#Steve's misadventures in marriage

[trickster-archangel]

As per my previous post (god it's awful, it sounds like one of those work emails), I have strong suspicions that Steve indeed understood Danny's hurt, his feelings of betrayal, and his jilted lover attitude after he came back. After all, Steve himself felt the same when Danny blindsided him with the Rachel affair. But Danny didn't leave. Danny chose Steve, not Rachel. So Danny, who's big on words and loudly-spoken feelings (at least for Steve), chose to act and show where his heart stood instead of talking...and that's why Steve for once chose to use words, even if in his crooked way.

Danny wasn't so much hurt by Steve leaving, as he was by Steve deciding without consulting him first, discussing this thing, maybe allowing Danny to go with Steve and have his back. Which was exactly why Steve left without talking. Danny probably was living again the worst moments of his marriage, with sticky notes and then plain silence instead of healthy communication, with him taking detective job instead of, dunno, a safe and better paid job as a college professor, like Rachel probably wanted? How many times had Rachel been in Danny's place, and how many times Danny had behaved just like Steve? His damn words, that There is no "my own" in a friendship. There is no "my own." Your problems become my problems sound so much like the kind of accusations he threw at Rachel, or Rachel threw at him....just saying....

I guess Steve had some inkling about Danny’s possible cold shoulder when coming back, because he did the same by fucking up his career and breaking into the Governor’s house.

Him calling Danny the second time, though? Dude, that's just a vacation trip, basically. And he's going with Joe, who Danny trusted enough to keep Steve out of troubles to call him in after his imprisonment. He couldn’t risk another fuck up, and he knew by now Danny wasn't likely to try and dissuade him, even if probably he bitched about it. And anyway, he brought Danny to a second, very secluded, very private, second date in the open sea, with only the sky and the seagulls and the sharks as witnesses....poor Steve, he did try to make up for his fuckery, he so much wanted to offer some good make-up sex 😂

remember when Steve left Danny an actual hand-written letter like a soldier shipping off to war who couldn't say goodbye to his secret sweetheart in person?

and Danny called said letter 'dear Danny' – a play on 'dear John' i.e. a letter you send to break up with your military bf, - therefore essentially comparing them to wartorn lovers???

and while Steve was away everyone tiptoed around Danny and threw him sympathetic looks like he'd just lost a spouse?

and after Steve came back none-the-wiser Danny acted like a jilted lover who got broken up with in a text and gave Steve the cold shoulder

(which in his case was just being quiet but Steve can't stand Danny being quiet and not sharing his thoughts and feelings with him)

and that, in turn, made Steve understand how he had made Danny feel left out in the cold by refusing to include him in something so important

— so he course corrected because the prospect of Danny never speaking to him again was unbearable and and ...

these two basically had the shortest divorce arc in history because they really can't stand to be apart. break up to vow renewal speedrun in 3 episodes.

there's no my own in friendship marriage

[princessstevemunson]

Famous actor Steve Harrington known wife guy. Spends decades of interviews talking about his wife Robin and all their misadventures—a lot of those stories also include their friend and next door neighbor, Corroded Coffin frontman, Eddie Munson. Then with the advent of social media a lot more people are posting about him being seen with Eddie, and are convinced that Steve and Eddie are cheating. This makes Steve have to out himself and explain that he and Robin are in a lavender marriage. (Not that it wasn’t an open secret in Hollywood especially with how close Robin and international pop sensation Chrissy Cunningham are)

[wazafam]

Across their respective runs, there was a surprising amount of overlap between Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place — here's a breakdown of the actors that appeared on both shows. Dan Goor and Michael Schur created Brooklyn 99, a police procedural comedy series. Premiering in 2013, it ultimately ran for eight critically acclaimed seasons via Fox and then NBC, winning countless awards along the way. Set in the titular New York City precinct, the series primarily followed the adventures (and mishaps) of Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg), Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews), Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio), Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti), and Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher).

Conversely, also created by Schur, The Good Place followed Team Cockroach - a.k.a Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), Chidi Anagonye (William Jackson Harper), Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), and Jason Mendoza (Manny Jacinto). Alongside the all-knowing Janet (D'Arcy Carden) and the reformed demon, Michael (Ted Danson), their misadventures took them through the various realms of the afterlife. In the process, they explored numerous philosophical ideas and what it truly meant to be a good and moral person. The equal parts hilarious and emotional series ultimately ran for four seasons, concluding in early 2020.

Related: Why Andy Samberg Almost Passed On Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Given Schur's involvement with both shows, it's perhaps less surprising that they shared significant overlap. The themes were measuredly different and the core cast remained disparate. Still, many guest stars crossed streams to appear on both shows. Those appearances ranged from recurring, fan-favorite characters to subtle one-off appearances that might have flown over the heads of even the shrewdest viewer. Whatever the case, here's a breakdown of all 29 actors that starred in both Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place across the show's multiple respective seasons.

Mantzoukas debuted as the titular wildcard detective in Brooklyn 99 season 3, episode 17, "Adrian Pimento". Fresh out of an undercover assignment, his struggle to reconnect with mainstream society was hilariously unfurled through several episodes across multiple seasons. Despite his relationship with Rosa coming to an end, he remained a loyal (if mercurial) friend to the officers of the 99. Over on The Good Place, he played a malfunctioning android named Derek. Built by Janet in order to get over Jason, he debuted in The Good Place season 2, episode 7, "Janet and Michael." Though Derek and Janet's romance was equally short-lived, he again recurred throughout — with Derek achieving a God-like final form by the show's end.

The Emmy-winning Saturday Night Live alum first appeared in The Good Place season 2, episode 11, "The Burrito." As the afterlife's all-powerful Judge, she recurred throughout the series as equal parts friend and foil — depending on the influence of Timothy Olyphant. On Brooklyn 99, Rudolph guest-starred in the two-part episode that opened season 4. She played Karen Haas, the U.S. Marshal in charge of Jake and Holt's stint in witness protection. Though a stickler for ensuring that every facet of their cover stories had been memorized, she often blurred the lines between personal and professional. That was most hilariously characterized by using her "pop quizzes" to get advice on her marriage and affair with a younger man named Marcos.

As the husband of Captain Raymond Holt, Jackson's Kevin Cozner has been a mainstay since he debuted in Brooklyn 99 season 1, episode 16, "The Party." Though stoic to the point of being cold, he still stood as a far cry to the more overtly villainous Shawn. Jackson first appeared as Shawn in The Good Place season 1, episode 11, "What's My Motivation." Initially posing as The Judge, he was soon revealed to be the head of The Bad Place. Much like how Kevin warmed to Jake Peralta and the rest of the 99, Shawn's demonic ways eventually softened — with him ultimately aiding the heroes in the creation of a new afterlife system.

Related: Brooklyn 99: Why Holt & Kevin Never Kiss (Despite Being Married)

Cordero debuted as Jason's trusted right-hand man in The Good Place season 1, episode 4, "Jason Mendoza." As Steven "Pillboi" Peleaz, he recurred throughout the rest of the show's run — right up until the series finale, having made it to the titular realm in his own right. The actor has actually emerged as one of the most prolific of Schur's collective shows. In terms of the adventures of the 99, Cordero appeared in Brooklyn 99 season 4, episode 22, "Crime and Punishment." As a hacker nicknamed Pandemic, he attempted to aid Terry and Boyle in exonerating Jake and Rosa when they were framed for a series of bank robberies.

The veteran comedic actor first appeared in Brooklyn 99 season 5, episode 10, "Game Night." There he played Devin Cathertaur, a division leader with the Cyber Crimes unit. After affecting the precinct's internet, he repeatedly toyed with the detectives. He's ultimately put in his place by a briefly returning Gina Linetti. He would later debut as Chuck in The Good Place season 3, episode 10, "The Book of Dougs." As a member of the inept committee for the unsurprisingly disappointing Good Place, he helped to manipulate Michael into taking over the running of it.

Daly guest-starred as Jeffrey Bouché in Brooklyn 99 season 4, episode 17, "Cop Con." At the titular convention, the character was introduced as a rival to Captain Holt. Despite seeming initially kind-hearted, it's later revealed to be a facade that hid a devious sabotaging streak. Daly later appeared as Dave Katterttrune in The Good Place season 3, episode 6, "A Fractured Inheritance." Coincidentally, the episode also centered on whether or not certain characters were generally good or merely posing as such. Unlike Bouché, however, Katterttrune was every bit the warm and good-natured family man that he initially seemed.

Offerman guest-starred in The Good Place season 3, episode 8, "Ava." There, he played Captain Holt's ex-boyfriend, Frederick — with whom remained lingering animosity regarding an antique decoy duck. Regardless, he ultimately helped in the birth of Terry and Sharon Jefford's third daughter: Ava. Offerman later appeared in The Good Place season 4, episode 13, "Whenever You're Ready." He was glimpsed mentoring Tahani in woodwork as she sought to craft the perfect chair and complete a truly epic to-do list. Though fans speculated that he may have been playing Ron Swanson, a character from Parks & Recreation, also created by Michael Schur. Offerman was credited as playing a version of himself.

Related: The Good Place: Why Mindy St. Claire Ended Up In The Medium Place

As the sister of Doug Judy (Craig Robinson), Byer debuted as Trudy Judy in Brooklyn 99 season 6, episode 5, "The Tale of Two Bandits." Initially believed to be a straitlaced nursing student, it's ultimately revealed that she followed in her brother's past criminal footsteps. As well as indulging in internet scamming and con artistry, Trudy had taken up Doug's mantle as the Pontiac Bandit. She later reprised the role in subsequent episodes. As well as that, she was reutilized by Schur in The Good Place season 3, episode 10, "The Book of Dougs." There she played Gwendolyn, a cheery and naive employee of The Good Place Correspondence Center.

Jama Williamson: The actress played the demon Val on multiple episodes of The Good Place and Teddy's girlfriend, Rachel, in Brooklyn 99 season 4, episode 13, "The Audit."

Joe Mande: As well as writing and producing on the show, Mande recurred on The Good Place as Todd Hemple. On Brooklyn 99, he appeared twice as Amy's informant, Isaac.

Anna Khaja: Khaja played Tahani's mother, Manisha Al-Jamil, on The Good Place. She also played Dr. Theresa Moore on Brooklyn 99 season 6, episode 11, "The Therapist."

Amy Okuda: Okuda starred as The Bad Place torturer, Gayle (a.k.a Jessica) on The Good Place. She also appeared twice as Terry's ex-girlfriend, Chiaki, on Brooklyn 99.

Seth Morris: The actor played Eleanor's former boss, Wallace, on The Good Place. He also starred as Agent Piln on Brooklyn 99 season 2, episode 15, "Windbreaker City"

Fran Gillespie: Gillespie played the demon Megan in two episodes of The Good Place. Meanwhile, she played Sheena in Brooklyn 99 season 6, episode 11, "The Therapist."

Jamie Denbo: Denbo played Chef Patricia on The Good Place season 1, episode 4, "Jason Mendoza" and Hillary on Brooklyn 99 season 1, episode 11, "Christmas."

Mary Holland: She played Paula in The Good Place season 1, episode 6, "What We Owe To Each Other" and Tricia in Brooklyn 99 season 4, episode 16, "Moo Moo."

