#i went on a 15 minute rant to my poor mother after finishing the first 2 episodes and i held back SO MUCH

[hecatesbroom]

Rewatching the crown and oh wow, I forgot how good this show is

[oureuphoria]

Worst of You - JJK Final

You meet him under horrible circumstances but everything feels perfect when you’re with him. Too bad you have a bitch of a best friend, anxiety and an inability to learn from your mistakes which cripples your chances to be with the man of your literal dreams. He, however, is a police officer with years worth of built-up turmoil and an inability to make attachments. Or “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.” “Cool, I’ll let everyone know you’re moving in then.”

Genre: fluff, angst, comedy

Pairing: officer!jungkook X  collegestudent!reader

Word count: 2,834

Warnings: None but let me know if you find me. 

Note: I’m so sorry for the really late update BUT I had to finish my paper first! Wow, let me just say I am very, very, thankful to have such amazing, wonderful people who read this fic and I love each and every single one of you so so so much. Thank you for reading and thank you for allowing me to share this with you. This is just the beginning and I have many ideas that are yet to hit paper so this will not be goodbye. Once again, thank you to everyone for reading and I love you all!  

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Jungkook promised himself he wouldn’t get sad over you. He tried so hard to stop himself from getting attached and yet here he was, 2 weeks later, unable to focus on a single thing at work. Jungkook spent his entire Saturday moping around his apartment, he recalled how he used to spend Saturday nights, clubbing and one-night-stands, but now none of that appealed to him. You had ruined Jungkook, now he couldn’t even look at a girl the way he used to because he always thought of you instead. On Sunday he was invited out with his brother’s family, his niece and nephew were constantly asking about you and Jungkook couldn’t help but grow sadder each time. He didn’t know why he missed you, or how he even could miss you when he swore to himself he wasn’t attached. It was a Monday and Jungkook was at work again, staring at the same paper for 20 minutes with an empty head. Mel approached him with a coffee. “What’s wrong?” Jungkook gratefully took the cup from her hand as she sat on the chair in front of his desk, where you used to sit. Jungkook scolded himself mentally for thinking of you but no matter how many times he did it, his mind would come back to you.

Mel felt bad for what she did, it was eating her alive and yet she knew if she told him he’d never forgiven her, especially since he lost Y/N.  She was jealous, unaware of the fact that her love for him wasn’t as platonic as she thought it was. It never bothered her before because he was alone but when he wasn’t, all her emotions came cascading upon her as she let her jealousy overrule her rationality. Jealousy was a horrible emotion that caused people to do reckless things, Jungkook knew it, Mel knew it and back at your dorm, you knew it too.

“I’m so stupid! I screwed it all up just because I’m an insecure, jealous little bitch!” You were angrily throwing pillows around as you ranted to Jimin who just came into your room to borrow your laptop charger. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m sure if you apologize he will understand.” You fell back onto your bed, sighing. “I tried. I called, I messaged, I even went to the station but the receptionist said he didn’t want to see me.” He softly stroked your head as you pouted at the ceiling, he was grateful you stopped crying but your anger was more annoying than your tears. “Make a grand gesture or something, like they do in the movies. You know, with the whole rocks on windows thing and the poetic love letters.” You grabbed one of the pillows you haphazardly threw and aimed it at him. “Except, I’m not 15, this isn’t a movie and he lives in a penthouse; I can’t throw rocks that far up, Jimin!” He threw the pillow back at you and soon enough it became a pillow war.

“Wait!” Jimin’s hand stopped midway through the air. “I have an idea!” Jimin looked at you weirdly but put the pillow down to listen. “What if I reverse ‘10 Things I Hate About You’ and write a letter about all the reasons he should forgive me?” Jimin looked at you blankly, not catching on. “Writing on paper is literally the only thing I’m good at, Jimin!” He smiled before rushing you to get ready while he left the room. Once Jimin was outside, he silently prayed that the letter would work, post-break-up Y/N was the worst Y/N.

“I know he doesn’t want to see me but could you just give this to him-” “Y/N!” Mel’s voice startled you, causing you to drop the letter. You quickly picked it up though in the process you gave yourself a paper cut. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been 4 pages long. “Y/N, I have to apologize about something.” Mel had explained that she had lied to you, and even went further to explain everything you were suspicious about with Jungkook, even covering his fears about his mother. You spoke for about 20 minutes before she told you he was upstairs, at his desk, on his lunch break. Although what she had told you was a lot to take in, you found that the only thing you could think about then was apologizing to Jungkook. You took the letter and zoomed upstairs with Mel’s permission.

The second Jungkook saw you he felt his eyes poke out of his head. He wasn’t expecting to see you, especially not with a huge smile on your face.

“Before you yell at me and tell me to leave, let me explain. Throughout my entire life, the only safe place I had was my mind and I’ve grown to live in it sometimes and despite my unhealthy attachment to it, it hates me. I overthink a lot and whenever I do my mind runs off to the worst possible scenario and my mind turns into pure chaos. It’s not an excuse because it doesn’t justify me accusing you of something you didn’t do and I’m sorry that I didn’t come to you first but you have to know it wasn’t because I didn’t want to be with you. I understand if you don’t want to forgive me but you must accept this apology letter as a sign of my extreme remorse. It contains all the reasons why I believe you should forgive me because I am very, very bad at talking-” before you could finish your rambling, Jungkook interrupted you.

“Y/N, I’m busy, I don’t have time to read your letter right now.” Your smile fell, but you were persistent. “It’s okay I can read it out to you!” He shook his head, picking up the remains of his lunch and throwing it into his bin. You began reading it but he stopped you again “You should go.” You frowned, getting upset because this wasn’t going to plan and you didn’t have a plan B. “But I still have 4 pages left…” You looked like you were going to cry and Jungkook wasn’t sure he could handle it before anything else happened though, Mel interrupted.

“I lied to Y/N.” You looked up at her, shocked and confused because you could almost swear she wasn’t standing there before. “I lied to her about where you were that Friday, that’s why she thought you were cheating.” Jungkook’s face looked mad but his eyes looked hurt. He was betrayed by the one person he thought he could trust, and at that moment, he couldn’t bear to look at either of you. He ignored her confession, stood up and went on his way. “Wales. Hurry up, we have shit to do.” The man quickly picked up racing after he and Mel winced at the sight. “Poor Wales, he’s going to have to deal with the short end of the stick.” Your eyes went to her face, she wasn’t worried at all. “Aren’t you worried he won’t forgive you?” She smiled down at you before saying something that left you perplexed. “I hope he doesn’t.” She walked off right after leaving you with nothing but your racing mind. You grabbed a post-it-note off his table and wrote in all caps ‘PLEASE READ!!’ With a smiley face that followed, you stuck it onto the letter and left it on his desk.

Jungkook said he wasn’t going to read it, he swore to himself he wouldn’t but how could he not when the note you left alone had him missing you like crazy. Fuck it. He thought, picking up the letter angrily. Each and every word made him miss you more and it wasn’t until he read the very last reason you’d written that he realized he needed to see you. He got up quickly, it was already after hours and now that he was corporal he could basically dismiss himself. He said his farewells to the chief and drove to you as fast as (legally) possible. He didn’t go into your dorm building, he parked in front of it and leaned on his car staring at the establishment with an overactive mind. What if you didn’t want to see him? Then what? Jungkook messaged you to go outside and you read it instantly, after a couple of minutes he was worried you weren’t going to come.

Eventually, your small frame squeezed through the tiny opening of the door you managed to open, he remembered you always complaining about how the door was too heavy. “Did you read it?” He smiled at how cute you were, your optimistic eyes clearly hoped for a happy ending. He nodded and the smile you had been fighting back was beaming on your face. “Y/N, I hated it.” Your smile dropped, your face significantly sadder. “Why? Was there a typo? I was rushing so-” “You got the last reason wrong.” You furrowed your eyebrows, you remember faintly that the last reason had simply been you confessing your love to him, you didn’t understand what was wrong.

Jungkook was fishing through the pockets of his coat. “You wrote ‘Reason number 10: I love you. I know you’ve heard me say it before and I know you’re not quite there but I feel like it is a pivotal reason because I think you’re unaware of just how much I love you. P.S. it’s a lot.’ You nodded in reply, you had indeed written that but you weren’t sure what was wrong with it. “Y/N, you wrote that I didn’t love you but you are so terribly wrong.” You felt as if your heart had stopped beating and you were impatiently waiting for him to spit it out. “I love you, Y/N. I don’t know why but from that very first interrogation, I knew I had to get to know you. I’m not sure how I fell in love with you. Maybe it was your weird obsession with those cheese balls from the café that you stared at more than you ate, or your clumsiness that had you adorably tripping all the time, or how excited you got over a good report grade, or your kind, sweet, heart that forgives more than it should. You forgave me every time I screwed up and yet you didn’t expect anything from me. It’s been rough and we’ve both screwed up a lot, although I will admit it was mostly me, I realized that I would much rather exhaust myself fighting for you than rest with someone else.”

“That’s not fair!” Your voice broke in the middle of the sentence because you had started crying. Jungkook was quick to pull you into a hug. “No, baby, don’t cry. What’s not fair?” You spoke into his chest and although it was muffled it was still coherent. “How are you so good at talking?” He let out a chuckle but stopped laughing when you forced yourself out of his arms and started rubbing your cheek. “What’s wrong?” “Your vest hurt my face.” He apologized through laughter which you found mocking and he roughly pinched the cheek you were trying to soothe and you angrily slapped his hand away. “I missed you, princess.” “Well, I miss not having sore cheeks, you bully!” You were genuinely mad because the man you loved just told you he loved you back and all you could think about was how much your cheek hurt.

“But you promised!” You whined while pulling his unresponsive body back and forth.  “Y/N, no.” He pulled you off of him out of annoyance but you couldn’t back down, not with so much at stake. “You promised that if I didn’t rant to you about the shows I was watching for a whole month then you would watch The Office with me!” Jungkook slowly put his laptop down on the coffee table and turned to you, holding both of your hands in his. “Baby, this may come as a shock to you but, I lied.” You sighed in frustration before angrily storming off to your room. Jungkook picked up his laptop to continuing working. Soon after he began to grow afraid of the fact that you may actually be mad at him so he put his laptop back onto the coffee table and slowly made his way to his room, he opened the door ever so slowly and peaked in to see you wrapped up in a blanket, frowning as you watched The Office on your TV.

Jungkook smiled and opened the door completely, violently unwrapping you from your self induced blanket burrito causing you to roll out off of the bed. “Oh shit, sorry.” You didn’t say a word, still evidently mad at him. “The silent treatment, over this?” Jungkook gestured at the screen looking unimpressed. “Excuse me, The Office is one of the most iconic sit-coms to ever be televised in the existence of sit-coms, you’re just uncultured.” Jungkook was having a dilemma, was he supposed to be glad you were speaking to him again or be mad over the fact that you had called him uncultured. “I just don’t understand the hype around sit-coms it’s basically the same situation over and over with different variables-” You slapped your hand onto his mouth to shut him up. “You already ruined Brooklyn 99 for me, keep this to yourself.”

After an entire year of being together, your dynamic was still yet to change. You both still acted like 12-year-old frenemies and madly in love adults simultaneously and you wouldn’t trade it for the world but in moments like such, the urge to strangle him was unbearable. “See this is why we can’t have nice things, Kook.” You folded your arms as you laid back onto the bed but Jungkook was committed to ensuring you didn’t go to bed angry. After several minutes of tense silence, the clock hit midnight and Jungkook whispered into your ear, “happy birthday, Y/N.” You tried to fight back a smile but you couldn’t no matter how hard you tried. You turned to him, smiling bitterly before whispering back, “Happy Anniversary, Jungkook.”

