#I FREAKIN LABELED IT THE WRONG DAY AT FIRST NO ONE TOLD ME | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mirkwoodshewolf · 5 years ago

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You’re still the smartest girl I know; John Deacon x daughter teen reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys wow my final crunch time at college has kept me REALLY busy with all these final projects that I need to do, so my thanksgiving break is gonna be INSANE with doing all this work that I need to do BUT the good news is is that I had this request done in my downtime that I had, so to the anon who requested this awhile back, I’m SOOO SORRY for getting it to you so late but I hope you love it either way.

I also have updates on a few of my series so I may end up making a post about my writing updates and what all I plan to work on to try and get more organized with all that I have to do. So I’ve got two updates for you guys so I hope you all like this fic.

Warnings: school, mild angst, failing school, FLUFF, Dad!Deacy (cause let’s face it its a warning because he’s FREAKIN ADORABLE!!!) and my unknown knowledge of how Catholic schools work, so if I’m wrong about something, PLEASE send me a comment or an inbox to correct it.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@waddles03

@queendeakyy

@platawnic

@kairosfreddie

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I just don’t get it. My dad graduated with 8 GCE O level and 3 A level in electronics, he’s designed his own amp, and helps with not only the family finances but the band finances too. He’s the smartest guy I know and I share half of his genius, or at least I should.

I needed to sustain at least a 3.50 average to stay in my current Catholic secondary school but with my failing classes I’m barely at a 2.50. It’s not that I don’t try to do the work I do the homework and attend the lectures, it’s just that some of my classes like Geometry and Ancient religions, the teachers make the assignments so confusing.

Even when I would write the papers, they always found something to pick at and I end up with either C’s or even D’s on my papers, even when I would stay up all night skimming through book after book to get the required aspects they ask for. Also their quizzes and exams are so unfair, they would tell us this or that would be on the test, but by the time the test came around, absolutely NONE of the stuff they said would be on it, is on it. Hell they’ve put things down that we haven’t even learned yet.

It was currently Fall break and I spending some time with my family for the holiday trying to get my mind off of school. I was watching over my brothers rough house in the backyard. God they were so lucky they don’t have to deal with the harsh school life just yet.

“So (y/n) how’s school going love?” I heard my mum say. I quickly looked up at her and said quickly.

“School’s fine.” She looked at me skeptically.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah mum, everything’s fine.” Then fortunately saved by the bell, the doorbell rang and I immediately shot up and said. “I’ll get it!” I quickly raced to the front door and cracked it open. And there at the door was the mail carrier. He took out of his bag our mail for the day and he said.

“Here’s your mail ma’am.”

“Thanks Gardner, have a good day.” I said. He nodded and walked off the curb and continued down the road with his route. I closed the door and skimmed through the mail. Most of it was bills, some Queen stuff for dad to sign and look over, but then there was a letter from the school sent to me. At this point my heart was racing.

“Who was that?” Oh shit dad. I turned around to see him coming down the stairs holding my baby sister who had probably just woken up from her nap.

“Oh just the mail. Mostly bills this time, but then again what else is new. And there’s some Queen stuff for you to look over dad.” I handed him most of the mail but kept the letter from London University for me.

“Well what’s that?”

“What? Oh this oh it’s just junk mail. Something about 20% interest rate on life insurance from a different company. Damn things are just scams anyway. I’ll shred it dad.” I walked up and kissed his cheek then my baby sister before racing upstairs.

As soon as I reached my room, I closed the door and locked it and leaned against it in a panic. Nervously I opened up the envelope and it read the worst thing I could imagine.

To Miss (Y/n) (M/n) Deacon,

It has come to our attention of your low grades. It is required that your parents come in for a meeting with the Headmaster in regards to your low grades.

At that point my mind went blank as I ignored all that the letter said. Tears formed in my eyes. Goddamnit why did they send this letter? Cause first comes the letter, then the phone calls will follow. I’ve tried so hard to keep my struggles in school away from my parents because I didn’t want them to get involved, that all I needed to do was try better since that’s all teachers seem to push onto me, if not then I’ll make it up in summer school.

I just wanted to prove that I was as smart as my dad is.

So I hide the letter in the folds of my diary knowing that my parents don’t go snooping around it and putting it in the secret place where I know my snoopy brothers can’t get to it (thank god I change places every week) and tried to forget about it. It was then a knock was heard at my door.

“(Y/n)? Poppet is everything okay in there?”

“Uhh—yeah dad everything’s fine.”

“Then why is your door locked?”

“I’m changing clothes dad, I’m meeting Stacy and Courtney for a movie later tonight.” There was a brief moment of silence before he said.

“Alright but at least unlock it. We’ve talked about this before, plus your brothers think girls are gross so I doubt they’d pop in on their sister changing.”

“Okay dad sorry.” Thank god he bought it. I then went over to my phone and tried to make my lie seem real as I called both Stacy and Courtney to meet me at the theater in 15min.

Thankfully since it was the weekend, my parents let me go out later than usual so long as I was back before ten. My dad gave me some money for the tickets and food and we kissed each other goodbye and I drove off to the theater.

I soon met my two best friends and we decided to just walk around the mall instead going to see a movie. It was there I told the girls everything. As they were trying on new stuff from a new store called The Gap, I said to them.

“What am I gonna do girls?”

“Well you know me girl, if I were you I’d just come clean.” Said Courtney.

“Are you crazy?! No way can she tell them about this. Okay chick this is what you do. You answer any calls the school makes and come up with any and every excuse you’ve got.” Stacy said as she peeked over her changing room into Courtney’s.

“Stace, no offense but your parents may buy into that but I’ve met her mum and dad and they aren’t stupid like yours are.”

“Yeah you got a point. Hell I could go to prison for murder and my parents wouldn’t care.”

“Guys hello! Back to me.” I begged.

“Sorry. Well looks like your screwed chickadee.”

“Oh gee thanks Stace.”

“Look (y/n). All I can tell you is that you won’t be able to hide this forever. Just—show them the note and tell them the truth. I’m sure they’ll understand if you explain it to them. And I can back you up about Mr. Crowley. Guy’s a right up arsehole if you ask me. Gave me -20 points because I used the wrong citation for the Bibliography page. And it was only one source that was labeled wrong” Said Courtney.

“Yeah and our Geometry teacher Miss. Ringo, I can barely understand what she’s saying with that thick Dutch accent of hers. Gave me a 30% on our last exam.”

“That’s because all you did was doodle and call her an old bat.” I said bluntly.

“Oh yeah. But oh man you should’ve seen the look on her face on the last homework assignment we had.”

“I don’t even wanna know.” Said Courtney.

“Trust me you don’t.” I vouched.

“Hey come on, let’s forget about school, get you to try on some clothes. We’ll go to the food court and get your mind off of things. Sound good?” Stacy said as she came out wearing a new jean jacket with suspenders underneath. I nodded and said with a smile.

“Thanks guys, you’re the best friends I could ask for.”

“Hey divas in diapers remember? The three musketeers. The triple threat angelz.”

“With a Z because…..”

“We’re bad bitches!” we all exclaimed as we held our right hands out in a fist touching each other’s in a triangle shape. And so that’s how it was, the girls helped me get my mind off of the letter and the stress of school with a good Girl’s day out.

A couple days later I was back in school in my Ancient Religions class. Mr. Crowley of course barely allowed any time for me to fully write down what he had on the board because he immediately went to the next thing. He never once asked if anyone had any questions and if someone stopped him, he’d slam the ruler down on the student’s desk and either ask them to meet him after class, or just give them detention.

“Alright students; I’m going to give you your final assignment for the semester for you to do just before winter break.” Everyone groaned. He had just give us a 10 page paper on how Christianity as a whole effected the Global conquest, and now he’s giving us another essay to do. “Hey, hey, hey, hey! No complaints you miscreants!”

But just before he could continue, the intercom beeped above us.

“Mr. Crowley?”

“Yes?” he said annoyedly.

“Will you please send Miss. Deacon into the office.”

“She’s on her way.”

“Thank you.”

“(Y/n) Deacon.” At that point everyone but Courtney all made the ‘oooo busted’ vocals. I flipped them off as Mr. Crowley made me my hall pass so that I wouldn’t get caught by a teacher patrolling the halls. I grabbed my bag and left the classroom.

I walked down the second floor staircase, down to the main level and turned towards the entrance where the main office was. I walked in and I said.

“I’m (Y/n) Deacon. I was told to come here from Mr. Crowley’s class.” The receptionist said.

“Ahh yes Miss. Deacon. The Headmaster would like to speak with you.” Oh shit. This is probably about that letter. I swallowed nervously and hung my bag further up my shoulder and walked down the corridor towards the Headmaster’s office. It felt like the walkway was getting longer as I walked towards that dreaded office room, that was until finally I arrived at it.

Slowly I reached up and knocked on it. There was a brief period of silence before a low voice said.

“Come in.” I opened the door and there standing at the grand desk was Headmaster Byron. He was a fairly older man (if I had to make a guess I’d say currently around Miami’s age). He was a bit—you now stout shape wise. He was going bald and he wore glasses over his hazel eyes. “Ahh Miss. Deacon please sit down.” I walked in and nervously sat down at the chair in front of me.

“You—wanted to see me sir?”

“Yes. I’ve called you down here regarding a letter I had sent over the fall break. I expected to hear a call from your parents but I hadn’t heard anything back from them. Is there a problem?” Oh god what do I say to him?

“Well I—I guess the mail service was just a little slow. Because we haven’t received the letter just yet.”

“Hmm well that’s unusual. Usually the mail service is properly on time. I mean at least we’re more organized than the American system at least to my knowledge.”

“Yeah guess they must’ve lost it.” I said nervously fiddling with my fingers, anxiously picking at my nails.

“In that case; I can send you with another copy of the letter. But if I don’t hear anything within 24hours expect the first phone call.” I nodded as he handed me the same letter that I had gotten in the mail over the break. I thanked him and quickly headed out of the office. On my way back to class I ripped the letter up into as many pieces as I could before discarding it into the nearest bin and returned to class like nothing happened.

After school I was in my room trying to make sense of the math homework I had to deal with and that’s when a knock was heard at my open door. I looked up and there stood my mum.

“Hey love. So you’re dad’s working late tonight with the band so I’m ordering a pizza for dinner. What would you like on yours?”

“Get me a full cheese and my toppings are sausage and pepperoni.”

“You got it. Doing homework?” I nodded solemnly. “Which class is it for?”

“Geometry.”

“Oh yeah, I remember taking that class. Hardest thing I ever knew. In fact all math was difficult for me. Thank god for your dad though, he was always better at finances than I was. That’s how we met as a matter of fact, I was struggling with my Algebra homework and he offered to help me since we were in the same class together.” Lucky her that she at least had dad to help her, meanwhile I on the other hand had absolutely no one to help me.

Everyone was in it for themselves, not even the teacher was willing to give us tutoring sessions if we didn’t get any of the stuff taught in class. He just expected us to memorize and do everything correctly.

“Say, speaking of geometry did you get the midterm results back yet?” Oh god that’s right. Dad actually skipped out on Queen rehearsals to help tutor me for the upcoming fall midterm exam.

Unfortunately for all that hard work, nothing we had practiced was on the midterm, half the stuff was gibberish to me so I just wrote random answers that I could and I ended up with an F.

“He uhh—he got super busy grading our other stuff that he didn’t have time to look over the midterms. But he said hopefully in the next week or two he’ll get to it.”

“Are you sure?” I nodded and she looked at me skeptically.

“Okay, if you say so. I’ll call you when dinner arrives okay?”

“Sounds good mum. Love you.”

“Love you too.” She kissed the top of my head and left my room. I turned away and tossed my books and homework off my bed and buried my face into my bedsheets and softly began to cry.

Why? Why does this have to happen to me?! Why can’t I just get the damn work? Why do I have to be such a fucking idiot!?!?

Days passed and I still didn’t have the heart to tell my parents that I was failing school. And when the phone started ringing I tried to make an effort to try and answer it before they did, fearing that it was the school.

Some calls it was to which I would make excuses for the school and then tell my mum and dad that it was just boring telemarketers trying to sell us stuff. Other times it’d be Uncle Freddie or uncle Roger calling for Deacy about some Queen business stuff (and of course I chatted with them, I’ve known them ever since I was a baby, plus Freddie was my godfather—or I should say fairy godmother).

But it wasn’t until one day when I came home from an afterschool football game Stacy and Courtney invited me to, that I would pay dearly for the lie that I had been trying to keep.

“Yeah I know and when Bobby finally scored the winning goal I swear it was a one and a million shot he got that!” Stacy exclaimed as we got out of her car and walked up my driveway before stopping at the gate.

“I tell you you’ve got one lucky man right there Stace. Your boy’s gonna go far in football.” Said Courtney.

“All I know is that for the first time in decades our school is finally in the playoffs and that we might have a shot of winning the district championship since 1971.” I said.

“Well we definitely have the best team to get us there. Not to mention the cutest.” Courtney said before snickering towards the end.

“I’ll drink to that.” I said taking a shot of my water.

“(Y/n). Can you come in here please?” I looked up to see my dad standing there by the door. His arms crossed over his chest and I could tell something was wrong.

“Yeah dad I’ll be right there. See you girls Monday then?”

“We’ll save you a seat at the cafeteria before homeroom.” The girls then walked back to the car and they drove off. I opened the gate and trotted up the stairs before standing in front of him.

“Is something wrong dad?”

“Come in the house and let’s talk.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me inside. As we walked through the house towards the kitchen, I could feel the tension in the air. It was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. My mum sat there at the kitchen table looking distraught almost. “Have a seat.” Okay now I was getting a little freaked out.

I sat down and that’s when dad stood behind mum placing his hands on her shoulders.

“(Y/n), has something been going on at school that you’re not telling us?” asked my mum concerned.

“No—why do you ask?”

“Well we caught Robert and Michael reading your diary and—”

“They what!? MICHAEL! ROBERT GET YOUR ARSES DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW YOU LITTLE BUGGERS!!!”

“Hey! Hey! Hey! Language and lower that tone in your voice!” dad snapped at me. “We handled the boys, but it was then we found this.” He took something out of his pocket before unfolding it and placing it down right in front of me on the table. My heart sunk and my throat grew dry.

It was the first letter sent in by my school.

“So we called the school and they said they’ve been trying to get in touch with us. And that you said we didn’t receive any letter the first time around so the Headmaster gave you a second letter.” Mum stated more in an interrogating tone than the concerned tone she had earlier.

“Have you really been failing your classes? And this time don’t. Lie. To us.”

“No!” I exclaimed.

“They said you’re barely holding a 2.50 GPA.”

“Well I—I just….I don’t mean to I-I-I-I….the teachers they’re…..” I kept rambling as I felt tears in my eyes and my throat clenched. “I don’t get why I’m being target.”

“The better question is why did you lie to us!? You’ve known about your grades for what weeks? And you lied to us every time a grade was mentioned! Do you have any idea the level of betrayal you’ve given to me and your mother!?” my dad’s voice slowly raised up in anger.

I tucked away in fear at his intimidating voice. He rarely and I say this with a big emphasis that my dad rarely gets mad, but when he does—oh god help us all. I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer him.

“(Y/n) (m/n) Deacon answer me when I’m talking to you!” he snapped. I looked up fearfully and ashamed and I did the only thing that was running through my mind.

Run.

I got up and as quick as I could I raced out of the house and down the street. I fucked up. I know, but at this point it was too late. Just seeing my dad get angry with me, I knew he hated me now.

I ran all the way down the street and turned left and ran towards old widow Johannsson’s back garden. I opened the gate that stood around her AC vent and locked the door so that no one could open it. I leaned against the corner of the gate and just sobbed as hard as I could.

All of my fears and sorrow came out as I wept hysterically and choked on my sobs, that’s when I heard my dad’s voice calling out my name. I held my hand over my mouth to try and keep quiet as his voice got louder and louder. I soon saw him through the cracks in the fence as he looked around. Unfortunately a sniffle just had to come out and soon dad turned towards the fence.

“(Y/n)?”

“Please just go away and let me cry in peace.” I choked out.

“That’s not going to happen, now c’mon open the gate.”

“No you—you already hate me.” He scoffed out a sigh.

“Wha—what makes you think I hate you?” he asked in disbelief.

“You only yell when you hate someone. And now you hate me. You hate me that I lied to you. You hate me for keeping secrets. And you hate me because I’m stupid.”

“Hello? What—what is going on out here?” widow Johansson came out on top of her deck and looked down towards us.

“I’m sorry Valarie but—could you give us a few minutes?” she must’ve looked down and saw me because that’s when she slowly backed off and allowed my dad to talk to me again. “(Y/n), love I—I don’t hate you. Yeah I’m upset because you lied to your mum and I but I could never, ever hate you.”

“But you do dad don’t deny it. I kept this from you and you’ll never forgive me. You’ll never love me again because I’m a stupid bitch who can’t understand anything!”

