#no i don’t want to hear about your backyard breeding project

[lizrdsnot]

ok. im definitely not the sharpest tool in the shed but. i feel like i am SURROUNDEDDD by the dumbest motherfuckers alive. i do not know how to cope with this, it just makes me mad. how is everyone so stupid

[im-an-anthusiast]

I'll Let You Have a Bite

Maxwell couldn’t see the man up in the tree. He couldn’t see much of anything, not ever since he lost his eyes. Yet, the presence of Magic – which he could usually feel permeating and infusing every inch of the world around him – had a suspiciously human-silhouette-shaped hole torn into it. And Maxwell could tell what – or who that meant by now.

“Albion.”

“Maxy! Dear, what a surprise it is to see ya!” Albion drawled out, taking a loud bite out of something crunchy and juicy.

“You are in my backyard. Can’t be that much of a surprise. And do not call me that,” Maxwell replied, keeping his voice flat and trying not to let his annoyance seep into it.

Albion laughed softly, bringing the something to his lips again – which Maxwell couldn’t help but notice was gushing with Magic. Magic wholly distinct from that all around them, only similar to one thing Maxwell has ever felt before.

Albion exclaimed, “Smart boy. I knew you’d sense it right away.” He continued, asking sweetly, “Tell me, what d’ya feel when you look at it, dear?” In reply, Maxwell merely did his best to point his eyeless gaze at Albion, who - with a chuckle - added, “Oh, you know what I mean. Sorry Maxy.” Maxwell scowled in response – but focused on Albion’s snack. It seemed to be in the shape of an apple, and most of its Magic was gathered along its outer edges. The Magic itself felt oddly mixed. Maxwell was taught that everything in the world was either infused with Magic – no matter the intensity – or it wasn’t. Yet the apple felt like a coalescence of the two, both devoid of Magic yet brimming with it, projecting it outward. Much like Maxwell’s own flesh was.

Maxwell’s features tugged into a frown, and he flexed his jaw in thought. "I sense... something. Something I don't understand. However, I can hardly think it is very special, if you're here bothering me about it. And eating it with such an... appetite," he said matter-of-factly, though a slight sneer – further denoting his last point – did grace his face. Albion made a loud sound with his mouth in response, (poorly) imitating a buzzer. “Not quite, my dearest Max, ‘tis something very special – an Epli."

“And that is...?”

“An Iðun’s apple – they're quite legendary. I had expected Erin to have told you a hundred times over by now.”

“She’s hasn't had much of a taste for mythology these days. And we haven’t talked in a while anyway.”

“Ah, right. The drama. The point is, these are very sought-after. They’re said to have kept 'em Norse “Gods” youthful," Albion said before scoffing and taking yet another bite.

“And you’re explaining your beauty plan to me... why exactly?”

“Figured you’d want a bite.”

“May I?” Maxwell asked inquisitively, raising an eyebrow.

Albion burst out laughing. “That looks creepy as all fuck, honey...” he said, before sobering up and turning his voice serious, “Seriously, don’t do that. That shit is scary. You need eyes.”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

“So impatient.”

Annoyedly, Maxwell held out his hand and stared at where he hoped Albion’s eyes were. He was heavily considering wiggling his eyebrows again for good measure. Albion’s response was a hum, as if in mock thought – before he spoke up, “I’ll let you have a bite if you let me have one.”

Maxwell startled and retracted his hand, but Albion continued – the levity in his voice slowly dropping, “You can tell it’s just like you, can’t you? You’ve got enough Hexstarved blood to sense it. You play dumb, but you’re a smart, smart boy.”

“Once again, what is the point of this?”

Albion spoke again, and Maxwell could hear the smile return to his voice, “Epli are very expensive, Maxwell. They are made with the processed flesh and blood of your kind. You’re not careful enough, you know? Half-breeds like you are oh, so rare. And after what your father did to you,” Maxwell tensed, “you are especially unique. Which means that there are plenty of people who will want a taste. And we certainly don’t want that happening.”

