#Neil young fork in the road

[neilyoungshearse]

This is my favorite part of this stupid dumbass music video

[dollarbin]

Shakey Sundays #1:

Neil Young's Neil Young

My buddy Greg asked me last weekend, very earnestly, why Neil Young? Why is he your favorite artist? Why?

Greg likes Neil. But he doesn't own 38 different Neil records which are what he'd grab, along with his kids and, I guess, the cat, if the house was on fire; nor has he temporarily and blissfully lost all sense of hearing after seeing Neil in concert eight glorious times, once driving 7 hours each way on a work night to do so; nor did he sing each of his safe-from-the-fire kids to psychedelic sleep every night of their childhoods with a steady diet of Powderfinger (my son always insisted the first line was "look out Momma, there's a white bird coming up the river"; if I sang boat instead of bird he'd sit up in bed, his doll Carson cradled in his arms, and howl in indignation), Lost in Space and Little Wing.

(By the way, that fire scenario really happened: long ago, when the kids were still little and there was no room whatsoever left in our tiny home, all my records were stored in a family cabin in the woods; one time I watched the backside of the ridge behind that cabin going up in flames and then rushed home to get everyone, and all of my Neil, into the car so we could get the hell out of there. Everyone/thing made it out just fine.)

In other words, Greg's not me. Plus, he grew up a Pearl Jam guy so we were listening to Mirror Ball as a common ground of sorts when the question, Why Neil Young?, was asked. At that point Neil was hollering about the place called downtown, where the hippies all go, so my first, slightly inebriated, explanation - "dude, I don't know, he's just the best" - didn't really fly. After all, the hippies were dancing the Charleston; they were doing the limbo.

Greg's question is a good one. What attribute can you insert after the statement "Neil Young is the best _____" that adequately describes his odd and supreme genius?

"Poet" doesn't work. Sure, Neil can write about roads stretching out like healthy veins and wild gift horses that strain the reins, but he can also dedicate a ten minute song entirely to describing one person's surplus of mashed potatoes.

Nor can you get away with "he's the best songwriter" when he's released at least 6 different versions of the song Dance, Dance, Dance and much of his oeuvre from the past 10 years spews hot, Promise of the Real sized chunks.

Even Neil's newest robot will probably concur: there isn't any single thing that Young is the stand-alone-best at. (Well, maybe he is the best at screaming into his guitar's pickups...)

And yet, for me, the truth has never been in doubt since I first heard Side 2 of On the Beach over thirty years ago: Neil Young is, and always will be, my favorite musician.

So I think it's about time this blog started wrestling with Neil "Shakey" Young himself. That's why I'm kicking off this weekend with the first of many Shakey Sundays: I'm gonna write about every one of Neil's studio albums, in order.

Those of you who only show up to see if I have more to say about John Darnielle's cooking skills: relax. I'll continue to post Dollar Bin posts on other artists alongside this new project. I promise. But be warned, Young currently has 45 studio albums to his name and I have a ton to say about all of them. So this will take awhile.

I'm not making any promises of the real here: I'll surely take some Sundays off, these posts will often appear, like this one, in truly Shakey fashion, on the wrong day of the week, and I may keel over or get a life before I ever write about Storytone or Fork in the Road. But it's time to give this Neil Young thing a shot, a shot that will ring all around the border, like a venom in the sky. Will we make it? Hey, who knows where or when. But let the Dollar Bin's Shakey Sundays begin.

Here we go:

Neil Young did not yet know how to be NEIL YOUNG in 1968. When putting together his debut solo album he:

Overdubbed instruments and vocals alike instead of leaving everything as live and raw as an octopus that's just been tossed up On The Beach;

Brought in ace session musicians and back up vocalists instead of the wandering cast of reckless, drunken fools who he's been working with ever since;

Boxed up (nearly) every raggedy edge of his sound into tiny, bite-sized morsels instead of pummeling us into submission;

Bounced around from one real studio to the next over three months instead of doing it all in a barn or in front of a crackling fire in the night;

Waffled between, and deferred to, three different producers instead of ordering everyone around like they were his private army of Jawas; and finally,

He recorded while sober.

And yet the end result is a lovely, under-appreciated record, one you're fairly likely to pick up in any Dollar Bin to this day. I suspect a lot of casual collectors have bought Neil Young in the last 55 years based on the twin false assumptions that Joni Mitchell painted the cover (she didn't) and that it'll sound, you know, like Heart of Gold. Lucky for you, those buyers listened to the album once, understood none of it, then chucked it. So go get it already.

I remember picking up my own copy for a buck or two. It was the summer of 1992 and I had a bus ticket to take me from my grandmother's house in North San Diego all the way to my buddy Ned's parent's house in Coronado. I was 16 and had the day off from my summer camp job. Every cent of my huge $46/week salary was in my pocket and I had zero bills to pay nor any responsibilities to speak of. That sounds so awesome.

Anyway, there I was on the bus, feeling groovy. I'm not too spontaneous a guy but I saw a record store along the way and got out; there was yet another shop across the street. Encinitas, CA, was a cool place to be 30+ years ago; today I'm sure those store fronts are both dedicated to the kind of high end vegan yoga wear I'd need to take out a home loan to get into. But oh boy, just imagine how good I'd look...

Neil Young was included in my Dollar Bin haul from that afternoon, as was Time Fades Away. Who knows what else; who knows why I remember any of this.

Then again, I know exactly why I remember this: it was one of the funnest days of my life. I showed up at Ned's a few hours later and showed off my new records to a pretty big swath of 16 year old boys. No one was impressed; at that point Neil's only real claim to fame with grungy white kids was that Sonic Youth had opened for Neil the previous year. No one really cared about Sonic Youth; they only cared that Nirvana had once opened for Sonic Youth.

Poor Kurt was still alive and well at that point; he was the most famous musician on the planet. Everyone wanted to talk about him, not speculate with me about the fact that one single song seemed to take up nearly all of Neil Young's B Side.

So, instead of talking about Shakey, we spent the rest of the day, and night, driving from one 7-11 to another all over San Diego county, hunting for the most mythical of Slurpee flavors: Cinnabomb. That's a quest that I suspect a lot of 16 year old boys could still passionately get behind. Sadly, we never found Cinnabomb, but I did learn how to jump out of Ned's Vanagon with everyone else at red lights and make a lap around the car while screaming.

Good times. No, Great Times.

At that point I liked Neil but was still a year away from lifelong devotion. In a future post about Weld (uh oh, maybe I will need to do all the live records too?) I'll describe what it was like seeing him live for the first time a year earlier; I think it permanently altered the shape of my face. But I was too young to really know it yet.

After 31 years of pretty regular listening to Neil's debut, I'd argue that it demonstrates just how many different paths were open to him as he transitioned away from what was essentially a big deal boy band, Buffalo Springfield.

Neil Young opens with The Emperor of Wyoming, one of the most unique tracks Young's ever produced. As the strings play toss with Neil's slick guitars, opening a comfortable prairie scene to the sun, the wind and to our cheerful gazing eyes, we're given the immediate sense that Young could have wound up becoming a proper musician: scoring films, producing for others, you know, making music for normal people.

Missing entirely from the track is any sense of underlying menace, and menace is always a hallmark of Young's best work. Rather, it sounds as though the fine people of Wyoming are all holding hands and working together to build their Emperor a lovely barn, a barn no one will ever convert into a recording studio. Rather, everyone will have access; the people's grain will be safe and the Emperor will bestow handfuls of flowers upon every last one.

It's an instrumental track, and how many of those are on all 45 of Neil's albums? There's all of Dead Man, of course, but that's a soundtrack album. Side 2 of Neil Young opens with another instrumental, as well, one that he seemingly had absolutely nothing to do with. And I think that's it! Neil put this great track together, then never made music like this ever again. Wow.

But there's a back story of course: I think The Emperor of Wyoming is a sequel of sorts to a track Young didn't release, in his classic, mercurial fashion, for another 40+ years. Take a listen to Slowly Burning, recorded under the Buffalo Springfield moniker a year earlier. In actuality it's Young in the studio with session musicians, teaching himself how to make beauty.

Next up on Neil Young is The Loner, and we start to hear the Neil Young we know. There's plenty of that menace I was talking about in the song's titular character: this guy is watching you, probably right now, and if you get off the train at your station alone, he'll know that you are.

But Neil wasn't ready to unleash such menace sonically: every sense of the chaos he'd tapped into on Mr Soul a year and half earlier is immediately strangled off on The Longer, leaving room for full strings. Young was ready to sing about creeps. But he had not yet decided to sound like one.

The drums suck on this track; the guy responsible would go off and found the band Poco, together with the album's primary bass player, Jim Messina, who is the sole member of Buffalo Springfield that Young welcomed into this project (and Messina was barely a member of the band, only playing on their last record). My famous brother will probably soon tell me that Poco is a a big deal band I ought to get into. He's wrong; I know this even though I have never listened to a Poco record; I simply have intuited that they are un poco terrible.

But back to Buffalo Springfield. I debated starting this entire project with their first record. After all, that's the first thing Neil properly released. That record is great for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it demonstrates that Stephen Stills, at least for a moment, didn't suck. But Neil Young is where we're starting!

The most important hold-over from the Springfield era on this record is producer and pianist Jack Nitzsche, one of Neil Young's three outside producers. Nitzsche is a figure of significant folklore: he's like Phil Spector's mini-me: almost as prolific, almost as genius, almost as nuts. There'll be more to say about Jack on future Shakey Sundays. For now, suffice it to say that he was once arrested for chasing his, and Neil's, former lady friend, Carrie Snodgrass, around her home with a handgun. And then, years later, he and Snodgrass got back together.

Nitzsche seems responsible for much of the greatness within the very best song on Neil Young, The Old Laughing Lady. Every version Neil's ever done of the song is wonderful. He hypnotized himself and every one else present with his coffee house version, busked it incognito on an Amsterdam street corner, rewrote it almost entirely for his 76 acoustic tour, complete with train effects, and laid it down in isolated, after hours perfection during the credits of his otherwise dull concert film Heart of Gold. Next up I hope there's a children's choir involved, singing through his vocoder.

Neil Young's studio take of Old Laughing Lady is a masterpiece. Nitzsche's piano lines are subtle and deft; his production corrects the amateur flourishes that undercut the previous year's Broken Arrow: everything is dense and sparse at once, and the backing vocals, led by the incomparable Merry Clayton a year before she laid down some of the best vocals in any rock song ever on Gimme Shelter, are a surging, moaning pulse that's, once again, unlike anything else Neil would ever put on tape.

But arguably the best thing of all on the song is the bass line. Take a listen.

That's not Jim Messina. It's Carole Kaye, the only female member of Phil Spector's studio band, later known as The Wrecking Crew. Light years ahead of her time, Kaye is responsible for a bunch of the best notes in all the 60's. She's the bass player on Pet Sounds and Smile; her playing there reset the entire way Paul McCartney played bass. She's on La Bamba, I Hear a Symphony and Love's Forever Changes, plus hundreds of other songs we all know from the late 50's and 60's.

So why don't we talk about her all the time? Sexism people, sexism. The poor woman was abused by her music teacher when she was 13 years old and wound up marrying him and having his child at age 16. Somehow she rose above this all and broke just about every barrier you can imagine in the studio. And good for her: she bailed on the whole hideous scene two years after playing on Neil Young. Now the internet is filled with sweet images of her like this one:

But why doesn't she play on all of Neil Young? After all, she was in the sessions a year earlier that produced Expecting to Fly and Slowly Burning.

I'm guessing that a) she was too expensive for Neil (she once claimed, without bravado, that she made more as a session musician than she would if she were President of the United States), and b) Neil was already realizing that he's happiest and most successful when surrounded by lesser musicians. No offense Jim Messina, but you didn't freak Neil out with your mad skills. Carole Kaye did.

Much of the rest of the album is filler, stuff Young wrote to flesh out the record and stuff he largely has not returned to since. But most of that filler is great.

Take I've Been Waiting For You. If you set aside Young's uptight, anodyne vocals and the fact that this song is little more than a chorus and a guitar riff, you'll discover that Neil was well on his way to Prince-like studio skills. He stacks up his own organ, piano and guitars atop drums that don't suck. The whole thing, even the unfunny Ha's! in the intro, swings.

But we've got to end this first Shakey Sunday by taking note of the most important relationship Young began during the record. Indeed he says it was one of the most important relationships in his entire life. Supposedly, Neil was hitchhiking in Topanga Canyon at some point in 68 when a guy even crazier than him, David Briggs, picked him up. I guess we'll buy into that story and wonder if we would have stopped for Neil in 1968. Before you jump to any conclusions, remember what he looked like at that point.

I don't know about you, but I'd have left his ass on the side of the road.

Briggs had no real qualifications for producing Young or anyone else at the time. But he quickly supplanted both Nitzsche and Ry Cooder in the production booth and helped Neil make more than half of Neil Young. Briggs had exactly what Neil was looking for at the time, and he's still looking for it now: sublime amateurism, both from himself and from his contributors.

Maybe Briggs taught Neil how to run around the car screaming at red lights during their first drive together; maybe not. But either way, he made Neil happy, and he started to get him truly comfortable in front of a microphone for the first time.

Thank God they found one another. Yes, some of what they made on Neil Young is mediocre for Young, and the album's never-ending final track, Last Trip To Tulsa, is one of my least favorite Neil Young songs (except when the Stray Gators are tearing it into wonderful pieces), but most of the best things we'll talk about in these upcoming posts came from the partnership between Young and Briggs.

And so I hope you're out there right now with a similarly sweet partner of any kind, digging your Shakey Sunday.

[semicoloncancer]

Of pandesal fame;

The corner of Chico and Anonas has always been the busiest part of this quiet neighborhood. There wasn’t much to boast about this place but the one bakery that most people believe to have the best pandesal in the world. That’s an exaggeration but you wouldn’t want to hear other people say it themselves. One other bakery in competition has dimmer lights and its metal gate closed all the time seemingly uninviting or at most exclusive to its patrons. I have no way of knowing. I have lived my life in these streets for three decades before I had to move away.

All my childhood friends have moved away earlier than I have. To where, they never told me. Half of them moved to the province. The computation of my friends moving away is easy because the actual half are siblings of 5 boys alphabetically named making it easier to remember their name. For some reason, I can’t even remember any one of them. The other half are two more sets of brothers. A twin and another 3-sibling set all of which I remember the names of. It’s not important to this story. There are at least two important things why I mentioned this: one, is that I’m the only person in the friend group that doesn’t have any sibling (I do, but we’ll get there); and two, that for every about five years, my number of friends decline (from ten, to five, to two, to one, to none).

I do have siblings, though. One 10 years older and another 2 years younger. The relationship dynamics have always been weird and it was never discussed by our parents why it’s such the case. How could they have waited for 9 years before me and just waited one after. This made it harder for me to drag my brothers into the circle of friends I had growing up. One that my older brother is too old for us to hang out with. Another I felt has robbed the attention from me right away from when he was born. Given our age gaps, there’s no order to our names unlike my other friends. My older brother’s name is Denver, like the city in Colorado; the younger one is Neil. My name is John Paul. As boring as it sounds. In my years of growing up, I have thought of so many theories about our names as to exclude myself from the three of us, one of which: is that both of them are named after famous musicians, John Denver and Neil Young. But that includes one of my names, so it’s not as satisfying as what I aim it to be. These are just small instances of my urge to leave everything. The only problem is that everyone has left before I have, even if I have already been gone for four years. Denver left first, given his age and his readiness to start his family. (Was he actually ready?) Neil and his genius of a brain moved to Germany as an exchange student and has roamed Europe to his heart’s content only coming back home every couple of years or so. My parents are dead.

My father died when Neil was only 12 years old. I mention this first because I was 13 and I have associated this to my unlucky age number to have been the reason my father had to die. My mother has garnered a total of 3 step-parents in the span of another 13 years, another unlucky number that I have thought I have already accepted and let go of to not blame myself for my fatherlessness. Two of my early step-parents are men born out of poor choices until my mother discovered a never-thought-fork-in-the-road path of lesbian romance. Of course the men left. But my step-mother stayed for a couple more years until we decided to leave the house my mother died in. The adults will never be named in this story (I know their names unlike the childhood friends I lost way earlier in my life).

