#every once in a while theater kid me really rears their head

[missingspaceships]

also i lied about not thinking about anything else bc i saw sweeney todd in nyc a few days ago (that's not me doxing myself lol it was like a two day trip and i'm home now) and i did not expect to get brainrot from it but i really really have.

the whole thing's fan fucking tastic but also toby??? he's curly haired he's pathetic he ends the show covered in blood what more could you want from a character he's so gender

[jinmukangwrites]

Whumptober 2020 Day 8

Abandoned | Isolation

Ao3

Warnings: Depression, Panic Attacks, Claustrophobia, blink and you'll miss it Suicidal Thoughts.

Dedicated to @ckbookish! Hope you don't mind me tagging you 👉👈

-o-o-o-o-

"That's great, Dami! I'm happy for you."

Dick held the phone between his ear and shoulder, listening to Damian ramble on about an advanced theater class he got into because the teacher felt the current intermediate class he was in was wasting his potential. He carefully scrubbed the sides of the bowl he had just finished eating about five servings of pudding out of and set it off to the side. He wiped his hands then leaned against the counter, smiling. 

"Thank you, Richard," Damian said. His voice was just as stiff and careful as it always was, but Dick could hear the excitement and gratitude sprinkled in there. The kid was opening up. Expressing himself more and more every day in ways the place he came from had never allowed him to. Dick couldn't remember the last time Damian genuinely threatened anyone with violence, let alone threatened Tim. In fact, last he heard, Tim and Damian were going to go to the Gotham Zoo together next weekend. There was no real reason for them to. It was just to attempt at hanging out and Dick couldn't be more proud. 

"When will you be switching to the new class?" Dick asked. While he did, he began to migrate from the kitchen counter towards his bedroom door, careful to not trip on anything that was laying on the floor. Not for the first time this day, week, month, or year, Dick made a mental note to finally deep clean the place. "Like, is this a tomorrow thing or…?"

"At the end of the term, actually," Damian answered, his voice dropping ever so slightly. Dick hummed in sympathy. He sounded very excited about it, it must be agonizing for him to find out he needed to wait another few months for the first term to come to a close. 

"Well, I'm sure you'll have fun being the best in your current class until then," Dick joked, finally reaching the door to his bedroom and placing his hand on the door handle. Damian scoffed over the phone.

"I am not the best, unfortunately." Damian didn't sound that torn up about it, which was good. Admitting someone was better than you was good character growth. It proved that Damian was letting himself start from the bottom of something instead of immediately being at the top. "There is another girl, her name is Abigail. She has been taking classes since she was a toddler because her mother runs a local theater group."

"So she's as good at theater and you are with a sword," Dick confirmed and Damian hummed. 

Dick opened his door, mentally planning out the least tedious way to get undressed, in bed, and asleep as quickly as possible. First he needed to end the phone call, as much as he didn't want to. He started a new job tomorrow, so he needed to be rested. There was a swimming pool downtown that was looking for an assistant coach for the children's gymnastics classes they held there. Dick took up the job the moment he saw it. Or well, the moment he was no longer swinging past it as Nightwing and was back in civilian clothes. There was a good chance that he could work his way up to being a head instructor with his own classes, considering the woman who hired him didn't really seem the type to enjoy children very much. Dick gave it two months tops before she began to just not show up, making it so he was promoted. 

"I suppose so," Damian said, "she won't be moving up with me however. She has… friends in the lower class that she doesn't want to-"

Dick missed out on the rest, because the moment he stepped into his bedroom and closed the door behind him, his feet were knocked out from under him and his phone flung from his hand. Decades of experience made it so he was immediately able to go from zero to a hundred, allowing him to scramble up from the floor and throw a punch at the closest shadow like clockwork.

His fists met air. With wide eyes, he spun around his room, heart in his throat as he tried to figure out what had shoved him to the floor. 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. All he could see was his messy room, his unmade bed, his open closet, and his closed window.

Suddenly, Dick heard a noise sound across his room from where he threw his phone. Dick rushed across his room and searched for his phone like he had been jolted by a bolt of electricity. He hated how confused and worried Damian's muffled demands sounded. 

"Richard! What happened?!"

There! Dick bent down and reached out his hand to grab the phone-

And then his hand went through the phone. 

Dick stared down at his empty hand and the phone that sat unmoving on the ground, everything going deathly still as he tried to… process what happened. If it was actually real. 

Okay. His nerves were just shot. He tried again, this time a little more slower and careful. He watched with disbelieving eyes as his hand once again just… went through the phone. It just laid there, undisturbed, like Dick wasn't… even there. 

Damian's voice rose in volume and Dick kneeled down, noting now how he was fully grounded on the floor; his shirts and other various objects around him phased through him like holograms. Okay, okay so something was definitely wrong. "Damian?" Dick asked, but Damian didn't say anything, just continued to shout for Dick to answer. 

"Damian!" Dick yelled louder, but Damian didn't say anything that counted as a reply. 

"Richard, if you don't answer me, I will fetch father!"

"Bruce might be a good idea there, Dami," Dick breathed, falling back onto his rear end and watching how he simply went through everything. He brought his hand back to his phone and purposely stuck it through, his fingernail soundlessly tapped the hidden floor beneath. 

Curious, Dick knocked on the wood, and when no noise reached his ears he hit it harder. 

Nothing. He can't touch anything and apparently he couldn't be heard. 

And suddenly, Dick was filled with the crippling realization that he had… no idea what to do now. He just sat there, listening to Damian panic until he eventually hung up to fetch Bruce. Dick sat there, running his fingers through everything he couldn't touch around him until he knew the entire space around him by heart. Dick sat there, and it took him… awhile to work up the energy to stand up and figure this out. But when he did, he forced himself to not let the confusion, horror, and fear stop him. He walked around the room first, looking for something that must have made him like this. There were no sigils that he could see, and if one was hidden under the things he had left on the floor, he wouldn't know because no matter how hard he focused or how many times he tried, he couldn't get anything to move. He went to sit down on his bed to think this through, but then his hand went straight through the mattress and he barely caught himself in time to avoid landing on his rear.

Thoroughly freaked out now, he ran through his dresser, heart pounding to the upbeat rhythm of his phone as Bruce began to call him. Dick didn't pick up the phone, he knew he wouldn't be able to. 

He couldn't touch anything. He couldn't. Touch. Anything. His feet would hit the ground and have no volume. His hands would slap against the wall but nothing would sound. He tried not to panic, but when he went to go out his door, it didn't move. He tugged on the door handle. It didn’t budge. Not a single millimeter. 

And okay. Okay he was beginning to panic now. He sprinted to the window and slammed his elbows against it, but it was like the glass was replaced with a transparent sheet of solid steel. 

Was this some sort of hallucination? Had whatever knocked him down drugged him somehow? Did he hit his head?

He was hyperventilating—this he knew for sure but suddenly he didn't know how to stop it—and without thinking he ran back to his door, banging his silent fists against the wood and tugging on the frozen in place handle. 

Oh gods. This was really happening wasn't it? Somehow, he had found himself unable to move anything. Unable to go anywhere. Unable to- to-

His knees gave out, causing him to slide down against the door and press his forehead against the unmovable force before him. He couldn't- he couldn't breathe. Somewhere, at the back of his head, a voice told him that he could breathe. He could take breaths right now and calm down. He could count five things he could see, four things he could touch, three things he could hear, two things he could smell, and one thing he could taste. He could calm down and think rationally and explore his situation a bit more calmly. But the moment he opened his eyes after not realizing he had them closed in the first place and saw his leg phasing through his empty trash can he knew he couldn't go anywhere from there without having a full blown mental breakdown. 

So he closed his eyes, tried making noise on the door once again, and tried to keep his breakdown to a minimum. 

Just hyperventilating. Just fading. 

"Help!" He shouted before he could really consider what good that would do. He was at the top floor of his building and the neighbors across from him weren't home until early in the morning thanks to the graveyard shift. No one will hear him… even if he could be heard. 

His phone began to ring again and Dick stuck his fist into his mouth and bit down on his knuckles to keep from screaming. 

He sat there—trying and failing to breathe, trying and failing to not cry—and continued to sit there until eventually, he found himself leaning against the door with half lidded and tearful eyes, staring at how his body continued to not touch a single thing.

He let his eyes fall shut one final time and let the stress and anxiety and confusion whisk him away into a very troubled slumber.

-o-o-o-o-

When he woke up he was immediately made aware that his current situation was, in fact, not a nightmare. 

And so much worse than what he could even predict. 

He awoke to him falling backwards, a crick in his neck and spine suddenly becoming undone as the door he was leaning against suddenly opened, hitting his head with a disquietingly silent bonk on the floor of his living room. For a hopeful, blissful moment he thought whatever happened before he passed the fuck out was all fake and he had just imagined the entire thing, but then he opened his eyes and lifted his head…

Just to see a pair of legs sticking out from the middle of his  intangible chest.

His breath hitched, his eyes flicking up to see a worried Bruce literally standing inside of him. The threat of hyperventilating once again became a very real thing as Bruce stepped past him, into the room, and started calling his name. 

"Bruce!" Dick shouted, scrambling up from the floor and running back into the room that had previously been his impenetrable prison. He instinctively tried to grab his shoulder, but ended up flinching back violently when his hand simply went through Bruce. He couldn't feel Bruce at all. None of the course fibers of his winter coat brushed against his touch receptors. "Bruce! I'm here!" He tried again, but surprise surprise, it didn't work.

"Is he there?" A new voice said, and Dick just managed to turn around in time to watch Damian walk into the room with wrinkles between his brow and bags under his eyes, shining black against his olive skin. Dick jumped away from Damian's path as he approached their father and watched with a frown as Bruce bent down and picked up his discarded phone.

Then, Dick's phone suddenly began to ring, causing Bruce to scowl. Frightened, confused, and curious, Dick slowly approached to read his phone's screen. 

It was close to 6am. Bruce must have driven here as quickly as he could after Damian probably took a few hours to panic to himself and work up the courage to tell Bruce that he thought something was wrong. Though, Dick didn't ponder over why they were here so early for very long. The number calling belonged to his new boss.

He was supposed to be at work thirty minutes ago.

"Shit," Dick breathed, stepping back as Bruce clicked the answer button on the phone and held it to his ear.

Immediately, there was the sound of the lead coach’s nasally voice. Coach Shah. Short, lean, toned, full of freckles, and rocking curly red hair. The woman who was definitely a phenomenal gymnast, but probably shouldn't be allowed to work closely with kids with her grumpy attitude. She didn't sound entirely upset from the muffled tones on the other side of the speaker. Maybe she was saving the angry for later, letting the passive aggressiveness of her annoyance at him for being late to his first day of work steadily drip into her tone. 

Bruce finally opened his mouth. "I'm sorry, but I'm not Mr Grayson."

Dick winced at the sound of her confused squawk. Bruce proceeded to explain that he was Dick's father, and that he couldn't find Dick anywhere. Bruce's frown slowly began to deepen as Coach Shah began to probably explain that Dick was her newest assistant and that she hadn't seen him. Shockingly, the phone call didn't end with Dick being immediately fired. Just with Bruce clicking the screen off and looking down at Damian with barely contained worry. 

"You said he just shouted then stopped responding?" Bruce clarified.

Damian nodded, looking at the phone still in Bruce's hand like it had threatened him. 

"Okay," Bruce sighed, brushing his free hand over his jaw. "Okay. Let's look for signs of struggle."

And this was how you could immediately tell that the Wayne family was nowhere close to normal. Normal families would call the police. 

The batfamily searched on their own, then only called the police later to keep up the civilian facade. 

Dick stepped slowly back, then flinched forward when his shoulders met the walls solidly. The feeling of any walls touching him while his feet stood through the things on the floor almost made him want to bend over and vomit. But thinking about vomiting also made him stress about what would happen then and what the sick would touch or if it would make any noise at all. It was repulsive and horrible to think about, so he found a tiny place of clear flooring that wasn't near any walls and folded his arms across his chest.

He watched Bruce and Damian comb through his room, looking for any signs that his disappearance wasn't on his own power. Dick hoped they found something. A reason for why he was a ghost in his own room. 

A solid thirty minutes passed before Bruce deemed Dick's bedroom clean. Evidence wise. Not literally. Dick was pretty sure his room was in an even bigger mess than what it had been before. He jerked out of the way of Bruce as he walked ignorantly past Dick towards the living room. Damian followed along, dragging his feet. 

It was then Dick noticed Damian's hand wrap around the door’s handle. Pure terror shot through Dick's veins, which gave him just enough courage to quickly dart forward and purposely run through Damian into his living room before he was locked back in there again. He didn't know he was gasping and choking back horrified sobs until he felt the first tear tickle down his cheek and off his chin. 

And this all felt so real suddenly. Like not being able to touch Damian—one of the most important people in Dick's entire life—was what gave it the official stamp of reality.

Dick was a living, breathing, walking ghost. 

He couldn't touch anything. He couldn't be heard. He couldn't open doors or pick up phones or touch the shoulder of the man he had considered his father for longer than he had known his birth father. 

It was all he could do to stand and force himself to breath—but did he even need to keep doing that?—and let his tears silently fall. He watched Bruce and Damian sift through the rest of his apartment and finish empty handed. It was hours later when Bruce suggested going back to the cave and checking Dick's phone for any possible clues. So, after Bruce hid a few sensors around to warn them if Dick "came back", they went to the front door while Dick made sure to stick as close as he could without going through them. He wiped under his eyes as they approached Bruce's car, his heart stuttering when he realized he didn't even know if he could even sit in the car with them without phasing through the seats. He might have to walk back to Gotham. 

That would take… hours. 

And oh God, would he starve? Would he be slowly forced to thirst to death because he couldn't touch any of the substances he needed to live? 

Bruce opened the drivers door and Damian opened the passenger. Instead of thinking about the very real possibility that Dick probably had less than a few days left to live—if he was alive at all—Dick once again forced himself to go through Damian. 

Somehow, against all odds, Dick was able to touch the car. Except, when his knees went through Damian's lap to touch the cushioned chair and his hands shot through Bruce's shoulder to support himself jumping into the back of the car, the normally well padded leather was stony and unrecognizable to his touch. It didn't give under the pressure of his weight or grip. It didn't sink around his touch. It remained like cement. 

It felt like cement. 

Dick curled up in the back seat, his heart jumping madly when both the drivers and passenger doors closed. He suddenly felt like a trapped animal. He had no will here. He didn't even bother to try the door handle of the back seat, because he knew it wouldn't go anywhere. The doors wouldn't open for him. The walls wouldn't bend. He brought his knees up to his chest as Bruce drove onto the road and as Damian turned on the radio. 

And he… simply watched out the window and tried not to make too much noise that no one would hear anyway. 

-o-o-o-o-

Getting out of the car door was more adrenaline inducing than standing toe to toe with Killer Croc. It was a good thing Dick was so flexible and had decades of experience with flipping his way through life. Thanks to that, he managed to jump out of the car just in the nick of time.

Seeing the manor like this hit differently. He was barely aware of Bruce and Damian walking past him towards the front doors until he saw Alfred open those aforementioned doors. Dick had to sprint to get inside, and he tried his best to not flinch as the door shut behind him. He didn't succeed. 

Not that anybody saw. 

"Master Dick?" Alfred asked, and more a heart stopping moment Dick almost thought Alfred was talking to him. 

But then Bruce shook his head and began to shed his jacket. 

"No sign of him. His apartment was locked and there was no sign of forced entry."

Alfred frowned and Damian shoved past them all, his body moving with less confidence than it normally did. Dick watched him go, desperately wanting nothing more than to race after him and gather him into the world's bestest hug, but Bruce was heading to the cave with Alfred trailing along. Dick had to help in whatever way he could to push Bruce into finding out what happened. Damian… could wait. He'll have to wait. It wasn't like Dick could do anything for him if he decided to follow after the clearly upset teen anyway. 

"It's almost like he just vanished, Alfred," Bruce continued, his voice oddly wet. Dick's heart tied itself in a knot. "Into thin air."

"No one simply disappears into thin air," Alfred sniffed. "You will find him."

"Yeah," Bruce agreed, sounding unsure but determined at the same time. They walked into the study and Dick carefully followed them both into the cave through the narrow passage of grandfather clock. 

Bruce quickly got to work and Dick stood back, careful to not touch anything. Bruce started the search as he always did, by sifting through traffic cams around the scene of the crime. And since it was Dick's apartment, he also had access to the normal security measures Dick had installed. 

Hours passed and Dick soon found himself sinking to sit on the floor of the cave, watching as Bruce found nothing after nothing after nothing. 

Dick could relate. He certainly felt like nothing.

-o-o-o-o-

Dick couldn't thirst or starve. He found that out on day three of this entire mess, slinking around from open door to open door, doing nothing but breathing and existing. Well, existing to no one but himself. He hadn't even realized he wasn't starving or dehydrated until Tim, Cass, Jason, and Duke showed up three nights later for a quick family dinner. Dick was touched that Bruce called them, and even more touched that they all came. But, as much as he was touched, he was also jealous of the meal Alfred provided. Frustrated that he didn't exist enough to join. 

Bruce filled them all in on what little they knew on the situation and then they all spent the night patrolling Blüdhaven for clues. Dick didn't get into the Batmobile in time to follow along, so he spent the entire night trapped in the cave with Alfred's silent company. 

He spent the nights wandering the hallways and avoiding everything he could walk through. He'd walk and walk and walk until he'd sit down in the middle of the dining room floor, where the carpet was short and didn't stab him like the shaggy carpet of bedrooms did. Where the animals were least likely to unknowingly fall asleep inside of him. 

On the fifth day, he thought Alfred the Cat was watching him. He cried for hours later when he found the cat was just watching a fly. 

Days ticked on. Dick was reported missing to the police. Damian talked less and less, smiled less and less. The others went back to their lives with "keep me updated" being mumbled before they went. 

Dick continued to not exist. 

When the second week passed by, Dick found himself sneaking outside when Alfred went to get the mail. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because it was raining and he was wondering if he'd be able to feel that. 

He didn't. It just went through him and he ended up being trapped in the cold air outside, exploring the wet grounds and not making a single splash, until night came and Damian let Titus and Ace out for a quick potty break. 

By the time the third week came around, things really started to change. It seemed Bruce was constantly talking to people. The police, the Justice League, Dick's friends, everyone who were trying to track him down… and it killed Dick to stand back and watch, clutching his stomach as nothing turned up and Bruce kept coming up with nothing. Dick wished he could leave some sort of message. A way to tell Bruce that he was right there. Just invisible and silenced. But there. 

Dick would love to tell Bruce that he was right there. But at this point, Dick really began to wonder if he was really there at all. 

What if he was dead? Living people didn't go for three weeks without eating or drinking and remain alive. Alive people don't walk through furniture or get trapped simply by closed doors. 

But he couldn't tell Bruce. Which was why when the third week came up and Bruce once again ran into a dead end, he wasn't really all surprised to watch Bruce angrily hurtle his phone across the room and collapse into his chair with his hands in his hair, dangerously close to ripping the fine strands from his scalp. 

The longer Bruce sat there, the more Dick was sure Bruce had finally given up. Batman couldn't find him. It was the waiting game now. Sit and wait and hope. 

Dick left the room shortly after, his mind racing, loneliness running like a poison through his veins. He went to find Damian, but when he found the kid cuddled in a giant beanbag in the library, Alfred the Cat on his shoulder watching him draw carefully, he knew there wouldn't be anything here to reassure him that he'll be found. He walked around Damian anyway, bending down to look at what he was drawing. 

His heart clenched. It was a portrait of Dick. Damian was carefully working on the details of his top lip, shading each little bump and pore with incredible accuracy. 

Dick didn't look more at it. He left the library and roamed the halls, looking for an open door that he can sneak into and get some alone time. Just to calm down. Just to reassure himself that there was no way his family would leave him like this forever. 

That they haven't truly given up on him. That the whispered words of maybe he's dead and he's not coming back, is he haven't actually been said. 

He finally found a room with an open door and he immediately squeezed inside. The room was smaller, which made his anxiety climb ever so slightly, but it was also close to empty with a clear enough space for him to sit down and meditate without touching and going through anything. The door must have been opened by Damian. The kid had been searching out silent places to be alone quite often recently, sometimes forcing Bruce to search the halls, calling his name loudly until Damian finally revealed himself. 

