#it was pretty so i bought it. but i did a reverse image search first to make sure she wasnt from something weird

[three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat]

So it turns out I just bought merch for a vtuber accidentally

[atariaction]

Kay's 2024 Wrapped

It’s time for my annual letter summarizing my computer history work in the past year. It’s an opportunity to take stock, reflect on accomplishments, and make a plan for the new year.

My headline for 2024 was discovering and digitizing 53 episodes of The Famous Computer Cafe, a radio program that aired from 1983 through early 1986. It included computer news, product reviews, and interviews. Except for one episode, the recordings were entirely lost — until some of the tapes showed up on eBay. I bought them, launched a GoFundMe to have them professionally digitized, and uploaded them to Internet Archive with the blessing of the show’s creators. I got very lucky along the way — in discovering that the tapes existed in the first place, and that they hadn’t been erased in the past 40 years. The whole experience was amazing. I was interviewed along with Ellen Fields, one of the show’s creators, about the project on the Radio Survivor podcast. It was a super interesting conversation, worth listening to if you want the backstory.

The bad news — or perhaps the to-be-continued part? — is that hundreds of episodes of The Famous Computer Cafe are still lost. I hope with all my heart that they too will turn up, but I fear that they’re gone forever.

My goal for 2024 was to publish 15 interviews in ANTIC: The Atari 8-Bit Podcast. Success! Around October I noticed that I hadn’t published any interviews yet, so buckled down and met the goal. Some of the interviews I recorded recently; some were older interviews that I hadn’t yet managed to edit and publish. I’m happy to say that I’m almost caught up on getting those older interviews out the door. I expect to get through the backlog, and record plenty of new interviews, in 2025.

Highlights for me included interviews with Robert Leyland, programmer of Murder on the Zinderneuf, AtariArtist, KoalaPainter, and other Atari software; Nick Kennedy, creator of SIO2PC; and Mary Eisenhart, editor of MicroTimes magazine.

I finished shepherding the digitization of MicroTimes magazine at Internet Archive. Now that we’ve digitized 276 issues totaling 59,103 pages, the project is complete! (At least for now. A dozen  issues from December 1985 to January 1987 are missing. When those are found, we’ll scan those too.) My interview with Mary was the capstone of the project. She jokingly called the magazine “fish wrap,” but in reality, the California-based magazine did vital work reporting on the burgeoning computer industry from the state of Silicon Valley.

After years of my gentle reminding/nagging/harassing, Lee Pappas of A.N.A.L.O.G. Computing magazine sent me a box of Atari floppy disks to image. Some of them were nothing exciting — programs and files that have been available in the Atari scene for ages. But as I hoped, there were some treasures in the box. One was a semi-playable prototype of a game called Titan. It was to be published by A.N.A.L.O.G. Software, but was apparently never completed. It’s very pretty, but it has no collision detection or sound. Members of the Atari community have begun reverse engineering the game with the goal of making a completed version.  The box also included a game called Sunday Driver — also unfinished. I couldn’t get it to run, but hopefully someone else in the Atari community will have luck with it.

Those were the most obvious cool things in Lee’s disk collection — but there were 50+ more disks, which I imaged using the Applesauce Floppy Disk Controller and uploaded to the AtariAge forum. On December 31, I invited the community to search the files to find what other treasures might be hidden. They’ve already found several previously unknown or unarchived programs, such as Outpost, an arcade-style game.

Valerie (Atkinson) Manfull, who was a member of Atari's Game Research Group, sent me a U-Matic format videotape titled “Atari Demo Compilation”, which I had professionally digitized. It’s a rare record of Atari Research’s work in computer animation and character design. Dated March 1984 (four months before Jack Tramiel fired everyone), this videotape was exhibited at the SIGGraph Computer Aided Design show. It includes video of Fish Tank and “Artificially Motivated Objects” demonstrations, both done using an Atari 8-bit computer. I’d heard about both demos in interviews, but the code has never been found.

I was also able to share a few documents from the estate of Larry A. Summers, sent to me by his family. Larry worked at Atari in the early 1980s in the Games Design Research Group. The documents include “Atari 81” v1n4, an internal Atari publication that I was previously unaware of; Chris Crawford’s recommendation letter for Larry Summers; and the Functional Specification for a game called The Arabian Adventures. After Atari, Larry went to work at Packet Technologies, a company that was building interactive software for cable TV. This is the spec for what would have been the company’s first game. It is unclear if the graphical adventure actually made its way to customers’ TV sets.

I donated the originals of Larry’s documents and Valerie’s videotape to The Strong National Museum of Play, where the physical objects will be preserved and made available to researchers. 

It took three years of persistence with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it finally happened in 2024: I got Atari Corporation’s Prospectus and Form S-1. Those are the documents that the company filed when Jack Tramiel took Atari public in September 1986. The 400-plus- pages are filled with detailed insider information about the company, including balance sheets, legal settlement agreements, and a list of Atari’s subsidiary companies. Thanks, Freedom of Information Act! (The S.E.C. said they took three years to produce the files because of a mandatory work-from-home policy after COVID-19 — then their microfiche machine was broken.)

I also received and archived the business plan for Superboots, an educational software development effort sponsored by Atari with an office at the Capital Children's Museum in Washington, D.C. The company's first program was PAINT!, a drawing program for the Atari 8-bits.

Dan Kramer, who worked at Atari designing trackballs and joysticks and other things, sent me another trove of documents which I uploaded to Internet Archive, including a 1981 report titled “A Qualitative Investigation Of Programmable Videogame Controllers”, a humorous (but real) Management Recognition Award that Dan received in 1984, and the schematics for Atari Cindy. "Cindy" was the code name for the Atari CX2800 (sold in the Japanese market), and the design was re-used for the Sears Video Arcade II home game console. 

I was able to archive every issue of “Quick Strokes” and “Dvorak D(e)velopments” — newsletters about using the Dvorak keyboard that were published from 1973 to 1990. They were provided to the Internet Archive by my friend Randy Cassingham. And, I scanned and archived every issue of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly. Verbatim was a literary magazine aimed at reporting language and linguistic issues for non-specialist readers, published from 1974 through 2008. The final editor, Erin McKean, even released them under a Creative Commons license. For my Scantastix project, I scanned a few hundred pages of newsletters and manuals related to the Texas Instruments 99/4A, Apple II, and early Macintosh software. 

My buddy Ken Gagne found a pile of interesting cassette tapes on the giveaway table at the annual Apple II convention KansasFest, and sent them to me to digitize. On them were ten ComputerLand radio commercials that aired from 1985-1989. Some were local spots for ComputerLand of San Bernardino, California; others appear to be national spots. Also, 14 ComputerLand Micro Minutes commercials — short radio spots meant to educate about technology topics like computers in movie making, telecomputing, and even communicating with animals through technology. Another tape was a 1991 recording of Tom Milks giving a KansasFest talk titled “Applied Engineering's View of the Apple II.”  In it he tells "the truth behind the wild rumors and accusations regarding one of the oldest Apple II third-party companies."

My work at Internet Archive as the curator of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications continues apace. In 2024 the project scanned more than 1.1 million pages of radio-related manuals, newsletters, documents, catalogs, and other material. (Sometimes DLARC intersects with my computer history work. For instance, here’s the CP/M source code for the AMRAD Packet Repeater.)

There we have it, that’s my 2024 wrapped. If you want to support my computer history work, please support my Patreon. Or, donate to Internet Archive.

My goal for 2025 is to publish a dozen interviews — preferably at a more regular, sustainable monthly pace rather than squishing all of them into the last quarter like I did this year. It’s impossible to know what else might transpire. After all, when 2024 started, I didn’t know that several of these projects (like The Famous Computer Cafe tapes) would be coming my way. Other projects I tried to make happen in 2024, just didn’t. 2025 is going to be a challenging year for a couple of reasons: politically for sure, plus my younger kid will be going off to college, leaving the nest empty. This year I’ll be keeping my eyes open for new computer history opportunities, pacing myself, and focusing on staying grounded and optimistic through the changes ahead.

[shikonotama]

Noragami Reverse Bigbang 2021

Hello! This is my piece for this year's @noragamibigbang. The idea for this fic came from @littlessushi who was my partner for this reverse bigbang. Please make sure to check out her beatiful art! As this was the first time I participated in a reverse bigbang I was quite nervous at the beginning but thanks to my partner's help it was a really great time and I enyojed the writing a lot. Have fun reading! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ »That’s all. Thank you very much.« The young woman took the bag in front of her, bowed politely and left the supermarket she often used to visit on her way home. Right after stepping into the already fading sunlight that warmly lit the surroundings; she stretched both her arms high up into the air, closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. It had been a tough day so far.

Since she had finished medical school and started to work at the local hospital some weeks ago, starting from tomorrow she had her first days off, so she could take things easy today.

‘Alright, Hiyori’, she told herself, ‘time to head back home, get some warm tea and a blanket and just chill on the couch.’

Meow…

Surprised she lowered her arms and opened her eyes to look around.

»Meow…« It took her quite some time to get a glimpse of a tiny black cat. It sat on top of a trash can cover and had its eyes strictly focused her way.

»… me…ow…«, the sound coming out of the small mouth got quite a bit lower after she took some steps into the small cat’s direction.

»Don’t be afraid…«, she smiled, stood still and squatted down while leaning forward a bit. At first Hiyori feared the cat would jump up straight away and run, but it just kept watching her, then the black head rose, the cat closed its eyes and the tiny black nose started to wiggle.

»What’s wrong?«, she asked, knowing well a cat wouldn’t answer. Instead it opened both eyes in an instant: »Meow!«, the big green eyes were now focusing the white bag Hiyori just bought. The woman smiled, stood back up and put one hand into the plastic bag.

»Are you hungry? I only bought some buns, you know?«, she laughed and held a piece between her fingers, so the small animal could reach it without any trouble. When their eyes met again, Hiyori’s smile vanished in an instant and she froze.

Even though the weather hadn’t changed the slightest, the sound of raindrops falling onto the ground reached her ears: raindrops that hit the ground, the roof, the rain drain, her umbrella and the trash can cover.

“I will keep my promise!” Her own words echoed in her ears, “I will never ever forget about you…!”The young woman shuddered and held her breath.

»Ya…to…?!«, she whispered while barely getting any kind of sound out of her mouth and took a closer look at the pair of light green eyes that carefully watched her. The bun she just held dropped on the floor. Just one second ago, Hiyori believed that the cat’s eyes’ colour had changed from green into a deep and light blue – but she was wrong: It was still the same.

‘Why …?’

“Will you really keep that promise, I wonder…?”

Not caring about some people who would probably think she had gotten crazy, Hiyori let the entire bag fall on the ground, turned around and ran.

The park she just entered was still filled with people, mostly families and friends. Many of them already started to prepare their way home, but some were still enjoying their time together. The cherry blossom trees throughout the city had just started to bloom and drew everyone’s attention towards them. Tiny pink petals were dancing through the air, swirling around and lightening everybody’s mood, or so it seemed.

Countless children were running around, screaming and dancing with both leaves and their friends while on the other hand older people were sitting on blankets, drinking, chatting and laughing with their beloveds and family – meanwhile Hiyori was still caught in her thoughts, not fully aware of what just happened or where she ran to.

It was only some minutes later when she finally recognised she ran quite a distance. She abruptly stopped and leaned against a trunk, her eyes still closed to get back a hold of her breathing.

As her emotions calmed down and the surrounding sounds started to reach her consciousness again, she carefully blinked and reopened her eyes. Even though she could still feel her heart pounding against her chest, her breathing tempo went back to normal and her brain had started to work properly again. Even her hands had stopped shaking.

‘What’s wrong with me, all of a sudden?’ She led out a heavy sigh and watched the children play on the grass right in front of her eyes. Hiyori couldn’t help herself but bring back a smile to her face. It felt like ages, since she last went out for a walk during the Hanami. When she was younger, she used to go out with her family and play with her brother and friends like those kids did just now. Later, when she entered middle school, she used to come visit the blooming trees together with her friends, but since she went afar to study to become a physician, she simply didn’t have the time to take a relaxing walk around the park.

Just now, when her eyes tried to follow the petals swirling through the air, she felt like a heavy weight was lifted from her chest – a feeling she hadn’t felt in quite a while. Like a vanishing mist that lay upon her soul for the past… days… maybe weeks… or even years?

»This place sure is amazing, isn’t it?! We definitely have to come back here again next year!«

»You bet we will!«

»For real?! It’s a promise! You better not forget, okay?«

»Of course I promise. How could I forget something that important?!«

The three people, walking by Hiyori who still leaned against the trunk of one of the biggest cherry blossom trees around, laughed and giggled up until she lost sight of them.

»… a… promise…?« Hiyori murmured, softly pushing her body away from the cherry tree trunk. Slowly she continued her way through the park, passing by several trees – some of which were lit by nearby street lamps that had just been switched on one second ago. As she moved on, the amount of people crossing her way decreased, until she finally found herself at the edge of the park, looking over a beautiful riverside, while the sun had continued its way, so it was just about to touch the ground in the far distance now. This caused the white and pink petals swirling around Hiyori’s body to be touched by the fading sunlight, turning the already beautiful view into an even more mysterious one. The tree right beside her, which had its trunk wrapped up in a mat of straw, didn’t seem to be one of the strongest or biggest ones she passed today, nevertheless its petals rained down and spread across – some of them might even reach the other riverbank.

She carefully approached the tree and put her palm on top of its somewhat familiar bark.

‘So warm…’ She lifted her eyes and waved her gaze to the treetop. In an instant she could feel a fresh breeze of wind playing with her hair.

“The Sakura’s in full blossom.”, her own voice echoed in her ears. She shrugged.

“Whoa… they sure are pretty!” It was the voice of a young man, maybe still at a kid’s age. Startled, Hiyori took some steps back from the tree she just put her hand on and searched her surroundings.

“They are… Let’s come back next year, too, okay?!”

“Definitely…” The blonde boy beside her, his eyes sparkling in joy, nodded, still gazing at the big cherry blossom tree. Just one second later he snapped out of his current mood, turning his attention to the back while shouting: “Yo – You dumb old stalker. We did you a big favour by letting you come with us, so you better be careful!” Following his voice, Hiyori turned around as well. Some meters behind them stood a young man dressed in a black track suit. His gaze was locked on the cherry tree as well, but in contrast to the boy, his eyes didn’t sparkle, nor was there any joy visible on his face. His expressions hadn’t changed since Yukine spoke to him, he didn’t even spare a glance on the two. Hiyori couldn’t help herself but feel unease: It was rare for him to put up that kind of face. She wanted to ask him, wanted to know if something happened she didn’t know about, but on the same time she didn’t find the right words to do so. His mind seemed to be in a place far away from here, would he even bother to answer?

Then suddenly, he started to mumble some words. Not loud enough to understand completely, even though she really tried. The wind made the young man’s black hair cover his eyes, so she couldn’t get a hold of his expression anymore. ‘What’s wrong??’ Just as she started to make a move to turn around and walk in his direction, some of his words made it through to her.

“… huh? … can’t even remember… when I last saw…”

‘When?’

“What are you rambling about?! Cherry blossoms are everywhere in Japan…!” The boy’s voice snapped both of them out of their thoughts.

“Hmph… Dumplings over flowers for me any day.”

Without any further word, Yato headed straight to the bento boxes Hiyori prepared for today, sat down on the blanket and pinched a bit out of the box next to him. “SO MUCH FOOD!”, he picked up one of the sausages shaped like an octopus. In contrast to his appearance just some moments ago, he wore a big grin on his face, his cheeks rosy from excitement.

“Ahh, just looking at these adorable octopus hotdogs makes me warm with Hiyori’s love…”

“Wait ‘til everybody gets here, okay?”

“Everybody?”

Just as they spoke, a bunch of people appeared in the far, strictly heading for the cherry blossom tree they prepared the picnic at.

Hiyori couldn’t help herself but giggle at the images that just flashed before her eyes. Both Yato and Bishamon sure were energetic that day. Everyone else probably had a lot of fun, too!

»You should quit drinking that much if you lose the capability to control your actions, you know? Don’t blame me, Yukine or anyone else for the things you did!«

Hiyori had turned around, rolling her eyes and both of her hands rested on her hip.

‘At least he doesn’t make that gloomy face anymore.’

The annoyed look on her face vanished and turned into a happy smile as their eyes met.

»Whatever… this day turned out to be a lot of fun, huh? Well… it was even more chaotic as I could’ve ever imagined beforehand…«

After a short pause, she continued: »Yato…!« It was just then, when she finally realised that neither Yato, nor Yukine nor one of the others had been with her to begin with.

In front of her eyes there was still that cherry tree which had a small part of its trunk covered, the same petals dancing around her body and the same river some steps ahead.

»Right…«, she told herself, »… it’s already been some years.« ‘How could I forget? … Again…’ The whole amount of energy she just felt some minutes ago had already left her body, so she leaned against the tree behind her, slowly sliding to the ground. In silence, tears had gathered in both of her eyes, blurring her vision before they rolled over and left a wet mark on her face.

Back then she couldn’t even think about a life without them – a so called normal life. A life where she simply went to school to learn, have fun with her classmates and friends and then starting to think about her future goals.

After she was hit by that truck when she was trying to save this reckless god running over the street to catch a stray, she tended to leave her body from time to time. Even now she couldn’t fully understand what happened back then. As a so called half Ayakashi she could jump up high and her kicks were even stronger than Tono’s. Yato had promised to find a cure for her state. ‘Right… I even payed him the five Yen he requested.’ As time went by, she had started to stop regretting her new state and used the power given to her to help her friends and fight. What started as something alarming and scary turned out to be a way full of friends and mysteries to solve. Never could she have imagined that it would not stay like this forever.

Even though Tenjin had warned her to stay alert and thus suggested that cutting ties with Yato and everybody else would be for the best, she refused and stayed. She wanted to stay by their side – by his side. After she almost forgot about everybody once, she treasured her dairy even more, closely paying attention to reread and write something down every single day.

‘Why did I forget about them again? Did he cut the ties for real this time? That night?’ – He didn’t, she just remembered. After her cord was heavily damaged and her physical body had gotten weaker, Tenjin brought up the matter of cutting ties again.

“I’m sorry… if it wasn’t for me, your condition wouldn’t be that bad right now…«, Yato stood some steps away from her, his eyes strictly directed to the floor. It wasn’t easy to understand every word he said, because his voice was about to start trembling any moment. To cover up, he kept it low.

“That’s not true! Why do keep blaming yourself for things you can’t change?!!”

Hiyori’s voice was filled with anger and despair. If he really wanted to cut the ties that connected the two there wasn’t much she was able to do against.

“Yato…”, after a while she lowered her voice too, slowly closing the gap between them until she was able to touch his chin with her fingertips. Gently and yet firmly she lifted his head so his eyes had to make contact with hers. His were cold and without the sparkling deep blue she loved about them the most. His face was covered in bruises from the many fights he had to endure and despite her having bandaged them the best she could, he really looked like someone who should rest rather than standing here at night, chatting.

“… please.”, she continued her talk, “I don’t want to forget, I will be fine, I’ll-…!”

She felt cold sweat running over her face and her breathing was unsteady and fast. It was just at that moment, when she suddenly felt dizzy and was about to tumble. Yato quickly had put his arms around her waist and pulled her close to his chest. She could feel every finger of his tightly holding onto her shirt while desperately trying to cover the fact that his hands were shaking.

“Please… I don’t want to forget… again…”, she whispered and could feel him strengthen his grip even more.

She tightly wrapped her arms around her knees as she remembered what happened more than six years ago. Her condition kept getting worse, so everyone suggested it may be best for her to continue living a normal life. That’s why she decided to sign up for medical school far away from Kofuku’s house. If she studied far away, kept her distance and regained her health, she would be able to meet with them again – at least that was what she had hoped for.

Her condition did indeed get better throughout the years passing by, she felt a lot healthier now and

could not remember a single day she left body again. ‘But… I ended up forgetting about them… about all of them nonetheless.’

‘I wonder… are they still arguing day for day? Fighting evil spirits? Did they get into a fight again and got hurt? Are they… still ali-…!’

Hiyori stopped her own thoughts, opened her eyes wide and held her breath while covering her mouth with both her hands.

