#i think jessicas was. maybe more interesting but it sounded like Dog Shit as i said

[witchblade]

i think the taeyeon v jessica release schedule thing would have been a lot funnier if the actual eps had music in them

[teenage-mutant-ninja-freak]

blood of the covenant part 2

Part 1 here

Summery: After your explosive argument last night, it’s time to take a look at the remains of your relationship as see what’s worth saving. You don’t know if you can do it after Raph’s betrayal 

Warnings: angst, murder mention

((A/N: This is the part I haven’t really thought through but some of you wanted a part 2 to this so here you go sorry it’s kind of shit))

The sun is shining through the window, it’s a beautiful Autumn morning and you groggily open your eyes that are still bloodshot from your tears last night. Could Raph have really meant what he said? You strip off your clothes and head for the bathroom, maybe a scolding hot shower would cure some of what you’re feeling.

The water pounds down on your delicate skin, turning it a slightly more pink colour from the heat and you sigh deeply. Nothing could scrub off what happened last night. You get out of the shower and wrap a towel around yourself. You wipe the away the condensation at look in the mirror to see the huge purple and brown bruise on our chin, you consider putting makeup on to hide it but decide against that idea. Let him see what he did to me. Heading back into the bedroom you get dressed, you decide on something more casual, a white T shirt and black jeans will do. 

Going down the stairs you decide that coffee sounds good as you’re way too depressed to eat anything substantial. You pass you meeting room which has it’s door shut, pausing for a second you can hear vague noises inside and know that the boys are in there talking about the business. Sometimes you’d sit in with them, perched on Raph’s lap and kissing his neck much to Leo’s annoyance. Today wasn’t like that, today you were estranged from the man you think you still love.

Flipping the switch to the kettle it roars to life and begins to boil, you grab your coffee mug that Raph got you, rolling your eyes as you look at the cartoon tiara and the word “Princess” scrawled across it in pink, swirly writing. Some way to treat your princess you think to yourself.

__________

Inside the meeting room the boys are all sit around a large table smoking. Leo is at the head of the table and takes one more drag before continuing his sentence.

“So if Paddy’s has been compromised we need to find a new drop off point. Any suggestions?”

“The docks, no one is ever down there since those bodies washed up” Donnie suggests. Raph side eyes him but Don brushes it off. Last night was not the first time he’s made advances towards one of Raph’s girls and he doubted it would be the last, but Donnie is his brother and he loves him so certain things can slide by.

“If we’re seen down there we’ll have the cops breathing down our necks even more than they are now. No, we need somewhere more discreet. Put it on the agenda to find whoever is killing in the city though, murders on our terf is the last thing we need”

Raph simply sits and stares at his hands. Last night was tough for him and he doesn’t quite know what to do now. The safety of the meeting room was his only solace; knowing that you wouldn’t come barging in with his brothers around. 

“Raph, you there, buddy” Leo interrupts his train of thought

“Yeah, just thinking”

“Hey, I heard yelling last night. What’s up with you and y/n? Another domestic? You’ve got to keep that girl in check, y’know”

Raph clenches his fists and doesn’t look up at his brother But shoots another look at Donnie who turns his head away. Advice from a man who couldn’t keep interest in a woman for longer than a week wasn’t what he needed right now.

_____________

You pour the boiling water into your mug and stir it around so that all the coffee grounds dissolve before adding sugar. You hear a noise from down the hall and assume the meeting is over. The boys come wandering into the kitchen and sit at the table, apart from Raph who stands opposite you. He winces when he looks at your chin.

“Pretty, isn’t it” you say gesturing to your face. He doesn’t reply but the boys turn to look at you and then at Raph with anger in their eyes. It was one of their rules to never lay hands on a woman, even the ones they has killed they were pretty gentle with beforehand but to hurt a significant other was an entirely different ball park however, this wouldn’t be the first time Raphael had broken this rule.

“Raph” Leo says sternly. “We’ll be having words later” 

Raph didn’t doubt that but, for now, he needed to talk to you.

“can we have a word in the other room?” He says sheepishly.

You follow him upstairs to your bedroom and once inside he shuts the door.

“I don;t know what to say”

“Sorry would be a good start” you suggest.

“I’m sorry” he stares down at his feet.

“Tell me about her”

“What?”

“Tell me about the girl you fucked and killed. It was her dying wish? What sort of psycho wants to fuck her killer?”

“I- I wasn’t entirely honest about who it was”

This is an immediate red flag for you. He wasn’t honest. Was it someone you knew? A friend? And why would he kill them? 

“It was Jess”

Jessica Brian, a woman he had known since before Splinter died. She always had a thing for him, you could just smell it and you never liked her for that so her passing wasn’t exactly traumatic for you. But he knew her and he liked her and he fucked her. She had been there for him when Splinter died and they became good friends so why did he kill her?

Raph could see the questions building up in your head

“She got a new boyfriend, Casey Jones, that detective. He was using her for information on us and a few tings slipped through the cracks so she had to go. It’s a shame really.”

“Oh yeah it’s such a shame that you had to put your dick in a beautiful woman, I really feel for you” you raise your voice.

“Listen to me!” he begs “It meant nothing to me, but everything to her. That’s the only reason I would do it besides, Mikey was egging me on”

I’m gonna kill Mikey you thought to yourself, how typical of him to get between you and Raph. Mikey had never really liked you, he trusted you but not liked. He thought you were too volatile for Raph and maybe he was right but fuck him for doing that. For going as far as to make Raph betray you, you know deep down that really it’t not his fault, it’s Raphael’s but you’re still so full of rage that you’ll take it out on anyone at this time.

“So her dying wish is to finally have you, and you what? Just forgot about me?”

“I thought you’d never find out”

That was the kicker. You always said you’d never keep secrets from each other, even if they hurt and this one felt like a punch to the gut. You were bubbling with rage and didn’t know any way to contain it. You had only one idea and it wasn’t a good one.

“NO RAPH!” you scream at the top of your lungs. He gives you a very confused look, not sure what you’re playing at.

“PLEASE, PLEASE JUST GET AWA- NO!” you’re howling now “PLEASE DON;T I’M BEGGING YOU!” you slap yourself hard in the face and this is when Raph catches on. Knocking everything from your vanity onto the floor it makes a crashing sound and you can hear his brothers running up the stairs to your rescue. Quickly you get into the corner of the room and begin to cower as Leo, Donnie and Mikey burst through the door and restrain Raph as he’s walking towards you. Leo throws a punch and it sends him flying onto the bed where Mikey jumps on top of him and begins to pull him out of the room with the help of Leo. Donnie comes towards you slowly and places a gentle hand on your knee

“You ok?” he asks sincerely 

“I will be” you sniffle, trying to hold back a sly smile.

You wondered what they would do to him but decided you didn’t really care since even that one punch was the least he deserved.

_______________

It’s been a few hours and it’s starting to get dark outside. You’re in the living room lighting up some incense and you watch as the smoke lifts up into the air, dissipating a few feet up above the stick. The room fills with the scent of smokey rose and you lie back on the sofa. Maybe you had taken it too far earlier but, then again, he betrayed your trust completely and you needed to do something to let your anger out.

Raph and Leo enter the room, Leo eyes you suspiciously clearly still not sure as to weather he should believe the events of earlier.

“Play nice now, you two.” he says “You’ll be the death of me, I swear it” he says gesturing between you and Raph before leaving the room. You watch as he goes and notice how good his ass looks in those tailored pants he always wears. Maybe you should have gone for Leo last night instead.

“That was cute, earlier” Raph begins “Really had me in the dog house with them”

You smile coyly, it was exactly what he deserved. Now he had a matching bruise on his jaw courtesy of Leo.

Raph sits on the sofa by your feet, places a hand on your ankle and begins to rub at it with his thumb back and forth. You knew he could be gentle sometimes, it was moments like this that reminded you why you were with him. Getting past that rough tough exterior and to the heart of this man was the best thing you ever did. You get that warm and cosy feeling inside that only Raph has ever been able to bring out in you.

“Did it hurt?” you ask, pointing at his face

“I’ll live” he replies.

You know you need to talk about last night but you’re unsure as to how to bring it up. Hey Raph, wanna tell me again why you fucked Jess, destroyed my trust in you and lied about it? Seemed a tad too forward. Raph leans in and kisses you on the lips sweetly, looking into his eyes you melt a little inside. It was so difficult to stay angry at him even though he gave you every reason.

“What do we do now?” 

He frowns slightly in thought

“Well, if this were one of your soppy romance books, this would be the part where I spill my heart to you and then you forgive me” he says

“Well then, I’m all ears”

“Jess has-had” he corrected himself “Been in my life for years, she was like family and you know the old man wasn’t keen on humans. With the anniversary coming up and her betraying us and what we had to do to her....When she asked for me...How was I supposed to say no? Aside from you she was the only one there for me after dad died and I felt like I owed her something even at the cost of hurting you.She was terrified and shaking and I think she just wanted to feel safe again so I did it and I’m sorry and I know I messed up. I’d take it back if I could and I mean that”

This was Raph’s go to line- that he’d take it back but, he seemed earnest and the sad puppy look on his face cut you deep. It wasn’t like now he’d said that you were going to forgive him, it would take a lot of time to do that, but at least you could move forward together. You know that at least the next three fights you have will be about this, though. For now, however, you let him put his arm around you and you snuggle into the nook in his shoulder.

“tell me I’m yours” you murmur

“You’re mine, baby. Mine and mine alone”

You smile into him and breath in his scent deeply.

“If you ever do it again, I’ll cut you”

He laughs dryly, knowing that you mean it.  You stay like that for a while letting the room grow darker around you as you sit in silence simply holding one another. The incense burns out and the house become quiet so you decide to head back to your room to go to bed.

Under the covers you face the wall with Raph behind you, one arm wrapped around you protectively. You much preferred this to the night before, falling asleep alone and sobbing and although you’re sure there will be more nights like that in your future, for now you allow yourself to live in this moment where you are safe and loved with the man of your dreams beside you.

Fin

[petersasteria]

The Forces of Nature || Ch.3

Pairing: Peter Parker x Superhero!Reader

Summary: “There’s this kid out there that can control the wind or something. I think she’s a great addition to the team. Let’s recruit her.”

SERIES MASTERLIST  ||  PP MASTERLIST

The next three days of school were filled with Y/N constantly asking Peter when he was available to work on the presentation. Peter found it annoying as usual, but she wasn't annoying; she was determined. She was determined to get along with Peter. She was really trying hard. Peter wasn't cooperating because he kept dismissing her. Ned was disappointed.

"Why are you so disappointed, anyway?" Peter asked with a shrug as he closed his locker when the day ended.

"Because she's trying, Peter! You're not even trying. I thought you were recruiting her? What happened to that?" Ned asked, completely done with Peter's bullshit.

"Technically, I still am. If I don't end up recruiting her, Scott will recruit her and my suit would probably taken away which would make me extremely upset."

"Well, you aren't doing your job in recruiting her. Sounds to me like you WANT to have your suit taken away."

"Of course no-"

"By not doing what you're supposed to do, you're one step closer to Mr. Stark taking your suit away." Ned said sternly. He looked behind Peter and saw Y/N approaching them. "Y/N's coming over here and she'll probably ask the same question again. So please cooperate."

"Fine." Peter huffed. Ned was right, after all. He didn't want his suit to be taken away. As if on cue, Y/N approaches them with a wide smile which Ned returned. Peter just stared at her.

"Hey guys!" Y/N greeted. "MJ went home already, she said something about a protest or something and I saw you guys and I thought I would say hi."

"Well, hello." Ned said sweetly. "I really love your outfit choices. What's your style today? I love it."

Y/N smiled shyly and looked down before looking back at Ned, "It's actually inspired by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City. I loved her outfits in that movie and I saw that I have some similar pieces in my closet. So today, my style is Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City."

Y/N was wearing a pink long sleeved polo with the sleeves folded all the way up to her elbows. On top of that was a small white vest to match her white slacks that were straight cut. For the shoes, she decided to give heels a try that's why she was slightly taller that day. She also wore a black tie that was loosely tied around her neck.

"You look great! Doesn't she look great, Peter?" Ned turned to Peter who was looking at her up and down.

"You know, you usually dress either too old for your age or too young for your age. When you wore that sailor outfit the other day, I noticed that everyone here wanted to bang you; you looked like a porn star or something."

"Peter!"

"Hey, I'm just telling the truth so I don't have to say shit behind her back." Peter defended. "But, Ned's right. You look great today. I actually dig this look." He smiled at Y/N and clapped.

"Why, thank you, Peter. That's really nice of you to say." Y/N beamed. "Anyway, I also approached both of you to tell Peter that it's okay if he doesn't want to work on the presentation. So, I started my research last night and started on the presentation already."

Ned and Peter were in shock. Ned was shocked because he was impressed. Peter was shocked because he realized he wouldn't get a grade if he didn't let down his pride to join Y/N.

"Wait, uh, I've been meaning to tell you that I was going to join you today." Peter said quickly. Y/N raised her eyebrows, "Really? No more lame excuses?"

"What do you mean 'lame excuses'?" Peter furrowed his eyebrows. Ned looked between the both of them and just watched the scene unfold.

"Oh, Peter. I'm not stupid; I wasn't born yesterday. I can let the Stark Internship slide because I know it's real. But your other excuses? Cat-sitting your neighbor's cat? Walking your dog? MJ told me you didn't have a dog. Maybe you really bought groceries after school so I'll let that slide too. But the other day you told me that you were going to be late for your shift at 7/11? Dude, later that day I saw you at Delmar's and you took your sweet time to stay there." Y/N let out an exasperated sigh.

"And I'm sorry for that, okay?" Peter frowned. "But I want to work on it now. Really, I do. Please? I don't want to fail history."

"Fine." Y/N gave in. "Only because I'm nice."

"Thanks." Peter smiled. "My place or-?"

"Mine." Y/N said. "Shall we?"

Peter nodded and they said goodbye to Ned. The train ride going to Y/N's house was quiet. Peter had his earphones on and Y/N took out her book and opened it on where her bookmark was. As she started reading, Peter couldn't help but look at her as she sat across from him.

He didn't understand why everyone liked her so much. Even the Avengers liked her despite not knowing who she was. Peter would ask himself at night why people liked her or liked to be around her. He just didn't get it. But now he's asking himself why he doesn't get it. If it was so easy for all of Midtown and the Avengers to like her, why wasn't it easy for him? Why was he struggling? Suddenly, he felt himself becoming like Evan Hansen in the song 'Waving Through A Window'.

"On the outside, always looking in."

Like what Evan felt in that song, Peter felt like an outsider in his own situation. It was as if a glass separated him from the rest of Midtown when Y/N came along. He wasn't even sure if people still knew him or if anyone ever noticed him.

A few moments later, they arrive at Y/N's station. On instinct, Y/N immediately puts the bookmark on the page she was reading and closed the book before putting it in her bag. She glanced at Peter and motioned for him to follow her so he did. As soon as they got out of the train, Y/N just kept walking with Peter following by her side.

"So, what were you reading?" Peter asked.

"Why're you asking?" Y/N chuckled lightly.

Peter shrugged, "They say that you could tell a lot about a person based on what they're reading."

"Who the hell said that?" Y/N laughed. "It's kind of ridiculous." Peter didn't say anything as they kept walking. After a moment of silence, Y/N spoke up again.

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah."

"It's about a kid who wished that his parents never met; he wished it at exactly 11:11 and it came true. When he woke up the next day, he was on the ground and in the wrong year. His house was gone, his whole family was gone. The only person who was there was an angel literally sent from heaven who was tasked to help the kid." Y/N told him.

"That sounds really interesting." Peter genuinely said. "So, what's the catch? There has to be a catch."

Y/N giggled, "They only have one week to get his parents back together."

"You mentioned that he woke up in the wrong year... what's up with that?"

"Since their task is to get the kid's parents back together, the kid woke up in 2017; the year the kid's parents met. Another catch is that the kid's mom was engaged to someone else at that time. You should read this book. I'll lend it to you when I'm done with it."

Peter glanced at Y/N and smiled, "I'd love that. Thank you."

"Anytime, Peter."

A few turns later, Y/N and Peter arrived at her apartment building. They entered the building and went up the elevator to reach the third floor to Y/N's unit. Y/N led the way to the unit she shared with Eunice and unlocked the door before entering and inviting Peter in.

Peter closed the door behind him and looked around. It was similar to the apartment he lived in with May and it made him smile a bit. He noticed that there weren't any pictures of Y/N. Instead, there were pictures of a dark skinned woman with what seemed to be like the woman's family.

Y/N went straight to the kitchen as Peter made himself comfortable on the couch. The whole apartment was cozy and aesthetically pleasing. He looked to his left and saw an open door. He assumed it was Y/N's room judging by the way it was designed and styled. He didn't want to offend anyone but the dark skinned woman looked older than Y/N and the style of Y/N's room wouldn't fit the older woman.

"We don't have any juice. I hope water's okay." Y/N's voice cut off his train of thought as he looked towards her as she brought two glasses of water and placed it on the coffee table. "I'll just get my laptop, okay?" Y/N settles her bag down next to Peter's and rushed to her room to quickly grab her laptop. Not even a second later, Y/N came back with her laptop and sat next to Peter.

"I already started on the powerpoint. I hope you don't mind; I used Canva." Y/N said as she opened her laptop and quickly went on Canva.

"I don't mind. Did you make notes?" Peter asked. "I really have no clue about Elizabeth I."

"I don't have notes, but I do have a book." Y/N told him before she opened her backpack to grab the book she used for the presentation. She handed it to Peter who gladly took it from her. He opened the book on where the bookmark was and he began to read it.

"I thought that we could only do a few slides. I asked Mrs. Johnson this morning for the specifics and she said that we'll only present about the beginning of her life until she became queen. Her life as queen was given to someone else." Y/N explained.

"That's fine. I trust that we'll explain this really well. I don't want to sound arrogant or anything, but we're two of the smartest people in that room." Peter said.

"That's actually true." Y/N giggled. "Are you hungry?"

"Yes. I didn't eat lunch. I was at the library studying for a quiz in Spanish." Peter frowned slightly.

"I'll make us a lasagna, then. I think it's your turn to do the research since I've already done that all night last night." Y/N turned the laptop to face him as she stood up and went to the kitchen to start cooking.

Peter read the one Y/N did so far and he was impressed. He read the book first before he started typing anything. He knew that Y/N was fascinated by all of the Tudors and he wanted to know why. Almost two hours later, he found himself getting really hooked on the book.

"Are you enjoying?" Y/N asked.

Peter looked up from what he was reading and nodded, "I'm probably just as fascinated as you are right now, if I'm being honest. Anyway, I'll start typing now."

"Okay." Y/N nodded. "The food's ready, by the way." She went to the dining area as Peter started typing quickly. It didn't take long for him to join Y/N and they started eating.

"I don't see any pictures of you, Y/N. Who do you live with?" Peter asked nonchalantly.

"I live with Eunice. She's my... friend. She's my best friend, actually. She's a few years older. She's a cop; she's my hero." Y/N praised as she ate.

"How come?" Peter wondered. Y/N took a sip of her water and said, "I've lost three people I love in the span of two years. After that, I lived with my cruel aunt who treated me like a servant. Last summer, I ran away from that cruel place and found my place here."

"Then I met Eunice." Y/N remembered fondly. "She took me in without hesitation and helped me find a decent school for my senior year and that's why I'm in Midtown. I could say that she's like a sister to me despite our differences. I love her. She's my family. Families aren't always bonded by blood, you know."

"I get what you mean. Mr. Stark is like a father to me." Peter smiled. "I've lost three people too."

"Who?" Y/N asked.

"My parents and my uncle Ben." Peter answered as he reminisced on the memories he had with his parents and mostly uncle Ben.

"I lost my parents too." Y/N said as she teared up at the memory. "It was a car accident. The drunk driver hit our car so bad and it killed my parents instantly. I was with them when it happened. I was only 15."

Peter frowned as she continued her story.

"I only had scratches and I was the only one alive in the scene. I got out of the car and when I did, the car blew up. I miss my parents so much. As much as I want to dwell on losing them, I knew I had to move on. My parents would want that."

"Who was the other one you lost?" Peter asked softly.

Y/N wiped away her tears and cleared her throat, "I lost my grandmother a year after I lost my parents. She died in her sleep. She was a really good person, you know? She never made me feel guilty for being the only one alive in the accident. In fact, she loved me even more. She loved me more than she loved anything else. It was just me and her in the house that I grew up in."

"She took care of me and loved me. She always reminded me that I was her best girl. She said that to me every night. I just didn't know that those would be her last words to me because she didn't wake up the next morning."

"Y/N, I'm so sorry." Peter said. "That must really hurt. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"I thought you hated me... why are you so nice to me?" Y/N sniffed and drank some water.

"I don't hate you. I dislike you. Those are two different things. And just because I dislike you, doesn't mean that I'm heartless. Consider me as... a frenemy." Peter said.

"Frenemy?"

"Friend and enemy."

Y/N nodded, "I like that. So what are you right now?"

Peter smiled at her and softly gripped her hand, his thumb rubbing the top of her hand, "Right now, I'm your friend. And as a friend, I can say that I know what it feels like to lose important people. I can also say that you're not alone."

'Perhaps it isn't so bad to be close to Y/N', Peter thought to himself. He didn't want to admit it, but being with Y/N felt great. He didn't feel like an outsider anymore.

* * * *

i legit cried while writing abt y/n's parents ffs i told y’all you’ll know why im crying lmao

𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @myblueleatherbag @harryismysunflower @buckys-little-hoe @justanothermarvelmaniac @itstaskeen @sandystoriess

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓: @marvelousell @justasmisunderstoodasloki @rubberducky-jrr @petersholland @osterfieldnholland @miraclesoflove @god-knows-what-am-i-doing @perspectiveparker @parker-potters @itstaskeen​ @call-me-baby-gir1​ @the-panwitch​ @iamaunicorn4704​ @chloecreatesfictions​ @holland-styles​ @halfblood-princess-505​ @spidey-reids-2003​

[incomprehensiblelentils]

Lentils’ 2020 Christmas Movie Rankings

My wife and I watched a lot of Christmas movies this year, and I thought it would be fun to rank them based on which ones I think were most watchable and enjoyable. I’ve left out a few that we watched during this time period, which are classic Christmas movies (Miracle on 34th Street), action movies set at Christmas (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man 3), or older romances set around Christmas (While You Were Sleeping and You’ve Got Mail), because it’s not fair to rank these amongst, well, some of the movies we saw.

my top 5, for those of you who don’t like reading (which is fair): The Princess Switch: Switched Again, Dashing in December, The Princess Switch, Jingle Jangle, Happiest Season.

my top 3 Chaotic Christmas Movies: A New York Christmas Wedding, 12 Pups of Christmas, The Princess Switch: Switched Again. Please watch these movies if you enjoy chaotic plots. Please especially watch the first two I listed because holy shit my summaries do not properly convey the chaos.

The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020): Some people on the internet have been VERY RUDE about this movie and I’m sorry they don’t appreciate a true chaotic holiday gem when they see it. This movie involves two Vanessa Hudgenses, Scheduled Vanessa and Spontaneous Vanessa, who are distant cousins and not twins, switching places to try to facilitate Spontaneous Vanessa getting back together with her ex the baker, but Scheduled Vanessa is intercepted by a third cousin Vanessa, Horny Vanessa, who wants to take Spontaneous Vanessa’s place as queen. I don’t want to spoil anything that happens in this movie so that you can experience the batshittery for yourself, but I found every second absolutely delightful. It also has two very good romantic couples who are cute and who genuinely seem to like each other, which is not something I can say for every movie on this list!

Dashing in December (2020): This movie has gay cowboys, is set on a ranch, and features a squaredancing scene, so if that isn’t your bag, you are probably not going to like it very much. I found it deeply charming and the only reason it isn’t #1 is that three quarters of the way through, the lead suddenly turns back into a giant jerk for no real reason and that was very upsetting. But it all works out in the end. The main romance is very cute, there are horses, the horsemanship doesn’t totally suck ass, and there are some fun side characters. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but it’s pleasant.

The Princess Switch (2018): Again, some people are mean about this movie and they shouldn’t be because it is CUTE GODDAMMIT. It is absolutely The Prince and the Pauper but with two Vanessa Hudgenses, but also, it shows the aforementioned two good romantic couples falling in love and they are delightful. I am not saying this is a great masterpiece of romance, but the filmmakers actually tried to give these characters reasons to like each other, which, again, is not true for some of the movies on this list.\

Jingle Jangle (2020): I kind of feel bad putting this movie on the same list as TV movies that were obviously just shit out by Hallmark or whoever, because this clearly had a lot of love and heart put into it, and it really shows. I was so immediately charmed by this movie that I didn’t even mind when it immediately went in very silly directions. I don’t know if the plot makes sense at all (a cute robot shows up for seemingly no reason other than that cute robots are fun!) but it doesn’t have to, because everyone is having so much fun and there’s so much joy in this movie that I was just happy to be along for the ride. Also, I would love to see an entire movie in the stop-motion style from the opening scene.