To where I left my hometown, a Chico street exists but not an Anonas. The pandesal is clearly not as good. I remember growing up having run the streets a million times playing games with the sibling-ful friend group I have with the lack of children in the streets of another fruit tree. It took me about 2 more years since my step-mother left the house even if I promised her I would leave when she does so we can finally complete the process of grieving from my mother’s death. It wasn’t a complete break of a promise, though. I have packed a lot of the things I wanted to bring along from this now empty house. Boxes of plates that I know I will never use. Different styles of pants from my younger years that I said I will get to the size but may never will. Notebooks my family and friends have given but still had no pen ink in them because I was too lazy to journal. My yearbook. My old family pictures. My father’s favorite fedora. My mother’s favorite shawl. Neilleft me a few things. Denver took everything he could. In the two more years that I extended my stay, I have continued to be alone. I had no complaints but I have never thought that the people that I got too busy for have now moved on, from my life and from this world. I have no obligations anymore but those obligations have always been part of who I am as much as this loneliness is.

I bring up the bakery at the corner of Chico and Anonas because since I have left where I grew up from, I haven’t been back until today, about 11 years since I left. About 13 years since my mother died, I just realized. I had no idea why because the son of the owner of the house carefully asked me not to ask about it until I came back. I respect his entire family a lot and I know they won’t ask for a favor if they could help it. A little sacrifice of restraint will not pain me so much in the 3 days that I had to wait. Having lived in an archipelago all my life, I never had the urge to aboard a plane to where I have spent a lot of time in, and spending more energy in the new place I uprooted my (inexistent) life made much more sense since I have nothing to go back to anyway. The family paid for my two-way plane ticket from their estate, I suppose. For my trip, I only assumed that he would just like to talk about the recent passing of his only remaining parent and that there have been some items left to my name. In a sense, I am not completely wrong. No matter what happened, they said, they would do anything to talk to any remaining members of their favorite tenant and family they have ever come to know. Long story short, the house I grew up, is not up for rent anymore but is now for sale. I missed the big sign on the gate, I told them. Might it be fortunate or not for me that the reason they flew back home was to offer me the house. I am not in any way heir to the home. Just, the heir to the first offer to be sold the house to. It is their parent’s dying wish. I got an offer price exclusive to me. All I had to do was agree to them. It turns out, I have enough savings to do so with just the right amount left to live comfortably in the next 5 years. As if they have asked my bank without my permission to know if their minimum was achievable by the offer heir.

I said I’ll think about it. I have a roundtrip ticket. Had they thought to just get me a one-way ticket (to which I would’ve said no, or have booked a return flight right away) I might have said yes after a few more hours of reminiscing about the very same living room I knew growing up. They gave me a couple of weeks to think about it which they scrapped and extended to a month. Much like me, they have no reason to rush any more. So I will think about it. I promised them again, much like my restraint. This time, I am needed to let go of it.

The corner of Chico and Anonas has always been the busiest part of this quiet neighborhood. There wasn’t much to boast about this place but the one bakery that most people believe to have the best pandesal in the world. I didn’t buy.

[pgoeltz]

David Crosby has died. This one is tough for me. David was a part of my life since my high school days, when I was a huge fan of The Byrds. The first time I met David, was in RCA Studios in LA. It was 1968, I had taken my first ride on an airplane with Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, from Jefferson Airplane,( I know, I know!) flying from San Francisco, on PSA Airlines, with stewardesses who were all beautiful, and in tight pink miniskirts! Jefferson Airplane were actually considering me as a drummer! Buddy Miles was also on the flight. It was memorable trip for several reasons. First, I was staying with Jorma and he had a bunch of visitors during the day. (Recording sessions, were at night, of course) A couple of notable visitors were Jim Morrison, and Eric Clapton who had brought a cassette of a band he was super exited about. They were called "The Band". We went to the studio and I was just hanging out, with you know, Jefferson Airplane! And after awhile David Crosby walks in the studio wearing the famous green cape, and carrying a guitar. The band finished what they were working on and David breaks out his guitar, and they gather around him as he presents them with a song, called "Triad", that The Byrds didn't want to touch, because of the provocative lyrics; "Why can't we be three?" It was beautiful, haunting, and done in what was turning into the modal tune that would turn out to be a big part of David's sound. It was a heady trip for a teenager. I never made it into the Airplane, but to this day, remain friends with Jorma and Jack. And not too much time later, I was in Santana. All good!

I think it was 1970 I bought my first home in Mill Valley. I believe the price was $62,000! Croz was one of the few LA musicians that was hanging out in Marin County with the Dead, and on Fulton St. in SF with the Airplane. David was living on a houseboat in Sausalito. He loved boats. We ran into each other a few times, and we really connected. We took a liking to each other. We both had an affinity, actually, a passion, for the Welsh Poet, Dylan Thomas. We would read him out loud to each other. "Under Milkwood"..."the sloeback, crowblack, fishing boat bobbing sea". One day I was in Wally Heider Studios in SF, recording "Abraxas" with Santana. Creedence Clearwater was recording there as well. David had booked the big room downstairs, and word was going around how these sessions were becoming rather epic. Neil Young, Jack Casady, Jorma, Grace Slick, Jerry Garcia and other members of the Dead, and oh, Joni Mitchell.

At some point Croz learned we were recording upstairs and came upstairs and asked myself and Gregg Rolie to come downstairs and play. We went down and entered the room, and the strong and pungent smell of really good pot, and incense, combined with the red, dimmed lighting, and Indian fabrics, letting you know that you were in a high class hippy vibe recording room. We played and it was such a different vibe than Santana, of course. It really felt like hippy music to me. It was so open, and cozy, so floaty! It felt strange, to be honest. It was an honor to be playing with these folks, of course. Garcia was always a welcome, uplifting presence.

Later in life, David had a realistic approach to life, knowing that he had escaped death more than several times, and he made the most of, recording some of his best material in his late 70's. He squeezed the most out his artistic life and, just two weeks ago was talking about going back on the road. I saw some of those shows, and the shows with Graham Nash They were all magnificent. Here's to you, my friend, my brother. I'm going smoke a big fat one now in honor of you, while listening to your music.

"DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.

OLD AGE SHOULD BURN AND RAVE AT CLOSE OF DAY;

RAGE, RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT.

THOUGH WISE MEN AT THEIR END KNOW DARK IS RIGHT

BECAUSE THEIR WORDS HAD FORKED NO LIGHTENING, THEY

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT.

[cdlistening]

Neil Young, 'Fork In The Road' CD (Reprise/Warner Bros)

Saturday, October 30, 2021, 4:14pm (full listen)

One of the biggest patches of holes in my NY collection is among the more recent releases of new material, such as this album. I'd somewhat carelessly (somewhat because they're generally not exactly amazing but often far from bad) written them off, with the last one I'd heard being - I think - 'Le Noise' (which I had sold and just rebought...sigh), but the guys on the podcast had some good things to say about this one - largely that it was 'fun' or something like that - and I was intrigued enough to grab it from the used CD place the other day. And yeah, it's a pretty decent, solid album, with lots of (pointed but mostly non-cringey) lyrics about cars and gas, and the playing is quite good, with excellent, meaty drumming (and a great snare sound), some typically great tones from NY's guitar, some nice bass and keyboard moments, quite a bit of backing gang vocals (sometimes quite smartly arranged and executed), and a general sort of "12 bar blues with some twists and turns" style of songwriting.

[1962dude420-blog]

Neil Young - Fork in the Road Released: April 7, 2009 Label: Reprise

[writingpuddle]

The other night best friend and I (yes, that best friend) were riffing on trans Neil headcanons over the phone, but a realistic trans treatment of aftg gets dark real fast, so without further ado:

~The Mafia May Be Sexist (But It’s Not Transphobic!) AU ~

(tmmbsbintau, if you will)

Does this premise make sense? No, but if Nora can write about made up mafia sports, I can write a nonsense AU where transphobia doesn’t exist okay this is my party and ill be self-indulgent if i want to

We open with baby Neil, who was named after his maternal grandmother or smthg idk

Now lets say Neil is one of those “I always knew I was trans” kids

So even at a fairly young age he was like, nope this is wrong

For the most part his dad basically ignores him (what use is a girl to me???) but if he makes the mistake of getting in the way it’s the usual shit with knives and hot irons and basically Neil’s bog-standard Traumatic Childhood

His mom signs him up to play Exy to get him out of the house, and he loves it, because of course he does

Now tiny Neil may be terrified of his father

But remember transphobia isn’t real

So he when he’s about ten years old he tells his parents over dinner

His mom just puts her fork down and says that’s alright

But Nathan

Nathan

Nathan’s eyes start to glow

He has a son? Not a useless daughter?

He’s practically levitating with glee

And Neil, poor Neil, who has never had any positive reinforcement—from either parent, Mary, you’re not innocent in this—he soaks it up

Nathan puts both hands on his son’s—his son’s!—shoulders and dubs him Nathaniel

His son, his heir, his legacy

Mary takes one look at the possessive look in her husband’s eyes and thinks oh hell no

For the next few days Nathan absolutely showers Nathaniel with affection

He takes him to the hairdresser and buys him a whole new wardrobe, neglecting his mafia duties in order to dote upon his new son

It is possibly the happiest week of Nathaniel’s life

And then he wakes up in the night with his mother’s hand on his mouth and is given less than a minute to pack his things

Now he’s grown up in a criminal household; the notion of making a run for it isn’t exactly foreign to him

But it’s not until they’re in the car that Nathaniel realizes that his father is nowhere to be seen

Where’s dad? He asks

Shut up, his mother hisses, and slams the car into gear

From then on, he is never Nathaniel

His mother is 100% on board with his transition, but…not really anything beyond that

After all, people will be looking for a woman and a trans boy, which means Mary’s investment in Neil’s gender pretty much starts and ends with him passing as cis

She gets him all the medical treatments he needs (on the black market, since they’re on the run)—puberty blockers when he’s younger, testosterone when he’s older

But he’s never allowed to acknowledge being trans whatsoever

Not to his classmates, not to his teachers

He never gets the chance to have a queer community, or explore the nuances of his gender, because the only presentation they can afford for him to have is Masculine Cis Boy. The restriction is stifling. It’s suffocating.

Neil hates her for it

His life was, so briefly, perfect

He had his father’s love and approval for a day, a week, and he is both old enough to remember his father’s cruelty and young enough to believe that it could end

Nathan is incandescent

When he realizes what Mary has done he goes to the Moriyamas in a storm of fury

She stole my SON! He bellows

Now the Moriyama’s didn’t particularly care about Neil back when they thought he was a girl

Girls in the mafia are basically just for child-rearing, so he wasn’t a threat

So once they figure out what Nathan is talking about (this takes a sec, owing to Nathan having not previously gotten around to telling them about Nathaniel’s revelation), their first thought is that look, we might do the nepotism thing here in our family, but underlings don’t get to do the nepotism thing. Sorry, them’s the breaks

Obviously, Mary has to die—nobody’s disputing that, a woman who robbed her husband and stole his son? Only death will right that wrong—but Kengo tells Nathan that he’ll help find Nathaniel on the condition that he’s given to the Ravens upon capture

Nathan is utterly confident that his son—his son!—will perform admirably. He accepts the deal without a second thought

So they’re on the run for years and years, and Neil’s resentment towards his mother festers, but he never acts out too much, and he doesn’t contact his father

He almost does a couple times, but then he presses his hand to the iron scar on his shoulder and he can’t quite make himself go through with it

He’s sixteen when Nathan catches up with them in Seattle

There’s a shootout and Mary and Neil almost get away

But

Nathan arrives

Nathaniel! He shouts. My boy!

And Neil lurches to a stop

There is his father, walking towards him, his eyes still shining with the same fierce love and pride from when he was ten

Nathaniel, his father says. Hasn’t this gone on long enough?

Come home.

Mary is trying to drag Neil away, but he’s too fixated on his father

Can I? Neil asks. Can I really?

Of course, Nathan says. Everything is forgiven. I’ve even secured you a place on the Ravens. Didn’t you always love Exy? Come home with me, Nathaniel

Neil can barely believe it. His father is offering him everything he ever wanted. His mother has been keeping him from this, his whole life?

Why would they run?

And through this whole exchange Nathan has been getting closer, and Mary is pulling Neil back, and now he’s close enough to touch and the sound she makes is like something physical tears when she finally releases Neil and tries to flee

She isn’t fast enough

Nathan’s grin is as wide as the sun when his cleaver bites into Mary’s waist

Blood pours out

Neil screams

Mary clutches her side, staggering away, but it’s obvious she won’t make it far

Dad, no, Neil says. Don’t—

Shh, his father says. Don’t be afraid. She kept us apart all these years. She deserves to die.

And Neil—

Neil has hated his mother for most of his life

But he looks at the woman who has struggled so long to protect him—who has failed as often as she succeeded, but who fought anyway, everyday—and the man whose eyes are bright with glee at her pain

And he makes a choice

He only has a split second to see the betrayal in his father’s eyes before the pipe in his hand slams into his head and he pitches forward, unconscious

Neil does not wait to see if he survives

He grabs his mother and they run, her arm locked on his shoulder and her palm pressed to the wound on her side

Neil puts her in the passenger seat and jumps in, throwing the car in gear

You need a hospital, he says, frantic

No, she hisses, pinning a towel to her side. No hospitals

Guilt floods through him as he looks at her pale face

Sticky red handprints smear on everything she touches

I’m sorry, mom, he says, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—

Enough, she says. Drive

He drives

He drives, and drives, and he follows her instructions, and later he wouldn’t have been able to say if he actually thought she would survive; he believed it, because he had to, because he had never been without her; he knew better, because gut wounds are slow, but they are inexorable

He parks on the beach and there are tears pushing at his eyelids but he chokes them down

I’m sorry, he said, I never should have believed him. I’m sorry—

You never would have been enough for him, she says, and Neil flinches

Her hand finds his chin and she yanks him down to meet her eyes, her gaze fierce.

He never loved you, she says. He would have made you in his image, and when you failed he would have torn you apart. I would not—I would not watch him try to make my son a monster. Don’t—don’t waste it

Mom, what are you saying—

Promise me, she says

Promise you won’t go back to him

She is dying

Neil can’t refuse

He promises

She releases his face and her red fingerprints on his face burn like brands. He can feel them hours after the tears wash the blood away.

Her last few breaths are jagged as broken stones before she rattles to a stop, and Neil is alone

He burns her body and staggers out onto the road and he keeps moving, he keeps moving, because he knows if he stops he’ll shatter

His hesitation has cost him his mother’s life

But his action costs him his fathers love

In one blow, Neil broke the golden image Nathan had of his perfect son, and now all Nathan wants is to destroy him

He finds his way to Millport almost on instinct alone

He finds one of Mary’s contacts who can supply him with the hormones he needs to continue passing and squats in an empty house and speaks to none of his classmates

When the Exy team tryouts are announced, he goes, intending to only watch from a distance

Perhaps it is inevitable he’s sucked in

There is so little light in his life

Can he be forgiven for wanting one little spark?

The Foxes come for him in May, and Kevin doesn’t recognize him, because how would he? Even if they met as kids, Kevin never saw Neil post-transition

Wymack ends up telling him something about Kevin’s past and the truth about the Ravens, and Neil pales a little bit, remembering how his father had said he’d gotten Neil a place on their line-up and finally understanding why

And sometimes he looks at Kevin with blinding jealousy for the life Neil didn’t get to have, and sometimes he sees him nearly comatose with fear and drinking vodka like it’s water, and his stomach hurts thinking how cheerfully his father would have consigned him to the same fate

So canon proceeds and Neil still bitches Riko out on live TV, and Riko still manages to acquire Neil’s fingerprints

And would you believe that? The Foxes mouthy new rookie is [deadname], Nathan Wesninski’s brat?

Well, well, well

At the banquet Riko pokes and prods until Neil finally snaps, and as Dan drags the team away from the wreckage Jean grabs Neil’s arm and says, low and fast in French, You’ll meet with us later

Why the fuck would I do that? Neil demands

Because otherwise everyone will find out that the Butcher is your father

Neil can’t hide his flinch and Kevin’s eyes go wide

They flee the scene, but before they even reach Coach, Kevin is already rounding on Neil

Is it true? He croaks

Not now, Neil says

But Kevin reads confirmation in Neil’s deflection

I didn’t know [deadname] had a brother, he says

Now here is the thing

Names are obviously a touchy subject with a lot of trans people, and certainly with Neil in particular

But with everything that just happened, Neil is a bit preoccupied, and it’s been a long time since he’s associated himself with that name

Since before he stopped using it, truthfully

And so his response is out of his mouth before he can even think twice

“Who?”

