#Side note: I love that apparently Alan agreed to do this movie because he wanted to visit Australia

[starry-eyesanddaydreams]

Watching Quigley Down Under is always gonna be funny for an unexpected reason. It’s set where I live and the geography is giving me pain 😆

3-4 days ox cart ride south of Fremantle doesn’t get you to this…

It gets you here…

This red dirt country…

Is in another state, the Northern Territory. Fremantle is in the southern half of the country. This is north.

Their version of Fremantle was a bit more accurate. If on the small side.

But I’m not getting over the scene that had the sun rising over the ocean. It’s the west coast 😅

[judgement-free-sideblog]

Dancing lessons

Barry Berkman x reader

Summary: Barry is finally cast in a feature, the problem? He said he could dance and now he can either disappoint Sally or found a way to learn some steps.

Warnings: Swearing, blood, violence, guns, cheating, drinking.

Part 1 ● Part 2 ● Part 3 ● Part 4  ●

Part 5 ● Part 6 ● Part 7 ● Part 8 ● Epilogue

I couldn't resist to have a little extra to tie things up, I hope you have enjoyed this ride, comments are appreciate and I hope you like how things ended.

Epilogue

"And now we have Barry Berkman" A reporter approach him and his date on the red carpet. "Mister Berkman, your movie took the world by surprise and specially your scene, the word out is that your big dance scene in the middle was achieved in one take, how do you feel with this sudden success?"

"I... I have a really good partner and a better director, it has been a very busy year since we finished rolling until we get here, and I'm just glad to be here"

"Well the public agreed that the passion in your face during that scene elevated the scene, but let's talk about something else, who is with you tonight?"

***

Andre was about to star screaming when Barry walked in the set, he didn't even look back at you or anyone, he only took Janice by the waist and push her to the dance floor.

There was something in his eyes that you couldn't point out, it was definitely working, and thankfully the cameras were already recording so the way he move and every expression in his face was immortalized, there was pain, but also happiness in his eyes, and even though it was scary, you couldn't keep your eyes away from him.

By the time he was done you had your heart pounding in your chest like a drum and about to run towards him, but then your phone rang, and you instinctively picked up...

The world went silent for a moment, there were definitely people screaming in joy around you, and the woman in the phone keep asking if you were there but your mind wasn't, because what you have said could not be true, you let your phone fall to the ground, and your legs followed it.

But you never get to touch the floor because his arms were already firmly holding you, and those eyes that mere seconds ago were darkened by whatever the hell inspired him to act were now looking in concern for you.

"It's okay, I got you..." he said but you were not sure because now you were screaming nonsense and he said a quiet I'm sorry... or maybe you imagined it, what does he had to be sorry for?

***

"I'm his girlfriend, apparently" Y/N said with a bright smile "He is being modest, he work like hell to get that scene, he is great in it right? I still don't know what was his secret"

Barry look at her with that sad smile that he had every time someone mentioned that day... he remembered with so much clarity walking with her out of the studio and taken her to the police station, holding her hand the rest of the day and the subsequent ones.

His husband was dead, found with an insane amount of money in his car in the middle of the desert, a week later his associate Thomas confessed about their side activities for the Chechen mob and how he viciously kill Alan for his money, and how he couldn't live with his conscience so he put another bullet on his own brain, and a note on his desk.

He held her on the funeral when Monique showed up crying like in a soap opera, and she had to face the truth about Alan. And he let her hit him with her small fist and her broken heart when he confessed he knew about his affair but he didn't say anything because he didn't wanted to hurt her, and that part was true.

Six months later the final cut of the movie was done and she was no longer sad, but he still haven't let her hand go, not even when Sally came back ready to commit.

He haven't however make any advances on her because his husband face, surprised by his fatal shot, chase him on his sleep every night, and now they were there, one year after he died, with her walking on his arm.

"Girlfriend?" He asked perplex

"Well I figured it may be time, you know? I would never say I'm glad Alan is gone, because I do miss him everyday but the truth is that we were no longer in love at the end, and after all this months I realized the only thing holding me back from you was myself, but maybe you don't think about me like that anymore"

"I do, I just didn't want to be disrespectful, but if I have to be honest I think about you in every way since the first moment I saw you"

"Then what are you waiting for?" She said and this time he didn't hesitate and kissed her, and like the sun after the winter that kiss brought him back to life, there were at least three dozen of people around but he couldn't care less, he only care that she was finally in his arms, and maybe just maybe this time he could get it right.

The end.

[microsoftedgy69]

11/11: Headstone

[this time last year]

“He doesn’t have a grave, does he?” your therapist says, head tilted as she consults the notes on the clipboard she keeps on her lap. That thing is the most disconcerting thing in the room, if anyone were to ask you, but you haven’t told her that. You’re still getting used to this whole idea. The idea of therapy. “What with the sea burial.”

“Yeah,” you say. “We just chucked him out there, not really the place for a headstone or whatever.”

“Do you think that would help?” she asks, and looks up at you again. “Having a headstone for Dirk?”

You act surprised. “How am I gonna do that? I can’t exactly get his decomposed ocean corpse back from a destroyed timeline to make a proper grave—”

“A symbolic one, Alan,” she says. She’s giving you that smile that says, I look right through you, but it’s okay. You’ve learned not to hate her for it. “I know you’ve read up on many modern human practices, have you looked into graveyards? After Dirk’s death, maybe?”

“Not really,” you admit. The “modern” human thing you were looking into the most after Dirk’s death was crime and punishment, obsessed with trying to figure out what punishment you would have gotten in a different century than the 25th. You don’t say that. She knows, anyway. You mentioned it during the first couple of sessions, when you were giving her a rough overview of your life so far (what a stomach-twisting, miserable three hours that was), and you both agreed to put it on the backburner.

