#maybe a cousin or two over in Lake Charles

[fashion4ducks]

That is the most Cajun thing I have seen on this website.

[fantomette22]

What are some Maria headcanons that you have?

( @izunias-meme-hole)

Lady Maria headcanons post (part 1) :

Alright! Well I already share those a while ago : https://www.tumblr.com/fantomette22/743244500505378816/lady-maria-vs-keeper-of-the-old-lords?source=share  +couple of other around my blog

So I will try to share other things not just related to « Maria could do pyromancy from her living if she really wanted to but was actually terrified by it! Because she didn’t want to use her own blood to inflict pain and death. » also I won’t explain in detail how I hc she got her Rakuyo : by directly going to the East herself! (Yamamura’s country).

🍂But why did she name it like that? The Rakuyo? Well Rakuyo means « fallen leaves » right? Well, when she finally got her blade she needed to baptise it, to use it properly for the first time. And guess on what she uses it? A fallen leaf! (naturally falling in autumn). Cut it straight in two halves. And that’s how she knew how she was going to name it.

Enjoy the ride t's going to be long ;)

⚔️She got an Evelyn gun during her teenage years and before the Rakuyo she often train & fight with both a chikage and a reiterpallasch (she really like dual wielding 😎 or maybe with another sword like the shadow could have been a thing she fight with 🤔 but yeah I guess she was trained with all type of weapons) I wonder if she could have been a bit ambidextrous too.

⚜️Ok now concerning her family (tree) I have at least 5 different headcanons for it 💀but let’s just go with my main one aka the fic verse one (where she’s just Annalise’s cousin XD). Because if you get me started on the alternatives it’s just never gonna be over XD (those are really in very different timelines. It’s not really the same characters & events are different)

🩸I imagined she had quite a mixed relationship with her family. It’s like when you love them bc it’s your family, you like the good memories and nice moments you have, this little chill & special outings etc but there’s also some stuff you’ll never be able to forget or forgive them. You feel you need distance and be autonomous to not get hurt by them anymore, to not get frustrated and misunderstood. Just have news and share things outside.

She never really fit in with her peers. Kinda an odd one who just masks really well to fit into the mood when asked of her. I prefer to say « a (white) wolf » in a pack of hounds in context but yeah black sheep in a white flock if it’s easier to understand x) She had a lot of pressure on her shoulder as well (being the last pyromancer and not far in the line of succession)

But she really likes her close cousins which she grew up with (Annalise, Vled), a couple of other friends (Charles, Svetta, a couple of future young knights etc) as well as younger relatives and kids (Leo etc)! But she doesn’t get that much along with the others. Like she goes along better with the servants probably. 

⚜️She mainly grew up between Cainhurst and where her parents had lands and their manor (in the north, near a coast). Her parents are often not there because they are sent by the crown to places so it's complicated . When her mother is in a good mood that’s mostly fine, her dad is a bit more chill (he taught her how to play a lot of card games and poker too! She probably played 2-3 times with money at stake. She prefers amical things. She will absolutely beat your ass at it too. She’s the definition of having a poker face XD)

👑She was a lil bit raised like a future lady in waiting but more as future knight (page (of the king), squire, knight training etc really rough training too 💀 very dark shit hm like beat the shit out of people while wearing a full weight armor, swim in a ice lake and idk shot hm dead things… I swear there’s more fun things but hm yeah…)

That one really isn’t fun as well but i imagined that during her teenage years she already had to deal with mental health issues (due to well some pb with her family etc). Thankfully, she did get better after spending a summer a bit far away at a friend's home (to simplify). Still she got scared for some years afterwards that some of those dark thoughts would eventually return. Thankfully it didn't for most of her life. She got some happy times…Bad times too but not that bad until well probably more than 15-20y later where you know… she would sadly not make it out this time.

🌌She was accepted as Byrgenwerth and went to mainly study sciences, astronomy, but did learn a bit of theology as well as medicine (basic medicine stuff,  nurse & help midwife etc). She did 5y and got a master degree. She also participated in underground expeditions arranged by Byrgenwerth.

⭐️She probably know how to speak way more than 2 languages : whatever they speak in Yharnam, latin/pthumerian language, whatever the equivalent of Japanese is and probably a bit of other European languages too. Oh a north/slavic languages as well, because she had ancestors from there too).

🐴When she was very little they got some borzoi I guess but most of her life at Cainhurst she got 2 siblings crows (I have Phobos & Deimos names in my draft) as well as her own horse, named Filan. (mean little wolf in gaelic/irish apparently? Speaking of which Maria's nickname when she was little was "little wolf" maybe in another language too). She probably had a couple of plants too.

(suppose to be almost a full black horse but i’m not 100% settle because i could go full horsemen of the apocalypse aesthetic with other knights if i change the colors… but in my first draft that’s a black horse yes)

🔥When she was very little they discovered she could eventually have pyromancer blood power.It might have been a huge pride for them and honor for her but… clearly Maria didn’t want to become like the shadows of the antics pthumerian royals. A silent and hidden knight who kills without asking questions… clearly she wasn’t really found of this idea 😅 Thankfully for her she don’t know or to use such power and didn’t put much effort to try to learn it (in life she will probably accidentally use it 2-3 time…)

She highly respects a lot of traditions and culture from Cainhurst but there’s stuff like exposing the remains of animal prey that she found a bit barbaric. She doesn't mind others using blood blades and she will do it alone/ for training or even in choreography but she doesn’t wish to hurt or kill with it.*

💔So she was supposed to become a royal guard but things didn’t go like they should have…the poor young knights got into a fight with something by accident… a mortal trap they couldn’t win… only Maria made it out alive. Very hurt and slightly traumatized… She then had a huge fight with her family & relatives about what happened. She couldn’t even send news to her friends bc they forbid it to calm any rumors about what happened…Hm then Maria’s family decide to send her more north where her parents have lands etc so things calm down and she could ya know do her knight work or smt. Anyway she run away at Byrgenwerth💀

Sorry for the meme jebfekb I am not giving lot of details for now but it's highly link with my Knight & Beast of Cainhurst story.

(Why this meme too? Well due to rumours her friends legit thought she died 💀 she went to Byrgen only 1-2 months later. During the holidays. So she sent to like Ludwig & the other who weren't there letters to tell them she was ok. That's were came this meme XD)

❤️‍🩹Anyway she was partially disowned of some stuff for a bit and didn’t came back at Cainhurst for while. But after some times, her and her family wanted to both apologize and reunite, but without an occasion it would be complicated. Well, until a CERTAIN SOMEONE stole the forbidden blood to Cainhurst and tell them Maria helped 💀 (she had no idea, and he only did that bc he owns her one). So she didn’t approve but she kinda reconciled and they gave her the occasion to do a mission for them later on, in JAPAN (the Eastern land) and well you know the rest.

⚓️She had the occasion to go to « Japan » and have her dream of becoming like half in charge of a ship after getting her master degree! (she just did navigation stuff with the stars but maybe she was captain lol that’s what she wanted to do when she was little actually. But reading Evelyn diaries and not just the novels she realised how hard it was to always have such life h24)

Congratulations Lady Maria! 

After really hard years.. and trauma… and a exhausting presentation 

You win : 

a master degree in astronomy (sciences & other things)

a nice meal with your parents & family that congratulate you

a big part of your inheritance back!

a super wine bottle to share with your friends

 a trip to japan

finally your promised personalised double sword

a personalised hunting attire when you came back

to able to work with gehrman’s hunters & the healing church when you came back

So proud of you ❤️👏

✨Other lil hcs : 

Laurence made her very interested in religion. I am not joking, I sincerely believe he converted her somehow. / Made her very interest into great one religion etc

Gehrman saved her life more than once, she did the same. They went into lot of hunt training/camping trip as the beggining of being hunters.

She became great friends with Ludwig, Rom, Caryll, friends Damian too etc back at Byrgenwerth. With Micolash it was a bit more nuanced for a while. Before becoming close friends they were roasting each other often XD but respected each other too.

Her brooch either came from her mother or the late queen (aunt) so a family heirloom I guess. Ressemble a lumenflower. 

She helped the early healing church with treating people, make food, teach kids etc

She was highly respected by all the old hunters. Even if she had some tensions with dear Izzy at like the beginning they knew each other XD She earn their respect and everyone ended up very liking her being her kindness, abilities etc

When she was sent alone or with a couple of hunters to help in a secluded villages, people were of course really skeptical at first but she quickly proved them her worth.

I think sometimes she wears dresses…  but hey she never wears high heels or ballerina shoes (she hates it so hey she still has her special style! aka huge boots XD) It’s often very simple ones as well. Except at Cainhurst, it’s not very extravagant.

She loves to read tons of books (cainhurst library is there for smt XD)

With her cousins they loved to explore and wander the castle! At night too.. got them into trouble more than once.

Sometimes she wears sunglasses when it’s very sunny (poor girl has white eyelashes you see! she have an excuse)

She really loved the lumenflowers too like i explained last time.

She got some scars at the base of her neck. That’s why she almost always wear a jabot with her broach. (maybe on the hands too. that’s why she often has gloves).

She made (with a bit of help) Gherman’s red scarf while in japan.

“Of the Astral Clocktower” because she basically funded its construction with her own money. So like it’s partially hers on papers. (She did mostly astronomical studies & took care of the patients kind of like a nurse during her time at the research hall

She could play a couple of instruments (especially violin and cello). 

Of course she know many ballroom & court dance and taught other to others when they were invited to some places.

She actually can “sing” very well (but more music without real lyrics like the dream ost for exemple) ! She would probably almost never do that in public too.

Some books at the workshop are hers

Oh, did I already told she was very scared of pthumerian pyromancers before she fought the keeper of the old lords?

Ok now because I didn't know what to add to the post I asked some of my friends to help me with questions they wanted to know about! Thanks @heraldofcrow & @fareehaandspaniards there you go:

Was she comfortable with life at Cainhurst? (Before the Vileblood)

I think I answered that above ^ it’s very complex and complicated. Sometimes it goes well (especially in childhood) but sometimes it’s very complicated and not so good… (especially during teenage years and during some events where she got a lot of pressure and all. It got better after all this mess and Vilebloods mess of course (even if some distance was left compared to before). 

🩸🐦‍⬛Bloody Crow’s relation to Maria? 

In my main hc he’s the son of Maria’s cousin (Vled, the knight). So her little cousin basically. But to simplify I often say he’s like a nephew to her. I named him Voron! (I know very imaginative it means raven XD)  Still unsure if he’s born before or after the hamlet (probably after too) but in all cases Maria was around to help with the birth and to help take care of him for the first couple of days. She loved him very much. Also In the case something were to happen to his parents, well the king & queen would take care of him but if somehow they can’t/something were to happen to them too, Maria promised she would be the one to take care of him. 

Still, she died when he was very young. Probably like 3-6 years old. So he does remember a bit. But just a little and he has very good memories of her. But he also saw his family hurting from her disappearance and all and so he grew more mixed feeling but mostly it stays positive. He really looks like her in a lot of ways.

🕷️Rom and Maria friendship 🥺? 

I see you want to know more about their friendship! I think They had a wholesome friendship overall! But it didn't begins great. I am trying to write it in my fic since a few months but it's all hard and idk how to do that exactly XD

Like they were doing a group exercise and Rom was pretty bad and it (supposed to be quite easy) and Maria who got frustrated to explain it so much lash out a bit and tell her like “are you dumb or something?” 

Everyone in the class isn't very nice to Rom (and Maria) and said worst things behind her back so she thought that was, you know OK somehow and not that mean. But she quickly realized afterwards her mistake, that Rom was the Provost daughter and that she had some disability. But despite that, she was still trying hard and she must be very strong to have the lvl to be here you know! 

Maria feels very bad about it (Micolash had dark looks to give her too lmao)  but after a while (talking with other people cough cough) she decided to come to her and apologize sincerely and even try to help her on a few things.

Rom was quite surprised at first because nobody, you know approaches her like this to apologize and that's a huge thing considering Maria is from Cainhurst and a noble.

I mean she didn't even have hard feelings against Maria because everyone else is way meaner and she kinda forgot about it. She was quite surprised but also very thankful and they began to talk more. Micolash was the most surprised and he told Rom to be careful to not get walk over, to not believe lies and stuff but he quickly realized that it was genuine. And Rom had to reminded him (with Damian) that well, when he first meet Rom he was kinda of a bully at first!  Before becoming a mother hen with Damian.

So yes the two girls began to talk about a lot of things! She even got invited to Rom’s room. There’s tons of insects and underglass and stuff but generally people don't like that but Maria found it cool! She got some back home too and found it very interesting actually! So they quickly became friends with all the little gang. And also they are basically the two girls of the squad! I mean Caryll is in the girls squad too but they can also be in the boys squad so yeah anyway you know how girl besties can be x) you don’t share the same things exactly. Plus Caryll & Rom are really in the must protected squad.

 Maria even defends Rom from her family when she came back for the holiday and they asked her if she made some friends and who they were and stuff. And you know uh Mara had to told them in a very exaggerated manners that « oh I'm friend with the Provost daughter you know! » (You know because that's what they want to know, if she made strong connections with interesting people before anything else…)

But of course, you're going to have very rude comments from some relatives or something who’s going to say “oh the retarded one?” 💀  And everyone's looking at him like “can you please not say it like this?”  Poor Maria just standing there and dunno what to say because she really cares about her as a friend. She doesn't just want to have friends to show off she has important contacts. She genuinely values those friendships. Sadly, she can’t just tell her family that her friends are mostly “the weird introvert group kids! just like me!”(so she talk about Ludwig too! but don't put too much details on others…)

So yeah they stayed great friends for years. Sadly, in tough moments they didn’t really share what hurt them to the other… (after kos etc maybe a bit but not too much)

🗡️🛡️What or who inspired Maria's path of knighthood in her youth?

History books & knight novels! Her grand uncle, the other knights, king etc, Her family push her/ “let her choose” that way as well.

Lady Evelyn stories (she was like Maria grand aunt/ cousin of her grandparents, mostly an adventurer).

The bodyguard of Annalise’s mother who was at first a mercenary sent to Loran before becoming a royal knight.

🍜What were Maria's food preferences?

Hm i think if it looks/smells average and edible she’s actually not that complicated XD She made a lot of effort through the years to get used to more common and simple food.

My poor girl couldn’t really cooked anything when she arrived at Byrgenwerth besides cutting basic things, make tea, made ramen and skins animal meat (like rabbit) before Gehrman thought her other recipes 😭 (she made great soups afterwards! hunters like it, she cuts aliments well XD but yeah my boy cooks well for everyone he made her liked many simple things that if not done well many don’t like. But bro is the only one who probably likes some chard gratin or something out of everyone…)

Like most of her family, i supposed she would very much enjoy some rare/medium rare meat XD but when it’s EVERYDAY she got very tired 💀 I mean she tried to tell her family it was too much so they respected her wishes and gave her only vegetables for a couple of days… but not like normal meals no! like a whole ass not decorticate salad or full ass carrots with skins and all! 💀 She rapidly apologized like you can guess. (still she can’t stand those damn carpaccio when there’s too much!)

Besides that yeah only non meat dishes don’t bother her at all, she would even prefer most of the time. She likes both sophisticated but also very simple dishes she discovered.  Exotic food from the east. Of course my girl liked sushis, fish, sea fruit etc. I mean she used to like it way more before… you know… afterwards many hunters couldn’t just smell white fish for a few days without feeling nauseous…. for Maria she just couldn’t bring herself to eat like 95% of white sea fish anymore… (I guess salmon and thon and lobster were still ok but that’s it really).

And well of course deserts are always so nice so whatever 🤤

🌻Her relationship with Adeline?  /Who is Adeline to her in your interpretation? 

(Yeah both of you asked me this one! x) )

Well depending on the interpretations I have two main interpretations for her! (in the AU/very different timeline where Gehrman is like Maria's dad, that's her girlfriend lol) but in my main interpretation that’s not really the case. I prefer to see them as friends and very close friends I think? during her early time at the research hall. Another close friend she made who’s mainly outside of her main group. But both have quite an evolution through the years they knew each other. 

If i remember the draft in my head correctly it goes like this : 

After Maria graduated (and came back from her mission trip) she went to help the early healing church develop itself and its activities between hunts and going in the pthumerians labyrinth and that’s where she met Adeline.

I supposed Adeline is a Yharnamite? but she lost everything (her family. not sure what happened) and basically didn’t have a home anymore and clearly saw herself as worthless (poor girl had terrible self esteem issues all her life afterwards…) So the early healing church took in some people in need, gave them a place to sleep, eat and heal them if they were sick. Maria took care and helped Adeline during that time (after it was Laurence too).

And so the 2 became friends! In the end Adeline (who had nothing left) decided to dedicate her life to the healing church and helped others as well, so they saw each other with Maria afterwards! They advised each other and could have been a bit confident of each other as well. Of course Maria wasn’t very hyped when Adeline became a blood saint fully (seeing the bad things it could do to people) but she respected her choices.

During the research hall, before Adeline took part in the experiments, she helped Maria, Rom, Caryll etc around with the patients & other things. I suppose because of some dreams/ exposure to something, the decline of everyone's mental health, and maybe other people asking her... she decided to give herself fully to those experiments as well in the end… Her death was one of the last straws for Maria...

----

I know I have more questions left but I am reaching Tumblr word limit soon so I will reblog/make a 2nd post (or even a 3rd)💀 with the rest of the most interesting (and huge) questions! It's not quite written yet but for now this should be a nice distraction and a good reading I hope!

[gstqaobc]

The Royal Fascinator Friday, May 01, 2020 Hello, royal watchers and all those intrigued by what’s going on inside the House of Windsor. This is your biweekly dose of royal news and analysis. Reading this online? Sign up here to get this delivered to your inbox. Janet Davison Janet Davison Royal Expert

Sophie: The royal who ‘just gets on with it

She has been packing groceries in recent days, volunteering at a kitchen and talking to paramedics. There hasn’t been much fanfare around her actions in support of those working in the battle against COVID-19 — but then again, when Sophie, Countess of Wessex, does her royal business, that’s the way it tends to be. “Sophie does everything very quietly, partly because the media don’t follow her obsessively as they do with William and Catherine and partly because the things she does aren’t necessarily very glamorous,” said Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, via email. That’s exactly what the Royal Family needs, Seward suggests: “someone who just gets on with things regardless of the attention they receive.” Seward likens Sophie, who joined the Royal Family when she married the Queen’s youngest son, Prince Edward, in 1999, to her sister-in-law, Princess Anne. Seward said given that Anne is nearly 70, she thinks Sophie “will take over from her as being the hardest-working royal. [Sophie] approaches her role in an unfussy way and just gets on with it.” That low-key approach has not gone unnoticed by her mother-in-law. Sophie “goes about her duty diligently, quietly and without a great deal of fuss, and for that the Queen adores her,” said Vanity Fair’s royal correspondent, Katie Nicholl, via email. “They are very close and spend a lot of time together when they are in Windsor, and the Queen loves riding with her grandchildren James and Louise.” It’s a closeness observers say goes back years. Sophie’s arrival in the family came in the wake — and in some ways the shadow — of Diana, wife of Edward’s older brother Prince Charles. Some saw Sophie as a new Diana, Seward said, “which of course she wasn’t.” “She hated the comparison as she knew she never would or should try to live up to it.” Louise's birth in November 2003 was difficult, as Sophie almost died as a result of blood loss. “People saw how much the Queen cared about her, visiting her in hospital, which is unheard of,” Seward said. “Gradually and without being pushy, she became the Queen’s closest companion — they share a love of military history and a wicked sense of humour.” That’s not to say it’s all been smooth sailing for Sophie. After her marriage, she continued in her career, but quit as head of a public relations company in 2001 after embarrassing comments she made were secretly recorded by a tabloid reporter posing as an Arab sheik and published in the News of the World. Seward suggests the Queen remained supportive of her daughter-in-law, and ultimately decided it would be better if Sophie and Edward worked as full-time royals. “Ever since then, Sophie has appeared looking glamorous when needed and workmanlike when needed.” She has visited Canada several times, sometimes with Prince Edward, sometimes on her own. The last visit came last fall, with two low-profile days in Toronto. Much of the time was spent at Toronto Western and Toronto General hospitals. She talked with critically ill patients and showed a "great warmth" and a "real, genuine skill in listening," Kevin Smith, president and chief executive officer of the University Health Network, said at the time. With turmoil and uncertainty in the upper echeolons of the Royal Family these days —  Prince Harry and Meghan stepping back to seek their independence, Prince Andrew stepping back amid controversy over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — questions have arisen over just how the House of Windsor will approach the future. Some suggest Sophie will find herself in a more prominent role. “We are already seeing Edward and Sophie doing more to support the royals and I think that’s going to be the case moving forward,” said Nicholl.

Royal birthdays — pandemic-style

T(The Duchess of Cambridge/Kensington Palace via AP)In any family, birthdays can come in bunches. For the Royal Family, there’s a real run of them in late April and early May. And this year, the pandemic has been reflected as some members of the family marked their annual milestones in recent days. Queen Elizabeth's 94th birthday was acknowledged more quietly than usual. The gun salutes that normally sound on April 21 were called off, with the Queen feeling they would not be appropriate at this time. Photos released to mark Prince Louis’s second birthday on April 23, taken by his mother, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, showed the happy, colourful and messy aftermath of fingerpainting rainbows in support of the National Health Service. Other birthdays right around now include Louis’s sister Charlotte, who turns five on May 2, and their cousin, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, who will be one on May 6.