Happiest Season (2020): I absolutely understand why some people didn’t like this movie, and I don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t dislike it, and also, it’s MY movie, and I love it, and I’m not interested in fighting about it. It helped me come out to my parents and also featured two of my faves kissing and that’s all I need. 

Noelle (2019): I was previously under the impression this movie was bad, and I don’t know why, because it’s a little embarrassing and cheesy at times, but it’s sweet. I suspect what will make or break it for you is if you like Anna Kendrick, and because I like Anna Kendrick, I like watching her play a neurotic Claus sibling trying desperately to fix the problem she accidentally caused. One weird thing though: this movie tried to convince me about halfway through that she was both spoiled and selfish, and I don’t actually think that’s true at all. I think she was a little naive and sheltered and wanted people to like her way too much, but she’s not really shown to be a selfish person - she’s constantly paying attention to other people in the real world and her brother is the one who refused to admit that he wasn’t cut out for the Santa gig and instead fucked off to “find himself” or whatever. It was weird! But anyway, I liked this movie a lot.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas (1998): So this movie...one Christmas Eve when I was in high school, I was having trouble falling asleep for whatever reason so I went downstairs to get some water. My mom happened to have the TV on and this movie was just starting, and she invited me to join her. Fun fact: this movie went to theaters and it stars Jonathan Taylor-Thomas and Jessica Biel. It is one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen in my life and at no point does anyone in it actually behave like a human being. It’s about a smooth-talking jackass who has to be bribed to come home for Christmas and then, after one of his dumbass moneymaking schemes lands him in hot water, he gets abandoned in the middle of the California desert wearing a Santa suit and glued-on beard. He then has to beg, lie, and cheat his way home for Christmas dinner so that his dad will give him a vintage Porsche they fixed up together. I have no defense for this character; he is insufferable and only becomes marginally less so by the end of the film. But also, I have to watch this movie every year (usually with my mom, although not this year for obvious reasons) or it doesn’t feel like Christmas. 

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish (2019): We own this on DVD and have seen it three times. In our defense, we wanted to support Gregg Sulkin from Runaways and Isabella Gomez from One Day at a Time, both of whom feature prominently in this movie, and also sing songs. This is just Cinderella But At Christmas, and if that doesn’t sound like fun to you, I don’t think anything I can say will change your mind. I will say that the songs are amusingly autotuned, there’s a disabled dog that’s very cute, and I personally think that the leads have slightly better chemistry than some of the pairs on this list. But it is literally just another Cinderella Story movie.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019): This movie is Thor (2011) But At Christmas, and it would have been slightly higher except I always forget about the plot where at the end the knight becomes a cop. Bad, obviously! But anyway, the plot of this movie is: nice but clueless dude crash-lands on Earth for Reasons and bumbles around trying to figure out what’s up, while falling in love with a nice lady. That’s just Thor and you know I’m right. And for as dumb as this movie is, at least it’s ambitious. I have learned that Christmas movies can do one of two things to please me: a) have actors that have decent chemistry and charm and are fully committed to whatever nonsense is going on, or b) have absolutely batshit chaotic plots. This movie is like a 4 out of 5 on the chaos scale and I like it a lot, besides the copaganda. I hope this also gets made into a trilogy and Cole isn’t a cop anymore.

A Christmas Prince 3: The Royal Baby (2019): I will get into my problems with the first two Christmas Prince movies later, but my main criticism is that they are kind of boring and not chaotic enough. This one decided to make up for that by incorporating a missing ancient treaty, a curse, and a ghost, as well as a subplot about Girl Power (I use this semi-ironically) and a subplot about cousin Simon potentially committing treason again. I was so excited that things were happening in this movie the first time I watched it that I may be a little biased, but oh well. Oh, I was also absolutely terrified it was going to be racist and it is...mostly not? There are a few questionable moments but like mostly it’s fine.

Christmas With the Prince (2018): I wanted to watch this because the summary on Netflix did not match the summary on Google at all, and that’s because, uh, they’re both sort of right? Ostensibly this movie is about a pediatric oncologist who comes back into contact with an old almost-flame, who just happens to be the prince of a tiny European country, because he fucked up his leg and needs somewhere private to stay. And apparently a pediatric oncology ward is the best place for that? But then after they fall in love this random Russian lady shows up and is like “that’s my fiance.” This happens maybe twenty minutes from the end. Anyway, this movie isn’t great but I liked the lead guy way more than I thought I would and it has some cute kids in it.

A New York Christmas Wedding (2020): I...am at a loss for words to describe this...motion picture. On the surface it is a cute idea: a young Black woman, Jennifer, is getting married to her boyfriend on Christmas Eve, but she’s given a chance by her guardian angel (stay with me) to go back in time and redo her life, after losing touch with her childhood best friend, Gabrielle, who she was always in love with but never confessed her feelings to. She wakes up in an alternate timeline, where she and Gabrielle have been together for years and her beloved father is still alive. Then the movie, uh...veers off into some very odd places! They go to their Catholic priest and ask him to marry them, and he is like “but the Bible” and they are like “but that’s bullshit” and he’s like “shrug” and then later during a sermon he’s like “actually that IS bullshit, everyone gay in this church come stand up here with me. We love you. Also we’re going to perform a wedding now” and then he marries Jennifer and Gabrielle. And then Jennifer’s angel shows up and is like “you have to choose between this life and your old life now” and then uh...I really hate to spoil this next thing. It is the weirdest choice I’ve ever seen a movie make and if you’re even the slightest bit interested in this movie, I think you should experience this plot point for yourself. I’m going to put the batshit spoiler in ROT13 in case you want to avoid spoiling yourself. (GJ: fhvpvqr) Wraavsre'f thneqvna natry erirnyf gung ur vf gur fba bs Tnoevryyr, jub va gur bevtvany gvzryvar tbg certanag nf n grra naq ure snzvyl frag ure gb n ahaarel. Fur zvfpneevrq naq fhofrdhragyl qvrq ol fhvpvqr. Uvf anzr vf Nmenry Tnovfba. Anyway, uh, this movie isn’t very good, unfortunately, the adult leads have no chemistry and Gabrielle’s adult self is actively unlikable (the teen versions of them are cute!), but I think it’s 1000% worth a watch for the sheer chaos of it all. I...recommend it for that, I guess? Oh, also there’s a sex scene that plays a slow sexy version of “O Christmas Tree” in the background and I felt like I was losing my mind. 

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding (2018): As I said in my commentary on the third movie in this series, the worst sin this movie commits is being kind of boring. It also manages to make the romantic hero, Richard, even worse than in the first movie, where he was just kind of useless and petulant, because in this movie he is actively failing to do anything to revive the failing economy of his country. I have seen people complain that the prince in The Princess Switch and Cole in The Knight Before Christmas have no personalities; they are delightful compared to the wet paper bag of a man in this movie. Rose McIver is adorable and I don’t think any of this is her fault, she’s doing her best in these movies, but woof.

12 Pups of Christmas (2019): The Google summary of this movie, which we found on Hulu, is this: “Struggling to keep his dog GPS locator company afloat, Martin expects his new hire, Erin, to help him save the company and find homes for 12 puppies that were left behind after a photo shoot. As they work together, Erin and Martin begin to discover each other's positive qualities and find love just in time for the holidays.” My wife and I love dogs, so we put this on, expecting cute dogs. This movie contains approximately 80% chaos and 20% cute dogs. It opens with our heroine, a canine therapist, coming home from work to have dinner with her fiance and best friend. We find out that Erin and fiance are moving to California soon for her new job (they live in New York). Fast forward a few days to their courthouse wedding, at which point her fiance and best friend confess to having an affair, and she is dumped. Heartbroken, she moves to California alone, and ends up moving into the company-provided house. It is just a two-story house (??) that the CEO’s sister owns (???) and rents out to employees (????). Also Erin is, as the Google summary says, expected to come up with some grand idea to save the company. And there are 12 random puppies also. They are cute puppies. Oh, also Martin, the CEO of the dog collar company, hates dogs for some reason. Martin’s sister is aggressively friendly towards Erin in a way that I interpreted as sapphic. At one point, after they find a home for dog #3, Erin’s former BFF shows up on her doorstep (?????) begging to be let in. She insists that the fiance was also two-timing her, and she has proof that he had FIVE OTHER GIRLFRIENDS ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY - “that’s why he’s a traveling businessman”!!!! Erin never asks to see her proof, but I guess she believes her, because she lets her inside and then makes her take care of the remaining eight dogs out of spite. I guess they make up at some point. Anyway, somewhere in here Erin and Martin are starting to fall in love and also come up with a way to rebrand the business, so hooray for them. We also learn that the reason Martin hates dogs is that his beloved childhood dog, uh, ran away? Disappeared? Got eaten? He insists that “not knowing [what happened to him] was the worst part,” but I was out here expecting to see the child finding an actual dead dog like it’s John Wick or something so this was a little anticlimactic. They go on a business trip to New York talk with Important Japanese Investors, during which they fuck (it is? romantic? allegedly?), and then the morning of their meeting Erin’s shitty ex shows up in the hotel lobby to bother her. Martin decks him square in the face for not leaving her alone, and then someone calls the cops, because I guess this movie said ACAB, and both dudes get arrested and Erin has to do the presentation alone. And then in the last five minutes Martin gets out of jail and Erin says that she gave the presentation to the investors...in English, and their translator was twenty minutes late, and so the investors understood none of what she said. Thankfully we are spared actually seeing this “joke,” but they do play racist music over her explanation. Then Martin reconnects with his rich dad who bails out the company instead, and also he adopts the four remaining dogs. This movie was fucking bananas and very bad and I need more people to understand exactly how bad. Watch this movie.

A Nutcracker Christmas (2016): Amy Acker has two Christmas movies and this one seemed more palatable than Dear Santa, so here we are. I like to watch Amy Acker be cute and dance, and she has an adorable teenage niece in this movie that she’s helped raise. In this movie she’s a former ballet dancer whose sister (hilariously, one of the Wynonna Earp lesbians) died in a tragic car accident, and she never got to dance the part of the Sugarplum Fairy. Spoiler alert: she gets to by the end of the movie. Unfortunately the love interest is basically Satan incarnate and does not deserve her at all, so unless you like yelling at romantic leads I can’t really recommend it. 

Godmothered (2020): This movie is just, uh, Enchanted but worse, and also it should have been sapphic and it isn’t? Poor Jillian Bell is doing her best and is adorable, but it’s not enough to save this movie for me. If Disney were not cowards she would have fallen in love with single mom Isla Fisher. Oh, it also ends with the very white younger daughter doing a public cover of “Rise Up” by Andra Day that the audience joins in on, which, considering its use in the BLM movement the last couple years, felt, uh, not great to me.

A Christmas Prince (2017): It’s maybe not far to compare this to the rest of the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe, because it was the originator. But also, it’s pretty boring. Sorry. Simon, or Fiddles (Fake Hiddles/Tom Hiddleston) is the best character.

Married by Christmas (2016): Apparently an alternate title for this is The Engagement Clause, which is sort of funny. Anyway, this has Jes Macallan and we, being big fans of Legends of Tomorrow, lost our shit when we found this on Christmas Day and had to watch it. The plot is that Jes’ character runs the family business, but their shitty grandma died and left a clause in her will where the business goes to the husband of whichever granddaughter gets married first. You would think that Jes’ sister and her fiance would postpone their Christmas Eve wedding to give Jes time to set up some kind of platonic wedding for business purposes, since Jes’ entire life is this stupid business, but nope, they immediately turn into monsters who are determined to get their hands on the business for ???? reasons???? It’s not very good, as you can tell by how low it is on the list. Jes Macallan is not a convincing straight businesswoman. I wouldn’t even really enjoy this movie as an Avalance AU.

A Princess for Christmas (2011): Here we are, the worst one Christmas movie I watched this year. I don’t actively harbor any ill will towards Katie McGrath, although I confess to feeling a bit “her?” but it’s fine. I was hoping this movie would enlighten me to her appeal. Instead, this movie actively got on my nerves in multiple ways, including trying to pass Katie McGrath off as a normal American retail worker instead of an Irish vampire/sorceress/supervillain/fairy/whatever she is. Her accent is shockingly awful, which I’m not sure is actually her fault, is there a reason her family wasn’t just British? That wouldn’t have saved the movie but it would have made it just slightly more palatable. At every turn it makes the worst choices, including a scene where Katie’s character puts on a rap song and she and the prince dance to it in an attempt to show them “loosening up,” and then the mean grandfather comes in and demands that they “turn this ghetto music off.” YIKES. I know these movies are the whitest movies ever by design but was that racism necessary? The only Black people I actually saw in this movie were some of the servants, I think? Speaking of the servants, at the end of the movie there’s a grand ball and Katie’s dress gets fucked up, and she’s about to leave the country, and then the servants are like “don’t go! We pooled our money to buy you another nice dress!” which, also yikes! This movie has a real classism problem. It also was so boring I zoned out of it multiple times, and I have sat through Manos: The Hands of Fate and Birdemic multiple times. This movie has no chaos whatsoever and I hated all the characters. 0/10 do not recommend under any circumstances.

[storyunrelated]

Candidate for completion - George & The Dragon

George & The Dragon

Most dragons spend their lives, comfortably, happily alone.

Jessica is not like that, because Jessica has George, and Jessica has George because they met when they were both young and they have had years of each other to grow together and George was patient enough and dense enough to just wade through Jessica’s bluntness, until it stopped being blunt and started being warm. 

Had she ever just told him to go away he likely would have, being a nice chap in that way, but she never did, and so he kept coming back. Like a lost dog. And eventually Jessica realised that she liked him coming back and didn’t like those times when he wasn’t there, and that was that.

WHAT

Jessica's name, it should also be pointed out, isn't actually Jessica. Being a dragon she had a suitably grandiose and impressive draconic name, the sort of thing to be bellowed out while stood on a rocky promontory during a thunderstorm.

To properly pronounce it, however, required the kind of vocal architecture that George simply did not possess, and since he'd pointed out that the last part of the name kind of sort of maybe sounded like 'Jessica' - full of sibilance and magnificent hissing sounds - that is what he elected to call her.

And since she had something of a soft spot for the human she allowed him to get away with this.

To put it bluntly, a young man and his friend who is a dragon bum around a vaguely defined setting, hanging out, wasting time, meeting people and talking while the narration waffles on at length about absolute bollocks.

There’s hugging.

And not a whole lot of what you might typically call ‘plot’.

WHO

“Hey, Blossom, how about I ask you a question?” George asked, asking to ask a question by asking a question. Blossom was delighted - trees loved questions, both giving and receiving them.

“Fire away,” they said.

“Where are you right now?” George asked. It had been tugging at his brain, this question.

“Technically speaking I am wherever I am - you’re talking about where most of me is right now, aren’t you?” Blossom asked. They had seen this question coming. It was fairly common.

“Yes?” George said, unsure.

“The tree part, you’re talking about the tree part,” Blossom clarified.

“Yes!” George said, now sure.

There are two main characters. There is George, who is human, and Jessica, who is a dragon. They are friends and have been since they were little. Because of this Jessica is not like most other dragons, who are grumpy loners. She is grumpy and possessive of George and other than him is a loner.

George is cheerful and outgoing and just loves meeting new people, and there are all sorts of people to meet! And he also thinks Jessica could benefit from having even more friends - after all, he’s her friend and look how well that turned out!

Thus. 

Related to these two and following close behind are the other two friends, Capability (aka Billy) who is an elf (specifically a princess, because I like princesses) and Blossom who is a tree. They’re kind of tangential but are still important.

What I am attempting to do with these schlocky fantasy stock characters (and some others, later) is deliver them in a sufficiently idiosyncratic way to make their interactions, well, if not interesting then at least not just standard. A point of this hackneyed setting is that despite everyone operating on a different level everyone just gets along, because.

I don’t just want different-shaped humans. Even if they’re vaguely human shaped, I want the way their lives run to be different enough that their values might not necessarily line up, but everyone gets on anyway, yeah?

So - and this is where it starts getting dicey, at least in my mind - you have characters like Blossom, who is big grove of thinking trees somewhere but who interacts with everyone else by growing a wooden body with flowing hair of flowers that goes off and does all the talking. And, being a tree, is amused and unaffected by such flesh-and-blood concepts of gender because, well, they’re a tree. They also wear nice big fluffy jumpers.

The dicey part in there for me is the gender part. I’ve mentioned before that I’m probably the straightest, whitest, malest person you could ever hope to meet and if I haven’t I’m mentioning it now. I’m likely brimming with prejudices I’m not even aware of and spilling careless words like a drunk spills their drink. But I just want a story where everyone, no matter who they are and how they interact with the world, gets along. And none of it is ever called into question. It just is. People might be curious and ask questions, but only so they know the answer and not continue being wrong, not because they want to start poking holes.

Elves reproduce by spores, fine. Trees love to meet people and don’t really get fucking, fine. Dragons are incredibly myopic about the things they like and if something isn’t a thing they like then they don’t give two shits, fine. Humans are everywhere for a very specific reason but no-one makes a deal out of it, fine. Everyone gets along anyway, and all is well in the world. What’s for dinner?

I’m doing a bad job of explaining this...

WHERE

The past is - not was, is - full of monsters, it’s true, and the intention is to try and ensure that the future isn’t. You can’t ever be rid of monsters, of course. That’s not how it works. But you can certainly do your best to keep them to a minimum and ensure that those times they do pop up (and they will pop up) the damage they inflict is limited.

To actually bash George & The Dragon into something with a beginning, a middle and an end I’d need a plot to lash the whole thing around, some structure. Right? Right.

The story as it is right now - such as it is - is just chunks strung together, vaguely detailing George and Jessica going on a small holiday together to some town, eating steak, meeting Blossom, meeting Billy and generally just...

...hanging out.

And she manhandles him because she’s a whacking great dragon and dragons have difficult dealing with others and certainly have no real concept of friendship and yet she does and it’s all confusing and oh aren’t they just lovely together blah blah blah. Self-indulgent. I like this kind of shit.

Which is the whole point of the thing, for me, but lacks any actual drive or goal or anything. It’s just fluff. Which was the point, for me. But to have a hook on which to hang the fluff - something people sometimes desire - I’d need something else.

There’s vague ideas later in the story for George’s uncle Bob (who vanished in a magic-related accident years ago) to pop back. He’ll be fine, of course, as this story is about people being fine, and he’ll then start up a business of going around the world looking at weird crap, for this world I cooked up is meant to be full of weird crap (the ground was mentioned to be missing in some places).

Likewise, the world is also heavily implied (and in some cases outright stated) to have once been much, much worse. As in, everyone used to kill everyone else all the time until one day they all realised it was a huge waste of time and so they stopped. So the world has seen some shit, and is still full of weird stuff from ages past if you go out looking for it.

This leads to things like digging up a magically slumbering human from the old times who is appalled at how peaceful things are now. 

And later they find a door into our world and someone falls through it, and he’s appalled at how peaceful things are. It’s quite explicit.

There’s dragons under the ground, too. Eventually they get super-big and just sink under the ground and turn to stone and sleep forever. That’s what’s going to happen to Jessica, eventually. 

What was I saying?

Oh yeah. And so Jessica and George would then basically have an excuse to go off and see more stuff and meet more people and, uh...

What was I saying?

WHY

“Back in the real world - my world - cream is not what rises to the top, typically. In fact, let’s run with this imagery. Forget cream at all. There is no cream. Never was, never will be. No milk either. It’s just shit. And you might think that, well, it’s just shit on top, if we reach down through that we might find something of value, something hidden. But no. It’s just shit all the way down. Runnier, maybe, less rancid perhaps. But still shit. That’s life. Top to bottom, shit. That’s the people in life, too. People are, without fail, varying level of stupid, ugly and slow. The ratios differ, the ingredients do not. That’s the real world. That’s how things are meant to work. This place is all wrong.”

The point is fluff. The explicit point is fluff. I wrote this initially for my own edification and because I have a huge soft spot ‘Guy and something that is not human have a very close friendship that maybe could be a bit more but doesn’t necessarily have to be’.

Bite me. We all have our vices.

So that’s the point. It’s mainly about these two people who like each other hanging around and doing stuff. Eating steak, swimming in a lido, random crap like that. One of them is a dragon and can turn into a duck because dragons can change shape, why not. Just two people, having a good time.

The other point is, uh, trying to just navel-gaze about a more pleasant place. Wish-fulfillment? Escapism? Something like that.

A lot of what I write here (and you may have noticed this) tends to be a bit miserable, a bit maudlin, a bit nihilistic, maybe. Run For It!, for example, is just misery after misery after misery, that’s just how it is. 

But sometimes I just want to write about getting hugged by a dragon, alright! In a world where that’s seen as cutely novel! And your other friend is a tree! And they pull their finger off and give it to you and you plant it and grow another one of them! And your other other friend is an elf princess who has wings and who looks out for all the non-princess elves in town because that’s just what she does! And you all go out and eat ice cream!

What was I saying?

WELL

Normal is not a stick to beat people with. Because if you do start doing that you end up having to beat everyone with it because no-one fits perfectly and they might start threatening to take the stick away from you because you can’t be trusted with it and then no-one would listen to you and someone else might get the stick and hit you so you just keep hitting and hitting. 

What’s the point?

There’s a line that runs through this whole thing. A dividing line.

On the one side there’s the simple, straightforward and self-indulgent stuff.

On the other, there’s my cack-handed efforts at, uh, trying to be diverse, I guess would be the word? I don’t know. I just want - calling it variety makes it sound like a novelty act - uh...

...broadness. 

The main guy might just be another hacked-up version of me but I want others coming from all angles. But I don’t know those angles! And I’m ever-fearful that I’ll get them horribly, horribly wrong.

Suppose this is why, uh, sensitivity readers are a thing?

Not that anyone ever really reads anything I do anyway, not really.

Probably for the best...

