#kelly arc

[notmaplemable]

Arc-Noire?

Kali: ...

Jaune: Hello miss.

Garnet: Care to spare some food for some poor orphans?

Saphron: They don't let faunus work in a lot of places around here, so we can't get any money.

Kelly: *Cute puppy noises*

Kali: Ghira!

Ghira: Yes dear?

Kali: *Holding up the Arc kids* Can we keep them? Please? I promise I'll take good care of them!

[dennisboobs]

10x06 // 12x10 // 14x04 // 15x07 // 16x01

[shaylogic]

Thinking about how Crystal's wearing a brown jacket because she's wrapped up in concern about David

Monty's wearing a blue jacket because he's wrapped up in concern about Edwin

Crystal's jacket has a burgundy hem with two yellow stripes, like burgundy polo Charles' collar (conflation of Charles and the demon ; reference to character dynamics of Crystal, Charles, David battle in the forest scene)

Monty's got a scarf that is seemingly just red as that's what's always showing, indicating Charles as a barrier

Just realized that the scarf looks like it's actually red on one side, blue on the other, referencing Edwin & Charles' inextricable connection--THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHICH WEIGHS HEAVY AROUND MONTY'S THROAT

I maintain that The Case of the Creeping Forest is a Monty and Crystal parallel arc episode

[edmundosmustache]

the writers have put themselves in a corner because no other love interest for eddie or buck is going to make sense. i don’t think the fanbase will get attached to a love interest for either of them because there’s not enough time to develop a character and have the romance storyline pay off. both buck and eddie have been in and out of relationships since the start of the show, and not a single love interest has stuck. they’ve tried introducing characters like ana, marisol, ali, all of which have stuck around for about a season until the inevitable break up. if the writers are smart, they should know what’s in front of them and use it. putting either of them in another meaningless relationship with a character that’s had 5 episodes to develop is only going to hurt the show’s writing. we most likely only have a couple of seasons left before 9-1-1 has run its course, so they need to utilize the hype they have around buddie to create a storyline that will satisfy the audience.

[hannahssimblr]

I am helping Gitte in the kitchen. The extractor fan roars, and everywhere there are spills, a toppled bag of sugar, a sticky puddle of redcurrant jelly, bay leaves, onion skins and needles of rosemary litter the floor underfoot. I open the oven to a billowing waft of steam. “I think the thing is ready.”

“The potatoes or the pork?”

“The pork thing. What’s it called again?”

“We can call it roast pork for you.”

“Yes, but what’s the proper name?”

Gitte chuckles and pulls an oven glove over her hand. “We say Flæskesteg, but you don’t need to.”

“Flæskesteg,” I murmur it, and Astrid’s sisters laugh. They can’t contain themselves each time I attempt something in Danish. “Oh, it’s wrong!” they’ll cry, delighted by my ineptitude. “Not like that,” and they’ll make me repeat a word, four, fives times until it is right. It feels like blind luck. My ear cannot pick up on the tiny discrepancies, and I won’t remember the right way in ten seconds, but I enjoy entertaining them. The Christmas-eve-dinner clown. 

“Now say ‘rødgrød med fløde’,” says Mia, the middle sister, taking a knife to the red cabbage, and behind her comes an exasperated groan from Astrid. “God, stop bringing that up. He cannot say it. How long will it be funny to you?”

“It’s alright,” I interject swiftly. “It’s good for me to learn. If I want to really know who Astrid is, then I should know her in her native language, so… every little helps.”

“How romantic,” says Pernille, the eldest, distracted as she pries her eight-month-old’s fist from her earring. “And what have you learned so far?”

I grin, self-indulgent. “Vi snakkes ved.”

Everyone applauds, and I bow. 

“That’s just something he’s heard me say on the phone,” says Astrid in this apologetic voice, as though personally responsible for my total incapacity for languages. “I’ve been teaching him more, but many of the sounds are difficult.”

“Like teaching a baby, then,” Mia says. “You go through the alphabet sound by sound.” 

