#He pulled through for the greater good of all in LA suffering right now

[hkthatgffan]

I think in the chaos of today, it's important to also remember that Alex hosted this stream the same day one of his heroes; David Lynch, had passed away.

As Alex said, there would be no Twin Peaks with out David and in turn, no Gravity Falls.

And the thing is, Gravity Falls was hugely inspired by Twin Peaks. There's many nods to the show in GF from the Red Room, the town vibe, small scenes here and there, etc.

David Lynch even originally was asked to be the voice of Bill Cipher. He turned it down and Bill's voice that Alex does is more as he said it, a bad impersonation of David.

Alex even jokingly mentioned once he's make a season 3 of GF with David voicing a ceiling fan.

There was also the Peaks Twins in the Next Time On that were a clear play on Twin Peaks...

Also, he has a pretty close connection to Kyle Maclachlan, due to the fact he voices the bus driver in the finale.

Alex wanted him to be the one to take the twins home as he felt having Dale Cooper do so would be a fitting end to their story. He reached out to Kyle's managers who never got back to him. So, Alex wrote a personal letter to Kyle telling him how much Twin Peaks meant to him and that he'd love for him to do this cameo on Gravity Falls. Kyle instantly responded back and agreed to do it.

When I heard the news David passed, I instantly first checked on Alex cause I knew he'd take it pretty hard. I think in a way, David Lynch was for him what he is to so many of us Gravity Falls fans.

Below is a video Alex posted to Instagram after he heard the news...

I'm gonna finish Twin Peaks now in his memory. I meant to do so for ages as I began watching it the same time I got into Gravity Falls but never finished. Now more than ever is the best time to get it done!

Rest in Peace, David Lynch. Thank you 🌲

[lucemferto]

Hey girl, don’t mind me, I just quickly went and rewrote Dream SMP Season 2.

I’m focusing on the big plot stuff from Season 2, which makes it really easy for me to make it good, because I don’t have to contend with all the hard parts like dialogue and scene pacing and stuff. As an additional challenge to myself, I try to change as little as possible. If I don’t mention stuff (like the Egg-Arc) then that means I’m fine with them the way they are.

I wrote this in an hour, so don't expect it to be good, pls.

Whether you agree or think this is trash, I'd be so interested to hear your thoughts!

ACT I

Fundy’s early arc with Ghostbur, Eret and Phil is great and should stay the way it is. It sets up the character relationships and potential for conflict that we can explore in the future.

Similarly, I wouldn’t change too much about the conflict during Exile with one exception: Both Tommy and Quackity don’t want to include Technoblade. Instead, they believe that they can take one Dream by themselves – this is important for Techno’s, Tommy’s and Quackity’s personal journey later on. In this rewrite, Quackity also didn’t found El Rapids, but instead recruited George & Sapnap to L’Manburg – because his stated goal is to make L’Manburg the strongest nation on the server, so why would he make a rival nation with a plotline that goes nowhere?

What’s also important is that it’s revealed that Dream has a spy in L’Manburg around here. Maybe Tommy confessed his burning of George’s house during a cabinet meeting and word still got out to Dream. Who knows, but it’s important for later.

Something big that I would change about this Act I is that I would give Techno an actual B-plot. As it stands, Techno’s early plotline was just “Grrr, I’m angry that Tommy would use me like that! Someone killed my cows and robbed me! L’Manburg will know my wrath”

3 weeks later

“Nevermind, I’m a pacifist now and live in the arctic”

Instead, we pick up where S1 left off. Techno is intent on destroying L’Manburg and instituting anarchy. During that time, he comes into conflict with Quackity’s henchmen (Fundy, George, Sapnap, etc.) to establish that L’Manburg could be an actual threat to him.

We also have some conflict with Phil. They’re old war buddies, but Phil’s son built L’Manburg and Phil himself is unofficially Tubbo’s advisor. I think them reconstituting their friendship will take up this early part until Tommy’s exile – it makes for a nice foil to Tommy’s and Tubbo’s friendship falling apart.

Technoblade also tries to recruit people like HBomb and Niki to his cause, but they’re hesitant, because, you know, he sent Withers to destroy their home. Not the best first impression. Techno is hurt, but convinced it’s because of L’Manburg propaganda and they don’t want to work with him, because they don’t see him as useful.

ACT II Part 1

Exile-Arc basically stays exactly the same – with one notable difference. When Technoblade comes to visit Tommy it’s not to mock him – it’s as a final attempt to convince Tommy to join him. It’s a first culmination of Techno’s character journey so far: His previous interactions with the citizenry of L’Manburg has left him shaken, but not shaken enough.

Tommy truly does need “The Blade” right now and he has no reason to further believe L’Manburg’s propaganda. So, by Technoblade’s inner logic, Tommy should accept.

But he doesn’t. Tommy viciously rips into Technoblade and gets very personal (he’s in a bad space, understandably) – Techno can play it off nonchalantly, but either the cinematography or some later moment shows us that he was hurt by this.

Nevertheless, he gives Tommy a compass that points to his HQ, showing us that he cares about Tommy, like he did during their early days in Pogtopia.

This is where we implement some big changes. The story of Technoblade and the Butcher Army becomes the A-plot, while the Exile becomes the B-plot.

It makes perfect sense. The Exile-Arc is a very inward-focused, almost a character study of Tommy and Dream. It doesn’t have a lot of big narrative movement – so the perfect time to execute on that narrative movement in the storyline that has a lot of moving pieces.

So, after Tommy chewed him out, Techno is hurt and meets with Philza. Techno then explains that for him anarchy always was the natural order of things – to fight for a world where only the strongest survive – but pursuing anarchy like that has left him empty. Philza then explains that anarchy should be more about helping people and building an equal community.

We’re all but stating a major thematic conflict of this storyline: Fighting those who wronged you vs. Helping those in need. All this while also exploring the philosophy of anarchy with Techno and Philza serving as symbolic stand-ins for some different thoughts on the matter.

So, while Tommy’s Exile is going on, Techno refines his approach. This goes hand in hand with Quackity using his henchman to turn L’Manburg into a totalitarian police state in order to root out Dream’s traitor (told you it would become important later).

This will be the main conflict here in the first half of Act 2. Quackity and Philza will play shoulder-devil and shoulder-angel respectively for Tubbo and Fundy, pulling them in different directions. Ghostbur also hangs around L’Manburg – a constant reminder for Tubbo of the most sanitized version of President Wilbur and the lofty ideas he stood for.

This is another big thematic conflict for this storyline – externalized in part through Ghostbur’s presence: When do the ends no longer justify the means? It also feeds into the motif of Tubbo and Tommy becoming like Schlatt and Wilbur respectively (even if that’s still mostly superficial).

During this political turmoil, Niki is getting into Quackity’s crosshairs. She opposes his policing and brutal methods. So Quackity really focuses in on her and she has to live with constant surveillance, searches, etc. Niki tries to talk to Tubbo about this, but he says it’s necessary to keep L’Manburg safe. Slowly, Niki grows disillusioned with L’Manburg.

It is during this time that Niki gets into contact with Techno and the two start to form a bond and helping the citizenry hold out hope during this time (I don’t know who would be the citizenry, probably people that don’t have their own storyline going on such as HBomb, Vikkstar, Lazarbeam, etc.)

And we can have a few lorestreams like that, where the conceit is that Techno’s sneaking into L’Manburg to help people and there’s actual tension.

All this culminates in Hog Hunt. Fundy sees Phil, Niki and Techno team-up. He confronts them after Techno left and Phil begs Fundy to not out them – but their divide has grown too deep (and we’ve actually shown that during Fundy’s streams this time).

Quackity has Phil and Niki incarcerated (L’Manburg has a prison now, it’s not as good as Pandora’s Vualt). Tubbo is deeply disturbed that Philza and Niki would betray him by working with the man that took one of his canon lives and finally gives the Butcher Army his presidential approval. Quackity was already prepared and the events of Hog Hunt play out as we know them.

ACT II Part 2

Again, plays out relatively similarly, except for one major difference: Tommy comes to Techno with the explicit purpose of asking for his help. Exile has left him really hardened, probably more so than we have currently.

This would a.) make Tommy a bit more proactive in his partnership with Techno and b.) actually gives some weight to Techno’s later beef with Tommy, because now it’s based on more than just some flimsy phrasing during S1.

Otherwise, this plays out relatively similarly – Techno and Tommy maybe share a few more character moments, just to drive home that Techno cares about Tommy. Also, none of that dumb keeping it a secret whether or not we destroy L’Manburg – that’s some contrived nonsense and I hate it.

Tommy knows that Techno wants to destroy L’Manburg and while he’s conflicted, he ultimately goes along with. Once he gets his discs back, everything will be over after all. The destruction of L’Manburg will have been worth it.

Part of the rising action will be breaking Phil and Niki out of prison instead of the petty bullshit about Techno’s items that he doesn’t need. This is where we have the initial confrontation between Tommy and Tubbo (and Techno doesn’t ruin the moment by being his worst self).

Other plot points include: Techno receives the Wither Skulls over the course of him and Tommy working together by some mysterious benefactor. This is after he and Tommy confronted Dream. He doesn’t tell Tommy who the benefactor is, even though he knows (spoilers: it’s Dream).

Meanwhile, Tommy, Techno, Niki and Phil are secretly rigging New L’Manburg with TNT a la Wilbur, just to really drive that comparison home. Niki is getting really angry; she has suffered enough and she’s really gonna get revenge.

One of her big moments of terrorism before the Green Festival is burning down the L’Mantree (maybe we can include some character conflict Fundy, so we have these two people who were once really close friends now so warped and torn apart by these two sides at war).

Meanwhile, Quackity has figured out that Ranboo was the traitor and is pushing for Tubbo to execute Ranboo for the greater good of L’Manburg. Tubbo is hesitant, but as there’s no moderate voice in the cabinet anymore, he concedes to the idea.

Finally, the Green Festival is here. This part is really … tough to rewrite, because you have to accommodate so many different character arcs, but I’ll try my best.

In a move not unlike during the Red Festival, Ranboo is revealed as the traitor and put in the execution cage (because those parallels). Tubbo feels really bad about it.

This is when Tommy and Techno start their assault and unleash the whithers. L’Manburg is under attack and we have the big fight between Tubbo and Tommy. We get the big shout-out “The discs were worth more than you ever were” and the ensuing epiphany on Tommy part.

Techno’s calling for him to explode the TNT, but he doesn’t do it.

Quackity is calling for Tubbo to execute Ranboo, but Tubbo has an epiphany himself and refuses. Both their personal conflicts are resolved here. Also, we have some nice parallelism between Quackity and Techno as Tubbo’s and Tommy’s respective bad influences.

Techno – understandably this time – feels betrayed and hurt. He and Tommy have their shouting match. Quackity tries to attack Techno, but during their match they accidentally trigger the TNT. Quackity’s hunger for power has created the grave of his ambitions.

(Niki is also pissed at Tommy and Fundy is fully distraught, because L’Manburg was everything he had left from Wilbur).

Dream steps out of the shadows and reveals that he was Techno’s mysterious benefactor. He gets his hands on the second disc and gloats to Tommy. The scene from Doomsday plays out only that Techno shows some stings of remorse for helping Dream accomplish what he wanted. (Quackity flees the ensuing chaos).

Dream tries to goad Tommy with the discs, but Tommy doesn’t bite, because he has resolved his Want vs. Need now. Dream is frustrated, but retreats for now.

ACT III

In the aftermath of ACT II, I think it’s very important to hammer home that this wasn’t a win for Techno, Niki or Phil. For that to work I think it’s important to make clear that Tommy’s and Techno’s bond was genuine and that they really cared for each other during the Bedrock Bros thing. Neither of them is happy for how this turned.

Niki is plagued by nightmares and sleeps in a prison cell like in the current canon. She stands in symbolic for the emptiness that vengeance brings. Phil is shaken from his talk to Ghostbur and he’s the one who brings up that maybe what they did wasn’t for the best.

Then Techno and Phil have a discussion about the nature of anarchy again, calling back to that earlier conversation at the beginning of Act 2. Techno also feels empty – his vengeance and the destruction he wrought left him no happier.

Meanwhile, Punz and Tommy are actually spending some quality bonding time. Thanks to the medium, they could simulate that pretty well. Punz actually gets attached and when Dream mentions his coup-de-grâce, the cinematography shows that Punz isn’t too happy about it.

Tommy and Tubbo prepare to fight Dream on their own terms. They know, they have to stop him lest he hurts the people they care about (this makes both of them a bit more proactive in the finale). Punz (as per Dream’s orders) tells Tommy where Dream is hiding. Tommy thanks him, oblivious that Punz is a traitor, but Punz feels bad. He has grown attached to Tommy.

During the Final Disc War we actually get two perspectives: One is Tommy’s and Tubbo’s as we know it (only without the constant “Your discs or Tubbo”-stuff) and the other is Punz’s. He has decided to help Tommy even though there’s nothing monetarily in it for him.

First, he goes to Quackity, but Quackity says that Tommy has betrayed him and L’Manburg and that he gets what’s coming to him.

In a last-ditch effort, he goes to Techno. Here’s where we resolve that thematic conflict (Vengeance vs. Charity) for the Techno-Butcher Army storyline: Quackity has chosen to perpetuate the cycle of vengeance (because he will be the villain in S3), but we want some nice character development for Techno.

Niki is against it and stays put, but Techno and Philza ultimately decide to go with Punz and the others to help Tommy.

Finale plays out the same. Stuff’s still awkward between Techno and Tommy/Tubbo; they haven’t resolved all their problems, but it’s a first step. Some good set-up for S3.

And that’s my basic rewrite. It’s long and probably not the best.

[allthefallendemons]

Change (Lucifer Morningstar x Reader)

Lucifer Morningstar x Reader One Shot

a/n: hi quick lil note! I’ll be publishing this on my ao3 as well (allthefallenangels) so yeah! I hope you enjoy :)

Content Warnings: Cussing, Angst

Brief Summary: After a damaging breakup with Lucifer, the reader experiences drastic changes to herself and her personality. Unsure if this is for her own greater good, Lucifer confronts her.

Word Count: 1.6k

PART 2

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It had been exactly six days, two hours, and twenty-three minutes since you were last in a relationship with Lucifer Morningstar. The two of you were keeping things steady, enjoying every moment you spent with one another. That was until Lucifer decided he was bored with you, finding his next exciting plaything. So, here you were, sitting on your couch and devouring your third tub of ice cream and watching Friends. "How does Ross Geller manage to keep a stable relationship when I can't even keep one going for five months," you grumbled quietly to yourself, getting up from the couch as your big baggy blanket hung over you. "God, I am LA's Ross Geller," you shrugged off the blanket, throwing the rest of your ice cream into the freezer. Shifting over from the fridge to your kitchen counter, you groaned softly. "I don't fucking need him."

grabbing your phone off of the counter and scouring the internet for ways to get over your ex. "Try changing the way you look to make you feel better.." letting out a quiet laugh, you shook your head. "change how?" until the perfect notification popped up on your phone.

A couple of days later, two huge packages arrived in the mail causing you to cheer "Change is good!" taking the two boxes inside and opening them up. Pulling out an eighty dollar makeup palette, you grinned. "Lucifer Morningstar, consider yourself erased from my life. I've got a new significant other." Opening the rest of the box, you began to apply your very first makeup look with the help of some youtube tutorial. Once that was finished, your eyes widened at how different you looked. Natural looks have always been your go-to style, something Lucifer always found unique about you. Opening the other box, the sharp smell of leather filled your nostrils. "Holy shit.." you murmured, taking out a beautiful red leather jacket. You slid the coat on, grinning as it shaped your curves and perfectly defined your body. "How's this for a change." you purred softly to yourself, nodding as you looked in the mirror.

You felt your phone vibrate in your pocket, your eyes widening as 'Scientist Ella' popped up on your screen, "Hey Els!! What's up?" already making your way to the door, you knew what she was about to say "I need you to come in, it's an all hands on deck situation in Homicide." she said quickly before hanging up. A small smirk slid across your features, this was the perfect reason to somehow stumble across Lucifer. You were sick of playing by the rules, being the silent follower. It was time to play by your own goddamn rules and not even Lucifer was going to tell you what to do.

Pulling up to the crime scene on your previously abandoned motorcycle, you slid off the bike with a confident grin. "Detective Espinosa!" you cried out, walking over to the previously sullen man. "What are the details on the current case?" you grabbed the file from him, choosing to ignore the shocked look that crossed his features. "Detective L/N, you- you look a little-" "different?" you grinned, your eyes scanning through the file. "Well, yeah! It's not a bad thing though, I.. I heard about what happened with Lucifer." your smile faltered as you glanced up at Daniel, choosing to stay silent. "He's a fucking prick." Dan muttered, looking you in the eyes "He does not deserve you, especially now." his gaze trailed up and down your body. You didn't know how to respond, clenching your fist as you tried to remain professional. "Look, Dan, I think it's flatter-"

"Detective?" an all too familiar voice alongside an all too familiar face entered your vision. "Ah... Lucifer." Your tone was quiet as you took a deep breath, avoiding looking him in the eyes. "I see that you were called in as well..." you trailed off, your chest growing heavy as the broken feeling that had briefly left returned in a rush. "Well, I am the consultant after all!" Lucifer grinned, trying to get you to look him in the eyes. "Yeah, well, whatever. The victim is John Wilkins, a recently retired accountant who just returned from a trip to Italy. His wife said they were looking for a change in pace, not realizing that this trip would be their last." you walked into the house, hearing Lucifer quickly pick up after you. You could feel his gaze burning into the back of your head, knowing he was dying for you to look at him. "Well, it seems that wasn't the only thing that changed," Lucifer muttered, a small smirk crossing your features as you heard his comment.

"Well, sometimes change is for the greater good." you shot back at him, kneeling beside the body and inspecting it. "Excuse me, you can't- Y/N?" Ella's eyes went wide as she looked at you "OMG! You look so different, I didn't even recognize you!" you let out a soft laugh, trying to look over the body. "You're not the only person who said that." you grinned as Ella knelt beside you. "Poor guy, it seems he suffered from lacerations across his main artery. It was a quick death, but the problem is that after he died, the assaulter cut off his right thumb..." Ella trailed off, as you nodded slowly "Perhaps for entry into something? A safe or maybe his phone?" you got up, bumping into Lucifer who was far too close for your own preference.

"Detective, do you mind if we talk?" he muttered into your ear, causing you to cock an eyebrow. Ella shrugged as you glanced over at her before looking back at Lucifer, "yeah, sure, whatever. But make it quick, I'm trying to work for once without being disturbed by your nuisances." you spat at him, trying not to recoil at just how cruel you were. Lucifer nodded to himself, guiding you to a nearby room and shutting the door behind him. "What is this? This isn't you, Detective. You're gentle and nurturing, you've been talking about being free of makeup for the longest time. You told me you preferred it that way, not wanting to spend money on makeup when you could save up for a cat. This new badass look isn't you, Detective. You're soft, you're caring, and you... This just isn't you, darling," you clenched your fist as he called you detective "Just fucking stop" you spat at him. Looking him in the eyes, you could feel all of the words you wanted to tell him bubble in your chest.

"Stop acting as if you care about me, stop calling me detective, and don't fucking act as if nothing happened. Like I was here the entire goddamn time and not gone for ten days. Like nothing fucking happened between us." you snarled, taking a deep breath. "I changed because I need to change, if I didn't do anything about me then I would still be at home. You broke my fucking heart, Lucifer. I am- I was in love with you." You shook your head, looking down at yourself. You could feel yourself get angrier by the minute as Lucifer walked closer to you "I broke up with you to protect you, Y/N. After seeing you get hurt so many times, I didn't want to see you in any more pain." He placed his hand on your shoulder, causing you to immediately swat it off. "don't fucking touch me." Lucifer shared a hurt look with you before doing a 180 turn, not wanting to look at your enraged features. "Look at how well that fucking turned out," you snapped at him, taking one final deep breath before walking over to the mirror. You could feel the barriers break as tears began to flood down your features. Your makeup smeared but you didn't care, you couldn't care, because if you did, it would mean that he won.

"I need you, Lucifer." your frail voice broke the silence, looking at him with big E/C eyes. You felt small in his presence, watching him with wide eyes as he cupped your face. "I didn't... I didn't think I could do this to you..." he murmured, wiping away the smeared makeup. "My dearest, Y/N," he leaned forward, completing the gap between his lips and your own. A wave of emotions crashed through you, trying to resist the urge to kiss him back. To collapse into his arms, tell him that all is forgiven, to be Lucifer's again. You broke away, shaking your head. "No. You don't get to do this," you choked out, pushing him off of you. "You should have talked to me, I didn't deserve this. You ghosted me, sent an 'I can't see you anymore' text and that was it. And to make things worse, you told Mazikeen to keep me out of Lux? Was it to spare me from seeing you all over other people?" you snarled, shaking your head and taking a deep breath. Pinching the bridge of your nose, you whimpered quietly. "I'm just another notch on the Lucifer Morningstar sex belt." you choked out softly.

You walked over to the door, grabbing the handle. "If you want to make things up to me, prove it. I can't- I can't get hurt again," your voice was deep with hurt and shame. "Tell Chloe to take over the case, I'm going home," you murmured, opening the door and with one swift movement, you were gone. Lucifer stared at the empty space where you once were. He stared up to the ceiling, shaking his head "is this what you wanted?" he growled, clenching his fist before punching a hole in the wall. He no longer cared for anything in the world, the only thing he knew was that he was going to get you back.

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, leninille!

For @leninille. These are the first three chapters and a complete story within a new storyline I've got several chapter outlines for. All of this came up during development of this Secret Santa Exchange gift, and as more familiar faces are revealed, the tags will be updated accordingly.

Read On AO3

*****

Health Tonics and Love Gardens

Chapter 1 - The Stiles In The Garden

Stiles has been working on this garden for months. It is colorful now, with tiny bushes he'd groomed into shape and the better airflow they get without the other plants strangling the light and air from the garden. He's been restoring this garden to what it might have once been, and tried to keep remembering what his mom told him about the garden back home.

"These flowers may look nice, but they can also cause healing or harm." He thought in his mother's voice.

This specific phrase stuck with him, and usually when he's daydreaming and not paying attention to what he's saying, he'll speak the words and try to recall the exact details of the garden as it was when his mom was caring for it.

"Why?" he again remembers asking, and he says the same thing aloud every time this happens.

The details of the answer vary, probably because his child mind wasn't really any better at staying on target for even half the time his adult brain can do now. That means that his mom's voice answers the questing with different words, and the theme generally was: "Sometimes a little of a plant can help a person heal from an injury. Give them too much, and they will suffer, may come to harm, and could die."

It's the stinging nettle that his mother is indicating to him today. He looks at the plant in the present and gives it side-eye.

"A good cook can turn this nettle into a healthful tea."

Little Stiles can feel himself interrupt her. "I've made tea, mom. It's easy!" He used to be so excited about stuff. He was what... maybe eight years old when this happened?

He favors his mother's memory by having her always say something that humors the younger him.

"Yes! You can make very good tea. And thank you for doing it! But some teas we can make require very good care. A good cook like me knows how to prepare the stems, or the flowers, or pieces of the root all cut up into tiny pieces of any of these plants." She makes tickling fingers at him and he smiles at the recollection.

"What if the cook uses the wrong pieces?"

"Then instead of healing, maybe nothing will happen. But with some plants, you can make someone worse. They can be hurt forever, and might even die."

Little Stiles did not want to make that kind of tea, and he considered not ever being near tea again.

"Promise me, Stiles, that you will not try to make tea from anything that comes from this garden."

That was an easy promise to keep. The Stiles in his 20s, having these memories, appreciates how well his mother understood how he thought. Under her brief guidance, Stiles cultivated a voracious curiosity and analytical mind. He got over the worries about tea, eventually, but it wasn't until after this gardening thing started that he want and tried to learn more about exactly what were these plants in the plot and what kinds of tea could be made with them.

As he found out later, after many hours and days of looking through cookbooks and materials online, he started to feel like this was a medicinal garden instead of an herb garden for actual cooking.

"And never make tea with anything outside the garden without talking to me first, okay?"

Little Stiles nods again. At that age he loved strawberries, and he thought he might not worry so much about tea if he had some of the best tea with his mom right now. "I want to make the strawberry tea!"

"Oh! That sounds good."

Little Stiles helped Claudia put the tools away and gather the strawberries and lemon and sugar from their places in the kitchen. They talked about his day at school, and the memory always fades from there.

It is well more than ten years since that day and it's one of his favorite memories of his mother. Many memories stick because they sucked, or because he thinks about them so much he can't tell if they're real or if he made them up.

He does think it's odd that every week, at least once a week, Stiles is at this old burned house in the Beacon Hills Preserve, working on this garden, talking to himself to review what he's learned about these different plants, and making threats at the plants who he still can't identify or which are giving him troubles that day. He's still just as wary of the nettle, but they've got a grudging agreement not to bother each other. For the rest? He'll unlock their secrets soon enough.

