#I got ovaltine for the first time in years

[challahbeloved]

my festive purim drink of choice today is chocolate milk

[godsprettiestprincess]

Good morning everyone I am fed up and finally have the motivation to do this, so welcome to

What the fuck was up with Azazel

(A breakdown of his canonical instructions, actions, and the plan we can assume he had from that)

(Aka why Sam isn’t as special as he seems, Lucifer isn’t as at fault as everybody thinks, and nobody in the show knows as much as we do — TLDR at the bottom!!)

I wanna start off my saying that this whole thing is messy as fuck, and the transition from him as the main antagonist to the apocalypse plotline is disjointed at best so any misunderstandings are completely understandable.

TIMELINE:

1972 (s4): Azazel goes to St. Mary’s Convent in Ilchester, Maryland (apparently built on top of the spot where Lucifer was first sealed away). There he possesses a priest, slaughters roughly a dozen nuns and — we can assume — does a ritual that allows Lucifer to speak through one of them. This succeeds and the conversation goes as follows:

Azazel: Father, look… I’m not exactly the praying type, but still… I made the sacrifice. I got you a bag full of nuns. So, uh.. can you hear me? Can you whisper through the door?

Lucifer: I’m here, my son.

Azazel: It’s so good to hear your voice, padre. I’ve been searching for you for so long. You have no idea. The others have lost faith. Dickless heathens. But not me.

Lucifer: You’ve done well.

Azazel: So, uh… how do I bust you out?

Lucifer: Lilith.

Azazel: Lilith? Father, she’s… trapped neck-deep in the pit. It won’t be easy.

Lucifer: Lilith. Lilith can break the seals.

Azazel: Yeah, okay. But what do I do?

Lucifer: You must find me a child. A very special child.

Azazel: What do you mean? What child?

1973 (s4): Dean gets sent back in time and meets John and the Campbells. Using present day John’s journal he learns that Azazel is attacking nearby families and decides to try to kill him, dragging the Campbells into the hunt on accident while trying to gather information. Dean, Mary, and Samuel intercept Azazel at Mary’s friends house, where he’s trying to make a deal with her. Mary attacks him and he mentions that he likes her (saying “Where the hell have they been hiding you?”), then flees his vessel when faced with the colt. Azazel then possesses Samuel and follows the family home and Dean accidentally tells him who he is (John & Mary’s kid) while trying to get Samuel on his side. Azazel reveals himself and they have this conversation:

Azazel; Future boy, huh? I only know one thing that’s got the juice to swing something like that, you must have friends in high places. So, I kill your mommy? That’s why you came all this was to see little ol’ me?

Dean: Oh I came here to kill you.

Azazel: Hey. Wait a minute. If that slug married your mommy, are you- are you one of my psychic kids? ……No. Not you. Maybe you got a sis. Or a bro. That’s terrific. That means it all worked out. After all, it’s why I’m here.

Dean: So that’s what this is about — these deals you’re making. You don’t want these peoples' souls.

Azazel: No. I just want their children. I’m here to choose the perfect parents, like your mommy.

Dean: Why her? Why any of them?

Azazel: Because they’re strong. They’re pure. They eat their wheaties. My own little master race. They’re ideal breeders. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter, no one’s breeding with me. Though Mary… man, I’d like to make an exception. So far, she’s my favorite.

Dean: So why make the deals?

Azazel: I need permission. I need to be invited into their houses. I know, I know — the red tape will drive you nuts, but in 10 short years, it’ll all be worth it. ‘Cause you know what I’m gonna do to your sibling? I’m gonna stand over their crib, and I’m gonna bleed into their mouth. Demon blood is better than ovaltine, vitamins, minerals, it makes you big and strong!

Dean: For what? So they can lead your discount demon army? Is that your big plan?

Azazel: Please. My endgame's a hell of a lot bigger than that, kid.

Dean: Endgame? What endgame?

Azazel: Like I’m gonna tell you. Or those angels sitting on your shoulder. No. I’m gonna cover my tracks good.

1983 (s1): Azazel breaks into the Winchester house on Sam’s 6month birthday and makes good on his deal, feeding Sam demon blood. Mary interrupts him, recognizes him, and is murdered, pushing John to become a hunter. He presumably goes through with this with all the other families he’d been making deals with 10 years ago during this time as well. (This is the first batch, which includes all the other named special children we meet.)

1983-2005 (pre-canon): Sam is routinely watched/contacted by demons working for Azazel, most obviously when a demon possesses his friend Brady, introduces him to Jess, then kills her the same way Mary was killed — pushing him back into hunting. (Though this probably happens to him more than usual over his life because of his favored status and Johns position as a hunter, given Azazel directly contacts/manipulates both Webber/Ansem (2x05) and Scott (2x10) that we know of, the assumption that Sam was the sole focus of this kind of control (because of him being Lucifer’s vessel or otherwise) is likely inaccurate.)

2006 (s1): John has tracked the same demonic omens that showed up before Azazel came to collect and killed Mary to Salvation, Iowa. When they get there Sam begins to have visions about a specific family & 6month old child* that Azazel is targeting. John is lured away by Meg and kidnapped, and Dean tries and fails to shoot Azazel but saves the family. Azazel possesses John and goes with Sam & Dean to their safe house after they rescue him and tells Sam that there’s a plan for him & the other kids.

2007 (s2): Scattered throughout, we meet more people with Sam’s abilities. Eventually, Sam and 4 other psychic kids (Jake, Andy, Ava, and Lily) are transported to an old ghost town in South Dakota, where they’re attacked by demons that kill one of them, Lily, for trying to escape. Azazel reaches out to Sam in a dream and tells him the game, that this is a hunger games style final test, he only needs the one person alive to be a leader, and Sam is the one he’s rooting for*. Ava kills Andy with a demon and Sam catches her. She reveals that she’s been here for 5 months already, participating in matches with other groups like this and winning all of them, and that she’s the one who killed Lily. She tries to attack Sam and Jake snaps her neck. With the demon attacking them out of the way Sam tries to get Jake to escape with him but Jake refuses, saying only one of them is going to escape. They fight, and Jake manages to kill Sam by stabbing him in the back, winning the contest.

As Dean & Bobby mourn Sam, Azazel contacts Jake and tells him there’s things he needs him to do, and that if he doesn’t comply Azazel will torture & kill his family. Dean summons a demon and takes the deal to trade his soul for Sam back to life plus a year to live. Him, a now resurrected Sam, Bobby, & Ellen discover a massive devils trap containing a gate to hell that demons are circling around, and Azazel sends Jake into it to open the gate. Costing him his life, Jake opens the gate with the colt and demons come pouring out, breaking the lines of the massive devils trap and letting Azazel in. He joins the fight and thanks Dean for bringing Sam back, but gets attacked by John’s ghost and drops the colt, letting Dean get his hands on it and kill him. Ellen & Bobby get the gate closed, John disappears, cut to black.

BREAKDOWN:

What we can put together from all this convoluted nonsense orchestrated by a liar is this: Azazel's instructions from Lucifer amount to ‘free Lilith, get me a special kid’. Azazel takes this information and starts looking for a way out of hell for Lilith, finding the gate to hell in Wyoming with the giant devil’s trap around it. Naturally, realizing that no pure blood demon could break this, he “realizes” what the special kid would be for — a human with demonic abilities that could be used to help break the seals without being bound by usual demon restraints (potentially acting as a successor to Azazel himself). With this in mind he starts planning to make one, finding people to make deals with to gain access to newborns. Mary Winchester is not on this list until she goes to him on information from Dean, sent back in time by angels, but he successfully adds her to it last minute and gets access to Sam, unaware of his importance.

From here, canon starts, and we see his plan actually unfolding. Deals are collected upon, Mary and many other parents interrupt and are killed, John starts hunting Azazel, and Sam & the many other special kids in his generation grow up. At 22 their powers kick in and they start getting weeded out, being manipulated by Azazel into more and more extreme things and dying from them, until it’s time for the death matches. Groups of kids with more and more potential are thrown together to see who wins, until the last group, containing Sam, is assembled and the winner is picked. The special child gets put to good use and the gate is opened — but Azazel dies, and we never get to see where the rest of the plan would have actually gone.

*Azazel also mentions other generations of kids with demon blood in this conversation, which tracks with the baby he was targeting in s1, and also gives more credit to the idea that he didn’t know he already had what Lucifer had told him to look for (Sam)

TL;DR

Azazel‘s goal was freeing Lilith, it’s the angels fault Sam was fed demon blood, and the whole project never had anything to do with vessels.

[please-buckme]

A Broken Heart.

Lee Bodecker x fem!reader

Chapter 2

Chapter warnings: 18+ mentions of death, mentions of sex, cursing, Lee being an ass, angst, meninist behaviors

Chapter summary: You move back home after three years to find your heart still in shambles.

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Chapter 1 // Chapter 3

3 Years Later

After moving a whole county away, Highland Ohio to be exact, you stayed for quite some time. Your aunt was amazing and the sweetest woman you’d ever known, and living with her was a breeze. She’d even gotten you a job at the auto shop her recently deceased husband left to her, which you loved. Life was good, for a while. You never had a reason to come home until your momma got sick.

For the past year you watched as your momma slowly faded away until the last week of April when she finally passed in her sleep. You were devastated, of course, but not only because of her death. She didn’t have much to her name besides a couple thousand in the bank and the house you’d left so long ago, which she left all to you.

The house was old. White paneling a faint tint of brown, grey shutters that were almost all off their hinges and rust anywhere you looked. It was a fixer upper and there’s no way you could sell it in its current condition. So, you decided to move back to Knockemstiff, just for the time being.

In all honesty, you’d grown to hate that town. Nothing but bad memories and any good memories you’d had were tarnished completely. So, once the house was decent enough to sell, you were out of there and back to the life you’d created in Highland.

Your aunt and you drove together in her pick up truck back to the house after your momma passed. She helped you unload your stuff and take things to the necessary rooms.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? I can make my famous pancakes. I know you love’em.” She grinned.

“As tempting as that sounds, I’m fine. Please, I insist you go now before it gets dark.” You pull your aunt into a hug, a tight hug.

“I’m gonna miss havin’ you around, kiddo.” She sighed, her breath fanning over your neck.

“It’s only for a few months. I’ll be back to annoying you in no time, oldie.”

“Hey, I’m not old.” She laughed and pointed her finger at you sternly but still in a lighthearted way.

“And I’m not a kid.”

She laughed a little more then sighed, “Well, I guess I’ll head out. Call me if you need anything and don’t forget to go down to Billy’s tomorrow. He’s excited to bring you in.”

You smiled, “How could I forget? I need some sort of income to fix this craphole up.”

You walked your aunt to her car and waved her goodbye as she drove way. Your eyes welled up but you made sure not to cry in front of her or she’d never leave.

Once you went back in, you immediately got to work. Starting in the kitchen, you didn’t have much but a few coffee cups. The house was still occupied with your momma’s things and you were already dreading having to go through it all.

Things started to come together room by room as you worked most of the day away. You cleaned and rearranged things to your liking now that it was your house. It felt almost empowering to do what you want. You’d never lived alone so, in a way, this was an adventure as well.

You took your old room instead of the master, since that’s where your momma passed. It gave you goosebumps just thinking about and you knew you’d never get any sleep if you stayed in there. Your room wasn’t big but it was good enough for now and much better than sleeping in your momma’s death bed, hard pass.

You’d taken a seat on the couch with some tea you’d brewed up earlier that morning. This was the first time you sat down since arriving, and of course there’s a knock at the door.

“Whatever you’re selling, I promise you, I ain’t interested.” You shout, too exhausted to even attempt getting up.

The knocking continued, “Oh, for fucks sake.” You groaned under your breath and stood on your aching feet to tell them to fuck off in person. You opened the door, “did you not hear me the first time. I said-“

“Hi, Y/n” Lee greeted as he removed his hat.

You scoffed, “Can I help you with somethin’, Sheriff?”

Lee stood there, fiddling with the bill of his hat. His belly had gotten a little bigger and his cheeks had gotten a little chubbier, but you couldn’t help the hitch in your throat when his wedding ring caught your eye. Just a basic silver band, nothing special. But it still left a hollow pit in your stomach.

“I-“ he cleared his suddenly dry throat. “I heard you was back in town. Thought I’d come see for ma self if the rumors were true.”

“Welp, here I am. You can go now.”

“Y/n, I-“

“No, Lee, please. I’ve had a long day and I honestly don’t feel like talking to you right now. No, I take that back. I don’t feel like talking to you at all.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think, doll.” He grins.

“Goodbye, Sheriff.” You shut the door only to hear him holler at you from the other side.

“Still can’t say my name, huh, Doll? Boy, I really did a number on you, didn’t I?” Your heart sank at his words. It seemed your pain was a joke to him this whole time. You’d always pictured him crying alone like you were but clearly that was never the case. Y’all’s relationship didn’t seem one sided until you were the only one hurt by the fall out.

“Welcome home, Y/n.” He said before you heard his boots click against the porch as he left.

You took a deep breath as you backed away from the door. Tears rimmed your eyes and you scoffed aloud to yourself. After three years you still weren’t over him and you knew that. You didn’t know, however, that he’d still have such a hold on you. And by the way he reacted to how sensitive you were towards the situation still didn’t help the ever growing void that ran through your entire loveless body. The only man you ever loved looked at you as if you were a quick fuck and a punchline.

A tear burned against your cheek and you were quick to wipe it away. You swore to yourself that you’d never cry over that man again and you won’t, instead you decided it was time for a much needed bath.

The bath was scolding hot, just how you liked it, and you opened up a bottle of wine as a sort of reward for the work you’d done today. Once the water got cold and the wine ran out, you brushed your hand and teeth and went to bed.

//

The sun beamed down against your skin as you walked to the local auto shop where your aunt had set you up with another job. You were always good with numbers and they desperately needed someone on the books. Your job would be to look at their spending over the last few months and figure out some sort of budget. You did that for your aunt at her shop, so this didn’t worry you at all.

“Hi, you must be Billy.” You greet the owner, “I’m

y/n, Peggy’s niece.”

“Oh, yes. I’m glad you finally made it down.” He beamed, shaking your hand, “How long will you be here for?”