Carl Tart: Tart starred as Steve in The Good Place season 4, episode 11, "Mondays, Am I Right?" and Max Prescott in Brooklyn 99 season 6, episode 6, "Crime Scene."

Todd Aaron Brotze: He played librarian and amateur pornographer Scott Fupple in The Good Place season 3, episode 7, "The Worst Possible Use of Free Will" and cuckolded fantasy novelist Miles Moorgil in Brooklyn 99 season 5, episode 8 "Return to Skyfire."

Oliver Muirhead: The actor played Professor Radja on The Good Place season 4, episode 9, "The Answer" and Kevin Cozner's Holt-disapproving boss, Dean Wesley Allister, in Brooklyn 99 season 6, episode 13, "The Bimbo."

Carol Herman: Herman played Eleanor-4 in The Good Place season 3, episode 9, "Janet(s)" and Eunice in Brooklyn 99 season 5, episode 21, "White Whale."

Phil Augusta Jackson: He played Kellen in The Good Place season 3, episode 10, "The Book of Dougs." As well as writing multiple episodes, Jackson also played the dual roles of Trent and Jeremy in Brooklyn 99 seasons 3 and 4, respectively.

A.J. Hudson: The child actor played Young Chidi in The Good Place season 1, episode 10, "Chidi's Choice" and Dylan in Brooklyn 99 season 4, episode 18, "Chasing Amy."

Will McLaughlin: He amusingly played Officer Prawnmandler in The Good Place season 1, episode 11, "What's My Motivation" and clashed with Jake and Charles as Big Santa in the identically designated Brooklyn 99 season 1, episode 11, "Christmas."

Dave King: As well as writing an earlier episode, King played Phil in The Good Place season 4, episode 11, "Mondays, Am I Right?" and starred as Holt's ironic PR supervisor, Bob, in Brooklyn 99 season 3, episode 4, "The Oolong Slayer."

Abigail Marlowe: She played Margaret in The Good Place season 1, episode 10, "Chidi's Choice" and Daniella Andrade in Brooklyn 99 season 4, episode 19, "Your Honor."

Moshe Kasher: He played Colby in The Good Place season 3, episode 1, "Everything is Bonzer!" and Duncan Traub in Brooklyn 99 season 2, episode 2, "Chocolate Milk."

Robert Paul Taylor: Taylor starred in The Good Place season 4, episode 11, "Mondays, Am I Right?" and Brooklyn 99, season 1, episode 10, "Thanksgiving."

Max Silvestri: The Big Mouth writer and producer played Dwayne DeRock in The Good Place season 1, episode 9, "Someone Like Me As A Member" and Patrick on Brooklyn 99 season 3, episode 20, "Paranoia."

Ryan de Quintal: Quintal played Damon in The Good Place season 3, episode 4, "Jeremy Bearimy" and Ned in Brooklyn 99, season 7, episode 3, "Pimemento".

The connections between what's come to be known as the Schurniverse grows exponentially with the inclusion of The Office and Parks & Recreation. As things were left, however, it proved an impressive collection of recycled actors. Given the talent demonstrated by each, it's more than understandable why such a decision was made. With Schur sure to produce plenty more offerings in the future, it'll be interesting to see how the overlaps and connections expand. In the meantime, the surprising amount already offered by The Good Place and Brooklyn 99 will no doubt give fans something else to look out for on their next rewatch.

More: Every Parks & Rec Actor In The Good Place

Every Brooklyn 99 Actor in The Good Place | Screen Rant from https://ift.tt/3dTeO0N

[buckybarnesbingo]

Week 7 roundup!  Click through to see the awesome content our creators came up with this week!  As far as we know, there are no Endgame spoilers, but we can’t promise that’s the case.

Title: Summer's Folly Collaborator: GreyishBlue Link: AO3 Square Filled: B4 -  AU: Urban Fantasy Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Gen Major Tags: First meetings, Modern with magic AU Summary: Bucky Barnes is commited to his recovery, but he intends to bitch about it every step of the way. His running mouth gets him in a bit of a bind. Word Count: 801

Title: Werewolf Bucky Collaborator: Trashcanakin Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B2 - fluff Ship: none Rating: Gen Major Tags: art Summary: Werewolf Bucky for all ya needs 🖤

Title: Distractions Collaborator: empyreanwritings Link: Tumblr Square Filled: Y5 -  polyamory/open relationship Ship: Stucky/Reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: none Summary: I wanna see what you can do with dancing in the kitchen making dinner one night. That’s a fun one because there’s always someone to dance with while there still being someone to cook the food. Word Count: 1400ish

Title: Mild Case of Hypothermia Collaborator: candycanedarcy Link: AO3 Square Filled: K2 -  huddling for warmth Ship: Bucky/Clint/Steve Rating: Teen Major Tags: huddling for warmth, protective Steve, mild angst Summary: Clint, Bucky and Steve are trapped in a little snow cave during a mission, and Clint's uniform doesn't have sleeves. What could this possibly lead to? Word Count: 1761

Title: And Your Heart Beats in My Blood Collaborator: Politzania Link: AO3 Square Filled: U2 - Tony Stark/Iron Man Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: soulmate AU, young Tony, kinda angsty, canonical character death Summary: Tony Stark's soulmate died when they were both young; or so he thought. When a ghostly heartbeat continues to haunt him, Tony's AI proposes an unlikely hypothesis. Word Count: 2428

Title: Second Chances - Part 1: Soldier Collaborator: until-theend-oftheline Link: Tumblr Square Filled: K5 - scars Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Mature Major Tags: Injuries, Torture, HYDRA are assholes!   Summary: Dr. Y/N Pierce has dedicated her life to helping others, so when her father Alexander offers her a job working for Shield she sees it as the perfect opportunity. What she doesn’t realize is the evil he is hiding from not only the world but his own daughter. As she finds out she turns her back on him and HYDRA, but as the Winter Soldier starts to remember who he once was, he turns to the only person he remembers being kind to him in decades. Can two fugitives help each other find peace with who they are and where they came from? Word Count: 2300ish

Title: It takes time… Collaborator: welldonebeca Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B4 - arranged marriage Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: moodboard Summary: His mother always said that love wasn’t something that came easily. It had t be constructed step by step, stone by stone, day by day. It happened exactly like that with his parents, and with their parents before them, and their parents before them. So now, standing at the chuppah watching you making the seven circles around him, Bucky could only think that he wanted this to work, and he’d do his best.

Title: Just Relax, Trust Me, It’s Okay to Let Go… Collaborator: lokivsanubis Link: AO3 Square Filled: K1 - KINK: Praise Kink Ship: Stuckony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: dubcon, explicit sexual content, mind control, feminization Summary: “One word Tony… Come on let go… just relax and trust me… you know you’ll feel so much better once you relax.” He continued massaging up the other’s arm listening to the moans that escaped his slightly parted lips. “How do you feel Tony… One word…” “Good…” “Alright just a bit deeper… the better you feel the deeper you go and the deeper you go the better you feel…” He began massaging the length of Tony’s arm. Tony’s head began to lull as he fell deeper into a trance. Bucky smiled. “Ahhh, you fell so much faster this time… now Anthony let’s see if you followed my suggestions from our last session.” he released the inventor’s arm. “Strip and let’s see what you’re wearing under your suit.” Tony sleepily undid his shirt revealing the beginnings of white lace against lightly tanned skin. OR: The Bucky is a hypnotist and uses his ability to hypnotize his best friend into being in a relationship with him and later gets tony to join them fanfic nobody asked for but I wrote as a way to play with all the kinks i love lol. Please feel free to come along for the ride. Word Count: 2671

Title: Uncle Jamie’s Babysitting Misadventures Collaborator: Judy_The_Dreamer Link: AO3 Square Filled: B1 - Darcy Lewis Ship: Bucky & Darcy Rating: Gen Major Tags: Kid fic, fluff, babysitting, Darcy is Tony's daughter, Parent Tony Stark Summary: Short and fluffy drabbles chronicling James Barnes's babysitting adventures. Part of a larger alternate universe 'Ever bright beyond this Dark'. Word Count: 521

Title: I Would Have Kissed You Like That Collaborator: Voodoosgirl Link: AO3 Square Filled: B3 - Take the Shot Ship:  Stucky Rating: Mature Major Tags: Embedded images, Angst, Recovery, non-graphic smut Summary: Bucky and Steve fill in the gaps; memories, history, missing pieces for two men out of time. There are days that it's painful; this night, it's soft. Word Count: 971

Title: Saturday Morning Collaborator: avintagekiss24 Link: AO3 Square Filled: B5- Shopping Together Ship: Bucky/Reader Rating: Gen Major Tags: Domestic Fluff Summary: A look into a random Saturday morning with you and Bucky. Word Count: 532

Title: Soulmates Never Die Collaborator: trashcanakin Link: Tumblr Square Filled: B1 - SOULMARKS Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: moodboard, soulmates Summary: WinterIron soulmate moodboard

Title: Just Relax, Trust Me, It’s Okay to Let Go… -  Chapter 3: Steve Tossed Tony's Salad Collaborator: lokivsanubis Link: AO3 Square Filled: B5 - Kink Square: Nipple Play Ship: Stuckony Rating: Explicit Major Tags: extremely dubious consent, hypnotism, explicit sexual content, feminization Summary: Tony starts us out strong and Bucky brings it home in the end. Lunch goes exactly as Bucky planned for the most part. Word Count: 9655

Title: Music haunts his bedroom Collaborator: sweeetmonstrosity Link: AO3 Square Filled: Y4 – PTSD Ship: WinterIron Rating: Teen Major Tags: PTSD, Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, angst with a happy ending Summary: In which Tony is gone, Bucky survives the snap and now he must learn how to live without his heart. Word Count: 4305

Title: Naked Cuddles (Aesthetic) Collaborator: welldonebeca Link: Tumblr Square Filled: U2 -  Bucky/Clint Ship: WinterHawk Rating: Teen Major Tags: moodboard, implied nudity

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

Life Story Part 94

*Zack is a thing that happened, and I don't want to talk about him anymore even though I suppose it's only chronological and natural that I must. I am not off the hook so easily, there is still more to go. He probably made up about ten percent of my life story in some way so there's that. 

I feel like these last chapters have been about him – as much as they have been about the developments in Sarah and my friendship and in my own emotional evolution. I look over what I have written  on the computer screen, and I see so many Z's that don't deserve my thoughts. He doesn't deserve this kind of recognition from me.

 Unfortunately, it's not quite over – though this is a turning point in the story where I began again to gain some new independence and gracefully begin treading into the post-father, post-Zack years of my life, years that I survived in the end though I had at times never thought I would. These things that happened five to seven years ago started me into the years that are what I feel more defined by directly than by what came before. 

What I have hoped to do (maybe to selfishly vindicate myself, who knows?), was to express that I came into what later happened unknowingly – I didn't want to give away that Zack was a slimeball and i knew all along this would end up happening to me, or that Sarah fucked up my ability to trust people. I wanted people to understand how it naturally unfolded. And there are still pieces I am not giving away – or at least I am not trying to. I could have let on early that Zack wasn't who I thought he was, but if I had done that then there would be a dishonesty in returning to those pre-Zack times and attempting to relive the anticipation with the innocence of my unknowing. Thirteen year old me had no idea what would be happening ten years later. I fell into most of the feelings I have had quite innocently – expecting something otherworldly at most to become me at some point or other. And up till my post-Zack years, I feel like a lot of it wasn't something I could take full responsibility for – I was desperately doing anything I could in the moment to stay afloat to pursue that mysterious tingling feeling in my heart that there were better things ahead if I could just keep sailing.