Harry and Meghan and the media —  again

Prince Harry and Meghan may be looking for a new life in Los Angeles, but some old issues appear to remain top of mind for them.The couple, who stepped back from the upper echelons of the Royal Family a month ago, caught observers somewhat off-guard the other day when they sent out a message saying they would no longer be co-operating with four British tabloid newspapers.It prompted some to wonder about the timing of the announcement, coming as it did during the pandemic, when such an issue might take a back seat to concerns over how to battle the coronavirus.Harry in particular has had a raucous relationship with the media, and the couple has also taken their battle into the courts.A few days ago, the first court hearing in a privacy case brought by Meghan against a tabloid for printing part of a letter to her father began at the High Court in London.Papers submitted in court included details of text messages Harry sent to Meghan’s father.The whole media swirl prompted Jonny Dymond, the BBC’s royal correspondent, to ask, “So will the real Duke and Duchess of Sussex please stand up?“There is the couple who provoke such sympathy in the court papers published today,” Dymond wrote recently. “And there's the couple who think now is the right time to exercise their quarrels with the bestselling papers of the nation that they have departed from.”

“Royally quotable“

As we approach World Immunization Week, I wanted to recognize the vital and urgent work being done by so many to tackle the pandemic; by those in the medical and scientific professions, at universities and research institutions, all united in working to protect us from COVID-19.”— 

The pandemic prompted Prince Philip to make a rare public statement on April 20. The 98-year-old Duke of Edinburgh, who has had a keen interest in science, has rarely been seen in public since he retired from public duties in the summer of 2017.

Royals in Canada

(Bill Croke/The Canadian Press)Princess Anne has been having something of a moment lately — or maybe several moments. One came late last fall, prompted by the feisty portrayal of her in Season 3 of the Netflix drama The Crown. And right now, the all-business, no-nonsense only daughter of the Queen and Prince Philip is the cover story for Vanity Fair.

But rewind 49 years, and Anne had her share of moments, too, some of them coming in Canada.

Much media attention was focused on the 20-year-old when she arrived with her parents to mark the 100th anniversary of British Columbia’s entry into Confederation.

As much as Anne was the focus of anticipation and attention during that trip in early May 1971, her royal duties were rather routine, even a bit mundane.

“Princess Anne made no official statement at the unveiling,” the Globe and Mail reported on May 5, after she officially opened Canada’s newest national park, Pacific Rim on Vancouver Island. “Her only function was to pull the cord that removed the flag from the rock face to unveil the plaque.”

Later, the Globe reported, Anne told the park superintendent “she was much impressed by the beauty and the picturesqueness of the park region.”

Our friends at CBC Archives have taken an in-depth look at the tour that took the royal visitors to Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna, Vernon, Penticton, Williams Lake and Comox.

Royal reads 1.Prince Harry has told friends he misses his life in the Armed Forces. [Daily Telegraph]

2. Harry has also looked back on his time as a child, recording a special messageto celebrate the 75th anniversary of a book he and others loved in their younger years: Thomas the Tank Engine. [CBC

]3. King Henry VIII might not be the first person you think of as inspiration for how to live in self-isolation, but maybe he could offer some lessons on how to find comfort in quarantine. [The Guardian]Cheers!I’m always happy to hear from you. Send your ideas, comments, feedback and notes to royalfascinator@cbc.ca. Problems with the newsletter? Please let me know about any typos, errors or glitches.

[vexedtonightmares]

last dance (elu ballet au)

Lucas is in his final year at the Paris Opera Ballet School and he’ll be damned if he lets his former friend-turned-rival Eliott steal the lead role in their production of Swan Lake. 

aka- lucas and eliott are rivals who are forced to room together for their final year of ballet school before they try to enter the company. we can all see where this is going.   

i.

Even after years of training, the Paris Opera Ballet School was still everything Lucas had dreamed it would be. Sure, there were days where he wondered if all his training had amounted to absolutely nothing, but then there were days were one of his instructors would compliment his posture, or use him as an example in class, and he would remember why he had worked so hard to get to this point. Dancing had always been like breathing to Lucas, came more naturally to him than anything else he’d ever tried.

Arriving back at the school for a new year Lucas felt like he could exhale in relief. The months away from the school during the summer holidays were always difficult for him, given his tense family situation. Luckily, that summer, one of his best friends from school, Manon, had invited him to stay in a flatshare she had in the city with her cousin and another friend. It had been nice, actually, to live that summer of bliss, training whenever possible with Manon and not having to worry about his parents.

They were starting their final year before they would try to enter the company, one of the most defining years of the rest of their lives. It was a bit intimidating, if Lucas was honest with himself. Whoever scored the lead roles in whatever show they performed that year were shoo ins for the company, so the pressure was higher than ever. He wondered what show they would be doing, hoping there would be a great lead male role that he could try for. He wanted a real challenge.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Manon said to him as they walked in together, finding their room assignments. “Only one more year? In some ways I’m glad, but in others I wish we never had to leave.”

Lucas rolled his eyes at her, even though he knew exactly what she was saying, felt the same way. “You’re never going to have to leave, you’ll be in the company before the year’s out, principal in the company before you’re twenty.”

“Oh shut up.” She nudged his side, but her eyes sparkled with possibility. Manon was easily the best dancer in their year, in the whole school now that Lucille and Charles had graduated. No one could do ballet like Manon Demissy, and everyone knew it but her.

“When’s Yann getting here?” she changed the topic as they ascended the staircase to the residence wing.

Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. Maybe he’ll be in the room when I get there.”

Normally there were three students to a room, but Lucas and his best friend Yann had gotten lucky the past few years, due to the uneven number of students, and had a room to themselves. It was always weird, getting used to one space for the whole year and then having to move into another one the next year, but Lucas was excited this year. The students in their final year generally got the best rooms. “Which number are you?” he asked Manon once they started to make their way down the hallway.

“412. You?”

“416.”

She pouted. “I’ll miss living with you. Are you sure Yann doesn’t want to switch?”

Lucas choked on a laugh. “And what if you end up rooming with Emma?”

Emma was Yann’s ex-girlfriend, and even though the two of them were friendly with one another, they still had a bit of lingering awkwardness around each other. Manon shivered, then laughed, “Ok, you have a point.”

Manon reached her room and was accosted by a loud squeal as someone jumped and gave her a huge hug. Daphné. “Come in, come in! Imane’s already here! I feel so bad for Emma, she has to room with Ingrid. And Chloé, but she’s fine. Hi Lucas! Are you with Yann again?” Daphné always spoke a mile a minute and while he’d like to say he hadn’t missed her, he had. He did feel bad for Emma, though. She and Ingrid had been really close once upon a time, but then she’d sort of stolen Yann from Ingrid and their relationship soured. It had gotten better over time, but it was still awkward.

“What about Alexia?” he asked.

Daphne’s grin turned sad. “She left the program. Apparently ballet wasn’t her ‘thing’. She’s at the same school as your friend Basile and Imane’s brother now.”

“Oh.” That was unfortunate, he’d really liked Alexia. Not that they would never see each other again, especially if she now went to the same school as Basile.

“Still up for that swap?” Manon whispered to Lucas.

He laughed and backed away, leaving her to move in. “In your dreams!” he mouthed back, causing her to flip him off before he made his way to his own room. He smiled once he got to the door. Not only did he now know for certain that it was a two person suite, but it was also a corner suite, one of the largest. Manon would be pissed when she found out.

There was already a bag on the floor when he entered, so he assumed Yann must be there already. He made his way to the bedroom off to the left of the living area, he always took the left and Yann always took the right, and halted in the doorway. A jacket was draped over the bed, suitcases yet unpacked by the door. Ok, apparently they were switching things up this year.

Someone knocked on the door one before barging in, and Lucas was surprised to see both Yann and Arthur, yelling in excitement as they laid eyes on him.

“Lulu! Holidays treat you well?” Arthur grinned, pulling Lucas into a hug.

He pulled away after a moment, turning to Yann and giving him a quick hug as well. “As well as expected,” he shrugged, “How about you?”

Arthur launched into a wild explanation of his summer, from going on vacation to hooking up with a thirty-four year old woman-- something Lucas was fairly certain was illegal-- Arthur’s tale was full of so many wild twists and turns that Lucas would have thought his friend was making everything up if he didn’t know him so well. Arthur was the type of person to take everything and nothing seriously, which is why, while he was easily one of the most talented dancers there, he would never get any of the lead roles. He never even seemed to care either. Sometimes Lucas envied him for not caring, sometimes he wanted to yell at him. Lucas would have given anything to be born with the kind of talent that Arthur had.

Yann, on the other hand, was on a pretty even playing field with Lucas. They hadn’t known each other before starting at the school, and they hadn’t talked much the first year or so because Lucas had a different best friend going in, but they had started to grow apart as Lucas’ friend became the star pupil and Lucas had begun to resent this new rivalry forming between them. Every year Lucas hoped his ex-friend wouldn’t come back, but he always did.

“Yo, dude, why’d you take the lefthand room?” Lucas teased once Arthur had finished recounting his summertime escapades.

Yann furrowed his brows. “What are you talking about?”

Lucas gestured vaguely to the room behind him and Yann’s eyes widened in comprehension. “Oh… you don’t know yet?”

“Don’t know what?” He wasn’t one for surprises on a good day, and this was turning out to be not as good a day as he would have hoped, based on Yann’s expression. Before Yann could speak the door opened again, revealing just the person Lucas would rather have jumped into a pit of lava than see again.

“Oh. Hi. I didn’t expect you all to be in here,” Eliott Demaury said, running a hand through his unruly hair.

“We were just leaving,” Yann said, and, finally, Lucas realized what was going on. No, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening to him. Anyone but Eliott fucking Demaury. Maybe he was there to help Sofiane move in? Maybe Sofiane was Lucas’ roommate?

“No, no need, I can just go to my room and unpack,” Eliott said, glancing once at Lucas before stepping around them to what Lucas had assumed was Yann’s bedroom. Lucas turned to look at Yann with murder in his eyes.

“Tell me you’re joking,” he said with false calmness.

Yann bit his lip and looked to Arthur for help. “I don’t know why they changed it up this year, man. Sofiane’s with us, me and Arthur, and Eliott’s with you.”

Lucas looked over his shoulder into Eliott’s room, meeting Eliott’s eyes for a brief moment before grabbing Yann and Arthur and pulling them into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. “Can I switch with Sofiane? You know he’ll be fine with it he’s like, the nicest guy in the world.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Come on, Lucas. Eliott’s not that bad. You forget I’ve been living with him since we all started here.”

“I’m not rooming with him,” Lucas stated adamantly. Eliott wasn’t that bad his ass. None of them knew Eliott like he did. They’d vowed when they were five to be best friends forever, but Eliott had forgotten all about that promise when the instructors started favoring him in classes, giving him all the best solos, roles, and compliments. Eliott hadn’t seen why Lucas was upset, told him he’d just have to work harder, as if he wasn’t already working five times harder than Eliott to even try to be on the same level as him.

Over the past year Lucas had started to get more attention from their instructors and choreographers, proof that all his hard work was paying off. He wasn’t about to let Eliott flounce back into his life and ruin it all for him.

Yann braced his hands on Lucas’ shoulders. “Lucas. Seriously. You need to put this whole rivalry with Eliott behind you. All it’s going to do is hold you back, and I know that’s the last thing you want.”

Lucas shrugged out of Yann’s grip, folding his arms across his chest. “You don’t understand. Eliott and I… we were never meant to be anything other than ‘rivals’, if that’s what you want to call it. I’ve made the mistake of being his friend in the past and I’m in no hurry to do it again.”

“I’m not saying to be his friend, I’m just saying why make a shitty situation worse? You know damn well that if any of the teachers catch wind of you switching rooms they’ll make your life hell,” Yann tried to reason with him.

Lucas still wasn’t having it. “My life will already be hell.”

Arthur let out an exasperated sound and raised his voice slightly, quieting after a moment so he wouldn’t draw attention. “Lucas! You always talk about is how hard you have to work to be seen the way people like Eliott and Manon are naturally, and now you are. The teachers love you. Would you really throw that away over the prospect of sharing a kitchen and bathroom with Eliott? You don’t even have to share a bedroom for Christ’s sake! If you’re going to be in hell either way, stick with the hell you know.”

As much as Lucas hated to admit it, Arthur had a point. He didn’t want to have to share anything with Eliott, but if the alternative ruined his chances of getting a lead role in whatever show they put on this year or a chance at entering the company, he would never forgive himself.

“Fine,” he agreed grudgingly.

Yann raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lucas grumbled, leaning his head back against the door. This was going to be a long year.

“Well in that case,” Arthur spun on his heel, pivoting to walk down the hallway, “We have unpacking of our own to do. Try not to murder Eliott while we’re away. Please. I need some food or something before I can cover up a murder.”

Lucas rolled his eyes and flipped off his friends as they made their way back to their own room. He hesitated in front of the door for a moment, not quite ready to enter back into the room he’d have to share with someone he hated for a full year. Hopefully he could just lock himself in his room most of the time and just avoid Eliott at all costs. He got up earlier than everyone to start training, so there was a minimal chance he’d ever see Eliott in the mornings anyway.

He should really go back into the room.

He should really go back into the room, but he couldn’t. His hand hovered over the door handle still, and he knew that he would look like an idiot if anyone walked down the hall and saw him standing there staring at the door.

Fuck it, it was his room too. Eliott couldn’t monopolize that as well. The door opened easier than he had expected, or maybe he’d used a little bit too much force on it, because he stumbled back into the room much less gracefully than he’d intended to. Eliott was standing by the small counter they had in their kitchenette, unloading a box of mugs and dishes. He looked up at Lucas in surprise.

“I didn’t think you’d be coming back in here.” It was hard to tell if Eliott was trying to make a joke or not. His tone said he was teasing, but his face was serious. Lucas tried not to remember how it used to light up every room he walked into. Maybe it still did, but Lucas had stopped noticing.

“Well, it is my room too,” Lucas said, just as ambiguously. Eliott nodded but said nothing further, turning his attention back to the items he was unpacking. Lucas walked past him and into his own bedroom, slamming the door shut and flopping down on his yet to be made bed. This was going to be a long year.

The best he could do for the time being was make his room as him as possible so that he would enjoy spending as much time in there as he planned to. With any luck, he’d be able to hang out in Yann and Arthur’s room a lot as well, especially because Sofiane would probably want to hang out with Eliott. Lucas actually liked Sofiane, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why someone as nice and talented as Sofiane would waste his time on someone like Eliott.

As far as Lucas was concerned, there were two type of people in the world: those who preferred petite allegro, and those who preferred grand allegro. Lucas himself was the former, as was Sofiane. Petite allegro required precision, sharpness, focus. It was one of the most difficult exercises of a ballet class, but, if you pulled it off, the satisfaction was worth the struggle. You couldn’t get by on natural talent in petite allegro, it was one of the only exercises that actually put everyone on an even playing field, at least at first. If you succeeded it was because you deserved it.

People like Eliott preferred grand allegro. Grand allegro was all about showing off. Yes, there was still precision and focus required, but it also required absolute perfection of the sort that you were either born with or weren’t. That wasn’t to say that someone couldn’t be good at grand allegro if they weren’t born with the same natural ability as someone else, but their chances of securing the roles and positions granted to those who flourished during grand allegro were far lower. The petite allegros were the underdogs and the grand allegros were the stars.

Of course, there were always exceptions. Manon was like him, but she was also a star. She was the only person in their class that ever topped Eliott in the eyes of their instructors, but Lucas didn’t resent her for it. He knew how hard she worked for everything she got, and it was clear from the moment that she’d walked into their first class that she was destined for a career that most of them would only ever dream of.

It was partially due to being partnered with her the previous year that their instructors had begun to take notice of him. A star was only as good as their partner allowed them to be, so Lucas had worked even harder than normal the entire year prior to make certain that neither he nor Manon would be overlooked. It was actually how they’d come to be so close in the first place, not really interacting much beforehand. Lucas had mostly steered clear of Emma and her friends after all of her relationship drama with Yann, but had really enjoyed becoming so close with Manon over the past year. If they hadn’t, he wouldn’t have lived with her over the holidays, and his life would have been hell.

Of course, he would take that living situation any day over what he was forced to deal with now, for the entire year. He had to pick his battles, he knew this, but also-- what was the issue in picking all of them, really?

There was a knock on his bedroom door and Lucas poked his head up, wondering if Yann had come back to talk to him or if Eliott was really trying to come into his room. A few steps and an open door later, he realized it was the latter, wishing he would have just stayed on his bed and ignored the knocking.

“What do you want?” he asked curtly, not even bothering to pretend to be polite. Eliott knew Lucas didn’t like him, and Lucas was more than certain Eliott didn’t like him either. That much had been made clear the minute Eliott had been hailed as a prodigy and hadn’t spoken a word to Lucas for nearly the entire year following. Lucas nearly scoffed to himself, wondering how they’d ever been best friends to begin with.

Eliott was just staring at Lucas, hadn’t said a word, hand finally falling to his side from where it had been poised to knock on the door. Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Hello? What do you want?”

Eliott blinked and looked away, gaze falling to the floor. “Sorry, um, I was just wondering how you’d like to decorate the living room?”

“Seriously?” Lucas crossed his arms over his chest. Decorating the living room was really the least of their worries, in his humble opinion. Had he and Yann ever even decorated their living room?

Eliott bit his lip and shrugged. “It could be nice.”

“Nice,” Lucas repeated slowly. He opened his mouth again to speak before closing it and furrowing his brows, unsure of how to respond. “I don’t really give a shit, I guess. I’m here for ballet and ballet only, I don’t care what pictures are hanging on our walls.”

“Just ballet? That will be unfortunate when we have to take our modern, hip hop, jazz…” Eliott trailed off, gleam in his eye. Lucas used to know that gleam, used to smile when he saw it. Now it mocked him, shining with the light of everything Eliott knew that he was and Lucas wasn’t.

Lucas didn’t even want to give in to Eliott’s attempts to rile him, so he just rolled his eyes and moved to close the door once more, stopped by Eliott’s hand right before it closed. “What?” he hissed through his teeth.

Eliott pushed the door back open tentatively and flicked his gaze to Lucas’ eyes once before averting them again. “I was also wondering what you’d like for dinner?”

Lucas scoffed aloud and slammed the door in Eliott’s face, leaning against the back of it once the door closed. He slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor with his back still pressed to the door. There was a dull thud on the other side of the door that Lucas might have thought was Eliott doing the same if he didn’t know better.

Knees pulled up to his chest, Lucas folded his arms on top of them and buried his face. Since it seemed Eliott would be occupying the kitchen, Lucas would not be venturing out into their shared living space for the night. Whatever. He would have to be up at quarter to five the following morning anyway to get his pre-class warm ups in, so it was probably best that he unpacked and tried to get rest as soon as possible. If it was even possible, given his awful sleeping habits. It wasn’t his fault that he averaged about three hours of sleep a night, it really wasn’t.

He popped his head up at the sound of something clanging before he realized it must be Eliott making himself something to eat. Unable and unwilling to acknowledge the boy in the room over, Lucas put in his earbuds, cranking the volume as high as it would go without bursting his eardrums and got to work, opening up one of his suitcases and searching for his sheets.

He fell into a steady rhythm, sometimes dancing along to the beat of his music as he worked, finding the monotony of unpacking to be rather calming. He nearly forgot about the fact that he was hiding from his roommate, that his roommate was Eliott, and that he didn’t know how he’d survive the year like this. Nearly.

There was a sound at one point that may have been another knock, but this time Lucas ignored it, chalking it up to the drums in the song he was listening to. If it had been a knock, he supposed he didn’t much care if the door went unanswered.

Finally, after who knew how long, everything was in its proper place and Lucas could lie back on his fully made bed, sinking into the warmth of his comforter. He checked the time and realized it was almost midnight, giving him a total of maybe five hours of sleep if he fell asleep right that moment, which, given his history, wasn’t going to happen. Wonderful.

He still had to move his toiletries to the bathroom, something he’d been avoiding doing because it involved leaving his room. There hadn’t been noise from outside since he’d taken our his earbuds, which was promising enough that he rallied himself enough to open up his door.

As he stepped out into the darkness of the living area he almost tripped on something resting by the foot of his door. Bending down to inspect, he realized that it was a bowl with a note in it.

I made pasta, the leftovers are in the fridge whenever you’re done unpacking. Sorry if you don’t like pasta, you slammed the door on me before you could tell me what you wanted for dinner. -Eliott

Great, now Eliott was probably trying to poison him. He made a point of throwing the note away, leaving it on top of all the other garbage, and returning the unused bowl to the cupboard instead of washing it under the guise of use.

Standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom a moment later, Lucas took in his reflection, from his nearly untameable hair to his wide eyes to the stern set of his jaw. This year he wasn’t going down without a fight. When they announced the production the school would be putting on tomorrow, he would fight tooth and nail to secure the lead role, leaving Eliott in the dust behind him.

It was probably hard for Eliott to imagine what the bottom was like from all the way up on his high horse, but Lucas would make sure that he knew. It was one thing to start at the bottom and work your way up, but there was no coming back from falling when you were at the top.

Tomorrow was the start of a new day, a new year, and a new Lucas. The ballet world was one of see or be seen, and Lucas was finally ready to be seen. He was not about to let Eliott ruin things for him ever again.

[feelingsdusk-writes]

Some things are worth the wait

(For the Time Travel AU square)

The very first time Peter meets the newly appointed head of the Argent family, he’s twelve and he shouldn’t even be there in the first place, so he’s hiding in some bushes downwind in the most undignified manner ever. To make matters worse, he just knows that mama caught him like ten minutes ago but can’t say anything to save face with said head of family.

It’s all Talia’s fault. If she hadn’t been needling him the whole week about attending the meeting, calling him baby, treating him as if she was his mother and, as always, throwing the alpha material thing in, he wouldn’t be in this situation. He’s going to get it so bad… but at least she won’t be able to hold it over his head. Sacrifices needed to be made.

Peter frowns. This Argent doesn’t look like much, to be honest. He wears the most horrible plaid shirt he’s ever seen, a graphic t-shirt (is that batman?), faded jeans and converse shoes, and where said shirt rides up it’s covered in tattoos. He doesn’t have to look at mama to know that she doesn’t respect him much to begin with.