“First of all you are not a stupid bitch. You are a brilliant, smart, beautiful young girl. And I will always love you no matter what.”

“Stop saying that. Please just go away please…..” I trailed off before pleading out one last time. “Please.” With that I didn’t hear another response from him as I continued to softly weep. I could hear footsteps walking up widow Johansson’s back deck and then the back door closed. I looked up and saw my dad as well as widow Johansson gone. I wiped my tears and just curled myself into a ball.

I don’t know how much time passed but I knew it wasn’t long, maybe 5-7 minutes because the next thing I hear are footsteps walking back down the deck and my dad sitting himself down against the gate. It was then I heard a guitar being strummed before a familiar tune was being played.

It was strange to hear it on guitar instead of an electric piano like it was on the record but the tune was easily recognizable, especially when my dad softly began singing the lyrics. And sure he didn’t have as good a voice as my uncles did but—he still made the song count.

Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had I've been with you such a long time You're my sunshine and I want you to know That my feelings are true I really love you Oh, you're my best friend

While it is true that my dad wrote this song for my mum back when a Night at the Opera came out, he also written it for me as well. Because when he first played it for us, he said he wanted a song dedicated to his favorite girls.

So taking the electric piano he practiced and practiced till he knew how to play the tune and since then the song’s been like a comforting lullaby to me. And he’s played and sung it to me ever since.

Ooh, you make me live Whenever this world is cruel to me I got you to help me forgive Ooh, you make me live now honey Ooh, you make me live

You're the first one When things turn out bad You know I'll never be lonely You're my only one And I love the things I really love the things that you do Oh, you're my best friend

Ooh, you make me live

I'm happy at home You're my best friend

He stopped playing and slightly turned towards me. I wiped away my tears and just like it always did, it made me stop crying.

“Guess I still got it huh?”

“Shut up.” I muttered which made him softly chuckle.

“Can you please open the gate love? Let me see my best friend.” He asked. I slowly scooted towards the gate and slowly reached for the handle. I held onto it for a while and I pulled one side down which caused the other side to lift up. The gate slowly opened and there sitting a few feet away from me was my dad. “There she is.”

I sniffled and wiped away the tearstains but I was still afraid to look him in the eye for more than a second. I felt his hand cup the side of my face wiping away the tears.

“Do you think you can talk to me now?” I nodded. “Okay. Now (y/n) please explain to me why you lied to us about your grades?”

“Because I—I wanted to prove myself.”

“Prove yourself about what?”

“That I could be as smart as you. You’re the smartest man I know and you never seem to get stumped about anything. You graduates college with the highest in your major, you’ve built your own amps from old junk, and you handle both our finances as well as the bands. But—the schoolwork I’m given is so beyond hard. I tried my best dad it’s not that I don’t do the homework because I do. I really do, it’s just that…..”

“Hey, hey poppet. Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay.” I sniffled and harshly wiped my tears away but my dad stopped me and replaced my thick sleeve with his gentle but calloused fingers. “I know you do the homework. I’ve seen you do it and so has your mum.”

“But the teachers make it so unfair to learn. They say this or that will be on the test but then something we haven’t even learned yet is what ends up as majority of the questions. Or they’re not consistent with what they want on the papers before giving us a bigger paper the next day after the previous one. Dad I—I’m a failure. And I didn’t want you to be ashamed of having a stupid daughter like me.”

“Oh (y/n),” he scooted closer to me and cupped both sides of my face forcing me to look up at him with teary eyes. “I am in no way, nor will I ever be ashamed to have you as my daughter. You’re my first baby girl and I love you soo much. You don’t have to be a genius like me to be my daughter, because you are smart in your own clever way.”

“But I—I’m failing my classes, how can I be smart when I’m failing?”

“You’re still trying, are you not?” I shrugged.

“I guess.”

“Then that proves your smart. Oh my sweet girl I wish you had come to me about this sooner instead of feeling like you had to hide this from me.”

“I’m sorry daddy.” I softly choked out.

“It’s okay love. Now come here, you deserve cuddles and kisses right now.” I immediately fell into his arms and buried myself into his shoulder. He rubbed my back in soothing circles and stroked through my hair. “We’ll get this sorted out okay? But promise me that you’ll never lie to us about school again, okay?”

“I promise…..never again.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And they did just that. I showed my parents everything regarding exams, homework and showed just how unfair the work was for me. I showed them my notes and told them what my teachers were really like.

The next day they scheduled a meeting with the headmaster and they talked about how the teachers are treating me and my fellow classmates unfairly with too much work and not unfair teachings of not asking for help.

Now one would think after telling you this I got off scot-free right? Wrong. I was grounded for the same amount of time that I had lied to my parents about school, so that meant over a week and a half of no TV, no after school activities and no phone privileges.

But after getting the teachers fired and currently dealing with substitutes for the rest of the year, whenever dad wasn’t busy with Queen; he made a promise to sit down with me and if there was anything I was stuck on, he’d help me with it. No matter how long it took.

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allhailkingrooker51 · 6 years ago

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So, there’s this guy...

that y’all may know that I’m freakin’ madly in love with. He goes by the name Michael Rooker. 😜 I finally got to meet him. Here’s my story...*Law & Order noise*

Fandemic Houston Day 1 - September 14, 2018

My alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. I was already awake though. I had hardly slept at all. I had hardly slept the last two months for that matter as September 14th got closer. I couldn’t remember ever being this excited for anything in my entire life. This was going to be the best weekend ever.

I jumped out of bed, got ready, and packed the car, mostly with Rooker memorabilia. I hadn’t officially decided what all I wanted him to autograph yet so I brought a little of everything – some of my Rooker Funkos, all my Yondu, Merle, and Chick Gandil trading cards, and my all-time favorite Rooker picture printed out as an 8X10. I mapped out the directions to the NRG Center on my phone and swung by to pick up my best friend who I’ve known since kindergarten. After a little detour to Chick-fil-a to get some breakfast, we were on our way to Fandemic Houston.

My friend doesn’t know much about Rooker. As far as his movies, she had only seen Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. I had sent her various Rooker videos on YouTube, though, for her to watch as “homework” like the Into the Night doc with James Gunn and the Inside of You podcast with Michael Rosenbaum. The whole way down to Houston, I told her as many Rooker stories as I could think of. She had a lot of catching up to do before she met the greatest person on this planet.

Things were going great. We were making good time on the road. My friend seemed entertained with the Doug Loves Movies podcast with the cast of Super, including Rooker and the Gunn Bros., that I was forcing her to listen to. Then things suddenly changed.

I had been having bad feelings about this trip even months before. Meeting Michael Rooker would be my biggest dream come true, but every time I paid for something for Fandemic, whether it was the hotel or Rooker VIPs or Sean Gunn's autograph, I was just waiting for the ball to drop and I wouldn’t be able to go. I never really get to do anything fun ever, and in the back of my mind, something was going to go wrong. Something always does. And something did.

We were cruising down interstate about an hour outside of Houston. It began to rain. No big deal. I turned on the windshield wipers, and we continued laughing with the podcast on the radio. Then I noticed the passenger side windshield wiper was doing this little fish-tailing action every time it went across the windshield. I had just had new windshield wipers installed two days earlier, but I hadn’t had to use them yet, and I thought, “You know, that doesn’t look right.”

Then I noticed the one in front of me started to do the same thing. Just as I opened my mouth to tell my friend there's something wrong with the windshield wipers, the rain started coming down like a monsoon and both wipers flew off my car with an almost comical synchronized whoosh.

Well, fuck.

Somehow, by the grace of God, I was able to cross over two lanes of busy interstate to the shoulder without causing a 15-car pileup. Once the mini panic attack of trying to safely get to the side of the road subsided and after I dropped a plethora of choice curse words, I turned on my hazards and began to think. What the hell are we gonna do?

It was raining fucking cats and dogs, and I couldn’t see shit. Think! Plan B. Plan B. Wait, what was plan B? I wasn’t expecting this. We didn’t even have a plan B.

Should we just wait out the rain for a bit? Maybe it would stop soon. But I had already checked the weather earlier, and it was supposed to rain all day.

This can’t be happening. The greatest day of my life and I’m stranded on the interstate in a deluge with no windshield wipers three and a half hours away from home. And to top it all off, I have a pre-purchased Sean Gunn/Rooker photo op in a few hours that I couldn’t miss. This was not good.

We sat there for a few minutes hoping the rain would subside enough for me to at least get us off the highway. We started googling the nearest auto parts store while we waited. There was one less than a mile away.

Vehicles were flying past me in a blur, and the fear of someone plowing into the back of my car took over. I knew we had to get off the interstate as soon as possible. Luckily an exit was about 50 feet away, and I had to try for it. With the rain letting up just a tad, and with my friend looking out the passenger side window and guiding me along the edge of the asphalt, I managed to creep off the interstate shoulder going about three miles per hour onto the service road. I could still barely see, but I felt a little more relieved being off the interstate.

The rain kept coming. My view through the windshield looked the exact same as when I don’t have my contacts in. Everything was blurry as shit. I continued my snail-like pace, my eyes concentrating simultaneously on the taillights of the cars ahead of me and the fuzzy, white dashes of the lane to my near left.

I crept through the next red light and made a left. Not far down the road, there it was. We had made it. I had never been so happy to see an Autozone in my entire fucking life. We went inside, explained what had happened, bought two new windshield wipers, this time properly installed, and once again we were on our way.

It stopped raining about 20 minutes later.

Looking back now, the whole situation was funny as hell.

Despite our little automotive dilemma, we still got to the NRG Center 15 minutes before Fandemic started. I parked the car, turned off the ignition, and checked in with my Rooker Hooker friends online to let them know I made it. Then I sat frozen in my seat.

“I don’t think I can do this,” I told my friend. My nerves were getting the best of me. She assured me that I could, in fact, do this. I had to do this. I’m so glad she went with me. I knew she wouldn’t let me back out of anything. I made sure I had my things, took a deep breath and forced myself to get out of the car.

We made it inside the convention center, and a woman in a red Fandemic shirt directed us to the VIP ticket window. (Every staff member we came across at Fandemic was absolutely awesome, by the way. Even the C.E.O. was greeting every guest with a handshake and a hello as you entered through security.)

I went up to the window and handed over my paper tickets to exchange for our Rooker VIP badges. While the worker scanned the tickets, I looked behind her to the table along the back wall. It was covered from one end to the other with plastic bins. Each bin was labeled by name and full of red VIP lanyards for each corresponding celebrity – Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Norman Reedus, Bruce Campbell, Tom Welling, etc.

The lady finished scanning my tickets and turned to get our VIP badges from the bins. Only there wasn’t a bin for Rooker. She couldn’t find them. I started to panic a little inside. I mean it’s obvious I bought them. I had the paper tickets as proof. They were in her hand for Pete’s sake. She looked down at the paper again and walked the length of the table for the second time. Still no luck. I really started to worry. Of course, my initial thought is the ball is dropping again. First my windshield wipers, and now this.

I couldn't hear what she was saying behind the window, but her mouth was moving as I watched her hand my paper over to another worker. This worker checked the paper, and they both walked over towards the middle of the table. There laying between two bins was a little Ziploc bag with Rooker’s name on it with maybe four or five VIP badges in it. I turned to my friend, who had been out of eyesight of what just happened, stuck out my bottom lip and said, “Awww, my poor baby. He only has a Ziploc bag of VIPs, and we have two of ‘em.” I don’t know why, but it made me love him even more.

After a bag check and a wanding from security, we finally made it onto the convention floor. I was one giant walking ball of nerves as we went through those doors. I was in the same room as Michael Rooker! On one hand, I couldn’t wait to see him. On the other, I was afraid I was gonna faint and fall out on the floor right in front of all the Deadpools and Negans and Harley Quinns.

We decided to bypass the vendors and headed straight to the autograph booths. Granted we were still a little early, so none of the celebs had made it to their tables yet. Rooker’s booth was already filling up. There were about 20 people or so already waiting. My friend asked if I wanted to go ahead and get in line. I couldn’t. My feet wouldn’t move. I wasn’t ready. I had to see him first. From afar. Then maybe I’d get the courage to go talk to him.

The whole time things were going down, I was checking in with my Rooker friends online, giving them play-by-plays of what was happening and taking their encouragement to heart. I was gonna need it all.

My friend and I decided to walk around a little more and found ourselves standing near the back row of the autograph tables. That’s when I saw celebs start to trickle through the curtain in the corner and head to their booths.

Every time those red and black curtains moved, my heart stopped thinking it would be him. Sean Gunn and Chris Sullivan came out together. There went Sean Patrick Flanery. And then Bruce Campbell. I knew Rooker couldn’t be far behind.

Minutes later, the curtains moved once more, and there he was. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as he walked the floor in front of me. He wore his black leather jacket and blue sunglasses, a white v-neck t-shirt, his newest Penman hat and a giant smile on his face. Somehow, I managed to stop my hands from shaking to take a few pics before he disappeared into his booth, his boisterous voice loud as he greeted his awaiting fans.

After my heart rate returned to a somewhat normal rhythm, we walked around towards the front of his booth. We looked on from a distance as I stood there silently building up my confidence to go get in his line. I told my online Rooker friends that I wasn’t sure I could do this. They again told me I could. I loved him too much not to, they said. And they were right.

I knew I needed to go get in line, but I just couldn’t take that first step. But I had to do it. I had come too far, and I had too many cool things to show him rather than stand there and stare at him like a creeper. I had to jump off that cliff. Take that plunge. Just like ripping a Band-Aid off with the sweetest reward waiting for me right after.

One of the Fandemic workers near his booth was walking around with an inflatable pickle. He told her he wanted to sign it. He autographed the pickle, and as she walked away, he yelled out to her, “Don’t touch it for a little while. It’s still wet!” He knew exactly what he was doing, too. He laughed and then did that little shit-eating grin while biting his tongue. Y’all know which one I’m talking about. Watching him laughing and joking around with everyone started to put my mind at ease. This is Rooker we’re talking about. I’m gonna be fine. So, I did it. I put my big kid pants on and got in line.

The line was moving fairly quickly, but I made sure to sneak some more pics while I waited. I still couldn’t believe this was all real. Seeing him right there, mere feet away from me. Hearing that raspy voice in person. It was almost too much.

When I got about eight people away, I pulled out his headshots from my bag. I have several of Rooker’s old original headshots and resumes, and I couldn’t wait to see what his reaction was.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I was still a nervous wreck. A million things raced through my brain. What if I can’t talk when I get up there? What if he doesn’t like me? What if he thinks I’m weird? Even worse, what if he thinks I’m a batshit crazy stalker ‘cause I have his old headshots?

Then the weirdest thing happened. The closer I got to him, the less nervous I became. By the time I made it in front of him at that table, it was like I was about to say “hey” to an old friend. All the butterflies had flown away.

One of his helpers had already taken the headshot from me that I wanted Rooker to autograph to keep the line running smoothly. He handed it to Rooker and said, “Ohh, this is an oldie.”

Rooker greeted us as he took the headshot and he was like “Whoaaa” and smiled really big as I showed him the others. He got a kick out of them! He grabbed the oldest headshot, which was his first one, his hair super curly, and called over Sean Gunn and Chris Sullivan, who immediately left their tables to see what was going on. They both promptly busted out laughing when Rooker showed them. They cracked some jokes together and then Rooker said, “That was my first headshot, this is my last.” He walked over to me and showed me a pic of himself wearing no hat with his hair a FREAKIN’ mess on what I believe was Sean’s phone maybe, which in turn made him laugh even harder.

He walked back over to Sean and Sully, where Sully had since pulled up his own old headshot on his phone. Rooker busted out laughing again, and they compared their curly hair and then showed all the people in line their “white men afros” as Rooker put it.

The whole time I felt like I was in a dream watching this all take place. I mean I figured Rooker would think it was pretty cool seeing his old headshots and resumes, but I never thought it would have caused all this.

He came back over to me and thanked me for bringing the headshots and picked up a blue marker to sign the one I had picked out for his autograph.

Up until then, had that been the end of our interaction, I would have walked away from his table completely ecstatic. At that moment, I could have officially died happy. But it wasn’t over yet.

As he was signing the headshot, I told him that I had something to show him and to pick an arm. He looked a little perplexed and said, “Ummmm...your left.”

I sheepishly lifted up my shirt sleeve to show him my portrait tattoo of one of his Skillset magazine pictures. He said, “OMG.....you know what that’s from, right?” I kind of laughed and said, “Well, yeah.” He said, “That’s from my Skillset!” Then, I lifted up my right shirt sleeve to reveal my other Rooker portrait tattoo, this one a bald, serious-faced shot. He glanced at it really quick and said, “Oh yeah, Thanos, very cool.”

