#mayb the drugstore has upped their game…

[aveil-moved]

okay i wanna get into makeup again what eyeshadow is good these days for fun/weird colours and alt looks

[undreaming-fanfiction]

Steve is a one hit wonder, or at least that's what most of the world thinks.

You'd assume that he peaked in high school, and his claim to fame was a kegstand record or something, but no, that's not it. He was the "king", sure, but one day he just happened to sit on a bench in his uni's campus, and because his lips felt really dry from the windy autumn weather, he re-applied some lipgloss. A photographer taking pictures of the campus for a promotional brochure saw him, approched him, and voila! The biggest success (or maybe a mistake) of Steve's life was born.

He starred in a lipgloss commercial.

Look, in his defense, he needed the money. His parents cut him off, he was finally finding himself in his new major, and he was passionate about being able to afford rent and groceries. So he went to the studio, let them powder his face to oblivion and apply some lipgloss. They also gave him a shirt two sizes too small, which was really uncomfortable, but apparently made his shoulders look nice. He tried his best to recall wooing girls in high school, put on a hopefully seductive face, repeated some silly lines, and that was it.

He bought a new mattress with what he called the "lipgloss money" and thought that he could get back to his life with no change.

Except that didn't happen. Because the ad took off. Really, really took off. It got sold out almost immediately. The restocks were so sought after, there were lines forming in front of drugstores. The lipgloss was nice, thought Steve, non-sticky and with a nice flavor, long-lasting as per the ad, but he failed to see the mass appeal.

As it turned out, the appeal was himself. People recognized him on the street. They asked him to repeat that stupid line he said for the commercial. Somehow it got him more modelling gigs, all good and well-paid, but sometimes he thought he'd forever be the lipgloss guy.

As he's now standing in front of his class of students as their new PE teacher, he realizes it's not that much of a curse. Not if they consider it insanely cool that their teacher is famous, and if he can use the famous catchphrase as a motivator. "Alright, alright," he laughs and tosses a basket ball to one of his students. Score at least twice in this game and I'll say it.

He's never seen a game so competitive.

In the end, the students fulfill his condition. He grabs the lipgloss that one of the girls hands him, applies it to his lips, and assumes the well-practiced pose. He's so deep into his lipgloss model persona he doesn't realize the door to the gym opens.

"Just try kissing it off," he whispers in the most exaggerated, seductive voice he can muster.

His class explodes in laughter and clapping, but there's also an unfamiliar sound - a guitar case being dropped on the ground. Eddie Munson, the new music teacher who is supposed to prepare the gym for a students' concert that evening, stares at Steve as if he's a snack. A sweaty, lipgloss-covered snack.

In the awkward silence that follows, Steve rushes to pick up the guitar case, apologizes for shocking his new colleague and tries to explain the situation."

Eddie chuckles with him and assures him that no, it's all good, at least their first meeting was memorable. Steve sends his students to tidy the gym, and has to laugh when Eddie asks - "Sorry, what was that phrase again?"

"The lipgloss is supposed to be long-lasting, that's why," he explains. It's "Just try kissing it off."

And Eddie doesn't laugh at him, he just smirks and whispers:

"Well, don't mind if I do!"

[zegrasdrysdale]

Hey!! Could you possibly write a John Marino x Reader where she has a pregnancy scare while he’s away and debates telling him cause they had a conversation about not being ready for kids? Angst preferably!

[ positively negative ] j. marino

paring : John Marino x fem!reader

summary : (Y/N) thinks she’s pregnant while John is on a short roadie, and she debates telling him about it once he gets home since they talked about how neither of them are ready for kids, though she thinks she might be more ready than she told John she was

warning(s) : angst ! mentions of pregnancy, mentions of abortion, throwing up

author’s note : listen, john marino needs more love on this app so i will absolutely write anything for him 🫶🏼 enjoy, anon

༺═──────────────═༻

Something is very much wrong. When she gets sick, she never throws up.

Now, she's learning over the toilet and throwing up every single thing she ate for dinner the night before. It's nearly five in the morning and she's sick in the bathroom.

John is in Vancouver of all places right now so she can’t even call him because it’s two in the morning and he has a game tonight. She hates disturbing his sleep on game day, even when she doesn’t feel good. She knows he’d answer her call, but she can’t bring herself to do it.

The toilet paper runs out as she dries her lips. It was the only thing within reaching distance she could grab so she goes into the cabinet under the sink to grab a new roll.

What she sees instead scares the hell out of her.

An unopened box of tampons that she definitely bought more than a month ago sits in front of the rolls of toilet paper. She sits back on her feet and stares at the box in front of her.

It was three weeks ago when she and John had a whole conversation about how neither one of them were ready for kids. Not that she’s jumping to conclusions but she’s late for her period. It's probably only by a week but it is still enough to worry her.

She’s never been late. Not even when she was stressing out last season when the Devils made playoffs for the first time in five years.

The unopened box of tampons stares her down until she decides that she needs to get up off the bathroom floor and drag herself to the nearest drugstore and buy a pregnancy test. Maybe multiple to be on the safe side.

If a plus sign shows up on any of those sticks then she has no idea what she's going to do. Obviously she'll tell John and they can make a decision together but he made it very clear that he is focused on his career when they talked a few weeks ago, and she feels like she isn't ready to be a mother.

She doesn't have a steady job and doesn't want John to pay for every single thing if they were to have a baby. She wants to be financially stable, which she is far from at the moment.

As soon as she throws on a pair of black sweatpants and a one of John's red Devils hoodies, she walks out the door with the keys to the apartment.

It's colder outside than she thought it would be. It's been a little warmer outside than it usually is for mid-February, but not today.

The closest drugstore that is open isn't very far from the building she and John live in. She buys two boxes of tests, each box containing two tests each. That should be enough.

Her hands are shaking the entire walk back to the apartment. She has no idea if it's because she's cold or because she's nervous.

She doesn't think that John would tell her to get an abortion if any of the tests came back positive. She doesn't think he'd leave her to raise a baby by herself, but she is certain that he probably wouldn't be very happy about it.

Her phone dings with a text when she walks into the apartment. The first thing she sees is that it's six in the morning. The second thing she sees is that John texted her even though it's three in the morning for him right now.

johnny ♡ - 6:19 am i can't sleep so i wanted to let you know that i miss you. hope you have a good day when you see this <3

(Y/N) frowns and calls him instead of texting him back. He picks up the phone after two rings. "I wasn't expecting you to be up when I texted you," he says on the other end of the line.

"I don't feel good so I've been up for an hour," she admits to him as she walks into the master bathroom that's attached to their bedroom. "Why can't you sleep? I thought the jet lag would've gotten better by now." He's been gone for four days already.

He lets out a breathy laugh. "It's just one of those nights," he replies. "Plus I actually do miss you. I was thinking about you so I sent you that text."

She pulls the tests out of the plastic bag. "Such a romantic," she comments. She knows that there's a smile on his face that she can't see right now.

"You said you didn't feel good though," he says after a moment of silence between them. "What's going on?"

With a soft sigh, she says, "I woke up at five and ended up on the bathroom floor for a little bit. I think I'm okay." She's still very nauseous, but that could be her nerves since she's about to take a pregnancy test. "Um, I was going to wait to tell you this but since I have you on the phone, I am currently standing in our bathroom right now with two boxes of pregnancy tests on the sink because I was throwing up and I'm a little late for my period."

She's met with silence. Total silence. John doesn’t say a single word for about thirty seconds.

“Baby-”

“Don’t say that right now,” John snaps. She has to bite her bottom lip to keep from wincing at his tone. “I thought- we are safe every time. Do you really think that you’re pregnant?”

With a shrug that John can’t see, she replies, “I threw up. I never throw up and I’m never late for my period. I’m just doing this to make sure. I have multiple tests that I’ll take to double and triple check.”

More silence, except this time it’s a shorter moment than last time. “I need to, um, go to sleep,” John tells her. “Let me know what happens.”

“John-” she tries to say, but he’s too quick in hanging up the phone. Her throat closes up and her nausea returns at full force.

She retches into the toilet with a cry. “Fuck,” she cries as she recovers.

The pregnancy tests stare at her from the sink as she throws up again.

Yeah, she really has no idea what she’s going to do if one of those comes back as positive.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

She’s angry.

