#i wish i could let 2008!me know that they were actually going to fix it in canon

[itsthenerdwonder]

Okay, before we end the PJO tv show, I’m gonna watch the shitty movie. I’ve reread the book, chapter by chapter, before each episode to compare it for myself. But let’s watch the movie to compare to the show AND book cuz why the eff not?

And since Percy is played by a 21 year old, I will also be drinking during this movie cuz BLEH!

20th Century Fox…you sure did last longer than 1999. For better and worse. And now Disney owns you and you’re nothing but a memory…a little more booze will fix that.

Chris Columbus, because everyone loved the first 2 Harry Potter movies. Well, they loved how good of adaptations they were as well as the Dumbledore actor.

Giant Poseidon rises out of the water…struggling to walk through water like he’s a human. AND A HUMAN SEES HIM AND HE’S JUST LIKE “sup” LIKE….THAT HAD BETTER BE A RANDOM TSUNAMI HE’S FUCKING SEEING! AND THEN POSEIDON JUST WATER MORPHS INTO A REGULAR GUY?! WHY ARE YOU NOW A REGULAR GUY?! WHY NOT JUST START AS A REGULAR GUY? Why be massive at all? Just, why?

You know, Sean Bean probably wishes he DID die in this movie so he’d never have to reprise. But, only the main 4 actually reprised so, you know, whatever. The franchise flopped enough to count as a death.

EXPSITION! TALKING! WALKING! BORING!

Also, this implies that Luke LITERALLY JUST TOOK IT! Like, days/hours ago and Zeus is already like “guess imma just kill a kid and cause WWIII in 2 weeks.” Like, Zeus has no chill, but he’s king of the gods for a reason. Those shits are PETTY! And do ALL KINDS of stuff that could’ve resulted in dozens of power plays/wars/other shitty things happen to the gods or mortals, but they didn’t cuz Zeus…actually knows how to rule. He just doesn’t know how to keep it in his pants. That’s a separate issue.

Such intense. Very dramatique standing. Much wow.

Honestly, even though this is a weird opening, it is a very good opening. Percy just…chilling in his element. Like, yeah, 7 minutes for a high schooler to just hold his breath is bad cuz 6 minutes and you start losing brain cells and teenagers don’t have cells to lose cuz they lost half of them to puberty and spend the next 10-15 years wrestling them back from their hormones and self-worth issues. But still, it’s a nice score after that intensely nothing scene, very calm and soothing, makes the “who could Percy’s dad” question feel very stupid but the movie isn’t trying to make you think, so you can just…be for that underwater scene. It’s nice. But unfortunately we don’t drown and the movie keeps going.

Although, with Rick adding that Percy does have a fear of drowning in later books, that does make this scene…terrifying. Is Percy trying to drown himself?

“It’s like high school without the musical” so…high school. Also, hey, an appropriately 2008 reference cuz these books can’t stop making references. Seriously, Rick, you can stop making references that date the books. You do a yearly reference per book but sometimes it’s multiple books per year. THAT’S NOT HOW DATES WORK.

Mrs. Dodds is teaching English cuz…Shakespeare is harder than high school trig? But it does give us a decent look at Greek letters superimposing over the early modern English as the letters move and rearrange and…this is the second nice thing I’ve said. SHIT! SAY SOMETHING DISPARAGING!

“I think this dyslexia thing is getting worse.” That’s…not how dyslexia works. “Idk, maybe it’s the ADHD.” This movie is dumb. Phew, I said something disparaging.

Percy sassing his mom makes me hate him rather than making me think they have a close relationship and he loves his mom and would literally kill for her.

Ah, the first sexual thing to happen on screen. And this is the only one to not make me mad cuz it’s Gabe being the worst.

“Show some respect. That’s my mom right there.” No, that’s his wife right there. Show him some of you leaving so he can continue to be a mortal pig stinking up the place and making you safe from monsters. God this Gabe is the worst, he’s fucking perfect.

Oh right, and the gods are telepathic too. Cuz…why? That’s never established in ANY myth or book. “I haven’t seen him since he was a baby” yeah, but apparently you guys have one-way phone calls where you give cryptic advice every other Tuesday.

AND THEY GET GREEK MYTH WRONG! “The Big Three overthrew Kronus.” *Pulls out 3 mythology books, 10 mythology websites and the fucking book.* Now, we’re not leaving until you learn these gods’ dam myths or you are carried away by Thanatos trying.

Mrs. Dodds honestly looks like such a creeper in this scene. Looking like she’s trying to sniff his hair. Ick.

Pierce Brosnan is a brilliant actor. He uses the wheelchair like a fucking pro, but then he keeps propping himself up at an odd angle away from the back like it’s uncomfortable to sit in. Which, would make sense given he’s got a whole other half folded up behind him.

It’s so interesting how the Furies keep getting wings in modern media. Like, classical depictions have them as just really really pissed off ladies. And that’s no lady. That’s a demon.

Logan was clearly thinking the CGI would grab his arms to lift him instead of underneath his arms, so he just looks really stiff cuz the CGI artists messed up.

“I should be on medication.” Well yes but actually no.

Also, how was the show’s lack of a fight scene better than this…almost fight? Pathetic attack and subsequent scolding? At least she died in the show, unlike here.

“Only use it in times of severe distress.” That line…makes no sense…cuz…like…he’s camp activities director for a bunch of demigods he’s training to fight to the death…WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE DOESN’T WANT THIS KID WHO’S IN IMMEDIATE DANGER TO USE A WEAPON?!

“This is a pen. This is a pen!” Well…at least some of this movie is fun/funny/almost enjoyable.

Movie!Percy is an ableist jackass who thinks crutches constitute helplessness. Book!Percy would beat Movie!Percy up for even SUGGESTING Grover couldn’t handle himself, much less kick someone’s ass. He’s seen Grover in the cafeteria line.

“Like I said, I’m your protector.” And suddenly, Eddie and the guys think Grover’s gay for Percy

“He was forced to leave.” I…the tide comes and goes. And so does Poseidon. He’s here, then he’s gone. But he’ll return again. Constant change. How is that so hard to write?

“Leaving you was probably the most difficult thing he ever did.” Okay, I know you’re not Show!Sally, but lady, Imma need you to do your research about your ex. Okay?

“Sally watch out!” For what? The cow didn’t enter the screen until the car was already turning to avoid it.

And this is why you wear a seat belt. All of you should’ve gone flying through that windshield cuz none of you were wearing seat belts.

I’m going to need Grover to never say “Come on” again. Please. For the love of Apollo.

I hate that invisible wall.

You know, it’s supposed to be raining. Which is why Percy does not insta-die. Cuz water. Instead, this kid is just the best at being a matador/sword fighting cuz Gary Stu.

“No. No. No. No. No. No.” LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! GIVE IT UP FOR THE WORST LINE DELIVERY IN THE WHOLE GODDAMN MOVIE! “I’d like to thank my mom, for dying. My teen angst, for not giving a shit for her dying. That math test I was supposed to take today I definitely didn’t study for that I was thinking about the same time as remembering my mom just died. None of you were important to me. And I’ll keep on not caring for the rest of this movie. Good night!”

This is the tiniest Camp Half-Blood ever…and the musical just had a small black box to work with. Sword combat training right next to archers firing at everything leaving the infirmary and both working to put you back in immediately after getting healed?

“I’m a loser. I have dyslexia. ADHD.” Look. 2010 was a different time. But like…did the writers KNOW what those were? That they’re unfortunately not an uncommon disability in America. For one or the other (usually not both, but most people don’t hear about half-bloods unless they make the news for blowing up Mount St. Helens. Again)

Look at Clarise kicking ass, even though she should have her hair up. “That’s Annabeth.” Oh, right. Every time.

Instant connection. Cuz…teenagers be horny I guess. Not like we can actually build up the relationship or anything. NOOOOO. Gotta be horny at first sight.

Pierce Brosnan is a terrible actor with how he’s holding his arms like he Naruto running, but they’re fists so it just looks stiff and awkward.

“A real horse’s ass.” I still don’t understand that joke. Not that one. The one in Aladdin where he says “a horse with two rear ends” but…RIGHT! Gotta focus on the worse movie.

All daughters of Aphrodite are sorority girls with Elle Woods’ body and libido without the Elle Woods brains. Remember when this story was supposed to be for 12-year-olds.

And there’s no question who his dad is cuz Poseidon just came to camp one day and decided to be a carpenter and carved “PεΓ<ψ ωiιι βε HεΓε” right above the door

You know…the CGI on Chiron’s horse half looks pretty good.

“This stuff is so heavy!” That’s light leather! What are you talking about. I can show you several 12-year-olds wearing full metal breastplates, pauldrons and helmets carrying metal shields too (which also looks cheap, but still) that would laugh at how you think THAT is heavy.

Grover’s so upbeat here at camp…which is…interesting…

Camp Leader? Leader? I…what the fuck is happening. Why is Luke…more in charge than Chiron? And Mr. D comes next movie…DID MR. D TAKE LUKE’S JOB?!

Idk…maybe it’s just the Michael lingering in poor Adam Winchester, but…he just RADIATES evil, you know?

“That’s a sword. That’s a sword.” No shit.

But, you know, even with the shaky cam, the fight choreography is pretty good.

“My mother is goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. You know what that means?” You’re an inflated windbag who exposits a lot? Like, didn’t we already establish that 2 scenes ago? Yet, I almost needed it cuz I forgot she was Annabeth again and was like “Hey Clarisse” cuz she looks like how I picture Clarrise (who’s a blonde) and fighting against Percy and being a bitch and…yeah

Cuz she wouldn’t know to not leave a son of Poseidon anywhere near water? Like, even not knowing that it’d heal him, with admittedly decent effects, he’s already claimed and so she’d KNOW that maybe, just maybe, he’s a water boy. That and/or he’s probably pretty good on horseback.

And now the fight choreography sucks. I’m bored. Mostly by the 1-v-1 instead of war between many like we were doing. Like…they would be doing.

Grover isn’t hungry all the time here. He’s horny all the time. I hate it.

“I’m not going to grow a fish tail or gills am I?” Listen, I’d much rather be watching Thirteenth Year. Shut up.

“I have very strong feelings for you. I just haven’t decided if they’re positive or negative yet.” So…you think he’s hot, but a jerk. So…make it negative cuz…yeah, this Percy is a prick and I don’t want to be his friend. Where’s Book or Show!Percy. I miss them.

AND HADES IS SATAN BECAUSE EVERYONE SAW DISNEY’S HERCULES AS WELL AS FUCKING CHRISTIANS AND THEIR HATRED OF DEATH! I HATE THIS! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU FOR DISPARAGING THE LORD OF THE DEAD LIKE THIS!

I’m also going to need Grover to stop saying “I’m your protector.” It’s almost as repetitive as “Come on,” but not quite. Not yet.

Luke playing video games is somehow the biggest change from the book. Not Annabeth eating Clarisse’s character. Not Mrs. Dodds teaching Shakespeare. Not that everyone knows Percy’s heritage and thus we cut out the “gods are deadbeats” theme from the books…nope. It’s the fact that this Ancient Greek summer camp has fucking electricity.

“My dad’s a jerk, I’ve never met him.” You know, if it was ONLY book 1, I could forgive this. Knowing several books had come out and May Castellian’s story was able to be known…OOPS! Kinda forgot to read ahead to make sure everything lines up, huh?

I broke into a god’s house and stole stuff (I’m obviously not the Lightning Theif even though I’ve already stolen from the gods) like this book that’s still covered in dust which doesn’t make sense logically.

Shoe flies into the screen for all the 3D movie watchers out there. Honestly, I miss when 3D did gimmicks like that.

Persephone fucking around is not her character. Other than possibly Hades (and, that’s from Ovid, a Roman, who put in a line about her agency rather than the original Greek tale) she’s a virgin goddess. She’s called Kore, The Maiden, before she’s Persephone. Like…what’s with all the sex stuff and tying NONE OF IT TO ZEUS!?

Look, the 3 pearls given by Poseiden being made the 3 stopping points could’ve…not sucked, except, the first few books are very much adventures. Like Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Or any of the Lord of the Rings. We start at Point A and we’re going to Point B and crazy things happen on the way to make it interesting. Those things are just super dangerous cuz it’s an adventure inspired by The Oddessy rather than a Road Trip movie where those things are comedy based.

Map will only show 1 pearl at a time, so how does Luke know how many there are? He could be lying. Also this is why Mrs. Dodds needed to teach you Math, so you could do 1+1+1 DOES NOT EQUAL 4 PEOPLE STUPID!

Also, to get the map to show you the next one, just say I Solemnly Swear That I’m Up To No Good.

And Luke gives them a shield that takes 5 seconds to fully open which isn’t helpful because we saw none of the kids using shields so they probably would suck with them instead of knowing how to use it in a fight/forget it has a timer and they die by being impaled before the shield can fully open.

47 minutes in and we’re JUST NOW getting to the quest. And YET! It felt like we were running through the first 10 chapters.

Honestly, don’t totally hate the Highway to Hell song because it’s super on the nose.

*Grover sees rats* “That’s nasty.” YOU’RE A SATYR! YOU WOULD PROBABLY BE HAPPIER TO SEE NATURE DOING IT’S THING THAN EATING A TIN CAN! Probably…tin cans are also very delicious.

Annabeth is also a thief, stealing from Aunty Em like that.

The woman’s overacting is…why?

Grover should’ve been stabbed with how Percy was holding that thing.

Uma’s decision to rub her hands together to project her evil instead of just…holding herself with the confidence of a villainess was certainly a decision.

Huh, even the movie doing the “Medusa was a pretty woman” story…and even reference that she hates his dad instead of having a sweet spot like in the book…

What, is she just that persuasive? I think her snakes are venomous, so, like, she could do that instead of just…standing there saying “look me in the eye when you know I’m fucking Medusa.”

Percy with the iPod is…regrettably iconic.

Uma running is…regrettably memorable cuz it’s that bad rather than the iPod.

If Annabeth was able to get out with the arm broken off, she should’ve been able to get out with the arm attached, but I guess we can make Grover actually helpful.

“I don’t have the lightning bolt!” Except, since we cut Ares giving it to them in Colorado and put it in the damn shield…YES YOU DO!

Why is Medusa hitting on, supposedly, a teenager! Medusa is a ephebophile and needs to die for that much more than killing a woman who screamed too much.

That truck should be destroyed to hell and Percy should be dead.

No black man is giving up the hoodie under the jacket. That’s not happening.

Medusa is also bisexual if they found the pearl on her wrist like that so she could leave Persephone’s Garden whenever she wanted/needed.

Yay. Everyone hates country music.

I’m glad they have money for a 2 bed motel.

Wow. I’m so glad Percy can heal others with water like he’s frickin Katara.

“It’s a recent thing that Zeus said Fuck Them Kids. Like, 15 years recent.” Yeah, that’s not…that’s not why the gods are deadbeats.

Grover, not so loud. You wanna tell the entire motel ppl that we’re here?

Everyone remembered this scene from the movie and the tourist in the book and decided that’s why the show was bad in waiting until St Louis, like in the book, to say Percy was a fugitive of the law. Instead of, just…a troubled kid with a dead mom.

“That’s what I’m talking about, Gabe always running his mouth.” You met Gabe for 2 seconds at the apartment. You are talking about nothing. Gabe is always nothing with you. You know nothing. Shut up.

Boy, I’m so glad they slept so they could drive again instead of sleeping in the car, being awake at the motel, and driving all night to be awake in the day. Ugh.

The Athena Parthenos is not allowed to be there cuz we gotta find it in HoO. That’s also not how it looks in Nashville so, like, that’s gotta be the real Parthenos.

People check the bathrooms and would’ve escorted you out.

Annabeth is a racist who goes to kill the black guy first.

SINCE WHEN DOES SHE HAVE A CROSSBOW?! Since how does she know how to use a crossbow? Since why does she have a crossbow?

Surprised they’re not making a sex joke about groping Athena’s tits or something.

But…why would the hydra want a bolt of lightning? It wouldn’t even be able to use it.

Also, everyone’s seen Disney’s Hercules, and Winter Soldier is coming out in a few years. Grover also should’ve known that that was bad.

AND NOW SHE HAS A BOW AND FULL QUIVER OF ARROWS!

That’s a lot of water for a single water fountain.

Boy. I’m so glad they’re carrying Medusa’s head around instead of sending it to Olympus to get their parents to say “we see you, sweeties! We hate it, but we see you!”

And again, Grover saves the day and Annabeth only makes it worse.

“Several Continents” …you named 2, so it would be over those two continents. Also…how big is it? Is it as big as a mountain range? EQUAL to Europe and straddling the two continents?! ALL OF EUROPE AND ASIA?! Cause, honestly, it’d be weird, but a stormfront covering half of Europe/part of Asia at the same time wouldn’t be impossible. Storms be big. Europe be small.

I will say, points for the show to make it a real casino instead of an amusement park like in the book, cuz…that’s not really how casinos work. Like, they can have a really great secondary, non-casino part, but…a theme park like here in the movie and focusing on the arcade and making it massive like the book is…weird.

I’m gonna need Grover to be a little less horny.

That’s a lot of people for three teens. Instead of it being enticing, it’s forcing. Which…is not how the Lotus Eaters work.

The kids have never done drugs before cuz even the ones that make you happy don’t make you THAT kind of happy.

Honestly, still a great part of the movie, with Grover tearing it up. Get it, Goat Boy.

Percy, stop getting high. This is not part of the drugs, I swear. Percy. I AM YOUR FATHER, wait, Disney doesn’t own both properties yet.

Honestly, I’m expecting the lotus servers to ring security with how insistent they are. Like, damn.

Grover was about to have an orgy, cuz like, ugh!

“I can drive from Vegas to LA in 3 to 4 hours.” NOT WHEN YOU HIT TRAFFIC BITCH! And you will.

The sky doesn’t look like a massive storm cloud, it looks like really bad pollution.

Is Annabeth allowed to do anything? She didn’t read the sign. She didn’t help in Medusa. She BARELY DID ANYTHING in Nashville (not that she did much other than have a personality in St. Louis.) She was the same level of helpful in the Lotus Casino. Annabeth, why are you HERE?!

Grover, why are you asking Percy what anything about Greek Myth is? Again, Annabeth is the smart one!

Percy just gonna casually stab Charon and think he’s going anywhere? This is the Land of the Dead, boy! He cannot die! If he does, it just means a bigger back up in the waiting room.

I love that Death plays Charon. He’s such a good actor.

“We’re in a recession!” When are we not? Fucking American economy.

You know what, the Underworld green screen actually looks impressive. It’s well done.

“All lives end in suffering and tragedy.” This is not Hell. This is Hades. So where are the Fields of Asphodel? Where’s Elysium? It’s more than just the Fields of Torment! Tartarus is UNDER Hades. That’s not all Hades is.

Probably a super cute puppy! Nope, just 2 Hellhounds. But Mrs. O’Leary is so nice!

Persephone trying to hit on Grover is…I’m so done. Why Grover’s new personality gotta be horn dog?

I actually don’t hate Hades looking like an aging rocker look. It’s weird, but it’s at least a look. Unlike Zeus and Poseidon in the first scene with 0 style.

WHY IS PERSEPHONE SO HORNY FOR GOAT?!

“I was banished here by Zeus and Poseidon.” No, just Zeus. And you didn’t hate it. I mean, you hate it cuz it’s constant work, but you do a good job and would hate ruling the sea or sky.

Hades asking the real questions here.

Why is Hades backing out of the deal? Didn’t they see Disney’s Hercules?

“The only time I look forward to is my allotted time away from this hellhole.” You mean summer? Like, right now? Cuz you supposed to be top side, honey.

“Guys, it’s gotta be me, cuz I’m your protector…and also gonna bone a goddess.” I don’t hate him as Grover. I hate the writers for Grover.

How does Sally know where the entrance is, but still can’t get through? Also, another woman running up behind Percy or Annabeth shouting her lines annoyingly. Yay.

Wow, you’re really just gonna say that, huh.

“I was planning on giving the bolt to Hades the whole time.” Cuz fuck Kronos who we DID ESTABLISH VERY EARLY IN THE MOVIE!

This should be a much more intense fight between Annabeth and Luke knowing their history. But…it’s more of a Clarisse vs Luke fight cuz it’s weirdly choreographed and no dialogue to suggest they know each other.

“Why do you want a war with the gods?” Cuz fuck ‘em. “Control.” I…♪Everybody wants to rule the world♪ BUT LIKE! HE’S ALREADY APPARENTLY CAMP LEADER! HE’S ALREADY GOT CONTROL! WHAT WOULD BECOMING A GOD DO????

MISS! MISS! MISS! COME ON IT’S ULTIMATE POWER AND YOU MISSED 3X IN A ROW! MISS! HOW CAN YOU MISS? HE IS 3 FEET IN FRONT OF YOU!

Percy still should not be flying, but we need the battle to be more epic cuz Percy vs Ares isn’t cool enough and a sudden reveal is too subtle and intense. This final battle misses so many marks.

HE IS FLYING THROUGH A METAL BUILDING AND HE MISSED COMPLETELY! Luke is a terrible shot and just sucks. But apparently can throw a dagger at high speeds at a moving target, so he can aim, he just sucks when plot needs them to.

And there’s the movie poster.

And Luke should’ve been electrocuted, drowned, and died. He should not be alive. But then that would imply Percy is okay with killing people. Cuz Medusa clearly doesn’t count.

And another invisible wall. If she shouldn’t have been able to get to out, she honestly shouldn’t have been able to get on the elevator in the first place.

Look at Hogwarts, I mean, Olympus.

Party City called, they want $50 per costume.

“I have no connection to Poseidon.” I…clearly you do cuz you trusted him enough to help you get out of the Lotus Casino.

This Hermes looks like a loser and deserves Luke’s hate. Nathan Fillion Hermes is Nathan Fillion and still deserves Luke’s hate.

Zeus does not have power to bring back someone from the Underworld. That is not his jurisdiction! The gods can have overlap, 2 gods of war stuff kinda deal, but not fully take control of something that is their domain. Ares has fire eyes, but he cannot control the fire of the hearth. Hephestus and Apollo both make things, but the sun and the fire of a forge are NOT THE SAME!

AND THAT IS THE DUMBEST THING EVER! THAT IMMORTALS CAN BECOME MORTAL JUST BY LOVING TOO MUCH?! LIKE?! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!

Tiny baby horns means First Class Protector…that’s not how horns work! Zeus cannot grant a satyr the ability to grow the thing that he’s supposed to grown naturally and say it’s a promotion.

I’m so glad you left the camp where I’m training people to hopefully not die because I clearly don’t care about your safety.

Can Annabeth PLEASE fight with her hair up. “But it makes her look cool and effeminate.” It also means she won’t be able to se when it flies in her face. Like there. And there. And just know.“I kicked him out” she said. And yet, she just keeps the fridge with Medusa’s head and sees no problem with that? Had no plans on killing him with it, just decided that was going to be a better roommate than Gabe? I mean, I guess this Medusa knows how to go down on a woman, but her head is kinda limp and gross.

[americancowgirl19]

Leave a Message

Summary: No matter how many times they call, all they get is the answering machine.

