#The Triad Theater

[philippaulkelly]

The Show Did Go On three years ago today, Philip Paul Kelly's Rock-n-Roll Wrestling Spectacle "Rockquiem For A Wrestler" streamed live from The Triad Theater.

Official Website: https://www.rockquiem.com

[eddiestar]

What a blast it was performing and being a part of @philippaulkelly's "Rockquiem For A Wrestler," streamed live from The Triad Theater three years ago today.

[wifelinkmtg]

This was intended to be an essay about chivalry—its history, its uses, its various incarnations—medieval violence, the Romantic reinterpretation, the ideal of chivalry in the American South and its attendant lynch mobs. I would have talked about the chivalric triad: Knight, Innocent, Enemy—the way the Innocent serves as a fulcrum for the Knight to enact violence against the Enemy—the iterations of this triad in any number of places in our society, from the so-called sheepdog mentality trained into our police to the legion of revenge-fantasy Taken clones. I would have talked about the way Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling incorporates chivalry with the sacrifice of Isaac, the theology of self-justified suffering that comes from that. I would have talked at some length about various portrayals of lesbian chivalry in media—Revolutionary Girl Utena, the Locked Tomb books, Signalis—how they use it, what they say about it, and whether at the end there is anything worth salvaging from this intrinsically violent way of relating to the world, to others, to oneself, to God.

I think a version of that essay might still be worth writing someday, but right now, there's something I need to talk about much more urgently. Right now, there's something I suspect you might desperately need to hear. Today I'm going to talk about Godzilla.

GODZILLA SAVED MY LIFE: A Polemic

Godzilla Minus One (2024) takes place in Japan in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Its protagonist, Koichi, is a failed kamikaze pilot who in the opening scenes is repeatedly excoriated for his cowardice and dereliction of duty. When he returns home to a bombed and desolate Tokyo, his bereaved neighbor tells him, if people like you had done their duty, this would not have happened. The film spends the rest of its runtime doggedly refuting this idea. It says, out loud, that the relentless calculus of sacrifice that turns men into things to be spent has no place in this world, that it is needless and cruel. It is not subtle about this point. It is not trying to be.

I saw this movie in its black and white version in theaters in February, on the last day of its run. Its version of Godzilla inspires in me both terror and near-religious awe. It looms over the film, an echo both of the devastation of the war and of Koichi's guilt and shame, its presence inviting—demanding—the final consummation of the mission he abandoned.

I wept in that theater. I gripped my friend's hand and I sobbed. This is unlike me (unless I'm watching Gunbuster), and it took four days for me to work out why this Godzilla movie had affected me so profoundly.

arkansas kamikaze

and she looked, and behold! a beast rose from the sea, and against the beast he breathed glory in a Zero dive. his beatified smile shone from the wreck of the Little Rock Planned Parenthood clinic. and a great wind blew out of heaven, and she woke

and made breakfast, and watched her son wholly absorbed in Bonhoeffer, found her lipstick worn down to the nub for practice stigmata, and saw for a moment the dove descending, the tongue of fire over his head.

The thing about being raised in a right-wing fundamentalist family is that you are from birth being prepared to be a weapon, or a martyr, and there is really no difference between those two things. If my mother had had her way, I would have gone to a tiny far-right college and studied law for the sole and explicit purpose of getting Roe v. Wade overturned. She would, I believe, have settled for me bombing an abortion clinic. Certainly it would have been easier for her to reconcile with that than with what I became instead.

The other thing about being raised in a right-wing fundamentalist family is, some things stick. And it's very hard to notice, as your beliefs and values and identity undergo radical changes, that there is still a whisper in you that believes in the power of the glorious death, of the ultimate virtue of strapping explosives to your chest and walking into the halls of the Enemy. And when you feel helpless, when you watch systems and institutions that ought to prevent atrocities instead encourage them, that whisper grows louder and louder and louder.

Watching Koichi fly his last mission, watching him an instant before impact eject, and live—watching everyone live through the final confrontation because they had all rejected the calculus of sacrifice—allowed me to see also for the very first time this parasitic idea that had grown coiled inside me since infancy, allowed me to see where it had come from, its whole monstrous lineage, and then it allowed me to take hold of it and pull it out.

Twenty days later, Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, in protest of the still-ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. He was, like me, raised in a right-wing fundamentalist environment. He was, like one of my siblings, a member of the US Armed Forces radicalized by his experiences and his own conscience. People called him a hero and martyr—on this very site, in responses to the excellent Crimethinc piece circulating at the time, I saw people saying they felt like they should follow suit (even though the article in question explicitly and repeatedly warned against it!) As if the loss of a person of conscience and conviction could be anything other than a tragedy, as if anyone in power choosing to support the genocide could regard the death of one of their own soldiers as anything other than what soldiers are for, as if the moral response to a genocide could ever be to add another corpse to the mountain—and still I saw people lionizing him, praising his courage and his sacrifice, all but telling people to follow in his footsteps.

No. Aaron Bushnell was a suicide. He lived his whole life within organizations that taught him that he could purchase more with his death than he could ever accomplish with his life, and while we may praise his conscience, we can only mourn his loss and the grievous error that led him to it.

This is the thing about learning to see this parasite: you begin to see it everywhere. Our history for millennia is awash with human sacrifice: Abraham and Isaac, Jephthah and his nameless daughter, Agamemnon and Iphigenia, the crucifixion of Jesus—and later, litanies, row upon row of dead saints, stories of glorious last stands. The courageous martyred dead: blood and corpses, only and always, to Moloch.

In light of the recent US election, perhaps many of my American readers are feeling shock or horror or despair. I understand, and without blame, with love and gentleness, I tell you that this is because you have not correctly understood the scope of the problem. You imagine a discontinuity between the liberal version of American capitalism and imperialism and the fascist version of the same. No such discontinuity exists. Things will no doubt be different for us here in the US than they would otherwise be, and probably worse, but there is no distinction to be made between the genocide of yesterday and the genocide of tomorrow. The enemy is the same. The work is the same.

Above all else, this is to warn you: when you do this work, when you look for a place you can put your shoulder to the wheel, there will be people who want to spend their lives—or yours—like coin to purchase some great change immediately. Perhaps they mean well, and helplessness and desperation drives them to act without regard for the consequences. Perhaps they do not mean well. Do not follow these people. Perhaps they merely expect you to go to prison, and have no plan for how to support you after that. This is barely different. It is far better for you to languish in useless liberal nonprofits which will accomplish nothing of value than to attempt radical direct action with people with correct politics and no forethought, and end up dead or imprisoned—but these are not the only two options. Aaron Bushnell cannot ever again do anything for anyone. You can.

This is as much as I know for certain. I love you. Don't die.

-------

End Notes

It would not be unreasonable to ask me, in light of what I've said here about martyrdom, what I think of it in other cultural contexts, especially since a similar word is often used to refer to e.g. Palestinian people murdered by Israeli soldiers. The answer is nothing at all. Such people get to use whatever words they want to salvage whatever meaning and comfort they can.

Godzilla Minus One, as effective a movie as it is, was not solely responsible for the scales falling from my eyes. It was an important part of the process, but I doubt it would have sufficed on its own were I not in community with people I trust and talk to about such things. "Godzilla and also my trusted friends saved my life" is, alas, a worse title.

There will be a part two to this. Part one seemed more urgent.

