#added some new stuff as prints to my shop too including this boy so check that out if you like

[isbergillustration]

He means it, man

[townofcrosshollow]

Twine Sugarcube 101

AKA, all you need to make a Twine game (I swear to god)

I’ve seen a lot of people go “Twine is too complicated for me :(” and give up before they’ve even started. And that makes me sad, partly because they’re giving up on a really cool hobby, and also because that’s false! It’s absolutely not too complicated for you!

I think the problem is that people look up Twine, see the documentation, and go “There’s way too much there! I can’t learn all that!” Well guess what- you shouldn’t learn all that, at least not yet. As a beginner you can skip pretty much all of this:

(Ignore <<linkappend>> too, forgot to crop that one out)

That’s a lot more manageable, right? Below the cut, I’ll let you know how to use all those remaining important things to make your story! Warning- it’s quite long! You might want to read it in sections! And while I’ll try to keep it entertaining, it’s also a coding tutorial, so... y’know. Might not be the most exciting read if you aren’t trying to learn Twine.

Welcome to below the cut!

First off, make sure your story format is set to Sugarcube 2. On the right side of the home screen (with all your stories), click format and choose the one labeled “Sugarcube 2.x.x” then open a new story with the green button! Here’s what you’ll see and what it all means:

Passages are all like individual web pages that you navigate between to play the game. When they’re linked together they’ll be shown like this:

Anything you write in a passage will just be shown on screen as plain text, no code required! But if you want to make anything more than just one passage with a bunch of text, you’ll have to link passages together with...

Links!

A link is composed of two parts- the text you see on screen, and the name of the passage you’re attaching it to. These are enclosed in [[double square brackets]], with a vertical bar | or a little arrow -> between them. If you want to show the passage name instead of alternative text, you can just put the passage name in square brackets alone! So this in the editor:

[[Visible text|Passage name]]

[[Visible text->Passage name]]

[[Passage name]]

Will look like this in the story:

Visible text

Visible text

Passage name

And all of them will lead to the passage labeled “Passage name.” You don’t even need to create the passage- when Twine sees that you’ve linked to a passage that doesn’t exist, it’ll add that passage for you.

That’s all you need to know! Technically, all you need to do to make a Twine story is add those fancy links between passages. If you add your awesome writing skills, that story will be super cool!

...but you want to do some fancy shit, right? Well let me introduce you to the next step up in complexity,

Variables!

“Variable” is a fun, code-y way to say “a bit of information that can change.” You could say they... vary.

Variables are useful for keeping track of information. If the player chooses to be blonde instead of a redhead, you might want to bring that up again- but you probably don’t want to write an entirely separate story based on that choice, right? So instead you save that information as a variable.

In Twine, variables are written as words with a $ in front of them. So my hair colour variable might be “$hairColour.” If you just write the variable out without any code, Twine will print the information you put into the variable. So if $hairColour is set to “blonde,” this...

She had $hairColour hair.

Will become...

She had blonde hair.

The value in a variable can be a boolean (ie. true or false), a number, or a string (like “blonde” or “any other string of characters”). They can also be fancy stuff like arrays, but we won’t be touching on that.

You can use variables to keep track of a lot of things! For instance...

How much money the player has

Whether a player has a key

What the player’s name is

I keep mentioning the value of a variable or “setting” it, but how do you do that? Well, one way is to add it to a link. If you want a link to set hair colour to blonde, for instance, you could write [[Blonde|Next passage][$hairColour to “blonde”]]. Clicking on that link would forward the player to “Next passage” and set the value of $hairColour to “blonde.”

There is a better way of doing it, however, but we’ll need to talk about...

Macros!

A macro is a snippet of code that runs when you put a special code word inside these <<spiky boys>>. You can write your own macros with JavaScript if you’re smart, find them on the internet if you’re even more smart, or just use the ones that come built in with Sugarcube.

The ones we’ll be talking about, and the ones that are the most important for most Twine games, are <<set>>, <<if>>, and <<link>>.

<<set>>

The <<set>> macro allows you to, you guessed it, assign a value to a variable. For instance, if you want to set $hairColour to blonde... well, that’s all you need to do! It’s just:

<<set $hairColour to “blonde”>>

It’s important to remember with the <<set>> macro that strings (collections of different characters) require quotation marks around them to show the code that it isn’t a number or a true/false value. If you put quotes around a number and try to do math with that variable, you’ll get a big ol’ error message.

If you’re using numbers, you can also use JavaScript operators in place of “to.” Each one will perform a calculation on the variable if that variable is a number, and then replace the variable with the result. If you want to add $5 to the player’s $money, you could use this:

<<set $money += 5>>

The “+=“ will add the number on the right to the variable on the left. “-=“ will do the same for subtraction, “*=“ for multiplication, and “/=“ for division. Easy enough, just don’t forget the = sign after the usual symbol!

By default, the <<set>> macro will be executed as soon as the page it’s on loads. Sometimes that’s useful, but sometimes you would rather the player click a link that sets a variable- like if they choose a hair colour. You might also want the same link to set multiple variables, like subtracting money and giving them an item when they use a shop. How do we do that?

<<link>>

The <<link>> macro is also pretty simple. All it does is create a link, and when that link it pressed it executes whatever is inside of it. Here we’ll be using it with <<set>>, but you can use it with all kinds of different macros and even nest some of them to do really complicated stuff!

As an example, we want the player to click “buy key,” give the player the key, and subtract $5 from their money. Here’s how we do it:

<<link “Buy key”>>

<<set $key to true>>

<<set $money -= 5>>

<</link>>

The text the player will click is in quotation marks, and after all of the macros we need to execute we have to close off the code by adding <</link>>. Easy, right?

But other than printing them on the screen, what can you actually use those variables for? Well, for that we’ll be using...

<<if>>

The <<if>> macro is my favourite, hands down, because it’s an easy way of accomplishing hard stuff. Simply put, <<if>> will check if the thing you asked about is true, and if it is, it will do whatever you put inside of it.

Here’s a simple example:

<<if $key is true>>

[[Use the key|Progress]]

<</if>>

Whatever is inside the <<if>> macro will be executed if the “if” statement is true. In this case, the link “Use the key” will be printed on the screen only if the player has the key. This also applies to code- if you put a <<set>> macro inside, that macro would only set a variable if the player has the key.

Now here’s a more complicated example, to show everything the <<if>> macro is capable of. Here we also want to check if they’ve already opened the door, and display alternate text if they have no key and the door is locked.

<<if $key is true>>

[[Use the key|Progress]]

<<elseif $doorOpen is true>>

[[Walk through|Progress]]

<<else>>

You need to find a key.

<</if>>

I’ll break it down line by line to tell you what each thing does.

<<if $key is true>>

This line is the only necessary one- it checks whether $key has been set to true. You can check for any value that a variable can be, like a number, true/false, or a string. You can also check for other things with this macro- for instance, “isnot” will check that the variable isn’t equal to the value on the right. “gt” or “lt” will check if the variable is greater/lesser than the value on the right, and “gte” or “lte” will check if it is greater than or equal to the value.

<<elseif $doorOpen is true>>

This line allows us to check for something else within the same <<if>> macro. Once the game has checked the original <<if>> and found that it is false, it will move on to checking each <<elseif>> until it finds one that is true. You can have as many <<elseif>>s as you need, and they can check the same variable or different variables, but only the first true one will be executed! And, of course, you can’t use <<elseif>> on its own- it’s stuck to the <<if>> macro!

<<else>>

This line is the last resort- if the original <<if>> and any <<elseif>>s have all been false, the game will execute whatever is after <<else>>. Because of this, there can only be one <<else>> line within any <<if>> macro! If you don’t have an <<else>>, nothing at all will be executed, so whether you include one depends on the situation.

<</if>>

This closes off the <<if>> macro. Nothing special, but very important! Put it after the last piece of code or bit of text you want the macro to control.

Phew. That’s it! That’s all I wanted to show you!

Now, HOMEWORK!

Okay, not homework, just practice. Here are some things you can try building to practice all these tools and get comfortable with how they work!

A store system with different items for different amounts of money

A character creation screen, followed by a description of your character (with variables!)

A puzzle that requires you to choose the right answer to proceed

If you have any trouble, need to ask any questions, or if something in this tutorial wasn’t clear to you, please let me know- you can DM me or send me an ask anytime and I’m happy to answer any Twine questions you have. I hope this was of use to you, and have fun making games <3

[monstersandmaw]

Male lizardfolk x female reader (nsfw) *Commission*

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

A commission for @ivymemnoch, featuring a nerdy lizardfolk boy (colouring/design based on a European green lizard) and a tall reader. This is the first of my five commissions to be completed and posted on here, and since it’s a paid commission, it doesn’t get early release on Patreon. Enjoy!

8144 words, no warnings, only fluff, some geekery, and some nsfw at the end. I will add though that I discovered that snakes aren’t the only reptiles to have two penises... lizards do too.

---

After a draining, all-day session in the recording studio, the last thing you wanted was to step out of the soundproofed booth and hear the relentless thrumming of raindrops on the windows.

The producer called over to you, briefly drawing your attention away from the foul weather, and grinned. “That was great! You really nailed her character. I think we can press on with the next section on Monday.” The sphinx smiled at you and stretched slightly before adding, “You have a good weekend now. Rest that voice of yours!”

You smiled and turned to look out of the nearest window with a grimace sliding onto your face. “Ugh. What a day to leave my umbrella behind,” you muttered. “Anyway, see you.”

Lingering just a moment more in the doorway of the recording studio, you eyed the rain and then - resigned to smelling like a wet werewolf - made a dash for it. Three seconds after you’d left the building, it doubled in strength and began to thrash down. Up ahead, still illuminated despite the fact that it was after five o’clock, was a shop you’d often thought about going in, but had never made time to venture inside. With an indignant squawk as the universe nudged you not-so-gently towards the comic book store by dripping water down your collar, you hurtled across the empty street, splashing through rapidly-forming puddles, and shot inside, soaked.

Standing on the mat for a moment, you shivered and gazed around at the room beyond. The walls were lined with bookshelves containing relatively ordinary looking books, and in the centre of the room was a lower stand displaying comics. On the top of this shelf, however, was a small army of figurines from a plethora of games and movies, and as you spotted a favourite of yours, you grinned. This place was nerd nirvana.

At the back of the room, surrounded as if in a shrine by a small alcove dedicated to arts and crafts and prop-making supplies for tabletop games, was the counter and cash register. The figure sitting behind it had looked up as you burst into his slice of peaceful heaven and the movement of his colourful head drew your eye over to him. Tall, slim but clearly muscular, with lime green skin speckled with gold and a wash of vibrant blue across his throat and up his cheeks towards friendly, golden eyes, the lizardfolk looking at you in mild surprise was frankly gorgeous.

You blinked stupidly for a second and then blurted, “I promise not to drip on any of the books.”

He grinned, a wide, warm smile that showed a row of pointed white teeth. “Appreciate it,” he said. His amber, unblinking gaze shifted to the rain and he said, “Gods, it’s really throwing it down out there.”

“Yup. I didn’t make it more than a hundred yards from work before bolting for cover. Nice place to duck into though,” you added, eyeing the figurines and graphic novels around you.

“You work near here?” he asked, setting down the tiny model he’d been painting. His clawed fingers were surprisingly slender and delicate.

You nodded. “Currently, at least. I’m a voice actor. The recording studio is just round the corner.”

“Sweet!” he exclaimed. “You voiced any characters I might know?”

You shrugged. “Maybe? I mean, Eliana from Ice Dragon Chronicles is probably the one I’m most known for? Mostly it’s just small parts for all sorts of things though. She was a rare break…”

“No way!” he breathed, “That’s awesome! Oh wow…” and he practically giggled with delight. His blue throat flushed a darker, more vibrant colour too. “That’s so cool. I’m sorry - you probably just wanted to browse in peace, or even just stay out of the rain. I’m sorry.”

Laughing softly, you said, “You know what? I’ve always wanted to check this place out, but I don’t really know where I’d start… I’ve read a few Manga, but I’d like to try a graphic novel…”

He stood, revealing just how tall he was. You were pretty tall yourself, for a human, but he stood easily a head higher than you. He blinked slowly and grinned, twitching his head towards the shelves along the walls. “Here’s one I always recommend to get people started. I warn you though, it’s a slippery slope… If you like this one, you’ll be obsessed in no time. I’m Bik, by the way.”

“I think I can handle it,” you smiled and he chuckled, handing you a slim but beautifully designed book with a dragon on the front and a female knight on a chestnut charger.

The art style was gorgeous and the writing seemed pretty good quality too, and as you leafed through the first few pages, you found yourself drawn in to the story about the female knight and the dragon. Finally you glanced up at him and said, “I’m assuming you don’t want me to read it all here right now…”

“It’d be nice if you bought it,” he grinned playfully.

He’d just reached out to take it from you when the door opened and a hunch-shouldered werewolf pushed inside, having just shaken the worst of the weather off on the doorstep all over their companion. The person behind her was a tiny, slender, and extraordinarily pretty young woman with pastel lilac hair that for some reason looked natural rather than dyed. Despite her almost innocent, childlike looks, she seemed decidedly furious about the soggy insult from the werewolf. In turn behind them came a figure who would have blotted out the daylight in the doorway had there been any to speak of outside.

You’d never met a hobgoblin before, and you tried not to stare as he lumbered in after the other two who had come to an abrupt halt at the sight of Bik and you standing together with your new graphic novel between you. The grin on the werewolf’s face made you think of feeding time at the zoo, and Bik clearly noticed it because his lithe tail swished a few times behind him in annoyance.

“Shall I take that for you?” Bik asked, offering his elegant hand again for the book and leading you over to the till so that you could pay for it.

You smiled and nodded, aware that the small group behind you were muttering between themselves. Bik was obviously aware of it as well, and seemed irritated by it, though you weren’t sure why. As you fished out the right money from your wallet, he muttered, “My D&D group… We meet every Friday. I’m sorry about them.”

“They seem nice,” you smiled, trying to reassure him. “You know, I’ve never played.”

“Really?” he asked, his golden eyes flashing brightly for an instant.

You shook your head and took the book from him, sliding it into your bag to keep it dry. “One thing at a time, eh?” you grinned before he could invite you to join in and he laughed.

“Hope to see you back again,” he added sheepishly. “There are some others I can recommend to you, whether you like that one or not.”

You nodded. He seemed so cute with the way he tilted his head and blinked his big eyes every now and again. His colouring was also astonishingly pretty, looking like a mosaic of gold and green all along his back, with that vibrant zing of blue around his throat. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” you said as you turned to go, and you really meant it.

While you were walking down the row of books towards the door, grateful that the rain seemed to have lessened considerably, you heard the werewolf dig her friend in the ribs and mutter, “Talk about your type!”

“Shut up,” Bik hissed. “Or she won’t come back.”

Of course, you did find yourself returning to his shop, though not on a Friday evening. You were sure his friends were nice, but you weren’t really there to meet them; at least, not just yet.

Bik’s face lit up when you stepped inside and he hopped down off the counter where he’d been sitting like a naughty schoolboy, swinging his legs and reading a comic which sat in his lap. “You came back!” he chirruped as he set it aside and came over. He wore tight-fitting jeans with a big hole tailored in the back for the thick root of his tail, and a blue t-shirt with a faded print on.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” you asked, aiming for playful but still coming across as a little shy, perhaps even coy. “You said you had more recommendations for me…”

“You liked it then?”

“Loved it! The twist at the end was amazing.”

His toothy grin made your stomach flip over and you glanced away as a blush rose up your cheeks.

You spent the next half an hour dissecting every detail about the first book he’d recommended, and from there, he chose three others that might suit.

Over the next few weeks, you returned to the shop regularly, and on one blustery August afternoon, you found him preparing some props for his next D&D session. Instead of talking books, you asked him about them, and he tilted his head in that adorable way he had, glancing over the half-finished figurines and what looked like a maquette of an old castle ruin or something.

“Did you make that too?” you asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah. It helps with the game, but honestly I just enjoy making stuff…”

“They’re beautiful! You could work in the props department at a film company or something.”

His blue throat became so vibrant in contrast with his lime green skin that it almost hurt to look at him, and he half turned away. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I get a lot of free time in the shop; fellow nerds aren’t too thick on the ground here, if you know what I mean. Hey, listen,” he added, scratching the back of his head with a clawed finger. “I’ve… uh… I’ve been wondering if maybe you’d like to come along to a session one day? You don’t have to take part or anything if you don’t want to, and we are, like, halfway through this campaign, but if you wanted to you could fill in for one of the NPCs or something… But… uh…” He trailed off, embarrassed and picked up one of the half-finished mimic chests on the counter top.

You watched as he turned it over in his delicate fingers and then chuckled. “You know what? I’d love to.”

At that, he dropped it and spun back around. “You’re serious?”

“Sure! Why not?” you asked, stooping to pick it up and handing it back to him. “Should I bring snacks?”

“Oh my god, could you get any more perfect!” he blurted and then laughed, staring down at the miniature mimic in his hands as if hoping that it might just eat him up on the spot. “Snacks would be amazing, but you don’t have to. Usually we take it in turns to bring something. It’s Oleander’s turn this Friday.”

“Oleander?”

“I don’t know if you remember her, but she’s the tiny one with the purple hair. She’s half fae and all sass. She bakes the most amazing sugar cookies though…”

“Got a sweet tooth then?” you asked and he nodded.

“Duly noted. Tell me about the others? Was the big one a hobgoblin?”

Bik nodded. “Yeah, that’s Jos. He’s kind of shy, but he’s great once you get to know him. He’s playing this tiny elven bard, and she’s -” he broke off, realising he was about to go off on a long and potentially quite boring waffle about their characters. Clearing his throat, he said instead, “Anyway, so yeah, that’s Jos. The werewolf is Emma. She’s… a bit brash and loud at times, but she means well.”

“How do you guys all know each other?” you asked, moving over to examine the figurines on the counter while he talked.

“From school, actually,” he laughed, setting the mimic back down. “It’s the typical - stereotypical I guess - thing of a bunch of rejects forming a bit of a ragtag band, and we’ve just been best mates ever since.”

With a fond smile, you firmly agreed to come to their next session.

You showed up with a bag of cookies, not wanting to seem tight but equally not wanting to try and one-up the resident baker in the group. You were also running a tad late after the recording session had run over, and the door was locked when you arrived at quarter past seven, and you had to bang on the glass repeatedly until Bik scuttled out to rescue you.

“I’m so sorry!” he said as he stepped to one side and let you in. “I thought I left it off the latch for you! I should also have given you my number. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine!” you laughed as he cringed. “But I wouldn’t say no to having your number…”

He went still and then smiled.

You followed him into a storage room at the back of the shop which had been decked out with flickering LED candles, and in the centre of the room was a round table set up for their game. They hadn’t really started yet, and Oleander was, to your surprise, sitting in Jos’ lap. He pecked her affectionately on the top of the head and picked her up, setting her back down on the ground. The werewolf, Emma, snuffed at the air and turned around, tail wagging from between the slats of her chair.

“Hey!” she grinned, leaping up and stepping over to hug you. “I’m sorry. I’m a hugger. You made it though! And…” and she sniffed ostentatiously, “And you brought goodies!”

“I couldn’t not bring goodies,” you chuckled, handing the modest bag of cookies to Bik.

“Tibikthio,” Emma said in a mock-formal tone to Bik, “You picked a good one.”

You turned slowly to the lizardfolk who had closed his eyes in semi-horror. “I hate it when you use my full name,” he groaned.

“Tibikthio…” you repeated. “I like it…”

You caught the tiniest flicker of something cross his face but it was gone a second later.

“Well he hates it!” Emma barked. “Come on, pull up a chair.” She adopted a silly accent, like some old crone, and added, “There’s plenty of room, m’dear!”

Smiling, you glanced at Bik, who still looked a bit embarrassed about the whole name thing, and then you settled in between him and Emma as the game began.

To start with, you stayed on the periphery, letting them tell their story and act it out. Some of them would have made good voice actors, though Oleander tried a bit too hard in places. But they were having an absolute blast. Bik was the dungeon master, weaving elements of improv and story-crafting seamlessly into one narrative, though there were some gaffes and hilarious moments when it all fell apart. By the end of the session, you had cried tears of laughter until your stomach hurt, and had had your heart in your mouth for the entirety of one fight in a long-lost temple.