Kevin nods seriously, because he is wise to the ways of mafia bosses, and it’s not exactly shocking that Nathan Wesninski had a mistress and a secret second child, especially considering his first child had been a girl

It’s several moments before Neil puts two and two together and realizes that he has inadvertently slipped through a perfect loophole

He’s failed his mother so many times, but at least this secret is still safe, and he clings to that

Neil’s gender doesn’t really affect his interpersonal relationships with the Foxes—he’s already changing out separately, so this isn’t even a whole other thing

It’s harder to hide his testosterone when he’s living in shared dorms, but he has everything in the safe and figures out the safest schedule to open it up when he’s sure Matt will be in class

Andrew finds out when they start hooking up

But remember transphobia isn’t real so it’s sort of more like Andrew goes to undo his pants and is like wait your dick is removeable? Okay.

And then he just gets on with it

So Binghamton and Baltimore happen as canon, and if Neil had ever harboured hopes that his father would forgive him and love him again, they’re broken for good when his father stalks in and sees him shivering and just grins

It is the smile of someone who has torn someone off a pedestal and is going to enjoy reducing them to dust

Nevermind that Nathan had been the one to put him on that pedestal in the first place

Stuart deus-ex-machinas us out of the maws of death and we end up back in that classic Baltimore scene with the Foxes, and they still claim him, and they still take him home

He tells them all about his mafia father and life on the run, and it doesn’t really click until later that he forgot to mention the trans thing

Not like he, you know, has to tell them, and being trans is hardly an issue in Exy since it’s co-ed, but it would probably be nice to see a real doctor instead of keep buying his hormones illegally

And moreover, he wants the Foxes to know him

So they hit the cabin in the mountains and everyone knows Neil doesn’t drink, but when Andrew pours him a shot, he takes it

Ooh, Nicky says, Is Neil about to start spilling his secrets?

Allison snorts. What secrets does he have left?

Uh, Neil says

Wait, Allison says. There’s more secrets????

Yeah, he says. Um, I’m trans

There’s a pause

Well, that’s no good, Allison said. We didn’t have a bet going on that

Everyone laughs, and Neil smiles, and he looks at the sunset and remembers his mother, and he remembers a life filled with hiding, and secrets, and loneliness

Bats swoop in the twilight beyond the cabin, and he turns towards the warmth and light inside, and he does not look back

[nasa]

Remember the Women Who Made #Apollo50th Possible

As the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the historic Moon landing, we remember some of the women whose hard work and ingenuity made it possible. The women featured here represent just a small fraction of the enormous contributions made by women during the Apollo era. 

Margaret Hamilton, Computer Programmer

Margaret Hamilton led the team that developed the building blocks of software engineering — a term that she coined herself. Her systems approach to the Apollo software development and insistence on rigorous testing was critical to the success of Apollo. In fact, the Apollo guidance software was so robust that no software bugs were found on any crewed Apollo missions, and it was adapted for use in Skylab, the Space Shuttle and the first digital fly-by-wire systems in aircraft.

In this photo, Hamilton stands next to a stack of Apollo Guidance Computer source code. As she noted, “There was no second chance. We all knew that.”

Katherine Johnson, Aerospace Technologist

As a very young girl, Katherine Johnson loved to count things. She counted everything, from the number of steps she took to get to the road to the number of forks and plates she washed when doing the dishes.

As an adult, Johnson became a “human computer” for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which in 1958, became NASA. Her calculations were crucial to syncing Apollo’s Lunar Lander with the Moon-orbiting Command and Service Module. “I went to work every day for 33 years happy. Never did I get up and say I don't want to go to work."

Judy Sullivan, Biomedical Engineer

This fabulous flip belongs to biomedical engineer Judy Sullivan, who monitored the vital signs of the Apollo 11 astronauts throughout their spaceflight training via small sensors attached to their bodies. On July 16, 1969, she was the only woman in the suit lab as the team helped Neil Armstrong suit up for launch.

Sullivan appeared on the game show “To Tell the Truth,” in which a celebrity panel had to guess which of the female contestants was a biomedical engineer. Her choice to wear a short, ruffled skirt stumped everyone and won her a $500 prize. In this photo, Sullivan monitors a console during a training exercise for the first lunar landing mission.

Billie Robertson, Mathematician

Billie Robertson, pictured here in 1972 running a real-time go-no-go simulation for the Apollo 17 mission, originally intended to become a math teacher. Instead, she worked with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, which later became rolled into NASA. She created the manual for running computer models that were used to simulate launches for the Apollo, Skylab and Apollo Soyuz Test Project programs. 

Robertson regularly visited local schools over the course of her career, empowering young women to pursue careers in STEM and aerospace.

Mary Jackson, Aeronautical Engineer

In 1958, Mary Jackson became NASA’s first African-American female engineer. Her engineering specialty was the extremely complex field of boundary layer effects on aerospace vehicles at supersonic speeds.

In the 1970s, Jackson helped the students at Hampton’s King Street Community center build their own wind tunnel and use it to conduct experiments. “We have to do something like this to get them interested in science," she said for the local newspaper. "Sometimes they are not aware of the number of black scientists, and don't even know of the career opportunities until it is too late."

Ethel Heinecke Bauer, Aerospace Engineer

After watching the launch of Sputnik in October 1957, Ethel Heinecke Bauer changed her major to mathematics. Over her 32 years at NASA, she worked at two different centers in mathematics, aerospace engineering, development and more. 

Bauer planned the lunar trajectories for the Apollo program including the ‘free return’ trajectory which allowed for a safe return in the event of a systems failure  — a trajectory used on Apollo 13, as well as the first three Apollo flights to the Moon. In the above photo, Bauer works on trajectories with the help of an orbital model.

Follow Women@NASA for more stories like this one, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

[songsofprotestpeacerevolution]

Neil Young - Fork In The Road

[serzhantkris]

Rebel Yell- 6

Summary: Let’s get something straight: he does not love you. He knows that for sure, because he doesn’t want to scream at you and he doesn’t want to get married, and that’s the only things he knows for sure about people who are in love. And he was doomed to kiss with his fists and scream and be angry and blame everyone but himself for the rest of his life. So, no. Billy did not love you. Billy Hargrove x Hopper!Reader

Word Count: 2504

Warning: sexual situations

AN: Hey everyone, I won’t bother you with a super long update/apology. If you want to shoot me a message about how I’ve been gone forever, feel free. I miss you all, here’s some Billy.

Masterlist

The sunlight streaming in the windows is what wakes you. Slanted shadows fall over your face from the blinds, and you nearly panic until you remember it’s a weekend. The sound of something moving in the kitchen is muffled by the door, but it doesn’t stop the smell of bacon wafting through the cracks. Tossing the blanket back, you reach for a sweater as you patter barefoot into the hall.

Jim stands at the stove, his back to you, flipping the strips over in the pan. He’s head to toe in tan, the unbuttoned shirt catching flecks of grease. “What are you doing?”

He turns, just enough to catch sight of you, and points at the table with his spatula. You ease into a chair, cupping your chin in a palm. “Making breakfast,” he says, turning his back to you. “Heard you come in after eleven last night.”

“We got caught up at Benny’s,” you inform him, reaching for a strip of bacon as he slides the plate on the table. He gives you a pointed look, turning back to crack eggs into the pan. “It won’t happen again.”

“It sure won’t,” he says. Quiet lapses as you chew the strip of bacon, watching out the windows as a flock of birds settles onto the deck railing. “Your boyfriend’s quite the rebel.”

“He’s not my boyfriend, Dad. We hardly know each other.”

“Well enough to hang halfway out the car window,” he pulls another plate out of the cabinet, shutting the door a bit too hard. “Glad you made it home alright. I was worried about you, runnin’ around with some kid-“

“Billy, Dad. His name’s Billy.”

“I know.” He turns around, yanking the other chair out from the table as the plate landed heavily on its wooden surface. “He tell you Callahan got called out there on a domestic a few weeks ago? House wasn’t even unpacked yet-”

“What the hell, Dad!” You shoot up, knocking the chair back as your palms slammed on the table. “Are you serious right now? You ran his name?!”

“I asked around the office.” His face hardens, silently daring you to keep yelling or to storm off. “I just wanted to know who my daughter was running around with-”

“And I told you all you needed to know-”

“-because I pulled over this death-trap and she’s in the passenger seat-”

“-and you should have trusted me-”

“I did trust you,” He snapped, a fist pounding on the table. Your mouth snapped shut, teeth grinding at the back of your jaw. “I trusted you to come home on time. And you didn’t even do that. Did you want me to wait until you maybe didn’t come home at all?”

The sound of the birds outside is all that fills the space between you. You’re staring at the table space between your hands, trying to ignore the way his eyes burn as he waits for a response. 

The phone started to ring, making you jump. Jim drops his fork down on the table with a clang, taking two long strides to the wall and yanking the receiver off the hook. “What?”

He listens for a second, keeping his voice low, but you’re already heading back down the hall towards your room, yanking open the dresser to find clean clothes.

“I gotta take this call.” Jim lingers in your doorway, fingers doing up the buttons on his shirt. You ignore him, shoving piles of denim and cotton around the drawer. “Listen, I know you’re angry-”

“He’s not a demogorgon, you know.”

Jim’s tongue is dry, mouth still open, and his arms fall to his sides as you finally look at him, hands gripping a pair of worn jeans. “I know that. I know that, and maybe I shouldn’t have jumped the gun-”

“Got that right.”

“Will you quit running your mouth for two minutes?” Jim runs his hand over his face, exasperated, and you fall silent, giving him an eerily familiar look he might have seen in the mirror a time or two. “Let’s make a deal, alright? You make it home by curfew from now on, and you let me know where you and your- where you and Billy or whoever are gonna be, and I’ll… Keep my nose out of your business.”

Your lips press into a fine line. “That would be easier to do if you were around.”

“Don’t. Test me, Y/N.” His teeth grit, and you can’t look at him, because you know there’s no way of winning this fight. “I’m not negotiating here. Two rules. Follow them.”

Without another word, the door to your bedroom slams shut behind him. You don’t move, still staring at the pile of clothes shoved to one side of your dresser as you listen to the sounds of the police car’s engine roaring to life outside.

Billy is pussy-whipped. That’s the only way to put it, and it’s infuriating. No amount of cigarettes can get rid of the taste of milkshakes and cherry chapstick caught on his tongue, and the inside of his car smells like stale rainwater and cum. And yeah, it’s always smelled a bit like sex, but now it smells like your sex and it’s different.

Billy doesn’t love you. He knows that for sure, because he doesn’t want to scream at you and he doesn’t want to get married, and that’s the only things he knows for sure about people who are in love. Although he knows it’s not supposed to be like that, he’s aware that despite the nickname you’d given to him, he was no Prince Charming. He was Neil Hargrove’s son, and the only displays of being in love he knew came from Neil and his mother. Neil, who’s fists sounded like thunder to young Billy, even when he hid behind the couch or under the table; his mother, who called him when he was ten years old to tell him that she wasn’t coming home. When he asked her when she would come back, she said not ever. That, he knew- that wasn’t love, but it was what Billy knew. And he was doomed to kiss with his fists and scream and be angry and blame everyone but himself for the rest of his life.

So, no. Billy did not love you. But he wanted you, and the only thing he could come up with between indifference and love was the same term he used to describe Tommy when it came to Carol: pussy-whipped. And he hated it.

He came to this conclusion halfway through Monday morning, as he was leaning against the brick corner outside those double doors, reading graffiti that had been etched into the dumpster, probably with a paperclip or a cheap swiss knife. It was initials inside a heart- isn’t it always- and a crooked ‘72 that seemed like a last minute addition. He wondered vaguely if those people still loved each other and if they did, were they like Neil and his mom?

He’s already halfway through his first cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs as long as he can with every drag. The door swings open and Billy can’t stop the anticipation of seeing you step out to meet him. 

“Hey,” you said. 

Billy smirks. “Hey.”

Your face is tinted pink, and Billy can’t tell if you’re cold or blushing. Maybe both. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”

His heart sinks just the slightest. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Your lips press into a thin line and Billy already knows the answer. Because you already fucked me. What more could you want?

Truth was he didn’t come here for cigarettes. It would be easier to sit in his car, cranking up the heat and the stereo and blowing smoke out the thin crack in his window, than to stand in the bitter cold and wait for the beautiful girl that he absolutely would never love. 

“So I was thinking—“

“Friday night was—“

You both stop, grinning stupidly. Billy’s cigarette is smoldering, dripping to the ground, and you haven’t even zipped up your jacket yet. 

There it is again. That “shut the fuck up and enjoy each other” silence that Billy had never even heard of before you. 

“My, uh, my dad,” you start, shoving your hands in your pockets and rocking back on your heels. “He works late on Fridays. Every week.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  You bite your lip, and Billy briefly imagines taking it between his own teeth instead. You don’t offer up the question, but Billy answers it anyway. 

“You inviting me over?”

“If you want.” You shrug. “We could pop some Jiffy-Pop. Rent a video. Ignore both of those things in favor of catering irresponsibly to teenage hormones.”

He knows it, now, how whipped for you he’s starting to become because he nods, that wolffish smile on his lips, and he leans forward to kiss you like it’s the most normal thing in the world. But it isn’t, because Billy Hargrove doesn’t go back for seconds and he doesn’t love you and he definitely, honestly, really doesn’t ever want to. 

The faint sound of Jiffy-Pop snapping over the stove is almost enough to distract you from looking out the window. You’d been glancing out every few minutes, hoping to catch the flash of the Camaro’s headlights coming down the dirt road. It’s twenty after six, and Billy had agreed to be there by six-thirty, but there’s still a feeling of unease in your gut as the minutes tick by.

It wasn’t as though you actually expected Billy to show up. At first, you had been excited at the prospect of seeing him again- outside of the space you and Billy had claimed at the school. You’d caught sight of him a few times in the halls, now hyper-aware of him in ways you had not been before. You knew where his locker was, that he was on the basketball team with Steve; you knew where he liked to park the Camaro and who he spent his time with in between classes.

He’d become aware of you, too. He lingered at his locker just a bit longer after third period, when you would walk by on your way to chemistry. He knew which books you took home and which stayed in your locker; he knew that you liked to go to the library instead of lunch and that you stayed after on Wednesdays to tutor algebra.

But as the week went on, you’d become weary that maybe you had been imagining the magnetic pull between the two of you. That maybe Billy thought the sex was good, and maybe by Friday he would decide it wasn’t that great after all. That maybe he would just not show up and that come next Monday, he’d be a distant memory. 

Three sharp raps on the door brings a grin to your lips, and it takes an embarrassingly short time for you to get to the door and wrench it open. Billy turns his head from where he’d been eyeing the kitchen window, smile widening over his face. “Hi,” he says.

“You’re here.”

Billy’s brow raises, his eyes trailing over you. “I am here.”

The breeze carries through the house. Billy looks expectant, and you shake your head, blinking, and move out of the doorway. “Shit, sorry- come in.”

Billy follows after you, moving slower as he takes in his surroundings. There’s a table by the door, the surface covered by three beer cans, two coffee mugs, two ashtrays and a plate. Nearby is the box television, facing a red armchair that has jackets thrown over the back and a couch that looks like it’s been slept on by a bear. More beer cans dot the coffee table, and Billy vaguely wonders if they’re yours or the Chief’s. 

The smell of slightly burnt popcorn guides him into the kitchen. He hovers in the doorway, his eyes linger briefly on a child’s drawing pinned to the fridge before they drop to the dining table (the only one so far without any cans) where a stack of three VHS tapes bring him further into the room. 

You glance over your shoulder, turning the stove off and putting the popcorn on the table as Billy picks up the tapes. “How’d I know you’d pick at least one sappy chick-flick,” he teases, holding up the copy of Grease. 

“What can I say- I’m a sucker for a happy ending.”

