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superhero--imagines · 4 years ago

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Part 1 Here! / Part 2 Here! / Part 3 Here! / Part 4 Here! / Part 5 Here! / Part 6 Here! / Part 7 Here! / Part 8 Here! / Part 9 Here! / Part 10 Here! / Part 11 Here! / Part 12 Here!

A/N: Shout out to @ideas-for-you-to-adopt for inspiring/writing a lot of the headcanons used for the “Bella Suspicion” part of this chapter!

I’m posting this a day early, because, well I’m flakey like that

* You spear another piece of pineapple, your teeth grinding together

* “I think that sounds perfect!” Lauren squeals lightly grasping Bella’s shoulder, Bella gives a small smile in return.

* You know what isn’t perfect?

* The fact that nothing is going according to plan.

* It’s already a month in and NOTHING has happened. You stab another piece of pineapple, sticking it into your mouth

* You’ve hung back in the school parking lot everyday for a MONTH, you were even late to cheer practice once, just to see if the “Tyler Van Accident” happened.

* Only it never did, and you didn’t know why until Lauren confided that she and Tyler had been hooking up lately.

* As in hooking up at her house after school before her parents came home.

* Of course it’s not going to happen when Tyler’s ditching his last period to drive to her house

* What a mess

* You chew the pineapple carefully, just like a human would. Because even though Bella knows LITERALLY NOTHING. She somehow suspects everything.

* You watch her from the corner of your eye, making polite conversation with Angela about biology next period.

* The amount of questions she has about you is ridiculous

* How did you meet Edward? How does your family know the Cullen’s? Where are you adoptive parents now? If they’re back in the states why haven’t you gone to live with them?

* It’s literally never ending. And that’s just her trying to poke holes in your story.

* You’re not even going to start with all the stuff she’s commented on your physical appearance

* “Hey don’t you think it’s weird they all have gold eyes?” You had heard Bella quietly ask Jessica when she thought you couldn’t hear

* “Not really, they’ve got like six kids, so when one kid needs something more of them do too. (Y/N) told me Alice wanted color contacts so Dr. Cullen just bought some for all of them.”

* And then the week before that, while you were doing a stunt at a basketball game Bella said:

* “Aren’t they like, too strong?” You were lifting up a girl all on your own.

* “Oh yeah- I guess you never saw the video, apparently they’re jacked.” Conner says, with a shrug.

* “Yeah they heard working out helps with stress when they were like 12 and just never stopped.” Mike adds absentmindedly

* And if that wasn’t enough she’s even said this a few weeks before that:

* “Don’t you think it’s weird how beautiful they all are?” Lauren wrinkles her nose, at the time she had gotten used to Bella but she still doesn’t seem to like her very much

* “Not really, I remember (Y/N) wasn’t all that pretty freshman year, they used to wear these really dorky glasses.”

* You had almost started to forget how good you had it, after you did all the leg work in the last two years to establish that you were normal -just kinda quirky- you had just started to enjoy the pay off. A little more lax with your appearance, wearing clothes you liked, doing more solo routines in cheer.

* Only for little Miss.Curious to show up

* Now you have to try extra hard to look human again. And not just you, the entire coven does, because when one of you falls under suspicion you all do.

* Rosalie’s been making her hair look messy every so often to give the illusion that she’s having a bad hair day, Alice wears a retainer every so often, even Emmett pretends to need the bathroom more than he usually does.

* This morning you even had Rosalie do a fake pimple on your jaw.

* If Bella wasn’t going to be your best friends’ future wife, you think you might just hate her.

* You kind of sympathize with Rosalie in the book now.

* “Hey (Y/N) are you in?” Conner asks nudging his elbow against yours.

* “In for what?” You mumble, spearing another piece of pineapple. Another downside is now you have to eat at lunch. Otherwise Bella starts asking why you never eat and everyone gets really concerned and starts force feeding you

* God, all those years of establish you have low blood sugar and acid reflux induced nausea for nothing

* “La Push beach, we’re all going this weekend.” You perk up at the mention

* Finally, something’s getting back on track

* “Can’t, cheer stuff.” You mumble, shoving your food around your plate with your fork.

* You don’t miss Bella’s meaningful glance on your mostly full plate.

* Oh great, you can practically see the question “don’t you think it’s weird how they never eat anything?” Forming in the inner corners of her mind

* “What about you Edward?” Lauren flutters her eyelashes and you have to stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

* Lauren’s still annoyed that even though they’re hooking up, Tyler hasn’t made anything official yet

* Alice told her flirting with another guy might help.

* “He’s not going either.” You say before Edward can even open his mouth. He doesn’t say anything just gives you a questioning look and a smile.

* Looks like he’s finding everyone else’s thoughts more interesting

* “Are you guys going on a date?” Jessica waggles her eyebrows and on the other side of the table Bella sputters.

* You roll your eyes

* “No Jessica, but if I can’t go have fun neither can he.” Technically you both are forbidden to go on tribal land but whatever. “Best friend code.”

* Also you’re pretty sure Edward and Emmett are going to Yellowstone to eat bears or something, like a couple of heathens

* The thought of eating straight out of bear, no idea what they’ve eaten or where they’ve been doing their business, makes you shudder.

* You did mention to them both that if they happen to find an orphaned bear cub somewhere to bring it back. You’ve been wanting to experiment with bear blood.

* “Best friend code.” Edward repeats slowly, and the look he gives you makes your stomach flutter. And it’s not because you just ate half a salad.

* You’re knocked out of the look when Conner bumps his knee against yours

* “Well that’s a shame, I was looking forward to seeing you in a swimsuit.”

* So Conner’s been flirting a lot with you lately. Kind of weird, your best guess is that he was hoping to date Lauren, but now that she’s kinda seeing Tyler, you’re starting to look good.

* “Maybe you should have a pool party at that fancy house of yours then.” The group laughs but Conner just smirks

* “Whatever you want babe but-“ the bell cuts him off and you give him a consolatory pat on the arm.

* You move to throw away the leftover food on your plate, walking with Edward

* “We’re ditching right?” You ask him as you toss the plate into the trash.

* “Yeah Mr. Barnes is doing his blood type experiment today.” Like he even needs an excuse to skip school. “Do you want to go to the bookstore or something?”

* You shake your head, that won’t do, when Bella faints Edward needs to be there so they can fall in love

* “Wanna just hang out in my car? We can listen to that new Debussy CD I got.”

* Edward gives you a small smile, like he’s not really happy

* “Whatever you want.”

* Wait what’s up with that.

* “Hey, (Y/N)!” Bella calls out for you and Edward grimaces.

* “I’ll meet you at your car” wait he’s not going to stay here? If this was a dating video game he’d be the kind of player that wasted all the capture flags and then complains when they end up all alone.

* He leaves just as Bella gets to you. She spares a fleeting glance in Edward’s direction, almost looking sad as she watches him walk away before she looks to you

* “Are you heading over to biology?” She really is cute, like a puppy. She must have been hoping to get a little closer to Edward.

* You almost feel bad for not warning her what with her issues on blood.

* “Nah I’ve got to finish my trig homework so I’m going to skip.” You fake a yawn.

* Oh, before you forget

* “I actually got you something.”

* You hand her a carefully wrapped gift bag, compliments of Rosalie of course

* “Vitamins?” Bella asks, her eyebrows threading together

* “Yeah, it’s like a vitamin powder, you just add it to water. We bought a big family pack so I thought I would share some with you.”

* Also because you’re 100% sure she’s anemic.

* Part of the reason you like the way she smells so much is because of her anemia, if it’s just the peach scent you can probably contain yourself.

* You wave goodbye and Bella looks down at the package in her hands with a goofy expression. She hugs it to her chest before her expression pinches.

* “I should have offered to let them copy my notes” Bella murmurs to herself. Smacking her forehead and walking to biology.

* When you manage to sneak out to the parking lot through the gym doors, you see Edward leaning against your car, looking bored as he looks to the tree line

* “Why didn’t you sit inside? You look like a douchebag.”

* “I would have if someone had given me the keys”

* Like that’s stopped him before

* You unlock the car, letting it start with a hum before you pull out your trig homework

* You weren’t entirely lying to Bella, you really hadn’t finished you homework

* Edward pulls out a book from his bag, you’re not ashamed to say you’ve gotten him super into “The City of Ember” series

* “Hey why did you walk away when Bella came over?” you’re only half curious, mostly just trying to make conversation. “You don’t hate her do you?” You add with a laugh.

* The mere thought of Edward Cullen hating Bella Swan is laughable.

* “Yeah I do.”

* You find yourself coughing from the sheer shock.

* “You mean she frustrates you because you can’t read her mind.” Edward has spared you a concerned glance when you started coughing, but has turned his attention back to his book

*” No I mean I don’t like her, and I don’t like being around her.” He doesn’t look up from his book as he says it.

* “But why?” Yeah she’s a little plain, and she’s still pretty shy even though you’ve been hanging out for a month and all those damn questions

* But she’s got good taste in books, and she’s pretty straightforward.

* She’s not the type of person to go behind your back, if you did something to upset her she’ll tell you straight to your face.

* Honestly she’s a lot like Angela, minus the hidden cunning nature.

* Edward eyes narrow and a heavy sigh escapes him. His head tilts back to rest against the passenger seat headrest.

* His neck is so long and white. The color of freshly fallen snow. You can’t help but think of how pretty it would look covered in hickeys.

* Like poppy’s blossoming in the snow.

* Can vampires get hickeys? Would it just be like black instead of red since none of you really have blood anymore.

* “I just don’t like-” He cuts himself off when his eyes meet yours, they seem to shine brighter for a moment, and you tilt your head. This feels like a meaningful look.

* Edward sighs and looks away.

* “I just don’t like her vibe.”

*”Vibe? Are you an Edward shaped imposter?” you see him mouth ‘Edward Shaped Imposter’ as you both laugh.

* “Where did you learn to say these things?” He asks between laughs. You mock gasp.

* “The real Edward would never ask me that because he’s too afraid to know! Who are you really? What planet are you from?” Your hands move to his face, his face is as smooth as marble, lingering warmth. You leaned in without thinking about it, only a few inches away from him.

* You’re so close you can smell him. He always smells good, like something ancient and profound. Rosemary and argon oil.

* Your hands are still on his face and he’s grinning.

* You gulp

* You’re trying to think of another ridiculous imposter joke you can make wen you catch a familiar head of blond hair through the window.

* “Is that Mike and ... Bella?”

* This is a lot sooner than you thought, it hasn’t even been ten minutes yet.

* Edward looks almost bored as he follows your gaze.

* “Yeah, looks like she made herself sick, she’s - what’s that word for when people are afraid of blood?”

* “Hemophobia?”

* “Yeah, that’s what she has.”

* You wait for a second, releasing his face from your hands, but instead of moving to open the door he slumps back into his seat, eyes focused on his book.

* “Don’t you think we should go help them?” He shrugs.

* The f*cking criminal just shrugs.

* WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON?!?!

* Human or not, there’s no world Edward wouldn’t at least think about helping someone who’s in trouble.

* You’re starting to think this really is an Edward imposter.

* You watch Bella lean on Mike, stumbling down the crosswalk to the nurse’s office in the next building.

* You can’t watch anymore

* ‘You know you-” You words finally get Edward’s attention as he looks up from his book. “You are wasting all the capture flags!” You shout before sliding out of your car and jogging over to Mike and Bella

* “Mike! What happened?” He’s so surprised to see you his grip on Bella goes slack and she falls out of his side hold.

* “Oh crap!”

* You rush to catch her, swinging her into a princess hold.

* What was Mike struggling with so much? She’s not very hea - oh right you’re a vampire.

* “Are you alright, I know she’s kinda heavy.” Well that’s not very nice to say about a girl, besides she’s pretty skinny. Can’t be more than 120 pounds.

* “It’s no problem, I do it for cheer are all the time.” You do a fake grunt as you pretend to get a better hold on her.

* The movement jostle her awake, her eyes fluttering open. She’s still in a dreamy state, her eyes are unfocused.

* “(Y/N)?”

* “Hey buddy, looks like ya fainted, squeamish around blood huh?”

* “How do you know we were doing the blood type experiment?” Mike asks.

* Oh crap. You were skipping, you weren’t supposed to know that. Even worse you brain can’t seem to come up with a valid excuse.

* “Alice told us about it, (Y/N) used to be squeamish around blood when we were kids, didn’t want to take any chances” You let out a sigh of relief when you see Edward walking towards you. At least he’s not completely heartless.

*”Then why were you skipping?” Mike asks scratching his head. Edward shrugs

* “They can’t go to class, then I won’t go either.” And then the criminal looks you straight in the eye and says with the cheekiest smile imaginable:

*“It’s the best friend code”

* Oh f*ck off Edward.

* You almost want to scoff when he takes Bella from your arms and into his.

* SO now he wants to care about the capture flag.

* You let him take her though, You swear you see her stiffen and frown when he holds her.

* That can’t be right, she seemed super relaxed when you were carrying her.

* “I-I’m fine I can walk.”

* “No you can’t.” Edward bluntly says.

* Even when he gets to capture event, he says all the wrong things. You sigh as you walk behind him. Only to notice another set of footsteps by you.

* “You can go back if you want Mike, Edward won’t kidnap her or anything.” He might throw her into the lake though.

* Mike shakes his head. “No it just seems wrong to not make sure she at least gets to the nurses office.”

*You smile, he really is a kind boy.

* “Also I’ll be damned if Bella gives Edward all the credit.” Well mostly kind.

* You get to the nurses office, who seems incredibly flustered with both you and Edward in such a small space.

* She seems so preoccupied keeping her wits about her as she checks out Bella and deals with your presence that she never asks why three people had to escort one person to the nurses office.

* “Well your blood pressure is a little low, since you fainted I would suggest you go home. If you want you can take a nap in here until school’s out.” Wow, where was a nurse this generous when you were in school.

* Bella, the beautiful moron, shakes her head.

* “No it’s okay I’ll go back to class, I don’t want to take a zero for the assignment” Well that’s noble and responsible and all. But what does she think is going to happen when she goes back to class?

* She’s going to see some blood again and faint. Not that you can be mad, you would probably have to go the the nurse too if Bella ever managed to prick her own finger

* “Bella you really shouldn’t,” You settle your hand on her shoulder pushing her back onto the chair. “You just fainted you should lie down, or go home or something.”

* Her eyebrows thread together, mouth pulled in protest.

* “I don’t want to impose on any-”

* “It’s not an imposition, I want to!” Her mouth parts, then closes, stretching into a fine line. You look to Edward who’s avoiding your gaze and seems very irritated.

* Enemies to lovers trope it is.(Though you’re not sure if this counts as enemies if only one person dislikes the other)

* “I’m going to drop you off home, come on.” You pull Bella up by her hand, leading her to the parking lot.

* “Wait what about my car?”

* Oh you hadn’t thought about that.

*Hmmm in the original book Alice drove her home. But Alice doesn’t really do anything unless there’s something in it for her, or if she wants to.

* Also you’re pretty sure when she ditched today when she found out that people were pricking there finger on campus. She claimed it was for Jasper, but you’re pretty sure there’s a sale in the Nordstrom in Seattle.

* Edward would rather get the flu than drive Bella’s ancient truck.

* Which leaves only one option.

* You toss your keys to Edward who catches them with one hand.

* “Edward will drive you home in my car, and I’ll drive your car behind him.”

* “What about Rosalie?” He grumbles.

*“What about Rosalie?” Why is he being so difficult right now? Doesn’t he realize you’re doing this all for him!

* “You’re driving her home since Emmett and I are leaving for Yellow Stone as soon as school lets out.” Oh right the bears. Cr*p.

* “It’s not a big deal, I’ll drive back to school after we’re done and you can go your way and I’ll go mine.”

* You can tell Edward doesn’t like it, but he just sigh’s climbing into your car and then promptly getting out of the passenger side and sitting in the driver’s side.

* The dork forgot he had to drive the car.

* You’re dying laughing as Bella leads you to her car.

* “It’s the blue one.”

* Her truck isn’t all that bad. It’s old, but in a kind of retro way. It’s powder blue, with only two doors and no backseat.

* You climb in, turning the engine and hearing it purr. Well it’s more of a roar, but it’s not terrible.

* You’re surprised when Bella climbs through the passenger side door.

* “Um, you’re not going to drive with Edward?” She looks at you like you just asked her to recite the Fibonacci sequence.

* “Why would I go with him when you’re the one driving my car?” Okay, that’s fair.

* You sigh, why does nothing ever go according to plan.

* Maybe it’s for the best, Edward doesn’t seem to be in the best mood. Not that this is good either, she’s sitting so close to you, her peachy scent fills the small space of the truck and you feel lightheaded.

* It’s less than a ten minute trip, no need to get dramatic. You’re pretty sure you won’t kill her just because she smells nice.

* “Soooooo... what do you want to talk about?” You ask as you turn out of the school, this car is super slow compared to yours, you’re pretty sure it won’t go over 50 mph.

* Bella fidgets beside you, playing with the ends of her hair.

* “So are you and Edward...dating?”

* You laugh so loud you actually start coughing. And then you laugh again.

* “No-pfff- no We’re uh- we’re not dating.” You finally manage.

* “Why is that so funny to you?” She asks, genuinely confused.

* “Well it’s just outrageous you know?” How would that even work? You can’t even picture it. Edward getting all hot and bothered because you’re wearing an oversized sweater and glasses. You flirting with him all over the house in front of Carlisle and Esme. Edward signing up for a sport just so he can see you in his letterman.

* It’s all...impossible.

* And yet, there is one thing you can picture.

* Edward by your side, he’s almost golden brown, his eyes bright green. He points to the living room, and in there are Alec and Jane, both of their eyes blue as they argue over who’s turn it is to watch TV.

* Maybe if you were human, if you had met in a different world or a different time, that would be something you could have.

* But it is what it is

* “Edward and I have been friends for a really long time, we’ve just seen too much of each other to find each other attractive like that.”

* Bella looks like she doesn’t believe you but she doesn’t say anything.

* Wait what are you doing? This is the perfect chance to talk Edward up!

* “But you know Edward is a real stand up guy!” It leaves a little too forcefully, a little inauthentic.

* “Oh is he?” She doesn’t sound too excited to be talking about this.

* “I know he’s got one of those face-”

* “Obnoxiously handsome?” She spats

* “Like he thinks existence is a curse, and the world is evil and everything is terrible -” Wait you’re getting off track. “B-but he really is a good guy!”

* You bite your lip, as Bella tells you to turn into a subdivision.

* “You know after- after I was adopted,” After your parents died. “I was really lonely, I had a family that loved me and anything I asked for but I didn’t really have anyone to talk to” Oh god, why did you choose this story to pick? “Edward was probably the only friend my age I had for years.”

* She straightens up a little bit, a curious glint in her eyes.

* “Really?” You nod.

* “Yeah he would come by every Monday and Wednesday,” You still remember the crunch of the snow under your feet as you both walked to the barn. He always asked why you didn’t just run, and you always told him because you liked the way you could see your breath hang in the air,

* “He could have been out that time, hanging out with other people,” More well adjusted vampires, who hunted instead of harvesting small amounts from animals they raised. “or chasing girls and playing sports, but he stayed with me.”

* “He always made me feel safe, and I’m sure whoever is lucky enough to end up with him will feel that way too.”

* “I think you’re giving him too much credit” Bella finally says, you smile at her

* “what do you mean?”

* “Well, who wouldn’t drop everything to hang out with you?” You can’t tell if she’s being genuine or if she’s bitter. Your eyes meet hers and there’s a twinkle in them. ”My house is the one on the left, the one with the magnolia tree.”

* You come to a stop in front of the house she mentioned, shifting it into park, and handing her the keys.

* You don’t say anything as you climb out of her car. You see Edward stopped a few dozen feet behind her truck, your jeep still on.

* “Thanks for driving me home” She smiles at you, a real smile that reaches her eyes. It’s nice.

* “No problem, it gave me an excuse to ditch school too haha.” You both stand in awkward silence. Neither of you moving.

* Well damn what are you supposed to do now?

* “Oh, hey do you want me to bring you your homework or anything?”

* She perks up at that, reaching into her pocket

* “If you don’t mind, could you text me what page he homework is on for trig today?”

* “ Oh for sure! No problem at all” You take her cell phone in your hand. It’s a white sidekick, with a picture of a cactus on the back. She must have gotten it when she moved.

* You can’t help but wonder if she has any friends she misses. She spent her entire life in one community, sure Phoenix is a pretty big place, but she must have had friends, people she sat with at lunch everyday, girls she had known since childhood, sleepovers where they whispered about boys they had crushes on.

* As you hand her phone back, your contact information saved in it, you can’t help but wonder who this person in front of you is. You know her, but at the same time, you know absolutely nothing about her.

* “See you Monday!” You wave goodbye as you get into the passenger side of your car, and Bella waits on the porch until you and Edward leave.

* Edward’s got that look on his face.

* “Edward why are you mad?”

* “I’m not mad.” He grumbles and you raise an eyebrow. He sighs.

* “You’re going out of your way an awful lot for that human.” He says as he turns back onto the highway.

* “It’s just the right thing to do Eddie.”

* He shakes his head, his mouth pinched into a frown

* “Just be careful, I don’t know what that one’s thinking, she could be planning to burn our entire coven for all I know.”

* You roll your eyes, yeah you bet Bella who weights exactly 115 pounds, and has anemia is single handedly planning to bring down the entire vampire race.

* “How about we make a deal, I’ll promise not to rock the boat while you and Emmett are gone-”

* “Why do I feel like I’m going to regret not covering my ears?”

*” If you promise to bring me back a bear cub - an orphaned one.” He gives you a look you don’t quite care for.

* “You want me to kill a mother bear so you can have a bear cub?”

* “No of course not! I’m just saying- Emmett doesn’t really look before he kills so if he kills a mother bear, just make sure you bring me the cubs.”

* “Why do you even want a bear? How are you planning to take care of it with all those deer around, they need a lot-”

* “Yes Dad I know it’s a big responsibility, don’t worry I won’t make you take it on walks or anything.”

* Edward gulps hard, one hand detaching from the steering wheel to cover his mouth.

* Wouldn’t it be positively sinful for you to be underneath him, whining ‘daddy, please’ in that breathy voice of yours and-

* Edward.exe is broken.

* “Dude you really need to get your shit together before you go on your trip, we’ve been parked for fifteen minutes and your foot is still on the brake.” You say as you get out of the car

* He hits his head against the steering wheel.

* “Yeah, I really do need to get my shit together.”

Tags: @moonlights27 @thebluetint @the100thtwilight @awesomebooklover17 @oneofthepotterheads @smileygirl08 @imdoingathingmom @iconicgguk @yrawn @alyciaswhore @little-horror-show @wicked-watering-can @lazydreamers @ xxxmuxxx @ideas-for-you-to-adopt @poisoinedhope @maryleigh8796 @moose-squirrel-asstiel @hotmessgoodness

#twilight #twilight imagines #twilight headcanons #twilight reader insert #twilight saga #edward cullen imagine #edward cullen x reader #edward cullen #bella swan #bella swan x reader #bella swan headcanon #midnight sun #superhero--imagines

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mollydollyjournals · 4 years ago

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It's the morning of Sunday 21st February, but I'm completely nocturnal so it's the end of the day for me. I'll try to stay awake as long as I can and sleep as long as I can, so hopefully I won't get up until midnight or at least just before.

I was 155.2 when I got up. I can't feel happy or sad about that. I just seem to be hovering just over 155 now. I spent 2 hours cleaning earlier. My whole house really needs sorting out and cleaning so I did as much of that as I could. I want to say I hope that'll make a difference as it was tough work and made me sweat a bit sometimes, but I also ate something ridiculous and I mean that's that. Way to fuck up any potential progress. I'm struggling to lose even a pound a month for all kinds of reasons and I could have maybe got somewhere a bit faster but no. I'm a fucking idiot.

I spent a lot of money on skincare products recently. I feel like since I can't be skinny, I want to make my body nicer somehow. I was interested in Korean 10/7-step skincare years ago but I couldn't afford it all and generally didn't want to spend that long every day - I had some money now so I bought it all. I started using sheet masks not long ago and I really like how they feel so I think this skincare thing won't feel like work once I find the right products.

Just as well really. My skin has always been disgusting. Maybe I can at least be fat and soft.

I just always get stuck losing and gaining not even the same 5lbs. More like the same 2lbs. I hit 156 in November and I've had serious health issues twice but even when I haven't been sick, I've still struggled so much. Either I can't stick to it or I do but I don't get any results anyway. And it's not like I'm underweight. I'm overweight. My BMI is over 26. If my metabolism is going to slow down even more the lower I weigh, it'd take me a thousand years to get to my goal weight.

