#did u guys know that i actually LOVE barney

[sk8rambler]

happy (late) birthday bernard sumner!! <3

[fucktheroyals]

You know after reading and reading and reading peoples theories and the meta from before the spn finale aired and the meta writers reactions to the finale I think I have a theory of my own. We don't have any answers tho, so this is pure speculation. If you wanna add something to support or discredit any of this that's cool but there's too many things floating around. Know I dont have proof for this conclusion at all. A lot of what I say is just guesses based on previous facts.

This all came together in my head when I realized how much this finale REEKS of the original producers and who the show was originally for. It REEKS of Robert Singer. Like if the execs started saying they didn't want it, Robert Singer was the one pushing that the story was about the brothers. That kinda thing.

Then, I was thinking of the problems in this episode and it struck me these are all of Supernatural biggest issues and to be honest all of it feels completely deliberate.

Take the sexism for example, Supernatural in it's later seasons largely out grew this, we have Jody, Rowena, Donna, Charlie, Mary, Claire (and even a wayward sisters pilot with MORE women/girls) all making regular appearances. They're mainly good characters and mostly aren't there to hurt our boys. Rowena, of course, is the one outlier being very about herself but it's clear she still cares for them, I mean its part of her development. But they're all real, with character flaws just like everyone else. (And we have Death too and she was POC 😭 THANK GOD)

Now look at the earlier half of Spn, we have Ellen and Jo, who's appearances were far in between. There's Bela in season 3, recurring for quite a bit (5 eps), but she is a character that is only there for herself, definitely not found family (unlike Ellen & Jo), and she's got more episodes in season 3 than Ellen and Jo in season 2 who aren't seen again til season 5. The "fans" send in hate mail after hate mail to try to get these characters off, and eventually they are. Then there's Ruby who's character stayed for a whole two seasons and was a largely recurring character. Why does she get to say so long? She's a plot device. She's supposed to be there to betray Sam. She has to stay (plus Jared obviously likes her). But she's not just a character the writers like writing about. Same with Lilith. Obviously not as recurring but still a plot device. Did they get hate mail tho? You can bet on it. Why? because tHeY'rE gOnNa PuSh ThE bOyS (Dean and Sam) aPaRt ThE sHoW iS aBoUt ThE bOyS oNlY. Without even thinking about the hate mail, just notice how large the difference is from how women are seen in the earlier seasons to the later seasons. Misha got tons of hate mail too for being a character that could split up the boys (probably only being allowed to say because he a man, thanks sexist producers and execs).

Only after Castiel was killed off and then Castiel fans successfully (thank you guys) got him back on the show did the hate mail largely simmer, which means female character's were allowed to stay! Which has lead us to a show with a good amount of female characters. But can you imagine having to kill characters off time and time again because people keep complaining that the show is "only about the boys." Fun times really.

So now we get to this final and we see sexism. But it wasn't just the plain old regular sexism you find in the earlier days of spn. Because now, there ARE women to talk about, talk to. But this episode was DESOLATE women wise, unless they were used for plot (which is also sexist!). Small scenes, they're barely there. Women gets her tongue cut out. Random women from s1 gets killed. Sam doesn't SPEAK of Eileen. Nothing. No mention of any female characters from the boys mouths unless they were from/in this episode itself. That's WIERD. I know we've all said it. But that goes beyond forgetting about characters. I mean its SAM'S GIRLFRIEND for Christ's sake. There is NO REASON they couldn't have said Eileen's name. Notice how Sam's wife is just... faceless. This is literally an age old sexist trope. Like... one of the things about bringing Mary back to life for s12+ is that it takes this trope... of basically a generic mother, and gives her life and feelings, whether you like them or not, they're real feelings. They said Mary isn't just a mom she's a person. Mary's existence in the later half of spn is to fix this kind of female tropes that fall upon her character, to not let these her stay a 2 dimensional character. They said we should know she's more than just the mom who tried to save her kid. Do that is the exact opposite of Sam getting a nameless, faceless wife. The sexism of the old spn wasn't just brought back, it was completely amplified. It wasn't just accidental or some exec "fixing" the story it was DELIBRATE. Whoever wrote that, didn't do ALL OF THAT by accident. Because an exec or a producer who doesn't see the flaws in old supernatural isn't going to write it that deliberately.

Let's bring it back to s10 when Charlie was killed (singer was mainly to blame). Dead in the bathtub, age old classic of burying ur gays. If you were here you know people never let Supernatural live that down. THEY KNOW what bury ur gays means. Hell, Robbie Thompson left because of Charlie's death and you think the writers don't know what it means? I mean both Bobo Berens (especially) and Steve Yockey's careers are centered around LGBT+ storytelling and you think they don't know? They know. They know.

And Dean wasn't just apart of the bury your gays trope, it is so far BEYOND that. Dean being killed on a rusty nail/screw, the tongues ripped out, things that seemed to be meant for other people. Jensen's acting in the last two episodes was giving us "DEAN RECIPROCATES" but no one ever actually saying it. I think it's clear that Dean was killed for being Bi. They didn't address it for a reason, they just silenced him. His narrative was supposed to be about letting him be HIM for the first time, to say what his feelings are instead of having them miscommunicated, and instead of doing that, they just silenced him. And the more we look at this scene the more horrific it gets. The more it's a complete slap in the face and it's supposed to be. Some guy who knows nothing about the LGBT can't write a scene this horrific.

Some guy who knows nothing about Dean couldn't write a scene that deconstructs all of Dean's character development and gives Dean his worst nightmare. I MEAN DEAN WANTED TO LIVE HIS LIFE! THEY DIDNT HIDE THAT JOB APPLICATION (or whatever job related thing that was) IN THERE FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST SITUATION. Dean isn't Barney from HIMYM. If you watched HIMYM then you'll know Barney went from being a stereotypical ladies man and treating women terribly to being in love with a women and treating her right and working hard for it. The last episode of HIMYM (why its so bad) Barney's character development is thrown out and he's back to being a stereotypical ladies man. You don't need to know Barney's character very much to do that.

To kill Dean during a hunt his father never finished, to not have anyone at his funeral, to have Dean die young like his life didn't matter. Those are Dean's worst fears and you'd only truly know that if you watched the gin episode in s3, where they are basically laid out for you. You HAVE to know Dean's character to tear him apart like this.

This episode took all the core elements of the show and did a complete 180° the name of the episode itself is "Carry on" and Dean and Sam very much did not carry on. Sam grieving his entire life so that he good get to heaven and see Dean again. Dean being ready to live his life, despite the enormous pitfalls and learning to love himself only to be killed. "Family don't end with blood." Um.... it did in that episode either literally with Dean's death or you know BECAUSE NONE OF THEIR FOUND FAMILY WAS THERE. Not Jack, Not Cas, Not Eileen, Not Donna, Not Charlie, Not Jody, Not Claire... on and on we go. No one was there, nobody was even mentioned. Dean's funeral, no one even called that we know of. It was just Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean. And Bobby. Don't forget Bobby. But yeah Sam and Dean.

That's what the show is about right, the brothers.

Except it's not anymore. It hasn't been for years.

Cas not being there was deafening but it brought us to a major point. Becky. Becky's telling us about the terrible ending.

And many of us are wondering why would they literally tell us this is the worst ending and then... make it the ending.

Now before we move on, it very apparent many of you think Dabb doesn't ship Deancas. And Dabb doesn't care about the characters.

Say what you will about any plot holes in his writing, the point he is VERY GOOD at writing the characters, and giving us good ones.

Why do we know Dabb ships Deancas? (ill say when its cowrote, other wise its not) cowrote ep 8.02 - purgatory "I prayed to you, Cas, every night" "Cas, Buddy, I need you." "I have a price on my head, and I've been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to – to keep them away from you." 8.08 Hunteri Heroici - Cas helps them hunt! 😊❤ Dean & Cas have a serious convo about why Cas doesn't want to see/go to heaven. 8.22 Dean's mad at Cas. Sam's explanation of why Dean should be easy on Cas: "It's Cas." Dean then points out how he'd knife anybody else if they did what Cas did. 9.10 - Cas comforts Dean when Dean can't take seeing Sam (Gadreel) being tortured anymore. Also tons of Cas. 9.20 (bloodlines) - Canonical couple parallel "I was there, where were you" 9.22 The angels make Cas choose between them and killing Dean and he "gave up an entire army for one guy" 10.09 Claire's reintroduction. Cas heavy ep. DeanCas date. 10.22 THE PRISONER - u know the ep where Dean beats the shit out of Cas but loves him enough to not kill him.

We COULD keep going but I think I've made my point. If Robert Singer is the guy that is like "the show is about Sam and Dean only" Andrew Dabb is the DeanCas shipper. And you could even say a Cas stan.

Notice! How in s13 for SEVEN episodes we have a story that revolves around Dean's grief about losing Cas. Notice! How often the stories in all these seasons have a focus on their relationship. THAT is Andrew Dabb. If it weren't for him doing that, we wouldn't be able to easily say after Dean's lack of a response to Cas' confession, that Dean reciprocates.

To me, when I was (binge) watching s12 for the first time, I thought damn this is really got a lot of DeanCas. So I went to look at who was in charge, who was writing. I saw Andrew Dabb, associated him with Deancas episodes, saw all the new writers, Bobo, and then I saw that Yockey is known for same sex stories and it clicked. Dabb assembled a team to give us Destiel. THAT WAS IN SEASON 12!!!!!!!!