She nods. “Of course one purpose of them is to give the deceased a place to rest. You did that, by reuniting Dirk with the sea. But they’re also places that we, the ones left behind, can come to, to grieve. I think it’s important to have a place that allows you to mourn outside of your home, so you can leave it there, you know? So you don’t have to carry this anniversary around with you everywhere. You get him a headstone, and it waits for you there, wherever you put it, and then you can do your grieving there, and your happy things at home.”

You have thought about this, in the past. You already played stupid when she asked, so you’re not going to admit that now, but you know that you have. You imagined putting a little place up for him, but you usually pictured it on the roof of the apartment you don’t have anymore. It’s not like there were any other places around, for the longest time.

“I don’t know,” you say slowly, looking at the floor, rubbing your left thumb over your right, “where. The fort would be big enough to get him a little niche somewhere, but you said it should be out of my home, and that makes sense to me, I think. Sometimes I see, like, crosses or wreaths at the side of the road where people had accidents, but I can’t put it where he died either, because that,” you swallow, pointlessly, around air, “whole place doesn’t exist anymore. And I could con my way into getting him an empty grave on an actual graveyard, but that feels — really inappropriate somehow. As if I’m making fun of him, both of us.”

Your therapist puts her pen down on her clipboard, then puts her clipboard onto the little table that’s next to her chair, along with a clock and a mug of tea she always forgets about until it’s cold. “Alan, I’m going to ask you something only you could possibly know the answer to,” she says and folds her hands. “Where would he want it to be?”

On top of the White House, was your first thought. Where Dave and Rose fought. Or in the Hollywood hills. Dave again. He would have understood, though, that neither are possible in this century. And if nothing else works, you thought, if it had to be something real, and feasible, then Dirk would have wanted — you would have wanted to rest at home.

When Sawtooth threw his body out of the window and into the ocean so many years ago, it was mainly because that was the only way to get rid of a corpse back then. That, or a very gorey Sendificator alternative you didn’t want to consider. Several months had passed in which he had just been lying dead on the floor of the apartment that you’d been keeping as cold as possible. Corpsefridge, as Squarewave coined it, back then. So you just had to finally let go of him, to allow yourself to try to move on.

But even back then, you thought that it felt right, returning him to the sea. You have loved the ocean as much as you have hated it, and maybe that’s what childhood homes are all about.

You live in a different timeline these days, after launching Sburb in your home timeline and thus destroying it for the greater good of getting to kill the Condesce. You live in the one your boyfriend lives in. You don’t live with him, but it seemed like a good first baby step towards something like that. In this timeline, you travel to Houston, Texas. You find the exact coordinates where your apartment would have been, and then you take the fastest route to the ocean from there. You go into the water, and you keep going, as deep as you can.

Your body can withstand a lot more pressure than a human body can, down here, and today it’s important. You don’t want anyone else to find this. You don’t want anyone to dig it up, take it home as a cool token they found on their dive. This is for you, to grieve.

It took you a bit to figure out what to even put here. You’re at a good spot, you’ve saved the coordinates so you can visit when you feel like you need to, but it was hard to pick something to actually do, here. You don’t have any old clothes or other belongings of his; you didn’t feel like they were yours, back then, so you left them in the apartment that’s gone now. For a while, you toyed with the idea of leaving another pair of shades here, but you’re growing a little tired of that, and you’d feel kind of bad for leaving plastic in the ocean, anyway.

But your therapist kept talking about headstones. So, you got one of those.

To you, personally, it looks more like a plaque, but you’re new to this. Apparently some graves have these, flat in the ground instead of the classical gravestone. You engraved one, did your best to seal it to withstand at least some years down here, and now you’ve pushed it securely into the deep sea ground.

You stand in the perfect silence of the ocean, alone for miles, and look down at it. You were telling him a lot, last year. There was a lot to say. There are plenty of updates you could give about your life these days, but you don’t feel like it, today. In movies, people return to graves all the time, lay down flowers and say things. You can’t quite recall what they say. You’re not sure. But you suppose you’ll figure it out, in time. Now that it’s here, you can come back however often you like.

Today, you stay a bit longer. You watch the water wash over the stone and think back about what happened six years ago, and it is not and will never be a good memory, but it’s more bearable, these days. You’re doing your best. You are doing your best. You’re working very hard, and you’re figuring things out.

Once the idea of getting your wifi back and talking to your friends starts sounding nicer than hanging out down here, you let yourself float towards the surface again. This was good, you think. You took care of yourself. You got help, and you reached out, and you’re meeting up with Jake later, and you did something nice. For you, and nobody else. You like this headstone. You’re proud of it.

Dirk Strider December 3, 2409 — November 11, 2423 I am not here. I did not die.

[twodaysintojune]

The Tale of the Kidnapped Maidens 2

Supernatural, Warnings-None

Part 1

Long Stories Masterlist, One Shots Masterlist

Find me at AO3

Sam looked at the group of girls prancing in front of him, not because he really wanted to look at them but because they were directly in front of his line of sight once he lifted his eyes from the notebook he had been writing on. He didn’t spare much time on them but he did linger enough to make Dean’s attention turn to them as well. His brother turned back to him after a moment.

“What? Missing the skirts?”

Sam looked at him with an accusatory look and a grimace. Dean snorted. 

“Hey, you did look pretty in them.”

 Sam groaned, “Come on Dean, that was ages ago.”

“So? I never said it was wrong, in fact seeing how much you ended up growing you might have been lucky hitting the skirt phase at the right time.”

Sam looked away a little embarrassed but he inwardly agreed with him. It had barely been a year and counted weeks before he began stretching up and the skirts stopped looking good on his slanky teenager boy frame. Dean had somehow managed to get him three skirts: a red plaid one, a denim one and a bottle green wool jersey one he used almost the entire winter when their father was away. He doesn’t know how he got a hold of them but they disappeared as quickly as they appeared once Sam asked him to get rid of them, his father none-the-wiser.