That’s all she’s been feeling since that morning John hung up on her when she told him that she might be pregnant. That morning was two days ago.

He’ll be walking through the door any minute now. She’s sitting on the couch waiting for him.

If she’s learned anything in the past forty eight hours or so is that she’s more ready for kids than she thought she was. She loved a baby she didn’t actually have. She didn’t tell John the tests all came back negative because she was grieving a child that she wasn’t even expecting.

Keys jiggle in the door around eleven in the morning. It swings open and reveals a tired John Marino. He drags his suitcase in behind him and shuts the door once he and his things are in the apartment.

“Good road trip?” she asks from the couch. “Didn’t hear from you after you hung up the phone on me so I hope it went well.”

John freezes and looks over at her. “I, um … ” he trails off. His eyes fall to her belly. “Are you?”

She chucks one of the negative tests at him. “No,” she retorts as he looks at the test. “I’m not.” She pauses. “I want to know what you would’ve done if I was pregnant. You didn’t even hesitate to hang up the phone when I just mentioned the possibility that I was pregnant.”

He leaves his bags by the door and walks over to where she’s sitting. She’s doing everything in her power not to cry because right now, it seems like they might want two completely different things. Couples who have differing opinions on children rarely ever work out.

John takes a seat beside her with the test in his hand. “I wouldn’t leave you to raise a baby alone,” he tells her. “I also don’t think I was clear in our conversation before. If we were to expect a baby, I would need some time to get myself together but I would love you and Baby Marino so much. I wouldn’t leave either of you. I’m sorry if that came across as me leaving. I’m just not ready to start actually trying for kids.”

A tear spills onto her cheek and her bottom lip shakes.

“You wouldn’t run?”

“I wouldn’t run,” he assures her. “Like I said, I might need a second but I would never ever leave you to raise a baby alone. It takes two to make a baby and it’ll take two to raise one.”

John reaches out to brush away the tear that has rolled down her cheek. She leans into his touch. Usually when he comes back from a roadie, she’s immediately in his arms. Today she had to hold back because of how mad she was.

She blinks a few times and he comes back into focus. He has a small smile on his face. “I think I’m more ready to be a mother than I thought I was,” she admits. “I was so ready to love our baby and was more upset than relieved when those tests came back negative.”

“We’ll have a baby,” John tells her. “I promise. Just give me a little more time, okay?”

“Okay.”

She gives in and moves closer to her boyfriend. He wraps his arms around her instantly and she buries her face in his neck. John kisses the top of her head before he rests his cheek against her forehead.

“You’re okay though?” he questions. “Since you were throwing up.”

With a nod, she says, “I think it was food poisoning. Ate some bad seafood the night before.”

John laughs and shakes his head. “You would mistake food poisoning for being pregnant.”

“Shut up.”

༺═──────────────═༻

MASTERLIST

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taglist : @dasiysthings @equallyshaw @dancerbailey3 @love4lando @sweetinsatiable @mangoluver

[blueiscoool]

Century-Old Clara Bow Silent Film Believed Lost Forever Found

Long-Lost Clara Bow Silent Film Found in a Omaha Parking Lot.

The Pill Pounder, one of the key titles in the CV of the iconic flapper, has enjoyed a belated revival at the San Francisco Silent film festival

A century after she first began to turn heads, Clara Bow is “It” once more. The iconic flapper of the silent film era inspired Margot Robbie’s character Nellie in Damien Chazelle’s Hollywood epic Babylon, is namechecked on Taylor Swift’s forthcoming album The Tortured Poets Department, and yesterday at the San Francisco Silent film festival, one of her earliest films was shown for the first time since the days of bathtub gin.

The story of the film’s discovery has already caused excitement online. Film-maker Gary Huggins inadvertently snapped up a slice of lost silent film history at an auction in a car park in Omaha, Nebraska, that was selling old stock from a distribution company called Modern Sound Pictures. Hoping to bid on a copy of the 1926 comedy Eve’s Leaves that he had spotted on top of a pile, Huggins was informed that he could only buy the whole pallet of movies, not individual cans. The upside? The lot was his for only $20.

Huggins soon discovered that his new pile of reels included 1923’s The Pill Pounder, a silent comedy that had been thought to be lost for decades. It is a short, two-reel film, shot on Long Island, New York, and directed by Gregory La Cava, best known for later classics such as My Man Godfrey (1936) and Stage Door (1937). The film stars rubber-faced vaudeville veteran Charlie Murray, the so-called “Irish comedian” who was actually from Laurel, Indiana. He plays a hapless pharmacist, the “pill pounder” of the title, who is trying to host a clandestine poker game in the back room of his drugstore. What few realised until Huggins watched the film, was that it also features 17-year-old Bow in a supporting role. She plays the girlfriend of Murray’s son, played by James Turfler, who had already appeared with Bow in her second film Down to the Sea in Ships, directed by Elmer Clifton and screened in 1922. Turfler’s character is the butt of some bizarre gags. At one point, he chugs a jug of effervescent “fomo seltzer” and Bow watches in horror as he floats up to the ceiling.

In this, one of her earliest surviving performances on film, Bow looks even younger than her years. Although she lacks the sleek Hollywood glamour she later acquired, she has the charisma to turn a thankless bit-part into something of a scene-stealer. The critics took note: based on the evidence of this film, the Exhibitors’ Trade Review described her as “perhaps the most promising of the younger actresses”. In his introduction to the film at San Francisco’s grand Palace of Fine Arts theatre, Bow’s biographer, the screenwriter David Stenn, speculated that the actor may have forgotten that she made the film, as she never talked about it. It was made during a traumatic period in her life, only a few weeks after her mother’s death following prolonged mental illness. He invited us to imagine how Bow might have felt appearing in a lighthearted slapstick comedy in such circumstances.

The film, which has been restored by the festival’s organisers and was screened with accompanying music from composer Wayne Barker, now looks remarkably good for its age. The festival’s senior film restorer, Kathy Rose O’Regan, said it was in great shape when they received it. She added: “We imagined it was screened maybe a few times, but there’s hardly any damage – a few scratches here and there, some dirt, but overall in pretty stellar condition.”

Now it has been freshened up and looks its best, but it is still incomplete, being in what Stenn called a “beta version”.

That’s because the copy Huggins found was not from the 1920s, but a 35mm print from the 1950s or 1960s of an edit of the film that was destined to become part of a 16mm compilation of old silent films with a comic voiceover poking fun at its archaic aspects. The intertitles have been removed and there are a few scenes and shots missing, too.

This process is deeply unflattering to old movies, but it has been responsible for preserving versions of silent films that would otherwise have been lost, including the Lois Weber melodrama Shoes from 1916. And the lack of titles are no barrier to following the film.

“For me, it is a pretty perfect 14-minutes of fun,” says O’Regan. “It would be nice to know what the titles were, but you can certainly get the gist without them.”

Stenn called the tale of the film’s discovery “miraculous” and led a round of applause for Huggins, who was in the audience. He explained that there was reason to believe that some of the discarded material was among the other cans that were sold at the Omaha auction. The hunt is on to round out The Pill Pounder, and several people have joined in the search, combing through thousands of reels. One Omaha-based film-maker and silent film enthusiast, Alexander Payne, was quick to offer his support.

The film fills in a brief blank period in Bow’s filmography. She shot the role – probably in just a couple of days – in the early “false start” phase of her film career. Bow, a tomboy from a troubled home in Brooklyn, made her debut after winning a magazine talent competition in 1921 but struggled to get her career off the ground.

“I wore myself out goin’ from studio t’studio, from agency t’agency, applyin’ for every possible part,” she later recalled. “But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually I was too fat.”

In 1923, she found her way into a handful of films, including The Pill Pounder, where she had the chance to shine in supporting roles, and this is when she finally got her ticket to Hollywood and Paramount.

“She’s not the star of the film, but you can’t take her eyes off her,” says O’Regan. “For the few minutes she’s there she’s divine, she’s fun, she’s full of energy.”

The festival screened The Pill Pounder alongside another new restoration. The feature film Dancing Mothers directed by Herbert Brenon in 1926, is a flapper drama that Bow made for Paramount, in one of her last supporting roles. She plays the reckless daughter of a lonely woman (Alice Joyce) who tires of staying home while her husband and daughter party hard in New York and steps out to go nightclubbing. Bow completely pulls focus from the grownups around her, playing a hedonistic minx, whose body spasms with pleasure when she sips a cocktail.

