half a lounge, mostly wasted due to your reluctance to let guests in. things you’ve collected yourself and gifts from friends fill the place - huge potted plants, turkish rugs, a gorgeous painted trunk tom brought home from glasgow. and, of course, the ‘lounge’, a low-slung thing that’s mostly an excessive collection of pillows and throw blankets. for when you inevitably need something to throw yourself on mid-work, convinced you’ve never painted anything halfway decent in your life.

your canvas is totally awash in grey and pink, stained with red - like the blood-shock colour around the pit of a peach - when the phone rings. you nearly drop your paintbrush getting to it, only stopping to admonish yourself for being so pathetic. you let it ring once, twice more, and then pick it up.

‘hello?’ ‘hi, er - is this an alright time?’ you smile to yourself, tracing a groove in the wooden sideboard with your fingertip. ‘i’d say so, yeah.’ ‘great, that’s - oh, fuck, sorry. i haven’t - it’s brian. you know, from saturday night.’ ‘brian from saturday night? i’m not sure i - oh - wouldn’t happen to be a maths teacher, would you?’ his laugh is bright and genuine. ‘i think we got halfway through a good chat about fractals and then something came up.’ ‘of course. i’ve really been hanging out to finish that.’ ‘well, does this afternoon work? i can pick you up if you feel like a coffee.’ you pause, glancing over at your canvas. ‘i’m slightly in the middle of something,’ you confess. ‘on a bit of a momentum swing.’ ‘oh, of course. i should’ve - bit of short notice, sorry. are you free next -? i mean, if you’re not -’ your cheeks are nearly hurting from your smile, now. ‘brian. did you want to pop around instead, maybe? i’ll make you some coffee.’ he pauses for a moment, as if taken aback. you wonder if he thought you were just trying to avoid seeing him. silence, still. you falter a little. ‘or - you know, tea. if you’d prefer. it’s not contingent on the drink.’ ‘are you painting?’ the question surprises you, along with the shyly hopeful way he asks it. you look over at the canvas, at the layers of vivid underpainting starting to form something.

‘i am, actually.’ ‘sorry, it’s just - i remember you mentioning on saturday night that you didn’t really like anyone around your studio while you’re working.’ ‘i do make exceptions, you know.’ ‘that’s what i mean,’ he laughs. ‘i like being the exception.’

your exception arrives not a half-hour after you give him your address and hang up, with a knock at the door so gentle you nearly don’t notice it. you know it’s him, but you glance through the peephole anyway. he’s waiting patiently, clutching something in brown paper under his arm. the shade of stubble across his face is darker than saturday, and he’s wearing a pinstriped linen shirt that only makes him look leaner. he grins when you open the door, leaning forward to kiss you on the cheek. ‘this note,’ he laughs, gesturing at the handwritten thing you’d attached to your door. ‘i’ve never known a lady to say such things -’ ‘oh, piss off. artists are persistent types. you have to be clear.’

you lead him in, and it takes you a moment to realise that he’s paused in the threshold of the studio, looking around. ‘this is gorgeous,’ he says. ‘you’re telling me you keep it all to yourself?’ ‘mostly,’ you shrug. ‘i wanted to say - sort of a thank you, i guess, for letting me -’ he holds the paper bag out to you, one nervous hand moving to the back of his neck as you take it. you bite down on a smile. a book, and two blood oranges. you look up to him to say thank you, but he starts rambling before you can. ‘the oranges were just - god, your neighbour has the loveliest tree hanging over their fence, i suppose you’ve noticed, and you mentioned that you forget to eat when you’re painting - so i just grabbed them - and i thought the colour of them was so brilliant -’ ‘thank you, brian -’ ‘the book’s the main thing, of course, it was outside that old bookshop on king and i saw mark rothko and thought of you straight away, so there’s - you might already have a copy -’ ‘i don’t. really, thank you. i love them.’ he finally quiets, smiling softly. you lean up towards him, in what might have originally been a plan to kiss his cheek that quickly became sidetracked. you have never been known for self control. he makes a soft, surprised noise as your lips meet his but responds quickly, bringing a hand to your jaw. ‘thank you,’ you tell him again.

you set your gifts down on the coffee table, gesturing for him to make himself comfortable somewhere among the clutter. ‘i can make you a cup of coffee or something - i’d just like to finish up this corner, and then you’ll have my undivided attention.’ ‘take as long as you like,’ he says earnestly. it’s only then that he takes a proper look at the work in progress behind you. his mouth falls open slightly as he leans forward to inspect it. ‘you can get closer, if you like,’ you smile. ‘it’s not a gallery.’ ‘it bloody well should be,’ he says. you might have rolled your eyes if someone else had said it. ‘did you - this is all you? god, it’s brilliant.’ ‘careful, i’ll get a massive head. it’s really only a tenth done. if that.’ ‘well, yes, it’s unfinished - but there’s such a sense of motion - the colour, it’s like -’ ‘it’s a kiss,’ you say, half unsure of whether you sound insane. ‘it’s a painting of a kiss, i suppose.’ the look he gives you is brilliant, his eyes full of quiet mirth but also a certain fondness. nothing needs to be said, really. ‘i’ll go and get you that coffee.’

when you come back downstairs he’s pacing the room carefully, taking in the works littered around the place. he tilts his head - something you’re starting to realise is a habit - as if considering each one in turn. you’d feel scrutinised if it was anyone else, almost embarrassed. you’ve been painting for half your life and still aren’t really used to the feeling of strangers looking at your work. but with brian, somehow, it doesn’t feel like a stranger. you indulge yourself for a minute, perched at the bottom of the stairs, watching him.

‘fair’s fair,’ you call out eventually. he turns to you, an eyebrow raised in question. you nod at the acoustic guitar leaning against the lounge. it was a gift from a friend, and you’ve always liked the look of it even if you have no idea how to play. ‘i’ve shown you mine. let’s see yours.’ ‘excuse me,’ he laughs. ‘you’ve seen mine. at the launch party, remember?’ ‘that was different,’ you say, crossing the room to hand him the cup of coffee. ‘you had a band, and an adoring audience. that would be like seeing my work with all the trimmings at a big gallery opening. this is just me. now i want just you.’ he chuckles at your point, but doesn’t argue it. sitting down, his legs are almost too long for the sagging lounge. he places the coffee at his feet and picks up the guitar. ‘any requests?’ you know he’s being facetious, poking fun at your total lack of knowledge where his music is concerned. as of last time you met, that is.

you sit next to him, curling your feet under you and leaning on the back of the lounge comfortably. ‘i do have one, thanks very much,’ you say. ‘i forced tom to loan me one of your albums. he had the first one -’ ‘christ, you’re being serious -’ ‘- and it’s the second track, i think about a minute in - there’s this lovely little guitar part. i mean, it might be lovely, i haven’t the faintest if it’s actually special.’ ‘doing alright, you mean.’ he’s smiling the same way he did when you realised he wasn’t a maths teacher - looking perfectly amused. ‘that’s the one. i’m no good with names.’

carefully, he starts to tune the guitar. you laugh at his initial wince - it hasn’t been tuned properly since you got it, you suspect. when he’s satisfied, he strums a tentative few chords and gives you a cautionary look. ‘i haven’t played this song in a little while,’ he warns. ‘i’ll be forwarding all feedback to rolling stone,’ you say, and he huffs out a laugh, elbows you half-heartedly.

the light, pretty melody that’s been stuck in your head since you first heard it sounds infinitely lovelier being played right in front of you. you’re about to say as much when brian surprises you with a line of the song. should be waiting for the sun, he sings, half under his breath. you had no clue he even could.

he looks up and locks eyes with you, plays a few more notes and then falters to a stop. ‘sorry,’ he says, his smile sheepishly crooked. ‘you just - that felt like stage fright, for a moment there.’ ‘i’ve been told i’m extremely intimidating,’ you joke. ‘well, that, and…’ he trails off, looking towards your unfinished canvas, then back to you with nothing but sincerity in his eyes. ‘i’d really love to kiss you again, if that’s -’

you don’t give him time to finish the sentence. he barely has time to move the guitar out of the way, mindful of the fresh mug of coffee on the floor, as you close the distance between the two of you and kiss him resolutely. he cards a hand through your hair to cradle the nape of your neck, and you feel the press of rings you hadn’t taken notice of before. it’s hard to get proper leverage sitting side-on like this, so - without really being cognisant of what you’re doing, more running on instinct - you sling one leg over his and straddle his lap. he breaks the kiss, leaning his head back. you sense he’s thinking the same thing that you are - that this is where you finished off the last time you saw each other.

‘i haven’t stopped thinking about this since saturday night,’ he says. his hand is still resting in your hair, and he curls his fingers in it gently. he has some of the loveliest hands you’ve ever seen on a man, you think. one is resting on your thigh, and you trace a fingertip along the ridge of his knuckles. ‘i always take the phone off the hook when i paint,’ you confess. ‘but i couldn’t. not while i was thinking that you might call. is that ridiculous?’ ‘thinking that i might call? i mean, that’s ridiculous. the idea that i wouldn’t.’ you smirk, slipping a hand under the neck of his shirt to rest at his collarbone. he’s warm beneath you, and you can feel his steady heartbeat. ‘you’re a rockstar, brian. don’t bullshit. i’ll know.’ you nod at your impromptu lie detector, your palm pressed against his heart.

‘no bullshit. alright, then.’ he rocks forward, catching you with a hand at the curve of your back. ‘sunday morning, i called half the artist collectives in london asking after you. i wanted to see your works before i saw you again.’ ‘so you could decide whether or not to pursue me?’ he laughs, ducking his head and pressing a soft kiss to your chest. ‘so i could understand you better. i thought it’d be like a window into your thoughts. but then the only collective who knew you -’ ‘drunk tank?’ ‘- that’s the one - they told me you were all sold out at the moment, and the only gallery pieces you had were at some place that didn’t open until tuesday - so i thought, sod it, i’ll come and see them in person.’ he raises his eyebrows expectantly. you pretend to mull the story over, biting your lip. ‘it’ll do.’ he clasps a hand around yours, clutching it to his chest. ‘it’ll do! have you ever felt a pulse this honest?’

‘alright,’ you concede, laughing. ‘now mine.’ you take his hand, pressing his fingertips against the base of your throat. ‘sunday morning, i woke up at tom’s around midday and the first thing i asked him was -’ ‘hang on,’ brian mutters. ‘can’t quite get it properly -’ you cut yourself off, inhale sharply as he kisses your neck, openmouthed. ‘go on,’ he mumbles. he runs his tongue along the pulse point, teeth grazing against your skin. ‘prick,’ you laugh, curling one of your hands in his hair. ‘the first thing i asked him was if he had any queen records, and he laughed at me, but loaned me your first.’ ‘god, you’re sweet,’ brian says fondly, but he’s distracted, kissing further down your neck. those careful hands at your ribcage, inching the hem of your shirt up.

impatient, you pull the shirt over your head. you’re not wearing anything underneath - you never do at home. he makes a short, pleased noise when this becomes obvious, almost a disbelieving laugh. his hands are fleeting, wanting to be everywhere. his lean fingers, silver-ringed, teasing against your ribcage, breasts, nipples. you arch your back into the touch, feeling - somehow - even less inhibited than you were on saturday night.

you make short work of the buttons on his shirt, parting it to reveal what shouldn’t be the body of a rockstar - there’s a grace to him, a certain lightness - there’s the height, of course, and he’s broad in the shoulders but still somewhat delicate. you love the look of him. the dark hair beneath his arms and between his hips, the line of his collarbones, the pronounced adam’s apple. as you’re taking him in he doesn’t stop touching you, leaning forward with one hand spanned across your back, kissing the inside curve of your breast.

it’s tempting to just let him keep going at this forever. his attention is ardent, eyes closed, taking one nipple in his mouth and running his thumb over the other until they’re so sensitive it makes you whine. when he gently pinches one and rolls it between his fingers you gasp, grinding your hips down against his. he groans, humming against your skin, the vibration sending a shudder through you.

it’s with complete seriousness that he looks up at you and says your name. ‘yeah?’ he presses a wet kiss to your sternum, hands still at your breasts. glances up again. ‘you can have me,’ he says, ‘any way you want me.’ you feel your stomach drop when he says it, taking in the earnest look and the shining eyes and the flush that reaches his shoulders. you press your splayed fingertips into the middle of his chest. ‘finish undressing, then,’ you tell him, half-smiling.

you watch him shrug off the rest of his clothes as you stand and step out of your jeans. before, the sight of him in your studio felt natural, comforting. now it sends an electric thrill through you, the diminishing evening light casts over him as he lounges back and waits for you. you move to kneel over him and he rests a hand on your thigh, otherwise waiting for you to decide. his cock is jutting hard against his lower abdomen. you trace a hand gently up it and feel his palm twitch against you as he tenses.

‘what did you want?’ you ask him, thoughtful. ‘on saturday night?’ ‘i wanted to know everything there was to know about you,’ he says, his voice raw. you wrap your hand around his cock to punctuate your meaning. ‘i mean - what did you want?’ the sound he makes is half laugh, half shaky groan as you touch him. ‘i wanted to fuck you right there,’ he says, ‘everyone else be damned. i wanted to make you come.’

his hand trails up from your thigh to between your spread legs, his index finger tracing a teasing line. when he feels how wet you are, he groans. ‘i wanted to feel this,’ he continues, running his guitar-calloused fingertips over your clit. you balance yourself with a hand at his chest, still touching his cock in slow tandem with what he’s doing to you.

when you edge forward and lower yourself over him, aligning yourself, the head slides against your clit and his breath catches. he’s propped up on his elbows to watch, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. there’s a stillness to him as you take him inside, giving you time as you adjust to the stretch. when you bottom out, all of him inside you, he tips his head back and swears hotly, the end of it turning into a groan. he brings one hand to you, touching your clit as you rock your hips back and forth.