[drprettyboyspence]

Memory Lane

Dr. Spencer Reid/reader

Summary: Reader just can't seem to get to sleep one night so she decides to walk around the house she shares with her boyfriend, Spencer Reid. As she travels around the house she remembers significant moments in their relationship.

words: 2.9k

warnings: season 12 spoilers, mentioning of mental illness, nothing else to my knowledge! (just a lot of fluff) 

a/n: This is my first Spencer Reid fic and I kinda went off the rails with the word count, let me know if you enjoy it :)

I turn myself over in bed for what feels like the four hundredth time this hour, facing the ceiling now. I can hear the rustling of leaves outside and the distant sirens of the city, remembering how those sounds used to bring me some sort of comfort as a child, now all I can think of is the death and tragedy being an FBI profiler has brought me into contact with, the horrors at the end of the trail of sirens. Mostly noticeably though, I hear the steady breathing of the man lying next to me in the king bed, glancing over at my boyfriend of almost 4 years I smile warmly, his unruly hair draped over the pillow, glad to see him in deep sleep. Recently he hasn’t been sleeping well, suffering from PTSD from his time spent in prison as well as all the trauma the poor man has been through in the last 10 years of his life. I quietly get out of bed, making sure not to bother him, he deserves a good nights sleep and we have to be at the BAU in a depressingly minuscule amount of hours. My feet hit the cold wooden floors and I wonder for the uncountable time “Why did we decide on wooden floors?” A memory of an argument with Spencer answers my question,  

“Because silly, don’t you know that carpets can hold up to 200,000 bacteria per square inch, this room is 100 square feet, 144 square inches per square foot, that is 28,800,000 bacteria in our bedroom alone.” I remember shaking my head at him, he’s always been such a germaphobe. In fact, when we first met, he shook my hand, and later when I confided in JJ and Penelope that I had pretty intense feelings for the resident genius of the BAU, they mentioned that he usually hates shaking hands, is known for refusing to shake the hands of many people the team comes into contact with on cases. He shook my hand right away, it’s one of the things I love about him and we always say we knew right away that we had a special connection. I glance at Spencer’s sleeping frame one more time before leaving the bedroom and making my way down the hallway. There are pictures there, pictures of me and Spence, him and his mom, pictures of the team at work, Spencer won’t admit it often, but he wakes up every morning scared that he won’t remember those he loves, his mother’s dementia and schizophrenia have impacted him greatly. I stop in front of a picture of me and Spence, it’s the first picture we ever took together, Halloween almost 5 years ago now, at the FBI Halloween party.

October 2015

“Come on Y/n! How can you not love Halloween!”

“Spencer, what’s so great about Halloween!” I had asked laughing while filling up a plastic cup with punch. The party is fun, but all this dressing up just seems silly to me sometimes.

“It’s a uniquely American holiday! I mean, despite its obvious origins in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian All Saints’ Day, it really is a melting pot of various immigrants’ traditions and beliefs. It became a little more commercialized in the 1950s with trick-or-treat, and today it rivals only Christmas in terms of popularity!” I catch JJ’s eyes from across the room, she gives me a sympathetic look as I’m stuck in another of Reid’s constant statistics rants. Frankly, I don’t understand how the rest of the team can cut Reid off when he’s like this. He’s so genuinely excited by this holiday it makes my budding feelings for the man standing in front of me even stronger.

“Aw you guys look so cute! Say cheese!” the always-hyper voice of Penelope Garcia shouts from across the bullpen, snapping a quick picture of me and Spence before running after Derek. I glance down at my phone and see a text from Penelope “It doesn’t take a profiler to realize how gone you are for him Y/n” I blush profusely before continuing my conversation with Spencer.

Present day

Tearing my eyes away from that specific picture, I continue walking to the end of the hallway, painfully aware that the floorboards are squeaking with my every step, hoping Spencer’s just-finished-a-case level of exhaustion will prevent him from waking up. I pass the threshold into the kitchen and see the dim light of the clock over the stove, the red 2:15 blinking back at me through my tired eyes, I just can’t seem to get to sleep tonight, I’m sure Spencer would say something like

“Chronic insomnia is usually tied to an underlying mental or physical issue. Anxiety, stress, and depression are some of the most common causes of chronic insomnia but even if you do not suffer from chronic insomnia, 35% of Americans report their sleep quality as poor or only fair.” Dating a living encyclopedia definitely has its perks I suppose. I walk towards the fridge and glance at the refrigerator, my eyes traveling to a postcard held up by a doctor who magnet. Houston, Texas the postcard reads.

February 2017

Me and Spencer had been dating for less than 6 months but as we had known each other for over a year I was falling head over heels in love with him. The last few months hadn’t been easy, Spencer learned that his mother had been diagnosed with dementia and not a day had gone by where he didn’t try and find a cure, he had been traveling to Houston,Texas to talk with his mother’s doctor, he then brought her to live with him in Virginia, it had been difficult to say the least. My fingers traced the edges of the postcard I had received in the mail this morning, then flipped it over and saw Spencer’s familiar scraggly handwriting, it read

Dear Y/n,

I was able to speak with my mother’s doctors today, I feel as though there must be more I can be doing, she seems to be responding to the medicines but I am looking into new methods of treating the disease. I miss you so much Y/n, and I miss the rest of the team as well, tell them I will be back as soon as I can, I hate the thought of you putting yourself in danger on cases without me there, not because I doubt your ability to protect yourself, but because I doubt my ability to handle being 1,402 miles away from you. Please do not worry about me, if you’re anxiously awaiting my return, stop looking at the clock because remember, when looking at a clock our brains anticipate what we’ll see faster than we actually see it, so the clock seems to stop, Ill be back before you know it Y/n.

With all my love, Spencer Reid.

I giggle quietly at the added facts, only Spencer would describe the phenomenon of a clock appearing stopped when glanced out. I’m concerned about Spencer though, I’m not sure what is going on, but there is definitely something not right with him and if I didn’t trust him so much I would consider asking Garcia to do a background check to check the legitimacy of his travels to Houston.

Present Day

This postcard is extremely bittersweet, the next week we were all rushing to Mexico, responding to a call that Spencer was in jail, I was a nervous wreck, we all were, it was an extremely rough 6 months, truly showing me how strong the man I love is. I push some of those harsh memories out of my brain, choosing to focus on the happy memories if I ever want to fall asleep tonight. There’s a coffee machine next to the fridge, if there’s one thing Spencer loves more than me, its coffee, or rather coffee flavored sugar with the amount of sweetener he puts in his cup every day. Spencer smells like coffee, almost always, he struggles to sleep most nights and therefore is always hyped up on caffeine. It's actually played a huge role in our relationship.

August 2016

Dr. Spencer Reid and I are walking to the BAU together as we do every single day, we live close to each other, close enough that he walks about 5 minutes before arriving at my house, we then walk to the coffee shop on the way to the train station. We’re best friends, but I’ve been secretly in love with him for months. Walking into Quantico, we get the daily glances from Penelope, Derek, and JJ who are sitting together looking at pictures of Henry. Penelope always teases me that we’re both so in love with each other that everyone can see it but us, it’s ironic actually. As much as I don’t believe Pen, I have been noticing small changes in Spence’s behavior the last couple months, prompting me to, in the deepest corners of my mind, hope that maybe he feels the same way, our friendship is worth too much to risk him not feeling the same way though, so I’m forever stuck. We aren’t on a case right now, so there’s a lot of paperwork to be done, at one point during the day I get up, asking Spence if he wants another cup of coffee before walking to the break room. I return after a brief 5 minutes and am surprised to see Derek sitting in my seat, arguing with Spencer.

“Come on Pretty boy! We both know you’re in love with her! Just ask her out man, she’ll say yes!”

“Morgan, quiet down, she’ll be back any minute, besides I’m 35 and Y/n is 32, I’m not saying there would even be a chance that we would get married but the marriage success rate in the United States is only 50%, the worst it has ever been, that therefore shows the state of relationships in the country as well, I don’t want to ruin our friendship, I could never lose her. Besides, I’ve never been good with women.”

“But that’s the thing pretty boy, you don’t have to be good with women, you’re already good with Y/n, she’s the one who matters, just ask her out man, you’ll regret it if you don’t.” With that Morgan walks away and I take a deep breath, its now or never, walking over to Spencer and setting down the cup, whispering in his ear,

“You never know how good with women you are until you try, Spence” He looks up at me with wide eyes and licks his tongue across his lips, something he does often.

“Um, Y/n, y-you heard all of that?” I nod and I can see Spence take a deep breath just as I did before walking over, “W-would you like to um- go to dinner with me Y/n?”

“Hmm I don’t know…” Spencer’s face starts to fall as I quickly continue “Of course I would love to go to dinner with you silly, what did you think?” His smile lights up the entire room as he pulls me into a deep hug.

“Well finally you two. You couldn’t have waited just a few more months though, I assumed you lovebirds wouldn’t get it together until after Spencer’s birthday” Rossi says from behind us, passing a pretty hefty stack of bills to Penelope.

That was the day that started the greatest adventure of my life.

Present Day

I leave the kitchen and walk to the living room, a chilly breeze blows my hair slightly askew, its June in Virginia, warm enough that all I’m wearing is one of Spence’s oversized MIT shirts with pajama shorts, but the night air causes slight goosebumps on my skin, sending me into my memories once again.

August 2019

Spencer and I are sitting on the couch, participating in yet another Doctor Who marathon on the tv, it's a rare day off from work and the hot summer air fills our living room even with the fan blowing through the house. I lie my head in Spencer’s lap as we watch the tv and his strong hand strokes the back of my neck, causing goosebumps to pop up all over my arms. I giggle and glance up at him causing him to pointedly look at me asking me with his eyes “What is so funny that you dare distract from Doctor Who?”

“It’s just strange, its 95 degrees outside but your hands on my neck give me goosebumps like its a crisp fall day, isn’t that funny baby?”

“Of course the most common cause of goosebumps is cold weather, but when you’re experiencing extreme emotions, the human body responds in a variety of ways. Two common responses include increased electrical activity in the muscles just under the skin and increased depth or heaviness of breathing, resulting in goosebumps.” I roll my eyes at him and playfully swat his hair out of his eyes.

“Only you, Dr. Spencer Reid, would take a romantic statement and turn it into statistics, and I love you for that” he kisses me and well, the Doctor Who marathon was quickly turned off after that.

Present Day

As I turn the corner into the living room I smile warmly, it’s the room that Spencer and I like the best. There are book cases lining the back wall, Spencer loves books, I’d ask him what made his books so special and he’d tell me stories of his childhood, his mom reading him 15th century literature, I loved when Spence told me stories about his childhood.

December 2017

I knocked on the door of Spencer’s apartment, it wasn’t like him to be late for our daily walk to work especially because he had been on probation after his time in jail. I received no answer, prompting my concern as I unlocked the door with the key he had given me. I walked into his living room and saw him, Spencer was sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by books, running his fingers up and down the pages as he does when he’s reading at his top speed.

“Spence what on earth are you doing! Where did all these books come from? We aren’t on a case are we?”

“This year in the United States alone there have been 328,259 new books published, I read at 20,000 words per minute but at an average of 100,000 words per book, it would take me 27,377 hours to read all those books!”

“Oh Spencer how I love you, you don’t need to read every book ever published, are you going to start reading romance novels?” I tease while picking up a copy of 50 Shades of Gray from the ground at Spencer’s feet.

“Okay maybe you’re right, I just feel like I missed so much time when I was incarcerated, all that reading I could’ve done when I was trapped in that place, it's time I can never get back.”

“Spencer, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for you, but this is not going to help that feeling go away, let’s go to work.” Spencer nodded and began to tidy up the floor before following me out the door.

“Wait, Y/n, I have to ask you something that I’ve meant to say since I’ve gotten out of jail, and I might as well say it now, will you move in with me?” He’s chewing on his bottom lip again and I jump into his arms in excitement, kissing his hair as he caresses the back of my head.