Stenn described the later film as “like watching a star being born”. Finally, Bow was able to make good on her early promise and start her career as a leading lady. With the breakout comedy It directed by Clarence Badger in 1927, she became a genuine star for the ages. It is easy to look back and assume Bow was destined to become a sensation, but her overnight stardom took a good five years of hard work. The Pill Pounder offers a fascinating glimpse into the route that she took to get there.

By Pamela Hutchinson.

[stephxgingrichx]

„I can never decide if Steph is the coolest or nerdiest person in all of Blackwell. Maybe both? She's definitely queen of the indoor kids, with all their weird roleplaying games and sci-fi shit.I guess her dad is a video editor. She makes some sweet cash by selling bootleg DVDs. Don't knock the hustle. And I'm pretty sure Steph does all the backstage technical work for the school plays, which checks out. Another thing about Steph: she's into girls, and she doesn't give a shit what anyone else thinks about it.“ - a special walking weirdo about Steph

Friends describes Steph as a "restless type" and as "queen of the nerds" who has grown her passion for tabletop role-playing since her time at Arcadia Bay. Moreover, she's characterized as a "creative force of nature" and as a "queer and proud, musical, nerdy powerhouse.

Steph was born in Oakland, California but was raised in Arcadia Bay, Oregon. After graduating from Blackwell, Steph moved to Seattle, Washington to study video game design but ended up being pulled into the art and music scene there, and teamed up with her then girlfriend Izzie to form the two-piece punk band Drugstore Makeup, with Steph on drums. The band eventually wound up in Haven Springs, Colorado playing at the local bar the Black Lantern. Steph ended up falling in love with the small town and its charm and decided to remain there. Her passion for music ended up landing her a job at Rocky Mountain Record Traders becoming both the store's manger and the local radio DJ.

[lemonhemlock]

I'm not sure if you have already answered this but what do you use for your hair!!! The length is amazing!!

thank you so much! 🫶

i use some curly-girl-adjacent products to try and tame the crazy amount of frizz i so easily get ☠️ but the one thing i am adamant about and never, ever go without is a leave-in conditioner and for years and years my go-to has been Aunt Jackie's Quench Moisture Intense Leave-In Conditioner (the green bottle). it really is a game-changer as it makes textured hair a lot more manageable

i used to LOVE Aunt Jackie's Fix My Hair Intensive Repair Conditioning Masque to use as a regular conditioner in the bath but it got banned in the EU bc of some ingredient i'm not even sure was dangerous (this may just have been overzealousness). they may have changed the formula, though, bc i see it's commercialized on some sites so i will have to check it out. it was truly unique & i miss it so much!

but the main idea still stands - to use a mask or a deep conditioner just like a regular conditioner. they're more potent and work better for frizzy, curly hair. nowadays i just use the drugstore pantene pro v hair biology masks. they work surprisingly well and are very good at detangling my hair

as for shampoo, i do try to use something with lighter surfactants on my length, but on the scalp you have to be careful to cleanse it really well & exfoliate if necessary with something stronger (like salicylic acid maybe). also to avoid build-up on the hair strands. but, then again, stronger surfactants also make the texture more difficult, so it's always a balancing act!

other rules i keep to are:

- the only time i brush my hair is in the shower when i have conditioner on. i never, ever brush my hair at a different time unless i absolutely plan to braid it immediately. people with curly hair know that brushing destroys the integrity of the curl and leaves one looking like a mop 😂

- i always air dry and use microfiber towels and sleep on a satin pillowcase

- i always braid my hair at night

all of these things keep the hair from getting too tangled and help with frizz

for thickness and length, idk what advice to give bc i've never had a problem in that department (god's favourite, i know 🙏). i regularly dye my hair and after 3 months i always see the visible growth via my dark roots :)) i think my hair takes dye pretty well bc it doesn't have a worse texture than before (thankfully). i do get regular trims to keep the dead ends at a minimum though

[ourladyoflight]

LAYER ONE: THE OUTSIDE

name: [_ _ _ _ _ _ _] , but known more commonly as "Angel"

eye color: Blue- a shade that seems too deep to be natural.

hair style/color: Blonde and silky- will form locks if it's down, but most commonly worn in an ornate bun.

height: Most often 5'11"

clothing style: A simple sort of ethereal- her usual robes are white, and flowy enough to keep her comfortable without limiting her movement. If she's wearing human clothes, she'll tend to drift towards light/neutral colors, and "academia" type clothing- but she's been known to enjoy a sundress from time to time, and won't mind experimenting with new trends or items she hasn't encountered before.

best physical feature: If you ask her, her wings!! She also has a positive view of her own scars. (But if you ask the mun, her face- her resting expression is what makes her seem approachable and warm!!)

LAYER TWO: THE INSIDE.

your fears: " I don't know if I truly fear much of anything anymore, aside from failing those dear to me here. I'd go through anything to keep that from happening. "

your guilty pleasure: " ... I didn't understand how to use a microwave for a short time, and would laser food instead to heat it up ... I still do it sometimes ... "

your ambitions for the future: “ It used to be saving Kazuya's soul, and that alone- nowadays, I'm a little less sure ... I think that, should any other conflict of supernatural proportions arise, my aim is to prevent or limit any damage to Earth that they'd cause. "

LAYER THREE: THOUGHTS.

your first thoughts waking up: " Although I do not truly sleep, I'm usually very excited for new things I will learn about! For instance, there was this interesting recipe for cake rolls, and ... "

what you think about most: " An equal split between things I can no longer change, and the things I can make better today. ”

what you think about before bed: " I still don't tend to sleep, dear asker! But I usually think about my family come nighttime, and the humans come morning. "

what you think your best quality is: " My dedication, I think. I love strongly, and I'm not one to give up easily- though it can be just as much of a curse as it is a blessing. ”

WHAT’S BETTER?

single or group dates: “ Hm ... I suppose either would be alright for me, though single sounds lovely. I'd just be content to be around the person who'd asked me on one. ”

to be loved or respected: “ Respected. I can't ask or expect everyone to love me as I love them, but I can only hope they would respect me enough to allow me to try. ”

beauty or brains: “ Heart. ”

dogs or cats:  “ Yes !”

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU…

lie:  “ By a literal definition, no- but if you'd consider a lie to be an omission of the truth, then .. Rarely. ”

believe in yourself: “ More now than I used to. ”

believe in love: “ Always .”

want someone: “ ... ”

LAYER SIX: EVER BEEN…

been on stage: “ I suppose the type of stage would be important.. Perhaps, a few times, though I wasn't the main focus. ”

done drugs: “ ... From the drugstore? I did try an antihistamine once ! ”

changed who you were to fit in: “ Yes, and I'd like to think I've gotten plenty of practice. I can't just walk around Earth with wings on full display. ”

LAYER SEVEN: FAVORITES.

favorite color: “ Off whites and blues. Maybe gold, too .. ”

favorite animal: “ I enjoy all of them, but rabbits and avian creatures have a special place in my heart .”

favorite movie: “ I've very recently finished Kiki's Delivery Service! "

favorite game: “ Animal Crossing! I enjoy speaking to the villagers. "

LAYER EIGHT: AGE.

day your next birthday will be: “ I don't think I've ever celebrated a birthday of mine- and it would be rather difficult to translate it to a human calendar ... ”

how old will you be: “ To angels, or to humans? ”

age you lost your virginity: “ ...? What do you mean lost ? I didn't set it down somewhere, did I ? "

does age matter: “ I suppose so ..? I think I'm usually perceived as being around my late twenties or early thirties by most humans, and I would generally apply that sort of age range to anyone else. ”

LAYER NINE: IN A PERSON.

best personality: " I don't think I would have much of a preference, but I'm usually drawn to people who are considerate. "

best eye color: “ No preference. ”

best hair color: “ No preference. ”

best thing to do with a partner: " Goodness, I don't usually think about this .. I would be happy doing anything they'd enjoy, really. I enjoy getting to learn about what others enjoy. It makes me feel more complete, if that makes sense ? ”

LAYER TEN: FINISH THE SENTENCE.