[blueiight]

can i ask your thoughts on the fandom’s heavy focus on louis as an object of desire? it sometimes feels to me like people are more interested in other characters reacting to louis than they are in louis himself. i know the “helen of troy” stuff is a joke but it genuinely seems like he’s often rendered oddly passive in his desirability, like we’re looking at him through the eyes of the other characters even though it’s his story (to be clear: in the fandom, not the actual show). or am i being uncharitable? either way, you always have interesting things to say about fandom reception.

i think the focus of louis as an object of desire arose largely in response to a lot of racially-charged nonsense about show louis, namely, where a loud minority of fans tried to deny the abuse and horror of season 1 and frame louis as the primary antagonist/abuser of his own story. which in of itself had the potential to go somewhere, especially considering the feminized role louis occupies in parts of season 1. unfortunately its spiraled off into its own dead end at this point to where now people, a year and a half removed from the release of s1, can box louis's character arc into this tale of getting all the hot boys to look her way. when this is a horror and tragedy series. romance is part of that, but is a piece of the full picture. classic romance is very much horror tbh but thats just me

if we're discussing the show strictly, majority of louis's relationships are antagonistic. even with his lovers, they love him as much as they seek to control him. 'his love is a small box that he keeps you in', trailer louis saying 'i knew who i was without those pieces [of myself?]' . so on and so forth. the first three episodes of season 1 are about louis's struggle to maintain a link with his mortal community, in the midst of increasing racist tensions against the city leaders, all as he struggles to come to terms with his existence as a vampire and how his relationship to lestat fits in relation to all these pieces of himself. doubly so, there is also the nature of the second interview in present time, and the sort of antagonism between daniel + louis as louis eventually pushes daniel into burning the old tape. the latter half of season 1, episodes 4-7 is squarely about the triad of lestat, louis, and claudia, how lestat increasingly tightens his hold over them both, claudia breaking them free of it, and louis's response to such. doubly so, daniel becomes more hostile the less he knows, and the more louis's composed 'master of his instincts' personage collapses to show the broken man thats underneath. armand comes in at the end bc the interview has reached a breaking point once more [as it did in the 1970s]. i know, im looking too hard into the meme, but so much of where louis errs, where his memory falters, where history is completely revised, has to do with the question of claudia. even book interview foundationally was about this grief, though not nearly with the level of depth+ gravity the show has added to the story.

where focusing on louis as an 'object of desire' most impedes analysis has to do with claudia as well, bc if u see louis as that solely, then what is claudia to u if not a 'child interfering in [louis's] romantic affairs'? why are people already seeking to write claudia off as a wayward child unduly 'taking out her anger on louis', when it was louis at the end of season 1 who strangled her against the wall and refused to let her burn lestat? when its louis in the trailer thats throwing claudia's words from season 1 back at her, evading her questions in the cafe? when claudia is having to dress as a baby doll and advertise with a sandwich board for a theater + a coven-master that all want her dead?

i think this is by nature of the fact that iwtv is canonly gay and isnt afraid of showing that, and modern fandom is mainly interested in romance. claudia's relationship to louis is secondary, if not tertiary, to all 'camps' of this tiny tiny fandom bc she is clearly established in s1 as not being a viable romantic option for louis, despite claudia's perspective and her story taking up the second half of the first season, and will continue to be important in the second season. the 'helen of troy' fixation on his desirability in relation to romantically viable vampires [or even men] seems to be another means by which fans can ignore this part of the story, just as the mutual abuse nonsense about louis being clarence thomas the third self hating black man who stole lestat's lunchables and is 'just as bad as the rest' drowned out and continues to drown out any other conversation for the past year and a half. it is very difficult to have conversations on this character precisely bc of this state of fandom, where many people seek to crack the whip over a fictional character for not being mother teresa and having a complex response to trauma, then instead of discussing that, some seek to fixate on the fact that mother teresa can be sexy, actually. when thats not the point. why is modern louis so full of grief and all but suicidal in dubai, if not for the fact that claudia is permanently dead, he still lives, he regrets something, and wants to find the truth under it all? the jokes are cute and all, but lets put our thinking caps on.

[takaraphoenix]

Stiles Summer Stories 2024!

So I have decided to dedicated my @writersmonth to Stiles. But there is so much I want to write about him and the Hale Pack that it's hard to put it in order and decide, so I am open to suggestions!

Pick a prompt duo from the list that's not crossed out yet and make me a Stiles-centric suggestion:

romantically only: Sterek, Steter, or both in a "Stiles has two hands" sense

platonically, especially anything Hale Pack (Derek, Peter, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Cora, Jackson, I'm throwing Lydia and Danny in there too, and depending on canon divergence also Allison and Scott. Also the sheriff), either the whole pack or any individual dynamic

general Stiles concepts like Pack Mom Stiles, human Alpha Stiles, Spark Stiles, post-nogitsune angst, whatever else you can think of

a combination of any of these

destiny | creek; "Camping & Bonding, Part 1", Sterek Hale Pack fluff

running | penthouse; "Small But Good", Steter post s2 finale h/c

laughter | car; "Camping & Bonding, Part 2", Sterek Hale Pack fluff

fairy | stage; "A Midsummer Night's Mischief"; Sterek fluff

choice | movie set; "Movie Madness"; Sterek jealous!Derek

flame | forest; "Camping & Bonding, Part 3", Sterek Hale Pack fluff

passion | tattoo parlor; "London Calling", post-series Sterek

dawn | castle; "Castle of Glass"; Sterek post pool scene

clock | museum; "Tutoring and Teasing"; Steter single-dad Peter + Malia's tutor Stiles

season | school; "Camping & Bonding, Part 4", Sterek Hale Pack fluff

snow | flower shop; "The Tate Sisters", Stetopher with married Petopher meeting Stiles through their daughters

birds | library; "The Birds and the Wolves", Steter

dark | bakery; "What Kept Me Going", post-Nogitsune h/c Stetopher

lonely | college; "Missing Pack", Stiles-Jackson-Danny

glow | lake; "Camping & Bonding, Part 5", Sterek Hale Pack fluff

ache | ship; "What Lydia Wants (She Gets)", Jackstydia on a cruise

red | kitchen; "My Kitchen, My Rules", Sterek human Alpha Stiles

bell | attic; "Warning Bells", Steter BDSM smut

chess | park; "How Chris and Peter Got a Kitten", Stetopher + Stiles cursed into a kitten

stone | train; "What Lydia Wants (Lydia Gets) II", Jackstydia BDSM smut sequel

wish | hospital; "A Brighter Future", Steter hurt/comfort + Sterica bromance

beast | motel; "Away Game", Stackson 'there is only one bed' during an away lacrosse game

lost | basement; "What Happens in the Basement", Sterek kidnapping

petal | theater; "Twelve Truths (and a Lie)", Stetopher + Stiles being forced by the Seelie Queen to bare twelve truths in front of the pack

faith | bar; "A Selfish Gift", Sterek + a salmon ladder

fur | farm; "Home at the Hale Farm", Stetopher post-Nogitsune h/c

lightning | office; "Guns and Gags", Stetopher + gun shop owner Chris/sex shop owner Peter

sketch | plane; "Sugar for the Secretary", Stetopher sugar daddies Petopher post-series

sense | bus; "Colds and Comfort", Stetopher sick!Stiles getting taken care of

mischief | mountain; "Shot Through the Heart", Stetopher + Chris being really into Stiles being a good shot

double | beach; "Murder Triad", Nogitsune/Steter

[cannibalgenders]

I have a lot of thoughts about the way mental illness is treated by the Yellowjackets writers and the fandom, particularly when it comes to the vilification and/or deification of Lottie Matthews but I’m not schizophrenic and it’s not really my place to say what’s what when it comes to that but I DO want to talk about the other character who everyone seems to agree displayed mental illness before the events of the crash and that’s Misty Quigley

The first time we see Misty she’s watching a rat drown with something close to apathy, which is to me clear visual language of what they’re setting Misty up to be. See, there’s this disproved (but still commonly used within entertainment media) psychological theory called the Macdonald Triad, or sometimes the “triad of sociopathy”. It essentially claims that three behaviors displayed by children and teens can predict if they will develop ASPD in adulthood, or become violent criminals. The behaviors are bedwetting, firesetting, and cruelty to animals. The fact that we see Misty behaving cruelly towards animals in her FIRST scene is a clear statement of intention in regards to where her character is going

Now, all of the behaviors in the Macdonald triad are actually more closely linked with prolonged childhood abuse or neglect, which leads to the DEVELOPMENT of personality disorders in some cases, lighting fires or whatever doesn’t actually make you a “sociopath”.