I really wanted to drink today. I feel really alone. It's why I'm so prone to binging and spending money. I'm always looking for something to make me feel better. But I drank a lot last time and I wanted to go a decent amount of time without. Ideally until next weekend. If I can, it'd be good to have a decent intake in that time, and stay active. I have a lot of housework and improvements I can do that'll take a lot of energy. I want to do all those things, and keep my food intake low, and not drink any alcohol, and maybe then I can lose some weight. If my metabolism worked the way it should I'd easily be able to get to 150 by next weekend. If my metabolism worked the way it should I wouldn't be this obsessive in the first place that I want to lose 5lbs in a week I guess.

Im hopefully finishing up the disimpaction thing. I had 3 sachets the other day and then the next day had trouble, so after that I went back to 4. That was yesterday. Today it feels like that was too much but at least I'm clear I guess. Today I had 2 sachets. I'm remembering when I had to get used to not taking stimulant lax...it took so long before I felt vaguely normal. This is different so it shouldn't take that long, but I guess there could still be some adjustment necessary. So I should have 2 sachets a day for at least 2 days, preferably 3, before I panic and decide I need to start taking more again. Hopefully by then it'll be okay and I can go down to 1.

Idk. I feel like there's no point me being here. I look at thinspo and want to lose weight. I write my own weight on a long post like this. But then whatever I do, for whatever reason, I stay fat.

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celestialmystical · 4 years ago

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Crystals, a Kalimba, & Lancome Perfume

This morning, September 9th, 2020, I woke up without my consent. It was one of those abrupt, rude awakenings you get quite frequently if you live at my parent's house.

My first thought when I woke up like this was, "Out of all the things I'm not going to miss about America, (which is a lot), having to hear my dog bark at the top of his lungs so early in the morning is at the tippity tip top of my list."

The last couple of days I haven't been able to sleep well because today, at midnight, or I guess tomorrow, I am going to go on a plane to South Korea, where I'll be living for a whole year--at the least.

I've been in a mixture of excitement and nervousness for the last couple of days which I just call antsy. When I'm antsy, even if I fall asleep, the slumber is restless and unsatisfying.

Even the day before I was feeling antsy and tired, but because I had an 'open house' where my friends could come in and chill with me while I packed, it cancelled out my tiredness completely.

It started off with hanging out with my friend, we'll call him Sad Boy, at my local Starbucks. We hadn't talked in a while, probably not since the start of quarantine, six months ago. We had a lot to catch up to each other, and because we both basically have the same astrological chart, we were able to really connect and be there for each other.

It made me think: Am I really ready to leave America and go to South Korea?

Later, we went back to my house and other people came over. We'll call them: Slow Walker, Hot Manga Chick, and Avatar.

We all mostly just sat in my room and talked and caught up with each other. I had one of my suitcases packed before I met up with Sad Boy and didn't really do anything productive while we were all together. But it was extremely fun and comforting to know how much my friends love and care about me.

They were the ones to convince me to write this blog.

Again I thought, Am I ready to go?

Anyway, before dinner time, which was like 6:30, they left.

Then, 10 minutes later, after a long day of work in a hospital and an hour drive, showed up my friend, Birthing Hips.

After I was done eating, we went up into my room, talked, caught up, and I thought she was going to leave, because I thought she was very tired from her long day of work. BUT she stayed. And I am so grateful and thankful that she did.

Without the amazing, practical Birthing Hips and another guest I will mention later, my packing would have been disastrous.

Going through my dresser was fine and easy. It was just delicates, pajamas, and shorts. Birthing Hips helped me slim down my pickings for those things.

Birthing Hips helped me roll my clothes and put them in these plastic bags that you squeeze the air out of so it compresses and makes less space. Birthing Hips used her magical birthing hip strength to squeeze the air out of the bags for me which was no easy feat let me tell you.

Once it came to my closet, that was a more difficult issue.

I told Birthing Hips, I'm just going to take everything that I want to bring off of my hangers and put them in pile.

She was like k.

So, I pulled one thing off. Then another. And another. And another. And another. And another.

Each article of clothing made Birthing Hips' eyes go wider and wider.

Once I was done with my closet, which only had five pieces of clothes left in it, I turned to Birthing Hips, who was starring at me like I was crazy, and said, "That's summer. Now onto winter."

Birthing Hips looked beyond stressed for me. I was oblivious.

I took everything out of the cabinet below my closet and plopped them all onto the same pile.

I said, "Done!"

The pile was higher than my fan, who wears the only bucket hat I own better than I do and is named Rebecca.

Birthing Hips looked at the pile and was like, "Yeah, you're going to have to cut that down."

But I'll be gone for a whole year! I need all of these! I thought then.

But I trusted Birthing Hips because she is so logical and practical, and I am very much whimsical and impulsive, which I know isn't a great thing to be when you're packing. Plus, she has been to South Korea before.

So I tried cutting it.

After a couple of minutes, Birthing Hips spoke again: "I feel like you're just putting the same pile to the other side of the room."

Which I was. But I honestly couldn't imagine myself not having all of those clothes. How am I supposed to know what I'll wanna wear there? I'm going to be there for a whole year, shouldn't I bring everything?

But no. I couldn't. I could only bring 2 suitcases, 1 carry-on, and the suitcases couldn't be anymore than fifty pounds. I wanted one suitcase for clothes and shoes, the other for everything else.

So I really had to think which outfits I had to have now versus what I could have later, when my parents could ship it to me.

Finally, I was able to cut the pile half it's size. And then I cut it again half it's size.

Birthing Hips approved and it was go time.

That's when the amazing Glitter Queen came over with McDonalds and box for me to put stuff that I want shipped to me later in. Yay. She also helped us roll and squeeze the bags of clothes. And helped me decide on only four pairs of shoes.

That was difficult for me. FOUR???

Anyway, after the clothing suitcase, Birthing Hips looked at my other packed suitcase and saw it was still kind of opened.

She was like, "I have a strong feeling we should look in there."

Glitter Queen agreed after hearing about the struggle of me packing my clothes.

They opened it and were immediately mortified.

All of my toiletries were haphazardly placed without protection in the top zipper bag of the suitcase and everything inside was a mess that looked like I was just trying to cram as much stuff in there are possible--which is exactly what I did.

Birthing Hips laughed and took out something, "A crystal? You're bringing a crystal?"

"I'm bringing three of them." I told her.

"This is going to break if we don't wrap it with something."

"Why are you bringing a Kalimba?" Glitter Queen inquired and took out the little instrument that I painted. "Do you even touch this thing?"

"I do!" I yelled.

I took the Kalimba from her and tried to play the Avatar theme song. I failed miserably but still said, "I love this thing. I have to bring it."

Then Glitter Queen took out my huge Lancome Perfume. "Girl, this is going to break and shatter everywhere."

It went on like this. Everything they took out, they had something to joke about how it would break. So we had to take some things out, like one of my crystals because it was an easily breakable one even if we did wrap it, and we had to take out a jewelry box made out of glass. We had to put a lot of things in little baggies to make sure if anything spilled it wouldn't go everywhere.

It made sense to me when they were explaining how each item could have lead to horrible damage and I wasnt angry at all but thankful. It was just so funny to me how I didn't think about any of that at all when I was packing and what might of happened if we never opened that suitcase.

I also took out the Kalimba but I would not compromise the Lancome Perfume.

Priorities, you know?

So we put that in one of my purses and put a towel over everything else.

As I was putting the Kalimba back on the shelf I said, "This is so cute though, even though I don't really use it. I wish I could bring it."

"So you finally admit you don't touch it?" Glitter Queen said.

We all laughed.

Again I thought, Am I ready to leave all of my friends who are so amazing and helpful in so many unique, beautiful ways?

Later we hung out outside with another one of my friends, we'll call him Pumpkin Ghost, which was fun because we spilled, sipped, drank, and choked from laughter on all the tea we had for each other.

I thought, I am so lucky to have such amazing friends. Even though I want to explore the world on my own, am I ready to leave everything and everyone I love and know, and instead, follow my heart and face the unknown?

The next day came, which is today. Nothing really special happened. I ran last minutes errands. Taped shampoo down and put it in a plastic baggie like Birthing Hips told me to do. My mom gave me a pedicure, which hasn't happened since I was a child, but we bickered and talked the same. My dad and I went to get food, we kind of talked and he mostly played on his phone, like usual.

Night time came, my parents drove me to LAX. We listened to my r&b playlist on the way there. I watched everything out of the car window with the mindset that this is the last time I'm going to see all of these things that I've seen several of hundreds of times since I was three years old.

Am I really ready for this?

I felt somber and forlorn and confused.

We parked in the parking lot at the airport. Already I was feeling what I've been craving, to be the minority in terms of race. It felt scary and uncomfortable, but also thrilling and exhilarating.

My parents walked me into the airport, helped me out with checking in my bags, and getting my ticket.

Then it was time for me to go through security. SO I had to say goodbye.

I hugged my mom and then I hugged my dad, and he held me so tight and for so long, tighter and longer than any other hug I've ever received from him. And he started crying. I cry now as I write this but then I was just so overwhelmed with everything and the line was moving.

Then I really thought, I could leave now. I could stop this now. Am I really ready? Do I really want to do this? This is a big step. A huge step. Moving across the world into a country that doesn't primarily speak English. What am I doing?

But my feet moved on their own. I got on the escalator, waved goodbye to my parents, and went through security.

As I waited in the airport and kept myself busy, I still kept asking myself, Am I ready? Am I ready? Am I ready?

Then I got on the airplane. Got myself situated. Buckled my seatbelt. Waited more.

Am I ready? Am I ready? Am I ready?

The airplane slowly started backing up and make it's way onto the ramp.

Am I ready? Am I ready? Am I ready?

It drove to the edge of drive way and started speeding against it.

I gripped onto the arms of my chair, watching out of the window was the background blurred by faster and faster.

The plane lifted, and my gut dropped, but my heart soared and lighted my entire being and came out of my throat:

"I'm ready."

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letswritefanfiction · 5 years ago

Text

Pokémon Alphabet Challenge: Z is for Zeitgeist

Can also be read on ffnet here.

“You’re frustrated.”

“I’m not frustrated.”

Ash grit his teeth and clenched his hands under the desk. He was frustrated. He’d been frustrated for a long, long time and had been holding it in. But recently, his great effort to seem appreciative and happy appeared to have spouted a leak and frustration was slipping out, steadily and persistently. It was all he could do in this meeting to keep from letting it all go here, in this office room, and be done with it once and for all.

Sitting across from him were Kunihiko Yuyama, Daiki Tomiyasu, and Aya Matsui—the big three. No one else would have been able to secure a meeting with the three of them. And it had taken a few attempts for him to be able to as well. But they couldn’t say no to him forever. After all: he was Ash Ketchum.

“Well, if not your frustrations, then tell us your grievances,” Aya said.

Her face was unreadable, at least to Ash. But if he had any guess, he assumed she was the one he was offending the most. She was head writer and, after all, it was the writing that he was…aggrieved by.

“Does it have something to do with Gen 8?”

That question came from Kunihiko. It was the obvious one. Obvious because it was absolutely, one hundred percent spot-on. It was, after all, once the talks of Gen 8 had taken off that his frustration leak had begun. Well, kind of. Perhaps it had begun with Movie 20. Or, if he was being one hundred percent honest, Gen 3. And then there was the beginning of Gen 5…

Maybe this had been going on longer than he’d thought.

But Ash had never been a good liar, so he went with the truth. The simplest truth, that was.

“Yes. It does.”

“Well,” Kunihiko continued, “feel free to elaborate.”

It was lucky that Ash had been thinking about this speech for weeks, because suddenly, he felt like he was going to blurt it all out. And, since he was given the opportunity to do so, that’s how it came.

“Okay,” he sighed, “here’s the thing. I liked Movie 20, right? And 21. But you have to admit that there was a lot of internet backlash, especially in the west, when they were announced. And the Mewtwo redo. They’re not what the public want. They want to see what happens to Ash in the world that already exists. The world that some of them have been invested in for twenty years. And I know target demographic and all that but, like, really? Come on, why start Ash’s story over again?”

“You sound like a Genwunner,” Daiki commented.

“I’m not, believe me,” Ash said. “Almost all of the things that lived and died with Gen 1 were good things to let go of. We all know that. But at the same time, risks were taken! When the most interesting risk you’ve taken is a soft reboot, you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere.”

“Risks are not what the stockholders are looking for,” Kunihiko explained. “After twenty years of consistency, people know what they’re getting out of Pokémon. If they want a little something different, maybe they try Pokémon Origins or Pokémon Adventures Manga or even Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. But the anime has its target audience and a massive shift would ruin that in a way we might not be able to recover.”

“So that what? In fifty years you’re still—well, you’ll be dead—but someone’s still using CGI to give me the appearance of a preteen? And I meet a new friend in every episode that’s never seen again? And there are thousands and thousands of newly discovered Pokémon?” Ash argued.

“We changed it up quite a bit last season and it was largely well-received, especially in Japan,” Aya argued. “Certainly we’ve recycled storylines in Pokémon before, but it’s not all we do.”

“Okay, fine. I know I have no control over the plot,” Ash admitted. “Or lack thereof. But hear me out. I’m a thirty-year-old man. I live the public life of a ten-year-old. In the past twenty years, I’ve done this for you—before you all even were here, in fact. I’ve done it for the brand. I’ve never grown so much as sideburns, or even changed my hairstyle. Enough is enough. Either things change around here or…”

There was silence across the table as Ash trailed off. It was Daiki who finally prompted him again.

“Or what?”

Ash’s expression had fallen to his lap. His long bangs were covering his eyes in that dramatic way that the directors always loved when he was having an emotional moment on the show. That thought was enough to bring his eyes up.

“Or I quit.”

The three across the table from him were looking at him as though he was a petulant child throwing a tantrum. Or about to throw a tantrum—he wasn’t sure. But as a person who had been playing a child for twenty years, he knew that he was far from that. He was being the more level-headed Ash of XY, not the hot-headed kid from the Original Series. Well, more than that. He was being his actual adult self.

Aya sighed. “I’m sure we can find ways to incorporate past stars like we did in SM042, 43, and SM102, 103. Things like that are a big hit, and I know you enjoy them.”

It was a compromise. A piece of candy to keep him from throwing a fit at not being able to buy the bag. It was not at all what he wanted.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Ash said, suddenly exhausted. “How does that even make sense with a soft reboot?”

“We’ll make it work.”

He knew what that meant. It wouldn’t make sense. Just like it hadn’t made sense with the supposed soft reboot of Sun and Moon. Just like it hadn’t made sense that he was still ten in Black and White, but knew Dawn from his past travels with her. By this point it was what the public expected and understood, so it wasn’t a hard sell. People would poke fun at it on the internet, but they’d hardly be mad about it. That was a tough anger to stoke for twenty years.

“Most people don’t keep doing a show for twenty years,” Ash said quietly.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell us,” Kunihiko said.

“I don’t know either,” Ash said, the frustration reentering his voice. He rubbed his head as though trying to massage the thoughts out. “I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

“How did it go?”

Ash had arrived at Brock’s house for a drink—lord knew he wasn’t supposed to be seen drinking in public. Even being seen buying a six-pack would be ‘bad for the kids’. Regardless of the fact that he hardly resembled the character that he played on television anymore. In 2019 there were now grocery services that would help him keep surreptitious, but he enjoyed the habit of going to Brock’s. And he always paid him back for the beer.

“Not good,” Ash groaned as he flopped down on the sofa. Brock put a beer in his hand in eleven seconds flat.

“Didn’t hear you out?” Brock asked, sitting down with his own. Ash relished in the sound of the can being opened and then pulled the tab on his own.

“Nope. They have no interest in anything but going ahead with the plan.”

“That sucks, man.”

Ash took a gulp of his beer. Beer wasn’t something to be savored over time; it was to be drunk quickly while it was still cold and palatable. “Nobody knows what this is like,” he said finally.

Now, if most people had said that—or if Ash had said that about nearly anything else—it would have been all Brock could do not to shut them down immediately. No one’s experience was unique, there were always people to talk about it; you were never alone. But this existence of Ash’s…Well, Brock had lived it for about four years himself. But that had nothing on Ash’s twenty. So he could relate. But not entirely.

He’d bounced, after all. He’d bounced after the OS, then come back for a few more years and bounced after year five of the show. He’d had that choice. And, sure, Samuel and Delia were still around after all these years, but only for a few episodes each season.

Actually, there were only two other people who really understood, and that was Jessie and James. But Ash wasn’t meant to fraternize with them often in public for publicity. It wasn’t ‘in character.’ And since Jessie and James were portraying adults—and not the star—things were a bit more lax for them.

“I know, bud.” Brock got up again and reached for a bag of pretzels. Ash no longer ate as ravenously as his character on the show did, but Brock still showed love through offering food and drink to his friends. “What’s your next move?”

Ash had to chew through the dry handful of pretzels he’d just shoved in his mouth before answering. “I don’t know,” he groaned. “I really don’t want to do this anymore, but they’ve already confirmed Ash Ketchum for the next season. And, you know, my contract.”

“And who can imagine the PokéAni without Ash Ketchum?”

“Ugh, don’t say that,” Ash moaned, throwing a pretzel at Brock’s head. Perhaps he still did share some traits with his 10-year-old persona.

“My bad,” Brock said, chuckling as he blocked the pretzel and let it fall to the ground. He’d pick it up later. “Look, Ash. All I can say right now is that you don’t wanna burn any bridges until you know what your next step is. Being Ash Ketchum comes with a pretty sizable shit sandwich, but there’s a reason you’ve kept doing this for two decades. So keep being Ash Ketchum until you’ve got a plan.”

“Uh-huh.”

It was little more than a grunt as Ash took another swallow of his beer. Brock looked at his despondent friend. It made him sad to see, but TV show or not, this was Ash. He’d bounce back by tomorrow.

“Brock, I’ve had a realization.”

Ash was on the phone this time, instead of in Brock’s living room. And, as Brock had predicted, it was the next day and he appeared to have fully bounced back. He looked excited and full of that youthful energy he’d been paid for so long to exhibit.

“What’s that?”

“If the company wants me to stay on brand, than what is more on brand for Ash Ketchum than burning it all down?”

“Um, a lot of things.”

“Okay, yeah, bad phrasing,” Ash admitted. “I just mean being brash and impulsive. Making a big choice and sticking to it. This is all very Ash Ketchum. And besides, what hero doesn’t break a few things while saving the day? Ash Ketchum has destroyed a lot of property in his day.”

Brock sighed. “Ash, what are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to be myself. For fucking once.”

Swearing. Very off-brand. Absolutely not E for Everyone. Brock could see where this was going in an instant.

“Ash, no.”

“Yes, Brock! If they’re not going to listen to me, then I’m going to have to act independently.”

“And pay the sizable sum I know is in the fine print of your contract for breaching it?”

“I can afford it,” Ash said, surprising Brock by having thought about it at all.

“Okay,” Brock said, putting his phone on speaker so he could start texting. “You need an intervention. I’m calling for backup.”

“Brock,” Ash whined. “I’ve thought long and hard about this!”

“You’ve thought long and hard,” Brock agreed, sending the text off. “But not precisely about this. You’ve thought around this, and I’m not denying that you’ve been frustrated for a long time. But come on, Ash. You dreamt this up last night at the earliest.”

Silence. Then: “That’s longer than I’ve thought about most things.”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re in a twenty-year long habit.” His phone buzzed. “Anyway, backup is on its way.”

“Brock,” Ash whined again. If Brock hadn’t already known Ash was in therapy, he would have suggested it be written into his contract as a necessity when playing a preteen for twenty years. It was bound to have an effect on an adult man’s psychology.

“Don’t even pretend to be upset about it, Ash. You’ll be happy to see her.”

“I see her without your help,” Ash grumbled.

“Doesn’t matter. Now don’t do anything stupid until she gets there.”

“…Define stupid.”

“Ash.”

“Fine, fine.”

The buzz up to his penthouse came surprisingly quickly given Tokyo traffic. It must be a good day outside. Not that he’d know, because he hadn’t left the house that day, as per Brock’s instructions to not do anything stupid.

Then he got an idea.

Instead of buzzing her up, Ash got into his in-unit elevator and went down. He strolled through his lobby and ignored that he could see her through the glass doors in the front—her and her scowling expression. When he opened the door, he swept her into a kiss—one of the dramatic ones like in the movies. Not Pokémon movies but actual movies. Like, rated PG-13 movies. Their bodies were all twisted, and it occurred to him that this was very uncomfortable for the spine. But it always looked good in the movies, so he went with it.

Until he felt her pinching his arm terribly hard and putting firm pressure on him to retreat back into the lobby. Just to have a moment of defiance, he held on for one more minute and then pulled away, acting the part of pleased lover, accepting his publicly-known lover into his apartment building. She played along. For the thirteen seconds it took to reach the elevator. Then she thwacked him upside the head. He’d known she would.

Worth it, though.

“Brock said not to do anything stupid,” Misty hissed. She should have known, though. Ash had never been good with instructions, no matter how simple they were.

“Hey, he only said until you got here. You’re here now.” Ash shrugged. “You went along with it.”

“Yeah, because it would have looked even worse if I’d shoved you off like you were assaulting me,” Misty explained. “#MeToo isn’t just for America, Ash.”

Ash smiled a little bit despite himself. She was always one step ahead of him—simultaneously one of his favorite and possibly the least favorite thing about her. Even surpassing her violent streak.

“Why did you do that?” she hissed.

“Why are you whispering?” Ash asked in an exaggerated whisper.

“Because you just did something stupid!” she shouted. “Stop deflecting!”

“I did it,” Ash started as measured and calmly as he could. It always threw her off when he was measured and calm, “because there’s no logical reason why my long-term girlfriend and I shouldn’t be able to kiss in public.”

Misty shook her head. “Brock was right. You have gone off the deep end.”

“I’m sure Brock didn’t say that.”

Misty took out her iPhone. “Brock, 10:42am. SOS. Ash’s gone off the deep end. You know why.” She looked pointedly at Ash.

“Isn’t SOS the signal they use when big ships crash? This is hardly a Titanic kind of situation.”

“You’re deflecting again!”

Damn, she was good.

They’d arrived in his penthouse by then and Misty had set her stuff down. Already she was heading into Ash’s kitchen for a glass of water.

“Misty,” Ash started in a sickly sweet tone. “Imagine how nice it would be if you could live here. If people could see you coming and going as you please.”

“I have. It would be great.”

She didn’t make it sound great. Her tone was dry and almost angry.

“Yes, it would?”

Misty set down her glass and went to sprawl on one of Ash’s too-wide couches. The seats were so long you couldn’t lean against the back without bringing your legs onto the cushion. It was like they were made for basketball players. Or a thirty-year-old man-child who never sat on a couch without making himself fully comfortable. The only time his feet were on the floor was when he was leaning forward, vigorously playing one of his hundreds of video games.

“I have thought about it, Ash, of course I have. Many times,” Misty said, patting beside her on the couch. That made Ash feel relatively assured that she wasn’t mad at him. “I would love to live with you. And perhaps redecorate this place.” She was always critical of his rather barren apartment. “But I also get why it makes sense to keep our relationship private for the show. It matters that you not really have any particular favoritism towards any of your traveling companions.”

“But Misty, don’t you wanna get married someday? I know you’re the kind of girl who already has a wedding dress picked out and probably a whole Pinterest board about it.”

She did have a dress style in mind, though not a particular one. And she didn’t have a Pinterest board, but she certainly had pins that she thought might…someday be nice for a wedding. But he wasn’t going to get her that way.

She groaned. “This is frustrating for me too, Ash. When we started this, neither of us thought it would have to go on like this for so long. But Brock’s right. You have a contract. There’s very little we can do until that contract is up.”

“In another five years,” Ash shouted, picking up a pillow to muffle the sound. Not because he had any neighbors who would hear, but because he felt like being melodramatic.

That little detail bothered Misty too. But Ash was not a person who needed fuel added to his fire.

“Tell me,” Ash asked, face still in his pillow, “what’s so wrong about breaching contract?”

“Disappointing your fans?” Misty asked. “Your fans who love you and would feel betrayed by you leaving the show?”

Ash shouted again. “I can’t make all my life decisions because of other people!”

Misty put an arm around Ash’s shoulder, trying to coax him out of the pillow. Then she said gently, “Sounds like something Ash Ketchum would do.”

Ash leaned into her embrace and took the pillow away. But he glared at her as he said, “You suck.”