“The only kinds of believers Yato could ever relay on were those one-time customers, not to mention he was never really blessed with a good shinki… I’m sure he had his fair share of fears and doubts. I bet there wasn’t a day when his mind was at ease, since he had to cling to one person’s memory at a time to stay alive…”

‘Right… without his lifeline, an unknown god like Yato would…’

Her chest hurt and her head was filled with dust. Hiyori could feel her knees shaking, as she tried to stand back up on her feet again. After she forgot about him during the past six years, did he…? No…

»This can’t be… right!« Hastily the woman grabbed the bag she was carrying her mobile in; at least she tried to. Where she remembered her bag to be, she could just grasp thin air. She must have lost her bag after encountering the black cat next to the supermarket this afternoon.

»Damn…!« With one jump she ignored her still shaking knees and jumped back on her feet.

‘It doesn’t matter if we’re supposed to cut ties… I don’t care…’ Her body ran back into the park she came out of some minutes ago. All its ways were lit by streetlamps, now that the sunlight was almost completely gone for today.

‘I have to call him… I have to know whether he and Yukine are safe… Please – be safe!’

The tears had flooded her eyes, making it difficult for her to follow the path she was heading properly.

‘Please…’, she begged in her mind, not able to think of something different anymore.

»YATO-…!«

Some birds that were sitting on nearby branches to enjoy the last warmth of the sun flew away in fright – not because Hiyori suddenly shouted out a name into the dark, but because of the sound of two bodies crashing into each other. The uninspected impact made the woman stagger backwards; therefore she was now sitting in the grass, heavily breathing.

»I’m terribly sorry… I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. Are you hurt?«, the calm voice of a young man dispelled the rising panic occupying her mind.

»No, I’m… I’m fine. Sorry.«, she answered in a low voice and raised her head. Since it already got dark and the last piece of sunlight couldn’t reach the centre of the park she was now in, the big cherry blossom trees around her were all lit by some streetlamps. One might say the contrast of the dark night with its deep blue sky made a beautiful contrast to the white and pink petals still swirling to the ground, but Hiyori didn’t care about anything like that right now. She was looking into the direction the young man’s voice had reached her ears from. Even though she could only see his silhouette because he stood right in front of one of the lights, he had a somewhat calming aura around him. As she took a closer look she noticed he wore some kind of tracksuit. Maybe he was one of the students or freshmen who spend their time after work for some fitness runs through the park.

‘Whatever… I have to hurry!’

As she made a move to stand back up again, the person in front of her came some steps closer and made something swing right before her eyes.

»This happens to be yours, doesn’t it?«

Just now she realised that it was indeed her mobile phone the stranger was holding. She nodded.

»I figured.«, he replied and straightened his back again, »Well then…«

»How did you kn-…?«

»Be careful – tonight’s gonna be a gloomy night.« The young man in front of her avoided to answer her question and turned around, just to be gone not even a second later.

»Wait!« Hiyori put her hand in front to push her body on her feet again, when she realised her phone lying right before her eyes. Hastily she picked it up and unlocked the screen when she suddenly paused. Attached to the upper right of her phone, there was a small keychain she did not remember putting there in the first place. It was a golden crown which was attached to a thin string, shining even in the pale light of the street lamps.

The tears that had stopped once she fell to the floor continued to run all over her face, as she embraced the small keychain and squeezed it close to her chest.

»Thank god…«, she murmured and couldn’t hold back the sobbing that echoed through the dark, while a gentle wind, which brought a lot of cherry blossom petals with it, gently caressed her body, as if it wanted to give her at least a little comfort.

************************************************************************

Close to the riverside the young man was looking back at the park full of cherry blossom trees, when the woman’s whispers reached his ears and a relieved smile hushed over his face. He closed his eyes and turned around to leave.

»Stupid… I won’t disappear that easy.«

[yuta-nakamots]

119 - n.jm

Pairing - Jaemin x Reader

Genre - Horror/Thriller, Angst

Warnings - Cheating, familial problems, character death, mentions of sex (though no descriptions of it), blood, violence, public humiliation (not in a nsfw way), yandere tendencies

Summary - Misfortune is all around you though you were never the true victim of it until now with Jaemin by your side. Will you make it through these troubles or die trying? Will you be killed or become the killer?

Word Count - 4.1k

Written for the #NeoHalloween writing festival hosted by @nct-writers​. Check out the masterlist here.

To say that your life was rough would be just about an understatement. As a third-year student in university, you had already moved out on your own and had begun supporting yourself. Though your family was wealthy, it didn’t mean that everything in your life was handed to you on a silver platter because not everything that glitters is gold.

Your mother, who used to be a strong businesswoman who started up her own brand, was left heartbroken and devastated when she found out your father and seemingly loving husband had been having an affair for the past two years. She turned to alcohol and drugs in order to forget her sorrows and give her relief if only for a short while. You didn’t know what happened to your father after he moved out, only that he was happy with the woman he had been cheating with.

It soon became an addiction and you tried your best to save her. You scheduled and brought her into therapy appointments and followed her doctor’s orders to keep a close eye on her, but there’s only so much a college student can do. Your younger brother wasn’t helping at all either.

Chenle, only a year younger than you, has had his eyes set on taking over your mother’s business ever since he realized that special treatment he got at school from others when they heard his last name. He fed into your mother’s addictions and would reverse all the progress you made with her. “Don’t you want her money? She’s not in any state to get back in the business world so let’s just take what she has and run.” Chenle told you one night after you had finally succeeded at putting your mother to bed.

You looked at Chenle, appalled that he would even dare to say such a thing, even more at the fact that he had been thinking about this for so long. “We’re her children,” you reminded him, “she will share it with us as she wishes and she can make a comeback if you just stopped making things worse.”

“Me? Making things worse?” Chenle scoffed, mocking his disbelief. “I’m only helping things along. The faster she stops breathing, the faster we’ll get her money and I’ll get her business.” You could only shake your head at him as you pulled him out of your mother’s bedroom that now seemed much too large for her frail self. “Think about it, we can take over and split it fifty-fifty and the media would love us for it. ‘Zhong children take over their mother’s business after her passing in honor of her legacy’. Come on, can’t you see it?”

You felt nauseous at the images Chenle was painting in your mind and you knew there was only so much more of this that you could handle before you reached your own breaking point.

That’s why you brought your mother into a care home when you and Chenle were supposed to be at school. He wouldn’t know where you took her and you chose to pay for it using the money in your own bank account, though admittedly most of it was your mother’s money. Your parents had already bought you your own apartment when you first entered college, in case you wanted more independence though your mother’s condition is what stopped you from leaving. But the same day you left her at the care home was the same day you finally moved in.

As long as your mother was away from Chenle and you went in to check on her daily, everything would be fine, so you thought. You had even met your neighbor and he helped you move in. He was your age, even attended the same school, and went by the name of Jaemin.  

Ever since your first year in college, your life had already been filled with issues from your own family on top of the already heavy workload from classes, leaving you little to no room for a social life. You weren’t an outcast, but you definitely weren’t popular. People usually didn’t spare you a second glance unless they knew the lineage you came from which is why you suddenly felt small under the eyes that were staring into you.

Looking up as you took your seat in economics, you saw the familiar face of your neighbor, Jaemin, as he smiled down at you. As you settled into your seat, he slipped into the one next to you before leaning over and whispering a ‘good morning’ in your ear. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t find him attractive.

Within just a week of having known Jaemin, he had already become one of your closest friends, which came as a surprise since he was also one of the most popular boys on campus. But that didn’t stop him from walking home with you after both of you were done for the day. “A princess should never be left to walk on her own.” Jaemin insisted. “Who knows what dangers could be out there, waiting to attack her?” He pondered animatedly as he linked his arm with yours as you started your journey back to your apartment complex.

It was also within a week that it took Chenle to confront you. There he stood, in front of your apartment unit as you and Jaemin stepped out of the elevator. “What did you do with her?” Chenle demanded.

“What do you mean?” You questioned, faking cluelessness as came to stand in front of him, leaving Jaemin at his own unit.

Chenle rolled his eyes. “You know damn well what I mean. Where’s mom and what did you do with her?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You remarked dismissively as you unlocked your door.

“She’s living with you isn’t she?” Chenle sneered, barging into your apartment the second your door was unlocked.

“Go ahead, search all you want. You won’t find her here.” You took off your shoes inside the doorway before depositing your belongings in your room while listening to Chenle romp around in the background. Once you had finished unpacking your bag, you stepped out of your room, closing the door behind you, your brother still going on his little rampage. “Can you tone down the temper tantrum? I’m going to get a noise complaint from the-”

Your sentence was cut off as he pinned you against the wall, his hands holding you by your shoulders as your back slammed into the hard surface. “From who? Who will you get a noise complaint from?” His eyes bore into yours as his grip only tightened. “You know damn well that we own this apartment complex so a single noise complaint doesn’t mean jack shit.”

You raised your hand to slap him, his attitude was simply annoying, but he was faster. Chenle quickly had both of your wrists in one hand as he brought his face closer to yours. “Stop being such a bitch and tell me where she is.”

“You know I won’t do that.” Chenle let out a groan of frustration, his free hand running through his hair before it came straight for your throat. You yelped in shock as he started to apply pressure, slowly limiting your oxygen intake.

“If you’re not going to help me, then maybe I should just kill you. Right here, right now.”

“You would never.” You choked out.

“Oh yeah? What makes you say that?” He sneered, enjoying the pitiful state he had you in.

“I’m your fucking sister, Chenle.”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me. If I let you live, you’ll only take more of what is rightfully mine. If you die, I can take over everything on my own and never have to deal with your annoying ass-”

Just as quickly as you started seeing spots in your vision, they were gone, the pressure on your throat was relieved and you keeled over, finally able to take gulps of air. You weren’t given much time to recover, the yells from your brother down the hallway pulling you out of your haze as he fought with another person on top of him. “Who the fuck are you?” Chenle exclaimed.

“Her boyfriend,” the person said, the deep voice easily recognizable, “don’t you dare hurt her ever again, or else it will be you getting killed instead.”

“You talk as if you have the power to do so.” Chenle retorted, only angering his attacker further.

They landed a square punch on his jaw before pulling a book off the shelf next to them and slamming it into his head, effectively knocking Chenle out. “Jaemin, what are you doing?” You yell, running in to stop him from doing any further damage.

“I heard him hurting you, princess. I can’t just let him get away with it.” He explained, pouting at you as if your brother was not lying unconscious under him. “I saved your life didn’t I?”

“God,-fuck, Jaemin, just get off of him.” You yanked him to his feet before attempting to pull Chenle up onto your back.

“Oh? What is my pretty girl doing now?” Jaemin asked, a sadistic smile appearing on his face.

“Getting him to a hospital because I can’t have my brother dying in my own apartment you sick fuck.”

Jaemin chuckled before responding while taking Chenle from your arms and carrying him on his own. “He won't die, he’ll just be knocked out for a bit.”

“And how would you know that?” You ask as you guide Jaemin out the front door, trying your best not to panic as you map out the way to your car and to the hospital.

“Experience.”

Jaemin’s answer should have troubled you but it was the least of your worries once you were nearly speeding on your way to the hospital, wanting to make sure Chenle was okay. You brought him into the ER drive-in and you and Jaemin watched as the staff wheeled him away on a stretcher. You stayed to answer a few questions, claiming that it was a case of self-defense out on the streets and you had come across it on your way home with your, self-proclaimed, boyfriend, before heading out once all the information was sorted.

“So, Chenle Zhong...he’s your brother?” Jaemin started as both of you were getting back into your car. You nodded as you started the engine and put on your seatbelt. “Which means...Sarah Zhong, The Sarah Zhong is your mother?” Again, you nodded as you shifted the car into gear and pulled out from the ER drop-off zone. “So he was in your apartment, about to kill you because he didn’t know where his own mother went?”

“There’s a lot more to it than that, but let’s just get home first and I’ll explain everything to you then, okay?” Jaemin let out a grunt to acknowledge you as he placed a hand on your thigh and went to check his phone. “But first, actually, what’s up with you suddenly becoming my boyfriend? First with Chenle and now at the hospital?”

“Isn’t that what I am?” Jaemin asked, his voice sickly sweet.

“You are a boy and you are my friend, but that does not make you my boyfriend, Jaemin.”

He sighed next to you. “What if I asked you right now? What if I asked, right now, ‘y/n Zhong, will you be my girlfriend’? What would your answer be?” You drove in silence, your mind going blank. “I know you find me attractive.” He interjected before letting it go silent once again. “Look, it’s not like you have any other choice or else-”

“‘Or else’ what?” You interrupted. “Tell me, why do I not have a choice here? Why are you forcing me to be your girlfriend?”

Jaemin gently squeezed your thigh upon noticing your hands were shaking on the wheel. “You pretty brother will probably press charges against me and if you don’t want your family to get exposed, the best way to do so would be following the alibi we set out for ourselves.”

Coming to a stop at a red light, you leaned forward and rested your forehead against the top of the steering wheel. “Fuck.” Jaemin was absolutely right. “Fuck” you yelled, this time startling the boy next to you.

Jaemin remained quiet as you sat hunched over before quietly mumbling “green” to let you know the light had changed colors. You drove through the intersection, feeling something in your life shift, and so began your relationship with Jaemin.

You had explained everything to Jaemin that day once you arrived back at your apartment complex, from your father’s affair up until now with Chenle having confronted you earlier in the evening. You had also broken down in tears and asked Jaemin to stay the night with you, which he gladly agreed to do, not that it would have been much trouble for him anyways since he lives next door.

A fake sense of calm consumed you in the following month. You and Jaemin entered a sort of honeymoon phase in your semi-fake relationship while your mother’s health continued to improve and Chenle made his recovery. You don’t know how he did it, but Jaemin had managed to doctor up some footage, making it look as if Chenle had been mugged just outside of the complex, and two figures, assumed to be you and Jaemin, came into view and helped him into a car nearby before driving off.

The investigators didn’t stay around much longer after that, closing the case as if it were as easy as a hit and run. You knew Chenle would be furious with you and you lived every day in fear of him turning up unannounced, ready to take your life again. Being with Jaemin made you feel safe, oddly enough, even with all the red flags he had thrown your way. From knocking Chenle out to the fixed footage and even the way he had the proper cleaning supplies to wipe any evidence of Chenle having been in your apartment.

Jaemin showed you love more intensely than any of your past relationships that sometimes you had to remind yourself why you were doing this. The way he kissed you was absolutely enrapturing, the way he caressed every part of you so gently sent butterflies through your body. He had even made love to you a few times, all while confessing his adoration for you. He held your hand and let you wear his clothing, acting as a model boyfriend that any girl would wish to have.

Being with Jaemin wasn’t all that great though. He teased you, sometimes even publicly embarrassed you, though he chalked it up to being his way of showing his affection. Today was the worst of all. You had stayed up trying to finish a paper for econ, but you just couldn’t get the words to flow and ended up bullshitting nearly all of it. Jaemin had known all of this, yet he volunteered your essay to share during class when your professor had asked for any names. “Ah yes, Ms. Zhong, it would be a pleasure to hear your writing.” He said as he stepped down from the podium.

“Jaemin, I fucking swear to god-” You whispered through a fake smile.

“It’s okay princess, you got this. You’re smart, I know you are.” He encouraged through a genuine smile though the intentions behind it were less so.

As you stood up on the podium, you cleared your throat while holding your sad excuse for a research paper. “I wrote my essay on the stock market and investments, and how we shouldn’t buy into such things as all these numbers are digital and cannot be withdrawn into physical money.”

“With all due respect, Ms. Zhong, your paper sounds absolutely wonderful but the topic of this research paper was on how politics affect economies worldwide.” Your professor informed you.

You paused, feeling hot chills pass over you. “Uh, yes, that’s what my essay is on. I just meant that I had chosen to write about it from a more fundamental scale.”

“Oh, yes, of course!” Your professor exclaimed, clasping his hands together. “Please, do continue in that case, I’m terribly sorry for interrupting.”

“So, like I was saying,” you began again, glancing over at Jaemin, only for him to shoot you a smile, “we should not buy into the stock market since it is all digital and wealth is not promised.” Your presentation went on like this for the next few minutes, occasionally looking at Jaemin whenever you wanted to finish and step off the podium, but his gaze changed immediately whenever you took a step towards the edge and it forced you to stay up there, talking around in circles, confusing yourself. “This is why prices are so inflated with what our past presidents have done in the economy-”

“Thank you, Ms. Zhong. I do believe it is time we moved on to the next paper.” Your professor advised, much to your relief as he gave you a look of pity and condolence while allowing you to step down before he resumed his position at the front of the class.

You were on the edge of tears as you sat back down next to Jaemin and you swatted his hand away from you when he tried to wrap an arm around you as if to comfort you. You felt your phone vibrating in your bag as Jaemin texted you but you didn’t even bother checking it, choosing to zone out while staring at the white walls of the lecture hall instead.

After your professor excused the class for the day, you made a beeline for the apartments, not even caring that you still had one more class. Jaemin called out for you and ran after you but you thanked whatever divine being above that blessed you by letting Jeno, his best friend, pull him off to their shared biology class.

Had you been a little more attentive, maybe you would’ve noticed the near carbon copy of your car parked at the end of the garage as you pulled out. But you didn’t, only seeking your mother’s comfort as you drove off to the care home since it had indeed been a week since you had last visited and you promised that you would come at least once a week.

When you arrived at the care home and passed through the main lobby, greeting the staff working as you were a familiar face among them, one of them stopped you. “Ms. Zhong! Sorry to stop you, but a person by the name of Chenle Zhong came by to pick up your mother. We didn’t know if this was something you had arranged or not but he had all the credentials and your mother seemed to recognize him enough so we let her go.”

You froze in absolute shock and panic. “What do you mean you let her go? You left her with some stranger that you don’t even know?”

“We’re truly sorry, but he did have all the paperwork to prove his relation to you and your mother so there was nothing we could do.” The worker said, speaking quickly in hopes of ceasing your anger.

You took a couple of deep breaths before looking around, noticing all the eyes on you. “How much did he pay?” Silence. “I said, how much did he pay?” You yelled.

“$150,000.” The woman behind the front desk spoke up. You knew it, you fucking knew it would happen but now there was nothing left to do except wait for Chenle to show up.

You don’t know what came over you but something compelled you to enter Jaemin’s apartment instead of yours once you returned to the apartments so you went along with it, dropping your bag at the foot of his bed before lying down and falling asleep as you waited for him to finish at school.

Your sleep was a black dreamless sleep and you woke with a jolt, your heart pounding, not knowing what time it was nor why you woke up in this state. You looked out of the window, noting that it was now dark out, meaning that you had probably slept for at least an hour or two, which answered your first immediate question. The answer to the second came when you finally registered the yelling coming from next door. Next door...your apartment.

Scrambling out of Jaemin’s bed, you didn’t even bother putting on your shoes, bursting in through your front door and running down the main hallway towards the living room, the source of all the noise, to find a bloodied Jaemin on top of an equally, if not more, bloodied Chenle, the weapon in question lying a few feet away from them, the warm red liquid slowly dripping from the blade of the kitchen knife onto your beige carpet. “Jaemin, what the fuck are you doing?!” Both boys paused at the sound of your voice.

“Oh, my sweet girl, I had come home to wait for you after you had run away but instead he came to me. I knew all about how he had bought you mother so I figured, why not give him injuries that will cost another $150,000?” His face smiling at you with the bloodied fingerprints plastered on his pale skin was a sight you knew you’d never forget.

You slowly stepped towards them, your brain working at speeds beyond your comprehension. “Jaemin, how did you know about my mother? I had only just come from there so unless Chenle told you...” you paused to look over at your brother, who shook his head before coughing up some blood, spitting some in a glob at Jaemin.

Jaemin cooed at Chenle as he wiped the blood off his face before running that same hand through Chenle’s hair, locking his fingers into it and yanking Chenle’s head back at a painful angle. Chenle yelled out in pain, his cries muffled when Jaemin pulled a blanket off your couch and stuffed it into Chenle’s mouth. “You see, princess, I had their security circuit pulled even before you told me about your family’s misfortune.”

“Wha- but how...why?...” You struggled to grasp at all the information being connected in your head.

“Your cheating father had an affair with not only your mother and mine as well.” He looked between you and Chenle, enjoying the shock that was mirrored in both of your expressions. “That’s right, my mother is the mistress who stole away your father. However, he is the man who broke apart my family too when she ran away with him, leaving me with my abusive asshole of a dad.”

You continued moving closer and kneeled down once you were in front of Jaemin, bringing yourself to eye level with him, even if the smell of blood was making you feel like passing out. “I figured that by killing one of you, I could force you stupid Zhongs to get back together and bring my mother back to me. But I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger, not when I’ve fallen so madly in love with you...which leaves me with him.”