But then, when mama starts negotiating, uncle Charles a stony presence at her side, it’s clear he doesn’t respect her either. Peter’s mind is blown away by the concept. They start trading barbs that make Peter want to laugh so bad and then it gets even better when Talia snarls threateningly and, after a brief look at her, he snorts dismissively.

Best day ever. He will commit her face into his memory and maybe even paint it and gift it to her.

He thought he would get bored halfway through the meeting, but it’s like watching his favorite show and reading a new book all rolled into one. Treaties are made, insults are traded and Peter ends up having hope for the future, because if a man like that can be respected (you just have to see his people’s faces) and rise to run a family like the Argents… He squints his eyes. And, if you take off his beard, he doesn’t look much older than Talia!

As they are leaving, the man looks in his direction and smirks. Peter goes home chastised, punished for a month and nursing a crush the size of Mexico.

—

Kate doesn’t know what to think about her new guardian. Judging by the closed off face Chris is sporting, he’s the same. They are in the living room, sitting side by side, and he’s in front of them, leaning on his knees with his elbows. The cane their father used is still leaning on the doorway and she eyes it warily. The man follows her gaze and visibly blanches before covering it.

“Okay,” he says, clearly bracing himself, “okay. First things first, that" he motions to the cane ”is never happening in this house again. Ever.“ He looks at them earnestly and they both nod cautiously because he seems to be expecting some kind of response. “Second, my name is Stiles, well, not really, but no one can pronounce my name because it’s polish, hence, Stiles. Much easier for everyone. Anyway, back on track. As you know, I’ll be your guardian from now on and I think it’s best if we lay some ground rules for everyone.”

It takes them two months before they start to believe that things won’t be done the same ever again. For starters, they don’t have to train if they don’t want to, and they can give their opinion on things without being taken to task or being ridiculed. The cane was gone from the get go, burned to cinders in the fireplace. He takes them to Ikea to change their rooms however they want to and they remodel the entire house until it’s unrecognizable.

When, after those two months, Chris asks to be trained again, this time of his own volition, she sits to watch. Not even that remains the same. Creatures aren’t just monsters, but bifaceted beings. Good and bad, he teaches. She joins them the next day.

Victoria comes to visit, an almost sneer in her face and veiled insults about the way he’s running the family in her mouth. She leaves furious, slamming the door, and Chris is devastated. Stiles apologizes for hurting Chris but not for making things clear. Victoria ignores Chris for a week, leaving him a moping mess, before she comes back and Stiles shows her why he’s head of the family when he honest to god threatens her not to hurt Chris ever again. Kate superglues all her textbooks for good measure and Stiles high-fives her. She grins for the first time in his presence.

For the first time in her life, someone shows to parent-teacher meetings and helps her with homework if she needs it. When she turns eight, he gives her an entire container of snickerdoodles to bring to class and share. And, after asking her and letting her decide, he organizes the best party ever, inflatable castle included.

Chris dares to bring university brochures home and waits for his reaction with bated breath. It’s still too soon for that, but if that’s an option that’s on the table, he wants to know so he can at least try to raise his GPA his last two years of school. Stiles just sits down to listen and give advice on career options, going as far as taking his laptop out to look for information when his own knowledge is lacking. Kate gives her brother one of Stiles’ homemade cookies when he looks about to cry.

—

The second time Peter meets the head of the Argent family, he’s fourteen and his cousin Daniel has disappeared without a trace.

The entire family is in uproar. Daniel was there one second and then he wasn’t. There’s no scent to track, no clues about what happened. His human twin, Amalia, was left behind, untouched. His mom is at the end of her tether, Aunt Isabel can’t stop crying and uncle Charles is devastated too.

While Peter gets stuck with babysitting duty, they search the woods, contact Deaton, they talk to the merpeople in the lake and to the flock of garudas in the preserve, but nothing. Three hours have passed and they are as lost as they were the first minute.

Then lo and behold, Argent pulls his beat up jeep to the front of the house. When he exits the car, little Daniel is in his arms, a little dirty and shaken, but otherwise unharmed. For a moment Peter expects a bloodbath but the man snarks his way into the house when the little boy doesn’t want to let go. He signals his men to wait by the car and they obey immediately, with no sign of complaints or doubt. Peter stares transfixed as he treats the pup with infinite care and patience until he finally reaches for his mom. The man doesn’t even complain when the kid, even in his parents arms, doesn’t let go of his sleeve.

He explains with hushed tones about the witch that had kidnapped Daniel because she needed the blood of a born virgin male beta for a ritual. He also states very clearly, a ruthless glint in his eyes, that the witch won’t be a problem anymore.

The pup reaches for him again and that implacable expression melts into something soft as he gives him his undivided attention. Talia tries to berate him about not contacting them before and he shots her down without even taking his attention from the kid. Peter is certain he’s a little bit in love.

Three year old Laura chooses that moment to grab Derek’s hair and pull with all her might. Derek starts bellowing and Peter sighs at the dirty look Talia throws at him. Argent’s lips twitch with mirth, oh so terribly amused for some reason.

—

Kate watches as Stiles helps Chris load his car, fussing all the time, and shares a fondly amused look with her brother.

“I think that’s all?” Stiles muses thoughtfully, checking inside the car. “I can’t believe it’s already time. I feel like I have to give you the obligatory awkwardly sentimental leaving-the-nest speech.”

“Please don’t.” Kate snickers at Chris’ pained expression.

“But then your dormmates will share their embarrassing goodbye speeches and you’ll feel left out…”

“I won’t,” he cuts in, but to no avail.

“… and then you’ll be singled out and won’t make any friends and I’ll have ruined your university experience altogether!”

“Dad!” Chris exclaims frustrated and then stops abruptly, shocked with himself. Kate looks at him wide eyed.

To his credit, Stiles only misses the beat for a nanosecond before recuperating. “And there you have it. I’m sure it will be the most original of them.” He looks at Chris earnestly, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously. “An embarrassingly emotional speech about not having an awkwardly sentimental leaving-the-nest speech. Aaand…“ He tackles him and Kate falls from her seat on the porch laughing. “Complete with a farewell hug.“ Then he honest to god pats Chris’ head. “I’m so proud of myself right now. Here, take the care package.”

“Aren’t those supposed to be sent after leaving?” Kate inquires from the floor, still giggling.

“What’s in here anyway? It weights a lot.” Chris opens it a bit and his eyes widen. He tries to look nonchalant as he closes his arms protectively around it. Stiles grins wickedly.

“I knew you would change your mind.”

—

The third time Peter meets the Argent family head, he’s sixteen and he is in deep shit. As in he’s going to die painfully tortured by the unholy collaborative union of a huntress and a darach shit. And all it’s thanks to Talia, of course. And her pup, don’t forget that devil spawn called Laura.

He told her not to go to meet those damn hunters alone, that it stank of trap, but did she listen? Did their mom listen? Or their dad? Of course not! He’s just a child, what does he know? And Talia is alpha material, an adult, she always knows best.

He had to follow her, of course, because if she died he’d end up on babysitting duty for forever… and also because Minilucifer had somehow sneaked into Talia’s trunk when they weren’t looking. She probably hadn’t noticed because these days her car is full of baby crap that smells of her children all the time.

Long story short, Peter helped her escape with the pup, only to end up captured himself. Why do these things happen to him? Why is it that his sister can mess up badly enough to have things go to a profoundly deep and wide pool full of shit and she always emerges smelling like roses?

He grunts when the darach gouges three deep gashes into his chest, in the shape of a triangle, and collects the blood to paint strange symbols in the immense tree stump beside them.

They’ve coated the ropes in some sort of wolfsbane, because they are burning his skin badly. It’s almost unbearable but he doesn’t give them the satisfaction of struggling and squirming like he needs to. In fact, he relishes in telling them nonchalantly what’s going to happen to them when they are found. He gets a fist to the face for his lip but he doesn’t stop.

Where the hell is the cavalry? Talia escaped at least an hour ago and still there’s no sign of the rescue team. Do they care so little? Peter knows that his family doesn’t care for him like they should, but he’s always thought that at least they would try to save him if something like this happened.

The huntress turns to hit him again, only to be flung backwards with a huge spray of blood that bathes the darach and messes with the markings on the stump. The darach turns startled and swiftly follows the same fate.

Peter loses consciousness and the next thing he sees is Argent untying the ropes and catching him before he falls, his tattoos dancing furiously on his uncovered skin. He carefully cleans the area where the rope touched him and applies some kind of ointment to it, as well as to where the darach cut him. Like magic, his accelerated healing kicks again. In a matter of minutes his mind starts clearing.

He lets the man put on him his jacket and inhales the scent that permeates it greedily. Argent gets up for a moment and Peter can’t help the whine that escapes him. He leans again and passes a hand through his hair soothingly and mutters something about waiting for him for a moment while he performs a cleansing ritual because he doesn’t know when he'll find it again if he leaves and it’s too good of an opportunity to miss. Peter doesn’t understand completely but nods.

Afterwards, he watches as the man unearths an old looking jar and talks to it. He can’t make head or tail of what’s being said but the bottom line is that Argent opens the jar and something oppressively powerful comes out, hovers for a moment and leaves.

Not much later, in the man’s jeep, he resolves to win him. If he can have him for himself, he doesn’t care if his family doesn’t love him the way they should.

He doesn’t give the jacket back.

—

Kate has spent the whole weekend holed up in her room binging on snickerdoodles and Stiles has let her be and listened to her when she wanted to rant. Chris, who is visiting for Easter, tried once and afterwards has dedicated to resupply her with more sweets (that Stiles is steadily making) when she runs out.

The problem isn’t being dumped per se, no matter how unpleasant that was, but that the boy has gone out of his way to make it the most humiliating for her, with the added bonus of going for her best friend, Jessica. Former best friend. Did she mention that that former best friend has gotten her kicked out of the cheerleading team too?

Now, don’t be mistaken, Kate is a though lady, but she didn’t expect this at all and it hit her hard. She’ll get up like she always does, but for now she wants to wallow in her misery, thank you very much.

The next day, Stiles pokes his head into her room to ask her if she wants to go to the movies and it’s in the tip of her tongue to say no, but she takes a look around and decides she’s wallowed enough. She nods and he grins.

Of course, with her luck as it is, they run into them when they are buying snacks for the movie. She wants to bang her head into the nearest flat surface, but what she actually does is look at them as if they are beneath her, which, in reality, they are. She gets the satisfaction of seeing them bristle. She may be a damsel and in distress right now, but she doesn’t need the rescue because she also is a huntress and a ninja, as Stiles always tells her fondly.

They come near as a group, like the damn sheep they are, and try to bully her. Keyword: try.

“Kitty Kat?” Stiles comes to her side, passing an arm over her shoulders. Chris, as stoic as ever, stops on her other side. Jessica’s eyes bulge and it takes her a moment to remember that she has never actually met Stiles.

“You didn’t wait to replace me, huh?” her former boyfriend sneers, which is absurd, because Stiles is obviously way older than her. “What a…”

“So you are little Jimmy Wilson,” Stiles interrupts him, a wide dangerous smile in his face, his hand coming up to scratch at his beard. And then, not giving a damn about the fact that his preys are twelve year old kids, he proceeds to scare them to death without actually saying anything incriminating.

Kate starts laughing as soon as they scamper off, tears rolling down her face, and he embraces her, protecting her from prying eyes. “Oh, dad,” she hiccups. She doesn’t need the rescue, but it felt really, really nice, to be honest. She can be a huntress and a ninja another day.

Or maybe just a little bit later, because they skip the movie to play Hide-and-seek in the dark in their house, secret passways included, like they used to do when she was eight and starting stealth training.

—

The fourth time Peter sees Stiles Argent, he is eighteen and he’s standing beside Talia as her left hand, her husband Phillip on her other side, and they are reinforcing the treaty with her as the alpha. Alpha Deucalion and Alpha Satomi are present too. Christopher Argent flanks Stiles.

He shouldn’t be happy that it all goes to hell when rogue hunters attack the meeting place, but it gives him the opportunity to show how much he has improved on the last two years. He’s good and he knows it. He wouldn’t be Talia’s left hand at eighteen if he wasn’t.

Stiles Argent, though, is superb. Watching him fight is a thing of beauty. The way he mixes magic, guns and martial arts is an art on itself, flowing and brutal at the same time. A blast he produces reduces a hunter to a cloud of thin blood that evaporates. The skirmish is over in a matter of minutes. Peter has never wanted someone as he wants Stiles Argent.

Stiles gives him a hand to get up and his attention fixates on the jacket he’s wearing. The corner of his eyes wrinkle and his lips twitch. Peter grins delightedly.

—

“Wake up! It’s Christmas!” Stiles bellows from a level below and Kate groans. She decides to make a preemptive strike to avoid being squashed when he inevitably throws himself over her like every damn year, and seeks refuge in Chris' room, pillow in hand. His voice grows nearer and she rushes. “Come on, slowpokes! Up, up, up!”

Chris grunts when she rushes into his room but opens the sheets for her. He grunts again when her cold toes find home under his calves. They hear the distinct sound of a picture being taken before a dead weight falls over them and wiggles. They both groan in response.

“Okay then, I’ll eat these by myself if you don’t want any!” he singsongs as he races out of the bedroom and both siblings spring from the bed as if they have been ejected, rushing after him to the kitchen. Stiles only makes his famous Death by Chocolate monster cookies on Christmas. Missing them is a sure cause for tears and desolation.

Stiles laughs.

—

Before leaving for university to study law, Peter tries to insert his presence in as many aspects of Stiles’ life as he can but seems to be foiled again and again. He finally succeeds when a damn hydra starts attacking the merepeople because she wants to take over their territory. What starts as a simple research meeting evolves into a permanent fixture in their schedules because they enjoy their bickering way too much. Peter may or may not have executed the most undignified victory dance ever and got caught by Derek.

When he actually leaves, he cons a promise out of Stiles to keep those dates up via Skype. They do it throughout the whole four years that his university stint lasts. His papers for class always end up featured in the professor’s lessons because Stiles is a devious little shit that dismantles all his arguments with ease, making him work for airtight ones. He graduates valedictorian.

He’s so stupidly in love with him that he doesn’t even look at anybody else the whole four years.

—

Kate debates between laughing at her dad’s babbling and crying herself. Chris is looking very handsome in his wedding suit and he looks like he himself is debating between being amused at Stiles' antics and exasperated. They both share a smile. She passes him a tissue and he blows noisily.

She will be eternally grateful for her dad appearing in her life. What would have been of them if Gerard was still alive? She shudders. Thinking logically, she’s always know that he had something to do with Gerard’s disappearance, but she doesn’t care. This wonderful man came into their lives and turned them around completely. He gave them love and understanding in equal measures, and also the tools to make themselves self-sufficient, to be able to stand on their own two feet proudly. He let them try new things for themselves, helping them when they needed it, cheering them on their successes and catching them on their failures. Can anyone question why she loves him so much?

When Victoria starts walking down the aisle, her dad gives her a kiss on the crown of her head first and then another in her forehead before rushing to his allocated position as the groom’s best man. At the reception, when he gives his mandatory speech, he threatens the bride again, like he did all those years ago, and Kate laughs so hard that she cries. Chris facepalms.

Yes, she will always be thankful of his presence in her life.

—

Peter is twenty-six when his fourteen year long campaign bears fruits. He eyes the naked sleepy man beside him and smiles.

“Yeah, yeah, persistent little bastard… you win. If you have time to be smug, bring me some coffee,” the man grumbles and Peter snickers but complies, placing an affectionate kiss on his shoulder before going to the kitchen.

“What’s the plan today?” Peter asks, coaxing Stiles to lay on his chest between his legs, his own back leaning on the headboard.

“I promised to take Allison to the park.” Stiles will never get over the fact that he’s a granddad at thirty-four years old. Sometimes he still doesn’t believe it.

Later, at the park with a two year old Allison, his breath catches and Peter looks at him questioningly. He closes his eyes and smiles at him, leaning for a kiss to make what’s coming more sweet than bitter.

“Ah, hello! Is she your daughter?”

“Granddaughter, in fact.” In the sandbox Allison laughs. “Stiles Argent, nice to meet you.”

“Claudia Stilinski. Nice to meet you too.” She looks to her right and beckons a man closer. “This is John, my husband. And that little boy is our son, Miłosław.”

Allison laughs again, making grabby hands at him and he indulges her. She hugs him and plants a wet kiss on his cheek. He carries her to where a little boy with way too much energy and not an ounce of power of concentration sits. He knows that the kid has a difficult time making friends even at this age, which is probably why his mother has approached a complete stranger in the park.

“Hello there, Miłosław,” he ignores the surprised gasp from behind, “this is Allison. Do you want to be friends?”

[mysimsloveaffair]

OC interview

I was tagged by the incredibly talented @daylightdisco ! Thanks for the tag =)

RULES : 1. Pick a character you’ve created. 2. Fill in the questions/statements as if you were that character. 3. Tag at least four people to do this meme I choose Talib (Adwin’s brother). Answers below…

1. What is your name? Talib O’Neal 2. Do you know why you were named that? My parents liked the meaning. It means ‘seeker of knowledge’, so I suppose that it’s fitting.

3.Single or taken? Single 4. Stop being a Mary Sue! First of all, don’t you mean Marty Sue? And second, to be a Marty Sue in the first place I’d have to be unrealistically perfect, unbelievably talented and totally lack substance. I hope that’s not how people see me. *cringes*  5.What’s your eye color? Brown 6.How about hair color? Black 7.Have you any family members? We have a fairly big family...well extended anyway. But in my immediate family...there’s only me and my brother Adwin. *sad sigh* Both of our parents recently passed away. 8.Oh, how about pets? We have a dog... a King Charles Spaniel named Skittles. 9. That’s cool, I guess. Now tell me something you don’t like. I don’t like the thought of moving away from my brother, but deep down I know that it’ll be for the best. 10. Do you have any activities/hobbies that you like to do? I like to read...a lot! I also enjoy playing video games. 11. Have you ever hurt anyone in any way before? Yeah...my brother when I first told him that my Uncle Hollis and Aunt Maddie wants me to move in with them. He’s cool with it now, but for a brief moment, I could tell that he was hurt by it. I can’t really blame him. With our parents being gone now...there’s just the two of us. 12.Ever … killed anyone before? Only in video games! 13.What kind of animal are you? An owl maybe? The owl is usually a side character that’s portrayed as the wise animal in stories...the one that everyone comes to for advice, knowledge or to find the next step in their journey. I’m not saying that people come to me for any of that, but it’s an animal...at least in fiction, that I can relate to. 14.Name your worst weaknesses. Being too smart. In the perfect world it would be a strength, right? You’d think so anyway. But I say it’s a weakness because it sets me apart from everyone else. I didn’t mind so much when I was younger, but now it sort of gets to me. Maybe it’ll be different at my new school.

15.Do you look up to anyone at all? My big brother. He’s dealing with so much and I know he gets down on himself a lot...because he’s always comparing himself to dad. But I think he’s handling our current situation with great tenacity and bravery. 16.Are you straight, gay or bisexual? 

Straight, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to dating. Girls are confusing to me right now. I mean, there are some that say they're interested in me...but most of them used to tease me when I was in elementary school. I don’t get it. What changed?

17. Do you go to school? Yes, but I’ll be switching schools when I move in with my Uncle Hollis. I’ll be attending a very prestigious school called J.A. Milligan Academy. It’s supposed to be for highly gifted kids, but personally, I think anyone one with enough money can attend. You know how that goes. I’m kind of looking forward to it though. Maybe there actually will be more kids like me there.  18.Ever want to marry and have kids one day? I’m not opposed to it, but right now in my life...I don’t see it ever happening. 19.Do you have fangirls/fanboys? No, my brother is the star of the show really. I see myself as sort of a secondary character. The type that doesn’t necessarily have fans.  20.What are you most afraid of?   Losing more members of my family 21.What do you usually wear? I’m usually in a t-shirt and jeans or shorts. But soon...it’ll be a school uniform, five days a week. 22.What’s one food that tempts you? I’m not really tempted by food. I don’t think of it that way. Food is used to fuel my body. That would be like a car being tempted by gas. 23.Am I annoying you? Actually no. Of course, I’m shocked that I was even chosen for this interview so I suppose I’m still reeling off the fact that anyone is interested enough in me to want to hear what I have to say. That doesn’t happen often. 24.Well, its not over! Okay, great! 25.What class are you (low class, middle class, high class)? I don’t really think about it...not in the way that most people do. 26.How many friends do you have? My only friends are actually my cousins. We are part of a club called the Wallace Clan. There are currently 4 members. 27.  What are your thoughts on pie? As in food or 3.14. I’d rather answer for the latter. Did you know that I can recite pi to the 50th digit?! *responds to interviewer’s reaction* Yeah, my peers at school aren’t very impressed by that either. 28.Favorite drink? Water 29. What’s your favorite place? Real or fictional? I’d love to live somewhere like Simkanda...although it only exists in comic books. But can you imagine a place where being a geek is actually celebrated and technology rules the land? I’m sorry...I get a bit excited just thinking about it.  30.Are you interested in anyone?~ No 31.That was a stupid question. … How so? 32. Would you rather swim in a lake or the ocean? I think too much to fully relax in either. I start thinking about all the bacteria, the fish feces, how the secretions from my own body will affect the water...you know, stuff like that. 33.What’s your type? Type of what? There are a lot of things where I can have a type...you know, like movies, books, video games - oh, you meant girls. Sorry...next question. 34.Any fetishes? An amulet I guess. That’s a strange question. Oh...you weren’t referring to that type of fetish. Sorry *blushes* 35.Camping or indoors? If I had a choice...I’d rather just stay home. Again...the over thinking thing.

This has been going around for a while, so I tag anyone who has yet to complete it! 