It was past ten when they wrapped up, and Bik insisted that they just leave everything there for next time. “It’s late,” he said, “And who wants to tidy up now anyway…?” He was met with a chorus of nods and yawns.

Your stomach growled though as you stood and you felt a bit light-headed.

“You ok?” Bik asked, head tilting quizzically. “You look a bit squiffy… Didn’t make you queasy with all the guts and goop at the end of the fight, did I?”

Reassuring him, you told him you had just missed supper that night because of work, and he looked horrified. “There’s a place round the corner that’s open til midnight. You want to grab something?”

Your initial reaction was to refuse politely and say you’d rustle something up when you got home, but you happened to catch Oleander’s violet eyes as she looked from Bik to you with what could only have been described as a look of hope on her face, so you took a gamble and nodded. “Sure, I’d like that.”

Bik shut up the shop and bid his friends goodnight. Oleander winked at him but offered no comment before demanding that Jos carry her home, which he dutifully did. Bik caught you looking at them and smiled. “They’ve been together since they were sixteen. Real high school sweethearts.”

“They’re adorable,” you offered. “I mean, they’re kind of polar opposites, but… it’s nice.”

“There’s hope for those of us who tend to prefer other species…” Bik muttered playfully. “Come on, it’s not far.” As you walked along the empty street, he asked, “Did you have fun?”

“I did,” you replied honestly. “I had no idea it was so…” you waved your hand while you searched for exactly the right word.

“Nerdy?”

You snorted a laugh and corrected him. “Complicated… involved… complex…”

He shrugged casually and shivered. “It’s what you make of it, I guess. We’ve been plotting this particular campaign for months. It’s nice to be able to play it finally!” He shivered again and hugged his bare arms around himself, claws scratching slightly on his rough skin.

“Are you cold?”

He nodded. “I forgot my jacket. I’m not very good with the cold. It’s a lizardy thing.”

The evening wasn’t particularly chilly, but you supposed he was cold-blooded.

“You want my jacket?” you asked. “I think your shoulders are slim enough that it’d probably fit you.”

He shot you an odd look. “Isn't the guy supposed to be the one to offer that to the girl?”

“Only if you stick to stuffy old gender roles,” you grinned. “You want it or not?”

“Yes please,” he mumbled and took it off you with a grateful smile. He looked odd wearing it, but he burrowed into it for the remainder of the short walk to the late-night restaurant.

The two of you sat down and chatted, and you remarked on just how relaxed it felt.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s… It’s nice. I’m glad you got rained on all those weeks ago…”

“Me too,” you laughed. He was a dork, but you liked that he felt genuine, and that his sense of humour was a bit off the wall.

The restaurant wasn’t fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but the food they served looked amazing. Run by a big Highland minotaur with a massive belly and a hearty laugh, it offered exactly the kind of meal you needed after not having had much all day, and the two of you took a seat in a quiet corner on some comfortable, diner-style benches.

The lizardfolk who took your order reminded you of a gecko, and had pinkish colouring and large, blue eyes. While you had always been drawn to lizardfolk, somehow no one seemed to compare to Bik lately.

While you waited for your food, Bik interrupted your musing and asked, “What made you get into voice acting? Maybe next time you can voice some of the other characters they meet…?”

“I think I’d like that,” you admitted. “Normally everyone just asks me to do impressions of famous people, you know, because I have an ear for accents and all that.”

He smiled and rested his chin in his hands, staring at you unblinkingly. It might have made anyone else seem a bit intense, but with him it just seemed endearing. As much as he loved to tell a story, he seemed just as happy to listen to one too.

“Honestly, I kind of fell into it. I did music and drama at college and was all set to go down the ‘traditional’ acting line, but I found I was more comfortable bringing characters to life with my voice than my entire body. It’s still really hard work though. Most people reckon that if you can do a few accents or a funny voice, that’s it, but it’s so much more than that.”

He nodded in agreement. “Oh absolutely! I mean, I think I gathered as much just from what we do in our little amateur group. We all sit round a table and we say our ‘lines’, and we all bring our characters to life as convincingly as we can. We’ve been doing it for years, but we’re still not very good!” Bik grinned at you, showing all his teeth, and you smiled back. A moment later he added, a bit dreamily, “I still can’t believe you voiced Eliana. She’s one of my favourite characters ever! I love that game. I wish she’d been a playable character…”

You laughed, honestly a bit bashful.

Before it could become awkward, your food arrived and the two of you chatted some more around mouthfuls of delicious, humble, homely food until you thought you were going to burst.

“Oh man,” you groaned, sitting back in your seat. “I won’t need to eat for a week!”

Bik smiled and said, “I actually probably won’t eat for a week.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“Economically beneficial?” he snickered. “True. I’d rather be like that than like Jos. He has to eat six meals a day just to fuel his body.” He leaned on the table and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper, “And you know what? Oleander eats just as much as he does.”

“No way!” you gasped. “But she’s tiny! How does she do it?”

“She’s half Fae,” he said. “There’s probably magic involved.”

“Lucky her,” you muttered. “Though on second thoughts, grubbing up six meals a day sounds like a lot of effort. But seriously though, I am so full.”

The minotaur who owned the place came out at that moment and said in a heavily accented rumble, “Ach, too bad! I was gonna offer you’s some dessert!” He waggled a pair of menus at you hopefully.

“We’ll just have to come back next week,” you said and the minotaur laughed heartily.

Bik seemed sleepy after the heavy meal, but he walked you back to your place and you exchanged an awkward hug on the threshold. You got the sense that it wasn’t just you who wished it had been more, but neither of you was ready to make that leap just yet.

That first Friday was the first of many trips to the shop to watch them play D&D together, and after only a few weeks, you began to join in more activelyn. And so you found yourself lending your vocal cords to street merchants and beggars, high nobles and sea captains as the unlikely group made their way across their fictional land. The tables had turned a bit, and now it was you who made them helpless with laughter, even mimicking Oleander’s very particular speech patterns when the group ran into a mimic.

“That’s amazing!” she said. “Are you sure you’re not Fae?”

“No,” you said, “I mean, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m very ordinary…”

“You’re not ordinary at all!” Bik blurted and everyone burst out laughing.

“We all know that Bik’s got the hots for you!” Emma grinned.

Oleander chimed in with, “Well, as much as a cold-blooder can have the ‘hots’ for anyone…”

“Oi,” Bik grunted. “I’m sitting right here you know!”

“Better speak up more often,” Oleander teased playfully, chucking him affectionately under the chin like he was a favourite hunting hound or something, “Or she won’t notice you…”

“I’m going to write you all into a jail cell next week,” the dungeon master grumped. “Then you’ll be sorry.”

After that session, he claimed he was tired and begged off going to supper with you. Of course you said it was fine, but you had grown used to your private suppers together and fought off the lump of disappointment that lodged itself unexpectedly in your throat. He waved and slouched off down the street, leaving the rest of you outside the dark and empty shop.

“I think you went a little far this time,” Jos commented in his deep, gravelly voice to the two girls and they sighed. “He’s always been very sensitive about… you know, ‘matters of the heart’…”

“Yeah. Poor thing,” Oleander said and she looked at you with her large purple eyes. “The more he likes someone, the more awkward he can get. I’m sorry we butchered it tonight for you though. I’ll make it up to you. Fae’s honour.” After a pause, she added, “You do like him, right?”

“Very much,” you admitted quietly. “He’s very gentle. It’s nice.”

“He used to play lacrosse back in high school,” Jos grinned. “He wasn’t gentle then! But he’s sweet when it comes to people he cares about. He looked out for me at school.”

You shot him a surprised look and he laughed. “I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “You just don’t look much like the type who needs anyone to look out for them…”

Oleander patted his colossal forearm and cooed, “Ol’ Jos here wouldn’t say boo to a housefly, would you darling?” He smiled affectionately at her and said nothing. “We’ve always been the outcasts and misfits I guess. Bik’s the most normal one of the lot of us, all things considered.”

Emma announced with a sudden curse that she was running late to meet her girlfriend, and loped off into the night on all fours with an accompanying farewell howl, her backpack bouncing around on her shoulders, and Oleander and Jos bid you goodnight and headed off towards the bus stop, leaving you to make your own way back. It was strange not to have Bik by your side that night, and it made you realise how close you’d become to him over the last few weeks.

Back home, you curled up on the sofa, not ready to start thinking about bed just yet, and had just got your phone out to drop him a text when your message tone chimed at you. The way your heart clenched with excitement at the sight of Bik’s name on the notification made you pause a moment and wonder just what this affection for him was turning into. Images of his bright green skin and golden eyes darted across your mind; the sound of his laugh, the way his tail coiled itself off the ground when he walked, the way his clawed hands held the little props he liked to make… You’d been telling the truth when you’d admitted to Oleander just how much you liked him.

‘Hey’, his text began. ‘Sorry I bailed like that. Did you get home ok?’

‘:) yeah,’ you replied. ‘And it’s fine. I get it, but they meant well. And I’m looking forward to the next session already!”

Jos was the one who finally insisted that you had to become a permanent member of their fictional gang. Casting a look at Bik as you all loitered in the main shop after the session, you saw the way he bit his thin lips and coiled his tail around one ankle. “Should I?” you asked.

You’d grown in confidence around them, glad to have been welcomed into their group, and he nodded mutely.

“That doesn’t seem very enthusiastic…” you shot with tongue-in-cheek humour dancing in your eyes.

“Obviously he’d love that,” Emma said. That day she wasn’t in her wolf form, and it was one of the few times you’d ever seen her as such. She had ash blonde hair with a harsh side-shave above her left ear while the rest was long, tied back in a ponytail. Her body was strong and muscular, and honestly she was utterly gorgeous.

You cocked an eyebrow at him and adopted the tone of one of the temple guardians you’d voiced for them earlier that evening. “Come now,” you said with mock sternness, “Speak the truth, young dragonling…”

Bik immediately caught on and followed the joke as he spoke in the voice of his dragonborn bard, quavering and simpering. “Please… oh Great One, don’t make me speak more on the subject… I’m only a worthless wyrm…”

You closed the short distance between the two of you and leaned in close. His jaw slackened slightly, his throat bobbing, and his beady, amber eye locked onto your face. “You are no such thing,” you smiled. Biko’s throat worked nervously. Drawing back, you added, “And I’d love to join the group. You’ll have to help me think of a character.”

Bik still looked like he’d suffered a minor heart attack, but Jos whooped and Oleander giggled. “Great!” they said as one.

You turned to Bik and said, “Maybe you and I can chat it over after dinner, if you’re still up for our usual post-session snack?”

“Definitely,” he croaked, voice sounding thick and slightly awestruck. He looked a bit stunned, but you decided it was in a good way.

He held the door open for you and you stepped close to him as you headed out into the late evening, pressing a hand flat against his chest as you passed, and murmured, “Thanks.”

He recovered quickly, though he did seem to be concentrating very hard on the task of locking up the shop, and as the two of you walked away from the others, he kept glancing down at you.

“What?” you finally asked with a giggle.

“Nothing.”

“It’s clearly something…” you pressed, turning and walking backwards so you could look at his face. “Regretting your decision to let me join the gang?”

“Not at all!” he replied, apparently horrified that your thoughts had gone there. “No… The opposite actually…”

“Oh,” you sighed.

He breathed your name and then stopped. You drew to a halt as well, watching him with a hammering heart. Starting to talk again seemed tricky, but he managed it. “I… Uh… I’m really glad you’re… you know… around… Ah, shit… I’m so bad at this…”

“I’m glad I’m around too,” you said, and you slid your hand into his. His skin was rough and cool, and your first thought was that you would very much like it against other parts of your body.

Bik tightened his grip on your fingers briefly and let out a breathy, nervous laugh. “I’ve never, uh… courted a human before… Is that even the right term for it?”

“You can call it what you like,” you said. “And you don’t have to do anything special or different. Just… keep hanging out with me. Maybe we could watch a movie or something some time?”

“Ok,” he said, swallowing thickly again. “Let’s go somewhere different for dinner?”

You turned your eyes from his to the restaurant sign just up ahead. “But we always go here,” you said. “And we’re almost there… Where else is going to be open at this time of night?”

“You could… come back to my place?” he asked. “I mean, it’s nothing special, but… I’m a tidy reptile, I promise! No hoards of strange things either. I’m not a dragon…”

You had to laugh at his oddball sense of humour that only got quirkier the more apprehensive he got. He also couldn’t stop his throat from fanning slightly too, the reptilian version of sweating nervously you supposed. “Alight. I’d like that.”

The upper storey of the old house where he lived was open plan, with beautiful bare rafters and sloping ceilings, and hardwood floors. His claws clacked adorably on them when he moved about. He also had the heating on stupendously warm, and you took your coat and jumper off immediately. “Sorry,” he said when he saw what you were doing.

You reassured him, and started to look about a little bit while he busied himself in the kitchen and poured you both a drink.

There were bookshelves on practically every available space, and as well as containing a collection of rare first editions and hard-to-come-by novels, they also sported photos, some in battered frames and others just propped up here and there. Most of them featured lizardfolk who looked a lot like him. “Family?” you asked and he came over to stand beside you.

“Yeah. We were a big clutch,” he said as he held the glass out for you. “Poor mum! There are twelve of us.”

He told you the names of each of his siblings, and what they were up to now, but you were really only half listening to the words. There was something magical about his voice, some unearthly quality it took on when he began to tell a story, regardless whether that was a story about his own life or a fantasy tale made up with his friends.

“What?” he asked softly.

“I… I like the sound of your voice,” you said honestly, and you reached your fingers tentatively up to touch the blue of his throat. He drew in a shaky breath, eyes closing as his reptilian head tilted upwards to allow you better access to him. “You’re very beautiful,” you whispered. “The colour of your skin is incredible… I like this bit too,”  you added, running a finger down his cheek where it blended from green speckled with gold to intense blue.

Bik brought his hands to your shoulders and looked down at you, blinking slowly. “Really?” he asked. “It’s not very… I mean… most males of my species have much deeper blue… I mean, just look at my brothers,” he added awkwardly, nodding at a picture behind you.

“I like your blue,” you chuckled without turning around.

Embarrassed, but obviously deeply flattered, he brushed his knuckle against your cheek and said, “Would you like that supper or do you have other things on your mind?”

With a grin, you said, “I suppose I could be distracted by food…” you admitted grudgingly as your stomach rumbled.

You watched him walk away to the kitchen area of the loft apartment, and sighed. This was turning into exactly what you’d hoped it might - a friendship blossoming into something deeper.

Wanting to test that theory, you crossed to join him and, while he still had his back to you, you slid your arms around his slender waist and hugged him. “You need a hand?” you asked, pressing your cheek against his back.

“I… I was going to suggest takeout,” he said bashfully, glancing back over his shoulder at you. “But if you want me to cook, I can?”

You shook your head. “It’s getting late,” you said, releasing him. “Another time. Let’s get takeout.”

While you waited for the food to arrive, you bickered playfully over movie choices, finally settling on some cheesy old film about a dragon who shared his heart with a selfish boy. It was actually pretty good, but it was still horrendously dated in places. It didn’t matter to you though. The food was really good, and the two of you snuggled up on the sofa to eat, with you leaning against his side.

“I couldn’t do this with many people,” you said, nudging him gently with your elbow.

“Do what?”

“Cosy up under someone’s arm. I’m usually too tall.”

He chuckled and swallowed. “Never dated an orc then, I take it.”

You shook your head. “Not dated all that much at all to be honest.”

“What? But your gorgeous,” he blurted and his skin flushed a much darker green. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you said and put your hand reassuringly on his thigh. He jumped and then slid his arm around your shoulders, setting his empty takeout box down on the coffee table beside the sofa.

He gazed at you, a more serious look in his eyes, and said, “You know, I couldn’t help noticing your choices of media…” You flicked him a frown and he went on. “Ok, the first graphic novel with the dragon was on me, but everything else has also had dragons or lizards in…”

“You detecting a preference here?” you sassed gently.

“Am I?”

With an ostentatious roll of your eyes, you said, “I mean, I’ve always thought your kind extremely beautiful, but my interest in you is to do with you. It’s not some empty kink. You know that, right?”

He nodded slowly. “Just checking.”

“And what about you?” you said, also setting your empty food box down and shifting your position so that you came to rest astride his lap, the film almost over, forgotten and playing in the background. “I have to admit that your dragonborn seems to like humans rather a lot… Have you got a thing for us warmbloods?”

His throat worked and he didn’t meet your eye for a moment. “I mean… yes…” he said, and his clawed hands found your wide hips. He ran a circle carefully over them and moaned, his own hips shifting a little beneath you. “But when you walked into my shop, all bedraggled and soaking wet, I’d honestly never seen anyone more beautiful in my whole life.”

You laughed and kissed his cheek. He turned his head slightly as you moved away and drew you back for a proper kiss. His claws raked gently through your hair, messing it up as he gripped you firmly but tenderly, and his tongue slid slowly out to taste you, savouring the kiss. It wasn’t a conventional kiss like those you were used to, but it worked perfectly well. You rolled your hips against him once again and he broke the contact, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions. His tail coiled and uncoiled beside you on the sofa and you reached for it.

“Can I touch you here?” you asked and he nodded breathlessly.

He gasped as you stroked your fingertips along the slightly rough skin of his tail and he brought the tip of it up to caress the back of your hand.

“Kinky,” you grinned and he snickered.

Bik, somewhat slack-jawed and clearly aroused, brought his blunt muzzle to the curve where your neck met your collarbones, and inhaled the scent of you deeply. His tail coiled tightly around your wrist for a moment before unravelling and falling limply onto the sofa again. “I want you,” he rasped.

You let your hips grind into him again and he gasped and uttered a soft curse under his breath as he stared almost reverently up at you. You nodded, and his claws hooked the hem of your top and lifted it up carefully, revealing your bra and he made short work of the clasp. Taking the weight of each breast in his hands, he caressed you and then, with pupils blown wide and dark so that his irises were a mere halo of gold, he took your nipple delicately between his sharp teeth and very gently sucked, moaning softly as he repeated the gesture on the other one. His rasping tongue curled around them too as they hardened under his attentions and you gave a shaky exhale.

“So beautiful,” he whispered as he let go, leaving you throbbing and tingling. “Gods, you’re so beautiful.”

“Bik…” you groaned when he stopped touching you so that he could simply stare at your half-naked body in his lap.

He smiled and to your immense surprise, simply stood up, hooking his arms under your thighs as you gripped his waist instinctively with your legs. He was a lot stronger than he looked and you nearly yelped in surprise. “I’ve got you,” he said as he carried you towards his open bedroom door, nudging it shut behind him with his tail.

He laid you down on top of the duvet and undressed the rest of you slowly, savouring the sight of you as he gradually revealed your body. You looked up at him dazedly and saw the tent straining against his jeans. “Bik… Not fair,” you said. “You’re still dressed.”

More nervously now that the attention was on him, he took off his own t-shirt to reveal a pale, creamy green stomach and chest. He was still stippled with other hues of green and even a few freckles of black, but his front was mostly pale. His lean waist and narrow hips looked deliciously inviting and you sat up and ran your fingers around the inside of his waistband just to watch him shiver beneath your touch.

His hands hung quietly by his sides as you undid the button of his jeans and he stepped out of them carefully. His taloned feet were as delicate as his hands, and you marvelled at them too before letting your gaze sweep up his slim, strong calves to his thicker and more muscular thighs and to the tight, black boxer-briefs that hugged every single curve of his body.

Bik lay down beside you without taking them off and raked his claws up the length of your legs and, applying a little pressure to your hip, pushed you onto your back. With his tail, he tugged your right ankle close to his body and parted your legs enough for him to run the pad of his thumb in a slow, teasing circle around the soft, sensitive skin above your clit.

Your body lurched joyously at his touch and you sucked in a breath. You began to tingle all over, heat prickling beneath your skin as he woke your whole body up with reverent kisses and touches.

“Can I taste you?” he asked a while later after he’d reduced you to a writhing, whimpering mess, and you nodded.

After you moved further up the bed to give him more room, he reverently placed both palms on your hip bones and nosed gently at your sex. His tongue licked a long, slow stripe and you cried out and arched your back as he laved over your lips and just flicked your clit with the tip of his tongue.

“You taste so beautiful,” he said before returning his attention to your body. He circled and nudged at you, dipping his tongue deep inside you as well, always coming back to your clit until you were almost screaming with want.

“Bik, please… Please make me come,” you panted. “I’m so close…”

“Can humans only come once then?” he asked with over-accentuated ignorance, and you knew from the tone of his voice that he knew the answer to that already. You growled inarticulately at him and he pulled back. “I’d better stop then.”

