#i think about how my aunt learned to drive in a car her friend had stolen

[burritowitch]

seeing kids from my school posting about going to venice as tourists is so funny to me actually

[kranagok0]

Anders The good father

Well, it goes without saying which chapter I am basing this blog on. I'll just write down my thoughts and leave

*Anders notices that Hilda is sad about Johana's disappearance so he chooses to take her on an adventure so they can spend time together. After all, it is possible that a good father-daughter trip can soften this very depressive state in which both of them are trapped.

*Anders tries to prepare lunch for the trip using as a reference a cookbook that Tontu gave him so that he could learn how to cook something moderately edible (at another time we will talk about how Anders knows each of Hilda's friends in another post). Obviously no one can improve that much in a week, but Anders tries. The food doesn't turn out good or bad, but it's not something you would normally eat on a daily basis either. Still, with no more things in the cupboard or money to buy food until Anders' next payment, they both leave in the family car (more junk than transportation) and head out for a trip to the road.

*From here on it's almost the same as with Johana, however, Anders tries to cheer Hilda up by letting her drive. Fortunately this time Hilda manages to keep the steering wheel steady (they go at a snail's pace but it's better than nothing) and drives down the road with her father.

*Just like in the series, the car breaks down and Anders tries to fix it (this has already happened thousands of times with many second-hand vehicles that he buys and fixes himself). Anders thought he could get this thing running before sunset… Without a doubt this vehicle was the most beat-up piece of metal he had had the misfortune to drive in quite some time. Anders took longer than expected (especially because this car had no spare parts and it was a miracle that nothing was completely broken).

*Anders spends time with his daughter camping in the woods, telling stories about their adventures and trips to different places (I want to think he is some kind of archaeologist, bounty hunter or something, I really need someone to tell me something about his possible job) and about the things he has found. It also omits some parts of him escaping for his life and avoiding some dangers, but that didn't matter if Hilda became happy and left her worries behind. He even learned to play a song that Aunt Astrid taught him (it sounded horrible but he could still understand the musical tune by 40%).

*The next day they go to the lake and Hilda begins to explore the area. Like the series they end up removing Astrid's amulets. Consequently the creature appears and tries to eat Hilda while the girl was hanging from a vine. Anders tries to go after his daughter but trips over the network of amulets. In a desperate attempt he throws a handful of amulets at the creature and manages to hit one of its eyes. Now Anders was the monster's target.

*Certain things happen and Hilda is caught by the creature along with Twig. Anders witnesses everything and goes to the place where the monster took his daughter. Those cries for help and the presence of that creature were too much for Anders, the guy began to hyperventilate. And as he always did (as an adventurer and as a father) he escaped. He went directly to the car and tried to start it, luckily for him he heard the engine cooperating this time and Anders was about to release the handbrake… That's when he noticed his daughter's scarf on the lever.

Anders remembered this scarf….. He bought it himself for his daughter. It was kind of funny giving a baby a scarf and watching him try to eat that long piece of cloth. Her first baby teeth had emerged and she was already nibbling everything, not even Anders was saved since the baby Hilda bit his fingers when he tried to pick her up and yet he lifted her over his head and saw his daughter laughing with happiness. So innocent, so happy, so brilliant…. So worthy of having been able to have a better father….

Anders was not a father, nor an adventurer…. He was a coward, a two-legged rat, a crawling animal, the scum of life and worse things for the simple fact of wanting to leave again instead of facing difficulties. . Well no more!

*Anders turns off the car and gets out of the car to go get his daughter, and he didn't care if that thing surpassed him in size, strength, speed, endurance, courage, intelligence or even if it flew at any moment. HE WOULD GO FOR HIS DAUGHTER, GET HER OUT OF THERE AND THEY WOULD COME BACK HOME FOR DINNER!!

*So, using his basic knowledge from his adventures (improvise) Anders decides to do something to be able to fight hand to hand against that thing from Avernus. Then he remembered the net and those strange amulets, that was the only thing that hurt the monster. Anders had an idea so crazy that it could work….

*DAMN IF THAT SHIT ACTUALLY WORKED! Anders managed to improvise a mannequin with his shape and size, put him in his spare clothes (which were not very different from what he was wearing today) and put his phone on an eternal repeat of him shouting 'I'm here, you repulsive creature, so come for me if you dare!' He lost his cell phone but it didn't matter, he needed to go save his daughter. The creature fell for the deception and Anders entered the cave to save his daughter while he had all the amulets they found on him. The cobwebs blocked the way and Anders removed them using some amulets (I say if they could contain the creature then they could also undo its webs) and took his daughter, and the Deer-fox, out of that cave.

To his bad luck the creature returned…. Along with Anders' improvised mannequin.

"Hilda… Go to the car"

Hilda looked at her father with some confusion and doubt on her face.

"You know how to drive well, you know the way to Trollberg…. Start the car and drive home"

Hilda's face fell with a new one full of uncertainty and fear, she knew what her father was doing. She didn't want to leave and she wouldn't leave her father behind. At first she would refuse, but then Twig saw Anders' pleading face…. The man did not give her any orders, instead his look suggested a silent plea full of torment for his daughter to get as far away as possible.

Twig had no choice but to grab Hilda by a part of her sweater and try to drag her to the car. Hilda wanted to stay, she didn't want to leave her father, she couldn't bear it… Still, she escaped. Anders was a little glad that his bad habit of running away will be passed down to his daughter…. It was the only good thing he could get out of his cowardice.

"I have escaped for so long, so many times that I could have changed and now I regret never having turned around and tried again… I don't deserve to be a father, I don't deserve to be called an adventurer… Still , I will not turn back. Not anymore, not now nor ever. Now… I RATHER DIE THAN CONTINUE BEING A COWARD!"

With his hand surrounding that handful of amulets, joined together on a stick that he sharpened and was using as an improvised spear, Anders launched into battle. He knew that he was not going to win, it was basically impossible for someone as cowardly and useless as him to be able to stand up to this entity, but he would buy time. Time for her daughter to save herself, return home and look for her mother. Johanna must definitely still be alive, looking for a way to return to her daughter wherever she is now…

The battle lasted about 20 minutes. 20 minutes where Anders spent it surrounding the creature and hiding in bushes and behind trees to throw some amulets from time to time at the monster's face. The amulets ran out and Anders was struck by the creature's tail.

Anders waited for his dark end. Where a new person should have been, full of horror and despair, he is now a smile full of happiness when he thinks that for once he did things right… He was no longer afraid.

Or that was before seeing the family car hurtling off the hill at top speed and hitting the monster in the side. WITH HILDA INSIDE THE VEHICLE!

DAMN, JOHANA WAS RIGHT. HE NEVER HAD TO TEACH HIM HOW TO DRIVE

The car, to even Twig's surprise, was still in good enough condition to keep driving. Hilda yelled at her father to get in the car and he did. Hilda put the car in reverse and pressed the pedal to the floor to get out of that place as quickly as possible.

The creature was injured, but still had not eaten anything in years (besides small fish and water lilies) and was hungry. And sometimes hunger is more powerful than pain. The monster got up and started chasing them.

The chase lasted a long time thanks to Hilda driving like a crazy woman behind the wheel (Anders was sure that she didn't teach her to drift to turn in such a cool way, miracles of life… Maybe?).

Unfortunately, the car started to run out of power (that is, it survived a collision with a huge monster but the battery ended up being the problem). The creature catches up to them and tries to grab Hilda. Anders reacts in time and moves his daughter so the monster doesn't take her. Instead Anders is carried away by the monster's tongue.

Hilda: Dad!

Hilda uses the net that the amulets were in before to use it as a rope and tie it to her father's arm and also to the car. Anders feels how one of his arms is dislocated and part of his muscles are torn in the other. I try to hold back a cry of pain by clenching my teeth tightly.

As if a cruel joke of fate were this situation full of twists and possible tragic outcomes for poor Anders, the car had power again and Twig was on the accelerator (trying to make the car surpass the creature in strength so that it would release to Anders). Anders felt like his arms were practically being destroyed.

But even in pain, Anders could talk.

Anders: Hilda…. My girl groans in pain I don't think I can get out of this….

Hilda: no…. Don't say it, we will save you, you just have to resist!

A sudden movement of the vehicle and the monster made Anders scream in agony as he felt that his other arm was also dislocating.

Anders: Hilda…. You're a good girl, you have friends who will help you if you have problems, I never had that and that's why I ended up like this… Maybe you can stay with them for a while until your mother comes back and-

Hilda: No, shut up! I want to be with you until mom comes back! E-eh even if you come back, I want to continue spending time with you! I won't let you go!

To Hilda's bad luck or Anders' good luck (for the first time today) the rope of the net was the first thing that began to give way, quickly breaking and tearing.

Anders: I have always been a coward, all my life I ran away and never looked back. That's why I want to tell you that it was thanks to you that that changed…. Hilda, you gave me the courage. Thank you.

Just then the rope broke… But Anders felt like his arm was still being held by something. It felt different than the grid, and also a little warmer.

Hilda was holding her father's arm while his legs were strapped to the back door of the vehicle.

Hilda: If you are brave, then don't leave me alone… Please

His daughter's tears made Anders start crying too. Thinking that his daughter was so fragile and brave at the same time made Anders want to hug her.

Hilda's boots slipped off the door and they were both dragged by the monster.

Anders: Okay. I will never let you go again…

Anders, still with his arms almost broken, hugged his daughter as tightly as he could. The monster swallowed them both.

Twig braked the car (he learned by watching Hilda somehow) and got out of the vehicle only to see how the creature had devoured Hilda and her father in one bite…..

No one expected the monster to start retching and make a sudden guttural sound from its throat. For a moment, Twig thought she was going to explode. But luckily for him he only vomited Hilda and—

OH MY GOD, HILDA IS ALIVE!!!

Twig launched himself at Hilda and began to lick her face… Only to feel disgust when he remembered that it was full of monster slime and other stomach things that he was not going to be able to forget…

Hilda was relieved to have avoided death again for her old friend (she should stop tempting fate so much) and she is glad that she and her father, somehow, were saved from being devoured by that thing… .

wait… And his father?

She looked around the area where the monster regurgitated her. His father was nowhere to be found. He was still inside that thing.

"Yuck, you taste horrible"

The creature said. Hilda didn't care about that, she couldn't accept that the only reason it wasn't eaten was because it tasted horrible. What makes her so different from her father?

In the midst of her anger and sadness at her situation, Hilda throws a bunch of things that were lying on the road at the monster.

Hilda: Give my dad back!

Hilda continued throwing stones and branches at the monster for a while. The creature was trying to say something but that didn't matter to Hilda. She didn't want to leave without her father, she wasn't going to accept this stupid, crude and cruel outcome.

After a few seconds Hilda also began to throw things that were in her pocket. The funny thing about this is that one of those things was the lunch that Anders had made that morning

Once again destiny and its gears turn in mysterious and confusing ways as lunch falls into the monster's mouth and its pupils dilate. That taste was so majestic (I literally only ate small fish and swamp plants, something prepared in a halfway decent kitchen must taste like a 5 star dish).

"That flavor is so majestic, even more than that strange guy"

Hilda: wait… Do you like my dad's food…?

One thing leads to another and Hilda makes a deal with the creature; She gives him her supplies and he throws up on his dad. Just as they promised, each one did that.

The first thing Anders did when he emerged from the beast's stomach was to get up as quickly as he could and look that aberration of nature in the face. Then I breathe.

Hilda stopped her father from facing the creature again (0% chance of winning, 100% faith) and explained the situation to him.

After that everything happens almost the same as in the chapter until they arrive at their house. The only difference is that Hilda had to drive all the way home (Anders's arms were broken, just moving them was a horrible feeling)

Hilda goes to the library and parks perfectly… Inside the library.

Summarizing this situation (later I will explain what happened in the library in another post, I promise) Kaisa heals Anders and takes them home.

While there, they both talk about what happened and how glad they are to have gotten out of that horrible situation. Also, Anders feels renewed, a big change has just happened in his life and this time he would do things right… Starting with finding his ex and being an exemplary father to his daughter. Even if it means changing jobs.