It's fair to say that he lets his guard down at this point. Nobody's ever been around here. He expected there would be graffiti on the house or whatever, but no, it's just been the house and this garden, and Stiles taking care of the latter.

He clips a sprig of lavender and adds it to his bag with the rosemary, adds some heather blossoms, and mutters "Calluna" as he snaps them. It's their genus, and they're in the same family as rhododendrons. There are two of those in the yard, not close to the house.

His thought withers as he turns to the house and takes it in with a slow breath. It always seems like the house is watching him, but not seeing him. It's never felt threatening, just... omnipresent, he thinks.

This house was full of the potential of these many lives. The family suffered, and in his investigation into public records and police records ("Heya, daddio... Can I ask you a question?" being only the most direct route to the files, and not the only one he took), he had learned that the family's absence left some big holes in the town at the time.

Curiously, it was hard to find photos of any of the family members. Even social media didn't have much. The kids weren't in school yearbooks he could get hold of, and he's gone through everything he could find in the school archive, even the old student newsletters.

He had found a photo of Talia Hale. She was the mother and as far as he could tell, the kind of person everyone in town seemed to know and most respected. He had no idea that Talia's spouse looked like, having seen only the name "Blake Hale" and having no idea who that was.

The dusty family obituary Stiles found in the paper printed after the fire listed several dead. But the count doesn't match what the police logged, and that doesn't match the fire inspector's. The insurance company itself gave a third number in a quote taken by a reporter.

The situation didn't make sense to him, and it bothered him that nobody seemed to know what really happened here. How many Hales were impacted by the fire? Did any escape? The body counts ranged from fewer than ten to the low 20s. Nobody knew if there was a party that night because despite all the fresh vehicle tracks at the scene, there were very few vehicles in the driveway. So where did those other visitors go? The firefighters' work destroyed the scene and they couldn't find any tire tracks that might lead them in a useful direction.

And weirdest of all: He's still not found anything that even hints that his mother and the Hales were affiliated. So this garden and the exact matching one at home, which Stiles and his dad have somewhat neglected after many years of close attention, Stiles still doesn't know why he cares so much about this plot at the Hale house.

He'd explored the ruins many times in his months of gardening. The house sits still and aging, creaking wearily in the winds as it always does. The only trespassers seem to be him and the squirrels.

He tugs a threatening vine away from the garden and trims it back. It's probably a volunteer left by some bird.

On his first day here he didn't go in the house, but walked slowly around it, walking his blue bike as he walked the perimeter. It was coming around the back of the house when he caught the scent of a familiar combination of herbs and he discovered his garden out here in the woods.

It is exactly the same layout as at the Stilinski house, but these plants were overgrown and struggling, and the vines were getting close. As he got on his knees and started his first concerted effort at gardening the plot, he started trying to find answers to these two questions: "Why does this garden layout look identical to ours at home?" and, given that the garden does exist in both places, "How did the Hales know his mother?"

Derek doesn't know how to respond. He had never been an alpha, and would never be, so he'd mostly ignored those lessons when his mom and Laura talked about them. His alpha and sister in one being swore to him years ago that no matter how much they'd already lost, they'll always be near each other.

"Are you alright? Did you hear me?" she glances at him and pokes him. She feels the sensation of being mentally stunned, then gives him an annoyed look. "Why is this weird for you?"

He blinked at her. "You don't think it's weird that for years we've not even talked once about Beacon Hills and now you say that you've spent weeks fighting an unidentified and suspicious pull to return home for a few weeks?"

"No, I said a few months. Three or four, maybe. Who cares? It's still a calling."

Derek looked at her and asked the obvious. "Couldn't this be hunters?"

She shook her head. This wasn't aggressive magic, and she wasn't sure how she knew that. It was more than intuition, though... it was certainty. Werewolves are often sensitive to many kinds of magical activities that may happen around them or to them, and her enhanced abilities told her that this just wasn't like any of that. She considered an odd possibility.

"Maybe it's my wolf?"

Derek rolls his eyes. "We are werewolves, Laura. It's a gift of a greater life, not a spiritual possession."

"Hey, I know that there's no separate little spooky spirit inside any of us beyond what most people seem to think they have. But this is like..." She searches the room until her eyes land in the opposite corner. She points at the TV and clarifies, "It's like I'm getting a new channel, and it's focused on the wolfish instincts, not the human side. Can't you feel it, too?"

He shakes his head. There has been zero sensation of compulsion in Derek to return to Beacon Hills. He would be happy to never return. It was once a beautiful place, but that's lost with everything else and he doesn't want to find any of it again.

"Can you check the pack bond and tell me what you see?"

He glares at her, already tired of this conversation. The alpha sees different things in pack bonds than each member sees. Laura likes to learn what Derek sees, and tells herself that it'll come in handy when she's got a bigger pack. They haven't even tried to connect with any werewolves despite there being many free-roaming supernatural family hanging around. The Hales are a duo that nobody can mess with.

She's persistent, so he focuses and listens with his inner senses and finds the same pack bond with her that he's seen for years. It's identical to how it was before. Nothing new, nothing seeming magical beyond the usual. It's hard to believe her about this when he's got no evidence it's happening.

"Damn. I hate this. I wish I had an emissary to ask."

Derek doesn't know what to think about emissaries, and leans toward not-in-favor since theirs failed to protect them from the hunter assault that lead to his family's near-annihilation. This emissary was newer, replacing their former emissary who had died of a normal, terrible cause like brain cancer. Derek met the new guy once and hated how he smelled of animals and cleaning supplies. The man's day job was as head veterinarian at the Beacon Hills Animal Clinic.

Last time they talked about him, Laura recalled that he was mostly a quiet man, didn't like giving full answers, and Talia mostly found him annoying, though useful at times.

Derek stewed on the fresh thoughts of the vet being partly responsible for what happened. Now he's feeling some kind of pull to return, to demand answers, at the very least.

Magic, as far as Derek was concerned, has been far more bother than it's worth.

"I never liked Deaton, but he's all I know." Laura suggested.

"Oh, then all of this was your fault," Derek said in an attempt to lighten the mood. It took a second to realize that he just accused the emissary of letting the family come to harm because he and Laura didn't get along.

"No emissary and no wolf was responsible for what happened, Derek." That left only the implication of the hunter woman he'd let get too close.

With regard to that person, Derek only ever harbors stabbingly angry thoughts about what should happen to her. She'd lied, she'd taken advantage of his life inexperience, and in the end of it all, she failed to murder him with everyone else, and he simmered deep inside from a wound that hadn't healed. His eyes flash.

Laura doesn't look away. He's upset, and he's not great with expressing himself on the best of day. She doesn't flash her eyes back at him. She's not angry, she's sad that he keeps blaming himself.

Derek reads this on her face and understands. "Fuck!" he mumbles a disappointed apology. "It wasn't your fault." He punctuates the air more softly with a mumbled repeat of the exclamation.

"Derek." She has come to a conclusion and in that tone she's warning him to prepare himself for something he is going to dislike. "I think we need to go back. We'll be careful," she says as he gives her an irritated and skeptical. "We'll stay in another town, sneak in as wolves and investigate the Preserve and the house. Maybe check out Beacon Hills and," she said, conspiratorially, "get some donuts before we leave."

"Leave?"

"We don't have to stay. I just need answers."

He considers this. It's not a demand or a request, it's just what she's going to do and she knows he's coming with her. But the confectionary he'd not thought about in years comes back to him. "I forgot about the donuts! And because of you," he glares at her, "now I have to have one."

"Perfect!" she says. He makes a good show at faking indignation, but he's heading into his room and looking around. They weren't likely to come back, so he shoots a message to his boss about a family emergency and he starts packing.

She's looking from the main room at his back as he starts sorting things out. He's always the scaredywolf, and she starts to pull snacks together that they'll want for the long drive.

Chapter 2 - These Wolves Are Here To Play

"Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii've been working on the raaaaaaaaaaailroad!" the man shouts. "All the live-long daaaaaaaaayGAACK!" Choking sputters and spitting follows the interruption. The approaching wolves still and listen.

"What the crap?! I'm working on your stupid habitat here!" A triple spitting sound. "Leave me alone you big dumb m-moth!"

The wolves glance at each other and share a look that says, "This guy's got worse problems than his big, stupid voice."

Laura steps ahead, leading them closer, keeping the shrubs and other undergrowth between them and the person in the distance. This guy doesn't scream "Threat!" to anyone but himself, but even well-meaning people can lead to tragedy. It would be best, of course, if the guy happened to take off before they got near him.

But if he did, she warns herself, that could mean he knows they're coming. That would make him either a super or a magic user. If he stays for too long, they'll need to scare him out of there so they can take a look around.

Derek made a subvocal growl. He's always preferred the hostile approach to any conflict and she nudges him with a low-pitched growl of denial.

Derek huffs. He actually huffs at her.

What a whiny puppy.

"Rodzina," Stiles says to the wolf the second he realizes he's not alone.

And then he slaps his hand over his mouth, uncertain why he's speaking Polish. The wolf regards him, unflinching. "It's Polish for family." This creature is huge! Larger than any dog he's ever met, and it's broad and got a defined mane around its neck. It's a really beautiful and terrifying wolf. Oh, oh god. It's a freaking wolf.

The wolf glances at his chest and tilts its head at him. She seemed to know that word, somehow. How could that even happen? Well, he's happy she hasn't been all growly and dipping her head down and being mean.

"I'm sorry, but there's no food here, and I can't take you home and get you any." With real sorrow, since having a wolf pet would be totally awesome, but a really bad idea, he adds, "You're beautiful, but I can't can't have a pet."

The wolf chuffs at him.

What? A chuff! That's practically falling over with laughter in wolf terms, as far as Stiles is concerned.

"Hey! Don't chuff at me!" He's wiggling a finger at her. It's 10% aggression and 90% cowardice. He focuses on forgetting everything except that 10%. He nervously walks through his thoughts aloud because he can't help his mouth moving of its own accord at this moment.

"Okay, so fine, let's see... I'm gardening here, that's legitimately all I'm doing. No looking for secret treasure at the house or anything. You're coming here passing through or whatever, even though there haven't been wolves in this part of California in decades. I know you understand me, and you're pretending not to. But why don't you talk back?"

He is looking directly into her eyes before consciously realizing he's taking her measure. This is a specific thing he definitely remembers promising himself he'd never do if he were being challenged by a large predator in the wilderness. And yet, he's challenging this alpha wolf—

"You're an alpha wolf? How can there be alpha wolves when the whole scientific hypothesis was proven to be wrong?" He wants to ramble the name of the research article on the subject, and about the way the article was written, but manages to catch hold of his thought trains and redirect. "That's not important right now. It's crazy enough that I somehow know you can understand me clearly."

She's a smart wolf. Human-equivalent intelligence, for sure. She tries not to tilt her head in an approximation of doggy confusion, but it's a projection. Odd how that he's here gardening and along comes this alph—

"WEREWOLF?! You're a werewolf?!"

Stiles describes this later to his father as, "when all hell breaks loose."

The alpha wolf lifts her lips and growls at Stiles, who is immediately cowed. She's joined half a second later by another large wolf, slightly smaller than her as he is a beta, but he's also got very long and sharp and they're massive and this is a very bad place for him to be right now!

"Shit! I'm not delicious! Don't eat me!"

The alpha stops growling again, and seems to be shaking. The other wolf snarls at her. She snarls back.

Of fucking course! "You're siblings?" Okay, that's it, you need to tell me who you are. Between cautiouswolf and hyperprotective wolf," indicating the alpha and the beta in order, "who the hell are you?"

The beta keeps growling but defers reluctantly to the alpha. She studies Stiles, looking at him and not laughing wolfishly anymore. There's no hint of threatening demise, just curiosity.

It would be too far to say it's quite trust, but it's the recognition that the confusion is mutual and that there is no threat.

Stiles also looks at this as another opportunity to try to talk himself out of the situation. He gives explaining himself another try.

"I was here by accident the first time, and then I found the garden," he waves over to it, easily seen from where all three wolves stood. The beta wolf didn't take his eyes off Stiles, but the alpha regarded his handiwork without apparent comment and resumed studying Stiles.

"Keep talking," was the obvious implication. Order. It was definitely an order, and Stiles agreed that he should continue.

"My mom planted a garden exactly like this one at home. So finding such a unique one out here, at the site of," he looks at the house and murmurs, "really bad stuff is just weird." He feels his cheeks tighten and get heavy and a tear slips down his cheeks. "She died before she told me what all the plants are for. As far as I know she didn't even know the family." He turns around, letting embarrassment at his own emotions put his unguarded back at risk of wolfish sneak-attack.

There's a shuffling noise behind him that tugs his attention back and he wipes his face. It's blotchy, and gross, he's sure, but he's looking at the wolves.

Something quiet happened here while he was turned around. The male wolf is looking almost... ashamed in some way, and the alpha turns back to Stiles after a staredown with the beta and seats herself a step closer to Stiles.

He decides not to mention that moving closer is just as terrifying than all of the other scary things they've done because the seated pose is probably just a ruse to get him when he's vulnerable, but...

Thump.

That was a tail. He looks around her sitting form as if trying to find her tail. Her expression reads as, most likely, "You seriously need to chill." Off to the side, the beta just looks mean as ever and ready to chew on his soft and fleshy neck.

He pulls his phone out and texts his dad. He holds up a finger to the wolf who'd risen to her feet again.

"No, just a minute. My dad's expecting me and I need to let him know that I'll be a little late. I'm not telling him about our little one-sided conversation, which you really should join, by the way." The wolves seemed mollified, if not satisfied with the answer. Neither rises to the bait and starts speaking, so the beta keeps his ears rotating around, listening for danger, and the alpha's ears are firmly oriented in his direction.

"Do you know this place?" The ear flick of the alpha and the glance at the house let him connect some dots. "The Hale family lived here and you knew them."

For the next several minutes, Stiles explains what he has learned of the Hales from his look into the school archives, the police and fire reports, the insurance report he'd acquired through a friend of a friend who shall all remain nameless. He tells of the obituary and the news stories and the details that don't make sense.

He's speculating and journeying down educational, if difficult to follow sidetracks, and mentions one detail that catches the wolves' complete attentions. It was about the catatonic John Doe found a few days later a short walk from the highway.

"Oh? Uhh, I just think maybe there's a connection between that John Doe and the Hale fire. There's too many weird details, things that haven't happened at any other time in this town or probably any town. It's tidy and messy at the same time. I don't trust that."

He's been looking at things on his phone that are pictures or notes or scans of things he's found and looks for the rest of what he discovered about that John Doe.

"Look," he says as he flips the phone toward them. "I found evidence that— Oh, I don't know if you even see in color, or if you can read this in your current shape. Hopefully you're better than other canines about that but you're not answering questions right now, so we'll park that for later.

He reviews the notes and continues.

"I snuck into the hospital and I think this guy really could have been a family member or friend of the Hales. He was scarred badly, as if from a fire, and though he wasn't near the Hale house, the paramedics estimated he'd already suffered two days in the cool air in probably this very state."

The sad whine of them both went unnoticed through the racing thoughts of the human.

"I still think he looks like an age-progressed version of the Beacon Hills basketball team player I found in this picture."

He makes the face as large as he can. It's just a face, and it's blurry.

The first wolf shifts back to human. She says, "Who is this?"

Stiles gasps and then tries to pretend a wolf didn't just shift in front of him to human form and start asking him questions.

"This is a picture of Peter Hale."

She turns to the other wolf. "Derek!" and she motions at him to stand up, but the wolf Derek declines. It wasn't an order, but a move of cautious excitement. Derek's keeping a wary eye in the human's direction even as his sister looms closer to the phone and examines the picture.

"I'm sorry, madam alpha, or whatever is the right title, but you appear to have no clothes on and I am not prepared to um... talk with you in this manner at this time. And stuff."

She looks at him, and then herself, and shakes her head. "When it comes to werewolves, clothing is as optional as it gets."

"Oh, your kind can't transform your clothing when you shift?" Something subconscious snags his attention. "Are you sure about that?"

She looks at him. Her hair is a little wild, and she's strong even in this form. "I know more about werewolves than you do."

He tucks his phone in his pocket.

"Okay, look, fine, you want to talk in the nude. You do you, but I really am just going to need to leave right now and clear my head and then I can... I can come back tomorrow, yeah?" He's not sure why he's excited to return. They did nearly eat him several times in this conversation, based on the number of flashes of teeth he caught in the last several minutes.

"Fine, come back tomorrow, but do not tell anyone we were here."

Stiles nods, distracted, and takes a few tries before he gets all his gardening things stuffed back into his bag and gets himself situated for the ride out of the preserve.

"I'll be here just after five tomorrow, alright? I've got work, but I'll be here, and I'll bring some stuff you can look at. Please try to get some clothes or this is going to be awkward and I am really out of awkward for the day.

"You're really not," the alpha says. Stiles sputters.

"Hey!"

"Hey, family man," she says, referring to his Polish of earlier. "I'm Laura. Who are you?"

"I'm Stiles Stilinski."

The other wolf looks at him and hruffs, almost laughing.

Cripes, these siblings are already annoying him.

"Hey, asshole, it's my name. You'd break yourself trying to pronounce my first name, so be thankful for my gracious manner."

Stiles leaves slowly, trying to go faster, but it takes a while to get his body to let go of the anxiety enough to punish his legs on the pedals and fly as fast as he can without crashing.

Kind of a tall order, some days.

"I cannot believe I just promised I'd come back to chat with those man-eaters!" He gripes at himself. "Do they eat people? How do you even ask someone if they eat people? Especially if they can change shapes and have fangs and sharp pointy parts?" He listens to his intuition. Of course they're not cannibals. Or maybe they are if they're not considered humans. "UGH! They are gonna answer so many questions tomorrow or else!"

Derek has followed him silently for maybe half a mile, listening to the bewildering blitz of self-talk ranging from werewolves to garlic naan bread and Derek just gives up and heads toward the house, where Laura is waiting for him.

Chapter 3 - The Interposing

The sun is low now, shining bright fingers through the shattered window frames and vacant doorways of the shell of this old house. By coincidence of timing and place, Laura stands in a sunny shape on the decrepit porch. Derek listens to her adjusting her stance and watches as her fingers push through a beam of sunlight and trace the crackled texture of the carbonized door frame.

"You didn't stop him and make him tell us where Peter is."

She catches his meaning immediately. "Yeah, there's something at work here keeping me from chasing him away."

"You failed," he says, gesturing broadly at her exposed form. "He can't handle this much woman."

"Well, Derek, I've got the supernatural hookup. We all do. He's going to have to get used to all this." She looks at the smudges on her fingers. "But why didn't you stop him?"

"I don't know. And I only just realized it when I said it." Now Derek looks as confused as she had been. He wasn't even feeling hostile toward the Stiles, and that is the most irritating thing about this.

She shifts her hand through beta shift and to full wolf, then back again. It's a difficult transition, but since she could just focus and do it, Derek just observed as she shifted from human form through partial beta and partial full forms, and then back to full human.

Derek was curious what she was doing, and noticed her smile as he held her fingers up.

Every finger still had dirt.

"I've never thought about how we take dirt and things with us through the shift, but not our clothes."

"Are you suggesting that he can teach us to take clothing or tools into our shift?"

She shrugged her shoulders and grinned. The pack bond resonated with satisfaction, and he rolled his eyes.

"We don't know anything about him."

"I know, but if you could feel it, you'd know that this place needs us, Derek." She looks into the house from across the threshold. "And gardener Stiles is part of whatever is going on here." They were all called here. It's magic that bound them, brought them together, and seems to be managing their introduction.

"Is he the magic user?"

"There is ample potential. Surely you could feel that by the time he left."

"I hate magic," Derek grumbles as he thinks about it. Yes, he could tell Stiles was ignorant of his own potential and that worried Derek more than the fact that this stranger happened to suddenly be part of their lives in a way that captivates his alpha.

Laura snaps her fingers. "Yo, how could you not have heard me?"

Derek raises an eyebrow in defiance. Not his best move, but now it's her turn to roll her eyes and she repeats herself.

"Let's go find Deaton. If he's around, maybe he can help us figure out who this is and what kind of magic is being worked here."

"Can we pass the hospital, too? I'd like to see if we might find uncle Peter."

She nods. That matters a lot to both of them, too. She resolves that before 5pm tomorrow, they'll have gotten at least one answer to the question of what's going on. She leans into a full shift and Derek follows, chasing her as they race into the forest for the long route to the vet's office.

"My dad is going to kill me when he finds out I was talking with werewolves at the Hale house." He nearly skids to a stop and releases his clenched brake. He isn't a Hollywood stunts expert and he would not have recovered well from a solo crash on the pavement. His ego would be only one of his many bruised parts.

He considers 14 different stories that seem plausible enough, dismissed half of them outright as abominations, and spend the next minutes thinking up some 40 more before settling on the best candidate.

He parked his bike along the side of the house and walked quickly to the front, nearly crashing into his patient and curious father on the porch.

"Hello Stiles. You didn't say why you'd be late, but—"

"I was watching the sunset!" he interjected. Dad glances toward the sun now, indicating that the sunset isn't done yet.

"Nope, you weren't. Do you want to tell me what really happened?"

"Yes!" he squeaks, and then rushes his dad inside with a glance over his shoulder that lacks any essence of subtlety. He's checking the few houses in view to see if anyone in a homes or yard or car or suspicious van might be spying on them. He closes the door quietly and pointedly locks it.

"Are you sure this is necessary, Stiles?"

"Dad, my world has been supernaturally rocked tonight, and what I'm about to tell you will do the same for you."

[angrylizardjacket]

mouth full of white lies {Machine Gun Kelly} 3

3. i thought love was a kind of emptiness

Summary: So you’re in love with him. Not great. And you wanna tell your brother about it, but that means coming clean about everything, and you’re not gonna do that! So you’re just gonna suffer, because it’s for the greater good. And you’re not gonna make things weird. Speaking of weird though, how is this even going to end? Colson sounds kind of like a masochist when he talks about it, but there must be a way to make neither of you seem like the bad guy... When this all ends. Which it will, much to your chagrin.

A/N: watch me have no idea about american geography

the brainstrust: @sataninsatin @silvertonguedserpent @juliarose21 @kellysimagines @estxxbritt @machine-gun-casie @harringtonstudios @misscharlottelee @narcvissa @hiworlditishumbleme @angelwarner28 @nevilles-insinuations @rumoured-whispers @mgkobsessed @edwardtriggerhandzz @suckerforbarnes @wastelcve @bakerkells @local-troubled-writer @freddiessmallnipples @oopsiedoopsie23 @mayaslifeinabox @mrs-machinegun-norris @hxbbit

----

For the record, and if anyone asks, when Colson sends you a photo of himself in full Tommy Lee makeup, your heart definitely doesn’t skip a beat. The long wig, the sharp contouring, the eyeliner, it does absolutely nothing for you. You definitely don’t spend a good five minutes contemplating how much you want his lipstick to stain your mouth. Because he’s not your real boyfriend. You’re doing this to minimize the amount of nasty messages you get online. The fact that he’s hot and funny and surprisingly kind and weirdly observant, and god, have you already said hot? Because he tends to walk around your shared hotel room in shorts and little else and it’s really not doing great things for your productivity. 

The point is, all those things are a bonus! A happy little accident, if you will, a positive side-effect of this whole arrangement. Like getting a job and realising that you’ll be working with your brother, who currently is quickly becoming very, very close with your fake boyfriend.

There’s no-one you trust more in the whole world than Douglas, but if you tell him that your relationship is fake, you’ll have to tell him why you’re in a fake relationship, and he’s not above starting an online rampage against people sending his little sister death threats. Which, by the way, you’re not getting a lot of since dating Colson, honestly you might even be getting less than before, so it’s working.

Your absolutely fake relationship with Colson Baker, whom you have no feelings for whatsoever is functioning exactly as intended. 

Except for the fact that when you’re on set, and you see him in costume, smiling, it kind of makes your day. Watching him play drums? He just looks like he’s having so much fun, and you can’t help but be endeared by it! This was outlined as low commitment, high reward, and now your feelings are ruining it for everybody. Well, just for you. Because it’s just a small crush, and he’s your friend, so you’re not going to make it weird.

Which, right now, it isn’t. He hogs the blankets, which you pretend you’re annoyed by, and sets about fifteen different alarms for himself that have you waking up at the crack of dawn so that he can go in early to get his tattoos covered, even though you don’t need to be there until much later than he is. So you grumble into the blankets, and when you get to set there’s always a hot drink waiting for you. 

He’s out most nights, not late enough that he’d need to oversleep to be functioning the next morning, but it’s not uncommon for you to be curled up on your side of the bed, usually scrolling through social media, and he’ll come in, sometimes humming something, sometimes chattering away on the phone. Sometimes he’ll shower, but he always smokes, watching the stars, right before he comes to bed.

Or you’ll join him. 

