#its like when she tried to sneak around to see ryans car when he picked me up to go trick or treating

[oetscop]

bro i only just fucking woke up and im sick can these two just let me eat in peace without asking me a thousand questions

[punkcherries]

its 4 am i have no impulse control i finished writing the very bad blurb thing its ryan+min and its not good but im posting it under the cut here anyway <3 <3 (uh theres mentions/allusions toward underage drinking and also self harm and also internalized homophobia but its not like gnarly ok ok tfrtwser??????)

Min slipped his arm around Ryan’s shoulders, his hand brushing Ryan’s neck, before pulling him close for the photo. It was only a brief moment, but the afterimage of Min’s skin on his made Ryan’s hair stand on end, and his face flush. Not like the fuzz in his face from drinking when he really shouldn’t, or the warmth in his cheeks while flirting with a girl, it ran across from ear to ear, radiating heat. ‘This is wrong,’ he thought to himself, ‘This can’t keep happening.’ The click of the camera barely registered to him, the world was just noise. Just as quickly as it happened, Min was pulled away by someone at the party calling for his attention, snapping Ryan back to Earth. He placed his hand to the back of his neck, the bare air felt like ice in place of Min’s jacket. He turned his eyes back over to Min.

“Ah, uh, thank you...!” Min called back to whoever with a sheepish chuckle, and Ryan’s face turned almostly morosely soft. His heart thumped harder, and harder, he could feel it in his head, and he felt fit to burst, until, “Ryan? You okay?” Min’s voice broke through the dead air of the dance music, and Ryan looked like a deer in headlights.

“Uhh I….” Ryan spoke hesitantly, what he’d wanted to say all night and for who knows how long before bubbling up in his chest. He looked Min in the face only for a moment, and his throat suddenly felt strangled, “I just…. Uhh….” Ryan glanced around the room for a moment, before taking in a breath, “I…. kinda feel like…. I’m, uh, forgetting something important….” He made something up.

“Uhhh…. Oh, did you remember to put your guitar back in the van after the show?” Min gestured to the backstage door off to his right. Ryan snapped his fingers, “Y’know, I…. don’t remember! Better go check,” Ryan forced a laugh, slipping past Min, “Make sure no one’s touchin’ the goods. Be right back!” Ryan pushed his way past the other partygoers and backstage as quickly as he could, leaning against the door behind him and letting out a disgruntled groan. “What is wrong with you?” He whispered to himself, pausing a moment before standing back up straight. To his surprise, there, still backstage, was in fact his guitar, or at least the case. His brows furrowed, of course he really forgot that. Such an empty headed move. Ryan went and checked the case for all his things. Guitar, picks, strings, everything was where it was supposed to be, so he zipped it up and carried it out the back door to the tour van.

Walking round the side, he brushed his hand against the uneven surface, covered in slightly chipped paint from the Chicken Choice Judy mural he and Min painted on it about a year or so ago, before getting to the back doors. His mind raced as he placed his case in the back of the van, ‘You shouldn’t say anything to him. You have something good now, you can’t ruin it,’ Ryan studied the stickers on his guitar case, the razor blade in particular stuck out in his mind, and a quiet wave of a dull, stinging phantom pain washed over his thighs, ‘Not again.’ He shook his head a moment, before sighing deeply, and closing the van doors. Turning to leave, he let out a startled yelp, seeing a figure standing behind him.

“Woah, woah, it’s just me!” 

It was Min.

“Dude, don’t sneak up on me like that...!” Ryan scrambled to play it off cool, but Min gave him a puzzled look. 

“I... called your name, like, twice.”

“Oh….”

Ryan cleared his throat, and smiled nervously, “Sorry, guess I just got a little, uh….” He glanced at the van for a second, “...Lost in thought.”

“Yeah, are you…. Sure you’re okay?” Ryan could hear Min’s voice starting to go soft, the kind of soft it gets when he’s worried, and his heart rose up to the end of his throat. Ryan forced a smile and gave a dismissive gesture,

“Yeah, of course! Just got hit with lots of ehh, song ideas and, y’know how I think at, like, a thousand miles a minute, I probably just didn’t notice!” He chuckled, slipping past Min again, barely looking him in the face at all, “Nothin’ to worry about!”

“Ryan,” Min’s voice stopped Ryan in his tracks. It wasn’t upset, or angry, just…. Worried, and…. Disappointed? Regardless, it dropped Ryan’s heart like an anvil from his throat to the pit of his stomach. “You know you can talk to me,” Min placed a hand on Ryan’s shoulder, “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to, I just want to be there for you.” His voice was so tender. Ryan turned only slightly, just to look at Min, whose concerned expression turned to a gentle, reassuring smile at seeing his face.

Ryan looked away, folding his arms just a bit, and Min’s hand brushed down Ryan’s shoulder to his back, slowly at first. It felt almost as if it pulled Ryan’s breath in, and Ryan closed his eyes. In that same motion, as Min’s hand pressed against Ryan’s back, travelling back up, it pulled the words right out from his lips.

“Min-Gi, I’m in love with you.”

The silence that set in deafened Ryan, his vital organs felt as though they’d been filled and bruised with boulders, and his head burned a dizzying burn, as if the fire and brimstone of Hell were trying to crawl out of his body for the unholy thing he’d just said. He opened his eyes, to see Min, red faced and shocked, and he clenched the leather of his jacket sleeves tightly in hand. The choking feeling in his throat came back, and he couldn’t bear to look at Min, “I….” His shaky voice barely scraped above a whisper, “I’m sorry, I…. I know it’s crazy, but…. Just…. I….” He started to trail off as the heat in his face brought out tears in his eyes, when Min’s hand suddenly pressed against Ryan’s back, pulling him into an embrace. 

Ryan’s eyes were wide, as Min held him close with one arm, and the other stroked the back of his head, fingers combing through his hair, Min’s breath shooting down his neck and his ear as Min whispered in a voice only for him, “I love you, too, Ryan.”

Time stopped. Ryan’s tense body softened, and he wrapped his arms around Min’s waist, burying his face against the crook of his neck. For what felt like an eternity and yet not long enough, they held each other there in the parking lot of a dingy local live venue, just a few minutes out from Min’s college campus, although it felt like anything but. Until Ryan sniffled, and Min pulled away in concern. “Ryan, are you…?” The salty burn of tears bore into Ryan’s cheeks, but there was a smile on his face, and Min smiled back, wiping Ryan’s cheek with his thumb, “Geez, you had me worried there.” They both snickered, “Sorry, sorry….” Ryan’s voice was still a little weak as he sniffled again, and wiped his eyes with the heels of his palms, groaning. 

There was a beat of silence, before Ryan spoke up again, “You…. Really mean that.… Yeah?” He only realized how silly a question it sounded after he said it.

“Yeah, of course, why wouldn’t I…?”

“I…. Dunno…. I guess I was just…. Nervous…?” Ryan shrugged, his voice trailing off a bit, “I dunno.”

“What’d you think was gonna happen?” Min’s face turned from humored to concerned.

“I…. I guess, I was worried that you’d…. Not…. Wanna be around me anymore, if I told you, I mean. So….”

Min paused a moment, before smiling again, “Ryan, you’d be my best friend before anything else, even if I didn’t feel the same. When I said you’re stuck with me, I meant it.” He laughed, and Ryan did, too.

“You said that, like, what? 2-ish years ago?”

“And I’ve been with you ever since, haven’t I?”

“Fair point!” Ryan chuckled and sighed. He fell against Min’s chest again, snaking his arms up and around his neck. “I’m glad.”

Min’s face turned soft, and he pressed his face into Ryan’s hair, stroking his back with one hand, swaying ever so slightly together. It didn’t take long before Min mindlessly pressed a kiss against Ryan’s head, and Ryan looked up at him with a surprised smile. Min looked slightly confused for a brief moment before fully processing what he’d just done and getting flustered, “Ah, sorry, was…. That too forward?” Ryan didn’t reply, not with words, he just cupped Min’s face in one of his hands, closed his eyes, and gently pressed his lips to Min’s. It was only a brief moment, but the sensation of Ryan’s lips on his burned into Min, who smiled and laughed nervously. “Too forward?” Ryan teased, and they both chuckled.

Suddenly, the sound of the back door to the venue caused the pair to part in a panic. “Oh, there you guys are. What’re you doin out here? Party’s not over yet!” A woman in orange flannel called out to them, and they looked at each other a moment. Ryan gave a disinterested shrug, and Min nodded. “I…. think we’re gonna have to head out early. Long day and stuff. Sorry!” Min called back to the woman, and she shrugged, “Suit yourself.” before going back inside. Ryan shuffled around in his pocket for a moment, before pulling out the keys to the van, smiling at Min, and eagerly hopping round to the driver’s side of the car. Min paused, and touched his lips with his fingers a moment, before getting a goofy grin and following suit to the passenger side.

Ryan started the engine as Min closed his door, and after shifting into gear, Ryan’s hand slid from the stick to Min’s hand, which rest on the compartment between their seats, and gave it a squeeze. Min tried to fight the silly look on his face, “Both hands on the wheel, uh…. dork.” 

Ryan laughed, “You totally wanted to call me something else, didn’t you?” Min stammered over his words, much to Ryan’s amusement, “It’s okay, you can call me “babe” if you wanna.” he teased and winked, and Min covered his face with his hand as it heated up. “Cute!” Ryan chuckled again, “Shut up and drive!” Min groaned, barely concealing his own laughter, “Alright, alright! No need to be pushy!” Ryan joked, before pulling out of the lot, and driving off.

[fortheloveoffanfic]

Better (pt2)

2 months later

Filming had wrapped for the evening, and by extension, the week and almost everyone had decided to go out. Y/n was in trailer getting ready to leave when there was a knock on her door. She could only hope it was Keanu but things had been weird between them since the morning of the meeting. They had grown distant and she had the feeling that he was mad at her. At the door, it was actually Halle,  who was wearing a black glittery party dress, “Um, why are you dressed to go out?” She asked stepping into Y/n’s trailer.

Y/n looked down at her outfit, black yoga pants and a cable knit sweater, “Cause I’m not going out? Well, I guess I am going out, cause I’m leaving here, but I’m just going home so...” Shrugging, she checked to if she had everything.

“Excuse me?” Halle shook her head in disbelief, “Honey no, everyone is going out. Everyone including you.” Immediately going to where Y/n kept some clothes. She rummaged around for while until she pulled out a simple white slim fit dress and a pair of strappy heels. “Go put this on.” Frowning slightly after giving her a once over, “And some make up too.” She shoved the clothes into Y/n’s arms and shooed her into the tiny bathroom. 

“But I don’t want-” Y/n protested weakly. 

“Yes, you do. And wear that red lipstick, I feel like Keanu will really like it.”  She advised closing the bathroom door. 

“What does Keanu have to do with this?” Y/n asked from inside the bathroom. “He’s barely even speaking to me. I think I pissed him of.”

“You didn't piss him off. Maybe broke his heart, but not pissed him off. I doubt he could ever be mad at you.” She paused for a second, “Hell, how could anyone be mad at you, you’re adorable.”

Y/n emerged a while later, wearing the Halle Berry approved outfit, her dark red lipstick and some other light makeup. Halle smiled approvingly. “First of all, thank you, I am adorable. And second of all, he is definitely mad. Not that I blame him.” Y/n sighed, packing some essentials into a small purse. 

“Trust me, he’s not mad. And if he is, when he sees you wearing this, he won’t be for much longer.” They left the trailer walking towards the parking lot. 

“I still don’t see what he has to do with this,” Y/n shook her head. What would he care what she wore, she doubted that he even wanted to see her.

“Oh, my dense little lady friend. He has everything to do with this. You may not see it,  but when he looks at you there are hearts in his eyes and I’m pretty sure he drools sometimes. And there’s this look on his face, you know, you’d probably recognize it. From the mirror.” Y/n opened her mouth, ready to deny whatever Halle was implying. She certainly, 100% had nothing but plutonic feelings for Keanu. At least, that was what she had been telling herself for the past three months. They walked for a while, not speaking until the cars came into sight, “You know, he good for you, better than Ryan. And you’re good for him too. I just wish the both of you would grow the fuck up and realize it.” 

The club music was loud, too loud for everyone to hear each other clearly yet not loud enough to actually stop them from talking. Y/n was nursing a gin and tonic, not really paying attention to what her friends and co workers were saying. In fact, she had spent most of the evening sneaking glances at Keanu who seemed to be enjoying the night as much as she was. So not that much.

They were all sitting at the corner of the club, where there was a large curved couch against the wall and another on the other side of the low round table. For a while Y/n sat quietly, sipping her drink ignoring the incessant buzzing of her phone. She didn’t need to check, she knew who it was. Ryan. He had been trying to reach her all week but she had kept ignoring him. She could have blocked his number, she should have, but something was holding her back. Uncertainty.

“Don’t you think so?” Someone nudged her shoulder, “Y/n, don’t you think so?” It was Halle, who was apparently hell bent on mending things between her and Keanu.

“Huh?” She took a swing of her drink, “Think what?” She turned to the group, wide eyed with bewilderment.

“That Keanu looks fucking hot with his hair this long.” A woman, Carly, from hair and make up, filled her in excitedly, “I mean, you think so, right?” Carly who was sitting next to him made elaborate gestures around his face with her hands.

Y/n stuttered, and met his eyes, unsure of how to answer. He glanced up, cheeks red, clearly embarrassed by all the attention, yet still hopeful for her answer. “I mean....he’s.....yeah.” Y/n downed the rest of her drink, trying to find her confidence. When things were friendly between them, she used to tease him about his attractiveness all the time. “You know what, I think it is ‘fucking hot’, very much so.” She laughed.

It took a minute, but he laughed too, and in the moment, things felt just the way they used to. Suddenly, Carly squealed as if realizing something for the first time, “Ohmygod! You two would be great together!” She clapped her hands together, a testament to her enthusiasm on the topic, then pointed between them, “Cause like, he’s so tall and you’re so short. And you get along so well. Don’t you guys see it?” Carly took a sly sip of her martini, “And this might be the six martinis talking, but those daddy vibes will be put to good use.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

They both went silent, blushing, staring at each other through their lashes. Y/n was about to make her own quip on the subject when her gaze fell on a tall figure in leather standing at the bar. Of course he had found her. And now that he knew that she knew he was there, there were only two options left. Cause a scene in the club or go outside and see where he wanted.

Even if she did not want to do either, she choose the second, excusing herself and walking towards the door. Everyone grew quiet as she got up to leave and their eyes followed her to the entrance. Everyone including Keanu. 

Outside, she walked until she found a secluded ally way near the club. Not her best idea, but the last thing she wanted was to be splashed on the cover of some magazine next to him. He followed her and soon they were standing face to face. “What the hell do you want Ryan?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and offered her his best version of puppy eyes. “Y/n,” He took a step towards her, arms outstretched, expecting her to cave and step into them, the way she usually did, “I missed you. You know how I get when you aren’t around.”

“Less popular?” She rolled her eyes, determined to make this the last time they spoke, “Ryan, we can’t keep doing this. Its over, for good this time.”

A flash of anger crossed his face, but was quickly replaced with faux sadness, “Y/n, baby, you don’t mean that. I love you. And I know you still love me.”

“Love?” She rose her voice, “This, whatever we had was never love. Maybe I used to love you, or the idea of you. The fun we had together. But don’t you think it’s getting a little stale? The partying, the drugs and the shit ton of booze? Think about, that's all we do together, there’s no love between us.” She shook her head, all the words she wanted to say just flowing out of her, “I can’t do this anymore. I hate who I am when I’m with you Ryan. And I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Ryan was taken aback but the change of pace. He was so used to her giving in, going along with his habits, with their twisted cycle, “Babe, come on, just think about this. We’re it for each other. This is just a rough patch, but we’ll get through it.” He closed the space between them and grabbed her forearms, “Let’s just talk about this babe.”

She tried to shake out of his grip but it was too tight. Y/n was about to start yelling when someone from behind her coolly said; “Maybe you should leave.” Keanu. Her head whipped around and Ryan’s grip loosed on her, allowing her to pull away. “She said she’s done and you should listen.”

Ryan’s gaze harden and she could tell that he was sizing Keanu up. Y/n didn’t know what would happen if they fought and she wasn’t interested in finding out. Ryan took a few steps towards Keanu, “You want me to go why don’t you-”

Y/n stepped between them, putting her hand on his chest, “Ryan,” Her voice pleading, “Just go. Now.”

Y/n couldn’t see it but behind her, Keanu’s fists were clenched, he never thought of himself as a fighter, but for Y/n, he might be just about anything. He was taller, probably in better shape than this drunk. He could take him. Hopefully. The hesitation didn’t show on his, he was going to do this if he had to. For her. The fear was visible on Ryan’s face, telling him that he was afraid to get his ass kicked. “You know what. Fuck you, fuck both of you. You’re not worth it anyway.” Ryan rushed past them, without as much as a glance back.

By the Y/n had turned to face him, Keanu had already visibly relaxed. She let out a loud sight of relief. They were standing so close, merely inches apart. Close enough to pick up the scent of her fading perfume. “You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.” Y/n’s voice was soft and breathy.

“I’d do that for you and a whole lot more.” He half smiled. Her red stained lips were parted. He never realized it before, but he adored that color on her. Y/n’s hands reached up to cup his cheek, her fingers brushing over the scruff of his beard. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. Keanu’s hands found the curve of her waist, the fabric of her dress cool to touch. His pupils were dilated, so were hers. There were so many things they wanted to do together, feelings that had been pressed down for months surging forward.

Y/n felt like no was the moment where she sound say something profound. Say what she had been feeling since the moment they met. What she wanted to every time they were alone together. The reason why for so long she regretted being with other men. But she couldn’t, the words that her mind formed didn’t really seem like enough. So instead, she did something profound. Leaning forward, on her tip pf her toes, letting her body press to his, she kissed him. Slow at first, then faster with more passion. Her eyes shut tight, but she felt his arms wrapping around her, making sure that this was real, that finally, he could do this. Y/n’ s hands tangled in Keanu’s hair, silently begging him to deepen the kiss. It was perfect, better than either of them could have ever imagined, better than any kiss that they had ever experienced. It was perfect because, finally, Y/n had found that their friends were wrong.

Keanu wasn’t just better for her, he was the best.

[benzbantz]

Best 100 Songs of the decade!

As a new decade will be upon us shortly (the 20’s) I wanted to share some of my favourite tracks from the last 10 years. I’m a pop and rap guy mostly so that’s what you can mostly expect but hopefully a few surprises along the way. I’ll post 100 songs I really loved (in no particular order) then my top 25 absolute favourites at the end. Ok here we go

~Bad Romance - Lady Gaga

To limit myself to just one GaGa track is cruel and not easy, Edge of Glory and Born this Way are both anthems and technically this came out last moment 2009 ..but didn’t pop until 2010. A classic that makes it to most my playlists.

~Airplanes- B.O.B ft Hayley Williams (A classic no need to say more.)

~Love the Way you Lie - Eminem ft Rihanna

A absolutely brutal tune about a toxic relationship full of of lies and abuse, the powerful video really sells the tone of the song.

~Rescue Me - Skepta

Used to love Grime but gone off it for a while now. I wouldn’t call this an outright grime track but Skepta def brings the gritty uk rap scene on this one.

~Forget you ~ Ceeloo Green

Thou I prefer the Gnarls Barkley music style, this is still a awesome tune. Always fun to tell someone to do one in a sing song melody.

~Written in the Stars- Tinie Tempah ft Eric Turner

Used to love me some TT, this was a real catchy banger with great chorus by Eric Turner.

~Raise your glass - Pink (Not much to say, a pop classic)

~I need a Dr - Eminem, ft Dr Dre and Skylar Grey

This is such a underrated song. You have to really know your Dre and Em history to catch everything being said (which I won’t go into here) Brilliant tune and my fave they both worked on together that decade.

~Animal- Neon Trees

Really catchy little number that I enjoyed from first hearing.

~Look at me now - Chris Brown ft Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes

Busta Rhymes rap, that is all!

~Moves like Jagger - Maroon 5, Christina Aguilera

A great sing a long featuring two artists I’m not mad about really so a surprise like from me.

~ In the heat of the moment - Noah Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

What a tune, completely missed this first time around heard on a tv show recently checked it was this decade and then added it right on the list. Banger.

