#josie x pete

[evelyn-onfire]

guys

guys i need to share my Twin Peaks x Edge of Midnight au. I dont know if anyone in the avantris fandom watches twin peaks so this is probably for a very niche community but I have to share bc im so normal rn

- Marius: just your normal guy in Twin Peaks, except sometimes appears in Cooper’s dreams to tell him clues. Dream Marius knows a lot more than real Marius, but he definitely has unnatural instincts when it comes to the town

- Lethica: a watercolor painter, friends with Josie, is very caring and does her best to help with the investigation. She’s pretty mysterious and sometimes only gives info when she’s asked

- Farryn: lives in a cabin in the woods, friends with the Log Lady, always gives Cooper a homemade charm to protect him. Knows whats going on with the owls and doesn’t like it

- Yorgrim: the guy no one wants to mess with, despite being chill. Can commune with spirits and knows about the Black Lodge but doesn’t wanna talk about it because who the hell does

- Jericho: the town’s performer! Gets along very well with Cooper and despite being a bit paranoid is cheerful in friendly. Except also he’s very possessed but Virgil who knows about Bob and Mike (and maybe who killed Laura) but taunts Cooper endlessly with keeping that info out of reach

- Briggsy: a fisherman who’s friends with Pete and lowkey thinks he’s a pirate. He knows there’s nasty stuff going on in the town but really its non of his business

- William Van Brunt: the town sexyman, has dirt on literally everyone and has ties with Leo and Hank. Despite being an asshole and a flirt and generally unhelpful with the investigation, he’s mostly uninvolved with Laura’s murder other than knowing stuff about Leo and possibly Ben Horne

[multifandomworldsposts]

The Pilot I Fell in Love With

pairing: Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky x fem!reader

warning: making out, kissing, protected sex (pls be protected!!)

Y/N’s POV

My friends and I get ready to go out to a bar called I-Bar. Everyone says it’s the best place to hang out at any time of the week. I mean I’m not a party person, I like staying home a lot. My friends begged me to go out with them because ‘I don't go out much’. 

We get to the bar and it must be a big night, a lot of men from the Navy. Some look attractive, I mean really attractive. My friends and I went to get drinks but I got water. I’m my friend's ride back home.

“Do you see anyone that caught your eye girls?” Josie asks us.

“He looks cute.” Heather points at a man wearing a Navy uniform with brunette hair.

“I like him.” Chloe does the same thing as Heather but to a different man, a man who has a Navy uniform as well.

A man caught my eye, a dirty blonde with sunglasses. When he took his glasses off, he looked so handsome.

“That dirty blonde other there, he really caught my eye, Josie,” I said to her.

“Go and talk to him Y/N/N,” Elle says.

I thought about it. Stop being a shy bitch. Go up to him! I took a deep breath and walked over to where he was at. When I walked up to him, he noticed me.

“Hi there,” I said in a shy way.

“Hi, I noticed you across the room.” He looks at me with a handsome smile.

“Really? Out of all the humans in this room, you noticed me?” I pointed at myself.

“Yeah, so what’s your name?” He smirks.

“Y/N.” I smile.

“It suits you.” He drinks his drink.

“What’s yours?” I get closer to him.

“Tom but you can call me Iceman.”

“Is that a callback name?”

“It is.”

We talked for a little while until my friends told me it was time to go back home.

“I have to go Tom.”

“Why’s that?”

“I think they’re getting tired or something.”

“Can I see you again?”

“If you want, here’s my number.”

I gave him my number and I went to my group of friends.

“What happened out there Y/N/N?” Laura asked.

“Well, his name is Tom and he was really sweet and we might be seeing each other again.” I smiled at Laura.

“Is that him?” Laura pointed at him with other men.

“It is.” I looked at him.

“He does look cute,” Laura says to me.

When I got home from the bar, I’m obviously tired. I get ready for bed and my phone rings, I answer it and it’s Tom.

“Hello?”

“Hi Y/N. It’s Tom.”

“Hi, Tom! I’m surprised that you still have my number.”

“I didn’t want to lose it Y/N.”

I smiled to myself.

“You wanna go see my team and I play volleyball?”

“Yeah sure, where is the volleyball court?”

“It’s at 4893 Riverside Road.”

I wrote the address down.

“Do you want my friends to come?”

“Yeah sure, my team wouldn’t stop talking about them actually and I couldn’t stop talking about you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I sound like a teenager who fell in love the first time.” He chuckles.

I chuckle “Well I’m flattered Tom.”

“I’m glad you are. Hey, I have to go, see you tomorrow.”

“Alright bye, Tom.”

THE NEXT DAY

I pick my friends up to go to the volleyball court. When we got there all of the men noticed us, including Tom. We sat down on the bleachers and watched them play. Heather couldn’t stop looking at her guy.

“Heather, who are you looking at?” I whispered in her ear.

“Oh, his name is Pete.” She blushes.

“You must like that guy huh?” I nudged her right shoulder.

She giggles, “Yeah I guess so.”

I chuckle. I continue watching the game. These men are good. Some of my friends couldn’t stop looking at the men, and I couldn’t stop looking at Tom. Every time he did a score, he would look at me and he would wink at me. Such a teenage thing to do.

When the game was over Tom came up to me sweating.

“You were good out there,” I said getting a little close to him.

“Thank you Y/N. I thought I was bad.” He wipes sweat off his face.

“No, you weren’t.”

He gave me the smile that I saw last night.

“You wanna go on a date tonight?” He questions.

“I would love to.”

He looks down smiling and looked at me, “Where do you want to go?”

“Wherever you want to go.” I smiled at him.

“How about BOA Steakhouse in Santa Monica?” 

“Yeah sure.” 

“You want me to pick you up?”

“Yeah. Let me give you my address.” I wrote down my address on his arm.

“I’ll pick you up at 5:30 tonight, is that okay with you?” 

“That’s okay with me Tom. See you tonight.” I smile at him.

MY APARTMENT

I’m getting ready for my date with Tom. Heather, Josie, Elle, Chloe and Laura helped me get ready for my date. When Tom picked me up for dinner, which the food was so delicious! We went on a walk on the Santa Monica Pier. Everything was so beautiful!

I hear ‘Lonesome Town’ by Ricky Nelson, I start blushing and Tom noticed me.

“You like this song?” He looks at me.

“Oh, my parents would dance to this song and I remember how cute they looked.” I looked down and looked at him.

“You wanna dance?” He stops us in our tracks by raising his right hand to me.

“Sure.” I take his hand.

We danced it felt like it was for hours, but it was really about several minutes. I noticed some people walking on the pier looking at us. I saw one kid looking at us and she looked smiley.

MY APARTMENT

“I had a wonderful time Tom.” I leaned back on my door.

“I did too.” He leans forward with his left hand on my door.

“When are you free if you want to go out somewhere?” I question.

“Well all because of the Navy, I’m busy but we can go out again two weeks from now.”

“Where do you want to go to?”

“Anywhere you want to go to.”

“I have to think about it, Tom.” I get closer to him.

“Here’s the naval base’s number so you can call me.” He gives me a number.

“Hope we see each other again.”

“I hope so as well.” He kisses my cheek and I think I’m blushing again.

“Once again Tom, I had such a good time.”

“I’m glad you did Y/N, I’ll call you when I have a chance okay.”

“Alright, Tom.” I kiss his cheek and unlock my door and look back at Tom who’s already walking to the elevator and looking back at me.

When I got to my apartment, Heather, Josie, Elle, and Laura were watching a movie on my TV and they looked at me looking all lovey-dovey.

“So, what happened?” Josie walks up to me.

The rest of the girls came up to me.

“It was so romantic.”

“Y/N, you’re blushing.” Elle noticed.

I look down and looked back up “We went to the Santa Monica Pier and we walked around and we danced to a song from my childhood.”

“What song was it?” Heather says.

“Lonesome Town by Randy Nelson.”

“That’s sweet. He seems like a nice guy.” Elle says.

“He is. The BOA Steakhouse is fucking delicious!”

“I heard it is. What did you two get?” Josie said.

“I got the Shrimp Pasta and he got the uh, Bone-In Kansas City Filet.”

“I wanna go there now! They sound so good!” Heather said.

“Let’s all go together, Josie, your birthday is coming up,” I said.

“Is the food expensive?” She questions.

“Well, let me add up what our food costs.” I thought about how much was the food.

“About 100 dollars maybe.”

“Y/N! We can’t afford that!” Elle explained.

“Well, it is the most popular place in LA.”

“I can see that now!” Heather said.

“I want to go get in my pajamas and talk about my date more with you guys.” I walk into my bedroom and got undressed to get in my pajamas.

Tom Kazanky, is the sweetest man I’ve ever met. I hope our relationship lasts a long time.

We went on several dates and were now beyond close. We would kinda rarely see each other because of him at the navy and me working at Mel’s Drive-In. He would come in eventually to check on me, he’ll actually order something and his team would come in including the manager and the owner of the naval base.

One day when I came home from work he left me a note on my door saying,

I’m going to pick you up here tonight to go somewhere special so wear something casual for the night.

Love,

Iceman.

I get ready for whatever he going to do tonight. I don’t ask Elle, Heather, Josie, Chloe, and Laura because I want to get ready on my own and focus on what I’m going say to Tom.

I get to the final touches of my face and made sure my summer dress looks good until I hear knocking. I answer the door and it’s Iceman.

“You look beautiful Y/N/N.” He smiles.

“Thank you,” I said. I got my purse and walked out to be beside him.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“You’ll see, it’s a surprise.” He smirks.

We get to Venice Beach and I see a picnic blanket with some food and some drinks. We talked about how our lives are going so far.

“you actually can dance?” Tom says while being on his side.

“Do you want to see a trick?”

“Show me.”

I get up and prepare myself to do a Front Ariel, I do the trick correctly. I can see that Tom is impressed by it.

“Didn’t know you could do that.” He smiles.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time.” I sit back down in front of him.

“For how long? The dancing I mean.” He sits up to me.

“For about.” I think to myself.

“14 years.”

“14? And you can do a..” He gets confused.

“A Front Aerial,” I tell him.

“A Front Aerial, which I didn’t even think that you can do any dance trick.” 

“Can you?”

“Y/N/N, I’m a pilot, not a dancer.” 

“Please show me something,” I say to him.

“Did you hear what I just said?” He said with a smile on his face.

“Oh come on, just one thing you can do, everyone can dance.” I put my right hand on his left shoulder.

“Fine, fine, this is called what you dancers call a weird walk.” 

He does this walk in front of me and he lays down but looks like he was going to do the worm. I giggle. He kisses me. It felt like we were the only humans on this earth. 

We came back to my place, making out. When we got in my door, our clothes were getting off of our bodies. The way he kissed me, it felt so good. 

“Y/N/N.” He stops kissing me and looks at me. 

“Yes?” I look at him.

“Are you ready for this?”

I think for a second, “Yes.”

He picks me up and I wrap my legs around his waist. 

“Where’s your bedroom?” Tom wraps his arms around me.

“Down that hallway, the last door at the end of the hallway.” I look at him with a little smile on my face. Tom gives me the same smile and walks where my room.

When we got to my room he opens the door and walked to the edge of my bed, setting me down gently. I help him take his clothes off, and he helps me as well. He grabs my waist to set me down, and I giggle. He starts to kiss me again, I gave in to the kiss, I don't want this to end. 

“Do you have something?” Tom whispers in my ear.

“Yes,” I said looking at him. I can tell he's in love even more with me.

I lean to my right on my nightstand to get a condom. When I got one out of the box I gave it to him. He put on his cock and he looks at me again. 

“Ready?” He positions himself at my entrance.

“I’m ready Iceman.” He smiles.

The way he did it, it felt so good. The way he kissed me, it was different than any other kisses I’ve ever gotten from any man in my life. We were like this all night including making love all night. He kept me safe and he kept me a saint.

When I woke up from the most romantic night of my life I saw a note on my nightstand and Tom wasn't by my side. I pick up the note and it says,

Late night was really romantic and I hope you had a sweet time like I did. By the way, call me at the Naval Base when you wake up, I need to tell you something.

Love, 

Iceman.

I get dressed in pajamas, get my phone in my living room, and call the Naval Base. I tell the phone operator to get Iceman on the phone. 

“Hello?”

“Hi Tom, it’s Y/N. You wanted me to call you?”

“Yes I did, I want to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I’m graduating from the Naval Base and I want you to come to see me graduate.”

“I would love to!”

“I’ll come down to your apartment to send you some information about the graduation and invite your friends as well okay, I’ll get tickets for them.”

“Thank you, Tom. Get 6 tickets for my friends and me.”

“I will baby.”

“See you soon Iceman.”

“See you soon Y/N/N.”

I call my Laura, Josie, Elle, Heather, and Chloe to say that were invited to our guys’ graduation! Tom gave me the tickets and I gave the girls the tickets when they came to my apartment to get ready for the graduation. We get ready and took pictures and brought the Polaroid with us at the graduation. We took a lot of pictures.

When Tom got his plaque I was so happy. When the ceremony ended I went up to Tom and gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he kisses my lips. His co-pilot looked at us like he was happy but there was another look that he was giving us, a get-a-room look.

My friends took pictures of us including the pilots took pictures of us. Chloe took a picture of Tom and me smiling. I kept it. The picture looked like we were married and we were in love. 

Several years later Tom and I get married with 2 children and 3 grandchildren. Slider would babysit our kids when Tom is busy with work including me. Pete visited us when Tom got sick, even worse than being sick, if he tried to talk, his vocal cords would hurt and he had to type up on he wanted to say to me including his family and friends. When he passed away, my world was flipped around. I thought of our memories, the day we met, our first date, our first time, our wedding, and our first child. He is a sweet man and him treating me like a princess. 

Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky, the pilot I met and fell in love with in 1986.

[countdowntotwinpeaks]

WONDERFULXSTRANGE NOMINATIONS SUMMARY

Nominations make up the pool of all the characters and character combos that will be offerable and requestable for the 2024 edition of the exchange. Cast list too big for TP gotdamn feet so we need this step for wieldy signups.

To nominate, fill this form with your selection of up to 8 characters or character combos. Up to 2 of your nominations can be crossovers that include Twin Peaks characters. Tulpas and assorted fragments are nominated separately. Rules, formatting and examples in link.

This page is updated with the results throughout the nominations days.

Entries are grouped by solo characters / groups / non-romantic relationships / romantic relationships / crossovers

2024 LIST:

Dale Cooper

Laura Palmer

Chester Desmond

Diane Evans

Denise Bryson

Hawk

Norma Jennings

Annie Blackburn

Harold Smith

Josie Packard

Albert Rosenfield

Sarah Palmer

Ronette Pulaski

Shelly Johnson

The Log

The thrush

Constance Talbot

Tammy Preston

The Blue Rose task force

Laura Palmer & Dale Cooper

Tammy Preston & Denise Bryson

Audrey Horne & Laura Palmer

Dale Cooper & Audrey Horne

Gordon Cole & Albert Rosenfield

Laura Palmer & Maddie Ferguson

Major Briggs&Bobby Briggs

ShellyJohnson&Becky McCauley Briggs

Diane Shapiro & Diane Evans

Sarah Palmer & Becky Burnett

Dale Cooper & Harry Truman

Audrey Horne & Denise Bryson

Annie Blackburn & Laura Palmer

Albert Rosenfield & Diane Evans

Garland Briggs & Douglas Milford

Donna Hayward & Harold Smith

Laura Palmer & Sarah Palmer

Tommy 'Hawk' Hill & Margaret Lanterman

Audrey Horne & Bobby Briggs

Audrey Horne & Pete Martell

Laura Palmer & Teresa Banks

Laura Palmer & Norma Jennings

Norma Jennings & Annie Blackburn

Audrey Horne & Laura Palmer

Margaret Lanterman & The Log

Laura Palmer & Bobby Briggs

Albert Rosenfield & Dale Cooper

Dale Cooper & Diane Evans

Lucy Moran & Phillip Jeffries

Diane Evans & Laura Palmer

Lil the Dancer & Audrey Horne

American Girl & Señorita Dido

Wally Brando & Harry Truman

Harry Truman & Frank Truman

Señorita Dido & Dale Cooper & Laura Palmer

Laura Palmer & Donna Hayward & James Hurley & Audrey Horne & Bobby Briggs

Harry Truman & Wally Brando & Lucy Moran & Andy Brennan

Laura Palmer & Donna Hayward & Shelly Johnson & Ronette Pulaski

Becky Burnett & Shelly Johnson & Bobby Briggs

Laura Palmer & Teresa Banks & Ronette Pulaski

Donna Hayward & Gersten Hayward & Harriet Hayward

Albert Rosenfield & Dale Cooper & Harry Truman

Bobby Briggs & the Bookhouse Boys

Blue Rose Team & Constance Talbot

the Roadhouse MC & Black Lodge spirits

Laura Palmer/Donna Hayward

Denise Bryson/Dale Cooper

Albert Rosenfield/Dale Cooper

Bobby Briggs/Audrey Horne

Bobby Briggs/Shelly Johnson

Bobby Briggs/Laura Palmer

Janey-E Jones/Dougie Jones

Diane Shapiro/Tommy "Hawk" Hill

Dale Cooper/Harry Truman

Harry Truman/Albert Rosenfield

Maddie Ferguson/Donna Hayward

Chantal Hutchens/Gary "Hutch" Hutchens

Laura Palmer/Donna Hayward

Laura Palmer/Ronette Pulaski

Shelly Johnson/Laura Palmer

Annie Blackburn/Laura Palmer

Margaret Lanterman/Samson Lanterman

Tammy Preston/Cynthia Knox

Dale Cooper/Albert Rosenfield/Harry Truman

Albert Rosenfield/Dale Cooper/Diane Evans

Harry Truman/Dale Cooper/Josie Packard

Josie Packard & Harry Truman/Dale Cooper

Laura Palmer/Ronette Pulaski & Teresa Banks

Albert Rosenfield & Herbert West (Re-Animator)

Laura Palmer & Jeffrey Beaumont (Blue Velvet)

Dale Cooper & Fox Mulder (The X-Files)/Dana Scully (The X-Files)

Diane Evans & Klaasje Amandou (Disco Elysium)

Dale Cooper & Harry Du Bois (Disco Elysium)

Wally Brando & Noid (Disco Elysium)

If you see any duplicates please let me know!

[thanksforthedinosaur]

october 2024

julia wolf - in my room

soccer mommy - driver

sydney sprague - hello cruel world

nilüfer yanya - like i say (i runaway)

siobhán winifred - stay for good

porches - itch

mila cargo - tasty

holly hebe - bottle blonde

michelle - mentos and coke

ally evenson - one trick pony

kennedy mann - lucky star

rocco! - as you please

britta raci - pete rose

silvie - big dreamy head

mercer henderson - lock me up

worrystone - soft light

lunar vacation - tom

wendy wang - maple tears

josie dunne - place to be

daisy the great - butterfly, stay dry

mxmtoon - the situation

nelly furtado - floodgate

tasha - love's changing

hinds - coffee

abigail osborn - the sweater song

meg smith - poltergeist

carol ades - everything else is just noise

marian carmel - take what i can get

being there - i just think we got too close

okay kaya - the groke

willow - b i g f e e l i n g s

frex - who's who

charlie houston - slut for excel

alemeda - below the belt

linying - donovan

lolo zouaï - unhhh

lavie - toxic beliefs

chloe adams - barbie doll

cherry swim club - what's your sign

trella - taxi driver

mount eerie - broom of wind

haley heynderickx - foxglove

teen jesus and the jean teasers - never saw it coming

luna shadows - little rituals (end of summer version)

da flyy hooligan - xylo

wale the sage - running up the hill

fashawn - bad bitches love this song

talib kweli - to the ghetto

nuglife - illegal muny

harve - like that

jazzgroupiez - pastels

kris the $pirit - 24 hours

tunde olaniran - good time

terrace martin - read the room

miles from kinshasa - no return

jaz karis - sims castaway

orion sun - twilight zone

justin nozuka - chlorine

lee darom - what is my color? (feat. perc%nt)

han all - i don't care (sped up) - bonus track

park bird - tokyo

galileo galilei - オフィーリア

bump of chicken - sleep walking orchestra

4s4ki - ねえ聞いて

ihasamic! - crossing border lines in budget airlines

aya a.k.a panda - beyond

mori calliope - end of a life

mori calliope - reunion

takanashi kiara - chimera

luss - lonely (extrovert?)

key - pleasure shop

429 - resukyumi-!

jihoon - desire

kira - hit me up

room306 - 5

kira - nice type

9lana - never give up

pia mia - nice and slow

so much light - mom, please pick me up

katy perry - gorgeous (feat. kim petras)

paris hilton - i'm free (feat. rina sawayama)

louis the child - believe it

dora jar - behind the curtain

biig piig - 4am

tiffany day - always fun

wilo wilde - feeling this way

piri & tommy - dog

vitesse x - eternal

white chorus - mystery, pt. 2

francisco victoria - te quiero tanto

vava - intersection

gaburyu - vraveater - hirihiri remix

lucy rose - light as grass - logic remix

toro y moi - reseda

8485 - goreblog

hippo campus - corduroy

meishi smile - stay like this forever

briana marela - horizon

yvette young - always

film school - tape rewind

slowdive - kisses

pale waves - imagination

the rare occasions - floating

letters from my garden - sensitive eyes

delta sleep - figure in the dark

wild pink - dulling the horns

balance and composure - with you in spirit

cursive - the avalanche of our demise

touché amoré - nobody’s

magnolia park - i2i

blink-182 - can't go back

hot mulligan - stickers of brian

what gives - the great divide

pony - every little crumb

rosie tucker - all i want is utopia now!

allie - from the dead

the rocket summer - way out

nada surf - give me the sun

bedchamber - the bigfoot trademark logo

goldmyth - chlorine

boyscott - rocky road

mallcops - marceline

runaway brother - secret technique

lakes - stitches

ethel cain - for sure

[ulkaralakbarova]

From Wichita to Dodge City, to the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Wyatt Earp is taught that nothing matters more than family and the law. Joined by his brothers and Doc Holliday, Earp wages war on the dreaded Clanton and McLaury gangs.  Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Wyatt Earp: Kevin Costner Doc Holliday: Dennis Quaid Nicholas Earp: Gene Hackman James Earp: David Andrews Morgan Earp: Linden Ashby Ike Clanton: Jeff Fahey Josie Marcus: Joanna Going Sheriff Johnny Behan: Mark Harmon Virgil Earp: Michael Madsen Allie Earp: Catherine O’Hara Ed Masterson: Bill Pullman Big Nose Kate: Isabella Rossellini Bat Masterson: Tom Sizemore Bessie Earp: JoBeth Williams Mattie Blaylock: Mare Winningham Mr. Sutherland: James Gammon Frank McLaury: Rex Linn John Clum: Randle Mell Tom McLaury: Adam Baldwin Urilla Sutherland: Annabeth Gish Curly Bill Brocius: Lewis Smith Young Wyatt: Ian Bohen Virginia Earp: Betty Buckley Lou Earp: Alison Elliott Sherm McMasters: Todd Allen Francis O’Rourke: Mackenzie Astin Warren Earp: Jim Caviezel Mrs. Sutherland: Karen Grassle Frank Stillwell: John Dennis Johnston Sally: Téa Leoni Ed Ross: Martin Kove Bob Hatch: Jack Kehler Pete Spence: Kirk Fox Johnny Ringo: Norman Howell Marshal Fred White: Boots Southerland Indian Charlie: James ‘Scotty’ Augare Billy Clanton: Gabriel Folse Billy Claiborne: Kris Kamm Judge Spicer: John Lawlor John Shanssey: Michael McGrady Dr. Seger: Ben Zeller Stable Hand: Rockne Tarkington Mayor Wilson: David Doty Gyp Clements: Matt O’Toole Saddle Tramp: Brett Cullen Danny: Owen Roizman Gambler: Lawrence Kasdan McGee: Matt Beck Film Crew: Costume Design: Colleen Atwood Original Music Composer: James Newton Howard Producer: Kevin Costner Set Decoration: Cheryl Carasik Production Design: Ida Random Producer: Lawrence Kasdan Executive Producer: Charles Okun Director of Photography: Owen Roizman Producer: Jim Wilson Casting: Jennifer Shull Editor: Carol Littleton Art Direction: Gary Wissner Set Designer: Charlie Daboub Key Costumer: Barry Francis Delaney Set Designer: Barry Chusid Music Editor: Jim Weidman Supervising Sound Editor: Stu Bernstein Camera Operator: Ian Fox Executive Producer: Michael Grillo Hair Supervisor: Marlene D. Williams Assistant Art Director: Gershon Ginsburg Executive Producer: Dan Gordon Camera Operator: Bill Roe Foley: John Murray Script Supervisor: Anne Rapp Second Unit Director of Photography: Richard Bowen Set Designer: Tom Reta Dialogue Editor: Lewis Goldstein Executive Producer: Jon Slan Makeup Artist: Francisco X. Pérez Stunts: Gary McLarty Visual Effects Producer: Robert Stadd Chief Lighting Technician: Ian Kincaid Still Photographer: Ben Glass Dialogue Editor: James Matheny Costume Supervisor: Cha Blevins Foley: Dan O’Connell Property Master: William A. Petrotta Supervising Sound Editor: Robert Grieve Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Rick Kline Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Kevin O’Connell Construction Coordinator: Greg John Callas Boom Operator: Joel Shryack ADR Supervisor: Jessica Gallavan Hairstylist: Elle Elliott Dialogue Editor: Alison Fisher Key Makeup Artist: Gerald Quist Makeup Supervisor: Michael Mills ADR Editor: Joe Dorn Supervising Dialogue Editor: Bobby Mackston Key Costumer: Ruby K. Manis Key Grip: Tim Ryan Location Manager: Paul Hargrave Key Hair Stylist: Dorothy D. Fox Steadicam Operator: Rusty Geller ADR Editor: Stephen Janisz Rigging Gaffer: Kim Kono Dolly Grip: David L. Merrill Costume Supervisor: Le Dawson Key Costumer: James M. George Casting Associate: Phil Poulos Casting Associate: Elizabeth Shull Movie Reviews: GenerationofSwine: Tombstone was a different beast, and that sort of overshadows this, given that one tries to be more accurate and the other goes for entertainment. Take Wyatt Earp as a biopic and it is a superb and fair film. Compare it to Tombstone which was more of a Western and it’s lacking the flair. However, it ends abruptly, and it is miscast. Cosner (and i am a fan) doesn’t really make a good Earp. Dennis Quaid who I am also a fan of, doesn’t make a good Doc. This was 1994, in the 80s I might have a dif...