“No!” you half sobbed. “Please…”

Smiling softly, he stared at you and moved his thumb back to your swollen clit. His claws were too sharp for him to work you inside, but the pattern he made on your skin with his tongue was enough to drive you right to the edge, and then as the white heat built inside you, you felt your orgasm rolling over you like a great ocean breaker and you cried out, grasping at the sheets. As you came, he pressed his tongue hard against you, savouring you as you came against him.

When you eventually slumped back against the pillows, breathing hard and almost dizzy with how good you felt, you half opened one eye to find that he had lain down on his back and was palming his erection through the fabric of his boxers.

“Bik?” you asked in a slightly slurred whisper. Your fingers moved to the waistband and he tensed slightly. “Bik?”

Licking his lips nervously, he nodded and you drew his boxers off. At the top of his legs was a mounded sheath which quite obviously contained not one but two cocks. Neither was necessarily all that large, but they were very beautiful, and fully erect.

“We’re not exactly built like humans,” he said bashfully as you stared openly at him. “I… I was worried that -” he cut off with a deep grunt as you trailed your fingers around the edges of his sheath. His twin cocks - both a bright vibrant green tipped with blue - writhed slightly, coiling around one another and glistening with the same clear fluid that slicked his sheath.

“You’re beautiful, remember?” you reminded him, shakily propping yourself upright on one elbow to get a better look at him. You repeated the gesture, running your fingers tips around his sensitive sheath, and he accepted your words as truth as you started to worship him with the same careful tenderness he’d just shown you.

As you lavished attention on him, he started to unravel.

Soon his spine bowed up off the bed and his hips squirmed as you worked his twin cocks in one hand. The tighter you gripped him, the more noise he made as they twisted together beneath your fingers, and you finally wrung a deep, guttural, low-frequency rumble out of him that reminded you more of an alligator than the more delicate lizards he resembled.

“Gods,” he rasped, “You make it feel like spring…” and you knew he was referring to the traditional lizardfolk mating season. You’d just lowered your mouth to the tip of one of his cocks and given it a tentative suck when he blurted, “Can I come inside you?”

You nodded, and he switched positions with you so that he was on top. The heat of his cocks was a delicious contrast to the constant coolness of the rest of him and you bucked upwards against him just to feel them pressing against your sensitive clit.

“Both?” he asked warily and you nodded again, shifting so that he could line himself up. He kissed down your neck and between your breasts again before he nudged the tips of his cocks to your entrance. As he slid into you, slowly stretching you full, you watched his face carefully. Again, he began to rumble softly and he almost couldn’t speak as he hissed, “So tight… so hot… gods, you’re so hot…”

With a final push of his hips, he slid all the way inside you and paused a moment, clearly fighting the instinct to come almost immediately. Recovered, breathing steadily, he began to slide in and out, his rhythm increasing in tempo as he lost himself in the sensations of your body. The way his cocks felt inside you, twisting together and shifting in a way that no toy could ever hope to replicate, was unlike anything you’d ever experienced and you knew you were going to come again in no time.

“I’m…” he grunted.

“Me too,” you said, grabbing his rough-skinned arms and pulling yourself even further onto his cocks. “Bik, I’m going to come again.”

“Fuck,” he croaked as you clenched tight around him with a cry.

You wrenched his orgasm from him with the force of your own and he arched his spine, hips driving him deep inside you as he released, and he yelled out, voice hoarse, the sound cracked and broken. His jaws parted to reveal his sharp teeth and you kept your grip on his arms as you came a second time.

He shuddered violently, grunting and breathing hard through flared nostrils, and then fell forwards, barely catching himself in time on his forearms. He was spent and exhausted and so beautiful. His blue colouring shone in the dim light of his bedroom and you trailed your fingers lazily along the bridge of his nose towards his lips.

“That was incredible,” he whispered when he’d got his breath back. “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No,” you smiled and he hugged you briefly, lapping a little lizardy kiss on your forehead before pushing himself up on shaking arms and sliding free of you. His cocks coiled briefly in the warm air and he rolled onto his back beside you. With your thighs still slick with his release, you tucked yourself up beside him and took your time in exploring his relaxed body. Where before he had been tense, almost nervous, worried that his non-human body would be too strange for you, now he seemed to have fallen peacefully into a haze of bliss, and he let your hands roam all over his torso and down to his hips while wearing a soft smile the whole time.

His cocks lay soft across his skin, occasionally twitching and drooling a little, but eventually they began to shift back into his sheath. He slid his hand down and adjusted them, and shot you a look. “You really do like lizardfolk, huh?”

With a wry grin, you shook your head and said, “I really do just like you.”

—

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[percywinchester27]

About a boy (Part-15 Final)

Word count: 2.6K

Warning: Feels, mentions of physical abuse and child-trafficking. Did I mention feels?

Characters: Dean, Cas, Gabriel, Benny, Michael, Will, OCs and… Sam?

Summary: Dean Winchester has a secret. A secret that could really land him in trouble. He never expected to connect with anyone when he walked into the ‘Blue Stone Orphanage for Boys,’ but even then, the walls he has put up are slowly coming down. Now, a series of strange events are threatening to expose him. When everything starts falling apart around him, will he still be able to save the one person that matters the most?

A/N: The last one, guys! Thank you for all your love <3

All my love to @thing-you-do-with-that-thing​​ and @deanssweetheart23​​​​​​​​​​ for beta reading this story <3 

About a boy masterlist

“All your stuff is in here,” Dean said, putting the bag on the counter. “Your clothes, books, and everything else.”

The last thing Dean had wanted to do was to go back to the Orphanage, especially now that there was no one there. Better him than Will, though. Which was why he had made up his mind and asked Bobby to make the detour. The place looked haunted, now that it was completely empty, save for the few cops doing rounds and working on the evidence.

Shuffling through Will’s things had made him realise how impersonal all of them were. Most of his clothes were used and donated ones. The five pairs of clothes, including those that he slept in, did not fit him well. The majority of the trunk under his bed was just books- Old, yellowed and tattering books. 

Dean had been staring out of the window lost in thought when Bobby made a pit stop outside a shopping centre. 

“We have to get something his size for the kid. He can’t step out of the hospital tomorrow in these clothes.”

Dean had to admit; Bobby had been pretty awesome about the whole deal. It had been all trial and error when it had come to raising Dean, but now he knew what he was doing. Will had thanked both Bobby and Jody profusely for wanting to adopt him, and it had taken some convincing to get it through his head that it wasn’t charity or a favour. They really wanted him to be a part of their family.

Convincing him had been mostly easy. The hard part was the Kensingtons. They weren’t willing to let go of Will and were ready to get dirty about it. With all the drama, child services had stepped in. It wasn’t like the Kensingtons could drag Will away with them, but this meant a substantial delay till the paperwork was sorted. Will was stuck here, and Dean wasn’t going to leave him alone in all this. It meant renting a cheap motel for the month, but hey, it was still a million times better than the orphanage.

Presently, Will blinked at the bag. “You went back to that place?” 

He could walk now and manage to do most things by himself. 

“Sure! Here, try this one on,” Dean said, throwing the new t-shirt on the bed. It was black and had ‘π-rate’ printed on it next to the face of an eye-patch wearing bearded man. “We picked this for you on our way here. See if it fits. There’s a few more inside the bag.”

Will stared at the t-shirt like it was something alien and the expression tugged at something inside Dean.

It was the little things that broke Dean’s heart. Before, he wouldn’t have cared about getting a new shirt, but all this was so new for Will. No one had ever bought him anything; something specially for him and completely his. 

This was just the first of many, and Dean was going to be there for all the rest. 

It was still subduing to walk Will to the temp centre at Child services. It was a comfortable place, and Dean had promised Will that he would be here as much as he could. Though Will still looked morose going in, like he was doubtful his happiness was lasting. 

That night, Dean couldn’t get much sleep between nightmares of Will calling out to him as Andy dragged him into the car and cries of baby Sam when Dean had carried him out of their burning house. He spent the whole night tossing and turning, then woke up late in the morning. It was already too bright outside the window when Dean sat up groggily. Beside him, Bobby’s bed was empty.

He checked the clock. 10:17. Dammit!

What would Will think? Dean had promised to be there early in the morning and now even Bobby had disappeared to some place.

So he did all he could. He washed himself and got dressed for the day, then paced around the room waiting for Bobby, fixing the tiny messes in the room, like empty food bags and burger wrappers. Eventually Dean found himself back on his bed, his bags emptied on the covers. 

God, there was so much mess.

He should have cleaned his trunk at least once when he had been living in the dorm, because now there was a gross mouldy half eaten bagel there that he didn’t even remember having touched. Ever.

He hadn’t added anything to what he had left with from Sioux Falls, except some school books. Underneath the pile of clothes, his hand hit something solid. Slowly, Dean pulled out the long rosewood box that Bobby had given him. In all the crazy mess, he had never had the time to actually go through it.

Dean opened it cautiously. The contents had of course remained unchanged, though he was stuck by the power of them all the same. He ran his fingers lightly over the baby angel, and the silver charm bracelet. Maybe it had belonged to his mother, maybe it was an anniversary gift from his dad. The small folding knife was jammed at first, but when Dean pried it open, it gleamed wicked sharp. The inside was etched with H.W. Maybe it had belonged to some long lost family member. Each of the objects was a ‘maybe,’ a story in itself. A story which Dean would never know.

He turned to the black and white pictures, especially to the one where his mom was holding him from behind. If Dean hadn’t known for sure that it was in fact him and his mom, he’d have never believed it. For one, he was smiling too widely. He didn’t ever remember smiling so much, even as a kid, and secondly, mom was beautiful. She was so beautiful. Her eyes were so full of love, that it hurt to look at her, and then it hurt to look away.

If Dean was being completely honest, this was why he had never opened the box again. He couldn’t look at those memories without feeling this ache in his chest. He flipped through the pictures. His parents in front of their car, his dad holding a huge fish, laughing with a friend. His mom kissing baby Sam on the forehead, while small Dean was looking at his little brother. The baby’s hand was tightly wrapped around Dean’s finger. Like he was holding on to something important.

Dean sighed. 

What would his mom think of him now? Would she be disappointed in him that he had stopped looking for Sam? Stopped looking for her baby?

If he closed his eyes and concentrated really hard, he could almost hear her voice, humming the notes of ‘Hey, Jude.’

Dean looked at the picture again. She was just so beautiful, and the baby was so happy. Little Sam’s face was turned towards the camera. The hand not holding Dean’s finger was fisted and turned towards the camera, a dimpled smile on his face. His mother's face was looming right above his, her lips hovering over the tiny black spot next to his nose… The spot was just like…

“Shit!” Dean swore, jumpin out of his bed, his things tumbling onto the floor.

“Shit shit shit,” he muttered, shoving the picture in his pocket and hurriedly pulling on his shoes.

The door opened and Bobby came in. He had the weirdest smile plastered to his face. Another time, Dean would have called it creepy and laughed over it. 

Today, he ran to Bobby and grabbed him by the arm.

“Bobby! You won’t freaking believe this!” He yanked the photo out of his pocket and shoved it in Bobby’s face, “Look! He has a mole next to his nose. That’s exactly where-”

“Will has it,” Bobby completed, the grin on his face stretching further.

What was happening? Dean felt his breath coming up short and he sat down at the edge of his bed, feeling faint from either excitement or fear that this was all just a dream.

Bobby pulled out an envelope from his back pocket and handed it to Dean. “You might want to take a look at this.”

Dean’s fingers trembled as he reached out and took the envelope. Inside was a medical paper of some sort. He could spot his name on it, but most of it was gibberish to him in the keyed up state of his brain.

“What’s this?” he asked, waving the paper around.

“It’s a DNA test,” Bobby said. “It proves that Will really is your brother.”

“What?”

Bobby sat down next to him. “I asked the doctor to run it right after they operated Will. I mean it was a crazy coincidence that your blood group matched. And that’s one hell of a rare blood group in America. Did it not occur to you that it might mean something more?”

Dean was too shocked to react.

“That, and his eyes are shaped exactly like John’s. You didn’t spend that long with your old man, but for me, it was hard to miss.” Bobby shrugged. “I didn’t want to tell you before I got the results and knew for sure.”

“He’s really Sam. He’s really my Sammy, isn’t he?” Dean whispered wonderingly. The burst of energy that had come to him had all dissipated just as suddenly. He was cold and clammy. “He was right in front me all along.”

“This means one other thing.” Bobby looked at him sideways. “The Kensingtons have no case now. Nobody is taking him away.”

And then Dean was crying in his hands. Years and years of exhaustion, worry and fear just ebbing away. This was unbelievable, too good to be true. 

Bobby put an arm around him, and it felt right. Of course Will was Sam. Of course he belonged.

“C’mon, let’s go tell your brother,”

*******************************************

Will had been waiting for them in the lobby of the Child welfare Centre, nervously pacing as if he was scared that Dean wouldn’t show.

When he saw them, the relief spread quickly through his features before morphing into annoyance.“Where were you?” He demanded. “You’re an hour late.”

Dean didn’t retort like he usually would have. He simply couldn’t stop looking at his brother. His brother.

“I have something for you,” he said quietly.

Will scowled. “Don’t think you can get out of keeping me waiting by buying me a cool t-shirt or something!” But the anger was already leaving. “And you’re looking at me weirdly. Why’re you looking at me weirdly?”

“Here,” Dean pulled out the picture. “Take this.”

Will took it, then gave him a puzzled look. 

“That’s me,” Dean pointed out. “And this is mom.”

Will’s eyes glazed over and a small smile tugged at his lips. “She loves you. I can tell,” he said. It was quite obvious from the picture. “Is this Sam?” 

Dean put his finger on the baby. “This right here,” he took a deep breath. “This right here is you.”

Will looked up startled. “Dean!”

“It really is you. Look, look at that mole. It’s exactly where you have it.”

Will shook his head, eyes wide, like he was scared of believing.

Dean took hold of Will’s hand and thrust the DNA report in it. “Here, take this. It’s a DNA report.” In low voices they quickly explained to Will what Bobby had told him at the motel.

“All that time in the record room, all those nights, we were looking for me?” His voice was strangled.

“Yes, Will. Yes.”

Will was staring hungrily at the picture now, as if he couldn’t get enough of it. His eyes lingered on their mom and then where his tiny palm was wrapped around Dean’s pinkie finger.

He gave Dean one disbelieving watery look and then flung his arms Dean’s waist, burying his face in the front of Dean’s shirt.

Dean gave a watery laugh himself. “So I guess you really are stuck with me now, huh, little brother?”

Will gave a sob.

“Sure you don’t want to run away with those rich ass Kensingtons?” Dean said it mostly as a joke, but the apprehension was still there underneath it all. 

Will shook his head. “They wouldn’t have wanted me if I wasn’t some sort of protege or whatever they were calling it. You… you wanted me even when I was nothing… when I wasn’t even your brother…”

He sniffled. “I don’t want any of it. I want you.”

“Yeah, alright now... hush,“ Dean said, rolling his eyes to stop the tears. “Don’t go wiping your snot on my clothes. That’s still not allowed.”

Will snorted amidst the waterworks and Bobby handed him a bottle of water. It took a while to calm him enough to talk without hiccuping.

Bobby had gone to handle the paperwork with the Child services. They were heading to the precinct next to clear the formalities and were taking Will with them.

“Hey,” Dean said softly. Will, who was leaning against him, jerked a bit. All the crying had exhausted him. Dean worried that the emotional and physical strain was messing with him. 

“What do you wanna be called?”

“What do you mean?” Will sat up straight in his chair facing Dean.

“I mean you can go by ‘Will’ or ‘Sam,” whatever you want.

Will was quiet.

“You can take time to think about it,” Dean suggested

He shook his head. “Sam. I wanna go by Sam.”

“What? Don’t you want to think about it?”

“No, I don’t,” he said. “I can come out and say this now, but I was a bit jealous of the way you talked about Sam… the longing when you said the name. It meant something to someone.” he hesitated. “Mom… and dad… this meant something to them. ‘Will’ is probably just a lottery name or the matron just loved Shakespeare too much.”

“But it has been your identity for so long,” Dean said gently. “You don’t have to give it up just because you found out your real name.”

“It’s not it,” Will said. “I want to be Sam Winchester.”

Dean caught his breath. Sam Winchester. It felt like such a big name for such a small boy.

“Alright then,” Dean said. “Sammy,’ it is!”

Will’s… Sam’s eyebrow quirked up. “I agreed to ‘Sam,’ not ‘Sammy!”

“Yeah whatever, Sammy,” Dean grinned.

“Sammy’ sounds like a five year olds name!”

“You can whine all you want. I ain’t gonna stop calling you that.”

Sam huffed, then crossed his arms. Dean could see he was trying hard to not laugh. “Fine. But you’re the only one who gets to call me that.”

Dean smirked.

“Boys!” Bobby had appeared at the far end of the lobby. He was already carrying Sam’s bags, gesturing to them to hurry up. “C’mon! Time to go.”

Both of them slid down from the chairs, standing besides each other.

“You ready?” Dean asked.

“Mhmm.”

“Let's go home, Sammy.”

With that they both walked out into the evening sun. Neither of them turned to look back.

*******************************

A/N 2: I cried while writing the end. The epilogue is based one year later... I so hope y’all like it also <3 

Please do tell me what you thought of the chapter? I live for comments!

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[timmyrx2000]

Dipper Steps Up: Chapter 2

Chapter Index: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

Chapter 2

Thursday morning Mabel and Dipper stepped off the bus with six minutes to go until the homeroom bell��but instead of reporting to the classroom, Mabel went barreling through the crowded halls, out the back door, and to the gym. Dipper had no idea of what she was up to.

Until she burst into homeroom exactly five seconds before the bell rang, thrust her arms up in the air in a Rocky-at-the-top-of-the-steps pose, and shouted, "Announcement! My brother Dipper made the baseball team! And my boyfriend Chuck Taylor is gonna be team captain!"

Immediately the students as one person greeted her news flash with a thunderous round of complete apathy. These are high-school freshmen we're talking about here.

The bell rang, and Mabel slipped into her desk beside Dipper. "You didn't have to do that!" he whispered in a fierce undertone.

"Yeah, I did! Wait'll lunch! Then everybody will know!"

The teacher took attendance, passed out the lunch menus—you were supposed to pick out which of two entrées you wanted, plus beverage and sides, but it was sort of Chinese-menu style, pick one from Column A, two from Column B, and one from Column C and so on, and Mabel complained that was unfair. She had been checking everything, though so far, she had been served the first entrée, the first two sides, and the first beverage she'd checked.

Dipper said that was what she deserved, but Mabel maintained she was educating her palate, which needed it, since she still had an obsession with trying to eat everything from chalk to wood shavings, just on an experimental basis.

After roll call, they watched the ten-minute video feed from the office, run by students (Mabel dearly wanted to audition and land an anchor spot, but you couldn't until you'd been in school for one full term and carried an A average). The sports announcer said only, "The baseball roster for JV has been posted in the gym," and Mabel jumped up yelling, "That's my brother he's talking about!"

Maybe it was fortunate that their home-room teacher, Miss Othmayer, was only a few years from retirement and also, as she had said while introducing herself on the first day, the daughter of a couple who met at Woodstock, wherever that was. Whatever, she seemed very easy-going and accepting.

That afternoon Dipper learned that he would have practice twice a week during the fall, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. High-school baseball season began in February, so after Christmas they'd step up their practice days and would play every other Friday or Saturday—and sometimes two weeks in a row. To his surprise, Dipper's position, at least to begin with, would be second baseman. Well, second-string second baseman. Maybe he'd get to play a few innings. The guys socialized a little, and Dipper got to know some of them.

The JV was light on sophomores that year—just four out of sixteen. One was Xavier Eager, first-string catcher, a guy whose grandparents had come from the Phillippines and who was a good-humored, joke-cracking boy even shorter than Dipper. Everybody called him "X-Man." "Hi-Ho" was the first-string center fielder. Dipper had to ask Chuck Taylor about his real name, because the big, gangly redhead—a little like Wendy Corduroy's big brother, but a heck of a lot slimmer—was somebody everyone already knew, and he'd earned his nickname by his greeting to everybody else: "Hi-ho, Dipperino!" He was really Gordon Hathaway. Chuck himself, first-string pitcher, was the third sophomore, and the last was Wyatt Wilson, called "Dub" because, Dipper learned, he said everything double and was pessimistic: "We got a lousy team this year, guys. We got a lousy team."