“I was wondering what kind of monster goes after prepubescent girls. And I forbid you to make any jokes about it.” Warned Sam when Dean was already lifting up his finger to make a comeback.

“Wasn’t gonna be a joke but yeah, good call, might have been a bit too much.”

Sam scoffed softly. He thanked the waitress when she arrived with a new coffee that his brother might have probably asked for while he was taking notes down and went back to doing research on his laptop.

The fourth disappearance happened to be a boy. Sam and Dean felt frustration creep over them when they realized this kid had been abducted while they were out and about asking questions but they couldn’t do much more than keep on digging. They went to interview the mother and Sam asked to see the kid’s computer to see if he had maybe been talking with strangers online. 

The boy’s mother took them up to the boy’s room, which was painted pink and filled with plushies and posters of boy bands and idols, and a set of a skirt and sweater that he obviously didn’t get to wear hung up by the mirror. Sam and Dean shared a look; the boy was obviously supported by his family so it was not likely to think he might have just taken advantage of the other missing girls to fake his own running away from home.

“Did anybody else know that Alan was...” Dean motioned towards the whole room, unable to come up with a term that everyone would be okay with.

“Well this is a small town Mr. Fogerty, we asked her to keep the skirts to the house while her father managed to get the transfer to California but it is most likely that some people might have realized. She just can’t help being feminine. That’s just the way she is. I just wish we could do more for her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she wants to be a real girl and we would love nothing more but we don’t really have the money to pay for hormones right now and she’s growing up... you know… some things are starting to change.”

“So Alan... sorry, is Alan really ok?”

“Oh, Elaine.”

“Okay, so uhm, Elaine” Dean kept asking questions. About Elaine’s routines, the people she usually hung around with and so on while Sam checked her facebook. There were only a couple of friends from this town but it didn’t seem like she was being harassed in any way. 

They left the place with a couple of leads.

“So, the thing, whatever it is, drives an old truck or something like it. That’s what all the parents have agreed on, the sound of a rumbling engine moving away…” Dean sighed “I don’t know man, we both have a hunch about this but I gotta be honest and admit that this is starting to sound more like a thing for the FBI than us.”

Sam sighed “Yeah, because that would explain the last spurt of disappeared girls fifteen years ago, and then fifteen years earlier.”

Dean nodded at his brother but didn’t do much to talk about the issue.

“Besides, if it was a kidnapper, I think they would have a more... normal behaviour?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all serial killers, or at least most of them have a particular trait that they prefer, like blonde women or males of a certain age group and stuff like that. If this was a random kidnapper then they would go for physical traits but this one must know these kids well enough to fit their preferences in character.”

“What you’re saying is that this thing doesn’t care about the fact of them being boys and girls as long as they are femenine? And that they’re close enough to the kids to tell that Elaine is physically not a girl but still likes her.”

“More like actually innocent girls? Look, Kaylee, the first kidnapped girl was the usual horse girl, Brianne was still a lot into Disney movies, Sandy and Elaine both have all these plushies and princess-like fantasies and none of them seemed eager to grow up.”

“Okay innocent but that still means virgin, right? Should we look for a dragon? What else likes virgins for breakfast?”

Sam sighed. “We need to find out before there’s another victim.”

“Yeah, good luck with that and not looking like a perv, stalking little girls.”

“Well, what else do you recommend?” Sam said a bit frustrated, throwing up his arms.

---

The phone was on speaker on top of their tiny kitchen table. Sam and Dean both sitting at each side with a beer in hand.

“I don’t know my dear lads, you can definitely track down girls with a spell but it’s not going to be easy if you’re not a woman yourself… maybe you could try luring this thing out?”

“How? We don’t have any innocent girls lying around.”

“But you could have a boy. You just told me this thing took one.”

“Well yeah but this boy was more of a girl than a boy.”

“I still think it would be a lot easier to have a boy lure this thing out.”

“Okay Rowena, cut up the mystery, what is it you’re thinking about?”

Rowena sighed on the other side of the line, almost like she was getting frustrated with the boys stupidity, “I mean that Sam could cast a spell on himself and put on a cute skirt. He looked so pretty and I really want to see more pictures of that.”

Sam opened his mouth in shock and then turned to meet his brother’s eyes, who was looking to a completely different place, clearly avoiding him.

“You have pictures of that!? No, wait, you showed them to Rowena!?”

“Hey it’s not my fault, I was drunk! And before you ask I’m not gonna tell you where I’m keeping those.”

“You said you had gotten rid of them all!”

“Well I lied.”

“God damn it Dean!”

Rowena laughed. “You might have some ingredients on that car of yours already and given the time of year you’ll definitely find the rest easily around that wood you’re telling me about, won’t even need to climb up those hills. I’ll text Sam the spell in a moment. Please take all the pictures that you can Dean. Toodles!”

Good to her word, Sam immediately received a list of items from Rowena, most of which were definitely meant to be foraged like wild flowers and such and the spell itself. For a de-aging spell, it looked rather easy to make. Sam sighed but showed the list to his brother and, changing to something more comfortable than fake feds suits, they stepped out of the motel and ran the car to a road near the town, ready to find the things they were currently missing.

Once Sam had everything in his magic pouch and was about to chant the spell, he realized that he actually had the same spell that had de-aged Dean once so many years ago. Feeling a little bit more secure, he began the enchanting.

The following day, Sam was laying on the bed, checking his laptop, making sure there had not been any other abduction yet while his brother came back with his new clothes. The spell had gone particularly well and he was now swimming in his own shirt and boxers, they did not take into account the fact that his clothes were not going to shrink with him. Luckily, his hair had stayed the same length so he looked more like a girl than he ever had before. This plan, stupid as it might have sounded earlier looked a bit more sensible now.

Soon, Dean arrived with some bags under his arm, one clearly holding their food, the others most likely holding Sam’s new stuff.

“Ready for your Cinderella moment?”