Jaemin lunged for the knife next to you only to find that you picked it up much faster than he did. You stood up and backed away from them with the knife as Chenle attempted to shove Jaemin off of him, but Jaemin was stronger though not by much. “Princess, please do both of us a favor. He tried to kill you and he’s shown how little you mean to him. Do you really think he’d share everything equally with you?” Your eyes darted between both of theirs. “Don’t you wish for my happiness? After all the love I’ve given to you?”

Your gaze locked with Chenle’s who was shaking due to the overexertion of his body. “Does the pretty boy have something to say?” Jaemin cooed as he pulled the blanket out of Chenle’s mouth.

“It’s me or him, y/n. Me or him.”

“Alright, that’s enough.” Jaemin said before pouncing back on Chenle, both his hands wrapping around Chenle’s pale neck.

You threw the knife, hoping for it to reach its target. It did, and you watched as his body stilled and went limp right in front of your eyes, the blade pierced through his heart. It was honestly a lucky throw but regardless, the blood on the knife was because of you.

You are the killer now.

[joshslater]

The Cupbearer

This is a relay, doing a continuation of tamed-jock’s continuation of jd07201990′s story. Similar stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

Infection+2:25

Let's write a captains log, like Tyler and I used to do, only this time I have actual observations and events to record. It is now approximately 2 hours and 25 minutes since he placed the cup on me. I immediately went home, and have done some preliminary studies of the object.

My most immediate concern is the attachment mechanism. I can really only think of three, suction, adhesion or some sort of mechanical attachment to my... thing. Observations are a bit limited as the object responds to stimulii. In the first instance when I grabbed it in the rest room there wasn't much of a response. The feeling was similar to that of a vacuum pull in the whole area, but I'm not feeling a constant force as I would expect from vacuum. Also, when the cup was applied it felt like it was filled with, or quickly filled up with a gel of some sort.

Wanting to rule out vacuum, or in best case break the vacuum and remove the object, I attempted to insert a narrow tube from my model steam engine in between the skin and the object. That did provoke a response. It felt like the contents of the cup was rapidly replaced or infused with icy-hot gel. This entry has been delayed by approximately 40 minutes, as I have been lying on my bed and desperately trying to avoid touching it. Every time I fail I get like a pulse of renewed icy-hot in the cup.

Infection+2:50

I've decided to avoid further experiments and focus on observation and external research. The cup itself appears to be mix of carbon fiber, titanium and some other fairly high tech materials. This points to high tech origin, but beside the logotype I find no other markings like brand, manufacturer, patents, serial number etc. My first attempts to Google this kind of product or stories from someone with similar experience come up short. I took a picture of the logo, cleaned it up and sent it through USPTO image search to see if anyone has a trademark on it, but came up empty as well.

It sure smells bad. I need to come up with an excuse for mum.

Infection+6:00

I told mum that I'm having my scent-month, as if every teenage boy has one. I said Tyler just had his, so if she checks with his parents they will confirm it. Why does it smell so bad though? It is clearly the cup that emits it, since the smell came on pretty strong only seconds after Tyler attached it. Is it distraction? Is it to mask something else? Is it to make the wearer body conscious or odor conscious and avoid contact with other people? Is it to acclimate the wearer to the smell? I don't see how I can answer any of these questions purely from observation though. Something to sleep on perhaps. How do you pee with this thing?

Infection+6:15

So the pee just kind of filters out in the lower part of the cup. If you want to use a toilet you have to basically sit on it reverse, do you thing, and then wait a few minutes for it all to drain out. A big drawback is that you have to step out of pants and boxers to even sit reverse on a toilet.

Infection+10:20

I think the damn thing just woke me up. Or I'm just have a restless night because of all that is happening, and more importantly what will happen. Fuck you Tyler!

Infection+12:05

It's definitely the cup that woke me. Just as I was waking up I could feel some sort of vibration down there. What other crazy shit have they packed into the device. My bedroom smells like a locker room. Thanks Tyler!

Infection+13:55

Fuck it, I'm getting up. I'll pee in the shower.

Infection+14:20

So that didn't work as well as I hoped. I could pee fine, but when I turned on the shower it was like pouring water in a gym shoe. If it smelled bad before, it absolutely reeks now. I think I'm gonna steal one of mum’s pads and tape it to the front, since it is still leaking God knows what and then wrap it in plastic and hope that contains the worst of it.

Infection+17:30

I didn't think of mobility enough. Jeans are clearly out of the question, so I went to school in chinos. It's bad enough that the cup is rigid, over sized and fully attached. Add to that some extra padding and cram it in chinos that aren't exactly lose to begin with, and you have something that looks funny stationary and awkward/hilarious when moving.

If I walk slowly I think I might come up with a gait that might be described as exaggerated jock sway, which would be step up from whatever ludicrous I'm doing now. Damn, I should have practiced yesterday.

I need to find some better pants, because these are too tight and restrictive.

Infection+21:30

My efforts to contain the smell isn’t fooling anyone, but I hope it just smells like I have a bad hygiene day. My crotch is a sauna though. The plastic wrap needs to go. Tyler kept his distance. I wonder if he is ashamed, or if he doesn't give a shit. Perhaps they have some sort of protocol he adheres to.

Day 2, 4:40 pm

Let's stop fucking around with the childish infection timer. This is serious. I found something sobering when doing some online patent search.

I was just blindly trying to find patents for any of the different things this cup does, and managed to find a description on "bio-polymer adhesion complex and application for individualized restriction control". I don't understand more than a fraction of what is written, but in the schematics there is a drawing of EXACTLY the cup I'm wearing. The list of example uses in the description includes prison inmates and persons under house arrest. This is a retrofitted fucking ankle bracelet.

It's originally designed to never come the fuck off through tampering. Fuck.

Day 2, 6:30 pm

Mum gave me some Vichy Laboratories excessive odor control deo roll on she bought at the pharmacy. Roll on to what, exactly? Well, she can only solve problems she knows about I guess. Should I tell her? Would she mind having a sports jock son? She would probably tell me to do whatever makes me happy. Would I be happy? Tyler certainly looks pretty fucking pleased.

Day 2, 8:20 pm

I've not spent that much time on wanking before. Like once or twice a month. But now that I can't my mind kind of wanders to it all the time. I've done some, let's call it research, that you can orgasm pretty well by putting something in your ass. Not doing that.

Day 2, 9:46 pm

Got some weird hot flashes in the cup while taking a shower. Smells as bad post shower as the last time. I don't know if it is the smell or I'm tired, but I went to bed early. I'm too hot and sweaty to fall asleep though.

Day 3, 2:12 am

Can I go to the police? This is clearly some sort of assault. Tyler would be the first one under the bus. Perhaps the coach. Probably not further than that. This is backed by serious money after all, so they will just protect themselves and their IP. Does it really matter though? By the time they've forced any action I've had this thing on me for a month, I've grown a donkey dick and gone completely mad. Much good some cash compensation will do then. And do I want to punish Tyler? Fuck yeah I want, but not like that. He's a victim too.

Go directly to a hospital then? If I can't figure out what this thing is or does, how would hospital staff be any better. They'll probably start cutting around it, and there is no telling how it will respond. It was designed to never come off, at least not without a fight. Probably horribly so, to set an example.

Day 3, 2:28 am

I'll try to sleep in the garden. It's cooler outside and doesn't stink.

Day 3, 4:51 am

Dozed off a bit I think.

I've been thinking about the construction of the cup. There are a some design details that has been nagging me. For something that small it appears to be almost magical in abilities and power storage. But then it hit me, it's not crammed packed with batteries, electronics, vials of chemicals and all other stuff you might need to build something like this.

It's biological. Perhaps not in the "alive" sense of an organism, but "alive" in the sense a virus is alive. It's a biochemical robot following instructions encoded in DNA, or something like it. If you consider it a manufactured parasite it all makes sense. It has access to the resources of a full human body and can leech heat energy and pee chemicals off the body indefinitely. The "bio-polymer" attach to the skin, and perhaps even have direct access to nerve impulses. There is really thin membranes in the dick, so it can probably send stuff directly into the blood stream as well.

Fuck.

Day 3, 9:36 am

I just realized I can't remember a thing that has been said so far in school today. I need to cum!

Day 3, 11:23 am

Becky spent her presentation on "Manspreading". She probably started working on the talk already last week, knowing her, but she clearly directed a lot of the points directly at me. Looked directly my way for most of the talk. No, Becky, I'm not subconsciously asserting dominance.

I CAN'T PHYSICALLY CLOSE MY LEGS, BECKY!

I found a different pair of chinos that works better, Becky. No matter what I do, there will be a pretty sizable bulge down there though, Becky.

Day 3, 14:02

God Dammit! The inside of the cup just went super cold 10 minutes into math class. I couldn't finish a single thing. Just not jumping and screaming was hard enough. It's mostly back to normal now, I think.

Day 3, 15:14

This is what I think happened. They started to test the cups on inmates. By mistake it started to leak chemicals or active DNA from the device into the inmates. They had tested the cup technology artificially before, on pigs perhaps, and hadn't seen these effects. But they didn't put it on the pig’s dick, did they.

So suddenly their inmate control device has turned into the worlds best slow release injector for men. Perhaps even the original formula made dicks grow. They just made the minimal needed changes and paid coach to start human trials on teenagers.

Then why the fuck do I need to keep this log? They must have so much more data on what is done to us to have a useful trial. I guess this might come in handy in the inevitable court case.

Day 3, 16:40

I'M SO HORNY ALL DAY.

I went to have a cold shower. If anything things just went even worse. How is this happening! FUCKING FUCK TYLER FUCK

Day 3, 20:18

Why do I have to do this? I know what the end point is going to be. A fucking dumb, arrogant jock dick. Assuming it is inevitable, and I don't see any way out, why not have it over and done with tomorrow. Just walk to the gallows and submit. Whatever that thing is doing, physically and mentally, is minimized the sooner it's off me. Back when Becky would speak with me she told me a rumor that the nerds gone jocks all had monster cocks. She didn't say anything about the regular jocks, so it probably is specific to this procedure.

And if they, the old jocks, are not joining up hand over fist to get such dicks, the procedure itself, or the side effects, must be pretty discouraging. Otherwise they would just cram the cup down their own pants.

Let's get rid of this thing first thing in the morning.

Day 3, 11:49 pm

Fuck, it vibrates.

I've been sweating balls, trying to sleep naked without any sheets. I was just sort of tugging at it, to see if I could feel anything in the dick, when it started to vibrate. It's been going for like 15 minutes now.

Day 4, 2:11 am

I smell.

The cup stinks, but I smell. While trying to ignore the humming dick I noticed that my armpits smell like moist gym bag.

I showered like 10 hours ago. That's never been a problem before, so it's definitively changing me somehow.

I fucking need this thing off me ASAP!

Day 4, 2:20 am

fucking god dammit it went ice cold again

Day 4, 7:38 am

So I went to the locker room. Once inside I realized I didn't really have a plan. What if they were not all in on it? I would appear like a lunatic, ranting about sci-fi balls cups. Turns out I didn't need to worry. First guy who saw me, Derek or Devin or something. Big guy, short buzz, looks intimidating. Anyway, he saw me and started shouting "You are not supposed to be here." I was like "I need to get something removed".

He walked up right into my face. "You are not on the list. Tyler fucked up so someone has to be punished. Fuck off!"

I hesitated to leave. He took one step forward, physically pushing me backwards and almost had me trip over. "GET OUT!" he shouted right in my face.

Day 4, 9:16

I've been locked inside the disabled toilet and crying since leaving the locker room. How long can I go with this thing on? You physically die after about a week without sleep, but it is letting me sleep in short bursts, so perhaps it could keep up indefinitely. I can't. I won't. Why shouldn't I just tell everything to mum, have her call the school, the coach, the press. Whatever is needed for someone to get this thing off me.

I should think this over carefully. But how is that possible if you are sleep deprived, horny AF and your dick is on vibrate mode? I can't stay here though. I'll walk home and tell mum first thing she gets home.

When I open the door, the first thing I see is Tyler, leaning against the opposite wall and smiling a smirk.

- Sup bro? - FUCK YOU! You ruined my life! - It was a shit one anyway. You should get another one. - That's not happening either, is it?

Suddenly I was bawling my eyes out. Exhaustion, sleep deprivation, rejection, horniness, anger. It was all coming together.

- Heyyy bro, come here.

I fucking hated him, but somehow I didn’t just bolt. I walked right into his arms and let him hug me. I realized that his change in appearance and personality had obscured his bodily changes. Just feeling his arms around me, I could tell he had gotten a lot stronger.

- You know Steve O'Conner in the chess club, right?

It was such an odd non-sequitur. I had to struggle a bit, but yeah, I'd helped him with a science project last year.

- A little bit, why? - I talked things over. Give him this and you are back on the list, second place.

He handed me another cup, packaged in a sealed, tearable plastic bag. I know I should feel sorry for Steve, but the only thing I could think of was my vibrating dick.

[xeina-channel]

Bus Ride (Short Story)

They had been riding the bus for most of the day. As Gregg gazed out the window, the sun slowly edged down towards the ground. He was pressed comfortably against the wall, just quietly enjoying the contact. He found himself startled from his day-dreaming as the weight that had been pinned against him shifted slightly.

“What’ya thinkin’ about?” David asked, turning his body to face his friend as he spoke.

“Not anything really, just kind of feeling shitty,” Gregg replied, his head still facing the window.

“Feel like talking about it?”

“Not particularly, it's kind of expected really, so I think it's just something I have to sit through.”

“Alright.” David turned away from his friend, letting his eyes slide out of focus. He had found it to be a good way to center himself, sliding his vision over the blurry surroundings always made him take a metaphorical step back and reevaluate his situation. He traced the figure of a bundled up woman, her assortment of half-packed, half-carried cargo apparent even with his eyes glazed over.

David breathed, then turned back to his friend. “Why don’t we go over things- like a sort of recap of our best moments. I feel like if we just sit here in silence we’ll regret it later.” He stared at Gregg, waiting for a response. When none was given, he began talking anyway.

“We met in first grade, right? You’d been sitting alone and I invited you over to play kickball. You kind of just attached yourself to me after that. My parents used to call you the palest shadow in the world, with how you followed me around.” He chuckled a little, lost in his thoughts of the past.

Gregg straightened a tad, eyes still locked on the window. He’d never told David that he’d been sitting there on the edge of blacktop since the first day. The only reason he’d gone with David was because of how insistent he’d been. Whether or not he knew it, his almost desperate nagging had been a major factor in why he’d eventually gone with him. He’d felt almost guilty turning him down, almost like he’d been denying the child some necessary function. When he’d eventually said yes he’d felt almost like a mother playing with her son, more a guardian making sure the other was happy than a friend on equal terms. He found himself smiling a bit despite himself. “Yeah, you really grew on me I guess. Every weekend I was at your house, sometimes I’d just go over without telling anyone and my mom would end up starting a small-scale search party just to find me.”

David laughed, then began finishing the story Gregg had started. “Oh God, yeah. I remember that at like eleven-thirty she and about twenty other moms just showed up asking if we knew where you were. My door didn’t have a peephole or anything so I just opened the door into the front of a paranoid mob. When we actually pulled you out to prove to them you hadn’t been kidnapped you just acted like you’d had no idea what you did wrong.”

“Yeah I was a pretty weird kid, I guess.” Gregg replied absently, “They didn’t let me go out for a month after that, spent the whole time just telling me over and over that I couldn’t be doing things like that. Even funneled the message through you once if I remember correctly.”

“Yeah, even had me practice off a little script beforehand.” said David, “I mean, I guess the message did stick though. I can’t remember you ever just walking over to my house again.”

“It stuck for a little while.” Gregg said, raising his head fully from its station at the window. “Once I could drive it was back to mysteriously disappearing every few days. Only difference is that by then my mom had lived through enough of my shit that she was mostly willing to just hope I’d find my way back in time for school.”

“I always wanted to know, where the hell did you get that car? Not to be rude, but it was way too nice for your family to have just bought it for you, and unless you’re seriously hiding something from me,  you’ve never had a job.”

Gregg snorted, almost indignant. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I just found it. I woke up, and it was sitting unlocked on the driveway. At first I thought the neighbors had someone over and they just weren’t the type who locked their doors, but after a few weeks of this fancy-ass car just sitting in our driveway, blocking traffic, I went inside to check if I could put it into neutral to just push it to the curb and the keys were tucked into the bottom of the seat. Wrapped all up in a note with my name on it.”

“Weird.” replied David, drawing the word out so the “r” reverberated in the back of his throat. “Ever find out who dropped it off?”

“Nope. At first my mom thought I’d finally gone off the deep end and stole some guy’s car,  but when we got the license plates checked it was already linked to me. She didn’t want me driving it at first in case there was a bomb on it or it was wired to fail or something, but I just started taking it out and she never really did much to stop me.”

“Yeah, you and that car…” David started, “Kids started some wild rumors about it, you know? Some people said you ran a drug smuggling ring and used your profits to buy it, even heard some guys saying you worked for the FBI and they’d given you the car as part of the job.” Gregg nodded, he’d been asked countless times about the origin of the car so he knew a few of the conspiracy theories surrounding it. “Didn’t help that you didn’t bother to show up half the time.”

Gregg shifted again, almost recoiling from the direction the conversation had taken.

Whereas he’d been almost nuzzled up against his friend, he now pushed himself away from the man. He slumped, hugging the wall and again focusing intently on the dark surroundings of the city.

“I know you hate talking about this, but I need a straight answer before I can leave. You’d been doing good. I think a dean had talked to you or something, and you’d built up a month-long stretch where you were coming to school every day. The next day was my valedictorian's speech and I'd got you to promise that you’d show up no matter what, we even made plans to eat out later. I made a joke about how with your fancy car I could ditch the school in style. Then you didn’t show up. I was mad for a bit, but once I calmed down, I guess I realized it wasn’t really anything big. Missing dinner and making me walk home wasn’t really that big of a deal. Then you didn’t show up the next day, or the next, and a week and a half later you drive up to my house and waltz up to me like you didn’t have the entire town thinking that you died in a car crash.” He stared into the back of Gregg’s head, his eyes boring holes in his friend’s scalp as he awaited a response.

Gregg stared out the small square-shaped bus window. His eyes slightly unfocused, he traced the lines of light left in his vision by the headlights of passing cars. Why hadn’t he showed up?

He remembered saying goodbye to his mother and then driving to the school. As he was about to pull into the parking lot, he had suddenly reversed, cutting backward through traffic and settling on the side of the road. He’d sat there for a very long time. Every time he’d tried to turn the ignition to move back into the lot an image shot through his mind, disrupting what he’d been doing as if it was a knife hacking through a length of rope.

He could see himself staring up at his friend David, all decked out in his stupid blue dress and hat as he spoke about inspirations and why everything worked out for the hardworking student. Looking all stupid and preppy as he tossed his stupid blue hat into the air in unison with the other stupid fucking students. Dressed in his jeans and hoodie, Gregg could see a cascade of stupid blue hats falling like rain from the sky.

   So he hadn’t gone in. He’d driven aimlessly for days, drifting vaguely westward with no real destination in mind. He’d slept in his car, cracking the windows so as not to suffocate as the temperature slowly increased. He’d driven through Hollywood to the West Coast and had seen the sea. He’d stopped for a whole ten minutes, not leaving his car and had just watched the waves run back and forth over the shoreline. Then, he’d turned around and drove the long trip back. He’d arrived back home, not having showered in more than a week and not having eaten in three days and had gone to see his friend.

“My stop,” said David, cutting off Gregg’s mental replay. The man stood gravely, gathering his luggage and hoisting them with obvious effort.

Gregg stood, frailly moving out from the bus aisle, then clasped his friend in a hug that was a little too tight to be comfortable. He released him, “G-good luck with college.” he sputtered. His friend nodded, then wordlessly left the bus. Gregg sat down again at his window seat. He stayed there for a very long time.                      

[mikeshanlon]

he’s all that: chapter two

fandom: it

pairing: reddie (richie tozier/eddie kaspbrak)

word count: 5k

one | on ao3

summary:

Richie smiled smugly, “You’ve got spunk Kaspbrak. I like that.”

“Why don’t you try shutting the fuck up Tozier,” Eddie retorted as the line moved forward, “So what is this, if not some ploy to get me to tutor you? Some sort of dork outreach program? Because I’m not interested.”