[amorremanet]

Well, today, I slapped together several playlists about my loser nerd OC’s and some of their relationships, and was reminded in stereo of just how painfully questionable my taste in music sometimes is. ………Yay?

[theenbynightingale]

Thoughts on Human Resources (Big Mouth Spin-Off)

I've gone through Human Resources a decent amount of times so I think I can let out how I feel now. I got to say about it and it's mostly good!

I think the back and forth between being episodic and having a set storyline takes a while to get used to, especially since Emmy's story arc suddenly shifts from her getting accustomed to her new job to a rivalry with Rochelle.

I also think that the show suffers a bit from having so many characters. A few storylines just kind of end suddenly, such as the Nadja/Rochelle/Petra episode. I'm not really sure if Gil and Joe should have been more than funny supporting characters rather then getting their own storylines.

Okay, good stuff now!

The show has two major advantages to being about the monsters, the first is shifting the focus of the show from puberty to to just human life in general. It cuts down on some of the grosser moments (not all, it's still the Big Mouth universe) and touches on subjects they couldn't have talked about before. The episodes focused on dementia, postpartum depression, grief, forbidden love, and the process of letting go stand out in particular.

The second advantage is getting more development from the monsters rather than just being comedic relief. We get to know about characters we've grown to love and get some great worldbuilding, like showing more of the Ambition Gremlins and introducing Logic Rocks.

I will say that we do get to know some characters a bit too much. The Sham Wizard, or Lionel, had some great moments but the whole erotic humiliation and Oedipal subplots with him feel a bit uncomfortable, though that obviously isn't new for this show.

Not enough Mona. I love Mona. I want her to step on me.

Also, Rick was right. I was totally getting a vibe between her and the owl woman.

Also, Rick gets too much hate. He got a lot of laughs out of me. "My grandparents did some stuff I am not proud of!"

Why didn't Jean Smart come back to voice Kitty?

I loved seeing more of Maury and Connie's relationship, rather than it being an amusing running gag. Upon a re-watch, I liked how the final story of them arguing over a future as parents was set up throughout the previous episodes. I hope this isn't dropped in the next Big Mouth season only to come back for the next season of Human Resources.

I loved the new characters of Pete and Petra. Petra's just fun because of Rosie Perez and Pete brought a different energy to the show, while bouncing off the others well.

The romance conflict wasn't so bad, considering love triangles/squares/whatever usually irritate me. I am curious about Dante, though. The finale established he indeed loved Rochelle but I'm not sure how long he can be a healthy character.

I liked most of the human characters and I hope we get to see more of some of them. I think Becca and Doug might have finished their arcs. But I hope we get to see more of Natalie and Nadja. Nadja deserves love.

Also, Natalie's back! She's great! She's funny and witty! Josie Totah gave a good performance! We can learn more about her! I like Natalie!

It got a lot more emotional than I expected. First, Sonya's episode, then Yara's? Both are an emotional rollercoasters but they have a very bittersweet end that will wreck you.

I liked seeing another Depression Kitty and seeing how depression can come in different forms. Cat Stevens being a lot less intrusive and more mellow and caring was a pretty neat.

He should be with Emmy. Emmy, girl. You can do better. You've been through a shit ton of character development!

Walter x Simon Sex is my OTP though.

NOT ENOUGH SONGS!

Gavin's... dead. So that's a thing. I'm sure that'll have repercussions for Lionel next season. Besides, Mona can do better.

I'm a Mona simp if you couldn't tell. That's my overall feeling on Human Resources.

[jessicaaatje]

People I'll write for

Some will be platonic, but sometimes I can make them not platonic. You can make couples, then I will maybe write a poly fic, or one where the couple are the parents of the reader.

WOSO

Alex Morgan

Christen Press

Ashlyn Harris

Ali Krieger

Tobin Heath

Lindsey Horan

Emily Sonnett

Kelley O'Hara

Hope Solo

Leah Williamson

Jill Roord

Jackie Groenen

Vivianne Miedema

Alexia Putellas

Jenni Hermoso

And more...

STRANGER THINGS

Max Mayfield

Eleven

Nancy Wheeler

Robin Buckley

Susy

Erica Sinclair

Chrissy

Kali

Platonic

Will Byers

Mike Wheeler

Lucas Sinclair

Dustin Henderson

Eddie Munson

Steve Harrington

Parents

Jim Hopper

Joyce Byers

Bob Newby

Murray

MARVEL

Natasha Romanoff

Wanda Maximoff

Yelena Belova

Daisy Johnson

Jemma Simmons

Melinda May

Kate Bishop

Elena Rodriguez

Bobbi Morse

Sprite

Darcy Lewis

And more...

Platonic

Leo Fitz

Deke Shaw

Mack

Peter Parker

Pietro Maximoff

And more...

GLEE

Santana Lopez

Quinn Fabray

Marley Rose

Mercedes Jones

Platonic

Kurt Hummel

Noah Puckerman

Blaine Anderson

DC

Sara Lance

Zari Tarazi

Zari Tomaz

Spooner

Astra Logue

Gideon

Amaya Jiwe

Charlie

Ava Sharpe

Kara Danvers

Alex Danvers

Maggie Sawyer

Lena Luthor

Laurel Lance

Thea Queen

Mia Queen

Dinah Drake

Felicity Smoak

Killer Frost

Caitlin Snow

Nora West-Allen

Allegra Garcia

Jesse Quick

Lois Lane

Sarah Dawes

Nyssa al Ghul

Platonic

Most of the boys in the arrowverse

CRIMINAL MINDS

Emily Prentiss

Jennifer Jareau

Alex Blake

Kate Cahallan

Elle Greenaway

Penelope Garcia

Platonic

Derek Morgan

Spencer Reid

Parent

Aaron Hotchner

David Rossi

Jason Gideon

PITCH PERFECT

Becca Mitchell

Chloe Beale

Aubrey Posen

Emily Junk

Fat Amy

QUANTICO

Alex Parrish

Shelby Wyatt

Nimah and her Sister

DISNEY

DESCENDANTS

Mal

Evie

Uma

Audrey

TVD

Caroline Forbes

Bonnie Bennett

Lizzie Saltzman

Hope Mikealson

Josie Saltzman

Penelope Park

Rebekah Mikealson

Hayley Marshall

Davina Claire

Freya Mikealson

ARCANE

Jinx

Powder

Vi

Lost In Space

Penny Robinson

Judy Robinson

Platonic

Will Robinson

HUNGER GAMES

Katniss Everdeen

Foxface

Primrose Everdeen

Johanna Mason

And mkre from the 74th hunger games women

TWILIGHT

Alice Cullen

Leah Clearwater

Reneesmee Cullen

Rosalie Hale

HARRY POTTER

Ginny Weasley

Hermione Granger

Luna Lovegood

Tonks

Daphne Greengrass

Lily Evans

Platonic

Fred Weasley

George Weasley

Parents

Remus Lupin

Sirius Black

James Potter

Remus x Sirius

James x Lily

ZERO CHILL

Kayla

Ava Hammerstrom

Sky

GAME OF THRONES

Arya Stark

Sansa Stark

Ygritte

Brienne

Margaery Tyrell

Daenerys Targaryen

REIGN

Mary Stuart

Lola

Kenna

Greer

THE 100

Clarke Griffin

Octavia Blake

Harper

Raven Reyes

Lexa

Anya

Madi Griffin

Cobra Kai

Sam LaRusso

Top Gun

Penny Benjamin

Amelia Benjamin

Natasha 'Phoenix' Trace

Platonic

Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw

'Hangman'

Parents

Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell

'Iceman'

'Goose'

More To Come!

[jord-w-bush]

Turn Off the Dark: Prologue

Hey all! As promised I'm going to be posting a multi-chapter Peter Parker (TASM) x OC fic! I've got the first few chapters done, and just wanted to give you guys a little taste of what to expect! I hope you all enjoy Turn Off the Dark!

***I do not own Peter Parker or any other characters contained within the Marvel Spider-Man creative content. Josie and the rest of the Butlers are characters of my own.***

***I found this gif in the search and it's perfect for the chapter setting so thank you to the creator you're a star. Bless you***

Chapter 1

“Gwen Stacey was a hero. She was a hero that I think no one expected. She saved me. Several times actually…when I first moved here, a poor scared little girl from the desert, Gwen took me under her wing and showed me how to live in the big city. Our friendship had it’s ups and downs, like most, but I will always remember her as the spunky blonde girl in my 3rd grade class, who always knew the answer to everything. You know, when I think about Gwen, one particular memory always sticks out…”

1 year ago

“Okay guys, great work today! Enjoy the rest of your day, and I’ll see you all tomorrow after school!” Mr. Goodman said to his drama class as the bell signaling the end of the period began to ring. Josephine Butler pushed the door to the auditorium open and walked toward her locker. Midtown Science High School’s spring musical was just around the corner, so the cast was rehearsing tirelessly to make sure the show was perfect. She waved at Gwen and Peter who were chatting at Peter’s locker, signaling to them she’d be right back to chat. She moved quickly to the restroom and flung open the door, realizing she was the only one inside, and went about her business. As she was washing her hands, she heard a strange sound coming from the stall she had just occupied.

Thinking the toilet was just broken, she approached the door and peeked inside. Josie discovered that the whole toilet was vibrating, and the noise got louder and louder and the whole stall started shaking. She backed up toward the wall of sinks slowly, not totally frozen in fear, but unable to process the fact that she should probably leave the bathroom. Suddenly, the toilet was seemingly pulled into ground, and she let out a loud scream of fear. From the giant hole in the floor, she noticed a clawed hand reaching up toward her. Her brain finally connected with the rest of her body, and she sprinted out of the bathroom and toward her friends. They looked at her with questioning glances, but before she could say anything, the giant lizard thing from the bridge burst from the bathroom and let out a loud roar.

“Take Josie and go!” Peter shouted to Gwen.

She gave him a look of defiance, but he grabbed her arm and pushed her away, “GO!” he commanded again.

“Peter what about you??” Josie cried, as Gwen pulled her away.

“I’m right behind you, I promise” he said, before she was pulled around the corner and she lost sight of him. She and Gwen ran from the building and out into the street, where the rest of the student body had congregated. Sirens could be heard in the distance indicating that help was already on the way. Josie turned to Gwen and saw that she was still staring at the school, with a worried expression on her face. Through the windows, the bystanders were able to catch small flashes of blue and red attacking scaly green.

“Gwen, what are you thinking…?” Josie asked her friend, realizing quickly that whatever was going on in the blonde’s head was not a safe thought.

“I’m going back in there to help Spider-Man” Gwen replied matter of factly. Josie felt her eyes get wider than saucers, as she grabbed Gwen by the arms tightly.

“Are you crazy??” She exclaimed, “Spider-Man can handle himself! He’s got spider powers or whatever. What are you gonna bring to the fight, Gwen? Your 5.0 GPA and quick wit??”

Gwen smirked at Josie and backed away, “I promise, I’ll be right back! Go find Peter! Maybe he left through the back exit!”

Josie knew there was no stopping Gwen Stacy when her mind was made up, so she let her go, albeit reluctantly. She watched her blonde head get further and further away. Not even 5 minutes later, she caught a glimpse of Gwen in the sky bridge windows, wielding a trophy and then almost immediately being tossed out said window by Spider-Man. Josie rushed to her friend’s side, shaking her head. She may be crazy, Josie thought, but she sure is awesome…

“Gwen was the kind of person that set her mind on something and didn’t stop working for it until she saw it through to the end. And that’s what I like to think that’s what she was doing in her final moments. She was always set on helping others. She saved lots of people by clearing them off the streets that night and I know those people will forever thank her, and she will live on in their memories as well. She would want us to live on, and set out to achieve the dreams we never thought possible to achieve. To face the obstacles we never thought we could face. I know I will. Because Gwen Stacy taught me that the only thing stopping you from reaching the stars is your own feet stuck on the ground. I’ll miss you Gwen. We all will.”

Josie looked up into the crowd, at all the people who had gathered for Gwen’s funeral. Her mother and brothers, friends from school, random people she didn’t recognize. They all shared the same sorrowful expression and tear soaked cheeks while experiencing the loss of such an outstanding young woman. She made eye contact with Peter Parker, and he quickly looked away, presumably to hide his silent sobbing. She stepped away from her spot in front of Gwen’s casket and rejoined her parents in the crowd.

***

After the funeral was over, Josie excused herself from her family and approached Peter, who was just staring at the recently dug grave and cleared her throat to alert him of her presence. He didn’t even flinch.

“Hey Pete,” she started, “I just want you to know that I’m here for you okay? If you need to talk or for someone to just…be there. I’m here. You know I always will be.”

When he didn’t reply, she gave him one last glance before walking out of the cemetery with her family.

[hopelikethemoon]

Homecoming (Javier x Reader) {MTMF} [smut]

Title: Homecoming Rating: Explicit  Length: 3200 Warnings: Smut (not everyone gets a ‘happy ending’ but everyone is still happy) Notes: You can find everything about Maybe Today, Maybe Forever here. Set Summerish 1995. ‘95 is a weird year without dates yet. Perhaps that’s a tomorrow task Thanks to everyone who asked for “imperfect sex”.  Summary: Reader gets home after a business trip.

@grapemama​​ @seawhisperer​​ @huliabitch​​ @pedropascalito​​ @rogrsnbarnes​​ @thewallpapergoesorido​ @twomoonstwosuns​​ @gooddaykate​​ @livasaurasrex​​ @ham4arrow​​ @plexflexico​​​ @readsalot73​​ @hdlynn​​​ @lokiaddicted​​​ @randomness501​ @fioccodineveautunnale​​  @roxypeanut​​​ @snivellusim​​​ @lukesrighthand​​​ @historynerd04 @mrsparknuts​​​ @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​​ @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead​​​ @exrebelshocktrooper​​​ @awesomefandomsunited​​​ @ah-callie​​​ @swhiskeys​​​ @lady-tano​​​ @beskar-droids​​​ @space-floozy​​​ @cable-kenobi​​​ @cool-ultra-nerd @himbopoes​​​ @findhimfives​​​ @pedrosdoll​​​ @frietiemeloen​​​ @arrowswithwifi​​​ @random066​​ @uncomicalhumour​​​ @heather-lynn​​​ @domino-oh-damn​​​ @cyarikaaa​​ @ahopelessromanticwritersworld​​​ @im-still-a-pieceofgarbage @ksgeekgirl​​  @yabby-girl​​ @xqueenofthecraziesx​​​ @punkass-potato​​ @coredrive​​ @pascalesque​​ @theduchessofkirkcaldy​​ @queenquazar​​ @sabinemorans​​ @buckstaposition​​ @holkaskrosnou​​ @yespolkadotkitty​​ @fleetwoodmactshirt​​ @seeking-a-great–perhaps @kochamcie​ 

You drummed your fingers against the steering wheel as you watched another minute tick by on the digital clock on your dashboard. You were supposed to be home almost an hour ago, but an accident on I-95 had brought traffic to a standstill before you had a chance to get onto Route 1. 

Thank God for car phones. 

You opened the center console, keying in the home phone before tucking it between your shoulder and your ear as you focused on inching forward another two feet. 

“Hello?”

“Hey,” You smiled as Javier picked up the phone. “Still stuck on the road.”

“Jesus Christ,” Javier clicked his tongue against his teeth. “You got enough gas?”

“I filled up on the turnpike,” You assured him, glancing at the fuel gauge, “I’m good. Promise.” 

“Any movement?”

You glanced at a road sign as you inched past it. “I’m almost to 112. I’m gonna try to un-ass myself of this mess there.”

“Maybe another thirty?” He questioned hopefully. 

“That’s optimistic,” You chuckled, pushing your fingers through your hair as you grumbled at the car in front of you. “Yeah, sure. Just come on over jackass. Not like the rest of us are trying to get out of this shit too.”

“Ah, I see the road rage has settled in.” Javier teased. 

“I just wanna be home.” You admitted. “I thought I could do this whole work-trip thing, but… I’m not a fan.”

“I know, baby. Four days is a long time.”

“I don’t know how you did it,” You remarked. How many times had he had to go away in Colombia? You hadn’t even considered the agony of being away from Javi and Josie until you had settled into your first night alone in a hotel room in St. Pete.

“Did you have fun at least?”

“You know me, I just love public speaking to a bunch of men who think they know better than me.” You laughed bitterly, “It was fine. I actually did really well.”

“Of course you did, baby.” You could practically feel the adoration in his voice. “If it’s any consolation — we missed you. A lot.”

“I missed you too,” You chewed on your bottom lip. “I cannot wait to be home.”

“Yeah?” Javier clicked his tongue against his teeth. “I made dinner. Well, I ordered dinner.”

“It’s going to be cold by the time I get home,” You sighed, rubbing at your forehead as traffic came to a complete halt again. “What’d you get?”

“Chinese. General Tso’s, fried rice, your favorite egg rolls.”

“You know how to spoil me.”

“I have a few plans to spoil you.”

“Momma!” Josie squealed from somewhere on the other side of the call and your heart clenched. 

“You wanna say hello, JoJo?” Javier questioned, “Hang on.” There was a rustle of noise as he sat the phone down, before returning a beat later. “I’ve got you on speaker phone.”

“Hey, baby doll!” You said enthusiastically, wishing you could see her on the other side of the call. “Did you miss mommy?”

“Mommy!” Josie clapped her hands. “Da-da! Mommy!” 

“She looks thrilled,” Javier told you. “She’s looked for you every day.”

“I’m sure she has.” You tried to ignore the ache in your chest. “I’ll be home soon, baby doll. And I’m going to read you a story and tuck you in. Everything I missed this week.” You shook your head slowly, “I don’t know how you did this, Javi.”

“It killed me.” Javier admitted quietly, before the phone rustled again as he let Josie go off to play once more, switching off the speaker. “Why do you think I’d come over in the middle of the night, even if it meant an hour or two of actual sleep?”

“I get it now. You were willing to do what you had to, to make up for what you missed out on.” The traffic let up a little, allowing you to drive further down the road without stopping. “I’m about five minutes from the exit, I think. I should be home before seven.”

“I’ll keep JoJo up so you can tuck her in.”

“Let her sleep if she’s tired, babe.”

“Baby, I know how important it is.”

“Yeah, I guess you do. Thank you.” You smiled to yourself. “I can’t wait to kiss you.”

Javier chuckled, “Me neither. Four days is a long time, isn’t it?”

“And lonely. I hated sleeping in a giant king hotel bed alone.” You made a face. “You two are coming with me next time.”

“I know I slept for shit without you next to me,” Javier told you. “Who knew that after three years with someone you could get real fucking used to not sleeping alone.” 

“I know!” You laughed, “Okay, I’ve reached the exit. I should be home in twenty.” You told him as you veered off 95, taking the exit that would get you home sometime this century. 

“See you in a few.” Javier murmured, “I love you.”

“Love you too. I’ll be home soon.”

Somehow you managed to hit every fucking light on the way home, but at least you made it home before seven. 

“Next time I have a conference in St. Pete — I’m flying. It was an easy six hour drive up, but Jesus Christ…” You complained as you threw your purse down on the sofa, abandoning your suitcase by the door. “Nine hours today.”

“But you’re home now,” Javier pointed out as he greeted you with a kiss, passing a very sleepy Josie to you. 

“Hello, baby girl.” You whispered as you cradled her against you, running your hand over her back as she clung to you. “I swear you’ve gotten bigger in just four days.”

“Missed you.” Josie told you, her eyes heavy as she rested her cheek against your shoulder. “No go bye-bye mommy.”

“I’m not going bye-bye anytime soon.” You promised her, kissing her forehead. You reached out with your free hand to urge Javier closer. He wrapped an arm around both of you as he hugged you. “Did daddy take good care of you?”

She nodded excitedly and Javier chuckled. “He braided-ed my hair!”

“Did he?” You grinned at Javier. “And how did he learn to do that?”

“Steve.” Javier gave your hip a squeeze. “Surprisingly good at braiding.”

“Impressive.” You laughed, giving Josie’s head another kiss. “I’m going to go put her down, do you mind heating up dinner for me?”

“Do I mind?” Javier scoffed and stole a kiss. “Of course I don’t mind, baby.”

