#it’d be cool to make it after the fourth..

[sky-scribbles]

Shepard holds a funeral for her clone.

The paperwork is almost harder than the ceremony. Turns out it’s tricky to register the death of someone whose birth - creation? Decanting-from-vat? - was never recorded to begin with. Then there’s some kind of question about whether the clone needs to be retroactively registered as a Council space citizen to have her death put on the official record, and if so, whether she counts as a member of the Systems Alliance or as an ‘undocumented alien’. Which is pretty fucking ironic, considering how utterly she’d have loathed having the word alien attached to her.

And once Shepard’s ground her teeth through a dozen calls and bludgeoned through the first layer of formwork - a death certificate still needs a name.

‘I have to put something,’ she says. She’s aware that her voice is ragged, and that Kaidan is watching her as he brews her fourth coffee of the evening with concern heavy on his face. She must look barely alive, up near midnight in a kitchen that was Anderson’s and still feels nothing like hers, hair falling forward, eyes shadowed grey. Datapads and empty mugs strewn around her. Fine. She’s felt barely alive ever since she woke up in a Cerberus lab.

‘You could choose one for her,’ Kaidan says gently. A lot of people speak to her gently, these days.

‘She’d hate that. A name makes you individual. She didn’t want to be an individual; she wanted to be me.’

The cofee machine whirrs softly, sounding louder than it is in the open space of the apartment. It still doesn’t feel right, all this space for one person. Someone could drown in this much space.

‘She didn’t want to be you, though. Not really.’ Kaidan pours out the coffee, his eyes only leaving her face for a moment. ‘What she wanted was to be the symbol. The face on the vids.’

He carries the mug over and sets it down beside her hand. Shepard grips it tight. The unfinished form blinks up at her from the datapad screen, and she looks away.

‘I’m not asking this because I don’t support you doing it, or to judge you for it, or anything,’ Kaidan says, after a moment. ‘I just want to understand. Can you tell me why this is so important to you? I mean - I get that you were trying to save her, and she... she let go. But...’

He hesitates, and in his silence Shepard hears, she tried to kill you. She tried to take you away from me, and everyone who cares about you, for a second time - because she was jealous.

Shepard sips her coffee. It hasn’t had time to cool down, and her lips smart. She ignores it. She thinks.

‘What you said about... being the symbol,’ she says at last. ‘I get why she wanted it, or thought she did. I understand feeling that Commander Shepard is someone bigger than you are.’

Kaidan breathes out slowly, and takes a seat beside her.

‘I get feeling that you’re so small, so nothing, next to everyone’s idea of what Commander Shepard is. And when I fall short -’ She sees him prepare to protest, and cuts across him. ‘I do, I do all the time - I feel like it’d be easier if I were the symbol. Not...’ She waves a hand, indicating all the sleep-starved mess of her. ‘This. I don’t even know when what would Shepard do and what will I do stopped feeling like the same question.’

She lets her hand fall back onto the table. Kaidan takes it and holds it tight.

‘And I think of her, the clone, waking up in some Cerberus med bay. Confused. And Brooks - Brooks was there, feeding her things to believe, manipulating her, turning her into the symbol she wanted. And I get it.’ Shepard bites her burned lip. ‘Because I woke up in a Cerberus lab. And I was scared. And they used me, and I let them.’

What she does not add is, and sometimes I don’t feel any more real than her. I don’t have any way to prove that I’m the woman who died in the wreckage of her broken ship. They wiped away that woman’s scars. There could be all kinds of tech in my head, feeding me a lie, telling me I’m real.

She swallows. Her throat feels raw. ‘And now the clone’s dead, and no one cares. We’re planning a fucking party. If I don’t push for a funeral, she’ll just go unregistered and undocumented and everyone will keep joking about how crazy this whole mess has been, how I fell through a fish tank and a mad clone tried to steal my life, and it’d be like she never existed at all. I don’t have to fill in these forms. I could take the easy road and let her be a ghost. But I can’t do that, Kaidan. I can’t.’

He looks at her, his eyes steady and patient and full of worry. Then he slips an arm over her shoulder and pulls her in, and Shepard leans into him, needing the surety of his touch, his warmth. Anything that tells her she’s something more than a force piloting a set of N7 armour.

Kaidan presses a slow kiss to the top of her head. He holds her until she stops feeling ready to howl. Then he sits with her and helps her fill in the forms, helps her choose a name for the clone, one that fits. When morning comes, he calls C-Sec and stays on the line until they agree to release the body to the Normandy, into the custody of the only person who could be considered the dead woman’s relative. 

He doesn’t ask Shepard any more questions as to why she needs this done.

In the end, they bury her in space, as Shepard would a crewmate. And no one has stories to tell of what she meant to them. They have nothing to say about the achievements of her angry little life. But they wear their dress blues, and speak softly, and they turn the lights down low.

Shepard doesn’t know if this is what her clone would have wanted. Maybe she never learned to want anything for herself at all. It doesn’t matter. A funeral doesn’t help her clone; it helps her.

They lift the casket into the airlock. EDI opens the outer door. And the casket leaps away into space in a blur of silver-grey, like the body within is hungry for the stars.

[aggro-my-beloved]

Asher + Babe HC’s

＊ after their first meeting, asher volunteered himself to do any and all miscellaneous errands involving paperwork and notarization if it meant going back to baabe’s place of work so he could chance running into them again

＊ they even timed each other’s schedules in order to squeeze in tens of lunch dates through the week before making anything official. one thing that took baabe by surprise during these rendezvous, though, was the same request asher gave to each waiter/waitress.

＊ baabe supposed hot sauce wasn’t that odd of a condiment to put on his burger, but amidst their fourth date when he was loading it on top of his mashed potatoes, they had questions.

＊ asher has grave mouth. his tastebuds are basically useless from all the sour candy he consumed as a child/teen. he can drink lemon juice straight without puckering. this info shut baabe right up, but left them satisfied.

＊ to ensure his meals aren’t entirely bland, he puts hot sauce on almost everything he eats. this has led to some questionable, if not disgusting combinations he has sworn against—including, but not limited to sriracha-topped waffles and red hot chocolate

＊ the pack beta also likes to skateboard, baabe disovered. cmon, they live in california—it was between skating and surfing and this man burns too easy at the beach. his mate would be lying if they said they didn’t admire his freckled face from time to time, though.

＊ give him a shovel on malibu’s finest sand though? he’d dig a hole so big it’d be considered a safety hazard. and he did, the one time he and baabe went on their shared day off. the lifeguard had to come and stop him, urging baabe to glance up from their magazine and gape at the trench a dangerous proximity from their beach chair.

＊ once they did leave, asher was sulking about how he could’ve made the hole so much bigger and deeper (hehehe) had he been shifted and able to use his paws and let primal instinct kick in. baabe consoled him with ice cream and an aloe massage later on, promising they’d try for a private beach and a higher spf sunscreen the next time around

＊ long-haired babe’s go to hairstyle is space burns. asher adores the style on them so much he asked for them to do the same to his hair. it didn’t turn out similar in the slightest (more like two tiny pigtails sticking out lopsided atop his head) but he was happy with the results and that’s all that mattered.

＊ “hell yeah, baaabe! you can’t even tell us apart!”

＊ the only way baaabe can remember to practice self-care is when asher reminds them. sometimes he’ll point out a soothing face mask in the store’s cosmetic aisle or run them a hot bath, but the only way for baaabe to fully indulge is if they offer asher to join them in the activity. and he always says yes, otherwise the task will be long forgotten on his mate’s part. and asher would be caught in a lie to say he didn’t want to see how that one bath bomb in particular fizzled out into the water.

＊ when the weather starts cooling down in the fall, asher likes to take walks in his wolf form. so baaabe can join him in public, they modified his spiked choker to act as a dog collar that baaabe can add a leash to, so no unempowered humans get suspicious at the sight of him. that’s right. asher is babe’s scary dog privelage.

＊ he gets a little too eager and excited on these walks though, best believe he’s pulling his mate down the sidewalk 90263692634962692 mph to take in everything while baabe tries not to stagger or fall flat on their face

＊ after several failed attempts at this, they repurpose ash’s skateboard as a mode of transportation for baabe to safely ride on as asher pulls them down the sidewalk. a much better solution than their twelve-year old heelies shoes that were falling apart at the seams.

＊ asher and baaabe are the only couple in the pack that collectively like horror movies/games/media. the only exception for baabe is haunted houses, which both discovered one fateful october at Dahlia’s local amusement park. one of the scare actors frightened baabe so badly, they left with a broken nose, and baabe with a bruised set of knuckles on their right hand.

＊ asher was quick to comfort them during the embarrassing ordeal, but just as quick to laugh and tease them about it later on. he’d be saying shit about how “you should’ve dressed as rocky with an uppercut like that”

＊ once they did leave, baabe sulked, arguing that “zombies are a different type of scary than werewolves and vampires—it was all self defense!” asher consoled them with ice cream later, promising no more haunted houses in the future for the sake of baabe’s hands and innocent workers’ noses alike.

〈 TLDR: baaabe and asher are adorkably sweet together and both love ice cream 〉

[positivexcellence]

Jared Padalecki Talks Boys Role (‘Just Let Me Know If I Have to Get Naked’) and How It’d Be a Supernatural Reunion

Jared Padalecki is hoping that if he visits The Boys, he’ll get to keep his clothes on.

Supernatural creator and The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke has been vocal about his desire to get his former leading man on the Prime Video drama, calling Padalecki “the Pokémon I haven’t collected yet.” Thus far, Jensen Ackles, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jim Beaver, Rob Benedict and Christian Keyes are among the Supernatural vets to pop up on the comic book series, while Alexander Calvert recurred on the spinoff Gen V.

Bringing Padalecki onto the show is a matter of “finding the right role. Look, I want to. I mean, even if it’s just for a guest shot,” Kripke told TVLine.

But with the announcement that there’s only one season left after this current fourth one, have there been any recent conversations between Kripke and Padalecki about how to make that guest spot a reality before time runs out?

“We talked a little bit recently. I mean, we talked today,” Padalecki told TVLine on Friday.

A month ago, Kripke called the actor following the cancellation of his CW series Walker, which will come to an end with this Wednesday’s episode.

“He’s like, ‘Hey, dude, a) so sorry about Walker. I know how much you loved it and great show. Would you be interested in coming to play up in Toronto [where The Boys shoots]?'” Padalecki recalls. “I was like, ‘Absolutely. Just let me know if I have to get naked or not because I gotta start working out now.'”

Despite the potentially urgent need to get into the gym, Padalecki notes that the role is still a ways off from actual production.

“He and I have talked about what it could look like. It’s not written yet. He said it wouldn’t really be until 2025. We wouldn’t shoot until probably January-ish,” Padalecki shares, adding that he’s game to “go play in the playground [of] the guy who created Sam Winchester. I’ve had good times in his playground, so I’m happy to do it again.”

As for what kind of character he’d like to portray, Padalecki has his sights set on a villainous supe, with “the power of wearing clothes,” he says with a laugh. “No, I don’t know. You know what’s funny is that, yeah, I have some ideas, but to Kripke’s credit, all my ideas for his time on Supernatural paled in comparison to what he came up with. So I wouldn’t even want to put anything in his head. I just want him and his f–ked up mind to think of something cool for me to come and do, and it’s going to be better than anything I could have dreamed up. The way his brain works is wildly interesting and outside of the box… So I’ll just go with what he creates.”

Of course, if Padalecki comes on The Boys, there is potential to have him in a scene with his Supernatural co-stars Ackles and Morgan, who play baddie supe Soldier Boy and CIA officer Joe Kessler, respectively.

“Let me just say that’s not the first time I’ve had a conversation where that has been pontificated. But yeah, that would be a lot of fun,” Padalecki says, before jokingly adding that all three characters would be naked for the reunion.

Well, Kripke does have a habit of putting Supernatural alums in nude scenes…

tvline

[theology101]

I’m bored, so I’m rewriting fallout 4. Lets start with the big factions

Part 2

Fallout 4 Enhanced, part 1 - major factions

The Minutemen

So despite trying to uphold the values of Old World America, it’s a military junta made up of disorganized paramilitary troops. My brother in Christ, thats Yugoslavia.

After retaking the Castle, we should have the ability to form a democratic government and perfect the Commonwealth Provisional Government. And then have elections for Governor that the player can run for but also very much can choose not to. If you’re playing an evil Institute run one candidate should be Mayor McDonough as your puppet, but forbidding you from running. If we’re rebuilding America, let’s start with Democracy, eh? I think that the president should be Abigail Finch, but I’ll take Blake Abernathy or Preston Garvey.

Also, I want there to be a continuous through line of the Gunners-Minutemen rivalry. Honestly, once the Institute is gone, I want a big set piece battle against the Gunners in Quincy (maybe destroying the Overpass with Artillery?) and freeing the still captive population of Quincy. Give us a fourth act, semi protracted factional conflict

I think it would actually be fun if this was a multi faction battle, but we’ll get there.

Railroad

The biggest negative for them (besides the brain wiping) is that they put a lot of focus and effort into freeing *only* Synths. Which makes sense, because there are only Synth Slaves in the Commonwealth (besides ones explicitly being removed) - so here is an idea, say that is because of the Railroad. Make them be this famous and legendary group who’s broken up countless slaver groups and factions, and have no turned to the Synth as their latest Crusade.

It’d definitely give them a lot more good will with your average citizen who, even if they don’t like Synths, remembers their story. A large, established network that stretches across the entire East Coast that has the vast resources to fight the Institute on a level, if asymmetric, playing field. Hell, let’s even have a few long-term Brotherhood infiltrators who are leaking secrets to the Railroad (Maybe they’re a vertibird pilot who “throws their trash” and agents pick up the encoded message). They know of the Brotherhood and have agents in the Capital Wasteland, it isn’t impossible. There should be an option to assassinate Maxson and replace him with Danse whos more sympathetic and wont attack them, but also won’t work with them either.

Speaking of, during the Battle of Quincy, they should be freeing slaves. We see massive empty cages when we go in game, have them filled and make it the basis of the Gunner’s new slave trade operation. We convince Desdemona for a joint strike, so while our artillery is firing, a few squads of heavies and infiltrators hit the cages, free the prisoners, and bounce before anyone notices.

Brotherhood of Steel

This one is going to be the most radically changed, because I think the Brotherhood, while cool in principle, felt undercooked. Which is why I think there should be sub-factions within the Brotherhood of Steel - Hard Liners and Sympathizers, split between their view of Synths. Brotherhood Ideology is not monolithic, in fallout 2 there were debates if Super Mutants were bad, or Hostile Super Mutants only, and similar ones about Ghouls exist in Fallout 3. And then there are the ones who are Space Marines fighting for the God Emperor Elder Maxson.

Hard Liners: Kells, Quinlan and Teagen

Sympathetics: Ingram, Cade, Neriah and Madison Li

Maxson himself starts off as a Hardliner, but based off of choices in other questlines, the Brotherhood’s own new quest lines from the characters I just mentioned, and your charisma in dialogue checks, can be changed into being Sympathetic.

Kells is just a straight military man, also the easiest Hard Liner to convert once you convince him of the military impossibility of trying to actually find Synths, his quest would probably be making an airbase at one of your settlements for the Brotherhood. Quinlan is just a Maxson sycophant and propagandist and has fully bought into whatever Maxson says, even writing his propaganda piece, he also already has quests so he’s good. Teagan is a right bastard and Synth Racist, who will also disapprove of you making democracy if you’re a Minuteman - you have one quest were he sends a squad to intimidate your settlement and they kill the squad and you can either punish them or bring Teagan up on charges of plundering and terrorizing innocents.

Ingram feels a lot of sympathy for the Synths due to her own bio-mechanical nature and thinks that some institute tech can be used for good like agriculture or limb replacement. Her quests should be about finding a way to lessen her work load, maybe with robots, maybe by training and recruiting settlers, maybe by optimizing the Prydwen - her quest ends with her leaving the power armor frame and getting to sleep. Cade is a doctor, he isn’t too interested but since he cant tell a Synth from a Human under tests, he doesn’t really trust the Brotherhood to perform summary executions of them - his quest should just be getting the Covenant research to validate his assumption of ‘dont kill synths.’ Neriah thinks that Institute research in general, especially in bio science, and that Synth researchers with their long lives and rad resistance would be a massive boon for the Brotherhood, she also thinks Synths are similar to Star Paladin Cross and he was fine? - her quest already exists. Madison Li obviously values Synths and the Institute and, one step further, doesn’t want to destroy it either. Hold trials and take over? Sure, but not destroy a perfectly good lab filled with good people

Also, someone on the Sympathetic side is a Railroad agent but idk who, you decide! Not the only one, but definitely the highest ranking

Based off of all these people and their quests, I want a Far Harbor style “Everyone pause and let’s talk about it!” where there is just a full on debate between the leaders of the Brotherhood about wether or not Synths need to be destroyed, or just the method of creating and controlling Synths, allowing them to be free people. Hell, let this happen after Danse runs off but before you go get him. Make a case that the Institute records you stole have him as an escaped slave who then enlisted, of his own free will - while he needs to be taken off the active line of fire while the Institute still has the ability to control him (albeit only up close and if he hears it, so maybe just blast death metal?), let him be the thing that changes Maxson’s policy.

Or if you’re an absolute bastard, instead of doing anything that I just said you encourage everyone’s worst tendencies. Tell Cade that Covenant is almost there and that you let them carry on, get Proctor Ingram believing in conspiracy theories and Teagan an alt-right podcast where they debate whether or not the Brotherhood should have mandatory breeding regulations. I doubt anyone would play it, and all this option would do is lock you out of other stuff (probably preventing or toppling the Commonwealth Provisional Government but hey, at least you get to be Elder of the newly founded Commonwealth Chapter!), but if someone wants to be a bastard and not an unhinged freak who eats corpses, this is how

Let your choices in the story matter.

For the Battle of Quincy, just send a vertibird or two and drop in some guys in power armor and heavy weapons. Land them inside the walls while the Minutemen storm the gates - after the Artillery and Railroad have escaped, of course

The Good Ending

Before we get to the Institute, this is what I call the Good Ending. With the Brotherhood no longer having a desire to take down the Synth, and the Railroad, while powerful, very much lacking the firepower to take down the Institute, are both brought to the Castle for a meeting between Maxson, Desdemona, the Governor, Preston Garvey and you (if you’re not Governor-General). There is shouting, yelling, insults traded (maybe there is even an intermission) but unless you fuck up badly or intentionally screw yourself, you have a joint Minuteman-Railroad-Brotherhood attack force against the Institute.

The Brotherhood still play Pacific Rim, as a distraction, while Railroad operatives sneak through the tunnel system in the Charles. By the time Liberty Prime has blasted a hole into the Earth and Minutemen and Brotherhood troops are storming the base, Loyal and Rebel synths are already fighting on the ground for their freedom. Unlike in game, some of these scientists absolutely would not go down swinging. I can talk those nerds in bioscience or engineering are gonna fight to the Death? SRB sure, but come on. Maybe not all of them are genuine and there is some post game shit with that but with your planning and overwhelming advantage, the Institute falls rather bloodlessly

Now, you can decide to do what Arthur wants you to do and blow it up, or… you can decide to give the Institute to be jointly run by the three factions and the Synths. It’s just a social hub, maybe some act 4 shenanigans (racial conflict)

Oh boy,

The Institute

Hey what’s their goal?

Like, beyond keeping the surface permanently destabilized (Sabatouging any collective government, fomenting conflict between Goodneighbor and Diamond city, seeding Super Mutants at random to ensure chaos) so it remains their pretty, perfect little petri dish, what are their goals?

I got the idea for this from a youtube video, so I’m just gonna say it “Why did you program them to feel fear?” Like, what purpose does it serve to give the Synths complete, perfect sentience and then enslave them? The Gen 2s seemed to be doing just fine. Okay, maybe you wanted to make perfectly humanoid ones, why arent they all like Coursers? Why, why, why? And no one can give me a damn answer!