‘just like that,’ he murmurs. ‘get yourself off on me, come on -’ he starts raising his hips to meet your movements, just slightly, enough that you feel impossibly full, the press of him deep inside. when you arch a certain way he hits a spot that nearly knocks the wind out of you. he must see your reaction, the way your eyes flutter shut in bliss, because he laughs, fondly, and thrusts up again at the same angle. you can’t stop the moan that escapes you, then. he hums, delighted, quickening the slip of his thumb over you and touching your face gently with his other hand. ‘god, you’re not far off, are you?’

you can only shake your head no. it’s a little embarrassing, but you’ve been keyed up since saturday and all there is now is the desperate need to finally come. you turn and kiss his palm, bite the heel of his thumb gently. he squeezes you minutely, affectionately. he’s hit your rhythm, in perfect tandem with your body, a shine of sweat across his chest. you clutch at him as the wave of your orgasm starts to pool in your belly. he fucks up into you, gasping, the hands that were gently touching you now gripping your thighs tightly. almost accidentally, he hits that angle and you nearly collapse forward, your orgasm hitting sharply. when he’s sure you’ve ridden it out - sure that he can’t tease anything more out of you - only then does he collapse back against the lounge, stomach clenching with his deep breaths and - there it is - soft laughter.

‘my god,’ he says, slinging an arm across his eyes. ‘i’d imagined it. but i couldn’t- you looked perfect.’

when you think your legs are working again you raise yourself from him, gently, moving to kneel beside the couch. when he realises what you’re doing he sits up, tries to assure you that you don’t have to, but you quiet him. ‘i want to,’ you say. ‘besides, i haven’t got - ah - anything.’ and he laughs at that, laughs until he’s cut off with a groan as you take him in your mouth.

it doesn’t take long, his hands in your hair, warm against the cradle of your neck. when you glance up he’s watching carefully from eyes half-lidded. a gaze that would be filthy from across the room, let alone now. after a moment he finds your hand at his thigh, gives it a polite, if desperate, clutch as a warning. he holds his breath as he’s about to come and then releases it in a string of profanity, of your name, of wordless moans.

lying back against cushions and blankets - half of them strewn on the floor in your hurry to get into his lap - you watch him watching you. you can’t help but be reminded of sitting in that armchair across from him at the party, feeling helplessly seen. not just that appraising look of his but some of the things he said, striking insights into the way you think. he reaches over to trace his fingers up the inside of your arm.

‘penny for your thoughts?’ ‘i never got to finish that corner,’ you say. he chuckles as he pulls himself to stand, tugging his boxers and trousers back on. you take his linen shirt from the heap on the lounge and slip it on, doing up a couple of buttons. as you stand up and step back into your underwear, he’s shaking his head at you. ‘i won’t make you leave without it,’ you laugh. ‘indulge me.’ he relents, picking his coffee up from the foot of the sofa. it must be completely cold by now. ‘did you -?’ you bite your lip, apologetic. ‘i might have to make you a fresh one.’ he waves his hand dismissively. ‘i can manage. do you want one?’ ‘that would be lovely, actually. the kitchen is upstairs, to the left.’

you wander over to your painting, your tools untouched since brian’s arrival. taking a slender paintbrush and a board covered in silver-grey paint, you slowly track a thin line across some of the pink, thick enough that it drips down the canvas. the look of it is ephemeral, spectral over the shocking red. you hear brian’s footsteps down the stairs. they slow when he notices that you’re painting. it takes all of your effort to stay facing your work, finish the line by tapering it off into a swathe of ghostly white. by then he’s right behind you, close enough to lean in and kiss the back of your neck. the work can wait. you turn and he hands you a mug of coffee.

‘so what does a monday evening look like for you?’ shit. you’d mostly forgotten about the outside world. ‘there’s this exhibition opening tonight,’ you say. ‘friend of a friend of a friend. i’ve been sort of dreading it for a while now, but that’s how these industry things are.’ ‘stay in, then. with me.’ he’s so matter of fact that you nearly laugh. ‘i can’t - there’s an expectation, i guess - sort of an etiquette thing -’ ‘you’re sick. you’ve come down with something awful.’ ‘and instead?’ ‘instead we can go up the road for a bottle of wine and some dinner,’ he says. ‘you can complain about these industry types, i’ll make you laugh effortlessly, you’ll be dying to see me again.’ you roll your eyes at him, taking a sip of your coffee. ‘that first part sounded alright.’ he sticks out his lower lip, humming as he pretends to weigh it up. ‘alright. let’s start there.’

you almost feel like you’re getting away with something - the rush of bunking class in high school - as you walk over to the phone and set your coffee down. you don’t realise until you’ve dialled tom’s number and it’s started to ring that brian has followed behind you. you don’t pay it much mind until you hear one knee hit the floor with a soft thud. you look over your shoulder at him, eyes wide, and mouth something along the lines of what are you doing? he only grins. he knows exactly what he’s doing. his broad hands are at your thighs, gently turning you to face him. as he runs a thumb upwards, pressing against your inner thigh, tom picks up the phone.

‘hello?’ ‘hi - tom - it’s me,’ you say, flustered. ‘hello, darling. where am i meeting you tonight?’ brian leans in and kisses the top of your thigh, then noses at your underwear. one of your hands flies to his head, curling in his hair. ‘um - that’s the thing,’ you manage, slightly impressed with yourself. ‘i don’t think i can make it.’ ‘oh, god, why on earth not? don’t make me do it alone.’ in one sudden movement, brian leans in and hooks your leg over his shoulder and pulls the crotch of your underwear aside, pressing his mouth against you. you gasp, leaning back against the sideboard for balance. knowing it’s probably a losing battle, you try to hide the sound in a fake cough anyway. ‘i’m sick, tom - really sick -’ you cough again to stop yourself making a  helpless sound as brian licks over you, hot and insistent - ‘- i’ve been really tired all day.’ ‘oh, you bitch. you’re with him now, aren’t you?’ brian looks up at you, the same dark, intent look in his eyes as the one just before you’d kissed him. one hand holding your thigh for leverage, the other at your cunt, a long finger pressing inside you. ‘yes,’ you say - more of a squeak, really. ‘sorry - i’llmakeituptoyou.’

you all but slam the phone into the cradle, leaning back, finally letting out the sound you’d been keeping in - albeit barely. brian sucks a wet kiss over your clit, then turns his head to graze his lips against your thigh, his stubble scratching gently. ‘that was extremely underhanded,’ you tell him, breath heaving. ‘sorry,’ he says, though his crooked grin tells you he’s not in the slightest. ‘i thought i could wait until you were finished, but the way you looked…’ ‘the way i looked answering the phone?’ ‘yes, answering the phone.’ he kisses your thigh again, nipping the skin playfully between his teeth. ‘or walking to the phone.’ another kiss. ‘or hearing the phone ring.’ you scoff at him, rolling your eyes. ‘come on. don’t act like i’m the first man you’ve brought to his knees,’ he says. ‘oh, that was good! now i know where all these lyrics come from.’ ‘i’ve been told i’m a natural crowd pleaser.’ you slip your leg off his shoulder and nudge him with your knee half-heartedly. too pleased, too satisfied, too smitten to really tease him back. ‘come up here, then. show me.’

[prairiedust]

Folk the Author

Hi all, I’m stealing a little time from moving in to revisit my folktale metas before hiatus is over and my classes start up again (I accidentally signed up for a Maymester this summer and did a semester of coursework in six weeks and am mentally still spongy. Hard not to try to apply Bloom’s taxonomy to Supernatural watching, like where do I fall, am I a lower-order watcher, how can I put Bloom’s descriptors into a lesson plan about Supernatural, help.) 

Here’s a quick discussion of the season 14 finale and some thoughts about where folklore as a theme has taken us In Light of New Information™. If you haven’t read the previous posts on this topic, they’re tagged under “the folklore of supernatural.” Moriah lends itself better to deconstructivist and postmodernist readings, but I’m gonna try to dig some folklore themes outa that sumbitch so here we go.

I’ve been talking about folklore a lot this season, but let me recap the different kinds of “folk tales” I’ve been thinking about. The first, purest form is the oral folk tale, conceived completely as spoken word and delivered via performance for an audience; by its nature it is ephemeral, exists in the moment, and persists only in the memories of those there when it was performed. Then we have stories that are transcribed during their telling, a la the Brothers Grimm. Was something lost when the stories were written down? Facial expressions, strategic pauses, laughter or gasps from the audience, that would bring drama or pathos or hilarity to the tale? Then we have literary fairy tales, stories like “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Nightingale,” which are constructed with the architecture of folklore but are written works-- even if it was based on an oral tale, such as SM&T, the structure and prose is that meant for a reader. Oftentimes, “folk” themes are scrubbed (or are completely retooled) as these are meant for an aristocratic or at least literate audience. Think about how the wolf eating Red Riding Hood and Grandma is often Sanitized for Your Protection by having the wolf knock Grandma unconscious or something in retellings of the story. (In case you don’t know, the wolf eats Grandmother and eventually Red Riding Hood, too, and a woodcutter comes by, hears their cries, and cuts them out of the wolf’s belly.) Another kind of folklore exists that I’ve touched on, that of written literature that reentered oral tradition-- an example of this kind is the Grimm Brothers’ Little Briar Rose, ostensibly collected as an oral folktale but inspired heavily by the aforementioned “Sleeping Beauty in the Woods” by Charles Perrault. 

This interplay between folk/oral tradition and the literary one is set up directly by the ending of Supernatural’s season 14. We’ve known Chuck to be a writer ever since his entrance into the series in season 5 but he was framed as a prophet of the Lord, a mere recorder of the Winchesters’ actions, and it was assumed at the time that his works were reflections of the visions he received as prophecy. His narration and disappearance in Swan Song placed all of that in question, but there was never anything in canon that did more than hint at his larger role.

Knowing now that Chuck is God/The Author (instead of just “the author” as he has been introduced as, like in Fan Fiction) quadruple-charges the folk/auteur dynamic. Chuck is pitting himself as the chief architect of the world’s narrative against his own characters, who he had essentially allowed to run away with the plot. Another way of looking at this is through the lens of postmodernist theory, where the author becomes irrelevant once the work is published, and interpretations are the sole domain of the reader/audience-- Chuck versus TFW becomes a grand collision between old-school literary theory versus “death of the author.” (This has huge implications for meta writers and the problem with taking a break from fandom is that I don’t know what was discussed about this, but it’s exciting.) I’m still parsing the interplay between God the Author as both auteur and audience, the actual TV audience (us!), and the characters-- which are now all characters! and authors! and audiences! The deconstructivist reading writes itself.

But back to the program. This sudden rivalry between God and the Winchester clan can, on another level, be seen as the tension between a narrative constructed by a literary writer versus the motifs and characters that make up the folk tradition. What I want to talk about, then, is a reading of the series post- season 5 as folklore, and Chuck as a writer who is trying to bend the ending of the tale for his own gratification.

I’ve spoken a bit before about the tale we know generally as Sleeping Beauty, as it made its way from folklore into the literary realm and back into folklore. At some point, an “early” version of the story was written down by a Neapolitan writer named Giambattista Basile in the seventeenth century as “Sun, Moon, and Talia,” and officially became a literary fairy tale. How far removed it is from the oral tradition is anyone’s guess, I think. Anyway, Charles Perrault, a French writer decades later, reworked the tale into “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood,” and then this story made its way into the hands of storytellers in Germany and reemerged as the “folktale” “Little Brier Rose” and was harvested by the Brothers Grimm in the nineteenth century, and when they entered it into the written record it once more became a literary fairy tale. It’s a good metaphor for what is happening in 14x20. Chuck engineered Dean’s and Sam’s births and possibly also all of their lives’ events up to 5x22 Swan Song; it’s not really clear when he stepped out or to what extent he has remained involved. This changes the angels’ allegation that God has been gone for centuries-- he’s just been writing anonymously and mailing in the drafts. We’ve seen the power of writing in Meta Fiction when Metatron powered his own scribing with the Angel Tablet, which gave him god-like powers-- but then, as now, our folk heroes snatched their victories out of the typewriter of doom and changed the course of events... that was a ridiculous metaphor but I’m only a little sorry. 

What we are being led to believe now, then, is that Chuck set up (“wrote”) the events leading up to the Apocalypse, and Sam and Dean and Castiel were turned loose in the plot and ended up acting as chaos agents, runaway literary devices as it were, and Chuck has been very amused to see what they’ve done with the shit that he’s slung at them. “You’re my favorite show!” he exclaims, bending the author/character relationship in Pirandellic ways, almost to the breaking point. However, it is clear that Dean, Sam, and (probably) Castiel still have free will and use it to deny Chuck his tragic ending-- that of Dean killing Jack-- as Sam instead tries to kill God himself. 

“Alright. Story’s over. Welcome to the end,” Chuck says as he unleashes Hell and calls up a zombie horde to attack Sam, Dean, and Castiel; it is revealed to the audience that the ghosts which the Winchesters have dealt with through the years are returning, their own endings coming undone. This is a return to their roots, as their very first case in the Pilot was a ghost, so while it’s not clear yet if every monster has been reset, this is a way of the story to circle around back to the beginning. This is both a literary device and a folk one, as folk tales are almost universally about getting past recursions and to a new ending, such as the two times the little pigs’ houses failed until the third pig’s house is strong enough to withstand the wolf, and in literary stories the circular narrative features in novels like Huckleberry Finn, where the entrance into the story of Tom Sawyer reframes the entire plot, or Moby Dick where the ending makes sense of just about all the strange things that happened as a means to save Ishmael’s life. 