“Thank you,” You played your fingers through his hair, before you headed down the hall to Josie’s room. 

You barely made it through the first few pages of The Swan Princess before she was out like a light beside you. You stayed there, watching her sleep for as long as your stomach would allow you.

The smell of the reheated Chinese food wafting down the hallway had your stomach in knots with hunger. If you had known how long the drive was going to be — you would’ve gotten something to eat on the turnpike. 

As much as you wanted to get back in the field, go on assignment, and travel again — you really did want to be home with Javier and Josie. You were only a little jealous that Javier had adapted to stay-at-home life so easily. He was so at ease, constantly. 

You wanted Josie to have that bond with her father — the same one you’d always craved as a little girl. But you also wanted to be there for dinnertime, bathtime, storytime, and bedtime. You didn’t want to miss a week of her life. 

“I am starving.” You told Javier as you collapsed onto the sofa beside him. You dragged your hands over your face, sighing heavily before you leaned forward and grabbed the plate he’d prepared for you. “Thank you.”

“Whatever you need, baby.” Javier angled himself towards you, watching you with rapt attention. “I missed you.”

You felt your cheeks warm under his gaze, “I missed you too.” You dipped your egg roll into the sauce, before you took a bite. You shifted towards him, leaning against his arm. “It was so weird.”

Javier curled his arm around your waist, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Aside from missing us, did you have a good time?”

“The conference went really well. I think the force up there is going to follow the model I’ve been implementing here. They don’t understand the importance of informants—“

“No one ever does.”

“Right?” You laughed, taking another bite of your egg roll. “There was a lot of evening socializing that I wasn’t really interested in.” You raised a brow as you tilted your head to look at him. 

Javier pressed a kiss to your cheek, “What? Afraid you’d have a repeat of the first night?” 

You snorted, “Yeah. I mean, I’m all for getting bought drinks, but don’t try to slip me your room key.” You made a face as you scooped up a fork full of fried rice. You chewed it down a little too fast and ended up burping and hiccuping at the same time. 

“I mean, what a catch.” Javier teased, keeping his arm curled around you. 

You couldn’t help but laugh, “Not bad manners, just good food.” You leaned forward to grab the beer off the coffee table, washing down the fried rice before taking a bite of the chicken. “As I was saying—“ You gave him a look. “I wasn’t looking to get hit on at the hotel bar.” 

Javier rubbed at the back of his neck, “They’d probably wonder how you ended up with me.”

“Javier,” You rolled your eyes, slapping his leg playfully. 

“Baby, you’re gorgeous.”

“You just want to get laid tonight.” You retorted hotly, running your tongue over your bottom lip as you met his gaze. 

“Four days is a long time.” Javier pointed out as he traced his fingers over your arm, his gaze flickering to your lips. 

“Were your hands not enough, Javi?” You questioned, leaning in to press your lips to his. 

“I didn’t.”

Your brows rose upwards, “Really?”

“Figured I could wait until you got home,” He drawled out, leaning in to steal another kiss, his tongue playing over your lips. 

“I guess I should eat faster then,” You laughed, winding your fingers through his hair as you brushed your nose against his. “So you can eat.”

Javier snorted.

“Though, we could always go to the main course.” You suggested, taking another bite of chicken. “My vibrator was a poor imitation of the real deal.”

“You used it?” He shook his head. 

You shrugged, “What else was I going to do at the hotel at six in the evening? Don’t be too jealous.” 

Javier ran his hand over your thigh, his fingers sliding inwards over the inner fabric of your pants. “You should’ve called.”

“I know, but I knew you’d be getting Josie ready for bed.” You sighed and pressed your tongue to the inside of your cheek. “Not to mention, I was pretty stressed and it was not as alleviating as I hoped.”

He pressed a kiss to the curve of your jaw, “Still stressed?”

“Two more bites of dinner and I’m yours.” You promised him, shoving half the egg roll into your mouth as you hastily chewed it down. “They’re not terrible nuked.”

“They were good when they were fresh.”

You nudged him in the ribs, “I’m sorry, take that up with the traffic gods. I would’ve loved to be home hours ago.” You licked the sauce off your thumb, before leaning forward to put your plate back on the coffee table. 

“I’ll light a candle,” He taunted, his eyes raking over your face before he hesitated, “You should finish eating.”

“Are you sure?” You frowned, “I ate half a bag of pretzel sticks on the drive.” You took a swig of beer, before sitting it next to your plate. “You know I’m not against midnight breakfast.”

Javier shook his head, his lips drawing up at the corner a warm smile. “Take your time, enjoy your dinner.”

“Javi?”

He arched a brow, “Hmm?”

“I’ve been in a car for nine hours.” You said slowly as you moved to straddle his lap, resting your hands on his shoulders. “And thinking about coming home to you was the one thing that kept me from partaking in road rage.”

He ran his hands over your hips, one hand sliding around to grab your ass as he looked up at you. “Who knew I had so much power.” Javier smirked, leaning up to kiss you.

You dragged your fingers through his hair as you sank into the kiss, your tongue playing over his bottom lip with a soft groan. You pulled back with a grin, “You have a lot of power.” 

“Couch or bed?”

“Bed.” You whispered as you brushed your nose against his, “I want out of these pants.” You rolled your hips downwards slowly, before you climbed off of his lap. 

“I love the way you think.” Javier chuckled as he followed you down the hallway. 

You walked backwards into the bedroom, meeting his eyes with a smirk of your own, “I’ve been known to have a few good ideas.” 

Javier closed the distance between the two of you, a hand at your hip and the other at your jaw as he descended upon you. It felt like a week’s worth of desire pent up into that one kiss and it lit a flame of need within you.

He guided you back onto the bed and you held him wrestle your pants off your legs, leaning up on your elbows as he tossed them aside. “Still want the main course baby?” 

You nodded your head, hooking your thumbs in the waistband of your underwear and sliding them down your thighs. Javier caught ahold of them and tugged them off. 

Javier bent down and pressed a kiss to your lower belly as his hand ran up along the inside of your thigh. “I’ve missed you so fucking much, baby.”

“Then show me.” You taunted as you tugged at his hair. Javier dragged his hand up higher until his fingers reached your cunt, his fingers dragging over your folds. 

You sank back against the bed, savoring the feel of his fingers as he played over your sensitive flesh, stoking the flames of arousal there. 

Javier pressed an open-mouthed kiss to your lower stomach, before scraping his teeth over your soft skin there. He worked two fingers into you, thrusting them in and out of you twice before he pulled back. 

He leaned over you to catch lips again and you managed to reach downward between the two of you to work his jeans open. Javier groaned against your lips as you worked your hand inside, palming his rigid cock through his boxers. 

“Happy to see me?” You murmured against his lips as he drew back just enough to catch a breath. 

“Very.” Javier bumped his noses against yours, before he kissed you again. 

You tugged his boxers down his hips, getting them down about mid-thigh to where his jeans were before you gave up. You were both half dressed — it didn’t matter. 

Javier’s hand curled around your hip as he dragged you to the edge of the bed. You curled a leg around him, trying to angle yourself towards him. 

“Fuck!” You gasped out as his cock slid into you, filling you so deliciously. “That’s it, Javi.” You urged, curling your fingers around the back of his neck as you met his eyes.

“You feel so fucking good.” Javier drawled out as he leaned back, his hands gripping at your hips tightly as he started thrusting into you in earnest. 

You grabbed curled your hands around his forearms, gripping at them tightly as you rolled your hips to meet his thrusts. Your lips parted as a breathy moan escaped you. “Javier.” 

“Is that what you want, baby?” He questioned, dragging his hand along the length of the leg you had wrapped around his hips. “Shit—“ Javier hissed out, his grip tightening at your hip as his pace faltered. You knew that face. 

“It’s okay.” You promised him, grabbing at his shoulder as you pulled yourself up. You tilted your head, lips brushing against his as you rolled your hips. “Let go.” You whispered against his mouth as you curled your fingers around the back of his neck. 

“Fucking… baby, I’m—“

You cut him off with a searing kiss before he had the chance to finish. He released his hold on your leg, slipping his hand between you where his cock was driving into you, but you intercepted him. You interlaced your fingers with his and that was all it took to send him careening over the edge.

Your own release was just out of reach, but there was something almost equally pleasurable about watching Javier come undone for you. To feel his cock throb as it spilled within you. 

“It’s okay,” You whispered, winding your fingers through his hair as you laid back and took him with you. You were both hanging halfway off the bed, but you really didn’t mind. 

“Is it?” He grumbled, pressing his face into the crook of your neck, his breath hot against your skin. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Don’t be.” You ran your hand down his back. “I still had fun.” You turned your head as much as you could to press a kiss to whatever available bare patch of skin you could find.

Javier groaned quietly as he pushed himself up on his hands, towering over you. “Let me make it up to you.”

You shook your head, tracing a finger over his bottom lip. “You can make it up to me by getting undressed so we can go to sleep. Okay?”

“You sure?” He questioned, lifting a hand to cup your cheek. Javier searched your eyes as you nodded, “I’m gonna grab something to clean up with. Don’t move.”

You drew in a sharp breath as he slipped out of you. The moment had definitely passed, as disappointing as it was. You were stressed and exhausted. 

You sat up and peeled off your shirt, tossing it off the side of the bed as you waited for Javier to return from the bathroom. “I need to brush my teeth too,” You told him as he knelt down at the foot of the bed as he wiped off the mess that had been left behind. 

Javier pressed a kiss to your leg just on the inside of our knee, “Didn't mean you make your homecoming a letdown.”

“Good thing you didn’t let me down then.” You told him with a warm smile as you held him stand back up as you rose. “You’re more than welcome to wake me up however you see fit… but not before seven.”

“I can arrange that,” Javier’s lips cracked into a faint smile. “I’m glad you’re home.”

“Me too.” You brushed your fingers over his cheek. “I missed my bed… and it’s other occupant.”

Javier snorted, “Even if he’s early to the party?”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you headed for the bathroom to brush your teeth, “I only care that you were at the party.” You quipped, firing a finger gun at him before you ducked into the bathroom.  

[abcnewspr]

ABC News Live Presents All-Day LGBTQ+ Programming Sunday, June 27, In Celebration of Pride Month

In the final celebratory weekend of Pride Month, streaming news channel ABC News Live will stream LGBTQ+ programming all day on June 27. Beginning at 9:00 a.m. EDT, ABC News Live will stream pride specials from ABC Owned Television Stations including ABC7/KABC-TV Los Angeles’ “Thrive with Pride Celebration,” 6abc/WPVI-TV Philadelphia’s “FYI Philly Pride,” ABC7/WLS-TV Chicago’s “Our Chicago: Celebrating Pride,” and ABC7/WABC-TV New York’s  “Pride 2021 We Belong” leading into ABC7 New York’s “2021 NYC Pride March” streaming at 12:00 p.m. EDT. The three-hour celebration will feature Grand Marshals Wilson Cruz, Ceyenne Doroshow, Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, and Aaron Philip. Following this, ABC News Live will air a pair of specials – “Pride on ABC News Live: Understanding the Trans Community,” streaming at 3:00 p.m. EDT, and “Pride on ABC News Live: What's Next for the LGBTQ+ Community and Movement,” streaming at 4:00 p.m. EDT – in addition to the ABC13/KTRK-TV Houston’s "Localish Houston: Pride" special at 5:00 p.m. EDT. Coverage culminates with a presentation of the ABC Owned Television Stations’ documentary “Our America: Who I’m Meant to Be,” a docuseries dedicated to amplifying the voices of transgender communities across America through first-person narratives.

Throughout the month of June, ABC News has celebrated Pride Month with content across broadcast, streaming and digital. See below for some highlights:

Good Morning America spoke with David Archuleta about his faith, sexuality and coming out journey; interviewed LGBTQ+ couples on what it takes to be successful in an LGBTQ+ relationship; examined how the LGBTQ+ community is influencing mainstream pop culture and how people are learning to claim their sexual identity; and highlighted LGBTQ-owned small businesses across the country during GMA’s Deals & Steals. GMA Digital curated content on its Pride homepage and published the Pride edition of the “GMA Inspiration List: Who is Making LGBTQ+ History in 2021?”; a powerful story of love from a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting; and, in collaboration with station KGO, a discussion with the founders of the first-of-its-kind Compton Transgender District in San Francisco and a conversation on how far the LGBTQ+ community has come.

GMA3: What You Need to Know featured LGBTQ+ guests throughout the month, including Paula Stone Williams, who discussed being expelled from evangelical churches after transitioning and creating a safe space to reconcile her faith, her identity, and her desire to be a leader; Rep. Ritchie Torres (NY-D), the first openly gay Afro-Latino in Congress; partners Ryan Brockington and Isaac Webster, who discussed their children’s book “Daddy & Dada”; David Yi, who spoke about his new book about makeup and masculinity from over the years; YouTuber and author Daniel Howell, who discussed navigating one’s own mental health journey while celebrating their authentic self; and transgender activist Raquel Willis who spoke about issues affecting the Black trans community, the power of inclusive activism and how she is celebrating Pride Month.

The View celebrated Pride Month throughout June by highlighting significant moments in Pride history and saluting members of the LGBTQ+ community who are making a difference both on the show and online. They’ve spotlighted HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine, the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate; openly gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin; multisport transgender athlete Sarah Rose Huckman; and multitalented performer and proud member of the LGBTQ+ community JoJo Siwa. Additional highlights include a diverse lineup of members from the LGBTQ+ community from politics and activism to sports and entertainment, including Richard Grenell, Pete Buttigieg, Mauree Turner, Gov. Kate Brown, Sherenté Mishitashin Harris, Beverly Palesa Ditsie, Ashton Mota, Zoey Luna, Kye Allums, Schuyler Bailar, CeCe Telfer, Mack Beggs, Josie Totah, Lil Nas X, Demi Lovato and Nico Santos.

ABC Audio debuted “Life Out Loud with LZ Granderson” as part of their Pride Month programming, the first LGBTQ+ issue-focused podcast for ABC News. ABC News contributor LZ Granderson draws from his own lived experience as a gay, Black father to host inspiring, provocative and often hilarious conversations to help preserve the history of the LGBTQ+ community. This podcast delves into the policies, cultural touchstones and historical events that have shaped the collective experience of this often underrepresented and misunderstood group. New episodes post Thursdays on major listening platforms.

ABC News Live Prime spoke with HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine to discuss the progress against the pandemic and her historic role as the highest-ranking transgender federal government official; Trevor Project CEO and executive director Amit Paley, who reacted to NFL player Carl Nassib’s coming out and its significance for LGBTQ youth; and featured a story on illustrator Julia Kaye, who discussed her new book, “My Life in Transition,” on the emotional journey of her gender transition, which she first documented through comic strips. ABC News Live Update featured social media sensation “That Gay Doctor” for a “Feel Good Friday” segment, looking at his creative videos and answers to questions on LGBTQ+ issues. ABC News Live’s The Breakdown featured a piece on how “don’t ask, don’t tell” still affects LGBTQ+ veterans and a look back at the AIDS virus 40 years after the first cases were found in the U.S.

ABC News Digital produced a video looking at the ongoing debate over transgender students participating in athletics with featured stories on young transgender athletes grappling with anti-trans sports legislation, trans students facing classroom hardships amid anti-transgender legislation and a piece on why the LGBTQ+ community sidelined police for the NYC Pride parade. 

For more information, follow ABC News PR on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

– ABC –

[thosequeenboys]

36: Reset (Joe Mazzello x Y/N)

Summary:  His 36th birthday a recent memory, Joe is eager to reset himself with a positive focus on his future.  Taking care of his precious nieces leads him into a situation that may change his future – and help him realize his dream of having a family.

A/N: I love picturing Joe as a loving husband and dad and wrote this after Joe’s 36th birthday.  Recently I wrote Y/N’s version of this story: 36: Half Full.  Joe’s family members are written as fictional characters.  Any likeness to his real family are unintentional and coincidental.  Song lyrics that came to me while writing are bolded and referenced at the end.  

Warnings:  Fluff, Angst and brief references to a deceased parent, masturbation and Joe as Daddy (!) and a drop of swearing

Joe threw three days of clothing into a duffle bag and took a stab at being grateful.  His 36th birthday coincided with the reality that he was between jobs, between relationships and plagued with a little too much uncertainty for his taste.  He needed a new narrative, a reset – and a jolt of positivism.

‘Here goes,’ he thought. Being in between gigs allowed him to care for his adoring nieces fairly regularly over the last few months.  And now, he’d be staying with them while his sister and her husband attended a wedding.  This was a gig he knew well and particularly as of late, cherished.  Since his dad died, he found comfort and stability in those two little girls: Josephine, Josie, his dad’s namesake, a growing toddler of 15 months, and Jessie, a highly articulate and bright second-grade graduate.   The loss of his dad still stung, but from it was born this intimacy and his solidified dream that now more than ever, he was destined to be a father, with his own loving father as a role model.   But for now, the role of beloved uncle would have to do.

He climbed the steps of the stately brownstone and let himself in, bellowing “Hellooooo,” which cascaded up the high ceilings and the floors above.  In an instant, he heard a sound that made him feel whole and gave him solace like no other. “UNCLE JOOOOOOEEEEEE,” Jessie ran to him with a huge smile and outstretched arms, and he swooped her up into a big hug.  Teetering toward him was Josie, a broad smile on her face, Joe’s sister Patty, trailing behind.  

“Jojo!!” Josie said, followed by gibberish. “You said my name??!!” Joe exclaimed happily. He was amazed. Only last week, she didn’t try to say his name.  Joe leaned down, perching Jessie on his knee and bringing Josie in for a hug.  “My two best girls,” he cooed, bending to kiss each of them.

“Ok, Girls, give me a few minutes with Joe. I have a lot of instructions to go over.”  You’ll have him to yourselves for three days soon enough.Joe’s sister, Patty said.  “YAY!!!” Jessie yelled jumping up and down, the embodiment of youthful enthusiasm.  

“Hey, Joe,” his sister said warmly, as she removed Josie from him and put her on the floor. “Jessie, watch your sister.”   She turned to Joe. “Let me walk you through everything.”

“Ok,” Joe said, adding, “I feel pretty well versed, I mean, I’ve been babysitting them and…”

Patty cut him off.  “I know.  But this is the big league.  Every moment. Lots of details.  You usually get them at their best and then you can walk away. Let’s start in the kitchen.”  

Patty had all the meals and snacks listed in detail, as well a grocery list.  “And make sure Josie ONLY gets Stonyfield Farms YO-BABY yogurts!” she implored. It was indeed a house of many yogurts. “Here’s Jessie’s water bottle for camp,” she pointed to it on the counter.

“YO, PATTY, I got it,” Joe said, containing a smirk, and glancing at the pile of papers.  The family recipe for nachos-really? He could make them in his sleep.

They proceeded upstairs to the bedrooms where Joe was schooled in Josie’s daytime and bedtime routines (which he knew) and Jessie’s camp routine.  “And be sure to hang the bathing suit EVERY NIGHT so it dries COMPLETELY!!”   Joe loved his sister deeply, but at that moment his tensed his mouth to avoid responding cattily, “No, I think I’ll leave the wet suit in the bag so it smells gross and is damp for her the next day.”  

“Sure, Sure,” he uttered lightly instead.

Fortunately, Joe was saved by the bell in the form of Peter, a strapping accountant with a penchant for murder mysteries, working out – and getting on the road.

“Come on Patty.  Quit torturing him before he runs out of here screaming. He can text us.  And by the way, he’s been helping out a lot this summer. I told you I wanted to get on the road by 6:00. It’s 6:15.  Let’s go.”  Peter hefted a suitcase and bounded down the steps.   Joe gave him an appreciative nod.

“Go,” Joe said gently to Patty. “We will be fine. I’m looking forward to it.  Pete’s right.  I’ll text you if I need anything.  You guys have a great time away together.”

“I know.  I’m sorry to be a nut.  I’m just - well. It’s hard to unwind.  And so much to keep track of.  You’ll see when you’re doing it all-work, family….” She sighed and planted a kiss on his cheek.  “Thanks for doing this.”  She went to pack a few final things before Peter came to collect her suitcase.

With a kiss to the girls, Patty and Peter hit the road.  “OK, who’s ready to show me some bath toys?” Joe said as he closed the door behind them.   “I am!” Jessie bounded upstairs to the bathroom, with Joe carrying Josie behind her.

The next morning was Friday. and Joe arose early. He prepared breakfast, packed lunches, put away random toys and checked the shopping list.  He woke and dressed the girls, collected Jessie’s backpack and threw in her lunch and bathing suit.  After brushing their teeth, he stuffed his own backpack with snacks, lunch, diapers, and wipes, and threw a towel and water toys and sunblock in the stroller basket. He hoisted Josie and grabbed the stroller, and ushered Jessie out the door, which he locked behind him.  He ran through a checklist in his mind hoping he remembered everything.  He had to admit, Patty was right-it really was a lot of details to manage-along with the constant banter with two young people, eager for expression and interaction as their worlds unfolded with each new day.

They walked half a mile as the summer sun warmed the city pavement.  They entered the YMCA that housed Jessie’s camp and proceeded to a large gym where groups of kids gathered by age. Jessie ran to a woman who was waving to her.  She had a warm smile and wore a neatly pressed shirt and capri pants with sneakers. She seemed to be taking in everyone-campers, caregivers, staff, while answering questions and ensuring everything was running smoothly.  Carrying a clipboard and an array of keys on a lanyard around her neck, she looked very official.  

“Hi, Jessie,” she greeted Joe’s oldest niece. “Hi, Josie,” she added bending slightly and peering into the stroller.

“Hi, Y/N, this is my Uncle Joe. He’s taking care of us while my parents are at Cousin Carol’s wedding in…” Jessie provided a litany of details as Joe and Y/N looked at each other and laughed. ��When Jessie paused, Joe extended his hand.  “I’m Joe, nice to meet you.”   He suddenly felt awkward.  Should he have presented himself more formally, more guardian-like?   She smiled.  “Hi, Joe. Patty wrote a note saying you’d be helping with the girls.  That’s so nice.  I’m Y/N/Z, the Assistant Director of the camp.  If you need anything please let me know. Jessie is a wonderful camper!”  She winked at Jessie who smiled.

Now there’s a woman who knows how to introduce herself, Joe thought.  And she’s pretty and warm.

“Thanks,” Joe said, as Y/N turned to speak with a parent.  Joe hugged Jessie. “You have your lunch and water bottle?” Joe suddenly felt panicked.  “Oh, Crap! I forgot your water bottle. Should I bring it?”

“It’s ok. I’ll use the fountain.” Jessie said.

He appreciated her flexibility, but his inner voice said, “parenting fail!”  He thought Patty would freak if she knew.  “Good plan. Thanks for being flexible.  Have a great day.  We’ll see you at 4:00.”

Jessie walked toward her counselor and friends. Joe leaned down to check on Josie who was sitting comfortably in her stroller playing with a toy. “Playground?” he asked.  “Pway” she responded, and he gave her a kiss on her leg.

As he headed out, he noticed Y/N on the side, speaking with some counselors. She was really pretty.  Really together.  He wondered what she did when camp ended.  She certainly must like kids, he thought.  As Joe reached the exit, still watching her, she turned and waved to him. He waved back with a smile.  

