#I don’t blame Lynn for cheating | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

egcdeath · 4 years ago

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wrong place, wrong time

summary: a drunken mishap leads you to reconcile with someone from your past. (based off this prompt)

pairing: andy barber x reader

word count: 2.1k

author’s note: this fic has been sitting in my drafts, half finished, for like months. i hope you enjoy!

warnings: extremely brief mention of cheating

“I just think things would be better if we… you know, saw other people,” Oliver explained through the phone.

You sighed dejectedly into the microphone, before deciding to hang up, and aggressively tossing your phone onto the leather seat next to you. You’d already had a shit day at work, and you really didn’t think that you could handle all of this today. Especially considering that you were almost certain that there was the hint of a feminine giggle in the background of that call.

You’d been expecting this for a while, your relationship with Oliver had been falling apart- slowly but surely- for a few months now, and he was ‘working late’ way too many nights for you not to be the slightest bit suspicious. But it still hurt, you were now single, and you’d essentially wasted a precious year of your life with a douchebag who ended up leaving you anyway.

You pressed your foot on the gas, and began your drive back home, before telling yourself fuck it, and deciding to turn onto a side road so you could head to your local pub.

-----

Several drinks later, you were extremely drunk. From that point on, everything was a bit of a blur.

You stumbled out of the bar (against your own will? You vaguely remember someone telling you that you needed to leave), sat in the back of an Uber (how much did you tell them? Probably too much), arrived at your home (but why weren’t your keys working?).

Things were a bit less blurry here. You can remember yourself repeatedly stabbing your keys into the door, and when that didn’t seem to work, deciding to hoist yourself over your fence, and get in through the back.

During this whole ordeal, you tripped over a seat on the patio, losing a shoe in doing so, and nearly fell into a pool, since when did my house have a pool? You ignored that thought, then opened the back door, getting in with no resistance.

You hobbled inside, closed the door behind you, then stumbled up the stairs, before finally finding your (?) bedroom. You flopped down in bed before realizing that you really needed to pee, and as you went to go find your bathroom, everything seemed to go black.

----

You woke up extremely disoriented in a vaguely familiar bathtub. It faintly smelled of pine, and possibly a hint of vanilla. The tub had a modern and sleek look, yet appeared to be as sterile as a hospital room. This was absolutely not your home. But it possibly belonged to someone you knew. The tiles lining the wall did seem to ring a bell somewhere deep in the foggy abyss of your hungover brain.

As you sat up, you groaned due to the consistent pulsing in your head. This had to be one of the worst hangovers you’d had in a while, and you were lucky that you didn’t lean over and empty the contents of your stomach right that instant.

“Stupid fucking Y/N,” you whispered to yourself. “You’re lucky all of your organs are still intact.” After stating this, you glanced down at your torso just to make sure. But a larger question still remained, where were you? Did you hook up with someone? Did you just randomly break into someone’s home? That’s a little ridiculous. Who would do something like that?

Apparently, drunk you would. In the process of exiting the tub, you concluded that you absolutely were in someone elses' gargantuan of a home, and that that person was undoubtedly down the hall, taking a phone call. Also, you were definitely missing a shoe.

You glared at yourself in the mirror, smeared makeup on your face, hair that looked so frizzy that you may as well have been struck by lightning, and of course the overwhelming scent of dry liquor that seemed to be seeping out of your skin. You turned on the sink and splashed your face, trying to completely wake up, and to partially figure out if this was real life, or just a horrible dream.

“Fuck!” you exclaimed out loud to yourself. How would you even get out of this situation alive? Perhaps you could find a window to jump out of. No, too dangerous. Hide in the bathroom until the man leaves? Well, everyone has to go to the bathroom at some point. Leave without being spotted? Mhm, very likely. Go talk to the homeowner? It doesn’t seem like you have any other option right now. You internally screamed at yourself for being so reckless, especially having gone through all of this drama for a guy who didn’t deserve one ounce of your attention.

You slipped off your remaining shoe, then slowly made your way out of the bathroom, peeking behind the doorway to see if the coast was clear, and trying to plan your explanation in the process. As you peered around, searching for the quickest and easiest exit, you realized just how familiar the home was. But what really did it for you was a painting on the wall.

This was Andy Barber’s home. The same man you hooked up with a few times before ghosting. You sighed exasperatedly at your own poor decision making for what felt like the millionth time that morning.

You had to get the hell out of here. Fast. Lost shoe be damned.

You somewhat remembered the floor plan, so managing to get out unnoticed began to seem just a tad bit more possible. You began to jog it down the hall, trying not to be too heavy footed as you went, in the event that Andy was standing in the eyeline of one of the open doors. Unfortunately for you, in the midst of your beeline down the hall, you were spotted.

“What the..? You know what Lynn, I’ll call you back in a bit.”

“I can explain! Don’t like… kill me or something. I promise you that this is just a big misunderstanding,” you were speaking without really processing anything that you were saying. You turned to face the man, and couldn’t help but to smirk a bit at the sight of him. You forgot just how attractive he was, with a full beard, fluffy hair, and soft blue eyes that seemed to be boring straight into your soul from across the room. Not to mention his sculpted body, which you swore you could make out beneath his sweatpants, and worn white shirt. Really, Y/N? First you ghost a man, break into his home a year later, and now you’re objectifying him?

You moved towards the door and began to speak again, your words flowing out at a million miles per minute, “Uhm, so long story short, I basically got really drunk last night, and I thought your house was mine, so I kinda broke in. But I’ll be seeing myself out now,” You gave a curt smile, and looked towards the stairs. “Before I go, any chance that you’ve seen my left shoe somewhere around here?”

It was clear that Andy was very confused, but as you read his face, you could see that he was far more intrigued than angry. “Hey, not so fast.” He approached you quickly, his eyebrows lifting in surprise, and his mouth gaping open slightly. “No fuckin’ way. Y/N?”

You scratched the back of your head awkwardly and nodded, “yeah.”

“You’re not getting off the hook that easily. Lucky for you, I was about to make breakfast, aaaand I’m not totally opposed to being joined,” he gave you a genuine smile, and a playful little shrug.

“That’s fine with me but- this sounds kinda strange- can I use your shower first?”

“Go right ahead. Mi casa su casa, right? I mean, kinda sounds like that’s what you were thinking last night,” Andy peered at you inquisitively at this, “I’m just kidding. Feel free to use anything you need.”

You couldn’t even blame Andy for his passive aggression, but that didn’t stop you from sulking the whole way back into the bathroom.

----

“I forgot how good your water pressure is,” you announced while coming down the stairs, clad in a college hoodie that you’d found in the depths of Andy’s closet, and shorts that were just a tad too large for you.

“Thanks, I guess?” Andy flipped a pancake, then turned to get a good look at you.

“You’re welcome. It smells so good down here,” you slipped into a barstool at his granite island, and observed him while he cooked, “so... you still live here alone?” You asked while you were passed a mug of coffee.

“Well, yeah. I mean that’s kind of what happens after your wife and son die.”

“Uhm.. sorry. For bringing that up again,” you glanced down awkwardly at your dark drink.

“It’s okay, they’ve been gone for a while,” he sat down at his seat, setting down a plate of food for you and himself. “What’ve you been up to? Apart from breaking and entering, of course.”

“Ha ha, very funny,” you began, cutting into a syrup-soaked pancake. “You’re no saint either. I can’t think of anyone in their right mind who would gladly break bread with someone who drunkenly broke into their home.”

“That’s fair,” Andy stated, almost dismissively. “But it's not like we’re total strangers. We have history.”

You scoffed at this, “like hell we do,” you muttered. “Anyway, things with me have been pretty boring. Same job. I had a boyfriend, but he just dumped me like, 12 hour ago. I’m pretty sure that he’s been cheating on me for like, the past four months.”

“That sucks,” Andy commented, shoveling a piece of pancake into his mouth.

“Yeah, it does. How about you?”

“You know, same old. Still an ADA, still getting messages from random people about that trial, and of course, still perpetually lonely.”

“By no means do I mean to impede, but maybe you’d be a little less lonely if you let people in,” you suggested, looking up from your food to Andy, whose face gave away the offense he was feeling, “I said maybe.”

“What do you mean?” He questioned, brows furrowing.

“Come on, Andrew. You know exactly what I mean. Like with us, I thought everything was going perfectly well, until I was half asleep and you were telling me that you weren’t ready to commit. Literally moments after you were balls-deep in me.”

“Don’t call me that, Y/N,” Andy squinted at you in agitation. “Is that why you stopped picking up my calls?”

“What do you think?”

He sighed softly, “If it’s any consolation, I’ve been trying to do better. I talk to a… counselor… every now and then. Everything’s just been different ever since they passed, you know? It’s hard to form connections after your most intimate ones disappear in the blink of an eye.”

You frowned a bit at the man, and set down your fork. “I get it. I’m sorry.”

“Do you, though? Get it?”

“Not really. I was just trying to be supportive,” you turned a bit in your seat to get a better view of Andy. “I just wonder if we had this conversation a year ago if you and I would be in a better position now. I really liked you a lot.”

Andy was silent for a moment, and observed you pensively. “Let’s try again, then. It seems like you and I both are ready for something new.”

“Oh Andy,” you rubbed the back of your neck anxiously. “I just got out of a relationship less than a day ago.”

“Then we can take this, whatever it might end up being, slow. It would be nice to have a friend around who doesn’t just want to talk about work, and tell me that they’re sorry for my loss.”

You nodded, “I’ll probably need a shoulder to cry on at some point sooner than later.”

“So... friends?”

“Friends,” you agreed with a smile and a lift of your shoulders.

Part of you hoped that maybe, just maybe, this could be the start of something great.

#andy barber x reader #defending jacob #chris evans x reader #andy barber x you #hey i wrote that lol

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jq37 · 5 years ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 9

Bad Kids Family Reunion

Can you believe we’re on our last episode for the year? I feel like we just started! We may not have another episode until January, but we left off on a doozy this week so let’s get going. This ep is basically split into two parts: The bulk of the Bad Kids in the Land of the Lomenelda and Adaine in Catheldriel Tower. In the ep, we go back and forth a little, but I’ll just summarize each part separately to keep things simple.

Lomenelda Family Reunion

As you probably remember, last week the group decided to teleport to the Land of the Lomenelda because Catheldriel Tower was too secure to get into directly and because The LotL is both close by to the Tower but also the ancestral home of Fabian’s mother’s side of the family.

Once they arrive, they see it’s basically the most stereotypical elven forest ever. Pristine woods, beautiful animals, haunting music. Fig puts a clove cigarette on the ground as an offering to a deer that she thinks might be her creature (which she still hasn’t paid for as far as I know) which brings out an elf named Telemien to tell her to stop littering. Telemien is very Elrond-esque and he has all the classic elven traits--long-winded, breathy speech, weirdly inflected words, turning into sand to be dramatic. He also happens to be Fabian’s grand-dad.

Gilear rolls very well on his diplomacy check and, combined with the fact that they’ve brought family, the group in welcomed into the forest with open arms. Fabian fills his grand-dad in on why they’re in his neck of the woods and Telemien informs him that the Abernant family has been disgraced, Adaine’s mom was found guilty of treason (though he doesn’t know the exact crime) and fled, and their land has been seized by the Court of Stars. While the Lomenelda are generally apolitical, Telemien doesn’t have a problem saying that he has a low opinion of the Abernant family and Anguin especially is an amoral, power-grabbing, sonuvabitch.

Riz, who is shouldering the entire responsibility of keeping the Bad Kids on task since Adaine is currently locked up, rolls to see if anything weird is going on in the forest and we learn that the Lomenelda basically just drug their teenagers with magic grapes and sad music to keep them chill and not horned up (something he finds iffy until a day of herding his friends towards a very time sensitive rescue mission at which point he’s like maybe this guy is on to something). Still, Riz warns the group against eating anything, which is always a good rule of thumb when you’re dealing with fae-adjacent nonsense (and Kristen does ping faint fey/celestial energy when she casts a Detect Evil and Good).

Fig and Riz are willing to leave for their rescue mission pretty much right away but the group decides to get a full night’s sleep first so they can regain spell slots and stuff. Ragh goes to flirt with some elf teenagers and Tracker reminds Kristen that they need to have a chat vis a vis Garthy and Sandra-Lynn. So, four episodes after the fact, Kristen finally tells Tracker that Sandra-Lynn hooked up with Garthy but she does it in such a blase and offhanded way that I assume was an attempt to sell it as not a big deal to Tracker to prevent a trip to the doghouse. It’s not the strategy I would have suggested and clearly the dice agree with me because she hits double Nat 1s on her persuasion roll. Tracker gives her another shot to give the real reason why she kept the info from her (besides “I didn’t wanna tell a lot of people,” which is such weaksauce). Kristen says that “so much was happening” and just Tracker stalks off.

Fig, having seen Tracker leave in a huff, asks what just went down and Kristen tells her. Fig takes Kristen’s side and is appreciative that Kristen was willing to let her mom’s business be her own business. Kristen decides to give Sandra-Lynn a heads up that Tracker knows what she did. Sandra-Lynn is distraught enough about the situation that she makes the mistake of briefly giving Kristen whisky before wising up and sending her to the Van, sans alcohol.

Fig talks to Gilear who, if you remember, also noticed that something was up with Sandra-Lynn and Garthy. Fig doesn’t give details but basically confirms it and says that at least he can take solace in the fact that him getting cheated on was probably more on her than because of anything he did. Gilear responds by telling Fig a little about Sandra-Lynn’s short-lived adventuring career: Apparently, Sandra-Lynn was a rising star in the adventuring world back when she went to Aguefort but her career was thrown off the rails when she joined a party as a replacement and ended up romantically involved with one member of a couple. The couple was very powerful and the one she was with didn’t treat her very well. Eventually, she was kicked out of the party and her name was smeared by the couple. After that, she couldn’t really find another party to join which is why she works for the Ranger Corp now. Gilear knows who the couple in question is but declines to tell Fig.

And the Kristen/Tracker trainwreck continues. Kristen gathers flowers for Tracker and finds her sulking in wolf form. Kristen did a decent job on the flower picking but whiffs her persuasion roll with another Nat 1! Tracker says that Kristen is always going off about being introspective and doing the right thing, but sitting on this, paralyzed with inaction was just as much of a wrong choice as taking an action and, also, it just plain sucked. Kristen kind of tries to “yes, dear” her way through the lecture but then gives Tracker the flowers in such a way that implies that eventually Tracker will get over it which Tracker does not care for at all. She stalks off for a second time.

Fig decides to tell Telemien that Gilear is dating Hilariel (his daughter) and they leave to take a walk and talk about poetry. Gorgug (who is very exhausted by all of the elven nonsense going on) goes to the Van and asks Ayda if she can cast Sending for him to Zelda. After accosting him (you can take the girl out of the pirate city and so on I guess) she says she’ll do it for 150 gold. The message essentially says, “Hey. We’re safe. Sorry about screwing up. I’m working on it. Miss you.” He rolls Persuasion with disadvantage and a 12 gets him left on read all night.

Tracker has cast the Moon Haven spell and everyone (except Gilear) piles into the Van. Kristen, who’s sleeping alone tonight for obvious reasons, walks into Ragh’s room and sees that he has brought a high elf teenager. She quickly leaves to give him privacy and then decides to take Adaine’s room for the night. While she’s awake, she notices that Gorgug is still awake too. He says he messaged Zelda and he hasn’t gotten a reply yet. Maybe it’s a time zone thing? Kristen is pretty sure it isn’t a time zone thing. Gorgug also notices that Kristen came out of Adaine’s room and not Tracker’s. They hug it out over both being in the doghouse with their respective partners.

Fabian, who had previously failed his Con save with an 8, gets to re-roll because of the super fine, elven forged, 800 thread count sheets he brought into the Moon Haven (that Riz refused because it seemed inappropriate while Adaine was in jail) and he got a modded 20, finally getting over his levels of Exhaustion. Our boy isn’t back to his old self but he’s getting there.

In the morning, Riz is very anxious to leave and very over all the elven and Bad Kid shenanigans. Ragh is also very ready to leave, but that’s mainly because he wants to escape his (first ever) hook-up who is a liiiitle too into him being a half-orc if you know what I mean. Kristen decides to give one of her classic, patented, inspiring speeches which is just a glorious trainwreck that’s half public apology, half total ramble, 100% uncomfortable for everyone involved. Then, she offhandedly asks Telemien if he can see Kalina in the photo. He can’t but, guess what? She can. She freaks and asks Tracker to hug her cause she’s freaking out. Tracker obliges until Kristen pushes her luck and asks if she’s slept off being mad at her, at which point she up and leaves for the THIRD TIME. Even Fig is like, “Yikes, girl.”

Ayda isn’t sure if this is a good time (it’s not) but she got a reply back from Zelda. Zelda said that she couldn’t answer because she was at a party and says trying to build a cell tower is crazy. “It’s all whatever Gorgug. I don’t blame you.” The gang walks Ayda through the nuance of the text and why the prognosis is looking negative on the Zelda front. She offers to hurt Zelda for Gorgug. Gorgug appreciates the sentiment but declines. Ayda also says she can research Planeshift for Fig once they’ve rescued Adaine.

But back to the matter at hand. Telemien explains the defenses of Calethriel Tower: It’s defended by a lot of arcane spellcraft that will protect against most magic attacks but is vulnerable to physical attacks which the elves would see as too base to defend against. All of the defenses are powered by Elemental Pylons (which are basically like power transformers). Also, Gilear tries (and fails) to ask for Hilariel’s hand in marriage by inducing vomiting in himself which makes slightly more sense in context but only slightly.

When they get to the edge of the valley where the tower is, Kristen sees that the Pylons are pretty far away from each other (like, miles away). There’s no way to hit both towers and then get to Adaine before someone realizing something’s up. The group mentions that they’re also supposed to be breaking out Aelwyn but Fabian is a lot less gung-ho about that part of the plan than he previously was, pre-existential crisis. They talk it out for a while and end up coming up with the following plan: The hirelings will go to one Pylon to destroy it. Gorgug, Fabian, and Riz will destroy the second Pylon at the same time. Once the Pylons are down and the magical defenses are weak enough that they can use magic without it being countered, Fig (disguise expert), Kristen (in case Adaine or Aelwyn need heals, which they will), and Ayda (who has teleportation and invisibility spells) will go in and get the sisters. Then, everyone will meet at the Van and teleport out (or at the very least, get together to plan a different way out).