“Of course I’ll move in with you! I love you, Dr. Spencer Reid.”

“And I love you Y/n Y/l/n.”

Present Day

I’m coming around to the opposite side of the living room now, sitting down on the couch in front of the fireplace. I love the fireplace in our house and I think secretly Spencer does too. We argued for days over the safety of having a fireplace in our house, Spencer of course supplied with enough knowledge of house fires to last him 5 lifetimes, “But Spencer it’ll be so cozy, doesn’t it sound romantic to cuddle up by the fire?” I had pleaded with him the day we toured the house for the first time.

“Y/n, there were an average of 357,400 residential fires per year in the US between 2012 and 2014, an average of 22,300 of those fires were caused by a fireplace or chimney!”

“But Spenceee, that’s only 6.24% of the residential house fires during that period, 43.9% were from cooking equipment, are you going to forbid us from having a kitchen too?” Hey, don’t underestimate how useful a cellphone calculator and a quick google search can be in winning an argument against your genius boyfriend. Obviously, we had ended up agreeing on the fireplace, but Spencer was still overly cautious whenever it was in use. As I stood in front of the fireplace I became hyper aware of the floorboards creaking in the hallway just as they had done when I left the room earlier, I felt a presence enter the room and the 6’1” frame of my boyfriend wrapped his long arms around me from behind while burying his face in the hollow of my shoulder.

“Hi, baby, what are you doing up so late? Are you feeling okay? Can’t seem to get to sleep?” I nod back at him and recline my head so it rests on his strong chest.

“I was just taking a trip down memory lane I suppose” I say before smiling up at the love of my life.

[hopesangelsprite]

Sin City | KSJ (1/?)

Pairing: Demon!Receptionist!Seokjin x Reader

Summary: In a world were angels and demons co-exist with humans, an angel meets the most beautiful yet dangerous demon in the world... her brother’s bestfriend. (Slight crack tbh)

There were three kinds of people in this world:

Angels. Demons. And Humans.

Angels were pure-hearted, kind souls who spent their days bringing joy and purpose to peoples’ lives. They were generous and caring, but, most importantly, they were accepting. No matter who or what you were, they didn’t care. They loved you all the same.

Demons, however, were opposites of Angels. They were known for causing mischief and discord. The nights and shadowy places were where they thrived the most. They were top-notch manipulators, whispering lies and truths here and there. Making it impossible to tell which was which.

Humans were just… in between. They were neither good nor bad. They could be moral when they wanted to be, but if they wanted something and you stood in their way, they proved to be incredibly ruthless. The lives of Humans tended to be influenced by the people they lived with. A Human, who was around more angelic folk, was more compassionate and benign. Humans who held the company of the more demonic sort were mostly cruel and malevolent.

Cadence King was born a pureblooded Angel to Nicolai and Charity King during the Winter Solstice of 2002. Unlike her dark-haired and brown-eyed parents, she had snow-white curls and mismatched blue and green eyes. Her mother, who had been told that she was physically incapable of bearing a child and thought that her caring Cadence was a miracle from Heaven above, was ecstatic when she held her tiny baby girl for the first time. The couple vowed to raise her as lovingly as they possibly could.

And they did… until a fateful summers night in Daegu stole them away from this world. Mr. and Mrs. King had been killed in a mugging, leaving poor little Cadence orphaned and alone on the night of her fifth birthday. There were no living relatives to take her in, so she was placed into foster care with the Min family.

The Mins were a four people family that consisted of Mr. Min, Mrs. Min, and their sons, Junki and Yoongi. Although the Mins were Demons, they accepted Cadence into their family and treated her like she was their own. Junki and Yoongi, who were 17 and 15 at the time, watched over her as overprotective brothers tend to do. They taught her all kinds of Martial Arts and made sure that she was able to defend herself when it was time for them to leave for college a few years later.

Mr. and Mrs. Min focused all of their time and resources on Cadence’s training and studies after their youngest son, Yoongi, left to study music in the city. They raised her to be a responsible and thoughtful child. She was obedient, kind, and beloved by all who knew her. As she grew older, she remained well-mannered and intelligent. Soon, it would be time for her to leave home just as her brothers before her had.

* TIME SKIP TO PRESENT DAY / THE REST OF THE STORY WILL BE IN CADENCE’S POV *

I stared out the train’s large window in boredom. Trees and meadows passed by in green blurs as we zoomed through the countryside. Earlier this morning, my mother and father had helped me finish packing my suitcases and put me on the train with sweet goodbye, from my mom, and a stern ‘be careful’, from my dad. I had finally turned 18 a week ago, and mom and dad made a phone call to Yoongi asking if I would be able to stay with him in Seoul. He’d agreed and now I was 15 minutes away from seeing the brother I hadn’t seen in 10 years. Yoongi had left on bad terms and he promised to stay away until he was ready to come home. Yoongi was always good at keeping his promises.

I sighed before unlocking my phone and checking my recent messages. As usual, they were filled with threats from my crazy ex I’d dated when I was 16. It started pretty well until he hit me. He promised he’d never do it again, but he did over and over and over again. After the eighth time, I left him for good and told him that if he ever came near again, he’d have my brothers to deal with. He stayed away physically but continued to threaten me to come back to him.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ll be arriving at Seoul National Station in five minutes. I repeat, five minutes.”, the voice of the elderly conductor informed from above. As if on cue, a message from Yoongi came through saying that he wouldn’t be picking me up because of his daily 3:45 nap. I rolled my eyes and began readying myself for the exit soon to come.

Within the next ten minutes, I was in a cab on my way to Yoongi’s. The city of Seoul was beautiful and diverse in many ways. Groups of Angels, Demons, and Humans socialized amongst each other peacefully. Street performers attracted cheering crowds and healthy tips. Food trucks and venues filled areas with delicious smells and dishes. A small bit of happiness filled my chest. This was my new home!

Soon the cab stopped at a luxury condo in the heart of the city. After paying my fare, I collected my things and made my way inside. At the front desk, a beautiful receptionist sat quietly clicking on the keys of his keyboard. I walked to the desk causing him to lift his head and display a million-dollar smile. “Hello, love. Welcome to Seoul Condominiums, how may I help you today?”, he inquired in a velvety voice. “Hi… Seokjin! I-I’m here to see my brother Min Yoongi.”, I responded softly after reading his nametag receiving a nod from him.

He picked up a sleek black phone from the desk and, after punching in a few numbers, put it to his ear. After a short wait, he spoke into the phone. “Hello, Mr. Min!... Your sister is here to see you. Shall I send her up?... Of course, Mr. Min.”, he spoke. Giving me a bright smile, he put the phone back and smiled. “Up you go, love. He’s in suite 777.”, he informed before helping me into the elevator. After a short ride, I found myself in front of a door that had the number ‘777’ in beautiful gold font displayed on it. I knocked but received no answer. I raised my hand to knock again, but as soon as my fist collided with the door, it slightly opened.

I frowned in confusion and worry before opening it fully and dragging my luggage in. I looked around in the beautifully furnished condo, hoping to catch a glimpse of my older brother. “Hello? Yoongi? Where are you?!”, I called out whilst taking a step forward. The hairs on my neck stood to attention and adrenaline filled my veins. I quickly sidestepped, narrowly avoiding being tackled by a dark hooded figure. I dropped to the ground and put my knee on the person’s chest before unmasking them.

Underneath me laid a very pale and very proud male. “Looks like you maintained your training pretty well, little one.”, Yoongi drawled out in a voice that I didn’t recognize. I stood and assisted him in getting to his feet before taking his face in my hands. I gazed at the boy who used to have chubby cheeks and horrible acne. Now his face was strong and defined with pale, clear skin. He was a bit taller, too.

“Who are you and what have you done with my Yoonie?”, I asked with a soft smile. He chuckled before pulling me into a warm hug. “I missed you too, little one.”, he cooed. I sighed with content before pulling away smacking his arm and glaring. “Don’t ever try to scare me again. I could’ve hurt you, bro.”, I demanded causing him to chuckle and roll his eyes.

After picking up my luggage for me and leading to my new room, Yoongi helped me unpack my stuff. It went relatively fast mostly because I didn’t have a lot of stuff. I sat on my bed and looked around. The room was twice as large as my old bedroom with a connecting bathroom. Yoongi had had it painted baby blue, and he’d personally hung little cotton clouds from the ceiling that glowed a soft blue. He’d gotten me a large California King canopy bed with white curtains and a blue bed set to match the walls. He’d even installed Tik Tok lights!

“You did this all on your own?”, I asked. He nodded and sat in the hanging egg chair across from my bed. “I had a little help from a friend with choosing the color scheme, but it was mostly me. I don’t know if mom and dad told you this, but I’m gonna spoil the hell out of you here. Just a small warning before.”, he spoke proudly. I chuckled and nodded.

Suddenly, a familiar voice called out, “Come out, you sleepy bastard! I brought you food that I slaved over, so you better be hungry.”. Yoongi stood and pulled me up afterward before dragging me into the spacious living area. There stood the handsome receptionist from earlier. Instead of his work attire, he was dressed in black ripped jeans and a pastel pink button up. His hair had changed, too. The blonde tresses had been transformed from a sleek and elegant look to messy bangs that screamed danger.

Upon our entrance, he glared at Yoongi. “There you are! Boy, do I have words for you. Did you make your sister carry all that heavy shit from the train station?! I know damn good and well I raised a gentleman and most definitely not a fool!”, he raved angrily. Yoongi muttered something along the lines of ‘loud-mouth ass’ causing the blonde to pause his rant and look at Yoongi with wild and incredulous eyes. “Did… did you just BACKTALK ME?!! AH HELL NAH! UH UH! NO! NOT TODAY! I’M FINNA WHOOP YO ASS RIGHT NOW!!!”, he snapped before setting the bags down and lunging at my brother.

I stepped aside and watched as he put my brother in a chokehold whilst pulling his hair. “Cadence! Help! Me!”, Yoongi managed to choke out causing his attacker to look around until his eyes met mine. He paused before dropping my brother and approaching me. “I’m so sorry you had to witness that, love! I’m Seokjin, by the way. Welcome to Sin City on behalf of me! Let’s have lunch together sometime!”, he spoke before reaching down to grasp my hand before pressing a kiss to it.

What the actual fuck had I gotten myself into?

(A/N):

Should I turn this into a series? Lemme know if I should!! Please like, share, and comment your thoughts!

[honeydewday]

2 Weeks ( Prologue )

Summary: the beginning of summertime means the livings easy

Pairing: Peter Parker! x Stark!Reader

A/N: I’m gonna look on the positive side and hope this turns out really good. I just wanna say a quick thank you if you read and plan to continue reading :) Also! In future chapters I’ll be mixing up the mcu timeline for the story to fit in. Enjoy!! :)

Warnings: just yelling

/

---

“You got your phone? Remember if you don’t like it you can call Happy and he’ll pick you up right away”

You were being bombarded with questions when Tony woke you up, while he attempted to make breakfast, during the elevator ride, and now the lobby.

“Tony! It's just the orientation! I’ll be fine!” you exclaimed stopping in front of him

He shook his head and let out a sigh “They already know your situation. They won’t use Stark they’ll use your actual stupid last name”

You smiled and nodded then followed Happy to the car. Today is the day for Midtown Tech School orientation for the freshmen. Honestly, this wasn’t the school of your choice but, you made a deal with your old man saying that if you finished developing new tech for his suit he would let you go to public school. There were way too many long sleepless nights just to figure out the basics but finally, you learned everything there was to learn about his suit, thanks to FRIDAY, and updated his suit three times.

He looked at you with a little sadness in his eyes and smiled “Get outta here, I’ll see you later” and with that, he turned around leaving you to rush out the building and into the car. 