Folk tale plots, where the monsters are handily defeated by an unlikely hero or heroine and the innocent go back to their lives, are now being confiscated by an author who is actively rewriting the stories to suit his own desires. As I’ve discussed before, most of TFW 2.0 are framed this season as folk characters, and we know since fairly early days that they had gone beyond even Choose Your Own Adventure™. (Sam is a special case of an author insert or a character running away with the story that I hope to talk about in another post, let’s just say his role has been very meta...)

I’ve been fascinated by the idea that the act of recording a story changes it since I was young, and I’ll link a couple of things to think about now. When I was little, and I’ve mentioned this before, I lived in Tennessee and was fortunate enough to go several times to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, where I learned that experiencing a story face-to-face is different than listening to the recording in a very important way. I listened live to a terrifying tale called “Tilly,” conveyed by the master storyteller the late great Jackie Torrence. It is a story that speaks brilliantly to the hearts and backbones of younger children. Later, we heard her tell W. W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” by on a recording of a live storytelling session (“Graveyard Tales” 1984,) from that same festival, and I learned, sitting in a darkened living room with parents and siblings seemingly as terrified as I was, that even when a storyteller’s aim is to frighten, there is something comforting and grounding about having the storyteller in front of you, guiding you through the story they are telling, and somehow the story from the record in the record player was infinitely more scary for having no one there at all in the room who knew how the story was going to end. I think that’s where we’re going to be at the premiere of season 15. We have an author who has undone the folktales that Sam and Dean have worked all their lives to craft, ones where the monster is slain and the good townsfolk get to go about their lives once more, and he’s bending it to his will instead of allowing the “folk” endings that we’ve come to expect. 

One more thought about “writers” that comes from this episode. I’ve been upset for a couple of seasons now that we’re not hollering more about Dabb and Singer (and possibly Ross-Leming) dispensing half-truths and bogus assertions-- like Singer’s claim that we would “never guess” who was going to possess Dean, when meta writers excitedly postulated that it would be one of the Michaels, and this season Dabb stating that Dean wasn’t secretly possessed when it was clear that there was still a tether to AU!Michael who had been wiretapping him all along so that Dean might as well have been secretly possessed. It is a ham-fisted way of managing our expectations so that ostensibly the gotcha in that episode would still be a surprise. Spirit of honesty, in practicality it’s just short of prevaricating. It’s the kind of thing the writers should probably just keep mum about, imho. And then in the season 15 finale, Castiel (sometimes a liar himself but is nonetheless held up in this episode to be The Voice Of Truth) says bluntly, “Writers lie.” (It’s easy to forget about Metatron uploading “all” of human media into his head, so there is no better authority about fiction in the room than he.) In an abstract sense, yes, a writer creates what are essentially lies-- fictions, tall tales, things that never really happened to characters that don’t really exist-- but here we’re faced with the possibility that we can’t trust them to be truthful outside of their own fictions, either. I found Dabb’s tweets throughout the season to be cryptic but in many ways very spot-on to how they related to the episode he was tweeting about, but I think we’ve been warned. About the writers: Supernatural is always about the “twist” at the end, and in this way they’re professional liars-- they lead us in one direction, or in no direction, as Sam and Dean try to figure out the MOTW or the angelic double-cross or whatever. And then yikes it’s a ghost or Metatron is the homeless guy or something. Steve Yockey leaving the writer’s room has left me gutted, although I have high hopes for Jeremy Adams, who has been a writer for Scooby Doo, and is thus probably quite clever at writing episodes with a “reveal” at the end, and which in the Scoobyverse are always satisfying-- like, that’s the requirement, that [redacted] actually being the Miner Forty Niner is, like, yeah, gooood stuff. I hope that we’ll be thanking the authors for the experience they’re taking us on with their weekly fabrications instead of screaming that we’ve been sold a bill of goods about any given theme in season 15. So mote it be lol. Anyways, there’s my ruminations on the writers as a bonus.

I think that exploring the season through the lens of folklore paid off in spades in the finale as it set up a “folk/author” clash that will be interesting to watch going forwards. I don’t know that this theme will carry on, and make no predictions if it does, that’s not what themes in a serial text do necessarily. I mean, clearly, we’ve got some author/character shenanigans to look forward to, but whether we’ll be dealing with more folklore, whether the theme will transmute to literature or even absurdism, or to reader-as-author is something I’d like to see but can only hope for. I think it will be a wild ride and while I see a lot of Gloom ‘N Doom around this last season, I’m really looking forward to it. For me, this season’s writers have been providing that yeah gooood stuff so far, and remember how subtext (and btw I don’t mean destiel subtext) in a serial text works? I think these guys are all really good at delivering subtext (well, most of them) and we’ll have a surprising and satisfying twenty episodes.

[clarascuro]

Clara Reads City of Bones Part 3: Hogwarts Institute for Witchcraft and Shadowhunting

The Plot Thus Far

When last we left off, our lovable cardboard cutout protagonist, Clary Fray, had been attacked by a demon called a Ravener and taken to a place called “The Institute”. After three days of recovery, she has an uncomfortable (for us) conversation with Isabelle Lightwood, where we learn that Isabelle is hot and that we, the audience, should hate her for that, and also that Jace Wayland lives with the Lightwood family because his parents are dead. We are meant to feel bad about this. We are meant to feel sorry for Jace, which is a bit of a tall order, considering that Jace Wayland is the worst person to ever smirk and shrug his way through a YA book. If I were trapped in an elevator with him I wouldn’t even wait five minutes to be rescued, I’d pry those doors open and just drop. Death is cruel but quality time with Jace Wayland is crueler. 

So Clary leaves the hospital wing and goes down a long hallway, lead by the sound of someone playing a piano. Last time I said that it was Alec (Isabelle’s brother) who played piano, and that it was his only character trait, but nope!! It’s actually my favorite boy Jace, that sack of human refuse! So I guess Alec has no personality, actually. Anyway, they have some “witty” “banter”, and then Alec takes her to the library to talk to the head of the Institute, Hodge Starkweather, and, yeah. I think it’s time to talk about the Harry Potter stuff. 

The Harry Potter Stuff

You know how E.L. James made minor changes to her crappy Twilight fanfic and then published it as 50 Shades of Gray? Well, as near as anyone can figure out, this is basically the same thing that Cassandra Clare did with her Harry Potter fanfic The Draco Trilogy. Just change the names, tweak the backstories ever so slightly, slap on a crappy cover and publish that sucker! It’s technically not plagiarism anymore! This is how you end up with stuff like "The Institute”, a secret school to teach young magic kids to control their powers, or Hodge Starkweather, elderly magic professor, who, one could argue, is a crackpot old fool teaching our protagonists magic tricks. (Gosh, how does Clare come up with this stuff?) 

This obviously isn’t proof of any kind, but when the villain of your story is named “Valentine” and he’s an evil magic user who has been dead for sixteen years (the age of our secretly magic protagonist) and the main characters are afraid to even say his name...yeah, it doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out where all of this comes from. 

Now all this is frustrating, but it’s also hilarious. I mean, the big bad of the story is called Valentine. VALENTINE. And I actually laughed out loud for several minuted when I first read the name “Hodge Starkweather” to myself. I still get a little chuckle typing this. Oh, and since the word “muggle” would have JK Rowling’s lawyers on her ass faster than light, the word Cassandra Clare uses for non-magic people is...”Mundie”. It’s short for “mundane”. Like...first of all this is objectively hilarious. Second, mundane just means “normal”. If the Shadowhunter society is magical, then aren’t they they mundane ones? I know humans don’t have magic, but we still figured how to like, fly and stuff. That has to count for something. If I saw a dog that taught himself how to read, I wouldn’t like, make fun of him for not also being able to talk. I’d be like “Shit! That’s a pretty impressive fucking dog!” like what the fuck?

Anyway, this is all just a roundabout way to say that obviously this used to be a HP fic that through some twist of fate landed a publishing deal. And you know, it’s not as brain-meltingly bad as 50SoG, so who cares? Cassandra Clare’s just having fun, so who cares if her writing gets published? 

Well...

The Plagiarism

So, yeah, she plagiarized lot. Like a lot. The Draco Trilogy has lines of dialogue taken directly from shows like Red Dwarf, Black Adder, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett novels. Quoting shows apparently used to be pretty common in the early days of fanfiction, so there is context to consider here, but it gets worse. Cassandra Clare lifted almost a whole chapter, nearly word for word, from an out-of-print fantasy series called The Hidden Land, by Pamela Dean. On top of that, Clare was sued in 2016 by author Sherrilyn Kenyon, whose Darkhunter series predates Clares Shadowhunters series. (And for the record, Clare’s series was originally titled Darkhunters. Yikes.) You guys can read the full(ish) stories here and here.

I Guess I Have To Keep Talking About The Plot Now

Sigh. So after Hodge Starkweather (A+ naming there) tells them about Valentine, he explains that Shadowhunters are angel-human hybrids? Or something? They’re special, and they fight demons. Also faries, vampires, werewolves, all that stuff exists. We’re stuck with the Shadowhunters, however, because God has punished me for my hubris, and my work is never done. (Oh look, I just plagiarized Brian David Gibert. I’m a real author now, like Cassandra Clare!) The Shadowhunters were started thousands of years ago by a man named, I shit you not, Jonathan Shadowhunter. JONATHAN. FUCKING. SHADOWHUNTER. Why the fuck am I trying to come up with clever names for my characters? I should just name them all “Alex Clarasbook” and call it a fucking day. Fuck.

Anyway after a thrilling conversation with Alec-Who-Has-No-Personality, we find out that he does have a personality! His personality is that he hates humans. Oh, excuse me, “mundies.” Yep, that’s the best way to make a character relatable. Just make ‘em fucking racist. It’s okay though, it’s only magical racism so it evens out. Have I mentioned that this story has no poc?

(Oh also Clary’s mom was a Shadowhunter, but 1. I hate Clary                        and 2. literally a newborn baby could’ve figured that out, so)

Clary and Jace leave the Institute to go back to Clary’s house, and Clary slaps Jace, an act that brings me such joy that only the birth of my firstborn child will ever eclipse it, and even then, it will be it close tie. The moment is quickly over, however, as Clary immediately feels bad about it, because again, she is not a character. She’s a Walmart mannequin created for Jace to make out with. Then she sees two girls looking at Jace, and, in what can only be called the true essence of the book, “Clary turned instant traitor against her gender.” Just as a reminder, Clary sucks.

Anyway they get to her house, kill a giant, talk to a witch, yaddah yaddah yaddah. Basically nothing happens except the inevitable unraveling of my mental processes. I had to stop reading there because I have better things to do with my life besides destroying the few braincells I have left. I’ll post the next part soon, as soon as I can read more than five pages without wanting to fling the book off a seaside cliff into the frothing mist that obscures the swell and crash of the unforgiving waves. Until then, please enjoy some of my favorite bad lines.

Selected Passages (And Commentary)

“Jace chuckled. Clary could tell that he had come up behind her and was standing there with his hands in his pockets, grinning that infuriating grin of his.”                                                                                                             (She knew all that without looking?)

“Attacked. Clary wondered if this was a euphemism for ‘murdered’.”            (Clary you’re literally the dumbest person I’ve ever met.)

“Clary let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in.”                  (This may just be me being petty, but I hate this cliche so much.)

“‘You may be the only guy my age I’ve ever met who knows what bergamot is, much less that it’s in Earl Grey tea.”                                                                   (Ah yes, that famous stereotype, that boys don’t know about tea. Oh, you like tea? Name three kinds. I hear sexist gatekeeping is a real problem in the tea community. I am not having a good time.)

“Dorothea chuckled. ‘It’s good to see a young woman eat her fill. In my day, girls were robust, strapping creatures, not twigs like they are nowadays.’ ‘Thanks,’ Clary said. She thought of Isabelle’s tiny waist and felt suddenly gigantic.”                                                                            (Cassandra Clare’s super feminist, guys. You can tell because she’s always pitting her female characters against each other.)

Rating So Far

3/10-Bad. Jonathan Shadowhunter gets an entire 10/10. I’m going to have my name legally changed to Jonathan Shadowhunter.

[dearchuchu]

Long version.

I'm going to assume anyone who wants the long version is going to read the short version. So I'll skip what was covered there and go into the details.

I had mini bottles, but I drank them all by dinner time with the idea I would just pick up some more for the long flight in San Fransisco. The closest liquor store was about a mile and a half away from our hotel out by the airport, and Mandy, who didn't know my plan didn't like my plan. She also didn't like that I drank my mini bottles that were for the big flight. I always planned on this, but neglected to tell her.

An Uber to the liquor store was 7 dollars one way. Man San Fransisco is expensive. I told Mandy, who was not happy with the idea of spending 14 dollars to go buy mini bottles that I already had (and drank), to go spend MORE money on MORE mini bottles. I, however disagreed.

I decided, it's only a mile and a half, I'll walk. 50 minutes or so, no big deal. Mandy wasn't keen on that idea, but it was much cheaper than Uber. Then I remembered, "Wait, didn't bird start here?" Yes the scooter company bird is in San Fransisco. I said, "I'll just scoot up there!" Alas, no bird scooters out by the airport hotels. Then I remembered I have lime on my phone too! So I loaded up the lime app, and sure enough, there was a lime scooter on my way!

I located the lime, and it's a bike. I think, "that's fine, biking will still cut off at least half the time!" I unlock it, and the lights don't work. It's night time now, so it's dark. I thought, "Wow, this isn't very safe. You'd think lime would have lights on their bikes." I ride up to the liquor store, which ended up being in a nice section of suburban San Francisco. Once in the well lit area I noticed the bike said "ebike" on it, and I saw the motor for pedal assist. It turns out the lime I got was a lemon. It did have lights, the bike was just broken.