[spnreactionblogging]

CARRY ON

spoilers below but I’m very late to the game

here we go!!! there's Some Woman in the thumbnail for this episode and I'm like oh boy did you fuckers turn castiel into a girl to make it Not Gay, I will riot. we're off to a dread-inducing start I'm honestly not even sure I want to watch this? I have not heard anything good but since my options are either keep SPN blacklisted forever but ultimately get spoiled anyway, or use my dwindling remaining time to see it for myself without being told what happens, may as well be on my own terms I am hearing that misha and possibly j2 were not happy with this, whatever this is (?????) yikes I don't understand how you even have another episode after the last one. that seems like a traditional ending. you either beat a dead horse or go ultra meta and it sounds like they dropped the ball, big time but let's see jack's sweet and deserved better. there's a clock but it's NOT heat of the moment playing, damn oh the dog. we love you miracle dog sam's still jogging where's eileen!!!! I like seeing sam cooking I actually enjoy watching them do domestic stuff dean sneaking food to the dog 😭 can this be the whole episode, just them doing chores I meant to catch which book sam was reading I can't tell but it looks like it's old this is extra bonus sad for knowing that they couldn't even like, have a wrap party or anything. extra isolated. :( SPECIAL GUEST STAR JIM BEAVER!!! "Are you sure you're ready for this?" "Oh, I don't have a choice." dean hasn't been this relatable to me in years, this is how I feel watching this lmao akron pie fest dean dies of complications from diabetes god I miss bakeries or restaurants or anything I do love Sad Sam Face "I"'m thinking about Cas, you know? Jack. If they could be here." thank you Sam that pain isn't going away for me either "stop being an eeyore" Sam's the Eeyore of the series, Dean, okay, and same lmao jared fucking slammed that pie into jensen's face and they just filmed it. you can see the actual glee on his face brady??? like sam's old classmate? wasn't that his name? or no some kid. is this just a regular-ass monster of the week. do sam and dean just get killed by like. regular people? are there no monsters anymore. I would actually love that. humanity is truly the worst monster of all. didn't we learn that in season 1 :') in "the benders" are these guys sam and dean? are they just murdering monster families like they did in the holiday episode? what is happening. are those dean's shoes. I could probably recognize how they walk if I really paid attention i guess not. probably. "singer and kripke, FBI" ha fucking clowns lmao poor sam they still have dad's journal, huh. THE LORE evil mimes. vamp-mimes. I guess they kill these dudes? we gonna unmask them or what there we go this guy looks like joseph gordon-levitt oh we love torture on this show this is definitely "dean who's NOT the ultimate killer" amirite "if those kids are dead he's gonna use a spoon" how very walter sullivan of you also I feel like sam would not do this anymore but hey who am I, someone who likes consistent characterization? lol we're back to creepy barns instead of wet pipe factories dean has a fucking shuriken lmao I honestly for real need a machete for the overgrown weeds I don't hate this so far? I'm tired of the constant torture but I guess this feels like early seasons, kind of. idk. lmao sam with the concussions. classic tie them to a chair. it's what we do. i will be disappointed if they are not tied to a chair jenny? cue studio killers. I do not remember whatever episiode this is but it looks very early based on sam's hair oh thanks sam. couldn't get out of this episode without beheading a woman too one of the suggestions for me typing "woman" was a high-heeled shoe emoji. thanks, predictive text...?????? true feminist oh damn he could very well get tetanus from that. that's how trinity dies, man. should've gotten your booster shot, dean. vaccines save lives this is like the plot of signs why don't you guys wear bulletproof shit. your plot armor was holding you together until now. GUYS THIS IS HOW HUNTERS GO OKAY don't ever un-impale someone, guys like "dean we are in a major city, there are ambulances" call fucking 911, someone could be there already "I've always looked up to you" because you're taller than me lmaoooo idefk what to say about this like. we all know this is how hunters die. you fucking leered at jessica is what you did, dean if sam makes it out of this I'll accept it. if sam lives I can be okay. if this is the only way sam gets free of this, I'm okay. CALL 911 AND CALL JACK "always keep fighting" aw :( they're both very good at crying, I will give them that we never think it's gonna be the day. at least you got pie. OH THE WINCHESTER FAMILY MUSIC don't do this to me dean got a way better death than castiel. this actually reminds me a liiiiittle bit of the end of season 2? with how dean holds sam's body. the writing here is overwrought though. jared and jensen do the best they can with the script they're given but like you guys just FOUGHT GOD. they're a bit too up their own ass with this. you can tell that dabb thinks he's very clever. sam... gets a dog again? at least. i guess. the pacing is bad. I don't hate this on principle but it is not executed well. I am having like no emotional response to this except maybe relief for sam in a horrid way. like, you're free! at what cost. it's like the opposite of season 5? sam survives instead of dean. and... sam marries a dog. where do they get all this fucking lumber!!! did sam chop that all himself dude if he woke up to "heat of the moment" i'd lose my shit in the best way. gabriel wins. "gotta keep you on your toes." what had to change in this because of the pandemic? at least sam has a dog to be in scenes with him. the two guns as big and little brothers is an interesting choice of a shot. god the fucking phones. "DHS" "CIA" "dean's 'other other' phone" "state patrol" what's the paperwork on his desk? (512) is an Austin area code I have this on amazon prime and the saddest thing thus far is X-Ray: Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester, with no other actors at all. meta ways, pandemic related. "this is agent bon jovi" donna's alive??? sam just quit, babe. just quit. or take a day off at least, jesus. didn't you just drive back from ohio are you even gonna go back to the bunker DEAN IN HEAVEN!!! how'd you get here. "well at least I made it to heaven" lmao he said the same thing oh hey bobby!! I love jack god i've missed jim beaver you guys moved on to dream bubbles!!!!! RUFUS how very homestuck + narnia of you, starring sam winchester as susan pevensie so jack just like melded all of these metaphysical spaces, I'm cool with that "so the question is what are you gonna do now, dean?" get a better beer so I can drink and drive with my car that's in heaven, I'm already dead so who cares what I hit TELL ME WHERE IS BALTHAZAR FOR I MUCH DESIRE TO SPEAK WITH HIM break everyone out of the empty I do get the impression this was supposed to be a big cast reunion and the pandemic clobbered that :( oh it's the original license plate on the impala sure do love that cas and jack "helped" to give dean everything he's ever wanted. the only time "carry on my wayward son" has been diegetic I guess sam and the dog had a child I like jared in glasses are we doing a bunch of elderly makeup yeah there he is did they just spray grey temp dye on his hair or what is sam gonna drive into toluca lake!!! buddy please don't just run the engine in a garage, he took off his glasses and that makes me nervous jake gyllenhaal looking dude which cover is this must be nice to have healthcare I so appreciate that sam's wife has zero personality and is merely in the background, of no importance whatsoever compared to his kid named dean are the two impalas gonna meet in heaven????? vancouver is beautiful, or wherever this is at jared looks so cozy in that coat you can tell j2 really do love each other for real the majesty of that forest/that river got me choked up a bit, it's such a lonely thing. like. I can see what they were going for? like dean just... getting sick, falling off a ladder, getting in a car accident, etc etc would've been more potent, I think. the execution was not good. I'm not that unhappy though. it's all right. eh. it's fine. the heartfelt message from the cast (what's left of them....) and the crew was sweet. I want to know what they were intending to do? I feel like you can definitely feel the weight of COVID fucking this up which is genuinely upsetting. sam gets like 50 years of being free of dean I GUESS???? perhaps the only way to break the cycle.

at least there was no sexual assault in this episode. i have definitely watched way worse episodes of this show. it's like. twee. but I can't be mad at these guys especially with how much I know jared in particular has been struggling with the state of the world this year but jensen talked about it with rosenbaum on his show too. 2020 has been rough. like. at least they filmed it. whatever. I feel like I get what they were trying to do even if circumstances meant it wasn't really pulled off. it seems like they were supposed to have a big cast reunion and the pandemic took the wind completely out of their sails. this feels incredibly tacked on. 15x19 would've been a much better place to stop. I feel like I just read andrew dabb's notes. I get what they were trying to go for but they didn't pull it off. I thought it was gonna be a lot worse tbh in summary: EHHHHHHHHH

[therandombanjo]

Songs From 2019 (one per artist)

Another mixed bag of stuff i either enjoyed a lot, thought was excellent or interesting (regardless of taste… sort of), emerging artists to maybe look out for, and generally music that for whatever reason connected with me in some way, including the odd earworm i just couldn’t shake. Some artists are left off just to vary a little more from some other popular lists. Hope you enjoy some of this too and find something new to be taken by. Please do buy their music if you can and hopefully from a local independent record store if possible to support their work. There’s a spotify playlist (below) for easier listening but I’ve also posted a few links to extra things on some of them if you want to check them out.  Spotify:

(As ever…. as i don’t tumblr or blog or anything (besides this list), this won’t be seen by many (if any?) people so if you like it or think it’s of any worth in any way, please do share this along)

In Alphabetical order:

A.A. Bondy - Killers 3 Abdallah Oumbadougou - Thingalene Alasdair Roberts - Common Clay Alex Rex - Latest Regret Andy Shauf - Try Again Angel Bat Dawid - We Are Starzz Angel Olsen - All Mirrors        bonus. her collab with Mark Ronson “True Blue” Anne Müller - Solo? Repeat! Antoinette Konan - Kokoloko Tani Arthur Russell - Words Of Love Asmâa Hamzaoui and Bnat Timbouktou - Sandia Baby Rose - All To Myself BCI - Grateful Bedouine - When You’re Gone Benny The Butcher - Crowns For Kings      ft. Black Thought Ben Walker - Afon Better Oblivion Community Center - Chesapeake Beverly Glenn-Copeland - A Little Talk     (from a reissue of her 2004 record Primal Prayer) Bibio - Curls The Big Moon - It’s Easy Then Big Thief - a. Not    b. Cattails    (from 2 excellent albums released in the same year: “U.F.O.F” and “Two Hands”) Bill Callahan - a. What Comes After Certainty    b. The Ballad Of The Hulk Bill Fay - Filled With Wonder Once Again Bill Orcutt - Odds Against Tomorrow billy woods - a. Spongebob w/ Kenny Segal     b. Western Education Is Forbidden    ft. Fielded        (From 2 excellent records this year: “Hiding Places” with Kenny Segal, and “Terror Management”) Black Country, New Road - Sunglasses Blu & Oh No - The Lost Angels Anthem    ft. Kezia Bon Iver - Hey, Ma Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Beast For Thee Bonny Light Horseman - Bonny Light Horseman      (”supergroup” of the great Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D Johnson & Josh Kaufman) Brent Cobb & Jade Bird - Feet Off The Ground Brighde Chaimbeul -  O Chiadain an Lo Brigyn - Oer Brittany Howard - Stay High    (the video for this, with Terry Crews, is a delight) Bruce Hornsby - Voyager One    ft. yMusic Burd Ellen - Sweet Lemany Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Thomas Bartlett - Kestrel Caribou - You and I Caroline Polachek - Door Cate Le Bon - Daylight Matters Caterina Barbieri - Arrows Of Time Clairo - Bags Cochemea - Mitote comfort - Not Passing The Cool Greenhouse - Cardboard Man    (a pretty hilarious song about David Cameron) CRAC - You Can’t Turn Your Back On Me    (Unreleased old track from ‘76) Cross Record - PYSOL My Castle CZ Wang and Neo Image - Just Off Wave Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble - a. Rebuild a Nation   b. Power Daniel Norgren - The Flow Danny Brown - Dirty Laundry Daphni - Sizzling    ft. Paradise Daughter Of Swords - Fellows      (Mountain Man member Alexandra Sauser-Monnig’s 1st solo record) Dave - Psycho David Kilgour - Smoke You Right Out Of Here David Thomas Broughton - Ambiguity     (from the 15th anniversary reissue of his remarkable debut album, The Complete Guide To Insufficiency) Denzel Curry - RICKY Destroyer - Crimson Tide Dry Cleaning - Dog Proposal Dubi Dolczek - Do The Gloop Durand Jones & The Indications - Long Way Home Ela Orleans - The Season      (From 2012 but on a career retrospective, Movies For Ears, put out this year) Elkhorn - Song Of The Son Emile Mosseri - a. The Last Black Man In San Francisco b. San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)    ft. Mike Marshall         (both from the wonderful score for the wonderful film The Last Black Man In San Francisco, the latter a cover of an old song sung here by the guy who sang “I Got 5 On It”!!) Erland Cooper - Haar Ernest Hood - Saturday Morning Doze        (from a re-issue of his “self-released proto-ambient masterpiece” in ‘75) Fat White Family - Feet Faye Webster - Room Temperature Fennesz - In My Room Fernando Falcão -  As 7 Filhas Da Rainha Sumaia     (reissue from ‘87) FKA twigs - cellophane Florist - Shadow Bloom Flowdan - Welcome To London Fontaines D.C. - Roy’s Tune Four Tet / KH - Only Human French Vanilla - All The Time Gang Starr - Family and Loyalty   ft. J. Cole Georgia - About Work The Dancefloor Girl Band - Shoulderblades The Good Ones - Will You Be My Protector?   (of Rwanda) Grand Veymont - Les Rapides Bleus       (of France) Gyedu-Blay Ambolley - Sunkwa     (of Ghana) Hailaker - Not Much HAIM - Summer GIrl Hana Vu - Actress Hand Habits - placeholder Hannah Cohen - Get In Line The Harlem Gospel Travellers - If You Can’t Make It Through A Storm Hayden Thorpe - Diviner     (Former Wild Beasts frontman’s debut solo record) Helado Negro - Running The Highwomen - Redesigning Women Hiss Golden Messenger - I Need A Teacher Holly Herndon - Frontier Homeboy Sandman - Far Out Hoops - They Say Hotel Neon & Blurstem - Language Of Loss House and Land - Rainbow ‘Mid Life’s Willows Ibibio Sound Machine - Wanna Come Down IDER - Saddest Generation The Innocence Mission - On Your Side International Teachers Of Pop - I Stole Yer Plimsoles    ft. Jason Williamson (of Sleaford Mods) Jacken Elswyth - The Banks Of Green Williow Jaimie Branch - nuevo roquero estéreo Jake Xerxes Fussell - The River St. Johns Jamila Woods - ZORA Jayda G - Leave Room 2 Breathe Jenny Hval - Ashes To Ashes       Jenny Lewis - Red Bull and Hennessy Jesca Hoop - Outside of Eden     ft. Kate Stables (of This Is The Kit) and Jesca’s 12 year-old nephew Justis. This live performance is so sweet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUPmE_hU7Ss Jessica Pratt - As The World Turns Joanna Sternberg - This Is Not Who I Want To Be Joan Shelley - Cycle John Blek - North Star Lady Jordan Rakei - Say Something        bonus. under his DJ pseudonym: Dan Kye - Focus Jo Schornikow - Incomplete Joseph Shabason - West of Heaven Julianna Barwick - evening Junius Paul - Baker’s Dozen Kali Malone - Spectacle Of Ritual Kate Teague - Sweetheart Kate Tempest - a. Firesmoke    b. People’s Faces Kelly Moran - Halogen (Una Corda)       (from a record full of all the bare piano parts she played for her prior record before all the editing and processing) Kim Gordon - Air BnB Kindness - Hard To Believe     ft. Jazmine Sullivan KOKOKO! - Buka Dansa     (Congolese collective upcycling discarded materials to make their instruments) Konradsen - Baby Hallelujah     (of Norway) Lambchop - Everything For You Laura Cannell - a. Sing As The Crow Flies     b. Flaxen Fields Laura Stevenson - Lay Back, Arms Out Le Groupe Obscur -  Planète Ténèbres Leonard Cohen - Happens To The Heart Leo Svirsky - River Without Banks Little Simz - 101 FM Lizzo - Tempo   ft. Missy Elliot Loren Conors & Daniel Carter - Departing Lou Roy - Bite Low Chord - Walkk Lower Dens - Galapagos Mahalia - What You Did    ft. Ella Mai Majja - Black James Dean Maria Somerville - This Way Maria Usbeck - Amor Anciano Mary Halvorson & John Dieterich - Vega’s Array      (Mary the recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Grant this year, because she is) Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan - IV Matana Roberts - As Far As The Eye Can See Meitei - Ike Melanie Charles - Trill Suite, No. 1 (Daydreaming/Skylark) The Menzingers - Anna Messiahs Of Glory - No Other Love      (from a collection of rare black gospel from the Midwest between ‘65-’78 put out on Tompkins Square) Mica Levi - a. Hosting     b. Lobo y Lady (from the excellent Colombian film Monos) Michael Abels - a. I Got 5 On It (Tethered Mix)    b. Pas De Deux (both from the terrific score to the excellent Jordan Peele film, Us) Michael Kiwanuka - Living In Denial Michael Nau - Poor Condition Mike Adams At His Honest Weight - Wonderful To Love Minor Pieces - Rothko      (duo of Ian William Craig & newcomer Missy Donaldson) Modern Nature - Footsteps Molly Sarlé - Twisted      (Mountain Man member’s 1st solo record) Moodymann - I’ll Provide Moon Duo - Stars Are The Light Moor Mother - After Images Moses Boyd - Stranger Than Fiction Moses Sumney - Polly Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron - Love Without Possession MSYLMA - Inqirad (Rihab-U Dhakir)     (Saudi Arabia) The Murder Capital - Don’t Cling To Life Nardeydey - Freefalling The National - Rylan   ft. Kate Stables (of This Is The Kit) The New Pornographers - Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - a. Waiting For You   b. Bright Horses   c. Night Raid Nivhek - After Its Own Death: Side A    (Liz Harris of Grouper) Noname - Song 32 Octo Octa - Move Your Body ODD OKODDO - Auma      (Kenyan/German duo) Øyvind Torvund - Starry Night      (Norwegian composer) Pet Shop Boys - Burning The Heather Petter Eldh - Fanfarum for Komarum II Porridge Radio - Give/Take PREGOBLIN - Combustion Purple Mountains - a. Snow Is Falling In Manhattan    b. All My Happiness Is Gone   c. That’s Just The Way That I Feel Quelle Chris - Obamacare Quinie - Whas At The Windy Rapsody - Ibtihaj   ft. D’Angelo & GZA Reb Fountain - Faster Rian Treanor - ATAXIA_A1 Richard Dawson - Two Halves Robert Stillman - All Are Welcome Róisín Murphy - Incapable Rosalía - Milionària Rosenau & Sanborn - Saturday Rozi Plain - Symmetrical Ruth Garbus - Strash Sam Lee - The Moon Shines Bright   ft. Elizabeth Fraser (of Cocteau Twins) Sam Wilkes - Run Sandro Perri - Soft Landing SAULT - Smile and Go Seabuckthorn - To Which The Rest Were Dreamt serpentwithfeet - Receipts    ft. Ty Dolla $ign Sessa - Flor do Real         (of Brazil) Sheer Mag - Hardly To Blame Shit and Shine - No No No No Sinead O Brien - A Thing You Call Joy Siobhan Wilson - Plastic Grave Six Organs Of Admittance - Two Forms Moving Sleaford Mods - Kebab Spider Slow Meadow - Artificial Algorithm Snowy - EFFED    ft. Jason Williamson (of Sleaford Mods) SOAK - Knock Me Off My Feet Solange - Binz Sophie Crawford - A Miner’s Life Squid - Houseplants         bonus. Their cover of Robert Wyatt’s  “PIgs..... In There at End of the Road Festival) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DktZtQbo-YU Stella Donnelly - Old Man SUSS - Ursa Major Swamp Dogg - Sleeping Without You Is A Dragg   ft. Justin Vernon & Jenny Lewis Tami T - Birthday  Tenesha The Wordsmith - Why White Folks Can’t Call Me Nigga Theon Cross - Activate     ft. Moses Boyd & Nubya Garcia Thom Yorke - Dawn Chorus Tierra Whack - Wasteland Tim Hecker - That World Tiny Leaves - Respair Toya Delazy - Funani         (of South Africa) Twain - Death (Or S.F.?) Twin Peaks - Dance Through It Tyler Childers - All Your’n Vagabon - Water Me Down Vampire Weekend - This Life Vanishing Twin - Magicians Success Velvet Negroni - Confetti Vendredi Sur Mer - Chewing-Gum      (of France) Victoria Monét - Ass Like That Vieo Abiungo - Cobble Together Visible Cloaks - Stratum      ft. Yoshio Ojima & Satsuki Shibano Warmduscher - Midnight Dipper Weyes Blood - Andromeda Wilco - Love Is Everywhere (Beware) William Tyler - Our Lady Of The Desert Willie Scott & The Birmingham Spirituals - Keep Your Faith To The Sky     (from a collection of obscure 70′s era gospel on Luaka Bop, “The Time For Peace Is Now - Gospel Music About Us”) Xylouris White - Tree Song Ye Vagabonds - The Foggy Dew Zsela - Noise

[johnnymundano]

Slasher Season 1: The Executioner (2016)

Directed by Craig David Wallace

Written by Aaron Martin

Music by Shawn Pierce

Country: Canada

Language: English

8 Episodes of around 46 – 53 minutes each

CAST

Katie McGrath as Sarah Bennett

Brandon Jay McLaren as Dylan Bennett

Steve Byers as Cam Henry

Patrick Garrow as Tom Winston

Dean McDermott as Iain Vaughn

Christopher Jacot as Robin Turner

Wendy Crewson as Brenda Merrit

Jessica Sipos as June Henry

Mary Walsh as Verna McBride

Enuka Okuma as Lisa Ann Follows

Erin Karpluk as Heather Peterson

Mayko Nguyen as Alison Sutherland

Rob Stewart as Alan Henry

Jefferson Brown as Trent McBride

Mark Ghanimé as Justin Faysal

Dylan Taylor as Bryan Ingram

Alysa King as Rachel Ingram

Victoria Snow as Sonja Edwards

Hannah Endicott-Douglas as Ariel Peterson

Shawn Ahmed as Sharma

Booth Savage as Ronald Edwards

Susannah Hoffman as Marjorie Travers

(Guilty Party: I took the images from IMDB because I can’t screengrab over 8 hours and besides, my dog told me to.)

Slasher: The Executioner is a Canadian TV series about, um, slashers and all that slasher stuff. Bogling about The Internet I discovered that the creator, one Aaron Martin by name, has wisely opted for an anthology format, whereby each season (two at present) is a complete storyline. Apparently there is connective tissue between each season  to engender a feel of them taking place in the same Slasher Universe; which is like the Marvel®©™ Universe but with less quips and more mom porn and severed hands. I say “apparently” because I haven’t seen the second season (Slasher: Guilty Party (2017)) I have seen the first season though and that definitely has more mom porn and severed hands than the Marvel®©™ Cinematic Universe.

Now, if you’re reading this thing which is about a TV show called Slasher, then you might think you like slasher movies, but do you like slasher movies enough to watch what is effectively a 7 hour and change slasher movie? Do you? Huh? Huh? That’s a normal working day right there. You are right to be hesitant, as that doesn’t sound like it would work, at least not as entertainment, maybe as a kind of torture. The usual slasher movie is a timidly formulaic creature, so we can characterise the average slasher movie as starting with a brief kill, then some flopping bonelessly about with a solid hour of “meet the characters”, then 40 minutes or so of mayhem, climaxing with a one on one slobberknocker. Stick to that formula for 8 episodes and you’d end up (NB: the maths is a bit loose here) with an exciting first episode, 5.5 episodes of dishwater dull soap-operatics and then an insanely violent final 1.5 episodes. That would of course be stupid, which is one of roughly a billion reasons why they didn’t ask me to make it. No, they asked Aaron Martin and the Slasher gods should be thankful that Aaron Martin knew what to do.

A nagging sense of fairness demands I should pause to note that hundreds of people were involved in the making of Slasher: The Executioner, but it’s accepted shorthand to say “Aaron Martin…” So, “Aaron Martin” made a long-ass slasher movie, but realising this was a marathon and not a sprint, structured each episode so that it worked within the larger narrative framework. It’s an approach familiar to anyone who read mainstream comics back when they had actual stories (rather than today’s unending conversations punctuated by punching; Calm down, Cochise, I’m not saying they were better back then (most of anything is shit after all), I’m just saying they were different). In effect then, for all the none old timey comics fans: in Slasher: The Executioner the uberplot chugs along while various subplots intertwine beneath it breeding red herrings, developing character and basically raising the stakes until uber and under finally intertwine in a climactic crescendo. Oh, and there is at least one kill every episode to keep your unhealthy interest piqued. Got to have those sweet, sweet kills. It is called Slasher after all, not Magic Picnic Time With The Dancing Rainbow Babies. Those dismissive of the slasher movie (Hi, mom!) often underestimate the variety of slasher movies; they aren’t all set in a holiday camp for randy morons on Prom Night one Halloween which is coincidentally, and impossibly, also Friday the 13th. No, there is also Cherry Falls (2000) and, oh, My Bloody Valentine (2009) and, er, anyway, probably some others. This type being The Small Town Terrorised by Its Past slasher, as it is more commonly known. This is the template which Slasher: The Executioner favours most. (The Internet Elves tell me Slasher: Guilty Party riffs on The Holiday Death Camp template).

Events kick off with the present day return of pleasant, newlywed young artist Sarah Bennett (née Ingram) to Waterbury, where she was born on Halloween night in 1988, when a masked killer cut her from the womb of her mother, Rachel. Rachel’s husband, Bryan, had died about ten seconds earlier from a frenzied knife-torso interaction, leaving nobody to hand out candy to the trick or treaters except the killer, The Executioner, who docilely awaited the police cradling the bloody new-born in his arms. It’s fair to say Sarah has issues with Waterbury, and as her arrival coincides with  the start of a spate of copycat Executioner killings, Waterbury has issues with Sarah. And it’s this business that occupies your eyes and ears for the bulk of the 8 episodes. I mean, that was some spoilertastic stuff back there, yeah? But get this…that was only the opening 10 minutes; there’s plenty of unspoiled stuff and, hey, maybe those first 10 minutes I just got spoil all over aren’t all as they initially appear? That is a distinct possibility. Yes it is.

What then unfolds over the televisually paced course of Slasher: The Executioner’s 8 episodes is slashtastically fun stuff. Pretty much everything you expect in a slasher movie happens, because that predictability is part of the fun of a slasher movie. Crucially, however, some stuff you don’t expect to happen in a slasher movie also happens, which is part of the fun of a good slasher movie. A good slasher movie has to both cater to and exceed expectations, and Slasher: the Executioner is a pretty good slasher movie despite its arse-numbing running time.  But then only a glutton would gulp it down one go; Slasher: The Executioner is most rewarding when taken episodically; which is kind of why they made it like that, I guess. With a gap between each episode you can ruminate and ratiocinate in an attempt to understand the motivations, unearth the clues and unmask the killer. Although, good luck with that; the identity of the killer may be easy to guess (it’s [Redacted]!) but it’s a lot less easy to back it up with clues and evidence. It’s more a case of “It’s [Redacted]” because it has to be, rather than you have been perceptive enough to amass an evidence trail suitable for a Court of Law. But then slasher maniacs rarely see the inside of a Court of Law, so going with your gut is okay in this context.