Eventually, you pulled up in front of the building, watching kids get out of their parent’s car and walking with their friends in the building. Your breath hitched as you grabbed the handle to the car door and opened it. You could hear Happy say what's already been said but at this point, it was just static in the background. You shut the door behind you and rushed inside. Nothing really started until you got there right? Well, it seemed like orientation was already in progress. Groups of teens had started to follow their teacher for the tour, friends were talking to each other as if they just hadn’t seen them a few weeks ago. You felt uncomfortable, you knew you didn’t belong there but it’s what you wanted. Plus, you had to prove Tony wrong because he knows at the end of the day you won’t like Midtown. 

You found your assigned group for the tour but seeing how boring each stop would start to get you wandered off. You toured some of the interesting looking classrooms, the gym, cafeteria. You were started to grow tired of the same colored walls, the same classrooms, and every motivational poster that was plastered everywhere. 

“Uh h-hi? Are you lost?” a brunette nerdy looking boy questioned

You panicked looking back down the hallway you just walked from then back to him nodding.

He just gave you a nervous look with the urge to say something, anything that could kill the awkwardness. 

What the hell 

“My name’s Y/N,” you stuck your hand out “I’m new, d-do you mind showing me around?”

He looked at your hand but took it and oh boy, once he took it, you could feel your heart beating a million miles a minute. Not only that but you knew something was going to happen to this boy. Something he couldn’t come back from.

“P-Peter Parker” he smiled as his cheeks turned a light shade of pink.

You had spent the rest of the orientation with each other. The two of you practically talked each other’s ears off, well more like he talked your ear off but you were happy listening to the pretty boy rant. However, all good things must come to an end.

“So where’s your car?” he asked as the two of you walked out the door.

You did notice your car but you also noticed Happy thus leading your new friendship going downhill from there.

Before peter could anything a car pulled up honking “Peter! Come on!” A pretty woman shouted from the window “Is that a girl? Oh my god! You met a girl!” She continued. Peter’s looked down and back at the woman “I-I- that’s my aunt, um, I better go” he says flustered. “Wait! M-maybe we could hang out during the summer or-or you could show me around” you asked nervously.

—-

To say the least, freshmen year was a breeze.

The food wasn’t all that great, the teachers seemed decent, but having Peter and meeting Ned and MJ made the year unbelievably fun for you.

You were in your final class of the day when you heard the bells of freedom. You gathered your things and waited for Peter outside the room. He jogged up to you finally able to leave this place.

“So....what’re you up to this summer?” He asked as the two of you continued walking

You thought about it for a moment, “Probably nothing, my parents are super busy do to anything anyways. What about you?” You asked bumping his shoulder

He smiled nervously at the gesture and put his hands in his pocket “s-same”

You two walked and made small talk till you reached the parking lot. He looked around for his aunt while you looked around for your dad. You were surprised when you left for school that morning especially when Happy told you that Tony would pick you up.

You spotted the Audi and immediately went into a panic mode. How were you suppose to just tell peter bye and then get into a sports car? Granted, your parents and your house where very mysterious to your little group. You always told them you wouldn’t be able to have a game night at your house or asking for a ride from either Ned or Peter but at a random apartment that was only a few blocks away from the Tower.

You cleared your throat “Well, I see my dad. Maybe we can hang out really s-“ you started but Peter suddenly turned towards you with a nervous look

“I-I really-“ he gulped, then mentally slapped himself and repeated what he’s been saying for six months

“You’ve been meaning to tell her since December so tell her!!”

“I really want to hang out with you too” he awkwardly laughed “my aunt’s here, I’ll see you soon,” he said then quickly made his way to the car

You stood there in confusion until Tony started honking. You sighed and shook your head as you sped to your car.

—-

Peter opened the car door quickly, threw his backpack in the back and shut the door in frustration.

“Ouch,” Ned said from the back shoving Peter’s backpack to the side

“So I’m guessing it didn’t go well?” May asked looking at her poor nephew

“I-I chickened out,” he said softly

“Dude, you’ve been trying to tell her since December! Did you see how disappointed she looked when she got into her car?!” Ned exclaimed “I don’t know if you’re too sad to notice but she just got into a really sick car”

“She was waiting for it, Pete. You gotta shoot your shot.” May said finally taking off

“I know! It’s just, I- it’s her first year and I didn’t want anybody to think she was stuck up or-or I was keeping her from making new friends” Peter explained “besides, who wants a nerd like me”

“Peter, we’re not nerds. We’re just highly knowledgeable of mainstream topics” Ned smiled proudly

“Yeah, highly knowledgeable of legos at 15” Peter mumbled

—-

“So, sweet child of mine, can you describe your first year of school?” Your father asked looking over as you settle in your seat

“It was...interesting,” you say buckling up

He nodded, shifted gears, and peeled out of the parking lot. You were still a bit sad that Peter didn’t ask you anything else. Maybe you were just overthinking it? Maybe you should tell him how you feel? Now you had to deal with your feelings all summer. Alone. Since, your father obviously being Tony Stark, who knew when you would see him. He would either be in his lab or with Pepper. Now your mom, she absolutely tried to make time for you. You girls would at least have a girls' days once a week but after she became CEO it turned into once a month if you were lucky.

“Let’s grab a bite to eat?” Tony asked looking over at you but noticed you were deep in thought.

“We’re moving to South America.”

“What?!” You shouted looking at his smug face

“Gotcha kid” he smiled “what’s on your mind? Is it that boy, uh, Patrick? Paul? The one you were talking to before you left?

“You mean Peter?”

He nodded “your mother said you talked quite a bit about him during your latest shopping trip”

“He’s a really good friend...I guess” you shrugged

Tony’s eyebrow raised “listen here missy, no dating. We already had this agreement with the school-“

“B-but I’m worried about him” you cut him off

Tony looked over at you concern “Why? Does he do drugs? Sell them? Make-“

“I...I had one of my dreams about him and I know it sounds crazy but hear me out!” You pleaded

“Y/N. We’ve talked about this” Tony said in annoyance

“I know! But somethings going to happen to him and-and he’s gonna be different! Not like going through...puberty different” you whispered the last part

“Enough.” Tony demanded, “I don’t know what you kids watch or read nowadays but you better stop because now you’re dreaming about it!”

“Dad! It’s-it’s real!! Remember when you guys first got me, w-we had that huge fight about a dream I had describing your kidnapping” you explained started to become frustrated with him “then when you started creating Ultron!”

Tony continued to drive through traffic in silence.

“You never believe me when it happens and you don’t believe me when it does.” you huffed

“Enough,” Tony said “I don’t know what’s what kind of trend you’re following but it stops now. It’s suppose to be summer and I’m trying to take an easy. Hand over the phone.” Tony said extending his small arm right in front of you making a little grabby motion.

You groaned and slammed the phone into his hand.

After a few moments of silence,

“Shawarma for dinner?”

[wordssometimesfail]

An Extremely Belated and Unasked-For Dissection of the HIMYM Finale

So, I recently hung out with a teenage cousin of mine. He told me that he had just discovered How I Met Your Mother on Netflix, and was a couple of episodes away from the series finale. Since the show’s been finished for a while and the internet fallout was so prolific, I asked him if he’d been spoiled for the ending. He said no, but then began insisting that I tell him what happens. 10-15 minutes of begging later, I finally relented and gave him a bullet-point summary of the finale. 

He burst out laughing, said I was a bad liar, and asked for the real ending. 

Instead of digging in my heels, I shrugged and told him he’d just have to watch it, so, y’know, that’ll be hilarious. But it got me thinking. 

I, like everyone else, felt so fucking betrayed by the ending of HIMYM. Because it affected me so much, in fact, I became a bit obsessed with it. I went back to the show not long after the finale aired, just to watch old episodes again. This was partially because it had been a “comfort watch” for me for so long, and partially because I felt a deep-seated need to dissect the show as a whole. 

And the thing is, if you rewatch the show with the ending in mind, it is very easy to see that they kept the ending in their heads the entire time. It’s decently, if subtly, foreshadowed. While the characters’ behaviour in the finale is frustrating, it is actually fairly consistent with their established personalities. And the misogynistic subtext of the finale was, unfortunately, a mainstay of the show long before that point. We gave C&C a lot of shit at the time for the ending coming out of nowhere, but outside of a few minor timeline/continuity issues, honestly? It didn’t. The groundwork was laid, and the clues were there all along.

So... why did it feel unearned? Why did almost no one see it coming, even avid, weekly watchers? Why does it sound so much like a bad lie? 

I think the main problem came in when the showrunners realized that they were likely not going to be cancelled until the story was done. If you look at the first 4 seasons, you can see where they left themselves lifelines to complete Ted’s story if the plug were preemptively pulled: 

Cancelled in Season 1 - Victoria becomes the Mother. Robin and Ted have feelings for one another, but because of timing and circumstance, they never pull the trigger. The audience was (presumably) rooting for them all season, so seeing them end up together years after Victoria’s death is satisfying, and feels like the resolution of years-long tension. You CAN love again after losing a beloved partner! (In hindsight, considering the ending they went with, I kinda wish the series had ended here.) 

Cancelled in Season 2 - Robin and Ted break up earlier than they do in-show. Ted meets the Mother at Marshall and Lily’s wedding, which also happens earlier than it does in-show. While in this timeline the audience HAS seen Robin & Ted as a couple and there is less UST to resolve, the toxicity of their relationship has not yet been explored, so seeing them get back together has more of a “they’re finally ready for each other” feel. 

Cancelled in Season 3 or 4 - Stella becomes the Mother. The “Shelter Island” wedding ends in a reception and a honeymoon, and the pacing is drastically altered. Again, Robin & Ted have not really relapsed in this timeline - they broke up and are both miserable about it, regretting what they did but both being too proud to admit as much, until it’s too late and Ted has fallen for someone else. The Barney/Robin hookup in S3 makes this a bit messier, but basically works. The rift caused by their hookup (+ Robin begging Ted not to marry Stella before the ceremony) kicks off the dissolution of the gang, and either...

Barney doesn’t catch feelings in this timeline and that’s the end of it.

Barney doesn’t catch feelings, but they continue a FWB relationship that eventually implodes as Robin realizes she wants what she had with Ted again, she can’t do casual anymore. 

Barney does catch feelings, but upon accepting that Robin will always be pining for someone else, “relapses” and goes for the Perfect Month. (This one works whether they do the FWB thing or not.)  

Ultimately, the tragedy of poor timing strikes again, and there is still some narrative satisfaction to the Ted/Robin endgame. 

Barney’s finale plotline (unplanned daughter changing his life) would’ve worked if the show had ended at any of these points, since Barney’s secret desire for romance & family wasn’t really explicitly explored until later. Marshall & Lily’s finale plotline (ascent into picket-fence bliss at the expense of their beloved status quo) works no matter what, mainly because that was their overarching plotline for the entire show. 

While the original ending concept was showing its wear as we approached the end of the actual S4, there was still some time to salvage it after this. The death knell came, not when Barney expressed romantic interest in Robin, but when Robin returned that interest. 

And this isn’t about to turn into a screed about how Swarkles should’ve been endgame! Upon rewatching the show, I actually like Swarkles a lot more in theory than I do in practice - the showrunners went out of their way to make the pairing seem great, but act toxic. They have FANTASTIC moments, but those moments are strung together by poor communication, self-destruction, and Robin at her most insufferable (her desperate attempts at getting Barney to like her again in the first half of S8 were... *shudders*). They, much the same as Ted and Robin, are clearly shown to Not Work. 

Even so, from the S4 finale onward, the show began to build toward Barney and Robin’s wedding, and that killed the planned ending. I say this began at the end of S4 because, as I said before, it isn’t until Robin explicitly returns Barney’s feelings that Swarkles becomes a threat to Ted/Robin - or, at least, a threat as perceived by the audience. Beyond the fact that this inadvertently turned Swarkles into a fan-favourite pairing, and was a large part of why the ending was poorly-received, it effectively changes the story. 