She smirked. “I thought you liked that.”

“See!” Ash exclaimed, bolting up. “That’s the kind of thing that people say! The kind of thing that adults say! If I got caught saying that, the entertainment media would be all over me for days!”

Misty pulled Ash back down, ignoring his indignation. He let himself be pulled into her embrace.

“Give me another reason,” Ash asked.

Misty had to think about that. At this point, she didn’t even know the people working at The Pokémon Company very well. She had no particular loyalty to these people, and she knew that Ash’s was waning. Ash had made them all rich over the years. Of course, they had made him rich as well, but that had never been what he was about. Sure, he had a bit of a show-off streak, but he was a fairly low-maintenance guy. For the huge, expensive apartment he had, it was pretty sparse with actual belongings.

She didn’t give a damn about the stockholders. Maybe she should, because she and Ash were both stockholders themselves, but it would hardly ruin them if the stock went under.

“The employees,” she offered after a while. There were a lot of animators who had to work towards creating the world of Pokémon and making Ash into a preteen week after week. She knew the incredible hours they worked and the burdensome workloads. Not to mention musicians and writers and all the other actors. They certainly deserved the consistent paycheck they could expect from Pokémon.

“Fair point,” Ash said.

“The fans and the employees…” Misty started. “Woah, weird thought.”

“What?” Ash asked, perking up. While she’d been thinking, she’d been rubbing the base of his hairline, lightly pulling his hair and massaging his scalp and neck. It had lulled him into almost a catatonic state. She redoubled her efforts.

“Never mind, don’t worry about it.”

“No,” Ash said, pulling away, however unwillingly. “That was an idea voice. Usually a good idea voice. What was the good idea?”

“It wasn’t. It was an idea, not a good one.”

“Then let me know the not good idea.”

“Well…” Misty started, biting her lip. “It’s really half an idea.”

“Then let me know the half an idea!” Ash insisted.

“Okay, okay,” Misty said, still holding the idea close to her chest. “Just…what do you know about copyright law?”

It was a fucking brilliant idea. One that would probably get them both—but hopefully no one else—sued. But a brilliant idea, nevertheless. And if Ash did end up getting sued, at least that would get him the flames of glory he’d said he wanted this to go down with.

Job one was the hardest, by Misty’s estimation. And when they sat down with his laptop, he realized how right she was.

“This is really for you,” she said as they looked on at the blank document in front of them. “What do you want to include?”

The image felt clear in Ash’s head. He felt like he knew what he wanted. And he did know the major points that the story needed. Ash had to age, the content matter should be darker, the story should progress and have a real overarching plot. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more things came to mind that he’d have to get a stronger grasp on. Certain things in the world needed to be explained more when he really thought about it. But when it came down to it—writing the script meant to rewrite the whole Pokémon universe and he had no idea where to start, even with all these thoughts bouncing around in his head.

Worse than that, he didn’t want to mess up.

“I’m not a writer, Misty,” Ash said, pushing the laptop toward her as he put his head in his hand. “In twenty years, I’ve never written a script. Hell, I’ve never even had significant contributions to one. Just an altered line here and there. Mostly accidents. I know nothing about this.”

“Okay, let’s think about this,” Misty said, accepting the laptop and leaning over it. “We like Pokémon because it has good bones. It’s an interesting world with great outlines of characters who lack depth. It’s got a functioning if somewhat unexplored magic system. It’s touched on some good plots and then backed off of them. That gives us somewhere to start.”

“What, so we copy and paste the first season and then start to do our own thing?”

“Obviously not,” Misty shot down. “There’s no way we’re doing that Christmas episode again. No Santa in this world. And no Christ, for that matter. No, there’s gotta be something that makes more sense…”

“Like hiring a writer? We’re hiring everyone else, so why not that?”

Misty stared at him for a second, her face contemplative. Then her eyes flew open and she kissed him on the lips. “Ash, you’re a genius!”

That was certainly something he’d never heard before. Still, Misty was quick to begin typing something on the computer, and it wasn’t in the text document. He leaned over her shoulder to see what it was. She was typing into the searchbar:

Fanfiction.net.

“Fanfiction?” Ash asked, almost spitting the word. “What do you know about fanfiction? Don’t tell me you read that porny stuff.”

“It’s not all porn, Ash,” she said without looking at him. “And, for your information, I really enjoy RWBY fic. You probably would too if you read anything more verbose than your scripts.”

“I read!”

“Not for fun.”

“…Touché.”

“From my experience, most fic is terrible. God-awful. Way worse than anything Pokémon spews out. But when it’s good…by God, it’s incredible, Ash. I really fucking wish you read it.”

“Not a chance.”

“Well, you are now,” Misty said as she seemed to arrive at her location on the site. “We’re going to have to spend the next few days, at least, combing through this crap in order to find something promising. It’s in there. Pokémon is a huge fandom, so even if only one percent of this is amazing, that’s still a thousand masterpieces. We just have to be patient.”

“I’m not reading a hundred thousand stories, Misty. Not in my whole life, much less a few days.”

“Not to worry,” Misty said, patting Ash’s arm patronizingly. “I’ll teach you my ways. It won’t be long before we find the good stuff.”

Ash scoffed. “And I thought I was the dangerously optimistic one.”

“Can’t be around you without being optimistic. That’s the magic of Ash Ketchum.”

Ash awoke to the sound of his phone ringing. At 4am. He groaned and rolled over. Obviously some American had gotten a hold of his number again and wasn’t thinking about the time change. The buzzing finally abated, and Ash felt his brain turning off again, about to let him sink back into delightful sleep when it started up again. With an even louder groan, he rolled back to the other side of the bed and began groping around for the phone on his nightstand. He had to pick it up, if only to swipe away the call and block the number. But, when he picked up his demonic phone, he saw Misty’s name. He really hoped her dog was dying. Or something equally tragic.

“What?” he croaked, his voice not appreciating being used at this time of night.

“I found it, Ash. This is it. It’s perfect.”

So, not her dog, apparently. “You found an author.”

“Better than that. Way fucking better. I found a story. An actual story. Some crazy bastard is rewriting the whole anime themselves and it’s incredible. I’m only about fifty chapters in—”

“Fifty chapters‽”

“—but it’s perfect. Unless it goes really downhill, then I think I found our person. We can really do this now.”

“Great, Misty. Glad you found it. Now kindly hang up the phone again so I don’t have to look at the screen again and ruin my sleep even more.”

“Sleep‽ There’s no time to sleep. Gen 8 comes out later this year. By that time, we need to have enough episodes out to have built up a presence big enough that Pokémon Company will care. Our names will do a lot of the heavy lifting for us, but what we’re pitching is only going to appeal to a fraction of the market audience. We’re going to have to pull all of those people and new ones to make any kind of a splash. Ash? Are you listening?”

Ash had put the phone down on the pillow and was resting his head on it, eyes closed. He had been beginning to drift. But for as raspy as Misty’s voice was from evidentially having been up all night, she could still make it piercing when she needed to.

“I’m listening,” he grunted. Even though they had already gone over all those logistics a few days before.

“Well, we need to finish reading this story ASAP so we can see if it’s really the story we wanna tell and then contact the author. They probably won’t respond immediately, so we wanna be doing that as soon as we can.”

“It sounds like you’ve got a head start on the story out of the two of us,” Ash said through a yawn. “So you can finish reading it and then we’ll DM the person.”

“No, Ash,” Misty said firmly, as though she knew he was barely listening. Heck, she definitely knew he was barely listening. “You have to read it too. We have to be sure about this.”

“Fine,” he groaned. “Just let me go back to sleep.”

“Fine,” Misty agreed. “But I’ll be calling you back at seven to make sure you’re up and reading. I’m putting in a scheduled delivery for a breakfast sandwich and coffee too.”

“Thanks, Mist. G’night.”

“Goodnight, Ash.”

He was out before the call even ended.

After his false start that morning, the day had still begun too early. This was the off-season for shooting the show, so he slept in most days as late as he wanted. But right at seven, with Misty calling and his doorbell ringing, Ash realized Misty hadn’t ordered the food to be nice. It was because it would force him out of bed in a way that her phone call simply wouldn’t.

Devious girl, she was.

But there was a little part of Ash that felt guilty that Misty had been up all night for the sake of his project, so after downing his sandwich and starting on his coffee, he did set about clicking on the link she’d sent him in the wee hours that morning.

And he balked at what he saw.

It turned out that fifty chapters wasn’t even scratching the surface. The story she’d linked to him was close to one hundred chapters and the first words of chapter one kindly informed him that this was going to be a series. A monstrous series that planned on rewriting the whole PokéAni.

In his mind, he vaguely heard the words Misty had said on the phone to that effect, but by now that phone call felt like little more than a dream. The only way he knew that it had actually happened was the fact that the consequences of that call had led to him being awake at this almost equally unholy hour.

After breezing past the author’s note informing him of the impending series, as well as a whole website devoted to further resources—this person had rewritten the whole Pokédex!—he began the first chapter. It actually started with Ash Ketchum as a child, younger than ten, and seemed to be giving some back story to the characters of Pallet Town. Delia, Professor Oak, and Gary Oak were all appearing, as well as a number of new characters. He was intrigued. And then…he wasn’t.

Well, he was still intrigued, but he found himself skimming some of the longer paragraphs and soon he found himself on Twitter. He only scrolled for about ten minutes before he realized what was happening and closed the tab. Well, minimized it. He wanted to save his spot.

He called Misty.

“How do you read?” he asked after she said hello.

Usually a stupid question like that would have prompted either a sarcastic comment, or straight-up laughing at his expense. But, instead, Misty said. “Ugh, Ash, it’s already 8:30. Please tell me you’ve read something.”

“I’ve started chapter one.”

“Started chapter one‽”

“I’m almost finished!” Ash defended.

“God, I forgot about your ADHD,” Misty moaned. “Okay. You’re going to have to figure out what works for you and figure it out quickly if we wanna move on this. Try copying and pasting into a text to speech website. It’ll sound unnatural, but if you can listen to that while reading or listen to it while doing a coloring book or something maybe that’ll help. Or find something to do with your hands while you read. Chewing gum might help? I think I’ve heard that? Or google it. I’m sorry, Ash, I don’t know as much about it as I should.”

“No, that’s a good start,” Ash said quickly to appease his girlfriend. Sometimes Misty came off as tough or even mean, but she really wasn’t, otherwise Ash wouldn’t have dated her for so long. She did make fun of him often, but he did the same to her. It had been their dynamic on the show when they’d first started; it was the basis of their chemistry. But she wouldn’t ever make fun of him for a behavior disorder. He just didn’t want her to feel bad for not being able to help. “I’ll give those a try.”

“Okay,” Misty said, sounding a touch more relaxed. “I’m almost done with the Kanto arc and I’ve gotta say, this story is still really good. They’re incorporating the bones of the anime, and weaving in the first movie whilst also having more through-lines and stuff. Fewer CotDs and instead really focusing on us discovering stuff about Pokémon. And, like, growing up. And you should really read the resources they’ve created; they’re amazing.”

“I will,” Ash said, hoping that he’d actually be able to. “Try to get some sleep, okay, Mist?”

It was as though the word ‘sleep’ triggered her to yawn. He heard the sound on the other line and then she said, “I will. I just wanna finish this arc.”

“And then sleep. Immediately. Okay?”

“Okay, Ash. I will.”

“Good. You sleep. I read.”

As if emulating a sports huddle, she said, “Okay, break.”

“Go team,” Ash said with a little chuckle.

He hung up the phone and set about finding a blank coloring book page on the internet. He’d make this work however he could. He wasn’t going to get tripped up at stage one.

He didn’t read as much as Misty did. It turned out Misty was a fairly quick reader and, as he already knew, he was very, very slow. But he read a good portion of the first story in the series that day and texted Misty to let her know that he agreed. The story was as close to what he had been murkily envisioning as possible. Well, much better, actually. He could see it on the screen, could feel the choices he’d make as that version of Ash Ketchum in his muscles as he was reading. He even found himself saying his character’s lines out loud.

After that came the strange moment that made it all real. It turned out Misty already had an ffnet account—which he fully intended to explore later—and all they had to do was send the author or authoress in question a PM. That’s where things became sticky. What they were going to offer—payment for the use of an adaptation of her story, plus for her continuing writing the story, as it was still ongoing—was going to sound illegitimate. One hundred percent fake.

“We just have to go for it,” Misty said on the phone. “And hope they’re a good person and won’t leak this first thing. I mean, that should be our real concern.”

That hadn’t even occurred to Ash. He’d considered the fact that they would need a large team of people to pull this off, and that that would significantly drain his overflowing bank account. He hadn’t considered that he’d have to have absolute loyalty from the people he was asking to be disloyal to the company that had employed all of them at one time, at least as far as the actors were concerned. Except this mystery writer, of course. He’d have to get his lawyer to start drafting some NDAs.

“Yeah, we’ll just have to hope for that. You don’t have any identifying features on your account, so worse comes to worse, you just tell the public it wasn’t you and there’s no way to prove you wrong.”

“And then we’re back to square one.”

“Let’s not worry about that now. Just cross your fingers and send the message.”

“Okay. Crossed. And…sent.”

Ash realized he was holding his breath. This was the biggest thing he’d done since he was ten and had first accepted the role of the then-unknown Ash Ketchum. And, while that had been big, since he’d never had a star acting role before, he’d had no idea of the implications. No one had known the international phenomenon Pokémon would become. This, he knew, would be big. Whether it ended in the biggest success of his life, or destroyed it.

As Ash and Misty were on an internet frenzy, looking up people for all the different roles they needed to fill. Animators was the number one job in their list. They were hunched over their computers, doing search after search, occasionally exchanging work and sending out emails. Then, suddenly, Misty’s phone rang.

She groaned. She and Ash had managed to rein in his attention and they’d had a vibe going. Now he’d probably get up saying he needed to pee and wanted to order take out and it would take an hour to get him back on track. When she saw Brock’s name, she cringed. She showed it to Ash, wordlessly, and they exchanged worried expressions, the corners of their lips pulling to the side. This wasn’t great. But it wasn’t like she could blow him off, right? With a steadying breath, she answered the call.

“Hey, Brock, what’s up?”

“What’s up?” Brock echoed, his tone one of disbelief. “I thought I’d get some kind of update on the…you know, situation by now. A text at least. It’s been two days!”

Misty looked uneasily at Ash. The phone wasn’t on speaker, but she knew he could hear every word. Not that she cared if he heard—he fully knew what Brock was referring to after all. But still, Ash was a bit of a blabbermouth…

“Everything’s under control, Brock!” she said, trying to keep her voice down from the strident place it wanted to go.

“You mean you’ve talked him off the cliff.”

“That’s right!” Misty exclaimed. “Absolutely no cliff here!”

Misty couldn’t so much as glance at Ash. He was making all kinds of facial expressions—she could practically see the subtitles below his chin. He clearly thought she was doing a terrible job lying, but also wanted to jump in and spill the beans himself.

Like he could say anything. He was a good actor, but a truly horrible liar.

“Okay, good to hear,” Brock said, a little sigh of relief pressing into the phone. “I was concerned about that picture of the two of you online…”

Ash and Misty had both forgotten about that. There had been a number of snaps taken of the dramatic kiss they’d had outside Ash’s building, which had led to a lot of scrutiny online. Most people were under the correct but unconfirmed assumption that they were dating, while others said that it was so dramatic that perhaps it was some kind of stunt. Little did everyone know that both were right, more or less.

“Oh, no nothing to worry about there,” Misty confirmed.

“Good. I really was worried about him.”

“I was too,” Misty agreed, her voice nice and easy this time. “But we’ve got a plan now.”

Ash and Misty hadn’t planned into their timeline the time it would take to build trust between themselves and the mystery writer, who they now knew as Tess. She was a young American woman who just happened to love Pokémon and fanfiction; she wasn’t even a professional writer. Not yet, at least. But Ash and Misty quickly realized that they were basically performing an interview. However, instead of each question taking a few seconds to answer, they took hours to get a response. They had to get this right, though. No horsing around.

Fortunately, after a few correspondences, both parties seemed confident in each other to move to Skype and expedite the process a little bit. Their first interaction went a little like this.

Tess: “Oh my God, it really is you!”

Ash: “Heh, yeah, sure is.”

Tess: “I really just thought this was some really elaborate troll! I was prepared to change my Skype name after this.”

Misty: “Well, hopefully there won’t be a need for that.”

Tess: “Right. Oh my God. Okay. Professional. That was my fangirling, and now this is totally professional. Promise.”

It did proceed to be fairly professional after that, though Tess did seem to be in a rather constant state of disbelief. Behind the scenes, Ash and Misty had already been working on turning her narrative into a script and translating it into Japanese. Which, when fluent in both languages, sounded easy. But it—like everything—was more time-consuming and way more specialized than they’d hoped. They’d have to hire someone soon.

But after growing confident enough with Tess to send her a contract—and an NDA—everything became real. And instead of being a project of three, it was going to have to become a company of dozens.

“You’re going to have to be the one to enlist everyone,” Misty said the night after they’d finished the list of all the people and resources that they’d thought they’d need for the pilot episode. Or at least finished as far as they could tell. They’d need Ash, Gary, Samuel, and Delia at the very least, plus a couple other voice actors that they liked, preferably ones who’d be able to play most of the other Pallet human characters and Pokémon, since they wanted to start with as small a cast as possible. They’d need a recording studio and a number of animators, plus whatever equipment those animators would need.

The show was going to have to be different than Pokémon at heart. Instead of the quasi-live action with heavy CGI that Ash had physically been starring in for two decades, this was going to have to be full animation. Live action would simply take up too many resources, not to mention that meant they’d be acting out on location, where people would see with no small amount of curiosity what all the stars of Pokémon were up to. This meant that they’d have to create a fresh animation style, since there was no way to copy Pokémon’s current look.

“Why do I have to enlist everyone?” Ash asked. “This idea was both of ours.”

“Because you have that magic Ash Ketchum extroversion. Everyone loves you and will follow you wherever you go. They won’t do that for me.”

“The execs sure didn’t do that for me.”

“They had no reason to,” Misty explained. “But these people might. They do. Everyone loves this show and they’ll want to see the story that Tess has created. They’ll want to be a part of that. So long as you’re the charming Ash Ketchum they’ve all fallen in love with.”

“Charming like this?” Ash asked quietly, leaning in to give Misty a kiss. They’d become more lax with having her over to his place more often. After all, soon that would be small potatoes compared with the bomb they were planning to drop soon.

“Charming with your words,” Misty whispered against his mouth. But she didn’t seem to mind his advances as she closed the gap and began kissing him in earnest.

They didn’t get much else done that night.

The first episode took over a month to create. They’d had to work back and forth with Tess for script rewrites, not to mention that this was being done in both English and Japanese, plus including English subtitles. If they wanted to gain an audience, they’d have their best bet by engaging both Japanese and English audiences. And, best case scenario, many more languages after that.

Then there was finding actors. This was the most painless of all the processes, except for where the lawyers had to get involved. It was always sticky to present legal documents to friends—and after all these years, Samuel, Delia, and Gary were dear friends of Ash’s—but they were receptive. And, most importantly, they thought Ash and Misty’s idea was good. Of course, they thought it was batshit crazy, and none of them were afraid to say that. Which they all did on separate occasions. But they still got on board. That was more reassuring to Ash and Misty than most anything else.

The hardest part was assembling an animation team. They had no idea how many animators were needed, how responsibilities would be split up, how they would work together or anything. Plus, they couldn’t just poach from the show for two reasons. 1.) Ash didn’t intimately know any of the animators. They had no loyalty to him and no reason to jump ship from the show. 2.) They were working on an entirely different kind of animation. Ash and Misty didn’t know the repercussions of that, but they were sure they must exist.

But after a frustrating amount of trial and error—and a lot of money bleeding from Ash’s bank account—there it was. A final product. And a polished, decent one at that. Everything was professional quality, it was a standard twenty-seven-minute length, despite the fact that there would be no advertisements, and it had subtitles in both Japanese and English. Then it was all about what to do with it.

They did nothing. For a time.

In the process of working on the episode, they’d realized they’d need the next couple stocked if they wanted buzz to continue around this series and for people to take it seriously. Fortunately, it only took a few weeks to create the next two episodes. The bulk of the work on their end at that point was in the script, but Tess had been prolific with her turnout of drafts. They were already interviewing a few impeccable translators, as they had quickly realized what specific skills were needed for subbing versus dubbing and that simply being bilingual wasn’t going to cut it.

Then it was time. Ash would have to go back to the real show soon, and they had to drop these before that happened. So Ash made a YouTube channel—because where else could they put something like this? The show had to be free, otherwise they’d be sued faster than someone could watch the first episode.

That part wasn’t stressful. Uploading a video to a YouTube channel with zero subscribers was hardly a leap of faith. It wasn’t like Ash was a master of search engine optimization. No one would find this thing.

Until he tweeted it. When he tweeted it, there would be no going back.

“Are you ready?” Ash asked Misty as his finger hovered over his laptop’s touchpad.

He wasn’t really asking it for her. He was asking it for himself. Not out of selfishness, even though his job and reputation were the ones on the line. Sure, Misty had done a couple episodes recently, but she was a relic of the show, not a star. And he, next to Pikachu, perhaps, was the star. And people would either love him or hate him for this.

But he just wanted a little reassurance. That they hadn’t gotten swept away in the excitement of it all in the past few months. That all the work and dedication hadn’t clouded the possibility that this wasn’t a good idea after all. But Misty just took his other hand in hers.

“We’re ready.”

He had to look away as he clicked to send the link to the video out to the world. He was fully wincing, as though the action would send a shock wave through his system. He stared at the screen for only a second, his live tweet burning into his retinas before shutting the laptop screen violently and recoiling onto his couch. Misty, meanwhile—seeming much calmer than he—was on her phone, hopping over to his Twitter account to retweet the post. Then she, too, put away her phone.

“Wanna watch some anime?”

“God, yes.”

“Misty, what the fuck?”

Brock’s was the first call they bothered taking. Their phones had started blowing up with notifications soon after the video had gone up and they’d silenced all alerts. They’d already ignored a few phone calls. But Brock was the couple’s best friend, just like in the show. There was something about spending your formative years together that left a lasting bond. They owed him an explanation, at the very least.

“Hi, Brock!” Misty said, sounding fake with cheer. “What brings about this call?”

“I thought you had talked him off the edge? But you’ve been doing whatever this is for however long you have. I assume you’re a part of this, right?”

“I did talk him off the edge, Brock,” Misty said, her phone on speaker between herself and Ash. “Instead of self-destructing he crafted a beautiful and intricate bomb and threw it at his whole life.”

“Oh, my bad. That sounds like a great idea, Misty.”

“Yeah, you didn’t make that sound any better,” Ash agreed, making himself known on the call.

“Hello, crazy man,” Brock greeted. “Glad to know your bosses haven’t harpooned you yet.”

“They’ll have to go through my doormen before they can come up here and harpoon me.”

“Lucky dog,” Brock said sarcastically.

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, Brock,” Misty said, getting at what she suspected was at the real root of this call, whether Brock knew it or not. “We were already having everyone sign NDAs. It didn’t seem smart to tell anyone who wasn’t absolutely necessary to the beginning of this project.”

“Beginning?” Brock said. “There’s more?”

“We’ve already got the next two episodes in the bag and are in production on the fourth and script-writing up to the sixth.”

Brock was quiet for a second before he asked, “Just how long are you planning on doing this?”

“Don’t worry, your character is coming,” Ash said with a laugh.

“The writer we’ve employed already has a story loosely plotted all through Kalos. They’re nearly done with all the specifics of Kanto—though we have slowed down her progress significantly since starting this.”

“Kalos‽” Brock exclaimed. “You have eighteen years worth of content for this?”

That was putting it in a perspective Ash and Misty hadn’t yet thought about it. Would they be fifty years old and still working on this project?

“We truthfully have no idea how long we have, Brock,” Misty admitted. “This could be shut down at any time by something we haven’t foreseen. So we haven’t looked that far into the future.”

“Well,” Brock said, finally at a bit of a loss for words. “I just can’t tell you how heckin’ proud I am of you crazy bastards. This was the biggest leap of faith I’ve ever seen.”

That brought a big grin to both Ash and Misty’s faces. They looked at each other and nearly giggled. If Brock was on their side, then they were doing just fine.

“You watched the episode?” Ash asked.

“Of course I did. And it was great. Truthfully, I’m not sure everyone cares 100% about a Pokémon prologue, but as soon as it becomes evident that you’re going to continue this…I can’t imagine the response. Seriously, you guys shouldn’t read the comments but…they’re mostly really good. People like it. They love it.”