Abernant Family Reunion

Meanwhile, in Calethriel Towel, Adaine is having a Day. She’s been put in a Torture Orb which isn’t that bad for the time being but it is very annoying and Boggy is pretty upset. She’s actually not being prevented from casting spells because the elves wouldn’t expect her to have slots yet and she can’t really regain them without trancing. She can sense that the prison is full of permanent magical effects (powered by the Pylons she doesn’t know about) which is unusual since those are really hard to achieve.

The elves’ hubris in not completely stopping her from casting spells works out to Adaine’s favor. She casts Dispel Magic and needs to hit a 15. She gets a 19 and her orb disappears. Unfortunately, that sets off an alarm. She needs to hide but she’s not exactly Riz. She decides (to my immediate delight) to hide in Aelwyn’s room. She only rolls a 6 but that only means that Aelwyn clocks her when she rushes in, not the guards. Speaking of the guards, on a 15 perception check, Adaine can see that there actually aren’t a ton of security mages. It just seems that way because they can immediately teleport to wherever the problem is from these doorless archways.

Anyway, Kier rushes in with some green, 8ft tall, magical construct guards. As she does so, Aelwyn motions for Adaine to stay silent. Kier asks Aelwyn if she knows where Adaine is and Aelwyn basically says, “How should I know?” (which is a question and not an outright lie, smart in case any kind of lie detector spell was running). Once Kier is gone, Aelwyn telepathically messages Adaine (which is a cantrip she’d be able to do even without spell slots) and asks if Adaine has any spell slots left they can use to escape. Adaine says she has 4 first level spell slots and her frog, but her spellbook was taken (as was her jacket). Aelwyn says it was probably taken to the vault on the first floor but it would have been locked down because of the alarm was triggered. Then she and asks if their mom found her and Adaine said she did, briefly.

Up close, Adaine can see more clearly what she glimpsed for a second when she was brought in. Aelwyn is doing BAD. She’s shaking just from the effort of keeping upright and having trouble putting together thoughts. Completely unprompted, Adaine tells Aelwyn that nobody deserves the torture she’s going through and that it’s barbaric and undeserved. Aelwyn immediately starts tearing up (as much as she can being so dehydrated) and says that she can’t remember exactly what it is that she did--both to the world in general and to Adaine specifically--but it was also barbaric and undeserved. She apologizes and is self aware enough to realize how messed up she must have have been that it took months of literal torture to get her to a place where she realized that she had things to apologize for--even though she can’t really remember what they are at this point in her mental deterioration. Adaine, in turn, is aware enough to realize at this point that their parents didn’t just screw her up; they screwed up Aelwyn too by treating her like the golden child. Aelwyn reflexively defends their parents, saying that they tried their best and that they were just trying to make them better by having high expectations but Adaine, who’s had a year of therapy to unpack her trauma, gently rebuffs her. “Expectations without love? What’s that?”

At this point in the conversation, Aelwyn starts repeating herself like an NPC that’s run through all their scripted dialogue options. Adaine realizes but is very patient with her until she’s found and brought back to her cell. However, her cell is close enough to Aelwyn’s that they can message each other. She also uses Ray of Frost in her Orb to make a kind of Slip and Slide to keep her spirits up and she’s able to avoid taking a level of exhaustion in there.

Later, Kier comes in with Adaine’s dad so they can talk. And by that I mainly mean so he can talk at her because she still wants nothing to do with him. Anguin tells Adaine to stop being stubborn and just do what’s asked of her to avoid execution. She also doesn’t know how he is OK with how they’re torturing to Aelwyn. He says she’s being a drama queen since Aelwyn committed treason and she’s not being literally physically beaten or injured. Adaine starts trying to respond to that and then decides to just demand a lawyer. Anguin thinks she’s being ridiculous because things like lawyers and democracy are Solesian concepts and ridiculous, unlike Falinel’s totally normal system government which involves immortal dancers and moon phases.

Adaine, in probably the most high-elf-y display we’ve seen from her, formally curses her dad in the name of the seas and the moon and sun. Then she casts Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on her dad (wasting one of her very few spell slots in a very in character way) because she truly cannot help herself. After Kier quickly dispels it, she demands to see the Solesian Ambassador. But you’re a citizen of Falinel, says Kier (though she can’t hide that the threat gets to her a little). Yeah, but I go to Aguefort, says Adaine. As soon as his name is invoked, a hologram of Aguefort pops up like Clippy and says, “Hey, it seems like you’re F’ing with one of my students. Now, I’m the baddest bitch that’s ever lived. Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?” Kier smirks and chooses the hard way. The hologram blinks out, an alarm starts going off--

And that’s where we end for the year!

*Note: Anguin and Adaine also were contenders for Detention and the Honor Roll respectively but it would have been for basically the same things as last week so I chose other people.

Detention

Kristen for The Worst Apology Ever

I’ve been concerned about this whole Sandra-Lynn/Garthy thing blowing up since it happened, man. I read the writing on the wall. And I knew, if she didn’t get ahead of it, this was gonna splash back on Kristen. And then she decides, not only is she not going to get ahead of it, she’s gonna actively jog further behind it? Truly wild.

And it’s even crazier because, yeah, it would be an awkward conversation to have but it wouldn’t have reflected badly on Kristen (who didn’t do anything), just on Sandra-Lynn. And, yeah, not great for group dynamics but, you know what’s way worse? Tracker being mad at Kristen AND Sandra-Lynn. Tracker’s not even so mad on her Uncle’s behalf as she is about how Kristen decided to handle the situation which, yeah! Duh! How did you think cutting your girlfriend out of the loop would go?

And, listen, a lot actually was going on. The Fabian ordeal then Ragh got possessed, Riz got ambushed by Kalina, they fought Wicklaw again and Adaine got kidnapped. All of these things happened very close together than they’re all #1 Priority type things. She for sure had time to tell Tracker (and should have) but it wasn’t the most pressing thing going on. There is an apology that includes the words “there was a lot going on” that actually works but DAMN, this was NOT it chief.

Honor Roll

Aguefort for Having his Students’ Back

Listen. Aguefort is a crazy, mercurial, semi-feral agent of chaos who I would never leave children in the care of.

HOWEVER, when he comes through he REALLY comes through and man did he come through for Adaine.

Of course, it remains to be seen what his help will actually look like but he gets this spot for bringing a spot of hope into a pretty terrible situation in a very cool way. Well, that and the Drama of It All.

Also, I’m just relieved he’s at least somewhat keeping track of the child assassins he’s sending out into the world.

Random Thoughts

Adaine Re: Boggy: He’s with me how dare you?

Brennan says near the end of the ep something like, “I didn’t think we were gonna spend a whole episode dunking on eleves,” but, honestly? Valid. I really can’t stand elves in most media (even though I usually play elves or half-elves) because they’re so pompous and holier than thou and constantly talking about how fleeting everyone else's lives are. It drives me nuts. Moonshine in Naddpod is my favorite elven archetype in anything because she totally inverts the trope.

“I can’t believe I’m half this.”/”You are not half this these are high elves.”

I love how Fig has absolutely no concept of how this “make me a creature” thing is supposed to work. Does she think Aguefort is just gonna release it into the world without telling her and she has to just, like, find it? Not that that doesn’t sound like something he might do, but still.

Gorgug gets so sick of the insane elven pronunciations and talk about how he’s gonna die at 20 and general nonsense that he has to go lie down in the Van which is The Mood.

Fabian receiving a long, elven greeting from his grandad and then giving the most kid-like response--“Yeah so I’m in high school and I have a school project I need help on and it’s like 60% of my grade”--was very funny.

A couple lore points from this episode:

Fabian’s grand-dad crafted a sword for the king of Falinel 3000 years ago which is why he was gifted the land they live on.

Calethriel Tower was originally a monument by a grieving widow to her husband died in war with Highcourt 500 years ago.

For more detailed physical descriptions and info on the lore, you can check out jamiebluewind’s post on that here.

And then you can also find new character descriptions here and transcripts of the two big RP scenes in Calethriel tower here and here.

And I just wanna give another big shoutout to @jamiebluewind who saved me a lot of backtracking with these descriptions/transcripts. I really appreciate the effort it takes to do that and it’s a super useful resource to have.

“Sheetsmith” High elves are truly insufferable. I’m with Gorgug on this.

I love Fig’s continuing efforts to be Gilear’s cheerleader. Their relationship is so great and it’s come a long way. I also love his brief moments of insight and competence (like, lol, remember in ep1 when Fig disguised herself as her mom and he drove her to school anyway? I loved that) so I was really cheering for him when he successfully did his diplomat stuff at the top of the ep and during his talk with Fig.

Fabian saying he wants his V-Card “removed” like it’s an infected appendix or something. I’m curious to see what, if anything, he says to Aelwyn when they see each other again, seeing as they’ve both hit rock bottom since the last time they met--which, to remind you, was at an insane house party where they were both at like a 14 out of 10.

I think it’s really great that, despite how much the Bad Kids clown on each other, they’re all super patient with explaining social nuances to Ayda. And I love that even though Ayda is pretty unclear about what the appropriate response is to anything, she is pretty ride or die but quick to rein it in once someone talks to her.

“It’s probably fine if Gilear has a grape.”

It’s very important for me to note that the funniest thing that happened this episode was a player action, not a character action and it was Siobhan--after about an hour of sitting in relative silence as the rest of the group did their thing--pulling out a present for Brennan--a set of Sugar and Dice Candy Dice. “So you can eat your fucking dice!” Amazing.

Brennan, as Telemien, recited some poetry and either Brennan just had that memorized or he was freestyling poetry with a consistent meter and rhyme scheme which is just too much for me to handle rn.

Kristen’s “inspiring” speech included the line, “Friendship is thicker than water and we need water to live.” Classic Kristen.

I truly cannot wait for Hilariel to re-enter the story. I want her takes on so many things and I want to know what her relationship with Gilear is like so so so bad. I wonder if he’s gonna tell her what happened with her dad. I didn’t really get the sense that she and Telemien stay in touch very much. But, in fairness, I don’t think she’s kept up with anything/one much in the past 20ish years. Imagine a wedding arc. Now that I’ve thought of it, I want it more than I can imagine. You know Fig would appoint herself Best Man.

The friend group thing where someone says your name wrong once and you pray it doesn’t become A Thing, even though someone’s already in the process of changing the group text title to that. Anyway, you know everyone’s gonna be spelling Fabian’s name Fah-Bee-Ahn in their group text for the foreseeable future.

Fig Re: Gorgug using the Pirate Sending Spell to Zelda: You can end with raunchy promises.

What party was Zelda going to in the Red Waste mid-quest? Was there even really a party? Or was it maybe a Gold Gardens type thing? Based on my experiences being a teenage girl, I would not be surprised if that text was written by committee.

“She’ll come back?”/“Sure.”

Kristen taking Adaine’s vacant room was such an evocative image. I can see it perfectly. Just her curled up alone in this immaculate room with little Adaine-y touches, sad about two things.

The Bad Kids in the forest had maybe the biggest Teenager energy that I’ve seen in any episode of FH so far. Like, that Tracker/Kristen argument alone.

“If you wanted me to build a cell tower I would do it immediately and I would know how.”

I don’t know if there really haven’t been many Kristen and Gorgug scenes or if I’m just forgetting but I loved their one on one in this ep. They’re good scene partners.

I also really liked Gorgug’s talk with Ayda who has been a great addition to the squad. And I love how easily she jumped from, “You’re a good person from what I’ve seen” to that John Mulaney sketch where he’s like, “That guy sounds like he sucks. Do you want me to murder him for you?”

Brennan gave everyone some XP this ep so they’re very close to level 9. Lol at everyone suggesting they Fight Club each other to grind the last bit they need.

“My friend is kidnapped and the rest of my friends are just dancing and eating grapes!”

Telemien’s abject revulsion to the point of throwing up at the operation of a gun (which is why Gilear induced vomiting before asking for Hilariel’s hand btw) was a Choice on Brennan’s part.

“The body protects itself and secretes more hit points.”

Telemien offers to get the best eleven eyesmiths (sure) to make Fabian a new eye and it shouldn't even take long. Unfortunately, in elf-time, that could mean anything from 1 - 100 years.

WHY CAN KRISTEN SUDDENLY SEE THE SHADOWCAT? WHAT IS GOING ON? I’m like thisclose to thinking that it actually is transmitted through bodily fluids like some people were saying. But, seriously, what’s changed since last time the picture was taken out? This was post argument with Tracker. Is that a factor? Or does it just feel like it might be because it was the last major thing to happen before she was able to see it? I want to sit down during the break and make, like, a conspiracy theory board to put together all the data we have on this so far because I feel like every single new piece of info we get is something unexpected but I falso eel like we’re gonna hit ourselves when we realize what it is.

Fig is very ride or die for Adaine this whole episode. She basically had no spell slots but was ready to go after Adaine right away, she offered to go in to get her alone as a “one woman Adaine retrieval team” while everyone else dealt with the Pylons, and when Ayda said Adaine was her best friend, she was like, “Well Adaine is kinda my best friend.”

“By the transitive property, are we best friends?” [Yes] “I grow richer by the day.” I love her so much.

Even though Telemien is like more than a thousand years old, he’s apparently never met a goblin because he calls Riz a “strange, green, mouse thing.”

Riz: Who among us hasn't killed someone?

That "on mushrooms" bit had big "cell tower" energy.

Gorgug: Your grandfather is pissing me off.

Siobhan, to Lou who just Rolled an 8 on His Con Save: We're gonna get you new hands for Christmas.

“It’s Gilear’s day baybee!”

I loved Riz and Fig teaming up to give Gilear as much help as possible for his botched attempt at asking for Hilariel’s hand. “Did he just call himself a throw-up boy?”

If you think about it, it actually is extremely funny that Adaine would demand a lawyer. She’s lived in Falinel almost her entire life but she studied abroad for one year and all of a sudden she’s like, “I have rights!”

Gilear very specifically said that Sandra-Lynn was with, "a member if the couple" and not which one it was. That was such an intentionally vague phrasing that I'm surprised Fig didn't call him on it. Also, I'm curious whether Fig actively knows who it is (maybe a teacher at school) or if he just knows she would go track them down for shenanigans once she had a name.

Also, speaking of Fig, wild that her Catfishing of Dr. Asha is one of the only relationships standing at this point.

OK, I ate my vegetables now I get to talk about Abernant Family Drama.

Those of you who have been following me since I became active in the d20 fandom probably know that one of the first things I wrote were a series of meta-bordering-on-drabbles about what a future relationship between Adaine and Aelwyn could look like because, from episode one, my thought was, “There’s not one messed up sister in this house, there’s two.” I have been on the Abernant Sisters Against Their Parents train since S1 y’all and I thought it had a decent chance of happening but then Aelwyn’s iconic S1 episode happened and we learned she was working with Kalvaxus and she got thrown in jail so there wasn’t much time for development from her.

But then, it became clear that the Abernant family was gonna be all up in this arc and I got excited again. I mean, I tempered my expectations. The confrontation could have shaken out in a couple of different ways. And I would have enjoyed watching Adaine verbally destroy two family members instead of just the one, don’t get me wrong. But y’alllllllllll.

I thought Adaine and Aelwyn would put aside their differences and end up on the same side eventually but I wasn’t expecting Adaine, with absolutely no prompting, to take the path of compassion so quickly and absolutely. And, in turn, I didn’t expect Aelwyn to be as apologetic and forthright as she was. And, man, her whole situation is heartbreaking. The idea that you were so messed up that it took a year of torture to be able to recognize that you were living such a fundamentally flawed life? And then reaching that point but at the cost of your stability and the information needed to make things right? Literally not knowing what’s real and what your fevered brain has made up? That’s so tragic, man.

And Adaine was so gentle with her. The patience as she started repeating things and the kindness as she firmly cast away any remaining delusions Aelwyn had about their parents and upbringing. I am so constantly upset by how well the cast in general but Bren and Siobhan specifically just spit out these fully formed masterpieces that I would need to take a full hour to think through before even opening a Word Doc. It’s really magical.

I have no idea how much mental damage a healing spell can fix, if any, but I’m very interested to see what an even slightly more stable Aelwyn looks like, post all of this. Like, say she gets completely stable due to a combo of therapy and healing magic over time. What is her personality even like at that point? Does she revert back to a version of her old personality but with the acid aimed at someone who deserves it? Does she start from scratch from this baby deer learning to walk place she’s at right now?

Very good DM move from Brennan to have Adaine’s low stealth roll to be Aelwyn noticing her and not the guards so we still got the Aelwyn confrontation and not a quick and frustrating capture.

Aelwyn asked Adaine if, “mother found you,” which makes it sound like she checked in with Aelwyn before she fled. I continue to be very interested in the clues we’re getting to what that woman is up to. Maybe Aelwyn knows more info that the gang could get once she’s a little better or via a detect thoughts or something similar.

I want Anguin to look me in the eye and tell me to my face that not letting someone rest for a full year and not letting them eat or drink and literally keeping them on the brink of death isn’t torture so I can jump through the computer screen into Falinel and strangle him with my bare hands. Like, boy, you’re not even going to go with, “This is justified torture?” You’re gonna say it just straight isn’t? Man I can’t wait for the Bad Kids and/or Aguefort Himself to get sicced on this bastard.

OK, I don’t wanna end on a point about Anguin so, instead, think about Adaine and Aelwyn keeping each other company from nearby cells via the Message cantrip. Isn’t that bittersweet? Closer than they’ve ever been but physically separated and it took literal torture for them to get there.

Oh! And, actually, I almost forgot but this is also a good note to end on. Shoutout to Adaine for switching from Elven to Common when talking to her dad, just to be that little bit more of an annoyance to him. You gotta rebel how you can.

That's it for 2019, guys! We don't have another ep until January 8. Have a good New Years in the meantime and I'll see you then!

No Nat 20’s were rolled this ep. Gorgug rolled 1 Nat 1 and Kristen rolled 2 (or three if you count the one she rolled with disadvantage).