Before canon Robin/Barney, no one other than Ted was really presented as a viable romantic option for Robin. She wasn’t interested in getting serious with anyone else, she didn’t have that electric connection with anyone else. In S1′s “Zip, Zip, Zip”, Robin turns Barney down (despite him offering the casual, fun fling she purports to want) because she’s hung up on Ted. In S3, Robin sleeps with Barney but is uninterested in doing so again, and her attentions are quickly back on Ted (though at this point it’s more unspoken). No matter who Robin hooked up with, even when it was another principal character in the ensemble cast, the primary tension was always between her and Ted. But as soon as she develops real, romantic feelings for Barney, that tension is gone. 

And it... never really came back in the same way. 

Other than their FWB arrangement in S4′s “Benefits” and a couple of near-misses later, Robin and Ted are not involved again until the end of the series. In fact, in “Benefits”, neither Ted nor Robin are interested in taking their relapse further - they only want casual sex, and are so romantically disinterested in one another that Ted ends the arrangement for Barney’s sake in the same goddamn episode. Though Ted does express that he still has feelings for Robin as early as S5, at no point does she reciprocate in any meaningful way. All of the romantic tension between them after the fact is one-sided. Robin is no longer romantically interested in Ted by approximately the midpoint of Season 4, her attentions are firmly on Barney (and later, other serious romantic interests) by the end of Season 4, and she isn’t interested in Ted again until the final episodes of the show. 

The problem here isn’t that Robin had other serious romantic relationships, but that Ted was no longer a serious option in her mind for so much of the show’s run. Starting in S6, the wedding build starts in earnest, meaning that for four whole seasons (S6, S7, S8, and S9), the audience knows that someone is getting married. We’re told that Ted meets the Mother at the wedding, so there’s Zero chance of any of his relationships working out during that 4-season period - the tension is gone from his love-life, because we know that we’re waiting and we know what we’re waiting for. Suddenly, Robin and Barney are the center of the romantic tension of the show, and... Robin hasn’t been interested in Ted for a year. She and Barney are involved in a love quadrangle plot of which Ted is only an observer. By the time it’s confirmed, it’s painfully obvious that Robin is the bride at the foretold wedding, even with Barney’s red-herring girlfriends tossed in the mix. We spend all of Season 8 building up to the wedding. We spend all of Season 9 on the wedding weekend. Barney and Robin actually address the more toxic aspects of their relationship, and resolve to work on them (something Ted and Robin never actually did). We meet the Mother, and spend a season gleefully building up to the Mother meeting Ted. 

Remind me... why are we supposed to want Ted and Robin to get together in the end? 

There are other issues with the finale that bother me, but are not the focus of this rant as I don’t think they’re the Biggest Problem:  

The gang was always going to drift apart, but they seem to stay in frequent contact with one another in flash-forwards that we see earlier in the show. This is... not super supported by the finale. (Ex. If [roughly] kindergarten-age Luke and Penny drew pictures of times they hung out with Aunt Robin, why does the finale imply they barely got to know her until after their mother passed?)  

We knew for several seasons that Barney DID want a wife & kids, he was just afraid to admit it or pursue it because he thought he was too far gone. Yet we’re supposed to believe that his “relapse” after his breakup with Robin was him going back to the “real Barney”, and that despite having had 3 meaningful, serious romantic relationships throughout the series, one of which led to a marriage, he could not be arsed to so much as learn the name of the mother of his child. Despite getting 4 seasons of significant character development re: vulnerability, love, and relationships, he is supposed to have learned nothing, and changed not a whit. (NPH’s stance on this, that you may “want” Barney to change but some people don’t change, is... lame, imho, since we didn’t just want Barney to change, we were told and shown that he was actively changing, even if he wasn’t fully there yet.) 

On that same note, the fact that Barney didn’t “really” change until his daughter was born implies that things might’ve worked out with Robin if she’d been able to bear him children. Also, implies that his speech to his mom about how Robin means more to him than the possibility of having children was insincere or at least misguided. Gross. 

We all know about the Mother = Uterus shit, and while I don’t necessarily dislike the idea of the Mother having been dead all along, the idea that Ted and Robin couldn’t be happy together either until some other woman bore Ted’s children is also gross. 

In general, super sexist, and it’s not a twist when you directly contradict what you have told/shown your audience. It’s bad writing. 

But with all that said, if the show had ended somewhere between Seasons 1-4 (with minor to major tweaks - *reluctantly salutes*), the planned ending would have been fine. At least, it would’ve been fine with regard to Ted/Robin (and Barney’s character). The tension between them was still there, they still had audience support, and it made sense that, after all that buildup, Ted’s kids would be hoping for some closure to his tumultuous relationship with their Aunt. The problem is that, in the show as written... Ted and Robin do get closure. Ted, just like Tracy, is able to let go of the love that has consumed him and arrested his romantic development for so long, and that is what finally opens him up to meeting the love of his life. His relationship with Robin, even the unrequited mess it became later, not only led him to the Mother, it made him ready for the Mother. When he shuts Robin down in the penultimate episode of the show, Ted closes the door on that chapter of his life. That’s the closure. That’s the resolution of the Ted/Robin tension.  

And that’s a huge part of why the ending feels flaccid. They attempt to resurrect a dynamic that no longer holds any narrative weight - Robin pining after Ted in a happy relationship, lamenting what she’s lost, is not only something that we’ve seen before, it’s something we’ve seen Robin get over before. She didn’t realize “too late” what she had with Ted, or what she could have had. She had it, lost it, mourned it... then decided she didn’t want or need it again, and found something new with someone else. They wanted to throw the audience off the scent, but by killing all the tension between their endgame couple, and spending literal years building up relationships between other characters, they destroyed any momentum that that storyline had in the first place. They told a will-they/won’t-they story, and while there were moments where they subtly hinted that “they will”, more than half their text was dedicated to showing their audience, “no they won’t”. 

In the Season 2 episode “Something Blue”, Barney hears that Ted and Robin have something to tell everyone. When he begs them to tell him, they give him a story piece by piece detailing what happened. With each part of the story he gets, Barney guesses how it ends. Every time he guesses, Ted smiles wryly and tells him, “the story’s not over”. This implies to Barney and the audience that each of Barney’s guesses is wrong, because he doesn’t have all the information yet. 

Except... Barney does correctly guess the end of the story. He guesses that Ted and Robin broke up, Ted smiles wryly, says “the story’s not over”, and proceeds to continue to tell it, only for the story to, in fact, end with his and Robin’s breakup. 

This plot is emblematic of the problem with the end of How I Met Your Mother. One of the biggest running themes of the show is that until a story is over, you can’t turn it into a narrative. You don’t have the full picture, you don’t know who the bad or good guy is, you don’t know what story you’re living. Barney doesn’t know what story he’s being told until it’s over - except he does. And because Ted isn’t finished telling the whole story, he implies to Barney that he’s wrong. He throws him off, so he can end the story on his own terms. That’s what the showrunners of HIMYM did, too. They wanted so badly to tell the story as they conceived it, but in order to keep that ending as a twist, they couldn’t telegraph it too obviously. This, to them, meant throwing the audience so far off the scent of their plan that they obscured their plan, that they deflated the central narrative, made it look like there was no way it would happen, because we were being made to look in another direction. No, we clearly didn’t have the whole story. But we had the story that was unfolding before us, one where Robin didn’t want Ted romantically anymore, one where Barney was trying so, so hard to be better, one where Ted needed to let go in order to be happy. And that story doesn’t feel complete when it ends the way that it does, because the ending we got is the end of the story we saw in Season 1. 

The story we saw in Season 1 was of a man who hopelessly pined after a woman who loved him back, but wasn’t in a place to reciprocate the way he wanted. Years later, they reconnect and are finally able to make it work. That’s the story that HIMYM thought they were telling. But, because they never got cancelled and got free reign to tell this story for as long as they wanted, and because they didn’t want us to guess that darn twist, they gave us a whole whack of misdirections, plot threads, and character growth that ultimately gets nullified to make way for the ending of the “real” story. There is no momentum carrying us to the finale as planned, because the finale as planned was meant to be the ending to a much shorter tale. 

Everything else was just filler. 

[drtanstravels]

When I finished my previous post we had wrapped up the Midwest Ocular Angiography Conference at the Four Seasons Resort and Residences in Jackson, Wyoming the previous night and were just about to begin the holiday leg of our trip through the Pacific Northwest of the USA.

Wednesday, July 10, 2019 We had our lunch at the Four Seasons with Tony, the pharmaceutical representative from Chicago we had met at the conference, and now it was time for us to hit the road. We got in our white, rental Toyota Corolla and it needs to be said, Anna does a great job of driving on the opposite side of the road and there were some confusing roads and intersections to deal with in this area. Wifi was almost nonexistent so we had to either try and make the most of the one bar of connection we had while in a town to find our destination on Google Maps or simply resort to paper maps, something I would have to do a lot over the coming days in order to navigate, making me sometimes feel more than a little carsick. In fact things were so remote we couldn’t even get a radio reception and it looked like we’d just be listening to static for the next couple of hours until I was finally able to get my phone to pair with the car’s stereo via bluetooth, allowing us to listen to the music I had saved on iTunes. If we had to rely on Spotify, we would’ve been screwed. It really didn’t take that long to make our way deeper into Grand Teton National Park, where we would be spending that night:

Grand Teton National Park is an American national park in northwestern Wyoming. At approximately 310,000 acres (480 sq mi; 130,000 ha; 1,300 km2), the park includes the major peaks of the 40-mile-long (64 km) Teton Range as well as most of the northern sections of the valley known as Jackson Hole. Along with surrounding national forests, these three protected areas constitute the almost 18,000,000-acre (7,300,000 ha) Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the world’s largest intact mid-latitude temperate ecosystems.

The human history of the Grand Teton region dates back at least 11,000  years, when the first nomadic hunter-gatherer Paleo-Indians began migrating into the region during warmer months pursuing food and supplies. In the early 19th century, the first white explorers encountered the eastern Shoshone natives.

Grand Teton National Park is an almost pristine ecosystem and the same species of flora and fauna that have existed since prehistoric times can still be found there. More than 1,000 species of vascular plants, dozens of species of mammals, 300 species of birds, more than a dozen fish species and a few species of reptiles and amphibians inhabit the park.

One of many meese in the area

To be honest, neither Anna nor myself is particularly interested in fly-fishing, which is extremely popular there, but we do like the outdoors, hiking, and checking out the wildlife so we would be doing plenty of that over the coming days. In fact, we learnt an easy way for spotting animals almost immediately; if you see a whole heap of cars pulled over on the side of the road and a bunch of people staring and pointing into the distance, there is usually something worth pulling over and seeing. On the first occasion it was a female moose (above, right) grazing in a small body of water. It was obviously female, because it didn’t have antlers, but this got us immediately wondering if there might be more moose around, particularly male ones. Then I got a little irritated when it occured to me that the moose is a member of the deer family so the name is an invariant, the plural form still being “moose”, not “meese.” It seemed like such a wasted opportunity, but never mind, that wouldn’t stop me from referring to them as “meese.” Nothing could.

Another stop en route to our destination would be Jenny Lake, a popular hiking area through some of the tallest peaks in the Teton Range, in order to trek a portion of the Cascade Canyon Trail. We would take a boat, the humorously named “Beaver Dick Leigh” (which I later discovered was named after Richard “Beaver Dick” Leigh), from South Jenny Lake across to the the entrance of Cascade Canyon and hike up to the well-signposted Hidden Falls, then past the Jaw and the Rock of Ages, down to Lake Solitude, along the way passing that family from Oregon with whom we went whitewater rafting the previous day and Anna having to keep the sole attached to a busted hiking shoe with a hair-tie, before finally making our way back down to Jenny Lake and catching the “Beaver Dick Leigh” back across to our car. Besides squirrels, we didn’t really see any wildlife, but the scenery was pretty spectacular. See for yourself:

Entering Grand Teton National Park

Token panoramic shot

Our ride across the lake

And we’re off

It looks cold but it surprisingly wasn’t

I guess that’s one way to stop lake pirates

Almost there

following the river

Hidden Falls isn’t all that hidden

I’m dressed like I work there

The beginning of the trail

Still going

Anna getting a bit ahead of me

Not a bad way of spending an afternoon

One of many squirrels we would see

Looking down on some trees

Teton Range

We didn’t encounter any bears… yet!