i love: “ Earth.”

i feel: “ Grounded.”

i hide: “ Pain. ”

i miss: “ The way things were before. ”

i wish: “ I could have done more. ”

TAGGED BY: @demonsfate !! Thank you for the tag, this was so much fun!! 💜

TAGGING: You, and anyone else who sees this!! 💜

[luxe-pauvre]

It doesn’t feel like a very spiritual world. Can’t sleep one night, since the blue light burned its way to the back of my brain while I was writing a dozen cover letters for a dozen entry-level job applications that will be thrown away by an algorithm before a human being ever sees them. Passing by the homeless man and his dog on the street, reaching for my pleather wallet, realizing I have no coins or bills to drop in his McDonald’s cup because my phone pays the subway fare. Can’t sleep the next night: took my Vyvanse too late. A new coffee shop opens up, it has a self-referentially generic name and a bevy of venture capital firms behind its real estate acquisition. The old coffee shop that used to be there had orange walls and an old leather chair that I mindlessly scratched my initials into while I was supposed to be reading some book to impress someone, or the internet, or myself. I can’t remember. Sometimes I feel more like a board-game piece (yellow was always my favorite) than a person. But there are ghosts in the machinery of this lithium-ion life. Sometimes white and wispy, sometimes red and bleeding. They are summoned by the “Suggested Memories” of the photos app, an “On this day…” from a social media app, a stray birthday reminder respirated from the dying gasp of Facebook. They feel different, somehow, from the reminders of former friends and lovers that live in shared summer songs played over drugstore speakers, or the stolen and stale-smelling t-shirt in the back of the closet. Maybe it’s the ulterior motive of memory, a company trying to find a way to squeeze one more post out of you, one more hour to obsessively check likes and engagement and passively scroll by more ads in the process. Maybe it’s the strange and plasticine way these algorithms sort life into boxes: days at the beach, Summer 2016, photos of cats. I suppose the uncanniness of this sorting would be preferable to my phone being able to detect the real and rhizomatic nature of memory, generating slideshows behind license-free jingles with titles like “nights when I missed my dead dog” or “pasta dishes I pretended I wasn’t scared of eating.” The live grenade of pain and discomfort embedded in camera roll photos and social media posts is not detonated by the surprise of its suggestion, but by the callous and transactional reason for which they are suggested.

Charlie Squire, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Archive

[othernaut]

In the city where I live, there's an underground pathway that connects many major office buildings, subway stations, tourist/entertainment facilities, and malls. Mine is a cold city; this is a place built to serve semi-wealthy people in the wintertime, people who want to go from their office job to the baseball stadium after work without having to deal with surface-level snow, ice, slush, salt, people.

This pathway is impossible to really close. There's too many entrances, too many office towers whose lower stairs lead directly into its food courts and galleries. Being a place primarily designed for use during (and then slightly after) the workday, all of the shops and amenities close down in the early evening. The subway runs until 1:55 in the morning, but they lock the washrooms at 8 PM. Once rush hour's over, it empties fast - but it's open all night.

In design, this place resembles an upscale mall stretched out over a kilometers-long mad tangle of angled hallways and pillared galleries, decorated in shuttered Cinnabons, drugstores, and one-hour dentists. The surfaces are artificial marble, gold-tinted mirror, washable white tile. The chorus of an entire downtown core's worth of HVAC infrasound hums through the grouting, through the buried pipes. It's an immediate labyrinth, peppered with helpful, incomprehensible signs: numbers and arrows pointing in incongruous directions, contradicted by the next helpful sign. To exit north, travel east. To go home, stay forever.

It's liminal as shit, is what I'm getting at. And I know exactly what the liminal horror monster is because I've run into it several times.

In the conspicuous quiet of an empty mall, sound echoes strangely. Your body is suddenly the noisiest thing there is. You hear the rattle of the keys in your pocket bouncing off the walls; your breath is a ragged animal sound, quick and raspy. Every phone notification strikes with the sudden intensity of lightning. You are very aware of yourself, aware of the fact that every little creak in your bones, every stumbling step is broadcasting your position to anything nearby.

Because you can hear them, too. The footsteps. Not yours. They, too, echo strangely. They are a sure and steady tap of leather soles against tile floors, even and confident. The halls twist their provenance, making them sound at times distant and multiplied, at times right by your ear. You hear them diminishing, growing distant, and then you turn a corner and they're right there, so close, chest to chest.

The monster is the person you meet in a place not meant for people. You're their monster, too.

Because maybe in a minute there'll be nervous laughter, apologies; maybe you'll notice the scared stiffness in their spine, the way their placating smile doesn't quite reach their eyes. But in that moment of contact, there's just the fact of them there, right there, in arm's reach, and you know the infinite violence that people are capable of, and you wonder if you're between the gaps in the security cameras, and you wonder if anyone will wash your brains off the tile after they smash your head against the wall, and their hands are up, and their teeth are showing, and all the rabid uncertainty has your every nerve fried, and -

Because I don't live in a liminal horror game (yet), I have yet to be redacted by a surprise person in an underground mall. But the notable thing, to me, is that all the abject awfulness of being trapped in a liminal space with a monster is in the edge-up - in hearing them, in not knowing where they are because you don't know where you are, in the panicked data your brain collects to track them adding to the uncertainty and unreality of the space around you.

When you see them, they're too close to run - elevator close, concert close, looming, touchable - and all that uncertainty blossoms into glass-edge terror. The terror itself is uncertain, all paranoia; easier if it was a Slenderman or something. But if it's just a guy? A person can do anything - and a person shouldn't be here, just like you.

Thoughts on Liminal Horror

So this has been kicking around in my head a while, and I woke up with some actual coherent thoughts on it that I'm trying to capture before I lose them.

There was a tumblr post I saw before that I have long since lost about how liminal horror should NOT have a monster and isn't just "oh you're alone somewhere". And I couldn't agree more! But I haven't been able to articulate exactly why. Liminal, as a word on it's own, means transitional. Liminal spaces are real things that are places where you are on the WAY to somewhere. Liminal doesn't mean infinite spooky mazes, is my first point.

A liminal space could be hallways on the way to an office. Maybe you're trying to get some government bullshit completed. Maybe you're on the way to a doctor you're not entirely familiar with. A liminal space could be the terminals in an airport, as you try to make it to your flight in time. Or a highway you're driving on while looking for a particular exit. Or a carpark as you look for where you had parked among seemingly identical cars. You've been in liminal spaces so so many times. The point is that the spaces themselves aren't what you're really paying attention to. You're thinking of what you'll do when you get there, or going over the things you'll need to keep track of when you arrive. The directions you have to get there, maybe.

So in your MEMORY, and especially your dreams, these spaces take on a peculiar quality. They're SLIPPERY. It's hard to remember any details of them, because you weren't really focused on them. It's just a miasma of "i was in a hallway" or "i was on a road". Maybe a few weird details jump out on you, but it only serves to blend together the rest of the journey. So, when we elevate liminal spaces to HORROR, the first thing we do is lean into that. Impossible spaces because your memory genuinely does not care what any part of them is like save the ending.

Impossible spaces because we tap into that part of you deep down that is unsettled if you try to remember them, and wonders if maybe they really HAD been so weird when you were in them, and you just didn't notice.

This is getting longer than I thought, so may as well put in a cut!

So. I've explained WHAT liminal spatial horror is as well I was going to be able to, I think, but I haven't really articulated why a MONSTER feels like it kneecaps the entire premise.

Have you ever been lost in a liminal space? Keeping in mind that "liminal space" is a thing we all encounter constantly and not shorthand for creepy pastas. Have you ever wandered unfamiliar areas that normally you wouldn't even be paying attention to, increasingly desperate that you won't get to your destination in time? Are you going to miss your flight? What if you can't get your government bullshit taken care of in time? Or your doctor's appointment will skip you and you already waited so long to get it. Did you already miss your exit?

That fear is what I'm focused on here.

It's hard to make you feel that fear in an artificial way.

Even if we give a character in a game all sorts of motives to reach a destination by a certain time, you only feel annoyed at the time pressure, not really *scared*. And although the person lost in a liminal space rarely can just give up and leave, YOU, the player of a game, can.

So liminal spatial horror tends to distill it down to a single fear: where is the exit.