The cast though? I mean, you’re going to be spending a lot of time with these people and given the nature of the beast some of them are going to have to surprise you with who they really turn out to be. Happily, everyone in Slasher: The Executioner is far better at this acting lark than the usual cast of a slasher movie. It probably helps that unlike most slasher movies the cast is portraying adults rather than the more usual teenagers. Feeelingzzzz aside, adult life is a lot more complex than teenage life, so there’s a lot more scope for surprise behaviour wise. And adults by definition have lived longer than teenagers so they have an actual past which could, maybe, be full of misdeeds and tragedy. That kind of thing would be pretty helpful were you trying to fill about 8 hours of screentime, yeah? Yeah, it totally would. As Sarah, Katie McGrath is maybe a bit of a milksop but this, to be fair, pays off later with a major change in attitude, and also in her defence she is mostly on the backfoot as surprises and violence tend to single her out. And she certainly rallies herself with an impressively sad ferocity come the bloody climax. Brandon Jay McLaren as her life partner convinces as a man too nice to be true, but who just might come through. The killer is great and clearly having a fun time, but their performance becomes a real humdinger once the reveal hits and the pretence can be dropped (in front of the viewer at least). Lots of actors, lots of performances and all of them are lots of fun. Some are more fun than others, but saying more would splash spoil all over the place. In a town this big there might be more than one mystery, is all i’m saying.

Slasher: The Executioner is overwrought, it’s daft, it’s violent, it’s rarely dull and it successfully stretches your suspension of disbelief like so much Silly Putty. Pretty much a dreamy slasher experience all in all. Of course many a long form TV show comes a cropper when it has to deliver a definite ending. But rest easy, the end of Slasher: The Executioner doesn’t reveal everyone is dead, and, no, it wasn’t all a dream. The stakes are high ending wise; after nearly 8 hours Slasher needed to deliver a faceslap of an ending, and while the mechanics of what happen are hardly brain meltingly original, the psychological darkness of it was a bleak delight. In short the ending to Slasher: The Executioner is a TV win: it doesn’t make you wish you hadn’t bothered. As long as you came expecting a slasher, that is. The clue’s in the title after all.

[electricbluebutterflies]

“ i’m sorry for bringing it up. “ “ actually, i would love to kiss you.” for the fic prompt :)

Apparently I have a modern-AU continuity for these babes now? Sequel-ish to this fic, PG-ish, usual queued cross-post, why am I even posting these here...

This was a terrible idea.

Normal people, Jessica is pretty sure, do not go to the zoo on a maybe-first-date-honestly-she-isn’t-sure-if-that’s-what-it-is. Not at her age, at least. Not when there are bars and cinemas and… honestly, she doesn’t know what normal people do, she’s just pretty sure it isn’t this. But for the first time in her little life, she wants, and if that means dealing with the misery of a too-hot summer Saturday in the company of someone she barely knows and whose intentions are unclear yet somehow honorable, not to mention the fact that she’s pretty sure the only women older than her here without small children to herd around were that pair holding hands in the reptile house aka the only place in this complex that is not sneak-peek-at-hell hot…

Well. Terrible idea. But she’s suffered through worse for more questionable reasons. She’s pretty sure, anyways. She can’t remember when or why, but this can’t be the actual low point of self-inflicted misery. Yet.

See, thing is, Jessica is not an animal person. She’s never had pets nor wanted anything more complicated than a rescued cactus that may or may not be wilting despite the fact that those things supposedly thrive on neglect. Exotic-looking beasties are at least a little more eye-catching than her upstairs neighbor’s insomniac small dog that looks like a rat watched a few too many child beauty pageants, but that’s not saying much. Although come to think of it, watching one of these wildcats eat that thing would be fun, and that’ll be a nice mental image at three AM the next time she’s reminded that mutant chihuahuas can apparently have panic attacks, and-

“You okay?”

She turns her head to glare at her… date? Friend? Whatever word you use for someone you may be lowkey trauma-bonded to because you’ve already had one weird experience in their company and for some unknown bullshit (emotional and probably sexual) reason you’ve decided to let them ruin your life? The lack of an appropriate label is not helping here, and-

“I think this is the hell I’ll get sent to someday,” she murmurs. “Forced to watch badly socialized tiny humans watch bored animals that would much prefer to have them for a snack. Can’t say I blame them either.”

A different version of herself – one with more people skills than said under-stimulated wildcat, for instance – would try harder. Would remind herself that this man, for some bizarre reason she can’t figure out, may or may not but probably does have some kind of interest in her that… will probably end a direction she’s not sure about, but couldn’t be worse than what she’d compare it to, and-

“You volunteer for a lot of things you don’t actually want to do.”

“I don’t get out much.”

He gives her a look that she can’t pin down, some combo of no shit and maybe a little pity but not in a mean way, more like the warmest thing she could imagine and wow she really doesn’t get out much and-

“And I get to change that,” but it doesn’t sound at all like he minds and that just makes it weirder.

“You had good timing,” she shrugs. “And more tact than the last time someone tried to ask me out. If that’s even what this is, and if it isn’t I-“

“It is if you want it to be.”

“And if I’m not sure?”

“Then it can be two casual acquaintances questioning why this was actually a good idea. Whatever you want.”

“So you don’t really…”

“I was trying to think of the most low-pressure activity possible and this is what came out. Mistakes may have been made.”

She doesn’t respond right away, takes a few moments to process it all. They don’t know each other yet, she reminds herself, and she could be very wrong about so many things but… he doesn’t strike her as someone who admits weakness or defeat easily, and yet he’s so casual with her about it, and-

Shit. She’s pretty sure no one’s ever had a crush on her before – and is that even an okay word to use at their ages? Is that something normal people do anymore, or are modern mating habits reduced to near-anonymous encounters that would make the wildcat domestic argument enfolding in front of her seem downright romantic? She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know, she doesn’t-

“This is your idea of low-pressure?” she laughs, gesturing to the scene around them. “Really?”

“Midday, outdoors, lots of people around, cheap tickets, plenty of things to see…”

“So, you’re trying to convince me that you’re not… I don’t even know what you’re afraid of, but I don’t see you as a threat.”

“So this was a bad idea.”

“It is an experience,” she decides is a tactful way of putting it. “And I’m guessing this isn’t how you normally start with women?”

“If I say I don’t have any idea what I’m doing, will you believe me?”

She gives him the most unimpressed look she can manage. She wants to believe him – she wants too many things today, she thinks – but the same questions she had when their paths crossed a few weeks ago come up, the same uncertainties. He’s beautiful, seems to have his life together, has acted perfectly towards her, not even the tiniest little red flag yet and a man like that, she thinks, should not be alone without reason and-

“Really?”

“Not with… not like this. Situations that have felt like obligations, yes, and the goal was generally to get to a point of damage control as quickly as possible. Not actually caring.”

It’s cold in a way she understands all too well, and it feels right to reach for his hand, to allow this to be what it could be. Touch feels right, familiar somehow, like some part of her deep-buried heart has been waiting too long for all of this and-

“Still more than I’ve done. One manic weekend a few years ago was… enough.”

He looks concerned – he shows emotions so easily, she thinks, and that could make her life easier someday and that’s too much to hope for and-

“No pressure. About anything. I just… you’re fascinating, and I…”

She feels cold, like this is the point where she should be strengthening every defense she’s ever had because this will end badly, but oh she wants to know where this goes, if it goes anywhere, if-

“Okay.”

They move on – the wildcats have witnessed enough, poor dears – and for a little while she can forget that this is all new, that all of it and none of it is normal, that she is-

It’s not that she never wanted things, she reminds herself, she’d just… learned too early that her heart was meaningless and hoping for some other person to save her would only end in even more pain. By the time she was old enough to do anything about them, the daydreams were faded, and she has avoided all she can out of fear of what might be done to her if she was vulnerable and-

He’s kind, and that’s so much of a problem, and it feels right to keep her fingers laced with his, to learn innocent closeness and oh there is something calming about it, they do not know each other but they could and it could be beautiful it could burn her it could-

They make it into the gardens, and weird plants are a little more interesting to her than weird animals and yet she is unsurprised and hopeful when he turns to face her with some kind of intent in his eyes. Desire, she thinks, not an inferno as she’s understood it in theory but a well-kept hearth, and-

“Would it be alright if I kissed you?”

The body is a traitor. She feels herself turn pink, the directness of the statement overriding what mental presence she’d had, and-

“I… I’m sorry for bringing it up.” Not moving but still a distance, still something she wants to take and never see again.

“Actually, I would love to kiss you.”

And she does, because she’s sick of wanting, because she’s not sure if this is normal but it’s at least safe, and she’s never done this in a way that meant anything and it’s awkward as hell and still feels unspeakably right. Like the original idea of soulmates, almost, the idea that an individual human body is only half of a set and-

If this goes somewhere, if she allows more – when she allows more, she thinks as his free hand gets up in her hair and turns out she likes that – it will be the best thing she’s ever done.

“Before you even, I liked that,” she breathes, not ready to pull away, not caring that they are somewhat in public and hey at least this isn’t the part of the complex small children actually want to see so at least they won’t cause awkwardness for anyone else today (hopefully). “And I would like that again somewhere we’re not blocking a footpath.”

“And next time I should take you somewhere indoors.”

“I can handle the heat. Not so much the screaming small children.”

“Understood.”

He kisses her forehead before they break apart, and yeah, she thinks, this is headed somewhere and she will allow it. She will allow so much. She will-

“Thank you.”

“For?”

“Moving slowly.”

“Wouldn’t dream otherwise.”

[embracetheapocalypsewithme]

For a Good Time Call

Hey everyone! Long time, no smut! Sorry for the leave of absence. I’ve not been feeling particularly inspired lately. But I’m back with a fic for @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash‘s Birthday Writing Challenge! My prompt this time was “Walkie-Talkie”...So, Happy Early Birthday Ash, and I hope you like the smutty goodness I have to offer. :)

Summary:  Jess is not at all enthused at the prospect of another lonely, boring night sitting alone in The Sanctuary’s guard tower. That is, until she discovers a cryptic note and a secret radio station. When a voice answers her calls, it seems a little too familiar...and vulgar. Could it be the infamous Negan?

Word count:  2,762

Warnings: Smut, masturbation, phone sex?, walkie-talkie sex?, Negan’s filthy mouth, Negan being Negan. 

For a Good Time Call

The wind, which had been a trickle of warm breeze all day, began to pick up as midnight struck and Jess left the comfort of The Sanctuary for her guard duty shift. Plodding across the building’s massive lawn toward the faint orange glow of the tower where she would spend the next several hours keeping watch for any lurking threats, the tall woman sighed and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear unconsciously.

Her eyes were heavy with the remnants of an interrupted sleep, and her head still swam with visions of the dream she had been jolted out of by the sounding of her alarm. Though it had already started to fade around the edges, becoming a distant memory, she could recall the emotions that the dream had evoked: lust and longing, mingled with just a little bit of fear.

She recalled that her nighttime visions had featured a certain large and imposing figure that was almost certainly meant to represent the infamous Savior Leader, Negan. Though she had only spoken with the man less than a handful of times since becoming a part of his abandoned factory refuge, he had certainly begun to factor into her thoughts frequently enough that he was now haunting her sleep as well.

“Goddam alarm, blowing my sex dreams…” she muttered to herself as she began to climb the metal ladder that would bring her to the top of the tower.

“What was that?” came a voice from above. The current guard, who watched her ascent like a dog waiting for a morsel of food to drop from its master’s plate, was waiting impatiently for her to take over his shift so he could leave for the night.

“Nothing. Just talking to myself,” she called up, her voice echoing through the metal structure. She sped up her pace, not wanting to keep the other guard waiting. As she reached the topmost platform of the tower, she climbed through the trap door and stood next to the guard, awaiting instructions.

“That’s a sign of insanity, you know?” he asked with a smirk.

“What is?”

“Talking to yourself. You should go get checked out by Carson. Maybe you need some anti-psychotics. Or a good, hard fuck.”

“Maybe you need to shut your fucking mouth,” Jess fired back, grabbing the walkie-talkie that was clutched in the man’s hand.

The shit-eating grin remained spread across his features, “Jesus, honey! Didn’t mean to hit a nerve there.”

“Can you seriously just get the fuck out of here so I can get on with my night?” she asked, rolling her eyes, “I’ve got more important things to do than sit here and listen you to speculate about my sex life, ok?”

“Heh. Sure you do.”

With that, the now-off-duty guard began to climb down the ladder, slowly fading into the somber shadows below. Jess flipped the trap door shut behind him, allowing it to slam with a thunderous clap. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought that she heard the man below call her a bitch through the barrier that now stood between them. Better not to think about him too much, she decided. Arguing with assholes never ends well, and only seems to give them more power.

Turning the walkie-talkie over in her hands, she began to walk around the perimeter of the tower, her eyes slowly sweeping the area around her. After feeling confident that tonight would be another in a long stream of boring guard duty shifts, Jess slid down to the platform’s floor and sat with her long legs dangling over the side.

Of all the jobs she had been given since coming to The Sanctuary, guard duty had to be the worst. At least with sorting duty, you could chat with your neighbors and you were busy enough that the time went by quickly enough. On guard duty, there was nothing to do but sit and wait for something to happen. And nothing ever did.

Sure, there was the occasional gaggle of walkers, but unless the herd was really big, you just got to watch them stagger by while you kept quiet. Jess had yet to see a big herd, and so most of her time on guard duty was spent fantasizing about a certain tall, dark, and handsome leader that had caught her eye.

“Yeah, fat chance of that happening, Jess,” she murmured, placing her forehead against the cool metal railing.

As she sat on the tower’s platform, Jess continued to turn the walkie-talkie over in her hands, gazing at the hunk of plastic and metal as it caught the light of the nearby lamps. During one turn, she thought that she caught sight of a flash of yellow within one of the device’s crevices. Bringing it closer to her face to inspect it further, she could clearly see a small scrap of paper wedged into a speaker grate. This was interesting.

Though deep down she suspected that the scrap of yellow was just a piece of random debris, there was something about its thickness that caused Jess to hope that she might have stumbled onto a mystery that could occupy her mind for a little while. She stood and walked into the guard tower’s office where she found a first aid kit hanging on the wall next to the door. She cracked the case’s hard plastic clips open in search of the tool she needed.

Her eyes eventually alit upon the silver metal of a pair of tweezers, which were typically kept for splinters and picking debris out of small injuries. Tonight they would help her to pry the yellow scrap from the walkie-talkie’s grate. After a few moments of fidgeting with them, Jess felt the tweezers grip onto the foreign object and she pulled it from the walkie-talkie with a smooth motion.

“Well! Time to see what the hell you are,” she chirped into the darkness of the night as her slender fingers unfolded the sunny-hued piece of paper, which appeared to be a post-it note that someone had torn in half. It read:

“CA 345”

Then, below that in a decidedly feminine script:

“For a good time call…”

Perplexed, the tall woman shook her head for a moment until the message’s meaning dawned on her: This was a secure channel code for the walkie-talkies that only the users tuned into said channel could hear. And from the looks of it, this was a damn exclusive channel.

Her fingers hovered over the unit’s Menu button for a moment as she considered whether or not she would punch in the code and find out who, if anyone, was on the other end. Did she really want to open this can of worms tonight? What if it was some kind of top secret channel for the lieutenants? Would she get in trouble for her discovery?

But her eyes read the text below the code again. “For a good time call,” she read aloud with a hint of amusement in her voice.

No super-secret, serious lieutenant channel would have that written below it. Maybe it was just a prank? Her eyes scanned the area around the tower again, and found only darkness on the horizon. The dread of another boring and lonely night sitting by herself got the better of her, and before she could fully register what she was doing, she had punched the code into the walkie-talkie.

She was greeted with the white noise of static emitting from the speaker. The constant hiss was no different from the guard channel that the unit had been on previously, and Jess felt her heart drop a bit. It was probably an old channel that no one used anymore. Who knew how old that piece of paper was? With a defeated sigh, Jess pressed the Talk button, sure that she would only be talking to herself at this point.

“Well, I found your little piece of paper…whoever you are…or were,” she continued, “I guess it’s just me and the dead air tonight. It’s a shame. I really thought that there might have been someone out there to talk to. Oh well!”

Her arm dropped limply to her side and she released the Talk button. Greeted by only the hiss of dead air, she allowed the sound to fill the office for a moment. She was just about to bring the unit up to her face and switch back to the usual channel when the static cut out and a voice came through the speaker:

“You forgot to say over. Over.”

Startled by the unexpected sound, Jess nearly dropped the walkie-talkie. There really was someone out there to talk to! After regaining her composure, she responded to the voice: “Oh! I didn’t realize someone else was on this channel. Sorry! Over.”

A slight pause and then the voice, which was deep and smooth like a river rock, answered, “No need for apologies. You sound awfully lonely…and kinda fucking hot. What’s your name, sweetheart? Over.”

A hint of recognition lit up Jess’ mind as the voice spoke. It sounded almost exactly like Negan. But that couldn’t be who was answering her call. It was late and he had a whole harem of wives to keep him occupied.

“Jess. Well, Jessica, really, but everyone just calls me Jess. Over.”

“That’s a nice fucking name, Jessica. You didn’t ask me my name, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’m sure you’ve guessed by now…I’m Negan. Over.”

Her face flushed hot and red at the confirmation of his identity. It really was him! But she couldn’t let him know how flustered he had gotten her, so she tried to cover up with a bit of wit, “Aren’t we all? Over.”

“Well, yes. I guess you could say we’re all Negan. But I actually am. I’m the original. In the flesh. Over.”

A cheeky grin spread over the woman’s delicate features, “I wouldn’t exactly say you’re here in the flesh. More in the voice, so to speak…No pun intended…What was that second part of the note I found? For a good time call? Over.”

A deep chuckle rumbled from the unit’s speaker, “Awe shit. Is that what it fucking said? Well, I don’t want to disappoint you, Jessica. Over.”

“Oh, I have a feeling that you could never disappoint me. Over.”

The sound of static lingered on the other end for what felt like a very long time and anxiety began to gnaw at her. Had she said something wrong? Just as she was about to apologize the hiss cut out and the same voice came back to her:

“So, Jessica, what are you wearing this evening? Over.”

“Oh you know. The usual guard attire. Black teddy and stiletto heels…tiny g-string underneath. Nothing too fancy. How about you? Over.”

“Well, I’ll be fucking damned. I’m wearing the exact same thing. What a fucking coincidence!”

Jessica giggled before pressing the talk button to respond, “You forgot to say ‘over’ this time. Over!”

“Shit. I guess the thought of you in a lacy, little number got me all flustered and I forgot. The blood rushed away from my brain to…more interesting parts of me. Over.”

“Oh, is that right? And what are you gonna do about that? Over.”

Her face was on fire now with a mixture of lust and anxiety, and the blood rushed audibly through her ears. Had she gone too far this time? Would she get in shit for being too forward and coming on to her boss?

“Well, Jessica, I think I might just have to take matters into my own hands here. Being that you aren’t around to help me relieve some of the tension you’ve caused. What do you think about that? Over.”

She considered his question for a moment before replying, “I think I’d like to hear you relieve a bit of that tension. Maybe you can help me relieve a bit of my own tension too…Over.”

“Mmm. I like the sound of that. Why don’t you sit back and get comfortable while I get my cock out of my pants.”

“Sure…” utterly swept up in the moment, they let proper walkie-talkie protocol fall to the wayside.

“There we go!” Negan’s voice sounded so close, even though she knew that he was probably nowhere near her, “You’ve already got me rock fucking hard, baby. I’m stroking myself nice and slow for you. Why don’t you shimmy out of that little g-string and let me know how wet you are.”

Jessica reclined in the office’s chair, listening to it creak under her shifting weight, “Yes, sir…” her voice trailed off as she slipped a hand down the waistband of her pants and allowed her fingers to explore her depths.

“Tell me how it feels,” his voice, rendered warm through the radio signal, commanded her from afar.

“Mmm. Wet and ready,” Jess replied, her fingers pushing against the sensitive clit as she spread her legs further.

“Me too, baby. I wish I was there right now to bend you over and fuck you good and hard. I wanna make you scream my name while you cum. Would you like that, Jessica?”

“Oh fuck! Yes I would!” she groaned, and allowed her index and middle fingers to slide inside of her depths, all the while imagining that it was her long-distance companion’s hardened member instead.

“Taste yourself for me. Tell me how sweet that little pussy is.”

Jessica did as he commanded, pressing down the walkie-talkie’s Talk button while she loudly sucked the wetness from her fingers so that he could hear it on the other end, “It is really sweet. I wish you could kiss it off of my lips now.”

“Fuck that’s a dirty lady! You’ve got my fucking cock pulsing in my hands. I bet it tastes just like honey, doesn’t it?”

“You know it!” she replied, smirking at the exaggeration, “God I’m getting close…”

“Fuck. So am I,” he replied.

She knew that he was telling the truth as his voice had gradually become raspy with desire. Her hand worked its way between her legs again, this time pressing harder against her most sensitive areas, striving for release. Her nipples had become sensitive and pressed against the fabric of her bra in a way that wasn’t at all unpleasant.

Pressing the Talk button again, Jess moaned into the unit before replying, “Fuck I want your cock in me so bad, Negan! I wanna feel you all the way deep inside.”

There was a long pause before he replied, but once he did, she understood why, “Oh fucking fuck! You got me. You just made me fucking lose it, you filthy fucking girl!”

The knowledge of his release at her words was enough to push Jess over the edge. Her legs strained against the chair’s seat as her back arched into her own orgasm. With what little presence of mind she still had, she pushed down the Talk button once again in order to give the man on the other end an earful, “Oh fuck! Fuck, Negan! I’m coming!”

As the contractions subsided and the world came back into focus around her, Jess listened to the walkie-talkie sputter back to life with Negan’s voice: “Good girl! That sounded fucking great, Jessica. You sure know how to make a man feel wanted…”

Letting out a shaky breath, she held the unit up to her lips once again, “Th-thanks! That was amazing! I’m glad you liked it too…”

“You forgot to say ‘over’, Jessica. Tisk tisk.”

“So did you…Over!”

“You know, I think we might need to brush up on your radio protocol. I feel like you might need some close, personal attention from someone to show you how to properly respond over a walkie-talkie. What do you think? Over.”

“Well, if it’s you doing the tutoring, I think that sounds like a great idea. Over.”

“Fucking fantastic! I’ll be right up for round two! Over.”

Jess’ eyes widened at his words, “Wait. Does that mean you’re somewhere close to me right now?”

“Look down below the tower…Over!”

Rising from her chair on shaky legs, Jess made her way out of the office and to the railing that encircled the tower. She peered down at the lower part of the ladder and was greeted by the grinning face of Negan staring up at her.