~Summertime Sadness AND ~Love - Lana Del Ray

2 for 1. When Summertime Sadness came out I was mesmerised by Lana’s voice had never heard anything like it before. Safe to say she is my artist of the decade but haven’t raided this count down with all her music. A couple here and a couple of my absolute faves in my ultimate top 25. Love was very heard to keep out of my top 25.

~Stronger (What doesn’t kill you) - Kelly Clarkson

Come on now, if you haven’t belted this one out the top of your lungs at least once I don’t know what you’ve been doing the last ten years.

~Somebody that I used to know - Goyte ft Kimbra

Went thru moments of really liking this song then it really irritating me (played on radio A LOT), thankfully years later the hype has died so I can appreciate it once more.

Midnight City- M83

This is not really my sort of music at all ,so much so I’m not even sure how to describe it. Has a 80’s feel which I love. Just love the infusion of synths and instrumental. Plus the singer has a very calm melodic voice. Great track.

~T.H.E - Will.I.Am ft Mick Jagger and Jennifer Lopez

Absolutely love this song so catchy very Fergie era BEP sounding, with a great guest solo from Mick Jagger.

~212 - Azealia Banks (not much to add on this, banger!)

~Too Close - Alex Close

If you don’t recognise this song from title you will once you hear it, such a forgotten gem.

~Picking up the Pieces - Paloma Faith

Another unique voice that def makes my top ten newly discovered artists this decade is Paloma Faith, her cover of Mama Cass’s Make your own kind of music also deserves a strong mention. Also not related to the music but Paloma is mad as a box of frogs in real life which I love.

~Bangarang- Skrillex

Yeah you’re not leaving alive from this post without a Skrillex nod I’m afraid, not a big dubstep fan but jumped aboard the band wagon when it was big for five minutes, this songs only thing that made it back with me thou.

~Hall of Fame - The Script ft Will.I.Am

First let’s clear this up I’m not a massive Will.I.Am fan or anything, he was just in EVERYTHING for the first few years of the 10’s. It’s a great song regardless.

~Harder then You think - Public Enemy (What a track, can’t say much more, banger.)

~Locked out of Heaven- Bruno Mars

Bruno Mars had some amazing tracks his debut album Doo Wops and Hooligans featured some brilliant tunes which sadly I just didn’t have space for in this countdown, Grenade, lazy song , Just the way you are, but I’m showing some love to Unorthodox Jukebox here and it’s best track giving Bruno Mars a edgier new vibe.

~Chocolate- 1975

Not my sort of music usually but really enjoyed this laid back rock number,

~Get Lucky - Daft Punk ft Pharrell Williams

Disco is back! Or is was in 2013 when this tune came out, one of the biggest selling singles worldwide in the 2010’s so not much more detail needed on its inclusion.

~Let her Go- Passenger

Nice little number, always liked this one, never really got into there other stuff but had to give this a shout out.

~Can’t hold us - Macklemore ft Ryan Lewis

The Heist is one of my fave albums from the last decade features some great tracks, same love and Thrift Shop get a shout out but this track was my fave, uplifting and full of energy.

~La La La - Naughty Boy feat Sam Smith

This was Sam Smith’s big feature hit before they became the successful solo artist they are now. Great track very different to the music Sam does now.

~Work Bitch - Britney Spears

Don’t roll your eyes! This is a banger, now get to work bitch!

~Rap God - Eminem

For Eminem’s big solo feature on this countdown it was between this, The Ringer or Not afraid. You may of guessed I’m a Eminem fan and have tried to keep his entries down but one does not simply do a music countdown and not include Rap God.

~Of the Night - Bastille

Really like this band they have some great hits, Pompeii is another great song of theirs that I didn’t have space to include. I went for this eerie cover version of the Corona 90’s dance classic as my pick.

~Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyrus (Leave me alone it’s a good song ok 😂)

~Riptide- Vance Joy

A little hidden gem I’d forgotten about until I put this list together.

~Who did that to you? - John Legend

Was going to obviously include All of me in this spot but then I remembered this absolute hit from Django unchained which sneaks in and takes the spot. Both great songs thou.

~Nobody to Love - Sigma (Great little dance track not much to add)

~ When the Party’s Over - Billy Eilish

Yes I’m a 35 year old Billy Eilish fan ok leave me alone lol. Seriously thou this girl is super talented and she’s up there in my fave artists of the decade. There will be more of her in my top 25 but this haunting track deserves a mention.

~Turn down for What - DJ Snake ft Lil Jon

It’s Lil Jon yelling really load of course it’s a banger. Also worth mentioning Ice T did a awesome Rap rock version of this song and it’s amazing!

~Problem- Ariana Grane ft Iggy Azalea

Those saxophone’s thou! Groovy little number no explanation needed.

~Chandelier- Sia

Such a power anthem, I came out as trans in 2014 so this song holds a lot of personal meaning with me but regardless is a great song anyway.

~Thinking Out Load - Ed Sheeran

I’m not the biggest Ed Sheeran fan ,take him or most often leave him ,but did like this sweet ballad. Nothing against his voice it’s his songs that don’t often do it for me but this was great.

~Good Kisser- Usher

Never been huge Usher fan ,liked his earlier stuff, confessions and all that. This was a surprise jazzy bluesy type number thou that I really enjoyed.

~Rude- Magic (A catchy sing along tune)

~Zombie - Jamie T

This guy was one of my fave artists of the 00’s, and thou his newest stuff imo doesn’t compare to his older this was still a tune.

~I - Kendrick Lemar

This is actually best when played after the song ‘U’ , the latter being a self hating song ‘loving you Is complicated’ vs I’s ‘I love myself’ different ends of the spectrum I just included ‘I���as you can enjoy that one on its own but to get the best out of that track I highly recommend listening to U first.

~See you again- Wiz Khalifa ft Charlie Puth

A sad song given it’s a tribute to Paul Walker who died in a car accident. Was overplayed a lot at the time but stands strong several years later.

~Dark Times - The Weeked an Ed Sheeran

What a track, their voices mesh perfectly together in this somber number.

~ Trouble - Iggy Azalea ft Jennifer Hudson (Banger)

~Hotline Bling - Drake

So many Drake songs I could of included, (he will appear again in the top 25) gods plan, headlines, in my feelings, nice for what, all absolutely great tracks but I had to go for my personal fave out of the bunch.

~You don’t own me - Grace ft G-Easy

This may be an odd one to some but I’ve always loved the original by Lesley Gore and this is a amazing cover. Grace has a lovely voice (and there is a non rap version if you’re so inclined) Love a good cover version and this is a awesome cover version.

~Side to Side - Ariana Grande ft Nicki Minaj

Hmm guess I’m a Ariana Grande fan, who knew. A cheeky little number and the first appearance in this countdown of a certain fave rapper of mine.

~Panda - Desiigner (another one where there’s not much I need to add, great tune)

~Dancing on my own - Robyn OR Callum Scott

Take your pick the Robyn original or the Callum Scott cover version, both stand alone great tracks, the original more a melancholy dance track the cover a somber ballad. Both brilliant.

~Alarm - Anne-Marie

A nice little pop tune, really like her voice

~Rockabye- Clean Bandit ft Anne-Marie and Sean Paul

Speaking of Anne-Marie, another great pop track. Super catchy sing along. Sean Paul can be hit or miss for me but works well with this track.

~Human - Rag N Bone Man

This is another one there’s not much I can add this guy’s voice is amazing. Brilliant song particularly love the chains you can hear rattling throughout (reminds me of Johnny Cash’s ‘Ain’t no grave’)

~Black Beatles - Rae Stremmurd ft Gucci Mane

Yep that’s some mumble rap to add to the list (told you my music taste was varied) As a whole I don’t love mumble rap but there’s some stand out tracks including this one.

~Thunder- Imagine Dragons

One of my favourite bands from the last decade, like most there stuff. This song has a great song along chorus. Really catchy track.

~New Rules And IDGAF - Dua Lipa

Honestly couldn’t pick from the two really like them both equally. So you get a double. Catchy pop tracks.

~Sorry not Sorry - Demi Lovato

It was between this or Sober (another great Demi track) but ultimately went with the more upbeat pop number.

~Havana - Camila Cabelllo ft Young Thug (A nice chilled Latino style track.)

~Perfect - Ed Sheeran

A beautiful song by Ed Sheeran,other then ‘sing’ and the previous mentions I’m not really into his stuff but this is lovely track.

~Feel it Still - Portugal the Man

Really catchy song can’t help but tap your toes along to it.

~False Alarm- The Weekend

This was something different from the Weekend, really enjoy this song, Weekend is one of my other fave artists to come out the 2010’s.

~Sanctify — Years and years

Wasn’t keen on there earlier dance stuff but when they found there sound I really enjoyed them.

~This is America- Childish Gambino

Great as this song is you really need to watch the music video as well for the song to have its full impact. Love Childish Gambino could of put several of his songs in this list, excited for future music from this guy.

~Solo - Clean Bandit ft Demi Lovato

A cheeky little pop number you can’t help but sing along to.

~Shotgun - George Ezra

One of those artists I can’t decide if I’m into or not, like one song then not keen on the next, it’s strange, but no denying this is a great song.

~Lucid Dreams - Juice WRLD (RIP)

First off Rest in peace Juice, recently died at 21, very sad. The guy was super talented and was looking forward to his future stuff. Could of picked a few tracks but this was the first song I heard of his so that’s got to be my shout out.

~Only You - Cheat Codes ft Little Mix

Although I don’t mind Little Mix this is there only entry on my list. A nice catchy sing along with a dance beat.

~Lost Without You - Freya Ridings

This almost made it into my top 25, just couldn’t find a space for it. Haunting, melodic song with Freya’s stunning vocals. Don’t play this one after a break up or a death.

~Nothing Breaks like a heart- Mark Ronson ft Miley Cyrus

~Someone you loved - Lewis Capaldi

Think this guys going to be another Ed Sheeran for me, meh most the time with the occasional great song. This one no exception.

~Shut Down - Skepta

With lyrics like ‘Ring ring pussy, it’s shut down’ how can it not be a banger 😂 Not the best song in the world I admit but good fun.

~As we enter- Nas and Damian Marley

Words can’t express how much Iove this track, such a hidden gem. A reggae- rap blend of uplifting brilliance. Great gym playlist track.

~Better Now - Post Malone

Another artist I enjoy on occasion. This is my favourite of Malone’s songs so far.

~Bad at Love - Halsey (another great pop track)

~Bitch Don’t kill my vibe- Kendrick Lamar

Could of picked a number of Kendrick tracks King Kunta, DNA, M.a.a.a.d City, If these walls could talk, just to name a few but I’ll go with the first Kendrick track I heard and loved.

~Heartbeat - Childish Gambino

So gutted I couldn’t find a spot for this banger in my 25 but I had to include it on its own. Unless you’re a CG fan it’s unlikely you’ve heard it. Highly recommended a listen. I can’t even really describe it.

~No role Models- J. Cole

A anthem with a similar feel to Keep your head up by 2pac, a sad song somewhat but with a more upbeat tempo. My personal fave J. Cole song.

~Power - Kanye West

Wow our first Kanye track. I like Kanye ,prefer his older stuff. My dark twisted fantasy was the last album of his I really liked. This was a absolute monster of a tune. Also really liked the song Runaway from the same album. Both have great intros.

~Antidote- Travis Scott

~ No Sleep- Wiz Khalifa

Super catchy song, very anthem sounding.

~Young, Wild and Free - Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa and Bruno Mars

Another catchy tune, powerhouse of a team up.

~Rack City - Tyga

~ Romans Revenge- Nicki Minaj ft Eminem

Absolute banger double up from the king and queen of rap. Also a version she did with Lil Wayne which was very good but the Eminem version wins for me. Also will take the opportunity to give the Lil Wayne and Nicki song ‘knockout’ a shoutout.

~Blazin’- Nicki Minaj ft Kanye west

Another great Nicki Minaj track of the brilliant Pink Friday album. I know some of her more recent stuff hasn’t been great but she came out the gates strong in 2010.

~Pound The Alarm - Nicki Minaj

Last Nicki Minaj track I promise, could of picked this or starships as love them both equally.

~Trap Queen- Fetty Wap

Can’t lie this is something I never thought I’d like but the more I heard it the more I liked it.

~Ultimate- Denzel Curry

Yes the Vine meme song. Banger.

~Bad and Boujee - Migos

Yes more mumble rap, I’m not even sorry

~I’m not racist - Joyner Lucas

Wow maybe the most powerful song on this whole list. Nothing I explain can do it justice you have to give it a listen yourself (with the video)

~Cry Little Sister - Marilyn Manson

Boom, rap to rock just like that. I love Marilyn Manson covers, in the 00’s it was Tainted Love but this time around its this classic from The Lost Boys soundtrack. Creepy song but kinda perfect for Manson.

~Faster- Within Temptation

~End of Time - Beyoncé

Have to include some Beyoncé before this ends it’s the law. This was my favourite of hers.

~ Rumour has it - Adele

Not the biggest Adele fan but she has a few songs I enjoy, set fire to the rain and someone like you also good songs.

~Ugly Boy - Die Anwoord

Yep he’s a Die Antwoord fan 😆 I have no excuses, DA are one of my fave bands. Zef to death.

- Surf - Tommy Cash

Absolutely stupid lyrics but hilarious (need to watch the video also) it’s actually a good song with a awesome beat.

~Bang Bang Bang - Big Bang

To close the top 100 greatest songs of the decade out , some J-pop, I’m not a expert on Jpop I like a couple of artists and a few songs but had to close out with this... bang bang banger!

So here we go top 25 of my absolute faves from the 2010’s. (in no particular order)

~Radioactive- Image Dragons

This song featured in a Assassins creed game trailer (I forget which game) and I searched for it straight away, found it, fell in love, the rest is history. Great beat and vocals.

~Game Over - Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah, Professor Green, Giggs, Devlin, Example, Chip

Wow with that line up it was always going to be a banger. This might be my fave beat ever! Such a tune featuring Rap and grime mvp’s from the UK.

~Gods and Monsters- Lana Del Ray

I know I said in no order but this might be my very favourite song from the last ten years. It’s not even regarded as Lana’s best but I just love everything about it, lyrics, melody and vocals. Perfect song.

~Born to Die - Lana Del Ray

Another melodic masterpiece from Lana Del Ray.

~Bad Girls - M.I.A

Yeah I’m a dude it’s weird this song gets me pumped seriously thou such a catchy song.

~In Paris - Kanye West and Jay -Z

Not much needs to be said, absolute classic.

~Over - Drake

Drake at his best imo, great beat, delivery and lyrics. My fave Drake song.

~Black Skin Head - Kanye West

Powerful song with a amazing beat, powerful lyrics, great gym song to get you pumped.

~Sail - AWOL Nation

You might have guessed by now I like a catchy sing along song with a pumping beat and somber tone. Check.

~Only love can hurt like this - Paloma Faith

Her voice in this is something else. I said it before Paloma Faith is so underrated.

~Bang Bang - Jessie J, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj

Not to be mistaken for Bang bang bang by big bang featured earlier. Great pop hit.

~Take me to church- Hozier

Powerful song and video.

~Humble- Kendrick Lemar

Banger, not much else I can say.

~Uptown Funk — Bruno Mars

Can’t go wrong with this one, great hit.

~Can’t feel my face- The Weekend

Like most of the stuff this guy brings out, this awesome hit just tops that list.

~Redbone- Childish Gambino

Ok sorry Lana Del Ray but I retract your number one spot for this one. Thought it was Macy Grey or the Delfonics singing when I first heard it then discovered who it was. This has a 70’s soul feel. It’s hard to explain ,if you’ve never heard it give it a listen I’m sure you’ll love it.

~Bad Guy - Billy Eilish

Such a catchy tune, the song that introduced me to her music. Great little dance/pop hit. Fun and a bit freaky. Duh!

~Bury a Friend- Billy Eilish

The way Billy Eilish’s mind works amazes me, how she sees the lyrics, the music and video all as one package. She’s extremely talented and look forward to her taking up most the spots on my 2020’s best of list.

~I miss the misery- Halestorm

Great rock hit, has a very 80’s feel. Lead singer has a amazing voice.

~Sweet but Psycho - Ava Max

Maybe my favourite pure manufactured pop hit of the decade, any female pop star could churn this out and it would do well. Hate to love it.

~Homicide - Logic feat Eminem

If you don’t like rap you won’t get it, if you do, you know where I’m at.

~Stronger then Ever - Raleigh Ritchie

Otherwise known as Grey Worm in Game of Thrones, this guy can hold a tune. Great uplifting track.

~Speedom- Tech N9nne, Eminem

Another great Eminem feature hit. Absolute masterpiece of a record.

~I need - Maverick Sabre

Nice somber melodic song, this guys super talented.

~Cookie Thumper - Die Antwoord

The South African rap rave group strikes again, this one is pretty much a Yolande solo, the beat is insane and thou half of it is in said/sung in Africans it’s still my fave DA song.

~Monster- Kanye West, Jay Z, Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Bon Ivor

The title of this track doesn’t lie, beast of a track, arguably Nicki Minaj’s best guest verse ever (‘Where them girls at’ deserves a mention for sure) It’s in all my rap playlists, amazing song.

If you took the time to have a gander at my random countdown then I thank you, I fully expect you not to agree with everything, hopefully something you enjoy musically was mentioned I did my best to spread the genres as much as I enjoyed them. More music and other countdowns to come.

[wagnerarts]

2sc0ramb1ed6

Living alone while my family was in California was exactly what you’d think it’d be these four days on fall break. With no alarms set, I still woke up at 8, heart racing from the thought of classes I was sleeping through. Waking up hours later felt lazy.

Finally making my way to the kitchen after 12 PM was conflicting. I’d open the fridge and see leftover quinoa; laugh at the lengths my family went to be healthy. Look to my right and spot the half drank Chardonnay and joke to myself that I was technically allowed to drink it. Technically.

I grabbed the hummus and wine quickly and shoved the fridge door closed with my hip.

X

I now sit on the lawn chair on my family’s balcony, overlooking the pseudo suburban street in the privileged part of the city.

Cigarette half smoked, remote silence. The whir of nearby bicycle wheels start, and the noise triggers me and I’m aware. Once I realize its innocence, I suck in another drag and close my eyes.

It’s nothing.

A flashback to smoking a bowl out my bedroom window four years prior floats back. I’d moved my bed to rest against it in hopes smoking closer to it would smell less.

“Are you smoking pot?” My mother asked, standing in her light pink robe, clutching the doorknob and keeping the door half mast in hopes she was wrong.

“This dude was walking his dog past the house and I swear he had a joint, I swear, Mom,” I started.

“Just... Just stop,” she said as she closed the door.

I paused, my bowl hiding under the comforter. After a few minutes passed, I brought it back out and outstretched my hand past the screenless window and into the summer night to light another bowl.

X

The years all melt together. You tell me nowadays you didn’t know what to make of me when we met in 2010.

“You were so young and so forward. I knew you were in love with me and I didn’t care,” you say. But you care now.

We laugh about how backwards we were. Our first date was my first date, too, at our town’s Thai restaurant at the end of your senior year of high school. I remember you being confused on how to pay with your dad’s credit card when the check came.

“I don’t even have my license yet, how do you expect me to help?” I laughed. Afterwards, we smoked a joint on the swings and fucked in your backseat as if we hadn’t spent the entire year there.

On a weekend visit home from boarding school in 2012, you hid a letter written on the back of a Southwest ticket in one of the bushes outside my house. I’d gotten too drunk and fallen asleep before I could sneak out to meet you, which in retrospect was probably a good thing. I’d just started dating someone else—someone I actually was allowed to talk to, and who wrote me every week. “Whenever you feel the pain of the past, turn to the gift of the unwritten future,” I remember the last line read. I kept that letter for years. I wish I hadn’t lost it.

You pulled the car over in the middle of a snow storm in 2013 and asked if I still thought about marrying you. I was too high to respond, so you started recounting all the details of what we’d planned to fill the silence. Months later, halfway into summer, we met at the park near your house and watched the sunset. You were dating someone with the same name as me and for some reason that detail hurt more than others. Of course we were both already high when we met up that night, but we sat on a picnic table and smoked out of an orange together anyway.

I’m starting to realize meeting up to smoke gave us an excuse to see each other. You asked me if I was sleeping with anyone. I was, and it was a friend of yours. I know it’s sadistic of me but I almost did it just to see the look on your face when I told you.