Well look at that, it's perfect for an AO3 chapter… If only I knew how to use that website correctly…

Those hardships aside, I liked writing a good redemption for Anders, or at least trying to, I don't know if I got my point across and everything else about how Anders tries to change for the better and wanting to make things right. Make up for lost time and fix everything.

Still, it made me angry that he put his dreams before his family and all that. But when I started to get to know the character I said: "I wish they had given him a deeper and more detailed background than just appearing from one moment to the next and then making him disappear" and well, here I am.

Now tell me, did you like it or not? Any opinion is welcome because I plan to continue making this type of post… I just hope I stick well to a specific script.

Well, with that I retire to continue writing more things. See you later

[crimsonblackrose]

.

On the one hand I'm happy Daniel finally got a pool with water in it, on the other hand LA is like in a constant drought.

The kids are having croissants, omelettes and fruit for breakfast, which is very cute.

Espresso clink is my favorite

How long do you think it took between episode 1 and 2? Not like in filming but in actual canon? Because:

That's a sign, and window decor. And Johnny's on a super tight budget. So did he just hand paint/stencil that all himself? Who made his sign so fast? I mean half the time signs take forever to go up. Also kebab places signage is totally different.

Miggy in his LA dodgers jersey is giving Daniel in his Halloween day outfit. It weirdly doesn't have a number. I don't know sports, don't they usually have a number?

The amount of interior work Johnny did is huge. Like he put mirrors up? The mats are down. His little silhouette karate guys are all over the walls.

Every time I see that box of trophies they're going to multiply. Now I see 5.

I think...despite everything his stencils were crooked:

Maybe it's the camera angle.

Do you think Daniel and Mr. Miyagi had to fill out all that paperwork for insurance and certification before they opened out Mr. Miyagi's little trees? I suppose we never actually saw it open officially, just the set up, and they actually got a lease from a realtor, not a handshake with a dude outside of a strip mall.

Daniel spent his summers playing in a broken fire hydrant next to his Aunt Tessie's.

Do you think Daniel picked out Encino Oaks on purpose since he'd been there once? (It is supposed to be the same country club right?)

Amanda and Daniel like Dirty Martini's ice ice cold.

Aisha drives her father (Isaiah's) Q5

The summer party they're at they go to every year, so it's annual event with magicians and clowns.

Junior year Johnny didn't lose a single point in the All-Valley.

Miguel tells his mom he's on the debate team

Johnny recommends Guns 'n Roses and while doesn't seem to own a phone or know what one is does know what a ring tone is.

Kyler still has a bruise on his left eye from fighting Johnny, which makes me think not a ton of time has passed between episodes, and Johnny spent a lot of time decorating.

So Daniel drives an Audi but I guess they also have a big silver van, that he also drives.

Moon has a 'channel', I guess youtube channel? I wonder since it was originally a youtube red if they could've done a silly little spin off channel with extras and content.

One thing I've noticed, I don't think Daniel and Amanda have a lot of kitchen storage space, i.e. cabinets and what not. Thus:

All the pots and pans and tools are hanging on the wall. The amount of noise that must make.

So Sam's in trouble for throwing a party, but it kind of looks like Daniel cleaned up the whole thing by himself. That's a weird parenting choice.

Newspaper clippings that Daniel framed include: "Mystery Dojo with Single Student Defangs Cobras" with a photo of Daniel and Mr. Miyagi and the other says "Local Valley Champ Defends Title Against Karate's Bad Boy" Which has Daniel versus I guess Mike on at the tournament.

It's interesting that the flashback lesson they show is of Daniel teaching Sam how to break boards. Since that's arguably the worst lesson he ever got from Terry Silver and not something he probably learned from Mr. Miyagi. It is thankfully something a whole lot easier than =what Daniel was doing in TKK3.

"Never give up your defense, beware the spinning hug move" is just so adorable.

Yasmine was driving a Range Rover that hit Johnny's car. And the fact her dad just bought her a new car...

I dunno, I don't think Daniel particularly over reacted to a bunch of strangers in his house and wearing his clothes and also Sam telling him she wasn't expecting him back so early and then he was the one to clean up and she's just sitting talking to her friends.

LaRusso Friday family dinners is cute.

I also like that they talk about the boys she texting.

Daniel tells Sam she's 'Jersey tough'...but she's born and raised Californian.

This school lunch is pringles, a banana, a hostess cupcakes, Organic chocolate milk and what looks like maybe a cheeseburger?

Look at these babies (affectionate) and their yoohoo. They've also been given two trays and a plastic sporks. What is this school? Clearly you get some options because both of them got fruit cups (different types) and the main course differs since Elis got something else. I guess you also get to choose between pudding cups and hostess cupcakes? I did not get this many options in school. Also like most of the other kids who brought their lunch just have brown paper bags.

Sorry lots about the food but why would Miguel be offered organic Valley chocolate milk and these everyone in the above shot has yoohoo? Why are there that many chocolate milk options?

So...the popular girls drink apple juice from juicy juice and the nerds drink different brands of chocolate milk? Because literally everyone's drink choice is by table. Lol even Kyler has the same apple juice when he sits with them. What's with that?

Karate lesson one "cobra strike" which seems to be a lunge and the "bite" a punch to the nose, mouth or neck. Kudos to Johnny for getting an actual punching dummy.

I feel like this is the first little kernel of Johnny's 'some mercy' when he looks at Miguel after this example and goes 'uh for only extreme situations' rather than go for the throat.

Johnny did not correct Migue's hands. His thumbs are sticking out.

Robby goes to North Hills High and the vp is Carla Jenkins and Robby has molly on him.

It's kind of funny that Johnny doesn't know what that is, but also makes sense seeing as he rolled the tiniest joint on the planet for the first film.

Like Johnny Robby wears band t-shirts, specifically Misfits.

So plot issue. Small one. Johnny is literally only a few feet away when he's taking this phone call where he says he's this kids dad and yet a big sticking point later is that Miguel doesn't know Johnny has a kid.

Daniel being such a sweet infodumping foodie nerd with his fancy yanagi knife. He made: sashimi he calls "Larusso ponzo toro" which uhhhh is like the fanciest sashimi ever. Omg I didn't realize this is what he tried to feed Kyler before. This is like....wagyu. It's extremely expensive bluefin tuna. Holy moly Daniel what the hell? No wonder Sam and Amanda look so excited. That makes making it for Kyler who doesn't like sushi/fish so much more of an oof, that was such an expensive purchase.

Is that the pickled ginger and wasabi?! They're huge! Daniel for the size of fish you got that's ridiculous. You gotta realize that's ridiculous right bud? Also is that just a bowl of soy sauce? Like a whole bowl?

Daniel didn't like sushi as a teen. (Then why the heck would you buy the rolls royce of fish for a teenage guy you don't know anything about other than your daughter is texting him????)

All these teenagers lying really get Johnny in even more trouble than he already is in.

Uh...so Miguel lives in what apartment 109 and Johnny lives in apartment 2. How does that make sense?

Johnny wrote down that the karate dojo is for teaching karate to anyone who wants to learn karate which is very...him since he doesn't kick anyone out and keeps Stingray.

Dojo is at 6 Herons Nest Reseda meanwhile his apartment is 7428 Saticoy street Reseda. Dude writes in big blocky all capitalized letters for everything which, thanks, easier to read.

So what is the idea here? Daniel leaves his fancy toro behind to go confront whoever owns the cobra kai studio? Is he expecting Johnny or is he expecting Kreese or heck even Silver? Did Kyler tell him any thing else? Did Daniel stay through finding Kyler some fish sticks or something?

They may have been awful Johnny but they were still teenagers.

Daniel is surprised someone is calling Johnny sensei. Like what are you expecting this place to be Daniel? A place without students? A museum? You thought Johnny just moved into a strip mall and decorated it like a dojo because that's gotta be what his house would look like? Or again, did he think someone else was the sensei and Johnny just happened to be around?

[fuckyeah-jessicabiel]

Jessica Biel for Vogue, February 2010

The Real Biel

You can learn all sorts of interesting things about a person on a road trip together. For example: Jessica Biel is a very good driver. She is behind the wheel of a Subaru heading north from Vancouver toward Whistler, one of the ski resorts hosting the Olympics this month. Because of record-breaking snow, Biel has decided to ditch the more traditional plans she’d made for our interview and hit the slopes instead. So here we are, side by side, snacking on trail mix and listening to the sound track to Where the Wild Things Are. In the car in front of us is Biel’s assistant and best friend, Lindsay Ratowsky, who is being driven with all of our bags and equipment. Our mini caravan left Vancouver in the late afternoon in a downpour, and now we are driving in the dark in a snowstorm. Wearing jeans and hiking boots, Biel, who grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and has been snowboarding since she was a kid, is utterly in her element. “This is very much a me moment: in the snow, in the Subaru, listening to music,” she says. “I feel really at peace in this environment.”

It’s a far cry from where we were two hours ago, when Biel had 40 pounds of ammo strapped around her waist and an M4 semiautomatic assault rifle hoisted above her right shoulder. We were on the outskirts of Vancouver in an empty warehouse the size of a Walmart, part of the soundstage where she has been filming The A-Team. Paul, a dashing fellow with a British accent whom Biel describes as the “resident badass,” was teaching her the finer points of racking and reloading. After Biel squeezed off several deafening rounds, Paul calculated the number of mistakes she made and then said, “Twenty-four!” She dropped to the floor and gave him two dozen push-ups. It was only then that I noticed that she is as thin as a teenage boy and all muscle. Her usual Jessica Rabbit curves have all but disappeared, the red-carpet Sex Bomb nowhere to be found.

Who is Jessica Biel? Let’s admit it: She is a bit of a cipher. The girls who read the tabloids think of her as Justin Timberlake’s on-again, off-again girlfriend; my aunt Nancy thinks of her as little Mary Camden from the mid-nineties WB series 7th Heaven; and most men under 40 think of her as the smokin’ hottie who let Adam Sandler massage her breasts in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. I think it is fair to say that Jessica Biel has not yet experienced a unifying cultural moment. In other words: She can still ride the subway, which, in fact, she tells me she just did the other day. “I talked to a girl who liked my shoes,” she says. “ ‘Oh, those are cute. Where’d you get those?’ ‘I got them at Barneys.’ ‘Are you from New York?’ ‘No, I’m from out of town.’ ‘Oh, cool. Nice to talk to you.’ ‘Nice to talk to you!’ ”

My own expectations were equally off-base; I imagined her as a sort of modern-day Raquel Welch. I thought she would purr. But that notion was shattered the instant I met her. It does not take long to figure out that Jessica Biel is a mellow creature, a young woman who appears to be completely at ease with herself and who meets the world on her own terms. I spent nearly two full days with her, and not once did I see her tense up. This is at least partly due to how she was raised. She describes her parents as hippies. “They are major outdoor people,” she says. “They rafted the Grand Canyon when they were in their 20s. They are an incredible couple.”

Her father, Jon, worked for GE for many years and ran his own business consultancy in Boulder. “He is extremely motivated and ambitious,” she says. “I get those qualities from him.” Her mother, Kim, grew up one of six kids in a small town a few hours southwest of Denver where Jessica and her parents both own cabins on adjoining properties. Her mother’s side of the family is part Native American: Those crazy-high cheekbones are shared by her younger brother, mother, and grandmother. When she tells me that her parents dehydrate their own food, culture their own vegetables, and make their own coconut kefir, I can’t help laughing. “I actually do, too!” she says.

One of the benefits of having hippie parents is that they tend to indulge whimsy. Handbell choir! Jazz and tap class! By the time Biel was in her early teens, she was training as a level-six gymnast and starring in local musicals. One summer she took a commercial-acting class. It led to a talent convention in Los Angeles, which landed her an agent and a scholarship to a kids’ acting school. “I was hooked,” she says. It was around this time that her parents started making sacrifices so she could be in L.A. for pilot season. “It was stressful, for sure: my mom leaving my brother when he was so little for months at a time; my dad having to deal on his own. Sometimes I look back and think, God, you guys were crazy for letting some twelve-year-old do what she wanted. I mean, they did everything for me.”

