#farms - particularly cattle - really feel like they go either way here at the moment

[pynkhues]

https://x.com/pixielayer/status/1844795418741297427

in case you haven't read this interview before :) it's nice to see him talk a bit about the decision to return to australia, and judging from his experience with filming lambs of god, he must be sooo ready to get all miserable as lestat lol he's probably vibrating out of his skin waiting to get naked in the parisian snow

I hadn't, anon! Thank you for sharing! And yeah! It sounds like he's pretty into demanding roles, which I mean, IWTV has been already, haha, but is about to get a whole lot more so for him.

[mst3kproject]

Kingdom of the Spiders

Yep, this is the one with William Shatner in it.  It was directed by John ‘you really undermine your authority when you put Bud in the middle of your name’ Cardos, who did the same job for The Day Time Ended and Outlaw.  It’s also available on Rifftrax, so I think we’re fully qualified for EtNW status… but if you need one more returning star, we have of course the much-maligned Mexican Red-Knee Tarantula.

The Shatmeister is Dr. Robert Hansen, the vet in these here parts. He’s not sure what caused Mr. Colby’s prize calf to suddenly fall sick and die, so he summons help that arrives in the form of Dr. Diane Ashley, an expert on venomous animals.  She quickly determines that the area is being invaded by huge, pissed-off tarantulas!  The over-use of pesticides has forced the spiders to evolve, and they’ve become social hunters with a more concentrated and deadly venom.  In large numbers they’re capable of taking down cattle, dogs… and maybe even humans.  The soundtrack consists of terrible country songs, all of them by the same guy you’ve never heard of.

As 70’s Nature’s Revenge movies go, Kingdom of the Spiders is… adequate.  It’s not remarkably bad, but there’s nothing particularly creative or interesting in it, either.  The direction is nondescript – none of the shots are visually striking, but anything artsy would be out-of-place in a film that’s intended to look as down-to-earth as the farmers and cowboys that populate it.  There’s a county fair that stands in for the Fourth of July Weekend from Jaws, and a ‘spider hill’ that serves as the Smaller Shark, but both of them are mentioned and then just kind of go away, rather than fulfilling any role in the plot.  They’re there for the same reason as the love triangle, because movies are supposed to have those.

The love triangle is what’ll make you hate Shatner’s character. Dr. Hansen seems dedicated to his work and he’s kind to his neighbours, but he’s an absolute ass to women. He seems to have a thing going on with his dead brother’s widow, Terri, which is very Claudius of him, but he rejects her almost violently when she accidentally calls him by her husband’s name. In one scene he teases that he might marry her himself, and then a day later he’s bringing Diane by to introduce her, which results in Terri fleeing to the kitchen to cry.  The impression we get is that he can read her signals, he just doesn’t give a shit.

He’s a jerk to Diane, too.  He asks her on a date moments after saying he has to go see ‘his girl’ that afternoon.  It turns out he’s referring to his four-year-old niece, but he didn’t clarify that until after he asked Diane out, which can only mean he deliberately led her to think he wants to cheat on somebody with her.  Later when he wants her attention, he runs her off the road and basically kidnaps her for dinner with him, and then he drives her car after she’s angrily told him not to.  He teases her about her feminism and makes her open beers for him… and of course this is supposed to be Twu Wuv.

Like a lot of useless love triangles in a lot of useless movies, this one is resolved when the third party dies.  Shatner therefore doesn’t have to choose – if Terri had lived and he’d chosen Diane instead, she might have decided to reduce Hansen’s time with her daughter Linda, whom he clearly adores.  With Terri dead, he gets Diane and the child all to himself.  Terri was nothing but an inconvenience, and is summarily disposed of.

I did like Diane, though.  She comes across as kind of a snotty bitch when we first meet her, but she warms up fast.  My favourite part of the movie is when she sees a gigantic tarantula crawling out of a drawer at her hotel room, and she immediately picks it up, pets it, and tells it it’s pretty!  How could I not like this lady?  Apparently actress Tiffany Bolling got the role mostly because she was willing to do that while their first choice, Barbara Hale (of The Giant Spider Invasion) was not. She deserved way better than to be William Shatner’s love interest.

The unfortunate thing about this sequence is it, and a couple more in which Diane happily handles the spiders without harm, rather undercuts the idea that they’re supposed to be aggressively seeking out human prey.  There are other scenes in which we watch humans run around madly, screaming and flailing, while the spiders merely sit there not doing very much.  Worst of all are two separate sequences in which a fatal accident seems to result not from spiders attacking people, but from people freaking out because a spider was in a vehicle!  It makes the whole movie feel like an over-reaction.

I do realize this may be my personal reaction, rather than the average one… somebody who’s actually scared of spiders might find this completely horrifying.  But… you know spiders move at like one mile an hour, right?  The Creeping Terror could catch them.  Just go get in your car, and drive away.  It would have worked for the sheriff if the crowd hadn’t slowed him down!

Moving along – the characters of the Colbys, a farming couple who’ve poured everything they have into their herd of cattle only to see their livelihood destroyed, are people we can pity but we know better than to get attached to them.  The opening scene is Mr. Colby bragging about how his calf is a shoe-in for first prize, and you know right away that he’s destined to lose everything.  The series of tragedies that ensue for the couple are all similarly telegraphed.

At the end we see a terrible matte painting depicting the entire town draped in spiderwebs.  This looks so bad it’s actually difficult to figure out what we’re seeing, and I’m not at all sure what it’s meant to tell us.  Diane had talked about the spiders ‘migrating’, implying that they’re just passing through.  So are we meant to think that now they’ve killed everyone else, the spiders have moved on and our so-called heroes can escape?  Because there are no actual spiders in the image, just their webs.  On the other hand, Diane also talked about spiders storing their food by wrapping it in webs.  So are they gonna come back to eat everybody later?  But it’s just a spiderweb… the humans can rip it apart and go.  Did the characters win, or lose?  Are they going to live or die?  The movie just runs out of ideas and ends.

This is a bit of a shame, because the core idea here is kind of neat.  The spiders have become monsters not because chemicals or radiation has mutated them, but because evolution did.  Diane explains that over-use of pesticides has done two things: one is to create DDT-resistant spiders in the same way as misuse of antibiotics creates drug-resistant bacteria.  The ones that can tough it out survive and produce similarly tough offspring.  Second, the pesticides have killed off the spiders’ usual prey, forcing them to turn to alternative sources of food.  Spiders with more potent venom are better able to kill large prey – as are those that work together.