And…Misty isn’t really, either. At least not at first. I personally could very easily see Misty as having ASPD (or conduct disorder, since she’s a minor), but in season 1 the writers seem like they’re putting a lot of effort into associating Misty with this sort of false Hollywood perception of a “sociopath” rather than people with an actual Cluster B personality disorder. And like, Misty displays an obvious lack of empathy and concern for others’ autonomy from the very beginning, but I really and truly wasn’t sold on Misty as a sympathetic portrayal or as representation until closer to the end of Season 2

And really is was Samantha Hanratty that sold me. Because there’s a BIG discrepancy in the way Samantha and the way Christina portrays Misty. 40 year old Misty is an adult set in her ways, she’s clinging to the people who made her feel useful 25 years ago but her old eagerness, her ability to be genuinely affected or hurt has been diminished a LOT. She’s got incredibly muted emotions, masks near constantly, and is willing to do just about anything to maintain her control over wildly out of hand situations.

Whereas Samantha’s young Misty is still in a place where she’s trying to reach out- something’s “wrong” with her, sure, but she genuinely believes that others still have the ability to appreciate her for her authentic self, and much of her manipulative behavior is in search of that validation. Yeah, she doesn’t know how to go about yeah, yeah she’s fucked up, but she’s sharing bits of herself with the expectation that this will get her what she wants, and she’s repeatedly being smacked down.

And then we see the loss of Crystal. The final loss that sort of cements for her that genuine display of emotion and authenticity is doomed to destroy her and everything she cares about. So she stops caring. She detaches. And that really hit me as the most accurate portrayal I’m going to get of what the inside of my head feels like. Her brain keeps her from feeling much in adulthood as protection, but it’s so fucking boring that she’s going through the motions of who she was before all that, playacting at the bubbly musical theater loving dork she could have been, just to try and get some of that excitement back.

And now I’m wondering, with clinging to those old connections having bitten her in the ass so thoroughly, is Misty going to drop the mask completely? Give up on every being anything to anyone? Go back to isolation and manipulation and violence? Or is there hope for her, like Natalie, to make a different choice this time?

[kairologia]

Planets in Hellenistic Astrology — part 1 : the ascendant + the luminaries (sun/moon).

Where modern astrology places the emphasis on signs, traditional astrology deems planets THE most important part of the practice. It places planets as actors whereas everything else serves as setting, stage & costumes.

The form of astrology I practice focuses on the use of the 7 traditional planets, as outers (Uranus/Neptune/Pluto) had yet to be identified due to their invisibility to the naked eye — and though I still use them, I don’t emphasize them as much. The 7 traditional planets are usually divided thus: the Luminaries (Sun/Moon), fast-moving Personal Planets (Mercury/Venus/Mars) and slow-moving Social Planets (Jupiter/Saturn).

Now that we got that out of the way, moving on to the actual point of the post,

The core of the chart : the sun, moon & rising.

The core of the chart is represented by the luminaries plus the ascendant. I sadly often come across descriptions of this triad that are too vague or not explained clearly & understandably, which often leads to widespread misconceptions around what these three components represent (especially the sun + ascendant).

Simply put, the Sun and Moon represent the two energy or power sources of the body/mind — as these Celestial Bodies provide most of the light in the heavens. They are luminary bodies that carry distinct energies and symbolize archetypal influences that manifest based on their sign, house, and aspect placements.

The Sun is the emissive luminary & shows how one’s vital energies are spent. The Moon is the receptive luminary & shows how one’s energies are regenerated & recalibrated. The Sun and Moon combined represent the driver, where the Sun signifies the driver's actions, and the Moon signifies their reactions. The Ascendant, on the other hand, serves as the vehicle steered by the influences of the Sun and Moon.

— Starting with the Sun,

The Sun, through the annual cycle of solstices and equinoxes, establishes the seasons of the year. In a chart, the sun directly corresponds to the themes of the whole sign house of Leo. Much like the sun enables visibility in the universe, it allows topics ruled by the sun (i.e, whichever house Leo occupies in one’s chart) to become prominently visible in our lives. As an example, if Leo is in your first house, the sun represents your identity, what with it ruling your first house of self, and if Leo is in your fifth house, it signifies that the sun rules over matters related to your pleasure, sexual and romantic pursuits and enjoyment of life, and so on for other house placements.

As an isolated archetype, the sun, being a life source, symbolizes aspirations, a drive to enlighten or illuminate something, mirroring its central role in the solar system where everything orbits around it. This conveys a sense of being drawn towards embodying and actualizing the self in a specific manner — making it an aspirational energy.

In addition to what was stated previously, the sun represents vitality, spirit, soul, the conscious mind, intellect, the father, judgement, public reputation, action, and authority. It holds a place in the day sect.

This isn't to negate any potential resonance with your sun sign, as resonance means different things to different people.

Trivia :

— Domicile: Leo

— Exaltation: Aries

— Detriment: Aquarius

— Fall: Libra

— Quality : Hot and Dry (choleric temperament)

— Colors: Gold, yellow, amber

— Professions: Leaders, royalty, professions that work with solar significations

— Places: Houses, palaces, theaters, halls

— Day of the Week: Sunday

— Body Parts: Heart, eyes

— Animals: Lions, felines, eagle, phoenix, nightingale

— Minerals & stones : Gold, Chrysolite

— Moon :

The Moon defines the lunar months through her cycle of waxing & waning phases. She primarily symbolizes the themes of the whole sign house that Cancer occupies in your chart.

The moon stands out as the most impermanent celestial indicator, residing in each zodiac sign for no longer than two and a half days. Its phases undergo constant shifts, mirroring elements that are in perpetual flux, such as bodily cycles, our bodies in general, mood variations, and all sorts of cyclic phenomena such as routines.

While its influence extends over emotions, it encompasses more than just that aspect. The moon serves as a mechanism of recalibration of both our emotional and physical well-being.

The moon also represents the body, sensations, emotion, memories, the "gut brain," intuition, senses, the mother, the lineage, women, conception, appearance, sight, nurture, older brothers, housekeeping, possessions, silver, and glass. It is of the night sect.

Trivia :

— Domicile: Cancer

— Exaltation: Taurus

— Detriment: Capricorn

— Fall: Scorpio

— Quality : Cold and Wet (phlegmatic)

— Places: Mountains, bodies of water, baths, fishponds, springs, docks

— Colors: Silver, white, pale blue

— Day of the Week: Monday

— Professions: Sailors, nurses, midwives, messengers, travelers, fishermen

— Body Parts: Breasts, fem reproductive system

— Minerals & stones: Moonstone, pearls, selenite, silver

— Animals: Fishes, creatures that live in water or come out at night

— And lastly, the ascendant;

The rising sign corresponds to the zodiac sign ascending above the eastern horizon at the time of your birth & containing the exact degree of your ascendant.

From a technical standpoint, the rising sign forms the foundation of your natal chart & sets the tone for it, acting as a cornerstone & subsequently dictating the house placements for all celestial bodies.

A birth chart is a comprehensive map of your entire life, encompassing more than just your personality traits — with this in mind, the rising sign (being the 1st house) holds a direct connection to you. It directly signifies you — your physical form, your identity, personality, character, and overall vitality.

I want to clarify that the ascendant being the you indicator in a chart does not imply that it encapsulates the totality of your essence. Astrology is nuanced, complex & there is no such thing as a “core” self. It’s not sun, not the moon, & not the rising either. Humans are all too complex for such oversimplifications and astrology mirrors that. Nevertheless, the rising sign remains the primary indicator you’d look at where “me” topics such personality are concerned.

It also important to note that the rising sign dictates the trajectory of transits within your natal chart, forming the basis for horoscopes and forecasts. So when reading horoscopes, go with your rising sign!

Fun fact: historically, when asked for your sign, you were expected to answer with your rising sign, a practice prevalent for millennia & until around a century ago. The shift towards sun signs was, simply put, an accident in history (thanks, Alan Leo!)

Part 2 : Mercury/Venus/Mars/Jupiter/Saturn.

Check pinned if you want to book with me!

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

Slip of the Tongue

Warning: Some smut, a little bit of drinking, some drug use, talk of sex

18+ Minors DNI

Summary: Steve has an accidental bisexual awakening in Starcourt Mall and a year later makes another discovery.

Steve was higher than he had ever been in his entire life. He wasn't sure what were in those drugs that the Russians had given him and Robin, but he really didn't care. Robin was giggling and watching the movie beside him. He wasn't sure what was going on. Was that mom trying to bang her own kid?