The conversation with Brock petered off after that. He’d said his piece, but really he’d just affirmed everything they were doing. That was all they wanted out of their best friend.

“I didn’t realize people would think of it as a prologue,” Ash said once Misty had hung up.

“Yeah,” Misty agreed. “We might be out of the woods until we get to the part where this story meets up with canon.”

“Which gives us the time to build up loyal viewers and get the hang of this producing thingy.”

“This producing thing-a-ma-bob.”

“Producing thing-a-ma-jigger.”

The two stared at each other for a moment, the laughs building up in their throats before they burst out, laughing hysterically on the couch.

It was done. It had started. They’d done it.

“My reviewers think you’ve stolen my story,” Tess said on their next Skype call, going over one of the scripts. “They’re indignant on my behalf and ready to burn the show to the ground.”

The words were dark, but Tess looked practically giddy.

“Honestly, even if you had, I’d have counted myself lucky,” she continued. “It would have been the most flattering thing that’s ever happened to me. Certainly more flattering than my 150 reviews for 93 published chapters of labor.”

“You need to make an announcement,” Misty said. “Also, your name is in the credits, but do you want us to add your username so that people will be able to see that? Or do you not want the two tied together?”

“Hmm…” Tess intoned, considering that. “Fanfiction has always felt like a secret identity to me, so my impulse is to say no. But now my name is on the show anyway…Tell you what. I’ll scrub up my profile and delete some more indulgent author’s notes tonight and then you can include it next time. No need to make any changes to the episode that’s already out.”

“By the way,” Ash butted in. “We probably should have talked about this earlier but…are you going to be continuing your story on ffnet?”

Tess sighed. “No. I don’t think I’d have the time even if it weren’t probably a breach of the NDA at this point. So I’ll have to include that in the announcement. I’ll make an author’s note chapter telling everyone. All 28 followers of mine.”

“Well, that’s one potential drama storm put out,” Misty said.

“There is actually something I wanted to talk about,” Tess said slowly. “Regarding the longer arching plot.”

“Shoot,” Ash said.

“Well, regarding the ships—er, relationships,” Tess corrected. Misty knew most fanfiction terms well enough, but Ash knew next to nothing. He was learning, through talking with Tess and Misty, but it wasn’t penetrating very much. “Uh, what are we going to do with them?”

“What do you mean?” Misty asked. “I thought you had things basically plotted out through the Kalos League?”

“I do,” Tess said. “For my story. My story that’s a love letter to the anime and the fandom. Where I’ve basically taken the most popular couples and rolled with it. In PokéAni fanfiction there are basic couples that are usually grouped together. The two of you, May and Drew, Dawn and Paul—”

“Dawn and Paul‽” Ash interjected.

“That’s why I’m bringing this up!” Tess said. “Yes, Dawn and Paul, Cilan and Iris, and Serena and Clemont. And Gary with Leaf, but there’s no way we’re doing that. I personally think some of these pairings are pairings of convenience than real chemistry or shipping hints from the anime. But they’re what the fans have accepted. Just like the fact that your last name is Waterflower, Misty.”

“Which it isn’t.”

“Well, mine isn’t really Ketchum!” Ash said. “That would be too ridiculous.”

“I know, I know,” Tess said. “These are things that wouldn’t matter in fanfiction, because they’re accepted. But for a broad audience where this is essentially television and not fanfiction…I’m just not sure about pairing any of you together.”

“Well, there has to be romance,” Misty argued. “We want these characters to grow up, and that’s a part of most people growing up. We can’t assume all these characters are ace and aro.”

“No,” Tess agreed. “Though I think we should include some.”

“But that doesn’t help us with the issue at hand,” Misty said.

“Well, what about us?” Ash asked, taking Misty’s hand. “I think we should end up together.”

Those words made Misty’s ears turn pink. It was the kind of thing Ash didn’t say in real life. She felt it, certainly, but being in a relationship when you were thirty and not having any particular talk of marriage and engagement was discouraging. Of course, that was part of why they’d undertaken this whole project to begin with. But still, even hearing Ash talk about the fictional versions of themselves ‘ending up together’ was heartwarming.

“Yes, I totally agree,” Tess said without hesitation. “You two and then May and Drew are basically non-negotiable for me. But with the others I’ve been of many minds. First of all, people should date around. My whole thing with this series is that it should be realistic. People don’t all end up with the first person they partner with. They don’t all get married in their early twenties. That’s not the story I wanted to tell.”

“I don’t want that either,” Misty agreed. “But if this story is a love letter to the fans, then when do we indulge them and when do we not?”

“Well, not everyone ships the same people,” Ash said. “I said that right, right? Ships?”

“Yes,” Tess answered quickly, smiling at Ash sounding like such a fanfic nerd.

“Right. So what’s the point in pandering at all?”

Misty looked surprised, eyebrows raised. “The man makes a good point.”

“Really, it all depends on how long this goes,” Tess said. “If the show finishes after Kalos, then only a few couples should be together. If it goes into adulthood, then more should be together, though not everyone with their #endgame. If it goes into next-gen—”

“Next-gen?” Ash interrupted.

“Kids,” Tess clarified. “Your kids.”

“Oh,” Ash drawled, a blush coloring his cheeks as he glanced at Misty.

“If it goes into next-gen, then even more people will be paired off…but then there should also probably be divorces and separations. But those things would really anger the audience. Especially if we’ve been working towards a pairing being together for a long, long time. Have you ever seen How I Met Your Mother?”

“Nope,” both Ash and Misty said in unison.

“Oh,” Tess said, her energy dropping a bit. “Well…if you did you’d know what I mean. But you’ll just have to take my word for it. Even if we’re not pandering to the fans…I’d rather not anger them. But, like I said, it comes down to when this story ends. And, well, I hadn’t quite gotten that far in my outline yet, since the actual anime isn’t over yet.”

Yet. That sounded suddenly ominous. Perhaps this was the moment Ash was first realizing it, but it suddenly occurred to him that that’s what they were working toward. The actual destruction of the show that just wouldn’t end. It felt like the intentional murder of a life-long friend. He had to brush that feeling away immediately.

“Right,” Ash said. “So, perfect world, how long is it?”

Tess just pulled the corners of her lips down and shook her head to show she had no idea. Ash turned to Misty.

“Ideally? As long as Ash has a story.”

“Ash?” Tess asked.

“That’s the one thing the Pokémon anime has right. This story is Ash’s. So, as long as he has a story to tell, then we keep going for as long as we can.”

Finally, Ash had to address the elephant in the room. Well, the room that all this had begun in, which is to say Kunihiko Yuyama’s office. His agent had informed him that Kunihiko, Daiki, and Aya insisted on seeing him again. Suddenly, Ash felt like he had been summoned to the principal’s office. He wasn’t far off.

It turned out he didn’t have to do much haphazard explaining as to what he’d done. They could already guess that Ash’s new show wasn’t just a prologue, but out to rewrite the whole anime. And they knew exactly what that might mean for the show. But it turned out Ash didn’t.

“Ash,” Kunihiko seethed, barely able to keep his voice under control. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“If you’re talking about a breach of contract, I’ve taken that into account and am willing to—”

“Of course it’s a breach of contract!” Kunihiko exclaimed. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re not just out to destroy the Pokémon anime, but all of Pokémon as a franchise. That number one media franchise slot? Gone.”

“What are you talking about?” Ash asked, genuinely confused.

“Think about it,” Kunihiko explained. “When a new anime season comes out, the new games come out. The new manga comes out. New trading cards. New merchandise. All these things support each other. If one of them deteriorates, they all do.”

Ash’s heart dropped. He actually hadn’t thought about that.

“The anime is what a significant portion of our fans follow. It brings in new eyeball for the youth, some too young to even play the video games. No anime, fewer game sales. Fewer merch sales. Fewer trading cards. Then boom, Hello Kitty is the top franchise again. Are you a closet Hello Kitty fan, Ash?”

“No, sir,” Ash answered, suddenly feeling even more the part of the primary schooler being chastised by his teacher.

“So, what do you suggest as a solution, Ash? I know what I want. But I’m curious to hear your thoughts.”

“You want us to stop production,” Ash said, evading the question. “At least before it starts to replace the anime.”

“Of course. Do you have any plan of doing that?”

Ash wasn’t a child. These people might think of him as a ten-year-old—and he was really good at being one. But in the last couple months, he’d like to think he’d gotten pretty damn good at being an adult too.

“No, sir.”

“So I’m forced to ask once again, what’s your solution?”

His solution was to go back in time and have Tess’s story be the PokéAni from the start. Then she never would have felt the need to clean up the mess that the original writers had made before they’d known the phenomenon Pokémon would be. That it would one day be the top grossing media franchise. Then Ash never would have felt trapped by this show. The show that had given him everything. But, unfortunately, this was the real world. It wasn’t Pokémon. He couldn’t get a magic necklace or travel in a magic elevator to a different time period. He was stuck here cleaning up the mess that he and everyone else had made.

“You wanna know what my perfect solution would be?” Ash said finally. “If you let Ash Ketchum go. We can keep doing our show, hopefully with your blessing. Maybe even with your support, so that it could earn us some money to keep it going. And you keep your anime going, but with a new star. Because, like I tried to tell you, I can’t do it anymore.”

“But there is no Pokémon anime without Ash Ketchum and his Pikachu,” Aya insisted, finally speaking up. “He’s synonymous with the show.”

“So make it the next generation,” Ash blurted out, thinking of his conversation with Misty and Tess. “In our show—” Kunihiko scoffed at the word ‘our,’ “—Ash Ketchum and Misty are eventually going to get married and have kids. Let the Galar region be about that kid. He’ll—or she, I guess, I don’t actually know—be really similar to Ash Ketchum. Maybe even with another Pikachu. And then Ash Ketchum will be able to make cameo appearances. C’mon, the viewers would love that.”

“No,” Aya said. “That adds too many complications. Where’s Professor Oak? Is he dead? And Ash and Misty getting together canonically isn’t an option. We want Ash to stay relatable, and getting married to one of the Pokégirls isn’t a part of that.”

“Well, I don’t want to say take it or leave it,” Ash said. “But that’s the best compromise I have for you right now. We can both keep thinking, but my hope is that this new show will reignite the fans. It will make them feel that we care. Since it’s actually me and Delia and everyone in it, and not just a fanfiction in the corner of the internet. This is the kind of thing the diehard fans want, even if the youngsters don’t. But, then again, what difference would the youngsters know between Ash Ketchum and his kid?”

The group across from him was silent for a second. Then Kunihiko put his hands on the desk.

“Fine. We’ll adjourn this meeting for today. But don’t think you’re off the hook, Ash. Any change to the current track for the anime would mean a delay in production, which we can’t afford for the aforementioned reasons of the games and merch already in production. That would be millions and millions in losses. Our stock is set to plummet at any wrong move.”

“I understand that,” Ash said, though it hadn’t occurred to him until just then. “But I hope you’ll consider the idea.”

“I suppose we don’t have much of a choice,” Kunihiko said. “We’ll just have to speak with the heads at The Pokémon Company and to see.”

It turned out Ash had left Pokémon Company with very little choice. In only a week their pilot episode had gone viral and, since Ash hadn’t received a cease and desist or anything like that, they followed up in posting their second video which accrued almost the same number of views, proving that their audience was captive.

Perhaps if they hadn’t done that, the Pokémon Company could have tried to sweep it under the rug. But with the first and second episodes already out, damage control was needed more than anything else. To their advantage, all that had been announced about the Gen 8 anime so far was that Ash Ketchum would continue to be in it and that there was a new traveling companion. These things would technically still be true, under Ash’s compromise, though a bit of backtracking would be needed. Surely, Ash Ketchum would still be in the anime. Just in an entirely different capacity.

There would be backlash. No one knew whether it would be more from the fact that 10-year-old Ash was being retired or because Ash and Misty were going to be canonically married with progeny, but Pokémon Company had to be prepared to handle both of those. They were bound to get an even bigger reaction than the debacle about the lack of a National ‘Dex in the games—though admittedly more mixed rather than overwhelmingly negative. Ash and Misty had agreed to be a part of the damage control process. And what they realized quickly was that they needed to do something that no other television show ever had to do: state its intensions.

Of course, Pokémon Company would first have to air its trailer as usual, which would be a bit of a rush-job, since so much would need to be reanimated. Its release would have to be pushed back, but that wasn’t too bad, since it hadn’t had a public announcement. The drop was meant to be a surprise. Then Ash and Misty would have to issue a follow-up video to what was sure to be a big reaction from a trailer of a new generation of the anime in which Ash was not the protagonist.

After that, Pokémon: The Retelling, as they had been bold enough to name it, was up and running. And with greater ease than ever because, while Misty now had a small role in the anime to fill, Ash was basically jobless. Compared to his schedule as the star, at least. So they could put all their time into the new show. Well, all their work time. Because now, for the first time since he was ten, Ash was able to have a personal life.

A dozen episodes of the show had now been released and the original—or new, depending on how one wanted to look at it—anime had just started generation 8. For once in his life, Ash was a free man. He could go to bars, he could swear, and, best of all, the world now knew he had a girlfriend. Some AmourShippers, among others, were a little peeved about this revelation—and what they correctly guessed it would mean for The Retelling’s plotline—but Ash didn’t care. They could get married. He could propose.

And propose he did.

Even though this whole saga had begun with the Pokémon writers refusing to change the script for him, Ash managed to eke out one tiny favor. Sure, he’d been in their bad graces for a while after The Retelling had dropped, but as the anime continued to do well—as well as could be expected, since PokeAni viewership had been down for years anyway—it seemed he was forgiven.

It showed growth in the PokeAni that a line at all about romance was even able to make it in, but Ash managed to squeeze a line into one episode that Ash Ketchum had proposed to Misty Waterflower on a certain day in 2020. The same day that episode was set to air. And, thusly, Ash proposed in real life.

In the future, Ash would regret that move. He would be able to see that he’d done that as a result of his censorship of the past years and he wanted to be overly-bold. He’d wanted the proposal to make a big, public splash. It had been an overcorrection. In the midst of their engagement, he realized that something more personal and intimate might have been better. But, as Misty reassured him many times over the years, she would have been happy for it either way.

Of course, the other issue was that fans were quickly able to suss out when that would mean that their child, the current protagonist, would be conceived and born, assuming their real life relationship was to match that of the characters in the show. That led to some embarrassing and surprisingly aggressive hounding from the fans. Of course, their first child didn’t end up being born for a few more years, and they were quite different from the Ketchum child on the show.

Years later, after the PokeAni had run its course and The Retelling had come and gone with massive fame and success, Ash had one final interview before declaring himself fully retired. Of course, his interviewer was some youngster who hadn’t even been born when The Retelling first came out.

Three cameras were focused on the two of them sitting across from each other in lounge chairs. The set was sparse, but when Ash looked beyond what was visible in frame, he saw dozens of pieces of expensive film equipment. There were booms, monitors, and lots of people with headsets fussing about. Frankly, it was much more pared down than what he’d worked with for much of his career. The technology had grown so much smaller—tighter and better than when he’d gotten his start in the ‘90s. But no matter the differences, he was perfectly at ease as he fell into the role of interviewee and focused all his attention on the young man in front of him.

If Ash wasn’t mistaken the boy across from him looked a little nervous himself. But, nevertheless, he gave one final look at his first note card as people around him moved and called for the cameras to start rolling.

“Hello, Ash, we’re so pleased you could join us here again today.”

“Happy to be here,” Ash replied, the old song and dance coming off his lips as easily as any script had.

“We both wanted this final interview of yours to be the definitive Ash interview, so do you mind if I just get into it?

“Not at all.”

“Great. So what led you to betray the show that gave you your fame and success?”

That was a planned question. The one he’d shown Ash before so that it wouldn’t come across too harsh. But it wouldn’t have anyway. All of the drama of that time was so far in the past, it was easy to talk about. So he did.

”All I wanted was to have my life. And the fact that it led to Ash Ketchum finally having one himself has made me very happy.”

The interviewer leaned back, settling into it. “You have played the role of Ash Ketchum in various capacities for nearly your whole life. Do you think his character has greatly impacted who you feel you’ve grown to be? Is that why it was important to give him a fuller life in The Retelling?”

Ash chucked, his laugh sounding nearly like a croak in his old age. “That boy and I have been together so long, I nearly couldn’t tell you where he stops and I begin. Even at my most frustrated with the role, though, I always had this love for him. I think people all over the world have held a deep love for all versions of Ash Ketchum in their hearts. He’s the quintessential hero, and his many failures never impeded that.”

“You speak of this love for Ash, yet you ultimately caused the character to change entirely after a pretty consistent twenty year run for him. Did you ever have small regrets about that or grieve the ten-year-old version of the character?”

“I definitely never regretted it,” Ash said firmly. “This is the one great truth of my life. But did I grieve the boy I knew? Sure. I’d grown up with him as he’d stayed the same. Constant. Suddenly having such a role in his shaping, his adolescence, adulthood, marriage to my wife’s character, having kids…it was hard. The fans didn’t like everything we did with him unanimously, of course. But for me, I knew if I misstepped with this boy, it would break my heart.”

“Did it break your heart when the show ended?”

“Which show?”

The interviewer thought for a moment, then answered, “Both.”

“Well, the answer is yes, for both,” Ash said, then chuckled. “I suppose I didn’t have to ask ‘which show,’ then.”

“We always like clarity around here.”

“Right, me too,” Ash agreed. “The truth is, when we started The Retelling, I’d been ready to quit the Pokémon anime. In fact, I’d been all set to do so before we came up with the, in hindsight, very complicated solution of entirely rewriting the show. The Retelling, of course, ended up being the best decision of my life. At the time, it was part of a handy solution to keep me from causing an abrupt end to the anime. I think the show ending there would have upset me, but at the same time, it was easy to feel it had run its course. I truly think nearly everyone involved in the show at the time felt that way.

“But then we ended up breathing new life into it. And I was so glad the show hadn’t ended and that the creators thought there was more to add to this world. They started taking fan-created Pokémon for new generations and it really felt like the show was doing more than ever. But still, its time came and went. It was sad, but it was like the passing of a grandparent. You mourn, but you now it’s right.”

“And the Retelling?”

“That show was a blessing, top to bottom. An incredible amount of work, but it saved me in so many ways. We were so lucky to be able to tell that story to the end, to the end of Ash Ketchum’s life. That was the only natural end, and we concluded that early on. Of course, it seems as though some fans continue to write about the children and the next generation, but those stories belong to the fans. Ours was only Ash’s. We told it to the best of our ability, from his birth to his death, and I’m ever so grateful that we got to give him that life.”

“You’re leaving so much behind in your retirement and I wonder, is there any one thing that you’d like the people to remember about Pokémon or Ash Ketchum or your legacy?”

Ash was quiet. In his old age, he’d come to take his time a little more. The impulsive, rash Ash of his youth had been left behind, and now he was ponderous. “There is no right way to tell stories,” he said finally. “I think that when we first started, myself, Misty, and Tess were arrogant enough to think that our way was the right way. The original show had gotten it wrong and we had to right it. But the truth is, that show was wonderful. And our show was wonderful. And every other story out there about Pokémon is equally wonderful. I’m lucky that the story I wanted to tell about these characters had the gift of a large, kind, and receptive audience. Not all stories get that. But they’re no less valuable. Pokémon is such a gift. It provides an amazing world that we all have spent so much time playing in. You, sir, have you ever watched the show?”

The interviewer nodded. If he was taken aback that Ash had turned the tables to ask the questions, he had the professional veneer not to show it. “I grew up watching reruns.”

“And did you play the games?”

“Some, not a lot.”

“That’s wonderful,” Ash said. “I’m so happy to hear that. They say that generative pieces of art, the books, movies, television shows that inspire people to create themselves, these are sacred. Pokémon, for me, has been the gift to never stop giving. It’s given me my wife, my livelihood, my dearest friends, and the ability to make change in this world. Now, it hasn’t given all those things to most of its fans, but they too have received things. There’s a reason Pokémon kept on coming back, that the new generations of kids kept playing the games. There’s something magic about it. I’m still arrogant enough to like to think I was a part of that. But it will continue to be there after I’m gone as well. And that’s the beauty of it.”

“…So you’d like to say that Pokémon is for everyone?”

“Yes,” Ash answered firmly. “It’s yours. Take it and do with it what you will. I did just that for a long time and it’s brought me much of the joy of my life. I hope it does the same for all of you.”

“Well,” the interviewer said, folding his legs and looking a great deal more comfortable. “I’d say that that’s the end of our exclusive final interview with the inimitable Ash. Thank you, Ash, for speaking with us one more time.”

“Yes,” Ash said, also leaning back and relaxing, looking into the camera one last time. “Thank you as well.”

#pokemon #pokeshipping #aaml #fanfiction #oneshot #ash and misty #ash ketchum

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diarrheaofthekeyboard · 4 years ago

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Confluence of Updates

7.26.2020

Writing on Writing

In addition to weekly therapy since November, I have been watching School of Life videos on YouTube. The latest video I watched helped confirm for me that I’m on the right path. I’m never going to eliminate my Inner Critic or ever feel completely comfortable with myself. I think if I did, that would be something extra-human. Neither are realistic goals. This particular video’s intent was to get people to write a journal. In a nutshell, you can’t keep it all in. Give yourself a daily mental outlet where you can release your thoughts and you’ll have less mental anguish. Well, here we are! Glad I’m on the right path.

This may be the reason Sunday nights have recently become the most difficult for me. Brain won’t turn off, but it’s because I haven’t had what I’m trying to turn into my daily routine of walking in the morning and writing at night. The out I’m giving myself is this is all new and it takes some growing pains to get it right.

Writing on Walking

I try not to spend money these days but any new venture is going to have some startup costs. My sneakers should be good for another month or so if I stick with it. I’ve been keeping my mask in my pocket, but that makes it difficult to pull it out when I actually see people, so I bought some neck gaiters I can pull up to be a mask. But the two big things were new headphones and shirts.

The headphones are a big deal because of “the thud of footsteps”. As you may have figured out by now, I actually listen to music. It’s not just a beat or a background to keep me going. I’m actually interested in hearing it, reacting to it emotionally, having my own internal dialog about it, and just plain enjoying it. I can’t do that while walking because I hear the thud of my own footsteps with my headphones on. Happens with my Amazon Basics on-ear headphones, which are actually super awesome Monoprice headphones, and it also happens with my Sony earbuds I bought for phone calls. Turns out the Amazon ones are on-ear, closed back. And with the way earbuds have been redesigned, they create a closed back type effect.

So I made an educated guess and took a chance on some KOSS open air, on ear headphones. Remember the shitty headphones that came with your Walkman? Those were open air, on ear headphones. Those are the ones I used to listen to Megadeth at top volume on in the back seat of my parents’ car so I didn’t have to listen to their shitty lite-fm radio. I found some good ones from KOSS that won’t make my ears hurt after listening to them for 30 minutes and they arrived today. Put them on, took three steps, no thud. Yeah, you can hear the music if you really get close to me. But it’s not like I’m crammed onto a subway around here. Monday will be the real test but so far it seems like $30 in Amazon points well spent.

Now you may ask yourself, “why are new shirts a big deal?” I think it’s about self worth and there’s a bunch going on here.

To this point, I’ve been wearing whatever t-shirt I want to walk. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with them. But they’re yer basic men’s printed band shirt or otherwise printed shirt. So they trend kinda heavy and not too comfortable. But you’ll be able to wear them through armageddon. Some of them are 10 to 20 years old. So there’s a lot of personal history and/or bullshit associated with them. Not only because of whatever is printed on them that I obviously liked. But also because of where/when I’ve worn them and how they’ve been associated with certain places. I don’t want to get rid of them or necessarily stop wearing them. But I do kinda just want to put them in a box at the bottom of my closet and start over.

Then there’s the deserving part. I have more than enough varying degrees of uncomfortable shirts, I should just wear them and be done with it. I’m not good enough for new shirts. Especially some new shirts that are obviously designed for workouts and sports. I’m about 40 pounds overweight. I need to lose half that weight first and really get into a routine before I’m approaching good enough for new shirts. Otherwise, I’m just some pudgy poser.

And I’ve been listening to this bullshit from my internal dialog for the past month, as I have been walking around my neighborhood. Well, we’re almost at the end of the month and I’m still going. And as I’m putting them in the cart and buying them, a 14 year old memory trying to get me to stop pops up.

From ‘05 to ‘08 I played guitar in an off-off-off Broadway production of Oedipus. We actually did all three plays during that time. And the best way I can describe the production is “What would happen if George Orwell wrote Oedipus, and it played out on American Idol?” In 2006, we played for a week at the Fringe Festival in Brisbane, Australia. My anxiety nearly fucked me on getting a passport, but I was able to get over that. What really fucked me was the NYC blackout of that year, which hit my area for an extended period of time.

One of the wonderful things about NYC is the laundromats have drop off service and will do your laundry for you. So I dropped off my laundry a few days before I was going to leave for Australia. Well, the fucking blackout took out the laundromat, with my clothes still inside. So I left for Australia with my guitar equipment and an empty suitcase. For some reason, I had insisted I wanted to fly JetBlue from NYC to LA, which meant I needed to take a cab to LAX. This turned into a blessing in disguise because the driver agreed to stop at Target while I ran around the store and bought whatever I thought might look ok.

The black shirt I bought to wear onstage was an activewear shirt. It was kinda stretchy, but I figured it would hang loose. And of course it didn’t and we’re about to get onstage and I look like a fucking Ring Ding shoved into a muscle shirt. Everyone in the entire cast laughed at me. Finally, the drummer was nice enough to change shirts with me and he wore it. Later on that trip, he gave me the worst purple nurple ever. So this is what’s going through my mind in fucking Costco, and why I didn’t deserve new shirts. But I bought them anyway as a fuck you to that memory.

And you know what? I took them out of the package and they smelled like chemicals. So I washed them and the neck gaiters and left them out to dry. Then I changed into one of the shirts to play pickleball with my kid yesterday afternoon. AND IT WAS PERFECTLY FINE. Yeah, I’m probably dumb for buying black shirts and I should have bought the white ones. But that’s toxic “oh black looks harder than white” for you/all band shirts are black/get ripped in a year and wear them onstage too.

To top it off, we went to the pool this afternoon and after I showered, I put on one of my regular t-shirts. And it kinda felt constricting. I can’t wear the black shirts everywhere because they’ll smell like BO in 30 seconds. But I’m going to wear them a lot, and not be embarrassed about them. It’s ok to be comfortable.

Whither, Music.

Unsurprisingly, Bernstein’s lectures have led me to bite off more than I can chew. I haven’t been walking on weekends, so I haven’t been listening to him. But I did find a bunch of books I’ve either read too many times or not read enough, and pulled them out. They are:

Aaron Copland - What to Listen for in Music

Howard Goodall - The Story of Music

Glenn Kurtz - Practicing

Philip Toshio Sudo - Zen Guitar

Pat Pattison - Writing Better Lyrics

I haven’t really read anything other than news for a long time. Or I buy books, read some, and never finish them. This is obviously detrimental to my mental health. So like with walking and with writing, I’m going with what interests me. I’m not trying to be busy all the time, but I definitely want to keep from punishing myself like I have done historically.

I started on Copland’s book last night. I read 25 pages, and that was only the Forward and Preface. So tonight I’m looking to get into at least the first chapter.

I’ve also been watching some other YouTube videos, particularly “Now Hear This” which is a PBS show about classical music, and another series I found about “how to listen to classical music” from a channel called Inside the Score. Last night I got my Ford Prefect on, and listened to Beethoven’s 5th. Today, I’m listening to Holst’s “The Planets”, which of course is the Leonard Bernstein version. I gotta say, these new headphones sound pretty good.

Lastly, I’m waiting on the book to Bernstein’s Harvard Lectures, which I will pick out every last piece he talks about, find it on Apple Music, and create a giant playlist. I hope the runners on the American River trail like classical music. They’re gonna hear a lot of it in passing.

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futurity-writing · 6 years ago

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OC Interview Tag

Rules: Pick a character from your WIP, and have them answer these 15 questions.

I was tagged by @laurusalexandercrown (thank you so much)! My main WIP is called Cirque du Mystères. I’m going to use the main character, Copper Chase. (I promise I’m going to make character and WIP introductions sooner or later lol).

1. What is your full name?

“My nickname is Copper. My last name is Chase,” he says.

Your full name.

“My actual name is Copernium Chase. If you can’t tell, I hate it.”

2. What does your full name mean?

“No idea. I’m not sure it’s an actual name outside my family. Technically I’m Copernium Chase the third, although my family doesn’t use titles like that. Especially because my dad goes by his middle name.”

3. What are your other names/nicknames?

“Well, there’s Copper. That’s what everybody calls me. I don’t really have any other nicknames. Sometimes Skie and Pax call me Bear. My family used to call me that when I was little I think. All I know is that Skie and Pax use it to refer to my powers that aren’t visions of the future.”

4. What’s your gender?

“I’m a boy.”

5. What’s your sexuality?

“Oh, um. Well, I’m not really sure... heh,” he says awkwardly, scratching the back of his head, “I mean, with all the visions of the future and working at the circus, I guess I haven’t had much time for anything else.”

So you’re questioning?

“Next question?” He asks sheepishly.

6. Where are you from?

“Well the circus travels all over, but I’m originally from a town called Renton. It’s in Washington. A few miles from Seattle. The United States, obviously.”

7. How old are you?

“I just turned 14 at the start of summer. I’d go into high-school next year, I think. Although I’m planning on just staying with the circus. My roommate Elijah was born here and never went to school and he’s fine. He’s actually pretty smart.”

8. What is your magic form?/What species are you?

“I’m human? I mean I can believe just about anything now, but I’m pretty sure things like vampires don’t exist. I hope not,” he says.

But you do have a magic form, correct?

“I guess so. Skie says I can turn into a bear, but I’ve been having trouble. I changed forms once. It was... scary.”

9. What does your human form look like?

“Well I have light brown hair, and I have hazel eyes, although they turn gold when I’m using my powers. I’m not really tall or short, but I’m still growing, and most of my family is pretty tall. I’m kind of skinny. I didn’t really eat much before I joined the circus, but they’ve helped me with that. There’s not much else. I have a birthmark on my left forearm the looks like a bear. Skie has one too, but hers is a wolf.”

10. What’s your aesthetic?

“What? I mean, I think I know what that means. I think I heard Pax mumbling about the circus’s aesthetic once,” he laughs.

They’re like images that express you as a person.

“Oh. Well I mean... I know things I like. I love magic tricks. I used to collect decks of cards before I moved to the circus. Now I don’t have any space. I also like bike trails. Riding bikes used to be my favorite thing. I don’t have one anymore. They take up way too much space. I guess bears would be on that list. I also like performing in the circus. I hope that was fine.”

11. Who’s your best friend?

“Before the circus, I had a friend named Dylan. He was pretty cool. We kind of drifted apart after I started having my visions. I didn’t really talk to anyone then. Now I guess it would be Skie. I mean, Elijah’s my roommate and we spend a lot of time together, but I’d have to go with Skie. She brought me to the circus, and we have a lot in common. We’ve made good friends through my training. I feel like I can really talk to her since we both were pretty messed up because of our powers.”

12. Would you ever get a piercing/tattoo?

“No. I mean, you’d be surprised but the circus isn’t more lax about that kind of stuff than my parents. If I got a tattoo, I think Pax, Alexander, and Roslyn would kill me. They’re all the kind of ‘parents’ here. Even if they’d let me, I wouldn’t.”

13. When are you happiest?

“I really love biking. I used to have a mountain bike, and I’d go on trails a lot. I just loved being by myself, going as fast as I possibly could (which was really fast), and just being alone to my thoughts. I used it a lot to clear my head so I could focus, or calm myself down. I also like performing in the circus, but I’d have to say I love biking a lot more.”

14. What’s your biggest secret?

“Well, I’m not sure,” he says, shifting in his seat, “Before I came to the circus it was definitely my visions. After all, everyone would think I’m crazy. I thought I was crazy.” He took a deep breath and considered his next words.

“I mean, I’ve told this to Skie. A little bit to Alexander, and I think Elijah can guess some of it. But-- Well I was in a really dark place before joining the circus. I don’t like talking about it that much. I still hate my visions, and I want them to go away, but at least now I have ways to have them happen less.

“Before the circus, I didn’t know what to do. I was scared. My visions are terrifying. It’s not always what I see, but it’s the feeling I get while I’m having them. Like I’m drowning. They’re so realistic. I didn’t know if I was awake or not. Once I fell off my bike and hit my head really bad. I just laid there. I didn’t know if I was awake or not, and I was just waiting to see if I would wake up or not. Thankfully someone else was using the trail and they took me to the ER.

“I’d stopped talking to my friends, and hardly talked to my family. I knew I would have to explain why I wasn’t okay if they noticed, and they’d think I was crazy. So I just avoided people entirely. Back then my visions only happened when I was asleep, so I’d keep myself awake until the last possible second. It was really unhealthy. But now I have the circus, I’m in training to control my visions, and Elijah and I have worked out a routine so I’d wake up before my visions start. And I can actually talk to people again without worry. I’ve been doing pretty good.”

It sounds like you were depressed.

“...Yeah.”

15. What was your first impression of [Skie]?

“Honestly she creeped me out. The circus tries to inconspicuously let people in because they’ve had their fair share of people starting trouble because someone they knew had run away to the circus. Skie actually met my family first. She pretended to be a friend from school returning homework. I think she stole it from me. She left a note telling me to meet her at the circus. I went, even though I knew it was stupid. She usually doesn’t ‘greet’ people as we call it, and honestly, I think that’s for the best. The entire conversation I thought she was going to kill me eventually. She can be... intense when meeting new people. No emotion. No talking about herself. But know we’re really good friends and she’s my trainer since we have similar powers.”

That was really fun!!!! I really enjoyed it. I’m tagging @watermelons-writings and @fantasy-studiies . Feel free to ignore it. I’d definitely love to do more of these, so don’t mind tagging me!

#writing #tag game #oc interview #writeblr #Cirque du Mystères #CdM #Copper #Copper Chase #Skie

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bbclesmis · 6 years ago

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Lily Collins on overshadowing dad Phil, beating anorexia and starring in the BBC's Les Misérables

As one of the defining voices of the 1980s and a man who remains one of the world’s bestselling artists, it would have been easy for Collins to overshadow his multitalented daughter’s success. Certainly, when I first interviewed Lily five years ago for the romcom Love, Rosie, she was still being defined not just by her famous father, but the Audrey Hepburn-esque looks that had won her modelling contracts as a teenager living in LA.

Since we last saw each other, Lily has redefined herself on her own terms. And when UK audiences are treated to her nuanced, poignant portrayal of Cosette’s desperate mother, Fantine, in the lavish new six-part BBC adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, they won’t see Phil Collins’s daughter but a remarkable British-born talent at the top of her game.

‘I had a few friends in the musical version, and I was so keen to play this part in what’s a very different adaptation,’ says Lily of the role that won Anne Hathaway an Oscar – a role she begged producers to be allowed to audition for, so desperate was she to be involved.

That the director, Tom Shankland, had decided against his being a musical adaptation meant the all-star cast – including Dominic West as Jean Valjean, David Oyelowo as Javert and Olivia Colman as Madame Thénardier – were able to return to Hugo’s original characters, she says. ‘And getting to work through the whole arc of Fantine’s life was incredible. Although in fact the death scene was filmed on day two,’ she adds with a side smile. ‘So it was a case of, “Hi, nice to meet you – I’m about to die”.’

Crushed and betrayed by a pitiless society that demands the most from those to whom it gives the least, Fantine’s character is emblematic of so much. During the six-month shoot in Belgium and northern France, Lily found filming in minus-13C Brussels gruelling (‘I grew up in England, so I should know about cold – but this was something else’), but says it helped put her in the right state of mind.

‘My lips started to go blue and I began to shake. Even in my breaks I wouldn’t keep my jacket on for too long because I had to be at a level of discomfort that I hadn’t experienced before.’ And when a degraded and desperate Fantine is dragged through the snow wearing minimal clothing, ‘I was able to let go and be that vulnerable. It’s those parts that are the most fulfilling: that’s when you can see what you’re made of.’

Lily’s early roles were hardly inconsequential. She starred alongside Sandra Bullock in the Oscar-winning 2009 film The Blind Side, and with Julia Roberts in Mirror Mirror in 2012. But it wasn’t until 2013 with her portrayal of Clary Fray in the film adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s bestselling cult fantasy series The Mortal Instruments that Lily seemed to come into her own.

There was a concerted move towards tragic, multi-layered heroines like heartbroken Cecilia Brady in Amazon Prime’s The Last Tycoon in 2016, and recovering anorexic Ellen in Marti Noxon’s To the Bone the following year, and I wonder whether it was the writing of her startlingly honest 2017 memoir, Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, that marked the start of Lily’s real evolution.

Five years ago a sweet, wholesome and reticent young woman in dungarees and Dr Martens boots had assured me that prudence had ‘always been my natural feeling’. And yet, outing herself as someone real and flawed in her memoir – someone who had suffered from a debilitating eating disorder as well as self-confidence and relationship issues – was anything but prudent. ‘Writing the book helped me let go of things I was holding on to emotionally,’ Lily says. ‘And in order to take on the baggage of the characters that I wanted to play I had to let go of my own.’

That she chose to play a recovering anorexic in To the Bone the same year she’d detailed her own illness in such detail – the diet-pill and laxative addiction, the bingeing and purging that started at the age of 16 and went on into her 20s – could be seen as brave, foolhardy or both. But her parents (Lily’s mum is American socialite Jill Tavelman) didn’t try to stop her, she says. ‘In fact, they were more like, “Wow, you’re writing a book!” And it turned out to be a form of therapy,’ she insists.

‘Luckily, we shot To the Bone in LA, I worked with a nutritionist to prepare for the part responsibly, and my mum was on set with me, so it was a way for me to harness something that had truly controlled my life for such a long time. Being able to turn the tables and really have control was amazing. Finally I could say to myself: “I am living my life and this is not going to be a part of my story from now on.” I’ll be 30 in March and I’m so glad that I dealt with these things in my 20s, because now I can get excited about what’s to come.’

As part of her research she went to an Anorexics and Bulimics Anonymous group, and an LA clinic for eating disorders, ‘where they gave me a lot of the factual information to understand the basics of the disorder’. Does she feel her illness is firmly behind her now – or is it important to remain vigilant? ‘Well it’s never going to be erased because it’s part of who you are, but it doesn’t define how I live my life daily any more,’ she says. ‘When I was going through it, I couldn’t imagine there being a day when I didn’t think about it. So really it’s about seeing myself as a priority.’

She’s in no doubt that doing To the Bone and Unfiltered in the same year was worth it in terms of getting the message out there. ‘We’re all flawed,’ she shrugs. ‘Giving a loud voice to a subject that people are often very ashamed of really inspired me to pour myself into characters that have something to say.’

Her accent may be pure La-La Land, but Lily’s got British steel, our madcap sense of humour – and a love of Topshop. And when she lands at Heathrow and drives out into the country towards her father’s Surrey home, ‘That’s when I feel most myself,’ she says. And yet only-child Lily was just five when her mother moved them back to California, where she was from, and away from the very public fallout of her and Collins’s divorce.

It was the musician’s second marital break-up and the press feasted on every acrimonious detail of the split, from the fax her father reportedly sent Tavelman terminating their 10-year marriage (he denied it) to the reported £17 million he was forced to pay out. But although Lily admits in her book that there was ‘anger’ towards her father and a ‘terrible disconnect’ between them in the subsequent period – Collins went on to marry Swiss translator Orianne Cevey, 20 years his junior, in 1999, whom he later divorced and remarried – she is now very close to the 67-year-old and her four half-siblings. Two of them, Simon and Joely (whose mother is Collins’s first wife, Andrea Bertorelli) live in Canada, and two, Nicholas and Matthew (sons of Orianne), in Geneva, but the family all assembled in London for their father’s 60th birthday.

Lily remembers the advice Phil gave her when she started out: ‘For every positive review you read you’ll probably find two negative ones, so if you’re proud of something, don’t let anyone take that away.

‘And it’s true that being proud of the work matters more than anything,’ she says, adding that growing up immersed in the industry allowed her to ‘see the pros and the cons of it all and really understand what happens when you decide you’re going to be in the public eye. Because of that I feel like I already have this armour built in, which I can use at any moment.’

The armour went on when I asked about her ex-boyfriend, actor Jamie Campbell Bower, and an alleged fling with Zac Efron five years ago – and she’s not about to tell me who she’s dating now. But as well as her book, Instagram – on which Lily has almost 12 million followers – has opened her up in other ways. ‘I used to be quite anti social media,’ she says. ‘But after the book I found that this hugely supportive community was forming around the world.’ Anyone who assumed that the gorgeous LA actress whose circle of friends includes the actors Eddie Redmayne, Jaime Winstone and Sam Claflin couldn’t connect with ordinary people, ‘I wanted to prove wrong,’ she says.

Instagram has also proved to be a great platform for Lily to showcase her love of fashion and photography. The Dr Martens are now long gone and today she loves mixing up pieces by Givenchy, Miu Miu and Chanel with vintage brands and high-street finds. ‘In Brussels there were so many amazing vintage shops,’ she says. ‘I found some incredible old adidas and Fila jackets. But I’m constantly changing when it comes to fashion.’

Many of these experiments have been exhaustively covered by the fashion bloggers who dissect paparazzi pictures of Lily out and about in LA, where she lives – ‘which can be frustrating when I’m just going to the gym’, but is an inevitable part of any coverage involving red carpets.

Asked whether she minds the ‘Who are you wearing?’ question that many A-listers have railed against post #AskHerMore, she deliberates for a moment. ‘Well, I like to give credit where credit’s due, and if I’m wearing something a designer has created, they deserve the credit. One hopes there’s going to be more than one question – and if it is just the one, I’d rather be asked what I’m doing there.’

To see how quickly her industry has changed since #MeToo went viral just over a year ago has been fascinating, she says. ‘And I feel very fortunate that the films I’ve been in have always involved very strong independent women – whether it’s Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock,Julianne Moore, Annette Bening or Jennifer Connelly: they all took me under their wing.’

Watching #MeToo filter down into other industries has been one of the most wondrous things about it, she enthuses. ‘But whereas this year has been about trying to level the playing field, I keep hoping that one day we won’t have to start conversations with, “Well, it’s great because she’s a woman…”’

In her next big screen role, Lily will star as Edith Tolkien – the wife and muse of Lord of the Rings creator JRR Tolkien – opposite Nicholas Hoult in Dome Karukoski’s biopic, Tolkien. ‘And what an amazing experience to shoot in Liverpool with someone like Nicholas, and be able to play a character that really inspired a series of stories I grew up loving.’ But prior to that, and also due out next year – she filmed Joe Berlinger’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, in which she plays the long-term girlfriend of mass-murderer Ted Bundy, Elizabeth Kloepfer – with whom she spent time.

‘The preparation to that – and meeting Elizabeth and her daughter – was so unsettling that I kept being woken up by all these images,’ she says. ‘And I had tried not to read the harshest and most visceral information out there because in truth my character didn’t know anything, and the story is from her perspective. But it’s such a fascinating story – and in the end storytelling is what connects us all.’

Les Misérables begins on 30 December at 9pm on BBC One (x)

#les mis bbc #bbc les mis #Lily Collins #fantine #Interviews #articles

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architect-arcane · 7 years ago

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The Impact Zone (Harrison x reader)

AU: Soulmate / tattoo

Fandom: Bondi Rescue

Words: ~ 2,132

Part: 1/?

A/N: So the bondi rescue fandom is seriously lacking in, well, everything. It’s an amazing show and if you like shirtless guys, then you’d enjoy it. Season 10 and 11 are on netflix and season 13 premiered yesterday. ANYWHO, I wanted to write something due to the extreme lack in fics (especially fics here on tumblr), and Harrison fics in general. (wattpad has a bunch but they’re like 62% jesse and 35% Maxi)

Another note: I usually don’t care for the soulmates au’s but I got this idea a couple days ago and I’m kinda obsessed with it, so yeah. Here we go –

Soulmates are a weird concept to me. Despite the fact that it’s how our society works. Like, you’re supposed to meet and fall in love with a complete stranger just because they have the same tattoo as you? What kind of higher power decided that was a good idea? But, it’s a thing and I guess I just have to deal with it.

Everyone gets their tattoo at a different time in their lives. Sometimes they appear right away when you’re born, sometimes you have to wait until you’re in your 20s or 30s until it appears. They appear someplace on your body with a white ink look, and slowly turn black as you get closer to meeting your soulmate – emphasis on slowly. Even if you do meet them, it’s a gradual change to black, so it may take a couple hours up to a couple days or weeks before you even know it’s them.

My parents were lucky enough to be high school sweethearts. Ironically enough, their tattoos are hearts; my mom’s is on her hip, my dad’s on his wrist. My older brother and his wife were also high school sweethearts, though it took much longer for their tattoos to turn to black for some reason. We always joke that they had a glitch or something. My younger sister literally met her soulmate in kindergarten. Like, wtf? They’re sophomores and still too young to marry, but still. And then there’s me. I’m 22, about to start my last year of college, and still have yet to meet my soulmate. Middle child syndrome I guess? I’m starting to think he doesn’t exist.

Not only that but I was also a late bloomer in even getting my soulmate tattoo. It didn’t appear until summer last year: a wave on my ankle.

Considering it showed up so late, I can only assume that I won’t meet my soulmate until I’m like 35 or something. So I guess he does exist since I at least have a tattoo. It’s just finding him that will be the challenge now. Like I said, my final year of college is starting soon, meaning that I will be graduating in May, which means that I have to find a job and be out in the real world, making it even harder to find the guy.

Growing up on the coast has its perks. Not only is it warm a majority of the year, but if you live anywhere near a beach, you probably grew up surfing or doing something related to water. I’m pretty sure I’ve been swimming since I came out of the womb. And as soon as I could walk, my dad was taking me out and teaching me to surf. By the time I was 13, I was winning almost all the competitions I was in. I definitely wasn’t famous by any means, but a lot of people knew who I was. I did that up though high school. Focusing on my studies, I surf a lot less now, but many students and professors still recognize me and it’s kind of weird. But I wasn’t about to do four years of online college, sooo….

That all aside, I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining this much. I’m kicking off my senior year by taking a summer trip to Australia. How many people get to say that? And I’ve heard there’s amazing surf there too, so I’ll be doing that for sure. I wasn’t even really planning on taking this trip but just a few days ago I talked to my parents about it and they were okay with it, so I just booked it. Talk about spontaneity right?

I make though customs smoothly and as I enter the plane for the dreaded 15 hour flight from LAX to Sydney, I try to get comfortable. Luckily, it seems like a decently small amount of passengers, so after a few hours, I should be able to find a row of seats to lay down on. And just that happens. Once we take off and high enough to turn on electronics, I get on my computer for a while. I check social medias, watch a little Netflix and hulu, and write on the blog diary I decided to keep for this week.

After quite some time of that, my eyes start to hurt from looking at my screen, and I decide to finally sleep for hopefully the rest of the flight, but who knows? It’s dark out so that should help a little. There are a couple people in my row unfortunately, but by some odd luck, the row behind us is completely empty. I put my laptop away, shove my bag under the seat and shimmy out of the row of seats I’m currently in. Going into the overhead bins to grab some sleeping stuff, I pull out a small pillow and my sleeping mask. I then go into the row behind us and prepare myself for what is hopefully a decent sleep.

Time passes, and when I wake up I check the little tv screen on the back of the seat in front of me to see where we are and how much time is left on the flight. Surprisingly, I slept a good six hours meaning I only have about four hours left of this flight. After calling a flight attendant and ordering some food because I’m starving, I pull out my computer again and occupy myself for the remaining time on this flight. Considering we’re over the ocean – well, just flying in general – I have no point of reference to try to figure out what time it is where I’m at, but my phone says 1PM Cali time. I think that means it’s just after 7AM in Sydney. Time zones are so weird because I left home just after midnight on a Sunday, and when I land in Sydney, it’ll be 11AM Tuesday already. Wild.

The beep of the intercom brings me out of my concentration on my computer screen. “Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We are preparing our descent to Sydney. The current time is 11:34 in the morning, Tuesday, and the current temperature is a balmy 78°. That’s 25 for you locals.” There’s a few chuckles across the plane and the fasten seatbelts sign lights up. Putting away my things and going back to my original seat, I buckle up and prepare for landing.

Landing smoothly, it takes half hour before we get to our gate. It takes another half hour after that to even get my things and get off the plane. Walking off of the air conditioned plane and into the Australia heat, the captain wasn’t lying when he said it was balmy. I almost immediately start sweating. You’d think I’d be used to this, living in SoCal, but nope. I guess not. It’s all good once I get back into the airport. I head straight to baggage claim, find my suitcase, and head out to get a taxi. Luckily, there’s a small line of taxis waiting to pick up morning arrivals. After the few families ahead of me get in their taxis and leave, I get to the front of the line and greet my driver. After getting my suitcase and carry-ons loaded in the trunk, I get in the back of the car.