“Get yourself fucking ready, Jessica!...And I do mean fucking ready…I’m coming up and we’re gonna go over and over this walkie-talkie stuff until you get it right. I don’t care if it takes all night long…”

[quasithinking]

Gravity’s Rainbow: Part VII

I'll admit: I thought about not doing these anymore. I guess my attention span for writing about books I'm reading runs to six commentaries before I can't be bothered. But then I reread the previous parts and thought, "Why am I keeping from the world my superior perspective on this novel, infused with healthy dollops of confusion and mentions of re-reading entire sections three or four times (seven or eight if there's sex in them)?" And then my brain was all, "That's the narcissist I and five people on the Internet know and love! Keep at it, champion!" My brain calls me champion because otherwise I'd spend a lot more time ignoring it than I already do. I mean, if I'm not going to listen to it warn me about computer viruses when I'm searching for Poison Ivy/Killer Croc cosplay porn the first five hundred times, why does it think I'll listen to it the next five hundred? But it keeps on trying! And how smart can it be anyway? Whose computer is almost entirely free of viruses?! That's right! The local Portland library's, that's whose! The first sentence of this section describes Roger Mexico in a way that probably also describes me, "hunched Dracula-style inside his Burberry." By making that statement, I've now admitted to owning a Burberry coat. But I don't want you to get the idea that I know anything about fashion! I simply bought it for $20 from a used clothing store for a Philip K. Dick costume for a San Francisco themed New Year's Eve party. My entire thought process when purchasing it was this: "This will make me look like a mentally ill homeless person which is almost certainly what Philip K. Dick looked like on his better days!" Only later did I learn it was a fancy lad's coat when people would say things to me like, "Oh! I love your Burberry!" And I'd respond, "I don't have any blueberries." I understand Pynchon's method of writing in a way in which I mean I don't actually understand a lot of it but I understand why he's writing it that way. I get it. He's entertaining himself in a lot of ways. He's saying things in ways he thinks are hilarious or poetic or interesting and couldn't give any number of fucks whether or not the reader understands it in the way he does. What I don't understand is how he found an audience doing this?! Seriously. Can somebody explain it to me so that I can get an audience as well? I suppose the difference is that Pynchon is incomprehensible in a way that makes you think, "He's way smarter than I am! If I carry this book around, people will think I'm that smart!" But I'm incomprehensible in a way that makes you think, "This guy is an idiot who admitted to wanting to suck Lobo's dick even though he couldn't quite tell if Lobo was super cool or reminded him of a clown and maybe it's because of both of those?! Also Grunion Guy doesn't have any books to carry around which is perfect because who would want to be seen with one? I'd rather be caught with an oversized coffee table book collecting the nastiest spreads from Oui magazine!" Is that Oui coffee table book a thing you can be caught with because I'd like to order it on Amazon, please. At one point in this section, Roger Mexico calls Jessica's boyfriend Beaver "Nutria." It's hilarious jokes like that which make me think, "How the fuck did I not realize this book was absolutely hilarious?!" You can read that previous paragraph as completely earnest or totally sarcastic. I don't fucking give a shit. This section tells the story of how Jessica and Roger met. Pynchon describes it as "what Hollywood likes to call a 'cute meet.'" Having only heard that phrase late in my life, I would have sworn it was a modern, 21st Century Internet term. I suppose I can still be surprised by some things! Some times you think life just can't offer up any more new things; usually that happens after your first sexual experience where your butthole is involved. Christ, how terribly disappointing does my life sound when I describe learning that "cute meet" is an older expression as one of life's great surprises? This is the section that describes Roger Mexico's discomfort working statistics for the Psi groups. He is searching for evidence of something outside the realm of the living via science and data. It seems a dismal hope for somebody without any psychic powers at all, working amid people who can seemingly do magic with their minds. Sure, he also works with Pointsman whose only super power is making dogs produce inordinate amounts of drool. So he's not totally alone in his inability to transcend reality. Although he's definitely not as passionate about his number crunching as Pointsman is about his stimuli. Roger reminisces about his cute meet with Jessica as he and Jessica head into London to meet with Pointsman. As they're traveling through the streets, they pass by a recently rocketed neighborhood which gives us my favorite passage from this section: "Once Roger and Jessica might have stopped. But they're both alumni of the Battle of Britain, both have been drafted into the early black mornings and the crying for mercy, the dumb inertia of cobbles and beams, the profound shortage of mercy in those days. . . . By the time one has pulled one's nth victim or part of a victim free of one's nth pile of rubble, he told her once, angry, weary, it has ceased to be that personal . . . the value of n may be different for each of us, but I'm sorry: sooner or later . . ." Maybe that's not as good as the simple final two sentences of this section ("They are in love. Fuck the war.") but it's a nice description of the emotional attrition that violence and war and the constant threat of death will take on a person's psyche. It feels like the same kind of thing we're going through in America right now, minus the threat of instant death by V-2 with the incoming sound following. This was a really nice section because it wasn't confusing and it was short. A short section in a Pynchon novel goes a long way. There's nothing more terrible than getting confused on the third page of a twenty page section and continuing on thinking, "I'll probably get a handle on what's going on any paragraph now!" Then you're twenty pages through it and you realize you're just going to have to give it another go. But this section could have gone on for twenty pages because it was straightforward! I think I understood it all! Roger Mexico is in love with a woman who could leave him at any moment because she's in a relationship with another man but his time with her is so magical and special that he's convinced himself that she feels the same way and he's ready to abandon everything to live a quiet domestic life with her in some hidden bombed out section of the city. He even has chickens in the bombed out garage! It won't be for another section or so that we get inside Jessica's head to discover that she maybe isn't as all in on Roger as he is on her. Ha ha! No wait! I take back that ha ha. It was cruel and cynical! But Roger maybe deserves me mocking him because he's really sort of put Jessica on a pedestal and might be more in love with the initial feelings of love and intimacy and the normality that the whole process of early courtship brings to his life after six years of war.

[returnsandreturns]

So your Frank/Foggy high school au made me want to read more Frank/Foggy. And if you haven't read A Dog's Life by ornategrip yet, then 11/10 highly recommend, like wow, I stayed up late finishing it last night, and the only reason I'm not rereading it right now is because I'm drowning in Uni work D; Also, plz write more Frank/Foggy in high school, I accidentally love them so much and it's entirely your fault for putting the idea in my head D;

I’ve had this ask for mooooonths but I wrote a thing: 

“Uhm,” Foggy says, in the middle of the school parking lot, fingers pressed to his mouth while he watches the once intimidating form of Frank Castle hightail it towards his beat-up jeep about five seconds after he kissed Foggy.

Foggy’s not completely sure what his reaction is supposed to be. If Frank hadn’t ran, he probably would have kissed him back.

“That was--that was nice!” he yells.

Frank pauses with a hand on his door handle, glancing back with wide eyes but not saying anything.

“I’m not dating Matt!” Foggy yells.

Frank looks frozen for a long second.

“. . .do you want to go get ice cream?” Foggy continues, desperately.

Frank hesitates before he nods, smiling in a way that Foggy’s never seen before. He’s actually not sure he’s ever seen Frank smile genuinely before.

He might throw up.

*

It started with Karen bringing Frank to their awkward but endearing outcast meetings in the library during lunch and with Frank sitting hunched at the end of a table, drinking coffee like an adult and staring warily around at them.

Maybe it was really when he started mostly staring at Foggy.

“I think he wants to eat me,” he says, when he drops down next to Jessica in geometry.

“He wants to bang you,” she says, through a mouthful of chips, not even bothering to hide the fact that she’s eating in class.

“What--pfft--he doesn’t--I’m not even into--”

Jessica gives him one look and Foggy sighs.

“Okay, I’m at least a little bit--into--people like him,” he says, dropping his voice, making a face at her.

“Dudes,” she supplies, but she drops her voice, too, because Jessica knows how to keep a secret. She’s actually the only one that knows. He’s just kind of working it out for himself.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Specifically dudes that look like they would murder you for breathing too much of their oxygen?”

“. . .yeah, maybe, kind of,” Foggy says, softly, and Jessica laughs.

“It’s good to have a type,” she says, sinking down further in her seat before she fishes a suspicious looking water bottle out of her bag and takes a long drink from it.

“Is that booze?” he asks, squinting at her.

“What’s it to you?” she shoots back, and Foggy nods.

“You’re absolutely right, it’s none of my business,” he says, deciding it’s in his best interest to not tell Jessica that he’s also into girls that look like they would murder you for breathing too much of their oxygen.

He’s got enough to contend with right now.

*

Frank starts talking to him.

It’s halting and kind of aggressive but also--Frank’s talking to him, and he doesn’t look like he wants to kill Foggy much anymore, which makes Foggy wonder if Jessica was maybe right about the--about the banging.

He’d like to outright ask Frank about it, but, also, he’d rather die.

“Hey, you dating anyone?” he asks, one day when they’re the first two at the library, sitting in front of each other.

He wonders if Frank would break his foot if Foggy tried to play footsie with him.

“Why, you interested?” Frank asks, laughing roughly, and Foggy wants to say yes. He really wants to say yes. But that was a joke.

“Nah, man, just—making conversation,” he says, trying to be more like a—like a guy. A guy’s guy. But in a straight way. “Talking about—chicks and whatever. French kissing. Uhm, sex. Sex stuff. With girls.”

Sex stuff with girls.

Foggy’s sure that he’s about to sink into the ground and straight to hell, but then something happens to Frank’s face, like he’s kind of shocked and—he’s blushing. They’re both blushing.

“Are you dating someone?” Frank asks, after a long horrible moment.

Foggy thinks about lying.

“No,” he says, then, accusingly, “Are you?”

“No,” Frank says, laughing again, but kind of nice this time.

“Good,” Foggy says, then freezes. Frank raises his eyebrows.

“Good?”  

“Uhm, I—just—I think I forgot my lunch in my locker, I should go get that now, bye,” Foggy says, the last part all in one breath, as he gets up and almost knocks over his chair in his haste to get away. His lunch is sitting on the table in front of Frank. He already took three bites of his sandwich.

Why did Frank blush?

*

“Matt! Matthew Murdock!” Foggy says, when he sees Matt headed towards the library with a tray of terrible cafeteria food, pushing through the crowd of kids going to lunch to get to him and pull him aside. “I was hoping for Karen, but you’ll do.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Matt says, dryly, smiling. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, everything,” Foggy says. “Come hide in the parking lot with me.”

Matt grumbles but lets Foggy lead him out of the crowd and out a back door so they can find an isolated curb to sit on. Matt makes him eat half of his food while Foggy hedges, realizing that he has to tell Matt he likes guys before he can tell him about Frank.

Or—maybe not.

“Are you going to tell me what’s happening?” Matt asks. “Because I can beat someone up for you.”

Matt always jokes about that, but Foggy’s not convinced that he can’t.

“I want to kiss Frank Castle on the mouth,” he says, too loudly, glancing around to make sure nobody heard before he drops his head to his knees and groans.

“. . .okay,” Matt says, slowly. “That’s new.”

Foggy’s not sure where to go from here, keeping his head down until he feels Matt shift closer, nudging their shoulders together.

“Thanks for telling me,” he says, softly. “Not just about Frank—that you’re—”

“At least a little gay,” Foggy supplies.

“Right,” Matt says, wrapping an arm around him and squeezing him gently before he makes a skeptical noise. “. . .Frank, though? Really?”

“He’s my type,” Foggy says, weakly.

“Angry?”

Foggy laughs, leaning his head against Matt’s for a moment before he glances up to see Frank staring at them from the sidewalk. His breath catches and then Frank’s turning to walk away, face doing something weird, something that Foggy would like to know about immediately.

“Uh—he’s here? I—I got to go, Matty,” he says, pushing himself to his feet and heading in the direction Frank went. “I’ll see you last period.”

“Good luck?” Matt calls.

“You can beat him up if this doesn’t go well,” Foggy calls back, and Matt laughs. He probably would, though, because Matt’s his best friend and he’s fucking scrappy.

*

Frank’s standing in the middle of the parking lot and looking kind of lost when Foggy catches up to him, saying, “Hey,” hesitantly when Frank turns around to look at him.

“I was going to talk to you about something,” Frank says, gruffly, “but—Murdock seemed to have it covered.”

“What did you want to talk about?” Foggy asks.

“I just thought that you—that we,” Franks starts, then makes a frustrated noise. “It doesn’t matter.”

Foggy takes a chance and reaches out to touch his arm. He still kind of thinks that Frank might just snap it off his body; at the very least, he’s probably capable of it.

“Frank,” he says. “Just say it.”

Frank glances down at Foggy’s hand then back at his face. Down to his lips for a long, tense moment, and then he’s groaning and hauling Foggy into a kiss. For about ten seconds, at least, and then he’s on the run before Foggy even opens his eyes again.

*

They skip the rest of their classes and sneak off campus to walk to the convenience store down the street and get soft serve ice cream, giant cones that melt on their hands and fill Foggy with sugary bravery that makes him lead Frank by the hand to the back of the store and press him up against the wall kiss him with freezing lips and taste vanilla in his mouth.

“Wow,” Frank says, when they hear noises nearby and pull away, smiling when Foggy laces their sticky fingers together.

“You want to date me, right?” Foggy asks.

“I. . .yeah,” Frank says, confused.

“Like dates and hand holding and cute shit?”

“. . .yeah, kid,” Frank says, laughing, which is never fair. Frank’s a senior and Foggy’s a sophomore. He is not a kid. “Whatever cute shit you want.”

Foggy feels his heart do something really swoony and dumb.

“I want to keep kissing you,” he says, grinning up at him. “How ‘bout that?”

Frank pushes Foggy up against the wall this time, making Foggy gasp and smile even harder.

“Sounds good,” Frank says, then kisses Foggy the way you’d get kissed in a high school movie when you just confessed your feelings to someone. Like before you go to prom together and lose your virginity in a car and make out under the bleachers at homecoming.

Like before you go steady.

“I really like you,” he mumbles against Frank’s mouth.

That’s another new Frank smile. Sweet and real.

“I like you, too,” he says, and he kisses Foggy again, and this is exactly what high school is supposed to be.

[cromulentbookreview]

Binge! Part 2: The Re-Binging

I’m often put off by long book series - considering how often I complain about being suckered into the first book of a series, this isn’t surprising. However, sometimes I’m willing to put in the time to binge a whole series.

Like, for example, the Barker & Llewelyn series by Will Thomas.

So I binge-read the first 10 books of this series (well, 10.5, there’s a novella called An Awkward Way to Die ) in one long, dizzying binge last year. And, lucky for me, there’s a new book out: Lethal Pursuit! Pretty much exactly one year from the release of Blood is Blood! 

But! If you haven’t read the first 10.5 books, here’s a review:

BOOK 1 - Some Danger Involved: Your average detective enquiry agent-duo origin story featuring brilliant detective and his new snarky Welsh sidekick!

BOOK 2 - To Kingdom Come: Barker & Llewelyn go undercover and build bombs for the Irish!

BOOK 3 - The Limehouse Text: Barker & Llewelyn face big trouble in London’s 19th Century Chinatown!

BOOK 4 - The Hellfire Conspiracy: Barker & Llewelyn fight human traffickers, secret societies and such!

BOOK 5 - The Black Hand: Barker & Llewelyn fight the Italian mafia!

BOOK 6 - Fatal Enquiry: Barker & Llewelyn fight Barker’s almost comically evil arch-nemesis!

BOOK 7 - Anatomy of Evil: Barker & Llewelyn fight Jack the Ripper!

BOOK 8 - Hell Bay: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None!

BOOK 8.5 - An Awkward Way to Die: Barker & Llewelyn solve a case in, like, 20 minutes!

BOOK 9 - Old Scores: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Japonism in Late-19th Century England!

BOOK 10 - Blood is Blood: Barker is put temporarily out of commission by an explosion! Llewelyn must solve the case himself! Who should show up to help but Barker’s long lost brother??

BOOK 11 - Lethal Pursuit: Barker and Llewelyn are hired by the Prime Minister himself to transport an ancient manuscript to Calais. Sounds easy enough! Except Barker seems more interested in investigating the death of the man who brought the manuscript to England in the first place…

So! Lethal Pursuit! It begins with Hillary Drummond, recently arrived to England from Germany (somewhat newly united! Kind of!) he’s on the run from some blue uniformed youths after the satchel he’s carrying, which contains this book’s MacGuffin an ancient, and very valuable manuscript. Drummond almost, almost makes it to the Home Office when, gasp! He’s run through with a sword. Then he walks into traffic and is run over by a cab.

Or, as it’s known in London traffic: Tuesday.

Meanwhile! It’s January! 1892! Llewelyn is a happily married man, as he loves to mention roughly every two pages. Along with being a happily married man (did he mention that he’s married now? Because he is) he’s also now a partner in Barker’s Detective Private Enquiry Agency. Barker has been moving a bit slower since his leg injury during the events of Blood is Blood, but, instead of treating Llewelyn like a full partner, Barker continues to treat him like an assistant. Which rankles Llewelyn a bit but hey, at least he’s married to the love of his life Rebecca. Only they still live in Barker’s house - he’s renovated the first floor for them and everything. Anyway, Barker and Llwelyn receive a summons from Prime Minister himself! The British government has the MacGuffin, and they want nothing more than to have the manuscript sent off to the Vatican archives and forgotten. But Barker is more interested in the mystery of who killed Hillary Drummond and why. Rather than immediately deliver the manuscript to Calais like the Prime Minister asked them to do, Barker hangs onto it. See, this manuscript is, apparently, a new gospel. Which is important because...reasons?

OK, so after 11 books, I’ve noticed that the Barker & Llwelyn series involve a lot more religion than I know anything about. I mean, when it comes to the religious category on Jeopardy, my answer is always “Jesus.” I’ve never read the Bible the whole way through - I read Acts of the Apostles in high school for an assignment, for which I had to actually go out and buy a Bible because the one we had was a family heirloom that couldn’t be opened without falling to pieces. In my lifetime I’ve attended a grand total of two church services - one when I was baptized at the ripe old age of 7 (I guess from ages 0-7 I was naught but a sinful hellbeast) and once in Germany I attended an Easter mass in a thousand year old cathedral because it was literally the only thing open on Easter Sunday in the whole town. Upper Franconia is suuuuper Catholic, you guys. Anyway, I took communion at that mass just to see what the body of Christ tastes like (burnt toast, I was disappointed). Does that mean I’m Catholic now? Hurray for gold-plated everything and indulgences? I mean, I’m not even 100% sure what I was baptized as back when I was a 7-yr-old unbaptized hellbeast…Lutheran, maybe? I think? I do enjoy posting lists of complaints on peoples’ doors. I mean, I could check, but that would require getting up and I both don’t want to and really don’t care all that much. Anyway, long story short: religion is not my strong suit. I don’t know the difference between a Baptist and an Episcopalian and a Methodist. Perhaps I should but honestly…eh. My point is, when Will Thomas writes about a manuscript that might be a new gospel written before Luke or Matthew or whoever...I just sort of smile and nod and go "yeah sure OK" and have zero idea what that might actually mean or its religious significance. I just hear “1000 year old manuscript” and think “that sounds awesome, gimme.”

Back to the book: this manuscript is so valuable, the people after it are willing to kill for it. Which puts Barker & Llewelyn in an awkward position. Even more awkward is the fact that Rebecca’s family, who seemed so cool in the last book, have now decided to shun her for marrying Thomas, a gentile. As usual, Barker & Llewelyn are caught between a rock and a hard place. Can they deliver the manuscript safely to the Vatican? Can Thomas repair the relationship between himself and his in-laws? Will Rebecca ever learn how to make a decent Pain au chocolat? Will we ever, ever meet Thomas’s massive Welsh family? Will Rebecca ever demand to get to know her small army of brothers- and sisters-in-law? Will Barker ever propose to Philippa? Will I ever learn the difference between various sects of Christianity? Find out tomorrow in Barker & Llewelyn: Lethal Pursuit!  Same bat time, same bat channel!

I love this series. I am well and truly hooked. Barker & Llewelyn are a more down-to-earth Holmes and Watson. There is just the right amount of action, historical detail, and mystery to satisfy any Sherlockian desperate for some 19th century English mystery. I don’t know of any other book series, save Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series, where I’ve stuck around past the 8th or 9th book. So many books! Not enough time for serieses! I mean, sometimes I entertain the thought of binging all 900,000 Discworld books, but there are so many other things I’d like to read, too…I wish I were a faster reader. Better yet, I wish I could be like the Doctor and just flip through a book and absorb all its contents at once. That’d be awesome.

Still. I adore Barker & Llewelyn - I will absolutely be there for any book they’re in, even if the series goes the full Anne Perry and goes on and on for like, 20+ books. I’m here for it. And I am on pins and needles for the next book. I really, really, really want Thomas to reconcile with his family in Wales. I want Barker to actually acknowledge that Philippa Ashleigh is his girlfriend. I JUST WANT MORE, DAMN IT!

OK, for lack of anything else to say, let’s fancast this thing.

OK, so Barker would obviously be played by Graham McTavish, aka Dougal from Outlander.

Admit it, he’d be absolutely perfect, right? Come on. I mean, just look at that face.

Thomas Llewelyn would be played by Taron Egerton because he’s Welsh and  absolutely pretty and tough enough to be Llewelyn

Yesssss.

Mac would be played by Paul Ready because Paul Ready is beautiful and I love him and would cast him in anything. Plus, I could see him as the finicky perfectionist Mac. Plus, I still ship Mac/Thomas, and I think he’d play well against Taron Edgerton. By which I mean they’re both gorgeous and I’d enjoy watching them.

Jeremy Jenkins would be played by Adam Nagaitis because he’s awesome and he’d be perfect as the squirrley / drunk half the time Jenkins.

Ho would be played by Benedict Wong because he would be perfect, though I’m not sure if my fantasy BBC/ITV/Netflix series budget would have enough money to get Benedict Wong. He’s got Marvel money now.

Rebecca Llwelyn nee Cowan nee Mocatta would be played by Jessica Brown Findlay because, eh, why not. I’m still traumatized/pissed off about Sybil’s death on Downton Abbey.

Tchéky Karyo as expert chef Etienne Dummolard because I can seriously picture him going into a long French tirade and throwing shit whenever Barker disrespects his cooking.

Michelle Gomez as Philippa Ashleigh, Barker’s Girlfriend, because I would love to see her and Graham McTavish as Barker snipe at each other.

Gemma Chan as Bok Fu Ying aka Miss Winter, Barker’s ward, because she is the perfect combination of elegance and badass.

Gaten Matarazzo as Soho Vic because I’m absolutely sure he could pull off a British accent and annoy the shit out of Thomas,

And this dog as Harm. Look at this dog!

Awww!

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone fond of a fun 19th century mystery-solving duo.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People who dislike mysteries, detective private enquiry agent duos.

OVERALL SERIES RATING: 4.5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED VICTORIAN MYSTERY / MURDERINO FANGIRL RATING: 5/5

LETHAL PURSUIT RATING: 4/5

RELEASE DATE: November 12, 2019

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES: Olympus Mons

[jamesnovakwinchester]

Maybe It’s Fairies

Title: Maybe It’s Fairies Link Ship: Eileen Leahy/Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester Square Filled: Who Mows the Lawn Tags: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Stubborn Eileen, Stubborn Sam, Established Relationship, Alternate Universe - No Supernatural Summary: Jess can't mow the lawn since she's recovering from a broken ankle, and Sam and Eileen are being pains in the ass about it. 

One of the best things about sharing a household with two other people was that chores tended to be divided up based on what everyone was good at and hated the least. They were still chores though, so no one really wanted to do any of them, but at least Jess didn’t have to get on a ladder to dust the bookshelves when dusting was Sam’s job, and Eileen didn’t have to fold the laundry because Jess did that. It was a fair arrangement the three of them had. Until Jess broke her ankle.

It was a combination of an overexcited dog and a misstep of the curb that caused Jess to break and sprain her ankle. She was really just lucky that she and Eileen had been walking the dogs and hadn’t been alone. Laying on the sidewalk while waiting for Sam was bad enough, but at least she didn’t have to worry about Boomer and Max trying to climb all over her like it was play time. Three weeks in, the painkillers were mostly un-needed and Jess could hobble around on crutches so it wasn’t that big of a deal. What was a big deal, however, was that the lawn had remained un-mowed.

Jess actually liked mowing the lawn. It was one of the chores she didn’t mind that allowed her to be outside and get a little exercise. All the lawn work was her job, mostly because neither Sam nor Eileen were allowed to touch her rose bushes. But an un-mowed lawn meant the grass was starting to seed and it was ugly and potentially allergy-inducing. Jess brought it up, for the third time, over Sunday brunch.

“Which one of you is going to mow the lawn?” She asked. She signed as she spoke, even though everyone knew Eileen could read lips. She just had a bad habit of pretending she hadn’t paid attention or caught what other people were saying when she didn’t want to acknowledge things.

“Oh, um. I kinda told Dean I’d spend the day watching Emma while he and Benny went out,” Sam said.

That wasn’t a surprise. She’d known that for days, but she also knew Dean and Benny weren’t planning on even leaving the house until four and it was only ten.

“Okay, but it’ll take you twenty minutes at most. And you don’t have to leave the house until at least three thirty.”

Sam shrugged. “Oh. Wow. What time is it?” He checked his phone. “I could’ve sworn it was later than that.”

Jess rolled her eyes.

“I do still have that brief I have to look over, though. I need to make sure we’ve got everything in order for our case on Wednesday.”

“Okay, Eileen, what are you doing today?”

Eileen’s eyes went a little wide as she shoved a massive bit of scone into her mouth. She wouldn’t sign if she had food in her mouth, regardless of the fact that she didn’t even have to talk in order to get her point across. Several moments later, she signed: “Boomer needs a bath. And if he’s getting a bath, Max is going to want one, too.”

“You could do that afterward,” Jess offered.

Eileen frowned over at Sam who was looking at his muffins like they were the most interesting thing in the world.

“Why are you two so intent on avoiding the lawn?” Jess asked.

“I’m not opposed,” Sam said, “just, that’s usually your job.”

“Not with crutches it’s not,” Jess said. “And you’ve been doing the vacuuming so why can’t you do the lawn?

“Well yeah, but, the lawn mower hates me,” Sam said.

“That’s ridiculous!” Jess said.

“No, it’s true! I can never get it started and when I do there’s always something screwy with the blades. Last time I tried it I broke the mower and we had to get a new one.”

“That was two years ago,” Jess said.

“And in two years we haven’t had an issue with the mower, have we.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Alright, Eileen, what’s your excuse?”

“I clean the pool.”

“So?”

“Sam doesn’t do any yard work.”

“She’s got a point,” Jess said.

“Okay, but I’m doing more than half of your chores while you heal,” Sam said.

“That’s because I’m too short to dust,” Eileen signed.

“You could use a ladder,” Sam said.

Jess rolled her eyes. “Well, one of you needs to figure out who is going to mow the lawn because it’s starting to seed. It needs to be done soon and I don’t care who does it as long as it gets done.”