Warnings: angst, cursing, fluff, dates might not be correct (deal with it)

Reader: Sister Winchester Reader

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Sister!reader, Sam Winchester x Sister!reader, John Winchester x Daughter!reader, slight Bobby Singer x Daughter!reader

Word Count: 3,481

A/n: Y/n/n = Your nickname Y/d/n = Your daughters name

Masterlist

December 19th, 1996 - 9:17 am

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Hey, Y/n/n, it’s Dean. Where are you? Dad won’t tell Sammy and I anything. You’ve been gone for two days. Please, just tell me you’re safe. Call me back,”

March 5th, 1997 - 1:32 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“It’s Sam... You’ve been gone a long time... Dad won’t talk about you anymore, he gets mad when we bring you up. He won’t let us look for you but don’t worry, Dean still does and I help him where I can. I don’t know where you are but we’ll find you. We’ll bring you back. Love you,”

October 31st, 1997 - 8:49 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“...It’s Halloween... Remember when you would make Sammy dress up in some stupid costume and take him out trick or treating for a little bit? Dad would always get mad but you had this way of just lightening him up. I swear we would gain so much weight eating Sammy’s candy when he went to bed *small chuckle*… You’ve been gone for almost a year and I’m no closer to finding you than when I started... I’m not gonna give up though. I know you’re out there even if Dad won’t say anything. I just hope that wherever you are... you’re safe. Please, call back,”

December 25th, 1997 - 10:23 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Merry Christmas, Y/n. I miss you... a lot. Dean says you’ll come back but I don’t know if I believe him anymore. We should have found you by now right? Dad should be helping us *aggravated sigh*… He’s been drinking a lot lately... I just want you to come back. Nothing’s been the same since you left. I don’t know where you are but I hope Dean finds you. We need you here. We Love you,”

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Merry Christmas, Y/n/n... Sammy demanded that I call you and tell you that... He thinks you’ll come back if we talk to you or something like that... I don’t know... I’m starting to think you’re not actually missing... I think you and dad fought and you left us. I don’t think you want to be found... *sigh*… I thought you were happy here, with us. I don’t know what dad said to make you leave but please just... come back... Sammy needs you. I... *heavy sigh*… Come back,”

February 10th, 1998 - 2:30 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Hey, Y/n. Nothing has really changed in the last couple of months. Dad’s wanting to take me on more hunts but Dean’s holding him off. I know I’m ready to take on more of the big stuff. I just have to prove to Dean that I’m ready, that I can handle myself. You should come back and help me convince Dean I’m not a little kid anymore...You should come back... Love you”

June 1st, 1998 - 11:41 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Sammy got hurt today... We were hunting and... I don’t even know what happened. One second he was behind me and then we were separated and then he was hurt. Dad got pissed. Dad told me Sammy wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you were looking after him... I know he’s right... You were always better at looking after him than I was... Hell, you’re better at looking after me than I am... I don’t know how much longer we can keep going on without you. We’re falling apart here. Dad’s either hunting or emptying a liquor store. I’m trying to look after him and Sammy but... I can’t do this alone. I don’t know why you left or if you’re even- fuck... if you’re even getting these messages...”

October 31st, 1998 - 9:02 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Happy Halloween... Dean said I shouldn’t call... That you wouldn’t answer. That you’re probably not even listening to the messages... That might be true but still... You’re my sister and I miss you.”

December 25th, 1998 - 12:13 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Merry Christmas from Dean and I...”

December 17th, 1999 - 4:55 am

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“It’s been three years, Y/n... God, it’s been three years... I miss you like hell...Damn, I just... I just miss you”

December 17th, 2000 - 7:00 am

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Hey, it’s Dean. Just checking in... Everything’s fine on our end. Dad and Sammy are both doing good. It’s been four years and... I guess we’re just now figuring out how to work without you *small laugh, sniffle*… Sammy’s doing good in school. I can finally drink *laugh* legally that is. I know you’re getting these messages cause Sammy and I have left a shit ton and the box isn’t full yet. That means that you’re deleting them. I guess on the bright side that means you’re alive... I don’t know whether to be happy or pissed... I guess a little bit of both... I miss you. Sammy misses you. Hell, even dad misses you even if he doesn’t say anything. I hope you’re listening to these and not just deleting them... I guess it makes me feel better to think you actually listen... Guess it means a small part of you still cares enough to at least listen to me ramble on... *sigh*… I want you to know... You can come back. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been gone, you can still come back. I want you to come back. Hell, I’d be happy for a damn phone call or even a fucking text! Something!... Just give me something...”

December 17th, 2001 - 6:26 am

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Hey, it’s Dean. *Large sigh* I’m just... Just checking in... God, I wish you were here... More than anything... God, I need you. Text me where you are and I promise I will drop everything to come pick you up. Hell, I won’t even ask a damn question. Sammy and Dad have been going at it... It seems like it never ends. I can feel him pulling away. I know Sammy wants to leave and if Dad doesn’t lay off we’re gonna lose him just like... Just like we lost you... I can’t lose him.. I lost... I-I lost you an-and now *throat clearing*… If you come back then you can fix everything like you always could. You know, like, you could just... you can fix us... You can calm Sam down and make him stay... You can get dad to relax... I can’t keep this family together, they’re slipping through my fingers. Please, come back...”

July 8th, 2002 - 4:09 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“...Sammy’s gone... *slow sigh*… *sniffle*… I-... *quiet sob*…”

September 28th, 2006 - 6:37 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Hello, this is Stacey with the - hospital. I’m calling for a Y/n Winchester. I have news about the passing of a John Winchester...”

May 1st, 2008 - 11:59 pm

“Hey, this is Y/n. Leave a message,”

“Uh... Hey, it’s uh... It’s Sammy - err - Sam. *Throat clearing* It’s been a long time since I called... Dean didn’t want me calling and I didn’t think I would have too but I can’t put this off anymore... Dean made a deal with a demon... His contract is up in a couple of weeks. I’m doing everything I can to get him out but... *shaky sigh*… I don’t know if... It would be nice if... If we could just see you. Leave the past behind us, ya know?... I doubt you’ll respond but I just... I had to let you know...”

Sam sigh’s hanging up the phone. It fidgets with the device in his hand, hunched over his knees. He could feel his heart dropping in disappointment. Even though he knew you wouldn’t answer there was still a small part that just... hoped.

He turns his head when he sees something moving in the corner of his eye. Dean leans against the doorway with his arms crossed. Sam looks into his eyes.

Neither of them have to say anything. They just understand.

It killed Dean that no matter what they said to you over the phone, you never called back. You never sent a text. You sure as hell never showed up. You simply dropped off the face of the Earth 10 years ago. No matter how hard they looked, they couldn’t find a trace of you.

You were always the best. You were the best hunter, being the eldest of the three. You were the best ‘parent’, being the unofficial mother figure. You somehow managed being both mother and sister. It’s what made your disappearance so hard. The boys weren’t just losing a sister.

Despite the fact that they couldn’t track you, you could track them. In fact, you had been doing your best to keep your eye on them. You’re father had demanded that you leave, never come back, and never contact them. You tried your best but you loved your brothers, you had to make sure they were ok.

However, they’re Winchesters. Keeping tabs on them wasn’t always easy. There would be months where they would be the ones that fell off the face of the Earth before suddenly reappearing somewhere. 

You listened to every single voice mail they left. You would cry your eyes out every time. You couldn’t put into words the pain you felt when you heard their voices begging you to come back. You always looked forward to their calls but it never failed to send you into an anxious depressive mess for weeks, sometimes longer, afterward.

It didn’t matter though, you had to keep moving. You had to keep living. It’s not just you who you have to worry about. 

In a couple of months your daughter would be turning 10. Y/d/n Winchester. The father disappeared a couple hours after conception. You had tried to track him down but it wasn’t your main priority. 

Telling your father was extremely hard but him forcing you to leave was the hardest. He wouldn’t let you say goodbye to your brothers. He just told you to pack your bag and get in the Impala while the boys were asleep. He bought you a bus ticket to the furthest place that the bus went too and told you to stay away from the life.

He knew if you talked to your brothers you would be pulled back in. If you were pulled back in, your daughter would be caught in the supernatural mess. John knew a war would be coming and a little baby shouldn’t be in the middle.

As much as you love your brothers, your priority is your daughter. You loved her from the moment you found out she was in your stomach. You had to protect her, no matter what. It didn’t matter what happened to you, your daughter was going to live a happy life.

You always dreamed of a day where you could introduce your daughter to her grandpa and uncles. You dreamed of different scenarios. You prayed they would come true.

When you learned of your father’s death you wanted to cave that instant. You wanted to pack your things, pick your daughter up from school, and go to Bobby’s. You knew the boys would be there. They could cover their tracks but sometimes they were just down right predictable. 

But then you remembered how he died. The nurses had explained the weird things going on and you got the security footage. You watched Dean teeter between the living and the dead before miraculously recovering. Not long later, your father dies. You were able to put two and two together.

Watching the footage would be the first time you saw Sam and Dean since you were a teenager. You didn’t think it would be possible for them to be so tall. The longing for your brothers amplified but they were in deep shit with demons. That isn’t the life you could bring to your doorstep. That isn’t the danger you could bring to your daughter.

However, when you got Sam’s call your world stopped. Hearing that Dean would be dead in a few weeks, dragged to hell by those damn hounds, made you fall to your knees. Hearing about your father’s death, hell seeing it on camera, was one thing. But to lose your brother is something you never wanted to go through.

Sure, you haven’t talked to him but you knew he was alive. You knew he was still kicking ass and taking names. But now you knew he was going to die and there wasn’t a damn thing you could to about it.

But you could do one thing.

“Where are we mom?” Your daughter asks in the back seat as you pull up to a motel. You don’t answer her. Your eyes are glued on the sleek, black Impala. Suddenly you’re 19 again being dropped off at the bus station by your dad who’s telling you to never come back again. “Mom?” You shake the thoughts out of your head. “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” You whisper.

You were not fine. Your anxiety is so high that someone would need an oxygen take to climb to the top. Your nerves are shaking your hands. You couldn’t sit still. You felt as if you were on the verge of a panic attack. You managed to keep yourself together not wanting to have such an attack in front of your daughter.

“Sam,” You whisper. You’re youngest brother walks to the Impala, not sparing your car a glance. You watch him open the truck and rummage through it.

“That’s Uncle Sam?” Your daughter asks. Your daughter knew almost everything about your family. She had an idea about the supernatural but not a lot.

“Yeah,” You whisper.

“When was the last time you talked to him?” 

“Too long,” You respond. Sam closes the trunk and begins to walk away. “Stay here,” You say sternly. “I’ll come back for you,”

“Ok,” Your daughter barely answers before you’re out the car following your brother. You were so nervous about the fact that you were about to approach your brother for the first time in a decade that you had forgot one thing. He’s a Winchester.

Sam rounded the corner and you quickly followed. What you weren’t expecting was for him to grab you and slam you against the wall with his forearm digging into your throat.

“Who are you?” He snapped.

“Damn, Sammy,” You choked. Sam frowns his eyebrows and you give him the best Winchester smirk you could muster. “What? Don’t recognize your own sister?” You joke nervously. Sam frowns his eyebrows even more as he takes in your features. “You were the one who called me...” Sam eases back a bit but isn’t completely sure if he trusts you. “Unless you plan on cutting me with some silver or splashing me with some holy water, mind stepping back?” You grab your brothers arm and pull it to the side allowing you to slip away from the wall.

“Y/n?” Sam whispers.

“The one and only,” You wink at him.

“You’re actually here?” Sam asks. You nod.

“I heard that Dean’s in a tough spot,” Sam ignores your comment. “Thought I’d come see you assholes,” The edge of Sam’s lip raises a bit.

“Mom?” Your head snaps to your daughter. Sam slowly follows your gaze.

“I told you to stay in the car,” You growled. 

“I wanted to meet Uncle Sam,” She says walking up cautiously. You sighed and motioned for her to come.

“Uncle Sam?” Sam whispers frowning his eyebrows.

“Sammy, this is Y/d/n,” You introduce glancing at your brother. “My ten year old daughter,” Sam meets your gaze and you can practically see the wheels turning in his head.

“Ten?” 

You slowly nod your head.

“Well, technically not yet but I will be,” She says running a hand through her hair. “It’s nice to meet you,” Y/d/n says holding out her hand. Sam looks down at her and instantly begins to notice the resemblance. He slowly begins to smile and shakes her hand.

“I’m going to assume Dean is with you,” Sam looks back to you.

“And Bobby,” You smile at the mention of his name. “Come on, they’d love to see you,” 

“I’m not sure if love is the right word but they sure as hell will be shocked,” You say following after him. Sam grins a bit but doesn’t comment. “Y/d/n, I want you to stay behind me or by Sam, alright? I don’t know how Uncle Dean and Grandpa Bobby are going to react but don’t be scared. If it gets too much, step outside, alright?”

“Ok,” Y/d/n nods. You smile kissing the top of her head. Sam glances back at you and his niece. A fond smile coming to his lips.

“We’re in here,” Sam mutters opening the door. Dean doesn’t even glance up but Bobby does. The instant Bobby sees you he drops the beer he was holding.

“What the hell, Bobby?” Dean snips when some of it splashes on him.

“Use your eyes and look, boy,” Bobby snapped back. Dean looks at Bobby and then to you. You notice Dean pale.

“Hi, boys,” You whisper.

“What’re you doing here?” Dean asks, after a long silence.

“I came to see you Dean,” You tell him. Dean scoffs.

“What do you want?” He rephrases his words.

“Nothing,” You shake your head. “Sam called-”

“We both called,” Dean snapped. “Hundred of times we called,” You press your lips together. “Did you even listen to them?” He asks standing up.

“Every one of them,” You whisper.

“And you never thought to call back?” He growls stepping closer to you. “What about the time Sammy begged you to come back? What about when I begged? When I told you we needed you? Where the hell have you been?”

“Taking care of me,” Y/d/n speaks up. Dean’s head snaps over to her. You look at her as well. She looks nervous but you smile proudly as she puts on a brave face and walks up to Dean. She looked scared but she didn’t waver as she stopped in front of your angry brother. “I’m Y/d/n... and I’m ten... almost,” 

Dean stares at her, his mind processing everything. He slowly looks from her, to you, back to her. She shifts a bit but continues to look strong.

“It’s my fault she had to leave,” She continues.

“Baby-” You try to interrupt but she wont let you.

“I don’t know the whole story but I know she misses you and Uncle Sammy and Grandpa John and Grandpa Bobby a lot,” You glance at Bobby. The old geezer has tears in his eyes as she says ‘Grandpa Bobby’. “She told me all about the pranks you would pull together and how you would all look after each other. She would tell me stories every night. She wanted to go back to you but she wouldn’t because of me...” She whispers.

“Y/d/n, we talked about this,” You say, slowly turning your daughter to face you. “None of this is your fault, ok? I love you and I don’t blame you a bit because it’s not your fault. Yes, I missed my brothers and your grandpas but I love you so much that I would stay away. There’s so much you don’t know still and I’ll tell you when you get a little older but-”

“It was safer for you two to stay away,” Dean whispers. You glance at your brother. He’s staring at you. “She just wanted to protect you, she did what she had to do. She was always good at doing the right thing,” You smile a bit.

“There’s a few things I could have done differently,” You shrugged.

“A text would have been nice,” Sam muttered and you smiles a bit.

“How about letters?” You ask. Y/d/n pulls a large stack of letters out of her bag. “They’re addressed to all of you,” You say tearing up. “There’s some for dad too but...” You sniffle a bit.

“You’re here,” Dean whispers, disbelief clouding his eyes. You glance at him. For a moment you’re looking at teenage Dean.

“And I’m safe,” You smile a bit. Dean’s smile widens just a bit. “I just have to figure out a way to keep you safe... Can’t leave you boys alone for a second,” You tease tearfully. Dean smiles and pulls you into a tight hug. Sam comes up to you as well and you wrap your arms around your little, yet taller, brothers. “I love you both so much,” You whisper.

@akshi8278​

[puckrph]

FOLIE A DEUX SENTENCE STARTERS

taken from fall out boy's 2008 album. feel free to change pronouns, etc! TW FOR DRUG USE, MENTIONS OF SUICIDE.

DISLOYAL ORDER OF WATER BUFFALOES

' i'm coming apart at the seams. ' ' i'm pitching myself for leads in other people's dreams. ' ' there's a hole where something was. ' ' you'll never remember, your head is far too blurry. ' ' he needs his head put through a CAT scan. ' ' i'm a loose bolt of a complete machine. ' ' what a match: i'm half-doomed, and you're semi-sweet. ' ' boycott love. ' ' detox just to retox. ' ' i'd promise you anything for another shot at life. ' ' perfect boy with your perfect life: nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy. ' ' you've got me staring odd. '

I DON'T CARE

' say my name and his in the same breath: i dare you to say they taste the same. ' ' these friends, they don't love you! ' ' they don't love you. they just love the hotel suites. ' ' i don't care what you think, as long as it's about me. ' ' the best of us can find happiness in misery. ' ' let your body get a tolerance. ' ' free love on the streets, but in the alley it ain't that cheap. '

SHE'S MY WINONA

' life's just a pace-car on death, only less diligent, and when the two collide it's no coincidence. ' ' the lights are on. ' ' everybody's home. ' ' we had a good run, even i have to admit that. ' ' hell or glory: i don't want anything in between. ' ' you gotta show the world the thunder. ' ' we didn't come to compete. ' ' even the young ones become irrelevant. ' ' they always bring up how you've changed. ' ' i'm never the same person when i go to sleep as when i wake up. '

AMERICA'S SUITEHEARTS

' you could have knocked me out with a feather. ' ' we're just hell's neighbors. ' ' why won't the world revolve around me? ' ' in my dreams, trees grow all over the streets. ' ' i don't know much about classic cars, but i've got a lot of friends stuck on classic coke. ' ' i must confess: i'm in love with my own sins. ' ' you can bow and pretend that you don't know you're a legend. '

HEADFIRST SLIDE INTO COOPERSTOWN ON A BAD BET

' when you walk into a room, the walls lean in to listen. ' ' i've got a head like a steel trap. i wish i didn't. ' ' i don't just want to be a footnote in someone else's happiness. ' ' does your husband know the way that the sunshine gleams from your wedding band? ' ' i will never end up like him. ' ' i said "i will never end up like him," but behind my back, i already am. ' ' oh, darling, i know what you're going through. ' ' what if you peaked early? ' ' does he know the way i worship our love? '

THE (SHIPPED) GOLD STANDARD

' sometimes i want to quit this all and become an accountant. ' ' sometimes i want to quit this all and become an accountant, but i'm no good at math and besides, the dollar is down. ' ' i gotta feel the wind chill again before i get old. ' ' i want to scream "i love you" from the top of my lungs, but i'm afraid that someone else will hear me. ' ' i want to scream "i love you" from the top of my lungs. ' ' i'm afraid that someone else will hear me. ' ' you can only blame your problems on the world for so long. ' ' my dad caught me a horseshoe crab, and i asked him if throwing it back into the sea would bring our luck back. ' ' tell that boy i'll leave you alone; like a stove, i'll turn my love down. ' ' like a stove, i'll turn my love down. '

(COFFEE'S FOR CLOSERS)

' i can't explain a thing. ' ' i want everything to change and stay the same. ' ' time doesn't care about anyone or anything. ' ' oh, baby, when they made me they broke the mold. ' ' girls used to follow me around, then i got cold. ' ' i will never believe in anything again. ' ' though change will come, i will never believe in anything again. ' ' i'm a mascot for what you've become. ' ' i love the mayhem more than the love. '

WHAT A CATCH, DONNIE

' i've got troubled thoughts, and the self-esteem to match. ' ' you'll never catch us. ' ' just let me be. ' ' i still want you back. ' ' i'm the one who charmed the one who gave up on you. ' ' they say the captain goes down with the ship, so when the world ends, will god go down with it? ' ' where is your boy tonight? ' ' i hope he's a gentleman. ' ' this is they way they'd love if they knew how misery loved me. ' ' he tastes like you, only sweeter. '

27

' if home is where the heart is, then we're all just fucked. ' ' i want it so bad, i'd shoot the sunshine into my veins. ' ' i can't remember. ' ' i can't remember the good old days. ' ' my mind is a safe, and if i keep it, then we all get rich. ' ' my body is an orphanage: we take everyone in. ' ' i'm doing lines of dust and sweat off of last night's stage just to feel like you. ' ' you're a bottled star. ' ' are all the good times getting gone? ' ' i've got a lot of friends who are stars, but some are just black holes. '

TIFFANY BLEWS

' i'm not a crybaby. ' ' i'm not a crybaby. i'm the crybaby. ' ' i'm cocktail-party doing-alright. ' ' hate me, baby. ' ' maybe i'm a piece of art. ' ' my friends all lie and say they only want the best wishes for me. ' ' oh, baby, you're classic like a little black dress. ' ' you're a faded moon stuck on a little hot mess. ' ' you're like a little black dress, but you'll be faded soon. ' ' wish hard enough, i can turn it to what i like. ' ' your pupils are big. they're rolling like dice. ' ' i'm not the boy i was, and the boy i am is just venting. ' ' dear gravity, you held me down in this starless city. '

W.A.M.S.

' i'm a young one stuck in the thoughts of an old one's head. ' ' when all the others were just stirring awake, i was trying to trick myself to fall asleep again. ' ' my head's in heaven, my soles are in hell: let's meet in the purgatory of my hips and get well. ' ' you put my head in such a flurry. ' ' what makes you so special? ' ' i'm going to leave you. i'm going to teach you how we're all alone. ' ' it's your club, so let me in. ' ' how heartwarming it is inside your skin! ' ' if i don't take the medication, i won't sleep for days. ' ' if we pray to the lord, does he sing on a stage? ' ' i want to get stuck, and be golden in your memory. '

20 DOLLAR NOSE BLEED

' have you ever wanted to disappear? ' ' who will i be when i wake up next to a stranger? ' ' give me a pen, call me mr. benzedrine. ' ' don't let the doctor in. ' ' i wanna blow off steam. ' ' it feels like fourteen carats, but no clarity. ' ' the man who would be king goes to the desert, the same war his dad rehearsed, and came back with flags on coffins and said: "we won!" ' ' only one book really matters. the rest of the proof is on the television. ' ' it's not me, it's you. actually, it's the taxidermy of you and me. ' ' untie the balloons from around my neck, and ground me. ' ' i always thought i'd float away and never come back. ' ' you know me. i like being all alone. ' ' i like being all alone, and keeping you all alone. '

WEST COAST SMOKER

' this fight's fixed. ' ' don't feel bad for the suicidal cats: they've got to kill themselves nine times before they get it right. ' ' i'm a nervous wreck. ' ' the drugs just make me reset. ' ' knock once for the father, twice for the son, three time for the holy ghost. ' ' come on in, the water's warm. ' ' your eyes are blocking my starlight. ' ' i'm the last of my kind, and that's all that should matter to you. ' ' follow the disorganized religion of my head. ' ' we'll never get through customs. let's just take off again instead. ' ' i got my degree in the gutter and my heart broken in the dorms of the ivy league. '

[acklesforlife]

Happy Birthday Danneel Ackles!

It’s Danneel Ackles’ birthday, so we thought for our continuing celebration of Supernatural Spring Break week, this was a good time to both wish her a happy birthday and share the rather amusing story of one of our first times meeting her.

There have been a few memorable times since, including the party celebrating ‘Supernatural Day’ in Austin with Mayor Adler, which was just plain fun and an opportunity for some real conversation.

And I’ll be forever touched that Danneel wanted a copy of Family Don’t End With Blood (and how incredulous she was that Jensen actually had a chapter in it!) and that she has read our other books too.

The actual first time we met Danneel was a long time ago – at the after party following the premiere of indie movie Ten Inch Hero, which was at a club in LA back in, I think 2008. We all left the premiere and walked over to the club, invited by director David Mackay – the cast and the audience all together.

We had a lovely little chat with Danneel there about the film, met screenwriter Betsy Morris who’s still a friend today, and asked actor Matt Barr (now of Walker) to watch the rest room door while I in desperation used the men’s room because there was a huge line at the women’s. (He was lovely about it and it makes me laugh now every time I see him as Hoyt).

It was a momentous party, what can I say?  After that, my co-author Kathy and I interviewed David over a three hour brunch in Vancouver for the first book we were working on, and mentioned that we’d love to chat with Danneel  too. To be honest, we didn’t really think that would happen. But a few months later, while we were in LA for the Supernatural convention, we got a call from David.

I’ll let some excerpts from our second book, Fangasm! Supernatural Fangirls, take it from here…

… he let us know that Danneel Harris had actually agreed to an interview too. This prompted some hyperventilating and a rush of euphoria that left us grinning like fools. Jensen Ackles’s girlfriend was going to meet with us? Really? David had given Lynn’s cell phone number to Danneel so that she could call us tomorrow, the same day the boys came back to town. SWEET.

Given the pattern of the weekend so far—great things happening and then going horribly wrong—we should have known what was coming.

[On the Sunday of the convention, while everyone was in a fever pitch of excitement over Jared and Jensen being there] Lynn was obsessively checking her phone. “Noooo!!” she gasped. It was the plaintive moan of a beast in distress.

Kathy assumed that Lynn was passing a gallstone from the sound of it.

“No reception!” Lynn said, wide-eyed.

For Kathy, who hates phones (really, what doesn’t Kathy hate?) this didn’t seem like a big deal. The world really is too connected anyway. An hour out of cell phone reception seemed like a welcome respite, an opportunity just to enjoy the moment.

Lynn wasn’t as philosophical. “What if Danneel calls?”

Kathy honestly didn’t hold out much hope that this would actually happen—a yellow on the threat scale at most—so she wasn’t concerned.

Lynn was taking up her slack by flailing around, banging buttons on her phone as if somehow this would jolt it into action. “How can there be no cell phone reception in LA??”

Lynn had a point. We’re reasonably certain that there is cell phone reception in the Arctic Circle, but there was not a bar to be had in a hotel in LA. LA!! The town where everyone’s people are calling everyone else’s people, where iPhones are accessorized to coordinate with the day’s outfits, where a missed call can ruin a career. Jared and Jensen distracted Lynn for the duration of their time onstage, but as soon as it was over Lynn made a bee line for Jared’s girlfriend, Sandy (the woman sitting in front, wearing a hoodie so no one would recognize her—except Lynn apparently). Lynn wildly explained our dilemma to the stunned and probably scared actress. It was a good thing the Men With No Necks (MWNN) were only being paid to guard “the boys” or Lynn would have been face down on the carpet.

While Lynn was doing this, Kathy was pretending that she did not know Lynn.

Sandy was sympathetic, but didn’t know if she’d even see Danneel. Lynn thanked her for the sympathy and moved on to the next person who might be able to help. She attempted to enlist convention photographer Lizz, to no avail, and finally Creation owner Adam.

“I’ll try Lynn,” he said, sounding slightly exasperated. “But I’m kinda running an entire convention here.”

Thwarted again, Lynn pulled out all the stops. During her Jensen photo op, she stopped everything to explain the situation to Jensen himself.

“Hi, Jensen,” Lynn said, hoping that her voice wasn’t sounding too shaky. “We have an interview set up with Danneel today for the book we’re writing on fandom, and she’s supposed to call us, but I don’t have any reception on my phone, so I’m afraid she won’t be able to.”

The photo-op process screeched to a halt, and the room fell silent. Photo ops, you see, are not a place for conversation. They are highly valued by fans, who pay top dollar for the privilege of standing next to a celebrity, and they are relentlessly organized. The entire experience lasts about twenty seconds, and during that time you’re expected to say hello to the celebrity, smile, perhaps get an arm around your back or lean into said celebrity’s very firm bicep, and then move the hell out of the way and let the next person crowd in for the next picture. The photo ops allow no room for deviation. So when deviation happens, no one is very happy. The photographer wasn’t happy. The other fans weren’t happy. And the MWNN looked ready to move into swift and potentially lethal action.

Not that any of this stopped Lynn. “Can you put us in touch with her?” she continued, oblivious to the threatening stares all around her.

“Oh right, the interview,” Jensen said.

Lynn just nodded, though inside she was stuck on “OMG Jensen knows about our interview and our book, ohmygodohmygod.”

“Maybe she can email you,” Jensen continued. Then the conversation abruptly ended as Lynn was grabbed unceremoniously by the back of the neck and “escorted” from the photo-op room. Uh oh. She hadn’t experienced that feeling since being a two-year-old caught trying to get away with her baby brother’s coveted teddy bear. Lynn was most definitely in trouble—and even worse, she’d made no progress in getting in touch with Danneel, who didn’t even have our email address!

Lynn, ever the intrepid researcher, was not deterred. She thanked the Man with No Neck for his assistance and got right back in line for her next photo op, the “sandwich” photo (as in sandwiched between Jared and Jensen, which is vaguely dirty and thus very popular). As Lynn walked up, Jensen immediately tried to continue their conversation.

“So do you want to . . .” he began, while Jared looked confused. After all, the celebrities know the no talking rule as well as the fans.

Lynn held up a hand defensively. “Shh, I’m not talking to you. I totally got in trouble for it before,” she added, as the MWNN hovered threateningly.

Jensen laughed. “I got in trouble too,” he protested.

We doubt the MWNN were involved.

“Can Danneel get us her email?” Lynn managed as she was once again “encouraged” to leave the room as quickly as possible.

There was no time for an answer. Damn. Thwarted again. We were disappointed, but Lynn was relieved that she wasn’t escorted out of the entire con (the specter of the Flying Fangirl from Asylum still looms large at these events after all). We were still feeling like an interview with Danneel had been too good to be true anyway, so we tried to swallow our sadness and settled in to watch some of the other guests. Midway through the next panel, Lizz the photographer came out into the audience and passed us a note—from Danneel. It just said, “Send me an email, love danneel” and included her email address. Being a bit clueless about the popularity of smartphones in 2008, we figured this meant that she wanted us to get in touch with her later for an email interview. We were disappointed that we wouldn’t get to talk to her in person but incredibly excited that she’d given us her email address. We wandered back outside after the panel and tried not to be too miserable about the Danneel interview not happening that day. We were hanging out in the hallway chatting when photographer Lizz suddenly appeared and yanked us away in the middle of a sentence with an exasperated, “Come with me!” She led us down a small side hall.

We still weren’t entirely sure what was going on. Were we in trouble again? Had the MWNN decided to kick us out after all? Moments later, Danneel emerged from the side door, introducing herself with a smile. Somehow we managed to compose ourselves and smile back. Apparently Jensen had facilitated the interview after all! Danneel suggested that we all grab some coffee, so we headed upstairs to the hotel’s Starbucks, where Danneel insisted on treating.

Coffee in hand, we went back downstairs to start the interview. Danneel suggested that we go backstage to talk, and then came a weirdly symbolic moment. The very same Man with No Neck who had tossed Lynn unceremoniously out of the photo op for daring to speak to the talent now held back the curtain to the backstage area, solicitously helped Danneel and us step over the various wires and cables snaking across the floor, then closed the curtain behind us to seal our crossover. The irony wasn’t lost on us.

Kathy whipped out her trusty voice recorder just as she had done for every other interview we’ve conducted, turned it on, and . . . nothing. We were interviewing Jensen Ackles’s girlfriend and there was NOTHING. It wasn’t the batteries, which had been checked and rechecked. Kathy tried to maintain some semblance of professionalism. She would quietly figure out what was wrong and then she would just as quietly fix it. Deep breaths. Okay, the recorder was FULL. Not to worry. She excused herself, leaving a confused Lynn to entertain Danneel.

First the cell phone, now the voice recorder. Sunday turned out to be the day technology failed us. This, for Lynn, is an everyday occurrence. For Kathy not so much. She loves technology. She embraced the Internet years before it got pretty, she used a “portable” PC to write her doctoral dissertation (portability is of course a relative designation—relative to muscle mass and stamina), and she gets gleeful over the prospect of using every new toy her university has to offer. So yes, technology was her friend. Until it wasn’t.

While Kathy dashed upstairs to grab her laptop (wishing that she could grab a shot of tequila), Lynn attempted to keep up a conversation with Danneel without actually asking any of our carefully prepared interview questions. Without a recorder, there was no way she’d remember a damn thing that was said—so that left small talk as the only option. Luckily, Danneel and Lynn connected over their mutual love of writing, swapped college stories, and then Lynn (as always) managed to talk about her children. Danneel proved herself a great listener. Minutes went by—lots of them—and Lynn realized to her horror that Jensen and Jared were almost done with their autographs. After that, it was off to the airport—and we would lose our interviewee to her boyfriend as she left with Ackles. Where was Kathy???

Finally, shortly before Lynn had moved on to telling Danneel about her daughter’s first steps, Kathy returned and hurriedly tried to download everything onto the laptop while time quickly ran out. Come on!! All Kathy could focus on was how long it was taking for everything to download. That and the rising nausea that threatened to overtake her. Lynn, in desperation, started asking the interview questions (which, since they weren’t recorded, are lost to posterity—and to this book).

Suddenly Jared Padalecki walked by, meaning that autographs were over and people were getting ready to leave. We despaired of a recorded interview, heartbroken over the squandered opportunity. And then, quite unexpectedly, Jensen Ackles was standing there, smiling and saying hello. Even more improbably, he held a fluffy white dog in his arms. For a moment, Kathy was sure this was all part of the nightmare, because fandom at the time had no clue that Jensen even owned a dog. Icarus, however, was quite real—and quite fluffy. Icarus was almost as excited to see Jensen as we were—he’d apparently been whining backstage every time he heard his owner’s voice during the Q&A. We hugged Icarus while Jensen hugged Danneel and tried to talk her into riding with him to the airport. All Kathy heard in those words were that it was too late—she’d blown it.

Danneel, however, had other ideas. She blew Jensen off. No wait. This part can’t really be happening either. More of that dream? Kathy was contemplating poking herself with a sharp object, sticking her finger in a wall socket, anything to jar herself back into reality. This was surely just her own anxiety-ridden psyche toying with her. Must be. Who says goodbye to Jensen Ackles so that she can talk to US?? But Danneel really was excusing herself to say good-bye to Jensen, Icarus happily following, with assurances to us that she’d be right back to finish the interview. Kathy gathered together the few shreds of sanity she still had, sorted the problem, and figured out how to record directly onto the laptop.

Danneel returned, true to her word, and the interview finally began. We relocated to the “green room,” the cloistered room where the guests are confined between stage appearances. The green room, as we were well aware, is a private space—more or less a “No Fans Allowed” clubhouse for the celebrities. We immediately felt like imposters, occupying a space where we clearly shouldn’t be. The room offered a small banquet of food, a bit of which we gratefully sampled, and a table stacked full of fans’ gifts for “the boys.” The coolest of these was a hairdryer that looked exactly like Dean Winchester’s favorite gun—and yes, it actually worked!

Danneel, of course, was quite comfortable in the green room and turned out to be very good at making us comfortable as well. Lynn asked questions. Danneel answered. Kathy breathed. Everything was going to work out just fine. Somewhere the unicorns of fandom were neighing happily.

And then the laptop went dead.

Kathy again tried to be unobtrusive as she flailed around trying to find an outlet. No point in making a bigger fool of herself, right? Sooner or later, though, it became apparent that she was in need of assistance and everyone, including Danneel, was up and scouting for an outlet, crawling under tables and moving furniture to do so. Danneel, we decided, had the patience of a saint. She never lost her sense of humor either, shrugging off our apology for keeping her from accompanying Jensen to the airport by wryly noting that “Jared would have been in the limo anyway, it’s not like we could have made out on the way to the airport” and jumping up to knock on wood when we asked her about the possibility of marriage.

In the midst of all the sitcom mishaps we did manage to carry on an interview…

You can read the rest of our misadventures (and the interview itself) with Danneel in the book, but Kathy and I left that day with a respect and affection for Danneel that has never faded.

Jensen posted a photo of her plunging a clogged toilet today for her birthday, and I laughed because it makes it clear that she’s still as genuine as she was that day she got down on the floor and crawled around looking for an outlet right along with us.

I’ve had the opportunity to chat with Danneel several times since our hilarious interview, and I think most people who have run into her at the brewery would say this too – she’s not afraid to be real.

I’m so glad Danneel was able to be part of Supernatural as a cast member before it ended, but really she’s always been part of the SPN Family. Happy birthday, Danneel – thanks for keeping it real!

–Lynn

Source: [x]

[lazywriter7]

Cap-Ironman Rec Week - What-If Wednesday

It’s time to rec some Steve/Tony AUs for @cap-ironman​‘s What If Wednesday! If you loved these stories half as much as I did, please shower the authors with kudos and comments <3 

Underground by Margo_Kim:

Five years ago, Thor's Chitauri army decimated the Earth. Now what's left of humanity lives in bases under the Earth's surface, safe from the toxic atmosphere. Tony likes to think that humanity's adapted pretty well. After all, they have movie nights and dances; they're doing better than could be expected. But when he learns that the little world of safety and stability they've carved out is about to be slowly but surely destroyed, the New York Underground is left with only two options--fight or flight. Tony knows which one he wants. If only Steve weren't on the exact opposite side. Meanwhile, Natasha wants whatever option will save Clint, Pepper wants whatever option will save the base, Maria Hill wants whatever option will save everybody, and nobody's exactly sure who Loki's trying to save, but everyone's hoping it's more than just himself.

~ Apocalypse!AU. This fic reads like a movie, with all of the dramatic tension, an excellent ensemble cast, beautiful Steve/Tony moments and a breathtaking climax that’s everything you could ever want from a story like this. (With bonus phenomenal Loki moments, if that’s your kind of thing ;) )

ceaselessly into the past by shepherd:

Edge of Tomorrow/Live.Die.Repeat AU, following the movie. After earth is invaded by the Chitauri, Tony Stark is forcefully drafted into the military for a suicide mission. It ends up with him being inexplicably caught in a time loop that always seems to end with him dying horrifically. And, of course, the day was a Thursday- he had never gotten the hang of Thursdays.

~ Movie AUs/fusions are the Best Thing, especially if they’re half as well written as this one! I hadn’t watched the movie before reading the fic, and goddamn if it didn’t stun me with it’s excellent character-driven writing. Even after watching the movie, I can attest that none of it feels forced, but like Steve and Tony were meant to live, die and fall in love in this manner <3

Pulse and Beat series by sineala:

Cassino, Italy, December 1943. Special Agent Tony Stark, former Marvels adventurer, is sent to investigate a Cosmic Cube found by the Invaders -- and it's the perfect opportunity for him to rekindle his secret romance with Steve Rogers. But when Hydra attempts to steal the Cube, an inadvertent wish for help leads to the appearance of a Tony from the future of another world: Director Stark of SHIELD. This Tony is a man with a lot on his mind. He refuses to tell them anything about the future, but he seems to know much more than he should about Captain America. And something's happened that's clearly killing him inside, but he's not talking. When Director Stark's failed attempt to return home leads to the unexpected appearance of another visitor from his universe, all the lies come undone. Now there are two wars to fight, and the second one could ruin all of them.

~ If you’re thinking that no one needs to be told to read Sineala’s fics - well let me just say that this is one of my absolute favourite of their works and it hasn’t gotten nearly as much acclaim as it deserves! A fantastic canon-divergence Noir/616 crossover AU for the ages, with a sprinkling of 616 Civil War fix-it to really get you going.

strays by theappleppielifestyle:

Tony will take whatever he can get from Steve, which is pathetic, because he’s not even really friends with him.

Or, the highschool!AU where Pepper is Tony's much-needed therapist, Darcy is his parter in crime, Bruce needs to go through puberty, Clint shows up to school with bruises and Steve just wants everyone to get through this intact.

~ Highschool AUs are my secret Kryptonite - there’s just something about the emotional vulnerability of characters that age that get me sniffling. Again, no one needs to be told to read theappleppielifestyle‘s fics, but this is another one of those soft, sweet, poignant reads that deserves all of the attention in the world.

The Idiot Box by Margo_Kim:

Stephanie Rogers isn't happy to be in the 21st century, but she's even less thrilled to be on a team with Antonia Stark who seems as spoiled and self-centered as people come. She and Tony do their best to ignore each other, until their mutual insomnia causes them to bond over the new American pastime: late night television watching.

~ this author’s AU’s are just *chef’s kiss*. Featuring cis!female Steph and Tony, with some touching dynamics and laugh-out-loud moments, this is an MCU fic written pre-Avengers, which is a bit of a lovely rarity all by itself.

I’ve got you under my skin by sirona:

Five times Beijing 2008 Olympics Gold Medalist Tony Stark thinks it's going to be no more difficult a job to get ready for London 2012, than what he has just achieved. That is, of course, before Coach Fury comes to visit, and offers him a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a part of something much bigger than himself. Swimming AU. 

~ No AU reclist is complete without a Sports!AU :D The characters here read as authentic to their canon selves, even as they’re participating in competitive sports rather than beating up bad guys - Tony’s arc in particular is really heartwarming <3

Look here, look back, look ahead by marinarusalka:

September, 1941: Returning from a mission as Iron Man, Tony Stark crash-lands in the Carpathian Mountains and is rescued by Captain America. The two heroes team up to investigate Nazi activity at a mysterious castle. But Captain America is keeping secrets that could destroy their new partnership before it has a chance to begin.

~ Some lovely, lovely IM Noir canon divergence AU <3 It also comes bundled with identity porn, and Noir verse is just such a delightful verse to soak in that you all should really go read this at once.

And finally a self-rec or two-

Even Though We Know Love’s Landscape:

But at the core, he’s the same brand of poor little rich guy that dot the shadowed corners of every charity gala, every award function. Sure, maybe it comes in a ‘genius billionaire playboy philanthropist’ package… but his mettle is common iron. A drop of sea water, a dash of air, and he’d rust right through.

She, on the other hand, is made of better stuff.

In which Tony compares people to weird things, Steph recites poetry and two dorks fall in love.

~ AU with cis!female Steve, with all the team living in the Tower and a bunch of feels, fluff and poetry thrown in for good measure :D 

Swing City:

“Of all the places you could go to on holiday, you had to pick the one where everything can possibly kill you.”

“I’m here on exchange, actually.” Steve returned primly. "And I’m pretty sure nothing can kill me in a gallery.”

“That’s the tragic bit. You’re in a gallery.” Sam’s tone was impressively flat, even for him. “You’re in Australia. Go hiking in the bush with the poisonous snakes. Surfing with the murderous jellyfish.”

Spoiler alert: Tony's in Australia too. And he's a swing dancer.

~ Is this a kind-of college!AU+Dancer!AU set in Australia, with Steve still as Cap? Yes, yes it is. I had a rollicking good time writing it, plus all of Steve’s Man Out of Time feels, so you’ll get no apologies from this quarter :D

[lambourngb]

Nailing that Dynamic- Recs - Day 1

Day 1 for Creator’s Week, and I gotta say, this is my favorite fan event, mainly because it was the first one I participated last year. This little rec set is devoted to dynamics, divided into friendship, found family, and finally romantic (and yes, that’s Malex with me.)

We’ve had two seasons of this show, and while I can’t really relate to aliens or even the immigrant story, I do relate strongly to the stories behind friendship. I can say my appetite for fic with a good friendship dynamic will always be there.

Will You Be My Friend- Circle Yes or No (recs)

Finding You by @myrmidryad  (122,000) - If by chance the canon from high school bums you out, this is the story to read. Gin writing malex is always a ‘no-brainer I’m gonna read it story’ for me, but what really set this epic apart was how beautifully Gin writes the friendship dynamics between Michael & Liz, and Michael & Max. It’s a canon-divergent story with no-murder of Rosa or the shed scene, where in order to avoid enlistment, Alex disappears from Roswell and joins the Max & Liz road trip with Michael in tow. They just need to fill that gap between high school and the opening of the dorms at UNM so they can start a life together. And fill it they do with this road trip. There were moments where I sobbed with how badly Michael needed this in canon and didn’t get it. It also made me like Max, so, yeah. Great writing and characterizations here.

Hit the Road by @bestillmyslashyheart - (7,100) - One of the brightest spots for me in season two was Rosa Ortecho, and one of the most frustrating parts of season two was the fact we didn’t get any interaction between her and Alex. *screams* At least I had a few crumbs of Rosa & Maria (not nearly enough!) but still. Where there’s a glaring gap in canon, thank god there’s fanfic. Marlo treats us to a delightful story written post season 1, but had some surprisingly psychic lines about Malex, number one how they don’t think they are good for one another. I really enjoyed what this story says about leaving-  and honestly, the town of Roswell has so much pain tied to these characters, they should all take long road trips away from it.

a few drinks and some conversation by @christchex / @michaels-blackhat (5,600 ) - this one is set post-season 2, with all the complications of Michael deciding now wasn’t the right time for him and Alex, while also working on giving Maria the right space after their breakup.  I think it’s pretty clear that Michael needs a friend he’s not related to and someone he hasn’t slept with - to provide him so low-stakes genuine company outside of the alien bullshit and love triangle dynamics. Christi does this beautifully through the eyes of an OC and the number of times I’ve read this story is like 10, and also, it’s inspired my current story about Michael going on dates.

and headin’ out singing our song by @stars-and-sunshine (4,100) post season 2, Alex and Michael head off on a road trip (okay, this is a trope I apparently like since I’ve recced three stories now, hahaha) after Alex’s car breaks down. There’s a careful space in this story, of two men building a friendship again. The roadtrip details are beautiful, but what stayed with me is a scene in the museum. That summer of 2008 had some ghosts to address.

If I Follow You Home, Will You Keep Me? found-family dynamics

When You’re Gone by @bestillmyslashyheart (8,200) - Before I tell you why I love this story, I want everyone to follow the next link and read this story about email and messages and grief in the digital age [trigger for cancer death] chat history by Rebecca  Armendariz. (She also wrote a follow up called Timelines published by the Hairpin that talks about the memory function on facebook.) So back to the story, this is Rosa, opening her email 10 years after her death and reading the messages people sent her, thinking they were speaking into the void. Liz, Maria, Alex, Mimi and Arturo, all of them sending her notes, sometimes time passes without an email, then an event triggers that memory of Rosa not being there- and yeah, I found this whole thing to be so moving.

Never Ever Getting Rid of Me by @spaceskam - (4,400) this probably could have gone in the friendship side, but I feel like when you work in a high stakes place like a hospital, friends is a term that ends up being too light, and with the level of competition and stress it grows a bond like family... anyway, this is an AU where Michael and Kyle end up at the same hospital as competing interns but some elements of canon are still there.

still fixing all the cracks by @emma-arthur -  (3,400) this is a pre-canon story, set when Alex is 14. He’s still a soft child, being tortured by his dad, and soaking up the attention from Liz, Rosa and Arturo when he breaks a glass and spirals. Heavy discussion of child abuse and homophobic abuse, but a really good exploration of the canon-neglected Liz & Alex friendship, plus with that paternal Arturo Ortecho in the mix...

Ophiuchus by @planetsam - (11,600) the other bright side of season 2 was the reveal of Walt Sanders as being not only Michael’s boss, but someone who knew his mother, knew what he was, and silently looked out for him...now of course I wish he had been more overt in doing this, but fanfic once again has fixed this canon-oversight. This is an incredible look through Walt’s eyes as he gets in over his head adopting an alien child, especially one who already had issues from previous foster placements. I could read a million words in this verse.

The Michael Sanders AU by @prouvaireafterdark (17,000 ) And speaking of great AUs where Michael is raised by Walt, I would be really amiss in not mentioning this one. It’s got hot high school Malex moments, emotional/hurt comfort for both Michael’s past foster placements but also the shit Alex is living with at home. I have to say “Honey if You Stay” is my favorite, just because of how badly I wanted to hug teen Alex...

and finally, no found family rec list could be complete without mentioning the epic series To Raise a Child (117,000 in progress) by @haloud and @maeglinthebold - season 2 put some hits on my headspace and emotional reserves, not to mention 2020 nonsense, so I’m dreadfully behind in commenting on this story. It’s just a huge emotional bandaid for me right now- it takes the idea of “what if the adults in Roswell actually looked out for their children (and other peoples children) and protected them from shit” and what would that change. Michael was found at 7 and then runs away to Roswell at 10, so yeah, humans have already done their best to convince him the world sucks and only finding his siblings matters... Jim Valenti steps in, knowing what he is, and finds him a place in Roswell with Arturo Ortecho. Anyway, everyone gets a turn- Jim, Mimi, the kids, etc in the story, it’s well rounded and fleshed out. Obviously being a malex person my favorite parts are the kid-friendship/this-is-just-a-crush moments in second story, where if you hadn’t lost your heart to Michael Ortecho by then, well, you’re a goner after that story. 

I Could Build Your Heart A Home (malex recs)

time will lie down and be still by @islndgurl777 (29,600) the Practical Magic AU - which I loved but I have never seen the movie it’s based on lol... anyway, this story almost belonged up with my found family dynamic recs, because the story opens with Isobel and Michael being 7 and 8 years old alien siblings and left with Mimi Deluca to raise with her daughter Maria, because with their father recently dead, their mother would soon follow as a species level soulmate bond. Michael vows never to fall in love. Then there’s a beautiful friendship between Maria, Liz, Isobel and Michael as they grow up together that I just wanted to roll around in forever... However this is a Malex rec, so once Alex enters the story in high school and things go down similarly with Jesse, Michael is heartbroken, his soulmate (he thinks) is gone, vanished into the Air Force, and he spends the next 10 years helping Maria, going to school with Liz, and keeping in touch with Isobel. Until 2018 when Isobel finds out her perfect man was like them, an alien, and bad, and they are forced to cover up his murder. Then Alex comes to town. But the soulmate storyline is the winner here and I just re-read it again.

here everyone knows (you’re the way to my heart) by @adamsparirsh (19,700) So this story tackles a dynamic that think will be the death-knell to the Alex/Forrest relationship- the weight of the alien secret and Alex’s responsibility gland and what that looks like to someone who wants to be in a relationship with him. The exclusion. But outside of that- there’s this part of Alex that isn’t willing to let anyone in that isn’t already there, and that’s Michael. I’m fucking weak for stories where these two assholes can’t connect with anyone but each other, and this one hits it. There’s also so many lovely friendship dynamics between everyone showing up for Alex- like Rosa, Isobel, Max, Maria. Obviously this is a Malex-is-endgame story, even though it starts Alex/Forrest.

it’s a long road back to you by @magsthemagical  (17,000) This was an interesting, now AU take on what if Maria/Michael dated at the same time as Alex/Forrest, and honestly, I thought basted on the season two spoilers that was where we were heading. I was gobsmacked by 2x13. Anyway, here’s a story that discusses the tension that would happen if there had been simultaneous dating going on…the parts where Michael sees Alex being open with someone other than him were very raw and true to how I would think he would feel. For 10 years he wanted that and didn’t get it, and so of course the problem was probably him?? Anyway, I enjoyed this a lot, and again felt robbed that we are heading into a new triangle for season 3. 

untouched by @prouvaireafterdark (5,200) - okay, you know when you have an alien soulmate idea in your head and you want it to appear on the page, and then it does and it’s everything you wanted? That’s what happened to me when ‘Untouched’ appeared. Obviously it’s AU, but my reptile brain just loves the idea that Michael and Alex can’t get off with anyone else, and then that frustration builds into a sexy explosion... there’s also some communcation happening with these clowns. But seriously for 5,000 words, A LOT HAPPENS here and I loved every word.

Would you come home by @caitlesshea (1000) How great would have it been if season 2 had ended with Michael and Alex found a baby in a stasis pod instead of Beardy Jones? Like seriously, this short little fic healed so many of my wounds from season 2 that I couldn’t help but include it here. I would take 50,000 more words in this sadly AU take. 

Hoarding you by @foramomentonly (1200) okay, so the rain smell, like 2x04 was low key my favorite episode of RNM ever, especially with Alex throwing that flirty line “It’s smells like rain, that’s what you smell like under the grease and bourbon’ and this author takes that line, and fucking murders me with the idea that Alex can’t move on because of that smell. And Michael is now his, and finds out about it. This is my head canon, okay? No one can talk me out of it.

If you like any of these recs, please leave a comment on the story- a ‘this was awesome’ is enough to propell an author into the stratosphere with happiness, so don’t worry about coming up with a unique, never before shared insight- sometimes a keyboard smash and emogi makes all the difference!

[davidjjohnston3]

The trees are straight and true here, and the help comes without seeming harpoons.  I considered some insane things which were ‘above my pay-grade’ and as is my wont reflected on the state and implications of my former profession and what old friends and pharons meant to me.  Right now think that my core goal in life is not to blow myself up.  As a former would-have-been SecState said, ‘I love so many people.’  I am only sad that trying as I did to uproot that carrot of love just now could have resulted in the demolition of an entire root-network, of at least my own excision therefrom.

‘Some people’ want revenge against life for not going their way or not being the color or fragrance or face shape they like or feel it ought to be - ‘no that is not what I meant at all.’  They will never hold a life reliable which doesn’t resemble their ideal, imago, or ‘soul-idol’ &c.  The meaning of the name ‘Cordelia’ as in King Lear is something like ‘heart’s ideal.’  I was driving and considering a novel that I feel touched absolute supreme greatness without knowing it or in a way that could mislead some readers Mrs. Mary HK Choi’s Yolk a novel I looked forward for a very long time.  I had all these references and fractal coreferences and forgot about actual birds, like what does the chick eat in the egg.

‘Blood is the life’ - I liked etymologies for a long time and my intellectualism caused me acute trouble in Confirmation Class at Morrow Memorial United Methodist Church in about 1998.  ‘Pastor’ Gretchen taught us the word root ‘consacramentum’ which comes from dipping the hand in blood in the concave of a Roman shield - those huge rectangular shields which could be used in formation as ‘testudo’ or turtle to stop projectile weapons and allowed soldiers to make pin-point stabbing attacks from a ‘matrix(?)’ of high protection.  I forget what kind of animal was killed to pool the blood in the shield but it might have been a rabbit.

I was reading ‘Revelation,’ I don’t recall what everyone else was talking about.  Some kind of community service project, interview your parents, buy a wedding-magazine and make a whole plan for how you would get married and how much it would cost (and while you’re at it describe how you would 1) restore a classic Shelby Cobra using newspaper and Krazy Glue 2) drive foresaid drop-top to the Moon).  

The Pastor was a pipe-smoker named ‘Painter’ who used the NY Lotto’s ‘Hey you never know’ slogan to describe sth like Pascal’s Wager; OTOH St. Paul teaches us that everyone is born knowing God exists (Romans).  The problem is that people fail or omit to glorify Him or subsequently ruin or betray their own best efforts through blasphemy, turning or falling away, cowardice, denial, attachment to certain sins or being ‘yoked unequally’ with non-believers.  

I reflected starting in 2008 that I was shy of my ‘first love’ (rather, the woman I fell in love with at 14); at the time I gloried or reveled in the shyness like a Wallace Stevens poem that ends, ‘And not to have written a book.’  I could’ve written a few books by now or walked away from book-writing or changed my mind / specified which kind of book I might have written and for whom.  

I remember always admiring the ‘magic’ of literature and feeling sad I had no characters or world of my own to work magic with.  Star Wars and my own life and later much else supplied ‘materia poetica’ and till the point that I began to think in fiction and became addicted to interpreting my own in ‘story-ideas’ although that is not to say that what happened around me didn’t happen.  

America is trying to become a better country in numerous valences, loving our neighbors, holding each other accountable.  ‘Justice’ with or without the marks is important.  It is a divine Judgment that Covid fell on the world even if eventually we all shall learn who devised the virus or leaked it or modulated its mutations.  I was eager to rejoin the world feeling I might overcome my mental illness but I mishandled specific questions and tests.  I ended up turning people against me and creating monsters more than ever as well as perhaps terminally sabotaging any chance I might’ve had of fulfilling a dream or making good on the past.  I have a lot of opinions on the CCP but should’ve focused on love and family and personal responsibilities as in the past or at least held to my long-standing feeling that Chinese people deserve better rather than associating myself with hard-liners and racists or those who would simplify issues in order to bring about ultimate victory without temperance or concern for the side-effects.

In Milwaukee where I lived for far too long everyone’s spirit - electric, intellectual, visory(?), informational et cetera seemed to be militating against everybody else’s.  There were fake vaccines, radioactive ice cream (or thermogenic ice-cream), gun-battles as usual, lines crossed, all kinds of scores that people tried to settle.  I also realized that the police were probably tracking for years my various attempts to obtain weapons from samurai-swords to handguns though the purpose was defensive and I can only trust at this point that some good lawyer will prevent the bad lawyers and cops from presenting the most damning circumstantial case they could.  People in Milwaukee own AK-47′s, automatic shotguns, probably all kinds of explosives, improvised chemical weapons and (’our Black brothers’ - Schopenhauer) biological weapons - the cops don’t stand a chance that I can tell and even the National Guard perhaps could get outclassed by retired military.  I had told myself for years that it was only the ghetto’s that bore witness to this paramilitary equipage and that the retired SEAL Team 4 member with the ‘Stop Socialism’ and ‘Jobs Not Mobs’ sign on his front lawn would protect me from the Maoist-Covid Night of the Long Knives but I feel I tempted God a lot in the past.  

I read all these books and took to heart that people thought I was just entertaining myself with but now as then I should’ve guarded my heart or not begged the question of what others thought about me or saw in me.  I literally felt of late ‘I am the anti-Christ’ - good-looking at times, preach world peace, ‘form of godliness,’ want to be friends with everyone, build bridges - and had to rack my brains to come up with an ‘anti-Christology’ and science / concept of the Whore of Babylon just to make sure it was more than me alone.  I also wished to simplify my past and help kids ‘get life right the right time’ doing battle with philosophies that opposed this consciously or otherwise but stepped into numerous minefields and also tried running when I should’ve flown over.  

Everyone’s trying to get rich and build back better and I profoundly admired the American President for doing, finally, apparently, what presidents had tried to decades even as I remember ‘Flowers 1881′ a poem that implies that basically teachers can do only so much before turning their kids loose in a world no one has yet fixed and which others keep breaking; from a California almanac that also instructed me that the same old debates and cross-fires and burdens plague teachers as always, not that it is an ‘impossible profession’ but honestly that God won’t let us establish Heaven on Earth or at least not me or at least not America or at least not teachers who savor the experience of being a teacher or the beauty of their students more than the outcomes or commitment or intrinsic value of the work or the confirmed identity / vocation / personhood of the instructor.  There are always new and old at any rate and different cultures all describe the teacher as needing to keep both alive; as do descriptions of higher education and scholarship.  

I questioned my qualifications / background and wondered about re-training but can’t afford tuition anywhere so I am trying to cling to the core of my capabilities / blessings.  ABC and XYZ.  The glory of the soul or souls.  

I kept theorizing Russian literature as well as weapons-systems and ultimate destiny, sailing ships, noble names, divisions, the flaming sword of Archangel Gabriel, the mission of Russia today with respect to the world order.  I am also simply trying to be healthy and stop for a while trying to parse out who was the love of my life or what it still left in terms of action or redemption or justice or surrender or mitigation or meeting new friends or propounding the kind of understand with carefulness I have believed in - ‘saving people from themselves.’  Driving up here I remember being distressed at a gas-station in California when I was about 5 or 6 since the pump was leaking, being very upset with my parents and family.  In those days I also disliked animal-cruelty though the world today seems so depraved and deprived with respect to human interests I would make no bones about neglecting most all animals outside of military or police use.  When I was about 3 I saw white kids set a frog on fire; my mother has a history of running over cats.

I dislike winging it and taking risks.  There is a song I call to myself ‘Run Away’ though its title is ‘Paradise.’  I am not a utopian communist for believing in secular justice and its instrinsic value... I wonder whether when I helped people in the past there were always strings attached or maybe I was just trying to close my case and discharge my responsibilities too rapidly without allowing others to gestate or make an abode in my heart besides and beyond what I could get out of them, glorifying myself, or tell others about.  

What is motherhood?  What is travail?  Is there a kind of problematic ‘female gaze’ as feminists talk of a ‘male gaze’ associated with sadism or fascination / fetishism?  It’s psychology which is not my first love at all since it appeared pretentious and distracting and retarding (in the literal sense of slowing down).

I also remembered reading various things about Victor Hugo whose ‘93′ is an important novel today due to its techno-utopianism, feminism or ‘new model egalitarianism,’ fusion of revolution and religion, etc.  But I had forgotten ‘Les Miserable’ with its themes of ransom or eventual recompense, genealogies, caution, and more none of which is to negate the various complains against me or death-warrant from China or my parents with their partial private readings of Proverbs (’Let’s stone David for embarrassing us / not doing precisely what we want’ - no mention of witnesses, tribunals, questions, mitigation-hearings, actual counsels of judges etc. but just American-German ‘coalitions of the willing’ ‘run and get my gun’ ‘team-building’ etc. which in my experience ends with tanks on the street and military dictatorships as when at the end of the CultRev PLA regulars were gunning down former justice-fanatics who’d been stripping women, kicking pregnant stomachs etc. as in The Vagrants).  Naturally having grown up in a family fascinated with Lee Kwanyew and Arnold Schwarzenegger and conflicted about ‘fascism’ I had reservations about the United States’ ability to suddenly dress up and ‘stand at perpetual moral attention’ but I guess my own problems are just that I am poor with a rich kid’s mind and no one really likes me except strangers and faraway friends who were easily spooked and/or just couldn’t be there.  ‘King of South shall attack and King of North shall crush them  with chariots &c.’ - in the end righteous will prevail whichever side of the line I end up on in the final assessment.  I also remembered today a novel called ‘The Old Capital’ about a bad artist father, a virgin daughter, straight and true pines.  Some other aspects of this novel are silly as well as criminally problematic and there's a lot of that going on in new-old old news America / Babylon or at least to quote my favorite lawyer / leave lawyering movie 'First let's get out of Milwaukee.'  Miss the land of June snow. 

[uwmadarchives]

T.J. Braxton and “A Closer Look at UW-Madison’s Campus-Wide Diversity Initiatives”

On Monday, April 19th, please join the UW Archives Student Historians as they reflect on their research projects this year: "Black Artists at the UW-Madison" & “A Closer Look at UW-Madison’s Campus-Wide Diversity Initiatives.” Visit go.wisc.edu/archives for more info. Before the event, our social media assistant, Adrian, caught up with the historians to see how their research is going. Interviews were edited for clarity.

T.J. Braxton

My topic focuses on the three, broadest and most extensive diversity programs at the University of Wisconsin Madison, starting with the first one, which happened in 1988 and was called the Madison Plan. Then, Plan 2008 was started in 1999 and finally, starting in 2015, the university implemented the REEL Change Model.

When I first started doing this project, I wanted to study the African American Studies Department, but I found out pretty quickly that it has been researched to death and I wanted to contribute something new. When I was looking in these old boxes, I kept seeing something about Plan 2008. I didn't know what that was, but from what I could tell it was causing a lot of problems within the African American Studies Department and the other ethnic studies programs. So then I started looking into it and found out what it was and I thought, oh, that could be something interesting to think about. I wanted to compare these diversity initiatives to see how far we've really come and to see whether or not the university is changing its tactics or looking at diversity in a different light as time goes on.

At the beginning of my project, I expected that the university would have tried to paint itself in the most positive way possible. I was surprised by how much they're holding themselves accountable, and how they are willing to publish their shortcomings regarding diversity. But it also surprised me how much they're repeating the same language and tactics but expecting different outcomes. I think they need to be more creative with how they approach the subject of diversity. I also think they need to be a little bit more equitable with who they're targeting because they're always talking about different targeted groups, but it usually only comes down to African Americans, American Indians, and Chicano students. I wish they would look beyond race and talk about sexual orientation and things like that because I feel like we need to be as representative of the world as possible before trying to realize this Wisconsin Idea.

The Madison Plan came out amid a bunch of racist incidents at fraternities. A few months before it came out, there was a big blackface scandal. And then a year after it came out, there was another similar thing where a fraternity had a slave auction or something like that. There was an editorial written by a UW professor that said we cannot punish these students because we cannot violate their right to free speech under the First Amendment. It's interesting for me to see this and think if a professor could come out and say that, how does that make students of color feel? Does it make them feel like they're welcome on this campus and that they're valued?

I think the most interesting things I've looked at are newspaper articles from the Daily Cardinal and the Badger Herald from around the times when each plan was released and when students were collaborating with the administration on how these plans will be implemented. Some of the most interesting newspaper articles I found were editorials from students about how they felt the diversity initiatives were going. Honestly, it was very surprising, when the Madison Plan was coming to an end and when Plan 2008 began, how many students thought that there was reverse racism going on. Some students felt that ethnic studies classes were teaching them that America was anti-white and that if we created these spaces and resources for students of color (like the Multicultural Student Center) then white students were in turn being treated unfairly. I think it was just really interesting to see how many students actually thought that and to see the remnants of that today.

To learn more, I reached out to two people, one of who was a chairperson of the steering committee that published Plan 2008. She's a retired professor. I also reached out to the former Chief Diversity Officer of UW who was in charge when the REEL Model was created. I asked if they would be able to talk to me formally or informally and didn’t get a response. Both of them could be too busy or maybe they don't want to talk about it. But it's interesting that I have gotten no response whatsoever.

I think one of the problems with these initiatives is they're all very vague and massive and you don't really know what exactly they're trying to get at or how they envision diversity. Through my project, I'm looking at things that show that diversity goes deeper than numbers and things that can be seen and counted. It's more about creating an environment where students feel they're welcomed and that they can express their culture and themselves. But the university tends to neglect the campus climate side of diversity in these plans compared to tangible things like the number of instructors, students, or administrators of color on campus.

Campus climate is a much more complex idea and it's a lot harder to measure. We have campus climate surveys and diversity forums, but how much of that is for show and how much is actually being done to change things? Ever since the civil rights movement, a lot of prominent higher education institutions have tried to make it seem like racial justice, diversity, and inclusion are top priorities, when in reality that's just not the case. That's the reason why you see lots of faces of color on admission and recruitment catalogs and things like that, just because they want to make it seem like it's so diverse. It's almost like a superficial goal, rather than a profound one.

One thing I’ve found hopeful in my research is that the student body at Wisconsin has become a lot more progressive at least with the diversity initiatives. In Plan 2008, the students were very much involved in trying to push the UW Faculty Senate to focus more on intangible things and to get more money for the Multicultural Student Center, and add another ethnic studies requirement. So it may have helped make the plan more expansive and actually cater to students of color. It made me happy to see that at least. ASM (the Associated Students of Madison) was involved in that too. ASM was very much pushing for a Plan 2008 that was even more progressive than the one that was published sadly.

What I would hope people would gain from my project is a broader understanding of what it's like to be a person of color on campus from an administrative standpoint. Like, how is the administration trying to deal with me and how do they conceptualize my importance on campus? I also hope that they realized that the students and faculty of color are really the central actors in all of this.

At the end of my project, I am planning on thinking about what my suggestions are for addressing diversity on campus from the perspective of a student of color at a predominantly white University. This is my senior year, so I've been here for a while and I’ll just give my suggestions. I'm very proud to be a student here at UW and in no way is my research trying to disparage the experience I had at UW or to say that it wasn't an inclusive enough environment for me as a Black man because it very much was. I'm just saying there's work to be done. There're ways to make it better for everyone because there are people who don't have good experiences. So let's fix those problems.

[lanaisnotwool]

420 Living Your Life By Design as an Investor - Interview with Chase Maher

https://moneyripples.com/2020/09/08/420-living-your-life-by-design-as-an-investor-interview-with-chase-maher/

Today, Chris Miles talks with Chase Maher. He started real estate investing in 2008, which is the time that everyone was running away from it. Chase ran towards it instead and was born out of the fire.

Chase also does wholesale, house flipping, he is an entrepreneur, and he is an investor.

So today, what we want to know is how can someone like Chase Maher who is into all these businesses, still have a life outside of it as well? And that’s the important part.

Listen to our Podcast here:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/moneyripples/2020/07/24/420--living-your-life-by-design-as-an-investor--interview-with-chase-maher

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Chris Miles (00:07): Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles. Your Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor. Welcome you out for a wonderful show. Show that’s for you and about you. Those of you that work so stinking hard for your money, and you’re ready for your money to start working harder for you. Now! You want that freedom. That cash flow. That prosperity. Today! Not 30 or 40 bazillion years from now, but right now. So you can have that life that you love doing what you love being with those that you love. But guys, it’s not just be able to get out of the rat race yourself, right. And have that lifestyle that you dreamed of, which is definitely awesome. But it’s so much more than that because as a Rippler, you can create a Ripple effect in the lives of others. You can bless more lives when you are free. And so guys, I’m proud to be a part of this group. To be a Rippler with you because man, I love what you guys are up to. I love hearing about the good that you’re up to. The results you’re creating, but I love also the fact that you guys are bingeing and sharing the show too. So I appreciate that so much.

Chris Miles (01:03): As a quick reminder, check out our website, MoneyRipples.com. You’ve got the ebook on there, Beyond Rice and Beans. You can download for free today. And by the way, if you hate reading, don’t worry. It’s like 28 pages because I put page breaks and pictures in there. So you’re welcome. It’ll take you like 15 minutes, but check that out as well as the other blogs that are being uploaded as well.

Chris Miles (01:22): Alright! Today, I’ve got a special guest here. Chase Maher. Now, Chase, you know, interesting thing with him, is that not only he is a podcast host, which I definitely recommend you guys go check out his show, but the thing that’s so cool about Chase is that he’s a real estate investor doing the very things. And he was born at a fire. Like he started investing in 2008, when everybody was saying run, he was running towards the fire. Right? So, I mean, Chase started doing real estate investing. He does things with San Diego. In Tucson. And even out East as well. And so he does wholesaling, fixing, flipping. He’s an entrepreneur and investor all together wrapped in one. And that’s primarily why I wanted to bring him on here today because you know what, how is it that someone can actually have a business. Like what he does, but still have a lifestyle. Just like we talked about in the show, right? It’s not just about making a lot of money. It’s about having a life too. And that’s the main thing I want to talk about to Chase about today. So, Chase, welcome to our show!

Chase Maher (02:17): Chris man. Thanks for having me. I’m excited. Just had you on my show. So a little swap here, man, and you dropped a lot of value, so hopefully I can return the favor.

Chris Miles (02:26): I guarantee it, man. Like I can already tell just from our conversation, that’s going to be easy, you know.

Chase Maher (02:30): For sure.

Chris Miles (02:31): So give us some background, like what even led you down that path. I mean, of all the things you could have done, why would you want to go and be crazy Investing real estate when everybody else said run, right?

Chase Maher (02:40): Yeah. Well, you know, I wish I waited two years and started in 2010, but Hey, I started in 2008. I’ll tell you the story. It’s actually pretty good. So I’m 30 years old now. I live in San Diego. And I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia and I grew up in the car dealership. My parents owned a couple car dealerships. I grew up, I learned the sales, used to pick-up cigarette butts, then wash the cars. Then I went to the auctions and eventually just kind of ran the show, working full time through college. And I always had discipline with money. I always had that entrepreneurial mindset where, you know, my dad taught me, put it away, put it away. I started buying gold when I was like 14 years old and, I had that mindset, but I never knew anything about real estate. My parents weren’t real estate investors. And when I was 18 moving out of my freshmen dorm and I saw like a lot of my buddies were going to go kinda split a house rental near our college, old dominion university, shout out to the monarchs. And I was like, man, I got like 25 grand in the bank. Why don’t I just like take 20K of that and go buy a house?

Chase Maher (03:45): And so I called up a real estate agent that I knew and I went and bought a house and I had no idea what I was doing. I did not know that we needed to check the market. I didn’t know the world was on fire with mortgages. I bought it June, 2008 and I basically house hacked it with buddies before house hacking was even like a buzzword. I rented out each bedrooms, four bedroom house. I rented out each bedroom for 500 bucks. Rented out the garage for 600 bucks. Covered my mortgage. Covered all my utilities and all throughout college, I lived rent-free, but you know, by July or by June, 2009, the house lost like 35% in value. But Hey, it recovered. I still have it to this day. And it’s a really good cash flow machine for me. And you know, after a couple of years I said, why don’t I do it again? And again, and again, and fast forward to now I live in San Diego. I fix and flip. I wholesale. I do some Realty stuff here and there. And I’m still invested in properties.

Chris Miles (04:37): Well, yeah, I think the cool thing that you did, whether you knew it or not, is that you still focused on the cash flow part, right? That’s the mistake I made during the last recession. I was buying property. So I thought, well, man, like if I can buy a hundred thousand property and appreciates 10%, that’s 10,000 bucks. But if you buy a 500,000 property, 10%, that’s 50,000. So let’s go big or go home. Right. And then I was like, no, I’m going home. You know, it was pretty bad, but I mean, you still, at least had roommates go into there. Or even after you probably moved out, you probably saw students in there paying rent. So even if it lost value, you were still getting paid.

Chase Maher (05:12): Yeah, absolutely. You know, the only appreciation that I bank on is forced appreciation. So, I don’t factor in any of my underwriting. Hey, hopefully the property value goes up 3% or 5% or here in San Diego sometimes 10% in the year, 2015, we went up like 20% in one year. So what I mean by that is forced appreciation. So actively figuring out ways that when I buy it, how can I increase the value of it by 10% 20% 30% within a 12 month period? Refinancing, getting my money back, redeploying it.

Chris Miles (05:42): I like that because you want to play it safe. Cause you’re not trying to bank on appreciation. You’re trying to bank on we’re going to do that actually, control the variables, right? Control the values versus just hoping that the values hold or whatever it might be.

Chase Maher (05:53): Yeah. I take the risk with my business and I play it safe with my investments. That’s kind of my philosophy.

Chris Miles (05:59): That’s great! I love it! So tell us more about that. Like, I mean you’re only 30, right?

Chase Maher (06:04): Yeah. I’m thirty.

Chris Miles (06:04): I mean, most people.

Chase Maher (06:06): Thanks for using the only!

Chris Miles (06:09): Yeah. I know. Coming from a guy who’s almost 13 years older than you. Yeah. So, you know, like for me it’s like, that’s incredible because when I was 30, I was trying to dig myself out of a hole. Right. Like I was going through the recession, you know, but I mean, you, I mean, you’ve actually been doing this, like you said, since you were 18 years old, you know, and again, it’s not something you just started doing a couple like three years ago. Like I always laugh with people that come by. They’re like, Oh yeah, I’m successful. I’ve been doing this for three years. And like, you haven’t seen anything yet. You know? So I mean, that being said, like, what do you feel is like been kind of a secret of success for you both, whether it be for your business and or even with your investing too?

Chase Maher (06:44): Yeah, man! I think discipline is like the most important thing. And just figuring out what’s your longterm goal, your longterm strategy and sort of reverse engineering it from there and it doesn’t have to be perfect. So if anybody’s out there and they’re listening, you’re trying to out like, what’s your life goals? What do you want to do? It doesn’t have to be perfect. Imperfect action is better than taking no action. So when I was 18, I bought that property. I thought to myself, man, you know, I’m going to school with some kids that are trust fund babies. They’re inheriting a bunch of money and they’re kind of blowing it and they’re blowing it because they don’t know what to do with it.

Chase Maher (07:18): And they don’t have any sort of education around it. So I started studying money and I didn’t inherit any crazy amount of money. I didn’t inherit anything. And I told myself, I want to be educated with money. I want to make sure that this mistake of a house that I just bought that, you know, fast forward, it’s not a mistake now, but at the time, imagine 12 months after you buy it. And the value is down 30%. You’re like, crap. What did I do? So that caused me to study markets that caused me to study, you know, market philosophy and what’s kinda going on. And like I said, I didn’t inherit any money. I wanted to be able to pass down money generations below me. I wanted to be that first one that when I have a great, great grandchild, they look at me and they think that’s the one that changed the path for our family forever.

Chase Maher (08:04): But I wanted to do it in a way that they were educated and they knew how to handle the funds that I passed down to them, the assets that I pass down to them so that they stay in families forever. You think about some of the wealthiest people in the world, the Rothschilds and a few others. It’s a family. And they run that family like a business. And I wanted to instill that. So I started studying the markets, studying books, listening to podcasts and just making the right decisions along the way. And like anything, those decisions compounded over time.

Chris Miles (08:31): That’s right. That’s like what? My, one of my old buddies, well, my old partners wrote the book. What would the Rockefellers do? Right. And it’s a big point, you know, it’s what can you actually pass on? And it goes beyond it really you’re creating your own ripple effect, right? Yeah. Not just for the people that you come in contact with, but really, I think one of the biggest ripple effects you could ever create is through your own family, creating that legacy.

Chase Maher (08:52): I couldn’t agree more.

Chris Miles (08:53): And the cool thing is too. I can already tell from what you said. You said it’s not just passing down the money, is it?

Chase Maher (08:59): No, it’s passing down the assets. So my philosophy is active income versus passive income. And so I like being an entrepreneur. I love being an entrepreneur. I haven’t had a job since high school. I really enjoy it. I’ve done a bunch of different things. So anybody that’s listening, if you think, Oh, here’s this 30 year old guy and he’s got it all figured out from 18 years old, that’s not true. From, you know, 18 to 22. I was selling cars and buying houses. And then from 22 to 26, I was kinda lost and just kind of living off my income from my assets. Blowing through my savings, traveling Southern California, you know, snowboarding, surfing all over the world. Kind of figuring out what I wanted to do. And then I ramped up the active income part again in my late twenties.

Chase Maher (09:43): And that instilled this like philosophy in me that if we can eliminate distractions and we can stay disciplined, we can have some strong, active income sources. We put it away, properly and passive income. And we live a lifestyle that is enjoyable to us. So I can do it for the long haul and not get burnt out. I saw my dad get burnt out when I was young and I saw him get overweight and get on healthy. And it, it made me think I don’t want that to happen to me. So I wrote down on paper, what’s important to me between health, wealth and relationships. And I just kind of live by that philosophy that if I’m not happy and I’m not able to do the things that I want to do, what the heck am I working this hard for anyways? So it’s really important to me. And I definitely, you know, I enjoy sharing that.

Chris Miles (10:29): There is a lot right there, man! Everybody, that’s a part you should probably go back and rewind a couple of times and re-listen to because there’s so many different tangents we could take with us. Right.

Chase Maher (10:39): Yeah. I know. Sometimes I’m valuable a little bit.

Chris Miles (10:39): Yeah. We can create like three shows that last comment you just made and we agreed create all these tangents from it. I think the thing that’s more valuable if I’m thinking from listener’s perspective here too is, youth aspects, right? I mean, one, I think will make a big point that you already said is, I love the clarity that you were having. Right? Like you’re writing this down. You’re saying, what is my life really about? And I think we even made this mentioned another time, you know, before we went on the air. Where that question of, you know, if money were no issue, what would you spend your time doing, right? Like kind of like, what do you want to be when you grow up? I know that there’s 60 and 70 year olds out there that have not asked this question with. What would I want to spend my time doing? Right? Like what would you do if you hit your financial goals? And what would that life look like? And it sounds like you really have to kind of create an architecture behind that life, didn’t you with that design?

Chase Maher (11:30): Absolutely. And it comes from repetition of constantly thinking over and over. And it, for anybody listening out there, if you like constantly have the same thought over and over, you should probably follow that instinct. And what I mean by if you’re constantly thinking I want to be in real estate, or if you’re constantly thinking, man, I want to be able to take a snowboard trip every year. Or if you’re constantly thinking, you know, I want live in this city, you should start crafting your lifestyle around, being able to do that. There’s a calling that you’re having that you should go after that. And I truly feel that the most depressed people in the world, they’re the ones that aren’t listening to that calling. They’re the ones that keep that thought in the back of their mind rather than in the front of their minds. So what that looks like to me is like purging out the things that, I’ll put it to you this way. There’s a lot of things that matter, but focus on the things that matter a lot.

Chase Maher (12:19): And what I mean by that is like, I would love to, you know, be a great golfer or a great tennis player or, you know, still play basketball twice a week. Like, you know, all these things. But what I love more is surfing. I love more is snowboarding. So I don’t waste any time, like trying to learn anything new. I just stay with what I know. I try to stay a fish when it comes to food. I’d love to learn how to cook this, this and this, but I just stay efficient because that mental space is better focused elsewhere. I’d rather go all in on the things that I know make me happy rather than trying to go discover a bunch of other thing. And the same applies with money. So that one core active income source and then pick a few streams of passive income for me, it’s hard assets and just stay focused and try not to lose sight of, you know, what you’ve written down and what you want to focus on because it will compound over time. You’ll get better and better and better.

Chris Miles (13:14): So true. Yeah. I want to go to both of those points. Man, you’re making this so hard on me, man. Cause you have, you’re testing my focus right now of how I can do this. But you know, when you mentioned about like the designing that life, right? Like really, you know, figuring out what is it you want? It took me back to four years ago when I asked my wife to marry me, you know, I said, Hey, I want to marry you. She says, all right, two conditions, one, no more kids. Cause eight is enough. Right. So we’re not having anymore. And then two, you need to make sure that every winter, she was like, I don’t care if you come or not. But every winter I got to leave, like I cannot do another Utah winter anymore. Like I’m done. I’m from the tropics. I can’t do it.

Chris Miles (13:57): And I said, all right, well, let’s do this. You know? And in my mind that was something that was impossible. Right. That seemed impossible. But when we really like mapped it out, like figured out how much would it really cost to do that? And you know, obviously, you know, of course with my business being virtual, I can do it anywhere anyways, but it was a whole mindset shift. And now I realize it’s freaking easy. It’s easy to do that. Like the hardest thing is now just, you know, trying to make it all work with children. You know, that’s the hardest part, but everything else is great, you know? And so I love that you did that. You can design that life. And once, you know, it’s easier to create.

Chase Maher (14:31): Chris, Gary Keller talks a lot about living a life by design. And if we don’t build a plan and then work towards that plan, we’re kind of just like living endlessly and just kind of wandering. And that’s a lifestyle that I didn’t really want for me. So I made that decision to live a life by design.

Chris Miles (14:49): I love it. So tell us, you mentioned about the income streams too, right? So you say you have one main income stream and you create other income streams. Tell us more about your philosophy on that.

Chase Maher (14:58): So active income figure out what’s that sweet spot that you can live off, you know, 50% or less of that active income and then invest the rest. And so for me, I figured out, you know, what’s that sweet spot and then I want to invest everything else. And so the active income that I like kind of sets up my passive income stream. So I realized that I wanted to have rental properties. I wanted to have buildings and assets. And so how can I build an active income that kind of sets that up? Well, it was lead generation for distressed properties, and then I can take those properties. I can fix and flip them. I can wholesale them. I can list them as an agent or I can refer them to a realtor. So those are four different streams of active income that are all built off of one marketing channel.

Chris Miles (15:44): Just one activity, yeah.

Chase Maher (15:45): One activity. We’re just, how do I simplify and dumb it down? Here’s another thing that I learned from Gary Keller when I was an agent is, what’s the one thing that you can do that makes everything simple or unnecessary? And so I focus on lead generation and then how can I maximize my use of that property? And then also what that does is I’m able to cherry pick the best ones for my portfolio. It kind of all builds off of that. And then from there, you know, some other income streams, passive that were sort of built off that and you know, just focusing on what that sweet spot is. So me personally, now I live off 30% of it and I invest the rest. And, you know, based off your investment philosophies, I learned from you and your show, we kind of have a lot of alignment there as well.

Chris Miles (16:33): Yeah. I love that! I love that! That basic philosophy of saying, all right, how do I get myself to have a lifestyle where I’m only at 50% of my income? That’s, for some people that’s a stretch, right. But it is kind of a core challenge.

Chase Maher (16:46): Yeah. You just got to make more than, you know, if your lifestyle is, is 10 grand, you need to figure out a way to make 20 grand. And actually you need to work, figure out a way to make like 30 grand cause of the taxes. So another reason why I love being an entrepreneur is, you know, tax saving strategies. So I’ve figured out how can I pay the least amount of taxes legally? And that’s by setting up, you know, an escorp paying myself a salary, profit distributions, owning assets that I can write off the interest. And so that sweet spot for me, I’m able to like focus in on it more and more and not have to go too high above that because I’m saving money on the taxes as well.

Chris Miles (17:25): That’s true. I get a lot of clients where, you know, like I get some of that. We can get them retire like this year, right. Others might take within five to seven years, 10 years. And I get some of those clients they’ll say, alright, like we got a couple deals, but they didn’t have a whole lot of cash. Like maybe they have 50 to a hundred grand. We’re like, alright, we’re making 500,000 passive a month, but we need 10,000 a month. Right. And it seems like there’s a big Hill to climb. We’re like, well, how do we do it faster, Chris? I’m like, well, other than just reinvesting the money you’re making, I’m like the best thing you can do is just find other ways to create more income or reduce your expenses and allow yourself to invest more faster. That is really the amplifier. Right? That’s the thing that multiplies it all is if you go from saying, Oh, I only got a thousand a month to build a, to put towards buying passive investments versus, Hey, I’ve now got 5,000 or 10,000 a month. I can put towards that. It’s a complete game changer. Like the numbers has become exponentially better. When you do that.

Chase Maher (18:24): Yeah. If you can think of a way to like productize yourself. And what that looks like is either sell it for more, make more money or reduce your costs, reduce your expenses. It’s pretty simple. I usually opt for, I like just trying to make more money because I still like, I like that 30% or 50% I focus on the 30%. I like to live a good lifestyle though. You know, like I’m not some Rice and Beans kind of guy. I do a lot of trips, a lot of traveling. I figure out what’s that sweet spot. So do you need that? You know, tier two or tier three above the current car you’re driving right now? Do you need that fifth surfboard? Do you need, you know, certain things like, do you really need them and you know, live your life a little bit above the needs so that you’re still happy and you’re still enjoying yourself, but ask yourself on your purchases. Like, are there certain things like, do I really need that? And then, you know, if you do buy it, try to match that towards an investment. So anything that’s a want, I buy it and it’s 500 bucks, all right. Then I need to commit to 500 bucks towards an investment. And so kind of simplified it like that.

Chris Miles (19:32): I think that’s the key is that, I mean, just like you said earlier, like when you can really know what you want, right? What’s really the priority. Yeah. You can still have a life that you love, but you can say, you know, all those rest of the stuff is distraction. It’s just extra clutter in my life. I don’t need it. Simplify on what I really want. Keep that simple life and create freedom from it. I love that.

Chase Maher (19:52): Yeah, man.

Chris Miles (19:53): Cool, man. Well, Hey, if people want to get to know your stuff or follow you or whatever, what’s the best way they can do that, Chase?

Chase Maher (19:59): So the best way is my podcast. The Life Worth Chasing Podcasts. We talk about real estate, money, wealth, business strategies, and pretty much every guest that I bring on like yourself, you were just on. I really want to make sure that they live, you know, a life by design that, you know, they’re not working until their eyes bleed. And so it’s the kind of show that you’re going to learn a lot, but you’re also going to be inspired. And then if you want to get ahold of me directly, the best place is probably on Twitter and it’s @iamchasemaher and yeah, I’m on Twitter a lot dropping knowledge. That’s how I communicate with a lot of people and can join me on there. And there’s a lot of good, useful information on that.

Chris Miles (20:35): Awesome! Chase, I really appreciate it. Like I said, there were so many nuggets on here. We could go like an hour long episode and have some fun with this, but man, the stuff you’ve given, I recommend people listen to show more than once just to pick up on these nuggets you’ve given us. So I really appreciate that.

Chase Maher (20:50): Hey, my pleasure, man. I appreciate you having me on.

Chris Miles (20:53): You bet! Everybody else, you know, we’ll put in the show notes, you know, Chase’s podcast as well as his Twitter handle. So check them out, check out his stuff. Great show. As you already know, like, well, our life is so much more than just money, right? It’s so much about the kind of life that we can create. So make sure you follow his show because that’s what it’s all about. And definitely reach out to Chase. If you feel like that little ping of, Oh, that resonated that I needed that. So check him out. Everybody, I hope you make it a wonderful and prosperous week. We’ll see you later.

[dirtymikekidd]

I’m a miserable f*ck

This is going to be the place where I write down how the day’s events have effected my interpersonal feelings. This first post will be a lot of random stories from my life that I feel like have shaped how I look at life.

I’m setting a course to change my outlook on my life. There has been many things that I’ve not been able to let go of. Most of them are little things that really shouldn’t bother me let alone still be thinking about years later. Hell I still think back to when I was in 8th grade. I was on my way to my history class. There was a girl that I had the hots for at her locker, which was right next to the class I was running late for. I decided to make a joke about a haircut that I had seen to her. you know, trying to break the ice. It kind of worked. She hadn’t ever given me the time of day. But I managed to make her laugh. The tardy bell rings, and I got into class. I only had a few seconds of feeling on top before the teacher,    Mr. H., made a comment to me, which killed my feelings of elation. It was something along the lines of “Don’t even try, she’s way out of your league.” 

It was one of the only times I’ve ever put myself out there like that. It felt like a huge slap in the face. I was 13 when that happened. I’m 27 now. Anyway, I’m getting a little off topic. I don’t expect anyone to read what I type here. I just know that it’s making things worse by keeping everything bottled up. 

Let me start off by saying, I’ve gone through things that I can only hope that my children don’t ever have to go through. Growing up I became my family’s mortician. Not because we were intentionally killing any animals, but because I lived on a farm and you know, diseases and wild predators. Either way I’ve buried 1 dog, 3 cats, 3 sheep, a stillborn foal (baby horse), and roughly 10 chickens. I do think dealing with all of it as often as I did, has made me numb to death.

 I was around 9 when I dug my first grave. It was for our dog, Auggie. he was a fat golden retriever. Like fat enough to get the nickname of “the coffee table”. You could put a cut of water on his back and it wouldn’t spill. He ended up being put down by gun... He either had a seizure or was electrocuted (because he used to lay up under our Christmas tree). Anyway so something snapped and he suddenly didn’t know who we were. He was growling and barking at my sister and me. My mom let him outside. Normally we wouldn’t put him on a chain or in a fenced in area because we lived in the middle of no where, and he wasn’t one to run off. This time he did. We found him at our closest neighbor’s house, roughly a quarter to a half mile from our house. Mom brought him home and put him in one of the spare horse stalls that we had. I overheard my mom and dad talking about how they weren’t sure what to do with him, as they were worried what he might do to me and my sister, or what he’d do to the other animals. It was decided it was his time. My dad asked me to go outside and dig a hole. But not by any barn openings or where water ran off. So I dug a hole. 4ft long, 3 ft wide, and about 3 ft deep. I went back in after it was dug, and my mom told me to stay in the house and don’t look outside until she came back in. She went outside carrying a .22g pistol. I knew what was about to happen. and even though she told me not to look outside, I still did. 2 shots rang out, Auggie dropped into the hole I had just dug not even 20 minutes before. A moment later another 2 shots rang. I didn’t know why it took 4 shots until I overheard my parents talking about it. Apparently Auggie was fat enough that the first couple bullets didn’t actually kill him. And when he dropped into the hole, he was crying in agony. The second 2 shots ended his suffering. He was my best friend growing up. And I hate that his life ended that way. I don’t hold any of it against my parents. I know they were trying to protect their family unit. I still think about him to this day.

The cats were inside/outside cats. Or as my dad called them, barn cats. In the 14 years we lived on the farm, we had at least 20 cats. Most of them were either hit by cars or another animal killed them. We had one cat, Thomas, who had just showed up one day. He looked just like Garfield. He had a huge gash on his front leg and a bowel blockage. Mom talked my dad into taking him to the vet. We got him all fixed up and basically adopted him. He became a mostly indoor cat, but he would still get let outside. He never took off anywhere. He would just kinda hang out in the barns hunting mice or laying in the sun. One Sunday morning I got up and looked outside. And there he was laying at the end of our driveway...internal organs hanging out. There was a blood trail that looked like he was hit in the middle of the road, then drug off to the side. I buried him right next to Auggie. the other two cats were killed by a dog we had been watching for a family as they went on a missionary trip.

The sheep were for a 4-H project that me and another kid had been working on. Let me rephrase, we were supposed to be working on it together, but he took off and I couldn’t get ahold of him. Anyway, so I don’t actually know what it was that killed them, but some animal had gotten in and ripped up their necks

The stillborn would’ve been the fifth horse born at our house. It was my dad’s dream horse with the color of its’ fur. It holds the record for the biggest sized hole I’ve dug to this day.

The chickens..... that’s a grave I wish I could’ve done differently. They’re the only mass grave I’ve ever dug. Two holes about 3 ft deep and about a foot wide. They didn’t make it through the sickness that most chickens go through in the first year or so of their lives.

Continuing on the subject of death..so back in 2008 my mom was kicked in the chest and arm by one of our horses as we were getting ready to start cleaning stalls. My dad took her to the hospital because they were sure she had a broken rib. She had x-rays done and what they found was worse.. masses in her lungs. The doctors did a full body MRI. Masses in the lungs and a couple more in the brain... cancer... stage IV lung cancer that had spread. We found out on New Year’s day. Within a couple weeks she was starting chemo. By September she had a treatment called “Gamma knife surgery” on the mass on her frontal lobe of her brain. They continued the chemo on her lungs, and things seemed to be going into remission. Her battle finally ended at 10;45pm on June 5th, 2010.... I wasn’t home when it happened. I was 2 towns over celebrating my best friend’s 16th birthday...I still haven’t been able to forgive myself for not being there...

I’m not sharing these details because I want sympathy. But because I’m stuck living in the past and I’ve never been able to get out of my own head. As the title says, I’m a miserable fuck because of it.

The next post will job stuff..

[ravens-words]

We burned down our paper house

"Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. Epic."

Scenes from a lost decade.

Part 1

On AO3

................

Chapter 2 of 4

.................

Late 2008

Alex had given Michael his number a little over two months ago,  and Michael hadn't called him. Alex was disappointed, but he couldn't say he was all that surprised. He'd probably been setting himself up for failure when he'd left while the other boy was sleeping, but the mere idea of saying goodbye to Michael had been like a vice around his heart. 

He remembered woking up next to him, and for a second, allowing himself to fantasize about a lifetime of mornings waking up just like this, cocooned in the warmth of Michael's arms, feeling so happy he could burst  with it.

But then the second was over and reality had set in.

He'd gotten up and gotten dressed, as quietly as he dared. He'd gathered Michael's clothes and folded them neatly. The next thing he'd done was to take out a blanket from the small dresser. He'd draped it cautiously over his sleeping form and then sat on the second bed in the room, taking a minute to just watch him sleep, wondering how it was possible for him to miss him already. 

Alex remembered wanting to wake him up,  to kiss him one last time. He'd wanted to say goodbye because he knew how much it hurt when Michael hadn't been there two months ago. But then he'd looked at Michael again and his heart had fluttered and ached and for a whole minute, all he could think was; I don't want to go. I want to stay here with him. Which had confirmed what Alex already knew. 

If he'd woken Michael up, he would not have been strong enough to leave him.

So, he hadn't. Instead, he'd given him his number and had allowed himself to hope.

He'd planned on taking his leave after tech school to visit Michael, but after two months of no contract, he figured it would be better to save himself the heartbreak of being rejected and instead chose to spend his leave in Biloxi. He stayed close to Keesler for no other reason than his lack of desire to go home. Saving up the money and spending his days on the beach were just added bonuses. 

A day before his leave came to an end, his cellphone rang. Alex spent a good three seconds staring at the number, trying and failing not to get his hopes up. He pressed the button to answer with shaking fingers and put the phone to his ear. 

"Alex?"

His breath left him in a rush and he closed his eyes when he felt the pressure behind them. 

"Alex?"

"I'm here," he managed to say and could hear what was probably a sigh of relief coming from the other end. 

"How are you?"

Alex laughed at how awkward he sounded and realized just then that they'd never been ones for small talk. Nevertheless, he went along with it. "I'm doing okay. How about you?"

"I'm good."

Alex smiled. "You staying out of trouble?" 

His attempt to break the ice fell flat. He'd only meant to tease him, but from the silence on the other end, something had gotten lost in translation. "Michael, I didn't mean it like that, I was just ki-"

"I know," he cut him off. "I know. And, I am staying out of trouble. Well, mostly."

Alex laughed quietly and dug his toes in the sand. "Michael?" 

"Yeah?"

Alex gatheed up every bit of courage he had in him and asked the question that had been churning in his mind for the past two months. "What took you so long?"

Michael answered his question with a question. "Why didn't you come back? I know you're on leave."

Alex wondered how he knew that, but didn't ask. He sighed and lay back in the sand, staring at the clear sky. Part of him wanted to be stubborn and demand that he answer his question first, but Alex was tired, and he missed him so much it was like a constant ache at this point. "I didn't know if I had anything to come back for."

Silence greeted him on the other end and he he was afraid that Michael might have hung up on him. But then he spoke, "I didn't know if you really wanted me to. I knew you'd be busy at school and- you left, Alex. You just left."

"Michael-"

"I bought an airstream off Sanders a couple days ago," Michael rushed to say, changing the subject. Alex went with it, though he wanted to reassure him that there would always be space for him in Alex's life, that Alex would always make space for him. 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm fixing it up now."

Alex could imagine the smile he heard in Michael's voice on his face if he tried hard enough and it made his heart ache. 

"That's really good, Michael."

"I mean, paying for it is gonna be a pain and it'll take me forever, but-" 

I'm proud of you, he almost said, but didn't. You could so much more. You deserve so much more.

He smiled. "Maybe the next time I'm in Roswell, you can show it to me?"

When he answered with an eager, "yeah!" his voice sounded considerably brighter, and Alex felt a spark of hope ignite in his chest.

"Hey, I-uh, I gotta go okay? Isobel's gonna kill me if I spend any more of her minutes."

Alex chuckled. "Okay."

"Can I call you again?" He inquired hesitantly.

"Yes, of course you can," he answered quickly and he sounded eager to his own ears. "We can e-mail each other, too."

"Yeah- I- Alex?"

"Yeah?" 

"I miss you," he whispered.

Alex closed his eyes again, but not before a tear escaped and ran down his cheek.

He cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat  "I miss you, too, Michael."

He heard what sounded suspiciously close to a sniffle before Michael let out a cough. "I'll talk to you later?"

"Yeah." Alex smiled. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

"You too." And with that, Michael hung up.

Alex smiled helplessly to himself and breathed in deeply. He rested his chin on his folded arms and watched the sun set, casting an orange- pink hue against the ocean water.

Hope burned bright in his chest and, try as he might, he couldn't stop it. So, he indulged himself and allowed it.

Tomorrow, he would think about all the reasons he and Michael couldn't really work.

Tomorrow, he would think about how hard it would be to maintain a relationship, if that was even something Michael wanted with him, when he had to hide it, when he had to hide who he was. 

He would deal with everything that was wrong with his life, but only tomorrow. 

For now, though, he was content to just watch the sunset and be happy that Michael wanted to give this a try, that the other man was making a life for himself despite what his father had done to him and that maybe, just maybe, Alex had a place in that life.

Late 2009

A little less than a year into his first deployment, Alex managed to get approval for a leave. He didn't tell anyone in Roswell, and in the years to come, he would regret that decision.

But for now, all he could feel was excitement and an eagerness to see Michael.

In the year after their phone call, Alex and Michael e-mailed each other at least once a week, but they rarely got to talk to each other over the phone, mainly due to time differences and the fact that Michael didn't actually have a phone yet. 

They never talked about anything important, though, and there was always this feeling of disconnect between them that bothered Alex.

In an unspoken agreement between them; there conversations were never about anything too heavy or serious. They didn't talk about the war, they didn't talk about Michael's hand or his money issues, even though Alex wanted to know desperately. And the only people they'd ever mentioned were Alex's squad mates and Max and Isobel. And even then, they only tended to share the light-hearted tidbits of their lives. Alex, though he wasn't proud to admit, had lied a few times, made up a cheerful or funny story or two to share with him on the days there weren't any, because the alternative would have been the truth and the truth was this:

Alex was miserable.

Almost a year in and he still lay awake at night, most nights, and thought about all the ways his life could've been different if he'd been braver, faster, stronger. On the bad days, he wished he'd never tried to kiss Michael in the shed. On the worst days, he wished he'd never offered him the shed in the first place. 

Those thoughts never lasted long, though; they were always chased away by memories of Michael's kisses, his touches, his smile. The thoughts never lasted because he could never regret Michael, no matter what.

Michael had saved him in ways Alex suspected he never realized. If it weren't for him, Alex would never have known what it felt like to be completely safe with someone. 

Before he left the Roswell airport, he hurriedly changed out of his fatigues in the airport bathrooms and stuffed them carelessly in his duffel. It didn't take him long to find a cab and thirty minutes later, he was about half a mile away from the junkyard where Michael had parked his airstream. 

He'd decided to walk the remaining distance,  wanting to have a clear head, maybe get rid of the nervousness too, before he saw Michael. The night air was cool on his skin and it soothed him.

When he got to Sanders', all Alex could hear was the frantic beat of his heart. He tried to take deep breaths, he told himself it was just Michael, that he didn't have to be so nervous about seeing him. 

He walked ahead and was just a few feet away from the airstream when he heard it; a giggle, high-pitched and obviously female. It was followed by Michael's deep laugh and Alex froze, unable to do anything but breathe raggedly. When he could get his feet to move a little, he saw them. 

Michael was sitting in a lawn chair, and the girl was in another one next to him. His hand was buried in a her hair and when he moved closer and said something, too low for Alex to hear,  she laughed and then they were kissing. Alex turned away and all but ran away. He ran for a long time.

The thing was, he and Michael hadn't promised each other anything. They hadn't defined what they were to each other, had skirted around the subject masterfully, so was it any wonder that Michael moved on? 

Alex couldn't really fault him for it. They were young and they weren't ready. Maybe it was better this way, for the both of them. Maybe they were never meant to last and Alex had just held on to the hope because Michael had been the one person in his life who'd given a damn about him.

Alex gathered all the heartache, the pain and the disappointment, put them in a neat little box and put it away. 

And he ran.

He ran for what felt like an eternity.

He didn't see Michael for another five years after that night.

[belphegor1982]

…it’s done. Finished. My monster Mummy fic, the one I started in 2003, started publishing in 2004, and left dormant since 2008 – I finally completed it o.O Weirdly (or not), this is the chapter which gave me the most trouble, if you don’t count chapters 16 and 17 (which took me 2 and 16 years to write, respectively). It was hard to say goodbye to this story and these characters, even though I knew I literally just had to get an idea for another story :-/

FAIRY TALES AND HOKUM

Summary: 1937: Two years after the events of Ahm Shere, the O’Connells are “required” by the British Government to bring the Diamond taken there from Egypt to England. In Cairo, while Evelyn deals with the negotiations and Rick waits for doom to strike again, Jonathan bumps into an old friend of his from university, Tom Ferguson. Things start to go awry when the Diamond is stolen from the Museum and old loyalties are tested… (story on AO3; on FFnet)

(Chapters on Tumblr: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)

Chapter 24: Departure (on AO3 here; on FFnet here)

London, September 1937

A little off Paddington Station, almost in Marylebone, was a small pub called the Stars and Crown, its red brick façade almost exactly similar to the others along the street. It was an unassuming little affair Jonathan liked to patronise every now and then, and not just because it happened to be situated not too far from his flat.

It was a balmy mid-September late afternoon and one of the double doors was wide open on the quiet street. Jonathan and Tom were seated by one of the stained-glass windows, drinking – G&T and a ginger beer, respectively – and talking. Jonathan, remembering the promise he’d made after blowing up Hamilton’s lorry, had bought the rounds.

But for small details like the mostly healed-over scratches on Tom’s hands, the old scar in Jonathan’s left palm, and all the subtler little ways the past two decades had changed them, they might as well have been twenty year old students again.

Well, apart from the subject of their conversation.

“I got off easy, if you ask me.”

“Nonsense. You were the only one who tried to fix this bloody disaster. It’s only fair that you didn’t… You know.”

“…Pay for my mistakes?”

“That is not what I meant and you know it.”

Tom gulped a mouthful of ginger beer, still looking glum.

“I suppose – I know – I should be grateful I didn’t end up like Hamilton, at least.”

Jonathan winced.

Charles Hamilton had made it back to England in a slightly better state than he had made it out of the pyramid, but that wasn’t saying much. From what they had heard, he was lucid for about an hour a day, and that was it – and not very coherent at that. Which made the fact that he allegedly hung himself in his cell a week before his highly sensitive trial very suspicious indeed. The man didn’t appear capable of putting on his trousers on his own, let alone do anything as complex as a slipknot.

The Lord Chancellor’s Department had issued a statement half-heartedly lamenting Hamilton’s demise, the newspapers had stayed surprisingly quiet about it, and Evy had fumed for an entire fortnight. And that had been it. Hamilton had taken the gentleman’s way out. Case closed.

At least Gabriel Baine had been tried, convicted, and sent behind bars for a lengthy period of time. Jonathan didn’t particularly care where he was, as long as he could be elsewhere.

Baine had stated a few times that there hadn’t been anything personal about shooting and ordering his men to shoot Jonathan, Rick, and Tom. Jonathan had silently begged to differ. Baine’s shouts of “Kill them” followed by the sudden excruciating pain in his back, not to mention the confusion and terror as he fought not to die and lost, had felt pretty damn personal.

Tom stared into his glass for a while, then looked up with a brighter expression.

“But enough about this fiasco. How’s your family? I seem to remember your sister’s birthday was coming up, you were lookin’ for a present when we bumped into each other at that bazaar. Did you find one, in the end?”

Jonathan perked up. “I did, actually. Got her a signet ring. She seemed to like it.”

Now that memory he would treasure as long as he lived.

An inventory of his pockets had revealed a hodgepodge of small trinkets which he was still trying to trace. The little medallion with the amethyst cameo must be early Regency, stolen by the pygmy mummies from some unfortunate Napoleon soldier’s corpse; the lapis earring was probably from the Ramesside period (a few Rameses had sent their armies to find or reclaim Ahm Shere, Jonathan had found); the couple of gold and silver rings bearing the Roman SPQR were a little incongruous but easy to chalk up to Julius Caesar’s expedition. There were also some 4th Century Persian coins, proving Alexander the Great’s men had also reached Ahm Shere – the Oasis, anyway – and a number of little amulets from various Egyptian expeditions, mostly heart scarabs made of red and green jasper, copper, quartz, bronze, or gold. He hadn’t determined the nature of the green gemstone yet, saving it for last.

Jonathan had been so excited by his find that he hadn’t gambled a single object. Tracing their origins took time, but he had not even told Evy about it yet. Instead he had not only called on every scrap of expertise he had concerning treasure, but also on every book he could lay his hands on. Evy would have been very surprised – not to mention highly suspicious – if she learned how much time he had been spending at the British Library lately.

He had always enjoyed a good riddle. For some reason this one looked promising enough to justify doing some actual work for. Besides, having the artefacts authenticated meant he would be able to get a much better price selling them.

The only thing he had parted with was the (probable) Napoleon coin, the soft gold nibbled almost beyond recognition by the pygmy mummies’ teeth. Another look at it the morning after his resurrection had given him an idea.

Before they left the Medjai camp, Jonathan had obtained from Ardeth a sketch of Nefertiri’s personal cartouche and the address of a talented goldsmith in Cairo; once back in the city, he had wandered down to Kerdasa, the coin and the folded paper safe in the inside pocket of his (whole and clean) jacket.

Just before he reached the little shop, however, he heard a yelp and a startled cry, and was knocked off his feet by something large and hairy. His vision was filled by long camel’s lashes and lips drawn back on long yellow teeth in what Jonathan might have taken as a smile if he hadn’t known better.

Why did every single camel have to have such foul breath, he wondered.

“ʾAhlan1, Djem,” muttered Jonathan with a sigh that was half annoyance, and half amused resignation.

And was astonished when the camel immediately disappeared from view, replaced with a familiar face. Satiah’s big brown eyes went wide when she saw him.

“Oh, it’s you, bāša2. Hello,” she said with a smile.

Jonathan got up and dusted himself off, irritation quickly fading away. The jacket could survive a little dirt; besides, Satiah’s smile as she hung on to Djem’s bit had lost some of its previous shyness. Considering how fearful she had been the last time – and who could fault her for that, really – it almost made getting knocked over by a foul-smelling bag of hair and wind worth it.

“Good morning, Miss Satiah,” he said in Arabic, picking up his hat from the ground so he could salute her with a flourish. Her hand flew to her mouth to hide a giggle. “It’s a stroke of luck finding you, really. I wanted to thank you for your help the other day, and for, er…”

He reached his limits of the language, and finished in English, “I mean, thank you for returning my wallet to my sister. That was very kind of you.”

“You’re welcome,” Satiah said in Arabic, her cheekbones a little pink. “I’m glad you and your friends got away from those men.”

Jonathan’s smile slipped a notch or two, but he rallied quickly enough.

“Yes,” he said just a little wryly, “we did, at that. In the end.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve just reached my destination,” he added, pointing to a door above which hung a sign saying something about gold in painted Arabic script, “so I’m going to wish you a—”

“You’re going to see Cousin Ashar?” Satiah interrupted, her eyes shining. Immediately afterwards she clamped both hands on her mouth and cringed. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. Small world, eh?”

She gave a small smile and led the way into the shop, stopping only to tie Djem to a post.

Ashar – the goldsmith Ardeth had recommended – was a tall, wiry man with a long face, his hair going grey at the temples. He welcomed Satiah warmly and sent her to the backroom to get what she came for. Before she closed the door, she gave Jonathan a little friendly wave, which he returned with a smile. Ashar gave him an odd but not hostile look, eyebrows raised.

Jonathan placed his order, left the coin, and was about to leave, when Ashar called him back, frowning slightly.

“You’re one of the O’Connells, aren’t you.”

Jonathan’s mouth opened and closed as though of its own accord.

“You could say that, yes,” he said finally. “Why?”

“Because word of the second raising of Anubis’ Army made it to Cairo recently.”

This time Jonathan’s mouth dropped open and remained like that for a handful of seconds. Ashar gave something that was almost a smile.

“Not all of us wear the ritual tattoos, you know.”

“I do know,” Jonathan articulated with only the slightest difficulty. Dr Hakim was a Medjai, and his face was devoid of any tattoo as well. Dr Bey had been the same, now that he thought of it. His gaze went to the door that led to the backroom. “Satiah, too…?”

“Yes. But her mother’s family has lived in Cairo for fifty years. The girl has never seen the desert. She will get good schooling and find a trade, inshallah3. The time for living legends is coming to an end.” Ashar looked at the cartouche Ardeth had drawn for reference. “I know what this says. Who the name belonged to. Your commission is either a hollow trinket or a great gift.”

Jonathan drew himself up and said, as dignified as he could, “I’m rather hoping for the latter.”

His own signet ring had been gambled and lost in some card game or another, years ago. His parents would have been so disappointed had they still been alive. The least he could do was make sure his sister had a ring of her own, one that paid tribute to the woman she was and the woman she had been, three millennia ago.

Evy’s reaction when she opened his present proved him right, and even surprised him.

She stared into the box long enough for Jonathan’s brain to go into overdrive. Her silence made him panic ever so slightly. Then she looked up at him, her eyes very bright, lower lip trembling.

Jonathan barely suppressed the need to shuffle like a schoolboy and buried his hands into his pockets, hoping his face didn’t give too much away.

“I know I wasn’t… there – or, you know – then,” he said, almost sheepishly. “But I thought… Well. I hoped you’d like it. The cartouche must be right, I got it from Ardeth, and the goldsmith was a bloody good artist, as it turned out, but—”

Evy cut him off by launching herself at him and flinging her arms around his neck, throwing him off balance. As usual, Jonathan stumbled, but managed to catch her in the end.

“It’s perfect,” she whispered into his neck. “Thank you, Jon.”

If his smile was a little wobbly, his eyes a little moist, nobody seemed to notice. Rick and Alex had picked up the little box; Rick’s face lit up in strange recognition, while Alex deciphered the cartouche slowly and grinned.

“Nice one, Uncle Jon. That’s a pretty good present.”

“Yes, about that,” said Jonathan irrepressibly while Evy broke away and wiped her eyes, “I hope you realise that this is the last birthday present you’ll ever get from me, old mum. Since – judging by your reaction – nothing I could give to you could ever top this, I have decided to simply refrain from trying.”

Evy had slapped his arm and called him an idiot with a big smile, then hugged him again. And he had hugged her back, just because he was alive and able to.

The ring hadn’t left her finger since.

“Jon?”

Jonathan was abruptly pulled back to the present, the Stars and Crown, and Tom’s curious smile across the table.

“Hm?”

“You were a thousand miles away.”

“Sorry about that. What about you and Lizzie? Dorset been treating you well, I hope?”

Tom shook his head with a smile.

“It has, sort of, but we’re moving to Oxford. Did Liz tell you she’d been replaced while she was gone?”

Jonathan nodded. Lizzie disappearing for two weeks had not gone unnoticed in her little town, but since the police didn’t have the beginning of a clue and nobody was able to reach Tom, they had moved on to other things and her boss at the telephone exchange had hired someone else. There had been a subtle but definite irony in Lizzie’s letter as she described her and Tom’s return and the scrutiny they’d had to stand up to in order to prove her husband hadn’t killed her and stashed her body away – or vice versa – before his former Chamber of Horus hierarchy stepped in to explain things.

“Well, they needed an operator at the exchange on Pembroke Street. And you know the interview I had this morning at Whitehall? I won’t be too far, as it turns out.” Tom took a deep breath, then said with one of the goofiest smiles Jonathan had ever seen on his face, “I’ll be workin’ from the Bodleian.”

This could only mean one thing. Jonathan grinned.

“The British Antique Research Department accepted your application, didn’t they? Congratulations, old chap. That’s fantastic.”

He downed a mouthful of his G&T and laid an elbow on the table, his chin in his hand.

“Haven’t been to Oxford in almost fifteen years,” he said thoughtfully. “Not since Evy finished her degree. I wonder if the city’s changed.”

“It’s Oxford,” said Tom quietly, looking like his mind was straying down the same path Jonathan’s thoughts were. “I can’t imagine it’ll ever change that much.”

Jonathan smiled quickly into his palm. Then he raised his glass.

“To the two of you, then. And to publicans hopefully not holding grudges, otherwise we’re still banned from half the pubs in Oxfordshire.”

Tom snorted and raised his own glass, now almost empty. “To the three of us, and testing that theory sometime. And let’s not wait two decades this time,” he added with a twinkle in his eyes.

The two glasses clinked.

For just a second, the decades fell away, and Jonathan was twenty years younger.

Lizzie was already waiting for them on the platform by the time they finished their drinks and walked back to Paddington. She carried a shopping bag that looked entirely too small compared to what should be expected of a woman who’d just spent a few hours in the old metropolis. Tom raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t you say you planned to go to Harrods while we were in London?”

“I also said I only needed a new suit and the latest Agatha Christie novel,” she said, light teasing in her tone. “The next one will be out sometime in November, I think. Have you heard what the title will be? Death on the Nile, of all things.”

Jonathan gave a mock shudder. “I might just give this one a miss, then.”

The train’s whistle pierced the air, cutting the rest of the conversation short. Tom picked up his wife’s bag and Lizzie turned to Jonathan with a smile.

“Goodbye, Jonathan,” she said softly.

The use of his first name had always been a signal that the game was paused and the masks were off, as clear as a referee blowing halftime. Jonathan answered in kind, his throat just a little tight.

“Goodbye, Elizabeth.”

They hadn’t even actually said ‘goodbye’ last time. They had just stood there, she leaning out the train window in her brand-new nurse’s uniform, he and Tommy on the platform amidst the soot, the steam, and the throng of people, until the train departed. The memory was an old hurt that still twinged sometimes, like his left shoulder when the weather was bad.

He cleared his throat and smiled.

“See you on the next Christie novel, then?”

What Lizzie did next might have shocked twenty year old Jonathan, who thought he knew her well, and as such very much surprised his current self, who had a little too much experience of the world to truly get shocked anymore. She took his hands in hers, flying in the face of propriety and what had been her rules of conduct in public, and kissed him on the cheek near the corner of his mouth with an aching sweetness. The old Lizzie, so shy and unsure of her self-worth that she was terrified of what people may think, would have been appalled.

It had taken a while for Jonathan to truly grasp how much the years had changed Tommy and start thinking of him as ‘Tom’ to account for that change. Through this apparently simple gesture – simple only to someone who didn’t know Elizabeth Ferguson, née McAllister – Lizzie became ‘Liz’ in an instant.

“I can’t bear to think you died,” she said, her voice shaking ever so slightly. “When I think… Without that – that book…”

She took a deep breath. Tom caught Jonathan’s eye and gave a small nod. Of course he had told her. Knowing Liz, she’d take the secret to her grave anyway.

“Take care of yourself, Jonathan, please. The world would be so dreadfully dull without you in it,” she added with a tentative smile, to which he replied with a smile of his own, one that hopefully looked steadier.

“Likewise.”

Her hands tightened around his. Just for a second or two, he softly ran his thumb on the back of her hand, an echo of the old intimacy that used to bind them; then their gazes fell away, their hands separated, and the moment was over.

Tom held out his hand with a smile, and Jonathan’s mind was whisked back to that sunny afternoon in Cairo, almost two months ago, and a chance encounter that had reshuffled the cards in a major way. Tom’s handshake was slower this time, steadier, warmer.

“Bye, Jon.”

“Cheers, Tom,” said Jonathan, determined but failing to swallow the lump in his throat. “Have a pint at the Oxford Arms for me.”

Tom nodded, and added his left hand to the handshake, not saying anything. He didn’t need to. As usual – almost – everything he meant to say was on his face and in his eyes for the world to see.

The train let out a burst of steam. Tom hastily let go and made for the train door, stopping only to help Liz aboard. Jonathan looked wistfully at the train for a minute and was about to turn around and go home when he heard his name being called over the din of the locomotive and the running gears chugging into motion.

Tom and Liz were leaning out of a window, wearing identical wide smiles. Liz was waving, her other arm wrapped tightly around her husband. The light in her eyes and her curly hair whipping around her face made her look like the girl from Jonathan’s memories.

“Send my love to Evelyn!” she called. “And say hello to your brother-in-law for me! You’re all welcome anytime for tea!”

“I’ll make sure they know!” shouted Jonathan as the train gathered speed.

The blatant disregard of platform etiquette made several passers-by turn and stare at him with a touch of glower. Jonathan ignored them and kept his eyes on the departing train. Tom’s and Liz’s beaming smiles remained in his head a long time after they had gone back inside the carriage.

He would see them again. This time he was determined not to leave the possibility of a reunion to chance and the vagaries of life. They had been through too much – both twenty years and two months ago – to just go their separate ways.

Besides, Jonathan mused as he left Paddington behind to wade through the bustling streets, he still had some research to do before he set out to sell the objects he had found at Ahm Shere. The Bodleian Library was as good as the British Library; at least he didn’t risk meeting Evy there and being subjected to her prodding curiosity, which he wasn’t ready to face yet. At least not before he unravelled the mystery of the little gemstone. It looked like an emerald and felt vaguely familiar, as though he had seen it somewhere or heard a story about it.

This required some investigation, if only to be prudent.

After all, he was particularly well placed to know that you can only go so far on fairy tales and hokum alone.

THE END

.⅋.

1(أَهْلًا): informal “hello”, “hi”.

2باشا (bāša): “sir”, “mister” in Egyptian Arabic.

3ʾin šāʾa llāhu, (إِنْ شَاءَ ٱللَّٰهُ‎) – literally “if God has willed it”, “God willing”

Don’t look for the Stars and Crown in Paddington, or the Oxford Arms in Oxford. Unlike the Turf Tavern they’re entirely fictional.

Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile was indeed published on 1st November 1937. I couldn’t resist, I mean, come on ;o)

The Bodleian Library is the main research library in Oxford and one of the oldest in Europe.

If you’re wondering, yes, that little gemstone might be the basis for a sequel of sorts, but I haven’t really started to plot it. Considering my track record for these things you might see that story sometime in the next decade and a half :P

Writing and publishing Fairy Tales and Hokum has been such an adventure. I was 21 when I started writing it; now I’ll be 38 in four days. Much as I miss the old crowd of 2003-2006, reposting and updating the story here on AO3 allowed me to know some awesome people. I’m so glad these characters somehow – FINALLY – sneaked back into my head and my heart again with their quirks, their (updated) backstories, and their voices and allowed me to finish this story the way I wanted to. Like I’ve said before, whenever you started reading this, I hope you had a good time now that you’ve reached the end. If you’ve read and left a signed comment – if you’ve read and left an anonymous comment – if you’ve read and left no comment at all – know that I wrote this for you and I hope some of it made you smile.

Take care of yourselves, love you all, and see you on the next fic? :o)

[supernaturallyobsessedchic]

The Littlest Winchester

Part 1 - A Winchester is Born

Pairing: Dad!Dean x OC!Daughter!Reader (Sapphire)

Mobile Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2

Summary: In a series of quick flashforwards we see Dean going through fatherhood. The mother, who is unknown drops the baby off at Bobby Singer’s house of all places, leaves a note for Dean.

Takes place during Seasons 4 - 8.

[A/N: In this part, these are flash forwards from birth to about age 4, mentioned in the story would be hunts, diapers, a one night stand similar to Season 7 with the Amazonians [I don’t remember exactly what they’re called], only she’s human in this fic, and so’s Dean’s daughter.]

[a/n #2: This is my first (kind of) dad!dean x daughter!oc!reader fic, I first touched base in it in my Down the Rabbit Hole Series (in one of my many, many, many versions), read a doze of them, and now I’m hooked, so please, feedback would greatly be appreciated.]

~

It was the sound of a baby’s crying that caught his attention.

No one did even think to knock, she probably wouldn’t be fast enough to evade Bobby and his array of questions he’d have for her.

Bobby opens his front door to see a baby’s blanketed basket with a note pinned to it. Bobby looks around his yard, see’s no one, not even hearing a car racing off.

He picks up the basket and brings her inside. Takes a peak at the note.

Dean, is written in all caps on the top of the letter.

“Dean!” Bobby calls out from his study.

They had just gotten back from a case, after learning who actually yanked Dean out of Hell, where Sam had been for the past 4 months, Dean spent most of his days out in the yard. Either cleaning his Impala or fixing up a random car just to let off steam.

When he didn’t respond, Bobby searched for Dean. Finding him in the garage.

“Dean.” Bobby says, getting closer to Dean. He was laying on a creeper under a car changing oil. But Bobby wasn’t patient enough. So with a foot on the creeper he pulls Dean out from under the car.

“What the hell Bobby?” Dean scoffed.

“I’ve been calling for you, now, come with me.” Bobby says. Walking off before Dean could object.

Dean can hear the baby’s cries from Bobby’s study.

Bobby hands Dean the letter.

Dean,

Not sure if you remember. You probably don’t, but if the name Kristi doesn’t ring any bells to you then you deserve to know this. You needed to let off steam at the roadhouse I was working at just outside of Dallas, you gave me a night to remember. But I guess I was another one night stand to you. I was a virgin you ass. And you knocked me up, I’m not ready for kids, hell I don’t want kids. Why do you think I work in a roadhouse to  begin with? 

I found out I was pregnant some time in May of last year. She was born September 18th, 2008. I did not name her, I did not want her. I told the hospital people that I was giving her to her father. You, Dean, are her father, you have full custody of her. I want no part of being a mother.

Have a nice life Dean Singer

              - Kristi

The name didn’t ring any bells, but Dallas did. The night Dean couldn’t remember was a night after a rough hunt, Sam was still hell bent on getting Dean off of his contract. She was born the day he came back from Hell.

Not sure how she found him, but the baby was no Dean’s responsibility.

“So, what are you gonna do?” Sam asked, having walked in at some point while Dean was reading his letter.

“I don’t know Sam.” Dean grumbles.

He didn’t want to raise her in this life. But knowing he’s a dad to his own child, a daughter no less. He didn’t want to give her up. Someone’s gonna know who she is just by looking at her.

-

“Dean, shut her up please!” Sam shouted.

“I’m trying, she’s been fed, I don’t know what else she could possibly want!” Dean shouted back.

The poor baby had been crying for what seemed like hours, but really it’s been about 15 minutes or so.

“Come on baby girl, don’t be like that.” Dean tried to soothe her.

“Maybe she needs a diaper change.” Bobby suggested.

“Oh god.” Sam goes.

Dean just looked up at Bobby and Sam in horror and with pleading eyes.

“Don’t worry son, it’s easy.” Bobby says.

-

“What’ll you name her?” Sam asked later that night.

“I don’t know, I like Mary but that was mom’s name.” Dean says.

Dean held her as he paced Bobby’s study, thinking of a good name.

Until she stirred, opening her eyes to him revealing such unique iris’s. He see’s his green color but also see’s blue. His green is outlining the rim of the iris while the deep ocean blue fills the center.

“Sapphire.” He says.

“What?” Sam goes.

“Her eyes, they’re blue…plus I see green…but the blue is like a sapphire blue.” He says.

“That’d be a pretty name, plus Sapphire is September’s birthstone.” Sam says.

“Sapphire then, her name is Sapphire.” Dean says.

“Next hard part, middle name.” Sam says. Dean rolls his eyes with a groan.

“Still with blue, how about sky.” Dean says.

“But spelled fancy. How about S-K-Y-E?” Sam says.

“Sapphire Skye Winchester.” Dean says out loud.

“Eh, not bad, her name has meaning though.” Sam says.

“Yeah it does.” Dean goes, looking down, admiring his daughter in his arms.

She smiles at him, reaches for his face. Choking Dean up.

She knows her daddy. He thought.

“Hey Blue, yea I’m your daddy.” He tells her.

-

First words. Took Dean by surprise.

He stayed home while Sam and Bobby worked a case out of Louisiana.

“Da!” she shouts. Dean whipped his head towards her with a deer in headlights look. Shocked.

“What was that?” he asks. Walking over to her high chair.

“Da! Dada!” she says. Pointing at him.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in, tears formed in his eyes.

This is what it feels like? He thought.

“Yeah that’s right, I’m your dad.” He says. With an ear to ear grin.

And she went back to making raspberry noises with her lips, spraying spit everywhere. Only making him smile more.

I thought I would miss this, thank god I didn’t. Dean thought.

-

“Dean!” Sam shouted. “Get down here!”

Dean hurried from bed, Sam had gotten his little niece up early to eat when he noticed something. He sat her in Bobby’s study, and she had walked, on her own, to him in the kitchen, which is not very far.

Dean entered the study to find Sam holding on to her little hands.

“Go on, walk to daddy.” Sam says to her.

She turns to face him with a smile, excited to see her dad. And she slowly walks over to him.

He kneels down to her level, hold out his hands. “Come here baby, you can do it.” he encourages her.

She’d fall to her hands and knees, stumble again after a few more steps. Then in arm’s length she lets herself fall into Dean’s hands. Picking her up, holding her up in the air in celebration.

“You did it baby girl!” Dean shouted.

“What is going on down here.” Bobby grumbled.

Entering the study with the boys.

“Walk to Uncle Bobby sweetheart, you can do it.” Dean says, gently placing her on her feet.

And she slowly walked to her uncle, who smiled at her growth and progress.

And just like what she did with Dean, she did with Bobby. She let herself fall into Bobby’s hands, and he picks her up.

“You did it princess!” Bobby goes, smiling.

It’s little moments, the firsts, that make everyone whole again.

Human again.

-

“Happy birthday to you!” the small family sang In the bunker’s kitchen.

“Happy birthday dear Sapphire! Happy birthday to you!” they sang.

She closes her eyes to make a wish.

And she blows out four lit candles.

“What’d you wish for?” Sam asked.

“Can’t tell or it won’t come true Uncle Sammy.” She giggles.

Sam playfully shrugs, the kind that reads ‘okay fine, if you say so’.

“Alright, lets have some cake!” Jody announces.

“Uncle Sammy.” She shakes Sam’s arm.

“What is it princess?” Sam asked, kneeling to her level.

“When’s Daddy coming home?” She asked.

“Well, he told me he was getting a very special present for a very special birthday girl.” Sam says.

She lights up. “Presents.” She goes.

“Yes, so, lets be patient and wait. I’m sure he’ll call to let me know when it’s done.” Sam says.

After cake and ice cream, Dean sent out the text to Sam. Her present is ready.

“Okay, time for presents.” Sam announces.

Jody gave her some new clothes, and a new doll from build a bear.

Garth got her some dolls from build a bear as well. One even being the exact same one Jody got her.

Kevin got her a children’s book, Stellaluna.

Sam got her another children’s book, The Teacher from the Black Lagoon and Where the Wild Things Are.

All books Dean can read to her.

He enters the library where they opened presents.

“Daddy!” she shouted, hopping out of the chair and into Dean’s arms.

“Hey there birthday girl, ready for my present?” he asked.

She gasped with a  smile. “Yeah!” she shouts.

“Okay, follow me.” He tells her.

She does, she follows him down the hallway. They stood outside a room, that was once used for storage.

“Whenever your ready sweetheart.” Dean says.

She opens to door eagerly, walking into to a princess’s dream bedroom.

She had beanbag chairs, too oversized for her, in a corner of the room where a small TV sat, along with a DVD player. Her small bookshelf her uncle Sammy installed when they first moved to the bunker and gave her some of their favorite children’s books when they were kids. A ‘big girl’ bed, no longer in the toddler bed in Dean’s room, she now has her own room, her own space. Pink and purple accents littered the room.

She squeals happily.

“I love it Daddy, I love it.” she screams, clapping and jumping up and down.

Then running to her dad, giving him a hug.

“Happy Birthday Blue.” He says.

“Thank you daddy.” She says.

~

Feedback please! Need to know if I should keep posting some of these up. ASK/REBLOG OR COMMENT.

~

Copying and reposting someone else’s content is plagiarism and illegal. This work is property of supernaturallyobsessedchic. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. These works contain material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of these works may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher. An electronic reference link to the original posted work may be provided for purposes of promotion or assistance of publication by the readers discretion, if proper credits are given to the author in the re-post. 01/05/20

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2018

I’m kinda sad this series of posts is coming to a close, especially with two mediocre years for the kind of hit songs I enjoy.

I was very depressed in 2018 so I thought maybe it was the reason why I didn’t like most songs I heard, so I revisited the entire catalogue of 2018 hit songs from the year-end lists and... no, it wasn’t just me.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

As I mentioned before I was super depressed in 2018, which wasn’t helped by the death of two family members including one I was super close to, and by catching a mysterious infection on a finger that doctors didn’t seem to be able to cure and which made my left hand hurt all year long, until I had to have an operation in early 2019 to fix the issue (plot twist, it wasn’t an infection, which is why nothing was working). On the plus side, my s.o and I decided to get married but it only happened the next year.

Ok so, hit songs weren’t that good (stay tuned for that), but albums? Some great stuff dropped in 2018. Unfortunately, Eminem’s Kamikaze wasn’t among those great albums and at that point he was basically dead to me. BUT! A Perfect Circle came back, which was completely unexpected! Nine Inch Nails released Bad Witch which contained the excellent and super hypnotic Over And Out! Mike Shinoda released Post Traumatic and every single Linkin Park fan was like “oh god what a mood”! Moby, which I hadn’t liked for years at that point after loving his stuff so much when I was 15 or so, released Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt and it was unexpectedly good! And The 1975 released A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, which, in my opinion, isn’t quite as great as their second album (I refuse to write its super long title again), but still super good. Just like the previous one, a lot of songs had crossover potential and I’m very sad it didn’t happen. Stay tuned for the unelligible songs.

But you know what? The album of the year, at least to me, was always going to be something much darker. Fortunately, the end of the year was when VNV Nation decided to drop its best album of the entire decade, Noire. In these trying times, an album about the fight between light and darkness was exactly what I needed to hear. I was super emotional when I first listened to it. Armour might just be the best song on the album. Collide explodes into a million colors after a super slow start. Wonders is a big mood. Lights Go Out is a super angry song which basically says ‘we’re dancing while the apocalypse is happening because they won’t let us do anything else’, and we need more stuff like this. When is the Future was a super solid first single and yeah, exactly, where is the future we were promised as kids? Only Satellites became one of my fight songs in record time. And All Of Our Sins is terrifying and super good. Just an amazing album all around. I certainly hope they make more in the future, but if they don’t, that would be a super high note to finish on.

As for unelligible stuff, there’s Chun Li (Nicki Minaj) which I found super weird at first, but it grew on me a lot as the year went on. I’m very surprised it’s not on the US year-end list, by the way. And I wish more stuff from Indochine had charted... again, I know. Apart from that, it’s all The 1975. Love it if we made it should have been a hit but wasn’t a safe bet for a leading single so it kind of makes sense. TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME despite its stupid title was a much more convincing hit, and yet, it wasn’t one, and that pisses me off more. And It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) is one of their best songs ever. Catch me on the right day and I’ll call it better than The Sound, even. This should have been a hit. I’m so angry it didn’t happen.

But hey! Their new album is getting released in just a couple of days! Maybe 2020 is finally going to be their year? Wait and see.

Holy shit there hasn’t been a shorter list of honorable mentions since my 2008 list.

Remind Me To Forget (Kygo) - Good but (ironically) a bit too forgettable to be on the list.

Later Bitches (The Prince Karma) - So bad it’s good at its finest right there. Not enough to put it higher though.

High Hopes (Panic! At The Disco) - Tiptoes the line between good and super annoying too much to be higher. Not even the best song on the album (that would be Say Amen (Saturday Night)). Not sure why this was more popular.

Sicko Mode (Travis Scott) - God I want to love this song so bad. I tried so hard and it never completely clicked for me.

Next To Me (Imagine Dragons) - Believe it or not, this was the last cut from the list. I sincerely hope that Imagine Dragons will make good music again in the future and that their new songs will stop sounding like a person dragging themselves accross the wet sand of some post-apocalyptic beach covered in ashes.

So how do I know this was a bad year for hit songs? Well I not only struggled to find ten songs for this list but also struggled to find a suitable #1. Then I just went “I’m gonna put the only 2018 song I ever put on my mp3 player at #1 by default.” Does it make 2018 as bad as 1990? I’m not so sure. The top 3 I made for 1990 contained two songs I absolutely adored, including one of my favorite songs of all time. On the other hand, it was a bit easier to find ten songs I liked (not loved) in 2018. So... I don’t know.

I should also mention that Bohemian Rhapsody made the French year-end list again, at #83, and that is hilarious, but putting it on the list feels like cheating. Consider it to be an alternative #1!

10 - Finesse (Bruno Mars)

US: #14 / FR: Not on the list

I know. Everybody likes this song. I’m no exception, and I love its aesthetic, but I also like it wayyyyyy less than 24k Magic.

9 - New Rules (Dua Lipa)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list

Basically, same thing here. I like it but I’m using it mostly as filler for this list. The lyrics are pretty great, though.

8 - This is America (Childish Gambino)

US: #51 / FR: Not on the list

This would be much better if the radio version had kept the gunshot sounds from the music video, but on the other hand it would have been pretty terrifying to hear gunshots on the radio while driving, so eh... this was probably the right decision to make. Apart from that, this song and this video have already been analysed by countless people on the internet and I don’t see what I could contribute after all this time.

7 - Sweet but Psycho (Ava Max)

US: Not on the list / FR: #42

This sounds like a song from the bygone era of Bad Romance and to be honest, it would have been annoying several years ago but in 2018 that was genuinely a refreshing blast from the past.

6 - Speed (Zazie)

US: Not on the list / FR: #74

To be honest, I never expected Zazie to show up on one of my lists again, but 2018′s general quality forced me to do it. This is a song that starts super slow and keeps getting faster, and it’s mostly about overcoming depression. Everything I needed that year.

5 - Let You Down (NF)

US: #29 / FR: Not on the list

I don’t think I know a single other person or critic who likes this song, and yet it charted super high. I don’t love it, and the chorus is grating, but there’s some damn powerful lyrics in there, and a lot of it is extremely relatable.

What can I say, in this day and age, if you give me a super-watered-down version of early 2000s Eminem, I’ll take it.

4 - Marry Me (Thomas Rhett)

US: #76 / FR: Not on the list

Yeah, it’s a slow emotional song and I tend to dislike those, but I heard this song only maybe four times in total and it destroyed me every single time.

No, I don’t have anything else to say about it.

3 - Un Été Français (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #67

I do not like this song’s chorus, it’s a mess and a half. There’s a lot of much better songs on the 13 album. 2033 should have been a single. But this is the one which charted instead. And you know what? I’ll take “super messy and clunkily written song about how the far right is gonna destroy this country if we let it exist any longer, sung over a nice tune” over everything I mentioned previously on this list.

In a better year, this wouldn’t have climbed higher than the honorable mentions. But yeah, I’m not gonna repeat my entire 2017 lecture about Indochine. It takes a lot for me to dislike one of their songs. Even at their weakest, their hearts are in the right place.

2 - Flames (David Guetta & Sia)

US: Not on the list / FR: #13

We’ve finally reached the songs I genuinely love and uh, yeah, there’s only two of them. This is sad. But this song is a lot of fun! And the music video is absolutely ridiculous in all the best ways.

It was also a super useful song to me. You’re being super sad and unenergetic, you’re climbing into your car to buy some food, you’re turning the radio on and suddenly you’re hearing “Go, go, go, figure it out / Figure it out, you can do this / So my love, keep on running / You gotta get through today / There my love, keep on running / Gotta keep those tears at bay / Oh my love, don't stop burning / Gotta send them up in flames” over a super good beat and yeah, definitely. You can do this.

1 - La Même (Maître Gims & Vianney)

US: Not on the list / FR: #1 (!! holy shit quality wins for once)

This might just be the weakest #1 I’ve ever put at the top of one of my lists, since the only criteria that put this one there was “this is actually on my mp3 player and none of the other songs are”. Also, somehow, I only discovered it last year even though it was the biggest song of 2018 in my country, apparently...

Even so, that’s a fantastic song with great lyrics and a wonderfully catchy tune and that would have been enough to put it at #1 on its own, I think. But look at those lyrics! (here’s a rather good translation) It’s about how society judges people by their looks in public. The chorus literally goes “If what I am bothers you, well, tough”. That’s even the title. And I like the music video a lot, with this white box in which people are put and as soon as they aren’t in it anymore you notice how different they act or look, like the buff guy who turns out to have prosthetic legs, or the grandma who turns out to be covered in tatoos. Simple but cool idea.

It may be a weak #1, but it’s an extremely useful song, because having “si je vous gêne, bah c’est la même” (”if I bother you, well tough”) turning in your head like a playground taunt, it really does wonders for your confidence.

And to think some French friends thought making these lists would make me hate Maître Gims’ music once I discovered it.

Next up: the last list?! It’s been a wild ride.

[spaceskam]

I Need You To Know I’d Try

For day 2 of @michaelguerinweek: distance

Summary: Michael wrote letters to his mother as a coping mechanism. Here's a few notable ones through his life.

Warning: mentions of rape/non-con

ao3

May 17, 2001 

Dear Mom,

Today they told me I’m antisocial and that’s why no one wants me.

I think that’s what it means. Ms. Danielle said I have something called RAD. She said it means I can’t make friends or family because I don’t understand. She tried to say it nicely and that maybe one day I can make friends and family and stuff but I think I might not.

I think I actually just can’t make friends or family with humans. I think I can only make them with people like me and like us. I hope that’s what it means because I don’t want to be here anymore and if I can’t make friends and family with people like me then it will be the same up there.

I said I think too many times but that’s what I was told to do. Ms. Danielle said that it might help me if I write to someone who I miss or can’t talk to so I can try to express my emotions in a non-violent way. She said being violent is apart of RAD and that it’s because I don’t understand love. I think that’s not right though because I don’t think anyone gives me love. I only get angry when they get angry first. I think.

