#I literally invented him for one chapter but now he has a major role in my worldstate

[anderstrevelyan]

Tagged by @delicatefade to make my OCs in this picrew—

I only really have one OC in the Hero of Ferelden/Hawke/Inquisitor sense (my Hawke is spinning in my brain—she’s still cooking), so here’s an Anders, Garrett Amell, and Garahel Surana.

Though physically Surana is one of the NPCs walking around the apprentice dorms in the mage origin—he’s the one who asks if you’ve seen Jowan, because he’s been acting strange lately.

And an open tag to anyone else who wants to do this!

[veale2006-blog]

The Truth of Genesis: The Seven Feasts Of Yehovah, Part 1. July 23, 2024 It is bad enough that evolutionists and humanists don’t know, or don’t admit to, the truth of the origins of our universe, Earth, and modern mankind. Dogs will be dogs. They purposely deny the truth, to try to give credibility to their false religion of Atheism. Their future fate is already known. But what is sad is that “so called” creationists (mainstream) are not much better. Their only asset is that they acknowledge Yehovah as the Creator. Yet they do a very poor job of conveying what Genesis is telling mankind. They invent different false doctrines, trying to convey to others that they know what story the first chapter of Genesis is saying, and they all are so wrong.

I have come to the belief or understanding that Yehovah performs many things in association of the feasts that He instructed Israel to keep. Instead of using the word “feast”, which might make you think of a banquet, so it is better to use the words “appoint times”, or moadim. This seven part series (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7A, 7B, 7C, 7D, 7G) will attempt to give an intermediate understanding of the appointed times, and how they play a part in creation, salvation, and final disposition.

I would encourage all to obtain a copy of the “Creator’s Calendar” from Michael Rood’s website, along with “The Chronological Gospels: the 70 Week Ministry of the Messiah”, and its companion chart. You will learn and understand more about Yeshua (Jesus) than just reading the gospels in the King James’ bible. My husband hope to meet Mr. Rood one day, and convey to him the truth of salvation. As of now, he is like Apollos, being mighty in the scriptures, teaching diligently the things of the Lord, contending for, but not understanding, the “faith once delivered to the saints”.

Getting back to current creationists, they are such a sad lot. The “young Earth” creationists deny reality, and are hypocrites when it comes to “literal interpretation” of the first chapter of Genesis. They insanely try to establish the flood of Noah as an explanation to the geologic data of Earth, and their foolish doctrine of our Earth only being 10,000 years old. To me, their approach borders on lying, trying to “defend” Genesis.

On the other side, the “old Earth” creationists acknowledge the truth of Earth’s ancient past, but at the cost of denying the literal truth of Genesis chapter one. I consider them to be “infidels”, in their approach in trying to defend Genesis. These are the “Day/Age”, progressive creationists, theistic evolutionists, and gap theorists. They are all trying to manipulate the scriptures in order to try to agree with known scientific reality. That’s the wrong approach.

In December of 1993, it was revealed to my husband how to view the seven days of Moses. He then understood what Moses was being shown, except that he have yet to understand what was occurring on the second day.

Perhaps Moses was not very descriptive. However, these twenty two plus years, the Clergy and the world of Theology has kept the truth of Genesis away from the people, being an ally of the atheists and evolutionists. I’ve never understood why they would rather teach false and foolish doctrines, rather than allowing the truth to be given. But in my opinion, come Judgment Day, they are going to pay.

My husband been away from the literary circuit, trying to convey the truth of scripture to certain of those outside of America (Liberia). It occupies most of his allotted free time. So if you have not seen any new articles on “The Truth of Genesis” lately, that is the reason why. But ever so often, he will try to publish segments of this series, in the hopes that it will be informative and a blessing to those that read them.

In part two, we will discuss the first of the seven appointed times, and the major role it plays.

[scorpionyx9621]

Do you think Jason Todd fandom is kinda toxic? Because it seems like NO MATTER what DC do, there'll always be complains. Forget the bad adaptation like Titans. Even Judd Winick cannot escape the criticism with how he potrayed Robin!Jason. They just never satisfied.

SORRY, IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RESPOND TO THIS. I just moved from Washington D.C. to Seattle, which, for my non-American friends, that's 4442km away. And I DROVE THERE ALL BY MYSELF. And now I'm trying to find new work in a new city and trying to stay mentally healthy and positive. Life is exciting but hard and scary.

*sighs*

As someone who was a fandom elder with V*ltr*n. I've seen some of the worst when it comes to fandom behavior. I'm talking people baking food with shaving razors and trying to give them to the showrunners. I'm talking leaking major plot details and refusing to take it down unless they make their ship canon (I am looking at you, Kl*nce stans) For the most part, DC Comics has had a decades-long reputation of treating their fans like trash and not caring what they think so from what I've seen, we all just grumble and complain in our corners of the internet about how we don't like how X comic portrays Jason Todd.

The challenge with Jason Todd is that he's your clinical anti-hero, the batfamily's Draco in Leather Pants, he's a jerkass woobie, and on top of all of that, he's a Tumblr sexyman. It's a perfect storm for a very fun but frustrating character to be a fan of. It doesn't help that every writer decides to re-invent the wheel every time Jason comes up so his canon lore is confusing at best and inconsistent as a standard.

I guess starting with a general brief on who Jason is and what is uniform about him with every instance he's appeared in comics/media.

Grew up in a poor family in Gotham with a dad who was a petty-mid-level criminal, and a mother who dies of a drug overdose.

Survives on the street on his own by committing petty crimes and potentially even engaging in sexual acts to keep himself alive.

Is cornered by Batman and taken in after Dick Grayson quits/is fired

Becomes the second Robin, but is known for being the harsher, more brutal Robin.

Is killed by Joker after being tortured, but somehow comes back to life and regains senses through the Lazarus Pit

Resolves himself to be better than Batman by basically being Batman but kills people.

Where there has been a lot of conflict in the fandom is the fact that Jason Todd is not a character that is written consistently. DC Comics loves to go with the narrative that Jason was "bad from the start" and was the "bad robin" when, yes, he has trouble controlling his anger, but he also still is just as invested in seeing the best of Gotham City and trying to be a positive change for the world as any other DC Comics hero.

Where I get frustrated with the fandom is its ability to knit-pick every detail of a comic they don't like while completely disregarding everything that makes the comics great and worth it to read. My example being Urban Legends. To which most people had pretty mixed reactions to. I was critical of the comic at first but as it went along I ended up really liking it. I have a feeling DC Comics went to Chip Zdarsky and told him he had 6 issues to bring Jason back into the Bat Family, and honestly he didn't do a bad job. Did it feel rushed? Absolutely. I wish there was more development of Jason and Bruce's characters and their dynamic as a whole. However, where I see a lot of people being angry and upset with Urban Legends is that they feel Zdarsky needlessly wrote Jason as an incompetent fool who needs Bruce to save him.

Whether or not that was the intention of Zdarsky is up to debate. However, and this may be controversial, but I don't think he wrote Jason Todd out of character at all. For as fearsome, intimidating, and awesome as Red Hood is. Jason is a character who is absolutely driven by his emotions. Why do you think he donned the role of Red Hood? As a response to his anger towards The Joker for killing him, and towards Bruce for not taking action against The Joker and for seemingly replacing him so quickly after he died. Jason didn't care about being the murderous Robin Hood or for being the bloody hammer of justice against N*zi's and P*d*ph*les. He only cared originally about making The Joker and Bruce pay. It wasn't until he trained under the best assassins in the world and realized most of them were horrific criminals who trafficked children and were p*dos that Talia began to realize that the teachers that she sent Jason to train under started dying horrific and painful deaths.

The entire story of the Cheer story in Batman Urban Legends was started because it finally forced some consequences upon Jason. Tyler, aka Blue Hood's father was a drug dealer who gave his supply to his wife and kids. And when Tyler's father admitted he gave the drugs to Tyler, it immediately made him fall within the self-imposed philosophical kill-list of Jason Todd. And Jason, well, he proceeds to kill Tyler's father. When this happens, Jason is in shock. Tyler's dad fit the bill to easily and justifiably be killed by Jason. We've never seen Jason having to deal with the consequences of being a murderous vigilante on a micro-level. When Jason realizes what he's done in that he's murdered Tyler's dad, he's shocked. He tells Babs the truth. He does a rational thing because he's in shock. He doesn't know what to do, he never has had to face the consequences of his actions as Red Hood and now the gravity of befriending a child as a vigilante hero who kills people just set in when he killed the father of the same child he was just introduced to.

(Oh here's a little aside because it had to be said, Jason would not have been a good father or a good mentor to Tyler and absolutely should not have been his new Robin. Jason is a man who is in his early 20's (not saying men in their early 20's can't be good fathers at all) who is a brutal serial killer using the guise of a vigilante anti-hero to let him escape most of the law. the complications of having the man who murdered your father adopt you and make you his sidekick are way too numerous for me to explain in a long-winded already heavy Tumblr essay post. There's a reason why we don't advocate for a story where Joe Chill adopted Bruce Wayne or one where Tony Zucco took in Dick Grayson.)

The next biggest argument is that they feel that Jason is giving up his guns as a means to just be invited back into the Bat-Family. To which I will tell anyone who has that argument to go actually read Urban Legends. Already have and still have that argument? Please re-read it. Don't want to? That's okay, I will paste the images from the comic where Jason specifically says that he doesn't want to give up his weapons for Bruce and his real reasoning down below since the comic isn't exactly readily accessible.

Jason gave up the guns because he felt the gravity of what he had done and knows how it'll effect Tyler. Thankfully his mom is alive and in recovery. But Tyler doesn't have a father anymore. And Jason killed Tyler's father. It may have been in accordance to Jason's philosophy, but it was a case where it blurred the lines. Jason Todd isn't a black and white character, just very dark gray. He doesn't kill aimlessly like the Joker. If you are on Jason's list you probably have done something pretty horrific, and also just in general, being in his way or being a threat to him. Mind you, in early days of Red Hood and the Outlaws (Image below) Jason almost killed 10 innocent civilians in a town in Colorado all because they saw him kill a monster. That being said, Jason isn't aimless in his kills.

(Also can we just take a moment to appreciate Kenneth Rocafort's art? DC Comics said we need to rehabilitate Jason Todd's image and Kenneth Rocafort said hold my beer: It's so SO GOOD)

That being said, the key emphasis in the story of Cheer asides from trying to introduce Jason Todd back into the Bat Family and give an actual purpose for him being there, other than him just kind of being there ala Bowser every time he shows up for Go Kart racing, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, and the Olympic games when Mario invites him, is that Jason and Bruce ultimately both want the same thing. Jason wants to be welcomed back into the family and to be loved and appreciated. Bruce want's Jason back as his son and wants to love and protect Jason. Both of these visions are shown in the last chapter of Cheer while under the effect of the Cheer Gas. It's ultimately this love and appreciation they both have for each other that helps them overcome their challenge and win.