Billy’s tongue runs over his lip as he puts the tape back down, moving deliberately toward you. It startles you, how he’s able to take such predatory steps and, although you want to let him come up close and put his hands in your hair and kiss you madly, he’s able to force you to take steps backward until your back hits the kitchen counter.

He bares his teeth with that smile that takes up his whole face, his eyes sparkling darkly as he looks down, towering over you. His body presses you against the counter, the wood digging into the small of your back, and his hands come up to grasp your waist.

“What a coincidence,” he mumbles, grip just a bit tighter as his lips graze your earlobe. “So am I.”

You yelp when he lifts you up, more surprised than hurt, and he sits you down on the counter and sneaks between your knees. Only then does he finally kiss you, the same way he had in the rain that first night. It’s hot and messy and entirely too much teeth, but the sheer ferocity leaves you needy. Here’s the wolf you had been so worried about, the one growling in your ear and digging his claws into your flesh. 

Your clothes have barely hit the floor when he slides into you, forcing a moan up your throat. Your legs squeeze his waist, pulling him closer with each hard thrust. The edge of the counter nips at the underside of your thighs. Billy’s hands slide under them, pulling your legs just a bit higher, hitting you just a bit deeper with each unforgiving slam of the hips. It’s enough to uncoil the spring in your belly, enough to burst the lights in your vision, enough to make you think that maybe the connection you’d felt was real. 

Billy’s forehead hits your shoulder, eyes squeezed shut as your hands pull at his hair, and when he comes, he almost hurts. Not the kind of pain he’d felt before, where his groin is too tight or his muscles flex just the wrong way, but the kind where he doesn’t remember how to breathe until your legs loosen around his waist, your hands let go of their vice grip and turn into soothing strokes, and Billy thinks he could stay like this forever.

He’s just got his breath back when he looks up at you, that boyish charm back on his lips and he kisses you one more time. “So, Grease, then?”

@william-hargroves​​​​​ @killer-queen-xo​​​​​ @sallyp-53​​​​​ @cloverrover​​​​​ @scud994​​​​​ @nighttwingg​​​​​ @yaidothat​​​​​ @abiwebb12​​​​​ @camillewester​​​​ @vespertxne​​​​ @potatoheadthewise​​​ @tearsforhan​​​ @leedelee14​​​ @crowned-gemini​​​ @ericuhlorain​​​ @frozenhuntress67​​​ @chloe-skywalker​​​ @thatpunkmaximoff​​ @elishaletterman​​ @winchestersister55​​ @captainstilinskis​

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Thirteen-One, part 2

Heavy clouds painted the horizon in a dull, bleak gray. Although still morning, the day was quickly fading.

Amy walked down the street. Her keys jingled in her leather jacket’s pocket, reminding her with each step that she needed to have someone check her car. She had not been able to start it this morning. Just another damned thing for her to deal with after the big move to this town.

From the corners of her eyes, she saw a shadow dart past. Her heart raced and she swiveled to spot her assailant. But nothing and nobody was there. Perhaps a mere trick her eyes were playing on her. Amy stood alone on this narrow road, amidst houses both old and new, some from the old colonial era and some just representing those artsy, newer architectural styles that she hated. Right now, she had no eyes for the environment itself, though. She was on the lookout for other people, specifically any creeping up on her.

Not a single soul here beside her.

Continuing on, a person took a left turn and joined her on the road, walking in the opposite direction and towards her. Some unknown man in his late twenties, dressed completely in black.

He just stared at her and a pit formed in Amy’s stomach. She tried to size him up but kept averting her eyes, both out of nervousness and just to see if eye contact could make him do the same. The real estate agent had sworn up and down that the area was all quiet and safe—"zero crime"—but Amy was new in town and the agent might have been full of shit.

The stranger’s course of walking was not in straight line towards her, after all. They moved along opposite sides of the small suburban road. He never stopped staring at her, however. He never turned his head. He creepily glared at her from the corners of his eyes until they had passed each other.

She could feel his gaze burning holes into the back of her head as she continued on. The pit in her stomach was still there, and she felt like all blood must have visibly drained from her face. Amy refused to turn around, refused to show any sign of fear—and listened intently to the sounds of his shuffling sneakers as they both walked on while the distance between them grew.

At the end of the road, Amy finally dared to look back. The creep was not staring back at her. Her gaze burned holes into the back of his head. Not looking where she was walking.

So she bumped into someone else.

Some man said, “Excuse you?” The voice tugged at some memory strings in Amy’s brain.

Under any other circumstances, Amy would have quipped with something snippy. But the day continued to be strange and unsettling all around, so she just looked up at the person she had crashed into. After a few seconds and incredulous blinking, she recognized a familiar face: her old high school friend and former band mate, Chris.

His furrowed brow made way to a face beaming with pleasant surprise. He asked, “Hey. Amy?”

Amy sighed and could not help but smile. With all the weirdness she had witnessed since getting up, followed by that weirdo gawking at her just before—seeing a friendly face turned out to be a true palate cleanser.

“Long time no see, fuck-face,” she said.

Chris chuckled.

“Uh, look. I’d actually like to catch up, but I need to be somewhere,” Amy said. She pulled her phone from her jacket, more demonstratively than anything, and added, “You still got the same number?”

Chris nodded and confirmed with a curt answer, then gestured to the sidewalk behind him.

“It’s cool, let’s walk together. I’m in no rush. I was just takin’ a walk to clear my head.”

Amy dug her hands into her jeans’ pockets and nodded. Chris plodded along by her side as she continued on with her way.

“I never thought you’d come back to this dumpy little town,” he said. “Especially not with the success you’ve been having in the big city. So—what brought you back?”

Amy shrugged. “Outside of the lame-ass answer you’d expect to hear about it never being quiet out there, I wouldn’t know where to start. Hey, so, uh—something else.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“You and the others still all in the same band?”

Chris’ face went blank and he stared at the sidewalk in front of them as they walked.

“Not all of us, no. Seth and Kevin left shortly before you skipped town. Don’t you remember?”

“Sorry. My memory’s kinda gone shoddy in recent years.” Amy took a deep breath, mentally crossing out the old haunt as a place she could find Seth to confront him about the disturbing video she had watched this morning. Then she asked, “So, is the band doing good?”

“I’d say so, yeah. Neil recently said he was gonna hook us up with some bigwig who could get us more serious gigs.”

“Without Kev, who’s doing the drums now?”

“Someone new—Beverly.”

“Hmm.”

“Wait, ‘hmm’, what? She’s really good!”

“No, I meant, ‘hmm’ in the sense that—well, I don’t know her. Like, neither as a person nor as a drummer.”

Neither Amy nor Chris looked at each other. The silence that persisted between them turned awkward.

“How’s Scott doing? He move back here with you?”

Amy stopped in her tracks.

“Scott?”

Chris followed suit and looked back at her.

“Well, yeah. Scott. Your boyfriend?” Burying his own hands in his pockets, he then asked, “Or your—your ex?”

“Y-yeah. He is—he has long moved to France. Neither of us thought the long distance would work. And here I thought I was the one who had memory issues. Do you?”

A short bellow escaped Chris’ throat. A bit too clipped, a bit too forced. Artificial.

They continued walking. Amy blurted out, “No, look, I’ve been seeing someone else. A real cutie, Steve. Steve Parker. You know him?”

“Nope.”

“Not surprised, he’s not from around here. Also staying in the city for now. Work.”

Chris grinned. There was almost something impish about it. Something devilish.

Where their road forked, he pointed up one way, leading uphill. Amy knew her path lied the other way. Chris nodded to her and said his goodbye. She called out after him, prompting him to turn around and proceed a few steps while walking backwards.

“Where are you actually headed to?”

“To this forest hut where we jam. You know—our band.”

Amy blanked out. And the memories of that morning returned to her in a flash, suffocating any positive feelings. The pit in her stomach returned, worse than when it had visited her before. She saw that single light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

She saw her darker self, talking into the camera. Talking about needing to dispose of a dead body.

And the she remembered the dark, clawed hand, reaching out from the darkness inside that pentagram. The nails digging into her flesh, drawing blood.

“You okay?”

Chris’ question grounded Amy again, ripped her right back out of the strange imagery bombarding her mind and inner eye.

“All good,” she said.

She had lied.

They went separate ways. She quickly forgot about the encounter with Chris even though something about their conversation felt utterly wrong, as if she had heard either of them say something she did not like to hear. But Amy did not dwell on that.

Instead, she pondered the strange video she had seen that morning. She did not want to, but the images kept invading her consciousness. And she could not shake that horrible feeling. She still wondered if she should call the cops.

But she did not.

The idea of being implicated in a murder and not remembering any of it—if it had even happened at all—was both deeply disturbing and crippling her from seeking out help from authorities.

She finally arrived in front of a big apartment building. The formerly bright white of its facade had turned into muddied colors with the paint chipping off, weathered away over the years. Loud, aggressive heavy metal music blared out from one of the open windows on the first floor.

Amy approached the entrance and tried pushing through the building’s front door. But the door would not budge—it was locked up tight. She scanned the doorbells and rang one of them. Seth’s doorbell.

Nobody responded. The door did not open. She pressed the button to ring the bell again and leaned over and looked to the window out of which loud music continued to thunder. As there still had yet to be anybody to react to her ringing of the doorbell, she wandered back out of the roofed entrance area, looked around the bushed and picked up a rock.

She thought on it for a second, and then tossed the rock up through the open window. Someone must have gotten hit by it, because that faceless someone shouted, “Ow!”

A topless, tattooed man wearing only jeans, with greasy long dark hair tied back into a ponytail, looked out of the window to see who had thrown the rock and hit him. He glared. Then his gaze softened upon seeing and recognizing Amy.

Another old, familiar face from back in the day: Adam. Good ol’ party boy. Bit of an idiot, but soft core.

And decidedly not Seth.

She had come here to find Seth. This was where he lived after all. She had not expected to meet Adam here, but Amy was somewhat happy to find Adam here instead of Seth.

The more she thought about it now, the more unsettling Seth had always been.

“Come the fuck on in,” Adam shouted down to her with a wide, toothy smile.

Amy shook her head and shouted back, “I’d love to. But fucking how?”

“What?”

“Your music is too fucking loud, jackass!”

“Calm your tits, I’ll be right there.”

Adam disappeared from the window. The music stopped in the middle of a stanza, making way for an uncomfortable silence. Soon after, the front door to the apartment block swung open, and the young man stood there, dressed still only in jeans and wearing unlaced black boots that were more scuff marks than leather.

“Since when did anybody start locking that door?”

Adam cocked his head back, causing the skin underneath his chin to bunch up, giving him the look of a turtle for a brief moment of contemplation.

“Folks are paranoid these days, I guess. Bunch o’ crackheads even in this small town, nowadays. You either keep some guns or you lock your doors, I guess.”

He thumbed behind him.

“You wanna come inside or talk right here? Got beer, got smokes, and I’m willing to share with an old stranger like yourself.”

They went inside. The place was a vision of pure chaos. The apartment looked like what you would expect from a tornado hitting the inside of a tour bus. Piles of empty pizza boxes, crumpled up beer cans, and an overturned ashtray with its contents spilled all over the carpet in a dark gray stain, on top of soiled newspapers on top of a cluttered coffee table harboring all manner of drugs and paraphernalia.

Adam plopped down onto the couch with a sigh and Amy thought twice about sitting down anywhere. The whole place reeked of stale cigarette smoke, cheap booze, and dried cum.

“Damn,” Amy said, the word slipping out more than anything.

She always hated it when fellow musicians were walking cliches. She hated it when they smashed guitars on stage, screwed around nonstop with roadies, or steeped themselves in substance abuse.

With narrowed eyes, Adam used a naked hand to shovel through the mess on the coffee table. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from the bottom of the junk and lit up a smoke with incredible speed and routine that only chain smokers possessed. Then tossed the pack back onto the table.

“Oh, you think this place looks bad?” Adam chuckled and choked a bit on the smoke as it came back up. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Shoulda been a quiet little evening, but somehow—somehow, way more people showed up, and it got out of hand.” He shrugged and took another long, greedy drag from his cancer stick.

Adam leaned back and started puffing out smoke rings.

“Can I bum one from you?”

“Dude. That’s a personal insult, coming from you. You think you need to ask me if you can have one of my smokes?” Scott guffawed. “Seriously. They’re not even mine. Pretty sure someone else forgot them here last night. So knock yourself out.”

He picked up the pack and held it open for her to take a smoke. When she reached out to grab one, he cringed when he saw that her hand was wrapped in bandages that had bled through so badly that a deep crimson spot had formed under the palm.

“You’ve got blood on your hands?”

Amy froze and stared at her own hand.

“Fuck off. Do you always need to frame things with such dramatic phrases?”

Through a faint smile and underneath a furrowed brow, Adam asked, “You got anything you wanna tell me?”

Amy took the cigarette and lit it up with a lighter from the table. Instantly regretting both the sticky texture upon what should have been a smooth plastic lighter, as well as the biting flavor of the cigarette, burning in her lungs like fire.

She flinched and shot him a glance that translated into a silent “Shut the fuck up.”

She asked, “What was that music just now?”

“It's—okay, Amy,” Adam paused and inhaled deeply from his cigarette, burning it down quickly and brightly. When he spoke again, his voice sounded tortured and the smoke billowed out of his mouth at the same time, “No small-talk, okay? What’s actually up?”

Amy let her own cigarette burn down between her fingers. She let her head hang before answering with a different question.

“Where’s Seth? This is his apartment, after all.”

“I don’t know. Woke up here all hungover after the party. I always thought he was more of a friend of yours than mine, y'know?”

Amy placed her cigarette onto the edge of an overflowing ashtray where it continued to smolder and gradually transform into a stick of hot ashes among the cemetery of fellow cancer sticks.

“Never really liked him, if I’m gonna be quite honest. Anything I can help you with, seeing he’s not home?”

Amy shook her head and asked, “Dunno. Does the number combination thirteen-one have any meaning to you?”

With a lopsided grin, Adam replied, “Well, since we’re speakin’ of Seth right here, I’d wager that’s the date when he sacrificed his neighbor’s cat.”

He burst out into laughter, holding his sides. He sputtered and his laughter ceased when he accidentally dropped his cigarette, causing a small explosion of tiny embers and provoking him to scramble and scoop it back up before putting the butt out in the ashtray.

“Big help,” Amy muttered. Though she knew he was right. Seth might as well have been a satanist.

“Sorry, but I really got no clue what I should do with that, but, uh, why—”

A smug grin overtook Adam’s face.

Amy whined, “You’re not taking me seriously, asshole.”

“No, not true. You know I take everything you say very seriously, but I sometimes just can’t help but fuck with you.”

Amy leaned back in the chair she had sat down on after assuring herself that it wasn’t as sticky as the rest of the dingy apartment’s furnishings. She stared out the window into the gloomy, overcast sky outside.

“I dunno. I dreamed something weird. Everything’s weird. Also, I saw Chris on the way over. Has any-fucking-body gotten out of this garbage town except for me?”

“If you’re back now, were you ever really gone, city-girl?”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, so, you look a bit under the weather. I mean, I know what I did last night, and I’m still feeling kinda wasted—but what’s your excuse?”

Amy had no answer to that. Adam picked up a beer bottle from the table, sniffed it, and then took a swig of whatever lukewarm swill had been leftover in it.

“You know what I think? You should go see that new boy-toy of yours in the city—”

He shushed her with a hand gesture the moment she even opened her mouth to speak.

“Have a nice day, have a nice evening, get dinner, get stoned, stay out of town for the night.”

Amy leaned over, snatched the smoldering cigarette she had left on the ashtray, and stamped it out on the ashtray’s edge.

If Adam had taken part in any shenanigans involving a corpse, or a prank with the video she had anonymously received, then he deserved an Oscar for acting oblivious about it. More likely, he was badly hungover and had nothing to with any of this.

She gave him a feeble smile, said goodbye, gave him the middle finger after he made a rude joke, and left Seth’s apartment.

On the way out, she slung out her phone and tapped on Steve’s face from her contact list. The call rang, and rang, and rang. Steve did not pick up.

She paused outside the block. The loud heavy metal music started out of nowhere, continuing exactly where it had been paused and causing her to jump an inch of the ground in fright. Her heart pounded and she turned to yell some obscenities up at Adam.