[wineanddinosaur]

EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd

In this episode of “End Of Day Drinks,” VinePair’s editorial team is joined by Dan Aykroyd, comedian, actor, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka. Listeners may know Aykroyd from his award-winning films such as “Ghostbusters,” “The Blues Brothers,” and “Trading Places.” He was also one of the original cast members of “Saturday Night Live.” Apart from these ventures, Dan Aykroyd has also made a lot of noise in the beverage alcohol industry, most notably with his creation of Crystal Head Vodka.

Listeners will get a glimpse into Aykroyd’s pivot from Hollywood stardom to beverage alcohol entrepreneurship — starting with a tequila tasting that he calls a “revelation.” Aykroyd also explains Crystal Head Vodka’s forward-thinking style, starting with his decision to remove all additives from the product. Finally, listeners will learn about the mythos of the crystal head and why Aykroyd chose it as the shape of the bottle.

Tune in to learn more about Aykroyd and his leading premium vodka brand.

Listen online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on Spotify

Or check out the conversation here

Tim McKirdy: Hey, everybody, this is Tim McKirdy, staff writer at VinePair, and welcome to the “EOD Drinks” podcast. Joining us for today’s episode, we have an award-winning actor, producer, comedian, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka, among other boozy ventures: Dan Aykroyd. Welcome to the show.

Dan Aykroyd: Oh, good. Good to be on. Good to be with your listeners and with all of you today.

T: Thanks so much for joining us. As always, I’m pleased to be joined by some colleagues from the editorial team at VinePair. Today, we have Joanna Sciarrino, Cat Wolinski, Katie Brown, and Keith Beavers. Hey, everybody.

All: Hello!

D: Wow, what a panel. I wonder what you have in front of you right there. I’ve got a mini-Head going. But I just love that your thing is just educating people about beverage alcohol brands, and exciting new breakthroughs for the consumer. You guys make it accessible. I was in the wine business for a while, and I got into it through Niagara. That was 12 years ago, and the grapes were very young. The Niagara grapes. Now, they’re approaching those 60, 70 years old. There are some really incredible Niagara reds coming out of that region. Not as fruity as when I was into it. People come to me and they say, “I’m going out to a restaurant. I want to order red wine.” Well, I say “anything that’s got a saint in it.” St.-Julien. I say anything that has an x. Bordeaux, Margaux, you just can’t go wrong. We see these years being slammed all the time. This year was bad or that year is bad. I don’t know, man. I think that you can drink a Bordeaux right now that’s not even 10 years old from Brane-Cantenac Margaux or one of these great red wines from France. If you let them go too long, they get bad, a lot of them. I drink them if they’re eight, nine, 10 years old. I don’t save them anymore. I drink the nice reds coming out of France. Then, Washington State, wow. The Walla Walla reds, and the Cabernets.

T: Some great wine up there.

D: It’s exciting. I learn as I go and whatever my taste or palate that I had left after years of whatever, maybe other substances. When I order a Walla Walla or a Columbia Valley Wine, I’m always pleased. The prices are good on those in restaurants. Well, if restaurants will continue to exist.

T: I’m very happy you are able to share your drinking advice or red wine-buying advice with our listeners, Dan. Anything with a saint or an x, that definitely beats the second on the list.

D: There are all kinds of incredible restaurants and vintners in the world now that are in partnership. I love Diamond Creek out of California. Al Brounstein was the founder. His wife, Boots, I think took it over if she’s still with us alongside his kids. Very limited production, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Keith, you’re the wine guy, right?

T: Keith is the wine guy.

D: Well, you’ve heard of Diamond Creek?

Keith Beavers: Yes, and I love that you’re talking about Niagara. Oh, my gosh, the Pinot Noir coming out of there is incredible. It’s an amazing place.

D: It was a little spotty when I was starting out, but I did it because I wanted to help Ontario’s industry. I wanted to lend my name to Ontario’s industry. The distributor that I brought Patrón into Canada for was a wine company. I said, “Well, let’s swing in and try to make some neat wines.” We actually did for a while. Now I’ve let that lapse because they’re focusing on other things, but I’d like to revive it. I know exactly the type of wine I would like to put a label on. DeLoach Vineyards built me an American wine that was wonderful. It had Grenache in it, peppery flavors, and wow, it was fine. And of course, that’s Jean-Charles Boisset who many of you met. He and I partnered, but I guess the agency wasn’t right. There weren’t enough salespeople out there to get it going, but wow, we put up some quality white Chardonnay and a beautiful Cabernet there from DeLoach.

K: Spicy Grenache, you’re talking to my heart right now.

D: With a burger! I order the wine first and then I complement the wine with the food. Now, people may have it the other way sometimes. You order the food and then ask what wine would be good with it. Now I say, “What food would go well with this wine?” That’s how I started along with many who drink moderately and enjoy wine.

T: More sound wine-buying advice there from Dan Aykroyd. These are all things that I love to get into, especially the wine side. I wonder if I can take us on a quick detour before that, though, Dan. I was really hoping we could start out by looking at Crystal Head. You launched Crystal Head over a decade ago now. That’s a time when very few of your Hollywood colleagues were getting into the booze industry. You also went down the vodka road instead of tequila, but earlier you alluded to the fact that you have some business interest with Patrón and tequila. I’d love to hear about that and how you got your start in booze alongside Hollywood?

D: Well, you know, it just comes from a simple musing on an afternoon in the summer, in August, down at the dock by the lake. Canadians love their cottages. Down to the dock by the lake, I’m looking at the two dominant brands of tequila sold in Canada at that time. I’m looking at my Margarita jar with my mix and going, “Oh boy, I wish I had something better to work with.” I recall a time in L.A. with John Paul Dejoria, the great entrepreneur who founded Paul Mitchell Hair Systems and also the Patrón Spirits Company, and we were drinking at the House of Blues. He was one of our first investors. He said, “Would you like to try this Patrón tequila?” I said, “Well, I don’t really have too much of a good record with tequila.” It’s the technicolor mule in the back of a yard in Tijuana. That’s my association with it at that time. Then, he said, “no, no, this is different. This is sipping tequila, it’s magnificent.” He poured me a warm shot of the Patrón Silver. I sniffed it and I thought, “Whoa, earth. Nice.” Then, I sipped it, and it was a revelation to me. It was tequila as I’d never seen it before, a premium tequila. I never knew, living in Canada, that such a thing was possible. We only had two brands to work with. I recalled back on that summer’s day and said “Wow, what if I could get Patrón up in Canada to make a better Margarita here for this party on the dock?” The next time I saw J.P., I said, “I really would like to bring Patrón into the little village government liquor store up here. How can I do it?” He said, “Well, Dan, you’d have to bring it to the whole country.” We both agreed to do it. In partnership, J.P., myself, and David Brown, another ex-mailman. We brought Patrón to Canada 12 years ago and it is now one of the dominant luxury brands in the country. Canadians can now enjoy what Americans did all along with fine tequila. We made it a great success right up to the point where Bacardi bought it. I’m no longer involved in it, but I’ll always be a friend to Patrón because of its quality and that silver, smoky, lovely flavor. That’s really how I got into booze, by wanting something better. That led me to research, exploring, and improving another category. That was the vodka category. I opened a lot of vodkas, and they smelled like Chanel No. 10. Or they didn’t have a taste or a flavor. Or they were harsh and had an over-viscosity. I thought, what’s going on here? Why? Why can’t we get an old-fashioned, pure, clean-water vodka? Well, I came to find out that a lot of glycerol is added. Glycerol is added to a lot of alcoholic products, but not enough to hurt or kill you. Laminine is added to vodka to disguise the alcohol smell and taste to mask it. Then, they added sugar to a lot of the brands. I thought, well, what if we eliminated all of these fusel oils? Fusel oils are the industry name for these additives. German fusel. We eliminated the glycerol in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the laminine in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the sugar in the Crystal Head corn mash. You don’t need any more sugar when you’ve got ethyl alcohol corn, C2H5O6 sugars. Laminine has a cousin as a caustic cleanser. You could take pure laminine and cut through mechanics’ grease with it. Then, glycerol is a cousin to ethylene glycol, which cooled the spitfires in World War II. It’s antifreeze. I thought they didn’t put enough to kill you. It’s been done for years, it’s industry standard. Let’s change the industry. Let’s come up with a pure spirit. Let’s not put the additives in. Let’s not add these things. Right out of the gate, the tastes were great, we went to the purest water source in North America, Newfoundland, Canada. We source the water there because you see original water from the aquifer of the Wisconsin glacier that sat 800 feet above us 16,000 years ago. There was ice all over this part of the world. Then, that just melted into the porous rock into the province of Newfoundland. It sits 900 feet above the ocean, away from the eerie plume of pollution. That water has never been touched by acid rain. It sits in an aquifer in these lakes underneath the province of Newfoundland. There is a still right above it, and it’s owned by the provincial government. Not only does Crystal Head have no additives in it but also has the purest water in the world right from the aquifer that was originally the ice over our planet at that time. It’s also manufactured by the province of Newfoundland Labrador Liquor Distillery Corporation. It’s a government manufacturer. With Baltic vodkas, you go into those stills, and it’s a little rough. However, the government manufacturer guarantees us a policing of quality that’s quite outstanding. Today, Crystal Head has won numerous awards for taste, and our vodkas are in about 80 countries. I’m proud to go around the world and say it’s a Canadian product, from a country that is tolerant. We have our pride bottle. We celebrate the LGBTQ+ community frequently. We had the same-gender preference marriage long ago in Canada. We are a Canadian company, and we espouse Canadian values, quality, and dependability for the consumer. The best water with the best manufacturer. The corn comes from Chatham, Ontario, from same-system corn farming. Now, no one in the world works as hard as I do to make this vodka. We grab the corn, take it to the same farming system, with the peaches and cream corn, the big, fat kernels there. We harvest them. They go into the mash truck. The truck then drives a fifth of the way across Canada to a nine-hour ferry ride to Newfoundland, where we mix it with the water in the distillery. Then it goes out into containers, and into the world from there. We’re going to great trouble to make it.

T: I’m glad that you went to some length there to share the process with us. You also mentioned accolades. Crystal Head is a vodka that we’ve long enjoyed at VinePair. You can check it in the reviews, in the roundups. What I always say to people as well is that you have this amazing-looking bottle, but don’t look past what’s inside it as well. Can you also tell us about the bottle? Obviously, it is very striking and definitely sets you apart on the liquor shelf.

D: Well, it does. Of course, being that we wanted to have a business that sustains, we had to put a quality fluid in it. One that people will enjoy and look past the bottle to drink it. Many bottles are still around the world. I have 200 of them in my barn here in Canada because of the parties I’ve had over the years. I don’t throw them away. We wanted to sell the idea of enlightened drinking and to have a drink that doesn’t have additives, which is very popular with bar chefs. Crystal Head is the virgin slate, it’s a blank canvas in which to do mixes. As you know. You guys are mixologists, you know bar chefs, and you know what is going into vodka. We’ve got one that is high-quality with no additives and pure. We wanted to sell the idea and the mythos of purity. With the myth of the crystal heads, we wanted to utilize that myth because they were enlightening the tribes that own them. The Anasazi, the Navajo, the Aztec, and the Mayans all purportedly had these star children’s heads or crystal heads that were used as scrying devices. There was a positive aspect and a positive myth. A myth of purity and power to these heads owned by these various aboriginal indigenous tribal bands around the planet — in legend anyway. I thought that this is the perfect vessel to put our stripped-down, zero-additives, pure fluid in. Let’s take the mythos of purity and put it into the bottle. Now, you’ve got an award-winning fluid with no junk in it. The crystal heads, you saw the “Indiana Jones” movie, they were ascribed to extraterrestrial origin. The Navajo said they’re from the star children. In the movie, they certainly take advantage of that myth of the heads being from another planet. There were 13 of them in the world that were known, and five out of the eight are in the hands of mankind, and five are missing. Three of them are in museums, one at the V&A in London and two in the Smithsonian. One was found in the Yucatan; that’s the most popular and famous one, the Mitchell Hedges skull. Mitchell Hedges was the granddaughter of an explorer. They were in Central America and found this head wrapped in an oilcloth. She reached into a hole in a cave and found it. It had a detachable jaw. It was beautiful. It had so-called healing powers. People who would see it, the velvet cape would come off it, and you’d get an immediate feeling of wellbeing and warmth in the belly just by looking at it. It was very beautiful to look at. You can get pictures of it. The Mitchell Hedges skull. People can look it up on any search engine and dig up a picture of it. It sat here in Ontario for a long time. There is one in Mexico City with a cross stuck right on the top of it. Were they ancient or were they made by man? Either way, they are beautiful to look at. For my purposes, it was the perfect sales legend to sell our quality story by tying into the mythos of purity that the skulls had in legend. It worked well for us.

Cat Wolinski: Dan, this is Cat. I am following up on your story about the myth of purity and alcohol. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the brands that are marketing themselves as better-for-you, “healthy” beer, spirits, wine, etc.

D: I think organic is a movement that is not doing too much harm to the consumer. I think we’re an organic product. It’s up to the consumer to be discriminating and to decide whether something is better for them or not. Is it better to have a drink that has 100 calories? With Crystal Head, we have 65 calories. We don’t say we’re better for your health in our marketing, but I think that you have to trust the consumer to believe stories or not. Certainly, we say we’re pure, and you can run our product on a spectrograph. It will run completely flat. There are no impurities in it because of our filtration system. If you want a vodka that doesn’t have a cousin to antifreeze it in or a caustic cleanser, then maybe it is better for you to have vodka, like Crystal Head, that doesn’t have that stuff. Look at all the stuff you’re adding today to vodka and mixes. I don’t know Pernod, vermouth, Fernet-Branca, emulsified sugars, Bloody Caesars. Our bar chefs around the world love our Aurora bottle. That’s the one with the mirror finish. That’s a wheat vodka that comes out of Yorkshire, England. Very soft, sunset wheat. A little more spice to it than the corn. The corn’s notes are sweet vanilla, dry and crisp. And the other one is star anise and peppercorn. Then we have our new expression, which is quite exciting because the whole legend, as you’ve taken me through here today of where we got started with my partners and myself, is the tequila. We now build a vodka that is vodka-style distillation, but we use the Blue Weber agave. This is in the black head, the Onyx. This is taking a vodka treatment of distillation and filtration, then making it from the Blue Weber agave mash. It is a big hit because of its floral, earthy, long finish when you’re tasting it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had. It’s almost like a white whiskey with tequila.

T: Can you try to describe that? Say you were giving someone the elevator pitch. It’s tequila made in the vodka way, but how would you describe it?

D: I would say it’s like a beautiful, white whiskey. If you were to close your eyes, is it brown or white? You wouldn’t know but you get the taste of tequila. You would think this tastes like tequila, but it’s not as overpowering as some tequilas can be. There’s a softness to it.

T: I believe it serves as an intro to tequila. The way that I’ve described it to people is maybe you didn’t have a good experience with tequila before. A lot of people didn’t in college. People may want to take a little step before you dive into that category again. Maybe you should try this. Yet, I definitely think it stands on its own as a unique product. It’s super interesting.

D: It crosses vodka and tequila grounds a bit. There are some notes that have been written about white pepper, citrus. I mean, you can have notes on anything like a hint of baby diaper with a burnt tire. Notes can get into some heavy pretensions when you get to some of the critics. However, I would say earthy. It’s just something that’s never been done, and people are loving it. It’s never been done to take Blue Weber agave and then adjust the temperature and distillation so you can get a vodka-style treatment on it.

Katie Brown: So that leads into my question. I’ve been curious, with that specific spirit, do you drink it as if it’s a tequila? Would you put it in a Margarita? Or do you use it for classic vodka cocktails, like a Martini? What’s your favorite way to drink it?

D: You can drink it as a traditional vodka. You can drink it as a tequila. Either way, it crosses both lines there and serves in a Margarita beautifully. Of course, as a Martini, there’s no taste like it, if it’s cold and shaken with a lemon peel.

T: That’s your preferred serve on the Martini?

D: I like it shaken. I like to hear a steward on the Long Island Rail Road with white gloves in the bar car, shaking, shaking, shaking as the tracks click, click, click by. Then, I’m coming to my seat as I’ve got my Wall Street Journal folded into a single column. I can get a drink from that steward, handed to me in a tumbler, a vodka Martini, shaken with ice, with lime or olives, maybe a hint of white vermouth, throw it out. That’s the 1954 Long Island Rail Road  Bar Car Martini. In 1954, you’re a Madison Avenue executive going in from New Rochelle into the city. You sit there with your Wall Street Journal folded into a single column at 10:30 in the morning. Get a Martini. That’s the dream way to have a Martini. I like a rinse of fine white vermouth, throw the rinse out and shake it, put it up in a Martini glass with ice chips and a lemon peel or olives. I do like the vodka that way. Now, the other way I like the Aurora, the Onyx, or the Original, is to put it in a tumbler with ice and pour about two and a half, three ounces, and then I take a freshly squeezed jug of clementine or fine citrus. I pour that orange juice in very slowly. It’s important to do this, because somehow it makes a difference. Treat it as if you’re cracking the yolk of an egg. You pour it very slow while you watch the yellow emulsify and go out through the vodka, and the color changes. Then, just a quick stir. That’s the Crystal Driver. That’s the best Screwdriver I’ve ever had.

However, I love to have people experiment. I love going and visiting bars. We sold gallons of our Crystal Heads there in Vegas with a white Cosmo at a few of the casinos. It’s basically white cranberry juice with egg white. I forgot what casino it was, but they had some great formulations there. We also got a bar in the Boystown district of Chicago that has a machine downstairs. They put the bottles in, and it serves out a punch on Sunday. They have these massive Sunday brunches in Boystown where you can go get food and drink and dance and watch old movies and karaoke. It’s the fun-est thing. One of the clubs there has this dispenser downstairs, and there’s basically a tap where you can get Crystal Head punch. I love that application. They are mixing a fruit punch, like a Hawaiian Punch type of treatment.

K: That sounds amazing. I want to go there now.

T: I’m enjoying the way that you’re describing making cocktails to us. I’m wondering whether you could ever do an audio cocktail recipe book.

D: If you get on the World Wide Web, crystalhead.com, we’ve got our professional bar chef. We were playing around with some recipes there, you can go to our cocktail section. We actually have professionals doing it, and I like to watch and drink. You can get on there and see what we’re doing with the recipes that we’ve gotten from around the world. We have a Startender program worldwide. Bar chefs from around the world submit recipes to us, we select them and award prizes sometimes where it’s legal. Our Startender program is very popular. The gateway to the consumer for any beverage alcohol is the bar chef on the front line. They love talking about the Crystal Head. It’s the only one you can throw up in the air or put on your shoulder and do voices with. It’s fun and easy. It’s a safe product. The seal, of course, is very safe. It’s just a high-quality, premium Canadian entry into the industry that I’m happy to say people worldwide are loving.

T: That is a nice segue because you’ve mentioned a couple of pretty good drinking cities already on the pod. I wanted to get your opinion when we’re all able to travel again, what is the best city in the world to go to for a drink and for cocktails?

D: London, England. Hands down.

K: Home of the Vesper.

D: London has molecular bar chefs there. They’re really into construction and they love the Head because of the no additives. One of our largest markets is the City of London. I would say next, you want to be looking at Sydney, Australia.

T: I hear that, too. And there’s a lot of crossover between Sydney and London. I used to work as a chef for many years in London, and we got a ton of chefs from Sydney. I want to say that London made Sydney good. That’s what I’m getting at here.

D: In Melbourne, there’s a famous cocktail bar down in an alley there. Melbourne, Australia, is also a great city for bar chefs and recipes. Toronto, Ontario. Can’t ignore that place where great people are doing stuff there.

T: You’re missing New York! Dan, you’re speaking to a couple of people based in New York, and you’re not bringing up the best drinking city in the world.

D: New York needs a little more sophistication. They need to embrace the Crystal Head, the no-additive story a little more before I talk about New York.

T: Well, sometimes bartenders do occasionally, and I don’t want comments at this, but move away from vodka. I don’t think that’s always fair.

D: Here’s my argument there, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the notion of “Oh, everybody has vodka. Brown spirits are where we’ve got to focus or the rums, gins of the world.” Now, there’s some great gins, don’t get me wrong. There are great rums and whiskeys but every bar of quality, if you’re going to be serving your customer, why not serve a premium vodka? Every bar needs vodka. You need it on the back shelf. Why not have the Head on your back shelf? It draws attention to your bar, it’s a beautiful art piece, and provides the consumer with a 90-plus point consistent rating. Also with quality, it’s only about $1.32 more a shot if you price it competitively. Now, I say to bar chefs out there who are doing wonderful things with whiskeys, brown spirits, rums, and gins that you need vodka. You’re doing these wonderful things, you’re purveying these quality drinks to your consumer and for the one or two or three or 100 people that want vodka, Crystal Head is your non-additive choice. Put it up there with your premium stock, and it’s only $1.32 a shot more if you price it right.

T: New York City bar chefs, you heard.

D: I have great friends in New York. The W Hotel has been great to us for many years. However, I think there are more people that need to embrace the story. I think I need to blow through there on a tour in the “Headmobile.” We might be cranking it up again because Onyx is growing at a beautiful rate for us and we may get on the wave of that. Yes, it was a Freightliner tractor that is used for hauling race cars around. It was a big cat tractor. It was wonderful on the highway. With that turbo, it was a beautiful sound. I drove it many times. It lit up at night. We had a red infrared choice at night. It was like the Star Trek cruiser there, and it had an apartment on the back. It really moved. You could do about 90 in it because it had nothing in the back and we painted it up like a delivery truck. We had the Crystal Head all over it, and we went all over when we were launching. Even in New York, we need to revive the Head and go out there to educate bar chefs that are missing it. We want to let them know that there is a choice out there for premium vodka that is superior to some of the lesser stock that the consumer is being forced to consume because of a lack of knowledge.