“Where to?” Alex, my taxi driver asks.

“Hotel Ravesis.”

“Okay! Pretty fancy.”

I chuckle, “Is it? There was a deal when I booked it, so I’m not sure.”

“Oh yes. It’s on Campbell Parade, which is right across the road from Bondi Beach, one of Australia’s most famous beaches.”

“Ooh nice!” I say excitedly. “Can’t wait to go there.”

“Swimmer?”

“And surfer. I’ve been surfing basically since I could walk.”

“Oh wow! Well you’ll have a great time here then. Any special reason you’re visiting?”

I shake my head, “Not really. Just doing a big solo trip before I start my senior year of college.”

“Very nice. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

We continue to talk for the entire half hour of the drive. When we arrive, I pay him and he helps me get my things to the entryway of the hotel. I thank him again and head in. After checking in, I head to my room and finally relax on the bed. Next thing I know, I’m waking up and two more hours have passed. Guess I was a lot more tired that I thought I was. In my defense, the hotel bed is quite a bit more comfortable than a row of airplane seats.

Now a little after four, I decide I should probably find someplace to eat a proper meal, which I haven’t had since before I left home. I think there’s a café within or right outside this hotel, so I decide to go there.

After an amazing meal, I decide to take it easy and just walk around this famous Campbell Parade. I’m not tired yet, but the jet lag will probably catch up to me tomorrow. Walking down the street, there’s a bunch of shops and food places, just like any other big city. Definitely more surf shops though.

It takes me only about 20 minutes to walk from the hotel to end up on the far northeast side of the beach. If I remember correctly, Alex said that this was the famous Bondi Beach. Probably a dream of every surfer to be here. And here I am. Though I’m far less than prepared – I don’t have my swimsuit or even a towel – that doesn’t mean I can’t take a walk along the beach. I head down the stairs beside what looks like the kiddie pool, take off my flip flops, and slowly begin my walk.

The water is so blue, the sand isn’t too hot, and it’s just an overall beautiful day. And there’s so many people here! Many probably are not fond of the crowds, but I love it. My favorite part is that no one here knows who I am. Being in the surfing circuit back home, everyone knew who you were no matter where you were…especially me since I was winning all the time.

As I begin my walk I see children playing in the pool and the shallows of the ocean, other people swimming all along the coast, surfers further out catching waves, and more people just sunbathing on the sand. This feels like home to me. I can’t wait to be surfing here tomorrow. I walk in between the mass of people and the wall barricading the far end of the beach. I make it half way, right by the big lifeguard tower. If I hadn’t spent my whole childhood surfing competitively, I probably would have been a lifeguard in high school during the summer months. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do – save people’s lives.

Stopping for a moment, I take in the view. I may be here all week, but I’ll be spending most of it in the water, so now is a good time to just look at it all. I walk a little further and get to the steps where visitors can enter the beach. Going up a few to get a better view, I pull out my phone and take a few pictures. Not only is the attendance at the beach astounding, but so is the sunset. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. Right as I begin my descent, I hear the starting of a motor. I look to my left and see an atv of some sort hooked up to a trailer with a jet ski speed to the water. My eyes follow it and its occupants. These are clearly the lifeguards, as noted by their blue pullovers which I couldn’t read, but another one came running down the stairs from the lifeguard tower carrying something and getting in another atv, and I saw that their pullover said LIFEGUARD. Now I know who to look out for.

I continue down the entrance stairs and continue my walk down the beach. Making it to the end, I walk up the ramp so I can get back on a sidewalk. It is now just after six, so I complete my circle and eat a small dinner just by the hotel at a café. After finishing, I head back to my room and sit out on my room’s balcony, looking out at the night sky. I’m still pretty awake, so I get on my laptop and update my blog diary, check my social medias again, and by the time that’s all done, I’m actually pretty tired. I take a shower to finally freshen up after traveling, braid my hair so it’s cute and wavy for tomorrow, and head to bed.

part two

#bondi rescue #lifeguard x reader #bondi harrison #Harrison reid #boys in blue

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askullinajar · 7 years ago

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A Merry Little Christmas

Fic info:

This is set in the same universe as The Living Ghost and The Shattered Frame, so go read them or this won’t make sense.

Rating: Teen and up. Pairings: Lucy/Lockwood, Holly/Rani, Quill/OC, others if you squint. Word count: 9720. Ao3 link: here.

The gang all get together for Christmas Eve, 10 years on.

A Merry Little Christmas

“… its thin lips seemed to smile at me as we descended into the dark.”

I closed the book – the final instalment of my account of Lockwood & Co.’s greatest adventure – and was met with loud applause. The first chapter had been received well, it seemed, and I felt my chest fill with warmth and pride, overriding the sickly anxiety that was trying to creep up on me as I stood before the room full of people. Phone cameras flashed as admirers rushed to take my picture. I still marvelled at how far and fast technology had advanced since the Problem had begun to die down.

“Does anybody have any questions before we call it a night?” I announced into the microphone atop the lectern.

Hands immediately shot up.

“Are Marissa and Penelope really the same person?” a girl, who looked to be in her early twenties, asked, excitedly. “Did she reverse her age somehow?”

I smiled knowingly. “You’ll have to read the book to find out.”

She lowered her hand a little disappointedly. I picked on the next person.

“Did you ever find out what the fetch was?” a man asked.

“Ah,” I said. “Unfortunately, not; its Source was destroyed with all the others before we could investigate.”

A woman from the back shouted, “Did you ever let the skull out? Is he still around?”

I glanced back to where Skully was slouched in a chair, fidgeting with a Rubix Cube I’d given him to keep him occupied, though, to my dismay, he seemed almost done. I’d brought him with me because my manager (AKA Holly) had told me I might need a bodyguard, what with my increasing success as an author, and Skully was the most formidable person I knew, even if he didn’t look like much. But no one could know who he really was; we couldn’t have the general public getting ideas about bringing back the dead. I didn’t exactly want another Problem on our hands.

“I still see him from time to time,” I said, vaguely.

A girl of about twelve was sat beside her father in the front row, hopping in her seat and waving her hand in the air excitedly.

I gave her a smile. “Yes?”

“Did you and Lockwood ever get together?”

I flushed. “That’s – uh – not really relev–”

“Aw, look at you!”

Must to my dismay, Skully had finished the puzzle and had grown bored. So, of course, he was back to his favourite activity of annoying me.

“Married for five years and you still can’t think of him without blushing!”

I tried to shove him away from the microphone and failed. Damn his supernatural strength.

“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Skully informed the girl who was practically shaking in her seat with delight. “I gave her away–”

“You also shoved the best man into the cake,” I grumbled.

“–Barnes officiated–”

“George couldn’t return that suit.”

“–the food was wonderful–”

“I didn’t have wedding cake at my own wedding.”

“Oh, when are you going to get over that?”

“When you pay for the damn cake!”

There was a cough from the audience and I realised we were squabbling like school-children in front of two hundred people. I may have cut my hair down to a pixie cut, and Skully may have grown his out a little and added tattoos and piercings and, recently, stubble, but I guess some things never change. Not even after ten years.

I cleared my throat. “Right, well, I think that’s enough questions for one day. I’m sure you all want to get back to your families. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!”

There was another round of applause, accompanied by some confused expressions, before the crowd began to gather their belongings and got up to leave.

Skully and I headed out the backdoor to avoid the soon-to-be crowded foyer of the Anthony Lockwood Gallery, past the exhibits of case files and ex-Sources, their glass cases now decked in tinsel and fairy lights.

“Wait in the car for me, I need to pee,” Skully requested.

“Thanks for sharing.”

“Not my fault you waffle on so much,” he said. “I mean, do we really need so much info on how ‘dazzling’ A.J.’s smile is? Or how pretty and perfect Holly is? Side-note: you definitely had a crush on her.”

I flushed. “Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Oh, shut up,” I told him. “Go and do your business, I’ll warm up the car.”

I switched on the heating and the radio once I got back to the car, flicking through the stations absently. Then I gave up and switched it off, leaning my forehead against the steering wheel.

Here, alone in the car with nothing but my own thoughts, I felt all the thick, sickening anxiety I’d bottled up during the event bubbling back up to the surface.

I reminded myself that the people in that room had been living and breathing, though their whispering among themselves as I read had gotten my heart racing, wary of Visitors, even after so many years. The din of their conversation as I’d first entered the room had been reminiscent of the hum of a Spirit Gate. But it didn’t make my head scream in pain. It wasn’t the same. That’s what I kept telling myself.

Outside, children bounced along in front of their parents, gushing about my stories and the place London had once been. They were lucky they never had to experience it. Lucky they were allowed to just be children. They could go to school, join clubs, make friends and visit each other’s houses like normal kids could. They didn’t have to worry that they might never see those friends again. That any day could be their last.

I watched as they flopped down in the snow to make snow-angels, or gleefully tossed snowballs at one another, giggling and squealing. It was beginning to get dark, but no one raced to get home. They didn’t need to; without the Orpheus Society continuously stirring up the Other Side, Visitors had started appearing less and less. They barely showed up at all now. Nothing to worry about. I’d had a hand in that.

I felt my breathing even out.

“Want me to drive?”

Skully had returned and had one arm leaning on the roof of the car as he peered at me through the open passenger door.

I scoffed. “Thanks, but I’d rather not die.”

“I can drive!” Skully protested.

“You drive a motorcycle. You cannot apply the same rules to a car.”

Skully huffed but slipped into the passenger seat. I don’t think he missed me hurriedly wiping my eyes on my sleeve. He was silent for a moment as I started the car, then, “I’m proud of you, you know.”

I glanced across at him. “What?”

“You heard,” he said, turning towards the window to avoid eye contact.

“Yeah, but can I get it in writing or something?”

“Shut up.”

I couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t show affection openly very often, so when he did it was always a special moment for me. I’d let it slide for now, though.

I gave his cheek a prod. “What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“The beard,” I clarified. “Why are you growing a beard?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, casually, “I figured, if I start now, I can have a Dumbledore-level beard by the time I’m eighty.”

“Couldn’t be bothered to shave?”

“Yep. Though now I’ve said the Dumbledore idea, I’m kinda digging it.”

I rolled my eyes and turned the radio back on, tuning in to some Michael Bublé, coz why not? It was Christmas, after all.

Truthfully, Skully’s new beard looked to me less like an ‘I couldn’t be bothered to shave this morning’ beard and more of an ‘I haven’t had the energy to get out of bed for three days, let alone shave’ beard, going off what my husband was like. I didn’t mention it, as he hated it when I did, but I did make a mental note to check how much of his meds he had left. I didn’t want a repeat of the incident a few years back when he’d forgotten to renew his prescription.

“You’re still staying over tonight, right?” I said.

“Are your sister and her gremlins still there?”

“Mary and her children?” I said. “Yes. And they want to meet you.”

“Wasn’t she at the wedding?”

“You’re thinking of my other sisters,” I told him. “Mary went into labour and couldn’t be there.”

Skully groaned. “Do I have to?”

“Christmas is for family,” I said. “The family you actually like, at least. Unless you’d rather stay in your flat alone?”

“I like my flat,” he protested. “It has a great vantage point for pouring custard on carol singers.”

“We have presents for you.”

He paused. “Okay, I guess I’ll come.”

I nodded. “And is Charlie coming for the party tonight?”

Charlie was Skully’s twenty-four-year-old flatmate, and the human embodiment of a ray of sunshine, if a little lax on the social skills. By all rights, Skully and Charlie should not have gotten along, and I didn’t know the full story of their friendship, though they’d apparently disliked each other when they’d first met in the forensics lab where they worked. Nowadays, though, they were practically inseparable. Something about it being ‘nice to have someone to hang around with when all your gross allosexual friends insist on doing couple things’.

Skully shrugged. “I’ll ask again when we get to my place.”

I pulled the car up outside his block of flats a few minutes later.

“Ah,” he said, patting his pockets as we stepped out onto the curb, “forgot my keys.”

“You are a mess of a person,” I told him, pressing the buzzer for his flat.

“Yeah, they ain’t gonna answer that,” he said. “But, no worries.” He whipped out his phone and shot a quick text to Charlie.

After a good two minutes of standing out in the cold waiting for a reply, he gave up and called them instead. The call ended abruptly as it was apparently rejected on the other end. Then a text came through: Why are you calling me?

“There we go,” said Skully, texting back a quick reply, and a few seconds later, the intercom buzzed to let us in.

Charlie was standing in the doorway when we got upstairs, donned in pastel green dungarees and miss-matched socks, the light from the hallway behind them making their bronze curls glow gold. They narrowed their sky-blue eyes at Skully. “I don’t like phone calls.”

“Made ya look at your phone, though,” he replied.

“Mean,” said Charlie as he slipped past them and down the hall to get ready to go. “Hello, Lucy.”

“Hi, Charlie,” I said, slipping into the flat and shutting the door behind me. The flat was a cluttered mess of overflowing bookshelves and video game boxes littering the floor, but at least there didn’t seem to be any dirty dishes lying around. “Coming to the party tonight?”

“Party,” Charlie repeated, wrinkling their nose.

“A small party,” I clarified. “Just close friends of mine. Mostly people you know.”

They hummed. “My brother’s picking me up at ten.”

“Working late?” I said.

“He’ll be done in the flower shop by now, but then he’s volunteering at the soup kitchen,” Charlie replied.

“Can you get him to pick you up from my house?” I said. “Don’t want to be here alone until then, do you?”

“I can look after myself,” Charlie said as if this was something they had to clarify a lot.

“I didn’t mean–”

“Don’t leave me alone with the couples!” Skully called before coming out of the bathroom, now cleanly shaven. “I’ll let you follow me around the whole time, or just hide in the library.”

Charlie just hummed again.

“And they have pets,” Skully finished.

“’kay, I’ll come,” said Charlie.

“Did you get your things?” I asked Skully. He swore and ran back down the hall.

I gave Charlie the address and they sent a text to their brother, before retrieving an already-packed backpack.

“Got everything?” I asked.

That was probably the wrong thing to say because Charlie immediately plonked down on the floor and began unpacking the bag to make sure.

Skully came back out of his room.

“Remember Anthony wants us all wearing Christmas jumpers?” I said.

He groaned loudly and turned back.

“I don’t have a Christmas jumper,” said Charlie.

“Borrow one of mine,” Skully called from his room. “A.J. keeps buying them for me.”

He came back into the hall, now wearing one of the least garish jumpers Lockwood had given him over the years, one with the words ‘Now I have a machine gun. Ho-ho-ho’ scrawled across it, and tugged a fleecy jumper decorated with robins over Charlie’s head, who squeaked in surprise.

“Soft,” they said, once their arms were through the overly long sleeves.

“Keys?” I asked Skully.

He ran back to his room.

On the floor, Charlie stared at their laptop for a good minute before putting it in their bag, as if trying to convince themself it would still be there even once the bag was closed.

“How do you two ever get anything done?” I remarked.

“Hyperfocus,” said Charlie, simply. I decided not to tell them it had been a rhetorical question.

Skully returned, this time with everything he actually needed. I flicked the lights off on our way out, then Charlie flicked them back on and off again, then again with their other hand, for symmetry, I guess. Skully let them lock the door, and then we were off.

The car journey to Portland Row was mostly filled with Skully and I belting out Mariah Carey and Slade while Charlie happily hummed along and swayed in time to the music in the back, staring out the window at all the beautiful displays of Christmas lights adorning the houses and shops we passed. We weren’t half bad if I do say so myself.

Portland Row was only a ten-minute drive from Skully’s flat, and the front door opened as we stepped out of the car.

“Dog!” Charlie half-shrieked as a golden blur shot down the garden path and nearly knocked me over.

“Calm down, Apollo. I’ve not been gone that long!” I laughed, giving him a scratch behind his floppy ears before he bounded over to Charlie and Skully to beg for tummy rubs.

“Auntie Lucy! Auntie Lucy!”

I looked up as my little niece, Sophie, hurtled towards me in a pretty pink princess dress that was mostly covered in flour.

“What’s gotten you so mucky?” I said.

“We’ve been making gingerbread with mummy and uncle Tony!” she informed me, proudly.

“Ooh! I can’t wait to try it!” I gushed, picking her up and propping her on my hip to walk up to the house, where Lockwood was waiting in the doorway with my two-year-old nephew, Michael, sat on his shoulders, also in a princess dress. He did like to copy his sister a lot.

“Hello, my love,” Lockwood greeted, bending down a little to give me a peck on the lips, then a little further so I could kiss Michael on the forehead. “How’d the reading go?”

“Pretty well,” I replied. “Managed to keep Skully from interrupting for most of it.”

“Most of it?” Lockwood repeated with an amused smile. I rolled my eyes in reply.

“Down,” Michael said, patting Lockwood’s mop of hair. He complied and set him down on the carpet, and he promptly waddled down the hall and into the living room. I set Sophie down, too, so she could go after him.

Mary appeared from the kitchen a moment later, drying off her hands on her apron. “There you are, Luce. Keep an eye on the kids a sec, I wanna get changed before your party guests arrive.”

“Two are already here,” I said, nodding outside to where Charlie currently had their face buried in Apollo’s fur, and Skully was trying to drag them into the house. “Anthony’s uncle and his flatmate.”

Mary hopped over and stood on her tiptoes to peer over my shoulder.

“Oh my god, Luce! You didn’t tell me he was gorgeous!”

“Don’t you dare,” I told her, but she was already rushing upstairs to get changed.

“Remind me to keep her away from the mistletoe,” I muttered to Lockwood, who was snickering behind his hand.

Apollo bounded back into the house a moment later, followed by Skully who was carrying Charlie in front of him, his hands hooked under their elbows.

“Hi, Charlie,” said Lockwood, as Skully set them down and shut the front door. “Haven’t seen you since the Cambridge Cannibal case.”

“A cannibal?!” Sophie exclaimed, peering out of the open living room doorway.

“I still say he was a zombie,” said Charlie, clearly excited about the conversation topic. “He only ate the brains, see? He boiled them up in acetic acid, so they’d stay intact and–”

“Let’s not give the children nightmares,” I interrupted. Not that it was the most disturbing case my friends had worked on.

Since his Talent had faded and the Problem had decreased, Lockwood had gone through a bit of a crisis and had ended up achieving many feats before he finally decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He had opened up a fencing academy, which he had run himself while I had attended art school, before handing over the reins to Quill. Then we had travelled the world together, starting where his parents had left off. That had been fun while it lasted, but, after the incident, we were a little wary to leave London for too long. Maybe we would again, one day.

Now, Lockwood helped out with detective investigations from time to time, partnering up with Detective Inspector Rani Malik-Munro, under the supervision of Chief Constable Barnes, to solve gruesome murders, with the help of their friends in the forensics department.

The oven timer beeped in the kitchen and Lockwood rushed off to get the gingerbread out of the oven.

“Watch the kids,” I told Skully, following after him.

The ‘gingerbread’ that Lockwood set on the counter looked very… flat. And it had a strange smell, which was making me feel kind of queasy.

“So, how much input did you have with these?” I asked, peering over his shoulder at the demonic biscuits. “Just… out of curiosity.”

“I did most of it while Mary was handling the kids,” said Lockwood. “Do they really look that bad?”

Charlie approached and gave them a sniff. “You used salt instead of baking powder.”

“How would you even know that?” said Lockwood. “Besides, they’re basically the same thing, right?”

“And paprika instead of ginger.”

“Right,” I said. “How about we just let the kids decorate them and then never eat them ever?”

Lockwood made a pouty face.

“Aw, don’t sulk,” I said, ruffling his hair. “I’ll make them with you, next time.”

Skully came into the kitchen with a giggling child dangling upside down in each hand and Apollo at his heals. “A.J. ruin the cookies?”

“Jesus Christ, Jim. Put them down,” I scolded.

“Just keeping them out of trouble,” he said, setting them in a heap on the floor. They immediately scrambled to their feet and tried to run off, but Skully shut the kitchen door just in time. “When’s dinner? I’m starving.”

“When everyone’s actually here,” I told him. “I should probably start getting it ready.”

“Did you remember to eat today?” Lockwood asked him.

Skully seemed to think about it for a minute. “I had a can of coke this morning.”

Lockwood pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Hey!” Skully defended. “I’m probably still doing better than Charlie.”

“I had the chocolate from my advent calendar,” said Charlie. “That’s actually food.”

“Damn,” said Skully.

“Who thought it was a good idea for you two to live together?” said Lockwood.

“We just get distracted,” said Charlie.

“By video games?” I guessed.

“The universe’s greatest creation,” said Skully.

I heard the stairs creaking, signalling Mary’s return.

“Now remember,” I said in a hushed voice, so the children wouldn’t be able to overhear. “I haven’t told her about the whole Skully being brought back to life thing, so no one mention it. She’s terrible at keeping secrets.”

“Understood,” said Skully.

Mary entered the kitchen a moment later, looking very pretty with festive-red lipstick and her blonde hair elegantly curled.

“Sorry about running off,” she said. “Didn’t want to introduce myself covered in washing-up water.” She held a hand out to Charlie, who was closer. “I’m Mary!”

“Charlie,” said Charlie. “I don’t like shaking hands.”

“That’s fair enough,” said Mary, lowering her hand. “Do you have preferred pronouns, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Any,” said Charlie.

“I’ll stick with ‘them’, in that case.” Charlie smiled and nodded, and Mary turned to Skully. “And you must be… Jim? James?”

“Skully,” said Skully.

Mary twirled a finger through a golden ringlet. “Why do they call you that?”

“I was dead for a hundred and forty years.”

I elbowed him in the ribs. “Ha-ha! That’s just him trying to be funny!” I said as Mary gave me a confused look. “We call him that coz… uhh…” I looked towards Charlie and Lockwood for help.

“He works in a morgue,” Charlie supplied, which, while it made sense, was a little more morbid than I was hoping for.

“…Right,” said Mary.

“Why don’t you help me get dinner ready?” I said, changing the subject. “I’m sure this lot can handle the kids for a bit.”

“Oh, anything to get away from these little monsters,” Mary said, sticking her tongue out at the children, who giggled and ran off, dragging Lockwood and Skully with them, with Charlie and Apollo following behind.

Mary and I set about preparing a beef Wellington, chatting idly as we did so. It was almost as if we were back home again, preparing dinner with our other siblings while our mother sat watching TV.

“Anyone spending Christmas with mum this year?” I asked, casually.

“Not that I know of,” Mary replied. “Think she finally blew it when she exploded at Sam for coming out. And after all that tripe about wanting a son.”

“Maybe I should tell her I’m bi, just to add the icing on the cake,” I said.

Mary laughed. “Do it. She’d implode, it’d be hilarious. Ever gonna introduce her to these guys, by the way?”

I snorted. “Oh, hell no. Because, and I am not exaggerating when I say this, Skully would literally kill her. And Anthony would probably help.”

“You told them about her?”

“Of course I told them,” I said. “Anthony’s my husband. And Skully… well… he understands about that sort of thing.”

Mary nodded in understanding.

I popped the Wellington in the oven, and was just about to set the oven timer, when the doorbell rang, signalling the arrival of our first guests. I opened the door to find Holly and Rani, both looking stunning with Holly in a pine-green dress and Rani wearing a matching hijab. Rani and her family didn’t celebrate Christmas, but she still tagged along to parties and such with Holly. Mostly for the free food.

Lockwood appeared in the hallway after hearing us happily greet each other. He pouted at Holly. “You’re not wearing a Christmas jumper.”

“I’m not putting on one of those hideous things,” said Holly.

“This isn’t hideous!” Lockwood cried, gesturing to the demonic looking reindeer knitted into his jumper. Holly exchanged a look with me that clearly said ‘how do you put up with him?’

George and Flo were the next to arrive. George had not changed much at all over the years, though he and Skully got on a little better. He now worked at the local university, giving lectures on the science and history behind the Problem and Visitors, and putting his students to good use experimenting on Sources that still retained some psychic charge. He was the type of professor who turned up to lectures late, put memes in his presentations, and replied to carefully thought out, grammatically correct emails from students with ‘k’.

Flo, however, was much cleaner than her days spent as a relic-woman. Her long hair was still an unbrushed mess, and she still sported a lot of dirt beneath her nails, but that was a result of excavating historical artefacts rather than digging through river sludge. There wasn’t much money in being a relic-woman nowadays, anyway. And at least her new job was legal.

Quill showed up next, having come straight from a Fittes reunion party. He informed us that his old teammates were doing quite well for themselves; Bobby was well on his way to getting a PhD, and Kat was teaching kids at a nearby primary school.