Joe and Josie headed to the playground for a morning of water sprinklers, swings, and monkey bars. He followed her around, speaking to her and encouraging her to play with other children.   Josie handed another girl her ball.  “Say thank you,” the woman with the child said to her. “Very nice, Josie.” Joe praised.  Josie suddenly began to get winey, and Joe sensed that she needed to eat before she melted down. “C’mon, let’s have lunch.”

They ambled over to the shady bench, and Joe changed her diaper and washed their hands with a wipe.  Then he set out their lunch and they ate turkey sandwiches, the very popular Yo-Baby Yogurt and cut-up peaches, which were perfectly sweet and juicy, symbolic of summer. They sipped water from a bottle, taking turns.  After lunch Joe cleaned up. and Josie played a little more. But the sun was at its peak, and Josie was fading.  “Let’s go home for a nap.” Joe said as he picked her up. His phone pinged with a text from Patty.  “How is everything?”  “Great, just taking Josie home from PG for a nap.”    

Joe lugged everything – including Josie and himself - up the steps and into the house.  He had to admit he was tired. He dropped the stroller and backpack and carried Josie up the steps. She wrapped her arms around Joe’s neck and leaned into him. When he got to her room, he realized she was asleep. He didn’t want to put her down. He sat in the rocking chair and put his feet up on the ottoman.  He felt soothed as he held her against his chest.  He closed his eyes and without being aware, he dozed.  An image of Y/N came to him.  It was he fall She was in a flowing dress, cinched at the waist, a blazer and heels.   He was dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket. They kissed and walked hand-in-hand down the street, chatting and laughing.  

He was jarred awake by his phone ringing. Ben!  He picked it up. “Hey, Buddy-give me a minute!”.  He put the phone on the ottoman, got up carefully and laid Josie in her crib gently, moving the stuffed animals away and covering her with the light blanket.  He slipped off her sandals and left them on the changing table as grabbed his phone, walking out of the room.

“Hey, Ben.” he said.

“Hey-how’s your 36th year treating you so far?” came the response.

“So far, so good.  I’m taking care of the girls for the weekend. Patty and Pete are at a wedding.  It makes me realize that I want to have kids.  Really badly.  Like more than before.  If I can’t get it together by my next birthday, I’m going to get a surrogate and do it that way. On my own.“

“Whoa, that sounds really extreme.  Isn’t that where you have to jerk off into a cup? You don’t even get to have any fun? Wait: Bet you’d meet a smart, pretty and mature woman on Tumblr who’d gladly assist ---try that first. “ Ben laughed. Joe was annoyed, feeling Ben didn’t see how important this was to him. Joe didn’t want to continue the discussion.

“That’s not the point,” he said curtly.  “Moving on, you ok?

“Yeah, yeah, still filming this bloody movie. We should wrap in a few weeks.”  

“Finally! Let me call you next week. I got to get Josie ready so we can pick up Jessie and shop for dinner.”

“You really are Domestic Daddy, aren’t you?” Ben laughed again.

“I hope so.  One day.”  Joe replied softly.

“Seriously.  Those girls are lucky to have you. You’re an amazing Uncle. And you’ll be a super dad.”  Ben said.

They ended the call warmly, and Joe checked himself in the mirror.  He looked like he had been in the hot park running after a toddler most of the day and thought that should be addressed-before he saw Y/N again.  He changed his shirt and freshened up.  He went to the nursery and saw Josie stirring.

“Hey big girl. You ready to get up and see your sister?”  He lifted her out of her crib, still sleepy and laid her on changing table and changed her diaper, shirt and shorts.  He kissed her feet and she giggled.  He buckled her sandals and took her downstairs.

He filled up the water bottle.  ‘Ok, we are ready to roll.”  He scooped her up with the stroller and they were on their way.  

They arrived at camp a little early.  He wheeled Josie in and saw Jessie playing her favorite game, Chinese checkers, with a young counselor. Josie was getting restless and he let her out of the stroller, following her as she walked around.  

“Hi, Joe.”  It was Y/N, still looking fresh after a full day. She bent down to Josie. “Did you have fun in the playground with Uncle Joe?”

“Fun Un JoJo!” she responded as she toddled around and clapped her hands.

Y/N laughed and turned to him.  “A standing ovation. I’m impressed.”

“Ha, well, we had fun, but I have to say, it was tiring. And I’m just watching one! Amazing you look so, uh, calm after running the show here. “ Joe said admirably.

“I’m a third-grade teacher so I’m used to it,”  Y/N said. “I’m working on my admin degree so I can be a Principal one day.  This gives me good practice,” She said.

“Wow, that’s impressive,” Joe said sincerely.  His eyes followed Josie who was headed toward her big sister. Joe followed, with Y/N behind, stopping to check in on various groups.  

“Hi Uncle Joe.  I’m winning,” Jessie said, self-satisfied.

“Creaming me is more like it,” the Counselor said.

“Well, that’s great, but be a good sport about it,” Joe said pointedly to Jessie.  “It’s important to have fun and tell her it was a good game-no matter who wins.”

A counselor came by with an ice pop. She asked Joe. “Would she like one?” “Sure, thanks,” Joe said, as he unwrapped the watermelon flavored pop and took a bite.  It was refreshing and quite tasty.  He offered some to Josie, who nibbled on it, and it started to drip.  He took his backpack off and unzipped it with a flourish, retrieving a napkin to wipe her up.

Meanwhile, as the counselor planned her move, Jessie eyed Y/N, who had sidled up next to her. “Y/N, did you know Uncle Joe is a FAMOUS MOVIE STAR?” she bellowed.

Joe felt the red rising from his neck to his face and he was pretty sure he was creating a new addition to the Crayola 64 pack.  Fucking Embarrassed Red.  Kids really do say the darndest things.  He bent his head down focusing on getting the pop into Josie with minimal mess.

“Wow, interesting,” Y/N responded, playing it cool.  “And he’s a GREAT UNCLE!”

“Who is successfully making a mess with this pop,” he retorted, wiping his mouth and giving Josie another wipe, before she took off for the crafts table. One of the counselors hoisted Josie on the bench and set her up with some crayons and paper.  “You sure?” Joe said not wanting to be a burden. “Oh, not a problem,” the counselor said cheerily.  

Joe looked behind him for Y/N, who had vanished.  He wanted to ask her out. He knew he had a brief window of opportunity, before he took the girls home. This would be the last time he’d see her.   He looked around hoping she’d dart back into the gym. Meanwhile, he moved to Jessie who was close to winning the game.  After a few minutes, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a changed Y/N. He turned to take all of her all in. She was wearing a flowery sundress with wide straps and a deep neckline that accentuated her figure. Her sneakers were replaced with heeled strappy sandals  She looked really lovely. You’re just too good to be true.  Can’t take my eyes off of you. (1) He didn’t want to take his eyes from her.  His plan to approach her was interrupted by Josie waddling over to him and Jessie and the counselor yelling ‘Good Game!”

“C’mon girls,” Joe headed quickly to retrieve the stroller near where Y/N was bidding good-bye to parents.

“You look…nice,”  Joe said, trying to sound neutral. “Big night out?” He wondered if she had a date.

“Thank you.”  Her faced flushed.  “I’m meeting some of my college friends.  One just got engaged and another is expecting.”   “Lots to celebrate.”  Joe said, relived she wasn’t off to a date.

“Yeah,” she said wistfully. “You know, life in the 30’s.”

‘Uh, yeah,” Joe uttered. Suddenly Joe turned, distracted by the girls. He took a deep breath and leaned down. Jessie, can you help Josie into her stroller, please,” Joe said, hoping Jessie would bring it home for him to let this moment unfold.  I can't be contented with yesterday's glory. I can't live on promises winter to spring. Today is my moment, now is my story. (2) Turning to Y/N he said,  “Y/N, I was wondering, if, uh, one day, you might want to grab dinner.” He said.  He held his breathe.  She looked at him.  “I’d love that.  Here, let me give you my number.” She hastily wrote on a paper in her clipboard and gave it to him and he smiled.

He turned to Jessie who was helping Josie into her stroller.  “Thanks,” he said, giving her a big smile.  “You’re such a good helper.  I really appreciate it.”

“Great,” Joe said to Y/N.  I’ll probably need 2 days to recover after my sister gets back,” He laughed. I’ll text you. Maybe we can get together next weekend?  

“That should work,” she said.  “Bye…” her voice trailed off, as a counselor interrupted.

“Have fun tonight,” he called after her, with a brightness in his voice and a spring in his step.  He turned the stroller and grabbed Jessie’s hand. “Bye, Y/N” Jessie called. “You like Y/N don’t you,” Jessie said to Joe.  Kid didn’t miss a thing. “She seems really nice.  Ok. Dinner.” said Joe, changing the topic. “How about we go to the supermarket for nachos ingredients.”    When they arrived home, Joe headed to the kitchen, unpacked the groceries and started cooking dinner as the girls watched Dora the Explorer.  “UNCLE JOE,” Jessie yelled.  “Josie smells!!  “Oh crap,” Joe uttered to himself.  “literally. WTF, I am in the middle of dinner.”  He asked Jessie to hang up her wet swimsuit before he addressed the diaper. . The evening ended with a yummy dinner, The Lion King and a few bedtime stories, which Joe read in a few voices, eliciting giggles from the girls.

Their fun-packed Saturday featured excursions to the Farmer’s market, library and small zoo. After a Thai food dinner, the three of them headed to bed early, exhausted.  

Joe woke too early on Sunday.  The girls would sleep another hour. His sister and Peter would return in the afternoon. Thoughts swirled through his head non-stop, even before he mobilized himself to make coffee.  His first thought was that they could make pancakes; the girls could pour batter into cookie cutter shapes set in the pan.  His second thought was ‘Wow, Ben was right, I really am Domestic Daddy.’ His third thought was Y/N.  He wondered if she told her friends about him-that she was looking forward to their date.  He wondered….Say you'll see me again even if it's just pretend in your wildest dreams. (3). He rolled over and pulled the soft blanket up to his neck, willing to give sleep another try. He drifted off and saw Y/N in his dream. It was winter and they were both bundled in jackets and scarves, holding hands and walking fast, dodging the cold.  

“Two, at least,” she said. “What do you think?”  

“For sure.” Joe said and he turned to her and stopped.  “Well, now that that’s set, we should think about a wedding date first.”  They laughed.

He suddenly felt a warm body climbing on him and he opened his eyes.  “I’m hungry.” a sleepy Jessie said. Joe rolled over moving her next to him. “Good morning.  Me too.   How about pancakes. In cookie cutter shapes?”

“Yay!” Jessie responded.  “I know where mom keeps them.”

“Great. I’ll meet you downstairs with Josie.”

She ran out, and Joe collected himself as he rolled out of bed. He felt positive and hopeful.  Bring on 36!  

SONG NOTES

1.       Can’t take my eyes off of you, Frankie Valli

2.       Today, John Denver

3.       Wildest Dreams, Taylor Swift

[rabbittstewcomics]

Episode 363

Comic Reviews:

DC

Batman: White Knight Presents – Red Hood 1 by Sean Murphy, Clay McCormack, Simone Di Meo, Dave Stewart

Black Adam: The Justice Society Files – Cyclone by Bryan Q. Miller, Cavan Scott, Tony Avina, Marco Santucci, Maria Laura Sanapo, Norm Rapmund, Michael Atiyeh, Arif Prianto

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths 3 by Joshua Williamson, Daniel Sampere, Danny Miki, Daniel Henriques, Alejandro Sanchez

New Champion of Shazam 1 by Josie Campbell, Evan Shaner

Sword of Azrael 1 by Dan Watters, Nikola Cizmesija, Marissa Louise

Harley Quinn 18 by Stephanie Phillips, Georges Duarte, Romulo Fajardo Jr

Marvel

Demon Wars: The Iron Samurai 1 by Peach Momoko, Zack Davisson

Edge of Spider-Verse 1 by Dan Slott, Alex Segura, Karla Pacheco, Dustin Weaver, Mark Bagley, Pere Perez, Martin Coccolo, Caio Majado, DJ Bryant, Brian Reber

Who is She-Hulk? Infinity Comic by Rainbow Rowell, Ig Guara, Ian Herring

Marvel Meow 12 by Nao Fuji

Image

20XX Transport by Jonathan Luna

Dead Lucky 1 by Melissa Flores, French Carlomagno, Mattia Iacono

Golden Rage 1 by Chrissy Williams, Lauren Knight, Sofie Dodgson

Dark Horse

Frankenstein: New World 1 by Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola, Tom Sniegoski, Pete Bergting, Michelle Madsen

Survival Street 1 by James Asmus, Jim Festante, Abylay Kussainov, Ellie Wright

IDW

Godzilla Rivals II: Godzilla vs. Batra by Rosie Knight, Oliver Ono

Dynamite

James Bond 007 1 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Marco Finnegan, Dearbhla Kelly

Oni

Aggretsuko: Out to Lunch 1 by Josh Trujillo, Abigail Starling

AfterShock

Vineyard 1 by Brian Hawkins, Sami Kivela, Jason Wordie

Ablaze

Elle(s) 1 by Bastien Vives

AWA

Sacrament 1 by Peter Milligan, Marcelo Frusin

American Mythology

Two Gun Terror 1 by G.O. Parsons, Jason Craig, Konstantine Paradias, Jorge Pacheco, S.A. Check, Horacio Domingues

Zorro: Black and White Noir 1 by Jordan Gershowitz, Gerardo Gambone, S.A. Check, Guilherme Raffide, Alex Toth

Black Hammer: Visions by David Robertson and Scott Henderson

Ray’s OGN Corner: Miss Quinces by Kat Fajardo

Additional Reviews: Sandman, Thor by Jason Aaron Omnibus Vol 1, Colorado Kid, Bullet Train, Lego Star Wars Summer Vacation

News: Flash officially ending after next season, Riverdale season finale, Nemesis returning next year by Millar and Jimenez, Batgirl movie cancelled, WB nonsense, She-Hulk schedule shift, new Keanu role, Gaga in Joker 2, Valiant woes, Omni news, Dublin Con reporting, Samurai Rabbit returns for s2 in September, Bryan Hill Black Panther series in October, MJ/Black Cat ongoing series, Punisher returning to the MCU?, First Kill cancelled, Planet Hulk mini-series, Kal-El returns one-shot, Anthony Ramos cast as the Hood

Trailers: Andor, Little Demon, Cars on the Road

Comics Countdown:

X-Men Red 5 by Al Ewing, Stefano Caselli, Federico Blee

Stillwater 14 by Chip Zdarsky, Ramon Perez, Mike Spicer

Twig 4 by Skottie Young, Kyle Strahm, Jean-Francois Beaulieu

New Champion of Shazam 1 by Josie Campbell, Evan Shaner

Aquaman: Andromeda 2 by Ram V, Christian Ward

Time Before Time 15 by Rory McConville, Declan Shalvey, Eric Zawadski, Chris O’Halloran

Batman 126 by Chip Zdarsky, Belen Ortega, Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey, Luis Guerrero

Batman: Killing Time 6 by Tom King, David Marquez, Alejandro Sanchez

Little Monsters 6 by Jeff Lemire, Dustin Nguyen

Dead Lucky 1 by Melissa Flores, French Carlomagno, Mattia Iacono

Check out this episode!

[amorremanet]

You reblogged an OC meme! Thank god, tell us about Josie!

oc profiles meme!

…oh my god, i was so excited to click post and babble about josie at people that i initially forgot to come back and fill in the placeholder with something about how excited i was to talk about josie (—it’s like 4:15 AM where i am, which is probably part of the problem but i digress)

Full Name: Josiah Daniel Quinn — but, please, they explicitly prefer to be called, “Josie,” so unless you’re one of their bosses over at S.T.R.O.M.A*, whom they’re in no position to argue with, call them Josie. If not that, then use their surname. But if you can avoid it, just please do not call them by their full given first name, okay?

Shiny mutant superhero codename: Lyaeus — derived from an aspect of Dionysus who is traditionally invoked as a reliever of pain and a deliverer from anxiety and emotional turmoil and so on, which is one of their preferred uses of their psychic abilities and one of Josie’s larger goals in life (for them, it’s a mix of, “If something bad is going to happen, and you can do something to stop it and choose not to, that’s on you” and, “The world is a mess and largely sucks, but that’s no reason not to do what we can to take care of each other”).

Their codename is doubly special to them because although they were raised loosely Catholic and have a Mormon extended family who mostly doesn’t acknowledge their existence (and hasn’t for their entire life, since their Mom left the Mormon church to marry Josie’s Dad, oops), Josie is a hellenic pagan whose primary relationship is with Dionysus.

They thought for a long time and did a lot of reflection about whether or not it was too presumptuous of them to use one of his aspects as a codename, but eventually, they went with it because they see their codename and its meaning as someone who they’re continually striving to be and a set of values that they’re always trying to bring to bear in the world, and they feel like Dionysus is probably okay with that.

Gender and Sexuality: DMAB Genderfluid. // Bisexual.

This isn’t actually specifically about their gender or sexuality, but I couldn’t think of where else to put it: Josie grew up around all things Rocky Horror. Like, their parents were highly involved in the local community theatre, which did a semi-regular RHPS shadow-cast, and Josie’s parents brought their kid with them often enough that Josie grew up with their blood family and their, “Rocky family.”

Josie would rather deal with their Rocky family than their blood family a lot of the time, because their Rocky family was more immediately there for them during a lot of rough stuff while they were growing up, and their Rocky family handled it better at the various times when they came out, and their Rocky family didn’t say shit like, “Wait, I thought you were gay, why are you going back in the closet” when they came out as bi or ask invasive questions when they came out as genderfluid and was more supportive in general of Josie’s evolving sense of their own identity, and so on.

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs.

Josie does also answer to He/Him/His pronouns, but that isn’t a choice on their part, so much as it’s an issue of, “Well, I can be out at work and open the door to potential harassment and people who will invalidate my gender identity and likely flat-out refuse to respect my pronouns, which will create more difficulty for myself in a job that’s already difficult because it’s stressful to begin with and I hate working here — or I can suck it up and just be grateful that my friends and parents are all good about this”

Like, one of the things that Seb does when he and Josie first meet that makes Josie go, “I’m still not totally thrilled at being assigned to help out the newbie (especially since I know I’m only getting this assignment because: 1. our bosses are playing a game of, ‘lmao just toss the LGBTQ ones together’ because the newbie’s gay and pretty much everyone here thinks that I am too; and 2. Deputy Director Gray is still cranky with me over that MSNBC round-table that I did last week where Yael kept pushing me to voice my own opinions and not the Bureau’s official line) — but maybe it won’t actually be completely awful and maybe he’s going to be okay as a new partner”?

…is noticing that Josie wears two woven yarn bracelets on one wrist — one of them in the lavender/white/chartreuse colors of the genderqueer flag, and the other in the pink/white/purple/black/blue of the genderfluid flag — and first waiting for them to be alone in Josie’s office, then going, “Oh, so are you genderfluid? What are your pronouns?” and then listening and respecting it when Josie explained that they’d rather Seb just kept using he/him/his at work

Species: Human (mutant with aforementioned mutant psychic powers)

Race/Ethnicity: White, and the only real part of Josie’s ethnic background that’s ever been important in their life was that their late paternal grandmother was very proud of being Irish.

Like, her parents had come to Ellis Island from Ireland — though she was too young to have any actual memories of the passage herself — and she wasn’t so insistent about it that she objected to her son marrying a Mormon girl instead of a Good Irish Catholic Girl, but still, the Irish thing was a big deal for her.

Josie, personally, doesn’t get it beyond, “I’m white and I have a particular aversion to St. Patrick’s Day because first of all, some of my extended family members can turn into a bunch of rowdy, off-putting little shits on St. Patrick’s Day, and I always had to suffer through that because we always had a party for it, first because Grandma wanted one, and then in honor of her memory.

“And secondly, because as soon as anyone hears that I’m partially Irish and/or a Dionysian, it is just assumed that I want to go get wasted on St. Patrick’s Day, which I don’t, but I still end up going out into environments that are absolute Hell for someone who has both telepathy and hyper-empathy, because the spaces are crowded, emotions are running high, and there is basically nowhere to escape to where you can get some peace and quiet and a break from the sensory and emotional overload of being at a rowdy bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

“And I endure all of this with people whom I may not even like that much just so they’ll have a designated driver, because I would feel bad personally if I didn’t go to make sure they all got home okay, and just because they don’t understand my god or might want to get something else out of him than I do, doesn’t mean that I should brush them off and risk them getting hurt while they’re completely shit-faced.

“Which doesn’t make this any less exhausting and awful, but it’s better than taking the chance that they might get hurt, y’know?”

Birthplace and Birthdate: Saratoga Springs, NY. // 22nd February, 1980 — they’re a Pisces (Libra rising, Gemini moon).

Guilty Pleasures: High-quality dark chocolate, high-quality makeup even if they can’t wear most of it as often as they’d like^, the original Vampire Chronicles novels (and though they will sometimes claim that only the original six ones, “count,” Josie owns everything that Anne Rice has published, even the ridiculous Jesus books), binge-watching reruns of Project Runway…

And they don’t feel particularly guilty about it, but one of the simple things that makes Josie happy is playfully teasing their emergency contacts/best friends over how their parents named them after Beatles songs

Jude, naturally, was “Hey Jude” and Rocky got named after, “Rocky Raccoon” because, at the last minute, his and Jude’s parents decided to veto naming him Desmond because he’s a character in “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” but his name is not in the title, which was apparently a deal-breaker because of reasons

Rocky also sometimes gets playful ribbing about all things Rocky Horror, because he and Josie are ridiculous nerds, and RHPS isn’t their exclusive thing because Josie will share it with anyone who gives them half a chance to do so…… but it is still a thing that is special to Josie and Rocky, so here they are

If you ask them, Josie will tell you that they don’t believe in associating pleasure with guilt, and in their defense, they do believe in encouraging people not to feel guilty for enjoying the things that make them happy or that help them survive, because as long as those things aren’t hurting anyone — yes, that includes you, person Josie is talking to — then you have a right to be happy and a right to take care of yourself

The reality is that Josie says this to people so often because it’s something that they often struggle with themself, and even though they’re better, in some ways, than they have been in the past, there are still a lot of places where they need work

Also, Josie wouldn’t call some of the more poppy music that they like, “guilty pleasures” — especially because, if you ask them, there is no reason to feel guilty about listening to, for example, Beyoncé or Nicki Minaj

—but it is still the case that, if they were going to have a mini-reunion with some of the old goth crew friends from high school whom they don’t keep in touch with that often, Josie probably wouldn’t mention Nicki or Beyoncé, unless it was by accident or until they were sure that the old gang wasn’t going to do the judgmental goth kids thing they used to do of going, “ugh, all pop music is soulless empty bullshit for posers” and so on

Also also, there is almost no chance of them ever admitting this to most people, but…… Josie kinda loves the goth kids from South Park. Like, Josie really kinda loves them.

There’s basically no chance of them ever admitting it to most people because for one thing, it’s embarrassing to them, due to the whole South Park of everything.

For another, they’d feel the need to give someone a lengthy, tedious disclaimer about how they don’t actually watch South Park or enjoy it very much, they just know about the goth kids because one of their best friends went, “Oh my god, Josie, you have to watch this, the new Goth kid characters are so you” way back when, after the first episode with them in it aired and said friend (Rocky) was still taping new eps on VHS to watch after he got home from night classes

And…… well. Josie still wouldn’t give South Park much credit for anything else, but they do really love the goth kids, and they agree with Rocky’s, “omg it you” moment because the South Park goth kids are often eerily similar to shit that they said and did as a weird little goth kid back in high school

At one point, Rocky actually made Josie little plush dolls of the goth kids that he’d designed himself, and they are a big reason why you’re not allowed in Josie’s room until they trust you.