Maxwell growled through gritted teeth, “People like you?” Albion retorted, “Exactly like me.” A hungry intensity oozing and dripping off his every word. Suddenly, the gap in Magic – indicating where Albion was – moved swiftly. Maxwell just barely didn’t flinch as the void appeared right in front of him – less empty than it felt before. He felt Albion’s hot, sweet breath on his face. His hand immediately darted to Albion’s grasp, snatching the Epli out of his hand. “It isn’t of much use to you, anyway. We both know old age is not what you have to fear.” Albion whispered, and any trace of him – of his absence of Magic – disappeared. Maxwell could feel his own Magic festering and buzzing at his fingertips painfully as it started flowing into that loathsome apple, which had been growing heavier in his hand ever since he grabbed it. A golden nugget, shaped much like the eaten-around core of an apple, dropped into the soft grass silently.

[woeisme-iamwoe]

an absolutely massive Haikyuu!! fic rec pt. 2

IwaOi this time around. My favorite ship. The world’s favorite ship...there’s so many

Undecipherable, by ioo (4k. G. canonverse)

 I’m pretty sure the author meant ‘indecipherable’, nevertheless! I am appalled that this work doesnt have more hits. Y'all are sleeping on it and that's not okay. 

The sound of the door slamming against the wall has Hajime startling back to the present. He looks at the source of the disturbance and finds himself face to face with Oikawa, red in the face with breathlessness and a leather-bound notebook tightly clutched in both of this hands. When he spots Hajime, he makes a beeline for the bench and slaps it down right next to him.

"Koi no yokan," he says. "The sense one can have upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall in love."

 primavera, by tothemoon (8k. T. canonverse)

All of tothemoon’s works read so beautifully 

They say it takes twenty-six years, for certain breeds to fully bloom. 

Learning to Walk (So That We Can Run), by ricekrispyjoints (27k. M. canon-divergence)

I've read this work so many times. Like, so many times and I’ve never tired from it. Gorgeous. The shift from friendship to romance felt so natural, love it. 

"I'm not healing like I should be."

In his second year of university, physical therapy just isn't cutting it. Oikawa's knee is getting worse, and he can't hide it anymore.

Or: the light angst, project-your-own-life-experiences-on-Oikawa knee surgery fic you didn't know you wanted.

 Priorities, by weirdmilk (2k. T. canonverse)

Kissy, kissy. 

‘I just -’ Oikawa begins, ‘it might be difficult to get married, sometimes, I think.’ He chews on his lip.

Iwaizumi makes a questioning noise.

‘Ah,’ Oikawa says, and then, in a rush, ‘if I didn't want a wife at all - what then? If I said that to you. If I told you I can’t see it. Like - the wedding dress. The bride. I just can’t see it.’

Iwaizumi swallows again, his heart beating much faster than the conversation warrants. He wonders whether Oikawa can hear it. ‘You’re eighteen. You aren’t supposed to see it yet.’ He snorts. ‘I mean - if we’re sharing shit, I’ve never even kissed a girl.’ He doesn’t mind admitting it. It’s not something that bothers him - he’s never prioritised girls very highly, and despite Oikawa’s largely undeserved status as Miyagi’s most eligible teenage bachelor, he doesn’t think Oikawa has ever wanted a serious relationship with any of his fan club, either.

Oikawa and Iwaizumi can't sleep before their first practice match with Karasuno.

 Before Midnight, by fathomfive (2k. G. canonverse)

Reads like a fairytale. 

The sky turns, the seasons turn over, and Iwaizumi and Oikawa track the movements of the stars. Nothing is ever quite constant, but it's close enough.