#fantasy high #fantasy high live #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #forgot the cut

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blookmallow · 5 years ago

Text

AND WE FINALLY FINISH THIS NIGHTMARE

check out that cool shot i managed to catch directly when the lightning struck. ill get to that moment a lil later but im still psyched about that. ok anyway

this would be sweet in theory but jessica’s model moves Really weird along with you and it’s mostly just very unsettling

oh i already don’t like you

hhhhhhhh fuck fuck fuck this is bad

what the fuck have you been doing to her

THIS IS SO FUCKING NASTY GET OUT OF MY FACE

also wouldn’t be surprised if the placement of the. “responsibility” sign directly outside the door when blake. walks away from that situation. was intentional

god. this whole mess would be horrific for anyone to go through but blake’s got some really specific trauma here that canNOT be helping. fuck

TH...ANK S?? I THINK ????

im not sure WHAT just happened but i think the cultists caught the heretics and started killing everybody which is FINE BY ME I’LL BE OVER HERE GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF THIS MINE

I GOT LYNN THOUGH AND SHE LOOKS LIKE SHIT BUT SHE’S ALIVE AND ALSO NOT MISSING HER LEGS EVEN THOUGH IT REALLY LOOKED LIKE SHE WAS

im still not sure what the fuck happened here i guess. psychosomatic pregnancy combined with hallucination caused by trauma and Murkoff Fuckery but THEY SURE DON’T BOTHER TO TELL YOU THAT :’) it took me hours of scouring wiki pages and also reading the extra comics i had no idea existed bc the game doesn’t mention them to find out what the FUCK happened

lynn seems to believe it’s blake’s child, which i guess is a moot point if the baby never existed in the first place, but probably confirms it was a trauma/hallucination/whateverthefuck situation and she wasn’t cheating on him even if it still logically couldn’t be his because of the timeframe

honey that’s not jessica,

i really, really don’t think blake is okay

yOU DON’T SAY :’ )

FUCKINGSHITFUCKGODHELLFUCKING FUCK YOU NOT AGAIN

fuCKINg HELL

,,,,well

if that wasnt divine intervention i dunno what is

really fond of the outlast tradition of “horrible, awful thing relentlessly pursues you until you FINALLY witness their gruesome death and have a brief fleeting moment of peace” though

i. guess it’s just knoth left now, huh.

lynn: [in hysterics, probably dying, apparently about to give birth]

me: wait hold ON a second check out this GRAVEYARD

god she’s on the fucking torture rack

this is, quite possibly, the worst fucking scenario to give birth in

GOD that was. not a pleasant scene and i was going to comment on the sheer ridiculousness of a woman giving birth in like One push and the entire baby’s just Out but if this didn’t really happen/was hallucinatory that would. explain that

and i am, regardless, immensely grateful they decided to let this just be over in like 5 seconds and didn’t make me go through a long laborious graphic birthing scene bc outlast absolutely would do that and i dunno if i coulda handled it much longer than it was :’ )

still dont know what this was about either, if the pregnancy and the baby were hallucinations, lynn was under that same hallucination too she believed she was pregnant and about to give birth, so why wouldn’t she see the baby. if its real and she’s the one hallucinating that it isn’t there that means literally EVERYTHING ELSE now makes no sense whatsoever. did she get released from the hallucination right at this moment for some reason. and if she did why didn’t blake. knoth sees the baby too so he’s clearly still sharing the same hallucination (or, again, if lynn is the one hallucinating and the baby is real HOW THE FUCK DID ANY OF THIS HAPPEN)

i really like blake and all but some part of me just really wishes we could’ve had lynn’s side of this story

she went through hell too, she went through unspeakable things too, and we don’t get to see her fighting, we don’t get to see her story, she doesn’t make it out and she just gets reduced to the Woman Who You, A Man, Must Protect until she tragically dies at the last minute

and blake is so far gone at this point he can’t even differentiate between his wife and jessica anymore. lynn just gets completely shoved out of her own story and im not blaming blake for that, it’s not irredeemable to have loved someone else once, and of course he’s not going to be over that considering he practically witnessed her fucking murder and all the shit he’s going through directly parallels that trauma AND he’s got. whatever murkoff fuckery is going on in his brain too

but i do blame the writers for doing this to her

and they had that line early on (in this same room even) like “why do they always hurt women to get to men” which. i guess parallels this scene too but i had been interpreting it like “why the fuck are women always reduced to just the victims, why do men feel like they have to prove their point by hurting women” and blake’s clearly not the hyper-masculine Hero type, he’s strong enough to tear his hands off a cross, sure, but at heart he’s just a scared camera guy who has no idea what the fuck is going on or what to do and this experience clearly breaks him

but then. lynn’s just the victim too. and doesn’t get to have her own story. she dies on a torture rack minutes before she could have escaped this hell (assuming blake didn’t just die too. it’s not clear. i think the comic said he was still breathing) after all that she dies and her husband doesn’t even remember her name

i dont know. i cant get a coherent thought together on this but i just. dont like it

anyway i. guess im responsible for a BABY now, as well,

im really glad this was the end of the game bc i do NOT think i could have coped with. going through more of this While Also Carrying An Infant :’)

WHAT PARADISE, WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT

congratulations. hope you’re proud of yourself. please get away from me

ARE YOU PERHAPS, MAYBE, FIGURING SOMETHING OUT HERE. REALIZING SOME MISTAKES THAT MAY HAVE BEEN MADE. POSSIBLY. YOU SHIT

OR HOW ABOUT I DONT DO THAT

well.

saves me the trouble of dealing with you, i guess. not that he probably would have been very good at pursuing me anyway, but

,,,well. bye then,

that sure did happen, didn’t it

,,,what do i even Do now

the sun is rising, though

cliché as it is i still love “the sun rises at the end of the Horror” anyway :’)

boy am i glad my baby won’t remember this

and probably isn’t real in the first place, but you know,

looks like everyone who was left did a mass suicide and i cant say i feel all that sorry about it

does that sun look a little too close or

oh fuck

WELL THE SUN EXPLODED, SO THAT’S. GOOD

wait what am i doing back here

AND THAT’S THE END, FOLKS, THAT’S IT

I DIDN’T NEED ANY ANSWERS OR CLOSURE OR ANYTHING, THAT’S FINE :’) THANKS RED BARRELS

#lucy plays outlast 2 #GOD thats all of it. i finally got through them all. fucking hell

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ghostofviperwrites · 5 years ago

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Forgive

Pairing: Marty Scurll/OFC

Category: Angst

Warnings: cheating

Inspired by the song Forgive by Rebecca Lynn Howard.

“Can’t you ever just forgive?” Marty Scurll asked his girlfriend of two years in exasperation. They had been arguing for almost an hour now and he was over it.

“Forgive? Are you fucking kidding we me right now Martin!” You yelled tears welling in your eyes. “All I ever do is forgive. Forgive, forgive, forgive. And you never change.” You whispered shaking your head sadly. You had finally reached your breaking point; you just couldn’t do this anymore. With a sigh you sank into the wooden chair at the dining room table, covering your tear stained face with your hands as you saw your relationship crumbling.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Marty said. “Doesn’t it count for something that I came home and told you? I could’ve said nothin’ and you would be in the dark.” You barked out a harsh laugh of disbelief at his reasoning.

“Oh, you came home and told me you fucked some other woman so it’s supposed to be okay? I should be grateful?” You couldn’t even muster the energy to look at the man, incredulity coloring your tone. “You cheated on me Marty. Again.” Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first, or even the second time, you two had held this same conversation. And stupid you, you kept forgiving him and welcoming him back with open arms, buying his explanations and excuses.

“Y/N, I’ve been on the road for months. First Japan, then Australia and Ireland and back to the UK. We hadn’t been intimate for weeks before I left. You refuse come on the road with me. Then when I did come home to see you, you were sick or on your period, giving me nothing. I’m a man, I have needs.” Marty made his usual excuses, but this time you had enough. Normally you would allow him to guilt you, make it somehow your fault that he had strayed.

“So it’s my fault you can’t keep your dick in your pants?” You spat angrily rising to your feet, the chair falling backwards onto the floor with a loud clang. Marty looked surprised at your reaction. This was usually the part where you fell for his bullshit and apologized for not meeting his needs. For not taking care of him properly. Yes, it was true you hadn’t been intimate for almost a month before his extended trip, but that didn’t give him the right to sleep with someone else. Life happened sometimes.

“I can’t believe you are such an asshole.” You fumed. “Blaming me, are you kidding me?” You turned to glare at the man you loved who was leaning against the door jam watching you with a calculating expression. Your heart clenched as you steeled yourself against the manipulation you knew was coming. Marty was nothing if not a master of manipulation. You saw the exact moment his strategy shifted, as his face softened and he took a few steps towards you.

“You’re right darlin’, I’m an asshole. I’m sorry, you deserve better.” Marty reached his hand up to cup your cheek, staring into your eyes. “I promise it won’t happen again.” You pulled away from his touch breaking the eye contact. You couldn’t look into his eyes and end this, you weren’t strong enough.

“You need to go.” You said, struggling not to sob. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t trust you. I’ll always be wondering who you’re with, what you’re doing. If you’re being faithful.”

“You don’t mean that.” Marty said in disbelief. He honestly couldn’t believe you were standing up for yourself.

“I do. We’re over Martin.” You said with finality. “I’ll get some things together and go to a hotel until you leave again. By the time you come back my stuff will be out.”

You had barely made it down the hallway when you heard the front door slam as Marty stormed out. Throwing yourself down on the bed, sobs erupted from your mouth as you mourned the end of your relationship.

#marty scurll fanfic #marty scurll imagine #ring of honor fanfic #njpw fanfic #wrestling fanfic #mywriting #ghostofviperwrites

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tabloidtoc · 6 years ago

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In Touch, April 8

Cover: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will name their baby girl after Princess Diana

Page 1: Contents

Page 2: Who Wore It Better? Elsa Hosk vs. Danielle Campbell, Adriana Lima vs. Dree Hemingway, Morgan Stewart vs. Jasmine Tookes

Page 4: Down-and-out Tori Spelling rents $13K-a-month house

Page 5: Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in movie poster for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood don’t look like themselves, Lucy Hale goes brunette, Ben Affleck admits the reaction to his back too hasn’t been positive, Chrissy Teigen tells an onliner that after kids you don’t want to see her in a bikini, there are 432 minutes left of Games of Thrones

Page 6: Crib of the Week -- Bruce Willis’ Brentwood mansion, find love with Vinny Guadagnino and “Pauly D” DelVecchio, Jenny McCarthy slams Barbara Walters

Page 8: Stars who give out spoilers -- Sylvester Stallone, Mark Ruffalo, Sophie Turner, Rachel McAdams, Will Smith, Tom Holland, Kate Middleton stealing Lisa Vanderpump’s style

Page 9: Man Candy of the Week -- Anthony Joshua, Winner of the Week -- Call Me By Your Name fans will be getting a sequel written by Andre Aciman, Loser of the Week -- Ramona Singer forced to aologize after claiming Bethenny Frankel’s late boyfriend Dennis Shields was on drugs before he died

Page 10: Oh Baby -- Kylie Jenner and daughter Stormi, Kourtney and Kim Kardashian with kids Reign and Saint and Chicago and Penelope and great-grandmother Mary Jo Campbell

Page 11: Hilary Duff and daughter Banks, Jamie Lynn Spears and Jamie Watson’s daughter Ivey, Jessie James Decker and Eric Decker’s son Forrest turns 1, Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley’s daughter Adalaide turns 7, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro and Jen Harley’s daughter Ariana turns 1, Paula Patton and Robin Thicke’s son Julian turns 9

Page 12: Up Close -- Ben Affleck and kids Samuel and Seraphina

Page 13: Jennifer Lopez, Prince Charles shirtless with wife Camilla, Amy Poehler

Page 14: Hairy Situations -- Ellen DeGeneres and Olivia Wilde cut Jason Sudeikis’ hair, Channing Tatum goes blond, Nicole Richie, Gilles Marini gets a trim

Page 16: Tom Hanks as Mr. Rogers, Busy Philipps and Lisa Rinna, Queer Eye’s Tan France and Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski and Karamo Brown

Page 18: Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez, Rami Malek filming Mr. Robot, Clueless reunion with Alicia Silverstone and Donald Faison and Breckin Meyer and Paul Rudd

Page 20: Pregnant Amy Schumer on Seth Meyers, Heidi Pratt and Kristin Cavallari, Lupita Nyong’o

Page 22: The Bachelorette alum Becca Kufrin and fiance Garrett Yrigoyen at Chippendales, Lucy Hale and Zane Holtz filming Katy Keene, Reese Witherspoon and son Tennessee

Page 24: Willow Smith, Miley Cyrus, Donnie Wahlberg filming Blue Bloods

Page 25: Ariana Grande

Page 26: Colton Underwood and Cassie Randolph

Page 28: Kids’ Choice Awards -- Will Smith gets slimed, Chris Pratt gets slimed, Adam Sandler gets slimed, DJ Khaled gets slimed, Frankie Grande

Page 29: Candace Cameron Bure and Andrea Barber and Jodie Sweetin, David Dobrik and Josh Peck and Kiernan Shipka, Taylen Biggs, Jojo Siwa, Jennifer Hudson, Lana Condor and Noah Centineo

Page 30: Cover Story -- Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s moving tribute to Princess Diana

Page 34: College Admissions Scandal -- Lori Loughlin’s daughter who lost sponsorships is blaming her parents and others of making her life hell and thinks everyone is just jealous

Page 35: Felicity Huffman’s daughter Sophia is mortified by the scandal and loves school and feels she didn’t do anything wrong

Page 36: Jessica Simpson’s baby joy over daughter Birdie Mae Johnson

Page 38: Gwen Stefani tells Blake Shelton she can’t marry him until she gets her marriage to Gavin Rossdale annulled by the Catholic Church

Page 40: Lady Gaga’s hot new romance with Jeremy Renner

Page 41: The truth behind Wendy Williams’ relapse, Selena Gomez dating a mystery man, Star Sightings -- Annalynne McCord, Cuba Gooding Jr.,Agnez Mo, Katherine Schwarzenegger, Casey Madden and Theresa Travis, Blind Item

Page 42: Jennifer Lopez wants a cheating clause in her prenup with Alex Rodriguez, Hailey Baldwin and Justin Bieber fighting because he won’t wear his wedding ring

Page 46: Julianne Hough on her marriage and big career news

Page 48: Their Best Summer Bodies -- Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Hurley, Julianne Hough, Halle Berry

Page 50: Fashion Radar -- Ashley Graham is a bold beauty

Page 54: Beauty -- Add flair to hair -- Dakota Fanning, Lupita Nyong’o, Kendall Jenner

Page 55: Jenna Ortega, Camila Mendes, Alexa Chung

Page 56: Did I Really Do That? Eva Green, Drake Bell, Lauren Ash

Page 58: Sneak Preview -- Keeping Up With the Kardashians

Page 60: What Team Are You On? Chad Johnson

Page 61: Blast from the Past -- The cast of 10 Things I Hate About You on its 20th anniversary -- Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, Gabrielle Union, Andrew Keegan, David Krumholtz, Susan May Pratt

Page 62: Animal Overload

Page 63: My cat looks like Kirsten Dunst

Page 64: My Night at Home -- Heather McDonald, Guess Whose Podcast -- Alec Baldwin, Anna Faris, Macaulay Culkin, Amy Schumer, Dax Shepard, Topher Grace

Page 66: Double Take -- Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union

Page 68: Horoscope -- Aries Sterling K. Brown

Page 70: Top 10 Hottest Williams -- Billy Eichner, Will Yun Lee, Billy Campbell, Billy Magnussen, Bill Skarsgard, Prince William, Will Chalker, Will Smith, William Levy, Liam Hemsworth

Page 72: Last Laughs

#tabloid #meghan markle #duchess meghan #prince harry #princess diana #jessica simpson #rami malek #mr. robot #miley cyrus

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domitxnate · 5 years ago

Text

Here We Go Again | Sam and Nate | 07.21

Who: Nate and Sam @sammythedominant

When: Sunday, July 21st - morning

What: Break up, Break up sex, Nate bottoms.

Triggers: none known.

Sam couldn't ignore the gnawing feeling in his stomach anymore. Ever since Blaine had pointed out that trying to make it in New York was a much longer commitment than Sam had realised, he'd been nervous about what that would mean for him and Nate. Nate had made it clear that he didn't plan to settle in NYC permanently, and so Sam knew that meant they had to talk. He'd put together a quick breakfast, a couple of bagels for both of them, before heading over to Nate's suite and knocking on the door.

Nate looked at the door as he heard the knock, then at his watch as he wasn't sure he was expecting anyone this early. He made his way to the door in the athletic shorts he'd thrown on and opened it to see Sam standing there with sustenence. "Hey there babe. Did...did we have a date I forgot about?"

Sam smiled as Nate opened the door. His boyfriend was ridiculously handsome, Sam had always known that. But seeing him there in his athletic shorts just really helped highlight that. "No, don't think so," he said, shaking his head. "But what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't bring my guy some breakfast every now and then, right?"

"Awwww," he hummed with a smile, leaning in for a quick kiss before letting him in. "Silas is walking Linus and Ryan went to the auditorium to start running through her songs for the showcase. So seems like we have a nice quiet breakfast," he said, settling himself at the stool at the counter in the kitchen.

Sam grinned as Nate kissed him, and followed him inside. He nodded, grateful that he didn't have to have a serious conversation like this with Silas and Ryan in their room, hiding away. "Sounds great," he smiled, as he sat himself down at the stool, and opened up the small bag holding the food. "It's nothing fancy, because I suck at fancy, and Blaine wasn't awake yet," he grinned. "So enjoy your very basic bagel."

Nate took one of the bagels from the bag as Sam took them out, opening a container of cream cheese to start spreading. "C'mon baby, y'all know that I don't do that fancy stuff anyway. Really anythin' to feed me is gonna go well," he promised with a smirk.

"Babe, you have no idea how many bagels I wasted trying to cut these things in half before I found the bagel slicer. Fancy right now just means not chopped to pieces," Sam grinned, as he playfully nudged his leg against Nate's as he started spreading cream cheese on his bagel too.

“A bagel slicer is a thing?” He asked with a hunk of cheesed bagel popped into his mouth before chuckling. “Well I appreciate it regardless. This was a nice surprise, thank ya.”

"An awesome thing," Sam nodded, chuckling. He smiled across at Nate, before eating a bite of his own bagel. "Any time, babe," he promised, before reaching out and placing a hand on Nate's knee. "There might be something I think we should talk about, you know? That whole future thing we were talking about a couple days ago? Might be a good idea to just...check in, about it."

Nate looked up at Sam with a tilted head, “Alright. Well if I remember ya had to talk to Blaine,” he said, “so did ya get anythin from him?”

Sam nodded a little, as he tore a chunk from his bagel, mostly so he could have something to do with his hands. "Yeah, I did. He needs to be in New York for a lot longer than I thought," Sam said, not looking at Nate until he finished his sentence. "Like, it's possible we'd settle there, or in the suburbs outside the city, but yeah. That basic...whole place," Sam explained.

Nate’s eyes squinted slightly as he took in what Sam was saying. “Like how long is longer than ya thought?” He asked, noticing suddenly that Sam was avoiding his gaze. “Oh,” he said simply, thinking everything through. “So, y’all ain’t gonna leave New York? Like, that’s where y’all wanna end up?”

The gnawing feeling in his stomach was starting to really make itself known, so Sam put his chunk of bagel down. "Yeah, oh," he said. "Blaine needs to be there, and my whole wanting to be a therapist thing can be done anywhere, so it's not fair to him not to give him that, you know?" Sam said. "If I didn't let him do this, it'd be this huge regret he'd have for the rest of his life, and I can't be that selfish. Not for any...reason.

Nate just nodded as Sam continued, taking it all in. “Nah, Nah I get it,” he promised finally making eye contact with the boy. “We always said that Blaine, Si and Ryan came first. And if that’s his dream, then that’s his dream. And I get that ya wanna give that to him,” he said taking a deep breath. “But I can’t....I can’t live in New York forever Sam. It’s just not who I am. I just can’t.”

Sam nodded firmly, as they made eye contact. He reached out to take Nate's hand in his own. "We did, they've gotta come first," Sam agreed. He closed his eyes for a few moments as Nate told him he couldn't live in New York forever. He'd known that, of course, but now they were actually talking about and it felt like much more real. "I know you can't, babe, I know. That's not you," Sam said, in a softer voice. "I'm not even sure how you've survived this far north all this time, already," he added, desperately trying to add a joke.

Nate squeezed Sam’s hand as he felt it in his own. He felt terrible not being able to make this compromise for Sam, but he just couldn’t. He was sacrificing enough to go there for Ryan. “Shut up,” he said with a playful shove. “But knowin this,” He said softly as well, “we have an expiration date, dont we?”

Sam smiled slightly as Nate playfully shoved him, and held onto the other man's hand a little tightly. He took a deep, slightly shaky breath, and finally, he nodded. "Think we do," he said quietly, before impulsively leaning in and kissing Nate's lips. "Doesn't mean I don't love you, though. Definitely doesn't mean I'm ever gonna forget you singing for me on that beach."

His face saddened which was interrupted by Sam’s kiss. “Nah I know that. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love ya right back. But our futures don’t match up, Sam. There’s no way to make it work, so it kinda feels like maybe we shouldn’t continue this knowin it can’t go anywhere ya know?”

Sam nodded gently, still holding onto Nate's hand. "Yeah, I don't think they do," he murmured, his gaze lowering to their hands for a few moments. He took a deep, sharp breath, before looking back up at Nate. "This...can't be like last time. No anger, no...you getting all the blame from strangers," Sam spoke quietly, before raising his hand to wipe at his eyes.

Nate but his bottom lip to avoid its shaking being seen. It was happening again but this time, something felt different. “Nah. Nah it’s different this time. This isn’t a difference of opinion or a misunderstandin. This is two futures not goin the same way. I mean, I’m not angry bout this. Sad, sure, but I’m not angry. Are ya?”

Sam shook his head, before sighing. "There's nothing to be angry at, you know? Nobody cheated. We've got good lives in front of us and they just don't...match," Sam murmured, his hold on Nate's hand tightening. "I think that's like...the best reason to break up, ever. We're winners at breaking up."

Nate chuckled and sniffed as he tried to keep the tears from falling. “Exactly. No one’s mad. No one feels slighted or misused. It just...sometimes this stuff happens. I don’t...I don’t feel I need time away or whatever this time. It doesn’t affect our friendship ya know?” He reaches up to wipe a tear from Sam’s face. “Don’t cry baby. It’s alright. This isn’t about me not bein in love with ya anymore.”

"You promise that? This isn't gonna affect our friendship?" Sam asked, as Nate wiped the tear from his face. He leaned in a little closer, taking a deep breath. "I know, and I'm still in love with you. Probably always will be," he smiled a little. "We're gonna rock the best friend thing, I can promise you that at least."

Nate nodded with a sniff, “I promise.” He knew better than to bring up things that they’d decided to bury, and knew they both just needed to know they both still wanted to be friends. “Yeah,” he hummed quietly, leaning in to give him another kiss, more tender and passionate this time. “I love ya, Sam Evans.”

Sam let out a soft sigh of relief. He'd really just needed to hear Nate say that. He knew Nate was a man of his word, and if he said they were going to stay friends after this, than that was what was going to happen. He groaned softly into the tender, yet passionate kiss, his hand moving up to cup Nate's cheek. "I love you, Nate Lynn."

“Ya know,” he said softly against Sam’s lips, “I’ve never had break up sex before,” he hinted very obviously, kissing the blonde again, his hand running through the back of his hair. “Never been in a position for an amicable break up.”

Sam let out a chuckle as the kiss broke, his hand moving to the back of Nate's neck. "Yeah? Never, huh? Me either," he smiled at the other man. He paused for a moment, tilting his head back just a little. "Talking of things you haven't done," he teased, "you've never bottomed for me. You're missing out, you know," Sam grinned.

“I’ve only been through two break ups and they both sucked,” he said simply, “never ended with a friendship rekindlin’.” Nate licked his lips at Sam’s offer, knowing just how true it all was. He said nothing but gave him a smile and took Sam’s hand in his, leading him towards the bedroom.(edited)

"That's...an awesome way to think about this. Friendship rekindling," Sam smiled softly. He stood automatically as Nate took his hand, and began to lead him away. He chuckled as he put two and two together, and got what he hoped was four.

As they entered the bedroom, Nate turned to look at Sam with a smile, moving closer to reengage in their passionate kissing, breathes hitching, hands roaming, Nate pulling at the bottom of Sam’s shirt to be able to pull it up over his head and continue kissing him again.

Sam mirrored the smile on Nate's face, and then kissed him back just as passionately. His hands moved over Nate's torso, feeling that gorgeous swimmer's build under his fingertips, before he stepped back so Nate could pull his shirt off for him.

Once they were both shirtless, Nate pulled Sam against him, falling back onto the bed. His hands ran over Sam’s back and into his blonde hair, pushing his body up against the others. “Fuck baby,” he moaned against Sam’s lips, “I need ya.”

Sam groaned eagerly as Nate's fingers were all over his back and in his hair, while he ran his own hands over Nate's chest. "Fuck," he hissed, Nate's own moaning turning him on so much. "Tell me what you need, babe, let me hear you say it."

Feeling a strong man over top of him wasn't something Nate had a lot of experience with, but finding himself enjoying the feeling of Sam's strong body against him. He gasped softly, meeting Sam's eyes, "I need ya, baby, I need to feel ya make love to me," he breathed, lifting up to kiss the boy again.

"You've got me, babe, you've got me," Sam murmured, before Nate was kissing him again. He reached down, shoving his own pants down as he focused on kissing Nate back, passionately. It was a little awkward, but it wasn't long before he was kicking his pants off, and onto the floor.

Nate moaned against the kiss, feeling Sam's body on top of him as Nate's fingers ran along his defined back. Nate wiggled out of his shorts with Sam's lips tasting his own in a needy, passionate manner when he heard Sam's jeans fall to the floor. Nate spread his legs around him, pulling down at the back of Sam's neck, kissing harder, faster - needier.

"You look gorgeous like this," Sam gasped, as he watched Nate spread his legs, and then kissed Nate back with as much need and sheer desperation as he could muster. His hand moved to run over Nate's side, stroking over him. "Sure about this?" he asked.

Nate licked his lips as he nodded up at Sam, "Yeah, babe, I'm sure," he promised.

Sam didn't hesitate to reach out and grab lube from the table, and squirt it onto his fingers. He grinned down at Nate, before looking downwards, and gently circling Nate's dusky hole, before gently pushing a finger into him.

It had been a while since he'd done this, and it wasn't something he did often enough so when Sam's finger first pushed into Nate, he hissed a moment and closed his eyes while he waited and the pleasure set in. A small moan pushed out as he started to feel Sam open him, Nates hands still roaming along his back.

Sam took his time, knowing Nate hadn't done this in so long. He didn't want to move too quickly, and give Nate a bad experience. His first time bottoming for Sam, possibly the last time they were going to be together at all, definitely the last time while they were officially together. He took his time, adding more fingers, and getting Nate stretched and open for him.

The pleasure began to wave over him and Nate rutted his hips into Sam’s finger. “Oh god,” he moaned, “fuck...please baby? I need to feel ya please.”

"Fuck, babe, you're so hot like this, all needy just from my fingers," Sam smiled down at Nate. "I've got you, don't worry," he murmured, as he squirted lube over his shaft, and stroked himself.

“Shut up,” he chuckled which quickly was interrupted by a throaty moan. Nate stole a peek and looked down, watching him stroke himself with the slick substance. Nate licked his lips and put his head back down, calming his body for what was to come.

"Never," Sam grinned, as he stroked himself some more, getting himself ready. He inched forward, before he gripped Nate's legs and settled them around his hips. He watched Nate as he grabbed his own dick, and teased Nate's entrance.

He was happy that this was going the way it was. Serious and sensual but still with their familiar snark and jokes to make it calm and relaxed. Nate hissed as he felt Sam start to tease his entrance. “Mr. Evans,” he huffed at Sam’s face with a smile, “we do not have this kind of time for ya to be rude. Cmon now, give it to me,” he chuckled.

"Damn," Sam smiled right back at Nate, "Mr Evans, huh? Giving me a new kink even now," he teased, but he took the hint. He used one hand to grip Nate's leg, and moved forward, firmly pushing himself into Nate for the first time.

“My god y’all are ridiculous,” he chuckled. Nate gasped as he felt Sam fill him, slowly and completely. “Jesus...fuck oh my god,” he moaned, his body arching against the connection.

Sam kept his eyes on Nate as he slowly eased forward, not wanting to give Nate more than he could handle straight away. "Tell me how you're feeling, babe, love it when you talk to me," he smiled.

He wasn’t even sure he could talk. He always forgot just how good this felt and with it being Sam there was an extra factor to it. “Fuck...feels so good babe,” he moaned as Sam started his rhythm in and out of the swimmer. Nate’s fingers raked down Sam’s back and went right back into his hair. “Ya feel so good in me,” he said rocking his hips and ass against Sam, “fuck...fuck I love ya Sam.”

Sam grinned down at Nate, loving the feeling of Nate's fingers on him, as he eased in and out of the other man. "Now you know how much I've been loving this all this time," he smiled, glancing down to see himself easing back into Nate. "God, Nate...I love you, I love you so much," he gasped out.

“But I love doin this to ya too much,” he chuckled into another moan, as he felt Sam slide into him again. He pulled at the back of Sam’s neck, bending the boy down to kiss him hard, breathing heavily against their connected lips.

Sam laughed as Nate pulled him down to kiss so hard, almost slipping and falling on top of him. His hand from Nate's leg to cup his cheek, kissing him back just as passionately and meaningfully. He panted a little as the kiss broke. "Let's...not pretend you're not gonna be a huge bottom after this" he teased, as he pushed harder into Nate, setting up a faster pace.

The kiss deepened, their connection becoming more solid as the motions and actions continued. “I’m not shut up,” he chuckled back, but suddenly felt Sam go faster and the pleasure over took anything else he was thinking. “Oh my god...yeah. Yeah keep goin,” he encouraged, panting and moaning against the bed, underneath the blonde haired boy he loved.

"F...fuck, fuck yeah," Sam groaned out loudly, as he kept moving faster. "Touch yourself, babe, wanna see you fall apart for me, wanna see the huge mess you make for me," he grinned, as he arched up and pushed into Nate at a higher angle.

Nate moves one hand to his dripping, throbbing cock, using the precum to lube his shaft as he stroked. “Fuck...more,” he moaned as Sam’s change in position brought higher and harder sensations to his body. His strokes became needier and faster, groaning and gasping as they continued. “Fuck baby...more. More I’m so close.”

Sam groaned desperately, as he watched Nate as he fucked him. "You're getting more," he promised, as he hooked his arms under Nate's legs, and hoisted them up onto his shoulders. Sam began to drive into Nate harder and faster than before, his own orgasm not far away now.

“Oh shit!” He cried out as Sam changed the position again, fucking into him harder and more deliberately. The feeling was so amazing he almost didn’t want it to end. He stroked himself harder, moaning as he came, his seed falling over his chest and his hand, “fuck yes! Oh god!” He cried out, rising out his orgasm as Sam continued to thrust inside him.

"Fuck!" Sam cried as he watched Nate spill all over his chest and hand. He followed Nate right over the edge, cumming hard inside the other man. "Nate!" he yelled out, as his cock pulsed and shot desperately hard.(edited)

Nate was panting heavily by the time Sam was cumming, grabbing the back of Sam’s neck to pull him close again. “God...oh my god Sam, yes!” He cried out again, filling the man pulse and shoot inside him, humming and panting as they both reached their climax.

Sam groaned as he came, panting against Nate's lips. "Fuck, I love you," he moaned, before kissing Nate needily.

“I love ya,” he moaned back, kissing Sam just has hard so that there was no question how he felt. They were going to cover themselves in a complete mess, but Nate didn’t care. He needed it clear how much Sam meant to him and how much this moment meant. “I love ya baby,” he said again.

Sam couldn't care less about the mess right now, all he wanted to make sure that Nate walked away from this without a single doubt about Sam's love for him. "I love you so much," he murmured, as he rested his forehead against Nate's.

Nate’s arm’s came around Sam, holding tight to him. This should have felt more like a goodbye, but it didn’t. It was a restart to their friendship and that made the swimmer incredibly happy. He snuck another kiss with their foreheads pressed together. “This doesn’t mean I ain’t gonna be a little jealous when y’all start datin’ again,” he chuckled against the boy’s lips.

Sam laughed softly at Nate's words, and finally, almost regretfully, he began to pull back from Nate's forehead, and ease himself out of the swimmer. "Right back at you," he smiled. "And hey, I'm still up for me and you keeping that boy of yours in check together," he chuckled lightly.

“I think we’ll have to do that,” he agreed, “he’s not gonna be happy with this. And I know exactly where his brain is gonna go. Ima have to promise he’s still got ya.”

Sam nodded, a little more seriously. "He's always got me, I promise. He's gonna be a part of my life for as long as he wants it," Sam said, as he sat up. He reached out, and patted Nate's leg. "So are you, okay? I mean it, with this whole friend thing. Still wanna see you compete in the Olympics."

Nate sat up along with Sam as he nodded, “Yeah. Yeah I’m alright. I mean, it’s sad. It is, I ain’t gonna pretend it’s not. While I may not need to jump right back into bed with ya right away - again - I don’t think I need space this time. I mean, this is just for the best. It’s what’s best for them and that matters more.” It truly did feel different, in a good way. No one was shouting, and this wasn’t something that was based on pain or anger. It just...was. “Well I hope to see ya there,” he smiled.”

Sam nodded as Nate spoke. "It's sad. I'm sad. Good, I'm glad, and I don't think I need space either. We're...being really mature," he grinned a little, even his eyes threatened to water up again. "I'll be there," he promised. "One last kiss, babe?"

“We are,” Nate agreed with a smile, albeit a little sadder than normal. Nate nodded, placing his hand at the side of Sam’s face, bringing him closer to press a kiss to his lips.

Sam put his hand over Nate's heart, as he kissed his boyfriend, his ex, back. It was slow, and sweet, and everything Sam wanted in that moment. A couple of tears began to fall before Sam pulled away, and quickly collected his clothes. It took him seconds to hurriedly throw them on. "I'll be seeing you," he whispered.

Nate hates how fast Sam pulled away, but he needed it as much as Sam did. If one of them didn’t move away they’d be stuck there trying to hold off the goodbye. “I’ll always be here,” he promised, sniffeling quickly and rubbing a tear from under his eye.

Sam wished he could spend the whole day in bed with Nate, but he knew the longer he stayed, the more he'd try to rationalise not breaking up. He'd come up with ways this could work, but in a situation like this, any compromise would mean someone in their little group would be looking at a future they didn't sign up for. That just wasn't fair. "I know you will," Sam smiled. "Just like I'll always be there for you," he said quietly, before he forced himself to turn and leave the room, and then the suite, as tears began to fall.

#para #p sam #smut #here we go again

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elrondsscribe · 6 years ago

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Narnia Readalong Backfill #2: Prince Caspian

Again, I’m technically a month late for this one, my apologies! Here’s Prince Caspian.

Favorite Quote: “’I do, I do,’ said Caspian. “But how can I help?’” // This one is in the middle of old Doctor Cornelius telling Caspian about the invasion of the Telmarines and their ongoing rule over the Narnians. And Cornelius has just told Caspian that, no, he doesn’t blame little Caspian himself for all the awful things his ‘grandcestors’ have done, and that he knows that Caspian cares for Old Narnia and Old Narnian things. Most of all, I can’t help but adore the second part of that quote: “How can I help?”

In my own personal life, I’ve noticed a variety of responses from my white friends and associates when faced with the truth of some of the awful things that their own great-grandparents have done to people who look like me (note the color of my thumb, which you can see in the photo). The idea of ‘white guilt’ has been criticized soundly, but I know that it often comes from a very genuine place of ‘this is bad, and I don’t want to countenance it.’ But then, sometimes, there’s a defensiveness that crops up: ‘well, it wasn’t my fault, and you shouldn’t hold me responsible.’ And that’s not what Caspian does here: he asks what he can do about the injustices. And he listens and is accepting when Cornelius tells him. Now we don’t see Caspian’s ‘wokeness’ as a ruler fully realized in this book, but the promise is definitely there.

Favorite Chapter: I think my favorite chapter would have to be ch. 14, How All Were Very Busy. The romp with Bacchus, at least aesthetically, seems to echo What Happened About The Statues in LWW, and it was also just plain fun! (I really like grapes, and the description of the grapes of Bacchus made my mouth water. Lewis and food: what can I say? :) I only know some rudimentary basics of Greek (and Roman) mythology, and yes indeed, meeting Bacchus and his Maenads without Aslan would be a right mess! And yet, the disorder and chaos that Bacchus brings to Narnia is exactly what’s needed to get Narnia’s Beastliness (for lack of a better word) out from the repression of the overly-regulated regime of the Telmarine humans.

Favorite Scene: Another random pick, but I just adore the scene where the cheated Telmarine lords Glozelle and Sopespian are manipulating Miraz like freakin’ clay. It’s so patently obvious what they’re doing, from the ‘death-in-the-strange-Knight’s-face’ and ‘more-than-my-heart-would-serve-me-for’ language that they use, but Miraz still falls for it!

Overall Rating: So I have kinda mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, this book is very slow in a way that LWW somehow wasn’t. Even hearing Lynn Redgrave read it aloud couldn’t completely save it. But on the other hand . . . man, have I got some compliments for the political commentary! I’ve already talked briefly about this in an earlier post, but look at the setup that we have! If this isn’t the purest example of colonialism that exists in mainstream fantasy, I don’t know what is. And this from a British man, writing this less than four years after India gained independence from Britain. This is ‘woke’ commentary on colonialist oppression before ‘woke’ was a thing. Color me impressed! But okay, the rating: a solid 8.5/10.

Favorite Character: Caspian. Sweet, polite, empathetic Caspian. As I was saying earlier, he’s Woke in the very best way. And he has Good Manners: he lets Pattertwig give him a nut and he eats honey with the Bears. When he wakes up with a headache in a cave full of strangers, the first thing he asks is for his hosts to take care of his horse. He calls Peter ‘High King.’ And even though Nikabrik has never been even remotely civil toward Caspian, once Nikabrik is dead he has only empathy for him (none of the cliche ‘reverse racism’ nonsense from that boy!).

Small rant about the 2008 film: I feel sorry for the filmmakers on this one, really I do. This is NOT an ideal book to adapt to an action movie; like I said, the pacing of the book is . . . something else. I also understand that they may have felt like the characters were ‘too goody-goody’ and needed some ‘humanization.’ Having said that . . . adding in all the anger and pigheadedness with Peter and the shrill-bossy-nag thing with Susan really didn’t help round them out. And as for Caspian . . . I have no words (well, words that I care to repeat in polite company, anyway). And as for the plot stuff they threw in, from the return of the White Witch to the train station brawl to the attack on Miraz’s castle to Susan and Lucy’s random-ass ride in the woods . . . again, I have nothing constructive to say, so I say nothing.

#narnia fandom read-along #prince caspian #on colonialism #narnian wokeness #caspian is a honeybun #canon caspian is anyway

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wayoutmason-blog · 6 years ago

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in the stormy weather | ryson

WHO: Mason McCarthy & Ryder Lynn ( @rydingdirty ); with brief mention of Madison, Santana, Tina, Marley, Rachel, Kitty, Finn & Schue. WHAT: A couple of category 5 hurricanes take a minute to breathe & catch each other up. WHERE: A random bar in Chicago. WHEN: Saturday, September 29, late evening. WARNINGS: Alcohol, mention of cheating, brief allusion to depressive incidents/spirals, discussion of The Sex Tape & its following leaking. WC: 6.2k.

MASON

Mason was sitting on the front step of their hotel, aviators on and phone in his hand, scrolling through his feed - the thing about Chicago that he liked, he realized, was that nobody gave a shit. He'd been to New York and the vibe was similar, except it was less crowded and less...New York. He liked Chicago, and he was more than happy to hit up any of the bars he'd Googled after Ryder's texts. At the thought of Ryder, a soft sigh escaped him - he felt bad for his buddy, who seemed to be having the world's roughest start to tour. What kind of luck was it to have a sex tape leaked and then miss the group transportation not even a week later? The worst luck, that's what, and Mason hated it that people were judging him for those things - but he also couldn't blame them, so he'd spend the better part of the afternoon thinking of ways for Ryder to rehab his 'dumbass' image, if he wanted them. But if he didn't, Mason wouldn't be surprised, either. He heard the front door of the hotel open behind him and he glanced over his shoulder, knowing instinctively that this wasn't just one of the other guests of the hotel, or even a member of the label. He stood and offered Ryder his signature grin. "Hey, buddy," Mason said easily. "You ready to see all the sights we can find, by way of Chicago's licensed liquor establishments?"

RYDER

Although Ryder had gotten plenty of rest following the bus incident, he certainly didn’t look any better than he had a 60 and a ball down that fateful Monday. The post-gym glow of a red-blooded man in his prime did little to distract from the haggard, thousand year-old look in his eyes when he came down into the lobby with a bottle of what looked to be water and a lame attempt at seeming carefree and cheerful. He knew Mason could tell immediately that shit was going down and maybe he didn’t try as hard as he would’ve to look 'fine' if he wasn’t trying to bully the elephant in the room aside too. What was the protocol to meeting up with a friend post-threesome? Ryder didn’t know but the thought of it made him queasy enough to avoid it altogether. They didn't have to talk about it. “Hey man.” He greeted him with a handshake and a fist bump. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. You wanna walk?” Nudging the bottle towards his friend, he raised his brows over his shades. “It’s not water.”

MASON

Mason took the bottle, laughing at his expression. "No way," Mason said, feigning surprise. He took a swig and handed it back, letting out a little hiss as it came down. "I figure we walk. We get lost or end up somewhere sketchy, we call somebody or Lyft out or whatever," Mason said with a shrug, not really concerned about any of these what-ifs; he found worrying got in the way of having fun, and the point tonight was having fun. ...Just, not as much fun as they'd had the other night. "I was right, by the way. It is a sports town. The Cubs," Mason said. "I looked it up. Apparently Wrigleyville is where it's at, but that's far and expensive and I figure we don't need all that." Mason chuckled and tucked his hands in his pockets, his attention mostly on the people around them and the buildings - the architecture of Chicago was something else. "But there's still a bunch of cool places all over - just a couple blocks away," Mason added, glancing back at Ryder with a reassuring smile as he bumped shoulders with him gently. "No sweat, man. Nothin' nuts. We can just drink and talk, it's all good."

RYDER

Ryder bobbed his head distractedly as Mason prattled on about the city. He wanted to listen but his head had turned into a broken radio, swapping rapidly through channels of worry from Tina and Jesse to Santana to Marley to Mason as his old dead and empty phone sat heavy in his pocket like an anchor weighing him down to the center of it all. It was unbeknownst to him when his life had gotten so complicated that even the swill of liquor was struggling to empty his mind long enough to mumble something more convincingly affirmative than ‘yeah’ and ‘cool’. The bump rattled him out of the eddy of anxiety and he smiled a little when Mason smiled at him because it was impossible not to. “Yeah, sounds good,” he said lamely. And then, “Santana leaked my sex tape.” Silence seeped in awkwardly into the door that Ryder had abruptly kicked open with about as much grace as a newborn donkey being birthed. He rubbed the back of his neck as he guzzled down an unhealthy portion of the bottle as if it had been water. “Your sister is dating a demon, man. You've got to let her go.”

MASON

Mason - stopped. He'd tripped over the first sentence but it was the second one that stopped him cold, cold enough to ignore the bump from behind and following curse that came from someone behind them running into him. He blinked, staring at Ryder like one of the exotic fish Tina had seen earlier - eyes wide behind his shades, mouth open. He didn't know where to start. Except that he did. "Madison's--" Mason tried again. "My sister is--is dating Santana?" He stared at Ryder like he'd grown two heads; he knew that Madison was gay, obviously, he'd known that as soon as Madison had, back when they'd actually been...you know, friends, not just biologically related. For some reason it still hit him like a train - that Madison would be dating someone and not tell him, that it was someone on tour, that it was someone who-- "Did you just--did you say that she--that Santana is the one who--" Mason pulled his sunglasses off so that he could think better, but it didn't help much at all. "What the fuck?"

RYDER

Ryder might’ve gaped if he could feel anything in his body but as it were, he was numbed dumb enough to not feel the impact of realization that he had unceremoniously dumped news onto Mason that he did not already know. Was he surprised? Maybe. Should he have been? No, considering that it made sense when the twins had only recently reconciled. He stared at Mason’s incredulity for a beat, trying to summon up a dredge of sympathy in the depths of his soul but only being able to stammer out a, ‘Yeah, man. You didn’t know?’ He walked a couple paces, half hoping that Mason wouldn’t lag too far behind so that he wouldn’t have to explain it all again while simultaneously hoping that the news would floor him in spot and spare him the humiliation of recanting his wildest nightmare. “Santana and I used to be friends. I thought she was a really cool person and I was naive at the beginning of my career so we got close. When Marley and I broke up, I guess I just got it in my head to try and hook up with Santana after but... when it came down to it, I just couldn’t do it so I bailed. After, she got wasted and told the press about my family which was bad enough... and then now, I found out that she was the one who picked up my phone and leaked the video of Tina and I.”

MASON

You didn't know? It was enough to jog him to movement again, but not enough to really shake the shock loose - or, well, it was, but only enough to make room for the familiar, well-worn bitterness-and-anger cocktail that surged in his chest every time his sister came up, to a greater or lesser degree. Every time other people knew her better than he did. Every time he was 'McCarthy number 2'. Every time-- Mason crossed his arms, his fists balling against his chest as he listened to Ryder, or really tried to. This wasn't abut him, it wasn't about him, it wasn't about him and he needed to get his head out of his ass and it wasn't about him and he should just ignore it it wasn't like him not knowing anything about his own sister's life was news he shouldn't have been surprised and Ryder needed him and this wasn't about him. It never was. Mason swallowed. Shoved his hands in his pockets. Swallowed again. "That's fucked up." This astute observation led them to the bar Mason had found, so Mason tugged Ryder inside, locating a booth toward the back of the establishment quickly. Mason's number one rule of imbibing anything, of going under any kind of influence, was mood modulation. A bad mood is a bad trip, a bad hangover, a bad time, and Mason really tried to be smart about this, but he was just-- He was angry, on several fronts, too angry to possibly hide it all. But he had to, because this wasn't about him. This was about Ryder's life and future and past and relationships, and he was Ryder's best - and currently only, probably - friend. They couldn't afford to be distracted, and Ryder needed him, and they both needed a drink. "What are you gonna do?" Mason asked, after running a hand over his face. "Like. She can't just. Do that."

RYDER

“Yeah, it’s pretty fucked up,” was the only thing Ryder could manage to say with his rapidly dwindling vocabulary as his brain struggled to power through processing what felt like a neverending chain of drama-- or rather one dramatic instance that refused to die, instead reviving itself over and over again like some evil Pharaoh with a new curse every time. The hum of the bar wasn’t nearly as soothing as he wanted it to be but the stench of liquor was. The meagre amount of rum he’d brought with him didn’t make enough of a dent to be considered anything beyond pregaming. At the first sight of a waitress, Ryder flagged her over and ordered a round of rum and cokes and three shots of whatever. Just in case. Nothing crazy. “Well, she did and it’s done. What can I do? It’s already out there.” Ryder blew out a breath and deflated in his seat. He scrubbed his face with both hands, pushing his sunglasses up onto his forehead as he stalled for continuation. The sheer acknowledgment of his empty phone stung his eyes in a way that he wasn’t prepared to handle in public, much less in front of Mason. When the waitress came back with their drinks, Ryder was first to shoot back one with a hasty clink to Mason’s glass. “She gave me back my phone already,” he said through a hiss. The scorch of alcohol seemed to be the only thing more painful than the ache already burning up his chest at the thought of how much had been lost. He took the phone out and placed it on the table. “Everything on it is gone. Every last bit of Marley and I... all erased.”

MASON

Mason downed his shot quickly - it felt like climbing into an old skin, being like this with Ryder. It had been years, but Mason still knew all the steps to this dance, and he downed the next shot to prove it, but when he looked at Ryder it was with real sympathy. "I'm sorry, man," Mason said. He didn't ask if Ryder had backed everything up - he wouldn't be this torn up if he had. They wouldn't basically be holding a private little wake if he had. It was gone, gone for real gone, a final nail in the coffin Ryder couldn't seem to break out of. "That's really, really awful." Mason sighed and ran a hand over his face, letting out a deep breath as he dropped his hands away. "You could tell Schue," Mason said after a long, rum-and-coke filled silence. "Maybe get her kicked off the label."

RYDER

The thought of getting even hadn’t really crossed Ryder’s mind and the soft suggestion in Mason’s voice sounded a bit like hesitance enough for Ryder not to give it second thought. Vengeance had never quite been Ryder’s song and dance even if he really wanted it to be. He was made up of softer, more pliable things like play-doh or clay-- only hardened in the sun and easily breakable while moving. He blew out what seemed to be his third sigh in a breath, never seeming to be able to exhale the heftiness weighing in his chest. “And embarrass myself further by having to explain the whole situation to him? No thanks. I just want to let the whole thing die already. People already think I did it. There’s a growing group of people who think I recorded it without her knowing which is a total lie because if you’ve seen it, the phone was in her hands first and we were laughing.” “Besides, it’s Santana. She’ll just get another job somewhere else. She’s good enough.” Good enough. The words made him choke up for no apparent reason, sticking to his throat like burrs and drying up his mouth. Ryder pushed a floating ice cube in his glass just to watch it bob up and down in his drink in silent envy of its resilience. “Tina’s wrapped up in all of this because of me. Everything she went through after that video went out is because of me. Rachel was right, all I do is hurt the people around me.” He laughed aloud as he sniffled, hoping the laugh would hide the simpering sound of self pity. “How am I supposed to make this right, Mace? I’m poison.”

MASON

Mason raised an eyebrow as Ryder spoke, snorting as he finished. "Poison? Dude, come on, I'm supposed to be the dramatic one around here." Mason nudged his foot under the table and flagged down their waitress and ordered them each a tall glass of cold water, then went back to the rum and coke. He didn't fully understand - or agree with - Ryder's decision against going to Schue about it, but he forced himself to set those thoughts aside. It wasn't his video, it wasn't his choice, and no matter how much Mason thought Santana should well and truly suffer for it, it wasn't his call to make. That burned worse than the booze from the water bottle had. "That is not all you do," Mason continued, more seriously, more softly. "You're not poison and you don't just hurt people, and it's not like--it's not like you were the one who did this vindictive thing. How were you supposed to know what would happen? You made the best call you could at the time with the info you had. 'S all any of us can do. Not your fault someone took advantage." Mason sighed and shook his head. "Who're you wanting to make it right with, anyway? Tina? The band? Yourself?" Mason kept himself from voicing the thought that crept into his mind - it wouldn't surprise him if Ryder was somehow beating himself up on Marley's behalf, too, but he wasn't going to rub salt in that wound unless he had to. "Can't undo it, man. Just gotta make it better going forward."

RYDER

Ryder fell silent as Mason railed him with the kinds of things that he hated hearing in the first place, reminding him both of why he’d taken to Mason in the first place and also why he didn’t like talking about his problems. He didn’t want calm reassurance. He wanted brimstone and hellfire and eternal punishment for all the vile things he’d done by just existing. If Santana was good at anything, it was that she always flagellated him the way he thought he deserved it. “Guess you’re right.” He didn’t think so but he also didn’t want to spend the evening trying to fight Mason whose keen eyes were looking at him like he saw straight through him to the other side. Ryder averted his gaze and took to the new glass of water, sinking into his seat as he drank it like a dejected sack of potatoes. “I dunno, I guess it just feels like I need to do something or say something. Whatever, though. It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged as he toyed with the old phone and stared listlessly into the black void of its screen. “I don’t really want to talk about it anymore. I just needed to get it off of my chest.”

MASON

Mason watched him for another minute or two, eventually giving him an overexaggerated roll of his eyes. "There's nothing to do, man," Mason repeated, "'cause it's over and done with. All of this you're doing, dragging yourself down, is just picking at the wound and keeping it from turning into the gnarly scar it'll be someday." Gently, Mason leaned forward and slid the phone out of Ryder's hand, turning it face-down on the table between them. "But we don't have to talk about it." Mason relented, giving him a goodnatured, coaxing smile. He took a long drink of his water, then looked back at Ryder. "What do you wanna talk about instead, man?"

RYDER

Ryder barely kept himself from lunging across the table and yanking back his phone when Mason grabbed it. Although it was empty, he was attached to ti by a gossamer strand of hope that it’d suddenly turn on with everything still on it. He gave Mason a look before reluctantly settling back in his seat and shrugged half-heartedly. He knew that Mason was right but the unsettling feeling that his existence was inherently evil had been there since he was little and he didn’t know how to begin to explain that to anyone, much less a guy he considered his very best friend. The heart of the matter was that he just couldn’t bring himself to delve deeply into the ‘why’ of it all which made him think about Marley and how their relationship puttered out and failed. Which made him think about whether his and Mason’s was going to collapse in the same way just because he couldn’t be bothered to get to the root of the problem. He suddenly understood why everyone called it a spiral. “I dunno, what’s been going on with you? I’ve just been going on and on about my shit. Aren’t you supposed to tell me your life is so much worse so I can agree and feel better about myself?”

MASON

Mason laughed. "Is that what I'm supposed to do?" Mason shook his head goodnaturedly. "Um, well..." Mason briefly considered hedging; he'd gotten so good at the avoidance dance that it was nearly second-nature, to keep everyone at least arm's distance away without them knowing there was any closer they could get. But Ryder knew already, and Ryder was clearly in need of a pick-me-up, or at the very least a distraction. And he trusted Ryder, in spite of the distance and the years between their last regular contact; even setting aside the fraternal bond, there was the whole 'got high and had a threesome' thing that Mason figured entitled Ryder to a little bit of knowledge. Plus, he hadn't told anyone about Kitty. He knew that he didn't have to, that he could go the entire rest of the tour keeping it locked down, but... "Uh, okay, man," Mason said. "Well, you know Kitty, right?" Mason began, surreptitiously leaning forward. "Her hot gargoyle of a boyfriend owes me an ass-kicking, but he doesn't know it yet." Mason raised his eyebrows at Ryder pointedly, then leaned back and finished his rum and coke; Ryder would have questions, and he'd answer them, but much like with Ryder's story, he didn't think he could do it sober.