Other reasons include:

Josie doesn’t want most people to touch their makeup or put any of it out of order, and they keep most of it in their bedroom, on their dresser, in front of the vanity mirror that they found someone just throwing out shortly after they moved to Baltimore, even though it’s a perfectly good mirror so wtf;

some of Josie’s favorite and most personally meaningful religious and spiritual paraphernalia is in their bedroom (they keep their actual shrine to Dionysus and their, “worship workspace” in a different room at their place, but some of the more personally significant things are in their room most of the time, and they’d rather you didn’t have a chance to touch them);

Josie just tends to be an incredibly private person who places a lot of value on their personal space and having spaces that are set aside as Theirs. They were like this even before their psychic abilities kicked in and made them value even more their personal space, and ability to have a place that is set apart as Theirs Exclusively where they can go to get some distance from all the mental, emotional, and sensory overload that comes from feeling almost everyone’s feelings and hearing many of their thoughts**, to some extent or another, almost all the time;

and the few albums of old photos and framed old photos, some of which are just garden variety embarrassing like, “yes, my hair is naturally blond, here is photographic evidence from before my parents let me start dyeing it, and oh yeah, that was probably backstage after the community theatre production of Oliver! that I did in eighth grade — oh yeah, definitely that one, there’s my Artful Dodger costume and my glaringly blond hair”

but others of which are, for lack of a better term, fairly emotionally complicated for Josie. There are several different reasons why any of these photos might be kinda complicated — ranging from, “they feature Josie’s one particularly heinous ex-boyfriend who used his wealthy family’s connections to get Josie blacklisted from working in fashion after they graduated from Pratt’s School of Design” to, “they’re from the year in high school that Josie wound up having to do over because they had to spend a few months getting inpatient treatment for their eating disorder”

^: even before getting recruited to S.T.R.O.M.A., Josie got really good at finding a balance between the, “I don’t want to look pretty, I want to look otherworldly and possibly like a vampire fairy from Wonderland” style of makeup that they want to wear, and a “more professional” style that is less likely to make their clients feel uncomfortable or get them harassed — but god, do they wish that they didn’t have to strike said balance.

It wouldn’t actually make their fondness for high-quality and often expensive makeup feel like any less of a guilty pleasure, for several reasons — on one hand, their awareness of how makeup is always politically Complicated, at best; on the other, if they got to wear their makeup exactly how they want it every day, they would end up spending more money on makeup, and it would make them feel guilty because they’d feel like it’s very irresponsible and probably going to screw them over down the line because they bought makeup instead of saving the money or putting it toward something else; and on the tentacle, a whole laundry list of other reasons

—but they would still feel more comfortable with themself and more at ease with everything because they’d be presenting exactly as they want, instead of censoring their own personal gender expressions (which they’re more okay with doing when it comes to their clients because that’s a case of compromising part of their well-being in the name of [probably] helping people who need them and pay them for that help, whereas toning it down at S.T.R.O.M.A. is tedious and Josie would seriously rather not)

(They have more than once said that the degree to which they have to tone things down for S.T.R.O.M.A. makes them feel like Ned “I’m not a Satanic sex god anymore, used to be a super gothed out androgynous rock star, but is now a straitlaced and nerdy substitute teacher” Schneebly from School of Rock.

This is not a good feeling, in Josie Land. They don’t like it and they live for the weekend because, barring any major incidents that get them called in to S.T.R.O.M.A., they get to wear what the fuck they want, forego pants in favor of their favorite skirts, do their gender how the fuck they want, and wear makeup that makes them look like a vampire fairy from Wonderland)

Phobias: Josie’s biggest fear, in the immediate sense, is losing control of their psychic abilities and ending up hurting people and/or destroying themself somehow.

Underlying that, they have a bigger and more further-reaching fear of being out of control of themself and their own actions, in general.

They’re simultaneously afraid of crowds (largely because they can get really overwhelming for Josie, really fast), and afraid of isolation, which ends up making them a lot like the sort of cat who goes all like, “cuddle me cuddle me cuddle me please please please i need love and affection… no wait, fuck you, this is stifling me and i need to get out of here… wait shit i’m lonely someone please love me… no, not you, you fucking suck… why am i so lonely, why won’t anyone pay attention to me… and so and so forth ad nauseam”

That said, when I was doing Pottermore quizzes for my kids because that is the sort of thing I find both fun and useful, Josie’s picked, “Isolation” for the, “Which is your greatest fear” question on the wand quiz

They picked, “An eye at the keyhole of the dark, windowless room in which you are locked” for the, “Which nightmare would frighten you most” question on the Sorting Hat quiz

Other miscellaneous fears and squicks: Worms, eels, and anything like that (but snakes are okay, snakes are great).

The possibility of never finding love (which they know is kind of ridiculous, because they do have a lot of love in their life… but Josie does want to be with someone romantically, and all their miscellaneous issues with their blood family aside, it’s weird and kind of disheartening for them that most of their cousins have gotten married or settled down with someone, so yeah, Josie knows that this fear is based on a lot of ideas that they generally don’t like and don’t want to live by, but still.

They’re 35, their closest friends both have longstanding romantic relationships, they’re one of the few cousins left who doesn’t have a plus-one to bring to the next family wedding, and they want a romantic relationship, so being perpetually reminded that they’re not in one kicks them in the larger fear that there is something about them that is just fundamentally unlovable, so they might end up being forever alone).

What They Would Be Famous For: Realistically? Probably how they’re going to start a new superhero team with Lucy, Pete, and Sebastian — later accumulating others — and how they’re all going to kinda stumble into trying to foil some other mutants who also happen to be neo-fascist supervillains. But had Josie’s one ex, Danny, not effectively gotten them blacklisted from working in fashion, Josie might well have made a pretty big name for themself there.

They used to joke about being famous for going on Project Runway and winning, but… this started after they’d already gotten onto the path that led them to therapeutic practice, and seen that they had the potential to do a lot of good in the world by continuing on that path, so the chances of them actually doing the Project Runway thing were almost nothing

What They Would Get Arrested For: While they haven’t technically been arrested before, Josie could have been arrested for illegally overstepping the bounds of what their particular level of metahuman license allowed them to do, and if they get arrested in the future, it is almost definitely going to be for something like protesting or some trumped up nonsense charges that actually boil down to, “getting on the wrong side of neo-fascist supervillains who have wealth and connections and political power.”

OCs You Ship Them With:

Romantically: Pete is my favorite here, but: 1. I’m also going to make them work for it, because they would be good for each other, but it wouldn’t just happen super-easily for several reasons, both about the two of them individually and about how they get on together;

and 2. I’d also dig shipping Josie with Seb, Stephen, Vince, Sylvia, Izzy, Raphael, and Cynthia — though tbh, I like non-romantic Seb/Josie better than romantic Seb/Josie

Platonically: As mentioned, Jude, Rocky, and Sebastian. Aside from them, Margot, Lucy, and Sara Grace (who are all ruled out as romantic options by the three of them being lesbians), and Josie being genderfluid, yes, but not identifying with womanhood enough for them to consider romantically pursuing someone who identifies as a lesbian. Todd (who I kind of feel bad for, because he’s sort of the loser in love so far, but otoh, that’s partially his own damn fault and he has a lot of growing to do before I’m letting him have a romantic relationship that actually lasts). Yael and Elizabeth. Really, everyone on the romantic list is a good platonic relationship, too.

“this is not a ship that i condone but i find their relationship interesting, and exploring Not Good relationships is Important to me”: Julian, who actually hasn’t met Josie yet, and won’t for a while, and their relationship will be…… tricky, in a lot of ways, many of which have something to do with how Julian is a huge tool who has a charming tendency to take his own self-loathing and insecurity out on everyone else while acting campy and making sarcastic quips as though this makes his behaviors totally okay.

Pretty much everything about Julian makes him someone who would make Josie say, “the Lord is testing me”

(only for someone — probably Lucy — to go, “But you’re not Christian” and get told either, “I was raised as one, maybe Jesus’s Dad is still grumpy that I found someone who’s better for me. Anyway, you know what I meant, right?”

or, “Fine. The Almighty Thundering Zeus, lord of the heavens and king of Olympus and He Who Was Cheating On His Wife With Everyone Ever Before It Was Cool, is testing me. There. Does that version make you happy?”)

But, yeah. Julian would make Josie go, “someone is testing me” because so much of who and what he is makes Josie want to help him, but so much of what he does makes Josie want to punch him

(an impulse that Josie largely won’t be acting on because, unfortunately for them:

1. they did not get any super-strength kinds of mutations and in an RPG, Strength would be one of their lowest stats;

and 2. first, they need to learn how to throw a punch without hurting themself more than the other person.

Punching neo-fascists isn’t their strong suit. They can let Seb and Lucy do the actual punching.

And Pete, even though Pete really shouldn’t because Pete also doesn’t know how to throw a punch without hurting himself more than the other person, so Josie is more likely to try and stop him from punching a neo-fascist supervillain in the face.

Not that Josie will always succeed in that, but… well. They and their teammates are all only human.)

Anyway, uh. Josie/Julian isn’t a ship that I’d personally want to see as the endgame of anything, ever, but I find their dynamic and the potential interactions between them interesting, and they’re something I’m looking forward to playing around with more, when it’s their time

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Conrad will kinda want to, because he finds Josie’s sense of ethics to be, “tedious and outdated,” but ultimately, he wouldn’t go through with it because Josie’s creativity would intrigue him too much.

Senator Huntington would also want Josie to die, but he wouldn’t do any of the actual murdering because he doesn’t do his own dirty work.

All things considered, Edward and Desmond are probably going to end up with the job, “Go kill the weird effete one who looks like some kind of vampire fairy from Wonderland” because everyone else is busy, and they will fail at it, because that’s kind of what they do.

They are Those Two Bad Guys, and they kind of suck at almost everything that they try to do.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Fantasy, vampire trash, psychological thrillers, magical girl everything, and horror (pretty much all kinds of horror, though Josie’s most fond of monster horror, anything with revenge-y themes, and religious or cosmic horror. They will probably tell you, “The weirder and more pointlessly, aesthetically symbolic, the better”).

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Josie would tell you that it’s how much romanticized abuse there is in paranormal romance, and to be fair, they do hate that…… but they still read it or watch it and get invested in these fictional relationships, even without necessarily coming up with a counter-reading of the text’s opinion, beyond, “this relationship is abusive even if the author doesn’t get that”

Which, to be fair, doesn’t mean that they don’t hate the prevalence of romanticized intimate partner abuse, just that it’s an, “I hate this thing” where they still engage with it, and not just because there aren’t always a lot of options without it

(Horror flicks that demonize and stigmatize mental illness are a thing where Josie doesn’t like the thing, but suffers through them because there aren’t a lot of other options otherwise)

But one trope that will make them, “nope” out…… uh.

Josie is really sensitive about The Uncanny Valley, and while they may not fully, “nope” out of things over it, they need to take more time than most people to prep themselves for seeing it and recover after seeing it

Also, not a trope, but Shia LaBeouf will make Josie “nope” out of anything. They have no rational reason for disliking Shia LeBouf, so much as he Just Irrationally Bugs Them, but they will “nope” out of things if he’s involved

Talents and/or Powers: Okay, so, a lot of Josie’s actual superpowers are discussed elsewhere, especially in the footnotes, so let’s talk about their other, non-mutant superpowers. They can sew. Even without having been actively designing anything for a while, they can still pull out a good design and they are capable of following a pattern pretty well. They know their limits fairly well, and better than pretty much everyone in the main team (this doesn’t mean that they always). And it’s almost 4 AM, so this answer is getting cut short by, “I am tired and I want to sleep” (and the next two answers will suck for the same reason)

Why Someone Might Love Them: Josie is creative and curious and once you get them to warm up, calm down, and stop worrying so much about anything, they’re a complete dork who, among other things, gives people, “C’thulhu kisses” (done by sticking your hands in front of your mouth and wiggling your fingers like tentacles, and maybe making a silly noise and saying, “C’thulhu kisses!” like you’re Sailor Moon shouting her transformation phrase). They have a pretty good sense of humor about themself, outside of their precious few no go areas. Josie is compassionate and they do genuinely want the best for most people, even people they don’t personally like very much. They try to be patient with people, even when they really don’t want to be, and even if they don’t always know what the best option is, they still try to actually do things and choose the best option for creating positive change.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Their cycle of indecisiveness that leads to recklessness that leads to self-punishing thoughts and behaviors that leads to more indecisiveness, and rinse lather repeat. Their tendency to be really judgmental, even while acknowledging that being judgmental is something that, in their experience, causes more harm than good, and that they want to avoid more often. The way that they can lapse into talking like a high school goth kid who’s up-talking the superiority of goth subculture and doesn’t realize that they sound like an elitist, conformist prick, just like the people they’re complaining about allegedly do.

How They Change: Well, for one thing, Josie has some things to learn about how they relate to people and manage their relationships — which doesn’t necessarily make them special because this is just kind of a Thing for most of my main characters in one way or another. Josie’s specific issue wrt relating to other people has to do with their reluctance to trust people and open up and try to build any new relationships, which has often led to them practicing a sort of interpersonal-level isolationism that has hurt them and other people.

They also have something to learn about managing the façade(s) that they present to the world, much like how Seb has to learn something about his habit of acting like everything is okay while he’s suffering and thinking anyone believes him anymore because he doesn’t want to deal with his problems

and like how Pete has to learn about how…… yeah, okay, he is genuinely angry about a lot of things — some of them fair and really more, “righteous indignation” than anything else, and some of them less fair — but a lot of how he acts that anger out in the world is not actually as truthful as Pete feels like it is, but more a way of keeping people at arm’s length, testing them and testing his relationships with them, and trying to push them away before they can get the chance to hurt him

In Josie’s case, their façade(s) are a bit different because most of them came into being less because of an emotional choice on Josie’s part — e.g., Seb doesn’t want to deal with his problems because they’re painful and terrifying and they feel like they’re too big to handle — and more out of pragmatic decisions

……but then Josie came to rely on them in contexts other than the ones in which they were originally created, and balancing that many different versions of yourself is stressful as fuck-all, especially for someone who already has to do a lot of work to keep reminding themself of where their personal boundaries are, and Josie hides in their different façades every bit as much as every other character who has one, and largely only gets away with that because most people in their life don’t know them well enough to notice this, and their façades do still have pragmatic value, so most people who do notice don’t say shit about shit

Then, there’s Josie’s relationship to time, which

I’m going to explain this really badly now, because it’s 3:33 and I’m tired, but basically, I see Seb, Josie, and Lucy as complementing each other in how they relate to and orient themselves in time, and the negative side-effects that they create for themselves because of these behaviors

On one hand, Seb is way too prone to being stuck in the past. He clings to it too much — but also has a selective relationship with it, where people he cares about get forgiven too easily and Seb tries to deny that he still feels upset about anything (even when basically everyone around him knows that he does feel upset and is just trying not to deal with it), while Seb forgives himself for nothing and defines himself so much by all of his past mistakes

—and he goes past the point of, “honoring and respecting history, such as by not ignoring times when he did fuck up (of which there are many)” to, “actively impeding his own progress in life because, for example, he keeps trying the same shit over and over and over again, even though it literally never works, because it’s what he did before.” Plus, some of his ideas about the past are distorted by various factors, or missing entirely (most often due to intoxicated blackouts and/or head trauma that would have had more disastrous effects on him if not for his mutant healing factor), or otherwise unreliable, so that’s a problem.

On the other hand, Lucy is future-oriented and totally jazzed up about trying new things and meeting new challenges head on and doing things!! also STUFF!!!!! there is an entire world full of THINGS AND STUFF AND BY GOD, LUCY IS GOING TO DO ALL OF IT OR AT LEAST AS MUCH OF IT AS SHE POSSIBLY CAN AND THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER SO HELP HER GOD OR JESUS OR SATAN OR WHOEVER EXCELSIOR YAH YAH YAH!!!!

……which is great and all, but she charges headlong into shit without an actual plan (seriously, most of her plans follow the good old, “step one: do this thing / step two: ………… / step three: PROFIT!” formula), and she’s a case of someone who is averse to learning from history at all because she doesn’t want to be shackled to it, but having no sense of history can be just as bad as being overly chained to it like Sebastian, and… well. You can try to outrun the past like she does, but it doesn’t tend to work out very well, and it’s not going to work for Lucy either

On the tentacle, we have Josie, who ostensibly has a balance between the past and the future orientations that we see in Seb and Lucy, because Josie’s primary focus tends to lie on the present, and at most, the very near future or very recent past

—but that’s not actually a balance like Josie wants to believe, because (among other things), it makes it very easy for Josie to ignore past lessons that are older than maybe the past two or three months; and it means that while Josie can see all kinds of potential consequences, their ability to predict what they could be gets a lot less reliable as you go further into the future; and it means that Josie has trouble actually putting together a longer-term plan, which is part of their problem with wanting to create positive change in the world but not knowing how

Josie also has a tougher road (imltho) to go on about finding a new and better balance here, because their focus on the present is something they learned in recovery, as part of learning about mindfulness, and it does help them sometimes — but on that personal level, Josie’s presentist focus can also hurt them because, even when they notice certain behaviors in themself that could get Bad For Them, they can also overlook some of these budding patterns because they’re not Obviously Bad Enough to feel like a major concern, or they look different from other past manifestations of Josie’s behavior patterns so Josie doesn’t think they need to worry about these behaviors, and so on

I’m mean to my characters and I’m going to make them work to be happy, but they will all be happy, eventually

Uh. Barring most of the villains, because letting the neo-fascist assholes win in the end would be a complete downer that would probably end up undermining a lot of the whole, “just because the world is a crapsack hellhole doesn’t mean that it has to stay that way or that we should give up on it” idea

Why You Love Them: Okay, so, this needs a bit of a story.

See, Josie is a retooled character from an old RP that I was in way, way back. I loved them a lot, and they weren’t entirely wrong for the game — they had a good run in their first incarnation — but they also weren’t entirely right for it, and they kind of floundered a bit because I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them.

A large part of this was due to how Josie was a senior at their school and, because of the year they did over, they were itching to get out and go to college, and the closest they got to an actual arc was how they didn’t want to leave behind their ex-boyfriend turned best friend (who was in the class below them), but did want to go to college already and get to the rest of their life

and how they had some trouble with accepting said best friend’s new boyfriend when Josie really wanted to be compassionate, because New Boyfriend was mentally ill and dealing with some trauma and Josie sympathized and wanted him to be well because why the Hell would you wish for someone to be *UN*well jfc — but also had trouble with that because New Boyfriend was sometimes aware of how some of his actions affected other people, but sometimes not, but sometimes he was and did the stupid things anyway, and even in working on his problems, he made the mistake that a lot of people do where they focus on getting well as defined by and in order to please the people around them, rather than doing it for themselves

—all of which Josie was sympathetic to in a big way, having been in some similar places before themself…… but they had a hard time always being as compassionate as they wanted to be because New Boyfriend’s actions had been hurting Best Friend, and even knowing that this wasn’t entirely something that New Boyfriend could be entirely blamed for (for several reasons), Josie still had a hard time trying to overlook the, “this lovable weirdo is my friend, my best friend, and even though we aren’t together anymore, I love him, and you hurt him, so yeah, I’m kinda mad at you for that” thing

And this all goes back to why I love Josie because one thing that they’ve kept in a big way, in getting retooled and updated and worked into my dumb little stories about neurodivergent and/or mentally ill LGBTQ mutant superheroes (and Pete, who is not actually a mutant but is neurodivergent, gay, an abuse survivor, and a superhero and I will fight anyone who says otherwise)

(I mean, ffs. Batman doesn’t have any mutant superpowers, and Iron Man wouldn’t have any actual superpowers without his ridiculous power-armor and, depending on the continuities, his arc reactors. So, no, I don’t think that Pete needs to have literal superpowers to count as a superhero — but that’s beside the point and to be fair, I will admit to being biased because I love Pete more than George RR Martin loves Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister)

Anyway. As I was saying.

One thing that Josie has kept in a big way is that ongoing fight with themself over two equally powerful impulses or reactions to things or desires — like their, “I want affections and I want to be around people…… okay no this is overwhelming and I don’t actually like these people fuck this I want to be alone…… oh but being alone sucks and now I’m lonely, I want to be where the people are, let’s go to the movies…… oh my god why did we go see the new Star Wars while it’s still a relatively recent release, I barely remember anything about the actual movie, I was too overwhelmed by the feelings of everyone else in that completely packed theatre… and so on” relationship with other people and being around them or not

Or like their big struggle in the first book of wanting to help people and create positive change in the world, but not being able to do too terribly much on their own for a lot of reasons (some of which are about Josie personally, and some of which are about the whole Lone Superhero thing be a lot of hot fucking nonsense that is fundamentally unsustainable), but not having an official team to belong to because although they work for S.T.R.O.M.A., they don’t like S.T.R.O.M.A., and while they are part of the extended Wardens family, they’re not a fully-fledged Warden and so much of the Wardens’ everything is based around Yael and Elizabeth’s school, so being one and not being up in Poughkeepsie would be weird and mean you end up missing out on a lot and, in Josie’s case, end up feeling like an outsider even when you’re surrounded by people who, for the most part, love you and accept you exactly as you are, but also not entirely doing everything they can to find a team because, in fairness, it can be really difficult to do that even if you don’t work for the U.S. government……

Basically, I love Josie because I love making my characters deal with internal conflict, and while all of them have a lot of it, I’m really fond of Josie’s particular brand of, “self-reflective, doing things but not things that add up to bigger things in the ways that Josie wants, trying to remedy that but it’s hard, not sure what to do or if going after these new possibilities and new ideas will make things worse, getting fed up with themself and needing to try something, but but but five million different elements all converging on each other but but but” internal conflict

And I’m really fond of it in Josie’s case because Josie is savvy enough to know that they can’t fall into the same, “do fuck-all nothing about anything until the last possible minute” trap, but their frustration is less about, “I can’t do anything” and more about, “but what do the things that I do actually mean, who am I helping, am I actually helping them or not, how can I do things that create more significant positive changes or is there a way to do that at all”

And, well. There is, Josie, but it requires you to trust some new people, bond with some new people, build relationships with them and work on maintaining said relationships, find strength in numbers, and learn more about loving and letting people love you back because one of your biggest problems in your previous relationships has been that you don’t open up — not, “you open up slowly” but, “you don’t open up with most people, period, despite knowing that this is not a sustainable way of doing things” — so yeah I’d say you need to learn about that, and learn to stop being such a lone wolf because do you know what generally happens to lone wolves? Either they find a pack somehow, or they die (without making any kind of positive changes in the world around them, relative to the size and interests of, y’know, wolves).

……Because I’m a lonely and bitter and it makes my half-dead little heart happy to make my characters find more strength together than they do apart and learn to love and be loved in return without it coming off as one-sided, like it can do in a lot of takes on that trope that are aimed at children, because…… uh, last I checked, the whole point of a relationship is that it is not exclusively about one person’s needs or desires???