Jason Todd is a character who, just like Bruce, has been through so much pain and so much hate in his life. The two are meant to parallel each other. While Bruce chose to see the best in everyone, giving every rogue in his gallery the option to be helped and give them a second chance, hence why he never kills, Jason has a similar view on wanting to protect the public, but he understands that some crimes are so heinous they cannot be forgiven, or that some habitual criminals are due to stay habitual criminals, and need to be put down. But at the end of the day, the two of them both try to protect people in their own ways.

I am aware that through the writings of various DC Comics authors such as Scott Lobdell and Judd Winick, the two have had a very tumultuous relationship. And rightfully so, I am by no means saying that Scott Lobdell writing an arc where Bruce literally beats Jason to within an inch of his life in Red Hood and the Outlaws, nor Judd Winick's interpretation of Under the Red Hood where Bruce throws the Batarang at Jason's neck, slicing his throat and leaving him ambiguously for dead at the end of the comic is appropriate considering DC Comics seems to be trying everything they can to integrate Jason back into the family. That being said, a lot of these writings have shaped the narrative of Jason and Bruce's relationship and have an integral effect on the way the fandom views the two. It doesn't help that Zdarsky acknowledged Lobdell's life-beating of Jason by Bruce at the very end of Cheer by having Bruce give Jason his old outfit back as a means of mending the fence between the two of them. That does complicate a lot of things in terms of how they are viewed by the fandom and helps to cause an even greater divide between the two.

Regardless, I want to emphasize the fact that Jason Todd is a part of the family of his own accord. Yes, he's quite snarky and deadpan in almost every encounter. However, Jason is absolutely a part of the family and has been for a while of his own will. There's a great moment in Detective Comics that emphasizes this. Jason cares about his family because it is his found family. Yes, they may be warry about him and use him as a punching back and/or heckle him. At the end of the day, we're debating the family dynamics of a fictional playboy billionaire vigilante whose kleptomania took the form of adopting troubled children and turning them into vigilante heroes. Jason Todd wants a family that will love and support him. This is a key definition of his character at its most basic. This was proven during the events of Cheer and is being reenforced by DC Comics every time they get the opportunity to do so.

Now, none of this is to say that I hate Judd Winick. I do not, I don't like the fact that in all of his writings of Jason, he just writes him as a dangerous psychopath, and Winick himself admits to seeing Jason as nothing much more than a psychopath. Yet Winick is the one who the majority of the fandom clings to as the one true good writer of Jason Todd because 'Jason was competent, dangerous, smart' Listen, friends, Jason is all of that and I will never deny it. However, what I love about Jason isn't that he's dangerously smart of that writers either write him as angsty angry Tumblr sexyman bait or that they write him as an infantile man child with a gun. There's a large contention of this fandom that has an obsession with Jason Todd being this vigilante gunman who is hot and sexy and while I definitely get the appeal. It is very creepy and downright disturbing that all of you hyperfixate on his use of guns and ability to be a murderer. It is creepy and I'm not necessarily here for it.

What I love about Jason Todd is that despite all of the pain, all of the heartache, all of the betrayal, and bullying, and death, and anguish. Jason Todd is one of the most loving and supportive characters in all of DC Comics. Jason has been through so much in his life, but he still chooses to love. He still chooses to see the bright side in people. Yes, he takes a utilitarian approach and chooses to kill certain villains, but at the end of the day he wants to see a better world, and he wants to be loved. It takes so much courage and so much heart to learn to love again after one has been abused or traumatized. I would not blame Jason at all if he said fuck it and just went full solo and vigilante evil. He has every right to, but he still chooses to be with the Bat Family of his own accord. That's something that I see a lot of in myself. I have been through a lot of trauma and yet I try to be a better person myself in any way that I can. It is extremely admirable of Jason to allow love back into his heart when he really doesn't need to. He kills and he protects because he has this love of society. It may have been shaped by anger and hatred, but Jason has found his place amongst people who love him and value him. I think Ducra, from Red Hood and the Outlaws put it best in the image given below.

To end this tangent, I love Jason Todd and all of his sexy dangerousness, but it's far more than that. As much as Jason may be dangerous and snarky, he loves his family without a shadow of a doubt. I look up to Jason Todd because despite all of his pain and all of his trauma, he still choses to love. Jason Todd is a character who is someone I love because despite all of his flaws and having a very toxic fandom, he still serves as a character filled with so much heart and so much passion. I wish more writers would understand that. But for now I will live with what I have. Even though the fandom may be vocal about it's hatred for his characterization, I choose to love Jason regardless because he is a character who chooses love and acceptance regardless of his pain. Jason Todd is by no means a good person in any sense of the word. He has easily killed upwards of 100 people by now. He is a character who is flawed and complex but ultimately is one who powers forwards and finds love and heart in a place from so much pain and anguish. That is what I love about Jason Todd. After all, to quote a famous undead robot superhero, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" Jason Todd chooses to love despite all of the trauma and pain and grief. Yes, he is hardened in his exterior, but inside there is a man with a lot of love to give and someone who deserves the world in my eyes.

[lokilickedme]

(Okay, I’m going to do this in probably 3 parts because it’s long)

So The Department sorta happened because I wanted to get back into a regular weekly-updating online fic because, frankly, two reasons:

1) I’m worn out/exhausted/a bit burned out from working on novels and very little of anything else for the last year and a half, and

2) I crave/need the instant validation of the comment section at AO3, which you don’t get when you write a book :/

So I called a break, put away my manuscripts for a couple months, and am just indulging in some fun writing for a little while.  And since I wanted something new (sorry WIPs, your time will come again) this is what we ended up with.

I don’t remember exactly what made me go with the police department premise.  The potential for assholery and rampant egomania, most likely?  Well, you know I love that shit when it hides something slightly more noble underneath...and I think I wanted a big ensemble cast because I just adore the dynamics that can occur in groups of disparate personalities who have known each other for a long time.  That way they interact when they know each others’ secrets and there’s that one person new to the group who isn’t in on any of the jokes?  Good stuff right there.

I do remember that the first ideas for this story came to me during the Professor Jeff’s Super Science Show at the library (yeah your guess is as good as mine on that but it happens literally every time).  But if I’m being honest, I’d say it probably had more to do with Benny Hill than anything.  I have this bad habit of sitting on the couch with my laptop on my knees, headphones on, head back, inventing scenes in my head that go along with whatever music I’m listening to.  I’ve got this one insane playlist full of goofy tunes my 7-year old has requested for staging Thomas The Tank Engine crash scenes (don’t ask) and on this particular night that’s what I was listening to because why not.  On that playlist is a 30-minute loop of the Benny Hill Theme.  And all I could see in my head was a foot chase on ice and snow between a female officer, an out of shape Chief of police, a giraffe-legged office assistant, and a probably methed-up wannabe criminal who didn’t actually do anything major but was running anyway because he was bored.  It struck me funny and I toyed with the idea of sticking it into something I already had started, because I do love me some chaotic slapstick.

So the next day I’m driving the boys home from the Super Science Show and I’ve been playing around with it in my head again, and it’s taking shape into something that I know I’m going to have to work with.  We pass the Pupuseria Virolena Salvadoran restaurant downtown, and I start laughing because I’m suddenly hearing David Tennant trying to say that in his Scottish accent.

On the spot I named him Hawk and made him Captain.  And now we have one of our characters, and by the time we pull up in our driveway ten minutes later I’ve got stuff needing to be written down right now.

(the rest is under the cut for length)

Chapter 1 - Prologue - Your Boatload of Bad Decisions Has Left The Harbor

I was so anxious to get into the story but it needed an introduction, or else Greta being in this podunk town wouldn’t have any weight.  So we’re introduced to our heroine, who isn’t so much a heroine as just a decent if slightly too self confident special division officer who had some bad luck.  It’s not elaborated on yet in the story, though it’s heavily referenced multiple times that she disobeyed an order and made the decision to continue a high speed pursuit that had been called off by her superior officer, the above-mentioned Captain Hawkins, whom Greta has something of a relationship with (yeah they’re screwing, what of it).  And in the wake of that decision, Greta’s partner is killed and she’s brought up on charges, suspended, ordered to counseling, and finally shipped off to a small town in Minnesota so she can keep working while her final fate is decided by an investigative committee back in LA.

The opening chase scene was written from things I learned when I was a kid and my dad did vehicle tweaks for the Fort Worth police department from his auto shop.  The officers used to hang out drinking Cokes and telling stories while dad made (possibly illegal) modifications to their cars.  I was there a lot, sitting under his work bench with my books and pencils, listening to everything and remembering it all.  And I thought it was so damn cool.  So here we are.  What else was I gonna do with that information?  Might as well put it to use if it’s gonna be taking up real estate in my head for all these years.

For the record, I really liked Greta’s partner Joe and hated to kill him - but we needed a catalyst, and the cheerful best friend who sings Italian arias during chases while joyfully blasting out windshields is always gonna be the loser in the goner lottery.  For once the male hero dies to further the female lead’s storyline.

Heh, take that Marvel.

Anyway, sorry Joe.  There will be more about you in later chapters, so...gone but not forgotten.

Chapter 2 - Minnewhatever

This part starts out with the last bit of backstory we need to proceed.  Hawk sending Greta off to Minnesota, a place whose name she never does remember or say correctly.  She doesn’t figure she’s actually going to be there long enough to bother learning it, but Hawk informs her that her exile is likely to last at least a year, and he gives her very little reassurance that she won’t be serving every minute of her sentence.

Greta’s feeling a little betrayed here.  She and Hawk have been sort of a thing for a while, friends and colleagues and lovers, but he’s washing his hands of the entire situation and she’s left angry and a bit bereft.  But she still figures he’ll do something to get her out of it, if she’s patient and behaves herself in the new place.

Fast forward to day one in Weemeetwa.  While drowning her aggravation in a bottle of the good stuff, Greta meets her first new acquaintance and decides to just go with the cranky fuck-it attitude that she’s been harboring since the incident, gets shitfaced, and goes home with the guy.  This might have been a dual-purpose shag; Greta’s still feeling betrayed and abandoned by Hawk, so it’s a screw-you that he’ll never find out about - but that doesn’t stop it from feeling good in a vengeful sort of way.  Plus it’s cold and she’s alone and the guy - Andy, a tall sweet longhaired cutiepie with an Irish accent - is all too willing to buy her a drink and take her home for some cuddles.

In the morning Greta wakes up in a strange place full of groaning regret and ends up giving Andy a ride to the station.  She doesn’t count on seeing him again, so there’s no breath wasted on goodbyes.

Chapter 3 -  A Logging Truck, A Mountain, and A Blonde Walk Into A Bar

Now we meet most of the department.  Creeley, a gruff roughhouser with a rude streak forty miles wide, Sarah, the only other female in the department and possibly the only person alive who can keep the boys under control, Kevin, the quiet dispatch agent with an impressive mountain impersonation skill, and finally (for the moment) Chief, the slightly too good-looking and highly put-upon boss of them all.