Barnes and George’s mum showed up at the same time, quite by coincidence.

“You’re looking rather dashing today, Monty.”

“You’re looking quite lovely yourself, Martha.”

“I’m gonna throw up,” George mumbled, and Holly smacked him lightly on the arm.

We all crowded into the living room. Charlie, a little overwhelmed by all the people, sat themself in a corner beside the Christmas tree, and Apollo draped himself across their lap. Skully sat half in front of them, like a sort of shield, and the rest of us squeezed onto the chairs and sofas. Michael curled up into Mary’s side, having gone all shy in the presence of new people, and Sophie rushed about showing everyone all the drawings she had done that day before she finally settled down and crawled onto Skully’s lap. She had become rather taken with him.

“So, what’s everyone been up to?” Lockwood said, passing around tea and biscuits that he hadn’t made himself. I accepted the tea but declined the biscuits; I was still feeling a little queasy. “I feel like it’s been forever since we’ve all been together.”

“Why don’t you tell everyone about Lucas, Quill,” said Rani, slyly, sipping her tea.

Quill’s face and ears turned bright red, but he shrugged and sipped his tea, idly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ooh, who’s Lucas?” said Mary, eagerly. She was always one for gossip.

“Nobody,” said Quill.

“Just some super gorgeous guy who goes to all of his classes,” said Holly, grinning mischievously.

“Shut up,” said Quill, avoiding eye contact with all of us.

“Wait,” said Flo, pausing in the middle of piling sugar into her tea. “Dark hair? Tattoos? Looks kinda like he belongs in Asgard?”

“Sounds like him,” said Rani. “From all the very detailed descriptions Quill’s been giving us.”

“Shut up,” Quill said again.

“Do you know him?” George said eagerly, ignoring Quill.

“When I filled in for Quill the other week,” said Flo. “He was very disappointed when he saw me instead of him. No one else seemed to mind much.”

“He was?” said Quill, sitting up and seeming very much interested all of a sudden. “What did he say?”

Flo smirked. “Buy me some of that posh strawberry liquorice and I’ll tell you.”

“You are the worst,” said Quill.

“Just tell the boy how you feel, dear,” Mrs Cubbins advised. “Life’s too short to keep beating around the bush, take it from me. I wish I’d had more time with George’s father.”

“Or,” said Skully, “you could try giving him your dead relatives necklaces until he gets the hint.”

“Hey!” Lockwood protested. “That worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

“It wasn’t exactly the most straight-forward way,” I reasoned. “I mean, the first time, you told me to shut my mouth and then ran off.”

“Smooth move, A.J.,” said Skully.

“I was nervous!” Lockwood cried.

I can’t remember what we talked about after that. Just life, I guess. George kept throwing in puns, and I kept whacking him with cushions. When you’ve known someone for a long time, when you get along really well, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been apart. We all had different lives to live, and it was hard to see each other sometimes, but it didn’t matter in the end. Because, when you know someone that well, you can pick up exactly where you left off. Conversation and laughter flows. There are no awkward silences, no feeling left out and insecure. You can tell all the terrible jokes you want and know someone will laugh because these are the people who understand you, who love you. I had missed them all more than they could know.

I had brought the hellish gingerbread in after people had started to arrive, so we ended up sitting around the coffee table, helping the children decorate them, though Charlie had wandered off at this point, maybe to find the cat.

Sophie proudly showed me the mess of white, green, and black icing she had made. “It’s the skull from your stories!”

“Wow!” I gushed. “It looks just like him! Is he your favourite?”

Sophie nodded happily.

“A wise choice,” said Skully. “Quite possibly the best character ever written.”

I elbowed him again.

Lockwood had Michael sat on his lap and was helping him decorate a gingerbread dinosaur. He was so kind and patient with him, and I got a strange warm feeling in my chest seeing them like that.

“Can we eat them yet?” said Sophie, once all the cookies were suitably drenched in icing.

“Ooh, I don’t know about that,” said Mary. “They’re so good, don’t you think Father Christmas will want them all for himself?”

“Will he be able to eat them all?” said Sophie, uncertainly.

“He’ll need the energy to fly around the whole world, won’t he?” said Lockwood.

“I guess so,” said Sophie, a little disappointedly.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “we’ll make a gingerbread house tomorrow to eat all for ourselves. How about that?”

Sophie seemed happy enough with that arrangement, which was good, as there was no way in hell I was about to let her eat those death cookies.

Charlie came back a while later while we were all in a heated discussion about High School Musical, aside from Barnes and Mrs Cubbins, who were entertaining the children. Don’t ask me how the conversation had turned to that because I have no idea.

Charlie stood sort of awkwardly to the side while we were arguing.

“That song was totally a euphemism! I mean, he was literally dancing the whole way through it!”

“But wasn’t Chad into Taylor?”

“Old news. He and Ryan literally swapped clothes. There is no heterosexual explanation for that!”

“Guys, shut up,” Skully interrupted, having noticed Charlie. “What’s up?”

“Well, there’s a lot of smoke pouring out of the kitchen.”

I leapt to my feet and ran to retrieve a very black beef Wellington from the oven while the others charged around the house, throwing open doors and windows to let the smoke out.

“I think you forgot to set the oven timer,” said Quill.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Is your smoke alarm broken?” said Barnes.

“Uhh,” I said. “I might have thrown that down the stairs at one point.”

Barnes gave me one of his disappointed looks. “You’re lucky the kitchen didn’t catch fire. And you could have said something sooner, Charlie.”

“People sometimes get angry when I interrupt,” they said, flapping their arms at there sides until Apollo bumped his head into their hand and Skully gave their shoulder a squeeze.

“Oh, don’t worry yourself, dear,” said Mrs Cubbins. “No harm done. I could whip something else up?”

“It’s fine mum,” said George. “We can just order pizza or something.”

We were all ravenous by the time the pizza arrived, but something about the smell finally set me off, and I had to rush upstairs to throw up in the toilet. Maybe I was coming down with something.

I headed back downstairs once I’d brushed my teeth and was feeling a little better, and realised Charlie had disappeared again, so I grabbed one of the least-offensive pizzas smell-wise, and headed back upstairs, where I found them sat on the bed in Skully’s (once Jessica’s) old room, with Apollo curled up next to them. They were rhythmically stroking a black cat that sat curled up on their lap, which was purring contentedly.

“You found Artemis, I see,” I said, placing the pizza box on the bedside table and climbing up onto the bed beside Apollo. “She doesn’t usually like strangers.”

“Understandable,” said Charlie, quietly.

“Bit much for you?” I said.

“Just needed a little break,” they said. “It’s loud down there. Apollo keeps trying to lie on me.”

“He’s trained to,” I said, petting the dog’s head. “When he senses someone’s sad or stressed. He’s a good boy, aren’t you Apollo?” His tail wagged happy in the Artemis’s face, and she gave me a cold stare.

“But that’s, like, my permanent state of being,” said Charlie.

I laughed at that. “That’ll be why he’s been following you around all day then.”

Charlie smiled and scratched Apollo’s chin. His leg pumped against the mattress and his tail wagged even more.

“Sorry about dinner,” said Charlie.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It was my fault for not setting the timer… and for chucking the smoke alarm down the stairs. Just, for future reference, the kitchen nearly catching fire is one of the things you’re allowed to interrupt for.”

“Ugh, so many rules,” said Charlie.

“You’ll get used to them one day,” I said.

“Getting there,” said Charlie. “Oh, I should probably say congratulations, shouldn’t I?”

I frowned. “For my new book?”

“No,” said Charlie, looking a little confused now. “That, too, but…” They made an uncertain gesture towards my stomach. “Do you… not know yet?”

I could suddenly hear the blood rushing in my ears. “Know what?”

Charlie clapped their hands over their face, hunched over, and let out a little whine. “Messed up.”

“Know what, Charlie?” I repeated, more urgently.

“I might be wrong!” they blurted, voice sounding a little panicky. “I just sort of… have a sense for those kinds of things.”

“What kind of things?”

They began fidgeting with a loose thread in the bed sheets. “Like, I knew Skully had some connection to Visitors, and I know someone probably died in this room… and I know when people are pregnant. It’ll be a girl, I think. She’ll be a little late.”

I stared at them.

“I might be wrong,” Charlie repeated. “Just… maybe take a test.”

“What’s the likelihood that you’re wrong?” I said.

“Statistically…” they said. “Zero. I never have been.”

I swallowed and leaned back against the bedpost, my mind racing. I’d have to take a test as soon as possible, just to be sure. And if it was positive? I had no idea what I’d do. Would I even make a good mother? My own had been abusive and neglectful, spending Christmas alone this year because her children had finally had enough of her. What if I ended up like that?

But then I thought of Mary. My wonderful sister, who’d had the same upbringing, and yet, was an amazing mum. Granted, she’d once called me sobbing because she’d spanked Sophie for being naughty and thought she was turning into our mother, but she’d learnt from that mistake. She never laid a hand on her kids again, and she always had time for them. Teaching them right from wrong, gushing proudly over their messy drawings, oohing and aahing when they babbled on to her in mostly gibberish.

She made sure to tell her kids she loved them every single day, something our own mother never did.

And she’d done it all on her own, never being one for long-term relationships. I had Anthony, my incredible husband, who was kind and patient with my niece and nephew, and they adored him in return. We’d been through so much together, and no matter what, I knew he’d always stay by my side. If I slipped up, he’d steer me back in the right direction. He’d be a wonderful father.

The bubble of fear that had risen in my chest didn’t disappear, but it was joined by a bubble of excitement, and I let out a breath of air I didn’t know I’d been holding. Everything would turn out okay. It always did.

Charlie was looking at me like I might explode any second, so I turned my head and smiled at them, and they visibly relaxed.

The door opened and Skully slipped in. “Oh! Hiding, too? Think I’ll join.” And he clambered onto the between me and Charlie, poking Apollo out of the way with his foot. The dog didn’t stay away long, though, and clambered up onto Skully’s lap as he slung his arms over mine and Charlie’s shoulders. I leaned into him, gratefully. After the internal crisis I’d just had, I needed a hug.

“Why are you hiding?” I asked him.

“Your sister keeps trying to ambush me with mistletoe.”

I snorted. “I’ll have a word with her later. For some reason, she thinks you’re attractive.”

“Who doesn’t?” he said. “I’m bloody beautiful. Always have been. It’s a fact of life.”

“I wish I had your level of self-confidence,” I said. “But even when you were a mouldy skull in a jar?”

“Especially then,” he affirmed. “Have you seen my bone structure? Don’t deny it, you wanted a piece.”

“That’s disgusting,” I said, shoving away from him. “I am terminating our friendship.”

“Nah, you’d miss me too much,” he said. I chose not to respond to that.

“I’m gonna give Apollo a walk before it gets too late,” I said, causing the dog to leap from the bed and hop excitedly around my legs. “Want anything from the shops?”

“Pudding,” said Charlie.

“You’ve not even had dinner yet,” said Skully, picking up the pizza box and shoving it in Charlie’s face. I rolled my eyes and left them to their bickering.

Thank goodness the Problem was over, or twenty-four-hour stores wouldn’t exist.

I strolled leisurely through the snowy park, grateful to be out in the fresh air away from the stench of the pizza. I was pretty sure it had been the smell of barbecue sauce that had made me nauseous.

I peered at the little cardboard box in my hands as Apollo ran around like a maniac, shovelling his face into the snow, trying to pick up fallen tree branches twice his size, barking at nothing. Two bands for pregnant, one for not. Seemed simple enough. I just had to pee on a little plastic stick, and five minutes later, my whole life could be changed forever. No biggie.

I feared for my friends’ relationships when I got home and heard abuse being shouted from the living room, but, as it turned out, they were just playing Mario Kart. Charlie, Skully, George, and Flo racing while the others watched.

“Did you just drop a banana in my face?!”

“Ooh, careful, Charlie! George just sent a leader bomb.”

“For the last time, Lockwood, it’s called a blue shell!”

“It’s a bomb that targets the leader.”

“It’s a shell that is blue!”

“CHARLIE, YOU LITTLE SHIT!”

That last part had been because Charlie had driven off the side of the road so that the blue shell had targeted second place (AKA Skully) instead. Charlie just smirked as they were placed back on the track and drove smoothly across the finish line in first place.

“Jesus Christ, guys,” I said, alerting them to my presence. “I thought there was a murder going on. Where’s Mary and the kids?”

“She’s giving them a bath before bed,” said Holly.

“Care to join us, Luce?” said Quill. “We’re up next.”

“Maybe in a sec,” I said, letting Apollo off his lead so he could greet the others as if he hadn’t seen them in months. “Need to pee first.”

I had to use the bathroom in my old attic bedroom, seen as Mary and the kids were using the main one.

Five minutes seemed to last for an eternity.

I exited the bathroom and perched on my old bedroom windowsill to wait, where the skull’s jar had once sat. I had never imagined that ten years later he’d been hanging around with everyone downstairs, annoying them all with his comments that, once upon a time, only I had been able to hear.

I looked around the room. Over in that corner, Annie Ward’s ghost had once hovered over her fallen locket that I’d taken from her corpse, and it was where Lockwood and I had fought her off with an iron children’s mobile. I wondered if he still had that.

The bed, that was where Lockwood had left his mother’s necklace for me. The symbol of love and devotion that I still wore around my neck to this day. Now I was waiting to find out if I’d be having his child.

Oh, how times change.

How we’d grown.

The timer on my phone chimed to alert me that five minutes was up. I took a deep breath. I looked at the test.

Two bands.

“We need to put the milk and cookies out for Santa!” Sophie insisted, trying to prolong bedtime as long as possible. “And carrots for the reindeer!”

“Santa doesn’t like milk,” said Skully. “Santa likes beer.”

“I think Santa’s a little more partial to red wine, actually,” said Holly.

I shot them both an unimpressed look. “I don’t think Santa should be drinking and driving.”

“Alcohol’s gross anyway,” said Charlie. “Santa would probably prefer chocolate milk.”

“I’m pretty sure ‘Santa’ is lactose intolerant,” said Skully.

“Only a little,” said Charlie. “And it’s Christmas, so Santa’s allowed.”

“I think we should compromise and give Santa Bailey’s,” said George.

“With an extra drop of whiskey, perhaps,” his mother added.

“Ooh, Santa does like Bailey’s,” said Mary.

Sophie was looking very confused. My friends were all terrible people.

I ignored all of them and poured Santa a glass of coke, which I allowed Sophie to put on the mantelpiece.

“There,” said Mary. “Now bed. Michael’s already asleep coz he’s a good boy.”

“But mummyyy,” Sophie whined, “I wanna see Santa!”

“Santa won’t come if he knows you’re awake,” said Mary.

“Santa eats the children who stay awake,” said Skully. Sophie stared at him in horror.

“NO! No, he doesn’t!” I said.

“No, you’re right,” said Skully, thoughtfully. “I’m thinking of his brother.”

“No one eats children!” I said firmly. “He’s just trying to scare you, Sophie.”

Suddenly, there came the sounded of a loud bang from above. Outside, snow began to fall and the water vapour on the window crystallised into intricate patterns that spread across the glass.

“Uh oh,” said Skully, “looks like he’s here already. You better go to bed before he eats you.”

Sophie squealed and ran out of the room, clambering up the stairs to George’s old room where she and Michael would be sleeping. Mary gave me a confused look before going after her to tuck her in and make sure she wasn’t scarred for life.

I turned to Skully and crossed my arms, unimpressed. “You better not have broken anything.”

“Just knocked over a bookshelf, no biggie,” he said, shrugging.

“In the attic?” I said. “You remember you’re sleeping in there, right?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll sort it out before bed.”

Barnes and Mrs Cubbins went home shortly afterwards, saying they were too old to stay up as late as us ‘youths’, and the rest of us sat around playing games like scrabble and jenga and charades, like hard-core ‘youths’ do.

We decided that the forfeit for losing anything was to eat one of the cookies, which, aside from nearly breaking my teeth, tasted about as nice as I would imagine a cookie that had been shoved up Satan’s arsehole to taste like. To put it simply, they weren’t the best.

As it turned out, Skully and Charlie had both learned some sign language for the occasions when Charlie became non-verbal due to stress, something none of us knew until after they’d won every single game of charades. Cheats.

After that, we just ended up doing our own things. Mary gossiped away to Quill about people he’d never heard of, and he listened attentively, probably just glad to not be the only extra wheel. George and Flo battled each other on Mario Kart, while Holly and Rani spun each other around by the fire to Christmas tunes, all giggly.

“Care for a dance, Luce?” Lockwood asked me.

“Maybe later,” I told him. Skully had wandered off and had been gone a good half hour now. It always worried me when he did that.

I found him lying on the floor in the library. Thankfully, Charlie was with him, as were Apollo and Artemis. Artemis was lying beneath the Christmas tree, pawing at the ornaments, while Apollo had draped himself over Skully’s chest. Charlie had set up their laptop by Skully’s head, which was playing a Christmas film, and they were sat on his other side, doodling on his arm which rested on their lap.

The tip of the felt pen rose and fell over the single raised scar that marred Skully’s arm, as Charlie drew crude little stars and hearts and skulls in bright green ink.

“Alright down there?” I asked as I took a seat on the floor beside Charlie and watched them draw. It was strangely soothing.

“I don’t get why the Whos hate the Grinch,” said Skully, not taking his eyes off the computer screen. “He’s so relatable.”

“They’re probably just racist,” I replied.

“Probably.”

“Done,” said Charlie, putting the lid back on the felt pen.

Skully raised his arm in front of his face to inspect the doodles. “Disgusting,” he said. “Do the other arm.”

“I want a go,” I said, picking up the pen.

“No, you’ll just draw a penis or something,” Skully protested.

“That’s something you’d do,” I said. “I’m way more mature.”

As I drew, Charlie lay down on their stomach by the tree and waggled some tinsel in front of Artemis for her to try and catch. “Can we get a cat, Skull?”

“We can barely remember to feed ourselves,” said Skully.

“But cats scream at you when they’re hungry,” Charlie reasoned.

“True,” said Skully. “We can check the shelters in January for all the discarded Christmas present kitties.”

“That’s sad,” said Charlie, sounding genuinely very upset for the shelter cats. “Stop being depressing.”

I put the cap back on the pen. “Finished!”

Skully inspected my drawing. “Okay, what is that if not a penis?”

“It’s a work of art,” I said. “All those years of life-drawing at art school have lead me to this moment.”

“I’m starting to think I’m a bad influence on you,” Skully said, trying to wipe off the dick drawing before he gave up and just pulled his sleeves back down. At least he seemed a little more chipper now.

Charlie’s phone chimed. “My brother’s outside,” they informed me.

“Does he not like knocking?” I said.

“I texted him not to in case he woke the children,” Charlie replied, reaching for their laptop to put away.

I stood up and went to let Charlie’s brother in.

The man standing in the doorway was definitely not what I expected, to say the least.

“You’re Charlie’s brother,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head shyly. “Yeah, I guess we don’t look that much alike.”

That was an understatement. Where Charlie was short and slight, their brother was big and bulky. His biceps alone must have been about as thick as Charlie’s waist, and were heavily tattooed. Where Charlie’s eyes were sky blue, his were steely grey. Their hair was short and bronze and curly, his was long and black and tied back in a ponytail, with a beard to match.

He looked… kind of like he belonged in Asgard. And a voice behind me confirmed my suspicions.

“Lucas?”

“Quill?!” Lucas gasped, eyed widening in shock.

I heard the others scrambling in the living room before they appeared in the doorway, very unsubtly spying on the two men, who were now the centre of attention.

Quill looked down at the tacky, pom-pommed Christmas jumper that his grandma had knitted him, then back up to Lucas, a man who looked very much like an impossibly handsome Norse god, and swallowed, his face growing redder by the second. “Uhh… W-what are you doing here?”

“I–”

He was cut short by Charlie entering the hallway from the library, with their backpack slung over their shoulders and Skully at their heels. “Lucas!”

“Hey, kiddo! Long time, no see,” Lucas greeted, his face splitting into a huge grin as he yanked his sibling into a bone-crushing hug that pulled them off their feet.

“Eek! Nonono. This is why I don’t like hugs!” Charlie squealed, wiggling in his grasp until he dropped them, quite unceremoniously, on the floor and ruffled their hair, making the curls stick up at odd angles.

Quill’s eyes darted between Charlie and Lucas, then to Skully, who was leaning against the library doorway, grinning sadistically at Quill. I had a feeling he’d known exactly who Quill’s crush was ever since Rani had first mentioned him.

“I am not a child!” Charlie protested, batting Lucas’s hand away. “I am a grown adult!”

“Uh, no,” said Lucas. “If you’re an adult, that means I’m definitely an adult, and I’m just not ready to accept that reality yet.”

“You’ve been an adult for well over a decade now,” Charlie reminded him.

“Hush,” said Lucas. “Now, wait here while I talk to Quill for a sec.”

Charlie glanced back at Quill, who was standing very awkwardly in the middle of the hall, obviously very aware of everyone’s eyes on him.

“But mum and dad are expecting us by half-past,” they said. “We have to go.”

“You got everything?” said Lucas. That did it; Charlie immediately opened their backpack to check, giving Lucas a chance to slip into the kitchen with Quill.

Rani was eying the closed kitchen doorway, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Mary?” she said. “You still got that mistletoe?”

Mary caught her eye and grinned. “Say no more,” she said, retrieving the little plastic plant from her pocket and handing it to her giraffe of a brother-in-law to hang silently above the doorway.

“Quill is going to murder you,” I said in a hushed voice, trying to fight the smile attempting to make its way onto my lips.

When the kitchen door opened, and Quill saw what was dangling above him, he turned, if possible, even redder than he already had been. Lucas’s cheeks turned a little pink, too.

“Y-you don’t have to!” Quill spluttered. “It’s just my friends being idiots! They–”

He was cut short when Lucas pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “See ya New Year’s Eve, yeah?”

“Y-yeah,” Quill squeaked, looking like he was about to collapse any second.

Lucas walked down the hallway, picked up Charlies bag with one hand, and slung Charlie themself over his shoulder with the other.

“I wasn’t done!” Charlie protested, thrashing their legs about.

“I am one hundred percent sure you remembered everything,” said Lucas. “Hometime. Mum and dad are expecting us.”

I opened the door for them and Lucas stepped out into the snow and headed towards his car.

“Merry Christmas!” Lockwood called after them.

“Happy Holidays!” Lucas called back.

Skully flipped Charlie off in lieu of a goodbye, as is the way with close friends, and they returned the gesture before Lucas plonked them down onto the roof of his car and made a show of pretending to try and drive off while they were still there.

We watched the car drive away, with Charlie safely in the passenger seat, and as soon as I shut the door, everyone turned to Quill.

“What did he say? What did he say?” Holly squealed, almost hopping up and down with excitement.

“Did he ask you out?” Lockwood asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“Ooh, what’s that in your hand?” Rani crowed.

“Gimme, gimme!” Mary cried, lunging for the piece of paper which Quill quickly yanked away and held above his head. It wasn’t very effective, as Flo came up behind him and swiftly plucked it out of his grip.

“A number,” she said, smirking.

George took the paper as Quill tried to grab it back and pushed his glasses further up his nose to inspect it. “And a time and address,” he said. “Looks like Quill, here, has a date.”

“Shut up, all of you!” Quill seethed, face glowing as red as Rudolph’s nose. “It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything!”

“Of course it’s a big deal!” Holly cried. “Our little Quill’s growing up.”

“I am older than everyone here,” he reminded her.

“And yet, most of them are married, and you’re not,” said Skully.

Quill turned to glare at him. “You could have warned me, arsehole.”

“Hey,” said Skully, holding up his hands in defence. “I’m sure there are many guys your age called Lucas fitting the exact description Flo gave us. How was I supposed to know?”

“You absolute–”

“Hey,” Lockwood interrupted. “No harm done. You got his number!”

“I looked like a complete idiot in front of him,” Quill wailed, gesturing towards his jumper.

“I’m sure he found it endearing,” Holly reasoned.

“Oh, sure, that’s exactly what I wanted,” said Quill. “The guy appears out of nowhere looking like an actual god, but at least I look endearing.”

“So, you gonna call him?” Rani teased.

Quill plucked the paper out of George’s hands and pocketed it. “That’s none of your concern. Oh, by the way, I can’t come to your New Year’s Eve party, Luce. I have a date with a hot guy.”

“Traitor,” I said, but I was grinning at him.