All the other twelve, including Dipper, were freshmen. After some uncomfortable hesitation, Dipper finally confessed that his first name was Mason. X-Man thought about that and said, "So we'll call you Bricklayer!"

Chuck came to the rescue: "Nah, he's got a good nickname already. He's Dipper."

And that was that.

They did batting and fielding practice that day. Dipper didn't get a chance to shine as second-baseman, but he did catch two infield fly balls, and he assisted in the practice's one and only double-play, fielding a grounder to his left, stepping on second, and firing the ball to Mike Monahan at first for the play. That earned him some congratulations.

His mom picked him up after practice, and Mabel—who'd caught the bus—waited to jump him at home: "How'd you do? How was Chuck? Did he say anything about me? Did he miss me? I'm gonna watch next Tuesday! What should I wear? Does he have a favorite color?"

"Whoa!" Dipper said. "Look, don't get too far ahead of yourself! You're not his girlfriend!"

"Yes, I am!" she said. "He just doesn't know it yet. He had a girlfriend last year, but back in the summer her dad got a job as a computer systems expert with Disney World, and she and her family moved three thousand miles away to Orlando, Florida! He's ripe for the picking, Brobro! What's that?"

Dipper held up the sheet of paper. "List of equipment I need to get. I'm just planning on the minimum. This will be expensive."

She yanked the paper from his hand. "Leave it to Mabel!"

And he suspected that he would have to.

Mr. Pines, much to Dipper's surprise, reacted with Mabel-level enthusiasm to the news that Dipper was the newest member of the high-school team. Mabel confiscated his list of supplies.

Then on Friday night she went online and began to read up on what the really stylish baseball player would be wearing that season and she added to the list . . . and added to the list . . . and added to the list. By the time she finished, she had more than doubled the length of the initial handout.

That was why, the following Saturday morning—without bothering to tell Dipper—Dad and Mabel snuck away to Bayside Mall, where the big MegaSports store was. "It'll be fun surprising him!" Mabel told her father. "We'll make him look sharp, and that'll really impress Chu—I mean Coach Waylund! This'll guarantee that he gets off the bench more!"

"I'm not so sure about that," Dad told her, smiling. "But like chicken soup for a broken leg, it couldn't hurt!"

So they parked in the sprawling lot and made their way into the mall and to the huge two-level sports store. "Oh, boy!" Mabel said as they stood in the wide first-floor entrance, her eyes sparking at the sight of thousands of square feet of brightly colored merchandise from anoraks to Z-straps and everything in between. "Get out your credit card, Dad! We're going shopping!"

The first thing on the list was "Athletic cup." Mabel got a little bit indignant when she found the display. "How's anybody supposed to drink out of that thing?" she said. "Let's get a bigger one! With a handle! And that won't even stand straight on a table! It'd spill!"

"Um, it's not really for drinking," her dad told her. "And it's sort of personal, so if you want to go look for some of the other stuff on the list, I'll pick up this and the underwear."

But Mabel tagged along, and when she saw how the cup would fit into a pocket in the underwear, she said, "Oh! My mistake!" But then she wanted to know, "How come the shorts are so long? They should be called longs!"

"Princess, these are called sliding shorts. Dipper may need to slide into base," Dad explained. "These give a little protection against getting your legs scraped up. I'll get him a couple of pairs, and a cup for each one."

The school would furnish the basic uniform, but getting a higher-quality jersey and pants was optional, as long as the design was the standard Piedmont one (which the store stocked), and Mabel took advantage of that, picking out two blue-pinstriped light-gray splitter jerseys with Dipper's name and number on the back in dark blue:

PINES

12

Those had to be embroidered and wouldn't be ready for a week, but Mabel forged ahead. She added a couple of pairs of boot-cut game pants and a Navy-blue baseball cap with the team logo and name printed on it in gold. And batting gloves. And a batting helmet. And long-sleeved undershirts. And stirrup socks (the clerk said, "These are what give a player the look of a real pro.") And a pricey stick of Midnight Big League Eyeblack ("Makeup for hunks!" she exclaimed). And enough to cause Dad to start to experience sticker shock.

Mabel wanted to buy an extremely expensive pair of cleated baseball shoes, but Dad finally drew the line. "Dipper will have to come in for those," he said firmly. "The fit's important. He has to try them on."

"I can do that for him!" Mabel objected. "We have twin feet!"

"Not close enough," Dad insisted. "Shoes are pretty personal. And anyway, those are red, black, and gray, and the list says black and white."

It was a bit of a battle, but in the end Mabel surrendered and had to content herself with the couple of hundred dollars' worth of equipment they had rounded up so far. Ah, but then the biggest purchase of all—

"This is a beautiful glove!" Mabel yelled. "Let's buy it for Dipper!"

"Um, no," Dad said. "For three good reasons. First, it costs over four hundred dollars. Second, this one is for an adult. Third, it's a catcher's mitt."

"But he deserves the best!"

"He needs a glove that will fit, and one that suits his position," Dad said firmly. "Here you can help. Your hands are really about the same size as his. Let's look at infielder gloves. Now, for second base, he'll need a pretty shallow glove, I-web, single-post."

Mabel tilted her head. "I have no idea what any of that means."

"It means one like one of these," Dad said, showing her a display of infielder gloves. "Let's try this one."

Mabel happily tried on gloves until they settled on an eleven-inch one as being about the right size for Dipper. It cost only a tenth of what Mabel's first suggestion did, so Dad looked relieved when the clerk finally rang up the purchase—though he did have to swallow hard before signing the credit-card receipt.

Dipper opened all the packages with widening eyes and an expression that fluttered between surprise and shock. "Dad!" he said. "I don't mean to go into baseball as a career!"

"Get dressed get dressed get dressed!" Mabel yelled.

He had to give in. He felt silly in his new baseball uniform (though he wore the practice jersey the coach had handed out, since the real one wouldn't be ready for a while). With the stiff glove on his left hand—"You'll have to break it in," his dad explained—he stood in the backyard and let Mabel talk him into posing as though he were about to catch a fly ball. She took a couple of photos, wasn't satisfied, and ran into the house.

"OK," she said, "stand still! Warpaint!"

Well—eyeblack ideally should be applied in short stripes beneath the eyes. It really isn't necessary to add tiger stripes and whiskers, but Mabel did.

And, of course, that was the photo that she decided to post on Peoplebook for all the world to see.

Dipper began to dread going to school next Monday morning. . . .

To Be Continued

Note from the Authors: This was just an idea I had but the one who really worked his magic and wrote almost all of this is none other than BillEase. He’s an amazing author who usually hangs out at fanfiction.net. Don’t pass up on a chance to check out his stuff. This guy is AMAZING. He wrote the story, I just gave the plot.

[ylla]

Friday Night Gurus - Chapter 5

Series: JJBA Ships: josuyasu, koichi/yukako (others will eventually happen too, but im tagging as i go) Tags: celebrity au, modern au, pining, recreational drug use (smoking that wacky tabaccy), meeting some of the fam, dirty talk, dicc succing, josuke and okuyasu go on a learning journey together Rating: E (YEAHHHH TIME FOR SOME SEXY STUFF)

AO3 link

LONG TIME, NO SEE. Sorry for taking 10000 years to update. I’ve got a 20 hour unpaid internship, 20 hour work week, and a full class load on top of it all. I’m slowly losing my mind! :’D But, I’ve been plugging along at this for awhile, and now it is bearing fruit, so I hope that you all will enjoy the new chapter. I can’t give a time frame of when I’ll have the next one up, as I absolutely have to update TMBTP and also finish a commission, but hopefully it will be sooner than later!

Also, fair warning, this chapter is where the fic earns it’s explicit rating :’) I hope the smut isn’t awfully written, and if it is, it’s due to me hooting like a 12 year old the entire time I wrote it.

A FEW THINGS OF NOTE:

- manxom has given me the good content, and helped me flesh out FNG so much, that i gave them co-author status! They’re real, and strong, and my friend, and has really helped me shape the AU!

- puffle-tuff who is a friend and boi drew Oku and Josuke watching RHoA together! FOLLOW THEIR ART BLOG, THEY’RE SO GOOD! 

- emberandcelica made a spotify playlist for FNG, and it’s really good! So go check it out when you get the chance! 

As always, remember to comment on the fic, kudos the fic, and bookmark the fic to see more of the same fic content.

The worst part of being a world-famous musician, in Josuke’s opinion, was the tedious amount of boring business shit you ended up sitting through. Contracts, scheduling interviews, planning photoshoots; it felt endless at times. Really, being in the business of being yourself could be so dreadful, and Josuke avoided as much as he could. He was a busy man, with a 3 week young relationship with an amazing guy and a load of other horseshit to take care of. The only way Koichi could get him to stay in one place long enough to go over everything was to corner him while they ate at a restaurant, which was exactly what was happening at that moment as they waited for their significant others to appear. “Morioh Records wants you to come by sometime in October to talk about your contract with the new CEO,” Koichi passed Josuke the email he printed out. Josuke made a face while reading it before sliding it back across the table. Morioh Records was his label, and while they had always been good to him, Josuke hadn’t heard anything great about the new guy in charge. He scowled, “I’m good through the next year, why does he wanna talk to me about it already?” Koichi shrugged, “He wants to get all of his ducks in a row, I guess.” “What’s his name again?” “Kira Yoshikage.” “Never heard of him,” Josuke sniffed. “He was some anonymous board member that somehow got appointed as CEO when the other guy retired.” Koichi pulled out another piece of paper, “Last thing, I swear,” he quickly added when Josuke rolled his eyes so hard, they looked like they were about to pop out of his head, “Calvin Klein called, they wanna do another underwear ad campaign with you.” Josuke perked up at that, “Really? Hell yeah, I’m down.” “Thought you would be. I’ll email them and say you’re up for it,” Koichi looked at his phone with a slight frown, “I figured Yukako and Okuyasu would be here by now. Wonder where they are…” As if summoned by magic, Okuyasu and Yukako blew into the private room they were in. Oku had a strange look on his face as he plopped down in the chair beside Josuke, “Keicho has a girlfriend he didn’t tell me about,” he said in lieu of a greeting. Yukako pressed a kiss on Koichi’s forehead before sitting in the chair beside him, “He doesn’t have a girlfriend.” Okuyasu pointed a finger at her, “They go on dates. And you should’ve told me.” “They aren’t official, and it’s none of my business,” she replied, inspecting her nails. Josuke furrowed his eyebrows, “Wait, what?” Instead of responding, Okuyasu fished his phone out of his pocket, and opened up a text message before handing it off to Josuke, “It’s easier to just read it.” Clearly, it was something that was bothering his boyfriend; Josuke turned his eyes to a group chat titled DICKHEAD. Okuyasu: yooooo who wants to get wings with me tonight????? Okuyasu: keicho u gotta come with Big Bro💣: No. Okuyasu: well y the fuck not??? Big Bro💣: I’m busy. Okuyasu: too busy for ur little brother??? breakin my heart over here ;)n(; ☠Fungi☠: oku what the fuck is that face Okuyasu: ITS ME!!! IM SAD!!!! Okuyasu: bro what r u doin thats more important than eatin food ☠Fungi☠: yeah keicho, way to be transparent with your bros Big Bro💣: It’s none of your concern. Go eat gross shit with your boyfriend and don’t annoy me with it. :| A bunch of text messages were Okuyasu and Yuuya needling Keicho, with him responding with various ways of saying ‘shut the fuck up’, until Yukako spoke. YuYu Kakosho👊💥: He’s probably seeing that girl I caught him with back in March. Okuyasu: WHAT ☠Fungi☠: oh shit Toilet Hazmat🚽☣: kek Okuyasu: U DIDNT TELL ME??? Big Bro💣: Goddamn you, Yukako. You said you wouldn’t say anything.  YuYu Kakosho👊💥: I’m tired of having my phone blow up. Get it out of your systems now. ☠Fungi☠: you got a girlfriend, keicho?? Someone strike up the band Okuyasu: Y DIDNT U TELL US Big Bro💣: 1) She’s not my girlfriend, and 2) You two screaming is exactly why I didn’t. The rest of the messages were just Yuuya sending suggestive emojis and Keicho threatening to inflict violence upon his person. “Sooo, he’s seeing someone?” Josuke asked. Okuyasu scowled, “Yeah, that blonde-haired fuck. He didn’t tell me.” He sunk down in his chair, face sullen, “Why would he hide that from me?” “Because Keicho never tells anyone anything about his personal life,” Yukako interjected, face neutral. “I’m his brother—” She raised an eyebrow, “I’ve only known you people for three years, and I can see why Keicho Nijimura keeps everything close to the chest.” Koichi had busied himself with his phone, “Don’t take it to heart, he most likely has his reasons.” “Still, we’re all the only family we got left. I don’t wanna hear about things in his life from other people.” Yukako sighed exasperatedly, “If it makes you feel better, the only reason I know this is because I happened to see him with her at that coffee shop.” “What were they doing? What does she look like?” Josuke leaned in. He didn’t care about Keicho or his love life, but he sure did love hot gossip. “Talking. He had his hand on her arm, she was blushing and giggling. Typical flirting.” Yukako took a sip of Koichi’s tea, “She’s not like any of the other girls I’ve ever seen him with; no tattoos or piercings. Has long, curly brown hair, blue eyes, petite. I’d put her at about 5'2 or 5'3. Very pretty."  "Damn girl, you really have an eye for that kind of thing,” Josuke said thoughtfully, “How did he find out you knew and how did he buy your silence.” “Took a picture of them together, sent it to him later that night. Got a promise that he’d do me favors in exchange for me not repeating what I saw.” Josuke whistled, “Cold-blooded.” Yukako merely shrugged, “That’s the nature of the beast.” Okuyasu sighed, but said nothing. Josuke frowned a little at him, “Since you don’t really have plans, do you wanna get pizza with me and some of my family tonight?” Oku waved a hand, “Don’t need ya to take pity on me.” At that, Josuke rolled his eyes, “I’m not, I want you to come out with us. You gotta meet them anyways.” “Hmm…who’s gonna be there?” “Polnareff, his boyfriend, my nephew, his husband, and their daughter. Pol’s sister may be there too.” “…Does this place have wings?” “All you can eat.” Okuyasu smacked his hand on the table, grin replacing his scowl, “I’m sold.” “Good shit, I’ll let them know,” Josuke brushed his hand over the one Oku smacked down onto the table, “You’ll like 'em, they’re good people.” “Josuke,” Koichi interrupted, “I emailed the Calvin Klein people. They’re going to get in touch with us to schedule the shoot.” “C-Calvin Klein?” Okuyasu stuttered. “Yeah, doing another underwear ad campaign for them.” “O-oh. That’s…good…” Okuyasu’s face was blood red.  Before Josuke could ask what was up, a waiter sprang up to take their orders. Questions for another time.

Meeting at Pineapple Larry’s Pizzeria for dinner, followed by a couple hours at the arcade was a tradition that dated back ten years. Originally it had just been Polnareff, his boyfriend, Josuke’s nephew, and his now husband, but then grew to include Pol’s little sister, Josuke’s niece, and Josuke himself.  When he and Okuyasu breezed in, Josuke was in the process of warning him that his nephew was taciturn, his niece would bully him into playing Street Fighter II, and that everyone was great, save for the fact that they liked to put pineapple on their pizza. Josuke couldn’t give anymore heads up when his 5 year old niece went flying into his boyfriend’s arms. “Oku!!!"  "Hey, it’s my favorite bunhead!” Okuyasu caught her in a hug, “How you been, Jolyne Cuisine?” “Good!” “Uh, what?” Josuke asked, perplexed.  Jolyne waved at her uncle, “Hi, uncle Josuke!” Okuyasu did a double take, “Uncle?” She looked between the two of them, “Uncle Josuke, do you know Oku too??” “Yeah, he’s my boyfriend–” Jolyne gasped and hugged Okuyasu harder, “Really?? Wowie, that’s awesome!” She grinned, her front left tooth missing, “Now I’m gonna have two cool uncles.” Josuke felt his face go crimson, and was only mildly relieved when he saw the same color mirrored on Oku’s face. A man with flaming red hair, cherry earrings, and tattoos strolled up to them, “Jo, don’t choke him.” “'Kay, daddy! I’m gonna tell pops that Oku’s here!!” She hopped down, and took off towards the back of the restaurant.  “Sorry, Okuyasu,” Noriaki Kujo smiled, “You know how she can get.” “S'fine, I uh, didn’t know you guys were related?” Noriaki laughed, “Yeah, Josuke’s technically my uncle.” “What the fuck, dude, why didn’t you tell me you knew Oku??” Josuke asked incredulously. “Where would the fun be in that?” Noriaki responded with a toss of his singular hair curl. Josuke learned as they walked to the table that Okuyasu had been patronizing Hierophant Green, Noriaki’s tattoo parlor, for a long time. “He did me and Keicho’s memorial tattoos for our mom,” Okuyasu explained as they followed Jolyne to the back. “Not to mention all those cover-ups,” Noriaki shook his head, “Whoever allowed you two to get those monstrosities should be hanged.” Jotaro, Jolyne, and Polnareff were already at the table; Jotaro was reading through a thick stack of papers, but threw up a hand in acknowledgement that he was aware of their presence. “Bonsoir,” Polnareff greeted them, “Mo is running late, but he’ll be here soon,” his face turned into a grimace, “And my precious little sister will not be joining us today, as she has a date with some man she has yet to introduce me to.” Noriaki took his place beside Jotaro, “Is it the same one she’s been seeing all this time?” “Yes!” Polnareff groused, hands up in the air. “They aren’t even dating! She says it’s 'casual’ and 'non-exclusive’,” he used air quotes while talking. Josuke and Okuyasu sat down. “Not to change the subject or anything,” Josuke started, “But the fact that all of you have met Okuyasu before really took the wind out of my sails.” “He hasn’t met Av yet.” Jotaro pointed out, eyes not leaving his paper. “That is true,” Okuyasu said helpfully, “I ain’t met him yet.” He rubbed Josuke’s shoulder, “It’s all gravy.” Their orders were taken and well on their way on coming out before Avdol showed up. “Apologies,” he said, while kissing the top of Jolyne’s head, then Polnareff’s cheek, “Had a student with a crisis, but it’s all resolved now.” He turned his attention to Okuyasu, “And this must be the boyfriend I’ve heard so much about,” Avdol stuck a hand out, eyes twinkling, “Mohammed Avdol, pleased to make your acquaintance. Everyone calls me Mo or Avdol, so feel free to address me as either.” “Uh, likewise,” Okuyasu shook his hand nervously, “Polnareff talks about you alot.” Josuke snorted. That was the understatement of the century. Avdol elbowed Polnareff as he settled down beside him, “Hopefully you’ve heard nothing, but good things.” Polnareff was affronted, “Excusez-moi? I’ve done nothing, but sing your praises to everyone. Perhaps I should start revealing the truth.” “And what truths do you have to reveal, Jean?” “That you are mean to me, you insult me, you don’t appreciate anything I–” Jotaro rolled up his substantial pile of papers and started smacking Polnareff in the head, much to Jolyne’s amusement, “Shut up, no one cares.” The Frenchman would not be silenced, “Betrayed by my own flesh and blood!” “We aren’t related, jackass.” Thankfully, the pizzas and Oku’s wings picked the right time to come out.  Josuke made a face at the Pineapple Larry’s Pineapple Larry Special, which was a Hawaiian pizza. Which Josuke hated with an almost irrational passion, so he scarfed down his little margherita pizza (Oku tried the pineapple. Final verdict: pretty damn good). “Hey Oku, when’s ya birthday?” Jolyne asked between shoveling huge bites of pizza in her mouth. Okuyasu was on what was probably his 27th wing, ���October 10th.” Josuke spat his drink all over Polnareff, who immediately started shrieking and ran off to the bathroom, “That’s literally two weeks away! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” “It never came up.” “We gotta throw ya a party,” Josuke whipped his phone out. “Nah nah, don’t worry about it,” Okuyasu put his hands up, “S'fine, dude.” Josuke rubbed his arm with one hand while texting with his other, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll get you and a bunch of other people shitfaced.” Okuyasu was about to protest, but Noriaki waved him down, “Might as well accept it, Okuyasu.” He stood up and stretched, “You guys ready to head to the arcade?” Jolyne hopped up and posed, “I’m ready!” Avdol followed suit, “I’ll go coax Jean out of the bathroom.” As Avdol walked away, Okuyasu leaned over to whisper in Josuke’s ear, “Hey, let’s go back to my place after we get done here.” “Sounds good, sunshine."  "Come on guys, I gotta beat you in Street Fighter!!” She started tugging on their shirt sleeves, “Losers have to buy ice cream!!” “You’re on, kid.” Josuke challanged.