And I am extreme example of a late bloomer. I feel like I am a tulip in winter. Things people my age were doing at nineteen, I have just gotten around to doing nine years later at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. I'm like an old teenager or something. It's weird. And with that I will begin again to explain the my misadventures and about that blue eyed idiot that I wasted so much time thinking about, and what that all lead to.*

_________________________________________________

Zack had long been written off by his parents. Nobody wanted to give him money anymore long before he came to Sarah and I. He'd exhausted most of his resources. He was more or less ignored by most of his friends anymore – even the ones who had seemed like inseparable body parts to him at one point or another. And then Sarah started dating Zack, and his parents suddenly saw this drug-free, beautiful and thoughtful young girl had taken an interest in their Zack and they suddenly had found more money in their pockets to throw at him. They believed that she was there to fix their disaster of a son for them. She served some kind of purpose – to shape their egomaniacal self destructive son into some mild mannered young Christian man who's number one care was saving up for retirement and making sure he got all the grass even as he mowed the lawn outside the picket fence home where he lived a white middle class existence with his 2.5 children and submissive housewife. Sarah gave credibility to the uncredible. After my father told Zack to scram,  Sarah and Zack stayed at Zack's father's place – and early on they brought me with them.

Zack's father was named Randy. Randy I had known about for years – but never talked to. He had the big nose that both Zack and his sister Whitney inherited. It wasn't an ugly nose – I think society unfairly categorizes big noses into being ugly – when on the contrary they have their own unique elegance that is often overlooked. Randy worked and was a mid-level boss at the TDS phone company. His grandparents had been responsible for bringing telephone to Minnesota – and had made a lot of money off of it. Randy had the remaining money from those times. He squirreled that money away for his retirement. He saved the rest and put it in a retirement account for when Zack and Whitney became of age to inherit it in their late sixties.

Randy had moved the family to Idaho when Zack was twelve, which I was now beginning to wish he hadn't. Both Whitney and Zack rebelled against their middle class upbringing. Either one of them could have gone to college. There was money set aside for that. But they both collectively and individually were not interested in being wealthy. They resented their upbringing, and they both inherited their mother's mental illnesses. This isn't to say that Randy wasn't also responsible for Whitney and Zack's issues. He spoiled Zack, seeing him in that patriarchal father-son kind of way. Whitney to some degree was never really given the kind of care that Zack was given by both his mother and father. Everyone said Zack was a sensitive boy who needed special care.

Cindy was Randy's wife in the beginning, and Whitney and Zack's mother. They divorced when Zack was sixteen. At that time, Zack had been dating Melissa, whom I agonized over back when. Whitney had been dating Melissa's older brother, Josh. It was weird, but I guess it wasn't incestuous exactly – and it wasn't intentional. They just liked one another I suppose. What made it weird was, after Cindy and Randy's divorce, Randy decided to marry Josh and Melissa's mother, Theresa. Zack and Melissa broke up, but Whitney and Josh dated on and off even after their parents married each other. And I suppose I couldn't blame them since they had been dating long before their parents hooked up.

Theresa, was/is a drunk. She had a hard life – but somehow despite all that she retained a lot of youthful attributes. She slept with a lot of people. She fought with her children. And eventually she attempted to commit suicide. It was around the time that Randy was hunting for a new wife. Randy is simple. He had no need for anything more than someone to fill the role. He heard Theresa had attempted to kill herself, he drove up to her trailer, literally walked in and took her with him in his pick up to live with him and get married. And this really probably saved Theresa's life. It wasn't romantic by any means, in fact I think Randy's need to adhere to the social structure of being married for the sake of being married, and capitalizing on some poor drunk woman who's son was dating his daughter, knowing she would be vulnerable enough state of mind to say yes to marriage without question was rather base. Randy didn't seem right to me honestly, but he was so simple and pragmatic in his day to day life, you had to sort of tilt your head to see the discrepancies at times.

As for Cindy, she remarried too. The guy was basically a none moving entity that sat on the couch all day and watched football. Occasionally Cindy would scream and cry at him, but he would just sit there unflinching. The thing about Cindy is that she is very mentally unstable. I talk about a lot of mentally unstable people in my own family and in my own life and to some degree myself as well. But even at it's worst, even with my father for instance, most of the time he is a self aware and resourceful independent person. Most of the brokenness is environmental and societal. Cindy was born broken. She is insecure and needy, she screamed and cried. She went into religious tirades. I believe she would be capable of murder if she were only brave enough to go through with it.

She seems at first like a submissive homemaker. She's a brilliant seamstress, probably the most brilliant seamstress I've ever known. She can make anything. But she's somewhere between a helpless blubbering mess and a vicious religious freak. She can go between sobbing hysterics and insecure feelings of being tread on – to a sudden bloodthirsty obsessive anger. However, she seemed incapable of acting out on that anger directly. I thought my mother was bad until I met Cindy. Her first son was named Jimmy, and Jimmy had been taken away from Cindy due to Cindy being a danger to him. That was years ago, before she had Zack and Whitney. Right before the move to Idaho, Cindy had heard voices telling her she was a prophet of God and she had to leave her family and venture off into the world to proclaim the message of the Lord. She ended up hitchhiking to Las Vegas or something, and from there she was places into an asylum. Randy got her out. He never talked about her mental illness. He seemed to find mentally unwell women, and then proceeded to ignore them and play house with them in a very non personal way, or at least it seemed to me to be impersonal. I wondered if there was some kind of method to his madness.

I remember the first night I was driven up to Cindy's. She lived twenty miles up the grade north of Kendrick in a town equally as small – called Deary. It was the middle of absolute nowhere. It was later evening. She came to the door manically excited. She was drunk. I had a lot of sympathy for her. It looked like she was feeling everything. She was so excited to have Zack over. I could tell that she was really obsessed with Zack. Eventually Sarah and Zack went into another room, and I ended up spending a half hour talking to Cindy. She kept pouring herself more wine. She had been crying all night. Randomly calling people and yelling at them. I could tell everyone ignored her. Her new husband Steve sat stoically on the couch watching reruns of Home Improvement. He never moved or spoke. Cindy would scream at him, and he might as well have been a log. Zack ignored his mother too. I guessed this was what you did with her. She was insatiable. Still, I could only imagine that being Cindy had to be extremely lonely. Nobody wanted to be around her at all.

She took me into the back room of her house. In that room she had drawn pictures of Zack and Whitney as babies. She literally had set up these shrines of both of them as babies. And she talked lovingly about the both of them, but as I came to realize she was more interested in the idea of Zack and Whitney as babies then she was of them as adults. Despite the weird Christian homemaker thing gone wrong, I did have to acknowledge that Cindy had a very creative element to her. She was talented, and crafty. She then got out pictures of Zack and Whitney from twenty years before and though I barely knew her at all, she went through each photo with me one by one in great detail. I went along with it, as Zack and Sarah ate and carried on.

I didn't ever spend too much time around Cindy though. I remember one time I went with Sarah and Zack into Lewiston because Cindy was having an emotional breakdown and wanted to eat ice cream at Dairy Queen and talk about it. I had put in one of my very favorite sixties records 'Odyssey and Oracle' by The Zombies. It's better than the Beatles. I wouldn't say that The Zombies were as a whole better than The Beatles because they only made two albums and only one of them is solid. But for what is there, it is extremely solid. And Zack didn't like it. In fact, I could tell Zack was really annoyed if I ever put in music to listen to. I thought he was pretty basic. I was getting tired of the menfolk getting annoyed at women for picking the car music.

We ended up spending a lot of nights visiting at Randy's house. It was also the first time I really spent time with Whitney and Josh. To back up a little, I met Whitney and Josh briefly one time before. Zack insisted that Whitney meet Sarah. He called her and convinced her to come into Zany's and eat lunch with him and I. It was either right before or right after I told Zack the truth and all that good stuff. At this point of course, I was silently in a state of shock – and attempting to come to terms, but I was going along with it all as though nothing had happened. Whitney and Josh strolled into the restaurant. Whitney, I hadn't seen since high school. She was quiet – humbly dressed, pretty but tired. Her clothes had paint smudges on them from her number one hobby which was painting. She didn't seem very direct. She was friendly for the most part. When her and Zack talked, it reminded me a little bit like when Allison and David talked. Siblings close in age form their own kind of communication that is hard for other people to be fully apart of.

Josh came in with Whitney. They weren't dating anymore – but they always stuck around one another until Whitney got a boyfriend. Then Josh would get upset – and then she would eventually get bored of whoever she was dating and come back to Josh. At best they would date two weeks before she tired of Josh and went looking again. They had decided I guess to stop that six months prior – so maybe the cycle had ended for good this time (they had been living this way, sort of obsessed with one another for seven years), but nobody believed they were done with each other. Though I was private in my personal evaluation, I had never met a more stuffy, conceited little man in my entire life, then Josh Boyer. He looked to be around his late twenties. He was not friendly – he was tense. He didn't look happy with his meal. He seemed overtaken with a weird kind of nervousness, and though he was quiet the entire meeting, I sensed a lot from him. He was pretentious. He thought he was smarter than everyone around him. He seemed personally invested in being unhappy about being in the presence of other people. I wondered why he even bothered to come in at all if this was so painful for him.

It felt really strange because I had MySpace stalked Josh and Whitney for a year or two in my late teens and now we were sitting here eating a meal together. It kind of freaked me out.

The second time I met Josh and Whitney was at Randy's house. I brought Allison with me this time. David didn't want to come. Everyone in the group was an introvert besides Allison – who was younger than us and didn't know what to say to anyone and was mostly happy to be included in this venture regardless of her age. Besides Allison there was Whitney, Josh, Zack, Sarah and myself. Sarah was probably the most ready of anyone to be outgoing – but only insofar as it meant she wasn't going to be too personal. We all sat outside Randy's house in the green perfectly manicured back yard that ran around the house to the front. Zack looked tired. Whitney looked down quite a bit. Josh seemed distracted. I eyeballed everyone curiously in silence. Allison smiled.

There seemed to be some kind of pressure that we all needed to befriend one another. I am not sure why we all felt that way. I guess there were motives. I told Allison six months previous that she should befriend Whitney. It had been part of Operation-get-Zack-to-be-our-friend-again, but she now had it in her mind to befriend Whitney in a real way. Josh, I later learned, was interested in Sarah. Zack wanted us all to become religious and be in some kind of cult – but now that we were all together he had no interest in that ever happening. I didn't actually want to be there at all – I was feeling very lonely and sick inside that day but I fought it off by smiling which felt insane but I couldn't bust out crying in front of people so it was my only recourse. I mean, we were probably the only alternative people in the same age bracket in a sixty mile radius who wasn't going to the University of Idaho.