Sam bitchfaced him, a thing that apparently wasn’t half as menacing now that he was twelve years old once more. Dean snickered.

“Come on princess, let’s eat, you can change later.” 

Sam had his burrito while telling Dean about his theories of which monster they might be facing. He was narrowing it down to either dragon or, and he was being extremely cautious about the last one, Artemis.

“What like, the goddess? Didn’t she help us kill Zeus that one time?”

“Well, she did but that one was because he was killing Prometheus.”

Dean nodded, giving him that one. He looked at him for a long time and snorted. “Man, this is weird. Looking at you like a runt talking like an adult.”

“Dean, I am an adult.”

“Not right now you’re not.”

Sam frowned at him but refrained from saying something. “Anyways, Artemis likes to have virgin handmaidens so maybe she’s changing her roster or something? All these girls have in common is the school where they go and the church their parents attend but nothing much apart from that.”

“And the Peter Pan complex.”

“It’s still early to confirm that, let’s hit the library and see if there’s any local lore we might have to know about.”

“Seems like a plan to me.”

When lunch was done, Sam took the other bag and went to the bathroom, oddly put off by the idea of having Dean look at him change into a dress once more.

“Uh Sam.”

“Mhm?”

“I uh… I’m sorry.” Dean looked truly embarrassed and Sam felt suspicious.

“What? Why?” 

“I asked a lady to help me buy a set of clothes ‘for my little sister’ because it would be awkward otherwise so I, uh, I didn’t realize that also meant I had to get you girl everything.” Dean looked aside, looking awkward. 

Sam looked at him frowning, trying to process what his brother had just said when he looked inside the bag and rummaged for something. Right there, below everything and next to a cute accessory backpack that could probably only hold a knife and a couple other things, was a set of girl underwear as well. He took the box out and looked at it numb. Dean started to fidget. 

“Really!? Dean???”

“I swear to god Sammy I didn’t do that on purpose!”

Sam groaned and turned back into the bathroom, slamming the door with as much force as his twelve year old body could. Once inside, he sighed and opened up the box with the soft pink underwear set and blushed. He shouldn’t feel this embarrassed, he was not even his usual six foot plus tall self so no one would ever link him to the boy he was right now but somehow the idea of not only wearing girl clothes but also putting on the underwear made him extremely self conscious. Unlike his comfy boxer briefs, the soft cotton fabric was tight in all the wrong places and it made him feel like everything was pouring over. Remembering some advice he once saw about tucking in the package, he did his best to tuck in his dick in the tight underwear, oddly glad that he was now in his twelve year old body because otherwise all of this would have been a really awkward thing to do.

Once he felt as comfortable as he could with the underwear, both the panties and the camisole, he put on the rest. A cute oversized pale rose camisole with a kawaii styled cat, a short black skirt and oxford grey thigh highs, along with a pair of fake patent leather shoes that definitely looked more expensive than what they might actually have cost. 

Finally, he brushed his hair, opened the door enough to peek, looking for Dean. Clearly noticing his own burning cheeks and ears. He saw him turn from his bed, tv remote at hand.

“Uhm, I think I’m ready.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Sam closed the door again and took a deep breath. He opened it once more and stepped into the room looking downwards. After a second he looked up and saw the same odd look he had seen so many years ago on his brother’s face.

“Fuck Sammy, If I was your age I’d totally try to pull your pigtails right now.”

Sam gave Dean a very annoyed bitchface and walked towards the full mirror and, just like that fated night so many years ago, he looked at himself in shock.

“Crap, I think I totally would try to do the same.”

Dean laughed hard. He stood up from the bed and grabbed something Sam didn’t truly see until his brother was behind him and, with a very delicate move, he placed a headband with a big burgundy velvet ribbon on him. That was what tied the whole outfit together and Sam felt even prettier than ever, blushing hard but unable to look away from the mirror.

[outroshooky]

Questions Tag!

Tagged by @tendershepherd (Danke Shep!)

Tagging: @a-heart-full-of-javert, @vankoya, @joonbird (If y’all’ve already been tagged or want to skip this, go for it)

1. Nicknames: Written, Seagull, Scuttle, Yun Mango Dango, Moon Yong (thanks @lolnxcole)

2. Gender: Female

3. Zodiac: Aries

4. Height: 5′5″

5. Age: 16

6. Time: 2:55pm (EST)

7. Favorite Bands/Solo Artists: Oh boy, there are a lot of these. Favorite bands would have to be Panic! At The Disco, Fall Out Boy, BTS, CHRVCHES, Imagine Dragons, Caravan Palace, Monstercat (technically a record company, but oh well), and twenty one pilots. Favorite solo artists would have to be blackbear, Agust D, Troye Sivan, Tristam, Muzzy, Dion Timmer, Conro, Grant, WRLD, San Holo, Karma Fields, Rameses B, KSHMR, TheFatRat, Alan Walker, Galantis, Avicii, Zedd, Loote... virtually anything electronic.

8. Song Stuck in my head: Where Did You Come From by BTS.

9. Last movie I saw: Pretty In Pink about a month ago... It wasn't a voluntary decision.

10. Last thing I googled: "BTS love and support memes" for love and support.

11. Other blogs: Nada.

12. Why I chose my username: I'm a very indecisive writer, and I erase and rewrite constantly before working out a final product. I originally selected the blog name "writtenthenerased", but mistyped it as "writtenthanerased" in a text to a friend. I didn't catch the typo until he asked me to clarify between two meanings, one of which was "Do you mean it as in 'I'd rather be written than erased'?" I thought it personally fit me rather well, and I selected writtenthanerased as my blog name.

13. Following: Twenty-eight blogs over a wide variety of topics: yourdaily, interior design, self-help, writing tips, best friends' blogs, art tips, and Bangtan writers.

14. Average amount of sleep: Either five hours, nine, or none at all. I'm a high school student, so I really don't have the concept of a sleep schedule.