Sam and Eileen stared at each other for a moment before Sam brought his hands up for rock paper scissors. Seven ties later, Jess gave up on paying attention.

~~~

Three days later the lawn still hadn’t been mowed and neither Sam nor Eileen had stepped foot outside the house to do it. How the hell Jess wound up getting together with two grown adults who refused to even mow the freaking lawn was beyond her. She needed to figure out a way to get someone to do it before their front lawn turned into a jungle. She called Dean.

“”Sup Jess?”

“Your brother and his girlfriend are being idiots again,” Jess said.

“Oh, no. Sounds serious. What’d they do, forget to clean out the fridge again?” Dean asked.

“Worse.”

“Spent too much at the farmers market?”

“They won’t mow the lawn,” Jess said.

“Seriously? The lawn?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Okay. What are you gonna do about it?”

“I have no clue, Dean. I’ve tried to get them to do it for weeks and they just won’t. They’re making excuses and I just don’t know what to do outside of hobbling my ass out there and doing it myself.”

“Yeah, that’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

“Yeah, no kidding. Why they both have to be so stubborn is beyond me.”

“Have you tried bribery yet?”

“With what? I’m already cooking for all of us.”

“Head?”

Jess snorted. “Yeah, no. I’m not trading lawn work for sex.”

“What about ransoming their shit?”

“Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I used to do that shit to Sam all the time when we were kids. If Sam refused to keep his dirty ass socks on his side of the room I’d steal his skin mags.”

“Gross.”

“Hey! It got him to keep his shit on his side of the room. It was a win for me.”

“Yeah, but you had to touch your brother’s porn.”

“You severely underestimate the level of grossness two teenage boys living in the same bedroom involves.”

“Ugh. Remind me never to have boys.”

Dean laughed. “Good luck with that.”

“But seriously, I might have to do that. I just need to find a good place to hide their shit.”

“You could always hand it over to me. You and Eileen are helping watch Emma this week so I can just take it on my way out. Then they really won’t find it until one of them mows the damn lawn.”

“I like the way you think.”

~~~~

“Have you seen my running shoes?” Sam asked, digging through the hamper. Why they’d be in there was anyone’s guess.

“Nope,” Jess said. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

“Dammit. I could have sworn I put them right over here,” Sam gestured to the end of the bed. “Unless the dogs got them.”

“The dogs are better behaved than that,” Jess said.

~~~~

“Have you seen my bookmark?” Eileen signed.

“Not recently,” Jess signed.

Eileen frowned, rifling through the papers on her desk. “I left it right over here after I finished my last book. It was the nice one leather one with the gold ribbon,” she signed once she finished.

Eileen frowned and looked under the desk.

~~~

“Shit!” Sam grumbled, digging through his desk drawers. He was making enough racket that Jess had decided to wobble into the room.

“What’s up babe?”

“I can’t find my headphones. You know, the really nice wireless ones. I can’t find them and I know I didn’t take them into the office with me.”

“Huh. That’s really weird,” Jess said.

“I don’t know what they hells going on around here. My running shoes are gone and my favorite tie is missing and now my headphones. You don’t have anything to do with it, do you?”

Jess shrugged.

“And Eileen is missing her favorite bookmark and her mom’s recipe book, too.”

“Maybe it’s fairies.”

“Fairies? Seriously, Jess?”

“I dunno. Could be. I hear they tend to be mischievous and like to mess with the people who live in areas they’ve made their homes in.”

“So, putting aside the fact that fairies aren’t real, why the hell would fairies want to mess with me? Or Eileen?”

Jess smirked. “Maybe they decided they like the lawn and decided to make their home in it.”

Sam’s face fell and he frowned at her. “Where’d you put them?”

“Me? I don’t have them.”

“Seriously, Jess.”

“Seriously, Sam. I don’t have them. But I would suggest that if either of you wants your stuff to stop disappearing, you should mow the lawn and kick the fairies out.”

Sam rolled his eyes and groaned. “This isn’t funny.”

“Neither is my overgrown lawn,” Jess said, wobbling back out of the room and back into the living room.