Looking out the window was a figure clad all in black—not Adam. A deep unfathomable abyss yawned behind the darkness of the figure’s hood. Those living shadows stared back at her and Amy sensed a cold, seething rage. A malevolence so powerful that it felt like an invisible force wanted to rush at her and rip her heart out.

Frozen and unable to move, the honking of a car’s horn pulled her back into reality. Or at least, back into paying attention to her surroundings.

She stared into the angry face of a driver, waving at her to get out of the middle of the road. She had stood there for long enough to annoy some unknown man in a car. She got out of the way and when she looked back at Seth’s apartment, nobody stood in the window. Especially no shadow-person under a black hoodie’s hood.

The heavy metal music continued to blare.

The call to Steve went to voicemail. Amy hung up and did not leave a message.

She walked back home, furiously typing out a text message to Steve, asking him to get back to her as soon as possible. She feared that he was busy and would not soon find time to respond.

And she would be right.

Once Amy stood at her own front door, cramming her fists into her pockets to find her keys and unlock the entrance, she felt watched. She saw something move within the darkness of her home, though the reflections of overcast skies in her windows and her tired mind could have been playing tricks on her.

Fear gripped her heart. Someone was inside her house.

Finally, Amy called the cops. She would not tell them the whole story—only suggesting that someone might have broken into her home—and they would find nothing. The police officers left come evening. To her chagrin, they also declined her request to leave someone there to keep an eye out.

But evil was lurking inside her home. It had been there all along.

Amy had not noticed it.

Yet.

—Submitted by Wratts

[chalamalabingbong]

Timothée Chalamet, Steve Carell, and Director Felix van Groeningen Discuss Addiction and Fatherhood

In ‘Beautiful Boy,’ the trio brings to life the true story of a father coping with his son’s addiction—and reckoning with the limits of paternal love

By Thomas GebremedhinOct. 3, 2018 10:17 a.m. ET

ON A QUIET stretch of beach in Northern California, a father takes his son surfing. Bodies flat against their boards, they paddle away from shore. As the waves grow bigger the boy, forging ahead on his own, disappears behind a curtain of water. Then, just as the father begins to panic, the boy emerges, triumphant, riding a wave back to him.

The scene, which arrives early in Belgian director Felix van Groeningen’s English-language debut, Beautiful Boy—co-written with Luke Davies—casts a long shadow over the rest of the film. Adapted from a pair of best-selling memoirs by a father and son, David and Nic Sheff, the story recounts the painful transformation of one family grappling with drug addiction. David, a well-meaning journalist played by Steve Carell, has always been close to his son Nic (Timothée Chalamet), but as Nic begins experimenting with drugs, eventually spiraling into a full-blown addiction to crystal meth, David is forced to question just how well he knows his boy, where he went wrong and how he can get him back.

Beautiful Boy—produced by Plan B Entertainment (Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave) and shot over 40 days in Los Angeles and San Francisco—has a nonlinear structure, with devastating episodes that reveal the extent of Nic’s dependency (“It takes the world from black-and-white to Technicolor , ” he says of crystal meth) played against sweeter moments between father and son. The film comes as drug addiction remains a national pandemic, but while it poignantly humanizes a difficult issue, it’s not on a mission. Its appeal lies in more universal preoccupations: what it means to be a family, the conflicting impulses in any parent to both protect their children and set them free, and the search for wholeness and identity.

Last month, van Groeningen, Carell and Chalamet reunited for the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and for their first group interview about the project. The mood in the room was playful and tender as everyone greeted each other with hugs. While they sat for their portraits, fiery R&B tracks floated down from a sound system; at times, struggling to sustain serious, camera-ready expressions, the trio burst into fits of laughter. Were there similar moments of levity on the set of Beautiful Boy, despite the grave subject matter?

“Oh, sure,” Carell says. “We wanted to honor the material, but we actually had a lot of fun, too. Because that’s part of life. Even within the darkest moments.”

Thomas Gebremedhin: This is a heartbreaking movie. How do you prepare for something like this?

Felix van Groeningen: I’ve touched on the subject [drugs] in my other films, but in a very different way. So I went to Al-Anon and AA meetings. I visited rehab centers. But, obviously, David and Nic were the biggest source of information for me. Getting the details felt important, and so my bibles were the memoirs.

Steve Carell: Being a father really gave context to my approach. Specifically, my love for my own children gave context to how I was approaching this guy, which isn’t too far from how I would imagine trying to navigate this experience if it was something that fell into my life. A week before we started shooting, my son, who was 11 or 12 at the time, out of the blue asked whether marijuana is a gateway drug. This was on the way home from school; it’s clearly something that they’d been discussing. We’d had vague conversations about the dangers of drugs, but not a more adult conversation about it. It’s terrifying on even such a simple level having that discussion. I didn’t want to make a wrong turn. I assume David went through many of the same things, wanting to do everything right but realizing there is no right or wrong path.

Timothée Chalamet: For me, the first thing to pull from is the experience of being a son, a son in a family, and having a great relationship with my father. There is a recognizable physical context to that. From a hundred feet away you can tell by the way people hug whether they’re family.

TG: I want to touch on that father-son dynamic. The chemistry between you two is so apparent in the film. How do you create that connection off-camera?

SC: I don’t think you do. I don’t think it’s something you consciously generate. I don’t want to speak for Timmy, but we immediately liked each other. We immediately felt a connection. I never felt there was an acting exercise that we were using to try to feel more connected. In Timothée I saw an incredible, soulful, generous person. I liked him enormously from day one. And since I’m exactly the same kind of person, I expected him to feel the same about me. [Laughter] But it was very natural.

TC: I feel so immensely filled with gratitude that I have Steve and Felix and other people that I’ve been able to work with at a young age that have been, I don’t want to say paternal towards me, but it’s a form of that, and I…. [Felix gets up to pour himself water] As he’s leaving!

SC: [Laughing] Felix doesn’t feel the same way.

FVG: I was so happy we took two weeks to rehearse. I always do it. It gave us time to know each other. I was very nervous in the beginning, and it gave me time to calm down and to be myself. English isn’t my first language and, I mean, I’m working with movie stars! I needed that time. But as Steve said, it wasn’t like we were artificially getting there.

TC: I was very soothed by Steve’s warmth and kindness—

SC: Keep going.

TC: But really, I was and am a huge admirer of Steve’s work, and I knew this was going to be a bridge for me to cross. It was good for me to realize upfront, OK, that’s going to be a hurdle, especially [since we’re playing] father and son. I needed to get it out of my head.

TG: What were the most challenging scenes for you to film?

TC: I found the sequences on the phone challenging. It’s the nature of the movie that those phone calls are emotional climaxes. And generally, as an exercise, phone calls are challenging as an actor because you don’t typically have the other person there with you. So I was very grateful that each time there was something on the phone, whether it was Andre Royo [who plays Nic’s AA sponsor, Spencer] or Steve, we were always there for each other.

SC: For me, it was when the character of David makes choices that would be difficult for me, or any father, to make. There’s a sticking point in your subconscious, maybe, about how you would handle a situation. By his own admission, David makes tough choices, and sometimes as an actor, or just a human being, you evaluate what those choices are. Sometimes they conflicted with what I imagined I would do, but ultimately I realized it’s probably what I would do. Making that shift was interesting to me.

TG: Right, there are several forks in the road for both David and Nic throughout the movie, but the scene that felt critical to me is when David has to establish some kind of boundary with Nic.

SC: It was a terrifying scene. A moment any parent would dread. It’s hard to even imagine getting to that point, where you have to make that kind of choice while still desperately loving your child. The whole thing is terrifying and tragic and common. That’s the other thing—every day while we were shooting this, if any of us mentioned to other people what we were working on, the stories and personal connections were a bit overwhelming.

TG: Well, last year was the deadliest on record for overdoses.

TC: Yeah, more than car crashes.

TG: This isn’t a preachy film, but how do you hope it will play a part in that discussion?

FVG: I think it’s about giving people a face and a voice. I hope this film gives insight into how complex [addiction] is. A lot of movies touch upon it from just one side. But there’s something unique about [Beautiful Boy]. It’s two points of view of the same story.

TG: When you went back home to your families after a day on set, were you able to leave work at work?

TC: Certainly in any film, whether it’s your relationship to the characters or people or the context of environments, it naturally blends with your experience. It would be dramatic to say that there was no escaping it, and yet we were in it—we shot for 40 days or something, and I just kept thinking, Keep moving, keep going.

SC: This one was hard to leave on set. Every night I came home and hugged my kids a little tighter. My wife and I would talk every night about what we shot that day and how it felt and just the vibe. It didn’t feel like a job. We had to be invested in this because, beyond the fact that it’s a harrowing and relevant story, it’s true. These are real people. I definitely brought it home.

TG: On a lighter topic, there’s the film’s soundtrack: Nirvana, Neil Young, Fiddler on the Roof. It’s all over the place. Felix, how does music inform the story? And Steve and Timothée, as actors, how did you use music to creatively build out these roles?

FVG: The idea came from the books. Music was so important to David and Nic. There’s something beautiful about how it unites them. David mentions in his book a lot of songs that he can’t listen to anymore. So we put some of those songs in the movie. At some point my editor [Nico Leunen] and I wanted to use a classic film score together with songs, but then [Leunen] came up with the idea to drop the score and just use the songs. It made us take a risk.

SC: It’s a language that David and Nic used to speak to each other. As the addiction sets in, their relationship becomes frayed and that language does as well. Music is David’s bread and butter; these are the people he interviews. And he incorporates his son into that world at an early age—it’s both of their worlds.

‘ This one was hard to leave on set. Every night I came home and hugged my kids a little tighter. ’

TC: Yeah, music was a big part to Nic’s character. I remember we were shooting on the campus of USC, and we got into trouble because my portable speaker was playing “Heart-Shaped Box” too loudly. For Nic it was Nirvana; I was listening to Eminem when I was 5 or 6 years old, and it did feel important. It’s an effect of growing up in America, or the world, in a digital, consumerist age, that you’re communicated these messages of self-destruction and alienation.

TG: Timothée, you’ve played coming-of-age roles before, most notably as Elio in Call Me By Your Name. Elio is different from Nic, but they’re also both struggling with their identity. Did you take anything from that role and put it into this one?

TC: That’s a really good question. If there’s a through line it’s the immediacy and the urgency, the moment-to-moment visceral nature of what it is to be young. For Elio that’s a life circumstance that all of us should be so fortunate to go through, to fall in love, but also he’s coming to terms with his sexuality. For Nic, it’s facing this goliath of an obstacle, not only addiction but to one of the most powerful substances known to man.

TG: Did David and Nic give you all any advice?

SC: I didn’t meet Nic until we were shooting, but I met with David. He couldn’t have been more gracious. I think [he’s] very brave to even allow this movie to be made. There’s an incredible trust that he put into Felix and everyone involved that we’d get it at least marginally right. But he took a very hands-off approach with me.

TC: I went out with Nic and [his sister] Daisy to eat, and it was just as Steve said, the greatest gift I got from Nic was the confidence to be Nic. I felt an understanding. I think they understood our biggest goal and mission was to get their story right.

Felix van Groeningen PHOTO: MARK PECKMEZIAN FOR WSJ. MAGAZINE; STYLING BY EMMA WYMAN

FVG: But just in the authenticity and in the heart of it—we didn’t have an obligation to it. It’s not a biopic in that sense, and that’s an advantage, I guess.

TG: Steve, you’re also playing Donald Rumsfeld in Backseat and Mark Hogancamp in Marwen—what’s different about playing a real, living person as opposed to a fictional character?

SC: A fictional character leaves much more to the imagination in terms of the performance and development and backstory. One is complete invention, and the other is completely tethered to the real world. It’s not easier or harder to portray either. I’m really excited that David and Nic [are attending the premiere]. From time to time I would talk to David and ask, “How surreal does this feel to you?” There was one day we were doing a scene on the beach, and David and [his wife] Karen [Barbour] came to visit. It was a simple scene, nothing overly dramatic, but David was elated. He was so full of emotion. I could tell that it really hit him.

TG: What do you ultimately hope this movie communicates? What do you think the lasting impression will be?

FVG: It’s a harrowing story, but it’s a beautiful family. To see all of this happen in a family where there’s so much love and understanding makes it even more harrowing, maybe, but it’s a family that believes in unconditional love, and they use that as a way out.

TG: That’s a great note to end on. I do have one last question though, unrelated to the movie. Timothée, have you seen the Instagram account @chalametinart?

TC: Yes! [Laughs]

FVG: What is that?

TG: It’s an Instagram account where they photoshop Timothée into classic paintings.

FVG: Oh, yeah! Wasn’t there an account about just his hair, too?

SC: [Looking at @chalametinart on a phone] Oh, it’s beautiful. [To Timothée] Well, you have your selection of Christmas cards now. •

[tchalametdaily]

In ‘Beautiful Boy,’ the trio brings to life the true story of a father coping with his son’s addiction—and reckoning with the limits of paternal love.

(Full article under the cut)

The scene, which arrives early in Belgian director Felix van Groeningen’s English-language debut, Beautiful Boy—co-written with Luke Davies—casts a long shadow over the rest of the film. Adapted from a pair of best-selling memoirs by a father and son, David and Nic Sheff, the story recounts the painful transformation of one family grappling with drug addiction. David, a well-meaning journalist played by Steve Carell, has always been close to his son Nic (Timothée Chalamet), but as Nic begins experimenting with drugs, eventually spiraling into a full-blown addiction to crystal meth, David is forced to question just how well he knows his boy, where he went wrong and how he can get him back.

Beautiful Boy—produced by Plan B Entertainment (Moonlight, 12 Years a Slave) and shot over 40 days in Los Angeles and San Francisco—has a nonlinear structure, with devastating episodes that reveal the extent of Nic’s dependency (“It takes the world from black-and-white to Technicolor , ” he says of crystal meth) played against sweeter moments between father and son. The film comes as drug addiction remains a national pandemic, but while it poignantly humanizes a difficult issue, it’s not on a mission. Its appeal lies in more universal preoccupations: what it means to be a family, the conflicting impulses in any parent to both protect their children and set them free, and the search for wholeness and identity.

Last month, van Groeningen, Carell and Chalamet reunited for the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and for their first group interview about the project. The mood in the room was playful and tender as everyone greeted each other with hugs. While they sat for their portraits, fiery R&B tracks floated down from a sound system; at times, struggling to sustain serious, camera-ready expressions, the trio burst into fits of laughter. Were there similar moments of levity on the set of Beautiful Boy, despite the grave subject matter?

“Oh, sure,” Carell says. “We wanted to honor the material, but we actually had a lot of fun, too. Because that’s part of life. Even within the darkest moments.”

Thomas Gebremedhin: This is a heartbreaking movie. How do you prepare for something like this?

Felix van Groeningen: I’ve touched on the subject [drugs] in my other films, but in a very different way. So I went to Al-Anon and AA meetings. I visited rehab centers. But, obviously, David and Nic were the biggest source of information for me. Getting the details felt important, and so my bibles were the memoirs.

Steve Carell: Being a father really gave context to my approach. Specifically, my love for my own children gave context to how I was approaching this guy, which isn’t too far from how I would imagine trying to navigate this experience if it was something that fell into my life. A week before we started shooting, my son, who was 11 or 12 at the time, out of the blue asked whether marijuana is a gateway drug. This was on the way home from school; it’s clearly something that they’d been discussing. We’d had vague conversations about the dangers of drugs, but not a more adult conversation about it. It’s terrifying on even such a simple level having that discussion. I didn’t want to make a wrong turn. I assume David went through many of the same things, wanting to do everything right but realizing there is no right or wrong path.

Timothée Chalamet: For me, the first thing to pull from is the experience of being a son, a son in a family, and having a great relationship with my father. There is a recognizable physical context to that. From a hundred feet away you can tell by the way people hug whether they’re family.

TG: I want to touch on that father-son dynamic. The chemistry between you two is so apparent in the film. How do you create that connection off-camera?

SC: I don’t think you do. I don’t think it’s something you consciously generate. I don’t want to speak for Timmy, but we immediately liked each other. We immediately felt a connection. I never felt there was an acting exercise that we were using to try to feel more connected. In Timothée I saw an incredible, soulful, generous person. I liked him enormously from day one. And since I’m exactly the same kind of person, I expected him to feel the same about me. [Laughter] But it was very natural.