On the weekends, you’ll grab dinner together after filming, and he’s in his eyeliner, the foundation sometimes a little worse for wear, and you’ll explore the nightlife that LA has to offer, seeing live bands, or going to clubs. Of course, as a famous musician, DJs will pull Colson up into their booth, to play a song or two, and you, without fail, always managed to feel out of place. So you hang back, maybe have a dance, or maybe get a drink, or even just people-watch. You enjoy it, but you enjoy going back to the hotel more.

Tabloids, or the modern equivalent at least, get familiar with your name, and it’s not long before your image starts to change.

About six minutes into a twenty minute ‘tea spilling’ video, the host says your name.

“Now, [Y/N] Booth, DuckDuckBooth, whatever you know her as, has been all over the mainstream media lately because - shock horror - she’s in a relationship with someone with a bad reputation! Because that’s what we love here, ladies and gents; rumours and slander,” the host, a young woman with bleach blonde hair and a thick English accent rolls her eyes, sarcasm dripping from her tongue, “so a bit of a run-down for those who don’t know, [Y/N] is a lifestyle and, I don’t know, entertainment industry insider - YouTuber? She makes videos on what it’s like to work all different jobs in the industry. And her brother’s famous? I think?” She looks to a point off-screen, presumably where her laptop was sitting, letting her look him up. “He was in Jupiter Ascending, he was the weird prince-dude; Douglas Booth, and he was in a bunch of stuff that was only really released in the UK.” 

It cuts to a new shot of the host tucking her hair behind her ears.

“So [Y/N] recently started dating Machine- MG- uh, I don’t know how to say it, it sounds wrong coming from me; Machine Gun Kelly? He’s a rapper I think? He’s been in a few shows on like, streaming services? I don’t know, I don’t know him that well, but apparently he’s one for scandal - allegedly.” She emphasises, before taking a deep breath, “and now he and [Y/N] are working on the same project, and have started dating, like two adults who like each other might start doing!” It’s condescending, as if directly responding to some less than polite criticisms she’s seen online, but she shrugs it off flippantly.

“Anyways, I’ve been following [Y/N] for a while, I’ve seen her recent uploads and Instagram stories and such; they’re cute, okay? I don’t personally enjoy his music, but that’s just my tastes, you know? And I don’t understand all the negativity she’s suddenly receiving; you all know she’s an adult, right? Like not just in the UK, she’s over 21, she’s allowed to go out and drink, and be a human being. It’s not like she’s suddenly become a different person; just because she’s not acting in the way your overly-sanitized view of her should, doesn’t mean she’s a different person, or that she’s corrupted or whatever. She’s not a bad person for enjoying herself.”

“Everyone speculating about whether it’s fake or not, like they have nothing in common, well it’s almost like you don’t know them personally; if it’s fake, who even cares, that’s -” she laughs a little, “that’s Hollywood, isn’t it? I think the people hating on her, or on him, or wanting them to admit it’s fake or just break up, are jealous, honestly, because even if it’s fake, it’s a hell of a commitment.”

“Do you ever worry?” You can’t help but ask, it’s late, much later than you know you should be up, but he’s awake too, yawning, looking at his phone. Both of you tucked up in bed, he takes a moment before looking at you. There’s something about the shadow of eyeliner he hadn’t quite been able to remove that just makes him look edgy and gorgeous.

“I try not to,” he answers candidly, “but about what?”

“About people finding out about us.”

“Usually,” he cracks a half smile, “when a girl asks me that, it’s about people finding out that we are together,” and he’s smiling, but you just frown in the dark, unable to appreciate the humour. 

“What’ll they say? Of course you’ll be fine, but I-” you swallow, shaking your head, “sorry, asshole thing to say; of course I care about what they say about you, just as much me, but -”

“But you’ve got a lot further to fall than I do,” he says with a surprising honesty, and you meet his gaze in the glow of his screen light, “honestly I have no idea how this is gonna end, I thought you did.” And you feel your stomach drop. 

How were you supposed to respond to this?! There is absolutely no way you can say what you’re thinking, that you don’t want this to end because you’ve started to catch real feelings. 

“I’m winging it,” you admit softly. Something about his expression softens, but his screen goes dark before you can see it, “I know you’re a good person but-”

“Then you don’t know me that well, Ducky,” he laughs a little, though the sound is hollow, and you can hear him rustling around as he looks up at the ceiling in the dark, “kid, you don’t know me at all -”

“Don’t call me kid,” you bristle, quietly defiant, but he just seems to ignore you.

“I know I’m a bad dude, okay? And if you want this whole thing to end with everyone thinking I’ve broken your heart, then do it, I’ve been through worse. I’ve done worse; if you wanna just worry about yourself, you can.” 

“So it’s black and white; I’m red riding hood and you’re the big bad wolf? That’s how we end this?”

“You think in fairy tale analogies,” he huffs an almost disbelieving laugh, “I’m just saying that if you didn’t have to be with me, you wouldn’t be; you wanted scandalous but not a scandal, I get it, okay? I’m good at that; good at both, actually, but I guess you’re cute enough that you can pick one and not the other.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You snap, feeling angry, almost betrayed by his callous words. In the dark, you can make out the shape of his silhouette against the stars.

“You’re all clean and shiny and shit, you’ve got a philanthropist big brother, and a life in the entertainment industry without the actual pressure of being an actor, and yeah, YouTube is hard, I get that, now more than anything else, watching you ‘s definitely given me a new appreciation for the effort that goes in, but -”

“But what? It’s not a real job?”

That shuts him up fast. 

Fuming in the dark, you clamber from the bed, and head onto the balcony, slamming the door behind you. The night air is cool and crisp against the warm anger bubbling just beneath your skin, and you take a few deep breaths. Why you’re out here, you’re not sure; you should have gone down the hall and stayed with Douglas, but here you were, cooling off on the balcony. 

You’re in his seat, the seat he always sits in to smoke before bed, and it feels strange, but you’re not going to give up the seat, even as he opens the door. He doesn’t look at you, instead, he leans against the railing, looking out at the ocean glittering with stars.

“I wasn’t -” he starts, before sighing, “fuck, I know it’s a real job, okay?”

But he’s met with silence.

“I was gonna say - fuck, there’s like, a quote thing someone once told me, I think it was Shakespeare or some shit - there’s more things in Heaven and Earth, you know, than are dreamed in your philosophy.” He paused, “I’m dealing with more than just your shit, you know? Every fuckin’ person wants to hate me right now; your shit is small fish, Ducky. If you’re not getting hate, then it’s worth it, okay? And after all of this, I’ll still be averaging the same amount of hate as I always get, not that I give a shit. It’s pebble in a stream stuff.” When again, he’s met with silence, he sighs gently, hanging his head, before heading back inside, though he doesn’t close the door.

On your own, for only a moment, you feel your insides twisting, frustrated at overreacting, heart warming at his words, just a little. 

“Pebble in a stream stuff?” You ask quietly, when he joins you once more, this time with a joint and his lighter.

“Immutable,” he says, voice flat as he focuses on lighting up, before taking a long drag. After a moment of holding the smoke in his lungs, he breathes out, watching it as he speaks, “like a river, if you throw a pebble in, it creates a ripple, but the current always corrects itself. No matter what you do, the river just keeps flowing in the same direction.” 

“Deep,” you muse.

“It’s from X-Men,” he responded, and there’s a beat, before the two of you break out into laughter at the absurdity of it all, of his philosophical ramblings being ripped from a comic book movie, of the idea of the two of you ever getting into this situation in the first place.

When the laughter dies down, you find yourself smiling at him, watching him while his grin is turned up to the stars.

“You say I don’t know you, even though we’ve been doing this for almost a month and a half now; I wanna know you,” you tell him as genuinely as you can manage in your tired state, and he turns to you with an unreadable expression, and you catch yourself before you act on the fluttering in your chest, “to make it more believable.” You add, and he nods, and his gaze goes back to the sky; if it was a little disappointed, you try not to think about it too hard, “so you don’t like cutesy dates like fairs, what do you like?”

Licking his lips as he thinks, he finally turns to you, eyebrow raised.

“Honestly?”

Why does his gaze right now make your pulse race?

“Honestly.” You dare not break his gaze.

“I like going to clubs with you, to see bands and shit,” he tells you, and... oh, you weren’t expecting that. There’s that soft, unreadable expression again, though he seems endeared by your genuine surprise, “but I sometimes get the feeling that you feel, uh, out of place?” He seems concerned.

“I mean, not really, it’s fun and all!” You try, but he gives a smirk.

“You don’t have to sugar coat it -”

“It’s sticky, and it feels weird with all the dudes trying to grind up on me when I’m like, meant to be with you. I always feel like someone’s about to pull out their phone, snap a photo and accuse me of cheating.” You blurt out, and Colson’s expression turned from surprised to amused.

“Stick with me then -”

“I don’t wanna be a bother; I’m not a music person, I shouldn’t be in like, a DJ booth I don’t think.”

“You’re with me, you can go wherever you want.”

The night is cool and crisp, and he’s got an early start, but the two of you sit out there, talking, laughing, actually getting to know each other. He tells you all about Cassie, about how proud he is of her, how much he misses her, and how proud she is of him in turn. You, in turn, tell him stories of yourself and Douglas from your childhood, of how he’d always been your biggest fan, and your first defender, and how you’d been to all of his premieres. At this, Colson’s eyes glaze over a little, lost in thought.

“I have no idea how this is gonna end,” he says gently, before looking to you, “but whenever you wanna call it quits, say the word.”

But you hear I’m read to cut and run at any moment, and you know it’s selfish, but it’s not what you want to hear.

“Thanks,” you respond, with a small smile instead, “same to you; don’t just stick around for my benefit,” you try to laugh, but it doesn’t quite come out right. It’s quiet after that, though it had to be said, and it’s not long before the two of you go to bed.

It’s a turning point, it’s where you start to really try to get to know each other, rather than just being around each other. Maybe it’s just hope, but it feels a little more real with each day that passes.

“Hello! Hello and welcome back, ducklings! Today we’ve got a very special guest! And if you’ve read the title of this video, you know who it is! That’s right, my boyfriend is going to try and teach me the basics of drumming!”

The comments of the video tell you that you both look so happy, look so cute, look so in love.

“You’re a good actor,” Colson tells you, as if he believes the starry-eyed looks you give him are a carefully calculated ruse. You, on the other hand, feel like a fool only moments from being outed as being in love with your fake boyfriend, which was ridiculous; he’s the only person who needs to believe it’s a ruse after all.

Even Douglas tells you the video is good, and suddenly you’re starting to feel like an asshole for lying to him for so long.

But it’ll work out. It has to. And neither you nor Colson is gonna be the bad guy. Because he’s not, no matter what he says .

He keeps buying you hot drinks if his alarms wake you up, and he keeps you close whenever you go out, and he gives you a blanket whenever you fall asleep in his trailer during breaks, and -

“Has Duck ever told you about how she found a frog when we were little, like a live frog,” Douglas was grinning over lunch, while you were slowly becoming more embarrassed by Colson's side, your forehead pressed to his shoulder as your brother recounted one of his favourite stories, “and she named it after me, because she was always a bit of a menace, but it got free, and mum and dad almost lost their minds when she came crying about how ‘Doug was missing in the woods!’” He grinned, both fond and a bit sharp, “they only realised she was talking about the frog when I joined the search party after getting home from a friend’s house.”

You heave a sigh, but Colson gives you a gentle, reassuring pat.

“No, that’s fuckin’ adorable, but no she hadn’t told me that; but I had heard about how you made the both of you duck costumes for your school’s Halloween,” and Colson gives him a toothy grin as Douglas flushes with embarrassment, though he seems endeared by the nostalgia of it all, “primary school, was it?”

“Not Halloween, it was a book fair,” Douglas corrected, and you surfaced finally, leaning into Colson, who wrapped an arm around you, and you level a soft smile at your brother, who returns one in kind, before his gaze flicks to Colson’s, and back. A smile. A nod. A silent approval. Fuck, you hate lying to him.

But you’re not above a little white lie to the internet for some advice.

r/AmITheAsshole posted by u/idkquackythrowaway

AITA for falling for my fake boyfriend and lying to my best friend about it?

So hello, throw away account because if either of them find this, I’ll be mortified and have to run away to canada and live as a goat farmer.

So I started ““““dating”“““ my “”””boyfriend””””, let’s call him C, a few months ago, because all of our friends kept accusing us of dating, and it was easier to just go along with it than deny it - there’s a lot of extenuating circumstances here; and yes I have issues lying to my friends, but I can deal with it for the greater good. It’s better for C and me in the short-term anyways.

Anyways so my best friend, D, is someone I’ve never lied to, we’ve always been so incredibly close, but now he’s getting to be good friends with C too, and approves of the two of us, but I’m just worried he’ll be betrayed if I tell him it wasn’t real.

Also, I might have real feelings for C, which he Does Not Have for me, so I feel like I’m betraying him too, by pretending that it’s not fake. ANd I wanna tell D about this, but then I’d have to come clean about everything, which....... its a lot. 

So Am I The Asshole for catching feelings in a fake relationship, and lying to my closest friend about it?

[324 comments]

The reaction is mixed.

And mostly unhelpful.

A lot of people are calling you the asshole, which, ouch, but you had kind of already come to terms with that. A lot more people, however, are just abstaining from making judgement, considering there was definitely more to the story. You’re not sure how to deal with those comments; you want to defend yourself, or give more context, but you also know you absolutely cannot. 

Eventually you decide to come clean.

“I’m in love with Colson.”

About the wrong thing. To the wrong person.

Douglas blinks slowly at you, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

“Really?”

“Really really.” You sigh, with an air of defeat, though this has him frowning, putting his fork full of pasta down. 

“What’s wrong, did he do something?” Douglas is playing the protective older brother, just as he has done for as long as you can remember, but it’s all you can do to shake your head.

In truth, Colson’s been fucking perfect; despite his reputation, he’s a fantastic - fake - partner. Perhaps it’s that you work together, so he doesn’t have to find a distraction outside of his main focus. 

“Duckling,” Douglas says it so gentle, taking your hand over the dinner table, “I’m happy for you, as long as you’re happy.” And what can you say to that? Another lie? You feel like you’ll be ill if you let another lie pass your tongue in front of Douglas.

“I love him,” you say, weakly, and you feel your eyes misting at the implication, the reality of your words. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I-” you choke on your words, and tears start to gather, threatening to spill, “I think I love him more than he loves me.” It’s not a lie, but it’s enough for Douglas. 

“I’m sorry,” he sounds so genuine, holding your hand tight in his, finishing dinner, and taking you both back to the hotel. He does the only thing he can think of to cheer you up; put on a movie on his laptop and wrap you up in blankets like he would when you were kids. The movie’s a little outdated, but he’s trying, and that alone makes you feel a little better. 

“Hello! Hello and welcome back, ducklings! Today we’ve just got a low-effort video, it’s just a top ten comfort movies from childhood that survive a modern rewatch! As decided by me and Douglas!”

Filming is set to move locations soon, from being on-location on the Sunset Strip to a back-lot about an hour away, somehow closer to the hills, and you feel like you can hear the ticking of a clock counting down.

“When filming’s over, we can end it if you want,” you tell Colson as you’re packing up your suitcases.

“Oh,” he seems surprised.

“Oh?”

“That’s soon,” is all the clarification he gives, but he doesn’t sound happy about it, “are you sure?” 

“I mean, I don’t wanna outstay my welcome,” you try to joke, but he makes a noise that you can’t quite decipher, “what?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Just thought it would maybe go until the premiere.” He admits, and you pause, actually surprised at his words, and he clears his throat, “it would be weird seeing you there if I was with someone else, right?”

“Right,” you muse quietly, before going back to folding your clothes, “that’s a year away still, I’m pretty sure.” You tell him, and he hums, but doesn’t seem bothered by it.

“Well I’ve got a few events before then I need a date for,” he says, noncommittally, “and we’ll see each other before then; if you wanna be convincing you can crash at my place if you wanna, in The Hills, at least for a bit, if you ain’t got anything else to do sort of thing,” he actually sounds a bit hesitant, and you swallow hard, before letting yourself smile, pleased.

“I think you like having me around.” When you look at him, he’s trying to hide a smile of his own.

“'course I do.”

[nemobookaholic]

What if... Loki where a 21st century Lady?

Scene 10

There is a possibility, Kevin might have lost Loki inside the crowd, which had gathered to watch ‘Change the guard’. He’s desperately looking for her and that is where we will leave him. For us it’s easy to spot her in the crowd. We get closer to the palace, following her. Amazing how calm Loki is. She is standing close to one of the gates, it must be painful with all the people pushing and shoving, behind her. She doesn’t care much, all she does is starring at the guards.

Suddenly Loki steps out of the crowd, not being noticed at first. She follows the line of guards, we assume she’ll change into one of them every second.

Nothing happens.

People start to point at her and we hear Kevin calling from the distance.

Now that the attention turns towards her, Loki takes a look down. She stops in surprise and because of the security guards blocking her way.

One of them yells at her, ‘Madame, please get back behind the barrier!’ while his fellows are staring.

‘By hel?!’ says Loki, ignoring the man.

We recognise Kevin, who is getting closer, fighting his way through the people. He has troubles with guards himself, as they won’t let him cross the street. We watch them discussing, while Kevin is gesticulating.

Loki however, let a knife appear in her hand, it must be hidden by a spell, cause only we are able to see it. At least some kind of magic is working. A evil grin flashes over her face as the guard gets closer.

Her body tense, ready to fight them. For the Last second, Kevin reaches her to deescalate the situation.

‘There you are! I told you to stay close to me,’ Kevin smiles at the guards, while patting on Lokis shoulder, ‘what did you think, to join the guards?’ he asks.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that I would become one of them and nobody would see me! But for some reason this world is blocking my illusions!’ Loki shouts, the knife flicker in her hand for everyone to see. Luckily just Kevin seems to notice.

‘Calm down, let’s go back home,’ he says, stepping between Loki and the guards. Under his breath he whispers, ‘stop it! They’ll arrest you.’

‘No mortal dungeon can hold me! I am the god of mischief!’ Loki is in the mood for fighting.

‘I’m sorry for her behaviour! I’m her therapist and I really thought we had made enough progress to allow her to watch the show. I’ll guide her back home, I promise.’ Kevin has turned around to the guards.

‘We’ll have to collect your personal data,’ the man in the front says, ‘where is your patient gone?’

Kevin turns around, while the guide is staring onto the spot, where Loki vanished.

‘What sort of psychosis does your patient suffer from?’ The man turns back to Kevin, just to realise, that he is missing too. It took him a second to realise, that the clumsy ginger had started running.

Now you may ask, how none of the other guards have reacted? Didn’t you watch them? One is trying to find Loki, he ran into the wrong direction. The other one got distracted by a stone that hit his head out of nowhere. He lies on the ground, disorientated and bleeding. The alpha-guard has to check on him first, what gives Kevin the needed time to escape.

He’s already through the gate and halfway to Green Park as he notice Loki nearby.

‘You’ll have to run faster, if you want to be on the winning team,’ she is laughing.

‘…,’ Kevin has no breath left, his head is red as a tomato. We can tell from the look in his eyes, how much he desires to yell at her.

The both of them run across the street, where the way is blocked by other guards. They show no reaction, like they have no clue what was going on, until the alpha-guard comes after them, shouting: ‘Stop them!’.

They change directions and run into a group of pedestrians. That’s the moment Loki chooses, to come up with a trick. She drops a glass ball, immediately the air gets consumed by thick smoke. Loki grabs Kevin by the arm, slows down and hauls him back where they came from. She pulls up Kevins hood and open her tied hair. They are walking like a couple in love.

‘What are you doing?!’ Kevin whispers.

‘Ssscht! Just act normal. Look down, your head is glowing like a bonfire.’ Loki snarls back. The couple makes it’s way through the crowd, a bit faster than necessary, but undetected at least.

The silence of St. James’s Park promises safeness. They stop at a bench for Kevin to rest.

‘Are you focking insane?!’ in his anger he can’t keep back his Irish accent, ‘ya balloobas! What where you thinking by running into the Palace?!”

‘Thank you Loki for saving me — my pleasure by the way.’ with a theatric gesture she leans forward, to give him a dead stare.

‘I’m not in the mood for ya games! Answer my question!’

‘Okay, okay! Calm down, you don’t have to push your saviour. I was trying to infiltrate the enemy, I wanted to spy on them. Unfortunately your world hates me,’ the frustration takes over, we hear it in her voice.

The answer brings a minor change to Kevins face, his anger is fading.

‘Why do you think the crown is your enemy?’ he asks.

‘I don’t want to tell you.’

‘We had a deal, don’t you remember?’

‘I remember our bargain different than you it seems. Wasn’t it one of the terms to have a so-called-session, where I have to answer your questions?’ Loki puts on a evil grin.

‘Great, ya can have ya therapy right here!’

‘Not a good idea, do you think they’ve stopped looking for us?’ the both of them look at each other. Kevin jumps back on his feet, they walk home in silence.

‘As soon as we enter the flat the Irish rushes into his room. Relief is flooding me. Yet he doesn’t slam the door behind him, as I’d expected. No, he is waiting for me to get in. Fine!

I take the old chair as I did last time. Kevin closes the door, walks to his desk searching in the mess of papers on it, looking for his notepad. Once he’s found it and set off a flood of papers, which he completely ignores, he sits down in front of me, waiting.

Let’s see who can play this game of silence better.

‘Hehem…,’ he is cleaning his throat. A sign that he is going to loose, ‘ah come on, ya know what I am waiting for! I’ve had enough of your games,’ he’s dead serious.

What a poor sport. If this place is my dungeon, he’s the warder. And if he wants a story he shall have one.

‘The truth is, I wanted to meet the prince. He’s such a cute guy — I have a crush on him since I can remember. I promise my intentions are noble and my plan was thought about well. Wouldn’t be there this ghastly problem with lack of magic,’ let’s see what he makes out of it.

‘Two things. First, ya still haven’t answered my question! What was that about the enemy? And second, ya really believe in that magic thing aye?’ he’s smarter than he looks like.

‘You need to understand, the crown would never accept me. Not even if I can make Prince Edmund mine. I just — I just wanted to see if there would be any chance. And for the magic… of course I believe in it. Told you several times.’ I’m rolling my eyes. How can he still doubt that?!

He is writing something, I start to wonder what his diagnosis will be. Might I be able to manipulate the result?

‘Where does this fixation for Prince Edmund come from? Last time you’ve known nothing about our political system. That’s clearly a lie!”

Whoops he caught me!

‘Look, I’ve been honest with you -‘ in a way, ‘- I may have not known about the system, but I’ve seen that face before.’

The whole story is build on his disbelieve in magic and other realms. I’m sure his tiny mind can’t cope with that. But, and that’s the important part, he’ll try to figure it out. Not if there is magic or not, but why I believe in it. That’s everything I need, to distract him.

‘Alright, guess that’s something we can work with. Tell me something about your magic.’ Hah! You idiot.

‘I am what you might call an illusionist. I can show you your greatest desires. With the right kind of - artefact, I’m able to canalise my powers to do even greater things,’ feed him slowly.

‘How do your tricks work?’

‘Oh come on! A sorcerer doesn’t need to explain his spells, right?!’ got you exactly where I want you buddy.

‘Than show me one. I’ll guess how you do it and you can tell me if I’m right.’

‘If you insist. Those are my magic pockets, I put all my belongings in there. To store it for later usage,’ let’s show him the drinking horn, ‘this horn for example. I had stolen it from my brother. It was his favourite, ehehehe. It can fill itself with every liquid one wishes for. Did me some good service.’ his face turns from astonishment to exerted.

This promises some amusement! ‘Your mindless staring starts to bore me. I thought you wanted to tell me how I did it?’ it’s hard to hold back the laughter, his face is priceless!

‘It is usually flat and unfolds once you press it!’ I see how those dull creatures use to fool themselves.

‘Want to have a closer look?’

He turns the horn in his hands and look at it carefully from every angle. He has it upside down, now is the time to ask, ‘what would you like to drink?’

‘What?’

‘If you could have a drink right now; what would it be?’

‘Uhm don’t know, maybe some tea,’ the horn reacts to the wish and fills itself.

‘You arse!’ Kevins eyes are wide in surprise, ‘how did you do that?!’ he’s not even angry.

‘Ahahahahaha! Look at your grimace!’ I can’t help myself, he looks so stupid. How he’s holding the horn, carefully now. With his trousers all wet and a puddle by his feet.

‘Is everything alright?’ the warrior queen appears in the door.

‘Yes, no worries,’ Kevin say’s, handing the horn back to me. I can’t stop laughing, this can’t get any better.

‘Have you peed yourself?’ The warrior asks.

My mistake, it got better. Tears are running down my face. I can’t remember the last time I was laughing this hard.

‘Yes, in a horny way. It’s still warm. Wanna come over to check?!’ Kevin keeps a straight face. Surprisingly Bea starts laughing too. For the sake of it Kevin joins in.