—

Or: The one where Richie Tozier has six weeks to get into a relationship and make someone fall for him. Only problem? That someone is the anxiety ridden, goody two shoes Eddie Kaspbrak, and he can’t even stand to be in the same room as Richie.

warnings: there is drug use in that bev/mike/richie are HUGE stoners. also this chapter there is mentions to maggie being an alcoholic. 

a/n: hey! decided to post two weeks in a row just to get the ball rolling (which is why i still dont have all the chapters figured out as promised, my apologies). i'll probably start the every other week thing for next update (so chapter three should be up by march 4th). i would try to do every week but im a college student who has Stuff to do and also makes gifs and im horrible at finishing my writing so, giving myself a realistic deadline that will still hopefully produce quality work. anyways, richie and eddie finally interact this chapter! it's.......................  a bit messy though. and we get to see the rest of the losers club in this one too. 

tag list:  @richietoaster, @wintersember, @howellhxlic, @ed-txzier, @clara-farl3y

After standing in the hallway arguing with Bev for ten minutes, (“I mean really Bevs, fuck!” “You said anyone.” “How do we even know he’s gay?!” “Richie, please.”) Richie resigned himself to the fact that he was going to find some way to charm Eddie. Maybe Beverly would let him borrow that spellbook she bought junior year when she had become obsessed with witchcraft and hexing the patriarchy.

Once school was finally over, Richie dropped off Mike at his farm per usual, ranting about the bet the whole ride over. The farm boy nodded along, but he knew the words ‘told you so’ sat on the tip of his tongue.  

They pulled up to his house, the engine idling so he wouldn’t have to spend time getting it to start again, “Don’t wait up for me tonight if you wanna smoke. Got lotsa research in store,” Richie said as Mike grabbed his backpack and got out of the car.

Mike raised a brow, leaning into the passenger window (which in its broken state always stayed down), “I’m surprised Rich. You never do your homework.”

“Homework shmomwork,” he tapped the end of his cigarette out the window before taking another drag, “Gotta figure out what little ol’ Edward likes. Time for some deep dark internet exploration.”

“Ah, you’re gonna stalk him. Wasting time on social media does sound much more in character,” Mike smiled.

“It’s not a waste Mikey darlin’, a shit ton of preemo dank is on the line.”

The other boy laughed and shook his head, “Godspeed Tozier.”

Richie saluted Mike as he reversed out back to the main road, Bigmouth Strikes Again blasting on the old car radio.

He weaved through the streets filled with kids walking home or trying to find something to do in this shit-hole town. Long afternoons spent at The Aladdin watching the newest releases or aggressively slamming his fingers down on his favorite game at the arcade came to mind; along with going out of his way to bother just about everyone in his path. Richie never really had many friends when he was younger, spending most of his time alone. He was grateful he crossed paths with Bev and Mike, to fate, luck, God if it existed. The universe was rarely kind to him, but finding them was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Plus, the first time he had smoked weed, but that was with them too.

Turning onto his street, Richie pulled up to the unsuspecting two-story white house. It was straight out of a handbook on the American Dream; but the closer one looked, the imperfections started to appear.

The box overflowing with bottles once filled with alcohol next to the recycling bin, which was already too full with more empty bottles. A crooked ‘Home Sweet Home’ sign by the front door. Dying grass, overgrown and conquered with the little weeds Richie used to make wishes on before blowing the seeds into the summer air (I wish for friends. I wish for better parents. I wish to be loved).

He parked the station wagon on the curb, saving the space next to his Mom’s car for his father.

Maggie’s car hadn’t been driven in months (years?), and Richie absently wondered if it would even work anymore. It was nice, a decent heater and it drove well, at least it did when she had bothered to drop him off at school as a kid. Despite her general lack of care for the wellbeing of others, Mrs. Tozier did not drink and drive. Meaning, she didn’t drive at all, as she was drunk off her ass most of the time.

Richie grabbed his books from the backseat and clambered out, fumbling to find his house key among the mess of weird keychains he bought while high.

He didn’t bother stating his presence, even as a pretense, giving up the habit long ago.

Maggie Tozier sat outside, her back facing the screen door in the kitchen. A cigarette rested from her fingertips, and Richie wasn’t sure if she was actually smoking it or just watching it burn. Of course, her other hand gripped a bottle of beer, and a wine cooler sat at her feet.

Richie scoffed and bounded up the stairs to his room, a ‘KEEP OUT’ sign and band posters adorning the door.

It was often said that one’s room reflected who they were as a person, and Richie was no exception. That is, to say, his room was an absolute fucking mess. His bed was never made, and clothes and knick knacks littered the floor (he had already tripped over some beat up sneakers as he walked in). Old mugs, comics, a lava lamp, lotion, and an ashtray Bev had made him in ceramics sat on his bedside table (read: an old wooden apple carton). The only thing that he kept clear was his record player and vinyls at the edge of the bed, which were meticulously organized.

He tossed his notebooks on his desk, alongside stolen pens, his laptop, and his bong. If his parents actually fucking talked to him he would bother to hide his shit, but it didn’t really matter.

Picking up his laptop and its charger, Richie was on his way out again. He could stay home to conduct his research, but he hated the stuffiness and how lifeless the house felt. It wasn’t really even a home, at least not his. Plus, coffee. It was a necessity, especially for the amount of bullshit he’d have to go through just for the tiny brat.

Richie drove to the Starbucks on Main and Belmont, strolling up to barista and ordering his usual: venti quadruple-shot, black. While he often gorged himself on sweets, his need for caffeine could only be sated by the purest form the coffeeshop could offer.

Per usual, the barista gave him a look, “You sure?”

“Listen, I’ve already made a shit ton of horrible decisions today. Trust me, this is not the worst of them,” Richie answered, sliding the cash across the counter

She raised her brows but said nothing else, handing him the change.

He set up shop at a table by the window in the back, away enough from the other patrons. Most of the time Richie threw caution to the wind, but he figured it would suspicious if someone saw him furiously stalking someone who looked like they hadn’t even graduated from middle school.

After retrieving his coffee, opening his MacBook, and plugging his headphones in, Richie scoured Instagram first. ‘Eddie.k’ didn’t post much, mostly some artsy photos, including ones of Bill and Stanley Uris (their other best friend). There were only one or two selfies, much to Richie’s disappointment. Eddie wasn’t actually too bad looking if you ignored his clothes, his hair, his… everything. Freckles dusted his face, concentrated around his little nose, a few on his lips. Cute lips. Cute cheeks. He had the urge to pinch them. But Jesus, that combover. What was he, a balding man in the 80’s?

Other than those pictures, Eddie hadn’t really posted to Instagram in months. He moved onto  his tagged photos. They had some more substance, although Eddie had pretty much only been tagged in pictures by Bill and Stan. It wasn’t like Richie wasn’t in the same boat of having only a few close friends, but at least he hung out with other people.

For the most part, the pictures were pretty normal, the three of them hanging out. Richie couldn’t help but snort at a picture of the three, presumably after a sleepover. They looked exhausted, hair messy, and were brushing their teeth. Pretty mundane, but Eddie had pulled a ridiculous face in the mirror. It was silly, but Richie hadn’t even thought Eddie was capable of making jokes or doing weird shit. The fucker was always uptight, serious even when they had a substitute. Unsurprisingly, Eddie did not appreciate the post.

eddie.k: literally stan delete this!!!!!!

stantheman: @eddie.k, sorry sweatie (:

Richie grinned and continued to scroll, stopping at a picture of Eddie lying down on the grass, laughing. He wore a red tracksuit, the one students wore to P.E. when the bitter chill of autumn came to Derry. His hair must’ve been a little sweaty, because it was curling up into a messy halo around his grinning face. Richie wanted to know this Eddie, see him curl up laughing, but he knew that would never happen.

He perused their profiles for a while before growing bored, downing a third of his coffee before moving on. Except Eddie didn’t seem to have a Twitter, or a Snapchat. A quick google search of his name only came up with a few images and… a Facebook profile?

Richie prayed that it was an old one Eddie had never deleted, but after the page loaded he saw that the most recent status was made last night.

“Oh my fucking god,” he whispered to himself.

Eddie’s profile picture made him look particularly child-like, a weird picture of him pointing to the camera like he was cool, even though the same hand had a clunky old watch wrapped around it. His header picture displayed the quote ‘there is bravery in being soft’.

Richie snorted, “Yeah, a soft fucking dick!”

Another patron scoffed at his fowl mouth, and he shot her a smug grin.

Eddie only had 40 friends on the site, which consisted of Bill, Stan, some of the other nerds at Derry High, and his mother and her friends. It wasn’t like someone’s Facebook friends actually mattered, especially because only middle aged mothers who posted minion memes about their alcoholism used it anymore, but it was still kinda pitiful.

His posts were generally uninteresting, stuff like ‘super nervous for the math test’, or ‘soooooooooooo bored ://///’. Otherwise, he mostly just shared pictures of cute dogs and DIY videos.

It was hard to find any useful information on Eddie, since he obviously lied a lot. Not in the way of bragging, or saying that he did things he didn’t (like Richie did). But there were comments from Mrs. Kaspbrak’s friends calling him a lady killer, or a few posts calling Carly Rae Jepsen cute (please, Run Away With Me is the one of gayest songs of all time). Eddie was closeted, and Richie knew from experience that someone could never really be themselves around others if they weren’t out.

What his profile lacked in useable information, it more than made up with blackmail material.

Take, for instance, little Eddie in possibly the gayest fucking hat imaginable.

He screeched as he saw the picture of the eleven year old, a white fedora-bucket hat hybrid sitting atop his tiny head, before breaking out into a full on wheeze. Richie was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe, and then he thought about Eddie using his inhaler in that gay ass hat and laughed even harder.

The other customers began to stare, some concerned, and others pissed off at the disturbance.

Once he had collected himself somewhat, Richie sent a screenshot to the group chat.

the losers

bev: oh my fucking G O D

richie: I CANT FUCKIN BREATHE ELRNKKLNERG

richie: LIKE F U C K !!! KLJKLGRJKLLEJK

richie: LOOK AT HIS GAY HAT

richie: LIKE, IT’S GAYER THAN WEARING NOTHING BUT A PRIDE FLAG AND GLITTER

richie: HE LOOKS LIKE A TWINKY SKIPPER

richie: HOW IS THAT HAT MORE GAY THAN EVERY SINGLE ONE RYAN EVANS WORE IN THE ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL FRANCHISE COMBINED

bev: i’m muting you

mike: me too

mike: also that hat isn’t that bad

“‘Not that bad?!’” Richie squawked, not that he’d be able to hear him.

(Really, Richie had no authority on the subject. He still donned the occasional Hawaiian shirt over his tees).

He refreshed Eddie’s profile, seeing that he had made a new status.

Eddie Kaspbrak: big night friday, nervous but excited !!!!

Richie raised his brows in intrigue, seeing that Bill and a handful of other people liked the status. What was going on Friday?

He checked to see if Bill had posted anything, if Eddie was going somewhere, chances were Bill was too.

Bill Denbrough: almost the weekend, finally ready to let loose

Seriously, it would’ve been so much easier if Bill was the guy Richie had to woo. Kid was probably fucking nervous for a party, a place where you threw caution to the wind and had a good time. Still, he made a mental note about finding out what their Friday plans were.

Richie sighed, taking another swig of his coffee, “God, what a fucking loser.”

Suddenly, his headphones were being tugged out of his ear by an angry middle-aged woman with short-layered hair and eye bags.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Richie glared, snatching back his headphones.

The woman returned the look, putting her hands on her hips, “Don’t you have respect for the other customers?!”

“Sweetheart, I don’t have respect for myself, let alone some PTA moms-- like the post-divorce haircut by the way.”

Apparently, his finger guns did not soften the blow, because the lady started to scream at him.

And, apparently, this lady was also the manager, and was pushing him out the door.

So great, Eddie and his dumb gay hat got him banned from Starbucks.

Even though he was wounded from Eddie’s betrayal, (because Richie getting kicked out was definitely not his fault-- it was Eddie’s homosexual headwear. An anthropomorphic device of chaos, that Eddie owned, so, yeah, it was Kaspbrak’s fucking fault.) Richie still skipped smoking on Thursday to spend his lunch with the tiny fuck.

Obviously, they hadn’t made plans to do so, but Richie had, and he really couldn’t delay starting the bet. There was a lot on the line.

So, after getting out of econ (turning in an unstudied for but probably aced quiz), and throwing his shit in his locker, Richie detoured to the cafeteria.

The place was a fucking mess, and it reminded Richie just why he avoided the place. It was pure chaos, loud and overwhelming, a million things to get distracted by. Freshman with their stupid rolling backpacks kept whizzing by, making Richie trip or get his feet ran over. The tables were already filled, the honor roll kids, the partiers, Gretta and her gang. Fucking cliches.

He got in line, picking up a tray and proceeding to fiddle with the buttons at the cuff of his black and white flannel; trying to tune out the buzz of conversation. It was weird, at parties he thrived on the noise and disorder, but here all it was doing was fucking with his ADHD.

Richie drummed a beat onto his tray as the line moved forward and picked the most edible looking slop from the menu. The lunch lady glowered at him as he reached for his money only to realize he had put it in the other pocket, fumbling to put the bills and coins on the counter.  

As she put the money in the register, Richie looked around the room, checking to see where Eddie was sitting. He was sat near one of the exits, carefully taking out his lunch and swinging his legs. And he was alone. Perfect.

“Kid, do you want a receipt or not?” the lunch lady snapped from across from him.

Richie blinked back into focus, “Uh, sure, sorry.”

She sighed and printed out the receipt, slamming it down on the tray, “Next!”

Grabbing his tray, Richie plucked up some plastic cutlery and made his way through the sea of students to Eddie Kaspbrak. He had to twist and lift his tray a bit, but eventually the crowds started to part a bit. A chorus of whispers started to erupt. Stupid small town.

“Is that Richie Tozier?”

“I think, but doesn’t he always get high with his stoner friends?”

“What is he doing here?”

“God, he’s so hot.”

Richie smirked, sending a wink at the girl’s praise before sitting across from Eddie. He watched for a moment as the boy continued to focus on on unpacking his utensils and napkins before clearing his throat.

Eddie’s eyes snapped up from his lunchbox, widening when he saw Richie.

“What the fuck?” It was meant to be a whisper to himself, but Eddie’s voice was louder than expected.

Richie grinned at the blushing boy, “Well, hello to you to Eds.”

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie snapped, returning to his food.

Richie waited for him to say something else, at least fucking look at him, but the little fuck kept his eyes glued to his grapes, nails aggressively ripping the fruit from their stems.

“Okay,” he started, taking a sip of his apple juice, “So, you may be wondering why I’m sitting with you—“

Eddie interrupted, annoyance apparent in every fiber of his being, “Is this gonna be quick or not?”

“I’m hoping it’s not quick, although given how hot I am it’s difficult for people to control themselves.”

A long, deep sigh came from Eddie’s (cute, soft) lips. Eddie grabbed at Richie’s hands, flipping them over so that the palms faced upwards.

“Wow, a bit forward, but I’m liking your style Kaspbrak,” Richie winked.

Eddie rolled his eyes and proceed to take out hand sanitizer from his fanny pack, squirting the floral scented product into Richie’s hands.

Honestly, what the fuck?

He must’ve sent the same message to Eddie with his face, because Eddie said, “You obviously aren’t gonna leave me the fuck alone, and if you’re gonna be in my space, you need to be clean.”

Richie raised a brow at this but rubbed the hand sanitizer into his hands anyways.

Jesus Christ, what a weird, defensive little bitch.

Eddie watched with focused eyes, and only spoke when Richie was finished.

“Continue.”

It took a moment for Richie to gain his bearings once more. This mission seemed dead on arrival, but he had to keep trying anyways.

“So, Eddie…” Richie trailed off, twirling the pasta on his plate before his eyes lit up, “Eddie Spaghetti, Eduardo, what’s up?”

Eddie scowled, “That’s not my fucking name!” he squeaked, “And ‘what’s up?’ I mean, we’ve barely even talked before. You think I’m just gonna put up with this because you’re Richie Tozier? I swear to god, if this is some fucking bullying thing...”

Around them, people began to stare and eavesdrop at the sound of Eddie yelling. Fucking perfect.

Richie blinked back at the boy across from him, now red in the face for a different reason, “Calm down, I’m just trying to get to know you.”

“Fat fucking chance.”

Okay, wow. Richie had more work cut out for him than expected. He thought of what to say next as he watched Eddie finish his grapes.

“This isn’t, like, a joke,” (it wasn’t real either), “I just wanna hang out.”

“Hang out?” Eddie’s chocolate brown eyes met Richie’s, his tone mocking.

Richie nodded, “Yeah, ya know, kick it with the homies. Make out a little if you’re down. Friend stuff.”

Eddie’s jaw clenched, “You’re unbelievable. Just fucking unbe— you know, how can you even say any of that shit? How can we be ‘homies’ if we’ve never ‘hung out’ before? And don’t want to-- I’m not-- you don’t know me!”

There was something underlying in Eddie’s voice as he snapped, wavering at the end. Richie, like most things in life, was completely and utterly fucking up.

“Well then, how about we fix that?” Richie leaned forward, “I was wondering if maybe you’d wanna—“

Abruptly, Eddie stood up, grabbing his food and walked off, making his way towards the cafeteria line where Bill and Stan were paying for their lunch.

Richie looked around at all the watching faces, some snickering and others as shocked as he was.

“...Embarrass me horribly in front of all these people.”

He took a deep breath, and shoved some spaghetti in his mouth, his frown growing larger at the disgusting taste. Richie was often considered a wild card, but this was when routine was a good thing. He should’ve just avoided this and sparked up with Bev and Mike.

Actually, he was going to do just that. There was still some left in lunch, and no reason for him to stay in the cafeteria if Eddie was giving him the cold shoulder. More like a giant fucking iceberg but still, pointless. Besides, he really needed to get high now. Eddie ruined his whole mood and pissed him the fuck off.

Richie got up and tossed out the inedible garbage before going to the usual spot, finger itching for a joint.

He used his foot to push open the door, which would’ve been cool, except with his clumsiness and horrible luck he tripped forward, narrowly avoiding falling down the steps and face planting by grabbing the railing.

As Richie caught his breath and stabilized himself, he could hear his friends laughing.

“Back so soon?” Bev smirked knowingly, taking a drag.

Richie huffed, “Ha ha. Let’s yuck it up for my misfortune,” he grabbed her joint and took a long hit, “This fucking kid, Bev. I don’t think I can do this!”

“As in, you’re morally incapable of leading him on?” Mike asked hopefully.

“Please, let’s be realistic here Mikey. No, that kid is like, the fuckin devil incarnate. Shithead is fucking crazy!” Richie paced, smoking from the joint.

Bev laughed, “What makes you say that?”

“Why don’t ya ask the whole fucking school?” Richie snapped, though the anger wasn’t directed at her, “They were watching it all go down. If that wheezy asshole ruins my reputation—“

“What reputation?” Mike interjected.

Richie rolled his eyes and flipped him off.

Another voice spoke up, “I dunno, Richie’s pretty well known. I like him well enough.”

Richie whirled around, just noticing a new face among the usual group, Ben Hanscom.

The eternal new kid, since no one ever moved to ass backwards Derry, was not someone he’d expect to be behind the art building. Maybe reciting poetry or some shit, but not blazing. Ben was sweet and genuine, albeit a little shy. He was no longer the chubby kid he once was, more stocky and muscular now. They weren’t too close, as the tawny haired boy spent more time with Mike and Bev, and if not them, the other dorks (like Eddie and his friends). But either way, dude was pretty chill. Richie just didn’t really want him there mid-meltdown.

“Haystack?! You smoke?!” he whistled, “Ho-ly shit, who woulda thought!”

Ben shook his head, “Uh, no I don’t. Mike and I just had to study for history next block.”

His deep brown eyes flitted to Beverly, who had now stolen back her joint and was playing with the key that hung from her neck. Yeah, studying was the only reason. Not Ben’s excruciatingly obvious crush on the red head.

“We would’ve just gone to the library, but Bev and I made a bet about if you’d be successful or not today,” Mike said.

Richie gasped, “Betting on my failure? Fuck you guys, Benny Boy is my new best friend.”

“I didn’t sign up for that.”

“Hey, I bet on you succeeding,” Mike put his hands up in surrender, “She’s the one who thought you’d screw it up.”

“And I was right. Pay up,” Bev smiled, holding out her palm.

Mike dropped a candy bar in it with a deep sigh. She tore open the wrapping, taking a savage bite of the chocolatey sweet.