I actually like this better than the idea of monsters made by pollution.  The toxic monster genre can’t really be about nature striking back because the creatures in it are truly un-natural.  When it is evolution that makes monsters, that is nature demonstrating that it is more powerful than we are.  It’s also more realistic, I guess, though only in a movie-science-y kind of way.  It’s not very plausible that the spiders could evolve so fast – the major changes in their behaviour would probably take many, many thousands of generations – but at least we know that evolution is a thing that happens, whereas exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals just kills stuff.  Too bad the concept seems to make for terrible movies.

Unfortunately, if the movie’s point is supposed to be that nature is tougher than us, the vague ending kind of undercuts it.  As I mentioned, we don’t really know if the protagonists are going to live to see another day.  Diane says that if insects turned on humanity we wouldn’t last long, but at the end the main characters are still alive.  There are movies in which an open ending is perfectly appropriate, but in this one it just feels incomplete.  If I were writing this, I would have the humans escape to another town or city, onto to find that the spiders have gotten there first.  That would be a little cliché, but it would make the point that while minor victories are possible, in the end the battle of man versus nature can only have one winner.

Kingdom of the Spiders is fairly well-known as a ‘bad movie’, and I expected I would either love it or hate it, but in the end I did neither.  I dislike Shatner’s characters rather strongly, but I’ve seen worse, and he’s not as stilted here as he is in some of his work.  The rest of them are okay.  The music sucks but it’s pretty forgettable, as opposed to things like The Sad Mushroom Ukelele Anthem that crawl inside your ear and nest there like a botfly larva (if you don’t know what that is, do not google it, I refuse to take responsibility for what you’ll learn).  I think a big part of the problem for both this and other spider movies like Tarantulas: the Deadly Cargo and Arachnophobia is just that live spiders don’t make good actors.  You can’t direct them.  It’s really hard to take something seriously as a threat when it’s just kinda wandering around.

Speaking of Arachnophobia, apparently producer Igo Kantor believed it was a deliberate ripoff of Kingdom of the Spiders.  He didn’t do anything about it because, and I quote, “you don’t go and sue Spielberg.” That’s a good enough excuse, I suppose, but I bet he and the makers of Parts: the Clonus Horror would have a lot to commiserate about.

[mehenxe]

◈ ◈ ◈ ◈ & ღ & ♫ bc ur a slut for music ; & ✮ (i want explanaTIONS ...gET META W THIS SHIT )

◈ — share some head-canons you have for a muse of your choosing, but x4.

[ elijah kane ] ◈ — all efforts to get him into studying how to make robotics like hyacinth have resulted in a lot of miniature woodland creatures able to sprint across desks. it’s not exactly what anybody had in mind, but hey, you never know if ilya might not want to send in an actual animal for something he has going on. they can call up sugar kane industries ( big face-palm here ) to take care of the job. ( wyatt voice: seriously, you couldn’t think of anything better than sugar kane. ) / hyacinth kane has a nice ring to it. elijah has tested out several different nicknames: sugar kane also for them, mistah k, ( missus k? ), cinthy ... cindy ... ( sean: yeah! cindy k! like cindy crawford! / who the fuck is cindy crawford? / wyatt — / how old are you. ) / he’s had a life-long dream to be able to go scuba-diving off the coast of — some exotic island he can’t remember the name of. beforehand, it was one of those things that he was too afraid to do, but full-out war changes your perspective. in truth, he’s always been a water baby, growing up going swimming in the local rivers and running pellmell down the dirt lanes. he grew out of it, and then grew back into it. whether or not he’s going to be able to do that without monroe tagging along ( and then by default, ilya, and then probably hojin will want to come, and then ravi will have to, and then oliver will want to watch over them and then jinho will buy a whole yacht with his dumb vampire money — ) — ah, well, there’s worse people to spend an extended holiday with. his father will come along too: sit on the deck in a lawn chair and drink a virgin margarita as he deserves after putting up with this whole extended family. and with his son being a you-know-what.

[ alice bedi ] ◈ — there was a time where she was interested in wigs. she had percival sit down on her shack’s bed and watch as she perused through at least fifteen different styles of wigs. each one got a firm head-shake: too rough on your complexion; lilac looks good as a colour, but the style is horrid; why did they think it was a good idea to make a bob that length? a tough customer. she returned back to wearing veils, her preferred style being that of mantilla, or the veil that’s worn to chapel over a jade comb. due to the volume and length of her natural curls, she rarely wears the combs at all, but will if it’s a particularly formal occasion, like that time she accompanied percival to a ‘high-society event.’ ( translation: they crashed a party because he was bored, and she had a bad feeling about him going alone. ) / as the local librarian’s assistant, she’s the first to get in the way when someone is overtly curious: why are you asking so many questions? hmm? the irony is that she herself asks just as many questions — she insists that the difference is: she reads the room and knows when it’s inappropriate to ask them. ( and if she knows it’s inappropriate to ask them, and instead chooses to risk asking them regardless, it’s because she knows it’ll smooth out in the end. / despite what she wears daily, one of her most favourite colours is moss green. there are a multitude of reasons. moss is her favourite foliage. it’s similar to algae, another favourite foliage. and it reminds her of someone who she says is her sister; however, anybody who knows her, knows that she has no blood-siblings. one or the other might be a lie, or both might be the truth. when she’s in a mood, she’ll smear the moss at the base of her neck like a perfume, a splotch of green beneath white.

[ huang shen ] ◈ — he designed an irrigation system to work, specific to his farm, to be able to make rice paddies despite the surrounding environment. it’s a southern crop in the united states, but there was no way he was going to move to the south just to expand the business. his entire family was so relieved about it that they danced through the sprinklers and set off fireworks — and none of them are really into that kind of thing. it’s particularly incredible due to the area they’re in, being very prone to sometimes too much drought and too much rain, and both are responsible for driving out selling numbers of crops. his plan is to switch into an agricultural degree, and perhaps even expand it into engineering, so that he can continue helping this way. / one of his surprises for algernon was learning sign language. for the longest time, months even, shen made it out like he had no idea what was being said, and let damien, as surly as ever, be the translator when algernon was unwilling or unable to speak. in the background, however, he was working with a tutor and seeking to understand better what it meant to be both HoH and mute. then, when algernon’s birthday came around, everyone went silent ( holy god he was so nervous ) and he gave an entire romantic, long speech entirely in sign language. he’s sure that some of it got lost in translation due to how hard his hands were shaking, but the way that algernon kissed him afterwards, it didn’t seem to affect much. now, they communicate constantly on this even ground. / he’s started up horseback riding again — and has roped tobias into doing it alongside him. tobias might have grace on the stage floor, but certainly not on the back of a horse; he somehow ended up upside-down beneath the horse’s belly, and then fell down in a tangle of limbs. shen has taken to the western side of things, re-learning how to barrel race and rope cattle; but he and tobias have had to separate their lessons due to these antics. lucas isn’t allowed to come to any of them; his stupid remarks send them into fits of laughing. ( bold of us to assume he doesn’t just sit in the truck and shout anyways. )

[ deok bae ] ◈ — due to the empire no longer supporting his upgrades, nor looking in his general direction, he has had to find other ways to obtain new modifications. this is including, but not limited to, going and pulling them out of other people’s bodies as catharsis — but usually, he defects to yuri and silas to fix him up. to his chagrin, the LED-light in his forehead has absolutely no use whatsoever, only displaying his brain’s processing as a symptom of installation. he pulled it out himself via the tip of a knife’s blade. the next time that he’s seen by those who haven’t seen him in quite some time, he might be unrecognisable. i am not deok bae — perhaps deok bae is no longer himself either. if there was no connection to eli in his head, he would forget that; perhaps he would merely succumb to the machinery, perhaps he would succumb to the wolf-dom. there are several pairs of teeth in his mouth awaiting for their moment to bite. / when he was a teen, his version of ‘sneaking out’ would be to wheel his chair to the gardens at the back of the temple, where he would sit and think for hours and hours. his father would come and find him there; sometimes, master jhcor would instead. his father would return him back to where he needed to be, but master jhcor would sit beside him and gaze serenely until bae felt the need to speak what was on his mind: his angers, his fevers, his rages. one time, he was surprised to see that it was not master jhcor, nor master deok, but zan coming to sit with him. his heart had sat in his throat the whole time, half-expecting zan to laugh at him or say something particularly piteous. instead, the conversation was — well, looking back, absurdly normal, all things considering. when bae blinked tiredly, zan rose and took the handles of his chair and took him back. he hadn’t intended to ask him to do so, but it was done anyway. / bae drinks a lot of soda. it’s somewhat fitting, if you believe all that talk about how coca-cola can double as a cleaner due to the high carbonation and way it’s made. he does seem to get shiny after several cans — it’s also convenient that he can’t experience sugar-highs nor malfunctions of the liver or stomach due to too much consumption. he considers himself to be a soda connoisseur as a result. he offers a lot of hmm, that’ll taste disgusting comments that annoy the shit out of the others — but then kisung takes a drink and bae ends up being right, so there’s no regrets.

ღ ━ favourite canon ships for your muse(s). are there any you dislike?

there’s ... none that i dislike. there’s moments of come on, but that’s bound to happen. i think the favourite ships are the ... guardian / princess vibes ( whether it’s literal or not: akane / the samurai, quinn / sehrin, jian / elaine ). i also love the growing from previous immaturities towards each other ( grey / tobias, jihoon / wyatt, playboy / jordan ) — and himbos of course ( hojin / ravi!! ) there’s also the whole ... tsh, vampiric aesthetic that we get ( minzhe / yongha ) ... the ones like jisoo / mingfei, cyrian / ulysses, cadoc / pestilence ( exploring violence against but without the stickiness ). of course, if i keep going, i’ll end up listing all of them and then where would we be.

♫ ━ a small playlist for a muse of your choice

for nam jungsoo, because i actually once did make a playlist for him:

1. brand new — sic transit gloria ... glory fades 2. within temptation — what have you done 3. iamx feat. imogen heap — my secret friend 4. florence + the machine — shipwreck (the odyssey) 5. crown the empire — hologram

i mean, the songs are still kinda relevant considering his current character ...

✮ ━ top three favourite muses that you’ve played

but is it possible to pick three favourites ... that’s the real question. maybe. jianguo, because of catharsis, because of cultural exploration and similarities. grendel, because of the depth, the personal torment, the surrounding family. jinho & julius, because of exploring that darkness. and famine — man, now that’s something. there’s a lot more than three though. like blood and jisoo and tobias and arthur. but. the questions INSIST THAT I CHOOSE.

[hopesiick]

𝐉𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐃 // vice detective, thirty-three, red ridge native.

— unflinching, grudging, brainy, irreverent, plucky, mulish. loosely inspired by dominique dipierro (mr robot), laurie blake (watchmen hbo), eve polastri (killing eve), wendy byrde (ozark), and allie pressman (the society). this vine, too.

howdy, folks! i’m dev. 🤠 this is my dearest brain babie, jordan. normally, this is where i’d get all mushy-gushy on y’all, but the rest of this introduction is already too long as it is, and i’d rather not add insult to injury hehe. just know i’m happy to be here & even more excited to get to know you all + your brain babies, too! 🥳 @redridgeimp​​

— pinterest, stats + connections page.

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑: bullet points marked with three asterisks (***) feature mentions of domestic abuse and unfit parenting. reader discretion is advised.

the toussards are old money. her mother’s side of the family have made their fortune off of hay farms scattered across the state of nevada, and her father’s side of the family have mostly been cattle and dairy farmers. together, they decided to venture into real estate, too, by buying up farm land plots and selling them at a higher price, along with residential plots, too. 

they’re not showy people, but they definitely make good use of their money. jordan’s childhood home is a plantation-style house on a big ole plot of land situated on the outskirts of town. they had healthy green grass with sprinklers and a full garden. inside, everything was real wood, ivory, and silver. they had a maid and gardeners and the whole nine yards. still, if you hadn’t seen that or recognized their family name, you might have expected them to be any other family belonging to red ridge. 

to many, they gave off the image of a picture-perfect, all-american nuclear family. it’s easy to pretend, seeing as they live so far away from all the glitz and none of them -- no matter how they feel -- are willing to shatter that golden reputation, but it isn’t real. elise, her mother, wanted a doll more than she wanted an actual child, and it was society’s pressure on women to give birth that forced her hand, not any sense of innate desire for expanding the family. joseph, her father, was too caught up in his wife’s every wish and whim to really pay attention to jordan in a deep way. he never turned his back on her, but jordan never felt any deep belonging to him either -- if anything, he felt more like a 2d stand in for the father she wished she’d had. 

*** that meant there was only one adult left to really pick up her parent’s slack, and that was corinne, her aunt. corinne, who had an awful habit of bringing terrible men home. corinne, who was bipolar and unmedicated, and often in charge of taking care of jordan from the moment she was in diapers to the moment she graduated college. corinne, who was manipulated by her own sister. corinne, who was helpless to protect jordan against her mother’s attacks, and unable to shield her from the rage her boyfriends spat. corinne is like a mother to jordan. she was the hand that rubbed her back when she was sick. she was the open arms that held her when one of jordan’s teenage dates went sour. she was the one to cover for her when she snuck out and the one to teach her everything her mother considered too immoral and dirty. corinne is her mother in the way elise never could be, but still .. jordan can’t help but feel anger towards her. 

*** jordan’s known how to use, fire, and clean a gun from the age of eight. she learned how to hunt at the age of ten. she knew and helped her father field dress a handful of animals by the age of twelve. you may think this was just a bit of heavy-handed bonding between a father and daughter, but it wasn’t. elise and joseph used to go away a lot, both for pleasure and business, which left jordan in corinne’s sole care. that wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that a grand majority of corinne’s relationships were abusive, specifically physically. jordan was a child, but she was a child with a duty -- a duty to protect her caretaker if necessary. at the time, jordan didn’t think much of it. she liked feeling like she had an in with her father, liked feeling important. it was only when she got older that she realized how fucked up everything had been, and how that’s the driving factor behind the feeling of fear she just can’t drop, and the mistrust she has in others. the anger she feels towards corinne is rooted in that. she can’t help but feel like it’s corinne’s fault and she hates that her aunt -- a fully grown adult -- was the center of her childhood, instead of her own self.

skipping forward a bit, jordan went to college right after high school to major in criminal science. her lifelong exposure to such abuse left her with a taste for vengeance. see, jordan wanted to be a police officer to protect her hometown, sure, but she also wanted the badge so that she could finally dish out the punishment that so many of the officers she’d seen were unwilling to. the only way to stop that culture of turning a blind eye was to do it from the inside, and that’s exactly what she did. 

jordan’s been a cop for twelve years now. she started her career doing patrol and eventually working with the gangs and narcotics team for five years. after a lot of pestering and brown-nosing, jordan became a g&n detective. she was mostly in charge of surveillance, carrying out raids, and the planning of both. ( she had an opportunity early in her career to go undercover, but jordan’s too obvious for that. ) eventually, jordan switched departments over to the special victims unit, but that stint really only served as a segue into where she is now: the vice and support department. she used to specialize in community outreach, helping bridge the gap between the community and the precinct. she worked with groups focused on helping those affected by drugs and sex workers who have been abused. when one of the detectives assigned to missing persons cases left, jordan was quick to apply for it. needless to say, she got the job and has been doing that since.

she’s got the nose for it -- all the digging and reviewing and passion for the relentless pursuit. she doesn’t particularly like dealing with the families of those affected, but it’s part of the job. on most days, she genuinely enjoys it, but with the rise in crime and the amount of deaths at their feet, jordan can’t help but rethink her choices. she’s competitive by nature; she can’t handle these losing games. 

jordan’s a very cutthroat cop -- especially in her g&n days, when it was all heat, all pressure, all the time. she’s got an eye for weakness and isn’t afraid to exploit that on the job. she’s not above making threats -- promises, really -- and has always been the type to gather as much evidence as humanly possible, because she wants prosecutors to see justice through. she’s just really efficient. she wouldn’t be where she was at only thirty-three if she wasn’t. most of the time, you can catch her putting in overtime hours. 

that being said... jordan has a big heart. she doesn’t believe in institutions as a whole, but she does believe in people. the law is the law and rules are vital for a functioning society, but .. she may be willing to look the other way sometimes, if you’re close enough. ( i mean, she was married to a valencia member at one point, so. ) she may not agree with what some people do, but she’ll really only go after you if what you’re doing is truly heinous. ( but don’t tell her supervisors! 🥺 and don’t mention the hypocrisy to her face. )

outside of work, though, jordan’s pretty chill. she used to be a loudmouthed firecracker in her youth, but she’s calmed down significantly since then. really, she’s not so bad! maybe it's because she can't handle being alone, but she thrives from being in groups + will strike up a conversation with anyone and everyone. if she likes your shoes, she'll tell you. if you need a ride home then she’ll walk with you because she’s most likely equally as inebriated. kind of the person that you’re hesitant to approach, but when you do she treats you like you’re old friends -- even if you're not. you know that drunk girl in the bathroom that gives you sagely advice or tells you she loves your hair? that’s jordan, except she’s not drunk. 

when jordan makes her mind up on something, it’s almost impossible to get her to budge. it doesn’t matter if she’s in the wrong, she’ll trudge on no matter what. her flippancy in the face of danger – a prized act at this point – has landed her in trouble before, and it most certainly will again. she’s unyielding and unapologetic; not willing to change herself for anyone. getting her to talk about her emotions is like pulling teeth, except even that would probably be easier. she’s incredibly honest about some things as a way to hide behind it; it’s a farce that distracts people into thinking she’s being honest with them, when really she’s not -- not entirely, anyway. 

loves love, but she’s rotten at it. her anxiety gets in the way, tells her that she’ll mess it up somehow until she finally does, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. ( something-something abt the fact that she can’t comprehend someone loving her if not even her own parents could ). she’s a much better friend, and jordan thinks that’s more important anyhow. genuinely, if you’re her friend then she loves you endlessly and earnestly.

𝒇𝒖𝒏 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒚 𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒓 !

jordan is that friend that gets a little bit too into car karaoke.

she’s also the type to order a screwdriver during an 11a brunch.

it’s a wonder that she doesn’t have tinnitus, considering she always blasts heavy metal music in her car.

makes jokes about getting married and divorced, because if you can’t laugh at your pain then you’re fucked.

if you ever visit her unannounced, you’ll spot her in t-shirts that say “milf in training”, “god looks like me”, and more.

if you’re mean to her she’ll give you a parking ticket.

she plays dirty in fights. used to bite a lot as a child and she still does. all is fair in love and war, babie! enjoy getting that tetanus shot and lovely hospital bill! 💋

pantsuits from monday to friday, and overalls without a bra on the weekend because fuck that shit. also extremely partial to shirts with low plunges. a lil bit of side titty for everyone. 

if you’re leaving a drink behind she’ll finish it for you because daddy didn’t raise no quitters.

has a lot of self-worth issues, but she’d sooner die than ever tell anyone about them or even confront them herself. 

don’t let the pantsuit fool you! there’s pure muscle underneath that two-piece, babie. 

𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒄. 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔:

“i am the shape you made me. filth teaches filth.”

"can i be blamed for my efforts? all men are drawn to the sea, perilous though it may be."

"there is a place, deep in the heart of fear, where you trap yourself and claim that is safety."

"still, a great deal of light falls on everything."

"i hold a stalk in my hand. i am the stalk. my roots go down to the depth of the world."

“i always figured when i got older, god would sorta come into my life somehow. and he didn’t. i don’t blame him. if i was him i would have the same opinion of me that he does.”

“nothing washes off.”

“you cannot be stolen, ransacked, looted like an emptied bank account or a burgled house. you are the tough old tissues, the exquisite scars. you are the thing that would not die.”

𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚, 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒔 ! ( open to any gender ) 

jordan can’t function without a best friend, so.. gimme, please! 🥺🤲

i once read a passage talking about how the friendships you make in your childhood can never be mimicked in your adulthood, and you know what.. #true. where’s jordan’s childhood friends at? do they still keep in touch? did they have a massive fallout as teenagers where jordan told them to get hit by a truck because she was a very dramatic 16 yr old? were they frenemies? do they still have one of jordan’s things because she was terrible at remembering everything after a sleepover? did jordan’s parents help your muse’s family out? idc, just gimme!

exes / almost exes. remember what i said about jordan being a shit when it comes to love? they could’ve been serious at some point whether as adults or in their youth, maybe it was short-lived, maybe jordan never even let it get off the ground. could be on good terms or bad terms or no terms at all. 

neighbors!! jordan pulls some odd hours n sometimes plays her music a little too loud and burns her food more often than she should at 33 yrs old. she may or may not be the best neighbor to have is all i’m saying, but she tries!! 

friends!! platonic love is the most purest form of love there is and she’s got a lot of it to give!! come and get ya some! 

enemies / hateships because sometimes .. it just be like that. whether this has to do with a falling out of some sort, just straight up hate at first sight, or something to do with an encounter on the job, or something else entirely i’m here for it! 

one night stands / [old] fwb. i’m gonna be honest with y’all: if jordan likes you, then she can’t sleep with you. now, i’m gonna be honest with y’all again: jordan’s very much a yes-girl. she says and does things just to get a reaction sometimes or see what’ll happen ( something-something "sometimes if you let people do things to you, you're really doing it to them" ). that being said, she’ll sleep with just about anyone. maybe they don’t talk about it ever, maybe they only ever talk when they want something, maybe they regret it, maybe it’s all gucci, and maybe it was good until it wasn’t. idk! 

jordan has been shot twice in her career thus far. the first time was during a noise disturbance call and the second time was during a narc raid. if your muse wants in on that we can discuss the deets! 

and also literally whatever else your heart desires because i’m both here for the fluffiest deepest connections ever and also the angstiest makes-me-wanna-die type shit. i literally don’t say no to anything so if you have any ideas you think jordan can be a good fit for, i’m all ears!! 

[millimallow]

28- the touch of my mother

i don’t know if there’s a day where i don’t look a fool.

east island is a quiet place.

my mother left me her business when she passed. a café serving fusion food to the sailors from u’baani and the plainslands who only had a short distance left before the larger, undeniably capital west island, but who could not obtain their favourite food and desserts that far to the west. we’re both only southern, sharing no mangrove blood, but her husband- my father- took regular business trips to the tropical coast. he came back with stories of exotic frozen desserts and rich, complex fish dishes he would insist my mother made for us. because he missed them too- just like the sailors do. and when we moved to be closer to his work, my mother founded a business in her home. she looked me in the eyes on that first night and told me- “make it with what you’re good at.”

it’s difficult to feel like you’re fulfilling someone’s wishes and betraying them at the same time. especially when you remember them like nothing has ever changed. i know the tone in which my mother lectured me on my behaviour and my academics, or even just my slouching, and i hear it every time i accidentally forgo one of the many fruitpeppers instrumental to the goat’s milk stew or take an hour to restock the traditional fridges in the back. when the ice cream is your most popular dish, she’ll say to me, that dilly-dallying can’t be forgiven. even though she’s long dead. this isn’t really what i’m good at. sometimes i contemplate the reality that maybe i’m not good at anything in particular. that what i’m doing right now is just a compensation for that awful, awful fact. either way, i’m a disappointment to my mother. who worked so hard, so independently, to keep living in her new and alien home.

i won’t lie to you and say it’s not successful. i couldn’t count even with both my hands the amount of regulars who come here month after month, year after year, departing for a while off the boats which lug goods between the u’baani coast and the west island. some of them know my name and remark on how much i’ve grown, while i resist commenting on how their hair has greyed and eyes have aged over the years. just as well, i know their orders, even if i can’t make them as perfectly as my mother did. and we get new business too. nowadays, amongst the aging sea captains and small-time traders there are just as many young spitfires, beneficiants of the new trade in stones and minerals for magical programming use. can’t say i understand it, but they’re excited to see someone their age behind the counter. and when we look into each other’s eyes, there’s a new and common feeling between us:

what i’m doing is hard, and my understanding is sometimes lacking, but there’s a fire of survival and pride that i can never kill or let down.

---

these days, i’m experimenting. while both benefit from equal amounts of sunlight, the east island collects a greater amount of fresh-water streams and arable land than the three-pillar coast of origin for my customers. so an hour after a particularly heated argument with the supplier of my turtle meat packages, traditionally wound in palm leaves with bright red hemp string and delivered to my door in a cooler, i’m left sitting on a pepper crate outside the beachside venue and its sea-blue wooden walls contemplating how i’m going to make the next day’s sugar-flour sandwiches. and it hits me that half-an-hour’s walk away is the cattle farm with the girl i went to school with in that isolated little pier-house school complex. so with the sea breeze at my back and the sun high and waiting to set, i’m taking myself slowly down the sandy dirt path which leads inland, a place i’ve never really needed to go. and when i find that there’s nothing fresh available, i settle for the preserves and cuttings popular amongst the sailors who head south instead, away from the equator. and i pray to every deity i know that nobody’s afraid of cow’s meat.

--

captain mall’ran has, for the last 20 years, kept his tradition of dragging his whole small crew into whatever venue he deigns most suitable for lunch. and he spends well, so i do my best to accommodate him even if the café may become crowded. and after everyone else has ordered, he comes to me personally at the counter. he grins wide, and i thank fate that i’ve had so long to get used to the fact that mangrove grins expose chalk-white and shining fangs every time lips move. and this is the moment i’ve been waiting for in anxiety all morning.

“one citrus-wash turtle sugarbread, please.” i remember the recipe like i remember the sun rising in the morning. fresh turtle meat dunked into a grand bath of acidic zests and fragrant vinegars, tenderizing and absorbing the herbs it’s flanked with by the liquid, placed squarely on a rectangular plank of dry and slightly-sweet sugarbread and dressed with a salty pepper sauce. but i can’t do it this morning.

“i’m sorry.” i say it, and his expression changes within an instant to one of disappointment and hesitation. “but the jackshit who supplies the turtle is holding out on me right now.”

“oh.”

“but you can try something from the east island if you’d like.” he’s clearly confused at the proposal. “i picked up some beef from the inland last night, and it’s been bathing in the same citrus wash. i’ve been expecting you.”

“young man, i don’t think i’ve ever had cow meat.”

“you’ll find it has a rich and strong flavour.” he takes pause, looks to the side, and then relinquishes.

“what the hell. slide it over to me like usual.”

-

i was able to sell turtle meat again, and it still gets taken. but every week i see captain mall’ran, and he orders the citrus-wash beef in the morning. one time he shakes my hand over it, and tells me my mother would be proud.

for the first time, i believe it when it’s said.

[red-dragon-archfiend]

Scarecrow Forest

 "They're out there," he told me. "Fields and fields of them. As far as the eye can see." I wasn't sure what he was talking about. He pointed over the horizon, and I look, but all I could see was the sun setting over the beautiful green countryside. It had been a wonderful day of hiking through the plains, fishing at the nearby pond, and eating food prepared over a campfire. But at some point or another, Brian had gotten himself lost and found something he described as "mighty unusual", but had only just returned moments ago and hadn't yet explained what he saw. I got the feeling he was intentionally building up suspense, or stalling because he hadn't actually thought of a lie yet. But as he opened his mouth to speak, it seemed as if he was finally going to tell me what he had seen out there.  

"Scarecrows. Dozens of 'em.", he spoke as casually as if he were describing an unusually large flock of geese. "You need to go a bit ways into the woods o'er there to find 'em, but it sure is a sight to see. A big 'ol field of the things, just stuck there with nothin' to scare crows from. I couldn't find a single stalk o' corn! Mighty suspicious, I reckon." Brian grew up on a farm. Scarecrows were far from a new sight to him, but for "city slickers" like me, they were something a bit more sinister. I'd heard stories of scarecrows coming to life and attacking people, or being constructed out of a human corpse. Of course, I don't believe any of that stuff, but I'm not going to pretend the idea of "dozens of 'em" being erected in the middle of nowhere for seemingly no reason isn't a bit creepy.

  "This isn't one of your tall tales, is it? Because if it is, you need to come up with something harder to disprove." I tried to sound skeptical, but I had the feeling he was telling the truth. Most of Brian's ridiculous stories were along the lines of catching a fish the size of his boat, or fighting off a pack of coyotes single-handed. He was a short, pudgy man who was surprisingly durable from the labors and hikes his everyday life entailed, but the idea of him doing either of those things is laughable.

  "I don't tell no lies", Brian insisted untruthfully, "they was all out there, in all shapes n' sizes. A few of 'em were taller than me!", he added, raising his arm over his head. "'Course, I know there ain't nothing to fear from a scarecrow, but when ya see somethin' ya can't explain, ya can't just assume it's gonna be safe. Fer all we know, some of those cattle-snatchin' cultists could've propped 'em up there fer one o' their rituals, but maybe they ain't that bad. I wouldn't say no to a beer if one of 'em offered", he chuckled. This was a trait that set Brian apart from the typical backwoodsman stereotype. He wasn't one to judge anybody, even if he didn't understand them, so long as they weren't hurting anyone. I usually admire this quality, but having drinks with cultists with an army of scarecrows and a history of animal sacrifices was a bit too accepting for his own good.

 "If... you think it's nothing to worry about, why didn't you investigate further?", I questioned apprehensively as that last of the day's sunlight slipped beneath the distant trees.

  "I ain't one to jump t' conclusions, but I ain't no fool either. It COULD be dangerous, so I don't think goin' in alone is worth th' risk. 'Sides, I don't want you to miss out on a good time, do I?", he replied in a jolly tone. I laughed nervously, as despite my curiosity and skepticism, I was a bit afraid that going into this field of straw statues would be a dire mistake.

 "Gettin' dark now", Brian noted, staring at the deep navy sky. " C'mon, Mike, let's grab th' flashlights. I'll show yeh the way." The potbellied man tossed me a flashlight as he grabbed his own, and gestured to the hunting rifle he carried in a holster. "Jus' in case." Brian adjusted his obnoxious fishing hat, which he refused to leave behind, and zipped the tents shut.  Now prepared for whatever the night had in store for us, we set off from our campsite and made our way into the woods. The crunching of leaves and twigs underfoot, along with the cacophony of insects, were an ever-present ambience as we made our way to the mysterious clearing. I was thankful for Brian's flashlights, as the forest at night was a sea of darkness. I worried we'd get lost, but Brian seemed to know where he was going. Eventually, our beams of light met a break in the trees, which Brian gestured towards and stepped through. I followed, nerves rising, into a world of baffling eeriness.

 "See? What'd I tell ya? Never saw anythin' like it."  

  This was exactly as he described. A field of scarecrows, some tall, some short, spaced a couple feet apart. They were everywhere, facing all directions. For a moment I stood as silent as them, taking in the surreal picture.

 "Weird, ain't it? I didn't look 'round for too long, because whoever did this prob'ly isn't some kid playin' a joke. Where'd he get so many of these darn things? 'Sides, look at 'em. Not a single one looks th' same. I reckon these were all made by the same feller, but I haven't a clue why. Seems like a waste of time t' me." Brian began his stride into the forest of scarecrows, which snapped me out of my awestruck trance. I plodded behind, stopping to inspect one of the many statue-like figures surrounding us.  

 If this was a joke, the culprit was taking it very seriously. The tall, gangly scarecrow before me was made of cloth and hay, but was expertly sewn together. It was dressed in a flannel shirt and torn jeans, and even had the old head of a broom to resemble a large, bristly mustache. I turned to another one, and it was just as detailed. Average height, a bit fat, and wearing a... raincoat. Last I checked, scarecrows, even when clothed, aren't given raincoats. In fact, they usually wear old, ragged clothes the owner didn't want to go to waste, and that raincoat looked brand new. A prank like this wouldn't just take a lot of work; it'd be pretty expensive, too, more than the average teenager or young adult can afford, especially for a reason as simple as just messing with some strangers. I turned to tell Brian about this, but he wasn't there anymore. Judging from the shaky light ahead, he had gone on without me, letting me inspect the scarecrows.  

  My instincts were screaming at me to catch up to him and get us both out of here, but I didn't want to look like a wimp in front of Brian. I could almost hear him joking about "Mike the Crow" or something silly like that. I decided I would keep exploring for now, and maybe find an excuse to leave without looking like I just got cold feet. The feeling of being watched hang over me like a sandbag, but I dismissed it as just the scarecrows. It did seem like there was always one looking in my direction. There wasn't any kind of building in the area, not even a shed, that could possibly house the creator of these... things. It really was like somebody made all these only to put them in the middle of nowhere. But then, after an array of relatively normal-looking ones, I saw the strangest scarecrow I'd ever seen. It was tall and thin, like the first one I inspected, but its clothes were nothing I'd ever expect a scarecrow to wear. It had sweatpants, a Sonic the Hedgehog T-shirt, even a pair of glasses attached to its face. While the others I'd seen resembled the average camper or country bumpkin, the one standing in front of me looked more like a teenage nerd who'd never set foot in a barn in his life. I could hear Brian's footsteps crunching the leaves and fallen straw behind me somewhere, but was too fixated on what was in front of me to notice, particularly the scarecrow's pants; they had pockets, both of which looked filled. Anxiety built as I shakily reached into one of them, not sure what to expect, but my hands never met anything particularly unpleasant. Instead, I pulled out... a cell phone. It wouldn't turn on, but it definitely wasn't a fake or prop. I checked the other pocket, and my stomach sank to the floor as I discovered it. A wallet. It was a brand I recognized, and still had money inside. But it also had an ID inside, featuring a boy who looked about 15. He was tall, thin, and wore a pair of glasses. He was identical to the scarecrow standing before me.  

  This was too much. Any chance of this being a setup seemed to blow away like smoke. Suddenly, I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard the distant sounds of a man screaming, and a gunshot rang in my ears. Getting over the shock as soon as possible, I sprinted in the direction of the noises, which were over as soon as they begun, leaving me in almost complete silence, only broken by my footfalls and furiously beating heart. Eventually, the beam of Brian's flashlight came into view.

 "BRIAN! BRIAN! ARE YOU OKAY!?", I yelled into the night, hoping beyond hope he was alright. It didn't take long to see a flashlight, lying abandoned on the grass and straw, still illuminating the ground it sat facing. But its owner was nowhere in sight. My eyes desperately probed the area, looking for any sign of my friend. What I found, instead, was a short, pudgy scarecrow wearing a gun holster and an obnoxious fishing hat.

[thetfchangingroom]

PROLOGUE: The Guys Arrive at The Ranch

“Are we there yet?” Max felt like a five year old again. He knew letting Roy drive was a bad idea. This was the guy who got lost driving back to their apartment from campus on three separate occasions.

But Roy smiled with lose confidence. “Relax man, my parents would take me up here every spring break. I know where it’s at.”

“Really?” said Rich from the back seat, “sure you don’t want me to map it?” He was on his phone, as per usual. Probably texting his girlfriend, Max thought. He wasn’t going to be the first to admit that he had a crush on Rich. From the moment he walked into his dorm room freshman year, a duffle bag thrown around his shoulder and a single pillow stuffed under his arm, Max felt something special towards Rich, casually attractive, impossibly kind and unbearably straight.

There was a crunching sound that drew everyone’s attention to the back. “Enjoying yourself there Lloyd?” asked Roy. Lloyd, overweight and snarkier than all three of them combined, merely scoffed.

“We’re lost,” he said.

“C’mon,” Roy tried to defend himself. He was insufferable at times, but he was always there for support. He was the “glue” so to speak, that kept the four of them together through four tumultuous years of college. He was the one who had the idea to spend their last spring break at his parent’s old getaway out in the country.

And now, he had gotten them lost.

“We should pull over,” Max suggested, “ask for directions.” He fancied himself a pragmatist. He’d always stood out from the three boys in that he didn’t stand out. He wasn’t optimistic like Roy, large like Lloyd, or attractive like Rich. He was something of an equalizer, a point of balance. When no one could agree on anything, they usually came to Max.

Lloyd raised his hand. “I second that idea.” Max caught a glimpse of Rich’s hand flying up, but he said nothing. What could be so important? he thought to himself. This was their final trip together. Hell, it might even be the last time they would be in the same room together for years. And Rich was just going to spend it talking to his girlfriend?

Roy scoffed. “Pull over where? We’re in the middle of nowhere!” Max hated to admit it, but Roy was right. They’d hid the countryside some three hours ago, and had passed a grand total of four gas stations since. Right now, the planes around them were empty.

Then, as if it were a mirage, a flash appeared on the horizon. Max leaned in closer to see that the flashing was coming from a big metal windmill about a mile down the road. As the car got closer, he could make out the rusty red side of a barn, the long brown stretch of a fence, and a small house.

“How about there?”

Lloyd laughed. “There? Uh-uh man, no way. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know how that turns out.”

“C’mon,” Max protested, “you wouldn’t even have to get out of the car. Roy and I would just step out and ask if we’re on the right road, right?” Roy didn’t respond, but he didn’t disagree either. At this point, it would be stupid not to get some help, and even Roy knew that.

Besides, something was drawing Max to the farm. What was this mysterious Ranch out in the middle of the countryside? Who owned it? How did they not see it earlier?

The car peeled off the main road at a small clump of trees. On they continued for what felt like a much longer distance than how it looked off of the highway. It was as if they were traveling into a different world. And when they emerged from the trees, they were met with a dazzling sight.

It was the kind of ranch you saw in postcards. Mystifyingly perfect, everything baked in gold sunlight, the green of the trees popping against the bright yellow bails of hay and the brown backs of the horses and cows peacefully eating and trotting along the wood fences.

Roy stopped the car. Any apprehension he had felt driving up seemed to have vanished, as did Max. Even Lloyd looked stunned in the back seat. Max turned around at Rich, sure enough, he was looking too.

“What is this place?” Rich asked.

“No idea,” Roy unfastened his seatbelt, “do you think anyone lives here?”

“I guess we’ll have to find out,” Max said, his hand was already on the handle. He needed to get out of that car.

The boys made their way across the yard, admiring the sun and the surroundings as each of them seemed to notice something different. Lloyd, for one, kept looking at the horses. His mom had done horseback riding when he was younger, and he’d forgotten their pure, majestic grace. These horses in particular seemed very well behaved, and Lloyd had half a mind to get up and start riding one of them (though his weight probably wouldn’t have permitted it).

Roy, on the other hand, was conscious of his clothes. He’d always worn shorts and sandals. They were universally comfortable for him, even in cold weather. But now, standing amongst the dirt and the grass, he longed for some long, boot cut jeans, boots maybe, and a different shirt. Maybe then, he’d feel truly at peace.

Rich was looking towards the barn. A question tugged eagerly at his mind: what could be in there? The doors seemed to be shut, all the horses seemed to be out (and as he saw, had their own stable a few dozen yards East). Was it for storing farm equipment? Something else? His curiosity was so great, he pondered wandering over and checking it out as Max asked for directions.

And Max. Max was focusing on Rich, as always. Sweat had started to coat his thick, tan skin, and he sauntered attractively with the weight of his frat boy muscles. His longing towards his roommate had never been this great, and for a moment, he was scared that he might pop a boner right then and there.

But then, a sound. A creak of a door, and all the boys froze dead in their tracks.

“Can I help y’all with somethin’?” The voice, deep and grizzly, came from the patio over by the house. Max turned up to see a large, hairy, muscular man with a cowboy hat and a plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off and buttons that didn’t continue past his mid section, leaving his big hairy cleavage exposed to the sun and the air.

Max was at a complete loss for words. He never had a thing for older guys. Never, that was, until right then, staring up at the old cowboy, one hand his his jean pocket and another rubbing his thick black stubble.

Fortunately, Roy jumped in to help. “We were… sorry we didn’t realize… we were lost and…”

“Lost?” the man laughed, “how the hell you get lost? Your phones got maps on them nowadays don’t they?”

“That’s what I said,” Rich mumbled. He and the cowboy shared a laugh. Roy’s face turned cherry red.

“I’m just kiddin’ you. Where y’all headed?”

Roy cleared his throat. “My mom and dad’s cabin. It’s up in Macon County.”

“Macon County?” the man’s look of shock didn’t give them much consolation. “Why that’s still seventy miles East of here!” The group made a collective groan, and Roy looked like he was about to burst.

“Well,” he said, “we should probably get going then.” He said it with an aura of reluctance. None of them particularly wanted to leave, and they they couldn’t explain why.

“Well hold on just a second there,” he said. He walked down the steps from the porch and onto the dry ground. Max could see he was wearing leather cowboy boots. It only made him more hot. “Why don’t y’all come inside for a drink? I’ve got a map there y’all can look at.”

It was the opportunity they all desired. For a second, even Rich forgot about the internet on his phone. All that mattered was that now they had an excuse to stay, to explore. Even if just for a few minutes.

Inside, the man’s house was abnormally, clean. Everything from the end tables to the cattle harding books on the shelves seems perfectly placed, as if he had been expecting company.

“We never got your name,” Max said, staring at a painted picture of a field on the wall. The suction sound of a fridge opening drew his attention to the kitchen, where the man was getting beers for all the boys.

“Name’s Beck. I’ve been living on this ranch since I was about your age.”

“What do you… do, here?” Lloyd asked awkwardly. It should have seemed obvious, and yet the purpose of the ranch still ominously evaded their imaginations.

Beck laughed. “Lets just say I deal in ‘meat.’” It was a cryptic but satisfying answer, and it was enough to get the four guys to sit down around the dinning room table as Beck popped open the bottle caps with his base hands.

“Those twist offs?” Rich asked.

He shook his head. “Nah, it’s an old trick my partner taught me.”

“Partner?”

“Yeah, Thom. He’s down in town picking up some food for the weekend. Should be back in a couple of hours.”

“Are you guys…?”

Roy shoved Lloyd, who threw up his hands defensively. “What? It’s just a question.”

“It’s no biggie,” Beck said with a laugh. “And yes, we’ve been together for ten years.”

“That’s awesome!” Lloyd said, “I mean, it’s not a problem. I’m not… gay I mean, but it’s not like I don’t approve…” another shove, this time by Max.

Beck didn’t laugh. He only smiled and motioned to the drinks. “Drink up! You boys look mighty thirsty.” As a matter of fact they were, as if in unison, the four guys downed their beers. The golden liquid inside was so sweet, so purely enjoyable, that they didn’t dare remove the bottle from their lips until it was dried of its last drop.

They slammed them down. “Whew!” Roy said, “I needed that!”

“Me too,” Rich said. A positive energy seemed to circulate throughout the room. Suddenly, it was as if none of them remembered why they were there, about the car, about the map, about the real house waiting for them seventy miles away…

But Beck was already taking out five more. “Why don’t you boys tell me a little about yourselves? Where ya from? What do ya do?”

And so, they did. Rich talked about his girlfriend, about his fear of commitment after graduating. Lloyd talked about growing up on a farm of his own, with his mom’s horses. Roy mostly bragged, but talked some about his family, and about his dream of going into clothing design. Finally, they got to Max.

“What about you?” Beck asked, his deep brown eyes staring straight into the young man’s soul, “what is it that you want?” Max gulped. He looked at Rich, only for a second, but it was enough for Beck to register. “Welp, looks like we cleaned out the fridge.” Sure enough, the table was covered in empty beer bottles. Not only that, but the golden sun that had previously shown through the kitchen window had vanished. How long had they been sitting there?

Max tried to get up. He almost collapsed. He must have been drunk, and yet the weird feeling of numbness that overtook his body didn’t feel like drunkenness. He began to fear that something else was in those beers.

“We… we need to… go.” Roy said, motioning back to the car outside, though he was so dazed, he pointed in the opposite direction.

Beck shook his head. “Like hell y’are. No body’s driving under these conditions, it ain’t safe.”

“What… are we gonna…” Rich almost toppled out of his chair. Beck caught him.

“Thom and I got a spare room in the back. Y’all can sleep in there.”

As they made their way down Beck’s hall way and into the back room, Max felt a strange feeling of uneasiness. Not at the fact they were all just about to sleep in a stranger’s house in the middle of nowhere, nothing about Beck seemed to suggest that his intentions were malicious. Rather, he was concerned about the numbness. He had never drunk that many beers in one sitting, and he knew himself well enough to know that if he did, he’d be throwing up all over the place.

Instead, Max felt oddly calm, placid even. And as he collapsed onto the bed along side Rich and Roy (Lloyd couldn’t make it past the living room couch), he started to feel actual worry.

But then he looked at Rich, his eyes fluttering shut, for once not glued to the screen of his phone. He reached out a hand and patted Max’s back with a smile before falling fast asleep, and Max felt immense warmth pass through his veins as the young man’s arm rested lazily, almost romantically on his back.

Whatever was going to happen, they were in for one hell of a weekend.

T O  B E  C O N T I N U E D . . .