I laughed and said, “It’s not Thanos, it’s you!” I had to catch myself before I affectionately called him a dork at the end of that sentence. He said, “What?! Lemme see it again!” I lifted my sleeve, and he said again that it looks like Thanos, totally fucking with me. I said, “It’s not Thanos! Why would I have Thanos? You’re way hotter than Thanos!” He chuckled and said “Well, yeah, I’m hotter than Thanos! Fine, it’s a sexy Thanos.”

He then walked around his table, grabbed my shoulders, spun me around, yanked my shirt sleeve back up and proceeded to ask the crowd, very loudly I might add, if my tattoo looked like “Sexy Thanos” all the while laughing his ass off. Of course, the crowd agreed with him.

I didn’t even have time to think about being embarrassed. The next I thing knew, he turned back to me, smiled a huge Rooker smile, said I was awesome and reached out and caressed my face. I about passed out.

Rooker went back around his table to the headshots and started talking about his resumes stapled to the back. We talked for a couple of minutes trying to figure out the timeline of the headshots vs. the resumes vs. the talent agency he was with at the time.

The whole time he talked, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him. The way he smiled and chomped his gum, his eyes behind his blue sunglasses, his curls thick under his hat, his sexy voice, his chest hair poking out of the collar of his shirt. He is absolutely hypnotic. I was in heaven, y’all.

He grabbed the curly-haired headshot, smiled and said, “You know what? Just ‘cause you’re you, I’m gonna sign this one, too. It’s a 2-for-1 Rooker deal.” I, of course, was over the moon.

He signed it with the same blue marker and gave me a fist bump. I told him thank you and that I would see him tomorrow and that I had something even cooler for him to sign. He said, “Alright!”

I walked away on Cloud 9. Michael Rooker touched my face! I was freaking out. I couldn’t have asked for a better first meeting with Rooker.

A little while later, we were standing in line for the Rooker/Sean Gunn photo op when I realized that in the headshot/tattoo craziness earlier, I had forgotten to give Rooker the t-shirt I had brought as a gift for him. I wasn’t mad at myself, though. That just meant I got to go see him again.

When it came time for the photo op, Rooker came strutting over from his booth, grinning while biting his tongue in his teeth again. The whole weekend I never saw the man without a smile on his face.

For those of you who've never been to a comic con before, the photo ops go by fast. Like insanely fast. They shuffle you quickly into the booth, you stand next to the celeb, the photographer snaps the picture, and then you're shuffled back out just as fast as you came in.

Now don’t take this the wrong way. I'm not knocking the process by any means. It's completely understandable. There are literally hundreds of fans of many fandoms that they’re trying to accommodate. But just because it goes fast, doesn’t mean you won’t have a memorable experience.

The Gunn/Rooker photo op was my very first one of the weekend. When I got behind the curtain, Rooker immediately grabbed my arm, and pulled me between Sean and himself with a hearty “Get over here, woman!” I put my arms around them both, the photo was snapped, Rooker smiled really big and said “Thank you, sweetheart” as I walked away, him keeping his hand on my back ‘til I was out of his arm's reach.

The whole thing couldn’t have lasted for more than 45 seconds or so. But I didn’t care. Sean’s arm had been around my shoulder! I had touched the Rooker leather jacket! Rooker called me “sweetheart"! He touched my back! I was close enough to smell his minty-gum fresh breath! The Rooker legend that he smells of mint and leather is true! I couldn’t wait to do more ops with him.

After the photo ops, we headed over to the concession stand. We hadn’t gotten a chance to eat lunch, and we were starving. We got a little something to tide us over until dinner and went and sat down at a table in the little VIP reserved section. Not five minutes later, my phone went off with my Merle Dixon notification sound. It was an Instagram alert. ROOKER WAS LIVE!

I’ve seen a lot of Rooker Instagram live videos from cons before, but to see one in the making? No way I was gonna miss this! We jumped up, grabbed our stuff, and were off on the hunt for him. With the help of the Rooker Hookers directing me where to go, it didn’t take long to find him.

For nearly 30 minutes, we followed him from a distance watching him visit vendor booths, stop to play in the Batmobile and interact with fans, ending with a giant selfie back at his booth.

After the excitement of him Instagramming live died down and his line cleared a little, I decided to go give him his t-shirt. The lady taking the money at his booth, who was super freakin’ nice by the way and who would come to know us quite well by the end of the weekend, greeted us again with a smile.

I walked up to him at his table and said, “I'm back, Rooker!" He said, “Hey, Sexy!” Rooker called me sexy. I mean I'm totally not, but.. anyways. I only hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt. I said, “I forgot to give you this earlier,” and I handed him his shirt. I told him where I was from as he unfolded the shirt and spread it out on the table. One of my favorite things about Rooker is that he supports first responders and the armed forces. Without going into too many details, I gave him a fire department shirt from my hometown, where he's filmed a couple of things and has visited even when not filming. He said he loved my hometown and I explained to him that my stepdad is a police officer, and he had actually met Rooker years before on the set of one of his tv projects. I told him that my mom is a 911 dispatcher for the fire department where the shirt was from and that I had tried to get him a police department shirt, too, but I couldn’t get one in time.

He said he loved the shirt and we talked a couple more minutes and he told me to tell my parents thank you for all that they do. Then he said, “You know what? You get a selfie!” He came around his booth, stood right next to me, and held his shirt out while my friend snapped some pics. Again, I was over the moon. I had already gotten an extra autograph earlier, and now Rooker was breaking his rule about “No selfies" at his table. He then shook my hand and said thank you again and I told him I'd see him tomorrow. You couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Like Rooker's old headshots, I also had one of Sean Gunn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I had planned on getting Sean's autograph on Saturday, but since Rooker’s headshots had gone over so well earlier, I decided to go ahead and show Sean's to him then. After running back out to the car to get his headshot, we were off to see Seanie.

There wasn’t anyone at his table when we got back so I went right up to him with no hesitation, which was strange for me. I hadn’t talked to Sean yet, and I figured I would be extremely nervous. But just like Rooker, I was completely calm around Sean. They all really do treat you like old friends.

When I handed Sean the headshot, he got all excited, too. Sully came over to look at it and busted out laughing and cracked some jokes about Sean's shirt. Sean then hollered over at Rooker and held it up so Rooker could see. Rooker said, “OMG! You got one, too?!” Sean talked to me a little about his resume, too, and then asked if he could take a picture of it with his phone. Of course, I was like “Absolutely!” After he got his picture of his headshot, he came around the table and took some selfies with me. I then pulled out my phone and showed him my dog dressed as James Gunn from Halloween last year. I asked him if remembered Gunn sharing the picture, but he didn’t. I showed him my other dog dressed as Kraglin, too. He loved it! Especially his little mohawk.

We talked some more, and he kept saying how cool his headshot was and asked if I wanted him to sign it. He ended up signing it “To my friend, *my name*, I ❤️this! Sean Gunn”. Sean was an absolute sweetheart and I love him and I hope I get to see him again someday!

Chris Sullivan’s table was next. I hadn’t really budgeted in anything for Sully, but he was only charging 30$ for a selfie, and I thought “Hey, you only live once.” I’m so glad I did. Sully was a complete teddy bear! He was so sweet! And talllll!

We walked over, and I apologized for not having a headshot for him to sign. He laughed and showed us his headshot on his phone again. Then he realized he hadn’t introduced himself and stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Chris.” I shook his hand and told him my name, and then my friend did the same. My friend and I have the same name only with different spellings. Once introductions were made, Sully spent the next few minutes hilariously trying to figure out the correct spelling of my name. He never did get it right. I haven’t really seen a lot of Sully's roles, but he gained a lifelong fan that day.

After meeting Sean and Sully, we decided to call it a day. I couldn’t wait to see what day two had in store.

Fandemic Houston Day 2 – September 15, 2018

Just like the morning before, I was already awake when my alarm went off. I had a reeeeally cool thing to show Rooker, and the anticipation was damn near killing me.

We had to get to the convention center fairly early that morning. Rooker's panel was at 11:30 a.m., and I was hoping to get to visit him before his panel started. When we got to his booth, however, he wasn't scheduled to be at his table until after his panel. So, we just walked around a little until it was time to go upstairs to the panel room.

With our Rooker VIPs, we got really good seats at his panel. We were close to the stage, even though I knew he wouldn't be up there long.

While we waited for his panel to start, I was in a bit of a panic. If you’ve ever seen or been to a con panel, you know that usually the Q&A session is done by fans lining up at a microphone to ask their questions to the celebs on stage. If you’ve ever seen or been to a Rooker panel, you know he doesn’t play by those rules. He comes to you, whether you have a question or not! I was sitting on the end of the aisle, a prime position for Rooker to stop and talk to me during the Q&A. And I had no idea what I would ask him if he did.

I checked in with the Rooker Hookers online and asked them for any help they could give me to come up with a good question. It wasn't that I was nervous to ask Rooker a question, it was just I didn’t want to ask him one in front of all these people. If I was prepared, I wouldn’t be as embarrassed.

The Rooker Hookers all had really good suggestions, but some of them involving Rooker removing various articles of clothing, propositions more suited for an “after-dark" kind of Q&A. I love those guys. That's another one of my favorite things about Rooker. Being a part of his fandom has brought me together with people literally all over the world via Tumblr and Facebook. And everyone I’ve met has been awesome. And a special shout out to the Rooker Hookers for making me laugh over and over again, understanding my complete and utter Rooker obsession, for accepting me for who I am and being there for me even when we’re not talking about Rooker. I’m proud to call them my friends.

Rooker's panel was awesome as I knew it would be. He talked a lot about Henry and Merle. He ran around the audience answering questions about Yondu and Mallrats and flexed his biceps and even sang a little. My favorite, though, were his stories of what he was like as a kid and growing up in Chicago. At the end of his panel, he broke the rules once again and threw Hershey Kisses out to the audience after the powers that be told him not to throw anything. They shoulda known Rooker plays by his own rules. He is a livewire and an endless fireball of energy. He’s an absolute riot, and I'm so thankful I got to witness him in action at a panel.

When the panel was over and once we made it back through the security checkpoint, we headed back to Rooker's booth. I was so freaking excited to show him what I was holding in my hands.

His helper said hello and hole-punched my VIP lanyard for another autograph. I walked up to Rooker and said, “I'm back, Rooker, look what I got.” I sat down his screen worn Bud Melks orange coveralls from The Belko Experiment on the table. He said, “Oh, honey, let me sign those for you.” He didn’t realize they were his. I said, “These are the ones you wore in the movie.”

“These are the ones I wore in the movie?” He seemed genuinely surprised. I told him yep and showed him the little nametag on the inside collar that read “Bud 2”. He said, “Omg, that’s so cool, where did you get these?” I explained to him where I got them and that it also came with his t-shirt, jeans, and boots, too. He asked if I wanted him to sign them. I did, but it would be even better if I got him to put them on.

“Yeah, if you want to. Orrrr, you could cosplay as Bud today,” I joked.

He chuckled. “I could cosplay as Bud today? Ommgg. Yeah, I could. Or you could cosplay as Bud.”

I shook my head no and grinned. “Nooo, I don’t cosplay,” I replied. (I’m waaay too shy and self-conscious to cosplay.)

He leaned back on his stool, threw his head back and laughed. Rooker's laugh is one of my favorite things on this planet. And making him laugh was one of the greatest feelings in the world.

About that time, Sean's helper came over and took a picture of Rooker holding the coveralls up. She thought they were really cool, too. Rooker asked her, “Where's, Sean? He's gotta see these.” But Sean was still in the green room.

The coveralls have a huge rip on the backside so of course I had to know why. I was kidding around with Rooker and asked him, “What did you to ‘em?” He said, “Let's see,” as he unfolded them.

When he found the rip, he said, “Oh, oh, I squatted, and they ripped. Yeah, I squatted down, and they ripped. Like, when I was squatting down doing the door, they ripped. My whole bottom ripped out. And I was like, ‘Thank God the camera was on my face ‘cause if it was on my ass end my underwears would be showing.” We all burst into laughter.

We chatted a little bit more and he asked me again if I wanted him to sign them. I told him, “If you want to, yeah.”

“Where do you want me to put it? I’m gonna sign ‘em for you. You don’t have to pay, ok?”

I told him that I had already paid, though. He said, ”Oh, it was part of your VIP?” We then decided the best place for him to sign the coveralls was on the front pocket. He signed his name and said, “Bud, right?” I told him yes it was Bud, and he wrote Bud under his signature. Then he asked his helper to hand him the 8X10 of Bud he had available for autographs.

“Do we have one? Gimme that photo of Belko. I’m gonna give her a photo with this. This totally deserves a photo with this."

He took the photo and started signing his name.

“Here, all yours, baby. Here, I'm gonna put it like this.” He signed the pocket on Bud's coveralls in the picture the same exact way he signed the coveralls. He then held the picture next to the coveralls and said, “There, looks just like it." He busted out laughing and said, “That's for you. Thank you, honey. Oh my goodness.” He threw his hand up for a high-five. I thanked him and high-fived him back.

Trust me, I was elated for the handshakes and high-fives so far. (His hands are so soft by the way). But I was itching to get a hug. I didn’t know how many more chances I would get so I decided to just go for it. “Can I get a hug, Rooker? I gotta get a famous Rooker hug.” He hollered, “Get over here woman! Get over here! Give me a big hug, love.”

I walked behind his table and gave him a big hug and told him I'd see him later. He grabbed my hand as I walked away and said, “You're awesome, honey!” He didn’t let go of my hand as I told him that he makes me forget things and that I had another present for him but I had forgotten it in my car. He laughed and then he caught my friend recording the whole thing on her phone. He grinned and said, “Heyyyy, no video…” Busted. But he didn’t care.

After leaving Rooker, we had just enough time to scarf down some lunch and then head to Sean and Sully’s panel. When the panel started, the doors opened and there they were waiting on the other side. They had stolen a golf cart and hilariously failed at trying to drive it into the room for their grand entrance. So, Sully simply threw the golf cart in reverse, they both said “byyyyye” and he drove back down the hallway. A few seconds later they both came back in the room, Sully at a sprint which carried him around the entire audience and Sean walking slowly behind to the stage, announcing he was too old to run. Sully ended his dash with a Rooker-esque roll onto the stage, stood up and took a bow.

Their panel was amazing, too. They were both so, so funny. They talked a lot about Guardians and even threw in the story about Rooker mooning Dave and Pom on set, which led Sully into a comical conversation about mooning in general. They made me laugh so freakin’ hard. If you ever get the chance, definitely go to their panels. You won’t be disappointed.

We had planned on going to the Smallville panel a little later, but the line getting in the room was insane. I used to watch Smallville back in the day, but I had no idea how huge the fandom still is. It was pretty impressive. Because of the crowd, we decided to skip the panel and go see Rooker again.

We ran out to the car to get Rooker’s gift and then headed to his booth. I also made sure to bring the Belko coveralls again so Rooker could show Sean. I guess everyone was at the Smallville panel because the con floor was pretty empty. I was kind of glad. Hopefully, that meant I’d get to talk to Rooker for a good bit of time.

When we got there, his helper laughed and said, “You’re back, again? And with another gift?” I smiled and said yes. She joked, “You gotta stop buying him shit. He’s doing alright, you know.” I joked back, “I know, but I love him.” She understood though. I mean how can you not love Rooker?

About that time the fan talking with Rooker walked away, and I stepped up to him at the table. His helper announced to him, “She's back with another gift. She's like your sugar mama.” Rooker grinned that sexy Rooker grin and said, “Hey, Sugar Mama!” I joked, “Yeah, I’ll be your sugar mama. What you want? Anything? You need some more coffee? I’ll go get you some coffee.” He busted out laughing, and I handed him his gift.

I had gotten him a blue shot glass made from a 30mm shell casing that had been shot from an A-10 Warthog plane. I had it engraved with Michael “Yondu” Rooker on the side. I’m pretty sure he loved it! I had left it in the clear packaging, and he immediately ripped it open and lowered his glasses so he could read it better. I...saw...his...eyes...y’all. In person. Not hidden behind sunglasses. Don’t laugh. It was a very big moment for me.

He leaned over towards me on the table on his elbows and kept saying how cool the shot glass was and how he couldn’t wait to drink some whiskey out of it. He asked me how much whiskey I thought it would hold. I laughed and said I have no idea.

We talked some more and he thanked me and came around the table to give me another hug, this time trying to include my friend. She sort of backed away trying to give me all the glory of Rooker’s hug, but he pulled her in anyway. It was somewhat of an awkward, sideways hug, but I didn’t care. A Rooker hug is a Rooker hug! His arm ended up kind of across my neck right under my chin so I reached up and grabbed his arm as I hugged him. I...touched...his...bicep. It was..um..very nice.

When he pulled away from me, Sully walked over holding up an 8X10 of what I believe was of himself that someone had written on and showed it to Rooker. When Rooker read it he about fell on the floor laughing. He said, “Now, now, that’s nothing to be ashamed of!” He snatched the picture out of Sully’s hand and laid it on Sean’s table and began writing on it, too, laughing the whole time. Rooker’s helper asked if we had seen what was written on it. I had been trying not to be nosy, so I hadn’t. We told her no, and she said, “It said ‘When is the right time to talk to your doctor about erectile dysfunction.” My friend and I started laughing.