“I’m not sure, actually. Just until I get my house fixed up enough to sell.” You say, retracting your hand from his sweaty one.

“Ah, well as luck would have it, our secretary just quit on us last week, so there’s a position you’ll adjust to right fine.”

You scoffed, “Wait a minute. Did you say secretary?”

“Yeah. You need to get your hearing checked, Honey?” He grinned. What is it with the men in this town?!

“No, I heard you just fine. My problem is that I was supposed to be your Budget Holder, not a damn secretary.” Your face was turning a touch of pink as you became increasingly annoyed.

“That’s a man's job, sweetie. We don’t you blown a fuse tryin’ ta add up all them numbers, now do we?”

“You can’t be serious.” You say flatly.

“Look, it’s the only position we got. Take it or leave it.”

Everything in you wanted to March out of that shop and never go back again. A secretary's position is nothing to frown upon, but to only be offered it because you’re a woman was despicable. Sadly, you needed this job and it would only be for a few months. So, when you told him you’d take the job you swallowed every ounce of respect you had for yourself. Knockemstiff was truly the worst town in America.

“Sounds great. We’ll see you tomorrow for training. There’s no dress code but there are a few things you’ll need to know before starting. I’ll fill you in once we start your training tomorrow.” He shook your hand again, completely ignoring the furious grimace on your face.

“Great. See you tomorrow.” You mumbled, walking away so you didn’t ‘accidentally’ hit your new boss.

//

Before heading home you decided to stop and grab some things for the house. Being sick, your momma didn’t eat much besides soup, and there was an over abundance of vanilla flavored Ovaltine cans littering the kitchen counters, which you hated.

The second the doors opened, all eyes were on you. You even heard a faint gasp coming from the woman at the register. A smirk crept upon your face. These people's lives were so boring that they still aren’t over your breakup that happened so long ago. Rolling your eyes, you grabbed a cart and headed down the produce aisle.

Once you grabbed the vegetables you’d need for a stew, you headed towards the baking aisle. You need the ingredients for an upside down pineapple cake your momma used to make for you as a kid. Your aunt was coming into town on Saturday to lend a hand and celebrate her birthday. You told her to go have fun, but she insisted on spending her special day with you.

As you searched for the baking soda, you heard your name.

“Did you see Y/n’s back in town?” A lady with a high pitched voice whispered.

“I did. I just saw her. Poor thing. She’s probably still caught up on the sheriff. Prolly wish it was her that was on his arm instead of Laura-Jean.”

You rolled your eyes.

“I know it. Wouldn’t you, though? He’s so handsome.” The lady with the high patched voice giggled.

“Oh, hush! Don’t say things like that.” The other lady joined the high pitched one in whispered giggles. “Oh my goodness, here he comes.” She cleared her throat, “Afternoon, Sheriff.”

“Evenin’,Ladies. Y’all behavin’ yourselves?” You could hear the smirk in his voice.

They both giggled and in unison said, “Yes, Sheriff.”

“Oh give me a break.” You grimaced to yourself.

“Heard Y/n’s back in town.” The high pitched one spoke up. Your face burned. Why would they bring you up to him so bluntly like that? Everyone in this town was so unbelievably nosy.

“I- I heard. Actually just went to see her yesterday.” He said, clearing his throat.

“Uh-oh, the misses didn’t like that, I’m sure.” They giggled.

“Oh, no. She didn’t mind. I was just droppin’ by to give her my condolences about her momma dyin’. Then, she slammed the door in my face. I guess she’s still pretty upset with me.” He was pouting, trying to get some sort of sympathy. If you rolled your eyes any harder you thought they’d pop out of your head.

“Oh, you poor thing. Is there anything we can-“

Suddenly the baking soda slipped from your hand and scattered all other the floor in a puff of dust. “Shit, shit, shit.” You whispered to yourself.

“What was that?” One of the ladies asked.

“Excuse me, ladies.” Lee said. You could hear his boots clacking against the floor on there way over to you.

Shit.

You desperately wanted to run away but leaving this mess for someone to clean up wasn’t right, not even with the predicament you found yourself in. “Well, well, well,” Lee mocked as he rounded the corner. “Only here for less than a day and you’re already causin’ trouble.”

“Stay out of this, Bodecker.” You huff, trying to scoop the baking soda back into the card box it spilled from.

“Was you eavesdroppin’, girl?” He asked, kicking the soul of your shoe.

You scoffed, “Oh, please. I could give two shits what you say about me, Bodecker.”

He leaned in close, hovering over your left side. You heard him chuckle which startled you. He was so close. You could feel the familiar heat radiating from his body and smell that familiar cologne. His lips came down close to your ear. He licked them and then whispered, “If ya weren’t eavesdroppin’, how’d ya know I was talkin’ bout you, hm?”

Your eyes shuttered closed as he spoke, feeling his hot breath against your cheek. His deep southern drawl always made you weak. It took you back to those times in the back of the cruiser. He whispered such dirty praises in your ear when you would ride his cock. Those dirty words that could make you cum in seconds.

“You still with me, doll?” You felt him tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear.

You flitched and stood up, “I- don’t touch me and stop calling me doll, alright? I really don’t have time for your games today, sheriff, and I’m not even really sure what you’re playin’ at in the first place.”

He smirked, running a thumb across his lip, “Darlin, I think the only thing I ever played was you..”

“I-“ your breath hitched in the back of your throat, “I have to go.” You turned to walk away, leaving the mess you’d made and your cart behind. Your eyes welled up with tears again. You didn’t know the man that stood in front of you. Lee was nothing but good to you when you dated and now he’s the most hateful man you’d ever met. The man you loved had disappeared and there’s nothing you could do to bring him back, no matter how bad you wanted to. A tear stained your cheek as you sped through the aisle. You could hear Lee hollering for you to stop but you wouldn’t this time.

All the heartbreak and sorrow that you’d left behind was creeping its way back in. The sooner you sold the house and got the hell out of there, the better.

Dividers by: @firefly-in-darkness

Taglist: @haydens-moles , @c00lkidvibes , @tcc-gizmachine , @buckysm3talarm , @gogolucky13 , @cryptidcasanova , @heavenlyseb , @writersbuck , @teddy-bearbaby , @bbmommy0902 , @sweetllamaparadise , @thereblogcrusader , @aleemendoza2425-blog , @frostbytebaby , @jessyballet , @emotionallyandphysicallydone , @sarge-barnes-sir , @generalbagelcookieslime , @lady-loki-ren , @dime-piece-xo , @greeneyedblondie44

(Dm me to be added to taglist)

[sophie-jen]

all in the name of chocolate milk

answer to @efkgirldetective ‘s prompt: sunrise + i've been saving all my summers for you

The corridor is bathed in orange light. James sits on the ground, propped against the wall outside the Gryffindor common room. In the gleam of the early morning light, he looks like he's glowing. 

Lily immediately chases the thought away. As she walks over to him, she focuses instead on the light inching its way across the floor. It hasn't made it to James' outstretched legs yet, and she delights in knowing she'll get to him before the light does. 

She catches herself again. She needs to keep herself in check. These thoughts keep creeping up on her, and before she knows it, she's getting competitive with the sun, or reflecting on something stupid, like the way his eyelashes press against the lenses of his glasses. 

"What are you doing out here?"

James looks up at the question, neck craned as she stands over him, glowing. "Needed some air." 

Lily smiles. She seems to do so instinctively when James speaks. "Have you run out?" she asks. 

"There's just not enough to go around in the dormitory. Sirius breathes like he's running a marathon, and Remus snores so loudly I wake up thinking a freight train is coming at me."

"Really? Blaming poor Remus? Annoyingly loud snoring seems much more your style."

"But I've got such a dainty nose. Not at all like a freight train." 

Lily looks toward the window in an attempt to hide her smile. Outside, a heavy pink cloud is floating languorously by. She slides down the wall to sit next to James, and stretches her legs out on the cold stone, mirroring his position. 

They sit in silence, and her gaze eventually travels back to him, as it is wont to do. He is looking at the floor in front of him, where the line of light is inching resolutely forward, determined to reach him. She can sympathize with it. 

James is immobile, the only signs of life the slight shifting of his shirt as he breathes and the fluttering of his eyelashes as he blinks. Lily notices they're pressing against the lenses of his glasse-

"Have you finished packing?" she says, looking away quickly. James stutters back to life, his hand coming up to ruffle his hair before resting on his thigh. His index finger taps rapidly against the fabric of his trousers. 

"Mostly, yeah."

"Mostly?"

"I've just got a few things left to pack." He laughs at Lily's skeptical snort. "Don't worry, I've still got plenty of time before we leave."

"Well I guess that's one benefit to waking up this early," she says, as she runs a hand over her eyes, hard enough to see stars. Waking up at the crack of dawn is not something she makes a habit of, unlike James. 

"That and the chocolate milk," he says.

"The chocolate milk?"

"Yeah, it's always gone by six thirty, so you have to be one of the first people up to get some."

"There's chocolate milk?" Lily has never seen any, and had just assumed it was one of the foods Hogwarts didn't serve. 

"You didn't know about it?" James looks over at her, and laughs when he sees the confusion on her face. "There is," he continues, "but the first years always finish it off within minutes. They've even memorized where the jugs appear on the tables, so they can grab them as soon as they appear." He looks mildly impressed as he says this. 

Lily's confusion is rapidly growing into dismay. "I've been going to this school for six years and I never knew they served chocolate milk?"

"Well, I've only ever seen it at breakfast, so I guess it's easy to miss,” he answers. “That is a bit sad though, Evans." 

She scowls at him, but James is clearly taking far too much enjoyment from rubbing salt in the wound to stop. "It's great stuff too. The elves don't just use Ovaltine, they actually melt chocolate into the milk. Bit dangerous how good it is; drives the eleven-year-olds feral." 

"Have we even gone to the same school?" 

James laughs again. She wishes he wouldn’t stop. "You clearly haven't gotten the full Hogwarts experience. Good thing you have a year left to catch up."

"You'll have to help me out. God knows what else I've missed."

"Sounds like a plan,” James says happily. “We can even get a head start. I'll catch you up on everything I know over the summer, so you'll be ready once we're back at school next year."

"You really don't have anything better to do?" she says skeptically.

"'Course not. I've been saving all my summers for you." 

Lily stops breathing. Next to her, the tapping has ceased, and James' hand is lying still. The light has finally reached them. She watches as it creeps over their feet. 

"You know my one goal in life is to corrupt Lily Evans," James says after a moment. "Summer won't get in the way of that."

She lets out a breath. The light has made it to the wall. 

"Corrupt me? I thought you were just going to show me how to get chocolate milk?" 

She musters up the courage to look at him, raises her eyebrows in challenge. He's looking back at her. The light is now caught in his hair. It spreads over them, submerges them. 

"Oh, the chocolate milk is just the tip of the iceberg. I've got so much more to show you."

She thinks the light has somehow filled him up as well, illuminating him from the inside. She smiles. 

"I look forward to it."

[aprophecytold]

Get to know the blogger

I was tagged by @mochibat! Thank you!! :)

1: Why did you choose your url? It's a quote from Supernatural. After Sam drinks demon blood, Lucifer says to him, "Chock-full of Ovaltine, are we?" I've never bothered to change it even though I'm not in the fandom anymore.

2: Any side blogs? Nope.

3: How long have you been on Tumblr? Since 2010. But I took a break for a couple years until I got sucked back in. Thanks, Ghost fandom :)

4: Do you have a queue tag? Nope.

5: Why did you start your blog in the first place? A friend of mine had one and told me to make an account. lol

6: Why did you choose your icon/pfp? Because Mary is cute and I liked the lighting.

7: Why did you choose your header? I just think it's funny.

8: What’s your post with the most notes? I think it's an edit/graphic I made of Castiel back in the day.

9: How many mutuals do you have? I don't know for sure, but quite a few! :)

10: How many followers do you have? 221

11: How many people do you follow? 277

12. Have you ever made a shitpost? Yeah, but not super recently I don't think.

13: How often do you use Tumblr each day? Depends on the day, but I usually check it a few times a day at least.

14: Did you ever had a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won? Nah, I ain't about that life.

15: How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts? I don't reblog them that often, but it depends on the content.

16: Do you like tag games? Yes! They're fun.

17: Do you like ask games? Yeah! They're fun too.

18: Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous? I honestly don't know. I feel like some of them are well-known in the fandom, but idk about tumblr as a whole.

19: Do you have a crush on a mutual? No, but I'd give them all hugs if they wanted them. c:

20: Tagging(totally optional): @maggotinfestedhead, @ghoul-from-ipanema, @katiecanblog, @kindasortasalty, @backwards-blackbird, @wifed-up-academia, @arrivalbyabba and whomever would like to do this!

[morgandria]

Fall absolutely fell this last week. I mean...last weekend I had to put my AC back in the bedroom from the heat. Then the Equinox came Wednesday on a massive pummeling storm, and it was suddenly autumn. Yesterday we had to come home mid-shop because a crashing storm dropped the temp 5 degrees and we were freezing and wet. The last time the weather did this was 2013 (when I acquired that gods-awful infection on that Equinox), so there was a bit of reflection on that. But my feet are good right now and I have sweaters and Ovaltine and it is gorgeous (as long as I'm not wet).

It's Canadian Thanksgiving soon, and I am hoping we're going back to Eastern Ontario for the weekend. I made a whirlwind trip in October 2019, and that was the last time I saw my family. Covid-19 happened. Then a couple family members got seriously ill during our first and second lockdown - not Covid, but very serious and life-altering and it certainly made getting treatment more complicated. Not being able to visit and be there for them was very hard, and I worried I'd not see them again. I am grateful they are still with us, doing ok, and I really can't wait to go home.

Other changes since the start of the month? J took a new position at his work and after 2 years of working from home, went back to the office. The cat did not adjust well, since he'd been working from the living room every day since she joined the household, and she spent her mornings with him there. Cerri is less mad now, thankfully, but still freaks out when he leaves and she thinks he should be here.

I genuinely liked having J at home during our lockdowns. It was nice not to feel alone, and I knew he was safer (being immunocompromised). He helped me immensely when my executive dysfunction ate my brain and the kitchen. So I didn't think the change to him going back to the office was going to be dramatic. But.