K: I can see that vehicle pulling up to a speakeasy, like, “Oh, well, I guess we know where the speakeasy is now”.

D: Sure, even at a biker bar, a dance club, or anywhere there are people, you’ll find Crystal Head, along with people having a good time. I will also say that anywhere I am with people consuming Crystal Head, there will be treats. I will buy rounds. I put my money where my product is. Now, we don’t go down to the spring break. We’re not pushing it on the youth; we never have. Our consumer range is 25 to 85, with a huge female demographic. A lot of our consumers, both male and female, have double college degrees. They’re very knowledgeable in that way. Many are in the tech professions or design, we found in our surveys. They have the discretionary income to buy something better, an affordable luxury for themselves, which is Crystal Head. We’re not going down to spring break with the Head machines and the pipes with the guzzling youngsters. That is something we’ve never chased. If you happen to be down on spring break and you go to a bar and Crystal Head is there, then I urge it. I don’t think you’ll ever see it being consumed from the Headmobile on a beach on spring break. We’re selling to the people who are halfway through college or finished.

T: What is the name of your fans? I heard you say head machine there. I’m guessing that’s not the name of Crystal Head fans.

D: I would say, the fans are “Head-heads.” If you’re a Head-head, that works. Again, we’ve got people that are discriminating so they want something better and are willing to pay a little more for it. Why not? We have impeccable water sources. In some of the other vodkas, the water has been called into question — specifically, the hygiene of the factory. But we have a beautiful filtration system. We have seven filtrations, micron, and charcoal with an agitated charcoal filtration system. It’s not just being poured through like a charcoal sieve. In the end, we pour through Herkimer Diamonds. There are semi-precious stones that are white double-sided semi-precious crystals, and we pour the final pour through a cone of them, and it just comes out so satiny and lovely. It does add something! I don’t know if you ask the high school chemistry teacher if you were to say, “What does pouring a C2H5O6 over double-sided crystals do for the beverage?” They probably would say, “scientifically, maybe not much,” but we’ve done tests where we pour over the crystals, and people like it poured over the crystals better. The last vestiges of any negative psychic energy on the planet are coming out because some of those crystals turn yellow, and that’s surprising. We have to sometimes turn them over or buy new ones. By the time that fluid hits those crystals, it’s already flat pure. I don’t know what else is being weaned out of there, but we do have the world’s purest vodka. I can definitely say that. I don’t think anybody’s doing it without the oils today. I may be wrong, I don’t know.

K: Well, it sounds amazing. I want to go on a train right now and order a Martini.

D: They outlawed it! The Long Island Rail Road outlawed it. Now, you can still get vodka on Amtrak. Now, on Canadian National Rail, you can get Crystal Head, I believe. We had a program running so that you could get it on the cross-country Canadian railroad. However, the commuting Wall Street advertising man can no longer get a Martini on the Long Island Rail Road as of three or four years ago. A tragedy.

T: Indeed. Dan, I would urge people to go out there and taste the difference for themselves, taste the effect of the crystal. See the proof in the pudding or the proof in the Head. Just wanted to say, thank you so much for spending the time today to talk with us. I feel there are two or three more episodes of stuff we need to get into. But I appreciate your time today, and thanks from all of us! It’s been great chatting.

D: Oh, sure! We’ve got some great beers and wines up in Canada. I encourage you to come when the borders are open. Come up to Niagara to the farm, and we’ll sit and have some T-bones or vegetarian meals. The daughters are all vegetarian. We eat and drink hearty here at the lake in the summer. If you’re passing through, you can get through KLG Public Relations to set this up. By all means to any and all of you, if you’re in the Kingston, Ontario, region, which is a beautiful lakeside town up here where the Cork Regatta is held. It’s a sailing regatta, the home of Royal Military College, which is our equivalent of West Point or Sandringham military school. Queen’s University is here where the brilliant, inspiring genius of our age, Elon Musk, went to school here at Queen’s University for two years. This is a devoted town to his legend, and if you’re up here, come up to the farm. By all means, we entertain heavily and heartily in the summer.

K: Definitely coming up.

Joanna Sciarrino: Maybe you could bring the Head-mobile to our New York office.

D: For sure. That would look good!

K: Going 90 down the Hutch. It’s going to be awesome.

D: Well, thank you, guys. Great to talk to you.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written, and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

The article EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/eod-drinks-dan-aykroyd-crystal-head-vodka/

[johnboothus]

EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd

In this episode of “End Of Day Drinks,” VinePair’s editorial team is joined by Dan Aykroyd, comedian, actor, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka. Listeners may know Aykroyd from his award-winning films such as “Ghostbusters,” “The Blues Brothers,” and “Trading Places.” He was also one of the original cast members of “Saturday Night Live.” Apart from these ventures, Dan Aykroyd has also made a lot of noise in the beverage alcohol industry, most notably with his creation of Crystal Head Vodka.

Listeners will get a glimpse into Aykroyd’s pivot from Hollywood stardom to beverage alcohol entrepreneurship — starting with a tequila tasting that he calls a “revelation.” Aykroyd also explains Crystal Head Vodka’s forward-thinking style, starting with his decision to remove all additives from the product. Finally, listeners will learn about the mythos of the crystal head and why Aykroyd chose it as the shape of the bottle.

Tune in to learn more about Aykroyd and his leading premium vodka brand.

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Or check out the conversation here

Tim McKirdy: Hey, everybody, this is Tim McKirdy, staff writer at VinePair, and welcome to the “EOD Drinks” podcast. Joining us for today’s episode, we have an award-winning actor, producer, comedian, and owner of Crystal Head Vodka, among other boozy ventures: Dan Aykroyd. Welcome to the show.

Dan Aykroyd: Oh, good. Good to be on. Good to be with your listeners and with all of you today.

T: Thanks so much for joining us. As always, I’m pleased to be joined by some colleagues from the editorial team at VinePair. Today, we have Joanna Sciarrino, Cat Wolinski, Katie Brown, and Keith Beavers. Hey, everybody.

All: Hello!

D: Wow, what a panel. I wonder what you have in front of you right there. I’ve got a mini-Head going. But I just love that your thing is just educating people about beverage alcohol brands, and exciting new breakthroughs for the consumer. You guys make it accessible. I was in the wine business for a while, and I got into it through Niagara. That was 12 years ago, and the grapes were very young. The Niagara grapes. Now, they’re approaching those 60, 70 years old. There are some really incredible Niagara reds coming out of that region. Not as fruity as when I was into it. People come to me and they say, “I’m going out to a restaurant. I want to order red wine.” Well, I say “anything that’s got a saint in it.” St.-Julien. I say anything that has an x. Bordeaux, Margaux, you just can’t go wrong. We see these years being slammed all the time. This year was bad or that year is bad. I don’t know, man. I think that you can drink a Bordeaux right now that’s not even 10 years old from Brane-Cantenac Margaux or one of these great red wines from France. If you let them go too long, they get bad, a lot of them. I drink them if they’re eight, nine, 10 years old. I don’t save them anymore. I drink the nice reds coming out of France. Then, Washington State, wow. The Walla Walla reds, and the Cabernets.

T: Some great wine up there.

D: It’s exciting. I learn as I go and whatever my taste or palate that I had left after years of whatever, maybe other substances. When I order a Walla Walla or a Columbia Valley Wine, I’m always pleased. The prices are good on those in restaurants. Well, if restaurants will continue to exist.

T: I’m very happy you are able to share your drinking advice or red wine-buying advice with our listeners, Dan. Anything with a saint or an x, that definitely beats the second on the list.

D: There are all kinds of incredible restaurants and vintners in the world now that are in partnership. I love Diamond Creek out of California. Al Brounstein was the founder. His wife, Boots, I think took it over if she’s still with us alongside his kids. Very limited production, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Keith, you’re the wine guy, right?

T: Keith is the wine guy.

D: Well, you’ve heard of Diamond Creek?

Keith Beavers: Yes, and I love that you’re talking about Niagara. Oh, my gosh, the Pinot Noir coming out of there is incredible. It’s an amazing place.

D: It was a little spotty when I was starting out, but I did it because I wanted to help Ontario’s industry. I wanted to lend my name to Ontario’s industry. The distributor that I brought Patrón into Canada for was a wine company. I said, “Well, let’s swing in and try to make some neat wines.” We actually did for a while. Now I’ve let that lapse because they’re focusing on other things, but I’d like to revive it. I know exactly the type of wine I would like to put a label on. DeLoach Vineyards built me an American wine that was wonderful. It had Grenache in it, peppery flavors, and wow, it was fine. And of course, that’s Jean-Charles Boisset who many of you met. He and I partnered, but I guess the agency wasn’t right. There weren’t enough salespeople out there to get it going, but wow, we put up some quality white Chardonnay and a beautiful Cabernet there from DeLoach.

K: Spicy Grenache, you’re talking to my heart right now.

D: With a burger! I order the wine first and then I complement the wine with the food. Now, people may have it the other way sometimes. You order the food and then ask what wine would be good with it. Now I say, “What food would go well with this wine?” That’s how I started along with many who drink moderately and enjoy wine.

T: More sound wine-buying advice there from Dan Aykroyd. These are all things that I love to get into, especially the wine side. I wonder if I can take us on a quick detour before that, though, Dan. I was really hoping we could start out by looking at Crystal Head. You launched Crystal Head over a decade ago now. That’s a time when very few of your Hollywood colleagues were getting into the booze industry. You also went down the vodka road instead of tequila, but earlier you alluded to the fact that you have some business interest with Patrón and tequila. I’d love to hear about that and how you got your start in booze alongside Hollywood?

D: Well, you know, it just comes from a simple musing on an afternoon in the summer, in August, down at the dock by the lake. Canadians love their cottages. Down to the dock by the lake, I’m looking at the two dominant brands of tequila sold in Canada at that time. I’m looking at my Margarita jar with my mix and going, “Oh boy, I wish I had something better to work with.” I recall a time in L.A. with John Paul Dejoria, the great entrepreneur who founded Paul Mitchell Hair Systems and also the Patrón Spirits Company, and we were drinking at the House of Blues. He was one of our first investors. He said, “Would you like to try this Patrón tequila?” I said, “Well, I don’t really have too much of a good record with tequila.” It’s the technicolor mule in the back of a yard in Tijuana. That’s my association with it at that time. Then, he said, “no, no, this is different. This is sipping tequila, it’s magnificent.” He poured me a warm shot of the Patrón Silver. I sniffed it and I thought, “Whoa, earth. Nice.” Then, I sipped it, and it was a revelation to me. It was tequila as I’d never seen it before, a premium tequila. I never knew, living in Canada, that such a thing was possible. We only had two brands to work with. I recalled back on that summer’s day and said “Wow, what if I could get Patrón up in Canada to make a better Margarita here for this party on the dock?” The next time I saw J.P., I said, “I really would like to bring Patrón into the little village government liquor store up here. How can I do it?” He said, “Well, Dan, you’d have to bring it to the whole country.” We both agreed to do it. In partnership, J.P., myself, and David Brown, another ex-mailman. We brought Patrón to Canada 12 years ago and it is now one of the dominant luxury brands in the country. Canadians can now enjoy what Americans did all along with fine tequila. We made it a great success right up to the point where Bacardi bought it. I’m no longer involved in it, but I’ll always be a friend to Patrón because of its quality and that silver, smoky, lovely flavor. That’s really how I got into booze, by wanting something better. That led me to research, exploring, and improving another category. That was the vodka category. I opened a lot of vodkas, and they smelled like Chanel No. 10. Or they didn’t have a taste or a flavor. Or they were harsh and had an over-viscosity. I thought, what’s going on here? Why? Why can’t we get an old-fashioned, pure, clean-water vodka? Well, I came to find out that a lot of glycerol is added. Glycerol is added to a lot of alcoholic products, but not enough to hurt or kill you. Laminine is added to vodka to disguise the alcohol smell and taste to mask it. Then, they added sugar to a lot of the brands. I thought, well, what if we eliminated all of these fusel oils? Fusel oils are the industry name for these additives. German fusel. We eliminated the glycerol in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the laminine in the Crystal Head corn mash. We eliminated the sugar in the Crystal Head corn mash. You don’t need any more sugar when you’ve got ethyl alcohol corn, C2H5O6 sugars. Laminine has a cousin as a caustic cleanser. You could take pure laminine and cut through mechanics’ grease with it. Then, glycerol is a cousin to ethylene glycol, which cooled the spitfires in World War II. It’s antifreeze. I thought they didn’t put enough to kill you. It’s been done for years, it’s industry standard. Let’s change the industry. Let’s come up with a pure spirit. Let’s not put the additives in. Let’s not add these things. Right out of the gate, the tastes were great, we went to the purest water source in North America, Newfoundland, Canada. We source the water there because you see original water from the aquifer of the Wisconsin glacier that sat 800 feet above us 16,000 years ago. There was ice all over this part of the world. Then, that just melted into the porous rock into the province of Newfoundland. It sits 900 feet above the ocean, away from the eerie plume of pollution. That water has never been touched by acid rain. It sits in an aquifer in these lakes underneath the province of Newfoundland. There is a still right above it, and it’s owned by the provincial government. Not only does Crystal Head have no additives in it but also has the purest water in the world right from the aquifer that was originally the ice over our planet at that time. It’s also manufactured by the province of Newfoundland Labrador Liquor Distillery Corporation. It’s a government manufacturer. With Baltic vodkas, you go into those stills, and it’s a little rough. However, the government manufacturer guarantees us a policing of quality that’s quite outstanding. Today, Crystal Head has won numerous awards for taste, and our vodkas are in about 80 countries. I’m proud to go around the world and say it’s a Canadian product, from a country that is tolerant. We have our pride bottle. We celebrate the LGBTQ+ community frequently. We had the same-gender preference marriage long ago in Canada. We are a Canadian company, and we espouse Canadian values, quality, and dependability for the consumer. The best water with the best manufacturer. The corn comes from Chatham, Ontario, from same-system corn farming. Now, no one in the world works as hard as I do to make this vodka. We grab the corn, take it to the same farming system, with the peaches and cream corn, the big, fat kernels there. We harvest them. They go into the mash truck. The truck then drives a fifth of the way across Canada to a nine-hour ferry ride to Newfoundland, where we mix it with the water in the distillery. Then it goes out into containers, and into the world from there. We’re going to great trouble to make it.

T: I’m glad that you went to some length there to share the process with us. You also mentioned accolades. Crystal Head is a vodka that we’ve long enjoyed at VinePair. You can check it in the reviews, in the roundups. What I always say to people as well is that you have this amazing-looking bottle, but don’t look past what’s inside it as well. Can you also tell us about the bottle? Obviously, it is very striking and definitely sets you apart on the liquor shelf.

D: Well, it does. Of course, being that we wanted to have a business that sustains, we had to put a quality fluid in it. One that people will enjoy and look past the bottle to drink it. Many bottles are still around the world. I have 200 of them in my barn here in Canada because of the parties I’ve had over the years. I don’t throw them away. We wanted to sell the idea of enlightened drinking and to have a drink that doesn’t have additives, which is very popular with bar chefs. Crystal Head is the virgin slate, it’s a blank canvas in which to do mixes. As you know. You guys are mixologists, you know bar chefs, and you know what is going into vodka. We’ve got one that is high-quality with no additives and pure. We wanted to sell the idea and the mythos of purity. With the myth of the crystal heads, we wanted to utilize that myth because they were enlightening the tribes that own them. The Anasazi, the Navajo, the Aztec, and the Mayans all purportedly had these star children’s heads or crystal heads that were used as scrying devices. There was a positive aspect and a positive myth. A myth of purity and power to these heads owned by these various aboriginal indigenous tribal bands around the planet — in legend anyway. I thought that this is the perfect vessel to put our stripped-down, zero-additives, pure fluid in. Let’s take the mythos of purity and put it into the bottle. Now, you’ve got an award-winning fluid with no junk in it. The crystal heads, you saw the “Indiana Jones” movie, they were ascribed to extraterrestrial origin. The Navajo said they’re from the star children. In the movie, they certainly take advantage of that myth of the heads being from another planet. There were 13 of them in the world that were known, and five out of the eight are in the hands of mankind, and five are missing. Three of them are in museums, one at the V&A in London and two in the Smithsonian. One was found in the Yucatan; that’s the most popular and famous one, the Mitchell Hedges skull. Mitchell Hedges was the granddaughter of an explorer. They were in Central America and found this head wrapped in an oilcloth. She reached into a hole in a cave and found it. It had a detachable jaw. It was beautiful. It had so-called healing powers. People who would see it, the velvet cape would come off it, and you’d get an immediate feeling of wellbeing and warmth in the belly just by looking at it. It was very beautiful to look at. You can get pictures of it. The Mitchell Hedges skull. People can look it up on any search engine and dig up a picture of it. It sat here in Ontario for a long time. There is one in Mexico City with a cross stuck right on the top of it. Were they ancient or were they made by man? Either way, they are beautiful to look at. For my purposes, it was the perfect sales legend to sell our quality story by tying into the mythos of purity that the skulls had in legend. It worked well for us.

Cat Wolinski: Dan, this is Cat. I am following up on your story about the myth of purity and alcohol. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the brands that are marketing themselves as better-for-you, “healthy” beer, spirits, wine, etc.

D: I think organic is a movement that is not doing too much harm to the consumer. I think we’re an organic product. It’s up to the consumer to be discriminating and to decide whether something is better for them or not. Is it better to have a drink that has 100 calories? With Crystal Head, we have 65 calories. We don’t say we’re better for your health in our marketing, but I think that you have to trust the consumer to believe stories or not. Certainly, we say we’re pure, and you can run our product on a spectrograph. It will run completely flat. There are no impurities in it because of our filtration system. If you want a vodka that doesn’t have a cousin to antifreeze it in or a caustic cleanser, then maybe it is better for you to have vodka, like Crystal Head, that doesn’t have that stuff. Look at all the stuff you’re adding today to vodka and mixes. I don’t know Pernod, vermouth, Fernet-Branca, emulsified sugars, Bloody Caesars. Our bar chefs around the world love our Aurora bottle. That’s the one with the mirror finish. That’s a wheat vodka that comes out of Yorkshire, England. Very soft, sunset wheat. A little more spice to it than the corn. The corn’s notes are sweet vanilla, dry and crisp. And the other one is star anise and peppercorn. Then we have our new expression, which is quite exciting because the whole legend, as you’ve taken me through here today of where we got started with my partners and myself, is the tequila. We now build a vodka that is vodka-style distillation, but we use the Blue Weber agave. This is in the black head, the Onyx. This is taking a vodka treatment of distillation and filtration, then making it from the Blue Weber agave mash. It is a big hit because of its floral, earthy, long finish when you’re tasting it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had. It’s almost like a white whiskey with tequila.

T: Can you try to describe that? Say you were giving someone the elevator pitch. It’s tequila made in the vodka way, but how would you describe it?

D: I would say it’s like a beautiful, white whiskey. If you were to close your eyes, is it brown or white? You wouldn’t know but you get the taste of tequila. You would think this tastes like tequila, but it’s not as overpowering as some tequilas can be. There’s a softness to it.

T: I believe it serves as an intro to tequila. The way that I’ve described it to people is maybe you didn’t have a good experience with tequila before. A lot of people didn’t in college. People may want to take a little step before you dive into that category again. Maybe you should try this. Yet, I definitely think it stands on its own as a unique product. It’s super interesting.

D: It crosses vodka and tequila grounds a bit. There are some notes that have been written about white pepper, citrus. I mean, you can have notes on anything like a hint of baby diaper with a burnt tire. Notes can get into some heavy pretensions when you get to some of the critics. However, I would say earthy. It’s just something that’s never been done, and people are loving it. It’s never been done to take Blue Weber agave and then adjust the temperature and distillation so you can get a vodka-style treatment on it.

Katie Brown: So that leads into my question. I’ve been curious, with that specific spirit, do you drink it as if it’s a tequila? Would you put it in a Margarita? Or do you use it for classic vodka cocktails, like a Martini? What’s your favorite way to drink it?

D: You can drink it as a traditional vodka. You can drink it as a tequila. Either way, it crosses both lines there and serves in a Margarita beautifully. Of course, as a Martini, there’s no taste like it, if it’s cold and shaken with a lemon peel.

T: That’s your preferred serve on the Martini?

D: I like it shaken. I like to hear a steward on the Long Island Rail Road with white gloves in the bar car, shaking, shaking, shaking as the tracks click, click, click by. Then, I’m coming to my seat as I’ve got my Wall Street Journal folded into a single column. I can get a drink from that steward, handed to me in a tumbler, a vodka Martini, shaken with ice, with lime or olives, maybe a hint of white vermouth, throw it out. That’s the 1954 Long Island Rail Road  Bar Car Martini. In 1954, you’re a Madison Avenue executive going in from New Rochelle into the city. You sit there with your Wall Street Journal folded into a single column at 10:30 in the morning. Get a Martini. That’s the dream way to have a Martini. I like a rinse of fine white vermouth, throw the rinse out and shake it, put it up in a Martini glass with ice chips and a lemon peel or olives. I do like the vodka that way. Now, the other way I like the Aurora, the Onyx, or the Original, is to put it in a tumbler with ice and pour about two and a half, three ounces, and then I take a freshly squeezed jug of clementine or fine citrus. I pour that orange juice in very slowly. It’s important to do this, because somehow it makes a difference. Treat it as if you’re cracking the yolk of an egg. You pour it very slow while you watch the yellow emulsify and go out through the vodka, and the color changes. Then, just a quick stir. That’s the Crystal Driver. That’s the best Screwdriver I’ve ever had.