"I have to take a piss," Steve stood up.

"Gross," Robin giggled.

After Steve returned from the bathroom, he had a hard time finding his seat, but he managed it without help. He turned to face Robin but found himself looking at a pretty girl with long brown curly hair and big cow eyes. Her cheeks were stuffed with popcorn.

"You're not Robin," Steve said, trying to squint to see better through his swollen eye. The girl shook her head. "You're pretty, though. Wanna make out?"

The girl quickly chewed her popcorn and swallowed before nodding. Steve leaned forward and kissed her. It was the best kiss of his life. Her lips were soft, sticky with butter, and he could taste the popcorn on her tongue. They molded perfectly against his own lips. The girl slipped her hand into his hair, cupping the back of his head, and gently pulled on his hair. Steve moaned into her mouth. He slipped a hand underneath her shirt, resting his hand on her abdomen for a moment before trailing up to cup her breast. Huh. He froze. She was extremely flat chested, but she did have a nipple piercing, which he found very hot. He rubbed his thumb over it and began to play with it. The girl moaned and bit down on his lip. It was getting heated, and he could feel arousal stirring below. He moved his hand back down and slipped his hands into her pants. Oh. She wasn't flat chested. She was a he, and he had a dick that Steve was currently touching. It was the first dick that he had touched that wasn't his own, and he liked it. Holy shit. He liked it. He was about to gently massage it when he was grabbed by the back of his neck, and he had to let it go.

"Seriously, Steve! You're making out with some girl when we're supposed to be watching the movie!" Robin exclaimed. "You have to help me find the bathroom, I found it, but then I lost it again!"

"Call me!" Steve exclaimed. "I'm in the phonebook!"

Steve didn't find out who had been his bisexual awakening until a year later. Spring Break had occurred. They had defeated Vecna, and Eddie Munson had become one of his closest friends. Steve was also crushing on him pretty badly. It was embarrassing. They older teens were currently at Steve's hanging out. They had all ended up coming out to each other after a few drinks in. Robin had accidentally revealed she was a lesbian so Steve told them he was bisexual. Eddie revealed he was gay while Nancy revealed she was in like a triad with Jonathan and Arygle.

"So, Jonathan and Argyle really do everything together," Robin had giggled with Eddie. "What? I'm drunk. Like you guys aren't?"

"So, Stevie, who was your bisexual awakening or did you always know you like men?" Eddie asked, batting his eyelashes at him.

"Ooh! I know this story!" Robin exclaimed.

"We've told you about Starcourt. Well, after we got drugged, we ended up hiding in the theater, watching Back to the Future. I went to the bathroom and ended up sitting in the wrong seat next to who I thought was a girl. We ended up making out pretty heavily, and I found out she was definitely not a girl. Turns out, I really liked it. Was unable to find out who it was because Robin had pulled me away," Steve said, rolling his eyes.

Robin and Eddie were rolling on the floor laughing. Eddie managed to calm himself down before crawling over to Steve and leaning his elbows on his knees.

"So. . .did the guy have nipple piercings?" Eddie asked coyly.

"Yeah, actually. . .wait, how do you know?" Steve asked.

Eddie laughed and lifted up his shirt, flashing him. His one nipple was pierced.

"It was me, baby, all this time. . .that damn dark theater. I never knew who that man who looked like he had been mugged was, but he slipped his tongue into his mouth, and I completely forgot to ask for his name," Eddie giggled.

Steve grinned and pulled him into his lap.

"Hi, my name is Steve," he said smirking.

"Hi, Stevie, I'm Eddie," he giggled.

"It's very nice to meet you," Steve said and kissed him.

Eddie grinned against his lips, breaking the kiss.

"One of these days, we're both going to be sober when we do this," Eddie said.

"One day," Steve promised, kissing him and sticking his tongue into Eddie's mouth.

"Okay, I love you guys, happy for you, really, but. . .I DO NOT WANT TO SEE THIS!" Robin exclaimed.

"Speak for yourself, Buckley. Excellent form, dudes," Argyle said.

"I don't know, Eddie could do a little better," Jonathan said and Eddie flipped him off while continuing to kiss Steve.

"Steve definitely deserves a 9.2," Nancy giggled.

"Are we also going to commentate on how they fuck too? Because if so, shoot me," Robin groaned.

"I'll go make the scoreboards!" Argyle yelled and took off.

Steve laughed against Eddie's mouth, and soon, they were both laughing.

"We are NOT having sex in front of them," Steve said.

"Aww. . .why not? Able to fight an interdimensional wizard with his friends but unable to fuck in front of them. Got it. I love learning new things about you."

[novelcain]

Hi! You can call me anon Ara and I absolutely love the triad au lmk thing! Like lmao it's funny but terrifying at the part where the reader got kidnaps and swk just go batshit over it but still we love protective monkeys😍

Speaking of monkeys swk and Macaque are both my fav but I'm more focused on Macaque(sorry swk you will be miss/lh) man just sits in the corner while playing games and let swk do his work, I'm living for that but I got some hcs for this monkey in this au

Like everytime when Macaque saw swk with his girl getting lovey dovey he goes "ew love and affection🤮" and he hate it, at least that's what he thought until he met someone he head over heels for liek another reader! Or a person, idk up to you like working in a cafe or a bakery or something up to you and how they became friends is maybe when Macaque visit the bakery or cafe to take some foods from swk order or anything and then the reader just greets him nicely and smh they spark up a conversation and then they share the same interest(theater show, shadow play thing) and now Macaque can't stop his heart beating rapidly

(oh uh is the six eared Macaque falling in love😳)

And then he ask swk for advice and then swk goes "what wrong BUD? I thought you hate love and affection😏" and tease the hell out of him and Macaque grumbles but gets the most helpful(hopefully) advice from swk and ask the traffic light trios(MK, Mei and Red son) for advice too and regret it cuz they start teasing him too

That's all I got, I love Macaque so much ugh and I absolutely love the au, sorry for ramble too much😔

OMFG! Ara anon I love your brain you inspired such a GALAXY level big brain idea!

What if Macaque was one day sent on a mission to find the hacker that's been shutting them down and leaking plans for weeks now. He tracks this person all the way to a rival gang where he finds... a young woman... in a locked room. 

The room was just barely large enough to hold a small mattress and a desk with at least five monitors crammed into it. The girl was currently typing anyway at her keyboard at a pace that would put even him to shame. She appeared to be upset and tired based on her scowl and eyebags. 

She clearly didn't want to be here. 

"My, my. What have we here~?" 

You whipped around to find the source of the voice within the dark room but found nothing. 

"A little bird stuck in a cage~?" 

The voice was suddenly right next to you, and you snapped your head around to find none other than The Six Eared Macaque from the triad you had been forced to target. 

You gulped as you tried to keep your composure. You knew this would happen. You tried to warn them, but they wouldn't listen. Sun Wukong doesn't take kindly to people getting in his way. 

And now you were going to pay the price. 

"Are you... are you going to kill me?" You asked. 

"Hmmm..." The demon tilted his head unsettlingly slow as he seemed to think over your fate. 

You jumped back in your chair as the monkey slammed his hands down onto either arm rest. His nose was nearly touching yours now as he bared his fangs in a menacing grin. However, despite feeling like you would break down into tears at any moment, you managed to keep your nervousness from showing. 

Interesting, he thought. 

"That depends~... Did you do this of your own free will, or were you forced too? Oh, and. Don't bother lying. I can hear your sweet little heartbeat~."

[hayaomiyazaki]

happy sundayyy new adds on my googledrive ❀◡❀

the girls / flickorna (1968) dir. mai zetterling

gothic (1968) dir. ken russell

tipping the velvet (2002), complete series

international theatre amsterdam's a little life (2021), hard subs

the lesbian play (2023), off-broadway at the triad theater

[galaxysharks]

if maddox were to have a meltdown for whatever reason with the wildcats... well, what'd happen???

i can assume most of them haven't seen maddox have one, with the exception of jet bc of The Incident

Oof, Finn, my guy this one's on you

They certainly haven't. Maddox has gotten pretty good at the whole 'removing herself from the problem' thing you see. It's pretty rare these days for something to bother her long enough to set off a meltdown, cause she can always run off, right?