I knew I wanted Tom Hiddleston to play Chief Tommy Davis.  This is Kong Skull Island-era Hiddleston crossed with The Night Manager, with a handful of extra pounds around the middle and a frustrated sigh that goes on forever.  He’s meant to be an ex hockey player who was waylaid on his way to the major leagues, so he’s strong and sturdy, but an injury benched him years ago and a career in small-town law enforcement has put him a bit to pasture.  Middle aged, somewhere between 40 and 45.  He’s got some stuff in his past but he’s happy now, for the most part, just living his life watching over the town.

Jason Momoa is Bobby Creeley, for obvious reasons.  I knew I wanted a rowdy, rude, loudmouthed team member that’s always crossing everyone, but who everyone knows will be there no matter what if anything goes down.  He’s instantly Greta’s nemesis from the moment she walks in the door.  Gigantic and shaggy with a permanently amused nature and a fear of literally nothing, he’s simultaneously everyone’s best friend and worst enemy.

Sarah Lancashire has been finding her way into a lot of my fics lately as side characters, so it’s no surprise she ended up here as Sarah Pearl.  Steely, tough, and highly immune to the idiocy around her, Sarah is the worn out voice of common sense that the department is running perilously short on.  She’s also my first and foremost girl crush, and I’ll admit right now that I wrote an AU ending almost immediately that involved Sarah and Greta ending up together.  It would be natural to assume Sarah would fall into the default role of mom to the group, but there’s a whole lot of oh hell nope wrapped around that trope.  She would set them all on fire if anyone would let her have some matches, but Chief made a rule against that a long damn time ago.

Dave Bautista has been hanging around the back door of my muse stable for the longest, just minding his own business and waiting his turn, but I never really had any place to stick him.  Well Drax, your time has come baby.  I chose him to play Kevin Saylor based on his GoTG scene in which he tries to convince the crew he’s invisible.  And that’s Kevin, in a nutshell.  Huge and intimidating but quiet and intensely matter-of-fact in manner, he’s in charge of dispatch and immediately inspires Greta’s hatred of using the radio.

My first (and really only) faceclaim for Greta Morley was Zoe Saldana, but I waffled briefly for a couple of weeks, trying to cater to a few readers who told me they wanted to imagine themselves in the role.  I planned to stick with that, and I tried, I promise I did.  But every time Greta opened her mouth I heard Zoe, and by the time she went on her less than fleet-footed pursuit of Wilson with the longsuffering Andy by her side, she was locked in.  Greta’s harboring some serious regret and raw emotional wounds from her not too distant past, and some time out in the American Midwest should be a much needed recovery sabbatical.  Should be.  But isn’t gonna.

Speaking of Andy...Andrew Hozier-Byrne was and is the only person I ever considered for the role of Andy Burns.  Too tall, too clumsy, too cute, too sweet, just a whole bunch of too everything - he was perfect for the role and I may or may not have written it exclusively for him.  Okay yeah, I wrote it exclusively for him.  Andy’s the local cryptid, nobody really knows a lot about him.  He may or may not be a drug dealer.  He may or may not be officially employed by the police department.  He may or may not be Irish or hypoglycemic or a blackout drunk or as goofy as he seems.  Nobody really knows, and to be honest nobody really cares, because if you need it done Andy can do it...if he can remember you asked him to do it.

So Greta has arrived, for better or for worse.  Cree immediately starts in with the sexist remarks and butchering her name, a favor she returns by embarking on what will become a neverending trail of obliterated mis-renderings of the town’s name.  Creeley and Kevin kick off another of many running gags by arguing over whether or not anyone knew she was coming, and before things can get too stupid, Chief makes his first appearance.

And now things start to get interesting.

To be continued at chapter 4, Randy Andy and The Chief of Weemeetwa

@whatevervivie

[fuanteinasekai]

Thnx 4 your reply, & I too wondered about that Natsume/Taki moment, Sensei might've tried to give it a spin. But remember this quote? "I feel like I'm chasing characters around with a sketchbook & megaphone" (1st vol) She follows their natural course. She also made sure to show Taki/Tanuma/Smol Natsume act similarly to Taki/Natsume/Kai & tied the stories, Taki: "yes! thats the field we made flower crowns" but Natsume didnt remember her or that moment. Tanuma/Natsume tho? *waves at your meta #1

Hi! I love this ask!!

First, it actually hadn’t occurred to me that the Kai story was chosen as a reference specifically because of the “faux parents” comparison. I assumed it was just because it was the only location besides Taki’s house we had any reference for. But we’ve never actually seen Tanuma fishing, and that was one of his memories, so there’s no reason Midorikawa-sensei couldn’t have made up something similar with Taki. In retrospect, it does seem a little much to be coincidental.

On the one hand it’s slightly worrisome, since Tanuma and Taki have basically negative romantic chemistry in this story, whereas Natsume/Taki was at least plausible. So it could be read as supporting Natsume/Taki through contrast. On the other hand, I’m not sure how you would reconcile that reading with the rest of the story. There’s so much implied intimacy between Tanuma and Natsume, and the cleaning cupboard is an incredibly domestic choice of location for Natsume to recognize. Like, you pretty much have to be a very close friend to be involved in the household on that level, haha. I’m still not ruling out Taki as wife—heteronormativity is a powerful force, and I’m wary of letting my guard down. But yeah.

Second, I love that you bring up her writing style, ‘cause I was literally in the middle of writing about it. I hadn’t actually read that particular author’s note yet, but it’s exactly the impression I got from reading between the lines of her other notes:

描きかた

「こういうシーンのあるこういう流れの話を描きたい」と思って、それに合う子をそこに放り込んで動いてもらう。メガホン片手に追っかけていってスケッチする、という感覚で描いている気がします。特に学生さんのお話は。

そこは右だー、左だーと指示を出しながら追っかけていって、セリフや動きは任せる感じです。なのでネーム中はかなり疲れますが、とても楽しいものでもあるのです。

“The Way I Draw”

“When I think ‘I want to draw a story with this kind of scene and this kind of flow,’ I pick a kid who fits, throw them in and put them to work. I feel like I’m drawing intuitively, as if I were trailing after them with a megaphone in one hand, sketching. Especially in stories about students.”

“I feel like I’m trailing after them while directing, ‘That goes to the riiight, that goes to the leeeft,’ but leave the dialog and labor to them. Because of this, I find the preliminary work exhausting, but really fun.”

This is pretty much exactly what I was getting at with the “Taki test” thing, just reversed. My theory with the Kai story was that she chose a setting and environment where Taki could break through romantically, then dropped her in to see what would happen. So rather than picking a character for the environment, she picked a specific environment in order to give a character an opportunity to evolve in a specific way—and then let it go when that evolution didn’t happen. That’s my theory, anyway.

This is the bit I was already working on:

Midorikawa-Sensei did not originally intend this series to have any sort of character or relationship development or emotional arc. At all.

If you read her early author’s notes, she’s fairly up front of about this. I get the impression she’s basically a folklore nerd who wanted to write stories about yōkai. So she cloned one of her male protagonists, gave him the Book of Friends to justify all his yōkai encounters, and slapped him into a shoujo manga. It was supposed to be a series of independent yōkai stories bound by a single character, much like Mushishi but with a different tone and more strongly centered on existing Japanese folklore. She flat out says this in the author’s notes for the first chapter:

可能なら読切シリーズとして描きたいと本心を担当様にお話しして描いた作品です。

“This is a work I drew while telling [the editor] that I truly wanted, if possible, to draw it as a series of stand-alones.”

*pauses to laugh hysterically*

Shigeru-san was supposed to be “like Columbo’s wife,” always alluded to and never seen. Reiko was just a device to set up the Book of Friends, not a real character. Tanuma was supposed to click with Natsume instantly, without any angst, presumably so that Natsume would have someone to explain things to. If you compare the first twenty chapters to those that followed, you can see how recurring characters used to be mostly in the background, and yōkai dominated heavily. Natori stories were disproportionately common because he (as an exorcist) was part of world-building, and because it was easy to write him and yōkai at the same time. Now these yokai-dominant stories are the exception, rather than the rule. These are all still yōkai stories, of course, but now the yōkai largely serve as vehicles for the stories and emotions of humans.

Unfortunately for Midorikawa-sensei, she’s clearly the type of writer who lets her instincts play a role in her writing. This is visible even without her direct admission. So when characters started acting in unexpected ways, she let them. And now, despite having originally planned absolutely no plot arc at all, she has at least two major ongoing plot threads: the question of Natsume’s grandfather and how it ties to the Book of Friends (possibly separable from “how to return all the names”), and The Thing with Tanuma. 

One of the interesting conclusions we can draw from this is that character-centric stories she’s “wanted to draw for a long time” are not stories she has always wanted to draw. If Reiko was originally just a plot device, then Souko must have been invented later, probably in response to some sort of plot development. *cough*Tanuma-related*cough* To a lesser extent, it’s unlikely that Ito-san was planned from the start, either. Unlike a series that was planned out and structured from the start, we can’t assume that foreshadowing or a particular theme started early. We have to be really careful about what kind of assumptions we make, and about how old our sources are. 

To me that actually makes all this more fun—trying to figure when something changed, when she gave in to a particular theme, and so on. I do think she’s been leaning into the choices her characters have made, but she’s not necessarily up front about when that started, or exactly what that means. It’s an extra challenge.

[douxreviews]

Charmed - Season Two Review

"Our job is to protect the innocent, not punish the guilty."

In a lot of respects, Charmed's second season is stronger that the first. With no real "sophomore slump" to speak of, the series quickly settles into a fantastic run of episodes that make great use of the groundwork laid by the debut season. Spoilers and Gordon bashing ahead!

Season opener 'Witch Trial' is brimming with confidence. There's such an ease to how this season uses each sister, and how they interact has never felt more organic and fun than it does here. Following the previous season's finale, Andy's death is still causing ricochets through the Halliwells' lives, and Prue's struggle to get back on the “witch's saddle” is played really well. There's a heartbreaking monologue in the premiere in which Prue voices her struggles with her ability to do good, when she feels like she's responsible for her first love's death. Shannen was always one of the strongest cast members, and that scene always springs to mind when I think of how great she was in this role. The way Piper and Phoebe comfort Prue in this moment feels so right, too. I love these three gals.

The best of episode of the season (and a series highlight) is 'Morality Bites', an even more affecting hour than the premiere. It features the show's third major brush with time travel – this time to the future – where a decision to punish a guilty man leads to Phoebe literally burning at the stake. Though it relies on some simple ideas, there's a powerful lesson to be learned, with the sisters facing the hard truth behind why they can only use their powers to protect, not punish. That one line always hits me where it hurts: "The wrong thing done for the right reason is still the wrong thing.". 'Morality Bites' is also Alyssa Milano's best work; you can really feel Phoebe's pain throughout. There's a further brush with time travel later on in the season as well and although it doesn't resonate quite as much as 'Morality Bites', there's still a lot of fun to be had. 'Pardon My Past' toys with the theory of past lives and how souls can grow and evolve over time. The hour neatly ties into that recurring theme of Phoebe's latent dark side, a concept that was explored to great effect in last season's 'Woogy' episode. And who can resist an opportunity to dress up the cast in 20's garb?