I've always known I thrive on having my days to myself, since I was a teen. I'm the kind of introvert who needs copious amounts of alone time to recharge. And while it wasn't dramatic, I have noticed that I feel more myself again. I don't feel as overwhelmed. I have more energy, and I am keeping up with the house a little better. I would have been fine if nothing had changed at all and J was still working at home. But I am appreciating the extra space in my head.

Aside from that, life is quiet and good. Autumn is welcome, and pleasant. I have fresh air, my house looks and smells and feels nice, and I am content.

[theshopislocal]

corinth rains

New and improved Heaven may well be the Happiest Place (not) on Earth. But Dean, it turns out, is still Dean.

(also on AO3)

chapter four

Time passes in Heaven much like in a dream. In brief, grappling moments of clarity, Dean can retrace his steps, determine the decisions and actions that landed him wherever he’s found himself. But he finds those moments are few and far between, slipping through his shaking fingers the moment he unfists them.

More often than not, Dean’s afterlife feels much like his before-life: stumbling buzzed and ill-prepared from set piece to set piece, shoulders at his ears and a tension headache waiting for its cue.

Dean hunches forward and crosses his arms on the bar. His beer’s gone flat - par for the course with El Sol; it’s usually sat on the same shelf as Natty Ice, after all. He remembers a time when he was fifteen or so, and Bobby had cracked one open for him after Sammy had conked out. Dean had held in his grimace as long as he could, but the dregs had been skunky and tepid, flat as Sam’s Ovaltine. Bobby had rolled his eyes, grumbling ‘Well, drink faster, boy!’

These days, Dean could probably down a sixer of the stuff before the bubbles went out. And with Heaven’s littering policy vanishing all his empties, it’s entirely possible he already has.

A vague silhouette appears behind the bar, tan hands sliding onto the counter at the top of Dean’s eyeline. Dean clenches his jaw and keeps his eyes down, half expecting it’s the barkeep come to cut him off.

A husky laugh comes from somewhere above his head, drawling and achingly familiar.

“Keep thinkin’ so hard, you’re gonna sprain somethin’,” she says.

Dean’s spine goes stiff, eyes widening. He hasn’t heard that voice in ten - no, fifty - years. Not since its owner had bitten out a raspy ‘Don’t miss,’ and then burned alive in propane fire.

Dean’s eyes crawl upwards, catching on the broad hips and trim waist, the curve of her chest up to the freckles across her clavicle.

She looks just as she did the day he met her - jaw rounded and taut, mouth a straight line, a no-nonsense brow over slitted dark eyes. Her auburn hair frames her face, its golden tips brushing over her wide shoulders.

He’d never said as much (for fear of getting cuffed over the ears), but he’d always thought she was a looker. Sun-weathered and artless - a dust bowl beauty.

Dean’s jaw clenches. “Ellen Harvelle,” he says, voice pitched low.

She quirks an eyebrow and matches his tone. “Dean Winchester.”

For a moment, he’s transported to a roadside dive. He sees himself: twenty-seven, undead, orphaned and sick with it. So damn angry he can barely see straight. He sees Ellen, a matriarch with a .38 special and eyes made out of flint.

She looks much the same now. And just as it did back then, her scowl splits in a toothy smile, ruddy cheeks dimpling.

“Well?” she says, leaning forward against the bar. “You gonna hug my neck, or what?”

Dean gives a gusty exhale, shoulders sagging, and hoists himself to his feet. He leans across the bar, arms wrapping tight around her back, and he squeezes his eyes closed, pressing his nose into her hair. She smells like charred barrels and gunsmoke, sweet hops and ballistol.

“Damn,” he sighs out. “It’s good to see you.”

Ellen gives a little chuckle and pulls back, dusting off Dean’s shoulders.

“Ditto, kiddo,” she says with a crooked smile. “Though I should throw ya out, drinkin’ that piss water at my bar.” Her eyes cut down to his nearly empty bottle, and she raises a sharp eyebrow.

Well, she ain’t wrong. Dean snorts and squints his eyes, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a sly grin.

“You got somethin’ better?” he leers.

The panty-dropper act had worked like a charm in his twenties - sixty damn years ago, now - but Ellen’s always been made of stronger stuff. Her brow drops low in an unimpressed glare that has Dean smiling wide.

Ellen huffs and rolls her eyes, then stoops down behind the bar, rifling through her wares. She comes up a moment later and slaps her prize down onto the counter, a triumphant smirk around her mouth.

Dean furrows his brow and peers down at the bottle. It’s crystal and shapely, its contents a deep, glittering amber, and Dean’s eyes catch on the shiny inlaid lettering across the front: O.F.C.

Holy shit. “Is that...?”

Ellen grins while Dean gapes like a damned fish. “Buffalo Trace, Old Fashioned Copper,” she confirms, and Dean’s eyebrows nearly climb off his face. “Thirty years old.”

Dean’s never been much of a one for pomp and provenance; he’d as soon shoot three fingers of Bobby’s old rotgut as sip at a decanted Lagavulin. But Dean’s pretty sure he’s seen this very bottle on a pillowed pedestal behind a glass wall, and hell if he isn’t itching for a taste.

His eyes follow the curves of the bottle, and he runs his tongue over his lips. “We drinkin’ slow or shootin’ like heathens?” he asks, peering up at Ellen.

Her lips go wide in a smug smile as she slips her hands under the bar. They reappear a second later, three scuffed little shot glasses clinking in each, and she slides them onto the counter.

Her brow arches in a double-dog dare. “What do you think.”

Dean’s smile goes sharp, and he leans forward on his stool, jutting his chin out to the side in a gamely nod. “Rack ‘em.”

Ellen gives a humming laugh and sets about lining up the little glasses. She grabs the bottle by the neck, and the stopper gives a satisfying pop as she pulls it.

“How ya doin, kid?” she asks, tipping the mouth of the bottle over each glass.

It’s a loaded question, one Dean’s heard about a hundred times since he hopped the pearly gates. Skirting it has become something like second nature.

He watches the glasses fill in succession. Ellen pours like a master - quick and efficient, not a drop lost. “Better now,” he says, eyes fixed on the glinting lip of the final glass.

Ellen spits a laugh and turns the bottle in her hand, gravity chasing the drippage back down the neck. “Ain’t we all,” she murmurs and pops the stopper back in.

She slides three shooters across the bar in a little line. They slosh, but don’t spill, and Dean watches the tiny legs evaporate on the musty air.

Ellen takes a glass between her thumb and middle finger, hunching her rounded shoulders forward. “Ready to put some hair on that chest, pretty boy?”

Her mouth is a straight line, but there’s a smirk in her eyes that has the corner of Dean’s lips ticking up in a cocky grin. “Big talk,” he says and grabs a shot in a loose fist. He holds it up in a vague toast, grunting a sporting, “Cheers.”

The first goes down smooth like warm honeyed water, with a bite at the end that has him reaching for the next. The second is bite all the way through, spiced and peaty against the flat of his tongue. He takes a short gasp of breath before the last, and he’s glad he did; it hits him like wildfire, scalding his throat with brine and accelerant - a salt n’ burn in a tiny scratched glass.

Ellen makes a sound like ‘hoo-ey’, and Dean looks up at her through watery eyes. Her face is screwed up, tongue running over her teeth, and Dean huffs a laugh that feels like smoke in his lungs.

“Damn,” he says, voice thick in his throat. He sniffs and blinks back tears around an open-mouth smile. “You know you ain’t gotta liquor me up if you wanna take advantage, right?”

Ellen grumbles and runs her hand through her hair, before pointing a chiding finger at Dean. “Mind your tongue, boy,” she says and drops her hands to the edge of the bar. “Bill hears you talkin’ like that, he’ll put one between your eyes.”

That brings Dean up short. A startled beat passes as Ellen stacks up the shot glasses, and Dean stares at the top of her head, slack-jawed.

His voice comes back to him on a stuttering exhale. “You got Bill back,” he murmurs.

Ellen’s hands freeze, and she glances up at Dean, circumspect. She holds his eyes for a brief moment, then smiles down at her little glass tower.

“Yeah,” she says, settling her elbows on the bar. “First thing I laid eyes on after your boy fixed up the joint.” She snorts under her breath, shaking her head. “Bout fell over when I saw him. It was...” Her voice cuts out, and she pulls her bottom lip through her teeth, eyes far away. “A moment.”

Dean watches her - the way her eyes flick back and forth, a tiny smile curving her mouth, the dim fluorescent light glinting off her hair. She stares on, blithe and lovely, an understated joy hovering around her.

Dean’s eyes cut down to his hands, one clenched so tight it shows white at the knuckles.

“Well,” he says, mustering a smile. “I’m real happy for ya.”

He means the words - entirely, wholeheartedly - but there’s a blue note in his tone that he can’t quite suppress. He broadens his smile, lets his crow’s feet show, and slips his last glass on top of the stack.

Ellen tips her head, sharp-eyed and considering. Dean holds his counterfeit smile for a moment, the weight of her gaze pulling his lips down; then he drops his eyes to his hands, fingers laced and wringing on the bar.

Digging his fingernails into his knuckles, he wonders when exactly he forgot how to play it cool.

Ellen gives an inscrutable hum, then slides the glasses off the bar and into the sink, spinning the rusted chrome spigot. Dean watches the water pour from the spout, wondering idly if it’s holy.

“You could have that too, you know,” Ellen says, eyes fixed on the basin. “A Moment.”

Dean’s mouth drops open of its own volition, and he snaps it shut with an audible click. He scrubs a hand over his face, hiding the sudden warm spots.

“Yeah, well,” he says, gruff. “I never really had, uh,” he wets his lip, shaking his head, “a Bill.” He gives her a tight smile, pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The words taste wrong - but then, so does everything else.

Ellen’s eyes narrow for a split second before her face goes carefully blank, eyes falling back to the sink. “You could have.”

Dean’s eyes snap to her face, still downturned, and his jaw clenches tight. A frisson of panic runs through him, crystallizing into a hard mass somewhere behind his sternum. It’s heavy and dense, with a beguiling gravity that pulls him in - in to the Empty space where he thinks his soul might have been, in to the trussed up ma’lak box of Shit He Doesn’t Think About. This close to it, he can just make out the whispering voice—

Happiness isn’t in the having.

A shaft of sunlight pours in through an open window, bright and garish against Dean’s eyes. He shakes his head, quick and spasmodic, and glances back up at Ellen.

Her eyebrows are drawn together in a guileless frown, the errant ray of sunshine lightening her hair, and she looks so very, very much like—

Joanna Beth.

Of course, Jo.

Everyone with two eyes had seen the flickering flame between them - always teetering between roaring to life and sputtering out. In the end, he’d kissed her mouth as she lay dying, and watched her burn in salted fire. He’d soldiered on, dry-eyed and numb, and added her name to a bill he couldn’t pay.

You could have. Dean almost laughs.

“Yeah, well,” Dean grumbles, voice rough in his throat. “Jo’s probably the sweetest girl I ever met, but—”

Ellen barks a dry laugh. “Oh honey, it never woulda worked with you and Jo.”

Dean peers up at her askance, and she stares back, face straight but for a tiny wry smile.

She grabs a damp dish towel from the sink and dries her hands, giving a loose shrug. “You were too old for her.”

Dean huffs a brittle laugh and nods down at his hands. That much is certainly true, but- “No tellin’ the jailbait that,” he mutters.

“Nah, I ain’t talkin ‘bout numbers,” Ellen counters. “Even if she’d been your age...” She breathes out a sigh, and Dean looks up at her. The little rag is balled up in her loose fist, her lip caught between her teeth.

She’s silent for a short beat, unfocused eyes downcast. Then she sucks in a short breath and shakes her head, eyes cutting over to Dean’s. “She was a kid,” she says, and gives a soft chuckle. “She’s still a kid, and she’s been dead fifty years.”

Dean gives a weak smile at that, though it hurts like a fresh bruise. He’s not run into Jo since he made it topside, though he’d seen her once after she died. He remembers her, sitting bleary-eyed and sallow next to that bald fucker Osiris - defending Dean’s wasted soul as best she could. He remembers standing in a ring of salt, waiting - hoping - to die by her cool, white hands. You carry all this crap you don’t have to, she’d said. It gets clearer when you’re dead.

A pit yawns open in Dean’s stomach. He’s found a lot of things in Heaven - some he’d lost, some he’d never had - but clarity sure as shit ain’t one.

“You, on the other hand,” Ellen’s voice cuts through Dean’s rambling thoughts, and he peers up into her frowning face. She shakes out the towel and runs it over the countertop between them, giving Dean a furrow-browed look, all sympathy and sufferance. “I don’t think you been a kid since you lost your mama.”

Even softened by the balm of her compassion, the words pull at him, stinging like a paper cut. Dean folds his arms on the bar, hunching his shoulders forward. “Jo lost her dad,” he returns, and winces at the sharpness.

Ellen is unfazed, as ever, and she tips her head, giving a mild hum. “She was older than you were,” she says. “More independent. And she didn’t see it happen, just...” she shrugs and tosses the rag into the sink. “One day, Daddy didn’t come home.”

Dean’s eye twitches in a flinch, but he nods and digs his fingertips into his elbows.

“It hit her,” she goes on, “and hard, but...” Her lips press together in a firm line, and she gives a definitive nod. “She coped.” She glances up at Dean, eyes wise and soft, her voice pitched just above a whisper. “Moved on.”

The implication hangs in the air between them, and Dean gives an imperceptible nod. Dean’s no Dr. Phil, but he knows himself well enough to acknowledge this particular truth. And Sam had pulled enough armchair psychiatry on him over the years to nearly convince him there was no shame in it.

Nearly.

Dean harrumphs around the tightness in his throat. “How is she?” he grunts. “Jo?”

Ellen blinks at him for a moment, brows raised. Then she breathes a tiny sigh and nods her head. “Good,” she says mildly, leaning forward against the bar. “Real good.” She laughs a little and settles her elbows on the countertop. “Joined the Arch practically the second it was formed. Think she mighta been their first recruit.” Another soft chuckle. “If you could even call it that, champin’ at the bit like she was.”