It’s weird, usually people are mad with me after I’ve played a trick on them. No clue why they are laughing.

Like it still wasn’t enough, the guy pulls down his trousers, standing there bare naked, showing us his butt.

‘Jesus, Kev!’ the warrior is covering her eyes with her hands.

‘Whoops… I forgot I was wearing no pants,’ his face and his butt turning read simultaneously.

‘Ehehehehe!’ I’m completely done! I do not even realise the toppling of the chair, until it’s too late. Lying on the floor, with a delicate point of view onto the gingers private part… lord knows he’s a ginger.

Not even covering my sight can make me forget this picture!

‘Is everything alright?’ the girl asks behind me.

‘Yes, expect for my eyes - have your feet ever seen the sun, or do they glow in the dark?’ I can’t hold back this comment. It’s awkwardly silent for a second, until the warrior agrees with me, ‘she’s right you know - what kind of sun blocker do you use?! I wish I could be that pale.’

Getting back onto my feet isn’t that easy, I need to turn away from that!

‘Lady’s would you stop discussing that topic and turn around please? I need to get fresh clothes.’ Kevin says.

I’m no longer looking into his direction, he was talking to you girl, hurry up!

‘Nothing I haven’t seen already, but if you insist.’ we hear him stumbling across his own feet. He must be ashamed - makes me feel guilty somehow. That is new.

‘Would any of you like some tea,’ I hear myself saying.

‘I’ll help you,’ the girl says hastily. We are leaving the room without waiting for an answer from Kevin.’

The more I write the trickster, the easier it gets. It’s a lot of fun. Nonetheless, if you have some comments or criticism, please let me know. I’m always willing to do it better.

[kainenmarlowe]

Deprived

It was close to midnight by the time Kainen reached his destination: a placid and tucked-away beach a few malms out from Costa del Sol. He was quick to unsling his pack from one shoulder and his polearm from the other. The former was allowed to fall where it may, the latter was thrust butt-end into the soft La Noscean sand, where it stood upright for only a second before tipping and falling unceremoniously to the ground. The display garnered only a glance over the shoulder and a roll of the eyes. At the end of a day as arduous as this, the only thing occupying his mind was the quiet swim ahead. If this didn’t clear his head, nothing would.

With a series of clicks and snaps, the buckles and fasteners of the hunter’s leather armor were released and it, too, sloughed lazily to the earth to cover his footprints. The sand could be swept off easily enough; it was the mud and dried blood from earlier which would be a chore. But that was a problem for tomorrow.

Only a few fulms out from the current reach of the tide, Kainen rolled back on his heels and fell in reverse with abandon, letting the soft sand cushion his rear. He brought his leg up with a groan to pull a filthy boot off his right foot, then again for his left. One hand then reached up to grab the collar of his undershirt and - in a swift, singular motion - he whipped the whole thing off and over his head before tossing it in the vague direction of where his armor lay. A protesting sigh followed as he lifted himself back to a standing position. The buckle at his waist was released with a ‘click’ and his pants collapsed around his ankles. The underpants, however, were staying on. Anonymity was hardly cause to abandon dignity. Besides, Halone was still watching.

At least, he hoped she was.

Kainen took a moment to enjoy the feeling of the warm air on his skin and the light coastal breeze which fluttered about the tips of his hair. The scent of salt on the wind instantly sparked his memory, triggering a poignant recollection of a better time - and for the briefest moment, his worries gave way to sweet nostalgia. The feeling was instantly fleeting, of course, but it did give him enough cause to consider the hike out a worthwhile one. He could feel his tension unwinding already.

A series of strides brought him waist-deep in the surf, and he dove forward into the first wave that greeted him. The cooler temperature, the washed-out sound, the weightlessness - it all proved to be instantly therapeutic. With a powerful stroke, he shot forward against the flow. Then again and again until the sea floor retreated below him. He curled into a ball before kicking his feet toward the surface to propel himself deeper. The water offered little resistance, for he was well-acquainted with its nature and knew precisely how to bend himself to best comply with its immutable laws. With each stroke, he sought to swim further and further out from the shore.

As soon as the changing pressure in his ears became noticeable, Kainen oriented himself skyward and had breached the surface with only a few minimal motions. The raven locks now covering his face like a mop were flung back with a swift jerk of the head, allowing him to observe the scene a significant distance from shore.

Stillness surrounded - the stars both hanging static above and dancing along the water’s surface below. A glance cast about revealed neither spoken nor creature in the visible vicinity. The only sounds were that of the water: the distant lapping of waves against the shore, Kainen’s own arms treading delicately back and forth, and the arc of droplets he had sent soaring overhead now pattering back to the sea. Significantly more relaxed, he took a lengthy breath in and rolled to float idly on his back - his gaze left to search the tapestry of stars above.

“This is not so bad,” he thought, well aware that it was only a feeble attempt to convince himself that a day slogging through muck to slay scalekin because some wine patrician wanted a unique flavor of handbag was anything but a far cry from the halcyon dream made real he had lived in Ishgard. He searched the sky, as if it would hold some sort of validation for him. The stars simply twinkled back, indifferent.

“This is...for the best,” was the justification he settled on, then. Out here, those around him weren’t susceptible to the danger which followed him. And they weren’t susceptible to his evidently harmful brand of social incompetence. Or his abject impotence in carrying out his vocation. They wouldn’t suffer for his failure any more.

“At least the populace at large knows not of my misdeeds. Not even the rest of the Order, it would seem. Only those present at the hearing know. And perhaps a handful of other individuals… Still, out here I cannot bring such hurt to the good folk of Eorzea. Or the people I considered my friends. I can simply disappear into obscurity. Indeed, this is a fate befitting a Sinner.”

Brow furrowed and jaw clenched as he allowed his introspection to run unchecked.

“But what of the impacted and afflicted in the Brume? Surely they will continue to sling their ire undeservedly at the Pillars, or worse - the Dravanians. Was it really best for the Order to have erred on the side of leniency for the sake of clandestinity?”

As the dissonance mounted, Kainen let out a heavy exhale through his nostrils - until no breath remained in his lungs. Having relinquished his buoyancy, he allowed himself to slip beneath the water’s surface and drift slowly downward. His train of thought followed.

“At the time, I was willing to let my dearest friends beg for Halone’s mercy on my behalf. For what? My inadequacy saw them punished for it. Objectively, the greater good would have been to hang me up in the central square at noon. They could place a signpost on my grave: ‘This man allowed your families to die. Sleep well knowing the Fury has wrought her justice.’ At least tensions would have eased and the people could more easily work toward the peace they deserve.”

One minute passed. Then another. The shimmering sky from before was naught but the faintest glow down here, and before long, the inky blackness had become so thick, the outline of the wispy raven hair in his periphery could no longer be discerned against the encroaching void.

Five minutes. He should have touched bottom by now. Perhaps the movement of the tide was enough to keep him suspended indefinitely, or perhaps the current had sucked him out further than expected...

Regardless, he was content to savor the sensations, or lack thereof. Heightened though they were, all of his senses had now become almost completely muted - and not just the five primary ones. His body temperature could be ice cold or feverishly hot for all he could tell. His limbs could be anywhere, or they could have simply vanished alongside his track of time. He had not drawn or released breath in some time, and his pulse had slowed to a crawl.

His inner monologue followed suit - receding into restful silence, save for a last, lingering thought:

“At least mother did not live to be disappointed. She only knew me at my best. For as inadequate as I have become, at least she could claim to have been proud until the end.”

The small comfort afforded by this reassurance was enough to tip Kainen’s mind into balance upon the fragile fulcrum that held him at the point between consciousness and lack thereof. It was this sustained twilight which he had been trained for years to achieve and maintain, even amidst the chaos of battle. Though it had been well over two cycles now since he had last slipped into this state, the deprivatory environment into which he had unwittingly allowed his own distractions to lead him ended up providing the perfect conditions for an unplanned recurrence.

In maintaining this state with no temporal articulation - allowing himself to fall neither to unconsciousness nor waking - all distinctions between now, earlier, and later had drifted away; all perception had dissolved into a nebulous, fuzzy ether; and, perhaps most importantly, his troubles, fears, and preoccupations retreated like waves from a rocky shoreline. It was in this neutral, timeless dreamscape - free of waking life’s miresome web of anxieties and pursuits - that stillness was at its most absolute. And it was at the peak of this stillness where Kainen felt a presence. It was one which had not appeared or made itself known; rather, it seemed to have been uncovered upon the washing away of corporeal sensation. The imperceptible static of his current consciousness began to coalesce into discarnate echoes; and eventually, into a synchronous, discernible notion:

“O what great cowardice is on display, with thy writhing and thy self-dismay!”

It was a ‘voice’ of the same formless quality as one’s own inner monologue, yet the thought was not his. The language wasn’t even his native and singular Eorzean, but the message was clearly understood, having come from within. The cadence was achingly slow, and its tone wholly derisive.

“Canst thou feel my ire, o knight of men? Tis not a death in service of my kin which I rue. Nay, tis my afterlife which I resent - here as part of thee, who hath since proven wholly unfit to carry my essence.”

Kainen could feel himself teetering at the brink of that familiar moment when one can feel their dream collapsing around them, yielding to a swift and inevitable awakening. But something was holding him there in that liminal space - and he couldn’t tell if it was his own force of will, or something else entirely.

“Art thou a man? Art thou a mouse? Or art thou but a foolish child, resigned to cast thy litany of laments into night after dispassionate night? Didst thou not think the warrior’s path to be fraught with the trials of thy hopes and fears laid bare upon the rocks?”

Though formless and voiceless, the presence certainly emanated a sort of hostility - one which Kainen was eager to escape from. Any attempt to open his eyes, thrash his body about, or otherwise awaken, though, was utterly futile. He was paralyzed. Senseless and unable to control himself in any manner, he felt completely subject to the will of this indeterminate entity.

“Still, thy temples stand amidst the smoulders, do they not? Art thou not capable of this selfsame resilience? Or dost thou revel in thine self-imposed exile? Tell me, knight of man, what is it that thou seek? For all which now lies in the grave of thy pride is a deplorable heap of misery.”

Kainen made a conscious attempt to speak or even to give a thoughtform reply, but it was for naught. He was completely helpless. A tightening sensation began to permeate the space and at that point, a dire realization emerged: he was still underwater.

“If thou art so resigned to withdrawal in the face of adversity, so be it. Thus is my directive, then: retreat not to thy tenuous climes of finite security. Retreat instead...inward. As thou hast done in times past. For while thy mettle hath faltered, mine burns fiercer than ever!”

“Abandon thy perceptions and surrender thyself to me!”

“Forsake thine eyes!!”

Though entirely existing within Kainen’s subconscious, the voice was thundering. Its echoes reflected infinitely off of distant, nonexistent walls, gradually morphing into a cacophonous, booming dissonance which only served to intensify the heightening sensations of pressure and exponentially increasing panic. The chorus decayed, finally, leaving in its wake an acute, high-pitched ringing that intensified in equal measure with the suffocating weight of his now-collapsing consciousness.

So this was to be it, then. This was how he was going to die. Not in defense of country or comrade; nor fulfilled and surrounded by love. It was to occur unseen and unceremoniously; an accident of absent-minded caprice and nothing more.

Indeed, this is a fate befitting a Sinner.

A cooling air could be felt caressing his skin, then. A concrete sensation, at last. Reflexively, a sharp breath was drawn in, triggering a harsh cough in turn as a mix of salty water and mucus washed back in his throat. Kainen could feel himself expelling, but into what was beyond him - at least until the small bursts of light behind his eyelids coalesced into colors, then shapes. Focus eventually came to reeling mind and body, both, and his eyesight aligned to take in the scene.

He was on the beach again; and standing, curiously enough. It was still nighttime, that much was clear - though he caught no indication of how much time had passed. A wave brushed against his heel and enveloped his foot to ankle-depth, prompting the sand to gently give way beneath. Beleaguered by stimuli, he groaned as he took a few weary steps out of the surf and onto dry sand - casting a sidelong glance to find his clothes, pack, and weapon a good distance down the shoreline. As he began the slog to rejoin his personal effects, he breathed a heavy sigh - behind it, as much relief as was exhaustion.

Though quite content to simply breathe air again, Kainen couldn’t help but entertain the thoughts and implications emerging in the back of his mind: how much of what had occurred was real, or was it entirely imagined? A hallucination, perhaps, or simply an overactive imagination?

He hearkened back to the training he had undergone eight-or-so years prior, in preparation to join the Dragonsong War. Aside from the plentiful physical honing were the mental exercises imparted by his instructors: interstitial meditation, focal release, sensory deprivation... The results were undeniable, especially when aided and amplified by the equipment and slowed physiology they had granted him. But nothing like this had ever occurred. No hallucinations. No voices. No loss of memory or consciousness. He had always been in control.

...Right?

[ko-chan-the-blueberry-donut]

O Fortuna Chapter 4: It Begins, A Miraculous Ladybug fanfiction

Karin: Chapter Four, here we go!

Disclaimer: I don’t own Miraculous.

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“Come feel my heart It’s beating like a drum and I confess When you’re around It’s like an army’s Marching through my chest And there’s nothing I can do I just gravitate towards you Pulling on me like the moon.”

—The Cab, “La La”

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Chapter Four: It begins

Chat Noir landed beside Ladybug, grinning in greeting. Alya quirked an eyebrow at him in suspicion.

“Where were you, you mangy cat?” she asked. Adrien just continued grinning.

“Nowhere! Just touring the city.” Chat Noir replied. Ladybug made a noise, not convinced, the journalist in her not satisfied.

“Hmm, right.” She spoke, “Were you touring around a certain bakery, perhaps?” a coy smile bloomed on her features. Adrien’s luminescent eyes widened.

“How did you—I mean, what makes you think that, LB?” he quickly covered up his exclamation. Alya continued to smirk.

“Oh, no reason,” she began, pretending to be nonchalant, “Except that all day you’ve been like ‘Marinette is so cool!’ and ‘Marinette is so brave!’ since we defeated Jackady.” Ladybug did an impression of Chat Noir’s fangirling for emphasis. Chat looked at her sheepishly.

“She is though! She totally saved my dad’s ass.” he said in praise.

“Yeah, but we do that all the time along with saving all the other citizens of Paris.” Alya smirked. “What’s so special about Marinette?” she teased him. Adrien blushed.

“Well, you know… it’s our job to save people, but she didn’t have to do it.” Chat explained.

“It wasn’t always my job.” Alya said, feeling the insecurities rise in her. She wasn’t originally chosen like Adrien. Chat waved his hands.

“No! That’s not what I meant—you were meant for this too! Look how well you do at protecting the city.” Chat Noir reminded her. Ladybug sighed.

“But she would’ve done better.” Alya said mournfully, laying her chin on her arms. Chat placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder.

“But remember—whoever she was—she chose you. She saw something in you that said to her that you were more fitted for the job.” He assured her. She gazed at him solemnly.

“You still think about her, don’t you, Adrien?” Alya inquired, already knowing the answer. Chat Noir looked away.

“Sometimes.” He admitted shamefully. He looked up at the starry sky. “I like to think she is watching over you and me and feels proud.”

“It isn’t your fault she left.” Ladybug told him.

“I know… I just wish I knew why she left.” Chat Noir said sadly. “I just want to know if she’s okay.”

“Well Tikki refuses to tell us who she is.” Ladybug told him. “Probably best to move on from it, Chat. You know how upset Tikki gets when you mention the previous Ladybug.”

“Yeah…” Chat deflated. He looked to the stars, melancholy. The red head furrowed her brow. A smile then developed on her features.

“Sooo… shall I expect you asking out Marinette soon?” she inquired. Chat made a choking noise.

“What?!” he exclaimed, his green eyes wide. If the mask wasn’t covering his face, Alya was sure she would’ve seen a blush across his cheeks.

“Come onnnn, you flirted with her every time you saw her today. Chat Noir having a crush?” she teased. She then took his hand and dropped her voice to mimic his. “’Oh Princess, you’re welcome to become a superhero with me so we can watch the stars together and then make kissy faces.’” Alya cackled. Adrien blushed even more.

“It’s not like that!” he denied embarrassed. “She just reminds me of someone!”

“Yeah sure, lover boy.” She said, not believing him. “You don’t flirt with just anyone. You don’t even flirt with me.”

“That’s because you’re like my sister.” Chat replied.

“So Marinette is definitely not like your sister then?” Alya smirked.

“Exactly!” Chat said, glad she got it. However, he realized that she tricked him and his ears reddened from shame. “I hate you sometimes.”

“Whatever.” Alya dismissed him grinning, standing up and readying her yoyo. “Just don’t be presenting me with any new kittens you two have too soon, okay?” with that she flew off into the air.

“Alya!”

------------------------

Gabriel breathed a sigh, hearing his son’s window open and close at long last, and pushed himself away from his son’s bedroom door. His heart was heavy as his mind was swimming with many problems, and half-solved solutions to meet them. Recalling that Plagg was a super cheese freak, he made sure the camembert was at the front of the fridge in the kitchens before his son snuck down there to feed his kwami.

Retreating to his office, Gabriel felt tired, but knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep that night. He gazed at the portrait of his wife, a dread filling him. Why now? Why did this have to happen to his son? Did Master Fu know that was his son when he chose him?

‘That insufferable old man doesn’t know when to quit, does he?’ Gabriel thought bitterly. His fists clenched at his sides, nails biting into his skin, making his palms bleed. ‘He’s already ruined my life enough and now he’s going after my son?’

Anger flooded him then, the memories assaulting him. He had the urge to go to the old man’s shop himself and give him a piece of his mind. He couldn’t believe Fu had the audacity to choose his son when he knew how much the Miraculous brought pain to Gabriel and his family. Did he have no remorse? No shame?

Gabriel let his frustration ignite with a flame as he punched the wall beside his wife’s portrait. The pain in his hand registered in his mind, but nothing compared to the pain in his heart.

He could go up to Adrien’s room right now and take the Miraculous away. He could throw it into the ocean and let it never be seen again. The more Gabriel listed off possibilities to be rid of the cursed item, the more inviting the opportunity sounded.

‘But what of Hawkmoth?’ a voice asked inside his mind. ‘If Adrien isn’t there to help Ladybug, Hawkmoth could seriously harm people…’

‘Let them be harmed,’ Gabriel thought back stubbornly, ‘I’m not allowing Adrien to suffer like I did. In time, he will see it was good for him.’

However, he remembered all the times Adrien has become miserable because of his decisions to keep him safe. About all the times he had begged Gabriel to be on the outside—to be free.

“I’m protecting him!” Gabriel whispered, banging his fists on the portrait. The sound shocked him, and he looked up into the painted image of his wife’s eyes. So gentle and kind. He sighed, laying his forehead against the portrait. “I’m protecting him, aren’t I…?”

Silence answered him. His eyes clenched shut—he refused to let tears fall. The loss of his wife was like a forever open wound. He didn’t want Adrien to ever feel this way. To lose someone he loved because he was a soldier for the greater good. Destiny could be cruel.

‘And if Hawkmoth finds him without his Miraculous, what will his destiny be then?’ Gabriel’s conscious sneered, the reality of what Gabriel had to let Adrien do sinking in. If Hawkmoth found out Adrien was Chat Noir, he would definitely target him. And if Chat Noir didn’t have his Miraculous, what then?

‘Death’

Ice blue eyes looked to the ceiling, wondering if this would be the time the Gods answered him at last throughout all the misery he suffered, but as always, the Gods were silent.

If he took away Adrien’s Miraculous now, it could spell doom for his son. He’s already in too deep, and there was nothing Gabriel could do about it. He opened the safe behind his wife’s portrait, determination in his veins. He’s seen Adrien be reckless as Chat Noir. It wouldn’t do for him to be this reckless anymore. Someone had to protect him.

The sparkle of his wife’s Miraculous met him inside the safe. He had forgotten how brilliant it shown under the light. He gently fingered the jewel, remembering how his wife had handled her miraculous with care, and held it close to his chest.

“Duusu,” he called softly, “Please Duusu, I need you right now. Your time is needed once again.” He told the jewel.

Nothing happened. The jewel stayed silent, as if mocking him. Gabriel slumped his shoulders in dismay.

‘It won’t work for you,’ the voice in his head mocked in mean spirit, ‘You no longer believe…’

Gabriel sighed, rubbing his temples. If he couldn’t go out into the field to protect his son, who could? Who would Duusu want to be her wielder if not him? He sat in his office chair, running a hand down his face in exasperation.

Who could he trust to protect his son if not himself?

They would need to be determined—to be kind and humble. Someone who doesn’t goof off at the job and understands the gravity of the situation. Someone who can think of their feet and be resourceful—wait…

Gabriel looked up, grabbing his laptop. He loaded up the Ladyblog by Adrien’s friend Alya, and searched for a certain article. The picture was from the Evillustrator incident, with Chat Noir holding a certain pigtailed girl to his chest during battle.

He clutched the Peacock Miraculous in his hand, resolve filling him.

If Fu could choose soldiers, so could he…

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Marinette bit her thumb as she sketched out a new design. After yesterday’s disaster with Jackady, she was glad for a peaceful Sunday where she could work on designs. She hoped she could get this one done before she went fabric shopping with her family. She snuggled deeper into her knitted red and black infinity scarf. She wore an oversized gray Micky Mouse sweater, the sleeves striped gray and black, with black leggings and black ballet flats. She wiped pencil shavings off her sketchbook, her eyes concentrated on the way she wanted the fabric to fall, imagining it in her mind’s eye.

“Wow, Marinette! Your room looks so cool!” someone praised.

Marinette’s eyes bugged out comically as she screamed, throwing her sketchbook in the air. She whipped her head to the sound to see Adrien Agreste in her room, wearing a long sleeved black shirt with his usual overshirt and his blue scarf that she had secretly made him with his usual blue jeans and orange sneakers.

The urge to hide behind her bed was strong as her legs shook from surprise.

There was a boy in her house.

There was a boy in her room.

Adrien Agreste was in her room.

Her mind went into overdrive as she could feel her brain try to self-combust. Adrien seemed perfectly fine with standing in her room, his hands at his hips, as he surveyed her walls of designs and the fabric all over her desk.

Urges to usher him out of her sanctuary were high, but she held her ground. She couldn’t be rude, even if he was intruding in her space. Besides, she had to figure out how did he get here in the first place…

THEN she can kick him out.

“Um… h-how did here get you?” Marinette stuttered out, mixing up her words. She flinched and tried again, “How did you get into my room?”

“Oh!” Adrien looked embarrassed. “Sorry for startling you, but your parents said I could just head up here to see you. I didn’t think you’d react this way.”

Oh. That’s why. Her traitorous parents.

Speaking of which, she heard a creak of her trapdoor open and she glared at them peeking through the opening, obviously spying on her. Her parents quickly shut the door when they realized they were caught.

“It’s fine.” Marinette fidgeted, twiddling her thumbs. “What do you need?” she asked, confused at why he was there. Adrien smiled at her, making her heart pound.

“Well, I wanted to come over to thank you for saving my dad yesterday.” Adrien told her. He then looked bashful, making Marinette think of a baby doe with how cute and innocent he was, “Also, I kinda wanted to… hang out.” He admitted. Marinette looked at him shocked.

“Hang out?” she questioned.

“Yeah,” he smiled, touching her shoulders. “You’re really cool and I know we don’t hang out a lot, but I wanted to get to know you more.”

She could’ve sworn she heard her mother squealing under her trap door, but she chose to ignore it.

“You don’t have to do that…” Marinette looked away, unable to tell the pure, innocent soul that she didn’t really want anyone’s company. Adrien looked confused.

“I do.” He assured her. “You’re always by yourself. Maybe we can be friends?”

Marinette’s brain went into overdrive at the statement. Friends with Adrien meant seeing Alya more, which would make it harder to hide that she knew she was Ladybug, which might lead them to discover she was Ladybug, which then could cause a lot of mayhem…

Marinette shook her head vigorously, banishing her internal freak out. She grinned shakily, stepping back, allowing herself to be free from him touching her.

“Um… that’s really sweet, Adrien, but I’m supposed to go fabric shopping with my parents—“

“Oh sweetie!” Sabine immediately opened the trap door, “We just wanted to tell you we can’t take you fabric shopping today, so you’re free to do whatever you want today!” Sabine chimed in hastily. Marinette looked at them bug eyed, scrambling to find another excuse to get out of this, but it seems her parents had other ideas.

“I could take you fabric shopping.” Adrien volunteered smiling. Marinette gave her parents the death stare, to which they just grinned, and she turned to Adrien, smiling nervously.

“You sure you wouldn’t mind?” Marinette asked, hoping he would back out. Adrien nodded.

“Sure! I’m used to it with my father.” Adrien shrugged.

“Oh thank you so much, Adrien!” Tom said graciously.

“We really appreciate it!” Sabine added. “Have fun, Marinette!” with that, they shut the trap door, leaving the blonde and raven haired girl alone.

‘Traitors.’ Marinette thought. Adrien just grinned at her.