It was an awkward and deceptively sunny early evening. We all had tickets to see Bright Eyes in three weeks and we made small talk. David had mysteriously opted out of seeing Bright Eyes' final tour, as the project was on hiatus after the last album. We invited Sarah. Sarah bought a ticket for Zack – who I guess was going to be our driver.

Whitney and Josh awkwardly pulled out Apples to Apples. I haven't played it so long I don't remember how it works now. I don't remember who won either. We all said very little as we played the game. Then we decided to go inside and sit around the big dining room table. Randy's kitchen-dining room area was painted red. The floors were classy hardwood. Everything was well put together. Zack was coming down from meth and he went to lay down on the couch and watch television.

Whitney an Josh ended up arguing with one another. It wasn't something I knew anything about, but it made me feel awkward and at first I sat on the couch with Sarah and Zack even though I felt like being away from them desperately. I tried to overhear what was being talked about. What it sounded like was this. Josh was obsessed with Whitney, but Whitney didn't want to date Josh, and Josh didn't want to date Whitney but he was mad that Whitney wanted to date some guy she just met in Moscow, and Whitney in turn was angry if Josh lost interest in her. Josh's mother Theresa had been drinking, and she was getting upset with Whitney and demanding that if she was going to put her poor son through this, if her son had spent the last seven years obsessing over her and groveling and living on her behalf rather than going to get a healthy normal girlfriend and getting a career, then Whitney needed to date Josh. Which Josh seemed to simultaneously approve and disapprove of. Theresa was raising her voice, and from what I could tell, she delighted in the nonsense of it all more than Whitney and Josh combined. She was clearly the most invested. I thought it was strange that Theresa would want Josh and Whitney to date, considering she was Josh's mom and she was married to Whitney's dad. How normal could that be? It seemed really intimate and weird for them to be talking about this in front of everyone. This would never have flown in my family. Someone would have screamed or thrown a chair or punched someone. I liked this managed chaos so much better. It seemed interesting to me that people naturally chose to put their problems with one another at the table and confront them and talk about their disturbed feelings instead of use the might makes right method, which I had generally always rejected and felt repressed by.

I chose to 'use the bathroom' at one point in this open exchange going on in the next room, so I could walk passed and get a better sense of who everyone was. I needed to see their faces. As I walked by, Theresa was looking emotional and frustrated at both Josh and Whitney. Whitney looked slightly vexed. Josh was proclaiming that he was dedicating his life to Whitney even if he meant nothing to her. His eyes were intense and sort of crazy. Eventually the arguments stopped, and everyone in the family went out for a smoke – like it was halftime. Allison and I came into the dining room and nervously sat next to each other. Sarah eventually came in too and Whitney did most of the small talking that kept the conversations going. Josh eventually came in as well. He was silent and was looking around nervously, but as we talked more and more and as Whitney and him sipped on beers, everyone started opening up more. Josh went outside for an hour, and when he came back he was an open book.

He started by introducing himself. He told us he was Josh Boyer. He said he was capable of doing anything in the whole world, if not for his two major flaws. He was a coward and he was lazy. I don't think I had ever met someone who just openly said such things about themselves so nonchalantly and I was entertained immediately by his self deprecating sense of honesty and humor. He came about life in this awkward offbeat kind of way that probably didn't work in most social atmospheres. He had seemed so uptight and stuffy when I first met him. Now he was being recklessly shameless. I was amused but half embarrassed for him, and he knew people felt that way and he didn't seem to care. He told us that he was a connoisseur of the fine arts, and his role in our lives was to make sure that all four of us women's art was out in the world. He claimed he had the power to make this all happen, but he never specified how. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. He always seemed to be simultaneously telling some level 100 nihilist joke that only you and he could understand – often using himself as the main character of that joke, or if his ego really did tell him that he was some kind of upscale eccentric socialite gentleman, a long lost remnant of a bygone era.

What I liked about Josh was that he seemed able to slip into any conversation without any of the awkward judgment one would naturally expect. You could be talking about cannibalism or old people sex or anything that made people feel uncomfortable and he seemed to have a clever opinion on the matter. He didn't ignore anyone either. He looked at everyone in the room equally when he talked. It gave me this strange refreshing sense that I too was part of the conversation. For my entire life, I had always been the baby in my friendships. Often my friends talked about their dirty secrets away from me. There was this general assumption that I wasn't an equal. And I had internalized that in many respects. I learned to read between the lines in conversation and to be a good listener. But Josh gave each person at the table careful consideration when speaking. I was so used to people only looking at only Sarah. It might have been something of my own doing I will admit. I have never exactly been the queen of eye contact and I usually expected Sarah to be the main reason people were talking around me at all. Plus, Sarah generally seems the most classically interest in any given subject another person is talking about. I generally just listened.

Because Josh didn't treat me like Sarah's chambermaid, I eventually felt confident enough to comment on whatever it was he was talking about. I rarely felt comfortable doing any talking at all, but somehow Josh didn't make me feel weird about it. It wasn't that he was super accommodating or comforting. He wasn't that way at all. He just seemed to acknowledge the bleak emptiness and awkwardness of everything in life, his life, our lives and our fucked up imperfect world in general in a way that most people seemed afraid to acknowledge, especially on first meeting. Josh was talking about how anime was made in slave like conditions at some point, and I commented that most pieces of work were built on the backs of slaves and/or suffering in general and then we talked about the pros and cons of such a system. He also didn't flinch when I disagreed with him. He seemed intrigued and interested, and he wasn't afraid to dig into whatever I had decied to talk about. Secretly I have always been opinionated. I just stay quiet most of the time because when I talk it seems like I make people uncomfortable. I knew I could talk one on one with Sarah without her being weirded out, but mostly I just got this sense that I should keep my mouth shut for the most part. Be an observer of events and not be a part of the events themselves. Perhaps I don't have a clear understanding of where boundaries are laid down. I don't know what's socially acceptable to talk about.

Josh didn't seem to either though, so we ended up having a lengthy meandering conversation that didn't feel weird or forced. This was new to me. And he didn't get mad when I disagreed. That was something I was especially unused to. It goes without saying that disagreeing with any one of my family members in a serious way and they would get offended and would react angrily. Josh didn't get offended. He seemed to have different trains of thought that all seemed to be systematically comprehending the situation he was in at different ways, all working simultaneously. And he was hilarious and it was disarming. He still seemed pretty pretentious to me, but he seemed a lot different then when I had first met him. It almost felt like I had met two different Josh's.

Zack came in eventually from his nap. He sat besides Sarah, and Theresa looked at them both and started asking questions. Everyone was marveling at Zack's lucky break. Not being able to understand why a girl like Sarah would be with someone like Zack, they assumed Sarah must be some magical being here to rescue Zack. I think a part of Sarah's mind thought she might have been as well. They asked Sarah if she was dating Zack. At first she was reluctant, but then as she was quizzed further she just said she was. Zack was suddenly jovial, stating this was the first moment she had openly called their relationship what it was. He seemed really proud of himself.

Later that night, we were going home. I said goodnight to Josh and Whitney. I felt like I had a better sense of who they were as people. We got in the car with Zack and Sarah in the front. As we made our way back to where Zack and Sarah were staying, I couldn't help but notice there something felt really ugly in the car. It wasn't coming from me. I just felt this really ugly vibe in the back of the car that night. It was Zack. I didn't really get it at first. It almost felt like he was angry – or like he wanted to hurt someone. Where was this even coming from? Sarah had just openly confessed they were official to his family. Should be not be happy? Sarah had put in a Mark Lanegan album, and Methamphetamine Blues was playing very loudly. The speakers shook in the back seat of Zack's car. Zack was driving very poorly. It was dark and he was speeding down all these winding farm roads and there was mist everywhere. I felt carsick. At times I could tell that we were going dangerously around corners. Sarah looked back at me, and I could see the denial and confusion on her face. In some strange way, I pitied her. There was some underlying sense that she was trapped with Zack, that she was going to be the one that curbed the tides of Zack, or die trying. I was miserable, but at least I was free from whatever this dark ugly feeling I was getting that was coming from Zack. This was something Sarah was going to have to let into her soul if she wanted to be close with Zack.

We didn't crash that night. We made it to the bedroom. I briefly went in and talked to them in their room. Then Zack kind of grabbed Sarah and started tickling her. I felt weird about it. It felt like a power move. Sarah hated being tickled. Her cousins used to hold her down and tickle her as a child and it left her with this really negative association, plus it just kind of hurts some people, myself included. There was something really ugly that I didn't like the look of on Zack's face. Some kind of nonconsensual sense of power he now felt over Sarah was at play. Never had his face looked so hideous to me. Since she had admitted that they were now officially girlfriend and boyfriend, the gloves were off I guess. And Sarah didn't like the way it felt. She wouldn't admit it to me or to anyone. She wasn't admitting it to herself. But she hated this and it was too late for her to take it all back. I wanted to help her, and my first reaction was to tell Zack to knock if off. But the roles weren't clear, and it soon seemed strange that I had involved myself considering Sarah wasn't putting up for herself. I was forced to leave the room eventually.

I ended up getting my first job. Sarah and Zack had gone into Burger King to eat a crappy hamburger, and I had come with. Sarah insisted that I ask for a job. I didn't want to work at Burger King. This Burger King in particular had always seemed very unclassy. It was dirty and the workers didn't seem all there. But a job was a job at this point. I was close to perhaps getting a job at Zany's as the dishwasher still, but there were no guarantees, and I couldn't wait forever. So I humbled myself and agreed to go to the front and ask for an application. The manager walked out after my awkward inquiry, and he wanted to have an interview right then and there. I was very nervous, and in the end I know I did horribly. The manager looked rigid, angry, and like a man who was slowly dying of some horrible disease. He accepted me against his better judgment and he openly stated as much. He admitted he was just desperate, and I though he was not impressed with me in any way, he had no better options at the moment. I had to be there the next day for training. I had somehow been given a job.

So, I came in the next day, and they demanded I wear this hideous polo shirt and that I had to tuck it in my pants and a visor. I put them on in the bathroom, and marveled how fat it made me appear. I left the bathroom nervously. I was lead into the back kitchen area where the sandwiches were assembled. I had never been in the back of a restaurant before. It had all seemed like one big mystery. There seemed to be a lot going on, and I was dazed by it. Strangely, nobody came up to me and offered to give me a task. I nervously asked someone what I should do, and they shrugged and walked away. I was extremely nervous. I felt like I was doing something wrong. Was I supposed to train myself? How did this all work? I tried to ask a few people. The best answer I got was from a young girl who kind of told me in this vague way to ask someone who I later learned hadn't shown up that day what I should do. Most of them wouldn't even answer me. They would look at me, and then to one another and they would roll their eyes knowingly.

About a half hour later of standing there feeling criminally guilty for having done nothing and not understanding what to do upon my own initiative, I was lead to the back area where they wanted me to toast bread. They showed me this food machine that I put buns into. I was told to just do this. So I sat there for an hour grabbing bags of hamburger buns off of big industrial plastic shelf. Eventually I was told I had done it wrong. I had been toasting the wrong side. I had wasted probably ten bags of buns. They took the buns and they threw them away. I felt horrible. For one, how could anyone waste food like this?? They might not be properly toasted, but it was still perfectly good bread. Someone in the world I am sure would love to have those buns. For two, I felt like I had just destroyed property. I had just wasted company assets. I was surprised when the girl came up to me, shrugged and simply told me to stop. I felt like I deserved to be arrested for the mistake I had continued on making for so long that rendered the buns unusable.