Season Two also picks up where episodes like 'That '70s Episode' left off, delving further into the intriguing Halliwell family history, notably in 'P3H2O', a powerful chapter that reveals the girls' mother's affair with her former Whitelighter Sam (a twist that becomes quite significant – and very useful for the producers – come Season Four). The episode itself features some beautiful and heart-breaking moments for each sister: Piper falling into her mother's footsteps with Leo and eventually realising that she has to let him go; Phoebe being forced into reliving her mother's final moments in order to stop the demon who killed her; and Prue confronting her fear head on and eventually avenging Patty's death. There are some lighter episodes that make great use of the dynamic performances of the core cast, too. Despite some questionable examples of this ('She's a Man, Baby, a Man'), episodes like 'Astral Monkey' and 'Chick Flick' are a lot of fun, with the latter standing out as one of the best examples of how inventive and sharp the writing team could be when they really wanted to.

What lets the second year down is the introduction of the series' first truly sucky characters: Dan and Jenny Gordon. The latter's brief run of episodes seems to serve very little purpose other than to throw in a younger person's perspective into the series and force Dan into the Halliwells' lives. Her barely explained disappearance after just a handful of episodes seems to indicate some sort of an awareness of how grating a character she ended up becoming. As dull as he is, Dan isn't necessarily as problematic as the storyline he represents; the show's worst love triangle. He's a total bore, but I feel like he's more of a victim of circumstance than anything else, primarily serving as a c*ck-block between Piper and the then well-established Leo, who were clearly the end-game couple of the series. His hasty exit at the close of the season is probably the only reprieve where his arc is concerned, allowing Piper and Leo to properly pursue their love affair, which leads to more threatening, and subsequently more interesting roadblocks in Season Three. I do feel obliged to point out how awful Leo is for a significant portion of this arc. He's unfair, judgmental and forces Piper into some very uncomfortable situations just to prove a point. Give a girl some room! Leo's struggles with his temporary transition back to human form are mildly interesting, though they don't last very long and are drowned out by the melodramatic hoopla of the love triangle.

An unfortunate amount of this season’s run time is spent on Piper's conflicting feelings for Dan and Leo, but we do get some great character work elsewhere. Piper's professional life sees a major overhaul following her decision to quit her job at Quake last season, as she transitions from restaurant manager to club owner. Said establishment, P3, is a fun hub of activity for the girls, and a handy way for the network to parade a multitude of musical guests onto the show. It also feels like the right move for a character who's starting to really come into her own and take control of her life. Prue's deconstruction from the uptight matriarch of the family continues this season, with episodes like 'Ms Hellfire' playing with her wild side. In that regard, her decision to leave her by-the-numbers job at Buckland's to pursue her actual dream of becoming a photographer makes total sense, though it still baffles me how an inexperienced photographer like her managed to worm her way into a job at an established magazine. Phoebe's arc weirdly feels like it's bringing both Prue and her back to some kind of middle ground; just as the eldest sibling starts to let go of her inhibitions, Phoebe makes the decision to start becoming more responsible and actively pursues her unfinished college degree. Gone are the days of the hotel lobby psychic! Like Prue and Piper's arcs, Phoebe's also feels natural and right for her character, and is satisfying for those who have been following her journey since the first episode.

Potions and Notions

Darryl is brought in on the magical secret in 'Ms Hellfire', which thankfully curbs the risk of any repeat of the antagonism the girls faced from a frustrated Andy last season.

Prue is the first sister to develop a whole new power this season; Astral Projection. It's actually a fairly cool advancement and it's used really well.

The Source, the leader of the underworld, is mentioned for the first time in ‘Give Me a Sign’.

Spells and Chants

Phoebe: "The wrong thing done for the right reason is still the wrong thing."

Prue: "I know someone who can see anything." Phoebe: "Oh, no. Wait a minute. You tiptoe around the subject of Mom, you deny looking like her, you can't even go to the end of that dock because you're afraid to walk in her footsteps and now you want me to relive her last moments? How is that fair?" Prue: "It's not. None of this is. Mom's death, Sam's guilt. But I'm asking you to help me end it."

Piper: "Wait, Phoebe, you enrolled? This is huge!" Phoebe: "Hugest thing I've done since I came back home. I mean, aside from vanquishing demons and saving the world from evil, of course."

Billy: “Don’t you just hate exposition?” Phoebe: “Tell me about it…”

Best Episode: Morality Bites.

Honorable Mentions: Witch Trial, P3H2O, Ms Hellfire, Pardon my Past, Murphy's Luck, Chick Flick, Astral Monkey.

Worst Episode: They're Everywhere!

The show's second year is permeated by some drab and drawn out love-life drama, but it's largely a solid follow-up to the show's charming opening season, one that ups the ante and includes several episodes that are among the series' best.

8 out of 10 magic monkeys.

Panda

[summerb4jc]

A Review (With Spoilers™)!

I read The Bad Beginning for the first time in third grade.

Well, technically my third grade teacher served as my reader, a term which here means “an adult who read The Bad Beginning aloud to the class and then refused to read the second book so that any interested third graders would be forced to seek out the next chapter of the Baudelaire’s unfortunate history on our own.” 

Which I did. 

The End, Book the 13th, came out on Friday the 13th the year I was thirteen, and I’ve read the series through almost every year for the past thirteen years. So while the erroneous story of Veronica, Klyde, and Susie put forth by the Daily Punctilio does not interest me, the plight of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire certainly does.

There are those of you who might recall the dark days of this series, in which a well cast, well costumed, and well filmed adaptation of the first three books was released. (Jim Carry as Olaf! Jude Law as the shadowy silhouette of Lemony Snicket! MERYL STREEP as Aunt Josephine!) An adaptation that, despite its strengths, somehow managed to get the story so very wrong that even unsophisticated, 11 year old me could recognize it as a spectacular disappointment.  (You can read my thoughts and feelings on that here.) 

The final season of Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events premiered on New Year’s Day, and I finished it long before sunset. Now that all the books have been adapted, I am here to lend my thoughts. They are as follows:

Bangin.

This show is bangin.

This whole series has blown me away. This adaptation respects the source material while simultaneously elevating the story as a whole, tying together all the threads that were left somewhat loose in the book. Tiny details and easter eggs are sprinkled throughout that weave the episodes together. Changes were, of course, made to translate the story to screen, but the majority of those changes only strengthened the narrative. This is due in large part to Daniel Handler, the man behind the pen name Lemony Snicket, who actually wrote several episodes. This showed that the series wasn’t just an interpretation of the books, but an expanding of the story.

Some examples: The side plots and flashbacks of VFD to help the audience better understand the shadowy organization and the schism itself, the Hook-Handed Man’s bond with the youngest Baudelaire (making him a more sympathetic character and better explaining his eventual defection from Count Olaf), the introduction of Olivia Caliban, who improved and deepened the character of Madame Lulu, the inclusion of some elements from The Beatrice Letters (Lemony’s speech to Beatrice, the letter from his niece), and the fact that we got to see the events that transpired at the opera La Forza del Destino and that those events were essentially what kicked off the schism. We were also, finally, told what the sugar bowl contained.

We were also given a peek into how and why Lemony Snicket came to investigate the sad case of the Baudelaire orphans, how close he came to intervening at a crucial moment, and how much time has passed since the Baudelaire orphans tale had come to an end. The story looped back around on itself. Lemony Snicket, after many lonely years in many miserable hotels wherein his only companion was his trusty typewriter, no longer has to be alone. After so much time spent searching for the children of the woman he loved he finds another Beatrice, his neice, and has a root beer float with his last remaining family member.

Only one change slightly altered the spirit of the story, and this is the moral quandary the Baudelaire’s find themselves in during the later books starting with their first act of true deception in The Hostile Hospital, stealing Hal’s keys. This is followed by their setting Madam Lulu’s tent on fire in The Carnivorous Carnival, the trapping of Esme Squalor in The Slippery Slope,  Count Olaf getting his hands on the Medusoid Mycelium in The Grim Grotto, the burning of the Hotel Denouement in The Penultimate Peril, and finally, not telling Ishmael about the Medusoid Mycelium in The End.

“Now, Summer,” I hear you thinking, “All those things happened in the show as well.”

And, my astute observer, you are not incorrect. These things do happen in the show, but with less moral responsibility for the Baudelaires.

The stealing of Hal���s keys plays out much the same in both the books and movies, but the true deviation begins with The Carnivorous Carnival. In both, Count Olaf takes Sunny before informing a disguised Violet and Klaus that they must burn down Madame Lulu’s tent if they want to come with him to the Mortmain Mountains.

In the show, they weigh their options, the rights and wrongs, before Count Olaf reenters the tent, lights the torch for them, and literally guides their hands down to ignite The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations.

In the book, however, Violet and Klaus are left with an already lit torch. They deliberate, but when they hear Sunny crying somewhere through the smoke, they toss the torch behind them and leave without looking back. They aren’t guided, they decide. They choose to throw the torch.

Similarly, in The Slippery Slope, the Violet, Klaus, and Quigley spend an entire night digging the ditch in which they plan to trap Esme Squalor, but change their minds and do the noble thing by warning her at the last second. In the show, she falls into a hot tub, and they tie her up? Maybe? She got out very easily, so I couldn’t really tell who had fallen into who’s clutches. In the books, Sunny gives Count Olaf the Medusoid Mycelium, in the show it is Fiona. In the books, Violet gives Carmelita Spats the harpoon gun without knowing if it is the right thing to do. In the show, Frank Denouement assures her that all is well,VFD knows the plan for the harpoon and has taken it into account. In the book, Sunny suggests burning down the hotel, and then they themselves throw the match onto the copy of Odious Lusting After Finance (finance, not fortunes, in the book. I never did pick up on that being O.L.A.F. until the show though). In the show, Olaf takes Sunny’s idea and lights the fire himself.

In the show, the Baudelaires are almost entirely without fault. In the books, the Baudelaires, however justified, perform some morally ambiguous acts. They never want to, and sometimes it seems to be the only choice, but it makes the “people are like chef’s salads” line and the Baudelaire’s guilt at Dewey’s death that much more poignant, because, no matter how justified or how accidental, they did have a hand in villainy. It’s one of the ways the books grow in complexity as the characters and readers themselves grow.

That was my only complaint for the show, in the end. AND I THINK that’s about as coherent I’d like to be about this subject, so enjoy a list of elements I thought were really neat that I don’t want to put in paragraph form.

Jacqueline, who played a rather crucial role in the show but doesn’t show up in the books at all, is revealed to be the Duchess of Winnipeg, who is mentioned quite a few times in several books.