“Ready when you are.” He told her. Marinette nodded, trying to calm her fast beating heart, and grabbed her purse.

“Okay, it shouldn’t take too long to walk. Are you okay with that?” she asked him, wondering if maybe he would prefer to take his car. Adrien only seemed to be a ball of sunshine.

“Of course not! It will give us time to talk.”

Both climbed down the stairs of her room and exited through the bakery. A cool breeze brushed past them, making Marinette and Adrien shiver a bit.

“Summer’s still a ways off.” Adrien commented. Marinette nodded, rubbing her hands together. The blonde boy turned towards his companion and offered his arm.

“Shall we, Princess?” he said charmingly. Marinette stared at him, blushing. Realizing what he said, he flattered. “I mean, I was, uh…”

Surprisingly, Marinette couldn’t help but giggle a little, happy that even cool people like Adrien can get flustered, and walked a little ahead of him, turning back with a teasing smirk.

“Well, aren’t you coming?” she asked, surprising herself at how welcoming she was, but finding that perhaps it’s because Adrien is as harmless as a chipmunk in one of those Disney Princess movies was probably why she was okay with it.

Adrien grinned and ran to catch up with her, and they were off to the fabric store.

--------------------------

Marinette wanted to drool at the sight of so many fabrics, but refrained with Adrien there, and raced inside. Adrien chuckled as he watched her.

She immediately started touching and feeling everything, her mind cataloguing what was good material and what wasn’t from her hands. Adrien found it adorable; however, he shook his head to rid of the thought. Stupid Alya….

Yet he couldn’t help but be mesmerized as he watched her in her element. Her bright blue eyes practically sparkled and her expression was full of wonderment. He wouldn’t lie that sometimes he couldn’t help it if Marinette just seemed to pull him in—something about her made him want to gravitate her way. Ever since he offered his umbrella to her on that rainy day, he couldn’t help but feel like he knew her from somewhere else—like he’s met her before—but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Though as time passed, he found getting close to Marinette was a challenge. She didn’t seem to want company and ran away from it when it came her way. She was very jumpy when it came to him, Nino, and especially Alya. He wondered if maybe she still was holding a grudge about the gum incident, but when he did get a chance to force her to interact with him, she treated him nicely, so he didn’t think she held any bad blood.

Perhaps her reluctance to converse with him as Adrien made him more pushy with her as Chat Noir. She was painfully shy, and Adrien wanted to bring out her smile like he had on that rainy day. When she smiled, it reminded of him of rays of sunshine peeking through on a cloudy day. It was radiant, much like his mother’s, and Adrien felt the need to see it more and experience the calming feeling it gave him that all was right with the world.

Marinette made a clicking noise, drawing Adrien away from his thoughts. He caught her standing in front of some blue fabric. She appeared to be caught in between a royal blue and carribean azure blue, fingering the fabric. Adrien walked up beside her, observing.

“Both are good colors.” He told her. Marinette nodded, still looking pensive. “Though if it’s for yourself I think red and black suits you just fine.” He commented, gesturing to her scarf. Marinette winced violently, a reaction he wasn’t expecting, and shook her head rapidly.

“No!” she exclaimed. Blushing, she dropped her gaze, lowering her voice to normal level, “I mean… they are good colors but I want to make something calming. I just want to make a simple empire waist, knee-length, dress to go with my black leggings… though I don’t really have any scarves to match…” she trailed off, thinking. Adrien looks around, finally coming across the yarn section. His eyes widen when he catches sight of a pretty yarn that was mixed with Surf Blue, emerald green, light green, and turquoise that matched Marinette’s eyes. An idea began plotting in his mind, as he turned away from it and face her. He reached and touched the carribean azure blue fabric, smiling at her.

“This one I think.” He told her. “Make it empire waist like you wanted, but make sure the dress kinda flares out with the skirt. You should make it long sleeve since it’s still cold, and a round neckline.” Marinette pictured the product in her mind’s eye, getting excited at the prospect. She rocked on her heels and grinned.

“That sounds pretty nice. Something simple and comfortable to wear, but has some flirty aspects to it.” Marinette turned to him, smiling, “thank you, Adrien.” Adrien shrugged, smiling.

“It’s no problem. When your dad’s a fashion designer you sorta pick these things up.” His smile then turned into a teasing grin. “Soooo is there anyone you want to look flirty for?”

Marinette’s entire face exploded into a pretty blush that Adrien found endearing, and she stammered violently.

“N-n-n-nope! Nadda! I don’t wanna look flirty for you—I mean anybody! ANYBODY I mean!” Marinette freaked out in her mind, scared that Adrien might know about her crush on him. Adrien just looked at her confused, wondering if maybe he pushed her too far, before she cleared her throat. “Anyway—as you have noticed I don’t hang around much people so there’s no one to really look flirty for.” Marinette added, her face still red.

“That’s okay.” Adrien told her. “You can look good for yourself. Isn’t that the most important?” he said. Marinette snuggled into her scarf, smiling shyly.

“Mm. It is.” Adrien rubbed the back of his head, looking sheepish.

“Also… you can always hang with me.” He told her. Marinette’s eyes widened. “I really like hanging with you..” Marinette’s ears turned pink. She turned to the fabric hastily and picked it off the shelf.

“I’ve decided to get this one since you gave me a great idea! Let me go get it cut.” She sped over to the counter, leaving Adrien to blink confused at her behavior.

‘Definitely really shy.’ Adrien noted. His emerald eyes turned towards the yarn he was looking at, checking to see if Marinette was preoccupied, and hurrying to grab the yarn and paying for it.

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“T-thank you for coming with me today, Adrien.” Marinette thanked him, remembering her manners. They approached the bakery and turned to each other. Adrien smiled down at her.

“It’s no problem, Marinette.” The blonde said. “It was really fun! You definitely are talented.” He said sincerely. Marinette smiled gently at him, and Adrien felt warm from it. He coughed. “I’ll see you!” he bid goodbye, and quickly ran off to avoid embarrassment.

‘Stupid Alya.’ Adrien cursed again, his cheeks aflame.

----------------------------------------------------------

Gabriel sat at his desk, thinking intently. How would he go about this? It’s been about twenty-four hours since he came up with his plan, but he didn’t know how to carry it out. He couldn’t really go up to her house and give her the Miraculous. It would be too suspicious. He didn’t even know where she lived.

‘Way go to, Agreste. You can’t even do your plan correctly.’ Gabriel deadpanned in his mind. A knock at his door startled him, making him hide the peacock miraculous in a drawl. He cleared his throat. “Come in.”

Adrien entered nervously, worried he may have interrupted something, but Gabriel sighed in relief seeing him.

“Adrien, what is it?” he asked his son. He clenched the drawl under his desk, paranoid that Adrien knew what he was planning. Alas, Adrien was unaware what was going through Gabriel’s mind.

“Father, I wanted to let you know I was back from Marinette’s.” the blonde said. Gabriel perked up at the name.

“Marinette? As in Marinette Dupain-Cheng?” he asked. Adrien nodded.

“Yeah. Is there something wrong?” the blonde asked. Gabriel shook his head.

“No… I just… is she one of your friends, Adrien?”

“Well, I hope she’ll be…” Adrien told him nervously, rubbing the back of his head and looking at the floor. “She’s really nice.”

“I see.” Gabriel replied, a plan forming in his mind. “Why don’t you invite her over for dinner one night? You can even invite those two friends you’re always hanging out with.” Gabriel explained.

‘They can distract each other while I do what I need to do with Mademoiselle Dupain-Cheng’ he thought. Adrien’s eyes lit up in shock.

“Really? You’re okay with that, Father?” Adrien gaped at him. Gabriel nodded.

“Yes. You are my son—it’s only natural I see who you are hanging out with.”

“Oh well… you’ve never done that before.” Adrien told him, still reeling in surprise. Gabriel internally winced at the reminder of his bad parenting skills. However, remembering his plan, he would soon be making it up to his son.

“You’re right.” The man answered. Getting up from his desk, he approached his son. “After dealing with that insufferable Jackady I realized some things and I would like to try to make it up to you.”

Adrien just stared at him, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, before a grin broke out on his face.

“Oh! Thank you Father! They’ll be on their best behavior, I promise!” Adrien exclaimed, hugging him. Gabriel smiled tenderly at his son, hugging him back. They separated and Adrien looked a little awkward.

“What is it?” Gabriel asked.

“It’s just… do you know how to crochet, Father?” Adrien asked suddenly. Gabriel blinked. His son was never one to be involved with the crafting sense of fashion, but not one to complain for a chance to bond with his son, answered.

“Yes, it’s been a while but I should still know a thing or two.” Adrien smiled.

“Great! Because I am making a present and I need all the help I can get.” He said bashfully. Gabriel placed his hands on his son’s shoulders.

“Well, let me seen what materials you have and we can get started.”

Stressing and planning could wait for now. Everything would fall into place soon.

----------------------------------------

Karin: Okay… I think I probably did bad on this chapter. I don’t know. Hope you guys enjoyed it. As you can see, Gabriel is trying to change a little.

See ya Next time!

[chestshot]

Creature in the dark love to scare the little children. The grownups say a prayer, and the demons are forced to return to the shadow realm. Never get caught in a blackout. Some never find their way home. Come in as soon as the streetlights illuminate the path of the righteous. The beetles and moths have gathered in a procession, to welcome the night. “Where were you?”  “I don’t know” was never the right answer. It is never going to be the right answer. “Stop crying. I’ll give you something to cry about.”

In this house, the belt and extension cords keep the disobedient in line. Sticks leave bruises. No Bueno. Back straight. “This is going to hurt me more than you.” I never understood that logic. “So why can’t I do it to you, like you did it to me?”  “Porque yo soy la puta que te pario (because I am the bitch that birthed you). I’m doing this because I love you. Your soul is in danger.” We used to kneel on the bare floor covered in rice. We were made to carry these bags above our head for twenty minute and think about how we were not supposed to fight. She went easy on us this time. “Now kiss your sister and tell her you love her and you’re sorry.”

What is obedience, and what happens when it is forced? Believe in unity. Value brotherhood. Seize any opportunity to join hands. Even as the big hands crush the small hands, like a fist full of lavender flowers. Don’t think so hard. The guardians have done all the thinking for us. Some things do not need an explanation. Guardians discourage the children from scrutinizing every detail. All we need is to believe. Can’t we all just come together as one? If I wanted to find everlasting life, why did I have to lay it down to begin with?

           The Knights of Columbus hosted Sunday breakfast every month. It was a fundraiser. As if the crusades did not provide enough funding. As if the parish had not given enough during the second collection. My mother would always hand me a folded dollar bill when the collection basket came by. It was a little secret between our Father and I (Mathew 6:1-4). I was planting a seed for his kingdom, and if we did not fork over the dough, let’s just say there was hell to pay.

           I went to Sunday school. I had to. Otherwise I could not get baptized or have my first communion. The instructor told us that Jesus loved us, so he died on the cross for us. If we loved Jesus, too, we had to love each other. We colored the nativity scene and learned a few prayers. We were taught a theology approved by the Roman Catholic Church, and classes were $25 per child. At the baptism, donations were formally encouraged. Those must have been some expensive ass crayons. I was a good boy, but never good enough to be an altar boy.

           I had refused to help in the family garden in the front yard one time. The bathroom floor was cold on my cheek. The sweat and tears running down my neck fell on the yellow linoleum. Now a grip on the arm, bent around my back. Too tight on the wrists. Cheeks got so hot that the salt water started to dry up and irritate my skin. Was it worth it? I know it was fucking hot outside, but couldn’t I have just done a shitty job or at least bullshit? Close the door. The neighbors can hear. Plus, the ac is on. I’ve been getting ass beatings since I was alive. If not from the guardians, then from bad decisions. I want to make them happen, but I always keep getting in my own way. Sometimes the floor can become comfortable. Just waiting for the blackouts to swallow me whole.

           God helps those that help themselves…. Wait.. That’s not in the bible!

                The Sunday breakfast consisted of yellow “just add water” scrambled eggs. I was too young to get hooked on coffee. Pass me the milk. I ate next to a church girl with an intellectual disability. Did God make her like that? I did not know. All I knew was that we were all equally as hungry after service. I felt like all the dark holes in the floor were so much smaller back then. If I stepped on a crack, I could always find my balance, or the guardian would help me till I recuperated.

“Hey guys. Where’s Jesus’s cloths. This is not funny. Oh… you guys hung him like this? Why? He was giving everyone free healthcare and food and shit. He doesn’t deserve this shit! Bring him down! Now!”

                Societies fascination for making atonement. Drink and drive? Dui. Tax evasion? Prison time (unless its some shit like a white collar crime). $50 dollar fines for parking in front of a fire hydrant, that one time I moved out of my parents’ house and rented a room from some asshole named Evander. I was not a child anymore. I was learning from experience. If I only learned to come home on time. They say “Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.” I could have only imagined why, but the dark holes were still manageable. No claws yet. No transformation.  The delinquencies of adolescence were not yet ripe. There was not enough blood.

           I helped myself to a glass of orange juice. High pulp. Tart. Almost as refreshing as the forgiveness of sins. Dixie paper cups. An old couple. They must have both been in their eighties. With not much time to live, they both enjoyed the pancakes with light butter. No syrup though. Diabetes, you know. He pulled the chair out for her. He took off her sweater and placed it behind the chair. He wiped his head with a towel, then his mouth. He regained his balance. and shuffled to his own seat. He led the prayer and they both sat down to share (maybe their last) Breakfast. Listened to your guardians and maybe you can live as long as them.

           One time, Father Manuel unofficially sponsored Mission Tortillas. “Como Dios Manda” literally means “How God Orders” or more precisely “What God Demands of us”. He was calling out the young women who decided club wear for a Sunday mass was appropriate. Father Manuel roasted them. “Esta bien que sea Qinceniera. (it would be cool if this was a Quincenera) Pero esta es la casa de Dios (but this is the house of God).” We were all sinners, but some of us did a better job at hiding it. We were all trying to avoid the transformation. We all needed to love. We just needed time to patch things up.

           Mother Theresa believed that suffering was how you got closer to God. She refused to let some children receive treatment, so naturally, they would die. Their souls belonged with the Lord. For a while, I started to believe that I was suffering, and therefore, there was no God. I think we suffer because we think we must, like it’s all part of the greater picture. I also think we suffer because we all have things we conveniently forget about. We should know better.

It’s not normal to stay up all night. It’s not normal to operate a vehicle under the influence of anything. It’s not normal to lie to the person you are with. It’s not normal to wake up at 3 pm every fucking day. It’s not normal to put things up your nose. It’s not normal to get in the car with a complete stranger. It’s not normal to think that you can live with people for free. It’s not normal to pass out at the bar. It’s not normal to constantly burn bridges. It’s not normal to forget what you did the night before. The blackouts swallowed me alive, over and over and over. I couldn’t see the streetlights. There was no one left to pay for my sins.

August 15thth, 2020, 2:30 A.M.-ish

I said I was going to work on it las week, and then the week before. I had checked into the catacomb of wasted ambitions. The creatures of the dark had left. I looked in the mirror and could not accept what I had become. What big claws and teeth.

                I had a dream I was filling up one cup with another cup, like an endless water mill. I’m not sure why I always felt this way. An endless repetition that never ends, like new ideas filling old ones, but never quite arriving at a solution, or like fish eating fish eating fish… Like a two gallon hourglass, constantly being flipped on it’s other end, ass up, face down, full of itself. The air bubbles, trying to escape. The lump in the throat of my life, always sinking into my stomach. The transformation was complete. I was living in a blackout.

           The beta, or Siamese fighting fish, is native to Thailand and Cambodia. You can pick them up at your local swap meet. I used to love going to the Broadacre swap meet after Sunday mass. I got my hands on everything an eight-year-old should never get their hands on: laser pointers, chained wallets, pocket knifes, fart bombs, shock pens, pet’s I wasn’t able to take care of. I’m not sure what the fish were so angry about. Probably from being confined to a tiny ass sandwich bag.

I got my ass kicked in a bar fight once, in 2018. Three against one. I do not remember. I was asking for something that was not on the menu. I was being annoying. Swings broke out like a Florida coastline and faster than you can say Tallahassee’s televised turnout tremendously terrified pterodactyls. Too small. Smack. Too slow. Smack. I fell to the floor, head between my knees. My jeans ripped. All I could see was stars at that point. I raised a barstool over my head and threw it against the bar, not sure if it landed on anyone. Always bust out the bar stool when you know you are going to get rocked. I ran out through the front entrance and I called 911. I left my bicycle behind. The cops were nice enough to drive it down to me. They told me that the security guard told them I was trying to buy drugs. I told them it was a hate crime. They told me to go home. I told them I would never go back to that bar again.

           Pigs in a blanket. I think there was bacon. Bacon or sausage. No. I think there were both. I woke up at 6am to eat this at 10am. 10:15 if you consider waiting in line. Why couldn’t everyone break bread the way we did? People always have to start a fight during a meal, or beer, if you’re a man of culture who would prefer to drink their meals. The indigestion was the worst. I could not eat breakfast too early because my stomach lining was still sensitive from the binge the night before. This did not stop me from killing a whole order of carne asada fries at night. I felt the weight of a bowling ball in my diaphragm when I woke up the next morning. Drinking water felt like swallowing marbles. This wasn’t normal. I’m not going to lie.

Well that’s great news, kind sir, because I can not condone dishonesty. Now please leave the patrons alone or get out of the bar.

           My older sister became an usher at church. She showed everyone to their seats. She wore a sash that said “Orden” or literally “Order”. She asked people if they could scoot over. She made room where people were resting their purses or when someone decided that they needed to sit with their legs wide open. Me and my younger sister always got pinches during service if we were joking around or being distracting. How did the people really bring their kids to church like that? We were so rambunctious!

The endless cycle of Life: that our guardians had to beat the shit out of us. So that maybe we could learn. Or so we would avoid the transformation. In the end, we resent their efforts and only make it worse for ourselves. I try to push myself up, but my left arm is too mangled to lift any weight. The dark holes just seem like the better option sometimes.  If the blackout won’t take me now, then maybe tomorrow.

The holes are patched up today. I found my way through the dark. My guardians were there all along.  I just needed some space. My mind is clear. I can focus again. I can have breakfast again. The nights can be long and dark, but I know the demons have left. My house is in order. My mind is clear. I finally have a clean conscience. I want to go back to the time when I was a child. Back to a time of trusting that the streetlights were guiding me all along. When I could hear my mother’s voice and know in my heart that the night was near, but only to visit.

Drink some water. Jesus fishes. Say a prayer. Missing pieces. Dying wish is - God’s my witness – you just know** * the nighttime* ** only** came to** visit**.

[tobns]

SNOWED IN: A (Tragic) Christmas Story — part three.

In Which We All Contemplate Sacrificing Alexander for the Greater Good

Jen gives up on trying to induce bonding, so the rest of the evening is spent in relative peace. We’re free to do whatever our hearts desire, so long as we aren’t booking ourselves a one-way ticket to a jail cell and we don’t choose anything for dinner that has a Christmas tree sticky note with Jen’s name on it. I opt to sit downstairs in the living room with Jackie, Jack and Leven, Jack channel surfing to find something other than the ‘ridiculous Hallmark movies with budgets of twelve dollars’.

Leven’s doing her nails on one end of the sectional, legs stretched out as she paints her toes an alarming shade of yellow with concentrated precision. After she finishes a toe, she’ll stop, turn to face me and open her mouth so I can feed her a piece of trail mix – specifically, the cashews or the M&Ms. God forbid she eat a dried cherry.

I’m sitting under a heating blanket, which only adds to my heated demeanor still lingering from earlier. Alexander has stayed far out of my sight for the remainder of the day, so at least it’s nice to know he’s able to tell when he’s not wanted and isn’t going to push an apology like he might have years and years ago. Dayo has been rather suspiciously unaccounted for as well. I’ve tried asking Jackie on three separate occasions throughout the evening to go to Dayo’s room and make sure he doesn’t have Alexander hogtied in the closet, but she pretends that she’s either enthralled with the channel surfing or that I’m speaking a language she doesn’t understand.

Jackie sure did make one hell of a point yesterday. Perhaps there was a reason we’d all grown apart, whenever it happened and whether it was a gradual thing or the after effects of a sledgehammer coming down. Sure, Alexander’s girlfriends and their possessive nature played a pretty big part in us falling out, but maybe there had been a little bit more to it than just that.

“Jack, can you pick a movie already?” Leven mumbles after I toss an M&M into her expecting mouth.

He shifts his head in Jackie’s lap so he’s looking up at her. “When I find one that isn’t deserving of a fucking Razzie. Seriously, who makes these disasters, and what studio puts forth the money to produce them?”

“I thought you’d already decided their overall budget was a ten-dollar bill,” I point out. Jack simply points at me with the remote for emphasis as he keeps flipping. “Jackie, I am begging you—”

“—I am not going to see if Dayo is committing a felony!” she finishes for me. “Let him for all I care. Maybe that’ll teach ol’ Blondie up there a lesson.”

“I’ll be sure to remember this for when we’re all sitting at Dayo’s murder trial in two weeks.”

“Why do you care so much, Belly?” Leven asks, beating Jackie to the punch. “I mean, you were all but ready to decapitate him earlier.”

“Yeah, Belly,” Jackie echoes. “If anything, Dayo’d be doing you a favor.”

“What’s this about favors?” Jen asks as she passes through the living room, presumably making her way from the kitchen. She has inadvertently become my savior, keeping me from delivering an explanation that I’m not even sure I have. It’s only a few threads of my good conscious that are on board with saving Alexander’s life from a certain death – the more I try to find a reason, the more reasons I come up with as to why I’m perfectly justified in turning a blind eye.

“Nothing, we’re just discussing the one Dayo’s doing for all of us by getting rid of Alexander.” Jen’s mouth forms a slight ‘O’ as she nods. She then jabs a thumb over her shoulder, pointing behind her.

“Well, I could use one from you guys, if you don’t mind. The wind’s finally stopped, and I need some help unloading presents from my car.”

“You actually bought us shit?” Jack asks, resting a hand over his heart. “Jenny, I’m touched.”

“There’s still time to take it back.”

“Don’t be crazy.” The four of us slowly pull ourselves off of the couch, wrapping blankets or jackets around our shoulders and pursuing a pair of shoes as we start to make our way to the door. The snow is still falling down lazily in thick white clumps when I get a brief glimpse out the window, the sky behind it an odd shade of black.

“I’ll be out there in a second,” Jen calls. “I’ve gotta go find my keys.”

Jack goes ahead with opening up the door, a rush of cold air hitting me square in the chest. I instinctively pull the blanket a little tighter around my chest as I step outside. Everything has morphed into even more of a winter wonderland, the snow already a thick blanket on the ground and only growing by the second.

“Which car is Jen’s, you think?” Jack asks as he leads the way down the stairs, the snow crunching underneath his feet. I try to step in his footprints, cutting down the chances of slipping and falling.

“The nicest one, duh,” Jackie replies. “You know she didn’t roll up in a fucking Prius.”

“You drove a Prius for like, three years,” Leven reminds her. Jackie stops as she turns back around, making a face.

“Yes, because I was a high school sophomore, not an Academy Award winner.”

Leven nods in refutation, and I all but push Jackie down the next step so we keep moving. The less time I spend on these stairs, the higher the probability of me leaving here in one piece increases.

My feet start to sink into the snow by the time I reach the ground, the hems of my sweatpants brushing up against it. “I’m actually terrified to see the final total of how much snow this place has accumulated,” I mutter.

Jackie shudders at the thought. “We might never leave.”

“Which I’m sure would be right up Jen’s alley,” Leven adds.

The sound of the door up on the porch closing catches our attention. “Yo, Jenny!” Jack calls out. “Hit the button on your car already so I can grab some gifts and head back inside! It’s cold!”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Jen sounds an awful lot like Dayo.

Sure enough, Dayo’s bounding down the stairs as he shrugs on his ridiculous wintergreen flannel. He’s had it for ages, and I know this because I tried to sneak it into a donation box and a trash can on many different occasions when I’d stop by his place in LA. “You guys helping with presents?” he asks. I simply nod.

“Was Jennifer behind you?” Jack questions, peeking around from behind the trunk of what I think he’s established as Jen’s car.

“No,” he replies, coming to stand down next to me. “She said she had to go find her keys.”

“So,” Jackie says as she sidles up next to Dayo. “What’d you do with Alexander’s body?”

Dayo scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You really think I did something to him?”

Leven, Jackie, Jack, and I all respond in unison. “Yes.”

I hear the sound of the door to the house open up again. The porch lights are off, so we aren’t able to see who it is until they’re a few steps away from being on the ground. I figure out that it isn’t Jen this time again either before they even come into view – Amandla and Willow don’t exactly whisper at the quietest of volumes.