I get my WAY overpriced mini bottles, and then look for another bike, this one, hopefully not broken. I find one quickly, and it works great, lights and everything. Let me just say this, pedal assist bikes are super fun! I flew on the way back to the hotel! If you get a chance, ride one, the motor does all the work for you! I even made Mandy try it when I got back to the hotel. She had to admit, even as someone that doesn't enjoy riding bikes, it was pretty cool.

We both get a crappy night sleep, then eat a pretty good hotel breakfast, then off to the airport. Customs was stressful, as it always is, but the agents were in good spirits, because the TSA in San Fransisco is ran by a private company, so they are still getting paid despite the government shutdown. We find our gate, and get the last few things that we need to do online done before leaving the country for a while. Mandy doing work, me looking at cat memes.

Finally we board our plane, we're all set to go, and we sit. Then we sit. We sit some more, then we sit. Then Mandy points out it's been an hour and we haven't moved. No word from the captain, no word from the crew. Just an hour straight of sitting in a tarmac. The guy next to us, which was clearly flying internationally for the first time asked a passing stewardess, "Hey, what's going on? When are we taking off?" And she said "10 minute." Which is obviously bullshit.

We have a friend who works for Delta, and since we're still on the ground in America, we could still contact her, so we gave her the old "What's going on?" text. She looked into it, bad wind off the coast, Delta flights are delayed by 45 minutes. We watched several planes from several other providers take off, or taxi right behind us. We just sat. It was an hour and fifty minutes before we started moving. The FAA says that after 2 hours they have to provide you with a meal. They got in JUST under the buzzer.

I have no idea why we sat there. There was no work being done, no repairs. Delta got all their flights out in 45 minutes. There we sat. The captain never said a word. The staff said nothing. The only reason we knew anything is we have a friend in the industry. We flew China Eastern, for the record. This was strike one.

We get up in the air, and about two hours later they served our meal, 4 hours after getting on the plane. I could tell the service was going to suck, so I asked for a glass of wine, and a beer, and the flight attendant looked like I just kicked his dog. TWO drinks at the same time? Impossible. He did it, but you could tell it bothered him. I'm personally super glad I did.

The food comes after the drinks and the same guy starts handing us food, and we are like, "Woah buddy, what are the options?" This is when it becomes clear none of the staff speaks English. I mean enough for one to two words here or there, but clearly no real grasp of English. Strike two. He responds "Pork fried rice." Now if any of you are unaware, I haven't been eating pork. It's actually been well over a year, almost two now. I've made one or two exceptions, but those were always my decision.

Mandy says, "What about chicken?" He says "No. Pork fried rice." Luckily for me, I already decided I was going to eat pork on this trip, because the Philippines LOVE pork. In fact, in the first hour of being here we already saw a whole pig roasting on a pit in someone's back yard. What's important here is that I had already decided I could eat pork. I didn't want to on the plane, but with a 12 hour flight (14 with the delay), I had no options. Literally. Now the vegetarian behind me... He had quite a bit less options. I think he just didn't eat. Strike three.

It's important to note when we asked for our wine, he used the small cup, and poured a half pour. He also just had a sour expression on his face when he delt with us. I say "he" because we only delt with one guy for the whole flight. He then turned to the Chinese people across the row from us chatted them up enthusiastically, got out a big cup, and filled it up with wine. To the top. Mandy and I looked at each other like, "Are you seeing this shit?" First overt sign of racism, and that's a strike four.

After lunch, they got our trash, and no staff was to be seen or heard of again for four hours. No water. No snacks. Nothing. So in the 8 hours we were on the plane so far we got one shitty meal (did I mention it was horrible?) One glass of wine each, and one can of beer. At the 8 hour mark they came around with water, and we got yet again, the small glass, and a half pour... Of water. The Chinese people got full pours in big glasses. Strike five.

Two hours after our water (which after that first water, they came by on the hour with water) they brought out no doubt the shittiest sandwich I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exaggerating. This sandwich was, a half a piece of bread, with a meat we couldn't identify, no sauce, another half price of bread, then a wilted piece of lettuce the size of a half dollar, that I would have definitely thrown away in my kitchen, no sauce, then another half piece of bread. We were pretty sure this was going to be our last meal on the plane, and we debated eating it or not... But decided we would risk food poisoning because WE HAD NO OTHER OPTIONS. Strike six.

Two hours after that, about an hour from landing they come around with another meal, much to our surprise. Our dude comes up to us and just started to put a food tray on Mandy's lap (I was in the bathroom) she had to ask, "what is this?" And he said "pork" and she said, "Do I not get any options? Is that all there is? Just fried rice pork?" I'm walking up as he goes, "omelet." She says in her SUPER sweet "Fuck you" voice, "Yeah I'll have the omelet then." As I sit down I say, "Yeah I'll have the same. Also can I get a beer?" He just says "No." And pushed the cart away. Ok. Strike seven.

The omelette was covered with greasy soggy bacon. I thought to myself, "good thing I'm ok with this. Poor vegetarian behind me." My guess is, he just didn't eat. For 14 hours. Also, they made Mandy and myself raise our seats to upright while we ate, not the people in front of us, or any other other Chinese people. Outright racism. When they were breaking down the trash, our guy walks by me with an empty beer can from a couple rows up of, you guessed it, Chinese people. It dawned on me he never said, "No, we're out of beer" which is what I assumed. He just said "No." Blatant racism. Strike eight.

Had I not brought mini bottles, I would have been provided with one beer, and one half of a small cup of wine (about a quarter of a glass) for a 14 hour plane ride. Fucking ridiculous. Unacceptable. I will never in my life ride on China Eastern. I will tell everyone who will listen to me to never ride on China Eastern. Don't ride on China Eastern. Don't give them money. Their staff is racist towards white people. It's understandable if you have a domestic Chinese flight to have your staff not speak English, but if the flight originated in the USA, they should at least be able to answer simple questions.

If for some reason this should end up in front of someone at China Eastern, I don't want free rides, just fix your shit.

So we land, we're at the back of the plane, and our bags are no where near us. This is because the plane is full of people that are carrying 3 to 4 carry on "bags" and cramming shit in the overhead that doesn't belong. We decided to just wait it out and keep an eye on our bags until everyone gets done. The Chinese in my experience push and shove, and don't make lines. This is exactly what happened. They push and shove to be the first to get off the plane, to push and shove to be the first on a bus to take us to the terminal. Mandy and I calmly collect our belongings, and get on the bus patiently, and then the doors close, and we head to the terminal. Golf clap for the Chinese. Well played.

Even though we aren't leaving the terminal, we still have to go through customs in China, which consists of 1 getting your finger prints scanned. 2 scanning your ticket and passport, and 3 going to the terminal. There are self finger print scanners at the beginning of the airport, but literally no one uses them. I say "hey Mandy, shouldn't we scan our fingerprints?" She says, "nobody else is, there's probably more further on." There weren't. I said, "Just because everyone is passing it up doesn't mean they are all right." We debated for a second, then just went on with everyone else. Not ideal.

Meanwhile there are passport control people running through the crowd shouting "MANILA MANILA 10 MINUTES THEY SHUT GATE MANILA MANILA!" See, since our plane was 2 hours late, everyone going to Manila was going to miss their flight. This led to the unorganized shit show we expected in China. People NOT going to Manila started running behind these people. Everyone followed into the self serve line, none of them had their fingerprint scans. You can't use self checkout without the receipt from your fingerprint scans. Manila was being let through without it, because they were literally missing their flight. Quickly the agent figured out the entire line eventually was just people blindly running after them, none of them had the correct information, and none of them could go through.

One by one, after waiting through about 30 minutes in self check out, people were sent back to the back of the line to check in with an officer. The fingerprint scanner was in a section that once you left, you couldn't go back in there. It seems logical if you don't think about it.

The check out by a person line takes about an hour. They were randomly letting people skip the fingerprint just to keep the line moving at self check out, that line was shorter, so we tried to see if maybe they would randomly let us through. They did not. They scanned our face, scanned our passport, scanned our ticket, then pointed to the back of the line.

At no point did anyone try to explain what was going on, in English, or Chinese. This could have saved people (read us) at least an hour. "If you have fingerprint, line here, no fingerprint, line here" is that hard? When we finally get to customs (again) they... Wait for it.. take my picture, scan my ticket, scan my passport, and then tell me to go in to the terminal. They did NOT get my fingerprints. They did NOT stamp my passport. Seriously. You can't make this shit up. They made me wait in line for an hour to do the thing they already did, but then just wouldn't let me in.

Now for security. First, we notice no one is taking their shoes off, and Mandy asks me, "Do we have to take our shoes off?" And I go, "I don't think so" and when we get up she asks, "Do we have to take our shoes off?" And the lady said "Yes. Shoes off." Literally a Chinese couple in front of us is going through the metal detector with shoes on. Mandy goes, "They're wearing shoes" and this woman from the people's republic of China looks Mandy in the eyes and says, "No they aren't."

"No they aren't." Let that sink in.

So we take off our shoes. I have 2 of my 6 mini bottles left, which they pull out, say something to the other people in Chinese, and then laugh. I think it was good hearted, but, I don't know the language. We make it through, or so I think, until one guy goes, "Take out power pack." I'm like "Oh, yeah I forgot that in my pack. Sure here." He looks it over, flips it around, and says, "No. You can not take." I'm like "Seriously? Why not? I flew here with that. I've flown all over the world with that!" And he says "I can't tell how strong it is, it's not printed." Which is true, because it's been rubbed off from use. The technical info isn't on there. I used that battery 5 days a week for work. It's been on 4 continents. I've flown with it countless times. Now it's stuck in China.

Mandy got super pissed and started to go off, and I stopped her and said, "It's not worth it. We'll have to get another one." China is not a free state. They don't have freedom of speech. The last thing I want is for this to escalate at all. I just said, "Keep it." And we left it. There was no reason for him to confiscate it. At all. I've never had anyone ever even glance at it. Ever. In any country. Ever. Except racist ass China.

At this point, we just wanted to get the fuck out of China. So this is my final point about China.. I kinda wanted to go at some point, Mandy kind of didn't want to go. Traveling with the Chinese, they are rude, pushy, inconsiderate, don't follow any local customs, they let their kids piss and shit in the street (I've seen it multiple times), and they just suck in general. These are my observations from traveling with the Chinese abroad. Traveling with them on their home turf, turns out they are racist against me as well. That being said, thanks but no thanks. China is officially off my list of countries I will visit. I now have absolutely no desire to go to China. We will never ride any Chinese airline ever again, no matter how good the ticket price. I'll never pay someone to treat me like a piece of shit.

Anywho, we have a bit of a panic getting on our last flight to the Philippines because our gate had only our flight on it, and they randomly closed it. We didn't know what time it was in China, and there were no clocks in the airport (which is insane). We went to get a drink, and our flight was a 9:20. At the restaurant we went to they said, "No food, just drinks" we said, "Ok we will do drinks." She said ok, the we ordered two Johnny Walker blacks, the lady then said, "No. Only beer." And I'm looking at the bottle with my eyes, and we're like, "uhhhh" she then said, we "We close at 9. Only beer." Which were 6 dollars for VERY blah Chinese beers. No thanks.

Well, now we're thinking it's like 5 till or something, then we see our gate is closed, and they're people going dowm an escalator towards our gate, towards our plane. We panic a little, then a bilingual girl comes up, and she straight up goes into full panic. "The gates are closed!" Then some Chinese. She takes off, we follow, she finds someone who works at the airport, hurried Chinese speech, then she takes off, we follow her. She's trying to find a way to that escalator, we are too. She gets us pretty worked up... Finally I'm like, "I'm just going to turn on my phone for a second for it to update to Shang Hai time." it connects... It's 8:18. After running around.

Yet again, we close at 9, so we can't serve you anything but beer... At our restaurant. Racist bullshit.

We get on the plane, no TV on this one, so 4 hours of silence. Everyone tried to sleep anyways. Everyone on this flight was on a similar ordeal as we were. Everyone used China as a layover, so they are all as exhausted as we are. When we land the plane erupts in laughter and applause. We made it. We fucking made it.

Well, to the Philippines. We still had a bit to go to get to our island... For sure. I'll post the rest of the long version later.

[fanthem]

Classic Rock Magazine interview with Cardinal Copia, translated below the cut:

Before the album will be released in June you’re already on tour, and you constantly have these interview marathons. How does that affect your current mood?

Well, it’s a bit like running. Just because you love to run, it doesn’t mean it’s good for your knees. (laughs)

Are you athletic?

Not really. But with progressing age and because I should be ready for a two hour stage show in two months, for 200 shows, I have to get fit.

But that is probably already second nature to you…

Yes, but your body needs a certain degree of maintenance. No matter how young you feel, it’s more extreme every year. When you’re on tour, you’re somehow always doing sports. In the end your stage clothes won’t fit right anymore, are far too wide, and when you get your new outfits before the next tour, everything is suddenly super tight. (laughs) I have considerable fluctuation in my sizing, and those fluctuations get bigger with age.

Do you notice that things get harder the older you get? Not that I’m calling you old.

Well, I’m 37. That’s not old, but I’m not 19 anymore, either. Of course there’s a difference. But I still have the feeling I haven’t reached the top.

There’s still room upwards, the zenith hasn’t been reached yet? 

I think so. Considering that I’m not athletic, I believe there’s still more I can get out of myself. I take better care of myself now than I used to, I stopped smoking six years ago and that improved a lot of things. So there’s a lot of potential upwards: if I start eating vitamins now, maybe it’ll be even a little better.

So you’re not doing that at the moment?

(laughs) Well, it’s hard to pull myself together when I’m not on tour. As soon as I’m touring I work better. I have more routine.

That’s unexpected: a lot of artists complain about the lack of routine while on tour.