The amount of people saying he's homophobic flabbergast me. Open your eyes! That isn't what's going on.

Imagine making a show and trying to right all the wrongs of Supernatural. Imagine trying to write the greatest love story ever told and you have the entire season planned out for it to end off beautifully, it may possibly be your greatest achievement when it's done and then boom. someone comes in and tells you you aren't allowed to make Dean bi or make destiel endgame, after he was most probably already given the go ahead.

Sure. You could imply he's bi or into cas still in a way. Still make nice-ish ending. just give everyone what the kinda want.

Or you could scrap the last season, nothing close to a canonical bisexual Dean Winchester or Deancas endgame in site. People can be done with it be happy with the show, continue to live their lives in ignorance as to how close they were to Canon destiel.

OR you can lead everyone to the very closest you can get them to what you were aiming for and then show everyone the ugly truth and reality. Light it all on fire. Burn the show to the ground in your wake. Try your darnedest to making these people's (the people saying no) pockets suffer. Show us, the audience, what happened. Show us what this show really is.

I've seen people talk about the ending being changed during covid but I dont think that happened. I think what happened was Dabb already had this season planned out before it even started. Obviously the details were wobbly but it was all lead up to this ending. Destiel endgame, Canon Bisexual Dean, whatever it was. They were ready to write the greatest love story ever told and then someone shut it down.

Imagine the pain that must have caused them to be told no when they already said yes. They must have been so excited to give this to us.

I think someone (some producers) told him what this show is "really" about. The brothers. Can you imagine, after being told no, some kinda bullshit like this is said to you: "Why aren't you bringing it back to the brothers, Andrew? that's what the shows about. What with all this homosexual stuff, you know the audience won't like that. Not really." Imagine the original producers pushing this kind of view on you. "You know when we started it was Sam and Dean. It should end with Sam and Dean." That kinda sounds like someone huh? huh.

So why give us a nice acceptable finale, when you can take every problem Supernatural's had either up front or behind the scenes and create a finale so incredibly bad that people don't want to watch it anymore.

Someone made a good point about how Sam was originally supposed to be the main focus (this isn't to put any hate on Sam or Jared). Dean and Sam are the main characters but Sam was supposed to be the focus and for Dean to have become the focus, must have annoyed the producers because... well here we are. They wouldn't listen to Jensen. The producers liked this ending. Jensen's opinion didn't matter to them.

In some ways, if this is really what happened, it can be seen as childish from Dabb. To hurt all of us like that. Yes, he's hurting the producers, the execs, the cw. But to hurt us? Yeah it stings.

But in other ways, if this is really what happened, this is Dabb showing us the muck and gunk under the shiny surface. The hate for Misha. The hidden hate for Jensen. The underlying sexism. The underlying homophobia. The people REALLY in charge don't care about us, they just want our money. He needed to open our eyes and free us, at least free the people that he was writing for. The people he sees that care about this show.

This is the ending the powers that be wanted and its a big fuck you for a reason. I dont think this is Dabb spitting in our faces for loving this show, I think this is him trying to get revenge for us.

But from here, you can see it how u want it. If this is really what happened, I'm not in charge of your emotions, if you wanna be mad be mad if you wanna be grateful be grateful. And you don't have to believe me either I said this is speculation.

Also, as for all of the rumors like there being shots to the confession scene that we didn't see, which Jensen himself implied, I think that might have been a last ditch effort to canonized DeanCas but obviously it was cut. Like the name change was pretty clear. As for Misha possibly having shot some stuff for 20 I dont know what to tell you. If it's true I dont know where the blame would lie.

I do think however, that if all this was the case, the writers were prepared to become villians here. I mean they told us the writers were villians with Chuck right? So. Who knows what went down so they could give us such a vile ending. It could've been the producers or the writers, who truly knows. I do think tho that people we "trust" did some pretty shitty things to push the narrative in certain directions so now one would see this as the actual ending that was coming.

So again do with my SPECULATION what you will. This was in no way meant to put Dabb on a pedestal or anything. Just meant to give a bit of perspective.

(Also Jensen didn't unfollow Dabb recently he was already unfollowed for years)

[neworderscans]

Electronic - AOL Webchat, 07/30/96 (Bernard and Johnny answering fan questions in a chat using the same handle, I've made minor edits for clarity purposes - archive link in full here)

Max Warner [AOL Webchat host/moderator] : We'll be starting in just a few minutes. We are having some minor technical difficulties.

Max Warner: Johnny and Bernard will be using the screen name Elctrnic.

Max Warner: Just a couple more minutes.... we swear!

Max Warner: We're here with Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner of ELECTRONIC.

Elctrnic: Hello From Bernard & Johnny

Max Warner: Here we go! after a few of those [Online host] Bringing together mainstays of two of the most influential bands of the last 15 years Bernard Sumner of New Order and Johnny Marr of The Smiths. The music of Electronic has exceeded even the high expectations that such a creative partnership undoubtedly engenders.

Max Warner: From Nexland: Question: Barney, Johnny Can U tell me the Story with George Michael. Where Did U meet Him???? it's funny because i saw a picture of Peter Hook with Barry White. That is Cool

Elctrnic: He was cutting his new record at the same studio we were in, hes a nice guy actually

Max Warner: From Embody123: Question: Bernie, what's the nicest thing about working with Marr (Marr: Vice Versa)?

Elctrnic: Johnny never calls me Bernie

Max Warner: From NewOrder3: Question: I would like to know whether any concerts will be scheduled in 1996 and who is the author of the paragraphs in the CD of "raise the pressure"

Elctrnic: At the moment were looking for the right musicians,we'd like to see everybody.

Elctrnic: Bernard wrote the text inside the album$

Max Warner: From SeanJorda: Question: Will either of you be doing any production work in the near future? Barney: I just listened to your SHARK VEGAS, TECHNOTRONIC, and BEAT CLUB tracks today.

Elctrnic: You really know your stuff. I would like to concentrate on Electronic $

Max Warner: From BigBoy666: Question: What do _you_ listen to?

Elctrnic: We mostly listen to European dance music and older good rock stuff, Stones 2000 Light Years, Bowie/Eno Be My Wife$

Max Warner: From APinto65: Question: How did it happen that Neil Tennant did not join up with you on this CD? It's still is fabulous, but I was just curious?

Elctrnic: Electronic is Johnny and Benard.Neil is a guest artist,Johnny is on the new P.S.Bs album

Elctrnic: On this album Karl Bartos from Kraftwek is the guest

Max Warner: From Nexland: Question: Barney, Johnny How are u Tonight???

Elctrnic: Really Groovy

Max Warner: From SeanJorda: Question: How did you guys like TRAINSPOTTING, and Barney- did you like the use of TEMPTATION in the film?

Elctrnic: Its a great film, it opens friday in the U.S. I was proud to be associated with it

Max Warner: From AJ Wells: Question: Hey Barney... how is the jogging coming along? Any Olympic hopes?

Elctrnic: Im meeting up with Ben Johnsons dealer tonight so I should be o.k

Max Warner: From Embody123: Question: Marr: what do you think of MOJO magazine's listing you in the top 25 greatest guitar players of all time?

Elctrnic: Whos this Hendrix bloke ?

Max Warner: From LLabo2909: Question: Johnny, will you ever be joining Morrissey for a reunion tour with the Smiths. Please say yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elctrnic: Sure Boris, do you see any quiffs about?

Max Warner : From AJ Wells: Question: Barney... what ever happened to Section 25? Or Shark Vegas? Or Stexx? Or 52 Street?

Elctrnic: All in mental institutions I think, honestly!

Max Warner: From BBMountai: Question: I've heard that Johnny's been websurfing lately and was wondering if Bernard has also? And what do you both think of the web sites fans create about you?

Elctrnic: Johnny's quite into the web.We intend to make our sites more personal and as informative as possible.we're into it

Max Warner: From Jester000: Question: Johnny I was wondering what gave you hte idea for the whales used in "last night I dreamt...." thanks, glenn

Elctrnic: Bernards getting his browser together when he gets back to U.K

Max Warner: From Embody123: Question: How long did the new album take?

Elctrnic: The sound is actually a protest march sound effect slowed right down.Angry unemplyed.

Max Warner: From PULPTALEN: Question: What is the most succesful song in your career?

Elctrnic: The new album took two years to make but it only feels like one year and eleven months

Max Warner: From Annabel50: Question: hows life in the fast world?

Elctrnic: Slow

Elctrnic: How soon is Monday

Max Warner: From CADS1: Question: are you guys in nyc

Elctrnic: Yes

Max Warner: From Cphel: Question: Bernard- Is New Order no more? Johnny and Bernard-Why no PSB involvement?

Elctrnic: Not quite suree abot that one. P.S.Bs were guests.

Max Warner: From NEXLAND: Question: Do u feel any pressure with an new album??????

Elctrnic: I hope thats not a joke ,

Max Warner: From Femboheme: Question: I love, actually worship the new album. I also love the b-sides, do you have any good instrumentals on any upcomming singles for us?

Elctrnic: Were gonna do some new stuff soon. Were really glad you like the new Album,Thanks.

Max Warner : From CanadaBil: Question: You guys have had awesome careers!! I've been a fan of both since day one. Bernie, is it true that you (New Order) own a bar on one of the islands off the coast of Spain? I'd like to go. Thanks!!

Elctrnic: We dont own a bar in Spain, well not that I know of anyway.We recorded Technique in Ibiza/Spain

Max Warner: From Jcorker: Question: Bernard-Any relation to Sting?