Dean didn’t know Jo’d joined up, but he supposes he could’ve guessed. Hero complexes, piss and vinegar, after all - the sword Jo’d lived and died by.

Dean shifts in his seat, shoulders tightening. “She likes it?”

Ellen’s eyebrows pop up, and she smiles wide. “She loves it,” she crows, tipping her head toward the bar’s saloon style doors. “She and Bill’re runnin’ rounds as we speak.” Her eyes go distant and the slightest bit shiny. “Huntin’ with her daddy,” she intones with a soft smile, ��like she always wanted.”

An image floats to the surface of Dean’s mind: Jo, young and gung-ho, twirling a little knife inscribed with her dad’s initials. Dean had told her how John had taken him shooting when he was a boy, how he’d hit every can dead on. He must’ve been proud, she’d said, and Dean had snorted. Yeah, John was proud of him. When he made the shot.

Dean’s hand clenches into a fist, fingernails rasping against his palm. “She’s happy?” he asks, eyes fixed on the countertop.

Ellen is silent for a long, gravid moment. The weight of her gaze pushes down on Dean’s shoulders, compressing his spine.

“Yeah,” she murmurs. “Yeah, she’s real happy.”

The tension across Dean’s back lessens by a fraction. It’s the least Jo deserves - the least all the Harvelles deserve. He nods to himself as the sun comes in through the window again, illuminating the smooth planes of Ellen’s face. The glare hurts Dean’s eyes, but he’s glad it’s shining on someone.

“But,” Ellen starts, and Dean’s eyes snap to hers. She tilts her head, considerate and a little sad. “You’re not,” she says plainly, a frown etched into her forehead.

Dean blanches for an instant, a ribbon of shame tugging through him as the pit in his stomach gapes wider. He gives himself a little shake and smoothes his face into a crooked smile.

“That’s not—” he starts, then shakes his head, lips pursing. “I’m fine,” he says, bald and unyielding. “I’m good.”

Ellen’s eyebrows form an oblique line, doubtful and sympathetic. Dean almost laughs; Ellen never took his bullshit before, he’s not sure why he thought she’d start now.

She holds his stare until his eyes flutter down, his shoulders rising on a deep sigh.

He tries for honesty - the sort of frankness that always terrified him when he was alive - but his voice comes out defenseless and confused, all the bluster of a moment ago dispersed like smoke. “I dunno,” he grunts. “I got Sammy, got—” he hides a stutter behind a grumbling harrumph, “—got Mom and Dad.” He nods his head towards Ellen. “Got you guys, and this...” a vague wave toward the sunlit window, “...place.” He pauses, weighing the validity of the words against the hollowness in his chest, and shakes his head. “Got everything I ever wanted.”

Ellen is silent for half a moment, then gives a pensive hum. He sees her hand slide along the bar toward the whisky bottle, a forgotten MacGuffin sitting half empty.

Her fingers wrap around it, smoothing over the embossed lettering. “Got everything you thought you wanted,” she returns.

Dean feels his face shift into a frown, and he arches an eyebrow at her. “You think there’s somethin’ I want more’n all this?” he counters, a stiff forefinger waving in an all-encompassing gesture.

Ellen’s lips turn down, and she grasps the bottle between her palms. She turns it idly for a moment, then reaches into the sink for a shot glass, plopping it down on the counter between them.

“I think,” she begins, pulling the stopper from the bottle, “there might be something you thought you couldn’t have.”

The breath freezes in Dean’s chest, and his muscles stiffen in a full-bodied flinch.

The one thing I want, comes the whispering voice, gravelly and bleak like something dragged across a tundra. It’s something I know I can’t—

Dean bites his cheek so hard he tastes copper, and he drags his eyes back to Ellen’s downturned face.

She carries on, heedless of Dean’s momentary lapse. “And because you’re,” she huffs a dry laugh, “well, you...” She peers up at his face, and whatever she sees has her brow furrowing deep. She shakes her head once and grabs the bottle, tipping the mouth toward the water-spotted glass as she says, “I think you taught yourself not to want it.”

Dean breathes out a long sigh, and his eyes fall closed. He gets that odd feeling, like something’s swelling behind his breastbone. It spreads like a weed, or a drop of blood in a puddle of water, and the whispering voice takes a breath, as if to speak.

Dean presses his tongue against the inside of his cheek, running the tip along the indents from his teeth. “And what might that be,” he says, dull and a little bitter.

Ellen sets the bottle down and slips the stopper back in. Dean doesn’t look up at her - though her gaze on his face feels like a touch - as she slides the little shot glass towards him.

Her voice is warm and too-soft, edged with a wistfulness that greets Dean like an old friend. “Beats me, kiddo.”

chapter three | chapter five

table of contents

[corasdiary]

Entry 004

“How are your parent’s not bugging you about marriage?,” Keli asked me as I drove her back to her Avenue of the Stars apartment her boyfriend had been helping her pay (to be fair, he stays there when he’s not in San Francisco).

My parents have never bugged me about marriage, nor about finding a boyfriend.  It’s just never been their style to make sure I’m married by a certain age, and I’m pretty grateful for that.  Part of me thinks it’s because they want to make sure I can be self-sufficient without the need to rely on a husband.  But another part of me thinks they just don’t want me to end up with any of the guys in my life that I’ve chatted to them about, with the exception of one of the Uy boys who I’ve casually bumped into a couple of times.  Then, it was all ears and all smiles and questions on where he is now and when I’m going to see him again (the Uy family is quite influential in the Philippines, but has been criticized for exploitation, but that’s pretty common among influential families there).  I don’t have the heart to tell them that he’s now happily in a relationship with a nice girl that actually lives in the Philippines.

For as long as I’ve known Keli (six years now), she’s been a boy chaser.  I’m not pointing that fact out to say that it’s bad.  I’m just pointing it out because that’s how she is, and she owns it, and I love her for that.  

“My parents are starting put the pressure on me, and I totally get it,” Keli continued.  “First off, I don’t want to be an old mom.  Also, I’m just so ready to be a stay-at-home wife now...  Preferably one that stays in a mansion in Laguna.”

We decided to stop by the Westfield in Century City to get boba from Wushiland.  As we stepped out of the car and onto the escalator, Keli then went on and on about how she’s been struggling to decide whether her boyfriend was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, or if she had to call it quits and find another potential husband to settle down with in the next year or two.

I ordered an Ovaltine latte before explaining to her that finding a partner just wasn’t a priority for me and that I’d rather meet someone naturally.

“Everyone is on the apps now though,” she responded.  “Sure, you can meet someone naturally, but the apps make it so much easier and quicker.  Like, you don’t have to waste time waiting around to meet someone.”

Was what she was saying true?  I mean, the last time I met someone “naturally” and ended up in a relationship with them was in undergrad.  I swore he was the one, but he moved back to Italy and long distance wasn’t something either of us were willing to try, especially with both of us going to grad school after and not having enough time to travel back and forth.  He promised to come back to visit only after I first visit him there, but I hadn’t had the time to do so.

Since then, I’ve been single.  Sure, there were guys I found attractive in law school, but I was more busy just trying to survive and get through all my cases. 

At work, there were only two guys around my age and I wasn’t interest in any of them.  And I’m not into dating much out of my age range.  Plus, I’m now self-employed which means no coworkers to potentially have a crush on.

I dropped her off at her apartment and started to head home, all the while thinking of whether I was wasting my time.

I got home, and “unpaused” myself on Bumble to see what’s out there.

Marco, Italian, grad student at USC.  Educated and Italian, but his mostly tourist-style photos made it hard to swipe right.  I get it, you’ve traveled, but what else?  

Kumar, works in finance, recently Anderson grad.  Has too many photos of him and someone I’m assuming is his brother that it’s sometimes hard to tell who is who.

Brian, liberal, LMU grad.  That’s it.  No other descriptors.  Well, he says he’s never been to Starbucks, which is interesting I guess.  But, I’m getting nothing.

It’s hard to gauge who a person is just by looking at their photos and what few sentences they put out there about themselves.  I decided to put myself on pause again before shooting Keli a text.

“Don’t put yourself on pause,” she said.  “Leave yourself on and just come back to it later to see who swiped on you.”

I ignored her suggestion.  The whole reason I put myself on pause is so that no one I know in real life sees me on the app.  LA is huge, but it can be made small, and I’d just rather not be seen on the app.

As I once again paused myself on the app, I reassured myself that there’s nothing wrong with waiting to meet someone “naturally.”  There are a ton of successful and beautiful women who didn’t meet their significant other until their 30s or even 40s.  

I reminded myself that there was still so much I wanted to do myself and that forcing myself to meet someone now would very likely mean pushing my priorities down.  

[yes-i-also-miss-our-talks]

You Will Be Found: S/O Tag

The kiddos of YWBF decided to sit down together and answer a few questions about their relationships for a video. Enjoy!

(I’m going to do this in transcript form if you don’t mind. There’s just so many of them talking.)

Key:

A: Alana

B: Ben

C: Connor

E: Evan

J: Jared

K: Kaeto

L: Libby

Z: Zoe

J: This is going to be a clusterf**ck. I’m calling it now.

A: Have a little faith!

K: So how are we going to do this? In what order are we gonna go?

J: Twitter asked that we do it in chronological order, by who’s been together the longest. (to L and K) We know they love you more, but this is a group effort.

C: (accusatory) Spotlight hogs.

K: Not on purpose!

C: (doubtfully) Uh-huh.

Z: Boys, play nice. So, to make sure we and all the nice people at home are all on the same page, that’s Jared and Ben, then Lana and I, then Connor and Evan, and Kaeto and Libby last.

B: We win!

K: You hate competitions.

B: We’re still winning.

J: (to camera) Do you see why I love him?

*cut*

Q: How long have you been together?

J: Two years? Two and a half?

B: Something like that, yeah. It was early 2015. Sometime in March.

A: June 3rd, 2015. 10:22 a.m. Zoe had been eighteen less than twenty-four hours.

Z: Aww, you remembered the time. And you waited until I wasn’t jailbait! Okay, Con?

C: Since what, mid-August last year?

E: Yeah, it was right before you went to rehab for the last time.

C: No mind-altering substances and no boyfriend. Double torture.

E: But worth it?

C: (fondly) Like you wouldn’t f**king believe.

Z: *gags* Are you guys done being gross?

C: For the sake of not making this video three hours long, yes.

J: Kaeto and Libby’s turn!

L: What was the question?

J: ‘How long have you been together?’

L: Not long. Since what, early September? More towards the middle? There wasn’t an exact day.

K: I wrote it down, but I can’t remember exactly right now.

Q: What was your first impression of the other?

B: “Why is he smiling like that?”

J: “He’s looking at me like I’m a weirdo but it’s f**king adorable.”

A: “Green hair? That’s someone braver than me.”

Z: “This girl is so nice. How is she friends with my brother? How am I friends with my brother?”

C: Well, fuck you, too.

E: That better not be your official answer.

C: That better not be yours.

(E and C stick their tongues out at one another)

C: But for real, the first thing I remember was like, first grade, maybe? You were always really quiet at school, but then one day your mom came to pick you up after school, and she had this Golden Retriever with her. You lit up a like a g**damn Christmas tree and barreled right into that dog. After that, I always subconsciously kept a list of things that made you happy.

E: Is it still there in your head?

C: Yep.

E: You think it’s accurate?

C: I’d bet my life on it.

E: Well, are you item number one?

C: (blushing slightly) Don’t you have your own f**king question to answer?

E: [referring to ‘first impression’ question] You were always a dark cloud over a room.

C: (sarcastically) Thanks, babe.

E: But you know how I love gloomy days!

L: You two are actually sickening. I’m going to puke.

E: It’s your turn to answer.

L: Nooo, it’s gonna make me seem bitchy.

K: My first impression of you was that you were kind of a bitch.

L: Okay, I feel less bad about it now.

K: Now I don’t wanna hear it.

J: Just spit it out!

L: My first impression of Kaeto - and I warned you that it’s not the best - was “who the fuck is still wearing a giant maroon jacket at the end of May?”

[the kids wince]

Z: Yeah, I can see how you wouldn’t want to share that one.

L: And screw you all for making me say it.

*cut*

Q: When was your first kiss?

J: Like, three minutes after we established that I was not in any way joking about liking him and was dead serious when I said I wanted to date him.

B: (grinning) I have terrible self-esteem and think everyone hates me!

[Michi, laying with her head in his lap, reaches up and licks his cheek]

B: Thanks, Michi.

Z: We kissed for the first time maybe two weeks before we started dating (with air quotes) “officially” or whatever. And then it was another three weeks before we actually told anyone.

A: And by told anyone, you mean being forced to tell the truth after your roommate walked in on us making out.

Z: Yeah, she never talked to me again after I got assigned a new dorm.

A: Connor? Evan?

[they shift uncomfortably]

C: It’s really sappy and kind of personal.

E: Yeah.

J: Alright, you’re allowed to keep it vague.

E: It was like when we got together, in that it was right before Connor went into rehab, but this was literally right before.

C: (nodding) Yeah, I think that’s a good way to put it. Let’s just leave it at that; it’s a story for another video.

E: Yeah. Kaeto?

K: I know what the next question is gonna be, and it ties in with this one, so we’re gonna skip and get back to it in a bit.

L: Yay! Less talking!

*cut*

Q: Who said “I love you” first.

Z: Ooh! I vote we let Kaeto and Libby go first just to settle the anticipation.

E: Zoe, we set up an order. We have to stick to it.

A: Or else society crumbles.

E: Exactly.

Z: (grumpily) I can’t believe I chose the two of you as my favorite humans.

J: Can we go now?

C: Please do.

B: It was Jared. I made him do it.

J: That’s...not far from the truth, actually. I mean, you guys all know this, but the people watching might not, so I should explain that a lot of communicating with Ben requires total bluntness and honesty. It makes you really aware of everything you say and do, as well as often forcing you to really analyze or actions. And for me, who’s socially inept and a self-centered dick, it’s been really helpful to be able to acquire this awareness.

L: Aww, Jay, I don’t think you’re a socially inept, self-centered dick.

J: (flatly) Lib, I’m telling a f**king story. And that’s literally what Asperger’s is.