Of course, simply "wanting to leave" is rarely pressure enough to *rush*. And I can see why adding a monster is a quick trick to add that 'going so fast you can't navigate' vibe to the experience.

What I'm saying here is that the time spent is the POINT. That you can slowly build up to that desperate pressure to rush.

You can emphasize that desperation a more subtle way, a way my favorite instances of liminal spatial horror do: bodily needs. You are in a space clearly created by humans, and yet without a single human need met. There are no water fountains. There are no bathrooms. There are no vending machines. Nowhere to comfortably rest. If any of these things do exist they are empty or corrupt in some way.

The temperature, in my favorite experiences, is noted to be wildly incorrect. It's freezing cold. It's burning hot. It's not even remotely the temperature you'd expect an office building full of humans to be.

At first, this leans into this desire to reach a destination, ANY destination. Maybe you can't find the way OUT but maybe you can find out "The Truth"? Maybe if you keep going and going and going you can figure out why this place is LIKE this.

If a human made this space it had to be intentionally to torture people. How fucked up do you have to be to sink this many resources into doing something like this? How long did it take to make? Why did no one notice?

If a non-human intelligence made this space maybe you can find out WHY? Maybe... maybe they were trying their best but didn't realize how uncanny valley and dangerous it would be to a person? If no intelligence was behind it at all, maybe you can find out HOW? Maybe it's a reflection of our collective unconscious, or the planet mimicking the increasing amount of man-made works on itself? But as you continue on and on, as a real living human being in an impossible liminal space horror situation, you realize it doesn't matter how or why or when or any of the questions you dangled in front of yourself like a will-o-wisp driving you ever further in.

Because you realize you're going to die in here. Maybe it'll be the thirst. Humans can only go a few days without water. Maybe hunger will be what finally gets you. Its hard to tell how long you've been in here when any clocks you find in the hallways are all frozen to the same time and the sun hangs over the infinite highway like an immovable, swollen eye. But the hunger is ever present.

There's always exposure. Cold, hot, never anything between. How can you be freezing to death in an office hallway?

That isn't right. That isn't how it should be. Starving and freezing and dying of thirst is something that happens to people OUTSIDE civilization. It would make sense if you were lost in the woods but you can SEE sign after sign of civilization and other people for gods' sake!

How could this be happening? Why isn't anyone coming to help you?

And then we draw back, to you-who-is-consuming-this-fictional scenario. Because the point of horror is to get the person in the chair riled up, not just the character within the fictional premise.

Are you thinking about how often people starve and freeze and die of thirst in our own civilizations? Inches from the trappings of safety? With no help coming?

Are you thinking of how many desperate people navigate government mazes of plaster and brick and paper and online forms, driven forward by the hope of government aid or food stamps or HELP. How many people hunker down in a freezing subway or under a bridge on the highway or other public space knowing that no one SEES them because they're all transitioning from one space to another?

You probably aren't. Not directly. But we all know we're closer to freezing to death under a bridge or denied life-saving medical care in an office than we are to being a billionaire, right?

And there's something about that, deep in our gut, that resonates. That thread of reality in the safely fictional that keeps us coming back. Unable to articulate WHY but also thinking that liminal horror is somehow SCARIER than mere monsters. We all know that deadly predators are unlikely to get us. Adding a monster lets us move our too-real-fear to a safe target. And it's valid to want to do that! To decide spatial horror is too much, to want to thin it out like adding ranch dressing to a too-spicy chicken wing.

But that's why I think that the monsters are an artificial add on. And not a part of spatial horror.

[temporary-enthusiasm]

Okay so listen. I was at the drugstore and was running on like four hours of sleep when Lips of an Angel by Hinder came on and I got super fucking emotional about it and my brain told me I had to HankCon it. SO this has living in my head rent free for the past couple months. I had to write it, but also couldn't handle making it angsty.

* * *

Hank was fine.

Sure, he drank a little too much sometimes. Maybe even a lot too much most of the time. But he still showed up for work. Not on time, but he showed up. Because he was fine.

Sure, late at night when the rest of the world was asleep he would sometimes sit at the table with an open bottle of whiskey, a gun loaded with a single bullet and a picture of Cole out on the table. But he’d never actually pulled the trigger. Because he was fine.

Hank was fine. He said it so often that he really thought it was true. It wasn’t until he met Connor that he realized exactly how fine he wasn’t… and at the same time realized that maybe he could be something more. Maybe he could even be happy.

[longeyelashedtragedy]

fanfic wip guessing game: finger, nipple, teeth, beard

i feel like someone has asked me "beard" before LOL

uh

finger:

“The first day. You came to our table. You didn’t trust us...You were right.”

“Šime, you’re drunk.  Stop. Just go back to sleep.” 

“Nnnnnn...I....” Šime jabs his finger at the cross on his chest like he’s trying to stab himself. “ ‘s why i have this. Thought it could change how I was—”

“Šime. Shut the fuck up.” (mare liberum--i think this is from the draft of the 2nd-last chapter!)

-

“Mason, I don’t think you can understand.  My marriage is what it is, and that’s my business.  But if I could…” They’re stopped at a red light and Frank uses the opportunity to take Mason by the chin with his strong, thick fingers.  “If I could, Mase.  It would be just you and me, and I mean it with all my heart.” ('bitter mutual cheating')

-

But there was something he could do

The train bumped along and he trimmed his fingers on the cold windowsill, listening to a playlist Mladen—Petrić—had sent him.  (ivan coming of age)

-

Granit uncurls his fingers—they’re stiff from how hard he’s been clutching Erdin’s bathroom counter—and pushes Milot’s head back. (dangerous AU flashback 2)

-

“Sex on the beach,” Jamie muses, ruffling Frank’s hair, and each finger has too much weight.  “Trying to make an Ayia Napa joke, is he?” (you rearrange me till i'm sane)

-

Aaron scratching his fingers through Rob’s fluffy hair and behind his ears.  Rob looks up at Matt a little concerned but also a little…Matt can’t define it.  Spaced-out? (some puppy play fic i never knew what to do with)

-

“It’s alright,” he says. Granit won’t know what he’s saying, but he’s barely conscious of Granit being there. “You lived a good life. It’s alright…” He runs a finger down the man’s cheek. “It’s alright. Shhhhh…” (dangerous AU christmas chapter)

nipple:

 Granit slips him another bundle of 100-euro notes.  That gets him the right to put his hands on Angelo’s chest and touch his skinny stomach and little nipples.  Sure, money can’t buy love, but Granit knows he’ll never have that anyway, and money can buy all the rest of it. (dangerous au flashback 2--I did this one last night but it's the only WIP with nipple in it lol)

teeth:

“Luka and I went down to take a look at the Neroverdi, last night, like you asked.”

“Snuck on board, actually.”  Luka grins, and the familiar sight of his long, crooked front teeth makes Dejan feel calm.  No matter what happens to him here, his friends are the same as they always are.  (mare liberum)

-

He’s hungry, he’s starving, and making next to nothing doing seasonal work at the apple orchard just down the road from the tiny town the dark-haired boy led him to.  He’s filled up on apples.  The sour ones, the sweet ones, the ones that dry out his tongue, the ones with the squished bruised bites that taste sweeter than the sweet ones.  His teeth hurt from all the sweetness.  He’d slipped a tube of toothpaste made for sensitive teeth into his pocket at the drugstore a couple weeks back.  The dark-haired boy had whispered that it was okay, and stealing toothpaste was easy compared to his past.  But it hasn’t made a difference.   (ancient lovro majer and luka ivanusec + witch!Livi fic i was writing for zuzu and the deathpond but still haven't finished)

beard:

Their foreheads bump together and Sergio kisses her, or maybe she kisses Sergio.  Either way, they kiss out of a shared feeling of something.  Her thumbs run over his beard.

“You feel a little like him,” she whispers.  “But you have much nicer muscles.  You wouldn’t catch him in our weight room if you paid him, you know?”  She runs her hands along his side and gropes his firm waist a little.  “The laziest footballer I ever met.” (revenge pegging!)

-

“Thanks,” Frank says.  “So are you, Jamie.”  His beard is always trimmed to a perfect length and his hair looks nice and thick—Frank worries his is thinning. (10022, this went by yesterday already haha)

-

and there we go!

[therobotmonster]

Gah, I wanted Brute Force to go full magic triangle back in the day so bad.

I was big on that kind of fiction, and the idea of armored talking animals was super cool, so I bought every issue at the Med-X Drugstore down the street, waited for the inevitable commericals for toys and a show... and then nothing.

For those unaware, the magic triangle in kidvid terms is the "Toy, Comic, Cartoon" triad (later "Toy, Video Game, Cartoon") that makes the whole thing work, as each element promotes the other two, giving multiple ways for the kid in question to entrench themselves in the dumb-as-heck-in-a-fun-way action-adventure world.

You could think of them as wheels. Three is the most stable, four is great if you can get it. If your franchise is a bicycle it takes more skill, and you really gotta be something special to survive as a unicycle.

I couldn't know at the time that Brute Force was doomed from the start...

Marvel had long since been supplying the third wheel to basically every kidvid property of the previous decade, so they figured "we can do this, we came up with the lore for half the big hitters anyway."

And they came up with Brute Force with the intent to launch from the comic and have toys and a show follow. They were tired of being the sidecar and wanted to be the vehicle moving things forward.

Except that there was a problem.

Every employee at every toy company already had dozens of pitches for the same kind of shelf space. Kenner didn't need toyetic ideas, they had plenty of their own. The comic was the least financially burdensome part of the process. It was the sidecar for a reason.

So maybe Marvel Productions could help?

Marvel's TV branch, if I recall the timelines correctly, were no help mainly because at the time they wanted as little to do with the comics side of things as possible, with the feeling at Marvel at the time being that the film and TV guys were embarrassed to be an extension of a comic company.

Given the quality of Marvels' TV output in the 80s and 90s its difficult to say if the quality was low because they hated the comics-based properties or if they hated the comics-based properties because they had no idea how to execute them well.

They weren't going to get a 'toon without toys, and they couldn't get toys without a 'toon or at least a very strong following from the comic. And Marvel was having difficulty getting a cartoon of the freakin' X-Men off the ground 'round that time! And that had a hit arcade game!

The grand irony is how Marvel has the muscle to just force them back into existence, and could really milk the concept as a loving parody of Transformers, G.I.Joe, etc that they can own outright. Heck, the meme-worthiness and association with Deadpool should at least get them out in the new retro 4" scale, but no, we are denied awesomeness.

Maybe I should update the Wreckless 3d Printable figure that I made.

We already saw Uproar the gorilla, but the rest of this team is just… chef’s kiss. A Rhino is on the level, as is a vulture… but then we get a mobile shark on sawblade wheels?! A octopus on tank treads?!? I love it… oh and also these guys are called Heavy Metal…. perfection.

[chamomileteainabuttercup]

Steve is stoical when he’s sick. He’s not accustomed to getting a whole lot of sympathy for his childhood illnesses. He’ll either soldier on taking a lot of medicine or, if he’s really too sick for that, isolates himself saying he doesn’t want to spread germs. Which is reasonable, but mostly he just wants to get it over with in private and not annoy everyone else. Even his usual affectionate clinginess, when he’s in love, gets shut down.

Eddie is utterly pathetic when he’s sick. This becomes apparent their first winter together when he catches, in Steve’s opinion, a pretty mild cold. Still, Eddie’s sniffling and coughing and whining, sitting on the couch with his knees pulled up inside Steve’s biggest sweatshirt, so he tells him to go to bed and try to sleep it off.

Eddie goes to bed but if he’s trying to sleep you wouldn’t know it. His plaintive calls of “Steeeeeeeeb” echo down the hall. His head hurts. His tummy hurts. He needs more pillows. He needs a drink of water. He needs more tissues. Steve takes care of these requests in a pretty brisk way because he does love the guy but jeez, he’s being a wimp. When he makes a point of ignoring the “Steeeeeeeeb” because he knows Eddie has everything he needs and is just looking for sympathy, he comes trailing down the hallway wrapped in a blanket, croaking a request to have Vick’s rubbed on his back.

It’s all so annoying that when Steve inevitably catches his cold he decides to be just as pathetic so Eddie can see how he likes dealing with a whiny, needy invalid.

And Eddie kisses him on the forehead and calls him a poor baby without detectable sarcasm and makes him a honey and lemon drink and gets him all bundled up comfortably on the couch to watch Murder, She Wrote while he makes a quick run to the drugstore, and he comes back and makes him his favourite soup for lunch and reschedules a D&D game to stay home and take care of him. That last one makes him croak (it’s a very croaky cold), “Jeez, Eddie, I’m not dying.” Eddie tells him to shush and take his medicine. He got him the nice cherry cough syrup.

He gets better about two days faster than he would normally recover from a cold so maybe there’s something in the Eddie treatment after all.

[oonajaeadira]

I just found your PATS series and I am loving it!

I was wondering how a session might go with PATS after the reader has been sick and had to skip a session or two until they were better. Does he help them out with any remaining body aches?

Thanks, friend!!! Glad you’re having a good time! <3

I assume by this ask that maybe you were ill at the time and I’m sorry to hear that. But yes. He loves a good challenge and he’s set on making his clients feel good and relaxed. I’m sure he would. 

In fact...

Truth or Dare: This is Enough for Now (GTTT PATS)

FANDOM: Calls - Apple TV (PATS is a character from ep. 3. “Pedro Across the Street.” This is not RPF.)

Warnings: smut intimacy under the cut

It’s not the news he wants to see on the portal chat.

–I won’t be able to make it again this week

You’ve missed the last two sessions due to illness, which means it’s been three weeks since you’ve been on his table. Three weeks since your-skin-against-his. Three weeks to think about his choice in the game. And what he was going to ask you to do as his reward. 

At first he thought to take advantage of the break. Let himself simmer down. Didn’t work. If nothing, it just keeps you at a low boil in the back of his mind.

His groan of frustration isn’t directed at you. It’s selfish want coursing through his veins. He misses you–plain and simple–and he fucking knows it.

–I’m sorry to hear that. Still feeling under the weather?

–I’m doing better just residual achiness 

–You’re no longer contagious?

–No

–If you want, we could just do a regular massage, relieve some of that ache.

–That sounds glorious. I’d love that. But i’m still weak enough that the effort of getting there is going to knock me over. If only you made house calls

He watches the light on his portal blink for a few seconds, knows full well that he’s about to fling himself recklessly over another line. But there’s a loophole here to exploit, a brilliant little gift you’ve given him. He shelves his preference for the week, sacrificing truth for the only other choice–

–Dare.

–?

–Dare.

–I don’t understand

–Preciosa. It’s Thursday. There’s something you want, and I’m choosing dare.

Your light blinks for a few seconds. But you pick up the thread quickly enough.

–I dare you to make a house call

–Is your billing address your home address?

–Yes

–Leave the door unlocked. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be there in 20.

He makes it in 15.

________________

He leaves his shoes inside your door next to a sealed cardboard box, the kind you pack belongings in. Perhaps you’ve elected to take that job after all. But a quick look around your tidy-but-cozy living room doesn’t reveal any others. Maybe you’d only gotten so far before you got sick. Or there are more elsewhere.

As he moves through the space on his search for your bedroom, he finds your home aesthetically pleasing, not quite what he expected and yet fitting. He’s learning some things about you. Full bookshelves. A few interesting art pieces. He can certainly guess your favorite colors. It’s an entirely new space but surprisingly, he doesn’t feel like a stranger interloping; it’s comfortable here. 

It smells like you.

The bedroom isn’t difficult to find, and he leans against the doorframe for a moment.

Looks like you fell asleep waiting for him, tucked into a little ball on top of the covers. You sleep…differently here. He can’t put words to it, only that your energy is not what he’s used to. Less…held. There’s a blanket on the end of the bed he uses to cover you, leaving his small bag of toys and massage oils on your bedside table before making a necessary investigation of your bathroom.

Good sized tub, clean. Plenty of towels. Drugstore pain medication on the counter, looks like you’re still needing that. Okay. On to the kitchen.

On his way back through the hall he finds another bedroom, empty except for a cleared, abandoned office desk. Looks like it hasn’t been cleaned for a while; coffee rings make a mandala on one section, dust and grit outlining the ghosts of items past, the varnish worn where hands had rested at a keyboard. Tracks in the carpet underneath only highlight the absence of a chair.