I turned back to Sean’s table, and Rooker was still writing on the picture saying, “There’s nothing wrong with erectile dysfunction!” Sean and I made eye contact and busted out laughing. Rooker then turned and walked back towards me with a huge grin, looked me right in the eye, and said, “There’s nothing wrong with a little erectile dysfunction...well, I mean there is something wrong with it, but...” He trailed off into a mischievous giggle. Y’all, I had never laughed so hard in my life.

When he realized I was holding the Belko coveralls, he immediately took them from me and whirled around to show Sean. “Sean, look what she has!” Sean came around his table and said, “Whoaaa, are those the real ones?” Rooker told him yes and explained how I got them and then held them up to show Sean the big rip in the back which made Sean laugh. Sean thought they were really neat, too.

Rooker came back over to me and was folding the coveralls up and said, “These are really beautiful. You know, not a lot of these exist. Thank you for bringing them to show me.” I told him they were my prized possession (which is the truth... they really are the coolest thing I own). He said, “C’mere, baby, you get a double hug!” He gave me another huge hug, this one a little longer than the first, and a little bit of my hair got caught in his scruff as I pulled away. I’m sure he didn’t even notice, but I certainly did. That scruff...

We walked back over to his table so I could get my bag. I had made a little drawstring bag specifically to wear at Fandemic to haul stuff around in. It says “I’m lost. If found, please return to Michael Rooker”. I showed it to him and he laughed really hard and gave me a high-five and said, “I love it! You’re so great.” We then said our goodbyes for the moment and off I went again.

That afternoon I had my Dixon Bros. photo op. While we were waiting in line, Rooker came over to the Photo Ops area and saw a family with a little baby boy in a stroller nearby. He made a beeline straight to the baby. The little boy pointed up to the ceiling and blabbered away at Rooker. Rooker looked up to the ceiling, too, and said, “OoooOooh,” and acted surprised at whatever imaginary thing the baby was pointing at. Rooker then baby-talked to him for a minute and tickled the little boy’s tummy before he left to go behind the curtain. Y’all, it was the sweetest thing I’ve ever witnessed.

When it came time for photos, as soon as I got behind the curtain, Rooker said, “Get over here, baby,” and again grabbed my arm and pulled me in between him and Norman Reedus. When I went to put my arms around them, my arm got caught on the bottom of Rooker's jacket, and I accidentally lifted it up about a third up his back. I heard him make this little chuckling sound as I fumbled to free my arm from underneath his jacket, my hand unintentionally rubbing his back. I’m not sure he knew what I was going for because the next thing I knew, he started rubbing my back. For the entire time. Even after the photo was taken and I was walking away, his hand was still rubbing on my back. Let me tell you, a Rooker backrub is everything you would imagine it to be, but at that moment, I was just a tad embarrassed. And my face in the photo pretty much showed it. But, oh well. If that was the only way I was ever going to get a Rooker backrub then it was worth it.

After the Dixon Bros. photo op, I went to go see Michael Rosenbaum who was super nice, too. I paid for a selfie, and he said, “Ohh, lemme take it!” I handed my phone over to him for what I thought would be just one picture. He wouldn’t stop taking pictures of us though, and one picture turned into a comical mini-photo shoot. Each time I thought it would be the last picture he would take so my facial expression changes to a higher state of silliness with each one. They’re hilarious, but let’s just say very few people have seen those pictures.

Day two was drawing to a close, and I decided that I might go see Rooker one more time before we left. We walked over to his booth which was empty at the moment. He was standing there eating chocolate covered pretzels and watching an artist drawing portraits of Harry Potter characters across the way. Anyone that knows Rooker knew what he was about to do next.

Rooker left so fast from his booth that he dropped a pretzel on the ground. He went directly over to the artist and asked him to play Santana over his speaker, jokingly rushing him along when the artist couldn’t find a Santana song quick enough. Rooker then grabbed a colored pencil and began to draw on the picture the artist had been working on.

Rooker messed around with the artist a couple more minutes before he returned to his booth. He took the time to take a few pictures with some fans that had gathered around, joked with the little kids, and danced to the songs the artist was still playing before he finally left for the day. I didn’t get to talk to him again, but just watching him dancing was enough for me.

When we were headed back to the car that afternoon, I told my friend, “I can’t remember ever being this happy before. Seriously, these last two days have been the best days of my life.” I’m like a lot of people in that I struggle with depression and anxiety and self-image and the feeling that I’ll never be good enough. But with Rooker, he makes all that disappear. I don’t think he’ll ever realize how much he means to me and how important he is in my life.

Fandemic Houston Day 3 – September 16, 2018

I had been awake since 4 a.m. on day three. I couldn’t wait to see Rooker, but I couldn’t stop thinking that this was going to be my last day with him. I didn’t want the weekend to end.

I spent the early morning hours before my alarm rang making a detailed schedule and an even more detailed script in my head of all the things I wanted to say to him before the con closed at 4 p.m. I still had my two solo photo ops with him, too, and one last gift to give him. More importantly, I wanted to make sure I got the chance to tell him thank you and goodbye before I left. And I had to fit it all in between getting my Jeffrey Dean Morgan autograph and photo op.

It was about 10:15 a.m. when we got to the NRG center that morning. I was hoping I'd get to talk to Rooker first thing. I had one last picture for him to sign, which had something to do with a special request for our photo op. He wasn’t at his booth when we finally got inside, though, so I decided to get in Jeffrey Dean’s line to get his autograph about 10:30 a.m.

A fairly big crowd had already gathered for Jeffrey Dean. But my Rooker photo ops weren’t until 1 p.m. and my Jeffrey Dean op was at 2:10 p.m. I figured I would have plenty of time to see Rooker before our photo ops.

We were again standing in the perfect spot to watch all the celebs come out from behind the curtain. A little after 11 a.m. they all started to trickle out. And, y’all, when Rooker finally walked out? Dayuuumm, daddy. He wasn’t sporting his usual leather jacket paired with a black or navy or white v-neck t-shirt look. He wore a black button-up shirt with the collar unbuttoned low and looked sexy...as…hell. I mean the man always looks sexy as hell, but...well, y’all know what I mean. I immediately checked in with the Rooker Hookers and told them Rooker’s wardrobe choice for the day. Again, don’t laugh. I just get excited when he switches things up.

We were still waiting in Jeffrey Dean's line when they made a huge announcement around 11:30 a.m. Norman Reedus had to leave the con early. All the Walking Dead photo ops had to be bumped up. I started to panic a little.

My Jeffrey Dean photo stayed at 2:10 p.m., but Rooker and Norman were supposed to have Dixon Bros. photo ops at 3:25 p.m. The con closed at 4 p.m. so I figured Rooker would probably be leaving right after. But I had to tell Rooker goodbye before we left. I just had to. Now I was afraid with all the photo ops being bumped around I wouldn’t get to.

Noon came and Jeffrey Dean's line had hardly moved. He had only been out at his table for maybe 45 minutes or so and now his time would be even more limited because the photo ops had to be moved up. His line was so long that they ended up bumping the people who had pre-purchased an autograph up in line. That included me. Whew. We had gotten closer but were still so far away. The minutes were counting down until my Rooker photo ops. I was a nervous wreck. If I stayed in Jeffrey Dean's line, I would be cutting it reaaaally close.

I left my friend in line and went to explain my situation to one of the Fandemic workers nearby. I told him I had Rooker photo ops at 1 p.m. and if I didn’t make it up to Jeffrey Dean would I be able to get a refund for his autograph. I didn’t want to get a refund. I love Jeffrey Dean and had been looking forward to meeting him and getting his autograph. But I couldn’t miss my Rooker photo ops. That was completely out of the question. The worker looked at his watch and told me that I would make it, but if it got too close, he would move me up in line. That made me feel a little better.

I got back in line, but I couldn’t stop checking my phone for the time. I really needed to show Rooker the picture I wanted him to autograph before our photo ops. The minutes were ticking away and the line was barely moving. Finally, about 12:30 p.m., I left my friend again in line and went to go see Rooker.

I went over to Rooker's table and paid his helper for another autograph. She asked if I wanted to pick out a picture, but I told her I already had one. She said, “Ooh, can I see?” I showed her and told her it was my all-time favorite picture of Rooker, and I was hoping I could get him to do the same pose for our photo op. She loved it and told me that he had done a similar pose the day before. Aaah, there was a chance.

I walked up to Rooker holding the picture against me so he couldn’t see it right away. I asked him, “Will you sign one more thing for me? I was also wondering if you’d reenact it for our photo op today.” He just grinned and said, “It depends. Lemme see it.” At that moment, I was so glad there wasn’t anyone else around. I had no idea what his reaction would be.

I told him it was my all-time favorite picture of him and handed it over. He instantly busted out laughing when he saw what it was. In the picture Rooker has his shirt lifted, one hand pointing to his nipple and a ginormous smile on his face. He asked me where I even got it. I told him I found it on the internet. I reminded him about one of the Rooker Hookers meeting him and having him sign his naked ass from Mallrats. He laughed and said he remembered that. “I’m just carrying on the tradition of having you sign off the wall pictures,” I said.

He told me that he doesn’t normally sign pictures like that, but for me, he would. While he signed it, I told him that I had two photo ops with him and that they couldn’t be the same and asked him again if he would do that same pose for one of them. He laughed and said no. Then he took off his glasses completely to look at the picture more closely. I...saw...his...eyes again for a long time. He was trying to remember where the picture was taken and what the hell he was doing. He said the glasses he was wearing were his old ones and that he didn’t have them anymore and the shirt he had on was his old Harley Davidson shirt. I was too embarrassed to tell him I knew the picture was taken at James Gunn’s old house. I was afraid yet again that he would think I was a batshit crazy stalker.

We talked about the picture a little more and then he looked up at me laughing and said, “You dork.” Rooker called me dork. Out of all the things he called me that weekend “dork” was definitely my favorite. I begged him one more time to do that pose for our photo. He just laughed and shook his head and said, “No.” again. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to talk to him very much longer because I had to hurry to get back in line for Jeffrey Dean so I told Rooker I’d see him later.

My friend hadn’t made it very far when I joined her back in line. By then it was pushing 12:40 p.m. I was starting to get nervous again. I only had 20 minutes left until Rooker photos, and the line was...moving...so...slow.

About 12:55 p.m., there were only three people ahead of me in line. Jeffrey Dean was right there. Surely I would make it in time. He finished visiting with the fan he was talking to, and I heard him tell one of his handlers that he needed to take a break. Uh oh. Panic mode. I went up to his other handler and explained that I had Rooker photo ops at 1:00 p.m. which was in three minutes. She said, “Ok, no problem.” She went up to Jeffrey Dean and told him my dilemma. I felt horrible cutting in line, but I got to meet him real quick before he went on his break.

He gave me a huge hug when I went up to him. (Jeffrey Dean gives amazing hugs by the way and is one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met. Annnnd even sexier...as...hell in person). I handed him the headshot I had of him and he said, “Oh, fuuuuck, this is awesome!” I said, “You were a baby. Lookit you.” He said, “I was a baby!” He then turned it over to look at his resume, and was like “Whooa, this is a loooong time ago! You know awhile back when everyone was sharing their first headshots for “Headshot Day” on Instagram and shit, I didn’t have one. I shoulda called you.” That would be the dream I thought. I snickered and said, “Uh, yeaaah, you totally could have called me!” He laughed and we talked some more about his headshot. Then he asked me if I wanted him to sign it to me or just with his name. I told him that he could put my name if he wanted and he personalized his autograph for me. I told him “thank you” and he said, “Oh, you’re very welcome and it’s nice to meet you.” He gave me another huge, extra-tight hug, and said, “Tell Rooker I said ‘hey’,” as I told him bye. Gahhh, I’m still gushing over Jeffrey Dean, too!

After I left Jeffrey Dean, we booked it over to the photo op line. We were a few minutes late, but luckily Rooker hadn’t made it over there yet so the photo ops hadn’t actually started. A few minutes later Rooker came over and went behind the curtain. He was holding some sort of arrow thingy? With a bullet on the end? I still have no idea what it was.

When I got behind the curtain for our photos, Rooker pulled me to him and I put my arm around his lower back right above his waist. His shirt was so silky, and I could feel his lil’ love handles. Swoon. He put his arm over my shoulder and kind of threw his head back with a smug look on his face for the first photo. The Rooker Hookers say it was his “Yeah, this is my Sugar Mama” pose. I’m not sure if that’s what he was going for, but I like that idea.

After the photographer took the first photo, Rooker went to tell me thank you like he had done the previous days. I told him though that I had two photo ops. (I had told my friend that if she would go with me to Fandemic I would buy all the tickets, and she didn’t want to take any pictures so I used the photo op that came with her VIP ticket). He said, “Oh, you have two?” I shook my head yes and replied, “What are we gonna do, Rooker? They can’t be the same.” He looked at me, thinking for a second, and then grabbed my necklace. I have a necklace with a little silver bullet on it (or I did...it broke like two weeks after Fandemic.) He held the bullet in his fingers and said, “You show off your bullet, I’ll show mine,” meaning the little arrow thingy he was holding. So, I held up the bullet on my necklace and he held out the arrow thing for the second picture. I personally never would have thought up that pose, but it made him laugh and that’s all that mattered to me. And I got another short bonus Rooker backrub as we said goodbye.

A little while later, I had my photo op with Jeffrey Dean. He gave me a big hug for our picture. I’m horrible at taking pictures, but that one actually turned out the best out of all the ops I had that weekend.

After Jeffrey Dean, it was pretty much time to go. As much as I didn’t want to, it was time to go see Rooker for the last time and tell him goodbye.

Rooker had an 8X10 of Sean as Kraglin and was drawing various funny things all over Sean’s face while casually talking to a fan who I’m assuming had met him before when we got to his table. I wasn’t trying to be nosy I promise, but I could hear a little of what they were talking about. At one point, the guy mentioned Rooker’s hair and how much he had grown it out. He asked him if it was for a specific reason, like for a movie or something. Rooker told the guy that his granddaughter had actually asked him to grow his hair out so he would have long, pretty hair like her. My heart = melted. He then said that it wasn’t working. It was making him worse. You’re wrong, Rooker. Seriously, I don’t think you can get any more perfect.

While Rooker was still diligently drawing on Sean’s picture and talking to the fan, another guy walked up and asked his handler if Rooker was in Cliffhanger. The handler said yes. The guy said, “Oh man, I knew it! I can still hear your voice! Like when your lady fell in the beginning.” Without even looking up, Rooker said, “That fuckin’ bitch! I knew what she was doing up there with Stallone!” and then laughed.

When it was my turn, I went up to him and asked, “Are you sick of me yet?” He said, “Noooo.” I told him I had one last thing to give him, and it was kind of a dumb one, but all my friends told me I had to give it to him. I said, “Do you remember when James called you Winnie the Pooh in that one post?” He said, “Yeah.” I plopped down a little stuffed Pooh Bear in front of him on the table. Pooh was dressed in black and white prison stripes with a ball and chain on his leg. The patch on his shirt said “Prisoner of Love". Rooker laughed and said, “Aww, this is for me?” I told him yes, and that I knew it was kinda stupid and I don't normally go around giving grown men stuffed animals. “You're actually the only grown man I've ever given a stuffed animal to,” I said to him. He laughed again, and said, “Well, I actually love stuffed animals.”

He immediately took the tag off of Pooh's ear and then held him up towards one of his helpers and the couple of people in line at the end of the table and made Pooh “growl" at them. He then turned to the handler standing right next to him, shoved the little bear right in the guy’s face and made Pooh wave and said, “Fuck you, bitch!” in a goofy, high-pitched voice.

He made himself laugh, that silent kind of Rooker laugh where his head is thrown back and his mouth is wide open, his whole face lit up, and came around his table to give me a hug. Then....it happened. The single greatest moment of my life.

With his smile never fading, he grabbed my face in his hands and kissed me on the cheek, an added “mwah” for sound effect.

Time froze. I could feel his fingers in my hair. His scruff rough against my face. I couldn’t believe what was happening. My brain ceased to function properly, and I went into survival mode, struggling to simply form words.

As soon as it happened, my brain took that script that I had made up in my mind early that morning, ripped it up into a thousand little pieces, tossed them in the air, and screamed, “Haha, time to improv, bitch!” I could no longer remember a single thing that I had wanted to talk to him about.

I was stunned. I was in a daze. For the first time that entire weekend I was speechless.

My friend chimed in very quickly to save me. “You should show him your dogs!” As he still stood next to me, he said, “Oh, you have dogs?!” He sounded way more excited than I would have thought he’d be to see my dogs. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. But Rooker had broken my brain. I was in auto-pilot mode, and I was forgetting a major detail.