It paid off. In 1996, when she was fourteen, Biel was cast as the levelheaded eldest daughter, Mary Camden, on the weirdly successful Aaron Spelling series 7th Heaven, a treacly morality lesson dressed up as a weekly family drama about a progressive reverend and his family. It ran for eleven seasons and is—get this—the longest-running family drama in television history. But as the show became a staple in Middle America’s living rooms, Biel blossomed into a knockout and began to chafe at the limitations of playing the same Goody Two-shoes year after year. She wanted out. It is now part of showbiz legend—and one of Biel’s enduring regrets—that just a few weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday, she posed nearly naked for the cover of Gear, a magazine owned by Bob Guccione, Jr., and got her wish. If in the end it turned out to be a savvy move, freeing her from a stultifying character, at the time it infuriated her colleagues. Stephen Collins, her TV dad, called it “child pornography,” and Spelling released her from her contract after the fourth season.

Now, as she is focused, laser-like, on getting us through the storm, she seems thoughtful about the whole episode. “I really wanted to go to college, and it all kind of happened at the same time. I did this photo shoot; the photo shoot came out; it was terribly embarrassing. I had to apologize to everybody, including my parents. It was a big learning experience: learning how to have boundaries and how to say no.”

Not surprisingly, Biel has a lot of empathy for young girls dealing with adolescence in front of an audience. “I have this overwhelming motherly feeling toward them. Just do what you gotta do, girls! Hold it together! I wish everyone would just leave them alone.” Biel has clearly figured out the importance of maintaining some semblance of autonomy in a highly scrutinized life. She likes to drive by herself the eighteen hours from L.A. to Boulder with her dogs—even though everyone tells her it’s dangerous. When I mention that Gwen Stefani wrote the song “Just a Girl” about this very phenomenon—pretty girls being cautioned not to go anywhere alone—Biel says, “Rock on, girl. I feel her pain.”

Suddenly we hit a backup on the highway. There has been an accident. If we have a minor accident, it will add drama to the story, I say. “I was thinking that, too!” she says. “Actually, I was just thinking, Where are my gloves? Because if we crash we’ll have to get out, and we’ll have to be warm.” She laughs. “And then I took it to another level: What if I kill him? My other thought was, At least they would test me for drugs and alcohol and I would be clean. I would not go to jail. But you would be dead, and it would be horrible! There’s no good outcome!” We are laughing when we finally pass the scene of the crime. “What is she doing in a skirt?” says Biel, looking at the woman who has obviously caused this mess. “And high-heeled boots?” She looks over at me and smiles. “We are going to get there alive. I just know it. I have good karma.”

If Jessica Biel seems to live a charmed personal life (rumors of breakups notwithstanding), she hasn’t had such great luck in her career. Not long after we arrive at our hotel, we meet for dinner at the restaurant downstairs. Biel shows up wearing black Frye motorcycle boots, dark-blue jeans that look like leggings, a loose black scoop-neck T-shirt, a droopy red Steven Alan cardigan, and a chunky white Chanel watch. Once again, she winds up in the driver’s seat, engaging our waitress on the wine list and then talking me into ordering a Gewürztraminer. At one point she asks the waitress about the halibut. “Is it still in season? Is it nice?” It’s really nice, says the waitress perfunctorily. “I don’t know if I believe you,” Biel says to her in the most startling, matter-of-fact way. “Talk to me more about it.” The waitress admirably rises to the challenge. Finally convinced, Biel orders the dish (and cleans her plate).

The conversation quickly settles on her vexed post-TV career, which goes like this: ill-conceived remake of famous horror film; tragic Bret Easton Ellis adaptation; even more tragic Kim Basinger vehicle; meaningless third installment of Blade franchise; terrible movie; terrible movie . . . The Illusionist! Starring Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti, it is easily the best film Biel has been in. Though it was not a commercial hit, it is a pleasure to watch, and Biel is believable as a Viennese woman from the turn of the last century. “A lot of times people I work with have said, ‘Oh, this movie is going to be the one,’ and then nothing happens. But with The Illusionist I felt it more than ever, that people really started to see me differently.”

And then there is Biel’s run of bad luck with great directors. Cameron Crowe cast her in Elizabethtown, a film that flopped on a grand scale, and David O. Russell gave her the lead in Nailed, based on Kristin Gore’s novel Sammy’s Hill, about a woman with no health insurance who gets a nail lodged in her head and goes to Washington to fight for justice. “Jess was tired of being cast as merely sultry and was more than ready to throw down for all the weird behavior a nail in the head gives her character,” says Russell. “She auditioned and went for it—she is fearless.” Gore (Al’s daughter), who co-wrote the screenplay with Russell, spent three months with Biel on the set in South Carolina. “I think her range is something that has yet to be discovered by the larger world,” she says. “She also has this preternatural self-assurance.” The production shut down because of money problems with just one thing left to shoot: the scene where Biel gets the nail shot into her head. That was in 2008, and with each passing month it grows ever less likely that her most challenging film work to date will make it to the screen.

Meanwhile, the film industry has gone through a major upheaval since the recession. “The last year in this business has been harsh,” says Biel. “There’s no material. Nobody wants to make dramas. And that’s what we all want to do.” What is getting produced, she says, are “commercial movies—horror movies, big romantic comedies, and action movies. Those can be great, but you don’t want to do only those kinds of films. You can’t live on éclairs alone. You have to have a spinach salad every now and again.”

For now, however, she gorges on éclairs. This month she stars in Valentine’s Day, an ensemble romantic comedy, directed by Garry Marshall, that features a galaxy of A-list stars: Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner, Patrick Dempsey, and so on. Biel plays a neurotic sports publicist and toxic bachelorette. “I really get to play crazy,” she says gleefully. “A girl who has hit the wall with wanting to find a man. And I get to do some broad comedy; it’s a little Lucille Ball-esque.” And who better than Garry Marshall to direct her? “She was so eager to do physical comedy, in particular, because she knew I worked with Lucy and with my sister on Laverne & Shirley,” Marshall says. “She sings a wild song in the movie; it’s kind of down-and-dirty singing, and it’s really great.”

Biel and Garner became friends on the shoot. “She’s incredibly girly and warm and open—all of the things she seems to buck against when she’s looking at roles,” says Garner. “The first scene that I did with her, she was drunk in the scene. It’s hard to play drunk, not to overdo it. But she did it in such a subtle, real, kind of pathetic but very, very deeply funny way. I was, take one, totally impressed.”

The dearth of good material has pushed Biel to diversify her portfolio, so to speak. Last August, she was cast alongside Brian Stokes Mitchell when the Los Angeles Philharmonic did a three-night concert version of Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl. Biel took everyone by surprise with what director Richard Jay-Alexander described as her beautiful, “silvery” singing voice. On the last night, she received a rousing standing ovation from 17,000 people. More recently, she landed a part in Lincoln Center Theater’s two-week-long workshop of the musical version of the Pedro Almodóvar classic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, along with Salma Hayek, who plays the lead. “I think they are going to put it up in the fall,” she says hopefully. “And I think they will approach me again.” A girl can dream, can’t she? As far as Garner is concerned, Biel should: “There’s nothing between her and bigger things except for one job.”

The next morning we wake up to discover that the snow has turned to rain. By the time we arrive at the base of the mountain, there is only one gondola running, and the line stretches all the way through the village. Deflated, we decide to eat breakfast in a honky-tonk saloon that reeks of last night’s beer. Amid the German techno music, the Madonna/Justin Timberlake song “4 Minutes” suddenly blasts over the sound system, and we stare down at our plates awkwardly. Biel looks up at me with a big smile on her face and punctures the silence: “Dance break!” (We had another awkward moment in the car during our drive when Biel was talking about her style. “I like really überfeminine, classic-looking things mixed with something rougher around the edges. I’ve been looking at Rihanna a lot, checking her out. She’s got something going on that I am sort of craving a little bit.” I nearly choked on my trail mix. I could not tell whether this was a Freudian slip, some worrisome Single White Female voodoo, or a calculated little piece of spin designed to show me that she is unthreatened by the rumors that her man has eyes for the diva from Barbados.)

Biel and Timberlake have been an item since 2007 and for a long time looked like a happy couple. Recently, however, they have had to endure all manner of tabloid speculation about their private lives. Biel recently laughed off the rumors to a reporter, saying, “It’s definitely been weird and sort of bizarre to deal with. But you have to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Honestly, I look at a magazine and they know more than I do.” Last night at dinner I brought it up and was met with steely resolve. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I don’t feel the need to clear anything up. It’s the most precious thing that I have in my life, and I care about it so much that I don’t care about what anyone says or thinks. I have just not addressed it in any real way, and I’m not going to. It’s mine. And I really like that about it.”

There is something refreshing about a girl with boundaries, someone who has her priorities in order despite the relentlessness of the tabloids and the strangeness of doing drills in some warehouse far away from her own life. And if there is a sense that potentially great things await Jessica Biel—that she has not yet shown us who she is and what she is capable of—it’s hard not to wonder what exactly is holding her back.

One possible answer came up during our dinner, when we were talking about her va-va-voom image—so at odds with how she really is. “When I see myself in pictures with makeup on, even to this day, I think it looks weird. My eyes get squintier and smaller. On the red carpet, I’m playing a character. As soon as I get off that thing I think, Oof, wipe that gloss off. I’m wiping and wiping and pulling my hair out and trying to change my outfit. I’m immediately trying to get comfortable. It’s really a part I play.”

One wonders why she can’t just play herself. In person she projects such a winning and natural beauty. As Jennifer Garner puts it, “She’s not just beautiful, she’s kind of on another level, but there’s an earthiness and a strength to it.” Too much makeup and the wrong dress seem to smother all that, and it’s a disconnect that clearly extends to the roles she chooses.

We eventually make our way up the mountain, and above 1,200 feet, it is snowing: The skiing is sublime. Not surprisingly, Biel is both goofy and confident on her snowboard. Afterward, we head back to the hotel lounge; her assistant, Lindsay, joins us, and Biel orders an old-fashioned. At one point someone took a picture of her on the slopes and she said to me, “Smile for Biel.” Now she explains: “My grandmother, whom we call Biel, thinks it’s very unbecoming of me not to smile for the paparazzi. So every time I see them I think, Smile for Biel!”

This is a reminder of why Jessica Biel is so grounded: Her family keeps her that way. When I point this out, she says, “I might just be way too boring to ever be a really great actress.” Great actresses can live boring lives, I say. It’s great stars who kick dust up everywhere they go.

“I don’t do that,” says Biel. “Maybe I should do a little bit more of that.” She laughs at the thought. “A dust kicker-upper might be kind of fun. . . .”

Lindsay pipes up: “Think of your life if you were like that, though. I would probably hate you. Your boyfriend probably wouldn’t be that into you. You’d be a big bitch.” But it’s clear that Lindsay thinks the world of her boss. “If you met her at a barbecue, you would never know that she was a movie star,” she says. “To her friends, Jess is the most compassionate, caring, kind, loving, wonderful human being that they know.”

“See?” says Biel. “Nothing that interesting!”

[rottedbrainz]

So kind of random but do you have any headcannons on Janice's twin sister, or maybe any on the idea of Lips being Zoey's dad (for some reason my laptop won't let me put in question marks). Last one in particular I think is a super neat idea and I think Zoey and Lips's personalities mesh well together!

Oh! Well actually I have been doodling Janice and her sister for the pass few days and I've come up with some headcanons! Not just with them as sisters but also them being older sisters to Lips!

I will be referring to Janice's sister as S because I'm confident that she will get a name sometime in the future.

☆Soo Janice and S have a very strained relationship with one another. I imagine that , though she would never admit it, that S is a little jealous of Janice. Not of the fame; but of her friends, Floyd, and pretty much just the care free life Janice has.