I smile at the infant behind her, drool all over his chin while Pernille bounces him on her hip. “We’re in this together, you and me. Right, Felix?”

He gurgles. 

“Ah, my phone,” Pernille says, reaching for her pocket. The baby squirms. “Hold him, won’t you, Astrid?”

My girlfriend pales. “Oh, well–”

“Just for a moment. Take him.”

Astrid holds him at arm’s length. Her chubby, giggling nephew kicks the feet buttoned inside his bodysuit. She grimaces. “Hey.”

Mia calls after Pernille. “It’s Jacob?”

“Ha! No,” she shoulders through the door and into the hallway.

Gitte purses her lips. “Hold him correctly, Astrid. With his head supported.”

“I don’t know how,” she whines. “I’m not good with babies. They don’t like me.”

“Nonsense.”

“They don’t,” Mia snipes. “They are born with an instinct about her.” 

“Oh, give him to me,” Gitte abandons her saucepan and marches to retrieve the baby. “Look, like this,” she says, holding him against her chest. “Really, Astrid, it is not difficult.”

She shrugs. “Okay, sorry. I just don’t know.” She joins me in the kitchen, muttering to herself as she washes her hands in the sink. Her movements are short and jerky, yanking open the drawer, pots and pans clanging as she pulls one free. Whack onto the stove, ignitor clicking, blue flame roaring to life, but I am happy watching her. She’s more real here, in Denmark, than she has ever seemed before. Astrid, with that pouty face, talking back to her mother. The tone of voice she uses — she never uses that around me. In Berlin, she is so cool and indifferent, keeps the world at an arm’s length, impassive, unphased, but here she is something else completely. 

Yesterday, when we arrived, I zeroed in immediately on a childhood photo hung in the hallway. Little Astrid with a shock of white hair, sitting in a paddling pool in a pink swimming costume. “Oh my God, look!” I said. “Proof you used to be a child. I’ve rumbled you, Larsen. You thought you had me fooled.”

“Oh, stop,” she said. “I hate that picture. I’ll go through the house and take them all down if you can’t contain your excitement.”

I found more later anyway, in the study, among the books on shelves in the living room. Casual ones, candids of her finger painting at the kitchen table, or scowling in a photography studio at eleven, maybe twelve, that awkward age where a child becomes conscious of themselves, gap toothed with braces, shrinking away from the lens. I wanted to take a photo on my phone just to prove it was real. 

“I hope you aren’t missing your family too much today,” Pernille says, at dinner, now, the table flanked on three sides by windows so coated in condensation from our cooking that they have obscured the expansive view of the fjord. At four, the sun is mostly gone, and we sit in candlelight. 

“No, I’m delighted to be here, actually.” I scoop potatoes onto my plate. “Christmas at home is always the same thing, and I get fairly tired of it. It’s pretty cool to learn about other traditions.”

“Well, your family will miss you, I’m sure,” says Gitte, and I nod. “Yes, I’m sure they will.”

At the head of the table, in his high chair, Felix gurgles with delight. His pureed food smeared on his face, on his bib and on the tray. He decides to eat it off without his hands, and Pernille tuts, “Oh, Felix,” she says, and soothes him with gentle Danish as she attacks him with a wet wipe. Gitte watches on with adoration.

“Your first Christmas with a baby in the house for quite a while,” I comment. 

“Ah!” she says. “Yes. I love babies. They are wonderful to have around.”

“Lucky for us, you stopped at three,” Mia says. “This house hardly fit us as it was.”

“It fit the babies, but maybe not quite the personalities.”

I’ve got Felix’s attention now, pulling stupid faces at him. My peekaboo skills excite him so much he is bouncing around in his seat, hands waving about like he wants to applaud me but doesn’t know how yet. I add in some sound effects to up the ante, all sorts of “yoop!” noises to accompany the visual comedy. He laughs with sheer glee. Joyful little shrieks. 

“See?” Astrid says, throwing an exasperated hand. “I do that for him, and he doesn’t like it. He just looks away from me, completely bored.”