The grass is stiff with frost. They walk in silence past the raked-over vegetable garden and up the back hill, footsteps crackling, and stand side-by-side at the top of an incline that used to seem much bigger. Iwaizumi glances over but Oikawa’s already gone, eyes searching the sky with no hint of hurry, just a kind of reverent patience.

 make a bet, keep a promise, by raewrites (13k. M. canonverse)

Bet still on. 

Sometimes, in still moments, Iwaizumi wonders why out of all the people on earth he ended up with Oikawa Tooru. Why it’s his face that lingers on his fading conscious in the last moments before he falls asleep, in the first blurry seconds upon waking up again. Why when he looks to his side, he expects Oikawa to be there in the same way he expects to see five fingers on both hands, a natural extension of himself, ever present.

Why he can’t imagine a future without Oikawa in it.

It begins with a bet made between the two boys in the mid-summer of their eighth year. It starts with volleyball, but like with most things involving Oikawa Tooru and Iwaizumi Hajime, things are never quite that simple.

 our hearts still beat the same, by knightswatch  

 two birds, by thelittlebirdthattoldyou (5k. T. canonverse)

Of heartbreaking letters and paper crane wishes. 

Five months into the term, two months after he’s stopped replying to Oikawa’s texts, the first package arrives. A small square box, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and Hajime almost trips over it on the way to his dorm.

There’s a letter attached.

Oikawa doesn’t know how many times he’ll have to put his feelings down on paper before Iwaizumi believes them. 

Through My Eyes, by anchoringsouls (2k. G. canonverse)

Okay! Okay, we were doing great with the soft, happy love up until the last part! That's great, just great!

“I think if you ever saw yourself through my eyes, you would fall in love with yourself the same way the way I did with you.” 

in time it could be ours, by deusreks (3k. T. canonverse)

Anyone wanna go back in time and make a time capsule with me only to dig it up years later and we’re actually in love?

Set post Seijou's match with Karasuno. There's a moderate amount of rolling in the dirt. No pajamas were hurt in the writing of this fic.

There, in their joint backyard, was Oikawa Tooru, clad in his silly luminescent space pajamas, digging a hole near a cherry tree.

“What the hell, Oikawa.”

Tooru stubbornly continued digging. He looked pitiful in that moment; everything that was grand about him in daylight was meaningless in the darkness. He was only a boy with a shovel whose broken heart mirrored Hajime’s own.

 we can do better than that, by spaceburgers (16k. M. canonverse)

Of course, of course, the IwaOi road trip fic. AnD thErE wAs ONly OnE bED!

Oikawa and Iwaizumi go on a road trip during the summer after their high school graduation. It doesn't go as expected, but maybe that's not such a bad thing after all. 

They Say it Rains Diamonds on Jupiter, by exsao (35k. T. canonverse)

I don't know, just gorgeous. Hajime’s so in love. 

"You're in love with him."

Hajime considers denying it. He considers deliberately choking on his drink to express surprise, to create a distraction by spitting onto the man in front of him's pristine white shirt and causing a commotion. Instead, he swallows his mouthful of soda and heaves a small sigh once his mouth is free.

"Yeah," he says instead.

He's never been good at lying, anyway.

 Midnight boys/sunset town, by carafin (10k words. T. Housemates AU):

The author says they played off of the fact that Oikawa oftentimes forgoes his sleep in order to work, and wrote it so that he doesn't sleep at all. This was so cute, kinda sad, mostly not. Love how Iwaizumi just goes along with whatever crazy stilch Oikawa is on. 

In which Iwaizumi Hajime grows a few chili plants, participates in an eating contest, breaks into a park, and falls in love with a man who doesn't ever sleep - not exactly in that order.

5 Reasons Why Iwaizumi Hajime's Flatmate Is A Complete Weirdo (An Incomplete List)

1. He's obsessed with that stupid bucket list of his.

2. He's the proud owner of seven truly ugly, criminally hideous movie posters with aliens on them, which he insists on pasting all over the damn living room.