“I think you have a gambling problem,” Mike quipped.

Bev shrugged, “Not a problem if I keep winning.”

She grinned, her teeth covered in chocolate and spit. Gross. Ben still looked enraptured. Double gross.

“Anyways, can we focus on the important bet, and the fact that this fuck is impossible! Seriously, Bev, babygirl, pick anyone else!” Richie whined, plopping his bony ass on the cement.

“First off, don’t call me ‘babygirl’,” she flicked the ash off the end of the joint at him, “Second, the deal was anyone. You either woo him or you don’t.”

Richie opened his mouth to complain again but Ben beat him to it.

“I’m sorry, but what are we talking about?”

The other three looked at each other in panic. Ben was friends with Eddie, there was no way he could find out what was going on. The whole thing would be ruined before it started.

“Nothin!” Richie squeaked, “Just uh… bet that I couldn’t ace a group project. I usually just bullshit a lot of that stuff and leave it up to the others if I can. Partner’s just a little… high strung.”

Bev groaned and Mike sighed. A horrible fucking lie. Richie was already trying to formulate a better one in his head.

Ben smiled, “That’s nice, a wholesome, supportive bet. But you really should just communicate with your partner. They might be nervous because of your history is all.”

Richie let out a sound of relief before realizing Ben’s advice could actually be helpful.

“Sure, but I already tried to talk to him and it didn’t go well,” he explained.

Bev and Mike raised their brows, catching on.

“Well, how did you talk to him?” Ben asked, “Was it an ambush or a friendly conversation?

Bev snorted, “Ambush, knowing Richie. He doesn’t do friendly conversations.”

“Maybe with you, because you’re on my ass all the time,” Richie shot back, “But uh, she’s right. Shouldn’t matter though, everyone knows that’s how Tough Guy Tozier does his business.”

Mike groaned, “Please don’t call yourself that ever again.”

“You’re just coming on too strong. You have to consider what he likes, what he wants. A good partnership comes with compromise and communication,” Ben nodded sagely.

Richie ruffled his hair, putting on his trusty British voice, “Thank you Advisor Hanscom. Your wisdom is greatly appreciated.”

Ben smiled awkwardly, his eyes going to Bev once again, “Course.”

He took the joint from Bev, inhaling the musty smoke and blowing it out his nostrils, the burning sensation familiar and welcome.

“And maybe, you should talk to him sober next time,” Mike suggested.

Richie laughed, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

By the time the final bell rang, he was still feeling defeated and unsure of his next move. Sure, he’d have to dial back his trashmouth charm, try to seem actually invested in Eddie but… that wasn’t going to happen if the brat never talked to him again. Richie had to find a way to break the tension between them, start fresh.

He sulked to his locker, pulling out his shit from the looming mess. Loose binder paper and pencils fell onto the ground, and Richie just wanted to bang his head against the wall of metal. Also, go home and smoke while playing video games but, mostly, hit his head repeatedly. Maybe he’d lose enough brain cells to forget the entire day.

After a few moments of excessive cursing, Richie grabbed what he needed and got everything that fell back into the locker. He noticed a new post it on the door just before he closed it.

Don’t give up :) <3 - mike

Richie smiled, and slammed the locker shut with a resounding clang. With a little stretch and a fix of his glasses, he strolled through the halls, making his way to the parking lot to wait for Mike.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bill and Stan loitering around the halls as well, engaged in (an undoubtedly boring) conversation.

He remembered Bill and Eddie’s facebook status’ about exciting plans for tomorrow night and decided he should investigate.

“Billiam! Staniel!” Richie called as he approached them, “What’s up?”

The two stopped talking and looked up, Bill smiling while Stan rolled his eyes.

“H-hey, Richie,” Bill waved.  Richie noted that his stutter had gotten a lot better just over the past year. The two of them had shared a few classes when they were juniors and were pretty friendly with one another. At least compared to his relationship with Eddie and Stan, who also seemed to hate him for no reason.

Speaking of, the prim and proper boy was glaring at him, “Didn’t get enough of being a nuisance at lunch?”

Richie raised a brow, “Whatever do you mean?”

Stan scoffed, and opened his mouth to respond, but Bill put a hand on his shoulder, “N-nothing. Stan’s just… on edge. What’s up w-with you?”

“Not much, just trying to figure out what my plans are for tomorrow,” Richie shrugged, “Got any suggestions?”

“The only thing on your mind is where to party? Not surprised,” Stan quipped.

Richie shoved his hands in his pockets, biting his tongue. Snapping at Eddie was what caused his whole operation to go south, and he couldn’t mess up this second chance.

Bill ignored the tension between them, “Well, usually w-we don’t do t-t-too m-much, but it’s s-senior year. Probably going to Peter Gordon's party.”

“That kid’s an ass.”

“Coming from you, that’s rich,” Stan commented, his arms crossed.

His grinned, “Well, yeah, I am Rich.”

Stan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, he is, but he’s also s-super wealthy,” Bill avoided another ‘rich’ pun, “Meaning he’ll h-h-ave q-q-quality shit.”

Richie beamed, “Ah, I get it. You’re Robin Hood-ing that fuck. I like your style Billy Boy.”

He clapped Bill on the shoulder, and the other boy blushed slightly, “W-well, it wasn’t j-just my idea. Eddie and Stan helped.”

“Eddie? He’s coming with you guys?”

Bill shook his head, “N-no. He was supposed to, b-b-but that art thing came up so he h-had to cancel.”

“Art thing?” Richie asked, suddenly intrigued. This was the information he wanted.

“Yeah,” Bill nodded, “It’s this show that happens every month. At Jester Theatre. He always goes.”

Stan not so subtly elbowed Bill in the ribs, hissing at him to shut up.

“W-what?!”

“Yeah, what’s got your steamed panties in a twist Uris?” Richie smirked.

Stan sent him a scowl, “You know very well Tozier. Eddie told us all about what you did at lunch. Back the fuck off.”

“S-stan, I don’t think he meant--”

“No, Bill, he did,” Stan interrupted, “I don’t know what your game is, but if you hurt him…”

Richie put his hands up in surrender, “Hey, I’m not going to hurt him. He seems pretty strong anyways. I mean no harm.”

Stan didn’t look convinced at all. Fair enough.

The air between the two was tense, but Bill broke it by clearing his throat, “So, uh, will w-we see you at the p-p-party?”

Richie shook his head ‘no’, “Probably not. I have some more sophisticated plans lined up.”

a/n: hope you liked it! next chapter is p much all richie and eddie so get excited. if you enjoyed i would love hearing your feedback

oh and this is eddie’s gay hat if you were curious

[shirlleycoyle]

Did Zack Snyder Draw A Picture of Batman Going Down on Catwoman? An Investigation

Over the weekend, director Zack Snyder—a man who Mr. Magoo'd his way into having control over the cinematic presentation of DC Comics for many years and is an avowed fan of Batman—posted an image of the Dark Knight performing cunnilingus on Catwoman. Since that time, I have not known peace. I must know who drew it.

Like the two women at the counter of the coffee shop where I bought the iced coffee that was necessary to begin this investigation, I am so desensitized to pornography involving cartoon characters that at first this image barely registered. The necessary context is that, apparently  in response to the ongoing conversation about DC's decree that Batman canonically doesn't eat pussy, Snyder, who once directed a movie called Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and was for a long time as in control as anyone else was of DC lore, posted a drawing of Batman going down on Catwoman. He captioned it "canon." I guess!

As time went on, theories began to emerge about who drew the image. Snyder fans—and to be clear, he is a divisive figure in the multiple fandoms oriented toward and revolving around various DC brands—propose that he, personally, drew it. A major aspect of this theory is that Snyder didn't provide any information about the image when he posted it, at all. The image doesn't even have a signature. Running it through a reverse image search yields nothing from before Snyder posted it. The drawing seems to have appeared from the ether.

Representatives for Snyder didn't respond to requests for comment, leaving Motherboard unable to put the question of whether he drew this image of Batman satisfying his longtime love interest and occasional fiancé with his own hand. A Motherboard review of footage from the DVD extras of Watchmen—a movie directed by Snyder that I definitely saw in theaters and remember absolutely none of—suggests that Snyder is a talented draughtsman, and may well be capable of having drawn this image. We cannot definitively establish, though, whether or not he did so by putting the question directly to him, and so had to turn elsewhere in search of answers. 

Logically, there are only so many options here. It's possible that, as some fans are beginning to think, Snyder drew it himself; it's also possible, though, that it's a panel from an existing comic book or a piece of fan art, whether preexisting or commissioned personally by Snyder.  Roy T. Cook, a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota who specializes in the aesthetics of popular art, told Motherboard that it seems unlikely that it comes from something DC published.

"If this were from a comic, it would certainly be well known given its content, and hence would have been identified by fans or scholars by now," Cook said. "So it’s almost certainly a custom piece of art."

In theory this would narrow things down some, but the sheer ubiquity of Batman-related pornography means that there are still too many images to anyone to sift through. On the pornographic website Rule 34—named for the humorous "rule," which functions with the force and power of a basic law of physics, that anything that exists will also have porn of it on the internet—there are more than 400 images with both the tags "Catwoman" and "Batman." The image Snyder posted can be found there, but was only added after he tweeted it, and notes Snyder's tweet as the original source. It is not hard at all to find an image of Batman eating out Catwoman. Finding one that no one has ever seen before is much harder.

It's possible to inferentially establish that this image is unique to Snyder, whether as something he commissioned or as something he had unique access to and chose to put on the internet. The question consuming many fans, though, is the one of whether he personally drew it. Experts in comic book art doubt that he did. Both of the comic-art brokers that responded to Motherboard's requests for comment said that they definitely don't think Snyder drew it. Details noted about the art style offer food for thought.

"I would say that [Frank] Miller is most certainly an influence/inspiration for the style of the image Snyder tweeted. Dark Knight Returns and all. Gritty stuff," Douglas Gillock, vice-president of the comic art brokerage ComicLink, said. (He was referring to the writer/artist whose mid-80s Batman comics set the tone for all the many, many grim and bleak interpretations of the billionaire who does kung-fu at muggers that have dominated pop culture for decades. Miller's Batman comics have been critiqued as fascistic but could also be read as brilliant parodies of fascistic excess; complicating the question is Miller's later-career turn toward things like a comic where Batman murdered Muslims to avenge 9/11, which was rejected by DC and subsequently repackaged as Holy Terror, a comic where a thinly-veiled Batman stand-in murdered Muslims.)  "I would also say that I also see some David Mazzucchelli here. He was an artist that was also influenced by Miller. He did the art on the Batman: Year One run, which Miller wrote. Pretty sure that is where that particular iteration of Catwoman's costume came from in the modern era too. A similar version was used for the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm Batman animated series."

Gillock's interpretations seem correct. Notably, the outfit that Catwoman is wearing in the image that Snyder tweeted is purple—the color used in most Miller versions of the character—while many popular depictions of the character have her wearing black. It also features cat ears, which not all of her costumes have; this design was favored by Miller and used not only in Year One, but in a special wedding issue of Batman written by Tom King—a renowned comic book writer who spent much of his run on Batman making it canonical that Batman and Catwoman fall in love and get married with the insistent energy of a Livejournal poster embroiled in a shipwar—and featuring a Miller drawing of Catwoman wearing this exact costume. 

Snyder's Miller fandom cannot be overstated. He directed 300, based on the Miller graphic novel. He recreated scenes from The Dark Knight Returns in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in exactingly specific detail, even where it made no sense to do so. Like Miller, Snyder has used his work to promote and exult in vaguely fascist iconography. (Unlike Miller, for Snyder the appeal seems to be mostly aesthetic.) Snyder's fandom for Miller is so intense and specific  that the details in the shading, the coloring, and the costumes depicted in the image of Batman face down in Catwoman's super soaker pussy stand out as ones a fan steeped in Miller's work would not only appreciate, but commission or create, if they were able to. Especially on Selina's legs and head, the specific way that the image is shaded looks a lot like the way that Miller draws Catwoman. In both Snyder's tweet and the image from King's Batman, the shading on Catwoman's suit consists of black swirls and circles. (Miller's image is a lot more stylized than what Snyder posted, though, with Catwoman's spine curving exaggeratedly, like an actual cat's would.)

It should be noted that one thing we know about Snyder is that he's a passable artist, at least from the storyboards he's released for a few of his films. According to a profile in Bloomberg, he studied painting for a year before transferring to film school. It's difficult to tell, but when I look at this blurry screenshot of one of Snyder's sketchbooks where he shows off a drawing he did of Watchmen's Silk Spectre kicking a Nazi in the back of the head, it kinda looks like the same general body proportions as Catwoman as she's getting eaten out by Batman. In particular, both Silk Spectre and Catwoman have pretty sturdy thighs, though comparing a fully colored and inked image to a sketch is not going to yield conclusive results.

Image Source: League of Mayhem

DC, several art history professors, noted Snyder enthusiast Armond White, and Tom King did not respond to requests for comment. In absence of their authoritative input, as well as Snyder's, it seems Motherboard will never know for sure whether Zack Snyder spent the weekend drawing Batman eating box. But my friend and film critic Nadine Smith pointed out something important to me as I discussed this mystery with her: With any other director, this wouldn't even be a question. Snyder's fandom for comics, which somehow is for the exact opposite things about the genre that I admire, is nevertheless deep and powerful to the extent that he forced a major studio to release a four-hour uncut version of the Justice League fanfiction he filmed at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. He's always expected to do the most, and could not surprise anyone by doing anything that demonstrated the depth of his passion.

"If anyone else posted it, we would probably assume they just found some fanart," Smith told me. "But like, Snyder would."

Did Zack Snyder Draw A Picture of Batman Going Down on Catwoman? An Investigation syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[childoftimeandmagic]

Outlander Printshop AU Klaroline AU Day 1

This is my first time doing Klaroline AU Week. I hope you enjoy this!

“I can’t bear the thought of not being here for your wedding or holding your hand through your first pregnancy,” Caroline carefully wiped at her eyes, she knew if she started crying she would never stop.

“He gave you to me,” Brianna said though her voice was warbling as their lips trembled, “now I have to give you back mama.”

“You are my life. I’m so proud of you, and thank you for the gifts,” she said taking Brianna into her arms and holding them tight, “alright enough crying if this is our last weekend together we’re not going to spend it crying.

The two women went out to the movies and did some simple shopping since her ‘father’ was dead the house fell to her. Caroline wanted them to be as well off as she could secure for her in Boston. Taking many moments to hold Bri’s hand tightly she was glad for the day with her daughter. While she was as blonde as possible, her daughter’s hair was more a dirty golden blonde. The spitting image of her father.

Later that night as the fairy lights twinkled around them in their living room she sorted her suitcase. It was terrifying thinking that after twenty years she was going to see him again. After making sure her attire and her clothes were sorted for the period, she kissed her girls on the head and bid them goodnight. The years of costumes and school plays had paid off. She crafted a pretty good version for the style in just over two days. With her addition of many hidden pockets and panels, she could hide the medicine, and other bits and pieces within her dress.

Clearing her throat, she took a step towards her vanity and frowned at her reflection. She had never really cared how she looked, though she kept her appearance groomed and professional. Thinking about going back to 1766 and him though made her suddenly self-conscious. While not obvious the gray in her hair was much more prominent than she wanted to admit. Looking at her complexion and the slight inclusion of her crow’s feet and her laugh lines her skin was clear and even.

Taking the bottle of L’Oréal, she’d bought earlier in the day she went about the process of dying the grays out of her head. Smiling to herself after she was finished and she’d blown dried her hair she looked at the small photo album that sat on her bedside table. It was filled with photos of Brianna. Picking it up she started to flip through it slowly as she looked at the smiles, tears, and laughter she had documented so thoroughly over the years. The last photo in the album was her high school graduation. Making a snap decision to bring it back in time with her, she looked around the room that she had spent the last twenty years trying to make a home.

The next morning came early and as she walked downstairs she heard Julia gasp and tucked a strand behind her ears. Smiling at her two daughters she finished her descent down the stairs towards the door where her suitcase was waiting for her.

“Are you sure that we can’t come with you?” Brianna asked her eyes full of tears, as she tried to fight her tears off with the sheer force of will.

 “Oh Bri, I have done this trip twice without my choice and it was heartbreaking and frustrating, I want to do this one peacefully and if you come with me, I fear I wouldn’t be able to go.” Caroline took her daughter’s face in her hands and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

 “Mum, you dyed your hair?” Brianna asked stepping up next to her mother to give her a hug of her own.

 “I did, I thought that maybe it would give me more confidence, though I fear I just look foolish…” she pushed another strand behind her other ear anxiously looking at her girls.

 “Well I think that Nik will be happy to see you regardless of your hair color,” Bri mumbled her face against her mother’s collarbone as she hugged her mother tightly, trying desperately to memorize her unique mix of perfume and soap.

“Darlings the taxi is going to leave soon, I have to go,” she mumbled her heartbreaking as she looked down at her two lovely daughters. “I can’t wait to tell your father all about you,” she said smoothing their hair.

“Remember to keep your grades up, and mind your Uncle Joe-Oh! I almost forgot, here is a letter explaining everything and here is my letter of resignation from the hospital. Joe will know what to do with both,” she said softly looking at her daughter memorizing her face though she was bringing the small photo album with her. As she handed off her suitcase to the cab driver she turned one last time to her daughter and pulled her into a tight hug. After pulling back she placed another

While her outfit held up in the period, the color was a bit ostentatious. She had woken up amid the stones, her topaz necklace missing as she looked around the familiar rowan trees. The walk to Inverness was half a day and the rain gratefully held off. As she had walked through Inverness she shuddered at how changed it was from the town she had known in the 1740s or the 1940s. After finding the coach station she booked her seat on the next coach to Edinburgh. The coach ride took four days and three nights. Caroline took the quiet as a chance to daydream letting her mind wash over memories she’d locked away for twenty years.

Stepping off the coach at the edge of the Royal Mile, she gratefully tipped the stagehand as he helped her out of the coach. Deeper into the city, her boots clicking on the wet cobblestone she moved through the crowds with a sense of purpose. Slipping quietly into the hustle and bustle her nosey companions left behind. Taking a moment to take a deep breath and calm the nerves that were running wild through her mind. Spotting a clear window pane, she tried to tame her curls which had started to come undone during her travel. Sighing she again fretted over her appearance worried that she wasn’t the same woman he’d said goodbye too.

Caroline indulged another light moment of panic before taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves, she hadn’t come all this way to just give up. No, he was alive and more importantly only a few thousand yards away. Looking around as she walked up the royal mile her eyes searching for a sign of his print shop. Biting her lip, she paused and tapped a young lad on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Henrik Mikael’s print shop, do you know of it?” she asked gently her eyes searching the youthful face.

“Aye it’s just down Carfax Close,” the young lad pointed towards an ally just off the main road. Nodding her head in thanks she walked in the indicated direction turning the corner into the Close.

There in front of her was a plain white sign hanging at the base of a simple staircase, H. Mikael Printer and Book Seller. Walking closer she reached out and touched the letters as though they would fade away like a cruel dream. Once again stealing her nerve she took the stairs at a slow and steady pace. Opening the door, the bell above her head jingling. Closing the door firmly Caroline took another deep breath as she stepped into the store. The store was empty upon first glance until she heard a throat clearing.

“Marcel is that you?” his voice hadn’t changed at all in twenty years. He didn’t turn around as he spoke his attention on whatever he was working on. Walking over to the edge of the room she looked down and saw the back of him bending over the printing press. His golden hair tied back with a bright green ribbon.

“It’s not Kol,” her voice sounded higher than normal as she tried to clear her throat, “it’s me -Caroline.”

As he turned to look up at her, his gray eyes the perfect combination of blue and green wide. His Viking cheekbones still defined and sharp. The slight smirk of a neutral lip turning quickly to one of shock. He looked terrified as though he thought her a ghost. He focused on her and in realizing that she was in fact real, he felt his wits leave him. Caroline watched in shock and panic as Niklaus went from conscious to unconscious very quickly his whole-body concaving as he toppled over his head cracking off the side of the ale pot.

Rushing down the stairs she quickly checked for blood or obvious injuries. Taking his head in her hands she laid it in her lap and smoothed his hair. Sitting on the floor of his print shop his head in her lap she smiled as she remembered a similar moment when their roles had been reversed. When she had fainted on their wedding night. She was brought out of memory by the sounds of him coming too.

“That bad?” She asked her bright blue eyes sparkling with untold mischief as she looked down at him. Repeating the words, he’d spoken on their wedding night.