My friends slowly dispersed after that, heading home to their own families before it got too late. Hugs were exchanged, Holly gave us all a kiss on the cheek, Skully even said goodbye to George fairly civilly before going to demolish the rest of the Bailey’s now that Charlie wasn’t there to tame him.

“Want some, Luce?” he asked.

“Nah, I’m good.”

“What’s this?” said Mary. “My sister denying Bailey’s? Are you feeling quite alright?”

I just stuck my tongue out at her.

Mary was in bed by eleven, exhausted from all the socialising and handling the kids. Artemis and Apollo were curled up, fast asleep, on the sofa, and Skully was dropping off not long after; for all his big talk, alcohol only made him sleepy.

“Come on, you mess,” Lockwood told him, slinging Skully’s arm around his shoulders to take him up to bed.

While I waited for him to come back, I fiddled about with the radio, trying to find a good song.

‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas,’

“Oh, I love this song!” Lockwood said upon returning.

I smiled and held out a hand to him. “Come on. I owe you a dance.”

‘Let your heart be light,’

He grinned at me and made a show of a great, sweeping bow, before taking my hand and twirling me around.

‘From now on our troubles will be out of sight,’

I giggled and wound my arms around his shoulders as he tugged me in by my waist. Our noses brushed together as we swayed in a circle, and the lights on the Christmas tree twinkled gently.

‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas,’

On the mantelpiece, the clock struck midnight.

“Happy Christmas, Lucy.”

“Happy Christmas, Anthony.”

‘Make the yuletide gay,’

“How would you feel about having your present now?”

“Depends on what it is.”

“Remember your mobile?” I said. “The one with the smiley giraffe?”

“What about it?”

“We might need to get that out again.”

He frowned at me. “What for?”

‘From now on, our troubles will be miles away,’

His dark eyes glittered as they reflected the lights on the tree. His fringe had fallen into his face when he’d bowed. I raised my hand and brushed it out of the way.

“Anthony,” I said. The right words were difficult to find, so I just went for it. “I’m pregnant.”

He stopped dancing. “You… you’re… what?”

He looked just like a deer caught in headlights. I let out a little breathy laugh. “Pregnant,” I repeated. “You’re gonna be a dad.”

He stared at me, like the words were taking a while to process. “I’m… gonna be a dad.” He laughed, short and breathless, a slight, surprised smile gracing his lips. “I’m gonna be a dad,” he repeated, more certainly. “You’re gonna be a mum.”

He kissed me then. And again and again. On the mouth, forehead, cheeks, nose. He couldn’t seem to stop smiling, and I couldn’t either.

“Oh, don’t start,” I said, wiping a thumb under his damp eyes and sniffling. “You’ll set me off.”

“I can’t help it,” he said. “We’re gonna be amazing, you and me. I love you so much, Lucy.”

“I love you, too, you big goon,” I told him.

We were back to swaying along to the music now, holding each other tight with huge smiles on our faces and teary eyes like two soppy, very in-love idiots.

‘Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more,’

I’d tell the others soon, of course. But maybe give it a few weeks. Have something just to ourselves for a little while.

‘Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow,’

They’d be so excited. My big happy family. Even Skully, though I knew he’d pretend not to be. Mary would probably blurt it out to the rest of the Carlyles as soon as I told her. I wondered how my mother would react.

‘Hang a shining star upon the highest bow,’

I tucked my head into Lockwood’s shoulder. Now wasn’t the time to start overthinking things. Now was the time to enjoy Christmas with my husband. Our last Christmas together without children of our own. Next year, the Carlyle-Lockwood household would be so much busier.

And I was so excited.

‘And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.’

The Incident

#this is tHE SOPPIEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN YOURE WELCOME #its also kinda a mess but im tired so soz #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #locklyle #lucewood #jonathan stroud #fanfic #fanfiction #my fic #validate me in the tags #lemme know what you think of my OCs #this aint the best fic i've ever written but still #k n'night #ily all #merry christmas #unless you don't celebrate christmas #in which case i wish you all the best #rowan writes

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deadcactuswalking · 4 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 05/12/2020

Earlier this week, I finished and released by end-of-year list of the Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 2020, which, for once, was on time, being released on the 1st – or 2nd – of December, depending on your time zone. That means I’ve already spent hours discussing music, and to be honest, I have a pretty bad headache in addition to this, so you know, I’m not really in that chart-reviewing spirit. Thankfully, we have very few songs to review here, and a lot of it should be pretty inoffensive. Now, before that, let’s talk about the actual state of the charts because it is looking ridiculous. Ariana Grande’s “positions” spend its sixth week at #1, and welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

Much like last week, it was an absolute bloodbath for any non-Christmas song this week, and this especially affects the hip hop and R&B on the chart. In the UK Top 75, which I cover every week, there’s a drastic difference to the US Billboard Hot 100, and that is the lack of radio. Radio impressions or plays have never been counted on the UK Singles Chart, and whilst in the States, I understand that a lot of Christmas songs rely on the radio, this is not true at all across the pond, because, for whatever reason, Christmas songs are streamed and bought a lot here even 60 years after the song’s original release. This is likely due to a smaller, arguably less diverse population and the immense amount of streaming service-curated playlists, which serve the same purpose as radio and often have the exact same label gimmickry and payola. Regardless, there is a stupid amount of drop-outs and fallers this week, for pretty big tracks as well. Now as I said I only cover the top 75 of the UK Singles Chart because it’s just easier and really, who cares about those last 25 songs? On the UK Singles Chart proper, Lewis Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved”, one of the biggest hits of 2019 and 2020, just spent its 100th week on the chart, which is insane, especially for a modern song. I think the song is dreadful but it is one of the biggest songs of all time here on the Isles, and since we’re going by my measures, it just dropped out (after spending seven weeks at #1, mind you). Of course, that’s not the only notable drop-out – and to be notable, you have to have spent five weeks on the chart or peaked in the top 40 – this week. Let’s list them, shall we? We have “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles, which spent 40 weeks on the chart, as well as #1 hit “Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)” by Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo, “Giants” by Dermot Kennedy, “Mood Swings” by the late Pop Smoke featuring Lil Tjay, “Lighter” by Nathan Dawe and KSI, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo, “Holiday” by Little Mix, “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit featuring Mabel and 24kGoldn, “Come Over” by Rudimental featuring Anne-Marie and Tion Wayne, “Lasting Lover” by Sigala and James Arthur, “Holy” by Justin Bieber featuring Chance the Rapper, “One Too Many” by Keith Urban and P!nk, “Papi Chulo” by Octavian and Skepta, “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, “Deluded” by Tion Wayne and MIST, “Confetti” by Little Mix, “pov” by Ariana Grande (to make way for another one of her songs we’ll get to – also probably the only actually good song that dropped out this week) and finally, “Life Goes On” by BTS off of the debut at #10. On the chart proper, this is one of the biggest free-fall drops of all time, and honestly, who wasn’t expecting this? Speaking of falls, we have a lot of those too. Whilst these are fallers, you should consider how impressive they are for even trying to survive the holiday season, which just can’t be done for a lot of these songs, even the biggest hits of the year, some of which we just mentioned. One of the funniest parts of this to me is that KSI of all people survived the overload of Christmas songs through his Craig David chorus on “Really Love” with Digital Farm Animals down to #17. For a former YouTuber, he has an immense amount of star-power and it’s kind of worrying. Otherwise, our notable fallers include “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy at #24, “Train Wreck” by James Arthur at #25 (not a good week for either of these guys – or anyone), “Monster” by Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber at #26 off of the top 10 debut, “Mood” by 24kGoldn featuring iann dior at #27, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #29, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd stripped of all of its gains at #31 (seriously, whilst most of these songs were fading naturally prior, this is worrying), “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring NAV and Don Toliver at #34, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco at #42 (giving him four songs as a lead artist on the chart – OCC, that’s not how your dumb rules work; be consistent), “See Nobody” by Wes Nelson and Hardy Caprio really having the most intense combination of streaming cuts and Christmas music at #44, “Wonder” by Shawn Mendes flailing at #45 (it will probably rebound next week), “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd at #46 (same here), “Golden” by Harry Styles at #47, “Loading” by Central Cee at #48, “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke at #49, “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra at #50, “Sunflower (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse)” by Post Malone and Swae Lee at #52, “UFO” by D-Block Europe and Aitch at #55, “Plugged in Freestyle” by A92 and Fumez the Engineer at #56, “Princess Cuts” by Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey at #60 (which happened to play as I was writing this), “Looking for Me” by Paul Woodford, Diplo and Kareen Lomax at #61, “WAP” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion at #62, “Diamonds” by Sam Smith having the biggest fall to #63, “Ain’t it Different” by Headie One featuring AJ Tracey and Stormzy at #65, “Chingy (It’s Whatever)” by Digga D at #69, “Come Over” by Jorja Smith and Popcaan at #70, “SO DONE” by The Kid LAROI at #71 and finally, “Flavour” by Loski and Stormzy at #74. A YouTube comment on the video version of this chart read, “RIP to hip hop and R&B in the UK, 2020-2020”, and, I mean, it’s a fair assessment. That’s not all though, folks, as we have the returning entries, most of which are very explicitly Christmas songs. Let’s start with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” by Sam Smith at #75, and continue up the chart with “Cozy Little Christmas” by Katy Perry at #73, “Christmas Lights” by Coldplay at #72 (always the best song on the entire chart whenever it returns), “A Little Love” by Celeste from the John Lewis advert at #64, “Feliz Navidad” by José Feliciano at #54, “Santa Baby” by Kylie Minogue at #57, “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” by the late Dean Martin at #54, “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronettes at #52, “Mistletoe” by Justin Bieber at #43, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by the late John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band featuring the Harlem Community Choir at #40 (always the worst song on the chart whenever it returns), “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney at #39 (this is an accurate ranking of the Beatles), “Jingle Bell Rock” by the late Bobby Helms at #38, “Holly Jolly Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #37 and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by the late Andy Williams at #36. Yes, that’s five consecutive Christmas songs returning to the top 40, made all the more ridiculous when you realise it’s topped off by “HOLIDAY” by Lil Nas X... at #41 – and it actually gained this week! Oh, and we don’t stop there either as not only do we have “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande returning to #16 as well, but we also have all of the gains this week. All of our notable gains are in the top 40 and all but one are Christmas songs, so let’s start with “One More Sleep” by Leona Lewis up to #33 (our greatest gain this week) and continue up the chart with “Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade at #32, “This Christmas” by Jess Glynne at #28, “I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday” by Wizzard at #23, “Driving Home for Christmas” by Chris Rea at #22, “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Justin Bieber and Brenda Lee at #21 and #19 respectively, “Underneath the Tree” by Kelly Clarkson at #20, “Step into Christmas” by Elton John at #18, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid at #15 (looking at this chart, I think we ALL know exactly what time it is), “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens at #14, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé at #13, “Fairytale of New York” by the Pogues featuring the late Kirsty MacColl at #9, “Last Christmas” by Wham! at #3, and finally, “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey at #2. I don’t know if I’ll be happier if a 1994 classic hits #1 for the first time this Christmas, or an Ariana Grande song about sex positions takes the Christmas #1, given, of course, that LadBaby doesn’t pull something out of his ass last minute. Christmas also actually lands on a Friday this week, so there’s potentially two Christmas #1s: the #1 on Christmas Day and the #1 that includes Christmas Day. I mean, there’s this issue every year but since the chart week literally starts and ends on the day this year, I guess we’ll just have to see what the Official Charts Company decides. For now, after not-so-swiftly covering all of that garbage – and there’s three weeks more of it to come, folks – let’s discuss some of our new arrivals, none of which I imagine will be all that interesting but, hey, at least they’re not Christmas songs. In fact...

NEW ARRIVALS

#68 – “Body” – Megan Thee Stallion

Produced by LilJuMadeThatBeat

...It’s the antithesis of what it means to be wholesome, commercial and festive. You all know and love Megan Thee Stallion by now, and whilst I didn’t listen to that debut record yet – it is 17 songs after all – I have heard pretty positive reception so I will check out Good News at some point. Rico Nasty did release a record that’s only one less track and 13 full minutes shorter, so to be honest, I’m a lot more excited to check out that album, even if it won’t have any impact here. I did laugh at the track list when I saw “Intercourse (feat. Popcaan & Mustard)” though, which is one of the few times I have genuinely laughed at just a track list. “Shots Fired” is a pretty great Tory Lanez diss track though, so I’ll say that. “Body” is relatively deep into the track listing, yet seems to be the biggest hit, mostly because of that polarising earworm hook and the music video. Oh, yeah, and it straight-up samples a woman having an orgasm, so don’t expect this to stick around. In fact, that’s the only melody behind this dirty South bounce-adjacent track, and even with that, it only comes in on that chorus, which is less annoying to me as it is just catchy. It’s not like men haven’t done the same thing, though, I mean, Dr. Dre famously – or infamously – “paused 4 porno” on his album 2001, and just in 2018, Kanye released “XTCY”, a song that is hilariously lacking in any kind of moral compass, let alone born-again Christianity. It did the same thing that “Body” does with the moaning yet it also covers it in this really eerie sample, as well as spare 808s and a drum beat that doesn’t feel like it gets in the way of whatever the hell Kanye’s doing on this track. It also helps that the moaning doesn’t just come in on the chorus, instead we have a string swell to distinguish it, and that Kanye has more of a comical lyrical nature on “XTCY”. This comparison is only fair when looking at the production, though, as whilst Kanye has “sick thoughts”, Megan is just bragging about her own body-ody-ody-ody-ody, etc. over a pretty mainstream, accessible beat, even if it has really ugly, loud 808s that kind of do get in the way of the rapping here. Thankfully, Megan rides this beat forcefully – no pun intended – and with some really great wordplay, even if there are a few immediately dated references here and there. That third verse is also pretty funny, and whilst I don’t want to focus too much on this song – it’s a family show after all – this is pretty lively and whilst I’m not a fan of this beat, Megan makes it worth sitting through and honestly, the song sounds a lot shorter than it is. Check it out.

#67 – “Love is a Compass” – Griff

Produced by PARKWILD

I didn’t say the word “compass” on purpose knowing this song would be next, although perhaps I subconsciously snuck the word in. Maybe I should have made it seem like I foreshadowed this song, but honestly what about this warrants foreshadowing? I don’t mind Disney music at all. In fact, a lot of the films are full of really classic compositions that have aged incredibly, including the Renaissance era of their films, especially. In fact, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan – the original – is one of the few soundtrack songs that is directly related to and featured in the film yet I can still listen to outside of that context. I’ve not even watched either Mulan – or have Disney+ - so it’s not like I’m a big fan, but I can appreciate the music when I find it, even if I mostly despise everything Disney stands for as a company. The issue with this is that it cannot apply to “Love is a Compass”. I’m sure Griff and her producer PARKWILD are talented musicians, but this is purely a product. This wasn’t even made for an original animated feature, or a painfully weak adaptation of one of their original animated features starring Will Smith as the Genie. This is a generic piano ballad made for an advert, because just like literal shops and manufacturing companies like John Lewis, Disney has a Christmas advert. There’s nothing artistic about this. This “emotional” piano ballad is layered in reverb and egregious Auto-Tune that drains Griff of whatever emotion her delivery could have had. It doesn’t sound good in this context at all and it is so obvious, which is unfortunate because her voice, Auto-Tuned in a similar way, could easily work over more lo-fi and interesting production. As it is, this is repulsive, sonically and on every other level beyond that.

#66 – “Angels Like You” – Miley Cyrus

Produced by Louis Bell and watt

So, Miley Cyrus dropped her album, Plastic Hearts, last week and I expected more impact on the chart but the two singles are really THAT big that not any of the album cuts had much of a chance, even if “Prisoner” dropped a few spaces. Other than that, “Midnight Sky” is still in the top five and near the end of the chart, we have a debut: “Angels Like You”. It’s clear why this charted because this isn’t just a highlight from the album or a personal favourite of mine, but it’s a fan favourite honestly, a career highlight – which may not be hard to make, I mean, it’s Miley Cyrus we’re talking about – but it still impresses me with how much I really love this song. This is more of a mellow ballad than many of the tracks surrounding it on the record, with Cyrus’ raspy country twang finally met with a fitting blend of acoustic guitars and a genuine orchestral swell in the chorus, even if at times it decides to start clipping. The shift in guitar tone to a dirtier, aggressive one after the first chorus is a genius touch, and even the pretty stiff drum machine here feels like it adds a lot to the power of this song, especially when it starts kicking behind the screeching guitar solo, leading into an admittedly anti-climactic final chorus... that might even be fitting for the content, which is a break-up song but not one that decides to deflect blame or even focus entirely on the break-up, rather being an acknowledgement of what both parties here did wrong, and why they ended up in the relationship to begin with. Both Cyrus and her ex-girlfriend Kaitlynn Carter were in rough spots coming off of previous relationships in late 2019 and those dark spots are what Cyrus understands lead to the collapse of this relationship. She discusses the lack of connection between the two in the first verse, leading to a literally nameless relationship where it was full of romantic gestures but not any depth. The chorus is a complex look at how Cyrus knew she would look back on the relationship as little more than a fling, but how she regrets that this is her only view of the relationship. She didn’t want anything more and split after things started getting too serious, and feels genuine guilt for using Carter to heal her own depression, because “misery needs company”. She uses the biblical metaphor to demonstrate how she feels she tugged down her girlfriend, described here as an “angel”, to the hell Cyrus thinks she resides in, which may be melodramatic, sure, but I’d be lying if I said Cyrus doesn’t completely sell it here, with some of her best vocals to date, backed up by gorgeous production and really well-written lyrics. This is a genuinely brilliant ballad, give it a listen.

#58 – “Naughty List” – Liam Payne and Dixie D’Amelio

Produced by TMS

I’ve been writing these producers as “TM5” for so long without realising it’s an abbreviation for “The Music Shed”. Anyway, I hope we can all agree that Liam Payne is probably the worst off when comparing the One Direction boys and their solo careers so far. Harry Styles is one of the biggest stars in the world, making a twist on 70s classic rock that I don’t like at all but he IS making headlines and having massive chart success. Niall Horan is having mild success making rock and folk albums that are honestly alright, ZAYN has two albums under his belt that may not be listenable but at least the first one was a success and he did go into a more mature R&B direction, and Louis Tomlinson might not have been met with any success from his album earlier this year but at least there’s some quality there. Liam Payne, however, has been releasing straight garbage to no fanfare for the past three years, dating back to “Strip that Down” with Quavo, and continuing down the path of feigning maturity and development with music clearly not backing it up, demonstrated by the bisexual fetishism on his delayed debut album and how his collaborations went from relying on Zedd to relying on J Balvin to relying on TikTok stars on a sexually-charged Christmas single that couldn’t even crack the top 50. I have no idea who Dixie D’Amelio is other than seeing her sister’s controversies on Twitter in passing, but it is depressing that a major-label pop star needs D’Amelio to chart this high – and no, given his most recent singles with bigger features like A Boogie wit da Hoodie and Cheat Codes, as well as the shoddy performance of his last Christmas song, I��m not even considering that it’s the other way around. This immediately, in its first 15 seconds, makes sure you know this will be awful, with its tedious acoustic guitar strumming fused with cheap sounding sleigh bells and dated trap percussion, even with little “hey!” gang vocals straight out of 2014 that make this sound a lot less new and fresh than I think Payne thought it did. Also, something about these lyrics sounds really odd when you consider the age gap between the two vocalists. I mean, D’Amelio’s 19 years old, so it’s not like this is illegal in any way (and they didn’t have any chemistry to begin with), but the childlike imagery in the chorus just makes this gross. “Santa saw the things we did and put us on the naughty list”? This has less subtlety than 3OH!3’s Christmas song they released this year. Yes, that happened, and somehow the two washed-up early 2010s pop stars made a “dirty” Christmas song that is miles better than Liam Payne’s, probably because of the more interesting lyrical detail, and that, you know, it isn’t a duet. Check out “KISSELTOE” if you’re interested, it’s really good. I liked their comeback single with 100 gecs too so I’m pretty excited for whatever comes out of 3OH!3’s recent productivity. This song, on the other hand, as well as the upcoming joke, is just Payne-full.

#53 – “No Time for Tears” – Nathan Dawe and Little Mix

Produced by Tré Jean-Marie and Nathan Dawe

Okay, so, I understand the marketing of releasing a single after a long time of not releasing a single and after your singles have all dropped out of the chart, but Little Mix are just being managed horribly here. Why would you release a single in the Christmas season that you want to be big? This isn’t a holiday song in any way and doesn’t even sound like one, so releasing it this early into the Christmas season is just begging for it to be forgotten and eventually flop. Nathan Dawe is an EDM DJ so he doesn’t need this type of promotion as long as he can tour next year and he’s got big features, and Little Mix don’t need any extra singles because they’re still in the top 10 and they’ve branched out to reality television. Just let the girls breathe for a second and enjoy their success. Oh, and this song isn’t just logistically unnecessary, it’s sonically unnecessary, acting as a house-pop club banger with that standard piano sound reminiscent of 90s house that has been adopted recently by DJs, with any of the infectious melodies and genuine drive sucked out of it, especially if Dawe is going to add a Goddamn trap breakdown in the second verse with the most pathetic set of percussion I’ve heard in years on a house track. It’s not like Little Mix are saving this either because the lyrical content is re-tread and their performances are largely unrecognisable from each other and songs they’ve made before. Yeah, this isn’t offensive, but it isn’t interesting, outside of that bridge, but even then it builds up perfectly to a chorus that’s interrupted by a pointless, repetitious interlude. This song isn’t just uninteresting, it’s inherently unnecessary on all fronts, which if anything, is just kind of sad.

#35 – “All You’re Dreaming Of” – Liam Gallagher

Produced by Simon Aldred and Andrew Wyatt

Surely out of all of these songs, I’d have the most to say about our top 40 debut, with Liam Gallagher, former frontman of legendary rock band Oasis, and his new lead single, right? Well, no, because here are some unfortunate truths: Oasis made two good albums, and they’re not as good as you remember. Liam Gallagher is an awful person who continued to rip off his own band with his new one, without the songwriting ability his brother Noel had. Liam continues to be persistent in his making of enemies for no other reason than publicity. Noel’s reaching out to Liam for the sake of at least reconciliation goes completely unnoticed, ignored or criticised by Liam for no discernable reason other than an on-and-off again facade that’s been going on for more than a decade. Noel wasn’t even that great of a songwriter, relying mostly on musicianship and other people’s melodies he liked to co-opt for his own tracks. None of their solo work has been listenable yet still gathers attention that I imagine is to the dismay of those other band members in Oasis who, ultimately, made those classic albums as much as the Gallaghers. Where’s the praise for Bonehead, Guigsy or even Gem Archer, who stuck it out despite decreasing popularity, utter lack of musical quality and increasing tensions between the people who kept the band afloat until they decided to break up? Both Noel and Liam look at Oasis with regret or admiration depending on how they feel that day but when you look at who REALLY won that Britpop battle tabloids liked to hype up in the 1990s, you realise how far away Oasis was from Blur or even Pulp in terms of not only their songs but having their stuff together. This new song is complete garbage as well, with a pretty awful mixing job, Liam being as distinctively nasal and infuriating as he is with any of his songs let alone his uninteresting ballads, and the COVID-19 charity pandering that comes off as really false, especially since even after Noel released an Oasis track this year as a result of the lockdown – and Liam whining about how he wants to bring the band together to help the NHS – he criticised the honest release of the demo, which Noel wrote and sang himself. It’s also especially telling how the proceeds are only going to benefit charity for its first month of release. Afterwards, Liam and the label can scrape up whatever leftover streams they get from diehard fans. I don’t like Band Aid at all, in fact the song is pretty damn rancid, but at least they keep on recording updated versions to give to modern charities. Liam, you’ve got a bank account the average Manchurian would dream of. This charity single is a fraud, and a pretty hypocritical, immoral one at that.

Conclusion

I think on principle on how fake it is and how awful the song is, I have to give Worst of the Week to Gallagher... but I have a rule against crowning any kind of charity single with that title. At the end of the day, at least something at some point is going to the people who need it. Worst of the Week in that case goes to “Naughty List” by Liam Payne and Dixie D’Amelio, with a Dishonourable Mention to the product that is Griff’s “Love is a Compass”. Best of the Week should be obvious as it’s going to Miley Cyrus for “Angels Like You”, with an Honourable Mention to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Body”. Here’s this week’s top 10:

May I remind you this is the first week of December? Anyway, I doubt Shawn Mendes will make anything through the barrage of holiday tracks, but if he does, that’s next week. Thank you for reading and follow me at @cactusinthebank for more ramblings of this sort, I suppose. See you next week!

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