So really it should make sense that the first meltdown that the Wildcats see is during one of the few times she really can't run away.....

It happens during a press event for HSM4. The Wildcats are generally there supporting Gina and Mack, with a few questions thrown their ways in regards to follow up from the Frozen documentary.

It starts out quite doable, with the hardest questions being the whole relationship musical chairs situation, which is relatively easy to play off with they're all quite young and exploring their individual sexualities. Jet is remarkably personable with the press, his dry wit a big hit, Maddie jumping in every so often, but mostly hiding behind JJ and Mack. With Gina and Mack expertly directing focus, Maddox gets away without answering many questions, oddly given she's the third in the triad of heavily involved students in HSM4.

Then the reporter forevermore known only as the Soulless Bastard finds his way to the front of the line. He claims that several of his platform's followers are from the lower LA area, and have a few questions for the behind the scenes process of the film. Quinn is further up the line with Gina, discussing similar topics with the major publications and isn't able to get back to them at the moment, so Maddox of course steps forward to take over in their portion.

Except he's not asking questions about things like the set reconstruction process, or the framing of shots, no he keeps asking about Maddox. Frustrating, invasive questions that Mack keeps trying to joke around but this guy's not letting it go.

Reporter: How did such a delicate recreation tolerate a dog on set?

Mack: actually, JJ here makes me feel right at home, after all you could say my most reliable coworkers were the wonderful dogs of Mark and Spark!

Reporter: We are simply concerned for the safety of several historical HSM set pieces and props pulled from the Disney vault in the presence of such a large animal.

Maddox: ...uh.... actually Joe-Jack was not on set during the filming of High School Musical 4 *JJ licks Maddie's Hand and she pets his head*

Reporter: oh so you don't need it? Is the service vest simply a fashion statement then? Are you aware of how incredibly disrespectful it is to miss label a pet as a service animal?

Maddox: ....well no, or yes, I, I need him... he.....he helps me! *JJ starts leaning on Maddox's legs*

Mack: come on sir! Can't you see he's working! He's very busy!

Reporter: Was he assigned to control your Autism?

Maddox: my, my what? How?

Reporter: is it true that you attacked several students and destroyed multiple pieces of state property at a previous school?

Maddox: I, I need to go, I need to go, I need to go. *JJ begins actively pulling on her jacket to direct her through a clear path the reporter attempts to follow. They are stopped by a barrier blocking of this street in front of the theater*

Reporter: there are thousands of children in attendance at this event, are we expected to trust that they'll be safe with someone like you here!?

Mack: HEY! ENOUGH OF THAT!

At this point with Macks shouting, several of the wildcats have noticed that something is happening, and are wrapping up their questions as best they can, Gina and Quinn included.

Maddox's grip on the old wooden barrier behind her begins tightening, splitting the wood apart, and causing splinters to push into her hands and causing them both fall to the floor. Maddox blindly pushes through the mess of wood, through the confused crowd on the other side and down a side alley. JJ gets caught on the support of the barrier hooking through his harness's handle, pulling him away from her as he struggles to unhook himself.

Once there the excess anxiety and panic send her to the farthest corner. She can hear too many things, heartbeat, the crowd, the shouting reporters, heartbeat, kids somewhere, her own breathing, someone calling for JJ, heartbeat, those kids she hurt, Jet yelping in pain the first time she'd scratched him, everything and everywhere.

She pull off her hearing aid, throwing it away from her, not caring about where it ended up. She stumbles into an unused rope barrier, without thinking she sends the weighted cylinders careening away from her, catering to the ground.

What she doesn't see is Jet hoping over them as he tries to get closer. Quinn has stopped this portion of the event, and had all affiliated presses from that publication removed and banned from future events. Mack, Gina and Seb (Carlos's +1) have moved forward, shoving back the crowd.

Ashlyn and Kourtney are untangling JJ from the debris, before EJ comes over and just unhooks the harness all together, with JJ taking off immediately to the alley. They follow him.

When they get there, Jet is crouched by his sister, with one hand supporting his leaning against the wall, and the other pulling Maddoxs hand from under her ears. Her hands are bleeding and there are scratched lines along her neck, but it's hard to tell where the blood is from at this angle. JJ is on top of her, pressing her into the wall, the sleeve to her other hand in his jaws pulling that one away from her face too.

The frantic struggling starts to slow as Jet talks to her, directly by her ear so she can hear him.

Once she has settled, Quinn comes back with security to escort them to a different room, where she can wait out the press event and decide if they want to press charges to the reporter.

After this, it's decided that the premier is going to be watched at the apartment to avoid any more of these scenarios. Maddox does not attend any events for Romeo and Juliet.

[cerastes]

[Trails From Zero] A TRYST WITH DANGER (defining danger as theater kids)

The Mafia sucks! I hope the Triads are nicer.

...

No, the Triads suck too!

Just WHO is the culprit behind the threatening letter... And is Yin real?

Let's PUT THE CLUES together and CLOSE THIS CASE. We got some Trails From Zero going, fuckle up, detectives, these cases aren't going to solve themselves, we need the Mystery Crew SSS at full capacity!

We're live! Hop in!

[grandhotelabyss]

Thoughts on NrX? Do you agree that they basically reverse enginered marxism, but are too emberasssed to admit it do to their surface level dislike and signaling to anti-comunists?

NRx is Marxist in narrative structure but with a different protagonist: the owner rather than the worker. But since the actual protagonist of Marxism turns out to be the intellectual-bureaucrat rather than the worker, I don't see as big of an ethical difference as you might expect. NRx, too, might end up having a secret protagonist. I should quote the peroration of Reality Spammer's essay cited in my last response:

Nick Land at this point must certainly have earned the title of the most important philosopher of the past half-century. Everyone now is thinking in relation to accelerationism. In the context of the growth of acceleration, neoreaction, the dissident right, is Elon like the Stalin to Nick Land’s Marx? Elon of course almost certainly does not know who Land is. But they share the same triad of objects of zeal — a sense that the industrial process must intensify in an uninterrupted way, racism, and a joy in spreading irreverence as far as possible. Racism, this all-too-human passion as old as man, becomes the weapon to dismantle the human plane, by accelerating its internal differences until it breaks. The emergence of this pure demonic theater of simulacra where the formality of a public sphere once lingered is its shattering into entropic fragments as it splits apart, a spiral into radio static and catatonic schizophrenia.

On this account, NRx uses race the way Marxism uses class: to start "a war inside society" (per Boris Groys) that they hope to win. I'm not entirely sure this is how it's going to work, though, even as NRx seems more and more poised to get its way with the rise of a figure like Milei and the potential or even likely return of Trump amid the atmosphere of Elon's X. Is the left really so terminally depressed, so self-immolationist, that it now understands "irreverence" and "racism" as inextricably synonymous? Did Bakhtin laugh in vain?

The peroration of Land's own epochal "Dark Enlightenment" manifesto derives its indeed right-Marxist vision of our immanent self-transcendence via self-conscious speciation from a series of novels by Octavia Butler that I admittedly haven't read. (I browsed through them. I like Butler—Kindred and "Bloodchild" in particular, and I did find those two texts sort of reactionary—but the Xenogenesis books Land cites seemed a little pulpier than I wanted to deal with. I suspect such subject matter might require a prose style akin to Bradbury's, Delany's, or Ballard's, more visionary and iridescent. Dick and Herbert, whom I also admire among science fictionists, have the same plain-prose problem.)[*]

Is the famously racist NRx then an Afrofuturism, given that I claimed 10 years ago that it was also a queer theory? (Consider also the gender accelerationist blackpaper, which renders NRx a trans theory.) Why assume that dismantling the "human plane" must lead by logic to racism? Maybe it will lead to the disarticulation of race, as surely as it's led to the disarticulation of gender. (When I was in grad school, everybody blamed humanism for creating racism!)

This isn't an endorsement of NRx, and I don't dispute the personal racism of some of the people involved, but I'm not persuaded by the equation between tech accelerationism and white supremacism. There's as much reason to think it could go the other way. Here the specifically racist libertarians mirror the Afropessimists as well as the Marxists. But it's not necessarily how the resolutely optimistic Frederick Douglass, for example, would have thought about it when he saw technological development as part and parcel of individual equality: the camera disclosing the soul in every skin.