In the second episode of The Penultimate Peril, Violet wears a dark purple dress with a white collar, which is very reminiscent of the dress she wears in the book art.

Ishmael was revealed to be the man who started VFD in the first place, which was neat and made Count Olaf’s mysterious vendetta against him (more or less unexplained in the books) make much more sense.

We get to see the Quagmires reunited

We get to see Fiona and the Hook-Handed Man find their stepfather (Aye!)

The Beatrice Letters came with a poster that showed a shipwrecked sailboat (the Beatrice), implying a dark fate for the Baudelaire’s. HOWEVER, at the very end of the show we hear Beatrice Baudelaire (Snicket’s niece) say that before the Baudelaire’s third trip to Briny Beach, they were accosted by female Finnish pirates. This proves that ONE: they do eventually make it safely to shore, and TWO: Female finnish pirates invented the Devil’s tongue knot, the knot Violet uses to created her grappling hook in the first book, another nice tie-in.

The series captures the feel of the books, the quirky, literary feel of the world Lemony Snicket creates. I am so, so very satisfied with how lovingly these books were adapted for the screen.

[makadelikz]

the girl next door updated 03/02/2017

The Girl Next Door ♥ CHAPTER ONE:

The sound of moving trucks awoke Leon from his sleep. He gazes out the window with a frowned and restless face, and sees two big Uhaul trucks next door at the house that's been abandoned for six months. The last people who lived there just seemingly disappeared and Leon's curiousity grew because he never recalled seeing 'for sale' signs putting the house on the market for any new owners, and why would the previous owners who just up and vanished be moving stuff back into their house when they never took anything with them in the first place? However, his greatest concern at the moment was the loud Uhaul truckers waking him up so early, but he shortly realized he can't exactly be angry when he looked at the time -- 2:30 PM. Leon walks away from the window and hops in the shower, and afterwards sits on his bed, pulls out a black tray and begins to break a nug to roll a blunt. His roommate, and friend, Vince knocked on the door, but barged in anyway, realized he was about to smoke a blunt and joined him. Vince said "Did you see that someone is moving into the mysterious house next door?" Leon responds "Yeah, woke my ass up." Vince condenscendingly, but in a jokingly manner said "That's what you get for living in the attic. You can hear everything outside through these windows. I sleep like a baby in my room." Leon jabs back and said "No, you sleep like a baby after your daily six pack." Leon knew Vince was just being his usual self, with the disdainful remarks, but he ultimately knew that Vince means no harm. Vince is a straight-up guy. If he didn't like you he would tell you, and tell you exactly why he doesn't like you. He's not a fake chit-chat kind of guy. Vince sometimes doens't take the jabs as well as he throws them out though and responded with "Fuck you, I don't get drunk everyday and you know I'm fucking right." Leon responds in a tone as if he's sarcastically agreeing with him just to get him to be quiet about the topic, but Leon did know that he was right about the windows. He then added "But I was the last pick of the batch, it's not like I had much of a choice. It was the attic or the streets." Vince lowers his head and realized that he may've hit a soft spot for Leon, but then proceeds to walk out the room anyway shouting "See you tonight for the race," while running down the attic stairs. The attic was renovated and turned into a bedroom specifically for Leon. So the windows aren't meant to dillute as much sound as one of the bedroom windows considering the attic, like any ordinary attic, is generally used for storage, or not used at all.  Leon was happy to have a place to call home, whether he slept in the attic or in the shed out back. A home isn't really something he's used to having up until now. Now all Leon needs is to get used to opening up to people more. As 5:00 rolls around the other housemates get home from their daily lives of blending into the societal norm only to prep for a night filled with illicit activites. It's mostly their participation in the underground street racing world, that the leader of this house and crew practically invented in this area. His name is Dominic Toretto and he refers to his crew as family. He's very selective about who he trusts and even more so about who he lets in his direct crew. Dominic's right hand man is Vince Scaletta who is the hard-headed, quick-tempered one of the batch. Complete opposite of Dom's calm, level-headed way of thinking, and wise decision making. However, Vince is extremely loyal and trustworthy. He doesn't give much of a damn about anyone or anything at all, but if he does care about you, then you mean the world to him. Vince and Dom have been lifelong friends since the third grade. Way before the corrupt street life played a hand in anything. The most 'innocent' one of the crew is Mia, Dom's sister. She keeps the crew in check. She doesn't exactly participate in the charlatan activites of the crew because she doesn't agree with much of it. However, she is very aware of it all and just turns the other cheek. Her major role of the crew is the front of running the Toretto Cafe. It makes it appear as if all the family income comes fromt the family owned businesses rather than the illegal heists and street races. Then there's Letty Ortiz. She's Dom's girlfriend and they've known each other since junior high. They grew up together, always sneaking out and going to their own little drag races. That was back when they raced just for the fun of it rather than street cred. However, that's where this whole gig began. That just leaves Jesse Green and Leon Morgan, who unlike the rest of the crew, do not have significant amount of history with Dom. They come from different parts of the world and have their own histories. However, Dom saw something in them to give them a chance and he clearly trusts them with his life otherwise they wouldn't be apart of the crew and would've never moved in. Jesse is the smart techie of the crew. He has a history of hacking computers and high-tech security systems, among other things. He turned his hobby into designing mods for street racing cars and he knows his way around an engiene like the back of his hand and that was obviously his guaranteed initiation. However, he has the sweetest personality and honestly wouldn't hurt a fly, which makes him different from the rest of the crew by far. He isn't a very physical person and generally avoids confrontation. Jesse's first run-in with the crew was by accident when he was running into the garage, pleading for help, running from a group of people who basically wanted him dead. Still nobody knows exactly why they were after him. To Jesse's luck, Dom is highly respected in the streets, especially on his turf and they backed down with their tails between their legs. Jesse doesn't appear to be anyone who would be apart of this life, his appearance says cliche stoner kid who plays too much video games but he wasn't running from a group of people who wanted him dead for no reason. Finally that just leaves Leon who just happened to cross paths with Toretto unintentionally. He was making bets on drag races at Race Wars, which is the legal monthly event founded by Toretto. Leon was making bets without knowing that was an actual thing to do there amongst the crowd and the racers, but the thing that makes this event legal is that it bans gambling. So as a result, Leon assumed he was the only one amongst the crowd making bets, but illegal activity is not out of his norm. Dom found out he made a pretty huge bet on him to win so he confronted Leon and asked "Why'd you place so much money down? What made you $800 dollars sure that I was going to win? That's a lot of money to throw down on a ten second race." Leon bluntly responded "Because muscle always beats import." Just that response alone and Dom was interested in getting to know Leon. He found out Leon was homeless and made an income off selling drugs and making bets. Dom took him in immediately but Leon having this enigma and not very open with talking about his past or himself in general he really had to work for Toretto's trust, which he ineviatebly got.

CHAPTER TWO:

After the race, which of course Dom won, the crew heads home to celebrate like they normally do. Leon stayed outside to smoke a blunt by himself, being the introvert that he is. But just as he was about to spark it he noticed a very young and beautiful girl at the mysterious, Uhaul truck, house next door. Leon stares in awe at her beauty and with curiousity as she seems to be alone. Instead of sparking the blunt he sparks up the courage to go talk to her and introduces himself and says "Hey. I'm Leon. I live next door." The girl is a bit startled and hesitates to respond. Perhaps it was because she wasn't expecting to be approached in a new neighborhood, especially at eleven o'clock at night. Leon notices that she was a bit startled and said "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. I just saw you were moving boxes all by yourself and figured I could lend a hand." The girl said "It's okay I'm not frightened. Just wasn't expecting to be spoken to since I don't know anyone here." Then she let out an innocent laugh. She continued and said "My name is Lacey, by the way, and I appreaciate the offer, but I only have a few boxes left and they're quite small and I wouldn't want to waste your time." She pointed to Leon's house with cars piling up outside and said "Besides, they might be looking for you." Leon said "They're not worried about me, and it's no problem. If you ever need anything, don't be afraid to ask; and I literally mean anything... I work on cars, electrical stuff, plumbing stuff. I'm very handy." Lacey says "That's actually really good to know, thank you." She smiles so brightly even in the dark of the night.  Leon almost doesn't want to walk away, he wants to continue talking to her, but he knows he has to go home now. He knows that if he tries to overstay his welcome Lacey might feel off about him. He said "Well, goodnight and welcome to the neighborhood." She said in a soft and gentle voice "Goodnight." When Leon gets back to his house he heads for his room, ignoring the crowd which is not unusual for him to do, but before he could make it to his room Vince stopped him and asked "Where you going twinkle toes?" It was a gay joke implying that's what Leon is for not wanting to party. Leon responds short and blunt and said "To my room." Come on, have one beer. There's all kinds of hot chicks here too. Maybe you'll walk up to your attic with a girl in your arm for once." Leon said "Nah, I'm good. I'm tired." Vince shouts "Come on dude, when's the last time you even got laid?" As Leon continues to walk away he shouts "None of your business, Vince." With Vince knowing he wasn't going to break through Leon tonight he casually retreats back to the party. Leon lays in bed as the faint party sounds surround him. It's not that he's anti-social it's just that the party scenes aren't necessarily his thing. As he tries to ignore the sounds of a large crowd his mind drifts off to Lacey, next door. He doesn't seem to understand why he can't get her off his mind. He's been with tons of girls socially and sexually before, but not one has every stayed on his mind for too long after the encounter. But this girl, he actually had to muster up the courage to just introduce himself. At this point he assumed that it must be the blunt he eventually got to smoking that's affecting his thought process and he decides that he will sleep it off and the thoughts will go away.