After four hours of either standing there, or toasting bread till they told me to stop, I just had this internal knowing that this wasn't going to work out. I was not made for this kind of existence. It all seemed so mind numbing. I actively detested the philosophy of this place. A person didn't show up for their shift while I was there – and nobody even seemed surprised. The turn out was constant. The manager walked around looking sick and angry and eventually told me to leave. I was offered a free hamburger, but I refused. The smell of the meat made me feel sick. There was something hollow about this place, and places like it. The monotonous tasks almost felt designed to burn the individuality right out of you. The workers seemed dead inside – and seemed obsessed with the ten minutes every four hours allotted to them so they could smoke and look bleakly out at the Lewiston hills till they came back in and did it again. And day after day they would do this until they walked out. And once they walked out they would go find another job that was like this. There seemed to be something horrible and draining about it. As a child I had harbored some fantasies about Burger King. I had always loved wearing the paper crowns. Now I just felt grossed out. I had seen the other end of a place like this. I felt like I had confronted death.  I was told to come in the next day. I knew I would never be walking back into that building again – for food or otherwise. I didn't even feel badly about this decision for Sarah's sake or my own even. I knew I would have to surrender to the monotony of the lower working class, but not like this. Not Burger King. There had to be a trace of human dignity to me. I didn't go back and collect my paycheck. I put my uniform in a bag and left it on the front door late one night hoping the employees would find it.

PART 93 - https://tinyurl.com/yc8mae7e

PART 92 - https://tinyurl.com/yb7bwsuw

PART 91 - https://tinyurl.com/yar8e8rp

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-90 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far). 

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-90

[uacboo]

Jim Nabors, whose name is synonymous with the genial bumpkin Gomer Pyle, whom he played on TV, has died. He was 87. His husband, Stan Cadwallader, told the Associated Press that Nabors died on Thursday at their home in Hawaii. He brought the words “golly” and “shazam” into the vernacular as the naive, well-intentioned Pyle, a regular character on “The Andy Griffith Show” that was later the focus of spinoff “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” Pyle was a loving caricature of a Southern rube, completely out of step with the ’60s and all the more lovable for it. The series ran for four seasons, and Nabors’ 20% cut of the syndication revenue for the popular series made him financially secure thereafter and able to pursue broader interests as a singer and comic raconteur. Later attempts at a variety show did not last long, however, either on network TV or in firstrun syndication, though Nabors was a popular headliner on the Vegas-Reno nightclub circuit. Nabors was discovered singing at the Horn cabaret in Santa Monica by writer-comedian Bill Dana, who booked Nabors for occasional stints on “The Steve Allen Show.” In the early ’60s, he began to appear regularly on “The Andy Griffith Show” as the ingenuous gas station attendant Gomer Pyle, which led to his own CBS series, produced by Griffith, about Pyle’s misadventures after joining the Marines, about which the New York Times wrote, “Mr. Nabors conveys a particular mood of attractive awkwardness, and naivete, a contagious quality of special poignancy rooted in laughter.” The program shot into the top 10 in the Nielsen ratings, where it stayed for its entire four seasons. During that time, Nabors starred in a number of variety specials for CBS including “Friends and Nabors,” which attracted an audience of 33.9 million, and guested on shows for Danny Thomas and the Smothers Brothers. He entertained onstage in Vegas, Reno and Tahoe, and his first album, “Jim Nabors Sings,” sold a million copies. By 1967 he was earning $500,000 annually. Although it was too late to ever completely dissociate himself from Gomer Pyle, Nabors decided to end the series in 1969, while it was still rated in the top five. He hosted variety program “The Jim Nabors Hour” for two seasons on CBS and, in the late ’70s, tried it again in syndication, though “The Jim Nabors Show” was more of a combination comedy/talk program. During this period he toured almost year round, reaping the benefits of his natural baritone voice, his disarming Southern-boy personality and his high name recognition from television. For a time he lived in Honolulu near his close friend Carol Burnett and starred in “The Jim Nabors Polynesian Extravaganza” at the Hilton Hawaiian Village for two years. Film roles were few, mostly cameo and supporting appearances in three Burt Reynolds vehicles, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” “Stroker Ace” and “Cannonball Run II.” Nabors recorded more than two dozen albums. At least four were certified gold by the RIAA, the most recent of which was “Jim Nabors Christmas Album” in 1990. James Thurston Nabors was born in Sylacauga, Ala. Chronic asthma resulted in a childhood of forced seclusion, and after graduation from the U. of Alabama, he lived for a time in New York, working as a typist at the United Nations. The recurring asthma problems forced him to return home, where he worked as an assistant film editor for a television station in Chattanooga, Tenn., and also sang occasionally on the station’s daytime shows. After moving to Los Angeles, he continued to work as an editor and entertained for free in the evenings — performing operatic arias interspersed with monologues — until his discovery and subsequent work in television. Nabors converted to Catholicism in the mid-’60s. He married his partner of 38 years, Stan Cadwallader, in Washington in 2013 a month after gay marriage became legal in that state. In addition to Cadwallader, he is survived by two sisters, Freddie and Ruth. *I learned several things that I didn't know about Jim Nabors, may he RIP. He did well for an asthmatic boy from Talladega county, Alabama.

[papermoonloveslucy]

LUCY, THE AMERICAN MOTHER

S3;E7 ~ October 26, 1970

Directed by Jack Donohue ~ Written by Lou Derman and Larry Rhine

Synopsis

For a class project, Craig is doing a documentary film about Lucy. When Kim's boyfriend wins a $100 cash prize at school, Lucy frantically tracks it down to the local library where Craig and Harry are filming her every move.

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carter), Gale Gordon (Harrison Otis Carter), Desi Arnaz Jr. (Craig Carter), Lucie Arnaz (Kim Carter)

Guest Cast

Mary Jane Croft (Mary Jane) makes her fifth series appearance as Mary Jane. Croft played Betty Ramsey during season six of “I Love Lucy. ” She also played Cynthia Harcourt in “Lucy is Envious” (ILL S3;E23) and Evelyn Bigsby in “Return Home from Europe” (ILL S5;E26). She played Audrey Simmons on “The Lucy Show” but when Lucy Carmichael moved to California, she played Mary Jane Lewis, the actor’s married name and the same one she uses on all 31 of her episodes of “Here’s Lucy. Her final acting credit was playing Midge Bowser on “Lucy Calls the President” (1977). She died in 1999 at the age of 83.

Don Crichton (Steve Bailey) makes his third and final appearances on “Here’s Lucy.”  He was an Emmy nominated choreographer who worked on “The Carol Burnett Show” and “The Love Boat,” among others.

Olive Dunbar (Librarian) played a high school biology teacher in “Lucy Gets Her Diploma” (TLS S6;E5).  This is her last appearances on a “Lucy” sitcom. Dunbar passed away in February 2017 at age 91.  

Richard Collier (Library Assistant) was a character actor who played small roles in the musical films Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Hello, Dolly (1970).  He did two episodes of “Dennis the Menace” (1963) with Gale Gordon.  This is his only appearance with Lucille Ball.

Sid Gould (Man in Library #1) made more than 45 appearances on “The Lucy Show,” and nearly as many on “Here’s Lucy.” Gould (born Sydney Greenfader) was Lucille Ball’s cousin by marriage to Gary Morton.

Boyd 'Red' Morgan (Man in Library #2) is an actor and stunt man who was seen in “Lucy and John Wayne” (TLS S5;E10), with whom he did eleven films. This is the second of his four episodes of “Here’s Lucy.”

Morgan, a veteran stunt performer, was cast because the character takes a fall off of his chair.

Alma Platt (Old Lady) was born in 1891, so was 79 years old at the time of this episode. Two weeks before this episode originally aired she was seen on “Marcus Welby M.D.” on ABC and four days after this episode originally aired she was seen on NBC's “Adam 12” - meaning Platt appeared on all three major networks in October 1970.  She died in 1976.

The character is only caught on screen for a moment when the camera pans to the right during the final chase scene in the library. She has no lines or business – she just sits and reads.

The woman who loses her wig in the library scene is the only actor not credited in the show.

After directing all of season one, Jack Donohue returns to “Here's Lucy” and will direct four more season three installments before leaving again only to reappear for the last six episodes of the series in season six.

In his DVD introduction to this episode, Desi Arnaz Jr. says that his parents took hundreds of hours of home movies. In 1993 Lucie Arnaz collected some of them in “Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie.”  

The title of Craig's movie will be “A Day in the Life of My Mother.”

When Kim hears Craig is making a documentary about Lucy, she 'auditions' to get into the act:

She first imitates Katharine Hepburn in the 1937 film Stage Door: “The calla lilies are in bloom again, such a strange flower.” Coincidentally, Lucille Ball was also in Stage Door. The now-iconic line was actually taken from the play The Lake, one of Hepburn's rare failures.

She next imitates Maurice Chevalier singing “Louise,” a song by Leo Robin and Richard H. Whiting from the 1929 film Innocents of Paris. The song became Chevalier's signature song.

Lastly, she mimics Bette Davis saying “Peetah! Peetah! You read the letter, didn't you?” Although attributed to Davis and often spoken by Bette Davis impersonators, this exact line is not found in any of her films. In 1941's The Great Lie she does say the line “I wish to leave Pete a letter marked personal” which may be the source for the oft-imitated quote.

Lucy tells Craig she doesn't want to be filmed first thing in the morning, when she looks like the Bride of Frankenstein. The Bride of Frankenstein  was a 1935 sequel film to Universal's Frankenstein that starred Elsa Lanchester as the monster's bride.  Lanchester made guest starring appearances on all three “Lucy” sitcoms and it was common to use the name “bride of Frankenstein” as a punchline for jokes in all three series.

Lucie talks about having breakfast with Steve Bailey (Don Crichton). They've been out together five times. Don Crichton also played Kim's boyfriend Don in “Lucy, the Conclusion Jumper” (S1;E5).  

When Craig calls “cut” on a real argument between Kim and Lucy, he takes on an exaggerated German accent, feeding into the TV trope that all directors were temperamental Germans in the style of Erich Von Stroheim (1885-1957), who was actually Austrian.  

When Lucy can't seem to act natural in front of Craig's camera, she suggests he get someone else to play his mother; someone like Raquel Welch, Carol Burnett, or Don Knotts. Movie star Raquel Welch seems to be the show's go-to name to drop when wanting to reference a young female sex symbol. Carol Burnett was a great friend of Lucille Ball and the two made numerous guest appearances on each other's television programs. Don Knotts, the nervous Deputy Fife from “The Andy Griffith Show” (which filmed on the Desilu back lot) will make a guest star appearances in a 1973 episode of “Here's Lucy.”  

Instead of Gale Gordon ending the episode wet, he starts it that way when he walks through the front door splattered with water from Lucy's front lawn sprinkler system.

Harry says that Lucy's daily misadventures make “Laurel and Hardy look like Sears and Roebuck.”  Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were a vaudeville and film comedy team.  Lucille Ball and Gale Gordon briefly imitated them when under a hypnotic suggestion in “Lucy and Pat Collins” (TLS S5;E11). Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck founded one of the world's largest retailers (now simply known as Sears) in 1886.