Also, Josie is a compassionate but grumpy grown up goth kid who is trying to be a good person, and doing a better job than a lot of other characters, but definitely has a problem with their judgmental tendencies and how they sometimes externalize them and get super-judgmental of others, because on some level, their mind is like, “fuck, can i get a break from always punishing myself over here, jfc” and I don’t know, it’s almost 4AM and I have lost track of how long I’ve been writing this

Josie’s a nerd and a cat who can’t make up their mind about whether they want to be outside chasing butterflies or inside sitting on your keyboard so that you have to pay attention to them and not your computer and idk, I love them, the end

(except for the footnotes oops)

*: Special Taskforce for the Regulation and Oversight of Metahuman Affairs — or in plain-speak, the FBI’s wing of people who get involved in all of the shiny, extralegal superpowered mutant hijinks.

They have a pretty good working relationship with their counterparts at the Department of Health and Human Services (who actually end up handling most mutant affairs, because this world treats the question of super-powered mutant licensing as more equivalent to getting a driver’s license, and frankly, most mutants in the U.S. just want to go about their lives in peace — like, go to college, get a job, go on dates, come home and watch the Daily Show, and not be bothered about or make trouble for anyone else with the weird superpowers that most of them did not want or ask for — so there’s rarely any actual reason for the FBI to go stick their noses into anything, and there are plenty of cases where they get called in, only to find that they aren’t actually needed after all), but… yeah.

S.T.R.O.M.A. is a faction of people who exist. Josie works for them, for all they would really rather not. Unfortunately for Josie, particularly powerful metahumans tend to wind up on a lot of S.T.R.O.M.A. watch-lists, and they are more likely to do so when they have powers that the people at the FBI consider particularly useful or desirable — for example, telepathy and hyper-empathy, in Josie’s case. For the most part, these watch-lists don’t actually amount to anything because they don’t end up being relevant to most of the cases that S.T.R.O.M.A. has to deal with.

—but then you can have situations like Josie’s, where they were one of many mutants who got in a brief spot of trouble over genuine confusion surrounding a new bill that had just gone through Congress and revised some of the definitions of and privileges associated with/afforded to people at the different levels of metahuman licenses. (Since this is still America and we’re still talking about the FBI, there are also plenty of even worse potential outcomes for people who end up on their miscellaneous mutant watchlists — which is one of the big points that gets brought up by people who either want to reform or do away with the whole metahuman licensing thing — but in fairness to most people, they don’t know the full specifics.)

Anyway, Josie got in trouble because they are an actual therapist and, although they prefer not to use their powers with clients and extensively brief anyone who asks about trying that approach (about the potential benefits vs. potential risks, all the drawbacks, all the potential unintended consequences, etc.) while offering them plenty of chances to change their mind and go, “okay, let’s not do this,” they do still let their clients know that they’re a telepath/empath and that they can use their powers in a therapeutic context but it’s not the best thing to try as a first approach

Which is all great, except that Josie had been assured that they wouldn’t need to get a different kind of license to continue doing this, after that bill passed… except that they did. And this probably would’ve continued with no actual interference from anybody because Josie is hyper-responsible about using their powers with clients, about keeping up on all of the latest research and debates about therapeutic uses for psychic abilities and the ethical issues surrounding this, and so on…… except that one of their clients was a teenager who needed parental consent to go through with this, and one of their parents worked for S.T.R.O.M.A.

Relevant piece of context: Josie was absolutely not the only mutant who’d had some confusion over the revised licensing scheme. Josie wasn’t even the only mutant in the greater Baltimore area who had similar confusion on this issue.

But Josie was one of the only ones who was already on S.T.R.O.M.A.’s radar when they got in trouble, partly by virtue of being a “telempath,” partly by virtue of having trained with Dr. Elizabeth Woodham (who is: one of the most powerful telepaths in the entire world; a respected professor, activist, and philanthropist; one of the first mutants in the States to register for one of the early, “superhero licenses” [not their official name, but that’s the gist of what they are]; and with her wife, Dr. Yael Lehrer, one of the co-founders of the Wardens and co-headmistresses of one of the most respected schools for mutants in North America), and partly by virtue of having a lot of (mostly untapped) potential power.

And, see, one of S.T.R.O.M.A.’s problems is that it is perpetually under-staffed, in all areas but especially in terms of mutants who work for them, and moreover, mutants who will actually do fieldwork (like, Pete’s cousin Emerson is a mutant and he does work for S.T.R.O.M.A., but he’s lower on the powers scale than most of their employees who do active fieldwork, and he has no desire to do fieldwork when he could do lab-work instead). There are a lot of reasons for this problem of staffing, but one of the more noticeable end-results is that S.T.R.O.M.A. can be somewhat unethical in some of their recruitment bids. Like, yes, sometimes, you just get a visit from Some Guy Who Is Totally Not Nick Fury, who offers you a chance to be a part of something bigger than yourself and to use your abilities to help people

Other times, you get treated to a few hours of what S.T.R.O.M.A. sees and treats as the interview portion of applying for a Very Important Position somewhere, except that they don’t tell you that this is what they’re doing and they use “interview” (read: interrogation) techniques that people in law enforcement usually save for wrangling confessions out of suspects.

It will not look like it, but they are actually trying to figure out some specific things about you, including but not limited to: how you handle high-stress and high-pressure situations (like, for example, being accused of using your powers for any extralegal vigilantism, and maybe knowing things about [the biggest mutant-related news of the day] that they don’t; being threatened with a trip to one of the U.S. prisons designed to hold mutants; etc.); various details about your backstory and who you are as a person and what your biggest Deals are (i.e., getting you to help them run a damn background check on yourself); and how in control of your powers you are (since they trust the DHHS evaluations, but prefer to supplement them with firsthand evidence).

Then, once they’ve figured out what they want to know, you might very well be offered something to the tune of, “Alright, this is your first offense, and based on your dossier and this interview, we think that you could be an asset to S.T.R.O.M.A., if you wanted. If you like the sound of working for us, at least as an analyst or consultant if not a fully-fledged special agent, then we can make all of this legal trouble just go away. If you don’t like the sound of that, then……… well… *deliberately trails off to let you draw your own conclusions while still staying within the letter of the law, because hey, they didn’t actually tell you that you’d for sure end up getting prosecuted and going to prison*”

So…… yeah. S.T.R.O.M.A. and Ethics are not always on speaking terms.

Add this recruitment story to Josie’s frustrations with how metahuman employees at S.T.R.O.M.A. tend to get treated — e.g., they, themself, are often trotted out to go liaise with different media outlets as a public face of Mutants Who Work Here, Look We’re Trying Our Best So You Should All Just Totally Cooperate With Us, but they’re discouraged from voicing any of their own opinions and advised to just stick to these Bureau-approved talking points — and at having to be closeted and fairly masc-presenting at work because S.T.R.O.M.A. thinks they’re a cis man, and…… yeah, uh.

“Josie would really, really rather not work here” is an understatement af… but they continue working here anyway because: 1. as a consultant, they can still usually balance things enough to keep working as a therapist;

and 2. Josie wants so badly to help people, and for all S.T.R.O.M.A. is highly unethical (sometimes) and part of the goddamn FBI, most of the people who work there also want to help people and use their work to create positive changes in the world — and it’s not an unfair observation that, on their own, there really isn’t much that Josie can do (because the idea of the solo superhero who works alone… isn’t sustainable, like??

Aside from the political and ideological issues with that whole aspect of superhero mythology, it’s not actually feasible for one person, working on their own, to create any positive change. It would be massively unhealthy for them, there’s only so much they can do as one person, there are no actual safeguards in place if they ever get corrupted, and as multiple deconstructions of the genre have shown, it’s really easy for a classic lone vigilante model superhero to slide into a mindset like Rorschach’s — which is full of hypocrisy, double standards, misogyny and homophobia and ableism, and total moral absolutism that simultaneously allows no room for compassion and keeps Rorschach from being able to appreciate the big picture outside of his little myopic Objectivst bubble — or Frank Miller!Batman, who is often only a step or two off from actual fascism, but we probably won’t call it that because he’s wearing the Batman suit).

At this point, Josie has even had it all but confirmed that the agents who came to recruit them definitely “avoided certain truths to manipulate them” on purpose, so they’re reasonably certain that they could probably leave S.T.R.O.M.A without having their previous step out of bounds dredged up and handed to a D.A. who’d be pressured to prosecute them for it…… but they want to help people, and S.T.R.O.M.A. is one of the only options that they can currently see where they get to help anyone.

So, here they are. Working in a position that they’re not a fan of, looking at the motivational posters of gothed out kittens that one of their best friends drew for them, and trying to take, “hang in there!” kitty’s advice and tough it out at S.T.R.O.M.A. for the sake of doing some good in the world.

**: This mostly happens if Josie doesn’t have the energy enough or keep focus enough to keep their mental walls up — which they are usually very diligent about because on one hand, hearing other people’s thoughts kind of sucks actually (Josie would definitely agree with the sentiment that, a lot of the time, being a telepath is like having a youtube comments section screaming at you in your head)

—and on the other, um, hello, telepathy can, in the wrong hands, become a walking violation of civil liberties. Like, if you ask Josie, telepathy has a lot in common with wiretapping, though they consider it potentially even more dangerous than that, because it’s harder to prove that telepathy has been involved in something, since:

1. yes, the traces of telepathy can show up on a CAT scan or an MRI of the brain, but you’d need a neurologist who is well-trained, very attentive, and up to date on as much of the current research into telepathy as possible — or hey, a team of neurologists might not be a bad idea, if you can get them all, because one neurologist might miss something

—but otoh, the traces of telepathy can sometimes also be mistaken as signs of something else, especially if someone is neurodivergent and/or mentally ill, has suffered any serious and/or recent head injuries, has a history of substance abuse, is sleep-deprived at the time of the tests, may actually have something else going on in their brain in addition to the traces of telepathy

Seriously, just about anything that affects the brain can make it harder to tell whether or not someone’s been hit with telepathy

Plus: telepathic abilities are sort of mid-level common among mutants, and some mutants use them without even realizing it because their powers haven’t manifested in ways that are for sure Outside Three Standard Deviations From The Non-Mutant Human Mean, so some minor telepathic scarring is common, even in people who haven’t been hit by something as awful as, say, memory modification, or having someone go in and pick around in their brain like they’re flipping through an issue of Us Weekly

—and without a keen, well-trained eye, it can be really hard to tell those types of telepathic scarring apart

2. some of the traces of telepathy are more subjective, and while they might show up on a brain scan, the best evidence of them will come from the people who’ve been hit with the telepathic whatever

—but that’s going to be a problem because, in a lot of cases, they won’t have any memory of it, or they’ll have a false memory of it, and there’s no guarantee that further telepathic probing will be able to help here, and it could just make things worse. Plus, there’s no guarantee that the people who’ve been hit will actually be aware that what they’re experiencing is related to telepathy.

This is especially true with experienced, exceptionally powerful, and/or highly meticulous telepaths, because some of them can dick around in people’s heads and leave barely any trace that they were there

Like, for an example of what a more subjective trace might look like: Conrad is a telepath, and unlike Josie, he doesn’t really care about ethics or the rights of most other people. About ten years before the story actually starts, he took an interest in his new brother-in-law’s youngest brother (Sebastian), because he could sense something in Seb — he didn’t know what it was, exactly, but it was definitely a something — that made him go, “huh, maybe this emotionally troubled nearly twenty-year-old boy is also a mutant”

(I mean, he’s not wrong. And the something that he got a sense of back then is the part of Seb that he’s eventually going to call, “La Bête,” because if he’s going to go for the superhero thing and need a codename, then, “Gévaudan” makes sense to him because his family is insistently French [despite not having lived in France since about 1781, apart from one ancestral namesake of Seb’s who stayed in Paris for their Revolution (and Severin Sebastien Moncrieff was a confirmed bachelor, so he left behind a partner but no heirs), well before La Bête du Gévaudan was a Thing, and despite not being from the region of France where that happened] and hey, he can apparently turn into a giant wolf-man, now

—and if he’s calling himself, “Gévaudan,” then, “La Bête” is just thematically consistent. But that’s beside the point.)

Anyway: Conrad wasn’t new to his powers ten years ago, but he was much more reckless with them — especially when he believed that he was absolutely right and would stop at nothing to prove it — and he had less finesse in using them.

So, he left behind plenty of traces when he decided to use his little sister’s wedding reception as a chance to go telepathically play around with Seb, trying to either figure out if his new brother-in-law’s little brother actually was a mutant, or maybe triggering his powers into fully manifesting (plus plying him with alcohol and adding rohypnol to the mix based on the notion that either it wouldn’t affect Seb because he’s a mutant, or if not that, then it’d trigger his abilities into manifesting).

The underlying logic of the rohypnol idea was actually not wrong, because toxin filtering is one of the more common mutant abilities you find in the States (and it happens to be one that Seb has), and some mutants have had their powers manifest in response to poisoning, drugging, exposure to carbon monoxide or other toxic fumes, and even being given antibiotics or certain medications

The idea was still morally wrong and ethically skeevy, but the mutant-related logic actually did work. Where Conrad went wrong on that count was that he overly simplified the situation, only looked for two potential reactions, and didn’t know what to make of how Seb was affected by the rohypnol but not nearly as badly as he should’ve been, so he went, “Was he affected or not?? I don’t know????”

[Here is where I cut a whole big tangent explaining that whole story, but it got way, way off the point, so.]

Anyway, the gist of the story is that Conrad is the only person who consciously remembers everything that happened, since most of the people who cared about it were not present for the encounter itself, and Conrad screwed around with Seb’s memories, both telepathically and not.

Like, Seb has more memories of it than he would if he weren’t a mutant, considering that he got dosed with rohypnol, but he also has false memories about some of what happened, and Conrad repressed Seb’s memories of certain events (like how many times he tried to break away from Conrad, or turn down the offer of another drink, because he’d promised his big brother that he wouldn’t get drunk and make a scene at Max’s wedding or the reception, and it was important to him to honor that promise)

Fortunately for Conrad, Seb is not one of the mutants who has an increased resistance to psychic attacks — largely because, contrary to what Conrad thought until about two years before the story starts, someone’s ability to resist to psychic attacks has nothing to do with whether or not they’re a mutant (aside from some special cases where someone has a resistance to any psychic attacks that falls outside three standard deviations of the non-mutant human mean)

—so, despite the feelings he sometimes gets that something about those memories might be wrong, Seb totally believes that they’re real and he doesn’t notice any of the incongruities unless someone points them out, which almost no one has any reason to do because there isn’t usually a reason for Seb to talk at length about the details of this particular incident that happened almost ten years ago

(there would be, if he ever brought it up in therapy or at AA and/or NA, or dwelled on it when he did, but that has yet to actually happen)

Unfortunately for Conrad, he did a sloppy job of this, and while it would be hard for a neurologist to tell the physical signs of his telepathic probing apart from the other brain damage that Seb’s accrued, the hardest thing for most other telepaths would be trying to find the right memories. The crap-shoot nature of telepathically digging through someone else’s mind is one of the many reasons why Josie doesn’t like using their powers as a first approach in therapy, because you can never guarantee with any reliable certainty that you’ll get at the parts of someone’s mind that you want

—but if someone did get to Seb’s memories of this incident, it would be really obvious to them that they’ve been modified. Like, images might be blurred around the edges, it might glitch like a video or audio track that’s skipping, the voices might get distorted, the colors might look wonky, and so on. Prodding a bit more would also be able to undo Conrad’s memory-blocks without doing too much damage to Seb’s brain (not so much on an emotional and psychological level, but the damage there would be more like the painful truth that hurts now but leads to something better)

Anyway, it’s much harder to get proof of this nature when you’re dealing with more skillful, more attentive, more powerful, etc. telepaths, because they aren’t as messy as Conrad was with Seb

and 3. Wiretapping operations usually involve more people, which doesn’t make them ethical or necessarily justified, but it does mean that they’re easier to find evidence of because there are more folks who can spill the beans and point you to it. Telepathy only needs two people to happen, and one may not even be aware of what’s going on, depending on how sensitive they are and whether or not they’re dealing with an ethical telepath

For example: while not metahuman levels of resistant to psychic attacks, Pete is exceptionally sensitive to them and he’s naturally better at resisting them than some people, so if someone wanted to paw through his mind, he has a better chance of recognizing that he’s being telepathically invaded and getting them out

Sebastian, on the other hand, is Bad at recognizing and resisting psychic probing. Unethical telepaths have an easier time of getting through him because at his best, if he isn’t told in advance, then he feels ill at ease, inexplicably anxious (not that it means much, because he tends to attribute that to his shitty mental health), kind of nauseated, and maybe like he’s being spied on. At worst, he doesn’t even notice.

So, basically, Josie considers it a moral and ethical responsibility on their part to do everything they can to not inadvertently spy on people, because there is already so much about telepathy that can go really bad and poses a lot of ethical problems — but they are only human, and there are a lot of ways for someone’s mental walls to come down or reasons why they would.

Letting their empathic walls down usually makes it easier for Josie to focus on keeping up the telepathic walls, since the empathic ones are a lot harder for them to keep up, but it’s only a temporary thing because if Josie takes those walls down, they open themself up to a looooooot of potential overwhelm from outside influence, and there’s always the option to find a balance between the empathic walls and telepathic ones, but sometimes, it’s easier said than done.

Josie is usually too hard on themself for it when any slip-ups on their part happen, even knowing that every other telepath and every other empath has moments like this and even if they got too overwhelmed to actually remember anything and/or heard nothing.

It’s such a big deal to them because the potential for psychic abilities to violate other people — and especially the potential to manipulate people and compromise or outright remove their agency — is something that Josie never wanted. They went into counseling as a profession, after their original plan of going into fashion went up in smoke, but part of it, for them, has always been about trying to help people get their lives back, or manage them better, and so on. Granted, they knew about their telepathic and empathic abilities before they officially went into therapeutic practice, but that, for Josie, was part of how they developed their approach to being a therapist.

Furthermore, on a more personal and less professional note, Josie never wanted mutant superpowers to begin with. After having their telepathy and empathy first manifest in full, they might’ve done plenty of things that they normally wouldn’t even consider, if they thought it could take their powers away.

Partly, that was because their powers manifested toward the end of a really bad mental health downswing that ended in Josie going back to an inpatient treatment center for their eating disorder. Any of these elements on their own would’ve been bad enough, but having them all come down on them at once was Hell for Josie, and worse, trying to get well while you are in an inpatient center and can feel everyone else’s feelings, hear a lot of their thoughts, and are currently having trouble sorting out which parts are your own feelings, which parts are coming from your eating disorder, and which parts are coming from everyone else (not least because you don’t have any proof that you are feeling things or hearing thoughts that are coming from other people).

Josie eventually got help for that part because one of the therapists at the center was a metahuman and had gone to the Woodham and Lehrer School before deciding that she didn’t particularly want to be a superhero in the traditional sense. She reached out to her old teachers, and Josie got help for that while doing more intensive outpatient treatment until they got better at tuning out other people’s thoughts and feelings.

But there’s a lingering problem here that goes back to the feelings that underlie Josie’s ED. When they are at their absolute worst, Josie can be an absolute control freak, and they tend to turn it inward more than outward because they realize that taking it out on other people isn’t fair and they don’t feel good about it. Additionally, feeling other people’s feelings as intensely as they do gives Josie an additional incentive not to take their issues with control out on other people (and did even before their powers fully manifested, because they’ve always been pretty sensitive). On some level, Josie realizes that they can’t control things like how people react to them, whether or not bad things happen to good people, and so on, but that doesn’t always help because it can lead to them feeling even more of a need to crack down on controlling themself.

Having psychic powers becomes problematic for them in two big ways, here:

1. It’s unfortunately very easy for Josie to slip into overly self-punishing thought patterns if they feel like they aren’t as in control of their abilities as they, “should” be — which happens very easily because Josie’s standards for themself aren’t always realistic, and they usually aren’t the best judge of whether or not they’re being fair to themself.

It’s even more noticeable, for them, when they try to do more complex and demanding things with their powers.

This was one of the big reasons why they’ve stayed on good terms with their friends and mentors at the Lehrer and Woodham School, and among Yael and Elizabeth’s Wardens, but consistently rejected any invites to become a Warden (and then regretted that when S.T.R.O.M.A. got them instead, since Josie would much rather be one of the Wardens than working for the FBI).

Basically, Josie trusted Elizabeth’s guidance, and they really, really wanted to trust Elizabeth’s faith in them to handle their full power responsibly…… but it was hard to believe that when they already didn’t feel like they controlled their powers as much as they, “should” have been doing, and Elizabeth wanted to push them further.

For Josie, it felt like the choice came down to, “be a superhero and do more cool superhero things, at the expense of my own well-being, which means I eventually won’t be able to help anyone and could hurt more people than I help”

or, “quietly go back to training for an entirely different career than I expected, keep in touch with Elizabeth and work on honing my abilities, and maybe not get to help people in as big a way as members of the Wardens get to do, but at least, as a therapist, I will still have the ability to help people and will probably be less likely to screw that up by virtue of losing my control over my powers”

(To her credit, Elizabeth was disheartened by this, because she believes in all of her students and wants them to believe in themselves, and really wanted Josie on her team — but she’s learned that the superhero life isn’t for everybody, and that it’s not her job, as a teacher and mentor, to tell people what they should do; it’s her job to show them new approaches, teach them how to learn, help them find what paths and methods work best for them, etc.

So, disheartening as it was, she’s been nothing but supportive about Josie’s choice not to be a Warden, and compassionate about how much Josie doesn’t like working for the FBI — and without trying to turn it into some kind of, “this could be super-beneficial for us, if Josie wanted to give us any advance warning about S.T.R.O.M.A. business that might negatively affect us here” thing like Yael)

(To her credit, Yael really does believe that she’s helping when she says things like that, because she is so fundamentally a doer, rather than a thinker, feeler, planner, or anything else. She is absolutely capable of all of those things, but she has an approach to life and problems that goes, “Okay, this is a Thing and it’s a setback, but what can we do about it, how can we use this to build something even better”

—so her idea of how to help one of her and Elizabeth’s students and comrades with an unexpected and unwanted “recruitment” to S.T.R.O.M.A.… is going, “But look, see, we can still potentially make something good out of this, and just because a government agency snatched you up doesn’t mean that you have to forget your own values or let them control you, this can be a good thing if you take advantage of the right pieces and opportunities”

—for a moment of MBTI nerdery: Yael is an ENTJ (***) vs. Josie’s INFJ (***), so while she has Extroverted Thinking (Te) for a dominant cognitive function and primarily approaches the world based on how to get results, Josie’s dominant function is Introverted iNtuition (Ni), and while they have an orientation toward the future that appreciates where Yael is coming from with her drive to get results, Josie’s primary approach to the world looks less at objective things and objective results, more at patterns and theories and trying to find the, “higher purpose” or, “deeper reason” behind how stuff happens

Which, oddly enough, is part of why Josie and Yael get on so well. They can butt heads with each other, sometimes, but at the end of the day, they complement each other really well because both of them have vision and the drive to act on it, but Yael is better at actually getting shit done, and Josie is better at checking things through the processes of making them happen, finding potential problems that Yael may not have seen coming and trying to work addressing them into the fabric of her plans.

Their Feeling functions also complement each other really well: Josie is a high Feeler, with Extroverted Feeling (Fe) as their auxiliary function, which keeps them more attuned to the state of the group and all the people in it, while Yael has a very good relationship with her inferior Fi (Introverted Feeling), which enables her to better evaluate how their actions and plans are helping or hurting their causes, where their ideals fit into everything, and so on.