15. Lucky Number: 7!

16. What am I wearing: An oversized high school band sweatshirt, a gray Monstercat Uncaged t-shirt and pajama pants.

17. Dream job: Airline pilot, professional procrastinator.

18. Dream trip: Since I've already gone on my dream Europe trip, I'm currently in the works with a friend about a Southeast Asia trip to Japan and South Korea. Owl cafés? Owl cafés.

19. Favorite Food: My grandmother's pasta, which is utterly heavenly, or strawberry bubble tea.

20. Play an instrument: Clarinet, handbells, piano.

21. Favorite song (right now): I can't pick just one, sadly: Airplane Part 2 and Fake Love by BTS, Your Side Of The Bed by Loote, Wanderlust by blackbear, Questions by Tristam, an Airplane Part 2/Havana mashup, and a Monster/Save Me mashup on YouTube.

22. Play(ed) any sport: I played softball for two years before being hit in the head and realizing that catching things wasn't my calling. I have, though, played tennis for nine or ten years and counting.

23. Hair color: Dirty blonde.

24. Eye color: Namely green, although it changes to a more bluish or brownish shade depending on the light.

25. Languages you speak/are learning: I speak English and some various German profanities. I'm currently in year two of four of my high school Latin education. Yeet cum fiducia! (Side note, I'm not responsible for whatever links come up when you input that phrase into Google)

26. Random fact: So this is going to sound really freaking weird, but I'm actually a student pilot! I've been flying since I was thirteen (yes, here in the United States, it is legal to fly a single-engine plane before you can drive a car. Lovely lawmaking, isn't it?) and have nearly enough hours to apply for my private pilot’s license (a minimum of forty). As I just turned sixteen two months ago, over the summer I will be going to a flight camp for three weeks, upon which I will take my first solo flight! I'm looking to pursue this in college and obtain a Bachelor's in Aeronautical Science; from there I'll hop into the airlines and hopefully start working my way up from there. I've always been passionate about aviation, and I'm an air show junkie who's been to shows and air tattoos in numerous states and countries. It's a weird hobby for a sixteen year old to have, but hey, I like a little diversity in my life.

27. Describe yourself: I’m an INFJ on the Meyers-Briggs scale, and a 1w2 on the Enneagram. 

To be honest, I’ve spent more time thinking about this question than was probably necessary, but I struggle to accurately sum myself up in a brief paragraph, perhaps because I’m not quite sure who I am yet. Bear with me, this might be a little long.

People tell me I’m intelligent, self-reliant, mature, and wise; apparently I’d make a good therapist, and I’d have to agree. I’ll listen to you even if you’re my worst enemy, because everyone deserves to be heard, no matter what our relationship status is. I’m a natural mediator, and it takes a lot to get me truly angry, but once I am, it’s not a pretty sight. I’m painfully selfless, maybe too selfless at times, and I’ve learned that I give people too many chances. I trust a little too quickly, but I’m also terrified of telling people my inner thoughts (what a weird conundrum, huh?). I’m hung up on the “what if”s, they’ll haunt me until the end of time. I’m anxious; I love to be alone, but I’m scared to be lonely. I hope for the best and assume the worst, and the end product is usually somewhere in the middle. 

I’m usually fairly quiet because if it’s a weekday, chances are I haven’t slept well. I rarely take the initiative in conversations, but god, get me on a topic I love? I’ll talk your ear off for hours about Overwatch and European History and the F-18. My friends say I’m sarcastically savage, but also have a heart of gold, and will do anything for the people I love. I love without abandon; I like to assume the best in people and find the good in every bad situation, seek out the little things that bring joy to a darker day. I create endlessly, through writing and drawing and architecture and dreaming. My mind is always thinking, always conceiving, and rarely does it ever stop, but I’m painfully perfectionist; I criticize constantly, from the ragged edges of my chewed-short fingernails to the sentence I just typed on a blank Google doc. I run from the past and look to the future, and it seems so far away, but I blink and I’m suddenly looking at junior year of high school and the world of college and student loans and sweet, sweet independence. It’s right here, I’m right on the verge, and just about when I think I can see who I actually am, the kaleidoscope turns a little to the right, and there’s a different design in the eyepiece.

It’s been turning a lot lately, it seems. I’ve lost a lot of people, been burned at the edges, discovered what it’s like to have everything fall out from underneath you. But you know what? I’m still here, and that kaleidoscope is still rotating, because each time another block has been pulled out, I see yet another side of myself I never knew existed, and even in just a few months, I’ve learned countless lessons about people and feelings and even my own self. Thus, I’ll keep looking through the eyepiece and watching the pieces turn, beautiful and bright in their design.

Because I can’t do much else other than hope and dream, push forward to the future, to the days when things will work themselves out, to the moment when I can work myself out.

And that day, I think, I’ll finally see the whole mosaic.

[redantsunderneath]

Does anybody remember the Twin Peaks Holiday Special

I wanted to know if anyone remembers the Twin Peaks Holiday Special with the little man from another place, because it was common knowledge on the newsgroup and boards in the early 90s, but no one seems to recall it when I mention it now.  I had a VHS dupe of this show, with a badly printed jacket, that I had obtained at DragonCon 93' or so (I met Al Simmons, the real life namesake of Spawn and Jim Lee if that helps).  While I was cleaning house, I had accidentally given it with the rest of my VHS tapes to a courier named Roland who worked for us (who was later fired for popping positive for THC and I didn't know his last name, so I couldn't get it back). It was so bad so I wasn't really upset.  I just finished talking to my friend Gaines who I watched this with a bunch of times to just laugh and drink beer, so he managed to corroborate my memories and remind me of some other stuff.  Note that all of this is just his and my memory and may be off, and the stuff about the actors and background info is pure hearsay from whatever groups and boards I was on in that era.  Here is what I remember, if you guys can fill in the details or correct inaccuracies that would be fantastic.