CHAPTER THREE:

The next afternoon Leon wakes up peacefully. This time there were no loud Uhaul truckers yelling and making a ton of noise. This time there was no Vince barging in and making himself comfortable. He rolls out of bed and continues to go about his daily routine. As he's driving to clock in at his normal job at Toretto's Garage as a mechanic he involuntarily glances at the house next door as it's nearly impossible to overlook. Every thought about the girl next door had almost slipped his mind until now. Leon found himself thinking about her the whole drive to work. Leon thought about all kinds of things this time -- not just about her smile and looks. This time he wondered what her day-to-day life is like, what she does for a living, and how she lives by herself when she appears to be too young to be a homeowner. Usually girls Lacey's age were renting shitty apartments or living with their parents while they attend college. Leon estimated her age to be around twenty since it was nearly impossible by her looks for her to be any older. Leon still found himself wondering about the mysterious girl next door even when distracted by brake jobs, tune-ups, and annoying, pestering customers who felt the need to stand over Leon's back and watch him work on their cars as if they didn't trust him to do his job correctly. Jesse comes up to Leon on his break and sparked conversation about the hosue next door, how convenient.  He said "Did you realize someone lives in that creepy house next door now?" Leon tries to act like the girl next door hasn't been on his mind at all but he can't think of a response fast enough and just said "I know." Those words still keep him under the radar. Jesse said "I wonder who else lives there with her?" Leon said "I think she's just by herself. She's the only one I've seen." Jesse shot him a bewildered look and said "Well, I guess, but highly unlikely." Now Leon is the one puzzled and asked "How is it highly unlikely?" Jesse responded "How many high schoolers you know own their own house?" Leon was shocked and said "Woah. What do you mean high school? How do you know she's in high school?" Jesse said "Gees, dude, relax, and because she was wearing a uniform and carrying a backpack..." Leon drops the topic and is now actually pretty bummed. He knew she looked pretty young but given the circumstance, the possibility of her being in high school never crossed his mind. As Leon is drivig back home for a low-key night he notices the girl next door sitting on her porch. He tries to ignore her given the new-found information and it worked for the few split seconds he was pulling into the driveway. He was going to walk for the door without saying anything but the girl waved at him and all his compusure seemed to slip through the palm of his hands like sand. He waved back and walked over to her. As he was approaching he smelt something he was all too familiar with-- marijuana. He approached the porch and she asked "Wanna hit?" Leon just shook his head as she passes him the blunt. Lacey looked up to him and said "Well, aren't you gonna sit down? You can't just smoke my weed then leave." Leon didn't react fast so Lacey said "I'm kidding. You can leave if you want." Leon said "Nah, sorry, I was just-- never mind." Then he proceeds to sit next to her and she noticed the mechanic jumpsuit and asked one of those questions that she already knew the answer to, but asked it simply for the purpose of sparking conversation. "You work on cars too?" Leon responded with "Yup. Told you, I'm pretty handy." He looks at Lacey and notices her high school uniform: plaid skirt, white button-up shirt, a tie, and shin-high socks. He asked "So, you're in high school?" Lacey responded in a disappointed tone and said "Yeah. I failed a grade. I was supposed to graduate last year. So now I have to go to this "high-end secondary school" to catch up on credits and graduate. I should be done in one semester." Hearing this made Leon feel so much better but he had to ask for reassurance. "So how old are you?" She responds "I'm eighteen, I'll be nineteen in January." Leon just seemed to shake his head with comfort now as he slightly grins. Lacey asked "How old are you?" Leon said "I'm twenty-one. I'll be twenty-two next month in November." Just as Leon was about to get behind the mystery of the house she was living in and who she may be living with he heard Vince yell for him next door and Lacey said "I guess your crufew's up.'' Leon laughed because he could tell she was just joking but lately he hasn't seemed to take jokes very lightly. However, he said "Talk to you later." He glanced back one more time to see her smile. As he gets back to his yard him and Vince walk up to the house together all whilst Leon stares back at the girl until he couldn't see her anymore upon walking into the house. Vince sits on the couch and said "Could you be anymore fucking pathetic? Also, you need to be careful bro." Leon was confused and said "Careful with what?" Vince said "The girl next door. She's like twelve." Leon looked at him with a pissed off "mind your own business" kind of expression and said "She's eighteen." Vince asked in a smart ass tone "Oh, is that what she told you?" Leon ignored him and Vince said "All I'm saying is that she's wearing a school uniform and it just doesn't look right. Unless you want to register your name and alert the neighborhood with a red dot for the rest of your life, I suggest you fuck some chick that comes to our parties. Like I don't know, try fucking with a girl who doesn't ride the school bus and won't ask you for help on her homework." Leon said "Fuck off. She said said she was eighteen." Vince let out a huge laugh and said "Yeah, I was messing with this one girl for a couple hours once. I met her at a party in Glendale. Just as we were about to fuck she asked if I could give her a ride to school the next day.... She lied to me, but if I would've fucked her my ass would've been the one in trouble. Just be careful man. That's all I'm saying." Leon said "Look bro, it's none of your goddamn business who I talk to, who I fuck, anything. I still have a personal life, just because we're family or whatever the fuck you guys like to call it, doesn't mean every single aspect of my life is your business. I could go next door right now and fuck that girl.. If she was in to it.... Doesn't concern you at all." Vince just gave him a dirty ass look and Leon said "You know what, you probably care so much because you have a guilty conscience. You did fuck that underaged Glendale girl didn't you?" Vince started laughing and said "Absolutely not, but part of me wishes she never told me her real age. Girls like the one next door just get you in trouble bro. Of course she's going to tell you she's eighteen. All I'm saying is don't fuck her unless you know for a fact that she's eighteen." Leon said "Are you telling me to take my time and take her on a date, meet her parents." Vince chuckled and said "Shit, dude, I wasn't even thinking about her parents. You can have fun with that." Leon tried to divert the topic in hopes to get the scoop about her living situation. He asked "Does she even live with her parents? There's never anybody over there. Never a car in the driveway, like nobody." Vince said "I don't know she's the only one I've seen. She's probably got rich parents that are always on a vacation cruise or some shit." Leon said "Hmmm..." Vince said "Maybe she's a international spy, and is spying on us to bust our heists." Vince laughed to himself while walking to the fridge to grab another beer. Leon didn't seem to think it was quite funny, however.

CHAPTER FOUR:

The next night around 3AM, Vince, Leon, and Jesse are still up watching TV in the living room, and kicking back with a few beers, when all of the sudden there was obnoxious banging on the door. Vince impusively grabbed the shotgun next to him whilst Leon simultaneously gripping his .22 pistol. Jesse with his slight innocence, made the impulsive decision to rush to the door to open it, thinking it was one of the crew members who got locked out. Leon said "Are you stupid!?" Vince said "Look out the window first, but don't make it obvious." Jesse looked out the window as discreetly as he could, all whilst the door was still being pounded on. He saw a frantic girl, with torn clothing. He turned back to Vince and Leon and said "I... I think it's the girl next door." Leon losens up his tense grip to the pistol and said "What!?" He rushes to the door and Vince called out "She ain't got no business being up in here, we don't know that girl for shit." Leon ignored him and opened the door anyway as Lacey falls into his arms. She's so distraught she can hardly relieve a full sentence and can't stop shaking. Leon sat her down on the couch trying to calm her down, as he notices her clothes are torn, and have blood stains, and she has a massive cut on her lip with a matching black, partially swollen eye. Vince, attempting to be intimidating (and it worked) sat down with a heavy sigh to insinuate that he's frustrated, on to the coffee table right in front of Lacey as he holds the shotgun over his shoulder. Jesse brought her a bag of frozen vegetables for her lips and eye. Vince made a sarcastic remark and said "Great. Bring the stranger peas. That'll make her feel welcomed." Leon grabs the bag from Jesse's hands still attempting to ignore Vince and slightly put the bag up to Lacey's lips. He asked "What's wrong?" Lacey clinched her teeth and tried to force the tears back and Leon said "We want to help you." Vince interrupted him and said "He wants to help you." Leon shot him this look of impatience and looked back to Lacey and said "I can't help you, if I don't know what happened." Lacey's breathing finally calmed down enough to explain the situation through short gasps of air. She said "It all happened so fast, I don't even know where to begin." Leon said "Begin with the first thing you remember." Lacey said "I was walking home from school around seven, I stayed late to get more work done, and this guy, he jumped me. I don't know what for. He didn't rape me, he didn't take my money, but he knew my name. I've never seen this guy before in my life. I remember him walking away, and that's the last thing I remember. I woke up on the ground hours later, barely remembering anything. I didn't even remember where I was at the time." The tears came rushing back. Leon looked startled because he was unaware of how to help in this situation. However, all he could think about was finding this guy and hurting him way worse than he's hurt Lacey. Leon didn't know why he felt so deeply for this girl, but when he looked at her all beaten up he felt enraged. Vince said "You know you live next door, right? Why'd you come here?" Jesse said "That's a little rude." Leon said "Fuck off, Vince." Lacey said "Because I live alone, and I don't want to be alone." Her voice cracked and a tear streamed down her face. There was a short moment of silence and Leon asked "I hate to steer away from the subject but, how does a high school girl live alone in a house?" She said "I never met my father, my mother is a junkie prostitue-- well, was. It's my uncle's house. After my mom went to prison, I came here. I've contacted my uncle, but he hasn't responded." Jesse said "Wait. You've been living in that house alone, the entire time, not knowing where your uncle is?" Lacey shook her head, yes, and she added "I have no where else to go, and my uncle said if I ever needed a place to stay, I could go to the house whenever I wanted. It's not his main house, he owns a lot of properties, from Florida, to here, and even in Hawaii. I just don't where he is." Vince said "Not that I care too much, I'm just curious, but who the hell is your uncle? He sounds pretty important to have that much money." Lacey just responded with "He's important, but not well-known. There's a reason for that." Vince kneeled to be eye-to-eye with Lacey and said "Well princess, don't you think that just maybe, these two scenarios play hand-in-hand?" Lacey said "There's no way they'd know who I am." Leon said "I hate to agree with Vince, but I'm gonna have to agree with Vince on this one." Jesse asked "What does your uncle do, exactly? It obviously can't be legal." Vince gave Jesse a little slap against the back of his head and said "No shit, sherlock." Lacey responded very bluntly and said "He's a mafian drug lord." Leon looked surprised. Vince's expression didn't change much, but on the inside he was intrigued. Jesse was shocked, he's never been this close to a real-life drug lord mobster, even though it was just the niece of one-- a nameless one at that. Lacey said "I'm sorry for coming here. I just didn't want to be alone." Leon said "Nah, don't worry about it. Remember, I told you if you ever needed anything you can come to me? Well, this constitutes as anything, and I'm glad you came to me." Vince was signaling an innapropiate hand gesture implying that Leon is a jerk-off. Lacey notices but doesn't say anything. She said back to Leon "I just... Don't really like talking to the police." Vince said "No shit, we don't either." Lacey was a little taken back by Vince saying that, and it made her realize that she wasn't quite sure about who these people are and whether or not she could actually trust them. She feels very content with Leon, but unsure about the rest. Espeicially Vince. Words seem to roll off her tongue when talking to Leon and she's now unsure as to why she even said those things about her uncle. She's realizing now that she's probably made a huge mistake. She's hoping that they maybe won't believe her simply because of how bluntly she said it. No one just straight up discloses information like that without any hesitation. Leon gripped Lacey's shoulder in a reassuring comforting squeeze and said "You can stay here tonight if you want." Before Lacey could shake her head Vince said "Yeah, and now Leon can finally hug something in his bed besides his cock-shaped pillow." Lacey turned to Leon with bewilderment and asked "You have a--" and was cut off by Leon saying "No, I do not have a cock shaped pillow." Then he rolled his eyes and gave an aggressive look to Vince who is now hysterically laughing and Vince said "She actually believed it. This is hilarious." Lacey looked down to her feet starting to feel a little uneasy about being inside their house and she decided to go back to the original topic about possibly staying here tonight and said "You know, if I'm just going to be a burden or be in the way, I guess I can just go home. I'm sure I'll be fine." Leon said "No! I mean... You can stay, you're not a burden. Don't let Vince get to you. He's just naturally an asshole, he wasn't loved much as a child." Vince started condenscendingly laughing and said "He's right," then looked over to Leon and said "You know, you weren't either mommy issues." Leon said "If you wanna take a shower or something I can get you some clothes... And a towel and whatnot." Lacey said "Sure. Thanks." Vince said "The girl's supposed to wear your clothes after you fuck her."  Leon finally snapped and shoved Vince to the wall and tiny Jesse jumped into the middle of it as if he was actually going to keep them off of each other, but Leon backed down simply for the sake of maturity. Before Leon walked away he said "Go fuck yourself, Vince. I don't know what your deal is, but quit taking it out on me, and Lacey, and everybody else. We get it man, you have issues, so work on them, the world owes you nothing. Being a condenscending asshole isn't going to help anybody, and certainly not yourself." Vince said "I think you got it twisted. You're the one shoving me against walls because you can't take jokes simply because they're targeted at your jail bait girlfriend." Lacey pitched in and said "I'm eighteen, and he's not my boyfriend." Vince said "Whatever, princess." Vince continued to Leon and said "I just don't like outsiders." Leon said "Have you forgotten that I was an outsider once? Jesse too?" Vince didn't respond and Leon just walks away. Jesse attempting to be the peace maker walked over and sat down with Lacey and said "You know, my dad's in prison too. I know what it's like to have a parent on the inside." Lacey said "It seems like you actually liked your father though, it might be a lot harder on you than it is for me." Jesse said "Yeah, I guess." Lacey asked "What's your dad in for?" Jesse said "Assault, drugs, racing, some other shit. He's got a lot of priors so they gave him a pretty hefty sentence this time." Lacey said "I'm sorry." Jesse said "It's cool, don't worry about it." Leon comes back into the room interrupting the conversation and said "I got the shower running for you now." Lacey gets up and walks with Leon upstairs while Vince rolls his eyes at the sight. Jesse turns to Vince and said "What's your deal against her?" Vince said "I have nothing against her personally. I just don't like outsiders, and there's something shady about her." Jesse said "You think there's something shady about everyone. You thought that about me too when I came along. Why don't you give her a chance? Besides, it's not like she knows anything about us. She's already told us more about her than she knows about us." Vince said "Yeah, and that makes her dumb. That means she has a big mouth, and clearly can't keep a secret. Meaning we can't trust her." Jesse said "No, it just makes her young, I made dumb mistakes like that too when I came around, remember?" Vince said "Yeah, whatever, I guess." Meanwhile, upstairs Leon is in the bathroom with Lacey and handing her clothes to put on. He handed her a plain t-shirt and some boxers, and as he was handing them to her he said "I promise, they're clean." Lacey chuckled a little bit and said "Thank you." Leon then grabbed a clean towel out of the cabinet in the bathroom and said "I'll be waiting in the kitchen for when you're done. Um, you can sleep on the couch up in my room if you'd like." Lacey just shook her head and Leon said "Alright... Well, I'll let you get to it." As Leon walks back downstiars he sees Mia, Letty, and Dom talking to Jesse and Vince, and he's assuming by the way they all looked at him as he entered the room, that they were already aware that Lacey was here. Dom said "Do you trust this girl?" Leon said "I mean.." Dom said "I'll take that as a no." Leon said "Relax, I haven't told her anything. She came to us because she was in trouble. She trusts us." Jesse said "I think she just trusts you." Vince said "Yeah, she hates me." Leon said "Gee Vince, I wonder why. You weren't exactly approachable." Vince looked over at Dom and said "Tell him she's got no business being up in here. We don't know her." Dom jokingly said "There was a time where I didn't know you." Vince said "That was in the third grade!" Dom chuckled and said "Well, Leon it's your call." Leon asked "Why does it have to be my call? And my call for what?" Dom said "Because you seem to be the only one in the house who really knows her, at least better than the rest of us, and it's your call if you think she can spend the night." Leon said "I trust her enough to sleep on my couch, yeah." Dom looked back over at Vince and said "It's settled. Why are you worried about a little girl anyway?" Jesse said "Hold up, she's eighteen, she's two years younger than me. Does that make me a little boy?" Dom said "Now, Jesse, we actually like you. But yeah." Dom and Vince started chuckling while Jesse flicks them off. A few moments later Lacey comes back downstairs, expecting to go straight to the kitchen and avoiding Jesse and Vince and is surprised to find the whole crew downstairs now awkwardly staring at her. Lacey doesn't say a word and looks very anxious. Dom said "Welcome. Make yourself at home." Leon walked up the steps and met her and lead her to the attic. Lacey looked around Leon's attic bedroom and asked "Why are you all the way up here?" Leon said "There's no rats, I promise. The room's been renovated." Lacey said "That wasn't my question." Leon just sighs and looks at her and said "I know. I just like... The privacy I guess." Lacey says "I don't blame you. Do you all live here?" Leon said "Yup. All six of us." Lacey asked "How?" Leon said "Well the house was a three bedroom, and Letty and Dom share a room, so that eliminates one person who needs a room. Mia has her own room. Vince has his, and mine and Jesse's rooms were add-ons. They turned an office room downstairs into Jesse's room." Lacey said "That's pretty cool. You're all like one big family." Leon kind of smirked and said "Yeah, I guess so." He handed her a pillow and blanket then grabbed a sheet and wrapped it around the couch and said "Well, here you go." Lacey just smiles at him and said "Goodnight." Leon smiles back and goes into his bathroom to change, came back out and laid down. As he laid down he thought a lot about Lacey. About how the girl next door is now only a few feet away. He can't seem to fall asleep so easily tonight. All he wants to do is hold her, but he knows that if he ever wants something like that from her, he's going to have to work his way very slowly. He really likes this girl, there was just something about her that made him look at her differently than all the other girls he's ever seen. Now knowing a little about her past he seems to find her even more intriguing. What she has revealed is enough to scare any normal person away, but Leon isn't normal, and he doesn't like rudimentary things or people. He has to gain trust in her though, that seems to be the only problem at the moment. Leon just hopes that when and if he begins to trust Lacey, his crew does too. Maybe she can even join the crew.