So, basically, Yael is better at making sure that they all remember who they are and what they stand for, both individually and as parts of the whole, while Josie is better at attending to people’s emotional needs and keeping the whole intact by caring for the individual members of it.

And because they both respect and admire each other, neither of them devalues the other’s contributions to anything — and it doesn’t matter to Yael that Josie has a badge and would have an easier time getting a gun if they weren’t really uneasy about guns; Josie’s a mutant, they’ve been one of her students, and they care about helping other mutants, so officially being part of S.T.R.O.M.A. doesn’t mean that they aren’t part of Yael’s (larger, mutant) family

—which all means a lot to Josie because, in a lot of ways, they still haven’t entirely outgrown their early experiences of being one of the weird art freaks at school (which, even for someone who wound up being part of a subculture/clique that’s all about going, “fuck you, I’m gonna do my thing and you can love it or shove it,” gave Josie some trouble because, goth of not, they’re sensitive), and they have a huge tendency to be overly harsh with themself and don’t always love themself very much, so this whole unconditional acceptance thing is a Big Deal to them

But I digress.

2. Having psychic powers also gets Problematic for Josie because, in their mind, they’ve spent so much of their life fighting their eating disorder and their overall mental health to keep control of their life, and it’s difficult, periodically degrading, often horrific, and something that they wouldn’t wish on anybody, period…… so having the power to take away someone’s ability to control their own mind? Having the power to violate someone’s agency, potentially with more or less complete impunity? That’s horrifying, and Josie doesn’t want it

One of the easiest ways to make Josie go off the handle at you is to dismiss how hard it is for them to maintain any sense of composure. Like, okay, they can handle people teasing them about some of their self-care habits because humor is how a lot of people come to be comfortable with and accept things they don’t understand at first, and how a lot of people show that they’re comfortable with you and like you.

But if you act like Josie doesn’t have to work, impossibly hard and daily, on their own well-being, because if they don’t, then they could lose control of psychic abilities and this would be Really Fucking Terrible for everyone? ……Uh.

Just don’t do that. It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, it’s mean and please, just don’t do it.

An even easier way to make Josie snap at you is to play what they call, “the Aslan card” — which means telling them that the proof that they can handle the responsibility of psychic powers, is their own fear that maybe they can’t, their awareness of and attentiveness to the ethical and moral problems attached to them having psychic powers, the fact that they’d rather not have psychic powers in the first place because it can — and often does — feel like these powers and their attendant responsibilities are too big and too potentially Terrible Forever, For Everyone

Which Josie calls, “the Aslan card” because, uh. The first time they heard it was from Elizabeth (whose heart was in the right place in saying this, but she didn’t think about how it might end up sounding to Josie), and the first thing Josie was reminded of was Aslan telling Prince Caspian that he’s ready to become the King because he doesn’t think he’s ready

It’s just…… Josie understands where this idea is coming from, and they appreciate the underlying sentiment

But, to them, it always sounds more like, “why are you upset about how hard this is for you, at least it’s happening to you and not someone who doesn’t give a fuck about ethics or how they treat other people, quit whinging and cheer the fuck up”

Which…… yes, Josie knows that this isn’t what most people mean, but it’s still pretty upsetting for them to hear because of how much it reminds them of things that they’ve told themself so many times, when they’ve been at their worst, in terms of their mental health and emotional well-being — especially the things like, “My eating disorder isn’t bad because it’s only hurting me, not anyone else, and it’s only hurting me because I’m weak”

—and yeah, okay, Josie appreciates that you’re trying to help, but they already have enough work to do on keeping themself from slipping back into the comfort of those thought patterns, so if it’s all the same, can you maybe find a different way of trying to comfort them or praise them or whatever? Please?

Thank you, they’d like that

[lynchgirl90]

How #TwinPeaks inspired #Lost and #TheLeftovers

Damon Lindelof tells EW why ‘The Leftovers’ would not be possible without David Lynch’s classic series

JEFF JENSEN@EWDOCJENSEN

Let us be first to remind you for the millionth time that Twin Peaks, the short-lived sensation created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, inspired much of the television that has obsessed us over the past 20 years. To name just a few that hold the cult classic’s peculiar dark spark: Chris Carter’s The X-Files, David Chase’s The Sopranos, Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men, Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, Damon Lindelof’s The Leftovers, Sam Esmail’s Mr. Robot, and Donald Glover’s Atlanta. Since Twin Peaks also shaped modern TV tastes and watching — capturing the imagination for serialized mystery, supernatural fantasy, and cool irony; setting an early standard for internet-based conversation and theorizing — we can say Twin Peaks even influenced you. Especially if you’re a person of a certain age.

Of course, Twin Peaks doesn’t completely explain the vibrant state of TV. The radical transformation of the media business — the emergence of demo-driven networks that turned cult TV into a business plan — deserves more credit. There’s probably no X-Files without a network like Fox. There’s certainly no Buffy The Vampire Slayer without The WB. In his essential book The Revolution Was Televised, critic Alan Sepinwall identifies a critical turning point when TV went next level: 1997, when HBO, seeking to ramp up original programming, empowered the likes of Tom Fontana and David Chase — veteran scribes frustrated by the limits of broadcast TV — to pursue bolder vision with decidedly adult storytelling. The buzzy nerve of Oz and even more so The Sopranos spurred broadcast competitors to take more chances and basic cable to get into the game, and now, here we are, with “television” streaming out of every media orifice possible. That, kids, is from where TV babies come, in a terribly reductive nutshell.

Twin Peaks contains a version of this creation myth in its DNA, too. In 1989, ABC, looking for new hits, took a chance on a risky marriage with an avant-garde filmmaker (Lynch) and an accomplished TV writer (Frost) who wanted to make a splash by reinventing the prime-time soap with sophisticated edge and ostentatious quirkiness. Think of Twin Peaks as a kinky bridal dress: something old, something new, something borrowed, something Blue Velvet. The relationship didn’t last long. ABC ditched Twin Peaks after a year, the fast fade partly due to a broadcast network in flux that really had no clue how to manage Team Lynch or the wild, weird, FrankenGenre creature they had made. Yet can’t you see Twin Peaks thriving in today’s mediaverse? Maybe, say, on Showtime?

Mark Frost certainly could. In 2012, the Twin Peaks co-creator beheld the exciting things happening in TV and thought, I want to do that, too. He had the perfect creative vehicle for it, too, one with something TV networks love: a recognizable and marketable brand name. But he couldn’t do it alone. Wouldn’t dream of it, either. So Frost called Lynch and put forth a proposal: How about making more Twin Peaks?

Lynch had convinced himself over the years that there was no interest in Twin Peaks. “I felt that the thing had drifted away,” says Lynch, “so part of me kind of shut down about the possibility of going back.” He was wrong. Twin Peaks actually lingered like a ghost, and it was slowly gaining power. Twin Peaks was steeped in the creative fabric of television, as evidenced by many series. There were people who identified as Twin Peaks fans — cultists who could read about Twin Peaks forever and ever in books, websites, and fanzines like the legendary Wrapped In Plastic, plus many more who considered the show a generational marker. Twin Peaks was also starting to make new fans via DVD (the complete series wasn’t available on disc until 2007) and streaming services like Netflix.

Frost presented Lynch with several arguments for reviving Twin Peaks right here, right now. They had a story to tell — Twin Peaks ended with several unresolved cliffhangers — and their infamously bonkers series finale included a curious, memorable line that offered an irresistible hook. “I’ll see you again in 25 years,” the specter of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) tells FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). “Meanwhile…” And then she struck a pose and froze, as if a statue, or suddenly frozen in time. Frost — confident, ambitious, and maybe a little competitive — also argued that they had a chance to make some bold art, without compromise, in a new TV universe that allowed for greater creative freedom than existed 22 years earlier.

“What I saw was that the TV landscape had shifted dramatically and people were obviously hungry for storytelling that has broken out of the box over the last 10 years,” says Frost. “I felt it was time to take a kind of evolutionary leap forward and that we should be a part of that. David readily agreed. But we went in knowing we couldn’t just do what we did in the past — we’ve got to raise the bar. So that was our admonition to ourselves. This is a chance to keep pace with that evolving landscape, to contribute something new, to move the ball forward even more. And we had some unfinished business.”

And so it goes that the return of the show that inspired today’s TV was inspired by the products of its own legacy. Fun Fact! Lynch doesn’t watch much TV, but he cites Mad Men and Breaking Bad as two shows of recent times that he loved. Their hotly anticipated contribution to our Peak TV moment — an 18-hour limited series described by Lynch as an 18-part feature film — premieres on Showtime on May 21.

We recently asked several leading TV producers to share how Twin Peaks influenced them. Over the next couple weeks, we’ll be sharing with you EW’s conversations with them. We begin with Damon Lindelof, who co-created Lost with J.J. Abrams and The Leftovers with Tom Perrotta, now airing its final season on HBO.

Lindelof’s tale of Twin Peaks fandom takes us back to a time when TV watching was a family time activity, not a solitary, everyone-on-their-own-screen free-for-all. His very personal testimonial also shows how Twin Peaks was part of larger moment in which David Lynch was virtually atmospheric — beginning with his neo-noir masterpiece Blue Velvet in 1986 and including the hyper-pop nihilism of Wild at Heart, released at the apex of the Twin Peaks phenomenon — and saturated the public imagination. Here, Lindelof reveals how Twin Peaks influenced Lost, how Twin Peaks informed his approach to surrealism in The Leftovers, and how the legacy of Twin Peaks nearly cost Lost its legendary monster.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When did you first watch Twin Peaks? DAMON LINDELOF: When it first aired. I watched it at my dad’s place. It was on his radar; he was very excited about Twin Peaks because of David Lynch. We had seen Eraserhead together, and I had loved it, and I remember him saying, “The guy who made Eraserhead has a new TV show and I think it’s going to be very good.” So we watched the pilot together, and once it was over, we watched it again, because he had recorded it.

This evolved into a ritual. Because I was with my dad every other week, there were some weeks I would watch it by myself, but the weeks I was with him, we would watch two episodes: that week’s new episode and the previous week’s episode again on VHS. He would do live commentary and we began to formulate theories. This was my first experience, in the pre-internet era, of theorizing about TV.

So you liked Twin Peaks. I loved Twin Peaks.

What did you love about it? The mystery. The music. The pacing. It was also my first exposure to soap operas. There was just this complex web of affairs that was delicious. Within the first couple of episodes of Twin Peaks, you understood that James and Laura had been together, but James and Donna were actually sort of secretly in love with each other. Laura was also dating Bobby, but he was also seeing Shelly, but Shelly was two-timing her abusive husband, Leo, who also had something going on with Laura and was dealing drugs to Bobby. Meanwhile, Josie Packard is having a secret affair with Sheriff Truman, except she’s also involved with Benjamin Horne, who was married, but also having an affair with Pete’s wife and Josie’s rival, Catherine, and also apparently messed around with Laura. The sexual intrigue was bonkers! And for me, a kid, it was new and exciting, particularly as it related to Laura, this teenage girl who was mixed up in some really bad, traumatic, dark stuff. That was really interesting and felt very fresh at the time.

And then there Agent Cooper. What an amazing character. His entrance in that pilot is a classic TV moment. I loved his quirkiness. He had these obsessions with coffee and pastry. The fact that he seemed to really be enjoying having just a grand old time investigating Laura’s rather horrific murder was provocative and entertaining.

The show had this very distinctive sense of humor. Deadpan and odd. The Log Lady! People remember her as weird, but I just thought she was really funny. And Ben and Jerry Horne, the brothers, their names are funny because of the ice cream, of course, but that scene where those two guys are eating these huge sandwiches and relishing the sensual experience of eating those huge sandwiches — just the fundamental bizarreness of it was hilarious.

One other thing that I loved about Twin Peaks was that it was scary. Cooper’s dream at the end of the third episode, when he’s in the old age makeup and we see Laura and The Man From The Other Place talking backwards — that creeped me out. I slept with the lights on after that episode.

I go on and on like this, because one of the ways that Twin Peaks impacted me was that it showed me that a TV show can be so many things at once — funny, scary, strange, sexy, melodramatic. It was the definition of unique. I had never seen anything like it, before or since. And then — when did Wild at Heart come out?

August of 1990, between the first and second seasons of Twin Peaks. I loved Wild at Heart. It was just so gonzo. Looking back on it, I can’t say I became a fan of David Lynch because of Twin Peaks. I was just a fan of Twin Peaks. But after Wild at Heart, I was just all the way in on Lynch. By the way, this is not to take anything away from Mark Frost, who is a big part of Twin Peaks. But again, my dad turned me on to the show particularly because of Lynch, and then with everything that followed, including Wild at Heart, it became about Lynch, and everything that came with him. The music! That Angelo Badalamenti score! I played the Twin Peaks soundtrack all the time when I was a junior in high school. I didn’t own many CDs — I had to buy them with my own money, and they were expensive — but I owned that one.

What did you make of the supernatural aspect? It became more important to the storytelling as the series progressed. We came to find out that Twin Peaks was a hotspot of uncanny and spectral activity because it was located near a portal into a mystical realm, not unlike the Hellmouth in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or, of course, The Island on Lost. Did you enjoy that part of the show? That was interesting to watch unfold. From the start, you had Cooper’s dreams and you had his fascination with Tibet and a kind of mysticism that he associated with Tibet. That scene in the third episode of season 1, where he’s winnowing down a list of suspects through an intuitive process that involves throwing rocks at a bottle — that was funny and quirky, but it also suggested the supernatural, and obviously, the show became more and more supernatural as it went on.

But I didn’t see it coming. As my father and I were theorizing about Laura Palmer’s murderer, a supernatural possibility was not part of our speculations! But then we move into season 2, and you get the introduction of The Giant, and you have Major Briggs revealing that he’s been monitoring extraterrestrial communications in episode 2. Here, the show is openly declaring that everything is up for grabs. And I do remember loving that and being very excited by that stuff. But I experienced it as an escalation. The show didn’t start supernatural. It became progressively so.

When the show declared this supernatural aspect in season 2, a lot of people I knew who loved the show bailed. They wanted a naturalistic explanation. It reminds me that 25 years ago, TV was rather cool toward sci-fi/fantasy, although it was about to warm up to it. That want for a naturalistic explanation might have had something to do with the fact that Twin Peaks intersected with another trend of the time, serial killer pop. I don’t know exactly when The Silence of the Lambs came out, but my memory of it is that it came out before or during Twin Peaks. [The film version of The Silence of the Lambs starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins was released Feb. 14, 1991, during the middle of the second season of Twin Peaks. The novel by Thomas Harris was published in 1988.] When you watch the pilot of Twin Peaks, you immediately think it’s a serial killer story because of the clues and how they’re found, like when Agent Cooper knows how to examine Laura Palmer’s fingernails and look for these pieces of paper the killer has been leaving behind with his victims. So I can understand why an audience expected a naturalist resolution, because serial killer stories resolve naturalistically.

How did you feel about the way Twin Peaks ended? During the second season, I remember feeling at times, “This is not the show I fell in love with.” And then something would happen that would make me fall in love with it all over again. There was a storyline where Donna resumes Laura’s Meals on Wheels job and she comes into contact with this weirdo who grows orchids and is in possession of Laura’s secret diary. And I remember not liking that. But then Lynch would show up playing [FBI regional director] Gordon Cole, and I’d love that, or David Duchovny would show up playing DEA agent Denise Bryson, and I’d be like, “This is the greatest thing ever!”

Still, I was alternately in and out. The turning point came after all the big reveals with Laura’s murder, that it was Leland who was responsible for killing Laura, that he was inhabited by this evil spirit named BOB. Now, what is the show? Now, what’s the mystery we’re supposed to solve? It never quite locked into anything new that was as compelling as Laura Palmer.

By the time the show ended, my father and I were no longer watching it together, and it didn’t feel like it was appointment TV. I was still watching, but I wasn’t loving it… and then we got the series 2 finale. Wow. The sequence in The Red Room. Cooper getting possessed by BOB. Ending on him looking in the mirror and ramming his face into it. I remember thinking, ‘This is going to be cool! I’m back in!’ And then the show was canceled.

Did you see the prequel movie? Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me? Yeah. That was a year later, right?

Right, summer of 1992. I remember kinda liking the movie and still considering myself a Twin Peaks fan, but also sort of resigning myself to the fact that there wasn’t going to be any more Twin Peaks that resolved those cliffhangers and being kind of bummed about that. Still, I only had positive feelings about Twin Peaks. Even in college, in the mid-’90s, when my friends and I would talk about our favorite TV shows, Twin Peaks was always on our lists, even though it was only on for a brief time and even though it disappointed.

Why is that? Because it was a cultural moment for people, and especially for kids of that era. We were the age of Bobby and James, Laura and Donna and Maddy. Even though they were all clearly played by actors in their 20s, there was an identification with them. The perception was, even if the show strayed from the path and went off the rails a little bit, Twin Peaks was cool, and it was a shared, zeitgeisty thing. But more importantly, in our pretentious NYU film school heads, Twin Peaks was important because it was “cinema.” It was an auteur-driven story in a way a lot of TV wasn’t, but was about to be. And, of course, it felt like cinema because it was Lynch, and we were all obsessed with Lynch in film school.

Did Twin Peaks influence your storytelling? I’m thinking specifically of the phenomenal “International Assassin” episode of The Leftovers, in which Kevin enters a surreal realm that might be pure imagination, might be some kind afterlife, or might be something else altogether. There is no Leftovers without Twin Peaks, full stop. That said, when we tried to ��do” Lynch — for example, Kevin’s dreams in season 1, where dogs are growling in mailboxes — we fell way short of the mark. It wasn’t until we embraced the absurd — like Patti pooping in a paper bag and labeling it “Neil,” or Nora simulating sex with a life-sized replica of a salesman while he watched, both aroused and disturbed — that we realized we were finally scraping the essence of Twin Peaks: weird and disturbing and spiritual all rolled into one. And yes, of course, the episode “International Assassin.” No way does that happen in a world where Twin Peaks never aired.

And Lost would never have happened if Twin Peaks hadn’t occurred, either. First off, the idea of mystery as the central premise of a television show came from Twin Peaks. Up until Twin Peaks, at least through my lens, a mystery show was, like, Murder, She Wrote. A procedural. Every episode, there’s a mystery, it gets solved. But the idea of a serialized mystery show, taking place over many, many episodes, was completely and totally revolutionary.

Now, there are downsides with mystery. You’re playing with fire. The minute you resolve the mystery, the show is over. Twin Peaks became a cautionary tale for that. Whether it’s true or not, fair or not, the perception is that once they revealed who killed Laura Palmer, there was no reason to watch the show anymore. I don’t agree with that premise, but I do think if you’re going to do a long-form mystery show, you have to have a plan for what to do once you resolve the central mystery. And the answer has to be, there just has to be multiple, multiple, multiple mysteries, so every time you knock one off, there’s still two unresolved ones in its wake, and you see how long you can play that game. This can become even more complex when the mysteries of your show are supernatural in nature or just plain weird. Which brings me to a story about Lost.

My memory might be faulty. I’m sure about some things in this story and less sure about others. But what I’m sure about is that, after J.J. and I wrote the treatment, ABC really only had two areas of concern. No. 1, which we have talked about ad nauseam before, was the idea that Jack, who would present as the main character, would die at the end of the pilot.

But the main area of concern was the idea that there was this monster on the island. In that meeting, present were Lloyd Braun and Susan Lyne, who were the co-presidents of ABC. Before I go on, let me just say, if Lloyd hadn’t been the president of ABC, there’d be no Lost, because he believed in this thing from the word go. It was his idea to do a plane crash on an island show, et cetera.

But I don’t think he wanted the monster. So in this meeting, he says, “I think this outline is dynamite, but I don’t think that there should be a monster in the pilot. If you guys want to work your way up to some of that weird stuff, it’s a conversation for another day. But definitely not in the pilot. It’s too weird. We don’t want to do a Twin Peaks.” I remember Lloyd very specifically saying, “I don’t want to do a Twin Peaks.”

This wasn’t good. All the things that J.J. and I were starting to get super-excited about were the weird things on the island. The monster is representative of the idea that if they’re just on a normal island, the show isn’t going to be very interesting. But if the island’s weird and supernatural and, more importantly, has a long history and mythology behind it — well, that was the stuff that was turning us on. If we had to take the monster out of the pilot, that would have meant that we’d have to take all the weird things that we had already been sort of talking about. So I was having this bad feeling in the meeting: “Oh, no, what’s going to happen now?”

And then J.J. jumped in and said some version of this: “It’s 2004. Twin Peaks has been off the air for 13 years and you’re still using it as a cautionary tale. But even if it is a cautionary tale, we should be so lucky if this show gets to be like Twin Peaks, because how many television shows get remembered the way Twin Peaks is remembered? Twin Peaks was amazing and maybe it didn’t end well, but we can learn from its mistakes. We should be so lucky to be compared to Twin Peaks! We should aspire to Twin Peaks!”

And Lloyd said, “Okay, do your monster.”

At this point in your working relationship with J.J., you had only known him —

A week!

Did you guys discuss Twin Peaks in your brainstorming? I don’t think so. We talked a lot about The Twilight Zone. We talked a lot about Dickens, in terms of how we would do coincidence and how that would be a big part of the show. But Twin Peaks influenced a lot of Lost. Easter eggs. Characters having secret motivations. A massive ensemble. These were not revolutionary ideas. Certainly not for soap opera. But when Lost came along, there weren’t really any shows on the air that were doing 14 series regulars. I think that the last time ABC had an hour-long drama with 14 series regulars was probably Twin Peaks.

I remember very specifically — although I don’t remember which season it was in — that we contemplated putting some Twin Peaks Easter eggs into Lost and then decided against it.

Why? I don’t know if you know this, Jeff, but back in the days of Lost, there were these people on the internet who were fervently theorizing about Lost to such an extent that, if you made, say, a, reference to The Black Lodge from Twin Peaks, just as a joke, the people who were analyzing the show beat by beat, would be like, “Is the Black Lodge on the island? Is it possible that Agent Cooper exists in the world of Lost?”

That would have been my greatest favorite thing ever. It would have.

What was thinking behind the idea? Why even make that joke? It could have been something like Sawyer making a pop culture wisecrack. Shannon would be walking out of the woods with some firewood and he’d say, “Hey there, Log Lady!” … My knee-jerk impulse memory is that it related to our awareness that the audience was trying to solve mysteries and that there would be some kind of wink-wink at that. Along the lines of, say, a character saying that trying to figure out where the polar bears come from is like trying to figure out who killed Laura Palmer. It was for the best we abandoned the idea. Lost making a reference to Twin Peaks as it related to the frustration of supernatural mystery? That’s radioactive. We couldn’t be that self-aware without eating a tremendous amount of s—. … But in all seriousness, you are literally playing with fire if you invoke Twin Peaks on a show like Lost. The shows shared similar issues, and in some ways now, similar legacies. Echoing what J.J. said in that first meeting with Lloyd, to be compared to Twin Peaks makes me very, very happy, whether the comparison is positive or negative.