ABC decided to exercise a clause in the Twin Peaks contract calling for their ability to produce up to 3 Twin Peaks related specials.  In the rush of awards show wins and high profile media exposure, they decided to greenlight a Holiday Special in hopes that they could capitalize on the buzz and the small town spirit of the show to maybe wind up with a perennial favorite.  It was to be shot on hiatus, but Lynch and Frost were not interested in working on it.  The execs focused on getting a cast to lure another writer and director associated with the show.

The cast were mostly uninterested in the blind pitch, except for Kimmie Robertson, who thought it would be fun as long as she could “do hair” and Joshua Harris who had just been cast to play Nicky Needleman in the next season and happened to be around when they were looking.  They felt they needed a bigger name to anchor the project and were surprised that Kyle MacLachlan said yes as long as he had final creative approval and a guarantee that the show would air.  MacLachlan had a well known issue with excessive use of human pineal gland extract around this time and the executives simply thought he needed the money (the fad for “organic” drugs was in full swing and HPGE was the priciest drug on the market at that time – Kyle was said to have an 80 donor equivalents per week habit, the highest ever recorded).

They were able to get one of the incoming writing staff (not sure which one) to agree to write it but it was apparently a “Stan Lee” job where the instruction to the story editor (a pre TNG Ronald Moore) was “that dwarf guy goes home for some reason.”  Moore, fresh off of a committed method writing exercise of 6 months living full emersion as a Klingon, decided on a “Pon Farr” scenario of the Little Man returning to his home planet to mate.  Gains remembers that Alan Smithee, who IMDB tells me has had quite a career, was named as director and they were ready to go.  

MacLachlan got heavily involved in the writing.  He and Lara Flynn Boyle had been living in a small shanty in the Salton Sea, and communications with them had become erratic.  Kyle said he had a “vision” as to how this might change the world, and fought Moore the entire time.  When the executives saw some of the pages and, realizing they could not cancel, gave the minimal budget contractually allowed and planned to bury the project.  Instead of at Christmas, it aired at 3 AM, Tuesday October 16th, 1991 with no promotion under a title that did not contain Twin Peaks (I thought it was something like “Trial of Bark,” but Gains swears it was “Our Emancipation.”).  No one saw this thing, but somehow I had that tape in all its cable acess-level production glory.

The story was basically a Christmas Carol.  There are no opening credits and the special starts with LMAP in the red room, when a large head (poorly superimposed with a blurring effect, weird computer imposed black hole for a mouth) tells him he must come back to “the planet Garmanbozia” (Lynch hated everything about this special and disavows it except for this name which he liked and kept for the movie) for the Tantaculus festival (MacLachlan’s suggestion, named after the “world system” he and Boyle were devising in the California desert) in order to mate.  The little man with resignation walks into the mouth and emerges in his house.  This is the only special effects and the only appearance of any of the normal settings of the actual show (all the summoned guests simply “walk on” from the side).  

There are birds on the soundtrack constantly and no music outside of musical numbers.  The house is like a modern Flintstones house (fake chrome everywhere, rust colored Formica table [no idea if this was an idea germ too], but uneven plaster painted ochre.  He sees his wife Brigite (Priscilla Barnes, who acts in a 3 foot cutout in the stage, and just disappears when she is not in a scene – you never see her leave or come back).  She is excited to mate, but he is clearly not and she disappears in a huff.  He says hi to his kids (Bob and Mike, no relation – played by sock puppets worked by a guy dressed in black), who are arguing over what seems to be a beef jerky.  He talks away from them about how he loves them but he doesn’t know if he can handle more.  Behind him appears an unnamed thin giant (Meadowlark Lemon in a part presumably written for Carel Struycken) who says he will show him the value of “whoople” with “three gifts” as the show cuts to commercial.  

The giant proceeds to bring in the three cameos, the first two of which have musical numbers.  Lucy comes in and gives LMAP a makeover and reminds him several times that he is “still sexy” before breaking into that Sinead O’Conner song (Emperor’s New Clothes, I think).  Locked camera shot, but the Lucy awkward dance stuff is fun. Commercial then Little Nicky comes in to remind him that his kids are still lovable and always a gift (more on this scene later) and he and the giant break into a Bossa nova-esque version of Blues from a Gun (the music is very dated and kind of inappropriate).  

Finally, for the last act, Dale shows up.  Most of his lines are gibberish (a lot about division and multiplication and, Zeno’s paradox perseverating), but he eventually gives LMAP a crushed velvet painting of a naked Log Lady (log held strategically).  The little man becomes alert and approaches the painting, rubbing its surface and making a yelping noise.  His wife appears and calls to him “Alf, come to me."  He walks backwards to the rear of the house.  The kids ask Coop if he wants some coffee and, in the one really interesting moment in the whole thing, Dale says “no thank you, if he makes coffee like he dances I’m likely to wind up with a mouth full of grounds.”  Strange sounds emanate from the back of the house (the only good foley work) and we end on a freeze frame of Coop giving a thumbs up and really fast credits.

My main, seared-in memories are the song numbers, the bad blocking and lack of positional continuity (Barnes’ hole), and a few specific oddities.  In the Nicky scene, Bob and Mike (who are always doing something competitive in the background) are bouncing a beach ball back and forth, playing the “don’t let it hit the ground” game (where someone tosses the ball so that other people will try to keep it in play by gently tapping it up – this is before I knew what meta was).   Now remember, it is one guy in a black mask obviously playing with himself but you can see the ceiling fan.  There is a tension that the ball is going to hit the fan, but it never does and they don’t do anything with this.  Meadowlark is wearing a Star Trek-ish uniform that is made out of potholder material. MacLachlan speaks with an intensity like he needs to convince the audience that without math the world will cease to exist, or something.  Lucy’s pre-Elaine funky dance is neat.