“He knows you don’t mean it. And by the way, you don’t do that.” Mia circles the tines of her fork in my direction. “Definitely not so energetically.” 

“Well, I’ve made faces for him. I’ve tried.”

“You’ve never made a face so expressive in your whole life. Maybe you’ve gone so far as to grant him a weak smile with your mouth closed, but that is all.”

“I have certainly smiled, Mia. I know how to smile.”

“Well, I am sure you are used to it being enough to get a man’s attention, but you might have to actually try with an infant.”

Gitte shuts her eyes and clutches her forehead as though wrestling a migraine. “Please don’t argue. Not today.”

I roll a potato around the centre of my plate. “If it makes you feel better, it’s kind of something you learn. If you haven’t been around babies that much, then I can imagine it’s hard to know what to do. To be honest, I kind of know babies, so.”

Pernille, then. “You have babies in your family?”

“No, not right now, but my sister is quite a lot younger, so I’m used to the whole baby thing. Actually, sometimes I still kind of forget she’s not a baby, like, I used to be giving her bottles and spooning pureed food into her mouth and now she’s, like, painting her nails and going to the cinema without parental supervision.”

“And what age?”

“She turned eleven in September, so there’s nine years between us.”

“She was a surprise baby?” says Mia, and I huff out a laugh. “Well, no. I was the surprise. She was the plan.”

“Oh.”

“It’s fine. I’m not, like, upset about being accidental. It’s just the facts.”

“So, are your parents married?”

Astrid interrupts before I can reply. “It’s not polite to ask personal questions. Jude doesn’t want to talk about that.”

I hesitate, awkward about being spoken for, but shrug at Mia as the conversation moves swiftly on. This has become a pattern for Astrid and I, skirting around personal things, but never delving in deeply for fear of, I don’t know what. Vulnerability? Becoming too emotional about it all? I know the same level of detail about her life as she knows about mine. I know why her father isn’t here, about the acrimonious divorce, the other marriage, and the other child. There was the nameless stepfather, too, “our wicked stepfather,” come and gone within three years, leaving nothing much behind but a contempt in the sisters for American canned-laughter comedy shows and motorcycle enthusiasts. I don’t know how Astrid feels about that. Not really, but assume she doesn’t care. There are reasons, naturally, for her mutual contempt for Mia. But they are mysterious, sisterly reasons, too tedious to share. Astrid doesn’t bother to explain herself. Doesn’t need me on her side, when she already knows she’s right. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

I want to thank the amazing @sirianasims for her help during this entire arc. I knew hardly anything about Denmark, and knew I had written myself into a corner when I decided to making Astrid Danish in Lucky Girl just for the hell of it - I never predicted a visit to her home. For teaching me about Christmas traditions and recipes, common baby names, tidbits of language, and helping me to understand what it feels like to be in Denmark, this arc would not be remotely accurate without Siri's guidance <3

[scooterpengie]

My prediction for their next meeting 😭 (Gravity Falls reference)

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

october 3, 2021 2:00 p.m. morensong coffee house

[grant] thank you for meeting me so last minute.

[cerise] yeah, it’s no problem! actually, i'm glad we could do this sooner rather than later. this has been at the back of my mind for a while–the curiosity has–so when you texted me yesterday, i was, like, i need to know. i may be going out of town for a week, but i'll try to make room in the schedule for this before i leave.

[grant] are you traveling anywhere exciting?

[cerise] iceland. it’s a big family trip to celebrate my parents’ 20th anniversary. as in, my mom and my stepdad’s anniversary. i mean, he’s my real dad as far as i'm concerned, but technically my stepdad. i think you get what i mean, i don’t know why i'm over-explaining.

[grant] wow, that is exciting. well, i hope you guys have fun. i hear it’s just as gorgeous there as you think it is.

[cerise] anyway, thank you again for asking your–our, i guess; that’s still weird to say–dad some questions on my behalf. i'm sure that wasn’t easy.

[grant] i should warn you that it’s not necessarily a wealth of information.

[cerise] that’s okay.

[grant] there was a lot going on when i talked to him, and if there were other questions i could have asked…

[cerise] it’s okay.