TC: I feel so immensely filled with gratitude that I have Steve and Felix and other people that I’ve been able to work with at a young age that have been, I don’t want to say paternal towards me, but it’s a form of that, and I…. [Felix gets up to pour himself water] As he’s leaving!

SC: [Laughing] Felix doesn’t feel the same way.

FVG: I was so happy we took two weeks to rehearse. I always do it. It gave us time to know each other. I was very nervous in the beginning, and it gave me time to calm down and to be myself. English isn’t my first language and, I mean, I’m working with movie stars! I needed that time. But as Steve said, it wasn’t like we were artificially getting there.

TC: I was very soothed by Steve’s warmth and kindness—

SC: Keep going.

TC: But really, I was and am a huge admirer of Steve’s work, and I knew this was going to be a bridge for me to cross. It was good for me to realize upfront, OK, that’s going to be a hurdle, especially [since we’re playing] father and son. I needed to get it out of my head.

TG: What were the most challenging scenes for you to film?

TC: I found the sequences on the phone challenging. It’s the nature of the movie that those phone calls are emotional climaxes. And generally, as an exercise, phone calls are challenging as an actor because you don’t typically have the other person there with you. So I was very grateful that each time there was something on the phone, whether it was Andre Royo [who plays Nic’s AA sponsor, Spencer] or Steve, we were always there for each other.

SC: For me, it was when the character of David makes choices that would be difficult for me, or any father, to make. There’s a sticking point in your subconscious, maybe, about how you would handle a situation. By his own admission, David makes tough choices, and sometimes as an actor, or just a human being, you evaluate what those choices are. Sometimes they conflicted with what I imagined I would do, but ultimately I realized it’s probably what I would do. Making that shift was interesting to me.

TG: Right, there are several forks in the road for both David and Nic throughout the movie, but the scene that felt critical to me is when David has to establish some kind of boundary with Nic.

SC: It was a terrifying scene. A moment any parent would dread. It’s hard to even imagine getting to that point, where you have to make that kind of choice while still desperately loving your child. The whole thing is terrifying and tragic and common. That’s the other thing—every day while we were shooting this, if any of us mentioned to other people what we were working on, the stories and personal connections were a bit overwhelming.

TG: Well, last year was the deadliest on record for overdoses.

TC: Yeah, more than car crashes.

TG: This isn’t a preachy film, but how do you hope it will play a part in that discussion?

FVG: I think it’s about giving people a face and a voice. I hope this film gives insight into how complex [addiction] is. A lot of movies touch upon it from just one side. But there’s something unique about [Beautiful Boy]. It’s two points of view of the same story.

TG: When you went back home to your families after a day on set, were you able to leave work at work?

TC: Certainly in any film, whether it’s your relationship to the characters or people or the context of environments, it naturally blends with your experience. It would be dramatic to say that there was no escaping it, and yet we were in it—we shot for 40 days or something, and I just kept thinking, Keep moving, keep going.

SC: This one was hard to leave on set. Every night I came home and hugged my kids a little tighter. My wife and I would talk every night about what we shot that day and how it felt and just the vibe. It didn’t feel like a job. We had to be invested in this because, beyond the fact that it’s a harrowing and relevant story, it’s true. These are real people. I definitely brought it home.

TG: On a lighter topic, there’s the film’s soundtrack: Nirvana, Neil Young, Fiddler on the Roof. It’s all over the place. Felix, how does music inform the story? And Steve and Timothée, as actors, how did you use music to creatively build out these roles?

FVG: The idea came from the books. Music was so important to David and Nic. There’s something beautiful about how it unites them. David mentions in his book a lot of songs that he can’t listen to anymore. So we put some of those songs in the movie. At some point my editor [Nico Leunen] and I wanted to use a classic film score together with songs, but then [Leunen] came up with the idea to drop the score and just use the songs. It made us take a risk.

SC: It’s a language that David and Nic used to speak to each other. As the addiction sets in, their relationship becomes frayed and that language does as well. Music is David’s bread and butter; these are the people he interviews. And he incorporates his son into that world at an early age—it’s both of their worlds.

TC: Yeah, music was a big part to Nic’s character. I remember we were shooting on the campus of USC, and we got into trouble because my portable speaker was playing “Heart-Shaped Box” too loudly. For Nic it was Nirvana; I was listening to Eminem when I was 5 or 6 years old, and it did feel important. It’s an effect of growing up in America, or the world, in a digital, consumerist age, that you’re communicated these messages of self-destruction and alienation.

TG: Timothée, you’ve played coming-of-age roles before, most notably as Elio in Call Me By Your Name. Elio is different from Nic, but they’re also both struggling with their identity. Did you take anything from that role and put it into this one?

TC: That’s a really good question. If there’s a through line it’s the immediacy and the urgency, the moment-to-moment visceral nature of what it is to be young. For Elio that’s a life circumstance that all of us should be so fortunate to go through, to fall in love, but also he’s coming to terms with his sexuality. For Nic, it’s facing this goliath of an obstacle, not only addiction but to one of the most powerful substances known to man.

TG: Did David and Nic give you all any advice?

SC: I didn’t meet Nic until we were shooting, but I met with David. He couldn’t have been more gracious. I think [he’s] very brave to even allow this movie to be made. There’s an incredible trust that he put into Felix and everyone involved that we’d get it at least marginally right. But he took a very hands-off approach with me.

TC: I went out with Nic and [his sister] Daisy to eat, and it was just as Steve said, the greatest gift I got from Nic was the confidence to be Nic. I felt an understanding. I think they understood our biggest goal and mission was to get their story right.

FVG: But just in the authenticity and in the heart of it—we didn’t have an obligation to it. It’s not a biopic in that sense, and that’s an advantage, I guess.

TG: Steve, you’re also playing Donald Rumsfeld in Backseat and Mark Hogancamp in Marwen—what’s different about playing a real, living person as opposed to a fictional character?

SC: A fictional character leaves much more to the imagination in terms of the performance and development and backstory. One is complete invention, and the other is completely tethered to the real world. It’s not easier or harder to portray either. I’m really excited that David and Nic [are attending the premiere]. From time to time I would talk to David and ask, “How surreal does this feel to you?” There was one day we were doing a scene on the beach, and David and [his wife] Karen [Barbour] came to visit. It was a simple scene, nothing overly dramatic, but David was elated. He was so full of emotion. I could tell that it really hit him.

TG: What do you ultimately hope this movie communicates? What do you think the lasting impression will be?

FVG: It’s a harrowing story, but it’s a beautiful family. To see all of this happen in a family where there’s so much love and understanding makes it even more harrowing, maybe, but it’s a family that believes in unconditional love, and they use that as a way out.

TG: That’s a great note to end on. I do have one last question though, unrelated to the movie. Timothée, have you seen the Instagram account @chalametinart?

TC: Yes! [Laughs]

FVG: What is that?

TG: It’s an Instagram account where they photoshop Timothée into classic paintings.

FVG: Oh, yeah! Wasn’t there an account about just his hair, too?

SC: [Looking at @chalametinart on a phone] Oh, it’s beautiful. [To Timothée] Well, you have your selection of Christmas cards now.

[sunnysynthsunshine]

Lolipops and Gumdrops (The Young Ones) (written October 2nd 2018)

The Young Ones was written by Ben Elton,Lise Mayer and Rik Mayall

The Young Ones was a sitcom that lasted from 1982-1984 

this fanfic is a exploration of the past,present and future for the characters

as in the ending of the show they were killed off because the writer’s had ran out of ideas.

The term "Lollipops and Gumdrops" is a made up term to describe feelings of wholesome mixed nostalgia

it's second meaning refers to the development of Vyvyan and Rick's relationship.

Chapter 1  (this explores the past of the characters prior to the events of The Young Ones)

 Before Scumbag

It was the early 1970s

In a fancy neighbourhood lived a family, and their son was sitting at the dinner table,

His parents were having an argument he had a vest and rolled up trousers with a few spots on his face.

His dad growled as he slammed his knife and fork on the table

“I SWEAR THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY FILTHY HIPPIES!”

His mother nodded,

“Dominic I couldn’t agree more  useless layabouts all they want to do is do drugs and take up space on the roads with their protests”

Rick rattled his teeth as he nervously shook and timidly asked

“can I be excused?”

His dad shouted back

“Richard for the last time I said no talking when your mother is talking!”

His mum scoffed

“Yes, that’s incredibly rude  GO TO YOUR ROOM!”

Rick mumbled before he yelped, “I don’t have to do what you say fascists” as he attempted to flick a rude hand gesture

His dad glared

“HOW DARE YOU USE SUCH A OBSCENE GESTURE IN THIS HOUSEHOLD!”

Rick staggered up to his room when he shut the door

Rick’s room was his escape his shed of wonder, music and revolution

Philosophy and Marxism books on his nightstand, posters of Cliff Richard and The Who on his wall

And his prized possession...his record player   he looked through his records and put on his Ziggy Stardust ep as the opening chords of Starman were music to his ears

He stripped off his white shirt, replacing it with his black shirt while he sat on his bed reading a graphic novel and wrote a bit of poetry

He said

“I wish I could be like Ziggy or Cliff...be someone else for a change...not lonely pathetic Richard

Someone not like that, Someone who isn’t boring someone who doesn’t take rules from anyone...except Marx”

While he finished flicking through the pages he looked through his dressing table and took out...his makeup compact  he wouldn’t dare tell anyone at school about his androgyny

But he felt that he could be something unique…

He adjusted the brushes and applied the various eyeshadows, blush and lip gloss to his face canvas

He had a cigarette in hand and relaxed in his chair bobbing his head to bowie’s inviting eclectic voice.

Elsewhere down the street was another high class family the mother and father were a few generations older but they still moaned about “workers” and how the youth were a threat to society” in their back garden was their son Neil he normally had slicked back hair and fancy suits but when he’d go outside he’d show the hippie wallflower he’d later become

"Oh what a lovely day it is today Hello flowers, hello sun, hello clouds, hello plants"

anthropomorphic vegetables and plants grinned back at him "Hello Neil!"

he’d catch insects, wander the hedge mazes and grow vegetables..but amongst the pretty vines that decorated the patio he’d sometimes think about wrapping those wreaths around his neck until all he could see would be the beautiful sunlight...one of the days he did that his parents found out and he was diagnosed with clinical depression,his parents saw that as a disgrace he lost sleep and would stay up on some nights but as much as he was miserable he knew he wasn’t the only one so Peace Studies was what he decided to study once he finally got a place in uni.

In the city in a more dangerous side of town lived a barmaid Lindsay and her daughter Vivian

Lindsay would work at the pub the Kebab and Calculator leaving Vivian alone on some days

"Viv I'm just heading down to the pub alright"

"ok Mum"

Vivian waved and nodded frowning as she shut the door

"Vivian put on the cassette player and the sound of the Misfits was blasted, Vivian turned on the television to watch horror films and aggressively punch pillows.

Vivian had gotten used to bad luck,he had to buy her own birthday presents Lindsay would just give booze as presents while Viv liked the odd babycham it got old after he hit 17 when Vivian would be alone Vivian would either play video games,watch tv,get in street fights with fascists,study for her science exams or go to clubs to mosh to punk music Vivian at times felt lost...it didn’t help that at times socialising was hard for Vivian she’d retaliate with violence often

when Vivian was little she'd just listen to enter sandman on her walkman while blowing bubbles.

Vivian didn’t feel like a girl. she would dread looking in the mirror, Vivian eventually decided to transition, Vivian became...Vyvyan being a punk Vyvyan felt like he could show more of his self-expression through his appearance and attitude  he made his dyed orange hair spiky, got a few piercings and bought a ton of band merch and patches for his “battle jacket”

Vivian would bind but he'd only do it when he'd be alone when his mum did find out his mum couldn't tell the difference

There was also Mike a runway model influenced by classic Hollywood who would scam people for money usually the money was just so he and his papa wouldn’t end up on the streets again.

Chapter 2  (considering the original ending resulted in the characters getting killed off via a bus crash with no answer to what happened afterwards this chapter gives an alternate ending of what would happen if they did survive)

: Summer Holiday Part 2

The aftermath of the bus crash

It had been a few decades

Rick, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike were at Uni, Scumbag College specifically

Richard took up a different name "Rick", he took inspiration from ziggy's style and put plaits in his hair projecting an androgynous appearance he would've been able to show previously he openly wrote his poetry and got interested in political science and Anarchism self-proclaiming himself as "The Peoples Poet"....however, his tory side still could be seen in his pretentious, egotistical attitude.

Vyvyan didn't change anything, Vyvyan didn't give a toss what people thought of him sure his explosive violence and anger were repetitive at times but sometimes his compromises of destroying property were needed considering their lack of money and food stock.

Neil expressed the flower child that he truly was...but he was also a bit of a hypochondriac believing superstitions easily not the brightest crayon in the box but at least he had good cooking skills using the vegetables he had grown to make soups, lentils and other dishes

Mike just kept his "cool person" persona he couldn't get enough qualifications to get to mainstream colleges so he bribed the deen his course was business and advertising

It was kinda depressing...having to eat leftovers half the time, often having to deal with fights either from Vyv and Rick or from the people outside.

but they knew that they had nobody else, the country was in political hell so Rick's constant thatcher bashing was justified, Vyvyan's habit of destroying stuff was needed so they'd have money left, without Neil they'd not have much food and without Mike they wouldn't have someone to be the "voice of reason" in times of such chaos.

Thus the bank robbery ironically being at the same time as another bank robbery, in that bus, everything was nothing as they happily sung Cliff Richard's "Summer Holiday" only to drive off the cliff.

BOOM!

Neil and Mike got away quickly with minor burns...Vyvyan and Rick, on the other hand, we're stuck inside amongst the flames and debris

Neil shouted "Oh Mike this is very heavy, like more heavy than anything else we've ever experienced"

Mike nodded in response "I agree this is starting to be dangerously serious" as he flicked out his phone and called emergency services

"YOU BASTARDS YOU COMPLETE UTTER BASTARDS ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LEAVE US HERE TO ROT HELL?" Rick screamed in panic

"Oh damn I never thought it would end this way, I never got to have my first love, my first shag none of that I am going to wilt like the great leaders that came before me I guess the pigs have won I guess there is no future, no future for me," he started sobbing

Rick stopped sobbing when he noticed an uncomfortable silence outside of the roaring flames around him...the silence was coming from Vyvyan at the front of the bus

Rick out of his seat and crawled underneath the flames up to where Vyvyan was "Vyvyan?" he quietly asked as he shook the unconscious punk in front of him

he repeated himself "VYVYAN?" he yelled at the top of his voice

Rick knew this wasn't good "No! God no, please not him sure we had our rows, fights and disagreements but he never left, I enjoyed when we'd take the piss out of each other, I don't know how I'd continue life without him, I'm not letting the fascists win...Vyv he..., Rick gulped "he was my friend"

he grabbed Vyvyan's body and carried him over his back while kicking the doors and windows open

now on the ground away from the flaming inferno, Rick tried to process the situation and his background knowledge of CPR

he rested Vyvyan on the flat surface and begun to tilt Vyv's head back slightly putting pressure on his jaw

smirking in relief Rick noticed there was something else he had to do he looked sideways

he inhaled pinching Vyvyan's nose with his thumb and index finger as he placed his mouth over Vyvyan's and took some quick breaths

Vyvyan started to be coming back to him Rick released his nostrils he could sense Vyvyan breathing again

Vyvyan was confused as he attempted a punch only for Rick to block Vyv's fist and kiss it

eventually, emergency services arrived Vyvyan didn't give more punches as wires and patches were put onto him while he was placed onto a stretcher and being checked for injuries and burns"

Vyvyan coughed a bit and said

"What happened?"

Rick stood nearby smirking

"We crashed a bus over a cliff conveniently placed next to a billboard of Cliff"

Vyvyan gave a snarling type of expression

"No, you bastard to me, what happened to me?"

Rick kept his smile but spoke more solemn

"You...you almost died your oxygen was low and because you were at the front of the bus you took the most damage"

Vyvyan tried to process the information and raised his eyebrows

"and you saved me?"

Rick nodded,

Vyvyan gulped speaking in a less rough raspy voice

"Thank you"

Rick kept smiling cheerfully at Vyvyan when he saw Neil and Mike running up

"There you lot are what were you waiting for? the end of the world? there's more to life than being a cloud you know" he scoffed.