We tried to say goodbye last summer on your birthday in June. Sitting on the curb near my old house at 2 AM, you remained standing and in the middle of the street. At one point you dropped to the ground and buried your face in your hands, shaking your head.

“We have a few options. We could say goodbye, never talk again, and wonder what could have been. It’s clear we can never be friends. Or we could say fuck it and finally really try this. But if we do that, if we try, that makes this real. This won’t ever truly end. Not nicely, at least. We’ll either end up married or fucking hating each other,” I said.

“But I don’t want to risk that, the last thing I want to do is hate you,” you said. When you looked at me I could tell you were trying not to cry.

I will always love you, no matter how many times we try to quit each other; no matter if ever follow through with it or not. Talking about sharing the rest of your life with someone changes you and your future; you’ll always be comparing what you’re currently living to the life you two planned, because that life still lives in a way; a shared house is bought in your thoughts and the girls and boys names you chose will never sound the same. That life doesn’t just go away. It stays tucked in your back pocket even as you fuck and love and breakup with other people.

But I realize it became a crutch. Something to lean on when I was insecure, because what we felt for each other always proved to be more permanent than any other feeling. You like my art and when I’m sad, it doesn’t scare you. I told you I’d meet you in Colorado once I graduated, and I encourage you to tell me what you’re thinking. We know how to argue and the kind of love we have is the closest to home we’ve felt in years. But I can’t seem to do this with you anymore and I wish I could explain why.

X

Ryan was in the midst of random men I turned to when I first tried to forget you my senior year of high school. It’s not that I was a slut or too easy to the extreme, but I did fuck and still fuck in attempts to shove you to the back of my mind sometimes. Of the few that I bent the rules with, Ryan stood out. He was a sophomore at smart school who had a full ride that was publicized around town, and his dad had died suddenly a few years back. He was mainly known for that. That, and his drug dealing.

He started talking to me at the end of my dwindling attempt of a relationship with a guy I was friends with. I swear he could smell the pity and knew he could have me. He picked me up the Sunday after I drunkenly dumped him. I left 3 AM Monday a much happier girl.

He then started driving home once a week, then twice a week, then three times just to pick me up from school and go straight to his room. As far as my mother was concerned, I was “at the library”. I remember not feeling the pressure to feel when I was with him. He wasn’t over his ex, I wasn’t over mine. We got to smoke and fuck and drink whiskey straight from the bottle without any leftover shame of why we were doing it and we didn’t have to confront that. I remember him going down on me as I smoked from a vape pen from the first time, pressing the button and watching the blue light start flashing when it deemed I’d had enough. High as hell, I laughed at the metaphor, and when he looked up from confusion, I chose not to share. “Just fuck me,” I said instead.

One night when we were half a bottle of Captain deep, I noticed he wasn’t as in to it. Something about how he kept stopping and moving his face away from mine felt off; I was used to having to be the one to slow him down. Not caring enough to question it, we continued until he pushed himself off and rolled away from me.

“What’s going on?” I finally asked. It was quiet for a moment. I watched his back expand in quick spurts and felt the tension of his held breath.

“My dad is dead,” he said to the wall.

And all I could think of to say back was “I know”. I stopped fucking him after that.

X

You drove to see me in the city the other night. You were here and in front of me and so visibly in love with me so I tried to love you back just like I used to, but my body wouldn’t let me. We fell asleep on the floor and when we woke, I forgot it was you for a minute, and yet I don’t know who else I would’ve assumed was holding me. The guilt I felt when you thought it was an accident I was inching away was overwhelming.

I put myself to bed, and you followed because we were too drunk and high to fight anymore. But when you placed your hands on my face and kissed me awake the next morning, I panicked.

A life with you seemed plausible when the past didn’t hurt.

I’d forgotten that it always would.

Flashback to you sitting on that senior girl’s porch; summer 2010. I walked outside as the party was dying and watched my friends give in and get picked up by their disappointed parents; I hadn’t even dialed a number yet. You and a friend were passing a blunt back and forth across the table and I just stood there as this semi-confident freshman.

You then passed it to me without making eye contact.

I tasted grape as you talked with him about schools you were applying to, and I thought about the weekend before. I’d been babysitting and still invited you over, convinced you it’d be okay to sneak over to my house once I got home.

Mistakenly using Nare when I thought it’d be the night. Not even feeling the pain of it and the rest of my mistakes once you came.

You were my consensual first time, and we were at the same party. You were my first time, and I was excited about it. You were my first time, and you wouldn’t look me in the eye. And I wish I never pretended that I was okay after that.

I look up from my midnight secret cigarette and notice the lamp screwed above the balcony's door is lopsided. I sigh because I am too tired to laugh.

I'll write about it once I get to my room,​ I think.

Fuck I hope I remember it by the time I get there...

Why do I have to drink more than a bottle of wine to feel like I get the peace I deserve? I scramble my pockets for a better working lighter and found just that and my inhaler. 

I light another and play a song I liked when I was 16. The shadows on the wall are dancing nicely and I wish to photograph it, but the cold stops me.

X

I’m sitting cross-legged in contempt, contemplating whether or not it’s emptiness, and breathe out smoke as I rub my knees for warmth. I wonder what and why I let come between them. Sometimes when reminders of lost memories flood back, I wince and make a sound. I’ve learned that these add up, and at odd moments, sting me with shame.

My mother asked what I did with the four days she gave me left alone in this house and I gave a detailed description of how the silence was so nice it rewarded with me over ten pages of writing I could use for class. In reality, it gave me only four, none of which for school. I didn't care. And I don’t, I really fucking don’t.

I'm writing, I'm expressing-- in ways I haven't in a while. I haven't been in therapy since 2013 and I'm coping in weird ways, the best of which is this. Everything still hurts, and that everything covers from the bullying to the blackouts to feeling like my father avoids looking me in the eye. I drink, to an extent I deem necessary, but I don't smoke nearly as much. Pretending the Xanax I'm prescribed doesn't count lets me validate the idea that I'm not abusing pills like I used to, but when the amount adds up every so often, it's hard to ignore. And I’m finally trying to push you out of my life and forget all the good and focus on the bad because there really is so much of it—more than we’d both like to admit. So yes, I'm sitting here cross-legged on a lawn chair on my balcony, and I can’t pretend it is not freezing. And yes, I used to be able to. But please, try to remember, I used to be able to pretend many things.

[veronicawattpad-blog]

Bambi (Werewolf #1) Chapter 3

So this is the third chapter for this book. I hope you will all enjoy it and support me through some coffees. SEND ME COFFEES HERE.

She could hear the pattering of the rain against the car windows though it was too dark to see outside, she was informed that they were reaching the pack in a few minutes. It had been a tiring journey, they had drove from her pack for twelve hours straight before taking a flight to Anchorage and further seven hours till Alpha Jedrek's pack. It was three in the morning and she was awfully exhausted by the strains of the journey, she had been sitting for approximately forty eight hours.

They had not spoken again, partly because all she was doing was sleeping since they started or maybe he was busy with his pack business. He was very menacing and quiet, he had the quality of engulfing a person in an intimidating silence, and even their driver had been ramrod straight and attentive for the past many hours since he was driving, he couldn't afford to slack or who knew what Alpha Jedrek might do.

She felt the car slow down and she discreetly looked at Alpha Ekon, the car came to a halt and she saw him step out and then a few moments later her door opened and she saw him taking her hand and gently pulling her outside. It was raining outside but it seemed like they were standing in a garage, she was pulled in the direction of a door and they entered the house, the interiors were of course not very lighted but she could still very clearly make out things that were placed, her werewolf vision made things much easier. She wanted to appreciate the house but she couldn't make out any of its features and also she was so sleepy. His calloused hands lead her up the stairs.

They entered a room and she saw him lead her to the bed.

"Sleep," he commanded and simply walked out of the room. She stared at his retreating body and tried to close her eyes only to be woken up by the loud crackling of the thunder, a whimper left her lips and she brought her legs to her chest, forming into a ball and tried to sleep. Whenever it rained in her previous pack she would always sneak into her brother's room at night and doze off beside him but things were different now. Another thunder followed and she sat up straight in her bed.

The door opened again and she saw him enter. He stilled and turned towards her direction.

"You are still awake?"

She whimpered.

He walked to her and sat on the bed, right beside her.

"Why are you not sleeping?"

She didn't respond.

"There is no point in being homesick Bambi, it is best you get used to it,"

"I-I can't sleep," she whispered and trembled at the thunder sound resonating in the room.

"Are you scared of the storm outside?"

"Y-Yes,"

He sighed and turned around to adjust the pillows behind him and pulled her, she laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes.

She slept just fine.

***

She blushed at the thought of sleeping with him last night, placing her head on his chest listening to his strong heartbeat and after a while when she was all droopy she could feel his fingers running through her hair. She took her favourite dress out of the cupboard and giggled. She had always received complements in this dress, it was a beautiful green dress that stopped right above her knee, it accentuated her frail figure and brought out the rich colour of her hair.

She stepped into her ballerinas and walked out of the dressing room. Their room was humongous with deep grey walls and floor to ceiling windows and a king sized bed right in the middle, it lacked a feminine touch but the room was grand and beautiful. She walked out of the room her eyes grazing the deep blue walls and the stark white marbles, the house was beautiful in a way that made it feel eerie and fit for an Alpha. The art on the walls was spectacular, she could sense a Botticelli on the wall, and how did Alpha Ekon get his hands on this painting? She remembered asking Max to take her to this very high profile art exhibition and she had seen a Picasso and when she requested Max he had scoffed and instead got a free sketch of both of them done and gifted it to her. She giggled at her brother's minimal knowledge about art.

She walked down the stairs staring at the beautiful house and walked into the living area, she saw Beta Ryland going through some files before his eyes turned to her.

His eyes widened and she saw him look at her head to toe.

"You look beautiful Luna Bambi,"

She blushed, her cheeks warming up. The dress sure did bring out many complements; she had worn it for Alpha Ekon specifically.

"I hope you slept well yesterday, the journey must have been very tiring," he said, looking at the ground, his eyes now lowered.

"I-I slept v-very well, thank you," she whispered.

"Let's get going Ryland," she heard her mate. She turned around to find him descending down the stairs, his hair was open spilled over his shoulders and he wore a fitted black t-shirt with camouflage cargo pants and boots. He looked like a menacing Alpha with his outfit. Max always wore suits when going to work.

She stood in front of him, looking at him expectantly, she had dressed up just for him but he stared behind her.

"Mate, you will stay inside the house, a warrior will be appointed to you soon," he said and just walked out.

She stood standing there; she turned to find the Beta giving her pitiful looks. A tear spilled on her cheeks and she realised the gravity of the situation, he would never be able to appreciate what she wore or how she looked. She ran upstairs, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. She entered Ekon's room and closed the door behind her.

Why exactly was she here? She wanted to go home.

She picked up her phone and dialled to Max.

"Little one," he said, "how are you?"

"I am good, I miss you Max,"

"I do too, is he treating you well?"

"Max... can I ask you something?"

"Sure..."

"Am I good looking?"

"What kind of a question is that Max? Of course! I haven't seen someone more beautiful than you!" he said, "Did he call you ugly? I am coming there right now."

"No," she sobbed, "you know that green dress that you got me?"

"Yes, the one in which you look like an absolute angel,"

"Yes, well I wore it today and he didn't even look at me let alone complement,"

There was a pause.

"Little one, you know that he can't see right?"

"But his wolf can,"

"He cannot get his wolf on the surface all the time Bambi, a half shift is dangerous and energy consuming for us," he whispered.

"I know... but it hurts Max,"

"I know it does."

"I feel lonely Max...would he have been different if he..."

"He is one of the best Alphas in this world; his eyesight should not be seen as a weakness Bambi,"

"I know I am sorry,"

"How is he treating you?"

"He was very sweet when it was raining outside, he helped me sleep,"

"Good to hear that,"

"How are you doing? What about Ryan?"

"We are all good here, you take care," he said and she nodded and placed the phone on the night stand. She turned around and found him standing at the door. Her heart thudded against her chest. Had he heard their conversation?

He strode towards her, she stepped back till her back hit the bed, she bit her lip and gulped. Was he hurt with whatever she said? She didn't mean them! She was just very sad. He stood in front of her his grey eyes in her direction but not entirely on her. She could feel her body get cold and clammy, a sniffle left her but she didn't dare move.

"Like I said before Bambi, my eyesight should not be seen as weakness. I know what you wear and I know how you look, I don't have to announce it to the world, am I understood?"

"Yes,"

"And when you decide on wearing something pretty, you show it to me first, you don't run downstairs and get complements from my Beta. Am I clear?"

"Y-Yes Alpha,"

"And you do not run to your brother for every small thing that hurts you. This is a new pack and a new atmosphere, that is understood but efforts should be made to adjust... not whine about your mate not looking at you,"

A tear trickled down her cheek.

"And stay away from every man except me... I think you know that you belong to me, I don't want to reiterate that fact time and again," he said. His voice was cold and unflinchingly firm.

He leaned forward and placed a kiss on her forehead.

"Be ready when I return, we are going out for a dinner tonight,"

And then he left the room, leaving her behind.

So how was this chapter? Leave your notes below!

[sleepyskunk]

Deconstructing the 2017 Movie Trailer Mashup

Why deconstructing a mashup? Because these videos are often perceived as a random mess of pretty images from movie trailers. While that’s absolutely true, there’s an opportunity to explore themes and also pay a few obscure tributes to elements that don’t belong in the video itself but that are generally widespread within pop culture. These montages have been going on for a few years now, and it’s hard to edit the footage in a way that won’t feel reminiscent of one of the many great retrospectives put out by other talented editors in years past. I have to say that trying to build a narrative with all that footage has now become more enticing to me than to highlight the moments that made the year in cinema within their proper context. Let’s get right into it, shall we?

Someone on Reddit commented: “starting off with GEOSTORM, that’s a bold move!” and it didn’t even cross my mind. The shot was exactly where I wanted to go right off the bat - a blend of childlike wonder and eerie caution reminiscent of earlier Tim Burton films. The track was composed for a television spot called “A Wonderful Day” from IT and it showcases major Danny Elfman influences. Thus, this was my small tribute to the Burton/Elfman collabs happening under snowfalls like EDWARD SCISSORHANDS or BATMAN RETURNS. I loved the contrast in dialogue from PERSONAL SHOPPER which was such an under-appreciated indie film this year. Every mashup has its horror section, but I am gently sneaking you in by the supernatural door this time around. It’s just innocent enough to deceive those who hate horror.

Childlike wonder flawlessly captured in one shot, from the lens of Matt Reeves. I can’t say I connect emotionally with his APES movies, but the quality control on every frame, CGI or otherwise, it pretty much above and beyond all industry standards. That facial expression is exactly what I needed, you can tell she’s not too sure whether she’s safe or not but without feeling properly scared either. This is like the part in the original POLTERGEIST where kitchen chairs are moving on their own and the family still thinks it’s kind of fun. Kind of.

KING ARTHUR is the best type of release when it comes to trailer mashups because 1) it had a fantasy undertone 2) it was tracking poorly and 3) it went way over budget. Big studios know months in advance if they have a major bomb on their hands, and they have two choices at that point: either stop spending a penny on it and dump it for a quick theatre run and VOD release (more common if the movie didn’t cost that much) or, like in this case, spend extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad. Those extra millions go towards CGI money shots like the one above, which is really meant to make the marketing more attractive and oh dear lord, did KING ARTHUR have some last minute money shots to offer or what? It was a joy to pick and choose from its nine trailers.

This is where I put my cards on the table, whimsy never happened and I am taking you all to creepytown. That shot from ANNABELLE: CREATION is one of the many that upstages the featured evil doll in that wonderful movie and the film’s cinematographer Maxime Alexandre reached out because he was happy so much of his work was featured. You never know in front of who your videos can end up and industry people are keen on celebrating the year in film, especially if their own works are included. This is just a top notch unsettling shot clearly inspired by THE SHINING (the girl’s dress and the way her arms look lifeless.) On a side note, I always manually add all sounds including that floor cracking. If anyone reading this is starting off editing mashups, I promise you one thing: using professional, isolated, studio-recorded sound effect packages such as BOOM library is much superior to the original trailer track (unless you get a clean sound within the trailer.)

Another random insight (if you’re interested in making your own movie mashups) is to try as much as possible to avoid that one marketing shot everyone recognizes. You can revisit a memorable moment but going straight to the most oversold shot of a film hurts you. While you’re eager to make everyone relive the most epic imagery of the year, some value gets lost when a studio bombarded the same shot over and over and you go for it. Two quick examples: Giant hologram JOI pointing at Ryan Gosling in BLADE RUNNER 2049. I wanted that moment, but the original side-scroller shot was so overused that I went with her from a closer angle (see video thumbnail). Another example is that uncomfortable sniffle from Daniel Kaluuya in GET OUT which I favored over the super overplayed mouth open crying paralyzed shot from every marketing piece. In both cases, I assume you know which shots I am referring to without having to show them. Trying the alternative makes us relive the moment without its obviousness. It gives that other shot they didn’t choose its moment to shine (and more often than not, it’s just as effective.)

Someone’s not getting much sleep. A CURE FOR WELLNESS is a gorgeous-looking film no matter what you think of its bizarre plot points. I spend much of the first segment flirting with the creative key points from IT. One I tried to play around with is the idea of Pennywise as a half-real/half-fiction monster, and how similar to Wes Craven’s A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET his realm of terror extends. A few winning concepts in both films: 1) He isn’t real but he can really hurt you so you have to stay on your guard at all times and 2) Only a select few have been cursed with having to deal with him, adding a psychological layer to an already spooky premise. Dane Dehaan looks like a kid from Derry, or Elm street if you prefer, whose mental focus seems affected by the fact that he saw something, and his friend saw him too. Meanwhile, I throw in a completely out of context quote from Vanessa Redgrave which ties in that mysterious “sickness” from Verbinski’s film.

A shot from PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN from a trailer edited by Kees van Dijkhuizen Jr. for Annapurna Pictures where he works as an in-house editor now. In 2015, I talked about Gen Ip’s storytelling approach and last year I praised Matt Shapiro’s famously epic crescendos, so this year, let’s talk about Kees a little bit because I find all their influences fascinating. My first observation is how far his much-adored Cinema series has taken him, and that one of the top production houses in the business (if not the top, sorry A24 and Fox Searchlight) hired him so he could bring his own distinct style onto their major features. The whole trailer mashup craze started off only a few years back and so many editors were recruited right off YouTube to turn their passion into a livelihood down in Los Angeles. I can think of at least six editors whose names you’d recognize and who are now living the dream, and I consider this to be really inspiring because none of them initially got into it thinking something like that was ever possible. (side note: I also moved to L.A. and was poached by a trailer house but prefer to keep things on the low-end until it’s been long enough. I wouldn’t want to jinx it.)

The second observation about Kees is how much influence he’s had on every mashup that gets uploaded on a daily basis every December (me included) - I will link his Cinema series below. Instead of pairing clips into a horror bit, an action bit, a laughing and dancing bit, a kissing and crying bit, Kees was always out to create new feelings and nothing ever seemed more important than proper flow. Many shots would pop-up that you would never expect thematically, images of moving objects like a breaking glass transitioned with a girl’s hair waving through the wind (also see the lie detector in the previous shot.) He would connect nature documentaries right along with major superhero blockbusters and the movements flowed so perfectly that nothing ever felt out of place, quite the contrary. He was the best shot curator we’ve ever seen, and the order in which he put them together was beyond logic and predictability. Imagine “One Perfect Shot” but with 275 perfect shots back-to-back. If you want a prime example of what I’m referring to (random objects and flow), check out 2:49 - 2:52 from his Cinema 2011 (links below). Kees set the bar so high that attempting an end-of-year mashup certainly felt foolish at times, but hoping to improve made the editing process all the more inspiring.

CINEMA 2008 | CINEMA 2009 | CINEMA 2010 | CINEMA 2011 | CINEMA 2012 

So apparently, they have the internet and flat-screen TV’s in RINGS but landline phones are still a thing. Quite frankly, I haven’t seen RINGS and I bet it’s aggressively ordinary, but how retro horror is that shot? Paired up with the voice of THE SNOWMAN saying “Mister Policeman” it’s a throwback to Nancy being terrorized by Freddy in the original Nightmare of Elm Street (minus the tongue.) I was also pleased with the aesthetic of HAPPY DEATH DAY, clearly the product of horror fans who grew up during the low-budget slasher craze of the early ‘80s. It’s got MY BLOODY VALENTINE written all over it (meanwhile their poster was paying homage to APRIL FOOL’S DAY.) Retro horror, in all its disturbing practical gore glory! Rick Baker, Tom Savini, how much we missed you in our modern times where only a few major productions have enough VFX money to escape the uncanny valley (and even then... *cough* JUSTICE LEAGUE.)

I always tend to edit right on tempo, which means switching shots at the exact moment the music beat tells you to. But over here, I thought this elevator drop from FLATLINERS looked so frenetic and out of control that I started it half a second before as if the beat couldn’t keep up! Like in cartoons when the car accelerates so fast that it takes off but their eyeballs are standing still for a little fraction. This whole mashup sequence is meant to be a little cartoony and tongue-in-cheek. To anyone who found this to be disturbing (and yes, I heard from a few viewers who said it was too much) I must admit that it wasn’t my intention. I won’t apologize for my work, people choose to watch if they want to or not. But if I really tried my best to scare the crap out of you, I can assure you THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE wouldn’t have made the cut.

Now channeling a CHILD’S PLAY vibe thanks to this retro television shot from the highly underrated BRIGSBY BEAR. A kids program works well as an element of fear because it’s supposed to be a safely protected zone of positivity and care, just like a doll or a clown for that matter. Once that turns on its head and begins to attack, you basically have nowhere else to hide. It also makes for great contrast, and Andy Muschietti must have had an absolute blast this year incorporating this component into his remake of IT. The bear costume was one of the many shots that wasn’t from a horror movie and yet I used to great effect in this section. I know there was a new CHILD’S PLAY movie this year but sadly, it didn’t hold a candle to the Hitchcockian original.

“At the end of the day, people are out for themselves.” That’s not true, and only people who are out for themselves could believe that. Because if you’re weighing low on the morality scale at some point in life, you still wanna go to bed thinking you’re a good person. So if you can’t justify what you did, the best logical next step is to convince yourself that human nature is to blame, that everyone else would have done the same as you. Ask people who were charged with insider trading on the stock market, they’ll always say “everybody was doing it.” I could refer to a certain World War to keep hammering that point but instead, I’d like to point out the interesting contrast between this and Part 3. I try to disprove that very statement by showing in the finale that everything we do that matters is for others, and others are the only thing that matters once everything else has come and gone.

The KING ARTHUR studio spending extra millions of dollars to sell the shit out of that movie on opening week-end before everyone realizes it’s bad money shot festival continues. EPIC! In fact, that shot is so gorgeous, you could place it anywhere in any mashup ever and it would probably work.

Having a bit of fun giving a more literal visual cue to IT’s “We all float down here” with Guillermo Del Toro’s hypnotically beautiful THE SHAPE OF WATER. However, it’s not the tudum tssshh, get it? movie connection that works here. It’s the underwater sound effect and the incredible sound mixing by trailer house Buddha Jones so that Georgie’s voice seems to come from the bottom of the ocean. This is likely the best sound work you’ll hear in the entire mashup, and I didn’t mix it, the editors behind that teaser trailer did. In fact, their work was so effective at scaring people that it earned twice the amount of views on YouTube than what Avengers: Infinity War received. A fact Kevin Feige will likely never admit.

That moment when you realize your manic pixie dream girl wears white socks! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I've used vulgarity in the past but not every year, depends whether it brings value. Some of you may remember “Game on, c***suckers” from KICK-ASS 2 in 2013 or “Nap time, motherf***ers” from COOTIES in 2015. Perhaps there’s another guilty pleasure at play here, however, which is that feeling of pure creative freedom. As mentioned earlier, not everyone digged the horror undertone of this year’s Part 1 and that’s okay because it went exactly where I wanted to go and no compromise was made. No client notes. No studio revisions. No censor beeper (which makes it worse because we seek to find out what the word was.) If you get into professional careers that are creative in nature, you’ll find that teamwork, compromise, and not taking anything personally are all essential components for success. But when the movie trailer mashup comes around, I report to no one. And that moment from THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI is one I wanted included as soon as the red band trailer came out.

This shot comes from a small movie you should seek out called MY NAME IS EMILY starring Evanna Lynch (aka Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter movies.) The film was directed by Simon Fitzmaurice who was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (ALS) a few years ago, the debilitating disease for which the viral ice-bucket challenge was based on. He wrote the screenplay for this movie while his body was entirely paralyzed, and the only way he could communicate with the cast and crew while shooting the film was through eye gaze technology. There was a documentary following his brave journey that played Sundance called IT’S NOT YET DARK. Check it out if you need some real work ethic motivation and want to feel truly inspired about overcoming challenges. Much better than THE DISASTER ARTIST which is a spoof about a millionaire with no talent who mistreated the people who worked on his film. Okay, it’s still very entertaining and James Franco is hilarious but I don’t get a ‘never give up’ vibe from it, more like ‘maybe this isn’t for you.’

With the second segment, I was going for a British Gangster film vibe, hence the music cue Main Offender by The Hives. No movie captured that feeling better than Ben Wheatley’s FREE FIRE this year. I find the criminals in British movies are equally as clever in their quips as they are dangerous and often have the appearance of fair, well-behaved citizens until they have a reason to go mad. Jon Hamm’s performance in BABY DRIVER was also a textbook definition of that archetype, because all the build-up scenes where he acts friendly and discusses music with the titular character only bring an element of surprise at the end of his arc (spoilers: he’s not that nice in the end) I am aware that BABY DRIVER takes place in America but it’s directed by a Brit so it counts!

If Kubrick only knew his famous jump cut from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY that connects a flying bone to a space shuttle would lead to this fifty years later. What a shit show jump cuts have become! But they’re fun, and let’s be honest here: 7 minutes of serious quotes about life would get a little heavy. The way you edit jump cuts is the same way to solve a puzzle with over a thousand pieces. Extract dozens of short action clips onto your timeline and try to make them fit with one another over and over until you’re entertained. I mean, the music stays the same in the background, all I am doing here is deciding which projectile this pair of underpants from CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS will become. The answer was a tranquilizer from the underground mall chase sequence in Bong Joon-ho’s excellent OKJA. Maybe we should try one really long domino of jump cuts one day. Should take forever to edit, but how much fun would it be?

Did you know that Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander was a professional ballet dancer before she started acting? Work ethic applies in everything you do. When you hear about successful actors, you often discover people who are world-class at delivering under pressure and dedicating themselves to their craft with an insane amount of work. Acting is hard and yet so many people think they can do it, which makes it even harder. At least ballet puts constraints right off the bat, you need flexibility and a specific body frame. Part 3 is about finding your passion AND putting in the work. Just finding your passion is hard! It’s not always the bottomless pit one could hope for, especially when it becomes a real job with hours upon hours of work. Many people don’t even know what their passion is, they know what they’re good at but don’t love it. “Without your passion, it’s very hard to find our place in the world.” I don’t think you need your income to come from your passion in order to find said place, but I wish everyone that many of the limited hours they have each day goes towards their passion, and not towards something that feels like a waste of time. Wanting to wake up has everything to do with what happens after your first cup of coffee. Put your time towards something meaningful to you, even if it’s only on evenings and week-ends and you’ll never make a penny from it. If you love animals, volunteer at a shelter. If you love to travel, just GO!

But what happens when your family conflicts with your passion? Would you leave them behind to pursue your dreams? We all remember the tragic scene from DEAD POETS SOCIETY where a young scholar gets forced by his father to become a doctor instead of his passion and commits suicide. And then we have this year’s COCO, Pixar’s big comeback, where music is prohibited in Miguel’s family but it’s all he dreams about. But that conundrum doesn’t even have to be confrontational in nature. What if you wanted to work in a low-paying field like online journalism because it’s what you love but your single parent (who always took care of you) became sick and needed you to take care of their treatment. What happens then? What comes first? I humbly try to answer that later in the segment, of course.

We always told you Daniel Radcliffe... you’re special. That’s why you have a scar on your forehead that looks like a bolt... Just kidding, poor guy. I look at Mark Hamill in THE LAST JEDI and keep thinking that if studios are still a private enterprise in 40 years, some new Harry Potter movie will come out in which an old bearded Radcliffe will be teaching at Hogwarts. (PS: he keeps making bold choices, so much so that I am willing to watch anything he’s in.)

A man’s reach... (or woman, btw) should exceed his/her grasp. Words from a poem by Robert Browning, suggesting that, to achieve anything worthwhile, a person should attempt even those things that may turn out to be impossible. The downside with attempting the impossible is two-fold, however. 1) You may spend your life trying and never succeed. 2) If you do get there after so much sacrifice and effort, the world will expect you to do it again, or to keep doing it at the same level or better. If you won a Gold medal at the last Olympics, what are the expectations for the upcoming Olympics? That’s where passions and dreams enter a darker road, one many people choose to avoid altogether. But whatever happens, it’s worth the risk as long as you have the one thing along the way that’s a hundred times more important. And that thing is...

...people who love each other! Look at this guy, he just figured it out!

Kate Mara in MEGAN LEAVEY really seems to be the one thinking out loud in this shot while we hear a quote from THEIR FINEST. I had a blast with the Freddy Krueger references earlier but this is my favorite part. Audiomachine make the best tracks to bring that crescendo to its proper peak. You can say this part of the mashup is more in my comfort zone. And the influences from Kees that I discussed earlier can be felt here. Some shots of objects and landscapes that aren’t thematically connected but keep a nice flow. I also handpicked the best cinematography of the year all at once here. MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS was a damn pretty movie, then SHAPE OF WATER, then THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS, then OKJA. Every shot looks like a million bucks. Notice the use of paper, letters and ink. I want to see you again, a character from EVERYTHING EVERYTHING writes on a sheet.

Family comes first is nice, but along with family comes conflict and distance at times. Things we said that we regret. Times we let each other down, or weren’t there when we needed to. All the papers dropping from the bridge, all the shots that refer to letter writing, that’s where I was going with that. Not always obvious because it moves so damn fast which is why I do this deconstruction blog post every year!

The final big lift from Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST! Also, the first frame I added onto my AVID timeline. This is how I organize my work basically. I pick the right songs, then I identify the exact moments in that song where a big moment should happen - if you use trailer music, it will be crystal clear what those are. And then I try money shots in each of these spots over and over until one really, really fits. Then, I ask myself how did we get here, how can I get to that point? And build around these big moments. The second shot I added into the mashup was the little girl in Part 1 under the bed who points to another version of herself sleeping in her bed and says “Shhh! That’s not me.” I put that in right when the music stopped, it became a big moment, and then I built around it in order to get there. Every editor works differently, but I am just sharing how I personally prefer to do it. Back in 2012, the first clip I added onto the timeline was “I have an army. We have a Hulk.” from THE AVENGERS which means I’ve been editing this way for five straight years.

Those letters of reaching out to people you care about. Apologies or wondering how they’re doing. Flying everywhere around Winston Churchill (that’s my dog’s name, he’s a Pembroke Welsh Corgi!) I guess you should always be the one to reach out in difficult situations with important people. The mistake is to not reach out, or convince yourself that they were dragging you down and you’re better off without them. That’s rarely the case, and you’ll never get over them when you know that’s not the case. Maybe they will reply someday, maybe they never will. But you swallowed your ego and you decided to give it one more shot. That’s the bravest thing we can do in this life, and I hope you’ll see it that way if the time comes. Happy New Year! Achieve your passions, take care of the ones you love and make it a wonderful day! (Halle Berry: “Aaaarrh!")

- Sleepy Skunk

[amandam228]

The Most Beautiful Day of My Life

I want to share the most beautiful day of my life with the world. Let me paint you a picture

It’s Saturday, October 26, 2019! The leaves have been slowing changing to their vibrant colors and the smell of fall all around us. We wake up to a bright morning with the crisp autumn air. The day starts by breaking out the fruit, bagels and spreads. Holy smokes, it’s 8 am already! That means its time for the hair and make up extravaganza to begin. Leah is brought up to the room by my mom and once she is set up the room is buzzing! Wedding preparation music playing, hot curling irons running through our hair. Before we know it she is done with hair and next it’s time for make up! Wow, just as make up starts, in comes Zack! Cameras are ready, he’s introduced to all the ladies  into the bedroom he goes to start getting the small detail shots for our big day! A small knock at the door, in comes James’ mom, she had been sneaking over enemy lines all morning just passing messages back and for between the two of us. The last message was “ he knows you’re going to be beautiful and he wants you to just keep breathing and take in the day”. Wish a slight tear in my eye she slips out the door and back to the other camp. Leah is just about done with me, another knock at the door. Who could that be? It’s not Pat, she was just here. In walks Jeff and Christen, James’ friends from college. They ooh and ahh for a few minutes before they offer a hand and tell us that they’re right down the hall before the head out to hang out with some of the other college friends. All of a sudden I have the realization that we didn’t get the money for the JP. From the make up chair I’m directing someone to call Pat because she will have the envelope because thankfully Kelly came to the rescue and had cash on her! My make up is done, as i wait for Leah to do the make up for my mom and the girls I am able to sit back and start quickly sipping champagne because the nerves are really starting to hit me. While sipping champagne and waiting for all the girls to rotate through the make up chair  we put on my jewelry, which is a sight because I can’t manage to put on my own earrings. Kelly and Andrea put on their dark green dresses with lace tank and peek-a-boo back and as they do a quick look with the jeweled belts, they just look stunning. Reading the letter from James was one of the best parts of the morning, we both had head colds going on and trying to shake it and knowing that he was just as anxious and excited as I was just made everything seem that much better. As we look at the clock, oh no, we’re running late! If you know me at all, running late isn’t an option. Everyone calms me down with “the wedding can’t happen without you, running late itsn’t that big of a deal today.” We get phone calls from the boys and they are chomping at the bit to get out of the hotel so we tell them to head to Maneeleys and we will meet them there. Shortly after the boys leave we are out the door with my wedding dress in hand as we pile into Kelly’s car. 

The ride to Maneeley’s seems to have lasted a lifetime. We get to where we are supposed to be, grab my dress and assorted other things we will need for the night and we head to the bridal suit. To get to the bridal suit we need to walk through the hall and we just are in awe of how beautiful the venue turned out. It was better than I could have dreamed it!  Once we finally get to the bridal suit we are surprised to find my uncle standing in the bridal suit waiting for the staff to put some alcohol on ice for us. We thank him and polity kick him out because i still have to get into my dress. That’s when the girls pulled my dress out of the bag. An A-line champagne lace dress with 1/2 lace sleeves and v neck and v-back accented with small pearls. While the girls got me into it was a realization that this was actually happening.Thankfully the dress zipped without any problem, something I had been worrying about for the weeks prior. Once I was all zipped up we realized that my bouquet wasn’t in the suite and that Leah hadn’t arrived yet to put the finishing touches on me. It felt like eternity for everyone to find my bouquet and for the right flowers to get to the right people. While I’m standing at the door with Leah doing my finishing touches Zack can see that I’m on the verge of a complete melt d own. “This is really is the hardest part of the whole day. The one person that you want to see and that will instantly calm you down, is the one person you’re not aloud to see. It’s almost time though, and it’s going to be great” His words were so perfectly timed and very much needed. 

It was time to walk out of the bridal suite and really get this day started! My mom was dead set on carrying my train and I told her “if you’re going to carry it, you’re going to have to keep up.” As we started walking toward the bridge where we were going to do our first looks we saw that nobody was there yet. I slightly panicked but Zack was already on it. He called Heather (his wife and the photographer that was with the boys) and told her that James need to get out there, it was time. As James took his place, I hid behind a small tree with my mother and Zack as my look out. We started heading our way over, it was a true speed walk, I told Zack that Pat wasn’t there and she needed to be there it was part of the deal. Without hesitation and within seconds, Pat was out there standing there. I finally told my mother to just drop the train, I needed to get there. Once the moms were united and the photographers where in place it was 

time to finally see my future husband for the first time that day!

It was truly a magical moment! He looked incredible in his medium dark grey 3 piece suit and dark green tie and he couldn’t stop starring at me! As we worked our way off the bridge James noticed that I had leaves in my train and in true James fashion he slightly mumbled under his breath (still loud enough for me to hear) “you’re just wearing a very expensive rake” as he picked the leaves out my dress because he knew I’d be upset if they stayed in there and nobody said or did anything about it. I saw Pat and hugged her with so much excitement. The next thing I know our entire bridal party is around us and our parents. As James took photos with the guys I kinda of hung around with Carissa and the kids and my girls. Now, it was my turn for group photo, while we’re doing all that I hear James’ mom yelling at her sister to not come over it wasn’t her time. She didnt listen because she needed her Jimmy hug, after she got her hug she was off. We blew through the group pictures like it was nothing. Zack really knew how to get us back on track! While we were doing some our group photos someone noticed I had a ladybug on my veil and being the best photographers, they did their best to get a picture of it because they knew it meant good luck from above and they saw how much it mean to our moms. Once the family and wedding party photos were done Zack and Heather took James and I away to do some our alone photos. It was a good time but you could tell that James was very done with his “camera smile”. Before we knew it were done with our pre- ceremony photos and we were under my veil taking photos. After those few photos James and I had to go our separate ways to hang out for a little bit before the ceremony would start. As Zack and I walked back to the bridal suit, I saw Ryan, a friend from home that I haven’t seen in a while and I just broke into a full on run and just attacked him! We hugged some family members (mostly McKees) on our way to the bridal suite. While we waited for the ceremony to start Leah took some photos for her portfolio and I got to hang out with the kids for a little bit. As I sat there trying to take it all in my phone rang, it was Kevin, he tried to confirm that my wedding was at Mill on the River and when I told him no, he panicked and told me not to worry, “I won’t miss it, i’ll be there.”

Before we knew it, Gemarco (our personal staff member for the day) told us it was time to line up! It was the fastest and slowest moment of my life! I could hear “Tale As Old As Time” playing as they opened the door for every person that walked out in front of me. It was time for the Titus and Scarlette to make their way out. James and I both told them the night before at the rehearsal dinner to make sure they walked nice and slow and didn’t rush, man did I slightly regret telling them that. Their walk out felt like it took 10 years. My dad standing next to me, holding my arm and telling me to relax, it’ll be my time before we know it. The kids must of made it all the way down because suddenly I heard “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran playing and it was finally my time to walk down the isle to my future. To be honest that entire walk is a blur, I slightly remember seeing my work people in one corner and then rounding the corner to see James standing their with a smile on his face. Dad and I made it to the “finish line” and James silently walked us through all the steps that we knew we would mess up and my hand was passed from my dad’s to my his and it was so memorable. As we joined hands in front of all our friends and family we made our promises and vows. James read his first and they perfect, a million times better than I was expecting them to be. He said “I Do” and placed my ring on. Now it was my turn, I remember slightly fumbling over reading my vows, not standing quite close enough to James for everyone to hear (because he was wearing the mic), repeating after the JP was a little hard for me because I was just so focused on James and every little thing happening between us. I made it through my “I Do” and placing his ring on his finger and the next thing I know I’m hearing “by the law of Connecticut I do pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride!” James kissed me with just the right amount of passion for it to be appropriate in front of everyone and the slight sound of “Love Somebody Like You” by Keith Urban playing was our indicator that it was time for us to walk out from the ceremony and get the party started. We made our way to the bridal suite with the rest of the wedding party and we hugged everyone and celebrated with everyone briefly and figured out what the next thing was. James and I went out to the back of the building and met out chariot (a golf cart driven by G) to go to the barn and take a few photos there. James was pretty excited because G had beer and alcohol for James and I and it was time to start partying! After a couple of beautiful photos by the barn, we went back to were the ceremony took place to take “formal” photos with family and friends. Some of those photos were difficult because a lot of family members kept putting their hand on my lower back and pulled on my veil. We did get a lot of good photos with not only James’ college friends, which had basically become tradition for us at this point since everyone of them were mostly married except for now us, but also a few of my college girls were there and it was such a great surprise since I hadn’t seen them since the last wedding! Once all of our photos were done outside we were able to go inside and mingle a little bit during the cocktail hour before we got announced in and the reception would start. It was great to get that time because we were able to get half the room chatted with which would make it easier after dinner. James and I didn’t really hang out together for that half hour or so. I was able to see my work people for a bit and chat with them briefly but I also had the chance to catch up with some of my friends that I hadn’t seen in probably 6 years. James met one of my best friends for the first time since our falling out. 

It was time! G had found James and I in the crowd and told us that it was time to line up and get ready for the intros. Waiting for the intros to start was a lot of fun. Our DJ, Mike came over and ran through with us what was going to happen and unfortunately our photographers weren’t there because they would have gotten some really good photos of James and I dancing with out dinosaurs! He announced Grammy, my parents, James’ parents, Ryan and Travis, the kids and then he announced Kelly and Andrea who entered the room wearing their dinosaur costumes! It was a hit, nobody knew it was going to happen. Once the crowd had a chance to take in what was happening and enjoy it, they went into the bridal suite to change and then it was our turn. As the music started playing we heard “And now please welcome the new Mr. and Mrs. James Flynn” and we heard “ baby, i just want to be young, young forever with you” and it was an incredible moment. You could feel all the love from our friends and family! As we made it to the sweet heart table where our parents were lined up, I handed my flowers to my mom and we made our way to the middle of the dance floor and we shared our first dance to “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran. When that music started and James pulled me into him, it was just indescribably! it was the perfect moment. We got lost in each other and we just got to dance, we truly felt like we were the only ones in the room. There were a couple of spins involved that we tried to practice but it never really worked out but that’s okay because looking back on the photos from that night, they looked perfect. We finally gave Mike the nod to cut the song because we just couldnt sway anymore. Looking back I wish we took the whole song to really take in the moment but we still had that time to ourselves and it was perfect. 

We took a few extra minutes to get settled at our table before the speeches started. Ryan was up first! His speech was incredible well done. You could tell he was nervous but it never showed. He did a great job telling a lot stories about his and James’ friendship and then said “I kinda wish I was marrying you”. Shortly after he brings up New Britain and how James didn’t tell him that he was dating this girl and he started to say that it wasn’t long before I became the 4th roommate and preferable roommate. He continued on with a story about me telling he didn’t know what he was doing but turned it into saying that I was perfect for him and that it didn’t take long for me to because an essential part of our lives -James’ life. He finished with “I’m really excited to have opinions on the house you guys will pick out and most importantly give your kids really confusing nicknames” Andrea was up next, her speech was pretty short and sweet. She started with how we met at the Student Union at UConn and it turned into a conversation about the night that James and I met and how James is now the best part of my life and she couldn’t be happier for the two of us.

After the speeches it was finally time for dinner. During our pre wedding meeting with our coordinator James jokingly said he wanted chicken tenders with his dinner so when we were served our dinner, James as presently surprised to find that there were actually chicken tenders on his plate. Dinner was incredible and we couldn’t begin to thank the people responsible for making such a delicious meal. Once, James and I finished eating we went to mingle and thank each table for coming. We started with his work tables which was a poor decision looking back because those were the only table James made it to. Thankfully, I was able to just make quick small talk with everyone I needed to because if I didn’t I’m sure there would have been some people who would have been upset that they never saw us. Slowly as people started finishing their meals they got up and joined the kids on the dance floor, who completely stole the show for a while. It was great to see people enjoying themselves. Around 7 it was time for cake! Of course we did a cake cutting. It was hard to cut into such a beautiful cake though. Alexis did such an incredible job with our cake and cupcakes, they were perfect. Cutting into our cake to find a bright green velvet cake was truly incredible. It got very playful when feeding each other cake. When it was James’ turn to feed me he threatened to smear it all over me but I told him “no, i didn’t pay this much money for you ruin my face”. But we kissed and made a beautiful photo. 

Soon after we cleaned up from our cake cutting it was time for the parent dances. I was first and it was a moment I was slightly anxious about because I wasnt sure how it was going to go. We danced to “Daddy Dance With Me” by Krystal Keith, which is a beautiful song. Unfortunately, I ended up cutting the dance pretty short because it was just a very uncomfortable and awkward minute or so. My father was not enjoying himself or really engaging with me at all so I signal to Mike to cut it short. A much better dance was to watch the magic with James and his mom. James had picked the song “Then They Do” by Trace Atkins because he knew it would a song that would get his mom to tear up. It ended up backfiring on him because she never shed a single tear, which was surprising! He told her that she was in charge of telling Mike when to cut the dance but she never did. It was a moment in her life that she will remember for the rest of her life.  There was one more parent dance that we needed to have because James’ father would never have a father daughter dance because James is an only child and he’s told me for a long time that I was the daughter he never had so we felt it just needed to happen for him. Our final parent dance was to “My Wish” by Rascal Flatts. It was such an incredible moment in the night. For me it was better than my own father daughter dance so I’m incredibly thankful we were able to make it happen and that it didn’t upset Pat that James had to mother son dances that night. We danced about half the song before we invited everyone else to join us. I remember seeing Titus and Scarlette dancing with my mom and James and thinking about how lucky am to be able to spend the rest of my life with that man and eventually have a family with him. The next thing I know, the kids are grabbing my hand and Mike’s (James’ Dad, not the DJ lol) and the 4 of us are dancing together and I just thought to myself that I am one blessed woman!

After all the formalities were over it was time to party! It was so great to dance and enjoy our night with so many family and friends that love us. We danced for hours. At one point James and I saw each other from a short distance away and we were able to sneak away for a minute and sit outside on the wall of the outdoor bar and look into the our event and see so many people having fun and it was just an fantastic feeling to see so much love in one room that all came together for us. It was really great to get that moment away just to take it all in. That time away didn’t last long, someone found us and told us that we were needed on the dance floor, so it was back to the party for us. While we took a quick break Zack asked us if we could sneak away so we could take our night time photos and it was perfectly timed. As we walking out we were able to say goodbye to some of our guest and get some photos with them. Our night time photos were fantastic! Our night time photos are just filled with so much romance and sweetness. There was one bit of comic releif from all the love though. Heather needed to stand in the bushes with the flash and thankfully Zack captured that photo because that is one that we will keep with us forever. They were just a wonderful couple to work with and they just got everything right and we couldn’t have asked for a better set of people to help us capture the most important day of our lives.

James and I were able to sneak back into the party without much of grief. As we came back in DJ Mike was playing a Kenny Rodgers song for the parents and to see my parents and James’ parents dancing was incredibly touching. Shortly after Zack came over and took one last selfie with us and Heather and told us that he thinks he got everything and they were gonna head out unless we could think of anything else. Unfortunately, they left shortly before the group dances which would have been fun for them to capture but its okay, after seeing everything else they got, it made it completely fine for them have had headed out. 

The party started to wind down after we played our last slow song which was “Diamonds or Twine” by Ryan Hurd. Seeing some of my coworkers dancing with each other during that song was kind of weird but it was super sweet. Mike finished the night with “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey and it was perfect. Some how everyone that was left was formed into a circle around James and I and for the life of me, I can’t remember what song was playing but I just remember looking at James and telling him that I was amazed that our DJ somehow was able to combine that song with the Disney opening tune. It was just so enchanting!

As everyone left we finished packing the cars and my girls got me out of my dress and back in to my yoga pants and robe and James’ mom (who never drives) got us back to the hotel safe and sound! You’d think after an insanely full day James and I would be tired, not even a little. We sat up for probably 2 more hours. The first little bit we opened all of our wedding cards and counted it all and then Travis came to hang out with us for a little bit, it was just such a chill evening after that. After Travis left James and I decided it was time for bed so at that point the magic was over. I took my hair down, took all the make off got and it was time to turn into pumpkins. To our surprise though the hotel supplied us 2 small bottles of champagne and left us some chocolates on the bed. We simply could not have asked for a better day, it absolutely the most beautiful day of our lives.

[cassidydanvers]

Birthday Boy 1995 || Solo

“Thanks,” Ryan said without enthusiasm as he ripped the wrapping and bows away and made a face. After a look towards his mom he turned back with a forced smile that said it all; he hated it. They should have bought the soccer set. Ryan liked soccer, not astronauts, but Cassie’s dad had made her get the space shuttle with the figures. That’s what he liked when he was a kid and all boys liked space, he said so anyway. Cassie looked over to where her parents stood with the other adults. Her mom was talking to Ryan’s mom while her dad was sneaking a third burger he wasn’t supposed to eat. She wondered how long they’d have to stay in the Pearson’s back yard before she could go home and ride her bike to the top of the street and let go of the handlebars with Ashley across the street.

“What did they get you?” Ben Grant from the street over asked as all the neighbourhood kids crowded round as Ryan Pearson opened the last of the presents.

“This,” Ryan held up the water gun for everybody to see. It was still in its packaging and Ryan stared at it as though he’d won the lottery. “You guys are toast next water fight. This is awesome,” his voice raised an octave in glee at that last word and he ran off from the table to ask his dad to open it up for him. For Ryan’s tenth birthday the family had decided to host the party at their new home. It was one of the largest and oldest houses on the block and had been owned by the family for three generations.  Most of the kids in the neighborhood had been invited including Cassie along with her parents. Cassie had brought her Hot Wheels set in the hopes that she could play with the other kids. Ryan had the giant loop set at the end of the yard with the slope you could push the cars down. Cassie wanted to see how high it could launch them, but her bag with her cars and the Sky Dancer was over on the other side of the yard, under the table where her mom was deep in conversation. 

The back yard had been decked out with balloons and streamers. A cluster of tables were pushed together and covered over with Toy Story napkins, paper plates and tablecloths. The adults were crowded near the barbecue and Cassie could see the plumes of grey smoke escape from the grill and into the air from her spot near the buffet table. While everybody waited for the hot dogs and food to be ready the kids had been playing rounds of tag. By the third game Cassie had grass stains down the front of her Minnie mouse t-shirt and all over her brand new white plimsolls and her white lace frilled socks. She’d gotten tired of running around and her bangs had started to stick to her forehead from the exertion. Cassie swiped her hair away from her face and stopped to get a handful of candy and a juice box from the table when she saw him.

The boy was stood near the tree in the yard with his foot scuffling the dry dirt around it as he watched the rest of the kids run around. His pale blonde hair shone bright at the top from the midday sun and was swept to the side the same as her Ken doll. The boy was small for his age, not much younger than Cassie and wore a pair of round glasses and a red shirt with stripes. He looked funny but Cassie couldn’t decide why. He looked like he’d had too many ice pops. His lips were a funny purple or blue color from them. She didn’t recognize him from the neighborhood or from school and she didn’t see anybody talking to him. He looked lost and a little sad and Cassie felt bad for him. His parents were probably getting something from the grill.

“You want one?” Cassie held out one of the balloons she’d been playing with towards him. At first he looked over his shoulder but when he saw she was talking to him his eyes raised in surprise but he shook his head, not looking in her direction again. “There’s cake over there, but it’s carrot cake, you want some?” Another shake of the head followed.

“Cassidy, everything okay over there?” Her dad called over from the grill and gave her a wave. Cassie waved back and her dad gave her a concerned look but eventually turned back to his conversation. She was a little younger and shorter than the rest of the neighborhood kids so she tended to get left out at times, so for the most part it wasn’t a surprise to her parents that she made her own fun and created her own friends. They’d taken her here in the hopes that she’d make more real friends outside of school that weren’t just Ashley from across the street and the Shepard’s dog, Pongo. 

“You wanna play?” She tried again and  pointed to where the rest of the group were playing tag. The boy nodded and followed just behind her and back to the group who had moved from tag to duck duck goose.

“He wants to play,” Cassie sat back down and saved a small space for Mikey to sit beside her.

“Who?” Ben and Lisa scrunched their faces at her to look for who she was talking about and Cassie looked over to the boy.

“What’s your name?”

“Mikey,” he answered timidly as he sat down beside her.

“His name’s Mikey. Let him play.”

“There’s nobody there,” Lisa gave her a confused look.

“He’s right there,” she huffed, “tell them Mikey.”

“They won’t see me,” Mikey said quietly.

“Why not?”

“They just won’t,” he shrugged, “nobody does.”

“I can,” Cassie huffed and gave him a wave to prove it, “why are you being weird?”

“Because you look like a nightlight,” Mikey answered back. Cassie scrunched her face but didn’t have time to ask what he meant when Ryan interrupted them. Cassie’s attention shifted to the rest of the group who were talking and whispering amongst themselves as they sat in a circle on the lawn.

“My little sister has a friend like that, she has a giraffe and he eats popcorn,” Lisa said to Maggie who nodded in understanding and looked over at Cassie with a small smile. “What’s Mikey look like?”

Cassie shrugged and pulled some grass up from the lawn with her fingers, “he’s sitting right there.”

“You’re making him up, you’re lying,” Ryan smirked and got up to grab another handful of cookies from the table and turned his back on her.

“He is. He’s right there,” Cassie marched up to him and jabbed a finger in Mikey’s direction, “you’re lying. You shouldn’t invite somebody and pretend he isn’t real. It’s mean.”

“There’s nobody there, and I didn’t invite you,” Ryan said which caused the others look over towards them and a few snickered.

“I didn’t want to come,” she fired back with a glare. This party was stupid anyway, what kind of party didn’t have any music or pass the parcel? “My mom made me.”

“If he’s there then ask him how many fingers I’m holding up” Mark piped up and put his hand behind his back so Cassie couldn’t see. Mikey padded over to look and whispered the answer in her ear.

“None.”

Mark snorted “lucky guess. How about now?” He did the same thing again and Cassie waited for Mikey to go look and repeated what he told her.

“Two,” she said with confidence. 

“How many am I holding up now?” He scrunched his face smugly like he was about to prove a point and put his hand behind his back and put all his fingers and his thumb down apart from the middle digit and waited. Mikey whispered the answer in Cassie’s ear and her eyebrows rose as she listened and then shot a glare at Mark.

“One, and I’m telling.” Cassie went to get up from the grass but Mark put a hand out to stop her.

“No, don’t, you can have my piece of birthday cake-y--you can have my Action Man, please don’t tell my dad. He can play.” Cassie said nothing. He kept looking at her as they sat down to start another game when their parents started to lay the food out, cut up the cake and called them over.

“Guys, come grab a plate, food’s ready.” Mark’s dad called over to them. Mark gave Cassie a pleading look as they got up to follow. For a few moments she didn’t look his way, still mad at him.

“Fine, I won’t tell,” she huffed. Cassie scrambled up from the ground and padded over to get some cake with the rest of them. She got some cake and two plates of fries and a hot dogs and went to sit back down on the grass by the tree across the yard. She put the send plate down beside Mikey and picked at her fries. Mikey was sat against the trunk while the rest sat at the table and played and fought with Buzz Lightyear and the Alien toys. He didn’t touch his plate.

“She took my bike,” Mikey was looking towards Ryan’s mom who was standing in the centre of things, wine glass in hand and playing hostess. Mikey’s gaze hardened and Cassie looked from him and back to Ryan’s mom. “My dad gave it to me for Christmas,” Mikey picked at his shirt as he spoke. “It had red handlebars and I wouldn’t let her play with it because she broke all of my things and pushed me around. So she took it and wouldn’t tell me where she put it,” his hands were balled into fists as he spoke. “I want it back,” he said not looking away from Ryan’s mom. “I can’t go home without it or my dad will kill me. I looked for it all night, it was cold.”

“Where did you last see it?”

“We were playing near the lake. It’s right near my house. I’m not allowed to go there, but everybody else was going. We were racing our bikes, mine was faster so she took it.���

“Why don’t you tell her to give it back?”

“I can’t. I tried.”

“I’m not allowed to go there either, but I’ll get it,” Cassie offered and got up to ask Ryan’s mom. She tapped the woman on the arm and waited patiently like she was told to wait for an answer. When she didn’t answer she tried again, “excuse me,” she said it loudly enough to be heard over the chatter of the other parents.  “Mikey wants his bike back. He says you pushed him and you took it then you dumped it somewhere and didn’t give it back.” The woman looked down at her and her face grew pale. Cassie’s mom stopped her glass inches from her mouth and froze.

“Oh Linda, I am so sorry,” her mom looked between Ryan’s mom and Cassie at a loss and then glanced towards her dad to give him a warning look.

“What did you say?” Ryan’s mom asked quietly.

“He says he can’t go home without it or his dad will be really mad. You should give it back,” for a moment she was distracted as a large black dog bounded out from the house and made a beeline for the barbecue before Ryan’s dad stopped it, but not before they could grab a burger from the table and scamper back into the house. “I like your dog.”

“How do you know that?” She wasn’t upset with her, not exactly. The woman’s eyes widened and bent down to her level so they were both at the same height. “Who told you tha-”

“Okay, I think that’s enough.” Her mom leaned down so she was level with Cassie and stood back up again to grip the top of her arm and pulled her away and towards her hip. “She’s just imaginative,” she breathed, “full of stories, she’s just like her father that way. Aren’t you?” she looked down at her. “I have no idea what’s gotten into her.”

“Wait-wait just a second,” Ryan’s mom held a hand up to stop her and looked down at Cassie, “who told you that? How did you-”

“Mikey told me,” she pointed at him and gave him a small smile from across the yard. She’d get him his bike back. “You should give him his bike back. I think you made him mad,” she glanced back towards him, he was still staring at Ryan’s mom with a look of hate.

“That’s enough. I think it’s time we went home. Thanks so much for inviting us,” Cassie’s mom began her excuses and started to go back into the house to collect their things and leave until she spotted her husband on his fifth burger by the barbecue, “Paul,” her mom called out, “what did Dr Patel say?” Her dad turned around and seeing the look on her mom’s face put the burger down. He wiped his hands of it and reluctantly came over like he’d been caught doing something wrong. “We should probably start heading back, think she’s overtired.”

“No I’m not, tell them Mikey,” she pleaded at him.

“I can’t, sorry,” he scuffed his foot on the ground but the dirt didn’t move.

“She was talking to herself, what a weirdo,” Ryan laughed at her which just made her mad. A few of the other kids looked up and snickered.

“No I wasn’t,” she struggled against her mom’s grip and hit out with a kick in his direction.

“Alright peanut,” her dad leaned down to give her her backpack and helped her put her arm through the strap. “Time to go home. Say goodbye to your friends,”

“They’re not my friends,” she muttered. Wrong answer. She was soon hauled away so fast that the trek from the yard and out to the car was a blur. The doors slammed shut and what followed was the ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ speech. As the car pulled away from the house Cassie She saw Mikey watching from the front porch with a disappointed expression and felt a pang of guilt. She kept her gaze out of her window and waved at him. Mikey stayed where he was, watching the car pull away, right up until the street ended and they turned the corner and she couldn’t see him anymore. She’d get his bike back. She just had to find it first.

[suptick]

rendezvous in the garden

“The world is so 
still and peaceful 
at 4 am 
that it amazes me 
how it could be so 
cruel when it awakens” - Nav K aka jeremy struggles with accepting what he’s a part of, what he’s going to become, what he swore he’d never touch. aka aka 3891 words of kind of jeremwood ?? mostly lil j… god i love lil j.

Jeremy spent much of his time lost. He’d realized this back in Boston after spending summer nights looking up, down, and never forward. He would fall asleep at 9, wake up at 3, and just leave. The summer air was never forgiving when he left, always falling dense over his shoulders. He would follow the insects buzzing around, and he liked to think that they were lost too. Or searching. Unsure of the path but taking it anyway. You could say that’s how he ended up in Los Santos, by accident. One minute he’s following a trail that seemed to lead up to the clouds, and the next, he’s staring down buildings that seem to surpass them. He definitely stumbled into Los Santos without realizing. Tripped somewhere on the trail, landed on his ass, and it was the city caught him. He just wasn’t sure how to get back (or if he even wanted to). And that’s what the crew didn’t realize. Jeremy was entirely aware of the fact that they were under the impression that it was the city that broke him. The city with its neon lights that shone over concrete streets. Streets that ran with the blood of the corrupt and the innocent. Streets that collected gunpowder, ashes, and bone like they were coins on the pavement. Sure, Jeremy could fool anyone with a joke or two and his unwavering smile, but to them, underneath all his bright clothes and cowboy hat, something was cracked. Right now, Jeremy’s inclined to finally believe them, because he’s sure that a few of his ribs are broken. His foot is on the gas. He imagines that if he were to push any harder and he’d be ripping through the machinery, and even though his vision is blurred by the blood in his eyes, he can hear the chopper blades fading, fading, fading. He’s vaguely aware of how loud his breathing is. The chatter in his ear is nothing more than wavering levels of static. So much for foolproof ear pieces, he thinks bitterly. Gripping the wheel with one hand and wiping the blood from altering his vision, he makes a mental note to chide Gavin about his “babies” later. If Gavin’s even still alive. If any of them are still alive. The hand around the wheel tightens. Jeremy had only been with the crew for five months and a few days, the freshest of the scabs on Los Santos. And he knew what they were. The Fake AH crew. Even if he was still new to the city, it wasn’t hard to figure out exactly what they stood for. And it wasn’t exactly something Jeremy expected to find himself in. But it was entirely what he was trying to run from. The safe house comes into view. He realizes he had made it without trying to, the car seeming to drive itself while Jeremy was lost in his head. The pavement had turned to dirt road miles away, and as he pulls into the driveway, he watches the dust rise and settle through his window. The lights are off on the inside from what he sees, and he kicks himself for it, but he’s relieved. As much as he prays to the moon and the stars that his friends are alive, he doesn’t want them to see him like this. He doesn’t want them to know. Because fuck, they were getting close. Especially the Vagabond. And just as the name echoes in his head, there is more buzzing in his earpiece. He can start discerning words now. Words like “fuck” and “run” and “dead” and “hope.” He pushes his finger into the piece, clears his throat. “So that went well, huh?” He tries, going for humor but he’s not sure if he can even hear it himself. There’s a loud sound then, like a shout, and Jeremy winces at its volume. The sound becomes a bit clearer then. “I fucking told you he was alive!” It’s staticky and harsh, but it’s Michael, unmistakably Michael. “You owe me ten bucks, Golden Boy.” There’s a muffled squawk, and Jeremy lets his head fall against his seat. That’s two. “You guys bet on my life. Anyone else there to throw some money in?” Jeremy inquires, a small smile on his busted lip. “I may or may not have put in five, but that was only to even out the playing field,” comes Geoff, his voice two pitches too high even with the static interference coming through the piece. “Yeah, two for two. Me and Jack, Old bitch and Gavin,” Michael snickers. Jeremy raises a brow. “Did Vagabond have no money to wager or am I just not that important?” He asks with a faux hurt tone to his voice, but he feels his stomach flip when silence overtakes the banter. “We…um,” Jack now, her smooth, deep tones a small comfort despite his rapid heartbeat, “haven’t gotten any feedback from him. Last we got, he was in the middle of a firefight with LSPD, way south from the rest of us. We couldn’t go back for him, and he didn’t want us to.” Jeremy tries to exclaim, but the broken ribs beneath his shirt remind him that no, he shouldn’t do shit like that. “Fuck,” he breathes. “Fuck,” he repeats into the silence. “I think he’ll be alright,” Gavin pipes up. Jeremy notes the tone of worry in his voice as well. It doesn’t make the swelling in his chest feel better. “He’s the bloody Vagabond. That bloke is made of steel and other sinister garbage. Some LSPD dickheads aren’t going to take him down.” “Gav’s right,” Michael joins, “he wouldn’t let them.” Jeremy hopes so. He doesn’t know why (yes he does, yes he does) but a part of him wants the assassin, the Vagabond, Ryan to be alive. The thing is, despite the coldness the older man seemed to harbor for Jeremy and Jeremy alone, he couldn’t help but be intrigued by the aura that surrounded Ryan. He was never one to use words like “aura” or phrases like “air around them” but fuck. There was something in the vacancy of his iris, in the calculated choices of his words. Jeremy recognized that. Jeremy knew exactly what that was. The rest of the crew, they brushed it off as what comes with being a thirty something-year-old killer. They loved him sure, and that came with accepting what he seemed to stand for. But that wasn’t enough for Jeremy. It wasn’t enough because he knew that the Vagabond was just a highly developed force field, and somewhere behind it, Ryan stood. He gives out his location to the crew, lies and tells them he got out with nothing but cuts and bruises. He’s pretty sure a bullet grazed his arm, and he’s certain that at least four ribs are broken. But the sigh of relief is music to his ears. They break, promise to meet up in the morning. Jeremy rips the earpiece out of his ear after their goodbyes, cursing himself at the swiftness of the motion. There’s no reason for him to be so worried, he tells himself as he pushes open the car door. Ryan was practically a stranger, and he’s almost certain the man wouldn’t let Jeremy’s well-being occupy space in his brain. With this in mind, he limps towards the house, and, in true Jeremy fashion, opts to go behind it instead. Something in his head is telling him he doesn’t need to patch up, he needs to stare at the sky. Have you seen the sky, Jeremy? He asks himself. You can actually make out the stars up here. So he does. He immediately regrets it, though, because now, he truly is alone with his thoughts. There is no television, no radio, not even the sounds of the city to distract him. But once his back is on cool dirt, he can’t seem to be too bothered about getting up again. His mind wanders back to Boston. Jeremy doesn’t usually think about it, doesn’t like thinking about it, but he can already see his old house, his old dog. His parents. He sees his friends with startling clarity. That one had a chipped tooth, and this one had way too many freckles but Jeremy remembers being intrigued by how much a human face could resemble a sky full of stars. It’s when his eyes slip shut that his mind truly gets lost in years past, taking different roads down memory lane. He remembers sneaking out past curfew when he was fourteen, feeling much like he did before the job went to shit, jittery, excited, praying he didn’t get caught. It was that night that he made sure to make sneaking out on weekends with his friends a habit. There was so much more promise during the night than the day. He remembers the first time he kissed a girl. They had their feet swinging over a dock, the rest of their group splashing around in the murky water below. He remembers the electricity, the ferocity. He may have been a bit too excited. And she had slowed him down, cranked him down to zero, and caught him on the descent. He remembers the first time he kissed a boy. It had started off slow. Jeremy was careful. Careful and scared. He wasn’t sure what he was doing but he liked it, and for a moment, that frightened him. But then the boy above him bit at his lip, and he forgot what fear was, forgot anything that wasn’t the boy running hands through his hair. The wind picks up. Jeremy opens his eyes and the stars blink back at him. He could always see the stars back in Boston. Apparently, to see them in the city you had to be running from an entire police force and hide in the mountains in order to get sight on them at all. The wind picks up. He hears rustling somewhere near him. He remembers the last time he saw the stars in a Boston sky. Remembers how heavy the knife was in his calloused hand. Remembers his best friend’s laugh, his - Fuck. The memories come flooding back with a vengeance, and it doesn’t come in waves, it’s a tsunami of images. They flash before his eyes and he can’t stop them. He can’t stop the blood, the yelling, the laughter from behind, the ‘do it, finish him off, Dooley!’ He can’t stop seeing how the light literally vanishes from people’s eyes once there’s a blade in their side. Jeremy used to think that he would never harm a fly, that no creature deserved to be hurt in a world that was so damaged, but so beautiful. But then he started getting paid for it, and well, he’s still never actually hurt a fly. He sighs, and forces himself into a sitting position. That was enough wandering for one lifetime. Just as he feels his bones groan in protest, he hears the unmistakable sound of a motorcycle in the distance. At first, he thinks he’s just imagining it. Besides the screaming in his head, all he can hear is the stillness of nature. Maybe his mind was imagining things. But then a figure comes into view when he turns to check for the source of the sound, and - “You’re alive,” Jeremy breathes, relief flooding over him. The Vagabond’s limping, a sight Jeremy’s never seen before, and his jacket seemed to be a darker shade of black, if that was possible. It’s hard to make out much under the light of the moon, so there’s no way to tell whether the blood that he’s covered in is his own, or someone else’s. One thing Jeremy does note is that the mask that usually shields his face has been removed. Despite the paint that’s smudged and running down his face, Jeremy’s face to face with Ryan. And he’s hurt. “Wasn’t going to let some pigs take me out,” Ryan grunts in response, and Jeremy chuckles. “That’s exactly what the lads said,” he says. Ryan grimaces, though Jeremy assumes it’s meant to be a grin. “So they’re alive then. That’s -” “Good.” “Yeah,” he takes a few more steps towards Jeremy, runs eyes over him, and God, Jeremy has to force back a blush. So, yeah, the thing is, he wasn’t exactly sure if the fascination with Ryan stopped with an interest in what he was about. Because, without realizing, Jeremy had found himself staring at Ryan when he didn’t need to, noticing things that he would remember later, when it was 4 a.m. and his brain was quiet. He wanted to know the Vagabond but he felt himself developing the tiniest of crushes on him as well. He dealt with that the only way he knew how, keeping as much distance between them as possible. But now Ryan is moving closer, and closer, and now he’s kneeling, and now his eyes are level with Jeremy’s and he can see the scar that runs down his eyebrow with clarity. “You’re hurt,” Ryan says simply, and Jeremy laughs out the breath he’d been holding since Ryan moved. “No shit, buddy. So are you,” he replies. Ryan shrugs, running a hand across Jeremy’s forehead where a nasty gash had made itself home, frowning when Jeremy jumps. He wonders if Ryan thinks Jeremy’s afraid of him. The thought of it makes him want to laugh. “That’s a deep wound you have. Got any others like that?” Ryan asks. Jeremy raises a brow. Where had this nurse Ryan been hiding the past five months? “I’m not sure. Don’t feel anything. I’m pretty sure I got broken ribs, though. Maybe other shit,” he says with a shrug. “You don’t feel any pain? At all?” there’s a tone of interest on Ryan’s tongue, Jeremy notes, and he bites his tongue to hide a second blush. “Well, kind of do, kind of don’t. If I don’t think about it, I’m good,” he explains with a wave of his hand, and the movement caused him to wince. “But now… I’m thinking about it. Fuck, ow, I’m really thinking about it.” Ryan laughs then, a gentle sound against the breeze. Jeremy’s in awe. There’s an arm around his waist then, and he realizes he’s being hoisted up. Pain shoots through every cell in his body. “Sorry about this. It’s kind of my job to make sure you don’t succumb to your injuries and die,” he says.

Ryan speaks with effort, almost grunts the words out instead of actually speaking them, and Jeremy tries to make himself as light as possible. He isn’t the lightest of men, and he knows the pressure on Ryan must be strenuous. Being that he’s so close to the older man, he takes his chances and risks a look up at him for a moment. There isn’t much to see besides dirt and blood, black, white and red. Still, with Ryan’s arm around his waist, with his side pressed against Jeremy’s broken frame…he feels-

“- your eyes, okay?”

He hadn’t realized Ryan had even put him down. Or that his eyes were starting to slip shut on their own accord. Jeremy blinks a few times, but his eyelids feel heavy with the effort.

“What?”

“Your head wound. You might have a concussion, or you just lost a lot of blood,” Ryan grabs at Jeremy’s hand, places a cloth in it. “Apply pressure to the gash.”

He does as he’s told and his eyes follow Ryan’s movement around the main room. He’s muttering to himself, and Jeremy tries to ignore the blood rushing in his ears so he can focus on Ryan’s voice. Focus on not passing out.

A concussion. He almost laughs. How many of those had he stomached before he made his way here? He’d never experienced one like this, one that made him dizzy, that made stars dance in front of his eyes. A part of him felt good that he was so out of practice. The other part just wanted Ryan close by again.

He shook his head to clear it, chase away the thoughts and, okay, bad idea. The groan of pain he lets out sounds almost foreign, and it’s then that Ryan comes rushing back with a small box in hand.

“They really got you good, didn’t they?” Ryan asks, wasting no time in getting to work on the gash.

“I could say the same for you,” Jeremy manages to quip back, “Is that why you didn’t want the crew to come back for you? Didn’t want them to see you get your ass beat?”

And it’s supposed to come out as a joke, but Jeremy sees Ryan’s shoulders sag, feel his hand waver its movements from dabbing at his head. Jeremy makes to talk, opens his mouth to blame it on the shitty heist, the shitty situation, the shitty anything, but Ryan just grabs at the alcohol. Starts talking.

“I know who you are, Dooley. No, I know what you are,” he pours some alcohol in a clean cloth. Jeremy watches his movements with wide eyes and bated breath. Every cell in his body is screaming at him to run, but his legs are led, and Ryan’s grip is iron.

“What’s that?” he asks, the smart ass in him is down, but not out, and even though the words are croaked out rather than said with the confidence he was going for, Ryan notices. He raises an eyebrow, places the cloth on Jeremy’s open wound. He yells, Ryan smiles.

“You, my friend, are a monster. And, that’s fine. You’re surrounded by them. Every single one of us are beings that mothers tell their children to stay away from. This whole city is full of them but you,” he pauses, grabs a needle and suture. Jeremy swallows hard.

“You act like you’re not one of us. Not holier than thou, which is what I thought at first, what we all thought at first. No, you’re a monster who’s trying to forget,” Ryan punctuates his final word with the stab of the needle.

And Jeremy wants to hide. He was stupid to think being in a crew was a good idea, stupid to think he was going to get along with these people, stupid to think that Ryan would-

“Am I wrong?” he inquires gently, snipping off the end of the suture, and grabbing for a bandage.

Jeremy looks up, breathes deep.

“No.”

“What was that?”

“No, asshole, you’re not wrong,” Jeremy says, but he doesn’t stop, even though he really knows he should.

“Congratulations!” he continues. He hears himself shouting. “You figured me out! You want a prize, a pat on the back? You think you’re so cool and mysterious, don’t you? Think you can know me for a handful of months and think you know everything there is to know about me? Well, go ahead, tell me. Tell me what you so ingeniously figured out.”

He’s standing now, and he’s never been taller than Ryan, so he keeps this image in his head for later. Ryan looks up at him with crystal blue eyes, and although his face is creased in worry, Jeremy can still see the vacancy in them. Fuck, Jeremy thinks, he’s good.

“Calm down…I didn’t mean to agitate you,” he puts a hand on Jeremy’s arm, pulls him back into sitting position.

Jeremy’s world spins for a bit. Ryan watches him with interest as he gathers himself. When he speaks again, his voice is softer.

“I really fucking love this place at four in the morning,” he says.

“I- What?”

“The countryside. I’ve always been surrounded by the city so coming here is nice. It’s always so quiet. Peaceful,” he continues, and maybe he does have a concussion, because when he looks at Ryan again, he has the sudden urge to tell him everything. To break his oath to himself, to them, and just…spill his guts on Ryan’s bloody shoes.

He stops himself when Ryan speaks.

“Kind of…makes you forget how shitty the rest of the world is?” Ryan phrases it as a question even though Jeremy is sure it isn’t supposed to be one. It almost feels like he’s revealed some great secret, and his tone reflects that he’s afraid of how Jeremy was going to react.

But Jeremy’s face cracks into a smile.

He nods, whispers an assent, and they sit there for a moment, inhaling the silence.

“So,” Ryan says after a few minutes, “you ever going to tell us about Boston?”

“You ever going to tell us about Georgia?” Jeremy replies with a grin, and Ryan smiles, holds his hands up in defeat.

“Fair enough…” he pauses, eyes Jeremy up and down.

“What?”

“You know that no matter what you did back then… you’re here now. We’ve got you, and we don’t plan on letting you go. I want you to understand that you belong here.”

And Jeremy feels a lot of things at once. He wants to cry, wants to break down in Ryan’s arms and tell him everything, from the beginning to now. He wants to laugh, loud and obnoxious, because if he told Ryan every single detail of what he’d done to himself, to other people, even the Vagabond himself would be taken aback. He wants to run, because the last time he let himself trust a large group of people he got hurt, others got hurt, and no one came out the same.

But then Ryan is grabbing his shoulders, pulling him in, and suddenly there’s nothing around him but warmth. For some reason, Jeremy never considered that Ryan could exude so much body heat, but with his arms wrapped so tightly around him, Jeremy can’t seem to remember why. Jeremy hears himself crying before he feels the tears prickle behind his eyelids, and he feels himself falling. Ryan just holds him tighter, and Jeremy hangs on for dear life. He’s whispering in his ear, and Jeremy focuses on the hushed tones rather than his ragged sobbing.

When he calms down, he pulls away and is greeting by a smiling face. He notices very quickly the identical tracks that have cleared a path through the dirt and makeup Ryan wore. He had been crying too.

“Look at us,” Jeremy sniffles, “Coupla murderers, crying together.”

“Our image is shattered,” Ryan says with feigned disappointment. Jeremy chuckles. He gives Ryan a once over.

“You don’t want want me to, uh,” he vaguely gestures up and down Ryan’s body, making a point to glance at his wounds.

Ryan waves a dismissive hand at him and stands up. Without a second thought, so does Jeremy, and he blushes because of course Ryan notices, and of course Ryan shoots him a cocky grin.

“You wanna go back outside? Bask in the quietness of the world before we destroy it?”

Jeremy rolls his eyes, but smiles nonetheless.

“I would love to.”

[allthetribbles]

Investigation Game – April 04, 2085

Characters present - Alan, Kory, Te'ani, Liv

April 3, 2085

After Alan puts Liv out of his home, he accesses the message on his pip. He's greeted with 30 seconds of random electronic noise. He's unable to decipher the noise... and he just let Liv leave. He tries to contact her, but she isn't answering her pip. He leaves a message - URGENT, please call me.

She doesn't answer.

April 4th, 2085 4.30a

Liv returns Alan's call. He asks her to come over. "Okay. Sure." She heads over that way. When she arrives, he plays the message back for her - "Can you make anything of it?" She calls electro into play as she wanders further into his home. A message is within the noise and she plays it back on the pip. It's definitely the voice of Elwood from beyond the grave.

{----------------------------

Greetings from beyond the grave. You must have questions. I have very few answers for you. One of which is if you have received this message then I have died. Time is, unfortunately, short. When we had access to Weaver and her team in the Pit I had Athine plant a post-hypnotic into their leader to leave us messages. One of those messages bore fruit. An addition to their team was intercepted and replaced. Currently we have them located at a Safe House here. (insert location) The information we are currently gathering has been kept off site in a separate private facility as if this information gets out it could ignite another facet in the Aeon War we currently live in. I don’t think these “Tager” cultists as they call themselves are as a serious a threat as others might think them. They seem to be involved in a clandestine war with another group of cultists that call themselves “Dhohanoids”. Both sides are engaged in a fight over the artifact pieces. Olivia may be able to shed more light on that subject. You need to find Bobby and protect that arrogant old coot. He’s got the last piece and I don’t think he can hide anywhere they can’t find him with 2 pieces to track the third. Keep an eye on this Tager group. If they become too much of a threat eliminate them. Save with their opposite number. I’m sorry to drop this on you Liv, Alan, Tory, Ryan and Te’ani but you’re the best team I have for when the shit hits the fan. God speed. Also, Liv, I have given you access to a series of funds to help your team. They can trust you with it. ------------------------------- }

The location of the safe house in the letter is located within the arcology and assumed to be under surveillance. To avoid tipping off anyone watching or inside, we don't go there immediately. Alan and Liv go to work to share the new lead with the rest of the team.

We need more information. Liv nudges Te'ani to be a good boyscout and go help Director LeAnne "dispose" of the paperwork from Elwood's office. He is successful and puts the box on Liv's desk - "Have fun."

Luckily Director LeAnne is preoccupied and isn't paying much attention to what we're doing. She also hasn't tasked us with anything so.... we keep busy. Going through the the paperwork, there are receipts, paperwork, accounting information, files on agents that have died.... and restaurant recommendations.

The Director ate out... a lot. One of the addresses looks familiar - the safe house from the note. It was marked as "don't ever eat."

We pull a grand total of about 30 sheets of paper with the places he recommended - there is a mix of "avoid" "liked" and "so-so." The information seems really random - something will be underlined, notations, doodles. Some of the addresses we can match up to locations that we personally know as safehouses. Most of them aren't in the OIS database. The one left in the message WASN'T in the known safehouse database...

While riddling out the mystery of the hidden safehouses, Liv thought about how to access the funds Director Elwood had directed for the group. It had to be something important... that no one else would think was important. Not a birthday, not an address, but it would have to be something important to herself...

... The absolute sneak! He used the one date that would be important to Liv, but not to anyone else. The date she was arrested by the OIS. And now they have access to money (to the tune of Wealth 2).

There was a bit of a debate over which safehouse to visit first - we didn't want to compromise anyone currently in the safe houses. Using the logic of reverse psychology - we're going to check out one of the safe houses marked "eat here" in the hopes that it is empty. The idea pays off and no one's home.

The next thing to scare up would be the information stored off-site. We go back to the note - one of the messages from Weaver "bore fruit." Looking at a list of fruit stands... one is scribbled out, one is labeled "do not use - bad fruit," one is labelled "excellent fruit - sometimes a little extra," and the last one had no notation.

Interesting to note... one place not there at all - the Golden Dragon.

We decide to go to the fruit stand labeled "excellent" ... only to find... well, a fruit stand. Alan says that his arcane sight says there's only a minor enchantment on the fruit to keep it from spoiling - usually a really low-level job for sorcerers. He also says that places like this are usually more watched - not just by the OIS, but GIA, NEG, and FSB.

To catch a spy, we're going to have to think like a spy... Te'ani asks for "a little something extra." The owner tells us that a baker's dozen is on sale, mix and match as we see fit. The freshest fruit is the starfruit that just arrived in the past two-three days. We purchase fruit and leave. The rest of the team wants to go to one of the other fruit stands - leaning towards the unmarked one.

Liv says they should check out the scratched out address, explaining the logic of "You wouldn't want to go to an address that's scratched out, thinking it isn't useful at all." It didn't seem to be a convincing argument, but they agree to check it out.

The location... is not a fruit stand. It's an arcade. The kids hanging around are young enough to make even Liv feel old - humans, nazzadi... a few amlati, but no whites. The owner approaches the team with a shotgun inside his trench coat. After a threat of "do no harm to his kids, this is a safe place" - He introduces himself as Alfie, the owner of the Pegasus Arcade.

Alan sees that runes are hidden, protection against scrying, farsight, and similar abilities and spells. Liv picks up that the games don't necessarily require the entire arcade tower... but there is a lot of stuff going on. The owner warns her against meddling with the information.

The team mentions Director Elwood, but it doesn't draw any recognition from Alfie. Liv mentions that "Louie sent us." He tells one of the kids to watch the front and has us follow him to the back. He keeps the gun trained on all of us... and after we semi-sort of explain to him that we're following the clues. He offers to let them look around. "If you know Louie as well as you say you do... you'll find what you're looking for."

In the lobby there are over 100 games. We seems to be at a loss at what to look for... until we refer back to the note - "If this information gets out it could ignite another facet in the Aeon War we currently live in." We find a game about Thermonuclear War. "Would you like to play?" Alfie comes by, asking if we've made our pick. He gives us an old american 25 cent piece, then walks away.

We go to the game and find the high score for LEWI at number 6 - 561861. We go back to Alfie in the office and give him the code. He transfers information to a drive and hands it over. As they're leaving, he gives Liv a warning - "Be careful using your powers, Little Sister. Not everyone is as obvious as you."

Liv waits until they're in the car before accessing the information on the drive. There are two files - one for Ricky's safehouse (outside the arcology), one for the Tager's (inside the arcology).

Accessing the file for the Tagers, we find profiles on people known to us - only two are unknown to the group - and one is a White. Liv suspects she is the OIS Plant. The other Liv IDs as the contact SunMoon. It also has a copy of all of the messages sent to Elwood from Weaver. The last message was dated two days ago - April 2nd, detailing about how they were having a shared dream and they were going to investigate it.

In the files we find out they have filched several artifacts during their escape from the Pit - The Godkiller Gun, an EOD SAT, The Summoning Artifact (already recovered by Liv), an Artifact Gem of Power (similar to the one on Athine's arm), and a two foot tall pyramid with its apex cut off with a glass plate on top (purpose unknown).

Liv is very enthusiastic to head to the location of the Tagers' safehouse after finding out about the stolen artifacts - "They have things they definitely shouldn't." They head over and decide to observe the house first. After about an hour there doesn't seem to be any activity or movement. Te'ani thinks we should approach from the front door. Liv suggests they split the approach in case they decide to run - she decides to keep watch on the back door while he goes to the front.

Despite the caution, everything is quiet and no one's home. They seem to have left in a hurry - beds are unmade and gear is left behind. Unfortunately, they didn't leave the artifacts...

Alan's arcane sight leads him to Weaver's bedroom, which is greatly infused with magical residue. He also finds a strange creature... it looks similar to a rabbit, but... not. It has four eyes, six ears, and a set of extra limbs under its first pair. It is also very dead... by a day or two. There aren't any signs of violence, but Alan knows a grim truth. If a familiar's master dies, the familiar usually dies. It doesn't look good for Weaver...

Liv applies her psychometry to the beds - she doesn't pick up much except for on two of the beds - Weaver's and another room. She picks up great distress and desperation. The room NOT Weaver's has a lot of scorch marks. It seems they really liked fire... and the scorch marks seem to almost be like footprints, except they're 15"x5." Whoever it was had big feet.

Doing a quick check for the White - there's zero documentation on her. She isn't registered. Liv is 98% positive that the White must be the OIS plant. Whites are automatically registered at birth, the only way she could be entirely off the grid is if the OIS wiped her.

After we're through looking through the safehouse, Te'ani gets a message from Annette, the nazzadi keeping watch on Ricky - he wants a word with us. She seems cranky and Liv suggests that Te'ani send a thank you. As Annette said, she's not his secretary.

Liv tags someone else to drive while she takes a nap. It takes about an hour or so travel to get out of the arcology to the two story safehouse. There is a curious lack of nightgaunt activity as Ricky comes outside... alone.

He invites us inside to talk - "We have a bit of a problem." Alan wonders who would be watching Ricky - Liv just urges the group to follow Ricky inside. Even inside the safehouse, there's a suspicious lack of nightgaunt activity. Kory asks where they are.

Ricky - "On guard duty." Sounds ominous!

He leads us to the basement where the nightgaunts have set up shop protecting.... the missing artifacts. Well, most of them - the gem of power isn't present.

He tells us they got out one night and found a group of people having a battle royale in the sewers. He wasn't sure what happened, but a fist fight happened and led to one nearly killing the other. He demanded the artifacts as payment for healing one of them.

He was hesitant to tell us what he knew about them, fearing telling us information we already have. We relay that we just came from the safehouse they were stashed, where we found Weaver's dead familiar. It made Ricky wonder if SunMoon actually did manage to kill her after all. We told him that the OIS did have a double-agent in the group and he confirmed it was probably Izzy, the white, because she was the only one that didn't turn into a monster. He gave us the descriptions of a spider, a giant burning rockman, and a really tentacley thing that was hard to spot... like a mirage.

We asked if they mentioned where they were headed. Ricky said "The big guy said they were headed towards a big skull. They had seen it before and they were going to check it out."

He was worried when we mentioned they escaped from the Pit with these artifacts ("Uh oh, should I have killed them?"), but we reassured him what he did was the correct thing to recover the artifacts. The most important thing is these items are no longer in their possession. We did tell him it wasn't everything they took, but a good majority - they didn't return a gem of power. He reassured us that they said they handed over everything. Liv agreed with him - "It probably was everything they had. But what they didn't hand over was a gem of power; and if they don't have it... that isn't a good thing."

Liv finally asks to hug George. The rest of the team seems alarmed that she's asking. George pats her head and seems okay with the request. Despite their protests... she does it. She hugs him and he folds his wings around her... She staggers back from the hug when he releases her; she seems a bit stunned. Te'ani catches her, asking her who the idiot is. Her answer, "Not me. Skull."

They seem more than a little concerned for the sanity of their White. Kory even said, "... And this is who my sister chose as her mentor." That got the attention of a few of the minor Nightgaunts. Ricky doesn't know why.

Liv changes the subject, asking if Ricky had received her email. He said he did, but he obviously can't go into the office to check on the statue. Liv says, "We're still working on how to get her out here under the radar of the new Director."

It seems Annette Pahls isn't very fond of the new Director and has expressed that sentiment to Ricky.

{ When George wraps his wings around Liv... there is a major conflict of emotions. She feels torn in what feels like three separate directions, three angles that can't be described well. It's almost like turning pages in three books. All directions feel familiar - two are identical, and one is like looking into a mirror (Daddy is this world, Daddy in another world, and Black Liv).

She very clearly sees herself barreling through a gigantic human skull with fangs that snap shut as she enters it. She's in a blasted, ruined wasteland and sees a tall pale man. He looks at Liv, seemingly shocked. "How did you get here? Who are you? Wait - are you from my world?" He tries to grab her, but his hands pass through as he asks with desperation - "HELP ME. HELP ME. HELP ME." Then he's yanked out of sight and she's back in her own world }

========================================

To Do List:

> Investigate the Safe House {Completed} > Find where the information is being stored. Recover it. {Completed} > Access to the funds left by Elwood {Completed} > Find Bobby and PROTECT > Recoverd Artifacts - What to do with them > Find out where the SKULL is { To Trail the Teases } > Transport Luanne the statue to Ricky

[tauers-go-dutch]

Mamma Mia! We finally made it to Greece

With my favorite ladies!

Alternative name: Ryan takes selfies with food

As our time in Amsterdam is winding down, my lovely mother finally got her bum in gear and booked her trip to come visit. I put a lot of time and care into planning this trip, because we haven’t been looking forward to it for the past two years-- we’ve been looking forward to it for closer to 20! My mom and I have had Greece on our bucket list for as long as I can remember, and my living in Europe made for the perfect opportunity.

My last day at work was the Monday following our anniversary trip to Edinburgh, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to prepare before picking her up from the airport Tuesday morning. For some damn reason, she decided to arrive on literally the hottest day I’ve experienced since moving here myself. Seriously, heat records were broken for the last week of May. So - we grabbed some iced tea from Starbucks (the only place in Europe you can GET iced tea the way we like it) and hopped on the train.

Ryan worked from home that day, so once we dropped her luggage off, the three of us ventured up to the Foodhallen, which is, you guessed it, a food hall with stalls serving up different types of street food. While we generally don’t advocate eating traditional Dutch food, we do always try to make sure everyone gets at least a taste. The easiest way to do this is to order bitterballen, which I lovingly like to describe as ‘fried balls of gravy’. I think they’re disgusting, but I’ve received mixed opinions from my guests. Ryan enjoys them, but never seems to order them for himself. I don’t think mom was terribly impressed-- I’d show you the photo of her digging in, but then I’d have to give up my American citizenship and never return home, for fear she might murder me.

Ryan returned to work while mom and I wandered up through a neighborhood called the ‘Jordaan’ which is full of cute shops and great for people watching. After showing her the Anne Frank house (from the outside- the line was way too long to go inside) and buying a few charms for our charm bracelets, we hopped on the tram home to relax for a bit. I took her to dinner at my favorite neighborhood pizza place before calling it a night.

The next morning we took the train to Haarlem, one of my favorite little towns just outside of Amsterdam. We grabbed brunch at one of my favorite spots, then took a stroll to see one of the last remaining windmills in the area. We had some lemonade and shared a piece of carrot cake at my favorite tea shop (too hot for tea, and they don’t do iced!). I bought the biggest bag of loose leaf of my favorite blend they had, and we hopped back on the train to Amsterdam. Ryan met us for dinner at a delicious Kansas City BBQ joint we’ve come to love before heading in. 

Thursday we went to the Van Gogh museum, where there was a special exhibit displaying his Japanese-inspired paintings. Of course we had to make the other typical Dutch food stops, where we hit up Ryan’s favorite fry place, a deliciously Instagram and Pinterest-famous chocolate cookie shop, and finally, a bakery specializing in everyone’s favorite Dutch treat, the Stroopwafel!

Here is mom’s impression of Amsterdam, in her own words: 

Finally! I made it to Amsterdam! First impression - it’s very hot and humid! That impression didn’t change except when it was raining. I loved the rain! Being as I was only there a very short time, we ran around from place to place to see as much as I could without spending too much time in any one place. The first night we ate at a marketplace where you could get about any food type you desired. I had my first taste of bitterballen. Was very good but basically deep fried gravy and one was enough for me. Mariah and I took most of the next day and traveled to Haarlem. Adorable little town, sort of a miniature Amsterdam. Many cute stores and a great little tea shop. That evening we had authentic Kansas City BBQ. Delicious!

We went to the museum plaza where there was an exhibition of miniature canal houses done in Delft. They were wonderful! We visited the Van Gogh museum. Was a great museum but honestly think I was suffering from heat exhaustion and didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. There are many museums on the plaza and I would love to explore more of them someday. Things of note in Amsterdam are the beautiful parks, the superb public transportation and of course the architecture. It is a very old city and the buildings are amazing. The architecture was probably my favorite thing about the city. Also noteworthy are the millions of bicycles ridden by all ages, shapes and sizes, all day long as well as the very small garden plots in front of nearly every home and window boxes adorning most windows on all floors. 

On my last night in Amsterdam (a trip to Greece in-between) Mariah and I stayed in a very nice boutique hotel named The Muse. Was a great last night and I left the next morning after a great breakfast prepared by friends Scott and Ashley. They are very special people and it is easy to understand why Mariah and Ryan have become such great friends with them. Knowing I would see Mariah and Ryan in six weeks made it easier to go...

Finally time to head to Greece, we made a final round through our apartment, as we had actually ended our lease and were due to move out that day! As much as Amsterdam will be missed, that place absolutely will not, so we bid it good riddance and made for the airport!

We landed in Santorini at about 9 in the evening, and were lucky that my Aunt Karen had arrived a few hours earlier and was able to check into our rental, which was in the village of Perissa. We dropped our stuff off and immediately made our way to the dive across the street for some late-night dinner. We had gyro, dolmas (my favorite!) pita and tzatziki and we were in heaven!

Made it!

Oh Greek food, how I love you!

Friday morning we had some Greek pastries for breakfast and headed to the Excavations of Akrotiri, which were supposed to be some great ancient ruins but turned out to be the biggest waste of money on the trip. The site was unfortunately very disappointing. No matter, the site was right on the beach, so we walked down to the coast and hiked up and over to the Red Beach, aptly named for the color of its sand/rocks. We weren’t prepared for a true beach day, so we just admired for a bit, took a few photos and headed over to Fira for some lunch.

Some rather disappointing ruins. Good thing we’re cute! 

The beautiful red sand beach

Mom and Karen hung out while Ryan and I took on the popular hike from Fira to Oia. It was absolutely stunning - the perfect mix of hills and ridges along the coast where we passed every #dreamgoals resort you can possibly dream up. We arrived in Oia just before sunset, where we sat and watched it go down on a rooftop sangria bar. We grabbed dinner then met up with Mom and Karen, who had spent our hiking time exploring Oia. We took advantage of our apartment’s private jacuzzi then hit the hay.

Hiking through paradise! (Prepping my new hiking boots for the imminent Trolltunga)

We slept in a bit on Saturday before walking down to the black sand beach. I had booked our specific apartment in Perissa because of its proximity to the best beach on Santorini. It was still about a 15 minute trek down, but it was 100% worth it. We grabbed brunch at a beachside cafe before walking about 100 feet through the sand and plopping down on some shaded beach lounges and ordering fresh fruit smoothies. We enjoyed our drinks by the sea then mom and I decided it was time to take a dip. What is nice about this beach is that the black sand is actually small pebble, which makes it much easier to stand on and brush off (though we did manage to trek plenty back to our apartment) and makes for very clear water, because it doesn’t get picked up in the current like typical beach sand does. While mom tried very hard to get me to let her stay there forever, we eventually decided we’d had enough sun and headed in. Ryan was nice enough to walk back and grab the rental car for us, so we were chauffeured back to our apartment for showers and a nap.

Mom and Karen stayed in the rest of the evening while Ryan and I went to a tasting at a local winery. The winery sat at the top of a hill overlooking the sea, but after a full day of sun, we decided we had better sit inside in the shade. The wine was great, some better than others. The entertainment, however, was provided by a crabby old man at the bar directly behind our table. Fortunately Ryan was able to sneak a photo of him in action.

Old man: ‘Can I have a mimosa?’

Bartender: *blank stare*

Old man: ‘Do you know what a mimosa is? In America we have mimosas!’

Bartender: ‘Like the flower?’

Old man: ‘Like the drink’

Bartender: ‘Ok, sir, where are you sitting? I will send the waiter over for your order.’

Old man: ‘I don’t have a table. I’ve already eaten and paid. I just want to wash everything down with a mimosa.’

Bartender: ‘Ok sir. What do you want?’

Old man: ‘Orange juice and champagne. Do you have orange juice and champagne? Just give me a glass of orange juice and a glass of champagne. I will make it myself!’

Bartender: *pours a flute of champagne and asks him hesitantly if he also wants a glass of orange juice before pouring a second flute and charging him for each separate drink. The old man pays and the bartender peaces out before she has to endure any more attacks.*

Old man: *proceeds to chug half of each flute before pouring the OJ into the champagne*

While the conversation took a solid five minutes, it took less than 20 seconds for the guy to down his drink and walk out of the winery once the bartender poured his two glasses. Was it really worth the trouble, man?

Anyways, we enjoyed our wine, headed to dinner and called it a night.

DIY mimosa guy

Eww, octopus

Sunday morning it was time to leave Santorini already. We booked a ferry to Mykonos, the second island of our trip. If Santorini is heaven, I don’t know what Mykonos is, but I could stay there forever. The views from our apartment were unbeatable, and we had an infinity pool and bar just outside our door. We decided to stay close to home that evening, but walked over to a nearby Indian spot for dinner. Ryan only recently got me to start enjoying Indian food, and I think it was mom’s first time ever. Regardless, it was delicious-- so delicious we went back the next night to grab takeout!

Leaving Santorini

The new view isn’t so bad

Back at the apartment mom and Karen took a quick dip in the pool, but I was a weenie and just dipped my toes in (Ryan grabbed a G&T and went up to sit on the rooftop patio).

We slept in again then sought out brunch. I had a life-changing acai bowl that I can’t stop thinking about nearly a month later, then we headed down into the main old town. The day was spent exploring the winding pathways of the city, taking way too many photos of the beautiful buildings, and stopping in all the local shops. Mykonos is known for its windmills, which are much different from those I’ve become accustomed to here in the Netherlands. Ryan and I spent a few hours lounging around back at the pool before grabbing that second helping of Indian for the whole crew.

Apparently too excited to bother rubbing in all of my sunscreen...

A quick tea and smoothie stop

Not a bad way to end the day

The island of Delos was our main activity for the following day. We hopped on a ferry to check out the supposed birthplace of Artemis and Apollo. While it was ridiculously hot, these ancient ruins were far more interesting and well-preserved than the ones in Santorini. Back on the main (is)land, we grabbed lunch at a small Italian spot before an afternoon nap. Ryan and I journeyed out for another date night, this time walking (hiking) along the coast to a small family-owned restaurant on the other side of the island. We managed to arrive in one piece, where I had delicious salmon (chicken for Ryan) on the beach.

Our hike back was slightly less treacherous, as at least we knew the way, but we did receive a small surprise in the form of a wild hedgehog in our path! I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo now that I think about it. He was quite calm and friendly, we just had to step around him in his little ball and keep going. We grabbed some gyro from the snack bar on the beach for mom and Karen and headed in for the night.

The next day it was time to hit the beach one last time. Our apartment was right next to one of the main beaches on the island but it was a serious hike to get down there. Mykonos is known as the party island of Greece, so the earlier in the morning you go, the less likely you are to have your ears assaulted with EDM and/or 90s rap. On the flipside, This is when all the 50+ folk decide it’s time to get their tan on, in the nude. Sweet baby Jesus. Actually it really wasn’t an issue, after the initial shock of old bronze fat man bits.

It was even harder to pull mom out of the water this time around, but after some solid fun in the sun we had to head back in order to take Karen to the airport. Unfortunately she had to head home a day earlier than the rest of us. We grabbed lunch at the ‘El Burro’ cafe and said goodbye. The three of us then went back into the old town to do some final shopping - mom wanted some souvenirs to bring home and I had some jewelry I wanted a second look at. The next morning it was our turn to head out, but not before one more go at that life-changing acai bowl.

Clearly I have nothing but praise for Greece, and I think perhaps mom feels the same:

On to Greece! Top of my bucket list knocked off. Greece was everything I have ever imagined it would be. We spent several days on the island of Santorini. My sister Karen met up with us for this leg of my trip. The black beach will always be my favorite memory. Karen’s as well for a much different reason. The sand was a beautiful black. We had a lovely room with our own hot tub and private patio. Across the street was a dive restaurant that had the best Greek food. We ate there several times. The old town of Santorini was great for shopping and the bougainvillea was everywhere and absolutely gorgeous. We visited some ruins which I would not recommend to anyone but still somewhat interesting. We visited the towns of Fira and Oia. Wonderful shopping and great restaurants. Oia has one of the most beautiful sunsets in the world.