It is important to note that, in lieu of backward talking/shooting the scenes, everyone just inflects each syllable up with a tight jaw (they start to forget to do this pretty quickly except Barnes who is if anything a committed actress).  There's no way this thing is canon in any way - Lynch doesn't even answer questions about it (he responds with non-denial stuff like "I don't think Id've done that" and "sounds made up"), and it is really bad. It is tonally nothing like the show and any mythology SHOULDN'T COUNT! It is a fiasco. I can't find references Googling, but I think there has been a lot of self editing Wiki pages and legal action trying to scrub this thing from existence.

Any information, corrections, or links to where I could get this would be appreciated.

[adorkablephil]

Fic: Truly Madly Deeply

Summary: Dan gets upset by watching a movie, and Phil comforts him. Rating: K Word Count: 2.1K Tags: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort Author’s Note: I'm sorry if Dan is OOC in this, but I was feeling down and wanted to write some fluffy hurt/comfort, and this is what resulted. You don't have to have seen the movie "Truly Madly Deeply" in order to understand this story, but I encourage you to see it, because it's incredible. Very sweet, very funny, very sad, and VERY romantic. Yeah, I suppose it would help you to know that the movie is very romantic.

Truly Madly Deeply

Phil wakes up slowly, groggy, wanting to slip back into sleep but feeling a slave to his bladder’s inconvenient timing. It’s the middle of the night, for fuck’s sake! He fumbles for his glasses and crawls out of bed, shuffling to the bathroom like a crankily inconvenienced zombie. After taking care of business, he decides that he may as well get a drink of water while he’s up, so he continues on toward the kitchen.

He’s surprised to find Dan sniffling on the sofa, eyes swollen and red. At the sight of Phil, Dan wipes his hands at his face, obviously trying to banish tears. It’s not particularly shocking that Dan is still awake, but his wee hour Tumblr scrolling doesn’t usually lead to sobbing. Phil walks toward the sofa and sits down. “What wrong?” he asks quietly. The hour doesn’t lend itself to speaking at normal volume.

Dan looks away and bites his lip, new tears springing to his eyes. “It’s stupid,” he says in a choked voice. “Just a movie.”

Relieved, Phil chides him jokingly, “Were you watching ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ again?”

Dan shakes his head. “I was reading this article about people who died in 2016, and they were talking about Alan Rickman, and I was thinking about how great he was as Snape, and I realized I didn’t really know anything else he’d been in, so I went looking on Netflix.” He sniffed again and wiped his eyes. “I found this movie called ‘Truly Madly Deeply,’ and I watched it, and it just … it got to me.”

“What’s it about?” Phil asks gently. “If you want to talk about it.” Dan nods, and Phil makes himself more comfortable, sitting cross-legged on the sofa facing Dan and resigning himself to staying awake for a while.

“He’s dead,” Dan says, and Phil wasn’t expecting that. “He’s dead, and the woman he was living with is grieving, and she can’t move on with her life, so he comes back, as a ghost.”

Phil tilts his head in curiosity. “A ghost story?”

Dan shrugs. “Kind of. But not scary. He comes back because he loves her and he doesn’t want to leave her hurting.” Tears spring to his eyes again and one trails down his cheek. He puts his face in his hands and his shoulders shake a bit. He’s full-on weeping, Phil realizes. He scoots closer on the sofa and puts an arm around Dan, who unexpectedly collapses against him, face wet against Phil’s neck and t-shirt. Phil wraps both arms around him as Dan hides his face, and Dan feels strangely small and fragile in his embrace. It reminds him of the early years, when Dan had been so young and still smaller than Phil. Now, he’s taller and broader, and it isn’t often that Phil feels protective of him like this anymore. They’ve been peers for a long time now, no longer really noticing the age difference, and Dan hasn’t turned to him like this in years.

Phil shushes him gently, rocking back and forth a little bit, running a hand through Dan’s wavy hair. He has it so short right now that he hasn’t been bothering to straighten it, and Phil hopes that maybe that’ll become a habit. He’s always liked the hobbit hair. The thought makes him smile a little.

Dan only has one lamp lit in the lounge, and the atmosphere is cozy and intimate. Phil just holds Dan tightly and croons to him under his breath. Eventually, Dan seems to calm, though he doesn’t move away. Instead, he snakes an arm around Phil and clutches him tighter. He mumbles something into Phil’s neck, but it’s completely unintelligible.

Phil cranes his head away a bit to try to see Dan’s face, but he’s hiding it in Phil’s shoulder. “What was that?” Phil asks softly.

Dan’s voice is still muffled when he chokes out, “If you died, you’d come back for me, right?”

Phil’s eyebrows go up. “You’d want me to haunt you?”

Dan just shrugs silently, nestling closer into Phil’s arms.

“You don’t even believe in ghosts. And you’re afraid of anything supernatural. Wouldn’t I freak you out if I came back as a ghost?” Phil is a little amused at the turn the conversation has taken. Even as he comforts Dan, he can’t help but find the situation a little funny.

Dan nuzzles his cheek against Phil’s t-shirt a bit and says in a quiet voice, “I just … I wouldn’t want you to not be here. I would want you to come back. Because I wouldn’t just move on. I couldn’t. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t.” And he starts to cry again. Phil is no longer feeling amused, because Dan doesn’t seem to be talking about the movie anymore.

“I’m not going to leave you, Dan,” he whispers into his friend’s hair and presses a gentle kiss to the top of his head. It’s a risky move, but it feels right in the moment. Phil hopes Dan won’t be offended that Phil crossed some sort of line, but Dan doesn’t seem in a state of mind to reject any offer of comfort right now.

Dan nods a bit, just a slight movement against Phil’s shoulder, and sniffles again. He’s probably getting snot on Phil’s t-shirt, but Phil doesn’t mind sacrificing a bit of clothing to the friendship gods. They sit that way for a while in silence, Phil’s arms wrapped around Dan, Dan’s fingers clutching the back of Phil’s t-shirt. And then Phil feels a soft, quick brush of lips against his neck, just below his jaw.