[caption reading “it is and it isn’t” appears at the bottom of the screen momentarily]

J: (more light-hearted) Anyway, when I realized I was in love -

L: Awww

J: - shut the f**k up - with Ben, I kind of freaked out a little bit. It was all internal, so I did start acting weird, Ben picked up on it, worried he’d done something wrong, and then started freaking out himself.

B: (grinning) I’m crazy like that.

J: Nah. But I had to simultaneously calm him down and deal with the fact that I was scared out of my mind because I’d never told someone who wasn’t family that I loved them before. It was a big, emotional mess and I’m glad it’s over and that we’re still here.

[B nods in agreement and leans his head on J’s shoulder]

A: In the case of Zoe and I, I’m pretty sure it was actually me who said it first.

Z: Yeah, it was one of those cases where it slips out on accident over something kind of mundane. Do you remember what it was?

A: You fed my cats so I could sleep in and then brought me Ovaltine.

C: You never tell me you love me after I feed your cats.

A: That’s because you complain the whole time! Jared steals all my Ovaltine, but at least he’s nice to my cats.

C: We are not having the cat argument again right now!

E: (laughing) Hey, Connor, I just realized that not only did you say “I love you” first, but you did it right after our first kiss.

J: You two moved way too f**king fast.

Z: Give the boys a break, they were holding onto three consecutive years of romantic and sexual tension.

E: You do realize that you’re implying that even while you and I were -

Z: I knew it as soon as I said it, but I’m not gonna take it back.

E: Okay, then. Kaeto, now are you going?

K: (nods) Yeah. So, it was -

L: (interrupting) Kaeto said it first, then I proceeded to grab his face. Not even ten seconds in between and way less sappy than these two losers (points at C and E).

J: (shudders) Why do you have to say everything so bluntly?

L: Why do you have to take such issue in the way I do things?

*cut*

Q: What’s your favorite trait about the other?

B: Jared puts a unique but positive perspective on everything. Except for when he doesn’t, but pure optimism is bad for the soul.

J: Definitely his butt.

[a stuffed rabbit flies from behind the camera and hits J on the head]

J: Sorry, Lily. I was kidding. But really, I’m going to go with either his smile or the way he indirectly forces me to see the world differently and think a bit more before I speak.

A: Zoe takes everything in stride, but not in a way that embraces chaos, per se. She can be met with a problem or situation that seems chaotic or plain overwhelming, but has no issue taking a step back and finding order in it. I don’t do super well with disorganization and chaos, and she’s helped me have more faith in myself when faced with it.

Z: Lots of people have pointed out that I’m basically dating Hermione, and that’s literally the greatest thing anyone could ever say to me. I was obsessed with Hermione as a kid, although I think everyone expected me to want to be like her, not date her. Whoops.

C: For me, Evan is kind of a calming presence, so I’m at ease with him around and having a stabilizing force has really been helpful as I’ve been going through recovery. He’s also very aware of others, which can be his fatal flaw when it makes him ignore himself, but I’ve found it really helpful. Oh, and he makes me go outside. I like going outside, but I need someone to force me to do it a lot of the time. It works out.

E: Connor makes me put myself first in situations where my concern is generally elsewhere. And he draws on sticky notes and leaves them all over the house, which never fails to make me smile. A walking partner is always nice, too.

C: I forgot to mention that you’re a space heater. Sleeping next to you in the winter is the best.

E: And the rest of the year?

C: Well, then it’s just you that’s the best.

Z: (pretends to gag)

L: I would like to set the record straight and inform everyone that my boyfriend has the softest freaking lips I have ever encountered in addition to the best dog on the planet. What else do you need?

K: (shrugs) I’ll take it. I don’t think I necessarily have a part of Libby that I like more than the rest, though. It’s a mix of features and traits that came together just so to make her who she is, and that’s someone I love who love me in return and makes me happy simply by being.

[L hugs K and peppers his face with kisses]

J: (stage whisper) That’s how you know they’ve been together the shortest period of time.

[interview-withthevampire]

so like i’m getting a second hand laptop sometime this week, which means I can potentially now write in bed, which is such a fantastic prospect because I’ve been Proper Buggered from increased dislocations and a torn back ligament for the past six weeks and legit have been home-bound and almost bed-ridden. Sitting up at my PC is a special kind of torture because subluxing, arthritic knees and cold weather don’t mix.

bbuutttttt that means I can work on a two VC OC fics that i’m not 100% sure on, but if you’ll have the time to read an excerpt of one which has a working title of “Hobo Fangs” and give me an opinion that’d be great. All CWs are in the tags. 

Some plot background: features a thirteen year old “Bridge” (nick-name for Bridget). Though she gets older as the story progresses and then stops (HA). If any of y’all remember I made a post about how I wanted to write a VC piece where an exploited child was treated like an actual exploited child, without being grossly eroticised(?). This is it  -- and the main vamp featured is Khayman -- the vampire who would walk from mortals who talked to him. It’s set in London, 2016(ish) but isn’t PL or PLatRoA compliant. It’s a mish-mash because Anne is... well, Anne.

Hobo Fangs (working title, but I find it funny so I might keep it) is built somewhat around what I went through when I was younger, though it’s not -- but the emotions and some experiences are the same. It’s not going to be trauma porn, but things would be discussed.

I’ve tried as hard as I can to make it seem like a thirteen year old, which means simpler stylistic choices and shorter paragraphs. It’s first-person past-tense but I’m on the fence about doing it VC Recounting style or not, though it would fit the ~theme~. I am also considering doing it in third-person, as I can write both but I dunno. I really appreciate concrit, if you have any to give :)

Excerpt from the Prologue/First Chapter: 

Down the short hallway, Dad’s bedroom door was closed. The bathroom light was on, shining a perfect rectangle on the wall. Normally, a greyish white light glowed between the gap of door and floor when he was in, radiating from the stupid laptop he was always on when not chain-smoking at the kitchen table. Nothing shone from beneath his door.

The little radio was still playing away. Dad had hocked the television yonks ago but the pantry remained bare. My stomach growled just thinking about it. With curled fingers, I rapped gently on the door with my knuckles.

“Dad?” I called quietly. No answer came. I rapped louder and called again, “Dad?”

Nothing. Only the dulcet tones of a white-twenty-something male wailing to teenage fans through tinny speakers.

When I hesitantly opened the door, it was to a dark room. I could smell… something nasty — 'cept Dad’s room always smelled nasty — but I couldn’t hear anything except the radio. Not even drunken snoring.

“Daaad?” I called again into the dark. “You awake?”

Silence. I flicked on the light.

Dad was slumped against the headboard of his bed, head against his shoulder like his neck was broken. A line of frothy spit was hanging off his open mouth, his lips blue… and with a terrifying sort of numbness, I knew he was dead.

Of course I did. I’d seen it before. Jesus fucking christ, I’d seen it before.

I rushed toward the bed, wanting to punch and kick and scream at him until he woke up and started moving and beat the shit out of me for hitting him — but when I touched the flesh of one of his arms I jerked back. It was stiff, and cold, and where he was slumped and curled ‘round his right arm, a needle was still stabbed there, oozy black congealed blood where the syringe had come loose.  

“Dad?” I asked. My voice cracked and whined. “DAD?”

I tried to shake his shoulders but none of him moved, his body all seized like a statue. The room reeked of  piss and shit and blood. Suddenly, I couldn’t touch him anymore, and backed away from the bed until my back hit the wall, and slid down, down, down, until my butt hit the worn carpet.

Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

What was I going to do? What the fuck was I going to do? Call 999? But what could they do for a dead person? Dad had only had me on probationary terms because the last social worker had thought he was shit, and turned up randomly to check on me. If they turned up… if they turned up… if I called anyone… I would be in a home. A home with a capital ‘H’ and I never wanted to be in one of those ever again.

The floor was hard against my bum. It was only carpeted concrete, but it felt as fragile as glass, as if, at any moment, it would crack beneath my weight and send me into tumbling darkness. My breath picked up ‘til it felt like I was both breathing in and out at once, my head swimming and chest spasming until I felt ready to pass out. This couldn’t… Dad said he wouldn’t leave me after mum… but there he was, dead as anything, on his dirty bare mattress…  couldn’t stay sober for more than two days before getting the shakes…

A thousand weird confused and panic thoughts gushed through my head in seconds, boiling my brain alive trying to decipher them all. Social workers; police; ambulance people; rats scuttling in the ceiling why won’t they go away; staying here. Danger. The ambulance people would call people and I’d get taken away, and it'd be useless: Dad’s chest wasn’t moving and his feet weren’t moving, and his fingers were white and his lips were black and his eyes were open comically wide like the overdose had cut off his eyelids. I couldn’t call the police either, though what help they would do if they didn’t work part time as a funeral home was beyond me, and Dad didn’t have any fucking funeral insurance to begin with.

Maybe if I went to make some Ovaltine, everything would make sense, right? Ovaltine was nice. Ovaltine was good. I would feel better after a cup, wouldn’t I? Slowly, like a robot, I got up from the floor and stumbled into the hallway, running a hand against the wall on the stumble down to the kitchen.

There was still water in the kettle. It gurgled and made little popping noises when I turned it on at the socket; Dad’d been meaning to get another one for ages but… well. Dad was useless wasn’t he? I got a clean mug from the cupboard and spooned double the instructed amounts of Ovaltine into it. He pissed away his social on lager and brown and bennie’s and cigarettes and horses like we didn’t have bills on the coffee table and tax collectors leaving aggressive messages on his message bank.  He stayed up all night with the radio on loud, typing crackpot shit on internet forums, or inviting strangers into the house and not keeping an eye on them so they got into the hallway and through my door…

I watched the boiling water dissolve the chocolate powder in my mug with a grim sort of emptiness. Hot steam rose like a volcanic eruption in the chilly air like the breaths from a Chinese dragon. It still thoroughly steamed when I added a dollop of milk that still smelt okay even though it had gone out of date days ago. 

It was sweet and hot and hollow all at once, as if I were only somehow experiencing one-half of something whole. Even whilst sipping it, the edge of the kitchen counter digging into my back as I leant on it, none of its warmth seemed to touch me. Was this what shock felt like? It felt like… it felt like nothing. Dad was… Dad was dead.

… and only I knew he was dead.

Cue weeping, this is shit isn’t it whY have I posted this i’m prolly gonna delete tomorrow morning if it gets no notes

[mittensmorgul]

I read your 6.10 post. Apparently Samuel didn't know about Mary's deal with Azazel, so he blamed Dean for her absence/death because Dean wanted Sam's soul back. Given that Azazel killed Samuel and Deanna before making the deal with Mary, does that mean Samuel doesn't know who killed him and why? Was Samuel resurrected thinking Mary had a natural death and left two sons for him to get to know? Samuel's lack of concern for Deanna is also weird. Samuel doesn't know ANYTHING?

Yeah, it’s kind got me weirded out. But Azazel didn’t kill Samuel until he stabbed himself in front of Mary. We don’t know how much of the time he was possessed Samuel actually remembered, or if his memories were “altered” either by Azazel at the time or by Crowley when he was resurrected.

In another episode that directly ties Sam and Dean’s personal and family history to the Colt (seriously this is not a coincidence, because accidents don’t happen accidentally…), 4.03, we have the surface level conversation between both “Samuel” and Dean, and later “Samuel” and Mary. What we don’t know is how much of this Samuel was actually “present and conscious” for:

DEAN: Mary gets killed by a yellow eyed demon in 1983, and I think that this – what happened tonight – I think this is the moment that he caught her scent. Now, if we don’t catch this thing now, and kill it, and it gets away? Then Mary dies. So I am asking you, please.

…

YED : I only know one thing that’s got the juice to swing something like that. You must have friends in high places. So, I kill your Mommy? That’s why you came all this way? To see little old me?DEAN: Oh, I came here to kill you.YED: Hey, wait a minute, if that slut Mary’s your Mommy, are you… are you one of my psychic kids? No, not you. Maybe you got a sis, or a bro. That’s terrific, means it all worked out. After all, it’s why I’m here.DEAN; So that’s what this is about, these deals you’re making. You don’t want these people’s souls.YED: No, I just want their children. I’m here to choose the perfect parents, like your Mommy. 

YED: I need to be invited, into their houses, I know, I know, the – the red tape’ll drive you nuts, but in ten short years, it’ll all be worth it. ‘Cause you know what I’m gonna do to your sibling? I’m gonna stand over their crib and I’m gonna bleed into their mouth. Demon blood is better than Ovaltine, vitamins, minerals – it makes you big and strong.  But if Samuel’s still walking around inside the YED, he would’ve seen Mary’s choice and her reasons behind it:

YED: I’ll tell you what, I’ll arrange to have lover boy here brought back breathing.MARY: My parents too?YED: Nope, sorry doll, that’s not on the table. But, think about it, you could be done with hunting forever. The white picket fence, station wagon, couple of kids, no more monsters or fear. I’ll make sure of it.MARY: What? And all it costs is my soul?YED: Oh, no, you can keep your soul, I just need permission.MARY: For what?YED: Mmm, in ten years I need to swing by your house for a little something, that’s all.MARY: For what?!YED: Relax. As long as I’m not interrupted, nobody gets hurt, I promise. (beat) Or you can spend the rest of your life, desperate and alone.\

And from Samuel’s skewed perspective here, if he DOES remember all of that, it certainly looks like Dean (powered by an Angel of the Lord, who he now knows EXIST in s6 after being resurrected…) showed up to CAUSE all of that trauma in the first place. Like him even BEING there was the catalyst of all those events that led up to Mary’s death, all in the name of somehow saving that “little sibling” that Samuel got to know WHILE SAM HAD NO SOUL.

Can you imagine him believing all that time that that was just SAM? And how he was? And why the YED would’ve wanted to recruit Sam, because maybe that’s really why Sam seemed so ~wrong~ to him all along, you know?

Because Samuel DIDN’T have the whole story. Like Mary doesn’t now…

But that could definitely (at least for me) explain Samuel’s sole drive in s6 being his own misguided mission to avenge Mary’s death. As well as his bitterness toward both Sam and Dean, and his extreme lack of care for them despite them being Mary’s children. Because Dean was “at fault” for her death in his mind, and he did it all in the name of saving Sam.