To say the water is clear would be like saying it is also damp

Now that we were done with the hiking we had to find our way to the ranch where we were staying. That’s right, ranch. We were staying at the Heart Six Guest Ranch, which claims to be “One of the oldest dude ranches in America,” located just outside Grand Teton National Park and right near the south gate of Yellowstone National Park. Another fact to add was that the ranch stunk strongly of horse manure, an odour that you could almost taste, one that never disappeared, but also one that permeated everything until you just became acclimatised to it. One good thing about staying in this region is that it stays light until about 9:30pm each night so we didn’t have to worry about locating the ranch in the dark, but when we eventually found it, we were surprised to also see covered wagons and teepees on the grounds. We would definitely have to explore them a bit more in the morning, because I want to know how Native Americans could tolerate the cold nights here in just a teepee! When we arrived we checked in, noting the wildly swinging ceiling fan in the ranch’s reception, along with the multitude of mosquitoes and other insects in the general vicinity. Once done we didn’t go to our room, instead opting to drive down to a nearby river in the hope of seeing some animals, as dusk is apparently the prime time for spotting wildlife. Unfortunately, we didn’t encounter a whole lot, just a couple of female deer enthusiastically spotted in the distance by some fellow tourists, a large, slowly moving mound on the opposite bank of the river that was apparently a beaver (but realistically it could’ve been almost anything), and some spiders. I did, however, manage to snap the photo of the mountains with the purple sky that I used for the featured image for this post while we were there.

We returned to the “Dude Ranch” and asked the guy working in reception where there was to eat. There were apparently two options, one of which the receptionist said in no uncertain terms was “shit.” We walked outside and there was a man in a cowboy hat passing us so we asked him for his recommendation, to which he replied the other option out of the two was “shit.” We weren’t expecting to find ourselves in a culinary hotspot, but in our experience there people were more willing to tell you which was the worst out of the two restaurants, as opposed to which one they preferred, and thus far the consensus was split 50/50. Not a good sign so we opted for the closest which was on the grounds of the ranch — It was shit. There was probably only about 15 minutes until the kitchen closed and there was a family on a table behind us where the mother, similar in appearance to what you see in ‘Karen’ memes, was going to snap. She was constantly complaining to our waiter and bitching at her kids, but it was the waiter that I felt bad for. This tall, gangly guy with long, blonde hair in a ponytail with a fringe, a curly moustache, and suspenders over a t-shirt was frazzled — It can’t be easy being the only hipster in a tiny town, as well as the only employee in the town’s restaurant. When the family was ordering, the mother asked if there were any gluten-free options, to which the waiter replied that nothing they serve would be truly gluten-free, because they cook everything on the same grill and don’t really clean it. She just let out an audible, dissatisfied sigh and ordered a random dish. I’m not sure if he was cooking the food too, but it took quite a while to come out and it most likely wasn’t because they were busy cleaning in the kitchen. That family were there first so their food arrived before ours and the mother still wasn’t happy, going on a rant about the poor quality of their dinner. Ours eventually arrived and it was pretty bad too; a tough steak each and french fries that weren’t just crunchy, but hard as if they had kept all of the leftover, uneaten fries aside over the course of the evening and then refried them all at the end for our meals — It’s pretty hard to screw up fries, but they managed somehow. Still, we just smiled and gnawed on our steaks and crunched our fries, because we didn’t want to ruin the waiter’s night any further, he seemed close to tears.

Once we had got through the bulk of our dinner we decided to have a look around this part of the ranch, including the lounge area and the bar. As had been the case in Jackson and is probably a theme running through all ranches, there was a heap more taxidermy within those walls. Inside the lounge there was a kid being shown how to play pool by an older man, people sitting around reading books, and a stoned-looking guy admiring a stuffed animal head mounted on the wall, looking at it in the same way that a person takes in a renaissance masterpiece in a European museum. He giggled and pointed out to me that it had a weird horn in the middle of its head that would block its vision when it looked to the side. I mentioned that its eyes were on the sides of it head so it probably wouldn’t have had true peripheral vision anyway and the horn could just be the result of poor taxidermy. He seemed to take this onboard and continued to study this felled beast. Anna and I decided to take in other areas of the building such as the small bar with incredibly uncomfortable looking saddles on top of the barstools, when the guy staring at the head came running up, appearing relieved to have finally located me. “It’s a caribou!” he yelled while laughing hysterically, obviously having asked someone else, because he wouldn’t have been able to Google it unless he could get on one of the two occupied computers in the lounge.

We weren’t going to be staying in a teepee or a covered wagon, we just went up to our ugly room and hit the sack for the night. We were told when we checked in that the rooms in the part we were staying had only just been completed and when we got up there we saw that it was really basic; the walls were just plywood and everything appeared to be unfinished and really cheaply done so we could hear everything happening in the neighbouring rooms, all the while trying to make contact with as few surfaces as possible in order to avoid getting splinters. It also smelled of turpentine and there wasn’t a TV or wifi for a distraction so we just showered and went to sleep. A look around the ranch and our room:

Part of the outside area of our ranch at dusk

Me in the ranch’s restaurant with the angry mum behind me

Anna from the other side of the restaurant

Inside the lounge area

Some heads on the wall

The caribou with its weird centre horn

Inside the bar

Those stools don’t look comfortable at all

Our bed for the night

Thursday, July 11, 2019  Maybe it was just the jet-lag catching up with me, but I had a mild epileptic seizure that morning in my sleep. It wasn’t anything major, I still remember waking up immediately afterward and snoring heavily while trying to get back to sleep, but it would leave me feeling kind of lethargic, however, I wasn’t going to let it prevent me from making the most of the day. We also couldn’t sleep much, because there was construction going on outside our room from the early morning onward, as well as people speaking loudly just outside.

We knew that the restaurant in the ranch was terrible and we hadn’t heard sparkling reviews about our only other option so we didn’t bother with breakfast, we just went down to a convenience store, breathing in the fragrance of horse shit the entire way and passing our waiter from the previous night, a defeated-looking man now hanging out towels. We just hoped for better results than the last time we were in a convenience store and we didn’t do too badly, just a couple of average cups of coffee and I grabbed a Hunter’s Reserve Roadkill meat stick. It may sound like a bad double entendre and due to the word “roadkill” being a registered trademark, I have my doubts that it did contain any actual roadkill, however, “meat from feral swine” was one of the listed ingredients. Anyway, I ate the roadkill stick and stuck the wrapper in my pocket, because there were no bins around. We did one last look around, taking in the covered wagons and teepees around Heart Six Ranch and was surprised to see that they were actually quite modern on the inside, almost to the extent of our room, except for the fact that the people staying in them needed to use a communal toilet, something that is kind of a dealbreaker for Anna and I. A better look around the ranch in the light of day:

This doesn’t just apply to cowboys, there is crap EVERYWHERE!

The wagon accommodation

That’s where the smell is coming from

Some of the teepees

I don’t think it would be big enough in one of those for the both of us

So long, poop ranch

About to gnaw on some “Roadkill”

Before long we were back in the car, bound for the world famous Yellowstone National Park (no, not Jellystone):

Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular features. It has many types of ecosystems, but the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.

Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 square miles (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered an active volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Half of the world’s geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone.

Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the contiguous United States. Grizzly bears, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in this park. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States.

That all sounds pretty cool and if you took the time to read that Yellowstone background information, you would have seen that it mentioned a geyser called Old Faithful, the eruption of which we wanted to witness that day:

Old Faithful is a cone geyser located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, United States. It is a highly predictable geothermal feature, and has erupted every 44 to 125 minutes since 2000.

Eruptions can shoot 3,700 to 8,400 US gallons (14,000 to 32,000 L) of boiling water to a height of 106 to 185 feet (32 to 56 m) lasting from ​11⁄2 to 5 minutes. The average height of an eruption is 145 feet (44 m).

The time between eruptions has a bimodal distribution, with the mean interval being either 65 or 91 minutes, and is dependent on the length of the prior eruption. Within a margin of error of ±10 minutes, Old Faithful will erupt either 65 minutes after an eruption lasting less than ​21⁄2 minutes, or 91 minutes after an eruption lasting more than ​21⁄2 minutes.

The drive to Yellowstone took us through some gorgeous scenery, bringing us within six miles (10 km) of the Idaho state line, through mountains and alongside rivers until we were finally where we needed to be. Old Faithful wasn’t due to erupt for another 30 minutes or so when we arrived, but remember there is a ±10 minute margin of error, meaning it could be anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes. We had a look around the stores nearby, used the bathroom and grabbed a drink, then we went outside and pulled up a seat on the wooden, colosseum-like benches and waited for the show to begin:

Anna killing time

A lot of people show up to see this thing erupt

Once the geyser had finished doing its thing the bulk of people watching began applauding for some reason, however, a lot of people here do that when their plane lands as well and you know for a fact that that pilot has successfully landed every single flight he’s flown. Others complained that the geyser was three minutes early which was kind of amusing, mainly because it doesn’t follow a set schedule, rather people make educated guesses with reasonable accuracy as to when it will erupt and within three minutes is a pretty decent guess.

We then spent the bulk of the day hiking around the grounds, although this left me a little breathless at times, probably a combination of the altitude and the seizure that morning, but we saw some incredible sights. Photos don’t do justice to hydrothermal features so before I post the pictures from around the park, I’ll add some more videos of individual ones we came across:

Anna and a pool

Me on a pathway

A closeup of the pool

Looking over the general vicinity

Another closeup

Something erupting

Overlooking some of the pathways

That’s a really bright flower!

Once we were done in Yellowstone National Park it was time to start driving toward the state of Montana, our home for the next couple of nights, and twice along the way we saw a bunch of cars pulled over to the side and people staring out at something. As I mentioned, that means there is something worth seeing and we wouldn’t be disappointed on either occasion.

First we would be stopping by one of the numerous geyser basins that follow Firehole River to see yet more hydrothermal spots. This area was crowded and the features there were incredible yet again. On this occasion I had a middle-aged guy with a big beard start laughing at my “Let’s Summon Demons” t-shirt, asking his 14-year-old daughter over to admire it. As it would turn out, she and a group of friends had recently got in a bit of trouble with both teachers and police for conducting satanic rituals and dad was more than proud, both him and his daughter wanting to find where they could get the shirt as well. Ultimately just settling for a picture with me.

We ended up stopping further along the river, this time to stop and watch and entire herd of elk that were making their way upstream. At this point we hadn’t seen a whole lot of wildlife so it was a sight for us to behold:

At the geyser basin

Flowing into the river

This shirt got me a bit of love

A panoramic shot of the area

Another part upriver

Just a small portion of the elk from a distance

Some of them feeding

The next stop would be our last one for the day, we would be traveling to Bar N Ranch, but we wouldn’t be staying in their regular accommodation, not by a long shot. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, or May 23 until September 8, when there isn’t too much snow, the ranch opens Under Canvas and Anna had booked for us to go glamping in a tent in the middle of nowhere. That’s no typo, for those unaware of the term, “glamping” is a conjunction of “Glamorous Camping.” I mentioned earlier that Anna doesn’t tend to like roughing it and despite the fact we were going to be staying a tent, she would by no means be getting in touch with nature. We were going to be staying in a Stargazer tent, described on their website as:

Stargazer

The Stargazer has its own viewing window above the king bed to stargaze at night. The ensuite bathroom in your tent includes a shower, sink and toilet. A wood stove keeps the tent warm at night and a private deck allows you to enjoy the outdoors.