No, that’s how I feel when I get home. Then I lose all control. But as all artists I’m a little bit spoiled. (whispers from behind his hand) Okay, actually I’m very spoiled. (laughs) I get a lot of help. Especially on tour, when there’s people all the time that are there for you. Sometimes when I travel alone I get confused: Wait, I have to check in myself? Uhm, can somebody please come and handle this situation for me? (laughs) But I like travelling alone, so I have to do things myself again. Everyone reading this probably thinks this sounds incredibly dumb. But most people are creatures of habit, and you get used quickly to certain circumstances. And when you get so pampered, it’s just weird when you get home and have to cook for the first time in eight weeks…

And even have to get the groceries yourself beforehand.

Oh, exactly! Just getting this chain of thoughts right. Of course that actually just takes a second, but you lack the routine. I like to say we resemble dogs or other animals a lot. We’re conditioned and we condition ourselves. There are of course ways to condition bad behavior or laziness away.

But because you reflect on these things, maybe you’re not that heteronomous.

Well, I’m at least aware of some things. That’s what I have to be if I don’t want to become a complete asshole. (laughs)

So the tour starts in May…

Exactly, in Riverside, California. We’re going to play some warm up concerts, even if I actually don’t want to call them that. But it’s about perfecting the show, to flesh out the finesse. The tour also starts before the album. That means we’ll be playing a lot of songs people haven’t heard before. That could get a little weird.

I’ve listened to PREQUELLE already and I’m sure that the devoted Ghost fanbase is hungry for new material, and that a few of the new songs have great earworm potential. There’s nothing that could go wrong, right?

I hope so. But there’s no guarantee. I’m currently at a point, where I’m a little bit afraid of the start. On one hand I long to be back on stage, and I especially miss the fans, the connection to them. On the other hand there’s going to be a lot of innovations, even practical in nature. And again I’m a creature of habit, and I don’t like trying new things.

But you seem to enjoy the mental creation of something new…

Yes, I love it. I love having ideas, but when it comes to execution, it always feels weird at first. There’s a lot of pressure and usually the joy of creating is long gone by the time of the performance. I prefer the point of time when after 80 shows things run smoothly. Then I can enjoy everything, when I know everything is running in sync.

Is that a regular ailment in your line of work, or is there a bigger uncertainty behind it?

Both, I think. I believe that for most artists, whether rock musician or painter, creativity grows from uncertainty. Just look at those rock bands: most of those guys weren’t the cool kids at school.

Not really. Rock’n’roll is usually a way to become cool anyway…

Exactly. It’s a paradox: Once your career is going, there’s risk of losing it. While the things that started your career were based on the fact that you didn’t have anything to lose. It’s something that you realize more and more the further you get. Probably a question of age, too. At some point you just know it better and don’t throw yourself off any cliffs. Even though you’re bound to jump from cliff to cliff in this kind of job, even if there’s a black pit between.

Do you feel under pressure after Meliora’s great success?

Yes, but it wasn’t a paralyzing fear. Rather I was aware that I had to stay focused, and that a lot depended on the album becoming, well, right. I don’t actually want to say “right” because you can’t really determine what’s wrong or right. Especially when you create, there are different things you can do right. You still have to get it right to create a feeling that can move the organism forward. It’s like a relationship, it’s not enough to say “We’re going to have a child now, then everything is going to be fine.” There’s just more to it, and you need the feeling of moving forward, not sideways or even backwards. Every time you have the unknown before you, which is tempting and intimidating at once. Because you don’t know what you did before. You created something that opened up a great scope of new opportunities. So you can’t make the same decision again, because you already went through that door. It’s like a game, you can’t just walk backwards, except maybe if you hack it. But that’s usually not how it works.

So there’s no magic formula that you can keep using?

Not really. I learned that a lot of the things and circumstances that lead me to this album this past year - most of it actually rather uncomfortable - were necessary to make the album what it is now. And maybe the entire band-brand-career had to be doused with a bit of classic rock scandal, so it was able to develop further. Otherwise it might have become redundant on the long run, along the lines of: we got a new papa again. Oh, I’m still anonymous. How great!

Okay, now that you’re mentioning the topic yourself: when you revealed your identity officially last year, how necessary did that feel? Was it just a part of marketing, or did you think “well, it’s out anyway”?

Yes, mostly that. I just thought, now that the elephant is in the room and glows so brightly it’s hard to not give any commentary. I wouldn’t say I felt forced. I was in the studio, recording the new album. I didn’t plan it. But would you have asked me that a few years ago, I wouldn’t have approached it like this, even though I always knew I wouldn’t stay unrecognized forever. Not that I felt very anonymous. I always felt more like I was playing in a masked band, not an anonymous one. There’s a difference. The focus of Ghost’s fans wasn’t on me personally. They didn’t care what kind of shoes I wore off stage. All in all the people didn’t give a shit. But I was of the opinion that I would have to do it sooner or later, and I had the feeling that now it was time.

What has changed for you and your fans since then? Because I think there were a bunch who were very eager to get the official confirmation of who’s behind the mask. There have always been rumors, something that surely was intentional, i assume? The creation of a myth?

Actually the original intention behind it was more pure. That might sound set-up now with my commercial band that has to meet certain commercial standards. It obviously sounds like a marketing recipe, but the original spark behind this idea had a highly artistic claim and was based on the wish to play theater. It turned out the anonymity was a great advertising tool. A tool that I had to restructure in the last year. But it worked out, and one of the things that distinguish Ghost the most from most other bands today, was that we didn’t smear our personality all over the place. Well, aside from all this damned court bullshit! But now it’s on me to chose the context I want to present Ghost in, and to what extend I want to smear my personality into your faces.

And what did you chose?

What I won’t do is do everything. I’ll still insist that magazines only print pictures with the masks, because that’s the interesting part about Ghost. I sit here in front of you as the director of the show in which I play a role at the same time. But all in all, when you look at my job description, performing is only a tiny part of that. I have to take care of a lot of things. I mean I used to be that little tyke who just wanted to be in a band, and in my 30s I was suddenly catapulted into this situation here: I became the initiator of the band, the singer, even though I only wanted to play guitar, I’m a boss, an employer and I have responsibilities towards so many instances. That’s not something I had ever thought of back when I practised Pink Floyd songs in my room. And… ah fuck now I lost my thread. Well, let’s look at it from a practical point of view: Just because I did that radio show and because I’m talking to you unmasked now, there’s no difference except that there’s Tobias Forge sitting here now. But I’m still talking about the same things as before. You know, I’m not going to get a facebook profile or IG because of this and start posting constantly.

So everything at Ghost stays the same in the sense of: this won’t change the concept?

Ghost won’t change, but the myth around it will.

So you won’t walk onto stage, arms stretched wide, remove your makeup and shout “It’s me! Your messiah!”

Exactly that won’t happen. I’m just director. Right now I’m commenting like a producer would for a movie.

Besides your vocal performance you’re also very entertaining. You make people laugh. When did you discover those qualities?

Hm. I know I’ve always wanted to do this, but there’s no fixed point in time when I suddenly noticed that I’m capable of that. I thin my first performance was in kindergarten. My friends and me always dressed up and acted out playback to music. On brooms. (laughs) The first time I performed in front of people I was seven. It was the birthday party of a friend and her mother had a yellow [Guitar] that looked exactly like the guitar of Keith Richards. I was a big  fan of the Stones and asked if I could play. And her mother was surprised, but she put up an amplifier and I played for her. Then she said I should play in front of the other kids, and I remember there was a little disco set up in the kid’s room, you know, with lights and music. And I regaled them with Love in Vain by the stones. It was basically my first show. But just this one song, and then it was over again… And then of course I destroyed the guitar. (Attention, Irony!)

A classic “The Who”! I’m sure the mother was very hooked by you.

Oh yes! (laughs)

There’s one thing that I really want to know: last year after your concert in Munich I wrote a report for this magazine and noted, that there’s quite the sexual atmosphere are your show. My male colleagues thought me crazy. Are you aware of how the practise of disguise and these occult vibes that play with the aesthetic of dark rites and masses makes the air quiver?

I would have to be blind and autistic to not notice this magic. I think that especially in rock’n’roll it’s important to have a certain tension. Let it put me like this: I used to be pretty naive and never really thought about a potential of this kind of masked people on stage. Because at first I thought we would mostly appeal to guys....

You were wrong!

Yes, I really was. And that’s something that really hit me on our first tour through america. That was the first time we played our own shows for our own fans. It was a completely different dynamic than as support slot. And back then I thought: Wow, fuck! And then I truly realized the shows have an aphrodisiac effect on people. (laughs) Which is interesting, because even from stage I saw people who were really going for it and were doing things that you don’t see every day. And often I didn’t actually know whether they had sex or not. (laughs) It’s of course a flattering thought that my work can cause such processes that affect people even long after the concert. If it brings something in motion, it’s amazing. So to answer your question: Yes, I understand it. And I’m not surprised that there’s different perceptions between genders, and that women might feel the sexual aura more than men.

And connected to that the aesthetical concept probably plays a big role as well. The occult symbolism maybe only affects certain people… like me for example.

Yes, and the concept of attraction can be so multifaceted. Have you ever watched Pippi Longstockings? Can you remember the characters? 

Well, all the animals, and Annika and Tommy…

Do you remember Aunt Pryssellius? The lady from the children’s home. My entire life I’ve only ever seen her as old toad. And now that I have children my wife and I showed them all those old series, partially because now we finally have an excuse to watch them again. (laughs) And then I noticed that her role here is suddenly really hot. Maybe I should google this, not that I’m confusing things. (searches through his phone) Well, up until this point I had never seen it that way, because I had always been convinced she’s this 70 year old bitch. But recently I thought: Oh lala, my god! (laughs)

Perspectives change! (laughs)

Absolutely. And I think it’s the same with a guy who probably doesn’t even notices what happens during a ghost show, and maybe the next time he suddenly realizes. Oh look, now I found them. The actress’s name is Margot Trooger, take a look at her! (show picture on his phone)

A beautiful woman.

Yes, really. Well, I’m glad you like the show. We’re going to have three women in the band now, maybe with that it’s going to be more exciting for the male audience.

All in all it will be nine musicians, right? Will the women wear the same ghoul outfits?

Yes exactly, all in all we will be nine people, and yes, the clothes will definitely be similar. We just need more people to be able to play what you can hear on the album live, too.

Will you bring a saxophonist?

Yes.

That brings me to the new album and the song “Miasma”. When I listened to the instrumental in the middle of Prequelle for the first time, I was astounded and very quickly delighted. This “saber rider” like sound with the poppy 80s drums and synths, and the saxophone at the end. Tell me something about the creation of this piece.

We have  already recorded instrumentals, like for example genesis on our debut. That was still a whole song, whereas on Infestissumam and Meliora we abandoned that a little bit. I think when me and Klaus - the producer - compiled the album we wussed out on the instrumentals a little.

And now you’re back with Miasma, and the second one Helvetesfonster?

Yes, that’s how it feels. I mean we had short pieces before like Devil’s Church, all of them small discreet numbers. Helvetesfonster for example was done way before Miasma, before even Meliora. But while we were working on this album I told Klaus: “I have a futuristic and a plague album, which one do you want to make?” And he decided on the futuristic one. So Helvetesfonster didn’t make it onto Meliora and I had to get it onto Prequelle at all costs. So it easily falls out of context. And during the recording of Helvetesfonster I had the idea for Miasma and i thought: Oh, fuck it. We made way too few instrumentals, we should just jam this at the wall and see what happens. Along the lines of: Let’s not play it save and just see where it takes us. On the other hand we had these two tracks ready and I had this urgent need for another song to complement and in a way justify them. This is how Dance Macabre was created, because the album needed a danceable break. Miasma ends on the A side and you turn the LP and the B side starts with Dance. It’s about dynamics, that’s direly needed. Everytime I write I work like this. If there’s a lot of salt somewhere, you have to sprinkle some sugar in places, to balance it out.

Why did you pick a french sounding title for this album, instead of sticking to latin and italian?

It just sounds better. PREQUELLE instead of prequel. That’s it.

Okay. We got more of a medieval setting here. It’s about death and damnation, there’s songs about the plague, rats as carriers of disease, stuff like that. I think that despite this archaic core Prequelle delivers versatile opportunities of a modern interpretation. Am I on the right track?

It’s very loosely draped around the middle ages. To show how things were and are now, and to draw a line in between. But I also think there’s contemporary relevance inside the lyrics that have no connection to history lessons. It’s actually about now, but for aesthetic reasons and to show how things repeat, the medieval theme fits very well. Everything is somehow cyclic, not much has changed. I think we devolved a little. Nowadays people dismiss the middle ages as mob mentality, see it as something uncivilized, but there’s no big difference to the habits people exhibit online. It’s very similar: Somebody cries “Witch!” real loud and everyone joins in immediately. On the whole, the album should put the listener into the center of change and riot. And should, in a way, give social commentary that questions the health of our society. I think we live in times where in many places there’s an eminent threat of destruction and damnation present.

Do you see yourself as an intellectual?

Had I put my priorities differently, I probably would had assets to become wiser than I am today. But I never read as much as I wanted to, and I don’t know a lot. Or rather I know a lot, but not everything. (laughs)

Nobody does…

I just think maybe I have a gift for a certain kind of knowledge and wisdom.

And you are in a situation where people hear what you have to say.

Yes, that’s true. And this realization follows another one: At the end of the day I’m perfectly content not to be a professor or politician. I’m an artist. And my mission is to entertain people. Obviously you work with everything you have and see. So I value it a lot that, in front of the vast background of rock’n’roll and its usually more dumb bands, Ghost presents itself a little more intellectual. But in the end it’s all about entertainment.

Before I came here I received this list of dos and don’ts…

Aha!

With notes that explain what I should say and what I shouldn’t. I couldn’t exactly tell how serious or ironical that was meant to be.