“How the fuck did she get so good at Street Fighter?” Oku asked as he finished their shared joint, blowing the smoke into Josuke’s mouth. Josuke held it, then blew it out before answering, “Noriaki is a big nerd. He’s rubbed off on her.” “She’s five.” Josuke shrugged, “I beat Super Mario World when I was five.” They were sitting on a bench underneath a large open window facing out towards the back of Okuyasu’s apartment complex. The arcade trip had been a lot of fun, if you didn’t mind getting schooled at Street Fighter II by a 5 year old playing Blanka. This was the first time Josuke had been to Oku’s apartment in the entire time they’d know each other. It was nice, but didn’t feel like anyone lived in it. 'I hate being alone, so I go sleep in one of Keicho’s spare rooms, Yuuya’s couch, or with you. This place don’t really feel like home, ya know,’ had been Okuyasu’s explanation. The major upside to this place was that the Official Head Roadie and Weedman of Arrowhead, Hazamada, lived directly below Okuyasu. The two of them collaborated on a sick beat while pounding on the door to Hazamada’s apartment, inadvertently pummeling him in the face when he poked his head out to see who was knocking. Josuke almost pissed his pants from laughter; they got a shitty little joint, two middle fingers, and door slammed in their faces for their trouble.

When they lit up, Josuke straddled Oku’s lap and taught him how to shotgun smoke. It took a couple of tries, but eventually he got the hang of it. What followed was intense grinding and sloppy kisses. Josuke was very away of the problem poking at him, but was content with letting Oku twist in the wind for a bit. Then they fell into comfortable conversation, interrupted by the occasional tongue action. “Speaking of games,” Okuyasu stood up and stretched, his shoulders popping in a way that sounded painful, “let’s play something.” “What you got in mind?” “Hmm…” Okuyasu tapped his chin, “How about Metroid Prime 2? I never finished it.” He walked over to his entertainment stand, “I’ll get the Wii hooked up, could you go get my strategy guide for it?” “Why not just look up a FAQ for it?” Okuyasu kept his back turned to Josuke as he sat down to fiddle with the cords, “That guide’s got pictures. Sometimes reading a lot makes my head hurt, so they help.” Josuke nodded, but spoke when he remembered Okuyasu couldn’t see him, “That’s fair. Where is it?” “There’s a big box with "Books stuff” written on the side, filled with old magazines and shit in my spare room. It’s probably in there.“ Okuyasu’s spare room was were odds and ends went to die. The room was full of boxes and clutter that needed sifted through. At first, Josuke thought locating the box Okuyasu had indicated would be an impossible task, but miraculously, he was able to find it lickity-split. The box in question was filled with well-worn magazines and tattered strategy guides. It took a minute, but Josuke was able to find what he was looking for quickly. However, curiosity got the better of him, and he couldn’t help but sit on the floor, and peruse a few of the magazines. Guitar World, Kerrang!, Alternative Press, Rolling Stones; Okuyasu had quite the catalogue. There was a Rolling Stone in particular that, for whatever reason, drew him in. He picked it up and made to flip through it, but noticed that there were some pages stuck together. With care, Josuke peeled the pages apart to find his very first Calvin Klein underwear ad. The ad spanned two pages: one page featured him in nothing but briefs, biting his lip while staring into the camera, arms behind his head. The opposite page was more or less the same, except he had one hand on his chest, the other on a lollipop stick; his tongue peaked out of his open mouth, curled around the lollipop. The pages were covered in some residue. What the fuck did Oku spill on— he thought to himself, until a voice in his head interrupted. It’s semen. He masturbated to your undie ad. This was his spank bank. Josuke became very aware of how sweaty and red-faced he had become. Gently, he rose from the floor, guide and magazine in hand, and returned to the living room. "About time,” Okuyasu said, tongue slightly poking out of his mouth as he struggled to kill an Ing Warrior, “Was gonna go send a search and rescue party to find ya.” Josuke said nothing in response. Instead, he held up the spunk-covered pages, “I see you were a fan of my ad work.” Okuyasu’s face went on a journey from confusion to terrified. “Uhm…” he fidgeted nervously, already starting to sweat, “I can explain…” If he was about to explain it away, Josuke didn’t even give him a chance. He all but leapt onto Oku, shoving his tongue down his throat. A sloppy, heated makeout session ensued, with both of them groping at each other like a pack of horny teenagers. “You know,” Josuke panted, pulling away long enough to catch his breath, “We never cashed in that raincheck.” Before Okuyasu could respond, Josuke slid out of his lap, down in-between his knees. “I wanna make good on it,” Josuke rubbed the pronounced bulge in Okuyasu’s pants, “Can I suck you off, babe?” It seemed that Oku had been rendered completely speechless by that question. After a few seconds of processing what Josuke said, he could only manage to nod dumbly at his boyfriend. Josuke flashed him a wicked grin before pulling Oku’s basketball shorts and boxer briefs down in one go. A slight moan fell out of his mouth when he saw what awaited him. Okuyasu had a huge dick, and Josuke was delighted. It was long, thick, and throbbing; he couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. “Oh fuck, baby,” Josuke bit his lower lip. “Wh-what?” Oku found his voice again. Josuke glanced up at him, and found that his face was puce and covered in sweat. “You look tasty.” With that, Josuke swiped his tongue all the way down Oku’s shaft, pleased at the whimper it elicited from him. He wrapped his hand around Okuyasu’s cock, pumping it roughly, “Is this what you thought about when you jerked it to me? What my mouth would feel like? How I’d sound when I’d beg for your cock?”

“God, yes,” Okuyasu gasped, covering his ruddy face with his hands.

“No baby, look at me when I fuck you with my mouth.”

Okuyasu didn’t remove his hands, but he peaked at Josuke through his spread fingers, eyes wide. Good enough, Josuke thought to himself as he took Oku’s dick into his mouth. Unfortunately, Josuke wasn’t blessed enough to not have a gag reflex, but he made up for it by harshly jerking the inches of Okuyasu he couldn’t fit into his mouth.

Not that his boyfriend seemed to mind. He was too busy moaning and cursing as Josuke prayed at the altar that was his dong.

Either his succ game was too strong, Okuyasu hadn’t known the touch of another person upon his penis in a long time, or the fact it was just Josuke Higashi-goddamn-kata giving Oku’s dick the business, Okuyasu panted out, “I’m close,” after a few minutes.

Josuke pulled back off his dick, still working the shaft, “Where do you want to cum, beautiful?”

“Your mouth,” Okuyasu grunted, voice rough.

Josuke pressed his tongue against the head of Oku’s cock, “Be a good boy and fill my mouth up. Coat my tongue.”

The dirty talk sent Okuyasu over the edge; he let out a single “Fuck!” as he spent himself in Josuke’s mouth.

Hot cum glazed Josuke’s tongue. He waited patiently until Oku was done spurting before showing him the load, and then making a big show of swallowing it. Unable to help himself, Josuke licked the head of his cock clean, revealing in the shudders that he felt pass through Okuyasu and the winded expression on his face.

Josuke stood up, feeling triumphant, “I’m gonna get a soda. You want some water?” He didn’t bother to wait for a response, as he walked into the kitchen.

As he pulled out a can of soda, he was acutely aware of his own boner. It was a problem that needed to be taken care of, but he just sucked the soul out of Okuyasu through his dick, so Josuke felt that it might be poor form to demand a blowjob. Perhaps later—

He was brought out of his thoughts when he felt Okuyasu press up against him from behind, palming Josuke’s dick through his sweats, teeth on his neck. Unconsciously, Josuke hissed, arching his back into his boyfriend. “I’m not the kinda guy to leave someone hanging,” Okuyasu spoke into his ear, voice like sandpaper, “I’m gonna suck you off, angel. Turn around.”

Josuke didn’t need to be told twice. He spun around, pulling his dick out; Oku backed him up against the counter, before kneeling in front of him. As if hypnotized, Okuyasu gently wrapped his callused fingers around Josuke’s cock, slightly stroking. Josuke’s breath hitched at every stroke. After a couple of minutes he groaned, “You’re killing me, dude.”

“S-sorry,” Okuyasu whispered sheepishly, “Jus’ appreciating the view.” As if he was ravenous, he dove down onto Josuke’s cock, taking it all the way to the back of his throat in one go. “Jesus H. Christ, do you not have a gag reflex,” Josuke stuttered out, completely taken aback. He didn’t get a response, only a devilish look from his boyfriend.

Curling his fingers into Okuyasu’s unmade hair, Josuke just tried to enjoy the ride. He was unable to keep his hips still; the longer he felt Oku’s hot tongue or throat clamp around his cock, Josuke thrusted more and more into his mouth.

Okuyasu pulled his dick out of his mouth for a moment, “You can facefuck me if you want.”

“You sure?”

Yet again, he received a response in the form of a look and the feeling of Oku’s throat against the head of his dick.

Not one to deny such a polite request, Josuke snapped his hips, fucking Oku’s mouth. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head; he wondered if this is how he’d fuck Okuyasu’s ass eventually. The thought of it made Josuke’s inside clench, and he couldn’t stop himself from groaning out Okuyasu’s name over and over again while he shot jets of cum down his throat. If he wasn’t so spent, he would feel embarrassed how quickly he came, but goddamn did that feel good.

Okuyasu waited like a good boy until Josuke pulled out of his mouth before he swallowed and stood up. Both of them eyed each other with worn out expressions. Josuke was the first to break the silence, leaning over and softly kissing Okuyasu, who returned it, “Metroid?”

“Metroid.”

“You know, if I went back in time and told myself a year ago that Josuke Higashikata would suck my soul out through my dick, I’d whoop my own ass for being a liar.”

Josuke snorted, eyes trained on his phone’s screen as he organized Okuyasu’s birthday party, “I ain’t a succubus, Oku.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, demon.” Oku was brows were furrowed, trying to not die while fighting Quadraxis.

“So, you jerked it to that ad of me, like, pretty frequently?”

Okuyasu sighed, cheeks going pink, “Yeah. I bought that issue when I saw those pictures in there. It gave me a lot of inspiration.”

“Man, that really feeds my ego.”

“Don’t be getting a big head, Higashikata. It’s already massive.”

“Fuck you, there’s nothing wrong with my head!!”

Okuyasu cackled, which quickly turned into a groan of frustration as he was squished to death by Quadraxis, “Fuck this robotic piece of shit. I’m gonna go to his house and burn it down.”

“He lives in the game, you can’t do that.”

“I know, I know,” he rubbed his face, “Still wanna though.” He looked over at Josuke, “You know, you don’t gotta throw me a party.”

“I want to,” Josuke replied, “It’ll be a good time. I’m inviting cool people.” At the apprehensive look on Oku’s face, he continued, “All of them know about us, so no worries there. You’ve already met most of them, and my family will be there.”

“Okay, then that’s fine. I think. Jus’ make sure to invite Keicho and all them too.”

“Don’t worry, I will,” Josuke said soothingly, “This will be a lot of fun, I promise. Nothing bad will happen.”

He hoped that his promise would ring true.

[bwprowl]

It’s a more Good-Smiley week than usual, as I check out a few new figma and Nendoroid releases just up for pre-order! We’ll also see some fighting-themed backdrops, and a *serious* Sentai sword. All this, plus a desk that couldn’t escape the fiddly grip of Transformers for long, here on Tuesday Night Toys!

New Stuff: Wolf Inside a Cart

Never count out an older series so long as it built up a respectable fanbase to begin with. Spice & Wolf as an anime has been over for ages, and the novels themselves recently wrapped up too. But titular wolf spirit/business partner Holo is an iconic character too legit to quit, so she’ll be getting her own Nendoroid now, just up for pre-order. GSC looks to have put a lot of work into this particular one too, sporting such careful details as ball-jointed ears and an extra hat accessory to hide them. That tipsy facial expression is a cute touch as well. All this plus a cool pre-order bonus of one of the coins from the series.

If I was like, a business economics teacher or something, I’d have this on my desk

Good Smile is also running a bonus campaign in the Winter run-up to Wonfes. Buying new releases of select previous figma and Nendos nets you a neat little scarf accessory in one of six colors. They’re designed to work with *most* of the existing figures, though even GSC admits that they might not fit everyone. Still, if you were on the fence about any of these figures, now might be a good time to decide to grab one!

Premium Bandai continues its High Proportion Collection line of super-detailed but conveniently miniaturized toku toys with the Shinkenmaru from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. This gleefully gimmicky sword clocks in at only 190mm long here, but looks sharp as hell (no pun intended) and even includes a display base and six HiDen Disks with the spinning gimmick. I need more Shinkenger toys.

Wishlist: Off The Wall

I’ve made no secret of my enjoyment of Love Live Sunshine, the singing-schoolgirl sequel that surpassed the original in a lot of ways that worked for me. So while I was perfectly happy to just get Maki from the original figma lineup, I’ll find myself drawn to more of the characters from the next generation. Case in point: figma Riko just went up for pre-order, and I’m thinkin’ about it. Her accessories, naturally, do a lot of the selling, including the *adorable* plush shrimp that Chika threw on her face, and most importantly, a shopping bag holding her surreptitiously-purchased yuri magazines. That was one of my favorite running gags from the show, and the facial expression she has to go along with it sells it perfectly. I’ll keep this one on my radar.

The other figma pre-order in my sights is the Gravity Rush 2 version of Kitten/Kat. This is a marginally-upgraded release of the mold that was originally exclusively packed with the limited re-release of the first game, which I never got the chance at due to it being sold out *everywhere*. This is a cool thing of GSC to do, and it might be a good thing to finally go in on.

Big Boys Toys is putting out stage background cards to go with their T.N.C. Street Fighter II statues, and while I probably won’t be going in for the figures themselves (they ain’t really my thing) the backdrops are a neat enough idea on their own. Recreating the SFII stages complete with health bars, these would probably work well for any couple figures you might want duking it out in a display. Least of all stuff like those upcoming SF Figuarts.

Now they just need a way for the U.S.A. stage to play Guile’s theme

On-Desk: Seek and Enjoy

I’ve got a ton of nice, high-end toys I’ve accumulated lately, but I’m gonna ignore them now and talk about some cheap-ass Transformers I just bought!

Stormshot is a brand-new release in the RID15 line, in the just-out Combiner Force subset, and he won out over the other ‘new’ toys in the wave (Starscream and Blastwave) by virtue of being something completely new. Like, this guy hasn’t even appeared in the show yet, I have no idea who he is save for being a rad-looking jet Autobot.

I mean, the overall look of him is an incredibly interesting Autobot-type take on the ol’ Seeker style (that’d be the Starscream-type body), and that’s largely what has me so in love with him. Everything, from his thruster-boots with the tailfins on them, to the chest-vents, to the intakes flanking his head, all the way to the wings on his back with upside-down faction symbols, are quite deliberately borrowed from that classic Decepticon jet design. But the whole thing’s got a more boxy, ‘heroic’ skew to it, making everything its own. Even Stormshot’s color scheme plays like a ‘remixed’ version of Starscream’s, adding mostly white with red and blue details. I’d love to see more good-guy troopers using this mold in different color schemes.

He’s also got some really cool weapons: A double-barrel pistol and friggin’ shotgun, and they can combine together for even cooler action (he can actually two-hand the thing decently). They can also mount under his wings in vehicle mode, or combine and go under the nose there, OR peg into the back of the jet. He’s got a lot going on. Speaking of the jet mode, it’s pretty good-looking itself; I love the printed metallic details on the wings. This guy is such a surprisingly solid winner overall; though I might still paint in a few extra details.

I also grabbed Titan Master Sawback (along with Ptero, but he’s less interesting), and this guy’s on par with that Stripes toy I talked about a while back in terms of obscure “I can’t believe Hasbro made a toy of this guy”-ness. Being an update of former hard-to-find Japanese line exclusive Master Warrior Lione, Sawback is basically perfect as the type of subject for Hasbro to mine for this size class, and he works well at it. I love the way his head mode forms the back mane of his vehicle’s lion mode, or the teeeeeny little lion face he’s got in his lil’ robot mode. I even love his vehicle’s dumb flying-chair-thing mode, it works as a neat little private spaceship. And they did a great job on the design of his head mode itself, with the robot lion helmet surrounding it, and the face capturing Lione’s distinctive visage. After all that, the shield mode is just a cool bonus.

Oh, AND I got TR Gnaw, who might be the cutest everything-eating execution machine ever put to plastic. The transformation, especially the way it lets the jaw articulate, is just insidiously clever.

That’s all for tonight, everyone! You all have fun now!

[bixeapage]

A Collection Of New Vinyl For The Audiophile – March, 2018

I’d had Steve Earle’s latest, So You Wannabe An Outlaw, sitting around the apartment for some weeks without so much as removing the cellophane wrapper.

Steve Earle and the Dukes

So You Wannabe An Outlaw

Warner Bros.

Performance:

Sound:

I’m not sure why I was so lackadaisical about the whole enterprise. I’d seen Earle perform an acoustic in-store show in support of the work a few months back, and I loved it. Ironically, and despite the crappy current climate, Earle keeps his political opinions off the Outlaw record. This is strictly a fun one. Maybe the most fun I’ve had listening to Steve Earle since El Corazón. Let that one sink in for a second…

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And the fun starts before the record even plays. The gatefold cover has a nice matte finish with some cool illustrations and printed lyrics. Even better, the center stickers on the records themselves reproduce the old Warner Bros. green(-ish) labels from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Not sure if they’re bringing those back in general or if Earle used them to represent the retro nature of the album itself. This is Earle’s ode to Outlaw Country (and Waylon, specifically), in case the title didn’t tip you off. To that end, he starts the party with a duet featuring himself and Willie on vocals. And Willie actually shows up. He sings in a lower register than I’m accustomed to hearing from him, and you almost wouldn’t recognize him at first. But you can’t keep Ol’ Willie hid for long. “News From Colorado” is a heartstring player in the tradition of so many badass Steve Earle ballads before. “Fixin’ To Die” is not the old Bukka White song made “popular” by Dylan and Col. Bruce Hampton; it’s a snarling rocker with thunderous drumming and dangerous fiddling. Makes “Taneytown” seem like “Fort Worth Blues.” There are traditional Country cry-in-your-beer numbers like “You Broke My Heart,” and four of the five numbers on the fourth side are Outlaw Country covers by the likes of Billy Joe Shaver, Willie (twice), and a take on Waylon’s classic “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.” If you can’t have a good time in this saloon, I reckon you should hitch up your pony to a post on the right, and head off to bed. You can cook a campfire breakfast for the rest of us that didn’t.

Perhaps I was reticent to unwrap these records because I assumed they were pressed in Nashville like many of Earle’s previous titles. But they weren’t. They were pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands, and they’re pretty great for a pedestrian release. I noticed that Earle’s old label, New West Records, has moved on from Nashville, and begun pressing records at MTO in France. I’ve had good luck with Jack White’s Detroit pressing plant too, so maybe things are looking up for the general quality of vinyl releases. Thank Goodness. These Outlaw records sound great with plenty of detail in the pretty numbers and loads of grit in the rockers. If you’re an Earle/Outlaw fan, your ship has come in. Or your pony. Just get it.

The Beastie Boys

The In Sound From Way Out!

Grand Royal/Capitol Records

Performance:

Sound:

I’m so thrilled that I didn’t plunk down the exorbitant amount of money that people are asking for an original copy of the Beastie Boys’ The In Sound From Way Out! (The exclamation point is part of the title, and was not used by the author for emphasis.) I didn’t realize that the tunes were compiled mostly from Check Your Head and Ill Communication when I was shopping for it. I’d had those records all along and would have been really angry with myself if I’d paid $100 plus for tunes that were simply re-presented in a different format. The Beasties did some cool stuff with their first-run vinyl releases to differentiate them from later pressings. This one had a slightly altered color scheme, for instance. And it may have had an alternate song running order too. Anyway, Capitol Records reissued In Sound late last year and charged a reasonable price for it, so those concerns have gone the way of coal. (Maybe not the best example given who’s running the show in the USA right now, but you get the idea.) This one’s a (natural) gas, gang. Now’s the time.