He saw your laptop and files out on the dining table where it looks like you’ve set up a place to work from home. This isn’t your desk. It never was.

He’s well aware of your divorce. What was it Shell said? Something about the guy and a neighbor woman…

Fucking idiot.

He wonders for a moment where the ex is and if you still have any contact with him. How much or little you’ve moved on…

In the kitchen he finds the glasses on his first try, chooses one from the cabinet and moves to the refrigerator to see if you prefer filtered water. But before he opens the door,  familiar writing catches his eye. His writing. His latest assessment sheet is magnetically clipped to the fridge as well as….

A neatly folded sheet of hotel stationary with your name scrawled on it. 

The note he left for you in the hotel room.

“Hello?” Your voice calls out from down the hall, ripping him back into focus.

“Hey. I’m just getting you some water. Tap okay?”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

As the glass fills, he eyes the note. He’s not exactly sure how he feels that you kept it. That you have it somewhere where you can see it daily. He thinks… He wants…

He takes a deep breath. Steles himself for the revelation.

He wants to take care of you.

“You have a nice place.” Setting the glass on your bedside table, he sits on the edge of your bed as you smile gratefully up at him. “Very well-kept.”

“Thank you. Just don’t look at my bookshelves. I haven’t dusted in ages and you’ll be able to tell how few books I’ve read lately…”

This wins a chuckle. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay. Tired. Little achy. This bug just took a lot out of me.”

“I see you have painkillers. When was the last time you took some?”

“Yesterday.”

Delicately lifting one of your hands, he starts in on a palm massage, rubbing firm, slow circles as you instinctively take a deep breath and let your eyes softly close. “Well. Maybe we start there. I’m going to run a bath. While we wait for it to fill and for the pill to take effect, I’ll work on you here. Then we’ll move to the bathroom, okay?”

“Okay.”

It doesn’t take long for him to return with the pill bottle, to lift off your shirt and oil his hands while you take a dose.

“I want you to sit up and hug your knees. Chin down.”

The only sound is the distant rush of water as he climbs up on the bed behind you, warming the oil by running his palms over your shoulders. Then he begins to work you like a column of clay, shaping his Venus, thumbs riding the canals on either side of your spine, finding the soft curves of your arms, the sides of your breasts, down through your hips, pressing you into the form of you. He loves the strength of his own hands, their ability to (judging by your moans) push the ache down and out of your muscle. Wrapping his fingers around your arms and sliding them all the way down to the wrist, he releases your hands from around your knees and signals you to lean back into him, putting a hand to your forehead to ease you to his shoulder. Then he reaches around to work the muscles of your thighs, your hips, watching your soft expression in his periphery–the way your heavy eyelids fight to stay open and follow his hands on you–the rise of your breasts as you breathe for him. 

He leans into you when you roll your neck to press your forehead to his cheek...

He doesn’t need to tell you anymore. You give into him, fit against him, instinctively breathe and hold when he wants you to now. You’ve come so far since that first session when he worked so hard to get you to trust him…and you’d worked so hard to just let go…

But still, with you here and his mouth at your ear, he won’t drop his encouragement, especially when you hold and then sigh so pretty for him, “That’s nice. Good. Starting to feel better?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“Good,” kissing the crook of your neck, letting his lips linger a bit before pulling away, he rocks you forward. “Let’s get you into that bath. I’m going to do some point work on you.”

At the tub, he gently helps you step over the rim, lowers you down into the liquid warmth, and slips a folded towel behind your head before standing to strip down.

“I’m going to need you to make room for me between your legs.”

Even though your eyes are closed and you can’t see it, he mirrors your soft smile with his own, carefully stepping into the tub and slowly kneeling down, careful not to allow it to overflow. Here, he starts with your feet, pushing into pressure points, flexing and rotating your ankle joints, working up to the back of the calves and holding the drainage point there. “Breathe.” Moving one of your legs across him, he presses two fingers up into the hip joint, watching for the twitch in your brow. There it is. “Tender here?” You nod. “Normal after you’ve been in bed a while. We’ll take care of that.” Small circles, steady pressure, strong fingers, eyes on your face until it smooths out and your tendon relaxes. He’s got you.

This is what he loves to see; you, tranquil, giving over to him, trusting him to do what’s best for you. It’s not only you at your most beautiful, it’s a reflection on himself. It means he’s never hurt you. Never let you down. That he makes you feel good. 

This is what he needs.

It’s time for a change.

He’s up and motioning you to slide forward a little so he can fit in behind you, get in to work the sacrum points at the base of your spine under the warm water, finding the little divots and working his thumbs in small circles until your flesh melts under his palms, tender, supple, giving in. Then the shoulder joints. The base of the skull. Pinpoint and zero in. Reactive pressure. Sustained attention. Reading you. His hands know where to go, understanding what needs to be done, knowing every inch of your musculature. Assessing that all is in working order and he’s made a full sweep of the main points before he pulls you back into his chest and just comes to rest.

“How do you feel?”

“Perfect. I could sleep here for a week.”

“Bed’s probably the better choice. After after a glass of water. You wanna do that now?”

“A few more minutes here?”

“Okay.”

He leans back and lets the breath take him, takes your weight onto him, looking down through his lashes at his bronze legs framing your own in the tub, listening to the errant drip of the faucet or the sucking swallow of the overflow drain whenever you both breathe in air and bring enough mass to displace some water.

“Thank you for coming,.” you hum, your back vibrating pleasantly against his torso.

“Least I could do, considering you’ve missed two sessions this month, figured this might make up for it.” The tinkle of the water off his hand takes over as he brings it up to stroke your shoulder. “Besides. If you’re moving, I might as well get you into as many sessions as possible before you go.”

“I’m not going.”

It takes all his concentration not to let his hand stop or alter in its slow trace over your skin. “No?”

“No. I dropped down to a part-time position that allows me to work from home. I’ll just have to find something else to supplement, I guess.”

“I see. I thought I saw a moving box by your door.”

Your breath hitches. “That’s…I found…some of my ex’s things. I was going to take them and drop them at his apartment. Keep losing the nerve.”

“Mmm. Been there.”

That’s… Shit. He didn’t mean to say that. Two words too much information. 

But enough to sound like encouragement to you, apparently.

“At least he moved out of the neighborhood,” you drone. Flat. Controlled. Measured. “He and Angie across the alley…I wish she’d left her husband and gone with him. But they stayed married and worked through it and now she gives me dirty looks as if it’s my fault… It wasn’t. I know it wasn’t. If it wasn’t her, it would have been someone else… Not like it was the first time…. It doesn’t matter. I deserved better and I know that now.”

Is it the closeness? The warm water and your warm bodies together? Your weight on him, pinning him down? No. It’s this… quiet, unvarnished truth you’ve just trusted him with. Being in your home. Stillness.

It’s the stillness together.

In his room he’s usually working his hands over you, working his body over yours–through yours. Stillness is for your sleeping, for his retreating, he does not come to stillness with clients.

Yet suddenly, he too could sleep here for a week. Wants to just let it all bleed out into the warm water. And he’s going around the hallways in his mind, manually shutting off all the alarms.

“If it’s okay, Preciosa, I’m not going to fuck you tonight. I want you to rest and get yourself back in working order.”

“That’s fine,” you sigh, running a hand along his knee. “I probably wouldn’t be any good to you right now.”

He’s not sure how to answer that as you lay on his chest and softly breathe. As your fingers circle his knee and gradually come to a stop. As he inhales the scent of your hair. 

This is plenty good for him. This is just enough. Just for tonight.

___

___

NEXT

SERIES MASTERLIST

[furinana]

When I was playing the iOS version of SMT1, nobody could drink. If you tried, there was an extra line of dialogue where the bartender says something like, "Aren't you a little young?" and gives you juice instead. I don't know if it's just an international release thing, if it was added in the GBA or PSX port, or what. Felt a bit like they were trying to weasel out of a 'representing minors consuming alcohol' offense.

I always thought the Heroine was in her twenties by the present, but since she's the rebel leader and everyone's after her, she never shows anyone her ID.

Enforcing drinking laws might have made sense in the present, but after Tokyo is destroyed, why do the bartenders care? And how would they know that these random travelers are under twenty, if IDs aren't produced anymore?