Don’t forget, that came from the label.

So personally you don’t find that necessary?

Well, since I’m currently in a trial, there’s obviously some things I am not allowed to nor want to talk about. But if you had asked me, I would have just answered with “no comment”.

So you wouldn’t have kicked me out if I had asked for the connection between the concept of Ghost and Kiss. I just spotted a Love Gun button on your jacket….

No, of course not. And Love Gun was the first album I ever bought. I love this album.

For conclusion: What’s a question that you would like to be asked in an interview?

I wish I had a cool answer for this ready. (laughs) But I keep digging up all this information about me, and from a more casual point of view it would be more fun for the both of us if you asked me questions about other bands, because I would be able to answer those. Or not. (laughs) Just because I like the thought of participating in a quiz on band trivia.

I promise I’ll prepare one the next time we meet!

(laughs) That would be amazing, thank you.

[source]

[az-valentine]

Entry 1: Pennywise [AU]

July 2nd, 2018 

In light of recent events – the nature of which I refuse to explain to people who simply couldn't understand – I've been inspired to record a few passages for Humanity to eventually stumble upon. Despite what you may know about me, however little that may be, I assure you, there is far more to me than what meets the eye. You probably know me to be an unpredictable, animalistic Eldritch Abomination that comes crawling out of the darkest pits of your worst nightmares – you are correct. However, I'm far more complicated than that. Yes, I eat flesh and feed on Fear, as it's necessary for my survival. I didn't choose to be this way, it's just how I was created to be. 

Outside of that, I'm actually a fan of your classic literature, like Shakespeare, Twain, Poe, and Lovecraft. I also enjoy taking long walks to admire your older European architecture, and your bigger, more lush and diverse botanical gardens. I don't often leave Maine, let alone the Continental United States, but when I do, it's always a treat. My Eldritch Brethren usually don't care much – or at all – about what Humanity has accomplished in its pathetically short time, but I watched your earliest ancestors crawl out of the ancient muds of this planet, and I'm positive I'll watch you all return to the weeds in due time. 

My past is better left being known only by those closest to me, and left up for interpretation to everyone else. That being said, I feel strangely obligated to offer you a word of warning – don't end up like the protagonists of most Lovecraft stories. Don't go digging for information you have no business knowing. What you know, and what you think you know about Fear, hardly even scratches the surface of the unnamable terrors that lie beneath and beyond your fragile mental barriers. The depths of Madness are not meant to be explored by Mortal minds, for they were never designed to be capable of handling the journey. 

Some have tried, and nearly all have ended up a writhing, unintelligible, gibbering mess before their inevitable, horrific deaths. Some have wound up on that Path without even intending to, and fell victim to similar fates. If there's one thing we have in common, it's our tendency to be curious creatures. I definitely understand the desire to learn about the unknown. I cannot stop you from attempting to uncover lost knowledge and hidden truths, and I can't honestly say I care whether or not you listen to me. However, I still feel compelled to advise against it. Like me, though, you'll do what you please, regardless of the risks. 

Moving forward, those of you that know of me know me to be a Shifter, a being that is capable of taking the form of whatever I want. I'm like a Mimic, but far more interesting, and intelligent. I'm also like Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, except I take no pleasure in gaining legions of followers and spreading Madness. I prefer to be left alone most of the time – to Hunt, eat, sleep, and explore as I choose. Earth isn't the only planet I've been to, but it's definitely one of my favorites. If I wake up during one of my sleep cycles, I'll sometimes take that opportunity to go somewhere new and different, or old and familiar. 

I've seen everything from the bustling cities of Tokyo and Arcturus Prime, to the noxious swamps of Beldron 4, the scorching, temple and monolith-spotted deserts of Alkh'tktuuhl, the ravenous raggle-trees of Nillub, and even the turbulent oceans, black forests, and numerous mountain ranges of an unknown terrestrial behemoth, floating aimlessly through the inky depths of Oblivion. One thing most don't know about me, is that Alkh'tkhtuuhl holds a very special place in my Heart. Those that know the reason why, though, I can count on one hand. 

Unbeknownst to Humanity, Arcturus Prime is still thriving to this day – and if rumors hold true, the Arcturians eventually want to introduce themselves. Don't worry, they're incredibly friendly. In my experiences with them, they're often a little shy, so don't do anything stupid when they get here. You'll need their help if you want your species to survive, thrive, and save the only planet you currently have to live on. They'll slowly work you into the galactic community, and help you learn how to integrate with other people from other planets, as well as how to survive off of your home world. 

Everyone that lives long enough will go through a Great Change at certain points in their lives – this trait is not unique to Humans, or any other Mortal species within the Multiverse, but is present among all sentient Life that has evolved far enough to be capable of experiencing these changes. Even I, the Prince of Fear, have gone through it several times throughout my existence. Indeed, many see me as just a highly intelligent, impossibly powerful beast that's merely good at acting, but I too am a person. 

I am not at liberty to speak of my true origins, or what came before, but I do have quite a few stories I'm allowed to tell. For the sake of brevity – I could write an entire series about my life – I will stick to telling only a few tales that I hold near and dear to my Heart. It's not every day a Mortal gets to learn such personal things about an Eldritch Being, let alone directly from them, so consider this a little gift to Humanity. I still take what I need to sustain myself, but who would I be if I didn't give back every now and then? 

Don't think of me as just a monster – I may be greater than anything a Human could ever hope to become, and I may have needs that cause a conflict of Morality between us, but it doesn't mean we don't share similarities. I don't know why I feel the need to say it, but just like you, I have my weaknesses. I have sore spots, bad memories, times of self-destruction, and an unhealthy relationship with self-hatred. Oh, yes...I can be as vulnerable as the Mortals whose lives I claim. It's not all bad, though. As I stated earlier, some of my guilty pleasures include literature, architecture, and traveling. I also enjoy attending plays, Broadway shows, and operas. At heart, I am an artist, and someone who appreciates the natural beauty to be found spread out across the Universe. 

In fact, for as long as I can remember, I've always taken part in the various cultures' Arts in some way or another. My numerous homes have always had a collection of writings, paintings, and props found in certain visual productions that had struck my fancy. I would occasionally write my own works, such as poetry and prose, plays, and even some music, and then offer it to Yog-Sothoth for his Archives. On top of that, I would often disguise myself as a native of a planet, and audition to play a role in something – not once was I turned down. Who was the best Carmen? Me. The greatest Figaro? Me! 

By now, you must be perfectly aware of the sizeable amount of differences between me, and the Being you've always known me to be. There is an explanation for this, yes, but I struggle to believe that you could fully comprehend what I'm about to describe. If I only lay out the basics for you, there's a good chance you'll be able to follow along. I've made mention of the Multiverse, yes? It's bigger, stranger, more complex, and more terrifying than you may have previously believed it to be. Infinities on top of Infinities, spanning in Infinite directions, through every Dimension, and every conceivable and inconceivable possibility happening all at once, at all possible times. It's a lot to take in, and I urge you not to try and understand it completely. It'll just drive you Insane, like many others before you. 

Back to the point at hand, though...I am not the same Pennywise you've known, as I'm from a different Universe. Who I am, as well as my Past, Present, and Future, have been and always will be completely different from the version of me you're familiar with. I've mastered the Art of Transcending Time and Space, and am able to move freely between Universes. The conditions of my state of existence, though, must remain a closely guarded secret for the time being. Let's just say that I've made promises I can't afford to break, to someone that makes me look tiny, powerless, and insignificant by comparison. 

Perhaps "completely different" was a poor choice of words. If I'm not careful, I'll become the Thing born of your worst nightmares. What's worse? I could get stuck like that, and require another Purification to set me straight. Yes, a Purification...something that all of the Dark and Twisted Souls must be willing to subject themselves to if they wish to enter the Light. Ugh! I shudder to think about going through such a painful experience for a second time. The agony is only temporary, and it melts away into a warm tingle, but it's still horribly unpleasant at first. I won't try to sway you one way or the other, but it was worth it for me. I was fine doing my own thing, and being by myself, but the opportunity was too great to pass up. 

I'd rather not get into the details of the situation, but I regained something I'd lost billions of years ago, only because I chose to go through the process of Great Change. I haven't been happy in billions of years, but I am now, and I'm never giving this up. To be perfectly honest, I only went through this change last October, and so I'm still adjusting to this new Way of Life I've chosen. I may or may not have snacked on a child recently...don't look at me like that, I was starving! And without a long sleep to fall back on anymore, I must feed at least once a week now, depending on the size of the person. 

I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. I've been targeting only the worst of the worst, so as long as you're not a piece of shit person, one worthy of being scared to the point of shitting yourself and then getting eaten alive, you have nothing to Fear from me. Except maybe the occasional scare for my amusement, and to satisfy my need for Fear. 

 July 3rd, 2018 

This entry has already gotten long, and I'm afraid I've run out of Time to tell you a story. Forgive me, I didn't think my introduction would wind up being so long. I'm afraid I have some bad news...I'm set to depart on a series of Hunts for the next three to seven months, and I'm unsure of when I'll be able to continue. This was sprung upon me at the last minute, and I'm in no position to decline this mission. 

Know this, Humanity: I will return, and in no less than excellent health. Chances are, I won't be hungry when I finally make it back. However, don't think for a moment that I won't continue to Hunt the scum of your societies, one by one...both to fulfill my needs for survival, and to make good on my Sacred Oath. 

 Until next Time, 

                  Pennywise 

[mayaparker]

In which Maya and Fane discuss the events of the Parade. 

After speaking to Faye, and explaining the things behind his behaviour earlier in the day Fane still felt the lingering guilt that came with how he’d acted.   Though in his own defence, thinking back over the conversation Fane had barely said a thing to provoke Ryden. It was only after his introduction by Maya and Dani that Ryden had apparently realised the situation, and consequently started name-calling. Daddy this, daddy that with such a shit-eating grin that there was little chance not to be annoyed at the wolf’s behaviour. Fane knew that he could personally be prone to bouts of childish behaviour, grudge-holding being a particular feat of his but Ryden’s call outs had been unnecessary on several levels. Not to mention the fact that they had generally made him feel weirdly uncomfortable considering it had been in front of his family.

Perhaps that was the part that had bothered him most of all, the fact that a jump-start person he barely knew was willing to behave in such a fashion around the most important people in his life. And somehow be accepted by them, at least, Dani and Maya it seemed. Though he really hated having to dwell on the particular reasons why they had both respectively come to like the kid. The thought merely left a sour taste in his mouth. But consequently, his own issues with the wolf had got Maya caught up in the crossfire and that, out of it all was the thing that had knocked all steam out of his engines. The sight of her face, upset and tinged with disappointment not only at him, but specifically with him lingered on his mind a constant nagging presence that forced him to go back and rethink things. Things he didn’t want to think about at all. But, he had also said to Maya that he would explain and so it was this reason that even though he felt like crawling into bed and just staying there for a month he started to thumb out a text slowly. Hours had passed since he’d gotten back from the event and he wasn’t sure what Maya might be doing.

Probably drinking, or something of the sort to make herself feel better. But he owed her an explanation, and that mattered more to him than his own feelings about the shit that had gone down.

[TEXT]: I’m probably the last person you want to talk to right now.

[TEXT]: But I said I’d give you an explanation and I keep my promises. [TEXT]: I’ll be at the park in half an hour - the one I found you in after that Shaw stuff. If you want to talk I’ll be at the bench. If you don’t, I understand and probably deserve that too. Probably won’t be at the other events this week so I’ll maybe see you next week or s/t and if you need me for anything just, text or do what works best for you.

Embarrassed and still a little shaky Maya had made her way to the Fainting Goat for a drink. Just the one to help calm her nerves. She wasn’t happy either Fane or Ryden. They had both acted like idiots. She wasn’t happy with herself either. That she could still completely lose herself to panic like that frustrated her. A voice in the back of her head told her this was what it meant to have a family, having to pick sides. It was in plenty movies after all or people just talking, that one uncle no one wants at Thanksgiving. The thought terrified her. She didn’t want to have to imagine a life without either of them. She almost had to laugh at the now naive seeming thought that missing New York might be her biggest problem.

Her phone buzzing caught her attention. She picked it up and read through the texts Fane had sent her. He was right. She didn’t really want to talk to him. Her own guilt at being unable to keep herself together swirled in the pit of her stomach. With a sigh Maya decided she’d go talk to him. For one because it was the adult thing to do. For another she knew that Fane would beat himself even worse if she didn’t. He was at fault sure, but he wasn’t the only one. Unsure what exactly to say she didn’t text him back.

Instead Maya showed up at the bench at the prescribed time. “So, that wasn’t great,” she said as she approached. They might as well get down to it. No point really in beating around the bush and faking small talk. At the end of the day she did want to know what had happened between the two men, if only to know if it was completely hopeless situation.  

Fane only felt a little better for speaking to Faye, unfortunately, not even her words could shift the gnawing guilt that was slowly fizzing through his veins leaving him feeling off-kilter. Because even if she’d tried to change his mind, regardless of what she said he had hurt Maya intentional or not it didn’t really matter at the end of the day did it? It had happened, and he had to do something even if it was as little as tell her why. He wouldn’t make excuses for himself, though after spending a few solid hours working himself up with what ifs and maybes he couldn’t admit to being presently in a good place. His earlier loud pride gear replaced with faded black jeans, a worn charcoal hoodie and a beanie that concealed the dye beneath a dire contrast to other residents he’d passed on the street in his walk to get here. He’d just averted his gaze and pressed on, not particularly feeling so inclined to being stopped by anyone and questioned regarding the stark contrast he painted. To say he wasn’t in the mood for the week anymore would be a little bit of an understatement. After the stunt he pulled today he didn’t feel like he had anything in particular to be proud of. After all, the accusation that he was at fault had stuck hard and fast. A good day that he’d ruined, all because he couldn’t help but feel protective of those he cared for and the transference of anger from a deeper issue to something trivial.