(I know my critics think I am too cavalier on the subject of race. I just think it's going to disappear. I don't think it stands a chance. Reality Spammer says, "There is a sense in which 'everyone is racist' is simply an analytic a priori." And there's a sense in which it's not. NRx's biological racism won't work, not only because race is a construct, but because biology is too. Science waits upon art and magic; leave Steve Sailer to his golf course. From Melville's repeated image of the oceangoing vessel as Anacharsis Cloots delegation of universal humanity to Morrison's concluding vision of the Black Madonna onshore awaiting such ships of holy fools to dock in Paradise, this is an American prophecy.)

Reality Spammer is right, I suppose, about the vulgarity of Ye, Elon, etc., but, leaving aside the eloquence of the vulgar (as if "beautiful big titty butt-naked women" played no role at the root of the human imagination), there is a world elsewhere, even in right-wing world. The queer-femme wing of the new right is reading Gone with the Wind, sure—I've never read it myself—but they're also promoting Pamela, the first novel to sentimentalize, aestheticize, and universalize bourgeois hegemony, and so the secular type and pattern of all future individual liberation narratives, not excluding Douglass's. This is something like what I had in mind 10 years ago when I said we'd know if there was anything to neoreaction if it went from black to pink, aesthetically speaking, from Gothic to sentimental, from Lovecraft to Joyce. Another recent favorite of this group, Poor Things, a socialist novel written by a Scottish nationalist, was converted for the atopic-utopic purposes of global cinema into a post-woke porno-libertarian fable. It ends in the multiracial queer paradise of a walled garden, secured in part with the earnings of sex work to refuel the professionalization of a new cadre of techno-experts symbolized by Bella's journey from one type of working girl to another.

The "human" is not a self-evident category, even if I'd prefer to travel under its banner myself. The neoreactionaries, like their soixante-huitard precursors, were only anti-humanists insofar as the human was a Hegelian synonym for the state (and antonym therefore both of the individual and of empire, a word Blake, Shelley, and Whitman used without negative connotation to signify a post-national world-polity). What the human might become in an age of accelerated techno-capital is unclear—if such acceleration even works; if we don't regress all the way back to the forest, the desert, and the cave in the conflagration of the rules-based international order, victims at last of Enlightenment's dialectic—but why should we forfeit our species's name at the very hour of the potential triumph of our species-being as the aesthetic angel-animal who is both subject and object of its own thought? As the first review of my latest novel tells us, "the 21st century isn’t likely to become any less weird."

"There are no sides," the defeated white witch admonishes her successor of imperial realpolitik at the end of Dune Part Two. (How's that for a reversal of the moralistic speech concluding The Two Towers? Herbert's Cold War realism portends no less of a Republican victory than did the reanimation of Tolkien's World War II moralism two decades ago, but how different are today's Republicans?) I am personally ready for anything. Or at least I'm trying to put on a brave face. I have read Arendt and Adorno, not to mention Ruskin and Thoreau, and have every single fear about these developments everybody else does. Still, NRx might turn out to be a humanism after all, and therefore neither especially new nor meaningfully reactionary.

We see, now, events forced on which seem to retard or retrograde the civility of ages. But the world-spirit is a good swimmer, and storms and waves cannot drown him. He snaps his finger at laws: and so, throughout history, heaven seems to affect low and poor means. Through the years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams.

____________________

[*] In Land's Compact articles on the English canon, he was so magnanimous as to promote Butler, alongside some nameless "Jews and Scots," into a DEI English "para-canon." Seeking to establish the paradox of a people-who-are-not-a-people, the maritime liberalism-imperialism of an "out-breeder culture," he identifies the central revolutionary dialectic within English literature, which can be described ethnically as Anglo vs. Norman, politically as left vs. right, religiously as Nonconformist vs. Anglo-Catholic, or aesthetically as Romantic vs. Classical, with the latter side relegated always to the role of ineffectual (indeed sabotaged) brake on history's runaway train. As I hinted in my most recent Invisible College lecture, you can use even Jane Austen to stage a global revolution. To this revolution are we "Jews and Scots" summoned, those of us who have spiritually interbred with this literature which was not the literature of our forefathers—my forefathers had no literature, you see, and so I had no choice—whether we are the Pole Conrad, the Dutch-American Melville, the African-American Butler, or the Italian-American Pistelli.

[filmfandojo]

Five reasons to love Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In

Last weekend I had the pleasure to watch Soi Cheang’s triad/kung fu/drama Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In in the theater courtesy of Well Go USA. Anyone who reads this blog (yeah all 5 of you) know I am a huge fan of old school kung fu movies. I also am a fan of the mid 80s to moid 90s HK action movies: gun with girls genre, heroic bloodshed, and the crazy over the top HK action style. Here…

[appropriatelystupid]

Tag game

Tagged by both @casualkoalatea and @fazedlight

Three ships: Supercorp is holding strong at the top. tbh not much else appeals in a beyond canon sorta way lately but the helen/achilles/patroclus triad in the dark olympus series is still rattling around up there. also caskett for old times sake

First ship ever: Bones and Booth forever and ever (maybe not first first but definitely the first that brought me into fandom world)

Last song: first date (acoustic) by taylor acorn (was my friends first dance song and was in a video i just watched that was made for her from the night)

Last movie: in theaters, Barbie. i think i’ve rewatched Eternals since then tho tbh

Currently reading: Storm of Olympus by Claire Andrews is the current still since i didn’t get very far yesterday

Currently playing: various games i have on my phone. i can’t remember the last thing i played on my switch was

Currently watching: other than the 5 minutes of kmcg in the continental. always below deck

Currently consuming: glazed donut holes

Currently craving: pesto. abc: always be craving: pesto

People I’d like to know better: for the sake of the intentions of the game i’ll put a few but really if you wanna play consider this me tagging you too (and obvi no pressure to anyone i do tag) @rocketonthemoon @ekingston @fyonahmacnally @jazzfordshire @contagiousiridescence @beefcake-penguin @fabulousglitch

[bisexual-horror-fan]

Tentatively Tending To Trauma. Poly!Camping Boys X FEM! AFAB! Reader. Chapter One: "Best Summer Ever?"

Oh my God! So! I know! Already?! First chapter of the new baby, the new long fic! Tentatively Tending To Trauma! This is going to be not only the first but THE poly!Camping Boys long fic, seriously, watch out! This is going to be the building of a triad from the ground up. All my other polyam fics have an established relationship that the reader comes into, but this one is the first to have everyone coming into this fresh and new. This will have fun, fluff, angst, hurt, comfort and yes, cuz it is me, smut. Buckle up and lets get into it! The best summer ever!

—

Rating. SFW. Length. 4K. Eventual Sam Wescott/Buddy Swanson X FEM! AFAB! Reader. She/Her Pronouns. Warnings: Movie Spoilers. Set After Stage Fright AND You Might Be The Killer. Nothing Heavy This Chapter. Road Trip. Setting The Table. Camping Fun Incoming. Light Drinking. Some Teasing. Buddy Already Ripping On Theater Kids. Shout Out To Steve The Kayak King. 

—

A lot of people say that New Years is the best time for a fresh start, one year ends, another begins and the slate is wiped clean. You used to be one of those people who thought that too but after one too many rocky January’s you cannot abide by that any longer. The first half of this year had been complete bullshit and you were over it, so, so over it. Why does January first have to be the one time of year things can change and start over? Why can’t you tie it to something else? March to the beat of your own drum?

You needed a change, desperately and you can’t wait till another Christmas has come and gone. You think why can’t the change of seasons signify great change in your own life? Summer was around the corner and why not use this to try and course correct your year? To fix everything wrong thus far and launch the remainder of the current three hundred and sixty five days into a better place? 

This is what you need. After some heavy examination you think back to when the best times in your life were, tried and true things you could cling to, what could be reintroduced into your life to help you heal? One thing stands head and shoulders above the rest. Summer camp.