[grant] i wouldn’t have been able to think of them, and now, uh, the line of communication is closed, so i can’t really go back and...

[cerise] i said it was okay, didn’t i?

[cerise] the basics are enough, and you already put yourself out for a stranger. if i want to know anything else, i'll find the right moment to get my my mom talk about what happened.

[grant] do you want me to just get right into it?

[cerise] whatever you prefer.

[grant] so, uh, essentially, my parents were attending a medical conference of some kind in detroit. they were still married then, but my dad was unhappy with the relationship. he met your mom at the conference, and then he had–as far as i'm aware–a one-night stand with her. she found out my dad already had a family, they agreed to not be in each other’s lives, and he paid her child support.

[grant] that’s what i know. i'm sure there’s more to it, but...

[grant] oh! right, “the more” is that there is a nonzero chance we have more siblings out there.

[cerise] huh.

[cerise] i'm almost surprised there isn’t more drama. that’s a pretty mundane story. a one-night stand with someone you know nothing about is the oldest story in the book.

[cerise] weird, i feel better now. my curiosity is sated. well, i am wondering how the affair even happened if your mom was right there and about the potential other children, but that’s a whole can of worms.

[grant] well, i'm glad you feel better.

[cerise] and the story does make sense. i always wondered if there was some big thing with the secrecy, but if it’s because your–our?–dad was a married man, i get it. my mom is a very good person with strong morals. i know her, and she would not want anything to do with someone if she were aware they were cheating and had a family, and she wouldn’t want me to have any business with them either.

[grant] she made the right decision to stay away. he’s unnecessary. your lives are a billion times better off without him. if you’re thinking, “how can he say that?” just trust me.

[cerise] i mean, i can’t be upset about it. i'm not sure what i potentially lost out on, but what i've had in life with my parents has been perfect or just about perfect, so i'm not going to question her choice.

[grant] you didn’t lose anything. not to say trust me again, but trust me.

[cerise] i'm sorry. this probably is far less of a flippant thing for you.

[grant] don’t worry about me. it’s all good.

[grant] i am just really glad you feel better, and i'm glad i could be of some use to you as well. it’s a lot easier to use me than your mom. i have never met her, but i'm guessing she’d prefer to just forget about all this stuff, and i hope she has.

[cerise] i was frustrated she wouldn’t tell me the truth, but i get it now. this may be a classic story, but it’s still, you know, an embarrassing one. if i found out my boyfriend were a married man tomorrow, i would melt into the floor and stay there.

[grant] anyway, i know we’ve been sitting here all of ten minutes, but i should let you go. once i finish drinking this coffee, i will get out of your hair. you have things to do–exciting things. go pack and travel and have fun and all that.

[cerise] hey, you don’t have to leave already!

[grant] no, i don’t want to take up your afternoon. at least no more than enough to tell you what you were waiting a few weeks to hear.

[cerise] i mean, i blocked out time to do that and talk to you generally for a bit.

[cerise] i don’t know how to go about all this, but i wasn’t planning on benefiting off your connection to your–our?–dad and then peacing out. i figured we could be acquainted, if nothing else.

[cerise] unless that’s too much for you, in which case, totally get it. no pressure. my existence must be weird for your mom and siblings. i'm assuming you have siblings.

[cerise] or maybe they don’t know. i also get it if you’re keeping this situation on the down-low. i can assure you that you’d not be alone in that. i'm not sure i could tell my parents right now that i know about my origins or that i've met my bio dad’s son. not yet.

[grant] definitely don’t do that before the big anniversary trip. but no, don’t worry about that either. i don’t have siblings. not anymore. and my mom...let’s not even go there. there’s nothing to worry about on those fronts.

[grant] it’s not that it’s too much, basically. i have zero problems with you, and i have no family left who would have a problem with you either, so.

[grant] i just don’t want to be in your way, not today or at any point in the future, and i will be. you don’t need my dad around; you don’t really need me either.

[cerise] i don’t care if you are, honestly. you are my brother. that feels weird to say, but you are, and you haven’t done anything wrong. i'd like to know my brother.

[cerise] this is maybe the only regretful, i don’t know if that’s the right word, part of all the secrecy and the way i came to be. i get along with my step-siblings. what’s wrong with getting along with the half-siblings? or half-sibling?

[grant] i should have also warned you i'm kind of in a dour mood entirely because of my dad. sorry. not because of you or this whole thing, though, to be clear.

[grant] i wanted to meet to get all this off my mind so i have no other reason to think about him, hopefully, for the rest of my life. i'll be in a more conversational mood soon-ish, once i'm done thinking about him.

[grant] this is going to make me wishy-washy. i don’t want to be in your way; i don’t want to be a source of awkwardness in your family if they ever know you know me, but…

[grant] okay. i wouldn’t mind getting along with my half-sibling. maybe we could meet up when you have time again.

[cerise] yeah, i'll text you. i might be busy for a while with work when i'm back from my trip, but…

[grant] text me anytime. we’ll figure it out.

[foxhole118lasso]

Sometimes I think about how the lawsuit arc would’ve panned out if he’d been in touch with Taylor Kelly at the time. And how much worse but interesting it would’ve been lmao.

[rowdybimbo]

A year and a few months later hey tumblr rate my NEW insane kinlist

its the exact same as before but take a closer look at the background--DSFJHNBDFS

[ariapmdeol]

kennet trio tests... ill figure out how i want them to look eventually,, these probably will change a lot

[snorlaxlovesme]

LOVEEEE this image of Qiao Ling with her arm draped on Cheng Xiaoshi's shoulder while both of them smirk at this rich idiot. evil siblings. love them

[my-brain-soup]

Eddie saw Buck flirting with someone and thought, "Absolutely not, time to interrupt."

[silverview]

[buddiesmutslut]

Hot Take

BUCK IS THE BEST PERSON TO GIVE DATING ADVICE TO CHRIS, HEAR ME OUT.

Okay, I know we're all laughing about women fleeing Buck and how awful he is at relationships, but I don't feel like that's true.

First of all, just because a relationship ends, doesn't mean that it FAILED. Dating is as much about getting to know YOURSELF, what you want out of a relationship and what your own boundaries are as it is about getting to know the person you're dating. It's about growing, and learning from your mistakes, and I feel like Buck HAS done that. I'm not saying he's a perfect dater (the Taylor/Lucy thing, wtf was that?) but also, he has gotten better.

With Abby, he grew from fuckboy Firehose to someone that is considerate and thoughtful to his partner. (I don't LOVE that we credit Abby for his growth, since he was the one that made the initial boundary to not meet up right away because he didn't want to fall back into that sleep with anything that moves mindset, but she is mostly credited with it canonically, so we're going to use it.) Also, she didn't leave because Buck was a bad boyfriend or anything. She left because she needed to find herself after her mom died, and that's it.

With Ali too, she left because of his job, because she couldn't handle being with a first responder, which is a genuine concern for a LOT of people. It's hard to love someone with a dangerous job like that, and not know if they're going to come home at night. It had nothing to do with who Buck was as a boyfriend.

With Taylor, that whole relationship was a mess, IMO, them getting together when they did was a recipe for disaster. Obviously, Buck shouldn't have asked her to move in because he was scared to tell her about Lucy, but I'm not saying he's a PERFECT dater, I'm saying he's learning, and that's what's important. When he did admit to the kiss, Taylor is the one that decided that it wasn't a hard line for her, or she would have broken up with him, living together or not. It probably would have been awkward and complicated, but it was all of those things when they DID break up later in the series. From this relationship, Buck learned that it's better to be alone than it is to be with someone for the wrong reasons.

He has had a lot of growth from s1 to the end of s6, and that is clear in his dating.

Now, everyone that's saying Eddie should go to Bobby or Chim for advice, I'm going to say this: It's easy to date when you immediately find the person you're going to marry.

Let me be clear, I'm not saying that Madney & Bathena don't have their own struggles within their relationships, but Bobby and Chim got pretty luck, they found women that they clicked with and then eventually fell in love with almost as soon as they went looking.