However, I love to have people experiment. I love going and visiting bars. We sold gallons of our Crystal Heads there in Vegas with a white Cosmo at a few of the casinos. It’s basically white cranberry juice with egg white. I forgot what casino it was, but they had some great formulations there. We also got a bar in the Boystown district of Chicago that has a machine downstairs. They put the bottles in, and it serves out a punch on Sunday. They have these massive Sunday brunches in Boystown where you can go get food and drink and dance and watch old movies and karaoke. It’s the fun-est thing. One of the clubs there has this dispenser downstairs, and there’s basically a tap where you can get Crystal Head punch. I love that application. They are mixing a fruit punch, like a Hawaiian Punch type of treatment.

K: That sounds amazing. I want to go there now.

T: I’m enjoying the way that you’re describing making cocktails to us. I’m wondering whether you could ever do an audio cocktail recipe book.

D: If you get on the World Wide Web, crystalhead.com, we’ve got our professional bar chef. We were playing around with some recipes there, you can go to our cocktail section. We actually have professionals doing it, and I like to watch and drink. You can get on there and see what we’re doing with the recipes that we’ve gotten from around the world. We have a Startender program worldwide. Bar chefs from around the world submit recipes to us, we select them and award prizes sometimes where it’s legal. Our Startender program is very popular. The gateway to the consumer for any beverage alcohol is the bar chef on the front line. They love talking about the Crystal Head. It’s the only one you can throw up in the air or put on your shoulder and do voices with. It’s fun and easy. It’s a safe product. The seal, of course, is very safe. It’s just a high-quality, premium Canadian entry into the industry that I’m happy to say people worldwide are loving.

T: That is a nice segue because you’ve mentioned a couple of pretty good drinking cities already on the pod. I wanted to get your opinion when we’re all able to travel again, what is the best city in the world to go to for a drink and for cocktails?

D: London, England. Hands down.

K: Home of the Vesper.

D: London has molecular bar chefs there. They’re really into construction and they love the Head because of the no additives. One of our largest markets is the City of London. I would say next, you want to be looking at Sydney, Australia.

T: I hear that, too. And there’s a lot of crossover between Sydney and London. I used to work as a chef for many years in London, and we got a ton of chefs from Sydney. I want to say that London made Sydney good. That’s what I’m getting at here.

D: In Melbourne, there’s a famous cocktail bar down in an alley there. Melbourne, Australia, is also a great city for bar chefs and recipes. Toronto, Ontario. Can’t ignore that place where great people are doing stuff there.

T: You’re missing New York! Dan, you’re speaking to a couple of people based in New York, and you’re not bringing up the best drinking city in the world.

D: New York needs a little more sophistication. They need to embrace the Crystal Head, the no-additive story a little more before I talk about New York.

T: Well, sometimes bartenders do occasionally, and I don’t want comments at this, but move away from vodka. I don’t think that’s always fair.

D: Here’s my argument there, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the notion of “Oh, everybody has vodka. Brown spirits are where we’ve got to focus or the rums, gins of the world.” Now, there’s some great gins, don’t get me wrong. There are great rums and whiskeys but every bar of quality, if you’re going to be serving your customer, why not serve a premium vodka? Every bar needs vodka. You need it on the back shelf. Why not have the Head on your back shelf? It draws attention to your bar, it’s a beautiful art piece, and provides the consumer with a 90-plus point consistent rating. Also with quality, it’s only about $1.32 more a shot if you price it competitively. Now, I say to bar chefs out there who are doing wonderful things with whiskeys, brown spirits, rums, and gins that you need vodka. You’re doing these wonderful things, you’re purveying these quality drinks to your consumer and for the one or two or three or 100 people that want vodka, Crystal Head is your non-additive choice. Put it up there with your premium stock, and it’s only $1.32 a shot more if you price it right.

T: New York City bar chefs, you heard.

D: I have great friends in New York. The W Hotel has been great to us for many years. However, I think there are more people that need to embrace the story. I think I need to blow through there on a tour in the “Headmobile.” We might be cranking it up again because Onyx is growing at a beautiful rate for us and we may get on the wave of that. Yes, it was a Freightliner tractor that is used for hauling race cars around. It was a big cat tractor. It was wonderful on the highway. With that turbo, it was a beautiful sound. I drove it many times. It lit up at night. We had a red infrared choice at night. It was like the Star Trek cruiser there, and it had an apartment on the back. It really moved. You could do about 90 in it because it had nothing in the back and we painted it up like a delivery truck. We had the Crystal Head all over it, and we went all over when we were launching. Even in New York, we need to revive the Head and go out there to educate bar chefs that are missing it. We want to let them know that there is a choice out there for premium vodka that is superior to some of the lesser stock that the consumer is being forced to consume because of a lack of knowledge.

K: I can see that vehicle pulling up to a speakeasy, like, “Oh, well, I guess we know where the speakeasy is now”.

D: Sure, even at a biker bar, a dance club, or anywhere there are people, you’ll find Crystal Head, along with people having a good time. I will also say that anywhere I am with people consuming Crystal Head, there will be treats. I will buy rounds. I put my money where my product is. Now, we don’t go down to the spring break. We’re not pushing it on the youth; we never have. Our consumer range is 25 to 85, with a huge female demographic. A lot of our consumers, both male and female, have double college degrees. They’re very knowledgeable in that way. Many are in the tech professions or design, we found in our surveys. They have the discretionary income to buy something better, an affordable luxury for themselves, which is Crystal Head. We’re not going down to spring break with the Head machines and the pipes with the guzzling youngsters. That is something we’ve never chased. If you happen to be down on spring break and you go to a bar and Crystal Head is there, then I urge it. I don’t think you’ll ever see it being consumed from the Headmobile on a beach on spring break. We’re selling to the people who are halfway through college or finished.

T: What is the name of your fans? I heard you say head machine there. I’m guessing that’s not the name of Crystal Head fans.

D: I would say, the fans are “Head-heads.” If you’re a Head-head, that works. Again, we’ve got people that are discriminating so they want something better and are willing to pay a little more for it. Why not? We have impeccable water sources. In some of the other vodkas, the water has been called into question — specifically, the hygiene of the factory. But we have a beautiful filtration system. We have seven filtrations, micron, and charcoal with an agitated charcoal filtration system. It’s not just being poured through like a charcoal sieve. In the end, we pour through Herkimer Diamonds. There are semi-precious stones that are white double-sided semi-precious crystals, and we pour the final pour through a cone of them, and it just comes out so satiny and lovely. It does add something! I don’t know if you ask the high school chemistry teacher if you were to say, “What does pouring a C2H5O6 over double-sided crystals do for the beverage?” They probably would say, “scientifically, maybe not much,” but we’ve done tests where we pour over the crystals, and people like it poured over the crystals better. The last vestiges of any negative psychic energy on the planet are coming out because some of those crystals turn yellow, and that’s surprising. We have to sometimes turn them over or buy new ones. By the time that fluid hits those crystals, it’s already flat pure. I don’t know what else is being weaned out of there, but we do have the world’s purest vodka. I can definitely say that. I don’t think anybody’s doing it without the oils today. I may be wrong, I don’t know.

K: Well, it sounds amazing. I want to go on a train right now and order a Martini.

D: They outlawed it! The Long Island Rail Road outlawed it. Now, you can still get vodka on Amtrak. Now, on Canadian National Rail, you can get Crystal Head, I believe. We had a program running so that you could get it on the cross-country Canadian railroad. However, the commuting Wall Street advertising man can no longer get a Martini on the Long Island Rail Road as of three or four years ago. A tragedy.

T: Indeed. Dan, I would urge people to go out there and taste the difference for themselves, taste the effect of the crystal. See the proof in the pudding or the proof in the Head. Just wanted to say, thank you so much for spending the time today to talk with us. I feel there are two or three more episodes of stuff we need to get into. But I appreciate your time today, and thanks from all of us! It’s been great chatting.

D: Oh, sure! We’ve got some great beers and wines up in Canada. I encourage you to come when the borders are open. Come up to Niagara to the farm, and we’ll sit and have some T-bones or vegetarian meals. The daughters are all vegetarian. We eat and drink hearty here at the lake in the summer. If you’re passing through, you can get through KLG Public Relations to set this up. By all means to any and all of you, if you’re in the Kingston, Ontario, region, which is a beautiful lakeside town up here where the Cork Regatta is held. It’s a sailing regatta, the home of Royal Military College, which is our equivalent of West Point or Sandringham military school. Queen’s University is here where the brilliant, inspiring genius of our age, Elon Musk, went to school here at Queen’s University for two years. This is a devoted town to his legend, and if you’re up here, come up to the farm. By all means, we entertain heavily and heartily in the summer.

K: Definitely coming up.

Joanna Sciarrino: Maybe you could bring the Head-mobile to our New York office.

D: For sure. That would look good!

K: Going 90 down the Hutch. It’s going to be awesome.

D: Well, thank you, guys. Great to talk to you.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of “EOD Drinks.” If you’ve enjoyed this program, please leave us a rating or a review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps other people discover the show. And tell your friends. We want as many people as possible listening to this amazing program.

And now for the credits. “End of Day Drinks” is recorded live in New York City at VinePair’s headquarters. And it is produced, edited, and engineered by VinePair tastings director, yes, he wears a lot of hats, Keith Beavers. I also want to give a special thanks to VinePair’s co-founder, Josh Malin, to the executive editor Joanna Sciarrino, to our senior editor, Cat Wolinski, senior staff writer Tim McKirdy, and our associate editor Katie Brown. And a special shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, VinePair’s art director who designed the sick logo for this program. The music for “End of Day Drinks” was produced, written, and recorded by Darby Cici. I’m VinePair co-founder Adam Teeter, and we’ll see you next week. Thanks a lot.

The article EOD Drinks with Dan Aykroyd appeared first on VinePair.

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[wrenwritesometimes]

Muse

A/N: Here's the second entry of mine to (@mysaintsasinner) Mara’s Supernatural Song Challenge! For this one, it's Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away” with the pairing being: Dean x OC.

Edit, a few days after due date of challenge: I fucked uP and didn't get it in by the due date, but I got too much out of this to abandon it!

Edit, a few weeks after the text above: THEN I got a dose of Typical Teenage Depression and woh where did that one come from.

I'm hoping I'm feeling better, cuz I finally was able to finish this, read through it, and edit it - in one whole sitting!

Edit, a few weeks after the text above this patch: I'm okay! All's okay. This one was a bit of laziness on my part.

Characters: Dean, Sam, Pete (OC), Winnie (OC)

Warnings: Cussing, missing, last one was a typo for kissing but it applies too I guess, underage drinking, bars, I'm just listing normal things by now whoops

Final Warning: this is yet another part one to something because Wrenny couldn't keep it simple

Final, Final Warning: song lyrics are implied text or references, not actual song tidbits

Nights were almost as warm as the days were, around here.

The bars were humid, and the people had a permanent sheen of moisture upon their skin.

There was only one air conditioned bar in the entire town, and Winnie had the pleasure of working there.

She was a pleasant girl, little over twenty-four, and suffered through most anything to get money to feed herself and her brother. She was endeared to the motorcycle gangs that passed through, therefore safe from anything drastic; but despite this, she became quietly haggard and exasperated.

Tonight, she felt particularly numb to emotion, so when a regular seemed drunk from drinking his woes away, she decided she'd rather help him than feel sorry for herself.

“Winnie!” the regular greeted rambunctiously.

“Charles!” She replied as jovially as she could manage.

“Whaddaya doin’ here so late, huh?”

Winnie shrugged, pouring Charles’ usual and setting it before him. He was the only patron at the bar currently… it was 3:14am on a Thursday. “Jen needed this shift filled.”

Charles nodded. “You've been good, doll? It's been awhile since I've seen ya.”

Winnie grinned softly at the rough’n’tough biker that stopped by any chance he had, bandanas, sunglasses, and tans to boot. “I've been as well as I've ever been.” The smile felt heavy on her face. “How ‘bout you, Chuck?”

Charles chuckled and heaved a sigh. “I've been better. I think Kinny left me for good this time.”

Winnie scoffed. “That's a damn shame to hear. But maybe it's for the best.”

When Charles didn't buck up, Winnie settled further onto the bar. “If you don't mind me, the humble barkeep, sayin’ so, Chuck… she was never very good to you.”

Charles’ dark brown eyes were penetrating and resigned as he stared at the bartender. Winnie offered a soft, sad smile before she went to get the dishes from the kitchen to dry.

When she brought the glasses out, Charles was still quiet and contemplative.

“Wanna turn on the news or somethin’, Chuck?” Winnie offered, placing the tub of glasses on the bar with a bit of a struggle.

Charles shook his head, rotating the empty glass of whiskey around its rim. “I'll settle for good conversation with a lovely lady.” He offered a subdued smile that still set his eyes alight with a kind gleam.

Winnie scoffed kindly. “I'm not too good at conversation, Chuck.”

Charles laughed in return. “You know that's a lie, kid.”

Winnie shrugged and set out the glasses in order of height, sighing. “What do you wanna talk about?” she asked, the bags under her eyes feeling like barbells.

Charles shrugged and looked around the bar. His eyes fell upon the barkeep and shrugged as he motioned to her. ���I don't know too much ‘bout you, now that I think about it.”

Winnie grimaced slightly. “Well…” she hedged. “Whaddaya wanna know?”

Charles looked at her for a long minute before asking the question she dreaded:

“You ever been in love?”

She was quiet and still for a long time, her ears red under her hair. 

“Once.”

It was the summer after high school that I first met him…

It was a magical atmosphere in my town, the senior class of my school all being friendly and amicably affiliated… there were massive lake trips and large parties that could knock your socks off and your sister up, if you weren't careful.

I hadn't ever really been “attracted” to anyone in my town, so “by definition”, I was either gay or fucked in the head… but truth was, I just really didn't want my cousins screwing me. We were a painfully small town, and if you had actually done your freshman ancestry project (which is precisely what I'd done), you'd know that truly every-fucking-one in this town was related.

It was odd, and gross… and I tried not to think about it too hard.

Anyway. That magical summer time was when I heard it. The roar of her engine...

He called her Baby, but I called her Mustang… since I was dumb enough to have mistook her engine’s tune for one. It wasn't a mustang, but a gorgeous ‘67 Chevy Impala; in stunning shape, too.

I saw her drive past as I worked on cleaning the “patio seating” - or half-rotted wooden picnic benches - at my job at O’Briens’. I was supposed to be a waitress at O’Briens’ Steer N’Styne, but I wound up being a busboy and other grosser jobs as well as hostess and before long… underage barkeep. Too many others were worried about colleges and boyfriends and girlfriends and drugs…

I wasn't going to college. Wasn't smart or rich enough. I just needed money to keep my brother fed and sheltered. Parents weren't in the picture anymore.

It was the day that Chevy Impala revved up the road that I saw him. Jaw that could cut glass and eyes that could pierce the very soul of even the toughest biker chick in this town.

The first thing they did after parking in the motel directly across the way, was stop at O’Brien’s to eat.

The younger boy - I guess, fourteen at the time, I think - was named Sam. He introduced me to his brother, Dean, but not his father. Apparently only Dean and I noticed the hard glare the dark haired man gave his hazel-eyed son.

“Nice to meet y’all,” I had said compliantly. “Do y'all need time with the menu before you decide?”

“I'll just have a coffee, black,” the man grunted.

I nodded and looked to Sam and Dean, my eyes lingering on Dean’s clenched fists.

“Can I have pancakes and milk?” Sam asked.

“Anything you'd like, kid,” I replied with a true smile, one that even released my rarely seen dimple. God, he reminded me so much of my own brother.

“Anything for you, Dean?” I couldn't help the slight twinge of ‘I'm humoring him’ in my voice as I looked at the older brother, and I didn't miss the shift in his expression as he looked up at me with a calm gleam in his green eyes, the skin around them crinkling slightly as he smiled.

“I'll have the same as Sammy,” he said in a voice almost mimicking his father’s, but it was different in some way I couldn't really identify. I laughed as Sam argued that his name wasn't Sammy, and left to give them their drinks.

Needless to say, I liked him and he liked me.

“And what kind of music do you listen to?” He asked, still distasteful, but clearly teasing.

“I love blues… can’t stand anything but,” I said. “Well, except for one more modern band.” I reached for my backpack. “I actually have a tape of my favorite ‘modern band’ with me.”

“Well, pop it in,” he replied after a beat of silence.

Radiohead’s “OK Computer” first track of “Airbag” pumped through the Impala’s speakers.

“Ahh, so nineties rock,” Dean said nodding as if saying ‘typical’.

I socked his shoulder and laughed. “We’re still in the nineties, and I'm still seventeen, so I think I'm safe. At least for another two weeks.”

Dean started to smirk, but he smothered it, shrugging. “I dunno, I think it might be a dealbreaker.”

I playfully gasped, laughing at him immediately after. “Deal breaker, huh? Have you even listened to anything past the eighties?”

Dean chuckled, a breath passing through his nose. The laugh was all in his eyes, though. I knew he was happy.

“I have, and that's exactly why I'm sticking to the eighties. Take this trash outta this beautiful car.”

I laughed again and almost wanted to be mad at myself for laughing too much. I needed to shut up, didn't I? I probably sounded dumb.

“I like your laugh,” he suddenly said, and I only laughed again; quieter, more bashfully and almost nervous.

“Thanks,” I replied uneasily, accidentally releasing an awkward silence to follow my words. “Wanna hear my favorite song on this tape, though?”

Dean seemed to shake himself, and he shrugged nonchalantly.

Fast-forwarding the tape to the sixth track was a familiar action and “Karma Police” started quickly.

“My favorite song on the album,” I said quietly, suddenly self-conscious of everything I, as a person, liked and did in front of Dean.

He was reclined in the driver’s seat, his arms propped up on the backrest as well as the sill of the driver’s window. His left hand had his head propped up and he nodded his head to the beat of the song.

I felt myself biting my lip once. I wanted him to like this song despite evidence showing he wouldn't. I couldn't describe the feeling I was struggling with. It wasn't shyness, I didn't feel small.

There was just tension.

I peeked over to Dean and saw he was already looking at me.

I laughed softly and tried to look back at the dash, but something kept my eyes on Dean.

Casually he scooted from his spot in front of the wheel, to slightly more in the middle; and motioned me to come closer as well. I wanted to stay put; the tension-feeling I felt finally started feeling like it was a rubber band that was threatening to snap at my stomach…

But I moved anyway.

The rubber band snapped as his lips met mine somewhat suddenly. I didn't react for a moment, just stared wide-eyed at his own half-lidded eyes. Then he moved his lips just a fraction, his warm tongue moving gently over my own lips, and I was gone.

We made out in the Mustang to Radiohead.

It was finally my eighteenth birthday.

Dean took me to a tattoo parlor, to my surprise. He took serious a late-night, totally-not-sober conversation to heart.

“What should I get?” I asked Dean, accidentally beaming at him. I did that a lot around him…

Dean grinned down at me, and kissed my cheekbone. “Anything you want. My treat.”

He spooned my back as we stood at the counter; I was short enough to be comfortably under him as he leaned both hands on the counter. It was like I was in a Dean Cave as I leafed through the tattoo art samples.

I liked it. I felt safe.

I actually zoned out and missed a few pages, but I was brought back to attention when Dean’s ringed hand rested on a certain laminated page.

I looked over the designs on both sides and pursed my lips, uninterested in any. It was more metal/punk designs.

I nudged Dean’s hand, signaling I wanted to go on, but Dean’s hand stayed put. I looked up at him curiously, and noticed that Dean had that far off, thinking look in his eye.

“Dean?”

That snapped him out of it.

“What about this one?” He asked, his tone hollow, nonchalant. I looked down his arm to where his finger now pointed.

“A pentagram?”

“Yeah.” He shrugged.

“A pentagram.”

“Yeah,” he repeated, even more hollow and nonchalant sounding.

“Dean, are you okay? You sound weird.”

“I'm fine, Winnie,” he snapped playfully. “I think you should get that one.”

“I dunno…” I hesitantly objected. “I'm not really into that kinda stuff…”

Dean seemed too quiet for a long moment.

Sighing, I made up my mind. “One condition.”

“Anything,” Dean responded, sounding grateful. Why?

“You have to get it too. I'll pay for yours, you pay for mine.”

Dean was silent.

“Shouldn't be too expensive, if we don't get them too fanc--mmph!” Dean interrupted me with a strong kiss.

“I like it.”

“Okay,” I replied laughingly, confused but amused. Bemused.

I couldn't help but feel a bit emotional as I watched Sam and Dean teach my brother how to shoot pool as I worked.

I laughed at first, brushing it off. But when I had a moment to breathe, I found my breath heavy as I looked at them. I found myself smiling big, and I had to sniffle a bit before moving on.

When I finally was relieved of my shift, I joined them at the tables and greeted my kid brother with a playful ruffle of his messy hair, a pat to Sam’s shoulder, and a kiss on Dean’s cheek.

“Hey there, Winnie,” Dean greeted quietly, a flirtatious smirk teasing me.

“Hey there, Dean,” I mimicked, grinning. “Thanks for teaching this kid how to be useful.”

Dean shook his head, chuckling as Pete socked me in the side in response. “No problem at all. Dad didn't want us around today.”

I looked to Sam and smiled warmly. “Need anything to eat, you guys?”

I settled Pete and Sam at one of the tables and Dean joined me in finding the waitress of the section we left them in.

We stayed away from Sam and Pete for as long as we could; as long as until the waitress - Clara - made her way to ‘em.

He held my waist from behind as we waited at the bar, swaying softly to the beat of the shitty country music the owner loved so much.

I felt his warm, calloused hand trail up my forearm and bend my elbow so he could see the tattoo on my arm. He ran his thumb over it.

“What inspired you to get the pentagram?” I wondered out loud, looking up at him over my shoulder.  

Dean shrugged. “Looked cool.”

I snorted. “Okay.”

Dean sighed, but left it alone, turning me around and placing his hands on either side of my jaw. He closed his eyes briefly as he pressed my forehead to his.

I felt my brow furrow. “What's up, Dean?”

He opened his eyes and I was lost in them at this close range.

“Just… nothin’.” He shook his head and created space between our faces. “Clara’s going to Sammy and Pete.”

I nodded and glanced over his shoulder at my friend, but I looked back up at him and held his hands in place.

“Love you.”

Dean seemed to freeze, but I was comfortable with what I had said.

“Now, what inspired that,” Dean asked, his tone sad, but his eyes crinkling.

It’s all in the eyes.

I shrugged with a small, understanding smile. “I guess you're my muse.”

Listening to Johnny Cash was our music medium.

“If I Were A Carpenter” played on a stereo Dean had hauled to the roof for us to listen to.

“You should leave with me,” he said quietly after the song ended. “It could be us against the world… June to my Johnny.”

I got caught up in that goofy smile of his when he made a corny joke and a whirlwind of thought.

I could move from this town.

I could run away with Dean.

I could leave.

I could go.

But... No. I couldn't.

“My brother,” I murmured breathlessly, apologetically.

Dean’s eyes, however, only lit up in understanding and admiration. At least, that's how I read it. I missed one emotion, though; guilt.

“I can dig that,” he said softly, fiddling with my hand. “I wouldn't leave some podunk town if it meant uprooting Sam… he's already uprooted.”

I gave him a scolding glance. “That isn't your fault, Dean,” I defended. Dean knew how I felt about their father. He just shrugged. “Feels like it sometimes. Especially when kids pick on him for not having friends.”

I looked over to him. “That shits’ started again?” Dean nodded, looking ahead at the field my house sat on. “It's been, what… two months?” I asked, beside myself. Dean nodded again. “I swear to god, I hate kids.” Dean’s head swiveled to me, but I kept looking ahead.

“You hate kids?” Dean asked, somewhat confused. I looked to him and shrugged guiltily. “I hate the brats,” I clarified uneasily. “My grandpa had this saying, before he died… he was a teacher for, I think, thirty-eight years. He used to say, ‘Show me deplorable children, and I'll show you deplorable parents’.”

Dean chuckled, taking a swig of the bottle of whiskey I had jacked from the old liquor cabinet in the house.

“I think I'd want kids,” Dean murmured in that gruff way he got when he was serious, offended, or angry. He seemed calm, so I looked over and smiled softly. He offered the bottle to me and I took it. “Maybe one of each… but that won't be for a long, long time.”

I couldn't help but feel sad. He said that so downheartedly...

“I’d want a boy,” I said, taking a swing and settling into his side, his arm going over my shoulders. “I’d wanna teach him how not to be.” Dean chuckled humorlessly. “I dig that.” We were both silent for a moment before he spoke again.

“I’d want a boy to teach him about the impala… teach him how to take care of her. I'd want a girl to spoil. I think I'd like being wrapped around a little girl’s finger.”

I grinned at him and studied him. I found myself doing that recently. I'd just look at his features… take him in.

How green his eyes were, how his freckles showed more at sunset than any other time of day. How blonde his hair could be…

My smile faded, and I felt unafraid all of a sudden. “Dean?” I asked. “Mm.”

“What do you and your father do?”

Dean was painfully silent for a long moment, his eyes moving from me back to the field.

“The family business.”

It didn't hit me until I was smiling in bed, thinking upon my day with Dean.

It didn't hit me.

But when it did, it felt like cinderblocks.

“FuCK,” I hissed as I bolted from my room, barely remembering to grab a jacket, before getting to my truck.

He was leaving today. He was leaving, and I missed it. He didn't say anything explicit to insinuate he was… But why would he ask if I wanted to leave with him? Why would he have given me that serious of a goodnight?

I broke any speed limits in this stupid town to get the the motel they’d made their home. I slammed on my breaks with a cry when I didn't see the impala.

Anywhere.

Ever again.

Charles’ seemed sober now. Sober and somber.

“Sounded like a good kid,” he said gruffly.

She nodded. “He was.” The words sounded soft and sad.

“In another life,” she sighed softly. “I would’ve been his… no broken promises. It would've been good.”

Charles looked sadly at his friendly neighborhood barkeep and laid out money for his drinks, and a good healthy tip.

“You should get home, Winnie,” he said gently. He took her hand and laid a ticklish kiss to her knuckles. “You look very tired.”

Winnie nodded and waved as Charles drove away on his bike.

The bar felt hollow and lonely as she stood there, her hands resting a shoulder width apart.

She didn't collect her money, and she didn't move. She just stood there and stared as the sun rose.

Her eyes slowly wandered down to the pentagram on her arm.

She sniffed, clenched her jaw, collected her tip, and put the rest of the cash in the register.

She went on cleaning glasses until she saw her coworker pull up.

Four Years Later…

Dean never expected to see the the neon green sign of O’Briens’ shining on his hood again.

Memories of driving up flickered through his head like a film skipping in a projector.

He looked over to Sam to see the behemoth looking up at the sign too, a similar look of familiarity on his face.

“Hey, is this where w--”

“Yeah,” Dean interrupted Sam with a quiet sense of finality. He pulled into the motel parking lot and they went in the lobby to check in.

“You'll have room fifteen, right to the left if you walk out the door,” the old man grunted kindly, nodding in the direction he instructed.

Sam thanked him and left the lobby, expecting Dean behind him, but the elder brother lagged, hesitantly approaching the desk again.

“Can I help you?”

Dean nodded distractedly, looking over his shoulder. “Y-yeah… do you know if a girl named Winnie still works over at O’Briens’? Pentagram tattoo on her forearm?” Dean gestured to his his own forearm as he asked.

The motel owner seemed blank-faced for a very long time before he pursed his lips suspiciously. He nodded guardedly and answered with a curt “yeahp”. “She don't have the tattoo anymore, though. Got somethin’ else to cover it up.”

Dean’s face became carefully blank, and he nodded his thanks.

He walked to the Impala but couldn't see Sam in sight. He checked the room, but the door was locked and dusty.

He looked across the street to O’Briens’ and noticed a very tall head of hair walking into the door.

“Ah, shit,” he muttered to himself and was stuck debating whether to follow Sam or to lock himself in the motel room.

The moment he entered the building, the smell of beer, musk, and good food flooded Sam with memories.

The place hadn't changed a smidge in eighteen years.

Sam chuckled in nostalgic disbelief as he took in details he hadn't noticed in the decor and wandered to the pool tables.

“Howdy, sir, is there anything we can get you today?”

The voice was familiar, if not deeper now.

Sam turned and saw her.

She didn't look like a young woman anymore; her eyes looked heavy yet still just as meaningful and kind. She was thin and lean, but she had muscular biceps and more curved hips. Her hair was longer than he remembered, in a long french braid, and a deeper blonde. She had a tattoo sleeve on her left arm now, a flowing visual of a vine of flowers.

“Hello?” She chuckled, snapping her fingers briefly, a brief look of polite concern on her face.

Sam shook himself free of whatever had possessed him to become so still and cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Uh, are you… Winnie?”

She furrowed her brow slightly, but smiled nonetheless. “Yeah, that'd be me. Who wants to know?”

Sam smiled softly. “Hopefully you remember me.” He laughed. “I was fifteen when we were here last.”

She smiled despite confusion and shook her head.

“Um, my name’s Sam. Sam Winchester. Brother called me Sammy?”

The smile vanished as soon as he uttered “Winchester”. Her deep blue eyes bounced to over Sam’s shoulder and to the door of O’Briens’ and back.

Sam smiled sympathetically. “Sorry to barge in like this… but we were in town and I wanted to see what was done with the place. Hasn't changed one bit.”

Winnie still just stared.

“You still look as beautiful as ever,” he continued, quiet and genuine.

Winnie shook her head free of her stillness and she brought a hand up to her forehead in silent disbelief.

Finally she managed to speak, croaking, “We?”

Taglist:

@notnaturalanahi @wordstothewisereaders @violinmyhead

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND May 17, 2019  - JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3, A DOG’S JOURNEY, THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR

Well, the summer is grinding along at a rather slow pace. Granted, it’s only the third or fourth official weekend, depending on when you started counting, and if you live in New York City, it doesn’t really feel like summer at all, but as has been the case since starting my beat at The Beat, I hope people will be reading this for the limited releases and repertory stuff, which I try to make fairly comprehensive and complete.

Normally, I wouldn’t be too impressed with Lionsgate’s decision to release Keanu Reeves’ JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM in the summer, but surprise, surprise, I actually liked this one. A LOT! I already reviewed the movie for The Beat, a review which you can read here, but I do think that most of the people who liked the first movie will like this one, too, as it adds the likes of Halle Berry, Asia Kate Dillon  (Orange is the New Black) and Mark Dacascos to flesh out the mythology while sending John Wick on the run as he’s excommunicated from the assassin’s guild.

I don’t have as much an opinion about the doggie sequel A DOG’S JOURNEY (Universal). I mean, I like dogs just fine, but I never got around to seeing A Dog’s Purpose, and I’m not sure I can follow this movie’s high-concept premise without having seen it. Apparently, a dog dies and then keeps coming back as another dog in order to protect Dennis Quaid’s daughter… no, I don’t get how that works either, but I’ll probably never see this.

The other movie I’ve seen which opens Friday is Ry Russo-Young’s THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR (Warner Bros./MGM), based on the novel by Nicola Yoon, starring Yara Shahidi (black-ish,grown-ish) and Charles Melton from Riverdale. If you know me at all, then you can probably guess that I’ve never seen those shows, but I have seen Russo-Young’s other films, and she’s a director that’s definitely grown on me as she’s taken on YA adaptations. I’m not going to write a full review of this one (due to time constraints and illness) but I was generally mixed on it. I thought the two young actors were fantastic, and this was a perfectly nice romantic film that generally used its New York locations well, but there were definitely parts where I was just bored and not that into the story. It’s a shame, because I usually buy into the whole fate and destiny thing, especially when it come to romance, but this one just gets silly at times.

You can find out what I think of the above film’s box office prospects over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

This is a very busy week for limited releases with a lot of things coming out of the woodwork at the last minute… and honestly, most of what I’ve seen is just okay, at best.

Jack O’Connell plays Cameron Todd Willingham in Ed Zwick’s TRIAL BY FIRE (Roadside Attractions), based on the true story of the Texas man accused of murdering his three young daughters via arson in 1991. He spent 12 years on Death Row before his case found its way to writer Elizabeth Gilbert, played by Laura Dern, who tries to negate the evidence against Willingham. I wanted to like this movie more than I did, because it is an interesting story with a decent script written by Oscar winner Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious), based on an article by New Yorker writer David Grann (apparently all of his articles become movies, so he has a good agent, huh?). The movie is generally okay, mainly due to the fantastic rounded performance by O’Connell but it’s also quite long-winded and didn’t need to be over two hours to get its point across.

Joanna Hogg’s autobiographical British indie THE SOUVENIR (A24) stars Honor Swinton Byrne (yes, that’s Tilda’s daughter) as film school student Julie who encounters and gets involved with a gregarious and opinionated older man named named Anthony (Tom Burke) who turns out to be a heroin junkie who effectively sabotages the film she’s trying to get made. While I can generally understand what Hogg was trying to do with this movie, I found it very long and drawn-out, and I was even more shocked to learn that this was meant to be the first of a two-part movie, but no, I won’t bother with Part 2 even if it does star Robert Pattinson, probably as another dick who tries to derail Julie’s career, cause that’s what men do.

The Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra returns to India for the romantic drama PHOTOGRAPH (Amazon) about Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a man from a poor village who takes a picture of student named Miloni (Sanya Malhotra) and sends it to his grandma, saying it’s his new girlfriend, so she’ll get off his back about marrying. Rafi sends his grandma a picture of Miloni, but then has to convince Miloni to play along and meet his grandmother when she comes to Mumbai. As the two spend more time getting to know each other, a romance begins. It’s a nice movie, maybe not quite as great as The Lunchbox, but a nice date night movie for sure.

Opening at the Metrograph, which is in the midst of a Ryusuke Hamaguchi retrospective, is the Japanese filmmaker’s most recent film ASAKO I AND II (Grasshopper Films), based on the novel by Tomoka Shibasaki. It begins with a romance between a shy girl from (Asako, played by Erika Karata) who falls for a young man named Baku (Masahiro Higashide), who suddenly vanishes on her. She ends up moving to Tokyo and meeting another man named Ryohei, who is Baku’s spitting image – maybe because he’s also played by Higashide. A relationship develops between them until Asako learns what happened to Baku. This is definitely a strange but mostly satisfying romance story that would be a great date night double feature of Photograph.

From Sweden comes Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja’s sci-fi thriller ANIARA (Magnet Releasing), which takes place on the title spaceship which is taking the three-week journey to Mars full of thousands of passengers when it’s knocked off course. The problem is that it might take years to get back on course, which immediately throws everyone on board into a panic. At the center of it is Emelie Jonsson’s woman who runs a “Mima chamber” where people can go to relax, a chamber that gets increasingly more busy until it breaks down and then things just get completely crazy.  If you wondered what Passengersmight have been like if Gaspar Noe directed it then Aniarais the movie for you, but I did like Jonsson’s character arc as she ends up starting a relationship with a woman officer on the ship and where that story goes.

Karen Gillan stars in Collin Schiffli’s ALL CREATURES HERE BELOW (Samuel Goldwyn), which is written by and co-stars David Dastmalchian from Ant-Manand other films. It deals with a couple living in poverty, forcing him to break the law, as they set off to find refuge in Kansas City. I haven’t seen it but it sounds interesting with that casting.

Shirley Jackson’s 1962 mystery novel WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE (Brainstorm Media)is adapted by filmmaker Stacie Passon with an all-star cast including Taissa Farmiga, Alexandra Daddario, Sebastian Stan and Crispin Glover. Farmiga plays Merricat who lives with her sister Constance (Daddario) and uncle (Glover), the only survivors of a poisonic that killed the rest of their family five years earlier. When their cousin Charles (Stan) arrives, asking about the family’s finances, it begins a battle for control as tragedy looms.

Now playingat the Film Forum is The Third Wife (Film Movement), Ash Mayfair’s Vietnamese drama set in the 19th Century about a 14-year-old named May, who becomes the third wife of a much older man. With a mostly female cast and crew, the film has drawn comparisons to Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern and some of the flashbacks in The Joy Luck Club (which I recently rewatched and cried my eyes out, but don’t tell anyone).

Then opening Friday at the Film Forum is Andrey Paunov’s documentary Walking on Water (Kino Lorber), about artist Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude, who had built some of the most amazing large-scale installations including the famous “The Gates” in Central Park and their most recent project “The Floating Piers” over Lake Iseo in Italy. The movie will open in L.A. and San Fran next Friday, May 24.

Johnny Depp stars in Wayne Roberts’ The Professor (Saban Films), a movie that seems to be getting dumped into theaters after a DirecTV release. Depp plays Richard, a college lecturer who discovers he has six months to live so he turns into a party animal, much to the shock of his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) and chancellor (Ron Livingston). Also costarring Zoey Deutch, it opens in select cities.

Kevin and Michael Goetz’s A Violent Separation (Screen Media) stars Brenton Thwaites as Norman Young, deputy of a midwstern town who is forced to arrest his older brother Ray (Ben Robson) for murder. Things get more difficult when Norman gets involved with the victim’s younger sister (Alycia Debnam-Carey). It opens at New York’s Cinema Village and a few other theaters as well as On Demand.

Now playing at the Roxy Cinema in New York is Matt Hinton’s doc Parallel Love: The Story of a Band Called Luxury (Abramorama) about the small-town band Luxury, whose career almost ended in a wreck, but who continue to make records even as three members become priests.

Another music-related doc out this week is the Cordero Brothers thriller Room 37 - The Mysterious Death of Johnny Thunders (Cleopatra Entertainment), which as you might guess from the title is about famed rocker Johnny Thunders (Leo Ramsay) and how his trip to New Orleans to get his life together turned deadly.

This week’s Bollywood offering is Aki Ali’s De De Pyaar De, starring Ajay Devgn, Tabu and Rakul Preet Singh in a London-based love triangle.

Opening in New York this Friday, then in L.A. May 24 and VOD June 21 is Eddie Alcazar’s Perfect  (Breaker Films), exec. produced by Steven Soderbergh, which stars Garrett Wareing as a troubled young man sent to a clinic by his mother (Abbie Cornish) to help with his dark visions.

Next up is Rachel Carey’s Ask for Jane  (Level Film) starring Cait Cortelyou in a timely movie set in Chicago 1969 where abortion is punishable by prison and two women try to find a doctor to help a pregnant student at the University of Chicago has tried to kill herself. The two women end up forming the Jane Collective, an organization that helps women get safe abortions.

Asa Butterfield, Finn Cole, Hermione Corfield, Michael Sheen, Margot Robbie, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg star in Crispian Mills’ horror-comedy Slaughterhouse Rulez set in a British boarding school where monsters have been unleashed from a sinkhole. The movie was a hit in England but is barely getting a release in the States even with that amazing cast.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Not much of note on Netflix except Kate Melville’s rom-com Good Sam, a movie about a reporter who is trying to find a stranger who is leaving bags of money all around New York City.

I probably haven’t been paying enough attention to the streaming service MUBU, but in honor of the Cannes Film Festival that started this week, the service is doing a “Cannes Takeover” which includes Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, Crisi Piu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Alejandro Innaritu’s Amores Perrosand other films that broke out of the French film festival.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Sci-fi author Samuel R. Delaney will be at the Metrograph for Delaneymania, a collection of films selected by him including This Island Earth (1955), Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal  (1957), Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus  (1950), as well as Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil: Director’s Cut  (1958). The series will also include Fred Barney Taylor’s doc about Delany called The Polymath and more. Playtime: Family Matinees is also getting involved into Delanwymania with screenings of The Boy with the Green Hair (1948) on Saturday and Sunday morning. Also this weekend is the firstMetrograph Book Fair of the year with lots of rare and vintage books and magazines on sale.This week’s Late Nites at Metrographincludes screenings of Michael Mann’s Thief  (1981) and more screenings of Gasar Noé’sClimax, which seems to be Metrograph’s new go-to movie. (Sorry, Carol!)

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Weds and Thursday seems double features of Elaine May’s Mikey & Nicky  (1976), starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes, and Between the Lines (1977), while Friday and Saturday’s double feature is Martha Coolidge’s 1983 film Valley Girl (with Coolidge and special guests on Saturday!) and Sofia Coppola’s 1999 debut The Virgin Suicides.  The Sunday/Monday double feature is two from Dorothy Arzner, Merrily We Go To Hell (1932) and First Comes Courage(1943).Friday’s midnight is Tarantino and Rodriguez’s 2007 anthology Grindhouse, while Saturday at midnight, you have another chance to watch The Love Witch from 2016.  The weekend’s KIDDEE MATINEE is Agnieszka Holland’s 1993 film The Secret Garden  (which is being remade next year). On Monday afternoon, there’s a screening of Josie and the Pussycats… no, I’m not sure why either.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Sadly, the Trilogies series ends Thursday, but the Film Forum will screen a 4k restoration of Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (1961), and this weekend’s Film Forum Jr.offering is Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands  (1990), starring Johnny Depp. Dan Streible is back with his eclectic of shorts called More Orphans of New York.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

On Friday, you can catch a “New York Sleaze Triple Feature” (yes, in L.A.) with Fulci’s The New York Ripper (1982),Nightmares in a Damaged Brain  (1981) and Abel Ferrar’s The Driller Killer  (1979). The Cassavetes & Scorsese: Love is Strangeseries continues on Saturday with Goodfellas and Husbands, plus the 1965 film The 10th Victim is showing as part of the Art Directors Guild Film Society Series on Sunday. Also on Sunday, Spanish filmmaker Ivan Zulueta (who died ten years ago) gets a tribute with a screening of 1979’s Arrebato.

AERO  (LA):

This week, the Aero begins the Passion of Pier Paolo Pasolini series (probably in conjunction with Abel Ferrara’s film, which finally gets a theatrical release) with a series of double features: Solo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) and Pigsty (1969) on Thursday, The Decameron  (1970) and Oedipus Rex (1967) on Friday, The Canterbury Tales (1971) and Teorema (1968) on Saturday, and Arabian Nights (1974)and Medea (1969) on Sunday. On Monday, they’ll screen a rare 35mm print of Pasonlini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew(1964). Since I really enjoyed Ferrara’s new film starring Willem Dafoe, I’m bummed I missed the Metrograph’s retrospective of Pasolini last year, but this is a good chance to see this prolific Italian filmmaker’s often-controversial work.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Another great series begins at the Quad this weekend with Fighting Mad: German Genre Films from the Margins, based around Dominik Graf’s two-part documentary A Journey Through German Film. Graf programmed the series with Olaf Müller, who presents a few of the screenings. It’s a pretty rich series with no films that I personally have had a chance to see – I have a couple screeners to watch – but there are sure to be a few gems in there if you have time to see some of the 17 movies.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Waverly Midnights: ParentalGuidance  will screen Roman Polanski’s horror classicRosemary’s Baby (1968) and James Cameron’s Aliens (again). Weekend Classics: Love Mom and Dad screens Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1962 film Mamma Roma, while Late Night Favorites: Spring shows the Coens’ Fargo, David Fincher’s Fight Club and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

Black 90s: A Turning Point in American Cinema continues this weekend with Waiting to Exhale, The Five Heartbeats, Fear of a Black Hat, House Party, a 20thAnniversary screening of The Best Man and a lot more. It’s a really good series with a lot of movies worth checking out.

MOMA (NYC):

Abel Ferrara: Unrated continues with 1986’s Crime Story on Wednesday, 1993’s Dangerous Game on Thursday, Welcome to New York  (2014) on Sunday and Piazza Vittorio (2017) and 4:44 Last Day on Earth  (2011) on Sunday. The series will continue through May 31. MOMA is also doing a Jean-Claude Carriereseries, honoring the amazing prolific work of the French screenwriter, including Louis Malle’s Milou en Mai  (1964), Milos Forman’s Taking Off (1971) and many more, which will be screened between now and June 16.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

A new addition! The theater in the Roxy Hotel in Tribeca is showing Joanna Hogg’s earlier film Archipelego (2010), as well as Sally Potter’s 1992 film Orlando in 35mm!