Steve says that Spooky Brown and His Electric Goose Pimples is playing at the Rock and Roll Palace.

The book that Lucie puts the mended $100 bill into is titled Kiss Me Stranger. Daphne Du Maurier wrote a book titled Kiss Me Again, Stranger in 1951. This title was chosen to be provocative when spoken to the unsuspecting patrons of the library.

After the birth of Little Ricky, the Ricardos were also avid home movie enthusiasts.  Things came to a boil in “Home Movies” (ILL S3;E20).  

Kim imitates Katharine Hepburn saying “The calla lilies are in bloom again.”  In “Lucy's Italian Movie” (ILL S5;E23) Lucy Ricardo also imitated Hepburn saying the line to impress movie director Vittorio Philippi.  

Kim also imitates Maurice Chevalier singing “Louise,” something Lucy Ricardo (and the rest of the gang did) in “The French Revue” (ILL S3;E7).  Chevalier eventually appeared as himself in “Lucy Goes to Mexico” a 1958 episode of “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour.”  In that episode Lucy once again does her Chevalier impersonation singing “Louise.”

Lucy is suspicious of Steve Bailey's motives and wants to meet her “future son-in-law.”  Coincidentally, that is exactly what she thought of Kim's boyfriend Don (also played by Don Crichton) in “Lucy the Conclusion Jumper” (S1;E5).

Lucy Ricardo also tore a bill in half and went to great lengths to retrieve it in “Bonus Bucks” (ILL S3;E21). The second half of this “Here’s Lucy” episode is based on “Bonus Bucks.”  

Lucy Carmichael went to great lengths to retrieve five $500 dollar bills she lost at a carnival in “Lucy Misplaces $2,000” (TLS S1;E4).  

The red “SILENCE” sign on the librarian's desk is the same one seen in the dorm room in the previous episode “Lucy, the Co-Ed” (S3;E5).  Because the prop is used as part of a joke here, and only serves as set decoration in the dorm room, this episode may have been filmed first and aired out of sequence.

Make-up!  Although Lucy comes downstairs after rolling out of bed calling herself 'the bride of Frankenstein,' she is wearing full eye make-up!  

Shut the door!  Harry leaves the front door open when he comes in for the second time.

Fact Check!  There is no need to have a cello-taped bill “set” by placing it in a book.  

Sitcom Logic Alert!  Why is there a laundry cart in a library?  It is clear that “Bonus Bucks” (ILL S3;E21), which was set in a laundry and featured comic business with a laundry cart, was very much on Lucille Ball's mind when filming this episode.

“Lucy, the American Mother” rates 3 Paper Hearts out of 5

This is an odd episode that doesn't quite come together cohesively. Although a bit of an homage to “Bonus Bucks” on “I Love Lucy”, the home scenes seem disconnected to the library scene, which never pays off as big as it should.  Also, Craig is written to act in a very uncharacteristic way in this episode.  

[itsmajel]

Majel Reads - July 2017

[What is this?]

Supernatural - Destiel

Ultraviolet by MittenWraith

The world seemed to be settling back into a somewhat regular pattern of supernatural activity after Sam officially rescinded the British Men of Letters American visa and Cas had moved into the bunker as a full-time Winchester. What seemed like a milk run hunt goes pear-shaped when Dean becomes the latest victim of a soul-devouring curse. Breaking the curse and saving his life only lead to a bigger mystery when someone unexpected steps out of the Impala and walks right into the middle of their case.

[Mature] [44919 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

What We Ache For by almaasi

Working as a prostitute (that’s ‘sex worker’ to the decent folks), Castiel has heard more than his fair share of odd requests. When he’s paid to spend a night with Dean Winchester (handsome, dork of all dorks, has a nice car... secretly a cop), the last thing Castiel expects to hear are the words “I wanna make love.” That's the one thing he’s never done before – so Dean is going to show him how to do it. But then, barely a month after that night is over, Castiel finds himself in a difficult situation, and Dean is mistakenly summoned to help. They begin to share again: Dean’s apartment, the spare bed, their deepest secrets. Over time, with the support of Dean’s brother Sam, a mystery dog, and lots of cuddles, kisses, comfort, and tea, maybe Cas can finally be loved the way he deserves.

[Explicit] [ 93,115 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Night Exhibition by almaasi

Welcome to the world's most generic museum. In the café, you'll find Dean, putting dinosaur cut-outs on his award-winning apple pies. In the gift shop, you'll find his snarky yet devastatingly handsome friend Castiel, folding t-shirts for a living. But Castiel has a second job as a night watchman, patrolling the marble halls and protecting the museum exhibits after dark. One night, Dean asks to tag along. He could never resist a crisp blue uniform, and he'll take any opportunity to have his friend show it off. It might take all night, one dance, and a playful sex act (or five) in a few unusual places around the museum before either of them realise... maybe Dean's interest was never about the uniform. And maybe their friendship was already something else.

[Explicit] [26996 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Dean and the Doula by whichstiel                                        

Castiel is Eileen's doula. FOR REASONS, you guys.

[Explicit] [8432 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

True as It Can Be by whelvenwings                          

Growing up in a small town in Kansas, Dean learned from a young age that there was only one rule that couldn’t be broken, one place he couldn’t go - through the forest, to the long-abandoned Angel’s Hollow. But when Sam disappears, Dean’s left with no choice but to follow his brother's tracks through the dangers of the wood; little does he know that the most dangerous creature of all lurks not among the trees, but in the Hollow itself. Dean sets Sam free, at the cost of his own liberty - and, bound by magic, resigns himself to living out the rest of his days in the Hollow, at the mercy of the being within. The angel of Angel’s Hollow, however, has a story - is a prisoner, too, as much as Dean is. Only one thing can free them both - but it is impossible. For, after all: who could ever learn to love a beast?

[Explicit] [71953 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

With Sure Certainty by andimeantittosting (Saylee)                

His first thought: "Who are you?"

It's the morning after his brother’s spur of the moment bachelor party in Vegas and Dean Winchester wakes up with the mother of all hangovers. Even worse, he's in a stranger's penthouse having woken up with something else as well - a weird, dorky, oddly charming, dashingly handsome… husband!

Up until now, marriage had always been off the table- Dean wasn’t relationship material, his life was in shambles, and he’d sworn off love for good. Then a night of terrible surprises, a few (okay, a lot) of martinis with Castle... no, Castiel Novak, and he's gone from first meet to marriage in one night.

Dean wants a lawyer. But Castiel’s shocking bombshell?

"I don't want a divorce."

[ Mature ] [16004 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

A Marriage of Misadventure by noxlee                              

At seventeen, Castiel Shurley fell madly in love with Dean Winchester, the steward's apprentice on his brother's estate. When they were caught together, Dean was dismissed, and Castiel was sent to war, told to bring honour to the family name or die trying. With peacetime finally upon them, Castiel is shocked to discover that Milton Park's new neighbour is none other than his erstwhile lover.

Dean, now Captain Singer, has spent the better part of a decade believing that Castiel betrayed him. When he learns that Castiel is at Milton Park, recovering from his battle wounds, he embarks on an ill-advised plan for revenge. When the man he finds is nothing like the villain he has imagined him, he must learn to put aside his anger, and trust, once again, in love.

[Explicit] [26,863 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Hear You Me by through_shadows_falling

At seventeen, Castiel Shurley fell madly in love with Dean Winchester, the steward's apprentice on his brother's estate. When they were caught together, Dean was dismissed, and Castiel was sent to war, told to bring honour to the family name or die trying. With peacetime finally upon them, Castiel is shocked to discover that Milton Park's new neighbour is none other than his erstwhile lover.

Dean, now Captain Singer, has spent the better part of a decade believing that Castiel betrayed him. When he learns that Castiel is at Milton Park, recovering from his battle wounds, he embarks on an ill-advised plan for revenge. When the man he finds is nothing like the villain he has imagined him, he must learn to put aside his anger, and trust, once again, in love.

[Mature] [ 84,459 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Arrested by Love by teacass (Fushigi)                

Running away from an affair gone wrong, famous musician and media darling Dean Winchester flees to the only place small enough to offer him security: his hometown of Madison, West Virginia.

Holing up in his father’s old cabin, he plans to wait out the storm in relative peace. Until he meets the new sheriff, Castiel Novak, who seems to be the only person in town immune to Dean’s (many) charms. Several maddening encounters and one completely unjustified arrest later, Dean is sure of one thing: his time at home will be anything but boring.

[Explicit] [42,287 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

When I See You Again by noxsoulmate [Re-Read]

It has been ten years since Dean Winchester left his hometown and moved to L.A. Ten years since Castiel Novak, his best friend and the love of his life, ended the relationship and set Dean free, so they could both follow their dreams. Now they’re both where they wanted to be in their careers, but what about their hearts? What will happen when Dean Winchester comes home after ten years for the concert of his life?

[Mature] [41,415 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Love Lab by youaresunlight

When Dean sees the flyer for a research study offering $75 to participants, he doesn’t think twice before signing him and Cas up. The problem, of course, is that it’s a romantic couples study and while Cas is his roommate and best friend, they are very much not in a relationship.

[Mature] [5,385 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Captain America / Marvel CMU - Stucky

live for the way that you cheer and scream for me by oh_la_fraise   *      

“Jesus, you're buff.” He snatched his hand back again, blushing. “Christ, I can't keep my mouth shut. Sorry. It's just, you could be Cap himself with those arms.”

Aka the one where Bucky is dressed like Captain America at a Captain America convention and doesn't realize he's talking to Captain America.

[General Audiences] [1,236 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

broken people (living under loaded gun) by obsessivereader, Slaughter_Me  

“It’s him, Nat.”

“He may look like Steve, but that’s not Steve.” Distress mars her calm, professional mask, a sign of how shaken she is. “You saw how many men he killed, the way he did it. That’s not Steve.”

Bucky knows what she means. The man in the cell was merciless and ruthless, and he killed with such brutal grace that Bucky hadn’t been able to look away. But strip Steve of his higher ideals, and that’s how he’d fight; smart, efficient, lethal; leaving dead bodies in his wake, instead of just broken bones and contusions.

So the question is, what had Hydra done to Steve, and who did Bucky have to kill in recompense.

[Teen And Up Audiences] [ 5,855 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer by boopboop

This wasn't Steve's plan for tonight.

Part of the plan, maybe. The part where he goes to a club, anonymous and dark; that's been part of the plan from the start. The part where he finds some... company; also part of the plan. He's self-aware enough to know how pathetically lonely he's feeling right now. The rest of the plan had been...less detailed, more just a collection abstract ideas. None of which he'd imagined would lead him here, his palms sweaty as they fish handfuls of cash out of his pockets, one arm anchored around the waist of a man who is very enthusiastically nibbling on his earlobe.

Or:

Steve tries and fails to master the whole 'one-night stand' thing, lies snowball in a truly epic fashion, the supervillains of New York are all out of control, Tony is the worst best friend and mediator in the history of ever, and Bucky has the patience of a saint. Guest starring: Augustus the houseplant, projectile pineapples, and Target superhero costumes.