CHAPTER FIVE:

Leon finally wakes up, and looks over to the couch to find Lacey already sitting up staring out the window towards the street. Leon said in a graspy early morning voice "How long have you been up?" Lacey said "Since 6AM. I could barely sleep." Leon said "I'm sorry. It wasn't the couch, was it?" Lacey smrked and said "No, your couch is very comfy." Leon said in a questioning tone "Then it must be because you were scared?" Lacey just shook her head 'yes.' Leon said "Listen, I know Vince pretty much gave you a hard time, but if it ever came down to it, even he would protect you. In this house, you're safe." Something about that made Lacey feel uneasy and overwhelmed. Her own family hardly cares about her, so having a group of strangers care this much, is certainly immense and she didn't want to be subjected into a situation where she's in debt to them, and owes them one back. She liked Leon, but the harder she thought, she realized, she doesn't really know anything about him at all, and he can't be trusted to deeply. However, something about him was compelling. She had this vibe from him. A protecting kind of vibe. She truly did feel safe with him, and she didn't understand why that came so easily. It usually takes Lacey months, sometimes even years to trust someone. She can talk to someone for years, hang out with them, and still not fully trust them, so that was also overwhelming her.

[makadelikz]

the girl next door updated 1/6/2017

The Girl Next Door ♥ CHAPTER ONE:

The sound of moving trucks awoke Leon from his sleep. He gazes out the window with a frowned and restless face, and sees two big Uhaul trucks next door at the house that's been abandoned for six months. The last people who lived there just seemingly disappeared and Leon's curiousity grew because he never recalled seeing 'for sale' signs putting the house on the market for any new owners, and why would the previous owners who just up and vanished be moving stuff back into their house when they never took anything with them in the first place? However, his greatest concern at the moment was the loud Uhaul truckers waking him up so early, but he shortly realized he can't exactly be angry when he looked at the time -- 2:30 PM. Leon walks away from the window and hops in the shower, and afterwards sits on his bed, pulls out a black tray and begins to break a nug to roll a blunt. His roommate, and friend, Vince knocked on the door, but barged in anyway, realized he was about to smoke a blunt and joined him. Vince said "Did you see that someone is moving into the mysterious house next door?" Leon responds "Yeah, woke my ass up." Vince condenscendingly, but in a jokingly manner said "That's what you get for living in the attic. You can hear everything outside through these windows. I sleep like a baby in my room." Leon jabs back and said "No, you sleep like a baby after your daily six pack." Leon knew Vince was just being his usual self, with the disdainful remarks, but he ultimately knew that Vince means no harm. Vince is a straight-up guy. If he didn't like you he would tell you, and tell you exactly why he doesn't like you. He's not a fake chit-chat kind of guy. Vince sometimes doens't take the jabs as well as he throws them out though and responded with "Fuck you, I don't get drunk everyday and you know I'm fucking right." Leon responds in a tone as if he's sarcastically agreeing with him just to get him to be quiet about the topic, but Leon did know that he was right about the windows. He then added "But I was the last pick of the batch, it's not like I had much of a choice. It was the attic or the streets." Vince lowers his head and realized that he may've hit a soft spot for Leon, but then proceeds to walk out the room anyway shouting "See you tonight for the race," while running down the attic stairs. The attic was renovated and turned into a bedroom specifically for Leon. So the windows aren't meant to dillute as much sound as one of the bedroom windows considering the attic, like any ordinary attic, is generally used for storage, or not used at all.  Leon was happy to have a place to call home, whether he slept in the attic or in the shed out back. A home isn't really something he's used to having up until now. Now all Leon needs is to get used to opening up to people more. As 5:00 rolls around the other housemates get home from their daily lives of blending into the societal norm only to prep for a night filled with illicit activites. It's mostly their participation in the underground street racing world, that the leader of this house and crew practically invented in this area. His name is Dominic Toretto and he refers to his crew as family. He's very selective about who he trusts and even more so about who he lets in his direct crew. Dominic's right hand man is Vince Scaletta who is the hard-headed, quick-tempered one of the batch. Complete opposite of Dom's calm, level-headed way of thinking, and wise decision making. However, Vince is extremely loyal and trustworthy. He doesn't give much of a damn about anyone or anything at all, but if he does care about you, then you mean the world to him. Vince and Dom have been lifelong friends since the third grade. Way before the corrupt street life played a hand in anything. The most 'innocent' one of the crew is Mia, Dom's sister. She keeps the crew in check. She doesn't exactly participate in the charlatan activites of the crew because she doesn't agree with much of it. However, she is very aware of it all and just turns the other cheek. Her major role of the crew is the front of running the Toretto Cafe. It makes it appear as if all the family income comes fromt the family owned businesses rather than the illegal heists and street races. Then there's Letty Ortiz. She's Dom's girlfriend and they've known each other since junior high. They grew up together, always sneaking out and going to their own little drag races. That was back when they raced just for the fun of it rather than street cred. However, that's where this whole gig began. That just leaves Jesse Green and Leon Morgan, who unlike the rest of the crew, do not have significant amount of history with Dom. They come from different parts of the world and have their own histories. However, Dom saw something in them to give them a chance and he clearly trusts them with his life otherwise they wouldn't be apart of the crew and would've never moved in. Jesse is the smart techie of the crew. He has a history of hacking computers and high-tech security systems, among other things. He turned his hobby into designing mods for street racing cars and he knows his way around an engiene like the back of his hand and that was obviously his guaranteed initiation. However, he has the sweetest personality and honestly wouldn't hurt a fly, which makes him different from the rest of the crew by far. He isn't a very physical person and generally avoids confrontation. Jesse's first run-in with the crew was by accident when he was running into the garage, pleading for help, running from a group of people who basically wanted him dead. Still nobody knows exactly why they were after him. To Jesse's luck, Dom is highly respected in the streets, especially on his turf and they backed down with their tails between their legs. Jesse doesn't appear to be anyone who would be apart of this life, his appearance says cliche stoner kid who plays too much video games but he wasn't running from a group of people who wanted him dead for no reason. Finally that just leaves Leon who just happened to cross paths with Toretto unintentionally. He was making bets on drag races at Race Wars, which is the legal monthly event founded by Toretto. Leon was making bets without knowing that was an actual thing to do there amongst the crowd and the racers, but the thing that makes this event legal is that it bans gambling. So as a result, Leon assumed he was the only one amongst the crowd making bets, but illegal activity is not out of his norm. Dom found out he made a pretty huge bet on him to win so he confronted Leon and asked "Why'd you place so much money down? What made you $800 dollars sure that I was going to win? That's a lot of money to throw down on a ten second race." Leon bluntly responded "Because muscle always beats import." Just that response alone and Dom was interested in getting to know Leon. He found out Leon was homeless and made an income off selling drugs and making bets. Dom took him in immediately but Leon having this enigma and not very open with talking about his past or himself in general he really had to work for Toretto's trust, which he ineviatebly got.