There are actually some minor differences between a couple of the songs on In Sound and their counterparts on the earlier releases. Shortened intros and alternate mixes, that kind of thing. “Namasté” and “Lighten Up” had the original vocals removed to accommodate the instrumental format. Still not worth paying ludicrous prices for an original unless you have money falling out of your ears or are truly the world’s biggest Beastie Fan. I mean, people are still asking as much as $550 for the first edition yellow vinyl version. Doesn’t mean they’re going to get it, but still. Let’s get to the meat of the matter though, shall we: this compilation is twenty tons of fun. Much of that is due to Money Mark’s keyboard wizardry. “Wizardry” might paint an inaccurate picture. There are no virtuoso performances on this record. The virtuosity is involved with the players’ impeccable taste. All groove, no solos. Lots of textures and interesting sounds. These tunes were almost certainly mastered from digital sources. In fact, I can’t imagine that there was a ton of analog processing outside of the band’s equipment when they were recording the songs in the first place. But the sonics are really good. The overall sound is well balanced with punchy bass and smooth highs. Maybe not the three-dimensional sound you’ll find, but certainly, an overall passing grade for a reissue that was not as well loved as an audiophile might like. I have all eight official Beastie studio releases on vinyl, and most, if not all, are reissues. I’m mostly fine with it, although I’d enjoy having an original License To Ill for sentimental reasons. This compilation is not included in that list because it’s… a compilation. But it plays really nicely with The Mix-Up, which is a record of original instrumentals that the band released in 2007. I caught that tour, and it was the only time I’d ever see the Beasties play live. They were phenomenal because that’s what they were. Creativity and cool for days upon days. If you’ve never given their grooves a chance, these instrumentals might surprise you. For fans of Jackie Mitoo more so than James Brown. Highly recommended.

Beck

Colors

Capitol Records

Performance:

Sound:

Beck released a new one late last year, but it doesn’t seem like there was much fanfare, really. And that may be by design. His fans are a ravenous lot, and they likely aren’t swayed by his albums’ ad campaigns. They’ll probably come along for the ride no matter what so why waste money on promotion. I count myself among their ranks, but I’m not completely onboard with this one. I’m not even sure that I’m standing on the right dock. This boat seems to have floated right on by me. Sometimes they do.

Colors is Beck’s 13th studio album. He had been playing a couple of these songs live (“Dreams” and “Wow”) for a good long while before the record was released. He worked on the album over the course of about four years in between tours and whatever else he does to stay alive. And I just can’t help but wonder where all the effort was focused. Colors is a record by Fun Beck. Maudlin Beck presumably enjoyed the massive success of his most recent downer album (Morning Phase), but Fun Beck will always sell out tours, and I am of the personal opinion that most of us would prefer to hang with this version of the man. But he ain’t fun enough on Colors. “I’m So Free” involves Beck’s usual incongruous raps over heavy, fuzzed-out guitar chords, but with a new wrinkle. He’s not quite on the speedy level of Big Boi, but I’ve never heard Beck rap faster. And he does so with zero affectations. He sounds bored, while essentially talking quickly in words that rhyme. “Dear Life” uses a cool Beatles-esque piano, and some Nels Cline inspired guitar work, and is one of the more engaging listens on Colors. There’s some immediacy that’s absent in this recording though, and that’s shown up quite plainly during the a-cappella vocals that close this tune out. Sounds like something that could be mind expanding given the MoFi treatment, for example, but there’s just not much “punch” in these grooves to speak of. “No Distraction” employs some cheap ‘80s tricks and plastic melodies, and it may be the most pedestrian song I’ve ever heard from Beck.

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Basically, it just seems like Colors never quite takes off. It’s hard to imagine Fun Beck fans reaching for Colors instead of Odelay, or Guero, or even Modern Times, which is kind of a hybrid between Fun Beck and Maudlin Beck’s best work. I was prepared to rant about the high quality of the pressing, at least, but mine gets a little noisy as side two advances. Nothing crazy. There are more deluxe versions of Colors, but I don’t think the content warrants the extra expenditure. Beck didn’t embarrass himself here, but I’d have envisioned something way more layered and rich after dude spent nearly half a decade in the studio working on Colors. Diehard fans may disagree, but I likely won’t keep this one. Until next time…

Drivin’ n’ Cryin’

Mystery Road

Island Records

Performance:

Sound:

Kevn Kinney anticipated the “Ameriacana” movement by years. When I think of Americana, I think of music played on real instruments, by real people, and produced in a less shiny, less sterile way than what Hot New Country fans may prefer, for instance. Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ married Punk and Country aesthetics early in the game before focusing more intently on the Rock side of things for their scant radio tunes. Mystery Road, the band’s third studio release, rocks plenty with some tasty fiddles and pedal steel work to carry the work home. The original was released in 1989. A recent double-album set reissues the album alongside a set of demos recorded by Peter Buck in 1988. It all takes me back…

…to an era when the older kids (or kids with older siblings) were listening to some whiny guy sing that I couldn’t quite understand. It didn’t take me long though. Luckily, I was in the process of discovering Bob Dylan around this time, so nasal was soon to be cool. Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ were making their way in Atlanta without the benefit of much radio play. At the time, I had them lumped in with all the other Athens bands that I was trying to get a handle on while still under the radio’s formulaic influence. “Honeysuckle Blue” cleared things up for me bigly. I’d have no way of knowing how popular that song was outside of the area that I lived in (unless I asked the internet, maybe), but it was a full-on anthem in my neck of the woods. Still is. I get juiced every time I hear it. Every time. The crunchy tones and the iconic guitar lick make sure of it. “Straight to Hell” is on here too, but I never got as much out of that one. You can still walk into a bar in Georgia, and if the band is playing covers, they’re apt to play either or both songs, perhaps more than once in the same evening. The rest of the album is fleshed out by a group of songs that would anticipate the heavier leanings on later records like Fly Me Courageous. By the time I saw Widespread Panic open for Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ in Atlanta, you’d have thought that Led Zeppelin was headlining. The drums were loud, the hair was big. I left early, but caught the band a few more times after their heyday, and I was much better off for having done so. The demos in this set are fun to have. They’re about what you’d expect: slightly less shiny versions of the tunes that would make it onto the final version (except for the album’s title track, which is on the demos set but not the final album), and a couple that would make it into Kinney’s later oeuvre. They’re gloriously rough. The tempos increase when things get hot, which would have to be smoothed out for the Big Release. Things never got as big as they should have for D n’ C, but that just serves to make them feel like even more of a hidden keepsake.

These records are both well pressed. There are some fun essays in the gatefold, and Kevn Kinney’s grandma’s painting was restored to its original sheen for this cover (after having been bastardized by the record label in ’89). This one’s for rockers more so than audiophiles. There is mud. And blood. I love it.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Live In 1960

Org Music

Performance:

Sound:

Sister Rosetta Tharpe. My goodness, there’s no way to overstate the awesomeness of this lady’s work. I mean, damn. She was one of the first artists to employ distortion of her electric guitar. She influenced Little Richard, and Little Richard influenced everyone. She was a rocker who would not play secular music, but she’d play Gospel in a barroom or a club. She was recently tagged for admittance into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for people who care about that kind of thing. I have an original copy of her Gospel Train album, which is one of the jewels in my collection (although I wish it were in mono). Fantastic. Org Music recently released their take on Rosetta’s Live In 1960. I was stoked. Then, I was not.

First off, these recordings give the listener a very real feel for how emotional and intense Tharpe’s singing could be. She held nothing back. She wasn’t a wailer on par with the more full-throated Gospel singers of yore, but her voice had power and she was totally fearless. Not self-conscious in the least. You can hear her get the Spirit when she extends syllables past the point of breaking (“train” equals “tray-yea-yea-yea-yea-yain”). Sometimes, she cracks herself up. Sometimes, she’s gotta stop and preach. There’s enough personality and life in her vocals for an entire Gospel choir. And her guitar work was percussive and heavy-hitting, an obvious pre-cursor to some of the more refined electric guitar work that the Chicago Blues players would unveil later. Here’s the problem: very little of that guitar work can be discerned on Live In 1960. This is an issue with the original recording, not with anything that the folks at Org Music did. But why in the hell would they choose to release this title in lieu of a “better” one. She takes a quick solo during “Didn’t It Rain” that you can hear most of. Or some of. Because she’s not singing over it. If she’s singing, you can’t hear the guitar. That’s the deal. And it’s just her! There may be a drummer playing quietly on some songs, but the quality of the recording is so bunk that I’m not sure. It could be her foot stomping on the stage.

And that’s about all there is to say about Live In 1960. The pressing is fine, but who cares? There are no download codes or liners. Just a poorly recorded live performance by one of the greatest talents in the history of recorded American music. The cover has a cool photo of Sister Rosetta and her Les Paul. That’s the best part about it. To say that this is not audiophile material would be a grotesque understatement. I don’t know why this record was made unless it was to capitalize on Tharpe’s Hall of Fame induction. I wish they’d chosen a different title. The end.

The post A Collection Of New Vinyl For The Audiophile – March, 2018 appeared first on HomeTheaterHifi.com.

A Collection Of New Vinyl For The Audiophile – March, 2018 syndicated from http://onetwothreemovies.blogspot.com/

[spajonas]

A Look Back At 2017

Hoo boy. Looking back at this year, I’m surprised I survived. The dumpster fire that is our country tried really hard to suck me in and distract me. There were many days when I spent hours on Facebook, scrolling and hoping for good news, and then the day was over and I had done nothing. John Scalzi wrote a great post about how hard it is to stay creative in desperate times (and here at the LA Times) and it really resonated with me this year. It was hard to stay focused, and oftentimes, I could not.

Still, it was a fun and fruitful year, and lots of my goals became clarified by September. I started out the year strong with lots of walking and writing. We went to Disneyworld as a family in the summer and had the best time. And I enjoyed the fall in my wonderful park. I made a lot of decisions about the course of my career to come and kept the boat afloat through some hard times. All in all, I think I did rather well!

Let’s take a look at what I managed to do…

2015 was “The Year I Say No,” 2016 was “The Year I Give No Fucks,” and 2017 was supposed to be “The Year I Have Fun.”

Did I have fun this year with my career? No. Not always. I struggled a lot with my path on this author journey. I listened to too many people who gave me the wrong advice. I let other people tell me that my advice was worthless because I wasn’t successful. I had doubts. A lot of them. It wasn’t fun at all. I remember walking home one day from dropping the kids at school and thinking, “This is not ‘having fun,’ is it, Stephanie?”

It was then that I decided to do something about it. I left the majority of the Facebook author groups I belonged to, places that didn’t add anything positive to my life. I actually started my own author group on FB and filled it with people I love, which helped me have more fun. It wasn’t much longer before many of the author groups on FB either imploded or folded, so I feel like I did the right thing there.

I decided to get rid of things that did me no good, like my traditional newsletter. Now, I blog and my subscribers get all my posts instead, which is a much happier place for me. I got rid of paying for newsletter subscribers or paying for constant advertising that wasn’t working. It was really freeing! And I finally feel like my money is going towards things that make a difference.

Looking back at 2016 and the “Year I Give No Fucks” I’m really glad I had that base to work on for 2017. I continued to not care about stuff like making a best seller list or getting involved in a high-stakes box set or doing newsletter swaps with everyone. I told my awesome crit partner, Tracy, at some point that “I just pretend like I’m the only person on the planet publishing. I’m the only one who matters.” No competing. No comparisons. It’s just me and my books and whatever *I* want to do. That mindset has done me a lot of good in 2017.

All in all, I did well this year. I think my net income did grow because, even though I did spend a lot of money on ads, my gross income is much more than it was the previous year. I’ll have to do the books and find out, but I’m pretty sure I made *some* money. Hey, it’s better than nothing!

Books and Writing Goals Accomplished?

(All last year’s goals are in bold, and my notes on what happened with each come after)

I WILL PUBLISH FOUR BOOKS THIS YEAR. This is a tricky one because I technically published only 3 novels this year but then I also published a few other things. Here’s what came out:

THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE OPENS A TEA SHOP Feb 27, 2017 CRASH LAND ON KURAI Jul 18, 2017 SUMMER HAIKUS Oct 1, 2017 (Re-release) CHAOS IN KADOMA WARD Nov 15, 2017 OZONI AND ONSENS: A DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE NOVELLA Dec 7, 2017 (Previously only for newsletter subscribers)

I WILL WRITE ALL YEAR LONG. Nope, I didn’t do this. I even took time off! Why? Because this was the year I had fun, and there’s nothing that kills fun like working every damned day. I did find myself always in the midst of a first draft or revisions on something though. It was nice not to have a dry spell.

I WILL START UP A PEN NAME BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR. Nope, and I’m not sure I want a pen name now. I’m pretty sure I can do everything I want to do in publishing under this name. I don’t feel like starting over. That’s no fun.

I WILL MAKE SOME BOX SETS THIS YEAR. I did make a boxed set of the Nogiku Series and put it everywhere it needs to be. I also have a pre-order up for the Kami No Sekai Short Story Series that publishes in February. I’m not ready to box up The Daydreamer books yet. Maybe next year.

Marketing, Promotions, Advertising, and Social Media Goals Accomplished?

I WILL SPEND MONEY THIS YEAR. I did spend money this year on advertising. I bought Mark Dawson’s Ads for Authors course and I used it to make effective FB ads which I will continue to do more of in 2018. I continually spend money on Amazon ads every day. I did spend some money on growing my mailing list, which I won’t be doing anymore.

I WILL INCREASE MY MAILING LIST TO 10,000 SUBSCRIBERS. If anything, I went backwards on this goal. I realized that growing my mailing list was only costing me money and not gaining me the fans I was hoping for. My open rates plummeted and only a few people bought books when I had new launches. So now I’m not even using MailChimp anymore and I’m just using my blog, something I wanted to do from the beginning but many people told me that was a mistake. I’m not listening to those people anymore.

MY SOCIAL MEDIA WILL NOT CHANGE. This is the one goal I stuck to like glue. I said, “My Facebook personal profile is a place for me to be personal. I will continue to talk to people via my Facebook Page. Twitter is where I put stuff I’m interested in. Other than that, I will share my work to Google Plus and LinkedIn. My Tumblr is still doing well, and I will continue to post to Instagram every day.” And yeah, I did all of that, and that’s what I plan on doing next year too. Next year, though, I will spend less time on Facebook, more time reading.

Personal Goals Accomplished?

I WILL WALK 1000 MILES THIS YEAR. Yay!! I accomplished my goal in early December and I loved having that goal to work towards all year round. It kept me sane and centered. I can’t wait to get back to it in January. I’ll be doing it again.

I WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE AUDIOBOOK CHALLENGE. I did this and posted about it to the blog yesterday. Check out the post here.

I WILL KNIT MORE. My yearly goal actually panned out this year! I finished off the shawl I had been working on for years and started a new shawl, which I’m almost done with!

I WILL USE MY INSTAPOT AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK. This definitely happened and I’m still very happy with it.

What else happened in 2017?

We did a fair amount of traveling in 2017 including visiting my family in Charleston, we went to the indoor waterpark, Kalahari, in Eastern Pennsylvania, and then our big DisneyWorld trip in June, which was my favorite family vacation of all time.

I redesigned the blog this past summer. I was ready for a change and wanted something more flexible and easier to keep up to date. I also redesigned my header images and the images that share to FB for all posts going forward. I’m happy with the design and I plan to keep this design for three or more years.

We had that cool eclipse! The solar eclipse was so much fun. We made our viewing boxes and talked a lot about the science behind the eclipse. I really enjoyed it.

After kicking butt on my walking goal all year and then crossing the finish line, I got really sick in December. The head cold finally morphed to an upper respiratory infection and sinus infection and I needed antibiotics for the first time in over two years.

I saw lots of wildlife in the park! Deer, ducks, geese, herons, kingfishers, and a fox are at the top of the list for my favorite encounters.

I started doing monthly videos during the summer, and I love them. It was hard to remember to always take video every day, but after a month, it became habit. Some days I take extra videos so that I have some back-ups in case I forget one day. No big deal. I cheat a little. Lol. Haven’t seen my monthly videos? They’re on YouTube, and I post them every month in my goals posts.

I gave up going to the gym. At some point during the summer, I got so tired of waiting for the men in the gym to share the weight machines that I gave up and stopped going. There was one day when one asshole was using two machines at once, and he got mad at me when I sat at one of the machines. Of course, all of these guys are huge and intimidating, and I just didn’t want to go through the trouble of giving them a piece of my mind. I plan to do more weight lifting at home in 2018.

I stopped dyeing my hair. Yep. I decided to go gray and stop dyeing my hair. I may do some funky colors again like I did in 2012 and 2013, but otherwise I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of it anymore.

I bought a PC. This is a true shocker. I basically bought a PC to be my dictation machine. So far, so good. I don’t hate it, but I only use it when I’m writing a first draft. Otherwise, I use my Mac all the time.

And finally, I switched over to Vellum for all of my ebooks and print books. I’m very happy with the convenience of Vellum and I love the design of all of my books now. This is one of my favorite purchases of 2017!

My Favorite Blog Posts

These are my favorite blog posts of 2017!

Patience Is A Virtue – Good things come to those who wait… Yes, it’s true.

On The Merits Of Author Dreams – An essay in which I talk about dreams, success, and keeping going.

Losing (And Finding) My Way – I changed how I wrote and lost my way. Now I’m back to where I started.

The Results Of My Reader Survey – Here are the results of my reader survey! (Video)

Neon Beast – I finished this knitting project I had been working on for almost three years! Meet Neon Beast!!

Happy 4th Anniversary In Publishing! – It’s my fourth anniversary of being a publishing author! Here are all my positive and negative takeaways from this year and what to expect in Year Five and beyond…

Why I’m No Longer Using A Mailing List – I’m making the transition to using my blog with a notification system to reach my readers and here’s why.

Let’s Make Salmon Hot Pot! – Recipe – This is my favorite thing about winter! Enjoy this hot pot treat and fill up your belly with salmon soup and lots of veggies. You’ll love it.

Japan Tea Shop Inspiration – Tea is an important part of Japan and my books! Let’s look at some inspirational photos for Mei’s tea shop from THE DAYDREAMER DETECTIVE OPENS A TEA SHOP.

And That’s It!

Come back on January 1st to hear about my goals and aspirations for 2018!

A Look Back At 2017 was originally published on S. J. Pajonas

[sentrava]

Fa La La: The Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide

It’s my favorite time of the year, you guys: It’s officially socially acceptable to listen to Christmas tunes around the clock, plus I have a valid excuse to spend hours scouring the Internet in search of great gift ideas for you to give your loved ones! (I may also have shopped a little lot in the process. Oops.)

Note: Some of these featured products are from our sponsors, while others are affiliate links that will earn me a small commission. 

So without further ado, here’s what I’m digging this year:

FOR THE NOMADIC SOUL

Have a friend or family member in your life who is only satisfied when doing something new, exciting and/or unique? (I know a little something about that!) Well, Tinggly has the cure that ails them. I’ve always been a fan of giving experiences instead of mere stuff, and this is the perfect solution: You can gift your loved one a personalized box that contains a voucher to a bucket list kind of item that most people only dream of. Dinner with a NASA astronaut? James Bond sightseeing tour in Thailand? VIP helicopter over the Vegas Strip? Yoga retreat in India? Tango lesson in Buenos Aires? Tinggly has something for every taste. I also love that you can choose your box by theme: birthday, Christmas, wedding, couples and more.

FOR THE SUN BUM

True story: I allot more space in my luggage to sunglasses than I do to anything else, as heaven forbid I be photographed in the same shades over and over again! But I can’t help it: I’m always outside doing something fun, and if there’s one thing fashion-wise that I care about the most it’s what’s on my face. And I love the selection of women’s sunglasses available at Sunglass Warehouse. I’m a huge fan of Aviators—bonus points if they’re mirrored—and Sunglass Warehouse has so many different kinds of Aviators in stock, many available for under $20. (With as much as I change out my shades, I like keeping my cost per item as low as possible.) For those shopping for the holidays, Sunglass Warehouse is offering 40% off one pair of shades from now through Nov. 30 with the code SPENDLESS40.