Dick sat down and breathed.

Of course, it couldn't be so easy. His brain immediately recalled back to Bruce looking defeated. To Damian painstakingly crafting every detail of Dick's face with a pencil like he was worried he'd someday forget what Dick looked like. To Jason not having been over in way too long; reports in Blüdhaven of Red Hood being spotted on multiple occasions. To Tim who accidentally referred to Dick in the past tense a couple days ago and looked sick with himself the moment he realized what he said. To Cass who would somehow stroll the same halls as him when she's over until they pass by his bedroom door and she would stop and frown and walk away. To Duke who looked at his portraits Bruce had on the walls and look like he desperately wanted to understand something that he'd never actually be able to now.

They've all given up. He knew it was only a matter of time before there was an empty casket funeral. 

He wondered if he could make that a reality. Death. He didn't need to eat or drink. What if he just… stopped breathing? What if he clawed out his own throat with his nails? What if the next time Alfred opened a window to air out an old, unused room on the highest floor he just jumped out? 

Or would the world be so cruel as to keep him like this for the rest of eternity? Forced to watch as he's given up on, buried, and forgotten? He didn't want to die. Not like this. Not in name before body. 

And not for the first time since Dick inexplicably became a ghost, he felt his throat choke on the beginnings of a sob. 

He curled up a bit, trying to staunch it because he had quickly become annoyed with the sound of his own voice. Why could he still hear it when no one else could? It was awful. Like his words and noises we're all just in his head and he was only hearing what he thought he should hear. 

He gasped wetly, wiping under his eyes and trying to stop this all from happening again. He had already cried enough these last few weeks. He couldn't keep crying every time he felt alone. 

He bent in on himself further, his arms curling around his stomach in such a way that if he imagined hard enough they belonged to someone else and he was in another's calming embrace. It didn't work though. He knew he was alone. He couldn't pretend. 

He was so deep in this attack of utter turmoil and unhappiness that he didn't notice approaching footsteps until he heard the sound of creaking door hinges followed quickly by a click of a door latch. 

Dick looked up with blurry, panicked eyes. 

The door. The door was closed. 

"No," Dick breathed. "No no-" he scrambled to his feet, all the blood rushed from his head and combined with the terrible spike of horror to make him perfectly lightheaded as he stumbled to the door and wrapped his hands around the knob. It didn't budge. "NO!"

He spun around, barely aware of his already panting breaths and frantically searched the room for a hopefully open window. 

The window was closed. He didn't know why he even looked. 

"Fuck," he gasped, grabbing his chest as it constricted tightly. More tightly than what he had felt in a long time. It felt so painful that it was all he could do to turn and bang a closed fist on the door. He wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like. "HELP!"

He didn't know why he was calling out. Hitting the door like he thought it might make noise. 

No one would hear him. 

"ALFRED!" Dick screamed. "BR-" he was forced to stop mid-word on that one thanks to a heaving gasp that curled dangerously in-between his ribcage. He swallowed. Or tried to. "BRUCE!"

He kicked the door. Covered one hand over his mouth and tried to calm down. Tried to not think about the solid walls and the solid door and how he was powerless to leave this room. Why did he come in here in the first place?!

He couldn't calm down. All he could think about was how screwed he was. How hopeless everything was. He kept his hand on his mouth as his legs eventually gave out. He brought his knees to his chin and laid on his side atop the carpeted floor, babbling cries and names and pleas until his throat was raw and everything woozy. 

He didn't know how or when he finally passed out, only that he woke up to a still closed door and a still small room, and it took every ounce of his will power to not immediately cry again right then and there. He stayed curled up on the ground and closed his eyes, wrapping his arms around his stomach and tried to pretend that everything would work out. Eventually everything would be okay. 

He was wrong. 

It took two weeks for the door to open for Alfred's regular airing out of the rooms to reach the one he was trapped in. 

By then, he didn't even know if he should bother to stand up and walk out. 

Not when he was surely no longer alive. Not when he felt perfectly content just laying here being dead. 

But the thought of that door closing again and him having no power over it eventually managed to force him stumbling to his wobbly feet and walking out. 

He didn't know what to expect when he shuffled slowly deeper into the manor. More than a month has passed since his disappearance. Most people don't keep a whole lot of hope for a missing person to return after this long. By this time, people normally began to suggest funerals quietly between each other. 

It didn't take long to find the family. What shocked him though was that everyone was together in the living room, even Alfred who must have finished opening certain doors and windows to refresh the stale air inside the rooms they belong to and walked back quicker than Dick. A movie was playing, some Pixar movie Dick hadn't seen before because of his busy lifestyle. 

And for some reason, this hurt more than if he came in here to find them alone, mourning, depressed. 

They're all watching a movie together. Bruce on the recliner, Damian squeezed between him and the arm of the recliner even though there was more room in other places. Jason sprawled over the three cushioned sofa, his legs resting over Duke, Cass, and Tim like a makeshift blanket. Alfred had his own recliner to himself, reading a book to himself but occasionally glancing up towards the screen. Steph was there too, but she had made herself comfortable on the floor with the entity of the living room's decorative pillows.

They're all watching a movie together. 

Dick had been trying to get that to happen for months. And they're doing it now, when he's gone with no foreseeable way to get back. 

Dick slowly sank to the floor and watched them poke each other and whisper quips to each other and laugh at the funny bits with each other. 

Was this the life he was doomed to have for the rest of eternity? Chasing open doors and watching people move on from him? Do things simply in his memory? 

If he had tears left to cry, he would have shed them.

Instead, he just sat there and watched. 

-o-o-o-o-

Dick's funeral was four months later. The gossip channels and media said they have finally given up. Dick thought they held on for longer than most. 

He didn't attend his own funeral. He didn't want it to feel final. He didn't want the undeniable proof that they've stopped searching. He didn't want to see them cry for him. 

So he walked the manor grounds opposite of the family graveyard. He kicked his feet as he walked, pretending that his footsteps carried weight on the grass and that he was solid enough to disturb the smallest pebbles on the stone pathway. 

Maybe he was dead. Maybe this was hell. He didn't remember where he went, if he went anywhere, when Lex Luthor killed him, but maybe this was it. He didn't know what killed him or what happened to his body, but he was starting to become convinced that he really was simply a ghost, cursed to walk the world and watch people move on and live on without him. 

Half a year ago, that would have settled horribly into his gut. Now? He was numb. 

He continued to walk, to let his mind drift. Pretend he was alive for a little while longer before he returned to the manor and the services and dinners and receptions were over. Decide what to do now that his life was now officially over. 

He sighed and ignored the feeling that he's just as trapped out here in the manor grounds as he was in that room all those months ago. Ho continued to roam.

Though, the sound of a humming voice had him stopping in his tracks. 

No one should be over here. They all should be back at the funeral. Dick immediately focused on the noise, not even bothering to step carefully or approach cautiously. It wasn't like Dick could be seen or heard anyway. He just wanted to see who had snuck into these parts of the grounds while his literal funeral was going on. It was strange and horrible to think about, but come on? A little respect please? He hoped it wasn't some paparazzi. It meant that they'd somehow gotten through Bruce's security… which also meant that Bruce was more depressed about this than what Dick initially thought. He'd seen Bruce get low these past few months, but never low enough to sacrifice the safety of the people he provided shelter to. 

Dick walked towards the grove of trees that the humming was coming from and frowned when he eventually saw the back of a person strolling through the controlled nature. The man was taller than Dick—which wasn't a difficult achievement—and was wearing a simple brown-orange hoodie with dark blue jeans. His hair was dirty blonde and styled up like someone glued a giant ball of cotton to his scalp. Dick didn't recognize him, which instantly set off alarm bells inside his head. The open house reception should be over but the rest of the services were all reserved for close family and friends of Dick's. But this man… he couldn't be someone that was invited. 

Not for the first time, Dick felt the crippling weight of helplessness wash over him. This man could be dangerous, but Dick couldn't do a thing. He couldn't warn anyone. 

He could just watch it happen. 

Or… ignore it. 

He shook his head and sighed, stuffing his hands into the pockets of the same pair of sweats he'd been wearing since that fateful night half a year ago. He almost began to approach further, because even though he was helpless to change anything or warn anyone, he was still curious… but then the man turned around and Dick was stopped in his tracks. 

He didn't... He didn't have a face. 

Dick gaped and watched as the bumps in the man's face that must be cheekbones rose ever so slightly. 

"Oh!" The man said, even though he had no mouth. Dick had absolutely no idea where the sound came from. "You are here!" 

Dick turned around behind him, and saw nobody. Something fluttered in his chest. A hope he didn't dare grasp at even though… even though… the man could only be talking to him. 

"We lost track of you after the convergence. Most people stick around where they disappear!" 

"Are you…" Dick tried, his voice barely recognizable even to himself, "are you talking to me?" 

The limited features of the man's blank face softened. "Yes I am, Dick Grayson. You've been lost a long time."

And Dick… didn't know what to do. This entire time he's had absolutely no contact with anything in the world. He couldn't move anything, couldn't touch anything, couldn't speak or make himself known. This scene before him, one where his voice was heard and he was answered… it was so foreign. Unreal. Dick almost reached down to pinch himself. 

"But luckily," the man continued, "after a long time searching for you at your home city, we figured you must have found a way to your family. That or began to aimlessly wonder like others like you sometimes do."

"Like… me?" 

"Yes," the man nodded then took a step closer. Dick stood his ground as his thoughts ran circles in his brain. What was going on? "You're trapped within the folds of reality, Dick Grayson. It's not something that commonly happens, but something that can be catastrophic if we cannot find you immediately." He paused. "You are Nightwing in this world, are you not? You must understand how the universes work in odd ways."

Dick wanted to nod. Laugh. Cry. Step forward and see if he could touch the man. But he didn't. He just stood there as the man continued. 

"You see," the man said, bringing a hand up to his featureless chin, "what happened was that this universe brushed sides with another one. One that's almost exactly the same in every aspect to yours. Normally, when universes brush, they're so different that they reject each other and go on their merry way down the time stream. The problem was, that because these two universes were so similar, reality as we knew it, well, it got a little confused. It tried to sort out what belonged to what. It gets it wrong sometimes, which is why you're like this. In the universe you brushed with, Dick Grayson was dead. Everything else was exactly the same, but because you were dead and alive the universe decided to make you both. This is why you're stuck here. The universe can't remember if you should be living or dead."

Dick never pretended to understand the multiverse. It always seemed the rules were constantly changing. Shifting to accommodate spontaneous things. It seemed the only one who truly had a grasp on the entirety of the universe was Bart Allen, but the kid was shockingly tight lipped about most secrets of reality despite his superhero name of Impulse. 

And really, Dick didn't care how he ended up like this. All he could really think was how this man could see him. Was looking for him. Something was finally going to change. Whether he was supposed to be fully dead or fully alive... He didn't really care.

He couldn't stand around, trapped in his own intangible body, and do nothing for much longer. 

"So… what does this mean?" Dick asked. "What happens now?"

The man's face squished oddly, and Dick couldn't figure out what he was thinking at all. "What happens now is that we make things right. Return you to the universe you're supposed to be dead in, and keep you in the universe you're supposed to be alive. It will be painful, but don't worry, neither of you will remember a thing."

"Neither-?" 

Dick's question didn't get much further, because in an impossible blink of an eye, the man was right in front of Dick, hand pressing against the side of his head with his thumb pressed above the bridge of Dick's nose. Lightning shot through him, and his vision whited out. Everything became too much and so little at the same time. Hot and cold. Loud and silent. He might have screamed or he might have sighed.

Either way, the sensation didn't last for long. 

Soon he wasn't feeling anything at all.

-o-o-o-o-

Damian hated this. He knew death and sorrow unlike most others. He had seen men and women fall in so many ways it was impossible to list them all. He had seen the way a corpse would slowly rot, and stink, and collapse. He had seen bodies feasted upon by wolves and flies alike. 

He knew death. Yet, for a number of reasons, he just couldn't comprehend this one. 

Because Richard couldn't be dead. He couldn't be. He was simply missing. Nowhere to be found. 

He wasn't dead. 

Damian didn't understand why everyone else insisted on believing otherwise. Father had said that he's searched, and for some reason that meant if Batman couldn't find him then he must not be able to be found. No one besides Damian argued with him. Even Timothy didn't believe him.

He at least had the decency to look ashamed when Damian called him out on it. 

However, it seemed Damian's thoughts and feelings on the matter didn't, well, matter. Even though he was the last one to speak to Richard. Even though he knew for sure that Richard was somewhere alive out there, doing everything he could to get home. Damian swore he would continue to believe in that. No matter what. Even if these months turned into years. Even if Damian no longer remembered every detail of his face by thought alone. 

Father wouldn't let him skip out on the fake funeral though. 

Which was horrible for a massive amount of reasons. All of Richard's friends were here, sobbing and blabbering like children. The empty casket sat above a deep hole with flowers piled on top, and one by one someone would approach, say something emotional out loud or under their breath, then leave the flower in the mockery of Richard's life. 

Damian was glad that his immediate family went first. That way he could slink to the back of the crowd and hold Titus by the leash. Watch from afar. Plan for the millionth time on how he was going to fix this. 

That speedster… Wally West was in the middle of breaking down on top of the casket with large tears cascading down his cheeks when Damian felt a tug on the leash. Damian frowned and looked down at his normally perfectly behaved dog to see the animal trying to tug Damian towards the unoccupied grounds of the manor. Damian tugged Titus gently back, tutting at him under his breath. 

Except, Titus didn't stay at Damian's side for long. The animal took one wide eyed look at Damian before turning tail and sprinting. The leash was yanked out from Damian's hand, and it was all Damian could do to not shout in surprise or outrage. 

He nervously shot a look at the casket, where Donna Troy was now saying her goodbyes while West leaned onto her for support, making sure no one was watching him, then turned to chase after his disrespectful dog. 

It might be a fake funeral, but it was a funeral nonetheless. 

Damian ran after Titus, jumping over shrubbery and flowers like they were the gaps between rooftops, diving for the trailing leash whenever he got close enough. 

He never got close enough. 

Out of breath and covered in grass stains and twigs, Damian watched with glaring eyes as Titus took refuge in a carefully planned grove of trees. Thankfully, Damian saw the dog halt on the other side of a bush, bending his neck down to sniff at something. Probably a wild animal. Even though Damian could have sworn he trained Titus better than to chase rabbits or squirrels. 

Damian stuffed his hands in his suit pockets and began to stomp his way over. 

"Titus! Quit this misbehaving!" 

Titus looked up from what he was sniffing, whined, then bent back down. Completely ignoring Damian. 

What was going on with that dog? 

Damian walked around the clump of bushes and between the trees, extremely curious as to what was so important that Titus would disregard orders for it.

When Damian saw what Titus was bent over, Damian felt every single molecule of air leave his body like he had been sucker-punched in the stomach. 

"Richard?" Damian breathed. Double took. "Richard!" 

He sprinted forward and Titus quickly jumped out of the way. Horrified and terrified and shaking, Damian grabbed Richard's shoulders and turned him around, for he was laying face down on the ground. 

Richard groaned, but didn't open his eyes. Blood trickled down the corners of his lips and nose. His clothes were filthy. He looked like death. 

But he was alive.

Damian turned to his good, good dog. "Go! Get father! Hurry!"

Titus didn't have to be told twice. He barked then sprinted back to the forest. 

Damian turned back to Richard, running his hands across his body, taking in the loss of weight, the eye bags, the stains of mud all over his clothes. He shook his shoulders, trying to wake him up, but Richard remained asleep to the world. 

It took a second to realize he was crying. 

Thankfully, he was able to wipe them away when a confused and worried Bruce Wayne busted into the grove of trees along with the rest of the family and even a few of Richard's friends. Gasps and shouts filled the air, and Damian soon found himself pushed back as Dick was rushed to by the adults. 

The ambulance was called not long after. 

The drive to the hospital seemed like a dream. 

The wait felt like it took years, but Richard only took about three hours to wake up, severely starved and dehydrated and not a single memory of the past five months.

And somehow, everything went back to normal. Richard was released from the hospital a few days later with a strict meal plan and physical therapy schedule. His memories didn't return, but sometimes Damian noticed things had changed in Richard since then.

Like his new and strange fear of small spaces and closed doors.

It didn't matter though. Damian was just… overjoyed that he was right and that Richard was still living a breathing, even if it seemed he had simply vanished and reappeared from thin air, with no trace of anything in-between. 

All that mattered was that the family was whole again. Richard was on the road of a full recovery. 

No one could ask for more. 

[carewyncromwell]

💕 for Ru and for Jacob Cromwell?

+pros+

💙 Ru is very happy with very little. They are the definition of "low-maintenance" when it comes to a lover -- you don't need to give them presents, coddling, or a lot of intimacy, so long as you're by their side. They also are rather self-sufficient and don't get hurt easily, so you forgetting anniversaries or needing time to yourself won't bother them in the least.

💙 On that note, though, Ru has a perfect lust for life! They'll want to share the whole world with you, every little detail of it, and record every wonderful memory with you.

💙 Ru might not be much of a charmer, but they are sincere and deathly loyal. You never have to doubt their feelings for you. And although Ru isn't a nurturing type at all, they care about you enough that they'll try very hard to work against that shortcoming and protect and take care of you.

💙 They actually are oddly sentimental, in their own weird way. Ru loves recording things through film and photographs because they want the world to remember you, as they do, even long after they die and are forgotten themselves.

💙 Ru is sharp as a whip and sassy as hell, so they'll really enjoy bantering with you. They also may or may not rope you into some good-natured "trouble" like playing a practical joke on someone or sneaking into the rafters of a theater to get a sneak peak at a new moving picture. 😏

💙 If you’re need of quiet time, Ru's got you covered. They don't see the need to "fill the space with worthless words," so they're very content to just lie beside you in bed and enjoy the silence of the early morning.

💙 Don't forget, Ru's a a shapeshifter! Once they get their collar off, you can be sure they'll turn into whatever you need, whether someone tall to help you reach something or a cat to curl up in your lap after a long day at work. Ru will also let you ride on their back in their real form, a privilege few witches and wizards ever experience.

+cons+

🌊 The biggest one is that Ru, as a Kelpie, will inevitably have a much shorter lifespan than you. You will outlive them, unless you die through unnatural means.

🌊 Ru = blunt and insensitive AF. If you prefer your lovers to be kind over honest, don't choose Ru.

🌊 Ru also can be really condescending and rude toward those people they view as uninteresting or conventional. They will very frequently "stick it to the man" just because they can and might be needlessly antagonistic, if you have friends or family members who disapprove of them or your relationship for whatever reason. They will not pacify or equivocate on their opinion, for just about any reason.

🌊 Ru isn't the most romantic person out there, so don't expect chocolate and flowers on Valentine's Day or love-filled poems and speeches. They might give you gifts now and again, but that will be rare -- gifts aren't second nature to them, and they're not the sort to gush about their partner to others either. They tend to get bored when others gush endlessly about their love lives, and they may not always have the best instincts about how to take care of you emotionally.

🌊 Yeah, on that note, this kiddo gets bored and impatient easily. Don't f*** around and sidestep big issues -- be upfront with Ru and don't waste their time.

🌊 Ru can't cook. At all. Don't let them near the stove, under any circumstances.

+pros+

💙 Unyielding, unquestioning loyalty. To quote a famous Bryan Adams song, this guy would “fight for you,” “lie for you,” “walk the wire for you,” or even “die for you.” 

💙 Jacob will want to be a family with you, whether by having kids with you or not. He’ll want you to know and be very comfortable with his mother and sister, and he’ll want to know and become very comfortable with your family too. Jacob’s always had a very small inner circle, but he loves very strongly and he wants to be close to you by also being close to the people in your life, just as he wants you to be close to the people in his life. 

💙 Jacob’s all about thrill-seeking, trying new things, and traveling to new places...and if you’re ever the least bit scared, he’ll have enough courage for both of you. 

💙 This guy is also a real smart cookie, excelling in just about every branch of magic and having a broad scientific base of knowledge too! If you’re studying just about anything or need someone to look over a paper before you turn it in, he’s got your back. 

💙 Jacob is a total nerd, so when it comes to you nerding out about your interests, he’ll be all over it. He’ll want to know everything about your interests and he’ll want to share all of his with you too. 