It wasn’t until I hit the home button to turn my phone on that I remembered one of Rooker’s Skillset photos is my lock screen and a picture of him laughing on the set of Brother’s Keeper is my home screen. OMG!!!

I freaked out a little and playfully pushed him away. “Oh, don’t look at my phone, Rooker! You’re on it!” It was too late. He had already seen it. He backed away laughing and said, “Oooh, girl, you makin’ me look sexxxy!” I’m sure my face was red as a tomato at that moment.

My Instagram account was the quickest way to get to pictures of my dogs, so I pulled up the app. Rooker was so close to me. We were standing shoulder to shoulder, our arms were touching, him looking at my phone the entire time. It didn’t occur to me until much later that I know he saw everything on my Instagram: my IG name which is basically the same as my Tumblr, my icon which is him, my description that says I’m obsessed with him, the memes I’ve made of him.

I opened up the picture of my dog as James Gunn. Rooker pulled down his sunglasses to look. He didn’t remember Gunn sharing that picture either last Halloween, but he did say Bruce was a beautiful dog. Then I showed him the “Rooker vs. Rooker: Grumpface Edition” meme I had made of Rooker and my dog. I pointed to my dog and said, “That’s Rooker.” He turned and looked right at me. A few seconds after we made eye contact, he busted out laughing. It was my favorite kind of Rooker laugh, the Rooker laugh where he’s trying so hard not to laugh and is grinning but holding his mouth closed until he can’t take it anymore and just lets it go. Rooker loved my dog. He said, “Omg!”, gave me a fist bump, then grabbed my phone, walked over to his handler and shoved my phone in his face to show him.

When Rooker handed me my phone back, he hugged me again and then held up his hands for a double high-five. I high-fived him, but this time he didn’t let my hands go. He let our hands fall down together, our fingers interlocked. He kept them that way the whole time I talked to him. I never wanted that moment to end.

I then told him that we had to get back on the road to Louisiana, and I just wanted to tell him goodbye before we left. I said, “Thank you, Rooker. For everything. For putting up with me all weekend. This has seriously been the best three days of my life.” He held out his arms and said, “Awww, c’mere, baby.” He hugged me again, and I laid my head against his chest. It was the longest and the tightest hug he had given me so far, and I made sure to pay attention to every little detail: the cool, silky feel of his shirt on my face, the smell of mint, the way his back felt under my hands. I could have stayed there forever. When we finally let go, he said, “Thank you for coming to see me. Y’all drive safe,” and we said goodbye.

And with that, I walked away. It was over. Our “see you tomorrows" had become our final goodbye. It was all so bittersweet leaving through those convention doors for the last time. Over three days, Rooker had high-fived me, fist bumped me, called me pet names, held my hands, hugged and kissed me. I had made him laugh more than once. He had made me melt 100 times over. I know I was lucky to have had such an amazing experience with him, and I couldn’t have been happier. But knowing that there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow with him made me terribly…sad.

I had spent almost a year saving for Fandemic. It wasn’t cheap, but I had done a lot of photo ops and gotten a lot of autographs and had the time of my life. I had justified spending so much money by telling myself that this was more than likely a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and I’d probably never get to see Rooker again. After that weekend, I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I've already started saving for my next con. That man means the world to me, and I don’t know where or when (hopefully sometime really soon), but I have to go see him again.

So that’s it. For the ones that made it this far, that's the story of my little Fandemic adventure, my getting “Rookered" for the very first time, the best three days of my life. Michael Rooker is the most humble, nicest, most generous, funniest, silliest, best hugs in the world givin’, sweetest person I’ve ever met. He’s charming as hell, not to mention the sexiest man alive. There’s a reason he’s my favorite person on earth. There are not enough words to describe how much I love that man, and I truly hope everyone gets to meet him someday.

The end.

And, p.s., my new windshield wipers are still going strong 😜.

#michael rooker #rooker #fandemic houston #fandemic #I got rookered

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wydmariana · 6 years ago

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well hellooooo beautiful people !! i’m so freakin excited u don’t even know… anyway, i guess i should introduce maself. i’m dani, i’m 19 & i’m from canada aka the est tz. i’m also the ari mascot on the main !! i’m gonna put some info about my babygirl below so pls hmu or like this to plot :~)

a SELENA GOMEZ lookalike was strolling down broadway street in their louis vuitton’s. mariana cavello just had a birthday bash for her twenty second birthday. she has been living in new york city for her whole life. i hear she tends to be reticent at parties, but also kind of quixotic. ( cisfemale & she/her )

☇ ❪ ˚･ﾟ ❛ STATISTICS :

full name: mariana marisol cavello

nickname(s): mari

age: twenty two

date of birth: june 4th, 1996

hometown: new york city

current location: upper east side, new york city

ethnicity: half mexican

nationality: american

gender: cisfemale

pronouns: she/her

parents names: tanner hastings, liliana cavello

orientation: pansexual but she doesn’t like labels

religion: grew up catholic, undecided

political affiliation: democrat

occupation: singer/songwriter

living arrangements: lives in her own mansion in the upper east side

language(s) spoken: english, spanish

accent: american

face claim: selena gomez

hair colour: x (most basic/accurate/but it changes)

eye colour: brown

height: 5��5

weight: 120lbs

build: petite

tattoos: mostly selena’s canon, but x instead of the music note

piercings: x (both ears)

drugs/alcohol/sex: yes/yes/yes

pets: one cat, 5 years old, named sergio - x

astrological chart: gemini sun, cancer moon, scorpio rising

☇ ❪ ˚･ﾟ ❛ BACKSTORY/CURRENT :

mariana was born to tanner cavello (famous hotel owner, entrepreneur, multimillionaire, been on forbes, think bart bass) & lilliana cavello (hispanic model/socialite)

her parents marriage was very much settling, the two of them cared about each other & were excited to start their life together in effort to please their parents and keep their images pristine

they were quick to fall out of love though, if you could say they were even ever in it

once mariana and her brother became teenagers, their dad started having affairs with his employes, the hot, young ones of course. & their mom found out, but confided in a 16 year old mariana about her father’s actions

( sexual abuse tw ) this infuriated mariana, especially considering the hours she would spend waiting outside her father’s office doing homework while his business partners molested her in the empty conference room starting at the age of 14

she never told anyone about it, although she knew her father had known the whole time, remembering how many times he’d interrupt it by summoning his partners for work or a meeting

mariana began absolutely hating her father, while still yearning for his approval, & this went on for 4 years until she turned 18 and got revenge by sleeping with one of her dad’s business partners & allowing his wife to find out

so his wife threatened to tell the media about this little scandal, unless mari’s dad paid them off, which is exactly what he did but not before taking his anger out on mariana & blaming her for the whole mess

she has barely talked to her dad since & moved out right as that whole situation went down. she does her best to avoid family gatherings, doesn’t visit the house to see her parents too often. she does have weekly phone calls with her mom & tries to see her as often as she can, no matter how much she resents her

she got into the party scene around 17/18 as well, and became new york’s resident “wild child rich kid/socialite” in her teen years, so she has that reputation in the media still to this day

her parents have been rich as fuck since the day she was born, so she’s definitely a spoiled brat, never worked a day in her life, had daddy’s credit card whenever she needed it

music had always been a passion of hers though, being her favorite class in school (on days when she would actually attend)

so when she was 20, she started getting back into writing, sold a couple of her songs to artists like zendaya, the weeknd, etc

when she turned 21 she released her first single & album within the same year, began touring, and got to the top of the charts almost right away & gained a huge fanbase, whom she loves

she works hard though, & loves writing and releasing music now and never wants to stop. it’s truly the thing that makes her most happy in the entire world and keeps her sane

☇ ❪ ˚･ﾟ ❛ PERSONALITY :

mariana can be a brat, to put it simply. she thinks she’s always right about everything & it’s rare you’re ever gonna get an apology from her when she’s done something wrong (unless she really cares about you which….)

she’s lowkey a softie, bc of her cancer moon tbh. she tends to get herself into relationships and then mess them up for the sake of it or because she stops trusting herself to be in the relationship at all

but when she loves someone, she LOVES them, like w every fibre in her body u know?

and she cares fiercely about people, it ends up being a problem for her a lot of the time

she hasn’t worked through her trauma & probably never will, she bottles that shit up tight & doesn’t let anybody know it’s there. the only way she’s ever opening up is if she’s writing, cause she wants that shit to be real

but she’s still gonna hoe it up, catch her in the club trying to get some dick for the night, u know what i mean?

super depressed if we’re being real here. she’s sad, and she has abandonment issues because of her dad. so her mindset is- there’s no forming attachments, because everyone leaves me anyway

( drugs tw ) she loves cocaine, is most definitely an addict (but who isn’t in this city), tequila is her alcohol of choice, but she’ll drink anything you give her & weed is her creative saving grace

she started popping pain pills on her 21st birthday, opioids occasionally & mostly xanax, stuff like that, is most definitely also addicted to those

we love a bitch who doesn’t care about her health!

her management team frowns upon it, but she does smoke cigarettes pretty often, but mostly only when she’s stressed

mariana’s the type of bitch to call the paparazzi on herself, she loves attention. but with her music career now it’s been 10x harder for her to keep her life private, not that she cares. but at least she doesn’t have to call the paps on herself anymore lol

she thinks it’s important to treat people w kindness and respect, but no doubt she’ll be ready to fight a b*tch if she has to…

catch her at any protest that involves saying “fuck you trump”

her instagram is a big mix of stories of her cat, dumb selfies, ig model posts, her friends, career stuff & political posts. she’s very active on the gram & snapchat lol

honestly thank U for reading this trash if u didnt...i understand. catch her pinterest board for more here & i have a wanted connections page here ! ok bye i love u, plot w me <3

#wealthyhq:intro #heyyyyoo #this ugly im sry #assault tw

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davidcarner · 7 years ago

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Casey & Walker Ch 9, Fulcrum Thanks You

A/N: Last chapter, I struuuuugled with. It had to be done, and I worried about it. A LOT. It saw more eyes prepost than any chapter I have ever written. And then you guys came out of the freakin woodwork to tell me how much you like it. Thank you. Just thank you. There's still things to deal with personally, professionally, and however you'd like classify Molly. I think I'll use PeterOinNYC's description, a tornado…oh and Peter, I have no problem flogging Bryce, but I hope you like how I handled the situation…I hope you enjoy Ch 9, Fulcrum Thanks You

Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck but I do have a very detailed diagram of who works where, and before it's over we may all need it...

It was early, they were running, and Sarah was quiet. They hadn't talked about the night before. Not last night, not when they got in bed, not when she snuggled against him and went right to sleep, not when he woke her, telling her he was going for a run and she told him she was going with him, and not during any of the time that had passed on that run. In fact, she really hadn't said anything. Chuck didn't think she was mad, but he wasn't sure she was happy with him either. He did know during the night he tried to slip out of bed and she had hung on for dear life, so whatever was going on, she wanted him there, and that was something. Something he really wasn't sure how to deal with, but he was glad to try to deal with all the same. She was off in her own world and Chuck had to do something.

"Quite a bombshell about Molly last night, huh?" Chuck asked. She grunted something. He looked at her tee shirt, that had the words "Under construction" on top, and "check back later" on the bottom. Between the words was a picture of the second death star. "That's the Star Trek thing they fly on right? The TARDIS? It goes all timey wimey?" She grunted again in agreement. "You know Molly wants to have my children, right?" Again she grunted. He quit running, and she went on a bit before she realized he wasn't with her.

"What's wrong?" she yelled, coming back to him.

"That's what I'd like to know," Chuck said. "I made both a Star Trek, and Dr. What reference to your tee shirt and you just grunted in agreement."

"Who," she replied.

"Me," he replied, confused. She began to chuckle. "What?"

"It's Dr. Who, Sweetie," she said. His face soften and he grinned. "What?"

"You called me sweetie," he said. "I wasn't sure what name I was about to get." She studied him for a second, seeing the confusion on his face, and something more. He was scared, scared that this was about to go away. She couldn't help but have an amused smiled. Chuck was not getting rid of her that easily, and if she had to explain things to him, she would.

"Chuck, listen to me, people have misunderstandings, disagreements, and fight sometimes," Sarah began, taking his hands in hers. "It doesn't mean you have to resort to name calling, or breaking up over it. We have a relationship, it's going to take a lot to drive me away."

"So, you're not happy with me," Chuck said. Sarah looked around and saw a table.

"Let's go over there and talk," she said. "But first will you go over to that stand and get us some water?"

"Yes, but only because I know you're trying to stealth look at my butt," Chuck replied, turning.

"Who's being stealthy?" she asked, swatting it. He mocked yelled, smirked at her, and headed to get the water. He came back to the table, and they both sat on it, quiet. She decided to start.

"I need the truth about Bryce," she said softly. Chuck was quiet for a second, like he was trying to figure out where to start.

"Remember when your dad said last night he had me by the short hairs?" Chuck asked. Sarah held back a laugh. "As uncomfortable as that was to hear, he was right. Bryce threatened to go to Commander Clyde Decker and order me transferred so I could go back undercover," Chuck said.

"Damn it," she swore. "Why didn't you tell dad?"

"And run to my," he paused, not sure what to call her.

"I damn well better be your girlfriend," she said, with no humor on her face.

"Well, I didn't want to label it some way and-" he began.

"Chuck, you're my boyfriend and I'm your girlfriend, and we're dating exclusively, okay?" she asked. Chuck nodded. "So you didn't want to run to my dad, I get it. How did you talk him out of it?"

"He's close to taking out Volkoff, and that's what saved me," Chuck explained. "I told him I could get him Volkoff, and the ring."

"He believes you?" Sarah asked. Chuck gave her a look. "Casey told me everything, he's not even sure the ring exists," she said honestly. Chuck nodded.

"Bryce believes Volkoff is dirty and his fingers are in everything, but I'm not sure he believes the ring exists," Chuck replied. Sarah nodded.

"Did he want to transfer you because of me?" Sarah asked.

"I have no idea," Chuck admitted. "This all went down before I knew you two were a thing."

"How would transferring you help him?" Sarah asked.

"There's other gangs he wants to take out, and I think he thinks I could get inside," Chuck said. "That would mean starting at scratch. Another five, seven, or even ten years. I'd resign first, and I think he knows that, and he doesn't care. He just wants results no matter who or what he hurts. He's doing what he thinks is right for the greater good."

"Do you remember when he talked to you about this?" Sarah asked.

"Remember that day Beckman had me go home, and you found me drinking?" Chuck asked. Sarah nodded. "That day." Sarah went quiet.

"I'll kill the sonofabitch," she said softly. She turned to a shocked Chuck. "If I find out that he tried to have you transferred because of me, I'll kill him!" Chuck sat there, not knowing what to say. "Come on, let's head home." Chuck got up, and Sarah pulled out her phone. "Just a sec, I need to text Molly before I forget." She typed a second, smiled at Chuck, got up, and they began their run back to the apartment.

}o{

Across town

Bryce was asleep, when he heard the banging on the door. He pulled himself out of his slumber, put on a robe and went to answer the door. He opened it to a blonde goddess, not the one he was hoping for, but one all the same.

"Burton women just can't seem to get enough of me," he said. She smiled at him and walked in. "What can I do for you?"

"I was wondering, Chuck was whining about you trying to transfer him," she said, smiling at him, getting close to him, and dragging her finger against his stubble on his chin. "Why would you do that?"

"Uh, he's not in our class," Bryce answered. "His dad has a mental illness, his mom's a con artist, and he's risen to his highest station in life. He's a no one, not like us." She took a good look at him, and smiled.

"Our class, Bryce?" she asked coyly.

"Don't get me wrong, I like Chuck, but he's not like us," Bryce answered.

"I didn't mean your family and mine," she replied. "I thought it was my sister you were into?"

"Molly, let's be honest, you're just as good looking as her, you have a better, safer career, and you're better connected because your last name is still Burton. You're the catch of the family; I just assumed I was too old for you," Bryce said.

"You're not that much older," she said. "Besides, I kinda like a guy about your age, anyway," she admitted.

"Really," he said. "Maybe we should do something about that?" Bryce replied.

"If you're sure," she said, licking her lips. He nodded. She smiled, and brought her boot forward catching him right in the genitals. Bryce crashed to the floor, whimpering. Molly bent down beside him. She rested her elbows right above her knees, as she talked calmly to him as he rolled and howled in pain.

"If you mess with Sarah, or my very good friend Chuck, who is about to become my brother-in-law, I will end you, Larkin," Molly said. "She's been happier, had better sex, and is just so much better off with him, than you. If you EVER try to transfer him again, you'll wish I got dad involved. Do you understand?" Bryce whined, or cried she wasn't sure which. She grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up. "Do. You. Understand?" Bryce nodded. "Now, you cry for a while, find some ice, and we'll forget this ever happened, capisce?" she said, winking at him. Bryce nodded, she let go of his hair, and his head bounced off of the ground. Molly winced, stood, and headed for the door. "Don't make me come back, Bryce," she said, and closed the door.