When Bobby decided he was ready to move on from Marcy, the ONLY person we actually see him dating in the show is Athena, and they end up married.

After Tatiana leaves Chim, and he decides that he's going to be himself and look for a genuine connection, Maddie is conveniently placed in front of him.

I'm not saying that either of them are bad daters, or bad partners or anything, but we don't really SEE them date. Maybe it's because they're older and they already know what they're looking for and what they can and can't accept in a relationship, but realistically, it's wild to think that you're going to fall in love and get married to the first person that you find when you start dating. The majority of people have to date around and actually look to find the person they're meant to be with, not magically find them right out of the gate.

Especially for a FIRST first date, it's all about figuring out how dating works, what is and isn't expected and acceptable and navigating getting to know a new person, as well as yourself, and I think Buck is the clear best option when it comes to experience about women. He's had several girlfriends and also convinced only God knows how many people to sleep with him, so he's obviously charming, and pleasant to spend time within a romantic situation.

Also, God knows nobody is asking Eddie for dating advice, since the man only married his girlfriend bc she was pregnant and then had to be told (BY BUCK) that he deserved to be happy in a relationship instead of sticking it out for everyone else.

Anyway, this has been on my mind ever since that interview came out with everyone making fun of Eddie for going to Buck because he's had (based on what we're reading about Natalia's character) 4 "failed" relationships, but again, I truly believe that a relationship ending does not automatically mean it failed.

Also, Eddie goes to Buck because they're CO-PARENTS & SOULMATES but all of this other stuff too 😂

[salamandra-arts]

𝕭𝖑𝖆𝖈𝖐 𝕭𝖚𝖙𝖑𝖊𝖗: 𝕻𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖈 𝕾𝖈𝖍𝖔𝖔𝖑 𝕬𝖗𝖈

Merlyn Kelly [ character poster ]

[thinplacesradio]

a staircase ascending upwards, framed pictures on the wall to the right. a pink haze over everything. the image is distorted by VCR static. white text reads:

[028] THE CURSE. A CALLER RETURNS TO A DARK PLACE. THE HOST DOES TOO.

listen here, or anywhere you find your podcasts. transcript under the cut:

[static, radio tuning]

[Traveling Sales Rep: Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back, after these short messages.] [static, radio tuning]

[click]

Hello and welcome to Thin Places Radio. I’m your host,

and it is the middle of the night. But don’t worry. You’re not alone.

[Thin Places theme] 

[background thumps and buzzing]

I’m coming to you apprehensive from my studio, which is what I like to call this long, long staircase, built from decades-old creaking wood, descending down into the darkness below this antique store. I know I’ve been here before, even if I’m fuzzy on exactly when, or exactly how. Those memories I can look at out of the corner of my eye, if I don’t turn my head too fast. If I just let the road lead me back through my own mind, I think I’m getting somewhere. I’m its supplicant. I follow. 

[creaking footsteps] [thumping]

If I turn around now, I can see the rectangle of light above and behind me, the first eight and a half steps down, the splintering railing and a few shelves. A mouth. But now I’m lost to the sensation of nothing, the damp, woodsy chill that’s engulfed me.

[feet scuffing]

There is a kind of dark so absolute it makes you forget you exist as a thinking, feeling creature. You are nothing more than a heart beating in your own eardrums. If I listen very carefully I can hear it speaking with a voice of its own. But I don’t know what it’s saying. The dark. I have to wait for my eyes to adjust to it. But I know they will. You can adjust to anything if you give it a little bit of time. 

But it’d be nice if I could find a f***ing light switch down here instead. 

So… what is Thin Places Radio? Well, you can call in about anything strange that you’ve got going on in your life - feelings, omens, premonitions, hauntings.

Is your new pet a ghost? 

Does something bad keep happening to you when you pass through a certain place?

Are you trying to navigate a galaxies-long-distance relationship? 

When the veil between worlds is thin, we get closer than ever to the strange and the unexplained - and also to each other. Call in, get it off your chest. Lines are open.