💙 Jacob will want to solve all of your problems. If you suffer from severe cramps during your time of the month, or deal with chronic migraines, or are struggling with finding a good binder, no worries -- this guy will use his big brain to do whatever he can to make your life easier. His flair for problem-solving with both magical and Muggle means served him well when he had to help Muggle-borns hide from the Ministry during the Second Wizarding War too. 

💙 Along with a lover, you also get a bodyguard. Jacob will f*** up anybody who messes with you, whether with his rapier wit, his fists, or his extensive knowledge of spells. 

💙 If you like physical intimacy and PDA, Jacob’s your guy. He’s not always smart when it comes to expressing his emotions, but he will make it very clear how much he loves you based on how he’ll flirt with you in public, and he’ll always be up for any cuddling you initiate. 

💙 Jacob’s got a very handsome singing voice. He will serenade you without even being asked, whether a doofy romantic song to make you blush or a more seductive number in bed. If you like singing too, then Jacob will be over the moon at the thought of singing duets with you!!

💙 Jacob is also pretty capable in the kitchen! He’ll be happy to brew you alcoholic drinks and cook you a full breakfast spread. 

+cons+

🖼 Jacob is a book-smart, people-dumb spaceman -- meaning he is as dense as a ROCK when it comes to picking up on other people’s feelings. His talent for Legilimency (shared with Carewyn) makes it easy for him to predict people’s actions before they happen, but it doesn’t give him any insight about how people tick or ability to place himself in someone else’s shoes. It will take forever for him to even figure out he’s sweet on you, and even when you two get together, you’ll have to be upfront with him, if you want him to pick up on your emotional state.

🖼 Jacob has a really hot temper and a super overprotective streak -- you will sometimes have to hold him back to keep him from starting fights. 

🖼 Considering Jacob is only 5′7″, it’s very possible you will be around his height or taller. If you are taller than him, be careful -- Jacob’s very sensitive about his height, and he’ll get prickly if he’s reminded of that fact too much. Let him be the big spoon in bed most of the time and that might cushion his ego.

🖼 For a Ravenclaw who values wisdom and logic, this guy NEVER looks before he leaps. He’ll constantly be jumping into situations recklessly and you’ll have to play the voice of reason. Jacob’s also kind of arrogant, so it makes him sometimes overestimate his own capabilities and underestimate the problems he faces. This can then result in him getting in way over his head and you having to come to his rescue. 

🖼 Jacob still has nightmares about being trapped in the Portrait Vault. Be ready for some accidental punches and kicks in bed every-so-often when he’s trying to “escape” the nightmare and to cuddle with him for a while until he stops shaking. (He’ll brew you some Healing potion if he hurts you. 💔)

🖼 Jacob’s disorganized as all get-out. Sorry, but you’ll have to deal with this guy falling asleep at his desk at odd hours and not keeping his side of the closet tidy. 

🖼 Jacob’s inner demons can often make him feel like a burden to the people around him, hence why he tries very hard to be useful and all-knowing to the people he cares about. You’ll need to be gentle with him when his demons rear their ugly head, even if he won’t always be very smart about how best to be gentle with you.

send me a “💕 + (an oc)” for the pros and cons of dating that oc!

[crystalstar8]

Knights of the Night (chapter 2)

Chapter 2

Ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 1,628

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France

notes: vampires, vampire au, college, college au, so many twilight references, blood, needles, kidnapping, children, homelessness, dance, ballet, flashbacks, romance, slow burn, probably no smut, idk yet tho, France, French things, attempted genocide, inaccurate French history, bisexual main character, @strawberriewithchocolate-blog​

summary: Catalina starts college in a small town all the way across the country. She doesn’t know anyone and isn’t exactly looking for friends. She just wants to focus on dance. But when she meets fellow dance major, Jimin, and adventurous, fellow freshman, Jungkook, Catalina ends up discovering a whole new side to the small college town; one that is dangerous but oh so enticing...

              Despite complaining about walking to work, Catalina was sort of looking forward to the hike. She could see the mountains from wherever she was in this town, and they were beautiful. It was seven in the morning and Catalina was half dead. After a cup of coffee and a hearty breakfast though, she was ready to go. Jungkook had texted her the day before giving her a time, eight am, and his home address. No other details, such as what to wear to work, which would have been helpful. She had texted him back but he never answered, so she wore a plain black t-shirt with jeans. She figured that was neutral enough.

               Jungkook’s house turned out to be right around the block, so it was a short walk. The house was old, two stories, grey brick, square and narrow. Catalina knocked on the door and waited. Jungkook opened the door right away.

               “Hey, come on in,” he said, holding the door open. Catalina closed the door behind her and looked around. The inside looked like it hadn’t been redecorated since the 70’s, but it was still cozy and homey. Jungkook led the way up the stairs to a small bedroom at the end of the hall. His hair was still a mess and he wasn’t wearing shoes.

               “Are your parents home?” asked Catalina.

               “No, they’re at work. They’ll come home in a few hours,” he said.

               “The night shift?” asked Catalina.

               “Yeah, they’re nurses. They’ve worked the night shift ever since me and my brother started high school,” said Jungkook. He was sitting on his bed, lacing up a pair of Timberlands.

               The bedroom was a mess, clothes scattered across the floor, piles of tangled wires in the corner. A bookshelf was against the left wall filled with video games and stuffed animals. Beside the bookshelf, a surfboard, a snowboard, and a skateboard all leaned against the wall. A glass of milk sat on the desk by the door and there was a hole in the wall right above that. Catalina could see into the next bedroom through it, which looked similar to this room. The whole bedroom stunk like…

               “Dude, this milk is bad,” said Catalina. She scrunched her nose and shuffled away from it.

               “It is?” asked Jungkook. He picked it up and sniffed it. He reared back and gagged loudly. Catalina threw her head back laughing.

               “Why did you sniff it?” she asked.

               “I don’t know! Shut up!” he said. He took one last tentative sniff of it before setting it down and grabbing a hairbrush.

               “Have you eaten yet?”

               “No I just got up, like a few minutes before you got here,” he said. “I was thinking we could stop somewhere on the way.”

               “Won’t we be late?” asked Catalina.

               “Just McDonalds, nothing fancy!” he said.

               “What time do we have to be there?”

               “Eight.”

               “Dude! We’re gonna be late!”

               “Just quick! We’ll go through the drive through!”

               “We’re walking!”

                 A half an hour later found Catalina and Jungkook starting on the trail up the mountain. Jungkook was wolfing down three McMuffins, tater tots, and a frozen coffee. The walk through the drive through was something Catalina never wanted to do again.

               The hike, though intimidating, was very nice. They talked about their childhoods and other random stories while they walked. The woods were beautiful; enormous, ancient trees towering all around them. Catalina remembered Jungkook telling her about people skiing in these mountains. She didn’t know a whole lot about the sport, but she was pretty sure the trees would get in the way.

               “Now, I don’t know enough about skiing, but I feel like all these trees would get in the way,” said Catalina. Jungkook chuckled.

               “Yeah, there’s slopes at the top that you take lifts to get to. No one skis here,” said Jungkook. “We’ll go this winter.”

               “Yeah, you keep saying that. Anyway, this is a really nice hike, but I bet you we won’t feel like doing this every time,” said Catalina. “We’re gonna get sick of it after the first few times.”

               “No way. R.I.P. to you but I’m different,” said Jungkook.

               Catalina sighed. “That was lame. And you’re the only one here who has a car, so���”

               “I know, I’m just kidding,” he said.

               The trail let them out onto the road, which they followed until they reached the gift shop. It was a small building on the side of the road which advertised trail maps, souvenirs and camping necessities. A little bell rang above the door as they stepped inside. Hoodies, snow globes and tacky, racist Native American merchandise greeted them inside.

               “You’re late,” someone said. A woman in her late 40’s rounded one of the shelves and crossed her arms.

               “What? Not we’re not!” Jungkook checked the time on his phone. They were indeed late. Catalina sighed. Great first impression.

               “We’re really sorry ma’am. Someone had to get McDonalds on the way here,” she said.

               The woman sighed. “Call me Helen. And it’s okay. It’s not like they’re bustin’ the door down.”

               Sure enough, besides them, the store was empty. Helen showed them how to work the register, where the back room was, and how to close at seven.

               “Just be friendly with the customers. I’m not gonna be here on weekends, so keep yourselves occupied,” said Helen. And with that, she left the store. The rest of the day went by slowly. Not many people came in, so Catalina and Jungkook mostly just hung out and goofed around.

               When Catalina got home later that night, she was exhausted. They only had a few customers that day, the rest of the time was spent chatting and making fun of the Indian goods.

               Her bed, which was still just a mattress on the floor, was a welcome sight.

                  The only thing she could feel was a deep-seated fear. It made her palms sweat and the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. The narrow hallways seemed to be never ending. She needed to find a way out. If they caught up to her, she was dead. The faint sound of a floorboard creaking somewhere behind her made her spin around, breath caught in her throat. There was no one there, but the hallway seemed darker than it was before.

               All of a sudden, Catalina found herself in a den. A fire crackled in the fireplace, bookshelves lined the walls and a big desk sat in the corner. It was cozy, and Catalina felt the fear melt away. She felt safe here.

               “Have you read this one?”

               Catalina turned around. A man stood by the hearth. He held up a book, but Catalina couldn’t make out the title since the letters kept shifting.

               “I’m not sure,” she said. This man was dangerous, Catalina could tell by the fear she still felt being around him. But she also knew he wouldn’t hurt her. “I don’t think I’ve read it. What book is it?”

               “I told you about this one yesterday. You would like it,” he said. When he smiled, his dimples caved and his eyes sparked. Catalina no longer felt afraid of him.

                  I Like It, by Cardi B. blasted from the speakers. Sweat dripped from Catalina’s brow.

               “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, one, two, three, STEVE, GODDAMN IT YOU’RE STILL TURNING THE WRONG WAY!” the choreographer shouted. She paused the music and pinched the bridge of her nose. Catalina took the opportunity to breathe and turn to Jimin. He was trying not to laugh.

               “I don’t wanna be here when she kills Steve,” Jimin said under his breath. Catalina giggled.

               “I think it’d be some fun drama,” said Catalina. “Also, he deserves it.”

               Jimin laughed and they got back into position as the music started from the beginning again. Catalina wasn’t really a fan of Cardi B., but the dance was a lot of fun. It was a smooth hip hop, lots of body rolls and sexy partner dancing. Catalina was glad she got Jimin as her partner and not Steve. Steve was pretty bad.

               Once the choreographer called it a day, Catalina and Jimin took their time packing their bags.

               “Do you watch the news at all?” asked Jimin. Catalina shook her head. “Well, it’s the only thing ever on at my house, and I guess there’s like, people going missing in the town next to us.”

               “Whoa, really?” asked Catalina.

               “Yeah, and I was invited to this party, but my mom has been freaking out and she doesn’t want me to go out, so I don’t know if I’m going…”

               “Wow, that’s crazy. Yeah, I mean, it’s not in this town though. So it should be fine to go to a party,” said Catalina. Jimin shrugged.

               “Maybe. Anyway, how was the first day at work?” he asked.

               “Ah, yeah, it was nice. The hike is cool and there’s a bunch of racist Indian goods in the shop. There’s like, barely any customers, so it was pretty chill all day,” she said.

               “That’s cool. I don’t think I’d be able to walk that far to work every day. I’m too lazy,” said Jimin.

               Catalina shrugged. “I mean, a job is a job. But I’ll probably have a ride for a lot of my shifts,” she said. “What about you? Did you get that job in the theater?”

               “Yeah, it’s alright. I guess it’s gonna be mostly just moving chairs around and helping backstage for events,” said Jimin. “But what if I want to audition for a show?”

               “Then they’ll just have to find a replacement for you!” said Catalina. “You deserve to be on stage!”

               Jimin laughed and said, “Thank you. I do deserve to be on stage, don’t I?”

[belladonnaappreciation]

Blake Belladonna and Myself.

Here’s the thing. I’m gonna tell you a bit about some semi dark times in my life. So, Trigger warnings are applied here for those that suffer or have suffered from Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Sexual abuse from a partner or parental figure. And hopefully that will shed some light on what I am going to say about my connection to my favorite RWBY character. Blake Belladonna. 

When I was about two years old my parents divorced. My mother had met this man by the name of Robert Domin. They got married and as a two year old I was excited to have a dad again. Seeing as my actual dad was not allowed to see me at the time due to my mothers manipulative tactics and managing to get a stronger custody hold on us than she should have. So this man, Robert Domin, He seemed like the greatest father figure alive. I looked up to this man until I was about 5 years old.  That man went from what I thought was a blessing..... to a wolf in sheeps clothing. My mother often had to work a tad later than he did. She worked at a bank and actually did an amazing job. So she was often stuck working later. Rob would get my brother in the shower and when he got out I was next. He would wait until he heard the water running, since we were 5 and 6 we had to leave the door open just in case something happened there was no chance of it being locked, after I had began getting in the shower he would creep into the room without saying anything and approach me. I don’t know the reason..... nor do I think I ever will...... But he would grab me by the arm and proceed to spank me as hard as he could several times.  Now, spankings. Not the worst thing. But he would do it until I was unable to sit down without feeling like I had knives in my rear. (Attempted to say that as humorlessly as I could.But feel free to laugh at the other ways I could have said it.) And this went on for the next 4 and a half years. My mother never caught on because I would often hide the pain or just flat out run away to dress myself whenever she was home.  Jump ahead to 10 year old me. Despite the traumas left behind by Robert I was excelling at school. I loved books and had actually begun the Harry Potter series.

I thoroughly enjoyed the series! I wanted to grow up to be as sassy as Snape, as Brave as Harry. and as Courageous as Harry. I had good friends and things were..... happy. Aside from the man I still had to come home to after school. Fortunately we moved to Jacksonville, Florida. He decided to divorce my mother because he did not want to move to Florida. I had thought that things were finally going my way. Until I found out my mom had been seeing a man by the name of Douglas Humphrey. Now here’s the trip. Amazing at first. He took us mudding in a big old truck and with a couple of four wheelers! It was awesome! We watched NASCAR together, we went and saw the 3rd spider-man movie in theaters together! But it didn’t last long. I had broken my foot while playing around with my brother but he had told me it wasn’t broken. To walk it off. My mother wanted me to go to the hospital but he wouldn’t let her take me. When she tried to leave anyways he got scary..... I spent 4 DAYS crawling around the house and limping with tears in my eyes at school. I kept telling everybody I was fine at school. But finally my mom had him take me to the hospital because it got to the point where I couldn't even walk on it without crying. The doctors took X-rays and found I had a break in between my big toe and what I call the index toe. I’m sure there’s a name for it but that’s what I call it. The doctors had to do whats called “resetting” because my food had actually partially healed. But it was very much so incorrect. They had to break my foot again. And this time it hurt worse. When I cried, as all kids would, He smacked me upside the head and told me to “Man up”. That was the first time he had hit me. And it.... gave me a feeling of impending doom. I was terrified that he was gonna turn out to be just like Rob. And I can say that I was wrong..... He was worse. Not only did he let his children walk all over us and do whatever they wanted to us. But he would punish my brother and I for retaliating. He would push us, choke us, he even held us while his children would hit us. He would physically abuse our own mother in front of us.He caused my mother and my Aunt to turn on each other..... I had to save my mothers life from my aunt. My brother managed to get her outside and I went and helped my mother up and locked her and myself in the bathroom..... She had a broken nose.... several cuts and gashes all over her face. Our living room was a literal bloody crime scene. It looked like somebody DIED in there. I had to lie to child protective services. I HAD TO DENY MYSELF AN ESCAPE FROM AN ABUSIVE ENVIRONMENT. Because if I had left.... I’m pretty sure he would have killed my mother....  I was thankfully removed from that situation and sent to live with my grandmother back home in Illinois. Then proceed the best years of my life. I finally met my best friend. Was the guy that a lot of people avoided. But those who did interact with me either loved me or hated me. And.... I felt normal. I FELT SAFE for once in my life.

Fast forward to age 19. I’ll keep this one a bit shorter.  I was in a semi-broken home living with my mother once again. Except there wasn’t any man trying to hit me. Or abuse me. A guy who was a bit of an ass hole but relatively harmless none the less was there instead. I had two baby sisters who I love so very much and are my best friends to this day. My mother and I got into a fight about money and she kicked me out. I wound up living on the streets. I thankfully had a job. But would constantly be found couch surfing or sleeping either inside a McDonald, which I had to buy something every couple hours to not be kicked out, or I would be sleeping under a highway bridge near my job. I met a guy who was really sweet. He said he wanted to fix the injustices that had been done to me. Just to clarify I am Bi-sexual. But I avoid men romantically for reasons you are about to learn. He sought to right the wrongs and love me for me. He wanted to help me heal. My traumas. My scars. My past. He made me feel..... whole. To this day I can’t recall his last name. But his first name haunts me. ad I hadn’t realized just how much until I met a particular character in RWBY.

ADAM. The fall of beacon hurt. But the part that hurt the most wasn’t Ruby losing two friends. It wasn’t Penny. It wasn’t Pyrrah. It was Adam. Fucking. Taurus. I couldn’t recall previous mentions of his name from earlier in the show. But Blake catching sight of him as he butchered Yang at the end of Volume 3. The terror in Blake's eyes struck a very personal chord with me. I have seen Adam after he and I have gone our separate ways..... and it truly is that terrifying.

My heart sank. You could hear the despair filling her soul. And it hurt me. My anxiety was at a high and honestly..... Hearing her say his name..... Adam... It terrified me. Adam Taurus represented everything I HATED about my Adam. The lies.... manipulation..... the mental and emotional abuse.  Admittedly I had written Blake off as the stereo typical moody, edgy, goth teen character. Because I had neglected to watch trailers for anyone except Ruby. I was certain Ruby Rose was going to be my favorite because she was fun and exciting and bad ass. But I would only be proven wrong in time.

Come Volume 6. Learning more about Blake’s past and her struggle with Adam. Her demons haunting her constantly. We all know why she ran. And why she feels the need to take on Adam alone. But you can see during their whole fight. She not fighting to beat him. She is NOT fighting to best her abuser. She is fighting to SURVIVE against someone she knows she could not beat on her own. But she still feels as though she HAS to try. Because this is HER battle. This is HER demon.  She does not even register the idea of asking Yang for help. And this.... also hit home very hard. I have been struggling with my demons for years. Not letting anyone in to understand them. Until I met my current group of friends. one of which is here on tumblr. And she helped me realize why I love Blake so much. ( @songbirdforever​ )  Blake realizing she could let people in and help her with this fight.... It helped me open up more to the people I care about.

Much like when Blake is able to set her fears aside and show a resolve unlike anything she has put forward with Yang being there. She gains the will to fight her demon. Yang, her friend, being there. Even though Blake did not tell her she needed her. And that Blake did not WANT her to be there out of fear of Yang getting hurt. She didn’t have a choice. She knew Yang would never leave her until she knew she was safe. 

Blake's Demon had already lashed out and maimed a loved one (Yang) once already. And seeing that same loved one face her demons with a resolve that she could not bring to muster up herself gave her a reason to stand firm. To stay her ground and tell him that she is not afraid anymore. Together. Blake and Yang kill Adam. Almost in mental synchronization they know what each other needs to succeed. This is a bond forged in fires that were kept by the demons of the past and fueled by scars. 

This is why I love her so much. She has not only shown me that it’s okay to not be able to fight your demons on your own. That sometimes you lose the struggle and cave.... But whether you know it or not.... someone sees your struggle. And there is going to be that one person that will always be there for you whether you want them to be or not. In your darkest hour the person you need will find their way to you and help you fight these battles. The victim turned victor. 

She has found someone she can confide in.... and someone who can help her heal. And it makes me so happy. In conclusion.... Blake's demons and my demons share a scary amount of beats. Including the point of us both being mentally and emotionally tortured by a man named Adam. A man who promised us safety and love. A man who betrayed us and only when we were all but destroyed did we manage to escape.

She found her Happiness. And I hope to one day be in the same light that she is.  Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this. I hope this explains why I have absolutely nothing but love for Blake Belladonna and can even see myself in her. As well as my undying support for the bees. This post is.... a lot more personal than I ever thought I would have gotten on this sight. But I couldn’t fully express my love and identification of this character without telling you what I have. And if any of you ever need an ear... I am always here to listen. I love you all. And I want you all to know you have a friend in me. Now I end this post with a question: Is there a character in the world of remnant that you find yourself identifying with? Why? BONUS BLEP:

[ckret2]

7, 8, 19

God I can’t believe you asked the two questions on a writing meme that require me to actually go through my writing. You want me to just CHOOSE some of my FAVORITE WRITING? Unbelievable.

Okay I’m going to grab a couple of scenes based on “what fics do I have recent reviews for on AO3 and thus links on the front page that I can easily click?”

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

(This is from “Self-Portraits from Elonia”)

She'd never been to a dance before—or a party of any kind. She'd never been invited to any, as a Transformer among organics. When the Solstar Knights were asked to provide security at big interplanetary events, she was told to stay in the ship as backup. Even as a child, she'd been politely but firmly discouraged from coming to school dances with the other students, for fear of their safety if a giant war machine started cutting up the dance floor. And yet, despite her total inexperience, driven by some instinct that transcended time, space, culture, and species, she did exactly what every shy soul does upon entering a party.

She hugged the nearest wall and started looking around for people she knew.

(I like a lot of my prose in “Self-Portraits from Elonia,” tbh. Possibly TOO MUCH since you are, apparently, not supposed to spend a whole long time describing things like art displays because that’s not as interesting to the reader as it is to the writer. But like what if I want you to know about the unique art styles of a dozen different planets with a shared parent culture, I ask you? What then.)

(Anyway this isn’t one of the art displays. But I like the prose in this bit too because it’s, like, a whole lot of little character details that touch on a lot of different aspects of Stardrive’s background in a way that actively contributes to the scene because it simultaneously tells you something about her place in her culture and also about her childhood and also about her relationship with/interaction with things like parties and social events.)

(I also like building up to things that are Big And Grand And Significant and then undercutting them with something small and goofy.)

(Bonus line:)

The first theater was showing three movies (fiction), the first pieces of joint Cybertronian/Earthling cinema; one was identified as an Academy Award winner, which she assumed meant it must be some student film at an art school. Cross-planet collaboration had to start small, she supposed.

(I just like having “outsider” characters, of other species/cultures, wildly misunderstanding something that’s familiar to us, BUT misunderstanding it in a way that makes TOTAL SENSE and is completely logical. A lot of times I see people try to do the Alien Misunderstanding trope but the gist of the joke always seems to be “haha isn’t it so weird how the aliens make a totally off-base assumption, look at how weird and inexplicable they are” and that just annoys me. Like, if you can’t make your aliens make sense, you haven’t written your aliens well enough yet. The joke isn’t good until you're going “lmao well of course the alien thinks that, why wouldn’t they?” and, for bonus points, made the humans look like the strange/unfamiliar ones.)

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

(This is from “No Tongue, No Teeth” w/ names changed for simplicity’s sake.)

"And no tongue," Rodan stuck his out demonstratively, "and no teeth." He didn't really have teeth to demonstrate that with, so he clacked his beak a couple of times and hoped Ghidorah would figure it out from context.

"After courting?"

"No! Not before or after. No tongue, no teeth."

Middle and right immediately looked at left head. Lefty reared up, looked at Rodan with the deepest of offense, and said, "Tongue tastes you."

Rodan hopped up to Ghidorah, made deep, soulful eye contact with each head, and said, calmly but passionately, "I want you to not taste me."

Lefty made a displeased noise.

"Do you understand?"

They considered the question. "What is 'want'?" the right one asked. The other two, sensing an opportunity, immediately piped up: "What is 'not'?" "What 'taste'?"

Oh, they were comedians now. Rodan fluttered up, brandishing his talons at their faces. They backed off with only one stray snap at his feet, making a rumbling noise low in their throats that was probably either a death threat or a sound of amusement.

(Context for folks that haven’t been reading my Godzilla fics: Rodan and Ghidorah are two different species from two different planets, and over the course of tens of thousands of words worth of fic Rodan has been slowly teaching Ghidorah his language. Which I actually keep track of, in a word file, listing every single shared vocab word they have between the two of them and which fics they learned it in. At the point of this scene, they’re operating on, probably, about a hundred shared words.)

(One of the downsides of going for Extreme Realism in language barriers is that they both have to communicate in very simple sentences and have a very limited range of topics—just about everyone here had to study a second language at some point, yeah? Either out of necessity/practicality or for school? Think about how much you could communicate and how well you could do it after your first month learning the language. And you probably didn’t sound very bright while doing it.)

(This scene is one of the first points where Ghidorah actually gets to express some personality in their new language: indignation at being banned from licking, and then joking around by pretending not to understand an instruction that they’d rather not follow. I’m pleased whenever I get to put in moments like that with highly limited vocab. It’s a lot less common now that they’re moving on to full sentences tho.)

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Sometimes I talk/joke about having a discussion/argument with my muse, like so, but I don’t really personify it and/or have a specific figure-character-image-person-whatever that I consider my “muse.”

Short story time! When I was in like 2nd or 3rd grade I went on a field trip to the local city park and some park people presented some animals for us, including a tarantula that the park person held in his hand to show us little kids, and when he was done telling us about it he said “does anyone have any questions?” and I shot up my hand and said “CAN I HOLD IT??” and he said “... okay but you’re the only one.”

Years later I discovered a photo from that field trip of me, this tiny little kid who looks as uninteresting as possible—like, I look like that little kid from the Babadook when he’s not screaming except with the world’s most boring banged bob—except said kid is holding a spider so big she needs both hands for it and is giving this astounding Jim Carrey-level villain grin.

For a while, I referred to the image of that kid with the spider as my muse. Kinda lost interest in doing that though.

[yourkeeperoftherunners]

Fond

Plot: AU You come home for a holiday weekend from college, only to walk in on the exchange student staying with your parents. Some kids would be miffed that their parents sort of replaced their brother with a foreign exchange student and failing to tell the others about it. Oddly enough, he’s actually...great. Not that he’d ever replace your real brother, but bonding with him has been...

Rating: PG-13 (Language, Reader walks in on someone changing, teasing, light flirting)

Characters: Foreign Exchange Student!Felix x University Student Older Female Reader, featuring other members of Stray Kids

Notes: A long time ago, the Keeper hosted exchange students from Australia. (They were both girls and while we didn’t end up best friends, we got along well.) This little one shot was partly inspired by that, combined with the fact that Felix is from Australia and has a strong accent that is prevalent when he speaks English. Please note that the reader in this story is about 1-2 years older than Felix, who is in his final year of high school in this story.

I kind of consider this my gift to my readers on my birthday – thank you for checking out my work!

                                                         ***

Finally, you thought as you pulled off the freeway on your exit. A quick glance at your phone, currently mounted to the windshield, said that you had been sitting in traffic for close to an hour. Despite leaving a little earlier to beat the traffic, you managed to get caught in it toward the end of your trip.

You tapped your fingers against the steering wheel as you waited for the light to change. In a few minutes, you’d be home and could get out of this confined space known as your car.

The light changed and you accelerated, slowing as you neared the entrance to your neighborhood. You checked the cars in the opposite direction and turned once it was clear, eyes scanning the neighboring houses. You slowed down as you approached your driveway and turned into it.

It had been a while since you came home to visit your parents. This time would be different, as your younger brother was accepted for a high school exchange program in Australia and would be attending a school there for half of the year. Part of you had to wonder if this is what an only child got to look forward to when it was the holidays. Not that your brother was a bad person, but like any other siblings, you had your moments growing up.

                                                           ***

“Mom?”

“In the kitchen – washing dishes!” she called back.

You walked in with a smile, quickly planting a kiss on her cheek. She smiled and encouraged you to go ahead and get settled.

“How was the drive?” she asked.

You shrugged as you hoisted your duffle bag higher and made a beeline for your bedroom. Your hand rested on the doorknob and you glanced over your shoulder.

“Not bad, but it’s the weekend so of course it was slow,” you called over your shoulder. You twisted the knob and began to step inside your bedroom that you once shared with your younger brother.

“WHOA!” a deep voice blurted out.

You snapped your head in the direction of the voice and saw a boy – not your brother – fumbling to put a shirt on. Your eyes met his wide ones for a moment before you closed the door abruptly out of reflex.

You sucked in a sharp breath and turned away from the door, shifting your weight to one foot.

“Mom, did you forget to tell me something?�� you demanded.

You heard your mom pause, followed by a plate being put away in the cupboard. “I thought I told you that your brother is doing study abroad for half of the year,” she called out.

“No, I remember that,” you said. “I meant, did you go out an adopt another kid while we were both gone?”

“Oh you mean Felix? Oh no honey, he’s an exchange student from Australia! Turns out the school your brother went to had a group of students come here and they needed more host families. Felix is only doing a semester too, so it works out perfectly!”

You took a deep breath and moved your duffle bag to the other shoulder. “I mean, that’s great, but where am I sleeping?”

There was a pause and your mom sighed from the kitchen, realizing the situation you were in. “Oh…well, you can take the couch right?”

You opened your mouth then closed it, taking a deep breath. Mom had a habit of being a bit forgetful – she would have something important to say but tended to wait until the person speaking was done, which resulted in her forgetting what she had to say. How she could forget she had another living being here the same time you were home was beyond you.

In your mind, this Felix guy wasn’t the problem – Mom’s memory was. It seemed unreasonable for her to force her own daughter to the couch for the holidays, but you didn’t want to be a dick for making Felix move. Also he probably wasn’t used to sharing a bedroom with a girl, so the couch was probably the best move.

The door to your bedroom opened and the person in question peered out. “Ah sorry ‘bout that,” he spoke up. He stepped into the hallway and slowly raised a hand. “Hi, I’m Felix Lee, AKA the Aussie student your mum’s hosting. Are you her daughter she talks about?”

You turned to face him and nodded dumbly, extending a hand for him to shake. He took it and you managed a convincing smile as you shook hands. It was almost comical – the guy standing before you looked every bit of a young boy with his small hands, slim figure, and youthful face, but the voice that came out was very deep and manly. Remembering your manners, you introduced yourself before letting go of his hand.

                                                          ***

“Mom we didn’t have to go out,” you insisted from your seat in the car.

She shook her head and said something about it being special. “Well I mean, you’re home, Felix is here,” she explained. “Oh and honey? Your dad’s stuck in another state for work. He might not be home until later in the weekend.”

“Weather or work?”

“I think weather,” she sighed. “Nasty storms in his part of the country and flights were grounded.”

You nodded to show you understood and kept your eyes to the front, avoiding Felix’s in the rear view mirror. While you had been friendly toward him, it still felt a little weird having some strange guy who was the same age as your brother pal around with you and your mom.

Eventually Felix learned you were oblivious to his presence before coming home from college, and he expressed guilt for kicking you out of your bedroom. He tried to be polite and offered to take the couch since it was your room first. But you didn’t want to be the rude person he’d remember from this country, so you insisted that it was fine and that you’d only be here for the weekend. You sensed that Mom taking both of you out to eat was her way of apologizing for the confusion.

She turned into the parking lot and found a spot. Once everyone exited the car, she made her way to the hostess stand and asked for a table for three.

                                                          ***

“You go ahead and order drinks – I need to run to the restroom,” Mom announced before leaving you alone at the table.

Felix watched as your mom speed walked around the waiters and slowly turned his attention back to you. You awkwardly stared back at him and flashed a faint smile. He rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers resting against his pulse point for a moment.

“I uh...take it I’m her or um your first exchange student?” he asked.

You nodded and opened your mouth to reply, only to spot the waitress coming to take drink orders.

“Aww are you two on a date?” she asked.

Both of you blinked and gestured to each other, trying to explain that he was an exchange student you were hosting. 

“Actually Miss I’m just a guest–”

“He’s from Australia – exchange program thing,” you added. “My mom’s in the bathroom but she would like a water please.”

The waitress nodded as she fished out the order pad and scribbled down the order. She looked to Felix who order water as well. You echoed that you too, would like water. Once the waitress left, you addressed Felix again.

“Yeah she loves kids and with both of us gone, I guess she’s suffering from empty nest syndrome,” you explained. “When my brother leaves for college, not sure how she’s gonna deal.” You looked around for your mom and shot him a sheepish smile.

“Did she take you to any other restaurants? I’m hoping not Outback.”

Felix winced and murmured that the Australian-gimmick restaurant chain had been mentioned, but he declined. “The voiceover’s horrible,” he commented. “I don’t think anyone sounds that exaggerated.”

You laughed, adding that it was probably some bad American actor who tried working with a bad dialect coach. “I’m sure he regrets it,” you added.

The young man snickered, dropping the hand on his neck. “So your mum said you’re in college. What do you study?”

“I study Music Production,” you shared. “I don’t want to perform but I like the idea of helping to do stuff behind the scenes for musicians.”

Felix leaned closer and tilted his head when he heard your response. “Oh really? Yeah I like music too. I’d like to do something with it, but my folks aren’t so sure and I don’t know what I’d like to do exactly.” He flattened his palm on the table and crossed a leg on top of the other.

“Is it...weird if I ask what it’s like? I mean your curriculum?” he asked.

You shook your head and settled into the booth, prepared to talk about your major.

                                                        ***

“Honey, how about both of you do something together?”

You looked up from your mug and Felix paused, mid-bite with a piece of toast in his hand.

“Like?” you asked.

Your mom shrugged and prompted that you could take Felix to the mall or maybe catch a movie. “Something, I mean I don’t want you two all cooped up inside on your phones all day!”

You swallowed the sip of coffee you were drinking and glanced over at Felix. “Mall okay? There’s actually a pretty good theater there and actually a decent music store.”

Felix nodded as he chewed on his toast, flashing a thumbs up.

                                                       ***

“I’m sorry you’re stuck dragging me around,” Felix commented once you got to the mall.

You shook your head and unclipped your seat belt. “It’s not a drag.”

“You were fine on the couch?” he asked with a skeptical look.

You nodded and he gave you a hard stare. You sighed and confessed it was a bit firmer than you liked.

“I noticed there is another bed in there – I’m guessing it’s yours?” he added. “Look, I think we can be mature and sleep in the same room. I’ve got sisters so it’s not that weird.”

“Wait really?”

He nodded and pulled out his phone. He looked at pictures and shared one of him with two girls. “Older sis and a younger one,” he shared. “Believe me, I know how to live with a girl, all the ups and downs.”

“It’s not like I’ve not seen a guy’s body with the way my brother acts,” you added with a shrug. “I mean, he’s walked around stark naked like it’s no big deal and I grew up dealing with that all the time.”

Felix snorted at the thought and you nodded, laughing. “Wow, he sounds...”

“Weird,” you finished, “but I love the little idiot.”

                                                        ***

“Whoa is this heaven?” he asked with wide eyes.

You chuckled as you crossed your arms over your chest. “Music heaven. Instruments, equipment, CDs, records – all under one roof. I spent a lot of time and money here before I left for college. That’s actually what made me want to do Music Production as a major.”

Felix stared at his surroundings, eyes wide in amazement as he took in the music store you were standing in. He wandered over to a Just In section and picked up a Sam Smith record, turning it over in his hands.

“Really like singing his stuff,” Felix admitted.

“I like his style,” you admitted as you joined him. “You sing?”

He ducked his head and brought his hand to his pulse point. “Um...sort of. I’m not professional or anything, but I do it for fun.”

You could tell he seemed a bit self conscious and you allowed a gentle smile to form. “Hey, I’d love to hear it some day. Only when you’re ready of course.”

                                                         ***

“C’mon, c’mon how is it there?” his cousin demanded. “You sick of cheeseburgers yet?”

“I actually haven’t had a burger in a while,” Felix confessed as he shifted the phone to his other hand. “Yeah, the family’s real nice and they actually offered me a healthy brekkie. Like fruit, toast, and yoghurt – not dessert for breakfast.”

“You said they have a daughter? I wanna meet her!” another boy blurted out from the other side of the screen.

“Why? So you can scare her?” Felix teased with a raised brow. “Not a chance Han.”

“Come on!” Han protested.

“Ah my cousin’s probably having dreams about her,” Chan teased with a smirk. “Wants her all to himself.”

“Stop it, she’s older – it’s not like that!” Felix insisted with a pout.

That only made the pair hoot and they teased him more. “Felix’s got a noona kink!”

“Who’s Newna?” you asked as you entered the room, looking for a pair of pajamas.

Felix sat up straighter and brought the phone closer to him. “It’s not a person – my stupid cousin’s calling and he’s being an idiot.”

Chan pretended to be wounded and he clutched his chest. “I’m so hurt by that!”

Han snickered at the elder’s misfortune and Felix rolled his eyes at the two through his phone.

“Tell them you’re alive and the people aren’t as mad here as they think,” you called back before leaving.

Chan and Han stopped joking around when they heard your voice and they looked in the direction it came from. “Wow, that’s the daughter?”

“She sounds hot,” Chan declared. “When you say older, like how much older? Older than me?”

“G’night!” Felix said as he ended the call quickly.

                                                             ***

“It’s never long enough,” your mom sighed, looking wistful. She squeezed you in another hug before letting go.

“You know I’m not much more than a hour or two away,” you reminded her. “I can always call.”

“I know, but seeing you in person is the best,” she insisted.

Felix watched as you two said your goodbyes and he shyly walked up to you. He seemed unsure of what to do though. Should he hug you? Shake your hand? Offer a high five?

You held your arms out and he realized that it was a hug. He smiled as he stepped closer and allowed his arms to wrap around you.

“I know things were awkward when we first met, but it’s been great meeting you,” he said. “I really enjoyed the music store and um...maybe we can hang again before I go?”

You nodded with a smile as you pulled away. “Course,” you confirmed. “Hey if your cousin and his friend give you grief again, let me know and I’ll straighten them out. Sounds like they were making fun of you.”

“Ah they’re just jealous that I got picked to go and they’re stuck at home with our boring teachers and the same old stuff,” he shrugged. He raised a hand as you got into your car and slowly backed it out of the driveway.

You waved back before straightening out and switching it to Drive, before leaving the neighborhood, headed back to campus.

Your mom stared at the place where your car had been and sighed. She glanced over at Felix and smiled fondly at him.

“I’m really glad you two got along,” she said. “By the way, you two only slept in –”

“Whoa! I slept in one bed and she was in the other!” Felix flushed, eyes blown wide. “Nothing, nothing like that other thing happened!”

Your mom winked and added that she was only teasing him. He relaxed and shook his head.

Maybe he did like you but whether it was like a sister or possibly a love interest, he wasn’t sure. For now, he was content he met someone else that treated him like a normal human being, instead of highlighting his age or something else. 

“I’m really glad you’re here,” your mom added. “It’s hard being a mom when everyone’s so far away.”

Felix nodded and offered her a hug. “I get it. Thanks for being my host mum. I don’t think I could have asked for a better family than the one I got.”

She beamed at the compliment and sighed as she pulled away. “I’m glad you’re also nothing like my son. I love him, but sometimes...”

Felix laughed as he followed her back inside. “You know, I kinda want to meet him. Sounds like a character.��

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Home Edition 7/31/20 – THE SHADOW OF VIOLENCE, SUMMERLAND, THE SECRET: DARE TO DREAM, SHE DIES TOMORROW and More!

As I started to gather what’s left of my wits for this week’s column, there seemed to be fewer movies than usual, and I was quite thankful for that. Then, a few of the movies scheduled for some sort of theatrical release this weekend were delayed and I discovered a bunch of movies I didn’t have in my release calendar to begin with, so this is a little bit of an odd weekend but still one with 8 movies reviews! I went into most of the movies this weekend without much knowledge of what they were about, probably was the best way to go into many of them, since it allowed me to be somewhat open-minded about what I was watching.

The first surprise of the week is that we’re getting another decent film from the one and only Saban Films, so maybe the VOD distributor has been using the pandemic to step up its game as well.  Directed by first-time feature director Nick Rowland, the Irish crime-drama THE SHADOW OF VIOLENCE (Saban Films), based on the book “Calm with Horses,” stars relative newcomer Cosmo Jarvis as Douglas Armstrong, known as “Arm,” the enforcer for the drug-dealing Devers family. Douglas also has a young toddler with local woman Ursula (Niamh Algar), but when his handler Dympna (Barry Keoghan) orders Arm to kill for the first time, he’s forced to rethink his career.

Much of the story revolves a member of the Devers family caught making a lurid pass at Dympha’s 16-year-old sister, leading to consequences, as Arm is sent to beat the crap out of him. For head of the family, that isn’t nearly enough and soon, Arm is ordered to kill the man. (This aspect of the story reminds me a little of Todd Field’s Little Children, particularly the Jackie Earle Haley subplot.)

As I mentioned above, I watched this film with zero expectations and was taken quite aback by how great it was, despite not having been that big a fan of Keoghan from some of his past work. On the other hand, Cosmo Jarvis, in his first major role, is absolutely outstanding, giving a performance on par with something we might see from Thomas Hardy or Matthias Schoenaerts, at least in their earlier work. Barely saying a word, Jarvis instills so many emotions into “Arm” as we see him playing with his young autistic son, Jack, trying to keep his jealousy over Ursula under control, while also being there when Dympna needs him.  Even as you think you’re watching fairly innocuous day-to-day stuff, Rowland ratchets up the tension to an amazing degree right up until a climactic moment that drives the last act.

Despite the film’s title, The Shadow of Violence isn’t just about violence, as much as it is about a man trying to figure out how to change the trajectory of his life. If you like character-based films like The Rider, this movie is definitely going to be for you. Another surprise is that the movie will be available only in theaters this Friday, rather than the typical VOD approach Saban Films generally takes, so check your local theater if it’s playing near you.

The faith-based drama THE SECRET: DARE TO DREAM (Lionsgate), starring Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas, is directed by Andy Tennant (Hitch, Sweet Home Alabama) and adapted from Rhonda Byrne’s self-help book, The Secret (which is based on a 2006 movie also called The Secret). Originally planned for a theatrical release, it’s now being released as PVOD, which seems to be the way that so many movies are going now. In it, Holmes plays Miranda Wells, a struggling widow living in New Orleans with three kids who on a stormy night meets a kind stranger (Lucas) who tries to pass on his philosophy of using positive thinking to get whatever you want in life.  

Mini-Review: I don’t usually buy into some of the faith-based movies that are released every year, but that’s mainly because I rarely get a chance to see any of them, so why bother?  I was ready to go into The Secret: Dare to Dream with a healthy amount of skepticism, because it seemed to be another movie about grand miracles… but in fact, it’s just a bland movie pimping Rhonda Byrne’s New Thought technique from her New Age-y self help book.

The idea is that positive thinking is all that it takes to get anything you want, something no less than Oprah quickly glommed onto.  While the movie doesn’t hit you over the head with such a message, and “God” is only mentioned once, it also just doesn’t seem to offer much in terms of storytelling to maintain one’s interest.

Katie Holmes does a fine job playing an amiable single mother who meets Josh Lucas’ Bray Johnson as a huge storm is about to hit New Orleans, and he seems like a nice enough fellow as he helps her replace a broken bumper (after she rear-ended him, no less) and then fixing up the house after the storm. But Bray has a secret (hence the title) and it’s in an important envelope that he hesitates to give to Miranda.

The film’s biggest problem is that there never is much in terms of stake when it comes to the drama, because Bray seems to be there to fix everything and make everything better. Miranda’s only other real relation is an awkward one with Jerry O’Connell’s long-time (presumably platonic) friend Tucker, which only gets more awkward when he surprises her by popping the question. She says “Yes” without talking to her own kids first.  The whole time while watching the film, I was expecting some sort of big Nicholas Spark level romance between Miranda and Bray, so when Tucker proposes, it throws a real spanner in the works, but only for a little while.

Incidentally, the “secret” of the title that Bray resists telling Miranda until pressured isn’t particularly groundbreaking either. I won’t ruin it. You’ll just be annoyed when it’s finally revealed.

The Secret: Dare to Dream is as generic and bland a tale you can possibly get, one that really doesn’t accomplish very much and feels more like a Lifetime movie than something particularly revelatory.

Rating: 6/10

Jessica Swale’s WW2-set SUMMERLAND (IFC Films) stars Gemma Arterton as fantasy author Alice Lamb, quietly living on the South of England in a small beachside town when she’s presented with a young London evacuee named Frank (Lucas Bond) for her to mind while his father’s at war.  Alice lives alone but many years earlier, she had a friendship with a local woman named Vera (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) that turned into something more, despite the taboo of their relationship during those times.

This was another nice surprise, and as I watched the movie, it was hard not to compare it to last week’s Radioactive, since they’re movies intended to appeal to a similar audience. This one seems to be more focused, and Arterton does a better job being likeable despite being as persnickety as Pike’s Marie Currie. Although this isn’t a biopic, it did remind me of films like Goodbye Christopher Robin and Tolkien, and possibly even Finding Neverland. (Incidentally, the Summerland of the title is a mythical place that Alice is writing about, which adds to the fairy tale angle to the film.)

As the film goes along, there’s a pretty major twist, of sorts, and it’s when the stakes in the film start to feel more dramatic as things continue to elevate into the third act. The movie actually opens in 1975 with Penelope Wilton playing the older Alice, although I’m not sure the framing sequence was particularly needed for the film to work the way Swale intended.

Summerland is generally just a nice and pleasant film that stirs the emotions and shows Swale to be a filmmaker on the rise.

Another really nice indie film that might involve a bit more searching is director Sergio Navaretta’s THE CUBAN (Brainstorm Media), written by Alessandra Piccione. It follows 19-year-old Mina (played by Ana Golja), a Canadian pre-med student who lives with her aunt, Bano (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who pushes her career in medicine, although Mina would rather be a singer. At her part-time job at a long-term care facility, Mina meets Luis (Louis Gossett Jr.), a quiet elderly patient who sits in his wheelchair never talking to anyone until Mina discovers his love for music, and the two bond over that, although Mina’s employers don’t think she’s helping Luis despite his obvious change in nature.

This was just a lovely film driven by Golja, who is just wonderful in the lead role with an equally terrific cast around her, and while it gets a little obvious, I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying this film that harks back to some of the great earlier work by Thomas McCarthy, as it follows a touching story that mixes a number of cultures in a surprisingly fluid way. It turned out to be quite a pleasant and unexpected film in the way it deals with subjects like dementia in such a unique and compelling away, especially if you enjoy Cuban music.

The Cuban already played at a couple Canadian theaters, but it will be available via Virtual Cinema and in some American theaters Friday, and you can find out where at the Official Site.

I was pretty excited to see Amy Seimetz’s new film, SHE DIES TOMORROW (NEON), since I was quite a fan of her previous film, Sun Don’t Shine. Besides having played quite a fantastic role in recent independent cinema through her varied associations, Seimetz also cast Kate Lyn Sheil, a fantastic actress, in the main role. It’s a little hard to explain the film’s plot, but essentially Sheil plays Amy, a woman convinced she’s going to die tomorrow, a feeling that starts spreading to others around her. I’m not sure if you would get this just from watching the film, because it’s pretty vague and even a little confusing about what is happening despite the high concept premise.

For the first 15 minutes or so, the camera spends the entire time watching Sheil as she cries and hugs a wall, while listening to the same opera record over and over. When her friend Jane (Jane Adams) comes over to check on her, she finds her vacuuming in a fancy dress. Amy tells her friend that she’s going to die tomorrow, and she wants to be turned into a leather jacket. Soon, after we’re watching Jane, a scientist, going down the same wormhole as Amy. That’s pretty much the running narrative, although the film opens up when we meet some of Jane’s family and friends, including Katie Aselton, Chris Messina, Tunde Adebimpe, Michelle Rodriguez and more. Soon after we meet them, they TOO are convinced that they’re going to die tomorrow. Incidentally (and spoiler!), no one actually dies in the movie. Heck, I’d hesitate even to call this a “horror” movie because it takes the idea of a pandemic that we’ve seen in movies like Bird Box, Contagion and others and sucks all the genre right out of it, but it still works as a character piece.

The thing is that the film looks great and also feels quite unique, which does make She Dies Tomorrow quite compelling, as well as a great vehicle for both Sheil and Seimetz. Even so, it’s also very much a downer and maybe not the best thing to watch if you aren’t in a good place, emotionally. You’ve been warned. It will open at select drive-ins this weekend, but it will then be available via VOD next Friday, August 7.

Next up, we have two fantastic and inspiring docs that premiered at Sundance earlier this year…

In recent years, Ron Howard has made a pretty amazing transition into respectable documentary filmmaker, and that continues with REBUILDING PARADISE (National Geographic), which takes a look at the horrible fires that struck Northern California in November 2018, literally wiping out the town of Paradise and leaving over 50,000 people homeless and killing roughly 85 people.

It’s really horrifying to see the amount of destruction caused when a spark from a faulty transmission line ignites the particularly dry forest surrounding the town of Paradise, destroying the hospital and elementary school and displacing the homeowners. This is obviously going to be a tough film to watch, not only seeing the fires actually raze the town to the ground but also watching these not particularly wealthy people having to contend with losing their homes. (It’s even tougher to watch now since you wonder how COVID may have affected the town as it’s in better shape now then it was last year.)

Using a cinema verité approach (for the first time possible?), Howard finds a small group of people to follow, including the town’s former mayor, the school superintendent, a local police officer, and others.  It’s pretty impressive how much time this doc covers, and often, you may wonder if Ron Howard was there at all times, because it seems like he would have to have been embedded with the townspeople for an entire year to get some of the footage.

As I said, this is not an easy film to watch, especially as you watch these people dealing with so much tragedy – if you’ve seen any of the docs about Sandy Hook, you might have some idea how hard this movie may be to watch for you. But it is great, since it shows Howard achieving a new level as a documentary filmmaker with a particularly powerful piece.  

Produced by Kerry Washington, THE FIGHT (Magnolia Pictures) is the latest doc from Weiner directors Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, this time joined as director by that film’s editor, Eli B. Despres. The “fight” of the title is the one between the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Trump administration that began shortly after his inauguration in 2017, his Muslim travel ban that quickly followed, and going up until mid-2019 when a lot of obvious civil rights violations were being perpetrated by the U.S. government.

This is a particularly interesting doc if you weren’t aware of how active the ACLU has been in helping to protect people’s rights on a variety of fronts. The doc covers four particular cases involving immigration, LGBTQ rights, voting rights and reproductive rights, and we watch the lawyers involved in four important cases, including a few that are taken right up to the Supreme Court. In following these four particular lawyers, the filmmakers do a great job helping the viewer understand how important the ACLU is in keeping the conservative right at bay from trying to repeal some previous laws made to protect Americans’ rights. 

Of course, this film is particularly timely since it covers a lot of dramatic changes, including the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, which ends up being ironic, since he was the judge presiding over an earlier ACLU case involving a pregnant teen immigrant who isn’t allowed to get an abortion. The movie doesn’t skirt the fact that often the ACLU is called upon to help the likes of white supremacists and potential terrorist factions, since they’re about protecting everyone’s rights. I would have loved to hear more about this, but it does cover the backlash to the ACLU after the Charlottesville protests went horribly wrong in 2017.

Be warned that there are moments in this film where the waterworks will start flowing since seeing the ACLU succeed against oppression is particularly moving. If you’ve been following the country’s shifting politics keenly and want to learn more about the ACLU, The Fight does a great job getting behind closed doors and humanizing the organization.

The Fight will be available on all digital and On Demand platforms starting Friday, and you can find out how to rent it at the Official Site.

Vinnie Jones (remember him?) stars in Scott Wiper’s crime-thriller THE BIG UGLY (Vertical) about a pair of British mobsters who travel to West Virginia to make an oil deal in order to launder money. Once there, they encounter some troubles with the locals, particularly the sadistic son of Ron Perlman’s Preston, the man with whom they’re dealing.

Sometimes, as a film critic, you wonder how a movie that has so much potential can turn into such an unmitigated disaster, but then you watch a movie like The Big Ugly, and you realize that some bad filmmakers are better at talking people into doing things than others.

That seems to be the case with this film in which Jones plays Leland, who comes to West Virginia with his boss Harris (McDowell) to make an oil deal with Ron Perlman’s Preston, only for the latter’s son “PJ” (Brandon Sklenar) causing trouble, including the potential murder of Leland’s girlfriend. Of course, one would expect to see tough guy Vinnie Jones out for revenge against the endless parade of sleaze-balls he encounters, and that may have been a better movie than what Wiper ended up making, which is all over the place in terms of tone. (It was only after I watched the film did I realize that Wiper wrote and directed the absolutely awful WWE Film, The Condemned, also starring Jones. If I only knew.)  

Jones isn’t even the worst part of the cast, in terms of the acting, because both McDowell and Perlman, two great actors, struggle through the terrible material, though Perlman generally fares better than McDowell, who doesn’t seem to be giving it his all.

There’s a whole subplot involving one of PJ’s friends/co-workers (recent Emmy nominee Nicholas Braun from  HBO’s Succession) and his relationship with a pretty local (Lenora Crichlow) that goes nowhere and adds nothing to the overall story. Once PJ is seemingly dealt with, there’s still almost 35 minutes more of movie, including a long monologue by Perlman telling a sorely wasted Bruce McGill how he met McDowell’s character. Not only does it kill any and all momentum leading up to that point, but it’s probably something that should have been part of the set-up earlier in the film.

The fact this movie is so bad is pretty much Wiper’s fault, becuase he wrote a script made up of so many ideas that never really fit together – kind of like Guy Ritchie doing a very bad Deliverance remake before deciding to turn it into a straight-up Western. Wiper then tries his hardest to salvage the movie by throwing in violence and explosions and leaning heavily on the soundtrack. (The fact that both this and the far superior The Shadow of Violence used a song from the Jam was not lost on this music enthusiast.) Regardless, The Big Ugly is a pretty detestable piece of trash that couldn’t end fast enough… and it didn’t. (It played in drive-ins and select theaters last Friday but will be available on digital and  On Demand this Friday.)

Available through Virtual Cinemas (supporting Film Forum and the Laemmle in L.A) is Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni’s documentary, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, about the Canadian singer-songwriter who changed people’s impressions of Canadian culture, covering Lightfoots’s greatest triumphs and failures.

Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema will premiere Koji Fukada’s Japanese drama A Girl Missing (Film Movement) on Friday, while New York’s Metrograph Live Screening series continues this week with Manfred Kirchheimer’s Bridge High & Stations of the Elevated starting today through Friday, and then the premiere of Nan Goldin’s Sirens (with two other shorts) starting on Friday. You can subscribe to the series for $5 a month or $50 a year.

Premiering on Disney+ this Friday is Beyoncé’s Black is King, her new visual album inspired by the lessons from The Lion King, as well as the new original Muppets series, Muppets Now. Since I haven’t seen either Lion King movie, I’m definitely looking forward more to the Muppets returning to "television.”

Launching on Netflix today is Matias Mariani’s Shine Your Eyes about a Nigerian musician who travels to Sao Paulo to look for his estranged brother and bring him back to Nigeria, as well as Sue Kim’s doc short, The Speed Cubers, set in the world of competitive Rubik cube solving and the friendly rivalry between two young “speedcubers.” Also, Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy will premiere on Netflix this Friday.

Premiering on Shudder tomorrow (Thursday, July 30) is Rob Savage’s Host, the first horror movie made during the quarantine about a group of six friends who decide to hold a séance over Zoom.

Amazon’s drive-in series continues tonight with “Movies to Inspire Your Inner Child,” playing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Hook.

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[667-darkavenue]

water in the desert - part four.

(part one) (part two) (part three)

We are nearing the end, so I’ve started posting the fic on ao3! I suggest reading that version from the beginning, since the earlier parts have been slightly rewritten. 

Fandom: Voltron

Pairing: Klance

Summary: Incubus AU. Keith and Pidge try to summon a demon for fun. They get Lance.

“Half the time, people just keep trying their luck, since they think I can’t help myself. That I’ll have to give in eventually. The other half—They ask me to leave if I’m not gonna… y’know.”

Something about the way he said it made Keith feel like Lance was testing the waters. Putting these cards on the table so that Keith could come out and say it now if he was thinking along those lines.

“Wait. Half and half means all the time. Are you bad at math or do you always do this?”

“Yes and yes.” Lance plopped down side-saddle on his end of the bike.

“You didn’t have the heart to finish what you started with anyone? Ever?”

His smile was strained. “I’m a mess.”

Dry soil crunched beneath their shoes as they made their way back out of the canyon beneath a pink sky, after a long time making out against petroglyphs. Keith’s skin still hummed everywhere Lance’s hand had brushed over his clothes, where it had soaked in every touch like parched earth. This amplified the bitterness over finding out sex with incubi kills people. Apparently, any kind of Lance-related orgasm equaled death. He said Keith shouldn’t even jerk off while thinking of him, just in case.

Something brushed against Keith’s glove. Lance’s fingers slid into his palm, took hold of his hand. Keith let him.

“Are you mad?”

“No? What?”

“I’ve been such an asshole to you.”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, because it was true. “You had a reason for it.”

Lance did not let it slide. “You didn’t know that.”

“It’s fine. I am an asshole. I can take as much as I dish out.”

“You’re really not.”

Keith responded with a hollow laugh and pulled them toward his bike. “I’ve been called a little asshole by nearly everyone who’s had to spend time with me. By Shiro, lovingly. By other officers at the school, less so.” He passed Lance the black helmet. “By foster parents. Even by a nun, just once, when I was a kid. She prayed for forgiveness and begged god for patience right in front of me.”

He hoped Lance would smile at that, but he just looked sad. “I’m serious,” he said, “You didn’t argue with me, you never even brought it up. You didn’t try to come on to me anyway.”

“That’s... not worth a pat on the back.”

Lance snorted at that. “It’s honestly the standard. Half the time, people just keep trying their luck, since they think I can’t help myself. That I’ll have to give in eventually. The other half—They ask me to leave if I’m not gonna… y’know.”

Something about the way he said it made Keith feel like Lance was testing the waters. Putting these cards on the table so that Keith could come out and say it now if he was thinking along those lines.

“Wait. Half and half means all the time. Are you bad at math or do you always do this?”

“Yes and yes.” Lance plopped down side-saddle on his end of the bike.

“You didn’t have the heart to finish what you started with anyone? Ever?”

His smile was strained. “I’m a mess.”

“And here I thought I was special.”

“You are. It hurt me too, when I was acting like that. I knew it wasn’t right.” He glared down at the helmet on his lap, fingers fidgeting aimlessly with it. “I just… didn’t know how to back off. I didn’t wanna disappear on you, not after everything that’s happened to you.”

Keith brushed his fingers over Lance’s hair, easing it off his damp forehead in one stroke. Lance leaned into his hand gracelessly, instinctively, like an affection-starved stray being pet for the first time. It was a little pathetic, and a feeling Keith knew sickeningly well. Only he never acted on his feelings as unashamedly as Lance did.

“Come on, let's go home.”

They curled up in Keith's bed, talking idly about the government’s involvement in the death of Marilyn Monroe.

He dreamt of being out on the plateau with Lance again, but it was night. Their feet dangled over its edge. Their shoulders pressed together in comfortable silence until they fell asleep there, in the sand, underneath all the stars.

The sound of metal clinking around gently woke him. He didn’t need to guess what it was. He watched Lance mix together his honey and brown sugar mask every single day. Keith rolled out of bed and got dressed.

He leaned on the doorframe to ask, “Does that actually make a difference?”

Lance’s face was a shiny brown mess. “You don’t see one?”

“Not really, no.”

He huffed. “Well, I am feeling better already. I like rituals.”

Keith hadn’t thought of it that way, but he did always see Lance’s mood lift just from being in the middle of his beauty routine.

“You can tell me if I overstayed my welcome, you know.”

“What…?”

“If you want me to go, I get it.”

It was hard to take Lance seriously, between his unconvincing nonchalant tone and all the gunk covering him.

“Where?”

“Back where I came from.”

“I already said I don’t want you to go.”

Lance hummed, then bent over the sink to wash his face. He wiped away the honey and sugar, then reached for a towel and patted it slowly, meticulously across his face to dry it up one tap at a time. It was a methodical patience Keith couldn’t imagine. He got frustrated just watching it.

“Actually,” Lance said, looking in the mirror and still patting diligently, “You didn’t say.”

“Well, I don’t care if you stay.”

Lance’s eyes flitted sideways to look at him and raise an eyebrow. “You don’t care at all?”

Keith shook his head. It wasn’t the most honest, but it was the most he could force himself to say.

“Would you care if I go?” Lance asked. Pat. Pat. Pat.

“I think so.”

Lance hummed again. He put the towel down and faced Keith in the doorway. He looked tired. For the first time, Keith noticed dark circles beneath his eyes and a rough texture on his skin.

“I don’t care either,” he said, the corner of his lips curling up. It was deeply unconvincing.

A low, dry “Ha!” huffed out of Keith right away. Lance kissed him before he could say anything. He tasted like honey and sugar.

Just like that, everything felt so much better now. The four of them had dinner and video game nights at Hunk’s, they snuck into movie theaters and baked elaborate pastries Keith couldn’t even pronounce in Pidge’s kitchen. When they were alone Lance laid his head in Keith’s lap while they were on the couch and updated him on some celebrity’s fake baby conspiracy, he made Keith dance with him to the static-y R&B station the radio barely received, he nipped Keith’s ear and the soft skin behind it when they rode his bike into town and back, he snuck deep, melting kisses in empty grocery store aisles.

It would’ve been perfect, if he could ignore the toll being taken on Lance. His hair fell flat, his tan turned sallow, his lips chapped and paled.

Keith’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He couldn’t get it right away because he was busy handing sample spoons of literally every type of froyo they had available to some grown ass man who couldn’t just pick a flavor to shovel into his mouth. He asked for some flavors twice. He hated this job so much.

Fifteen minutes later, he saw the text from Pidge.

When the gang visited Keith at the end of his shift—First, Keith mentally stumbled over the fact that he had a gang of friends now—Lance breezed into the shop while Hunk waited outside with Pidge. He slapped his hands down on the counter and half-vaulted himself over it to give Keith a peck on the nose. Susan didn’t give him a word of greeting, barely even a glance as they left together.

He noticed Keith's eyes lingering on his face. Keith wasn’t sure if he should say anything. Lance wasn’t acknowledging it. If anything, he acted chipper than ever to compensate.

“Pidge is going to Hunk’s house.” He held the door open for Keith and they stepped out into the warm afternoon. “They’re gonna build a robot that stabs the straw through capri sun for you. You wanna watch?”

“You’re not invited,” Pidge barked.

Hunk jumped in alarm, then apologetically added, “Yeah, it’s not very fun to watch at this stage, there’s literally nothing to see.”

“Besides, they’ve got stuff to do.”

“What stuff?” Lance asked Pidge.

She gave Keith a dry look and held it as she started walking backwards down the sidewalk, in the direction of Hunk’s home.

Lance followed her eyes to Keith. “What’s she mean?”

“Tell you later,” he answered, wary of Hunk still standing by him.

“What does she mean?” Hunk echoed.

“Hunk!” Pidge called, already crossing the street without him.

“He’s going!” Lance shouted back. He pulled Hunk in for a goodbye hug.

“Bye, Keith!” Hunk said from over Lance’s shoulder.

Keith responded with a silent wave of his hand before Hunk pulled away and turned to chase after Pidge. Lance walked to where his bike was parked like it was second nature, without either of them saying a thing. They had habits and routines between them now.

Keith’s eyes were pulled to the bend in his spine when he leaned over to pluck his helmet off a handle. The line of his torso when his arms came up to put it on. The sway in his hips when he walked to the other end of the bike. The swing of his leg when he mounted it. Dark blue eyes looked at him through the visor and their corners crinkled. He was smirking.

Caught staring.

Keith reached for his red helmet and didn’t say anything as he strapped it on. Lance sat expectantly on the back seat of the bike. Routine.

“Scoot up,” Keith said.

“Uh?” Lance barely inched forward.

“Sit in front. You can drive.”

“I don’t know how…”

“You scared?”

Lance scrambled into the front seat. “No!”

Keith smiled, invisible behind his helmet, and pointed to each control Lance might need. “Clutch. Throttle. Front brake, touch lightly. Rear brake. Shifter. Gas. Ignition. Horn.”

Lance nodded confidently, as if he knew. Keith flipped the kickstand with the toe of his boot and put it in neutral for him before coming around to straddle the space behind him. He leaned over, covering one of Lance’s hands on the bar grip with his and letting the other one wrap around his waist. Lance flipped the switch to start and pressed the ignition without waiting for Keith to tell him so. Keith’s eyebrows lifted when the bike smoothly rumbled to life beneath them.

“What now?”

“Squeeze the clutch and release the throttle.”

And they were off, a bit too fast for comfort, but Lance didn’t slow down. Instead, he sped up the moment they hit the highway. Despite that Keith could feel his abdomen tense fearfully, with the hand around his waist, every time the wheels hit a bump or uneven patch of road. But the cabin was an hour away from town and Lance relaxed within the first fifteen minutes of riding. They zoomed serenely down the familiar road home for about twenty minutes more—Until Lance swerved off the road.

With a lurch that rocked their entire bodies, they peeled off the asphalt and over the sand. The bike shook so violently over the rugged, unaltered terrain of the desert that they both had to fight just to stay in their seat.

“What are you doing?” Keith yelled in his ear.

“Offroading!” Lance called back, then whooped at the top of his lungs.

He sped up more, their bodies still jostling every moment, the bike kicking up clouds of dust in their wake. Lance laughed into the air. This was stupid and dangerous, and probably going to wreck his bike and kill them, and actually really fun. Keith pressed into Lance’s back and reached forward so that both hands were on the handles over his.

Lance complained, “Hey! Back seat driving!”

Keith didn’t budge. They were heading straight toward the lip of a desert wash that Lance hadn’t seemed to notice in the sand. With his pinky and ring finger wrapped around the bar, Keith lifted the next three fingers to whip in the clutch lever. He rolled on the throttle with his other hand and released the clutch in the same movement. The front end of the bike reared up. Lance screamed and slipped backwards—His back would’ve hit the dirt if he wasn’t pinned between the bike and Keith gripping its bars. The back wheel cleared the obstacle and the bike dropped back to solid ground roughly after a small jump.

“Cool!” Lance was laughing again.

Keith laughed too, from excitement and all this energy thrumming through his veins. Pressed this close, he could feel Lance’s heart hammering in his chest. They hurtled across rocks and sand for a while longer. Keith only had to intervene with the steering twice to avoid some jutting stones and logs in their path.

Mid-ride, Lance batted Keith’s hands away from the controls and pulled both levers to fully brake. They skidded to a stop, sand rising all around them. They were still miles from the cabin.

“What happened?”

Lance tugged his helmet off. “Look over there.”

A few feet off to the side, shrubs of wildflowers had sprouted out of the sand in patches of purple, white, and green. The endless pale background of desert they bloomed on magnified the vibrancy of their colors. Lance looked at them as if he’d spotted a unicorn.

“You’re such a kid,” Keith muttered, removing his helmet too.

“What? It’s a contradiction, isn’t it—Flowers in the desert?”

“Deserts are a contradiction. Stifling hot and biting cold, bone dry and flash flooded…”

“Harsh and beautiful,” Lance agreed. “The desert’s grown on me.”

Keith wanted to say he liked it a little more too ever since Lance arrived. It seemed just a little bit more crisp and colorful. The sun shone less brutally. The stars sparkled a little brighter. Instead, he pressed a kiss into the side of Lance’s neck. Lance tilted his jaw to the side, making it easier for Keith to take the sensitive skin there between his lips.

The black helmet rolled off Lance’s lap and hit the sand with a muted thud. Keith dropped one foot on the ground to help the kickstand keep them balanced and to raise himself just enough to lean over his shoulder and capture his mouth. Lance’s head tipped back for him, welcoming it.

They kissed in a hot, heady blur. Needier than the innocent tenderness they had restrained their physical affection to ever since they decided not to have sex. Keith already knew he should stop, but... He dragged a gloved hand up the inside of Lance’s thigh and Lance arched against his back. At the same time, he hummed a distinct “No” sound into Keith’s mouth. Keith pulled away from the kiss and dropped into his seat.

He didn’t say anything. Lance didn’t either. They sat still in awkward, frustrated silence.

“Sorry,” Lance grumbled eventually.

Keith didn’t wait a beat before asking, “When’re you gonna move on to someone else?”

“What?”

“Why are we circling around it? It’s what has to happen.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

Ugh, did he have to say it all vulnerable and lingering like that? Keith was trying to be practical here.

“Well, how things are going with me, you have to or you’re doomed.”

“It’s not you, Keith. I was always doomed. I told you I’ve never finished what I started with anyone.”

“You’re ridiculous. You need to do that to live. How do you function?”

“I don’t!” Lance caught Keith off guard with the helpless tremble in his voice. “I’m not normal and I keep running away to start over, but it happens every time.”

“What happens?”

“I don’t know how to keep having casual sex with the same person. I try, ‘cause I have to, but I can’t. I always care too much to go through with it.”

Keith’s eyebrows sank as he watched the tiny quiver in Lance’s shoulders. “Well… This time choose a person who’s better off dead. You’ll feel great about it.”

His shoulders crumpled and Lance’s head fell forward into his hands. “I’ve done that. Even then—I had met his family and I couldn’t fathom doing that to them.”

“Ugh, Lance. Choose someone without a family then, no one would miss him.”

“I did. I’m here in the same mess.”

Keith swallowed. “You came here because no one would notice if I was gone? You thought that would make it easy for you.”

“Well, it didn’t.”

Keith’s forehead slumped into the space between Lance’s shoulder blades, his eyes clenched shut. They’d hit a brick wall. There was no going past this without one of them ending up dead and the other alone. Not if Lance wouldn’t leave Keith.

His arms circled around Lance’s waist again, hugging him from behind.

==>

[hbickurthummel-blog1]

these words i’ll never say.

After a second tutoring (with benefits) place at Puck’s, Kurt was feeling on top of the world. His math was actually improving, but, more importantly, he had been having some amazing sex the last two weeks. And he had definitely enjoyed the flirting in between during classes and the last basketball game, so Kurt was looking forward to doing the same this next week before his third session. That session was going to be the day after The Sound of Music Sing-Along event at the Lima Theater, which made him even happier. After the basketball game that week, Kurt and his girls were going to hit it up and sing their hearts out. It was one of Kurt’s all time favorite movies, and he was just so excited to finally be able to see it on the big screen and sing as loud as he wanted.

To make matters even better, his dad was back in town for the school week. After just two Saturdays spent at Puck’s place, Kurt was really starting to realize just how much he missed having someone around the house. He had known for years that he was lonely, but, well, he had seemed to forgotten just how much until he was having home cooked meals with a man and his dog in a house that was truly lived in, not a house that was normally empty to avoid loneliness.

They had dinner together on Sunday night, which was very nice. Then Kurt woke up early enough to make his dad breakfast before work and then he went back downstairs to get ready for school. His dad yelled down that he was leaving for work, specifying he’d be at the store closest to their house, and Kurt yelled a goodbye back.

When he got back upstairs and grabbed the coffee-infused smoothie he made the night before, Kurt found the wrap he had made for his dad still in there. Kurt rolled his eyes and grabbed it; while he normally liked to eat at home, he’d drink the smoothie in the car to make sure his dad actually had a healthy breakfast. He knew that his dad would resort to Slim Jims and hot sauce if he didn’t get him to eat his actual breakfast.

And sure enough, when Kurt found him back in his office, obviously having just finished some phone call, he said that he was planning on that. Kurt gave him his usual reprimands about eating healthier now that he was older. His dad sighed and surrendered, taking the egg white wrap from Kurt and heading over to the microwave in the garage. Kurt followed, grabbing a spare rear view mirror on the table there to check his hair and teeth; for all he knew, a raspberry seed from his smoothie might have gotten stuck in there.

‘I was just finishing up a call to the Cincinnati branch in there,’ Burt explained. ‘Looks like I won’t be going up there on Friday like I planned, so wanna grab dinner? After the game, of course -- I know you have some cheering things to do.’

Kurt looked up from the mirror, his heart tightening in his chest. Any other Friday, Kurt would’ve volunteered to even skip the game. Why did it have to be this Friday? “I have plans,” Kurt said after a moment, the sound odd to his ears. He’d never turned down time with his father before. “Sound of Music Sing-Along. I bought tickets months ago.” 

‘Oh,’ Burt said, obviously surprised at the rejection himself. ‘What about Saturday? I have to leave that night, but we could get lunch.’

“I have plans,” Kurt said again, surprising himself at how quickly he responded. “I’m getting tutored for math.” His dad looked surprised, since he obviously didn’t know about this new development. “My SAT score was subpar, at least in the math section,” Kurt said as explanation. It didn’t strike him until then that his dad didn’t even know how much Kurt struggled with that class, did he?

‘Well...’ Burt said, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘Can’t you skip it just this once? Or move it later?’

Kurt knew that was most likely possible, but after years of changing his plans for his dad’s schedule, he realized that he didn’t want to. And, more importantly, he shouldn’t have to. Before Kurt could respond, his dad added, ‘You know we don’t get much time together.’

“And who’s fault is that?” Kurt asked, his frustration starting to mount. “Because it’s definitely not mine.”

‘Kurt...’ his dad looked at him helplessly for a moment. ‘I have a lot of stores to look after.’

“Yeah, I know,” Kurt said, lightly dropping the rearview mirror on the table he had found it on. “Why bother making time for your only son?”

‘That’s not fair,’ Burt said. ‘I’m here almost every weekday and I’m even trying to make time now, and you’re refusing -- '

“I shouldn’t be your second choice, dad!” Kurt said back angrily, nearly yelling. “I shouldn’t have to drop everything just because someone cancelled on you.” It seemed like years of thoughts and feelings he had held back were spilling out of him, “I’ve cancelled sleepovers and parties and, god, even dates just to spend time with you.” That one was a bit of an exaggeration, but he had definitely cancelled on Puck as well as Sam and Sebastian when his dad had popped into town. “And I’ve never questioned it or complained. And now you’re getting angry with me for not giving up two things that are important to me? You know what The Sound of Music means to me, not to mention my SAT scores.”

Kurt leveled his dad with a piercing look, his eyes tearing up. “I’m seventeen, dad. And you expect me to act like an adult and take care of myself -- and you, seeing as you have no interest in taking care of your own health --  and then when you’re here, you expect me to be like a kid and have nothing else to do but spend time with you. And...god, I’ve been doing that for years now. That’s...that’s not normal.”

Burt looked at him and clearly didn’t know what to say. Kurt just rolled his eyes and told him, “I have to get to school. Just...eat your egg white wrap.” Kurt adjusted the bag on his shoulder and said, “I’ll see you tonight for dinner.” Unable to help himself, Kurt added, “I mean, if you decide it’s important enough to stay in town for.” With that, Kurt turned on his heel and left his dad’s garage. 

His heart was thumping and he felt a little sick and dizzy from what he had said. Once he got in his car, Kurt sped over to Starbucks and ordered a trenta frappucino, unable to stop himself from stress drinking something with way too much sugar. As he drove to school and drank the sugary sweet beverage, Kurt tried to tell himself it was good that he had told his dad all of that since he was right about all of it. 

It didn’t make him feel any better.

‘Uh oh,’ Mercedes said as soon as she saw the large frappuccino in Kurt’s hand, most of which he had already had. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

Kurt slid into his desk next to hers and pulled out the assigned reading, The Grapes of Wrath, from his back pack as the bell rang to start their first period AP English class. Their teacher made her way to the front of the room and he said, “It’s nothing.”

After a bad morning like the one he had, he quite possibly would’ve avoided school for a bit, at least until he finished his drink. Sadly, though, midterms were coming up, and while he was always going to get As on all of his tests, he liked to actually know the material so at least some teachers would know he wasn’t what the rumor mill insisted he was.

In English, they had only been assigned the first few chapters, and Kurt already hated the book. He was all for symbolism, but he didn’t want to read a whole chapter about a turtle crossing the road. They were going to finish it within the next week and have questions about it on their midterm the next week, so he was going to finish it, but he wasn’t looking forward to that. And when it became clear that their teacher was just basically going to summarize the reading, Kurt rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone. His battery was already really low, which made him frown. He must have forgotten to plug it in last night. Hopefully he could run out to his car to get his charger during lunch. 

As the battery started to deplete, he pocketed his phone again. What a shitty start to the day.

[kevinpolowy]

Bryan Cranston Talks 'Wakefield,' His Walter White Disguise, and Whether He'd Do a Superhero Movie

Bryan Cranston at a special screening of ‘Wakefield’ (Getty Images)

In Wakefield, Bryan Cranston plays a successful New York lawyer, who, upon returning to his perfect suburban home one night, decides to take a nap in the attic above his garage. He doesn’t wake up until morning, and decides to make it a full day away from his wife (Jennifer Garner) and twin daughters. Days turn then into weeks, and weeks into month, as Howard Wakefield scavengers food from the trash, grows out a scruffy beard, and spies on his family from a rear window — all the while dissecting the trivialities of his seemingly idyllic (but clearly not idyllic) life.

It’s a tough act to pull off: How can we feel for this guy who would put his family through this type of ordeal? But then again this is the man who played of the greatest antiheroes in TV history, meth king Walter White in Breaking Bad. Cranston doesn’t want you to think about Walt while watching Wakefield, and the characters couldn’t be more different.

But we’ve been through this sort of emotional grinder with Cranston before, and he once again proves a master of bringing honesty and complexity to his characters. In a candid interview with Yahoo Movies, the 61-year-old actor talked about why he could relate to his misanthrope from Wakefield (written and directed by Robin Swicord and based on a short story by E.L. Doctorow), his go-to disguises, his desire to do a comic-book movie, and more.

Obviously this scored high on the Cranston Assessment Project Scale, the formula you’ve said you use to choose roles. Where did it spike in the algorithm? I ran it. It was very high on the story, very high on the screenplay, very high on the character. And high, once I talked to her, on the director. So the first three were killers. Bang bang bang. The character — oof, wow. But the story itself really makes you think. It’s relatable. Who hasn’t thought, “I would love to take my own day and not have any responsibility, not have any phone calls or texts or emails. I would love to just check out.” And Howard Wakefield does. But moment to moment. I just need a few hours. I don’t want to confront this issue right now. I don’t want to get into a fight. I’m tired. I’ll just deal with it in the morning.

Like when you get the flu and go, “Well, this is kind of nice not to have to do anything.” Yeah. If it’s not too bad. I’m watching a movie and I’m eating chicken soup. Mmmm. It’s not terrible! My wife is waiting on me. Have you ever faked that you are sicker than you really are?

Probably, yeah. [Laughs] It’s like [in a whisper], “I don’t feel well, I just don’t feel well.”

Bryan Cranston in ‘Wakefield’ (IFC Films)

What’d you find particularly juicy about Howard? Well, I related to him. I knew what that was like. And then I discovered that this was originally a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne back in 1835, in England.

That then was adapted into a short story in the New Yorker by E.L. Doctorow. Yes, so this sensibility of feeling pressured and wanting to take a break has been with man probably since the beginning. Can you imagine the caveman going, “F–k, if I fight another mastodon, I’m going to scream. Can I just lay down the sand?”

Howard ultimately ends up looking like a caveman. You see! Nice little come-around. But funny you should mention that because he does get down to a very basic type of animal — an animal who is concerned about food, shelter and clothing.

There’s an ongoing dialogue in the screenwriting community about the challenges of telling a story that features an unlikable, or questionably likable, main character. Did you find Wakefield likable? Do you think he has redeeming qualities? I think that’s a misconception. I think we’ve been groomed to think and to accept like dogma that you have to have a protagonist and an antagonist. You have to like this person and dislike this person. Really? And every rule is made to be broken. I think it’s a false premise. What I think the screenwriter or storyteller has to do is to create an honest depiction of a life, a plausible life, and leave it up to the audience to decide if they like him or if they don’t. If you are able to convey vulnerability, sensibility and honesty, some people will like you. Because they believe you: “He’s being honest.”

And human. “He’s human. He has frailties. And he’s feeling pressure. I get it. I like him. He’s me.” And then that character can turn. And then your allegiance to that character can drop. But it doesn’t mean you’re less interested in that character, or less invested in that character. It’s just malleable. It fluctuates.

Breaking Bad was a very good example of that. Something [changes], and then it’s like, “No, Jesse’s the one [who I like].” “Well, I still think that Walter…” This is real life. Do we always love the people we know? No. There are days when our affinity toward someone is lower than others. It’s honest. So I think we’re giving the audience respect and allowing them to feel what they are going to feel.

Breaking Bad definitely transcended the idea of heroism. People still debate whether Walter White was a hero or a villain. Do you think the audience could give Wakefield more leeway because they’ve seen you pull that balancing act before? Well I hope they don’t. I hope they take it on face value of what we’re presenting in this new story and not bring any baggage from previous. That’s the goal. You’re still you. There are elements of me on screen in everything I do that you say, “Well, that’s him.” But that’s the glorious thing about human beings, that we so want to be told a story that we’re willing to suspend belief.

Have you ever gotten sick of fame to the point where you’ve wanted to pull a disappearing act? Yeah, I do… What gets to be an imposition is if I’m out with my wife and daughter and all the attention from other people goes to me at the exclusion of [them]. So now the dynamic has completely shifted. It could be weird. It’s something that I’m learning and I’m getting more accustomed to because apparently it is what it is. And it’s not something I ever wanted or dreamt about. It’s a byproduct of what I do, and I have to accept that.

But I don’t want to make it sound like, “Oh, what a burden it is to be famous.” It is a condition that you make adjustments to, just like anybody. But I’m thrilled when I meet people where the work has brought them some kind of joy or togetherness or they bonded with their mom or dad over something. Like “I just loved watching Malcolm [in the Middle] with my kids.” That’s really great, and I really appreciate that. It’s just the constant attention toward me. I get bored with talking about that. What about you? I want a more well-rounded experience.

Have you ever gone out in disguise? Mmm-hmm. Usually I just wear a baseball cap and some glasses but very seldom does that really work. I walked the floor of Comic-Con in my own Walter White mask. And that was fun. Because I got some attention, but I didn’t get the level of attention I would have if I would’ve been just myself…

Bryan Cranston at San Diego Comic-Con

Do you still have your Walter White costume, did you keep that? I do. I have the mask and the clothes. I have the Heisenberg hat and the sunglasses.

But you never wear that out in public. I would never. I don’t think so. Talk about drawing attention to yourself.

People loved you in Power Rangers. I know that franchise holds a special place in your heart since you did some early work on the series. How was the homecoming? It was fun! Because it was a much more sophisticated approach to the storytelling. And I appreciated that. It wasn’t like, “BOW! ZING! Let’s get him! I will stop you, Rangers!” It wasn’t corny. This was a fully realized concept that really caught the imagination.

I worked on it two days. One day was all the stuff in the spaceship with the head. I had to keep my head on a cradle. I couldn’t move or my face would go out of focus. I never left that cradle. So to this day I haven’t met those other actors. I never met them. And then the other day was being in that costume, which was four-and-a-half hours of makeup. Crawling through the mud and singing in a foreign language. It was a challenge, but fun.

Are you still angling to play the X-Men villain Mr. Sinister? I’m not angling to do anything. Someone brought that to my attention and I looked into it. But I would love to play a character that has not been done before, that I can put my stamp on and create that character from the comic book to the screen. Mr. Sinister seemed to be a good option. Like “Oh yeah, I could play that role. That would be interesting.” But I’m not against playing a hero, either. Whatever may come up. But I would like to do a fully realized action film, either Marvel or DC or whatever.

Wakefield is now in select theaters. Watch the trailer:

Read more on Yahoo Movies:

The New Blue Power Ranger Loves that His Character Is an Homage to Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston Morphs Into the Red Power Ranger on ‘The Late Show’

How James Franco Got ‘Walter Whited’ By Bryan Cranston in ‘Why Him?’

[componentplanet]

2020 Chrysler Pacifica Review: Swallow Your Pride – This Beats an SUV

For most Americans, a minivan is the best people-hauler for the demographic called parents-with-kids-and-all-their-crap. And the 2020 Chrysler Pacifica minivan serves the demographic better than virtually every other sports utility vehicle or minivan. You can have a Pacifica sort-of-inexpensive or trimmed in leather, with or without hiding stowable second-and-third-row seats, or as a plug-in hybrid, all with third-row seats usable by adults. Come 2021, you’ll again be able to get the Pacifica with all-wheel-drive.

The Pacifica handles relatively well. The plug-in hybrid goes 32 miles on battery power and has a battery-plus-engine cruising range of 520 miles. It is roomier and lighter than a full-size SUV. On the downside, some useful driver assists are optional on the Pacifica. Pacifica’s reliability from recent years past is not on par with competing minivans, especially from Toyota and Kia.

The Pacifica is one of the few three-row vehicles comfortable in all three rows.

On the Road with Pacifica

I drove an upscale Pacifica Hybrid with a full suite of driver assists, the latest UConnect 4 infotainment system, and black leather seats with contrasting stitching. It feels roomier than a full-size SUV because it’s roughly the size of the full-size Dodge Durango SUV, 203.8 inches versus the Durango’s 201.2. With a shorter nose and without the sloping rear of some SUVs, plus a couple more inches of width than Durango, there’s a lot more room in the Pacifica for people and cargo inside.

Handling is pretty good for something that weighs a handful of pounds shy of 5,000. It gets to 60 mph in about 7.5 seconds via a 3.6-liter V6 Atkinson cycle gas engine (higher efficiency, lower peak power) and an electric motor that net 260 hp, all driving the front wheels. Once in a while during testing, the nine-speed automatic was slow to shift or thunked into the next gear. The shifter is a rotary knob on the dashboard. Most reviewers hate shifter knobs (or buttons). I say: They leave more room for cupholders and phones on the dash or console. Nobody manually shifts a minivan. This knob would work better if it was coated in grippy rubber.

The infotainment system and navigation, called UConnect and now up to version 4, continues to be one of the easier packages to comprehend. The display is 8 inches diagonal, which is good, but a 10-inch display would be nicer (likely on 2021 models).

2020 Chrysler Pacifica.

The Pacifica excels three ways:

Around town, driving is almost zero-cost because the 16-kWh battery tucked under the floor lets you cover 32 miles of commuting to work, car-pooling, and handling daily driving tasks. It will recharge overnight on 120-volt power, or in about two hours at 240 volts. Many owners won’t burn any gasoline most days of the week, although maybe you might, because there’s no button to force the Pacifica to run electric-only before going to the combustion engine. So Chrysler uses an algorithm to decide when to use what. In a week of driving, I averaged 29 mpg, close to Chrysler’s 30 mpg EPA overall rating, which is quite good for a 2.5-ton vehicle.

Second, on longer weekend or vacation trips, you get up to 520 miles of driving. You only have to fill up once a day. Yes, the kids have to go pee more often than that, but the interstate service area choreography of one parent taking the kids to the bathroom while the other heads for the fueling islands, then meeting up while the refueler parent dashes back to the restrooms, seems to save very little time.

For weekday carpooling tasks and weekend family trips, you can fit up to seven people; the middle row is always two buckets, not a bench. And everybody, in every seating position, is plenty comfortable, especially in the hybrid. The under-floor battery means there’s no space for the stowable (Stow ‘N Go) seats that fold into the floor, but those stowable seats are thinner and less comfortable. The comfier PHEV’s seats are heavy to take out, though.

The Pacifica has upscale finishes on most trim lines. The UConnect 4 center stack display is 8.4 inches.

Lots of Trim Lines

Shopping for a Chrysler Pacifica starts with “Where do I start?” There are eight Pacifica gas-engine versions, five of them called Pacifica Touring (gut none called Pacifica Car Pooling); plus six Pacifica Hybrid versions; plus more two gas-engine entry model Pacificas, only they’re called Chrysler Voyagers (explanation below). As for the hybrid models, there are three Touring models (Touring, Touring, 35th Anniversary Touring L) and three Limited models (Limited, Limited 35th Anniversary, Limited Red S). The hybrid 35th Anniversary (of the first Chrysler Corp. minivans) and S models are upholstery, badging, and paint variants. If this sounds confusing, it is, and there’s not much on the Chrysler Pacifica website that helps you see what features are on what trim lines.

The least costly hybrid, the Touring, is $41,490 including $1,495 freight. That is $6,250 more than the gas-engine Touring, but you are eligible for a $7,500 tax credit, so really it costs less. The Touring gets you power-sliding doors, heated mirrors, keyless entry/ignition, a power-adjustable driver’s seat, three-zone climate control, the 8.4-inch touchscreen, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and USB jacks. Driver assists are blind-spot warning/rear-cross-traffic-alert (same system) and rear parking sonar. No forward-facing driver assists.

The Touring L, $45,780 including freight, may be the sweet spot: It adds leather upholstery, heated front seats, and a power liftgate. But it, too, lacks a full range of driver assists.

The Limited, $47,340, is where you can add a fuller array of driver assists. It has nicer leather, vented front seats, navigation, UConnect Theater (rear entertainment), and 20-speaker audio. For $995 you can add the Advanced Safety Tec Group: stop-and-go adaptive cruise control, advanced forward collision warning, advanced lane departure warning, parallel/perpendicular parking assist, front sonar (rear is standard) with auto-stop, and surround cameras. You can also add a $1,895 panoramic sunroof.

The top-line Hybrid Limited Red S fully optioned runs $52,000, before tax credit.

Be still my heart: the 1984 Dodge Caravan, enabler of the soccer mom demographic.  It’s also 28 inches shorter than today’s Pacifica.

The Shrinking Minivan Market

Minivans as we know them date to the 1984 Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager, boxy vehicles, some with woodgrain wrap on the sides. They helped keep Chrysler Corp. alive. (The vehicles, not necessarily the woodgrain.) Sales of minivans, all brands, peaked in 2000 with 1.4 million sold, 8 percent of the year’s 17 million sales. Most had three rows of seats, and even the third row was reasonably comfortable at a time when there were far fewer SUVs. And they drove like cars at a time when SUVs didn’t.

Minivans were popular with college-educated boomer parents in the suburbs who drove their children to sports practices a lot, had similar-to-each-other buying patterns, got involved in the PTA, and tended to vote. Demographers called them soccer moms or soccer parents, which annoyed the heck out of them, more because soccer mom was too easily understood as well as misunderstood. In retaliation – “how dare these people reduce me to two words” – they switched to SUVs that were bigger, top-heavier, tipsier (until electronic stability control came along), cost you 3-5 mpg in fuel economy, and lacked room for teens in row three. Nothing like seeing six kids in shorts and cleats disembark from a GMC Yukon Denali, not a Pacifica, to prove you’re not a soccer dad or mom.

Fast forward to 2019, and sales of the five minivan models (plus leftover Chrysler Town & Countrys) amounted to just over 400,000, or 2 percent of the (again) 17 million sales of light vehicles. The best-seller Dodge Grand Caravan gets the majority of sales in fleet markets, making the Honda Odyssey and Pacifica the top two sellers to individuals.

Minivan Model 2019 Sales 2018 Sales Change Dodge Grand Caravan 122,648 151,927 -19% Honda Odyssey 99,113 106,327 -7% Chrysler Pacifica 97,705 118,322 -17% Toyota Sienna 73,585 87,671 -16% Kia Sedona 15,931 17,928 -11% Chrysler Town & Country 5 6 -17% Totals 408,987 482,181 -15%

Between 2000 and today, more than a dozen minivan brands departed the market: Buick Terraza, Chevrolet Uplander, Chevrolet Venture, Chrysler Voyager, Ford Freestar, Ford Windstar Cargo, Mazda MPV, Mercury Monterey, Nissan Quest, Oldsmobile Silhouette, Pontiac Montana, Saturn Relay, and Volkswagen Routan. The one significant entrant is the Kia Sedona in the 2015 model year.

In 2020, the aging Dodge Grand Caravan goes away this spring, to be replaced by the Chrysler Voyager, effectively an entry-level Pacifica. That will likely be the rental-fleet minivan. Insiders say the two-name strategy helps the residual value of the Pacifica. Any time more than half the sales for a model go into fleets, it depresses resale prices.

The 2020 Pacifica measures 203.8 inches long, 79.6 inches wide, and 69.9 inches high. This allows for superb cargo space: 32.3 cubic feet with all seats used, and 140.5 cubic feet with the middle and rear seats down.

Should You Buy?

If you do a lot of urban driving, you’ll likely love how much of it can be on electricity, where the cost of electricity (low) is equivalent in cost to the Pacifica getting 82 mpg on gasoline. It is roomy on legroom as well as side to side shoulder room, so you really can get three across in back.

The Pacifica scores well on IIHS safety tests: good overall on crashworthiness, and a Top Safety Pick. However, it’s light on standard driver safety assists: Blind spot warning is standard, plus government-required features such as a rear camera. If you want a fuller range of assists that help especially on long highway trips, you’ll really want one of the Limited trims and the features of the Advanced Safety Tec package.

Only when you reach the Limited are significant additional driver assists offered in an options package.

Against the competition, the same money, roughly, will get you the sensational Kia Telluride or Hyundai Palisade three-row SUVs with less space and a premium-car fit and finish. Against other SUVs, the Honda Odyssey is well-thought-out and so is the Toyota Sienna, which is the only minivan to offer all-wheel-drive. The Kia Sedona, less flashy, has rock-solid build quality and reliability on its side. Consumer Reports rates recent Sedonas at 3, 4 or 5 of 5, while the Pacifica is rated at 1 or 2 out of 5.

The Chrysler Pacifica has been out since the 2017 model year. It gets a significant refresh for the 2021 model year with all-wheel-drive offered on the gas-engine Pacifica only (Chrysler last had an AWD minivan in 2004). Chrysler could have redirected the PHEV’s electric power to the rear wheels for all-wheel-drive (as Toyota has done to create AWD on a front-drive car), but chose not to. There’s a new, version 5, of UConnect Drive by Android software. And there’ll be an additional trim line at the top end, called Pinnacle. To keep up with the competition, the 2021 Pacifica will make standard forward-collision warning, automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, and lane departure warning/lane-keeping assistance.

Now read:

2018 Honda Odyssey First Drive Review: Tech Makes It the Ultimate People Hauler

2020 Kia Telluride Review: The New Benchmark for Midsize SUVs

At Last: Driver-Assist Terms Will Be Common Across All Cars 

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/307788-2020-chrysler-pacifica-review-swallow-your-pride-this-beats-an-suv from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/03/2020-chrysler-pacifica-review-swallow.html

[theliterateape]

Hope Idiotic | Part 29

By David Himmel

 Hope Idiotic is a serialized novel. Catch each new part every week on Monday and Thursday.

POP WAS GETTING WORSE. The cancer in his lung had minimized, but all that carpet-bombing poison the doctors used left him nauseated, without appetite. Even the THC pills weren’t helping. They were one hundred dollars each, and Lou suggested that Pop simply buy a dime bag from Aaron, save the money and smoke it out of his pipe. The Ensure was the only thing Pop could choke down without wanting to vomit. He was spending all day in his bedroom watching old television shows like The Rifleman, The Honeymooners and Zorro. Although the chair he was in was only three feet away from the TV, he had the volume cranked. Grams was tired of it, so she bought him some wireless headphones to wear. He cranked those up to full blast, too, but at least with the headphones, Grams could go about her business downstairs without the noise pollution.

Lou understood that Pop found comfort watching old TV shows. They were from a time long before he was sick. Back when he was young with a young family. Back when he worked at a successful family business every day with his own father. He had probably seen every episode of every show he watched countless times over the years, so there was familiarity. And familiarity is always a better alternative to the painful unknown that comes when cancer is killing you.

Lou made a point to drive out to the ’burbs and visit his grandparents several times a week. Michelle never gave him hell for that. She knew what it was like to have sick grandparents. That she understood.

“Sure, you can go upstairs and see him,” Grams said after she and Lou chatted a bit. “Good luck getting him to take off those headphones and turn away from the TV to have a conversation, though.”

For the first time since the diagnosis, Pop looked sick. Not just thin and tired, but actually sick.

“When was the last time you got up and walked around the house?” said Lou. “It’s been gorgeous outside lately. Let’s take a walk around the block.”

“I haven’t been anywhere but this chair, the bathroom and that bed,” Pop said as he gestured to his and Grams’ bed behind him. “My leg hurts like hell. It hurts to walk the few feet I do. If I were to get down those stairs, I’d never get back up.”

“There are surely some exercises you can do while sitting here all day. Something to keep the body from going stale.”

“I try swinging my legs. But it just hurts too much. It just hurts like hell.”

Yeah, things were getting bad. Pop was never a complainer, and he surely never used crass words like “hell.” All of Lou’s life, he’d never seen his grandfather in a bad mood.

“Have you ever lost your temper?” Lou had asked him a few years before.

“Once. With your Aunt Elise.”

“What happened?”

“We had just brought your father home from the hospital and your aunt, who was two years old at the time, had stopped going to the bathroom. She was making herself sick.”

“What do you mean she stopped going to the bathroom?”

“She wouldn’t poop.”

“Like she was stressed about the new baby?”

“Must’ve been. Well, I tell you, she hadn’t pooped in a couple of days, and she’d developed severe constipation. Our doctor said we should give her a suppository to break everything up.”

“Gross.”

“Grams was tending to your father, so I was the one who had to give her the suppository. I lifted her legs and put it in and, she just pushed it back out. This went on for, oh, maybe ten minutes. She was crying. I could hear your father crying. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my night sticking things up the rear end of my daughter, and I felt like crying. I pushed the suppository in another time, and she pushed it back out. That’s when I’d had it. And I yelled, ‘Dammit, Elise! I’m trying to make you feel better!’ She stopped crying. Your father stopped crying. The whole house went silent, and I slipped the suppository in one last time. That did the trick.”

“So, in a way, you scared the shit out of her.”

Pop laughed. “I wouldn’t say it that way, but yes, I did.”

It had been fifty-nine years since that happened, and while Grams was tired of his crankiness, Lou felt that it was completely warranted. He knew that Pop felt like hell and hadn’t been outwardly annoyed in almost six decades. Bemoaning over the sickness was totally acceptable. What really was strange was when Pop bemoaned about Aaron.

“I just don’t know what to do about your brother,” he said. “He has no direction and doesn’t seem to want to even try to get any. If he were making an effort, I wouldn’t be so upset. But he’s not. And he’s a liar. He lied to me. He has lied about quitting smoking and about the drugs he does, and I’m sick of it. He has no respect for anyone and doesn’t think about anyone except himself. I’m furious with him, and I’m terribly disappointed in him.”

Lou never told Aaron any of that. A lack of confidence from Pop would give Lou all the reason in the world to get his life in order, but Aaron would just be mad about it and dive deeper into the abyss of his own misery. This was why the timing of the play was so important. Lou wanted to have something to show Pop that his life was improving; that all of the hard work—and continued hard work—was going to pay off. Lou needed Pop to witness that he wasn’t a drunken loser before Pop died. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them if he didn’t. Lou wasn’t in the position he wanted to be in at the end of Pop’s life, but he was better than before.

✶

A WEEK LATER, POP WAS IN THE HOSPITAL. Benjamin called Lou that morning and told him. Lou drove out that afternoon. Benjamin, Grams and Aunt Elise were sitting around Pop, who was lying in the bed. The room was full of forced casual conversation. Dr. Caplan, Pop’s doctor, came in. He was the son of a close childhood friend of Pop’s who was also a doctor, but had retired from practicing medicine a few years ago. The younger Caplan inherited many of his dad’s patients, including Abraham Bergman, who used to give him rides to school.

“Here’s the deal, Abe,” Dr. Caplan said as he tossed Pop’s chart on the foot of the bed. “There’s cancer in your leg. A lot of cancer. It’s bad.”

“What does that mean?” Grams asked.

“Oh, hello, Adina,” Dr. Caplan said. “I didn’t see you sitting over there.”

Grams rolled her eyes.

“What does it mean, Barry?” Benjamin asked the doctor in his most serious and intimidating voice.

“It means that the cancer is spreading, and it’s spreading fast. It’s taking up the majority of your leg right now, which explains the pain and why you haven’t been able to walk. But that’s a good thing, because if you were walking there’s a good chance you would have shattered your leg entirely. There’s not enough solid bone to support your weight.”

“Oh, Dad,” Elise said.

“What are my options?” Pop asked.

“You have two. We can do surgery on the leg and insert a metal rod to support you. You’ll likely need the use of a cane or a walker, and you may be limited in the amount of walking you can do, but it will prevent the leg from shattering every time you need to take a leak. The other option is to do nothing and let the cancer run its course.”

“Will getting the rod in my leg help prevent the cancer from spreading?” asked Pop.

“No. It will only allow you to have some limited mobility for the time you have left.”

“How much time do I have left?”

Dr. Caplan looked at Grams. “Time to consider hospice care.”

The silence in the room intensified. No one said anything for a couple seconds. Then Pop broke the silence with his typical cheerful and thoughtful sounding, “Well.”