Sleeps up to 4

Private bathroom

Key Features

Superior view with night sky viewing window

King size bed with luxurious linens

Private bathroom complete with shower, sink & flushing toilet

Additional camp cots and bedding can be provided for up to 2 people

Definitely an upgrade from staying in a sleeping bag under a tarpaulin, the type of camping that I was used to. Hell, it turned out our tent even had its own indoor fireplace with a sealed flue going outdoors. We drove down there, but there are a lot of cattle surrounding the entrance due to a cattlegrid stopping them exiting the premises so we couldn’t enter until a woman coaxed all of the cows away from the road. Once down the path we checked in and were chauffeur-driven in a golf cart, along with our luggage, to our super-luxurious tent and this wasn’t like anything I was expecting. We got everything arranged, then went to the main area of Bar N Ranch to have dinner, which turned out to be a great meal, and then it was back to our tent. It was a cold night and our shower had hot water, but it took a little while to kick in. Also, the only way to keep the hot water running was to be continually pulling down on a handle, otherwise it it would just cut off, leaving you standing there naked and wet on a freezing night. Anna discovered the best approach was to put soap on the sponge and toothpaste on the brush before getting in, that way you never had to release your grip on that handle. While I was in the shower, she also thought she had found some biscuits on the fireplace, but wasn’t really hungry — It was a good thing, because they turned out to be firelighters. I was pretty tired by the time I got into bed, our tent had a clear panel above the pillow area so I put on an eye-mask and we both went to sleep. This is where we would be spending the next two nights:

Waiting for the cattle to move

Anna out the front of Bar N Ranch

The view from our tent

Inside the restaurant

Another area of the restaurant

…and another

Glamp Montana

Inside our tent

Looking toward the bathroom

Anna ready for bed

Our shower

Pretty luxurious for a tent

Another part of the bathroom

Anna’s biscuits

Friday, July 12, 2019 Anna was already awake and reading by the time I awoke, which was still quite early. She hadn’t worn her eye-mask to sleep so she woke as soon as the sun rose over the clear panel above us in our tent, but no mask could block out the glare, waking me not long after and helping me avoid getting sunburnt. Factor in the jet-lag that was still affecting us and it becomes clear we yet again weren’t really destined for a long sleep.

The plan for the day was to do a little backtracking from Montana into Wyoming to Gallatin National Forest, an area near where we were the previous day, first stopping off at Gibbon Falls and then making our way down into the Mammoth Hot Springs area of Yellowstone National Park for some hiking, hopefully encountering something a little bigger than an elk this time. Before we left we took a look around where we were staying, this time in the broad daylight, me realising as we were walking that the previous day I hadn’t discarded of the wrapper of my roadkill jerky, instead just stuffing it in my pocket. This wasn’t a particularly bright move because, although we were hoping to see some bears from a reasonable distance, I didn’t want the smell of meat attracting any to me directly. I’ve never even really been in a fight before so I don’t like my chances of fending off a grizzly bear, I’d more than likely just instinctively play dead. Probably should pop that wrapper in a bin. The place where we were staying felt bad about some of the food we had been served in the area so far so they allowed us to buy packed lunches from their really good restaurant and we were off. We drove down to Gibbon Falls, a waterfall currently with a drop of approximately 84 feet (26 m) and constantly growing as it erodes the rock below, and we noticed what we had seen time and time again not only the day before, but had also noticed on several previous trips spent exploring the outdoors — That a lot of women traveling from a country that shares its name with the material from which fine teacups and saucers are made choose fashion over function. We particularly noticed it in Turkey where these women would be walking around caves and other geological features wearing high end dresses and heels when hiking attire is far more appropriate, preventing injuries and allowing you to access more areas. Now a lot of them had been wandering around Yellowstone, some even rocking a pair of stilettos, and we hadn’t seen the last of them. Anyway, Gibbon Falls was really nice, here’s a look at our morning up until that point:

Anna waiting outside our tent

Some of the other tents in Under Canvas

An area for outdoor dining

Not the worst heels we saw, but still not appropriate outdoors footware

Gibbon Falls from the side

Looking over the falls

Gibbon Falls from the front

Next we were going to make our way to a kind of unnamed town in the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District, first to eat our packed lunches, then to go to the Horace Albright Visitor Center to get us some information about where we could go hiking and potentially see some big furry things. A little more about the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District, an area that looks a hell of a lot like a town, operates like a town, but apparently isn’t a town:

The Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District in Yellowstone National Park comprises the administrative center for the park. It is composed of two major parts: Fort Yellowstone, the military administrative center between 1886-1918, and now a National Historic Landmark, and a concessions district which provides food, shopping, services, and lodging for park visitors and employees.

Fort Yellowstone is a carefully ordered district of substantial buildings that clearly indicate their military origins. The U.S. Army administered the park from 1886 to 1918 when administration was transferred to National Park Service. The park headquarters is now housed in the original double cavalry barracks (constructed in 1909). The Horace Albright Visitor Center is located in the old bachelors’ officers quarters (constructed in 1909).

The concessions district contrasts with the military district, with a less formal arrangement and style and includes the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and Dining Room, a gas station, and retail stores. The Yellowstone Main Post Office, itself on the National Register of Historic Places sits just north of Fort Yellowstone. The residential area includes houses designed by architect Robert Reamer.

So despite having a residential area, retail stores, and even a post office, it still doesn’t qualify as a town, just a “Concessions District.” That explains why I was so confused trying to figure out the location when I first started writing this part of this post, even the locations on the photos I took aren’t accurate.

Anyway, as we were driving into the town concessions district our path to the main parking area was obstructed by a couple of deer making their way across in front of us, which was not a bad start. We ate our packed lunches from Under Canvas then, as we were making our way to the Visitor Center we had to walk pass the town concessions district square, a patch of grass between the two main streets that was teeming with female elk, all just hanging around, some laying down, others eating. I took some pictures, but as I went in to get a slightly closer shot I was accosted by a park ranger. “You must remain 25 yards or 22.8 metres away from all wildlife at all times!” he screamed in a well-rehearsed fashion, but you would think that if it were really that important they would put up at least one sign in the town concessions district. In fact, the only place it was even mentioned was on a flyer from the Visitor Center, however, you needed to walk past the animals to get the flyer. Once in the Visitor Center we stocked up on some supplies such as sunblock and insect repellent as the mosquitoes and horseflies in this area are awful! Anna wondered whether we should get some bear spray, but to me it all seemed like a bit of a scam; the stuff is US$50.00 (currently about AU$72.50) per can and we hadn’t even seen any bears! It was also possible to rent bear spray from some places, but the stuff doesn’t act as a repellent, more like a form of mace for use on bears, and I figured if a grizzly bear was intent on attacking you, spraying mace in its face would only piss it off more so we opted against it.

We got ourselves some maps and were soon on our way, hiking on an uphill path, walking for about 15 minutes when we were approached by an excited looking tourist from New Zealand and her two young children coming the opposite direction. She told us that just a bit further up the hill was a female grizzly bear with two young cubs and it was a bit angry, scaring her kids. We asked her if she thought it was safe for us to continue and she replied, “Oh, sure, you’ll be fine as long as you have your bear spray.” Shit. We walked back down into the town concessions district, forked out the US$50.00 and got us some bear spray.

Take two. We started to make our way uphill again, this time equipped with our bear spray in a hip holster, a liquid with its ingredients listed as 2% capsaicin and 98% “Other ingredients”. This stuff must be pretty strong, possibly even working on the power of suggestion, because after over an hour of anticipating encountering a defensive grizzly bear and its cubs we came to the conclusion that there were now three possibilities:

The bears were substantially further away than the woman had led us to believe,

The bears were gone, or

The woman was working for the bear spray company

I even began to wish I had now kept the Roadkill wrapper in my pocket in the hopes of attracting one. Still, we kept going, hiking for about five hours, covering over 15 km (9.3 miles) of rugged terrain, getting caught in the rain and mauled by mosquitoes, just to see a couple of does, which quite possibly could’ve been the same one multiple times, one male deer, plus a couple of squirrels here and there. As our hike continued, I became more and more annoyed at how anticlimactic it had been; I was now exhausted, wet, and extremely itchy, yet we had seen hardly anything, encountering not only more wildlife, but cooler-looking animals in the town concessions district! We stopped off briefly to have a look at the Mammoth Hot Springs and then decided to head back. To add insult to injury, there was a female elk sitting right next to our car, but screw that 25 yard rule, I wasn’t in the mood to let this thing stop me from getting in our car. If I needed to be 25 yards away from the wildlife, it could do its part on this occasion and move away from me. Some scenes from the town concessions district centre and the little we saw on a disappointing, albeit trying, hike:

Parking the car

Interesting name

The centre of the “Concessions District”

A closeup of some elk

Looking over the concessions district as we begin our hike

Heading back to the store

Now equipped with bear spray

Seems like there’s some around

It’s all good, I’ve got bear spray

2% capsaicin, 98% other ingredients

Safety first

How to use our spray

A small portion of the area we hiked

A doe we saw

Possibly the same doe later

Mammoth Hot Springs

A nearby deer

Mammoth Hot Springs from a distance

She can get 25 yards away from me

That night we went into a real town, West Yellowstone, Montana for dinner with the intent of eating a bison or bear steak out of spite, because we sure didn’t encounter any on our hike. Instead, we settled for a ribeye and some damn good devilled eggs, all of which we shared between us, and then we headed back to our tent for a final night before moving on to the next stop.

Initially I was going to try and tell the story of this trip in two parts, but it turns out I will need a third and final post in order to tell it properly. Where would we be staying next? Would we encounter any wildlife worth writing about? And would I have to wear that hideous cowboy shirt again to a rodeo? Stay tuned for the conclusion of our journey through cowboy country!

Embarking on the vacation leg of our trip through Wyoming and Montana When I finished my previous post we had wrapped up the Midwest Ocular Angiography Conference at the Four Seasons Resort and Residences in Jackson, Wyoming the previous night and were just about to begin the holiday leg of our trip through the Pacific Northwest of the USA.

[scotianostra]

On November 16th 1700 James Macpherson, the famous fiddling freebooter, was hanged at Banff.

A sad tale but one of my favourites, mainly due to the great song that came out of it. He is described as Scotland’s answer to Robin Hood - an outlaw and freebooter who shared the spoils of his thieving campaign against the gentry with the poor of the north.

Reportedly the son of a Highland laird and a gypsy woman, Macpherson is remembered as a man of magnificent stature, strength and intellect who could handle a sword as expertly as he could play a fiddle. Some accounts record him as the leader of a band of caterans, or cow thieves, as well as a legitimate horse trader.

His story was so rich that it caught the attention of Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns rewrote a lament composed by Macpherson in the run up to his death, which you can listen to on the video.

His downfall was executed by his enemy-in-chief, Lord Duff of Braco, who had become increasingly incensed by the antics of the outlaw’s armed posse who were increasingly brazen in their deeds, often marching into towns on market day. Sometimes, they would be led by a piper.

Macpherson was captured on two occasions, once in Inverness and another in Aberdeen before being finally seized in an operation executed by Lord Braco in the autumn of 1700 at the St Rufus Fair in Keith. One of the posse was killed when fighting broke out with Macpherson captured after a woman threw a piece of rug over him from an upstairs window. He was tried in Banff by Sheriff Nicholas Dunbar, a friend of Lord Braco, and was condemned to hang for the crimes of purse cutting, theft - and of being an Egyptian or gypsy.

Lord Braco, on hearing that a lone rider was approaching from Turriff with a reprieve, had the town clock turned forward by 15 minutes to ensure the execution went ahead.