Sam and Eileen sulked for the rest of the evening.

~~~

For the first time in more than a month, Jess got to have lunch with her sister. It had been too long since they’d been able to work their schedules around and actually see each other again, and it was nice to see her. So, Jess had been having a good day when her sister dropped her back off at home but it was elevated to a great day when she noticed the lawn cut down to a manageable length and all the seed and clippings raked away.

Both Eileen and Sam were sitting in the living room, Eileen playing with Emma on the floor while Sam sipped a lemonade and watching TV. They all turned their attention onto Jess when she walked into the room.

“So, which one of you mowed the lawn?”

Sam shrugged.

“Maybe it was the fairies,” Eileen said.

Jess chuckled and set her purse on the coat rack by the door. She’d text Dean to return their stuff in a while, but right then she wanted to have a lemonade and sit in her fresh cut grass. Maybe the other three would enjoy joining her.

Tag List: @maliciouslycreative, @purgatoan, @samanddeaninpanties

[voresmithing]

Truce: Chapter 14.2

Get outta here, Deadeye.

He hadn't listened.

So now he sits handcuffed to a metal table and on the wrong side of the law.

The Law, it turns out, looks like Commander Fucking Reyes. Or Ex-Commander. Or whatever. Jesse wasn't military and only knew as much about Overwatch as a couple of blockbusters and gossiping through smoky nights with the gang had taught him. But he'd seen the posters, the papers, the magazines, the comics, the action figures, so when Reyes walks into the narrow room with corrugated walls he's been held in for the last hour, Jesse doesn't much manage to bury his surprise.

The thing is, when you meet the Real Person, they're supposed to be smaller than the movies would have you believe. No one is really larger than life. No one can be six-foot-one and feel nine feet tall. And maybe it's just the skull fracture he's still recovering from or being handcuffed so that he can't stand, but Reyes just kind of reads as huge, at some base and instinctual level. The same part of Jesse's brain that tells him when to pull the trigger so that three bodies all hit the floor simultaneously lets him know that this guy could put Jesse through one of these thin metal walls if he wanted to, and that he just might. The interrogation room's stale air coalesces around Reyes like a fist, and he isn't doing anything other than looking at Jesse over the rim a dark blue tablet.

"Huh," Reyes' voice is deep and deceptively mild. His eyes dart back to the screen of his computer. "No wonder it took admin so long to find you."

"Find me?"

Jesse had about ten thousand expectations on how this might go, and thus none at all. He'd been a 'criminal' all his life, but you weren't really a criminal in the Post-Crisis Southwest. There'd have to be laws for that, and authority to enforce them. Deadlock did what they did wanted because no one was there to stop them. So he'd been tied up by other gangs a few times, and he'd drawn lines in the sand that the uninitiated had to walk, but that was it out here. The rest of the country had given up on New Mexico, Arizona, a good half of Texas, and all of south Cali. And hell, that was fine by him.

But it also means he's only seen how this goes in movies and, much like how films always got gunfire and blood-spray and bodies wrong, he's been doubting their validity when it came to setting his expectations on being brought in by Overwatch.

So when Reyes mentions finding him he wonders if somehow the reputation of Deadeye had preceded him to a national level. Flattering and terrifying all at once. He forces a grin. "Who were you looking for?"

"Jesse McCree, that's what you're calling yourself, yeah?" Reyes pulls up a seat as he speaks, tone conversational, and drops the tablet on the table where Jesse can see it. It's a file for a Jessica McCree, born 3/4/2037 in Las Cruces New Mexico. Sex: Female. Parents: Anne McCree and--

'Jessica' doesn't have any photos, but Anne does. Jesse feels something like being squeezed along a bruise that happens to cover his entire chest and looks away.

"So you could only find my sister? Sorry, I was born off the books, so--" Jesse lies automatically.

"That's what admin figured. Not all that uncommon, though you're a little old to be a Crisis baby." Reyes drags the tablet back, taps the file closed. "Til they talked to the hospital."

Jesse grimaces. Thinks about waking up in a smock, in a white room, no gang or gun anywhere in sight. He'd done his best to charm the nurses, at least when he was able to string two words together without drooling, and he'd more or less succeeded. But it wasn't like that meant they'd be keeping his secrets.

He scowls and says nothing. He's learned a lot of self preservation, growing up in Deadlock, and keeping your mouth shut is his number one survival technique. Reyes seems thoughtful and unperturbed, waiting like he expects Jesse to come up with another lie, maybe argue, but after about ten seconds of silence unfurling between them, Reyes speaks as if there had been no gap in the conversation at all.

"So, Jesse," and yeah, Jesse's surprised to hear Reyes make a point to use his name, "What happened to your parents?"

"What do you think?"

"I think," Reyes responds with an effortlessly unruffled tone that reminds him of Dolly, "you should answer me."

Dolly'd always kind of tweaked his tit with that. He grumbles, "Awfully full of yourself, demanding my sob story when you haven't told me your name."

"You can call me Reyes."

He says it like it's nothing, like that information comes unbound from context or questions, but Jesse can't stifle an urge to shift uncomfortably. "...are you really him? The guy in the movies?"

"The guy in the movies is named Charlee Mena. I'm just the guy doing my job. And right now, my job is to figure out what to do with you. So let's try this again, where's your family?"

Somehow, Reyes makes him feel ridiculous for even being interested. It's not like he was even a fucking fan, obviously everyone's favorite was Reinhardt anyway. So he shoves the fact that this guy is that Reyes aside and answers the question shortly, "dead."

"During the war?" Reyes asks, his tone just as neutrally invested, and Jesse nods. There's nothing special about his story, and he doesn't remember much of it anyway. "Anyone who isn't? Cousin, uncle, grandparent?"

Jesse shrugs, and the handcuffs clatter against the table with the movement. "What's it matter? You gonna shove me off on someone instead of sticking me in a cell?"

"Hah, with how marked up your arm is?" They both flick their gazes to Jesse's exposed left arm. The forest of black crosses has grown from his wrist to halfway up his bicep. A territory war had broken out with Bonewash and he'd been busy the last eight months. "You don't even have a chance in hell of even getting tried as a minor, forget parole. Nah, you might be able to fight it a while if you get a good defense, but one way or another you'll go in for life, kid."

That he might get let up on for his age hadn't occurred to him. And life probably won't even be that long. He makes himself grin, cocksure and uncaring. "Sounds like your job is pretty easy then."

Reyes purses his lips. It's the first sign of a temperament being tested, and Jesse has to guess it's because the wrath of the law doesn't inspire any fear in him.

But it only lasts a few seconds before Reyes sighs and stretches, getting to his feet. "Before I hand you over to the feds, I've got a bet to settle with a friend of mine. How's your head feeling?"

"Like shit," he answers honestly. The drugs wore off hours ago, and the throb behind his eyes has been perpetual since.

There's a clacking sound as Reyes removes a set of plastic keys from his pocket. "Can you still shoot?"

"I..." Jesse feels his heart stop, confused and hopeful at the same time. It occurs to him suddenly that no one's going to give him a gun in jail. Life sounds a lot longer when it means bored out of his mind and completely useless. "I can always shoot."

Reyes unlocks his handcuffs, they pop open with a subtle hiss.

"Alright then, let's see you shoot."

It turns out Reyes' friend is Ana Motherfucking Amari.

They find her stretched out in the sun, stripped down to a tank top and combat pants and lining up her sights on remote targets zipping around at what must be a thousand yards out. Jesse can only see them because Reyes hands him a set of binoculars to observe her batting the steel grey disks around like she's playing kick-the-can with bullets. When her magazine is spent and the echo of gunfire has faded, she rolls to her feet and shoulders her rifle in a single unbroken motion. She grins when she sees them, a bright and hard humor flickers across her face as she looks over Jesse, then Reyes.

"Decided to take my bet, Gabriel?"

Jesse swallows, thinking movies really just never stop lying, because once again Hollywood just couldn't can this and reproduce it for a screen.

She's not like anyone he's ever seen. There's a raw, cracked look to people raised out here. Edges like glass, skin like sandpaper. The New Mexican sun will give you the texture you need to hang on through anything. But she's smooth like titanium; not unscarred but merely nicked by blows he thinks might've cleaved someone lesser in half.

He holds his breath. He wishes they hadn't taken his fucking hat so he could take it off. He curses not getting the chance to look in a mirror in days.

"Bet?" He echoes.

"She thinks you might be half as good as your reputation." Reyes crosses to a blue and weather-beaten munitions trunk, popping it open with another tap from his key ring.

Jesse keeps his eyes on Reyes, afraid of what expression might form if he looks at Amari. "You don't?"

"Nope."

It's not a surprise, really. Jesse's lost track of how many times he's been asked to prove himself. Hell, for the boss it'd basically been a game. Showing off his young hot shot, telling Jesse to keep sleeves off his left arm as the tattoos crawled further up it. It had always filled him with two parts smug pride, and one part a buried humiliation whenever he remembered he was performing tricks like a well trained dog.

But frankly if someone like Amari pat his head and called him a good boy he figures maybe there's worse ways to use his talents.

Reyes returns with a pistol, warns him to not get any stupid ideas because it's loaded with low-impact rounds, and holds it out.

Jesse hesitates, hand hovering over the butt, trying to figure out how this might be a trap. But his fingers itch to find a trigger, and after a few seconds he yanks the gun from Reyes' unresisting grip. Whatever, he's fucked anyway.

The gun in his hands feels too light. It is clean and new but worn around the grip in a way that says it sees a lot of use anyhow. Immaculately kept. He doesn't recognize the exact model, but it has full and semi-auto settings, shoots twelve .30 caliber rounds, and is feels almost fragile compared to the modified old Desert Eagle he was used to using these days.

"This isn't my gun."

Reyes has rearranged himself next to Amari, and tips his head in her direction with his arms crossed. "Your gun is evidence. That's her gun."

Looking at them both at the same time feels a little like standing right up on the edge of a cliff so that all you can see is endless, exhilarating sky, and so he only darts a glance at them from under his tense brows. "You can't just give me a new gun and expect--"

"What'd I say, Ana?" There's a smug note to Reyes' voice. "Kid's a con artist not a murder sava--"

Jesse knows his cue.

The first bullet explodes through a thick cardboard silhouette fifty yards out with a rapport that is quieter than Jesse expects but still loud enough to punctuate the end of Reyes' goading statement.

"Ohh, not a bad shot." Amari croons behind him. "Last chance to back out, Gabriel. I won't let you off cheap."

Jesse wonders if they have something going on, in the movies they kept it professional.

"Suure, one bullet into a stationary target. He's a natural. Ana, were you always this easily impressed?" He hears Reyes' smooth sarcasm on his left. Jesse can pick his shape up in the corner of his eye. "Come on, kid. I want to know why they call you Deadeye."

Jesse sucks in a steadying breath, says nothing, and shoots.

He's handled a lot of guns, there were a lot of options when you work for arms dealers. And he's learned to impress with just about every type of pistol he can get his hands on. This one is new, fancy, too quiet and absorbs so much recoil he can't feel the shock in his joints the way he is used too. The trigger depresses so smooth each bullet emerges like a surprise. He empties the clip perforating a line down a single target, nose to groin. The vertical spacing is uneven in a few points, but goes straight down the silhouette's spine.

"Hn. Tight aim, alright, but--"

There is a sharp click from Ana on Jesse's right. "Don't try to weasel out of it. I don't think Jack has that kind of consistency without aids."

"We're not rating Morrison, Ana. This is about if a sixteen year old has seriously been showing up every wanna-be cowboy in--"

"I'm not done," Jesse interjects quickly, shoulders hunching when he realizes he'd interrupted, then presses on anyway. "Give me two more clips."

"Two?" Reyes asks, and Jesse turns to face him, chest puffed with what he hopes reads as confidence.

"Two, if you want to see why I got named Deadeye." He forces a smug grin, "Less, if you're just afraid of losing to her." He tips his empty hand toward Amari.

Reyes rumbles, appraises him with a gaze that makes Jesse feel like his veins have turned brittle, and then gets two more clips.

Jesse reloads, finds his hands are trembling.

He still gets anxious about it, usually when there are lives on the line, but sometimes when it's just his reputation. He breathes, so long and slow that he can feel the warm desert air seeping into him from inside. Shooting is easy, he reminds himself.

He pulls the trigger twelve times in under three seconds.

The sound of gunfire can be soothing, if you hear it enough. If you control it, so it reverberates like music notes in your bones. Echoing from finger to wrist to elbow to shoulder. He can feel it in his jaw, his inner ear. The familiar violence shimmies all the way up his right side.

The bullets rip a large hole in the center of a target twenty-five yards out. He expects to hear something smart from the audience, something about how he should have just fired in auto, but Reyes and Amari are both silent fixtures behind him, and he loads in the last clip.

It's late fall, and the almost-cool temperature is rare and perfect. The light isn't so bright that it increases his headache, and the terrain that unfurls around the temporary buildings serving as Overwatch's base of operations is filtered pastel under the October sun. A half a dozen targets remain untouched, sticking out stark and rigid among the thigh-high shrubs; two at fifteen yards, easy, one more at twenty-five and fifty each, and a couple of real long shots out at seventy-five.

Jesse inhales and cracks his knuckles. Exhales and drops his hand with the gun down near his hip. Goddamn unprofessional, he bets, but it's not about aiming. It's about mapping the pattern into his muscles. Get the thinking out of the way before he even lifts his gun so that when it's time to shoot there's nothing but reflex.

He takes in the range with eyes so wide he can feel the sun pricking the insides of his retinas, jerks the gun up clicks the trigger down four times. His left hand rests level just beyond the rear sight, and each blast sends the gun bouncing up against his palm only to be immediately steadied, fired again.

Four holes bloom into the four nearest targets, starting right and moving left but so fast they seem to appear simultaneously. Eye, eye, nose, mouth.

Jesse's heart races and hands ache like he'd been there shooting for hours. He swells and can't stop a grin that he's afraid to turn and show his captors.

A hand lands on his right shoulder, small but deceptively heavy, and squeezes.

"Nice shooting, kid." Ana Amari says, then, with a grin in her voice Jesse has to turn to get a look at, she walks away, slapping a stone-faced Reyes in the waist as she goes. "Next time we're in Bengaluru, Gabe. My favorite place. You better be ready to drop two weeks pay on it."

Jesse decides he doesn't care that Reyes isn't impressed. The sound of Amari praising him was going to echo between his ears for weeks. Not a bad final shoot.

But when he is handing Amari's pistol back to Reyes (safety on, magazine detached), the momentary elation buoying him putters out and leaves him in a free fall. He turns away to look back out at the desert for as long as he can while Reyes is locking up the weapon. He tries to etch the landscape into memory but finds the idea that he might not see it for a while, might not see it again ever, distracting in its unbelievably. The desert is always there; out every window, at the end of every long road, beyond every mountain stenciled against the horizon. Love it or hate it, you diffuse into it all the same, until only density distinguishes you from the dust in the air.

What could prison do to change that?

Maybe he wouldn't even live long enough to need to worry about it.

There's something brewing behind him, a disquiet in Reyes percolating toward confrontation that Jesse can feel like a thunderstorm charges the air.

In some ways, Reyes reminds him of many men in Deadlock. Guys who hold themselves like they're made out of gunpowder, all dangerous but still inert energy. Some of them will never go off, but Jesse's not fool enough to trust that, and so he's learned to track them with a gut instinct that holds him in an even orbit just outside their potential blast radius.

Jesse makes himself turn, tries to read the meaning in the set of Reyes' shoulders, but can't settle on anything other than 'pissed off'. So he loads up a weak grin, almost self-effacing. "Guess she really got you, sounds like you had a lot riding against me."

"Heh," there's a gravel to Reyes' voice that wasn't there before. "Figured I'd at least get to call it even. But you didn't leave me a lot of room for debate there."

Despite the tense anger, a wistful amusement plays on Reyes' face, and Jesse again wishes he had a hat to fuss at. Mixed emotions can be hard to navigate, especially when he can't figure out the origin. Reyes doesn't actually seem all that burned about the money.

"Are you two, uh... you know?" He asks, mostly to distract, partly to know.

That catches Reyes by surprise, and his bushy eyebrows climb up to his near invisible hairline. "With Ana?" He laughs, a low roll with none of the earlier texture. "I'm married, kid, but not to her."

Jesse doesn't point out that even a kid knows marriage doesn't mean faithfulness, especially not when you're friendly with a lady who looks like that. It doesn't matter anyway, really. The dangerous energy in Reyes has dissipated, leaving the man only frowning at him in puzzlement, and Jesse looks away from the scrutiny, reaches for a hat he doesn't have.

"You ever been arrested before, Jesse?"

That sounds like a trick question, so Jesse stays quiet, waiting to spot the tripwire.

"Didn't think so." Reyes nods, sussing out the truth effortlessly. He leans back against a table with his arms crossed, the table legs scrape over packed sand at his weight. "Going off what I heard from your charming Deadlock pals, half of you have never seen anything but this wild west bullshit. So let me explain how this plays out."

Reyes waits and Jesse says nothing; listening but feeling a hundred miles out. Reyes's low voice harmonizes well with the melancholy settling in his chest.

"You've basically got a few options; you can confess to every life you've allegedly tattooed into your arm there, or try to convince the judge you've just been playing around, that there's no way you've actually put four dozen men in the ground in the last, what, three years?"

"Four."

Jesse doesn't expect to hear Reyes pause at that, but there's a sound of him sucking at his teeth, three beats, and then an exhale. "Mary mother they start 'em early out here." Jesse watches a lizard skitter jerkily through the dust a few yards out and waits for Reyes to continue. "And you know what? If you'd kept your head down, that might've gotten you a sympathy verdict. Toss the kid a lifeline while the adults rot out of sight for the rest of their lives. But nah, you had to go be a show off. So what's everyone going to think when they find out about you making yourself an easy bet in the local death games down here? Trading ears for to make yourself a hot shot?"

Jesse had almost gotten lulled into it; a comfortable, detached acceptance that this was effectively the last day of his life. But the mention of the game jerks him back into the moment, and he stares at Reyes whose lips have curled on the sour story.

"Don't look so surprised. What did you think was going to happen when you and a few hundred other geniuses were handing a woman proof? Expected us to just never hear about it? Hell, soon everyone in the country's going to. Someone's case study is going to get famous, maybe one of your friends writes a book. Next you could be the one appearing in movies."

It feels like his heart has sunk all the way down into bowels. It's disorienting to realize that the idea of having his story in movies actually makes him feel nauseous. Jesse forces a smile but feels it curdling, "Hope they make me hot."

"Would that make it worth it, kid? Get yourself a household name? You sure got it spread out pretty far down here."

"I didn't ask for that," Jesse grates out without looking Reyes in the eye.

"Sure you didn't, just branded your arm up so everyone would know."

"So what?" Jesse spits as his back goes up, more cornered than he'd felt handcuffed to a chair thirty minutes ago. "I live here, asshole, I might as well be good at it."

"How's that working out for you now?"

"I'm still alive!" The shout emerges hoarse and already tired, the effort of raising his voice lights up a pain behind his eyes from the remnants of the injury that had put him in the hospital. "I get to eat every night, I get to shoot all I want, most of the people who'd want to kill me are too scared to try."

Reyes isn't surprised by the outburst exactly, Jesse can't imagine Reyes ever looking like Jesse managed to get one up on him. But his mouth stays closed so Jesse keeps letting his flap.

"Must be nice to just get to ride up in a place you've never given a shit about, toss everyone in prison, then drop by D.C. to collect your medals from the President for taking out the trash. Nice of you to clean up the place for everyone who got to abandon the rest of us when the omnics hit." Not that Jesse remembers when they crossed the border, rolling north in from the Sonora omnium, but he'd heard the story enough from people who hadn't been toddlers at the time that he pictures it as a tidal wave of uneven metal, glinting bright enough to blind as it breaks across the desert. "Maybe you'll get another movie out of it. Sure would help out your public image about now, right ex-Commander?"

As soon as the words pass his lips he feels like they shouldn't have, but the blood is too hot in his head to care now. He steels himself for a fight, fists rolled, ready to give back what he can against the raw force he'd felt coiled inside Reyes since he first saw him.

But Reyes responds with an unimpressed and unperturbed frown. "Yeah, no one came to save you so you can't be held responsible, that's how it goes? Bet you've learned all kinds of lines so you can sleep at night while kids younger than you are killing themselves and each other with the guns your buddies put in their hands."

Jesse glares, struggles not to lose eye contact then does anyway. The problem isn't that Reyes is right, the problem is that he doesn't know the fucking half of it.

The blood rushing through his temples has cooled, but it does nothing for the splitting pain electrifying the space behind his eyes. Abruptly he just wants to be shoved into a cell so he can call it a day. Maybe it would be dark and quiet. Maybe he'd had more than enough sun in his life by now and spending whatever time was left in a place without windows wouldn't be so bad after all.

"What do you even want, man?"

Jesse meant it as a dismissal, and a snotty one at that. Like being called kid over and over by strangers had made him want to live up to it. Whatever it takes as long as they can be done here.

But there is a loaded silence following Jesse's complaint. Jesse feels it coiling his gut like Reyes has his hand on the trigger and is deciding whether or not to pull, and has to double check that the man isn't really pointing a gun at him.

Reyes decides to fire.

"I want you to work for me."

The suggestion catches Jesse like he's finally found the ground after shooting for legends took him high into the sky and then shoved him into the air without a parachute. A visceral pain crushes his diaphragm, making it impossible to breathe. The only sound he manages to get out is a weak and started "Oh."

And though he knows he must have a thousand questions, the only response to come to mind is okay.

Full fic on ao3

[mystorymylifemywords]

In His....

In His Head

 What am I doing here?  I don’t belong here.  Why did I even get out of bed, put on this suit, and get into this car?  This is a waste of time.  She doesn’t give a good gotdamn about me, but my ass is sitting outside this church like a stooge to be a witness of something I shouldn’t be seeing.  

 She was a crush, that's all.  A life-long crush, but nothing else.  She likes to call herself a "friend," but she's nothing but an acquaintance.  She usually doesn’t give me the time of day, but I jumped at the chance to come to her wedding despite not wanting her to be happy.  Damn, that sounds contradictory.  How can she not give me the time of day and still find it within herself to invite me to her wedding?  What the hell am I doing here?

 I'm so in my head, right now.  Look at all these people.  They're smiling and happy for the couple and their forthcoming nuptials.  I'm trying not to show the pettiness I feel in my heart, thank God for sunglasses.  I know my eyes and facial expressions would be snitching on me.  

 I'm here for her and only her.  I don't know what's so special about this dude.  What does he have that I don't have?  Shit, that's a question I've asked myself my entire life.  I've always come second to my friends when it comes to women.  I've always been the other dude.  Women have always looked at my boys and been like, "What up, though!?" while looking over at me and quietly saying "Hi...." as if saying it too loud would attract a shocked reaction from the surrounding masses.  They would never say my name, either.  They probably didn't know it.   I was the nameless, faceless friend whom women tried to avoid or discretely acknowledge, like a homeless man panhandling for money.  I used to beat myself over that shit, I guess I'm still doing it.

 Alright, where am I going to sit and why don't I see anyone I know?  Is this some kind of joke? I'm always thinking someone is trying to play me. This girl always has so many people trying to be around her, you would think this place would be flooded with “her people,” but the turnout seems intimate.  There's no way she meant to invite me.  This had to be a mistake.  Everyone here looks like family or people who have grown up with him or her.  None of her partners from school are here, well, I see couple of her line sisters.  The only reason why I noticed them is from the pictures she's always posting on social media.  Her social media presence annoys the shit out of me.  She can say the most benign thing on social media and people who want her attention will "like" it just for an off chance that she engages them in a marginalized conversation.  Hell, I must not be any better than them.  I showed up at this wedding with my inner conscience believing I'm going to have a Dwayne Wayne moment.  “Please, baby! Please!”  Ha!  I'm so lame. I'm comparing my life to an early 90s sitcom.  She's no Whitley, though.  Jasmine Guy would probably say that's a good thing.  A Southern Belle she is not, but she sure does have her ego.  For all that, I'm no Dwayne.  He had a cool, nerdy, calm confidence about him.  I’m just awkward and shy, expect when it comes to video games and obscure literary and hip-hop figures.  Those are the only times I come out of my shell.  I still think Pharoahe Monch is the most underrated hip-hop artist of all-time.  He takes a little Melle Mel, a little Rakim, a little

 Grandmaster Kaz, and a lot of his own flavor to create lyrics that are existentially mind-blowing.  Dude said, “Lights flash, if I could only put the past on a flash drive...For peace of mind, install an external drive…So I’d be more driven internally to survive.”  That shit’s talking to me, right now, son.  I wish I could download my past and put it on some other shit so I can do some other shit because this shit right here is some bullshit.

 What was I thinking about, again?

 Oh, yeah, this damn girl and this inevitable wedding….

 The longest conversation we've had was right after I broke up with Jessica.  No lie, I honestly believed she only reached out to make herself feel better.  I don’t even know how she found out about the split.  I didn’t say shit to her, but she slid into my DMs asking if I was okay, if I wanted to talk, and gave me her number.  Instead of resisting, I gave in and made myself feel foolish for even thinking I was anything more than a boost to her self-confidence and self-esteem.  I was her charity case and she decided, after 20 plus years, to throw me a bone.  She texted me a few times over a couple weeks to see how I was doing, but I still looked at those messages as pity.  She would never engage when I responded.  It was like a chore to her and a fucked-up way to treat a person.

 Aside from that call, I’ve texted her to see how she’s doing, just attempting to be a decent human being while giving her a chance to save face.  The messages were typically met with deafening silence.  I had to delete her digits.  I can’t deal with flaky people.  No one deserves to be ignored.  It’s just rude.  Like, if you don’t want to talk to someone, be straight with them, and tell them!  When she did respond, she had the temerity to passive aggressively say we are only friends and only going to be friends. Don’t use a roundabout way of saying you aren’t interested!  I’ve known you weren’t interested since we met in high school!  Why the hell would things be any different, now?!  Nothing I’ve said to her showed anything aside friendship. I never said, “Hey, sweetheart! I’ve been thinking about you all day. I’m going to come scoop you so we can chill,” or asked her to send me suggestive pictures or attempted to engage in any conversation that even alluded to anything more than friendship. On top of that, you don’t respond to my fucking texts, so how can I get your ear for you to even think I want anything else?  She must think, since she’s so attractive, everyone wants her.  Yes, she’s very pretty girl, but fuck man!  A nigga is simply trying to make conversation, that’s all! All of this brings up my fear of rejection.  Going any further with her would simply do myself more harm and she invites me to this dog and pony show, but for what reason?  I don’t think she knows the meaning of friendship.  If she did, she wouldn’t use it to describe whatever this thing is we have between each other.  I hope this dude knows what he has coming.  All of this happened well before she allegedly met him.  I’m not the one to step on toes, so I always ask if the women whom appear to want to converse are talking to someone.  Maybe she took that as me seeing if the coast was clear to holla. That’s some simple Simon assumptions, shit…

 I gotta breathe, man….

 I’m running a full dialogue in my head and jump from telling a story to myself to screaming on her.  I need to calm down.  Seriously, why am I so angry?  I mean, really?  Why am I pissed?  Did she do anything to physically hurt me?  Nope.  Has my life moved on without her?  Yup. Hell, I have a lady of my own, but I’m up here thinking about his girl like she’s some goddess, like she’s Aphrodite from around the way and we’re in this holy place to praise Hymen while my mind is being controlled by Pothos and Eris.  I need to get a grip.  Plus, I know good in hell well that I would never scream on her like I do in head. It’s just so damn frustrating when you don’t understand a person’s actions.

 The ceremony is about to begin and I don't want dude to show up.  I don't even know the guy, but I don't like him.  Jealously is a helluva drug.  It makes you think irrational things like all that stuff that got me all riled up a few minutes ago.  He's probably a nice fella with a good family and whatnot, but he's going to get what I've wanted for years.  What did he do to get her?  Was it his confidence?  His job?  His personality?  Was is something shallow like his looks, the size of his Johnson, or his money?  I wouldn't put it past her.  She’s always had a type.  It was always some guy from the other side of the tracks, a "bad boy."  Those dudes were a joke.  I wonder how many of them stayed out of the system?  She was their arm candy, nothing more.  They paraded her around like a trophy and always kept her pockets padded.  She was only around them as payback to her father for being too controlling over her life.  He’s a hardworking man, and from what I’ve seen and heard, only wants the best for her and loves her, a lot.  You usually hear about these things when the father is absent, but he was always at the school functions and is still married to her mother.  It’s probably single-child syndrome, but I’m not close enough to her family to know the real story.  When you go behind the curtain, you see a lot of skeletons.  

 Man, I know way too much.  If the people in these church pews knew what I know, they would think I was stalking her, but when you want attention, people start to talk, and your business becomes everyone's business.  She was always fueled by attention while we were in school.  That's probably something that plagues the prettiest girls in all the schools across the globe who are also only-children.  It's like a superiority complex.  "I'm attractive and don’t have any siblings, so you should give me your attention when I want it."  When she's done with you or she bores of your conversation/company, she discards you like old rubbish.  You dance to her drum or you don't dance at all.  She lives in a solipsistic world and my dumb ass still wants a part of it.  Knowing me, I probably think I can fix her.

 Here she comes.  Her Pops is smiling from ear to ear and she looks breathtaking.  I need to leave.  I don’t want to watch this and I haven’t felt comfortable since I woke up.  My stomach is in knots.  You would think I’m the one jumping the broom.  I suppose this ceremony is the end of any possibilities of a future with her and she wanted me to witness the demise of something that never existed.  Damn, just damn!  I’m extra as hell.  People aren’t that conniving; at least I don’t think they’re that evil.  I can’t leave, though.  If I leave, now, people will turn and look to see who was so insolent to walk out in the middle of a wedding.  I’m a no-name, though.  People will forget I’m even here even if I stay.  I’m certain she won’t give damn.  She didn’t want me here from the start.

 I’m out….

  ​

In His Car

 I'm glad I got out there. I couldn't take seeing that shit. It was breaking my heart seeing her smile because I didn't cause it. I know that's selfish as fuck, but when you see your dream girl walking down the aisle and she isn't walking toward you, it fucks with your head. Shit, I don't think I've ever made her smile. It's whatever. I know I'm going to hear from her. I didn't do such a good job of leaving without being noticed. I know I said it wouldn't matter, but the attention shouldn't have been on me. People were whispering and everything as I got up. I hope I didn't cause some sort of scandal and ruin her day. I don't care if I ever talk to her again. She doesn't give a shit about me. I'm her charity. We did make eye contact as I was leaving, though. Fuck man! I'm all over the place with my emotions. I don't know what I want. Do I want her to care, or don't I? I should've stayed my ass at home....

 Now I'm back in my car and I need to figure out what I'm going to do now. I mean, aside from feeling like I shouldn't be at this wedding, I shouldn’t be in this area, period. I lied to my girl on the off chance something dramatic would happen and my fantasy would come true. She thinks I'm in Chicago for business. She doesn't pay too much attention to what I'm doing, though. Seriously, who drives from Philly to Chicago? I know I don't like planes and airports, but only a fool would make that drive, especially in his own car. It's sort of funny, too, that she would believe that story. She has ridiculous trust issues. That's the story of my life. I'm always falling for the girl with trust or daddy issues. It's bullshit, man! It's not my fault your father called you names and hurt your feelings when you were younger. It's not my fault he ran out on you and your mother because he didn't know how to handle his responsibilities. It's not my fault that dudes have cheated on you and put you down. Your past isn't my fault, but all those girls felt it necessary to take it out on me. I've never cheated on someone. I've come close a couple times, but my conscience is too strong and I'm too big of a believer in karma. What goes around comes around. I'm afraid I'm going to slip my dick in something and I catch something that can’t be cured, regardless of if I'm strapped up.

 I shouldn't stress about lying to her. She's been lying to me for months and I just let it go. They aren't even good lies, either. They're the type of lies to you tell when you're not even trying to lie, you just don't want to tell the truth. You know, those lies you would tell your mom when you had silverware or dishes in your room. You couldn’t give a shit, but telling the truth would take way more effort.

 Where the hell is my GPS?  Aww, damn!  This shit slipped under the passenger seat!  Argh!  That’s what I get for putting it behind the seat like a lazy ass and not disconnecting it and putting it in the glove box.  I don’t feel like getting out of car so now I need to do that uncomfortable lean and reach to grab it from under the seat cavity.  Each time I do it, I feel like my shoulder is going to pop out of the socket.  My shit is mad sore, afterwards.  I remember dropping a condom wrapper back there when I first bought the car.  My ex and I were breaking in the leather and I just threw the wrapper on the floor.  Unbeknownst to me, an air conditioner vent is under the seat.  When I turned on the air a few days later, I heard something rattling and it was the wrapper….

 I wonder how many people these long dialogues with themselves in their head.  I’m going on and on to myself, about myself.  I hope this normal.  It’s one of those things you don’t want to talk about because you don’t want other people to think you’re crazy.  It’s like asking someone about how they shower or bathe.  Once you find out someone’s technique, you won’t look at them the same.  I remember in elementary school, one of my friends said he sticks a bar of soap up his butt to kick it clean.  That sounds very questionable, right now.  Ha!

 Now what story was I telling myself before the thing got lost under the jawn?  Oh, yeah, my lying ass other half….

 She's always working, always. No matter what time of day, she's working. I'm not knocking her hustle, she should get her bread, but no one works all day and all night. She has this rule that she won't respond to my texts from 8-4. I don't want to get in the way of her work, so I respect her wishes. Here's the thing, she has two phones, a work phone and a personal. The work phone is a Blackberry. Who the hell still uses Blackberrys? What kind of cheap ass company still gives their employees obsolete technology? Her personal is an iPhone, so they have two distinct tones when texts are received. I should know because I had the same Blackberry, 3 years ago, and I currently have an iPhone. So, I took a random day off from work and she decided, unbeknownst to me, to work from home. She wanted to act surprised when I didn't leave the house. It's my house, witch! I'll do what I want! I don't need to explain why I took off from work. I'm a grown ass man who pays all the bills, even some of yours. Don't give me the side eye because I'm living my life in my own space. You could take your ass to your place, but as you say, "You have faster wifi and a more comfortable environment." Yeah, whatever. Anyway, tell me why that iPhone was going off, again and again and again!? I didn't realize which phone was going off for a few minutes, but it kept happening. I turned, looked at her, and gave her the "what the fuck" face. She just smiled at me, sheepishly. Yeah, you got caught doing dirt. That fucking phone goes off early in the morning, too. If you're in bed with me, who the hell is texting you? Don't text another dude in my bed, nigga. I need to catch her.  I had the idea of doing some Michael Weston, Burn Notice shit. I wanted to take her fingerprint off a glass with a piece of Scotch tape and then putting it over her phone when she gets up to go to the bathroom. The wild part, she takes that phone everywhere! Even in the middle of the night, she takes the phone with her. I know she's doing dirt because why would you need to your personal phone on you all the time, in the place that you call comfortable, but not your work phone? The work phone should be more important because you don’t want to miss an email or phone call.  I swear a heard the camera go off while she was in the bathroom. Light sleepers hear everything. This nigga was texting her pussy on my toilet and using my light.  I should’ve dropped her ass right then and there, but I didn’t have physical proof. I’m a paranoid type of dude.  I can’t let my paranoia win the day and unnecessarily cost me.  I guess that’s why I stay with her.  I fear myself….