[Explicit] [18,609 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Itinerant by  realmythology  

Maybe flowers’ll grow from me, pulling everything else out of my flesh until I’m nothing but those bones, nothing but all the love I got for you. That’ll last forever, I know it.

Got me all twisted-up, honey. Always did.

★

Steve Rogers tries to carve out a place for himself in a world where he isn't Captain America. Bucky Barnes tries to reclaim himself while paying back a debt that he can't shake.

Somehow, they manage to meet in the middle.

[Mature] [42,637 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

One Way Or Another by Chiyume  

When Steve volunteers to help Tony launch Stark Tech’s new Military Prosthetics Project, the last person he expects to see as he walks into the lab is the same guy who had him shoved up against a wall in the back of a club the weekend before.

Back then he had just been Steve Rogers; a civilian looking for a good time just like everyone. Here, he’s Captain America; hero, justice, and patriotism personified. Bucky, however, is still the flirtatious devil he had been back at the club, and he’s obviously not going to let something as trivial as Steve’s occupation get in the way of what he wants.

[Explicit] [22,374 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Wingman by Hopeless--Geek (wuzzy90), shanology

All Steve wants to do is finish his ridiculous assignment as a cupid quickly so he can take on the job he’s been working towards for decades: guardian angel. But somehow, every match he tries to make for Bucky Barnes ends up in disaster. It’s like the man doesn’t even want to find his true love. In fact, he seems far more interested in getting his cupid into bed…

[Explicit] [33,118 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Treasured by Dira Sudis (dsudis), Sealcat 

When everyone in town became convinced that a dragon really had come again to the Old Lair, and that the town would have to offer it tribute, they all looked at Steve.

 Honestly, he was relieved

[Mature] [24,609 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

We've been making shades of purple out of red and blue by                     Artisblue, Boyfriendsziam 

When Bucky Barnes comes back to school, Steve can't believe how he just seems to have forgotten about how they used to flirt with each other. Steve wants to hate him, he really does, but after Miss Potts pairs them up for an art project, the truth about Bucky's missing memories and limb comes out and maybe, there's a chance to rebuild what seemed to be lost.

[Mature] [27,144 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Bring It On Home To Me by mambo

Steve's students don't believe him when he says he's dating international rockstar and heartthrob Bucky Barnes, but he is, and has been since they were sixteen.

(A Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017 collaboration between mambo and ellebeesknees.)

[Teen And Up Audiences] [10,808 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Where You Lead by mambo

“That was before I saw that you were on a date,” she says. “Date?” Steve asks, confused. "The man you were holding hands with,” Peggy says. Steve shakes his head. “No, no, that’s not a date. That’s just… Bucky. He’s Bucky.”

Steve is a single dad who manages the local inn. Bucky runs the local diner. Steve loves Bucky's coffee, but definitely not Bucky. Except, maybe that's not so true. Well, it's true about the coffee. Steve definitely loves Bucky's coffee.

(A Gilmore Girls-inspired AU that doesn't require background knowledge of Gilmore Girls to enjoy, and a Captain America Reverse Big Bang offering from mambo and tuntekorpp.)

[Teen And Up Audiences] [11,297 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

sarah castellanos: unofficial super soldier matchmaker by Ookami_Hime

@unicornweenie: momma was diagnosed with #breastcancer. running 4 her in a marathon but in desperate need of training buddy. :( hey @steverogers u down? ;) @jamesbarnes: time and place and i'll make sure he shows @unicornweenie: wtf omg @jamesbarnes r u for real? @jamesbarnes: @unicornweenie last i checked i'm real. hold up. lemme message you. don't need the paparazzi breathing down our necks ;P

[Teen And Up Audiences] [6,414 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

I Just Want to Love You in My Own Language by agetwellcard, inediblesushi

Bucky Barnes is Captain America and uses terrible pickup lines. Steve Rogers is Captain America's nurse and is not impressed by the aforementioned terrible pickup lines.

[Explicit] [ 22,436 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Like a Bruise by Shaish                

Ten years is a long time to hate someone, especially when you loved them first.

[Teen And Up Audiences] [24,724 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

A Soft Blur by agetwellcard

After recovering from his time in the army, Bucky is a successful photographer who is trying to forget his past. Two weeks after Steve's return, he accidentally spills his champagne on Bucky at a charity event. It brings them together at a time when the two of them need each other the most.

[Explicit] [28,079 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

No Diamonds on This Chain by brideofquiet

Now, Steve is no prude. In fact, he is very much the opposite of a prude, but that’s mostly behind closed doors or when it’ll earn him better tips. But he feels the blush rising on his cheeks anyway, because who really expects to pull a string of anal beads from the lost and found at their restaurant job on a Thursday morning?

No one should ever expect that. That’d be fucking weird as hell to expect that.

[Explicit] [15,766 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Once More to See You by brideofquiet

Treadmill Guy is a problem. Not a problem to be solved, but a problem to be steadily ignored until it shrinks into nothingness and stops being a bother. Unfortunately for Bucky, people don’t come to the gym because they’re trying to shrink away into nothingness. People generally come to the gym to get bigger, which is what he was doing until Treadmill Guy walked in one day and ruined all of his (fitness-related) hopes and dreams.

Or: what to do when an unusually handsome cardio enthusiast named Steve starts coming to your gym, the Bucky Barnes how-to.

[General Audiences] [7,054 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

This Side by brideofquiet

Bucky Barnes restores antiques for a living. Steve Rogers saves the world. Bucky has no reason to believe their paths will ever cross, right up until they do.

Or: the Notting Hill AU.

[Teen And Up Audiences] [35,321 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Send Nudes! by DizzyRedhead, TrishArgh

When Steve decided to cosplay Captain America, one of his favorite TV characters, at a convention, he didn't expect to meet a Winter Soldier cosplayer who looks like he stepped right off the screen (and has a great ass). He didn't expect to hook up with Bucky, or to find out that they live in the same part of Brooklyn. He definitely didn't expect the sexting, or the continued hooking up, or the dinner dates.

Steve didn't expect any of this. Especially not the feelings.

[Explicit] [21,847 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Local Raccoon Befriends Angry Chihuahua by charlesdk

Rogers was a tiny man. Bucky was sure he easily disappeared in a crowd and became invisible. He was tiny and short and skinny and didn't look like much. But his fists were clenched to his sides in anger, his jaw was jutted out, his boney shoulders were square, and his voice held more power than his body looked like it did.

Screaming and yelling and swearing like a damn sailor and asking for a fight, Bucky found him breathtakingly gorgeous. Like a tiny ball of energy and rage and justice that shined brighter than the fucking sun, punching his way through the evil and disgusting trash of the world.

Bucky never believed in love at first sight and the way his heart warmed and pounded at the mere sound of Rogers didn't really change his mind. But it did make him stop and stare, desperately reaching out for the feeling he felt when he looked at him because it was good and Bucky hadn't had good in his life in years.

OR – in which one armed veteran, suffering insomniac, and grump extraordinaire Bucky Barnes gets turned into a puddle of goo by the tiniest, angriest, most wonderful guy in the entire universe.

[Teen And Up Audiences] [15,314 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

6:13 AM by charlesdk

It was routine, getting on the train that early in the morning, and Steve had it down to a damn tee. It was tiring, waking up that early to catch a train to work, but it wasn't so bad.

Especially not after he started showing up.

He was the man with murder eyes and shockingly good looks despite the whole hobo vibe but with a soft center. Steve liked to call him the Human Impersonation of the Grumpy Cat in his head; Grumpy Cat for short when he whined about him to either Natasha or Sam.

OR – in which Steve falls in love with a stranger.

[Teen And Up Audiences] [5,885 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

An Open Heart Is An Open Wound by Kinthinia                

“Soul-bonding is very special,” his mother had said. “You can only do it once in your life so if you do it, make sure it’s with someone special.”   “But what if they don’t choose me back?” Steve had asked, thinking about his scrawny body and the way girls didn’t look at him.

“You would be tied to them forever,” his mother said gently. “That’s why it’s so important you make sure they’re the one. Because they don’t have to choose you too. And for some people, that’s more than enough. To just simply be tied to one person.”

“It should be special shouldn’t it, like what you and Dad had?”

Sarah smiled tiredly. “Yes. But it doesn’t always happen that way, for everyone.” She ruffled Steve’s hair affectionately. “Just make sure you’re prepared, when you choose someone.”

Steve laughed. “I will, Ma.”

Of course, three days later, Steve made his choice. Considering his history of relationships, he probably should have known it wouldn’t be reciprocated.

[Mature] [78,553 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Laughter Lines by gammadolphin

Bucky Barnes is a rising Hollywood star with a tragic past and a reputation for driving his bodyguards away. Steve Rogers is a veteran with the same tragic past and the need to get back out in the world. The two of them have been estranged since they were teenagers, so when Steve joins SHIELD as a bodyguard, he is less than thrilled when he finds out that Bucky is his first assignment. But how bad can it be? They're both professional adults, right?

Wrong.

[Mature] [100,248 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Captain America in Supernatural World - Stucky

Deal of a Lifetime by TwistedFate108 

Steve Rogers was small, sick, and frail, but when he runs across a book that promises him the assistance of the supernatural, it's impossible to resist. However, what he ends up with is a demon and more than he can handle. It especially sucks when said demon repeatedly refuses to take his soul, and when he ends up caring more than he should.

[Mature] [16,732 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Star Trek - James T. Kirk/Spock

Souls Lost at Sea by deesaster

Two weeks have passed since the launch of the USS Enterprise-A, and Jim feels like a stranger on board his own ship. He can tell this is not his Enterprise, even though everything looks exactly the same. However, it's good to be back after spending the past six months stranded on a starbase in deep space, away from his chair and the stars.

It would have been manageable if the only different things had been the ship and a part of his crew. On top of his uneasiness and guilt in the aftermath of the Yorktown incident, Spock has been avoiding him and Jim can't for the life of him figure out why. Even though he has come to terms with his unrequited feelings for Spock long ago, he pines for his First Officer's company more than ever, and hopes he can somehow bring their friendship back to life.

[Mature] [25115 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Among The Stars by yaoichan12                

I'm not good with summaries, but here is the best I could come up with: When Jim is accidentally abducted as a kid he discovers that humans are not alone in the universe.  No one believes him in his small town and thinks he's crazy. He looks to the stars, grows up and becomes an astronaut. After being overlooked for the first manned mission to Mars, Jim is sent to work in a secret R&D department. There, Jim meets his new boss, a weird guy that wears beanies all the time and doesn't like to be touched or to touch anyone.  Jim swears the guy looks familiar but he just can't figure out where he knows him from. Jim then discovers that there are others that know the truth and even work to keep Earth safe.

[Not Rated] [81,246 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Dangerous Territory, Part II of the Field of Evermore Series by Tiger Tyger (Southern_Comfort)

How could it be possible for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to find any trouble during their Earth-based assignments? After all, Jim is only a lowly admiral working under the irascible leadership of Steven Stearns in Fleet Operations; Spock acts as a new teacher for Science and Technology at Star Fleet Academy; and Bones is a new administrator at Medical Operations. More importantly, the three men are working their way around new relationships, adapting to different professional positions, new demands . . . as well as spiritual visitations, aggressive colleagues, jealousy, academic politics, and sudden violence. Come along and watch the next stage in the development of the legends of Star Trek: The Original Series!