“That bad and worse, Sassenach,” he murmured, his mouth twitching with the faint hint of a smirk. 

“God in heaven! You are real,” he sat up smoothing her hair as he pulled her close to him and buried his hand in her blonde curls. Caroline felt the dam she’d built over the years burst as tears started to pour and yet she also started to laugh.

 “I’m just as real as you or anyone else,” she murmured her hands locked around his neck bringing herself as close to him as was possible through the corset and petticoats.

 Klaus’ face was wet as he looked down at his Caroline. Tears he thought long since dried flowed fresh as he held her in his arms.

“It doesn’t feel quite real,” she whispered her eyes bright and her cheeks wet.

[27koi]

i dont even know how to preface this

so i matched with this guy on tinder and we hit it off well so we exchanged our snapchats and theres a lull in the conversation so i bring up thifting and send him various images of my finds hold on i gotta email myself an image so you can see what this is over

before this narrative goes any further, i was hanging out with my friend on the day this initial conversation took place (a monday) and i sent this pic while i was hanging out with my friend after initially thrifting a precious moments mug (because the thrift store has a deal where items are half price on mondays) here is the thing i sent him (using a photo from the internet so this doesnt come up on a reverse google image search) (but its an authentic signed ron lee clown statue from 1980):

alright now we can continue with the proper backstory and photo so i send him this and he says “i want that” followed by “ill pay you for it [...] and i’ll suck your dick” (this is not verbatim but its the general point of his messages) well i thought it was funny and so did my friend so we decided to go back to the store and buy it (the tag said $10.99 but i paid like $6 something) so we did and i put it in my car and thought it wouldnt be brought up again because its a fuckin funny ha ha clown figure and i thought he was joking about giving me $11 and schloppy toppy for a clown statue but alas this was not the case i forgot about it until last night when he messaged me that he WENT TO THE STORE TO FIND THAT IT WAS NOT THERE (because duh i bought it) idek if he went to the right store but i told him the reason it wasnt there was because i bought it (because duh i bought it) and then he sends me something like “so u want me to suck ur dick then 😏” and i was a bit taken aback because 1. i thought it was a joke, 2. my entire life i have been asexual pretty much and sex stuff pertaining to me makes me feel kinda gross due to personal reasons and 3. see image below

sooeoeoeoe i showed my mom the statue (she hates it) but if this dude keeps sealioning me for reasons why i bought it i am going to keep it idek why i matched with him and snapped him in the first place and bought the statue i literally only have eyes for one (1) man and he explicitly said he would suck my dick and give me $11 for the statue and i bought the statue with the intended purpose of giving to him literally what the fuck did i think was going to happen?????

dont be dumb and gay

[mrswhozeewhatsis]

Downtown Letdown

A/N: This is my second fic for the 2017 Louden Swain SPN Mini Bang, and is for one of my favorite songs. I first heard this song when they played it at ChiCon 2015, and I fell in love with it right away. I struggled to get this fic to line up with the central themes of the song, but I hope you all agree it’s at least close. Special thanks to the best betas in the world, @littlegreenplasticsoldier and @manawhaat without whom my fics would not be nearly as legible. These two women inspire me with every word they write and push me to be better.

Summary: Dean dealing with his feelings while he’s with Lisa.

Pairing: I guess Dean and Lisa, but it’s not the focus.

Warnings: Angst, I guess. I don’t expect anyone to need tissues.

Word count: 1815 words

Dean wakes up to a bright streak of sunlight peeking through Lisa’s bedroom curtains. Usually, he fixes the curtains before he goes to bed for exactly this reason, but last night he was a little too out of it to care. Yesterday was November 2nd. It’s been more than 25 years since his mother died, but the day still creeps up on him. It was almost noon before he realized what day it was. He doesn’t remember much of the day after that. To be fair, he’s had other things on his mind the past few months.

Sam.

Dean’s head pounds with the hangover he knows he deserves, his heartbeat loud in his ears, his gut still twisted with grief. Lisa tried to make him feel better last night and he just snapped at her. The pie was store-bought, not that it mattered. It had mattered, but there was no good reason for it.

The sunbeam has shifted, now, and is blinding the ever-loving hell out of him. He turns over to get away from it, hoping Lisa is still asleep. He’s not ready to face the disappointment and misery in her eyes. It would be merely a reflection of what he’s feeling, but it shows he should be doing a better job of hiding it from her. She doesn’t deserve it.

Right now, Lisa’s face looks peaceful and happy in the golden light. Much different to when the tears well up in her eyes as Dean rages when he’s drunk with grief. Or when he wakes her with one of his nightmares. Or when he doesn’t understand why she twists herself in knots to make sure Ben has a “good” breakfast in the morning instead of Lucky Charms or Pop Tarts. He and Sam grew up on them, so they can’t be all bad, right?

She doesn’t often let him see her cry, but he knows she does. It’s been almost six months since he started making those damn tears fill her eyes. Six months of him alternating between researching ways to get Sam back and drunkenly grieving the loss. There have been days when he’s been able to try to be some kind of father figure for Ben and partner for Lisa, but those days are few and far between. He needs to do better. Sam would want him to do better.

Without moving his head more than the pounding inside of it will allow, Dean climbs out of bed and starts his morning. He looks at himself in the mirror, taking in the dark circles around his eyes, the scraggly beard, and the pale skin, and decides that it’s time. It’s time to give up fighting what Sam had wanted for him. Sam had wanted him here, with a good woman and a boy who needed him. Sam had told him not to do everything he’d spent the last six months doing. Sam had wanted him to have this life. Maybe it was time to live it.

The decision made, he makes breakfast for Lisa and Ben, packs a lunch for Ben that doesn’t include beef jerky or Twinkies, and cleans himself up until he practically shines. He heads to the construction site where his neighbor, Sid, works and gets himself a job. Sid has been annoying as hell since Dean moved in, following Dean around like a puppy when he goes to the neighborhood shindigs, but Sid’s a good guy. He’s ignored Dean’s rudeness and been nothing but kind, offering all kinds of help, including a reference for this job. It’s an actual nine-to-five job doing whatever the boss tells him to do, earning whatever the company decides to pay him, and Sid shows him the ropes with a smile.

When he’s done with work, he heads back to Lisa’s house, reminding himself that it’s now his house, too, and does his best Ward Cleaver impression. He showers off the grime from the work site, helps Lisa set the table for dinner, asks Ben what he learned in school that day, and does the dishes so Lisa can watch some reality show on TV. When he crawls back into bed, his feet hurt from new boots, the throbbing ache matched by his heart when he wonders if Sam would be proud of him.

***

Dean’s been working with Sid at the construction site for over six months, now, and he’s finally gotten into the groove of this whole civilian life thing. He makes breakfast for his family every morning, goes to work, makes good money, comes home, helps Ben with his homework, and has mind-blowing sex with Lisa before going to sleep in time to wake up and do it all again the next day. Sometimes, his routine changes, like when Sid invites him out for a drink or there’s a neighborhood barbecue. He and Ben had a great time when he taught Ben how to change the oil in the truck, and one of Lisa’s famous date nights taught him he’s pretty stellar at mini golf. There’s not a lot in his life to really make his pulse race, but it’s nice. He’s learned how to blend in to his suburban surroundings and life isn’t bad, for the most part.

He still has days where he feels like he can’t get out of bed and he fights to keep up the act. Days like Sam’s birthday. Last Tuesday wasn’t a picnic, either, when one of the guys on site joked he thought his house was haunted. Dean had to fight to keep from asking about cold spots or scratching in the walls. Sometimes, it’s just a nightmare that reminds him that he’s just playing a part here. He dreams that Sam is back, but Lucifer is in control, slicing into Lisa and Ben in front of him while telling him how Sam is screaming for his big brother inside his own meat suit. Dean wakes with a cry in his throat, his heartbeat so loud he thinks it will wake the neighbors. His face is wet with tears and Lisa is trying not to cry with him as she attempts to reassure him that everything’s okay. It’s not okay. Sam’s still in Hell, locked in a cage with the devil, suffering relentlessly. Dean wonders if Lucifer uses the same tools Alastair did, or if actual tools would be too pedestrian for the devil.

For some reason, Sundays are the hardest. There’s more day in a Sunday than any other day of the week and it’s difficult to keep up the charade. Sometimes, he goes for runs like Sam used to, just to feel the blood pumping through his veins. Without the distraction of neighborhood parties, Ben’s baseball games, and Lisa’s get-togethers where one woman sells shit nobody needs to all the other women, Dean finds himself searching for cases before he realizes what he’s doing. He tries to tell himself he’s just making sure there’s nothing in the immediate area, ensuring his family is safe, but it’s an excuse. If he’s not ridiculously busy being happy with his life, then he’s jonesing for a hunt, daydreaming of taking out an entire werewolf pack, his brother strong and sure by his side.

Tonight, though, is a not-bad night. He’s having a relaxing drink with Sid, trying not to talk about himself, trying to not be too good at darts, trying to live up to the image Sid has of him in his head. It’s exhausting. A news report plays on the TV behind Sid’s head, talking about the grisly discovery of a dozen bodies in a warehouse two towns over. Dean hears just enough to know the bodies were drained before Sid turns around to see what’s got Dean’s attention and distracts him from it because who wants to talk about that when tomorrow is Friday and the end of the work week? Dean heaves a breath and shakes his head to clear it. He’s just a guy, now. Not a hunter. Shut it down. Back to Sid.

The waitress all but thrusts her chest into his face as she brings the next round of drinks. Sid chuckles and calls Dean a dog. Dean shakes his head and smiles, brushing off the ghost of a chain he suddenly feels around his neck. The waitress caresses his arm before they leave, her phone number written on the back of the check, and Sid shakes his head in admiration and laughs as they part ways. Dean’s still tugging at the neck of his shirt when he hears the scream coming from the building site across the street. He doesn’t notice how his breathing eases in spite of the spike of adrenaline in his system as he grabs his gun and flashlight out of the car.

***

It’s been a few weeks since Sam came back and the djinns killed Sid and his family. Dean moved his family to a new house, new town, new state, and tried to find a balance between never letting Lisa and Ben out of his sight and imagining their deaths every time his back is turned. He never found a new job, but when Sam called and demanded his help on a hunt, he had no time to keep looking.

The hunt is over, now, and so is the argument that led to Lisa telling Dean that he needs to go and be a hunter. She said he isn’t a construction worker, and though he tried the best he could to be normal, to have a life that didn’t revolve around bloodshed, she’s right. Dean’s a hunter and always will be.  Besides, his gut is telling him there’s something going on with his brother, something he just can’t put his finger on. Staying here and putting up drywall isn’t going to help him figure it out.

Dean’s standing in his new garage, holding the car cover he just took off his Baby. God, she’s beautiful. Just looking at her makes his heart beat faster in his chest. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, enjoying the feel of being able to breathe freely for the first time in a long time. He climbs into the driver’s seat with a smile and reverses out of the garage, taking off into the night.

The moon is large and full over the road ahead of him as he turns up the volume on the radio and begins singing along while he taps out the beat on the steering wheel. This is where he belongs. This is who he is. He will find a way to fulfill the promises he made to Lisa and Ben, but he’s done trying to be someone he can’t be. He’s the guy that’s gonna figure out what’s going on with his brother and kill some evil sons of bitches along the way.

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[datingdiaries123]

Number 15: Saturday night, date night

In the last post I was still recovering from my bunion surgery and in my big boot. Fast forward a few more months and the boot is no more. We’re now in June, the weather is warmer (still wet though), I can wear proper shoes again (not quite ready for heels yet) and I’ve nearly completed a full year in my new job (which I love). Life is good.

A friend had recommended a new dating app that I hadn’t tried before. She’d met some decent men through it, and as I still hadn’t met anyone that nice in real life, I decided to give it a go. Within a few days I matched with a man who in a lot of his pictures looked remarkably like David Beckham. I originally thought he’d be a catfish (far too good looking to be real, surely?), but after reverse image searching his photos, he actually turned out to be a real person. We seemed to have lots in common and we had the same sense of humour, always a good start. He was 38, so a few years older than me, lived about an hour’s drive away, had a good job, an 8 year old daughter who he saw regularly (very important), seemed to have his head screwed on and had morals - lots of tick boxes so far. One of the things I noticed about his info was he’d put he’s looking for someone honest and with integrity. I always put ‘honesty’ somewhere in mine but that’s the first time I’ve actually seen someone put ‘integrity’. He sounded like a decent human being, all good so far.

We chatted for less than 24 hours, he gave me his number and he asked me if I’d like to meet him after work….. Tonight! It was a Thursday so we were both at work. I hate it when men are flakey and you can’t pin them down (clearly not that bothered about meeting up!), so I need to take advantage of someone who’s keen. I bit the bullet and agreed to meet him. I felt sick leading up to the date, not sure why I was so nervous, maybe because it was unplanned and sudden, but also probably due to me not actually having been on a date for a little while. (Yes, you heard that right, I don’t date as much as these blogs would suggest!) We agreed to meet halfway, as he had to drop his daughter off at her mum’s house. This worked out fine for me as it gave me enough time to get ready after work and travel to meet him. We met in a cute little village pub in an area neither of us had been to before. I saw a message appear on my screen as I was driving there to say he’d arrived. That calmed my nerves a bit, at least I wasn’t going to be sitting there on my own. As I pulled into the car park and parked, my heart was beating out of my chest and I felt physically sick. I really hope he’s not a weirdo after I’ve driven over an hour to meet him. This better not be a waste of time. I text him to say I’d arrived and got out of the car and walked towards the entrance. I heard someone call my name and he was parked nearby and had waited in his car for me. That was cute, so we at least went in together. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug. He smelt so nice - I don’t know what aftershave he was wearing but its one I recognised and it was loooovely. That’s one of the first meet concerns out of the way - how the person will smell. It sounds so insignificant in the grand scheme of things but I have come to realise its SO important. (I’ll tell you a story another time about a really nice/fit/genuinely lovely man who smelt of out of date milk…..!)

In the pub it was really cosy and we got a corner table. He bought the first round which was sweet, so I said I’d get the second. At this point it was 9pm and was getting late for a work night. We got on instantly - he told me all about his childhood and family, his daughter, his work and past career (security guard, now head of security, like a manager of the guards and security team). He sounded so normal and I loved how he was being so honest and telling me all about his life. He asked about me too and we chatted for 2 hours, before we were being kicked out of the pub at 11 o’clock. Time had gone so fast, which is always a good sign when you meet someone for the first time. He said he wasn’t ready to go home yet as we were having such a good night. He suggested a romantic walk round the village, which I liked the sound of, so that’s what we did. It was still warm but just starting to get chilly. We both got our jackets and off we went. He asked me if he could hold my hand which was ever so cute (I’m glad he didn’t just presume I was going to say yes!). We walked round the lovely little village for about 45 minutes, looking at the houses, shops and stopping to stroke random cats that kept crossing our path. Neither of us could remember if the pub car park had a barrier or not - oh dearrrrr, we could end up getting our cars locked in overnight! We walked rather briskly back to the car park and luckily found that there was no barrier. We stood by my car and he asked me if I’d had a good evening. Of course I had and I told him I really enjoyed it. He asked me there and then if I’d like to see him again, which of course I did. He actually wanted to see me the following evening but seeing as I wouldn’t get home tonight until 1am, I decided the weekend would be better. So by the time we’d said goodbye we’d already agreed Saturday night would be our second date - progress! We kissed outside and it was very romantic. Cold around us and I had a red nose, but he wrapped me up in his jacket and it was like something out of a film. Kissing him was good - he was just the right amount of gentle and rough at the same time. He was really tall (6ft 2) and I loved the fact I had to stand on tiptoes to reach up to him. He was a proper manly man. As I drove away I saw a message pop up on my screen - it just said “Best date ever” with love heart eyes. What a cutie! I drove home with a big smile on my face.

We spent the next 24 (and a bit) hours messaging lots, chatting on the phone and talking about how excited we were about our second date. On the Friday night neither of us had plans so he said he’d ring me for a chat. We video chatted for over 2 hours and it was nice. Comfortable, easy to talk to each other and we were constantly having a laugh. Things were looking good. Saturday came and I woke up feeling like a kid on Christmas Day. I looked at my phone and he’d already messaged me that morning saying good morning and he’s looking forward to seeing me later. He was at work during the day so would come to meet me straight afterwards. He had taken a few outfits to work with him, then would get showered and ready at work and drive to Leeds to meet me. I’d booked us a table at a nice Italian in the city centre and he was looking forward to going as he hadn’t been before. During the day he was messaging me, sent me photos of his outfits and asked which would be best for our date (any were fine, he looked smart in trousers and a shirt) and he’d even had his hair cut in his lunch break ready for tonight. We were clearly both looking forward to it and I had that excited feeling in my stomach all day. 

He’d messaged around 5:30pm saying he was getting stressed at work as he’d got to deal with a shoplifter and had to wait for the police to arrive and take over. I responded to say don’t worry, there’s still plenty of time before we’re due to meet and just get there when you can. He knew the reservation time and the address of the restaurant, so I had no worries. The table was booked for 7:30pm which he’d agreed would give him enough time to finish work, get ready and drive over. I spent 2 hours getting ready and glammed up, with the plan to get the bus into town at 7pm, arriving at 7:20. At just before 7 I messaged him to tell him I was setting off and I’d see him there. He read it but didn’t respond. I didn’t think much about it, he was probably on his way in too and couldn’t message. I arrived at the restaurant and made sure the lady on the desk knew I was here, but was waiting for my +1. I got a seat at the bar and ordered a drink. I kept an eye on my phone just in case he got in touch, but I expected him to walk through the door at any moment. At 7:45 I had been waiting for 25 minutes and hadn’t heard from him. Thought I better send him a message and see how far away he is, as they would only hold our table until 8. The message sent but didn’t deliver, which I thought was odd. So I phoned him to see if he was maybe on hands free, still driving. It went straight to voicemail. Strange. So I left him a message just saying hope you’re okay and how far away are you as we’ve only got the table reservation for another 15 minutes. But not to worry if you’re not here in time, we can just go somewhere else. I carried on sipping my drink and waiting. 

It got to 8 o’clock and still no contact. This was weird. He should have finished work by now but then why hadn’t he been in touch to tell me hes running late? The lady came over to find me and told me I could either sit at the table (and keep it, but I’d have to order food), or we’d lose it. I didn’t want to sit there, not knowing how far away he was so decided to lose it. I stayed at the bar and at ten past 8 I messaged my mum asking what I should do. It was a “How long would you wait for someone if you haven’t heard from them and don’t know if they’re coming?”. Mum responded pretty much straight away and said go home, it’s not looking promising. I felt so bad leaving - what if he turned up and I wasn’t there? But to be fair, at this point I’d been waiting for 50 minutes. And I still wasn’t 100% sure if he’d actually set off from work, or whether he was still stuck there waiting for the police to arrive. I walked to the bus stop. It was cold and horrible and I felt like sh*t. The high of leading up to a date then the massive low of having to go home without having even going on the date……. bad times. I was sure there was some explanation as to why he hadn’t arrived/got in touch, but I had an awful feeling in my gut. I waited for 20 minutes for my bus and then it came up on the screen ‘CANCELLED’. I was cold, wet and feeling sorry for myself. I burst into tears sitting at the bus stop and messaged my mum. Luckily for me, they don’t live far away so my dad very kindly came in the car to rescue me. (My hero).

I heard nothing from my date guy that evening. The sadness of getting all glammed up then coming home and wiping off my makeup, putting on my pyjamas and cuddling up with my dog in front of the TV made it a depressing evening. I should have been out having a nice Italian meal with a lovely man! I expected to wake up the following day to a message saying what had happened and he was so sorry etc etc……. I looked at my phone on Sunday morning and there was nothing. I decided to give it 24 hours so he could at least get in touch and apologise and explain what had happened last night. I thought maybe his battery had died so he couldn’t access my number and ended up going home? In my head I was coming up with all sorts of scenarios of what could have happened and why he didn’t get in touch. Maybe his daughter had been rushed into hospital and he had no time to message me, then had to turn his phone off? Maybe he was still in hospital with her, still with his phone off? I’m a reasonable person and wouldn’t have kicked off if he’d have given me a genuine explanation. Even a rubbish explanation would have been better at this point - just get in touch and give me something! 24 hours came and went and still nothing. I sent him one more message - asking if he’s okay. Not kicking off, not angry, not asking a million questions or making him feel uncomfortable, just checking he’s okay. He never read it (although it did get delivered, so his phone was now turned back on). He then got blocked. Nothing he could say now would make it okay or convince me to meet him again. I felt completely heartbroken. This is rock bottom in the dating world. I hadn’t been here before. How could someone do this to another person, knowing I was sitting there waiting for him, yet he had no intention of turning up or even telling me he wasn’t coming. That’s just cruel and mean, very cruel and very nasty. What a horrible person.