RYDER

Ryder cocked his head at the first mention of Kitty. Did he know Kitty? Sure, he was a fan and all but the frequency of her name coming up in his life as of late was a little concerning. He couldn’t pin it on what exactly when Finn more or less sounded like he wanted to stay with her despite finding out that he had a little bastard child with an ex and despite all the wild rumors about her being with Rachel, Ryder couldn’t find himself taking that any more seriously than the ones of Marley and Tina. People were allowed to be friends without speculation. He’d be a hypocrite to think otherwise. He squinted at the usage of ‘hot’ was an adjective for Finn before the point finally hit him. “Is she actually cheating on him? With you?” His incredulity was a mixture of surprise and... disgust? It was impossible to discern between the feelings in his gut and the alcohol wreaking havoc on his insides as he searched Mason's face for some kind of clue that'd help him predict what he'd say next. Somehow, the knot in his gut only wound tighter. “Like, is it serious?” he asked, sounding less cool than he wanted. “How long have you been seeing her?”

MASON

Mason winced, dropping his head as Ryder came at him with - okay, yes, totally valid questions. "I've known her a long time," Mason explained, but it sounded weak to his own ears. "Like - we dated, off and on, more off than on but like since before her album came out. Like, we broke up last time like a year ago?" Mason squinted, trying to do math in his head, before he gave up. "I just - I know, it's stupid, but she hasn't even slept with him yet, Ry. Like, I felt bad after we--" Mason paused, his grin turning sheepish as he realized he had to rewind. "We sort of, um, hooked up. At this club. Back in Fresno." Mason toyed with one of the rings on his fingers, uncomfortable with the nearly-avoided guilt that came screaming back. "But not since then," he added, too quickly. "And she's not happy with him," Mason continued. "He's not - " Mason couldn't quite get himself to say that he wasn't treating her right, not without the lead weight of hypocrisy dragging him down, so he just sighed. "She's not happy with him, and she wants me, and..." Mason gave a helpless shrug. "And I try not to disappoint beautiful girls, y'know? Like it's not like I'm...seducing her or anything. It's just - she's just doing what she wants and she's doing it with me." Mason fell silent, flicking his gaze up to Ryder from the condensation circle he'd been doodling with on the table. "You asked for an update."

RYDER

There was nothing about Mason’s story that sounded unlike Mason. He was a wild thing and although Ryder had always been so much messier, he had to commend Mason on how meticulous he was in means of messes. If Ryder was a category 5 hurricane, then Mason was a category 5 stuffed into a box with a Crest-ad smile painted on the outside. Ryder’s first question was ‘why didn’t you tell me about this?’ but he figured he could’ve answered that himself. They weren’t talking and Mason didn’t think she was important enough to mention the last time they’d met... right? The thought of someone else being there for Mason when he wasn’t hadn’t bothered him when he had other things but he was beginning to feel humbled by his own negligence and all the things he’d taken for granted. He looked at Mason speculatively as he explained, trying to keep the judgment from his face because he didn’t know if it was real or if he was just (a little) jealous. “If she’s unhappy with him, why doesn’t she just leave him? Why’d she have to cheat?” It was a rhetorical question. Ryder knew why people cheated. He wasn’t a complete moron to think that Kitty was somehow exempt from everyone else who lied to their significant others. “I dunno, Mase. It takes two to tango and you’re basically saying it’s okay to hurt this guy because... what? You want to get your dick wet? You love her? What is it?”

MASON

"I don't--" Mason wanted to say 'I don't love her', but the words caught in his throat and tasted like a lie, but he wasn't. He wasn't in love with Kitty. If he was in love with her, he'd be with her, and if she was in love with him then she'd be with him and not with Way Out's very own Brawny guy. "I just--man, I don't even know," Mason admitted, slumping back in his seat. He ran his hands over his face and let out a deep sigh, then looked back at Ryder. "It's just like - when I'm with her, I don't--it's not like I'm just thinking with my dick, but everything else just gets so like..." Mason trailed off and looked around the bar, lips pursed together as he tried to think of a way to explain exactly how it felt the second he got within a foot of Kitty Wilde. "Everything else gets blurry," Mason eventually said, looking back at Ryder. "Like--I mean, I know I get sort of--tunnel vision sometimes, like I know that and I know it's like bad sometimes but it's different with her. It's like...everything else becomes easy to forget, you know? Like I know, in my brain, that it's--that we shouldn't have done that and I knew it at the time but she was--she wanted it and it's not like I didn't and it's not like I forced her or even--like, initiated, y'know? It's just - easy, except for all the reasons it's never, ever, ever easy with us." Mason finished with a deep sigh, his brow knitting as he looked back down at the table. He dragged his pinkie finger through the condensation again, scribbling out the nonsense shapes he'd been drawing. "I dunno why she doesn't leave him, man," Mason continued, unable to completely hide the bitter edge to his voice. "Don't blame her, though. I wouldn't leave him for me, either."

RYDER

Ryder blew out a breath as he listened to Mason, brows raising at peaks in his explanation that sounded a little too familiar to his own experiences for him not to be a little judgmental. Although he never cheated on anyone or helped anyone do it, he suspected that if he’d been ensnared in it, he’d very much be rambling at Mason about the very same thing and expecting a degree of disappointment from his friend who’d definitely slap him and tell him he could do better than to stand in as a warm dildo for someone who couldn’t make up their mind. Instead, though, Ryder said, “It sounds like you’ve got it bad, man.” It was just easier to be compassionate towards a friend than to himself and Mason was so much better than he was anyway. The sad, dejected lilt to Mason’s sour muttering made him want to stick his fingers into his dimples and lift his cheeks up but he settled for reaching over the table and kneading the furrow of his brow out with a thumb. “You’re being ridiculous, man. You’re a catch and if she doesn’t see that, that’s on her. It’s obvious that she’s trying to hold onto you both for one reason or another. Have you asked her? I mean, this could be something, Mase.”

MASON

Mason blinked as Ryder's thumb padded at his forehead, momentarily thrown - was this a Simba thing happening? But he got there and he couldn't help the little chuckle that escaped him - the contact, after it was surprising, was just enough to relax the tension building in his shoulders. "I dunno about that," Mason said, giving him a wry smile. "But thanks, man. I've--mostly I just don't want to hear about him, y'know? Like, whatever, he's twelve feet tall and too dumb to make Kitty over the moon in love with him." Mason wrinkled his nose and shook his head, adding in a quieter voice, "Plus, like...what if I do ask, y'know? Like, what if I tell her to dump him? Then I have to date her cause she broke up with her Playgirl model for me, y'know? Or what if she won't do it? Like..." Mason shrugged helplessly. "I can't, man. I don't even know what I'd say."

RYDER

Ryder opened his mouth to say something in defense like ‘Finn has other things on his mind right now’ and ‘Hudson’s got a baby’ but he didn’t know if it’d be right to drop that bomb when a minor was involved. And a very cute one at that. It wasn’t fair to anybody but Ryder was only really on Mason’s team anyway. “What’s wrong with dating her?” A bullet point list of things immediately came to mind, like Mason’s time being occupied by someone else or his focus switching from wing man to his own future which was probably something Ryder should’ve been happy about but he wasn’t. He amounted his selfishness to the alcohol and flagged the waitress for another round. “Look, you’re making it too complicated. She either says yes and dumps him or she says no and you know how much you mean to her. It’s simple as that, dude.” Ryder took a new tumbler from the waitress’ tray when she came back around and put it down in front of Mason with a pointed thump. “Tell her you’re not going to be her side thing anymore and that you want to go steady.”

MASON

Mason blinked - with all the chaos of tour, he'd almost forgotten about this side of Ryder. The Ryder who saw through Mason's hazy confusion in one minute with more clarity than Mason had in his whole life, the Ryder who talked him up and told him, exactly, in no uncertain terms, what to do. Mason had very nearly entirely forgotten that it could be nice, having someone marking his path for him, pointing out the next steps. He'd forgotten that Ryder had been that person for him, once upon a time; with it came a fresh, warm surge of affection that only had a little bit to do with the appearance of a fresh glass in front of him. "You're the worst," Mason said, though a smile had replaced his dour expression, and he chugged the tumblr with all the enthusiasm of a college freshman determined to prove himself to the upperclassman. And then it hit him, and Mason remembered that he wasn't 18 anymore. "The worst," Mason repeated, his grin wider and looser as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. "If I ask her to 'go steady', do I gotta like, take her to the sock hop, too?"

RYDER

If Ryder had any reservations about being a helpful friend over a three-episode cameo in a season of Gossip Girl, they were promptly dissipated under the beam of Mason’s smile. He didn’t go through his life with the purpose of making someone smile (he didn’t go through life with any purpose at all, really,) but there was something satisfying about bringing out Mason’s sweet, dimpled grin that made the knots disperse into bubbles that sat in his chest like balloons. It was impossible not to feel accomplished, like he’d somehow goaded the sun out from behind the clouds. So what if he’d shot himself in the foot and sacrificed his liver to the Gods? He looked at Mason’s widening grin and snorted under his breath. Yeah, he’d do it again, still. “Date, be exclusive. Whatever, dude. You can take her to the sock hop or hop in her sock after. You can do whatever you want ‘cause she’ll be all yours and you don’t gotta worry about gargling Hudson’s backwash.” Ryder flapped a hand dismissively as if he were swatting away a gnat as he sipped from his own drink. “Yeah, yeah, slut-shaming is bad, whatever, but does anyone really want to kiss someone else while they’re two-timing you for the sake of political correctness?” Relaxing into his seat, Ryder let his head fall back against the booth as he kicked a foot up onto the opposing seat next to Mason’s knee. He raised his brows at the appearance of a phone. “Don’t call her now, man.”

MASON

"I wasn't gonna call her," Mason said, mirroring Ryder's position but in reverse, a leg on either side of them now. He sent a couple of texts, his usual no-phones-while-hanging-out rule having already been broken; he was quiet for a few minutes before he set his phone down, crease in his eyebrows returning. "Kitty told Rachel," Mason said, giving his upside down phone another petulent pout before he looked back at Ryder. "Without, like. Telling me first or talking to me. What if she's told everybody else, Ry?"

RYDER

Ryder crinkled his brow at the mention of Kitty having told Rachel anything. He had some reservations about her still and moreover, with the newfound information that she was two-timing Finn made him wonder if she was three-timing Mason. “You’re the single one, Mason. If she tells everyone, the only person she’d be making a fool out of is herself-- not to be that guy but trust, me. I know how the media works.” He watched Mason text with passive interest, distracted himself with the idea that perhaps he’d given Mason some crappy advice that he didn’t really feel that great about either. Romantic or not, a liar once would always lie again. “You really wanna die on this hill, man? I mean, I know what I said but...”

MASON

Mason shrugged helplessly. "I dunno, man." He shook his head and took a long drink of water, sighing as he set the glass down. "I don't wanna die at all, y'know? I just - wanna survive tour. That's my whole goal at this point." Mason chuckled wryly and ran a hand over his face. "It's not important, I guess. You're right, man. I should just - just tell her it's not gonna happen. I can't be what she wants anyway." Mason nodded, trying to rouse himself into being excited about the decision while trying to bury his unexpected flare of irritation that Kitty had told anyone about them. He flagged their waitress and ordered another round of shots. "We can't get too wild," Mason said, looking back at Ryder after she left. "Tina's worried about you. And us. I told her not to 'cause we're being chill and I don't wanna have lied."

RYDER

“I know, I told her I’d sleep in my own bed tonight. You wanna grab a bottle and head back soon? We can always chill there, that way if we get mangled, I wouldn’t be lying and... like, the bathroom is right there.” Ryder looked over to where the waitress sped off to, mostly to distract himself from what he was thinking. The swill of liquor did nothing to quell the eddying thoughts that raced through his mind at Mason’s prompt dismissal of it all. It was hard to hear his friend speak about himself in such a way that the need to speak up wrestled whatever hyper-masculine conditioning society had beat into him about getting sloppy with feelings. He tinkered with the ice in his glass for a beat, eyes glued to the beads of condensation pooling at the bottom as his ears burned a bright shade of red. “I don’t think she even knows what she wants, dude. All I’m saying is that there’s someone out there who isn’t going to take all the love you have to give and act like it’s not good enough. You don’t have to commit to this but I don’t think you should keep settling for being a side article either. You’re a centerfold, Mase.”

MASON

Mason ducked his head, the pink of his blush creeping over his cheeks and up his ears. "Thanks, buddy," Mason said, dropping his hand to squeeze Ryder's ankle affectionately. "You're the best." Mason downed the rest of his water and stood, catching himself as the change in position wigged his equilibrium. It only took a moment and then he grinned back at Ryder. "Let's get outta here."

RYDER

“Yeah, you’re right,” Ryder said quickly, eager to eject himself out of the weird situation he’d put himself in. It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d ever given Mason a pep talk but it felt different this time in an unsettling kind of way that upset his stomach more than the alcohol did. He chalked it up to the time and distance rather than having to speculate on just how much it had to do with Mason’s mouth on his dick a few nights prior. He hastily counted out bills, avoiding Mason’s eyes like lasers as he grew flustered with deciphering a one from a twenty and decidedly dumped enough money on the table to cover their bill, tip and a fee for the uncomfortable energy they brought into the establishment alone. Replacing his sunglasses and stuffing his hands into his pockets, he flashed the slightest smile in Mason’s direction before rushing out the doors. The rustle of cool Chicago air was a chilling but welcome change of atmosphere from the stuffiness of the bar and the encompassing problems that had followed them there and gotten left behind. Like the old, empty phone that still sat on a table inside the bar. Forgotten.

#wayoutchicago #para: all #para: 002 #para: in the stormy weather #para: ryder #ryder: all

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hopelikethemoon · 4 years ago

Text

Girl’s Night (Javier x Reader) {MTMF}

Title: Girl’s Night Rating: PG-13 Length: 3800 Warnings: Discussions about cancer, abusive parents, toxic family (illusions to racism and homophobia) Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set in September 1998. gif by coredrive! If you’ve forgotten what Reader’s backstory is, you can find out more at the link above! Summary: Reader has a girls night with Connie and Monica.

@grapemama @seawhisperer @huliabitch @pedropascalito @rogrsnbarnes @thewallpapergoesorido @twomoonstwosuns @gooddaykate @livasaurasrex @ham4arrow @plexflexico @readsalot73 @hdlynn @lokiaddicted @randomness501 @fioccodineveautunnale @roxypeanut @snivellusim @lukesrighthand @historynerd04 @mrsparknuts @synystersilenceinblacknwhite @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @exrebelshocktrooper @awesomefandomsunited @ah-callie @swhiskeys @lady-tano @beskar-droids @space-floozy @cable-kenobi @cool-ultra-nerd @himbopoes @findhimfives @pedrosdoll @frietiemeloen @arrowswithwifi @random066 @uncomicalhumour @heather-lynn @domino-oh-damn @cyarikaaa @ahopelessromanticwritersworld @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl @yabby-girl @xqueenofthecraziesx @punkass-potato @coredrive @pascalesque @theduchessofkirkcaldy @queenquazar @sabinemorans @buckstaposition @holkaskrosnou @yespolkadotkitty @fleetwoodmactshirt

You knew something had to be up. The girl’s night had been your idea, but Connie had seized on it without hesitation. Steve and Javier would watch the girls at your house — and play PlayStation — while you and Monica would come get wine drunk at the Murphy’s.

Connie seemed to be in great spirits for most of the evening. Conversation mostly focused on how the girl’s were doing in school, where you saw your career going, and Connie complaining about working double shifts at the hospital.

And that was when the conversation veered in a different direction.

Connie topped off her wine glass, only to chug it down like a champ.

“Uh-oh.” You took a sip of your own wine, before sitting your glass aside. “Connie, what’s wrong?”

Just a week ago, Javier had assured you that things would be fine with them. Whatever their problem was, it wasn’t as serious as Connie feared that it was.

Monica looked warily between the two of you, “Should I be nervous?”

“Probably.” You shot back, before keeping your focus on Connie as she leaned forward, propping her elbows on the table.

“Steve had a cancer scare.”

“Oh my God.” Monica covered her mouth.

You just stared, “Just a scare?”

She nodded, “It happened months ago. In May!” Connie pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. “I’m so fucking mad at him I could spit. But I’m relieved. I just can’t believe he wouldn’t tell me.”

“Wait… rewind. When did you find out?”

“Monday.”

“Shit.” You frowned. “I’m gonna kick his ass into 2020.”

Connie laughed bitterly. “He didn’t want to scare me. That was his excuse at first.”

“At first?” Monica frowned. “Why is it such a man thing to hide shit from their partners? I don’t get it.”

“It’s all about their ego,” You explained. “What kind? I mean, Javier and Steve smoked like freight—“

“Testicular.” Connie answered bluntly and Monica choked. “I guess, in May he found a growth on his left testicle and—“

“Please spare me the details.” Monica groaned, sinking back in her chair. “I don’t want to hear about Steve’s testicles.”

You snorted quietly, trying to keep from laughing at Monica’s utterly scandalized expression. “But he didn’t tell you? I mean… that would explain the whole…” You gave Connie a look as you gestured vaguely.

“Mhm. I’m just so pissed off.” Connie admitted. “He lied about a trip he took back in May. I can’t even believe it. He just lied! He went to Tampa to see a doctor outside of my hospital network so I wouldn’t… I don’t know. I don’t get his logic.”

“He’s a man. Don’t expect logic.” Monica pointed out.

“She’s not wrong.” You shrugged. “But, holy shit. Why wouldn’t he just tell you?”

“My mother.”

Oh. Shit.

Connie’s voice grew quieter, her eyes shining with tears. “After all of my struggles with pregnancy, after all the tests, the infertility treatments, after everything — she still blames Steve.” She lowered her gaze, quickly wiping a tear away. “And with her being with us most of the summer, Steve just… I guess, In his defense, he was afraid this would give her ammo.”