[Explicit] [55,802 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Freely Given by Jenna Hilary Sinclair (JennaHilary)

As Kirk, Spock, and McCoy make a diplomatic visit to a planet where ritual kisses are common exchanges, McCoy urges Spock to consider the nature of gift giving.

[Explicit] [22,587 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Combien de Temps by rabidchild67

Sometimes, things start a little backwards. Or, five times Jim and Spock screwed before they admitted it really meant something.

[Explicit] [22,909 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Next Best Destiny by rabidchild67

AU in which Spock is Captain and Jim the (geeky) new officer in Sciences.

Science Officer!Kirk - it had to be written

[Teen And Up Audiences] [58,224 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

First by rabidchild67

It’s Jim’s first mission as Enterprise’s first officer and, well, he and Captain Spock have an important “first” of their own to get to.

Sequel to Next Best Destiny

[Explicit] [25,678 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Sea Change by jouissant

As the five-year mission gets underway, Kirk and Spock are on course to develop a friendship--or something--that will define them both. Then, a poorly-timed away mission changes everything. Before they can begin to deal with the fallout, Jim disappears. With his captain presumed dead, Spock has no choice but to accept a promotion and try to move on. But when he starts experiencing disturbing visions, he gradually begins to suspect that Jim may be alive after all. (A canon-divergent AU assuming they began the 5-year mission following STXI.)

[Explicit] [35,218 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

Last Request by AshayaTReldai

Life is messy. One moment they were celebrating Christmas: Captain James T Kirk, his First Officer Spock, his wife Commander Nyota Uhura, and their new baby daughter. The next, a heart-breaking funeral, leaving Jim to pick up the pieces. Sworn to be friends, he’d buried his love deep; the Vulcan was happily married to somebody Jim respected greatly, and contrary to popular belief he’s not that kind of guy. Yet a last request to care for Nyota’s husband and child leaves him with a dilemma, a dilemma that can only be solved by a Christmas miracle.

Written for the K/S Advent Challenge 2014, for a prompt by Misscar (see end notes for prompt).

Inspired by the Dear Spock Universe.

[Explicit] [106,277 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

The Hobbit - Bagginshield - Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield

An Early Start by HiddenKitty

Everyone knows they were doing it all along, right?

My first-born or a kidney, as preferred, to HSavinien and Maybetwice, two excellent betas who deserve better than such an anxious, needy writer. Thank you guys, so much. :3

[Explicit] [44,436 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

through miles of clouded hell by yaseanne                

for the prompt: "Thorin tries to woo Bilbo... but fails miserably at it. In fact, he only manages to scare the living shit out of the hobbit." 

He believed, for a moment, in this King, and thought that this was what Balin must have meant that day in the wilderness, that this was the King he saw in Moria, noble and unbroken.

[Explicit] [13,773 Words] [Read on AO3 here]

(All summaries are the official summaries of the author. Stats and infos as according to hosting site or information given by the author)

Looking for more reading inspiration? Check out my fic rec tag  here on tumblr, my reading list masterpost or just check out my AO3 bookmarks.

[mysteryshelf]

BLOG TOUR - Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries

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THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

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Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #0.5

by Elaine Orr

Genre: Cozy Mystery

When Jolie Gentil’s parents leave her with Aunt Madge for her junior year so they can ‘work things out’ in their marriage, she’s angry. She knows no one at Ocean Alley High School. Some kids snub her, but she makes friends with the irreverent Scoobie. He’s quirky and fun, but he’s skipped school and smoked pot in the past, so people avoid him. Jolie learns how to shoot a squirt gun from under the boardwalk and tries not to flunk geometry. She also learns that the family she babysits for has a secret, one that puts Jolie in danger. You’ve met Jolie and Scoobie as crime-solving adults. Check out their high school friendship. Same humor, different challenges. Plus a couple of hints about why Jolie wants to get to the bottom of murders when she’s all grown up.

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Appraisal For Murder

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #1

Jolie Gentil moves to Great Aunt Madge’s Jersey shore B&B, taking her cat Jazz, and joining Madge’s pair of prune-eating dogs. It’s not a retreat from her embezzling ex-husband, just a smart change. Jolie rekindles friendships, dodges a low-level wise guy, and tries to figure out her new life. She hasn’t seen her high school classmates in ten years, and they weren’t all buds. Why care if a couple of them are murder suspects? Because finding a dead body when you’re appraising a house grabs your attention.

Jolie balances fear of a smart-mouth wise guy with a belief that her friends are innocent. Her murder suspects include one accused’s ex-wife and beneficiaries of the dead woman’s will. Jolie keeps searching, but will someone’s plans leave her alive to find the truth?

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Rekindling Motives

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #2

When Jolie Gentil gets tapped for some appraisal work at her tenth high school reunion she does not expect to find the skeleton of Richard Tillotson in an antique attic wardrobe in the vacant house. He vanished just after his sister married his business partner in 1929. Jolie sees a link to the Tillotson-Fisher family’s Prohibition era business and works with friends Scoobie and Ramona to gather clues from old photo albums and ledgers. The albums lead to Mary Doris Milner, Richard’s girlfriend, who has fond memories of him and is certain of who murdered him. But, she couldn’t prove it then and he’s long dead, too.

The present day murder of Mary Doris tells Jolie and Scoobie they are on the right track. Did the secret she kept all these years finally kill her, and will solving Mary Doris’ murder lead to a culprit in a decades-old crime? Between running the food pantry at Christmas and escaping a burning building, Jolie wants to figure out who the modern killer is before someone else gets hurt.

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When the Carny Comes To Town

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #3

Though she never liked the idea of sitting on the plank above the dunk tank for the food pantry’s carnival fundraiser, Jolie never dreamed what Scoobie saw that day would leave him battling for his life. Scoobie’s ex-con mother shows up and there’s a murder to add to the mix. Soon Jolie is doing more than appraising real estate. Even that is complicated by home burglars. She grudgingly seeks help from her nemesis, reporter George Winters, and tries to stay ahead of a kidnapper and murderer so she can take charge of her world again. Can she keep her friends safe? Will Scoobie recover enough to plan another silly fundraiser?

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Any Port in a Storm

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #4

Jolie Gentil and friends are putting the finishing touches on the Talk Like a Pirate Day fundraiser for the food pantry and trying to figure out who’s breaking into some of the houses Jolie appraises. When she realizes a new face in town is leading high school kids into trouble, Jolie’s mad and lets him know it. Hayden offers to help her mind her own business, and people at the fundraiser hear her give him what for. A hurricane’s on the way, and when a corpse turn up under the pirate ship the next day, Jolie’s looking like a suspect.

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Trouble on the Doorstep

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #5

From Hurricane Sandy to Cozy Corner B&B repairs to Aunt Madge’s wedding in three weeks. If Jolie can handle that surely she can deal with a sobbing woman who shows up at midnight playing a scary message on her phone. Pooki is frantic about her husband’s whereabouts and is definitely ditzy. A shady deal for storm repairs at the Ocean Alley Senior Complex seems to be at the root of Steve Oliver’s hit-and-run death and missing business partner, Pooki’s husband, Eric. When Eric ends up dead at the B&B, Jolie digs for clues as she burns muffins and appraises houses. Can Jolie find the murderer and expose fraudulent repair bids – without getting hurt?

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Behind the Walls

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #6

Finalist for Chanticleer 2014 Mystery and Mayhem Award. It’s fun to buy a house. Unless someone wants what’s hidden behind the walls and is willing to kill for it. Jolie is pursued by a purse thief and a burglar, but the guy she’s most worried about is the one who left an elderly auctioneer dead on her porch swing. Suspects abound, but they aren’t all going to live to tell their story.

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Vague Images

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #7

Bad enough that Jolie ends up in the emergency room because she avoided a deer. Worse to find a dead woman in the hospital restroom. In between appraising houses and feeding her pet skunk, Jolie’s on the lookout for a runaway teenager and whoever planted the dead woman in her path. Thanks to best bud Scoobie, she’s also planning a crazy fundraiser for the food pantry. Just when Jolie’s ready to leave the murder investigation to the police, she gets a surprise—and it’s not a good one. Will her need to know see her hurt—or worse?

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Ground to a Halt

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #8

When Jolie Gentil goes to buy a cup of coffee, she finds Java Jolt empty. A bigger surprise is seeing proprietor Joe Regan later, badly injured. A potential killer thinks Jolie has something he was hiding. Jolie needs to figure out who’s telling the truth and how far the thugs will go to find what they want. Only solving the puzzle will keep Jolie safe, protect a vulnerable Iraqi War vet, and make sure she stays alive. But if Jolie keeps searching, her budding romance with Scoobie may grind to a halt.

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Holidays in Ocean Alley

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #9

Aunt Madge’s brief stay in assisted living (don’t stand on a stool to hang garland) would be uneventful, except for the body that falls into her apartment along with a Christmas wreath. After years of telling Jolie not to be a busybody, Aunt Madge turns to Jolie’s boyfriend Scoobie to help find clues. Told from Madge and Scoobie’s points of view, with help from some feisty seniors.

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The Unexpected Resolution

Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries #10

A midnight wedding, Army veterans who face repercussions of two different wars, and a very startling wedding guest. A 9-1-1 call during the wedding changes everything. Jolie has to help Scoobie figure out what he wants to know, and determine who seems to want someone in his family dead. Book 10 in the Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series brings together the close-knit group of friends and zany Ocean Alley townspeople for a very special event – and a murder.

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Elaine L. Orr is the Amazon bestselling author of the ten-book Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series, which is set at the Jersey shore. “Behind the Walls” was a finalist for the 2014 Chanticleer Mystery and Mayhem Awards. First in her River’s Edge mystery series was “From Newsprint to Footprints,” followed by “Demise of a Devious Neighbor.” Iowa nice meets murder. “Tip a Hat to Murder” is set in rural Illinois, and is the first of the Logland mystery series.

Elaine also writes plays and novellas, including the one-act, “Common Ground,” published in 2015. Her novella, “Biding Time,” was one of five finalists in the National Press Club’s first fiction contest, in 1993. “Falling into Place” is a novella about family strength as a World War II veteran rises to the toughest occasion.

Elaine conducts presentations on electronic publishing and other writing-related topics. Nonfiction includes “Words to Write By: Getting Your Thoughts on Paper” and “Writing in Retirement: Putting New Year’s Resolutions to Work.” She also authors online classes about writing and publishing.

  A member of Sisters in Crime, Elaine grew up in Maryland and moved to the Midwest in 1994. Elaine graduated from the University of Dayton with a BA in Political Science and from the American University with an MA in Government. She worked for GAO and the National Academy of Public Administration for many year, and for two Iowa members of the U.S. House of Representatives — one Republican and one Democrat.

  Elaine did some journalism course work at the University of Maryland and has taken fiction courses from The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, MD, the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and Georgetown University’s Continuing Education Program. She is a regular attendee at the Magna Cum Murder in Indianapolis and the Book Bums Workshop in West Liberty, Iowa.

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BLOG TOUR – Jolie Gentil Cozy Mysteries was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir