#hopefully there’s a good reason why… i guess i’ll just have to wait until the end of the quest though

[ninas-gf]

spoilers for the new desert world quest

i feel so bad for jeht right now… like it’s bad enough that liloupar is being so nasty to her for literally no reason, but no one is really even defending jeht or anything… since liloupar calls the traveler her master and seems to respect them more than the others, you’d think if the traveler told her to cut it out, she would (unless i’m missing something), but for some reason that hasn’t crossed anyone’s mind yet?

i’m still on the first part i think… i hope it gets better later (since i think this is going to be one of those multi-day quests, like golden slumber) but if it’s just this nonsense nonstop the whole way through i’m gonna be so annoyed….

[daisyishedwig]

@cryscendo and @katyobsesses have been making me think about Hevans today, so I'm gonna share my rewrite of the astronomy room scene from Duets. Will I ever finish this full fic? Who knows.

“I love astronomy,” Sam said, staring up at the planets hanging from the ceiling, “something about all that space makes my problems seem kinda small.” 

Kurt rolled his eyes with a smile. 

Sam pointed up at the red styrofoam ball directly above his head. “That one’s venus, planet of love.”

Kurt laughed. “That’s actually Mars, planet of war.”

Sam glanced back up and bit his lip. “Which one are we on?” he said with a teasing glint in his eye.

“Earth,” Kurt said, brows furrowing. “Which I need you to come back to for a minute. What changed your mind about the duet?”

“Honestly,” Sam took a deep breath, “watching you sing. You were so confident and incredible up there. It felt like you truly knew who you were. I guess, if I’m going to be in this club, I need that kind of confidence. And I need to not let others talk me down.”

“Commiting social suicide doesn’t make you confident,” Kurt said.

“Maybe not, but hopefully, spending some time with you will. No matter the consequences.” Sam’s pulse was racing, waiting for Kurt to reject him, not fully understanding why he did not want that to happen.

Kurt pursed his lips. “Maybe,” he said, “convince me a duet with you will be better than what I just did on that stage.”

Sam grinned. “Okay. Let’s start with choreography,” he said, pulling his guitar strap over his head. “The singing will be easy,” he said with a spin, “so I’ll just start playing.” He started strumming gently before looking back to Kurt. “Get behind me.”

Kurt stared at him in confusion. “What?”

“Get behind me.” He jerked his head to the side with a lifted eyebrow. Kurt took a breath and set his bag on one of the tables, moving to position himself behind Sam. “Now grab my hips.” 

“Sam,” Kurt sqwauked. 

“C’mon, I promise it’ll be good.” Kurt cautiously placed a hand on Sam’s waist. “Closer,” Sam instructed. Kurt huffed but did as he was told until his chest was almost to Sam’s back. “And start swaying.” Kurt pressed his free hand to his forehead with a nervous laugh but followed the movement of Sam’s hips. “Now here’s the cool part, give me your hand.” Kurt lifted it slowly and Sam took his hand gently. “Do you know how to play?” 

Kurt shook his head with a soft, “No.”

“Oh it’s easy.” He guided Kurt’s hand into position on the fretboard. “Just put your finger there, yeah just like that.”

Kurt was making a concerted effort to keep his breathing steady. He wasn’t sure when the last time he’d been this close to another boy that hadn’t been visibly uncomfortable about it. Sam was so relaxed and calm, even as he touched Kurt.

Sam started strumming again, and he looked up to meet Kurt’s eye. He smiled at him, and their faces were so close. Electricity thrummed through Kurt as he stared in shock. Slowly, the tune they were playing started to click in his brain and he pulled away.

“This is a love song,” Kurt said, spinning away from him, pressing a hand to his chest.

“Yeah,” Sam said with shrug, “it’s one of my favorites.”

“We can’t sing a love song, Sam,” Kurt said with disbelief. “The other footballers will crucify you.”

“Because so many of the guys on the team will be watching us sing,” Sam rolled his eyes.

“Maybe! Anyone could look in the choir room and see us. Anyone could walk by right now and see us, and you know what they’ll think.”

“That we’re two artists singing a song?” Sam said.

“That you’re gay, Sam! And people at this school are not that accepting, trust me, I’ve lived through hundreds of locker shoves and slushie facials and being thrown into trashcans. That’s the kind of talk Finn was trying to protect you from. That’s the whole reason I set you free to sing with someone else.”

“And why should I care? Isn’t being in Glee going to get me that kind of treatment anyway? Why does it matter what everyone else thinks about me?”

“You don’t understand,” Kurt pleaded, “yes, everyone else is bullied, but none of them experience the shit I do. They get annoyed and frustrated, but they can all walk away from the club if they want it to stop. But me? I can’t do that. Everyone at this school hates me because of who I am, not what I do. And if they think you’re like me? You will never be able to escape it.”

Sam’s face was drawn tight. 

“I’m sorry, Sam. Thank you for trying, but I can’t let you do this. Just… sing with Quinn or something, it’ll be safer that way.” 

[silvermeww]

The other day I had to go out shopping with my family, and while I usually hated shopping for once, I have found some pretty funny Pokémon merch (or rather, bootlegs).

(Under a read more because it is very picture heavy)

I mean, nice try but I know that’s a Mimikyu lol /j

Wait… Lego Brock? What’s next to him? What is happening—

Literally the first thing I see after DP Brock is OG Gary. Nice.

JAMES??? Are you okay?? Please speak to me!! Also is that supposed to be a rose? I actually thought it was a sceptre right until I started posting this lol.

IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE DAISY?? SHE ISNT EVEN IN THE ANIME??? HELP???

Anyways, after this fun run I realised that there was the back of the box that shows all of the characters available and I’m just here to say that I wish I never saw it.

Ash: My brother called him bold and yeah, I’ve got to agree

Pikachu: Not his Pokédex number but I’ll let it slide.

Misty: #notmymisty (Why is her hair like that???)

Bulbasaur: Could’ve put this guy first. Also okay, this seems to be an OG thing here…

Brock: Still stuck in Hisui I see. It happens to the best of us.

Daisy(?): Had to get some girl rep I guess

Squirtle: #notmysquirtle Get the sunglasses if you’re going to be bootleg

Eevee: It’s crying out in pain, I can just hear it. How did they massacre your design that badly???

(Me: Okay, who is this rando??? …Wait, it couldn’t be…)

It’s Leon. Yeah. He lost his cap and ended up in this strange dimension with the rest of everyone. Also his hair may be cut down to shoulder length, I can’t tell.

Professor Oak: Yeah his hair went disco, he’s still in the 1970s having the time of his life or something. My sister thought he was a girl lol.

Charmander and Pichu aren’t bad ig, but the latter is a bit unexpected at this point.

James and Gary are There. Gary at least got the canon family so I can’t be too mad. James, however, is stuck with the last two of the pack imo, Gengar and Snorlax (Gen 1 who get GMax and a Mega/Z Crystal respectively… also just very well known mons) and now I’m scared if it’s an allegory for Meowth as a big cat and Jessie being dead or something. Or maybe I’m just reaching.

ALSO. Each part they have works into making a Dialga and Palkia, so there’s that. Maybe that’s the reason why they are all badly made and have been summoned to the White Space. Someone make a fanfic about it.

Further on my quest to find a small gift token for some people in a class I teach, I came upon this curious thing.

Me: Oh boy, I can’t wait to see what stickers they would make out of the XY series! Hopefully there would be some good ones out here.

(My sister: That keyhole is for the Master Class)

The stickers:

Wow, I totally remember May being there! Also I’m pretty sure it was DP that had the 10th anniversary but idk (Advanceshipping real?). Anyways I love how there is so much AG and then we get Togepi and Piplup coming in. And OG Ash. And Cyndaquil. And Phione. And my personal favourite Pokémon Rumble Charmander.

But

But perhaps the next page will give me what I want, right?

Wrong! Deoxys movie sticker be upon you!!! No, seriously, how did they get that as a sticker? I love the rep though, just wished we had all of the other characters too ngl to complete the pic. My brother loved the second Ash on the bottom pic, said it looked very smug, and honestly imagine using that sticker. For what occasion would it be most useful?? Also miscoloured OG Ash on the third row from the bottom my beloved, more 3D pics, Skitty in a Contest stage, DP Ash?? And Birch merchandise (we need that around here). Now there is one more sticker page left (it repeats the same pages afterwards), and I honestly gave up hope. And I was right to, but still, look at this lol:

The only Lucario you will ever get. That Croagunk one with Chimchar at the back. That one Ranger from that one Ranger’s special (I think the Deoxys one???). And of course, we can’t forget Shedinja.

So yeah, it was definitely a pretty eventful shopping day. I couldn’t get a picture of it, but there was this holographic picture in a frame that had Pikachu changing into different Kanto Starters, and another frame from another shop that flashed with Ash and the gang from multiple series (got jumpscared by XY help). Idk but that existed lol.

[nomsfaultau]

13) “Give me your hands” and 22) Survivior’s guilt. 

Disclaimer: this blurb is set in the SCP SBI AU I have called Fault, and dances over the timeline so good luck. Explanation of AU; tldr. 

“Give me your hands.” The stranger’s voice was gruff and demanding, and Tommy complied at once. It wasn’t that he was intimidated! Sure the random demon he’d summoned was massively tall, extremely strong, and just killed a lot of people, but Tommy was an alpha male! And anyway, the bloke technically saved his life in the barest sense of the word, so he had to be a good guy. Nevermind that Tommy watched people be reduced to smears running down the walls. They were villains. That was what they deserved. Right?

Tommy held a little stiller than he preferred, acutely aware of how easily the boar hero’s fists crunched skulls in. But the enormous hooves were surprisingly gentle as they held Tommy’s hands, prodding in their examination. His hero adjusted his dorky glasses and peered closer, curiously studying the strange crimson color curling around Tommy’s fingers. Blood mixed into the ruby power dancing across Tommy’s palms, indistinguishable. 

The Blade hadn’t been the only one killing the villains. 

“...huh. I’m guessing this red stuff is what summoned me?” 

“I think so? Do you know what it is?” 

His hero grunted. “I was hoping you’d know that.”

“Nah, it only showed up a few minutes before you did.” Tommy studied his own hands just as intensely. With great concentration, he tried to get the swirling scarlet liquid to grow. Then, to disappear. It ignored him, and he frowned, not sure how the power worked. Wait. “WAIT! I have superpowers now?!”

The Blade squinted at the boy. “Uhhhhhh. Suuuuure?” Tommy pumped his fist in the air rather excitedly. He had to admit it was kinda cute even if he wasn’t a kid person. “Probably don’t tell anyone, alright?” he hazarded, suddenly a little worried the twerp was going to get himself nabbed immediately. This kid needed to shift away from Marvel to X-Men fast if he was going to survive.

“Yes! Like a secret identity! So you’re a superhero, right?” Tommy peered up hopefully. The crimson hitched upwards. “Right? Those guys were villains because they tried to murder me. That’s why you killed them, right?” There was almost a note of desperation to the question.

“Um. No.” The Blade pretty much murdered them because he was suddenly teleported into a hostile situation and was immediately attacked. Self-defense, baby. 

The ruby power spiked then, the scent of fear sharpening. But then bull-headed determination flashed in his eyes. “A vigilante then, that makes sense. Like Batman. Hey! And now I can join you and save people too! You can be my sidekick.”

“Wait hold on, no, you’re MY sidekick, not the other way around,” The Blade argued before realizing that meant he inadvertently supported Tommy’s absurd notion. He was a survivor, he didn’t have time to be a savior. If the kid wanted to read any morality into his actions that was their problem. 

“Ok. I’ll train under you until I’m too powerful and surpass you completely, and THEN you’ll be my sidekick.” For some reason, the voices didn’t feel threatened by his open intention to usurp him. Weird. For once in his life The Blade was getting zero intrusive thoughts about brutally murdering the dude he was talking to. It was kinda relaxing actually. 

Tommy held out a fist, and after belated realizing it wasn’t a (very wimpy) attack The Blade completed the fist bump. Tommy beamed at The Blade. “Thanks for saving me.” 

It was…strange. No one had ever thanked him for something like that before. And sure he’d really only incidentally saved the boy through a combination of weird coincidences, otherworldly machinations beyond their comprehension, and the fact something about Tommy’s power literally prevented him from even contemplating attacking him, but The Blade did have to admit it felt pretty nice. 

Nice, but not the reason his tail was wagging. Nope, not at all. That was all post-bloodlust high. Definitely. 

.

“Give me your hands.” Mum smiled as she said it, but it made trepidation build in Tommy’s gut. 

Tommy fixed his smile, rolling his eyes. “Ugh, you’re so clingy. I’m not a kid anymore!” 

“You’re fifteen—”

“Only for a few more weeks! I’m practically an ad-” Deviously, she lunged for his hands and he jerked back sharply. “Don’t,” he yelped a little too desperately. Tommy gulped, trying to swallow his panic. “Don’t do that I have a- have a reputation to maintain Mum, can’t be doing cheesy girly stuff like hand holding haha.” 

“Tommy-” her tone was far, far too serious as he retreated. 

“I’ll get a hold of it eventually, just give me some time. We’re working on it.” Tommy was a little frustrated he hadn’t figured out how to control his powers yet, but all the other guys said it took a while so that was okay. At least it didn’t work on The Blade or Philza. The same couldn’t be said for Wilbur, which was really bad. It just made him bicker with the others, which, while funny, still meant he couldn’t control the Red. Tommy didn’t know what had made it so lethal in the villain encounter, but he needed to find out before he risked getting someone hurt. 

He’d find a way to use it for good, though. One way or another, Tommy was going to be a hero.

“What does your power do?”

Tommy laughed nervously. “Sorry, that’s confidential hero stuff, Mum.” 

Tommy refused to tell her what happened in that room. Her baby boy witnessed -enacted?- a massacre and that wasn’t something that would ever be undone. He went in normal and came out with blood permanently fresh on his hands. All she knew was a haunted look came across him in quiet moments, and she didn’t trust the new ‘friends’ he’d made in the aftermath, and he absolutely refused to touch anyone. 

She reached up carefully to avoid his hands, craning his head down till their foreheads touched. For all that she had to rise to her tiptoes to meet him, Tommy was still her little boy. He’d grown a lot in the last year, and even more so on that dreadful day his powers showed up, but she’d never stop seeing that golden-haired child with his mischievous, gaptoothed smile and dirt staining the knees of his pants. 

“Just talk to me when you’re ready, okay? And if those men try anything I’ll destroy them.” 

Tommy’s laugh was far brighter this time. “Mum! You wouldn’t stand a chance! Besides, The Blade and his friends are nice.” 

Scruffy was the word she would use. She’d vetted them, of course, she wasn’t going to just let her son lose with complete strangers and just trust he came home safe. The Blade was intimidating, but a dork. That Wilbur fellow was just a hopelessly broke musician as far as she could tell, though had a worrisome collection of scars. She respected Philza to some degree though, since he had an ounce of manners. Hopefully, he’d keep the others in line. 

“Tommy. You’re spending hours with homeless people, I have every right to be concerned.” Still, they were the only ones with any idea of how to help Tommy explore the new aspects of his identity. Unfortunately, Tommy’s mother was the supportive type, and was trying to give him room to experiment despite her reservations. 

“You’re always worried though.” 

She pressed a kiss into his forehead. “With a brat like you, I have to be.” He pulled a face, feathers ruffled at the utter indignity of affection. But she let gravity seep into her tone. “I know it scares you. But I know you’ll do the right thing, you’re a good kid at heart. Okay? This isn’t going to change anything.”

.

But it did. 

Tommy had been abducted and locked in a padded room for days now, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take this. He wanted his mum. In Tommy’s books, that was a pathetic thought for a sixteen-year-old to have, but it was true, he wanted to see his parents so bad it hurt. He wanted his friends. Or even not his friends, random people at school, hell even people he didn’t get along with so long as it was a face he recognized. Or even one he didn’t. At this point, Tommy would settle for one of the freaky scientists or soldiers just so there would be someone to talk to. Or, more accurately, shout at and demand answers from. Like, were they villains, where the hell was he, what did they want, why did they kidnap him…

And then someone finally entered the room. Or, more aptly, the guns entered before the squad of soldiers, so Tommy actually found it suddenly easy to continue saying nothing at all. His hands shot up in the air in surrender, scarlet ribbons of liquid dancing around him. 

“Cease the threat display,” a guard barked. 

The power only poured out further. “It doesn’t- I don’t control it, it won’t-” he was ordered to be silent. Tommy had never been good at that, but he managed, biting down questions. Doctors circled like vultures, and he had the strangest premonition shivering down his spine. He felt like a lamb being inspected for imperfections before the slaughter.  

“Give me your hands.” Gloves were dropped into his outstretched palms. Thick, sturdy, and frankly pretty ugly. Tommy had no idea how deeply he’d come to despise them. In fact, Tommy had very little idea of anything, head still caught in the little stories people liked to tell. Lies about powerful heroes rescuing civilians, or good triumphing over evil, or the world caring about people like him. 

“Um. What are the gloves for?”

The guard grinned. “So you can’t fight back.” 

.

The demon was tall and slender with bright white eyes and a literal beam of a smile. He seemed nice. That was the problem, the Foundation always sent Tommy to meet the nice ones so that he could fix that. 

Tommy approached cautiously, carefully weighing threats between the D-Class prisoners behind him and the towering demon ahead. Anomalies were safe at first though, and Tommy knew exactly how to protect himself now. And if he were honest, Tommy didn’t want to get to know the D-Class before their imminent execution. It only made the nightmares worse. 

“Hi!” the demon chirped. “I’m Halo! Wow, I haven’t seen someone new in…” he trailed off uncertainly, a faint furrow of his brow. But he shrugged quickly enough. “A couple years I guess. Sorry, they think I’m boring. No one really pays attention to me anymore. Not violent enough to be interesting I guess. They certainly tried, though.” Tommy caught the flash of horror flickering across glowing eyes. He knew that pressure intimately given how he’d broken beneath it. Still, Tommy perked a little, not expecting the hope. A sour consolation, but neglect had to be far better than cruel attention. Maybe one day he’d be left alone too. 

“I’m…” he swallowed roughly. “I’m the Instigator, I guess. I’m the newest attempt.”  

“Begin threat assessment test,” came a strict voice over a com system.  

At Tommy’s wince, Halo gave him a reassuring smile and a snort. “Don’t worry about that. These muffin-heads have been trying to get me to murder people for years and I’ve yet to break.” Tommy…didn’t have that kind of strength. He didn’t know how Halo had endured it. 

All he knew was that was finally ending today. 

“Instigator, give it your hands,” ordered the overseeing worker. He could feel the eyes of observers for all that he couldn’t see them. 

“Ignore them. What’s your story?” Halo asked. “I haven’t talked to anyone in ages, what’s it like? Are you a recent capture? Do you remember the outside still?” 

Tommy glanced nervously at the observation window. But he was almost just as desperate for conversation. “I’ve been here a few weeks. And. And I miss trees. It’s weird, but I miss how tall they were. Like, because that meant there was space, not these cramped cells and hallways.”

“Yes! And the sky! Oh how I miss the freedom of the sky,” he sighed, dark wings flaring out. 

“Stars,” Tommy added. “Just scattered out, millions of them. And people, everywhere, and you can just talk to them and they’re nice, not like here at all. I just want to m̵̮̙͗u̷̺̦̇̀f̷̟̀̄̈́f̶̯̯̈́̍̀i̸͕̭͎̅̌n̶͔̣̭̏ing talk to someone, you know?”  

“Language,” the demon chided, barbed tail lashing. “But yes. Listen, this is important, did you know a guy called Skep-”

“Give it your hands,” the human demanded. “Or you’ll be wearing gloves the next three days.” 

Tommy went sheet white, rigid to the point of breaking. Halo gave him an odd look, awkward but politely sympathetic if utterly confused. He looked to the observation window. “I’m, erm, guessing that’s some type of punishment?” Tommy nodded, relieved someone understood. But of course Halo would, hadn’t held out for years against the Foundation’s demands? 

It was his kindness that betrayed him. Halo bent to his level, hand outstretched. “Well alright then. Don’t want that happening of course! It’s okay, just do what they say.” He didn’t understand what was about to happen. Tommy did, though. But Tommy had made this choice before. It was easier afterwards, took a little less coercion each time once you’d crossed that threshold. He knew he was selfish, prioritizing himself over other’s lives, but once you made that choice you made it again, and again, and again. 

He swallowed the lump of guilt in his throat. “I’m sorry,” Tommy shoved it out fast like that was any type of salvation. Tentatively, he reached for Halo’s talons, grasping firmly. 

The executor shook hands with his weapon. Crimson seeped from their joined grasp. 

Halo’s friendly smile dropped. This close, Tommy could make out the sharp fangs hidden amidst white glow. The demon stalked past to the chained prisoners, sharp words ringing out. Condemnation hissed out, giving way to shouts, to anger, to violence. 

Tommy was told that the D-Class deserved it. Death row inmates, the vilest of humanity. Tommy’s arms wrapped around himself, frenzied scarlet curling around, spreading, exacerbating. Halo’s snarls gurgled through thick viscera, visceral ripping noises rending the humans apart. The Foundation said they deserved it, just like they said Tommy deserved to wear gloves when he disobeyed or get hit whenever he wouldn’t stop talking, begging, screaming. He kept his back carefully to the unfolding slaughter, eyes squeezed shut. Pretending he couldn’t hear the ragged howls of agony. 

Pretending he couldn’t hear the way Halo started to sob the moment the bloodlust faded.

.

The air was dusty as Tommy climbed into the abandoned hayloft, clambering over to where Tubbo perched. His nose wrinkled, still unused to all the various smells of the outside world. It was still startling how much world was in the world, overwhelming at times but exhilarating always. 

Tommy scooted over to sit as close to Tubbo as he dared, distance carefully calculated to keep them safe. His legs swung back and forth over the edge of the loft, his friends scattered below, happy and free. 

Tubbo waved at him, looking excited. There was a strange intentionality to the gesture, exaggerated. But Tommy couldn’t blame them for that. He wasn’t a stranger to pretending everything was normal. The escape was…rough, to put it mildly, let alone the horrors of the Foundation. It felt nice to laugh even if it was a tad forced at times. But it made the next one easier, so it had to be worth it. 

“Give us your hands.” 

Red spasmed along his arms. Tommy leaned away, unpleasant memories flickering in his head. Given the fact that Tubbo was unique (a word which here means ‘made out of hundreds of thousands of bees’), Red didn’t work traditionally. Mostly, it resulted in pure self-destruction. Tommy shuddered to remember the way Tubbos’ skin tore apart as frenzied insects slaughtered themselves. Not something he was in a hurry to repeat. 

“No, it’ll explode your hands,” Tommy said, not knowing that was exactly what Tubbo wanted. 

They gave him a sweet smile, half crooked. “It’ll be fine, Tommy. We won’t get Red’d, we just want to compare our hands. Our grandpa always said big hands meant you were going to grow up to be tall, kinda like puppy paws.”

Tommy scoffed. “Well I already know I’m going to be massive, and anyway it’s not worth the risk.” 

“We’ll be careful. But if you think ours are that much bigger, that’s fair. You still only have kid hands after all~”

“No! I’m basically an adult! Just…hold still, I guess…” Tommy approached cautiously, still conflicted but splaying ruby fingers out to match their own hand. The fingers shook a little from the tension poured through them, little curls of Red unfurling off the back of his hand like sprouts poking through topsoil. Tubbo slipped their own close, lining up the newly finished digits to match the angle of his. Tommy’s fingers were longer than their own, stockier, his palms broader. They hovered closer and closer, shrinking the gap. “Hah! See! I told you. Um, that’s close enough, I think.”

“We can see from a bunch more angles than you can, Tommy. We’ll know if it's too close.” He flashed a nervous smile, but trusted Tubbo. Still, it felt wrong to tempt himself like this. It took just about everything he had to not lace their fingers together and pull his best friend into a tight hug. Just…hold Tubbo, feel the buzzing warmth of life and the purr of bees working within their hollow body. 

A quiet cage around his heart forbade him from ever reaching out. Tommy couldn’t touch almost anyone in the entire world. It felt near suffocating at times to yearn for something regardless of how disastrous Tommy knew the consequences would be. 

It didn’t occur to Tommy that some people welcomed disaster. 

Tommy’s fingers curled in slightly, unconsciously wanting to close around Tubbos’. Closer, closer, till they were almost touching…

.

“I’ve done some really, really awful things, Phil.” But it didn’t stop Philza’s arm from wrapping around his back and drawing Tommy in. If he were honest, he didn’t want it to. Tommy melted into the embrace for all that he didn’t deserve it. 

“I know,” Philza murmured, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly. “That doesn’t mean you’re evil. The world isn’t heroes and villains, Tommy.” 

“Okay then I’m a bad guy.” Philza rolled his eyes. “I mean with a power like this what else could I be? I’m a baddie. A wrongun. A ‘malignant, misbegotton ne’re-do-well of a knave’–” Tommy sang, rattling off the old man insults Philza sometimes fell into when he got angry and forgot what century it was. 

“Stop deflecting and give me your hands,” Philza interjected. Tommy griped at him for being rude, but relented easily. Philza cupped Tommy’s hands in his own, reverent almost. 

“If you’re going to try to say there isn’t really blood on my hands don’t even m̷͙̞̈͋ư̵͍̬̒͝ͅf̶̡͉̽f̶͇̬͌í̵̻͇̺n̵̛̛̠ing try it. We both know that’s a lie.” Red spasmed, tendrils looping around Philza’s talons. 

“But your hands aren’t evil. They are simply hands. Red is the exact same. Power doesn’t possess its own morality, that’s up to the weilder. Your power isn’t evil, and neither are-”

“For you, maybe. Anyone else and it’s just brainwashing bloodlust.” He’d been stupid for ever thinking he could save anyone. 

“You can have precautions without having terror.”

“I can’t control it. I’ve tried so, so hard, and I just can’t. All it’s done is ruin my life.”

“The Foundation did that, not the Red, and most certainly not you. Surviving doesn’t make you evil.” Philza lifted Tommy’s hand, brushing a kiss against his knuckles. “I hope one day you can find love for every part of yourself.”

[athena-xox]

Hi! I've been wanting to send asks for a while but couldn't think of a good question until recently.

I have three questions (or perhaps I should say headers).

One: How's your rewrite progressing? At what stages is cannon altered? Are there going to be concepts/characters ignored entirely?

Two: I've seen your (humorous) plea for long/multi chapter eah fics what are some of the favorite's you've read already? Any chance you have an idea of your own outside the rewrite? long or short (chances are yes, for literally anyone in this fandom but it bears asking).

Three: What fairytale(s) would you

A: Like to repeat

B: Could functionally thwart if you had to live through it.

C: Die in, or flee the land to avoid at all cost's.

Omg love the questions. I will admit I’m a bit to brain dead to fully comprehend all the questions so if I answer I different question that what you intended feel free to correct me.

With that being said, the first chapter of my rewrite is done and basically fully edited I believe it’s around 6000/7000 words. Chapter two hadn’t been edited but it’s kinda a weird one so it doesn’t really need to be edited and it’s only around 2000 words.

Chapter 3 I’ve written a bit of it and it’s also a short and I have a layout for it. And chapter 4 is going to be on the longer side probably 6000-10000 words. But after those are done and edited hopefully I’ll publish the fic!!

So that’s the progress, for what parts of canon are being altered, I think a lot of characterization. Bunny, Alistair, Crystal, Milton Grimm, Snow White & EQ are all characters who were either portrayed as good or morally grey that I’m going to make evil (whoops spoilers) and then also kitty isn’t really going to have a redemption arc like she did in spring unsprung, she’s just going to continue to chaotically be herself.

And then just every plotline / character will just be slightly more mature and in depth. And it depends on how you see canon because the rewrite is going to be a mix the tv series + the books which vary a bit on canon. And then obviously a lot more queer representation.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that the epic winter arc is being disgraced but it’s going througu many changes. I’ll probably get ride of the whole through the woods concept because it doesn’t really add anything to the plot (although I am adding a musical that doesn’t really do anything for the plot except allow be to geek (theatre kid) out and give us some cute dizzie moments).

I really want to include her but I don’t think there’s going to be any room for Bella sister. Other things from canon that I’m not including is darise, Meeshell being a horrible singer, DARABELLA, Maddie having visions, the snow king, cupids crush on dexter, the revealer rays, probably lots more but I can’t think of them.

Onto the next question I definitely have some fic recs. I’ll probably make a separate post for it but my top 2 are rewrite ignite restart and a legacy of brambles and thorns.

I think the reason why I’m actually commuting to the rewrite is because it’s really the only eah fic I want to write since I plan to hopefully cover all the characters and ships I like. In my past fandoms I’ve had like 20 different fics I wanted to write but I never got a around to all or them.

Oh wait actually I guess I have one idea but I doubt I’ll ever write it since I want to focus on the rewrite. But during my transition stage from the mlb fandom to the eah I was thinking about an au. Either the eah characters with miraculous’s in the real world or mlb characters at ever after. 

Okay and for the last questions im assuming you’re asking which fairytales I’d like to 1. Be a part of 2. Don’t want to be a part of and I could stop it 3. Would have to run away from ?

1. When I was little I had the yearbook thing that had you create your own eah character and I always wanted to be a princess so I made myself goose girl

2. Definitely wouldn’t want to be like Jack in the beanstalk so I just wouldn’t take the beans

3. Sleeping beauty was my fav when I was younger so I definitely wouldn’t want to have Faybelles destiny. Or be an ugly sister, that would kill my self esteem (no wonder Bella and Brutta ran away)

For the last 3 questions I wasn’t sure if you were asking all abt me or if any were for my rewrite.

Anyways tysm for the ask !!

[sleeepy-sim]

Their Girl

Read warnings before continuing

Find both the masterlist & warning here

The Lost Boys

Chapter 1

My father was never someone I could go to for things. He was there for my brothers but never really for me, unless I needed a ride, but that was about it. When I heard that he had cheated on my mom, Lucy, I was pissed. My father was never really home and when he was he was usually complaining about something, at least whenever I was home at the same time as him. My mom was already done with his bullshit by the time she found out he was screwing some chick that looked faker than plastic. So it wasn’t much of a tough decision for her, at least from the way she was talking about it. So here we are, my mom, my brothers, Michael and Sam, on our way to go live with our grandpa, in Santa Carla. 

I don’t really mind moving, considering that we lived in Arizona, which is hot as shit. Plus I’m ready for change. Hopefully Santa Carla will be better than it is for most, considering how many missing posters there are. I feel weird being here, in Santa Carla. The place isn’t weird, I mean it has weird people but the place itself isn’t weird. I feel like something is going to happen, hopefully something good. Hopefully I’ll be able to go onto the boardwalk tonight, I bet it’s beautiful at night time.

“Bee?” my mother’s head peeks out from behind the now cracked door. “Hm?” I look up from the desk grandpa, thankfully had in this room. I love my mom, she can be a bit of a pushover, but she only means well, at least I’m guessing. “Do you want to go to the boardwalk with me? I was thinking we could all go,” she looks hopeful. “You, me, Michael and Sam? If you want to go of course, I know how some things can-” stopping her before she continues her sentence and her rambling of trying to reason why she’s asking, “Sure. Um, just uh, give me a min.” 

I look through my bags that I have yet to unpack, finding a black skirt with a light sweater that has skulls all over it. Looking in my other bag trying to find my cute knee high socks that have little bows at the top, finally finding them I hurry up and change throwing the clothes I just had on my bed. “I’ll deal with it later,” grabbing my white sneakers I slip them on and tie them before heading down stairs where my mom was waiting. “Are they coming,” I sling my black purse over my right shoulder before digging into it and finding my perfume, spraying some on myself before offering it to my mom. She smiles as a thank you and sprays herself, “Yes, they should be coming down any minute now.” She hands me the perfume back just as my little brother Sam comes running down the stairs, he runs over to me before hugging me, he is almost as tall as me, considering his head is past my shoulders. I kiss his head before patting his back to tell him we have to go, as I see Michael come down. “Let's hit the road!” my mother looks back at the three of us, Sam still attached to me and Michael smelling his armpits. 

Even though I was here just earlier today, the boardwalk is still beautiful. Though being here just made the feeling as though something is bound to happen intensify almost instantly. “So where too?” Looking to my right stood Lucy, my two brothers had wanted to go check out the concert and I was going to go with them, but with my stomach tightening up into knots and almost making me throw up on an innocent bystander. I decided it best to go with my mom, as she can somewhat help me when I get too nervous. “Lets just walk around until something catches our eyes?” She smiles brightly and I can’t help but playfully bump into her, she bumps me back and then I bumped her again. We continued until we started giggling and made eye contact with the woman hanging up a missing poster with a guy's picture that looks to be a security of some kind. 

Seeing how sad she looked and then realizing that everyone else who had hung a poster on that board must have looked and felt what that woman was feeling, ruined our moods. Looking at my mom, she and I shared a look as though she understood my worries of something happening to our family, she smiled at me and kissed my cheek before a little boy's cries made us stop our interaction and look. “Mom! Mom! I can’t find my mom.” Walking over to the boy my mom gets to his level trying to talk to the poor boy as I smile at him while digging into my bag and finding a little packet of tissues and handing him one, giving him a kid smile. He whips his tears away, “Are you lost?” the boy nodded at my mom before sparing me a glance. “Well that’s okay, let’s see if someone can help okay?” My mom smiles sadly at me and I take his hand and follow her into what I’m guessing is a Video Store. “Let’s go in here and see.” 

“Excuse me. This little boy’s lost, and we wondered if his mother might be here?” I bend down to him while my mom talks to the man with glasses. “What’s your name?” His fist rubs at his eyes, probably tired from all the crying. “T-terry,” His eyes are filled with tears and his first continues to rub at his eyes. “I like that name,” I smile at him, he looks at the floor and smiles. “Terry!” His mom comes running in and hugs the small boy, “Oh, I was so worried.” Suddenly my body became hot, I could feel myself sweating, it started to get hard to breathe, almost as though something was in my lungs clogging it up. I could feel myself getting dizzy, sweat trickled down from my forehead, wiping it away and looking at the drop of sweat with confusion. I was fine just a second ago, what’s wrong with me now. Swallowing thickly I look around the room, notifying four might I say hot guys. 

I made eye contact with the tallest blonde, his hair was almost like a mane, the smirk on his eyes were hungrily watching as I struggled to breath. The other blonde next to him seemed to have the same look in his eye. He seemed to be shorter than all of them but his hair was so curly, it looked beautiful. I looked back at the blonde with the lion mane and looked to the guy that was on the left side of him. He had dark long beautiful hair, his skin seemed to be darker than the other two, his eyes were scanning me it seemed.  Lastly the guy next to him had phantom blonde hair, it seemed to be styled in a somewhat punk hairstyle. The smirk on his face almost seemed like he knew something I didn’t, like he was expecting something to happen. Looking away from them, I realized that Terry and his mom had left and my mom was still talking to the guy with glasses.  “I’m gonna go,” I whispered to my mom, avoiding looking at the guys that were just across the counter. “Oh, okay, I’ll see you at the house?” I nod at her before taking another glance at the four guys before turning around and heading for the door. 

I step outside of the store and stand just a bit to the left of the door, taking a deep breath. I rub my face with my hands trying to calm down, I don’t know why I’m feeling like this. I sit down on the curb just near some bikes. Resting my head on my knees, it seems my sweating is getting worse. Hearing footsteps I try not to look up but two people squish me between them. Another person crouches right in front of me. With my head still down on my knees I froze up not knowing what to do, but part of me felt safe and warm, but I also was sweating so much. It seemed like I had a knot in my stomach, the inside of my thighs were almost soaked and my pussy seemed to be throbbing. What the hell is wrong with me? Someone's hand was running through my hair, another someone’s nose was in my hair. “It’s okay,” lifting my head up I see the man with dark beautiful hair was crouched in front of me, looking to my right was the curly head blonde and to my right was the lion mane blonde. 

“Yeah, it’s okay cutie.” Looking back to my left, the blonde with the lion’s mane removed his nose from my hair and put his hand on my cheek, his thumb brushing over my high cheekbone. “I’m Paul,” he smirks at me before nodding his head at the other blonde on my other side. “That’s Marko,” Looking over at the curly head blonde that I now know as Marko, his arm wraps around my waist pulling me closer to him, which causes Paul to move over and squash me even closer to the two of them. “I’m Dwayne.” my head looks up to him, even while crouching he has the height advantage. Hearing footsteps from behind me I go to look but I suddenly feel someone behind me, their chest touching my back. Upon whose arrival Paul and Marko seemed to scoot a little away, as suddenly I’m being picked up, their hands just underneath my armpits. The person behind me lifts me up and suddenly the ground looks a long ways away, but they sit down on the curb and put me in their lap. “I’m David sweetheart.” His hot warm breath hits my ear. 

His hands pick me up once again, except this time he turns me around in his lap. Now facing him my body turns hot. I’m pretty sure my slick is running down my thighs and onto David's pants. He adjusts me so I’m sitting on his crotch, which makes it even worse. His hands are resting on my hips, fingers slipping into the top of my skirt, but I can’t seem to care, it feels so good being with them. It feels right, somewhat comforting in a way. “What’s your name, sweets?” Marko’s fingers run through my hair once again, his wide smile making me want to smile. David’s hands grip my hips even tighter and make me roll my hips against his crotch, making me whine. “He asked you a question.” Dwayne’s fingers moved the hair that was covering my neck before putting his nose against my neck, before biting it. Making me buck my hip, causing David to groan. “B-bee,” I throw my head back letting Dwayne get more access to continue to bite and snip at my throat. Paul groaned, smelling into the air, “God you smell good,”

Paul’s hand reached over and pulled on my necklace, pulling me to him, almost making me fall from David’s lap. His lips almost touched mine, his hot breath hitting my lip, “I can’t wait to taste you my little bee bee.” His hand snaked up and grabbed some of my hair before pulling me into his lap with his lips crashing into mine. I can’t help but moan into his mouth, hips rolling, humping him. Even kissing him was too much pleasure, my slick was bound to be soaking my knee high socks by now. “Not here,” Dwayne’s hands pick me up, just under my armpit. He lifts me up and holds me to his chest before looking over my shoulder and at the rest of the boys. He goes to put me on his bike but I won’t let go of him, as though something in my body was telling me I needed to touch him all the time. He sighs before getting on the bike with me still attached to his chest.  

[bloatedandalone04]

Bury A Friend - Part 9

Series Masterlist

PSA: strongly suggested to read the warnings before proceeding.

Part Nine <3 | Previous Part

October 18th, 1985

9:57 AM

You wake up to Nick’s tight grip on your waist and you smile to yourself, nuzzling your head further under the comforter. 

  You waited up for Nick last night, which was probably a mistake as he didn’t get home until around twelve in the morning and you were exhausted by the time he walked through the door. After you asked him about the case and how it went, the pair of you were off to bed.

  As you were falling asleep, your mind drifted off to Beth. Things were going so well. Why did she have to break the peace? And why on earth would she ever think that Nick was the one who attacked you?

  Ending the friendship was hard, but it also felt inevitable. She would never be able to accept the fact that Nick made you the happiest version of yourself, and you were done giving her chance after chance.

  Well, there was a slim chance that maybe, maybe, in the far future, you’d be able to forgive her for her mean and uncalled for words, but not yet. And not for a while. 

  Nick wakes up a few minutes later, and after making small talk for a while, he points out probably the only positive outcome of your now ended friendship with Beth. “At least one good thing came out of last night,”

  You hum in question, not bothering to lift your head from his bare chest. As you trace circles on his skin, his arms tighten their hold on you. “What’s that?”

  “Now you have one less reason to go back that place,”

  That place meaning Shadyside. “Yeah, I guess that’s true,”

  Nick contemplates his next words before deciding to just get it over with. “I know you’re close with Eve and all, but maybe you can try getting a job at the hospital here. I’m sure they’ll love to have you there, you’re a hard worker,”

  At that you smile. You loved your job, and the bond you had formed with your co-workers, but maybe it was time to leave Shadyside in your past. “Thanks, baby,” you lift your head and press a chaste kiss to his lips. “I’ll think about it.”

  Your words were surprising to him. He has never brought up the possibility of a workplace switch, and part of him thought you would shut it down right away. 

  “Okay,” he says quietly, a peaceful grin on his face. One of his hands moves upwards to caress the side of your face, connecting your lips once more. You kiss back, pressing against him while your own hand reaches up to tug on his hair. 

  It was clear where this was going, that much was obvious by the groan that left Nick when he heard the sound of the phone ringing. He pulls away from you, muttering under his breath as he gets up.

  You smile to yourself, using your arms as a pillow as you lay half on your side and half on his. 

  Within seconds, Nick was back in the room, his eyes scanning the room for his police uniform. 

  “What’s the matter?” You ask once you caught a glimpse of his furrowed brow. 

  Nick tugged his pants on and threw his shirt over his head. “There’s something going on in Shadyside,” he said as he sat down next to you, bringing his leg up so he could tie his boots. “Two dead and one injured.”

  “Oh, my God,” you say and sit up, letting the sheet fall off your shoulders and exposing your tank top covered chest to the cool air. “Did they say who they were?”

  “No,” he stood up and grabbed his button up from the chair. “I’m sure it’s just some sad sack involved in an armed robbery or something.”

  You weren’t sure how to respond to that, so you cross your legs and rest your hands on your lap. 

  Nick comes over to you and grabs the side of your head, pressing a quick kiss to the top of your head. “I’ll be back this afternoon, hopefully,” he said as he turned around and headed for the door. “I love you.” He called out to you, his voice fading the further away he got.

  “Love you,” you trail off, knowing he couldn’t hear you. 

-

1:36

All day you had a sinking feeling in your chest, like something was seriously wrong. 

  It was driving you mad, and no matter how hard you tried to ignore it, it just kept coming back, and stronger than the last time. 

  After cleaning the entire apartment, you sit down on the newly made bed, your eyes on the TV in hopes that there would be an update that would calm your racing heart. 

  The reporter looked too happy to be reporting the death of two people, but anything to get paid, right? “I’m here with officer Kapinski here, on scene of a gruesome murder. Now, officer, can you confirm that there were, in fact, two deaths that took place here, late last night?”

  “Yes, I can confirm that there were two bodies, as well as one with serious injuries. The roommate of the victim is the one who brought this to an end by shooting the perpetrator after she got a few stabs into him,” Kapinsi explained and your heart hurt for the victims, despite having no idea who they were. 

  “Can you tell us who these two people were?” 

  “I didn’t identify them, myself. My new partner, Nick here, did,” the camera pans over and your boyfriend comes into view. He looked nervous, which was surprising as he was usually really good at hiding his emotions, especially in public. 

  “Oh, well, who did you identify the bodies as?” The reporter asks, shoving his microphone in Nick’s face. 

  You smile at the way he glared quickly at the man before regaining composure. He stared at the camera, seeming to stare right into your soul before answering the question. “I can identify the two fatalities as a couple of local residents of Shadyside, John Kidsman and….Beth Roberts,”

  At that, your smile slowly faded until your lips quivered with unshed sobs. Tears gathered in your eyes, but they didn’t fall. No. No. This can’t be true. 

  Nick wore a look of pity, almost as if he knew you’d be watching. 

  How? How?

  You felt like the world was caving in on you and your hands tightly grip the comforter. Nick and Kapinski kept talking, but you could no longer hear them. Your ears were ringing and your face burned, your hand covering your mouth in pure shock.

  There was no way, right? You just saw her last night, and she was fine. Upset from the turn of events no doubt, but alive. 

  This couldn’t be true. 

  So, you dried your teary eyes with your sleeve, and turned the TV off, not bothering to watch as your boyfriend’s face abruptly disappeared from the screen.

  After having a lengthy shower, you left your hair to air dry as you took a seat on the couch, the latest issue of Tiger Beat placed in your lap. You lost yourself in reading about Ralph Macchio’s newest movie role, not even hearing the sound of the front door opening. 

  At the sound of footsteps, you look up, your damp hair pressing against the side of your face. Nick stood there, dressed in his work uniform, like how he left you. The only difference was he wore his black jean jacket over his blue button up.

  But his attractive work attire wasn’t what had your heart rate picking up.

  No, it was the look of guilt and he gave you that made your heart kick into overdrive. 

  It was then that you knew that it was true. The disbelief of your best friend actually being dead faded away as the reality sunk in.

  Still, you had to ask.

  “It’s true?” You ask, your voice quiet and shaky. 

  With a slow nod, you felt your heart break for the second time that day, the magazine falling from your lap and onto the rug that covered the floor. 

  As Nick sits beside you, tucking your body into the side of his and pressing his chin to the top of your head, you allow yourself to cry for the first time since finding out about your best friend’s death. 

-

October 21st, 1985

1:20 PM

Beth’s funeral was today.

  It would’ve been sooner, but it was as if everything in Shadyside fell out of the loop once Beth died. It snowed, briefly, making the ground too cold to dig into, thus postponing the burial until a few days later. 

  That’s where you are now. 

  You wore the same dress you wore the day of Tommy’s anniversary, this time with one of Nick’s jacket’s shielding you from the cold. He stood beside you, his hand holding yours. His thumb stroked your knuckles, his way of calming you down and making you feel less alone. It worked, but only a bit.

  The freshly scattered dirt was all that was left of Beth, her headstone just another marker for the dead. 

  Beth Euguene Roberts.

  April 4th, 1963 - October 18th, 1985

  Loving daughter and best friend.

  Next to her stone was John’s, where Emma sobbed into Steven’s coat, her tears dampening the dark fabric. Her parents stood next to her, her mother crying as well, while her dad glared at Beth’s name, hatred burning in his eyes.

  Soon, the small crowd surrounding the two stones faded, leaving just you and Nick. His hand slipped from yours and wrapped around your shoulder, pulling you into him. “How are you doing?” He asked as he rested his head on top of yours. 

  “I miss her,” you say quietly, trying to hold back the warm tears that threatened to escape you. “We were supposed to be friends forever…..move on from what happened that night at the hospital, somehow…….I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

  When the tears fell, you pressed your face into Nick’s chest, burying your face as if he would protect you from the harsh and cruel realities of the world. “It’s okay,” he murmured, wrapping his other arm around you, shielding you from all the bad things in the world. Or at least that’s what it felt like.

  “I was so horrible to her,” you mumbled, your voice muffled. “God, she probably died hating me.”

  Nick shushed you, his hold on you tightening. “That’s not true,” he comforted you. “She knew you loved her. That’s probably what kept her going.”

  “Yeah, until she just went crazy,” you muttered, moving your head so the side of your face was pressed to his chest. “Seems as though Shadyside will finally have someone else to talk about other than Tommy. Neither of them deserved this.”

  “I know, baby,” Nick said quietly, his eyes moving to look at the newest headstone. His eyes read over Beth’s name multiple times, the faintest glimpse of a victory smirk gracing his lips before it was gone, and he was back to consoling you. “It’ll be okay.”

-

November 3rd, 1985

3:42 PM

Well, you were right.

  Beth was now known as Shadyside’s newest killer, and Tommy was quickly being forgotten about.

  It was something you dreamed of. You couldn’t remember how many times you wished for people to stop remembering him as this cold blooded killer, and instead as the good guy he was.

  But you never imagined that it’d be Beth who would now be remembered for her gruesome murder of her on again off again boyfriend, as well as the attack on his roommate. 

  Cameron, John’s roommate of eight years, was the one to put Beth down. When you learned about the violence she inflicted on both men, you felt sick and lightheaded. 

  Beth had stayed the night with John while Cameron spent the night with his girlfriend, and things escalated from there. 

  It was beginning to be morning time, the sun just barely peeking out and shining into the bedroom. Beth had strangled John in his sleep and when he tried fighting back, she took the claw end of a hammer and drove it into his chest a solid ten times - until he stopped moving completely.

  Cameron, who had just arrived, heard the sounds of struggle and went to see what was going on. He walked in on Beth on top of John, his body sprawled out on the bed and blood everywhere. 

  It was then that she turned her attention to him, getting a few swings at him with the hammer before he shot her in the neck with the gun he kept under his bed. And it was all over. 

  When Nick had finished telling you that, you closed your eyes in horror. He was right, you definitely did not need to know what happened, and you regret talking him into telling you. 

  Despite it being both your days off, Nick was out, and didn’t tell you where he was going or when he’d be back. It was nice to have a minute to yourself, no matter how brief it may be. But since Nick had hardly left your side since Beth died, you were beginning to miss him - despite it only being a couple of hours since you saw him last.

  Maybe you were whipped, but you hated being alone now.

  Sitting on the couch with a blanket thrown over your body, you were watching one of those old, black and white movies on the TV. It was boring, but it gave you something to do. Without meaning to, your eyes glance over at the framed picture beside the TV. It was the one Emma gave you for your birthday.

  Involuntarily, your eyes focus on Beth’s smiling face, her arm wrapped around you tightly. The smiles on all your faces were big and a few of the happiest any of you ever wore. It felt like forever ago.

  What you would give to have that moment back, just to relive it one more time. 

  The sound of the door opening breaks you from your thoughts, and you quickly sit up, wiping away a single fallen tear with your knuckle. Placing your palm flat against the cushion and letting the blanket fall to your lap, you watch as Nick makes his way over to the TV and turns it off.

  You give him a confused look, a small grin on your face. He sits next to you, a nervous look gracing his face. He was breathing heavily, as if he had run up the four flights of stairs without stopping. You place your hand on his shoulder, your finger gently massaging the base of his neck as you study his face. “Are you okay?”

  Nick nodded. “Yeah,” he said quickly. “I’m fine.”

  Raising your brow, you slide your hand up until it rests on his face, your thumb gently stroking his cheek bone. “What’s the matter?”

  He looks at you for a few seconds before leaning in and kissing you. You kiss him back, a bit confused at the sudden show of affection. His hand takes yours as he pulls away, pressing one last kiss to your forehead. 

  “What was that for?” 

  “I’ve been thinking a lot,” he answered and you nod, urging him to continue. “What happened with Beth and John….that easily could’ve been you.”

  You look away from him, your eyes focusing on his shirt as you take in his words. You weren’t expecting him to say that at all, but you find yourself agreeing with him. He was right, it could have been you. Anyone unlucky enough to live in Shadyside could very well be the next resident killer, or victim. 

  “But it wasn’t,” you say, moving your hand back to his shoulder and squeezing slightly.

  “But it could’ve been,” he said again, tightening his hold on your hand. “And I don’t know what I would’ve done if it had been you. I couldn’t live with myself if something had happened to you and I wasn’t there, again. I love you, more than anything, and I can’t lose you.”

  “You won’t,” you say, pressing your forehead to his, “You won’t lose me.”

  “Okay,” he said, pulling away from you and reaching into his pocket. “So let’s make it official.”

  “What?” You laugh as he takes your left hand in his right one. “What are you talking about?”

  When he retrieves the object from his pocket, you freeze. 

  Being held between his index finger and thumb was a ring. It had a silver band with more than a few gems embedded in it, something that looked a hell of a lot like diamonds, and in the center was a bigger diamond. 

  You couldn’t bring yourself to speak as he held it up, your eyes following the movement. “Marry me,” he said quietly, his voice at the softest pitch you’d ever heard it.

  “What?” Your voice was nothing short of a whisper at this point. 

  Nick laughed slightly at your shock. “Marry me, Y/n,” he said again and you felt your heart rate quicken. “Let me spend the rest of my life with you.”

  You meet his eyes, tears blocking your vision slightly. 

  “If it’s too soon-”

  “Yes,” you cut him off, making his face relax instantly. 

  He repeated your words in the form of a question. “Yes?”

  “Yes,” you say again, leaning forward and kissing him with a force that had him nearly falling back.

  He steadies the two of you by putting his hands on your waist. When you pull away, Nick slides the ring on your finger, making your tears spill over and onto your cheeks. You bring both hands up to either side of his face, kissing him again and pushing him backwards so he falls backwards on the couch. 

-

November 8th, 1985

12:27 PM

You sat in the waiting room, your leg bouncing uncontrollably. 

  Nick sat next to you, his eyes watching as you fiddled with your fingers, an amused smile on his lips. 

  You watched some medical video that played on the TV that hung from the ceiling, the doctor on screen explaining what to do when you experience someone who is having a seizure. 

  You had to admit it, but the Sunnyvale hospital was a lot more welcoming than the one in Shadyside. Even the waiting room was beautifully decorated with plants and paintings. The chairs weren’t plastic and hard, the floors were hardwood instead of stained carpet, and of course, there was a TV.

  After watching you pick at your nails for a bit, Nick reached over and took your hand in his, his eyes lingering on the engagement ring for a few seconds. “Baby,” he said, getting your attention. “Why are you so nervous?”

  You look over at him, smiling nervously when he laces your fingers together, your arms resting on the armrest in between you. “I’m not,”

  He gives you a look, then nods down to your still bouncing knee. 

  Following his gaze, you quickly halt your leg, your face heating up. “Okay, maybe I’m nervous,”

  Nick laughs. “Why?”

  “Because I’m about to be interviewed for a position here,” you mutter. “That’s why.”

  Nick gave you a confused look, squinting his eyes as his tongue pokes the inside of his cheek. “But you’ve been interviewed before,” he pointed out. “What’s so scary this time around?”

  “Because, I was interviewed for a position at the hospital in Shadyside, a place where they are desperate for nurses and workers,” you answer. “This place seems like it’s crawling with them, and they all look really experienced. What if they turn me down?”

  Nick shook his head, leaning back in the chair. “Eve said she put in a good word for you, right?”

  “Right,” you trail off.

  “And I’ve seen how hard you work, so these guys have nothing on you,” Nick assures you, kissing the side of your head. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  Just as he said that, a woman walked into the waiting room, a white lab coat framing her blue scrubs. “Y/n?” She smiled at you.

  “Yes,” you say and sit up straighter. “Hi!”

  “Hi,” she smiled at you, extending her hand out. “I’m Doctor Anne Scott. It’s so nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” you shake her hand.

  “Nick has told me a lot of good things about you,” she wiggled her brows and you playfully rolled your eyes.

  “Of course he did,” you nudge him in the side.

  “Sorry,” he shrugged. You shake your head, pressing a kiss to his cheek before you stand up.

  “Shall we?” Doctor Scott asked and you nodded.

  She led you back to her office, which was decorated with pictures of her family. On the walls there were various paintings that looked like they were done by a child, and a few letters addressed to Dr. Mom. 

  “My daughter, Izzy, did those for me,” she said once she saw you looking at them. “She’s four.”

  “She’s quite the artist,” you laugh as you sit down across from her. 

  She placed her hands on her desk, looking at you with an unreadable expression. “Are you nervous?”

  Your eyes meet hers as you give her a small grin. “A little,”

  “Don’t be,” she grinned back. “Your boss, Eve, said a number of great things about you. Hard worker, on time, observant, loyal. All good things we look for in our team here.”

  “Oh,” you say, flattered beyond words at how kind your boss was. Though it wasn’t all that surprising. Eve took you under her wing the second you met her. She was like a second mom at this point. “Really? That’s awesome to hear.”

  “It is,” she smiled. “Did you bring your resume?” 

  “Yes,” you say and pull out a few papers from your purse.

  “Good,” Doctor Scott says, briefly looking at the pages before sliding them back over to you. “I think you’d be a great addition to our workplace.”

  At that, you give her a shocked look that you quickly covered with a smile. “Oh, really? Wow, I-thank you,”

  She smiled. “I already have your number, so I’ll be in touch with you soon,”

  “Awesome,” you say as you stand up, slipping the papers back into your purse. “Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said as she led you back to the waiting room.

  You see Nick sitting in the same place, your seat being taken by an older woman who seemed to be talking his ear off. He looked extremely unimpressed, his hand pressed flat against the side of his face as his leg bounced, mimicking yours from earlier. 

  “Good luck with that one,” she teased, giving you one last kind smile. “Have a good one.”

“You too,” you say and step into the room. 

  Nick’s eyes were on you instantly and he stood up quickly, excusing himself from the lady. “New friend?” You ask once he stood in front of you.

  “Ha,” he rolled his eyes. “How’d it go?”

  You grin up at him. “It went well,” you pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. “Now let’s go get something to eat, I’m starving.”

[bvannn]

Weekly Update November 29, 2024

I’ve had awful insomnia and not a lot of motivation to draw, but I think I figured out why the second one is true: I recently moved into a new apartment, and it has terrible ventilation, and my hands are freezing cold all the time! It’s going to get worse as winter approaches, since I live in the Midwest, but I ordered a space heater today to hopefully remedy this for now, plus I’m trying to get a better job so I can move somewhere nicer, but I guess a degree in the field and a couple years of experience in the field aren’t good enough nowadays. I think it’s because no one wants new employees once they realize they need to pay them, so they put out listings that never get filled. It’s fine I’m doing what I can about it. I’m trying to work around my problems.

Drawing has been very limited due to cold hands, insomnia leaving me with a lack of energy, and some illness flareups. They’ve been extra bad this week for whatever reason, probably stress. I did a couple more epithet erased TTRPG drawings at the beginning of the week, got some maps done and decorated. I figured out the digital tabletop I want to use insofar as map making, I’ll have a friend walk me through fog of war and other features at some point. I wrote out a doc with the villains’ backstory, and I’m getting really attached, which is great. I’ll post tokens for some of them once I have them. Theoretically I could run the first ‘episode’ as soon as the last tokens for that are finished, but I think I’m going to put it off until I have stuff for the next couple episodes done.

I’ve fiddled around with music stuff this week but tried to stick with what I’ve already started. I posted Raccoon Rock, I’ve done a similar animation loop for the Blow Off Steam re-edit to make a lyric video out of, and I have sketches for a few other cover arts, including one for a batch. I have plans for that batch, finally, but I’m still going to release the songs first, just for the sake of having something to release. I found a couple vocaloid producer mutuals on Bluesky so that should help with motivation.

FF has the first round of tuning done, I did learn about a new program called tunelab which can help with pitchbends and pronunciation, although I’m not sure it’s entirely legal? If it is I’m totally using it though it looks really nice. I also finagled with my vocal mixing strategies again to get a hold on how to do growls, and I found a much easier method than what I was doing. I’ve been finaggling with OBS again and maybe if my hands are still cold next week and I run out of stuff to do that involves drawing I’ll make a tutorial.

I did a bit more of another animation project that’s been on the back burner, that’s also at a bottleneck since I need to draw more assets. Comic has also been going pretty slow due to art bottleneck but I did get page 12 finished and page 13 is sketched, we’re 41% done. I think right now the main concern is going to be waiting for that space heater, I’ll try to catch up on sleep and maybe watch cartoons or something to fix my mood. I do have another craft project I could do but I’m not going to start another craft project until a couple more art things are off my plate.

It is Black Friday so I’m tempted to spend money on something for my mood, but right now I’m just raiding all the music plugin giveaways. Maybe I’ll write some smaller songs to throw on the pile of unreleased music. Or maybe not, who knows.

[twilightmalachite]

Love Letter - Prologue 1

Author: Umeda Chitose

Characters: Yuuta, Hinata, Tori, Mao, Anzu

Translator: Mika Enstars

Proofer: Kirin

"Whoa, the proposal we just submitted has turned into a hostage situation used against us…!"

Season: Autumn

Location: Yumenosaki Academy Student Council Room

One day in autumn…

Hinata: ‘Scuse me~! It’s 2wink’s Aoi Hinata!

Yuuta: ‘Scuse me as well. It’s 2wink’s Aoi Yuuta…♪

Tori: Hm, glad to see you doing well. But you guys don’t gotta announce your names as you come on in, y’know.

Hinata: But dontcha think introducing ourselves would make it easier for others to know who’s Hinata and who’s Yuuta? It’s part of 2wink’s strategy!

Yuuta: Though people would be mistaken if we switch places and introduce ourselves like that. Feels like this strategy has a fatal flaw, right?

…More importantly than that, Aniki, go submit our proposal already.

Hinata: Right! Here, this is a proposal for a S3! Please give it a look-see~!

Tori: Yes yes, it’s in our hands now. I’ll read over it after our meeting, ‘kay?

Yuuta: A meeting? I’m guessing Anzu-san and Mao-senpai talking all stern-like over there might have to do with it?

Hinata: I was wondering about that too! I was worried if we were getting in the way of an important meeting.

Tori: Hmm~. Well, it’s not like it’s totally unrelated to you two, so it’s not like you’re in the way or anything. Right Anzu, Isara-senpai?

Mao: I was talking to Anzu since I thought you were handling that matter but you just flew over here…

But anyways, yeah, Tori’s right. We’re just talking about the Chocolat Festival.

Yuuta: Chocolat Fes? So you guys are talking about next year already, huh…

Mao: Yup. Don’t you remember just how hectic last year’s Chocolat Festival turned out to be?

Anzu summarized all of last year’s issues, so we hope we can have a smooth operation this time around.

Tori: 2wink will be participating in Chocolat Fes too, so lemme fill you in.

Actually, there seems to be a problem that’s hindering us from holding the event the way we did until now. So we called Anzu over to see how we the school should approach it.

Hinata: Whaa… You brought it up casually, but isn’t that pretty serious…!?

Mao: Hm~, well we might not be able to hold it “the way we did until now”, but we should be able to find a way to hold it nonetheless. Basically, what had happened was…

Some minutes later…

Yuuta: So due to a domestic conflict in one of the countries down south, cacao imports have declined… I can imagine how troublesome this has been for our dear manufacturer.

Hinata: But Tenshouin-senpai’s working on a solution, right? I feel like he could do somethin’ to fix this.

Tori: I think it’d be great if he could, too but… Even Eichi-sama has limits on what he can and can’t do.

Mao: Our manufacturer would also become indebted to us. Given it’s a problem that can’t be solved through power or capital, I doubt it’ll be solved any time soon.

It might not even be possible that it’ll be resolved by the time Chocolat Fes comes around.

So… we’ve been discussing it with Anzu. If we’re able to safely secure even some of the chocolate needed, we want to prioritize the rookie units.

Tori: Then, the kids of fledgling units who haven’t yet experienced Chocolat Fes can put their all into baking sweets! Well, hopefully.

Hinata: Then, that’d ensure at least some sweets, even if things aren’t as usual.

Yuuta: That’d prevent the newbie units from getting overwhelmed with an irregular situation of having nothing to work with. That part’s a good idea, but…

What about the other units, the ones who aren’t newbies?

Mao: …Of course you worry about that part, huh? Well, there’s a reason why Tori said that it’s not totally unrelated to you, so lemme tell you—

As the academy’s strongest unit, we were thinking of having you guys in charge of the sweet provisions and planning for Chocolat Fes.

Yuuta: The sweet provisions and planning…

Yuuta: …Wait, and the planning!?

We could get assistance from those in the Producer Department to help with it, y’know, but…

There’s only so much that they can do.

Tori: That, and they’re all newbies, while you guys are already used to leading your own projects, right? See, just like you did here… ♪

Yuuta: Whoa, the proposal we just submitted has turned into a hostage situation used against us…!

Mao: Come on now, just ‘cuz you guys are classmates doesn’t mean you can act like a bully, ‘kay~? Right now, we’re a student council politely requesting the aid of the strongest unit.

…Now, we don’t know how things will turn out, so we’d appreciate it if you could just be prepared.

Hinata: Roger that~! ♪ Since there’s still some time until Chocolat Fes, it helps to be able to gradually work towards somethin’!

Tori: There’s also SS towards the end of the year. Basically everyone will be busy then, so make sure to stay on top of everything.

I have a feeling that February will be here before we know it.

Yuuta: Hehe, looks like Anzu-san thinks the same as you, Hime-kun. I’m sure anyone as busy as she is must feel like time flies by so fast…

It’s going to start getting chilly outside, so make sure to take care of yourself and stay healthy, alright?

Mao: Come to think of it, wasn’t there talk going around about ES holding a Chocolat Festival as well? Trying to consider all of that too just makes my brain stop working.

My top priority is to find what is best for this school. I just hope that Chocolat Fes will be able to be held without any issue.

For all the students, and idols, of Yumenosaki. I just want them to be able to have a happy Valentine’s Day… ♪

story directory | next →

[clumsiestgiantess]

Time to put a little guy in another situation! Another short after this post

I can’t believe I lost my damn megaphone.  I have no clue where I put it, and Jess is going to drive herself crazy if I don’t start talking to her again.  I mean, I’ve tried, but she can barely hear me, let alone understand me. “It’s almost been a week!” she exclaimed, “How do you not remember how you made it?!”  Oh yeah, I also forgot how I made it.  I glanced behind me, looking over the several failed attempts to recreate what I once had. 

“I can’t stand this silence anymore!  I know you don’t mean to be quiet, but it feels like you’re mad at me for some reason.”  Last time I tried to talk to her, she cried, but I can’t leave her thinking I’m mad at her.  “JESSI, PLEASE!  I’M NOT MAD AT YOU!  JUST CALM DOWN!”  I screamed at top volume, straining my vocal cords just to be heard. Jess froze where she was, eyes beginning to tear up, “Your little voice!  It’s so cute, but I can’t understand it.”

Damn.  We both stood in defeated silence, though I could see something forming in her mind. Jess’ eyes widened slightly.  “I- I have an idea,” she confessed, “Hopefully a good one.  I’ve been thinking on it for a while, actually.”  Jess wandered over to my shelf.  “It.. It was meant for bringing you around with me, but I didn’t think you would agree to it.” Why wouldn’t I agree?  “Well, what is it?”  I beckoned her closer to show that I was interested.  

“I was thinking…  You’re too small for me to hear you out here, but what if you crawled into my ear?  Then the only thing I’d be able to hear is you.”  She wants me to go where?!  In all honesty it sounded like a horrifically claustrophobic experience.  “I guess we can try it,” Jess mused.  “No thanks, I’ll just wait until I find my megaphone.”  I forgot she can’t hear me.  In a moment, I was gently swept towards the edge of the shelf as Jess leaned her head to the side.  

“WAIT!  WAIT!  I SAID NO!”  The giant finger pushed me over the lobe of her ear.  I stumbled, balancing fearfully for a moment before Jess ruined it by moving the slightest bit.  Rocking forwards, I fell head over heels down into darkness.  I gasped and looked around, panting hard.  It was like a small cave.  The only exit shone brightly above my head.  I jumped for it, but my feet slid out beneath me.  Giggles erupted around me.  “Wh- What’s so funny?”  Jess gasped, “Oh, it worked!  I can hear you!  Sorry about laughing; whatever you’re doing in there is ticking me.”  “I’m trying to get out!” I huffed, “I can’t reach the opening.”  

“Don’t worry about it,” she chuckled, “I’ll let you out.”  “Thank you.”  “Whenever I’m done with you.”  “What?”  Jess giggled again, “It’s nice to hear your voice normally.  Even with the megaphone it’s so small.”  I gawked, “No, No, go back.  What did you just say?  I want you to let me out now.  I don’t like it in here.”  Struggling for a moment, I reached for Jess’ earlobe before realizing that was a terrible idea while she was still moving.  One unforeseen movement from her could send me plunging over the edge.  Instead, I sank back to the warm floor.  

“Hey, why don’t we go out somewhere now that you’re with me?” Jess suggested, “I haven’t gone out with you since.. you know.. all of this.”  “I feel like I’m being held hostage.”  “You’re fine,” Jess assured me sweetly, “I’m going to get ready!  I want to try that new ice cream place that opened up down the road!”  As she ran a brush through her hair, I tried protesting, but everything I did seemed to be funny to her.  

“This is kidnapping!” I grumbled as she locked our apartment door behind her.  Jess ignored me and continued on until she made it to the street.  She’d been snickering the entire elevator ride down as I tried to pull myself out to her ear.  If there had been anyone else in there with us, they would’ve thought she was crazy.  Finally, I managed to slide my torso out comfortably and have a look around.  It’s.. surprisingly nice.  The view could’ve fooled me into thinking I’m a normal height, except I was extremely nearsighted.  I couldn’t for the life of me make out anything past the edge of the sidewalk.

“Enjoying the view?” Jess whispered under her breath, startling me.  “How’d you know I was watching?”  “I can feel it when you move, you know.”  I grumbled.  “Don’t be like that.  You’ve been wanting to go out for weeks!  Isn’t this what you wanted?  You’re safe there; I have you.  Just enjoy the ride.”  Annoyingly, she has a point.  I miss being out here in the actual world instead of the small nooks I’ve taken for myself in the apartment.  My arms came to rest on her earlobe while I knelt in the tube of her ear, watching the world go by with renewed fascination.  Seeing things this way made the old city feel like a whole other world.

Not only was the outdoors surreal, but my place in it as well.  The steady rhythm of her footsteps bobbed slightly up and down like a boat on calm water.  The view — though strange — was fascinating.  I sank to a comfortable seat on a ridge just inside her ear, chest resting lazily against her skin.  Folding my arms gently on the very inner edge of her earlobe, I simply sat and stared.  I wouldn’t admit it, at least not then, but I really did enjoy the ride.  Jess could understand me perfectly for the first time since I shrank, which was the best part of all of it.

With my anger pacified, I settled down and began inadvertently fidgeting with the skin around me.  “Would you please stop whatever it is you’re doing?” Jess hissed after only a few minutes, “I’m about to start full-on laughing like a maniac in front of all these people!”  “I can’t help it if you’re ticklish!” I gasped, “You’re lucky I’m not trying to get you to laugh, otherwise you’d be rolling on the ground in tears right about now.”  “Don’t you dare!”  “Easy, I said I could do it, not I will.”  Though I couldn’t see her, I could practically feel Jess rolling her eyes.

We made it to the ice cream place in quick time, or maybe it was my new sense of scale that made things seem quick.  Either way, I slid back down into Jess’ ear to be sure that whoever took her order wouldn’t spot me leaning out of it.  She took a corner seat with her scoop of mint chocolate chip, making sure the side of her head was facing the wall so no one would have the chance to see me.  I doubt they would, being so small, but it wouldn’t hurt to be cautious.  “See?  Didn’t I tell you this would be fun?”  “Yeah, yeah.  Maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought.  But you still kidnapped me.”  Jess chuckled lightly, “Will some ice cream make up for it?”  I nodded eagerly, leaning back out to see the world again.

Discreetly, Jess dipped her finger into her snack and placed a small dollop of ice cream on the lobe of her ear.  “Enjoy, little guy!”  Thankfully she couldn’t see my face turning red as I slid my way out, balanced carefully between her ear and the great drop beside it.  She snickered at the feeling, but quickly coughed to cover it up.  I ate the snack like I did the rest of my meals — no utensils, just my hands.  It was messy work.  Jess will definitely need to wash up by the time I’m finished.  We talked and joked the whole time — just like we used to.  The place was too crowded for anyone to even notice Jess seemingly having a quiet conversation with herself.

When I announced I was done, she wiped the extra ice cream away, not realizing that I was still there thanks to the numbing effect of the coldness on her skin.  I was swept up into a napkin and tossed into her empty cup to be thrown away.  Everything happened so quickly, it took me a second to process what happened.  “Shit!” I cried, struggling to orient myself.  “Jessi!  JESS!”  The ice cream I just ate lurched right back up my throat as I went into a free fall.  The cup, napkin, and me, all landed in the garbage can.  I watched from my new spot at the top of the wadded napkin, horrified beyond measure.  Jess breezed right by me as I screamed for her, strolling right out the door with a light smile.

“NO!  JESS, PLEASE!  COME BACK!”  She couldn’t hear me.  No one could hear me.  Someone walked over to throw away their things and I was thrust backwards into the cup.  My cloth had long since been lost, so my body became covered with the leftover melted ice cream still at the bottom.  The world grew darker and darker as more and more trash was piled in overhead.  I’m fairly sure I heard Jess’ voice again amongst the noise of the crowd, but I can’t see anything.  She might’ve come back for me, but how would she ever find me here?  Hours passed; I wasn’t sure what to do other than wait for Jess to come to her senses and get me.  If she could even guess where I was.

Long after silence fell over the store, everything shifted.  I clung to the napkin as the trash bag was tied up and hauled away.  Again my stomach lurched as the bag swung back and forth with the carrier’s gait.  “PLEASE, SOMEONE!  WHOEVER’S OUT THERE!  HELP ME!”  It was pointless to shout, but that didn’t stop me from trying.  My hands flew over my ears as a unidentifiably loud noise raced through the bag.  “Aw shit, man!  Not again.”  Free fall, then a rough landing.  I gazed blearily up to find that the garbage bag had torn open.  The employee, a tired-looking guy about my age, maybe older, muttered something under his breath before beginning to sweep the trash back into the part of the bag that hadn’t ripped.  I tried yelling again, but I was only swept inside.  I had to try something else.  Anything else.

Since I was near the top of the opening, the next time the employee swept things inside, I used my top-of-the-hill leverage to shove something back out.  The first few attempts went unnoticed, but eventually, the guy caught it happening.  “Huh?”  They picked up the plastic spoon and tossed it back in.  I pushed it back out.  They placed it in.  I pushed it back out.  “What the hell?!”  Finally, I had his attention.  The next time the spoon was placed back, I pushed it extra slowly, and just as I hoped, the employee managed to pinpoint where the problem was.  The problem being me.  The cup I stood in was dragged into the air, a large eye peering down at me from above.  

I waved my arms wildly, climbing as high as I dared.  “YES, THAT’S RIGHT!  DOWN HERE!”  The eye widened and a gasp rushed through the space around me.  “What..?”  I yelped as the cup tipped over and I rolled out onto their hand for them to scrutinize.  “Holy shit..  Wh-  Are you an actual person?”  “YES!  PLEASE!  YOU HAV-”  My voice cut out as I was drawn even further into the air.  Whoever held me was going somewhere, and fast.  I clung to their skin until the ride was over.  Next thing I knew, I was tossed onto a counter.  The thing reeked of cleaning fluid, stinging my eyes and burning my bare skin.  The shadow of the employee vanished for a moment, then reappeared.  A giant chunk of glass hovered so closely above me, I feared they were going to squish me with it.  But it never got that far.  As I realized that I wasn’t about to be killed, I found the thing was part of an incredibly large magnifying glass, pulled from somewhere in the back.

Scrambling from foot to foot to keep from being chemically burnt, I waited for the employee to focus on me.  I knew the moment they did because of all the oversized shifts in their expression.  They watched me with intent curiosity as I tried to get them to see that the counter was hurting me.  “What are you doing little guy?  Are you-  Oh jeez, you’re naked!”  I was both embarrassed and annoyed, but I didn’t care.  In order to see me more clearly, they’d placed their hand on the counter to give them more balance as they leaned over.  Sprinting over as fast as I could, I scrambled up onto one of their fingers, safely out of the noxious chemicals.  

The employee flinched, “Woah, woah, what are you doing?”  I was nearly shaken off, but thankfully it wasn’t intentional.  As awkward as having a tiny naked guy sitting on your finger must be, they must’ve realized that there had to be a good reason for me wanting to be there.

“Why are you avoiding touching the counter?”  The magnifying glass dropped closer.  I tried to tell them by holding my nose and pointing at it.  They took a whiff and gagged.  “Oh god, that’s awful!” he gagged, “I forgot how strong the cleaning stuff is!  You must’ve been choking on it down there.  Here, I got something.”  Success!  The gigantic hand hoisted me off the counter for a bit, before placing me back down on a bundled-up shirt.  It was raised high enough off the counter that I was safe from both the feel and smell of the cleaning fluid.  “Thank you!” I wheezed, “My head was really getting foggy.”  The guy stared down at me in shock.  “You can talk?!  I- I mean, I can’t understand a word you’re saying, but you’re saying something.”

He thought for a long moment as I took the extra time to calm down.  Not only had I been rescued, but my rescuer seemed to be more curious than anything, certainly not malicious, which I’m grateful for.  “Do you think these will work?”  I sat up and looked at what lay outstretched in his hand.  A pair of earbuds.  What?  “I don’t understand; what’ll those do?” I asked.  Obviously the employee didn’t answer me.  Instead, they plugged one end of them into his ears, and the other into his phone.  Then, he moved the microphone piece close to me.  Oh.  Oh!  Why hadn’t I thought of this yet?  I had to lean almost all my weight on the button to get it to click, but it worked.

“Hello?  Can you hear me?”  I took it as a yes when wind rushed past me in a gasp.  “Y- Yeah, I can hear you.”  “I can’t believe I didn’t think of using one of these sooner!  It works!” I cheered.  There was a brief silence as the magnifying glass fell over me again.  “What are you?”  I sighed, “It’s.. a long story.  I was 6’4” until a few months ago.  I think it was something I drank, but the next thing I know, I’m less than an inch tall!”  “So you’re.. a person?” the employee asked, confused.  “Yes, I’m a person!  I was shrunk!”  “But why the hell were you in the trash?”  I rubbed a hand over my face tiredly.  “It was an accident.  Look, I’ve had a long day.  I just want to get home.  My fiancé is probably worried sick about me.”  Now they gawked at me.  “Is she tiny, too?  Do both of you just go around.. naked and shit?”  My annoyed expression dropped into a scowl.  I don’t have time for this.

“No!  She didn’t shrink, only I did!  Now can you please take me home?  I’ll tell you the address, just drop me off there!”  Gears were turning in his head; I could see it.  Without warning, a hand fell over me, two giant fingers gripping me from both sides.  “Hey!  What the hell is wrong with you?!”  Now that I don’t have the microphone, he can’t hear me anymore.  The employee brought me to a lamp, scrutinizing me beneath the magnifying glass.  I turned away from it, the harsh light burning my eyes.  “You feel so.. weird,” he whispered.  I could feel his skin pressing into mine, pinning me tightly between his thumb and pointer finger so only my head stuck out at the top.  “Please!” I gasped, “You’re crushing me!  Let me go!”  

“I wonder how much I can get someone to pay me for something like this?  What do you think, little guy?  One million?  Two million?  It’s too bad your girl isn’t this size, either.  I’d probably just keep her, though.”  Rage jolted through me like a bolt of thunder, negating any previous fears.  “YOU SON OF A BITCH!  DON’T YOU DARE THINK ABOUT HER LIKE THAT!  LET ME GO!  YOU CAN’T FUCKING SELL ME!”  He laughed awfully, “Funny you think I understand that.  Even if I did, I wouldn’t bother listening.”  I writhed under his grip, struggling for an escape.  A glass was whipped off a shelf.  “Here you go, nice and easy now.”  I was dropped into it the very opposite of ‘nice and easy’.  Something in my arm cracked as I fell on it, pain jabbing into my muscles.  Groaning, I could only stare up in horror at the monstrous grin above me.

Just as he reached for my prison, someone rushed behind him, whacking him clean over the back of the head with a waffle iron.  He stumbled sideways and collapsed onto the floor.  “Anthony!  Anthony, are you alright?!”  Jess’ familiar face hovered over the glass, and I teared up in relief.  “Jess!  How are you here?!”  She couldn’t understand, so she didn’t answer me, but she carefully picked up the glass and tilted me gently onto her palm.  “Here, sweetheart, it’s alright; I have you now.”  I collapsed into her soft skin, gripping the familiar imprints on her palm.  My arm throbbed, but I was too relieved to care.  “Let’s get out of here, before he wakes up.  Did you want to get in my ear again?  I really want to talk to you, but if you don’t-”  She stopped as I eagerly sat up and nodded.

With expert care, Jess gingerly placed me on her earlobe, and I immediately crawled inside.  Shaking with relief, I leaned on the inside of her eardrum.  The setting no longer seemed claustrophobic.  If anything, it felt protective — safe.  “Jess, I-” my voice broke and I had to restart.  “I’m so happy you’re here!”  She gave a shuddering sigh, slipping out the back door where she must’ve snuck in.  “I’m happy you’re ok!” she replied, tears lining her voice.  “I really thought I’d lost you!  I tried to search the floor for you as long as I could, but they had to close up.  I snuck into a back room and waited for everyone to leave, but I guess someone else found you before I did.  He..  What did he want with you?”  I shuddered, “It doesn’t matter what he wanted with me.  You were searching the floor?”  

“Well, yeah; were you not there?”  I shook my head, patting the wall of skin beside me.  “Jessi, I-”  I can’t tell her she threw me away.  She’ll think all of this is her fault.  “Yeah, I was just too far out of sight for you to find me.”  “Are you hurt?  Will you be ok?”  “I’m fine,” I lied, sitting up straighter.  “I’m just really tired.”  I don’t want her to worry, I’m not majorly injured, my arm just hurts.  I’ll ice it later and it’ll be fine.  Honestly, I'm just relieved to be going home.

[scottpetersen]

DuckTales The Inter-Dimensional Swap Fanfic Chapter 3

Scrooge McDuck (2017) POV:

As I was beginning to explain the situation me and my counterpart are in to Goldie’s counterpart, I got a good look at her.

She looks different to the Goldie from my world. I looked at this Goldie’s gray hair. It’s a stark contrast to my world’s Goldie’s yellow hair. Seems that she aged at a different rate than my world’s Goldie. Despite that, though, she still looks good. And it also seems that she actually lives in this shack. That’s another stark contrast to my world’s Goldie who would much rather not stay in one place.

But I’m still getting the same clever and conniving vibes from her that I do from the Goldie I know.

So, this Goldie is similar but different to the one I know.

Also, it feels incredibly strange seeing a different version of the woman I fell for. For some reason, it feels like my heart is being tugged between being sent a flutter with all the good and bad feelings I had about all of our encounters and being sent crashing down by the fact that this is not the Goldie I know.

Ugh! I’ve got to get ahold of myself! I am Scrooge McDuck! I can make it through all this and go back home to my world’s Goldie and the versions of my family waiting for me there!

“You alright there?” Goldie’s counterpart asked snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Yes I am.” I said trying to sound as confident as I can be.

“Right.” Goldie’s counterpart clearly being sarcastic. “Anyway, as you were saying?”

“Oh. Well…” I began.

I managed to share the rest of the story with Goldie’s counterpart.

She got up and put her hand to her chin. “Y’know. Normally, when you or rather your counterpart comes to me for something, I would just assume he’s trying to play me and I trick him instead. Then, I hit on him and kiss him on the cheek and we flatter each other. And that would be that.”

“That’s actually not that different from me and my Goldie. Except it looks like it took us a bit longer to completely open up with each other. We never kissed until after our adventure with the Fountain Of The Foreverglades.” I said remembering how things usually went with my Goldie.

“Fountain Of The Foreverglades?” Goldie’s counterpart asked looking intrigued.

“Forget about it. It’s a fountain of youth but you’ll probably have to ask my counterpart if there’s a version of it here.” I said.

“Guess I’ll have to con the information out of him then.” she replied.

“Good luck.” I said challenging her just like I sometimes did with my Goldie.

Ugh! Get it together! This is not your world’s Goldie.

“Anyway, I don’t think you’re trying to play. After all, why would you try to trick or even lie to me with such an outrageous sounding story?” Goldie’s counterpart said.

“Ok then.” I replied seeing the logic in her words.

“Alright. I don’t know about my counterpart but I’m out of my depth when it comes to different dimensions. But pickpocketing a magic piece of paper. That I can do if it means getting my Scrooge back.” Goldie’s counterpart said. “You got yourself a deal. I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.” I said shaking her hand.

We were on our way back to the plane. Hopefully, the Launchpad here is better at repairing planes than his counterpart. If not, we can still take a train instead.

But while we were traversing through the woods, someone showed up out of nowhere and stopped us.

When I got a good look at him, I realized who he is.

Judging by the outfit, this is clearly Flinty’s counterpart.

But he looks different from the one I know.

“Ugh. Not him again.” I heard Goldie’s counterpart mutter.

So, Goldie’s and Flinty’s counterparts met before. I briefly wondered if the Flinty here tried hitting on the Goldie here just like the Flinty I know did with Goldie back home.

But I immediately shook it off not wanting to think about it.

“Hello, Goldie.” Flinty’s counterpart said ignoring me.

“What do you want?” Goldie’s counterpart replied not bothering with the pleasantries.

“To see you, of course.” Flinty’s counterpart lied.

This Flinty’s tone sounds slightly different from the one I know. He still seems to always have a scheme afoot. But this Flinty sounds less flamboyant than the one back home and more…calculating?! Is this a version of Flinty who is actually smart?!

“Yeah, right.” Goldie’s counterpart said sarcastically clearly not buying this Flinty’s facade.

Flinty’s counterpart frowned.

Then, after remembering the gold I saw while I was in this Goldie’s shack, I pointed at Flinty’s counterpart and yelled, “You’re here to try to swindle her out of her gold, aren’t you?!”

“I almost forgot about you.” Flinty’s counterpart said in response. “I take it you’re here to try to win Goldie’s love.”

“Not quite, Flinty.” I said technically telling the truth but also not willing to give this Flinty the time of day right now.

“What did you call me?!” this Flinty asked angrily.

Looks like this Flinty has as much of a bad temper as his counterpart. And I’m guessing my counterpart never called him ‘Flinty’ before.

“Look. If you’re gonna take my gold, you’re gonna have to do it over my dead body.” Goldie’s counterpart said getting an angry growl from this Flinty as a response.

Normally, I would get a kick out of annoying Flinty but I have to get back to my home dimension!

“We don’t have time for this, Flinty.” I said. “So, how about you get out of our way?”

I got ready to fight. If he is anything like the Flinty I know, he won’t give up that easily!

“I think we would rather take the both of you out instead.” this Flinty replied.

When he used ‘we’ instead of ‘I’, I knew this Flinty hired some henchmen.

But I was taken by surprise when those henchmen came out of the shadows.

The Beagle Boys?! I thought they only worked for Mama Beagle. Apparently, that’s not the case in this dimension.

I looked at Goldie’s counterpart and it seems like she’s ready to fight, also.

Then, the fight began.

The Beagle Boys are as clumsy as ever. Me and Goldie’s counterpart are having no trouble outmaneuvering them.

The way Goldie’s counterpart fights is also slightly different to the one I know. For example, the moment 1 of the 2 Beagle Boys fighting her attempted to charge at her, she immediately took out a gun and used a warning shot to scare him off. Seems that unlike the Goldie back home, this Goldie prefers a gunfight over a fight up-close.

“You’re not the only one with a gun.” I heard Flinty’s counterpart say as he got out a gun of his own.

“Oh no you don’t.” I said under my breath as I knocked the Beagle Boy in my way out.

I charged at Flinty’s counterpart and knocked the gun out of his with my cane.

“Ugh. This isn’t over!” Flinty’s counterpart yelled before making his escape along with the Beagle Boys.

“I could’ve handled that, y’know.” Goldie’s counterpart said no doubt referring to that Flinty pulling out his gun.

“Sure you could.” I replied sarcastically and teasingly.

Goldie’s counterpart rolled her eyes while smiling fondly before urgency returned to her eyes and she snapped herself out of her stupor.

Seems like I was starting to remind her of my counterpart in an all-too-intimate fashion for a second there!

At the same time, I was also letting myself get lost in the feeling of the moment in a similar way that I do with the Goldie back home at times before snapping myself out of it!

This is not my Goldie! This is her counterpart!

Curse me kilts! It’s beginning to feel like I’m gonna have to constantly remind myself of that on our way back to this world’s version of Duckburg!

-

Scrooge McDuck (1987) POV:

So, this is this world’s Goldie O’Gilt!

She looks considerably younger than my world’s version of her. She must’ve found a fountain of youth at some point along the way. She also seems to be a wee bit less reserved but still just as cunning and clever as the Goldie from my world. She also seems a lot less willing to stay in one place since she just came to this social gathering from who-knows-where.

“Surprised to see me?” this world’s Goldie asked slyly.

“Surprised but still glad all the same.” I answered starting to get lost in my feelings of fondness for Goldie that this version is reminding me of.

Thankfully, I was able to snap out of it after remembering the fact that this is not my world’s Goldie!

That’s when I saw this world’s Goldie grimly frowning at me!

I’m getting a very bad feeling about this.

I instinctively checked my pocket only to realize something.

The wallet that got transported with me to this world! It’s gone!

“Looking for this?” this world’s Goldie asked still frowning grimly.

I stared at her for a brief moment caught completely by surprise.

Seems that one of the things this Goldie has in common with the Goldie from my world is that she likes pulling tricks on me.

“You’re not Scrooge.” this world’s Goldie said to me with complete certainty in her tone. “Or at least not the one I know.”

I was completely shocked by just how quickly she figured it out.

“How did you know?” I asked taken aback.

“Well, the Scrooge I know always falls for my Crocodile’s Waterworks but he always tries to keep his guard up.” this world’s Goldie explained. “I guess back at your home, you’re the one who’s trying to con your world’s version of me instead of the other way around.”

“I must confess that’s true.” I replied since I did indeed try to con Goldie out of that gold from those gold trees…only for her to trick me instead with the fact that the gold was on her land while only the trees were on mine. “Although you always manage to trick me instead.”

This world’s Goldie smiled at that last bit before saying, “I have plenty of experience traveling to other dimensions. So, I’m not out of my depth here.”

“Are you going to help me and my other self get back to our home dimensions?” I asked hoping that this Goldie’s experience with traveling to other dimensions will help a great deal.

“Of course.” Goldie replied in a slightly more solemn but still sly manner. “After all, what fun would conning people be if I can’t do it to my Scrooge?”

I found myself glad that this world’s Goldie is going to help.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ms. Beakley staring at Goldie and especially me with an incredibly stern and angry glare!

“Hello, Ms. Beakley.” I said nervously. “Just so you know, the Goldie here decided she is going to help me and my other self.”

“That thief?” Ms. Beakley asked skeptically looking at this world’s Goldie.

“I think I liked you better when you were locked in that closet.” this world’s Goldie said coyly.

This world’s Ms. Beakley seemed to grit her teeth at that remark before turning to me and saying, “Also, what were you thinking wandering off?!”

“My apologies, Ms. Beakley.” I replied. “But this Goldie’s experience with traveling to other dimensions should help me and my other self out of this situation.”

This world’s Ms. Beakley stared at this world’s Goldie for a very long moment before sighing and saying, “Fine. You make a fair point.”

Ms. Beakley then looked at the exit and said, “I think we should leave. The social gathering is almost already over-”

Suddenly, the doors were pushed open and in the room walked…Flintheart Glomgold?!

“Hello, Scrooge McDuck!” Glomgold shouted with an incredibly eccentric tone!

He looks quite different to the one I know. And he seems a lot more over-the-top than the other Glomgold!

This world’s Glomgold then looked at Goldie and said with an abnoxious and…flirtatious tone, “And hello there, Goldie.”

Is this world’s Glomgold in love with Goldie?! I think I’m going to vomit!

“What are you doing here?” this world’s Goldie asked in an irritated tone.

“To see you, my sweet.” Glomgold replied flirtatiously. “Also, to rob the place with henchmen I offered to split the profits with.”

On queue, several henchman entered the room.

This included a hawk in a black suit who got behind one of the mics and said, “Attention, everyone! This is a robbery. Kindly hand over all of your cash and valuables and no one gets hur-”

“Hey! Hey! Hey! This is my operation! So, I make the announcement!” Glomgold cut him off before stealing the mic. “Do…exactly what he said.”

The hawk in the black suit grumbled, “He’s almost as bad as Mark Beaks.”

I don’t know who this Mark Beaks is. But he sounds difficult to deal with.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed this world’s Goldie sending a “text message” (this world’s versions of my family described to me as “letters sent digitally rather than through normal transport”) to someone she calls “Sharpie”.

I didn’t have time to think about it because when one of the robbers tried to collect my money, I knocked him out.

Then, a fight started to ensue!

The way this world’s Goldie fights is a wee bit different from my world’s Goldie. She seems to prefer a fight up-close over a gunfight.

She seems to be holding her own against the hawk in the black suit and a few of the other henchmen.

I was pitted against a woman who turns out to be a warrior monk. She’s definitely great with her blades.

The fight went for several minutes until it abruptly came to a stop when someone yelled, “Wait!”

I turned to the source and it was none other than…Louie?!

When and how did he get here?!

I looked over at at this world’s Goldie and saw her smiling at me while pointing at her phone.

Louie is the “Sharpie” she texted earlier?!

“Just how much did Glomgold say you were getting for this whole thing?” Louie asked all the robbers mischievously.

I see what he’s doing! He’s trying to turn them against each other! I just hope it works!

“He said we were each going to get an even split of the profits.” the hawk in the black suit replied to Louie.

“Right. Silly me. I should’ve known that it would take a mastermind to come up with a scheme where they get all the profits while the rest of you are left with nothing.” Louie said no doubt setting the bait for Glomgold to reveal his real plan.

“What?! I’ll have you know that I was planning to betray them and take all the money for myself and…” Glomgold stopped realizing his mistake as his henchmen angrily walked towards him. “…I can explain.”

“You were planning to double-cross us?!” the hawk in the black suit said furiously! “I take back what I said earlier. You’re even worse than Mark Beaks!”

The henchmen then proceeded to beat Glomgold up.

And while they were distracted, me and Goldie were able to knock them out.

“Louie…” I began walking up to him still processing the fact that Louie is apparently associated with Goldie somehow in this dimension.

The triplets back home were always mischievous. But they were never quite at Goldie’s level when it comes to trickery. However, this world’s Louie seems to be a different story. He seems to be much more of a trickster than his 2 brothers here in this dimension. And that went on to impress this world’s Goldie.

Goldie then walked up to me and told me in a surprisingly solemn tone, “We had a connection ever since we conned Doofus Drake during his birthday party.”

“Ahem.” We all heard and turned to see Ms. Beakley. “Sir, I think we should head back to the manor.”

“Very well, Ms. Beakley.” I replied.

As me, Goldie, Louie and Ms. Beakley we’re headed to the limo, I asked Goldie, “You haven’t been taking Louie to help you con people, have you?”

“Not often. In fact, Doofus Drake was the only one until now. After all, the people I like to con are pretty dangerous most of the time and even I have to be careful.” Goldie explained. “I let him help this time because he has experience conning Glomgold and also I decided I wanted to show another version of Scroogey Sharpie in action.”

“I see.” I turned to look at Louie and walked towards Louie and patting his head. “Thanks, lad.”

“Your welcome.” Louie replied smiling proudly while also rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

Goldie, Louie and I began to chat amongst each other. I was a wee bit surprised and also astonished to learn how much they grew to care about each other as if they were aunt and nephew.

But we soon put the conversation to an abrupt end as soon as we remembered I am not their world’s Scrooge and they are not my world’s Goldie and Louie.

Notes: Ok. This chapter was made in celebration of the 70th Anniversary of Carl Barks’s story Back To The Klondike and Goldie O’Gilt’s first appearance. Credit belongs to @goldiejake11 for making that fact known to me in her HAPPY (ALMOST) 70TH ANNIVERSARY TO THE KLONDIKE QUEEN HERSELF - GLITTERING O’GILT post that she posted this January and also to @pick-and-shovel-laborer since I probably could never have found it if they haven’t reblogged it. Me including Louie in this was inspired by @boingodigitalart’s drawing of Scrooge, Goldie and Louie standing side by side together that he posted on Tumblr. So, credit belongs to him for that and also to @lettheladylead and @pick-and-shovel-laborer since I probably could never have found it if they haven’t reblogged it.

[jodilin65]

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2010 No!!!! I HATE it when sites change things, especially when the changes are big. I hate change! And MyOpera’s getting ready to change – argh! But I like MyOpera the way it is. That’s why I came here! If they change what I came here for, then I’m not likely to stick around, even if it means losing the stats that don’t work half the time anyway. It really stinks that people can’t leave a good thing alone. Nothing stays the same for long and all good things really do come to an end. MyOpera’s fine the way it is. What they really need to do is just fix the few glitches it has - background pics not loading, not being able to keep blocked users out of the shoutbox which hasn’t been working for weeks, that sorta thing.

Before Jesse gets to making a racket, though I hope that being a Sunday means he’ll give us a day off, I’m going to crank out another article on crushes vs. love. Bet Maliheh will find that one a bit interesting, LOL. Yeah, part of the reason I’m writing it is to hopefully generate enough interest in her that she’ll click the link and help up my earnings.

Later…

Alison brought up a good point about the fact that Maliheh might have chosen to ignore my friend request for now on Facebook, though they call it Not Now on their Help page.

If I had to guess, she already took action by denying the request, though it still appears as pending. But you know what? I’m SICK of guessing! I wish she would just come out and tell me what’s up with this! She knows she can contact me. What would be so hard in saying, “I’m still thinking about whether or not I want to accept it,” or “I denied it,” or “I never got it in the first place?”

But guessing is all I’m allowed to do, apparently, and so my top guess is it’s a bug. I didn’t report it, though, and say that I suspect it was denied even though it still says it’s pending. I’ll just let it sit there saying it’s pending forever.

It also said that if you do choose Not Now you can go back later on and reject or accept it.

But what am I supposed to do here? Does she expect me to ask her directly whatever it is I want to ask? Am I supposed to sit back and wait patiently until she comes to me? Or are we supposed to forever ignore each other except for what messages I may send her at times and what blog views I may receive from her, just like we’ve been doing so far except for that one day we swapped a couple of messages? Or comments, I should say. Like I said, I really wish she’d give me some kind of clue or a sign as to what she expects of me. Or maybe she already has and I’m just too stupid to see it.

I can’t believe that Molly has viewed my page 20 times today. As I said before, the crazier a woman is, the more attention I get from her. Maliheh may be a bitch (ok so maybe I am a bit turned on by those hard-ass types) but she’s definitely not crazy. Therefore I don’t “qualify” for nearly as much attention from her, LOL. She just needs to start hanging out with me online and chatting or something. I’d get a touch of craziness into her that way for damn sure and probably have loads of fun doing it, too. :)

The Girl in the Mirror is off to write another article, but if she doesn’t get paid soon she’s not going to be the girl in Helium’s mirror! I think I might start writing under my own name, though. That way, if by some miracle I do get paid, there won’t be any name confusion on PayPal’s part. Who needs a pen name anyway?

In other news, I got the kind of attention from Dieter I wish I could get from Nane but never will. He started off by commenting on one of my articles which I’m posting links to on my blog, Twitter and Facebook. He agreed with my views on lesbianism not being caused by male attitudes. If that were the case most women would be gay, LOL. He also asked how I knew Nane and I told him like it was. I simply told him we met on a language learning site and that I came out and told her I thought she was attractive. Also, I wasn’t sure if the feeling was mutual, but she seems open-minded with what little I know about her.

He replied with a “yes!”

“Yes, it’s mutual, or yes she’s open-minded?” I asked.

He said he didn’t know, he just loved her. I agreed she seemed like a very loveable person, but I didn’t hear as much from her as I’d like. I understand she’s busy, though, I added.

“She’s very special to me,” he said next and I asked how they met and how she was special to him.

Then he said that there we were talking about her and she didn’t even know it.

I said that I was just thinking the same thing and hoped she wouldn’t want to serve my head for dinner if she stumbled across the discussion, not that we said anything bad about her, and not that I thought she would go to my wall and read it (unless he tells her about it).

“Wait for her comments,” he said.

I politely agreed to, though as I pointed out earlier, Nane doesn’t usually comment or message me without it being a reply to a comment or a message I sent first.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2010 Nos vamos a ir – oops! Started to write this entry in Spanish, LOL. We went to the post office so I could cash Paula’s money order. Strangely enough, the guy at the desk never asked to see my ID or had me endorse the money order. Maybe he figured it was only for $10, so who cares? Then Tom got a money order for the rent and we came back to spend a day lazing around and eating everything we shouldn’t. At least I spent yesterday dieting off that extra pound I hash browned on the day before that, LOL.

Today I’m making a point of not doing anything that isn’t fun. That means I’m just going to write, study languages, and of course we’ll both take breaks to keep the rat entertained while listening to Jesse. Yeah, despite the rain we’re having today Jesse is still determined to steal the peace. I hear him buzzing about on the ATV and I’m sure the bulldozer will be next. Next week he’s really going to be raising hell and driving me crazy as it’s to be warm and sunny all week.

Although I don’t expect much revenue from it, it’s cool that I was offered a “job” writing articles at Helium and I like how you can pick any topic you want. Now that I did that 417-word article on gay marriage, maybe I’ll do a language-learning article next.

It’s just that the site is a bit complicated. I’m not sure I get it all. My ranking went from 9 out of 15 to 7 out of 15 since I posted it, so I guess that’s a good thing. But it seems I must have at least 1 star in order to get paid and I may have to write 10 articles in order to do that and get myself noticed more so I can be rated and all that stuff. So I guess I better get thinking about what else to write about. I guess the more views you get the more you get paid too, so I gotta think of not only things I know enough about to write about but things that are more popular.

They even have a creative writing contest section and I may submit some stories, but don’t know for sure yet.

A friend of Nane’s added me on Facebook. An older gentleman who left some nice comments on my photos who also lives in Germany and who also knows English.

Ok, here’s what’s been eating at me, but I must, must stress up front that I’m not trying to argue, challenge, accuse or piss anyone off! I’m merely stating my feelings and my opinions. That’s all I’m doing!

I know I said it doesn’t matter what happened 19 years ago as far as the little details go, and it’s true. It doesn’t matter. What actually happened isn’t the issue. But it bothers me a bit that Maliheh would lie about who kissed who and about us exchanging numbers at the bar. It just seems like such a silly thing to lie about. I also realize that our memories do worsen with age and that maybe she isn’t knowingly and intentionally lying, but really truly does remember it to be the way she said it was. Like I said, I’m not trying to call her a liar. But if I knew for a fact that she was deliberately lying about it, then why? Why?

I don’t remember every little thing that happened myself. It was a long time ago and I too, am getting older. But I clearly remember her kissing me on my way out and us exchanging numbers very well, and like I said before, kissing cheeks isn’t my thing. I probably wouldn’t even hug anyone I didn’t know well. Nor would I ask someone else your number if you’re standing right there in front of me and I can just ask you directly. And I couldn’t look anyone up whose last name I didn’t know. There’s nothing wrong with those who kiss or hug people they just met. I’m just saying it isn’t me. But being kissed by someone you were madly attracted to the instant you laid eyes on them isn’t something you forget easily. There is no doubt in my mind as to who kissed who and I wasn’t at all offended by it. I was actually quite flattered. What I don’t remember is who suggested exchanging numbers, but I’d guess it was me. This was when I learned her full name. She wrote it down with her number and so that’s how I could write it in my journal back in 1991 and how I could look her up on Facebook last spring.

I’m just bothered by the fact that if it isn’t a case of her memory being jumbled up she would say it was the other way around and that I kissed her and got her number from someone else because if you can lie about that, you can lie about other things. Again I am NOT saying she’s lying. I’m just saying she could be. But I’m not a mind reader. I can’t see into her mind and “see” if she’s lying or if she just doesn’t remember things correctly. I don’t think any less of her and it’s not like I’d go run and cancel the friend request thing if she came out and said she did lie. I just want her to be truthful about it is all, and why not? She was truthful about everything else. A little off on the timing of the calls, but I attribute that to the pig who wrote up the report, not her, as most pigs will lie and exaggerate every chance they get. Can’t blame her for them writing that I started calling her before we met and kept calling long after I was caught and in court for it.

I had a dream about us joking over who kissed who, but seriously and as I would tell anyone unless your memory truly has gone to hell, please don’t bullshit me. It serves no purpose other than to cause others to mistrust us when we hold things back or turn things around.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2010 Good morning. Before I get on with my work (and before Jesse gets noisy), my new tropical lotion smells like furniture polish and I’m up a pound. Guess that’s what I get for having that extra hash brown yesterday.

I’m keeping the bedroom door shut so the rat has one less room to cause trouble in when I feel like letting him out to run around and raise hell.

Maliheh’s late in coming to my blog again, and again I have to wonder if it has to do with me.

Later…

Just a quick entry to cap off the rest of the day. Especially since I don’t know if I’ll have time to write much over the weekend, and if I do I’ll be wanting to catch up on my story which Jesse wouldn’t let me work on today, assuming it’s too rainy for him to be able to make a racket.

That damn cock drove me crazy for nearly 5 hours “tending the farm.” You know, the one we don’t have. It sure sounded like we did, anyway. He was bulldozing God knows what up by his place. The day ended up pretty much going to waste as I could not concentrate on anything because that thing is so loud and obnoxious. It’s clouding up now and starting to rain, but in a few hours, the dogs will take over the racket as he heads into Sacramento overnight. That’s ok, though, as I’ll be crashing by then.

Tom was saying he was smoothing out ruts in the drive from all the rain we had, but he was clearly working up at his place today, not on the drive. I went out to see if I could get a sense of what was going on, hoping to run into him so I could ask how much longer it would take, but I could only catch a glimpse of him through the trees towards the back front of his place, heading towards us. He couldn’t have been in his backyard since he couldn’t get the thing back there and there’s nothing to bulldoze back there. You can’t see the backyard anyway with the house, hills and trees in the way unless you actually go into it. There’s nothing to bullshit in front either, so my guess is he was clearing the firebreak area, though it makes no sense to do this after fire season. Tom said some trees might’ve gone down. He might’ve been gathering firewood too, but whatever the hell he was doing, I just hope it won’t become a regular thing! Yet I fear that any day it’s sunny and not real hot, he’s going to be doing something. He’s the nervous type who just can’t sit still. Spending hours with a good book or in front of a TV simply isn’t him, and he has no computer either. I just think tending the land in ways that really annoy the hell out of me when I’m on days is going to be his new “job,” bad back or not.

Tom overheard something rather uncool at work and that’s other temps saying they’ve been temps for 11 months yet still not hired. I’m not at all surprised. Unfortunately, it’s a very common practice to hire temps so that employers don’t have to insure them. Most workers seem to be temps these days. But that’s ok. We don’t need insurance and I don’t have to go to a dentist. I’ve been dealing with dental pain since around 2004 and am plenty used to it by now. And the more teeth that die the less they hurt. It’s been much better since the last two died. Maybe I’ll be insured in a few more years if the so-called health reform thing really is for real and it really kicks in. If not, there’s always Medicare when I’m 65. We would still rather he have a good-paying job, even as just a temp, than no job at all. Getting a permanent position is very hard to do these days anyway, as I just said.

Still no visits from Maliheh today. Again, is she weaning her way off of my blog now that the story’s done? I realize she could just be busy, but I have a feeling I’m going to start seeing a pattern here. Perhaps she stuck around after the story to surprise me by still coming around, then just as I was all happy over that she decided to deflate my bubble. IDK, but it’s obvious she’s never going to like me or accept the friend invite. Oh well. We win some and we lose some in life. And I’m her loss as well, even if she can’t help but feel the way she feels and has every right to do so.

My OSU fan still comes around, surprisingly. I thought they were only coming for the story, but apparently not.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2010 I wasn’t going to do an entry, but I guess I could squeeze a quick one in before bed, though I should be up for a couple more hours.

If I didn’t love my rat so much I’d have grabbed the piece of vermin by the tail, opened the door and tossed him out. The furry bastard chewed one of my speaker wires right in half! Luckily Tom’s a real genius with stuff like that and he fixed it in just a few minutes.

I also really wish Jesse could give me a day off from the goddamn ATV and motorcycle! Is he going to do this every fucking day that it’s under 90º and not raining?! The motorcycle’s loud, but it’s not buzzing around and around the place like crazy for hours. Yet he went back and forth and back and forth on the fucking ATV like crazy for hours. He left around noon on the motorcycle and I figured next would come the barking, though it didn’t since we hit 70º out there and they prefer to go off when it’s colder. But then 10 minutes later he returned. I still can’t believe so much racket can come from where just one person lives. Just one person!

Just when I thought he would finally shut up for the day, I get hit with the bullshitter in the late afternoon. It’s either him or his fucking dogs! If I didn’t know any better I’d swear we were living on a farm with all the machinery noise we get hit with.

Sorry to do nothing but complain in this entry, LOL. Things could be worse! I still got part of the first chapter of my new book done.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2010 Jesse’s racket didn’t go on for too long, fortunately, and Tom said he actually did him a favor. I guess he had a small pile of brush in the drive for a while, and while it was easy enough to drive over, Tom was going to move it out of the way later on. By the sound and smell of it, Jesse was gathering and burning brush. That’s why the ATV sounded so close. Hopefully, he’ll stay put today. I have a lot of writing and language studying to do today.

As some of you know, for the longest time I was a very non-forgiving person. Easy to piss off and easy to lose. And while I’m trying to be more tolerant and accepting, I stopped communication with Marie for a handful of months because I couldn’t take her obsessive ways and paranoia. My inbox would be flooded every day with messages galore and I would be accused of “plotting” against her or not giving a damn if I didn’t reply instantly. Any talk of Maliheh or anyone else she knew I was attracted to in more than just a friendly way (even though I don’t ever expect to actually see Maliheh in person) would drive her insane with jealousy. As I told her, it’s ok to feel what you feel, but the way you’ve been handling it really puts a lot of stress on me. I’d be jealous too, for example, if I knew someone was with Maliheh (even though I can’t imagine us ever being able to cut it in a relationship anyway because we’re so different from each other and too similar in some ways as well), but while I’d feel jealous I would know and understand she has the right to live her life as she sees fit. And I would be happier for her if she was happy than I would be jealous.

While I think I may end up regretting it, I sent Marie a message on Facebook and told her that if she can not bombard and smother me with a million messages, and keep her paranoia at bay (I promised her I would never write about why she is the way she is), then she can say hello on my blog every now and then to let me know she’s alive and well. I do think of her from time to time and I did love her once. She then sent me a friend invite saying she’d email me. I accepted it but made it clear that I didn’t want to go back to doing a million emails and messages. That’s how trouble starts. I not only don’t want a million messages a day, but I don’t have time for that as I tried to tell her before. But for some reason, she seems to be afraid to come to my blog. Maybe that’s because she knows I’ll know it (if and when the stats happen to be working) and I think this is why I feel I can trust Maliheh and that she has nothing to hide or any evil intentions in mind for me; because she’s at least got the guts to show herself. waves hand Hello, good looking. :)

And now I’m running off to see what my adorable little ratty has decided to get into this morning. He’s probably tearing things up in the closet. shakes head

OMG, this is so funny! I just got a reply from Marie saying “LOL, yes boss” to my reminding her I’m not going to go back and forth a million times a day with the paranoia and the messages. So Maliheh’s my boss and I’m her boss, LOL!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2010 I woke up this morning and the first thing I asked myself was, “Was yesterday just a dream? Did I only dream she contacted me? The REAL Maliheh?” Then I grinned ear to ear when I realized that no, it wasn’t a dream. She contacted me – yay! She really, really did. The real one. We disagreed on half the things we discussed, but she contacted me – yippee! She’s not at all pleased by my story, but she contacted me – woot! She may even think I’m ugly and the shittiest writer on earth, but she still contacted me – woo-hoo! I’m pretty ecstatic even if she didn’t exactly tell me what I wanted to hear at times. The biggest thing I disagree with is who kissed who, but if we’re going to sit and worry about every petty little detail from the past, we may as well all argue over what we had for dinner 10 years ago and what we saw on TV 20 years ago on a particular day. In other words who cares as long as we’re kind and respectful to each other from here on out?

Let me get my half-assed cyber girlfriend out of the way first and save the best for last. We ended up chatting on Facebook. She was at work and said that if she doesn’t reply right away it was cuz the boss man was around. It was 1am here and 10am there in Germany. For some reason, I didn’t feel that excitement I used to feel when we’d chat or swap messages. I found the conversation to be a bit boring, actually, though it was still nice. As she put it, she’s freezing her ass off at 5º C.

Also, she started learning English in 5th grade and needs it for her job as a financial sector, and she even lived in New York for a few years. She’s traveled to many countries but has never been to California. She’s more the Mediterranean type who loves the sun and sea so she goes to Turkey every 2-4 weeks cuz it’s cheap and less than a 3-hour flight and she loves the food and music there. I was actually the one who ended the conversation cuz my tummy was growling and I wanted to go eat, LOL.

I do like, however, that she’s a more “classier” flirt. She’s not cheap and slutty about it like Marie was where that’s all she talks about, thus giving the impression that’s all she cares about. From Nane, I get just an occasional reference that actually makes it more special when she compliments something about me or my appearance.

Now to get on with someone in my own damn country who actually pays more attention to me and cares a little about me – yes, I know it’s not literally about yours truly but about what she says – while I turn the rat loose for his exercise and to no doubt get into some sort of shit he’s not supposed to get into. He likes to cause trouble a hell of a lot more than I ever did, LOL.

I said seeing her on my list always makes me smile, but when I first checked my stats today, believe me when I say it isn’t humanly possible to smile as much as I saw her. Yeah, the stats are way, way messed up. They’re getting worse all the time too, but I’m not going to say how many times she was listed. I’m supposed to be sticking to feelings, not facts, LOL.

I have thought about it and decided to pretty much abandon the story. Yes, I could edit it. That’s part of what we writers do. But seeing that those who wanted to read it already have, I see no point in taking on such a huge job when I have other projects lined up, including one which I’ve been asked to write that I might get paid for. I’m not at liberty to discuss that part of it right now. So unless I do decide to re-work the manuscript later on down the road, Evil Amongst the Evergreens is history.

The biggest bummer about yesterday’s contact – even more of a bummer than her saying I kissed her – was to learn that she is obviously less than pleased about the story. I don’t know why she didn’t come forth a lot sooner than she did to tell me she wanted out of it, as I’d have been perfectly willing to give her the boot and kick her out, but I guess she had her reasons. Apparently, she misunderstood me about not contacting me. When I thought she was the one bugging me on Formspring I told her something like, “I know it’s you! Do NOT contact me again.” But after I learned who it really was and apologized for accusing her, I thought she knew I was open to contact at that point on, but I guess not. But hey, Maliheh and I have always done a much better job of misunderstanding each other than actually getting where the other’s coming from, LOL. In fact, I just might worry about us if we ever started “getting” each other!

I’m very sorry she’s not at all flattered or honored in any way where the story’s concerned. But she has a right to feel as she does though she is definitely a first. Many times I’ve based characters on people I know and they were thrilled. Using real people helps me to visualize and to make the characters “real.” As I was telling someone the other day, visualization is very important. If you can’t see or feel things within your story, your readers won’t either.

Some people have suggested that it may not be that she doesn’t like the story or the plot or how it’s written, but may actually fear that I may profit from it. Well, she hasn’t said anything either way other than to get her name and description out as well as the past, but I don’t think she worries about the potential for me to make money from it. First of all, life may not always be what we plan it, but I didn’t write the story with money in mind and as I’m sure she can see, the story isn’t that marketable. I may not be the worst writer, but I’m not the best. There are many authors that could’ve done a much better job with it. It’s also not a full-length novel because it’s under 100,000 words. But at nearly 62,000, it’s too much to be a short story.

Alison says it’s cute how I went out of my way to please her, LOL. Yeah, anyone else I’d tell them to fuck off and don’t ever tell me what to do, but as long as my “boss” doesn’t demand something over my head or totally off the wall, I don’t mind behaving and her keeping tabs on me, LOL. I write, she supervises. That seems to be the way it is, LOL.

Speaking of supervising, I had a reverse dream premonition, you could say. I dreamt she left a comment after she actually did. Just in case it wasn’t just a backward premonition, though, the first thing I did when I got up was to see if anything else came in from her, but nope. I doubt we’ll ever speak again. :( Then again, that’s what I said before about her contacting me in the first place.

Anyway, I had another dream of her that was a bit more X-rated and definitely a lot more fun. But I’ll get to it later since I can already hear the rat getting into trouble. I also have to run and get my ab crunches and push-ups out of the way.

Later…

I knew it! I just fucking knew it. It was coming up on 11:00 and I said to myself, “That damn pest of a landlord up the hill that can’t sit still and shut up for long is gonna be at his fucking engine gunning games any second.” I knew he was about due for it because we’re entering the rainy season when thankfully, he’ll only have so many days to make a racket, break my train of thought, and annoy the hell out of me. Sure enough, he fired up the bullshitter, then I heard him buzzing about on the ATV. He even went zipping by this place for some reason I can’t understand. He didn’t stop to get anything from his shit pile, so did he just want attention? To annoy me?

I’m going to have to start sleeping with the sound machines really cranked up when I’m on nights because I know he’ll be down here much more often. Or at least outside running the bullshitter.

On the bright side, those dogs sure have been a million times quieter. No more 8-hour barking sprees day after day, though we’ll get hit with it every Friday night that he continues to spend in Sacramento. I’m hoping he still won’t want to be here much in general as is usually the case, but if he’s out of work, there are only so many places he can go so often. But yeah, he doesn’t seem to want to be here much, and when he is he lives outside whenever he can running loud shit.

I’m blasting music now to drown him out and I’m not even answering the door if he comes to it. I’ve asked enough times to be called first.

We’re going to get rained on again in a couple of days so that should chase him indoors for a while. I’m totally jealous of Maliheh’s weather right now! It’s so cold here at just under 60º and she’s near 90º. No fair! How can that be a cold climate, I wonder, though my research clearly says it is. Not like MA or OR, but colder than here. It rarely snows here, but that’s not supposed to be the case where she is. I hope I’m not saying too much about her “life,” but she can let me know if talking about her weather/climate is a no-no she wants to reprimand me for or not, but I think it’s ok. :)

As if noisy landlords and cold weather weren’t bad enough, the rat jumped up on my lap waving his little arms. I could see he had something stuck to him. Sure enough, he managed to jump on the shelf where our stamps were and so he had postage stamps decorated all over him. :( Since when did having a rat get to be like having a two-year-old around? So I pry the stamps off he’s got stuck on him and he squeals at me. Well, he’s the one who was dumb enough to mess with them!

Tom said that he didn’t know if this was good or bad, but that they let a regular worker at work go, and a new temp failed to show up. As I said, it would help to know why the regular was let go in order to say if it was good or bad. He said he’s not sure, but thinks the guy was missing too much work. If that’s the case, then it’s a good thing. As long as they’re not downsizing! But from what he can tell the company does a lot of business and is really thriving well. They said 2-4 months when they hired him. Well, we’re just now past the 2-month marker so that’s good.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2010 Wow! My God, just wow. I finally heard from Maliheh! I copied the comment she left me on my blog, followed by my reply, “20 questions,” and random facts about myself which I posted yesterday. She left it while I was sleeping. I got it when I got up at midnight. At the end of all this stuff, I will do today’s regular entry.

She wrote: The facts from 19 years ago. I meet you at a bar called Pearl Street - that would have been a Wednesday night. I don’t remember who introduced us but if it was as you say we met thru a person that was in a signing club at Umass (not a class) . I talked to you for a few minutes. I danced like I did every Wednesday with my self or with others around me. If I had a drink it was only one.You kissed me on the cheek on your way out. You got my number from the phone book or somebody not me. You called me about a week later left a message “Dear John”. I never pranked you. The police confirmed that from the records the phone company provided, this was necessary before a wire tap could be put on my line. Lets put more facts out there. Your “little harmless phone pranks” including many calls at all hours of the night. Some nights hour after hour and because the police were recording them I had to wake up andanswer them. Unplugging the phone was not an option. We were gather evidence against you. Its important to note that this whole experience of your annoying calls took place on and off from 5-18-91 to 10-11-91 yes five months. Remember the guy staying with you from Arizona? The one that called him self Francois / Darrylsaid he had a black Camaro calling from a number in S Deerfield who said he was gonna come to my house and beat me up??Harmlessphone “pranks”after the police came to your place and questioned you about this you left a message on my answering machine saying “ a friend from Arizona was staying with you and he happened to get my numberand happened to call and threaten my life.” You called me even after your Attorney and the police advised you to leave me alone. Some facts about today. I have not contacted you as I was instructed not to but felt I had to this one time. My friends from Facebook did not contact you. You went down my list and friend requested them. They went to your Facebook account then to your Journal and found your entries.There you had written damaging untruths about me - in short you defamed my character. One example is you claimed in your journal I had been convicted of harassing phone calls, 1986 for theft and 1979 for possession of a controlled substance. I don’t have a criminal record. People that really know me know that. Note everyone that added you deleted you after I talked to them. Now to the most important point I need to make. I didn’t ask you to write a story with me and you in it. The story you wrote using my name and description in the past and present is without my permission. You can keep your story but you will need to make the following changes: remove my name, and anything pertaining to 19 years ago in Massachusetts between us, and any similarity to me past or present. Do not ever use my name in or for any book, short story,article, similar medium or any events pertaining to my life in the past, now, or in the future. You never had my permission to do so and you never will. You have written many times if you hear from me and I ask you to stop you will. I have not asked you to stop just make the changes I have listed. Now is your chance to prove your honesty and integrity to show the kind of person you really are.

My reply: I read your message several times so as to make sure I understand what you’re trying to say and that I have not missed anything. Before I reply, please note that while you are absolutely correct in a lot of it, you’re just plain wrong on some things. Just wrong. But please, please don’t think I’m trying to upset you in any way by disagreeing with some things you’ve said! That is NOT my intention. I do NOT want to fight, argue or offend you! But I simply can’t sit here and say I agree with things I absolutely don’t remember or that I recall as being different than what you’ve described. I understand, though, that 19 years is a long time. And it’s easy to get some things jumbled up over the passage of so much time. All I want is to say that I’m not trying to change your way of thinking, your feelings, your beliefs or anything like that. I’m not even asking for your forgiveness or your friendship at this point. Speaking of the friend request thing – do you even know it’s there? Just wondering if it’s showing up on your end with all the problems Facebook has.

First off, I sense a lot of anger and hatred pouring from your comment, and hey, that’s your right if you really do feel these things. You have every right to despise me, but I want you to know up front that there are only so many times I can apologize to you for my wrongdoings. In other words, I’m not going to try to win you over. I’m not going to work, fight or try for your approval, friendship or anything else from you as I am no longer sure we can be friends and move on if you’re still this angry at me. Again, it’s your right, but I’m even wondering if maybe I should cancel the friend invite I sent you as some people have suggested I should. I just don’t want to be “friends” with someone who hates me this much or at least appears to. But I don’t want to make the mistake of jumping the gun like I did before either. I guess for now I will wait and see if you have anything else to say to me. I just don’t want to bother with those that don’t want to bother with me. That doesn’t change the attraction part – I was attracted to you, I still am, and maybe I always will be. But I’m not about to try to get you to feel things you don’t feel is all I’m saying, even though, I still wouldn’t mind getting to know you and becoming friends if that were at all possible.

The first thing I should make clear to you is that I researched internet laws when I first started writing publicly in the summer of 2008. Technically I have a right to use real full names, first and last, and to say what I want as long as I am not writing for profit and the person cannot prove in a court of law that anything I said actually did indeed cause them emotional suffering or financial loss of any kind. You said it yourself, those that know you know the truth about you as wrong as I admit I was for saying the shit I said. But to anyone else, you were simply “Maliheh” and that could be any Maliheh anywhere in the world. I have made it a point not to use real last names in my journal.

Ok, now I’m going to respond to your message in as much of an orderly fashion as I can so as not to miss anything.

“I have not contacted you until now because I have been instructed not to do.”

But I told you a long time ago after sending you the “do NOT contact me again” message that I later realized it wasn’t you who had harassed me on Formspring or elsewhere. I thought it went without saying that you knew you could contact me from that point on. So if anyone instructed you not to since then it wasn’t me. Just to set the record straight from here on out, you can contact me anytime you want unless I tell you otherwise. I know how to use FB and Yahoo’s block feature, though I cannot block specific individuals from viewing my blog without setting it private and that’s not going to happen. I do sometimes make private entries or use the “whisper” feature these blogs come with that allows only myself or any friends I may choose to see certain things within public entries.

I sent you a message in regards to the last message someone left about what supposedly happened to you one night when you got up to answer one of my calls, asking if it was true or not, but again I heard absolutely nothing in response from you so I didn’t know what to think at times.

I admit it was totally wrong of me to accuse you of playing with me on Formspring like I did. If it hadn’t been for the timing I never would have suspected and automatically assumed like a jerk it was you. It started just two weeks after I first contacted you on FB.

I also admit I was wrong for the mean things I said to you and that I handled things very poorly when I thought you were harassing me.

You are correct – I did add your friends, but I swear one of them did contact me right as I friended them about some kind of joke they wanted to play on you, but I didn’t want to get involved. At this time I was saying to myself, “Hey, this is stupid. Quit being an ass, leave her alone, let the past stay in the past, and move on!” And you’re also correct in that they didn’t all unfriend me right away. I removed those who didn’t remove me when I decided I wanted to try to make amends with you. I considered apologizing to your friends but figured I would be the last person they’d want to hear from again, even if it was to say I’m sorry.

I did later write to tell you that some people were questioning whether or not it was really you contacting me and asked you to reply if it wasn’t you but you never did. And so when you didn’t reply, I still assumed at the time that it was you I was dealing with.

I also gave you the chance up front to ask me to either not post or to change things with the story, saying I would go ahead and post it as is if I didn’t hear from you. And again I didn’t, so I posted it as is. Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t want your first name in it when I first told you I was going to post it as is unless I heard anything from you? As I said, I’m not legally obligated to remove it and I have stated up front that not all the events in the story are true. However, as a courtesy to you, I have removed the story since changing the name would be way too much work as it would be to remove past references. I’m pretty sure I got it all. If there’s anything else you want removed, you can contact me with the entry title and I will think about it. I have considered your “gag order” request, too – or demand, I should say – and yes, I will refrain from mentioning you in my blog from now on, and if I do it will only be in a vague way, nothing bad, and maybe I’ll even give you a bogus first name. Meanwhile, if you dislike me that much and feel you are bothered by my journal or story, I think you should stop reading it. Unless I’m reading you wrong – and I apologize up front if I am – you were never attracted to me, you do not like me, you are not interested in anything about me or my life, and therefore I would understand if you chose to stop coming here. It may be for the best, but that’s up to you. I can’t control what you do and I wouldn’t want to if I could.

You must keep in mind that I can’t control other people’s actions either and that some people may still leave comments about you, even if half of them can’t seem to spell your name right. I thought about disabling the anonymous comment thing but decided against it. If someone says anything nasty or threatening about you, however, then you bet I’ll remove it. But don’t think for a minute I’m going to be held accountable for what others may do. Again, those who know you know the truth, and your last name is not printed here so I’m not sure why your first name in the story bothers you even though I have come to learn that you weren’t the one who asked me to write it.

So the bar was called Pearl Street, huh? For some reason, I thought it was North Star. So it was a club and not a class – sorry. Yeah, I was with a girl named Kim. She was an RN living next door (Elm St. in S. Dfld.), married to a Greenfield cop named Mark, but they’ve long since divorced. And yes, it was a Wednesday night.

As I later acknowledged after I got over my anger when I thought you were harassing me on Formspring and Ask, I know you don’t have a criminal record and I know you weren’t drunk. However, I SWEAR it was YOU who kissed me on the cheek. I remember it clearly! And we DID exchange numbers, though I don’t remember who suggested it. How else could I have gotten your number and why would I ask someone else for it and not you? Without knowing your last name, I wouldn’t have been able to simply look you up. Also, I wouldn’t have had the guts to kiss you or anyone even quickly on the cheek. I wasn’t so shy that I wouldn’t go up and talk to someone, but kissing someone on the cheek I’d just met, that just wasn’t me. Again, not to offend or piss you off; just telling you what I personally remember to be the case.

“You called me about a week later left a message “Dear John”.”

We spoke a few times before our final conversation which did take place about a week after we met, remember? We talked about various things like how you quit smoking, the guitar…

I’m sorry I really, really truly believed you were interested in me and that my message came off as a Dear John message. If you say you weren’t interested, then you weren’t. You would know, wouldn’t you? And if you say you didn’t prank me after I pranked you, then I’m going to take your word for it. I always believed that the guy that called me was connected either to the cops or the crisis center, but I thought the girl sounded like the one on your outgoing message at the time, but again, if it wasn’t you, then it wasn’t you and it doesn’t matter all these years later since it won’t change anything. I was just curious about it, but now you have told me and so now I know.

There’s no way the calls could’ve started in May and went on through October simply because we didn’t meet until June and I got caught in September. As soon as a detective called me on the phone to say I was being charged for calling you, it scared the shit out of me and I stopped immediately. So if you received calls before or after June - September, though I don’t remember the actual start/end dates - it was NOT from me.

Andy (Daryl) and Fran were not staying with me. We were using the 3-way feature. Fran turned out to be a complete wacko and I’m lucky he never harmed me in any way. I have not spoken to him in a million years. I am not only so very sorry that my calls kept you up at night, but that he threatened you. Andy and I were VERY much against threatening anyone, but that is something Fran would have done, and again, I’m very sorry he did that to you, though I was not aware of it until now.

“Some nights hour after hour and because the police were recording them I had to wake up andanswer them.”

But you didn’t answer some of them. Initially, you answered them, but then you stopped and your machine came on after a while. Not trying to play down what I did, make excuses or deny that it was no fun at all for you, but it seemed that once you realized the wires weren’t crossed and it was just pranks, you stopped answering and your machine came on.

The police never came to talk to me as my lawyer advised me not to talk to them under any circumstances, though they did call and ask to come over. I told them I had been ordered not to speak to them and hung up the phone.

“You have written many times if you hear from me and I ask you to stop you will.”

Yes, boss.

“Now is your chance to prove your honesty and integrity to show the kind of person you really are.”

I don’t have to “prove” anything to anyone, but I am being honest and upfront with you. I do want to get along even if you will never like me or want to be friends. I have no ill feelings towards you or the desire to make trouble for you. If this isn’t good enough for you, then I give up.

Again, and for the last time, I am very sorry for the lost sleep and the stress I caused you 19 years ago. I am sorry that Fran threatened you. I am sorry I falsely accused you of the Formspring thing. I am sorry I wrote some nasty things to you and about you. I am sorry I bothered your friends. I will not repeat any of these mistakes again, and if I have even the slightest doubt about anything ever again in the future, I will contact you and hope that you will reply and clear things up for me right away.

I have a lot to do today so if you need to contact me again and I don’t get back to you right away, I’m not ignoring you. I will tend to it first chance I get.

I realize you and I aren’t going to agree on everything that happened and that’s ok. Does it really matter – 19 years later – who kissed who? I think all that should really matter is that we have each gotten things off our chest (and I thank you very much for finally stepping forward and speaking your mind, whether I agree with everything you said or not) and that we don’t make trouble for each other in the future. From here on out I wish you the very best in life.

The 20 questions:

Were you really not interested in me?

Were you behind any of the prank calls I got?

Do you have any idea who may’ve been impersonating you?

What do you think of the story?

What made you move to where you currently live?

What have you done for work over the years, and what do you do now?

Are you single, and if not how long have you been with someone?

Are you happy in life?

Are you in good health?

What types of music do you like?

What are your favorite foods?

Do you believe in psychics?

Do you still have cats for pets or any other pets?

What are your hobbies?

Have you been with a lot of people, and do you usually prefer casual encounters or to be more serious?

Do you have an “ideal” type of woman? If so, what does she look like and what’s her personality like?

Do you have any phobias?

Did you ever think of me over the years despite the problems we had?

What went through your mind when I first contacted you? (other than oh shit! LOL)

What are your favorite travel destinations other than the moonlit path of my imagination?

And these were the random facts I posted yesterday about myself:

I prefer milk chocolate to dark chocolate.

I would have been a slut in my early 20s had not so many women found me too short and too feminine.

I will drink orange juice, but I can’t stand anything else with oranges, including the smell of oranges.

I’ve been in funny farms and jails before, but I swear I’ve had my act together since 1993!

I have not seen my immediate family since the 90s and I doubt I ever will again.

I love rats, mice and snakes, but spiders creep me out.

I refuse to eat anything salty, spicy or citrus.

I usually brush or straighten my hair out and I actually have spiral curls which I hate.

Although I’m small I could probably kick your ass if pissed enough.

I don’t worry what people think, they don’t do it very often anyway.

I dwell on the past and worry about the future a little more than I should.

I want to fly a plane. A BIG plane.

I can run a few miles, do 100 ab crunches and about a dozen push-ups and I’m almost 45.

I’m partially deaf but I can identify musical notes without reading music or seeing them played on an instrument.

I got fired from just about every job I ever had except for dancing, singing and writing. Even the one as an “adviser” on a site after someone asked what they should do about their cheating GF and I suggested wetting her pinky finger and sticking it in an electrical socket.

I hate temperatures below 80º.

My tummy hurts from having too much candy and not enough real food since I’ve been up today.

I’m not big on jewelry. All I wear is my wedding band and I haven’t worn earrings in years.

No Tom wouldn’t want to watch if I got together with another woman. Despite being very tolerant and open-minded, he would rather not hear about it.

I am pro-choice and believe everyone should be able to marry who they love.

I’m not skinny or fat but kind of muscular.

My hair is usually too long.

I’m fair-skinned and so I burn instead of tan.

A woman in uniform turns me on.

I still like Barbie, though I quit collecting her years ago.

I don’t mind rain, but I HATE snow.

For a while, I was a bit racist about a decade ago. These days, however, I have no discrimination. I hate everybody equally.

I wonder why so many people don’t know when to use there, their or they’re. Or the difference between to and too and your and you’re.

Whoa! I was just going to do this entry when I got this:

I got the Facebook mess..its me…I am not going to start this back and forth but I want you to know I think I was misunderstood.. its a Free country say what you feel about me, you and your friends I don’t care about that… just don’t use my name in or for any book, short story, article, similar medium or any events pertaining to my life in past now or in the future. no need to go to the extreme. I have a friend that told me if you did the story in word you can with one click change my name to another. im sure you can alter the story and still keep the story line in tack screenwriters do that all the time..Thank you for respecting my wishes .As far as the facts yea long time ago thats why I payed for the police report and was going mostly off of that . the real Maliheh

I replied with: Hey, good to hear from you again. :) Your friend is right - one click will change your name. I just thought it easier to delete all the posts here since I don’t have any way to one-click them here in the blog, so I just kicked it all off entirely. I do have it in Word and will go and make the changes there in case I ever re-post it here or anywhere else, or if you change your mind and want a copy of the final edit. Yeah, it was a long time ago, and sadly, cops are often like the media - lies, hypes and half-truths mixed in with whole truths. Regardless of the facts, the past is the past and I will use my best judgment as to what I say about you (like if you show up in my dreams like you sometimes do, LOL) and I will keep you out of Storyland. :) Have a good day!

NOTE: This was before she eventually dumped me and she basically forfeited her right to have her first name (I never use last names unless it’s a public figure) kept out of my blog.

Ok, now that I think I’m done hearing from her for the day, even though she’s been checking my blog every 15 minutes, LOL, I’ll discuss my thoughts and feelings on the matter.

There was certainly a lot less anger and hate radiating from her last message.

I was really surprised, alright! I was really beginning to think I’d never hear from her. But then when she didn’t kick the friend invite out (which is still pending), I didn’t know what to think. But why she chose to jump out at me in public instead of in private seems strange. Perhaps to defend herself to my followers?

And why deny she kissed me and that we exchanged numbers unless her memory’s just screwed up? To thwart off suspicions that she may’ve been interested in me?

Even if she came out and told me her life story, and I am still curious about her, I will not post anything she may tell me. Not even something as trivial as her favorite foods.

But the story’s a whole different ballgame. As she pointed out, I can change her name in one click, but the more I think about it, the more I think altering the story to omit any past references would be a bit of work because the storyline is based so much on the past. Yeah, it could be done (hey, I’m supposed to be a pro) and in a way that would keep the storyline intact, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. I will make that decision as I make the final edit. If I don’t remove the past then I just won’t post it anywhere. So if she ever does decide she wants a final copy, she’ll see a different name, but she may still see the past.

But why wait until the story is over to come out and say she wants out of it? No supposed gag order would’ve kept me from speaking up about a story I didn’t want to be in, or the prospect of someone impersonating me.

I wonder if she’ll ever accept the friend invite (if she sees it and it’s not a glitch on Facebook’s part) and if she’ll keep visiting my blog. Perhaps she’ll still be curious as to what’s being said about her. I hope she’ll still come around. :)

So she paid for the police report, huh? No wonder she listed so many dates and names, even if most of them are bullshit. I was beginning to think she either had an incredible memory or that she herself kept some kind of journal.

I don’t know why she came at me in public and not private. To defend herself to my followers perhaps?

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2010 Before bed I pulled two mugs out and put cream and sugar in one of them, planning to have soup in the empty one, then refrigerate the one with cream and sugar like I usually do before bed. That way I can just pull it out when I get up and brew my coffee right into it. But I wanted a cup of soup before bed, and what should I do but be dumb enough to dump the pouch of soup mix into my chocolate creamer. So I ended up with chocolate chicken soup! beats head

The most amazing thing going on (and the nicest): she’s still here. And I’m still pending. Hmm…interesting. Muy, muy interesante. This has left me more confused as to what could be on her mind. Or has it really? Well, I guess that if I’m not even sure if I’m more confused or not means that yeah, I must really be more confused, LOL.

Many people had asked and suggested she only came around for the story and I was always quick to agree and say something like, “Well, you don’t think she came around because she’s just dying to know when my hair reaches my waist, do ya?” But maybe she does want to know that yes, it’s finally there when you pull all the damn curls straight. And right now I’m sitting here with these lovely plum-colored little lint balls plastered all over me from our new towels. I don’t know why. I washed the damn things first.

The second most amazing thing is that it’s finally raining – really raining – since sometime late last May or early June. Ah, but I’ve been dreaming of Florida or somewhere in the southeast like crazy lately! I’d even settle for Georgia or Alabama! Even Andy’s going to be having better weather than us for a while. We shouldn’t be having highs in the 50s till December! It’s like global warming is warming the eastern part of the country, but making the west colder. :(

I got up to find a message in my Yahoo box that Nane left me on her Facebook wall saying, “I did. :)))” and I’m thinking, did what? Then I realized it was in response to my telling her a while back to enjoy her vacation. She’s back home now and I’m NOT sending another thing to her unless she either sends me something first or pays some kind of attention to me by at least peeking over her shoulder every now and then at this blog or something like that.

Yesterday we spent about $150 at Walmart on all kinds of odds and ends. I got a new body pillow and some sports bras. I stupidly got size 34 when I should’ve gotten 32, but at least my size 12 jeans that should be size 10, or even size 8, won’t be sliding down these hips anymore. I got a white belt with silver square studs. It’s shiny and flashy, but still casual and goes with everything.

Instead of expensive perfume as much as I miss my White Shoulders, I got a couple of those Designer Imposters I love. Wanna Play? is ok, but Babe is awesome! I’m wearing that right now. I’m obsessed with good smells. I have Babe perfume on, a Hawaiian-scented plug-in air freshener in here, and Jasmine incense burning in the other room. And of course I was quick to reach for my patchouli lotion after showering with my honey shampoo and peach body wash, LOL.

Later…

Nane’s been on Facebook for hours and ignoring me, and Maliheh made her first visit to my blog right around when I figured she would. :) If I don’t hear from her by the end of the year, then I guess I never will.

And Tom’s out grocery shopping while we get pummeled with an incredible amount of rain. It’s like December out there. :(

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2010 I’m so excited about finishing my book! It ended up at just under 62K words, so it’s not quite a full-length novel, but it’s not quite a short story either. I’m also looking forward to doing the final editing of it and moving on to my next book!

The editing shouldn’t take any longer than mid-November. I’ll try to do 1-2 chapters a day.

I’ve been rewarded for it with lots of nice feedback, 4 “outstanding” votes on my new poll, and my ovary acting up again. It was a nice long break I was enjoying from that mid-cycle pain, but yeah, I guess I’ve had some kind of a cyst on it for quite a while now. In a few days or less, it will go away.

I’ve heard nothing at all from Nane in days. No messages, no blog peek-a-boos, no nothing. But I know she’s not home yet either. She’ll be back in Germany tonight which will be around lunchtime here. Maybe I’ll hear from her after she gets settled.

Looking forward to our early morning shopping spree at Walmart. We agreed it would be ok to spend $50 a month on fun stuff and still be able to save a few hundred a month while we’re at it. We could use some new bath towels and other stuff around the place, so I made a little list of some things to check out. Of course being the perfume junkie that I am means a stop in the smelly section, LOL.

My jeans were falling off (I’ve got to get a new belt) and I took them off, looked at the tag, and it’s no wonder! It’s a size 12. What was my mom thinking when she sent them?

Maliheh made another late-night check of my blog last night and tonight, and was in right around when I expected her to be in this morning for the last chapter. I half-expected her to run and dump the friend invite after she read it, but nope. It’s still there. So that leaves me thinking of 4 possibilities. 1. She dumps it after I email her the final copy. 2. She accepts it at some point. 3. She leaves it pending forever to play with me. 4. She’s waiting for my birthday to accept it.

I once mentioned almost being her birthday present since I re-entered her life the day after it, though I didn’t know it at the time. Then I added that I hoped she’d be my birthday present in return.

I’m a little surprised she’s still coming around as much, but just a little. I figured she’d be curious to check out the comments on the last chapter.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2010 So what is it with all the afro cocks wanting to friend me on MyOpera??? I’m kind of getting sick of all the friend collectors out there.

Maliheh must be getting really anxious about the end of the story, as well as the comments because she not only returned 15 minutes after she first came in early yesterday morning once she realized I was on at the time replying to “comments,” but she was also in as late as midnight last night her time. Wonder how early she’ll be in today? I just know I’m gonna miss her coming around when the story’s done!

Someone told me that they read my last book, Digital Confessions, and were so freaked out by it that they couldn’t read any more of my stories. I’ve got to admit that one was both amusing and flattering. As a suspense writer, I better scare the shit out of you at least a little bit or else I’ve failed to do my job properly, LOL.

I’d love to finish my book now but I’m exhausted, and if I try to work when I’m tired I know I’ll screw up. I caught a missing quote in my last chapter and so I added it in where it was supposed to be. Hopefully, it will be done within 1-3 more days. I’m going to try to finish it in one more chapter, but it may take two. Not sure if I’m going to do an epilogue yet. The book has no prologue as of yet, but a prologue is not needed for an epilogue. We’ll just see how things go later on tonight before I decide on what to do.

It’s getting exciting moving to the end of the end! It’s just about time to tie those loose ends up and bring everything together to give it the final touches of a finished novel! Or hope to anyway, LOL. Either way, I’m looking way forward to it! reaches for those last few strings In 12 hours or so I will hopefully be tying it all up! Yay!!! Oh, and be prepared to vote, I told them, on MyOpera when it’s done. I’m going to add a poll asking what they thought of the story. :)

Been loving the quiet mornings that come with Jesse not working. I know we’ve got another week or two before it’s that time of year when the dogs bark like crazy, and that Jesse’s still not going to want to be here much when he goes on disability, but at least he won’t be leaving at 5am when the dogs would be at their worst until 8:00 or 9:00. The later he leaves, the less barking they do.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2010 Apparently, my German is still pretty bad because I thought Nane was to be in Turkey for just 4 days and that her flight home was canceled. But she was actually talking about a balloon ride being canceled due to rain that she was to go on in Turkey. Goes to show how much I’ve been neglecting my German studies lately since I still prefer to stick with my Spanish and Italian. German’s just so ugly!

Anyway, Nane just responded to my wall post saying that I didn’t know what country she was in right now, but that I hope she’s ok wherever she is. She said she was still in Turkey and was fine and that her vacation was for two weeks, and I’m thinking to myself – two weeks?! That’s what she calls a “small round trip?”

I signed off by telling her to enjoy the rest of her vacation and she said, “Thanks, I’ll try.”

Does this mean she hasn’t been having a good time? Either way, she’ll be back Saturday night, she said.

I was watching this video about The Diet Solution and how they say that what you eat matters more with weight loss than how many calories you have. I always believed it was all in the calories, and that exercise doesn’t cause weight loss, but it helps. I’m always open to trying new things and I could still stand to lose 10-15 more pounds. It explained why certain foods are better for your metabolism and all that and so I’m slowly “unprocessing” myself and trying to lay off those processed foods. Even the diet bars are said to be bad. I guess the more harmful chemicals we eat, the harder our liver has to work and therefore it doesn’t do as good of a job with making the good foods benefit us like they’re supposed to.

I’m just glad Tom makes a lot of money so I don’t have to worry about getting more expensive food since it’s usually the cheap stuff that’s bad for you.

I had an avocado for the first time in my life last night and they sure are good. At least I don’t think I ever had raw avocados before. I looked up the calories online and when I saw that there are 320 calories in the things I knew it had to be at least somewhat good and filling and it was. Not sweet, but a unique and distinct taste with a very smooth and creamy texture.

It’s only been two days since changing my eating habits, and even though I doubt I could ever bring myself to give up my fake sugar and gourmet coffee creamers, I’ve already lost a couple of pounds. I’m trying to stick to unprocessed foods and more foods with just one ingredient. I’m going to avoid packaged snacks, diet bars, and frozen meals more often. And bread too, because it raises your insulin level which makes sugar.

Ever since I said “at least Maliheh thinks of me every day and pays at least some attention to me,” she seems to have come around less. Her last hit was earlier than usual yesterday. Is she trying to show me that no, she doesn’t care?

Later…

Well, if Maliheh wanted to show she didn’t care, it was only for yesterday. Today she “cared” 7 hours later than yesterday. The only significant change that’s been going on for more than just a day or two is that she makes her last hit in the early evenings instead of late at night. But her first hit is usually mid-morning as always.

As Tom and I were discussing the other night, we’re adventurers. It’s the way we’ve always been and probably the way we always will be. In other words, we don’t usually stay in one place for long. And despite the fact that each move got more and more disastrous for us, my adventurous side is fighting with my logical side. My logical side is saying to stay put. It’s safer and easier this way. But my adventurous side wants to up and run to someplace new that she’s never lived in before. I’m thinking more and more southeast these days. But we’re not going to be stupid either like we were in the past and throw away a lot of money. Money may not be everything but it’s still a necessity, so if he’s still making good money when it comes time to buy a place, I’m not going to want to move.

I’ve moved in Storyland from the beginning of the end to the middle of the end, and hopefully I’ll be able to wrap things up in 2-3 more chapters. I’m just not going to reach the end of the end and begin tying up loose ends to put it all together before the end of the week. It’s getting close, though – yay! It’s exciting to finish this project and move on to new ones. :)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2010 I’ve been so busy doing other things that I almost didn’t make an entry today.

There’s really not much to update on. Nane made a quick update on her wall and I guess she’s home, but I haven’t heard from her and so I haven’t contacted her. Like I said, at least Maliheh thinks of me every day and pays at least some attention to me even if she ignores my messages, LOL.

We moved the rat into the big cage that is about 3’ tall, 3’ wide, and 2’ deep, but he escaped. He’s not quite full-grown yet. Ah, but then I made some adjustments and now I think I’ve got it pretty escape-proof, but we’ll see. He’ll come to visit me in here if he breaks loose.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2010 This is going to be a long entry, so if you’re bored by power outages, cute but naughty rats, and the idea of me missing my German cyber GF I’m beginning to suspect I’ll never hear from again, this entry will probably bore the hell out of you. :)

After having both good and bad dreams where Maliheh and I would be happily chatting when she wasn’t telling me how much she hated me, I awoke at 10:30 to the sound of the fan winding down and everything suddenly becoming deadly quiet save for the distant freeway traffic. I knew right away the power went out but wasn’t worried since it’s usually back on in an hour or two.

I couldn’t call anyone since my phone only works with the computer, so as Tom later said, this was our wake-up call saying we should get me a cell phone.

Around noon I went up the hill to see if Jesse was around, but of course he wasn’t. By 2:00 I decided to leave a note in the box on the tree at the fork letting him know that the power had been out for nearly 4 hours, but then I spotted his truck up at his place. So I walked on up and called out to him. The dogs only gave a quick bark or two, then quickly recognized me and wagged their tails happily.

“Yeah, come on up,” I heard Jesse call out, but then he came down a flight of stairs at the side of the house. I could tell he was drunk too, and that getting him to take some action as to finding out what was going on was going to take a little work on my part, LOL.

He asked what was going on and I told him that’s what I came to ask him since my phone was worthless without a computer.

During the half-hour or so I was up there with him, he told me 5 times that he just got in, he asked me 5 times how long the power had been out, and he told me 5 times that his dogs were married and that they’d had 10 kids together. rolls eyes

We were sitting in this little breezeway between his garage and a cement wall built to prevent mudslides. There are decks on both sides of the house, and I guess the actual living space is upstairs over the garage. The house itself is old and ugly looking, but the grounds weren’t as trashy as I thought they’d be. He even has some nice plants up there, some with flowers.

So he got himself a beer and me some water, then said he’d just come back from the bar and heard about some power outage around here, and that they were building a bridge nearby and they might’ve hit something while they were at it.

I suggested he call the electric company and see what they had to say about it, and he said he was “pretty sure” he paid the bill.

You better have fucking paid it! I’m thinking to myself. I wasn’t about to be put out by his drunken laziness or irresponsibility!

So being as drunk as he is, which I would say wasn’t overly drunk, but still obvious enough that he’d had a few, he said he wasn’t sure how to go about contacting the electric company, and could I do it? Resisting the urge to sigh, roll my eyes, and basically beat my head into the wall (and his too), I told him no, I couldn’t because it was in his name. So I told him to go see if he had a copy of his bill because there would be a phone number on it to call. So he ran up what seemed like two flights of stairs. One set was facing the driveway. He then went up a smaller flight of stairs heading away from our place and seemed to go around a deck and into a door heading towards our place.

When he returned with the bill I followed him towards the back where he has a small, but very private, peaceful and lovely little yard. There was a table and chairs as well as a swing hanging from 3 wooden utility poles. The lawnmower I swore I could hear at times wasn’t my imagination either. This area was grassy and I could see he kept it mowed.

He asked if I minded if he let the dogs loose, and of course I didn’t. I could clearly see, though, that if he really wanted to and if he really gave a damn about the peace of others, he could move the dogs into the breezeway area where they wouldn’t be so damn loud down here like they are in the winters. Or so loud further up the hill to whoever’s behind him. More than likely he has them in front to ward off any potential burglars, not that they wouldn’t find a way to get by them if they really wanted to. The poor dogs also only have one small doghouse that barely looks big enough for one of them let alone both of them. The dogs love their freedom as much as the rat loves his. They rolled around in the grass, played with each other, and demanded attention from us.

So anyway, we’re in the yard sitting in the blessed shade. He has even more privacy than we do because of the density of the trees and the steep hill alongside the place. He has no cement wall against the part of the hill in back which is like a vertical wall it’s so steep. I’d hate to be standing there if there ever was a landslide of any kind! You can see tree roots sticking out of the dirt. He doesn’t have as much open space as we do, though, since his place is bigger and the tree line curves inward in back. The only open space is in his driveway, so down here is definitely better for running.

It took him 4 tries to dial the damn 800 number on his cell, saying his fingers are too big for the thing. In a gruff voice, he asks what’s going on, gives his info and that sort of thing. “You people need to get your shit together,” he growls at one point, and I’m frantically shaking my head and mouthing the word “no,” till I realize they put him on hold and no one heard him.

I asked if he was gone on Friday nights and he confirmed that he was. He said he went to Sacramento (though he didn’t say where and with whom) and didn’t come back till early Saturday morning, and how’d I know? The dogs let me know, I told him.

He also said something about going on disability soon due to a bad back. Hmm…not sure if I like that idea. That’d mean less barking, but more of him. The barking is at least a little easier to drown out than his damn motorcycles and other engine gunning he does, even though it lasts longer. I like the idea of him being around more to deal with any potential problems, but it also gives him more time to be a pest.

“Not if his back’s bad,” Tom said, and so I hope it’s bad enough to keep him from being too big of a pest while we’re still here, as selfish as that may sound, LOL.

First he was told by the electric co. that everything was ok and then we headed down to his electrical box. He said the breakers looked ok and that someone would be out to check things out, and I walked back down here.

A few minutes later he came down on the ATV to say that he talked to someone else who confirmed that yes, there was a power outage in the area, it wasn’t just us, and it could be as late as 7:00 before the power was restored. Then he zoomed off, beer in hand and no doubt driving drunk to Sacramento this evening. Hope he doesn’t get killed. Again, I hate to sound selfish, but if he goes, we gotta go. And we ain’t quite ready to go just yet. Not with him working as just a temp.

This is why I like Tom’s idea of getting a travel trailer as a backup if God forbid our often shit luck ever faced us with homelessness that lasted more than the 36 hours we got of it in 2007. We still want a backup vehicle, too.

So after Jesse zoomed off with his beer and the dogs chasing after him, it was 90º both inside and outside. The heat and lack of breeze reminded me of that horribly uncomfortable night in Quartzite, AZ when we left Maricopa on our rough journey up to timber country. I decided to wait outside till Tom got back because I at least had somewhat of a breeze outdoors. Indoors the air was hardly moving at all.

Tom got in with the much-appreciated and much-deserved burgers and fries we’d been depriving ourselves of and looking so forward to, and we ate while I filled him in. By now it was 4:00 and we were contemplating grabbing the laptop and heading out in search of a hot spot to see if there was any news about the outage when the power finally came back on. I practically shouted for joy!

I showered and did the dishes, but held off on the laundry, knowing the well is going to need 8-12 hours of recovery time.

What is it with me and my giving a damn about people that don’t seem to give a damn about me? Do I subconsciously like the challenge or something? Is the chase really that much more fun than the capture? I don’t know how to figure myself out anymore. sighs Maybe I should try to be as unforgiving as I was for so long and quit caring about those who don’t care about me. I don’t hound them and stalk them like Molly does and try to force them to accept me or anything like that. In fact, I pretty much expect not to get very much from them if anything at all. But oh how I hope! It’s that hope I’d really like to kill. Yet here I am hoping Maliheh will one day contact me even if we don’t remain in touch and she just wants to tell me how much she hates me or something like that when my attitude towards her should be: fuck it. Just fuck it!

Do crushes do this to everyone???

I don’t know what country Nane’s in right now, but there were no updates at all on her Facebook page today. Even if I don’t hear from her again, I hope she’s ok. That one I do think I’ll hear from, though. Just not as much as I’d like to.

I keep thinking of the dream I had where I was in the blueberry patch with Maliheh and she was pointing out how Nane almost never comes to my blog when she was telling me I should focus more on those who care about me. She was right, of course. Nane hardly comes to my blog, and all her messages were replies to messages I sent her. I know I should take the advice she gave me in that dream, but if she herself truly doesn’t care, why would she come to my blog and not reject the friend invite? Hmm…life and its many mysteries!

Moving onto simpler things that make at least some sense, I said hi on Tammy’s wall and that things were better for us, and hoped they were good for her and hers.

“What a beautiful letter from you!” she wrote back, saying that she’s glad we’re doing better as she knows we had a hard time. She added that she and Mark are doing well. Lisa’s living with her longtime boyfriend, and Becky’s living with them and dealing with rheumatoid arthritis. They converted their basement into an apartment for her. She’s also getting a degree in business and is a front-end grocery store manager or supervisor. Sarah’s a licensed cosmetologist who owns her own business, but as I know full well, “owning” that business is really renting a space in a salon.

I still can’t say I give a damn about them. I don’t. I do remember some of the good times Tammy and I shared, but my interest in them doesn’t really go beyond just wanting to keep the peace going between us and hopefully not screwed out of anything Mom and Dad may want Tom and I to have after they’re gone.

Today was Mary’s 33rd birthday. I haven’t heard from her in nearly a year, but I hope she’s doing well and that she really does get out of prison next summer. And stays away from the bad boys and any thoughts of getting knocked up.

I love my little ratty, but oh the trouble he gets into! He came into the bedroom, wiggled his butt into the corner, stuck his tail up, and peed. shakes head and sighs And I thought this rat, like most rats, was keeping it all to himself in his cage. He also runs, jumps and climbs like no other rat we’ve ever had before. He leaps on and off the couch and bed like it’s nothing. The little devil also chewed a hole in my shorts.

As for meeting my October 20th story deadline – yeah, right. Keep dreaming! I still don’t think it’ll be much longer than a week or two, but we’ll see. I may or may not work on it throughout the weekend. I have other things I’ll be doing so I just don’t know yet. I want to hurry up and get it finished, but don’t want to rush it either.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2010 I guess shit must be shit in German as well based on all the “shits” rained on Nane’s Facebook wall due to her flight being canceled. So I guess she isn’t back yet after all. I just hope she contacts me on her own when she does get back. I won’t kick her off my friend list if she doesn’t, but she won’t be hearing from me if I don’t hear from her.

I had a dream that included Nane last night. Something about Facebook. I just don’t know if we were messaging each other, chatting live, writing on each other’s walls or what.

Tammy checked out my blog today, and of course Maliheh’s still at it several times a day till the story ends. I hope to have it finished in a week or so. My only other regulars besides Aly and Kim are that OSU person and a MyOpera MOD.

I wrote on Tammy’s wall earlier, letting her know that I may be out of sight, but she’s not out of mind, and I wished her well.

Tom got a blood pressure monitor and he has high blood pressure, something that goes with being overweight. What pisses me off is knowing he probably needs medication he can’t have. I just hope he continues losing weight, but it’s a slow process even if he does.

Got a few minutes of engine gunning from Jesse, but Tom said it might not have been him because some truck he’d never seen before was leaving as he was coming down the drive.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2010 Well, I’ve learned enough German now to tell by some of Nane’s wall discussions that yes, she’s alone in Turkey and for 4 days, so she’s probably back in Germany by now.

Someone was also asking her about men and from what I gathered, she said there were some hanging around that she’s not interested in. Still don’t know exactly what her orientation is, but the comment on my racy pic and the belly dancer at her birthday party suggests she’s at least bi.

I just wonder if she ever really will contact me on her own because I’m no longer going to be the one making the first move from here on out. That much I do know!

In other news, the cooler’s been running great. I’ve been alternating between ‘cool’ and ‘fan’. Couple more days and I’ll be bitching about the cold.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2010 Caught a boo-boo in the last chapter that I corrected. The detectives were saying Maliheh and Joni had a run-in 20 years ago. But I jumped the story 5 years into the future, so I had to make that run-in 25 years ago – duh! Makes me wonder what other stupid mistakes I’ve thrown in along the way. Hopefully, if my readers don’t catch them, I’ll catch them on my own when it comes time to do the final editing.

Man, I really felt like an idiot when I read the very first message I sent Maliheh on Facebook, and yes, for some reason I have saved all 12 of the messages I’ve sent in the last half a year to her, all unanswered of course. What an ass I was for exaggerating things out of anger like I did! I know it’s pointless to keep going over what can’t be undone, but she wasn’t “drunk,” and our “kissing” was just the quick friendly peck on the cheek she gave me on the way out.

I have been thinking of something a follower believes really happened that night. Did it? Is it really possible? Did I fall in love with her and not even realize it? Or was I that freaked out over it if I did know it deep down that that, along with other things I had going on at the time, caused me to behave the way I did? I suppose anything is possible but I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure just what happened. I’m not even sure what I’m feeling right now. But I must be feeling something because the thought of finishing the story makes me just as sad as it is exciting, for soon there will be nothing to smile about when I’m able to get into my stats. To me, as funny as it may sound, it was my only “connection” to her. Because she hasn’t spoken to me despite my apologies and keeping my word about behaving from now on, I have taken it to mean I’m still hated and haven’t been forgiven unless she’s waiting to see how the story ends. I assumed the only reason she came to my blog was out of curiosity where the story was concerned.

I don’t understand the pending friend invite, I don’t understand some of the things she said and did 20 years ago (almost 20), and I don’t understand what it is about her that captivates me so, but I’m going to miss her presence as silent as it’s been. And it has been much too silent indeed. Many times I’ve wished for her to say something, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It goes to show I’m not influencing her simply by what I desire her to do. Those who know me as an influencer have suggested I “pulled” both her and Nane towards me simply through force of mind. But Maliheh’s never spoken to me, and I hardly hear from Nane.

It turned out that the cooler wasn’t really broken, but that the water was just turned off to it. I wanted to strangle Tom at first before I knew that he deliberately turned it off because he was afraid that the foul smell we were smelling the other day was the pump burning up. But because it was hot out today and the temperature was steadily rising in here and the thing sounded funny, I called Jesse. Then I hung up when he didn’t answer.

A while later he called me and asked who I was. I told him, and also that I thought something was wrong with the cooler. He wasn’t home at the time but said he’d be here in an hour.

He first went up on the roof, opened the thing up, and said no water was coming up to it. Then he checked and found that the water was turned off, saying he hoped we didn’t burn his pump up, they cost 30 or 40 dollars, but he could understand people are forgetful at times, they do burn up eventually, and his just recently burned up. I told him I’d strangle Tom for it and he said not to worry about it.

He also asked for a nail for something I didn’t understand, and I climbed the ladder I’m supposedly too afraid to climb, and handed it to him. I think it had to do with one of the hoses binding. That may explain the strange swooshing sounds I was hearing too, like air bubbles or the hose being pinched. He also hosed it down to get the pads saturated faster and noticed the water leaking between the trailer and deck roofs. He mentioned doing the trailer roof next year. I thought that was to be before this winter, but I guess not.

He’s also full-blooded Portuguese, though he doesn’t look it. Especially with such light eyes. When he was pointing out that we don’t remember things as well when we get older, I said “I know. Trying to learn and remember so many languages is tough at times.” He asked what I knew, and said he doesn’t speak Portuguese, but his parents do.

Anyway, the cooler was up and running just fine in the end. No funny sounds or smells. Hopefully, it will stay that way at least for a couple more days till it cools down.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010 So I’m in the kitchen when all of a sudden music starts blasting like crazy. I then run into the bedroom to shut Kid Cudi up and found that the rat had jumped on the laptop that’s hooked up to my stereo.

Then I go out into the living room and it’s raining! Yeah, he got onto the table where the sound machine is and turned that on too, the little devil, LOL. Other than getting stranded on top of the laundry hamper, trying to climb the blinds, knocking over pails, and running off with small objects like my flavored lip gloss, he’s doing better than we are.

First I woke up with period cramps an hour earlier than I would have liked. Then Tom ended up wasting time, gas and $15 on a new control box for the cooler, even though he loves Fry’s Electronics and had fun browsing through the store. We noticed yesterday it was smelling funny. Not like something was burning, but it was sort of a chemical smell. We figured the control box he put in the old piece of shit which we use to create a thermostat for using a computer program he wrote had burned up.

Then the poor guy wastes more time by installing the new controller just to find it was too big for the electrical box it needed to be in. So we put the cooler on and operated it manually. A few minutes later the smell returned. It went away when we switched it from ‘cool’ to ‘fan’ then came back when we switched back to ‘cool’ and so that’s when we knew it was the pump. When it’s on ‘cool’ it comes and it goes. Fortunately, we should only need it for cooling for just a few more days, and fortunately my schedule’s where it’s at right now so I can operate it manually.

I’m so sick of living in little old bummy places – argh! Are we really that less deserving in life?! In fact, I’m so fed up with all the problems this place has had that I’ve been thinking of moving. It may be worth a little snow, as much as I hate the shit, to get a halfway decent place that functions properly. So many things in here don’t work, but it’s not worth being put out even more by having Jesse fix some of the things that don’t work. We can live without the broken heater because we have alternatives that will actually save us money, but if we’re still here in the spring and the cooler still smells funny, we’ll have to deal with him dealing with it.

Everything has had a problem in here so far but the kitchen appliances and bathroom sink. The well, the kitchen sink, the faucet in the tub, the heater, the cooler, and the pressure tank have all been a problem.

I’m also sick of Jesse coming down without calling, even if he didn’t wake me up this morning when he rudely came down at 7:30 to get something from his shit pile, and I’m sick of him spending Friday nights elsewhere and leaving me to have to deal with his damn dogs when I’m up during those hours. I can’t do anything that requires a quiet background, and it’s going to be bad enough when the weather turns cold.

I know it’d be just as noisy if we moved, but like I said, if we can have a real house with a normal heating and cooling system and things that work as they should, it may be worth it. But we don’t want to decide this until and if he’s ever hired on somewhere permanently.

Although Tom said it was about a mile away, last night we heard a single gunshot after dark that was super loud. Someone was probably shooting at something that was threatening their livestock more than they were trying to get attention. But it serves as a reminder that going off the grid may be a very bad idea if we ever do get to buy our own place. If they’re shooting this much in an area that’s still technically within city limits and where you’re not supposed to, I can just imagine how bad it’d be in the more extreme rural locations.

I’m following Andy’s “famous” Fire Flies band on Twitter in which he’s the lead singer. He’s been in Honduras!

Nane posted 30 photos of her trip around Turkey. Some were nice, but it was too bad she wasn’t in any of them.

Maybe sometime tonight I can finally work on chapter 20, though it may be a day or two before anything else is posted.

Here goes my end-of-the-day heart palpitations. :( How annoying. At least I’m still psyching those scratch tickets into winning – woot!

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2010 Swapped some messages with Andy. He’s still playing his imaginary band game, the Fire Flies, all these years later on Twitter, LOL.

He said Donna now lives in Indiana with her husband and two sons, and that she lost a lot of weight through surgery. But as great of a singer as she is, her closest break was one hit song on the radio, then on American Idol where she got starstruck in front of Naomi Judd and was unable to perform. Then they axed her.

Maliheh brought a friend with her to my blog from Facebook, probably because the last part was rather steamy. I think they’re connected anyway since they were within minutes apart and the person is in Kansas.

Nane, not surprisingly, has internet access where she is because her friend count went up to 41.

Other than looking forward to chatting with Nane when she gets back if it really happens, I’m going to work on finishing my book so I can get onto the next one.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2010 Yesterday was an absolutely shitty day for me. I spent so much of it in pain it’s a miracle I got anything done around here. I had to pop pain pills like crazy and was so close to taking a hammer to these fucking teeth which are dying like crazy. Tom said the horrible achiness was due to a tooth dying and that it would stop in an instant soon enough. I just laughed because I never felt such horrible pain with the others who died, but it’s true. After a day and a half of it giving me hell, I woke up today pain-free at least from that tooth. Others, along with my ear, are still bothering me. My ear is getting better, though, as we’ve been oiling it and softening the dead skin that can’t fucking shed itself out.

I’m so fucking sick of always having some kind of problem! Had anyone come down here yesterday and just looked at me wrong, I’d have trashed the hell out of them. If I hadn’t been so exhausted by the time Jesse took off for the night I’d have had to really restrain myself from strangling his fucking dogs, too. I wanted to do my language studies but it was just way too noisy.

I also had heart palpitations like crazy.

I just don’t know what to do as far as a dentist goes! I want to go now, but what if he gets laid off? And of course if we paid for it, then we got insured, I’d be so fucking pissed to have spent all the money it’d cost for the dentures I need. I just don’t know what to do!

The only fun highlight of the day yesterday was the rat. He is everywhere these days! He’s the best climber we’ve ever had, so I really have to watch him. He got himself stuck on top of the laundry hamper. Then he was walking along Tom’s keyboard shelf when he got up to get something from the kitchen, LOL. He even tries to climb the blinds, but he’s too heavy for that now.

I don’t know if I can stay out of pain long enough, but if I can I might finish chapter 18. No promises, though. What’s really exciting is that I can now see the beginning of the end of this book! I’m about to set the stage for the exciting conclusion. I should be able to get it done in 2-3 more chapters! Good. Then I can finally move on to other projects. :) Nane’s going to be in my next book. It could take up to a month to do the final editing of Evil Amongst the Evergreens.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2010 If I didn’t know any better I’d swear I jinxed myself by describing all that ear pain like I did in my story! Ugh! But I do know that when stupid me neglects to keep up with things, she ends up sorry for it. An artificial ear canal can’t clean itself so we have to do it ourselves. Tom puts baby oil in it every 6 months or so to soften the dead skin, then he removes it. It’s easy to do in a fake canal cuz fakes don’t have curvy canals like normal canals do. They just drill straight in when they make them.

I woke up at 2am in pain after 4 or 5 hours of sleep. The entire left side of my face hurt. Even my teeth were hurting, but it didn’t feel like the usual toothache. Instead, my lower left jaw was hurting. I don’t know if it’s connected to my ear or not.

Fell back asleep until 7am, then about an hour later the pain returned. After taking what amounted to nearly half a bottle of pain pills, I dumped some oil in my ear myself. That seemed to help a lot. I just wonder if it’ll start back up all over again when the pain pills I’m stuffed with wear off. Right now I’m at least relatively pain-free, just groggy. I don’t know when I’ll get back to my story, but chapter 18 has been started.

Chances are I may not be insured for years, so I’m going to have to start bringing some of these teeth up on my own. I loosened a few on the right side that were easy to grip, but ironically enough they don’t hurt.

I dreamt of a power failure and rowing a paddleboat through a grassy lake.

The pain is starting to creep back in as I write this. Why won’t the bastard above quit letting these things pick on me?!?!

Nane is on her Turk trip now. I guess she left today and not tomorrow. I hope she has fun. I’ll be looking forward to chatting with her when she gets done Turk tripping. :)

I started sending my MyOpera entries to Twitter again but not to Facebook. IDK, I guess I’m paranoid about flooding the news feed, even though some people post way more often than the 1-3 times a day I post entries. Maybe after the story’s done I’ll send them there again because then I won’t be posting as much.

Just 17 more Esperanto lessons to go and I’ll have completed all 4 courses. Looks like I’m going to pass with a 97% average!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2010 I’m watching to see if Nane appears on Facebook, but so far I’ve been completely ignored by her. Yet she manages to review submissions on LM, proving that she’s not that busy. I guess it’s just a matter of priority to her, and at the risk of sounding like Marie, I’m just not that important.

Why oh why am I always longing for those I can’t have??? Yet I can have all the Marie Ds I want, can’t I?

Maliheh didn’t hit me at 7pm like I asked her to as a sign saying she liked me or at least didn’t hate me. Her last hit was at 4:38. Her last hits are usually between 5pm - 11pm with her first hits being around 6:30 am-9:30 am. She’s even starting to come around less often, though I can’t say it’s because of me.

Now that it’s been confirmed that she’s still harboring hate and anger toward me, it’s all the more reason to proceed cautiously where she’s concerned. Just like with Stacey, she’s not over the past, she’s never going to be, and she can’t move on. Therefore, I’m just going to finish the story, email the final copy to her as I said I would, then get on with life at which time I suspect she’ll stop coming to my blog altogether. I’d say she’s definitely coming around now only with hopes of screwing me over and not just because she’s curious as to what I’m writing about her. But to the absolute best of my knowledge, there’s nothing she can screw me with.

As is usually the case, Jesse came down without calling first to get some plywood from his shit pile. I don’t think anything he did would’ve woken me up, though, and he never came to the door. I stepped out and said hello to him and the dogs, and gave him the trash, too.

When he started hammering up at his place, I took that as a sign that I should crank up the tunes and get the dusting done I’ve been putting off.

Late yesterday afternoon the freeloaders – or whoever they really are – got trigger-happy again. I hope someone who knows exactly where they are called the cops or else they’ll think it’s ok and will go back to the regular shoot-outs.

Later…

I finally heard from Nane! All she said was mine was the longest message she ever received on Facebook (though she did add some smileys), she’s packing and doing laundry and doesn’t have a lot of time, but we can chat when she gets back, ok? And thanks a lot for the compliment, she added with more smileys.

She didn’t “hug” me back, and I didn’t sense the same enthusiasm on her part, but it was nice to hear from her. The only thing that sucks is that I only heard from her because I sent a message first. Unless things change when she returns – and I doubt it – I see a one-sided relationship here that could get very old faster than even I probably realize. She still makes for great eye candy and fantasies and will star in my next book!

Also, now that I know she’s in a city called Bayern, I don’t think it was her who hit my blog the day she friended me. It’s possible, but I doubt it because the hit was in northwestern Germany where Denmark is. But Bayern is in southeastern Germany towards Austria.

Anyway, I’m going to let her be the one to make the next move.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2010 My hair is 6” longer than it looks when you pull it straight. I get so sick of it being so thick and curly at times, but the flat iron really fries it so I guess I should lay off it for a while.

Another day of wishing for contact with those who aren’t obligated to me in any way, yet who are always in my thoughts just the same. Nane seems to have disappeared altogether, and I don’t know what to make of Maliheh. In a way, I feel more connected to her than I ever did to Nane, even though Nane and I have communicated with each other. Maliheh pays consistent attention to me and is always there, silent or not. Ok, so she may not literally be paying attention to me so much as to what’s written about her, but at the same time I’ve been ignored, I haven’t really. And so while it may not be the same as a message or a phone call, it’s almost like she’s letting me know she’s right here with me, even if that’s not exactly the message she’s trying to convey.

The rat appeared to be sick earlier but is fine now. I guess he was just tired. I was really worried too, as only the good die young, so it seems. The “benign bastard,” a rat who wasn’t much fun, lived to be pretty ancient for a rat. Babies die of cancer but look at Charles Manson. He’s quite a healthy old man. A couple of months and I’ll be reminded that I ain’t so young myself. Ah, I just might be a big enough asshole, after all, to qualify for living a full life. :)

I recorded myself singing earlier and thought I sounded like shit. I wasn’t flat or anything as rarely do I sound flat, but I sounded nasal.

Later…

Whoever my Ohio State University fan is comes around more often. Wonder if they come for the story or the journal? Or maybe both?

Maliheh’s hit me 5 times so far today. Just a little over two hours to go to find out if she hits it when I want her to, saying I’m ok in her book after all.

I gave Alison my number in an email because she seems to want to talk to more of her friends lately than just keep in touch with them online. This is understandable with the stress she’s under.

I spoke to my mom and dad and mom said “Just last night I said to dad, now why haven’t we heard from Jodi? She said she’d call every month. And now here you go and call.”

I reminded her that I’m very intuitive and I pick up on those vibes she puts out, even if she still might not believe it. Since the last time we talked was the last day in August, I skipped a month. I guess they were worried, just like Tom was worried the other day if he was right in turning down the job offer he got and kept waking up all night. I hate to say it, but it’s nice to see others worry for once and not me! I know, however, that we could still end up right back in the same boat we were in for 22 months if they lay him off. If there’s any danger ahead, I’m sure I’ll have dreams warning me of it. I usually do.

Anyway, Dad asked if my Magic Jack phone was reliable, saying they were sick of paying $60 for a basic phone. I told him that other than an occasional echo and the lag, yes, it’s reliable. Then I reminded him that you have to have internet access for one of these.

“Nope, I’m not going through that shit again with the 10,000 email messages!” Ma goes.

“Relax,” I told her, “the spam filters are really good these days.”

“Even 100 is too much!”

“So be mean and have Dad manage your inbox.”

LOL, I can tell that Dad’s keener on the idea than she is.

I pointed out that they could also consider going cellular, but Ma said that’s not convenient. They both have cells, but they forward their business phone to their main line during the week, and I guess she doesn’t want to have to run out to the car if she forgets to bring it inside with her or something.

They said it’s only been 3 years since they’ve been offline and not the 5-10 I thought it was. Either way, I hope they come back. They can do a lot more for that $60 than they’re doing now, but if they don’t want to go online, they don’t want to. I know they’re coming to my blog if they do! And like I said in my shoutbox, I may be their craziest daughter, but I’m sure they’ll agree I’m the most entertaining too, LOL. As I told them, I can’t imagine not having online access. You might as well go live in Amish country in that case, LOL.

I suppose the thought of one’s parents coming to their blog or journal would be a real nightmare for them, but I couldn’t say anything they haven’t heard before, if not from me then from someone somewhere. I know they won’t agree with everything I have to say, especially the fact that they weren’t exactly the best of parents when I was a kid as opposed to as an adult, but I know they know I have a right to my opinions and that it’s my blog and I gotta live my life as I see fit.

I asked if they knew I at least sort of patched things up with Tammy and they said no.

Really? I’m surprised because that drama queen usually tells it all. They were all for it, of course, not that I expected them to say, “Aw, you two should remain sworn enemies for life. Really Jodi, just hate the bitch’s guts forever and let her do the same in return.”

I told them they gotta cover their asses if they do come online, and reminded them of various types of scams out there – the lotto scam, Nigerian letter, phishers, etc.

I was surprised to learn their condo is only one-story. I thought it was two for some reason, but I guess that was the place they had before we left Phoenix. Then again, I was more surprised that they’d ever get a two-story place to begin with.

I also let them know that since we’re not hard up for bucks right now, we’ve bumped the listing of the Beanie Babies closer to Hanukah and Christmas.

I had said that the 11th was a bad day for us 3 years ago, but actually, it was the 4th. The nightmare lasted for 11 days, and so that’s why the number 11 stuck in my head. But it started on the 4th, the same day I quit smoking in 1997.

Just when I was thinking how amazing it was that the cooler weather hadn’t brought Jesse out to make a racket, I heard him buzzing around on the ATV, then gunning engines, but it didn’t last long.

I’ve been asked about various usernames I’ve used. Well, lately I’ve been The Girl in the Mirror, but for a long time, I was Ratgirl or Mystery. Mystery was my stage name when I was dancing.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2010 Last night I fell asleep at a reasonable hour for once and dreamt of the perfect ending to my story! So now I know exactly how the story is going to end. I had a general idea, but no details until now. Can’t say how, though, and spoil the surprise.

I realized that if what had happened in real life with the part of the story where Joni and Maliheh are in the bar when the trigger-happy psycho comes around, they’d probably have to testify as witnesses in court. Maybe I should go back in the final copy and have Maliheh kill the guy so they won’t have to, LOL. Or have him plead guilty.

Some of the feelings I’ve expressed and the comments I’ve received have got me thinking of this whole forgiveness thing and my being too nice and too tolerant like some people say. Actually, it was the other way around for quite some time. From around the early 90s to not so long ago I was probably one of the least forgiving people you could ever meet. But then I realized that people weren’t created to be perfect, and we all make mistakes. This doesn’t mean I could forgive everyone who’s ever wronged me. How much is too much to forgive? Well, I guess we all have our ideas of what should and shouldn’t be forgiven. I myself base it on the seriousness of whatever it was that was done to me, and how often. Marie was hardly serious at all, but she kept doing the same shit over and over again that she promised she’d stop doing. What was done to me by our old neighbors in Phoenix and their corrupt pig pal is way too serious to ever forgive. I don’t think I ever could even if they apologized to me right now and handed me a check for a million bucks. Furthermore, I hope their lives are pure hell.

When Tom first got this job, we figured he’d get other offers as that’s how it usually works. But to our surprise, no one called. But then yesterday he got another job offer. The lady he spoke to was bummed out that he’d already found work but said to keep her in mind if he ever needs another job. So we still would’ve been saved, but that would’ve really been cutting it close! Next Sunday would have been the last time he mailed in a form.

I noticed a new regular about a week ago from another country. It turns out they work for MyOpera. They warned me about a particular member being a scammer which they banned. So that was nice of them to look out for me, and I guess there’s no need to worry about my blog being too intense for their standards since they’d have banned me, too.

Today’s cousin Sharyn’s 61st birthday, so I wished her a happy one on Facebook.

The chest pains and palpitations had eased off for a while and I had been doing well, but about a week ago they started up again. Still don’t know what causes them and what it means. Why is it that I always seem to have more questions in life than answers?

Now it’s time to get started with the day’s workout, cleaning and writing, and begin another day of feeling alienated from those online beings I’d like to hear from most. And I’ll be afraid to reach out to them while I’m at it, not wanting to come off as too pushy and persistent, wishing I could be a cold, calloused bitch who couldn’t care less about anyone else but herself. If they would just email me a few times a day for a week or two I’d get sick of them in no time, LOL.

Later…

I can see that Nane’s logged into LM twice since I sent her a message on Facebook, which I’d be willing to bet she’s already read, and so yeah, she’s basically a waste of time. I’m not going to hear much from her. She’s just too sane and too gorgeous to feel the same way I do.

Maliheh was in a couple of hours ago and hit 5 pages no doubt looking for comments left in regards to her. She can’t be interested in me, could she? LOL, somehow I doubt she’s interested in how shiny my glitter nail polish is or that I’m pissed that it’s chilly out and feeling alienated by Nane.

Later…

The dogs ran up to see me. It was so cute the way both of them ambushed me. Whiskey’s still the friendliest, though, and Brandy took off a second later. I’m amazed at these dogs’ strength! Whiskey wasn’t sure whether or not he should follow Brandy, but reluctantly decided that yeah, he should go chase his girlfriend. A minute later he came back to me, though I had already jumped inside, figuring I had enough weeds all over me.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2010 Tom said he might have to join Facebook because of some contests Pepsi is to be running soon, even though he’s never had any interest in the social networking scene. Hmm… will he be my friend if he does, LOL! He’s won X-boxes, mini-refrigerators and cash from them before. He loves their contests.

Now that we owe a grand in taxes all for the shit I’ve won (the 9K and the Italy trip we have yet to take), I said to him, “While I’m glad for the 9K so we could finally escape the motel, doesn’t it also suck that I won so much shit cuz of the taxes?”

“Not at all,” he said. “I’m sitting at the best computer I ever had in my life, I can crank out all the documents and pictures I want on a high-tech color laser printer most businesses can only dream of, then flip on my 32” LCD TV.”

We both started laughing at that point. Well, as soon as the economy picks up a little more I’ll start combing OLS again and turning out the wins!

Tom was looking online to find out all the land/house costs from when we lived in Maricopa. I guess you can file a loss when you do taxes, but we made so little in 2004 that he didn’t bother filing that year. It turns out, however, that we didn’t lose money like he had thought, we actually made a profit of 3K, though we left with 5K. We got 83K for the Phoenix house, paid 15K for the 10 acres in Maricopa, took out a 92K mortgage, then sold it for 107K 5 years later.

When we lost that place (no, I am not going to start crying this time), I cursed it so badly. I put a super nasty spell on it, determined not to let anyone have a good time in my house that I basically designed and customized myself. I was so sad over losing that place even though Maricopa was building up fast and the Mexican drug cartel was taking over the area. We were barely two hours away from the border, and seeing Border Control cruisers was a very common sight, along with the tribal police. Especially in Casa Grande.

Well, Tom was also able to learn that Huey, the investor who bought us out with plans to split the land into 5 2-acre parcels, lost a huge amount of money on the place. :)

I sure miss some aspects of it, though, especially the cool monsoon storms. Never did I hear such deafening thunder before in my life, see such intense lightning, or feel such fierce winds. It rained so hard one time that it created a run-off and water flooded the area and went streaming downhill for hours. You can see pictures of it in my photo albums on pages 10-11.

On pages 18-19 is the little pigeon flock I had in Phoenix. Yeah, I made friends with the neighborhood pigeons for a while, LOL. I hated the mess they’d make but loved how I could step out of the house and into the middle of the backyard, spread my arms, and down they’d come from the utility poles. This is kind of what I mean when I describe myself as unique and a bit strange. I doubt many people would be so nice to their local pigeons. I also fed a cute little wild rat on the land we owned for 5 minutes in Oregon, LOL. It was a gray rat that I think was pregnant.

I dreamt I was playing some online game with Maliheh, working for a lawyer, seeing two jackrabbits get it on out front, sweeping the deck with Tom, and getting my hair brushed out by Nane. We moved again too, but it can’t mean much since it seemed to be my grandparents’ old house and then we were in Florida.

Later…

I heard of this woman who was heavy and lost a lot of weight because she had a tapeworm, though she didn’t know it right away. I want a tapeworm, too! What a great diet it would make.

Nane’s on Facebook once again and once again I am being ignored. I feel kind of bummed out now and like I’m not getting as much attention from Nane as I’d like despite knowing how busy she is. She seemed like a fine cyber girlfriend though I have to wonder why the hell it matters so much to me. This is a woman I’ll never see that’s on the other side of the world. Why is it that sometimes the people far away from me matter more than some of the ones right here in my own town? Oh, wait a minute! I’m only allowed more attention from the crazy ones, right?

Some have suggested I get out and meet local women. I wouldn’t feel guilty for it, after all, since Tom and I are more like friends. As I told him, as long as your heart is always with me, I don’t care what you do. I’m not your mommy. And he knows I expect the same attitude in return. I know that I’m not alone and that most long-term couples like Tom and I go through this where the love grows but the lust dies. But I’m totally against seeking out people around here. I absolutely won’t do it! You see, I learned many years ago that the more I plan or seek something/someone out with a specific goal in mind, the more likely I am to end up with something else or nothing at all. Life has been mostly unexpected and accidental for me. I didn’t even “plan” Maliheh last May. She just popped into mind one day and I spontaneously looked her up. What followed from there was both expected and unexpected. I’m not surprised she’s never contacted me, but I am surprised she visited my blog. This is why I think she’s either looking for something to use against me in a mean, vindictive way, or she’s giving things time, not wanting to write me off as a possibility in her life in the future, but wanting to take this time to play with me while she’s at it. Hey, it’s only fair, isn’t it, LOL? But yes, I feel both delighted and teased by her silent presence. And I’m still no closer to figuring out what I feel for her or why. I just know that if she does contact me, she will do so when she’s ready, in her own time, in her own way.

Yet despite how bummed out and empty I sometimes feel, I find it easier to just sit here and feel sorry for myself till these moods pass. Who knows, maybe I’ll be celibate for the rest of my life, but if I am I know I only have myself to blame for that because I’m very picky and I don’t settle for just anything, even if it’s just for fun and games which is all it would be.

I’m sitting on Facebook right now hoping against hope that she’ll initialize a chat with me or do something, but nope. She’s been on for about an hour, but nothing new appears on her page, so I guess she’s swapping messages with people, playing games or maybe reading other pages.

Other than being a bit bummed out over Nane, even if we haven’t been “together” long and she has a million things going on and doesn’t appear to be home much, Eileen emailed me to say that just because I don’t hear from her at times doesn’t mean she doesn’t think of me daily. Aw, how sweet of her. I think of her every day, too. She prays for me every day, she says, and I told her to keep on doing whatever it is she’s doing because things have been running smoothly. I really had some scary moments for a while and didn’t think we’d make it, so it’s nice to have things go well, though I’m not stupid. All good things come to an end. I know that. My mother’s a bitch, but she didn’t raise no fool. Eileen also enclosed a quick video of her granddaughter and visited my blog.

Irene cracks me up. She said that the idea of being in my story makes her feel like a little girl waiting for Santa, LOL. Yes, she’s quite excited about it.

Anyway, I sent the somewhat elusive German hottie a message wishing her a safe and happy trip to Turkey. Maybe we’ll chat more when she gets back, but I won’t count on it.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2010 Facebook is saying Nane posted to my wall, commented on my wall and likes my wall post about an hour ago, but I don’t see anything new. I guess it must be one of Fuckbook’s many glitches. Yesterday, though, she “liked” my hug, commented on my wall, and sent me an Oktoberfest Herz (heart). She’s also getting me into Turkish and Greek music, LOL.

In a good mood after receiving these goodies from her and having fun shopping, I thought we should scratch the 3 tickets we got, but unfortunately, the first two didn’t win. Before we could do the last ticket I decided to wait, hoping we just hadn’t left it laying around long enough for the energy to take effect. I will try to psych it into winning later.

Yesterday was the biggest day for traffic in the history of this blog, though I don’t know why. People were getting pushed off the list faster than they entered it, and I couldn’t see much of my “silent girlfriend.” I did see that she was in really late, but that was it. I also hope she doesn’t get upset by my referring to her as things like “silent girlfriend” or “cyber girl.” I know where we stand! We stand nowhere. Never have, never will. I know this. I swear I do! It’s all just in my stories, fantasies, imagination and wishful thinking. But I just don’t want to piss her off and make her think I’m delusional and losing touch with reality or anything. This doesn’t mean I still don’t like the idea of being her friend or cybergirl, it just means I know nothing’s going on either way and that she probably hates me and always will. But no matter how much Nane may be on my mind, I will always be looking over my shoulder at that silent girlfriend, thinking of her and hoping she’s doing well.

I don’t know about last night, but Jesse’s definitely spending Friday nights elsewhere. At 3am Brandy went off and I figured he’d come out and tell her to shut up, but he never did, and then Whiskey went off. His truck wasn’t there when we left at 6am for the grocery store, making me even more sure he stayed elsewhere overnight. It was there when we got back, though. So in less than a month the only time there won’t be any barking will basically be during the weeknights which totally sucks, but hey, there’s just no escaping it no matter where you go in the west which is part of why I might consider a dog of our own if we ever do buy a house. Might as well listen to our own for once instead of it always being someone else’s.

We went back out a few hours later and I got glittery nail polish with a nice pale pink background, foundation to cover the redness in my face that sometimes goes with being fair-skinned and which I’m also getting sick of, and a new desk chair.

I swore I’d never get a chair without arms, but when I saw the cute little hot pink (my favorite color) chair for just $30, I couldn’t resist. I can rest my arms in my lap or at the sides of the desk when I’m not typing, though that’s what I’m usually doing when I’m at my computer. The mesh is a little rough, but otherwise it’s a suitable chair for one who lives in a tiny old trailer.

“We can afford the $140 chair with the fuzzy arms you like, even though it’s not pink,” Tom pointed out.

Yeah, we could, and that’s a nice feeling, but I didn’t want to spend the extra money and wasn’t sure it would fit in between the desk and side of the bed which is where I have my computer set up. I will eventually get a bigger, more comfortable chair with arms and eventually give this one to my sitting mannequin that’s been packed away in the shed due to the lack of space in here. It would be nicer than the lawn chair she used to sit on. Better yet, I wish I could sell her! But mannequins have gotten to be quite a craze and are dirt cheap compared to years ago, so they can just get a brand-new one easily enough. Most people wouldn’t want her anyway posed as she is because she sits over with her elbows on her legs. She was made more for decoration than for showing off clothing.

I just hope they hire him on by the end of the year and that we’re not back in the poorhouse in just a few months!

Later…

I saw that Nane was on Facebook a little while ago and by the time I got brave enough to start a chat with her, she jumped offline. Maybe it’s for the better, though, as busy or not, she obviously isn’t into me nearly as much as I’m into her. She may be attracted to me, but this is oh-so typical of what I get. The more I’m attracted to the person, the less interested they seem to be in me. I was attracted to Marie too, just not nearly as much. And the only reason I could have all I wanted of Marie was that she was crazy.

I hope things will change and that I’ll hear more from her when she gets back from vacation, but I doubt it.

Why oh why does it upset me so to be ignored today by someone I’ve never met who’s on the other side of the world simply because of how attractive they are???

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2010 Many have tried to guess as to Maliheh’s true intentions, but no one seems to be any closer to figuring out just what they are. Or who the impersonator was. But I’d be willing to bet there was more than one, and one of them knew her at one point.

The end results seem rather black and white and not at all gray. Meaning that I think her intentions can only be good or bad and that there’s just no room for any real kind of indifference. If she were indifferent and didn’t give a shit about me one way or the other, then why come around so often? So that in itself pretty much indicates that she either despises the hell out of me and is just waiting and hoping for the opportunity to jump out and bite me, or she is ever so slowly opening her heart to me and reaching out one teeny little inch at a time as I have reached out to her.

The easiest thing for me to do would be to cancel the friend request, move on and forget about her, assuming she means the worst, but I don’t want to jump the gun and make assumptions that could very well be all wrong like I did when I thought she was fucking with me on Formspring.

I understand that part of the fun for her is probably in leaving me hanging, guessing and wondering. That in itself could be what the game is all about, and getting a kick out of what people, including myself, have to say about it. But hey, I can understand, LOL. I’d get a real kick out of all the theories and speculations myself!

I also realize something else that’s a bit chilling. When I fucked with her it was in the form of pranks. Not to excuse myself or anything as what I did was still wrong, but there were no “evil intentions” involved. I didn’t want to harm her in any way but just annoy her. But if she herself is hoping to harm me somehow, some way, then that would have to be one twisted person since I have apologized for my wrongdoings and have been keeping true to my word about behaving. So the possibility of being played with or harmed by someone I’ve already apologized to is a bit disturbing. Nothing I can do about it, though, and as Alison said, only she knows how this is going to end. I know how the story is going to end, she knows how reality is going to end. Funny, ain’t it?

I find that taking notes upon getting up helps me to remember my dreams in better detail. But I don’t remember one single dream from last night. No disjointed, off-the-wall scenes, no nothing.

Later…

Thanks to some of the damn cocks here, they are helping to make me even more of a sexist than I already am (with a few guys excluded, of course). I got so sick of comments like, nice ass, nice back, nice bottom, etc, on the picture I last had showing my hair when it was really long that I went and changed it. It’s ironic too, as I’m skinnier now than I was in that picture. At least I got a wonderful reaction from Nane on the one on Facebook which is certainly a lot naughtier, LOL, but it probably explains the spike in traffic yesterday. Maybe some would say I should appreciate a compliment, but I don’t want people coming to my blog simply because they think I had a nice ass in 2007. I want them coming because they like reading my blog. Keep my ass as an afterthought, will you?!

So many guys out there think they know it all and that they should rule the world, and while they’re at it they treat women with such disrespect and like they’re nothing but animals or objects to be used and abused at will. I have NO sympathy for men when they get attacked or beaten by their women after they’ve been pushed to the max and too fed up to take any more of their shit. I applaud those women and am glad more and more of them are reacting violently toward these damn cocks. Keep them fists flying, ladies! Sometimes you really do gotta fight and shit! I forgot about Formspring. I better get over there soon and get answering questions!

It smelled like rain when I was out running earlier. It’s been nearly 5 months since we had any real rain, so it wouldn’t hurt.

We decided that since we’re having one of our “rich spells,” we may as well postpone listing the Beanie Babies until we get closer to Christmas.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2010 October.

October has a few anniversaries in it for me, the 11th being particularly horrible.

The 4th will mark 13 years since I quit smoking. I went from saying I can’t believe I quit to I can’t believe I ever smoked, though I’m sure there will always be a part of me that can’t believe I quit. I used the gum back when I was living in Phoenix, AZ, the same method that I failed to succeed with 5 years earlier in CT. Guess there really is a time and a place for everything.

The 27th will mark 23 years of journaling.

This month would’ve also been the end of us had Tom not been able to get a job. In a couple of weeks, we’d be out of money, I’d be deciding which friends and family members to send a final message to, we’d be dead, and Evil Amongst the Evergreens would never get finished. Maliheh’s friend invite wouldn’t matter anymore around the 15th for I wouldn’t be here to know if she ever accepted it or not.

But mid-May of this year is also kind of memorable as that’s when I first found Maliheh online. I just wish I didn’t have to go and be such a jerk like I was at first. But it’s true that my initial plan wasn’t to be very nice at all. “You’re still a hot-looking bitch,” I remember saying to myself when I saw her pictures. “Yes, your worst nightmare has risen from the past straight out of hell and right into cyberspace, you heart-breaking bitch!” I flashed an evil grin and started learning whatever I could about her. I didn’t learn much. Either I’m a lousy detective or this is just a very private person.

Then I thought she was harassing me on Formspring and I really got mad. “Ok, here comes trouble! Yes, ready or not here I come! I’m coming to pick on your weight, even though I’m the one who got fat and not you. And I’m going to pick on your friends too, even if one of them contacted me first before I knew what the hell was going on. I’m gonna pick on you, tease you, taunt you… and WTF?! You mean my Formspring tormenter is Andy?!

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid fool!” I screamed at myself. And then the guilt set in and bit hard. Real hard. I tried to make amends. I was unsuccessful. But the good thing is that I don’t usually repeat my mistakes, so she has nothing to worry about in the future even if she still hates me and always will and thinks I’m a major fuck-up and an ugly dog who’s dumber than dumb.

But then I thought it was her that had come to communicate with me and this put a smile on my face. A huge one. Yeah, I still had a thing for her despite any hurt or anger in the picture.

Then I learned it was an impersonator. Bummer! But I’m mostly sure that the real one is reading her story. Probably not the journal, but the story. And so I feel “connected.” It’s a nice feeling and I’m enjoying it while it lasts and keeping my word about behaving even if the damage is already done and it’s too late. I love my husband dearly, but sometimes I wonder about those could’ve beens and might’ve beens, and well, I don’t want to get to crying now, so I’ll move on and try not to beat myself up for what can’t be changed or blame others. If I do, it’s too easy to get caught up in thinking – if my mother hadn’t abused me, maybe I wouldn’t have been so screwed up, and if her mother hadn’t been such a bitch, maybe she would’ve been a better mother, and if my great, great, great, great grandparents hadn’t have done whatever… Gotta admit, though, that if someone told me 20 years ago she’d one day read a story of mine – any story – and so could anyone in the world if they wanted to, I’d have laughed my ass off!

I have her picture on the wall and I admire it every day. If I knew this bothered her I’d yank it off the wall and tear it up. I swear I would!

I plan on working on Evil today, whether I do or do not start chiseling out the start of Sugar Bella and For Keeps. For Keeps was originally going to be Evil’s subtitle, but I decided I liked it for the story I have in mind with Nane which will be filled with much more suspense than Evil has been so far.

I haven’t heard from Nane lately. She doesn’t appear to have been on LM or FB. I know she’s busy with the new job and getting ready for her trip. Hopefully this weekend she’ll return the hug I sent her. :)

Not sure I want to sell Evil unless it’s for an insane amount of money. I want a grand for this manuscript otherwise it’s a no-go. Even though I often use real-life characters and even though it was a bummer to learn that the person asking me and inspiring me to write it wasn’t the real Maliheh, this story will always be one of the more special ones. Selling copies of stories is one thing, but literally selling the story – my very own creation – is another. It’s just not easy to do if the price isn’t right or if it’s not something I’m writing for someone else that is out of my usual style and genre.

I’ve been asked to throw Nane into Evil, but I can’t see any way to fit her into it at this point.

Irene, a friend of mine here, asked to be in my next book and said she can be good, bad - anything I want, LOL. I told her I could squeeze her into Evil, but I have to dramatically change her age, LOL. If she doesn’t have a problem with this, like the real Maliheh apparently didn’t when I notified her on Facebook that I would be publishing the story, then I will go ahead and throw her in. She didn’t say not to use her real last name, but I won’t anyway, as that’s something I don’t usually do.

I don’t know that I’ll be posting any more stories in the future until and if I set up a site and sell them. But I will email copies to anyone who wants them.

Andy left a message saying he’s been so busy he hasn’t had time to read my journal, and I told him not to worry because it’s boring anyway. He replied with, “Your journal is NEVER boring. That’s why so many people all over the world read it, including myself. Keep writing!”

Aw, how sweet, huh?

[nerdgatehobbit]

5/16/24

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these- well over a month, I think. Oops. Well, first off, I have finished the Belle Mirrorverse book; it was darker than I expected but I think it did a good job of putting a new twist on the 1991 film.

I’ll probably read my library books next, although for Reasons I’m going to wait until the 25th to read Night Watch. Lately, I’ve also been using the library to skim the ER TV series (AKA only watching the special features because I’m a wuss). I’ve taken a handful of screencaps that I might end up posting here.

Confession time: I skipped an episode of the new ATLA show because I’d heard about the changes to Bumi’s characterization and I did not want to see it. Which was extra frustrating because I like Utkarsh Ambudkar from his role on CBS Ghosts and I think he would have been great as a more cartoon-faithful version of Bumi. So I’ve scheduled a weekly Jay post for this summer. Back to the new ATLA show: it was a mixed bag for me but I will probably watch the next seasons.

While I have no plans to watch Bridgerton, I clearly have not been immune to the pretty gifsets, especially when they feature Simone Ashley’s character. Similarly, I’ve enjoyed some fan content of The Owl House but right now my media backlog is big enough I’m not likely to get around to it any time soon.

Movie-wise, I rewatched Love & Friendship on the 4th and BATB 2022 on the 5th. Because I needed some comfort movie content. I ought to watch some movies I haven’t seen, like The Mummy, Sense & Sensibility 2024, or Chess in Concert. Hopefully I’ll have made the time to watch them by the end of the summer.

I’m still greatly enjoying Static Shock, Leverage, and The Librarians. They’re all fun shows with great characters and interesting storylines. My posting priority has been Static Shock, but I might end up posting more The Librarians content over the summer. Side note: I’ve learned that ER actor Eriq La Salle directed an episode of The Librarians so that’ll be fun when I reach season 4.

There’s been quite a bit of overlap between Leverage, The Librarians, and Star Trek so far, with more on the way. I know Jeri Ryan is about to be a reoccurring character on Leverage, for example. There’s also some XWP overlap, which would be surprising given that XWP was filmed on the other side of the Pacific except I’ve already seen overlap between Disney-era Power Rangers & Stargate.

On the other hand, I’m not really into ST TNG despite being at the start of the third season. I guess I’m primarily a ST DS9 fan. I don’t know why the show isn’t clicking for me, but it isn’t. Maybe it’s just that I’m more into the other 3 shows and I don’t have the bandwidth for a fourth? I feel bad because I know it’s an important show to a lot of people but it’s looking like I’m not going to be one of them at this point. It’s extra frustrating because I do like the characters but the show as a whole just isn’t gelling for me and I don’t understand why.

With its upcoming 20th anniversary, I’ll probably schedule a daily SGA post throughout July. I might similarly get Power Rangers off my back burner for August. Part of me does want to check out the newer seasons, but my to-watch pile is massive enough without adding them. Especially since the end of August will see the return of The Rings of Power.

I think I need to do these posts more regularly, otherwise they end up sprawling like this. This spring has been a Lot, though. Hopefully everyone’s summer will be calmer.

[sunghun]

enhypen as your best friend

requested; yep :p

warnings; mentions of food in jay and niki’s, minor mention of bullying in sunghoon’s

note; this took me so long to write 😭😭writer’s block is truly a bitch, but hopefully i’ll be posting more often in the near future!!

희승 - heeseung;

for some reason i see him as being that low-key annoying hipster friend

that you lovingly put up with <3

has a song for you to listen for literally every occasion

he’s also the friend that makes you wonder how he even survives

bc you swear he just never sleeps??

you could text him at any time

and he always answers within a few minutes

so either he has some kind of sixth sense for when you wanna talk to him

or he has no life and is always awake waiting for you to message him

and ofc you like to tease him about it

“wow heeseung i didn’t know you were so obsessed with me”

“well i can’t let you have another breakdown at 3am by yourself now can i”

touché

you guys also go on lots of platonic ‘dates’

so many midnight coffee runs

and you’ll just sit on a bench in some park and talk until the sun is coming up

the best friend that’s always there for you

제이 - jay;

the grandpa friend <3

always complains about being out too late

scolds you if you do anything dangerous

impromptu lectures on life even tho he’s like the same age as you

but you know he only does it bc he cares <3

if you’re nervous about doing smth he’ll immediately offer to do it with you or for you

but also encourages you to go out on your own and do things for yourself :))

likes to use you as his “guinea pig” when testing out a new recipe for something

which you honestly don’t mind bc his cooking is just chef’s kiss tbh

definitely the friend who just buys stuff for you

“here.”

“what’s this?”

“that necklace i saw you looking at in the store for like 5 minutes”

he’s low-key kinda tsundere about it sometimes tho

“hey y/n what do you want?”

“oh no i’m good i didn’t bring any money.”

“did i ask if you brought money?”

“but-“

“What Do You Want?”

so yeah

even if he’s a lil rough around the edges

at the end of the day you both know that you’d do anything for each other

the best friend you can always count on

제이크 - jake;

being besties with jake means you question why you’re friends with such a dumbass

legit has the humor of a 12 year old boy like the amount of stupid memes he sends you…

rip my dude

but he’s also the sweetest guy you know so!!

i guess that evens it out

comes over so often he practically lives at ur house

like he just worms his way into your family so subtly

suddenly it’s not a complete family reunion if jake isn’t there

but you also like to hangout at coffee shops/cafes!!

especially the aesthetic looking ones

ur number 1 hypeman

takes the best pics of you for ur social media

“yes y/n! work it bro!”

lots of sleepovers where you’ll stay up watching movies or playing video games until the sun is coming up

you guys probably volunteer at a pet shelter too

and you have to talk jake out of adopting every single dog there almost daily

even if you don’t physically see each other every day

you still text and call each other every day

bc the two of really are like family to each other

the best friend that makes you feel loved no matter what

성훈 - sunghoon;

to this day people still wonder how you and sunghoon are friends

bc like. you’re just so opposite??

plus when you first met you both hated each other

and for literally no reason too

but one day you guys found out there was some dickhead bully at school that you both hated more than you hated each other

like they’re just talking shit about you until suddenly sunghoon walks up and starts defending you?? like what universe did you land in

but anyways ever since then you two got closer and now you’re bffs

people mistake you for a couple all the time mostly bc you’re the only person sunghoon will allow to hold his hand

he isn’t the most affectionate person but if you are he’ll begrudgingly allow you to cuddle up to him when you watch a movie

is so so so observant

which means he always gets you the best gifts

lots of hanging out at the mall bc you both enjoy people watching

so you’ll usually get some coffee and then just sit on a bench and rate people’s outfits

when you guys first started hanging out sunghoon was pretty shy

but the more you got to know each other the more he came out of his shell

and now he tends to match ur energy <3

the best friend that always understands you

선우 - sunoo;

the best bff you ask for

literally the first person you tell anything to

if you’re there you can bet sunoo isn’t far off

the two of you haven’t gone a day without speaking since you became friends

and you both love making fun of each other

all in the name of love, ofc <3

lots of good natured bickering and fake arguing

you guys go on lots of walks and like to have little picnics

and weekly movie/drama nights are definitely a thing

where sunoo will catch you up on the latest rumors and gossip around school during the boring parts of whatever you’re watching

you two also call each other pet names a lot

whether it be normal ones like babe or weird, over the top ones like snuggle bunny-poo

he also likes to randomly surprise you with flowers every once in a while

just because <3

you guys know everything about each other and know that you can always trust the other with your secrets

the best friend that you sometimes wish was more

정원 - jungwon;

is basically ur adopted sibling whether you like it or not

he can either be your favorite person or the person u loathe the most

he lives next door so you both are at each other’s house constantly

and your mom may or may not low-key like him more 3

which he loves to rub in ur face /3

but it’s okay bc maeumi likes you more <3

which you love to rub in his face <33

you both like to go on ‘adventures’ whether it’s going to mcdonald’s at 3 am

or exploring the woods by your house in the middle of the day with a backpack that only has a couple juice boxes and some fruit snacks in it

you also build pillow forts in rooms all the time!!

bc it makes the sleepover experience 10x better, can confirm

he’s always the first person you send the weird videos you find late at night to, and vice versa

and you both love to give each other random little gifts from time to time even if they seem really weird to other people

sooooo many inside jokes

the best friend that you know you’ll always have

니키 - niki;

literally the most annoying person u know

u call him brat affectionately <3

and he calls you his grandparent not affectionately 3 (jk jk)

bc even if you’re the same age or younger than him

i can assure you he is going to tease you about your age/the way you act

also you both will occasionally ghost each other for a few weeks

like sometimes to the point where ppl wonder if you’re still even friends

but when they ask ur like “wdym we’re literally bffs??”

and then continue to talk like nothing ever happened

you guys make fun of each other all. the. time.

lovingly of course, but still

like you guys will be at a thrift shop or smth

and riki will find the most horrendous looking stuffed animal there and buy it

and when you ask him why he got such an ugly thing he’ll just be like

“bc it reminded me of you! ^-^”

jokes on him tho bc a few weeks go by and suddenly he can’t sleep without it so

also lots of park hangouts in the evenings!!

especially in the summer like you guys will get some ice cream or popsicles and just hang out at a playground

pushing each other on the swings or seeing how long you both can hang on the monkey bars

the best friend that makes you feel like you never have to grow up

taglist: @mochisnlix @yizhoutv @heatrache @vantxx95 @enhacolor @sunoo-bby @ilandsghost @hiqhkey

[butterbeerblurbs]

grow with me, grow with you (f.w.)

💌 : fred adores the things you adore... even if it means being a plant dad. (that it gets him excited to one day thinking he’ll hopefully be a father to your children) 📝 word count: 902 words / fred weasley x reader / 🌸 silly (but maybe sweet?) fluff / timeline is set after the war / reader isn’t necessarily written to be chinese but does have chinese traits/beliefs (bc i’m chinese lol) 💬: as a mother of four money plants... yes... 🌿

[main masterlist 🧡] / [drabbles masterlist 💛]

the sight fred’s granted with is one that he can’t quite wrap his head around (despite being somewhat fond of herbology, when things escape the realm of magic, it’s tricky). he wants to help but he feels like his way of helping is staying out of your way, watching as you put together two pots–wait those are bowls–of... “what’s that?”

he already feels his heart swooning at the way your eyes twinkle up to him as you hold them up. they’re a pair of orange bowls, both with plants sprouting from them. he remains seated by his office desk, resting his chin in his palm as you approach him to let him see what they are. he’s seen them before, around your shared home, your parents’ home, even a couple of your friends but he has never questioned them before. until now, when you place one bowl on george’s table, and the other onto his table, right next to a photo frame of fred’s favourite photograph of the both of you during summer break.

“this is a money plant.”

fred places his pen, raising his brow, “does it–(grow money?)”you quickly reach over the table and slap your hand over his mouth, “no, it doesn’t.”

he snorts against your palm, peeling it off his face so he can give you a tug so you would walk around the table. you comply, standing by his chair until he shifts back and pulls you to sit on his lap. as he hooks his chin on your shoulder, he watches as you lure the bowl closer so fred can have a look.

“so they just... grow in water?”

“yep,” you nod, hands circling the orange bowl.

he makes a sound. “won’t they drown?”

“well... they’re under a category of plants that can grow in water, which is different to the ones that grow in soil. but that doesn’t mean these can’t grow in soil, either.”

“...”

“have i lost you, freddie?”

he scoffs a laugh and buries his face to your neck, “it’s like herbology all over again...”

you nudge the bowl to the side, so that your hands are able to rub over his arms hooking you down. “it doesn’t matter, you just have to make sure you refill the water when it gets low and i’ll come by to clean it from time to time.”

he peeks up with pursued lips. “is there a reason why you have this specific plant in here?”

“well...” you hesitate for a moment, but with fred imploring you with his curious, wide eyes and the kind of aura that ensures you he’ll never judge you for anything, you cave in. “it’s a bit silly, but don’t laugh, okay?”

he uses a free hand to imitate zipping his lips.

“like the name, these money plants are believed to bring good luck for businesses and... you know, money. my parents believes in them and naturally, i do too. whether it does bring in money or not, it’s always comforted me when i get stressed so maybe they could offer the same to you, too.”

you grow conscious when fred’s all silent, though he’s smiling, you can’t quite capture what he’s thinking. it makes you press your lips together and lightly pat on his arm around your waist, chuckling awkwardly.

“i told you it was silly,”

he shakes his head and presses a kiss to your shoulder, “that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s done for me.”

“you’re not pulling my leg, are you?”

“certainly am not... though, i can if you’d like.”

at fred’s hidden innuendo, it makes you gasp, “freddie!”

“what? do the plants have eyes?”

“freddie, they’re plants, not animals.”

“guess we won’t have a problem then.”

((fred notices you’ve disappeared into his office for a few good minutes, so he’s decided to come check on you. he reaches his office and looms by the door, peeking through the crack to see you placing–what he assumes to be cleaned plants–onto his table with a small smile.

then he overhears: “grow up to be strong and healthy, okay? give freddie and good ol’ george blooming business.” he tries not to laugh, but hearing your laugh to your own childishness almost gets him to crack. “that’s silly. but i mean it, okay? they’ve worked so hard, and you will too, to grow.”

just as you gently pat the leaves and move to stand up straight, your head lifts to the door to see... “h-how long have you been standing there?”

fred smirks. “enough to hear you sweet talking to the plants instead of me.”

“...i hear talking kindly to your plants will help them grow.”

fred doesn’t know why, but for some reason fred imagines that one day, you’ll be talking kindly to the children the both of you could potentially share. it makes his heart full just thinking about it, even though he knows his silence is making you anxious, mind jumping to conclusions.

at his silence, and the way his cheeks start to blush at the thought of starting a family with you, it was your turn to get curious.

“what’re you thinking about, freddie?”

he clears his throat, blinking a couple of times to return to being in this reality with you. he takes a step back, shaking his head, “n-nothing. i’ll leave you be now.”

“wait! i wanna know, i wanna know!”

fred makes a bolt for it.))

[shotorozu]

encountering a ‘pick me’ girl

character(s) : kirishima eijirou, todoroki shouto, bakugou katsuki (bnha)

warning : PICK ME GIRL, misogyny (?) pick me girl makes an off handed comment about your body but it’s not detailed at all

PART TWO — PART THREE

legend : [Y/N = your name] afab! reader, but they/them pronouns used, quirk not mentioned

headcanon type : fluff, angst if you squint

note(s) : i made 2 versions of this post so,, if you’re reading this— then i probably decided that i liked this one more than the other one i made,, anyways, i used real life examples 💀

»»————-　♡　————-««

kirishima eijirou

i’d imagine that eijirou would have an idea of what a pick me girl is— i mean, there were probably 2 of those girls in middle school

but has he experienced it first hand? nahh.

though, eijirou didn’t think he’d encounter one when he was already in a healthy and committed relationship!

eijirou is practically friends with everyone— and yeah, even the most unexpected. so, he’s bound to accidentally befriend a pick me girl

him, being the nicest one out of all of the characters in this list, will still be nice to said pick me girl, despite wanting to snob them to the core

because really— you can’t really fight fire with fire in some cases

but, he can be everything but lenient when the pick me girl starts insulting you for doing certain things, and for absurd reasons too

like,, how you laugh, and how you take care of yourself (for example— if you wear makeup, or how you style your hair)

which is odd! everything about you is everything but the things the pick me girl has stated so.. he cannot stand by.

SCENARIO

the girl giggles to herself after that snide comment leaves her lip gloss coated lips. eijirou shifts uncomfortably— honestly taken aback by the anything but subtle insult that was thrown at you

“like.. seriously! it’s honestly quite superficial if you look at it like that. who the hell would put that much effort infront of your boyfriend? i’d assume they’d see everything AND everything but.. i guess not.”

you blink. superficial? now that’s a new one. the girl infront of you has been babbling insults sugarcoated in boasts the entire time, and you’re just wondering if it’s about time you guys leave but—

“well that’s unfair,” your boyfriend laughs, “i put the same amount of effort as this cutie right here,” eijirou pokes at your cheek, earning a quick laugh from you— which he can only thank the heavens for that

“but that’s different. it actually looks put together when you’re doing it, eiji.” the certain glint in her smile makes you want to wipe it right off with a dirty mop, “it’s impossible to look put together with expensive clothes, but being built like a—”

the sound of the sliding of a chair is quicker than your actions, and it easily cuts her off.

“i’m sorry, but we gotta go, it’s totally not cool of you to say those things about Y/N!”

“what? but i mean.. it’s true, right? i’m looking out for them! they’re literally out here l—”

“bye!” eijirou waves her goodbye with your hand, dismissing the sour expression on her face— as he dashes off with you

you’d question how he’s just so nice to people like that, but when he turns around, you could see the distaste in his eyes

“so that’s what a pick me girl’s like,” shaking his head, his expression lights up with such a quick manner “i’ll never make friends that are like that again!”

safe to say, eijirou’s friend list has been a a person shorter ever since that incident

bakugou katsuki

oh, so that girl’s bold bold.

if she thinks she could get away with being a not so subtle pick me girl infront of bakugou katsuki, then she couldn’t be more wrong.

it’s absolutely revolting— i mean, he hasn’t displayed any romantic feelings towards ANYONE that isn’t you.

also, they’re quite gutsy if you ask me. so congrats for having guts??

i don’t think he’d be friends with a pick me girl. he’s very selective of who he’s befriending, so it’s probably your friend that’s the pick me girl in this case

he wouldn’t know what a pick me girl would be, but he’d probably know the description of one.

over some time, he’d grow some resistance to insults directed at him, but when someone insults his s/o

oh boy. that’s not good. remember when i said that katsuki was almost like your scary and intimidating dog

this is what i mean

knows he can’t make a scene, so his first option is to be dismissive asf— but if said pick me girl literally can’t get it, he won’t be afraid of shoving some explosions into her face

because his hands are rated e for everyone

SCENARIO

“so you wanna be picked or something, is that it?” he hates how you literally have the resistance of a rock— which is something he always liked, but in this case hated. if it weren’t for you— he would’ve blasted explosions into her sorry excuse of a face until it’s beyond recognition (that wouldn’t be hero like, is what you’ve said in the past, but he disagrees.)

but seriously? ugh. he just wants to leave this horrid place, and make some dinner with you in the comfort of his home. why are you even friends with her anyway? she’s not even trying to be slick at this point.

“p-picked? i’m not understanding, katsu.”

“it’s bakugou.”

“right,” her laughter is like nails on chalkboard, “i’m just watching out for Y/N, y’know? there’s no point in wearing all of that.. on their face.” and she’s obviously referring to your obviously very well done makeup

“it’ll make your skin terrible in the long run! and really— i couldn’t really understand on why someone would wear that much, when you could survive with i dunno.. lip gloss at most?”

you would’ve actually said something as a rebuttal, but your boyfriend is quicker, and a lot more direct than anyone else in the area.

“just say you can’t do makeup and fucking scram,” katsuki’s ice cold glare finally breaks out of the act he’s been trying to hold together for you

“their makeup is fucking bomb as hell, compared to your ridiculous spider lashes, lady. come back when you’ve watched james charles’ entire fucking channel.” he harshly states in similar bakugou fashion, despite the lack of screaming.

and if you squinted hard enough, you could see tears welling up in her eyes. but katsuki tugs your hand before anything else could be said

“let’s fucking go, you need better friends.”

he makes you cut ties with all of them, and he practically scolds your terrible choice of friends— but he goes quiet when you tell him that you’ve been friends with her since middle school

“good fucking riddance. next time, i’ll punch them as soon as they say something outta line, got that?” and next time (hopefully, there won’t be a next time) you’ll actually lash out— or maybe,, you’ll let him loose for once.

todoroki shouto

now shouto might be,, socially unaware sometimes. but he can tell whenever someone’s trying to insult his s/o

like,, right away.

now— you both run into this person after a pleasant date, and she eagerly presented herself as your friend

so, her attitude catches him off guard because who’d have anything rude to say about you and towards shouto’s face? especially when it’s about something normal.

like,, wasn’t she your friend?? why is she even like this?

his hostility is very well known, so they should be scared.

he gets detached from the conversation, and he’ll immediately go cold— and shouto would probably go as far as walking away with your hand in his

doesn’t matter if he properly says goodbye or not— if a girl’s being rude to his s/o, they obviously don’t deserve his usually polite attitude. nope, that’s a luxury.

oh— and what more when they’re seeking for his validation. newsflash! said pick me girl won’t be get any from him.

SCENARIO

shouto couldn’t stop the bitterness bleeding into his mouth, when the girl in front of him continued to babble and take up the valuable time he had left with his s/o

initially, she presented herself as your friend from middle school— but as of now? she seems to be more interested in him more than you, despite knowing you first.

she’d ask him a string of obvious questions with very obvious answers, like ‘is she treating you well?’ ‘is she acting correctly?’ and questions of the sort

“oh, sorry! i’d hate to cut this conversation short, but—” you finally decide that it was about time to leave, while shouto looks pretty,, deadpanned right now, you could tell that he was gradually starting to get irritated by your friend’s words.

“wait. thats.. kind of controlling, don’t you think? do you ever let shou make decisions?”

“uh.. controlling? since when??” you question at the accusation. this girl knows nothing about your relationship dynamic, and she’s already jumping the gun and making conclusions.

your gaze snaps back to shouto, who looks just as surprised as he could possibly be.

“yeah! it clearly looks like he still wants to talk” which is an obvious lie, shouto just wants it out of here “i wonder how you managed to snag such a guy like him,” she comments with a smile that looked anything above suspicion (yet, it makes your stomach churn)

you could see the way her hand gets gradually closer to him— and frankly, you’re not sure about what she was planning to do next, “you wouldn’t need to dress all expensive and fancy, if you’re with a girl with an already classy appear—”

“i think this conversation is over,” shouto grip is firm on the wrist that was attempting to grab his shoulder, shouto makes no attempt to even look at the girl infront of him “i don’t know what you’re trying to do, but it’s not humorous. at all.”

“what?” she stammers, drawing her hand back “i-it’s obvious they don’t know how to take a joke! this is why there are barely any good w—”

shouto’s next actions knocks her speechless, his hand rests at the small of your back, before gently guiding you forward— “love, what movie are we watching later?” he says, making an effort to press a quick, yet intense kiss on your lips

“oh,” you breathe out, surprised by this action. “don’t be so tense, love.” shouto comments on how tense your shoulders have looked, ever since she started running her mouth, “now.. what movie do you want to watch tonight? comedy? thriller?”

“you pick,” you laugh at the quick shift of topic. and when you look behind you, you could see shame and defeat welling up on her face. shouto finally feels like he could smile again, the bitterness dissipating from his mouth

after shouto questions you if that was what a pick me girl was, he makes sure that you guys won’t ever encounter such thing again

“you.. don’t have more friends like that, right? if you do— we could always do another friend list cleansing.” this statement makes you laugh but shouto is anything but joking

but being reminded of his reaction to that ‘pick me’ girl does puts a smile on your face.

»»————-　♡　————-««

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i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby

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