Neil moaned

"Sorry Rick, but that was very heavy"

Mike folded his hands

"Neil's right that was horrible what you and Vyv were dealing with" "still it was smart of you to save him like that, I'm proud of you

Rick blushed at the compliment

Mike continued "I understand why you call yourself a peoples poet you're a poet for the people, you care for the people or the "workers" as you call them" he then patted Rick's head in a fatherly way"

Rick smirked "Yeah not all people some people are fascists but...some people..some people are alright"

Later they were in the hospital and it was no different than when they were at home instead of moaning about thatch Rick moaned about the NHS, Vyvyan would threaten to attack him with medical instruments and they'd chase each other, Neil would get leftovers from the vending machines and cafes nearby and Mike would flirt with the nurses.

Rick sat in his hospital bed, bored beyond belief, "I hate this, the stupid education system, the ruddy NHS, it's no different than prison"

Mike read his magazine "Well you're lucky we aren't in prison I'm never going back into the slammer you hear"

Neil moaned, "we get it but maybe if we got jobs, we could get the house back and avoid prison"

Rick scoffed smirking "WELL FOR ONCE NEIL HAS THE RIGHT IDEA!"

Mike said, " Rick I'm trying to read"

Rick answered back, "well then again we are innocent, we scrapped through our GSCE's, the bus I stole was already about to be destroyed anyway and the bank was already being robbed when we tried to rob it,we've all got social diseases but our opinions shall be justified by the riots going on in this country, and if the pigs do give us a visit we'll give this alibi

"Gee, Officer Krupke, we’re very upset; We never had the love that every Child oughta get We ain’t no delinquents We’re misunderstood Deep down inside us, there is good!"

Mike groaned, "Oh no he's singing Broadway songs"

Rick kept singing out of tune "We’re no good, we’re no good We’re no earthly good Like the best of us is no damn good!"

Vyvyan yawned and lept out of his bed grabbing a plastic knife and fork, aiming them at Neil and Mike

Rick said, "if it wasn't for me you'd be dead"

Vyvyan shrugged, "well it does feel more like hell than it does a hospital"

Neil asked, "Vyv why aren't you, your usual aggressive self?"

Vyvyan chuckled to himself "I'm taking a break from that, the doctors say my anger levels give me a risk of having high blood pressure, headaches and other problems

Mike emotionlessly turned his head "Oh"

Neil then walked  off to the cafe and vending machines to get food

Vyvyan fidgeted with the plastic fork as sat by Rick's hospital bed smirking at him

"Well this is it, new world, new people yet you're still stuck with us aren't you?"

Rick grinned, "Yeah, in a way we are kind of like a weird family, We're the children, Neil's the mum and Mike...."

Mike rolled his eyes "your the one thinking of weird ideas, Rick"

Rick snorted "well your the one to talk Dad"

Vyvyan fell on the floor laughing, while Mike blushed bright red "Oi! nobody who isn't a date of mine can call me that!"

Vyvyan got up "I think we've heard enough out of you've listened to too much Frankie goes Hollywood"

Mike tried to backpedal "T-They said that song was about motivation"

Vyvyan and Rick smirked at each other ".....Sure"

Rick then looked at Mike smiling innocently "it's ok Mike, we accept you for the gay dad that you are"

Mike said, "I'm not gay, I like men but I like ladies as well"

Rick cheered, "So your Bi, like Freddie Mercury wonderful"

Neil walked back carrying a wooden tray of sandwiches, chocolate bars, chips, toast and sausages, placing it on the nearby coffee table

"Hi Guys, I got us some supper, and it's not lentils"

Rick jumped for joy hugging Neil "Thank you, Neil, you shouldn't have  Now! let's have the last supper"

Neil smiled "Uh, your welcome Rick, but why are you suddenly being so nice?"

Rick grinned as he walked back to his bed "I, Nice? Neil the people's poet is always thankful for their people and goods, it's just part of my nature"

in between bites of food he got more honest speaking in a softer tone "I've learned a lot from you,Vyv and Mike, I was an internally homophobic twat back then,I would lash out at others when I was really angry with myself,I became sarcastic I was angry with the world but was still learning how to shake off my parent's conservative values for the revolutionary Marxism I was studying,I am grateful I know you, and how your able to put up with a bastard like me, I love you, my comrades, we are all Young Ones,and I've accepted who I am too,I'm Rick and I am brilliant"

Vyvyan sat on the side of Rick's bed smiling at him hiding tears "that is the soppiest thing I've ever heard but now you've made cry, hope your happy"

a few years after that they performed alongside Cliff himself for Comic Relief 1986 their cover got the song in the charts again and it felt like they would always be "ThE YoUNG ONES"

who weren't afraid...to live, love while their love is strong even when they wouldn't be Young Ones anymore.

Chapter 3  (this explains what the Young Ones were up to in the 1990s)

: Common People

It was the 90s Rick was into Britpop, Vyvyan was into glam punk and industrial music like KMFDM, Neil was grunge and Mike wore dad Hawaiian shirts

they weren't tv stars like before though, the most they got was from US Reruns on Comedy Central

they still lived in the same house they just changed it up a bit Vyvyan spent more time going to industrial mosh pits or appearing in advertisements Neil also appeared in advertisements,advertisements for petrol in Austrailia...yeah I don't get it either Mike got back to college but studied a different topic he studied film and Rick well out of his still active political life oh! you should've seen

Rick stood on a blue stage that had his name sparkle on a neon sign above him he was in his old outfit of a rolled up shirt, tie and jeans

She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge, She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College, That's where I, Caught her eye. She told me that her Dad was loaded, I said "In that case, I'll have a rum and coca-cola." She said "Fine." And in thirty seconds time, she said, I want to live like common people, I want to do whatever common people do, I want to sleep with common people, I want to sleep with common people, Like you. Well what else could I do I said "I'll see what I can do." I took her to a supermarket, I don't know why, But I had to start it somewhere, So it started there. I said pretend you've got no money, She just laughed and said, "Oh you're so funny." I said "Yeah? Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here. Are you sure you want to live like common people, You want to see whatever common people see, You want to sleep with common people, You want to sleep with common people, Like me. But she didn't understand, She just smiled and held my hand. Rent a flat above a shop, Cut your hair and get a job. Smoke some fags and play some pool, Pretend you never went to school. But still you'll never get it right, 'Cause when you're laid in bed at night, Watching roaches climb the wall, If you called your Dad he could stop it all. You'll never live like common people, You'll never do whatever common people do, You'll never fail like common people, You'll never watch your life slide out of view, And dance and drink and screw, Because there's nothing else to do. Sing along with the common people, Sing along and it might just get you through. Laugh along with the common people, Laugh along even though they're laughing at you, And the stupid things that you do. Because you think that poor is cool. Like a dog lying in a corner, They will bite you and never warn you, Look out, they'll tear your insides out. 'Cause everybody hates a tourist, Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh, Yeah and the chip stain's grease, Will come out in the bath. You will never understand How it feels to live your life With no meaning or control And with nowhere left to go. You are amazed that they exist And they burn so bright, Whilst you can only wonder why. Rent a flat above a shop Cut your hair and get a job Smoke some fags and play some pool Pretend you never went to school, But still you'll never get it right 'Cause when you're laid in bed at night And watching roaches climb the wall, If you called your dad he could stop it all Yeah You'll never live like common people You'll never do what common people do You'll never fail like common people You'll never watch your life slide out of view And then dance and drink and screw Because there's nothing else to do I want to live with common people like you.....

"I LOVE YOU JOHNNY MARR,DAMON ALBARN AND MORRISSEY!!!" Rick shouted into his microphone

Vyvyan snarled at Rick "Shut up Britpop bastard"

Vyvyan snatched the microphone and bulged his eyes out at the audience he had dark purple eyeliner and vampire esque contour on "Oh the beautiful people, the beautiful people

Neil then took the mic "Where the lights out, "ENTERTAIN US!", "HERE WE ARE NOW!"

Mike finger-gunned the audience "I'll be here" singing the spice girls I'll be there out of tune

Chapter 4 (and now the present and future,how the characters are interacting in the 21st century)

: The Young Ones: Years on into the vaporwave moonlight

The Young Ones in the 2010s note:this chapter is littered with Internet references

Rick was on a parade float holding a guitar filled with "angst" he had a military type outfit on and his pigtails were undone so his semi-long hair could be shown

"When I was a young child, my dad took me into the city, to see the marching band," "he said, Richard, you'll grow up would you be the poet saviour for the people, broken, beaten and the damned

Neil would play post-grunge songs with local bands for events like weddings, pub parties etc. , Mike was in a rockabilly revival subculture and Vyvyan was a fan of White Stripes and Gorillaz

But a new decade was just starting to show

Rick said,

"Vyvyan that's the wrong tape rewind it"'

Neil moaned as he worried about the camera

"Oh guys stop being so heavy it's just a polaroid"

Vyvyan then adjusted the camera correctly and handed it back to Neil who was wearing hipster attire with a star necklace around his neck and tarot cards in his other hand

.......SHUTTER...........rec:o beep 02:10:18

Rick rested on his bed posing in an "aesthetic" way decorated in an 80s anime styled sweater with his name written in Japanese characters, a pastel coloured cardigan and his plaits out like before wearing light orange shades singing the song lyric "I want blood, guts and chocolate cake"

Vyvyan ran over to his side placing a tray of crisps, ketchup and chocolate on the dressing table dipping the crisps in the ketchup eating them as he begun to fidget with a fake rainbow coloured butterfly knife before shoving Rick's face into the chocolate cake

"VYVYAN YOU RUINED MY AESTHETIC!"

Vyvyan screamed "I WAS BORED, IT'S NOT THAT HORRENDOUS TO OFFEND OSCAR WILDE IS IT"?

on a book cover, a ghost of Oscar Wilde is folding his hands sarcastically "no I suppose not peasant"

later that night Vyvyan was sitting in front of his laptop recording with a torch, microphone and horror figurines around his room "Hey mates it's Vyvyan's spooky storytime of True Crime" "so there was this girl in Liverpool and she knew some boys of the neighbourhood who would frequently mock and harass her so...she stabbed them and hid their corpses in the local pond"

"BE QUIET IM TRYING TO LISTEN TO JAPANESE 80S MUSIC WOULD YOU STOP BEING A HYBRISTOPHILLIAC!" Rick shouted from next door

Vyvyan shouted back, "CULTURAL APPROPRIATOR"

Rick overdramatically gasped "How dare you I am no weeaboo unlike you"

the next day they were at Mcdonalds when Neil noticed something about their meal

" I don't think we should eat this, it's not vegan you don't get it I'm literally eating death"

Vyvyan shrugged

"It's no different than the rest of the manufactured garbage you get in these places"

Mike nodded and Rick smirked, "Yeah Neil, if you hate the place so much eat somewhere else"

Neil moaned "but I don't go anywhere else without you"

they all groaned while Neil kept complaining

"You see all your doing is killing and torturing these animals"

Vyvyan rolled his eyes "Yeah animals that eat their offspring"

Neil wouldn't shut up so Rick stabbed him with a fork

when he noticed Mike was telling a waiter about what happened he hid in the bathroom "I can't believe it I killed Neil, it was all over one silly argument how could I?"

Vyvyan opened the door "you, miserable sod you can come back out now Neil's still alive nothing serious"

Rick breathed a sigh of relief "Thank goodness"

a few days later Mike wanted Vyvyan to stick his head out the window again.....for the vine

"ok Vyv just do what you did before on university challenge," Mike said as he manoeuvred his phone

"Do not stick your head out the window, mmm I wonder why" Vyvyan then slammed his head against the window as the video was done being recorded

Mike smirked to himself "this will get me lots of hits" Vyvyan had a few cuts on his face, he wasn't happy "You bastard my face is gonna need stitches now because of this!"

Mike ignored him only for Vyvyan to say "It's not stopping me from wanting to kick your face in" as he chased Mike and had a slapstick fight with him

while they were in the middle of that Billy Balowski was nearby rapping badly "Hey it's Lil Balowski and this is what I'm doing today I'm kneeing this two for not giving their pay"

It was night-time and Vyvyan and Rick were watching the sunset Rick said, feeling nostalgic "remember the good old days when we would attack each other with cricket bats and call out thatcher in our satirical performances"

Vyvyan finished his cigarette and said "Yeah, those were wild times of complete madness the chasing like Tom and Jerry and constant mentions of bottom"

Rick laughed it off "I recall you wanted to kiss my bottom" Vyvyan smirked "I did not, you wanted to kiss my bottom, anyways we were young ones then and we aren't young anymore"

Rick looked out into the now present moonlight "technically we will always be young ones, the floating timeline keeps us this way, it's like hell but it's our personal hell an anarchic fun open hell, not a fascist one"

Vyvyan nodded "hey, what was your life before this like anyway?" Rick inhaled and said "Well it certainly wasn't all lollipops and gumdrops" "I had some elements of self-expression and I did love some parts of my life but other parts are overshadowed by negative memories being told to believe on the right wing side of things. Where nothing but political lies were fed to you with Teresa and Trump the world seems to be repeating itself, but I never got a chance to fully spread my wings until meeting you. I was usually a quite timid, shy bloke, heh I do like the others but it was you who I felt the most connected to...you had an energy that I wanted but now I know I already had it now I have someone beautiful to share it with."

Vyvyan was surprised that all of that was hidden in those whining tantrums Rick had back in the 1980s but he felt like his eyes had been opened he felt the same way, he held Rick's hand and smiled at him "I think so too, you, annoyingly revolting, amazing sod"

Rick blushed under his glasses

Vyvyan mumbled smirking, "P-Peoples Poet"

Rick then kissed Vyvyan he kissed back as they cuddled throughout the night

no cricket bats, no punches, no fighting

just love sickeningly revolting but wonderful...love

......Love is the answer ~ Rik Mayall (1958-2014)

[kammieceleek]

The Princess, The Thief, and The Alchemist:  A Disenchantment AU

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a princess. She was beautiful and beloved by all who knew her. Never once did she disobey her parents and married her true love at the age of sixteen right after meeting him for the first time. Quiet and demure, she lived out the rest of her days as the queen of another kingdom, married to the king and being mother to every child she bore him. And she lived happily ever after.

Nope. That's not right.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a thief. He was the son of a minstrel and a writer, though not their child by blood. He was tired of his life on the road and longed for a life of comfort and stability. One night, he broke into the castle of the king and stole the princess's tiara, which he sold in another land. He bought a manor for himself and his adoptive parents and became a wealthy lord, living happily ever after.

Dude, that's not right either.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived an alchemist. He was quite wise and good at his job, serving the king dutifully and without question. Never did a day go by when he tired of his search for the Elixir of Life to make his king immortal. And one day, he discovered the secret. He made the Elixir and gave it to his king, who ruled the kingdom forever after. The alchemist was remembered as a hero and lived happily ever after.

For fuck's—why the fuck are you writing this shit?! Are you trying to put the audience to sleep?! This is the modern age! Nobody wants a cut-and-dry story without twists and turns! Nobody wants a goody-two-shoes princess who never does anything wrong! Nobody wants a thief to just get what he wants! Nobody wants anybody to get the fucking Elixir of Life! Are you insane?!

Well, if you're such an expert, Kamije, why don't you take over?

Well, I have been writing stories for years. I'm sure I can make something the people will enjoy more than your antiquated bullshit.

Says the woman who's still a Disney fangirl at the age of eighteen.

Shut the fuck up.

You were literally watching the season finale of Ducktales earlier while eating pizza and regretting your life choices.

Dude, I can do this.

Fine, if you think you can. Just know that nobody will enjoy it. You said it yourself: nobody wants a cut-and-dry story without twists and turns.

Oh, I've got twists and turns, sir. In case you forgot.

Good luck, sweetie. You're gonna need it.

I don't need luck. I make my own luck. With a luck machine.

Okay, now you're just quoting indie games.

Get out! I've got a quill in one hand and a parchment in the other, and if you don't leave, I'll shove my booted foot up your ass to kick you out myself.

Fine, fine. See you later. Enjoy catering to the mindless masses.

Fuck you.

Now that that's taken care of, let's get on with our story, shall we?