Was I violent when I was with you, Mom? Ms. Danielle said it starts because I was never shown love as a baby. I think I just don’t remember it. I really think you loved me because why else would I be put in a place where no one could find me except you? I think you loved me and kept me safe. I don’t think I was violent with you.

Sometimes I think maybe you did want to get rid of me. I know the space ship crashed and stuff and maybe you got hurt, but sometimes I think maybe you weren’t on it at all. Maybe I was violent with you. Maybe I was a problem. Maybe I couldn’t understand love with you either and I was broken from the beginning.

I’m sorry if I was. I’ll try harder.

Love, Michael

P.S. There’s an older boy with this family named Dylan and he read this letter and made fun of me because I thought I came from a spaceship but I didn’t even punch him because I didn’t think you’d approve. Or maybe you would approve since he was a bully.

P.P.S. I kicked him in the balls just in case you would approve.

P.P.P.S. Sorry for saying balls.

*

October 30, 2004

Dear Mom,

I’ve written you so many times to say a million things to try to get a little bit better but this time feels the most important. I’m going to rip this to shreds the moment I’m done because if anyone else reads this, I’m screwed.

You remember the two kids like me I told you about, Max and Isobel? I know I told you that Ms. Danielle was probably right because I still haven’t formed any meaningful relationships outside of the only two people of my species. I’m still violent. I’m still bad. I’ve tried really hard, but I can’t help it. I can only be so nice when people are so mean and then when people ARE nice to me, it feels like a trap. Isobel and Max feel like a trap.

Last night, we were camping and a guy took Isobel and Max killed him. He really just killed him. And I didn’t know what else to do because I didn’t want to lose the only two people that I’ve been able to get close to, so I covered up. I hid a body, Mom. I don’t think I even care that someone’s dead, I only care that Max and Isobel might not like me anymore. Is that wrong?

I wish you were here with me, Mom. I don’t know where you are, but I need you. I know it’s stupid to say I need you when you haven’t been here in forever, but I know that Ms. Danielle had to be wrong about you and that you loved me. You would tell me that the way I’m feeling is okay. It’s okay to be scared of myself. It’s okay not to care that a man is dead. It’s okay to only care about Max and Isobel. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

I’m okay. I only had one outburst this week. They burned me for it, but it was only one so I’m making progress. Ms. Danielle might be right about me not being able to get attached to human beings, but I’m attached to aliens and I can be a little less violent for them. I can. I can. I can.

I know you believe in me, Mom.

Love, Michael

*

December 24, 2007

Dear Mom,

There’s a boy and he’s human and I don’t understand.

I’m not attached, but I’m paying attention to if I do. Maybe Ms. Danielle was wrong and maybe I can get attached to humans. Alex is human and I WANT to get attached to him. I want him to show me affection even if I have no idea how to return it and even if I respond to it badly.

I’ve done a little more research on RAD and did you know that people can overcome it? It takes a lot of people showing them care and it takes a lot of therapy to help process it all, but I think that because I’m so aware of what I have that it makes it a little easier to fix. At least I hope so because if Alex wants to be friends and tries to hug me or hold my hand, I don’t want to feel awkward about it like I do with everyone else.

That’s what happens with all the girls at school and I know I’ve told you before. I’m sorry that you’re hearing way too much about your son’s sex life, but I have no one else to talk to about it. Last week, Katarina Livingston asked me to the drive-in and I said sure, but the entire date I was just so uncomfortable every time she tried to cuddle up to me that I stormed off. I know that was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to do something even more stupid and push her because I was close to doing that.

Even worse, Maria DeLuca sat too close to me when we were doing our science project last month and she kept pushing her knee against mine. I know she didn’t mean anything by it and I know it just meant that she wasn’t scared of me and that she was comfortable enough to touch me, but I wasn’t comfortable enough to BE touched. It was stupid. She was being nice. She’s pretty and nice and I broke my pencil stabbing it into the desk because she wouldn’t stop being pretty and nice.

Isobel and Max hug me all the time and I don’t care. Well, I mostly don’t care. Sometimes the touching is too much, but I never get as uncomfortable with them as I do with other people. I never get as angry.

The point of this letter wasn’t to tell you that stuff. I don’t like telling you that stuff because I don’t want you to be upset with me. I’ve kept it to myself for 8 years and now suddenly I’m being too honest. I’m sorry.

The actual point of the story was that Alex keeps his distance from me. He doesn’t try to touch me, but he’ll smile at me and he’ll let me borrow his pen, but he doesn’t even let his hand touch mine when he gives it to me. He’s able to be just as nice or nicer without trying to touch me. I want to see if his touch makes me angry or if I finally found a human who doesn’t make me angry or uncomfortable. Maybe he can be meaningful to me.

Sorry if that sounds stupid.

Love, Michael

*

September 1, 2008

Dear Mom,

Ms. Danielle was wrong.

I love him, I love him, I love

Dear Alex,

Hi. I’m never gonna send this to you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t know where to send it to. You’re far away from me and, if I had to guess, you’re in San Antonio because that’s where the Air Force has their basic training, so I hope the view is nice.

I held you last night and I miss you already. I still feel your fingers on my skin and I want them there. You’re the first human being that I’ve ever grown attached to, the first person whose skin belongs on mine. You don’t make me uncomfortable. You don’t make me angry. I want you to touch me.

Please come home and touch me.

I’ve never written to someone that wasn’t my Mom but you’re the one I want to escape into tonight. I’m laying in the back of my truck and I’m so sad, but still happy. I’m happy because I know I’m not broken. You’re my exception, I’m able to love you and hold you and touch you. God, you can touch me. You can touch me and I don’t get angry. I get happy.

I’m sorry I keep repeating myself. I’m just so excited. Even though you’re far away and I can’t talk to you and even though my hand is fucked and my life is fucked, I’m still excited. Because all that’s fucked but my feelings for you aren’t. I’m not broken. You showed me I can be loved here and I can accept it.

I can accept it and you and your kisses and your touches and your love. I love you. You are everything to me. So come home to me safe and sound and I will be waiting to smother you in affection I didn’t know I had to give.

Love, Michael

*

March 12, 2010

Dear Mom,

I’m sorry. I’m still violent. I got arrested. I hurt someone.

Michael.

*

May 6, 2011

Mom,

I hope you still love me. I’m sorry I was wrong. I’m sorry. I thought I was all better because Alex could touch me, so I could learn to be touched by other people too. That should be it. I should be able to touch someone more than an angry fuck before I leave but god forbid I do that.

Stephanie (whose last name I don’t remember) bailed me out of jail last night for some reason. We’ve been talking for a few nights and I guess that meant something to her, I don’t know. She bailed out after I punched Wyatt Long for calling me a name I don’t wanna write because you don’t need to hear it. After she bailed me out, we were kissing in the back of her car and she said she wanted to go slow. And she kept touching me, Mom. Like, too much touching.

I could feel it getting harder and harder to stand and I eventually said I didn’t want to. I knew if it didn’t stop, I was going to hurt her, and I didn’t want to do that. But she said it would be fine and she kept on. She kept on touching me and touching me where I didn’t wanna be touched and I felt bad because she just bailed me out of jail and I owed her something. I owed her something and she wanted sex.

She kept telling me it was okay and to just let it happen and I really tried. I really tried to let her touch me and I tried not to feel so angry and uncomfortable, but the longer I let it fester inside of me, the worse it got and I started crying in the back of her car with her hand down my jeans. I was crying because I was angry. How stupid is it that I couldn’t just enjoy it? A pretty woman wanted me and I wanted to leave, how pathetic is that? So I let her and she let me cry. She told me she thought it was sweet that I cried during sex.

It took too much of me not to lash out at her to get her to stop. I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself next time.

I’m 20 years old and I’m still scared of myself. Please help me.

Love, Michael

*

February 14, 2015

Dear Mom,

Alex is asleep beside me on Valentine’s Day and I think he’s really healed me this time.

I feel better than I ever have. He woke me up with kisses and I wasn’t scared. I know every other time I thought I was better, he would leave and it’d be just as bad, but this time feels real. It feels permanent. It’s terrifying and sirens are going off in my mind telling me to leave before he does, but then he smiles at me and I think it might be worth it. I know it’s stupid, but I’ll take whatever he gives me, even if it’s a few days every few years.

I know that sounds bad, Mom, and you’re probably saying I shouldn’t let someone just do that, but Alex is different and this time is different. This morning he brought me flowers because it was Valentine’s Day. I got a present on Valentine’s Day that wasn’t a palm-sized teddy bear from Isobel.

I love him, Mom. He terrifies me, but I want to trust me. I feel like I trust him. I need to accept his love. I have accepted his love.

He came across that letter I wrote you a few years ago about a girl named Stephanie. He dropped his phone in the crack by my bed and found it instead. I don’t know how much he read since I took it back pretty fast, but I still expected him to laugh at me. I mean, a guy who didn’t wanna be touched by a pretty girl? He should’ve laughed. Instead, he held me for 5 hours straight. I didn’t say it then but I want him to stay.

When he wakes up, I’m going to ask him to stay with me. He heals me. You’d love him.

Love, Michael

P.S. I messed up. I yelled at him. I called him names. He’s gone.

*

June 3, 2015

Mom,

The last thing I said to him was that he was a coward for leaving and that he shouldn’t come back.

The first thing I saw this morning was ‘Airman Alex Manes MIA After Bombing’.

I’m dying.

Michael.

*

November 30, 2018

Dear Mom,

I met you. I knew you loved me. I knew it. I miss you already.

I hate to not talk about that moment and instead talk about Alex, but I need to. He’s been home for awhile now and you saw him. Did you like him? After everything, I’ve come to the conclusion that I shouldn’t be with him anymore. I do love him and I want what’s best for him, and I don’t think that’s me.

Too many times when I look at him, he just seems so angry. I remember all the times he left me and I remember every time I thought he healed me. I don’t think he’s my savior anymore. I think he was one big stupid exception because he was nice to me. No, it was more than that. I don’t know. I’m confused. He’s confusing me. I need someone who won’t leave me.

They told me when I was little that the only way I’d ever get better is if I have someone willing to work with me, and he leaves me too much for that to be the case. It reminded me that Maria has been here everyday forever. It feels like a joke that I’ve spent nearly every night with her for 9 years and never formed that meaningful relationship. I care about her, I do, and I want her to be happy, but I never tried before.

I’m gonna try now. You’d like her, Mom. She’s nice.

Love, Michael

P.S. It’s been a few months, but I failed.

*

May 1, 2020

Dear Alex,

I’ve written hundreds of letters since I was a kid, but none of them were meant to be read. This one is. This one's for you and I hope it helps.

When I was 10, they told me I would probably never make and sustain any meaningful relationships with another person and that I would always struggle with attachment and affection. For awhile, I thought that was fine, that I would get attached to Max and Isobel and I’d be fine. But even with them the attachment didn’t come easy. I still struggle with their affection‒I feel like I have to earn it. I didn’t realize I did that until recently. I thought being aware of my issues meant I could handle it. Instead, it made me more paranoid.

When I met you, I thought you were an exception and on good days I felt like you fixed me. You see, I had have an aversion to touch. It makes me uncomfortable and sometimes even angry. With you, it seemed to just bypass all that. You felt like a cure to all my problems for so long. Now that I’m older and I guess wiser, I realize that’s not what happened. You were just the first person who got it. You’ve never touched me unless you knew 100% I was okay with it. My attachment to you wasn’t as instant as I remember it, it was slow and built over years and years of reassurance. You’re not my healer or a savior. You just try.

I’ve been in therapy‒real, bi-weekly therapy‒for the last year to work on my issues and that helped me realize I was viewing you so wrong and that’s why we were stuck in that stupid cycle. It’s not completely your fault and it’s not completely mine. We’re both just trying to survive after a childhood of bullshit.

The main purpose of this letter is to say that yes, I pushed you away. If I felt it was too much, I’d push you away and then blame you when you left. I wanted you to deal with my problems while I barely acknowledged yours. I am so so so sorry for that. I want to change it. I feel like I’m finally in a place where I can properly handle my own mental health while also making room for your feelings as well. I’m open to learning about you and the way you do things and why you do it.

I love you, Alex. You are my meaningful relationship. You’re not my savior, but you are the one who proved to me that I could. I’ve made so many mistakes and I want you to know that I’m ready to work on us if you’re able to. If you can’t yet, tell me. I want you to be okay first. We have to be okay as ourselves before we can be okay as us.

Maybe this was a stupid letter to write and maybe you’ll just throw it away. I’ll understand if you do. I just want you to know that I am open and willing to work with you on us. I’m open to trying. I hate being away from you.

I’m getting better. I’m accepting. I’m trying. I’m ready.

Love always and forever, Michael

[ancientbooshartifacts]

White Wedding

Author: Beansidhe_Baby

Year: 2008

Rating: PG-13

Pairing:  Howard/Vince; Rudi/Spider; Anthrax/Ebola; Neon/Ultra; Naboo/Bollo; Saboo/Tony Harrison; onesided Old Gregg/Howard; Mr Susan/Sandstorm; the Hitcher/Old Gregg

Vince was having a minor make up crisis, there was a smear of mascara on his upper eyelid, on top of several layers of carefully blended eyeshadow. He sighed in exasperation and wiped his right eye clean and started again. This was supposed to be the best day of his life and the bloody eye makeup let him down at the last gasp. There was a soft knock at the door and Naboo came in without waiting for him to open the door. “I was sure I locked that,” Vince said, looking over his shoulder at Naboo. “I'm a powerful shaman, Vince. And there's a spare key on a hook out there,” he said flatly, “How's it going?” “I'm going to look like a slapper in my wedding photos, but, other than that, fan-bloody-tastic,” Vince muttered murderously at his own reflection. “We all think you're lovely,” said Naboo, in a rare moment of flattery. “Well I look like a lovely slag. Howard's parents are going to think he's gotten me pregnant or something...” “You're a man, Vince,” Naboo reminded him helpfully. “Oh yeah. Men still don't have babies, then?” “No.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Is this straight?” Howard asked anxiously, tugging at his bow tie. “No,” said Bollo without looking up from his magazine, “Vince a man.” “The tie, Bollo. Is the tie on straight?” Howard asked again. “Nobody look at you. Precious Vince radiant bride. Groom. Radiant bridegroom.” Bollo said off handedly, flipping through his magazine. “I don't want to let the side down. If this goes on crooked I'll have to look at Vince wincing at the photos every anniversary for the rest of my life.” “If Vince love you when you look like that, he won't care about ties” Bollo sighed, closed his mag and got up to fix Howard's bow tie for him. “Thanks Bollo,” Howard smiled nervously. “Break his heart and I'll kill you.” “Yes sir.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Bridegroom or groom?” Lester asked an empty patch of air next to the guest. “I'll find my own seat, squire,” the mysterious green gentleman said, brushing past the blind man. He meandered around the pews before sitting himself down beside a tall man with a large afro who was staring at a man with an equally strange hair style “relieving” himself in the vestry. “Which of the grooms are you with?” the green man asked him. Rudi turned around and seemed to see the other man for the first time. “I'm sorry,” he said quietly, “My mind was elsewhere.” “What's up with the dress then, son?” the Hitcher, for it was of course the manwitch himself, asked. “Actually, that's a common misconception, this is not a dress, it's the robe of th-” Rudi started to correct him before he was interrupted again. “So you a nonce then?” the Hitcher cut across him, with an ever decreasing amount of tact “I am above base sexual desires,” he sniffed. “Oh so he won't let you then?” “I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.” “Mexican bloke? Uglier than a sack of pigs anuses? He's here with you isn't he?” “Excuse me, I have to go and speak to... anyone else.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “I don't trust them, they're stealing our look.” “They look nothing like us!” “Look at her with her bloody milky lens. She's wearing your face! Doesn't that get you pissed off at all?” “Getting me a bit randy actually.” “If you're unfaithful to me I'll kill her and make you eat her heart.” “Christ, you're hot when you're jealous.” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Are they still staring?” “...no” “They are still staring, aren't they?” “...maybe” “Why are we here again?” “We promised Naboo.” “Bloody Naboo.” “Play nice, darling” “One double date with them and we're part of this bloody extended family of theirs.” “Free champagne at the reception though. And besides, everyone knows that sex after a wedding is the best. Except for the poor sods getting married obviously.” “Those electro girls are freaking me out. The little one keeps making stabby hand gestures.” “Little? She's the same height as you!” “Shut your mouth!” ~-~-~-~-~-~- Bryan Ferry was waiting to walk Vince up the aisle. He peeked around the corner at the crowded room. It seemed to be largely made up of scene kids looking fashionably bored, slightly nervous jazz fans and a much bigger selection of various monstrous beasts. In the corner a man made out of sandpaper was discretely chatting up a man made of chamois leathers and jay cloths. He was feeling nervous. He wanted to be back in the forest with trees surrounding him on all sides. He'd sniffed his son's mother-in-law to be, on the neck, and it had all gotten considerably awkward. That would be interesting at the brunch for the close family tomorrow morning. ~-~-~-~-~-~- Vince walked straight forward and all of a sudden, everything else fell away. He forgot about guest-lists and flower arrangements and his hair, and all he could fit into his world view was Howard waiting for him at the end of that long walk. He hadn't seen what Howard would be wearing, they'd decided that they'd already had three lifetimes share of bad luck resulting from broken traditions. He had actually worn a suit. He'd been threatening to wear a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and Vince had been only just sure that he was joking. Vince himself was wearing an elaborate lacy tunic over a pair of knee length leggings. He hadn't felt comfortable in either a morning suit or the white dress so he'd settled for some kind of a mix of the two. He wasn't sure if the result was genius or just bizarre. The way Howard was looking at him, he didn't think it mattered anymore. ~-~-~-~-~-~- “You may now kiss the bride...groom,” Dennis said finally and looked eagerly at the blushing newly-weds. Howard shyly kissed Vince on the lips and Vince threw his arms around his neck. A plaintive cry went through the church and they broke apart to see Old Gregg sobbing onto the Hitcher's shoulder. “Don't worry about him,” Vince whispered, seeing Howard's slightly guilty expression, “He'll get some cock afterwards. Everyone loves the broken hearted ex-girlfriend at a wedding.” “We never actually went out per se, Vince. He kidnapped me,” Howard replied quietly, into his husband's hair. “You look beautiful,” he said, cupping Vince's face in both hands. “You're not so bad, yourself,” Vince giggled, “Not as good as me, obviously, but I think Gregg won't be the only jealous bitch wishing me dead by the end of the night.” “Get in me wheelbarrow, you cheeky vixen.” “I was always in your wheelbarrow, Howard. I was just waiting for you to bloody notice.” They kissed again. ~-~-~-~-~-~- Naboo was dancing by himself in the middle of the floor, pulling focus from everyone else, including Bob Fossil (who no one could quite remember inviting). He was intermittently accosted by small groups of girls who would whisper in his ear. Each time he would shake his head and they'd walk off, looking deeply disappointed. He was off his tits on free champagne (which wasn't all that free, considering that he was paying for the bulk of this wedding) and a couple of twelve skins he'd smoked in the jacks. He noticed Howard and Vince cuddling, or possibly even canoodling, in the corner and suddenly thought that going over to them would be a fantastic idea. “Howard! Vince! You got married,” he smiled widely and hugged them both enthusiastically. “Why aren't you dancing, it's brilliant! All these girls keep asking me if I want to have a good time, but I'm already having a good time, what're they like? Hey, hey guys whose name are you taking? Or are you going to double bar it? Like Noir-Moon or Moon-Noir. Bollo doesn't have a last name, you know.” Vince was looking around desperately for the aforementioned ape to get Naboo to go and have a little lie down somewhere and Howard was looking at Naboo with concern. “Hey Howard,” Naboo leaned in conspiratorially, “I always liked you. You're a good man-thing-horse. Thing.” Howard patted him on the shoulder and he staggered over to one side. “How come the room's moving? Am I paying for a moving room?” he said before falling backwards into his familiar's arms. He looked up and giggled. Vince smiled at Bollo, who grunted shortly and led Naboo over to one of the couches around the periphery of the room. He lay him down gently and when he tried to leave, Naboo pulled him back, almost on top of him. ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Look at that idiot making a complete arse of himself. I tell you Saboo, it's an outrage!” “The only outrage here is that I was talking to a number of lovely ladies and then you insinuated yourself into the conversation and told them all that I was here with you!” “You are here with me. You're the designated driver, you're here with all of us. If you go off with some bird, who's going to get us back? Kirk? He's worse than Naboo! And I haven't exactly been on orange juice all night either.” “Are you trying to imply that you could operate an automobile if you hadn't been drinking yourself into oblivion? I would pay good money to see you even shift gears.” “What? This is an outrage! Who are you? Jeremy Clarkson?” “You had no right to let those girls think that I was shagging a testicle shaped balloon animal.” “As if, you couldn't have me even if you weren't a prize tit” “I could too, have you. You're aching for me.” “Somebody's dreaming.” “I COULD HAVE YOU TWELVE WAYS FROM SUNDAY, YOU KNOB!” ~-~-~-~-~-~- “Alright, I'm going to toss the flowers!” Vince called out before a tide of womenfolk materialised around him. In the front, jostling for position, the goth girls and electro girls were trying to look casual and unbothered by it. Neon and Anthrax were glaring at each other while Ultra and Ebola conveyed their exasperation to each other with a shrug and a wink. Beside them, Mrs. Gideon was preening and smoothing her hair. Somewhere in the middle of the sea of girls, Eleanor, was managing to make every single man in the room anxiously down drinks and pray. Howard looked at the throng of women treading on each other's toes and jabbing elbows into ribs, with horror. This looked like a riot in the making. Decades of feminism and “doing it for themselves”, whatever "it" was, went out the window in the face of a bride(groom) throwing a bunch of flowers. It was absurd! He thought he saw Old Gregg in there somewhere.... The bouquet arced through the air, over the heads of the crowd, and the room was filled with the sound of fifty women (or close approximations) breathing in sharply. The flowers landed, with a soft rustle, in a pair of small hands. Naboo looked down at the flowers in his hands and back up at the murderous glares of the disappointed women. His cheeks turned red and he looked down again before thrusting the flowers towards Bollo. “'Sfor you,” he muttered. Bollo starting to eat an orchid before looking at the shaman's shining eyes looking up at him. Oh. He swallowed nervously and the Orchis saccifera caught in his throat. Naboo patted him on the back until his familiar stopped choking and shyly took his hand. The crowd of females looked less inclined to riot and some were blowing their noses and dabbing their eyes genteelly. ~-~-~-~-~-~- In the back of the hired limo, Howard and Vince necked like teenagers after a dance. Or, like two people who had just gotten married. “Made it,” Vince sighed and nibbled Howard's ear lobe, sending a gust of warm air into his husband's ear. “Just about,” Howard agreed, kissing the inside of Vince's wrist. “I still think we should have eloped and gotten married by Bowie,” Vince said against Howard's throat. “Naboo would have killed me if I took you away and robbed him of organizing the party.” “Cheeky little jack of clubs. D'ya think he had that planned with the flowers?” “He looked pretty surprised. I think it might have been a happy accident.” “I didn't think much of those wedding cake dollies. I looked hideous!” “Well, don't say anything to Leroy or you'll hurt his feelings.” “Oh alright. Howard?” “Yes, little man?” “I love you.” “I love you too.” “Pity Bono had that other party to go to...” “Vince?” “Yes?” “Shut your face.”