By the time Alexander, Jen, and Josh all come sauntering down the steps in two different intervals, I can’t do anything but roll my eyes at how gullible all of us are. I doubt Jen even bought us anything; the first class tickets probably cost enough to suffice as our Christmas. Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas, I think. Your present is a one-way trip to hell.

“Jen…” Jackie drags out warily. It’s a very good thing that Jen never got into gambling, because her poker face is absolute garbage. “Why are we all out here?”

“Is this Alexander’s funeral?” Willow asks. Alexander rolls his eyes, arms folded tightly over his chest as he leans up against the hood of one of the cars.

Somewhere inside her, Jen finds her gall and glares at all of us with steely eyes. “No,” she responds defiantly. “You guys – namely Alexander – screwed up my bonding exercises, that’s one thing. I wasn’t really taking that seriously.”

“You weren’t?” Jack repeats.

Jen’s face falls in a deadpan. “Jack, I flee from any and all organized activities. It’s why I left public school faster than you could say extracurricular,” she says. “But I thought if it was gonna get you asshats to talk again, then I’d suffer through it. And we were doing so well up until Ludwig over there opened his freakishly big mouth and went right for the fucking glue of the group.” I don’t know whether I should feel a small inch of contentment or offense towards that.

“So now you’ve forced my hand, resulting in my having to get creative.” Her arms cross as she pops out her hip, staring at us expectantly. “We aren’t going back inside until you idiots love each other again.”

Josh instantly bursts out into laughter. “Oh god, that’s a good one,” he says, wiping at his eyes. Jen however, doesn’t lighten up any. “Wait…are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m messing around?”

“Jen, I thought we agreed we were partners in crime on this!” Josh whines.

“And you were a terrible partner in crime,” she retorts. “The only crime you’ve committed since showing up here is wearing that tacky ass shirt.” Josh looks down at his Charlie Brown Christmas sweater, frowning.

“This is ridiculous,” Amandla states, the mouthpiece of all our thoughts. “Seriously, Jen, let’s stop doing laps through the Nile.” With that, she brushes past me and heads right back up the stairs towards the front door. Jen doesn’t try to stop her, just stares blankly into the empty space as she waits for something.

I move to follow after Amandla once she’s made it up to the door, stopping only once I realize Amandla hasn’t actually made it inside yet. She’s tugging on the door just to meet resistance. It will not budge, no matter how hard she pulls. My eyes snap over to Jen, who’s got the beginnings of a rather smug smirk curling along the corners of her lips.

“What the hell?” Amandla yells out, echoing out into the night. “Why is this thing locked?”

“I told you!” Jen shouts back. “No one is going inside until I’m seeing a group hug so genuine it brings a frozen fucking tear to my eye!”

“Jen,” Leven says slowly. “You do realize it’s nearly midnight, there’s still snow coming down to add on the foot-and-a-half on the ground, and it’s, oh I don’t know, below freezing?”

“Well Levvy, maybe that’ll motivate all of you to get to singing Kumbaya a little bit faster.”

Amandla comes bounding back down the stairs, searching for a way to get up underneath the blanket I have draped around my shoulders. “This isn’t gonna go well,” she says to me quietly. All I do is nod.

Alexander sighs, dragging a hand down his chin. “Look, Belle, I’m sorry about earlier,” he says begrudgingly, as though the apology will cleanse him of all his sins and wrongdoing. “I spoke before I thought—”

“—not uncommon for you—”

“—stay out of it, Jackie,” Alexander growls.

“I mean, I tried, and look where that got us,” she defends herself. “You went airing out the details of Isabelle’s sex life, which I didn’t really care to know that much about.”

“Like you haven’t had a five-year subscription to mine, the way you run commentary on it!” Alexander fires back. Jackie’s hands only rise higher.

“Hey, I’m not the one who’s type is ‘how close of a knockoff Isabelle girlfriend can I find?’ She’s oblivious as it is, someone’s gotta look out for her, Douchewig.”

“God, why haven’t you let that nickname die yet?”

“We’re talking, we’re talking…” Jen muses in observation. “This is good.”

Dayo rolls his eyes. “Jenny, this is the exact opposite of good. You should have known that the minute you invited Ludwig we’d all go postal. He is the root of all our problems.”

“Excuse me!”

“You heard me, Ludwig!”

Already, I find myself starting to cower a little farther into the blanket huddle Amandla and I have created. I’ve never witnessed Dayo and Alexander get genuinely angry with one another – annoyance, yes, that was more common than anything, but nothing near this. Any second now, I’m waiting for Dayo to punch Alexander. Apparently, Jen senses this too as the tension begins escalating at a trajectory far beyond our control.

“Boys—”

Alexander seems to lose what little tact he has left, swiping a handful of snow off the hood of the car behind him and lobbing it right at Dayo. It hits the flannel, knocking him square in the chest. Dayo glares at him, and Alexander simply gives him a look that’s meant to challenge him.

Dayo takes it, happily retaliating with the biggest piece of snow he can pick up off Jen’s car and heave Alexander’s way.

“Words!” Jen screeches. “Use your words!”

“Gladly!” Dayo says, his voice dripping in feigned cheer. He scoops more snow off of Jen’s car, and with every handful he sends hurtling Alexander’s way, he emphasizes with a single word. “Would. It. Kill you. To. Not. Be. An asshole?”

“Would it kill you to let shit go, damn!?” Alexander yells as he ducks behind Jack’s rental car for cover.

“Dayo I swear to god if you dent the rental that is in my name, you are paying for it!” Jack shouts. Dayo pauses his snow assault on Alexander, flames dancing in his eyes.

“Is that just the wolf pack motto? Make Dayo pay for everything? Why wasn’t I informed of this before I signed my life away to the cult?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the cheapest person on Earth,” Amandla groans, her arms wrapping around my waist so we optimize our body heat.

“What are you talking about, Dayo?” Jackie asks, shaking her head.

Dayo points an accusatory index finger at Alexander. “The real cheapskate over here loves to just rack up all the bills and then put my fucking name on them, and it got old! I drew the line when he parked my car in a ‘no park’ zone at that supermodel’s birthday party we crashed, and I had to pay for the ticket plus the tow truck’s drop on-site fee!”

Jen’s voice is dangerously quiet. “You mean to tell me that we have all been dancing around each other’s necks all awkwardly and shit because the two of you were fighting over a motherfucking parking ticket?!”

“IT WAS THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS!” Dayo roars.

Jen has finally reached her breaking point, lunging directly for the two of them with a handful of snow that she arms herself with. She chases them through the front yard, throwing snow at the both of them while Alexander and Dayo resume throwing it at each other. The rest of us stand there on what’s left of the sidewalk, watching the scene unfold. The winter wonderland has quickly evolved into a winter warfront.

“A parking ticket,” Jack repeats dully. “I had to play the middle man for six months because of a parking ticket.”

Saying it out loud seems to help him process, because no sooner do the words roll off his lips does he go running off into the snow to catch up with them, his war cry echoing out into the quiet nighttime.

“Dear god,” Jackie groans as she goes taking off after him. Secretly, I think she’s using Jack’s involvement in this whole mess as an excuse to throw a couple of balls of ice right at Alexander’s head. And maybe Jen’s, if the opportunity presents itself.

Amandla, Josh, Leven, Willow and I all look at one another, unsure of what to do from here. None of us have any dogs in this fight – up until Jackie tackles Alexander a few minutes later, attempting to literally bury him in the snow, and then we have to intervene.

Amandla and I decide it will at least take the two of us to pry Jackie off of Alexander, each of us grabbing a side and attempting to pull her away while still keeping the blanket remotely around us. Jack is bathing Dayo in snow, which Leven and Willow are trying to break up, and Josh is holding Jen by the waist to usher her away while she struggles to get back in the ring.

We acted more mature six years ago.

“Jackie, give it up!” Amandla spits, nearly pulling Jackie’s arm out of socket. I must not be on the same wavelength with Amandla in the way I usually am with Jackie, because I missed the transmission that left me to deal with Alexander, or at least, be the wall that keeps Jackie from going back for the vocal cords. At least I got the blanket.

One of Alexander’s hands come to rest on my shoulder, and I instantly whip around. I don’t even have to verbalize my confusion, the daggers whirling from my eyes as I glare at him send him back a step or two, hands lifted slightly in mock arrest.

“Hopeless!” Jen yowls as Josh drags her up the side staircase towards the porch. “You morons are hopeless! Not even Dr. Phil could save us!”

Josh finally lets go of her, Jen stomping towards one of the hanging plants on the porch. My guess is, she’s rummaging for the spare house key, since keeping it on her person would have been too obvious a hiding spot. She runs her hand through the pot, a small look of puzzlement washing over her face as she slides to the one next to it. She does the same thing, rummaging around for the key. Her eyes then start to grow wider and wider, moving to each individual hanging plant and performing the same thing. Her expression gives me no reassurance.

“Jen…” I say cautiously.

“Belly…” she calls down just as nervously.

“Why do you have that look on your face?”

“I don’t have a look on my face?” Her voice is squeakier than ever.

Amandla frowns. “You have a look on your face that says you’ve fucked something up.”

“Me? Moi? Psh,” Jen says, voice getting higher and higher each time as she deflects with the wave of her hand. “Naw. No. Never.”

“Jen?” Josh asks quietly.

“The fucking house key isn’t here!” she wails.

“The what isn’t where?!” Dayo repeats, voice strained. Poor Dayo. He’s come to the brink of his sanity being unraveled one too many times today – it wouldn’t surprise me if we had to go to the hospital tomorrow because he’s somehow managed to develop an ulcer in record time.

“I swear it was right here!” Jen shuffles back over to the hanging plant she started at, digging around inside of it in search for the key. “That was the whole reason I even went through with something as dumb as locking us out – it’s always a foolproof idea when you’ve got a spare key!”

“Nothing, I repeat, nothing is foolproof when it comes to us,” Willow states. “We defy the way of the natural universe. Foolproof plus us? Automatically cancelled out. We are the fools foolproof doesn’t work on.”

“Not helping, Wills,” Jen whines.

“So are we stuck out here?” Jack says as he dusts snow off of his jeans.

“No,” Dayo answers before Jen gets the opportunity to. “No, I refuse. This is not happening. We are not stuck out here. Over my dead body.”

“Frostbite is a silent killer,” I mutter.

Jen comes thundering back down the stairs, Josh right on her heels like the lost puppy he is. “Okay,” she starts, thinking out loud. “Alright. How the hell are we gonna get back inside?”

“Is there a back door?” Leven tries. “Every house has to have a back door.”

Amandla nods eagerly. “Yeah, and if you’re anything like Dayo, you leave it unlocked.”

“This one doesn’t,” Jen answers. “But there is a garage door down on the side of the house, it goes through the basement. We’ve got more than enough muscle to get it pried open.”

“So basically, we’re going to break back into your house,” Alexander reiterates.

“Do you have any other ideas?” Jen snaps. He immediately withdraws, quiet. She nods. “What I thought.” Pointing ahead, she begins marching around the side of the house. “Roll out, gang!”

We all amble along behind her, wading through the snow that’s brushing up against our ankles. Jack is still trying to shake snow out from inside his t-shirt, Dayo keeps grumbling about how we’ve gotten his flannel wet – he was going to grace us with its presence again by wearing it tomorrow – and Willow has given up on walking, hitching a ride on Josh’s back.

When we reach the garage door, which Jen neglected to tell us was in the pitch-black shadow of the house and down a fucking hill, she’s standing next to it expectantly. “Muscle,” she summons.

“What?” Dayo asks, hands settling on his hips. “You aren’t gonna give it a whirl?”

“I have the upper body strength of a linguine noodle.”

Alexander slides past me (he apparently decided to bring up the rear so no one could get any fun ideas and try to kickstart round two by jumping him) as he joins Dayo in front of the garage door. Manually opening one shouldn’t be rocket science, of course, but that is exactly what it will become knowing the two of them.

They start at the bottom, trying to at least get some separation between the door and the concrete. The rest of us stand back, remaining as quiet as possible while we watch them work. After a few minutes of trying and failing with that tactic, Alexander stands up. “Let’s try you down there and me up here, see if evening out the force works.”

Dayo stares up at him. “Dude, what kind of made up physics is that?”

“Well clearly your version wasn’t working out too well, I’m just trying to offer a fresh perspective!”

“Jenny, you sure we can’t just heave-ho Ludwig through a window?” Dayo asks innocently. “Pray for jagged glass?”

Willow rolls her eyes. “You two need more manpower,” she insists, taking up the spot in between Dayo and Alexander. “Alexander, get back down here, and on my count, push it upwards.”

“What?”

“Do what now?”

“Do you want to stand out here and freeze or do you want to make progress?”

Jackie interrupts them before they get a chance to answer. “Listen to her, knuckleheads.”

Dayo and Alexander both fall silent, and Alexander does as he’s told, kneeling back down. Willow counts them off. “One…two…three.”

There’s a loud groaning noise, metal screeching as the garage door lifts slightly off the ground. I have to admit I’m slightly amazed, if not at the fact that it actually worked but at the fact that Willow, the baby of the bunch was the one thing that made the significant difference.

Dayo and Alexander are both also astounded by this that they become entirely obsolete, staring at her in such amazement that they leave her to push the garage door up to a height we can all squeeze under all by herself. When she finishes it, she dusts off her hands and turns around to face us.

“What?” she asks when she sees how we’re looking at her.

“You might be tiny,” Josh finally says. “But out of all of us, you’re the biggest.”

The garage is dusty, pitch-black, and a safety hazard if I’ve ever halfway seen one. With every step, there’s something else to trip over – I nearly bite the dust on four different occasions, stumbling into bikes, skis, and a leaf blower that Jen claims belongs to her nephew. Amandla has to catch and steady me each time.

We all huddle around the door, each of us looking at it expectantly. Josh is closest to the door itself, his hand finding the handle. “C’mon miracle, c’mon Christmas miracle…” he mumbles, as if he’s getting ready to roll a dice. He then jiggles it, attempting to force it open.

Nothing.

“It’s locked,” Josh announces, and we all groan.

“Move out of the way, Hutcherson.” Leven pushes through our little clump, pulling a bobby pin out of her hair. “If this trick worked on a trailer unit, a Parisian hotel room, and the sketchy alleyway entrance to my apartment, it’ll work on anything.”

“Leven Rambin, my hero,” Jackie whispers.

It takes her a second, and I can hear the click of the lock even over the sound of Jack’s heavy breathing – he must be shutting down and going into hibernation mode. “Voila,” she says, pumping her fist in victory.

It’s a stampede to get inside, each one of us eager to be the first one to get in the presence of insulation, heat, and a dry ground.  

“Ah, heat,” Jack sighs contentedly as we all spread out in the hallway, taking off his t-shirt and a fair amount of snow falling to the floor when he does. My face scrunches up in contempt. “What, Izzy?”

“Not all of us are Jackie – we don’t appreciate seeing you shirtless.”

“Okay,” Jen sighs, resting her hands on her knees. “I am officially done trying to mediate with you fuckers. Done.” At that, we all breathe giant sighs of relief. She frowns. “You guys are awful.”

“Sorry, Jenny,” Josh says, reaching up to ruffle her hair. “Can’t fix something that’s not broken.”

“That’s a damn lie; we’re as broken as broken gets, and that’s on a good day.”

Jen hits the button to the garage door to close it back up, turning the lock back on the door. “If you guys want to be Grinches, then be my guest. You’re stuck here anyways, I think that satisfaction alone will suffice.”

“It ought to, you selfish, selfish woman,” Jackie mumbles.

“All I want for Christmas is for you to stop asking too much of us,” Dayo adds. “We’re the bare minimum kind of people. Not a single one of us is an overachiever.”

“Hey,” I protest, to which everyone glares at me.

Jack rests a hand on his hip as he pats my shoulder patronizingly. “Try as you might, Belly, but how well does that work out for you?”

Good point.

                                                          ...

I wake up the next morning to blue and red lights and the sound of someone using their fist as a miniature battering ram.

I don’t remember crashing on the couch downstairs in the living room with Jackie, Jack, and Amandla, but I can feel the after effects of it as I sit up slowly, my spine aching in ways I didn’t know possible. The Netflix home screen is glaring up at as from where we apparently forgot to turn the TV off last night, my eyes bleary.

“Mm…Jackie,” I mumble quietly, leaning over and shaking her. “Jackie.”

“Go away, Taylor,” she groans almost incoherently, her voice muffled by the blanket she’s got pulled up around her nose. I frown, pushing some of my hair out of my face as I glance back over at the door. The blue and red lights are a dancing blur through the frosted glass, and I can see the shadows of someone standing on the porch. Two and two very quickly equals four.

That wakes me up pretty quickly, and I duck down behind the couch. My shaking gets a lot more violent. “Jackie, wake the fuck up,” I hiss. “There are cops at the door.”

Both of her eyes fly open, staring up at me like a deer in headlights.

I stay hunched down as Jackie takes a tentative glance over the edge of the couch, almost instantly snapping back down. “Why the hell are the cops here?” she asks me.

“Like I know!” I whisper.

“Maybe they’ve come to collect Alexander,” she tries.

“For what?”

“Tax evasion? Underage drinking? Possession? Perpetuating incompetency via social media? Bad acting?”

I roll my eyes. “Be serious, Jackie.”

“I am – did you not see Grownups 2?”

I glance around the living room; Jack and Amandla are still sleeping peacefully, and no one else seems to be downstairs with us. The house, for the first time this entire vacation, is quiet. “What do we do?”

Jackie begins patting down her lap, searching for something. She spots her phone on the floor, bending in ways that would bring the circus scouts calling to get it. “What are you doing?” I ask as she starts typing furiously.

“Texting Jen,” she replies, and I stare at her like she’s lost her mind. “What?! We are bound to this couch – if they see someone moving around in here, they’ll call for backup or some shit, and the last thing I need this Christmas is to be apart of some accidental police standoff all because we started strolling around like nothing’s fucking happening!”

“Okay, first of all, you need to lay off the procedural dramas,” I tell her. “Second of all, what makes you think Jen is gonna hear her phone go off if she hasn’t heard the cops banging on the door?!”

Suddenly, we hear sounds on the footsteps, our heads snapping in the direction of the staircase. Down strolls Josh Hutcherson in a plaid robe, like he doesn’t have a single care in the world.

“Get down!” Jackie whisper-shouts through gritted teeth, catching Josh’s attention. He immediately hits the deck, the action so rapid that he slips and falls down at least three steps before grabbing ahold of the banister. The noise is somewhat loud, and I wince.

“What the fuck?!” he says, and Jackie and I both put our fingers to our lips. He starts again, this time quieter. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”

“There are cops outside,” I inform him.

“How the hell did you not see the lightshow?!”

“Cops?” Josh whispers. “Why are the police here?”

“You tell us!”

“Okay, there is no need to cop a ‘tude with me, Fuhrman.” He lifts himself up a little bit to see if he can get a glimpse out the window. “How did they even get here?” he asks. “There’s like, two feet of snow on the ground.”

“Maybe they attached their little lights onto a horse’s head,” Jackie says, turning to me for some sort of affirmation.

“Can we worry about their means of transportation later and focus on the real problem here? What are we gonna do?!”

Jackie sits up a little bit. “I nominate we send Josh to the door. He’s easily the most likable.”

Josh’s jaw drops in offense. “Why me? We could just send Isabelle, her cleavage in that tank top could get us out of any kinda warning we’ve bestowed upon ourselves.” It’s my turn to lose control of my jaw, it falling a little as I glare at him.

“Sexist much?”

“It’s not my fault you own very, very revealing clothing! I mean, you wonder why Ludwig’s so into you, have you looked in your closet lately?”

“Focus!” Jackie snaps her fingers. “Josh, you’re…the most decent out of all of us, you go to the door.”

“It’s not my house! I don’t think I’m gonna pass as a very convincing Jennifer, Jacqueline.”

The knocking returns, much more intense this time around. Jackie’s eyes forcefully shoot in the direction of the door before she looks back expectantly at Josh. “Go,” she mouths. He huffs, running a hand over the top of his head to fix his hair before he straightens back up, walking down the rest of the stairs with purpose. Nervously, but with purpose.

As he passes by the couch, he shoots Jackie a look. She rolls her eyes, waving him along.

“Remember, if all else fails, just say we’ve got Alexander Ludwig upstairs and we’ll happily hand him over,” she throws out last minute, before ducking back down.

Jackie and I do our best to lay as flat against the couch without waking up Jack or Amandla but still have a gauge on the unfolding situation of what’s happening as the door. It creaks open, Josh greeting both of the officers. Suddenly, breathing doesn’t seem so necessary.

“Are you the owner of this house?” a voice much deeper than Josh’s asks, and I feel my heart stop. Jackie has taken to squeezing my hand to alleviate some of her anxiety, and it takes everything in me not to slap her or yelp in pain. Her grip is like a vice.

“Um, I’m her…husband,” Josh replies slowly, and Jackie clamps a hand over her mouth to force the laugh back in. I roll my eyes at his response – Josh might be the most likable, but he’s also the worst liar. “Is everything alright?”

“We’re sorry to bother you this morning, Mister Lawrence,” an even deeper voice than the first says. Jackie’s eyes are closed as she uses every ounce of concentration she has to keep quiet. “We’re here on behalf of the alarm company.”

“Alarm company?” Josh repeats, and Jackie and I look at each other confusedly.

“Yes sir. Last night after midnight, your alarm system was tripped and the company reported a break-in to our district.” Jackie’s eyes widen – apparently, we’d had all the right ideas in trying to get back inside, but Jen had forgotten to disarm the fucking alarm system. That, or it just went straight ahead and alerted the cops, not even bothering to send out the warning shot. “The snow prevented an officer from getting here any sooner; we wanted to stop by and make sure everything was alright.”

“Oh, yeah,” Josh says after a beat of painful silence, false laugh falling from his mouth. “Yeah, silly me – the wife wanted me to get another box of ornaments out of the garage, and we never go out that door. I guess I forgot to disarm the system, too busy trying to please the missus. You know how that is, right fellas?”

Again, silence follows, and if I could, I’d melt into the couch cushions.

“Well, as long as everything’s alright here,” one of the officers finally concedes.

“It is,” Josh rushes to answer. “Really. Thank you, officers, for stopping by. You have a Merry Christmas now!”

Josh all but shoos the police from the doorway, and as I peer over the edge, I catch a glimpse of him delivering one convincing wave before he slams the door back shut. He keeps his nose pressed to the glass, waiting until they presumably leave. When they’re either far enough out of sight or gone, Josh spins back around, slumping up against the door.

Jackie and I pop back up from behind the couch, Jackie draping her arms over the top. “Any horses with little lights on their head?” she asks.

Josh ignores her entirely. “Jesus Christ,” he mumbles. “That went horribly.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Jackie responds. “How the hell did we just…not realize we set off the fucking alarm?”

“Because we’re us, Jacqueline,” is Josh’s weary reply. “The better question is, why did we think that any of last night’s escapade would just go over scot-free?”

“Because we’re idiots,” I offer.

Josh simply nods, combing a hand back through his hair. Jackie perks up a little after a beat of silence has passed.

“Box of ornaments?” she asks.

A sly grin slips onto my face. “Mister Lawrence?”

“The missus?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Josh growls.

“You better go wake the missus up,” Jackie says. “Because you know the cops are gonna be back in a few hours, demanding to talk to the real owner of the house.”

“And don’t worry, Joshie,” I add. “We won’t tell Jen how you’re dying to be her husband.”

Josh doesn’t say anything else. He just flips us off, before tightening the knot on his robe and retreating back upstairs.

[orionsangel86]

Part 2 - Episode Review of 12x15

Part 1 for 12x14 review

Of the past three episodes this one was my favourite, but of course it was, it had Cas in it - however small his part was. I think it was the best structured for the story as well though and for where it left us in terms of speculation and meta. Basically I have a lot to say.

Davy Perez returns for 12x15 and I think he had a lot of fun with this one. Lucille makes an appearance and I am sure that fans of the Walking Dead recoiled in horror watching Dean Winchester carry that horrid bat, I also enjoyed poor suffering Castiel dealing with the crazy “lizard people” man and the Queen making an appearance (much to Misha’s delight I’m sure).

Other smaller moments I liked – the overlapping conversations both Dean and Sam had to Cas and Mary respectively that led to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where it was easy to mishear Dean saying “I love you too” to Castiel. In a Perez episode. When his last episode was 12x12. Which was the episode where Cas confessed his undying love? Yeah that ain’t a coincidence guys.

Also Gwen was a totally awesome character of the week who was twice able to fight off a hellhound that she couldn’t see. Please keep giving us these awesome female characters show. We are starved and scramble for this kind of stuff.

Final small point - Winchesters in glasses *drools*.

For the longer meta points however I’ll start with something that grinded my gears on first watch...

Dean Winchester – No longer a Germaphobe?

Yeah this bothered me.. When did DEAN “bathing in purell tonight” Winchester not care about showering after getting covered in monster goop? There is only ONE OTHER time in the whole series that that was the case… Purgatory. Perez sure loves his call backs to previous seasons. I didn’t pick up on it at first and basically huffed a “that’s out of character” at the screen. But I have since thought about this and re-watched the episode a couple of times and well, its clearly a purgatory callback now. I had to kick myself for getting grumpy at first.