CHAPTER TWO:

After the race, which of course Dom won, the crew heads home to celebrate like they normally do. Leon stayed outside to smoke a blunt by himself. But just as he was about to spark it he noticed a very young and beautiful girl at the mysterious, Uhaul truck, house next door. Leon stares in awe at her beauty and with curiousity as she seems to be alone. Instead of sparking the blunt he sparks up the courage to go talk to her and introduces himself and says "Hey. I'm Leon. I live next door." The girl is a bit startled and hesitates to respond. Perhaps it was because she wasn't expecting to be approached in a new neighborhood, especially at eleven o'clock at night. Leon notices that she was a bit startled and said "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. I just saw you were moving boxes all by yourself and figured I could lend a hand." The girl said "It's okay I'm not frightened. Just wasn't expecting to be spoken too since I don't know anyone here." Then she let out an innocent laugh. She continued and said "My name is Lacey, by the way, and I appreaciate the offer, but I only have a few boxes left and they're quite small and I wouldn't want to waste your time." She pointed to Leon's house with cars piling up outside and said "Besides, they might be looking for you." Leon said "They're not worried about me, and it's no problem. If you ever need anything, don't be afraid to ask; and I literally mean anything... I work on cars, electrical stuff, plumbing stuff. I'm very handy." Lacey says "That's actually really good to know, thank you." She smiles so brightly even in the dark of night.  Leon almost doesn't want to walk away, he wants to continue talking to her, but he knows he has to go home now. He knows that if he tries to overstay his welcome Lacey might feel off about him. He said "Well, goodnight and welcome to the neighborhood." She said in a soft and gentle voice "Goodnight." When Leon gets back to his house he heads for his room, ignoring the crowd which is not unusual for him to do, but before he could make it to his room Vince stopped him and asked "Where you going twinkle toes?" It was a gay joke implying that's what Leon is for not wanting to party. Leon responds short and blunt and said "To my room."Come on, have one beer. There's all kinds of hot chicks here too. Maybe you'll walk up to your attic with a girl in your arm for once." Leon said "Nah, I'm good. I'm tired." Vince shouts "Come on dude, when's the last time you even got laid?" As Leon continues to walk away he shouts "None of your business, Vince." With Vince knowing he wasn't going to break through Leon tonight he casually retreats back to the party. Leon lays in bed as the faint party sounds surround him. It's not that he's anti-social it's just that the party scenes aren't necessarily his thing. As he tries to ignore the sounds of a large crowd his mind drifts off to Lacey, next door. He doesn't seem to understand why he can't get her off his mind. He's been with tons of girls socially and sexually before, but not one has every stayed on his mind for too long after the encounter. But this girl, he actually had to muster up the courage to just introduce himself. At this point he assumed that it must be the blunt he eventually got to smoking that's affecting his thought process and he decides that he will sleep it off and the thoughts will go away.

CHAPTER THREE:

The next afternoon Leon wakes up peacefully. This time there were no loud Uhaul truckers yelling and making a ton of noise. This time there was no Vince barging in and making himself comfortable. He rolls out of bed and continues to go about his daily routine. As he's driving to clock in at his normal job at Torretto's Garage as a mechanic he involuntarily glances at the house next door as it's nearly impossible to overlook. Every thought about the girl next door had almost slipped his mind until now. Leon found himself thinking about her the whole drive to work. Leon thought about all kinds of things this time -- not just about her smile and looks. This time he wondered what her day-to-day life is like, what she does for a living, and how she lives by herself when she appears to be too young to be a homeowner. Usually girls Lacey's age were renting shitty apartments or living with their parents while they attend college. Leon estimated her age to be around twenty since it was nearly impossible by her looks for her to be any older. Leon still found himself wondering about the mysterious girl next door even when distracted by brake jobs, tune-ups, and annoying, pestering customers who felt the need to stand over Leon's back and watch him work on their cars as if they didn't trust him to do his job correctly. Jesse comes up to Leon on his break and sparked conversation about the hosue next door, how convenient.  He said "Did you realize someone lives in that creepy house next door now?" Leon tries to act like the girl next door hasn't been on his mind at all but he can't think of a response fast enough and just said "I know." Those words still keep him under the radar. Jesse said "I wonder who else lives there with her?" Leon said "I think she's just by herself. She's the only one I've seen." Jesse shot him a bewildered look and said "Well, I guess, but highly unlikely." Now Leon is the one puzzled and asked "How is it highly unlikely?" Jesse responded "How many high schoolers you know own their own house?" Leon was shocked and said "Woah. What do you mean high school? How do you know she's in high school?" Jesse said "Gees, dude, relax, and because she was wearing a uniform and carrying a backpack..." Leon drops the topic and is now actually pretty bummed. He knew she looked pretty young but given the circumstance, the possibility of her being in high school never crossed his mind. As Leon is drivig back home for a low-key night he notices the girl next door sitting on her porch. He tries to ignore her given the new-found information and it worked for the few split seconds he was pulling into the driveway. He was going to walk for the door without saying anything but the girl waved at him and all his compusure seemed to slip through the palm of his hands like sand. He waved back and walked over to her. As he was approaching he smelt something he was all too familiar with-- marijuana. He approached the porch and she asked "Wanna hit?" Leon just shook his head as she passes him the blunt. Lacey looked up to him and said "Well, aren't you gonna sit down? You can't just smoke my weed then leave." Leon didn't react fast so Lacey said "I'm kidding. You can leave if you want." Leon said "Nah, sorry, I was just-- never mind." Then he proceeds to sit next to her and she noticed the mechanic jumpsuit and asked one of those questions that she already knew the answer too, but asked it simply for the purpose of sparking conversation. "You work on cars too?" Leon responded with "Yup. Told you, I'm pretty handy." He looks at Lacey and notices her high school uniform: plaid skirt, white button-up shirt, and a tie. He asked "So, you're in high school?" Lacey responded in a disappointed tone and said "Yeah. I failed a grade. I was supposed to graduate last year. So now I have to go to this "high-end secondary school" to catch up on credits and graduate. I should be done in one semester." Hearing this made Leon feel so much better but he had to ask for reassurance. "So how old are you?" She responds "I'm eighteen, I'll be nineteen in January." Leon just seemed to shake his head with comfort now as he slightly grins. Lacey asked "How old are you?" Leon said "I'm twenty-one. I'll be twenty-two next month in November." Just as Leon was about to get behind the mystery of the house she was living in and who she may be living with he heard Vince yell for him next door and Lacey said "I guess your crufew's up.'' Leon laughed because he could tell she was just joking but lately he hasn't seemed to take jokes very lightly. However, he said "Talk to you later." He glanced back one more time to see her smile. As he gets back to his yard him and Vince walk up to the house together all whilst Leon stares back at the girl until he couldn't see her anymore upon walking into the house. Vince sits on the couch and said "Could you be anymore fucking pathetic? Also, you need to be careful bro." Leon was confused and said "Careful with what?" Vince said "The girl next door. She's like twelve." Leon looked at him with a pissed off "mind your own business" kind of expression and said "She's eighteen." Vince asked in a smart ass tone "Oh, is that what she told you?" Leon ignored him and Vince said "All I'm saying is that she's wearing a school uniform and it just doesn't look right. Unless you want to register your name and alert the neighborhood with a red dot for the rest of your life, I suggest you fuck some chick that comes to our parties. Like I don't know, try fucking with a girl you doesn't ride the school bus and won't ask you for help on her homework." Leon said "Fuck off. She said said she was eighteen." Vince let out a huge laugh and said "Yeah, I was messing with this one girl for a couple hours once. I met her at a party in Glendale. Just as we were about to fuck she asked if I could give her a ride to school the next day.... She lied to me, but if I would've fucked her my ass would've been the one in trouble. Just be careful man. That's all I'm saying." Leon said "Look bro, it's none of your goddamn business who I talk to, who I fuck, anything. I still have a personal life, just because we're family or whatever the fuck you guys like to call it, doesn't mean every single aspect of my life is your business. I could next door right now and fuck that girl.. If she was in to it.... Doesn't concern you at all." Vince just gave him a dirty ass look and Leon said "You know what, you probably care so much because you have a guilty conscience. You did fuck that underaged Glendale girl didn't you." Vince started laughing and said "Absolutely not, but part of me wishes she never told me her real age. Girls like the one next door just get you in trouble bro. Of course she's going to tell you she's eighteen. All I'm saying is don't fuck her unless you know for a fact that she's eighteen." Leon said "Are you telling me to take my time and take her on a date, meet her parents." Vince chuckled and said "Shit, dude, I wasn't even thinking about her parents. You can have fun with that." Leon tried to divert the topic in hopes to get the scoop about her living situation. He asked "Does she even live with her parents? There's never anybody over there. Never a car in the driveway, like nobody." Vince said "I don't know she's the only one I've seen." Leon said "Hmmm..." Vince said "Maybe she's a international spy, and is spying on us to bust our heists." Vine laughed to himself while walking to the fridge to grab another beer. Leon didn't seem to think it was quite funny, however.

CHAPTER FOUR: