#also my dad will have to help me install the shelf because there's no way i can drill a hole in the wall without damaging something in there

[moodyvamp]

did i tell you guys about my adventures in searching for a wall shelf to put in my room

[intoanothermind]

Stand Tall - Reggie

Word Count: 7.8k

- Reggie x reader

Synopsis: your younger sister joins a band of ghosts, but she’s not the only one who can see them. You’ve seen them since you were a child.

Masterlist

Flying Solo - Reggie imagine

Akai Ito - Reggie imagine (soulmate au)

Bright - Luke imagine

—

I took a deep breath and smiled before leaving the taxi. A month with many projects and exams in college made me spend a lot of time away from my family. When that happened, I used to spend time with a friend who lived closer to campus. But now that I didn’t have to worry so much for a few more weeks until the next round of tests, I can finally take a breath and enjoy some family time between classes. I smiled discreetly at the elderly woman who was always across the street, watching her daughter. She flashed a huge smile back at me before disappearing.

“Papa?“ I asked out loud, opening the door.

I heard a noise coming from the kitchen and Dad appeared already coming towards me with a huge smile. “Mi hija! How was the tests? When will there be more?”

“Are you already trying to kick me out again?“ I laughed, accepting his tight hug. “Don’t worry, I have one more month before the final exams for the semester. Where are Carlos and Julie?”

"Carlos is still in school and Julie is rehearsing in the studio.”

My smile widened and a weight lifted from my chest. I was happy that Julie finally got back to connecting with the music after mom died. It wasn’t easy for any of us, but it was especially difficult for her. When Flynn told me on one of the last calls about Julie - two years younger than me - playing again and even joining a band, I was really happy. I could always count on my sister’s best friend to keep me informed in the smallest details.

“So is she really playing again? I will leave my things in my room and go and talk to her. ”

“No, no. Let me take your backpack, go and see your sister.”

“Gracias, papa.” I gave him a kiss on the cheek and went out again through the door to go around the house and get to the studio installed in the garage.

I heard music coming from inside, but I frowned when I heard several instruments and male voices mixed with my sister’s. The song was already over when I opened the door. Julie was talking to three boys that I had never seen in my life before. A tall, blond man had drumsticks in his hand and rolled them in the air. One with brown hair in a cap was talking to my sister with a twinkle in his eye. But the one who caught my attention the most was the pale, black-haired boy who was playing with a bass a little further away. Was that the band? I didn’t even know that Julie could talk to cute boys without stuttering.

“Am I interrupting something? I can come back later.”

The boys opened their eyes wide and looked at Julie as she turned to me a little scared and with a awkward smile on her lips.

“Y/N, hi! I didn’t know you were going to get home today! ”

I looked at her with a frown. She was acting stranger than usual.

"Yes, you did, Julie, I told you last week and called dad yesterday.”

She widened her eyes even more when she noticed my expression.

“Why don’t we go to your room then and you tell me how is college? Have you done many articles? Did you pass the exams?”

Julie walked past me and headed for the gate, ignoring the boys completely.

“Okay, this is getting weird. Jules, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

The blonde let the stick fall on his face, the cap choked and the cute guy let the bass out of tune when he let his fingers fall. All of them, including Julie, looked at me with wide eyes.

“Can she see us?" the boy in the cap asked when Julie returned to his side.

"Why wouldn’t I see you?" I looked into the eyes of the three of them and that’s when I noticed the aura around them, a little blurry, an aura that I learned to recognize after a few years. “Sure, Julie and the phantoms. You are ghosts ”

"That was quick." commented the cute bass player.

“First the band’s name makes it kinda obvious. Second, Jules wasn’t the first person in the family to talk to ghosts.”

"Y/N…” Julie looked at me with an emotion in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out. "Does that mean grandma was really at the house when we were younger?“

I smiled a little sadly. Our parents were always understandable and tried to help us with everything, but when I said I talked to grandma, even after a year after her death, they had to take me to therapy. After a while, I simply learned to lie to Dr. Turner and say that I no longer saw the dead, I just made imaginary friends.

“Yes, but I haven’t seen her in years. Ms. Elliot, however, is still in the garden across the street watching over her daughter.”

"This is so cool!" exclaimed the man in the cap, approaching.

“Another lifer seeing us? Yeah!" the blonde smiled, also approaching along with the bassist.

Julie took my arm before I could introduce myself. "Y/N… Mom…?”

The weight on my shoulders returned and I sighed before I smiled at her, holding her hand in mine.

“She stayed here just long enough to ask me to look after you, dad and Carlos and say that she loved us very much.”

For a second I thought Julie would let the tears fall, but then she took a deep breath and passed her hand under her eyes to compose herself.

“Thank you, Y/N.”

“You still need to introduce me to your cute friends. I thought you couldn’t talk to pretty boys without being ashamed.”

The bassist broke into a silly smile and patted the blonde on the shoulder. "She said that we are cute and pretty.“

"Reggie…” The blonde shook his head before turning to me. “Sorry about… him. I’m Alex and these are Reggie and Luke.”

~*~ 

The past few days have been… a little bit strange. Well, for starters my subjects, despite having relaxed a little, I still have work to do. And while I’m at home, it’s difficult to organize hours of study and free time with taking care of three teenage ghosts. Julie was right - watching three kids who seemed to share the same brain cell is harder than it looks.

“Aren’t you going to give yourself a break?”

I was startled to see dad behind me, almost knocking over the glass that was still in my hand.

“The plan was to come and drink water and take my five-minute break.”

Dad made a face. “Good luck in studies, mi hija, but don’t forget to take a few more breaks. We don’t want you to fry that smart mind, do we? ”

I broke into a faint smile when Dad placed a kiss on my forehead before walking away. I sighed, getting ready for a few more hours of reading before heading up the stairs again to my room. When I got there, however, I stopped at the portal and went in quickly to close the door.

“What are you doing here?" I asked in whispers to the ghosts that were scattered around my room.

Alex was sitting on a purple puff next to the desk where Luke was sitting in the chair that usually sits opposite her. He had his head thrown behind, looking bored. Reggie was lying on the left side of my bed, looking tired.

"Julie kicked us out of her room." explained Luke, getting up and heading for my bookcase.

"Please don’t kick us out either." Reggie said with puppy eyes that he knew I couldn’t resist.

"Luke, stop messing with Y/N’s stuff!" scolded Alex and that’s when I realized that Luke was looking through one of the books he picked up on the shelf.

"It’s alright. Feel free to borrow any book you like.” I assured him, going to sit on the right side of the bed, where most of my stuff was spread out. "And you can stay, just don’t make too much noise, I need to study.”

“What do you study?" asked Alex.

"How long have you been studying?" asked Reggie and I laughed.

"I’m in my first year of journalism.”

“Nice." said Luke, sitting back in his chair and concentrating on the book.

"Well, now I need to concentrate." I said, lifting Reggie’s head that was on top of one of the printed articles I needed to read. I put his head back on the pillow and fluffed some of his black hair, hoping it looked like just a casual movement.

"Wow, what did you just do?!" Alex exclaimed, sitting upright on the puff.

"What did I do?" I asked with wide eyes and a racing heart at the possibility that he noticed.

"You touched him!”

“You really did!" exclaimed Reggie, holding my hand again.

"Oh, that." I sighed, relieved. “I always managed to touch ghosts. That’s why it took me so long to discover that I was the only one who saw them. ”

Luke and Alex remained wide-eyed, but Reggie just lay down again and put my hand back in his hair.

"I liked.”

While I fiddled with Reggie’s black hair with one hand, I used the other to lift the text up to my face to hide my red cheeks from the other boys. Gradually I ended up distracting myself, fiddling with Reggie’s hair as I read the text and made markings and notes. When my eyes started to weigh and my vision was blurred even with the glasses, I decided it was time to sleep. It wouldn’t do any good to try to study tired because my brain wouldn’t absorb it. I looked around when I realized that the boys had been silent for far too long. They were all asleep. Alex was huddled on the puff, Luke was hunched over the open book and Reggie’s head was bent toward my hand.

I smiled. They really looked adorable that way. I set my stuff down on the night-stand and stood up carefully so as not to wake Reggie. I lifted his head slightly to put a pillow under it. I took blankets from the closet and covered all three, remembering to take the book out from under Luke and marking the page he stopped with a piece of paper and left it beside him. I left the room trying to make as little noise as possible. I crossed the hall and sighed with relief when I saw that Julie was still awake.

“Hi sis." I whispered, getting her attention.

Julie looked up from her cell phone and smiled at me. She looked ready to go to sleep.

"Y/N!”

I broke into a smile. "Can I sleep here with you today?“

"Usually I’m the one to go to your room to ask for it." she laughed.

"Well, turns out that today my room is infested with ghosts.”

She snorted. "They are getting too loose.“

"I don’t really care." I said, shrugging my shoulders. "I wouldn’t have minded sleeping there as well, but Reg took up much of the space in the bed and it would be weird.”

Julie giggled and looked at me with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

“Shut up!" I said warningly before she could say anything. "I don’t want to hear a comment about that.”

“Okay, okay." she raised her hands in surrender before moving to one side of the bed and lifting the bedspread inviting me to join her.

As soon as we settled down I watched my younger sister’s serene face.

"I’m glad you met them." I said quietly. "They do you good.”

“They do." she sighed. “And I’m glad you met them, too. They seem to like you. ”

I like them too." I said smiling slightly. “Although I don’t play like you do, I like to know that I also made friends with them. I also like to think that they will be here to take care of you when dad or I aren’t around. ”

"But I will always need my older sister around." she said quickly. "Besides, you made a promise to mom.”

I laughed lightly.

“That I did it and I intend to keep it, Jules.”

I approached her and hugged her. We sleep in that same position.

 ~*~

I arrived at the band’s presentation site with Julie and went straight to meet Flynn. She looked anxious.

“Am I too late?” Asked Julie, taking the backpack off her back.

“Too early.” Replied Flynn. "Hi, Y/N.”

“Hi, Flynn! Glad we got there early. Distracting tía y Carlos while Julie went down the window was not as easy as it seems.” I commented, laughing to remember how I needed to distract our brother with a little ghost story.

The next performance was announced and the audience applauded as we watched Carrie take the stage in a shiny silver outfit and pink wig. I opened my eyes wide, trying to keep my face from turning into a frown.

“I never thought she was going to take this little group forward." I commented.

"I envy that you finished school before you had to see this." replied Flynn, tossing the braids over his shoulder.

“Hope you all came to have a great time.” Carrie said from the stage and put on reflective glasses, also pink.

“Dirty Candy? How’d she get on the list?” asked Julie.

“Her daddy probably made a call.” replied Flynn, pursing his lips. "I like this! Pretty flower.” she pointed to the vest that Julie wore and I realized I recognized it.

"Thanks. It’s dahlia. My mom’s favourite.”

Carrie started to sing and four other girls also came on stage. I raised my eyebrows, wondering how I got to a Barbie pop show. I felt the air stirring around me and noticed that Luke and Reggie appeared on one side and Alex on the other, all paying attention to Carrie. Alex, however, looked a little uneasy and I held back the smile when I realized why.

“Alex." I whispered, trying not to get too much attention from the people around me. "Go on, I know you want to.”

I didn’t even got an answer. He just disappeared from my side and appeared on stage among the girls. Julie looked at us behind her and Reggie shrugged while I just smiled. Alex looked confused for two seconds before he started dancing behind Carrie. In the chorus, he disappeared from the stage and appeared again beside me, slamming his fist on mine discreetly in greeting.

“You having fun out there?” asked Julie

Alex coughed a little, trying to hide it. "It’s not my fault. It’s my, hm… It’s my feet.”

“Yeah." Julie replied, raising her eyebrow. Reggie and Luke, on my other side, just looked at Alex smiling.

“Put me back in, coach.”He said before disappearing to the stage again.

“Oh, it’s the guys.” Julie explained to Flynn when she turned to us, confused.

"Alex is dancing with the girls and is so much better than Carrie." I detailed it a little more, making her laugh when imagining the scene. "My boy is rocking up there." I commented with a bit of drama, laying my head on Reggie’s shoulder without caring about people watching me interact with the air. "I so wish I could have that on video.”

“You look like a mom." commented Reggie, laughing.

"What can I say, the three of you just make me so proud." I joked, wiping my eyes as if I were drying a tear. But Reggie looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eye, but before I could ask anything, the song ended and we turned to the stage in time to see Alex doing a little jumping around saying something about blushing.

He came up beside me again, trying to hide it. “Hey. I was just… I was just doing that for you guys.”

I patted him on the shoulder in support while Reggie said, playfully. “Yeah, you can stop smiling now.“

“I’m not gonna lie. That was… kind of good.” Julie said and I clicked my tongue.

"Wow, Jules, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one in the band." I ignored the boys’ protests on hearing this. “The good part of the presentation nobody else could see, unfortunately.”

“Yeah. I forgot why I hate her so much.” replied Flynn.

Carrie and the other girls got off the stage and came towards us.

"Hi, girls. Um, isn’t it past your bedtime?”She said to my sister and her friend.

“Now I remember.”

“If you’re looking for Nick, he didn’t come.”Carrie continued on to Julie, who simply stepped forward confidently.

“That’s not why I’m here.“

As if waiting for a cue, the presenter introduced the band. But as Julie and the Fat Ones. I couldn’t help laughing at the face Luke made.

"Really?” asked Alex, with a grimace.

"Yeah, man. My handwriting sucks.” Luke tried to apologize.

"Next time, Alex will sign up." I said, trying to look casual.

Julie passed Carrie’s group straight to the stage. The expression on Carrie’s face was priceless when she walked away from us. Flynn left shortly after to turn on the projector - just for the sake of effect. Julie sat down in front of the keyboard and said the correct name for the band.

"Good luck, boys." I said, holding Reggie’s hand quickly and discreetly before going after Flynn.

The lighting focused on Julie and I felt my heart fill with pride. It was the first time I had seen my sister perform after mom died and I knew it was worth the punishment dad would give me if he found out that I helped her escape from home. When she started to sing, I accompanied the music by whispering softly through my teeth. After watching the rehearsals so much, Finally Free's lyrics stuck to my mind and as the notes went up I felt the music reverberating in my body. When the boys appeared on stage playing and people in the audience stood up, I felt like jumping for joy.

It was great to see people enjoying their work. It didn’t matter if they think they’re holograms - they’ve got a second chance to do what they love and to see them there at ease and full of energy is comforting. All four played with their soul and their stage chemistry was incredible. Especially from Julie and Luke. I didn’t need that Flynn me whispering over there they’re into to each other - the intensity of the look when sharing the microphone was obvious. Alex and Reggie also noticed the exchange of looks they had. What really shocked me, however, was when shortly after Reggie turned to me and winked at me. I choked on the lyrics I whispered to accompany Julie and did my best to keep my cheek from blushing. Flynn obviously noticed and laughed at me. The song ended, the boys disappeared again and the audience gasped.

“Thank you, we are Julie and the Phantoms. Tell your friends.”Julie said goodbye and got off the stage. I couldn’t help laughing when I noticed how she took Reggie’s phrase.

"Let’s meet them at the counter." I called Flynn, who quickly put the projector in his backpack and followed me.

Julie came to find us and quickly hugged Flynn.

“You were incredible!”Flynn said.

I soon hugged Julie too.

“Yeah, we were.”I heard Reggie behind me and turned to see him standing next to Alex and Luke, who were sitting at the counter.

"If it weren’t weird, I would give you a hug now." I said to them, trying to look discreet. "I loved the presentation!”

“I’ll charge you for my hug later." said Alex, making the boys laugh.

"Okay." I assured you.

"Hey!" interrupted Luke, pointing to someone behind us. “Whoever Carrie was trying to impress is coming this way.”

“She looks all business.”Commented Alex when we saw a woman with curly hair and a suit coming towards us.

“Wait, who should do the talking?” asked Reggie.

So cute, but also so dork.

“Okay, Julie. Julie.” he corrected himself.

“You got this.” Encouraged Luke.

"I can help you with it if needed." I whispered to Julie just before the woman arrived and offered Julie a hand.

"Hi, I’m Andi Parker, and I would- ”

“Julie. Y/N. ” a voice behind the woman took our attention.

It was dad.

“Shit." I swore under my breath.

~*~ 

Whenever I had some free time I went down to the garage to watch the band rehearsal. It was amazing the connection they had and how they gave their soul to the music. Julie and Luke singing together with everything they had, Reggie focused on his bass and Alex moving his head to the beat of his drums. It was an incredible sight, but also one that always squeezed my heart to the point that I needed to go back to my room before they finished a song to prevent the lump in my throat from dissolving into tears. I always wanted to have that connection that mom and Julie had with music, but I was never able to play anything and I certainly didn’t know how to sing. And now not only has she reconnected with mom in a way that I could never do, but she has also found something in common with three amazing boys.

At those times, when the tightness in my heart was too strong, I would lock myself in the bedroom, in the most absolute silence. I took out my notebook with notes. When I was younger, I used to try to at least compose a song, but after a while it became notes for a story. Music and books have always been my passions and if I couldn’t go on with one, why not try the other? Not that I would ever get the courage to publish something, but I liked to imagine that I would have some material for that.

"What are you doing?”

I let out a scream that certainly didn’t make me proud. I turned and realized that Reggie had appeared beside me on the bed - completely thrown on the mattress and with his arms behind his head. I tried to control my heart a little to respond.

“I thought you had a rehearsal.”

“I thought you were there watching us. When we took a break and didn’t see you there, I came to see how you were.” he shrugged, as if it was nothing much. "What are you doing?“

"Just a few thrown ideas." I replied, trying to sneak up on the notebook, but Reggie took it out of my hands before I could do it.

"This is for a book, isn’t it?" he asked, in a serious tone that I never saw him using. I just nodded. “Y/N, this is incredible! It makes me want to read. ”

I laughed softly, before asking. "Are you serious?”

“Yes! Why don’t you try to publish something? ”

I scratched the back of the neck, a little uncomfortable. "Well, I never thought I was going to be talented at anything.”

“How so?" he sat up, tilting his head so that I could look into his blue eyes. I was breathless for a moment.

“I really wanted to know how to make music, but when I realized I couldn’t do it, I tried to create stories where I could. But I never even thought it would be worth publishing. ”

“I think you should try. I would definitely read it. ” he said, opening a beautiful crooked smile. "Why do you do journalism when you could try to be a writer?”

“Because while I don’t have neither the material nor the courage, I can write other people’s real stories." I replied, taking my notebook back from his hands. I turned around to put the notebook and pen in my hand back on the night-stand. "What do you think about watching a movie?" I suggested .

"Yes! There are a lot of things that I still need to catch up to.” Reggie commented, lying back on the bed and making himself comfortable.

I tried not to blush as I got up to get my laptop. “We can see the Star Wars movies that you haven’t seen. We can skip the scene where Han Solo dies, no problem, I’ve seen them a couple times.”

"Would you do that for me?" he had a childlike gleam in his eye that made me laugh a little.

"Move over.”

We settled next to each other on the bed. I put the first movie on the laptop in my lap and we started the marathon. I barely noticed when I fell asleep on Reggie’s shoulder.

 ~*~

A few days later I was lying on the couch trying to complete a story that I had to deliver in two days. Reggie was sitting next to my dad at the table in the other room and none of them seemed to have noticed me there in the next room. I even thought about getting up to concentrate on the room, but I loved how Reggie tried to interact with dad. It was funny - and very cute. Alex came up and started talking to Reggie too. But when I heard Carlos’ voice, things became really interesting. I remained lying down, but I paid more attention to the conversation when Carlos commented about the house being haunted by ghosts who had a dream, but that dream was interrupted by a tragic accident.

“Our house is being haunted by a very talented… chef. ”I could hear the boys’ sigh of relief, but I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing.

“Looks like someone fell asleep watching Ghosts Hunters and Chopped.“

I had to hold my laughter even more when Carlos started talking about a sauce recipe and Reggie commenting that he was like my dad. I made a face at the thought that I liked a guy who said he looked like my dad. It wasn’t very difficult for my little brother to convince dad to make the French dip - it’s not like he doesn’t like food.

I lifted my head and realized that Dad closed his laptop and left. I prepared to do the same when I heard Alex and Reggie’s conversation.

"I will miss them.”

“I hope you’re not thinking about looking for someone else’s garage." I joked, but feeling tight in my chest.

They both started, looking at me wide-eyed as I approached the table.

"Y/N… hey…” Reggie tried to hide it, but I could see in their eyes that something was bothering them.

But I knew they weren’t going to tell me, so I needed to find out another way. I would have to do an investigation. I’m glad I had some sources between the ghosts.

“Well, I need to go out for an interview with a source." It wasn’t quite a lie. "Don’t do anything stupid, boys.”

I squeezed Alex’s shoulder lightly and leaned down to kiss Reggie’s cheek before leaving. I left the house so quickly that I didn’t have to worry about hiding my burning cheeks. I also didn’t notice their reaction. I was on a mission to find my favourite skater.

~*~ 

When I returned home, I could almost feel the tears stubbornly leaving. But I swallowed the tears, because I needed to talk to Julie about what to do. I wasn’t even sure if she already knew about the boys’ situation or not, but we couldn’t leave them suffering like that. I couldn’t leave them suffering that way. I looked for it in the garage first. If my sister wasn’t there, at least I would have a chance to talk to them.

“Someone once told me that you don’t ask for permission. You book gigs by doing.”Julie was saying when I showed up at the half-open gate.

The boys were lying on the couch and on the floor, looking depressed, while Julie was standing in front of them, as if giving a lecture. Alex had the drumsticks in his hands and Reggie was hugging his bass.

“That was me.”Reggie said with a little smile on his face.

“No, it wasn’t.” denied Julie and Luke.

“Yes, it was.” Reggie grunted, looking down.

"This isn’t over.” continued Julie, ignoring him. “We were brought together for a reason. To help each other.”

“Yeah, but like Luke said… People don’t just play at the Orpheum because they want to.”Said Alex.

“People don’t.” I said, drawing their attention. “But ghosts do.“

Julie turned a little scared to me. From the look she gave me, I think my expression showed all the sadness I was feeling.

"All you need is to haunt them in a different way." I suggested, taking a deep breath to control my emotions. “In a few days Panic! At The Disco will play with a not very famous band that will arrive here almost at the last minute because they will be doing a show in Las Vegas. You just need to make sure that they don’t arrive on time and that you’re the best option.”

For a few seconds they were processing this and I used it as my cue to get out of there before they saw my tears pooling in my eyes. I couldn’t afford to be selfish. They needed to make the move before the only option left for them is to join Caleb. I heard Reggie’s voice calling me, but I ignored him and continued on my way to the house. But even before I crossed the space between the gate and the stone path to the smaller gate, I felt a hand pulling on my wrist.

"Y/N…” Reggie said quietly looking at me with those blue eyes full of emotion. “I don’t like it when you cry. I’m sorry.“

I laughed softly. I hadn’t realized that some tears had came out.

"No need to apologize. I understand that you need to do this. It’s just…” I took a deep breath, trying not to choke. “It hurts to think that I will have to lose someone else. Especially someone who has become so important to me. I mean, the three of you have become very important to me.”

"You have become very important to us too." Reggie said, still holding my hand. “You have become important to me. I’ll miss you.”

I didn’t think before throwing my arms around his shoulders and hugging him tightly against me. He tensed for a few moments before hugging my waist with the same intensity. And we stayed there, saying nothing, just enjoying what could be our last hug.

“Reggie, we have to think of a plan!" we heard Luke shouting from the garage and Alex scolding him saying something about giving up a little space.

I took a deep breath before letting go of his comforting embrace. I placed a kiss on her pale cheek, this time longer than the one from earlier.

"Go. They need you.”

Reggie opened his mouth to say something, but I quickly turned and went home with tears streaming down my cheeks.

 ~*~ 

I was quite nervous as we waited to find out if the plan had worked. But while I just waited sitting on the sofa in the garage, with the occasional twitch in my leg, Julie was in front of me pacing and making my nerves worse.

"Julie, I love you, but stop walking before I need to tie you to the couch!" I exclaimed.

"Sorry, I’m nervous." she said, continuing to pace.

"I know! And it’s making me nervous!”

The boys suddenly appeared in front of us and Julie went into an outbreak, asking so many questions at once that I almost couldn’t keep up.

“That’s a lot of questions!” exclaimed Reggie, interrupting her. “Luke, do you wanna take this one?”

“Take a seat.” instructed Luke.

“Finally." I mumbled, pulling Julie by the arm to sit next to me.

“It’s fine, everything is fine.” continued Luke, approaching the low table in front of us and leaning on it with the other boys.

“Yeah. You should be getting a call right .. now!” said Alex, taking an effect break and pointing the boys at Julie’s cell phone on the table. But the screen remained off. After a few uncomfortable seconds, with me trying to keep from laughing at Alex’s disappointed face, he tried again. “Okay. Right… Now!”

The phone finally rang and Julie screamed.

“Nailed it.” said Alex, holding out his hand for Luke and Reggie to touch.

But Julie didn’t answer. "Answer it, Jules!" I shouted along with the boys.

She put it on speaker.

“Hi, this is Tasha from the Orpheum in Hollywood.”

That’s when one of the best scenes I’ve ever seen started. Julie jumped on the couch, almost stepping on me, while Alex jumped across the table towards the armchair and Reggie and Luke celebrated with a strange dance. Julie opened her arms when the woman spoke again and everyone stopped like statues watching her pick up her cell phone. And while Julie jumped on the table to answer Tasha, Alex jumped into the arms of the boys, who held him in the air.

“I’m swimming!” exclaimed Alex, waving his arms, and that’s when I let out a loud laugh.

The boys put Alex on the floor and Reggie came over to me. I looked at her confused, until he took my hands and pulled me until I was on my feet. A second later, I was in his tight embrace. He even got up and spun me around. I just prayed that he couldn’t hear my heartbeat. When my feet returned to the ground, I noticed that Alex and Luke were watching us. I motioned for them to join us and joined them in a group hug.

“I missed hugs." Alex commented when we parted.

"Own, you can always ask me for hugs, you big baby." I said, hugging him tight again. He hugged me with the same intensity.

I noticed, over Alex’s shoulder, Julie looking at us with a smile on her face. I smiled at her when I pulled myself out of Alex’s arms and went over to her, squeezing her in a hug too.

"I’m so proud of you, Jules." I whispered softly in his ear.

Her only answer was to tighten me more in her embrace.

~*~ 

I stayed with Julie in the dressing room the entire time. We were both nervous, but we managed to calm down a little when Flynn arrived after preparing some effects on the projector. But nothing came out of my head that the boys could be in trouble to take so long to show up.

"Y/N, you’re starting to make me nervous, too." said Flynn, and only then did I realize I was pacing up and down in front of the couch, just like Julie had done that morning.

"Sorry, it’s just…” I tried to explain, forcing myself to sit on the couch and stay still.

“We understand." said Flynn, holding my hand.

"I just wish that today wasn’t their last night here." I sighed, propping myself up and elbows on my knees and letting all the weight fall on my shoulders.

"Y/N." Julie called me and waited for me to look her in the eye before continuing. "You like Reggie, don’t you?”

I gave a sad smile and nodded, unable to find my voice.

“Called it!" exclaimed Flynn, pointing at me and making us laugh a little. "The Molina family seems to have a thing for ghosts, it’s impressive.”

Julie rolled her eyes, but ignored it. "You should talk to him before they cross over.“

"And are you going to talk to Luke about your feelings?" Flynn muttered and I pointed out to her nodding in agreement.

"I wanted to talk to Reggie about it, so as not to carry that regret the rest of my life, but… I’m afraid of the reaction.”

“He likes you.”

“Totally." agreed Flynn.

I sighed. "I need him to have a little more time then so that I can say something.”

Julie opened her eyes wide and got up from the couch to take my place walking back and forth.

“Now you broke your sister.”

We heard a knock on the door and the technician called Julie, saying it was time for her to enter the stage.

But the boys had not yet appeared.

“Just a second.”Julie shouted at the door and approached us. "Something’s wrong. The boys were getting those jolts pretty bad as I was leaving. And they wouldn’t stand me up again.”

I sniffed, following her thought. I felt paralysed.

“They must have run out of time.“

“I’m so sorry, Jules.” murmured Flynn.

“They didn’t cross over.”Continued Julie, but I felt like everything around me was fading. "They’re gone. And I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

I couldn’t help a sob that escaped my lips. I saw Flynn getting up and hugging Julie, but then the technician shouted at her again and the two of them ran out the door. However, I couldn’t do anything, just stand there, paralysed. My thoughts hammered in my mind, but I could only think that those three boys were gone forever without having the opportunity to make the passage. Those goofs that won me and my sister over and made a huge difference in our lives. And we would never see him again.

“Y/N. Y/N! ” it took me a while to notice Flynn shaking my shoulders. I had to blink a few times to see her through tears. "Julie ran to the alley behind Orpheum, you need to talk to her.“

"I… I…” I took a deep breath. Even though I wanted to just break up there, I couldn’t. My sister needed me. "Okay, okay.“

I got up and followed Flynn’s instructions as to where Julie had run. I opened the side doors and found her crying in the middle of the alley with a flower in her hand. A dahlia. Mom’s favourite.

"Jules." I whispered as I approached. She stood up for me, a little scared, but a second later she threw herself into my arms and hugged me tightly, as if only that hug kept her from collapsing. I held her even tighter against me. “Breathe, sweetie. Julie, I think you should sing.”

She released me a little and looked at me confused. I dried her tears a little - mine - before speaking.

“It would be a beautiful tribute to mom and boys. They lived, died and continued the life of ghosts through music. They would like that. That’s what I would do if I had your talent.”

“Thank you, Y/N. Really." said Julie, smiling a little before hugging again and entering.

But I didn’t go straight in. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down so that I was emotional enough to hear her singing without the boys. When I went in again and joined Flynn next to the coach near the stage, Julie finished a speech and sat down in front of the keyboard to begin. I already felt my heart squeeze again when she started the first chords. The song approached the first chorus and I took a deep breath, murmuring the words between my lips. It was when Alex’s drums came up that I felt my heart stop. A few seconds later Reggie appeared in a red and black suit playing his bass. I felt a sob tear through my throat and put my hand over my mouth. I felt Flynn holding my free hand and hugging me to the side, as if she knew I needed that support to keep me standing.

Luke started to appear, but he was fading and coming back. I opened my eyes wide, worried, but then he came back singing and he didn’t disappear again and I could only smile and cry, excited. Alex sang a few lines and Reggie followed shortly after. I didn’t take my eyes off him, absorbing him as much as I could before he disappeared again. Our eyes met and he winked at me, opening his smile wider and I smiled back. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have time to tell him everything I needed. He was there, on that stage, together with his friends, his family, fulfilling the dream that he cannot fulfil while he was alive. My heart broke when they finished playing and the boys were gone, but the shadow of a smile remained on my lips knowing that they crossed and could rest in peace.

~*~

Dad, Carlos and Julie were walking home in front of me. They sang the chorus of Stand Tall excitedly, but as much as I wanted to participate in that moment with them, I couldn’t. I wasn’t as strong as Julie and she realized that I wasn’t well, as she always pulled dad’s attention back to them when he tried to get me to join them.

“You and your phantoms were unbelievable tonight.”Dad said when we stopped on the porch.

"I’m going up to my room, I have a headache." I made some excuse when I passed them. However, I made sure to stop in front of Julie and hug her tight. “You were incredible, Jules. I’m so proud.”

“What is it with her?" I could hear Carlos asking as I opened the door.

"Leave her be, Carlos." I hear Julie responding in a light tone of voice as I enter and leave them outside still. "She had a rough day.”

I locked myself in my room and quickly changed my clothes for a sweatshirt set before throwing myself on the bed. I stared at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears that continued to fall, but it seemed impossible. Now that I was alone, it felt like a whirlwind of emotions was falling upon me. I don’t know how much time I spent in that catatonic state before I heard a noise inside the room. It was the same noise as when the boys teleported. I sat up quickly, looking around hopefully. My heart almost stopped when I saw Reggie still in his red suit shyly approaching the bed.

“Reg?" my voice failed, as did my line of reasoning.

I was dreaming. There was no other explanation.

"Hi, Y/N." he waved his hand in that cute way that only he knew how to do. But I was still paralysed, looking at him with wide eyes. He started to speak nervously. “Well, it seems that playing at the Orpheum wasn’t our unfinished business, so the boys and I disappeared into the garage to let you and Julie think we had crossed over, but then she went into the garage and tried to get us to Caleb’s club. But of course we weren’t going, so she managed to hug Luke, he started to shine, we started to shine when we hugged them too and Julie said that you were here alone and practically-”

I hardly understood a word he said. But it helped my brain to understand that it wasn’t just my imagination. I interrupted him before I could finish speaking. I just jumped out of bed, took his face in my hands and kissed him. It was as if all the weight in the world came off my shoulders and I could melt right there. I didn’t care that he was a ghost, I didn’t care that Caleb could go after them, I didn’t care that they would one day have to find out what their unfinished business was and needed to cross over to the other side and I cared even less that my tears were mixed with his. All I cared about at that moment was the feel of his lips against mine and his arms around my waist pulling me closer to him.

I just leaned away when I needed air.

"That was nice." he commented in a thin, choked voice. I realized that he still had his eyes closed and I smiled at the expression he had on his face. "Can we do this again?”

I laughed softly before pulling him back in for another kiss. I was lost in his smell, his taste and his touch. I hardly noticed the teleportation noise in the room again.

“Y/N, we came here to… Wow!”

Reggie and I walked away again and saw Alex and Luke near my closet, both blushing and embarrassed.

“Really, guys?" Reggie asked, not only keeping his arms around my waist but pulling me even closer. "Right now?”

“We came to see how you were doing, but you look busy." said Luke, scratching the back of his neck. I was struggling to keep myself from laughing.

"We’ll be back later." said Alex simply, taking Luke’s arm and making them both disappear quickly.

I looked back at Reggie, who was already looking at me with a silly smile on his face.

"Where were we?" I asked with a mischievous smile on my lips as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and played with a few strands of his hair.

"I think you can remind me." he said, leaning over and kissing me again.

[andrea-lyn]

The Recs (Less Travelled)

I’m excited to bring you the first installment of my ‘roads less travelled’ recs! I will be doing another round of this, probably once the Ted Lasso fic tag hits about 25 pages, and then I’ll also grab a couple more fandoms to collect in there! 

The Rules:

Each fandom/pairing was sorted on Archive of Our Own by completed works. Anything recced here was not in the first ten pages when sorted by kudos at the time of reccing. There may be some more well-known authors on this list, but the specific fics I’ve picked are ones that didn’t crack that top ten or just didn’t get much traction and I think deserve it, so hopefully I have also balanced it out with other under the radar (and still great!) works. As ever, I have a pinned post of my other recs (none have been duplicated from there), so you can also check those out! Under the cut you’ll find 10 recs in each fandom for:

Raven Cycle

Roswell New Mexico

The Old Guard

Inception

Star Trek (mainly Kirk/McCoy)

The Raven Cycle

savor all the little pieces by littlelionvanz

“Since when do you garden?”

Ronan snorted, “Since I grew up on a fucking farm, genius. Jesus who gave you permission to pursue higher education.”

the old grip of the familiar by littleseal

"There is a single black feather and a printed out picture of Gansey, Blue and Cheng standing in front of some fucking monument Ronan didn’t care enough to remember the name of. Gansey sent it to Ronan’s phone some time ago, but it sat in his messages until Adam picked it up and grinned at it so hard that, one afternoon later, Ronan cursed and kicked and glared his old printer back to life in order to print it out.

Fuck, he thinks, I’m in love with a hoarder."

Adam collects things. Ronan is in love with him.

No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin by gansey_is_our_king

Ronan Lynch has wanted to kiss Adam Parrish for a long time.

(alternately titled: four times that Ronan could have kissed Adam)

Cheers to Another Seven Years! by skyermirth

Adam left Henrietta for Harvard and never returned. Now, seven years has passed, and an unexpected work assignment has brought him back to a place and people he hardly recognizes.

Row, row, row your boat by emmerrr

“What. Why are you smiling at me,” he says suspiciously.

Adam shrugs. “You’re cute.”

“I’m not cute, I’m terrifying.”

“Terrifyingly cute,” Adam says.

and now the world is ours to take / and every single move is ours to make by thatlittleblackcat

"Adam was the scientist, Ronan was the data, and Orphan Girl was the key that explained the strange outliers that Ronan presented, his previously unexplainable actions."

//

Adam sorts out his feelings, Ronan helps him, Gansey is the number one dad friend, Blue is the number one mom friend and Henry tries to make Ronan smile. Otherwise known as the story of how Orphan Girl became Opal.

All These Things You Make Me Feel by SilverOpals394

It was late. Adam could feel the long day catching up to him as he left Boyd’s, all his energy exhausted. When he started his car, the tape deck whirred to life once more. He sighed and raised his hand to turn it off, but before he did a soft melody began to play.

AU in which the mixtape Ronan made for Adam only plays the murder squash song until Adam realizes he's in love with Ronan, too.

Ways to Communicate by Jalules

Blue Sargent reflects on an early memory (and gets busy with her boyfriends.)

(The two things are related, trust me.)

Hold Me Closer, I'm Safe in Your Arms by actuallyronanlynch

“You wanna tell me why I had to hear from Henry Cheng that my boyfriend was at the hospital?” Adam hissed, though his voice wasn’t as acidic as it could’ve been. Ronan took small victories where he could.

“You don’t have a cellphone,” Ronan pointed out flatly. “It’s not like I could’ve gotten a hold of you.”

arts and crafts and the inevitability of death by sunshineinthestorm

Adam comes to the public library in search of a study spot, not a boyfriend. 

But it must be his lucky day—because he ends up with a bit of both.

 Roswell New Mexico

a conversation between insignificant others by Bellakitse

“Hey…have you noticed that our boyfriends are madly in love with each other?"

“You noticed that too, huh,” she answers dryly, letting out a huff of reluctant amusement.

***

Forrest and Maria share a drink and a conversation and start a friendship.

Own Personal Hell by BeStillMySlashyHeart

Now that Isobel's getting the hang of her telekinesis, Michael decides to test out his telepathic abilities. It backfires. Badly. Now Michael's trapped inside his own mind and only one person can break him out.

Drop the Hammer by brightloveee

Max makes a new friend at the shooting range, who turns out to be even more bad-ass than he expected.

(Takes place mid-S1)

Boys Like You by forgadgetsandgizmos

Curly, dirty blond hair (the mere description ‘curly’ felt like an injustice) twisted in every direction off his head, a sharp contrast with the scruff darkening his strong jawline and scowl-ridden face.

Alex made a mental note to compliment Maria on her excellent taste in men.

—

Or, Alex has coffee with Maria's one-night stand, a man who he definitely does not have a crush on.

let's exchange the experience by lostin_space

Michael decides they need to quarantine.

OR

Michael floods Alex with love and care over and over and over.

This Is Hardcore by Anonymous

Michael makes a proposal. Alex accepts. Michael wonders what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

i don't know what to think (but i think of supernovas) by Milzilla

michael discovers that the console can talk. then, he discovers it can do far more than that.

iridescence on skin by Lire_Casander

In a world where (almost) everyone has a tattoo on their right wrist with one set of coordinates that point to the place where their soulmate is born, Alex thought he wouldn't be any different. He couldn't be more mistaken.

He has two.

The Real Thing by elliebird

Max checks on Michael the morning after Michael saves Max’s ass from Wyatt Long and his dumbass buddies. He sees more than he’s supposed to.

Written for a Tumblr anon who one of their friends walking in on them or anyone of them finding out about Michael and Alex in an interesting way 

Sundering by romancandles 

“You know it was just an Air Force balloon, right?” says Alex.

Michael smirks. “That’s what they want you to think,” he says, with a wink.

The Old Guard

Peer Reviewed by ishandahalf

[From:] Journal of Medieval Studies (jms.eds@jms.com)

[Subject:] Ad-hoc note from the editor

I have noticed an uncommon level of animosity in your responses to your reviewers (or rather, one reviewer in particular). I am writing to ask if you would please do your best to keep your interactions civil. In fairness, I have also sent a similar request to the reviewer you seem to have this friction with. I trust you will both try and remain more professional in the future.

Again, thank you for submitting your work to this journal.

Sincerely,

James Copley, PhD

Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Medieval Studies

An (accidental) academic epistolary romance as (inadvertently) documented via a (theoretically) rigorously blinded peer review process.[citation needed]

third for a word and the song keeps going Macremae

It was honestly shaping up to be a pretty uneventful year before the Vatican got on Nicky’s bad side.

Or: three times in 2008 that the team genuinely thought about killing Nicky if only to get him to shut up about the changes to the Catholic English Mass and his unrelenting opinions on them, and one time Nile did.

Apex Predators In Island Ecosystems (Freeman et al., in press) by Sixthlight

Palaeobotany PhD student Nile Freeman and her supervisor Joe al-Kaysani are invited to billionaire Stephen Merrick’s new project – a theme park full of cloned dinosaurs. What could possibly go wrong?

This Rough Magic by Marivan

When Joe came to Scotland to study the sea, he did not expect to also encounter a beautiful man claiming that A. he’s a selkie and B. they’re married because Joe picked up his scarf.

It sounds like a fairy tale and that’s a problem. Because Joe’s a scientist. And selkies don’t exist.

Wars for the broken by Yuliares

Five years into his exile, Booker is joined by a companion he never expected to meet. Together, they try to work on healing.

Sometimes they go down to the sewers just so she can scream and scream. “I like to hear it echo,” she explains. “Underwater, you can’t hear anything. Here, at least I can be heard.”

“I don’t feel like a warrior anymore,” she tells him, throwing bread crumbs at pigeons. “I feel broken.”

“You’re still a warrior,” he says roughly. “This is still fighting.”

a good (eighth) impression by deanniker

Over the next few months, Joe runs into Nicky every so often at the farmer’s market. Some weekends Nicky doesn’t make it, because of his work schedule - Joe doesn’t understand it because he doesn’t ask, though he does start to recognize when one of those missing weekends is coming up because Nicky will stock up on things with longer shelf-life. When they do run into each other, they make small talk and move through the stalls together.

Joe doesn’t mention it to Lykon when he stops by, because it is kind of weird, that Lykon’s ex-boyfriend texts Joe things like - If you’re here, the apples look particularly good this week and thank you for that recipe, I did not know what I was going to do with that much couscous

Or,

Joe wouldn't usually consider starting anything with his best friend's ex, but as long as they keep it casual, it shouldn't be weird... right?

get back to where you once belonged by tenderjock

Nile takes a sip of her cappuccino and closes her eyes.

(Booker and Nile get that coffee. Life happens, along the way.)

a house; a home by mehm

“Is this a kidnapping?” Joe asks as Nicky checks both their seat belts. “Like, I don’t mind. It’s just not quite what I expected for my birthday.”

In which Joe gets a birthday surprise, because that’s the stuff you have time for when you and the love of your life become mortal at the same time.

the ties that bind by damaskrose

“There’s a story I heard many times,” Andy begins, “in the Mediterranean. Threads of fate and three sisters. One to spin, one to measure, and one to cut.”

Clutter And Croutons by flawedamythyst

Joe and Nicky have an argument, and then Nicky talks to Nile about what it really means to be in a relationship for 900 years.

Inception

My Big Fat Slightly Annoying Wedding by jibrailis

Arthur and Eames elope for ~tax reasons. Certain people in their lives are not happy at the lack of a wedding.

Remember Sydney by pathera

When Eames shambles into the safe house outside of London, he finds a red light blinking on the phone.

For the inception_kink prompt:

Arthur is on a plane which is about to crash. No way anyone is going to survive. Instead of panicking he calmly calls the team's office and gets the answering machine. He hangs up before the plane crashes.

Give me Arthur's last message to the team.

 (TW: Character Death / Angst)

Of Such Deceitfulness and Suavity by delires

In which emotions manifest themselves in unusual ways.

YO, K2tog (it's like a code) by lazulisong

“Oh my God,” moans Arthur. “I’ve paid less for Somnacin. Good Somnacin.” A horrible thought strikes him. “How much is the yarn --”

“I want you to have an unguarded reaction,” Eames tells him, and pulls him up from the floor.

(They run an extraction on a knitter.)

hit the ground running by orphan_account

"I travelled halfway around the world for you. I dealt with the French for you."

Valley by wldnst

It's an old story: a knight, a prince, a kingdom in peril.

If This Is Rain Let It Fall On Me and Drown Me by Brangwen

We used to be so brave, Eames thought. Of the two of them, Arthur had always been the more fearless.

a gentle familiarity by jollypuppet

Two weeks later, Eames is on his doorstep with bad Italian takeout and a grin, and Arthur tells him he can sleep on the couch.

Your Crisis Cannot Be Completed As Dialed by sevenimpossiblethings

Arthur doesn't do snow, Ariadne is determined to be as Midwestern as possible, and blizzards make cell phone service unreliable.

Let’s Say I Do (I Do) by xsilverdreamsx

There were, perhaps some things worse that this, Arthur thinks, as he glares at the letter in his hand with his name printed clearly in bold ink, indicating his presence in two weeks for his esteemed marriage to one William H. Eames, III, at St. Catherine's Church in London, England.

Star Trek (predominantly Kirk/McCoy)

Show the World That Something Good Can Work by knune

Leonard McCoy is a doctor, not a personal assistant, and maybe that's why he can't stand working for Jim Kirk.

It's in the little things by winterover

Bones is bemused by a persistent secret admirer.

"Wedding" Away with It by pendrogon

One morning, Bones wakes up and he's single. By the same afternoon, he's married to Jim Kirk for Arbitrary Fic Reasons(TM).

How Long Will You Stay (For Your Whole Life) by withthepilot

Jim Kirk, deputy director of the Enterprise parks and recreation department, sees all of his hard work fall to pieces when budget specialist Leonard McCoy arrives from the state capital to cut Jim's budget and threaten the livelihoods of his colleagues. But thanks to a major parks project, Leonard finds a place in the department, as well as in Jim's life—and when all is said and done, Jim doesn't want him to leave.

All-Time Favorite by mardia

What to do when your best friend suddenly starts making new friends. 

Joy Ride by Cards_Slash

While running for their lives from an alien species Kirk had accidentally enraged, they come across a car. And well, if you were to come across a car while being chased by aliens that wanted you dead, and you possessed some lingering knowledge of how to drive a car similar to said car, you would have decided to drive it toward the nearest cliff too.

Also a gunfight.

Syncytia by epistolic

He’d signed up for Starfleet on an impulse, but Starfleet meant James Tiberius Kirk: the first – and second, and third, and fourth – big mistake of Leonard McCoy’s life.

Renovation by canistakahari

Jim has a whammy put on him by an alien death ray and he suddenly craves domesticity. He's crazy with longing to shop at space!Ikea and get potted bamboo and he starts looking into adopting AND HE HATES HIMSELF AND CANNOT CONTROL THE SHIT. Luckily, McCoy is drunk all the time and plays house.

17:08 by butterflycell

She'd watched the news holos with a sick feeling, searching for information that was completely obvious in its absence. Amidst the reports of the the Enterprise's miraculous recovery and the damages sustained, there had been next to nothing about the crew or her captain. Jim had been mentioned only in passing, his name shied away from as his first officer limited interaction to the bare essentials.

The Honey of Hybla by shrift

"Bones, prepare to be my date."

[soybeantree]

a baby changes everything pt.2

pairing: do kyungsoo x (reader) genre/warning: artificial insemination, fluff word count: 3.6k description: when you decided to have a baby, you knew everything would change, but this is not what you expected… parts: o1 | a/n: october installment of our ‘trying to write a kyungsoo story for every month that he is gone’ series.

A fresh pile of folders thuds on your desk, and you raise an eye to the Filing Clerk who offers a weak smile. “You said you wanted the reports from the last three years.”

You did. You need them, but they forebode a long day. “Park wants my analysis by this evening?” You clarify, and he nods. You return the gesture before grabbing a clip and twisting 

your hair up and out of your face. No time like the present to begin. 

An alert sounds on your phone when you’re at the halfway point of the report pile. Resurfacing from the sea of numbers, you check the notification and suppress a string of curses. “Parent Teacher Conference” flashes on the screen. You had forgotten. You had promised your son you would remember, and you had forgotten.

The remaining half of the report pile mocks you. You have thirty minutes until the conference and no hope of making it through in time. You swipe away the alert to reveal your lock screen, a photo from Theo’s seventh birthday. Theo had covered the both of you in cake while Kyungsoo, standing behind you, managed to remain cake-free. You pick up the phone to call in the cavalry.

When you had chosen to undergo artificial insemination, against the advice and protestation of your family, you had been prepared to be a single mother. You knew, or at least thought you knew, the challenges you would face and were prepared to handle each one as they arose. After the first weeks with no sleep, no chance to shower, and no concept of self, you had been more than happy to have someone who would come on the first call.

Kyungsoo answers on the first ring. As the heir and president of a multinational corporation, one would expect to reach a secretary or voice-mail, but he answers each time. 

“If Theo is still insisting that his grandfather will get him a pony for Christmas, know that I have spoken with his grandfather about it.”

“Theo hasn’t said anything about a pony.” You switch the phone to your other ear and close the file in front of you. “Have I missed a conversation?” The other end remains silent.

“Rather than offer other suggestions for your call, please tell me why you are calling.” 

You chew the inside of your cheek for a moment before deciding the parent teacher conference is the more pressing issue. Kyungsoo agrees the moment you mention it. He already had it on his schedule. You can hear him climbing into his car before the call ends. With crisis averted, you return to the pile of reports.

Kyungsoo texts you when the conference ends – it went well - and asks if he can take Theo to dinner and ice cream. You agree. You have nearly finished your analysis but still need to do some grocery shopping, and grocery shopping is always easier without a seven-year-old. 

They are waiting at the park down the street from your apartment when you walk by with your arm full of groceries. The bags dig into your arms, and a stray strand of hair refuses to leave your eye alone no matter how many times you blow it out of the way. After another failed attempt, you call out to the two. Theo stops mid jabber and races towards you. His face bright with enthusiasm. He restarts his jabbering as he skids to a stop in front of you. Kyungsoo follows at a milder pace. You glance from your son to him. “I take it you know what he’s saying.” You joke as you shift a bag further up your hip and blow at the stray strand again.

“Only because I was there when it happened.” He reaches forward and brushes the strand behind your ear. His fingertips graze your temple as he does. A shiver races down your spine, and you blame it on the cool autumn breeze. Taking one of the bags from you, he starts down the sidewalk to your apartment.

“I was telling you about the parent teacher conference...which you missed.” Theo huffs as he stretches his legs to match his father’s gait. You walk beside him, sandwiching the boy between you and Kyungsoo.

“I do want to hear all about that, but first what’s this I hear about a pony?” You stare down at him, and he stares at his shoes, his shoulders rising to cover his ears. “Theo?”

“The last time I was with grandpa I just said I would like a pony. I didn’t mean he had to buy me one.” He darts his gaze to you, then to his dad. Kyungsoo keeps a straight face as he stares ahead, so your son turns back to you.

You shake your head, and he smiles a toothless grin. He had lost another tooth a week ago and took every opportunity to show off the incoming big boy tooth. “What have I told you about your grandfather?”

He sighs, his tiny frame collapsing with the loss of breath, but he manages to roll his head back and stares up at the night sky. “Just because Grandpa has all the money doesn’t mean I should ask him for everything.”

“Because?”

“Because things do not make me happy.” His conviction is lacking, but you nod, encouraging him on. “And I have everything I need.”

“That’s right.” You three stop in front of the entrance to your apartment building. “Now, take that grocery bag from your father and thank him for all his help today.” His body droops even further, but he holds out his arms.

Kyungsoo clutches the bag tighter to him. “I can carry it up.”

“That’s okay. You’ve done enough.” The words slip out before you can comprehend their double meaning. Kyungsoo’s face turns to stone. “I’m sure you have work waiting for you.” You try to salvage the situation. “And Theo is more than capable of carrying groceries.”

He nods. A forced smile pushes against his cheeks, but he drops to his knees to pull Theo into a one-armed hug before handing him the bag. When he stands, you two stare at each other. His fingers twitch, ready to reach out for you. And he could. It would be normal, natural, but you remain rooted to the concrete. In the end, he waves, an awkward gesture, and is gone.

Even after seven years, you are still trying to figure out your relationship with Kyungsoo. When you had selected sperm for insemination, you had never expected to meet the donor or have any form of relationship with him. Fate is funny though. Before you had even given birth to Theo, Kyungsoo entered your life. He was there when Theo was born, and within that first month stepped into the role of co-parent. He watched him take his first steps, have his first birthday, go off to his first day of school. But he has also stood beside you when you quit your job, when you needed a plus-one to social functions, when your dad had his heart attack. Co-parent no longer seems to fit him, but nothing else does.

“I think my teacher likes Dad.” Theo pulls you back to the present as you reach your front door.

You unlock the door and hold it open for him, sneaking through with the groceries before it closes on you. “Why do you say that?”

“Because she kept going like this while we were talking.” He faces you and flutters his eyelashes. “And she laughed at everything he said, and you said that if a girl does those things it means she likes you.”

You nod along, the conversation fresh in your memory. He had come home in a state last week with many questions about girls. You had answered as many of them as you could and told him some would have to wait until he was older.

Setting the grocery bags on the counter, you start to pull things out and hand Theo the cold food for him to put away in the fridge. “Do you think your dad liked her back?” The question surprises you.

Theo shakes his head. “No. He kept doing this:” he clears his throat, loudly and pointedly, “anytime she asked him a question that wasn’t about me.”

You smother a snort and mask any sound which may have escaped with the folding of the bags. “That sounds like your dad.” The image of Kyungsoo in a too small desk forcing a starry-eyed woman back on topic threatens to unleash another snort.

“Mom, do you like Dad?” You choke on air as you face Theo. He stares at you all innocence.

“Of course, I like your dad. He’s a good dad.” You grab a handful of groceries and head for the pantry before he can ask a follow up question. “Now tell me what you talked about with your teacher and slower this time.”

He huffs but answers. “She said I should join a sports club because it would be good for my social development.” His voice goes high and airy with the last words, and you know he is quoting her verbatim. 

“What did your dad say?” You ask as you grab the remaining food and head back to the pantry. 

“He agreed with my teacher, and she gave him a list of the clubs.” Theo closes the fridge and climbs up on one of the counter’s stools. 

“Do you have the list?” He shakes his head, and you make a mental note to ask Kyungsoo for a copy. “Do you want to join one of the clubs?” He nods. “Which one?”

“Soccer.”

You change the mental note to ask Kyungsoo what you will need to do to sign him up and who to contact about schedules and equipment. “That sounds fun. Now, you’ve still got an hour of homework time before bed.” He groans, but you pat him on the butt, shooing him off to his room.

“Mom, where are my cleats?”

“In your closet on the bottom shelf.” You hear the clatter of toppling boxes, followed by thuds which you assume are shoes being thrown aside. Someone will have a room to clean after their game. You make the mental note as you finish up the snack pack: almonds, grapes, and dark chocolate, a perfect pick me up during half time.

“Theo, are you ready?” You ask as you dump ice on the top of the cooler bag and zip it up. After two more crashes, your son appears in the kitchen, dressed in his full kit including his cleats. “What have I told you about wearing your cleats in the house?”

“Mom!” He whines, his shoulders dropping in exasperation. He, thankfully, refrains from stomping his foot.

“Don’t ‘mom’ me. Do you see those scuffs on the floor?” He twists his torso to glance at the living room floor he nonchalantly raced through. Thin white lines scar the dark wood. He faces you again and offers a grimace in apology. “Take them off, put them in your bag, and wear your sneakers until we get to the field.”

He opens his mouth, ready to protest, but one look from you silences him. He crouches down and begins to unlace his cleats. “Is dad almost here?” Kyungsoo had offered to pick you and Theo up, saving you from a forty-five-minute bus ride. 

“Yes,” you grab your phone from the counter to double check his last text. “By the time you finish what I told you to do, he will be here.” Tucking the phone in your back pocket, you grab your purse.

“Which car is he bringing?” Theo glances up at you, cleats in hand. His eyes shine with expectation. 

“Why does that matter?” You cross your arms and arch a brow.

He has the decency to look sheepish. “I was just wondering.”

“And I was just wondering how long it’s going to take you to put on your sneakers.” He darts off and you shake your head. 

Theo reappears wearing his sneakers and with his athletic bag slung over his shoulder. You do a final check of the apartment before grabbing the cooler bag and heading down to the parking garage where you know Kyungsoo will be waiting. 

He is waiting by the elevator doors. The cooler bag is off your shoulder before you even start your greeting, not that you have a chance to give one. Theo is off, talking a mile a minute, as soon as he sees his dad. Kyungsoo smiles and nods along to the excited chatter. He offers you a smile, the only greeting he can manage with Theo’s barrage. You return the greeting as you follow him to his car which to Theo’s delight is the Range Rover. 

“Soobin is going to be so jealous!” He comments as he climbs in.

“One of his teammates.” You answer Kyungsoo’s furrowed brow. “Apparently, he and Theo have a bit of rivalry about whose dad is better.”

“Mine is. Soobin is stupid.”

“Theo!” You scold. Kyungsoo closes the door, saving him from your reprimand. You glare at him, but he is already walking to the back to place the cooler in the trunk. “Boys.” You sigh as you climb into the car. 

Theo’s team wins. While neither of the goals was his, he did have an assist. Soobin did score a goal, and the brewing foul mood was visible to both you and Kyungsoo which was why you both enthusiastically celebrated his skills when he trudged over after the game. Kyungsoo picked him up, a feat which will become impossible in the coming years, and promised dinner at his favorite restaurant.

The three of you sit around a table laden with food. Kyungsoo had also promised him he could have anything he wanted off the menu, and Theo, the growing boy that he is, ordered more than he could consume in five dinners. You throw a look at Kyungsoo as the waiter places the last dish on the table, but he shrugs and helps Theo load food onto his plate. You grab a plate of your own and begin to fill it more modestly. 

“Has work calmed down at all?” Kyungsoo asks as Theo’s mouth is too full to continue talking.

You shake your head. “Unfortunately, not. I have a pile of folders on my desk waiting for me on Monday, and I’m sure more folders will be added to it before Monday even arrives. Mr. Park said he would hire an assistant for me, but I have yet to hear of any interviews, though I’ve reminded him.” You pause, biting on your fork as you think. “Three times now. I’m ready to send him a very nasty email depending on how bad Monday is.”

“I do know the CEO of your company.” Kyungsoo suggests as he leans across the table to grab a side dish. “We’ve attended social functions together.”

“Don’t you dare.” You wag your fork at him. “I am more than capable of handling Mr. Park. Besides, he’s not that bad, and I wouldn’t want him peeing his pants after a phone call from the CEO.”

“You still pee your pants as a grown up?” Theo joins the conversation, horror contorting his features. He had to wear pull-ups to bed until he was four. When he went a whole week without wetting the bed, Kyungsoo had taken you two on a weekend trip to the beach. 

“Some people do, especially if you get a call from your boss’s boss’s boss.” You side eye Kyungsoo. He smothers a smile. “You don’t have anything to worry about though. You dad would never let that happen to you.”

“Of course not, because dad is going to be my boss.” Confidence brims from his eyes as he inhales another mouthful. You glance at Kyungsoo who shakes his head. 

“Theo, where did you hear that?” He asks.

“Grandpa.” Though with all the food in his mouth, it sounds more like “fampfa”. He swallows and continues. “He said that when I grow-up I’m going to work at the company and when dad is done working that I’m going to have his job.”

“Do you want to work at my company?” Kyungsoo’s question eases the chokehold that you have on your fork, and you reach for your glass of water as you remind yourself to remain calm. 

Kyungsoo put an end to his family’s machinations to steal your son long before Theo was born.

Theo’s lips purse, and he rocks his head from side to side before shaking it firmly. “I don’t think so. Your work is boring. I want to have a fun job.” Kyungsoo snorts. The uncharacteristic gesture pulls a laugh from you. Within moments, the table is full of laughter.

The combination of the game, a full meal, and the gentle hum of the car ride puts Theo to sleep before you reach home. Kyungsoo carries him up to the apartment for you. While you know you should wake him to shower and change, his face, soft with sleep, convinces you to let Kyungsoo place him in his bed. You need to wash the sheets anyway.

Kyungsoo returns to the kitchen as you are pulling a bottle of wine from the hiding place in the pantry. “A nightcap?” He asks, stopping at the counter. 

“I need a drink.” You go to the cabinet and pull out two glass. “Would you like some?” He nods, and you fill both, yours a little more generously than his.

He cups the glass, swirling the liquid, as you take a large gulp of yours. “Is this about my father?” He watches the dark liquid coat the edges of the glass.

You lean back against the counter next to him and nod. “I’m grateful that Theo has a relationship with his grandfather, but I need him to realize that Theo is not his heir and that he can’t just buy him whatever he wants. At the same time though, I wonder if I am a bad mom because I’m stopping someone from buying him a pony.”

“You’re not a bad mom. Theo doesn’t need a pony. If he was going to pursue Equestrian Sports, maybe.” He shrugs, smiling at you. “But I think he is happy with soccer.”

You snort, taking another sip of your wine. “Did you do Equestrian Sports when you were his age?”

“No, but I did have a horse.” You raise a brow. “I barely rode him. There wasn’t time. My father was training me to be his heir.”

“And that’s exactly what I don’t want for Theo.” You glance at Kyungsoo and find that you have slid closer to him. The wine warms your body, and you find your attention drawn to his lips as he speaks.

“I know. I’ll talk with my father.”  His voice is low and husky. His lips vibrating with the words. Wine coats them, making them shine in the dim light. Perhaps, you should have turned on more lights than the lamp in the living room. Theo’s question comes back to you. Do you like Kyungsoo? “Y/N?”

You shake your head, clearing the alcohol from your thoughts. A stray hair falls into your face. “Sorry. Thank you.” You try to focus, your hand going to brush the hair out of your eye. 

Kyungsoo’s hand reaches it first. He tucks it behind your ear. His hand lingers on your cheek. His fingertips light on your skin. “Sorry.” He whispers. Your cheek grows cold as he reclaims his glass and swallows a gulp. “I should call a driver. This wine is hitting harder than I expected.”

“Or,” the word slips out, and you blame the wine for loosening your lips. “You could stay the night. The couch pulls out, and I have a spare set of your clothes.” You keep your gaze fixed on the living room lamp. “It’s been a bit since we’ve got to enjoy one of your breakfasts.” You add on when the silence stretches between you.

“I see. You just want me for my body.” He breaks the tension.

You snort. The wine in your glass sloshing and threatening to spill out. “If that’s what you want to think then sure.” 

He takes the glass from you and sets it on the counter next to his. You’ve both had enough wine for tonight. “Do you have stuff for breakfast tomorrow?”

“My fridge is stocked with every healthy thing imaginable.”

“Healthy.” He scrunches up his nose. His glasses fall down the bridge when he relaxes it, and you fight the urge to take them off.

“Is that a yes or no?” You speak around the lump in your throat.

He thinks. The moments tick by as you berate yourself for asking something too stupid and risqué. Kyungsoo is Theo’s dad.  No matter how blurred the line between you two grows that line will always be as crisp as a fresh stroke on paper, and you should be avoiding anything that could complicate that relationship.

“Yes.” You blink at Kyungsoo and wonder if hope has spread a filter over your ears. “Y/N?”

“Awesome.” You answer, assured that you heard correctly. “I’ll go get the clothes.” You start towards your bedroom but throw over your shoulder. “Since it is still early, but only if you’re up for it, there is this new movie on Netflix that I’ve been wanting to watch.”

“So, Netflix and chill?”

Stuttering to a halt, you whip your head around. He smiles at you all innocence. “You’re ridiculous.” He shrugs. With a shake of your head, you march into your room, his laughter trailing after you.

[heyyyharry]

Chapter 14: To The Boy Next Door

(from the My Girl Trilogy: Stay Mine)

…in which they play a game.

Word count: 4.7k

AU: actor!Harry, older!Harry, younger!Y/N, (4-year age gap).

Wattpad link (Thea as Y/N)

ANNOUNCEMENT: The last chapter was supposed to be released on July 1, BUT I have two final exams on that same week, so I’ll have no choice but to move the schedule forward.

Last My Girl update: July 8, 2020. (July 3: Tumblr preview and full chapter on Patreon).

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One year later

“Come in.”

When Asher entered the room, Gemma almost didn’t recognize him. He’d got a beard now, and he wasn’t wearing a suit. If she hadn’t known the charming Asher in the past, she would be so shocked to find out he was the CEO’s son. Too bad she didn’t care enough to wonder what had happened to him after his business had gone bankrupt because his father had refused to finance it. Now he was just a regular accountant.

His eyes went wide when he saw her sitting with his dad in the CEO office.

Hello, Asher, she thought, yet gave him nothing but a polite nod as if they were meeting for the first time.

“Asher, I suppose you remember Gemma?” asked his father with a sigh.

“Yes,” Asher mumbled, his gaze falling to the floor.

Of course he remembered her. Abusers always remembered their victims.

His dad looked from him back to Gemma. Hands folded on the desk, he said, “Gemma is our new COO. I hope you will have no trouble working for her.”

Asher’s head jerked up as if he’d just heard a gunshot. And Gemma, of course, was the one holding the gun.

She relished his astonishment and cracked a smile as she rose from her seat and walked toward him. She extended her hand, but he didn’t take it.

“Working for her?” he asked his dad, who replied with a stern expression.

“Yes. She’s your new boss.”

Gemma broke into a smirk, still holding out her hand in the space between them. Asher’s eyes had grown so big they nearly took over his entire face. “You,” he hissed at her, “I can't believe you weaselled your way into this company.”

“Oh, no.” Gemma frowned pretentiously and dropped her hand down to her side. “I’ve been a shareholder for almost a year. I’ve done more for this company in that short amount of time than you have your whole life.”

He thinned his lips and glared at her, unable to muster a single word.

She hated him but respected his father. And what was better as revenge than making sure she took everything he wanted? First, his father’s affection. Soon, his father’s company.

“I don’t want to make this unpleasant for you, Asher,” her voice dropped so low as she leaned in so only the two of them could hear. “Or maybe I do. So you better be a nice employee, because I wouldn't be sorry to kick you out of here.”

His face dimmed as she stepped away. If there was a camera, she’d take a picture and put it in a frame. Though she doubted this would be the last time she got to see that defeated look on his face.

"See you around, Ash," she said, placing a hand on her hip as she breezed right past him out of the room.

Two interns, a blonde and a dark-skinned girl, rose from their cubicles and rushed up to her as she was heading for the lift.

“Excuse me,” the blonde said timidly. “Are you...our new COO?”

“Y-Yes, yes, I am.” Gemma worked up a smile and the girls giggled to each other like teenagers.

“Congratulations and welcome!” said the dark-skinned one, who said her name was Marie and her friend was Claria. Gemma assumed they were going to fangirl about her brother, but then Marie said, “We love your sister-in-law’s book. We’re such big big fans.”

It took Gemma a second. “Y/N? She and Harry aren’t–”

“Future sister-in-law,” Claria corrected her friend, looking nervously from Marie back to Gemma. “We’ve...heard some rumours. Can you confirm or deny it?”

“I cannot. But I’ll let her know about you girls.”

The girls grinned like the Cheshire Cat, and Gemma could tell they were trying their best not to freak out. She waved them goodbye and hastened into the lift before the door closed.

Her phone buzzed with a new text.

Isey: Lunch? :)

Lunch :) she replied, biting back a grin.

Another notification popped up. A reply from Harry's girl. Gemma rolled her eyes as she remembered lending Harry her phone a couple of weeks ago. He'd changed most names in her contacts and she'd only managed to change back a few of them.

Harry's girl: Thanks for the birthday wish, Gem! (heart emoji)

You're welcome! Is Harry coming home today?

Harry's girl: I hope not. But idk.

We never know. How can you STAND him? Ugh.

Harry's girl: I can't lol.

Harry's girl: Anyway, what was his reaction?

Gemma knew right away whom Y/N was talking about.

Priceless, she responded.

Harry's girl: QUEEN. Make his life a living hell.

Oh I will. Certainly.

The door slid open with a ding, and Gemma tucked the phone into her bag. Her assistant was waiting outside to direct her to her new office. With a smile on her face, she stepped out of the lift and shook the assistant's hand.

She was so ready for this new beginning.

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“Good aaaaaafternoon, girlfriend! Are you feeling twenty-two?”

Y/N laughed hoarsely as she blinked a few times to let her vision get used to the light from the windows opposite the bed. “You’re embarrassing,” she said, yawning.

On the phone, Harry gasped. “Did you just wake up?!”

“I stayed up all night talking to you and had a zoom meeting with Laura this morning. Besides, it’s Sunday.”

“It’s your birthday.”

“Duh.” She grinned at the ceiling and exhaled. “I’m twenty-two now. I’m like...old.”

“Ouch. Well, aren’t you supposed to get ready for the book signing?”

“Book signing is tomorrow. Bad boyfriend.”

The sound of his laugh made her heart leap. She missed him so much. He’d been in New York for two weeks and wouldn’t be back until next Thursday, which meant she’d have to spend this birthday without him. She wasn’t sure if she should let him know she wished he were here. She really did. But she also didn’t want him to drop everything and fly back to her for only one night. He’d done that before and it'd been romantic, still, she never wanted him to do it again.

“To prove that I’m not a bad boyfriend,” he said, snapping her back to the moment. “I have a surprise for you.”

She sat up straight and whipped her head to the door. “Goddamn it, Harry,” she huffed, “if you tell me you’re standing right outside–”

“No!” He burst out laughing. “No, no, no, I’m still in New York.”

She sighed in relief, but couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed.

“My surprise is in the pocket of my favourite suit,” he said.

She had no idea what he might have up his sleeves (quite literally). Still, she rolled out of bed, shoved her feet into her slippers, and padded out of the room.

Two years ago on this same day, he’d brought her to the roof of an abandoned building, where they’d watched the night city and eaten his homemade cupcakes. On her twenty-first birthday, they hadn’t been talking. And so this year, she’d suspected that he must have planned something extravagant to surprise her, even though he wasn’t home to celebrate with her. The surprise had come a bit earlier than expected.

She switched on the light in the walk-in closet, which was as large as her old flat. His favourite suit was the one he’d worn on Grammy’s night. Sparkling dark velvet to match the aesthetic of her silvery mermaid gown, which, unfortunately, she hadn’t got a chance to show off to the world.

She stuck her hand into the breast pocket of the jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Found it."

“Go on. Read it,” he encouraged.

“If it says ‘Happy Birthday, smiley face’, I’ll strangle you when you come back.”

A laugh burst right through him. “Your choking kink is getting out of hand, babe.”

“Shut up.” She huffed, unfolding the note. “Should have said I loved you,” she read aloud. “What does that mean?”

“You can ask for my help only once. Call me when you’ve found the fifth clue.”

“Wait!”

But he’d already hung up.

She almost called him back but then decided not to. She didn't want to waste her only chance to ask for help.

Classic treasure hunt, she thought, rereading the sentence.

The prize would be her birthday present for sure. Maybe he’d hidden it in the wood somewhere. A normal boyfriend would just have the birthday present delivered, or leave it on the table or in the garage, not challenge his girlfriend’s two only active brain cells with a children’s game. But Y/N wasn’t a normal girlfriend. And as much as she hated working for something other than her writing, a part of her was excited.

“Should have said I loved you,” she thought out loud, then snapped her fingers and rushed across the hallway to his library.

Two years ago, she’d told him she’d loved him for the first time and received silence in return. In this very room, he’d watched her leave.

She stood in front of the giant bookcase, which he’d had installed a month after she’d officially moved in. Most of these books were from her collection. On a shelf in the middle stood three framed photos of them. Them in Paris. Them with their families on a vacation last summer. Them at her graduation.

She flipped each frame over to check the back, but none had what she was looking for. She tapped her foot impatiently on the carpet while assessing the rest of the bookcase. It didn’t take her too long to notice that one book was upside down.

P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern.

Of course. Of-fucking-course.

She rolled her eyes, feeling a smile stretching her lips as she took the book from the shelf and opened it to the first page. There was a post-it note that said:

Congrats, babe. You’ve found it. Next clue: Where the magic happens ;)

‘Where the magic happens.’ If it wasn’t sexual, the winky face had made sure that it was.

Could it be their bed? Nope. She'd slept there last night.

Could it be the first place they’d had sex?

Could the next clue be inside that car?

She jolted with a start and dashed out of the library, and as soon as she reached the stairs, she suddenly halted.

No. She didn’t remember which car they’d had sex in for the first time, and he’d got a whole collection of cars. It’d take forever to search every single one. That wasn’t the right answer.

Sighing, she stood on the first stair and contemplated the clue again.

They used to play Treasure Hunt when they were younger. There were usually at least five or six clues, and the first three should be easy.

Could it be her flat? Most of their ‘secret relationship’ had happened in her flat. It used to be their secret kingdom. Impenetrable. Disconnected to the outside world. They’d also had their second real kiss outside her door, and she still had until the end of this month before she must return the keys to the landlord.

She wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t going to drive all the way there just to find out she was wrong.

And so she decided to call him.

“Let me guess,” he said as soon as the beeping stopped. “You’re either super impatient or your fairy godmother appeared and helped you find all five clues.”

She rolled her eyes. “Third clue. Is it your car or my flat?”

“My car?” He sounded confused, which gave her the impression that she might have got it wrong.

Her cheeks burnt as she said, “We had sex for the first time in your car.”

“No, not my car, but damn, I should have thought of that.”

“So it’s my flat?”

“Are you sure you want to ask me now?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” he smugly confirmed. “It’s your flat. Now you’re on your own until the final clue.”

“Fuck,” she grunted and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I thought you’d have trouble with this one, too. I mean, we fuck everywhere these days.”

“If my birthday present isn’t worth all this, we won’t be fucking ever again.”

He gasped at the threat, and she could picture him wearing that stupid crooked smile as he told her, “Good luck, kid. I believe in you.”

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She found the next clue on Thumper’s lap.

When she’d moved most of her furniture to Harry’s house, she’d forgotten to take the purple stuffed bunny with her. She held it under her arm and scrutinized the pink post-it note, which said:

I cannot believe you left Thumper behind. Third clue: Drunk little deer.

“Drunk little deer? What does that even mean?” Then she looked at Thumper. “Should I kick him in the balls when I see him?”

She made the rabbit nod and burst out laughing at how crazy she sounded. If anyone walked in and saw her talking to a stuffed animal, they would assume she was either crazy or drunk.

Drunk.

She was the drunk little deer. Drunk Bambi.

The answer was the place he'd seen her drunk for the first time.

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Andrew recognized Y/N right from the moment she stepped into the pub. He leaned over the counter and shouted for everyone to hear, “Little girl! Good to see you again!”

“Andrew," she smiled and shouldered her way towards the bar.

He eyed her up and down as she slid onto one of the stools. “You look different. I hope you’re not here to drink again. I might have to kick you out.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You look different, too. I like your new hair.”

Andrew rubbed his shiny bald head, scowling at her as she raised a smile and rested her chin on her knuckles. Andrew might look intimidating, especially now without his hair, but he was one of the softest people she’d ever met. He’d been so kind to her during her tough times and even let her haunt his pub day and night until Harry had come for the rescue.

“You’re kind of famous now, aren’t you?” Andrew said. “I’ve read your book. It didn’t suck.”

“You have?”

He lifted one giant shoulder of his, pursing his lips. “My wife made me. She's a big fan. Your boyfriend came two weeks ago and he even signed the book for her. He said he was the one in the story.”

“My boyfriend was here?”

Andrew gave a nod.

The voices in Y/N's head started cheering like she’d just won a wrestling match. It would have been so embarrassing if she'd asked Andrew first and then found out she'd got it wrong.

“Well, did he leave...something for me? A message perhaps?”

Andrew growled as he turned away, and without a word, disappeared through a stained curtain behind him. He came back five minutes later and handed her a green post-it note with an unreadable grimace on his face.

She snatched it immediately. A laugh crackled out of her as if he’d just given her gold.

Hi babe, you’re almost there! My biggest fans (not you) have the final clue. Get back to work.

“He gave this to me when he signed the book,” Andrew said.

Y/N mumbled the words over as she tried to figure them out. Her first guess for ‘biggest fans (not you)’was Gemma and Isaac. But then she got rid of the idea because they had to be at the same place at the same time in order for this to work, and Gem and Isaac were both at work.

Which two people were together right now and were also Harry’s biggest fans?

‘Get back to work.’

Yes. That’s it!

Y/N thrust the post-it note into her bag and rose from the stool. “I’m sorry. This must be weird to you.”

“It’s quite romantic, actually," Andrew said.

“Really?”

“And weird. You two are both weird. What a perfect couple.”

“Gee, thanks.”

As she spun on her heels, Andrew called after her, “Hey, little girl. I’m sorry I said you weren’t a real writer.”

“You said that?”

“You were drunk,” he chuckled. “Anyway, bring your weird boyfriend back sometimes.”

“I will. If there’s free beer.”

“Get out of here.” He shot his finger toward the door, but it was the first time she’d seen Andrew smile with his whole face.

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Eddie’s bookshop was busy on most Sundays. Well, it had been busy almost every day since Y/N had credited him in her latest best-selling debut novel.

She entered the shop and was immediately recognized by a group of schoolgirls, who asked her to sign their new copies of her book and questioned her about the story. She recycled the same amiable answers that didn’t give away any more than what they might already know. Since she’d already got used to the attention, the fans didn’t intimidate her anymore.

She took a selfie with the girls and bid them goodbye. Then one of the new employees told her that Eddie and Alice were sorting books at the back. She wandered along aisles until she found them. Eddie was scolding Alice for putting hardcovers in between paperbacks. Nothing got on Eddie’s nerves as much as putting hardcovers in between paperbacks.

“The hardcovers take more shelf-space so you cannot put them there! God, Alice, were you drunk when you were sorting these books?”

“I wish I were drunk now,” Alice said, and her eyes lit up as she saw Y/N. She nearly tackled Y/N to the floor with a violent hug, and Y/N returned with half as much enthusiasm.

“You’re like a Golden Retriever,” Y/N said, pulling back and cupping her friend’s face.

“Happy birthday! I was gonna send you–”

Eddie didn’t wait for Alice to finish as he pushed her aside to step forward, his face brightened like the sun. “You’re here for the clue, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I–”

“We can’t just hand it to you.” That sun-like face suddenly turned serious. “You need a password. What is Harry’s favourite book?”

Y/N arched an eyebrow at Eddie as if expecting him to say ‘gotcha!’ But he only mirrored her expression as he crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for an answer.

“Seriously?” Y/N scoffed, looking at her two friends. “He’s that narcissistic?”

Alice smirked as she raised a shoulder. “Either you answer or search this entire bookshop yourself.”

“I fucking hate him and I fucking hate both of you.” Y/N rolled her eyes upward and exhaled sharply. “Norwegian Wood.”

“Huh?”

“That’s his favourite book,” she told Alice and remembered Alice didn’t read fiction unless it was compulsory. “Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.”

Eddie looked confused. “He loves Haruki Murakami? His books are misogynistic.”

“Harry’s got a bad taste in authors. But judging from your reactions, I suppose that is not the correct answer, and I should probably break up with my boyfriend because I don’t know what his favourite book is.”

“You do, Y/N.” Alice beamed as she leaned a shoulder against the bookcase. “You’re thinking too big. It’s pretty simple.”

“Shit. Is it my book?” Y/N asked, then pinched the bridge of her nose as Eddie began to smile. “Goddamn it, he’s like my dad times ten.”

“What did your dad do?” Eddie asked.

“He bought a bunch of copies of my book and sent them to our relatives for Christmas. It was pretty embarrassing.”

“Aww.”

“ALICE!”

“Jesus Christ!” Alice covered her ears as she shot Eddie a glare. “I’m standing right next to you.”

“Go get the clue!” Eddie flicked his fingers at her. “Go! Hurry!”

Alice rolled her eyes and flipped him off as she backed out of the aisle. Eddie ignored her and turned back to Y/N, grinning from ear to ear like he was the birthday girl. “Are you excited?”

“Not as much as you are. That’s for sure,” Y/N said and made sure he knew she was joking by giving him a toothy grin.

“I’m not gonna tell you what the surprise is, you know.”

“I’m not asking.”

Eddie’s laugh was high as he placed a hand on her shoulder. “What I can tell you is that you’re gonna love it. Too bad I cannot be there to see your reaction.”

“Trust me,” she said. “You don’t wanna see me scold Harry through the phone.”

Alice returned with a copy of My Girl and handed it to Y/N with a smile that possibly meant, ‘You’re gonna love this’.

Suspicious and somewhat elated, Y/N opened the book to the dedication page.

To Mum, Dad, and the boy next door.

Those were her words. Below was his handwriting: Hi my love :)

Curious, she turned to the first chapter. This wasn’t just another copy of her book, of which she’d got all the different covers at home. With this one, Harry had done the same thing he’d done to her journal. His handwriting was scattered across the pages. He’d underlined all the quotes he’d enjoyed and left comments about them on the side.

Y/N heard Eddie say something about how he would never write in books and Alice immediately shush him for being rude. Y/N never wrote in books, either, but she loved reading Harry’s handwritten notes. It felt like he was reading the story with her. The butterflies in her stomach went wild just from imagining him taking his time writing on each page and grinning at his own jokes. If this was the birthday surprise, she could not ask for anything more.

However, she knew he had to be more extra than this.

And there it was. Proof that this was not the surprise. On the very last page, he wrote:

Meet me where the sky meets the earth.

“Where the sky meets the earth?” she thought out loud and glanced up at Eddie, who responded with a shrug. Alice did, too. Y/N didn’t think they were lying. Harry must have told them what the surprise was, but not the answers to these cryptic messages.

Eddie patted her on the back as he wished her good luck and shooed Alice back to the front to assist the customers. Y/N was left behind to work it out on her own. She leaned against the bookcase, pondering over the words.

Hadn’t Harry said she was allowed to call him when she reached the fifth clue?

She tucked the book under her arm and pulled out the phone from the pocket of her jeans.

“Hi, babe!”

“I’ve got the fifth clue,” she blurted. “What do I do now?”

“I don’t know. Solve it?”

“Yes, smartarse. The answer is, I don’t know.”

“You’re not even thinking.”

“You said you’d help me!”

“I said I’d help you once,” he countered. “And I did. I told you to call me just so I know when you’ve reached the final clue.”

“So you’re not gonna help me with this one?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Well, I can give you a hint. What do all the places you’ve visited today have in common?”

She chewed on her lip, an arm folded over her chest. “They’re memories,” she whispered.

“That’s right,” he whispered back, like they didn’t want anyone to overhear their conversation. “This last place is a memory as well. Where the sky meets the earth. Think, kid.”

She pouted. “Can I please get another hint?”

“You don’t get to talk in a cute voice and manipulate me, Bambi,” he sighed. “Fine. Our first date.”

“Holmes Chapel?!”

He said nothing and hung up.

It took Y/N a few seconds, but she believed she’d got the answer.

.

.

.

She took the lift and climbed four sets of stairs to the roof.

Adrenaline buzzed right through her, causing her hands to shake and her heart to pound against her ribcage. The metal was cold against her fingertips as she pawed the heavy door open slowly. It was unlocked.

The cold wind gushed in, blowing her hair out of her face as she stepped into the night. The city of London gleamed before her eyes. Where the sky meets the earth. This was where they could see stars high above and down below.

And there he was. Waiting for her with that smug crooked grin on his stupid face.

“Hi,” he said.

Oh, how she’d missed his stupid beautiful face.

She tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket and ambled forward, still thinking him being here was too good to be true.

He lifted both hands like a surrendered criminal, both eyebrows raised as he said, “Before you get angry, I can explain.”

“Please do,” she demanded but found herself smiling.

With the wind in his hair, dimples on his cheeks and city light in his eyes, he looked absolutely breathtaking. She couldn’t hate him even if she tried.

Harry exhaled unsteadily through his mouth before mumbling, “Here I go,” and then he was on his knee in front of her.

She didn’t react when he took her cold hand and pressed it against his warm chest. She could feel his heart beating almost in sync with her own.

“Are you surprised?” he asked, chuckling nervously.

She exhaled a quiet laugh and said, “Yes, but also no.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Because I warned you this would happen?”

“Because you warned me this would happen.” Her mouth curved at the corner as she recalled the Oscar night in his LA house, both of them drunk, him on his knee like this, a promise, and how in love she’d felt, almost as much as she did in this very moment.

“Is this too early or too late?” he ventured.

“This is perfect.”

She pressed her lips into a smile, and his green eyes flickered in the semi-darkness. “Well then.” He straightened his back. “Y/N ‘Bambi’ Y/L/N.”

“Yes.” Her voice was so brittle she feared he wouldn’t hear it, her stomach twisted into triple knots, her chest fluttering and her fingers trembling.

He held her gaze as the corner of his mouth arched. “Will you…”

“I swear to God if you’re jok–”

“Marry me,” he blurted, panting as though saying those words had drained all the energy out of him. “Marry me. I want to annoy you for the rest of my life. I want every fight, every laugh, every up and down, every kiss, every touch, everything about you. I will love you until all my teeth fall out, until you finally learn to cook–”

“I’ll never learn to cook.”

“I know,” he chuckled. “Most importantly, I’ll even let you love young Leo a bit more than me, but only sometimes.”

She covered her mouth. What meant to be a laugh came out as a sob.

“I would have written a speech, but I figured you’d roast me for my bad writing, so I’d rather improvise and blame this awful proposal on it being improvised.”

“God, you’re fucking annoying,” she laughed tearily into her hand and he was laughing, too.

Quickly, he got to his feet and tugged her into him. She circled her arms around his waist, her face buried into his chest as she inhaled the scent she’d missed achingly in the last two weeks.

“My girl is such a crybaby,” he said, kissing the top of her head, her temple, her ear, her cheek, her forehead. He kissed and held her until she’d calmed down.

“Yes,” she told him at last, lifting her eyes up to his.

“Yes, you’re a crybaby?”

“Yes, you’re a dumbarse and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life roasting you and yes, I’ll sometimes love young Leo more than you but only sometimes, because you’re the greatest love of my life and I cannot imagine a life without you–”

He stopped her with his lips, his hands tenderly cupping her face as his thumbs moved slowly over her chin, cheeks and jawlines. She’d imagined that their first kiss after two weeks apart would be sexually aggressive and against-the-wall hot, but this kiss was slow and sensual and passionate and full of wanting. It felt like his promise for their future together. One that would last.

[karmathecat]

Firewhiskey is Not the Best Mixer | Part 5

The next installment of my next gen/marauder time travel fic! 

FF | AO3

After the quickest lunch of their lives, the group made their way up to the seventh floor. Lily was doing all she could to not break out into a full run up the moving staircases, which were thankfully in position for where they needed to go as if the castle knew the importance of their journey. 

“If the room is on the seventh floor, we’ll have to be careful it’s out of bounds because of construction after the fifth years blew a hole in the wall fighting and burst a pipe. Apparently magical sewer systems can’t be fixed with a repairing charm. If we get caught up there we’ll be in deep shit, so be quick about getting into the room.” Lily thought it was amusing that her grandmother wasn’t necessarily against breaking the rules, but against getting caught. A trait that she definitely saw in herself.

“I just can’t believe that we never knew about this, we’ve explored this castle, how many times? And we never came across a room that could give us anything we wanted?” Sirius seemed almost insulted that the castle had never revealed such a secret to the Marauders. Lily couldn’t help but think that it was a good thing that these boys didn’t have access to a room that could supply them with countless inconveniences for the rest of the school. She knew that her brother would have used his knowledge of this room on countless occasions to make her life miserable whilst they were both at school if it had been available to him.

“Maybe you just never needed something enough.” Al shrugged his shoulders as they stopped at the stretch of wall that Lily knew the room was. She had heard the stories about the DA so many times, demanding her dad tell her about all the times that he had taught the rebellious group. 

I need a room with a time turner that allows me to travel years forward in time. 

I need a room with a time turner that allows me to travel years forward in time. 

I need a room with a time turner that allows me to travel years forward in time. 

Whilst Lily was pacing, James took out the Marauder’s Map. He knew that not adding this room’s discovery to the map would bother his completionist side, he knew it was here now so it needed to be added. He found the seventh floor on the map, saw the group standing around and was about to mark the section that Lily was pacing in front of to add the room later, when he froze. He felt the heat start in his toes and rise limb to limb until he knew for a fact that his face and ears were so red heat could be felt without touching his skin. 

“James?” 

He ignored the other, staring intently at the map, watching the name pace back and forth as he knew the girl, Lily’s granddaughter, was doing to access the room. Then the name stopped, and James looked up to see the younger girl looking at him in confusion, behind her a door had appeared in the space where a blank wall once was moments before. He could also feel the eyes of his three best mates, the girl he loved, and his grandsons on him, probably questioning his weird reaction. 

“Lily Potter.” 

Lily’s eyes widened as she drew in a sharp breath. The map. How could she forget the map? 

“It says here your name is Lily Luna Potter.” It wasn't a question, they both knew that the map never lied and that was her name, she couldn’t deny it. 

Before James could question her, or Lily could open her mouth, a noise was heard at the end of the corridor. 

“Filch! Quick everyone in.” Remus rushed forward, opened the door that Lily’s pacing had conjured. The momentary surprise evaporated and as one the group charged into the room just as Filch rounded the corner. The door slammed shut behind them and the caretaker was none-the-wiser. 

Once the shock of running into the room wore off, all of the Marauders turned to look at Lily. 

“You’re a Potter then?” It was surprisingly Peter who addressed Lily, as he was someone who had skirted around the three time travellers as if he didn’t quite know what to make of them. 

Lily blew out a breath, and knowing what she needed, two sofas that looked identical to those in the Gryffindor common room appeared in front of them. Lily took her grandmother and the Marauders to the sofas to sit. Lily noticed her two brothers did not join them, but knew that this conversation was more pressing than looking for them. 

“It said it on the map Pete, you know the map doesn’t lie it’s linked to your magical signature.” 

“Let me see then.” James went into his robe pocket to pull out the map, but felt nothing. He started patting his other pockets and looking around him, but to no avail. 

“I must have dropped it! If Filch saw it outside in the corridor he’ll definitely have confiscated it!” James swore and looked at his friends apologetically, distraught at having lost such a precious item through carelessness. 

“If it makes you feel better,” Lily spoke up, “you losing the map to Filch is how my dad ended up with the map in the first place. So, if you think about it, you losing it now was actually the best thing that you could have done.” The four boys seemed to consider this, exchanged a heavy look between them and nodded in silent communication. Lily was certain that this was what people meant when they said that the three Potter children could communicate without words and it was very disconcerting to watch. However, when growing up the children of the most famous man in their society with every eye on them at all times, they had to be able to say the things they were truly feeling without it getting printed in that evening’s paper. Each of the Potter children had learnt the hard way who they could trust and what they could say when. The constant secret keeping and trouble making that these boys got into was another example of high stakes communication, so she understood better than most the importance of the exchange that had occurred in front of her eyes. Without having spoken out loud, it was clear that James was chastised but Lily’s words were considered and he was forgiven, the entire exchange had taken no longer than 30 seconds. 

Lily watched as her grandmother eyed the boys, she could tell that the Head GIrl understood that a communication was occurring, but not what was being said. It must be exhausting to be around such a tight knit group but not being privy to the information and exchanges that passed between them. Lily Evans was staring at James without any embarrassment, she knew the conversation that was about to occur and she was determined to get her opinion across if it was the death of her. 

James nodded and then directed the conversation back to Lily, “So you are a Potter? Lily Potter.” 

Lily looked towards the Head Girl before nodding. “Yes, James and Al are my older brothers.” 

“So what does that mean?” Sirius looked Lily up and down and for the first time since yesterday eyed her with slight distrust. 

“Well, it means that my parents' surnames are Potter.” 

“Don’t be cute, we’ve come this far now you might as well tell us.” Sirius shook his head and a ghost of a smile appeared as Lily blew out another breath and knew she’d been caught. What was the harm anyway, one half of her grandparents already knew it wasn’t like she was changing the course of history, she was just being honest. 

“Okay, well, James and I are named after my dad’s parents: James Potter and Lily Potter nee Evans.” 

Lily let her words settle over the group. The redhead sat beside her was running her hands up and down her thighs in anxiety staring intently at James whose eyes were fixed solely on his granddaughter. 

“We all owe you five galleons.” Remus’ words were unexpected, but seemed to break the tension that Lily’s words had left. Sirius let out a loud laugh and clapped James hard on the shoulder who seemed to still be in a state of shock. Lily hid her giggle behind her hand and glanced over at Lily who was still intensely staring at James who was still let to look at her. If Lily was honest with herself it looked like James was in a state of shock. 

Lily cocked her head to the side at the other Marauders, and as four they stood to allow the two Heads to talk about Lily’s revelation. 

“Let’s go and find my brothers yeah?” The boys nodded and Lily looked around at the room for the first time. It was one long room with shelves on each side. On both shelves there were various devices which Lily presumed were variations of the time turner based on her request to the room. Beneath each device there was a plaque describing the device's name and a brief summary of how to use it. Lily walked over with the three Marauders to her brothers who were both standing at a section of shelf and were in deep discussion. 

“Hey Lil, finally revealed our familial bond?” James laughed as Lily hit him on the arm. 

“Noticed that you two were conveniently absent for that conversation!” 

“We thought that you had it handled, and why put myself in an awkward conversation when I don’t have to!” Al laughed as Lily’s glare was directed towards him next. 

Remus laughed at the siblings’ antics, and now that he knew he couldn’t believe that he hadn’t realised their relationship purely based on their interactions, the playful banter and closeness that he had only seen in the Marauders who were described as brothers and not friends. But, Remus mused, it was easy to realise these things when you knew the information vital to understanding. 

“Anyway, what have you found?” Al explained that whilst they were chatting they’d started looking at each of the time devices and were able to quickly dismiss the first few devices based on the fact they were theoretical prototypes and had never been used before. James explained that they weren’t to be trusted as something that worked in theory very rarely worked in practice without a bit of trial and error and they shouldn’t risk more errors with time travel. Lily couldn’t help but agree with their assessments, it was a rare treat to see both of her brothers in work mode as James never brought work home and Al was in another house.

“We’ve narrowed it down to this one here. The name on the plaque, she’s an Unspeakable that I studied for my exam. She created a lot of time manipulation devices and her success rate was very high. So if I was going to place my bets on any device that has been presented by the room it would be this one.” Al picked up the device that he was referring to. It looked like a standard time turner that she had seen in her textbooks but with my dials. It was a beautiful rose gold colour which she knew differed from the traditional gold. 

James explained that there were three dials on the turner, days, months and years. Lily had to admit that it seemed simple in comparison to all of the intimidating devices that surrounded the simple one that her brothers had selected. 

“There’s one more thing,” all of their attention was directed towards Al again, “we can’t take the devices out of the room. We’ll have to use the device here.” This made sense to Lily, the room created all of the devices so they only existed in the room so logically could only be used in the room. 

“Okay then, shall we report back what’s going on and talk about how to go forward?”

X-X-X

Lily watched her granddaughter walk away with the Marauders and looked towards James. He was staring down into his lap, and didn’t look up when Lily slid into the seat next to him. 

“James?” 

He still didn’t look up and Lily felt a clenching in her chest, she thought that the knowledge that she and James were meant to be together was set in stone but now looking at him not acknowledging her she wasn’t so certain anymore. 

“I’m sorry.” 

James had spoken to softly that Lily wasn’t certain that she’d heard him. Why was he apologising to her?

“I’m sorry you were blindsided like that, I didn’t mean to put you in that position, I was just taken aback by seeing her name. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I’m so sorry Lily. If you need space and stuff I understand, I obviously love talking and being with you but finding out about Lily, well that must have been a shock for you right now, and I know you don’t feel that way about me, so yeah, I’d understand if you need some space.” 

James hadn’t looked at Lily the whole time he spoke, but delivered his speech to his lap where his hands twisting around themselves.

“James, I knew about Lily,” James’ head shot up to look at her for the first time, “she told me last night.” 

James frowned at her and stared intently, “you knew?” 

“I knew.” 

“And you’ve still been around me all morning and acting normal?” 

Lily sighed, she knew that this was the time to put all her cards on the table, but now the time was here she felt the anxiety settle deep in her stomach. 

“James, I wanted to know if our lives were intertwined through our grandchildren because our children happened to get together, or whether it was you and me. I wanted to know from my granddaughter whether I was wasting my time falling in love with you and if I’d missed my chance with you. Because I am, falling in love with you I mean.” 

“What?” James had never been so shocked in his life, he had no idea. He thought that the time that they had spent together this year had been amazing, they had been getting closer but he hadn’t let himself hope for something more, he went to bed every night telling himself that friendship was enough. 

“I’ve been falling in love with you since last year, I thought you might have gotten over me and I’d missed my chance, but hearing that from Lily well I let myself believe that maybe I still had a chance, but if that isn’t the case and you don’t want to be anything more than friends then-” Lily was abruptly cut off my James’ mouth on hers. The kiss was urgent but soft and exactly what Lily imagines kissing James would be like. 

James pulled back and looked Lily in the eye for the first time, “I never want you to say something as ridiculous as me not wanting you, ever again. Do you know how long I’ve wanted this, how long I've hoped this could happen.” 

This kiss was slow and steady, and melted Lily from the inside out and she felt at home. 

“Go out with me Evans?” 

“Always.” 

Lily looked over her shoulder when they heard the others approaching. Lily was smiling at the new couple with joy. 

“Come on you two, we have a lot to discuss. Let’s go back to the common room.”

[isaspsp]

Dream log:

Today I had like, 2 dreamsbthat blended into each other, and I'd dream each a little bit??

First dream was of a castle. Its inhabitants were all very happy, and it all worked in perfect harmony. But suddenly, there was a problem. The royal cheese maker left his job. NO ONE else knew how to make cheese. And the castle's staff LOVED cheese so incredibly much that he castle stopped working until they could get cheese again.

Second dream is me getting incredibly more frustrated. The day starts with me wanting to install a shelf in my house. Slowly it becomes an increasingly more complicated job. Now I want 8 shelves perfectly aligned on two columns and this wood decoration thing running beside it.

I also wanted a "poem/song" written in the wall (I don't remember what I wanted, but I do remember it starting as like, a saying (sort of like, "a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link" y'nkow a whole phrase, I remember something about a wall) but because I had more shelves, I wanted the whole "poem/song" on the wall, as such I looked up the lyrics to it (which by the way, made no ficking sense and were more like an essay????).

I started just straight up eye balling the nails on the wall (and of course, did them wrong) and for some reason I couldn't pull them out? I guess the hammer I was using didn't have the removing nails part. I change gears and start sketching out the lyrics in the wall. For some reason I decide to dedicate A WHOLE WALL to the letter R (the wall(s) I'm mounting the shelves on are one flat wall with a corridor cutting though it, so I dedicated the whole left side to the corridor just for the R) and while I am writing the rest of it out (in a more sensible size) when I hit tacks. DOZENS of tacks. My dad decided to help me out by tacking (by tacks, I mean those that you'd use on a pin board, but not the cute ones, the ones with flat circle ends) in a very rough shape of the lyrics. I once again, can't take them off by hand because my dad used the "nail gun" to tack them on the wall... I am at this point very mad.

But we don't have time for that because it's Sunday, so we are going to grandma's house! So get in the car we are fucking late. I get in the car we leave the garage. I noticed I forgot my phone AND didn't bring a book with me, which means my trip to grandma's is going to be EXTREMELLY boring. And I know my dad will refuse to go beck for them (he is mad we're late).

Back to the first dream.

I was robably the monarch in the dream? But yeah. I had to solve this cheese problem. My first thought was to substitute the cheese for another product. I walked along the staff in the hallways (all of them clearly incredibly desmotivated by the lack of cheese) when I find this man. He can make chocolate. AMAZING CHOCOLATE. I bring him in and offer the workers chocolate in place of the cheese. They refuse and tell me that cheese is the only way they'll work in the castle.

Back to the second-ish dream. I was suddenly at school. I just am. But I'm still incredibly pissed off. Like really pissed. It's lunch time and I AM FAMISHED. LIKE EXTREMELY HUNGRY AND ANGRY. When I get to the cafeteria, people are sitting down just doing nothing.

I look up an empty seat on the right side of the room and ask what is happening. Someone says that the food they had before wasn't good, so the school was gonna have an replacement soon. So I have no choice but to wait. Remember I am furious still. When they finally start to give out the food, they force us to go from left to right of who's in the room. I'm on the right side, which means I'll be on the last 2/5's of them room to get my food. And they only distribute the food to an x amount of people at a time, so the people that have to wait, have to watch the people with food eat, every time. I see like, 10 cycles of people getting up, getting their food, eating, talking for a bit, and then leaving. By the time it gets to me I am so incredibly mad that I am frozen unto place, for if I move, I'll straight up EXPLODE.

Back to the castle. I go on a quest to learn how to make cheese so that the castle's people will happy! It' this epic quest that my dream cut out, so I don't actually know what I did. By the time I am back, There is this huge line leading from the kitchen. It seems that the chocolate person managed to convince the staff that chocolate is as good as cheese and they are all in love with chocolate now, and I learned how to make cheesr for nothing because they don't want cheese anymore.

The second dream then becomes something about a beetle who's hiding among the other beetles, but secretly is super hero!!!! And the flies off into the sky saying: "I might be a super hero but I wish they knew I was a bettle just like them" and the I wake up.

[fruit-teeth]

Joy

Alternate title: That time Demoman killed a gangster. 

/(FINALLY, I managed to finish this! I’m coming down with a sore throat, but I powered through and got this done anyway because that’s just how I am. So this is the next installment in my Origins series, and this chapter is Demoman. This one gets pretty long, but I hope y’all like it anyway!)/

Any nun at the Arms of Love Orphan Home would describe Tavish as a happy child. It was all over his record that he always in a good mood, that he loved to smile and laugh and joke with the other children. “Ay, he wis such a sweet child,” Sister Loreena, a nun who knew him most of his childhood, would sigh many years later. “He loved tae make the other children laugh, that's whit A remember most aboot him...” What Loreena conveniently seemed to forget, though, was that he had been at the same orphanage twice in his life. First, as a newborn baby, one who the nuns doted over until he was eventually adopted (of course he was adopted – he was beautiful, after all), but six years later he was promptly returned to the same place. Why? Because, allegedly, he was the reason his adoptive parents were now dead. He had a very strange obsession with explosives, and the nuns were aware of this but they were very concerned. When they banned him from going to the shops to buy his own, he just began making them, and no matter how hard the nuns prayed for him he never stopped. The other children didn't seem terribly concerned with the explosives, and many of them liked to watch him stuff dynamite into the dirt and set it off, blowing chunks of the earth everywhere while they all cheered. Yet, it was the start of the school year when things began to change. Tavish was enrolled in the education program taught right there at the orphanage, and it was there that a new nun was assigned to teach the children. She looked young, much younger than any of the other nuns, and she went by the name of Sister Joy. Joy entered the room, setting down her bag and writing her name with chalk on the board. “Hello, children,” she began, and she spoke in a strange accent they had never heard before. “My name is Sister Joy,” “Hello, Sister Joy!” the children greeted in unison, just as they had been taught. She seemed a little startled by the loud hello, but she shook it off and pinned up a piece of paper to the chalkboard. “This is your schedule, and you are expected to follow it every day unless told otherwise. Now, first, we will begin with devotions -” A girl in the back of the room suddenly gasped. “Tavish!” and that was all the warning there was before a jar of paint came tumbling down from the shelf above and burst open, painting the carpet blue. Joy glanced up, and that was when her eyes met Tavish's frightened face. He'd leaned a bit too far back in his chair and disturbed the shelves sitting behind him in the back – it was clearly a mistake, and while Joy was not happy about it she was also glad that he didn't hurt himself. “Please clean that up,” Joy sighed, pointing to the roll of paper towels sitting in the back. Tavish nodded quickly, jumping up and grabbing the towels and tearing a piece off. He didn't want to disappoint, the nuns here already did not trust him with any explosive. As Joy began to teach, Tavish got on his hands and knees and cleaned the paint off of the floor, glancing up to watch her as she gave the first lesson of the day. After the day ended, Tavish approached Joy at her desk, much to her surprise. “Sister Joy?” he began meekly, hovering over her desk with a look of earnest in his eyes. “I'm sorry I knocked ower the paint, it happened accidentally,” before Joy could even reply, he kept talking. “I wonae dae it again!” Joy laid down her pen, looking him over for a moment – he was tall for a seven-year-old, with thick hair on his head and large round eyes. “That's all right, Tavish,” she assured him. “It's washable paint, anyway, and I am very glad you were so eager to clean it,” she cleared her throat. “I heard from the other sisters that you like to make explosions?” He nodded. “Ay, ma'am,” “You like to be reckless, yes?” “Ay, ma'am,” “Well,” she sat up a little taller, making eye contact with him. “Would you like an opportunity to do something constructive for a change?” Tavish looked away for a moment. The word 'constructive' made him think of construction workers, so did she mean building? “I like makin' things sometimes,” he replied, nodding. Joy smiled a little. “Well, I'm sure you do. But, would you like to help me around my office sometimes? I could do with a little extra help, and you could do with the experience,” “Oh,” Tavish thought about it. “Is that fun?” She shrugged. “It could be. How about we start tomorrow afternoon, yes?” Tavish considered it before he nodded in agreement. “Okay, I can help ye. I can put things together!” “Wonderful,” Joy smiled again, nodding. “I will see you then, Tavish,” Sure enough, he arrived at her office the following afternoon, ready to help with whatever Joy needed him to do. She really admired his enthusiasm, most of the children wouldn't have been as eager to help out as he was. “So, Tavish,” Joy began, watching as he cut out stacks of worksheets with the scissors, making sure he didn't hurt himself. “When did you begin using your explosives?” Tavish shrugged, paying extra attention to the corners of each paper. “I dinnae really remember. I like to play with them and I was gonna explode Nessie at my old house,” Joy's brows furrowed. “Nessie? Do you mean the Loch Ness Monster?” “Shh!” Tavish hissed, whirling around and pressing a finger his lips. “Dinnae say her name! She'll hear ye!” Joy blinked, and she couldn't help but chuckle. “All right, all right. Who is Fergus?” Tavish went back to the papers. “Fergus is ma' old dad,” his voice was a little quieter. “He died, an' so did my old mum,” “Oh...” Joy's heart sank. The other nuns had told her beforehand about this. “I see,” she sat beside him, watching him cut the papers some more. “Well...you have all of us, now,” Tavish still didn't look up. “The sisters says Jesus forgives me,” “That's true,” Joy nodded, folding her hands on her lap. “Anyway, it's um...it's all in the past,” Tavish finally glanced up, and he suddenly got an odd feeling about Sister Joy. “How come yer not old?” he wanted to know, squinting. Joy seemed confused by the question. “What do you mean? Not all nuns are old ladies,” “Really?” Tavish blinked in surprise. “I thought they were all old maids...” “Ah,” Joy smiled, amused, shaking her head. “No, no...and I'm not that young, I'm...” Something out the window caught her attention, and her face fell. Tavish turned around, trying to see what she was seeing. “What?” Joy suddenly grabbed him, yanking him out of the chair and bringing him down to the floor. “Get down!” she exclaimed, her voice full of panic, and it was then that the loud sounds came. Tavish thought they sounded like firecrackers, but he had never seen someone so scared over firecrackers. “What is it?” he asked, feeling very anxious as he felt Joy trembling in fear against him. After a moment, Joy sat up, still holding Tavish close to her, and the sound of tires could be heard skidding away. She sat nothing for a long time, her lips parted slightly as she silently tallied the damage done to the windows. “What happened?” Tavish stared up at her, brows knitted in fear. “What broke the windows?” Joy did not look at him, and she whispered to no one in particular, “God, he found me...” Just then, the door opened, and Sister Loreena came rushing in. “What was all the noise?” she nearly squealed, pulling Tavish away from the window. “Joy, what happened!?” Joy did not answer, and she stood up, quietly leaving the room without another word. Tavish tried to get a better look at the bullet holes in the office window, but Loreena pulled him away. “Come away, child, ye shouldnae touch the broken glass!” The incident was never brought up again, and the window ended up being replaced. Tavish never really forgot about the event, but he continued to help Sister Joy with various odd jobs. She seemed kind and charming in a way most of the nuns weren't, and it wasn't long before he began to trust her completely. He got called a 'teacher's pet' by the other boys, but he didn't care – if he was lucky, maybe Sister Joy could be his new mother! Wouldn't that be something? But a month later, during recess, Tavish sat by the woods with his friends, and they all began to gossip about the teachers, as they often did. “Ye know what I heard?” began Micha, a small wiry boy with wide-rimmed glasses. “I heard Sister Joy isn't really a nun!” Tavish shook his head, making a face. “No, she's a nun! She's just not old like the other nuns! You're wrong, Micha,” “No, no!” chimed in Ramona, tall for her age but still just the same size as Tavish. “It's true! Kenny says he heard Sister Mary talkin' an' she said Sister Joy was 'impure'!” “Impure?” Tavish repeated. “What does that mean?” “Not holy,” Micha explained. “It means she isn't a nun!” This thought didn't sit right with Tavish at all, although he wasn't sure why. What did 'impure' mean? If she wasn't a nun, then what was she? He decided to ask her himself. When he went to visit her that afternoon to help sort her cabinets out, he asked her right up front: “Sister Joy, are you impure?” Joy nearly dropped the stacks of papers she was carrying. “Am I...am I what?” “Impure,” Tavish began to explain. “My friends said you were impure and that you weren't really a nun,” Joy went quiet before she turned around and knelt to Tavish's height. “Tavish,” she began. “Everything is rather...complicated at the moment. I can't explain everything, but...” she swallowed. “All I will tell you is that once everything is sorted out, I will have to leave,” “Leave!?” Tavish was flabbergasted, and he wrapped his arms around her neck. “But you can't go!” “I will have to,” Joy took his chin into her hand, and she kissed his forehead. “I wish I could stay, but that's not God's plan,” Tavish sniffed, blinking up at her. “Can...can I go with you?” Joy smiled sadly, and she shook her head. “I'm afraid not. You have to stay here,” “But I want to go with you,” he stared at the floor, pouting, tears welling in his eyes. “Maybe you could be my new mum...” Joy fell silent, and after a moment, she took Tavish's hand and squeezed it. “That can't happen, unfortunately,” she spoke very seriously to him, yet her eyes were full of warmth. “But, I want you to know that if my baby is a boy, I hope he's just like you,” There was a pause. Tavish looked up, realizing what she had said. “Baby...?” She placed his hand over her stomach, which was hidden beneath her robe, but he felt right away that it was firm. He stared in surprise, blinking. “You're going to have a baby?” “You must not tell the other children, whatever you do,” she lowered her voice, speaking in a hushed whisper. “This must be kept a secret,” Tavish felt downright shocked. Were nuns allowed to have babies? He knew they couldn't get married, so how would she have a baby? Now that he was so close to Sister Joy, he began to notice other details about her: her ears had holes in them, but no earrings, she had a very faint scar on her top lip, and perhaps the strangest of all was the marks on her wrists he’d noticed when she held his hand. Not to mention that when he saw her face up close, he realized she was not as young as he'd thought she was. She was already starting to look older...did she always have so many wrinkles? Still, Tavish told no one. He kept it in, never saying a word, but as the months progressed Sister Joy's secret pregnancy was becoming more and more noticeable. The other children noticed, but they didn't suspect that she was pregnant: they just giggled behind her back about her being 'fat'. Only Tavish knew the truth. And then came that fateful winter night. During a choir concert in the chapel, Tavish sang right along with the other children, just as he always did, when he noticed that Sister Joy was looking on the window again. She was in the audience, but he could clearly see her watching some lights going by through the stained glass. When the song ended, the children were dismissed, and Tavish watched as Joy opened the door and slipped out quickly, not saying a word. “Sister Joy?” Tavish followed after her, not even bothering to put on his jacket as he stepped out into the snow. “Where are you going?” She didn't seem to hear him, and she stood by the side of the road, where a car was parked. “I told you to leave me alone,” she spoke harshly to whoever was in the driver's side, his fists clenched in anger. “I don't need this right now,” Tavish stopped, watching the altercation from a safe distance. He caught a glimpse of who was driving the car: a large, scarred man, clad in a suit with a cigarette in his lips. “Shut up and get in the car, Helen,” he growled, removing the cigarette. Joy took a step back, shaking her head. “No. You don't control me anymore,” He turned his huge form towards her, and something shiny glinted in his hand. “I said,” he presented the gun, glaring into her eyes. “Get in the car, and take off all that shit,” Tavish gasped, freezing up. His heart pounded – what could he do? He had never seen anything like this before, and he was just a boy. Joy took another step back, gritting her teeth. “Don't do this, Issac,” Issac pursed his lips together. “Do the right thing, and get in the car,” when she didn't move, he sighed. “I'll count to three...one,” Tavish looked around frantically, feeling dizzy. He looked towards the warm glow of the church, suddenly recalling that there was something very important in his coat pocket. “Two...” In a flurry, Tavish rushed to the church doors, scrambling for the coat rack and nearly ripping down his coat. He grabbed the homemade grenade he'd hidden from the nuns earlier that morning, and he rushed back out into the snow. “Three!” Issac aimed the gun, but before he could do anything, a young boy came rushing up with a strange-looking object in his hand. “Tavish!” Joy exclaimed, shrieking and attempting to pull him back. The last thing Issac ever saw was the young boy tearing a pin out of the object before he threw it into the open window. Joy fell right on her back, holding Tavish as close to her body as possible, trying to shield him for flying debris as the car exploded, sending bits of metal everywhere. The noise died down, and Joy sat up slowly, still holding Tavish close to her. As she silently stared at all of the damage done, at the wrecked car and the remains of the man who had antagonized her, Tavish shifted in her arms. “Ow,” he whimpered, wriggling. Joy glanced down, pulling him away to look at him. “A-are you all right? I – oh, no!” she gasped, realizing that she hadn't managed to protect him from all the flying debris. “What?” he tried to blink, but something wasn't quite right with his vision. He touched his left eye, feeling at it. “W-what happened to my eye?” What happened next was a blur. Joy screamed for an ambulance, and the other nuns were surrounding him and whispering prayers over him as he was rushed to the hospital. He wondered if he was dying, but whenever he asked no one seemed to answer. His last memory of Joy was her hovering over him, tears in her eyes as she brushed his cheek. She was out of her robes, and for the first time, he saw her long black hair framing her face. She seemed youthful again as she stroked his hair, and her eyes glinted as she watched his face. “May God be with you, Tavish,” she whispered. “Thank you, for what you've done. This will not be forgotten,” He never saw her again, and the nuns never said where she went. The following events are debatable, but Tavish claims to this day that they happened. At just seven years old, Tavish was already ready to give up on life, and he suddenly felt hopeless and scared. He cried in the darkness, alone and terrified, and he sobbed into the dark, “I dinnae wanna be here anymore! I wanna go home! I just wanna go home!” He choked on his sobs in the dark, his shoulders quivering when suddenly someone joined him. “You must rise, Tavish,” a gentle voice whispered to him. A green glow appeared beside him, though he couldn't see a face. “But Joy left...” he sniffed. “Joy is gone,” “She will be all right,” the voice assured. “But you must rise. If you don't, you will never meet your family,” “What family?” Tavish looked up, his eyes unable to adjust to the glow. “I dinnae have a family,” A pair of arms held him, and he felt a loving warmth wash over him. “You do,” the voice assured. “And you have friends waiting for you – and they will love what you do. But, you must rise,” So he rose, and he continued. After all was said and done, Tavish sat alone in his bedroom, hugging his knees as he stared out of the window. He still had pain in some places, and now he only had one eye. Yet, despite everything, he was alive. Someone knocked on his door. “Tavish?” Sister Loreena poked her head in the doorway. “Tavish, darling, you have visitors,” Tavish stood up obediently, and he followed Loreena down the stairs to the meeting area. There stood a man and a woman, both watching Tavish anxiously as he entered the room. He paused, taking a look at both of them for a good while, before he asked, “Are you me new mum and dad?” The woman let out a sob, and she fell to her knees, pulling Tavish in her arms and holding him close. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, beginning to weep, rocking him as she held him. Tavish blinked, very confused. He didn't know these people at all... The man knelt beside the two, unfurling a newspaper with the headline, Notorious Gangster Dead in Car Explosion. “We have of explainin' tae do, dear boy,” the man began, placing his free hand on Tavish's shoulder.

[maximelebled]

Growing Pains - Zelda, Tony Hawk, The Sims, games and related memories from my formative years

This blog post is about my personal history with video games, how they influenced me growing up, how they sometimes helped me, and more or less an excuse to write about associated memories with them.

This is a very straightforward intro, because I’ve had this post sitting as a draft for ages, trying to glue all of it cohesively, but I’m not a very good writer, so I never really succeeded. Some of these paragraphs date back at least one year. 

And I figured I should write about a lot of this as long as I still remember clearly, or not too inaccurately. Because I know that I don’t remember my earliest ever memory. I only remember how I remember it. So I might as well help my future self here, and give myself a good memento.

Anyway, the post is a kilometer long, so it’ll be under this cut.

My family got a Windows 95 computer when I was 3 years old. While I don’t remember this personally, I’m told that one of the first things I ever did with it was mess up with the BIOS settings so badly that dad’s computer-expert friend had to be invited to repair it. (He stayed for dinner as a thank you.)

It was that off-white plastic tower, it had a turbo button, and even a 4X CD reader! Wow! And the CRT monitor must have been... I don’t remember what it was, actually. But I do once remember launching a game at a stupidly high resolution: 1280x1024! And despite being a top-down 2D strategy, it ran VERY slowly. Its video card was an ATI Rage. I had no idea what that really meant that at the time, but I do recall that detail nonetheless.

Along with legitimately purchased games, the list of which I can remember:

Tubular Worlds

Descent II

Alone in the Dark I & III

Lost Eden

Formula One (not sure which game exactly)

Heart of Darkness

(and of course the famous Adibou/Adi series of educational games)

... we also had what I realize today were cracked/pirated games, from the work-friend that had set up the family computer. I remember the following:

Age of Empires I (not sure about that one, I think it might have been from a legitimate “Microsoft Plus!” disc)

Nightmare Creatures (yep, there was a PC port of that game)

Earthworm Jim (but without any music)

The Fifth Element

Moto Racer II

There are a few other memorable games, which were memorable in most aspects, except their name. I just cannot remember their name. And believe me, I have looked. Too bad! Anyway, in this list, I can point out a couple games that made a big mark on me.

First, the Alone in the Dark trilogy. It took me a long time to beat them. I still remember the morning I beat the third game. I think it was in 2001 or 2002.

There was a specific death in it which gave me nightmares for a week. You shrink yourself to fit through a crack in a wall, but it’s possible to let a timer run out—or fall down a hole—and this terrifying thing happens (16:03). I remember sometimes struggling to run the game for no reason; something about DOS Extended Memory being too small.

I really like the low-poly flat-shaded 3D + hand-drawn 2D style of the game, and it’d be really cool to see something like that pop up again. After the 8-bit/16-bit trend, there’s now more and more games paying tribute to rough PS1-style 3D, so maybe this will happen? Maybe I’ll have to do it myself? Who knows!

Second, Lost Eden gave me a taste for adventure and good music, and outlandish fantasy universes. Here’s the intro to the game:

A lot of the game is very evocative, especially its gorgeous soundtrack, and you spend a lot of time trekking through somewhat empty renders of landscapes. Despite being very rough early pre-rendered 3D, those places were an incredible journey in my young eyes. If you have some time, I suggest either playing the game (it’s available on Steam) or watching / skimmering through this “longplay” video. Here are some of my personal highlights: 25:35, 38:05, 52:15 (love that landscape), 1:17:20, 1:20:20 (another landscape burned in my neurons), 2:12:10, 2:55:30, 3:01:18. (spoiler warning)

But let’s go a couple years back. Ever since my youngest years, I was very intrigued by creation. I filled entire pocket-sized notebooks with writing—sometimes attempts at fiction, sometimes daily logs like the weather reports from the newspaper, sometimes really bad attempts at drawing. I also filled entire audio tapes over and over and OVER with “fake shows” that my sister and I would act out. The only thing that survived is this picture of 3-year-old me with the tape player/recorder.

It also turns out that the tape recorder AND the shelf have both survived.

(I don’t know if it still works.)

On Wednesday afternoons (school was off) and on the week-ends, I often got to play on the family computer, most of the time with my older brother, who’s the one who introduced me to... well... all of it, really. (Looking back on the games he bought, I can say he had very good tastes.)

Moto Racer II came with a track editor. It was simple but pretty cool to play around with. You just had to make the track path and elevation; all the scenery was generated by the game. You could draw impossible tracks that overlapped themselves, but the editor wouldn’t let you save them. However, I found out there was a way to play/save them no matter what you did, and I got to experiment with crazy glitches. 85 degree inclines that launched the bike so high you couldn’t see the ground anymore? No problem. Tracks that overlapped themselves several times, causing very strange behaviour at the meeting points? You bet. That stuff made me really curious about how video games worked. I think a lot of my initial interest in games can be traced back to that one moment I figured out how to exploit the track editor...

There was also another game—I think it was Tubular Worlds—that came on floppy disks. I don’t remember what exactly lead me to do it, but I managed to edit the text that was displayed by the installer... I think it was the license agreement bit of it. That got me even more curious as to how computers worked.

Up until some time around my 13th or 14th birthday, during summer break (the last days of June to the first days of September for French pupils), my sister and I would always go on vacation at my grandparents’ home.

The very first console game I ever played was The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my cousin’s Super Nintendo, who also usually stayed with us. Unlike us, he had quite a few consoles available to him, and brought a couple along. My first time watching and playing this game was absolutely mind-blowing to me. An adventure with a huge game world to explore, so many mysterious things at every corner. “Why are you a pink rabbit now?” “I’m looking for the pearl that will help me not be that.”

Growing up and working in the games industry has taken the magic out of many things in video games... and my curiosity for the medium (and its inner workings) definitely hasn’t helped. I know more obscure technical trivia about older games than I care to admit. But I think this is what is shaping my tastes in video games nowadays... part of it is that I crave story-rich experiences that can bring me back to a, for lack of a better term, “child-like” wonderment. And I know how weird this is going to sound, but I don’t really enjoy “pure gameplay” games as much for that reason. Some of the high-concept ones are great, of course (e.g. Tetris), but I usually can’t enjoy others without a good interwoven narrative. I can’t imagine I would have completed The Talos Principle had it consisted purely of the puzzles without any narrative beats, story bits, and all that. What I’m getting at is, thinking about it, I guess I tend to value the “narrative” side of games pretty highly, because, to me, it’s one of the aspects of the medium that, even if distillable to some formulas, is inherently way more “vague” and “ungraspable”. You can do disassembly on game mechanics and figure out even the most obsure bits of weird technical trivia. You can’t do that to a plot, a universe, characters, etc. or at least nowhere near to the same extent.

You can take a good story and weave it into a number of games, but the opposite is not true. It’s easy to figure out the inner working of gameplay mechanics, and take the magic out of them, but it’s a lot harder to do that for a story, unless it’s fundamentally flawed in some way.

Video games back then seemed a lot bigger than they actually were.

I got Heart of Darkness as a gift in 1998 or 1999. We used to celebrate Christmas at my grandparents’, so I had to wait a few days to be back home, and to able to put the CD in the computer. But boy was it worth it! Those animated cutscenes! The amazing pixel art animations! The amazing and somewhat disturbing variety of ways in which you can die, most of which gruesome and mildly graphic! And of course, yet again... a strange and outlandish universe that just scratches my itch for it. Well, one of which that forged my taste for them.

I can’t remember exactly when it happened or what it was, but I do remember that at some point we visited some sort of... exposition? Exhibit? Something along those lines. And it had a board games & computer games section. The two that stick out in my mind were Abalone (of which I still have the box somewhere) and what I think was some sort of 2D isometric (MMO?) RPG. I wanna say it was Ultima Online but I recall it looking more primitive than that (it had small maps whose “void” outside them was a single blueish color). 

In my last two years of elementary school, there was one big field trip per year. They lasted two weeks, away from family. The first one was to the Alps. The second one was... not too far from where I live now, somewhere on the coast of Brittany! I have tried really hard to find out exactly where it was, as I remember the building and facilities really well, but I was never able to find it again. On a couple occasions, we went on a boat with some kind of... algae harvesters? The smell was extremely strong (burning itself into my memory) and made me sick. The reason I bring them up is because quite a few of my classmates had Game Boy consoles, most of them with, you know, all those accessories, especially the little lights. I remember being amazed at the transparent ones. Play was usually during the off-times, and I watched what my friends were up to, with, of course, a bit of jealousy mixed in. The class traveled by bus, and it took off in the middle of the night; something like 3 or 4 in the morning? It seemed like such a huge deal at the time! Now here I am, writing THESE WORDS at 03:00. Anyway, most of my classmates didn’t fall back asleep and those that had a Game Boy just started playing on them. One of my classmates, however, handed me his whole kit and I got to do pretty much what I wanted with it, with the express condition that I would not overwrite any of his save files. I remember getting reasonably far in Pokémon before I had to give it back to him and my progress was wiped.

During the trip to the Alps, I remember seeing older kids paying for computer time; there was a row of five computers in a small room... and they played Counter-Strike. I had absolutely no idea what it was, and I would forget about it until the moment I’m writing these words, but I was watching with much curiosity.

The first time I had my own access to console games was in 2001. The first Harry Potter film had just come out, and at Christmas, I was gifted a Game Boy Advance with the first official game. I just looked it up again and good god, it’s rougher than I remember. The three most memorable GBA games which I then got to play were both Golden Sun(s) and Sword of Mana... especially the latter, with its gorgeous art direction. My dad had a cellphone back then, and I remember sneakily going on there to look up a walkthrough for a tricky part of Golden Sun’s desert bit. Cellphones had access to something called “WAP” internet... very basic stuff, but of course still incredible to me back then.

I eventually got to play another Zelda game on my GBA: Link’s Awakening DX. I have very fond memories of that one because I was bed-ridden with a terrible flu. My fever ran so high that I started having some really funky dreams, delirious half-awake hallucinations/feelings, and one night, I got so hot that I stumbled out of bed and just laid down against the cold tile of the hallway. At 3 in the morning! A crazy time! (Crazy for 11-year-old me.)

(The fever hallucinations were crazy. My bedroom felt like it was three times at big, and I was convinced that a pack of elephants were charging at me from the opposite corner. The “night grain” of my vision felt sharper, amplified. Every touch, my sore body rubbing against the bed covers felt like it was happening twice as much. You know that “Heavy Rain with 300% facial animation” video? Imagine that, but as a feverish feeling. The dreams were on another level entirely. I could spend pages on them, but suffice to say that’s when I had my first dream where I dreamed of dying. There were at least two, actually. The first one was by walking down a strange, blueish metal corridor, then getting in an elevator, and then feeling that intimate convinction that it was leading me to passing over. The second one was in some Myst-like world, straight out of a Roger Dean cover, with some sort of mini-habitat pods floating on a completely undisturbed lake. We were just trapped in them. It just felt like some kind of weird afterlife.)

I also eventually got to play the GBA port of A Link To The Past. My uncle was pretty amused by seeing me play it, as he’d also played the original on SNES before I’d even been born. I asked him for help with a boss (the first Dark World one), but unfortunately, he admitted he didn’t remember much of the game.

We had a skiing holiday around this time. I don’t remember the resort’s or the town’s name, but its sights are burned in my memory. Maybe it’s because, shortly after we arrived, and we went to the ski rental place, I almost fainted and puked on myself, supposedly from the low oxygen. It also turned out that the bedroom my parents had rented unexpectedly came with a SNES in the drawer under the tiny TV. The game: Super Mario World. I got sick at one point and got to stay in and play it. This was also the holiday where I developed a fondness for iced tea, although back then the most common brand left an awful aftertaste in your mouth that just made you even more thirsty.

We got a new PC in December of 2004. Ditching the old Windows 98 SE (yep, the OS had been upgraded in... 2002, I think?). Look at how old-school this looks. The computer office room was in the basement. Even with the blur job that I applied to the monitor for privacy reasons, you can still tell that this is the XP file explorer:

A look at what the old DSLR managed to capture on the shelf reveals some more of the games that were available to me back then: a bunch of educational software, The Sims 2, and SpellForce Gold. 

I might be misremembering but I think they were our Christmas gifts for that year; we both got to pick one game. I had no idea what I wanted, really, but out of all the boxes at (what I think was) the local Fnac store, it was SpellForce that stood out to me the most. Having watched Lord of the Rings the year prior might have been a factor. I somewhat understood Age of Empires years before that, but SpellForce? Man, I loved the hell out of SpellForce. Imagine a top-down RPG that can also be played from a third-person perspective. And with the concept of... hero units... wait a second... now that reminds me of Dota.

Imagine playing a Dota hero with lots of micro-management and being able to build a whole base on new maps. And sometimes visiting very RPG-ish sections (my favorites!) with very little top-down strategy bits, towns, etc. like Siltbreaker. I guess this game was somewhat like an alternate, single-player Dota if you look at it from the right angle. (Not the third-person one.)

I do remember being very excited when I found out that it, too, came with a level editor. I never figured it out, though. I only ever got as far as making a nice landscape for my island, and that was it!

A couple weeks after, it was Christmas; my sister and I got our first modern PC game: The Sims 2. It didn’t run super well—most games didn’t, because the nVidia GeForce FX 5200 wasn’t very good. But that didn’t stop me or my sister from going absolutely nuts with the game. This video has the timestamp of 09 January 2005, and it is the first video I’ve ever made with a computer. Less than two weeks after we got the game, I was already neck-deep in creating stuff.

Not that it was particularly good, of course. This is a video that meets all of the “early YouTube Windows Movie Maker clichés”.

Speaking of YouTube, I did register an account there pretty early on, in August of 2006. I’ve been through all of it. I remember every single layout change. I also started using Sony Vegas around that time. It felt so complex and advanced back then! And I’m still using it today. Besides Windows, Vegas Pro is very likely to be the piece of software that I’ve been using for the longest time.

I don’t have a video on YouTube from before 2009, because I decided to delete all of them out of embarassment. They were mostly Super Mario 64 machinima. It’s as bad as it sounds. The reason I bring that up right now, though, is that it makes the “first” video of my account the last one I made with the Sims 2.

But before I get too far ahead with my early YouTube days, let me go backwards a bit. We got hooked up to the Internet some time in late 2005. It was RTC (dialup), 56 kbps. my first steps into the Internet led me to the Cube engine. Mostly because back then my dad would purchase computer magazines (which were genuinely helpful back then), and came with CDs of common downloadable software for those without Internet connections. One of them linked to Cube. I think it was using either this very same screenshot, or a very similar one, on the same map.

The amazing thing about Cube is not only that it was open-source and moddable, but had map editing built-in the game. The mode was toggled on with a single key press. You could even edit maps cooperatively with other people. Multiplayer mapping! How cool is that?! And the idea of a game that enabled so much creation was amazing to me, so I downloaded it right away. (Over the course of several hours, 30 MiB being large for dialup.)

I made lots of bad maps that never fulfilled the definition of “good level” or “good gameplay”, not having any idea how “game design” meant, or what it even was. But I made places. Places that I could call my own. “Virtual homes”. I still distinctively remember the first map I ever made, even though no trace of it survives to this day. In the second smallest map size possible, I’d made a tower surrounded by a moat and a few smaller cozy towers, with lots of nice colored lighting. This, along with the distinctive skyboxes and intriguing music, made me feel like I’d made my home in a strange new world.

At some point later down the line, I made a kinda-decent singleplayer level. It was very linear, but one of the two lead developers of the game played it and told me he liked it a lot! Of course, half of that statement was probably “to be nice”, but it was really validating and encouraging. And I’m glad they were like that. Because I remember being annoying to some other mappers in the Sauerbraten community (the follow-up to Cube, more advanced technically), who couldn’t wrap their heads around my absolutely god awful texturing work and complete lack of level “design”. Honestly, sometimes, I actually kinda feel like trying to track a couple of them down and being like, “yeah, remember that annoying kid? That was me. Sorry you had to deal with 14-year-old me.”

At some point, I stumbled upon a mod called Cube Legends. It was a heavily Zelda-inspired “total conversion”; a term reserved for mods that are the moddiest mods and try to take away as much of the original foundation as possible. It featured lots of evocative MIDI music by the Norwegian composer Bjørn Lynne. Fun fact: the .mid files are still available officially from his website!

This was at the crossroad of many of my interests. It was yet another piece of the puzzle. As a quick side note, this is why Zelda is the first series that I name in the title of this post, even though I... never really thought of myself as a Zelda fan. It’s not that it’s one of the game series that I like the most, it’s just that, before I started writing this, I’d never realized how far-reaching its influence had been in my life, both in overt and subtle ways, especially during my formative years.

And despite how clearly unfinished, how much of a “draft” Cube Legends was, I could see what it was trying to do. I could see the author’s intent. And I’m still listening to Bjørn Lynne’s music today.

The Cube Engine and its forums were a big part of why I started speaking English so well. Compared to most French people, I mean. We’re notoriously bad with the English language, and so was I up until then. But having this much hands-on practice proved to be immensely valuable. And so, I can say that the game and its community have therefore had long-lasting impacts in my life.

I also tried out a bunch of N64 games via emulation, bringing me right back in that bedroom at my grandparents’ house, with my cousin. Though he did not have either N64 Zelda game back then.

The first online forum I ever joined was a Zelda fan site’s. There are two noteworthy things to say here:

It was managed by a woman who, during my stay in the community, graduated from her animation degree. At this stage I had absolutely no idea that this was going to be the line of work I would eventually pursue!

I recently ran into the former head moderator of the forums. (I don’t know when the community died.) One of the Dota players on my friends list invited him because I was like “hmm, I wanna go as 3, not as 2 players today”. His nickname very vaguely reminded me of something, a weird hunch I couldn’t place. Half an hour into the game, he said “hey Max... this might be a long shot, but did you ever visit [forum]?” and then I immediately yelled “OH MY GOD—IT IS YOU.” The world is a small place.

Access to the computer was sometimes tricky. I didn’t always have good grades, and of course, “punishment” (not sure the word is appropriate, hence the quotes, but you get the idea) often involved locking me out of the computer room. Of course, most times, I ended up trying to find the key instead. I needed my escape from the real world.  (You better believe it’s Tangent Time.)

I was always told I was the “smart kid”, because I “understood things faster” than my classmates. So they made me skip two grades ahead. This made me enter high school at nine years old. The consequences were awful (I was even more of the typical nerdy kid that wouldn’t fit in), and I wish it had never happened. Over the years, I finally understood: I wasn’t more intelligent. I merely had the chance to have been able to grow up with an older brother who’d instilled a sense of curiosity, critical thinking, and taste in books that were ahead of my age and reading level. This situation—and its opposite—is what I believe accounts for the difference in how well kids get to learn. It’s not innate talent, it’s not genetics (as some racists would like you to believe). It’s parenting and privilege.

And that’s why I’ll always be an outspoken proponent for any piece of media that tries to instill critical thinking and curiosity in its viewer, reader, or player.

But I digress.

Well, I’ve been digressing a lot, really, but games aren’t everything and after all, this post is about the context in which I played those games. Otherwise I reckon I would’ve just made a simple list.

I eventually got a Nintendo DS for Christmas, along with Mario Kart DS. My sister had gotten her own just around the time when it released... she had the Nintendogs bundle. We had also upgraded to proper ADSL, what I think was about a ~5 megabits download speed. The Nintendo DS supported wi-fi, which was still relatively rare compared to today. In fact, Nintendo sold a USB wireless adapter to help with that issue—our ISP-supplied modem-router did not have any wireless capabilities. I couldn’t get it the adapter work and I remember I got help from a really kind stranger who knew a lot about networking—to a point that it seemed like wizardry to me.

I remember I got a “discman” as a gift some time around that point. In fact, I still have it. Check out the stickers I put on it! I think those came from the Sims 2 DVD box and/or one of its add-ons.

I burned a lot of discs. In fact, in the stack of burned CDs/DVDs that I found (with the really bad Sims movies somewhere in there), I found at least three discs that had the Zelda album Hyrule Symphony burned in, each with different additional tracks. Some were straight-up MIDI files from vgmusic.com...! And speaking (again) of Zelda, when the Wii came out, Twilight Princess utterly blew my mind. I never got the game or the console, but damn did I yearn badly for it. I listened to the main theme of the game a lot, which didn’t help. I eventually got to play the first few hours at a friend’s place.

At some point, we’d upgraded the family computer to something with a bit more horsepower. It had a GeForce 8500 GT inside, which was eventually upgraded to a 9600 GT after the card failed for some reason. It could also dual-boot between XP and Vista. I stuck with that computer until 2011.

We moved to where I currently live in 2007. I’ve been here over a decade! And before we’d even fully finished unpacking, I was on the floor of the room that is now my office, with the computer on the ground and the monitor on a cardboard box, playing a pirated copy of... Half-Life! It was given to me by my cousin. It took me that long to find out about the series. It’s the first Valve game I played. I also later heard about the Orange Box, but mostly about Portal. Which I also pirated and played. I distinctly remember being very puzzled by the options menu: I thought it was glitched or broken, as changing settings froze the game. Turns out the Source engine had to chug for a little while, like a city car in countryside mud, as it reloaded a bunch of stuff. Patience is a virtue...

But then, something serious happened.

In the afternoon of 25 December 2007, I started having a bit of a dull stomach pain. I didn’t think much of it. Figured maybe I’d eaten too many Christmas chocolates and it’d go away. It didn’t. It progressively deteriorated into a high fever where I had trouble walking and my tummy really hurt; especially if you pressed on it. My parents tried to gently get me to eat something nice on New Year’s Eve, but it didn’t stay in very long. I could only feed myself with lemonade and painkiller. Eventually, the doctor decided I should get blood tests done as soon as possible. And I remember that day very clearly.

I was already up at 6:30 in the morning. Back then, The Daily Show aired on the French TV channel Canal+, so I was watching that, lying in the couch while waiting for my mom to get up and drive me to my appointment, at 7:00. It was just two streets away, but there was no way I could walk there. At around noon, the doctor called and told my mom: “get your son to the emergency room now.”

Long story short, part of my intestines nuked themselves into oblivion, causing acute peritonitis. To give you an idea, that’s something with a double-digit fatality rate. Had we waited maybe a day or two more, I would not be here writing this. They kind of blew up. I had an enormous abcess attached to a bunch of my organs. I had to be operated on with only weak local anaesthetics as they tried to start draining the abscess. It is, to date, by far the most painful thing that has ever happened to me. It was bad enough that the hospital doctor that was on my case told me that I was pretty much a case worthy to be in textbooks. I even had medical students come into my hospital room about it! They were very nice.

This whole affair lasted over a month. I became intimately familiar with TV schedules. And thankfully, I had my DS to keep me company. At the time, I was pretty big into the Tony Hawk DS games. They were genuinely good. They had extensive customization, really great replayability, etc. you get the idea. I think I even got pretty high on the online leaderboards at some point. I didn’t have much to do on some days besides lying down in pain while perfecting my scoring and combo strategies. I think Downhill Jam might’ve been my favorite.

My case was bad enough that they were unable to do something due to the sad state of my insides during the last surgery of my stay. I was told that I could come back in a few months for a checkup, and potentially a “cleanup” operation that would fix me up for good. I came back in late June of 2008, got the operation, and... woke up in my hospital room surrounded by, like, nine doctors, and hooked up to a morphine machine that I could trigger on command. Apparently something had gone wrong during the operation, but they never told me what. I wasn’t legally an adult, so they didn’t have to tell me. I suspect it’s somewhere in some medical files, but I never bothered to dig up through my parents’ archives, or ask the hospital. And I think I would rather not know. But anyway, that was almost three more weeks in the hospital. And it sucked even more that time because, you see, hospital beds do not “breathe” like regular beds do. The air can’t go through. Let’s say I’m intimately familiar with the smell of back sweat forever.

When I got out, my mom stopped by a supermarket on the way home. And that is when I bought The Orange Box, completely on a whim, and made my Steam account. Why? Because it was orange and stood out on the shelf.

(As a side note, that was the whole bit I started writing first, and that made me initially title this post “growing pains”. First, because I’m bad at titles. Second, because not that I didn’t have them otherwise (ow oof ouch my knees), but that was literally the most painful episode of my entire life thus far and it ended in a comically-unrelated, high-impact, life-changing decision. Just me picking up The Orange Box after two awful hospital stays... led me to where I am today.)

While I was recovering, I also started playing EarthBound! Another bit of a life-changer, that one. To a lesser extent, but still. I was immediately enamored by its unique tone. Giygas really really really creeped me out for a while afterwards though. I still get unsettled if I hear its noises sometimes.

I later bought Garry’s Mod (after convincing my mom that it was a “great creative toolbox that only cost ten bucks!”), and, well, the rest is history. By which I mean, a lot of my work and gaming activity since 2009 is still up and browsable. But there are still a few things to talk about.

In 2009, I bought my first computer with YouTube ad money: the Asus eee PC 1005HA-H. By modern standards, it’s... not very powerful. The processor in my current desktop machine is nearly 50 times as fast as its Atom N280. It had only one gigabyte of RAM, Windows 7 Basic Edition, and an integrated GPU barely worthy of the name; Intel didn’t care much for 3D in their chips back then. The GMA 945 didn’t even have hardware support for Transform & Lighting.

But I made it work, damn it. I made that machine run so much stuff. I played countless Half-Life and Half-Life 2 mods on it—though, due to the CPU overhead on geometry, some of those were trickier. I think one of the most memorable ones I played was Mistake of Pythagoras; very surreal, very rough, but I still remember it so clearly. I later played The Longest Journey on it, in the middle of winter. It was a very cozy and memorable experience. (And another one that’s an adventure wonderful outlandish alien universe. LOVE THOSE.)

I did more than playing games on it, though...

This is me sitting, sunburned on the nose, in an apartment room, on 06 August 2010. This was in the Pyrénées, at the border between France and Spain. We had a vacation with daily hiking. Some of the landscapes we visited reminded me very strongly of those from Lost Eden, way up the page...

So, you see, I had 3ds Max running on that machine. The Source SDK as well. Sony Vegas. All of it was slow; you bet I had to use some workarounds to squeeze performance out of software, and that I had to keep a close, watchful eye on RAM usage. But I worked on this thing. I really did! I animated this video’s facial animation bits (warning: this is old & bad) on the eee PC, during the evenings of the trip, when we were back at our accomodation. The Faceposer tool in the Source SDK really worked well on that machine.

I also animated an entire video solely on the machine (warning: also old and bad). It had to be rendered on the desktop computer... but every single bit of the animation was crafted on the eee PC.

I made it work.

Speaking of software that did not run well: around that time, I also played the original Crysis. The “but can it run Crysis?” joke was very much justified back then. I had to edit configuration files by hand so that I could run the game in 640x480... because I wanted to keep most of the high-end settings enabled. The motion blur was delicious, and it blew my mind that the effect made the game feel this smooth, despite wobbling around in the 20 to 30 fps range.

Alright. It’s time to finish writing this damn post and publish it at last, so I’m going to close it out by listing some more memories and games that I couldn’t work in up there.

Advance Wars. Strategy game on GBA with a top-down level editor. You better believe I was all over the editor right away.

BioShock. When we got the 2007 desktop computer, it was one of the first games I tried. Well, its demo, to be precise. Its tech and graphics blew my mind, enough that I saved up to buy the full game. This was before I had a Steam account; I got a boxed copy! I think it might have been the last boxed game I ever bought? It had a really nice metal case. The themes and political messages of the game flew way over my head, though.

Mirror’s Edge. The art direction was completely fascinating to me, and it introduced me to Solar Fields’ music; my most listened artist this decade, by a long shot.

L.A. Noire. I lost myself in its stories and investigations, and then, I did it all again, with my sister at the helm. I very rarely play games twice (directly or indirectly), which I figure is worth mentioning.

Zeno Clash. It was weird and full of soul, had cool music, and cool cutscenes. It inspired me a lot in my early animation days.

Skyward Sword. Yep, going back to Zelda on that one. The whole game was pretty good, and I’m still thinking about how amazing its art direction was. Look up screenshots of it running in HD on an emulator... it’s outstanding. But there’s a portion of the game that stands tall above the rest: the Lanayru Sand Sea. It managed to create a really striking atmosphere in many aspects, through and through. I still think about it from time to time, especially when its music comes on in shuffle mode.

Wandersong. A very recent pick, but it was absolutely a life-changing one. That game is an anti-depressant, a vaccine against cynicism, a lone bright and optimist voice.

I realize now this is basically a “flawed but interesting and impactful games” list. With “can establish its atmosphere very well” as a big criteria. (A segment of video games that is absolutely worth exploring.)

I don’t know if I’ll ever make my own video game. I have a few ideas floating around and I tried prototyping some stuff, though my limited programming abilities stood in my way. But either way, if it happens one day, I hope I’ll manage to channel all those years of games into the CULMINATION OF WHAT I LIKE. Something along those lines, I reckon.

[theselfdoubtdiaries]

Dear Fran,

Well its been a bit hectic hasn't it? That whirlwind trip to install at ANCA with you all was so nice. I know you were stressed but I was having a great time. I do enjoy thinking about how people move through space and interact with it.  I’m glad there was at least one shelf that sparked conversations about height and viewing, and I think it only enhances the connections your works have to those tomb niches below the earth...so! A success to say the least!!! How have the workshops and the weekends been by the way? Its just such a weird location that I’m curious about visitation.

Speaking of things being hectic and feeling rushed and the sense on impending doom, me too. I had the horrid realisation last week that I’m halfway through my 6month contract at the Biennale and now I have to start advocating for myself to stay. This is an immensely hard task, and one that I struggle with. I hate having to ask for things that I want or need, it truely makes me squirm and feel so icky and revolting. Not to mention that I’ve been having a few imposter syndrome flair ups and thats not helping my mood. I guess you could say I overdid it that week in CBR and then coming back to Sydney and going straight to work. I think I’ve burnt out a bit...

Another thing that I’ve been realising over the past couple of weeks is that the shock of dad’s death has worn off, and now I’m just incredibly sad. Its like a forlorn monster just slumbering inside my ribs at the very top there, just above the heart. A greyish-purple fuzzy, droopy thing. On the plus side I no longer feel concussed! WOO! A major win in my books. That was fucked. 

Anyway I was thinking about the exhibition and your work and how this time last year we were gearing up to start this blog with Mayspace. I was thinking about all the digital works I made as part of that and how fun it was, so I just started playing an image of your work. I chose purple and orange because they seemed very you colours....I know you’ve seen some of the others but this little video (I hope it works oh god) was one of those experiments. Of course it ended up a kaleidoscope type flower. Naturally. 

I am a bit bummed out about the exhibition at Belco arts being pushed back to 2024 but maybe its for the best? I guess i just wanted something with a tangible outcome to aim for, to kickstart my drive again. Also re your piece, I love the bronze glaze too and I hope you’ve entered it! I think things like that are great platforms for trying out new ideas because you get such good feedback.

Take care and chat soon!

xxxxx Zoe

[xfilesnews]

Recap and Review: ‘The X-Files: Stolen Lives’

Another audiobook has joined The X-Files library shelf. "The X-Files: Stolen Lives" was released by Audible on October 3rd. Based on the Season 10 comics from IDW, this continues the adventures of Mulder and Scully from "Cold Cases." The stories are written by Joe Harris, executive produced by Chris Carter, and produced for audible by Dirk Maggs. Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and Mitch Pileggi return to their roles, and other fan favorites lend their voices as well. As with the first audiobook, you don't need to be familiar with the comics to enjoy this audio version, but it does help. If you haven't yet listened to "Cold Cases" I'd suggest trying that first. The audio series does not follow the timeline established in the TV version of Season 10 so there are events and characters that would seem out of place to new listeners. "Stolen Lives" has some solid scares so if you're a monster of the week fan you're in luck. But it also dives into some mythology, though not quite as heavily as "Cold Cases."

Does "Stolen Lives" pass the bar set by "Cold Cases?"  Hit the jump for our recap and review.

We again start with Chapter 2, as Chapter 1 is opening credits. Chapter 2 is called "Immaculate" and follows Season 10 issues 16 and 17. The story begins outside an abortion clinic in North Carolina. A young woman is hassled by protesters and makes her way inside. As she approaches the woman is also hearing a voice in her head. She seems familiar to the clinic staff but before they recognize her she detonates a bomb she smuggled inside. The girl survives and convinces the protesters to follow her.

When looking over the evidence, the girl whose name is Joni Cartwright, apparently has a halo and that's how Mulder and Scully end up on the case. After interviewing a nurse who was burned in the explosion, Mulder and Scully decide to split up and investigate more of Joni's backstory. Joni's family is religious and Scully finds Joni's mother along with a creepy pastor. Being sensitive to cases involving religion has never been Mulder's strong suit, and we see that again when Mulder questions his first suspect. The mystery of the case leads us from victims who look like they died of fright, to a cliff in the woods where the possessed townspeople meet a tragic end. The good pastor is not exactly who he seems and we learn who Joni's baby-daddy really was through Scully's investigative tactics. And as usual, it's Mulder who sees the monster for what it really is. “Stolen Lives” starts with a much more "monster of the week" tone than "Cold Cases" did, but there's no lack of controversy here. The X-Files has never shied away from religion or difficult subject matter and this is no different. "Cold Cases" featured a school shooting so tackling an abortion clinic bombing seems on par with the tone set there. The chapter reminds me a bit of Season 7's "Signs and Wonders" in that we're dealing with a pastor who is not what he seems. But "Immaculate" is much more violent than I remember that episode being. Listening to Scully dress down the pastor was one of my favorite parts of the chapter, with Mulder's interaction with a scared Sarabeth a close second. I appreciated the Frank Black joke, as I'm sure other "Millennium" fans did. I was also glad to hear them reference the missing Agents Doggett and Reyes at the beginning. We haven't heard much about them since the beginning of "Cold Cases" so it was a good reminder that part of the team is still missing. Mulder's sarcasm was about what you'd expect for any faith-based episode and I cracked up at the "moderately godless heathen requesting permission to enter." I wasn't crazy about the fact that once again, Scully being a mother and how that might affect her was brought up at the beginning of the case. This story was written in 2014, and William would be 13 by then. He's been away from Mulder and Scully for a long time now and it just seemed weird to me to have Morales say "I hope this doesn't affect you." You notice no one ever asks Mulder that same question?

Chapter 3, called "Chitter" follows Issue 9 of the comics. This was Joe Harris' first original monster-of-the-week. And if you don't like bugs, I'm sorry. At the start, we're introduced to the "Chittering God" and a gross sounding swarm. Mulder and Scully are soon on the scene in Pennsylvania but the investigation doesn't start well for Scully. After some joking with Mulder and comments about a funny smell, she passes out. But Scully being Scully, when she recovers she insists on investigating the house anyway. They find a switch that leads them to the killing room.

As always with the X-Files, things are not what the seem and the initial suspect, Mr. Keansey, isn't the only guilty party. Once again Mulder and Scully's investigations take different directions with Mulder interrogating the suspect and Scully out in the field. The first suspect, and his bug friends, indicate the Chittering God is after Scully. Scully cases the neighborhood and visits with an old woman named Mrs. Hoynes who reads her tea leaves. Mrs. Hoynes tells Scully she knows she lost a child "recently." And that the chittering god feeds on that sorrow and "both grow stronger." As Scully tries to escape it seems the woman, or the god, is trying to get her to hurt herself. Mulder arrives in the nick of time and keeps any more violence from happening.

The chapter gets points for the gross-out factor. The roaches in "War of the Coprophages" were bad enough but hearing the scratching on the headphones left me wanting to take a shower. The thought of being able to sic bugs on someone and call on a swarm makes me shiver. The story is definitely creepy and it's interesting that Keansey was just as much a victim of this crazy old lady and her "god" as Scully almost was. That Mulder and Scully were sharing a hotel room and discussing the case warmed my little shipper heart.

While I liked the story, I was again frustrated with the "Scully Mom Pain" angle. In the comics chronology, this issue is further removed from "Immaculate" so it might not have seemed as repetitive. I'd also like to point out that Scully has technically lost two children. Emily seems to be forgotten a lot. I do think it's fair that Scully is a person who has faced a lot of despair, but Mulder has too, so why wasn't he a target as well? Perhaps in the off years, he's had a little more therapy? I thought Mulder seemed like a bigger jerk than usual in this episode too. We know he can be a jerk and love that about him at times, but he's usually not mean. And there was something about the way Mulder said "you think this is all about you?" that rubbed me the wrong way.

We return to our missing federal agents in Chapter 4, aptly titled "Monica and John." This mirrors Season 10 Issue 18. Our first glimpse of Monica Reyes shows she's been in captivity for a year. Held in a tiny cell, she describes the events that lead to her abduction. She was in Wyoming paying a visit to William's adoptive parents when she was taken. She believes she's being held by John Doggett, who leaves to go to a post office. That trip triggers the FBI and Skinner and Scully get involved. Mulder is apparently off testifying to keep Monty Props locked up so he misses the action.

Of course, the Doggett holding Monica captive isn't really Doggett all. The real Doggett is also being held captive. He manages to escape from his cell and goes to free Monica. Their captor returns and seems to be one of the Acolytes we met in "Cold Cases." In a twist, he asks Monica and John to kill him. Doggett resists because he wants evidence of what has happened to them, but Monica stabs him with the stiletto anyway because she believes the FBI has forgotten them. Just as the alien melts away Skinner and Scully arrive.

This was the shortest chapter of the book and one I'd like to have seen in more detail. I was so glad to see Doggett and Reyes again and the refresher on the "new" mythology was helpful. I can't imagine what it was like to have been held like that for so long. I would have liked to have heard more of their story. And we're left hanging about what's next for the two. Do they get to go back to the FBI? Does Monica quit and record her own best selling whale song album? I found this a good chapter, just too short! I also really missed Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish voicing their characters. The woman doing Reyes was close at points, but Doggett's actor wasn't even close to Robert Patrick's memorable style.

Get ready for a little time travel in Chapter 5. G-23 follows comics issues 19 and 20. We dig up a few ghosts and Mulder gets sent on a wild trip that doesn't involve line dancing. The story begins in 1966 in Nevada at a military installation. Two young adults are smoking a cigarette laced with something called G-23 and they're getting progressively more freaked out. The young woman starts thinking she sees aliens. Shadowy men are observing the teens, none other than a young CGB Spender and Bill Mulder. In the present day, Mulder is waiting in D.C. to meet Scully for lunch but before she arrives the CSM crashes his party. After a round of 'who is my real dad?' with Mulder, the CSM presents him with a poster of the Nevada desert and a camper van with a G-23 plate. After a meeting with Scully and later the Lone Gunmen, this sends Mulder off on a wild goose chase into the desert.

Langly follows Mulder to what starts as a party in the desert but turns into a bad G-23-induced trip. In his hallucination, there’s a vamped up version of Scully in fishnets, heels, and Spender's trench coat. This vision calls herself "Red" and sounds more Spender than Scully.  She leads Mulder through the remains of the old G-23 complex and on a trip down memory lane. They talk about what was the G-23 substance was really made of and of Bill Mulder's work fighting the alien colonists. In the end, the real Scully rescues Mulder but whatever proof he thought he had of the incident is gone.

I wasn't sure what to think of this chapter on first listen, and may give it another try. Anything that involves the Lone Gunmen makes me happy, and the actors always sound really in character. I laughed at Langly calling Frohike 'Jump Street' because Tom Braidwood was a first assistant director on that show back in the day. One has to feel for Mulder at the beginning that he keeps getting haunted by this zombie ghost from his past. And I thought it was interesting to dive more into Bill Mulder's background. It makes him out to be a slightly more sympathetic character that he was in the TV series. I felt like they were trying to redeem him a bit. Whether that succeeded, I'm not sure.

I also wasn't particularly thrilled with the "Scully as vixen" bit. If Scully herself makes the choice to don that outfit and say "sweet dreams baby" I'm all for it if it's her idea. But for that to be a fantasy and not her personal choice gets old. In this version, at least, it's insinuated at the very end that CSM was dressed that way himself all along, but that's not the case in the comic. There's no doubt Scully is a beautiful woman but we love her for her intelligence and what her brains bring to the case. This struck me as more of an excuse for the guys to write her as sexy than as something meaningful to the plot. It also strikes me as funny that once again Mulder gets himself into trouble because he runs off on his own.

It's back to the mytharc in Chapter 6 with 'Elders." This is the longest of the chapters and covers issues and ground from New York to D.C. to Cuba and finds Mulder in a whole new mess of trouble. We start with Prime Elder talking to the CSM about the ability to read minds and the scars on his head. If that doesn't tip you off to who he is, it should have. He meets with the Syndicate group who are all clones like the CSM. Elsewhere in Virginia, Scully and Mulder are playing hooky at a county fair that turns tragic. A woman claiming to be someone from Mulder's past shoots three people and turns the gun on herself. This launches an investigation of Mulder that digs deep into his past involving something called the Chilmark Project.

As part of the Chilmark project, Mulder spoke with a woman named Caroline Ross who looked oddly similar to the woman who attacked him at the fair. But it's not possible because Ross hanged herself in 1991. As they leave the FBI Mulder is hounded by reporters. Scully stays behind to defend him but as soon as Mulder clears the pack he's abducted by another group of men.

Mulder ends up a prisoner in a cloning facility hidden in the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba where Prime Elder reveals himself as Gibson. While he's at the facility Scully is working with the CSM who hints to her that Gibson is the one who has taken Mulder. But he's not the only CSM in this episode. Another version is helping Mulder at the base in Cuba. Skinner also finds himself in the crosshairs of the Syndicate, who kidnap him and torch his apartment.

Back in Cuba, the CSM helps Mulder escape and gives him a memory stick with evidence of Gibson's treachery. Not only has Gibson created this facility but he's been working to frame Mulder as well. No sooner does Mulder escape than Scully ends up in Gibson's clutches herself. With some help from the Lone Gunmen, we learn more about what exactly Gibson was up to and how he plans to move his creepy clone creating operation back to the U.S. Yet another CSM clone this time helps Scully escape. A quick meeting between her and Mulder sends Mulder looking for a way to escape and Scully heading back to deal with Gibson once and for all.

Gibson claims he was only protecting Mulder and that he will only be hunted further even after the allegations are cleared. Scully fears Gibson continued to do to himself what the Syndicate had in the past. While they argue Gibson tries to lead a ship into port using telekinesis. That's the ship he will use to move his cloning operation and continue the project. Scully dispatches the threat and races off to find Mulder.

Mulder and Scully reunite just as he's about to board a smuggling ship. Scully is rattled by her encounter with Gibson but Mulder reminds her they will get through whatever Gibson did together. Scully encourages Mulder to leave with the smugglers and that she'll go back to the FBI to clear things up. And just when Scully thinks she can get a drink to clear her head, she realizes she's surrounded by multiples of the person she thought she killed just moments ago. And there, we end. This also marks the end of the Season 10 comics series.

I love mytharc eps and was glad to see it back in this new form again. And poor Gibson Praise makes for a great villain. It was interesting to see how they expanded on what was done to him, and the flashbacks of the time he and Mulder spent together back in 2001. I also loved how often we got to see Scully fiercely defending Mulder. After all this time she knows him like no one else does. I got a particular thrill watching her tell off A.D. Morales at the beginning. I would have loved to see Skinner more in on the action instead of being pushed around by the Syndicate or Morales. But I'm glad he was included in a smaller way at least.  

A few overall thoughts now that we've finished the series:  I feel like Mulder and Scully spend way too much time apart in this series. I know they split up a lot in the TV show but it felt like they were working without each other most of the time. I did enjoy that Scully got to be more of an active investigator than in "Cold Cases." She wasn’t stuck doing autopsies as much. And clearly, Mulder has never learned that when he runs off on his own bad things are going to happen. Mulder’s dry humor is captured well and the banter when Mulder and Scully are together is pretty funny in parts. As far as the stories themselves, if you find them hard to follow at times, paging through the comics again can help with that. The audio version does work to flesh them out a little more but they're close to what we saw on the page. I made the comment after finishing "Cold Cases" that the acting can come across as a little wooden at times and that's also the case here. Though I do think it was a bit better this time.

Overall, I do think the series is worth your time and an interesting listen. There's no perfect substitute for the TV show but these audio adventures are entertaining and make the wait for a new season a little easier. While we've now made our way through the Season 10 comics, we don't yet know if they'll continue the audiobooks with the Season 11 series from IDW, which is also different from the upcoming TV series. We'll keep you posted as soon as we hear something!

[francescaswords]

Chapter Two | The Princess and the Dragon and Other Stories About Unlikely Heroes

Prologue / Chapter One / Chapter Three

Read Chapter Four (and the rest) on my Patreon

‘Lovely fish soup, Dad,’ Amelia ventured, as she sat down to dinner with her parents later that evening. The family ate in the ancient, drafty castle kitchen. Ever since the head chef and kitchen staff moved away to find jobs in more prosperous parts of the Three Kingdoms, her father assumed the role of castle cook. Amelia could see zero olives, which meant he was having a good day. After his stroke, Amelia took on most of his responsibilities so Queen Hazel didn’t need to double her workload, but he insisted on running the kitchen. Across the table, her mother attacked a loaf of bread and tried not to raise her eyebrows. Amelia dipped her spoon into the bowl. ‘Wow. I can really smell… garlic?’ King Emmanuel was an enthusiastic chef, but the people of the Kingdom of Mirrors generally survived on what they could afford, which was bread and olives. There are a great variety of ways to serve bread and olives, but they all require imagination, which King Emmanuel ran out of around the same time his teenage daughter took over his job.

‘Garlic is the only thing that makes the fish seem fresh,’ her father said sadly. ‘I mean, er, it is fresh. Of course. It came from the harbour… yesterday.’ Amelia knew it had come from the harbour a week ago because she was the one who went out with the kingdom’s little fleet of fishing boats to see what was left in the sea after so many years of the Sapphire Dragon helping himself to its fish. She also knew how much effort it took for her father to be able to stand at the kitchen counter at all, so she tucked in.

As they ate, the family went through the day’s business. ‘As you know, Emmanuel, Queen Margaret sent messengers last week to remind us we owe another portion of loan repayment,’ Queen Hazel said, ‘but Amelia managed to persuade her to give us until the winter solstice.’ Amelia was surprised at Queen Margaret’s leniency. King Emmanuel had put off asking Stormhaven for money until after the Midsummer Riots because no one did business with Margaret de Winter unless they wanted to spend the rest of their lives feeling like a fly trapped in a spider’s web. Stormhaven was the richest of the Three Kingdoms, and its ancient matriarch ruled with a personality far colder than her name.

Queen Margaret travelled all the way south when Amelia was small; Amelia’s abiding memory of the visit was the elderly monarch’s icy stare and enormous fur coat, which she insisted on wearing even as the midday sun melted windows and one of her servants fainted from heatstroke. Amelia never saw Margaret emit a bead of sweat. Rumour had it that she slept with a dagger under her pillow, had locked one of her nephews in a dragon-guarded tower and planned to rule from beyond the grave via an Ouija board and set of tarot cards, despite a kingdom-wide ban on magic use. Amelia believed every rumour.

‘How much does Margaret want for this installment, exactly?’ King Emmanuel asked. He had his daughter’s wide brown eyes and awkward shoulders and when they smiled, they were copies of one another: all teeth and lots of dimples. Neither of them had smiled recently, and although Emmanuel was only fifty, he could have passed for Amelia’s grandfather.

‘She has demanded five hundred gold bars,’ Amelia replied. ‘Unfortunately, we have zero gold bars. Do you think she would take the equivalent weight in olives?’ she asked. She was only half joking. The Kingdom of Mirrors’ olives were famous throughout the Three Kingdoms and the nation’s most popular export. Just last year Amelia traded a quarter of the state’s olive oil stock for a thousand cattle from the Valley of Dreams.

‘The only language Margaret speaks is money,’ her mother sighed. She sipped some soup, winced, then looked at the table. ‘Of course, Amelia, Queen Margaret would be very happy to marry you to one of her sons or grandsons.’

‘No.’ Amelia said flatly.

‘Amelia…’ her father began.

‘No.’ Amelia uncovered an olive and stabbed it. ‘How many times do I have to say no? You can’t just marry me off to clear our debt!’

Her parents did not mention that they could. Nor did they mention that her older brother had been happy to marry himself off until fate threw him off course. They didn’t need to.

‘Oh, we’ve had another message from the merpeople,’ her mother added. ‘The dragon has taken two more children this summer. Parents are starting to move north to safer waters.’

‘That’s all we need,’ Amelia groaned. ‘Half the population of merpeople in the harbour won’t make life difficult for anyone. ‘

‘They’ve suffered as much as we have,’ Hazel pointed out. ‘And they can’t just move to dry land.’

‘Thanks for mentioning that, it hadn’t occurred to me!’

Her mother raised her eyebrows, which suggested Amelia had better stop arguing, so she spent the rest of the meal in silence and excused herself as soon as the plates were washed. She wandered the castle for half an hour and found herself back in the classroom at the top of the tower, staring at the newspapers. The Kingdom of Mirrors was once a prosperous, vibrant nation known for its lively street festivals, beautiful architecture and delectable sea food. Her parents weren’t to blame for its terrible fortunes. But if no one did anything about the dragon, the war and their debts soon, there would be no kingdom left to rule when her father died. Which, a tiny and horrible voice in the back of her head whispered, would probably be sooner rather than later.

Irritatingly, Amelia wouldn’t be in this position at all if not for her annoying brother.

Because she grew up with an older sibling, Amelia was never expected to shoulder a large portion of royal responsibility. Throughout her childhood she was taught the basic requirements of being a good princess—how to make small talk with someone who has bad breath, the best way to throw a dinner party for politicians with special dietary needs, the fastest way to stab an adversary with a longsword—then left to her own devices. But when Amelia was twelve, Prince Nicholas embarked on the customary coming-of-age quest that all wealthy, promising young men undertook when they reached their mid-teens or decided they did not enjoy academic study.

His quest was to ride north to the castle of Queen Margaret of Stormhaven and choose one of her many offspring to marry (or her offspring’s offspring—there were enough of them to choose from). In return, Margaret would cancel half of the kingdom’s debt. He was also to rid one of Stormhaven’s many mountains of a pesky goat-eating lion on his way, just to prove his worth. Instead, Prince Nicholas killed the lion on the slopes of Traveler’s End Mountain and, when a local goat farmer named Raphael made Nicholas dinner to say thank you, he decided to marry him. Although marriages between royalty and commoners were perfectly normal in the Kingdom of Mirrors, Nicholas wanted to live on the mountain with his husband and their goats rather than inherit a large, hot kingdom filled with olive trees and refugees, so he abdicated. Most of the kingdom protested: marrying below one’s station is one thing but rejecting public duty to become a farmer (albeit with the title Duke of Lumiere) is quite another. Gossip columnists complained that Princess Amelia was even less tamable than her brother, although critics agreed that at least she would have decades to practise being queenly.

King Emmanuel had his stroke six months later.

Amelia and her mother did a pretty good job of running things with the help of their High Council, but they spent most days wondering how much longer the kingdom could go on without defaulting on their loans. A few years ago, Amelia hadn’t even known what the phrase ‘defaulting on loans’ meant, and she hadn’t cared. Why couldn’t her brother have quested to the south coast instead of heading north? He could have killed the dragon like a good prince was supposed to do and then gone on some little journey to rid Traveler’s End Mountain of that lion. It wasn’t even a magical lion, Amelia thought bitterly. It was a standard, goat-eating lion. She was even more annoyed with herself for missing having him around the castle. He would have liked Harry the amulet salesman, and he always made royal engagements feel like an adventure instead of like a piece of complicated homework.

Amelia tidied the newspapers and organised a few textbooks, just for something to do. Her favourite history book, The Magic, Mayhem and Mystery of the Kingdom of Mirrors was dog-eared and out of date, but the author had recently moved north and was now focusing on researching the Valley of Dreams’ historical association with the wine industry. Then there was The Monarchies of the Three Kingdoms (and how two of the kingdoms managed democracy), and Sorry, Dragons Don’t Really Die, But Here’s How You Can Try. Amelia scowled at it. Down on Market Street, a trombonist started a solo. A second later, a cellist started one too. Why on earth were they still playing music? It was night time! When Amelia became queen, her first Royal Decree would be a change in live music laws. She pulled Dragons Don’t Die from the shelf, angrily sweeping past the sections on Ruby Dragons, Emerald Dragons and the Lesser Spotted White Gold Dragon. There was the section on the Sapphire Dragon:

 Sapphire Dragons are not the largest of the dragon family, nor the most dangerous. They can’t spit poison and their eyes won’t paralyse you. They do not eat people. Unfortunately, what they lack in strength they make up for in cunning: it is hard to outwit a Sapphire Dragon, and their only known weaknesses are their sensitive ears and delicate eardrums. They cannot stand high pitched sounds at great length, and if anyone were to shoot an arrow into the ear of a Sapphire Dragon, they would surely slay it, as the opening of the ear is the only part of the Sapphire Dragon’s anatomy that isn’t protected by a layer of scales. No one in human history has ever come close enough to try, though.

Their sensitive ears.

An idea hit Amelia like a beam of sunlight.

Before she could think too much, Amelia hurled herself down the tower stairs and through the castle, so quickly that the stained-glass windows started to blur together. Her parents were sitting in the smallest drawing room with cups of wine. The king worked through his physiotherapy exercises while the queen read a book about strategic negotiations.

‘I have a plan to slay the Sapphire Dragon!’ Amelia gasped as she skidded to a halt on the rug, narrowly avoiding the wine cups.

Her parents looked up. ‘Amelia,’ her mother chided, ‘can’t this wait until tomorrow? Your father can’t take too much excitement.’

‘I hardly think a conversation with my daughter is bad for my health,’ the king murmured, although he didn’t look entirely convinced. ‘Does this have anything to do with your plan to build a giant water cannon and fire it at the dragon?’

‘I made that plan ages ago,’ Amelia said dismissively. ‘We don’t have enough equipment to build a canon powerful enough. This is a new plan.’

‘All right,’ Queen Hazel shrugged. She had the same long afro hair as Amelia, but while Amelia braided or tied up hers to keep it away from her face, Hazel wore a new style or accessory every week, refusing to fire her hairdresser even as they cut down every other expense. She also remade all her dresses, so she looked like she had a new outfit for every occasion, even though it was really the same material, redesigned four or five times a year. Even curled in a frayed armchair, she looked more like a queen than Amelia ever would. ‘Let’s hear it.’

Amelia took a deep breath. ‘Well, the reason the kingdom has had to borrow so much money over the last twenty years is that we’re fighting a war we can’t win, and the entire population of the south of the kingdom moved north and the bottom dropped out of the tourism industry. That’s correct, isn’t it?’

‘Correct,’ her father agreed.

‘And the reason for the war, refugee crisis and tourism trouble is that the Sapphire Dragon razed every village on the south coast and is sitting at Scavenger’s Ruin right now, setting fire to anyone who tries to kill him. That’s right, right?’

‘Right,’ her mother sighed.

‘And it’s entirely possible that, were the dragon to disappear then the war would be over and within three to five years, and assuming we ran a sustainable tourism programme and ploughed proceeds into rebuilding towns, life as we once knew it would return.’

Both parents nodded.

‘Well then,’ Amelia said. ‘It’s time the dragon disappeared.’

‘Oh, well, I’m glad you’ve thought of that,’ Queen Hazel said with a wave of her hand. ‘We’ve spent twenty years thinking that we quite like having him around.’

‘Mother!’ Amelia was stung. ‘I’m only trying to help.’

‘We know that, Amelia…’ the king said gently. ‘But if we knew how to kill the Sapphire Dragon, we would have done so by now. Dragons can’t be killed easily. Or at all. Do you really think we haven’t tried everything we can think of?’

‘Of course not!’ Amelia said quickly. ‘It’s just, you’re going about it all wrong.’

Queen Hazel’s eyebrows did a complicated dance. ‘How, exactly, are we going about it all wrong?’

Amelia steadied herself. Please don’t let them laugh at this please don’t let them laugh—

‘Wasps at the food carts in Market Street don’t sting all the people to make them abandon their food. They just buzz around until people are so irritated that they go indoors to get away.’

‘Um, yes,’ Queen Hazel said. ‘But I don’t think we can get rid of the Sapphire Dragon with wasps.’

‘We need something more annoying than wasps,’ Amelia pressed.

‘Mosquitoes?’ her mother suggested.

‘Fish soup?’ her father asked.

Amelia rolled her eyes. ‘People. People are so annoying! They yell at you about feather pillows, they insist on selling you fake amulets and they play their trombone at the same time as someone else is trying to play the cello! What’s the most annoyingthing you’ve ever heard?’

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ her father replied. ‘It was the time you and Nicholas decided to form a jazz band. Half the castle got tinnitus.’

‘I think the most annoying thing for me was when our seamstress had quadruplets,’ the queen mused. ‘None of them would sleep at the same time, remember? For months, you could always hear a baby crying. Eventually you thought you could hear a baby crying even if it was quiet. I thought I would go insane.’

‘Some would say you did,’ the king said amicably. The queen stuck her tongue out at him.

‘So what you’re proposing is that we just annoy the Sapphire Dragon into just getting up and flying somewhere else?’ King Emmanuel asked.

‘We can if we make everything he hears ruin his delicate ears.’ She held up Dragons Don’t Die. ‘The Sapphire Dragon’s ear canal and eardrum is the only unprotected part of its anatomy.’

Her parents looked at each other. It was the same look they exchanged when Nicholas brought Raphael the goatherd home.

‘How do you propose we make enough noise to ruin his hearing?’ King Emmanuel asked.

‘We hold a festival.’

‘A festival?’ the king asked. ‘For… for whom? The dragon?’

‘For our long-suffering troops down on the south coast! This year is the twentieth anniversary of the dragon’s arrival. Our brave soldiers deserve a traditional Kingdom of Mirrors festival honouring their work and sacrifice. So I’m suggesting a three month event—’

‘Three months?’ Queen Hazel asked. Her eyebrows did another dance.

‘Three months,’ Amelia continued, ‘of sporting events for the soldiers, each one with its own marching band. Three months of accompanying orchestral performances, street theatre, opera shows, circus events. Three months of jazz music.’

She knew she was onto something, because her parents exchanged another look. It was the look they exchanged at Nicholas and Raphael’s wedding.

‘All right,’ her mother sighed. ‘Call the council to meeting.’

Amelia smiled as she swept from the room to find parchment to write notes to the High Council, calling them to a breakfast meeting the next day.

When Amelia was queen, she would commission a new mosaic for the castle’s walls, depicting how she defeated the Sapphire Dragon.

Copyright © 2019 by Francesca Burke

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

[lalocalloca]

Countertop Makeover DIY for Impatient People that Hate to Measure

For years I have been trying to find affordable (like SUPER CHEAP) ways to disguise my ugly, laminate countertops. With a budget of practically $0, I scoured Pinterest for acceptable DIY ways to hide the ugly. I covered them in shelf paper more than once, which was less ugly, but extremely cheap looking. (You get what you pay for?)

FYI–I have linked to some pages/products for convenience, I don’t get any credit/pay for doing so.

Before – Ugly Blue Laminate

In 2018, I was gifted some talavera tile that was left-over from another project. It was about 2 boxes (200 tiles) of terracotta, and 2 boxes of cream colored 4 in tiles. While not enough to complete my kitchen, it was enough to motivate me to come up with a more permanent solution to my ugly kitchen problems. I determined I needed 3 more boxes of tiles (which actually ended up being 5 more boxes). I decided to use my tax return to begin this project which gave me a budge of approximately $1000. I had wanted to get cobalt blue talavera tiles, but after realizing they are about twice the cost of every other color I had to come up with another solution. I found that I could get mixed tiles on the cheap from eBay. Now I just needed to figure out how to make due with the selection of tiles I had available to me.

The gifted tile.

Fortunately, I was perfectly content to have my kitchen look like a Taco Cabana. I decided to order the mixed tiles (for less than $1 per tile) and use them with the solid tiles that had been gifted to me. Now I had 7 boxes of tile and no idea what to do with them. How hard could it be?

I borrowed (stole) an old book about laying tile from my parents (which through later research I found out is highly recommended when learning how to lay tile, find it here). I skimmed through and found out I probably needed to do a “wet installation” for the counters. I went to the hardware store and bought some plywood, and a bunch of .5 inch backer board (concrete board), and some mortar. I had the guy at Lowe’s cut the plywood to the width I needed, and used a circular saw to cut it to the length I needed later. Now to remove the existing countertops.

I thought this would be easy, and it wasn’t horrible, but who knew how HEAVY laminate countertops could be? Everyone? Fine, but I had no idea that they are basically 3 inches of solid glue and weigh a bazillion pounds. I had to crawl under the cabinets and use a drill to remove the screws that held them onto the cabinets. I used a pry-bar to pry off the 4 inch backsplash against the wall. Then I dragged all of them into my yard for eventual disposal. I could kinda manage the smaller counters myself, but the giant peninsula weighed about 200lbs so I had to enlist my dad’s help to drag that outside without damaging my doorways or my back. Since dad was there, I had him cut the angled pieces around the stove, and also use his jigsaw to cut the opening for the sink. Click here to see how I salvaged/cleaned my old sink.

BEST DAD EVER cuts hole for sink.

  Very technical plans.

So, have I mentioned I have no credentials that qualify me for this project? My cabinets are cheap, builder grade. They have wood doors, but veneer/particle board everything else. Due to this, it was impossible for me to properly attach the new counter tops the proper way (from underneath). I ended up screwing them down from the top. DO NOT DO THIS. I’m sure anyone that knows anything about this is cringing. It worked great! Only problem is that if I, or anyone in the future, would like to remove the countertops…good luck! They would have to be demolished. Now I am stuck with some super ugly cabinets (a project for another day).

The wrong way to attach countertops.

After screwing the plywood down, it was time for the “wet installation” which basically means I had to screw some concrete board on top of them. This prevents the wood from getting wet if water seeps through the tile or the grout later. I borrowed a couple of trowels and a bucket from my dad and got to work. Basically, I slopped on some mortar, ran the slotted trowel over it, then set the backer board on top. Cutting the backer board proved messy, but easy. I used a t-square and and utility knife to score it, then it is able to be broken into the desired shape. I did buy the recommended rust proof screws to adhere the backer board. Apparently, if you get the cheap screws, they can rust and it can bleed into the color of your tile.

Concrete backer-board installed on countertops.

Finally, the fun part! Now that the new counters were prepared, it was time to lay the tile. I had laid out the pattern ahead of time, so I just stacked those tiles to the side and worked a few feet at a time. You start in the middle(ish) and not on an edge. (I hate measuring, by the way.) This is so you don’t get to the other side and realize you need a teeny tiny sliver of tile that would look weird on the edge. I put some mortar on the backer board, used the slotted trowel to score it, then added a little more mortar to the center of each tile and smeared it on like frosting. Since the tiles have a slight curve to them, the glob of mortar in the center provides strength. I also used the trowel to score the mortar on the back of each tile. Then I just pressed the tile down, repeat. Voila!

I did not use spacers for the countertop. This is why talavera tiles were an awesome and appropriate choice for me. Since the tiles are all handmade in Mexico, they are not square or even. Therefore, you do not use spacers with them, because then one line would be evenly spaced, but the other side would look like a mess of uneven edges. I just eyeballed the grout line, centering each tile according to its neighbor. This worked great for me. If you like to measure, or like precision, or like perfectly straight, modern looking lines, this is not the tile (or the method) for you. Thankfully my OCD does not extend to this area of my creative life. It did come in handy when wiping off the grout, however!

I did all the whole tiles, first, leaving the edges and any tiles that needed cut for later. You will need a wet saw/tile saw to cut tiles for the edges, by the way. I borrowed one from my uncle, but I am pretty sure you can rent one. When time came for cutting, I just took a whole tile, flipped it over, and marked it with a sharpie. No measuring! I also left enough space at the edge of the counters for the corner and edge pieces. I didn’t measure this (with a ruler) either. I just took an edge piece, placed it in its eventual position, and marked the backer board with a sharpie. That was my visual of where to start each row of tile.

After cutting and mortaring all the cut tiles in their places, it was time to do the edges. Expect edge tiles to cost about twice as much as a regular center tile, by the way. I did get the cobalt blue for the edges and corners. I applied these the same way (mortar on countertop and on back of edge piece). I made sure to apply a generous amount of mortar to the curved part of the edge piece, so that it would be supported later when I am leaning against the counters while cooking.

So, I forgot to mention I also prepped the walls where the backsplash would be by screwing on backer board (directly into the drywall/studs) before laying the tile on the counters. I used a thinner concrete backer board for the walls than I did on the countertops, I believe it was about 1/4″ thick. For the backsplash, I did use spacers, but not for their intended purpose. I used spacers only vertically, because I found that they prevented the tile from sliding slowly down the wall onto the top of the tile below it.

Tiles on backsplash with spacers.

For the backsplash, I didn’t apply mortar to the wall first. Instead, I just applied it to the back of the tiles, and scored it with the slotted trowel. This way, I could follow the vertical lines I drew on the backer board as a guide. (I relented and had to do a small amount of measuring.) I found the center, and drew vertical lines to help guide where I placed each column of tiles for the backsplash. Again, you need to start in the center and work out, so that when you get to the edges the tiles are as even as possible.

Prior to grouting tile.

After hours and hours and hours and hours of laying tile, it was finally time to do the grout. The tile does need to set for about 24 hours before it is grouted, anyway, so this allows for some time to sleep and read about grouting. Basically, I find that you don’t want to add to much water to the grout, and that you shouldn’t put grout in the joints where the counters the walls to prevent cracking. Instead, get a caulk that is matched to the grout color. This allows those joints to expand and contract with your home and prevents cracking.

I used Polyblend Sanded Grout in Nutmeg and matching Color Fast matching caulk.

Before removing excess grout from backsplash.

Grouting proved to be quite laborious, especially on the vertical parts. Girls, you know how your arms get tired from curling or braiding your hair sometimes? Multiply that by hours and hours of grouting. I purchased a rubber grouting float. It looks like a trowel except it is about an inch thick and made out of rubber. It is used to squish the grout in-between the tiles. It was a pretty effective tool, but I found it easier to just use my fingers to place grout between the edge pieces. The book said to “sponge off” excess grout. I found that a dry sponge worked much better than a wet one. You can buy a sponge for this purpose, but I used old kitchen sponges and they worked fine.

As the grout began to set, I used the float’s corner to scrape off excess grout and make the lines look nice. This took some trial and error. I can see the difference in the dried grout before and after I discovered this method. This step included lots of sponging and lots of scraping. Once I realized the damp sponge was not ideal, I just grabbed the vacuum cleaner and used it to suck up the extra grout as I dry-sponged it off. Once most of the excess grout was removed, and the lines looked nice and even, I used cheesecloth (recommended) to wipe away and shine the tiles. This took many times over each tile to complete. Fortunately, this is exactly the kind of tedious task my OCD craves. Polishing every tile to perfection 1×1. JOY!

Now it’s almost a year later, and the counters are holding up fine. (I am horrible at getting around to blogging, obviously, since it has taken 9 months to get around to posting this.) To my discerning eye, there are some parts of the grout that I want to go back and fix that dried before I discovered the best method for using the grouting tool/sponge. I have found that I can use a nail file to fix most of these areas. Maybe there is a better method, maybe not. I am pretty sure it is not noticeable to anyone other than myself (or any other meticulous-eyed designers, but I don’t often have this type of guest). Overall, I am thrilled with the results!

Before (sink area)

After (sink area)

Before

After with new stove.

This summer, the cabinets are on my to-do list. They can’t be removed/replaced, so they will be receiving a make-over. Stay tuned…maybe I will have that project posted before another year passes.

Rustic Style to me: “Do you even love me? Or do you just love the fact my aesthetic makes mistakes look intentional?”

Project Gallery:

Before

Ugly Laminate

Experimenting…

Teracotta Tile

The gifted tile.

Technical Plans

Framed Wall

False Wall

Drywall Added

Wall’s Edge

Before

Backsplash Preparation

After with new stove.

Tiles with spacers

Backsplash behind stove

Before (sink area)

Before (sink area)

Removed sink & prep

Sink area before grout

Dirty sink

After cleaning with Barkeeper’s Friend’s Friend

Grouting backsplash

After (sink area)

After (sink area)

After (sink area)

Backsplash behind stove

Coffee area

Behind stove

Counter prep

Backsplash progress

Coffee area

After (sink area)

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Countertop Makeover DIY for Impatient People that Hate to Measure was originally published on La Local Loca

[dontshootmespence]

Becoming Real: Need. Sleep.

In this installment of Becoming Real, Diana babysits for her friend Monique’s aunt. Monique and her family are going out for the day, but the three youngest kids don’t have the attention span to really care about what they are doing, so Monique asks Diana if she wouldn’t mind babysitting for them. Diana has her hands full. @coveofmemories @the-slytherin-ice-queen @cosmicjennifer @mxolh

                                                              ----

“Wish me luck!” Diana said, waving as her dads drove off. She was babysitting for Monique’s youngest cousins, Derrick, 6, Amaya, 4 and Jasmine, who was just over a year old.

Diana loved kids, but she couldn’t say she wasn’t nervous. She’d met Monique’s family before, but the kids were definitely hyper. If worse came to worst, she told her fathers she would call them for help, but she was pretty sure she could handle it. “Hey,” she greeted, as Monique’s aunt opened the door. 

“Thanks again so much for doing this on such short notice,” her aunt said. Monique invited the two older kids over and introduced them even though they’d seen Diana once or twice before.

“You two have met Diana before, but this is my friend. Mommy and I need you to be good for Diana, okay?” Angelically, they both nodded their heads and went about what they were doing. “And here’s baby Jasmine.” She handed the baby over to Diana and immediately she cuddled up into her shoulder.

With the baby in tow, Diana walked into the kitchen to talk with Monique’s aunt. “We have everything set up for you. Here are the emergency numbers if you need anything. The two older kids have been bathed. If you’re able to give Jasmine a bath, that would be great. If not it’s okay. Here’s her food,” she said, pointing into the cabinet where Jasmine’s food was kept. Derrick and Amaya can have chicken nuggets and fries for tonight. Those are in the freezer...” She paused, trying to figure out if there was anything she’d forgotten. “I think other than that, you’re good to go. Any questions?”

“Not really,” she replied. “I’m sure I’ll be exhausted when I leave, but I’m pretty sure I can handle it.”

“They will definitely wear you out,” Monique’s aunt laughed. “But thanks again.”

As Monique, her aunt, and the rest of the family left the house, Diana took in her surroundings. The baby was still resting against her shoulder when she went upstairs to check on Derrick on Amaya. Both of them were in their own rooms. Amaya was watching an old Disney movie and Derrick was playing with his hot wheels. “I’ll be back to check on you in a little bit,” Diana said, taking Jasmine downstairs for a bottle. 

With a deep breath, readying herself for whatever was to come, she fixed up Jasmine’s bottle and sat with her on the couch. “Good bottle, sweetpea?” she asked. Somewhat sleepily, she nodded, or Diana thought she nodded, and she fell asleep, so she put her in the crib and went to check on Derrick and Amaya. 

“Hi!” Amaya said when she opened the door. “Can I use these stickers on you?” Apparently, she had a set of very sparkly stickers that she wanted to use on someone.

With a slight chuckle, she took Amaya’s hand and checked in on Derrick. “Apparently, Amaya wants to decorate me with stickers, so if you’d like to join us, feel free.” Derrick nodded his head and said he’d be downstairs in a minute; he just needed to finish his last car race.

Before sitting down with Amaya, Diana went to check on Jasmine, who was thankfully still asleep. “I’m ready now!” she said excitedly, sitting down on the floor in front of the little girl. Within ten minutes, she had placed nearly every pink, sparkly sticker on Diana’s face and clothing. Eventually, Derrick came down to join, but with stickers of his own - superhero stickers - that was more Diana’s style. He had also grabbed his mother’s brush. 

“Can I do your hair too?” he asked. He began to brush through Diana’s hair and she thought it was going to be a nice brush until he started to fluff it all around. “I’m styling it!” he laughed. “Like when mommy gets it styled. The hairdresser fluffs her hair all around.” Amaya was a little taken back, but once she saw how much fun her brother was having, she got right in there too, messing up Diana’s hair to the point of no return. 

When she stood up and looked in the mirror, it looked like her hair exploded; it was going to take her forever to brush it out, but they had a good time, so she lied. “You’re going to make a great hairdresser one day,” she said to Derrick, giving him a high five. 

“Can I watch a movie now?” he asked, pointing to one on the shelf. He was pointing to a Fast and Furious movie.

Diana laughed out loud. “No way, Derrick. You can watch a movie, but not that one.” Thankfully, she’d packed a couple movies just in case Monique’s family didn’t have ones that he felt like watching. He pouted, saying his mommy would let him, but when Diana said she could call her and ask, he backed down. “How about this one?” She reached into her bag and brought out Big Hero 6, which she wasn’t sure he’d ever watched.

“What’s it about?” he asked. 

She told him all about the big, puffy, marshmallow-looking nurse named Baymax and his friend Hiro, who was a really, really smart kid, just like his brother. She told him all about his super cool friends who invented all kinds of cool contraptions, including a girl who developed a super fast bicycle. He liked cars, so that last bit got him to watch it. After she put the blu-ray on, she realized she’d lost track of Amaya and needed to check on Jasmine.

Quickly, she ran to the baby’s room to see that she was stirring, but still asleep, and then went to look for Amaya. Oh no. When she opened the bathroom door, she saw that Amaya was sitting in the tub, with no water in it, but she had taken her father’s shaving cream and sprayed it all over the place. “Amaya!” she exclaimed, laughing but trying not to show it. She couldn’t think that was okay, but Diana couldn’t say it wasn’t funny. 

Before Diana knew it, she was picking Amaya up and flying her around the house until she got to the couch. She told Amaya the same thing she told Derrick about the moving and figured she could get them back to watch. Once she saw them both engaged in the movie, she spun around, combed out her hair as best she could, didn’t even bother to remove the stickers, and began to clean up the bathroom. And then she heard a noise coming from the baby’s room. “Dammit!”

Hurriedly, she ran into the baby’s room to find that she had found a way to unlock the side and had nearly fallen out. Diana wondered if she’d done that before and they’d forgotten to mention, or if it had happened just now and they were going to have to keep a closer eye on her now. She picked her up and made funny faces at her while she cleaned up the rest of the bathroom.

Thankfully, Jasmine was a pretty good baby for the most part, so Diana was able to clean up the bathroom and go sit out on the couch. This was exhausting. She could do it, but it was tiring. She wondered if this is what motherhood was like all the time. Because as soon as she sat down, the older kids turned toward her and asked if they could have dinner.

Diana dramatically huffed, laughed and fell to the floor, which caused the kids to giggle, but then she got up and pre-heated the oven while she prepared another bottle for the baby. Thank god the movie seemed to be interesting the older ones, because if she had to run around after all three of them, she was pretty sure she would die. 

Once dinner was ready, she got both of the kids to pause the movie and come to the table. Everyone ate, noisily, but they ate, while Diana was feeding Jasmine her bottle. It was only afterward that she had to put Jasmine on the ground to crawl around while she wiped the barbecue sauce off both of the kids’ hands before they got it all over the couch. 

By the time Monique and her family got back about four hours later, six in total, Diana was pretty sure she was going to pass out. “Oh my god,” Monique cackled. “They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”

“I’m so tired,” Diana laughed quietly. After getting paid by Monique’s aunt - at her insistence - Monique drove her home; she’d only gotten her license recently, so she was excited to do a bit of driving by herself.

All she could think about was her bed. It was 8 o’clock on a Saturday night, and all she cared about was sleep. When she walked inside, stickers still affixed to her cheeks and shirt, Spencer and Luke started cracking up. “Now multiply that by a thousand, and that’s how we looked the week we brought you home,” Luke said.

Spencer chimed in. “Seriously, ask Aunt JJ, we called her once and she thought we were in trouble because we said we were dying.”

Diana couldn’t possibly understand why.

[ace-reviews]

Video Game Review: Dragon Quest V

Gather ‘round, children, and Grampa Ace’ll tell you a story about the time a demo made him realize that a whole video game genre was pretty crap.

You see, back when Grampa Ace was a dumbass teenager, he thought J-RPGs were The Shit. In particular, he was a huge Final Fantasy fan (though he’d played and enjoyed many in the genre that weren’t even that passable). However, it all changed when Final Fantasy XII came out.

that’s the one that has this kid in it

I never played Final Fantasy XII, because Final Fantasy XII came bundled with a demo for Dragon Quest VIII.

that’s the one that has this guy in it

The demo let you play through the first part of the game, up to the fight with the boss in the Waterfall Cave (IIRC, it ended when you left town after giving Kalderasha his Brystal Call back). The demo did it’s job and got me to buy the game when it came out. Up to that point, I’d considered Final Fantasy the golden standard for J-RPGs, but Dragon Quest VIII was so much better than it in every conceivable way that I ended up giving me my very first “that thing I used to like is shit” epiphany. There are still a handful of Final Fantasy games I’ll play and enjoy, but overall the series is crap and Dragon Quest helped me to realize that by being not crap.

Fast forward a few years, and I was at Game Crazy (because those still existed back them) looking for a new game, and I spotted the DS remake of DQV on the shelf. By that time, I had become a huge fan of the Harvest Moon series, so the ability to get married in the game (combined with remembering that I loved the shit out of DQ8- even though I still haven’t finished it. I have a bad habit of restarting games partway through, so I don’t finish very many of them, which means video game reviews are not going to be a very common thing on this blog) was a huge selling point.

i’m one of those boring people who usually goes for bianca, in case you’re curious

Dragon Quest V is probably the closest thing to a perfect game I have ever played. Granted, I don’t play many games that aren’t one of these ones:

but I think it’s good enough to be considered nearly-perfect by someone who actually plays different video games. You should ask somebody like that.

My two biggest problems with J-RPGs that aren’t Dragon Quest are the excess of teenage angst, and the long cut-scenes involving my character doing a whole bunch of super-fun looking things that’d I’d love to be having some input in. DQV has none of either of these. It does have cut-scenes, but they generally occur when the main character is either an infant, incapacitated, or wouldn’t be wandering around talking to people anyway.

The gameplay is solid, the graphics are good (for the DS), the characters are memorable and likable, the battles are fun, and the story actually departs a bit from the typical DQ formula by having the hero be some dude rather than a Chosen One. Technically his son is the Legendary Hero(TM), but you’re not required to take him to the final boss so big whoop. 

Like most other Dragon Quest games, you’re given a goal at the beginning, and while there’s a tiny bit of guidance to help you through the beginning, by the midpoint they just toss you out in the world and let you explore (or Google) to find out what you’re supposed to do next. That’s great. More video games need to trust the player to want to play the game, instead of holding their hand through to an ending.

Even beyond that, though, the game trusts it’s audience to know when a sad thing is happening without having to tell them that it’s sad. For example, it sucks when Pankraz gets blowed up not because the game tells you “LISTEN TO THIS SAD MUSIC AS OUR HERO GIVES A MONOLOGUE ABOUT HOW SAD HE IS ABOUT THIS SAD THING THAT HAPPENED. ARE YOU SAD YET?! FEEL SAD!” It sucks because you spent the last several hours hanging out with him and seeing him be your super-awesome badass dad. It’s not super surprising because he tripped over every death flag he could’ve on the way, but the game came out in 1992, so those flags may’ve been less obvious at the time.

If I had to point out some of the game’s flaws, the twins act more like perfect movie kids than actual kids, and Sancho’s accent in the DS remake is really bad and shows a lack of understanding about why Spanish speakers add the letter “e” to the beginning of some words that start with the letter “s”. The kid thing isn’t that bad, and Sancho is never a required party member, so I wouldn’t consider either of those a deal-breaker.

So, yeah. Dragon Quest V is awesome. I’d murder my entire family for an HD remake that doesn’t have the characters do the walking-in-place thing.

this walking-in-place thing

If you haven't played it yet, do so. It’s available for DS, or as a mobile remake for iPhone or Android. While you’re at it, you can also check out the rest of the series, but bear in mind that some Dragon Quest games are more newcomer-friendly than others. V and VIII are generally considered the best to start with, though I’d also recommend IX. It’s one of the weaker installments, but a weak Dragon Quest game is still a very good game. Do not start with VII. It’s great, but not if you’ve never played a Dragon Quest game before.

Can’t think of a good way to end this, so here’s another gif.

[ryleejaybyrd]

ANSWER ALL THE EVENS BWAHAHA

Jesus christ Taylor XD Nobody cares but here I go!!!!!!!

lol like how I tried to play it off cool but I’m actually super stoked rn

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day?

Yes and no... for like the first day of winter when it’s all pretty and pristine but when it get’s to the point of ‘fuck me do i still have toes?’ I’m over it.

4: how do you take your coffee/tea?

I like my coffee with french vanilla creamer and lovingly call it my princess froofroo bullshit drink. On the tea side of things I like herbal without anything added becuase I feel like a fairy drinking flower water.

6: do you keep plants? 

I love thinking I could, but the only plant I haven’t killed is the one that I keep in my papa’s sunroom where I’m never anywhere near it because everything I touch dies screaming.

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

Is internal screaming a viable medium? I like to think I can write, but that’s still under investigation

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

I’m all over the place, you can usual tell by my hair tho. Seeing as it sticks straight up on whichever side I sleep on.

12: what's your favorite planet?

Jupiter!! It has all those awesome moons that are v cool.

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?Hmmmmm, it’d probably be a homey mess of books, fandom knicknacks and random coffee mugs with random socks laying everywhere. (there may or may not be a smiley face painted on the wall that is outlined with bullets.. crazy night..)

16: what's your favorite pasta dish?

I’m very uncultured so spaghetti is how imma roll

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.

oh god, you mean every other moment I’m in their presence? My shining moment would probably be when I had a minor stroke after getting v excited about making cinnamon pancakes for @klskipper13​ and I stuttered so bad I said “ Cinininamonon pancancancakes” 

20: what's your favorite eye color?

Probably green! 

22: are you a morning person?

HAHAHAHA. that’s cute

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

Honestly I’m a pretty open person? I’ll tell anyone anything, especially if I think it’ll make them laugh.

26: what are the shoes you've had for forever and wear with every single outfit?

YOU MEAN THE ONES THAT JUST BROKE AND I’M STILL GRIEVING OVER. They’re brown combat boots that go to just under my knee with laces all the way up. I lovingly named them my Katniss boots, may they rest in peace.

28: sunrise or sunset?

I like the idea of sunrise. There’s just something about beginnings that make me all poetic and shit

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared?

Yup, 100% when my friend and I got busted after drinking at her mormon grandmothers house. In retrospect, probably should have done it elsewhere.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends.

At my 13th bday party my friends and I were staying at a house on a golf course and we streaked nude up and down the 18th hole. Till this day I wonder if they had surveillance cameras.

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it?

It was a doe deer beanie baby named Whisper. She was that stuffed animal that went everywhere with me. At age 12 I lost her somewhere at my cousins house and am still sad about it till this day. She had one eye and a pink nail polish stain on her chest. Bonus story: my oldest friend @haleygalik​ had that same beanie baby and gave it to me since I was so upset about losing mine. I still have Whisper 2.0 till this day

36: which band's sound would fit your mood right now?Right now? Uuhh, I’m not sure tbh. I’m kinda feeling serene so something celticy. I’m also uncultured in music.

38: tell us about your pet peeves!

Dogs that beg when you try to eat. My dad passed that down to me. I will literally stare a dog straight in the eye and eat slowly. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs more then humans, but that bothers me. I also get very twitchy when a computer desktop is just full of icons (yes I’m talking about you Tay.)

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what's it's story? does it have any meaning to you?

I have this wedding band set that I found when my great grandma jay passed away. I think it was her wedding rings, but I never knew for sure. I wish I knew their story more then anything.

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it!

There’s a shop that’s in our town called grump monkey. Its small and kinda modern themed but still comfy.

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything?Hmmm, probably when I was swimming in the ocean last November. The ocean is my home.

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of.

The fact that Barbara Dunkelman from Rooster Teeth is so bad at puns she gave herself the title Barbara Punkelman....

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today?

Being abducted by one of the aliens from Signs. Well duh.

50: what's an odd thing you collect?

Tbh I don’t collect anything really... but I do have a thing about small intricate boxes and bottles. I don’t usually keep them long tho. I move a lot.

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far?

The only one I’ve noticed is the thing with the cowboy hat. I’m not the most observant

54: who's the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face?

I just saw a friend of my mom’s who’s brother passed away, that was rough.

56: what are some things you find endearing in people?

It is so great when people talk with their hands more and more as they get excited. The best story tellers look like they’re being pulled around by a drunk marionette person.

58: who's the wine mom and who's the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?

@brigadepuppy​ is probably the wine mom, and @klskipper13​ is the vodka aunt who doesnt really drink but has a bottle thats filled with water so people wont nag her to drink with them.

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves?

Robert Frost is my main bitch. His path diverging in a yellow wood will always be my fave. tho in english class we once read this poem about a lady who kept one of her lovers locked away in a hidden room and continued to sleep by the body even after the person died... to this day i cant find it anywhere. had something to do with roses. creepy as fuck but great.

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind?

Orange is the bomb!

64: what color is the sky where you are right now?

a black satin canvas speckled with the iridescence of millions of different cosmic lights

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?

Oh! I really like colorful leaves and vines instead of flowers.

68: what's winter like where you live?

A mythic bitch. #upperleft

70: have you ever used a ouija board?

Fuck to the no. I like not being haunted thank you. Tho, I am 100% convinced a ghost named Tina haunts me. I’ve had flickering lights, random bangs, and things falling off shelfs happen every once in awhile. I’m surprisingly calm about it mostly.

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you'll forget it?

Absolutely. Helps keep my mind clear too. If i write it down it’s not swirling around in my brain and distracting me. Once its tangible its easy to toss aside.

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

I have only two friends

Friend 1: My lil Asian

Friend 2: Lil Bitch

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren't?

Oh for sure. I should be buying a ticket from Florida to New York, researching my trip to New Zealand, and double checking my bills are payed. HAHA NEXT QUESTION

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub?

I’m a fanclub! I have a lot of love for people I’ve never met

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?

White, sadly. I didn’t, like I said. I move a lot.

82: are/were you good in school?

100% was a fly on the wall. Put in minimum effort and left with a 3.5 GPA cuz our school system is a joke.

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones?

Yas!~ I want to do my Harry Potter house with my friends and something to do with space/the ocean or mythical creatures

86: do you like concept albums? which ones?

Uh sure, I totally know what those are and they’re great...

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy?

The lil animatic videos people are doing for musicals! I love them so much!!! For example @galactibun​ and @raythrill​ do some really neat ones! (or at least I’m pretty sure they do??? I always see them blogging that style anyway)

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities.

Austin! Mainly because Rooster Teeth, but also it was such a vibrant place! I would like to live their someday.

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch?

All the cheese. It’s cheese with a side of pasta. I love cheese.

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday?

My Aunt Kelly!

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? 100%  procrastinator. They take forever.

98: when's the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it?

Way to long... uh probably last summer with a friends dog! Of course! Being outside is always cathartic

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

I’d go into the past! I’d miss so much if I were to skip ahead that I’d feel anxious I think. 

Here you all go, XD thanks Tay, I appreciate you booboo