}o{

As Chuck and Sarah came up the stairs their phones went off at the same time, and then Sarah's went off for a second time. Chuck pulled his out, looked at it, and looked like he wanted to collapse on the floor. He opened the apartment door and feel face first on the couch.

"Really?" Sarah asked. "Did you get a text from Ellie?" Chuck nodded, but didn't say anything. "It says family dinner, that sounds lovely." Chuck didn't even move.

"You mean the same way the Spanish Inquisition was a friendly little chat," Chuck countered. He raised up. "Wait, you got it to?" he asked. Sarah nodded. He groaned and buried himself back on the couch. Sarah studied him, shrugged, and sat down on his butt. "Hey!"

"I have nowhere to sit," she said. Chuck still didn't move. She wiggled around a bit. "This is a bit boney."

"Really?" he asked. "I'm facing impending doom from my sister and you're complaining about my butt being too boney?" She squirmed again. "Do you mind!?"

"No, not at all," she replied. "I'm quite comfortable, except for the boney part." Chuck huffed a sigh. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," he replied. He laid there quiet for a minute and realized she wasn't going anywhere. "But, apparently you want to. If she invited you, that means she considers you part of the family."

"Okay," Sarah replied. "You don't want me to be a part of the family?"

"No, it's not that it just means," Chuck paused. "She may think this is like, serious."

"Do you think it's not serious?" she asked, staring down at the back of his head. She felt Chuck stiffen under her, knowing he had said the wrong thing. She had a pleased smile on her face.

"That came out wrong," Chuck explained. "She might think we're getting really serious, like together forever serious."

"Oh, so you're saying once this case is over, and you've learned all the nerd stuff you need from me to be able to talk with Morgan, that you'll be going on your merry way?" Sarah asked. Chuck flipped over, spilling Sarah to the floor. She quickly spun to her knees, to face him right in front of the couch. Chuck looked very nervous.

"No, why would I leave?" Chuck asked. "I just figured it was a matter of time before you realized I'm too much to deal with." Sarah took his face in her hands.

"Chuck Bartowski, are you saying you're afraid I'm going to leave you?" she asked. He nodded, and she released his face.

"I don't want Ellie to be mad at you. When the day comes you realize there are better things and guys out there than me, I don't want her to resent you," he replied. The intense look she gave him made him gulp. She was supposed to be a nerd, and yet, he was felt like he was staring down a ninja assassin.

"Chuck," she began.

"I care about you," he said. "I've been trying to take care of you and protect you since the moment I met you and I didn't even realize I was doing it. I knew I had to come out of undercover work because just standing over you that night in your apartment had changed me. I had to be your protector, I had to make sure you were okay." He paused, and took a deep breath, and just blurted it out. "I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you. You've changed everything for me, and I know how broken I am, so when the day comes that you realize how much more that you can have, I don't want anyone being mad at you." She set her jaw, and stared at him.

"Excuse me what did you just say?" Sarah asked. Chuck froze. He realized what had slipped out during his spiral. He braced for the worst. "Standing over me in my bedroom?"

"That first night you almost caught me…however many times it was I had to hide from you that day, I snuck into your apartment to figure out how far you had gotten. You had almost solved the whole thing," he replied, thankful she had let the slipup pass.

"I woke up, and I…" she looked away for a second, and when she turned back she had tears in her eyes, but a soft loving smile on her face. "I felt so at peace while I slept, and then something was gone. Ever since you moved in, I've slept that way each night, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I had felt that night what I felt, and now I know. Don't you get it, Chuck? I'm not going anywhere. I don't know what I feel, but I can tell you this, I feel more for you than I've ever felt for Bryce, or any other guy I've ever been with. Chuck, we've got something here, and I'm not giving up on it," she said, leaning in and giving him a soft kiss on the lips.

"How can you be so sure?" he asked.

"You might be the biggest dumbass I've ever met," Sarah said. Chuck's jaw dropped. "Did you hear what I said to my dad last night?" Chuck started to answer. "Don't interrupt me." Chuck shut his mouth. "You are what I've been waiting for, you idiot." She paused for a second. "Don't you have anything to say?" He started to speak. "I'm not done," she said, cutting him off. Chuck gave up. "Mister, you don't get to say all that about me, and then say you expect me to leave you. You're going to have to run me off, and even then you're not going to succeed. Understand?" He nodded. She got up, grabbed some clothes and headed into the shower. He lay there a second. "Are you joining me or not?" she yelled teasingly. He scrambled to the bathroom.

}o{

Dinner had been…good, surprising Chuck somewhat. Ellie had behaved, for her. He had seen her vibrate a few times and a random squeal came out every once in a while, but for the most part, it was fine. Sarah was a little shocked at who all had been invited, but as Chuck said, family isn't necessarily blood. Casey, Zondra, Morgan, Alex, and Carina were all there, and Ellie promised next time Molly would get an invite. Sarah joked she was a text away, and Ellie insisted Sarah text her. She did, and ten minutes later the hurricane that was Molly blew in. Chuck watched during the evening as Molly and Ellie talked in hushed tones by themselves, constantly watching Chuck and/or Sarah while they did.

"Do you think their preparing my dowery?" Chuck whispered to Sarah. She brought a hand to her face, to try and stop the laughter.

"Uh, isn't it the woman who usually has the dowery?" Sarah replied. Chuck looked at her.

"Come on, we both know that I'm out of my league when it comes to you," Chuck said. Sarah turned to him, a look on her face. "What?"

I'm going to be nice this time, but if you don't stop degrading yourself we are going to fight, and not in a way you'd enjoy," she said, making Chuck turn a little red. "You are a great guy, Chuck Bartowski, and I will kick the ass of anyone who says anything derogatory about my boyfriend, including said boyfriend, are we clear?"

"Is it weird I'm not only frightened but a little turned on?" Chuck asked.

"It is, but it's you, and it's adorable, and I love it," Sarah said. Chuck looked at her, with a slow grin growing on his face.

"You love that I'm adorable," he repeated.

"Yep," she said, popping the "p". "I also love a lot of other things about you."

"Careful, Sarah Walker, that's real close to some serious words," he said. She turned and looked at him, an amused smirk on her face, almost daring.

"Deal with it," she said, and walked over to talk to her sister, leaving Chuck standing there shell shocked.

"You are so out of your league," Carina said having come up behind him, laughing.

"I know, but I'm not allowed to say that out loud," he said.

"So tell me something, who here doesn't know your actual name?" Carina asked. Chuck looked over the whole group.

"Everyone knows my name," he said. It hit him. He didn't know the last time he had been in a place with more than four people and everyone knew exactly who he was.

"Sounds like family to me," Carina said, taking a drink and grinning at Chuck. Chuck smiled, a true full-blown megawatt smile.

"Yeah, it does," he said.

"Enjoy it, Chuckles, you earned it," Carina said. "And, here comes your sister, I'm out."

"Chicken," Chuck said to her as she retreated. He turned to see Ellie.

"Have you told her?" Ellie asked.

"Told who what, Ellie?" Chuck asked, taking a drink.

"Told Sarah that you love her," Ellie said. Chuck spit his drink out, in surprise. He looked around.

"Sorry, wrong hole!" he said loudly. He took his sister by the arm, while smiling, and led her away from everyone.

"You don't know that I'm in love with her," Chuck said when they were a little further away. Ellie gave him the, "Are you really that stupid that you think you can fool me," look.

"Chuck, I know you," she replied. "I know you are dying to tell her, but you are scared to death." Chuck sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

"I told her that I'm pretty sure I'm in love with her," Chuck admitted. "There, are you happy?"

"No," she said simply, with an amused grin. "No, Chuck, I'm not. You didn't go far enough, Chuck! Sarah is special. I know it. You know it. Everyone in this damn room knows it. If you love her, if she's the one, then you don't stop. You don't quit. You never go too far."

"She didn't respond to what I said, Ellie," Chuck said, looking down.

"If Devon had said to me, 'I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you,' I would have kicked his ass," Ellie replied, with an amused grin on her face. "Chuck, you've hedged your bets. You could say, see, told you I was in love, or see, I wasn't sure. You're lucky she's not someone with martial arts training or you might have been in some pain."

"She's got some type of training from Casey," Chuck muttered. Ellie lifted an eyebrow.

"Chuck, you deserve happiness," Ellie said softly. She pulled him into a hug. "You're Aces, Charles, and she knows it."

"Thanks, Ellie," he said as they broke the hug.

"Now go, have fun," she said, pushing him off toward everyone else. Sarah came out of the bathroom, where she had been. "Did you hear all of that?" She gave Ellie a hug, bounced a shoulder and headed after Chuck.

"Maybe," she said, grinning.

}o{

It was Monday morning, and Chuck was already ready to scream. He, Sarah, and Casey were in a surveillance van, checking out the employees of Fulcrum. There were no photos with some of the files, when those names were searched, very few names had driver's licenses associated with them. They were running facial recognition scans against the files they had found in the licenses. Nine employees had these special files, and Chuck was willing to bet these were the members of Fulcrum that were part of the Ring, especially since several of those in charge were included in those photo-less files.

"Okay, I found Bill Bergy," Sarah said, after a little bit of work. "He's the head of Public Relations and is the one in all the commercial that says, 'Fulcrum thanks you.' He comes back clean, and no match with any other id on the facial recognition."

"Do all these files read like this when you search them?" Casey asked. Sarah nodded. "They're too clean," Casey mumbled.

"Sanitized IDs?" Chuck asked. Casey nodded.

"You see this kinda thing in Black Ops all the time," Casey said. "I think you got something kid, but it's going to take a lot of time and manpower to find the weak link, I don't think Beckman will approve it."

"Or, we could get lucky," Chuck said, bounding out of the van as one of the trash trucks pulled up and two men got out. Chuck knew the one driving, he was in Volkoff's crew. He was a driver every now and then. "Ned," Chuck yelled. "Ned Rhyerson!" Ned looked in Chuck's direction and his eyes went huge.

"Cheese it! It's the cops!" he yelled, and pulled out a gun. Sarah had just gotten out of the van, and she tackled Chuck to protect him from the shot that was fired at him. Chuck crashed into the ground as the shot Ned took flew over the van. Casey bounded out to chase him as Ned took off running. Sarah helped up Chuck as they drew their weapons and approached the second man that had been in the truck.

"I'm not armed," he replied, his hands up in the air.

"He seems to know the routine," Chuck muttered. They checked him for weapons, and cuffed him as Casey came back dragging Ned.

"Rafe, man you gotta tell them I didn't do anything," Ned said.

"You need to shut up," Rafe replied.

"Rafe Gruber," Sarah said, remembering the files. "Why don't you come downtown with us, just to make sure we're not missing anything while we have this truck searched. A large man walked/waddled out to the scene of the incident.

"Who do you think you are?" the man asked. Chuck flashed his ID.

"O. Ryan," he replied. "LAPD. Your man here, Ned took a shot at me, when I said hi." The man stared at Ned. Rafe shook his head, and the man seemed to calm down.

"The O stands for Outstanding in case you were wondering," Sarah quipped. Chuck turned a few shades of red.

"Bernie Ominsky," the man said, ignoring Sarah. "I run Fulcrum, and I want to thank you for what you've done here today. I assume this will end your inquiry?"

"We've been on the job less than three hours and already had a shot taken at us," Chuck said. "Mr. Omisnsky, this may take weeks." Bernie seethed. "Or I could call the mayor and tell him what has already happened and not have your contract renewed."

"Let's don't be hasty," Bernie said. "You do whatever you need to do." He turned and headed back inside. Chuck watched Rafe, who made no moves, and had no facial expressions.

"Let's all go downtown and get acquainted," Chuck said, directing them to the squad car that had shown up. Casey took the two, while Chuck and Sarah directed the lab guys to the van. "Thank you," he said softly, and quickly pulled her in, planting a kiss on top of her head. "We've found the first crack." She smiled up at him.

"It's going to take more than to get them," she said.

"Yeah, but it's the best start we've had in a while," Chuck said grinning. "And it's all because of you."

"Good, you can make it up to me tonight, by making dinner," Sarah said.

"But it's your turn," he whined. She tsked.

"Do I have to do everything?" she asked, bumping him with her shoulder. A tech called to her and she headed over.

"No," he said softly, watching her. "But you've done more than you'll know."

A/N: What happens to Ned? Does Chuck channel his inner Rafe? Does Chuck have to make dinner (yes)? Does Molly hurt someone else? Find out next time on Casey and Walker…Same Chuck Time, Same Chuck Channel…Thanks for reading, take care…til next time, and feel free to leave a review or drop me a line.

#Chuck #Sarah #Charah #Casey & Walker #fanfic #fanfiction

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 4 years ago

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Out on the Interstate: S’more Thoughts on Neil Young

I don’t have any fentanyl stories today, so I’m writing another Neil Young post. (Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to mention heroin. You’ll see.) I still have a ton of fent stories, don’t worry bout that. I just don’t feel like mining my memory for any right now. Instead, I wanna talk about my favourite Neil Young song ever. It’s called “Interstate.” This performance was recorded at Farm Aid 1985. Young’s backing band at the time were called the International Harvesters, which is a funny joke (International Harvester was a company that manufactured tractors and other agricultural equipment). Young was on a roll in the 80s with clever band names. Later on he would front Neil Young & the Restless. Anyway whoever is playing piano with Young was the perfect choice, plucking individual keys instead of slathering big chords all over the descending minor chord progression. Young’s guitar is tuned to drop D, a favourite tuning of his throughout his career, from “Cinammon Girl” to “World On A String” to “Be the Rain,” and you can hear the low D buzzing throughout, giving the song a raw off-the-cuff feel. Of course, Neil Young is known for his raw performances, especially on albums like Tonight’s the Night, but by the time the 80s rolled around he was making albums with a lot of processing and production like Landing on Water, along with silly genre exercises like Everybody’s Rockin’ and Old Ways.

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Young would eventually be sued by his own record label, Geffen, for making “uncharacteristic music.” David Geffen would eventually apologize to him, but he wasn’t wrong that Young’s early 80s records were a bit of a disaster. This performance, however, shows that Young hadn’t lost a single step when it came to live performance. His vocal is clear and convincing, world weary but still kinda defiant, like all his best songs. And whether those are real or synth strings, they sound great, and really tug at one’s heartstrings. They have the spook, that high lonesome train whistle feel. To my ears, all the best Neil Young songs are haunting and plaintive. There is a loneliness at the heart of most of Young’s best work (ever hear “Albequerque”? Prolly the saddest song to ever mention the eating of ham?) Neil Young doesn’t write carefree party music. Hell, he once recorded an entire album about the death of his friend and former bandmate Danny Whitten - and to a lesser extent, former roadie Bruce Berry who was fired for pawning instruments to buy heroin...told ya I’d find a way to mention the drug ;). What I’m saying is, Young is no stranger to sad songs. As to which song is his saddest, there are many contenders, but as Young’s biographer himself admits, “Interstate is Neil Young’s loneliest song.” I agree.

Young’s longtime producer David Briggs, who knew damn well that “Interstate” was a rare gem, tried to get Young to record it for 1991′s Ragged Glory, but in typical fashion, “[Young] acceded, but perversely,” eschewing the full-band format and recording a solo acoustic version instead. That particular version would eventually see limited release on the vinyl version of Young’s 1996 album Broken Arrow, a forgettable affair that was hammered by critics and disavowed by most members of Crazy Horse. You can find the solo acoustic “Interstate” on YouTube but I’m not gonna post it, simply because it is so freakin’ disappointing.

I love the line “I can hear a soft voice calling...telling me to bring my guitar home.” In the tradition of the Rolling Stones’ “Moonlight Mile,” "Interstate” is one of the all-time great I’m-A-Lonely-Rock-Star-On-Tour song. A more modern version of this idea can be found in Kurt Vile’s unimaginatively titled “On Tour,” a song where Young’s influence can be identified, especially in the way Vile tunes his lower strings to let them buzz, a technique pioneered by Young in the abovementioned song and most prominently in “Bandit.”

Thank God for YouTube, so that you can hear "Interstate” in all its gorgeous majesty. You can hear Young play the same guitar solo he’s been playing his whole career in minor key masterpieces like “Hey Hey My My,” “Like A Hurricane,” “Goin’ Home,” “Be The Rain.” Every time Young returns to it, you can feel the long shadow of his past, echoes of former greatness, the shambolic glory of his band bashing away at the chords, always emphasizing emotional delivery over technical proficiency. It’s a really really beautiful song, a song I treasure, and I hope you like it.

I’m also posting a rare version of “Shots.”