Elctrnic: Hes my great Grandfather actually!

Max Warner: From KCleary: Question: Your music style is not necessarily the most accessible or popular in today's music scene when compared with what's on the charts - i.e. grunge, hard rock. Do you see that as a positive Question or negative when you go into the studio and/or when you tour?

Elctrnic: There should always be a place for someone who is different

Max Warner: From CADS1: Question: at the end of get the message what are you saying

Elctrnic: I am saying "Living on peanuts ain't my scene,shame that word rhymes with mean"

Max Warner: From FBrowniii: Question: do you guys care what radio thinks of your eclectic mix of styles? (we won't tell the record company execs :)

Elctrnic: No

Max Warner: From Femboheme: Question: Who writes the lyrics, who music? Is it a mix or is there a majority-one does more of one thing than the other?

Elctrnic: We both write the music and Bernard writes the Lyrics

Max Warner: From NewOrder3: Question: to Bernard: what do you think of the compilation: Tribute to Joy Division ? are you flattered ?

Elctrnic: I was touched by the gesture

Max Warner : From LLabo2909: Question: Johnny as usual you have great taste in music. is it true that you went guitar shopping with Noel from Oasis? the best band in the world!

Elctrnic: Yeah I did,but in future Noel can take his cheque book

Max Warner: From Lucozade: Question: heard you're both insatiable gossips. any new dish?

Elctrnic: O.K , Prince Charles is Ice T,s lover!, it's true!

Max Warner: From Bridge bo: Question: would you guys consider yourselves closer to christians or zen budhists??

Elctrnic: Were from The Church Of The "Not To Bothered"

Max Warner: We're running out of time... 2 more Questions.

Max Warner : From HammoFam: Question: How do you compare the bands of the 90's w/the bands of the 80's? Honestly, do you miss the 80's?

Elctrnic: We both really miss Flok Of Seagulls and Wang Chung! it's really sad

Max Warner: AND here's the last Question, from SJacobs62: Question: what is your favorite band?

Elctrnic: We dont really have one favourite band.Were going now,thanks to everybody whos supported us in the past and hopefully well be in touch one way or other soon. Take care

Elctrnic: from Johnny and Bernard

Max Warner: Bernard and Johnny, thanks for coming.

Elctrnic: Cheers!

[tigerdrop]

read your barmey fic as soon as it dropped and lemme tell ya its good. i knew yoi were gonna write this guy to be the worst kinda dude and im so glad you did. love the way you characterize him and im waiting so patiently for the next chapter!!

LMFAO thank u so much . it was actually wayyy easier to write barmey than it was freemind, because i Know this man. ive Experienced him. ive Been him. (disclaimer: literally everything about him ive just osmosed from other ppl writing about him. i know this isnt really my style but ive only ever watched barneys mind for like 2 episodes before i had to call it quits. it hurts, bro)

freemind is a totally different beast though. i was really into freemans mind in high school and felt compelled to go back and watch some things to get his cadence right and.....man. he really does not say "fuck" as much as i write literally everybody else saying "fuck". i had to defucken him. i have to do this with every single thing i write b/c if i dont ill end up using the word "fuck" and its variations 60+ times in like 8k words. my inner dialogue is just that way, man

[platypanthewriter]

Unless...? Ch.4

Part One | Two | Three

Billy replied every time Steve texted, unless he was working, or asleep, and Steve tried to ration it out—waiting until after practice, or making himself finish his meal, so he didn’t return to work to find out Billy’d been sighing heavily every time his phone chimed.

he’s as glued to his phone as u are, sent Robin, and Steve tried not to grin too widely in triumph.

Don’t know who you’re talking about, he sent back, and she sent an eyeroll emoticon.

“Y’know,” she said later, over video chat, while Steve folded his laundry. She had a straw dangling out of her mouth like a cigarette. “—the last time I saw you texting this much,” she said, pausing so he’d look up, and then slurping at her soda, “—you were dating.” She stared him dead in the eyes.

“What is your problem,” Steve hissed at her, his face flushing. “Quit this Steve and Billy sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G shit, it’s getting old.”

Steve couldn’t help it, he wandered into Victoria’s Secret the next day, and got surrounded by sales associates. “What size,” he got asked, and they seemed unsurprised when he said “I’m not sure.” He finally just grabbed like five pairs of lace panties, his face probably steaming, and ran back out, because Billy had probably—definitely—been kidding.

Steve was feeling more and more sure, the feeling leaden in his stomach, that if he brought the lace thongs up again, he’d get the hardest “No homo” of his life. He got back to the motel and threw the packages in his backpack, stuffing them down to the bottom, and curled up on the bed, remembering how fast things had gone south with Tommy. Tommy’d wanted to jack each other off—as bros, he said, as pals—and Steve had gone along, only to hit weeks of unanswered calls.

Robin had been decidedly unsympathetic—she’d never liked Tommy—but Steve had never really stopped thinking about where he should have drawn the line, before he scared off his best friend. Maybe he could tell I was wondering what it would be like to kiss him, he thought, staring at the ceiling. Maybe I leaned in too close, and grossed him out.

He imagined Billy blanking him at work, as Steve tried to explain he’d just...thought he was doing it right, this time, coloring in the lines. He was always too dumb to know where the lines were, was the problem. He rubbed his eyes, taking a long, shaky breath, and rolled to bury his face in his pillow.

He reminded himself of Billy’s flinch when Steve called him husband, as a joke, and groaned. Slumber party, he told himself. Like kids.

Steve didn’t text Billy for a few days, after that. He didn’t think about the lace thongs, either, and he didn’t order grilled sandwiches anywhere, or doodle butterflies in his notebooks, thinking about Billy’s tattoo flexing just a little as he breathed in his sleep.

Rehearsals were distracting, and Steve practiced hard. In the afternoons, he finished up two separate songs—about loneliness, but in a vague kind of way—and started another one that would never see the light of day, about how it would feel to have just one person on earth as excited about him as he was about half the people he knew. He tried not to even imagine that person as Billy Hargrove, because how weird was that, picturing him wanting to road trip together, or go camping, and lean into each other by the fire. Steve reminded himself, grimly, of what friends did—he’d learned it with Robin, and he could learn it before he creeped Billy out, too.

He was pretty sure one thing friends didn’t do was fantasize. He threw the thongs in the trash, and then fished them out the next morning, and stared at the pile of them, tissue-wrapped and perfumed on his bed. He opened the package, and considered them—one black, one red, one pink—he didn’t know why he’d said yes to white, because white panties weren’t even date night panties, according to Nancy. White and beige were for lounging.

White was for weddings, though, Steve thought, feeling ridiculous, and stuffing them back in the bag. He tried not to think about taking the joke way too far, and buying rings.

respond to yr boy, he keeps checking his phone like a lovesick goon, Robin sent the next day, and Steve clicked over to Billy’s messages and sent a string of hearts without even checking what Billy had said.

Once he actually checked, it was you forget about me, harrington? and Steve wanted to spin around in place, he realized, alone in his hotel room, because Billy Hargrove missed him, and so he did. He shuffled around to the tune in his head with his arms up like his phone was Billy himself, spinning and swaying his hips because nobody was looking, and then he let himself fall face-first on the bed like a Disney character, giggling. He dialed Billy, and curled up on his side, grinning.

“...I guess you do remember who I am, huh,” Billy grouched.

“I miss you,” Steve told him, confident for once, because Billy Hargrove, cool bartender sounded pouty, like a little kid. “Like I’d forget my best guy. My most favorite—”

“Oh my god, stop,” Billy laughed.

“Coolest person I know,” Steve told him, honestly, and Billy snickered harder, his voice going muffled.

“I’m at work, jesus,” he hissed, but he sounded fond.

“I wish I was there,” Steve told him. “I’d just dedicate you a song. Right in the middle of a set, just switch songs. Sorry, y’all, my bartender’s lonely.”

“Jesus,” Billy groaned, but Steve could tell he was smiling. “You say that, but it’d—it’d be something dumb, you’d sing me the Barney Song—”

“‘I love you, you love me,’” Steve sang cheerfully, as Billy said, “Do not. Do not sing it. Steve—”

Steve’s heart pounded, singing love words to Billy, but Billy’d suggested it, so it wasn’t weird, it was a joke. “We’re gonna have a huge weddiiiing,” he crooned, “—with a lacy thong, and kiss from me to you—”

Billy cackled, breathless. “Shut up!” he panted. “Stop, you dipshit, quit it—”

“Won’t you say you love me tooooo?” Steve held the note like a broadway star, and Billy must have died laughing, because all Steve could hear was wheezing.

“Shut up,” he gasped. “Holy shit, fuck you, Harrington—”

“Hey, you thought I wouldn’t do it, practically a dare, Hargrove—”

“Oh my god,” Billy groaned, still giggling, and Steve wished he was there, Billy next to him on the bed, so he could hear it better.

Billy needed to giggle more, Steve thought, trying not to think of Billy’s weight in his arms, warm and solid. He wanted Billy laughing helplessly into his shoulder, he realized, sharply, like a hunger pang. “I don’t think you’ve gotten enough love songs,” Steve told him, his voice a little husky with the stupid surge of emotion over Billy laughing.

“...most people don’t write songs,” he whispered back. “Most people aren’t you, Steve Harrington.”

“I think you need to hear it more,” Steve insisted, stubbornly. “I mean, I know I’m not supposed to talk about—Drunk Night—but—” Billy took a sharp breath, but didn’t say anything, and Steve winced. “I won’t, I won’t, I promise, but—but anybody who doesn’t tell you that—that they—they’re shitty. You’re amazing.”

“I’m really not,” Billy laughed, like Steve was being ridiculous.

“You are, you’re so smart—”

“I’m what now,” Billy interrupted, snorting a laugh that didn’t sound nearly as happy as his giggles while Steve had sung.

“You can remember all that drink stuff, it’s so complicated, and people make these bullshit crazy orders—”

“...that’s just memorizing, Harrington,” Billy sighed.

“I couldn’t do it,” Steve told him, honestly. “You were telling that lady all about, like, the history of France when she ordered something—”

“I told her where cognac was made,” Billy told him, laughing. “I’m not a history professor, jesus—”

“It was really interesting! I fall asleep when most people talk about history,” Steve admitted, grimacing. “I actually went home and looked some of it up! And then I pretended it was in your voice so I could stay awake.”

“Oh my god,” Billy groaned.

“I always find the smart people! I’m like a smartness-sniffer, like a drug sniffer dog,” Steve told him, trying to support his case, as Billy started laughing his ass off again. “I’m serious, like, I dated the smartest girl in highschool, and I ended up friends with the smartest kid in her little brother’s friend group, and look how smart Robin is—”

“Jesus Hobgoblin Christ,” Billy mumbled.

“I’m telling you, you’re smart, don’t mess with me on this, I’ll get Robin and Jonathan backing me up.” Billy made a weird gulping noise, like glugging faucet, and Steve frowned at his phone. “I mean it,” he insisted. “Who the hell told you you weren’t? Bull shit, man.”

“Sure wish I actually was who you think I am,” Billy said softly, and Steve couldn’t take it, he stuck his tongue out and made a loud PTHBBBBBT noise into the phone.

“You’re perfect, shut up,” Steve told him. “You’re great. I—I have receipts, okay, I can—I can present evidence to the court—”

“You’re so fucking weird,” Billy told him, his laughter soft again. “How come you’re way the hell away, I wanna see you, you freak of nature.”

“You’re still coming Friday, right,” Steve asked, again, and Billy laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there.”

“Can’t believe you want to drive all the way out here to see me,” Steve told him, rolling onto his back to beam at the ceiling. “Gonna hug you so hard.”

“Can’t believe you miss me so much you want me to,” Billy said, laughing. “We still doing this motel sleepover thing? You didn’t, uh, you don’t have a better offer?”

“What the hell better offer could there be,” Steve whispered, trying to imagine, and Billy laughed.

“Oh, shit, somebody actually wants a drink,” he said, and Steve laughed.

“See you Friday,” he said, and didn’t hang up.

“...yeah, yeah, see you Friday, Harrington,” Billy said, before the line went dead, and Steve could hear his smile.

He called Robin Thursday, determined not to tell her about the thongs. He’d tried one on, in a panic at two-fifteen in the morning, when he suddenly woke, his heart pounding, to a dream where Billy was willing to marry him if he only wore a thong, but the damn thing didn’t fit.

He yanked it over his feet—it felt like a stretchy, fancy rubber band—and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, feeling like a moron with the tip of his dick sticking up over the band, the red mark around his waist from his briefs, and his hairy legs. The cheap motel toilet seat lid creaked alarmingly as he sat on it, groaning into his arms, the image of his dream-self chasing around the courthouse naked because his stupid lace thong didn’t fit still stuck in his head.

It was hard not to further imagine the way Tommy’s lip would have curled. Steve had thought—they’d practised kissing on each other, before dates, and after, a couple times, when the dates had been shitty. Tommy’d been the one to undo Steve’s jeans, the day before he stopped returning calls.

The idea of Billy grimacing at the damn thongs had Steve yanking it off again. He actually threw it in the toilet, and stomped out, chanting ‘fuck,’ over and over, before he remembered it’d clog the damn plumbing and some poor motel lady did not get paid enough to fish a thong out of the pipes with Steve’s dick hair still on it. He turned on his heel and ran back in, splashing around in the toilet with his bare hand, glad at least that he hadn’t flushed it down.

He wrapped it in toilet paper, and threw it in the trash, but it soaked through, red and black lace and soggy toilet paper, and he yanked it out again, hissing furiously through his teeth, and disentangled it from the previous night’s dental floss.

When he called Robin, later that morning, with pants on, he considered asking her how the hell to get toilet paper off a wet lacy thong. Would she even know, he wondered, flopping back on the bed. Did she even like that stuff? Maybe only men did, on women, he thought. He suddenly wanted to ask, but Robin was talking about her custom Xena-themed guitar case strap, and he couldn't really think of a way to ask. When she paused, he sighed. “Sounds rad."

"You're barely listening," she told him. "What's up?"

"Remind me not to fuck this up like I did with Tommy,” he told her, dully, staring at the ceiling, and she snorted a laugh.

“Nah,” she said, thoughtfully, “—Tommy was a fuckface. Good job on that one.”

Steve bit his lips, remembering waking after their mutual jaerk-off session, kind of excited to get Tommy over again and see where things went, and Tommy never picking up his calls again. Tommy still called, occasionally, and said things like “I have a fiance now,” before hanging up. Steve still wondered, sometimes, whether he could have been less himself, and still had a best friend. “...yeah, I guess,” he said, sighing.

“Billy’s better,” she told him, and Steve opened his mouth to brag, but she cut him off with “—he actually likes you,” and he deflated. “You gonna get him to the courthouse while he’s in town?” she asked, teasing, and Steve pthbbbbbt’d her.

Steve buzzed around all day Friday, grinning at everyone like Billy was coming from another country, and Steve hadn’t seen him in years. Dalton asked if they were about to meet his new girlfriend, and Steve had to tear himself away from his phone, blushing, to explain Billy was the bartender at work. “He is not my girlfriend,” he emphasized, sighing. “We’re just—”

“...boyfriends?” Dalton asked, and Steve glared at him, wondering how Robin had gotten to his Kool-aid.

“We’re friends!” Steve told him, feeling his cheeks heat further. “Everybody keeps asking me that!” Dalton raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Best friends,” Steve bragged, and Dalton’s eyebrows rose impossibly higher. “Look, I know it’s dumb, I just really like him—”

“Oh, I can see that,” Dalton said, nodding slowly as he tuned his bass. “...everybody can see that.”

The door banged, and Steve was on his feet so fast he almost dropped his coffee, but it was just Javi and Wesley, the guitarist and drummer.

“Oh, hey,” said Steve, sitting back down, and tapping his foot.

“...no need to get so excited to see us,” Wesley said.

“...you’re not his bartender,” Dalton told them, with the significant glance Steve had begun to associate with anyone around he and Billy, and he groaned.

He’d almost forgotten he was waiting for Billy, a couple hours in, when he looked up and saw him standing awkwardly off to the side. Steve sprang up mid-song to jump down off the stage, run over, and throw his arms around him. Billy grunted with shock as Steve lifted him a little off the ground in a hug, and then hugged him back, slowly, tucking his hot face in Steve’s shoulder.

Steve leaned back and swung him a little, relishing his weight, then let go and stepped back. He couldn’t stop smiling. “You’re here,” he said, and Billy laughed, glancing behind Steve.

“You stopped mid-song,” Dalton said—and he didn’t even sound mad, just bewildered.

“Sorry,” Billy told him, grimacing.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Steve told him, throwing his arm around Billy’s shoulders, and dragging him over to introduce him to the guys. “This is Billy Hargrove!”

“....hi,” Billy said, sounding a little strangled, and side-eyeing Steve.

“He’s my best friend. We’re gonna get friend-married,” Steve announced, and Javi played a weird discordant chord on his guitar. Billy smacked his face with his hand.

“—as soon as he says yes,” Steve amended, and everyone looked even more disbelieving.

“I’m...gonna go sit down,” Billy said, extricating himself and wandering a few feet away to sit on the floor. “Go rehearse,” he muttered. His ears were bright red, and Steve wanted to touch them, but he cleared his throat, and jumped back up on the stage, giddy with the contact high of putting his arms around Billy Hargrove.

“Lemme get this, uh,” Wesley cleared his throat, “—straight,” he muttered. “They’re friends?”

“Friends,” Steve said, nodding. He waggled his eyebrows at Billy and played just enough of the riff from Owner of a Lonely Heart that Billy burst out snickering, and a chorus of ‘Whaaaat’s and ‘Oh my god’ s went up around him.

When they breaked, Steve was off the stage again in a flash.  “So, I was thinking,” he told Billy, dropping next to him on the boards to slide an arm around him, and tug him close enough that Steve got a whiff of Billy’s shampoo, and felt his cheeks heat. He cleared his throat, relaxing a little so they weren’t as tightly pressed together, but he forgot what he was gonna say, watching the flush spread across Billy’s freckled cheeks. Steve reached up and pressed his fingers to the tip of Billy’s reddened ear, feeling the warmth, and snickered.

“What were you thinking?” Billy growled, batting his hand away. “Stop poking me, Harrington—”

“Mmrm,” Steve said, squeezing him close again in a tight side-hug. “God, what’s it been, like, days? I need my Billy fix.” He leaned his head on Billy’s shoulder, sighing contentedly, and Billy groaned, sliding his arm around Steve, and letting his head thump against Steve’s hair.

“You’re so weird,” he whispered.

“You’re weird,” Steve fired back, at lightning speed, like a genius, and Billy started giggling, relaxing against him. Steve remembered how soft Billy’s hair had been on his pillow, when Steve had reached over and drunkenly patted it like a cat. He wished it wouldn’t be totally weird to run his fingers through it. “...we’re playing a set tonight, but there are other bands. I thought we could leave, get dinner, come back and listen?”

“You asking me to the dance, Harrington?” Billy asked, laughing, and Steve nodded.

“Yes, absolutely, we should dance,” he laughed, glad Billy had brought it up first, but Billy stiffened against him in the way he did when Steve was a little too much. Steve winced, and rolled it back. “I-I mean, if you want to. There—there are a couple bands you might like. We don’t have to. You’re probably tired.”

“...I am pretty tired,” Billy admitted, quietly, and Steve lifted his head off Billy’s shoulder, and pulled his arm back, inwardly cursing himself, but Billy squeezed him. “I wanna go. Though. We should go.”

“Okay,” Steve laughed, nodding with relief. “Sorry. I know I can be kind of...a lot.”

“No, don’t—” Billy sighed, slumping against him, and Steve laughed, putting an arm around him again, as Billy’s weight threatened to knock them both sideways. “You’re not—I mean, you—you’re not too much, jesus.”

Steve swallowed back a stinging in his eyes, feeling his cheeks heat further. It felt like a drop of sweat would sizzle away like water in a hot pan, and he laughed into Billy’s hair. “...you can always tell me to back off a little, though. I mean. I won’t get—weird about it, I promise, if you need a break—I was trying to give you a break coming here,” he laughed, grimacing. “—and then I just ended up begging you to come, but I can—I mean, I can hear ‘no’, I promise.”

“...I promise I’ll tell you if you’re ever too much,” Billy said, sighing. “You don’t need to give me breaks.”

“...I kinda wear people out,” Steve told him, grimacing. “I just—I know they don’t…” he paused, trying his words together like puzzle pieces. “Um,” he said finally, “—people try to—to stay, uh, they just get kind of...bored. With me.”

Billy narrowed his eyes. “I literally can’t imagine that happening,” he said, and the unexpected deadpan sarcasm slid into Steve like a really sharp knife, when the cut doesn’t hurt right away, and then wells up red, and drips everywhere.

He swallowed, clenching his jaw, and wondering why Billy had come, if he was already sick of it.

“Hey, hey, I mean that, I’m not gonna get bored,” Billy hissed. “Jesus, you look like a kicked puppy.”

Steve laughed, relaxing a little, because it wasn’t like Billy had known him for all that long. There was probably a while, yet, as long as Steve wasn’t weird about it.

“Will you get up here,” Dalton called over. “Stop mooning over each other for five minutes, maybe?” When Steve stomped back onstage, Dalton raised his eyebrows. “Hey, tonight,” he said, “—there are other bands, you should come early, bring your…” he trailed off, raising his eyebrows.

“Billy,” Steve supplied, annoyed. “His name’s Billy, he’s the new bartender.”

“Is that what they’re calling it now,” Wesley said, with a drum flourish, and Steve hoped to god Billy couldn’t hear them.

“You should bring him. After you take him to dinner.”

Steve opened his mouth, closed it, and then sidled closer. “Where are the good places for dinner, I’ve been getting burgers or whatever,” he whispered, and his old bandmates redeemed themselves, drawing around him to consider the merits of several local restaurants, with ratings for food, atmosphere, and price point.

Part One | Two | Three

[cloudyfm]

hi everyone it’s me<3 i’m actually ahead of the game for once with intros so .... ur welcome ig idk. anyways i’ve put a shortish bio, personality, n some stats under the cut muah. also yeah that is a catboy gif i thought it was fitting and no i will not be taking criticism at this time.

BIOGRAPHY:

- thank you for joining my tedtalk to talk about the resident tyler posey of this rp<33 yes he is an actor, yes he is cringey. we all have our flaws.

- he was born in los angeles to 2 legacy parents - they had money, influence, and basically could get anything they wanted within the city. they both were also already involved in the film/media industry but were never super in the spotlight - his mom was a young actress but stopped when elijah was born, his dad was a director and continued his career afterwards...sooo yah his family is known n talked about

- his parents also were like . not good people to put it plainly. they were great to him and caring but it was not a happy marriage and led to multiple affairs, money struggles between the two of them (not with him, it was more so that if his family wanted to get a divorce, etc etc) - he still doesn’t know any of this<333

- basically when he was around 7 years old, they kind of picked a career path for him and it was mostly to get him disconnected from the family if any of the behind the doors problems came out. they used their connections to basically ensure that he was able to start a career in film and television at a young age so he would be set and it’s not like he minded. he grew up around this stuff it’s kind of all he knew

- he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle after his parents set him up, thought it would be easier if he was entirely disconnected from the family and its name so they kind of just .... disappeared. they knew that if the affairs and money struggles and basically all the problems they had made it public it would make it impossible for him to disappear and focus on himself so they did it for him. he still doesn’t know why his parents sent him off so his aunt n uncle (both of which he is very close w and loves dearly<3) kind of just made up a lie saying his parents had an accident and because he was so young he never questioned or asked for details. like he thought this entire staying w them stuff would be temporary but nope !

- literally i am saying his parents risked their own careers and lives for him like i am telling u his family were not bad people he just does not know that they literally did this to him to avoid their own problems getting out into the public (aka blackmail 1)

- but yeah from there ... his career just kind of took off from the connections in the industry he was given. like no offense n i hate aye for saying this but yeah he probably started on barney KFNLKSNLKSDNKSDF u know like most kid actors do<33 and then as he got older like. im sorry he cannot play serious roles but he probably did films that were coming of age type stories that were geared towards teenagers and young adults (think love simon, booksmart, that gist). we are also assuming in this universe that ppl actually are the same age as the characters they play ... yeah .

- when he was 18 he was really stupid (blackmail 2) and slept with a casting director for a role because he knew that someone else would have gotten the job if he didn’t. it was reckless and stupid and it actually got him in trouble but only with his family. his aunt n uncle found out and basically told him that if he didn’t go to school n fix his shit then he would have to stop working completely. he didn’t have much of a choice in where to go to college considering his parents were legacies so he just did as he was told

- he literally doesn’t wanna be there like he is the embodiment of ‘ i will now be causing a problem ‘

- but yeah ............. that’s all i got for now may remember more later KLNDFLKSNLKDSF

PERSONALITY:

- i mean he has a sag sun/aries moon which u can read about here that should frankly say enough

- but has the extreme problem of not thinking about the consequences of his actions - literally lives day by day rather than thinking about the future or the past which can really cause problems with his relationships

- a glass half full type of guy<3 

- he generally has a huge problem with not taking things seriously - like if a problem comes up he will take it as nothing or just assume it’s not as big as it is just because he literally doesn’t see the point in stressing about it

- he is literally a himbo

- like he may not be stupid academically but he just doesn’t care for school and only ended up going because he was forced to by his aunt and uncle. he IS however stupid in every other aspect of his life KLNDFKSNSDFKL whether it be friendships, relationships, whatever he has a severe commitment problem and will basically just stick with what he feels like is a good time in that moment

- however when he is loyal, he is LOYAL. if a friendship or bond becomes deep enough he will be in it for the long haul and considering his personality it’s not super hard for someone to reach that level - he’s not overly trusting but he just doesn’t read into people as much as he should

- will make a joke about everything so i am sorry in advance for that<3 he just loves to have fun he can’t help who he is<3333333

- he isn’t a huge partier ... i mean he will if there is one but it’s not like he’s prone to scandal after scandal he kind of just does what he wants and if he gets caught well then that is a problem huh

- more tbd but that’s it for now ig .....

STATISTICS:

- full name: elijah cho.

- nicknames: i mean eli is fine ... he literally doesn’t care.

- age: 22.

- date of birth: december 10, 1997.

- birthplace: los angeles, california, united states.

- current location: new haven, connecticut, united states.

- astrological sign: sagittarius sun/aries moon. 

- gender: cis male.

- pronouns: he/him/his

height: 5′11″.

- sexuality: bisexual.

- religion: agnostic, raised catholic.

- piercings: helix on his left ear, he had a nose ring for a couple of months when he was 19 but it fell out while he was sleeping and closed up :\

- tattoos: literally has the dumbest tattoos like i don’t even have the energy to find pictures. like random things he got when bored. probably has a smiley face on his finger - stuff like that.

- haircolor: peachy blonde like this.

- misc: has a calico cat named chewie (she’s 3) - loves her with his entire life so ellie if u see this she may come to meetings<3

[odannygirl7]

Carnival of Aros - July 2020

I've been meaning to type about this for a while, but then this month's carnival of aros is about music, so I figured... well, two birds one stone I suppose lol.

Musicals are sort of like music right? I mean, I don’t think this is too far from the idea, even if it was meant to be about, like, individual songs.

This is about a whole musical where I just immediately felt that it was a missed aromantic opportunity.

Company.

Company is a musical by Sondheim from the 70s that seems to be brought back every decade or so. It’s about a guy, Bobby, on the night of his 35th birthday. He’s a bachelor, the only one among a bevy of married friends - all of whom wonder why he can’t keep a girl and hasn’t gotten married yet. The show moves through snippets of Bobby’s experiences with his friends… they’re all basically trapped between the horribleness of being married and the horribleness of, well, not. They love Bobby for his freedom, for the advice he gives, for the fun he brings into their life, for watching their kids, for always being there without being a detriment to their coupleness.

But the entire play is them badgering him about why he isn’t getting married.

There’s also three of Bobby’s girlfriends who wonder the same thing, what’s wrong with him, why can’t he commit.

One could also view it as Bobby internalizing everything his friends and lovers have said in the past and having a freak out about it. The whole show is kinda… disjointed in that, while it takes place all on one night, the majority of scenes are from the past or possibly not real.

The show is set up, for most people, to be a commentary about, idk, like growing up or realizing that you can’t be alone or you gotta be open and vulnerable, but like you need to share your life with someone and that someone… uhh, can’t be your friends cause they all have their significant others and that’s the way things are (*hard side eye* lmao). And that’s a real shame, because the show is this wonderfully accidental portrait of a closeted aromantic struggling not only with the pressure of the conventional relationship narrative, but with friends who buy into that. Bobby doesn’t know what he is, or can’t accept it, or can’t admit it, and he’s struggling to force himself to feel the things that come so naturally to everyone he knows.  He wants love, to be loved, but what’s in him, what he’s capable of, isn’t what everyone else has. I mean, look, he’s 35 and has never been in love, doesn’t understand love… *looks into the camera like I’m on The Office* come on.

I’m not going to go through the whole show, just hit on some highlights that scream aromantic to me, cause not all the songs are about Bobby’s relationships. Some are about the other character’s relationships. There’s 18 songs in this musical, lots of material.

Here’s a link to the whole thing … this is the 2006 version with Raul Esparza, who is fantastic.

We’ll start in Act 1 and go from there. About halfway through we get Bobby’s three girlfriends singing “You Could Drive a Person Crazy". This is an upbeat, vicious song about how they feel betrayed that he never takes things to the next level. They can understand if he was gay, or bad in bed, or actually dead… but Bobby is none of those things, instead he’s a crazy, troubled, person who has something wrong with him. He’s a zombie with a loose connection.

I don’t think I’m the only aro who’s been called similar.

Later Bobby sings about someone (“Someone is Waiting”)… an amalgamation of all his lady friends… pleading for this person to wait, because he’s ready. He wants to find them, if he’s not out of luck and too late. He already has what he’s looking for, theoretically… if only an alternative relationship structure existed. As is, he has to try and find someone new. Conform to the idea of the superiority and inevitability of the exclusive pair bonded romantic-sexual relationship.

When one of his friends is freaking out about getting married, close to calling off the wedding, he proposes to her. Because it makes sense. She doesn’t want to be married, he doesn’t want to be married, they can both be married and have their freedom, everyone will leave them alone.

“You have to want to marry somebody, not just some body,” says Bobby’s friend, deciding that she really does want to marry her fiance.

This leads to Bobby singing “Marry Me A Little”, imagining a marriage as being soft and respectful, no big fights, no big promises… and that he’s ready for that. Things like mutual respect and care. “We won’t have to give up a thing, we’ll stay who we are,” he sings. “I’m ready now.”

There comes a point as an aro (tho this applies to aces and people of any orientation who don’t really want a relationship as well), or for, I think, a lot, or a good number, of aros when you start looking at a future that doesn’t have the spouse and the kids and pets and picket fence. When you start to come to grips that you might be looking at an empty road instead. And it’s not necessarily that you don’t want that, or that you really want something else, but there’s a kinda scary point where you realize that it might just be you, alone. That no matter what friends you have or partners or whatever… that they’re eventually going to want to “get serious” and “have their own lives”, lives that don't include you as a main component. And “somebody”, anybody, that will make it so you’re not alone starts sounding pretty good. You’re almost desperate for it. If you could just find that right person, the one that would make it make sense to have the spouse and kids and pets and picket fence… you could do that. You could. It’d be so easy. And then you’d have someone and isn’t that what everyone wants?

Anyway… Act 2.

All the married couples sing about how much they love having Bobby around in "Side by Side by Side". But then also rag on him about how worried they are for him being alone and try to set him up ("Poor Baby" and "Have I Got A Girl for You"), which is par for the course I think for an aro.

There’s also “Barcelona”, where Bobby makes a vague, surface, “going through the motions” plea to one of his girlfriends that she should stay after they’ve slept together. He doesn’t try very hard and when she decides to stay, well he sings “oh god”. ‘Nuff said.

All of that is, you know, it builds, but the real highlight in Act 2 is “Being Alive”, which is where Bobby finally learns that he really does need someone.

Or, you know, when he’s been beaten down by life and his friends and partners so badly and so thoroughly that he decides that he’s not even alive if he’s alone. That he needs another person to make him alive. “Alone is alone, not alive.” Tragic.

He starts off with things like being held too close and hurt too deep, to which his friends comment about how he can’t possibly think that that’s all there is, telling him he has no reason to be alone, encouraging him to keep going cause he’s “on to something”.

Bobby’s seen the terrible bits of their marriages and, to his friends, also the good bits. But if you read Bobby as aromantic then he has no context for the “good bits”. He’s watched them dig at one another with secret info, argue, pester, have the other person say they hate it… and then it’s just fine, because of ~feelings~??? Incomprehensible magic. There’s a trick in there somewhere and Bobby can’t see it.

But Bobby’s trying. Forcing himself. If he just really thinks about everything they’ve told him...

“Hey, buddy, don't be afraid it won't be perfect. The only thing to be afraid of really is that it won't be,” says one friend. Yikes. “It's much better living it than looking at it, Robert,” says another. And I suppose if you do have feelings for someone, it’s not that bad.

Bobby finally… it’s sad, really… like I know it’s supposed to be a song of him figuring everything out, but it feels like a descent. He’s given in. He believes there’s literally nothing for him, he’s not living, unless he has another person. “make me aware of being alive” “make me alive”

Horrific.

I’m not entirely sure how, like if this show were to be reworked with Bobby as aromantic (and god knows it gets revived enough, it could happen if anyone knew what aromanticity was) how that would be communicated. Unless, like, you had Bobby admitting that he is aro from the start, but you’d have to assume that the audience would know what that was and actually, you know, not agree with all the other characters.

The latest revival in 2018 did a gender swap with Bobby, which is something. Now, I had thought it was just Bobby as the swap, but they swapped all her girlfriends into boyfriends and then made one of the married couples gay. Apparently, according to reviews, the whole thing was a revelation and really freshened up because, you know, it’s super hip and modern to do a “ticking bio clock” story line with a woman nowadays. (there's also the soundtrack to the gender swap on youtube, it's got Pattie LuPone in it!)

Personally, I would have just swapped Bobby… I’m not sure how well an aro reading there would play, not because there aren’t aro lesbians, but I feel like there are a lot of layers to a lesbian not wanting to u-haul and then getting harangued for it by her presumably hetero friends steeped in hetero society, just aside from any aromanticity.

But the whole thing takes on a very tragic tone when reading Bobby as aro, I think. I suppose what’s even more tragic is that Sondheim probably has no idea that he possibly wrote an aromantic character. He thinks he wrote a show about fixing someone who was broken. Just like the show Bones fixed Bones from being broken and how HIMYM fixed Robin and (tried to fix) Barney. I need to find a better way to end this, probably, we’ll see…

I wrote this three weeks ago on pillowfort and did not find a better ending lmao.

[rabonghee]

was tagged by @lavenderbyun​ to do Ten Shipping Questions (she actually made a tag game??? call the cops this isn’t anisah)

Ultimate otp: from kdrama probably my tragic lovers wang yeo and sunny :(((((

from other things mmmhmmmm??? OH BISH STILES AND LYDIA HOW TF DID I FORGE THEM!! (i know why its because i didn’t watch the last season i hate myself)

Ship you’ll always love: lol barney and robin from himym and i’M STILL SUPER PISSED ABOUT THAT ENDING OKAY I WILL NEVER!!! GET OVER IT

Current obsession: mm nothing really since im not watching anything lol, but ugh the brothers in i love yoo have me weak i dont know whom to ship her with anymore :(

Ship you never thought you’d like: lol probs ron and hermione cos I never thought i would ever like harry potter but then I watched the movies like five years ago and love at first sight :’( (okay maybe not at first sight probs at like the fifth movie i don’t remember them anymore lol)

Ship you liked but don’t anymore: what about “ship that your friend put down your throat until you ended up kinda liking it but then realized what the actual heck am I shipping” because khal drogo and daenerys then

Ship that should be canon: soo ji and se joo :( (i mean they did had a last scene where they met in japan but also??? give me more content u assholes)

Canon ship you hate: uhh now that ithink about it i don’t have any canon ship I hate?? probably that cheap ass guy and the secretary from whats wrong with secretary kim because like, girl u deserve something better..

Pair I’ve been shipping for years: i guess jake and amy since I started watching b99 like two/three years ago lol

Ship everyone loves but you don’t: idk tbh?? probs the one from school 2017 but it’s not that I don’t like the ship?? is that I don’t like the drama as a whole lol :(

Fav rare pair: @championamjoon​ and namjoon <3 (i’m gonna be the one that holds the bat at their wedding)

[cleocazo]

Alt alt alt 😘😘

im abt to throw it right back w this one cause ,, even tho she was rly badly written w a rly bad concept, CHARLOTTE WINTERS my TWENTY TWO year old WEREWOLF is forever in my heart. charlie was sixteen yrs old when i created her in 2012 for a buffy the vampire forum rp - considerably younger than all the other characters there, which reflected my situation too. everyone in this rp, aside from one other guy, was like.. 25+. most were in their thirties. i was thirteen turning fourteen and they all KNEW this, but … none of them had any issue ? in fact they all rly took me under their wing and taught me the rp ropes so to speak, so charlie mightn’t be great, but she comes with some pretty neat memories. i don’t remember a lot of her backstory, tbh. i know her home life was rly bad, to the point where like… her dad. who was someone high up in the reopened initiative ( villains in the buffy universe who experiment on monsters ), performed a lot of experiments on her after she was bitten, which resulted in charlie not only turning on full moons but also likely to turn whenever, if her heart rate rose. she was kinda supposed to be a villain when i brought her in, fitting in to a need the rp had for “double agents” who were working for the villains but reporting on the heroes - but plot twist, that wasn’t what actually happened. the first part of the plan went off without a hitch: this little runaway wolf pulled the heartstrings of this older wolf, danna, who’d also had a rough childhood and run away, and she took her back to her house w her boyfriend michael and insisted on becoming her guardian. but then the og plan went to shit cause charlie grew to rly love danna, and when michael dropped the suspicion and got close to her, he became like.. big brother and father figure all wrapped into one for her. they introduced her to the rest of their pack - oz, cole & their young ward, chester ( charlie’s future love, bc they were the same age in similar situations and also, michael hated him, so it was a great dynamic ) - and everyone decided to accept charlie in. she was supposed to like. kill them, ig. and instead she deflected bc they gave her all the things she’d never had before ( love, a family, all the gooey stuff ). she softened up and started going to school w chester in like. ‘15. and she even saved his life after an attack and opened up and told everyone the truth abt her, and why she’d originally come - and everyone forgave her bc she’d never hurt them or tried to and it was just. super cute. i miss her everyday. 

SEND ME “ALT!” TO BE INTRODUCED TO AN OLD CHARACTER / ONE I WANT TO PLAY / ONE I’M PLAYING  !!

here u go, hannah, another free promo for sidekickhq - right now i am playing a phoebe tonkin fc named MONICA “NIKKI” BARTON, and she is the actual love of my life. nikki is the TWENTY THREE ( almost twenty four. its coming soon ) year old daughter of BARNEY BARTON, otherwise known as hawkeye’s trash brother who’s mostly a villain, sometimes just stupid - and outta every oc i’ve made in the last few yrs, i think she’s gotta be my fave. she’s totally human ( no special powers here ), and she’s had the worst life, so allow me to try n unpack it all: her dad’s an alcoholic and her mom was addicted to drugs, and after 3 yrs together they split up, her mom dragging her across state and away from permanent mess, barney. he didn’t have contact w her up until she was seven, coming back into her life w a court order and proceeding to try and make awkward conversation during every scheduled meet up. at eleven her mom fell of the wagon and overdosed - nikki came home, couldn’t unlock her bedroom door, and called her dad. she waited on the porch steps while he broke down the door and found her mom dead. the cops took her away and stuck her in the foster system, and for another three yrs her dad tried rly hard to get legal custody of her. that failed, so he just. kidnapped her. from the playground. great parenting, barney! they traveled for a lil while but eventually settled back in the rly rundown house that nikki had spent her first 3 yrs, and life was a whole ass mess from that point onwards. her dad kept drinking, she kept having to bail him out, she eventually dropped out of high school so she could make money to actually, y’know, survive, this led her into being a drug mule, and from there, can u believe, it actually gets worse. her boss was p paranoid, used to hit her if he thought she’d skimmed some product to feed what had now become a personal addiction, too, and her dad was still p nonexistent. she completed her GED and did some online courses but she was pretty stuck, ‘til she ended up in JAIL - this is another long story, but her boss got it in his head she’d stolen money that he had actually just not gotten, and drove to her house w all intent of killing her. in the resulting fight she hit him over the head w an iron doorstop and realizing he was dead, called the cops and waited for them on the porch ( some nice lil mirror imagery, there ). she’d only completed like. four yrs of her sentence, when her uncle clint finally got wind of what had happened and cut her a deal with shield - if she gave them info on her dad, who was still at large, then they’d let her go free ( tho free meant going to a monitored academy and not stepping outta line ). she agreed, the rest is history, i stan nikki barton so much. she’s SUCH a typical phoebe tonkin character i own that so u don’t have to drag me, but she’s rly also so good - and my fave thing is that her arc isn’t about her finding that goodness, or anything. she already knows who she is. her arc’s all abt slotting back in with family, and trying to find her footing in a world she feels she got cut off from, and tryna work out what she can do when up til now, she didn’t have any chances. she finally has a shot at some sort of good life - and i’m rly loving writing that. 

and now, a character i have created but am yet to play - BEATRICE ANNE HALLMAN, commonly known as BIBA, is a TWENTY THREE yr old human who’s just rly out here. living her life. biba suffered from a ventricular septal defect at birth, and though she survived the surgery she went through to fix that, has had some health issues for most of her life because of it. this could have led to her being someone afraid of . u know. pretty much everything. but it didn’t! she has dreams and she wants to achieve them, but she’s stuck for the time being cause. even tho she was a fighter, who survived a literal hole in her heart - she got kinda used to things getting handed to her cause of that ( #spoiled ), and she expected to get into the college of her dreams without putting forward much effort. she didn’t, so now she’s gone into windows shut down mode which is... give up and don’t do anything bc one thing didn’t go right and that means that she’s a failure who will never amount to anything. that’s not true, obviously, but she’s fairly content to believe it, and has spent the last couple years working as a bartender and taking part in productions put on in her local theater, which isn’t hollywood, but.. it’ll do! nothing is enough for biba and my fave thing about her is that even if she’s stuck right now it’s not gonna last forever and she will go to college and achieve something, she just needs to get her head outta her ass first and realize that even if she can’t do what she wants, it doesn’t mean she won’t get to where she wants to be, eventually. i stan!

[supernovaautism]

I was so worried about having the perfect father-son relationship that I almost missed the incredible gift in front of me.

It is written by Ron Fournier from the book Love That Boy, as told by an autistic woman.

My wife, my children, and I stood in front of a white, seamless wall, our noses practically touching its surface. Suddenly, the wall opened—it was a hidden door to the Oval Office.

“Come on in, Fournier!” shouted George W. Bush. “Who ya’ dragging in?”

It was my last day covering the White House for the Associated Press, and this 2003 visit was a courtesy traditionally afforded to departing correspondents. I introduced my wife, Lori, and daughters, Holly and Abby, before turning to my son, Tyler, five. “Where’s Barney?” Tyler asked.

The Scottish terrier ran in, and Bush said, “Let’s do a photo!”

As the most powerful man on earth posed, my son launched into a one-sided conversation. “Scottish terriers are called Scotties; they originated from Scotland; they can be traced back to a female named Splinter II; President Roosevelt had one …”

I cringed. Tyler is loving and brilliant, but he is what polite company calls awkward. He doesn’t know when he’s being too loud or talking too much. He can’t read facial expressions to tell when somebody is sad, curious, or bored. I’ve watched adults respond to Tyler with annoyed looks or pity.

But Bush was enchanted. When my son paused, he changed the subject with a joke. “Look at your shoes,” the president told Tyler. “They’re ugly. Just like your dad’s.” Tyler laughed.

We were walking out when Bush grabbed me by the elbow. “Love that boy,” he said, holding my eyes. I thought I understood what he meant. It took me years to realize my mistake.

Missing the Connection

Fathers and sons don’t always know how to talk to one another, which is why we have sports. I never felt closer to my dad than when we played catch. The film Field of Dreams—and its idealized notion of fatherhood—makes me cry every time. I assumed that my son would be an athlete and we’d find common ground on a baseball diamond. But Tyler didn’t like athletics, and he was terrible when forced to try. I know, because I forced him to try for years.

Lori and I believed that Tyler needed the exercise. We also felt he needed to be part of a team. At school, he was struggling academically and socially. One playdate rarely led to a second. He had few hobbies or interests and was fixated on those he had: telling jokes; visiting bookstores; playing video games; building Lego models; and watching TV shows about animals, U.S. history, and the presidency.

After a dozen years of butting heads about athletics, Tyler and I came to an agreement. He could give up sports if he exercised three days a week and joined an extracurricular club. “You got a deal,” he said. Then he grew quiet. I asked what was wrong. “I was afraid you wouldn’t like me as much if I stopped playing sports.”

When Tyler was 12, Lori was watching the TV show Parenthood one night, and she recognized our son in the character of Max Braverman. Max was sweet and smart. He was also rude, obsessed with insects, and prone to meltdowns. His parents ricocheted among exasperation, guilt, and fear. Max had Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism.

“Tyler might be autistic,” she told me. “Watch the show.” I did. Suddenly, it seemed clear what was wrong with our boy. 

Lori found Mittie Quinn, a psychologist, who gave Tyler a battery of tests. Seven years after the Oval Office visit, my wife and I walked into Quinn’s office to hear the results. “Your boy is fascinating for somebody like me,” Quinn said. “He’s got all kinds of stuff going on. But he’s just a charming, charming kid.” She said that Tyler had a pretty classic case of Asperger’s.

Labeled little professors by the pediatrician who first identified the syndrome, Aspies can be taught social skills. Especially suited for instruction, Quinn said, are boys like Tyler who are on the high-functioning end of the autism and Asperger’s scale.