3. He's always stealing Hajime's sweatshirts.

4. Sometimes, he wakes Hajime up for breakfast. At 5AM. On Saturday mornings.

5. He literally never, ever sleeps.

 The Best I Ever Had, by FindingSchmomo (62k words. T. Canon-divergent):

You’ve read it, your mum’s read it, your dog has probably read it (you really need to take facial recognition for him off your phone, he’s got some weird nighttime habits). So basically this fic caused me physical pain and then pumped me full of morphine and now I’m good! Beautiful read, hated Oikawa for a while, Iwaizumi is the only boy I would ever feel safe alone with. 

A story of separation and time lost. Oikawa and Iwaizumi lose contact, and life goes on. Now, a decade later and back in Japan, Oikawa wonders if he can pick the pieces back together, despite knowing Iwaizumi has moved on. A story of their past, present and future, pieced together by shaky hands.

 darlin', your head's not on right, by aruariandance (13k words. T. canonverse)

Again, I’m pretty sure anybody who's anybody has read this fic and for good reason! Super sweet realizing you're in love fic. Makes me reconsider wanting to get married. 

'“Our wedding,” Oikawa says by way of explanation, tapping his finger against his magazine more emphatically. “What colors should we use? Color scheme is important, apparently.”

Iwaizumi feels his lifespan shortening.

“I was thinking our Aoba johsai colors to go for more, you know, softer tones? Besides, I’ve always looked great in that sea foam green color. Oh, and I guess you look decent in it, too.” He grins, saccharine sweet, and Iwaizumi has never been so tempted to knock one of his perfect pearly white teeth right out of his stupid mouth."

or,

Oikawa teases Iwaizumi about a childhood promise he made to marry him when they were older, except suddenly it's not really a joke at all.

 the courtship ritual of the hercules beetle, by kittebasu (66k. T. canon divergent)

Is this one of the most famous Iwaoi fic? I don’t know. Looks like it, I know it's my personal favorite. Where Oikawa studies bugs for a living and can’t seem to come to terms with his feelings. Very angsty, love that in a fic. 

Tooru is pretty sure he could manage the mating habits of a mosquito. It’s the mating habits of people he can’t seem to get right.

 Terrarium, by sausaged (11k. T. Post-canon)

Honestly, I’m so surprised this fic doesnt have more hits! It’s so good! Made me ache! I love the memories and character growth shown through the growing of the terrarium, absolutely adore that kind of symbolism. So beautiful, give it some love because it's one of my absolute favorites. 

He's practically a professional at being proactive (lies, lies, and lies when it comes to Iwaizumi).

At this point, is he really happy with just staying best friends forever? Will he be writing journals and collecting rocks forever (he will, he knows, but that is aside from the point)?

Can he really tag his Instagram photos with #YOLO if he doesn't actually put that phrase into practice?

 A story about Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime, plants, and rocks.

 Lips like sugar, by ohhotlamb (8k. T. canonverse)

Why did my childhood best friend never offer to help me practice kissing only for us to realize we were only interested in each other? I had a fake high school experience. 

Hajime is offered to learn the art of kissing from a true professional, one Oikawa Tooru. It's not as bad as he thought it would be.

 Falling Slowly, by bravely (commovente) (3k. T. canonverse)

So special, imagine loving one person, and one person only like this for the entirety of your life. This is getting too sappy, I want off of this ride. 

over the years, some things change; but over the years, some things stay mostly the same.

(alternatively, mornings with oikawa and iwaizumi over the years).

 No sleep in the city, by loveclouds (7k. T. canonverse)

Mass/volume = Iwaizumi, apparently. (Please. If anyone gets this absolutely horrific joke, lets elope).

Along their journey to find Tokyo's best ramen, Iwaizumi finds himself asked again and again why Oikawa is still single.

 Time, by surveycorpsjean (5k. E. canonverse)

Growing older together. 

When they're twenty-three, their story only begins.