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In “Shots,” Neil Young returns to a technique previously used on “Cortez the Killer,” where he switches from a third person omniscient voice describing trauma and violence to a first person voice describing personal emotion. In Zuma’s “Cortez the Killer,” Young spends two or three verses describing the endeavours of genocidal explorer Hernan Cortes, and also the Aztecs: people worked together/they lifted many stones/they carried them to the flatlands/they died along the way/but they built up with their bare hands what we still can’t do today/and I know she’s living there and loves me til this day. Now, that’s not Shelley, but it’s an effective and jarring switch. Young tries it again in “Shots,” and for me, the effect is even better. For whatever reason, maybe his sharp right turn when he became an outspoken Reagan supporter, or maybe because of the Iran-Contra Affair, Young’s lyrics took on a particular preoccupation with crime, border zones, and desert iconography in the 1980s, manifestations of which can be heard in “Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero Part I)” “Rockin’ In the Free World,” “On Broadway,” and “Eldorado,” all songs that ended up on Young’s last album of the 1980s, Freedom. But because of the remarkable internal consistency of Young’s discography, you can also hear such sentiments in one of his first 1980s releases: “Shots.” Children are lost in the sand, building roads with little hands Trying to join their father's castles together again Will they make it? Hey, who knows where or when old wounds will mend? Shots ringing all along the borders can be heard Striking out like a venom in the sky Cutting through the air faster than a bird in the night But I'll never use your love, you know I'm not that kind And so if you give your heart to me I promise to you Whatever we do...that I will always be true To jump from depictions of border violence to gooey Hallmark card sentiments shouldn’t work, yet it does. The words might look silly written down, but the sheer conviction they are sung with, and the sheer power of Young’s loon-like vibrato, is what sells them, at least to my ears and heart. I’m not the first to make the loon comparison, Young’s biographer Jimmy McDonough has done so too. Young’s father Scott was the first writer to compare his son’s unique voice to the sound of the loon cry, a very Canadian sound, associated with Muskoka nights in summer, nights often soundtracked by Young’s vast and varied discography.

Disappointingly, the album version of “Shots,” which appeared on 1981′s Re-ac-tor, is pretty fuckin annoying, with its overblown machine gun affects (done by Young on the Synclavier), and Ralph Molina’s incessant marching beat. The song is already called “Shots,” Neil. You didn’t have to add machine gun sound effects. This isn’t audio verite. I’m not gonna post the album version here but you can find it easily. The album iteration has its fans though. Canadian blue-collar rockers The Constantines would cover “Shots” on a vinyl-only release with The Unintended, in which the Cons covered Neil Young and The Unintended covered Gordon Lightfoot. The Cons picked some weird songs, “Shots” among them, and you can tell they are referencing the Re-ac-tor version, not the superior one posted here. I’m not sure why Young slathered so many effects over the album version of “Shots.” The 80s definitely saw him taking his heavier music in an unpalatable direction. The Eldorado EP, in particular, has one of his most savage recordings ever, a song called “Heavy Love” where Young blows his voice out completely by the end of the song in an attempt to sing louder than the savage pulsing thrust of the band (the abovementioned Young & the Restless). The drummer on Eldorado was Chad Cromwell, not Steve Jordan who’d played with Young on his legendary SNL appearance where he played “Rockin in the Free World,” the definitive performance of that song, where Young tore all six strings from his guitar at its denouement. Unfortunately, SNL guards its content as jealously as a rabid guard dog, so I can’t post it. Maybe one day I’ll find a gif. I’ll leave you with two strong cuts from Eldorado. The first is “Heavy Love,” which is obviously a sister song to “Rockin In The Free World,” with its similar sonic texture and E minor riff. Listening is worth it just to hear Young’s voice go to pieces a la “Territorial Pissings” at the end (3:58 if you don’t wanna wait).

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And this is the title track “Eldorado,” which ended up on Freedom. Young employs a fingerpicking style redolent of 80s megastars Dire Straits, and he sings of mission bells and senoritas and golden suns rising on runways and Mariachi bands while playing the A minor chord, a chord strongly associated with Mexican music and Mariachi styles. It’s a cool verite approach, one that works much better than the machine gun effects of “Shots,” especially when the gun violence Young has been hinting at the entire song finally explodes in a shower of distortion at 4:40. Have you ever heard something so loud compared to the backing track? I remember showing “Eldorado” to my friend/bandmate James, and I told him to prepare himself for how loud it is. Afterwards, James said, “even though I was ready for it, that scared the shit out of me.” It is so fucking loud. Check it out @ 4:40. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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One last point I’ll make...the Spanish-influenced guitar lick you can hear at 1:06 is really similar to the pre-chorus guitar riff Young plays on “War of Man” from Harvest Moon. I don’t consider stuff like that to be self plagiarism. I think it shows a consistency, but also it’s a way to reward fans for paying attention. Frank Zappa was known to do the same thing, re-introduce little musical nuances he’d recorded years or decades before. It’s cool. It’s what makes a discography live on long after the artist has burnt out or faded away. If you’re interested, here is a wonderful live early version of “Eldorado” titled “Road of Plenty” recorded with Crazy Horse in 1986: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By6_oLYfrYk

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #neil young #interstate #shots #ronald reagan #1980s #re-ac-tor #1981 #David Briggs #Scott Young #ralph molina #synclavier #steve jordan #SNL #bruceberry #danny whitten #heroin

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all-the-cliches-lwa · 7 years ago

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Playin It Coo

Just a silly(emphasis on silly) thing I wanted to write when I saw what my friend drew for my super vague commission of make either Diana or Akko flustered. Since it’s for art on here, I thought why not put the fic itself here first! Hoping the silly fic does the art justice.

And really, how often do I get to read Akko be the super emotionally awkward one.

The title is exactly what my friend labeled her picture file... so it doesn’t exactly have anything to do with the fic... I guess? Maybe?

Dianakko fluff (of course)

Edit: ff.net link

length: ~2535 words. Man if I coulda only stretched this out another 1000 words lol

"Akko… I- I love you"

Akko groaned into her pillow as the memory played itself in her head over and over.

It could have been such a beautiful memory.

She could remember every little detail vividly.

The light dusting of pink on Diana's fair skin.

The shy, yet determined look in those ocean blue eyes.

The way her platinum blonde hair practically glowed with the rays of the rising sun as it flew with the cool morning breeze.

Diana's hands held together behind her back, the heiress fidgeting just the slightest bit.

Akko could remember the racing of her own heart.

Here she was, the girl of her dreams, confessing to her at the end of an exhausting early morning magic practice session.

It would have been perfect.

Honestly, Akko had thought it was a dream at first. An incredibly vivid, absolutely perfect dream…

Until she woke up in the infirmary with a note telling her that Diana would wait however long for a reply.

The embarrassing reality sunk in, and Akko's face had been on fire ever since.

She had passed out.

She was so overjoyed that she literally passed out.

She was never going to live this down. She didn't even know how she was going to face Diana ever again.

If there was any comfort in this humiliation, it was that neither one of her roommates had seemed to know what was wrong with her.

"Woah, what's ta matter with her?"

And thankfully, neither did the Green team, whom her roommates had called in for help.

"We don't know… She's been hiding under her covers like this for hours, and Sucy and I don't know what to do…"

"I can't focus with her constant groaning."

Akko could just live like this. For the rest of her life.

No one would question it. No one would have to know that-

"I'd have thought she'd be happier. After all, Diana did confess to her this morning right?"

"SHE WHAT?!"

Scratch that. There was no comfort in this humiliation. There was only humiliation.

"AMANDA!" Akko yelled, tossing her covers to the side. "HOW DID YOU-"

"Diana came and talked to me about it yesterday." Amanda shrugged. "Had to convince her that it was the right choice… though lookin’ at you now…" Amanda's face twisted into a mischievous grin, "what happened Akko?"

Akko's heart jumped, the memory once again flashing through her mind.

At least the embarrassing part.

"N-N-Nothing happened!" Akko poorly denied.

"Oh really?" Amanda cocked a brow. "Lotte, Sucy, what do you think?"

"I don't know…" Lotte nervously answered, caught between her own burning curiosity and Akko's personal discomfort.

"We should ask Diana..." Sucy responded bluntly.

"Y-YOU CAN'T!" Akko yelled out as she jumped out of bed to grip onto Sucy's arm.

"… unless Akko would like to tell us herself," Sucy continued with an impish grin.

Akko turned to the others in the room, only to be met with the same level of attention, with everyone looking at her expectantly.

The brunette squirmed under their scrutiny, knowing that… no matter what, they were going to wind up knowing what happened and she was going to find herself teased beyond belief.

"FINE!" Akko relented.

At least this way, Diana wouldn't need to be around to witness it.

"AHAHAHAHHAA"

The sounds of her friends' laughter filled the room.

Laughter at her expense.

"I-I ca-can't believe y-you" Amanda tried to speak, only to be overcome by her own cackles.

Jasminka had put her food away because she was laughing too hard.

Sucy snickered from the side, her eyes never leaving Akko's direction so that she could take in every bit of her misery.

Lotte, the one person Akko had hoped could help her in this time of need, also seemed to be lost in a fit of giggles.

Even Constanze was fighting not to giggle audibly.

"You guuuuuuys, it's not funny." Akko pouted as she hid her tomato red face underneath her pillow.

"I'm. sorry Ak-Akko, but i-it’s pretty f-freakin' funny." Amanda laughed out.

"I never thought you'd be the one to pass out," Sucy jabbed.

Akko whined as she tried to dig a hole in her bed, though she had already resigned herself to this fate.

Eventually, the laughter died down. With the amusement gone, everyone in the room was left with the same question.

"Akko, so what're you gonna do now?" Amanda asked, her feet resting on the desk. "You gonna answer her any time soon?"

"I dunno…" Akko sighed. "I want to but…"

"Don't be an idiot and drag this out, " Sucy deadpanned. "I don't want to deal with a problem that isn't even a problem."

"Sucy I…"

"Akko, you know Diana likes you." Lotte chimed in. "She already said so… and we know you like her."

"I knooooow. I'm just…" Akko mumbled.

"What was that? We can't hear you." Sucy commented.

"I'm just embarrassed!" Akko yelled. "I fainted. How am I, what if she laughs at me?"

"Akko, she isn't going to laugh at you." Lotte comforted, reaching out for Akko's arm.

"Ya said she left you a note right?" Amanda asked. When Akko nodded, the American witch flashed a grin. "See, you'll be fine."

"Don't overthink things Akko, you're not smart enough for that to work." Sucy finished, sending Akko a small smile.

"Yeah. Yeah! You're right!" Akko cheered up. "I'm going to tell her how I feel tomorrow! She deserves that much!"

Spurred on by the encouragement of her friends, Akko was determined to give the heiress the answer she deserved.

After all, Akko really didn't have anything to lose.

Tomorrow was going to be perfect!

Tomorrow was absolutely not perfect.

It wasn't that anything bad had happened.

It was that absolutely nothing had happened.

Akko woke up bright and cheery, with a single goal in mind: the first time she saw Diana, she would pull the heiress away, tell the girl her feelings were the same, and make them both the happiest witches in the entire school.

Unfortunately, as with anything Akko did, things weren't going as planned.

The first time Akko noticed Diana’s wavy blonde hair from across the hall, she perked up and grinned, walking towards the heiress with gusto.

But with every step she took, she felt her heart race more quickly. Her palms began to sweat, and her face began to flush.

Her brain instantly flashed the memory of Diana's confession… particularly of the moment right before everything went black. And Akko, once again felt those same sensations… her legs knees beginning to buckle, her legs turning to jelly.

... She was slowly growing lightheaded.

The moment Akko saw even the slightest movement of the heiress's head towards her direction, she instantly turned on her heel, walked away, much to the confusion of both of her roommates, and hid behind the corner.

Then there was class time.

Saying hi to Diana should have been no big deal. Maybe she could have pulled her aside after class and told her in private. That would have worked.

At least until Diana sent her a smile.

An adorably subtle smile. One where the heiress's lips curled up just enough so that only someone who looked at her with undivided attention would notice.

One where those blue eyes looked at her with nothing but warmth and affection.

It was like a shock to her heart, and Akko found her mind lost in that sea of blue, unable to so much as think of any words.

She was so dazed that Lotte and Sucy had to move her once class ended.

Lunchtime was absolute torture.

Diana was acting completely natural, sharing conversation with her roommates, and occasionally Amanda, as if nothing ever happened… until Akko caught glimpses of clear blue eyes sneaking glances at her. Each little look made her heart skip a beat… and made her almost choke on her food.

When she felt like she was no longer in any danger, Akko would always looks back up to see an amused smile adorning Diana's perfect lips. Those wondrous eyes squinted just the teeniest bit as the heiress fought back a giggle.

Which Akko was grateful for.

If she heard Diana giggle, Akko might have actually fainted again.

Having had an after class meeting with Chariot, Akko now trailed alone to the usual meeting spot.

And naturally, since she was alone, her brain decided to run through all the events from the past two days.

She remembered having to, promptly, turn around and hide from Diana because her little heart was about to give out.

She remembered being struck speechless because Diana had simply smiled in her direction.

She remembered herself nearly choking during lunch because Diana had dared to glance her way and almost giggle.

And of course, she remembered the previous day… or rather reminded herself of an event she couldn’t exactly remember: ...herself fainting.

Akko could feel the heat on her face had already spread up to the tips of her ears and even down to her neck.

She was almost considering just giving up for the day… after all, she'd made a fool of herself so much already.

Even if Diana loved her-

"Akko… I-I love you"

The words echoed in her mind.

A silent encouragement pushing her forward.

Akko took a deep breath, now just a few behind the rest of her friends.

She could see Diana kneeling on a mat at the front, watching what seemed to be Lotte, Barbara, and... Hannah?... reenacting a scene from Nightfall for everyone.

She could see the heiress's shoulders bouncing up and down in laughter…

But most importantly, her eyes zoomed in to the spot beside her. An empty spot. Where her left hand was just sitting there.

Akko closed her eyes and focused on Diana’s confession, hoping it would give her the nerve to act.

Sure Akko… might not be able to speak. Those words were definitely about to get caught in her throat after everything that happened today…

But talking wasn't the only way she could let her feelings be known.

She just need to play it cool.

Diana was only the slightest bit disappointed.

She very well couldn't blame Akko for being so uncharacteristically hesitant throughout the day… given the circumstances of their previous outing.

Perhaps she could have chosen a better time to confess than right after a very taxing early morning session of magic practice. Akko was already short on breath at the time… maybe revealing that to her was not the most well thought idea the heiress had ever had.

Though she would admit the fact Akko had fainted, while undeniably concerning, was rather endearing… and oddly enough a huge relief, once the girl’s safety was ensured. If anything, Diana was flattered. It seemed Akko liked her enough that the confession made her swoon on the spot.

Hannah and Barbara could attest that Diana had been on cloud nine the rest of that day.

Her mood only brightened when Amanda stopped by to tell her Akko would be giving her a response the next day…

And now it was the end of “the next day”… and Akko still hadn't said anything…

But, again, she was only slightly disappointed.

After all… Akko was at least trying.

All the ways the brunette had looked at her throughout the day said as much… the poor witch had been trying so hard to say something. Diana couldn’t think of a moment when it didn’t look like words were caught on the tip of Akko’s tongue... or that Akko’s face wasn’t red.

It was actually rather adorable.

But still, not an official answer…

Diana sighed inwardly as she watched Barbara pretend to be some sort of vampire, Hannah, having been dragged in by Barbara, pretend to be some sort of werewolf, and Lotte pretend to be some sort of damsel.

So perhaps today wouldn't be the day.

She told Akko she could wait anytime for a response… whether it be today or… months from now…or... Jennifer forbid, years from now...

Diana sincerely hoped it would be sooner rather than later.

She even left a spot open for Akko to sit at when she came back fro-

Suddenly, Diana caught movement from the corner of her eye.

She felt the mat move, and a flash of brunette hair revealed exactly who had taken the spot.

Diana's heart skipped a beat as Akko sat beside her. The brunette was kind of facing away from her, but she didn't mind. The red tip of her ear showed Diana all she needed to know.

Diana smiled, pushing a lock of her hair to the side..

"Good afternoon Ak-"

Diana's breath hitched, her greeting getting caught in her throat, as she felt a foreign sensation rest on her left hand… a sensation that just about blocked out all of her surroundings.

It was sweaty, if not a bit clammy…

But it was warm. And soft. Unexpected but altogether welcome.

Diana could see Akko's ear's turning a deeper shade of red… and she could feel her own face beginning to redden.

Her pulse was rushing, and Diana could feel Akko’s pulse felt the very same.

She couldn't see Akko's face, but Diana just knew it was probably beet red. Her lips were probably pursed… eyes looking in the exact opposite direction that their hands were.

Their hands that were… conjoined.

Just thinking about that made Diana's heart jump for joy.

But… they had been pretty silent since Akko sat beside her…and Diana really wanted to make sure this was what she thought it was.

Diana let out a breath she hadn't even realized she had been holding. Then she took a deep breath to, hopefully, compose herself.

It wouldn't do well for both of them to be at risk of fainting after all.

"G-Good afternoon Akko," Diana greeted, pleasantly surprised she had only stuttered once.