[grizzbe]

A Mid-Winter’s Reprieve - Ch. 3

So, I suppose this’ll need a note beforehand, yeah? First off, I’m sorry this took so long! I was on track to have this finished before Christmas, but then the comic came out and I found myself unsure as to whether I should proceed or not. After receiving a few messages from people encouraging me to continue I decided to do so (thanks to those of you with the kind words!), but by then I was super busy with Christmas. Before I knew it, it was New Years and then I just got completely swamped with work. But I finally caught a break and got to finish this!

In regards to the comic and the canonicity of Tracer’s sexuality, I’d like to say that this fic (and any other fic I’ve written/will write) is not intended to be an attack on it in any way, shape or form. I wholeheartedly support Lenily, that comic was cuteness overload. I merely like this little ship of mine (I’ve been shipping it basically since McCree was announced as a character) and enjoy writing it.

Anyways, now that that’s out of the way, I hope you enjoy this! “A Mid-Spring’s Reprieve” will probably come around April or May. In the meantime, if you have any one-shot requests for “Shots In Time”, feel free to message me and let me know!

The Gunslinger put on his most charming smile as he held the British Sprite by her waist, “Well, that depends, what did you get me?”

“Nu-uh, that’s not gonna fly, Cowboy,” said Lena, smiling right back. Her hands began rubbing his back underneath his serape in a way that Jesse didn’t find unpleasurable before he realized she was searching for her gift. “I asked first! Now it’s time to put up or shut up!”

It wasn’t often that McCree found himself nervous but this whole situation was certainly trying its hardest to raise his heart rate. He had survived losing his family as a kid, survived being a part of a bike gang since his mid-teens, survived Gabriel as his boss for Chrissake. Now, faced with the prospect of giving a subpar gift to the woman that was quickly becoming the brightest part of his life, he found his palms getting sweaty.

Or maybe it’s because you still have your gloves on?

That might have something to do with it.

Jesse took his gloves off and slipped them into his back pocket before bringing the small gift bag out from under his serape. Lena’s eyes lit up as she gingerly plucked the gift from his hands, her smile growing into a beaming white grin as she opened the bag.

That right there made all this trouble worth it.

Hopefully you earned it, Cowboy.

Will you just enjoy the moment for once?

Lena’s smile wavered for a brief moment as she brought out her gift, the picture of the two of them playfully fighting over his hat that Ana had taken at the Halloween Festival resting nicely in the picture frame that Lena had mentioned she liked.

Oh yeah, she loves it.

Of course she does. Why did you ever doubt yourself?

“Why you little GIT!” exclaimed Lena, the look of mock consternation on her face.

Oh shit.

“I left my present for you on the table but you weren’t supposed to actually look at it!” said Lena, slapping McCree’s shoulder playfully. “It was supposed to inspire you! Not convince you to copy my gift!”

From behind Lena, she produced the fancy bag that Jesse had seen earlier that afternoon and quickly brought out the gift that she had gotten for Jesse, the photo of the two embracing each other on top of the hill in front of the airfield that Ana had taken just before she took the one he had.

Oh shit.

Is she mad or charmed? This is important.

Yeah, not sure, that slap on the shoulder was pretty hard.

But she’s smiling?

“See here, Darling, I didn’t look!” pleaded McCree, Lena’s smile mixing with her fiercely set eyebrows still thoroughly confusing Jesse. “I read your note and thought of my gift without peeking!”

“Is that so??” interrogated Lena who, at the very least, was enjoying putting the screws to an increasingly bewildered looking Jesse.

“Look, I swear! Gabe can back me up!” exclaimed Jesse, waving over the Blackwatch Commander.

Gabriel, holding a plate of Christmas cookies in one hand and a mug of black coffee in the other, made his way over to the couple.

Is Gabe wearing… reindeer antlers?

Focus, big guy. You need to clear this whole fiasco up if you ever want to take advantage of that mistletoe again.

Right. Present.

“Gabe, tell her that I didn’t look at the present she got me when we broke into her apartment,” said Jesse as Gabe pulled up next to the two.

Gabe finished his bite of snowman cookie, “Yeah, I didn’t really get it. He made us go through all that trouble and didn’t even bother looking. Especially after you left it out for him.”

“What? You expect me to trust the Cadbury thief??”

“Okay, about that, I have two replacement bars sitting in my fridge right now,” said Jesse. “But he’s telling the truth! I didn’t look! I read your letter, saw that you didn’t have any pictures of us anywhere and remembered you had said you liked this frame! That’s the God’s honest truth, right there.”

Lena bit her lip and pondered on McCree’s pleas of innocence before turning to Angela, “Whaddaya say, Mercy? You believe ‘im?”

Angela will have your back.

Are you kidding? Angela is one of Lena’s best friends.

You’re right. Bust out the puppy dog eyes.

McCree gave Angela the best pleading look he could muster as the Doctor looked from him to Lena, “I zink I believe him, Lena.”

McCree thrust his fists up in victory, “Thank you, Angela! I always knew you were the smartest woman I know.”

“Don’t push it, Cowboy,” said Angela, giving McCree a wry smile as she hugged Lena and went off to join the rest of the party.

“I suppose I believe you,” said Lena, holding the two frames in one hand as she grabbed his sweater with the other and drew him near. “I guess great minds think alike.”

Their faces were close enough that Jesse could feel her warm breath against his neck and he found that he couldn’t help himself, drawing her in close for another passionate kiss, only vaguely aware of the small voice in the back of his head wondering if this was her plan all along. The two enjoyed the taste of each other for a moment before separating, Lena looking contentedly at Jesse through half-lidded eyes and a wispy smile.

Lena leaned into McCree, putting her mouth next to his ear and whispered, “The rest of your gift will have to wait till later.”

She pulled back again and took in the blank slate that had become Jesse’s face and patted him delicately on the chin, “Now go enjoy the party a bit, love!”

Wha-what?

Oh, she’s devious. How are you supposed to just enjoy the party now?

Maybe sing a few Christmas carols?

Jesse watched Lena walk away before she turned her head back to him and gave him a devilish wink and grin.

And maybe some hot cocoa.

With some bourbon.

The Cowboy made his way to Jack’s kitchen where he found the hot chocolate and grabbed a mug. He took a sip while rooting through his cabinets looking for where the Overwatch commander had stashed his whiskey.

Angela must’ve made her Ovaltine again.

Or given the recipe to Morrison.

Either or, it’s delicious.

He finally found a bottle of the brown liquid hiding behind the flour, only briefly confused as to why the commander of Overwatch had a fully stocked kitchen in his house when he was almost always busy with work and poured a couple fingers into his Ovaltine.

“You know, you’re supposed to put schnapps in Ovaltine, McCree,” said Angela as she came up beside him with her own mug.

“I figured I’d make it a little more America s’all, darlin.”

“Uh-huh,” said the Doctor as she grabbed the bottle from his hands and poured some into her own drink. “You’d better put this away, Jack doesn’t take too kindly to ozzers sneaking some of his own supply.”

Jesse put the bottle back in its hiding place and the two turned around, leaning their elbows on the counter and taking in the rest of the party. Lena had managed to convince Winston to get on the impromptu stage with her to start an interesting rendition of Jingle Bell Rock. To his credit, Winston only looked slightly uncomfortable.

“So, did you look?”

“Oh come on, Angela. You don’t believe me?” asked Jesse, a mock-pained look on his face and his hand pleadingly pressed against his chest.

Angela gave the Cowboy a long appraising look before coming to her conclusion, “I suppose I do.”

The two stood in amiable silence, taking sips from their warm drinks and enjoying Lena and Winston make fools of themselves. As their song came to an end, Jack and Gabriel jumped up with them, motioning that they keep their place. Gabriel turned around and searched the crowd.

He’s still wearing those ridiculous antlers.

But he seems to be really enjoying himself!

Gabriel finally found who he was looking for, immediately making a face at Jesse and Angela, pointing at them both before rather aggressively motioning for them to join him and the rest for a carol.

Dammit.

“Dammit,” said Angela. The two put back the rest of their Ovaltine and started making their way to join the four others. When they got there, Jack and Gabriel motioned for the group to get into a huddle.

“Gabe, this is ridiculous,” said Jesse in a whisper.

Wait, why are you whispering?

I don’t know, it’s a huddle.

“Shush your mouth, McCree,” said Jack.

“Hey now, Jack, he’s Blackwatch. Only I get to talk to him like that,” said Gabriel. “Hush your mouth, McCree.”

Lena let out a little snicker at that and the others smiled before Gabriel brought their attention back into focus, “We’re going to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

“Does this have anything to do with your antlers, love?” asked Lena.

“What it has to do with is being an absolute Christmas classic, Miss Oxton,” responded Jack.

Jesse and Angela groaned a little bit, Winston, surprisingly, appeared to be totally on board. The Gorilla apparently had taken to caroling after singing with Lena.

The gang huddled for a moment, seemingly unsure on what to do next, “So, are we supposed to shout ‘Break!’ and clap our hands?” asked McCree

“Don’t be ridiculous, this isn’t football,” responded Morrison, before hitting a button on a remote that had seemingly materialized out of thin air. The opening beats of the song started coming through the house’s speakers and their huddle fanned out, the six of them lining up with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

They were surprisingly good, Winston and Gabriel providing a good bass for the others to work off of while Angela and Lena harmonized. The rest of the party quickly joined in and the house filled with Christmas Cheer.

The party moved seamlessly into another carol when Lena grabbed Jesse’s hand and pulled him to the side, “Well, I think we’ve had enough of this party, don’t you think?”

Yes.

Hell yes.

“I guess so, Darlin,” replied Jesse. “What’re ya in such a rush for?”

“Just thinking about that kiss earlier, is all,” said Lena in her worst Southern drawl as she batted her eyes. “Now come on, back to my place.

The couple stealthily made their way out the front door and raced through the snow back towards Lena’s quarters. Once inside, the two kicked the snow loose and made their way towards her couch. Lena took great care to ensure her newly framed picture of the two of them was placed perfectly before she turned the lights off and switched her monitor over to a crackling fire.

Lena climbed onto the couch and snuggled herself into the Cowboy, Jesse putting an arm around her. The two shared a lingering gaze before leaning into each other and sharing another passionate kiss. When their lips finally parted, Lena’s half-lidded look was back as she bit her lip.

No need to sneak off now, Cowboy.

Merry Christmas.

[shimatomo]

tagged by @chlance (Thank you so much for including me in your tags. I'm very happy to answer. It makes my day. Btw, you haven't added me to your DW and I'm convincing myself you unintentionally skipped my request comment.) Name: Nickname: real life - Pu, TOKIO comm - Shimatomo
Birthday: Gender: female
Sexuality: 
Height: 160cm, but have been measured 159cm during the last two years. Must be something wrong with the measurement.
Time zone: GMT +7
What time & date it is there: 9:54 PM, 10 Jan 2017
What time & date it would be in Antarctica: no idea
Average hours of sleep I get each night: about 6-7 weekdays, 8-9 weekends
RL OTP: What's RL OTP?
Other OTPs: Really, What's OTP? Don't call me stupid. I'm just new to this. XD
The last thing I Google’d was: "お迎えデス" the drama I got to watch on GEM last Sunday
My most used phrase/s: "I'm full."
First word that comes to mind: Tomo (of course)
What I last said to a family member: "Umm."
One place that makes me happy and why: Home, the only place I can be 100% myself and hated by no one How many blankets I sleep under: usually 1, and 2-3 during winter (like now)
Favourite beverage: still water, Ovaltine or cocoa with cold milk
The last movie I watched in the cinemas was: 世界から猫が消えたなら (If Cats Disappeared From the World)
Three things I can’t live without: Family, trees, TOKIO
Something I plan on learning: Stock (inspiration from Big Money) and Japanese (in progress)
A piece of advice for all my followers: TOKIO fans should stick together no matter what.
You all have to listen to this song: TOKIO's Tokyo Drive and its PV My blog/s: @shimatomo tags: @jumpy6 (I saw Lance tagged you already but this tag is just to honor you as a friend of mine :)) @tomoyatom47 (Thank you for following me. Hope we can be friends.) @kanpaifighto (Thank you for your reply. Hope we can be friends, too) That is all because I'm still new here so yoroshiku. :)

[lifeisintheleaks]

Are dining tables that are bigger than the family a sad affair?

I do not know if it is the remnants of daydreaming from my childhood, or merely my fantasies of what ‘my place’ one day will look like, but furniture is family. Just the same as photo frames and ugly Diwali gifts, we forget the people inside them, but sometimes we forget living breathing family too, so it is okay. But the walls, they speak, not just listen. The floor, the distance, and the closeness, it is as alive as the people on it in those old Japanese paintings. My mother says most of the furniture is hers and I see the resemblance, there is a hidden drawer inside the hidden stool inside the dressing table, always more than what meets the eye. And yet now that she has her own room, it has just my chopped-up study desk as a bookshelf and a tiny dressing table that I cannot recall  where it is from, must be someone else’s old thing.

But furniture is family too, a weird sort of family, full of everyone who touched it I suppose. Sometimes we remember the oddest stuff. Like, for example, the sofas originally in the drawing room when I was little, had flat armrests and I could walk on them, from one sofa to the next when I played floor is lava. And now when the second season on Netflix is getting boring but it is not worth the time and trouble to find something else to watch, they never let my elbow slip. And when I notice that, I remember playing the floor is lava. And I kind of want to test if they can still keep me up for a second. But it takes touch, to get there, to that thought, that feeling, that memory. But I suppose that is what furniture is for.

Imagine an X, that is the lobby. On one side, one end of the X is the living room and the other the dining room, and on the other side, one end is the drawing room, and the other leads to the two master bedrooms. The kitchen is nestled between the living room and the dining room, only entered through the latter. Not very many doors in the house, there is a shelf that separates most of the kitchen and the dining area. Now here is the ritual.