You have had a lot of shitty and outright bad things in your life but summer camp? Getting away from it all, being around people who you didn’t see in the typical day to day, outdoors in the fresh air, ample physical activity, you think it might be just right. You had some of the best times of your life at camp but now you were an adult, why not give back? You could do your best to give kids like you once were a good summer, revisit some of your old good times and forage new ones. A new setting to sink into this change was perfect. You go on the hunt, hoping not every summer camp in the area has been filled up.

All the positions at the closest ones had been snapped up, lots of returning people, so no slots free for you but you didn’t give up so easily, you ended up finding a want ad for a camp hours and hours away from your town and that was even better honestly. 

A full break away to forget your troubles and put your time and energy into healing. You applied, breezed through the phone interview process and so you quit your current job and packed your car and headed off for just shy of three months of working at Camp Clear Vista in Louisiana. You arrived right when you were supposed to but still were one of the first people to get here, you got out of your car, the last stop was over an hour ago and your legs needed a good stretch.

You are reaching high above your head, trying to relieve the tenseness of your back muscles, enjoying the sun on your face and the fresh air when you hear the call of, “Hey!”

Your eyes peek back open and you look over to see a tall guy coming towards you, he was in olive green cargo pants, a blue t-shirt and a flannel thrown over top, hand raised in a wave and a smile on his face that made his nose scrunch in a rather endearing fashion. Your arms come down and you turn to face him, a wave back with a reply of, “Hello!”

He was soon right in front of you, his hand out, “I’m Sam Wescott, I run the camp.” There was a shift in expression, a slight cock of the head with a nervous laugh, “Well, I’m sure you know that-”

You take his hand and shake it, “Yeah we spoke on the phone, I’m-” And you gave him your name. You got a better look at him up close like this and realised the blue shirt was a Camp Clear Vista shirt, a small yellow design on the upper right part of his chest proclaiming the name, curved in a half circle underneath a classic looking illustration of a cartoonish flap tent. The shirt screamed nostalgia in a way that is an undeniable comfort. He had a firm handshake, strong hands and honestly, he was pretty cute.

His smile brightened considerably and he said, “Oh yes! I was impressed by your references. I am so excited you were able to come, our usual guy who handles the kayaks couldn’t come back this year.”

You raised a brow at that, particularly at the slight sadness at the mention of whoever this other guy was who was unable to return here. Also kayaks? You deal in canoes but you think maybe he misspoke so you brush it off and say, “Oh sorry he couldn’t but his loss is my gain I guess!”

You let go of his hand and he responded, “Yeah I tried calling but couldn’t reach him, I think he just took a different camp offer this year but no point in dwelling on all that. I hope you enjoy your summer here.”

Taking a quick look around, trees and lush greenery and some of the outskirts of the camp, you already felt lighter. “I think I am going to have a fantastic time.” 

He looked pleased as punch to hear that. “Amazing! Well everyone else is still arriving but once they are here I am gonna take some time to show you around the boathouse and walk you through what’s expected, alright?”

“Sounds good.” You responded honestly with a nod and he gave you a low thumbs up as another car started coming into the parking lot, “Awesome, I’ll see you soon.” 

You watch him jog off towards the car that just arrived to go greet whoever else. 

Later on you were turning in your phone at Sam’s prompting, connecting with nature and all that and he was handing over own camp counselor shirt. You take it with one hand and a smile while giving him your phone with the other. “No fighting about the phone thing? I think I like you already.”

“Hey the whole point is to get away from it all anyway, right?” You ask and he says, “Yes! Exactly! Thank you.” 

You really liked how he said things, this excitable energy that you think is infectious is permeating his body language and the words themselves and you find yourself wishing to match him. Before breaking away to let the next person in line go you say, “And just so you know I think I like you already too.”

He seemed pleased by that too and you left him to continue collecting phones and passing out shirts. You end up talking to a few other people, learning no one else has seemed to work here at this camp before, but most have camp counselling experience. 

Everyone is going to be assigned to a cabin and put in charge of a group of kids. The kids in question will be staying at camp in a rotation of about a month at a time, so you will have around three batches by the time summer is done. You were talking to two other girls, Mia who was going to be doing arts and crafts and Laurie who was into woodworking, both seemed just as hyped up for the summer as you were. 

You get lost in the conversation of where you are from, and what you are most looking forward to and soon Sam comes up to you, a tap on the shoulder, “Are you good for us to go check out the boathouse?”

“Yes! Absolutely.” You agree, a quick wave and goodbye to the girls and follow his lead. This is your first chance to really see the camp, he points out different parts and landmarks, “So there is the pool, the changing rooms, the main bathrooms with the showers are past that and over there, is where the kitchen and mess hall is.” 

“Oh yeah I had meant to ask about that, what is the food situation?” You asked and he said, “Meals are provided naturally, we have this guy who is going to be taking on the lead cook role with other people subbing in to be assistants as needed, Jason the lifeguard is kinda acting as a secondary cook whenever he isn’t needed and when he IS busy other people can give a hand.”

Before you could respond he tacks on, “Only if they want to of course! If you are up for it, some people are no good in the kitchen I know and can totally opt out and step up in other ways.”

“I don’t have that much serious cooking experience but if push comes to shove I can as you put it, step up.” You say honestly and he says, “Really? Thank you! This guy is supposed to be really good, he has years of experience being lead cook at a different camp so I am sure he can help guide you with whatever he needs when he needs it.”

Sounded fine to you honestly. You liked that the work was going to be shared evenly, you were going to learn some new things and gain some new skills this summer it seemed. You tell him it sounded good and that put you more at ease and then he said, “Once I walk you through this you can do whatever you want with the rest of the day, it’s already getting later in the afternoon and I like to use the first day to let people settle in.”

He tells you that you’ll get your cabin assignment shortly, can move your stuff in and then soon it’ll be dinner time, after dark there is going to be a campfire, drinks, stories and whatnot, a team building thing for everyone to get to know each other and it sounded like a fun time. 

You’d arrived at the boathouse quickly, he pulls out his keys and unlocks the door, he then takes a duplicate key out and presses it into your palm, “This is the secondary key, I’m the only other person who has a copy, it’s for safety reasons, you know for-”

“The kids.” You finish with a nod and he says, “Right.” 

He walked you around, there was a lot of equipment, a good set up, the boats outside on the racks looked a little worse for wear, you’d need to do some work on them to get them, no pun intended, ship shape and told him as such. You would need to do some cleaning, general prep, minor repairs and maintenance, nothing you couldn’t handle or didn’t have experience in. You have three days after today before the kids arrive to get it ready, more than enough time honestly. You told him you could handle it confidently and if you wrapped up early enough you could help out other places.

“Really?! That’s great, I knew I made the right choice picking you.” He did seem rather happy and you asked, “Yeah, so the old guy couldn’t come back?”

“Oh yeah, sadly no he couldn’t. I couldn’t get a hold of him. I’m gonna miss him this year honestly.” He said earnestly and you asked, “Oh really? Was he really good at this job?”

“He was! He was so good we all called him Steve The Kayak King. He knew his shit, was amazing with the kids. But more than that we are good friends, kinda best summer camp friends. It will feel a little strange without him is all.” 

”Awe I’m sorry to hear.” You were and you offered up, “I am sure we will still have a good summer and a lot of fun.” 

He brightened slightly, a nod and he said, “Oh totally we will.” 

“But I am glad this worked out. A bunch of places near my hometown were already full up.”

“Oh really? You live far away?” He asked and you said, “A few hours. I drove about four and a half, five hours to get here.” 

“That far?” A small drop of his jaw, “You came that far to work here?” 

You shrug and say, “What can I say? I have a feeling it is an opportunity I would regret passing up.” He seemed not only impressed by that but touched too. “I can only hope that the experience lives up to expectation.”

You had a funny feeling that it will. 

“I hate to run again but I am so busy making sure everyone knows what they need to do and is all set up, so I gotta go.” You tell him, “I totally understand, go on.” 

You wave him off and off he goes at a light jog once more. You watch him go, your mind lingering on your conversation about Steve, the supposed Kayak King. There was something about it, how he spoke, the emotion in his eyes, Sam reads as genuine, hardworking, honest and sweet. You’ve decided right there, you totally did like him.