 Everything With You, by Ellessey (14k. E. canonverse)

Came damn near to crying, you can just feel Iwaizumi’s pain. Fight scene was probably the most emotion evoking one I’ve read in a long while. 

‘Hajime still loves Oikawa, but he understands now. Oikawa can't look at him and see someone he could potentially date.

And that makes it easier to not focus on the little things that used to drive him crazy—Oikawa's long legs, the way he's always hanging off of Hajime, how his whole face changes when he gets ready for a jump serve, and he looks like he could take on the entire world and win.

This new arrangement though, this living together situation, is presenting a new set of variables that must be adjusted to, and the nakedness is one of them.’

--

For years, being Oikawa’s best friend has worked out fine. Hajime is hopelessly in love with him, but it’s enough. Then Oikawa—who, by all accounts, has never been anything but determinedly, assuredly straight—gets a boyfriend. Or a boy friend-with-benefits. Hajime doesn’t know, and he doesn’t give a shit about the definition.

What he knows is that remaining best friends is starting to seem a bit too painful (way too painful) to be considered a solid option.

 The Best Best, by rikke (12k. T. canonverse/future fic)

Takeru is a whole mood. Don’t want kids, but I do want domesticity and this fic feeds me well.

“Congratulations, Iwa-chan! You’re a dad!” Iwaizumi hears as soon as the door opens. He’s dealt with Oikawa for all of his twenty-one years of age now, but this declaration is still sufficiently disturbing enough that he turns from his place on the couch and braces himself for whatever Oikawa has done this time.

 Or the one where Iwaizumi and Oikawa babysit Takeru for a week.

 cheek kisses, by ohhotlamb (G. 3k. Future fic)

Sooo cute!! 

“Every time,” Hajime murmurs, “every time I see you again I remember how fuckin’ crazy I am about you.”

 Routine, by snoqualmie  (2k. T. canonverse)

Again, anyone wanna be my childhood best friend so we can put face masks on each other and fall in love? I died, truly. 

Iwaizumi is fourteen years old, horny too often and angry all the time, and he’s just starting to notice that Tooru’s legs are really long, that his lips are kinda soft looking, and his fingers feel good pressed under his jaw.

 Thirty Years and Change (the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, by sunsmasher (19k. G. canon divergence)

Be wary, I would give this fic an upper rating to probably Teen and the follow-up fic is Explicit. But, Oikawa on the Japanese national team is just a dream as is, but add in a rekindling friendship and an angsty make out sesh? Mwah, delizioso. 

It’s July 10th, 2024, and Oikawa Tooru is an Olympian. His smiling face airs on an NHK promo every 45 seconds. He’s captain of the national men’s volleyball team, reigning star of the professional leagues, and he hasn't spoken to Iwaizumi Hajime in two years.

He has, however, sent Iwaizumi tickets for the 2024 Los Angeles Summer Games.

“So go,” says Matsukawa's voice. “It’s only a few weeks. You’ve got a whole city to hide in if it gets awkward, and if it doesn’t get awkward, well…”

It’s like watching the future reconfigure, like being in high school again, watching team after team fall to Oikawa’s faultless planning and shameless charm.

“I’ll get to watch a whole lot of volleyball,” Hajime says, and resigns himself to fate and/or Oikawa Tooru.

“Hey, when you get there, can you bag a gymnast for me?” Hanamaki asks, and Matsukawa squawks.

 Chasing Paper Suns, by carafin (10k. T. Future fic)

Again with the growing up and coming back together, this time with more angst than the last. Lovely, really lovely read. 

Post-high school, Oikawa makes it to the national volleyball team but Iwaizumi doesn't. The next three years become an exercise in growing up without growing apart.

Some days Hajime likes to think of himself as Oikawa’s counterpart—the two of them blending into a single devastating unit, the invincible setter and his unyielding ace, the bond between them unbreakable and true. Other days he feels like he is chasing after a rising sun, always running and running with his eyes fixed on the distance, trying to cross a chasm that stretches on without end, caught in an endless and exhausting pursuit.

 the yellow room, by ohhotlamb (14k. T. canonverse/future fic)

Makki and Mattsun see bullshit and call you out on your bullshit. 