So why are we calling back to Purgatory Dean? Where it “felt pure” and his mission was to “find the angel” at all costs? I know Davy Perez is new, but I can’t imagine him getting the characterisation so wrong here, especially after what he has given us so far. Dean is in purgatory mode. He is going from hunt to hunt unknowingly from the BMOL’s leads and thriving in the kill. Could this be because after twice being told “you’re a killer Dean Winchester” he’s decided to accept it? The last time he truly embraced that killer side of him was in purgatory after all (the mark of cain does not count since he fought against it with every fibre of his being). I think the nod to Lucille also kinda comes into this here. Dean with a distinctive weapon, being the thing that the monsters fear most, it’s some very strong imagery. We are being lead to believe that Dean truly IS the “killer”, the “American Ketch” if you like. So of course I fully expect him to defy the BMOL expectations and fight against that eventually. Dean is on a journey of self-acceptance after all. When he realises he is SO MUCH MORE than just a “killer” (no matter how pure he felt in purgatory) his journey will be complete.

Sam and Lying

I have already covered this briefly in part 1, but Dean is our token excellent liar in this show and yet right now he really is on an honesty kick. Sam however, is not. “Oh so we lie?”  “Yeah. A lot” The interesting thing about Sam’s lying is that when he does lie, he generally thinks it is for the best. This is the case with their lies to Gwen and it is also the case with his lies to Dean about the BMOL. He thinks it will give his brother “peace” to just keep it to himself for the time being. Then he has this conversation with Gwen where she says:

“If I’d just told him, why couldn’t I just tell him the truth”

“but I didn’t, I lied, I lied to make things easier”

This show does love its character parallels after all. This one was pretty obvious. Marcus is Dean getting ripped to shreds by the hellhound, Gwen is Sam lying to make things easier.

Now aside from the uncomfortable wincest implications of such a mirror this is a good point. Because as I said about 12x14, Sam chooses the objective path rather than the emotional path pretty much all the time, because it is easier for him. He may be emotionally intelligent in how he deals with difficult situations generally, but when it comes to his brother and potentially difficult differences of opinion, he would rather keep things quiet.

(I will talk more about Gwen and Marcus as mirrors a bit later)

It is pretty clear to the audience that this conversation with Gwen is what makes Sam decide to tell Dean the truth about working with the Brits. It is evident of how far the boys have come that we are no longer seeing such a  toxic relationship of lying and sacrifice etc etc so much anymore (since it was getting super old). Though he still hasn’t told Dean all the details, and whilst Dean warns that “the minute something feels off we bail” I can’t see Sam actually bailing now. For some reason I reckon Sam has picked his side and is determined to set things right. I expect to see his relationship with Mick develop into almost trust by season end and I ALSO expect that another wedge will be formed between Dean and Sam because of this.

Crowley – rubbing off on everyone

I’m sorry I couldn’t help but make a joke about that line. Which I will never get out of my head! Crowley was really the star of this episode (mainly because Cas only had a small part and even my extremely biased self couldn’t give this one to him and that hot angel dude who was manipulating him). Nope Crowley wins it. He was brilliant. Crowley is still desperately trying to pull his “I don’t care about the Winchesters” act. I’m glad to see that EVERYONE sees through this at this stage.

I was talking to @purplesummer91 after watching this episode (we watched it together with pizza) about how I was so infuriated with Bucklemming for writing Crowley so fucking dumb in 12x13. For choosing to put Lucifer into a purpose built vessel and chain him up in a way that was clearly not going to go well for Crowley. We were both super pissed off about it. Even all the painfully cringe worthy exposition couldn’t save Crowleys character in 12x13. Bucklemming probably had some stupid plan for Lucifer to get out and rape a few more people before finally doing something really stupid and out of character for Lucifer and move to LA to solve crimes… pfft…

Davy Perez however, is now the hero who has saved the script, and Crowley, from their slimy incompetent hands. What he managed to do in this episode was actually have Crowley’s plan make sense again. His “ten steps ahead” speech was really clever of Perez. Giving Crowley the upper hand and putting him right back where his character belongs – as the smartest character in the whole fucking show. Now, I get bored of generic suit wearing demons and angels as much as the next person, and the weakest part of this episode was those two idiots trying to barter with Lucifer and set him free (everyone in hell should really know by now that you stick with Crowley if you actually wanna live at least a little while longer) and whilst I am really bored of Lucifer (and don’t like the season 12 rendition of him at all) I enjoyed watching Crowley beat him down again. It felt like some spiteful revenge on Bucklemming and their idiocy – your next job Davy is to bring Charlie back and have her joke about how terribly stupid her supposed “death” was and how only an idiot would really believe her quick thinking glamour magic from Oz to put the Stines off her trail (if you haven’t noticed already, I’m still super bitter).

Let’s talk about Drowley for a moment though. Because as @purplesummer91 and I discussed after watching, we still can’t believe this is still a thing. I mean, okay, sure. They had their fun together in early season 10, but the fact that the writers continuously bring this back and shove it rather graphically in all of our faces is something else. Never let a hater tell you that Bi!Dean is all in your head, or that you only want it for your ship… because NO ONE ASKED FOR FUCKING DROWLEY. The show chose that. They chose to shove that down our throats and practically make it canon. The fact that it is so fucking obvious in canon is still unbelievable every time we get another Drowley joke.

“Maybe you rubbed off on me, maybe I rubbed off all over you”. Thanks Crowley for that mental image. Where is Sam so I can borrow his brain bleach?

If you are doubting the impact of this line from a shipping perspective, ask yourselves this:  would that line have had as much impact if he had said it to Sam?

Yes, Crowley talks in innuendos, and loves to be overly sexual with the boys, BUT since season 10 and Crowley and Dean’s “summer of love” his sexual jokes have been almost exclusively to Dean. Because Crowley, being the intelligent guy he is, knows that they would have far greater effect on Dean – Since they are fucking true and there is nothing Dean can do about that. Crowley has been Dean’s subtextual ex-boyfriend for two and a half seasons now. This is not something we as fangirls wanted or needed, but the show went there. I’m never getting over that. Ever.

The other important Crowley point to talk about is how he was actually validated this episode for the good he has done. Dean’s sincere thank you for saving Cas, even though Crowley tries to brush it off as wanting to spare himself from the man pain, it is obvious at this stage that he cares for Cas (we talked about this in 12x12 anyway so I won’t go into detail). Sam’s thank you was even more heartfelt, and genuine and sincere, and Crowley didn’t even come back with a snarky remark that time, nor did he brush off Gwen’s hug which was extremely heartwarming. Oh Crowley, you big softy. We all know you still just want to be loved.

Castiel – Angel of Earth – Hunter of Lizard People?

Why is it every time Cas graces our screens I grin like an idiot in love. I was a bit sad that Cas’s role in this episode was so small baring in mind we don’t get him for another three episodes (which I’m slightly pissy about FYI) and we didn’t get him for the last two either. But, Perez seems to be becoming the next Robbie Thompson for giving us a lot of info and meta content in a short space of time.

Cas was so freaking adorable in this episode. Who would have thought that it was canon that Cas is a Beyoncé fan to start with – enough that he knows the name of her sister and used it as his alias. Honestly I can see Dean rolling his eyes but still gazing at him with heaps of affection. The upside down FBI badge really has become a running joke. Cas just isn’t quite there yet in his hunter skills. (all this means for me is that I hope by the end of the series we will get an episode where Cas swoops in like a skilled hunter, flashes his badge in sync with Dean and is perfectly able to interview a witness without any issues whatsoever – AND give them a classic flirtatious wink at the end.)

His utter exasperation over the conspiracy theorists lizard people story was hilarious. As was Cas banging his head against the door. Cas was so done with this guy. But at least he got his Kelly Kline lead.

I think it is important to point out that at this stage, Cas is so disillusioned with his siblings that the moment he sees one he pulls out his blade to defend himself. It breaks my heart but the Dean Winchester in me wants to scream out “Damn right you defend yourself sweetheart. You stab that dick with wings!” As hot as Kelvin is I just don’t trust him one bit. Nor do I buy what he is selling here. What I LOVE is that we are getting MORE unanswered questions to Cas too add to the heap we already have.

“You ever miss it? Upstairs?”

“I love Earth, smells like hay, but it’s not home is it?”

“imagine it Castiel, for you to come and go as you please, be part of your family, your true family again”

Castiel doesn’t answer ANY of these questions, he diverts them. And this is so so interesting to see happening in a script written by the same writer who gave us “Knowing you has been the best part of my life, you’re my family, I love you, I love all of you”. We KNOW as an audience that Cas has chosen who his family, his home is, and it’s not heaven. But the fact that the angels don’t know this, that they STILL think they can manipulate Castiel with talk of acceptance and power… I can’t wait for him to turn to them and basically say “fuck you guys. I am going back to my boyfriend because HE LOVES ME.” And honestly this is where all the coming out/non accepting family of a queer kid metaphors come into play and I LOVE THEM.

In fact the ONLY part of Kelvins whole little speech there that perked Castiel’s interest was mentioning Joshua and this:

”the gardeners got a plan, all we ask is that you hear him out for the greater good.” And at that moment we know Cas is done for, because his second biggest weakness (next to a certain Mr Humanity) is doing the right thing – doing it for the “greater good”.

Cas isn’t going back to heaven for acceptance, to get his ‘home’ back, or for power. He is going back because Joshua has a plan that may help ‘the greater good’ and that is a pitch that Cas can’t say no to. His face when Kelvin asked him if he was ready at the end, again, no answer. He didn’t look ready at all, and I HATE seeing Cas in pain. Especially since apparently we ain’t gonna see him again until 12x19 which I am super pissed off about. Urgh.

But I just need to mention that final moment, Dean Winchester looks down at his phone after Cas hung up and says “he sound weird to you?” we don’t get an answer from Sam but I would bet money on that answer being “no?” because only Dean has that connection to Cas that means he can tell if something is wrong over a fucking PHONE CALL. They are such husbands OMG. Dean is gonna be so upset when he finds out Cas has gone back to heaven. This is gonna hurt to watch.

Gwen and Marcus – Parallels?

The last point I wanted to talk about was how Gwen and Marcus appear to be a mirror for Sam and Dean’s relationship in the show. This was obvious when Gwen spoke to Sam in the car and Sam clearly took her experience and advice and was inspired to tell Dean the truth. The show does this A LOT with various MOTW characters being some way mirrored with the boys in order for the boys to learn a lesson of some kind. There are often multiple parallels in place however and the other parallel here was Dean and Cas. Yes, there are both Wincest and Destiel readings in this doomed couple. Am I happy about this? Not really, but the interpretation is there.

Now, obviously the wincest parallel is easily disregarded as a legitimate romantic thing because the show is NEVER gonna go there. Don’t stress people. That’s not what I’m saying. If it was I’d quit watching in a heartbeat. *shudder*. The meaning of the mirror here is that our Sam character Gwen, kept lying to the Dean character Marcus, which ultimately lead to Marcus’s death. Gwen blames herself for his death because she lied about her feelings for him.

There are multiple layers to this reading. Marcus was clearly in love with Gwen, he wanted her by his side and dreaded her leaving him to go to college. (this all plays nicely with the Winchesters history and Sam leaving Dean to go to Stanford). The main point of takeaway here is that Gwen didn’t feel the same way about Marcus that he did about her. Gwen wanted something more in her life, she wanted to pursue a future that she didn’t feel she could have with Marcus by her side. Is this foreshadowing of the Winchesters going their separate ways? Dean always has been the clingier of the two, and I have been saying throughout this entire post that Dean is emotional whereas Sam is logical. The situation matches Gwen and Marcus. Marcus was holding on to a dream ruled by his feelings, whereas Gwen was far more logical and rational about their situation. Is Sam going to break away from Dean? If he doesn’t break away? Could this lead to Dean’s doom?

Ultimately I don’t think this season is gonna end well for Dean – call it a hunch, but with the way Ketch was eyeing him up and the differences between them I dunno, I can just see a clash in the future that I think will involve Cas somehow… but that is pure speculation. I also think that this could foreshadow Sam choosing to go to the UK to learn with the BMOL…

The other parallel is similar. In this episode Cas struggles with choosing to leaving earth and going back to heaven. Leaving Dean. The difference is that unlike Gwen, we KNOW that Cas loves Dean. His feelings have been laid out in the text. But poor self-hating Dean doesn’t know that. Will Cas keep the fact that he went back to heaven/is working with heaven again from Dean? How will that affect their relationship? We know that Dean loves Cas, but we have yet to have the moment where he admits to Cas that he loves him too (which I will put money on happening by season end). Dean could EASILY view Cas’s heartfelt confession as platonic familial love and therefore feel rejected, especially if Cas now leaves him for heaven once again. Dean’s main issue throughout pretty much ALL OF THE SERIES prior to Cas’s break up with heaven in season 11 was that Cas kept leaving him. Ironic since they are now paralleled by a couple where the Cas mirror NOT leaving him and telling him the truth lead the Dean mirror to his death.

Basically this is how I see it. If Cas and Sam chose to stay by Dean’s side and keep secrets from him, then Dean is likely to die. If they are honest with him, and leave him, then he will live. Could this be foreshadowing an ultimatum somewhere along the way? If you leave Earth, return to heaven and stay away from OUR territory, then we won’t kill the man you love.

OR, If you go to London with us, work with us there, then we won’t kill your brother?

This is pure speculation of course, but I liked the parallel, and how it foreshadows Dean ending this season very much alone and feeling like he was rejected by choice.

How very heartbreaking indeed.

[ehealthy-diet-plan]

NASA And Different Innovators Work To Remodel Ventilators For Covid-19 Patients

NASA's a must-have computer is adapted for COVID-19 patients; it is focused on presenting air delicately to stiff lungs — an indicator symptom of the virus.

NASA scientists, as well as different innovators, are busy establishing alternatives to the usual ventilator getting used internationally to deal with extreme situations of Covid-19. The circulate is in keeping with starting to be evidence that in some cases ventilators can cause greater hurt than respectable in some patients with low oxygen ranges. Statistics inform the story: eighty% of patients with the coronavirus die on such machines.

This comes just several months because the early days of the coronavirus pandemic when U.S. Healthcare providers talked about that they necessary ventilators to accommodate the flood of new patients, and a lot of them. The crisis brought on the Trump administration to activate the defense creation Act so producers including Ford, GM and GE might delivery ventilator creation to supply these medical gadgets for the U.S. Govt. 

according to the healthcare information e-book STAT, state-of-the-art becoming skepticism about ventilator use is pushed using the incontrovertible fact that most of the coronavirus sufferers doctors treated had blood oxygen levels so low it would have killed them, however, did not. on account that physicians have traditionally used blood oxygen tiers to choose no matter if to put an affected person on a ventilator, this average phenomenon with Covid-19 sufferers throws centered protocols into question. Moreover, it calls into query even if less invasive breathing assist can be an outstanding alternative.

Sunny Jha, an anesthesiologist at the school of Southern California who additionally treats severely ill Covid-19 patients on the la Surge health center, said that the style ventilators provide lungs with oxygen can cause harm to the lungs, indefinite instances.

"This sort of stretching led to using air being pushed into the lung using the ventilator, versus being pulled into the lung in commonplace respiration, can cause harm, or barotrauma, to the lung cells, extra worsening the lung hurt from the virus," he stated. "This builds up over time and may result in a more fast worsening of the lungs if they don't start to get superior on their own."

Turner Osler, MD, FACS, MSc. Emeritus Professor in the branch of surgical procedure at the college of Vermont, mentioned that in circumstances equivalent to these, caregivers are faced with a catch 22 situation, which he described as "a deal with the devil."

"The extended ventilator settings required to assist some Covid-19 sufferers can harm their lungs additional," he noted. "It buys time, placing off drawing close loss of life, however at the fee of additional destructive the lung."

He wired that a ventilator is an emergency answer to an existence-threatening problem, and in lots of circumstances is the "go-to" answer. Besides the fact that children, he brought that patients who are placed on ventilators may have a protracted and tricky street ahead of them when it is time to get off of them.

"Getting an affected person off a ventilator can require them to redevelop the energy essential to breathe," he referred to. "This may also be a chronic effort primary within the [intensive care unit] as 'weaning,' a procedure that can take days, and even weeks."

Ventilator design 2.0

There are at present alternate options to the ventilator being confirmed, and some come from sectors of the financial system no longer perpetually associated with health care, corresponding to aerospace. NASA has designed its ventilator prototype that has received FDA authorization for Covid-19 use. The laptop's aim is not to exchange ordinary mechanically-complex hospital ventilators, but to keep patients from needing one in the first region.

NASA's "Ventilator Intervention technology accessible in the community," or a must-have, is designed to be developed faster and less difficult than a standard ventilator, and with fewer ingredients. Besides the fact that children, it isn't made to ultimate so long as typical clinic hardware — simply three or four months compared to years for an extra durable device. Furthermore, it is developed with accessories from outdoor the scientific equipment supply chain, according to the company, to diminish the effect the resources mandatory for at the moment made ventilators. Its bendy design means it can be modified for box hospitals.

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It is also tailored particularly for Americans with Covid-19, which helped to ebook its design.

This new know-how, designed with the aid of engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in precisely 37 days, changed into confirmed on the Human Simulation Lab in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and ache medicine at Mount Sinai health facility in manhattan metropolis, where Matthew Levin, M.D. Gave it excessive marks. On Friday, it announced that it chose eight U.S. Manufacturers to make the NASA ventilator including Stark Industries, Vacumed, ATRON, and Evo Design.

"The NASA prototype carried out as expected under a wide variety of simulated affected person conditions," Levin talked about. "The crew feels assured that the must-have ventilator will be capable of safely ventilate sufferers plagued by Covid-19 both right here within the united states and right through the world."

since the desktop is customized for Covid-19 sufferers, or not it's concentrated on providing air delicately to stiff lungs — an indicator symptom of the virus. Stiff lungs have a harder time expanding, so sufferers battle to get satisfactory air to breathe. A must-have is supposed to give satisfactory airpower to sufferers to inflate their lungs but not so an awful lot so that the lungs over-expand. The machine additionally works to ensure the lungs do not completely deflate, either.

Covid-19 patients have lung hurt that makes the aspects of their lungs infected and sticky. If the entire air goes out of their lungs and the facets touch each other, they could stick together and make it even harder to open back up once more. So a must have tried to retain the lungs a little inflated every time patients exhale.

NASA isn't the best non-medical entity hoping to lend a hand throughout this disaster. Automaker Tesla had retrofitted some of its motor vehicle materials to build ventilators, whereas Ford and standard Motors had restructured their assembly lines to manufacture them. Moreover, the family appliance enterprise Dyson had paused the manufacturing of vacuum cleaners to help create more ventilators.

Innovation on ventilator design is stoning up across the nation. Engineers at the school of Illinois developed a prototype for a simple emergency ventilator, called swift Vent, that could handiest cost $one hundred to $200 to make. Fast Vent is a power-controlled ventilator that connects into the oxygen delivery accessible in any ordinary hospital room. Air flows from the clinic oxygen deliver into the ventilator after which into the affected person's lungs through a tube or masks.

At MIT, the MIT Emergency Ventilator challenge is committed to developing an open-supply, reasonable ventilator, under a challenge that was accomplished in an MIT engineering classification lower back in 2010. College students made a ventilator prototype the usage of lower than $200 of substances, which is a lot cheaper than the common ventilator that may charge as a great deal as $30,000. Nowadays, these materials would charge near $four hundred or $500.

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The MIT design makes use of an "Ambu bag," or a bag-valve resuscitator, which is a hand-operated resuscitator that is generally found in hospitals. Fitness-care providers use this equipment to manually pump synthetic breaths into an individual's lungs after they can't breathe properly or in any respect.

remedy alternate options for Covid-19

apart from these new technologies that are being labored on at this time and the tried and proper methods which have been used for years, fitness-care providers have already got other tools at their disposal within the combat in opposition t Covid-19, none of which require FDA approval. Sunny Jha of the college of Southern California stated that effectively having some patients lie on their bellies can assist.

"routinely, these non-invasive recommendations are enough to beat the damage done by the virus to provide adequate supplemental oxygen for the affected person to get better on their personal," he said. He added that he believed a remedy for Covid-19 is a protracted approach off, so Americans should continue to make use of present treatment options unless additional note.

"I do not suppose a magic bullet will take place in the brief period, and individuals hoping that some cure or remedy will come around impulsively is a fool's hope," he talked about. "I don't think or not it's good value to are expecting the medical community to all of a sudden get a hold of treatment for a novel virus that we readily don't know a lot about yet."

Turner Osler of the college of Vermont introduced that even though common ventilators aren't perfect, and new therapies are all the time welcome, patients will all the time want them, specifically now.

"If an affected person is unable to breathe, nothing wanting a ventilator will prevail," Osler spoke of. "Some temporizing measures can be found, equivalent to nasal oxygen supplementation and continuous tremendous airway force (CPAP), however, none of those is an alternative for the ventilator. … For a patient in genuine ventilatory failure, a ventilator is, in fact, the most effective solution."

[marijanafwspickardttp89insu-blog]

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[cbholganza]

As we enter the homestretch of the coveted 2019 PBA Philippine Cup, the race favorites are slowly jockeying themselves into position. It is still the same line-up of heavyweights who are filling the leaderboard for the quarterfinals, except for one. Leading the standings going into the playoffs, there is a surprising challenge posed by newcomer Phoenix Pulse Fuelmasters, and it’s making fans look up.

The race for the last of the top 2 positions is still hotly contested. Mathematically, as of this writing, only 3 teams remain in the running for the coveted slot. These are: the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters, the TNT Ka Tropa, and crowd favorite, Barangay Ginebra. Phoenix took the first slot with a masterful win over the defending champs, San Miguel Beermen, last Saturday. With the loss, the Beermen bowed out of contention for the second slot.  Whoever gets the other top slot will gain the privilege of a twice-to-beat series in the quarterfinals. Who will the gods favor this time?

Phoenix battles for the rebound.

Rain or Shine attacks fearlessly.

TNT’s wily court general, Jayson Castro.

Fajardo carries the SMB load.

Gins’ Japeth towers in both offense and defense.

Indeed, it has been a very exciting regular season for Phoenix fans. The PBA’s newest darlings have gone eyeball-to-eyeball with the best of the rest. And it has not disappointed. Today’s Phoenix five are the closest team you can think of to challenge the old Ginebra’s ‘never-say-die’ philosophy. Their 9-2 win-loss slate does not fully articulate the tough journey the team has taken, with 8 out of 11 games decided by 4 points or less, or by overtime.

And then there is the growing maturity demonstrated by PBA’s other new teams: with the NLEX Road Warriors now at 6th spot; Columbian Dyip presently occupying 7th place; and Northport Batang Pier still in contention for a playoffs stint. Even Blackwater Elite has struck some surprises against the heavyweights.

NLEX defends against the league MVP.

Columbian Dyip surprises Rain or Shine.

Northport rookie Robert Bolick contends for Rookie of the Year.

Shawn McCarthy harrassed by Blackwater’s defense.

But today, we take a look at 5 key issues that PBA fans would like answered with the coming playoffs. And we start off with the most successful franchise in PBA history, the San Miguel Beermen.

1. Are the San Miguel Beermen still as dominant? Will the arrival of Terrence Romeo help the SMB campaign? Or was TNT right in trading away Romeo?

For the past 4 years, no team has been as dominant in the PBA as the San Miguel Beermen. Of the 12 conference titles in those 4 years, the Beermen has annexed 6 of the crowns. Barangay Ginebra would come a distant 2nd with 3 crowns, while TNT, Rain or Shine and Magnolia would seize 1 each.

Man-for-man, San Miguel still has the strongest line-up in the league today. In fact, even their second team would still give any team a run for their money. That is, if only they were up to it.

Chris Ross dazzles with his speed.

The masked Alex Cabagnot provides on-court leadership.

Jun Mar Fajardo, the league’s GOAT.

But San Miguel has taken some early bashing in this tournament. To many pundits, the 4 regular season losses – despite the addition of crowd-favorite Terrence Romeo – have shown that the once-dominant machine may need some oiling right now. The unexpected losses could mean many things: a lack of cohesion perhaps, or a lack of focus, or the absence of a sense of urgency among the players.

Added to this, there were prior reports that 7 of Terrence’s former teammates in TNT KaTropa had petitioned that he be traded for lack of ‘chemistry’ skills. In another team, he had a well-publicized altercation with his coach, Pido Jarencio. Given this ‘colorful’ reputation, people are wondering which version of Terrence has reported for duty with the Beermen: the old one with the noted notoriety, or a reformed model of Terrence minus the reported selfish streak and immaturity.