[terresdebrume]

So on Saturday I mentioned that I was watching a play called La nuit de Valognes, by Eric Emmanuel Schmidt and told you guys that it has a lot of potential for shippers and, well, you probably guessed I love it already, but there’s more to it than just the shipping part.

Spoilers for the play, discussion of the impact of its main ‘plot twist’, of LGBTQ+ themes, and my personal history as a lesbian-who-didn’t-quite-realise-she-was-queer-until-long-after-discovering-the-play under the cut.

La nuit de Valognes starts out with a simple enough summary: five women (a duchess, a countess, a nun, a merchant’s wife and a romance novelist) who once loved Don Juan gather in a castle in Normandy to hold his trial and condemn him to either marry the duchess’ goddaughter (Don Juan’s latest conquest) or be sent to prison for the rest of his days (because nepotism was handy dandy like that).

The first act mainly consists of the five women discussing their affair with Don Juan. Most of them deny it ever happened (except for the countess and duchess) at first, but as time goes by, their memories come back, and you can tell the women present aren’t so much hurt at having lost their virtue as pissed off Don Juan left.

(In fact, by the end of the play, the merchant’s wife is quite clearly happy with what she got out of her affair with Don Juan.)

Toward the end of the act, Don Juan is left with Angélique, the girl he’s supposed to marry, who is very proud to have conquered Don Juan (through scheming but still) until she realizes he a) isn’t putting up a fight and b) is most definitely not in love with her.

In the second act, having realized Don Juan isn’t the womanizer he once was anymore (he played the part at the beginning of the first act, but it cracks once Angélique’s family is mentioned) and change his trial. From being tried for being, well, Don Juan, the guy goes to being tried for not being ‘Don Juan’ aka the mythical hyper sexual figure you guys probably already know about (if not, Wikipedia is your best friend). During this new trial, it is revealed that Don Juan hasn’t made any single conquest since he met Angélique’s brother, the Chevalier de Chiffreville (he doesn’t get a first name).

In the next six or so scenes, we see Don Juan and the Chevalier meet and grow closer, the Chevalier clearly falling in love with Don Juan while Don Juan himself is oblivious. At some point, Don Juan mentions that he doesn’t feel ready to let go of women, which causes the Chevalier to cut his ties to Don Juan without warning. Don Juan looks for the guy everywhere and winds up at the Chiffreville family’s house, where Angélique tells him her brother is busy drinking himself to oblivion and fucking an infamous local prostitute. Don Juan takes it badly and has sex with/rapes Angélique, who was earlier established to be her brother’s spitting image (1)

Later, the Chevalier provokes Don Juan to a duel, nominally so he can avenge his sister’s honor. However, when Don Juan refuses to fight, the Chevalier throws himself on his sword (2) and, in his dying moments, not only confesses his love for Don Juan but receives a similar one.

Chevalier: Don’t say [I love you] with words, they were dragged through too many mouths—say it with the eyes. … How well you say it. [...]

After this dramatic event, the play goes back to the ‘present days’ and Don Juan’s trial, where his judges, one by one, abandon charges. The nun decides to demand a divorce from God and gives a rather virulent atheistic speech. Then the romance novelist, who writes mutual pining without much resolution (from what the play tells us) goes kind of hysterical when Don Juan’s story with the Chevalier is compared to her novels.

The writer: My novels are stupid!

The countess, who is known (and disparaged) for her string of affairs, basically dismisses Don Juan for being too sentimental; and Angélique rejects him on the basis that she wants a man who will be possessive and jealous and ‘love her selfishly’ instead of the ‘we’re married but you get to do whatever you want while I promise never to touch another woman ever’ deal Don Juan offered her earlier.

After this, Don Juan leaves the castle—we don’t know where he’s going or what’s he’s going to do—and the play ends with Don Juan’s servant crying in despair when he realizes he has finally been paid after years and years of empty promises on that front.

There are many angles to take when looking at this play, some of them frankly not very satisfying—the general feeling that the women say ‘no’ but mean ‘yes’ is too in tune with rape culture and misogynistic discourse to be really palatable, and Angélique’s conception of love is, in my opinion, not a very healthy one unless you apply a sizable grain of salt to her last lines—but the one that attracted me was, you probably guessed it, Don Juan’s story with the Chevalier.

Yes, I know, it’s pretty much a textbook version of the bury your gays trope, and that’s just annoying—the play could totally have told a different story, though I’m not sure every writer would have handled it in a satisfying way either—but it remains my favorite aspect of the play, and the reason why this is, so far, my favorite play of all time (3).

I first read this play in high school—I think we were studying the ancient tradition of rewritings and transforming myths, and I think we can all agree that rewriting the womanizer as a man who fell in love with a man was a definite counterpoint to what mainstream media would expect, so it definitely had a place there. I wasn’t even out to myself at the time—although, as I’ve already mentioned, I think on a subconscious level I always knew I wasn’t straight—but boy, did that play appeal to me.

In the moment, I mostly looked at Don Juan and the Chevalier’s story and saw pretty much all the tropes I love in fanfiction. There was the mutual pining and longing, the oblivious partner, the jealousy who doesn’t realize (or doesn’t want to realize) what it is, and the heartfelt but ultimately tragic heartfelt confession of love at the end. My tastes have changes since then—I’m now aggressively into happy endings for queer characters, thank you very much—but at the time you literally couldn’t have written something closer to what I liked to read in my spare time. For real.

In all honesty, that love story still ticks several of my preference boxes.

Roughly ten years later, though, I think what keeps this play appealing to me is the fact that in the end, Don Juan’s not-love story with a man is his redeeming. When the story is told, the nun loses her faith in part because Don Juan’s story is so unfair (he finds love after so many years of messy searching and loses him just as soon), the romance novelist rejects the idea that doomed love stories are desirable or ‘the best’, the countess—who called him her teacher in ‘vice’—rejects him for not being an ass anymore, and Angélique refuses to marry him because his motive—to honor the cause his lover died for, even if only nominally—is too sublime.

There are so many—so many—instances, in literature and media in general, where someone falling for a person of the same gender is pretty much a doom sentence, when it’s not explicitly referred to as a bad thing (I would list examples but honestly I think a quick detour through Tvtropes will be enough to prove my point) but in this play it’s the reverse. Yes, Don Juan’s endgame situation still sucks mighty balls, and if you’re looking for a happy ending you should probably not look at this play.

But at the end of the day, Don Juan’s love story with a man is the very reason he’s forgiven, and that’s something that, combined with its position as the first play I saw with queer characters, is the reason why this text will always have a special place in my heart.

So, as you can imagine, seeing La nuit de Valognes on stage for the first time yesterday was a good experience for me. Not only do I love the text—honestly I kind of want to dig out my copy when I’m in France, and set to writing some meta about it because there are so many things to say about what’s a fairly short play, you guys—but the stage work was excellent. Okay, yeah, there were a couple stutters, but the actors all did a really good job, the directing was really creative and well handled. Don Juan and the Chevalier—especially the Chevalier—were especially convincing imo, and they really went for the kill in the romance story which is what the entire play rests on, so really kudos on them for that.

Also kudos on casting a LGBTQ+ dude in the Chevalier’s role (the actor is one of my male colleague’s husband, though I didn’t know that when I bought my tickets for the play) because, okay, that’s an amateur troop but it’s still nice to know, for one, and for two I think the Chevalier’s part probably resonates deeper for a queer man than it does for a straight one.

(I didn’t dare ask Fabrice about that. I’d like to know but not only am I AWKWARD with people I don’t know, you guys, there’s also the fact that this kind of question can be so wildly intrusive without meaning to it’s ridiculous. So, I didn’t dare ask but damn, I’d really like to know about his thought process in preparing for the role.)

Anyway, this is disjointed and not very coherent and mostly me throwing heart at a play despite its problematic aspects—don’t say I didn’t warn you—but yeah, I really wanted to talk about it with you. It’s been too long since I did that xD

(1) I don’t think it was consciously written as rape—at least I hope not—hence the use of slash, but the dialogue and the way it was played yesterday read more as rape than seduction to me. Plus, it’s pretty clear that Don Juan is having revenge-sex because he’s frustrated with the Chevalier’s obnoxious display of his relationship with the prostitute so consideration for Angélique is, at best, a secondary element of the scene.

(2) The double-entendre works in French, too.

(3) To be clear, I’m not a huge theater buff, but I did read/hear about a decent sample of plays during my studies, and La nuit de Valognes is by far my favorite.

[infotainmentplus-blog]

Navigation Wars: Google Maps vs Waze vs Apple Maps The dawn of the smartphone age had us cheering for GPS chips and easy, on-the-go navigation. No longer were we beholden to sites like MapQuest (which still exists as a mobile app, by the way) and printing out directions. Instead, we could open up our maps app, input a destination, and receive live, turn-by-turn directions. It was like having a pocket-sized Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, or Ferdinand Magellan as your permanent wingman. It was surely also a death blow to paper maps — but it didn’t stop there. Once we could navigate with our smartphones, the question became: “which software does it better?” Obviously, Google Maps is the best-known map app — it’s basically synonymous with mobile navigation. In fact, Google Maps was originally the iPhone’s default, preinstalled navigation software, until Apple launched its own Apple Maps. An app called Waze emerged as a third-party alternative, developing quite a following before Google bought it. We at Android Authority decided it was time to settle this once and for all. We’ve analyzed of all three apps, identifying their weaknesses and breaking down their unique strengths. Welcome to the Navigation Wars: Waze vs Google Maps vs Apple Maps. Who will reign supreme? Waze vs Google Maps vs Apple Maps — Google Maps One might expect Google Maps to take the gold. It’s Google, after all. The company has put incomprehensible amounts of money and resources into mapping the world. Beyond simply mapping the streets, the search giant sent out a fleet of Street View cars — which, according to a report from a few years ago, have collectively driven an estimated seven million miles — to take 360-degree photos along 99 percent of all public roads in the U.S. Users get to actually preview their route from a first-person perspective. Google is continuously repeating and perfecting this process in countries all over the world. Google Maps can give you directions on your next Florida vacation, but also when you finally take that trip to Greece. More recently, Google started providing detailed 3D imaging in lots of highly-populated and tourist-heavy areas. So in addition to getting a first-person street view of your route, you can zoom out to see a computer-rendered model of the surrounding area for contextual information such as the shapes and sizes of buildings. Algorithms built into Google Maps can even account for things like traffic jams. Basically, the software monitors user location and movement to see how they move through certain areas and compares that to historical data, so Google Maps can put out a traffic alert when drivers start to slow down. It may sound simple, but making it all work requires some finesse. Google has invested into complex software that provides detailed 3D imaging in lots of highly-populated and tourist-heavy areas. When you open Google Apps, you get a very clean interface. At the top, you’re invited to either search for your destination — obviously employing Google’s popular search engine — or input an address. Whether you’ve selected a destination, the map shows you the destination on the map, as well as reviews (if it’s a business), the amount of time it would take you to travel there, an option to learn more about the destination, and a big blue button that says “DIRECTIONS,” which will begin plotting your route. It will typically give you the choice of a few routes, depending on how many different ways there are to get to your destination. Arguably the biggest selling feature of those standalone GPS units we used to buy for our vehicles was spoken turn-by-turn directions. Google Maps rolled out turn-by-turn directions a couple years back and currently offers three options: spoken directions for each step of your route, no spoken directions, or an alert mode, which means Google Apps will only speak to you about things like travel alerts and missed turns. Google Maps allows you to program multiple stops into a trip or conduct a search for an additional stop while still en route. In operation, Google Maps maintains its clean UI. Your location is denoted by an arrow points in the direction you’re facing. From what I can tell, the app uses the direction in which you were last moving to determine the direction to point the arrow since the arrow will change direction if you begin to reverse. On occasion, though, the app seems to get confused about which direction you’re facing. This tends to happen when you’re sitting still for a few minutes (like at a stoplight), or if you initiate a trip while you’re sitting still, at which time the app may think you’re diverting from the route and begin needlessly amending it. If I start a trip while sitting at a stoplight, for instance, the app can’t seem to remember the direction in which I had just been traveling and may tell me I need to turn around when I’m actually facing the right way. These hiccups are easy to deal with and won’t cause any catastrophes, but it’s worth making note of them. Some Google Maps features are particularly useful. You can program multiple stops into a trip or search for an additional stop while still en route. The options menu offers toggles for different map views, including satellite (replaces the standard map appearance with satellite images), terrain (overlays a topographical map over the existing roadmap), and traffic (adds color-coded traffic details to all roads instead of just the ones you’re traveling). Even something as simple as being able to choose different modes of travel — car, bus or public transit, walking, and biking — is a thoughtful addition that really expands your options with Google Maps. On top of directions, Google Maps contains tons of useful information about nearby businesses, restaurants, and points of interest, with plenty of filters to find what you're looking for. Due to the bevy of information Google Maps contains, it has a few added functions. One of my favorites is using it to find restaurants. When you open Google Maps, open the menu bar on the lefthand side and select “Explore.” This will open a directory of restaurants and other venues nearby. Along the top, you have a toggle with which you can filter the results by meal (options are Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner), find a place where you can get your next caffeine fix (Coffee), or plan for your evening social hour (Drinks). Naturally, Google is always rolling out new features and improvements. It’s gained some pretty robust offline functionality, asking you for your permission to download a chunk of the map (your general vicinity) or to save trips to local storage so you can pull them up without a data connection. Essentially, it makes Google Maps useful even when you don’t have an internet connection. If you are using Google Maps with Android 8.0 Oreo or higher, you can use the picture-in-picture mode. You can see a small window that shows Google Maps working on the main app page. You can see the map, a turn indicator, which road you are currently traveling on, and an ETA for your destination. Google Maps recently added a way to search for reviews of stores, restaurants, hotels and other places from within the app. There’s also a new tab labeled “For You” which offers recommendations of places and businesses in your immediate area, especially brand new or “trending” ones, based on Google’s data. A number of voice commands also work with Google Maps to do things like mute or unmute the voice guidance, inquire about your next turn, avoid highways or tolls, and find a gas station. It may sound like Google already has it in the bag, but keep reading to find out if that’s really the case. (Insert devilish grin here.) Waze vs Google Maps vs Apple Maps — Waze As someone who appreciates and uses both Android and iOS devices, I’m pretty familiar with both Apple and Google’s navigation apps. Aside from a handful of times over the past few years, though, I’d never really used Waze much. Before I started writing this article, I took a good 10 days or so to familiarize myself with Waze. Did you know that Google has owned Waze since 2013? If we’re splitting hairs, Waze is technically owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet. It allegedly operates mostly independently from Google, but there has definitely been some crossing of the streams. The acquisition of Waze brought traffic alerts to Google Maps later that year. Waze has incorporated some of Google’s data too, including Street View. You wouldn’t know Waze was owned by Google by looking at it — it has a completely different aesthetic. Personally, Waze’s cartoonish appearance reminds me of emojis. Everything looks very bubbly, but Waze manages to maintain minimalist elements, which keeps it from being too much. But the differences between Google Maps and Waze are more than skin deep. When you open the app, you’re prompted to login or create an account, both of which are done by either connecting your Facebook account or using your mobile phone number. Once you make it to the main screen, the map includes a notification to let you know how many “Wazers” are in your proximity. Right off the bat, there’s an inherently social element to Waze throughout much of the user experience. Unlike other navigation apps, Waze suggests logging in to make the most of its social features. While Google Maps is sparse and almost utilitarian, Waze feels a little more dressed-up, with more bells and whistles. You can connect Waze to your Spotify accoun to manage your music directly from the Waze app by adding a bar along the top of the screen to select from your playlists and preferred stations. You can report traffic, car accidents, speed traps, road closures, and other such things to your fellow Wazers. This function plays a significant role in Waze’s ability to keep users abreast of their local traffic conditions. Waze almost goes overboard on extra features, ranging from Spotify integration, to petrol station prices, and a huge range of novelty turn-by-turn navigation voices. You can do things like manage your account details (set a profile picture, view your friends list, read your messages), as well as manage your favorite places and check your planned drives in the main menu. The planned drive feature is really interesting. In essence, you set a destination for a future date, so when the time comes you can start navigating there with just one or two clicks. It’s really easy, too; when you search for a destination, you can either click “Go” or “Later” to choose the date and time for your trip. Alternately, it can glean information from your Facebook calendar, scheduling trips to specific destinations based on the events you’re attending. If that’s not impressive enough, Waze adjusts how long the trip will take based on traffic at different times of day, so a 15 minute trip in the morning may take 30 minutes during rush hour. Waze is even courteous enough to remind you when it’s time to leave so that you’ll arrive on time. In addition to being able to either schedule or initiate a trip to that destination, Waze can guide you to the closest parking lot to your destination. I your destination happens to be a mall or retail outlet, it’ll give you the option to set your destination as the closest parking lot or allow you to choose from other parking options nearby. I didn’t really get to take advantage of this feature, but I can see it really being a godsend in an unfamiliar place. If you like customization options, Waze offers a bunch of different voices for turn-by-turn instructions. Many of the most populated countries get at least two options, but English-speakers have a plethora of options. Each voice is given its own name, like Jane, Nathan, or Boy Band for Americans, and Kate, Thomas, or Simon for those in the U.K. In the past, Waze even offered celebrity voices, including Morgan Freeman and more recently Liam Neeson. Waze relies on data collected and posted by its real-time users and has a much more inherently social feel than your standard map app. As you get deeper and deeper into Waze, you find all these nifty little surprises. In the settings menu, you can go into “Gas stations & prices” to choose your preferred gas station chain (if you happen to have one). You can also set the speedometer to only show up if you happen to go over the speed limit. With a toggle, you can control whether or not you see nearby Wazers on your friends list. There’s a whole host of map display options you can toggle, including speed cameras, other Wazers, road hazards, and more. A few months ago, Waze got a big update adding hands-free navigation, using just your voice. The feature, called simply Talk to Waze, can be turned on by heading into Settings > Sound & voice > Talk to Waze > Toggle Listen for “OK Waze.” Then just say “Ok Waze” to initiate a drive, get a preview of the route ahead, send reports, or add a pit stop without touching your phone. Other recently added features include adding routes optimized for motorcycles. There’s also a new HOV lane feature for carpooling drivers, or those with a special pass or in an electric, hybrid, or clean-fuel car. If you are driving such a car, and there are HOV lanes available on your route, Waze will show you additional navigation options and arrival times. Another recent update improved the ETA feature, allowing users to get an estimated traffic forecast for your route. Waze may sound bloated with needless features, but most of them are tucked out of the way and accessible only from the menus. None of Waze’s additional features feel imposing or like they’re coming between you and the purpose of the app, which is to get directions from one place to another. There are tons of bells and whistles available if you want to use them. As mentioned previously, there’s something inherently social about using Waze, an interesting but not totally surprising concept in 2018. Overall, my experience using Waze was extremely pleasant. Despite having so much going on, the app is very snappy and responsive, although I may not have used it long enough to encounter the hiccups that surely come up from time to time. Waze vs Google Maps vs Apple Maps — Apple Maps Prior to iOS 6, Apple smartphones had Google Maps preinstalled as the default navigation app. In hindsight, Apple creating its own alternative to Google’s popular trip-mapping app was inevitable, if for no other reason than to boot the competition’s software off the iPhone. As usually happens with newborn software, Apple Maps was plagued with bugs and map inaccuracies for the first couple years. It’s gotten a lot better since then. I’m a lover of both Apple and Android, so I’m nearly as familiar with Apple Maps as Google Maps (although having access to the latter with any desktop browser basically ensures some disparity between the two). In certain ways, I may even like Apple Maps best of all. Compared to both Google Maps and Waze, Apple Maps has arguably the most pleasing look and has exemplary integrations with other iOS apps. After that rough first year, Apple invested lots of time and energy (and money) into improving Maps, and it shows. Compared to both Google Maps and Waze, Apple Maps has arguably the most pleasing look. Of course, appearance is subjective, but there’s something very polished and contemporary about Apple Maps, particularly since its slight redesign earlier this year. It manages to achieve a modern feel without looking sparse like Google Maps or borderline-cartoonish like Waze. It’s elegant, and very Apple. Perhaps taking a cue from Google Maps, Apple Maps has much better integrations with other iOS apps. Sprinkled throughout Apple Maps, you’ll find suggestions for scheduling and upcoming events for which you may need to travel. It’s reminiscent of how clicking addresses will take you into Google Maps from Gmail or Inbox or Google’s numerous other services. However, Apple Maps integrations extend even outside the Apple apps family, including things like OpenTable for making restaurant reservations, ride-sharing apps, and, of course, Apple Pay to pay for it all. Similar to Google’s app, Apple Maps has a very clean and straightforward interface. Opening Apple Maps brings up the map with an overlap toward the bottom, giving you a place to input an address or search for a destination. It also offers suggestions and the ability to click a single button to begin navigating home. If you were already home, it may offer you navigation to your workplace or a destination pertaining to an upcoming event in your calendar. It sounds like a lot, and while everything is big and readable, it’s also not totally in the way. One of the updates to Apple Maps brought something called “Flyover Mode,” a Google Earth-esque feature into the mix. In essence, it creates a 3D render of the map, allowing you to essentially fly over it like you’re in a helicopter. The feature itself isn’t especially groundbreaking, but it’s fun and certainly a welcome feature. Anything not already visible in the app is usually accessible with an upward or downward swipe, appearing neatly and organized on overlaying cards. You can swipe upward on an upcoming trip to view alternate route options. It’s a nice feature to have if, for instance, you happen to see that there’s traffic on your would-be route. And yes, the app can give you that traffic information, too. Apple has tried to make Maps as informative as possible and, in doing so, includes some really thoughtful details. If you click on a landmark, it usually brings up a card showing a picture, offering you directions, reviews (via Yelp, of course), and a link to Wikipedia to learn more about it. As well, if you zoom into a part of the map sufficiently far away from your actual location, it’ll show you that location’s local weather in the bottom-righthand corner. Apple Maps is focused on providing navigation. By comparison, Google is much more focused on places, which means that it’s able to provide both navigation as well as allowing you to simply use Google Maps like tourists would use paper maps as they explored their surroundings. When it comes to the actual map, though, there’s both good and bad news. The bad news is that Apple Maps just isn’t as robust as Google Maps (or Waze, for that matter, since it incorporates Google data). If you zoom into the same section of a large city on both Google and Apple Maps, Google’s map contains more accurate data, particularly when it comes to the names and locations of businesses. In fact, someone decided to track changes to both maps over a year and found that for any given section of the map, Apple Maps averaged fewer businesses than Google. However, as long as you search for and bring up the address of the business, Apple Maps can get you there — even if the business isn’t on the map. That brings us to another key difference between Google and Apple Maps. Clearly, Apple Maps is focused on providing navigation, and that’s a good thing since navigation is the point of these apps. By comparison, Google is much more focused on places — it’s able to provide navigation while allowing you to simply use Google Maps like a tourist would a paper map as they explore their surroundings. Again, Google simply has more data with which to build a map containing. It’s almost an unfair comparison, but it’s a difference that’s worth mentioning. It seems that Apple Maps is mostly reliant on map information licensed from TomTom and from acquiring a handful of smaller companies over the years. Some of those companies are WifiSlam for interior maps, HopStop and Embark for public transportation, Locationary for improving mapping abilities, and BroadMap for managing and analyzing map data. TechCrunch This is all expected to change soon. Apple’s SVP Eddy Cue recently told TechCrunch the company is working a major revamp of the Maps app and service, and will use first-party data collected from iPhone owners. It will start slowly with the upcoming iOS 12, beginning with Apple’s Northern California area this fall. The plan is to phase out the use of third parties for map data entirely, but its not clear exactly how long that transition will take. TechCrunch also reports that, like Google Maps, Apple has been collecting street level map images and date via its own fleet of Apple Maps vans. Among other things, there is hardware and software inside the vans that allows them to map the world around that vehicle in full 3D. That date, combined with high-resolution images taken via orbiting satellites, should give future Apple Maps users full 3D navigation of streets, complete with high-res textures. Apple Maps has come a really long way since the early days, when Tim Cook actually apologized for how “difficult” the Google Maps replacement was. In fact, it’s become quite serviceable in its own right. Some of its biggest strengths include its very attractive design language, and very intuitive UI. But is that enough? Waze vs Google Maps vs Apple Maps — And the winner is… So who wins in the Waze vs Google Maps vs Apple Maps war? That honor goes to Google Maps. Now let me explain why. Obviously, I don’t speak for everyone. A lot of people will be on Team Waze or Apple Maps. I chose Google Maps as the winner of the navigation wars because I feel like Google Maps is the navigation app that can meet the most users’ needs. Google’s put a lot of work into improving and fine-tuning Google Maps. I think we can safely say that no other navigation app has more than 20 petabytes of map data, obtained by having a fleet of cars physically drive more than 99 percent of all public American roads. Plus, Google Maps has the power of the Google search engine behind it. As I said before, that’s hard for anyone to compete with. No other navigation app has more than 20 petabytes of map data that was obtained by having a fleet of cars physically drive more than 99 percent of all public American roads. Google Maps is a great example of how the evolution and growth of technology can change our lives — it’s for far more than just navigation. In large part, Google Maps is a place-oriented navigation map, and it’s become a catalyst for exploration of new places. Rather than solely giving us driving directions, we can use Google Maps for learning and discovery, and that’s pretty damn cool. Waze and Apple Maps are not bad navigation apps. Waze definitely has more features to offer, some of which could actually be quite useful, though I doubt many would find them necessary or vital to their use of Waze. Just because an app has the most bells and whistles doesn’t mean it’s right for most people. If I were giving a “Most Improved” award, or perhaps a “Best Dressed” award, it would probably go to Apple Maps. Due to the improvements it’s made, many iOS users don’t feel the need to immediately download Google Maps or Waze from the App Store, and that certainly says something. At the same time, even considering how you can access Apple Maps via the desktop app for MacOS, it’s difficult to recommend it over Google Maps (or even Waze) for all but a very limited number of uses. However, as we stated earlier, Apple is working on even more improvements that should allow it to compete better with Google Maps and Waze. All but Apple Maps are available for both Android and iOS devices. At least for the time being, Apple Maps is only available for Apple devices. Now I’d like to hear from you. Which map app do you use? Why do you use it? Sound off in the comments below! , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2L4aGhE

[randomconnections]

The Tale of a Map

I recently acquired a map from my Aunt Grace’s estate. While she was in Paris she found an old map of South Carolina in an antique store. The map had lots of interesting information, including the slave population for each county. The information and history intrigued her, and since it was from her home state, she bought it. Aunt Grace knew that I was a map geek and was especially interested in the history of the state. Before she died she expressed her desire that I get the map. I won’t go into the long and sordid details of how it did eventually end up in my possession, but rather delve into the history of the map itself and the cartographers that created this work of art.

Of course I wanted to know more about this map. When was it published? Is it authentic? (And, secondarily, what might it be worth?) The information on slave populations indicates that it was pre-Civil War. I used other context clues from the the map and was able to do a Google image search. After doing a bit of digging I found that this map was from a much larger atlas published by the firm of Carey & Lea of Philadelphia in 1822. The complete title of the work is A Complete Historical, Chronological and Geographical American Atlas, being A Guide to the History of North and South America, and the West Indies: Exhibiting an Accurate Account of the Discovery, Settlement, and Progress of Their Various Kingdoms, States and Provinces, together with the Wars, Celebrated Battles and Remarkable Events, to the year 1822. Whew!

from the David Rumsey Collection

A complete version of the atlas is available online from the David Rumsey Collection. In that collection is the map of South Carolina.

from the David Rumsey Collection

From the bibliographical information found on the David Rumsey site I learned that this map was printed in 1822 and that it was created by John Drayton, based on a prior map by John Wilson. Samuel Huffy was the engraver. Now I had several names to track down. Doing so led me to a host of fascinating men, each with their own intriguing stories.

First up is the family of Mathew Carey. Carey was born in Dublin in 1760 and got into the publishing business at the age of 17. It seems that he also enjoyed publishing his own political works, and ran afoul of the British government. He fled to Paris where he met ambassador Benjamin Franklin. Carey came to the US with Franklin and work with him in his publishing firm, making friends with John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and other political leaders of the day.

Carey established his own publishing firm in Philadelphia and continued to publish his own political works, as well as works by Sir. Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper. He was an ardent supporter of the nascent country, and that support tended to permeate all of his publications.

Carey eventually turned over his company to his son, Henry Edward, and his son-in-law Isaac Lea. After the elder Carey’s death the publishing firm became known as Carey & Lea. On a side note, the Wikipedia entry for Isaac Lea describes him as “an American conchologist, geologist, and publisher.” Lea’s son, Matthew Carey Lea, was a lawyer and chemist who delved into early photography. As I said, these were fascinating people

The younger generation’s support of the United States was just as strong as the elder Carey’s’ Isaac Lea even fought in the War of 1812. This support showed up in many of their publications, including maps.

Maps can be strong political statements. Labels, boundary lines, and just about any other detail can be used to enhance or diminish a particular region. When Carey & Lea created their atlas of the western hemisphere they followed the pattern of an earlier French map maker, Emmanuel-Augustin-Dieudonné-Joseph, comte de Las Cases, more commonly known as “Le Sage.” La Sage was one of the first to use the margins around the map to include additional, almost encyclopedic information about the region. Carey & Lea used this same process, but also included text and information generally favorable to the states.

As for the South Carolina map, the entry in Carey & Lea’s atlas is attributed to John Drayton. I haven’t been able to find any additional information on him, but as far as I know this is not the John Drayton of Drayton Hall fame, though he may be related. Drayton’s map was based on an earlier map by John Wilson, “late Civil and Military Engineer of South Carolina” according to the engraving on Wilson’s map. Wilson’s map was also published in 1822, but by a different firm owned by H. S. Tanner. It is also available in the Rumsey collection.

Drayton is listed as the author of the map listed in the Carey and Lea atlas and Samuel Hufty is credited as the engraver. The map had to be engraved in reverse – mirror imaged. Then it was stamped in black ink on a blank sheet and hand colored. There could be subtle variations in each printing and shading. The sheet was then sent back through the printing press to add the borders and text.

As for the additional text around the map, I’m unsure of the source. However, it seems reasonable to think that if Carey & Lea outsourced individual map production to local sources, then the same might be true of the text. In keeping with the idea of promoting the states, much of the language on the map is quite positive. For example, the opening sentence of the paragraph describing the geography starts like this:

The sea-coast is bordered with a fine chain of islands, between which and the shore this is convenient navigation.

Not everything on the map is complimentary, though. I found the description of the climate of South Carolina particularly amusing.

The climate of the upper country is healthy at all season of the year. In the low country the summer months are sickly, particularly August and September; and at this season the climate frequently proves fatal to strangers.

There is a section listing “Civil Divisions and Population.” The population includes the number of whites, slaves, and free blacks. In the lowcountry districts the number of slaves often outnumber the number of whites by a wide margin. For example, Georgetown has 1830 whites listed, but 15,546 slaves and 227 free blacks. Conversely, Pendleton district has 22,140 whites and 4715 slaves.

I’ve come to rely on the 1825 Robert Mills Atlas of South Carolina when I’m checking out historical areas of the state. The Wilson and Drayton maps predate this by a couple of years, but realistically they were probably in development about the same time. Even so, it’s interesting to compare the Mills maps with these. Since Mills focused solely on South Carolina with individual maps of each district, his maps have much more detail.

That covers the history and creation of this map of South Carolina, but what about the authenticity and value of my particular map? I haven’t taken it to be appraised, but there are some things I can tell about it.

First, I’m pretty sure that it is an authentic map and not a reproduction. There is a crease down the center of the map. Normally this wouldn’t be a good thing, but in this case it’s evidence that the map was taken from a larger bound folio.

Around the central map the engraver’s mark is clearly visible. This would have been from the initial map imprint, with the text added later.

I found an excerpt from an episode of Antiques Roadshow that discusses the map of Missouri from the Carey & Lee atlas. The expert, David Cresswell, discusses the center crease as well as the stamp marks.

So the map is probably authentic. What about value? The PBS show originally aired in 2000 and gave a value of $600 – $700 for the map. This excerpt was rebroadcast in 2015 and gave an updated value of $1500.

I tried looking online at auction houses, rare map dealers, eBay, and other resources. I found prices for Carey & Lea maps ranging from $125 to $800. I didn’t find the $1500 the Antiques Roadshow indicated. This was from a mix of state maps and I don’t know if certain states carry more value than others. I did find one complete Carey & Lea atlas where the asking price was $14,500.

I wouldn’t be able to assign a true value to my map until I get it appraised. While 1822 was the first edition of the atlas, there were seven subsequent printings. The maps on the David Rumsey site are scanned from an 1823 printing. There’s no way to know from which of these editions this map comes. There are also some condition issues with the map. In a couple of the corners there is some spotting that may be from mildew damage, etc. I’m sure that would affect the value of the map.

As for me, though, I don’t really care. Unless this thing is fantastically expensive and insurance costs prohibitive, I’ll just hang onto it. It has more interest and value to me as both a historical and sentimental artifact.

The map is fascinating, and I am grateful to Aunt Grace for remembering me. I would also like to thank my cousins Charles Mayo and Mim Burton and my sister Glynda for seeing that the map did get to me. Their help is greatly appreciated.

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[shirlleycoyle]

Did Zack Snyder Draw A Picture of Batman Going Down on Catwoman? An Investigation

Over the weekend, director Zack Snyder—a man who Mr. Magoo'd his way into having control over the cinematic presentation of DC Comics for many years and is an avowed fan of Batman—posted an image of the Dark Knight performing cunnilingus on Catwoman. Since that time, I have not known peace. I must know who drew it.

Like the two women at the counter of the coffee shop where I bought the iced coffee that was necessary to begin this investigation, I am so desensitized to pornography involving cartoon characters that at first this image barely registered. The necessary context is that, apparently  in response to the ongoing conversation about DC's decree that Batman canonically doesn't eat pussy, Snyder, who once directed a movie called Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and was for a long time as in control as anyone else was of DC lore, posted a drawing of Batman going down on Catwoman. He captioned it "canon." I guess!

As time went on, theories began to emerge about who drew the image. Snyder fans—and to be clear, he is a divisive figure in the multiple fandoms oriented toward and revolving around various DC brands—propose that he, personally, drew it. A major aspect of this theory is that Snyder didn't provide any information about the image when he posted it, at all. The image doesn't even have a signature. Running it through a reverse image search yields nothing from before Snyder posted it. The drawing seems to have appeared from the ether.

Representatives for Snyder didn't respond to requests for comment, leaving Motherboard unable to put the question of whether he drew this image of Batman satisfying his longtime love interest and occasional fiancé with his own hand. A Motherboard review of footage from the DVD extras of Watchmen—a movie directed by Snyder that I definitely saw in theaters and remember absolutely none of—suggests that Snyder is a talented draughtsman, and may well be capable of having drawn this image. We cannot definitively establish, though, whether or not he did so by putting the question directly to him, and so had to turn elsewhere in search of answers. 

Logically, there are only so many options here. It's possible that, as some fans are beginning to think, Snyder drew it himself; it's also possible, though, that it's a panel from an existing comic book or a piece of fan art, whether preexisting or commissioned personally by Snyder.  Roy T. Cook, a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota who specializes in the aesthetics of popular art, told Motherboard that it seems unlikely that it comes from something DC published.

"If this were from a comic, it would certainly be well known given its content, and hence would have been identified by fans or scholars by now," Cook said. "So it’s almost certainly a custom piece of art."

In theory this would narrow things down some, but the sheer ubiquity of Batman-related pornography means that there are still too many images to anyone to sift through. On the pornographic website Rule 34—named for the humorous "rule," which functions with the force and power of a basic law of physics, that anything that exists will also have porn of it on the internet—there are more than 400 images with both the tags "Catwoman" and "Batman." The image Snyder posted can be found there, but was only added after he tweeted it, and notes Snyder's tweet as the original source. It is not hard at all to find an image of Batman eating out Catwoman. Finding one that no one has ever seen before is much harder.

It's possible to inferentially establish that this image is unique to Snyder, whether as something he commissioned or as something he had unique access to and chose to put on the internet. The question consuming many fans, though, is the one of whether he personally drew it. Experts in comic book art doubt that he did. Both of the comic-art brokers that responded to Motherboard's requests for comment said that they definitely don't think Snyder drew it. Details noted about the art style offer food for thought.

"I would say that [Frank] Miller is most certainly an influence/inspiration for the style of the image Snyder tweeted. Dark Knight Returns and all. Gritty stuff," Douglas Gillock, vice-president of the comic art brokerage ComicLink, said. (He was referring to the writer/artist whose mid-80s Batman comics set the tone for all the many, many grim and bleak interpretations of the billionaire who does kung-fu at muggers that have dominated pop culture for decades. Miller's Batman comics have been critiqued as fascistic but could also be read as brilliant parodies of fascistic excess; complicating the question is Miller's later-career turn toward things like a comic where Batman murdered Muslims to avenge 9/11, which was rejected by DC and subsequently repackaged as Holy Terror, a comic where a thinly-veiled Batman stand-in murdered Muslims.)  "I would also say that I also see some David Mazzucchelli here. He was an artist that was also influenced by Miller. He did the art on the Batman: Year One run, which Miller wrote. Pretty sure that is where that particular iteration of Catwoman's costume came from in the modern era too. A similar version was used for the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm Batman animated series."

Gillock's interpretations seem correct. Notably, the outfit that Catwoman is wearing in the image that Snyder tweeted is purple—the color used in most Miller versions of the character—while many popular depictions of the character have her wearing black. It also features cat ears, which not all of her costumes have; this design was favored by Miller and used not only in Year One, but in a special wedding issue of Batman written by Tom King—a renowned comic book writer who spent much of his run on Batman making it canonical that Batman and Catwoman fall in love and get married with the insistent energy of a Livejournal poster embroiled in a shipwar—and featuring a Miller drawing of Catwoman wearing this exact costume. 

Snyder's Miller fandom cannot be overstated. He directed 300, based on the Miller graphic novel. He recreated scenes from The Dark Knight Returns in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in exactingly specific detail, even where it made no sense to do so. Like Miller, Snyder has used his work to promote and exult in vaguely fascist iconography. (Unlike Miller, for Snyder the appeal seems to be mostly aesthetic.) Snyder's fandom for Miller is so intense and specific  that the details in the shading, the coloring, and the costumes depicted in the image of Batman face down in Catwoman's super soaker pussy stand out as ones a fan steeped in Miller's work would not only appreciate, but commission or create, if they were able to. Especially on Selina's legs and head, the specific way that the image is shaded looks a lot like the way that Miller draws Catwoman. In both Snyder's tweet and the image from King's Batman, the shading on Catwoman's suit consists of black swirls and circles. (Miller's image is a lot more stylized than what Snyder posted, though, with Catwoman's spine curving exaggeratedly, like an actual cat's would.)

It should be noted that one thing we know about Snyder is that he's a passable artist, at least from the storyboards he's released for a few of his films. According to a profile in Bloomberg, he studied painting for a year before transferring to film school. It's difficult to tell, but when I look at this blurry screenshot of one of Snyder's sketchbooks where he shows off a drawing he did of Watchmen's Silk Spectre kicking a Nazi in the back of the head, it kinda looks like the same general body proportions as Catwoman as she's getting eaten out by Batman. In particular, both Silk Spectre and Catwoman have pretty sturdy thighs, though comparing a fully colored and inked image to a sketch is not going to yield conclusive results.

Image Source: League of Mayhem

DC, several art history professors, noted Snyder enthusiast Armond White, and Tom King did not respond to requests for comment. In absence of their authoritative input, as well as Snyder's, it seems Motherboard will never know for sure whether Zack Snyder spent the weekend drawing Batman eating box. But my friend and film critic Nadine Smith pointed out something important to me as I discussed this mystery with her: With any other director, this wouldn't even be a question. Snyder's fandom for comics, which somehow is for the exact opposite things about the genre that I admire, is nevertheless deep and powerful to the extent that he forced a major studio to release a four-hour uncut version of the Justice League fanfiction he filmed at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. He's always expected to do the most, and could not surprise anyone by doing anything that demonstrated the depth of his passion.

"If anyone else posted it, we would probably assume they just found some fanart," Smith told me. "But like, Snyder would."

Did Zack Snyder Draw A Picture of Batman Going Down on Catwoman? An Investigation syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/