“I’ll let you think about what you want to do and will be back in a bit.” Dr. Caplan exited the room leaving behind the chart he brought in.

Grams moved from the chair against the window to sit next to Pop on the bed. She held him and kissed his head. He put an arm around her. They didn’t cry; they just sat together quietly. Lou figured that they were realizing that they’d come to the moment they’d talked about years ago when sickness and death seemed forever away—impossible. Benjamin and Elise started their own debate about what their father should do. Lou noticed the chart Dr. Caplan left behind. He walked to the foot of the bed and picked it up. He flipped through it. It had all of the information about the cancer since the diagnosis. The last page was a listing of test results. In large, thick red pen, someone—probably Dr. Caplan—wrote, “This is BAD!!” in the middle of the page and circled it. Lou closed the chart and hung it from the foot of the bed.

He looked at Pop and Grams and smiled as his eyes welled with tears. He heard Grams whisper, “You promised you’d always take care of me, Abe. Who’s going to take care of me now?”

Pop and Grams were old-school in that 1950s-Father-Knows-Best sort of way. Pop never cooked a meal or did the laundry or cleaned the house. He never went grocery shopping or clothes shopping, except for his suits and for gifts during birthdays and Christmas. The domestic part of his life was run entirely by Grams. He took care of the financial providing for her. But that’s not what she was talking about.

They looked seventy years younger as they held each other on that hospital bed. Like two fresh-faced kids falling in love for the first time. The way Grams looked at Pop when she said, “Who’s going to take care of me now?” Lou knew she was talking about something deeper, something bigger. Who was going to travel with her and sit next to her at the theater and lay on the couch in his office reading while she read in the chair next to that couch? And who was going to share that tiny full-sized bed with her and golf with her and laugh with her? Who was going to love her? Who was going to take care of her when her time came?

“Addie,” was all Pop said to her as they quietly kissed.

Dr. Caplan came storming back in. “What’s it gonna be?”

“We’ll obviously go for the surgery,” Elise said.

“No,” said Pop. He looked into Grams’ eyes. “We’ll let it run its course.”

“What?” exclaimed Elise.

“We haven’t even discussed it, Dad,” Benjamin said.

“Your mother and I have,” said Pop.

“When? Where were we? Don’t your children get a say in this?” asked Benjamin.

“We know what we want to do. We’ll let it run its course,” Pop said. His eyes never left Grams’. “Get us some good hospice recommendations, please, Barry.”

“I’ll have the nurse bring you a list before you leave today. Take your time. Stay as long as you like. Enjoy the cafeteria food downstairs. Today is Friday. That’s pizza roll day.” Then he walked out, taking the chart with him.

✶

LOU WAS WAITING AT GRAMS AND POP’S HOUSE when the ambulance arrived to bring Pop home. While his dad and aunt checked out with their parents, he had spent that hour walking around their house. It was a house that he knew well; as well as his own. He could navigate it with his eyes closed. But this time, he looked more carefully at each photograph hung on every wall and made a note of how furniture was situated, how organized Pop’s office was and how that home was so absolutely Grams and Pop that it could never be anyone else’s. In the 30 years he’d known that house, little had changed. A new rug in the family room, an updated family photo hung, a new artifact from some trip somewhere placed on the fireplace hearth. It was clear that of all the things in the world, that house was the one thing that never really changed. It adapted, but only slightly. Grams even still used the same mixer she received as a wedding gift sixty-three years before. Lou walked around that house and took in the sounds and the smells—vanilla pipe smoke and Grams’ baking. The smell was the most specifically recognizable thing about it. For all that time that the house had not changed, Lou was wrenchingly aware that in a few moments it would never be the same.

When the ambulance pulled into the driveway, it came with a van from hospice care. Two men ushered in an adjustable bed with railings on its sides through the front door. Benjamin led the way and asked Lou to help unlock and open the double doors. Lou had never seen the second front door opened. He didn’t even realize it was possible. This bed, after all, was the first new piece of furniture brought through in over three decades. The men set the bed up in the family room. One plugged it in so it could be adjusted while the other walked Benjamin through the rental agreement and other paperwork. The couch had to be pushed back a little. There were deep divots that were a brighter color than the rest of the rug from years of being covered by the couch legs. The five-inch section of the rug that sat under the couch was also lighter and fluffier than its foot-trafficked majority. Grams came in and suggested the bed be positioned so that Pop could face the television. The hospice men clumsily rotated the hulking thing. The weather was absolutely perfect as the EMTs wheeled Pop out of the ambulance and into the house through the garage.

“Nice day for a game of golf,” Pop said to them. Neither responded.

The paramedics lifted him from one bed to the other, packed up and rolled out along with the hospice men. They were replaced by a young nurse from the hospice care company. She worked with Grams and Elise to adjust things so that Pop was as comfortable as possible. Benjamin fetched the wireless headphones from upstairs and began fiddling with the television.

“I won’t be in here forever, right?” Pop asked the nurse. “I mean, I can out of this and at least get into a wheelchair or hobble around some, right? You’ve seen people get out of these beds, right?”

“Sure. It could happen,” the nurse said.

Lou knew she was lying. Pop probably knew it, too. But, his spirits were high, considering he would never walk outside again. He would never do a lot of things again.

✶

POP WAS SPENDING MORE TIME SLEEPING THAN ANYTHING ELSE BY THE MIDDLE OF THE NEXT WEEK. He would come into consciousness for twenty minutes or so and then, without warning, drift back to sleep. His moments awake were wracked with pain, and he started asking for a drop or two of morphine. This caused him to sleep even more. Someone was always in the family room with him, reading or watching the TV that stayed on at all times, so that he’d have someone to talk to when he did wake up. Or so that someone was there to offer a drop or two of morphine.

Lou drove out on Father’s Day. The usual backyard barbecue with the whole family wouldn’t be happening, but the whole family would be at Grams and Pop’s house anyway. Lou arrived in the morning before anyone else. Grams was upstairs getting showered. Pop was just barely awake when Lou walked into the family room.

“Hi, boy,” he said.

“Hi, Pop. How’re you feeling?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, not too shabby for an old guy.” Then he drifted to sleep, which is how he stayed for the rest of the day. The only reaction anyone saw from him was when he winced in his sleep. Grams was at the ready with the morphine.

By Wednesday, Pop was barely alive. Despite everyone’s best efforts, bedsores were forming. He had to have his diaper changed several times a day. He was no longer waking up, but rather opening his eyes to stare blankly at the ceiling. To Lou, it looked as if Pop were actually staring through the ceiling and at something else. Something beyond this life. Maybe he was just stoned on morphine. Maybe the two things went hand in hand.

After Lou helped Benjamin change Pop’s diaper and address the bedsores, he sat down next to him and took his hand. Benjamin joined his sister and mother in the kitchen.

“Pop. It’s okay. You can go,” Lou said. “Everything here is fine. Dad will take care of everything. I’m going to be okay. Aaron will be okay. You don’t have to feel like this anymore. You can go. It’s okay.”

Lou overheard the kitchen conversation. His play opened on Friday night. Grams was concerned about the timing of Pop’s impending death.

“If he dies tomorrow, we’ll have to wait until Sunday because we can’t have a funeral on a Shabbat. But I don’t want him dying tonight because that’ll put a real damper on Lou’s opening night. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t listen to them in there,” Lou told his grandfather. “Don’t worry about my play. I wish you could see it, but don’t worry about it.”

Eventually, Elise went home. Benjamin did, too. Michelle wanted Lou to come home, but he wanted to stay with his grandfather. Grams joined him in the family room. She sat down in a chair on the other side of the bed and took her husband’s hand. The day before, Lou and Benjamin turned the bed around so Pop could look outside through the large, sliding glass doors whenever he did open his eyes and maybe wasn’t looking at heaven. The sun was setting, and it shined right into the family room covering it in calming warmth.

“This was his favorite time of the day,” Grams said. “Abe, you should see the sunset. You should see all that your children have done for you. You’re missing all of it.”

“This is a terrible time of the day,” said Lou. “The sun puts a glare on the TV. You can’t see anything.”

“We never watched TV at this time.”

Pop winced.

“He needs a shave,” Lou said. “He’s probably going crazy having not had one in a few days.”

Lou reached for the electric razor that was resting on the tray next to the bed and started to shave his grandfather’s face. But Pop winced, which Lou took as a signal to stop. He and Grams sat on either side of the bed holding Pop’s hands. The sunlight in the room began casting longer shadows up the wall as it slowly sank below the backyard where Pop used to play catch with his grandkids. His breathing became erratic and labored. Lou stood, still holding his hand and kissed him the forehead and said, “It’s okay.” He sat back down as Pop’s breathing eased. And then, silence.

Grams looked at Lou. Lou looked at Pop. Grams stood up. Lou placed his ear to Pop’s chest. It sounded like nothing. No lungs inhaling or exhaling, no heart pumping the blood, only the sound of emptiness—lifelessness. Lou looked at Grams.

“He’s gone,” she said. She kissed him on the forehead and looked at him. Tears streamed down her face. “Oh, Abe… My sweet, Abe.”

Lou let go of his grandfather’s hand. “I’ll go tell Dad,” he said. Then he hugged his grandmother and walked next door.

Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part X Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26 Part 27 Part 28

[dcnativegal]

I moved here for love

New Year’s Day, 2018

Entire swaths of my old identity mean nothing here in Oregon. The fact that I was DC born, DC public school educated, and a DC resident for all but my college years, is an odd bit of personal trivia. Back east, this DC Native thing made me a special, rare being. My intimate experience of being a small marshmallow in a sea of cocoa, a minority in a majority black city, doesn’t register as interesting here. My knowledge of back alleys and short cuts through Mount Pleasant, or Brookland, or Chevy Chase DC is not necessary here. My memories of landmarks in Adams Morgan or Georgetown don’t come up in conversation with other DC natives, because I’m the only one. (Remember the cherry cokes at the fountain at People’s Drug Store at 18th & Columbia Road?) My experience as the one white girl in my journalism class at Penn Center’s Urban Journalism Workshop, where I spent my senior year of high school, means nothing, although I’m convinced that my write up of that extraordinary year got me into Oberlin, since my only extracurricular activity was running away from home. I graduated from high school the same year that Roots played on TV, 1977.

Having lived through the Uprising of 1968 while living in Adams Morgan, and having memories of 9/11’s impact on the Pentagon and DC, might be an interesting anecdote here in the Oregon Outback, but the conversation in which that experience might come up is hard to imagine. The knowledge I have about presidential motorcades (that they always have an ambulance at the end and that’s how you tell it’s a presidential one and not a head of state) is downright peculiar. I know that there are two large helicopters that transport the President out of town, and that one is a decoy. That no planes are allowed in DC airspace, except the presidential ones. I’ve seen senators and congress people in downtown restaurants. The famous people of DC are not movie stars; they are more likely to be journalists. The traffic downtown is different when Congress is not in session. Cherry blossom season means the residents avoid the Tidal Basin and the tourists flock there. Seriously, the best place to see the azaleas in April is the National Arboretum.  

My long-lived, meticulously collected, history of daily life in the District of Columbia has been mothballed.

I traded that history for quiet. For zero light pollution. For a glimpse of the milky way on a clear night. For moonlight so bright that I can see dramatic landscapes illumined by it. I traded my familiarity for wonder.

I’ve left behind traffic. There is no traffic in Lake County. Ever. There is the occasionally cow-choked two lane highway: I have learned how to drive very carefully between enormous bovine fellow-travelers on Route 31. There is the inconvenience of a large truck laboring at the top speed of 40 up the Picture Rock Pass. But I’m not in a hurry. I’ll labor, too, and eventually pass the truck when we get back on the flats.

I worked long hours in various social service positions in D.C., hanging out all day with people who had cancer, or dementia, or ALS. In Lake County, I work about 28 hours a week. A little over 3 days. This schedule is … there are no adequate words… luxurious.

My old self was cosmopolitan, and oriented to alphabetical streets, with avenues named after states, the biggest avenues named after the original colonies. Northeast and Northwest DC encompassed most of my world. My idea of wilderness was Rock Creek Park. The beaches of the Atlantic are sloping and the water is warm during summer. I’ve traded all of that for a state that apparently has almost every sort of land and weather the United States seems to offer, in microcosm. Except the waters of the Pacific are very cold, and the beaches are embraced by cliffs.

I am still me. I am an anthropologist from the East Coast, eyes wide open, taking notes for this blog. I moved here for love.

___

People who live in Lake County tend to ask me why I moved from Washington, D.C. to Paisley, Oregon. Depending on the context, I may or may not come out to them, because the answer can be, because I have lots of family here (although they do not know that the family is not actually my kin) or because I have a partner here (and she is originally from Bly.) I may then get asked, how did you meet her? I may well inform them that she and I were both members of a listserv for women who were married to men while figuring out that they may be ‘not strictly heterosexual.’ I knew her as a woman who wrote beautifully and was very funny.  Valerie lived in Germany at the time with her youngest child in high school. She referred to him as the Tall Monk. Her husband was a civilian chemist, serving the Army base. She’d figured out she was pretty darn lesbian some years before, but didn’t have anyone to focus on as a potential female partner, and had this son to finish rearing and launching. We met online as fellow confused gay women, in 2004. We didn’t date until 2011.

In 2003, I had fallen in love with an old friend, a butch woman who lived in Chicago, while I was still in DC.  My husband had given me permission to pursue this woman, following his shocking heart attack at age 43, which drove home the idea that life can be very short indeed. His great gift of permission was one we both occasionally regretted, but it led us to more authentic lives, just separately, by 2006, when I moved out of the only home our kids had known. My children were 11 and 9 at the time. This old friend and I managed a five-year relationship, long distance, until we broke up.

Valerie and I had met once in person back in 2006, and later that year, I’d made her an offer: if she’d come to DC to help me prepare the apartment that I would soon be moving to as a newly separated woman, I would pay all her expenses. She accepted, and we got the one-bedroom apartment ready for moving. I thought she was adorable, and I was very grateful. Off she flew back to Utah, where’d she’d moved by then, still coupled to the chemist.

In 2011 I was single, and training for a half marathon. I don’t know who started what but by late Spring, she and I were contemplating a romance. In June, she was a firewatcher for the Forest Service at Indian Rock in eastern Oregon. By August, I was there, visiting. A more dramatic locale for a first date I can hardly imagine. I stayed a week. The lookout was way up in the air, affixed to a pointy rock much like the one from the Lion King, jutting out into the Malheur Forest. It had 50-mile views, and mountain goats for company. Because I’d been running faithfully in my training, I had no trouble with the altitude. It was a magical time.

I guess because Valerie now had a girlfriend, she wrote letters to her husband, adult children, and siblings announcing she was a) gay, b) leaving her third husband and c) moving to DC for the winter. Needless to say, minds were blown. As soon as fire watch season ended, she moved to DC. By then I’d bought a house in the Edgewood part of northeast. Over the next five years, Valerie would winter with me and then fly back to Oregon to work on the Hyde ranches, or set up a weed whacking business with her youngest granddaughter.

My kids moved back and forth between their parents’ houses, and grew up beautifully, if I may say so. Their dad, Brian, began a relationship with a funny, talented, cheerful and 100% heterosexual woman who lived in the bungalow across the alley from our old house. We six would celebrate Christmas morning together, and go to school events as well. I was active at the church I’d started attending in high school, and Brian worked there for years as Parish Administrator.

Over the course of our relationship, Valerie and I talked about various scenarios. It was clear early on that having her move to DC permanently (including the sauna-like summers) was not going to work for several immutable reasons. One was the heat: Valerie’s multiple sclerosis is not a huge variable in her life most of the time, but when it’s very hot, she decompensates, and becomes a stuttering, lurching mess. Plus, all of her family is in Oregon. I don’t have much family: there’s my beloved sister, who lives in Philadelphia, and her amazing sons, who are wandering young people, just like mine are. I have lovely cousins who are all west of the Mississippi, so I’d be closer to them if I moved west.  Valerie has children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews in Oregon and northern California. Lastly, although officially retired and receiving social security, Val has several jobs she can do part time in Eastern Oregon that don’t exist in the urban context. There is little demand inside the Beltway for tending cows, irrigating, and general fence maintenance.

When I began accepting that the best thing was to move west, I knew I’d wait until the kids were out of the house. At one point I told her, you know, Valerie, if I’m pulling up all my roots and moving where I know no one besides you, I want a ring on my finger. She considered my depth of feeling and was respectful. She didn’t say no way. She didn’t propose either.

When I’d visit her for 10 days each summer, we’d travel around the state. We considered Ashland OR as a possible place to settle as a couple. She’d lived there when she was a student at Southern Oregon University, taking care of three kids and her grandmother as her husband also studied. It’s a bit of a resort town, known for its theater. It has an Episcopal parish we visited, and a dear friend of Valerie’s who’s a professor. We decided against it because it’s really too hot in the summer. And pricey.

Our next choice was Eugene. It’s a progressive college town, and we already knew 3 people: a former coworker of mine, and Valerie’s first husband and HIS husband. We settled on that place, despite my concern that it is so very white. The entire state is so very white.

In the last couple of years I lived in DC, I felt myself slowly withdrawing. I kept in touch with my good friends, but I no longer pursued people I thought would make good future friends: I’m leaving soon, I thought. I need to prioritize. My work as a hospice social worker was more stressful than I thought it would be and not because my clients were dying at a fast rate. It was the Medicare-induced stressors around compliance with a thousand regulations, and productivity pressures.  

At church, I agreed to be on the search committee for a new Senior Priest, and proceeded to pour heart and soul into a very time consuming and conflict-ridden process. My faith community of 40 years got the last bit of oooomph I had left, and once the process was finished and the priest chosen, I was kind of done. I never thought I’d feel that way about that place. And I probably would still be there, enjoying the fabulous liturgy, the kind people, and the new directions I know he is steering it toward. But knowing I was moving west ‘soon’, I could let go of being a part of those adventures.

My children’s father made it easier to contemplate leaving the city of our children’s birth when he decamped for Tucson Arizona in April of 2017 with his long-time girlfriend. He’s originally from California, and Jenny’s folks and sister live in Tucson. They sold their homes in Brookland DC and bought a much bigger home outright.  

Jonah was ensconced in Brooklyn, and making a living as a music video director. Clara was a rising senior at Oberlin, and not at all sure where she’d be after graduating in 2017. So all it took was a particularly terrible staff meeting at Hospice one day in July 2016, and I was ready. I started looking for work in Oregon as a social worker. I got all the paper work together to get licensed there. I found a job, interviewed over Skype, and accepted the position as a care manager in Eugene. Within 2 weeks, I’d resigned at hospice, lined up a mover for mid August, and started packing. In early August, my new job evaporated: they said they couldn’t wait so long for me to get there. Valerie told me, come out anyway, we’ll stay in Paisley, and figure something out. And so I did.

Looking back, I don’t know how we considered any place besides than Paisley. For one thing, living in the home that Valerie and her son rehabilitated means rent free living for me. I didn’t realize that being a licensed social worker made me such a hot commodity in a county that is so rural, it’s called ‘frontier’ in the public health nomenclature.  My being queer doesn’t seem to matter, thanks to the Eastern Oregon-born status of the well-respected Valerie, and the fact that Hope was right: no one really cares.

We probably won’t marry, although I have fantasies about a really fun wedding. Maybe someday, if, and I mean if, I feel as though there is a community, IN Paisley, that would commit to our well-being as a couple. She’s had 3 marriages to my one: getting married to each other is unnecessary.  Meanwhile, I’ve come to see how loyal Valerie is, and how much she loves me. I thought maybe she’d regret my having moved into her world, bugging her 12 months out of the year instead of 6 or 7. But she has lots of places to go while I work, lots of family members to help paint a house or construct a room, and dear friends to ranch for when needed. I spent this past summer driving to Fort Klamath, Beatty, Brothers and Chiloquin. We took the train to visit her brother and sister in law in Lotus, California. If Valerie needs a break from me, there’s lots of opportunities. And I can binge watch Netflix without her ever-so-mild disapproval.

It’s all worked out remarkably well.

I moved to Paisley for Valerie, and a slower, kinder, quieter life. It was a good decision. Even though I still miss Black people, Jews, Ethiopian food, free museums, gingko trees in the fall, and liturgy with an enthusiastic thurifer…