 I better not sit in this car for too long. That service going to let out, soon. I don't want people coming over here and staring at me. I just don't have the energy to drive to the hotel. I don't get how this day was so draining. That’s a lie.  I do know why with my sensitive ass. I became too emotionally invested in something that was merely a pipe dream. I do that shit too much. I try to see the positive, see the possibilities, but reality gives me a knife-edged chop like Ric Flair, and then gives me a long, exaggerated, wide-eyed "Woooo!" Reality is constantly styling and

 profiling on me. I wish I could do the same thing, but my proverbial limousine is stuck in park and covered in bird shit. I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I'm annoying myself with my pity party.

 I love how my thoughts get me off topic. My conscience has ADHD. Ha!  What was I thinking about? Oh, yeah, my "girlfriend."  Ha!  Even in my head I don’t say her name!  That’s how I refer to her when people ask.  I call her “the girlfriend.”  I use air quotes and everything.  That’s kind of disrespectful, but her crocodilian ass earned it.

 I should’ve left her ass when Karlos was killed in a car accident while on his way to visit me for a weekend. He was making the drive from our parents’ home and lost control of his car when he hit a patch of black ice on I-95 South, just outside of Philly. He never wore his seat belt, so he was thrown from the car, and shattered his neck and the base of his skull on impact. To say I was devastated would be an understatement. I think I cried for 2 weeks, but I was alone. She was traveling for work, but couldn't make time for me because she didn't know what to do. What kind of lame ass accuse is that? You're too busy fucking one of your co-workers, or whomever is texting you at 6am, to show any type of common human decency? Come on, now! What kind of person are you? I blocked that shit out, though. During that whole ordeal was when I came closest to cheating on her.

 At the funeral, I reconnected with Kenya, an old friend from high school. People were asking me about Keyna….

 Yeah, I said her name in my conscience, but it’s probably because after what happened, I was afraid of calling Keyna, Kenya, and ending up like John Wayne Bobbit.  Now that I think about it, Dad messed up one day and called one of Los’ girls by the wrong name.  He called Cristina, Kristin.  It would’ve been cool if Los didn’t date Kristin before Cristina came around.  On top of that, there was Crystal, Crystal, Krystal, and Christina.  Dad was always as nervous as a hooker in church when different girls would come through. He never was good with names, but luckily, she didn’t hear any of those conversations, so I didn’t have to share that I had a girlfriend.  Also, you would think your significant other would show up to the funeral of her boyfriend’s sibling, but she just a selfish person.  Shit, I should’ve dropped her ass after she said she wasn’t coming.

 It’s crazy how emotions get out of kilter when something tragic happens.  My brother just fucking died and for some reason, I needed to get my dick wet to get over it. Yeah, that's weird as hell, but men hold their emotions in certain ways. I guess I just wanted to be touched and held. I wanted someone to be there for me since my so-called girlfriend was too busy getting her hairy bush waxed by Keith or Cali or Brandon or Tim. I guess it was the moment when time, space, and opportunity met.  I’m glad that moment happened.  It was a real-life fantasy played out in front me.  I’ll never forget it.

 I shouldn’t call her an old friend.  Friend isn't the correct word to use to describe her. We weren't friends in high school. We were barely acquaintances.  Hell, when I found out who she was related to, I was surprised because I never made the connection. I was friendlier with her sister whom I didn't know was her sister. Honest to goodness, they didn't look alike, to me. One was cinnamon complexion with dark brown hair and kind of slim, while she was the color of almond milk, with freckles, body for days, and reddish-brown hair.  I also didn't remember seeing them in the same place at the same time. You would think sisters of the same age, like my brother and me, would be around each other, frequently.  Hell, the girl who I thought was her sister, same body type and same round face, was nothing but a self-created red herring.

 Years after we graduated, she asked my brother about my podcast.  She went to an after-school program with him, so they were relatively close. I never knew if he smashed.  My brother didn't talk about his women because, as he liked to say, "Niggas who talk on their dick don't let their dick talk." I guess he inherited that type of boorish conversing from our Dad.  When Dad tells stories about Mom from back in the day, he always says she was, “Built like a brick shithouse!”  After he lost his job as a chemist due to downsizing he laid this gem on me, “Fuck ’em and feed ‘em beans!”  I still don’t know what the hell that means.  My brother was a crass dude, just like Dad.  Damn, I miss you, bro. Mom and Dad are still going through it. He never could get on his feet. He jumped from job to job, but couldn't find something that held his attention. He loved to read and could go on and on about literature for hours and hours. He found zero use for his communications degree from Rutgers or his masters in communications from Villanova. He did have a serious passion for writing, though. Dude had some words, but he didn't know how to get into the industry. He has the same problem as me. He never thought he was good enough to be recognized by someone who mattered, so he kept his talent to himself. I would like to do a data transfer on his Mac and look at his collection of work, but I feel that's an invasion of privacy. He deserves to rest in peace. Plus, I don't want to find anything that would make me view him differently. Being only a year apart, so we did almost everything together, but everyone has their secrets. He deserves to keep his secrets secret.  Anyway, when he told me she asked, I was perplexed.  Why was she even thinking about me and who told her I had a podcast? It sounded like some stalker shit.

 Aww, shit! The wedding is letting out. I can't be here. I'm in my feelings, right now. I know my eyes are red, thinking about Karlos.  I’ve been on the verge of tears for I don’t know how long.  Let me peep my game in this mirror.  Yeah, I’m the vain motherfucker who moves his rearview mirror to look at himself.  I catch myself doing that on the road, sometimes. I need to cut it out before I get hurt, or worse. Yup, they're red and I haven't even been crying. Just the level of emotion I'm feeling right now has overcome me. My bro, this wedding, sneaking away from my lady.  What did Ron Burgundy say?  I’m in a glass cage of emotion!  Where are those damned sunglasses? Shit! Where the fuck did I put them?! I had them on my face when I got into the car. Where are they?! Calm down, dude, calm down. It's okay. Your heart is racing for no reason. Here they are, in the middle console. Let me jump on 95 and get to my hotel. I'm feeling like eating pancakes for some reason. Yo! I can go to Eggspectations! The one in Ellicott City isn't far at all! I'm going to tear those joints up! I glad I got my mind off the situation at hand but I know it will wander back while on the road. It always wanders back....

 I-95 is an interesting highway.  It literally hits every major city on the east coast.  Boston, New York, Philly, Baltimore, DC, and Miami. In 300 or 400 miles, you could see 3 of the 5 largest cities in the country without deviating off the beaten path.  That’s extremely cool.  Damn, I’m a nerd.  I’m up here thinking about cities on an Interstate.  Who does that?  Probably the same guy who can recite every lyric to every song ever released by Mos Def. I’m never going to call that dude Yasiin Bey.  It’s not on some disrespectful, Floyd Patterson not calling Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali, shit.  I just forget he changed his name.  That dude is so talented.  It’s messed up that he’s retiring, but that’s a selfish comment on my part.  Every man has the right to live his life in the way he best sees fit.  Do your thing Flacco Bey aka Pretty Dante, do your thing!  I wish he did more movies.  I use his sheepish line from Brown Sugar about champagne flutes, all the time.  That joint cracks me up!  I need to watch that movie when I get home.  Richard Lawson!  My divorce! HA!

 I think I was playing Mighty Mos on my podcast the day the girl reached out to me.  I’d forgotten she asked Los about it.  It caught me off-guard because we didn’t communicate, often. I still didn’t understand why was she thinking about me? My Facebook account was in its infancy, so I hadn't said much to anyone or had the chance to offend anyone with my sarcastic way of speaking. I'm so to myself, no one noticed me, at least that was my belief. I figured she was like those girls who acted like the wrath of God would come down on them for even looking my way. Anyway, I gave her the link to the site and eventually we started texting back and forth with a couple phone calls sprinkled in. I was the one who stopped responding. I moved away from North Jersey and left everything in my past behind. I was happy to see her familiar face that Cimmerian morning, though. For some reason, her face ingrained itself in my soul. It was like when Mike saw Alicia at Roland’s wedding in The Wood.  I was sort of struck by her, but not in the same way because we didn’t have much of a past. In the shadow of death, she provided the luciferous moment my soul needed.  She came over to me at the repass and we had a long conversation. There were tears, smiles, laughs, and moments of uncomfortable vulnerability.

 She came back to my parents’ house after the services were completed and we sat in the basement. Los and I always brought our girls to the basement, not to say Kenya was my girl or anything. When Dad was on his music kick, he soundproofed the walls so Mom couldn't hear all the noise he was making. I don't think he thought about the moans and screams from teenage and young adult girls he would be masking, too. Kenya and I sat in the basement and talked for hours, literally. I didn't sit next to her, though. I was beyond shaken by the events of the past week and I was feeling some type of way about her. I also knew my capabilities, despite having committed myself to someone. We talked about everything, our past, our outlook for the future, and, of course, Karlos. At one point, I saw tears roll down her French vanilla, freckled cheeks. I saw her cry earlier, but this was different. These tears were lonely.  They were calling me.  Her tears were the manifestation of withheld passion for the man in front of her as well as the pain of losing a friend.  She needed to be consoled, but I was afraid. I didn't know what to do. I didn't like to see her pretty face cry in such a stoic manner, one tear streaking down her cheeks while glistening in the ambient moonlight shining through the window, but hiding in the darkness.  I found myself slowly walking toward her with my right hand delicately, invitingly, and supportively reaching for her face.  I wiped her eyes with my hand and kissed on the forehead before I sat next to her. A strange feeling came over my body. I can’t quite describe it. I felt weightless, but weighed down. I felt happy, fulfilled, but empty and sad. I started to ask her questions about her body, but I couldn't believe what I was doing. It was like an out of body experience. I wanted to touch and feel her. I wanted to know how she tasted and how she smelled. I wanted her and she gave herself to me, but I stopped myself short of any intercourse. I couldn't bring myself to it. I felt guilty because I was committed to someone else. I didn't want that karma to hit me. Yes, I enjoyed seeing her extremely unique body. Her pierced D cup, tear drop breasts with freckled, pink areolas on her toasted banana cream skin made the blood rush to my organ. My tumid state clouded my judgment as I asked to see and touch her vagina. Her skin and lips were so smooth. She was wet and pulsating with excitement while her salty, sweet floral aroma lightly fragranced the room. I was in the throes of lust for a woman I had not seen in years. I wanted to be inside her. I need to release the passion and pain of the previous week....

 Hold on….

 Who is calling my phone?!

 Oh, shit....

  ​

On His Phone

 Wow!  She’s calling me?  She’s calling me, right now?  She picks today, of all days, to call me with all this stuff going through my head?!  I thought she hated my guts, but she’s hitting my phone, at this moment?!  This has been a wild day.  I’m not answering this call.  I remember when she left me hanging when I was trying to get at her when she randomly texted me a couple years after I left school.  I can’t deal with this shit, man.  I just can’t.  I’m not taking her call….

 Aye yo, why the fuck am I so frazzled!?  I’m about to eat some motherfucking delicious, buttermilk pancakes at Perkins and I’m cursing in my head like Samuel Motherfucking Jackson! That old ass nigga is crazy as shit. He’s a great actor, though.  I loved him as Jamal’s Dad in Ghostwriter, which still makes me crack up, and his role in The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis.  I wish I could meet him and ask him how he feels to cuss out a stupid ass white people who confuse him with other black actors who look nothing like him.  Those commercials he does with Spike Lee and Charles Barkley for Capital One during the NCAA Tournament are great, too.

 Sam Jackson got my thinking all sidetracked, I guess that’s a good thing.  I’ve been on a roll for the past several hours.  This phone call, though.  This phone call has me literally shaking my head.  If I was texting someone, S-M-H would be prevalent in my messages.  This girl was the first girl, well, nix that, the second girl whom I found very attractive and she could barely tolerate me. When I say tolerate, I mean it in the loosest sense of the word.  If this woman could've permanently scrubbed me from her vision and hearing, making me a silent shadow, she would've paid any amount of money to do so.  If this was the 1920s and 30s, she would’ve hired Murder Inc. to have me exterminated simply for being born.  What's worse?  I have no idea what I did to receive that reaction.  I guess my personality rubbed her the wrong way, which isn’t surprising or new.

 This is the most I’ve ever been this much into my thoughts. Usually, I don’t think, I just react, but I guess I need to wrap my brain around everything that’s going on. This isn’t too much, but a nigga is feeling a little emotional and all these random memories are being associated with current occurrences.  I wouldn’t have thought I would feel that uncomfortable at the wedding and would’ve been so into my feelings when I left the wedding or so angry when I started thinking about my sorry-ass girlfriend.  I need to calm down, but my inner self won’t shut the fuck up.  This usually only happens when my insomnia is wreaking havoc.  This shit just feels so fucking different and so odd.  I remember when things were simpler, like in college….

 I wasn’t a major player on Seton Hall's campus.  I put my headphones on, kept my head down, and went to class.  All those New York City niggas needed to be seen and show off, I wasn’t down with that shit.  There’s a part of my personality that’s no-nonsense.  Some shit just needs to get done without frills, like walking to class.  Those dudes didn’t get it, but they’re from a section of the country that couldn’t be any more different than where I grew up. Regardless, I don’t think that had anything to do with me not being a “big fish” at The Hall.

 I remember people used to call me, “Dude in the Falcons jacket” because I wore an Atlanta Falcons letterman's jacket, every winter and fall day for 4 years.  It was very distinguishable.  That shit makes me laugh.  There was a dude that we caught fucking our boy’s girl, at his apartment, on the bed he bought, that we called, “Dude in the red jacket.”  Who fucks, inside a house or apartment, and keeps his jacket on?! Did “Dude in the red jacket” think that was his sexual motif?  Did dude think he was an amateur Mr. Marcus and wearing his jacket was akin to Mr. Marcus never taking off his baseball cap and socks?  That nigga was a simp.  He also jumped out the window when he saw us.  Bitch ass couldn’t face the music when the music was at the got damn door. It took everything we had inside us not to jump his ass whenever we saw him on campus.  

 My thoughts keep getting sidetracked with randomness.  I’m starting to annoy, myself.  That’s probably why she couldn’t stand me. Shit, I don’t know, man.

 Since my class-going tableau never changed, it made sense to earn that moniker, and I hate I associate the nickname with the “Dude in the red jacket,” but that’s how my brain works.  Did just fucking use the word tableau in a sentence?  No one thinks or talks like that!  Who the fuck says tableau?  I’m seriously on my Carlton Banks, right now.  The nigga said “opt!”  OPT!  And endowment!  The only time I hear opt is when I’m declining some credit card shit and the only time I hear endowment is when I’m watching some fuck shit on PBS!  Why am I yelling in my head?!  I’m going crazy man!  These women are driving my fucking crazy.  I feel like Musiq Soulchild without the lazy eye.

 I lost my training of thought….Reflections Eternal….Mos Def & Talib Kweli….fuck, man….

 Where was I?  Oh, yeah….

 I used to walk across a parking lot next to one of the dorms, every day, while headed to class during my junior year. Later in the school year, I became friendly with a girl who saw me take that daily path. The first time I met her, which was at a mutual friend’s house party, she asked me a slightly creepy question that made me take a step back. She asked me what I was listening to on my way to class.  In my head, I was like, "Whoa! I barely know you and have never laid eyes on you until this moment. What kind of question is that? Are you stalking me?"  Yeah, I had a stalker while I was at school.  I had a couple, neither of them were cute.  One of them we called Rambo because she was always wearing camo bandanas and the other was called Snuffaluffagus because, well, she fucking looked like Snuffy from Sesame Street, but that's a story for another day. Anyway, my soon-to-be friend picked up on the immediate withdrawn look on my face and said she could see me from her room, in attempt to backtrack on the intrusive, but innocent question. I laughed it off when I noticed her need for me to accept the mea culpa. I told her I was listening to a mixed playlist of hip-hop and R&B on my Minidisc player. Our friendship blossomed after that moment while also becoming the genesis of the intimate relationship purgatory which would mold my early 20s and influence my 30s.  That’s another story, too….

 Now, that first girl who hated my guts. Dawg….

 During freshman year, I was completely lost, emotionally and mentally. I wouldn't say I was homesick. I was glad to be so far away from home. My Texas drawl became somewhat of a novelty act in North Jersey. Anyway, I spotted a tall, big chest, gorgeous woman talking to one of my boys.  Yeah, I'm the guy who takes women from his friends. Sue me. So, I see her talking to one of my boys and I say to myself, "Woo wee! She's finer than all outdoors! I would drink her bath water!" I was country as fuck, back then.  To say the woman was bad would be an understatement. As time progressed, this young lady became part of our ever-growing crew. We started as group of 5 and quickly grew to about 10, maxing out at 15 with a couple kats making cameos on a random basis. I wish some of those meddling motherfuckers never showed up. Getting back to the girl, I tried to talk to her, but at the time, I came off as extremely bougie and talked down to people. It wasn't on purpose. I was overcompensating from being a big fish in the little pond of Tyler, TX to being the type of fish you throw back because into the water because it's worthless. I was catfish in an ocean of Alaskan salmon.  Nah, let me check myself.  It was definitely on purpose.  I was a bitter, jealous, little nigga. I was trying to make my mark and failed, miserably. This girl picked up on my poor job of attempting to garner attention and put me in my place whenever she could. She would've pissed on the me if I was on fire on the side of the road, but she would have crapped on me, afterwards, to increase the embarrassment. That's how much she disliked me. After the school year, she was spent the summer riding the train with her father who was a conductor for Amtrak. I don't know why she called when they were on their way to Tyler, but she did and saw a completely side of me. Get this, she fell for me in 2 days. My demeanor was so different and so I was relaxed and cool, the kid landed the girl who was built like a brick shithouse! As in most college relationships, it didn't last. Big breasts lose their allure when the girl doesn't put out and you're tired of getting blue balls when you see her. It physically hurts to be 18 and horny.

 Getting back to the gist of the story, it was in the summer between my junior and senior year when I saw this young lady, who I think still wishes I would die a fiery death. My best friend's girlfriend was having a cookout at her mom's house in South Jersey. Straight up, my eyes popped out of my head like when Roger Rabbit saw Jessica for the first time. Ok, that was straight up hyperbole.  Truth, she was exotic to me because, and this is going to sound crazy, but it was the first time I saw freckles on a black woman of her complexion, in person.

 In Tyler, there aren't too many people who look like me and there aren't too many people who wanted to hang around an Indo-Jamaican, African American family, either. We were too different for the good folks in Tyler, plus they liked to say nigga more frequently than Michael Blackson at a Juneteenth celebration, so we kept to the small group of black folks in our neighborhood, most of whom have lived there since the Civil War.  All that being said, those freckles were sexy as hell.  On top of that, she was chesty, probably a D cup or larger.  In the years since beginning to attempt to guess breast or bra sizes, I've found I'm not as good as I once believed, which means I've always been wrong. It serves me right for sexualizing someone based off two lumps of fat they can't conceal without 10 feet of Ace bandages, a spool of duct tape, and a tutorial by Hilary Swank.

 Looking back, I know it wasn’t just the freckles that spread across her full cheeks like vanilla beans in ice cream.  It was the perfect imperfection of her big brown eyes, butter pecan skin, and chestnut brown hair that changed colors in light depending on the angle. Look at me being all poetic and shit.  Call me motherfucking Langston Hughes.  Nah, I’m more like Harper Stewart.  There I go, again….  Anyway, basically, I needed to get her attention, but was so got damn lost in the sauce, a nigga didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to rub her the wrong way. Shit, I was confident in myself and oratorical skills, but women fuck with my head without saying a word. Maybe it was all the weed I was smoking, but got damn….

 Listen to this shit, though, all the good vibes I was feeling when first saw her were dashed when she looked through me and tried to act like I wasn't present when we were introduced. I was Patrick fucking Swayze! I was a got damn ghost, dude! I’ve never felt so small.  When you run so hot and cold, as I’ve always run since I was little, that shit is so humbling.  I remember when I was 12, playing in the regional AAU championship basketball game at Carter HS in Dallas and nearly got kicked out for ripping off my jersey, throwing it to the ground, and going on an expletive-riddled tirade while stomping off the court after the ref called the third phantom foul on me in the first 5 minutes of the first half.  I was the best player on the team and that non-refereeing son-of-a bitch couldn’t get his shit straight.  My Mother had a fit and went chasing after me to cuss me out and tell me how I’m supposed to behave in high pressure situations.  I didn’t learn shit from that moment, but it’s a funny story.  

 Now, I was already behind the 8-ball and was in a silent panic because this was unfamiliar territory. The competitor in me needed to win this girl, but the shy kid in me was telling me to fall back. That was extremely confounding! In 2 minutes, I went from, "Yup, I got this!" to "Umm, hey, over here! I'm standing in front of you. Look at me!" to "Forget this girl and her bougie, pretentious way. She's not that cute, anyway!" to "But those freckles, though! Damn!" She had me twisted like a Keith Sweat song and all I could do is whine to my boys about getting played without saying a word about my intentions. It was the equivalent of getting fired on your day off.  It was a Friday, too.

 After that awkward, well awkward for me, interaction or non-interaction, the next time I saw her was at my best friend's 21st birthday party. I should’ve stopped drinking before his birthday because the elixir makes too much of myself.  Too much of myself makes me jump off the top of bunk beds, feet first, only fall halfway down and land on my face or request my boys “Call the cops, man, call the cops!” and go on and on sounding like a white boy from the valley saying, “I don’t want to die here, man!  I don’t want to die here!” and then throwing up my roommate’s bed because vodka and brown liquor don’t mix.  Anyway, I digress….

 I can’t believe I’ve been sitting in this Perkins parking lot, thinking to myself, while listening to my boy, DJ Caesar on Shade45 on SiriusXM. I remember when I tried to get at his girl while not knowing she was his girl.  He’s a good dude, though, and saw it was an honest mistake.  If I ever get married, I’m going to get him to DJ. He’s been a good friend over the past few years and I need to keep the good people around me.

 It’s funny, all my people are older than me. Our crew is at least 1 month and as many as 14 months older. I'm the baby, but I don't get treated like it. Let me take that back, I do get treated like the baby because I'm the one who gets picked on and teased ad nauseam. I'm the dude in Belly who shoots Sincere because Buns was cutting on him, in an earlier scene, expect I don't have a violent temper and the grilling and clowning never goes over the line. I guess that's a bad analogy. Let me think, if we were the cast of Saved by the Bell, I would be Screech. That's perfect!  I’m the smart nigga in the room with extreme nerd tendencies. Yeah, I’m Screech.

 I’m always trying to overcompensate for my shortcomings. My age has always been the largest amongst them. Being the youngest, I try to drink the most, smoke the most blunts, and be the most informed or smartest dude in the room. Shit, I got so high one night, I knew all the secrets of the world and I could touch the future.  That’s what I get for fucking with E Double’s gravity bong.  When you're young, you learn the hard way.

 Ok, so for my boy’s birthday party, my Dad brought me and my female, childhood friend to Newark from his apartment in Baltimore. People were so confused when I would go to Baltimore for spring break or on weekends. Trust me, I wasn't going back and forth from Tyler to Newark. I don't like to fly, I don't like taking my shoes off, and I like to travel with a bag of weed in my suitcase. The NSA would be all over my black ass for trying to pull a Nate Newton at BWI. Getting back to the story, my Dad dropped us off at our friend's house where the party would take place. As soon as I got there, I started drinking. I’m the dude who pre-games at 9am. I was feeling myself too much and was too stupid to eat anything before putting alcohol in my body. By the time the party was scheduled to start around 9pm, I was feeling good. I was waiting on the PYT with the freckles to show up but the liquor had other plans for my patience.  Why my ignorant ass didn't eat all day, I’ll never know.  When I decided it was a good idea to eat, my stomach gave me the finger. By 10pm, I was drinking Everclear straight from the bottle and smoking the worst rolled blunt in the history of blunts. There were big ass basketball players looking at me like I was crazy.

 When I get high, for some reason I think I’m a ladies man. I think I’m Leon Phelps without the afro, bellbottoms, and house boat. So, if an attractive woman enters the room, it doesn't matter if we've never met, I will try to get the digits and, hopefully, take her on trip to Space Mountain. Shout-out to the dude Ric Flair! I wish I could be a limousine riding, jet flying, kiss stealing, wheeling-dealing, son of a gun, but I don’t have that sort of charisma, which why I fail at getting my dick wet when I want to get my dick wet. I can fall into pussy, all day, every day.  When a nigga tries to get the draws, I end up masturbating in the shower while listening to Janet Jackson moan on Velvet Rope.

 Did I just shout-out Ric Flair in my head?  I’m really losing my mind, man.  Next thing you know, I’ll be at an Interstate rest stop, standing at a urinal, laughing, while my dick is in my hand.  That shit would get me arrested and I would end up at the psych ward of some hospital in rural Maryland.  I would have to sit my ass in there until they let me go on my own recognizance because I’ll be damned if I have to call someone and tell them I was arrested for laughing while holding a sexual body part in a public restroom.  I’m not going to be the black PeeWee Herman.  Fuck that.  That’s some shit a nigga does when he’s high.  I sound high, thinking to myself and jumping in and out of stories to myself, with my overthinking ass.

 Where was I?  Right….

 I didn’t think the mixture of weed and liquor would stop my pimp game, a nigga was wrong as hell!  I was talking to two women who thought I looked like Tek from The Real World, they must've been high and drunk, too, when the room started bouncing and spinning, simultaneously! I was cool until I sat down next to them.  As soon as my cheeks hit that couch, it felt like a bad acid trip, or what I would assume how a bad acid trip feels.  It's was the craziest experience, ever! Everything was moving in slow motion. I felt like Smokey from Friday after he was tricked into smoking Angel Dust. I felt stuff crawling on me and my skin was on fire. Then, my body decided it didn't like what was going on and my gag reflex kicked into full gear. In the middle of the conversation with the two women, I slid to the floor, and crawled to the bathroom. My boy was watching the entire thing and cleared a path. I was hugging the porcelain throne instead of motorboating D cups.  Did just make my second Friday reference in this thought?

 So, I missed the PYT because I had to drag my lightweight ass upstairs into the hallway to get out of the way.  I laid flat on my stomach, burping the foulest smelling shit known to man, and slipping in and out of consciousness. While I was up there, my people thought it was cute to have fun with me, so they were bringing girls upstairs to clown me and take photos. One of those girls sat her ass on me! Who does that?!  When I woke up the next morning, I wasn't allowed to drink the water because, per one of my friends, it smelled like pussy.

 I forgot about the PYT until the school year started. It’s dope how I can be out of sight, out of mind with some things, especially around Madden season.  When that game would come out, shit, you couldn’t pull me away from my PlayStation. I made so much money beating niggas by using glitches in the game.  My nerdiness came up strong in those moments.  I was also preoccupied with moving into our apartment.  

 My boys and I opted to rent an overpriced, on-campus apartment. If people knew how much that shit cost, they would’ve thought we were drug dealers. I guess that's the cost of convenience, but it was well worth it in the long run. To christen the new place, we had a small party with our closest friends. This was the night my best friend and I found out Lime Tosititos and peanut butter M&Ms were a fucking fantastic combination after smoking a bowl.

 This was also the night when the PYT first recognized my existence, granted it was because I wasn't wearing a shirt much of the time and my chicken chest was the center of all the jokes, which she instigated. Something was better than nothing, though. I was glad I was too high to retort with anything too biting. I find myself crossing the line when I can't think of anything funny on the spot and it's only cool to be mean when it's funny, which was a difficult lesson to learn. I was mean more often than funny, but on this night, the weed was telling me to calm down, be humble, and not blow the chance to see some drunken breasts in a few hours. When titties are involved, you better got damn listen to the weed!

 By the end of the night, the PYT was in my bed, but not with me. If I was telling this story aloud, this is when niggas would get hype.  They would think she smashed the homies, but nah, she was in the bed with two other girls.  All three of them were passed out, drunk, and fully clothed.  I was on the couch letting the weed and the Henny, which came after a couple unsuccessful rounds of truth, dare, or consequences, wear off. The perv in me wanted to jump in the bed with the 3 girls, butt ass naked, and start touching body parts.  I know that shit would land me in jail if they didn't consent, so I kept my shirtless, horny, slightly high, slightly drunk ass on the couch and watched reruns of the Golden Girls and Empty Nest on Lifetime.  If niggas knew I had thing for Blanche, the clowning would never end. They showed one of my favorite crossover episodes, that night.  Blanche showed up on Empty Nest and they did a sitcom version of Fatal Attraction. That was my shit!  I wonder if it’s on iTunes?

 It was a minute before I saw her, again. When I did see her, she was off limits. She didn't have a nigga or anything, but I had a lady, which was a mistake on my part. I shouldn't really diss my ex, but I’m talking to myself in my head, so it isn’t really a diss.  She was cute and had body for days, but she wasn't my type. She liked to watch HGTV, all got damn day, and I wanted to play video games and watch SportsCenter. Listen, her sheltered ass was first truly introduced to hip-hop when got to campus.  Her Pop was a doctor in Connecticut and kept his 3 sons and only daughter in the dark regarding a lot of life experiences, especially the nigga shit that everyone should know when they grow up.  I mean, she didn’t know putting a brick on the stove in the winter can heat the entire house for pennies on the dollar versus turning on the furnace.  She only knew Love & Basketball by the quarter breaks in the movie.  The nigga said she’s only watched to the 3rd quarter!  Who says that shit?  A sheltered as nigga from Bridgeport, CT, that who.  She never put water in the ketchup or soap bottles to get the last drop of your hard-earned money.  She didn’t know shit!  I grew up listening to UGK, the Geto Boys, DJ Screw, and needed to cut corners to save money at every turn. That’s not to say she’s not as black as me, that’s ignorant. She just didn’t have a wide range of experiences.  Her body made up for a lot of her shortcomings, though.  Her ass was rotund!  Plus, she let me do some weird shit I saw on TV.  HBO used to play this late-night show called “Shock Video.”  In one of episodes, two with big, floppy breasts, were seeing how many books they could under each titty!  Since the ex had perky E cups, I was curious as shit!  I didn’t have that many books, I didn’t read a damn thing back in the day, I wanted to see how many DVDs she could hold under each breast.  For the life of me, I can’t remember how many she held, but the shit was impressive.

 Moving on with the story I’m reciting to myself, that’s always going to be weird, when I saw the PYT, we were getting ready for my birthday party at my friend’s house, which meant a trip to liquor store. Being my 21st birthday, I was amped to legally buy alcohol. Since she was younger than me, I had to commit a felony and buy the liquor she wanted. Well, let me revise that comment. I wanted to buy the liquor she wanted so she would have a reason to talk to me. The shit didn't work! I bought her the fifth of Henny, which cost about $10, and was smart enough to say she needed to pay me back. I was trying to be slick because for her to pay me back meant she would have to see me again and actually speak. That shit blew up in my face! Not only did she never pay me back, she didn't even stay for the party! She was there for 5 minutes, then disappeared! She went fucking David Blaine on me! I was pissed to start the party because she bounced, which was before my girlfriend started kissing and rubbing on my boys when they started to arrive. The whole night was a disaster.

 The woman I willingly put my penis inside, with and without protection, started drunkenly molesting your closest friends at your own birthday party! I was mad, but happy at the same time. First, you just don't do that shit! You don't! I mean, flirting is one thing, and I can't be mad at that because I'm guilty of flirting with any woman who gives me the time of day, but touching and trying to kiss them on the mouth is something different. I had to pull her off a couple of my friends because she was getting too frisky. They were looking at me like a pimp who couldn't control his hoes. I was happy because she gave me an out. I could get out of the relationship with a valid reason and give the PYT 100% attention, which is what I wanted. Things became easier when the nigga fell through a closet door and pissed her pants. I left her big booty behind at my friend's house and carried myself home.

 The whole thing with breaking up with my girlfriend and hollering at the PYT played out differently than I anticipated because it sure as hell didn't work the way I wanted! I saw her outside of the student activity center, a couple weeks after the break up, and gave her my number. She never called and acted like she didn’t want the number.  She couldn’t even fake it.  Why am I laughing at myself, right now?  That shit is funny.  I was used to getting dissed or rejected, so I took it well.  Nah, nigga, you didn’t take it well.  You bitched to people about it, but made sure they didn’t have any contact with the crew because you didn’t want to be that crying, whining ass Keith Sweat-type nigga, again.  I was used to getting rejected, though.  One night, at a club in the Bronx, I was dancing with this girl.  Well, saying I was dancing with her is a stretch.  She was dancing and I was trying to catch the beat, which I failed to do.  This nigga patted me on the chest and told me she thinks I should stop and walked away! E Double was there and cracked the fuck up!  I couldn’t believe that shit!  Anyway, the PYT texted me, 2 years later, literally….

 For some reason, out the blue, she texted me and wanted to link up. I was floored because, again, I thought she wished me dead. Anyway, for the first time, she was engaging me, commenting on my posts on social media, and including me in some of her thoughts. I didn't know what the hell was happening. I didn't know if I should be happy to finally get to learn more about her or worried that I was getting played. This shit felt like a trap and I was too stupid to fall back.  Everything she was doing felt and sounded like some rebound type shit, except, I wasn’t Bill Russell, I couldn’t secure the board, and I knew it.  It didn’t take long before the engagement and

 the communication stopped.  The shit was stopped cold turkey, too.  One day, we were cool.  The next day, I couldn’t get a response.  A nigga was puzzled.  So, I did what any other guy in his mid-20s would do when a woman disses him without notice, I deleted her from Facebook.  Granted, I re-add her later, just to delete her, again, which became a cycle of mine during that age.  I thought deleting someone from social media meant deleting them from my life, but their impact resonated in my mind.  The what-ifs were too numerous and I was too immature to take rejection at face value. I took it personally when I should’ve taken it as a challenge to find the flaws within myself and make myself the type of person who can look those who don’t want me around and be unfazed by their convictions.

 I guess I didn’t learn my lesson.  That’s why I’m in the parking lot of this Perkins when I should be at a wedding reception.  Confusion and jealousy makes a man to do crazy things, so do freckles, a big chest, and cowardice.

 The real crazy part, I’ve always been more attracted to a woman’s intelligence, the way she thinks, how she interacts with others, and her grind to get what she wants.  I saw all of those things in her.  The cherry on top was outside package.  I was just too dumb not to initiate conversation about things I could gleam simply by seeing the activities she was involved.  I’m not saying I would’ve joined those groups, that’s some stalker shit. I’m saying, looking back at my early to mid-20s from my mid-30s, I could’ve used a completely different tactic like not being passive aggressive.  Nothing was stopping me from pulling her off to the side and privately introducing myself, letting know my general intentions, and trying to get to know her.  I didn’t and don’t know what was going on with her life.  I was too selfish to think about anyone else’s trials and tribulations.

 I need to call her back.  I owe her the respect of listening.  I wanted her to listen to me, but I didn’t have the balls to open my mouth. After all these years, she’s opening her mouth.  Initiating conversation with someone who is essentially a stranger is one of the toughest things to do in the world.  People will climb Mt. Everest, but won’t tell someone who means the world to them how they feel.  Emotions are a bitch, man.  I guess that’s why Nas made “Life’s A Bitch.”  Shoot your shot.

 Ok, now I’m mixing metaphors.  Let me get inside this restaurant, enjoy my pancakes, and people watch like how Pop taught me....