“Connie, sweetie…” You rose from your seat and moved around the table to sit beside her. You wrapped your arms around her and pulled her to you, rubbing her back.

“He lied. To my face. For months.” Connie mumbled, her voice muffled as she covered her face. “That’s why he couldn’t get it up. All summer, all my attempts to initiate and he was so stressed about lying that he couldn’t even perform.”

“I’m going to grab…” Monica looked around nervously. “Chips? Salsa? Something other than this conversation?”

Connie laughed, “I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t apologize.” Monica made a face. “I’m just gonna go sit and watch TV until this conversation is over.”

“I’ll call you when it’s over.” You assured her as Connie pulled back, sniffling and wiping tears away. “Did Steve tell you all of this on his own or…?”

“It was horrible.” Connie told you gravely. “I took your advice, I bought this really cute black teddy. I made us dinner, the girls were out of the house.”

“Fuck.” You grimaced, “Connie, I’m so…”

“Don’t.” She shook her head. “It made him finally admit to everything. Full-on nervous breakdown. I guess he hated how things had been because of this secret. It was bad. It was good. He cried, which… I haven’t seen him do in years.”

“Are you… I mean, are you guys okay or…” You almost didn’t want to know. Steve and Connie were such an ever present force in your lives. They had always had their rocky moments, but at the end of the day they always managed to find solid ground.

“I asked him to sleep in the guest room.” Connie admitted to you, pulling herself out of your embrace as she reached for the wine bottle and poured herself another glass.

“Do you mind telling me what happened?” You questioned lightly, reaching across the table to grab your discarded glass of wine, taking a short sip of the drink.

Connie inhaled shakily, “Well… I had Monday night off so I arranged for the neighbours to watch the girls for us. Admittedly, Steve was a little anxious during dinner. In hindsight, I realize that he might’ve been… I think he was planning on telling me already.” She frowned, rubbing her thumb over the crease between her brows as she stared down at her wine glass.

“I had no idea. If I had known the truth was something like this, I would not have encouraged you to try to romance him.” You wondered if Javier had known what was going on. He had to. He’d been so certain that things would be fine, so long as Steve talked to her.

“It’s… probably for the best.” Connie shrugged her shoulders. “I mean, don’t get me wrong… I’m relieved that he doesn’t have cancer, but the way he went about it. I’ve never been so pissed at him.”

“Not to play devil’s advocate, but…” You pursed your lips. “I know how much Steve hates your mother. I mean, I know it’s a mutual emotion, but… Can you really blame him for wanting to keep it quiet? Not for months, that’s… shitty. But you weren’t going to kick your mother out.”

You knew both sides of the story of Connie’s mother — Ethel Gibson. You had met her a handful of times since moving to Miami and the picture Steve and Connie had painted hadn’t been far off the reality. She was a fiery woman, daughter of Irish immigrants, and forged by the coal mines of Appalachia. She was one of twelve children, mother to nine, and devoutly religious. She deeply resented Steve because he whisked Connie off the mountain without marrying her first. In fact, they hadn’t married until they moved to Miami after they’d both completed college.

And in all those years, Ethel would’ve been fine with their sinful lifestyle, if Connie had only given her a grandchild. Just one.

Last year, when Ethel came to visit, Connie had called you tears because her mother had cruelly told her that God had cursed them for living in sin for so many years. That they would never have real children because they had done everything wrong.

Despite how toxic her mother was, Connie hadn’t quite figured out how to sever that connection. Ethel was useful during the summer, when everyone was working. But she was a hateful old hag.

Connie swept another tear off her cheek as she turned to look at her, “I just can’t believe the lengths he went to hide this. A fake business trip, going outside of our insurance, and then months of making me feel like something was wrong.”

“Want me to kick his ass? Cause I will.” You smiled a little at her. “I mean, he did try to take care of your needs — right?”

She nodded her head slowly, “I do get it.” Connie chewed on her bottom lip as she ran her finger around the rim of her wine glass. “I just hate how he went about this. I could’ve been there for him. I mean how would you feel if Javier pulled this shit?”

“There would be a surreptitious rose bush in the backyard.” You answered without hesitation. “Maybe a new concrete patio.”

“Exactly!” Connie shook her head then. “I don’t want to stay mad at him. I really do get why he did it. If my mother caught wind that he had something wrong with his testicles, it would just further fuel her hatred for him. It would be his fault that I’m… barren.”

You reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’re an amazing mother to two little girls who think the world of you, Connie. Olivia and Emily love you both, no differently than my girls love us.”

“I know. I know.” She squeezes your hand back. “I can’t believe I let her convince me that Steve was cheating! And the reality was that he just couldn’t get it up because he had been lying to me.”

“I think you should let him out of the doghouse. Maybe not tonight since you are teetering on the edge of being white girl wasted when he gets home.” You sat the bottle of wine of her reach. “But I think he punished himself all summer.”

“I agree.” Connie gave you a look. “He said Javier was pretty pissed off at him for how he handled things.”

“Javier knew?” You glowered. “I guess the boys are allowed to keep some secrets.” That was going to be a discussion you had with Javier when you got home.

Connie wiped at her eyes again, sinking back into her chair with a heavy sigh. “I spent all summer thinking something was wrong with me. All summer! I just couldn’t figure out why everything felt fine, but he… It’s so stupid. I’m so pissed off that he put me through this, but equally pissed that I get it.”

“I know this isn’t an easy conversation to have,” You started cautiously, chewing on your thumbnail as you stared at Connie. “But I think it might be time to cut your mother off.”

Connie started to cry again and your heart clenched as you watched her break down beside you.

“Alright, come on. Get up. We’re gonna go into the family room with Monica and have this conversation.” You urged, giving her arm a squeeze as you encouraged her to get up out of her chair. “No more wine.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I get it from Javi.” You shot back, guiding Connie into the family room.

“Are we done talking about Steve’s balls?” Monica questioned, brows drawn together as she met your eyes. “Shit, Connie. Are you okay?”

“Some tough love is about to happen.” You told her flatly as Connie sat down in the middle of the sofa, you and Monica on either side.

Monica scooted closer and gave Connie’s shoulder a squeeze, “Do I need to get the wine?”

“No,” Connie shook her head. “No, she was right. I need to stop. Getting drunk isn’t going… It’s just hard.”

You tucked your legs beneath you, turning on the sofa to face Connie. “I know.” You rubbed your lips together as you mulled over what the right words to say were. Turning your back on a parent was difficult — no matter how terrible they were. But sometimes, it had to be done. Especially when it’s a detriment to your own wellbeing. Or, in this case, your relationship. It was time to cut the ties. “How long have you and Steve been together?”

Connie brought her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as she rested her chin on her knees. “Twenty-two years.”

“In those twenty-two years, has Ethel ever said anything kind towards her son-in-law?”

She shook her head, “Unless you consider the handful of times she’s complimented him on his hair cut.”

“Well, that’s weird.” Monica laughed. “Is that the only nice thing she has to say?”

Connie rolled her eyes, “Most likely. She’s never liked him.”

“We could always start a girl gang of women who hate their parents.” Monica suggested, which made Connie laugh. “I’m serious. Nadia makes these really cool pins.” She leaned over the side of the sofa, grabbing her jean jacket and showing off the pins on her lapel.

“I might just take you up on that.” Connie quipped, before she leaned against you with a dramatic sigh. “I can’t believe Steve felt like he needed to hide a cancer prognosis, out of fear of my mother. If he had just told me… I would’ve stood by him. I wouldn’t have let her use it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Monica pointed out, “Even if you stand up to them, they’re not going to change. They’ll always find a way to cut you down.” She shook her head slowly, “My parents always suspected I was queer. It’s why they hit me. But when I was in high school, I convinced a friend of mine — he was so nice — to date me. Just to try to control the situation.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, lips drawn thin as she spoke. “But that wasn’t good enough for them. He wasn’t good for me. He wasn’t who they wanted me with. It was all about control.”

“You know my history,” You told Connie with a heavy sigh. “If I hadn’t cut her off, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Connie nodded her head, “You’re both right.” She wiped at her cheeks, exhaling shakily. “She never wanted me to leave the hollow. She wanted me to live the same life she did. In a tiny house, married to some coal miner or a long-distance truck driver. Miserable and bitter like her.”

“She wanted to control you.” Monica stated.

“She acted like she was going to die when I told her I was leaving with Steve,” Connie recalled. “He got into college — just on the other side of the mountain. Less than a day’s drive in good weather. We’d only been dating for a couple months, but he knew I hated it there. I felt like shit for weeks because my mother acted like she was just going to lay down and die because I’d betrayed her. But I wanted more. I wanted to go to school for nursing. I wanted to live in a real town and not the side of a mountain. She’s never forgiven me for that.”

“I’ll punch her in the face if you want me to.” You remarked with a short laugh. “I’ve been wanting to since she made you cry last year. She’s a bitch and frankly, we both know what her real issue is with the girls.”

Monica gave you a look, “It was painfully obvious.”

“And look, you don’t have to make it a big deal.” You reminded Connie. “You keep contact limited. You can send Christmas cards and birthday cards — but you don’t make time to call her. You don’t welcome her into your home and you don’t visit her. If you want another twenty-two years with Steve, that’s just how it’s going to have to be.”

“I know.” She sank back against the sofa, looking up at the ceiling. “I hate this. I really do. She has always been a thorn in the side of our marriage the entire time. I feel so bad for Steve. He’s never said a mean thing to her or about her.”

“Steve’s a saint, but he’s not off the hook for lying to you.” You reminded her. “But go easy on him. He didn’t do it maliciously.”

“I think… I’m going to call him.” Connie scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Are you both good to go home?”

“I just have to call a cab.”

Monica checked her watch, “Nadia can be here in like fifteen to pick me up.”

“Thank you both.” Connie slung her arms around both of you, pulling you towards her. “I really needed this. I really needed this.”

“I’m just glad you and Steve are going to be okay.”

She nodded, “And we will be. We will.”

You felt terrible for them. But relationships had ups and downs. It was just important that you came out on the ups, rather than the downs.

———

“So you knew about Steve’s balls.” You stated as you rolled onto your side towards Javier. The bedroom was dark, but you could almost imagine his expression just from the huff he let out. “Well?”

“Interesting choice of pillow talk.” Javier remarked as he rolled onto his back, reaching out beneath the covers to grab your leg. He gave it a squeeze, sighing heavily. “Yeah, he told me at the bar last week.”

“So you just found out.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his thumb over your skin. “I hear he’s sleeping in the guest room. I told him he fucked up. Lying to her for how many months?”

You reached down and rested your hand over his, “I think she’ll let him back in her bed tonight. We talked it through.”

“And the prognosis?”

“He fucked up by lying, but she recognized that he was just trying to keep the peace.”

“He’s scared shitless, baby.” Javier told you. “I’ve never seen him so on edge before. She blew up Monday night.”

“Well, she didn’t know what she was in for. She cooked dinner, bought a fancy teddy, and…”

“He regrets the ‘I need to talk’ shit he pulled.”

“He should!” You shook your head, squeezing his hand. “He is such a sweetheart, but he’s as smart as a box of rocks sometimes.”

Javier chuckled, “What can you expect? He shoots skeet. For fun.”

You snorted, “He’s deeply flawed.”

“You think they’re gonna figure things out?”

“I hope so.” You shifted closer to him, draping your arm over his chest as you rested your cheek on his shoulder. “She’s gonna cut off her mom.”

“Fuck Ethel.”

“Seriously.” You curled your leg around his, resting it in between his thighs. Trying to get closer to him. “I feel bad for both of them, honestly. I understand why Steve did what he did, but… He shouldn’t have left Connie in the dark for so long.”

“I don’t think he planned to,” Javier admitted, running his hand over your forearm. “For what it’s worth, Steve told me he had planned to tell her once he found out whether he had cancer or not. One of the girls got sick — remember the stomach flu that went around? Connie was stressed, he’d just come back from his trip, and he put it off. Then Ethel came and…”

“Now it’s September.” You added, lifting your hand up to cup his cheek. “If you ever think you’re sick… please tell me.”

Javier tilted his head and brushed his lips against yours. “I’d want you right there beside me, baby. I don’t know how Steve managed to get himself up to Tampa and let them remove his whole fucking testicle.”

“They removed the whole thing?” You gaped at that. “Connie acted like it was just a biopsy. Holy shit, no wonder he hasn’t wanted to have sex!”

“Yeah, it’s a whole… thing.” Javier snorted. “I’ve heard more about Murphy’s balls than I ever wanted to.”

“Monica was scandalized by our discussion on Steve’s balls.”

“That poor child.” Javier chuckled. “Did she have fun?”

“She bragged about how excited she was for your Social Policy Analysis class.”

“I think she’s the only one excited about it,” He sounded quite pleased with that. “Everyone else was grumbling about having to turn in a two-hundred page policy.”

“That class is only going to be fun because of me.” You pointed out. “Which one of us secured City Hall for your class?” You couldn’t wait to hear Monica get up at a council meeting and argue for her policy reform.

Javier snorted, “When are you gonna start teaching yourself, baby?”

You traced your finger over his nose in the darkness, “Next semester.”

“Wait, really?”

“I haven’t turned anything in yet, but… I think I’m going to do it. Honestly, I miss working with you.” You admitted. “I’ll still help Steve, as promised… But, I’ve had so much fun helping you with the Policy class.”

Javier curled his arm around you and pulled you into his chest as he rolled onto his side. “Best fucking news I’ve had all week.”

You laughed quietly, nuzzling into his throat. “I thought you’d be happy about it.”

“My office is plenty big enough for you to set up your own desk in there.”

“I can’t sit on your lap?” You laughed as you pressed kisses along his neck. “Damn.”

He gave your ass a playfully squeeze, “Only when the door’s shut.”

You were seconds away from sliding your hand down between your bodies when you heard the creak of your bedroom door and the quietest little voice whispering.

“Mommy? Daddy?”

Javier sighed quietly as he released his hold on you, rolling over and turning the bedside light on. “Hey, princesa. What’s up?”

“I had a nightmare.” Josie said quietly, rubbing at her eyes.

“Well, what are you doing over here?” You questioned, “Come here, baby girl. Get in bed with us.”

Josie didn’t need to be told twice, she pushed the bedroom door shut behind her and bounded her way onto the bed with you. Javier picked her up, despite his bad shoulder, tossing her up in the air a little before settling her down on the bed between the two of you.

“What was the bad dream, sweetheart?” He questioned.

“I was all alone!” Josie said, quite dramatically, clinging to your hand. “It was dark and scary… And there were these creepy sounds and… a witch cackling!”

“Did you leave your Halloween sounds cassette on?”

“Maybe.” Josie said innocently.

“Babydoll, you can’t listen to those at night.”

“Uncle Steve wanted to hear them before he left! He thought they were funny.”

You rolled your eyes, “Then we’ll just have to bill Uncle Steve for the nightmare tax.”

“The nightmare tax?” Josie questioned, wide-eyed as she looked up at her father.

Javier nodded his head, “The nightmare tax. Now Uncle Steve will have the nightmares and you won’t.”

“I bet he’s having nightmares tonight.” You interjected with a wry laugh.

“Oh.” Josie hummed thoughtfully. “So I won’t have anymore bad dreams?”

“Well, surely not with your big strong daddy here to scare away the bad dream monsters.” You remarked, reaching around behind Josie’s head so you could play your fingers through Javier’s hair. “We’ve got you kiddo, don’t worry.”

“I love you mommy.” Josie said, rolling over and clinging to you.

You wrapped your arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “I’ve got you, babydoll.”

“Lights out?”

“Lights out!” Josie cheered.

Javier shut off the light, rolling onto his side and draping his arm across Josie and you. He curled his hand around your hip, his thumb rubbing a small circle there. “Good night.” He whispered in the darkness.

“Nighty-night daddy.”

#javier pena #javier pena x reader #pedro pascal x reader

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completeandrandomshit · 6 years ago

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**“A Thousand Times a Day”The 15 Best Patty Loveless Songs, Ranked

BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER

Scott Gries/Getty Images

Raised in eastern Kentucky, Patty Loveless was born with the high lonesome sound that only folks from the Bluegrass State seem to have. A distant cousin of Loretta Lynn (and the daughter of a coal miner herself), Loveless knew country music was in her soul from a young age.

After a brief run in Nashville, where she was mentored by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, the newly married young singer left town and headed for North Carolina, where she spent her days waitressing and her nights singing bluesy rock covers in Charlotte, N.C. bars. All those nights singing to the lost and heartbroken would serve her well when she finally did move back to Nashville. In 1985, Loveless released her first single “Lonely Days, Lonely Nights” and released her debut, self-titled album two years later. The next year, she joined the Grand Ole Opry and released her second album If My Heart Had Windows, featuring the George Jones cover of the same name.

It was her third album, Honky Tonk Angel, that earned Loveless the commercial success she deserved. The record spawned No. 1 singles “Chains” and “Timber, I’m Falling in Love,” along with the top 10 hit “The Lonely Side of Love.” The ’90s saw her career skyrocket with the release of Only What I Feel, which spawned the No. 1 hit “Blame it on Your Heart,” along with fan favorites “Mr. Man on the Moon” and “You Burned the Bridges.” The masterful follow-up When Fallen Angels Fly was named Album of the Year by the CMA — only the second album by a female artist to win the title. In 1996, she released The Trouble With the Truth (“Tear-Stained Letter, “She Drew a Broken Heart”) and took home the CMA and ACM awards for Female Vocalist of the Year. Her Kentucky holler-born voice lent itself to duets with peers and idols, such as Vince Gill (“My Kind of Woman, My Kind of Man”), George Strait (“House of Cash”) and George Jones (“You Don’t Seem to Miss Me”).