☆ S has a much different life than Janice. While Janice went out and traveled, S stayed close to home for college. When Janice was risking it becoming a musician, S got a safe job. (taking over Rose's beauty business it's totally canon 👀). While Janice was out with multiple partners, S settled and started her own little family. (I've been drawing up some designs for potential kids).

☆ They were color coded twins. S being purple and Janice being yellow.

☆ They had a good relationship growing up, always trying to pull classic twin shenanigans. But just like how all sisters do ,they fight. Now I'm drawing these next few examples from my own life cause I got 3 sisters and these are all true events.

- S was taking a shower and Janice dropped in live fish bait (worms)

- S got mad at Janice one day and while Janice was laying down, S dropped a rock straight on her teeth. Causing Janice's tooth to chip.

- They lock mom out of the car and start trying to drive it.

☆ S and Janice were okay older sisters They loved Lips, but they also liked to laugh at him. I imagine whenever Lips got his lips stuck to the trumpet Janice and S laughed their asses off. But they would always make it up to him by trying to make him feel better.

Now Lips and Zoey. I don't know what made me think of the idea of just dropping a random kid into Lip's life. But I did it and honestly I thought people would have forgotten abt it by now. But let's began.

☆ So Lips has the title of a professor or some sort of doctorates since he gives lectures at universities. So I imagine that he would Zoey having a rock hyperfixation and try to help her get as much information about rocks as possible. He's egard to help her learn about things that she's passionate in.

☆ He loves watching Zoey mess with Elmos head. He thinks it's hilarious that they argue like siblings. Elmos parents aren't to keen on it though and ask Lips to stop encouraging Zoey.

☆ He likes to makes her clothes from his old baggy clothes.

☆ He loves doing activities that would be seen as girly by most. Play dress up, making bracelets, painting her nails, and letting her do his hair." Anything to make Zoey happy" is what he would say whenever anyone questioned why he'd let Zoey do it.

☆ Him and the rest of the band volunteers at Zoeys preschool as music teachers and help teach the kids instruments and music.

☆ Zoey has an old electric Mayhem t shirt that she's wears almost every night as pajamas.

☆ I'm a multi shipper whenever it comes to Lips. So I just see him as a single dad and whenever he does search for a potential partner he always says this "Look I got a daughter and she comes first. If you don't think you can handle it, then I don't think this is gonna work." And most people respect it, other people get pissed.

☆ Also this might be unrelated. But for some reason I see Yolanda and Lips as besties. So I totally see Yolanda being Zoeys God mom and baby sitting her whenever Lips needs to do something.

☆ I'm not quite sure what her relationship with the rest of the band is. All I know is her and Janice have aunt and niece dates.

This was kinda long. Was not expecting myself to have so many headcanons.

[gifseafins]

Chapter 1

I hope you like the first chapter of my first fic Bheem and Jenny. This baby is so young he doesn't even have a name yet. That's right, this fic still hasn't got a name, ideas? I got it @ronaldofandom​ hope you like it!

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That day was certainly a day of extreme learning and discoveries for me. Through Lachu, I could learn the truth about Malli's life and the cruelty my uncles imposed on their tribe. Through Bheem's foster family and friends, learn the truth about her life. Through Sita, learning the truth about Ram and the deep pain he has carried since he was a child. . The hours that all of us stood on that hill, just waiting, hoping to see Bheem and Raju safe and alive again seemed endless. But that time served to show me how small and silent I was in the face of everything that happened around me. . I was wrong not to question my aunt about the child's origin in our house and why she was in a room with bars and being constantly watched. If I didn't believe that Indians were just "brown savages" as they said, why in god's name did I allow people in my house to think that about a child? . I was wrong not to have noticed the desperation in Bheem's eyes when he was in my house, mistakenly believing that all that emotion was just curiosity for a new world before him. When Malli's singing echoed through the halls, I was so used to it that I didn't even react, I was so frustrated at not being able to talk to Bheem properly that I didn't realize the desperation in his actions upon hearing the same chant. . I was wrong in not questioning myself more about Raju's presence and authority, nor the ease with which he could enter anywhere. The invitation to the Gymkhana Club party was just for Bheem, how did he also get past the guards at the gate? And how did the women at the party know his name? He shouldn't know anyone in the palace... . But I didn't care or question anything that happened around me. Always safe in my pink world, where everything was accessible and perfect. . And there, on that hill and among those flowers, as we all waited for Bheem and Raju to return, I made a decision. . I would no longer be the helpless and uninformed damsel! I would not allow children to be hurt in front of me! I would no longer allow myself to be used as a torture toy by others, because that was my uncles' intention when they dragged me onto the dais during Bheem's flogging. . -If he looks at us, even for a minute and sees you there, he will understand that he is nobody compared to you. -And never again will he dare to take with anyone the freedom he dared to take with you. -He will never dare to deceive another girl again. . And for sure, I would no longer hold back my urge to spit in the face of anyone who dared to say something like what my uncle had said to me that day. I wasn't a victim, I wasn't tricked. I wanted to be with Bheem! I wanted to get on his motorcycle! I wanted to walk with him that afternoon! I wanted him to come to the party! I wanted to dance with him! I wanted to take it to my house! And god knows, if it weren't for the exaggerated modesty I was raised with, I would really have had everything I wanted that day... . Everyone was alerted to the sound of a car approaching that place. And everyone was surprised by the presence of a truck coming towards us. But everyone exploded with joy when they saw that Bheem was driving that truck, and that he was not alone, Raju was there with him. That they were both alive and safe! . When Bheem came to thank me for all the help I'd given him in giving him the prison maps, and in the search for Lachu. Bheem reached his hand out to me. Always polite and kind, never crossing any type of barrier without proper authorization! . And the old Jenny would have accepted that gesture, and gratefully. But the new Jenny wanted a hug, and she was going to get one! With a certain abruptness I took her hand away and pulled him to me. And the moment he hugged me back, the joy in me was so great, that if God decided to kill me at that moment, I would die happy! . I loved this man from the beginning! Since before I knew who he was... Since before he knew what he really wanted... And before I even knew from Peddayya, why Bheem was always hanging around the palace. That in the beginning, it was to look for information about Malli, but later, it was for the hope of being able to see me again! . And despite all the banter this truth generated in our group, my favorite part was when after hearing this, Malli proceeded to call me Jenny akka. Malli started calling me sister! . My family had a small property in that region. The house was considered so small that my uncles simply ignored its existence. Believing that disuse will leave the house in ruins and uninhabitable. But again, and lucky for us, they were wrong. . And the house was certainly small by English standards, but it was perfect for us. Perfect for that moment! Perfect for giving everyone what they needed most. A good night's sleep, peaceful and safe. . The tall weeds that surrounded the house made the perfect camouflage available. But that didn't stop Bheem and the others from creating various sound traps to warn them if anyone came near the house. And not even establishing watch shifts to ensure everyone's safety. A small argument arose between the men when Mr. Ahmed suggested that Bheem and Raju be off the roster. . -My son didn't even have time to recover from his imprisonment and torture and had to use his last strength in this escape. -And the same for Raju, or do you think I didn't notice, that my son changed the medicine in his legs four times in the last twenty minutes? -Both need to rest, and more than any of us! . -Mister Ahmed is right! . Peddayya's voice and the authority contained in it, drawing everyone's attention. . -Bheem is strong, he always was, that's why he is our protector. -But he is also human and his body has already reached its limit several times in the last few days. -And the same for you Raju, it's no use changing the medicine all the time. -If you don't rest, and give yourself some down time, you run the risk of turning that pain into something continuous, and carrying it with you forever. . The silence that followed this truth, only broken by the voice of Mrs. Fátima. . -Everything settled here? -The food is ready ! . And while everyone was enjoying the meal made by Sita and Mrs. Fatima, a feeling of uselessness again hit me hard. I couldn't help with the traps like Sita. What did I understand about battles anyway? I couldn't help with meal prep as everyone else did in some way. Whether cooking, or searching among the trees for condiments and seasonings. What did I understand about cooking? . After all, what did I understand about serving others? The perfect English maiden, always asking and never thanking anyone for anything... I stared at my plate for a few minutes. Plunged into my own anguish. Trying somehow to really understand my role in this story full of heroes. . I was so distracted by my own misery that I didn't even notice Malli's approach until she sat down next to me and started talking to me. In her hands, the bracelet that Bheem made in the market for me to give her. Another proof of how ignorant I was about the world around me. Malli's emotion when looking at that bracelet was not something normal, and I didn't even question myself as to why... . జెన్నీ అక్క. మీరు నాకు ఆ బ్రాస్లెట్ ఇచ్చినప్పుడు మీకు గుర్తుందా? దానిపై చెక్కబడిన ఈ చిత్రాలన్నీ మీకు కనిపిస్తున్నాయా? అన్నయ్య తన చేయి మరియు కాలుపై ఇవే డిజైన్లను టాటూలుగా వేయించుకున్నాడు. ఇవి గోండు రక్షకుని గుర్తులు. ఇవన్నీ అన్నయ్య మచ్చిక చేసుకున్న అడవి జంతువులు. మరియు అన్నయ్య నిన్ను విశ్వసిస్తే అతను చుట్టూ ఉన్నాడని నాకు సందేశం పంపండి. ఎందుకంటే మీరు నమ్మకమైన వ్యక్తి, న్యాయమైన ఆత్మ మరియు మంచి హృదయంతో ఉన్నారు. అందుకే ఆ రోజు నిన్ను కౌగిలించుకున్నాను. అన్నయ్య నిన్ను నమ్మితే నేనూ! . Sita must have understood my expression of confusion at Malli's speech. Because she wasted no time approaching us and translating each of her words. . -Jenny akka. -Do you remember when you gave me that bracelet? -Do you see all these drawings that are engraved on it? -Annayya has these same designs tattooed on her arm and leg. -These are the marks of the Protector of Gond. -These are all the jungle animals annayya has ever tamed. -And if annayya trusted you to send me the message that he was around. -It was because you were a trustworthy person, with a fair soul and a good heart. -And that's why I hugged you that day. -If Annayya trusts you, I trust you too! . -And I have never erred in my judgments! . Bheem's voice and her perfect smile bring tears to my eyes. Making me fall in love with him even more. . -Yeah, sure, you've never been wrong before. . The irony in Lachu's voice as he nodded his head at Raju brought a smile to everyone's faces. Except Raju's! Any expression of happiness completely disappearing from his face, with the truth behind that irony shown by Lachu. But before Raju could say anything Lachu's voice was heard by everyone. . -Don't even think about it soldier. -Don't you dare apologize to me, not again! -I already told you, I heard your story and understand your actions. -But I'm not ready to forgive you. -Not yet ! -I promise not to kill you, but I won't forget what happened so easily. . -Sleep with one eye open for good measure. -Lachu is terrible at keeping promises. . Jangu's sentence broke the tension that that moment had created. . And little by little, everyone returned to their meals. Enjoying, not just the food on their plates, but the silence and peace they hadn't experienced in a long time. Not for an instant while eating did Bheem allow his attention to stray from Jenny. Having her there, with him, in that moment... Seeing how well she gets along with her friends, her family, with Malli... At that moment, Bheem had only one desire in his heart. That he could keep Jenny by his side forever! . The division over who would sleep where was resolved more easily than Jenny thought. The house had 3 bedrooms. One room would only be for the women, Jenny, Sita, Mistress Fatima, Mehreen and Malli Both Malli and Mehreen, who up to that point had become great friends, loved the idea. . One room would go to Raju and his uncle. And that same room ended up by accident, turning into a medical center. Raju's knees were not showing any signs of improvement. The English had been particularly vicious in their aggression. Making sure the nerves and tendons were stretched to near breaking point. If not for the poultice Bheem had administered to Raju after his escape. There was a high chance that he would have died from the pain or fever caused by the infection. . Because of this, all the herbs and medicinal preparations that were with Peddayya ended up being placed there. Mr. Venkateswarulu, Raju's uncle, was extremely interested in preparing the medicines. And he and Peddayya spent several hours talking and exchanging medicinal knowledge. . And the last room would belong to Bheem and Mr. Ahmed. But Mr. Ahmed, to everyone's surprise, said he didn't want a separate room. That he would be sleeping in the doorway of the women's room to give them even more protection. Which left the room just for Bheem... As for the rest, they would sleep in the living room. Which would also make it easier when changing shifts during surveillance. . -Then that's it ? -Does Bheem sleep alone in a closed room? -Can we escape the torture of your snoring? . Jangu's joke brought a smile to everyone's face. But even the joy of that moment didn't save him from receiving a pillow thrown by Bheem in his face. As night approached, everyone slowly started to go their separate ways. With the men taking their places on watch and the rest going to sleep. . But it didn't matter what Jenny did. She just couldn't sleep... Jenny didn't know how hard she had fought to be born from her mother's womb. But that night, in order to be reborn, she was fighting a lot! . Everything she knew, everything she learned about the world. Coming into direct conflict with the reality of the world around her. Each class, each step, each modesty and modesty... All falling to the ground, and being crushed under the feet of a new woman. A new Jenny! . And this new Jenny knew exactly what, and who, she wanted. As quietly as possible, so as not to wake the women, Jenny left the room. Taking care not to step on Mr. Ahmed, as he had long promised her, and he was sleeping next to the door of the women's room. Holding back the urge to laugh, discovering that the snoring she could hear, when she was still in the room, belonged to Jangu. . Jenny took a few minutes in front of the room where Raju was. Admiring in silence the scene she had seen inside. Raju was lying on his bed peacefully. And his uncle was beside him, sleeping sitting on a chair. One of his hands, resting protectively over his nephew's head. . And Jenny couldn't help but wonder how many times he must have done this. With Raju's childhood, or rather the lack of it. How many times has this man been the protective hand over his nephew? Taking you away from your fears, whether they were real or nocturnal? . Getting to Bheem's room only took a few minutes, but for Jenny it took forever. The door was ajar and Jenny could see Bheem sleeping peacefully in his bed. She quietly entered the room, locking the door behind her. . -Jenny ? . When Bheem's voice sounded behind her, Jenny knew there was no turning back. And even if one were heard, Jenny would ignore it. A new woman was born that night and she was desperate for life. Of being free to love, regardless of who she loved. Of being loved, regardless of who she herself was. And it was time to let this new Jenny live!!!!