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

On Saturday, MOMI is doing a Filmmaker Memorial for John Singleton, put together by The Black Filmmaker Foundation and the Black Film Critics Circle with BFCC President Michael Sargent and other critics discussing Singleton’s work. Otherwise, MOMI is finishing up Panorama Europe.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This week’s midnight movie on Friday is the Japanese horror filmHouse (Hausu) from 1977.

That’s it for this week. Next week, we get Guy Ritchie’s Aladdin, starring Will Smith; Olivia Wilde’s hilarious Book Smart and the James Gunn-produced Brightburn. Oh, yeah, and it’s Memorial Day weekend!

[kansascityhappenings]

Identity of man found in Idaho cave 40 years ago revealed, along with his colorful criminal past

DUBOIS, Idaho — Nobody could have guessed the identity of a man whose body was found in Idaho’s Civil Defense Caves in 1979.

For 40 years, anthropologists, scientists and investigators from Idaho State University all the way to the Smithsonian and the FBI tried to unravel the mystery of who this man was. The big question none of them could figure out was how long he had been in the caves, East Idaho News reports.

The answers were revealed Tuesday during a riveting news conference held by Clark County Sheriff Bart Mary and others involved in the decades-long investigation.

The man’s remains were so well preserved, there was still skin on the body. Anthropologists believed that he had maybe only been in the caves for five to 10 years. When the DNA Doe Project finally put the genetic and genealogical pieces together, they learned he had been in the cave since 1916.

“Through our research, following the tireless experts of innumerable experts, we have identified Clark County John Doe. His name was Joseph Henry Loveless,” DNA Doe Project team leader Anthony Redgrave said. “Joseph Henry Loveless was born Dec. 3, 1870, in Payson, Utah territory.

Loveless was a notorious outlaw, bootlegger, jailbird and a vicious murderer, according to newspaper records from the era.

The revelation that the man anthropologists believed had likely died sometime between 1969 and 1979 had actually died in 1916 was a shocking revelation.

“This definitely threw most anthropologists — all anthropologists that looked at this (case),” ISU anthropology department assistant professor Samantha Blatt said.

Loveless’s torso, arms and legs have been recovered, but his head has never been found. Researchers have not been able to uncover a photo of him either. Fortunately, the wanted poster published from when he murdered his wife has a description of what he looked like, although he was going by a different name at the time.

Joseph Henry Loveless was a notorious outlaw and vicious murderer, according to newspaper records from the era. The composite image was created using images of his closest relatives and written descriptions.

“Walt Cairns, age about 40 years, height about 5 ft. 8 or 9 in., weight about 165 pounds, dark brown hair, slightly gray around ears, eyes bluish brown, medium complexion, has little or no eyebrows, small scar over right eye, tattoo of star on right hand between thumb and index finger, also tattoo of anchor same place on left hand; he wore a light colored hat, brown coat, red sweater, blue overalls over black trousers,” the poster reads.

A composite of what Loveless may have looked like was created by combining images of his closest relatives and from written descriptions.

The story of how scientists and historians identified Loveless is remarkable. Redgrave said this is now one of the oldest cases to be solved using DNA.

Road to identification On Aug. 26, 1979, a family was searching for arrowheads in a cave near the entrance of the Civil Defense Caves just north of Dubois. Instead of arrowheads, they found something else.

Wrapped in burlap and buried in a shallow grave was the headless torso of a man. He was wearing a white shirt with blue pinstripes and a maroon sweater. He was also missing his arms and legs.

Earl Holden, the Clark County Sheriff at the time, had the area searched for any other remains, but to no avail. He believed, based on the clothing the man was wearing, that he was likely a gambler from 60 years prior.

Coroner Ernest Still performed an investigation and determined the man must have died within the last decade due to the presence of flesh and odor.

Still wasn’t the only one who thought that. In 1979, the top forensic anthropologist in the world, Dr. Doug Ubelaker from the Smithsonian Institute, believed the remains could have been anywhere from six months to ten years old.

“Already, at the beginning, no one could identify who this person was,” ISU anthropology department assistant professor Samantha Blatt said.

Twelve years later, an 11-year-old girl was exploring the cave when she discovered a hand sticking out of the ground. An excavation led by Idaho State University and the Idaho Museum of Natural History uncovered the man’s arms and legs.

Joseph Henry Loveless’ remains were found in the Civil Defense Caves near Dubois, ID, in 1979.

In 1997, the remains were transferred to the ISU Anthropology Department where they have remained ever since.

In March 2019, Drs. Amy Michael and Samantha Blatt with the Idaho State University Anthropology Department decided to ask if DNA Doe Project would be willing to help try to identify the man in the cave.

DNA Doe Project is a nonprofit organization that uses a methodology known as genetic genealogy to identify unknown individuals by using their DNA to find their family tree. Volunteers search through records and other sources to piece the individual’s family history together until they are able to identify the person.

Led by team leader Anthony Redgrave, 14 volunteer genealogists spent more than 2,000 hours researching Clark County John Doe’s family tree. They found 31,730 individuals in the tree and narrowed their investigation down to 250 “DNA cousins.” Searching through those family trees, they tentatively identified the man as Joseph Henry Loveless.

The genealogists discovered Loveless’s parents were Latter-day Saint pioneers from the Utah valley and were polygamists, which made DNA Doe Project’s job much more difficult.

“Descendants of pioneers who have done their family history will know that their ancestors had many, many children – often with several different spouses during the time period that polygamy was practiced,” Redgrave said.

He explained that often leads to intermarrying, which can affect the DNA in unpredictable ways. It also leads to half-relationships or half-cousins where two people only share DNA with one parent. Redgrave said that even though they had numerous close DNA matches, it was difficult to work with and narrow down to one individual.

“We took a lot of extra effort to confirm our potential identity over the course of several days,” Redgrave said.

Even then, Clark County Sheriff Bart May wanted to make extra sure the identity was correct.

“I felt like we needed to take it a step farther to make sure we were 100 percent correct. So we tracked down living relatives, which was really hard to do. But we found an 87-year-old grandson who was willing to talk with us and meet with us and give us his DNA,” May said.

Through the grandson’s DNA, authorities were able to confirm the remains did belong to Joseph Henry Loveless.

“This was an amazing case because watching it progress, it was so difficult because of the intermarriages and the Latter-day Saints practice of polygamy. There were many, many complicated family relationships that we thought would take forever to untangle,” DNA Doe Project Co-founder Dr. Margaret Press said.

The outlaw Finding out the body was Joseph Henry Loveless was one thing. Finding out details about his life was another. To do that, DNA Doe Project searched through eastern Idaho newspaper records.

The man they discovered had a notorious reputation.

Joseph Henry Loveless was born to Latter-day Saint pioneers Joseph Jackson Loveless and Sarah Jane Scriggins.

When he was 28, in 1899, Loveless married Harriett Jane Savage in Salt Lake City, Utah. Five years later, Harriett filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion and failure to support their child.

A year after the divorce, Loveless married Agnes Octavia Caldwell in Bear Lake County, Idaho. They had four children together but Loveless wasn’t the type to settle down. In 1914, he was arrested for bootlegging in Burley. A few months later he was again arrested for bootlegging in Burley but he managed to escape from jail — and it wouldn’t be the last time.

In 1916, newspaper records show a man named Walter Garron pulled off a daring escape by cutting his jail cell’s bars with a saw and then stopping a train.

“The news article is strangely worded but we assume he was being transported to jail on a train and somehow stopped the train in an attempt to escape it,” Redgrave said. “He was somehow caught and put in prison and escaped again anyway.”

Walter Garron was just one of the various aliases Loveless went by. Others included Walter Cairins, Curran, Currans, Cairns, Curnans and Charles Smith.

On May 5, 1916, Agnes Loveless was found dead in the tent she, Loveless and their 8-year-old son lived in on the outskirts Dubois. Loveless was nowhere to be found and became the prime suspect. The problem was, he and his wife were using aliases at the time. The couple, both suspected bootleggers, were known in town as Charles and Ada Smith.

This led to confusion among researchers about who killed Agnes and where Loveless was. They eventually came to the conclusion that Charles and Ada Smith were, in fact, Joseph and Agnes Loveless.

On May 12, 1916, the Pocatello Chronicle published an article titled “Under Arrest on Murder Charge.” Law enforcement had arrested a man they believed to be Walter Currans (Joseph Loveless) for Ada Smith’s (Agnes Loveless) murder.

“Sheriff John Spencer of Fremont County in Spencer, Ida., charged (him) with beating out his wife’s brains. Her death resulted after 50 hours of intense agony. It is charged that the ax was wielded by her common-law husband in Dubois at an early hour Saturday morning after she had returned home from a dance in that city,” the article read.

According to the news article, their 8-year-old son found her and she had been beaten to death with an ax.

At Agnes’s funeral, one of their children was quoted as saying, “Papa never stayed in jail very long and he’ll soon be out.”

On May 23, 1916, Loveless escaped from jail again by cutting the bars using a saw he had hidden in his shoes.

After that, Loveless wasn’t seen again until his headless, dismembered corpse was discovered in 1979. It’s not clear who murdered Loveless, or how he was killed. There is a near certainty though that the murderer is also dead.

Despite that, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office plans to continue the investigation and hopefully discover who killed Loveless.

“This is one of the most exciting cases we have worked,” forensic genealogist Lee Redgrave, Anthony Redgrave’s wife said.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2020/01/01/identity-of-man-found-in-cave-40-years-ago-revealed-along-with-his-colorful-criminal-past/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/01/01/identity-of-man-found-in-idaho-cave-40-years-ago-revealed-along-with-his-colorful-criminal-past/

[jrsechelon]

Draft Grades

Training camp is a time of great stress for many players. Some are battling for a spot in the starting lineup. Others are trying desperately to hang on to their slot on the 53-man roster. However, for a fortunate few, training camp is a mere formality. Their only concern at this time of year is getting ready to do what they do best. Dominate in the games that count. One is the most successful quarterback in Football history. Another is a wide receiver who is as consistent as he is productive. Another still is a defensive end who has accomplished a feat equaled only by the great Lawrence Taylor. They are the very best at what they do in the Elite Fantasy League. The most dominant players in the league at each position. And soon enough, it will be time for them to shine again.

The pressures of training camp have already been felt by certain player; from Kenneth Dixon to Ryan Tannehill, to players like Will Fuller. Injuries happen every step of the way, trial and error with adversity are what separates the players from the contenders. Players have a lot to prove this coming season, some enter into their last year on their contract, while others find themselves in new scenery. - Then there are a few who have resigned with former teams in hopes of reinstalling the glory they experienced in that respected city. As the 2017 season comes flying in like a Boeing 747 big changes have happened in the Pacific division. Black Hole Son owner Josh Green has filed for bankruptcy, due to ten seasons in a row of not making the playoffs, terrible ticket sales, as well as never having more than two .500 seasons. Black Hole Son has yet to bring a winning season to their fans and the city of Oakland, and now with bankruptcy in the works, a move to the Sin City may be in the works. With this abrupt move from Mr. Green, former owner Joshua Cumpton applied for reinstatement for his team to re-enter the Elite Fantasy League. American Hoyer Story enters the Pacific division where they will play rather locally to where they reside in Santa Clara, California. Thunderbuddy4Life (South San Francisco in San Mateo County) and Hyrule Empire (Alameda, California) who both reside near and around the San Francisco Bay area. The only travel outside the state of California they'll endure regarding their division will be against the Rainelo Hawks (Seattle, Washington) when they've got to travel up to the Pacific northwest.

Interesting to see how each division will play out. HellbentKronik who finished 3rd place in the Atlantic ended up winning Super Bowl X. - We never know how the dice are going to roll for each team. But one man seems to believe he knows. Each year around this time we go through Mr. Sanders draft grades and each year we have certain reserves about some of his pick. He's graded Evolution low grades every year and no playoffs, yet Evolution has consistently made the playoffs every year since the 2008 season. Last year he said HellbentKronik would finish last and they ended up winning the Super Bowl. While he's had things wrong, he has also had things right before. It's always fun to see his thoughts on each team and then see the rumbles of players, owners, and coaches trying to ignore this dirt sheet writer. Mr. Sanders has been hard at work looking through the sixteen team, ranking them to come up with his overall beliefs on who will hoist that trophy by seasons end. So without further ado let's jump into Mr. Sanders thoughts on who he believes are the contenders and the pretenders.

PACIFIC DIVISION:

Hyrule Empire: Pretty solid team, any team with Drew Brees under center will put up big points. Brees to Crabtree will be a connection we'll get used to quickly. Hyrule Empire was on a rise late last season and used their knowledge from the past two years of failure to draft a decent team this season. I like the two Tight End system their running with Eifert and Fleener, and Running Backs (Hyde & McCoy) are in a system where they will both get an equal amount of touches rotating in almost a single back system. Both will be able to succeed tremendously. I absolutely love their depth. Watch out for the sleeper on the team JT Justin Tucker, who will win a lot of games for this rising team.

(B) - Contender: I see this team doing well and getting into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

American Hoyer Story: Hits and misses on this team. Really love Tyreek Hill who will have a BIG year. Spencer Ware will be the feature back with Jay Ajayi struggling with head injuries. Ajayi if healthy will have a great year again, but it remains to be seen how these concussions will affect the J-Train. I don't like either Quarterback option. Eli Manning might look attractive on paper but he's been hitting the low point of his career. Andy Dalton is only as good as his offensive line lets him be and American Hoyer Story doesn't have a very strong one. Julio Jones and DeShaun Jackson always studs but weak Quarterbacks under Dalton and Manning; it will be hard for them to get the ball. OJ Howard off the bench is my hidden gem but never know with rookies this division is tough.

(B-) - Has Chance Of Being A Contender: Possible Wildcard.

Thunderbuddy4Life: Great Wide Receivers, possibly the best in the league. Hopkins is a stud, Jeffery will be a huge target easily emerging as a top 5 Wide Receiver come seasons end. Jordy Nelson is always a point machine. Jimmy Graham should have his best year since leaving Brees and DeMarco Murray will continue to play inspiring football. Super solid bench but no back up to Rivers whom I don't see doing well this year with limited new scenery and coaching staff being run first in the tough division.

(C ) - Pretender: See Them Just Missing Playoffs Due To Lackluster RBs & Weak Playbook.

Rainelo Hawks: Maybe the oldest team in the league. I don't think there is a player under 33 on their roster. Tom Brady is Brady, the G.O.A.T and it'll all fall on him to lead this lead to glory again. It looks like all Running Backs: Ingram, Rawls, and Stewart are declining and on pace for a setback season. Fitzgerald in last year, he will play inspiring football to try to get a ring. Marvin Jones may be the bright spot in the Wide Receiver department. Their depth is dreadful and so-so kicking game.

(D+) - Pretender: Bottom Four.

CENTRAL DIVISION:

BroncosTillDeath: Injuries are a big concern for this team. The starting line up is scary if healthy Big Ben is older been hurt, considered retirement in the offseason, his head may not be in the game. #BeastMode Marshawn Lynch had a year off so it's uncertain how he will perform. Can he spark the play he had prior to one-year retirement? Jamaal Charles has had two knee surgeries and under a new system, it'll be difficult for him to ever get back to form. Brandon Marshall #2 target might be a gem. Bryant still waiting to be reinstated, Travis Kelce and Fiedorowicz came up big last year. Great defense. Stay healthy this year and will be a force to be reckoned with.

(B) - Contender: Playoff Team, Out 1st Round.

Straight Edge Society: LOVE the running game! David Johnson, Jacquizz Rodgers are men among boys and will have dominate seasons. Decent Wide Receivers; Corey Coleman will surprise a lot of people. Straight Edge Society went with not many household names but solid all around players. A top team projected, and their draft shows the owner knows what he's doing. Great defense that's healthy and ready to go, a solid special teamer in Lockett and top 5 Quarterback. I think Kirk Cousins might bring this team back to glory.

(A-) - Contender: You Like That?

The Busy Killers: Let me be honest here. I don't like this team at all, Dak Prescott will suffer through a Sophomore slump and every team got better within the Central Division. All of this teams Running Backs are stuck sharing time and won't get even 1000 yards on the season. Mike Evans will be out shined by Pryor. TY Hilton is an awful signing, he can't catch deep balls anymore and will have a very frustrating season. The bench is full of 2nd and 3rd string guys.

(D) - Bottom Four, Going Nowhere.

MegaWatt Warriors: This team has me scratching my head, it's a great player then who the fook is that guy? Picks Carr great pick, good pick with Gurley and Maclin is going to be having a good year. Two good Tight Ends in Ertz and Gronk but then you have Blount and Switzer who haven't proven much throughout their careers. I do like depth though. I see some trades coming with Bortles and Murray on bench and two solid Kickers. But easier division team than others within Central. May slide in big losses in Week 9 and 10. Still, has a chance to rebound from a dreadful 2016 season.

(C+) - Contender: Wildcard Team.

GREAT LAKES DIVISION:

Vanilla Gorilla 🦍: I see this team back up top again real soon best Quarterback they have had since Rivers 6 years ago. Mariota is point getter and even though he is coming off that broken leg, he'll be having a rebound with his best season yet. Adrian Peterson in a new setting is hard to key him when you have so many guys in the running game in a new system. Eddie Lacy is risky, will he have flashes of two seasons ago or look like #FeastMode. Doctson and Abdullah both only played 4 games last year due to injury so hard to determine what they will do. But the risk is worth the reward is everything pans out. Over all may not be top 4 but will be challenging for it.

(B+) - Contender: Stay Healthy And Will Contend In Postseason

PURPLEHAZE: I like this team, but a huge hole at Wide Receiver no one has proven or shown anything so who will emerge as the number one Wide Receiver? Two great Quarterbacks though, PURLEHAZE should consider trading a Quarterback for solid Wide Receiver. Bell and Fournette backfield is scary good but too many holes in the team to win. They're in a tough division.

(C ) - Pretender: Middle Road Team

Bud Bums: I would be lying if I said the team didn't look good but only down side is there isn't enough separation between players. They are all simultaneously bunched up to create enough points. Derrick Henry might have a good season but back up Duke Johnson is good and might take starting running job. Aaron Rodgers always puts up huge numbers and because of that, I have to put the team in playoffs but a very hard team to call.

(B-) - Contender: But Might Just Fall Short.

LilShupeScoresBIGPoints: Russell Wilson always plays tough but his cast is falling apart around him but they have the aging Palmer backing him up, who is like a fine wine; better with age. Lamar Miller is a good pick solid point getter and Freeman shares ball too much but will have another great year stat wise. The rest of team is mediocre at best. It's up to the defense to put this team over the top, but I don't see a big threat on team bottom.

(C-) - One Of The Worst This Season. 4-10 At Best.

ATLANTIC DIVISION:

Evolution: That damn good? They are not that damn good this year. One player is only projected more than single digit points a game - not very good. Although I think Melvin Gordon will do fine and Winston will continue to thrive and only get better. Martellus Bennett was a steal and will be a great Tight End for Evolution. Bennter should have a big year. But the rest of the team are flash on pan players. Parker has been disappointment all of his career and no defense because everyone left during free agency.

(C-) No Playoffs. Time To Start Rebuilding.

The Canadian Cripplers: Maybe my favorite team. Cam is going to have a huge year, big rebound year and back with his old owner Mike Shupe. Teamed up with new dynamic Running Back Christian McCaffrey and speedy Darren Sproles scary running game, maybe the most underrated in the league. Sammy Watkins is always scary to defend against. Tavon Austin can get points so many ways, and Olsen as the keeper was weird but the owner is a weird guy - but with Cam, at the helm, Olsen will thrive. I like Cruz but hate Gates because he is too old. Austin Hooper as back up Tight Edge will be nice. Great defense, one of the best at stoping the run. Easily a top four team and a true contender.

(A) - Contender: Super Bowl XI Winner.

HellbentKronik: I also like this team but Tevin Coleman shares to many touches but rest of team is solid. Carson Wentz added so many weapons and now he is back again with the team he won the Super Bowl with last year. This will help keep similarity and routine for him in his second year. Only weak area is running game but they won't have to run much. Brandin Cooks, Cooper, and Snead are all studs. This owner knows his football. The bench and depth of this team are so so tough, the division is going to come down to the wire. I see HellbentKronik pushing for a repeat.

(A-) - Contender: Super Bowl XI Runner-up.

Yuba City Sultans: This is a nasty team too. This division is the Wild Wild West. A bunch of trouble makers and tough players surround this locker room. I love Mixon and Elliot as their Running Backs. Both equally skilled and equally tough. Tyrod Taylor sucks as Quarterback so they need to find a new signal caller. Beckham and Sanders stud Wide Receivers but again need to find a better field general. Not as good of a team as last year but will give the league a tough time. The owner knows his football.

(B+) - Contender: Get A True Quarterback And Can Be A Real Threat. Just Outside Top Four.

I believe BroncosTillDeath has a chance to win it all but with the question marks around them I feel The Canadian Cripplers and HellbentKronik will see each other three times this year, twice in the regular season Week 1 and 3 and then again in the biggest game of all Super Bowl XI. With these draft, grades come certain opinions to be formed and I always look forward to hearing what you the fans and smarks have to say about my yearly grades. I look forward to seeing how things play out and good luck to you and your favorite team.

So we have it right there ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Sanders believes Super Bowl XI will pin the defending Super Bowl Champion HellbentKronik against The Canadian Cripplers - with The Canadian Cripplers and Cam Newton finding themselves on top of the mountain come seasons end. It's going to be a wild ride and I look forward to seeing how things play out.

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