Before his death, Macpherson apparently mounted the scaffold at Banff to play a fiddle tune that he had composed in his cell. When finished, he offered the fiddle to the crowd which had gathered - but no one dared to accept. He then smashed his instrument and dropped it at his feet, with the remnants on display at the Clan Macpherson Museum in Newtonmore.

The tune said to have been played ahead of his execution is widely known as Macpherson’s Rant or Macpherson’s Lament. Robert Burns later used it as the basis Macpherson’s Farewell.

Those involved in moving the clock forward were punished, and for many years afterwards the clock was kept fifteen minutes fast, as a reminder of Macpherson’s killing.

Some time after 1839, the faces of the clocktower were removed from Banff and rehoused in the newly built Dufftown tower. It is known locally as ‘the clock that hung Macpherson’. There are a few versions of the tale, and indeed the song, there are few finer than The Corries, and the wee intro from Ronnie Browne

Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong Farewell, farewell to thee. Macpherson's time will no' be lang On yonder gallows tree.

Sae rantingly, sae wontonly Sae dauntingly gaed he He played a tune an' he danced aroon Beneath the gallows tree.

It was by a woman's treacherous hand That I was condemned to dee Beneath a ledge at a window she stood And a blanket she threw o'er me.

Sae rantingly, sae wontonly Sae dauntingly gaed he He played a tune an' he danced aroon Beneath the gallows tree.

Well the laird o' Grant, that highlan' sa'nt That first laid hands on me He played the cause on Peter Broon To let Macpherson dee.

Sae rantingly, sae wontonly Sae dauntingly gaed he He played a tune an' he danced aroon Beneath the gallows tree.

Untie these bands from off my hands And gie to me my sword There's nae a man in a' Scotland But I'll brave him at a word.

Sae rantingly, sae wontonly Sae dauntingly gaed he He played a tune an' he danced aroon Beneath the gallows tree.

There's some come here to see me hanged And some to buy my fiddle But before that I do part wi' her I'll brak her thro' the middle.

Sae rantingly, sae wontonly Sae dauntingly gaed he He played a tune an' he danced aroon Beneath the gallows tree.

He took the fiddle into both his hands And he broke it o'er a stone Says there's nae other hand shall play on thee When I am dead and gone.

Chorus

O, little did my mother think When she first cradled me That I would turn a rovin' boy And die on the gallows tree.

Sae rantingly, sae wontonly Sae dauntingly gaed he He played a tune an' he danced aroon Beneath the gallows tree.

The reprive was comin' o'er the brig o' Banff To let Macpherson free But they pit the clock a quarter afore And hanged him to a tree.

[canaryatlaw]

Okay, well today wasn't bad. Still kind of overall stressed, but dealing with it. I have time at least, to get all this shit done, get it spaced out over and all that, so that helps. Alarm went off at 7 and I got out of bed and made it to work and made it through the rest of the file for the permanency hearing, which was more of the parents being like "we're not alcoholics we don't need treatment fuck you" all the way to getting their damn kid removed, so I write up some normal permanency hearing questions and took that and the file over to the lawyer who gave it to me to talk to him about it. I ask if they ever made a paternity finding, because there was a whole big thing about it because apparently her "dad" her whole life isn't technically her legally-presumed dad because her mother was married to someone else when she was born, but I never found a finding, and then the lawyers like "oh yeah, well dad passed away in November, something related to his alcoholism." Oh. Well. And he goes on to add the mom is basically on her death bed in the same situation. Don't need treatment my ass. This poor child. She seems like a good kid though, so hopefully we can get her get into some post-high school training if not actual college. I'll get to meet her and interview her Monday. At that point I went back to my office and created a template for permanency hearing questions that I could just tweak for individual cases since the status based questions are largely the same. Somewhere in all of this my eyes were drooping way too much again so I took another 15 minute head on desk session, I might've actually passed out for a few minutes, but when the alarm went off I freaked out for a minute because I was expecting the wrong time for some reason and thought I accidentally passed out for like two hours lol. So I was fairly glad that didn't happen. Somewhere in here I also tried to call my psychiatrist about the whole Xanax thing I was discussing last night, only to be told he's on vacation till the end of the month.....I mean, the guy definitely deserves it, he's partially retired already and probably in his 70's, and I don't want to disturb him or anything, but like, I know him and I know he would want to hear two sentences from me on this issue but I didn't want to say it was an emergency because it wasn't, and if I did they probably would've put me on with one of the other psychiatrists that are filling in for him, and I'm sorry but there's no way I'm trusting anyone else with this shit. I think I'm gonna increase it to 3 mg a day for now at least, which is still within the normal range he said I could try so it's not a big deal. Hopefully that will make finals a bit more manageable. So that was less than ideal, but oh well. All of my events are really out of order for today so idk if any of this happened in this order, but around lunchtime I went to go see my across the hall friend who's now my across the building friend, to see if she was feeling better and if she wanted to get lunch because I, like a kindergartener, left my lunch box in the fridge yesterday (I had actually packed dinner in a brown paper bag for later but I didn't want to pack two of those). So we went to the "bakery" that has super awesome pizza an I got some of their pizza with the seriously biggest slices and ate like, half a slice lol. So good though. It was nice to talk to her though, we traded crazy stories from our courthouse and the DV one, and I was just like man, I'm so glad I have people I can share these things with without them being immediately horrified and me being like "yes I know those are terribly tragic circumstances but if you hang in there for a moment the court moment was really funny!!" Lol, it's gallows humor for sure but I mean gotten let it out somehow. I vent to my brother about crazy cases too, that's helpful since talking about the law is one of the few things we can talk about and actually have a lengthy productive discussion on without it somehow devolving into him being an asshole (mostly, anyway). So there's that at least. He appreciates my stories. So back from lunch and I spent a while organizing orders into alphabetized folders for two different lawyers haha who both apologized for the shitty work but I'm like hey whatever it's all good I know I'm the intern and I'll deal with your shitty jobs if it gets me a good in here. And then I had to show my supervisor how to send in the mid-semester evaluation my field placement supervisor wanted from him (oh, and he apparently knew my FP supervisor like 15 years ago and he was her boss in this office??? I swear he was everyone's boss at some point) because he was getting so lost in computer forms and retrieving files and saving them and electronically signing forms, so I'm just sitting there showing him how to do it and he's like "ohmygosh Rachel, you're so smart!!!" and I'm like trying not to laugh because he's just so adorably funny. And then of course I got to read more of the nice things he said about me which made my heart melt once again because he's literally so nice I can't handle it and his words are always really genuine too so it's nice. And yeah. So I didn't have anywhere to rush to right after leaving the juvenile courthouse today for the first time I can remember since, the summer, since I decided no kickboxing this week because I simply don't have the emotional or physical energy for it, so I was just gonna find a Starbucks to chill in and work on my appellate brief until small group time. So I got to like, take my time leaving and my supervisor is like "Rachel what are you still doing here, you're gonna be late to class!!" and it's like 5:01 haha so funny. So then waiting for the bus I saw the PD that was on the panel we did yesterday so we of course talked about delinquency stuff, like the spring break project from last year and of course eventually got into the whole transferring to adult court thing and I mentioned the slenderman case because that's just the most horrific case of misjudgment by the system and she'd heard of it of course but didn't know the details and she was beyond horrified to hear that they're trying two severely mentally ill 12 year old children as adults and having them face 35 years in prison. Like, we literally have an entire juvenile justice system FOR PRECISELY THESE REASONS. Bypassing it ignores all the science and research and not to mention the recidivism rate which skyrockets when you try children as adults. I'll cap it there though, not gonna go into a full rant at the moment (I know I've already done it on here). I got off the one bus to catch another and had to watch it stop and drive off while I was stuck on the other side of the crosswalk which SUCKS and it was just chilly enough to be annoying out today, but then thankfully another bus came like 2 minutes later which isn't typical but I was very grateful for. So I took that to the Starbucks area, then popped into Walgreens to buy more of their caramel chocolates that Lyft driver got me hooked on (lol) except they didn't have those exact ones, so I got what's basically the same but with toffee pieces and I tried a little and they're pretty amazing. So then I went to Starbucks and got an iced white tea lemonade and tried to surreptitiously eat my sandwiches (I mean I was facing the window so I didn't have to be all that secretive about it) and start the behemoth that is gonna be finishing my appellate brief, and I pretty much immediately felt lost, but always over like the stupid stuff I could find like whether saying "don't use the party names" meant the given names or the terms plaintiff/defendant....(it's the prior, I think anyway) but I figured as some sort of game plan I would work on fixing the argument section based on the feedback I got from our prof, since that still is the substance of the brief, and then work on adding all the extra parts. Half of the edits she gave me though we're like about ordering the arguments and shit and it just pissed me off because I like the way I order my arguments, dammit, because IT MAKES SENSE, and I'm sorry if it doesn't fit your blue book standard but my boss at my actual job where I submit actual motions to actual court seems to be quite impressed with it so you can take your argument order and shove it.....(note please that that wasn't actually directed at my prof, cuz I kind of like her, and I know it's the curriculum and not her setting the standards). But that just annoyed me cuz like, real life isn't legal writing fact patterns. You're not always gonna have an analogous case and a distinguishable case, and you're gonna have to make it work. I just....I get too worked up about all of it. But I at least made some progress on preliminary efforts, so maybe, 5% done? It's a start, at least. I walked from the Starbucks to church which is like a ten minute walk and even though it was still a little chilly I haven't done any walking for the past two days and I haven't had any chance to work out this week (I likely won't go to the gym tomorrow because I have no reason to be downtown) so it's something at least, to go with my push ups (which I think may be hurting a muscle in my side, because trying any new physical activity is basically let's see how I can piss my body off this time for me). But yeah, small group was good. This was something I meant to mention quickly on my last week's recap of it, but I think I might have a teeny tiny crush on one of the guys? Like it was in my head last week but it was barely anything, then I get in there today and we start talking about the marvel tv shows and you know I can talk above superheroes all damn day haha so that was enjoyable, and then he was being like "yeah it was cool being at my cousins wedding this weekend but it's also so weird being single at a wedding" and I'm like alright, that might have been a subtle hint, lol, and of course as soon as the idea even entered my head I spent the rest of the night pretty much planning our wedding when I haven't really decided if I even like the guy yet, lol. Physically he's not like drop dead gorgeous, but he's definitely not ugly and has a certain charming quality to his appearance, so I can work with that. The rest of small group (I almost just wrote Smallville) was good too, we talked about a passage in 1 Corinthians I was familiar with about love and of course I got to opine about my deep theories on the issue about how basically the passage is indicative of the entire problem of "religion" and what the church is facing today- that is, they have all the rules, all the right answers, but without love following through all of it it's basically useless, and I feel like that's so on point for what the church is dealing with right now. Like, no. Love meets you were you are. Love is right in there with your mess. Love doesn't require you to clean up your act before you're welcomed into our church. Jesus certainly didn't require it to be let into his presence, so how dare we even try to do it? And yeah, other random deep shit like that, lol, you get the picture. Took the train to the bus as my normal and AGAIN had to run to make the bus (this was a different stop, but same bus route) and again had to bang on the door to get let in while the driver was looking so put out by it and I'm just like....calm your tits lady we're giving your company money but being here, lol. But I got home, didn't almost get run over by a car but had the weird experience of a car stopping fully at a red light, and I started crossing, and then they suddenly started driving again and blew the light by like, a mile. They didn't even come close to wear I was crossing so I was never in danger or anything, but I was like seriously, wtf man? Who does that?!? Idiots. For home and watched Powerless, which was cute of course, then Riverdale which just left me with the comment that this is the one teen drama where all the high schoolers have it together for the most part and all their parents are going batshit crazy, lol. But I enjoyed both, and that pretty much wrapped up my night. And it's late, and I get to sleep in which I'm very glad about, but still I'm tired and want to go to sleep now, so that's what I will do. Goodnight mis amigos. Happy Friday.