Me and mom head out early for lunch, she cooks, I lay the table. Which is pointless because mostly everyone just serves from the kitchen. But it is not my job to question this. It is a table for six, and I have grown from peaking at the tabletop to having to bend down to put the salad on it.  And then I call my father, nani reaches the table at dot 1:30, unless she fell asleep at noon. There is four of us. Used to be three before nani got stuck with us when quarantine happened. She sits on the far end of the table, first to the seat. Dad loiters around and I help mom until she has made our rotis and we sit opposite each other. We are halfway done when mom clears everything up in the kitchen and sits down at the closer end to eat. She faces nani, regrettably far away, and I face papa, regrettably not that far away. I think it is her extremely clever strategy to miss out hearing the weird tense silences and her pet peeve, my dad’s significantly audible eating. Understandable but excruciating because I do not have a strategy yet.

I do not particularly feel hunger. When my stomach hurts, I guess what it could be. If you are a girl who loves junk food, there can be a lot of reasons. I do not particularly enjoy eating. When things taste exceptionally good, I indulge myself to two rotis. I do not particularly enjoy cooking. By time I realize I am hungry, I am not patient enough to cook. The dining table is a place I hate to be at. As a table, I like it, I associate it with gift unwrapping or New Year Parties where there are too many people to fit at the table. But that is when it becomes just another table between my mother’s kitchen and my father’s seat. But when it is for dining, I cannot sit at it. Maybe because I cannot use my phone when the dreadful silence is making it too boring for me to chew. Or because I have to talk. Or because I do not particularly like the food we have at lunch. Mostly it is the chewing, and the very fact that I am supposed to sit through it. The dining table becomes that irritating relative at weddings who absolutely must know when you plan to get married and you can only politely laugh so many times before coming out of the closet and sinking relations with the only financial support you have as of now.

It took me leaving the table to understand food. College can be comfortably brutal, like that one ex we drunk text. It took me a while to understand what sustenance is. I know that I preferred eating when I was alone but when that is not feasible, friends make it easier to go through. When your stomach is churning because of deadlines, people force you to eat and talk about anything but work. If it still is not worth it, you can leave, in fact you do not even have to ask. There is no more “how is the food?”, “what are you doing these days”, “put the phone down and talk (but no talking please)”. It is just you and food. And sometimes, it is making cup noodles in the room with more junk food but also that orange that the roommate got and some hot chocolate you can make while binge watching Fleabag on your laptop. Sometimes it is having hard weeks until your friends come in and take stock and put milk powder, sugar, slated peanuts, and Ovaltine in a cup with a bit of water and feeding you homemade Ferrero Rocher’s. Dining is other people, but you get to be alone with the food. It takes growing up to develop a taste.

I am home, for the entirety of 2020 by the looks of it. And sustenance has gotten a bit banal again. But sometimes, I go to the kitchen, I do not turn the dining table lights on, and I fry an egg all alone, trying to figure out how much salt, it is my first time frying an egg. I made my toast how I like it. And I stand by the stove and eat it there. My legs would not mind sitting down but I eat standing in the kitchen all alone and it is mostly silent save for the night. And I think about my own kitchen. I think I won’t have a dining table when I have my own place. I take another bite, it’s a bit chewy and not enough salt. I shift my weight on the other leg. Well okay, maybe a very small table, enough for a plate and a half, and a chair. I take a swig of coke to wash the toast down. Maybe two chairs.

Maybe a dining table with more chairs than the family is not a bad thing as long as you have a place at it.

[dorkforty]

So it has not been a great month here on the nerd farm. First I had the Cold from Hell, then we had a family emergency, and while that was going on, a friend of mine died. And now, our social media has been hacked, and I’ve had to deal with that instead of writing this week’s column. So, yeah. To say that I’m feeling less than motivated to review a bunch of funnybooks in the dwindling time I have left before this week’s deadline… might be an understatement. Still, though… I wanna do SOMEthing. So let’s see if we can’t at least discuss the one comic from last week that everybody’s talking about…

House of X 1 by Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz

So, wow. This is some crazy shit.

That’s pages one and two of this book, and… What the hell’s going on there? That’s Charles Xavier in the helmet (or that’s what we’re lead to believe, anyway). And coming out of the pods are… Well, they look an awful lot like the original X-Men, don’t they? But… Uhm…

What the hell’s going on there?!

That’s not a question Jonathan Hickman answers in this issue, of course. That scene isn’t referenced again at all, in fact, and on the next page, events jump back five months to show us how the new X-Men status quo got started.

Oh, by the way, this is the book that sets up Jonathan Hickman’s new X-Men status quo. Because, if you didn’t know, Hickman’s taking over X-Men. And he’s launching his run with two interlocking bi-weekly mini-series that will run into the Fall: House of X (which is about Professor Xavier establishing a new mutant nation on the sentient mutant island of Krakoa), and Powers of X (which is set ten years in the future, and that’s all we know because it doesn’t start until tomorrow).

Anyway. Even if you put that “Pod-Men” scene out of your head (not that you could, really), it’s quite clear from this first issue that this thing simply CANNOT end well. Xavier’s plan is quite public, and quite bold, and it involves getting diplomatic recognition for Krakoa (and, one would assume, eventual membership in the UN). It also involves growing Krakoa habitats in several key locations around the world. Habitats that offer instant transportation between Krakoa proper and… wherever they’ve planted Krakoa flowers. The fact that they’ve already planted such flowers not only on the site of the Xavier school, but also in capital cities like Washington DC and Jerusalem, has made people a trifle uneasy.

Then, of course, there’s the guy Xavier’s put in charge of diplomacy:

Yeah, that’s a red flag right there. And the fact that Hickman chose to put the “Mutants have never started a war” speech in THAT guy’s mouth should tell us all that there’s more going on here than the benevolent surface gloss. Because Magneto has more or less tried to do exactly that, more times than I care to count. And he caps off that rather disingenuous speech by telling the gathered ambassadors, “YOU HAVE NEW GODS NOW.” So I don’t really blame the human governments of the world for being wary. That’s some scary shit.

SO scary that operatives from organizations as disparate as SHIELD, SWORD, AIM, Alpha Flight, and Hydra have joined together in an attempt to defend humanity from Xavier’s New Dream. Their plan involves a giant Sentinel Master Mold floating somewhere out in space, and it’s called…

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Ah, you gotta love Jonathan Hickman. Peppering his funnybooks with attractively-designed charts and text that take the place of laborious expository dialogue. I would much rather get this kind of background straight from original documents like these than have them sandwiched into awkward, “nobody-talks-like-that” conversations. There’s a number of these things scattered throughout the issue, and they include maybe my favorite bit of Hickman X-ephemera: the mutant alphabet.

Because, yes, the Krakoan nation has developed its own written language, to further cement the idea of a shared mutant culture. New citizens of Krakoa are taught it telepathically upon arrival. Humans aren’t taught it at all. But it’s also peppered throughout this issue, on the title page, on some of Hickman’s graphic design pages, and in the story itself. Hickman also released a couple of cryptic messages written in the language prior to the book’s release, and all of that has made it possible for some enterprising fans to come up with a key:

“Drink… your… OVALTINE?!”

I’m not sure who put this one together, but it’s almost complete, and makes sense when I apply it to the text in the issue, so it’s the one I’m going with for now. It’s not absolutely necessary to understand the code, of course. You can read and enjoy the issue without it (I certainly did). But it is an awful lot of fun, and that’s something we could do with a bit more of in our super hero comics

Which is good, because “fun” is the operative word with House of X in general. Not that it’s a light, breezy, jokey read or anything. It’s not. But I was about halfway through the comic (exactly halfway through, now that I look at it) when I just started laughing. Not because anything was funny, but because I was having so damn much fun reading it. This first issue is just great pulpy bullshit, surprising and imaginative and just freaking weird. I mean… There’s A SENTIENT ISLAND and POD PEOPLE and SECRET CODES and A SPACE STATION MADE OUT OF A GIANT ROBOT HEAD!

How can I not love that?

Crazy Pulpy Fun: House of X Satisfies So it has not been a great month here on the nerd farm. First I had the Cold from Hell, then we had a family emergency, and while that was going on, a friend of mine died.

[markspeedjnr]