You make sure the boathouse is locked and you decide you need to get your stuff out of the car. It is almost three hours later, your car is unpacked, you've made it to your assigned cabin, number three, and claimed your bed, proceeding to unpack most of your belongings. 

In the groove of folding and organising your clothes in the trunk that is at the end of your bed you are pulled out of it by a knock at the door alerting you it’s time for dinner. Your cabin isn’t that far from the mess hall but the walk is a welcome one, you enjoy the warm evening air and soon are seated with a tray laden with food at a table full of your fellow counselors. Before you can settle into seating there were three sharp claps that quiet the conversation. 

There was a call to pay attention and your eyes are drawn up to the front of the mess hall, there stands Sam Wescott but he is not alone, with a warm smile and a gesture to the person standing with him is paired with a thank you for making the dinner you are about to enjoy with everyone else. That is the first time you lay eyes on Camp Clear Vista’s new cook, clad in jeans with his hands tucked in the pockets, and his own camp branded t-shirt, over six feet tall, blue eyes and a mop of brown hair. He has a smile that only reads as mildly uncomfortable because of how many people were looking at him, but overall relatively at ease, you learn his name is Buddy Swanson. He gives a hello with a casual wave after Sam introduces him.

“It looks great, thank you so much for making this.” Sam said sincerely with a hand on Buddy’s shoulder, he shrugs and says, “No problem man, s’ my job.” 

“Still. Thank you, now uh, let’s all dig in, yeah?” And with that you all do so. Sam sits at a different table and you once again find yourself talking to everyone at your table. Mia and Laurie are near you, as well as Raymond, who was another life guard and Martin who was going to be a coach and general and activities coordinator. You were next to Martin who was telling you about how he was excited and had plans for an expedited baseball season between cabins as well as some full sports filled days that sounded like they could be a really great time. 

The conversation and food was really good. Once it is all done, you are led outside to where the main fire pit is, getting into what Sam told you would happen earlier, drinks, stories and more.

You flit about, talk to some people and after your first drink and the initial round of stories are done you are between talking, a break in conversations and you notice something, Buddy is here and he is sitting more by himself. You glance around and see Sam is busy, you figure, why not. You get up and come over, drink in hand and you say, “Hey, Buddy, right?” 

He looks up and says, “That’s me.” You tell him, “Great dinner.” 

A slight upward quirk of his lips, “Thanks.” You hold out your hand and give him your name. He took your hand, gave it a quick shake and said, “So did I look that lonely?”

You laughed, not expecting the quick joke and said, “I have to admit you did look kinda forlorn.” 

“Ouch.” He said before he brought his cup up and took a sip, you gestured next to him, “Mind if I sit?” 

“Yeah sure, you gonna be nicer to me?” You take the spot to the left of him and teased, “Maybe.” 

“Only maybe?” He asked and you shrugged before asking, “So why are you over here alone and not-” A gesture of your hand still cradling your drink, “-over with the herd, getting to know people, making merry?”

“Honestly?” He asked, a sideways glance to you and you affirm, “Honestly.”

“Parties aren’t really my thing, but Sam insisted I come along, said it would be good for me to get to know who I’d be working with for the next three months.” He took another drink, as did you, “I think he is right, part of this is to make new friends and connections. You against that?”

“I don’t connect with people easily.” 

Your eyebrows raise and you say, “Why is that?”

His response comes quickly, “Lots of reasons.” You feel a smile creeping up on your face, “Aren’t you mysterious?” 

“It’s a great trick to get people to have better opinions of me without them actually having to get to know me.” He felt a smile slipping onto his face too. “Really?”

“Yeah people usually say it as a good or a neutral thing. Isn’t he mysterious?” He said the last three words with a wave of the hand not clutching his drink, the flare and emphasis making you laugh as well as driving his point home. “Doesn’t it make people want to get to know you?”

“Not as often as you’d think.”

“Fair enough. So! How far away are you coming from?” You asked before saying, “I’m about five hours away.”

“Oh I got you beat.” He said confidently, “Yeah? How far?” 

“Canada far.” He said easily and it was time for your jaw to drop, “Shut up? Another country?”

“Well I didn’t come from there just for this. Been kinda on the road for a while, job hopping since my last summer camp job.” He said more quietly and you asked, “What was your last camp job?”

He looked like he was thinking over how to respond and you asked, “What? You don’t remember or something?”

“No, no I do I just…” He takes a drink, a hearty one, finishes his cup, a harsh inhale and a shake of his head and as if gaining some bravery from that he divulges “It was a theatre camp.”

A loud laugh and asked, “Holy shit, was it that traumatic?”

“You have no idea.” He sighed and you said, “Why’s that? You don’t like theatre?”

“God no! I hate it!” He exclaimed, his head tipping back, eyes up to the starry sky and you finished your own drink, “How about we get another beer and you can tell me all about why it sucks?”

That is just what ended up happening. You and he broke off, refreshed icy cans in hand, you wander the camp ground and he proceeds to vent about his distaste for all things theatrical, which was funny considering the theartics and drama he threw into the act of expounding his displeasure. He was the lead cook for years at his last camp and told you about the bullshit and stress he had to face, how annoying and picky the theatre kids were and even further about the times he was forcibly dragged into their activities and made to see the camp's shows. 

“A musical reimagining of the vagina monologues?” You asked, aghast and he groaned, one of his hands running through his curls, “A musical fucking reimagining of the vagina monologues. Have you ever been forced to sit through an annoying pitchy theatre kid belting out to the back row about the first time she genuinely moaned in a gas station on a road trip after not being able to pee for hours?! It is awful. Totally fucking traumatizing.” 

“I’d lose my dinner.” You told him and he laughed, “I almost did!” 

You were surprised by how fast you were clicking with him, the conversation was flowing well and you decided that yeah, you really liked him, just like you had decided earlier that you really liked Sam. The conversation calmed from its original topic, you telling him, “I’ve never worked at a camp before formally, I’ve been to a lot of summer camps though and I thought it’d be nice to give back, you know?”

He liked that. “Makes sense. And what are you going to do here?” He asked and you told him, “Canoes. I am in charge of the canoes.” 

“Never been in one honestly. You’ll have to take me for a ride sometime.” 

You think you will take him up on that. “I’d love to.”

The walk had taken you almost around the whole camp, between your drive and all the excitement you were tired and told Buddy as such, “Let me make sure you get back to your cabin okay.”

He walks you back and on the way you tell him, “I think you’re pretty cool Buddy. I’m looking forward to working together.” 

“I am too, I’m starting to think taking this job was the right call, I’m excited for a good experience working at a camp.” He said with a sigh and you said, “I am sure the kids here will be significantly less annoying than your average theatre kid.”

“I am sure there will be a lot less complaining about food with cheese in it as well as random breaking into song and I’ll happily take that.” Buddy said clinking his can against yours and you say, “Cheers, I’ll drink to that.” 

You and he both finish the last dregs of your drinks as you come upon your cabin. “This is me.”

“Number three, eh? I’ll keep that in mind.” He says and you respond, “Sure, swing by anytime.”

He nods starts to step away telling you, “Have a good night.”

You tell him, “You too and hey. Buddy?”

“Yeah?” He stopped, a look over his shoulder to you, “I'm glad I am your first friend at camp but don’t let me be your only one. Okay?”

He looks a bit surprised by what you said but tells you, brows furrowed slightly with a small nod and a confused smile, “Sure. Okay.”

“Promise?” You asked with a grin and he laughed, smile broadens and his eyes while still slightly confused are warm, lighter, “Okay, okay, fuck, I promise I won’t be antisocial this summer.” 

“Good! Apologise to Sam for me turning in early.” You ask and he says with a wave “Can do. Night.”

“Night.” You call and then retreat into your cabin. Buddy walked off, heading back towards where the main campfire was and thinking about how strange it was that you got under his skin so quickly, he was already making promises to you? It was strange but also, nice, a good change of pace. He hasn’t gotten even remotely close to another person in around a year, it is probably time he did. He couldn't be alone forever, it wasn’t feasible or realistic. 

Everyone needs a friend. 

You were getting ready for bed, feeling tired but happy, you had one thought in your head when you were drifting off to sleep, a small but hopeful one of, “Could this be my new best summer ever?”