[click] [voicemail:]

Hi - first time caller, long time listener, love your show. Thank you. I was wondering: do you think that a place can be cursed? Or that somebody can be - I don't know, like, when someone goes through a place that it can affect them in a negative way. The reason I ask is, I am sitting in Waco, and Waco always seems to be a weird place for me when I drive through. So I'm sitting here, in the middle of the night. It's been 3 hours. I'm sitting behind a car wreck. And people go up there and don't come back and it's just been a long time we've been waiting. But, anyhow, this first happened probably 30 years ago. I was driving through Waco, and we stopped at McDonald's, and we're eating our meal and look out the window and a trailer is literally being backed on top of my vehicle. It like, actually climbed up on top of my car. And it was just like so weird. So we kind of avoided Waco for a long time. We had like several other incidents where we got in accidents or almost got in accidents just in passing through Waco off of a particular stretch of 35. So my question: Are places cursed? Can a person be cursed in a place? Thank you.

[click] 

Hi, caller, thank you so much - it’s nice to be thought of. The answer to your question is exactly what you think it is.

Yes. Of course. 

It’s hard to imagine a place with darker energies than Waco, Texas, but everyone has their own personal cursed places, the places that pull them in again and again to get them stuck and to vanish them and to eat cars. Sometimes you don’t even know where that place is until you pass over it, again, and your body remembers that something happened to you there.

[searching music]

Sometimes what happens in a place curses it; sometimes, you keep carrying out the curse yourself.

And sometimes, when something cursed happens somewhere, it primes you to keep looking for the curse – to keep your ears pricked and your eyes peeled for another stretch of bad luck. When you’re stricken with a curse, that very first time, it’s really hard not to always be ready for it to come back to you. You want to be ready for when it hurts you again. You learn to expect the pain.

Pain will always find you. That’s not something that your mindset can fix. It always comes back to you, and you'll keep carrying it with you. But that’s when it becomes more important than ever to search for the blessed. The relief. The strange small beauties, even in a place like Waco, Texas. The gift of three hours to yourself, in the dark, in a place you didn’t want to sit and think in. The energy of a McDonald’s meal. The saving grace of a near-accident that wasn’t an accident. The wildflowers on the side of the road. The person in the passenger seat next to you.

You’re still allowed to take another route home next time, though. That’s okay, too. 

[click]

I could stay down here, you know. That’s what it’s telling me.

[echoed thudding]

In the dark you can be anything, and everything, and in the dark, it does not matter if you do not remember your name. It does not matter if you have a mystery to solve or food to find or a life to live. The forgetting lives in the dark, where there is no difference between sleep and waking. [buzzing, echoed words:] It wants me to stay. It would love me as a sponge loves water. There would no longer be a me. 

[buzzing builds, then stops abruptly]

But - no. No, there was someone on the line, just now. Someone that I was someone to. There’s a job I have to do. And there’s a lamp on a desk somewhere, back here. I remember. There’s - 

[steps]

There.

[lamp clicks on]

Oh. There’s nothing here. There’s nothing here. 

That was weird. I’m gonna get out of here. 

[lamp clicks off] [footsteps leave]

[click]

Thank you for listening, callers, and thank you for calling, listeners. I hope you feel a little bit lighter. I know I do. As always, our number is 717.382.8093. That’s 717.382.8093. Until next time. I’ll be here.

[static] [Traveling Sales Rep: visit us at the - diner just off -] [Various Garbled Voices: the - road - provides - the - road - provides -]

Thin Places Radio is a podcast written by Kristen O’Neal and produced by Kaitlin Bruder. The voice of Your Host is Kristen O’Neal.

Tonight’s voicemail was left for us by Kelly. Editing and sound design are by Kaitlin Bruder, and the music tracks you heard in tonight’s episode are: the Thin Places theme, by Miles Morkri, and Umeed by RANA. If you have a question to ask, a story to tell, or a suggestion for the host, give us a call at ‪(717) 382-8093. The lines are always open.

[Thin Places Theme outro]