Then she dropped the bomb: “He scored himself as [above] average on depression,” Quinn said. Tyler would eventually lead a happy and successful life, but for now, she told us, “he’s sad. Nobody understands him. Kids make fun of him, and he’s left out.” Thankfully, he had a sense of humor to prop him up. She added, “Do you know what Tyler said when I told him he needed to show more empathy? He gave me a confident smile and said, ‘I know. I’m working on that.’ ”

It was time for me and Lori to do some work. If Tyler felt alienated, it was because we had failed to acknowledge—and accept—his differences. I was so focused on the conceit that my son would be like Kevin Costner’s character in Field of Dreams that I failed to see the son I had.

Father-Son “Guilt Trips”

Lori, the true hero of this story, sprang into action. First, she got our son transferred to a school with a program for high-intellect and mainstreamed Aspies—a move that Tyler now says was “life changing.” Then, she persuaded me to drop my objection to his taking stronger medications to help counteract his severe attention-deficit disorder.

But the hardest thing was figuring out how to integrate Tyler into society. Lori enrolled him in a therapy group with other socially awkward boys. More than that, though, he needed something social he could lose himself in. So Lori sent us on the road together. “He would feel valued if you did this with him,” she said, inadvertently unearthing a wellspring of guilt. If I had been around more, would we have diagnosed Tyler’s condition sooner?

Lori had a redemption plan. “You can use a job that took you away from Tyler to help him,” she said, suggesting we visit sites connected to presidents because Tyler loves history and I spent my career on the White House beat.

I called them guilt trips. We traveled to the homes and/or libraries of Presidents Washington, Theodore Roosevelt (Tyler’s favorite), John and John Quincy Adams, Kennedy, Ford, Clinton, and Bush. At Lori’s urging, I also arranged meetings with two presidents I had covered, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (which would be Tyler’s second encounter with Bush).

The project gave Tyler and me weeks alone together that might have otherwise been devoted to my work and his video games. Tyler got to road test his lessons from social-skills classes and therapy, discovering how to communicate and connect.

“There is a 90 percent chance that George Washington stood on that rock while he surveyed for the C&O Canal,” a park ranger in Great Falls, Virginia, said. “Well,” Tyler replied, “there’s a 10 percent chance he was never even here.” The ranger laughed and said, “That’s the first time somebody has called me on that, son.” He and Tyler spent the next ten minutes swapping obscure anecdotes about the nation’s first president.

I came to see Tyler through the eyes of others—a skill he, too, was trying to master—and felt proud. In Quincy, Massachusetts, Tyler dominated the guide’s time during a tour of the Adams homesteads. For every story the ranger told, Tyler had a question or an anecdote. I silenced him until an elderly woman noticed. “What happened to that nice young fellow with all the smart questions?” she asked, turning to me. “You didn’t tell him to shush, did you?”

Finally, I learned to admire Tyler’s quiet grit. A therapist had called him courageous, which I hadn’t understood. How could a boy afraid of bees, needles, and dark rooms be brave? But the boy who faces his fears—to introduce himself to new people every day, for instance—might be the bravest person I know.

A Visit with Bill Clinton

On our second-to-last trip, Tyler and I went to Little Rock, Arkansas, in March 2012 to meet Bill Clinton. The former president opened the door to his suite atop his official library. Walking over to the windows, Clinton and I pointed to buildings: the capitol dome, beneath which we both had worked; the shuttered remains of the newspaper where I was a statehouse reporter; the headquarters of one of his first political benefactors.

Tyler pointed to a picture, jolting us out of our reverie. “It’s hard to find a picture of two polar bears fighting.”

“You like that?” Clinton asked. “You interested in polar bears?”

“Yes,” Tyler replied, repeating at high speed: “It’shardtofindapictureoftwopolarbearsfighting.”

“Take it.” Clinton pulled the picture off the shelf; it was actually the cover of a book called Polar Dance: Born of the North Wind.

“No, sir,” Tyler said, “I couldn’t possibly accept this.”

He must have sounded overly formal, but I was relieved to watch Tyler’s training take hold. At home, he had begun to greet me and Lori by saying stiffly, in his unusually deep voice, “And how was your day?”

Clinton pooh-poohed Tyler’s objections and led us to a table with three overstuffed chairs. Tyler sat rigid at first, but after 45 minutes, his hands were folded calmly in his lap and his knees were crossed—mirroring Clinton’s posture—as he and the former president excitedly shared their passion for Theodore Roosevelt.

“He had asthma and all that when he was a kid, but when he grew up, he became famous for being really tough,” Tyler said. “I actually heard once that a guy insulted him, so he punched him.”

“Have you guys been out to Sagamore Hill yet, Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“Did you love it?”

“It was awesome,” Tyler said. “All those trophies everywhere.”

“Neat. I’m a hu-u-ge Theodore Roosevelt fan,” Clinton said, stretching out his vowel.

He pulled out a 1919 edition of Roosevelt’s letters to Roosevelt’s children, signed it, and gave it to Tyler. “I read in the notes my staff gave me that you were a big Roosevelt fan, and the moment in history when he was president … was the moment in history that most closely approximates the period I served …” And off he went. If you’ve spent time around Clinton, you’ve heard this: Roosevelt was the bridge to the 20th century, just as Clinton’s presidency was the bridge to the 21st.

Clinton’s monologue lasted ten minutes, and Clinton didn’t notice that Tyler was bored. Suddenly, I thought: If even Clinton could miss social cues, why worry so much about my son?

“Nice guy,” Tyler said later. “He talked a lot about himself and his stuff.”

“Like you, son?”

“Yep.”

A Visit with George W. Bush

For our last trip, Tyler and I went to George W. Bush’s Dallas office. The ex-president had his feet propped on a desk and a coffee cup marked “POTUS” in his hands.

“Do you like school?” Bush asked.

“Pretty good,” Tyler replied.

“Favorite subject?”

“American studies.”

“Do you like to read?”

“Yeah. I read all the time. I don’t have a favorite topic.”

“Fiction? Nonfiction? Sports?”

“I don’t know much about sports.”

“Mysteries?”

“I really don’t like mysteries.”

“Most 14-year-olds don’t like to read,” Bush said, stretching for a compliment.

Worried that the conversation was going nowhere, I reminded Tyler to say what Clinton had told us.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Bill Clinton sends his best.”

Bush smiled. “We’ve been friends,” he said. “We’ve shared experiences. We’re like brothers.”

I nervously changed the subject to sports. Bush engaged with me but turned back to Tyler.

“So, Tyler, at 14 this is probably an unfair question to ask, but do you have any idea what you’d like to be when you get older?”

“Maybe a comedian.”

“Maybe a what?” Bush said, a bit surprised.

“A comedian.”

“Well,” Bush replied, “I’m a pretty objective audience. You might want to try a couple of your lines out on me.”

“Nah,” Tyler demurred. “I don’t have any material.”

“Ah, interesting,” Bush said. “I’ve met a lot of people. You know how many people ever said, ‘I think I’d like to make people laugh’? You’re the only guy. That’s awesome.”

Bush had connected. With an impish smile, he told Tyler about the time that rocker and humanitarian Bono was scheduled to visit the White House. Bush’s aides worried about their boss. Bush told us, “[Chief of Staff] Josh Bolten said, ‘Now, you know who Bono is, don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, he’s married to Cher.’ ”

“Get it?” Bush asked Tyler. “Bone-oh. Bahn-oh.”

Afterward, I asked Tyler about the Bono joke. He replied, “Sounds like something goofy you would say.”

For me, the exchange was an eye-opener. Rather than being thrown by Tyler’s idiosyncrasies, Bush rolled with them. He responded to every clipped answer with another question. Bush, a man who famously doesn’t suffer fools or breaches of propriety, gave my son the benefit of the doubt. I realized that people were more perceptive of and less judgmental toward Tyler than I was.

Tyler Teaches Me

Thanks to the team—doctors, therapists, teachers—that Lori put together, our son is learning to connect and belong, and we know he will be a happy, thriving adult. Rather than sweat over his Asperger’s, I see how much I’d miss if he wasn’t an Aspie—his humor, his bluntness, his unaffected obsessions with everything from video games to family.

In the spring of 2014, my father died. Mom decided to rent a boat and scatter Dad’s ashes in the Detroit River. After my mother, my siblings, and our families had boarded the boat, we filled the 30-minute ride with awkward conversation. How’s the job? How about those Tigers?

My sister, Raquel, lost her composure, dashing below to find a bathroom. She almost ran into Tyler at the bottom of the stairs. He recognized her distress and said, “I don’t know what to say to make you feel better, but I can give you a hug.”

That was exactly what she needed. “He hugged me so tight. And kept hugging me,” Raquel told me later. “It meant the world to me.”

At the appointed spot, the boat stopped. Raquel poured Dad’s ashes over the side, while Mom stood alone behind her. My brothers made eye contact with me. What should we do?

Rather than step forward to comfort Mom, I stepped back. It was not my finest hour. But Tyler exceeded my expectations, walking over to hold his grandmother tightly. He whispered to her, “Everyone thinks I’m comforting you, but really I need comforting.”

Finally, I know what perfect is. It’s a child blessed with the grace to show goodness, even on the worst of days. No, Tyler is not my idealized son. He is my ideal one.

Originally appeared in National Journal (November 29, 2013), Copyright © 2013 by National Journal Group, Inc. reprinted with permission by The Atlantic Monthly Group, theatlantic.com, and adapted from Love That Boy by Ron Fournier, Copyright © 2016 by Ron Fournier, Published by Harmony Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.