"H-hey D-Diana," Akko stammered, her voice pitched just slightly higher than usual.

Cute.

"I… could not help but notice your hand is holding mine."

"… Is that a problem?" Akko mumbled.

"No, not at all," Diana answered, her heart pounding harder and harder by the second, "J-just we have not done so since we performed the Shiny Arc together… should I take this as your reply to my… confession?"

Diana heard a squeak from the girl beside her before the brunette shyly nodded her head. The heiress could feel her heart swell, forcing a smile onto her face.

She leaned in close… just enough so that she was right beside Akko's ear.

If the shiver she felt course down Akko's arm was any indication, it seemed the brunette could feel a breath ghost her skin.

"You know Akko… I really do love you." Diana confessed once again.

Only to be met with one more adorably loud squeak.

And a tightened grip on her hand.

And an even brighter shade of red on the brunette's ears.

"… You are not going to faint on me again, are you?" Diana asked with a grin.

She just couldn't resist.

"NO!" Akko yelled out, much to the laughter of everyone around them.

Everyone that both girls forgot were with them.

Woops.

Anyway, hope that was fun to read! Thanks so much for taking the time to read of course.

#Dianakko #Diakko #LWA #Little Witch Academia #Akko Kagari #Diana Cavendish #Me writing

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xoxo--me · 7 years ago

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April Fool’s Post

I kind of forgot to post the April Fool’s chapter on Tumblr once I deleted it from A03. If anyone is unfamiliar, I basically just wrote the Reader into YuGiOh: the Abridged Series.These are just some vignettes/scenes.

Your eyes slowly fluttered open and you mumbled thanks to Téa for waking you up before class. You sat up and quickly used your sleeve to rub your mouth before anyone else saw the drool.

What a weird dream…

Looking around the classroom, you made sure that everything was as it should be. Yugi and Joey were playing Duel Monsters (and since it did not have any cool holograms, the game did not really matter to you), Tristan and Téa have gathered around, watching.

That weird white-haired kid was somewhere in the corner, or whatever. He was like some mentor in your dream.

Kaiba was reading a book.

Kaiba…

You furrowed your brows and studied him for a moment. Kaiba was obviously one of them forever alone types and you could not imagine him ever being remotely romantic.

But he did have lots of money. And that meant something to you.

Formulating a plan, you nodded to yourself. You were going to marry the sonnavabitch and have his fortune. Yes.

But other than your lifelong ambition, there was nothing really out of place. You were still a Japanese teenager with a Western name and inappropriate accent to contract with Joey’s equally inappropriate Brooklyn accent. Téa still sounded like a guy who was desperately trying to sound like a girl. And Tristan…

Tristan was still Tristan.

Perfectly normal.

You were pulled from your thoughts at Yugi addressing you.

“Are you even listening?” he asked. “Are you going to come and see the super special awesome chocolatey fudge-coated sugar-sprinkled mega ultra rare super card with us after school?”

The economy revolved around card games, so it sounded like a good adventure. But there was one problem.

“Don’t we have cram school?” you asked.

“Cram...school?” Joey asked, blinking in confusion.

“Cram school,” you repeated and looked at your friend’s confused expressions. “Are none of you guys looking to go to college?”

“Isn’t that adorable?” Yugi asked Tristan and Joey. “A woman, trying to learn.”

“Speaking of which,” Joey continued, “how is it that we’re friends again?”

It seemed as if everyone turned their heads to Joey at that exact moment in bewilderment

You never felt more offended in your entire life.

“You don’t remember?” you questioned. “We’ve been friends for years! I’m like the contrast to Téa especially because I’m voiced by a female. While Téa will constantly be called useless and universally hated by the fans for being a good friend, she will be labeled as a dirty whore for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Meanwhile, I’ll be the beloved female character who tries constantly to get into Kaiba’s pants and steal his fortune, but no one will think anything of it. Not only that, but I complete the Five-Man Band trope.”

As you continued, you pointed to each member of your group, announcing their roles. “Yugi’s obviously the leader. You, Joey, are the Lancer. Tristan is the Big Guy. I’m the Smart One, and Téa is the Chick. Duh”

“I do say, that is an interesting assessment, but what about me?” the white-haired guy with a British accent asked.

“Um...Who are you?” Yugi frowned.

“I’m Bakura. We’ve also been friends for years,” he insisted.

“Never heard of you,” Yugi waved a dismissive hand and turned back to his friends with a dramatic eye roll.

“Bye, future husband!” you called to Kaiba’s retreating back. He paused for a moment, looked back at you with a horrified expression before he began to walk faster towards the exit.

“That Kaiba kid needs to get laid,” Grandpa declared.

“Big time,” Tristan agreed.

Well geez, it was not as if you were not trying! This was your first day. Kaiba would come around…

Instead of being overly concerned that your two friends had just jumped overboard, you were more concerned with what you were missing on the Paint Drying Channel.

You were just going to remain huddled in the corner as a stowaway. After all, your hair was not even remotely crazy enough to be on this ship.

“I wonder if Tristan was really right about the sun coming up in a few hours…” you mused.

You were so pissed off at Joey right now. You thought you had been friends, but when he shoved you aside and challenged your future husband to a children’s card game instead of you in order to protect your honor…

Well!

“Kick his ass, babe!” you called out.

Joey gave you a thumbs up. You folded your arms like the petulant teenage girl you were. “Not you, him! Go Kaiba-babe~! <3”

Kaiba just ignored you.

That was fine, he could pretend you did not exist. You were in it for the long con.

Besides, you were going to raid the shit out of that helicopter once he left. That way, you could learn about him and trick him into liking you!

Or maybe you could ask Joey for driving lessons. If he could teach you how to drive, he could certainly teach you how to pilot a helicopter. After all, he totally owed you for stealing the spot as Kaiba’s most hated person.

Douche.

“Kaiba, wait!” you called out, running towards him dramatically. Looking at you, he seemed ready to just jump so he would not have to deal with your shit.

You decided not to risk it.

“Before Yugi kicks your ass again, could you do one thing?” you asked.

Kaiba closed his eyes before exhaling deeply. “What do you want?”

“Sign this,” you were not sure where you got it, but you were glad you had this. Just in case.

He snatched the paper from you and could not help but widen his eyes in surprise before he glared down at you. “A marriage form”

“Yes,” you confirmed. “If you’re going to kill yourself. Why not leave your fortune to someone who matters?”

Kaiba tossed the form over his shoulder and into the ocean.

"You shoulda just pushed him in the ocean," Joey said once you dejectedly rejoined your friends. "'Den your character might have been useful for once."

"Kaiba must die!" the Pharaoh proclaimed and the duel continued.

“What are you doing here, Mai?” Yugi asked once they found a familiar face in the virtual world one Seto Kaiba was being held in.

“I’ve been beta-testing this game for KaibaCorp?”

You only saw red and lunged at the harpie. Luckily for you, 4kids censored how badly

you got your ass handed to you.

Mokuba nearly darted for Kaiba the second he found him. Before the kid could get away (and get himself in trouble,) you grabbed a hold of his shoulder.

You were not going to have anyone unchain Kaiba. Not when he was so...vulnerable.

“Hold on a second,” you said to Mokuba. “This is obviously a trap. Let me handle this.”

As you approached, Kaiba turned his head away from you and refused to look at you. That was fine. You could play this game.

“Hey there,” you greeted in your best sultry voice. You put your hand under Kaiba’s chin, but he stubbornly fought against your attempt to force him to look at your sexy leather outfit. You even had a whip.

Undisturbed, you ran your finger down his jawline. “You realize that there is only one way you’re getting out of this, right?”

“Are we really just going to watch while she molests Kaiba?” Mai asked.

“Someone’s gotta do it. Might as well be the crazy bitch in leather,” Yugi answered.

“Um...You guys,” Mokuba tried but only was told to shut up in unison by everyone in the room. Including the Witty Phantom.

“We should probably do something about him, huh?” Joey asked while cracking his knuckles.

“If anyone asks, I never screamed and agreed to marry anyone,” Kaiba warned as soon as the virtual pods opened.

“I freakin’ hate filler arcs,” you muttered. “Nothing is ever canon.”

“Shouldn’t we be concerned about altitude sickness? Or like, hypoxia?” you asked the moment you stepped out of the elevator to the dueling field.

“Never question mein Führer!” one of the offensive stereotype bodyguards quipped.

“I’m too rich to be concerned about the lives of commoners,” Kaiba replied. He raised his voice so the others could hear him. “This is the ultimate test for duelists. At 20,000 feet, we are subjected to frigid temperatures of the upper stratosphere where the slightest bit of turbulence can send any of us spiraling to our untimely deaths.”

“I mean, shouldn’t we have oxygen tanks or something?” you continued, wondering what kind of doctor or legal team thought this would be a good idea. “At this altitude, we are getting only like, thirty percent of the oxygen we would on the ground and furthermore--”

“If you’re so concerned, then why don’t you save some of your oxygen and shut the f-ck up?” Kaiba snapped.

“...Hypoxia,” you muttered but the sound was lost in the wind gusts at such a high altitude.

“Oh please, what’s the worst that can happen?” Joey asked, slinging his arm around you and leading you away before Tristan could call you a witch for using such complicated language.

"Shouldn't we be wearing our space suits?" Tristan asked, not noticing any witchcraft, after all.

“Kaiba, he is about to interrupt the duel,” Mokuba warned.

“That’s fine, as long as no one looks at my boner right now,” Kaiba replied while looking up at the Egyptian God card.

“How is it that he is able to have a boner while wearing pants that tight?” you asked out loud.

“Ah-ha! I always knew Kaiba had an extremely small penis!” the Pharaoh laughed much to Kaiba’s chagrin.

When the blimp hit the water, you all lost your balance and went hurling in random directions. Unfortunately for you, it meant a six-foot tall teenager in a heavy coat and buckles toppled right on top of you.

“Is that all you got Poseidon?” Joey challenged.

“Stop pissing Poseidon off, Joey!” Since Kaiba was pretty much laying on top of you, it made it so you had no idea who that came from, but were pretty sure it was Téa.

“I know you don’t want to die a virgin, but at least buy me a drink first, you groaned since more than one of Seto’s buckles was digging right into your side.

It took Kaiba a few tries to stand up, but not without touching your boobs. By the time he faced the green-haired plot device on the screen, his face was uncharacteristically red.

Kaiba REALLY needed to get laid...

Mokuba pushing Seto into a hole made it so he was knocked back into you, causing all three of you to fall into the same hole.

Fuck your life, you wanted to ride the hole with Yugi. His bullshit main character powers would have protected you.

You now had no choice but to follow Kaiba and Mokuba around while they went through their past. It took less than half a second before Kaiba used Mokuba’s vest to blindfold you.

“At least buy me a drink first,” you muttered while Mokuba dragged you along their childhood memories.

You really wish you were with your actual friends. They were probably having more fun than you were.

Little did you know…

“Can I take off my blindfold now?” you questioned when you heard the fight between Tristan and Kaiba.

“I always knew Kaiba was into some kinky shit. Duke Devlin approves.” With the theme music, you knew exactly who said that.

“Hi Duke,” you greeted in the direction the music was coming from.

“Hey babe. Lookin’ good. But I think you would look better with all of that clothing on the floor.”

After Kaiba started getting his ass kicked by a guy with a stick and Joey had to use Tackle, you decided you were just going to take the blindfold off.

You did so just in time to see Mokuba getting kidnapped. Kaiba then grabbed your wrist to drag you off to grab another motorcycle.

“Eat it, nerds!” Kaiba called out while racing past your friends.

“Okay, when did this show get awesome ?” Yugi asked.

“Couldn’t you have left me with my friends?” you called over the roar of the motorcycle’s engine. You would hang on for dear life, but were kind of afraid to wrap your arms around Kaiba. You might contract Virginitis.

“You have Mokuba’s vest,” Seto retorted. “That and you know too much about my childhood. I can’t possibly risk you telling that to Joey. Or Yugi. Especially Yugi.”

You thought a moment. “Maybe just pay me not to tell anyone? Like a normal person?”

“What about trying to marry me?” Kaiba asked. “Isn’t that the only part of your character?”

“Oh, yeah. That. I kind of forgot about that,” you admitted. “It’s been awhile since Season One, so that idea got axed since it’s more entertaining for us to have a hateboner for each other.”

“It’s not that big of a hateboner,” Kaiba grumbled.

“Kaiba,” you called. “My crotch is pretty much right against your ass at this point because I don’t want to fall off this bike and die. I have seen your erection through your leather pants. I think I know a thing or two about hateboners at this point.”

Silence.

“So you have no interest in me whatsoever?” Kaiba was not ready to let this subject drop. “That was all you used to talk about.”

“If I am going to be perfectly honest, you have been kind of a little bitch. That’s kind of a turn-off for me. Also, most of our problems are your fault.”

Duelist Kingdom was because Kaiba cared about a card more than his company and that created the mess with the Big 5. If Kaiba never hosted a tournament, then Marik would not be that much of a problem. If Kaiba did not kill his stepfather, then you would not be trapped in this virtual world.

Again.

“That, and your outfit has kind of sucked since Duelist Kingdom. I just can’t take you seriously anymore...But we can still be friends, right?”

Kaiba was silent and you were pretty sure he wanted to turn you into road kill. Instead, he fiddled with the radio until his theme music came on.

Yeah, he was lame. Maybe you would be attracted to him during the Grand Prix arc. Men in suits were hot.

You barely had time to think before Kaiba leaped over a gap and crashed the bike. You both skidded and once again, fell into a compromising position.

This time, he quickly leaped to his feet and brushed himself off.

“So you mean you’ll tag team duel with Yugi, but you won’t tag team with me?” you demanded.

Kaiba just stared at you until you realized what you said.

“Oh right. I’m doing phrasing now.”

“Phrasing,” Kaiba retorted.

At least Leichter was patient enough to wait while you two talked. Truly, he was a southern gentleman

During that exchange, you were in the middle of choosing your deck master. N’tss was an obvious option but was too much of a spoiler. So you were going to have to go with Fencing Fire Ferret. Because you were a girl and it was cute.

“God, I hate cute,” Kaiba shook his head when you first selected him.

“Lord of D ?” you questioned. “Like you’re not compensating for anything?”

“Boy, I say boy. I do declare that you just got told,” Leichter retorted.

“Thank you, Leichter. I’m glad someone around here had manners,” you beamed.

Good thing your deck was full of Internet memes and references. Leichter did not stand a ghost of a chance.

You were both losing.

“Oh hey, Kaiba. Are you losing so bad that you needed a girl to help you out?” Yugi asked.

Kaiba fumed.

“Did you already lose so bad and you are too shy to admit it?” Yugi continued. “It’s okay, because I already beat you enough times that you losing is just natural.”

“I never lose!” Kaiba declared before you had to suffer through another flashback. During this, you saw what he was doing and nodded in approval.

Revenge of the nerds: the memes strike back.

“Hashtag: Winning.” Kaiba declared once Leichter destroyed himself.

Téa was beginning to worry everyone, she sounded hornier than you. And that was saying something.

“It’s really disconcerting,” Yugi mused.

“You guys, I’m fine….But I think my mouth tastes like fish!” Téa blanched.

“Those are...very nice,” Kaiba said while looking down at Téa’s breasts. “But I am not interested. I going after Noa on my own terms.”

“But does he have these?” Téa questioned, holding her arms out so her breasts were thrust in front of her.

“God, I hope not,” Kaiba concluded.

Before you could grab the nearest projectile and eviscerate your only female friend, Joey and Duke held you back. Normally, you would be happy to be held down by two good-looking guys, but you were going to murder Téa.

It took the Pharaoh insisting that no one wanted Téa’s body before you calmed down. Which was good since Joey kind of needed his hands-free in order to duel.

You spent the majority of the duel insisting that you were just trying to protect Yugi by

ensuring Téa hit on no one else but Yugi.

Just listening to Kaiba insult and make fun of a dead ten-year-old. It showed how much of an asshole he was.

And yet...watching him get turned into stone hurt more than you could ever imagine.

...Dear God, you were in love.

Wait.

Did Kaiba drop his wallet?

You decided to just ignore the touching reunion between the Kaiba brothers. After all, you were not going to let Kaiba think that you were happy to see that he wasn’t permanantely a statue within a virtual world designed for a dead ten year-old.

Also, you were not going to be anywhere near him when your friends inevitably ratted on you by telling Kaiba you stole his wallet.

You really wanted some nachos and you were pretty sure that your parents were going to ground you the moment you got back home. Which meant no nachos for you.

You decided to just ignore the touching reunion between the Kaiba brothers. After all, you were not going to let Kaiba think that you were happy to see that he wasn’t stone.

Also, you were not going to be anywhere near him when your friends inevitably ratted on you by telling Kaiba you stole his wallet.

You really wanted some nachos and you were pretty sure that your parents were going to ground you the moment you got back home. Which meant no nachos for you.

#Black Magic and White Rum

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