Our story does begin once upon a time, in a land far away. It begins in the land of Lilac, which was well known for its history and wealth. A beautiful land, ruled by Queen Candy in the stead of her late husband, King William. She was beloved by her people and all who knew her, and she expected her precious daughter, Princess Nicolette, to follow in her footsteps.

Too bad Nicolette—who preferred to be called 'Nikki'—didn't want to follow the rules…

"Your Highness, good morning!"

Nikki groaned as her maid, Lucy, opened the curtains. Lucy smiled at her mistress widely and curtsied politely.

"It's a big day, Your Highness! Everybody's waiting for you down in the dining room!"

"Let me sleep a few more minutes…" Nikki grumbled.

"Her Majesty sent me to get you. I-it's time for breakfast."

"Fine." Nikki got out of bed and saw Lucy holding a red dress.

"Here's your new dress—made from the finest silks of Flora."

"Great." Lucy helped her mistress put the damn thing on and didn't bother with the corset; after all, Princess Nicolette had inherited her mother's naturally slim-waisted frame and large… never mind.

"Here we go, Your Highness."

Nikki sighed and headed down the stairs. Servants and guards alike lined the corridor, all wishing her good morning.

"Morning, Your Highness!"

"Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"That dress looks amazing."

"You've grown up fast."

"Your mother is waiting for you."

"Have a good day."

Nikki entered the large dining room and sat down at the table, next to her mother, as usual. Queen Candy was busily going through some papers and signing where she needed to, all while eating her breakfast and drinking her morning wine.

"Mornin', Nicolette," she greeted her daughter, looking up and setting down her pen. "You look beautiful today."

"Thanks, Mom." Nikki began picking at her food. "Anything else noteworthy about today? Like… maybe the anniversary of one of your greatest accomplishments?" Candy gasped and put down her fork.

"Oh, God! I'm sorry, honey." Nikki's hopes rose. "That's right! Your weddin' is today! I can't believe I forgot! No wonder the servants have been so busy!"

"No, Mom, it's my birthday… too."

"Oh, happy birthday." Candy didn't sound nearly as enthusiastic. "But remember: Prince Edward will be here before you know it to marry you. Your maids will help you get ready, so hurry and finish eating. But not too much—you can't be chubby for the portrait!"

Nikki rolled her eyes and picked at her food some more before pushing her plate away.

"I'll see you at the wedding, I guess. Bye, Mom."

"Bye, sweetheart."

Nikki headed up to her room, where she looked at the wedding dress Lucy had set up and sighed. This was real. Her freedom was about to come to an end, just because she was the princess and her mother wanted an alliance.

Shit.

In Lilac, it wasn't just princesses who had shitty lives. Our next main player is a thief, named simply Max. Like the master said before, he was the son of a minstrel—named David—and a writer, named Gwen, though not their child by blood. Nobody in their little caravan was related by blood, save for the young daughter of the minstrel and writer, who was named Elizabeth. Well, besides those four, there were two other men and a platypus. Yes, a platypus. Her name was Muack (named by Lizzie a couple years earlier) and she was good at attracting attention—which worked well for Max when he wanted to pick pockets. Everybody was so distracted that they weren't keeping an eye on their wallets.

"Well, today's the day!" David announced to the caravan. "It's the royal wedding of the Princess of Lilac and the Prince of Woodland."

"Great," sighed Max, stabbing his dagger into the tree stump he was sitting on.

"Aw, c'mon, Max."

"Davey, please shut up," groaned Cameron Campbell, the leader of the caravan. "I have a hangover."

"What's a hangover?" Lizzie asked Gwen.

"It's something that happens when adults drink too much of the stuff I told you not to."

"We're going to entertain the guests as they arrive," David continued. "We all know our jobs, so let's get started!"

"Yay!" Lizzie attached herself to David's leg and he couldn't help but smile even more widely at the four-year-old.

Max sighed again, watching his adoptive father and his little sister go off. Gwen followed them—undoubtedly to detach Lizzie from David's leg. It was just Max, Campbell, and Jaspar.

"Do you know how much royalty is coming to this thing?" Campbell asked the three.

"Every family with more than a thousand coins to their name?" Max deadpanned.

"Exactly! And you're going to rob them!"

"Nah, I had my own idea."

"This isn't a good idea," Jaspar warned. "Davey doesn't like you stealing as much as you do."

"Well, his 'minstrel' business and Gwen's writing make us jack shit. I'm the one who's risking my neck so none of us go hungry."

"What's your idea?" Cameron inquired, pushing Jaspar aside.

"Here's what I'm thinking: I steal just one thing today, and that one thing will allow us to get out of here, once and for all, and start new lives as rich people."

"I like it. Simple, yet classy. What are you going to steal?"

"The princess's crown."

"B-but she'll be wearing it!" protested Jaspar.

"Duh. I steal it after the wedding, when she and her prince go to bed."

"This really isn't a good idea. You're good, Max, but nobody's that good."

"Watch me." Max pulled his dagger out of the stump and stood up. "Well, I'll see you guys tonight. I've got to stake out the church."

"Take the platypus," urged Campbell, picking up the creature by the tail.

"Nah, Lizzie will want her. Bye."

Max headed off towards town, slipping his dagger into its sheath as he went.

There's one more player in our story—an alchemist by the name of Neil. He was the son of the royal philosopher and considered a prodigy by all who knew him. Currently, he was busily experimenting with different mixtures, trying to create the elusive and legendary Elixir of Life. It would grant immortality to the drinker and bring Neil himself everlasting fame if he was successful. However, there was a slight hiccup with his work. And that hiccup was a childhood friend, a friend who would often invade his space to ask him questions and distract him from his never-ending (and, honestly, futile) quest.

And this friend was Princess Nicolette.

"Neil!"

He nearly dropped the vial of tonic he was holding as the door slammed into the wall.

"Nikki! Goddammit, I'm trying to work here!"

"I need a potion made," she stated, ignoring his objection.

"What… kind of potion?"

"Sleeping potion. Something to make me sleep until the end of the day. There's no way I can marry the Prince of Woodland, Edward Pikeman." She sat down on the stool by his workbench and crossed her arms.

"Nikki, I want to help you, but unfortunately, I'm the only alchemist in the kingdom who can make a potion like that. They'd immediately know who did it and I'd go to the dungeon for the rest of my life! I'm not risking my neck so you can avoid work!"

"Work?!"

"Yes! Being princess is your job, and it's unfortunate that your job requires you to marry a stranger, but there's no way around it. I'm sorry that you're not happy." Suddenly, something occurred to him. "Happy sixteenth, by the way."

"You know what's sad? You're the only person to wish me happy birthday without me reminding you that it's my birthday."

"Wow. Even your mom?"

"I tried to be subtle about it and tell her it was the anniversary of one of her greatest accomplishments, and she took that as me reminding her about the wedding."

"To be fair, this marriage was arranged ten years ago today. I'm sure it's been on her mind since then."

"I wish I could just leave…"

"And that would cause even more of a panic. You're kinda stuck."

"Well, time to go get ready. Are you coming to the wedding, at least?"

"I would, but I have a lot of work to do."

"You're not going to find the Elixir of Life. You might as well come see me sold off."

"All right. I'll get as much done as possible, then come to the wedding when I'm done."

Nikki took a deep breath as she sat in the bridal room in the church, waiting for her wedding ceremony to begin. Her heart was beating more quickly than usual from stress, anticipation, and anxiety. She just wanted to get this over with so that she could get on with the rest of her life. Maybe Prince Edward wouldn't be so bad as a husband. To try and calm her nerves, she peeked out the door to see her husband-to-be.

He had horrible pimples, with red hair and buck teeth. There was a sense of arrogance about him as he chuckled to his companions—a short man with an eyepatch and a taller man who was silent. Nikki shuddered in disgust as she retreated back into the room.

This isn't happening. This isn't happening. You're back in bed. Any minute now, Lucy will wake you up and Mom will wish you happy birthday.

"Nicolette?"

Nikki looked up to see Candy in the doorway, wearing a pale blue dress that went well with her pale green hair. She had an expression of joy.

"You should be smilin', darlin'. It's your weddin' day."

"I feel like I can't. I'm marrying a stranger and I'm only sixteen."

"Well, that's how I got your father, and look how I turned out."

"Oh." Nikki stared at her feet.

"Come on. Put on a smile and let's go out there. I'm givin' you away to your husband."

Nikki took Candy's hand and they walked out into the chapel as the music began. Everyone stood to view the bride, who was wearing her mother's wedding dress and looking just as beautiful. Her veil was over her face, so nobody could tell that she wanted to cry rather than smile. Edward smirked as she walked towards him, the ring in his palm and ready to go. Candy made a show of putting Nikki's hand into Edward's and he lifted the veil.

"You are quite lovely," he told her. She wanted to gag as he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Thank you."

The old priest began to ramble about how they were there in the eyes of God, about to become man and wife as well as a prince and princess. Nikki could feel her heart pounding, still wanting to bolt.

And her opportunity came in the form of a drunken man wandering into the chapel.

"This the bar?" he slurred, a strange duck-beaver creature at his side. A guard came forward and tried to apprehend him, but to no avail.

That was when he started punching people.

Chaos broke out and her husband-to-be dashed to defend her. Nikki took the opening to make her way over to a window. She ripped her veil off her tiara and wrapped around her fist, cushioning it as she punched the glass and it shattered. The princess glanced downward. It wasn't too long a fall.

She jumped.

Max could hear the chaos in the chapel and smirked. Campbell was a master of attracting attention when he wanted to be. He probably feigned being drunk and started punching people. All there was to do now was wait for somebody to escort the princess out and snatch the tiara. Easy.

Above him, he heard the faint sound of glass breaking. He covered his head with his arms as the shards fell a few feet away. Looking up, he saw a girl in a wedding dress judging the distance to the ground. Evidently, she'd decided she could make it, because she swung her legs over the sill. Max scooted over a bit right before she fell and she landed in his arms.

"Wow, thanks!" she told him breathlessly.

The tiara!

Before he could stop her, she stood upright and dusted off her dress.

"Gotta go before they notice I'm gone. This might be my only chance out of this. Thanks again for catching me."

"Your Highness!" a guard yelled out the window.

"Too late. God, where do I go?" Max thought for a second, then grabbed her hand.

"Let's go, Princess," he told her. She ran after him and they ran past a skinny guy with curly brown hair.

"Hi, Neil! Wedding's off!" she called.

"Goddammit, Nikki! And who the fuck is that?!"

"Don't know!"

Max felt like laughing. This was gonna be too easy.

"There! He has the princess!"

"Shit," Max muttered. "Okay, Your Highness. Get ready."

"Ready for—oh, God!"

He lifted her over his shoulder and started running faster. The skinny guy (Neil, right?) was right beside him.

"Where are you taking her?" he panted.

"Out of town. Best place to go if you don't wanna be found."

"I'm faster than he is!" the princess protested.

"Not in the dress, Princess Nicolette."

"True. And don't call me Nicolette. Call me Nikki."

"Whatever, Your Highness."

She let out a growl as Max took a few detours in order to outmaneuver the guards that were still on their tails. He wasn't sure why Neil was following them, but he decided to let the guy stay. Within minutes, they reached the edge of town and where Jaspar was waiting with Lizzie.

"Max!" Jaspar gasped, leaping to his feet. "W-who are these people?"

"No time. Get some of Gwen's clothes and get this girl in the wagon."

Jaspar nodded and did as he was told.

"So, who the f—" Max put a finger to Neil's lips and shook his head.

"Language around Lizzie," he instructed. Lizzie climbed up on a stump and leapt onto Max's back.

"Max is back!" she announced, clinging to him like a possum to a tree. She was one-hundred-percent David's daughter—from the red hair to the light skin to the happy attitude. The only thing she appeared to have inherited from her mother was her violet eyes, which sparkled just like her father's.

"Yeah, I'm back," he laughed. "Were you good for Jaspar?"

"Yep!"

"She takes after you," Jaspar sighed, coming out of the wagon. "The girl is getting dressed. I figured I should give her some privacy."

"Who are you guys?" Neil inquired.

"We're a band of traveling performers, here for the royal wedding," Max replied. "I'm Max, and this is my sister, Lizzie. The blonde guy is Jaspar. What about you?"

"I'm Neil, the royal alchemist. Any reason you decided to bring Nikki here?"

"It's a good place to hide. Campbell would know—once he escapes the guards."

"What did you guys do?!" Jaspar groaned.

"Campbell made a distraction by crashing the wedding with Muack and pretending to be drunk. The princess smashed a window, jumped out of it, and landed in my arms. I helped her escape."

"You're bringing the guard down on our heads for that?!"

"Sure. Why not? It's not like they can ever track me."

"Okay, fair. You're good at avoiding capture."

"Oh my gosh!"

David came stumbling towards them, Gwen right behind him.

"You aren't going to believe this! The princess is missing! She broke a window and jumped into the street, where a mysterious man kidnapped her! Oh, the poor girl…"

"If you ask me, she dodged a sword there," Gwen commented. "Did you see that Prince Edward kid? He gave me a once-over and looked like he wanted me."

"I wish you'd told me," David sighed.

"Thanks for the clothes, whoever you are," Nikki laughed, coming out of the wagon. Her hair had been loosened from its updo and was freely bouncing around her shoulders, the tiara nowhere to be found. Gwen's clothes were a little loose on her, but that didn't matter.

"No problem," Max told her. "I'm Max, by the way."

"I'm Lizzie!" Lizzie piped up, dropping off of Max's back and hugging Nikki around the legs. "And you're really pretty!"

"Aw, thank you, Lizzie."

"P-Princess Nicolette?!" David gasped before Gwen narrowed her eyes at Max.

"Lizzie, grown-up words," she said in a low voice. Lizzie let go of Nikki and plugged her ears.

"Go ahead," Max sighed.

"Max, what the fuck were you thinking?! I know you're a fucking thief, but kidnapping?! You said that was too shitty for you! People are too valuable to steal, you said! Look what you've fucking done! You kidnapped the goddamn Princess of Lilac, on her fucking wedding day! Do you have any idea how much deep shit we're going to be in because of you, you asshole?!"

"You done?" Gwen took a deep breath.

"Yep."

"Then let me explain something to you. She jumped out a fucking window to avoid getting married. She was trying to get away. I helped her. You and David raised me to help people who needed it, and you're giving me shit about doing exactly what you raised me to do?! Nope. Sorry, but that's not how this works!"

"Okay, fair enough." She tapped Lizzie's arm. "Mommy and Max are done yelling now."

"Okay, Mommy." Lizzie unplugged her ears and smiled up at her mom.

"Ma'am, I'm grateful to Max for helping me," Nikki told Gwen. "I don't want to get married yet. I just turned sixteen today."

"Happy birthday!" David and Lizzie sang in unison. Nikki laughed again.

"Like I said, I just turned sixteen. I'm not ready to get married or be a mother or rule a kingdom."

"That's fair," Gwen conceded. "But still, asking a thief to help you?"

"I didn't ask. He just did it."

"Oh. I see." Gwen smirked at her adopted son. "Well, I'm Gwen, Max's adoptive mother and Lizzie's birth mother. The man with the red hair is my husband, David."

"It's nice to meet you all. I hope you won't mind if I stay with you guys to hide for a while, at least until my mother calms down."

"Not at all!" David chirped. "We'll add you to our group, if you want!"

"I'll stay to keep you out of trouble," Neil offered to the princess.

"Thanks, Neil."

"Let's get the hell out of here!" Campbell yelled, running out of the kingdom with the platypus.

And thus begins the adventures of the Princess, the Thief, and the Alchemist.

[ray-lin-music-database]

Neil Young

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere [Reprise, 1969] B+ After the Gold Rush [Reprise, 1970] A+ Harvest [Reprise, 1972] A- Time Fades Away [Reprise, 1973] A On the Beach [Reprise, 1974] A- Tonight's the Night [Reprise, 1975] A- Zuma [Reprise, 1975] B+ Comes a Time [Reprise, 1978] A Rust Never Sleeps [Reprise, 1979] A+ Trans [Geffen, 1982] A- Freedom [Reprise, 1989] A Sleeps With Angels [Reprise, 1994] A- Fork in the Road [Reprise, 2009] B+ Americana [Reprise, 2012] A- Homegrown [Reprise, 2020] B+