[cicimunson]

Dungeons and Darlings Part 2

Chapter Summary: The next day, you learn that someone was murdered in Forest Hills Trailer Park. You're relieved when you discover Eddie is alive, but his explanation about what happened is hard to believe...

Characters: Eddie Munson x Female Reader, OC aunt of reader, Nancy Wheeler, Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley, Max Mayfield

Warnings: Depictions of violence and death

Part 1 3 4

The next day, you oversleep and don't roll out of bed until noon. You're slumped over the kitchen table sipping juice when your aunt sprints into the kitchen, looking worried.

"You couldn't answer the fucking phone, Y/N?"

You blink at her. "Huh? Were you expecting a call?'

She huffs impatiently. "No, you little dummy. I was the one calling. I got worried when you didn't pick up and came home on my lunch break to check on you."

"What? Why?" She's never checked in before. Hell, I could be dead in my room and it'd take her days to notice, and it would only be because of the smell.

"You haven't heard what's going on?"

"I just woke up, Auntie." You reply with faux sweetness.

"Y/N." She sits down beside you, clicking her long manicured fingers on the table, something she did when she was nervous. "I’m just gonna come out and say it. Sweetie, a kid from your school is dead. They were found in the Forest Hills Trailer Park."

Oh God no. It can't be.

"Do we know who it was?" You will yourself to stay calm.

"No, but you know Gabby, my receptionist? She lives over there. She said it was Wayne Munson's trailer where they found the body."

Blood rushes to your head and the room starts to spin. This is not happening. It's not. I'm dreaming or something.

"Y/N? Honey, I didn't mean to upset you. But Gabby said the police were saying this is a murder and I just got to thinking about you being home alone, and you know how worked up I get…" She continues blabbing while you struggle to hear her over the pounding in your ears.

I can't have another friend fucking die on me. I can't do it. Oh God, what the fuck happened, Eddie? What happened? Please, please be okay.

"Y/N, did you hear me? I said I want you to come to the salon with me. You shouldn't be by yourself today." Your aunt continues, taking a large gulp of your juice. You stare at her for a few moments, still trying to understand what she's saying.

Eddie. I gotta make sure it's not Eddie. "I gotta- I gotta go." You stand up quickly, almost knocking your chair over. "I'll call you."

Your aunt rises to her feet as well. "Where are you going? I just told you a killer could be on the loose!" You're already halfway out of the kitchen, heading for the front door. You fish your keys out of the bowl on the coffee table and slip on a pair of sandals, not bothering to change out of your pajamas.

"Y/N!" Your aunt calls from the stoop as you sprint down the front walk. "At least tell me where you're going!"

You act as if you don't hear her as you hurriedly start your car and speed out of the driveway, not bothering with a seatbelt. You make the fifteen minute drive to Forest Hills in half the time. The police are blocking the entrance but you slam the gear shift up into park and sprint from your car, running towards the small crowd standing in front of the trailer. An officer starts to approach you but someone waves them off.

"Y/N!" Nancy Wheeler calls out to you. "Are you okay?"

"Was it Eddie?" You stop in front of her and bend over, resting your palms on your thighs as you gasp for breath. "The dead kid, is it him?"

She shakes her head. "No, it's not Eddie. The police are looking for him though. Have you seen him?"

Not Eddie. She said it's not Eddie. Oh, thank God.

"Y/N?" Nancy touches your shoulder, a concerned look on her face. "I know you were at Hellfire last night, have you seen Eddie since then?"

Why is she talking like that? Her tone is almost accusing.

"If I had seen him, would I have run my ass off to get here and make sure he wasn't dead? Come on Wheeler, I thought you wanted to be a detective or investigator or something."

She bristles and scowls at you. "Investigative journalist."

"Well, Madam journalist, I haven't seen him. If I do, I'll let him know you wanna schedule an interview." She doesn't respond as you turn on your heel and head back to your car, mockingly saluting the cop you had managed to run past. "Officer."

"This is a closed off crime scene, miss. Let's not be causing any trouble. Return to your vehicle."

"Yup." Once you're in your car, you sit silently for a few seconds, then let out a sob of relief. He's not dead. Your friend didn't die. You're not cursed. You dash away the tears on your cheeks and drive towards town, searching every ditch and driveway for Eddie's van. If it wasn't Eddie in the trailer, who was it? And where the fuck is he? You're trying to come up with a game plan when you spy two of the kids from Hellfire rushing into the video store. You pull into a spot and park, hurrying in after them.

"HI, welcome to-"

"Where's Eddie?" You cut off the tall guy behind the counter who's staring you up and down, as you become painfully aware that you're dressed in only a tank top with no bra and a pair of low cut shorts that could almost be described as boxers.

"Cute jammies, Y/N. You here to rent The Last Unicorn?" You recognize Robin from your aunt's salon.

"Can it, Buckley. I'm here to talk to these two." You gesture to the kids standing behind the counter. "Do either of you know where Eddie is?"

They glance at each other, clearly having a mental debate over whether or not to confide in you.  We don't know where he is." The taller one answers, looking uncertain.

You lean over the counter, staring him down. "You're Nancy's brother, right?"

"Yeah, Mike. We met last night." He swallows hard, looking nervous.

"You wouldn't be lying to me, now, would you, Mike?"

He shakes his head.

You sure?"

"Stop harassing the kids, they just said they don't know." The tall man steps in front of them.

You smirk ."Who are you, their mommy?"

"Y/N, they really don't know where he is. That's why they're here. They wanna get phone numbers of his friends from our rental list to see if anyone's heard from him." Robin explains. "So chill out."

You pause, surprised. "Wow, that's actually really clever." You half-smile at the shorter boy who's offering you a big grin, looking pleased with himself. "You came up with that idea?"

"Yeah. I'm Dustin, by the way. We met last night too."

"So you're gonna track him down, hmm? Need some help?"

He nods but Mike shakes his head. "Dustin, we don't know if we can trust her."

"She's Eddie's friend, we can totally trust her."

"Right, right. Trust the drug dealer's friend, that's a great plan." The older guy chimes in.

You scowl. "And who are you, other than annoying?"

He smirks at you. "I'm Steve. Harrington. You've probably heard of me."

"Nope." You turn away from him and back to Dustin. "You got a list of names?"

"Working on it now."

__________

"Whoa, whoa, Eddie, chill out!" You plead. "Come on, put it down!"

"Eddie, it's me! It's Dustin. Come on man, we're on your side." Eddie stares at Dustin, wide-eyed and frightened. He's not himself. Something is really wrong. You slip forward slightly so that if he does attack any of you, the kids have a chance to run. He barely registers you, his eyes scanning the room before landing back on Dustin.

"Eddie, they're friends. They wanna help. Please, let Steve go." He pleads. "You're okay. Everything's gonna be okay."

Eddie hesitates, but Dustin nods encouragingly and he slowly releases Steve, who audibly sighs with relief. "Eddie, talk to us. We wanna know what happened. We'll believe you, no matter what. I promise." Dustin reassures him.

Eddie seems to relax slightly, but his hands shake as he leans against the wall and pushes his hair out of his face. "I don't- I don't know where to start, man. I don't know what fucking happened."

"Just start at the beginning. Take your time. We’ll listen."

Eddie walks you through all the details. You're shocked, disbelief clear to read on your face. Your eyes move back and forth to the faces of the others, but none of them seem to be having the same reaction as you. Was he super high and hallucinating? There's no way he killed anyone, but does he maybe not remember what he actually saw?

Eddie's eyes meet yours, pleading with you to believe him. Pleading with everyone to believe him.

"I know you're telling the truth. We've had, um, well-" Dustin struggles to find the right words.

"We believe you." Max interjects. "We've had, well, similar experiences."

Huh? What does she mean, similar experiences?

"Yeah, just know that we understand. We know you're being honest, and we understand." Robin chimes in.

His eyes flicker to you once more. Is everyone here high? Did a gas line bust in town? I mean, what the literal fuck- Robin nudges you. Eddie is still staring at you, and you realize you're the only person who hasn't often any words of comfort.

"Uh, yeah, Eddie. If you say that's what happened, it's what happened." They all continue talking and you slip to the back of the room, zoning out once more. Maybe I'm still asleep. Maybe this is a crazy freak nightmare. Oh! Maybe-

"It's real." You're jolted from your train of thought. Steve is standing in front of you, a hand on your shoulder. "I know it sounds crazy, and really scary. I was in your shoes not that long ago. But the quicker you accept it, the quicker you come to terms with it and it's not as scary anymore."

Easier said than done, dude.

He continues: "I know, it's a lot. But we've dealt with worse than this and we come out on top every time. We're the winning team, Y/N. We're the good guys."

"Steve, we gotta go." Dustin urges.

The others start to head out, but you're basically frozen in place, glued to the spot. Eddie is still a shaking mess. He's dirty and tired and your heart aches when you look at him.

"Y/N, you coming?" Robin calls back to you.

Eddie glances up at you, and the look on his face makes the decision for you.

"You guys go. I'm gonna stay with Eddie.'

[wastewaifs]

If they’re scared, who do they want comfort from? Does this answer change depending on the type of fear? What language would be easiest for them to learn? Why? What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific! (for ruth!)