Though her late ’90s album Long Stretch of Lonesome and 2000 release Strong Heart (“The Last Thing On My Mind”) did well on the albums charts, country radio was headed in a more pop-friendly direction. Loveless returned to her Kentucky roots to record the bluegrass album Mountain Soul (“Daniel Prayed,” “The Richest Fool Alive).” A mix of originals (“Sorrowful Angels”) and bluegrass standards (“Soul of Constant Sorrow,” “Pretty Little Miss”), the album stands as one of Loveless’ best works. (Eight years later, the follow-up, Mountain Soul II, would win a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album.) In 2002, she released Bluegrass & White Snow: A Mountain Christmas, featuring stunning renditions of “Little Drummer Boy,” “Silent Night” and “Silver Bells.” She returned to country radio with her acclaimed 2003 album On Your Way Home, which merged her country and bluegrass roots with songs like “Cheap Whiskey” and “Last in a Long Lonesome Line.” Five years later, she released Sleepless Nights, which honored country classics she grew up on like “Crazy Arms” and “Please Help Me I’m Falling.” From dive bar rockers (“Jealous Bone,” “Wicked Ways”) to stone-cold country weepers (“I’ve Got to Stop Loving You and Start Living Again), Patty Loveless was a leader in the traditionalist revival of the late ’80s an early ’90s. Her songs told stories about women starting over, falling in love and not backing down. Through it all, she crafted a career that inspired countless artists who followed in her footsteps, such as Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley and Sunny Sweeney.

From a country rocker to a honky tonk kiss-off, read our list of the 15 best Patty Loveless songs, ranked.

“Old Weakness (Comin’ On Strong)”

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Written by Bob DiPiero and Gary Nicholson, this hard-driving, bluesy tune about a love that won’t let go proved that Loveless could rock as hard as she could deliver country gold.

“Nothin’ But the Wheel”

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The second single from Loveless’ 1993 album Only What I Feel, “Nothin’ But the Wheel” is the ultimate leavin’ song. You can practically hear the trucks rushing by as Patty sings of a lonely night on the road to a new life, with only the headlights and little white lines to keep her company.

“Lonely Too Long”

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This tune about navigating a new relationship after heartache is Loveless at her best. “Lonely Too Long” hit No. 1 on the Billboard country chart in 1996.

“I Try to Think About Elvis”

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Written by Gary Burr, the infectious “I Try to Think About Elvis” may be the best country song to namedrop both Elvis and Oprah. The track was the first single from When Fallen Angels Fly and was a top 5 hit for Loveless.

“The Night’s Too Long”

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Originally written and recorded by Lucinda Williams, “The Night’s Too Long” follows a small town girl desperate to make a new start. Even 30 years later, the song stands out for its frank depiction of female desire.

“A Thousand Times a Day”

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If anyone can tackle a song originally recorded by George Jones, it’s Patty Loveless. The singer released the heartbreaker as the second single from her 1996 album The Trouble With the Truth.

“You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive”

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Written by singer-songwriter Darrell Scott, “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” captures the pain and struggle of coal miners and their families. It was something the Kentucky-born Loveless knew all too well. The singer included a spellbinding rendition of the song for her 2001 bluegrass album, Mountain Soul.

“I’m That Kind of Girl”

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The third single from Loveless’ album On Down the Line, the sassy “I’m That Kind of Girl” is still an anthem for anyone navigating the murky waters of the dating scene.

“On Your Way Home”

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Written by Matraca Berg and Ronnie Samoset, “On Your Way Home” is an interrogation of a cheating partner that’s equally heartbreaking and satisfying. “If you keep on lying’ to me, I might stay right here just to spite you” should go down as some of the best lyrics to ever appear in a done-me-wrong song. It’s a tear-in-your-beer track that’s yet another reminder that Loveless was born to sing country music.

“You Can Feel Bad”

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Another track co-written by Matraca Berg (along with Tim Krekel), “You Can Feel Bad” finds Loveless dressing down a former flame who thinks she’s falling apart over the demise of their relationship.

“How Can I Help You Say Goodbye”

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One of the most hard-hitting songs of loss of the ’90s, “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye” was a top 5 hit for Loveless in 1994. Much like Vince Gill’s “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” which Loveless lent vocals to, the song remains one of the most striking country songs about death and grieving.

“Hurt Me Bad (In a Real Good Way)”

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This 1991 country shuffle about a heartbreak that opened a door to a new love was a top 5 hit for Loveless.

“Here I Am”

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One of the most stunning songs from When Fallen Angels Fly, the Tony Arata-penned “Here I Am” positioned Loveless as a torchbearer for traditional country in the modern age. There may be no better country lyric than “Honey, I’m right there waitin’ on you at the bottom of your glass”

“You Don’t Even Know Who I Am”

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Country artists haven’t shied away from singing about divorce. George and Tammy’s “Golden Ring” and (obviously) Tammy’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” country explored the reality of what happens when a marriage falls apart. But the Gretchen Peters-penned “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am” goes one step further, spinning an elegy for a broken relationship that gives both husband and wife an equal chance to reflect on what made it all unravel.

“Blame it on Your Heart”

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Written by Music City hitmakers Kostas and Harlan Howard, “Blame It On Your Heart” is the ultimate kiss-off to an unfaithful partner. It may seem like an obvious choice, but there’s a reason it’s her biggest hit to date. Loveless eviscerating her “lying, cheating, cold dead-beating, double-dealing, mean-mistreating” ex is as gratifying today as it was 25 years ago.

THANKS TO BOBBY JEAN SAWYER AND WIDEOPENCOUNTRY.COM FOR THE ARTICLE.

#patty loveless #real country #real music #90s country music #00s country music

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your-dietician · 3 years ago

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Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Nightmare | The New Yorker

New Post has been published on https://depression-md.com/britney-spearss-conservatorship-nightmare-the-new-yorker/

Britney Spears’s Conservatorship Nightmare | The New Yorker

On June 22nd, Britney Spears’s management team started getting nervous. Spears, who is thirty-nine, has spent the past thirteen years living under a conservatorship, a legal structure in which a person’s personal, economic, and legal decision-making power is ceded to others. Called a guardianship in most states, the arrangement is intended for people who cannot take care of themselves. Since the establishment of Spears’s conservatorship, she has released four albums, headlined a global tour that grossed a hundred and thirty-one million dollars, and performed for four years in a hit Las Vegas residency. Yet her conservators, who include her father, Jamie Spears, have controlled her spending, communications, and personal decisions.

In April, Spears had requested a hearing, in open court, to discuss the terms of the arrangement. It was scheduled for June 23rd. Members of Spears’s team, most of whom have had little or no direct contact with her for years, didn’t expect drastic changes to result. Two years earlier, in the midst of health struggles and pressure from Spears, Jamie had stepped down from his duties overseeing her personal life, and now the team thought that perhaps she wanted to remove him as the conservator of her financial affairs. Some of the team told reporters that they believed Spears liked the conservatorship arrangement, as long as her father wasn’t involved.

Running the business of Britney had become routine: every Thursday at noon, about ten people responsible for managing Spears’s legal and business affairs, public relations, and social media met to discuss merchandise deals, song-license requests, and Spears’s posts to Instagram and Twitter. (“This is how it works without her,” one member of the team said.) Spears, according to her management, typically writes the posts and submits them to CrowdSurf, a company employed to handle her social media, which then uploads them. In rare cases, posts that raise legal questions have been deemed too sensitive to upload. “She’s not supposed to discuss the conservatorship,” the team member said.

On the eve of the hearing, according both to a person close to Spears and to law enforcement in Ventura County, California, where she lives, Spears called 911 to report herself as a victim of conservatorship abuse. (Emergency calls in California are generally accessible to the public, but the county, citing an ongoing investigation, sealed the records of Spears’s call.) Members of Spears’s team began texting one another frantically. They were worried about what Spears might say the next day, and they discussed how to prepare in the event that she went rogue. In court on the 23rd, an attorney for the conservatorship urged the judge to clear the courtroom and seal the transcript of Spears’s testimony. Spears, calling into the hearing, objected. “Somebody’s done a good job at exploiting my life,” she said, adding, “I feel like it should be an open-court hearing—they should listen and hear what I have to say.” Then, for the first time in years, Spears spoke for herself, sounding lucid and furious, talking so fast that the judge interjected repeatedly to tell her to slow down, to allow for accurate transcription. “The people who did this to me should not get away,” Spears said. Addressing the judge directly, she added, “Ma’am, my dad, and anyone involved in this conservatorship, and my management, who played a huge role in punishing me when I said no—Ma’am, they should be in jail.”

For the next twenty minutes, Spears described how she had been isolated, medicated, financially exploited, and emotionally abused. She assigned harsh blame to the California legal system, which she said let it all happen. She added that she had tried to complain to the court before but had been ignored, which made her “feel like I was dead,” she said—“like I didn’t matter.” She wanted to share her story publicly, she said, “instead of it being a hush-hush secret to benefit all of them.” She added, “It concerns me I’ve been told I’m not allowed to expose the people who did this to me.” At one point, she told the court, “All I want is to own my money, for this to end, and for my boyfriend to drive me in his fucking car.”

Spears’s remarks were incendiary but, for people familiar with the creation and the functioning of her conservatorship, not surprising. Andrew Gallery, a photographer who worked for Spears in 2008, attended the hearing, watching the lawyers’ faces on a monitor. “As she spoke, I wanted to scream, and gasp, and shout ‘What the fuck is going on?’ ” he said. “But the lawyers had no reaction. They just sat there.”

The conservatorship was instituted by Spears’s family—in part out of real concerns about her mental health, people close to the family said. But the family was divided by money and fame, and Spears, in an underregulated part of the legal system, was stripped of her rights. She has fought for years to get them back.

As a pop star, Spears sustained a multinational industry of managers, agents, producers, lawyers, publicists, and assorted hangers-on. As the subject of the conservatorship, she has provided for the livelihood of even more lawyers and other court-appointed professionals. Jacqueline Butcher, a former friend of the Spears family who was present in court for the conservatorship’s creation, said she regrets the testimony that she offered to help secure it. “At the time, I thought we were helping,” she said. “And I wasn’t, and I helped a corrupt family seize all this control.”

Jamie Spears, who is sixty-eight, has graying hair and a hangdog demeanor. When he was thirteen, he endured an unimaginable tragedy: his mother committed suicide on the grave of one of her sons, who had died eight years earlier, at just three days old. In high school, Jamie was a basketball and football star; later, he worked as a welder and a cook. Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother, grew up with Jamie, in the small town of Kentwood, Louisiana. Sixty-six years old, she has a smile like Britney’s and thick dark hair with bangs. She used to run her own day-care center. Friends describe her as traditional and nonconfrontational. In a conversation in June, she was fastidiously polite as she declined to answer detailed questions about the case. She spoke in a whisper and apologized that she might have to hang up abruptly if other family members walked in and discovered her speaking to a reporter. “I got mixed feelings about everything,” she said. “I don’t know what to think. . . . It’s a lot of pain, a lot of worry.” She added, a little wryly, “I’m good. I’m good at deflecting.” Jamie and Lynne eloped when she was twenty-one, and the marriage was troubled from the start: in divorce papers filed, then withdrawn, in 1980, less than two years before Britney’s birth, Lynne accused Jamie of cheating on her on Christmas Day. Jamie wrestled with alcoholism, going on benders so egregious that Lynne once shelled his cooler with a shotgun.

But Jamie and Lynne worked together to make Britney, their second child, happy and a success. She was a born performer, a scene-stealer at dance recitals starting at age three. Her parents drove her to small dance competitions in Lafayette, then to larger ones in New Orleans. They borrowed money from friends to pay for gas to get her to auditions. Spears snagged an understudy role on Broadway and then a stint in the nineties version of “The Mickey Mouse Club.” When she was sixteen, she signed a six-album deal with Jive Records, thanks to an enterprising entertainment lawyer named Larry Rudolph, who became her manager. A precise and commanding dancer with an unmistakable vocal tone of sugary coyness, Spears emerged as a teen-pop singularity. In 1998, the music video for her début single, “. . . Baby One More Time,” featuring a sixteen-year-old Spears in a Catholic-schoolgirl outfit, exploded across American pop culture like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The pleated skirt and bare midriff were her idea—a fact that’s sometimes cited as evidence of her self-determination but might also suggest an intuition, common among teen-age girls, of the compromised power of sex appeal.

Because Jamie and Lynne had two other children to look after, a family friend chaperoned Spears for much of her early career. But Spears remained close to her mother, and, in 2000, she built a four-and-a-half-million-dollar estate for Lynne in Kentwood. That year, according to “Through the Storm,” a memoir that Lynne published in 2008, Spears urged her mother to divorce her father, knowing that “years and years of verbal abuse, abandonment, erratic behavior, and his simply not being there for me had taken their toll,” Lynne writes. She and Jamie divorced in May, 2002, and Spears told People that it was “the best thing that’s ever happened to my family.”

Spears had just broken up with Justin Timberlake, a fellow teen-pop icon, whom she had met when she was eleven, when they were both cast as Mouseketeers. The breakup destabilized her, people close to her remember; her status as half of a golden couple had become an integral part of her identity, and after the split her sex life became a regular topic in the news. She began going out more and hanging out with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, forming a holy trinity for tabloid culture at its early-two-thousands peak. “The paparazzi were out of control,” Hilton recalled, of one night with Spears at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “Fighting over getting the shot, pushing each other against my car, scratching it with their cameras. It was overwhelming and frightening.” The hairdresser Kim Vo, Spears’s longtime colorist, remembers how, one day, as Spears was getting her hair done, a paparazzo scaled a wall and broke a salon window with his fist.

Spears distracted herself with work—a relentless grind of dance rehearsals, studio sessions, photo shoots, stadium performances, long nights on the tour bus, and hotel check-ins before dawn. “The schedule was crazier and crazier,” Julianne Kaye, a makeup artist who worked with Spears in the early years, said. “She would have little breakdowns. She was always crying, saying, ‘I want to be normal.’ ” Spears blew off steam by partying: she smoked weed, used cocaine, took Molly with her dancers and jumped into the Mediterranean Sea. But the machinery around her only grew. When she toured, the crew took at least a dozen buses and filled entire hotel floors.

In the spring of 2004, Spears met a dancer named Kevin Federline at a night club, and they were married within six months. Spears initially did not secure a prenuptial agreement, which prompted panic in her family. A considerable fortune was at stake. “Lynne lost her mind,” Butcher, the family friend, recalled. “They weren’t gonna allow the wedding to be made legal.” The marriage contract wasn’t signed until the month after the ceremony, when Federline legally agreed to limit his stake in Spears’s estate. But Spears seemed thrilled, and commissioned a photo shoot in which she dressed up as a French maid and served drinks to Federline, who wore a trucker hat, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. Spears wanted a family. “I’ve had a career since I was 16, have traveled around the world & back and even kissed Madonna!” she wrote on her Web site, two months after getting married. “The only thing I haven’t done so far is experience the closest thing to God and that’s having a baby. I can’t wait!”

Spears’s first son, Sean Preston, was born ten months after the wedding. “Our life was running at 150,000 miles an hour,” Federline later told Us Weekly. “I’d walk into a club and get a table worth $15,000 a night with unlimited free drinking. . . . But everything got so crazy.” Spears had been so sheltered that Paris Hilton had to show her how to use Google, according to a person who was there. She negotiated the hormonal and logistical turbulence of early motherhood while paparazzi, eager to monetize her mistakes, chased her down, pointing flashbulbs and shouting provocations any time she left the house. After she was photographed driving with an infant Preston on her lap, she explained that she had been trying to get away from paparazzi—and besides, she added, she had grown up riding on her dad’s lap on country roads. A few months later, visibly pregnant and holding Preston, she stumbled while surrounded by photographers; the paparazzi kept shooting as she retreated to a café, cradled her baby, and cried.

Spears had her second child, Jayden James, in September, 2006. Three weeks later, Federline took a private jet to Vegas to party with his friends. Spears filed for divorce in November, reportedly notifying Federline by text message. At a night club, he scrawled on a bathroom wall “Today I’m a free man—f**k a wife, give me my kids bitch!” He requested full custody. While the divorce was being adjudicated, he and Spears divided parental duties. Preston was a little more than a year old, and Spears was still nursing Jayden; she wanted to be with them all the time, and hated being at home without them. “I did not know what to do with myself,” she said later, in an MTV documentary. Spears and Federline both went out on their free nights, but Spears was the one who became the target of tabloid blood sport. (“MOMMY’S CRYING,” Us Weekly blared, over a full-page photo of Preston.) In February, 2007, she shaved off her hair, at a salon in Tarzana; five days later, she attacked a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella. The two incidents cemented her image as “crazy.” Both were precipitated by her driving to Federline’s house, trailed by photographers, and being refused access to her kids.

Many people who were close to Spears during her early career suspect that she was dealing with postpartum depression, but none of them remembers anyone bringing it up with her. Some of the same people said that Spears was also struggling with drugs and alcohol. Her mother and Federline insisted that, if Spears wanted to spend more time with her children, she needed to go to rehab. In early 2007, she checked into a treatment center in Antigua, then checked out after just one day. The judge in the custody hearing, who had cited Spears’s “habitual, frequent uses of controlled substances and alcohol,” gave primary custody of the children to Federline, granting Spears four days of visitation per week, under the eye of a court-ordered monitor named Robin Johnson.

Around this time, Spears met Sam Lutfi, a Hollywood operator with a knack for insinuating himself into the lives of turbulent female stars. Spears had recently parted ways with Larry Rudolph, her longtime manager, and she began to entrust her professional and private affairs to Lutfi. Now forty-six, Lutfi cuts a nondescript figure: average height, occasionally goateed, favoring baseball caps and black T-shirts. Over coffee at a Los Angeles restaurant this spring, he said that Spears took to him in part because he told her that she didn’t have to work nearly as hard as she was. “She’d always believed there were massive consequences if she didn’t work, that she’d lose so much, and it blew her mind that she could just call the shots,” he said. “You want to cancel that meeting? Cancel it. You’re gonna lose five grand? Lose it. She’d walk into a car dealership, say she wanted something. I’d say, ‘Buy it.’ Her parents would say, ‘Why would you let her do that?’ But it’s an eighty-thousand-dollar car, not a yacht, and she just got fifteen million from Estée Lauder. Anyway, she’s an adult. I’m not gonna tell her that she can’t buy a fucking yacht.” (Lutfi later assumed a similar role in the life of Courtney Love, who called him a “street hustler,” and he said that he advised Amanda Bynes’s family as they placed her in a conservatorship. He is currently subject to a five-year restraining order filed against him, in 2019, by a conservatorship lawyer, on Spears’s behalf.)

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