He checked his phone occasionally on the walk, but as the minutes ticked by and there was no particular response he gave up. Arriving at the bench, Fane sat down and waited, wondering if perhaps this was it. That Maya would chew him out and be on her way wanting nothing more to do with him. Fane had a spectacular track record at splintering his family after all, perhaps a track record wouldn’t be all that surprising. However, as the time approached and Fane saw Maya he looked up from where he’d been contemplating the ground in front of him. No move was made to depart the bench, unsure whether proximity would be appreciated presently. Her words were neutral enough he supposed when she did speak, and Fane wasn’t sure if that helped or just made him feel worse.

Still, he pushed his glasses up with his knuckles hand dropping to hand between his knees “no,” he agreed looking up at her “it wasn’t. I was upset which is no reason for what happened, but for the record I didn’t actually mean to start anything… Not that it probably means anything considering what happened anyhow but-- I came over ‘cause I was curious about how you both knew him. I could tell you and Dani were familiar with him from somewhere.” It was the truth, was Fane a little ticked off? Yes. “Then he kicked off immediately with that weird daddy name-calling after you introduced me as your dad looking smug as hell and it just… Went south from there.” He sat back a little “but like I said, me being upset’s no excuse” unfortunately since this morning Fane had slid back to the rut of feeling like he had no real authority to be upset over any particular matter. It was entirely his fault in his mind after all. Maya’s earlier words aiding to cement that fact home. “I know I said it earlier, but I really am sorry for ruining your day… I never meant to upset you but I hurt you indirectly, which is maybe worse. You were having a good day and I ruined that.” Was it? Fane had never sought to maliciously harm Maya, but the guilt that weighed him down left him feeling like an atrocious person regardless he’d hurt her and that was all that mattered. “But either way I should’ve handled it better.” Should’ve thought before he even went over, and suddenly the multitude of what ifs he’d been contemplating for the day came back and his eyes dropped. He’d explain the rest in a little bit, but he wanted to explain today first off to at least give some context to why he’d acted the way he had.

Maya came to sit next to him on the bench and listen. In Fane’s face she could read his guilt. Knowing him he probably felt more than he was truly responsible for. Or rather than she thought he was responsible for. She didn’t entirely know how she ought to feel. This was mostly uncharted territory for her. She was still a little angry, but mostly embarrassed and scared. She nodded when he finished, digesting his words. Shrugging she replied, “I can salvage the day, done it before.” Maya sighed, “But am I really supposed to believe that you actually didn’t mean to start anything? Because the look on your face when you came over suggested an entirely different thing.” She could look back on that moment more clearly now that she wasn’t affected by her own magic.

There wasn’t much she could do at the moment about Ryden’s behavior, which had been obviously antagonizing. She would have to talk to him about that. The only thing they could deal with now was how Fane had acted. What scared her most was that she would end up caught in the middle. That she would have to keep parts of her life separate something she had done before and had no desire to do again. Whatever was between Fane and Ryden didn’t have anything to do with her, but she supposed this was what having a family meant. She didn’t want that to be what it meant.

What she had no interest in talking about was the true roots of why she had panicked. It had nothing to do with any of it, a remnant of a person she’d been a long time ago. It had surprised her too. If she had known she just would’ve walked away, gotten herself out of the situation before she embarrassed herself. It was too late for that now though and all she could do was try to move forward, do better next time.

“Like I said, I was upset, but I didn’t come over looking to pick a fight with him,” he wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by the look on his face, he didn’t actually have a mirror in that instance so whether or not his expression conveyed something else he wasn’t quite so sure. He didn’t remember doing anything specifically to provoke Ryden beyond looking at him and offering a hand in greeting. Nothing specifically malicious in looking at another person was there? Not in his opinion, but how it might’ve been interpreted he couldn’t say but there had been no intent to cause a scene. “Honestly, I wasn’t” and if there was one thing Fane would stand by it would be the fact that he would own up right here if he felt responsible for a situation, but in this instance he couldn’t take responsibility for starting it “and if that’s how it came off I’m sorry, but in terms of starting anything I don’t feel responsible for that. Come on, as soon as he found out who I was to both you and Dani he kicked off like a child…” His voice remained relatively neutral on the topic but a small frown pulled at his features betraying the lingering mixed bag of emotions he felt regarding everything that had happened earlier as he looked down, threading and unthreading his fingers to give him something else to focus on presently. “I can stand humiliation to a point, but what he said wasn’t fair to either of you, Grace or me and if I felt like I was responsible for starting things I would say so right here, on my life.” Fane paused his fingers momentarily stilling before he continued to speak, noticing a stray thread on his sleeve that he started to pick at “but you were there, I barely said two sentences to him. Yet in the space of that time he insults me, he tells Grace-- my ex by the way, that he’ll spank her and then went on to insult me again while acting like he didn’t care about anything other than taking a shot after shot.”

But none of that mattered really, nor did the fact that he was genuinely upset over everything that had happened. Surprising what a few well-placed words in front of the right people could do. So maybe he’d just have to swallow poison in the hopes of salvaging something. He’d done it before, why should now be any different? Dani and Maya’s happiness would always be ranked above what he felt, his own petty grievances inconsequential in comparison to their security. So considering he’d wrecked it, he���d just have to find some way to fix it and the easiest way that he was most familiar with was dismissing what he felt. Still, he owed her an explanation “we met a while back during that magic blob time, he stole my Corvette and I chased him down on what I’m assuming is his bike… Long story short we fought, he bailed out of the car which along with me in it went into the lake...” He frowned a little, his shoulders tense never particularly liking talking about the times he got seriously maimed and injured but it played heavily into how he presently felt “my legs got caught in the cabin, when the car impacted I got thrown over the windscreen trim… Fractured ribs, smacked my head and I couldn’t feel my legs… It was... messy, really messy.”

Raising a hand he rubbed his neck slightly “I’m angry at him ‘cause of everything that happened that day, and magic or not, whether he remembers or not… I’m angry that he put me in that position.” It wasn’t the entire story of what he felt, but Fane wasn’t sure he was entirely comfortable divulging the other bits regarding he felt presently. Perhaps in a little while, but it was enough of an overview for now. “So, yeah, I’m sorry I upset you but I was seriously upset that a guy who I barely even know, that stole my car, left me to sink with it and get out alone, realised he’s messed about with you and Dani, my family, propositioned my ex because he thought it was funny, decided that it would be okay to insult me whilst wearing a shit-eating grin in front of my friends and family.” Fane heard his voice growing a bit tight in his restrained annoyance, and he had to take a moment before continuing, slow but no less serious “the people that I love, just to get a cheap shot and boost his own ego in the most unapologetic way.” He sighed, shaking his head slightly but none of that mattered did it? Of course it didn’t. Fane was the one clearly at fault in some roundabout way for simply walking over and being introduced. The fact Ryden wasn’t missing most of his teeth and choking on his own tongue a rather strong testament to Fane’s restraint, not that he commented about his internal consideration to knocking the wolf flat on his ass during the course of the incident.

Maya almost said first the echoes of what had been said to her. You couldn’t control what other people did only your reaction to it. But she didn’t because she’d swallowed enough poison that way. “You’re right,” she said instead, “What he said wasn’t fair. It was pretty shitty and I’ll take that up with him.” She didn’t say that in comparison to Fane’s age Ryden was a child or that Fane had threatened him or that she couldn’t really believe that Fane honestly thought there would be no confrontation if he came over. It didn’t matter. They couldn’t change what had happen. None of those things made Ryden’s behavior alright. What she cared about was whether or not it would happen again.  “But there’s not much you and I can do about that,” she added.

She listened as Fane offered the explanation she had asked for hours earlier. For a long moment after she didn’t say anything. “That’s not really fair, is it Fane?” she finally asked, “Those blobs were serious magic. I robbed a bank. I almost drowned. It’s not fair of us to be angry with people because we don’t want to be scared. And considering your complete lack of anger at me for getting you injured with a deliberate and conscious decision, I don’t understand why you’re angry with him for something that wasn’t his fault, not really.” Maya had said we because she had done it more than once. Angry was easy in comparison to scared. In fact, she added, “And speaking of which I’m sorry for cussing at you earlier. I was scared and embarrassed, but it wasn’t not fair of me to take that out on you.”

“As for messing about with me, I mean, I can’t speak for Dani, but yeah, he and I have had sex, completely consensual and mostly my suggestion,” Maya sighed and pushed her hair out of her face. “Honestly I don’t care. It was a shitshow. I was a shitshow, he was a shitshow. There’s no changing that now. His behavior towards you today wasn’t okay. But he’s been really good to me; if I hadn’t run into him I would’ve spent my birthday crying and drinking in an abandoned lighthouse by myself and I certainly wouldn’t have told you about it. And you’ve been good to me and I’m afraid that I’m going to get stuck in the middle, have to pick sides, keep parts of my life separate. And that’s making something that’s not about me about me, but I don’t want that. And clearly I am incapable of handling it,” she said, referring to her panic. “I’m not asking for you to be his best friend, I just...I don’t even know what I’m asking,” Maya sighed, “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know.”    

Fane knew well enough that he hadn’t behaved stallarly himself, and perhaps a part of him knew there would be some trouble but he hadn’t expected it to become so toxic so-- well, instantaneously. Fane had admitted that he could’ve handled the situation better, probably not even come over but it was what it was. Her apology was met with a small shrug, “it’s fine, I’m to blame and you were right to be mad at me… I don’t hold it against you” and he didn’t, not really.

However, once his explanation was given and Maya chose to call him out for not being fair he almost scoffed, but didn’t, instead he stared at the ground with such an intensity he might’ve burned a hole straight down to hell. He’d never claimed to be very good when it came to his grudges against other people and nor would he ever say he was. “Because when it came to you, to Shaw I walked in with my eyes open and entirely conscious of what the consequences might be, it’s one thing going in prepared for the possibilities but when you’re going in blind and then you come to and you can’t walk, that’s--” it was more than scared, “that’s not just scary Maya, that’s terrifying. With you Faye knew, she came with me and we understood the risks but that crash?” He trailed off knowing it probably made no sense without context, and Fane sat for a few long moments debating with himself. “I wish it was that easy… And maybe I’m stupid but it isn’t like that for me Maya… Not when he ran the very real possibility of killing me, and yeah, maybe that’s petty of me but it’s how I feel… Like I say… Magic or no if I never walked away from that crash I’m not the only one who would’ve suffered.” His voice wavered a little “Eowyn, Dani and you would be without a father and none of you would have even known about it… And Faye,” he hated to think on it but he knew well enough what would possibly happen “she’d be devastated.”

Rolling up the sleeve of his left jumper to the elbow he turned his arm the right way up revealing a set of bite marks on his wrist and a patchy scar of tissue roughly three centimetres wide and four long along with precise tracking and needlemarks in the crook of his elbow. Once he had shown her those he turned, grabbing his hood and pulling it down to reveal the top portion of a thick scar that vanished down under the fabric. Only after doing so did he let the material go and fall back into place a sudden amount of uncertainty radiating from him. “Only Faye knows the reason why I have these… Why I scar and why I don’t always heal as I should from injuries I get” he never felt comfortable talking to anyone about this and Fane blinked trying to muster up the courage necessary to broach the topic. “I-- Um-- A long time ago I was a soldier, I’ve-- been a soldier several times over but in this instance I was part of a supernatural unit sent into enemy territories… Special missions. We were-- we were good,” too good… Turning his hand over he pulled his sleeve back down fidgeting a little uncomfortably as he spoke, “one time we were on a routine mission, and I don’t really remember how-- All I have are moments but I was taken. What I was… Who I was… That person was purged…” in several ways that still affected him to this day but gory details weren’t necessary “everything that made me who I was, it was taken.” There was no point going into details, it wasn’t necessary nor did he want to trouble Maya with the things he spoke of “point being my captors used me for their own ends… Used me as their, their um- lab rat and ever since then I don’t heal.” He had slowly been pulling at the thread of his jumper, the act a focal point for him “at least not always and in some instances not completely and it means I have to be careful, moreso than others vampires… And it means when something like that crash happens… I can never pull myself out of it sure that I will be fine after it or that there won’t be consequences. This time I was lucky, but I’m not sure what I feel when it comes to Ryden… The reminder seeing him brings about, of brushing so close to something that would snatch everything I loved away from me, whether it was intended or not… I can’t just… unassociate that with him.”

And he was sorry he couldn’t, but it just wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t something that a day would fix and how Ryden had acted… The humiliation had brought him back to a place he’d barely survived. And maybe that wasn’t fair of him, but sometimes Fane couldn’t always be the bigger person as much as he tried. Still, he knew he had to address Maya’s concerns and finally he stopped picking at his sleeve shifted a little and turning more to face her finally looking at her directly and slowly reaching out to touch her arm to get her attention. “Look,” he sighed deeply knowing he would have to find some point or compromise somewhere “I’m going to be brutally honest, I personally do not like him in the slightest and if he’s going to keep that attitude he has. If he thinks it’s okay to insult me and chat the sort of shit he did today then I’m not sure I’m ever going to like him… I trust your opinion, but I only know what I’ve experienced and that’s the fact he’s a loud-mouth git.” Fane held up a hand slightly before she might’ve interjected continuing “however, if he’s your friend and if being around him makes you happy then I’m not going to ask you to choose between us and I’m not going to ask you to side with me over him. Doing that would just be cruel and-- I can only hope that’s one thing I’m not.” His fingers remained resting on her arm. “That being said, unless he is capable of learning to curb his mouth I can’t say he’s welcome around the estate… That is our home and if he was willing to insult me in front of Eowyn today I am not willing to risk him doing that near her again… At the end of the day, I’m only looking out for our family… And I will personally compromise to a point regardless of how I might feel about him, I’ll give him a chance but when it comes to keeping Eowyn out of harm’s way I’m not budging and if he crosses that line again... I hope you can understand that… I don’t want to put you in an awkward position but I won’t risk Wyn being around some guy I don’t know or trust.”