What’s their instinct in a fight / flight / freeze / fawn situation? What do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? How do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding? What’s the worst gift they ever received? How did they respond? (for funke!)

if they're scared, who do they want comfort from? does this answer change depending on the type of fear? annoyingly -- funke! it only matters a little that he is her ONLY option :) she doesn't want him to say anything because what comes out usually isn't helpful at all and just makes her frustrated -- but his presence, as foul as it is, is a safe, secure, and grounding one. even when she makes other friends, funke's always going to be the one she comes back to because funke has seen her at her worst and loved her just as much as he does during those 9-12 minutes every week where she's nice to him. get funke'd baby

what language would be easiest for them to learn? why? uhhh i don't know why russian was the first one to pop into my head but there we go! maybe because it can be a Shouty language and ruth loves to be Shouting.

what’s something that makes them laugh every single time? be specific! funke sings the isley brother's who's that lady? pt 1 AND 2 to her and does ALL the bits. i think she likes it so much because it's stupidly gender-affirming, but it's also a 7-minute song and he does the full thing, including the 4-minute guitar solo, which is also the worst part of his rendition to listen to. he makes Motions with his body while this is happening. unique to witness ...

what’s their instinct in a fight / flight / freeze / fawn situation? the fifth f: fart :) big fart!

what do they commonly misinterpret because of their own upbringing / environment / biases? how do they respond when realizing the misunderstanding? this is an interesting question. maybe like -- how comfortable people are with him. i'd imagine given his very loose upbringing it's really easy for funke to overstep boundaries and i think he's had to do a lot of learning in his time. there's also another layer to this because he is starved of affection/attention and when someone isn't immediately repulsed by him that's the biggest green flag Ever and he gets very very eager. ruth has been an excellent experience for him. he's getting so good at picking up on subtler signs and confronting/changing his behaviour and letting the other person decide the pace. his response is not overly apologetic but always sincere.

what’s the worst gift they ever received? how did they respond? idk, funke is so easily satisfied lmao and it's not in his nature to make someone feel bad about something like that! i think i'll go with the tulip bulbs his aunt linda gave him one christmas. he was 12. he wanted comics or a clash record. no one even knows where she got the fucking tulips but they did know that she had lost all her money at the races... looool classic linda! he still gave her a huge hug and let her talk to him all night about the horse that totally fucked her over. he threw the tulip bulbs at their landlord's car from his bedroom window while he was driving away. :)

[renee-writer]

Young Turks Chapter Nineteen

AO3

“Are you sure?” He asks again. She nods. Both their first year of college is complete and they are going to start trying. It is a big thing and they have spoken to their mates and parents about it.

 

Ellen, anxious for grandchildren, is all for it. “You have handled all types of grownup things. You can handle this. After all, we will be right here to babysit.”

 

Brian, a bit more pragmatic, disagrees. “You have and we will but, Claire has a long way to go in her schooling. It seems like a better plan to wait. You are young with plenty of time.”

 

Harriet is over the moon at the idea of being an aunt. “I took the babysitter class at school. Learned first aid and everything. I won’t even charge you much.” Claire had laughed and hugged her tight.

 

“Thanks squirt.” Her parents now…

 

“There is no doubt you are doing better than expected.” Her dad started off, “and that is wonderful. But this. It is quite difficult being a parent. It isn’t like seeing to your little sister. This is a human you will be fully responsible for. On top of school.”

 

“Whatever you decide, we will support. You are both adults. Very young adults,” a sigh, “but adults nevertheless. This is your decision.” Julia adds.

 

Geillis simply stares at her. Then she shakes her head while smiling. “Make me the Godmother.”

 

Marsali and Claudel, who they had over for tea, both offered their hardy support.

 

“It is a bit crazy but so is marrying so young. You are making that work. I believe you can make this work too.” Marsali says.

 

Claudel adds, “Ouí, a bit, how you say, crazy. You two are deeply in amour. The children should be born out of such. From passionate love making come beautiful babies.” He raises the glass of wine to them, “To the beautiful children our dear friends shall make.”

 

“Very sure. This is right. I can feel it deep in my heart.”

 

They throw the unused rubbers away and , as Claudel said, make passionate love.

 

It is summer holiday so they have a lot of time together. Jamie is still working for his da and the other farmers around them. Claire studies preparing for the work ahead. She expects to be off a few quarters to have their baby.

 

They spend time with Geillis, Marsali, and Claudel, who Jamie made a quick mate too. Still young adults  they go to the clubs were they dance to The Go Go’s, Paul McCartney, Madonna, and others. Claire doesn’t drink and because she doesn’t , neither does Jamie. They become the couple that drives everyone else home.

 

“I think tonight will be the night Fergus and I…” Marsali tells Claire and Geillis. They sit at a table in the back of their favorite club.

 

“Girl, you haven’t !” Geillis throws her arms up in the air, “as bloody fine as your man is?”

 

The other lass blushes. “I am a virgin.” She confesses as if it were a sin.

 

“I think that is wonderful.” Claire reassures her. “You love him?”

 

“With every fiber in me.”

 

“He love you?” Geillis asks.

 

“He does.” She leans in close and her mates join her, making a zone of confidentiality, “ he wants to marry me. It is just convincing my mum. She doesn’t like him to much.”

 

“Screw her! You are an adult. Do like Claire here and elope. You guys can stay with me like did until you get a place.”

 

“He has one but thank you, Geillis.”

 

“Well there you go.” She checks the time on her watch. “I believe the register’s office is still open. Come let’s fetch the lads and get you married today.”

 

“Geillis, slow down. She may not want to…”

 

“Oh, but I do.” Claire is swept into their excitement. Jamie and Claudel are playing pool. They walk up and Marsali takes her man’s hand. “Wanna get married?”

 

“Ouí, I love you. Let’s  get married.”

 

They pile into Jamie’s car.  Geillis directs them and they are soon witnessing the union of Marsali and Claudel. Tears and shouts as they kiss. They drop the newlyweds off at Claudel’s flat and head back to the Fraser’s to celebrate.

 

Later, they figure out that is when their child was conceived.

[actuallyanansi]

Do all of them except you switch two answers and don't say which ones

ask and ye shall receive

Yellow: i want to live somewhere with decent public transportation, a large public library, and an international airport nearby, ideally with few cops and fewer natural disasters.

Orange: when i'm not in bed, i usually want to be in bed. when i am in bed, i usually want to still be in bed, but at a nice hotel.

Lilac: my dream is to be in an unfamiliar city with striking features, good food, and a long history, alone, with an internet connection and enough english or french to get by. barring that, a beach resort is fine.

Beige: picture it: two guys, curly hair, perfect smiles, and i was making out with both of them surrounded by soft white linens. people kept walking through the background and interrupting, but they never stayed too long.

White: he was a vegan jock i met sophomore year on a local campus app, and his roommate had just moved out. because i lived at home, way off campus, and never hung out with anyone, our hookup was the first time i had actually seen a dorm room at the college i attended. i remember vividly that his mouth tasted like wet dirt, and i lied to my parents about where i was a lot over the week we spent together—not because it really mattered, but because i could. our whatever we had ended...poorly, but what a rush those first few days were. after he ghosted me, i downloaded grindr.

Purple: he was almost miraculously kind (and also very cute), he took my concerns about covid safety seriously, he bought me dinner on j*ff b*zos' dime, and he let me subject him to the incredible pinoy drama gaya sa pelikula (the best limited television series of 2020, argue with your mother). we still talk daily, and i'm so thankful i met him ☺️

Tangerine: physically, i don't have much of a type. i tend to like guys who are grounded and even-keeled, but interesting enough to keep up with me in conversation. guys who can translate those conversations into making out on the couch. guys with rich inner lives who enjoy my attention without needing it, who enjoy giving me attention in a way that isn't just compulsive. guys who are smart when i am stupid

Gray: he was kinda dumb and probably toxic, and i tell myself i didn't know better at the time, but i did! he also gave me strep 💜 (and i still went back 💜)

Green: i was in the car with my aunt and my dad. he was driving us home from visiting nana in hospice. there was a rainbow over I-75 that lasted for miles. they discussed the details of her car insurance, the will we couldn't find, how my uncle, my dad's twin brother, was supposed to inherit her little house. we were still pretending to hope she would wake up; we were no longer pretending to hope she would wake up. my dad pulled off the highway to stop at a wendy's. we had gone without food for most of the day. the three of us ate in the car and spent a few minutes talking about the new strawberry frosty. my aunt had used a coupon to get hers for free. at some point, we kept driving. there was nothing left to talk about. the rainbow was gone by then.

Gold: he was a friend of a friend, and we spent a few weeks carefully circling the elephant in the room before we finally admitted we were into each other. it was extremely goofy how long it took us to work up the courage to even kiss, but i also don’t regret it. he was a sweetheart, and it’s hard not to think back on it fondly ☺️

Black: as a child, for some reason i knew how to pronounce the word nazi before i knew how to spell it. for some reason after i learned how it was spelled i assumed people had been pronouncing it wrong, and i tried to "correct" it while talking to my mom. the way she laughed…i will never recover, i fear 😔

Blue: i cannot remember the last time i spoke to someone i knew in elementary school. baruch hashem 💜

Magenta: around the age of eleven or twelve, i used to legitimately wonder whether my brother would grow up to meet the requirements for the antichrist, and then i'd feel intense guilt about it

Red: i write poetry against my better judgment. i read, sometimes. i watch video essays. i play piano. i cook, i bake, i listen to podcasts, i doomscroll. i start new obsessions and drop them.

Violet: bestie i didn't even plan on attending the college where i did four years of undergrad, so i'm really not pinning too much hope on any specific school in the future. that being said, i am begging all wealthy potential patrons to make grad school feasible. so mackenzie scott, if you're reading this,,

Brown: our culture puts so many expectations around traditional relationships that it's hard not to feel exhausted, and historically i'm also fairly bad at them. fwbs usually offer less risk and more reward, but also i'm trying to move beyond the idea that either of these has to look like anything in particular.

Peach: i've never taken a class from her per se, but mariame kaba has had a greater impact on my education more than just about any other individual person. as far as actual professors go, dr. jen cohen was a pretty good one, and the only econ professor i had who told the truth about how capitalism worked. (thanks for letting me sit in on your class when i wasn't really supposed to!)

Pink: anansi has such a vast mythology and is kind of an aspirational figure in a lot of ways. (not the part about being a spider.) it's about the subversion of the presupposed order of things, the capacity for gracious failure and the potential for unexpected success, the shaping of a story through its telling and retelling...

[lianailia]

Update:

So a lot has happened! I went and saw a condo that went up on a Fri. We went on Sun. Put in an offer, not thinking we were going to get it. Found out the next day that I got it!!!! I'm so excited! It's not closed on until the 13th and then I'll want to paint and clean the carpets. Then I can move. Lol and everyone is like "She can have this thing!" And I'm like chill. I won't know until I get in. But I do appreciate everyone offering and I'll have my Aunt's truck and trailer to move. And their help. Plus all of my friends. It was just kind of like the house we live in now where it came up, parents made a cash offer. It was accepted that same week. Crazy. (Now the market is crazy and houses and apartments cost way more. So this condo really is a Godsend.) Plus we have a great realtor. Then I meet with the disability lawyer soon and figure out how to move my assets so I can qualify for SSI, so that I CAN pay rent. But signed the contract saying it was in my name and ahhh! Next is getting a car. Might go tomorrow just to look. Then I have this week to test drive. I have no clue what I want. Heh

Next awesome thing happened on Thurs. Met with some friends from the Slayers chat before the Lindsey Stirling concert! Dinner was fun. We went to an Irish pub. Then the concert....

Please go. Please please please. Even if you don't like classical or instrumental music, she has something for everyone. It really is not just pretty violin music. She has such creative set designs, she makes all of her costumes, and has all of the choreo for her dancers. She's learned the acrobat ring and has a crazy act with that during one of the songs. I'm not giving too much away. You still will be amazed. Especially during the one song. The only thing is I wish Surrender was played. It's my fav from the new album. And I would have liked Sleepwalking, since I couldn't record it the last time. (My phone was dying because of the space.) But other than that perfect. Walk Off the Earth was the OP band and they were great. They had 2 songs with her. First one was during their set. She came out for it... wearing a cheese head hat! Because I'm in WI. It was hilarious. Sarah from the band was like "what is this? Oh, it's CHEESE!" And we were dying. I was sitting with mom, dad was on the end. We were kind of in the nosebleeds. But it wasn't as big of a place as I thought it was going to be. But the stage was still cool. They also had their kids perform. Which was hilarious. They had a little drum set! It was cute.