We then took a ferry to Mykonos and had another great room with a fabulous view of the sea. Little did I know but Mykonos is known as the party island and they partied at the island’s biggest Disco right down the hill from us all night long. Very loud and you could feel the energy. Once in our room you couldn’t hear the music so all was well. There was a great Indian restaurant near our place, so good we ate there twice. Paradise Beach is amazing. The water so clear, you can see little fishies swimming all around you. Apparently all the beaches in Greece are clothing optional but as long as they didn’t expect to see me without clothing it was no big deal. The roads are narrow and people drive crazy like I have never seen before. Lucky for us, Ryan did all the driving and I just didn’t look! We took a ferry, a very fast ferry, out to Delos to see the ruins of the Gods’ homes. I would recommend seeing the ruins there as well as the museum. As there was no shade and really hot, Karen and I spent most of our time in the museum while Mariah and Ryan trucked around the whole island. I’m sure I missed a lot - but the heat! I could go on and on but I could never explain how beautiful it was and just how much it meant to me to be able to go, and with such great company!

Once we arrived back in Amsterdam, I had about 24 hours to show mom anything else I deemed worthy before sending her back home. Having moved out of our apartment the week prior, mom and I got a hotel for the night while Ryan stayed with our friends Scott and Ashley. We went to the Albert Cuypmarket, which is a popular street market in the De Pijp neighborhood Not having enough time to make it over to Vondelpark, we settled for a stroll through the much smaller but also lovely Sarphatipark. We had a reservation for dinner at one of our favorite burger places, Cannibal Royale, so we took our time in meeting Ryan, Scott and Ashley there by walking by one of the red light streets--I couldn’t let mom leave Amsterdam without that experience!

Ashley was kind enough to have breakfast ready for us the next morning, so we all enjoyed a bit of time on their patio before sending mom off. Ryan and Scott were also heading to the airport, as they had a guys’ trip to Copenhagen planned for the weekend. They took good care of her, getting her to the airport and all checked in.

This trip was absolutely one for the books for a number of reasons. First of all, it was quite the task convincing mom to finally get her passport. Traveling can be scary, so I’m proud of her for finally taking the plunge! Greece has been at the top of my bucket list for as long as I can remember, and it truly did not disappoint. There are a lot of placed I’d love to visit and even revisit, but Greece was indisputably the most beautiful, wonderful, fun place I’ve ever been. Good thing there are about 100 (or so) more Greek Islands I can check out!

Leaving you with a few final photos of Santorini and Mykonos

Opa and tot ziens!

[redheadedcashew]

We Slip Away. (1/?)

Graduation was fast approaching and a few acceptance letters were currently lining the family dinning table. Amanda turned over slightly and stared at the digital clock on the bedside table and sighed, summer couldn’t come quick enough, she was done with the endless hours studying until it felt like her eyes were going to pop out. Kicking the blanket off she finally put her legs over the side of her bed and rubbed her eyes before slipping her glasses on and grabbing her phone, a text waiting for her.

“Ryan and Tom have practice, I’ll pick you up.” She sent Sarah back a quick reply saying she’d be ready in about half an hour. Grabbing a pair of jeans and a random t-shirt form her bedroom floor that passed the sniff test, she covered herself in some deodorant and grabbed her bag before heading downstairs. “Ma! We got any bread left?” she was hopping into her Vans when her mother flicked her with a tea towel, “did I raise you as a heathen!” Katherine’s Irish accent was still thick as ever and as much as she tried, her Catholic ways had never taken hold of her daughter. “Sorry Ma,” “And yes, we do have bread, already made you some toast. Grab it quickly, Sarah just pulled up.” A small beep sounded and Amanda kissed her ma’s cheek before putting the toast in her mouth, grabbing her bag and running out the door.

“You look like shit,” Sarah greeted her, reversing out of the driveway. “I know, had fucking nightmares of acceptance letter’s strangling me.” Her best friend laughed, “you decided yet?” “Nope. Ma is pushing me to go to Queen’s University Belfast, I had no idea she’d put an application in. She reckons it’d be a great experience for me and we have a shit tonne of family there.” “Ireland?! What’s ya dad say?” Amanda shrugged, “da ain’t dumb enough to argue with her. He just said it gives them an excuse to go home more often.”

As they pulled in to the school car park, she looked at Sarah, “so, where you off to? You said you’d tell me today.” She waited for Sarah to look at her and she tilted her head to the side as it all clicked into place, “holy shit, London Film School sent you the massive envelope didn’t they?!” Her grin ended up matching Sarah’s, “dude! That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you!” “I gotta tell Ryan and I think I wanna go there single…” She nodded, following her friends thought process, “makes sense, he wants to stay close to home, you wanna explore the world. Besides, isn’t this when we’re supposed to have all these amazing experiences?” “Wow, way to support my relationship possibly ending.” “Hey, you know I don’t think high school sweethearts is a thing, you’re 18 for fucks sake, this one of many love’s you’re going to have.”

Lunchtime rolled around quickly and Amanda was the first one to reach the table they all sat at. She had a book open and was zoning out to the noise around her when someone dropped down beside her, “sup nerd?” shoving her right elbow out, she connected with ribs, “not much, faggot.” She looked to her right and smiled at Tom who was pretending her elbow had actually hurt him, “do not be damaging these goods!” “Well I guess it’s lucky you’ve already passed your medical then isn’t it?” Tom had already has his enlistment interview, he was shipping off to basic the Monday after graduation. “This is true, you coming to the grad party at Ryan’s, be the last time we’re all together for awhile.” She shrugged, “thinking about it, but frankly, getting plastered with the football team and its fan club isn’t very appealing.” His hand tapped her thigh as he chuckled, “you say that, but you always end up enjoying the parties. I mean, the last one we found you curled up in Jeremy’s cupboard. Moments later they were joined by Sarah and Ryan who were laughing about something she missed because he attention fell to the hand still resting on her thigh.

The fuck?

This was weird, because Tom was not the touchy feely kind of guy. Every girl he’d ever hooked up with learnt real quick that he wasn’t going to be holding your hand and carrying your bag down the hallway. Shit, usually he only had a quick fling with a cheerleader before he was bored. Choosing to ignore this odd behaviour, she tuned back into the conversation as Ryan directed a question at her, “oh um ma’s pushing me to Belfast,” the grip on her leg got slightly tighter, “you’re kidding?” Ryan asked, his arm around Sarah’s shoulders as she ate. “Yeah she thinks it’ll be good for me to live there for awhile. I haven’t decided, got a bit of time still.”

---

The days suddenly flew by and suddenly the four of them were getting into their graduation gowns. Their parents were all waiting to take photos and the four of them posed together, separately before the boys ran off to join the football team for whatever they had to do. “Jesus, it’s finally here.” Amanda nodded at Sarah, “you talk to Ryan?” Sarah nodded, “yeah, it fucking sucked, but he’s being an adult about it, we gonna part ways when I leave, both not ready to say goodbye just yet.” “Good on ya, and you never know, you may end up crossing paths again down the track.”

The two of them began to move towards where they needed to line up Amanda made a passing comment that had Sarah stop dead in her tracks, “excuse me? The fuck did you just say?” Amanda raised her eyebrow, “I said I’m going to get laid before I go to uni.” “Well that came outta no where, who is the lucky man? I mean I gave it up to Ryan because he was hot and he ain’t gonna get better than me.” The two to of them smirked, both knowing Sarah also had major feels for Ryan so that had helped her decision process. “Not so much lucky but I figured Tom would correct the situation for me.” “Tom? As in Tom? Man whore Tom?” Amanda nodded, “least it wont be shit and there’s no chance of feelings cause he’s leaving.” “Jesus Christ girl… does he even know?” “Not yet. But I doubt he’ll say no.” “I mean you could’ve picked worse, he’s easy on the eyes that’s for sure… don’t tell Ryan I said that.” Amanda laughed, “secrets safe with me.” “Oh this is so exciting! My little girl is growing up finally!”

Later that night Amanda was standing in front of her wardrobe looking at all the clothes in front of her, Marilyn Manson playing loudly in the background. Tom had agreed to pick her up to make sure she actually went to the party but he was still clueless to her plans. She knew Sarah would’ve clued Ryan in which would possibly work in her favour, Ryan was all about helping other’s get a bit of somethin’ somethin’. “Fuck it” she muttered pulling out a band t-shirt, jean shorts and her doc martens, she wasn’t going to try and impress these people now and Tom had seen her looking much worse and he’d fucked much, much worse. Her hair was a long, red mess but that was nothing new. She let out a long sigh before she took her glasses off and left them on her bedside table, they’d only end up broken by the time the party was over.

A car horn sounded and she looked outside her bedroom window, seeing Tom’s car in the driveway. Was that the time already? Shit, she really had to stop getting caught up in her head. She shoved her phone in her back pocket as well as her house key and headed downstairs calling goodbye to her parents but not stopping to receive the lecture her ma had prepared for this occasion. “Finally, thought you’d got fucking lost.” “Thought I’d make you wait, anticipation is key. Come on, I’m sure Ryan’s got something special for the occasion.”

---

Tom was standing out in Ryan’s backyard with a bunch of the other guys from the team with a beer in his hand. This was going to be the last time he partied with this crowd. The last time he got drunk at a fucking high school party and blown by a stupid cheerleader who most likely had no future beyond this fucking small town. In two days time he was getting on the bus to basic training, leaving this place and his colourful reputation behind him.

He turned as he felt a tap on his shoulder and followed his best mate away from the group of guys, “here,” Ryan passed him a freshly lit joint, “something special for tonight, be outta your system by the time you leave.” Excellent. “So, I was told to keep my mouth closed, but you know me, I’m a helper.” Tom raised his eyebrow in suspicion as he took a generous pull of the joint, “oh yeah?” Ryan nodded, “a little birdie told me that you may just get to pop a v-card tonight, you know, something you haven’t done in awhile.” Tom laughed, “the fuck you on about? Aint no virgins left in…” he didn’t get to finish his sentence as his brain ticked over all the girls he knew. “Fuck off mate, you’re full of shit.” Ryan laughed, before lighting up a cigarette, “I have a very, very reliable source my good friend.”

Tom looked towards the girl in question, who was leaning on the porch railing drinking a shitty beer and laughing at something Sarah had said. “Come on dude, we been friends for way too long.” “So?” Ryan countered, taking the joint from Tom for a moment before handing it back and putting the cigarette back to his lips, “no one wants to run off to college a virgin dude. And she’s very aware of your reputation.” Ryan couldn’t stop his laugh during the last part of his sentence. Tom pondered this information a moment and smirked, friend or not, he couldn’t deny that it’d nice to sleep with a red head before he left.

As the night worse on, the music got louder and the party got more intoxicated. No one would call the police though; this small town knew exactly what was going on. Tom spent his time almost stalking after Amanda, wanting to see if he could catch any kind of hint that Ryan had been right. There was no way to tell and she hadn’t come up to him at all, they hadn’t spoken since he’d picked her up. But a moment of opportunity presented itself when she separated from Sarah to sneak off to the bathroom upstairs and Ryan took Sarah off for some alone time. Tom followed into the bedroom and shut the door behind him, flicking the lock.

He leant against the bedroom door, arms crossed over his chest. He couldn’t control the sudden excitement he felt. He’d never really thought of her in a sexual sense, but the more he toyed with the idea, the more he was keen on it. The bathroom door opened and out she walked, jumping in surprise as she saw him. “Jesus you scared me, the fuck you follow me for?” He could tell she’d had a bit to drink, she swayed slightly and her eyes were heavier than usual, her hair more messy than usual from her running her hands through it.

He didn’t say anything, just pushed himself off the door and closed the gap between them. She blinked a few times, just watching him and he noticed the subtle change in her breathing as his hands grabbed her hips. “What-“ he used his lips to silence her, holding her steady as she almost lost her balance, her hands gripping his upper arms but she surprised him by kissing back, eagerly. He moved one hand up her back to the back of her neck where he could grip some of her hair keeping her to him. The kiss deepened and suddenly he felt hungry for her, all these unfamiliar feelings coursing through him. He heard her moan softly in her throat and his confidence shook slightly as his senses were filled with only her.

This hadn’t happened to him before.

Trying to remain the stud he was, he moved them back the few steps to the bed, smirking as she laughed as they landed on it but he quickly moved over her, their lips connecting again, her eagerness to kiss him was rising a need in him he couldn’t remember feeling before with someone, and he’d had a fair amount of experience. His head dropped to her shoulder as she undid his pants and her hand slipped into his boxers, a little shaky at first, “little tighter” he groaned as her hand wrapped around him and began moving. Had she done this before? Cause it felt fucking amazing.

His hand was up her shirt a second later, cupping her breast while he kissed her neck. Her hand came out of his boxers and then their hips were grinding together and Tom had to think of anything else to stop himself from finishing then and there. Unfortunately a loud banging on the door bought the two of them out of their heated moment. “Amanda! Your da is here!”  And just like that, the moment was lost and she was moving herself from underneath him, trying to straighten herself up, “fuck me,” she muttered, without a look back she left the room.

Tom fell onto the bed, facing the ceiling trying to will his boner away. He ran his hands over his face. The fuck was that about? He could smell her deodorant on him, he couldn’t shake her. He got off the bed adjusted himself and did his pants up before leaving the room, his hand running through his hair. As he got the bottom of the stairs, he ran into Ryan who had an expectant look on his face and a shit eating grin, Tom simply shook his head with a shrug before going in search of beer. This night was fucking strange.

---

Beware by Deftones was blaring through her stereo as she lay on her bed the next night; she hadn’t stopped thinking about what had almost happened. Every spare moment she was daydreaming about Tom’s hands all fucking over her. Her parents had been pissed off that she hadn’t been home by curfew and had dragged her away before she’d gotten to know if the rumours about Tom were true. They’d certainly felt true.  The hours ticked away until she sat bolt upright on her bed.

No. She had a plan and she was going to stick to the fucking plan!

She pulled on a clean t-shirt and a clean pair of grey trackies before slipping into a pair of vans. She jogged downstairs, “be back soon!” she yelled, again not waiting for a reply, knowing her parents would be distracted with some random movie playing on TV that night. She couldn’t tell if she was feeling something else towards Tom or if she just wanted to finally cross this off her list before she entered the adult world. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter.

Stopping outside of his family’s home she took a deep breath before walking up the steps. There were no cars in the driveway, just Tom’s parked on the lawn so she knocked but there was no answer. She could hear the faint thump of music so she just tried the handle, surprised to find it unlocked. That wouldn’t happen in her household. Shutting the door behind her she walked the path to Tom’s room where the music was coming from. The door had been left open slightly and she could see Tom sitting on the side of his bed, shirt off looking at something she couldn’t see.

Taking a step forward she went to push open the door but another person appearing stopped her dead in her tracks. Amy fucking Smith was suddenly straddling Tom’s lap in all her naked glory. Amanda tore her eyes away from the scene unfolding and tried to quietly exit the house but as she got closer tot eh front door, she tripped and fell. “Fuck,” she cursed, getting up quickly and high tailing it outta there and running until she could no longer see his street.

What the fuck?! Why was there an ache in her chest? She didn’t like him in that way. It was just shock, yeah, just the shock of almost seeing him fuck somebody. She ran the rest of the way home, trying to burn away this odd feeling and when she threw open the front door her parents starred at her confused, their daughter never fucking ran, “I’m going to Belfast, give me the acceptance letter, I’m leaving!”

Unknown to her, Tom had seen her bolt from his house. Soon as he’d heard the bang in the hallway he’d moved Amy off him ready to hit an intruder but there was no mistaking the red hair running away from his house. For the first time in his young life, Tom cursed himself.

[reminiscent-bells]

Regretfest 2017: La La Land

I saw online there was a good deal at the local movie theater - $35 to see every Best Picture-nominated film and the short film nominees - and a thought began to form in my head. What if we could autopsy the bizarre, horrible year of 2016 through its Oscar nominees? Could someone, somehow, reverse engineer whatever led us to this nightmare we can't stop waking up from by reading the entrails of what a bunch of the liberal elite think are the best feature length films?

I decided the answer was maybe, but that person probably isn't me, so this is what you get instead: a gussied-up version of some notes I jotted down in my phone while waiting for the car to warm up.

La La Land is, as you might have heard, a musical. It also happens to be about actors/Hollywood, which has me dreading its chances for the little gold man. I'm going to try to avoid turning this into a full synopsis of the movie and just say that it tracks Mia (Emma Stone), a barista/aspiring actress and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a pianist-for-hire/aspiring jazz musician as they fall in and out of love in and around Los Angeles (GET IT).

(An aside here: There's been a lot of talk online by people much smarter than me about the choice to cast the jazz musician lead here as a white guy. I have to say I agree that it's a poor one. There's a good game talked about the black jazz musicians of the past, and mercifully the movie does cast black actors in most (maybe all?) of the other jazz musician roles, but the only time the movie directly addresses race and jazz is in a brief bit by Gosling that makes out jazz to be some kind of great multicultural endeavor. I can't claim to know enough about jazz to know whether this is a commonly accepted viewpoint or not, but it's....certainly something.)

In any case, my larger bone to pick with this movie is that it eagerly touts itself as a return to the old-fashioned Hollywood musical, but there certainly don't seem to be a lot of musical numbers and the movie only seems to half-heartedly commit to a lot of them. My standard post-movie consultation of the IMDB trivia page shows a comment that this is something of an intentional choice - the music leaves the movie when Stone and Gosling break up, and returns when Stone finally finds happiness - but it still feels like a lot of wasted potential. I'm not that much of a fan of the song that everyone seems to love talking about, "Another Day of Sun", where a vast army of Angelenos leaps from their cars in the midst of a traffic jam to dance on an onramp - this is going to sound a little nuts, but after the crazy car spectacle of Fury Road last year, it just feels phoned-in. (Sidebar: I'm looking forward to the Boston-based musical in a few years that opens with "Another Day in the Ninth Circle" as two guys in Bruins gear attempt to brain each other with snow shovels over a space saver.) However, the two songs that follow it, "Someone in the Crowd", with Mia and her roommates getting prepped for/going to a party, and "A Lovely Night", where Sebastian and Mia sarcastically comment on how silly it would be if they were to get together, are genuinely fun and are a nice exhibition of Stone playing things up and Gosling playing things down to great effect. (However, I'll note that even here there are half-measures: there seems to be a really cool dance routine at the end of "Someone in the Crowd", but the camera is half-in, half-out of a swimming pool and you can't really see anything.)

At this point, it starts to get rough. "City of Stars" is perfomed by Gosling solo and then a longer version with Gosling and Stone together, there's a concert scene after Gosling joins a band that I guess technically counts but isn't much of a number, and then everything else is instrumentals until Mia finally gets her break with "Audition/The Fools Who Dream", which is a very nice perfomance by Stone that had me worrying someone, somewhere was checking off La La Land for Best Picture. There's a beautiful scene where Mia and Sebastian sneak into Griffith Observatory, turn on the planetarium dome, and suddenly float into the air to dance among the stars - why isn't there a song for this? The epilogue of the movie is mostly an extended dream sequence where Mia has an extended dream sequence imagining an alternate life where she stayed with Sebastian - which just has an instrumental track and no song. (This actually gets kind of creepy, as it takes its point of divergence as an earlier moment where Sebastian walks right past an adoring Mia in the restaurant he's playing at, and continues from there to the point where the two are now married, and are basically living through the scene with Mia and her husband going out and ending up at the jazz bar as we just saw it. I half expected to come home and read that David Lynch sleepwalked onto the set, tried to start shooting the Club Silencio sequence from Mulholland Drive, and had to be escorted out by security.) In short: if you're going to have a couple dozen people dancing on cars on the LA freeway at the beginning and Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling dancing on a nebula, why not write a few more songs?

Setting aside the musical side of this, though, it's still a pretty well-together movie. There is a bit of a strange part where Mia's boyfriend (who I don’t think we’ve seen before this point?) shows up out of nowhere and drags her away from a first date with Sebastian to go pick up his brother at the airport or something. This does lead to one of the movie's nicest moments, though - as the boyfriend, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend yammer on about some resort they went to (all of them look like extras from American Psycho), Mia, who had earlier complained about how jazz was overused as background music for parties, hears the jazz on the restaurant's speakers grow louder and louder until it drowns out the conversation and she runs away to see Sebastian. The big blowup between Mia and Sebastian is also well-staged - it has that circuitous feeling of the First Big Argument in a relationship where after a while it becomes unclear how you got to this point or where you're even trying to go to.

Overall, I enjoyed this but it's not my favorite thing. I'm worried that the Academy will just pick this and call it a day, because it seems like the safest, most boring choice possible for them in a year that seems to have some really interesting ones.

Tomorrow night: Fences