I think it makes more sense if nobody cared about underage drinking laws by the time you reach bars. If memory serves, Kichijoji only has a cafe, and you only get bars once you reach Shinjuku. By then, things have gotten so bad that bars might start selling to anyone who can pay.

But really, we all know that if anyone's irresponsible, it's the bars of SMT2, for serving alcohol to two-year-old Aleph.

Hah I was very much suspecting it was a retcon. And that's because MT2/SMT2 already had an euphemism for beer which was Magical Fizz. 

So I'm guessing they gave up on trying to be subtle and removed the lore of the protagonist having alcohol altogether for later rereleases? So teenager drinking bad but using guns and killing people still good?

Anyway since we’re at it, let’s compare the 8/16-bit era of mainline games chronologically on the drinking aspect:

In the SNES version of Megami Tensei, while they don’t specify what kind of drink you’re having, from Nakajima’s reaction it seemed very satisfying. The name of the shop is even “Poison Bar”, for goodness’s sake. 

That being said, considering the game is a completely different (and far simpler) take on the story from the original novel, we can easily label Nakajima doing underage drinking and frickin gambling in the Underworld as non-canon. 

ACTUALLY, I skimmed through its NES version and I don’t think any of those features were supposed to exist in the first place. Which means MT2 was where bars started being a thing:

NES and SNES for comparison. Yeah, the exact same English words are written in the Japanese text for the drinks. You know, something I can’t help but get awfully curious for is that while in later SNES titles the main character freely drinks liquor, in the game where this feature made its debut he’s literally the one who can’t have it.

No booze allowed for the MT2 protagonist. Only soft drinks. Even though both of his partners can have beer. It’s never commented why. If there are age differences, it’s not apparent. And they live in devastated version of Tokyo so rules would be far more lax.

It’s funny because this is the same game where the protagonist can go to a drugstore to get high from herbal medicine. Yeah you read it right.

And he can keep going for a LONG time.

...and overdose to the point of falling on the floor paralyzed and unable to do anything, much to the heroine’s chagrin.

On that note, there’s a single instance in the entire game where the MC finally is offered actual liquor. From... a guy that was Satan's disguise.

Paralyzed AGAIN, Takuma? And imagine getting roofied by goddamn Satan. 

Maybe the reason bartenders don’t serve him specifically is because people that are familiar with him know he’s a danger to himself. Considering that [redacted] happens in a point of the game... yeah. You better stop and just fucking listen to what Asuka says to you, boy.

SMT1 is where the protagonist finally can join the fun with his companions. Everyone drinks the same thing. Equality baby! And no euphemisms!

They could drink in bars both when Tokyo was normal and after it got destroyed by the missiles, so I don’t think the excuse of “oh, the apocalypse made people stop caring” work, at least with the same weight as in MT2.

...AND THEN the sequel brought Magical Fizz back. Probably because SMT2 took cues from MT2 and/or they thought the word was still hilarious (I also do, ngl).

This little dialogue of the barman not letting you drink any more doesn’t show up in other games with the bar feature. Makes you wonder if Aleph is a lightweight since [redacted] or if other bartenders are just... irresponsible as fuck. And yes I’m also counting you on this, crazy MT2 drugstore girl.

One of the big highlights of SMT2 is getting Aleph shitfaced so he can temporarily get enough MAG to win the dance contest. Look at this madlad. Aleph must be great at parties.

You know which other infamous drink makes a comeback?

SUPER MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILK

Fairly enough, it’s exclusive to the Center’s bar. You know... the place where the Law side is located. No sinning next to angels, Aleph.

SMT:If is the game where some surprise factor indeed reaches the player since it happens inside a high school (and yet somehow our first-year protagonists can have liquor bottles stored in their pocket to either offer to demons or chug them down themselves). 

Let’s be honest, this would be an unusual thing to keep around even for adult staff! It’s a school goddamnit. Unless they got it somewhere else like... perhaps the Underworld since Hazama connected both places together.

Actually, such “is this allowed?” age aspect is even commented by a NPC but for the gambling feature:

Considering the type of people you partner up with in SMT:If (and subsenquently the P1/P2 cast to some degree), the protagonists displaying delinquent behavior might very well be what they went for compared to the more ambiguous “left-to-the-player” interpretations for MT2/SMT1/SMT2.

With the exception of our good glasses girl, look at the rest of these hooligans!

Anyway I stick with my interpretation of the main cast of SMT1/2 being on their twenties (or looking as such like Aleph) while the rest are just teens playing with their luck.

[bijoharvelle]

Father's Day has been...hard.

Claire can remember being younger, being, like, ten and her mom taking her to the corner drugstore to buy a Hallmark card for her dad. For Jimmy. She would dutifully write a personal note into the blank space -- something about how she loved him and would forever, how she was thankful for how he raised her.

And then an angel walked into her father and walked away.

After that, things were so fucked up, Claire hardly even noticed Father's Days passing. One time, she was slipping a candy bar into her pocket at a gas station and happened to see, through the fuzz of a bad reception, what was clearly a commercial for Father's Day. At that time, though, she was still something sharp and acidic so she just snorted out a laugh and walked off.

Now --

Well.

It's not any easier, really. Because her father is still gone. There's still that hole there. Having new and different and good doesn't heal the fact that she lost her Dad. Jimmy wasn't perfect, sure, but he was good. He tried. He brushed her hair when she was little and he sang her Beach Boys in the car on the way to soccer practice. He took her to soccer practice.

She misses him, so much sometimes that it feels like her chest might crack open. She's not usually enough of a sap for things like commercials to get to her but this one has a dark-haired dad and a little blonde daughter and they're dancing how she and Jimmy used to dance: her up on Jimmy's feet, arms flung out wide with hands laced together.

She almost doesn't pick up when the phone rings but then she does. "What?"

"I -- " His voice is still gravel and razor-wire and that's one saving grace. He might be wearing her dad's face, still, but at least he doesn't sound like him. "I'm sorry. I could feel -- You were praying."

"No, I wasn't." Her words are harsh but she can't regret it because it's to hide the fact that she's crying.

"Right. I'm sorry. I felt -- Anyway. I'm sorry to bother you, then. I was just worried."

There's a pause of dead air, the two of them just breathing. And then Claire says, "Wait." Which was unnecessary, because he was clearly gonna wait for her to hang-up first but. "Wait. Maybe-- Whatever. What are you doing?"

Another stretch of silence. Then: "Dean was in the middle of showing me...a movie. I left to call you."

Something that's almost a smile finds its way onto Claire's face. "Oh yeah? I guess you weren't too impressed with his taste in movies, huh?"

A sigh rustles static across the connection and then Castiel says, sounding the most put-out she's ever heard him, "There are always cowboys."

Claire laughs at that, honest to god laughs, and it's a little watery but it's good. It almost fucking hurts, but it's good. "When we hang-up, I'm gonna send you a song to play for Dean, okay?" The chorus for Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other is already rolling through her head and she would give anything to see the shades of red Dean'll turn at that.

"All right, Claire."

His tone is a little lilting, dragging, like he's expecting a goodbye.

"But. But not yet. Okay. Tell me-- I dunno. You're good? I mean, I guess you're good, if you're watching movies with Dean."

"Yes," Castiel says. "Yes, I'm good. How are you, Claire?"

She looks around her. She had been watching some dumb teen drama on Hulu when the commercial popped up. Alex is across the room, on her bed, headphones on and eyes trained on whatever game she's dungeon-crawling her way through. Downstairs, Claire can hear Jody and Donna laughing together, if she listens hard enough. Across the hall, Patience and Kaia's room is quiet, which means those two nerds are probably reading some geek novel or lore book Sam sent them, or something. And Claire --

"Yeah, I'm okay," she says, softly, like she means it. "I was thinking of you, actually." It's a confession, an admission.

"Were you?"

"Well. About Jimmy. I--" Her breathing hitches and she thinks Castiel is holding his. "Could I tell you about him?" She doesn't know why she says it, hadn't meant to. But it's out there and she can't take it back. And it's stupid, because Castiel was possessing the bastard for, what, a year? More? He probably knows her dad better and in more ways than she ever could

But: "I'd like that, Claire. Very much."

So she settles down further into her bed and starts talking.