Maya listened quietly, tried to keep her mind from swan-diving into the intense guilt breeded by the knowledge that she got him even closer to getting him killed than she’d thought. She could understand the struggle of trauma linking itself to unrelated people or events. One didn’t have to look farther than today to know that. It was easy to forgive him for his part in it knowing with this new information. Anyway explanation or no she would’ve forgiven him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been antagonized. She didn’t anything, mind too busy reeling from the revelation. She knew she couldn’t convince him out of the feeling either, especially if he didn’t want to be. And considering today it was fair not to want to be. Maya couldn’t ask that of Fane. She couldn’t ask him to face that kind of pain for her.

Maya was certain too that Ryden wouldn’t be convinced out of his obvious dislike for Fane. And she couldn’t really ask that of him either. He had his own side of the story, which was just as legitimate as Fane’s. At least she expected he did. There it was. Whether she wanted it or not she was going to be stuck in the middle. As Fane continued, made it clear that Ryden wouldn’t be welcome in his home Maya only nodded. There were parts of her life she’d have to keep seperate. She’d been toying with the idea of moving out too, getting back on her own two feet now that she could. This meant she would have to. It wasn’t something she wanted around Wyn either. Of course she wouldn’t tell Fane about her plan now. It would only make him feel worse.  

She felt tired again. And again for a long time she said nothing, gathering her thoughts, trying to figure out how to make peace. All she wanted was peace. “Well, obviously, I forgive you for that then,” Maya said when she finally  spoke, “Especially since I freaked out because it was like I was nine years old again listening outside the door to Officer Baer and the Chief of Police arguing about if I should testify, which had nothing to do with anything and was no one’s fault. Well, no one present.” It was more than that, but she didn’t want to get into it. “If that’s even something you feel you need forgiveness for,” she added because that was sometimes the thing about forgiveness people needed it for things they weren’t guilty of. “And I won’t ask you to face that kind of trauma on my behalf. That would be the shittest.”  

This was the other shoe dropping Maya supposed. This must be what it meant to have a family that sometimes you got caught in the middle. “And of course I have no plans to invite him over,” she added to reassure Fane. She almost argued again that despite his actions today Ryden was a good person. It was a fact she was certain of. There was no point in beating her head against a wall. She was right, she felt, to stand up for Ryden. She was doing it anyway, despite the voice which told her she could lose her family over it. She had lost people before for standing up for what she thought was right. She took a deep breath. This wasn’t Salem, she wasn’t fourteen anymore. It wasn’t fair to judge Fane by those standards. He wasn’t going to ask her to pick, he’d said as much. It was just harder to hear at the moment. “ I just…” she said and shook her head before starting again, “I’m so terrified of losing you, of losing all of it. And so much of that is because of other people, because of things that happened thousands of miles from here and a decade ago, which isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to you or to him. I should just let you hate each other as much as you feel justified, but I’m still that dumb kid who just doesn’t want to lose anyone anymore.”

She laughed bitterly, “And I don’t even know what the fuck I’m going on about. Fair. I mean, Jesus, if I know anything its that none of its fucking fair.” She shook her head at a loss for words, at a loss to what to ask for, to what she had any right to ask for. Because she had no right to ask for any of this. Maya should’ve just kept her mouth shut. Although if she hadn’t learned how to do that by this point she probably never would.

Fane didn’t wish to guilt her into anything, but he also knew that withholding the truth and roots from where his issue stemmed wouldn’t allow her to understand the depth of the reasons backing his behaviour. It didn’t justify them, but it was the fundamental reason why he was so bothered by it all. Where normally he would have been willing to live and let be, this just-- wasn’t something he was so sure he could easily bypass. Not without time, and not without evidence it was worthwhile. Maya’s word counted for something but actions spoke louder than words and so far Fane had seen nothing but a general shitshow from Ryden. Was his caginess regarding opening himself up to yet again be at the mercy of the other man make his wariness regarding them atter so questionable as a consequence?

The thing was, Fane was willing to make an effort and he had said as much. While home might’ve been a boundary that he wanted to set, feeling the need to have a certain personal restriction until he could reassess things from his perspective. The estate was a safe space for him, and Fane was particular and specific about the people he was willing to extend invitations to beyond the larger scale events he sometimes hosted. So it was hardly surprising that he made that one particular request. Maya’s statement of forgiveness however did little to tide over the lingering guilt that had built up from earlier this morning because even with it, none of this felt-- settled. “It’s more for the case I should’ve thought before coming over, I was wrong to put you in that position and I’m sorry that it caused you to panic… I promise I’ll try to have more forethought in the future” Maya had been doing so well in her time here in Soapberry that during the festivities and happiness around them it hadn’t been a consideration. Which was a faux-pas on his side and one that he didn’t feel too great about. But if they kept at it they would be going around in circles all day like this so, he chose to leave it at that.

He pressed his lips together, considering the issue at hand. “Look, the house is just-- it’s a safe space for me and I wouldn’t feel comfortable having him there that’s only why I ask” saying this wasn’t the easiest thing, but for Maya and for any other part of his family Fane was willing to try and find a way through to the other side. “How can I make things easier? I’m willing to give him a chance, I trust you and I trust your word” he looked at her levelly not as an adult speaking to a child but simply speaking to someone he held a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for. He trusted Maya and her judgement and if she said that Ryden Bolt was supposedly a good person then he was willing to extend an attempt at an olive branch. “I might not like him,” and it would probably make him god awfully uncomfortable to do so but for Maya he was willing to try and deal with that “but I’m willing to try and see whatever good you say he has.”

If there was one thing Fane appreciated it was Maya’s honesty, and that showed in how his expression softened and he sought out her hand giving it a gentle squeeze. “I’ve told you before, I’m not going anywhere Maya love and I’ll keep telling you that ‘til you’re sick of hearing it” his words were spoken quietly hoping that this would help reassure her. “You’re a part of this family, and nothing’s going to ever change that… Not some beef I might have with your friend or anything else, nothing,” he insisted a little more seriously then “hear me?” He gave her hand another squeeze slightly firmer this time, “and being stuck in the middle of things like this-- it sucks, but give it time yeah? It’ll either sort itself out or it won’t, I promise to try and not punch him but the effort has to come from both sides on this one… But whatever happens between him and me, I’m not going anywhere any time soon.”

“Its okay,” Maya said softly, “You didn’t know I was going to freak out that bad. Hell, I didn’t even know until I did.” Given that Fane acknowledged that perhaps he shouldn’t have come over in the first place she didn’t need to go over it anymore. It was over. They could only move on. She shook her head though when he tried to explain about the house. He didn’t need to explain himself. “No, it’s okay,” she said again, “I get it.”

She shook her head a third time as Fane tried to offer to get to know Ryden better or something. While it was true she’d like them to get along it wasn’t something she anticipated. If they tried to spend time together she imagined it would end up just the same. They were both stubborn, which maybe spoke to something about her.  “No, it’s okay,” she said, “I’m not going to ask you to do that. I’m not going to ask him to do that. Not for my sake.” Her fear, besides the fact it wouldn’t go well and leave them both feeling like shit again, is that forcing them together would only result in them resenting her.  

Looking up at him Maya gave a tired smile. “Yeah, good luck with me ever being tired of hearing it.” She sighed, knowing that she needed more reassurance than most people. “And when you get something like earlier it makes it harder for me to believe it,” she said, “But as long as you’ll still have me I’ll be okay.”

It was the least he could do, and perhaps he might be able to figure some compromise in the future but presently he wasn’t sure he would be entirely capable of doing that. He’d need time to process what he felt, to sort it out into some semblance of an order, but what he said to Maya was the truth. He trusted her opinion and if only for her he was willing to at least try to eventually come to terms with perhaps reconciling. For now though he was feeling more inclined to just heading home and staying there. He’d been looking forward to the party but in all honesty his mood had rather drastically fizzled out.

With a small nod of assurance that he’d happily tell her however much she needed, Fane pulled her in for a hug. Wrapping his arms around her and hugging her tight he held on for a few moments before letting her go. “‘Course we will. Now, you’ve probably got the rest of the day to enjoy” he didn’t want to stop Maya from having fun, “I’m going to head home… But I’ll see you around hm? And if you need me just drop me a line and I’ll come get you.”

[coreygoestoconcerts]

On This Day (3/16): Cymbals Eat Guitars, Say Anything, Cloud Nothings, Emmure, Ringworm, Broken Ribs, and Pit Beefs

Cymbals Eat Guitars / Bear in Heaven / Freelance Whales (03/16/2010; Mango's Cafe, Houston, TX)

Mango's was pretty much my favorite venue in Houston when Free Press Houston's Omar Afra owned it. He booked all the best indie/buzz bands of the time. This show was no exception. Cymbals Eat Guitars was a band I had looked forward to seeing for a very long time. I actually drove from Houston to Austin to see them open for Pains of Being Pure at Heart the previous year, but I got there right as they were finishing up and it was a wasted trip. So for this show, I arrived way too early.

Freelance Whales were actually pretty good. I bought their EP and got the band to sign it. It was a bit of a weird experience though. The lead singer, who seemed kind of starved for attention, came up to me like three times afterwards, just to shoot the shit. I didn't mind it, but it's weird when a band member wants to talk to you more than you want to talk to them.

Bear in Heaven turned out really well too. I had never heard of them before, but they put on a solid performance that endeared them to me. Really though, I was there for Cymbals Eat Guitars and they killed it. Why There Are Mountains is one of my favorite records, and since it was basically all they had out, that was mostly what they played. They've never quite lived up to that high bar they set since, but I still have a lot of love for those guys.

Say Anything (03/16/2012; Waterloo Records, Austin, TX) Volumes / Vanna (03/16/2012; Annex, Austin, TX) Cloud Nothings / Turquoise Jeep (03/16/2012; 1100 E. 5th St., Austin, TX) Emmure / Blessthefall / For Today (03/16/2012; Annex, Austin, TX)

More South by Southwest. So, as I mentioned yesterday, I spent all day on March 15th, 2012, at the Pitchfork showcase, then I saw my friends at the Shins briefly, but this would be the first day I really got to meet up and hang out with them. It turned out to be an... interesting day, to put it mildly.

That morning, I was heading to a very early Say Anything performance at Waterloo Records when I happened to encounter my friend Cameron (star of yesterday's barroom brawl that happened two years later) getting off a bus across the street from me at the exact same time I hit downtown. He tagged along with me to the Say Anything show. It was an early show and it didn't amount to a whole lot. I think they had a short set, mostly played new stuff, and maybe one or two classics. I always enjoy seeing them though, as Max is a great guy and acquaintance.

We met up with the rest of our friends at the old Emo's Annex on 6th and Red River, where we caught Volumes and Vanna. I don't remember much of these sets. I was pretty down on Volumes at the time because their second record really failed to live up to their debut. Vanna was going through a transitional period too, between being a solid emo band and a great hardcore band. So neither caught my attention much.

Cameron and I didn't want to just stand around all day before the Emmure show at night, so we wandered a few blocks over to a party at a small grassy hill on 5th St., where Cloud Nothings were playing once again. They were possibly even better than the previous day. Their energy and power was insane on this tour. Turquoise Jeep also performed, and while they are very funny and entertaining, it's hard to say I love their performances.

We ended up heading back to meet up with our friends right as For Today was playing. I spit on that band. They hate LBGTQ people and they make people pray in the middle of their set. Horrible. I regret having to even be present for their set. Blessthefall doesn't offend me as much, but I have nothing positive to say about them either. We were there for Emmure.

One person was missing though. My friend Jonathan had disappeared at some point and no one could reach him. This isn't uncommon during South by Southwest, but we were starting to get concerned because we knew he would never normally miss Emmure. Sometime between Emmure and Blessthefall's sets, we found out through a text that he was in the hospital.

Look, pits are a dangerous place. I've got the broken bones to prove it. We've all gotten injured. It is what it is. And sometimes you get into fights. There's a ton of testosterone flowing and people get hit and get mad. Well, Jonathan hit someone, they got mad, and they proceeded to break his ribs. Next thing you know, he's coughing up blood and calling an ambulance to take him nine blocks up the street  to the hospital. He still owes thousands for that, cause our healthcare system is fucked.

Anyway, I made the call that Jonathan would want us to stay for Emmure. They kicked ass. This was one of the last times I'd see them with any original members besides Frankie, and, despite what happened to Jonathan, I still went hard in the pit. This was also one of the last times I'd see them play primarily earlier material. They mixed in a couple songs from Slave to the Game, which came out that year, but it was mostly all classic Emmure. This is a rarity nowadays, as they and their fans have moved on, for the most part.

Afterwards, we met with Jonathan at the hospital. Deducing that he was fine, and well doped up on morphine, we decided to go grab the car and continue our night. We didn't see any other shows, but we did end up at a drug dealer's apartment, where I held my first gun, and we got smoked out at a random party near my apartment complex. Pretty successful night overall. Jonathan ended up being fine, by the way.

Ringworm (3/16/2017; Grizzly Hall, Austin, TX)

You can tell my SXSW days were winding down by this point by how few shows I went to in 2017. Besides my terrible experience trying to see At the Drive-In, this was all I did. Like I said yesterday, I'll pretty much go to any Ringworm show now just because they kill it every time. Apparently I'm one of the few though. Even though they indeed killed it, there was maybe 15 people in the crowd. Metal just doesn't play well in Austin during SXSW anymore. That's a big reason I no longer bother to go to anything.