I’ll tell you this much, though. We had three years to build up to our ending, and we got to do the ending that we wanted. Frost and Lynch did not get to do that. Now, they are. And that’s the other reason I’m super psyched for Twin Peaks coming back. I don’t know whether this is a season of Twin Peaks that will lead to more seasons of Twin Peaks, or whether it is the final chapter of Twin Peaks. Either way, I feel like it was a story that ended in media res, and now, the very same people who told the first chapters of that story are coming back to tell a new chapter. That’s exciting.

link (TP)

[impactcomicscbr]

New Stuff FRIDAY 21st April

New Release Comics & Magazines

ALL STAR BATMAN #9 ALL STAR BATMAN #9 ALTERNATE BURNHAM COVER ALL STAR BATMAN #9 ALTERNATE FRANCAVILLA COVER ANGEL SEASON 11 #4 ALTERNATE DEKAL COVER ANGEL SEASON 11 #4 MAIN FISCHER COVER ANIMAL NOIR #3 (OF 4) ANIMAL NOIR #3 (OF 4) S/O SUBSCRIPTION COVER ANNO DRACULA #2 (OF 5) COVER B MCCAFFREY (MR) ANNO DRACULA #2 (OF 5) COVER D WILLIAMSON (MR) AQUAMAN #21 AQUAMAN #21 ALTERNATE COVER ARCHIE #19 COVER A REG PETE WOODS ARCHIE #19 COVER B VAR LUPACCHINO ARCHIE #19 COVER C VAR GREG SMALLWOOD ASSASSINS CREED UPRISING #3 COVER A ARAUJO ASSASSINS CREED UPRISING #3 COVER B HOLDER ASSASSINS CREED UPRISING #3 COVER C OLIMPIERI ASTRO CITY #43 (RES) BACK TO THE FUTURE #18 BACK TO THE FUTURE #18 S/O SUBSCRIPTION COVER BATMAN #21 (The BUTTON) INTERNATIONAL EDITION BATMAN #21 (The BUTTON) ALTERNATE COVER BATWOMAN #2 BATWOMAN #2 ALTERNATE COVER BEAUTY #14 COVER A HAUN & RAUCH (MR) BEAUTY #14 COVER B KAFTON (MR) BLACK HAMMER #8 ALTERNATE LEMIRE COVER BLACK HAMMER #8 ORMSTON MAIN BLACK PANTHER WORLD OF WAKANDA #6 BLACK PANTHER WORLD OF WAKANDA #6 VARIANT 1in20 VELLUTO COVER BLACK SCIENCE #29 (MR) BLACK SCIENCE #29 COVER B APRIL FOOLS COVER (MR) BLADE BUNNY VOL 2 #5 BTVS SEASON 11 #6 MAIN MORRIS COVER BTVS SEASON 11 #6 ALTERNATE ISAACS COVER CALL OF DUTY ZOMBIES #4 CAPTAIN AMERICA STEVE ROGERS #16 CAPTAIN AMERICA STEVE ROGERS #16 ALTERNATE RB SILVA CONNECTING A COVER CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE #7 (MR) CAVE CARSON HAS A CYBERNETIC EYE #7 ALTERNATE COVER (MR) COADY & THE CREEPIES #2 CURSE WORDS #4 COVER A BROWNE (MR) CURSE WORDS #4 COVER B MOORE (MR) CURSE WORDS #4 COVER B MOORE (MR) CURSE WORDS #4 COVER C APRIL FOOLS COVER (MR) DAREDEVIL #19 DAREDEVIL #19 VARIANT MORA RESURRXION COVER DARK HORSE PRESENTS #33 DEADPOOL #29 DEADPOOL #29 VARIANT ALBEQUERQUE POSTER COVER DEADPOOL #29 VARIANT DEODATO RESURRXION COVER DEATH BE DAMNED #3 DEATHSTROKE #17 DEATHSTROKE #17 ALTERNATE COVER DEEP #4 DEPT H #13 DESCENDER #21 (MR) DISNEY GRAVITY FALLS CINESTORY #1 SHORTS DOCTOR STRANGE #19 DOCTOR STRANGE #19 VARIANT BARBERI RESURRXION COVER DOCTOR WHO 10TH YEAR THREE #4 COVER A DIAZ DOCTOR WHO 10TH YEAR THREE #4 COVER B PHOTO ECLIPSE #6 FEW #4 (MR) FOREVER WAR #3 (OF 6) COVER A MCCREA FOREVER WAR #3 (OF 6) COVER B PERCIVAL GANGES #6 GENERATION ZERO #9 COVER A LAFUENTE GENERATION ZERO #9 COVER B PEEPLES GFT ROBYN HOOD I LOVE NY #11 (OF 12) COVER A BURNS (MR) GFT ROBYN HOOD I LOVE NY #11 (OF 12) COVER B ROSETE (MR) GFT ROBYN HOOD I LOVE NY #11 (OF 12) COVER C KROME (MR) GFT ROBYN HOOD I LOVE NY #11 (OF 12) COVER D MALSUNI (MR) GI JOE (2016) #4 GOD COUNTRY #4 COVER A SHAW & WORDIE (MR) GOD COUNTRY #4 COVER B ZAFFINO & WORDIE (MR) GOLD DIGGER #241 GREATEST ADVENTURE #1 COVER A NORD GREATEST ADVENTURE #1 COVER B MORALES GREATEST ADVENTURE #1 COVER C CASTRO GREEN ARROW #21 GREEN ARROW #21 ALTERNATE COVER GREEN LANTERNS #21 GREEN LANTERNS #21 ALTERNATE COVER GUARDIANS OF GALAXY DREAM ON #1 HARLEY QUINN #18 HARLEY QUINN #18 ALTERNATE COVER HAUNTED HORROR #27 HIGHLANDER AMERICAN DREAM #3 HIGHLANDER AMERICAN DREAM #3 S/O SUBSCRIPTION COVER HORIZON #10 (MR) I HATE FAIRYLAND #12 COVER A YOUNG (MR) I HATE FAIRYLAND #12 F*CK (UNCENSORED) FAIRYLAND COVER (MR) I HATE FAIRYLAND #12 COVER C APRIL FOOLS COVER (MR) INJECTION #12 COVER A SHALVEY & BELLAIRE (MR) INJECTION #12 COVER B SHALVEY & BELLAIRE (MR) INJUSTICE GROUND ZERO #10 INVINCIBLE #135 INVINCIBLE #135 COVER B APRIL FOOLS COVER INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #6 INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #6 VARIANT Francis YU RESURRXION COVER JAMES BOND FELIX LEITER #4 (OF 6) COVER A PERKINS JIM HENSON POWER OF DARK CRYSTAL #2 (OF 12) JIM HENSON POWER OF DARK CRYSTAL #2 (OF 12) Jae LEE COVER JIM HENSON POWER OF THE DARK CRYSTAL #2 (OF 12) SUBSCRIPTION JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS #6 COVER A REG AUDREY MOK JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS #6 COVER B MIKE & LAURA ALLRED JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS #6 COVER C BEN CALDWELL JUSTICE LEAGUE #19 JUSTICE LEAGUE #19 ALTERNATE COVER KISS DEMON #4 (OF 4) COVER D PHOTO KONG OF SKULL ISLAND #10 LADY DEATH OBLIVION KISS #1 STANDARD COVER (MR) LETTER 44 #32 LOW #17 (MR) LOW #17 COVER B POWELL (MR) LUCIFER #17 (MR) MASK MOBILE ARMORED STRIKE KOMMAND #5 MASK MOBILE ARMORED STRIKE KOMMAND #5 SUB COVER A MASK MOBILE ARMORED STRIKE KOMMAND #5 SUB COVER B MEGA PRINCESS #5 MERCURY HEAT #12 WRAP COVER (MR) MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS #14 MAIN COVER MIRROR #7 MONSTERS UNLEASHED #1 MONSTERS UNLEASHED #1 VARIANT GREENE HIP HOP COVER MONSTRESS #11 (MR) MOON KNIGHT #13 MS MARVEL #17 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDS FOREVER #38 MY LITTLE PONY FRIENDS FOREVER #38 S/O SUBSCRIPTION COVER NICK FURY #1 NICK FURY #1 VARIANT 1in15 STROMAN COVER NIGHTWING #19 NIGHTWING #19 ALTERNATE COVER NINJAK #26 COVER A BODENHEIM NINJAK #26 COVER B RYP ODYSSEY OF THE AMAZONS #4 (OF 6) PETER DAVID ARTFUL #5 COVER A NEUBERT PLASTIC #1 (OF 5) COVER A ROBINSON (MR) PLASTIC #1 (OF 5) COVER B HILLYARD (MR) PLASTIC #1 (OF 5) COVER C APRIL FOOLS COVER (MR) PUNISHER #11 RED SONJA #4 COVER A MCKONE RED SONJA #4 COVER B MEYERS RED SONJA #4 COVER C COSPLAY RED SONJA #4 COVER 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SONS #3 ALTERNATE COVER SUPERMAN #21 SUPERMAN #21 ALTERNATE COVER SUPERWOMAN #9 SUPERWOMAN #9 ALTERNATE COVER THUNDERBOLTS #12 TOTALLY AWESOME HULK #18 TRINITY #8 TRINITY #8 ALTERNATE COVER TRUE BELIEVERS X-FACTOR MUTANT GENESIS #1 TRUE BELIEVERS X-MEN BLUE #1 UNCIVIL WAR INAUGURAL EDITION COLORING BOOK (ONE SHOT) UNLIKELY TRIO COLORING BOOK US AVENGERS #5 VENOM #6 VENOM #6 VARIANT MORA RESURRXION COVER WILD STORM #3 WILD STORM #3 JIM LEE ALTERNATE COVER WILD STORM #3 MCKELVIE ALTERNATE COVER WORLD READER #1 REG DOE COVER – 2000 AD PACK MAR 2017 BRICKJOURNAL #12 MAD MAGAZINE #545

New Release Books TPBs GNs & Hardcovers (plus Merch)

ALL STAR BATMAN HC VOL 01 MY OWN WORST ENEMY (REBIRTH) ATTACK ON TITAN ANIME GUIDE SC (RES) BATMAN TP VOL 10 EPILOGUE BLACK EYED KIDS TP VOL 02 (MR) BRIGGS LAND TP VOL 01 STATE OF GRACE CAGE TP CAPTAIN AMERICA SAM WILSON TP VOL 04 #TAKEBACKTHESHIELD D FRAG GN VOL 11 DEVILS & REALIST GN VOL 12 (MR) GHOST RIDER BY DANIEL WAY COMPLETE COLLECTION TP NEW PTG GROO FRAY OF THE GODS TP HARBINGER RENEGADE TP VOL 01 THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON HELLBOY INTO THE SILENT SEA HC INVINCIBLE IRON MAN TP VOL 02 WAR MACHINES JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA THE SILVER AGE TP VOL 03 KUMA MIKO GN VOL 04 MAGICAL GIRL APOCALYPSE GN VOL 11 (MR) MARVEL UNIVERSE ULT SPIDER-MAN VS SINISTER SIX DIGEST TP VOL METABARONS GN VOL 01 (OF 4) OTHON AND HONORATA (MR) MOCKINGBIRD TP VOL 02 MY FEMINIST AGENDA MONSTER MUSUME GN VOL 11 (MR) MUSHOKU TENSEI JOBLESS REINCARNATION GN VOL 05 MY MONSTER SECRET GN VOL 06 (MR) POWERPUFF GIRLS POWER UP MY MOJO HC REVIVAL TP VOL 08 STAY JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER (MR) SAVAGE HIGHWAY HC (MR) SCARLET WITCH TP VOL 03 FINAL HEX SOUPY LEAVES HOME TP SPIDER-MAN 2099 CLASSIC TP VOL 04 SPIDER-MAN FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SM BY DAVID COMP COLL TP SUICIDE SQUAD MOST WANTED EL DIABLO TP SUPERMAN ACTION COMICS TP VOL 02 WELCOME TO THE PLANET (REBIRTH) WARHAMMER 40K BLADES OF DAMOCLES SC WARHAMMER 40K CORAX SC WARHAMMER 40K FURY OF THE GOD MACHINE HC WARHAMMER 40K MAGNUS THE RED MASTER OF PROSPERO HC WARHAMMER FURY OF GORK SC WITCHFINDER TP VOL 04 CITY OF THE DEAD WONDER WOMAN EARTH ONE TP VOL 01 X-MEN 92 TP VOL 02 LILAPALOOZA A YEAR OF MARVELS TP

Back in Stock Products

Back in Stock Comics and Magazines

ALIENS VS PREDATOR LIFE AND DEATH #1 MAIN PALUMBO COVER AVENGERS #5.1 BATGIRL ANNUAL #1 CAPTAIN AMERICA STEVE ROGERS #12 CINEMA PURGATORIO #7 (MR) DARK KNIGHT III MASTER RACE #4 (OF 8) DARK KNIGHT III MASTER RACE #5 (OF 8) DARK KNIGHT III MASTER RACE #6 (OF 8) DOCTOR WHO GHOST STORIES #1 (OF 4) COVER A LACLAUSTRA DOCTOR WHO GHOST STORIES #1 (OF 4) COVER D FUSO DOCTOR WHO GHOST STORIES #1 (OF 4) COVER E GUERRERO GFT DAY OF THE DEAD #3 (OF 6) COVER C KROME GRIMM TALES OF TERROR 2017 APRIL FOOLS ED COVER A RIVEIRO HARLEY QUINN #17 HARLEY QUINN AND HER GANG OF HARLEYS #2 (OF 6) IMAGE FIRSTS LOW #1 (MR) IMAGE FIRSTS NAILBITER #1 (MR) IMAGE FIRSTS OUTCAST #1 (MR) IMAGE FIRSTS PAPER GIRLS #1 IMAGE FIRSTS SAVAGE DRAGON #1 (MR) LOVE & ROCKETS MAGAZINE #2 (MR) MOTHER PANIC #3 (MR) NAILBITER HACK SLASH HACK SLASH NAILBITER ONE SHOT (MR) PAPER GIRLS #12 PAPER GIRLS #6 2ND PTG RED SONJA #2 COVER B CAMPBELL SONS OF THE DEVIL #11 COVER B APRIL FOOLS COVER (MR) STAR WARS ROGUE ONE ADAPTATION #1 (OF 6) SUICIDE SQUAD BANANA SPLITS SPECIAL #1 UBER INVASION #4 WRAP COVER (MR) UBER INVASION #5 WRAP COVER (MR)

Back in Stock Books TPBs & Harcovers

ALIEN VS PREDATOR FIRE & STONE TP ALIENS FIRE AND STONE TP ALIENS ORIGINAL COMICS SERIES HC VOL 02 ALL NEW INVADERS TP VOL 03 MARTIANS ARE COMING ANIMOSITY TP VOL 01 (MR) AQUAMAN TP VOL 02 BLACK MANTA RISING (REBIRTH) ARCHIE GIANT COMICS BLAST TP AWKWARD GN BATMAN ARKHAM RIDDLER TP BATMAN BY ED BRUBAKER TP VOL 01 BATMAN COURT OF OWLS BOOK & MASK SET (N52) BATMAN DEATH OF THE FAMILY BOOK & JOKER MASK SET (N52) BATMAN DETECTIVE COMICS TP VOL 01 FACES OF DEATH (N52) BATMAN DETECTIVE COMICS TP VOL 03 EMPEROR PENGUIN (N52) BATMAN DETECTIVE COMICS TP VOL 06 ICARUS BATMAN DETECTIVE COMICS TP VOL 08 BLOOD OF HEROES BATMAN HUSH COMPLETE TP BATMAN LEGACY TP VOL 01 BATMAN TP VOL 01 THE COURT OF OWLS (N52) BATMAN TP VOL 02 I AM SUICIDE (REBIRTH) BATMAN YEAR ONE DELUXE SC BEFORE WATCHMEN COMEDIAN RORSCHACH TP BEFORE WATCHMEN MINUTEMEN SILK SPECTRE TP BERSERK TP VOL 02 (MR) BERSERK TP VOL 04 (MR) BERSERK TP VOL 06 (MR) BERSERK TP VOL 08 (MR) BERSERK TP VOL 10 (MR) BERSERK TP VOL 12 (MR) BERSERK TP VOL 14 BERSERK TP VOL 16 BERSERK TP VOL 18 BLACK PANTHER TP BOOK 03 NATION UNDER OUR FEET BLACK SCIENCE TP VOL 05 TRUE ATONEMENT (MR) BRIGHTEST DAY TP VOL 01 BUBBLEGUN TP VOL 01 HEIST JINKS CHEW TP VOL 01 (MR) CIVIL WAR AMAZING SPIDER-MAN TP CURSED PIRATE GIRL TP VOL 01 (MR) CYBORG TP VOL 01 UNPLUGGED DC COMICS BOMBSHELLS TP VOL 01 ENLISTED DEADLY CLASS TP VOL 05 CAROUSEL (MR) DEADPOOL KILLS MARVEL UNIVERSE TP DEADPOOL TP VOL 01 SECRET INVASION DEATHSTROKE TP VOL 01 THE PROFESSIONAL (REBIRTH) DISNEY PRINCESS TREASURY VOL 01 DOOM PATROL TP BOOK 03 (MR) EAST OF WEST TP VOL 01 THE PROMISE EAST OF WEST TP VOL 02 WE ARE ALL ONE EAST OF WEST TP VOL 03 THERE IS NO US EAST OF WEST TP VOL 04 WHO WANTS WAR EAST OF WEST TP VOL 05 ALL THESE SECRETS EAST OF WEST TP VOL 06 (MR) EDGAR BURROUGHS TARZAN JESSE MARSH OMNIBUS TP VOL 01 FLASH REBIRTH TP FLASH THE SILVER AGE TP VOL 01 FLASH TP VOL 01 MOVE FORWARD (N52) FLASH TP VOL 02 ROGUES REVOLUTION (N52) FLASH TP VOL 03 GORILLA WARFARE (N52) FLASH TP VOL 04 REVERSE (N52) FLASH TP VOL 08 ZOOM FLASH HC VOL 09 FULL STOP FLASH TP VOL 01 LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE (REBIRTH) FLASHPOINT TP GFT LITTLE MERMAID TP VOL 01 GOTHAM ACADEMY TP VOL 03 YEARBOOK GRAYSON TP VOL 01 AGENTS OF SPYRAL GREEN LANTERN RISE OF THE THIRD ARMY TP (N52) GREEN LANTERN SINESTRO CORPS WAR TP GRIMM FAIRY TALES STEAMPUNK TP GRIMM FAIRY TALES TP VOL 05 GRIMM FAIRY TALES VS WONDERLAND TP (MR) HEAD LOPPER TP VOL 01 ISLAND OR A PLAGUE OF BEASTS (MR) HELLBOY TP VOL 03 CHAINED COFFIN AND OTHERS HELLBOY TP VOL 04 RIGHT HAND OF DOOM HELLBOY TP VOL 05 CONQUEROR WORM HES MY ONLY VAMPIRE GN VOL 01 INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US TP VOL 01 INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US YEAR FIVE TP VOL 01 INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US YEAR ONE COMPLETE COL TP INJUSTICE GODS AMONG US YEAR TWO COMPLETE COLL TP INVINCIBLE TP VOL 22 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA THE SILVER AGE TP VOL 01 JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA THE SILVER AGE TP VOL 02 JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 01 ORIGIN (N52) JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 04 THE GRID (N52) JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 05 FOREVER HEROES (N52) JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 06 INJUSTICE LEAGUE JUSTICE LEAGUE TP VOL 07 DARKSEID WAR PART 1 JUSTICE LEAGUE TRINITY WAR TP LUMBERJANES TP VOL 02 MARVEL 1602 TP MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS TP MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS PINK TP VOL 01 MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS TP VOL 02 MONSTER GIRL ENCYCLOPEDIA HC VOL 01 (MR) MONSTER MUSUME I HEART MONSTER GIRLS GN VOL 04 (MR) NAILBITER TP VOL 04 BLOOD LUST (MR) NAILBITER TP VOL 05 BOUND BY BLOOD (MR) NEW SUICIDE SQUAD TP VOL 03 FREEDOM NTR NETSUZOU TRAP GN VOL 01 (MR) POWER MAN AND IRON FIST COMEDY OF DEATH TP POWERPUFF GIRLS HC VOL 01 HOMECOMING PREACHER TP BOOK 06 (MR) PREDATOR FIRE & STONE TP PREDATOR VS JUDGE DREDD VS ALIENS HC PUNISHER MAX TP COMPLETE COLLECTION VOL 01 (MR) RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS TP VOL 01 REDEMPTION (N52) RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS TP VOL 02 STARFIRE (N52) RESIDENT ALIEN TP VOL 04 THE MAN WITH NO NAME ROBYN HOOD ONGOING TP VOL 02 MONSTERS IN THE DARK SAGA TP VOL 01 (MR) SAGA TP VOL 02 (MR) SAGA TP VOL 03 (MR) SAGA TP VOL 04 (MR) SAGA TP VOL 07 (MR) SCARLET TP BOOK 01 (MR) SECRET WARS TP SENSATION COMICS FEATURING WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 01 SERENITY HC VOL 04 LEAVES ON WIND SEX CRIMINALS TP VOL 01 (MR) SEX CRIMINALS TP VOL 02 TWO WORLDS ONE COP (MR) SEX CRIMINALS TP VOL 03 THREE THE HARD WAY (MR) SOUPY LEAVES HOME TP SPIDER-GWEN TP VOL 01 GREATER POWER SPIDER-MAN BRAND NEW DAY COMPLETE COLLECTION TP VOL 01 STAR WARS DARTH VADER TP VOL 01 VADER STAR WARS DARTH VADER TP VOL 03 SHU TORUN WAR STAR WARS DARTH VADER TP VOL 04 END OF GAMES STAR WARS KANAN OMNIBUS HC STAR WARS LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK I AM PILOT STAR WARS LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK LIBRARY STAR WARS TP JOURNEY TO SW FORCE AWAKENS SHATTER EMPIRE STAR WARS TP VOL 03 REBEL JAIL SUICIDE SQUAD FROM THE ASHES TP SUNSTONE HC BOOK 01 (MR) SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY TP TEEN TITANS BY GEOFF JOHNS TP BOOK 01 TEEN TITANS GO TP VOL 02 WELCOME TO THE PIZZA DOME UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL TP VOL 01 SQUIRREL POWER VENOM BY REMENDER COMPLETE COLLECTION TP VOL 01 WALKING DEAD COMPENDIUM TP VOL 02 (MR) WALKING DEAD TP VOL 12 LIFE AMONG THEM WALKING DEAD TP VOL 13 TOO FAR GONE (MR) WICKED & DIVINE TP VOL 01 THE FAUST ACT (MR) WICKED & DIVINE TP VOL 02 FANDEMONIUM (MR) WICKED & DIVINE TP VOL 04 RISING ACTION (MR) WITCHFINDER TP VOL 04 CITY OF THE DEAD WOLVERINE OLD MAN LOGAN HC NEW PTG WOLVERINE ORIGIN TP WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 01 BLOOD (N52) WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 02 GUTS (N52) WONDER WOMAN TP VOL 03 IRON (N52) X-MEN EPIC COLLECTION TP CHILDREN OF ATOM Y THE LAST MAN TP BOOK 01 (MR) Y THE LAST MAN TP BOOK 04 (MR) Y THE LAST MAN TP BOOK 05 (MR) DC DESIGNER SERIES BOMBSHELLS BATWOMAN AF DC DESIGNER SERIES BOMBSHELLS HARLEY QUINN AF DC DESIGNER SERIES BOMBSHELLS POISON IVY AF DC DESIGNER SERIES BOMBSHELLS WONDER WOMAN AF – COMICARE CURRENT BOARDS