So, here’s an idea: Shaun is dying of Cancer, so he had his eyes set on True Immortality. A Gen IV Synth, perfectly capable of human thought and creativity, perfectly human in every biological way only superior - faster, stronger, quicker reflexes - immune to radiation, disease and starvation and, once they reach a certain age, become immortal. And I did say “reach a certain age.” Using biotech and nanomachines, lil Shaun is the first Gen IV Synth, born as an infant in a lab womb and fully capable of spreading as a new Ubermensch i mean, new tomorrow. Shaun was going to wait until the body was in its 20s, but his brain cancer is getting so bad that only fragments of his mind can be copied into the 10 year old body.

This should be an active debate of whether or not this is the next step in Cyborgs and Synths (after all, was Kellog not just a Synth at a certain point?) where as some view it as a gross violation of human dignity. Show me some angry academics, damn you! Regardless, some (especially older people) should be Quite Excited about getting flash copied into a “perfect” Gen IV body. This also, at least to me, explains why they needed to be perfectly human - they wanted a perfectly platform to hold onto their intelligence and not go insane or lose their “soul” like the Necrontyr-Necron. It gives an actual reason for all the weird shit they do

As Director you get to decide wether or not this gets to go ahead or not - also whether or not you should kill and replace people with Synths. Give me moral consequences, damn it, there is NO WAY Piper isnt getting replaced in an Institute Victory and you the player should have to carry that burden.

Also i want assassination missions where I replace people with Synths. I think it would be a fun stealth segment to get NPCs alone and either kill em or teleport em. We’re a shadowy cabal, we should be able to end all the faction disputes quietly. Send the brotherhood home, break apart the railroad in a single night. Right proper evil stuff. Or, if you want to play terminator, you role up with an army of death bots and destroy everything for the Gen IV Synth Army!

End Notes

Fallout 4 needed a fourth act. After the Institute is gone, nothing changes. I just blew up a solid chunk of cambridge and am i high ranking leader in two military governments and im a secret agent, and that’s it? No interaction with each other beyond killing? No “crossing idealogical boundaries for the greater good?” I don’t want to fanboy for New Vegas but there, I could cross boundaries and convince people to join their enemies for their own safety and betterment. Preston Garvey is just like “Hey, we can blow up the Blimp if you wanna. Danse is cool, and I know there are kids on board, but I don’t want them breathing down our neck.” Like, motherfucker I’m their Sentinel - no.

The point of the series is “War Never Changes, so Men Must Change.” There’s no change in Fallout 4. There is no seeing the bigger picture and reaching peace. Once the Institute blows up, most factions could probably just go home because the only reason they’d bother to do anything is to kill each other. And that’s deeply boring to me.

Next episode, the minor factions - Gunners, Children of Atom, Raider Gangs, and Super Mutants

[you-remind-me-of-the-babe]

Happy Wednesday friends! I’ve got 15 teaching days left and boy am I ready for summer vacation! 😎

I’m currently writing the fourth chapter of my time travel AU, Back and Back and Back. @cutestkilla and @emeryhall are graciously beta reading for me and thanks to their help, the first two chapters are shape up nicely. 🙏🏻

Here’s a little something from chapter 2 (no, chapter 1 is not posted yet, but I’ve already shared a good amount from it.) An older Simon is visiting ten year old Baz while he’s taking a breather from Malcolm and Daphne’s wedding:

I think about some of the comments I heard the guests making tonight. Discussions about babies and starting a family. Which feels like such an odd thing to say, because Father’s already got a family. Or at least part of one. That isn’t really starting is it?

I tell him a little of what I overheard tonight and he listens intently again without interrupting. He doesn’t give me sad pity eyes like so many other grown ups when they talk to me about things like dead mums. I like that about him. He treats me more normally than just about anyone else.

“Well,” he starts, “I don’t have any siblings myself, so I can’t really speak from experience. But I always thought it would be cool to have a little brother or sister.”

“Really?” I tilt my head, looking up at him.

“Mmm. I think it’d be nice to have someone to look after. Someone you’d always have in your corner. And they’d have you.”

Baby Baz owns my heart. As does an older Simon being nice to him ♥️

Tags/thanks/hello to @cutestkilla @emeryhall @artsyunderstudy @facewithoutheart @whatevertheweather @thewholelemon @raenestee @aristocratic-otter @valeffelees @ivelovedhimthroughworse @ileadacharmedlife @bookish-bogwitch @shrekgogurt @orange-peony @letraspal @nightimedreamersworld @run-for-chamo-miles @roomwithanopenfire @rimeswithpurple @iamamythologicalcreature @prettygoododds @monbons @blackberrysummerblog @that-disabled-princess @best--dress @brendughh @drowninginships @lookinforavampire @mooncello @hushed-chorus

[uselesssomebody]

𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥𝕙 𝕠𝕗 𝕛𝕦𝕝𝕪 (𝕝) - neighbor!joel miller x reader (pre!outbreak)

complete masterlist | joel miller masterlist

"𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕥𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥𝕙 𝕠𝕗 𝕛𝕦𝕝𝕪 𝕞𝕒𝕝𝕥 𝕝𝕚𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕣 𝕠𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕓𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕙, 𝕞𝕪, 𝕞𝕪" - you can be the boss | lana del rey

words || 𝟠.𝟛𝕜

summary || in which the reader gets real friendly with one of her neighbors

next part || fourth of july (II)

a/n || in honor of that one deleted dvcree edit. may it rest in peace ➵ i became ghastly ill when i tried to write so apologies that it took a while. ➵ this is set before the events of the show, back when joel and sarah were still both alive and in austin, texas. i've never been so i dunno how accurate my descriptions are, or my accents, either. don't hate them please ➵ there is an age gap in this story !! if that makes you uncomfortable, i have many other non-age-gap fics you can browse on my page. reader is like 27 and joel is like 36. he's not old, though he is mentioned as such because he's old compared to her. also canonical dilf ➵ thinking of putting out a sister blog but with darker fics? what're we thinking, guys? ➵ send me requests if you have ‘em. enjoy!

warnings || fluff/smut ➵ unprotected sex ➵ piv sex ➵ oral (m receiving) ➵ fingering ➵ overstimulation ➵ facial & cum ig (tell me if i miss anything)

austin was hot.

she was sure that was one of her first thoughts as she’d stepped off the plane, quick to push her suddenly-heavy locks out of her face. lugging luggage and a young teen with her certainly didn’t make it better, but the light gust of fresh air when she stepped out of the airport left her sighing deeply in relief.

flagging down a taxi was simple enough, but getting her sister to help place their suitcases in the trunk was not.

“nicole - please get off your ass and help me!” she said it in such a sweet voice, that her harsh choice of words seemed to both mildly bewilder and amuse the driver.

no one called nicole ‘nicole’, except, of course, her big sister - and even then, only to frighten her. to everyone else she was just nicky and, if they were real close, nick.

swallowing sharply at the implied warning - the use of her full name - she did, indeed, get off her ass and help push the last suitcase into the trunk.

they piled into the backseat, the cool of the a.c. soothing the light flush on the sisters’ skin. she’s quick to give the driver the address, and he nods, setting off.

neither of them had imagined ever moving back to austin, but here they were.

it’d been about 13 years, as far as she remembers, and the scenery had changed significantly. more people bustled around the streets than there had been before, more businesses had seemingly popped up, and everything seemed fancier.

nicky wouldn’t have noticed the change, having moved alongside her family at the ripe age of a year old, but her significantly older sister could.

she still remembers how her parents had sat her down - on a pretty summer evening before her freshman year. they’d mentioned many things - how the family was due for a new start, how austin wasn’t so feasible for them anymore, and so on. the only thing she’d heard was change and loss.

and that's what it was for her. her whole life turned upside on its head, as the family of 4 made the move across the country to the cold state of michigan. and that’s where they’d stayed - for the rest of her childhood, and then her adulthood, too.

her parents had been young when they’d had her. very young, and she sometimes sensed the sadness that she caused them because of it. they never tried to be outward about it, and her life had been as happy as she could have realistically wanted it.

and, though she loved her young sister, she knew that she became less important in the eyes of her parents after nicky’s birth, taking the back-burner to make space for the family’s golden child, conceived with careful planning and meticulous care - as opposed to the case that she’d been.

now, though, being much older, she didn’t let that bother her, though she never felt particularly at home in michigan. in fact, the last place she’d felt at ease had been austin, and when her father had stated that he couldn’t continue to find renters for their old property there, and was thinking of selling it, she was quick to discourage him, swaying him by stating she’d be more than happy to stay there, renting under her parents. they’d been excited at the notion of being able to keep the house, she was happy to get out of there, and nicky was… well, she was, frankly, devastated at the thought of her big sister being several states away.

regardless of the tense family dynamic, the both of them had remained steadfastly bonded, with her providing the role of a caretaker as much as she was a sister to nicky when her parents found themselves unable to relate to or understand their young daughter. nicky’d begged for weeks to travel with her sister, and her parents had been - to put it lightly - hesitant, worried that the big change would affect their daughter’s development.

nicky was outgoing, for sure, and she had her friends and her school - but she knew all those came and went. the only rock she’d truly had in her life was her sister, and the notion of losing her had been too much to bear.

she’d gotten ill after that first week it was announced - it was as much a physical sickness as it was a psychological one - and the wallowing she had done at the advent of the news had only spurred the sickness to be harsher.

her parents had had to reprioritize after that, finally grasping the profound effect the separation might have on the two.

and that’s what led them here - just a few blocks away from her childhood home.

nicky wasn’t sure how exactly she felt about the suburban environment after their last few years in an apartment at the heart of the city, but when she looked over, she could see her sister’s happy - nay, giddy - face. that was definitely a big plus.

she had practically fallen out of the car in her excitement, and she spent just a minute marvelling at the fact that building hasn't changed a bit from when she last saw it.

it had transported her back to her teenage self, and, lost in the moment, the taxi driver wondered if he should remind her of her bags and his fare. nicky, who had been less of a help on the ride here, started unloading them herself, and it took until the second suitcase for him to help her.

“just give her a minute,” she mumbles, making him laugh lightly. hearing the conversation, she snaps her head back, realizing that most of the bags were already on the pavement.

“oh! sorry,” she fished into her wallet, producing his fare, which he accepted with a nod and salute. she smiled, the two sisters thanking him and waving him off, before turning back to their place, “excited?” she mumbles it to nicky.

“incredibly,” she said it with a faux-bored expression, but even she could appreciate the extra space this house would provide them.

she walks up the patio steps, slotting the key she’d so delicately carried the entire journey here into the lock, and hearing the distinct click it made when it opened.

the sound of a new beginning.

it'd been a few weeks, and everything was shockingly alright. the house felt more like home to her than anywhere she'd ever been, and though nicky was still adjusting, she felt infinitely better in a somewhat unfamiliar environment with her sister, as opposed to a familiar one without her. the house had three bedrooms, and nicky’d happened to pick her childhood bedroom out of the two offered to her, and, though nicky hadn't realized yet, she could see the love she’d put into the bedroom when she was younger: chipped wallpaper where she’d put her posters, a faint ring of liquid on the windowsill from where she'd kept her potted plant, the creak of the bed whenever someone would sit on it.

hey, she never said it was perfect, and they'd been quick to make their way to the furniture store closer to the city to find some new things for the place. all she was glad about was that there was no need for renovations in the old house.

they'd found a lot of time to spend together; having moved early into the summer, they'd hoped nicky would get acquainted with the change before going to school. that’d also left her to be a somewhat bored teen, so she did what she, as a younger sibling, did best: annoy her sister.

of course, she didn't mind, simply happy they had a chance to hang out, something that had been harder to do for her between work back in michigan, and her school. currently, she was also taking a break, having left her job, and having a new one lined up in another month.

that left ample time for them to catch up on all the movies and t.v. they'd had to watch, and for the older sister to teach nicky a thing or two about good music. she couldn't have her sister entering high school with a bad taste of music - it'd be blasphemous. she'd been brushing up on her housekeeping abilities as well, so the time also consisted of teaching nicky of how to cook, and keep everything in the house in order to minimize the risk of damage.

that time had begun to dwindle as of recent, with nicky being out of the house more often. she'd come into her sister's room sporadically, in order to ask her permission to meet with a friend. she'd tend to say yes, considering her sister was old enough to handle herself, though she was always a little shocked at the speed at which nicky made friends.

on one fine morning, she finally sat her down.

“so, who's this friend you've been spending all your time with?” it'd been in the middle of breakfast, and nicky'd become frozen, spoonful of cereal sticking out of her mouth. she’s quick to realize the awkward position, pulling the spoon out of her mouth, and hastening her chewing in order to answer the question more quickly.

“you haven't met her? oh my god, you absolutely have to. she's been showing me around the place - apparently she knows all the coolest spots, cause her and her dad - they've been living here for, like, forever, and-” the sudden onslaught of information made the older sister practically recoil, before it was replaced by an amused chuckle.

“well, mom and dad were worried about how well you'd adjust, but it seems like you're doing just fine.” nicky smiled too, though it was a little sheepish, “so, where did you say she stayed?” she was still slightly confused as to how nicky had met her, as she'd never exactly strayed very far from the house.

“oh, she lives next-door. didn't I mention?” the information was jarring for a moment, as it seemed a massive oversight on her part to not even notice her adjacent neighbors, but she suddenly found herself remembering something. there had been a young girl coming out of the house next door with a bag slung over her shoulder, and her hair pulled back and under a visor to protect her from the blinding texan sun. she’d been out to attend to some of the plants she had bought for the porch, and she had looked up when she’d heard the girl’s crunching steps on the somewhat gravelly pavement.

she’d smiled and waved at her, and she’d nodded back, just slightly confused by the encounter. of course, due to the nature of it, she’d promptly forgotten about it by evening, but she was quickly coming to realize that this must be the girl that nicky was talking about.

“wait - she’s the one with the big hair, wears band shirts?” nicky nods enthusiastically, and she smiles approvingly. the young girl seemed sweet enough, and she was more than happy that nicky had already found a friend.

the next week, nicky had been begging that they invite sarah over for dinner. it’d been a chill weekend anyways, so she was definitely not opposed to the idea, but she was quick to extend the invitation.

“okay, okay - invite her over on sunday. tell her to invite her parents too; it’d be nice to meet the neighbors.” nicky was quick to shake her head.

“parent, it’s just her and her dad.” she corrected herself quickly.

“right, ‘f course. invite him over too, then.” nicky nodded excitedly, rushing over to her room to get on the phone with sarah along the street.

that sunday, she did join the sister’s for dinner, but, as she’d been ushered into the house by two friendly smiles, she seemed to putting off a phrase at the tip of her tongue.

“s’everything ‘lright, hun?” she was quick to notice her guest’s guarded appearance, as she’d sat on the couch with nicky.

“hmm? oh, yeah, yeah. it’s just - my dad’s working tonight, so he couldn’t make it.” she waved her off.

“oh, don’t worry about that, we’re just happy you’re here!”

nicky echoed the sentiment, and the two young girls spent their time talking and laughing, a couple miscellaneous snack bowls spread over the coffee table as sarah became more comfortable. they’d migrated to the dining table when they’d been served dinner. she didn’t tend to cook for guests, so she attempted to pull out all her makeshift stops and, considering the end product, she was quite satisfied with the result.

no one was more excited than nicky and sarah, though - the both of them practically scarfing down the delicious meal. the conversation had turned to include all three of them, and sarah was beginning to reacquaint the both of them to austin, while they entertained her with stories of their time in michigan.

though they’d tried their very best, neither girl came all that close to finishing all the food she’d set out, so she was quick to package it up, sending sarah on her way with the food as a nod to her father’s missed opportunity.

“are you sure? i mean, i don’t know if i can take this-”

“yes, you can. unless you don’t think he’ll like it-”

“no! absolutely not, he’ll love it, it’s just-”

“sarah.” the faux-strict tone made sarah’s face crack into a smile, before she nodded, tucking the packet under her arm as she turned to say her goodbyes to nicky.

once she’d left, she pounced on her older sister.

“isn’t she great?” startled, she laughed, before nodding.

“definitely.”

june passed quickly, and, by july, she’d finished the paperwork for the house, for her job, and for nicky’s school. she was glad to know that it was the same one that sarah went to, and, with the added comfort of her sister spending increasing amounts of time exploring austin, she’d sat her cramped joints down in front of the t.v., vying at the chance to enjoy some trashy reality or game show.

though the sun still provided sweltering heat, when she left the kitchen and living room windows slightly ajar, she could feel the hint of a breeze work in place of their energy-consuming a.c. - which she’d turned off for that exact reason.

she turned her head from the t.v., the contestants on the screen continuing to speak with the host, and she let her eyes drift over the sliver of scenery that she could see through the half-obstructed kitchen windows. some of her neighbors had put up american flags. some were old, new, tattered, printed, there was even one that seemed to be homemade. of course, she knew this behavior was really only reserved in this neighborhood during this time of year, as the texans prepared to celebrate the 4th of july.

reminiscing of her own experiences with the holiday: going swimming with friends, eating good meals, and the occasional barbecue at a friend’s place - she was caught off guard when she heard the doorbell ring. it made her jump, but she quickly composed herself, standing up and brushing off her clothes.

she ran her fingers through her hair and, hoping she looked presentable, she opened the door.

it was her neighbor on her other side, a woman by the name of martha. she was a little older - her and her husband - and they were absolute sweethearts. in fact, they were the first to greet the new neighbors, back on their second day here. she was looking up at her with an excited smile.

“martha, hi! what can i do for you!”

“well - i was just wondering if you’d join us: we’re having a little barbecue tomorrow for the 4th, and i’ve invited a few of the neighbors. we’d really love to have you and nicky.”

she was just a bit taken aback by the invitation, but she didn’t hesitate in her response.

“of course, we’d be happy to be there! shall i bring anything?”

“no, of course not, dear. we’re hosting, just bring your little one.” she let out a light laugh, agreeing. martha bid her a quick goodbye, and headed in the next house’s direction - the millers.

perfect, she thought, nicky’ll have some fun too, then.

july the 4th, and a neighborhood barbecue. it’s a nation-wide phenomenon, then.

nicky’d been significantly more excited than her, once again, proving herself to be the more social one. nevertheless, as the younger girl got ready the next morning, her older sister spent her time finishing a tin of muffins. martha’d assured her she didn’t have to bring anything, but it almost hurt her soul to show up empty-handed. if she’d calculated correctly - and she’d hoped she’d done - she’d made just about enough for the whole group.

by 11:30, they were both ready, and she’d placed two boxes of them in nicky’s hand, while she carried the other two. the both of them made their way over, and she noticed the large group mingling in their yard and backyard. she could see martha’s husband, john, commandeering their large grill, a corona in his hand. she looked around for martha, and caught the eye of the woman as she turned away from greeting another guest.

“oh, you two ‘re here, perfect.”

“hey, martha. look, i know what you said, but-” martha gasped in delight at the boxes as she neared and noticed them, lightly taking them off of her.

“they look great; you haven’t stressed making them, have ya?”

“no - no, it’s my pleasure, really.” martha smiled at her, a mix of graciousness and happiness, before turning her attention to nicky.

“hey, nicky. how’re ya holding up?” nicky nodded.

“good, pretty good. thanks for having us.” she waved her hand at the notion, ushering the both of them inside.

for the first hour, she got acquainted with martha’s husband, the smiths from across from them, and marriots from down the road. they were all very curious about michigan and she, in turn, curious about how much exactly austin had changed since she’d last been here. at the same time, nicky was talking to a pair of twins a year younger than her who lived about two houses down. they were pretty cool, and were going to the same school as her, so they were filling her in on some of the school-wide drama: stuff sarah never cared so much about.

speaking of which, by about 12:30, she hears sarah’s voice greeting someone, and she turns her head, waving at her. behind her is her father, two packs of cold ones in his hands, that he sets down as he greets the hosts. sarah’s quick to detach from him, saluting him goodbye, as she instead makes her way over to nicky and the two other girls.

nicky's older sister had been enraptured in a conversation about the new dog the marriots were getting next week, when she felt someone come up to her.

john had brought joel over to the group, and he integrated without interrupting the story, letting mr. marriot express his excitement for the miniature pinscher they were getting. once he was done, he notices the newest member of his audience.

“hey! joel, how’re ya doin’?” his words turned the attention of everyone in the group, and she realized that this was the coveted joel miller: the man she missed for that one dinner. she turned her head to look at him, flashing him a friendly smile, but it almost froze on her face as she drank in his appearance.

good god, was he fine. messy hair that he’d pushed back, a full beard and an intense gaze. jesus, he was piercing straight through her, his eyes boring into hers while his mouth reflected a polite smile. she averted her gaze for a moment, before john is quick to introduce them.

“and this is joel; him and his daughter live right next door to you guys.” she nods, reaching over to shake his outstretched hand.

“nice to meet you; you’re sarah’s dad?” he nods, smiling at the mention of his daughter. she made the mistake of looking up to catch his gaze, and she felt her breath hitch. the moment passed as she released his hand, but, when she looked back up at his face for a half-second, as ms. smith began talking about her daughter, she swore she saw a smirk in the corner of his mouth.

the lunch had been lovely, and the company had been better. she’d heard stories of four neighbor’s dogs, and seven neighbor’s kids, and then stories of john and martha’s holiday the previous winter, and she felt much closer to the entire neighborhood. nicky had been bustling between her and her friends the entire time, as had sarah, but with her father.

speaking of whom - joel was interesting. he seemed just a bit tired, and maybe bit quiet compared to the others, but he had managed to find a keen amusement in making her squirm. and how could she not? this attractive, sweet, hot, funny, hot, gentlemanly, hot single dad was meeting her eyes every few moments with a gaze that made it look like he wanted to make her forget her name.

did she mention he was hot?

as was she, after a few hours of this strange back and forth, where the both of them seemed to be enraptured in the conversations they were in, but couldn’t seem to take their attention off each other.

jesus christ - he’s your neighbor. and he’s 10 years older than you. and he’s got a daughter who is best friends with your sister!

she jumped when nicky had come up to her, shocked by the feeling of practically materializing her sister.

“hey, i was wondering if i could go over to sarah’s place? i’ll be home in the evening.” nicky seemed a little tired of the party, obviously not the absolute best scene for a teenager like her.

“huh? oh, um - is she and her dad okay with that?”

“i’m alright with it,” a deep voice came from behind her, and she whipped her head around. joel had a kind smile on his face, and he was looking over at nicky, nodding.

“oh, thank you mr. miller! i appreciate it.” nicky smiled back up at him, before looking at her sister with practically puppy eyes.

“alright, nicky. be home by 5.”

“by 6, see you!” nicky rushed off before she had a chance to argue, and she opened her mouth, stuck between bemusement and amusement at her gall. joel laughed behind her, a deep, quiet noise. she didn’t realize how close he was to her, feeling the vibrations of his body in her own. she turned to properly face him, taking a half-step back to allow herself a more comfortable angle to look at him.

“nicky’s always so excited to hang out with sarah, and i can see why: she’s really sweet.” he smiled at the compliment for his daughter, his eyes holding a far-away quality that indicated his reminiscing of her.

“yeah - yeah, nicky too. sarah’s always harpin’ me to be able to go out with her.” he took a breath as he snapped back to look at her, “you’re new to the neighborhood then.” she smiled.

“yeah, we just moved in last month.” he nodded, gesturing around.

“it’s not a bad place, when you’re used to it.” there’s a joking twang in his tone.

“it’s not a bad place, even when you aren’t.” a light chuckle fell from him, as he took another swig of his beer. she could feel the proximity heating her up, so she brushed some hair out of her face, “i think i’ll step out for a moment. d’ya wanna join me?” she gestured to the door, and he shrugged.

“why not.”

the yard was more empty now, as people had begun leaving the gathering, or entering the house as the food had dwindled. though, still placed on the table, were a few of the many muffins she had made. she walked over, him in invisible tow, and she took one, handing it over to him.

“do me a favor, tell me what you think.” he seemed a bit confused, but obliged her, eating the muffin with great care. maybe exaggerated, but the expression on his face made her laugh, so she didn’t mind.

“this is great! martha went all out for these.” she nodded at the praise, him oblivious that it should have been directed towards her.

“martha definitely did. those were mine, though.” he looked back at her, in a mixture of impress and awe.

“well - you’re as good a baker as you are a cook, then.” she laughed at the reference to their lost dinner.

“oh, you did get it from sarah. perfect, what’d you think?”

“i thought that i regretted missing the chance to meet you then.”

suddenly, she felt the conversation had veered away from her ability to make food, and more towards - well, her. she went to retort, but heard her phone’s tone go. she snapped her head to her pocket, mumbling an apology as she did so.

it wasn’t anything important, thankfully, but it did give her an opportunity to check the time and, true to belief, it seemed that, very soon, she’d have overstayed her welcome.

“shit, it’s later than i thought.” she looked up at him, almost apologetically.

“you’re heading home?” though she wasn’t a master at reading faces, she could almost swear there was a hint of disappointment on his.

“well, joel, you’re a hard man to get a hold of. so, mind helping me bring these boxes back?” she gestured to the four boxes, and, in her own roundabout manner, made the bold move of inviting him over.

was it even bold? he lived a few meters from the place anyway. he smiled though, and, in his own gentlemanly manner, agreed immediately. he grabbed three of the boxes before she could stop him, and she almost sheepishly took the last box back up the street with him, pausing for only a moment to unlock the door to hers, before ushering him into the place.

he seemed almost hesitant to step too far in, but she waved it off, telling him to make himself comfortable as he set the boxes down.

“want anything? water, beer? something to eat?” he held his hand up, shaking his head, but did indulge in sitting at her dinner table. she ignored his gesture, taking out two cans for the both of them, before sitting in the seat beside him. he didn’t seem to mind, though, taking the cold beverage gratefully. it made her smile: at least the heat was affecting the both of them.

she took a long, almost wincing sip of hers, having almost forgotten how strong the liquid tasted in her mouth.

“sarah mentioned you’re a contractor?” it was a feeble attempt at reigniting their conversation; truly, she just didn’t want him to leave yet. he seemed to notice that notion, as he took a moment to answer, looking up at her between sips.

“yeah, yeah. me and my brother.” it was new info, and she nodded, rubbing at her nose lightly as she concentrated on the tab of the can, “so, how’d you find the place - the people?”

“they’re - uh, they’re really nice, i guess. everyone seems really friendly.” he nods.

“sure, sure. i’m sure it’s a little annoying though - everyone’s a bit older, right?” she looked up at him, and he had an unreadable expression on his face.

“well, i don’t mind older.” she maintained eye contact as she saw his smile twist, lip curling into a smirk, one he tried to hide behind his drink, “in fact, i think it’s better. older guys tend to be more mature - put together, you know?”

“guys?” his face betrayed his shock at her directness, and she suppressed a laugh.

“well, that is what you’re asking, aren’t you?” he held a hand up in surrender.

“and if i was?” she stuck her tongue into the side of her cheek, surveying the space between them.

“well, mr. miller. i’d tell you to stop beating around the bush and just take what you want.” he set his drink down with a light thud, something more desperate swirling in his eyes.

“and what would that be?” he wanted her to iterate exactly what she thought would happen.

“you tell me.” she didn’t give in, hoping the older man would break before she would.

he didn’t need much convincing, though, placing a firm grip on her arm, and pulling her closer to him, leaning forward and taking her cheek in his much larger hand.

“you’re asking too much of me, sweetheart. what’d the neighbors think?” his breath fanned over her face, and the tone of his voice indicated his teasing nature.

“what?” he laughed against her, shaking her body, before he gestured to the window just adjacent to him.

“only been here a few weeks, and already seducing one of your neighbors? it’s bold - i’ll tell you that much.” his cologne - a soft, but distracting smell - was overpowering her, and she couldn’t exactly think clearly as he sat so close to her.

“joel.” it came out as more of a plea than she had maybe wished, and he smiled, his eyes flicking across her face, “should we go upstairs?” she detached from his eyes for just the slightest moment, to look up at the staircase leading to her room.

“if you want to, sweetheart.”

fuck. being called sweetheart? by him? she was done for.

she led him up the stairs, her steps just slightly shaky as she walked up.

what was she doing? him, she supposed.

her bedroom was messier than she’d hoped as they walked in, but she didn’t have time to dwell on that as he pulled her towards him while she shut the door behind her, pressing his lips to her ear as her back hits his thick chest.

“you sure you want to do this?” his voice is huskier than it had been before, and it made her let out a shaky breath.

“please.” he smiles against her soft skin, turning her to face him. she doesn’t waste a moment, leaning closer to his face as he pulled hers closer to him, capturing her lips in his own.

his beard tickled her chin, his breath warm on her face as she closed her eyes against him. he tasted like an interesting mix between the barbecue, her muffins, and the beer he’d been drinking, creating a festive, american aftertaste in her mouth.

the kiss made her moan against him, as her hands finally began exploring the man in front of her. his shirt was flimsy against his torso, and that made her almost more inclined to pull it off of him, as she placed her hands under the thin fabric. he broke the kiss with an amused exhale, pulling her hands out from under it with a smile playing on his lips.

“think you owe me something, first, sweetheart.” she looked back up at him in confusion, but, noticing the fingers at the ends of her own top, she as quick to pull it off of herself. even he seemed a little shocked by her eagerness, but that didn’t stop him, pulling her into him with such force that the both of them fell onto her bed.

he sat back up in a heartbeat, redirecting her thighs so that they straddled his own, pulling her towards him. the angle left her neck at eye level with him, and his nose traced the skin of her collarbone, the ghost of kisses leaving a trail up her neck as she wrapped her fingers in his scruffy hair. she let herself get lost in his touch, the softness of his lips on her chest, the sharp sting of his teeth occasionally grazing her skin, the harshness of his fingers against the skin of her thighs.

before she - or he, for that matter - could get too carried away, she pushed away from him lightly, reaching back down to tug at his shirt.

“you got what you wanted, now come on-” he laughed as he pulled the offending cloth off of him, and she sighed happily at the sight.

god, he was hot. she pushed him further back until he was laying down, and attached herself to his jaw, placing chaste kisses in a similar manner he’d done, tracing the edges on his beard with her lips. he kept his hands firmly on her sides, squeezing gently as she made her way down his body, over his chest, where the hair tickled her nose, making her smile. then, over his stomach, until she’d gotten dangerously close to his rapidly hardening cock.

he gripped her tightly, making her squeak in shock which, surprisingly, did nothing to quell his arousal.

“you’re-”

“let me, c’mon.” she said it as though there was a measure needed to persuade him. that definitely wasn’t the issue; rather he was worried he’d finish far too quickly for the mature older man he’d portrayed himself to be.

but how could he not - this fucking gorgeous woman with her head between his legs looking up at him with those eyes. fuck, those eyes.

“please, joel?” he’d grunted in that moment, releasing his grip, and she had a smug smile on her face as she unbuttoned his jeans. he couldn’t see it though, his head thrown back as he tried to even his breaths.

she wasted not a moment to tease him, tracing the outline of him lightly through the thin fabric of his boxers. he’d groaned her name - almost in warning, and she smiled as she relented, pulling him out from the confines of the cloth.

she hadn’t exactly been proud of her expression in that moment - akin to an actress on a certain screen, if you caught her drift - except hers wasn’t a fake one. older men had always been a hit or miss for her in terms of dick size, but this one seemed to be the fucking hit.

he’d recovered in time to catch that look, leaning on his forearm to be able to reach his hand over and push her hair out of your face.

“shocked, sweetheart?” she didn’t take her eyes off him.

“excited, more like.” she pulled her hand lightly up and down his cock, spitting in her hand before continuing. the added lubrication made him moan through his teeth, and she didn’t give him a moment of reprieve, readjusting so she was at the perfect angle to lightly lick his tip.

he practically shuddered at the contact of the wet muscle on him, a hand going to weave the hair falling over her face away, and gripping her head maybe tightly than he intended to, as she placed feather-light, open-mouthed kisses from the top to the bottom of his cock. he didn’t say anything, his appreciation for the act moreso communicated through the squeezing and releasing of her hair, and his shuddered breaths and quiet, almost broken moans.

deciding she didn’t want to wait any longer, she wrapped her lips completely around him, taking him deeper and practically feeling him twitch as she sunk lower on him. he guided her movements slightly with his grip on her, pushing her down as he let loose to the feeling, and pulling her up lightly as she came too close to unraveling him.

breathing in deeply through her nose, she pushed down further on him, swallowing to suppress her gag as she felt her nose being tickled by the hair at his base.

“fuck, sweetheart.” the curse left his mouth almost aggressively, as he twitched behind her lips. her throat constricted around him, and she resurfaced, breathing heavily to make up for the lost air. he looks down at her, taking in her cock-drunk appearance as she sighed between his thighs. she lazily pulled her hand up and down his cock, as she caught her breath, “come up here, baby.” through both of their pants, she made out his request, getting up so that she was sitting on her knees, as he also rose to rest better against the headboard. he gestured her to some closer, and she placed a knee of either side of him, practically crawling up his legs.

the shorts she was wearing were his biggest obstacle at the moment, and he was quick to pull her up by the front of them, unbuttoning them in the process. a squeak emitted from her, shocked by the manhandling, and he was quick to pull them down her legs. her hands cover his, the both of them almost desperately taking them off and, once he’d finally done so, he focused his eyes to hers, his fingers sliding up her thigh and to her cunt. he traced her lower lips lightly, and she could feel her thighs tense, her breathing hitching.

noticing her reaction, he smiles, pulling her lips to his, and kissing her as he traced up and down her slit, placing the ghost of pressure on her clit. she almost jumps at the sensation, but the firm grip his other hand keeps on her hip stops her.

“don’t run away now, sweetheart.” it’s a whisper into the space between them, and she wordlessly nods, her hand going to his biceps and gripping as he applied more pressure, “tell me what you want.” she looked up at him, a mix of disappointment and frustration at the request.

“i…”

“you?” she cleared her throat, averting her gaze, and he used his free hand to direct her chin to look at him, “what d’you want?”

“i want you to fuck me.” she felt almost ashamed saying it, but he smiled in pride - a smug smile.

“we’ll have to get you ready, first; don’t ya think?” he dips the tip of his finger into her and she shudders again, her hips jumping lightly, causing him to squeeze her. she nods, humming, too focused on the movements of him fingers to properly answer. taking pity on her, he obliges, pushing a finger into her, and curling it up.

“oh, god.” the sensation makes every muscle in her tense, the sexual frustration piquing at the feeling, and simultaneous lack thereof. her head falls into the space between them, and he places an almost comforting kiss to the top of her head, before beginning to move his finger.

initially, he moved it in and out of her almost exploratively, as if he was trying to determine what exactly made her tick. it resulted in soft moans and cut-off breaths, before he heard something akin to a whimper when he’d found a particular spot inside her.

he pushed another finger in, making her noises only grow, gripping him tighter. he started moving in and out of her at a more rapid rate, his fingers curling, to the point where she was moaning so loudly that he was worried the neighbors would hear regardless of their relocation.

he took his lips to hers again, hoping to muffle her noises, and it worked, her mouth focused on feverishly returning his passion that she managed to swallow the majority of her moans. though, it didn’t help when she felt the knot inside her begin to tighten, her hips grinding against his fingers.

“y’gonna cum, sweetheart?” she couldn’t speak, worried she’d be too loud if she opened her mouth, so she nodded frantically, pushing more quickly against him as she chased her high, “that’s it, baby, cum for me, cum for me-” his encouragement almost made it easier, and she did cum, in something akin to a burst: her body fully stilled, as did his movements, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head, the hint of a squeal leaving her parched mouth. her voice sounded almost broken because of the intensity of it, and she practically leaped off of his fingers, unable to take the overstimulation as he had begun to move again.

“sorry - fuck, it’s too much, sorry-” he shook his head, assuring her immediately.

“it’s fine, sweetheart, you’re fine. ‘re ya ‘kay?” his accent came out more aggressively as he checked on her. she’d placed her hands over her face in an attempt to cool its warm flush, trying to catch her breath, as she nodded shakily.

“i’m - i’m, fuck, yeah, i’m fine.” she practically stuttered through her gasps, and he found it endearing, giving her a moment to compose herself. he adjusted the way she sat on him for her to be more comfortable, him fingers kneading the flesh of her thigh gently, hoping the contact would ground her.

it worked, with her taking her hands off her face after a few moments. her eyes had a far-away look to them, but she had a sheepish smile on her face.

“that was - uh, it was really good.” he smiled at her reaction, but it dropped after a moment.

“we can - we can stop, if ya want, sweetheart. if it’s too much-”

“no!” her response was so aggressive that it made him look at her in light amusement, “i mean, no. i don’t want to stop.” he surveyed her with an analytical eye.

“are ya sure?”

“joel, please?” she’d moved closer so her cunt sat inches from his cock, her warmth radiating onto him.

“i-” he went to say something, but seeing her flushed skin, her lust-blown eyes and the plea to fuck him, he seceded.

he pulled her up by her thighs, so she hovered over his cock. she used her hand to hold it steady, before he helped her lower onto him. it took a try or two, with his cock bumping against her clit and making her jolt. his tip caught her entrance in just another moment, though, and she took in a deep breath as she sunk onto him.

“fuck-” his response made up for her wordless one, her face contorting in pleasure as she tried to handle the size of him in her.

“joel-” she needed a moment to adjust, and it seemed as though he’d realized even before her.

“take your time, sweetheart.” she took a deep breath, sinking into joel’s arms further as she felt his thumb over her clit, trying to make the process easier for her.

finally, she mustered the strength to grip onto his shoulders, his hand finding a firm place on her waist, as she strained the muscles in her thighs to lift herself up. she felt a moment of aching emptiness, before she sunk back down on him, his cock catching practically every sensitive spot inside of her, making her moan.

it was a bit laborious, but along with his own effort, they came to a working rhythm seamlessly, and her moans began to be matched by his grunts at the feeling of her warm cunt, enveloping and twitching around him. she felt fucking amazing, and the warm breath of her gasps spurred him to push against her with just that bit more force. her eyes widened, her moans breaking as her breath caught in her throat. she felt her muscles turn to jelly with each thrust, practically being held up just by his hands. her head falls against his shoulder, her breath stuttering. his pace didn’t relent, though, with him readjusting just slightly to do the brunt of the work, fucking up into her as she tried not to let the pleasure consume her.

“joel - joel, you’re, oh, fuck-” she became a mess of mumbles as she attempted to just take it, but she felt her second orgasm oncoming, and way too quickly.

“c’mon, c’mon-” even joel wasn’t really registering what he was saying, focusing on feeling her cunt pulse again, like it had around his fingers. she didn’t make him wait too long, as her mouth fell open and her body tensed, clamming up as her orgasm crashed over her. his name came out in a squeak, and he resisted the urge to moan too loudly by attaching his lips to her neck, taking in the feeling of her pulsating cunt.

she slumped against him, desperately trying to catch her breath, before she was reminded her was still inside her. he helped her off of him and, before he could do anything else, she kneeled back in front of him, positioning her face right in front of his cock and stroking him to completion, his warm cum falling over her face in ropes.

“jesus christ, sweetheart.” he had to physically turn away from her, worried he’d get hard again at the sight, and she let out a tired laugh at his reaction. she rose from the bed after a moment of catching her breath, turning into her bathroom in order to clean herself up. it only took a minute or two, and by the time she’d walked back, joel had managed to pull his jeans back over him, and was desperately searching for his shirt. it was just by her feet, and she could give it to him.

but did she want to?

both of their heads snapped up when they heard the sound of the front door opening.

nicky - she’d come back at her sister’s previously preferred time, 5, and that had become increasingly problematic.

“shit-” she threw his shirt at him, and he caught it with one hand, trying to adjust the button of his pants with the other, “what do we-?” she questioned, as she pulled her shorts over her legs and shirt over her own head.

“just say ya were showing me around?” he suggested, and, through a shaky breath, she nodded.

“smart - smart, uh, do we-?” she gestured to herself, hoping she looked presentable, and the both of them gave each other a once over in approval that neither looked too disheveled, before they opened the door.

of course, those post-orgasm should never be told to rationally judge anything, as nicky and sarah could tell something was off from practically the moment their family members stepped out of the room.

“nicky? you didn’t have to be back so early, you know.” she said it quickly, without thinking, and, upon seeing joel’s what the fuck? expression, she realized how bad it sounded. nicky had, too, her brows furrowing as she turned to sarah, who simply shrugged in similar confusion.

“i’m sorry?” she watched as her sister - and then, to her surprise, mr. miller - came down the stairs.

“that’s not what i meant.” her sister mumbled, a sheepish smile on her face.

“dad, what’re you doing here?” sarah looks at her father quizzically, and he opens his mouth to speak, as she does at the same time.

“just - showing me around-”

“i’m giving him a tour!” they spoke over each other, and she glanced to look at him in slight embarrassment. he was trying his absolute hardest to keep from chuckling.

“anyways, sarah, we should get going. you two have fun?” sarah still looked between the both of them inquisitively, as nicky bore a glare at her sister, as if asking a question telepathically.

“lots of fun, dad.” it’s got an awkward delivery, so he coughs in an attempt to dissuade the tension, turning to her once more.

“it was nice meeting you, then - the both of you.” he smiled at nicky as well, before reuniting with his daughter.

“of course! it was great to see you again, too, sarah.” she mentioned, as she opened the front door for the both of them.

“see you around, sarah. good evening, mr. miller.” nicky spoke from behind her, and the millers nodded in goodbye. the front door shut with a click behind them.

there was a moment of silence between her and nicky, as she leaned against the door, before nicky broke into a big smile.

“i can’t believe you did that.” panic flashed over her face, and she whipped her head to face nicky.

“huh?”

“he’s so much older than you. and my friend’s dad, c’mon!” she sounded annoyed, but the exaggerated nature indicated that it was fake. she immediately tried to deny her sister’s completely true assertion, but the younger girl practically laughed in her face. she rolled her eyes at the reaction, brushing her off.

“shut up, nicky. he’s not even that much older than me.”

only a few meters away, sarah was trying very hard to suppress her own laugh.

“she’s really nice, right, dad?” joel, who had a faraway look in his eyes, hummed in response, prompting her to continue, “nicky’s sister. she’s really nice.”

“yeah - yeah, she is.” joel shrugged, unsure of how exactly to respond to his daughter. he looked down at her, and she had this glint of mischievousness in her eyes.

it worried him.

as he ushered her in when he’d unlocked the door, she’d made a beeline for her room. though, before she made her way up the stairs, she turned back for a moment, looking at him.

“and dad? you’re shirt’s on backwards.” she doesn’t wait for his response, walking up the stairs. shocked, joel looks down at his shirt, where the tag was practically looking him in the face. he sighed, closing the door behind him.

“shit.”

[homestuckreplay]

To be fair, you have to have a very high wisdom to understand Colonel Sassacre. The mischief is extremely nuanced, and without a solid grasp of mangrit and maturity most of the pranks will go over the typical reader’s head.

(page 759)

If I was making a webcomic, I’d probably take a well deserved few days off between story acts, but not so in Homestuck. We’re back, and kind of, sort of, unofficially, maybe, in Act 3?

For Act3posting, I’m gonna do a couple things.

- Hard cap reaction posts at 500 words. Time to get economical.

- End reaction posts with a command suggestion. I can’t access the actual suggestion box, so can’t influence the story directly, but I still have ideas I’d like to share.

Starting now.

So, there’s a message from Nanna in the front of Colonel Sassacre’s – and not just any message. I’d call this a prophecy. This is real fantasy novel territory, with battles and royalty and chosen ones and protagonists with cool dramatic titles and wise old spiritual guides who know far more than they should. I eat this stuff up even when it’s cliché. I wonder if the story within Sburb and the story outside of Sburb could be totally different genres.

Nanna says this book’s ‘journey will end on the Final Day of [her] life’, with Final Day underlined, so we know it’s plot important. This means she wrote this some time ago, already knowing about John’s future. Signing up to be a Sburb beta tester because it’s the Game of the Year no longer feels like a happenstance. This is cosmically fated somehow, which… is a little sad, because it takes away some of John and Rose’s success from them, if they didn’t get to this point in the game through skill but through destiny. I’m gonna have to get used to that concept, and start thinking through how free will can be exercised in a story that plays with time this way.

These titles are SO cool. ‘...the Heir of Breath and Seer of Light, the Knight of Time and Witch of Space…’ these fuck so hard. I want one. These probably correspond to John, Rose, Dave, and their secret fourth player Todd from Missouri, maybe in the same order we meet the characters, although maybe there will be a surprise shakearound. After all, Rose seems way more associated with darkness than light, and ‘Witch of Space’ feels like it’d fit her way better than ‘Seer of Light’. And no way does Dave have the earnestness and devotion necessary to be a good knight – John, on the other hand, could rise to that challenge.

Nanna’s ‘P.S. HOO HOO HOO!’ could indicate that she knew all along that she would become Nannasprite, and perhaps knew that she wouldn’t be able to deliver this message directly in sprite form, as it would be game spoilers. Or it could be that she always liked to say hoo hoo hoo, carrying the spirit of the harlequin even without being prototyped with the doll. Personally, I hope both are true.

According to the Adventure Map, Act 3 is called ‘Insane Corkscrew Haymakers’. This is really different from the first two act titles, which are both very literary sounding, have musical allusions, and indicate a setup and inciting incident of a story, respectively. A haymaker is either ‘a powerful blow with the fist’ or ‘a machine for curing hay in rainy weather’, and this is not a farm story, so my guess is the punch. Act 1’s title related to John and Act 2’s to Rose, so this should be Dave’s, especially as his narrative is often treated less seriously. Perhaps these insane corkscrew haymakers happen during his rooftop battle with his bro?

> John: Find a prank to play on Nannasprite.

[justabooknerdposts]

Percabeth Drabble: Fall in Love Questions

*Okay, so the idea for this came to me a few years ago—I was watching The Big Bang Theory and it was the episode where they discuss this list of questions that will allegedly make two people fall in love.  Sheldon and Penny decide to go through them—spoiler alert, they don’t fall in love, but they say they do feel closer at the end.  So anyway, I went online to find the questions, out of curiosity, and then, after reading them, I thought it might be a fun writing exercise to play with this as if Percy and Annabeth were answering the questions.  So here it is! 

The Scene: The Jackson-Blofis apartment, early fall.  Percy and Annabeth are sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the coffee table, leaning back against the sofa—a half empty pizza box sits in the middle of the coffee table, as well as a couple of partially full glasses of Coke.  Golden sunset light is coming through the window.  The baby monitor is also on the coffee table, showing Estell sleeping in her crib.  This is Percy and Annabeth’s first visit back to New York since heading off to New Rome University.  Tonight, they’re baby-sitting, giving Paul and Sally a chance to go out to dinner and a movie.

Re-runs of a sit-com are playing in the background as Percy reached for his third slice of pizza.  The characters on the TV show were talking about a list of questions that will allegedly make two people fall in love after answering them together.  So, Annabeth nabbed Paul’s laptop and, while Percy was debating a fourth slice of pizza, she looked them up.  After scanning the list, she told Percy, “Let’s try it.”

He looked over at her, right in the middle of taking his first bite of his fourth slice.  “What?”

“Let’s try it,” she said again, showing him the list on the computer.  “It might be fun.”

Percy looked skeptical, like their definitions of “fun” didn’t exactly line up.  “But we’re already in love.”

That drew a smile from Annabeth.  “I know.  But we might learn something new.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Alright.”  Percy finished his fourth slice of pizza, then took a drink of his Coke.  “Hit me with the first one.”

Annabeth kissed him on the cheek, then turned back to the questions on the laptop.  The TV droned low in the background.  On the monitor, Estelle’s chest rose and fell as she slept on her back, one arm curled up around her head.  The air conditioner chugged in the window, fending off the last heat of late summer as it gave way to early fall.  Percy’s arm lay along the couch cushions, lightly touching Annabeth’s shoulders.  He had his legs stretched out beneath the coffee table and she was sitting criss-cross, her left knee resting on his right.  It was a peaceful, relaxing evening.  Scrolling to the first question, Annabeth began to read.    

Set 1

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?

[CAVEAT for them, can’t be each other or anyone you could just call up for dinner right now].

P:  My mom’s parents.  I never got to meet them, and I think it’d be kind of cool to get to know them.  Learn more about that part of my family and all.

A:  My mom.  I know that’s almost like cheating, but I would honestly just love to sit down and have dinner with her and just, you know, talk.

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?

P:  Absolutely not.  I mean, when I was younger, I kind of wanted to be a famous skateboarder, but after everything, nah, I don’t want to be famous.  I just want to live my life.

A:  I’d like to be a famous architect.  But you already know that.

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?

P: Sometimes.  I did before we were dating, when I would call you, sometimes, just to make sure I didn’t sound like an idiot.  And sometimes now, if it’s an important call and I don’t just want to blurt out whatever.

A:  Not usually.  If it’s a really important call, like a phone interview, then yeah, I might have some notes, but usually not.

P:  Huh, that’s kind of funny.  Almost seems like it would be the other way around.

A:  Yeah.  Interesting.

4. What would constitute a "perfect" day for you?

P:  Has to start with sleeping in, for sure.  Maybe my mom making pancakes.  Hanging out with my family.  Hanging out with you.  Just chill.  Maybe at the beach.  Pizza for dinner, obviously.  Hanging out with some friends and playing video games.  Then you and I curling up and watching a movie…and sometimes not watching the movie.  I guess just chilling with the people I love.  What about you? A:  Okay, for me, this might be a little bit in the future.  But waking up in my own home, um preferably next to you, and it’s still early, and I just make some coffee, go to my own office, which has lots of light, and I just sketch for a few hours.  Then, when you wake up, we go out to breakfast, or brunch, whatever, and then just hang out.  Maybe go walk around a park or something, go to a matinee movie or show, maybe meet some friends for a late lunch or early dinner, then yeah, I like the idea of coming home, curling up on the couch together, and watching a movie.  Just normal, relaxed, you know?

P:  Yeah.

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?

P:  Not gonna lie, I was singing in the shower this morning.  And, uh, I sang to Estelle yesterday.  She likes when I do “Under the Sea.”

A:  I don’t sing.  I mean, I guess I kind of hummed to Estelle the last time I watched her.  And, oh, shoot, you know what, I did sing to Peleus before, because lullabies calm him down so he doesn’t eat people.

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?

P:  I have no idea.  I mean…mind, I guess?  That’s a weird question.

A:  Mind, definitely.  But yeah, that’s kind of a strange question.

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?

P:  Do I even have to answer this one?

A:  No, we’re skipping this.

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

P:  Oh, wow, this is an interesting one.  Um, I think we both really care about our friends.  We’re both good at putting important stuff first, especially when we really have to.  And, uh, good-looking?

A:  Dork.  But I really like those first two, and I agree.  I think we’re both tough, like resilient.  I think we both always want to do the right thing.  And I think we both have a good sense of humor.

P:  I like those, too.

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?

P:  Being here right now with you.  And, in general, for the people in my life.

A:  Same.  About the people in my life, too.  But I’m definitely most grateful we can just sit here together like this right now.

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?

A [humorless laugh]: Pretty much everything.  I guess, if I had to say something specific, better communication.

P [takes her hand and laces their fingers together.  She smiles and gestures for him to go]: I don’t think I’d really change anything my mom did, like as a parent.  If I was going to change anything, it would have been that Smelly Gabe wouldn’t have been around and I wouldn’t have had to go to all those boarding schools.  They usually sucked.

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.

P:  Don’t we already know all this?  Are you getting out a stopwatch?

A:  Yes.  It’s one of the questions.  So get ready, Seaweed Brain, you’re going first.

[8 MINUTES LATER]

P:  Okay, that was actually kind of cool.  What’s the next one?

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

P:  I’m still pretty jealous that Frank can change into animals and I can’t.

A:  Is that seriously your answer? P [considers a moment]: Yes.  I mean, otherwise, I like my abilities.

A:  Yeah, they are pretty cool.  And you have a lot of good qualities. P: I do? A: Yeah, Seaweed Brain.  You definitely do.

P:  Aww, thanks, babe. [He kisses her cheek].  Okay, what’s your answer?

A [after considering]:  Honestly, I wouldn’t mind being able to breathe underwater or will my clothes dry.  That would be useful.  Especially hanging around you. [Nudges him with her shoulder].  For qualities, though, I could probably do better not getting so focused on my own stuff sometimes, so maybe paying attention to what other people need more.

P [shrugs]:  Maybe, but I like your intensity about stuff.  That’s one of your best qualities.

A [looks surprised]:  Really?

P:  Yeah, definitely.

A [leans over to kiss him]:  I like this question thing.  Alright, we’re moving on to the second level.  Or set.  Whatever.

Set 2

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?

A: I think I’d want to know that we’re okay in a few years.  Like, I wouldn’t want the details spoiled, necessarily, because as much as I love planning, it’s also fun if some things are a surprise, but I’d like to know, just in general, that we, you know, kind of get our happy ending. [blinks quickly and swipes hand across eyes]  Oh wow, I don’t know why that made me kind of tear up.  Okay, you answer.

P [considers for a few moments]:  Honestly, after all the shit we’ve gone through dealing with prophecies, I’m not sure I’d even want to look.  I like your answer, but I think I’d like to just be…what’s that phrase?  Blissfully oblivious about the future.  And yeah, sometimes surprises are nice.  Good surprises, I mean, are nice.

14. Is there something that you've dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven't you done it? P: I have to think about this.  You go.

A:  I’d really like to go to Falling Water, Frank Lloyd Wright’s place he designed.  But I haven’t had a chance to go yet.  I used to say the Parthenon, but we’ve been there.  I wouldn’t mind going back, someday, though, when we could actually spend some time there and enjoy it.

P:  Good to know.

A:  There was one highlight of the Parthenon trip though.  [smiles at him, and he returns it].  So what’s your answer?

P [looks down]:  So, I don’t know if this is really a dream, but I’ve wanted to talk to my mom about just…Gabe…and our life before I found out I was a demigod.  For a long time.  I just never want to bring it up though, don’t want to bring up the bad memories, you know?  And I usually try not to look back too much, or dwell on stuff, but I just feel like it’s something we should talk about at some point.  Dang, I actually didn’t really realize that until I had to think about it just now.

A [quietly]: I think that’s a good idea.  Maybe one evening when it’s just you two?  It might be good for both of you.

P:  Yeah, maybe.  [deep breath].  Okay, next question.

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?

P:  Great, easy one.  Saving Olympus.

A:  Yeah, being designated official architect of Olympus was pretty good.  I feel like we could be more thoughtful with this one, though.  What would you say is your greatest accomplishment outside of hero stuff?

P [groans]: You never settle for an easy answer, do you? A: Nope.

P:  That’s okay.  It’s another one of the things I like best about you. [kisses her cheek again when she smiles at him].  Okay, outside of hero stuff?  I’m pretty proud of graduating from high school.  And getting accepted to college.  Because I wasn’t sure that was something I would ever be able to do.  So it feels pretty good.  Surviving almost two years as your boyfriend feels pretty good too. A: Graduating definitely feels like an accomplishment, especially after the past couple years.  But I am actually going to say our relationship, truthfully, because I never thought I’d have something like this.  It wasn’t in my plans, at all.  But coming up on our second anniversary, and going to college together, definitely feels like an accomplishment.

[question answering is briefly interrupted]

A: Percy, we really need to finish this.  I don’t think you’re supposed to take breaks.

P:  Fine.  What’s up next?

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

A:  Loyalty.  And honesty.  Those kind of go together.

P:  Yeah.  And somebody who does the right thing, even when it’s not easy. 

17. What is your most treasured memory?

P:  Underwater kiss.  For sure.

A: Under the Parthenon.  Easy.

18. What is your most terrible memory?

P:  Damn.  I mean, leaving Beckendorf, thinking my mom was dead, thinking Tyson was dead, thinking you might be dead when you were kidnapped, everything that happened in the Titan War, leaving Bob and Damasen at the Doors, a bunch of other stuff.  Should we do that four minute thing again?

A: Right?  What would you say the worst moment was, though?

P: Truthfully…well, no.

A: What? P:  I was going to say when we were dangling over that pit and I realized I couldn’t pull you up.  That was terrible.  But actually, what happened with Akhlys was worse.  When I realized you were afraid of me and what I was doing.  That’s my most terrible memory, because I was out of control and I was enjoying hurting her, and I don’t ever want to be that person again. [clears throat]  Um, your turn.

A: That’s pretty high on my terrible list, too, because that’s not you, Percy.  And yeah, leaving Bob and Damasen at the Doors was awful.  And so much that happened in the Titan War…everything with Luke…Silena…and, gods, those months when you were missing.  That was miserable.  But if I had to pick an absolute most terrible memory, it would probably be after the arai attacked, when you were dying of the gorgon’s blood poison curse, and I didn’t know how to save you.  Because all I could think, other than I can’t lose him, was that you were only there because of me.  Because I didn’t think to cut the spider silk off.  And if you died, that was my fault.  And I would have to live with that.

[brief silence, holding hands]  Okay, next question, right?

P: Uh, yeah, definitely.

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

P:  Why did these suddenly get so depressing?  And honestly, that’s how I’ve been living for years.  So, no, probably not.  Other than maybe I’d spend less time on homework and more time hanging out with the people I love.  And I would eat only junk food.

A: I believe that.  I don’t know if I’d really do anything different.  Maybe, yeah, spend more time with the people I love.  Maybe try to complete some additional sketches and leave plans for how they could be implemented.  But otherwise, like you said, we’ve been living that way for years.  Now, for the first time, we kind of don’t have to as much.  So, moving on.

20. What does friendship mean to you?

P:  Didn’t we already answer this one?

A:  No, that was about what do you value in a friendship.

P [stares blankly]: Are those different?

A:  Yes.  What do you value is like traits, what friendship means to you is more…I don’t know…broad.  Or something.  I mean, friendship is incredibly important to me.  Especially when I wasn’t getting along with my family, my friends became my family.  So yeah, it’s important.

P:  Yeah, me too.  It’s important.  I mean, especially with what we’ve been through, you need people you can rely on, who you know have your back and care about you.  So yeah, friendship is important to me.  Is that the right answer?

A [rolls eyes]: There’s not one right answer, Seaweed Brain.  But yes, that works.  Moving on.

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?

P:  They’re good things?  I don’t know how to answer this one either.

A: Try.

P: Okay, I mean, if you want the deep answer, isn’t it all about love?  Not just romantic stuff, although that’s obviously important, but like love for family and friends, too.  I’ve only been able to do some of the stuff I’ve had to do because I love you, my family, and my friends.  Love gives you strength.

A: Wow, Percy.  That’s…that’s a really great answer.

P [shrugs]: It’s true.  What’s yours? A: I think, for me, because of how I felt when I was little, love and affection are almost painfully important to me.  If I want to go really deep, I think I associate them with acceptance.  When Thalia and Luke first took me in, they gave me hugs and tousled my hair and stuff like that, and acted like they wanted me around.  That blew my mind.  When I got to camp, Chiron would pat my shoulder or head when I did well.  Grover and Tyson give hugs to show they care.  So does your mom.  Piper, too, actually.  And then you came along, obviously.  And even when we were younger, just sitting by you, or holding your hand, always made me feel better.  So I guess, to me, love and affection go together.  Like physical affection is such a clear way people show that they care about you.  I know it’s not the only way, but it’s definitely important. [blushes]  Anyway, next question.

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.

P:  Sweet, another easy one.  Okay, your eyes.

A: That’s very sweet, but it says “characteristic”, not “attribute.”  I think it means more internal stuff.

P: What happened to no wrong answers?  But I’m sticking with my answer, because, I mean, yeah, I think your eyes are beautiful, but they can also be fierce and intense and scary, so I still think it fits.

A:  Okay.  Your heart.  You have a really good heart, and I’ve always loved that about you.

P: Thanks.  I’ve always been amazed by your strength.  Like, just with everything.  You have more guts than anybody I’ve ever met.

A: Thanks, Percy.  I love your sense of humor.  You can always find something to lighten the mood, even when things are really bad.

P: I do my best.  I was going to say your intelligence, but that feels like a given, so I’m going with your passion for architecture and stuff.  Like, I love watching your face light up when you talk about stuff you’re excited about.

A: Really? P: Yeah.

A:  So, you can be goofy, and that’s great, but when something’s really important, you get this intense focus that I really appreciate.  And your confidence.  I admire that too.

P: I have confidence? A: Yeah, babe, you do.  Like when you were leading everyone during the Battle of Manhattan?  [smiles slyly] It was pretty hot.

P: Good to know.  Okay, my turn.  I like how you genuinely care about people and you want to help them.  I don’t know if everybody always sees that, but I do.  And I really admire that.

A [biting lip, trying not to smile]:  Thanks.  That means a lot.  You also just took my next one about you, because it was basically that.

P [grinning]: My bad.  You can still use it, too, if you want.

A: No, I’ve got a few others still.  Like the fact that you’re an amazing big brother.  Like how you stood by Tyson that first summer he came to camp, which I know wasn’t easy.  And seeing you playing with your baby sister is the cutest thing ever.

P: Well, it helps that Estelle is adorable.

A: That doesn’t hurt.  Okay, last one each.

P: Already? 

A: Yep.

P: Dang, I liked this question.  Okay, I like how you always manage to surprise me.  Ever since we met and you told me I drooled in my sleep.

A [leans forward and kisses him quickly]: I like your arms.

P: Huh? A [shrugs]: Your first one was my eyes, my last one is your arms.  You have nice muscles.  And, you know, you’re a very impressive swordsman, so it still falls under that characteristic thing.

P: Huh.  Again, good to know.  How many questions do we have left?

A: A few.  Ready to move on?

P: Yeah.  Let’s go.     

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people's?

A: Oh gods.  Is this for real?

P: Do we want to just skip this one?

A [sighs]: No, we have to answer them all.  So, my family is getting better, but I don’t think I’ll ever describe them as close and warm.  Although things with my dad are much better.  And everything with Magnus is good.  But my childhood was definitely not happier than other people’s.  Your turn, Seaweed Brain.

P: I’m definitely close with my mom.  And Paul and Estelle.  And they’re all warm.  So’s Tyson, obviously.  Things with my dad have been good, can’t complain.  I doubt my childhood was happier than most other people’s, but there were some good moments, too.  But…never mind.

A: What?

P: But one day, in the future, like way out, when I have kids, I want to make sure they have a genuinely good childhood.  I mean, I’m going to do my best to make that happen.

A [holds his eyes for a long moment]: I love that idea.

P: Cool. [swallows hard] Um, next question? 24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

A [facepalms]: You have got to be kidding me.

P: My mom’s awesome.  Next question.

Set 3

25. Make three true "we" statements each. For instance, "We are both in this room feeling _____."

P: Okay, this is another kind of weird one. 

A: A bit.  Three true “we” statements each.  Okay, so we are both in this room feeling vulnerable?

P: Yeah, that’s true.  We are both demigods.

A: Percy!

P: What?  It’s true.

A: That’s practically cheating.

P: Okay, fine, that one doesn’t count.  How about we are both learning some new stuff about each other?

A: Yeah.  Nice to know we can still do that.  And we both believe we can build a future together.

P: Definitely true. [pauses, thinking] We believe in each other.

A: We do.  And we put each other first, or at least we try our best.

P: I agree with that.  And, most importantly, we love each other.

A: Absolutely.

P: That was a good one.  What’s next?

26. Complete this sentence: "I wish I had someone with whom I could share _____."

A: Umm…I have no idea how to answer this.

P: Yeah, I’m coming up blank. 

A: I mean, my first thought was maybe my love of architecture, but Malcolm and I have great discussions.  Leo, too, is great for talking about engineering and design type stuff.  And everything else I talk with you about.  Or Piper.  Or your mom.  Sometimes friends at school.

P: Yeah, maybe I’m not thinking deep enough, but I think you and I have a lot of those types of conversations.  Or I talk to my friends.  Or my mom.  I thought about my love of video games.  But guys from camp and school are around for that. 

A: Does it count if we at least had a discussion about how we don’t have an answer?

P: I’m good with that.  Next.

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.

P:  Gee, Annabeth, if we were friends, what would I need to know?

A [laughs]: Okay, I’m guessing this question is for people who don’t really know each other.  But if I was going to give an honest answer, even if you already know it, it would probably be helpful to know about my history, and why I hate people letting me down.

P: That’s actually true.  I mean, I felt like I understood you better once I learned some of that stuff.  Kind of similar, I think it would be important for someone to know how important my mom and family are to me.

A: Definitely.

P: And you, obviously.  That was a given.

A: Ditto, Seaweed Brain.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you've just met.

A: This is interesting.  I mean, I feel like we were pretty honest last time.  That was definitely not stuff I would say to someone I just met.

P: Same.  But I might be able to come up with something else.

A: Yeah, me too.  So, even more honestly, what I like about you is that you’re reliable.  I know you always have my back and I can count on you.  For me, that means everything.  And I also love that you’re kind and sweet and respectful and funny and cute and smart and strong and…well, a lot of things.

P [kisses her]: Sorry, couldn’t help it.  I love that you’re just yourself.  You don’t try to change to impress anybody.  I mean, I know you put a lot of pressure on yourself to do well and achieve your goals, and that’s impressive, too, but you’re always still Annabeth.  You stay true to yourself.  And I love that.

[brief kissing interlude]

A: Okay, let’s finish these last few questions.

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.

A: Oh gods.  Um, okay, this one time, I started my period in the middle of class and had to wear a sweatshirt tied around my waist the rest of the day to cover up the small spot on my jeans.  Your turn.

P: I dangled from a billboard in Times Square in my underwear.

A: You what? P: Yeah, it was a whole thing with Grover and Apollo and it was pretty humiliating, so I never told you about it.  Next question.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

P: In front of another person?  When we found out about what happened to Jason and everybody at Camp Jupiter.  I cried in front of you when we went back to your dad’s house.

A: Yeah.  I think that was my most recent time, too.  What about by yourself?

P: I mean, I’m not a big crier, usually.  I might have been upset about all that again, but the time that comes to mind, honestly, was after Estelle was born.  I don’t know why, but I remember standing at my bedroom window, looking out at the city, and I got all choked up.  But that was like, good crying.  Like, my mom was happy, she has Paul, now they have Estelle, I have this great family, this amazing girlfriend, I was getting ready to graduate high school and go to college.  I think I was just kind of amazed that was all real.  What about you? A: Honestly, I think it was something similar.  On the drive out to California, we stayed in that one hotel that had a balcony, looking out over that lake?  I couldn’t sleep, so I went out on the balcony, and I was just looking out, and thinking about everything.  Like that this was really happening.  And it was kind of overwhelming, but in a good way.  And I might have cried a little bit, but happy tears.

P: I didn’t know that.  You could have woken me up.

A: I know.  It was okay though.  I think I just needed that moment to process everything, you know?  Anyway, next one.

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.

A: Okay, this has to be for people who don’t know each other.

P: Yeah, but we can make it work.  Unless you’re out of nice stuff to say about me? A: Not even close, Seaweed Brain.  I like how honest you’re being with all this.  It’s really nice.

P: You too.  And I like that smile you keep giving me occasionally, when you like one of my answers. A: I am? P: Yeah.  It’s cute.  Next question.

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?

A: Sexual assault.

P: Yeah, pretty much anything related to abuse.  Not funny.

A: Moving on.

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven't you told them yet?

P: Wow, that’s an interesting question.  So, I think I do okay about telling people stuff.  But if I’m being honest, I might regret not telling Paul he’s a great guy and I really appreciate everything he’s done for my mom.  And for me.  I mean, I think he knows, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually told him.  Not for any reason, just haven’t.  But maybe I should.

A: I’m sure he’d love that.  And yeah, I don’t think there’s anything I’d regret not telling you. [nudges him with her shoulder].  But I think I’d wish I told my dad that I’m glad we’re getting along again.  And I appreciate the support he’s given me about my college choices.  I just don’t do well being emotional around him.  He’s not great at that either.

P: But I bet he’d love to hear it. 

A: Yeah.  Okay, we’re holding each other accountable.  Sometime before the end of the year, so no major rush, just when it feels natural, we’re going to tell them both, Paul and my dad, what we just said.

P:  Deal.  How many questions are left? A: Just three.  Almost there.

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

P:  Huh.  Assuming I have my camp necklace on and Riptide is in my pocket, I guess I’d want to grab maybe some pictures?  Or the Minotaur horn.  There’s not much stuff I’m that attached to otherwise, though.

A: Same.  My camp necklace, definitely, but if I have that on already…probably pictures.  Oh, my sketchbook.  I’d definitely grab my journal and my sketchbook.  Is it okay that that’s two things?

P: They’re in the same category, so sure.  Also, we’re making up our own rules as we go anyway, and I’m fine with that answer.

A: Great.  Moving on.

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?

P: These are some strange questions.  But I guess if the point is to really get to know somebody….Anyway, I’d be devastated, obviously, if something happened to you or my mom, same with Paul or Tyson…or my dad, but I forget about him sometimes for something like this because…well, you know.  But if we’re talking about disturbing, it’s Estelle, hands down.  Just because she’s still so little.  It doesn’t feel like anything should happen to her, like she should just be in this protective bubble because she’s a baby.  I don’t even want to think about anything happening to her.  So, your turn.

A: Ugh, I can’t even stand the thought of something happening to Estelle.  Talking specifically about my blood-related family, yeah, if something happened to my dad, or Bobby or Matthew, or even my stepmom, I’d be devastated.  And probably feel really guilty, somehow, too, for not spending enough time with them.  Most disturbing, though, would have to be if something happened to Magnus.  Just because, you know…he’s already dead.  So it would be awful not knowing what else happened to him or where he went, like if he’s trapped somewhere worse or something. [pauses]  And obviously, if something happened to you, I’d be completely heartbroken.  Then I’d stomp down to the Underworld and drag your butt back.

P [grins]: Obviously. A: Alright, last one.

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner's advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

A: Wow, this is kind of tough.  I mean, I already usually talk problems through with you.  And honestly, at this particular moment, I don’t have one. [pauses, looking pleasantly surprised] Wow.  I don’t have any serious problems right now.  That’s possibly the first time that’s ever happened.

P: Nice.  So nothing right now? A: Not really.  I mean, I’m a little nervous about starting college, especially with balancing UC Berkeley and New Rome, but I think it’ll be okay.  Any advice on how you’d handle that? P [small laugh]: Honestly?  Not well.  I don’t think I’d be great at running back and forth and balancing everything.  But you will be.  You’re good with organization and time management and everything, so you’re going to be fine, Wise Girl.  If I had to guess, I think you’re just nervous because you want to do well.  But you will.  Because you’re awesome.

A [smiling]: Aww, thanks, babe.  What about you?  Any problems right now? P [shakes head]: Nothing major right now.  Well, actually, now that I’ve said that…I’m kind of worried about my major.  Like for college.

A: Really?  Why?

P [shrugs]: I mean, marine biology kind of makes sense, because of my dad and all.  But I’m not like a major science guy or anything.  So I’m a little worried about it.  Any thoughts? A [considers for a few moments]:  That makes sense.  So it sounds like you’re a little worried you’ve chosen something that you can do, not necessarily something you want to do?

P: Yeah, pretty much.  I mean, I never really thought much about what I’d want to do for a major or a career.  I never thought I’d get this far.

A: That makes sense.  Do you want my advice?

P: Isn’t that the point of this question?  Also, yes, I’d want to hear it anyway.

A: I think you should just stick with it for this first semester, maybe this first year.  Most of the classes are gen eds anyway, so they’ll apply to any major.  Maybe keep an open mind during your classes and see if anything jumps out at you.  There might be something you’ve never even thought about that you end up loving.  And if you decide to change majors, I think that’s totally fine.  And I support you one hundred percent.

P: Thanks, Annabeth.  And I like that idea.  It makes sense.

A: Cool.  [leans forward and kisses him lightly on the lips].  So that’s the end of the questions.

P: Sweet.  Although that was kind of cool.  Is there anything else?

A: Yeah.  The last part is four minutes of eye contact.

P: Holy shit.  Four minutes?

A: That’s what it says.

P: Isn’t that awkward? A [rolls eyes]: Only if you make it that way, Seaweed Brain.  Just relax.  It’ll be fine.  [gets out phone for stopwatch again] Alright, time starts now.

[4 minutes elapse, which include some laughing, some comments, but also following the rules]

A: And that’s four minutes.  Done.

P: Cool.  So, what does that mean? A: Apparently we’re supposed to feel closer.  Do you think it worked?

P [considers]: Actually, yeah, I think so.  I mean, it was nice to talk about some different stuff that we might not have otherwise.  So yeah, I think it worked.

A: Agreed.  That was actually kind of fun.

P: Yeah.  But now can we just relax?  And maybe make out?  Just throwing that out there.

A: Gods, yes.

And that was the end of the question and answer portion of the evening.

[anthony-burchs-dog]

obsessed with the way yellowjackets fucks with your expectations. you don’t expect van to live the first time, yet she does SOMEHOW. you don’t expect coach scott to survive losing that much of his leg, yet he does, and he lives a WHILE, he gets past the deep depression he initially struggles with. you don’t expect laura lee to be able to fly the plane, YET SHE DOES—even if she doesn’t make it to safety, she does get that thing off the ground and a little ways out! the fire that kills her seemingly erupts out of nowhere, it’s not a result of her actions (like, you don’t expect her to make it but you expect her to CRASH not explode). and idk about everyone else but the pacing keeps surprising me too, and i don’t even realize i had expectations about the pacing until after—like i thought they’d either reach cannibalism in the first season or not until like the fourth or something; i def thought it’d happen in a season finale, not ep 2 of season 2. i think that’s really cool!! they’re not subverting expectations just for fun or for shock value, but as part of emotional and narrative arcs building and breaking. love this show.

[a-vivid-dreamer]

Permission to ask for more headcannons about the Aeon Born! AU? It’s super cool and I wonder how the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus would react to Yanqing with his healing blood and such?

Thank you so much, I’m glad to hear that you enjoy the AU. ❤️

Hm, I’m not entirely sure what may count as headcanon type things but:

The nature of Yanqing’s blood is known by few. While Yanqing’s connection to the Abundance is known by all members of the Quintet only. In terms of finding out the deeper details of what that connection meant (such as the blood), it was Jingliu who found out first, second was Jing Yuan, third was Yingxing, fourth was Dan Feng, and fifth was Baiheng.

Even when Dan Feng kept things secret even after what he did with Yanqing’s blood… Jing Yuan was left with a lot of worry about Yanqing when Yanqing wanted to become a swordsman. It’s one of the big reasons why Yanqing trains so hard to get stronger because being stronger means less chance of risking injury.

(There may or may not have been an incident when Yanqing let himself get wounded during a battle and the truth had to get covered up by Jing Yuan… 🤭 )

Growing up with the Quintet, Yanqing often was fond of Jing Yuan and Jing Yuan was always rather happy to spend time taking care of Yanqing. By accident, this ended up with Yanqing seeing Jing Yuan as a father figure.

Meanwhile, Jingliu (Frosty-jiejie) and Baiheng (Fluffy-jiejie) were like sisters to him. Jingliu was the “sister” who at least knew some basic ideas on how to keep Yanqing entertained and happy but mostly was a disciplined, stern protector who tried to keep Jing Yuan’s spoiling from getting to Yanqing’s head (it would do no good for Yanqing to grow up being a spoiled/arrogant brat). Meanwhile, Baiheng was certainly one of the more fun members who’d often get wrapped up doing plans with Jing Yuan on what fun things they could do for Yanqing. This often gets her and Jing Yuan in trouble by the others if they roughhouse with Yanqing too much or do something the others consider not safe enough.

For Dan Feng (Dragon-gege) and Yingxing (Crafty-gege), they were like brothers to Yanqing. Dan Feng wasn’t nearly as energetic or free to do things with Yanqing, but certainly had a soft spot and didn’t mind it if Yanqing wanted to hang out with him even if Dan Feng didn’t really do anything. Yanqing could try climbing on Dan Feng or run in circles around him and he’d just calmly accept it. For Yingxing, he was very gentle with Yanqing and would often distract Yanqing by rambling on about what he was working on. However, he was always extremely serious about safety with his projects, especially when forging as he didn’t want Yanqing to burn himself. Especially when it did happen once and he panicked to get it wrapped up and treated. Though, this is also when he found out about Yanqing’s blood/self-healing abilities.

If the Sanctus Medicus ever learned about Yanqing’s blood… and just the fact Yanqing is blessed with a body of the Abundance without losing his humanity (thus achieving “perfection”)… He’d certainly have attempts to capture and study him. Buuut..who knows… maybe they already have suspicions or know but keep it to themselves or only the higher ranked members. After all, it’d do no good if they let such info slip. Alerting the Luofu of Yanqing’s nature may cause a bad backlash that’ll make them lose such an incredibly rare specimen like Yanqing and Jing Yuan’s position as general can’t always be enough to have a say in certain matters.

Being born of the Abundance, Yanqing has incredible regenerative abilities. And due to him having the Abundance in him, it can sometimes stagger weaker/sensitive Abundance Abominations that may be more hesitant to attack a possible “ally”. However, there’s things that can make this useless such as if Yanqing attacks first or if the creature has no issues attacking fellow Abundance Abominations in the first place.

With Yanqing’s side of the Hunt, it gave him a natural talent for battle. And is also part of the reason why he has a desire to fight due to having the urge to “hunt”. Yanqing’s fighting style focusing on power behind the use of speed is also a sort of “inherited” trait that tries to mimic the nature of Lan’s piercing arrows.

I also like to think that Yanqing’s Abundance side (and the fact he was born from the Ambrosial Abor) means he has an internal connection and can actually feel the tree’s state. Even over the centuries where the Ambrosial Abor is considered “dead”, Yanqing could still tell that there’s still specks of dormant life within that sometimes “calls” him…

I’d imagine he’d be in for a shock of his life when the Stellaron incident literally causes the tree to basically revitalize.

[writebackatya]

Character ask game: #3 for Gandra

#3 BrOTP for Gandra Dee

Ooohh!! I was not expecting this one for the Character Ask Game, but let’s face it that hipster chick could use some friends. And honestly, there’s a number of characters I can see her getting along with on the Hero side but for now I’m gonna use this post as an excuse to talk about Della Duck

It will probably never happen but if Disney were to give the DuckTales team a fourth season, I would love it if they did a storyline or a few episodes about Gandra trying to fit in on the hero side after working with F.O.W.L. I love the episode Daytrip of Doom! and the Della returns storyline where they show how adding a new member to the team can be difficult transition for everyone involved but in the long run it benefits everyone!

And whenever I think about what Gandra’s dynamic would be with different members of the McDuck family I always felt that both she and Della would get along well

So here’s the thing about Della that I think about a lot. While her age is never really talked about, I always assumed she went on the moon in her twenties and came back to Earth in her thirties. That’s a big chunk of her life she missed out on and I’m sure people in the thirties will often tell you how life feels like it truly begins in your twenties when you’re out in the world learning with others. It’s sad she didn’t get to live that and I like to think that if she were to ever hang out with Gandra (heck even Fenton but this post isn’t about that dummy) she’d get to experience that part of life she missed out on

I want to talk about the fact that Gandra is a spy. We know Della would think that’s way cooler than her science background (but she’d still think that’s cool because Gandra can shoot electricity out of her body) also she’d totally refer to Gandra as “Agent Dee” and I think that’d be really sweet. Why? Cause the only other people we heard refer to Gandra as that were Mark Beaks and Bradford. People we know she definitely was not a fan of. Where it’s more of a professional name. But to Della, that’s a cool name cause she’s a freaking spy. She now knows two spies and that’s pretty cool

Della’s a dummy but she’s also a pretty smart duck and I think Gandra would honestly be impressed with some of Della’s accomplishments and the stuff she has built such as her robot leg. The point is. These two need to science together. It’d be fun. They’d make cool dangerous things together

Of course you can’t talk about Della and Gandra without someone bringing up their past mistakes and how they’re terrible irredeemable people. Yeah, they done screwed up in the past and are trying to grow from it. I feel like being in each other’s company could be helpful for one another too. I feel like they wouldn’t be too judgmental on the other’s decisions in the past. They’d be aware it was the wrong decision in the long run but I feel like they’d understand one another why they did what they did

I feel like I always bring this up when I talk about these two together, but I’m sure Della Duck would not hold anything against Fenton and Gandra’s secret relationship. Personally I think her reaction would be “Oh that is so cool!” Della is an adventurer, I’m sure she’s dreamed of having a relationship with someone who was “on the other side” because that is a pretty cool adventure trope. (Also Webby and Lena. They’re Team Fendra cause they’d be like “Those two are literally living the dream!!”)

Remember this scene? I do. It’s hilarious. And I’m 100% sure the very moment Della found about it Gandra became her favorite member of Team Science

[thatbirdrestaurant]

I replayed and finished Pokémon Y in three days and here are some random thoughts | this is really long

Why doesn’t Blastoise have a secondary type? Venusaur and Charizard have secondary types, but he doesn’t. Blastoise could totally be a Water-Steel type

Similar note: Florges isn’t a Grass type… why? Florges is literally made of flowers, and she isn’t a Fairy-Grass type? Pure Fairy? Kinda lame.

Similar, Similar note: It would make so much sense for Goodra to be a Water-Dragon type. Goodra is associated with rain and swamps, so it makes sense that he would be a Water type. Sometimes I forget Goodra isn’t a Water type.

I have gone too long underestimating the beauty of items. I made an effort to collect as many as I could and ended up destroying my opponents. I gave Lucario either a Black Belt or Soft Sand depending on the battle, Charcoal or Odd Scent for my Delphox, and the Lucky Egg was my saint when one of my Pokémon was under-leveled.

The amount of things you can receive by just talking to random NPCs is amazing. I love walking into every house I see so I can talk to every person in the house, then I get a new item or move or something valuable to sell

Calem/Serena should’ve gotten a more fleshed-out story. It’s kind of implied throughout the game that they feel inadequate to you, the player, but I think it’d be pretty cool if it was developed more.

I also think Shauna had some potential. When she appears at the Team Flare Secret HQ, and she says that thing about how friends need to stick together, it made me think how it would be cool if Shauna had a little development where she’s actually quite dismissive of her friends, more focused on “perfect memories” than actually enjoying the moment.

Trevor and Tierno are completely useless. They offer absolutely nothing to the plot or the game, and I was honestly peeved that they were at the award ceremony at the end of the game. What did they do? They didn’t help storm the base, they didn’t unlock the door that had the legendary Pokémon, they had barely any part in the whole thing.

Sycamore is so gay for Lysander, I’m sorry. The way he talks about that man, even after he loudly says that the world is filled with scum, is the words of a man who is ignoring all the red flags.

Mega Evolution is so underused. The gym leaders after Korrina all should’ve had a Mega Pokémon, and the same goes for the Elite Four. It’s especially more frustrating because they (remaining gym leaders excluding Ramos) all have Pokémon that can already Mega Evolve!

Continuation of last point: give Ramos a fourth Pokémon that can Mega Evolve (they would have to create a new one, as the only Grass type Megas are Venusaur and Sceptile), evolve Clemont’s Magneton to a Magnezone, Valerie has a Mawile, Olympia has a Slowking, and Wulfric has an Abomasnow

For the Elite Four three of them already have Pokémon who can Mega Evolve, but I think it would be cool if they had Megas that don’t exist. I have some opinions:

Malva should have a Mega Chandelure OR Talonflame. Wikstrom already has a Scizor but a Mega Aegislash would be awesome. Drasna already has an Altaria but Mega Noivern would be just as cool. Finally, Siebold has a Gyarados, but since Lysander already had a Mega Gyarados, it would be better if one of his other Pokémon had a Mega; I would say Starmie, as to bring more attention and love to an easily forgotten Pokémon.

The gym leaders had some weak teams. I feel like Ramos, Clemont, Valerie, Olympia, and Wulfric should’ve had bigger teams.

Speaking of bigger teams, I think it took Calem/Serena way too long to expand their team. I feel like a rival should get one new Pokémon for every battle, or every other depending on how many times you fight them, until the final battle where they have a full team. Your rival fights you with three Pokémon a little longer than I find believable.

I really like the gym puzzles, I’ll be honest. Pokémon is obviously a children’s game so the puzzles aren’t going to be particularly hard for adults, but I just find them entertaining. I like how they incorporate the gym leader’s interests (Grant with rock climbing and Korrina with roller skating), or I just like the vibe.

Going off the previous point, I like how the gym leaders aren’t just gym leaders. This is done with other gens, and I love it, but I especially feel it in Kalos. They all have something to them: photography, rock climbing, roller skating, gardening, inventing, fashion, psychic… stuff, and even Wulfric, probably the least developed gym leader, is shown to have a special bond with the Pokémon in the Pokémon Village.

I wanted more interactions with Diantha. I’m using ORAS as an example: I really liked Steven in that game because I felt like he was a character to care about. He was more than “the Champion,” and I felt like he actually cared about Hoenn and made an effort to stop the evil teams. I wanted to feel connected to Diantha, wanted to see her make an effort to help. She’s the Champion, after all.

The starters should’ve had Mega Evolutions! I like having the Kanto starters, and I like their Megas, but how are you going to have the game that introduces Mega Evolution, puts such a big emphasis on it, not have starters with Mega Evolutions?

You would be rewarded with the Mega Stone for your starter after defeating Team Flare at the Power Plant; Sycamore expresses that he’s impressed with what you’ve done, that you’re exceeding his expectations, and that he feels you deserve a reward for your deeds.

Here’s one I really like

I love all the things to do in Lumiose City; there’s battle restaurants, there’s an art museum to learn a little lore, you can work at a hotel, and there’s so many different cafes to explore. Best part is that it all pays off: doing all this gets you style points, which lets you into the Lumiose Boutique and unlocks new hairstyles

I do find it funny that there’s a restaurant that will kick you out for not being famous enough, even when you’ve become the Champion.

AZ and his backstory is so interesting. I love the story he told about how he built the Ultimate Weapon, how the Pokémon he loved so much left him, and I am not ashamed to admit I still tear up when his Floette finally returns.

Lysander is weirdly unbothered by the player - a literal child - sweeping his organization. When you get the elevator key and go to see AZ in the cell, Lysander is so calm. “Oh, you got the key? Got the key that one of my strongest members had? Dope. This is AZ, btw.” SHOW SOME FRUSTRATION, DUDE

There really should be an option to remove the skates. I hate when I have to stop using the Slide Pad for the D-Pad to make sure I don’t accidentally run in front of a trainer I’m not prepared to fight.

It’s great that you aren’t forced to use too many HMs, just the ones you expect to need (surf, fly, waterfall). Not being forced to use Rock Smash, which is a disgustingly weak move, was such a relief, and even though there are a lot of chances to use Strength and Cut, it isn’t required.

There are so many things to discover by just exploring. You can find so many useful items or medicine in caves or on routes, and it’s always fun to go through pushing some boulders and cutting some trees to get that TM you’ve been searching all over for.

Being able to turn off Experience Share is a luxury I will never take for granted again. Being able to keep my team at the same level was super helpful and it got rid of the process of having to take Pokémon out of my team just so I can level up another Pokémon by a few levels.

The post-game needed to be way better. They should’ve done something with Zygard, or added a new legendary Pokémon. I just wish there was more to do after defeating Team Flare and the Champion.

The Battle Château is super dope but I wish I didn’t have to wait a full day to fight a new batch of trainers. I understand why they did it, but I just wish it was easier to grind using the Battle Château.

I’ve been complaining about how difficult Grant is but really I just wasn’t training properly. Once I started actually fighting trainers, wild Pokémon, and I did the trade of Luvdisc for Steelix, Grant was a walk in the park.

The games are surprisingly easy to finish in a short amount of time. I never realized when I was younger because I was a kid and didn’t understand how to properly play the game, but I literally finished everything in three days. Another reason why I want a better post-game.

There should be some type of Pokémon Contests in the game. They’re such a big thing in the anime, as well in previous games, so you would think they would have something similar to it. Even if it was just what they have in ORAS, I would be more satisfied.

[blazewatergem]

Hey y’all know how I said a day or two ago(haha what’s time?) how I needed to remind myself I have too many WIPs? Because I was trying to be a reasonable human being? And act like I’d be responsible rather than a feral WIP hoarder?

Yeah toss that rightttt out of a five story window. Through mixed waves of nostalgia, excitement, and the fact that I’ve become a far better fanfic writer compared to my FF.net days(shudders) I’m thinking of returning to a fandom. Which, I think might have been my first ever fandom? The first one I ever actively tried to make stuff for.

The stuff wasn’t awesome lmao I can look back and laugh at it but damn old me wtf were you ON—

Point is, I’m thinking of dragging up and redoing some of my old old old stories. Which, makes me really excited. It’d be awesome to give something I really love a new coat of paint, y’know? I also know though that - or I think at least - not a ton of my mutuals are involved in this fandom. Wouldn’t blame you, it’s a long-lived one that’s already been through one reboot(which I admit, I side eye it. Just a bit.)

That being said, I’m gonna talk more about my plans for the stories under here so I don’t spam my mutuals/friends with a fandom they aren’t in. If you wanna check em out, you know where to click, and know I’m grateful for whoever wants to listen to a rabid lil writer like me 💜

Love y’all

SO LEGO NINJAGO RIGHT ->

Holy SHIT I loved that series. I still love that series. Honestly though I loved the first season of it, with the Serpentine tribes, more than the other seasons but even the other seasons were fuckin’ GREAT.

I always wanted to add a little more mystic-ness to the story though. Like, looking through my old stuff, I definitely had great ideas and never pulled them off.

That stops today. I’ve grown as a writer! I know proper grammar now! I know how to make awesome plot lines and cool OCs! I GOT THIS!!

One of the stories was a Ninjago-Maximum Ride crossover, which I think I’m gonna revamp entirely. Toss out the old and put in the new with a addition of witchcraft, worldbuilding, and me finally screaming about how in canon the Serpentine were heavily fucked over time and time again. For real, someone give me permission to go off. I’ll holler like a dog.

Second story was introducing a group of humanized Phoenixes and not much else lmao. Never got as far as the first chapter of Nya joining the group, would need also to be restarted because of the simple fact that it never grew past that point.

The third story which was involving a group of serial killers(made after my journey through Creepypasta woods) and the fourth which had dragons from a different universe(which were the girls from House of Anubis, stolen lol) will both just…be put away for good. I’m not sure I wanna doing these back, both for now or forever. I’m glad for them, but perhaps those sleeping dogs can simply rest.

Also I’m gonna outright bitch now because I was wrong I can’t hold it in I don’t need permission. What the hell. What the hell was that thing they did in the first season. The Serpentine were literally locked up alive underground, no way of escape. Pythor had to cannibalize his own people. He became the last of his kind. Isn’t that genocide? That was a whole tribe except for one dude wiped out that is fucking tragic. He had every right to go nuts I cannot believe that was included in episode FOUR of a CHILDRENS SHOW.

I love this series.

[jodilin65]

THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007 Today is one hot day! Very uncomfortable, too. It’s in the mid-80s and so Tom’s going to put the AC in tomorrow since we can’t have a place with normal windows. We’ve got the front window partially open and that’s it. If God didn’t have to go and tease us with money yet again, we could’ve raced our way out of here by now, but no. Instead, we may be stuck here throughout most of the summer, depending on the check. So Tom won’t be giving notice tomorrow till we know what the hell’s going on with this mother-fucking check I’m so close to tearing to shreds! They’ve been too busy at work for him to pull anyone aside to ask about depositing the check, and as I told him, he’s got to make the time so we can get the hell out of here! He says he will tomorrow.

From now on, each time we move, I’m not packing till the day before! I packed the mister and can’t find it, so I’m using a spray bottle to help keep me cool.

Tom said he still believes that while we might not be able to get a nice place, we could still get an adequate one. An adequate one would be a nice place after living in this dump! I tell ya, even the Phoenix house is a palace compared to this place. Either way, we’ll be destined to live like bums, always scraping pennies, always dealing with noise, for the rest of our lives.

I still worry about what health issues I’ll be hit with down there, though I’m more concerned with money and problem neighbors. Here it was my ear and ingrown toenail, down there it could be my pinky finger and my knee for all I know. There’s just no way to know what the bastard up there is going to do to me till I get down there. But I’m sure He’s got it all figured out by now.

I’m now just over 75,000 points on Netwinner.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 2007 I was too tired to finish updating last night, so let me start with the saddest news of all. Tinkerbell has a tumor under her arm. It really is such a bummer knowing the best rat we’ve ever had won’t make it throughout the summer. She hasn’t lost her energy yet, but I know it’s only a matter of time.

Jessie said she’s so sorry about Tinkerbell, knows what I’m going through, and is sure Tinkerbell is happy to be comforted by me.

She also said she had to hand it to us for having the guts to up and move with no job/home. Yeah, but sometimes being brave and adventurous is what gets us in trouble! I’ll just be glad to know that this time around there’ll be more job opportunities and Unemployment checks to help get us started. Tom’s also thinking it’d be worth it to spend the money on a GPS device so we don’t waste gas looking for places while we’re getting to know the area.

Tom and I were debating which was the biggest mistake, Maricopa or Oregon. He says Maricopa, but I say Oregon was our biggest fuck-up.

Before I get more into that, Tom said he’s seen those same two people next door doing what almost everyone here does in the summer – barbecuing. Other than that, there are no cars or activity going on in the side yard, and Kim’s been the same. She usually doesn’t play music, but when she does, it continues to be the same old song. It’s weird.

We went to Fred’s after the fourth failed attempt to get the check cashed, and I got a couple of new sports bras, and a pair of dull-looking, but comfortable gray cotton shorts.

The weight/metabolism spell experiments are still inconclusive, but I’ve had a breakthrough with influencing my period to be a record two days late, and I didn’t start spotting till another record-breaking two days in advance. Before I couldn’t prevent spotting any closer than 4 days before it’d start.

I had been bummed out for a few days between Tinkerbell and the fact that the more he investigated rentals in the Sacramento area, the more the houses seemed unaffordable and that we’d be stuck having to play house with others all over again. Sure a townhouse or a duplex would be better than an apartment in a complex, but that would still be bad enough. It’s just the nature of shared structures. While I don’t expect to ever find a house that’s peaceful either, thanks to the car stereos and all the dogs left outdoors 24/7 that no one will do a damn thing about, I’d rather limit the noise sources to cars and dogs than go and add people’s footsteps, cabinets, doors, TVs and house stereos to the picture as well. If living with others is the only way to get started down there, so be it, but I sure hope we won’t have to, and Tom’s latest research has given me hope for that.

Here’s what’s pretty neat. When he was looking at smaller cities that are still big enough to have enough jobs available, yet more affordable housing on the outskirts of the city where it’s more ruralized, one of the most promising cities to come up was Merced, which means mercy in Spanish. When he first said Merced, my eyes bulged and I was like, “Oh my God, oh my God!” Then I reminded him of how he said that something was testing us to see how much we really wanted to get to Oregon, since this was where we broke down on our way up here, and I had said, “Or maybe something’s trying to tell us to stay out of Oregon.” Well, maybe it was saying neither! Maybe it was really saying, “Stop! Don’t go any further. This is it. This is where you should stay.”

Merced was beautiful with all its miles and miles of colorful oleanders, banana trees and palm trees. I remember wishing we could stay in a climate like that and thinking how much I’d miss the flowers and the palms. I’d love to live there! I don’t like the fact that it’s only 37% white and that there are tons of Mexicans down there, but I’m not nearly as worried about them as I would be if it were as full of blacks.

It would add another hour or two to the trip, but it’d be worth it. Where Sacramento is 253 miles from Klamath Falls, Merced is 347 miles. And instead of being 351 miles from L.A. as Sacramento would be, it’s just 249 miles. Still a day’s drive, but quicker to get to if I win a trip there, and there are lots of sweeps for trips to Southern Cal. If Kate Jackson ever does any more autograph signings at a convention down there, it sure would be closer, and of course, if I ever get to be an extra in a movie, that’d help, too. The more congested areas are from the Mexican border to north of L.A., so we’re up high enough to be above the crowds, but not so high as to be where it’s colder, more expensive, or further away from things. It’s about the same distance from the coast as Springfield was to the beach in Old Lyme, CT we’d go to, just over an hour. That beats being 2-3 hours inland like we are here, and the 6 we were in Arizona.

I’m going to study Merced to see if I can find some pulled wisdom teeth amongst all those damn tooth houses I hate so much. Still, a tooth house would be better than any shared place! I’ll check the satellite images some more. I’ve seen what appears to be a patchy quilt-like design surrounding the heart of the city, which tells me what I’ve heard to be the case; that it’s surrounded by farmland. This won’t tell me if someone has an affordable rental for us on a farm or even on just an acre or two, but it’ll give me a better idea of the population density and what the general scoop is down there.

TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2007 I’ve got good news and bad news to report.

First of all, I called Paula yesterday to see what she’s getting for social security. She’s getting $790 a month from SSI, though if I ever could get back on it, which I doubt, I might get less than that in light of what Tom makes. I don’t believe it, but she said she’d pick me up a standard release of information form and mail it out to me. Tom and I both went to their site and were confused by what we read. They want you to be confused, though, because the more people they deter from getting benefits, the more money they have to give away to other countries. I guess in order to apply for SSI you have to have your records. I think in the end I’ll decide the effort of trying to figure it all out won’t be worth it. Especially if it’s just going to be for nothing. Meanwhile, Paula’s working at a warehouse in CT and got a letter saying they’re going to terminate her benefits in a year. Her kid’s gonna be 18 in a couple of years, so that’s probably part of why she’ll be kicked off. She says it’s ok, though. I never thought she was disabled, just slow and not very bright. In fact, she’s so dumb at times that she went and sent me a letter a week or so ago to the mailing company we had when we first came to this damn state. I guess her stuff got disorganized when she moved and she’s a real packrat that’s saved all my letters, so she grabbed one with the wrong return address to send it to. She hates the new place, she says, because there are a lot of kids. I could hear them screaming over the phone. I thought it was her TV at first.

Today we went to the Chinese place, then over to Rent-a-Center because they claimed online that they cash checks, holding the check until it clears. First I was pissed at Tom for not calling first, which he admits was his fault. Then I was pissed because Tom still doesn’t believe me when I say we’re not meant to have that money! And of course, I was utterly furious at God. All I could think was “We’re stuck here, we’re stuck here. We’ll never get out of this state, and maybe not even out of this shit house. And there goes my Claritin or the chance to get my sleep problem diagnosed. There goes my chance to have insurance too, and of course, there’s the cold and the snow to deal with each winter.”

Tom pointed out, though, that if I continue to be right about the check, we’d be delayed only a couple more months, not stuck here, till he can make enough money to equal the check’s amount. But once again I couldn’t help thinking that God doesn’t want me to have any of my dreams realized, even though California wouldn’t be as I dreamed it’d be. My dreams never included the poverty, the freeloaders, the noise, etc. So he pointed out the AARP he’s eligible for on his birthday, the fact that they’re back to doing overtime at work, the paid vacation he’d get if we stood till the end of July, etc. But we don’t want to stay any longer than we have to, so if by some miracle we can get the fucking thing cashed, we’re outa here!

He told me about the few people at work he thinks we may be able to trust to deposit the check into their accounts and then let us have the money if it clears (we’ll give them a few hundred for doing us the favor), and that we could still sue the company if the check was bad. Tom probably is right about the check being good. He would know these things. I just feel more and more certain we’re not meant to have the money, good check or not. This is the fourth time we’ve tried to cash the damn thing!

So we decided to start with this couple who runs a licensed daycare service from their home. They sound more trustworthy than this other guy who’s always broke and always asking if we managed to get the check cashed. Runner-up to them may be this guy who owns an acre of land on Shasta, and then Eddie, the guy who moved us in here.

Fortunately, Tom was smart enough not to give them a specific date at work. He just told them “this summer” we’re moving.

Anyway, I told him to talk to people at work, I’ll sign the check over to them, then that’s it! No matter what happens from there on out, I don’t want anything more to do with this check!!! And I don’t want a damn thing more to do with cash sweeps either. At least not until we can open an account elsewhere. I went through and deleted the prizes I don’t really want and or don’t think I could get much money from, and those that had small cash prizes. I figured there’d be no problems opening an account for $25,000 and up, not that I’d ever win that big. Fuck this pay-to-win bullshit, though! As soon as we get moved, everything’s going in his name. When I change the address on the Robo form, I’m changing the name too, which he says would be no problem, but if we can’t get the check cashed, then he’s going to have to file for a tax amendment since we’d only be paying for a check we never could cash. Right now Netwinner’s more important, being as cut and dry as it is. I’ve set a goal of at least a thousand points a day. Some days this can take all day, others it can take a couple of hours or less.

Tom was telling me that this guy at work would gladly be a reference for him when he’s looking for a new job, so that’s cool.

SUNDAY, MAY 27, 2007 The new neighbors are being the perfect neighbors because we don’t have to live with them for long. They don’t even park in the yard along the side.

I’m still sometimes tempted to say “What the fuck? Let’s save money and take advantage of the pool/appliances we’d get by getting an apartment. I was never meant to be where I want to be anyway, and I know I’ll never be allowed to live in peace, so why not? I’m sure the choice won’t be ours in the end anyway.”

Wherever we end up, I’m not moving again till he’s at least 55!

I have my stereo blasting and I’m sitting right by one of the speakers yet I can still hear the assholes blasting by, and I still can’t believe no one does shit about it! Come on, God, have people start shooting these mother-fuckers, will ya? You’ve obviously got no problem with violence, so why not?

It wouldn’t deter the attention-getters. No, they’d gladly die in the name of getting attention. But it may finally encourage our twisted lawmakers to do something once and for all.

If I’ve hit upon a way to influence my weight, I wouldn’t know it with all this extra water I’m carrying, but I have set a spotting record. Tomorrow’s when my period’s due yet I still haven’t started spotting! It would be so nice if I could influence my period itself to get later and later each month till it finally disappeared altogether.

OLS continues to frustrate me with the hard work and restrictive sweeps, and now Webshots is irritating me too, posting pictures that have already been posted in previous years.

At least Netwinner’s still loads of fun. I’m now up to 71,140 points. They have this new multiplier promo that can multiply your wins 2x, 5x, 10x or 25x. So now there are more ways to win and more are promised to be on the way.

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2007 The dog’s gone off for the day and so now I won’t be able to do things like make a cup of coffee in peace.

Tom said he saw two people in their 20s moving stuff in yesterday and that there was just one car over there. I’m surprised no one’s parked in the yard yet, but I doubt they’ll be a problem either way because God knows we’re almost out of here. I’m sure He’d rather wait till we get moved in someplace down there before he has someone sic their shit on us. Besides, by the time these people decide to let the neighborhood know they’ve arrived, we should be on our way out.

Tom’s still got a cold but is getting better. He cracked me up by telling me that a couple of nights ago when he crashed at 7:00, he woke up a little more than an hour later convinced that he was late for work. He said it took him 15 minutes to realize it was the evening.

We’re still on for giving notice on the 1st but aren’t sure if we’re leaving on the 15th or the 28th. I told him to let me know by the weekend because if it’s gonna be the 28th, we need to bomb. The spiders are appearing more often and bigger, of course.

I decided we should take the dressers. His is the shorter brown one and mine’s the tall white one. Except for a few scuffs and chips, they’re not half bad at all, and we could use them till we get something nicer. Tom agrees and said it wouldn’t be any biggie to move them. I’ll just get a new dresser for myself someday because I prefer long ones over tall ones. At that time I’ll give him this tall one. It’ll be perfect for him because it’s got less space up top for him to trash, and he’s tall so he can see the top easier.

Next week is when we’re going to try to get that damn check cashed. Tom still feels confident that it’s not only a good check, but that if it weren’t, we’d be able to sue for big bucks. Also, they’re a big company so they wouldn’t just close the account the check’s written on like I wondered. Then I guess we’ll get it cashed ok since God would never let us have big bucks.

We’re going to a city much like Phoenix, so right now, God’s blocking us from big bucks is the least of my worries, as opposed to Him either seeing that we lose everything or end up on the streets if He doesn’t sic neighbors like we had in Phoenix or at the duplex to provoke me so I can end up in jail. They couldn’t make me answer to any court calls, but if I was pushed into attacking some asshole, they could arrest me on the spot till Tom could bail me out. You can only push even the most tolerant person so far before they snap. I hope God would have the decency to continue to give us a break with the asshole neighbors, but until I see us have good neighbors elsewhere, I have to believe it’s just this house that’s protected somehow, be it by the horseshoe that was here before we moved in, and that as soon as we leave it, we’ll open ourselves right back up to the neighbor curse. That is unless the bamboos can fend them off for us. Whatever’s protected us from bad neighbors here is worthless at warding off the street noise and the barking.

I don’t know what I want to be next to more down there, a rental or a house that’s owned. Rentals can call for more troublemakers, but owners are certainly going to have dogs.

Sometimes I think we might be better off leaving the west altogether and heading east simply because I just get so sick of Western culture. I’m sick of the hear-me obsession, the dogs left outside round the clock to bark up a storm, the conservative, control-freaking bigots, etc.

Tinkerbell’s been sleeping under the bed or in the closet for many hours at a time lately. She goes home for drinks and a bite to eat periodically. She’s such an awesome pet. I wish she could live forever.

We had a cool snap where it slipped down into the low 60s, but now it’s back in the mid-70s.

If things went my way, we could use the check to get us furniture, but that’s not how it usually works, so I’m sure we’ll need to use the money for living expenses.

Jessie said that it’s terrible I’ll have to wait a year to see if I can get back on disability, and why is it so easy to get on welfare, but not disability? As I told her, it would be anything but easy for us to get on welfare. People don’t think white, childless people need to eat, too.

I made a promise to myself that if I didn’t get the benefits back, it’d be the absolute last time I’d try to make money other than by sweeping and give God a good laugh at my expense.

Same with any efforts to lose weight. This Chinese tea diet will be the last I’ll ever try if it doesn’t pan out. It’s got a money-back guarantee and is backed by 60 Minutes and Oprah. It at least looks more promising than anything else I’ve seen and a hell of a lot simpler because there’s no special diet, measuring or counting in any way. You just have two cups of this tea per day, and it’s not an appetite suppressant, but an actual fat killer. It’s a little pricey, though. I’m still going to watch what I eat and exercise, of course, but I’m willing to try this one last thing since I’m not sure I can ever influence my weight/metabolism. Influencing is highly based on visualization, and so I’m having trouble trying to figure out how to do it. Things that aren’t as tangible are harder for me to influence.

My eyes are doing well, but I still have my fuzzy moments. I can’t seem to focus them very well during the first hour of my day. Still, I refuse to wear those darn glasses!

TUESDAY, MAY 22, 2007 Kim and her song just came in, and I gave her a song of my own back, only much louder.

I got a kick out of this study 60 Minutes did about what makes a person gay or straight. While scientists are agreeing more and more that it’s not a choice or genetics (cuz identical twins can be gay/straight), it’s funny to see them make such a big deal out of nothing at all. It’s really no great mystery. It’s not upbringing, genetics, choice, or the fact that most guys are fucked up, it’s all in the hormones. Dah! The rat experiments they did even prove it. You think all gay guys just happen to be fems while gay chicks happen to be masculine? No way! I may be more feminine than most chicks that dig other chicks, but compared to most chicks, I’m really not that feminine when you consider my temper. Some of that may be my upbringing, but not all of it is. So the question’s not the cause, it’s when will people leave us the fuck alone? If I had to be reincarnated I’d still want to come back as a woman and gay. Except for Tom, guys are still uglier, dumber and not as good in bed. I’d just like to be Asian next time around so I can have nice dark eyes and hair. Straight hair too, probably.

Tom saw someone moving in next door yesterday but didn’t see any people. Just a van parked in front. Yeah, I knew it wouldn’t take long. Especially at this time of year. I know we’re going to have neighbor problems galore down there, but I’m just glad that whoever these people are, we won’t have to live with them for long up here!

We’re now debating whether or not it’s worth staying an extra two weeks, till his birthday, to get AARP discounts which he’ll be eligible for then since he’s turning 50.

Tom’s got a cold now which is probably due to all the overtime he’s been working. The overtime is now done, but it’s things like this that makes me hate the government all the more. If I’d been getting what’s so rightfully mine all along, the overtime wouldn’t be nearly as necessary. But you know our wonderful government; they’d rather give to other countries before they take care of their own. With all the things I’ve so hopelessly strived for in life, it’s going to be very hard to motivate myself. This is exactly the kind of thing God would make sure I failed to succeed with. Especially if I’m right about us being meant to spend most of our lives struggling. How many of my dreams/goals have I ever achieved? How many? But the fact that it’s money we’re talking about may help keep me going whenever I get discouraged along the way. If it were about changing people’s opinions about whatever, changing laws, or my appearance, then it’d be harder.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2007 We’re in the 20s now! Yes, just 28 days to go as of midnight! That is, assuming we really do leave on our anniversary, which is what it’s looking like. Then it’s off to listen to new dogs, new neighbors, new car doors, new stereos, and to acquire new medical problems and new money problems, but it’ll be nice and warm most of the time!

People are so fucked up. Just so, so twisted. They don’t want the semis, the trains, the planes, but they have no problem with these stereos and all the barking. I just don’t get how so many people can be so damn backward like that! That’s like saying, “Someone can rip me off for $100, but God help them if they rip me for $10.”

Last night I read without my glasses! It was blurry, but I managed.

OLS has been disappointing lately. Sweeps are being submitted like crazy with extreme rules and restrictions and all kinds of requirements. $30 a year may not be much to pay, but it really stinks when you’re finding more and more that you don’t qualify for half the sweeps submitted each day. So many sweeps lately want you to submit this, download this, upload that, do this, do that, and it’s getting very frustrating. I don’t think those who are running the site aim to please their members, though. Not after the way they’ve treated me in the past. I really don’t think they care if they lose a few members here and there. Still, it’s really getting old to find that so many entries require such hard work if I even qualify for them in the first place. Whatever happened to the good old days when simple ‘fill and submit’ forms were the norm without so much age discrimination and other requirements attached? Today, more than half the sweeps are for parents (like they’d have time to sweep with kids?), teenagers, babies, business owners, teachers, or you have to submit tips, reviews, recipes, videos, photos, take long surveys, search for whatever, write an essay, answer this, answer that – arrrrgggghhhh! It’s just so frustrating! This doesn’t mean I don’t still love OLS, but enough is enough already! Over 150 sweeps were submitted yesterday and I didn’t qualify for about 50 of them. Another 50 or so was just too much work. I hope they’ll consider making some of the changes I’ve suggested to them, but I won’t count on it. Again, I really don’t think they care. Instead of their attitude being “What can we do to please our members?” it’s “Ignore the sweeps you don’t want or leave OLS.” They haven’t come out and actually said this to me, but they may as well have since ignoring my complaint is pretty much saying just that.

MONDAY, MAY 14, 2007 Now that I’ve managed to block out the city’s desperate with earplugs, I’m being woken up by strange nightmares. I’ve had all kinds of bizarre dreams lately. I was about to be executed in one for God knows what. In another, I was being stalked by some unseen force. In yet another, I was stranded somewhere.

Just like with all other diets I’ve tried since I was 37, the tomato diet is a bust. It brought me down 5 or 6 pounds, but it doesn’t look like I’ll lose any more without cutting down even more and I’d never be able to take the hunger. The weight’s got to be starved off, so I’ll just wait till I can get a hold of the Claritin as I originally planned. Then God can have it turned into a prescription drug down there too, and I can gain all the weight back and then some! But I’ll never get back into the 120s at the rate I’m going. If it were possible to lose weight at 1300-1500 calories at this age, then I could. It would be a slow process, but a possible one. Now I could only lose on 800-1000 and if I could stand that then I could stand to starve.

At least I’m now up to 57,060 points! I hit 5,000 two nights in a row.

I could also read the fine print on our calendar for the first time ever! It’s been over a week since I’ve worn my glasses, though I still need them for ultra-fine print and for book-reading. I’ll never get my eyes like they were 15 years ago, but they sure have improved.

Jessie said she hasn’t been online much lately because they’re looking for a new place to live. Her landlady is an ex-coworker who thinks she’ll put up with all kinds of stuff just because they know each other, she says.

I said why not join us in Sacramento? They need accountants there, too. Now would be a good time to relocate; before her daughter’s old enough to establish friendships she’d have to break. I added that she won’t find a house in the west without all kinds of barking, but she must not mind noise since she’s had two kids.

But most people don’t have the guts to move that far from home, and she may have too many close connections that’d be too hard to break, whereas I didn’t have a loving family or a job holding me back. It’s probably best that she stays put anyway since I wouldn’t want to deal with a 4-year-old in the picture as destructive as they are. Jessie’s not the type to discipline a kid all that much because she’s more easygoing. She’d just laugh it off when the kid broke something, whereas someone like Doe would become utterly furious.

FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2007 We’re just now winding down from what’s been an obnoxious afternoon with the usual mix of music, barking and her next door. This is a rather odd time for her to be coming and going, too. She’s obviously not working tonight, so hopefully she won’t come and go too often. Although the stereos haven’t been the every few minutes they were last summer, they’re still often enough, every 15 minutes or so. Of course just once a day is too much for me! But they’ll be a fact of life every day of our lives since no one cares enough to do anything about the problem. We’re aiming for 3 things when we move. I don’t know if God will let us, but we want to try to get into a house that’s not on a shared lot of any kind like this one is. We want a place without a lease. And we want a place on a quieter street. Sure all it takes is one bad neighbor, but without being locked into a lease, we can run anytime we want. I don’t know if we could hide, but we could at least run. We’re thinking we’re going to leave closer to our anniversary, making it exactly 3 years spent in Oregon. He’s been working overtime, so that brings in $500 a week rather than $400. If the overtime stops, then we may bail out sooner. Even if we don’t get that check cashed, we should be going out with a lot more money than we came in with, plus there’ll be the Unemployment we didn’t have before.

They were mowing next door. I doubt we’ll be able to finish out our last 35 days or so here without new neighbors over there, but I can still hope.

Because we know what it’s like to be hungry and that not all hungry people are lazy or on drugs, we’re contributing to the food drive this year. We’re donating 3 cans of tuna, 3 boxes of mac & cheese and 3 cans of soup. The only ones I’d never support are third-world countries. Here, you can be financially set, have kids, then go broke due to situations beyond your control, but poverty is an everyday fact of life for everyone in third-world countries. Therefore, I think it is just so wrong to have babies you know damn well you can’t afford, then expect other countries to foot the bill for you. It’s so unfair and cruel to the child to go bringing it into such horrible living conditions. A whole lot of birth control is what people should donate to them, not money! Third-worlders also tend to be very prejudiced. They’re just a bunch of whiny little bigots stuck in the gimme-gimme-gimme mode, without a care in the world for others.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2007 Tom may’ve been the one to screw up this week’s money (he forgot to factor in the radio and movie download fees), but it’s moments like this that keep my hatred toward God in full swing. It’s only a week of struggling, and we both want to cut back anyway, but here we are at 41 and almost 50 playing the poor bum game yet again. God’s little bums. Always His little underdogs, His black sheep of our families. Our pitiful, non-deserving families. We should’ve had a kid and abused or abandoned it. Then maybe we could live where we want in peace and always have a nice big fat cushion to count on and then some! We’re just glad we didn’t do eBay last weekend or else we’d be starving all week, and that wouldn’t be the least bit easy without Claritin. At first I had been against delaying eBay which Tom wanted to do to keep our cushion before he knew we’d lose it altogether, saying that we’ve got to get used to being broke all over again. You know God’s going to hold us down another year or two, maybe longer. For now, we gotta go semi-hungry because our wonderful government just had to have half a grand of his hard-earned money for all the wrong reasons.

Tom’s going to call them next week since we can’t always trust what people tell us, but a coworker of his gave him the name of a check cashing place that will cash checks if they’re allowed to keep the money till the check clears. Maybe we are meant to have that $2500 after all, but I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet. When we go we’re going to go to the Chinese place one last time.

Meanwhile, we probably are going to take the truck and sell 8 different items on eBay this weekend.

It’s going to be hard to not give up trying to get my disability reinstated. When has God ever allowed anything just for me? And He knows it wouldn’t be just a few extra bucks a month, but a few extra hundred bucks a month.

I’ve still been neglecting my story, but I’ve swept, I’ve watched movies, and I’ve climbed just over 40,000 points on Netwinner. I’ve had some small wins lately, but nothing worth noting here.

The weather’s been warm. We haven’t needed heat for a few days now. We even had some surprising thunderstorms tonight and last night.

MONDAY, MAY 7, 2007 It’s a gorgeous day out there today and the city’s assholes are doing all they can to ruin it and spoil the peace. And it’s not even 1:00 yet! Between 2:30-8:30, it’ll be at its worst. I wish some people would start shooting some of these assholes! Maybe that’d scare them into shutting up. Then again, these are the kinds of people that don’t take their lives very seriously to begin with. Meaning, just like with the freeloaders, they’d be very happy to die for their little attention cause, their sole purpose for living as far as they’re concerned. France has made it illegal to sell anything over a certain volume. I don’t agree with their limiting volumes in headphones, but speakers should be limited everywhere. Tom did some research and found that some towns are taking steps towards curbing the problem, but not surprisingly, they’re mostly eastern towns, particularly Florida where it’s touristy. There you can’t play stereos loud enough to be heard 50’ past your car or they’ll take your speakers if they catch you. Sadly, we’re still many years away, if ever, from achieving overall peace from these things or from people leaving their dogs out to bark up a storm.

At least there’s some good news. My doll’s on its way, and Tom found my sleeping disorder online! He came in while I was watching a movie to tell me that he found it by accident and that it’s even got a name. I forgot what it is, but this is no article written by an individual, it’s a diagnosed and documented problem in a medical journal! Tom said that when he read it, it sure sounded like me where a person’s schedule jumps forward an hour or so each day and that they have no inner clock to set, etc. He read the article to me, and not surprisingly, there is no cure, but it does suggest some things I’ve already done to help for when I have appointments or something to do that requires me to be on days, like taking melatonin and B12 supplements.

So then we got to thinking and discussing some ideas. We’ve decided we’re going to go to a sleep clinic down in Sacramento. Surely they’ll have one there while Klamath Falls has probably never even heard of any such thing. We’re going to see if we can get them to diagnose me, then get my disability benefits back. When they kicked me off in ’94 I was elated because all I could think at the time was wow, what a major accomplishment. Not there goes some extra money we could really use. But I’m older now and don’t care what people think. You know that in the past I’d put up with someone telling me gays were sinners, evil, ought to be killed, etc. Today I’d just dump them in a heartbeat. So I don’t care what stigmas go with being on disability. The bottom line is that I truly am disabled and have been all along and we could use the extra money. You know it burns me up to see people getting free money simply for being black or Mexican, while I sit here, truly unable to work outside of the house, and no one gives me shit.

What would be really exciting, though I’m trying not to get my hopes up, would be to not only get back on my benefits, which I estimate would be around $600 a month these days but to get back payments as well. Back when they cut me off when I was 18 simply because I was 18, and when my father got me back on a few years later, I received 6 grand. The question is what exactly is the reason I was put on disability in the first place? The sleep disorder was kept in check as a kid because I had something to motivate me that I don’t have now - a bitch of a mother who’d have gladly torn me apart limb by limb if I didn’t get up and get my ass to school, followed by an equally abusive system who’d have done similar. Even so, falling asleep and waking up in the mornings as a kid was always a hardship for me. But when it comes from the mouths of Doe and Art O, it’s hit or miss as to whether or not it’s the truth, so I don’t know the exact story behind the benefits. I’ve heard it’s because of his bad heart, because of my ear, because I was crazy. But as Tom said, either of these would tie into the sleep disorder. They’re all kind of intertwined.

There have been times I thought of bringing it up to a doctor but was afraid I’d get, “You’re just being lazy. You’re spoiled, you’re stubborn. You’ve simply gotten yourself into a bad habit. Just set your alarm clock and get up when it goes off.”

All you really hear about is those with insomnia, but never this. I still don’t think many people are aware of this, but it’s nice to know that I’m not all alone in this situation as I thought I was. It’s the common things people focus more on. Like when a guy can’t rise to the occasion, versus those who can get hard, but not off like Tom. Whether or not part of his problem is age, I really thought he was doing this deliberately for fear of impregnating me, and so many years ago I told him, hey, 80% of the male population doesn’t want kids, so if that’s it, just tell me. But I always thought he was afraid to admit it for fear of me either leaving him or attacking him, till a therapist showed me some literature on it and I read about another case online. They too, could only get off once in a while. And we think this is only a woman’s problem! Besides, the more I got to know Tom, the more I could see he was not your typical male. I wouldn’t have married him if he was. Trust me, he’s not the kind to run from a kid, unwanted or not. He’s the responsible type. He is my one blessing amongst many curses in life. If it wasn’t for his accepting me as I am and supporting me all these years, there’s no way I could’ve survived.

Anyway, I’m truly not alone! Tom said there’s this guy at work whose mom has this problem. How she raised a kid with it is beyond me. This was one of the many reasons I decided having a kid wasn’t a good idea. I just didn’t see how I could be there for it half the time.

As I said, I’m trying not to get too psyched up, but if I could get back payments, that wouldn’t make us rich, but after all these years it could very well buy us a house where we want! I still don’t think God would be that nice to us, or that they’d fail to point out that I never appealed the decision to terminate my benefits in ’94 in the first place. I could argue that I wasn’t as enlightened as I am today and that I didn’t think I stood a chance of proving my case and fighting it, but I don’t know how far that’d get me.

Later…

Glinda arrived. She’s your typical Tonner doll – very nice.

Kim left 10 minutes ago playing her favorite song, though not too loud.

I thought today would be a madhouse since it was nearly 80º, and while it was annoying, it didn’t end up too bad.

Tom said that we could also argue that I was under the care of their doctors, yet they failed to diagnose me back then. Whatever happens is going to take years, and I just fear that it’s yet another tease from God. Is He going to watch me run around like crazy trying to get what’s rightfully mine just to see me fail in the end? I’m 41 years old and I have yet to see Him compensate me for anything or anyone He’s cursed me with.

Tom told his boss we plan to leave and asked how much time would be appropriate before he quit. The boss said to give her a few days to see if she can come up with a replacement and she’d let him know then, but to feel free to leave if this takes too long.

Oh, we will. No doubt about that! I’m glad they didn’t try to bribe him into staying with big bucks. We want money, but we don’t want to be miserable either. He really hates that place. We’re not sure how much notice we’re going to give the rental company. We don’t want to cut it too close and ruin our chances of them being a good reference for us if we need it, but we don’t want to give them enough time to pester me with show-and-tell. Tom can talk to them about that and see what can be worked out.

The ball has begun to roll! This is it, the beginning of the end of Oregon. The beginning of pulling our lifelines from this damn state one by one! I just don’t know if we’ll make it out by the 1st. It may be closer to our anniversary.

SUNDAY, MAY 6, 2007 Kim apparently worked last night and came in playing her favorite song this morning. She should be hitting Dreamland right about now.

Tom’s checked jobs and found that many of them start off at $10 in Sacramento, and without having to pay for insurance like he does here, it would almost be like making the same amount he makes here. The only difference will be that I’ll be insured too, and the rents will be higher. I would be ok with it if we could find a dump similar to this one that wasn’t by a canal, was level, and had space indoors for at least a small stackable washer/dryer. A dishwasher would be nice too, but it’s not that big a deal. If the dump was a little bigger it’d be worth it than spending more money on a nicer place. Since we can never have our cake and eat it too, I’d rather live in a dumpier place and have extra money, than put it all in a nicer place.

Food and gas are more expensive here, too. Veggies should be cheaper down there being in farm country. Yeah, all that farmland, yet never a farm for us to live on! (which I’d still kill for if we can’t live on a houseboat) That’s about as bad as being in the middle of a grocery store starving and broke.

The reason I’m glad veggies will be cheaper there is that while I don’t want to get my hopes up just yet, I think I may’ve finally, after a decade, found the magic combination diet-wise. About a week ago I got an idea for a tomato diet. The only problem is that these grape-sized tomatoes I love so much and that are way low-cal are $4 a container. I’m trying to mix in carrots and apples, though I don’t like carrots. They’re better than celery and citrus, though. A bushel of carrots and a couple of apples are half the cost of grape tomatoes. Anyway, I have a sandwich after being up a few hours, a TV dinner or something like that 6 hours later, then I munch on a container of tomatoes all throughout my day and it seems to be helping so far, but I just got over my period. It could very well be just water I’ve lost.

SATURDAY, MAY 5, 2007 I’ve been so into Netwinner that I’ve been totally neglecting my story. Oh well.

We’re going to sell stuff on eBay next weekend. Unfortunately, eBay’s not like it used to be. It’s more expensive and things don’t get as many bids anymore due to all the eBay stores there are today. We’re not going to put the 8 Barbies up that I don’t want. They’d be better off at yard sales. I offered them to Jessie for her daughter, and she said that’s really sweet of me, but the kid has enough toys. We’re going to be putting up things like the diamond, the autographed guitar, action figures, the shoes that don’t fit the mannequins, a board game, and a few other things.

I’ve been watching what I eat in hopes of keeping out of the 140s until I can get my hands on that Claritin. But “watching what I eat” and “cutting back” only keeps me where I’m at which is 135. Better than to gain more. I still wish I could just puke up what I eat since I can’t starve. I don’t think it’d be as gross as when you get sick. It’s nausea that’s the worst thing and that wouldn’t be the case if I could simply stick my finger down my throat and puke.

It’ll be interesting to see what Tom’s boss says when he tells them on Monday that he’s leaving in June. I say that if they’re not going to offer a partnership or $20 an hour, nothing’s worth staying here for.

He may see if he can get someone at work he trusts to cash that $2500 check I still don’t think we’re meant to have. I wish I could be invisible and mingle with his coworkers. I’m really good at sensing who’s trustworthy and who’s not. Since people don’t do things for nothing, we’ll offer them some money for doing it, and we’ll pay the $6 fee if it doesn’t go through. If we don’t go through one of his coworkers, we’ll contact the check cashing place and see if they’d be willing to hang onto it until it clears. We could still try to cash it in California. It’s just that the check matches this address while I have an Oregon ID.

I’m still both nervous and excited about the move. I don’t know what would shock me more – to end up in a place that’s not attached to someone else’s, or for him to start off higher than $8 an hour.

In neighborhood news, next door’s vacant again. Even apartments don’t turn over this often! Tom thinks it’s cuz the place is too expensive. I’m glad we’ll be outa here next month because this is a hell of a time to get new neighbors in a 3-bedroom house! Tom’s not sure we’ll get new neighbors before we leave, but I think we will. It only took a month or two last time around and that was in the dead of winter.

Not much from Kim. She sometimes still comes and goes with music. She must have a favorite song she plays over and over because it’s always the same beat I hear.

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2007 I can’t sweep yet since OLS is down. This is the second time in the last few days they’ve been down in the morning. I hope they don’t make a regular habit of it.

It’s cold again and I’m back in my robe and socks, heat blaring. I know I’m just going to have to listen to all kinds of shit every day down there in Cali, but I almost wish it would stay cold and rainy to keep things quieter until we leave and to keep the bugs out. It has no effect on the barking, but it curbs the stereos, and those are certainly worse than the dogs. However, it’s to be back in the 60s and 70s in a couple of days. From there on out, I doubt we’ll have any more days under 60º before we leave. It figures, too, that by the time I’m back on nights, it’ll be noisy as hell in the daytime. I’ll just have to remember to add the earplug to the sound of the air cleaner.

We’ve decided to go ahead and sell stuff on eBay, but haven’t yet decided exactly what we’re gonna sell. Tom’s still researching what things are going for. He’s going to set the prices and launch the sales this weekend, and I’m going to do the photoshoots and write-ups.

We’re going to be broke for the next week because Tom thought we’d break even tax-wise, but was wrong. We ended up owing a total of $500. What’s the point of making so much money if we’re just going to have to give so much of it away? And to people and causes that don’t even pertain to us! We’re paying for schools we have no animals going to, for hospitals we don’t use, for roads we don’t drive on, for lazy freeloaders to sit on their asses, etc. Is God just trying to give us a little taste of what we’re in for once we move? Well, if He is, He’s wasting His time. A thousand years of money couldn’t make me forget what it’s like to struggle!

[thebombasticbooky]

Kelsey Pokoly

I already deeply loved Kelsey after the first three seasons but there’s an episode in the fourth you haven’t seen yet that I relate to on an embarrassing level. She’s so much fun, full of heart and a desperate desire to do right for the ones she cares about, and to make the most out of every day for the mother that’s no longer there. And when she is a bit of a jerk it’s always understandable and more importantly charming and hilarious. She’s a key element of the show’s tone because it’d be easy to make a character like her the total butt of the joke, wholly deluded, and always eating dirt, served humble pie. And she gets those moments cause every character does, they’re kids. But it’s always laughing with her in those moments, has empathy when she’s truly low, and it agrees with her that she IS cool, because she cares so deeply, because she commits to her bit 100% and commits to it so everyone can have fun even when she herself is a little scared. In the world of the creek she is a hero and the show agrees.

[talesfromthemightyi]

The Black Keys on writing with Noel: “It couldn’t have gone smoother!”

With the new Black Keys LP on the way, it’s only right that a consolidated write-up piece that collects every bit of information important to the lead up and collaboration between The Black Keys and Noel, be delivered in such a way that, hopefully gives you the full scope of their collaboration.

Patrick, Dan and Noel will tell it all. 

Though mostly Patrick talks through everything about the record all the way back from 2023 to most recently with Joe Rogan, so we’ll start there. And fair warning, there will be a few repeated lines as per the promotional jargon they’ve managed to whittle down before every time the duo speaks about the new LP.

It will jump back and forth, so there’s that to look out for as well.

Let’s start.

Patrick Carney to Rogan: “We made our new record collaborating with people, and one of the guys we wanted to work with was Noel Gallagher from Oasis. So we kept reaching out to him, seeing if he would be up for it, and we kept hearing back that he doesn’t really do that (co-writing songs). And I remembered that my neighbor, who I golf with, used to be Oasis’ agent. So I asked him if he could reach out and through that, we heard back that Noel would be up for recording with us, if we went to London. So we flew all the way to London and rented this small, little studio (Toe Rag Studios). And we barely knew Noel, we met him briefly. But we went in there with no song and sat down with him, and within a couple hours we had a song written and recorded.”

Pat (cont.): “And we did it three days in a row. And we had four days booked. After the first day, we got what we needed. It’d be cool if we got more…–”

Dan Auerbach (interjected): “The rest will be gravy, but we got what we needed. We came for the trip!”

Pat: “Yep, and the second day we got ‘On The Game’, and the third day we got a song called ‘Only Love Matters’ but the fourth day we showed up and were like, ‘We are NOT fucking pressing it!’. We went three-for-three. But let’s not fuck this up. So we spent the whole (fourth) day just bullshitting with him.”

Dan: “It was such an amazing feeling being in the room with him (Noel). We cut it in a studio called Toe Rag and the live room is this size, like this room (points out to the room). Pat’s drum kit is here (points again), little keyboard here, I’m right there and Noel’s right there. We were just in a circle and, you know, what you hear on the record is (one of the live takes) we did. It was like, the second or third time we got through the song without fucking it up. [..] It is the best feeling. It’s the most addictive thing ever, being able to get in the studio and make something out of nothing like that.”

Rogan speaks up briefly to praise ‘On The Game’ from Noel and the band, and expresses that he’s grateful to have been able to listen to Ohio Players early. When asking about the origins of the band and the meaning of the track, Pat lets on about a day at the Chiltern Firehouse where Noel would frequent.

Pat: “The cool thing about ‘On The Game’, we got everything but the lyrics. But the melody was there. We kind of made a point (in) making this album that for the first time we were going to, I guess, kind of do it the way that maybe bands used to do it in the 70s. We were going to stay at the nicest hotels, the funnest– the MOST fun hotels. We were going to have fun. So when we’re out in London, we were staying at the Chiltern Firehouse, just kind of partying every single night, and then dragging ourselves to the studio. One night, Noel was hanging out with us and he was like, pointing to some girl at the bar, he’s like, ‘Oh, she’s for sure on the game!’. And we’ve been to England fifty times but we never heard that expression. We’re like, ‘what’s that?’ and he’s like, ‘Oh, she’s a working girl, she’s probably… you know, she’s probably a prostitute.’ Which checks out, I think! And then Dan was like, ‘Yeah, everybody here is on the game.’ But making this record was so much fun.”

You can watch that podcast here for the rest of the episode.

Earlier in the year, the band also sat down with Uncut Magazine and gave the album a preview for their January 2024 Album Preview issue.

Pat starts, “Dan makes a lot of records for Easy Eye, and when he does those, he’s always writing and collaborating with the artists. But the only other person we’d written with was Danger Mouse. So this time we decided to go a little deeper into our rolodex and call some people we’d been talking about working with for a long time,” says Carney.

“We just hit the ground running and we’re making songs as soon as we can.” Auerbach interjects.

Carney continued, “It came out so easy that we were trying to think of other people that we could throw in the mix, and the person at the top of the list was Noel Gallagher. Everyone was like, ‘Noel doesn’t really write with other people.’ But he agreed to meet us in London. We booked some time at Toe Rag and recorded two songs with Noel in three days.”

In London back in 2023, Pat also briefly spoke to NME about that. “When you’re coming up, it can often feel like competition and you’re constantly stressed. Now, we’re at the point where we can just enjoy everything,” signaling a new start and reference to a newer sound of their, yet-to-be-finished (at the time), 12th studio album.

“The key to our sound is embracing the human element. None of us are virtuosic musicians, there’s just a lot of raw rock ‘n’ roll.”

That same interview was in anticipation of kicking off their UK leg of shows in June 2023 at The O2, Hydro and so forth. 

The band would, at the time, also host DJ nights and continues to do so to this day. 

“It’s just us, partying. We don’t want to go to some crummy bar after the show and listen to shitty music. We’d stay backstage and play music but there’s no one else there, which is kind of boring. This is a way for us to control the jukebox and hangout together. We’ve done a lot of growing up in the last 10 years. Dan and I have always been close but we’ve got a very deep friendship right now. We enjoy hanging out. Getting to go on tour with your friend, it makes the whole thing feel more exciting.”

Carney continues, “When we got back in the studio in 2021, to record what would become Dropout Boogie, something had changed. Obviously the whole world had changed but a year of isolation was enough to change the dynamic between Dan and I. We were really, really, really excited to see each other every day.”

In 2021, that work translated into 9 straight weeks of back-and-forth recording in between touring. Never forgetting to mention that even then, the results would ring in the best sounds possible for the duo and would later, actually, keep going.

“But we just kept working. By the end of the year, we had 17 new ideas down and we just kept going, [..] that was the beginning of what we’re finishing now, an epic album that’s our best record for sure. It won’t be out until next year, though. It’s a weird, full circle thing.”

At the time of the interview, Carney didn’t want to 'give too much away' about 'the new evolution of The Black Keys.' It’s important to note that at the time, in 2021, those sessions would spawn more than 40 newer recordings from the duo, minus collaborations from then.

He does go on about smaller details to end on and also mentions Gallagher for the first time, in this NME interview. 

“We’re working with a lot of people and the vibe of the record is fun. It’s very reflective of our DJ nights in a way, it’s a big Saturday night party record. We just had people come through the studio and throw a little bit of special sauce at each song. There are just so many different collaborations but there’s a thread through it with Dan and I filtering everything. It just feels really fucking amazing.”

In steps Noel.

“He’s hilarious and super talented! We were referring to him as ‘the Chord Lord’ because he’s just a perfectionist with it. Dan and I are big fans of him and Liam. Actually, the Liam song ‘Everything’s Electric’ is why we decided to work with Kurstin.”

In speaking to the vibe of the album in the NME interview, Carney would also go on to say that, “Danger Mouse showed us the trick to collaborating and that’s someone we need to work with again soon. We used to be pretty insular. We were two friends from Akron who didn’t really take part in any music scene, and we weren’t able to hang out backstage early on in our career, because we had to drive to the next show. Now, we’re thriving because we’re including our friends and being more inclusive. That’s what the vibe is with this record.”

The same sentiment is shared between Auerbach, most definitely, when he also spoke with Rolling Stone at the beginning of this year.

“No matter who we work with, it never feels like we’re sacrificing who we are. It only feels like it adds some special flavor. We just expanded that palette with people we wanted to work with. We were there to support them and their ideas, to do whatever we could to see that moment flourish. But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me.”

And back to the Uncut interview. 

Carney says, “(With other artists), most of the time we’d have the music there (already), so we were just looking for words and melody. But with Noel, we started the songs from scratch. Noel is hilarious and we hit it off instantly. It couldn’t have gone smoother. He was very meticulous about finding the right transitional chords for each section, it was amazing!”

“At Toe Rag, we were all in the room: Pat with the drums,” Auerbach continues, “I was playing the bass, Noel had his 335, and our friend Leon was on keyboards. We were just in a circle in this tiny room, recording live, working up songs in real time, literally figuring out chord changes and melodies. Every song that we got with Noel is a live-take, it just felt really good.”

Another key element I wanted to add here, in finding similar pieces on their collaboration there are details that get left out over time, or other details that get added in. All of the same answers are all similar enough that you can hopefully get a sense of the story through-out. It is literal repeated answers from these interviews from The Black Keys, that it hopefully drives home the spirit and ritualistic practice of recording and songwriting, so I am very aware they’re all similar. 

But that is the point here.

Similarly, Noel spoke about the duo on Matt Morgan’s podcast back in August of 2023, “Recently, I was writing with The Black Keys, and I’d never really met them before– that really did work!”

The sound? 

“If you can imagine my good self and them, that’s what it is. It’s not swampy blues, and it’s not my kind of guitar-pop or whatever you want to call it. It’s somewhere in between… it’s really fucking good!”

Gallagher continued, “There’s a song called It’s Only Love That Matters, and it’s really fucking good!” 

“I’d met Patrick maybe once, but I don’t know them, and they called up my office and asked if I’d be interested in writing with them and we all went at it and did like three tunes in five days.”

Once again, more details get added into the story. In keeping with all answers about recording new music, Noel somehow remembers that it was five days instead of four days, like Pat says, but let’s forget that for a second.

Noel continues, “Patrick and Dan would sit opposite each other, and somebody would play a drum beat. Dan would come up with a chord, and then I’d be like, ‘What if it went there?’. The tunes we’ve done together are pretty cool I think.”

“There was five of them (in the sessions) and one of me, I really enjoyed it!”

And so we’ve made it to the end!

The two recordings co-written and produced from this three day session in London back in 2023 would later turn out to be, ‘Everybody’s On the Game’ and ‘It’s Only Love that Matters’. 

These are of course their full titles that did indeed make the cut out of the 16-track collection for Ohio Players and were later shortened down to ‘On the Game’ and ‘Only Love Matters’, which was then also shortly revealed by Nonesuch Records on both their store and website in late January of this year.

The year prior, after said collaboration, Noel would also be hard at work on putting the finishing touches to what would eventually be the fourth LP released under the High Flying Birds pseudonym, Council Skies. 

Council Skies hit store shelves on June 2, 2023. The album contained 10 tracks and 1 bonus track on the Deluxe edition of the album. The Black Keys did not offer anything back in songwriting or recording duties for the fourth High Flying Birds LP.

OHIO PLAYERS by The Black Keys is out on April 5, 2024.