FOR THE TECH-HEAVY TRAVELER

We’ve all been there before: You’re traveling all day and your iPhone quickly depletes of all power. It’s near impossible to locate an outlet at an airport, and even my backup battery usually dies well before my travel day has ended (a nightmare scenario as I rely on it for ride-sharing when I finally reach my destination). Which is why Lynktec’s Reeljuice 5X Power Bank + 10 Watt Rapid Wall Charger is my new favorite thing; it’s got four feet of retractable charging cord, and it gives me FIVE full charges before it needs to be re-powered. No more fighting my fellow fliers for coveted outlet space at the airport; in fact, I can even charge my phone while I fly. I’m giving one of these bad boys away down at the bottom of the post, but you can also get 25 percent off (site-wide!) with the code LUNATICATLARGE25.

FOR THE SCIENCE GEEK (OR THE TWEEN)

This Lock Pick Beginners Box is at the very top of my DIY-loving husband’s own list, and for good reason: It gives you the tools (literally and figuratively) that you need to learn how to pick locks, with two different sets of practice locks that have clear sides so that the trainee can see what’s going on behind the scenes with the mechanisms. This is the perfect present for a dude—what husband/boyfriend doesn’t love tinkering?—but also would be a fantastic and affordable option for your fidgety, problem-solving tween.

FOR THE PHILANTHROPIST

You guys know my love for St. Jude runs deep. It’s just so cool what they do there: On top of being one of the top research facilities in the world, St. Jude also ensure that its patients don’t have to worry about a thing (like, for example, cost or lodging for the family) other than getting better. I donate to St. Jude periodically throughout the year, but I’m loving their new initiative, This Shirt. All you have to do is sign up to donate $20 to St. Jude monthly, and you get this exclusive Tee that all your favorite country artists (and your favorite blogger!) are wearing. Because helping others is really the reason for the season.

FOR THE ETERNAL STUDENT

Alert, alert, self plug coming! Kristin Sweeting and I are headed to Portugal next July to teach the ultimate writing, photography, marketing and business workshop—and we’d love for you to join us! We’ve extended registrations through Dec. 31 and have a handful of spots left (and a really amazing group attending so far!). Come learn the ropes of the biz with us while surfing, roaming, doing yoga and exploring Lisbon’s charming surrounds with us in your downtime. Bring your significant other or business partner or come solo. Just think of it as continuing education, a tax write-off and a vacation all rolled into one! As a Christmas special, I’m including two one-hour coaching sessions for anyone who signs up by Dec. 15, one by Skype prior to the trip and one in Portugal.

FOR THE AT-HOME COOK

We’re always experimenting in the kitchen, and try to eat as clean (i.e. no processed food) as possible, meaning that adding herbs and spices is clutch for our style of dining. I’ve had a subscription to Raw Spice Bar for the past year, and I love that every three months, a collection of six individually packaged, freshly-ground, seasonal spices arrives in my mailbox and that I don’t have to commit to buying the entire spice jar before I know I like it. You can even customize your diet to Paleo, vegan, vegetarian, healthy or “eat anything” and, of course, buy more from the Raw Spice Bar shop if you like what you tried.

FOR THE HEALTHY DINER

I’m all about collecting cookbooks, even if SVV is technically the chef in our household. My current favorite is A Beautiful Mess Weekday Weekend, which just came out this month and compiles even more healthy, vegetarian recipes than Elsie and Emma post on their blog. If you already own ABM, may I suggest the following: Laura Lea Balanced, Body Love and Cravings (maybe technically not healthy, but who doesn’t want to look like Chrissy Teigen?!).

FOR THE NEW HOMEOWNER

Earlier this year, my interior designer friend Kendall Simmons and her husband Kane launched Salut Home, a thoughtfully curated collection of home goods and accents, and I drool over all their colorful offerings every time the email hits my inbox. My current obsession? Their new collection of Leah Singh pillows (all things Leah Singh, really)—they have 96 styles in stock! And bonus, they’re on sale for Black Friday (use the code LEAH20), or you can sign up for their newsletter and receive a promo code for 10 percent off.

FOR THE SHUTTERBUG

While I’ll never fully replace my DSLR, ever since my mom gave me the Canon G7X Mark II for Christmas last year, it’s replaced my Canon 6D in my purse as my daily camera. It’s still got the manual settings so I can play around with the exposure, but is small and compact and great for videos. (Check out the travel videos I’ve been making for evidence.)

FOR THE BIG KID IN YOUR LIFE

For SVV’s last birthday, I got him a Phantom 4 Pro+ drone, and he loves it. He was a former aviation tech in the Navy and daydreams about flying all the time. Coupled with his penchant for photography, it was the perfect gift (and has come in handy on many a work project for us, too!). I think the P4 Pro is great for someone who does photography professionally; however, if your loved one isn’t that well-versed in drones yet, I recommend a cheaper, lighter model like the DJI Spark as a starter drone.

FOR THE ADVENTURER

I’ve had five different GoPros since I got my first one seven years ago, and the quality has improved significantly. After watching some of my YouTubers film exclusively with the GoPro Hero 6, I’m adding the newest model to my wishlist for our upcoming ski adventures (and it finally comes equipped with an LCD screen, too—you used to have to buy those a la carte).

FOR THE DOG OWNER

I bought a pair of travel pillows from the entrepreneurs behind Doggie Duffel, and I’m intrigued by their latest (fully-funded) project that’s essentially an all-in-one travel kit for your pup. Ella doesn’t have one of these yet, but I think I know what she’ll be finding under the Christmas tree…

FOR THE ART LOVER

I’ve been a long-time fan (turned friend) of Leslee Mitchell’s, and every time her gorgeous photography pops into my feed, I mentally bookmark it for the next time I’m doing a room makeover. I recently snagged several of her toy car prints, and I’m absolutely in love! Any giftee would be lucky to own a series of prints from this talented artist.

FOR THE SPORTY GIRL

Pretty much all my travel apparel comes from Gap Fit or Athleta—after all, I’m a girl who places comfort above style, but with most athleisure, luckily you can have both!—and a few pieces I’m loving this winter are: this metallic sweatshirt, this jersey keyhole top, this pullover hoodie and these black, leopard-print leggings.

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  FOR THE VINTAGE LOVER

Wish you’d grown up in the 70s? (Me, too.) You can embrace a bygone era with this sleek record player in a portable brief case that doubles as a CD player and has USB ports. Bonus: It comes in five different colors!

FOR YOUR FRIEND WHO WORKS FROM HOME

You know that girl who works in her coziest pajamas and barely leaves her computer desk all day long, except to refill her coffee/water/bourbon glass? (AHEM.) Welllll, how much would she love to upgrade from her ratty old PJs to this amazing unicorn onesie? (Really bad, I’ll tell ya!) For one that’s a bit more subtle, Nordstrom currently has this beauty on sale.

Stocking Stuffers Under $50

Savannah Bee Co. body products. I was stoked when I recently spotted Savannah Bee’s entire line, like this body butter, for sale at Target!

Geometric rings. Psst, SVV, looking for something small to get me? Start here.

Paddywax candle. My favorite candles are those that you can reuse the container as tabletop decor after it’s burned out.

Herb mill and grinder. As someone who’s very lazy in the kitchen, I love any tool that does the hard work for me.

S’well bottle. My cousins gave me one of these nifty canteens two years ago, and it’s been a game changer in my travels as I no longer have to abuse the planet by buying bottled water.

Stocking Stuffers Under $20

Taylor Swift’s reputation album. The Old Taylor can’t come to the phone because she’s out there SLAYING it with her new album. Man, this one is going to rack up the awards, and it should be in any music lover’s repertoire of tunes.

Flamingo ornament. I’m a sucker for all things flamingos and also ornaments, and Nordstrom at Home has a whole lot of cute, travel-themed ones, many of which are on sale.

Vintage maps. SVV and I are map lovers to the core. We own more than 30 globes and a number of vintage maps, but those are tough to find, which is why I like this Etsy store, which has both domestic and international city prints.

Monogrammed copper wine stopper. Because who doesn’t want their initial atop their vino?!

Twist Magazine’s winter issue. Launched by my good friend Keryn, this new travel publication is a gorgeous glossy that’s the perfect stuffer for the family traveler.

A taco holder. What taco lover doesn’t need this in their life?!

Stocking Stuffers Under $10

Sheet masks. I’ve been addicted to sheet masking for a year now, and while the TonyMoly variety pack is my go-to order, I’m equally as obsessed with these reindeer and penguin masks from Target.

eos holiday lip balm. I keep an eos in every bag I own, and I just popped this trio of holiday flavors (peppermint mocha, vanilla bean, ginger) into my shopping cart!

A manatee tea infuser. Or if manatees aren’t your thing (you crazy), there’s also a sloth, shark or loch ness monster.

iPhone charging cords in myriad colors. Show of hands if you, like me, are always on the hunt for that missing iPhone/USB/mini-USB cord?

The Oregon Trail Card Came. Because kids these days don’t even know what it’s like to ford a river and then die of dysentery when you’re almost there.

Pop socket. This little doodad changed my life—and made me stop dropping my iPhone altogether. I didn’t know how I’d feel about it, but I love it.

Rare earth magnets. We bought these to tack things to our wall on our four-month RTW cruise, and they’ve been a game-changer on actually keeping all of our cards and photos up on the fridge. They never fall, like, ever.

Since it doesn’t feel like the holidays until I start giving away gifts, I’m giving away one big C&C stocking stuffer grab bag, full of some of my favorite things, including the Lynktec charging station, a selection of Raw Spice Bar spices, and plenty of other stocking stuffers for you to give your family and friends (or keep for yourself—I won’t judge!). The value of this box o’ fun is currently over $300—also brimming with music, beauty items, and other odds and ends I’ve purchased and wanted to share with you—though I’ll likely continue to add to that as I finish my Black Friday shopping.

All you have to do to enter is tell me your favorite holiday tradition. Don’t have one? Tell me what’s the top of your Christmas wishlist! It’s that simple. Leave a comment below, and I’ll randomly choose a winner of this bag o’ fun on Dec. 1.

PIN IT HERE

Fa La La: The Ultimate Christmas Gift Guide published first on http://ift.tt/2gOZF1v

[vincentpennington]

Holiday Gift Guide 2017

Once again, ’tis the season for rampant consumerism! Yes, it’s time to brighten your loved one’s faces by giving them awesome stuff. And with my annual holiday gift guide, you’ll find gifts that fit both your budget AND your buddies’ tastes—that is, assuming they love exactly the same things that I do. Plus, with the space-age techno-power of online shopping, you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your couch to do so!

Just like every year, I’ve compiled a list of things that have brought real joy to our lives. You won’t find anything here that I was paid to endorse despite not having tried—in fact, I personally bought, own, use, and love every single item in this Holiday Gift Guide. After all, if it’s not something worth spending my own money on, I shouldn’t be recommending it, right? (Full disclosure: Although I’m not paid to endorse any of the stuff in this Gift Guide, if you follow my affiliate links to purchase them, I do get a small percentage as a commission without costing you an extra penny.)

Ready to lighten your wallet? This year, I’m going to start by hawking my own awesome products, and then I’ll tell you about other crazy-fun holiday gift ideas!

READY OR NOT! COOKBOOK

Yes, I’m totally biased, but I truly believe that the bestest holiday present you can give yourself and your loved ones is our newest cookbook, Ready or Not! Our book is all about making healthy Paleo home cooking a breeze, no matter if there’s time to prepare or just minutes to spare. Whether you’re a fastidious planner or a last-minute improviser, you’ll find plenty of deliciously nourishing options, from make-ahead feasts and treats to lightning-fast leftover makeovers and make-now meals. Presented in our trademark comic book style, Ready or Not!’s step-by-step recipes, photos, and meal plans make cooking a habit you’ll never want to break.

Henry and I poured our hearts and souls into this book, testing each and every recipe on our family, shooting every one of the 2,000+ photographs in our home kitchen, meticulously drawing every illustration, and designing and laying out every page.

And our loyal readers have responded by swooping up the entire first printing! Since it hit bookstores in August, Ready or Not! has become a New York Times bestseller, and hit #1 on both the Wall Street Journal and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists for Hardcover Nonfiction. Our book made it to the Semifinals of Goodreads’ Choice Awards in the Food & Cookbooks category. And Amazon recently named it one of the 15 best books of the year in Cooking & Wine!

Ready or Not! is available wherever books are sold (in the U.S. and all over the world!)—but this holiday season, we’ve partnered with our local independent bookstore, Books Inc., to offer signed and personalized copies of our cookbook! If you’d like for me to inscribe a personal note to you or someone special to you, just click this link to order Ready or Not! from Books Inc. At checkout, make sure you fill out the Order Comments section at the bottom to let me know who you’d like me to make the book out to. I’ll even make sure to throw in some free exclusive Nom Nom Paleo swag, too! Just place your order by December 14th at 11:59 am Pacific to guarantee delivery by Christmas!

Buy a signed and personalized copy from Books Inc. here!

(By the way, if you pals don’t yet have a copy of my first cookbook, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans, grab one for them, too!)

READY OR NOT! WALL CALENDAR

If you like our cookbooks, you’ll definitely dig our 2018 wall calendar.

With healthy recipes presented in a deliciously fun style, this 2018 wall calendar will inspire you to cook all year round. This eye-catching companion to our new Ready or Not! cookbook features cheeky cartoons and a different Paleo recipe each month, ranging from hearty suppers to easy snacks and sides. Best of all, this colorful calendar also includes dozens of stickers (featuring cartoon versions of me and my family—including Ollie’s stuffed cat!) to keep you motivated throughout the year. Hang this on your wall, and Ready or Not! will make cooking a habit you’ll never want to break!

Buy our calendar from Amazon here!

MAGIC MUSHROOM POWDER

Never tried my Magic Mushroom Powder? It’s one of the most potent flavor boosters in my kitchen arsenal—an umami-packed seasoning salt that made The Oregonian’s Test Kitchen “rethink everything [they]’ve been doing in the kitchen.” Magic Mushroom Powder can be used in place of salt in virtually any dish, adding an immediate flavor punch to everything from scrambled eggs and ground meat to roasted veggies and chicken wings. I always keep Magic Mushroom Powder stocked in my kitchen, and you can, too! Make it yourself using this recipe—and give it away as stocking stuffers to your favorite foodies.

Too lazy to D.I.Y.? Magic Mushroom Powder is now available in cute tins at Whole Foods Market stores in the chain’s NorCal Region (which also covers Reno, Nevada) and Northeast Region (including stores in New York, Western Connecticut, and all New Jersey stores except Marlton, Cherry Hill, and Princeton). My Magic Mushroom Powder has been selling out super-quickly, though, so call your local store before visiting to make sure they still have some left at the butcher counter!

(Psst! Magic Mushroom Powder will be available in ALL Whole Foods Market stores in January! Look for the tins on the butcher counter starting in the New Year!)

NOM NOM PALEO BASEBALL CAPS

You may have seen the boys rockin’ cool Nom Nom Paleo baseball caps on our Ready or Not! book tour and wondered, how can I get one? Well, at long last, you can FINALLY order ’em here on our website! This classic snapback baseball cap, which features a structured wool blend and plastic snapback closure, puts an embroidered image of my FACE on your FOREHEAD. There is simply no better way to show off your inner Nomster, people.

You can get it in three different color combos: yellow/black, red/ black, or red/white/black!

NOM NOM PALEO VINYL ACTION FIGURE

I will do whatever it takes to help you eat real, nourishing, nomtastic foods—even if it means miniaturizing myself so I can cheer you on in the kitchen. Featuring 3 points of articulation, Mini-Michelle stands 3.5 inches tall and comes equipped with four accessories (and a sunny smile, too!). 

Buy a Mini Michelle here!

Okay, enough about Nom Nom Paleo stuff. Let’s talk about gift ideas that DON’T have my face plastered on ’em!

INSTANT POTS

I’ve been such an ardent fan and vocal cheerleader for Instant Pot that many people assume I’m some sort of paid spokesperson for the brand. But guess what? I’m not. I just love using Instant Pots to make delicious, Paleo-friendly recipes with no fuss or muss—and I want everyone else to discover the magic of this appliance, too.

To be honest, even though Instant Pots are multi-use cookers (meaning they can handle everything from slow cooking to rice making), the electric pressure cooker function is my favorite, and the one I primarily use. But what an electric pressure cooker it is! Seriously: The Instant Pot will change your life and streamline the process of getting tasty hot food in your craw.

I’m always asked to recommend my favorite Instant Pot models, so here they are:

Instant Pot IP-DUO Plus: New for 2017, this 9-in-1 6-quart multi-use cooker gives you a lot of bang for the buck. I used to recommend the IP-DUO 7-in-1 cooker as the best one of the lot, but this updated version is even better. Users provided tons of great feedback about how Instant Pot could enhance the older version, like adding a max-fill line in the insert, changing the button labeled “Manual” to “Pressure Cook,” and cramming a bunch of new features into the gadget. Instant Pot clearly listened, and incorporated all of these improvements into the IP-DUO Plus. Get one from Amazon here!

Instant Pot Ultra: This one’s my favorite—it wins by a nose over the IP-DUO Plus. Why? Because it’s more sleek looking, has a central dial with turn-and-press functionality, a cooking progress indicator, and a steam release reset button (to appease those of you who are skittish about the escaping steam when you manually release pressure). The dial may be a bit confusing for those who prefer buttons, but it allows for greater customization and precision. Get one from Amazon here!

I’ll be sure to let you know whenever these babies are on sale, and I always update my Instant Pot Deals page with the latest bargains. Oh, and don’t forget to check out my ever-growing list of Instant Pot recipes!

HEDLEY & BENNETT APRONS

Eagle-eyed Nomsters know that whenever I’m in the kitchen, I’m in a Hedley & Bennett apron.

I’ve loved these aprons for YEARS—ever since my chef sister bought me one for my birthday in 2013. My collection of Hedley & Bennett aprons has steadily grown over the past four years—I’m now up to eight—and I have no plans to stop. Buy one, and you’ll see why: Each Hedley & Bennett apron is individually handcrafted and built to last, with top grade materials and meticulous fabrication. And best of all, they’re gorgeous.

My fave new design is the (PRODUCT)RED apron. Not only is it in my favorite color, but 25% of the retail price from this product purchase will support (RED)’s efforts to fight AIDS through the Global Fund.

You can buy one from Amazon here!

CHEF’S CHOICE 15 TRIZOR XV EDGESELECT ELECTRIC KNIFE SHARPENER

When my knives are sharp, cooking is faster and safer. I treated myself to this fancy home knife sharpener after I got tired of dropping my knives off at different knife sharpeners every few months to keep them in tip-top shape. It’s the number one rated knife sharpener per the folks at Cook’s Illustrated and I couldn’t be happier with my purchase. All my knives (and my friends’) are quickly sharpened in just a few minutes and we’re back to slicing and dicing in no time at all!

Get one from Amazon here!

THE INSPIRALIZER

You know all those zany vegetable noodles you’ve seen on Pinterest? You can easily make them at home with a spiralizer. There are tons of options on the market, and I’ve owned four different brands myself. Last year, I recommended two different models, but now one has come out on top: The Inspiralizer.

The Inspiralizer is an awesome tool created by Ali Maffucci, the spiralizing queen behind Inspiralized. If she’s gonna invent a spiralizer, you know it’s gotta be one of the best. I love that the blades are attached to the gadget, and you just twist the dial to change it. Plus, you can spiralize thinner vegetables because the central coring blade that keeps them in place has a narrower diameter than other spiralizers.  The one thing that kept me from recommending it wholeheartedly was that it wasn’t dishwasher safe, but I discovered that I can plop it on the top rack! Haven’t you been dying to make my Crispy Swoodles with Bacon?

Grab one from Amazon here!

LECTROFAN WHITE NOISE MAKER

With all the travel I did this year for our Ready or Not! Book tour, one of the things I prioritized above all else was good sleep. Sleeping on the road can be tough, especially with all the time zone changes and resulting jetlag. Two things that I always travel with to ensure good sleep are my trusty eye mask and a portable white noise maker. I realized I needed a white noise maker when I stayed in big cities like NYC or Chicago and the constant traffic and honking would keep me up at night. After doing lots of research, I opted to buy the Lectrofan and it helped me get my zzz’s on the road. (Yes, it’s very compact and takes up very little space in my carry-on.) I liked it so much that I now keep it on my nightstand at home!

Grab one from Amazon here!

THERMAPEN  + THERMOPOP

What’s so great about the Thermapen Mk4 instant-read thermometer? Well, it’s lightning-fast, incredibly accurate, has an intelligent backlight and auto-rotating display, a motion-sensing sleep-and-wake mode, and it’s super-cool looking. Plus, if you use it when cooking, you’ll never mess up a pricey piece of grass-fed meat or pastured poultry ever again. Get one from ThermoWorks here!