Okay, that was definitely over the line.

Not that Phil is complaining, but … he isn’t quite sure how to react. Dan’s in a vulnerable place right now, probably not thinking straight.

No pun intended.

He decides not to show any overt reaction, just continues to hold Dan tightly, no longer rocking but just sheltering his friend in a slightly awkward embrace. They don’t really do this a lot, but it feels good. Feels right. He can feel Dan’s body beginning to relax against him and he presses another kiss to the wavy brown hair. Hobbit hair, he thinks to himself again, and the slight smile curves his lips again. Dan hates it so much, but it’s so cute.

“Can I lay with you in your bed?” Dan asks hesitantly, surprising Phil again. They haven’t really cuddled in bed together since Dan was a teenager, not since they’ve been living together and had their own separate bedrooms. Phil has thought about it, sure, but Dan put up walls between them years ago, drawing lines between what was okay and what was too much, and Phil had always tried to respect those lines. It seems like the lines are a bit blurry tonight.

Phil gives Dan a tighter squeeze for a second and dares to press another kiss to his hair. “If you want,” he agrees, and Dan nods against his shoulder again.

They stand up and Dan wipes at his face again. “Let me go … blow my nose and stuff,” Dan says, obviously embarrassed. Phil smiles and nods.

“I’ll be in the bed. You come and join me when you’re ready,” he says in what he hopes is a reassuring voice. Dan walks off toward the bathroom.

Phil walks to his bedroom and climbs under the duvet, wondering at Dan’s openness tonight, his willingness to show such vulnerability and seek comfort from Phil in a way he hasn’t done in a very long time. Once this would have been commonplace for them, but Dan has been holding himself in reserve since the fan shipping started bothering him back in 2012 or so. Phil hopes maybe this is a sign that Dan is relaxing that reserve a bit, because he’s missed the casual intimacy of those early days. He’s missed that thrilling sense of possibility, too, but he doesn’t dare hope for that now. It’s been too long, and Dan has made his preference too clear.

But there was that little kiss to his neck out on the sofa just now. Did it mean anything?

Phil sternly tells himself it didn’t, protecting his heart as he’s become so used to doing. It was just a moment of weakness on Dan’s part, just another way of seeking comfort when he was upset over some silly movie he’d watched too late at night when his defenses were down.

Dan slips into the room on silent bare feet, then crawls into Phil’s bed, immediately scooting to press up against Phil’s side. “Spoon?” he requests softly, and Phil’s heart melts. They roll so that the full extent of their bodies are pressed together, Phil’s front to Dan’s back, their knees bent in perfect alignment, Phil’s body sheltering him again, and Phil wraps an arm around him to hold him close. Dan sighs with apparent contentment, then whispers, “I’ve missed this.”

Phil pauses a long moment before replying in the darkness, “Me too.” It’s safer to admit it when Dan can’t see his face, can’t read the naked longing that’s probably obvious there. He’s worked so hard to hide it for so long, it feels scary to let it loose, even in the dark with Dan facing away. He worries that he won’t be able to contain it again in the harsh light of morning, when Dan is just his friend and the lines stop blurring and become clear again.

They lie there cuddled together for a long time, but Phil can’t fall asleep and can tell by Dan’s breathing that he’s still awake, too. Phil listens to the nearly undetectable sound of Dan’s breath sighing in and out in the silent room, feels the slight movement of his back as his lungs expand and contract, and it’s soothing.

Without a word, Dan takes Phil’s hand in his and lifts it, presses a gentle kiss to the knuckles, and Phil’s breath catches in his throat. Those lines are getting so blurry he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to see them clearly again.

In the hush, he can barely hear Dan’s voice as he whispers, “I’ve been so stupid.” Phil doesn’t ask what Dan’s talking about, just squeezes him more securely to his chest and twines their legs together. He takes a chance, crashing through those lines Dan has drawn so clearly for so long, and brushes his lips oh so briefly against the nape of Dan’s neck.

Dan rolls over to face him, and Phil finds that his eyes have adjusted enough in the dark room that he can barely make out Dan’s features. “I promise I’ll always find a way to come back to you,” Dan says with a strange intensity in his voice, as if he’s making a solemn vow. “Always.” His hand reaches up to cup Phil’s cheek and time seems to stop. The darkness wraps them in an intimate quiet and Phil doesn’t dare speak. “Can I … can I kiss you?” Dan whispers.

Stunned, Phil doesn’t move for a moment, then he whispers back a simple, “Yes.” He feels so much more than that one word, but it’s all he can do to say that much. And then Dan’s lips are pressed to his, soft but slightly chapped, and Dan’s other hand weaves into Phil’s hair, and the lines are just … obliterated. Maybe he’s wrong, maybe Dan will try to draw them again, sharp and clear, in the morning, but Phil doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to really see them again, like looking at the world without his glasses on. And with Dan’s lips on his, he doesn’t think Dan wants to draw them anymore either.

“Promise me you’ll always come back to me,” Dan whispers, kissing the corner of Phil’s mouth, then his chin. “I’m sorry I’ve been so stupid, but I don’t ever want to be without you.” Their lips meet again, and this time Dan lingers, increasing the pressure slightly before pulling away and watching Phil’s face with eyes that seem to shine in the dim light.

“I promise,” Phil says earnestly. “I don’t want to be without you, either.” He leans forward to touch his lips to Dan’s, as if sealing the vow. “Ever.”

Dan wraps his arms around Phil and hugs him tightly, his body trembling, and Phil hugs back just as tight. Something has been forged in this bed tonight, something that transcends the boundaries Dan has held so firmly for so long. Phil can feel it. And he knows that in the morning they have talking to do, but for right now he simply presses another kiss to the side of Dan’s head and holds him in his arms in the dark.

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