Then Lindsey opens with Eye of the Untold Her, which the way she does it on stage is so cool. I'm glad Evil Twin was closer to the middle. Serenity Found was really pretty. (I was kind of right with the spinning thing.) She did Shatter Me with the ring. She played Underground, Arena and Spontaneous Me from older albums. Untamed was cool even though I don't care for the song much. Firefly Alley was awesome! She told how she wanted there to be fans around her and the dancers and was explaining it to her stage designer. She said yeah, they'll be on wheels and be on us the whole time with ribbons! And he was going "fans? As in people?" She was caught off guard. Heh anyways, highly recommend going. She's my fav next to Kalafina. If I hadn't seen them she definitely would be first. And Piano Guys. Hoping she comes back next yr.

But I'm excited for the future. I will have my own place and car! Car I really don't care about too much, since I don't like driving, but it's still exciting getting to pick it out this time. I'm using my backpay. Things are happening so fast but finally happening! 😀

[theghostpinesmusic]

Deschutes River Canyon 2024 (1/3)

I've been lucky enough to experience spring three times this year.

As I may have mentioned in a few of my late-fall trip reports from last year, I've been on sabbatical since September, and though a lot of that time has been spent going to conferences, revising course materials, reading (and reading, and reading...), and writing, I've been trying to build in breaks here and there as well to preserve (or regain?) my sanity.

One such break came at the beginning of March, when, between the end of a months-long streak of reading primary sources and the beginning of gathering that information into a coherent manuscript outline, I flew out to Arkansas to visit my brother, his wife, and their children, then rode along with my parents to North Carolina to spend a week with just them, and finally ended up in Ohio, where I got to see my grandma and aunt and catch up with some old friends.

I could (and probably will, at some point) write a bunch about this trip in particular, but for the purposes of this report I'll just say that in early-to-mid-March, both Arkansas and North Carolina had already burst into spring, to the point that stepping outside of the house to go for a jog necessitated pregaming with nearly lethal amounts of allergy medication. Considering my trip from Klamath Falls to the airport in Medford for my Little Rock flight had required navigating snow and ice atop a mountain pass that normally doesn't melt out until May, it was a surprising (and welcome) change.

I returned to Klamath Falls' late-winter in mid-March, but a week later Lindsey and I were off to the Deschutes River Canyon for a backpacking trip over her spring break. It was my fourth year in a row hiking in the canyon: I first learned about the Deschutes River Trail in the spring of 2021 when, ground down by COVID and various work stresses, I looked for and found a backpacking trip within reasonable driving distance of our house that I could take to decompress over my spring break. On my own, I hiked twenty or so of the trail's twenty-five miles, then looped back to the car.

Unexpectedly spellbound by the area's geography and history, I came back in 2022, and with Lindsey not joining on the hike but offering to help me shuttle a car, I hiked the whole trail through. In the spring of 2023, we planned to hike the trail together for the first time, but bad weather made it impossible during the one week we could get away from work, so we did the hike instead in mid-June. It was interesting to see how different the canyon was in June as compared to March, and I wrote a bunch here about that experience at the time.

This past March, then, despite being my fourth year in a row hiking in the canyon, was the first time that Lindsey and I did the trip together during the "right" time of year. Aside from this lengthy preface, this trip report/write-up will probably be a bit shorter than most since, as I said above, I already wrote a bunch about this trail after our 2023 trip. But, this year's pilgrimage to the canyon was a fun time, and there were at least a few things that I think are worth recording for posterity. So, here we go!

As in the previous two years, we started at the south end of the trail, at Mack's Canyon. The drive to here from the highway is slow, rocky, and a little frustrating, but it is also beautiful, especially as you being winding through the canyon in earnest about halfway through, sandwiched on a narrow road between enormous pillars of columnar basalt on one side and the roaring Deschutes River on the other.

Mack's Canyon has a nice (paid) campground, although we've never used it. Instead, we left our car there to be shuttled by Linda's River Shuttles (they're great!) and hiked back down the road a quarter mile to where the trail branches off up and to the left. You don't have to walk along the trail for long before you've left the campground behind and entered the barren and weirdly gorgeous expanse of the canyon.

Despite being in the midst of my sabbatical this year, I was still excited to get away into the wilderness for my first backpacking trip of the year, and Lindsey was obviously ready for some very serious hiking.

It takes less than a mile for the canyon to truly open up, and for the trail's history as a former railroad line to become obvious.

If you're hiking north from Mack's Canyon along the river, there are a few points early on where following the trail becomes difficult and requires a little scrambling on loose rock. This is because the former railroad line used to cross three steep canyons via tressels that have since rotted and collapsed. Instead, the trail descends into and then back out of these canyons, at points requiring some scrambling on top of the tressels' foundation stones.

These canyons have never given us much trouble, and I've seen older hikers, children, and dogs all cross them without incident, but they are the only three brief sections of this trail's twenty-five miles that I would call "technical" in any sense. So if for some reason you're using this write-up to plan your own trip, just be aware.

In-between and of course after the canyon crossings, the trail is much more straightforward. There is one two-ish mile section featuring a barbed-wire fence that you have to alternate between passing on the right and left, but that mild frustration is offset by the fact that this part of the trail includes some of the best examples of columnar basalt you'll see on the entire hike.

Unsurprisingly, hiking through the canyon while constantly exposed to the June sun is hot, and we remarked right away on how much cooler the trail was in March, with temperatures running lower and a breeze blowing. Just before the final canyon crossings, though, some clouds also blew in and it almost felt too cold. Partly to warm up, I scrambled up a bluff and took a few pictures of Lindsey in the context of the broader landscape.

After crossing the final set of canyons, we stopped for a quick lunch break about four-and-a-half miles from Mack's Canyon. I had packed away the last of a loaf of zucchini bread that Lindsey had baked a few days before, so I dug that out and we shared it. Surprisingly, it had been warmed to the perfect temperature by the sun shining on my pack. I felt like a too-tall hobbit, enjoying baked goods in the wilderness.

We pushed on from there a few more miles to Lockit Camp, our preferred camping spot for the first day of the trip. Despite the trail being chock-full of excellent camp sites with easy water access, most of those sites exist near or past the twelve-mile mark when you're hiking north from Mack's Canyon and with a five-hour drive north from Klamath Falls before we can even start hiking, we typically don't have the time or inclination to try to reach, say, Harris Ranch or Fall Canyon Camp on the first day. If you find yourself in the same situation, you can't do much better than Lockit Camp, about eight miles from the trail's southern starting point.

There are a few tent spots here, and we've usually set up camp on one of the ones above the river, but decided this time to camp closer to the water. It was a bit of a tighter fit for our Copper Spur UL3, but we made it work.

We set up camp and made and ate dinner a bit later than is typical, but it was a warm enough night that not finishing up until after dark wasn't particularly uncomfortable. While we were cleaning up camp and getting ready for bed, the canyon was suddenly filled with the rumble of a train approaching on the tracks across the river from us. On a three-day hike through the canyon, you will often see (and hear) multiple trains. As a big fan of trains, I see this as an added bonus to an already great hike, though admittedly it's more fun when they come through at 3pm than when they wake you up at 3am.

In this case, I had enough time to set up my tripod and take a timelapse photo as the train went by. It wasn't a great photo, but it did capture the weirdness of seeing a train pass through an otherwise wild place at night.

As usual with this hike, our second day would be our long day. We didn't have an exact camp site in mind for the second night, but we usually stop three or four miles away from the Deschutes' confluence with the Columbia, which meant that we'd have to cover thirteen miles or so to stay on schedule.

Sleeping outside for the first time since November, nestled up against the natural white noise machine of the Deschutes, I fell asleep quickly and slept until the sun shone through the tent into my eyes and woke me up the next morning.

[pugswithlasers]

So, Sparky (the dog in my header) recently passed away. I feel terrible, but I don’t think that he would want that. So instead, I’m making a list of all the cool things in his life, because he was a fucking legend. Imagine a trickster god trapped in the body of a hyperactive Jack Russell- Papillon mix. So, in chronological order:

We adopted him back when I was in elementary school, in Minnesota. He was one year old at the time. He was part of the foster program of the Midwest Animal Rescue Society, which meant that we also got this cool bumper sticker (which I now have pinned to my wall with a bunch of other personal mementos):

Our first introduction to him was Loud Barking and an explanation of how energetic and fast he was (by way of his foster owner tying his leash to her bike and riding down the road, which Sparky had no trouble keeping up with). She suggested we get a treadmill and put a treat at the end, because he would be jittery all day if he didn’t get enough Running Around Time

He barked the entire way home, which was an hour’s drive

For explanation on why the barking is relevant, he was a very loud boy. A loud and somewhat high-pitched boy.

He was also very intelligent. Not necessarily obedient, but intelligent. He did know how to sit pretty/beg though, which he did every time he wanted something

His time in Minnesota was also his Peak Bastard Years.

On my first attempt to walk him (I was age 5 and thus small) (it was winter) he pulled me right down an icy hill adjacent to the backyard, straight into my aunt’s dog’s frozen piss (at the time, my family lived in my aunt’s basement)

He barked so loudly and frequently that he had the cops called on him once. Sparky was not home at the time so he got away with his crimes

During this time, my dad taught him to go down the slide at the local playground, which was delightful

One time, when I was in kindergarten, he happened to be in the car when dad was dropping me off. Sparky had learned which button opened the car window, so he pressed it, launched himself out the window of the parked car, ran right into the school, and had a wonderful time zooming around the hallways while my dad tried to catch him

Once at a birthday party, he horrified my friend’s dad by Having An Erection. Keep in mind this is a dog he was worried about. Said father asked MY dad if “you could maybe train him to stop”. (Sparky did not stop.)

Then my family moved to a rural area of [province redacted], Canada. He now had a large backyard to run around in, so the bastardry lessened somewhat (but not entirely).

We kept upgrading the fence, but he kept finding new ways to escape and hang out with/get into barking matches with the neighbours’ dogs.

We also got another dog, Stella. She’s a pug, she’s a delight, and she and Sparky became partners for life. They cuddled, they fought, they had a healthy sex life, committed food theft together, etc

He really enjoyed hiding under blankets. This is cute until you realize that he was small, and so sometimes he was very well disguised. Several times, I set down on the couch only for an angry pile of blankets to erupt from beneath me

Sparky caught several rats in the backyard, which was kind of upsetting for me, and he also once caught a bee, which was upsetting for him

We once brought him to a casual dog race for the fun of it, but realized pretty quickly he was not well-trained enough to succeed. He was by far the fastest dog there, though— we found this out when he decided to run at full speed in the opposite direction to the rest of the dogs, because he wanted to chase down a dragonfly.

A few years ago, one of our other dogs, Taylor, wandered off and got lost. She has the dog version of dementia and her solution to “I don’t know where I am” is just to keep walking forward. She managed to get stuck in a bush in the woods. Just when my parents were about to give up on finding her, Sparky bolted off into the underbrush and led them to her location.

Even in old age, he continued being excellent. He barked at birds, enjoyed Stella’s company, and loved to curl up with his favourite toy in front of the woodstove

The last thing he did, at age 16, was to use his remaining strength to bite a vet

Sparky’s message to the world: look death in the face. break rules. get bitches. enjoy the wonders of life. bite your enemies.

[robinchan-hananomi]

Today’s movie is Twister!!!

Now I love this movie. I love it so much for so many reasons. The first is the characters.

Now the central characters are Dr. Jo Harding and Bill Harding. Jo is a scientist working on a grant for her own personal mission of combating tornadoes. How does she plan to do this? By learning enough about them to make earlier warning systems to protect people so they won’t have to go through what she did, watching her father get taken to his death by a tornado. It gives us some background into why her marriage failed, because the only thing she is focused on is her work. Her ex-husband Bill came to see her at the beginning of the movie so they can finalize said divorce and he can get married to his new girlfriend and retire from storm chasing to be a weatherman.