How to build bridges

"Wait two secs, Dad; I haven't got my wallet." Despite lengthy preparations to ensure a smooth departure, it just wouldn't be the same if we were away on the first attempt. Although I can't see him as I make my way back inside, I know Dad is  shaking his head and frowning; he's going to tell me once again that I should keep my wallet in my pocket. Minutes later, after locating my wallet somewhere, I'm dancing spasmodically into his Fairlane Ghia, the quintessential Australian Executive's car, slapping my chest and pant-pockets as one final check I have all I need. Dad knows I like to drive his car.  It's not often that I get to drive a car built in the 1990's,  so he lets me drive it at any opportunity. Perhaps he thinks it will motivate me to get a real job, one that will enable me to afford a real car. As I have two hours of driving ahead of me, I adjust the seat, steering wheel and mirrors and press play on the CD player. Finally, we're on our way. * * * You wouldn't suspect by my face and accent that I have a name that's close to unpronounceable. Go on, try it; “Olszewski". Phonetically; "Ol-shev-skee", not "Ol-zoo- skee" or “Ol-ze-wez-skee" or any other derivative you pull out of that Anglicised linguistic lucky-dip. Just in case you were wondering; it's Polish. Sometime during Primary School, I started using the nickname “Ozi"; covertly stolen from my cousin, John. I idolised John because he was a footballer, a drummer and an Olszewski. All his mates called him "Oz" so, from then on, all my mates called me  “Oz".  As I was only nine or ten at the time, the theft of my cousin's moniker was puncalculated. But retrospectively, it was an attempt to hide my otherness. First names didn't exist  in Primary School and my surname just didn't cut it. I was true blue. I had blonde hair, blue eyes and olive skin. At lunchtimes, I played footy with kids who had names like Christie, Linley, Sutcliffe and Wilson. Somewhere else in the schoolyard, boys with names like Moratis, Georgio, Karifilowski and Ligavic played soccer. They were wogs. They had brown eyes, dark hair, weird lunches and surnames like mine. I wasn't a wog; do I look like a wog? But because of my name, not including the time I had the shit kicked out of me  by five Greeks, I was never a skip, either. * * * "Come on, come on Sardoola! Come on! Please." It is September the 1st 1939. Irena, a girl less than a month shy of eleven years old finds herself, at her father's request, dragging the family cow up an unsealed road towards a paddock recently inherited by her family. Her Grandfather, her Dziadek, is Mayor of Krasna. Krasna is the Polish word for beauty, but it is also a minuscule village that lay on hilly plains in the county of Kielce, around 250 kilometres south of Warsaw. The Mayor was perhaps alarmed at the rate at which his son's family was growing. In the eleven years since his son's marriage, the boy had already fathered six girls and, what's more, there was another baby on the way! "Well, if you chop wood, chips fly." the Mayor would tell his son and daughter-in-law, but it was of no use - he generously passed on a small plot of land. Only trouble is, the paddock is  miles from the farm,  and  poor Irena is struggling with the crowa, begging, dragging, grunting and  coaxing  it with clumps of grass to the  point of exhaustion.  It is because Irena is the  eldest of the children that she has  been given the difficult task of convincing Sardoola that she is not being dragged to slaughter but to a high hill of lush grass. It is the start of autumn, but the day feels like summer; nothing but heat, cloudless sky and the sound of insects in the light but constant breeze. The girl stops to rest. Peering across the plains, enveloped by green, she sees in the distance the Church tower of Krasna, the bridge over the River Tilica, the Swietrzyskie mountain range and  the train line leading to places she's never been. *  * * I was in Europe last year. I lived in London and from there I managed trips to Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam and Munich. Sadly, I didn't have the time or money for Warsaw or Kielce or Krasna.  In my dreams,  I would have dropped in on distant relatives for a lunch of pierogi and kapoosta on my way from Scandinavia to the east. It wasn't to be.  Poland remains a figment of my imagination. *  * * "You know,  you really should keep your wallet in your pocket, Son." "Yeah,  I know Dad, but occasionally I might change the pants I'm wearing. Unfortunately, I have a habit of losing my wallet in that small yet scary fragment of space and time between pants." Dad  doesn't reply.  He's said it before.  He'll say it again.  I'll lose my wallet  again. We 're on our way to Ballarat. More impressive (or is that oppressive?) freeways aside, I must have sat through the subtle delights of Victoria's Western Highway between Melbourne and Ballarat hundreds of times.  The majority ofthese trips were taken during my childhood; Mum and Dad up-front of an orange Volvo Station Wagon, my three sisters bickering across the backseat over which music should be played, me in the back on the  floor or bench-seat dreaming of drums, football and Babka's big green tin of Milo (Mum only let us drink Ovaltine or Akta-Vite; "Milo is junk  food!"). After battling through the inner city, we saunter through Footscray towards Sunshine. 'I feel like I could do this drive with my eyes closed," I say to Dad just as a car in front of me slams on the anchors. I follow suit and come close to clipping its backend. "Looks like you already are." he responds. *  * * Irena closes her eyes and points her face towards the sun.  All she sees is red, but she listens. The insects appear to be growing louder. Or is that something else? She is shocked from her solitude with the realisation that the bug sounds have been replaced by the less restful drone of low flying planes. The planes are actually far away, an unthreatening distance, possibly ten kilometres, yet Irena is scared, for planes were not a common sight at Krasna. It is only when the bombs start to drop that she becomes thoroughly terrified. She makes for home, convinced her father will understand. Sardoola is only slightly more co-operative on the return, but Irena dares not leave her behind. So she struggles on as the planes only grow louder. She cannot help but cry. *  * * I know jack about Poland. Babka and Dziadek did not speak English very well  and I was neither interested nor   patient enough to sit through stories of home. I was much closer to Babka than to Dziadek, but she died when I was ten. Such questions don't occur to children. Dziadek died when I was nineteen. We hardly spoke in the years between. Why is it only now I notice the gap in my identity their passing has left me? My regret for not asking them more is so tangible, I have no choice but to make amends. *  * * I'm not sure why they call it Sunshine, as I've always thought it was one of the dullest parts of Melbourne. Dad, who lived here when he first came to the city, informs me it was named after The Sunshine Harvester Works. The Sunshine Harvester was one of Australia's most famous inventions; almost up there with the Victa mower. It was manufactured here and exported to the world. So great was the global demand for them that, early last century, the works periodically carried the title of "World's Largest Production Line." Then the Americans bought it and turned it into a suburb. Dad worked in Footscray and played footy in Maidstone, so Sunshine was easy and cheap. After the credit squeeze of the early 1960's, there was little if any work in Ballarat for young men, so the move to Melbourne was  more of dire necessity than any country-boy-escapes-to-the-big-smoke-to-make-it-big type of idealism. Soon, we are on the open road just outside Deer Park (Were there once deer grazing here?), and we pass the zebra-stripes ofthe sadly disused but once famous Melbourne Lion Safari Park. When I was small, I would always look out the window in fruitless hope of spotting a pride frolicking beside the highway. Today there's just signs advertising suburbs yet to be built. I reckon they should call one of them Safari.  I'd live there. * * * "Irena, come quickly!" It is Jozef, Irena's father. Her hope for comfort in her father's arms is lost; in all her life, she has never seen him so scared. "Get inside the house! Give me Sardoola!" Irena runs to the house without looking back. All she wants is to cry and hide from the world, be safe by her mother's  side. "Mama, what is happening?!" Karolina too is frozen with fear, and prays aloud for the strength she wants to give her daughter. "I don't know, baby; just go hide with your sisters under the bed. Now! Go! I will be there soon." Irena does not find solace until she is under the big bed, where she finds Helena and Fredrica comforting Daniella and baby Zofia. The four sisters huddle together crying and watching their mother's frantic feet. Karolina is packing for an  escape. * * * Did you know that in the 16th century, in a union of Duchies with neighbouring Lithuania, Poland was a leading power in Europe? No? Neither did I. The union stretched from the Baltic Sea in the west to the Black Sea in the east.  Unlike other barbaric international activity of the period, this union was achieved by diplomacy not war. Together, they controlled the gateway between Europe, Scandinavia, Asia and the Middle East. Poles refer to this period as the "Golden Age", striking cultural, political and social resemblances with Italy's renaissance period. It was also at this time that Poland first gained its reputation as a champion of democracy and liberalism in Europe, introducing an elected monarchy as early as  1572. Parliamentary procedures established in the Sejm, the people's house, required  a unanimous vote. This meant minorities were better recognised and represented than anywhere else in Europe or the East; that buzz-word of the late twentieth century, multiculturalism? These guys had it down pat centuries ago. Nearly every diaspora was represented - more salad bowl than melting pot. So reads The History of Poland, by Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk: "Poles in the wars and centre, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians in the north, Lutheran Germans is Prussia and the western frontier, Orthodox Ukrainians and Belorussians in the east, Moslem Tartars in the east (these are the oldest Moslem communities in the Christian world) alongside the Karaites (a mixture of Khazar and Kiptchatska-Polovetska peoples practising a unique mixture ofJudaism and Islam), and Jews scattered throughout." Not that I've ever heard of Karaites or the Khazar or the Kiptchatska-Polovetska peoples, but there you go. While all this worked in the alliance's favour, it also earned Poland and Lithuania disdain from some parts of the world, labelling the union as a "Paradise for Heretics".  It wasn't long before somebody picked a fight. * * * Cruising out of the suburban sprawl, the little boxes give way to tides of green circled by distant mountains. I imagine County Kielce looked something like this, if not for the neon service-centre-dotted six-lane highway that cuts these plains in half. Dad turns the music off and tunes to the ABC. We just passed Melton, built in the 1960' s as "Australia's first satellite city", which translates to me as "Australia's first unhinged suburb"; it only pre- empted the sprawl. We then continue past Bacchus Marsh, and in-dad's-expensive-car cautiously through Anthony's Cutting, a man-made gash in the  landscape. Before the freeway, single-lane Old Ballarat Road passed through all these towns.  The  drive took longer, but there was more time to take in the sights. Usually it was just a pub, a general store, some sheep, a hay bail, a barn.  But then something would break the monotony - just outside the tiny town of Wallace, two plastic dinosaurs in the middle of a forest. No wonder I loved the trips to Ballarat so much as a child. Maybe there were no lions, but there was always the hope of them. And then there were dinosaurs. And castles, too. Just  you wait and  see ... * * * The planes grow louder. Jozef and Karolina eventually join the girls under the bed of the farmhouse's only bedroom.  Here the Olszewski family stays until the whine of the bombers subsides. Although the planes were close, it appears Krasna has been spared from this blitzkreig. The subdued sound of Autumn returns, as if a bomb had never fallen, but Jozef insists the family stays under the bed while he checks outside. Outside, he finds his neighbour, Mr Kalitzski, looking towards a horizon obscured by smoke and fire. "It won't be long before those German pigs are here, Olszewski. We should take our families and leave. Immediately." Jozef had anticipated his old friend's concern, and Karolina has already packed what food and supplies she could, throwing some bread and sausage, a few utensils, cups and plates into a large milk-pail. But Jozef was not sure how long his family would have to be in hiding. After quickily gathering and calming the children, he asks Karolina to make sure the girls have warm clothes, their shoes and jackets. "Make your way to through the forest behind the house to the next clearing. Wait there for me. I will not be far behind you." "But, where are you going?" "The crowa's coming too." * * * Somewhere between hearing the eleventh and one hundredth replay of Cathy Freeman winning her Olympic Gold Medal, Dad and I talk about Poland. Holding the steering wheel with my right hand, I reach behind the passenger seat,  ("Mark," Dad says the way only a parent can, 'What are you doing!?"), I show him a book I've been reading by Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski. I am not sure who was more surprised; me on hearing Dad had  never read let alone heard of Kapuscinski, or Dad on hearing that I had. I promise to lend it to him one day,  proud of myself that I could introduce him to a piece of Polish literature. As long as I can remember, my Dad would always have a book at arms-length; if it wasn't about sport it was usually a history book - a book about Poland, or a book about war, or a book about war in Poland. Dad never lived in Poland. He'd read the books studiously,  like he was trying to catch up; much like I read them now. * * * I dream up this scenario where Ryszard Kapuscinski is commissioned to write a travel journal in Australia. He visits Melbourne, Ballarat and the dinosaurs near Wallace. But in this particular scene, he finds himself in an outback Aussie pub, exchanging vodka-fuelled ramblings with an indigenous Australian. "Mate, we've been here 40,000 years living peacefully, and the white man rocks up two hundred years ago, takes our land, takes our wives, takes our children, gives me his diseases, gives me his drugs and totally destroys my culture in the process." Kapuscinski is half-drunk, his English a little stunted, but a surly Pole will always go one better. "My friend, five years after those Englishman invaded your land, my land was taken from  my people too. This despite them being welcome to join us in peace centuries before. Back then, Poland would have anyone and everyone. But in the interim, all these men - Turks, Mongols, Cossacks; you name it - invade from every direction. Finally, white men from the north, south and east chop up our land and divide it like pie between them; Austria, this bit, Germany that bit and that other bit for Russia. Borders everywhere, all on or own soil! Poles are slaughtered, raped, assimilated. No Polish books or language, no Polish songs!  We even ended up fighting the world's wars against each other - all for these invaders! - then twenty per cent of our already decimated population is taken to die in Siberia or gassed or shot in the back and bulldozed by the SS, only to leave the few survivors oppressed by a corrupt and undemocratic communist regime. God, we really only got our identity back ten years ago.  So don't even get me started." The Indigenous Australian is a little surprised, perhaps humbled. Kapuscinski has impressed even himself and, satisfied he's had the last word, moves to turn in for the evening. But the Aussie has one up his sleave. "At least the Germans and Russians had the balls to say sorry. Not like our bloody government." A sucker for a heated political conversation, Kapuscinski defeatedly orders another Vodka. *  * * Kryall Castle lies at the base of the wooded Mount Warranheap on Ballarat's eastern outskirts. As a child, I imagined a great King lived behind the blue stone walls. He ruled Ballarat and protected my family. The fantasy ended when, after years of begging my parents, I discovered the blue-stone did not conceal a secret order of Knights, but a mediocre theme park. Yet the walls of Kryall have marked my arrival in Ballarat for as long as I can remember. The extended left sideward glance at its replica towers is an essential part of the journey. Even if just for a second, it takes you to another place. * *  * Irena and the girls are happy to see Sardoola trailing behind their father as he emerges   from the Alder trees. Now the whole family is here. Together, they move deeper into the forest, where they find nearly all the families of Krasna taking refuge. Materialising from a crowd of anxious faces, the Mayor displays a mixture of astonishment and admiration on realising his son's family has a cow in tow. Irena does not remember the last time she saw her father and Dziadek embrace. As the afternoon relents to dusk, the residents of Krasna pull together, pooling food, lighting fires and building shelters while consoling each other with mutual lies. Irena, Fredrica, and Daniella rest that night on moss, peering over a shared blanket at Jozef and Karolina cradling Zofia in the firelight. They fall asleep in a world transformed. On the other side of the forest he had hunted rabbits in as a boy; now, sitting lonely against the trunk of the tree that gave him his name, Wladyslaw Olszewski, Mayor of Krasna, curses through teeth clutched to a smoking pipe. "Another bloody war!  Did you not hear my prayers this morning?!" It is only eighteen years since Wladyslaw got his country back; eighteen short beautiful years in which to work a land blood-stained by the world; eighteen happy and rewarding years to raise a family and community, to celebrate a culture of diversity that, with and without God, had withstood three centuries of occupation and attempted obliteration, only to start again. Like it's starting here. Now.  Not more than five kilometres away, German tanks are rolling through Krasna. *  * * Possibly as some sort of boredom suspension tactic, my parents would often encourage us to give names to the sights we came across on our road trips. Just as you come  down the  last hill to enter Greater Ballarat, there is a rusting, unassuming rail bridge on the right hand side. If you blink, you'll miss it. We called it Babka's Bridge and it has as much if not more significance to me than that coathanger next to the Opera House. So too with Dziadek' s Bridge, on the other side of town. His is the grand white archway that opens Ballarat's Avenue of Honour. Another extended sideways glance. Once again, these naming games were simply a case of kids being kids. We didn't know Babka had caught military trains alone across Germany and Poland at the height of World War II.  We didn't know about all the soldiers that Babka and Dziadek helped during and after. the war. We just named them because they were there, and as far as us kids were concerned, Ballarat was Babka and Dziadek's town. We didn't go to Ballarat to go toSovereign Hill or Euxeka Stockade, we went there to see Babka, Dziadek, our Aunts, Uncles ,cousins and eat Polish food, which we rarely ate at home.  In a way, we were going to our own little Poland, just a few hours drive from home. But there was never any war there. Even on the Avenue of Honour, war was the last thing on our  minds. * * * Kasprzyk has an abridged, though no less arresting version of what happened to Poland in World War II: "Over half a million fighting men and women, and 6 million civilians (or 22% of the total population) died. About 50% of these were Polish Christians and 50% were Polish Jews. Approximately 5,384,000 or 89.9% of Polish war losses (Jews and Gentiles)  were the victims of prisons, death camps, raids, executions, annihilation of ghettos, epidemics, sanitation, excessive work and ill treatment. So many Poles were sent to concentration camps that virtually every family had someone close  to them who had been tortured or murdered there." None of my family died. They don't know anyone who was murdered or tortured in a concentration camp, even the Jewish family that lived in Krasna. I don't know how they did it. * * * At the end of the war, a German munitions train was destroyed on the bridge at Krasna.  One of my distant cousins found a hunk of train in the forest. It must have been a hell of a blast to throw debris that far. Needless to say, the bridge was destroyed. *  * * We arrive at my Uncle John's to a feast of salami and tomato sandwiches. Dad tries some kippers from a can.  I try some of Auntie Danka's pickled mushrooms.  They're ... not bad! We're running late for Auntie Irene's and eating in a fashion that suggests we haven't had  a meal in days. Dad hasn't caught up with his brother in a while and it occurs to me how many of these bonding sessions must have taken place involving sandwiches like this. I've been involved in quite a few of them myself. For some reason, Dad appears younger when he is around John. On a slow drive around Lake Wendouree, we talk about their life in the 50's when they first came to Ballarat, about doing it tough as ''New Australians", about fights and football, about fishing and rabbit shooting, about slingshots, about hiding from the police in the backblocks, about getting away with it. It's all that teenage stuff your Dad did that you wish you had as ammunition when you were a teenager. But it was also about getting through it all and coming out on top. The Olszewski's war didn't end in 1945. Soon we will be at Auntie Irene's. There I will meet Auntie Daniella (Danka) and Auntie Zofia.  There are already a thousand stories racing through my  head, now I will get to hear theirs. * * * In my childhood journeys, Auntie Irene’s would always be the last stop on the itinerary. Her house was like a magnet. Somehow, all the relatives we had visited during the day would regroup in her kitchen and dining room by late Sunday afternoon.  The men would  sit in the dining room and talk in Polish,  smoking cigarettes,  downing shots ofvodka,  and, I can only assume, comparing notes on the gentle art smoking eels, a life-long obsession of Irene's husband, Frank.  The women,  also  smoking, congregated around the kitchen table.mPerhaps for their brother's wives' sakes, they would predominantly speak in English. The conversation would normally revolve around which Olszewski is to be married, or which Olszewski is expecting. This was at a time when I knew everyone of my cousins. We would all play together at family gatherings, enough of us for a backyard cricket match that would last hours. But as the family grew and multiplied, as cousins had second cousins, and second cousins got married and had third cousins, it became increasingly hard to keep up.  Now, I have cousins I have never met.   Olszewskis are very good at chopping wood; at making chips fly. * * * I'm sitting at Irene's kitchen table, drinking beer and stealing full strength Marlboro's from John.  Irene floats around the kitchen preparing yet more sandwiches. The smoke is thick and my Dad complains, eventually giving in and having a cigarette himself. Irene takes a seat commenting on how thin I look.  Again. For the next four hours, I am taken back to Krasna. I feel the sun on my face. I see the  hilly plains and the church tower. I see a young girl leading a cow. I hear the insects and then the planes. I see the falling bombs and the frightened citizens. I hear my family's cries.  I escape with them to the forest. * * * I only tell this story because my family survived. How they did it would fill hundreds of pages; another story to be told. This story is about my journey, a journey to the self. It's also about a lesson learnt - never tear a bridge down unless you know how to rebuild  it. Just one more thing;  don't call me "Oz" anymore. My name is Olszewski.