Note that Terrence is joining an already loaded guard corps composed of Alex Cabagnot, Chris Ross, Marco Lassiter, Von Pessumal and Paul Zamar, all of whom will be competing for those all-important playing time. The challenge to rein in this wild spirit will rest on the shoulders of San Mig’s management, coach Leo Austria, and their silent leader and fellow Visayan, June Mar Fajardo. If they succeed in getting Terrence to dance to the same beat, then San Mig’s glorious flight will soar to even far greater heights. If not, Terrence’ reputation will suffer a big hit.

Terrence has the speed…

the shooting ability…

but will need to hone up on defense.

2. Are the Phoenix Fuelmasters for real? Will their formula to winning in the regular season take them to the top?

The Fuelmasters recently lost a heartbreaker to the resident crowd heart-throb, Barangay Ginebra. They then bounced back with a masterful demolition of the fearsome San Miguel Beermen. With the 2 contrasting, yet equally sterling performances, the team not only gained the respect of their peers, they also wowed the crowd with their determination to win and their pug-nosed approach to defense. This team simply refuses to turn over and die despite a clear disadvantage in talent and sheer size.

Phoenix battles for the rebound.

Alex Mallari delivers.

What they lack in height, they cover up with sheer numbers. Despite being the shortest team in the league, they are tops in Rebounds. Whenever the ball flies, all members of the team will be seen scrambling hard for those all-important rebounds.

The Fuel Masters are also tops in Fouls, which means they will not allow any easy way to the basket. Coach Alas has instilled in the team a gutsy no-nonsense defensive outlook; and coupled with the arrival of that nasty-but-nice Calvin Abueva, the steady growth of last year’s Rookie of the Year Jason Perkins, the constant sniping of Matthew Wright and RJ Jasul, and the equally-gutsy play of new acquisition Alex Mallari, the team’s ‘no-guts-no-glory’ culture is slowly gaining the fans’ approval.

The ‘Beast’, the best thing that ever happened to the Fuel Masters. (PBA)

Jason Perkins hits the winning shot. (courtesy of PBA)

The elegant Matthew Wright

Team chemistry, a key to success. (PBA)

Alex Mallari delivers.

3. Will Magnolia finally wake up from its slumber and pose a challenge? Or was their 2018 Governor’s Cup championship a mere fluke?

It’s not too late for the last conference champs to make a run for the crown. After taking 3 straight losses flush in the chin at the start of the season, the Magnolia Hotshots have hunkered down to work. Currently, they are hanging precariously at 8th place, having just lost another heartbreaker to the Ginebra Kings. But the way they are pacing their conditioning, it looks like Coach Chito Victolero’s wards will be ready come the playoffs.

Based on their performance in the overtime loss to Ginebra, the team is still as dangerous as ever. Down by 15 in the 2nd quarter, the Hotshots clawed back to force the overtime, before finally losing by 4. Against Phoenix, they were comfortably ahead for all of 47 minutes of play, before a couple of lucky breaks gave the game away.  In fact, the Hotshots could easily be toting a 7-1 slate, instead of its current 3-5, with 4 of their 5 losses by margins of only 5 or less.

Jio Jalalon gets banged up.

Paul Lee delivering when needed.

Ian Sangalang is vastly improved.

But having tasted the sweetness of a championship last season, expect the seasoned veterans led by Mark Barroca and Paul Lee to will the team back into contention for the crucial matches up ahead. Magnolia is aiming to get at least a 6th spot in the elimination round in order to avoid a ‘one-loss-and-you’re-out’ card.

4. Will Barangay Ginebra’s ‘never-say-die’ persona manifest itself once again in their present campaign?  

Ginebra’s legion of fans were not disappointed with the last 2 electrifying wins eked out by the Gin Kings. Against league-leading Phoenix, Ginebra trailed for 3 quarters, before finally catching up in the final 3 minutes. Fighting fire with fire, the 2 teams threw haymakers at each other, before the old ‘never-say-die’ spirit – egged on by a huge ‘hometown’ crowd – kicked in.

With the league’s newest ‘ironman’, LA Tenorio, providing court leadership; the high-flying Scottie Thompson providing the excitement; and the pair of Japeth Aguilar and Greg Slaughter causing a big traffic jam in the shaded lanes; the Ginebra Gin Kings have a good chance of taking the second Top 2 bonus. Given the possibility of a triple-tie for the second bonus slot among the Ginebra, Rain or Shine and Talk N Text, the Gins’ higher quotient will pull it through.

The PBA’s newest ironman, LA Tenorio, dives for the ball.

Scottie Thompson skies high.

Greg Slaughter takes the shaded lane.

5. Which teams will complete the Final 8?

With just 11 games left to finish the elimination round, 5 teams are ensured of stepping forward to the next round. The Phoenix Pulse Fuelmasters have gifted themselves with a first-ever top elimination finisher bonus. Rain or Shine, TNT and Ginebra all have a chance at the 2nd bonus slot; while San Miguel is already assured of landing in the 3rd to 6th range.

Six teams are still in contention for the last 3 slots in the quartefinals: NLEX, Magnolia, Alaska, Columbian Dyip, Meralco and Northport. The race is so tight and unpredictable that there could still be 4 teams tied for the last 3 slots. Who squeezes in? Who lucks out?

Shawn McCarthy harrassed by Blackwater’s defense.

Columbian Dyip surprises Rain or Shine.

We’re about to find out the answers to these questions – and more – in these last 11 regular season games in the weeks ahead.

(All photos courtesy of pba.ph)

  Diehard PBA Fans Ask Questions for the Playoffs As we enter the homestretch of the coveted 2019 PBA Philippine Cup, the race favorites are slowly jockeying themselves into position.

[consciousowl]

Violence: A Conscious Response

You have heard that it was said “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount

The central problem in every religion and philosophy is the problem of pain, or suffering. Why do bad things happen to good people? Some traditions point to sin, others to karma, others to fallible human institutions. Just think of all the innocent people who die in conspicuous acts of terrorism, whether in Paris, Las Vegas or Orlando. In many cases, we are talking women and children. An even greater dilemma is what to do in response. Should we pretend it never happened? Should we kill our attacker? Should we declare war? Should we begin to look at life as a victim? Should we get even through elaborate plots of revenge. This is not what the greatest men who have every lived have taught us. Yet we must deal with the situation in a way that works for us as human beings.

Violence Happens

We must start by acknowledging that violence, directed towards ourselves, or to others (maybe even on the other side of the world) is a part of our experience. It doesn’t matter how clever our interpretation; we must deal with the fact that we have let it in as a part of our reality. Every time you watch a newscast or pick up a paper, you create even more violence. We don’t have to interpret it if we don’t want to. It is very difficult to acknowledge pain without immediately going to judgment, evaluation, decision and conclusion. We seem to be wired that way. Yet the truth is simply that we experience pain, or extreme discomfort, disruption and destruction, either by ourselves, or through other people. Whatever has happened, has happened. There is nothing we can overtly do to erase that fact. How we respond to that event is wide open. This is where our creativity comes in. Not every injured person seeks retaliation or revenge. This should give us pause for consideration.

War Is Broken

On a collective scale, we have institutions to protect us, from local police to militia to the armed forces. While we don’t really have effective structures on the global level, we certainly have them at lower levels. On the global level, we virtually live in anarchy. The deeper problem, due primarily to “weapons of mass destruction,” is that the scale of their damage is too powerful to imagine. For example, one Trident submarine could launch enough missiles to take out all the major cities in North America. President Nixon published a book, Real Peace, in 1984 that marked a shift in Cold War strategy. Nixon showed how total war no longer works as an instrument of public policy. Even limited intervention is risky and should be avoided wherever possible. Shortly thereafter, President Reagan, along with General Secretary Gorbachev, normalized relations between Russia and America.

No License to Kill

On an individual level, we are almost never granted the privileges of James Bond. Even his creator, Ian Fleming, couldn’t pull off James Bond in real life. An intriguing movie, The Man Who Would Be James Bond, portrays this. To retaliate by killing someone, even for breaking and entering, results in a civil procedure, and you must hire a defense attorney. Even killing game with your rifle out of season is reprimanded. The best policemen and soldiers pray they never have to use their weapons. Simply asking the question, “Is violence ever justified?”, will lead you to the truth. People justify violence all the time, usually dragging God into the picture. This hardly makes violence justified. When it comes to human beings, it is hard for anyone to feel good eliminating someone.

As Within, So Without

On a deeper level, we can ask where the violence actually happens. If we are honest, we will admit that it always happens within our experience. As long as we find ourselves in the land of the living, any violence we see, hear or feel happens within the context of our absolute being. An ancient mystical saying puts it that whatever we find without, we find within. The implication is that all external people, places and things are ultimately within us. We know this to be true from quantum theory and neuroscience. Nothing is really “out there” in the classic sense. At first, this realization may cause you great dismay. However, if you stay with it, you will find it liberating. If Who You Are is the Source of all your experience, then your True Self must be the Creator of your world. This is exactly what is meant by you being a son or daughter of God.

Compassionately Confront Your Opponent

We can learn much from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. They took Jesus’ injunction to love your enemy to the streets. Gandhi didn’t take a passive stance to perceived injustice, which Pope Francis I calls “structural evil.” Even though Gandhi started as a subject of Her Majesty, he didn’t receive equal treatment, as he wasn’t white. Gandhi learned, and Martin Luther King closely followed, acts of “noncooperation” or “civil disobedience” not as retaliation or revenge, but to awaken the British imperialists and appeal to their higher sensibilities. He was brilliant at that, as you quickly realize in Richard Attenborough’s masterpiece, Gandhi. When Gandhi was asked how he would respond to Hitler in light of the Jewish holocaust, he maintained that there would be much pain and suffering in a course of nonviolence. He then paused to ask the journalist, “Is there not much suffering and pain now?” Gandhi emphasized that the one thing you must do is stand firm for justice. As he once put it, “I am not for passive anything!”

“An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind!”

-Mahatma Gandhi

Transform Violence through Love

We then go back to Buddha, and to Christ. Both are human, both are divine. Buddha taught compassion, Christ taught love. This was not a theoretical construct. Buddha made his followers “Bhikkus,” beggars, and taught humility and solicitous concern. Christ had his followers unconditionally turn the other cheek. The Apostle Peter asked, “If my brother offends me seven times in one day, do I still have to forgive him?” Jesus’ response was, “Not seven times seven (49).” To those of us untutored in “ahimsa” or noninjury, this seems like a fairy tale. Certainly, people will take advantage of you, abuse you and walk all over you if you are a pushover. However, this is not quite so certain to happen if you truly love them. Christ taught us to systematically pray for difficult people, blessing them, and wishing the very best for them no matter what they do. Not only Gandhi and Martin Luther King demonstrated the power of this, but throughout the history of Buddhism and Christianity, contemplatives have worked miracles of love. That love, Divine Love, is the most powerful force in all the Universe.

You Are the Light of the World

Politicians and commentators keep asking what can we do about all this violence, an endless string of wars, terrorism, murder and violations to our Mother Earth. What they don’t suggest is that we do something radically different. The Roman Catholic Church was recently in a sharp decline in public esteem. Charges of corruption and pedophilia were rampant. Pope Benedict XVI resigned, an unprecedented act. Then, an obscure archbishop from Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was elected pope. Jorge was an intensely practical man who had no other ambition than to live the Gospel. He invented the Papal name of Francis I and insisted on living in an apartment, not the Papal Palace. He insisted on using public transportation whenever possible. Pope Francis I is but the latest example of people who seriously follow Buddha or Christ, and get the heart of the message right. Jesus called his disciples “the Light of the world.” He was referring to divine consciousness. When people awaken to Whom They Really Are, the world, itself, is transformed before their eyes. It is not too late for us to carry that torch forward in our heart and our soul.

The post Violence: A Conscious Response appeared first on ConsciousOwl.com.

[itsworn]

How to Pick Budget Friendly Cylinder Heads for your 360 LA and Magnum Mopar Build

Many Mopar fans believe that life still revolves around the original Mopar small-block. Sure, the Gen III Hemi makes great power, but so do the early LA and Magnum engines and parts for those are generally more affordable.

It’s also a well-known fact that the cast-iron heads, after proper selection, can be tweaked to make very respectable power on these platforms. So let’s go do a little small-block archeology.

Dave Hughes has been building and tuning Mopars for more years than he probably cares to admit. Hughes Engines is all about Mopar power covering all the bases, but he really pays attention to the small-block stuff. Much of this material emanates out of his experience. We’ll start with the early, or LA, engines. Yes, there’s the polyspheric small-block, but we’ll leave those to the vintage crowd. The LA era was expansive, spanning 1964 to 1992 and offered what are Mopar’s finest small-blocks.

Current OE parentage no longer services or sells much of this stuff and digging up early castings borders on Indiana Jones–type adventures. Among the older LA pieces, the 308 castings are good. But if you find a set, they’re likely either cracked or will require significant machine work to resurrect them. There are better ways.

The next in lineage is the Magnum era heads. These spanned from 1992 to 2004 and were used on 5.2L and 5.9L engines. There’s a whole movement that retro-fits Magnum heads to the earlier LA engines with favorite casting numbers like the 466, 671, and 714 heads. But these suffer from thin deck surfaces and can be crack-prone. Like their earlier cousins, a used set will likely need plenty of machine work. But if you find a set in good shape, they’re worth the effort.

Our focus here will be on affordable options for the LA or Magnum enthusiast. Sure, there are factory Magnum aluminum heads, but these are essentially a performance dead end. Edelbrock offers a couple of really nice aluminum heads like the Performer RPM Magnum and even a Victor 16-degree head, that we may examine at a later date is there’s enough interest, but the price is commensurate with power. For this story, we’ll focus on the affordable iron options.

Right out of the gate, Hughes says the most attractive are available from either EQ or Indy in terms of their LA-X option heads. Of maximum importance is that either of these heads will outflow the originals. We’ll take the EQ first. But right off, Hughes offers an iron-clad warning. His research recommends that any of these castings immediately be converted to bronze guide liners. These liners offer a better and more consistent surface, especially so for the exhaust that improves durability along with a far more consistent guide-to-stem clearance.

The EQ Magnum Iron Ram heads are offered in two configurations that span both the early LA intake manifold bolt pattern as well as the later Magnum pattern. The intake ports measure 172 cc with 1.92/1.62-inch valves and 62cc chambers that are roughly 6 to 8 cc’s smaller than original LA castings. As we know, that’ll raise the static compression ratio. The EQ CH318B is the same head with the LA intake-manifold bolt pattern, offering a greater variety of selection. These were originally intended to be used on Magnum engines that push lube through the pushrods yet will accept the use of the earlier and more plentiful LA style intake manifolds. Just for the record, there’s also a CH318A head that’s identical except that it employs the more recent Magnum-style intake bolt pattern. The port flow numbers are the same between these two versions.

Much of the same points and features of the EQ head applies to the Indy X-LA version with one main variation. The Indy head offers drilled passages that allow these heads to easily retro-fit back to LA engines as long as the proper early head gaskets are employed. These can also be used on early Magnum engines that used passages machined down into the Numbers 2 and 4 cam bore housings before the Magnum converted to oiling through the pushrods. The X-LA also comes with LA pedestals to mount the stock rocker shaft system, but these can also be milled off and the pedestal bosses drilled and tapped for Magnum version individual rocker arms.

Besides the flow improvements from both the intake and exhaust ports on the EQ and Indy heads, there’s also the added benefit of a slight bump in static compression. The Indy X-LA chambers fluctuate between 62 and 64 cc’s while the EQ’s are similar in size at around 62 cc. This is in comparison to the LA version heads that come in between 68 and 70 cc. That may not seem like much, but on a 360ci LA engine even a 4cc chamber reduction is worth a half-point in compression—moving from 8.8:1 to 9.3:1.

Of course, there are no rules when it comes to street performance so there’s no boulevard sanctioning body insisting that these heads must remain stock. Hughes offers several upgrades for these iron heads including the iron Ram. Hughes has put these mods to the test and offered up the results. We’ve taken these charts and created a couple of graphs that make the comparisons a little less complex.

While many enthusiasts tend to concentrate on just the peak flow numbers, that really isn’t in the best interest of making a great decision. If you think about it, both intake and exhaust valves make the move up to peak valve lift twice – once on the way up and again on the way down. So residence time, if we can call it that, will be significantly longer compared to peak lift. That makes the flow numbers between 0.200- and 0.450-inch lift range of more interest to the discerning street engine builder/enthusiast.

We’ve plotted Hughes’ test of five different stock intake ports, and, as you can see, up through even 0.450 valve lift they all flow very similarly with the larger 2.02-inch intake valve on the tested heads, indicating that it offers a slight advantage. But shift your attention to the next graph that illustrates what happens to all the castings with some minor CNC porting and valve size upgrades. This graph illustrates that a mildly modified head with a stock 1.92-inch valve size delivers some impressive flow numbers over a stock port fitted with a larger 2.02-inch valve.

You’ll notice that the larger 2.02 valve looks pretty good from low lift up through 0.400 inch of valve lift, and then it flattens out and is essentially no better than the smaller valve. The reason for this is that at low lift, the larger valve has the advantage of more curtain area—or a larger window for potential flow at low lift. This curtain area increases with higher valve lift numbers. However, at 0.400 inch of valve lift, the total flow capacity of this curtain area exceeds the port’s maximum flow potential, making the addition of the larger valve of less value. But once the port is enhanced with porting, the flow radically improves. Now you know not only how these ports flow, but also what creates the numbers you see. You’re now a smarter engine builder.

The point here is that a smaller valve with some intelligent port work can deliver very stout numbers that’ll clearly benefit even a mildly cammed street engine. Conventional wisdom holds that a good set of heads, even when combined with a very mild cam, will still deliver strong performance, while poor flowing heads with the best cam in existence will still underperform. Airflow is the key and combined with a good cam, the symmetry produces great power.

On the iron head flow chart (Chart 1), you’ll notice the final column on the far right lists something called E/I percent. This refers to the exhaust-to-intake (E/I) flow percentage. This expresses in percentage how efficient the exhaust flow numbers are relative to the intake port. This particular chart from Hughes’ own flow bench compares the CNC-ported 1.62-inch exhaust valve flow numbers to the CNC-ported 1.94-inch intake port flow numbers. Good numbers will be in the mid-to-high 70 to low 80 percent relationship, which is exactly where these numbers come in. It’s beyond the scope of this story to get into camshaft recommendations but generally these higher percentages mean the exhaust side of the head is working exceptionally well and won’t restrict the flow out of the engine, especially at higher engine speeds. That often equates to potentially higher peak horsepower.

There’s much more to all this than we can deliver in a short story, but armed with this information you can now see there are several approaches to building a budget-based LA or Magnum small-block that’ll make great power, have excellent throttle response, and generally be a sweetheart of a street engine even using supposedly “ancient” iron heads. It’s not so much what the heads are made of as how they flow. For a healthy street small-block, the only disadvantage to these heads is their additional weight. On the flip side of that iron coin, there’s nothing wrong with making decent power and saving a little money along the way.

A little money spent on a set of otherwise stock-looking iron aftermarket Magnum heads can offer significant power improvements while still pulling off the classic ruse that starts with “The heads? They’re just an old set we had laying around …”

This is the Indy LA-X head designed as a direct replacement for the LA head used from 1967 to 1992. It uses pedestal mounts for shaft rockers along with LS-style intake bolt angles and valve cover.

This is the EQ cast-iron head CH318B that was originally designed as a replacement head for the Magnum but the “B” suffix means it employs the earlier LA engine intake manifold bolt pattern so it can use the earlier LA engine intake manifolds. It also offers thicker deck surface and is far less prone to cracking than the OE heads.

All the flow numbers used in this story were generated on Hughes Engines’ Seanz flow bench. Here, Craig Tackett checks port velocity with a small probe. All flow tests are performed at 28 inches of water test depression.

This chart compares five iron castings on the intake side. This chart looks at an OE LA 1.94 valve casting, the Mopar Performance R/T head with 2.02-inch intakes, a Magnum 1.94 valve port, and the EQ Iron Ram with both 1.94 and 2.02-inch valves. As you can see, the EQ head with the bigger valves performs with good mid-lift flow up to 0.500-inch valve lift.

The holes in this Indy-X head in between the combustion chambers (arrows) are the production oil passages for lubrication up to the valvetrain. Magnum era engines oil through the pushrods, which means a changeover to different lifters are necessary when converting an older LA engine to Magnum heads.

This photo illustrates the difference in intake bolt angles between the original LA head (left) with its perpendicular bolt angle and the newer Magnum version (right) with near 45-degree bolt angle.

This Hughes valvespring update package (PN 1199) replaces OE beehive springs that are limited in load and valve lift capability with simple drop-in installation that increases the spring rate while also able to accommodate cams with valve lift up to 0.550 inch. These are single springs with dampers, steel retainers, and new locks.

Ben Hoitink is assembling a pair of Hughes-modified Magnum heads with new stainless 1.94/1.62-inch intake and exhaust valves using the HUG-1199 valvespring package.

This is a Hughes-prepped CNC chamber that’s part of the cylinder head modification program that creates as much airflow with a set of 2.02/1.62-inch stainless valves as that from a much larger 2.055-inch valve in an otherwise stock head. Also note the bronze guides that are essential on all Hughes heads.

Bigger valves don’t always deliver a flow advantage. In this Hughes flown bench test, note how a smaller 1.94-inch valve with the CNC porting delivers greater flow than the larger 2.02 valve in the stock port. Of course, combining the larger 2.02 with CNC porting is the ideal combination for maximum flow with these ports.

Another important consideration when upgrading valvesprings on a stock iron head is the 0.920-inch valveguide outside diameter. Most performance beehive springs will demand a smaller diameter, which requires custom machine work. But the Hughes performance spring upgrade kit (PN 1199) negates that necessity and will accommodate up to 0.550-inch of valve lift.

All Hughes-assembled heads are verified for consistent installed height so that all the springs offer the same seat and open load.

When adding a cam with more lift, a crucial area of concern is retainer-to-seal clearance. The production height from the spring base to the top of the guide is usually 0.650-inch (+/- 0.010-inch). Both EQ and Indy heads have reduced this height as shown here to under 0.500 inch for provide additional retainer-to-seal clearance for a high-lift cams.

LA engines were originally designed with a 59-degree lifter angle that when used with a flat-tappet lifter creates the unique pushrod angle seen here. This also creates pushrod clearance problems where the pushrod travels through the head. Aftermarket Magnum heads require a simple machining operation that Hughes can perform when using Magnum-style heads with an early LA block with a flat-tappet cam.

This graph illustrates the rather dramatic exhaust port improvements possible with mild porting on the Indy LA-X head while maintaining the original exhaust valve diameter.

Flow Numbers Representing all the Hughes Iron Heads

Lift Stock 1.94″ CNC Prep 1.94″ 2.02″ Only 2.02″ CNC Super Prep Gain Over Stock Stock 1.62″ Ported Exh. 1.62″ E/I % vs. CNC 1.94 0.1 58 69 73 71 13 59 62 90% 0.2 109 147 136 145 36 103 125 85% 0.3 168 212 192 213 45 145 176 83% 0.35 192 234 201 238 46 157 192 82% 0.4 212 250 213 257 45 165 201 80% 0.45 228 259 231 268 40 172 205 79% 0.5 236 264 244 275 39 177 208 79% 0.55 238 261 251 273 35 180 206 79%

Stealth Flow Test

 Valve Lift OEM Stealth CFM OEM Stealth CFM Int. Int. Change Exh. Exh. Change 0.10″ 66 71 5 51 80 29 0.20″ 89 144 55 103 124 21 0.30″   136 192 56 131 149 18 0.35″   176 211 35 136 156 20 0.40″ 184 226 42 140 160 20 0.45″ 186 231 45 142 168 26 0.50″ 184 223 39 141 168 27 0.55″ 183 218 35 142 168 26

Note: These flow figures are representative of improvements that can be made with stealth porting on both heads. Actual flow may vary with different heads due to variations in the non-ported areas.

Parts List

Description PN Source EQ Iron Ram head, 1.92/1.62, pr. HUG-4675B Hughes Engines EQ Iron Ram Magnum heads HUG-4670B Hughes Engines Indy MA-X iron 2.02/1.62 blended HUG-20300C Hughes Engines EQ LA Iron 2.055/1.62 Super Prep HUG-4680SP Hughes Engines EQ Ch318A head, bare, ea. HUG-4666 Hughes Engines Indy-X LA style 1.92 stainless pkg. HUG-20301B Hughes Engines Indy-X Super Prep CNC head pkg. HUG-20301SP Hughes Engines Magnum valvespring update kit HUG-1199 Hughes Engines ARP head bolts, Iron Ram Magnum ARP 144-3604 Hughes Engines

The post How to Pick Budget Friendly Cylinder Heads for your 360 LA and Magnum Mopar Build appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

from Hot Rod Network http://www.hotrod.com/articles/how-to-pick-budget-friendly-cylinder-heads-for-your-360-la-and-magnum-mopar-build/ via IFTTT