The only problem with that is it’s not Bill. Bill is an adrenaline junkie obsessed with storms like Jo, but not for the same reasons. We learn they met when Jo and Dustin (possibly others) were chasing a tornado and Jo was recording it. Bill drives up in a green car, drunk and naked, and tells the tornado to ‘have a drink’ before tossing a whole bottle of Jack Daniel’s into it while Jo is screaming at him to get back. Somehow this encounter leads to a partnership and eventual marriage. Also led to the nickname ‘the Extreme’.

Now at the start of the movie, Jo and her team are coming toward the end of their funds and the beginning of one of the biggest cluster of storm cells in years. They are trying to launch a pack of sensors to get readings of the inside of the tornados. And Jo has an interesting team helping her.

First is Dustin ‘Dusty’ Davis. He��s full of energy, usually yelling and jumping around. He’s a kind hearted man and for most of the movie he’s helping look after Bill’s new girl Melissa. Then you got Jason ‘Preacher’ Rowe. Like Dusty, Preacher is in his own vehicle. He’s slightly older than some of the team. He apparently likes more classical music and gets just as excited about a chase as the rest. He’s also pretty dedicated to their work, because after getting a nasty head wound he still helps drive the team out for one last attempt to get the sensors to fly. Tim ‘Beltzer’ Lewis and Haynes share a vehicle. The two are very close and at times I honestly thought they’re characters were either best friends or in a relationship. They are pretty invested in Jo and Bill’s relationship though, watching the two while working. They are fun characters who had wonderful chemistry together and the part they sing Oklahoma together is one of my favorites. In another vehicle you got Allen Sanders and Robert ‘Rabitt’ Nurick. While the others are more of scientists, these two function more like the team’s GPS system. Rabitt has the cab of their truck full of maps (rolled, not folded like he scolds Sanders for in the beginning of the movie) and he’s usually determine routes to take while Sanders drives. Sanders is a bit younger, wears his baseball cap on backwards and is usually more along for the ride than anything. I think my favorite scene with him is when Aunt Meg serves them ‘real lemonade’ and he announces he’s moving in with her. The last vehicle are the two younger members of the team, Laurence and Joey. Joey is a bit more goofy, saying he wants to get struck by lightning at least once to see how it feels and mentioning how popular they are going to be at the school when they get the research data back there. And Laurence is most likely new. In the beginning Jo is explaining to him why he needs to maintain his equipment, he is the only member of the team to propose stopping from chasing tornados, and at the drive in he initially hides in a truck and Jo has to coax him out because he is terrified.

Bill wanted to just get the divorce papers and leave but now he learns that they are putting up the sensors, his initial design, and agrees to come with them for that day. Melissa decided to tag along. Partially because she knows Jo still loves Bill and she thinks this is all a last ditch effort of Jo’s to keep Bill.

Through the movie we follow the team as they chase after a few twisters and have a few run ins with Jonas. Jonas was a fellow lab worker with Jo and Bill. Jo and Bill stayed on the ‘academic’ side, working off grants and out of universities. Jonas went corporate and has a number of big sponsors. It’s a sore spot for Bill and we are told the two have always had a rivalry trying to prove which of them is better.

After Melissa decides she is having one of the worst days of her life with how terrifying it is and how she is being passed from vehicle to vehicle, we end up at Jo’s Aunt Meg’s house. Meg and Jo are very close and Meg is very fond of the entire team. She opens her house to them, feeds them all and even makes them good for the road. The team love her dearly in return. In a way we, like Melissa, are the outsiders here and we have been seeing the good and bad sides of what they do.

I don’t know much about Jo’s job, but I imagine in a way it’s similar to what I do in Archaeology. By that I mean that almost the vast majority of it is in research and data analysis. Digging is the ‘fun’ part that I look forward to when I can do it and it’s what most people think of when they talk about Archaeology, but in reality I spend most of my time in the lab or the library. So yeah, I imagine that for them this is like a good few days of the year they chase storms, get data, and the rest of the time they are analyzing it. So we are seeing them on the ‘fun’ field part, and that is how the team treats it.

The scene at Aunt Meg’s is by far my favorite part of the movie. We get to see the team all relaxed and having fun. Because while it’s clear they love their jobs and they love being in the field, they can’t relax or hesitate. If Rabbit messes up on directions, at best they miss valuable data and at worst they can’t escape from a storm and get killed. If Laurence, Beltzer, Haynes, Sanders, Preacher, Joey, and Dusty can’t get good readings on what is going on or collect data, then they can’t keep the team safe and the entire event was a waste of time. And if Jo can’t get the instruments to collect the data, then it was all for nothing. They have to be at their best in the field so they can’t really take it too easy.

After Aunt Meg’s though, things get intense. All through the movie the storms have been getting progressively worse as they have been building, and the team has failed twice to get their sensors off the ground, almost losing Bill and Jo nearly three times in the process. And while Melissa is losing her mind about it all, she hears Bill admit to Jo he still loves her.

As the team is resting in the evening they get brushed by a massive F5 tornado. Preacher is hurt and Melissa is done. She tells Bill she can’t do this and he needs to go be with the others. The others who just learned Aunt Meg is in the path of the tornado and are all rushing to go to her because while she is Jo’s aunt, she is all of their family.

They find Meg’s home is devastated and Bill and Jo are barely able to pull Meg out of the collapsing house. Meg actually reminds me so much of my grandmother. I was visiting family when my grandmother, who was in her late 80’s fell off a stone patio. I’ve been trained in emergency first aid, which is probably why everyone at the family gathering allowed me to take over. As I was stopping the bleeding my grandma is telling everyone ‘oh I’m fine. No, I can’t feel it. Well if you insist on me going to the hospital I can drive myself’. Meg was exactly the same in that scene.

I remember watching a review of Twister and someone ranting about Aunt Meg telling Jo she had to stop it, saying that it suddenly became a story about Jo ‘fighting’ the twister. And maybe that was the intent. I always took it as Meg telling Jo she needed to keep going, to finish her research because she had to find a way to get people more warnings. She even emphasized that she had no chance to leave her bedroom between the warning and the storm hitting. I just took it as her telling Jo to get back out there and do what she needs to.

And the next morning we see everyone making a run for the F5. Jo and her team only has two tries left, and when the first one doesn’t work they realize where they went wrong. They prepare to go for a second attempt but learn Jonas and his team have a better chance. Bill and Jo want to do this themselves. They have their reasons, Jo needing to get this validation and Bill needing to execute his plan. But after Meg and everything else, they care more about the data being gathered at this point then being the ones to do it, especially because the storm is destabilizing and could end soon.

Jonas however doesn’t want to accept their help. And when the two try to warn him that he’s in danger since they can see the storm but he is too close to, he ignores them. A mistake that ends up killing him. Bill and Jo decide to get the data no matter what. So they head straight for the storm, sacrificing Bill’s truck to successfully get the sensors in. After that they have to run and find shelter or they would be killed.

The movie kind of ends on a hopeful note. The team is celebrating as Jo and Bill reconcile their marriage. They talk about their plans for the data, the analysis and the lab, getting the grants, and working on the alarm system. We know the entire team is going to keep working toward it.

I don’t know accurate things in this movie are, but it is by far my favorite disaster movie and I will forever watch it.

[allinthefeels]

Chapter two: I’m the cool one now!

After high school is really where things went the totally wrong way. Both in a month just a day apart, I lost a sweet school mate, and my uncle whom I was close with, he had diabetes so I helped take care of him. Trigger, I’m also missing my first ever best friend and another uncle who I was close with as well, he passed when I was young and don’t remember too much, just that I wanted to be in the room with him and was told no, apparently because he was hooked up to a lot of things and my aunt thought it would traumatize me. I again never got to say goodbye.

This is where we cue my first interaction with drugs. I often hear people call Mary Jane a “gateway” drug, let me tell you this was absolutely not the case with me. I didn’t want to be stoned and just there, no I wanted to feel happy and alive. Enter the white snow. I had a job a I moved into an apartment, I was alone. Happened to run into this guy and he gave me some attention. He talked , hung out, and one day he pulls that snow out and asked if I trusted him, I did… I thought I did at that time. We did a whole 8 ball in one night, omg what was that feeling??? I didn’t care about the past, I felt a feeling I don’t remember feeling…. Was this … yea I was happy! I was smiling and felt great.

Days, weeks, months went by, this was my drug, the happy powder! I met new people, they liked me, or maybe just my car, doesn’t matter I wasn’t alone and I was happy. Wasn’t I? I learned that doing said drug made me open up and talk, laugh, cry, didn’t matter I didn’t feel like my life sucked! I had a lot in common with one of the girls and we became good friends, we both got clean for a while , she got pregnant, I was alone, hey I remember something that won’t allow me to care, reenter Snow White. I had this handled I quit before I could quit again, I’m not an addict because I can quit! Aren’t we loving those demons??? They are so convincing.

Let’s speed up a tiny bit, now I have new friends, thanks to this one chick we hung around and asked me to drive her to this dudes house, not her dude anymore! I just didn’t care, I was hurt so much that I figured why not soo some hurting? Hey wait, what’s this stuff? It’s clearish not white like snow! *shrugs* different place , different people, maybe it was just a version of snow that I didn’t know about. Oh my that freaking burned! That was weird. I feel weird, not bad , not good, just confusing. Oh we write after taking it! Bet I love to write! Wait what day is it?? Friday??? How yesterday’s was just Monday! How freaking long have I been awake?

Oh well, we are having a non stop party! I have friends again!!! We’re they really friends? I call them fake friends, at this point I could get money when I needed it, they had no money , we shared this new icy looking drug. Oh well I’m not alone and I think they actually like me! But do they? This time this fiasco went on for months. I dropped so much weight that my pants were falling off of me, but can’t buy new pants, I need this stuff to make me popular, loved, excepted.

Days and nights awake… can lead to some crazy stuff. Before I saw my own crazy stuff I watched others, and thought “man they have a problem they do too much” but not me , no problem here . Remember I quit snow, I can do this too if I wanted. I wasn’t an addict. More days and nights passed. Who said that??? Omg are they talking about me? Is this dude really banging someone in the living room while I’m in his bed? What are they saying , I just heard my name. They are going to hurt me and deceive me. Oh yes the ice goblin got me! I was hearing shit that wasn’t real, not another soul was there, they left to get more. It seemed so real, it had to be real, I’m not trippin like them others.

I finally fell asleep! With nothing to use I crashed. I slept for a week. No one bothered me, but they did check on me. I was alive they were good! When I finally woke I realized I needed a damn shower like now! How long did I go wearing the same clothes with no shower! Gross! I’m going home, I’m done! See I’m not an addict I quit! I left everyone , ignored phone calls, went through a small withdrawal and I was alone. All alone. Depression is back with his loser friends and of course who tagged along??? Demons!

[uwuspaceboy]

BUMMER ALERT (not a great word for the situation but it's the only one i've got) I've had a really shit 48hrs and need to get it out so feel free to ignore i just need to shout into the void and journaling wasn't enough so (i also don't know how to get the read more button to show up so i'm just gonna hit enter a lot and see if it works idk)

i learned sunday night while scrolling thru the local news that a childhood friend of mine died in a car accident last week. she was only 17. i haven't seen her in a few years, and back when i did see her it was only for a couple months at a time. she would tell me about her problems and i'd listen and give advice. she was in middle school so there was a lot of stuff going on in her life bless her heart. her little sister imprinted on me when i was in 8th grade and she's basically like my child (that i see very rarely unfort). i saw in her a lot of my mom's cousins who had similar childhood issues and who bc of those problems made a lot of less than stellar choices in their lives. i knew back then that she'd prob end up like them but i hoped she'd figure herself out after a while, but she never got the chance. it's been hitting me real hard. then a few hours ago my mom texts that my great aunt died. i had been thinking about her and her family a lot the past day bc of everything going on with my old friend. it was very sudden and unexpected. if these had happened one at a time i probably could have handled it, but 2 in so many days os really hard. i just got back from an hour and a half long drive thru nowhere listening to some mcr and i feel a bit better now, but i just needed to get something out into the ether idk why. i've said these exact same words to multiple people and written them in my journal but it's not quite enough. maybe if i keep on saying them again and again i can make sense of everything, but there's really nothing to make sense of, it's just life