The one caveat? It costs close to $100. Luckily, the Thermapen’s mom and dad has squeezed out a more affordable younger sibling, the ThermoPop. This lollipop-lookalike is rated #1 by Cook’s Illustrated and Serious Eats, so you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about whether it works as well as its older sibling. Yeah, it’s not quite as fast as the Thermapen (2-3 seconds for Thermapen, and 3-4 seconds for ThermoPop), but it’s only $29. And as I’ve said before, if you’re gonna cook meat or fish properly, you gotta invest in a great thermometer, so get one from ThermoWorks here!

BACK JACK MEDITATION CHAIRS

I first encountered Back Jack chairs at the Paleo seminar I did at 1440 Multiversity, where some audience members—fresh from a morning yoga class, I assume—plopped down on the floor into these sturdy, portable meditation chairs. They’re great for everything from zen practice to playing video games with your kids. Made in the U.S.A., Back Jacks come in an array of bright colors—I bought red ones, because I’m me—and are heavily padded for comfort.

Grab one from Amazon here!

LUNCHBOTS CLICKS SALAD CONTAINERS

I love these all-stainless steel interior salad containers by my pals at LunchBots! They’re totally leak-proof, durable, and dishwasher safe. However, I don’t just store salad in them—I store all my leftovers in them ‘cause I’m the Leftover Makeover Queen. One thing to note: when placing hot food in the container, allow the food to cool to room temperature before sealing the lid. Failing to do so may cause a strong vacuum to form, making the container difficult to open. If a vacuum does form, insert a butter knife between the lip of the container and the lid to allow air to escape. Easy peasy!

Get one from Amazon here!

(Psst! If you’re looking for a great insulate container with all-stainless steel interior, get a LunchBots Thermal!)

MARSHALL ACTON BLUETOOTH SPEAKER

Our family loves to listen to music together in the kitchen and when the kids are at school, I blast my favorite podcasts while I’m tinkering with recipes. The bluetooth speaker that we play all of our audio on is the Marshall Acton Bluetooth Speaker. It works great, and looks like a mini-version of the various amps that Owen has scattered around the living room for his electric bass and guitar!

Get one from Amazon here!

VIBRAM FUROSHIKI WRAP SHOES AND BOOTS

I’m not a fashion plate and you’ll never see me posting my #ootd on IG, but I do have a favorite minimalist shoe—my Vibram Furoshiki Wrap Shoes. These shoes are super comfy and they don’t have the weirdo five fingers. You just wrap them around your feet, and they look like pretty presents. Just make sure you don’t buy a knock-off by mistake! Get a pair from Amazon here!

(In the winter, I wear the cozy boot version. Buy a pair from Amazon here!)

SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT

This is my favorite new cookbook of the year (that wasn’t written by me!).

Chef, teacher, and author Samin Nosrat has produced a groundbreaking cooking book—one packed with an amazing wealth of knowledge. Accompanied by charming illustrations by Wendy MacNaughton, Samin cheerfully teaches readers to use the four main elements of cooking—salt, fat, acid, and heat—to master cooking. This book is aimed at inspiring cooks to make confident decisions in the kitchen without relying on recipes. With Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, you can whip up delicious meals at any time with any ingredients on hand.

This is a classic. Get it from Amazon here!

NAPTIME WITH JOEY

This book brings me SO. MUCH. JOY. Do you follow @lauraiz on Instagram? When her adorable daughter, Joey, takes a nap, Laura dresses her up as mini pop culture icons—from Salt Bae to Barb from Stranger Things—and snaps a pic. It’s off-the-charts cute. Just flipping through these photos on my phone instantly puts me in a sunny mood. Laura’s first book, Naptime with Joey, is a compilation of these adorable photos—complete with the punniest captions.

Get it from Amazon here!

CRAZY RICH ASIANS TRILOGY 

All my good friends know that I’m not much of a fiction reader. Cookbooks and gossip magazines are my jam, okay? Despite my aversion to fiction, this year I bought and quickly devoured all three books in Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. These three books chronicle the intertwined lives of three super-insanely wealthy Chinese families, and they’re packed with humor, gossip, and soap opera shenanigans. I haven’t stayed up late reading a trilogy since I read The Tales of the City series in college, but these three books had me burning the midnight oil. In fact, I’m still moping about the fact that the trilogy has ended—but at least I have the Crazy Rich Asians motion picture to look forward to next summer! (Spoiler alert: One minor character in the books eats a Paleo diet. I gasped out loud when I read that part.)

Get the first book, Crazy Rich Asians here!

Get the sequel, China Rich Girlfriend here!

Get the final book in the series, Rich People Problems here!

Those are my picks for this year! Now that you’ve gotten your holiday shopping done, get off the couch and do something fun! (Or at least more fun than stampeding through your local big box store at midnight on Black Friday.)

The post Holiday Gift Guide 2017 appeared first on Nom Nom Paleo®.

[dippedanddripped]

It’s anything but low-key at the night show. Travis Scott is playing at New York’s Terminal 5, and Virgil Abloh—under his Flat White moniker—is opening with a DJ set. The sprawling dance floor of the venue is divided between the kids ready for the rodeo—closest to the stage, ready to mosh at moment’s notice—and a smattering of casual fans and certified washed-olds towards the back, away from the guaranteed pandemonium that will ensue as soon as Scott takes the stage.

Tonight also happens to be Travis Scott’s birthday. But at this moment, the place that’s popping the most is the merch stand.

A gaggle of concertgoers is huddled in front of a long table covered in black cloth, various “Birds Eye View” tour tees, hoodies, and hats hang behind it, from cobalt blue tees with a holographic print to purple tour hoodies that would soon end up on the body of Kylie Jenner—who happens to be here tonight, along with Jaden Smith, Sasha Lane, and other attendees of note.

Despite the fact that Virgil Abloh is spinning a mere few feet away from them, the kids seem decidedly more excited to get their hands on the exclusive merch he designed for tonight, having debuted a limited-edition hoodie on his Instagram just hours before.

The collaborative merch is a full sweatsuit, consisting of a hoodie and sweatpants featuring Scott’s signature Bird’s Eye View tour graphics spliced with Abloh’s penchant for sans serif typefaces and ironic usage of quotation marks. There’s also a coordinating T-shirt for completists. Nerds will fawn over the fact that the blanks used are Champion Reverse Weave, the sportswear manufacturer’s line of high-end knits that hits all the right notes that get vintage heads to salivate.

How did we get to this point—when merch wasn’t a way to commemorate the show, but a main event unto itself? While there has always been a certain affinity for music merchandise and band T-shirts, vintage Metallica and Slayer tees have since been reproduced for modern consumers, causing some to declare the fad officially dead. But as far as a rap music is concerned, only recently have tees become a mass-market trend. Vintage versions are highly sought-after, and can demand a hefty price. According to DJ Ross One, who quite literally wrote the definitive book on rap tees, that rarity comes from the fact that for the most part, hip-hop culture didn’t really understand how to successfully market itself through merchandise.

“Hip-hop in general through the ’90s was really bad at doing merch, especially for concerts,” he remembers. But he does admit certain artists foresaw the value of merch early on, citing Chuck D of Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, and Naughty By Nature as early pioneers. In many cases, merch wasn’t picked up as a memento at a concert, but ordered through catalogs and CD liner notes, as was the case with Naughty By Nature’s Naughty Wear line.

But now, the physical interactions between listeners and artists are diminishing in favor of virtual ones. You can’t really brag about your record collection when it exists in the cloud instead of on a shelf. And for artists, the digitalization of their careers means it’s even more important to tell a consistent story through multiple platforms, not just through an album, but also through Instagram, concerts, and yes, merchandise.

That’s where Bravado comes in. Founded in 1997 by Keith and Barry Drinkwater, the music merchandise company was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2007. Their artist roster includes classic bands like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, and modern heavyweights like Travis Scott, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, and Kanye West. Mat Vlasic, who has served as the CEO since March 2016, understands the importance of leveraging an artist’s platform as an omni-channel brand.

He points out that in the past, artists could express themselves in other ways, like CD packaging, but as the industry has evolved, so have their creative responsibilities.

“More than ever, an artist has to focus 100% on every single aspect of their business,” says Vlasic. “10 or 15 years ago, you could focus on the music. If you didn’t want to think about how your brand was portrayed in apparel, or other consumer products, you didn’t have to.”

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For Bravado, business is booming—to the tune of reported revenues of 313 million euros in 2016, up 13.4% from the previous year. Events and concerts are currently where Bravado converts the most sales by person.

“You got 70,000 people in a stadium that are super excited coming into the show, and even more excited coming out of the show, and you’re exiting through the gift shop,” explains Vlasic.

But where Bravado is changing the game is by taking merch beyond the stadium setting, orchestrating 21 global pop-up shops for Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo project, bringing Justin Bieber’s Purpose tour merch (designed by Jerry Lorenzo) into fashion boutiques like Barneys and VFILES, and partnering with VLONE to create a Tupac Shakur-inspired cafe in New York’s Lower East Side, replete with exclusive collabs. Most recently, Bravado ventured out of music to create merch for Dave Chappelle’s Radio City Music Hall residency, designed by Heron Preston.

“The Virgil/Travis thing was super-organic. because they’re both natural collaborators, and obviously friends too,” says Charlie Mangan, a Senior Product Manager at Bravado. “Virgil is opening for Travis. Virgil hits him with the three limited pieces. It causes hysteria, but it also supports Travis and Virgil’s brands. The merchandise is an extension of OFF-WHITE, and the bird stuff is an extension of Bird’s Eye View. So those things add clout to the other products. If I can’t get the Virgil hoodie, I still want the Bird’s Eye View hoodie, because I want to show my affinity for Travis Scott.”

These types of creative partnerships make sense to Vlasic, because he reasons that if artists are going to spend countless hours and creative energy forging their sound and the visuals of their live show, it’s only natural that they would have an equally discerning lens to their merchandise. In working with cultural heavy-hitters like Virgil Abloh, Jerry Lorenzo, and Heron Preston, Bravado taps into the hype cycle of limited-edition collaborations and the ephemeral nature of a concert or pop-up shop to create demand for their product.

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“The origin point is always the artist,” asserts Mangan. “There’s no merch business if you don’t have the music to lead it, but the artist is driving the creative more and more.”

That’s definitely the case with artists like Travis Scott, Kanye West, and The Weeknd, for whom Mangan recently oversaw a collaboration with Futura. Now Bravado is branching out even further, not just with pop-up shops and comedians like Dave Chappelle, but high-end installations with some of their more tenured artists. Last weekend, Bravado launched a new shop-in-shop at Los Angeles boutique Maxfield to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, Appetite for Destruction. To mark the occasion, Bravado tapped a roster of designers for their own interpretations of the band’s style. The brands include MadeWorn, AMIRI, Kelly Cole, Palm Angels, Enfant Riches Déprimés, and OFF-WHITE.

Virgil Abloh’s contributions include an homage to Axel Rose’s signature red bandana, done up in the brand’s recognizable iconography and a screenprinted “BANDANA” in quotes. Abloh even goes deep, making a shirt emblazoned with the slogan “NOBODY KNOWS I’M A LESBIAN,” reproducing a tee Rose wore in the ’90s, but now with the added text “OFF-WHITE c/o VIRGIL ABLOH,” of course.

“I like to look at it as more of a collaborative partnership than a license,” says Vlasic. “To me a license is just kind of like: give me a check, you can take this, go slap it on whatever you can find, and send me a royalty statement. Whereas in the partnerships, we’ve gone in representing the artist’s brand, sat down and figured out how we’d work together. What makes sense? Where are the creative synergies? How do we talk to your fan base? How do you talk to our fan base?”

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Vlasic sees this space as a place where Bravado can really grow. It’s where they’re able to leverage the brand an artist has, and explore how they can expand it from a retail standpoint. Mangan says they already tier the product to different retailers, which is why you can find Bravado artist merch everywhere from Forever 21 to Urban Outfitters, but the high-end collaborations speak to an entirely different, more discerning audience. It’s their version of a prestigious Nike collab that boosts awareness and demand for the general release model. And while Bravado’s current partnerships have been focused on apparel, Vlasic sees a future where artists’ brands extend beyond what fans put on their body, but also in their body.

“Why can’t we do more things in food and beverage? Why can’t we do more things in travel and leisure?,” he asks. “That’s a definite focus for us right now because it’s a lifestyle at the end of the day. The Rolling Stones is a lifestyle. The Beatles is a lifestyle. The Doors are a lifestyle. Travis Scott is a lifestyle. There are lifestyles in all of those things, and we want to be able to have an infrastructure that can help build those.”

While Justin Bieber or Travis Scott restaurants may be in the pipeline, Vlasic doesn’t see the merch wave cresting anytime soon. He points out how much more dedicated fans have become—not just in music, but other entertainment properties like Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney (all of which happen to be owned by the same company). We live in a saturated paradigm where fans of a brand are just waiting for the next thing to consume, whether it’s a film, television series, or album. Hype has evolved beyond apparel and into pretty much anything people are passionate about.

According to Vlasic, the common thread tying all these disparate things together is great storytelling. That’s what keeps people hooked, and it’s why they can get as excited over a trailer as they would a photo of an upcoming product. Bravado is helping its artists build a universe that fans can buy into, but as a result, Ross One isn’t quite sure of how long the products can stay relevant.

“These guys are experts at creating hype,” he says. “It’s a little bit more of a frenzy, and so I don’t know what it will be in 20 years if you look back.”

But perhaps sentimental value still outweighs aftermarket value. At the end of the day, these products are reminders of specific moments that have left an impact on the wearer—regardless of whether or not you were actually able to attend the concert or pop-up. For plenty of fans, having a physical way to interact with an artist, even if it’s as simple as putting a T-shirt on, is enough.

“What it comes down to is if you’re a fan and you love the music, you should go out and buy a shirt and rep it,” says Ross One. “Because there’s a good likelihood it will mean something to you down the road.”

[your-sohini-blog]

20 Gifts For The Traveller In Your Life

Explore my gift guide for all the world travellers in your life! Covering everything from essentials to tech, clothing, footwear, inspiration & more.

Shake it like a polaroid picture! An Instax instant camera makes the perfect gift, printing out cute little polaroids instantly & making memorable keepsakes for life. In a world of digital images and phone photography, its a good feeling to be able to hold an actual photo in your hands. Get it here. Available in a few different colours.

2. This is kind of a no brainer, but a journal & an inky black pen is a gift that's always appreciated. It's a great way to pass time on long flights or while relaxing on the beach, and of course perfect to keep track of everything you get up to while in exotic lands. Write about all the places you visit everyday, doodle little images that have stuck in your brain, note down funny or cool stories you've heard from locals. It'll become a precious trip down memory lane when you're older.

Available on Fancy

Available on PropShop24

Available on PropShop24

3. Classic black sneakers will save your day almost every single day. Packing light is essential to an enjoyable holiday, and nothing is as versatile as a dark black shoe (that's comfy AF). Matches everything. Keeps your feet happy during the insane amounts of walking you will inevitably do on any vacation. Remember to always buy half a size bigger than your usual size when it comes to sneaks or closed shoes that are worn for long durations.

For Her

For Him

4. Also a total no brainer. Probably the most useful small object that can be packed on any trip. I bought one for my dad 8 years ago (he goes into the mountains to hike at least 3-4 times a year) and he takes it on every trip he goes on without fail. Get the original Victorinox version for guaranteed quality & flawless design.

5. Good sleep = happy travels. Get this set from Chumbak.

6. Music is essential for long journeys, long layovers and even longer sleepless jet-lagged nights. These headphones from Sony are tried & tested, have a clean, classic design and solid, dependable, clear sound without breaking the bank. Available in a variety of colours too. Available on Amazon.

7. Make your passport look oh so pretty, and safe from bending, scratches & other damages. Shop the beachy one here & the coordinated Mr&Mrs set here. Both from PropShop24.

8. Imagine getting to a far-off destination after months of planning and realising you can't charge any of your stuff. Prevent a nightmare with this international travel adaptor, available here.

9. I recently got into adult colouring books and found that it calms me down and passes time blissfully like very few other things. I have this Lost Ocean book and just can't get enough. The images are large, the pages are thick and creamy, and the designs are intricate and truly stunning. Apt for a rainy day or for inspiration in between travels. Add a set of Staedtler Water Colour pencils (the best ever), which are perfectly smooth colour pencils that transform to water colour when you run a wet brush over the paper. They allow for shading, blending, and shadowing, and don't seep through to the other side. Get the book here and the pencils here.

10. A sleek & durable carry-on roller makes for effortless travel. I prefer hard cases over soft because they also make a great footrest at airports, and because your delicate stuff (like make-up & electronics) stays safe & secure. A gunmetal grey or similar neutral tone looks best. Get this one here.

11. Trust me when I say you don't want to take an expensive watch on holiday (or any expensive jewellery for that matter). Watches tend to get stolen, lost, damaged or even broken quite easily. My partner had his watch stolen right off his hand in Barcelona without even realising it was gone for a good 20 minutes. These inexpensive yet cute watches will help you keep track of the local time no matter where you are, without the stress of potentially losing something very valuable.

For Her

For Him

12. An icy bed is nothing to look forward to, so all the cold weather travellers rejoice! This plug in heating pad is the ideal way to warm up your bed before tucking yourself in and can be a real life saver in extreme climates. You can even leave it on next to you or near your feet and go to sleep for guaranteed toasty-ness. Being snug as a bug just took on a whole new meaning. Shop here.

13. A classic beige double breasted trench coat is an extremely versatile closet staple that everyone needs. It makes a great gift because it's lightweight and easy to pack, thin enough for a slight nip in the air but can be worn with layers for added warmth, it's a piece that will never ever go out of style, and of course it just looks so cute when worn with just about anything from jeans and a t-shirt to a formal dress and heels. This glorious one is available on Asos.

14. Ever try to climb some rocks barefoot to jump into the sea? Or tried to go snorkelling barefoot and stepped on all sorts of pokey, spiky things while entering the water? I have and yeah, it's not fun. Shoes that can be worn into the water and while swimming are a lifesaver, they will protect your feet from cuts, scratches, bruises and even sharp objects & creatures on the sea floor (such as sea urchins). They're also ideal for light hiking & trekking through rivers, streams, lakes, puddles and along the sea shore. The low rise slip-ons are better for less intense activity such as snorkelling or swimming in rocky oceans, whereas the lace-up versions will take you through a forest walk and through a rivulet with ease.

Pink & grey from Speedo, available here.

The mesh openings on the soles of the shoe let all the water out, keeping your feet ultra comfy.

Shop here.

For the boys. Blue & black slip-ons available here.

A great water shoe by Adidas that users swear by. Shop here.

15. A solar powered battery pack to charge all your gear on the go, shop now.

16. For the ocean lover in your life who just can't get enough of the big blue sea. Shop from Fancy.

17. A set of refillable plastic bottles for all your shower needs that meet international carry-on regulations. A clear plastic pouch helps you get through security checks with ease. Buy here.

18. With an anti-glare screen and a travel friendly hand-held size, a Kindle is the best company. Store thousands of books & magazines, and read them anywhere from the beach, to a boat or a plane or the back of a bike. For the book worm traveller who never leaves home without something to read. Shop here.

19. Thin, luxurious, ultra absorbent & quick-drying towels made of 100% cotton. No more packing bulky towels that take up half your bag and take ages to dry. Not to forget that they're allergen free (since they're pure cotton) and won't irritate even the most sensitive skin. Get them here.

20. Amazon Prime Video is a great way to watch all the latest movies, tv shows and entertainment on a variety of different devices. They can be saved to offline mode so you can watch on the go and never miss any of your favourites. Plus watching a movie in bed is such a lovely way to spend a jet-lagged or tired evening when you just need to unwind from the hecticness of travel. For this you will need to purchase an Amazon Gift Card worth a minimum of Rs.500 and then tell the receiver of the gift card to redeem it on getting a Prime membership (which also includes free 1-2 day shipping on applicable items, apart from a whole world of movies & shows).

I hope my gift guide inspired you to get something fabulous for the jet-setter in your life. All these gifts are not only unique, but also useful, with direct links to shop each piece. This is a completely unsponsored post and I do not make any commission on pieces that are sold through any of these sites. This is simply my list of gifts any traveller would love to get! I'll be back soon with more content, just for you! xx

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