“I told you, we broke up like six months ago. We’re not dating anymore.”

Hanamaki eyes him suspiciously. “You live together.”

“Yeah, so?”

“There are pictures of you two kissing stuck to your refrigerator.”

Hajime shrugs. “That wasn’t my idea. Anyways, they’re good pictures. Good lighting.”

 the river runs, by tothemoon (11k. T. post-breakup)

My heart ACHES. Happy ending, promise! Just read it. 

One year since their breakup, Oikawa Tooru starts a list of daily reminders, tips, and tricks called HOW TO FORGET ABOUT IWAIZUMI HAJIME, and he’s determined to make it stick.

—

This is a firsthand account of how to deal (and rather spectacularly, at that).

 I sure hope that guy gets fired, by Xov (29k. T. canonverse/time loop au)

The only thing better than one confession, is MULTIPLE confessions. Oikawa trusts Iwaizumi unshakably, and that's beautiful. 

It was the fourth time experiencing the exact same day that Iwaizumi Hajime reluctantly admitted to himself that something was very wrong. 

 my only friend was the man in the moon (until i met you), by ohhotlamb (7k. T. canonverse)

Just so innocent and sweet. Oikawa said ‘effort’.

In which Oikawa has a life-altering revelation, and Hajime is starting to think it involves him.  

 Bet On It, by originalblue (13k. E. canonverse)

Tooru being nice for a week? That can only end one way… with a d*ck in Hajime’s mouth. 

Hajime knows exactly how shitty Oikawa's personality is, and has no scruples whatsover about betting Oikawa six thousand yen that he can't be nice for an entire week. 

 especially for tender ones like us, by viverella (17k. T. canonverse/post break-up)

Gods! See? See what I mean? How could I forget about a work as heart wrenchingly beautiful as this? Give it some love, actually, all of the love. 

The worst part of it all, Tooru thinks to himself sometimes, is that even as they fought and kicked and screamed and tore each other to shreds, it was never that Tooru stopped loving Iwaizumi any less. The worst part of it all, he thinks, is that loving Iwaizumi turned out to not be enough.

(OR: on finding the right person at the wrong time and learning how to pick up the pieces)

 sunset town, by skiecas (33k. T. canon-divergent)

Another work that I just CANNOT understand why it doesn't have more hits. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I almost cried. 

In the summer of 2020, Oikawa Tooru returns home from his first successful stint as captain of Japan’s national volleyball team. In one hand, he holds the undisputed weight of an Olympic medal, and in the other, his unresolved feelings for a childhood best friend.

Two years down the road, reconciling his lifelong dream with his lifelong love proves to be the greatest challenge.

 of odd numbers and intimate regrets, by bravely (commovente) (5k. T. post-canon/one night stand au)

Basically, Tooru and Hajime sleep together after not speaking for seven years and of course there’s feelings and angst and a belated chance at happiness and a life together. 

Tooru’s spent the last seven years of his life in a carefully constructed schedule that is, he realises now, as much a habit as it was a way to forget about the person in front of him.

[or, the one night stand AU between two people more than friends but not quite lovers, measuring the passage of time in distance and long-gone memories, the expansion and contraction of the spaces between their fingers each time.]

 cross my heart, open wide, by acchikocchi (7k. T. canonverse)

Super cute, super short. Realizing you're on a date with the wrong person one-shot. 

For a minute Hajime doesn't know what to say. Everything and nothing crowds his mind, leaving no room to think. That he's never tried this. That volleyball's over. That he's graduating in five months. That it would be really nice, at least once, to go on a date with a good-looking guy.

 Hajime goes on a date. It's not with Oikawa. 

 Fernweh, by oikawashoyo (19k. G. canonverse/post time skip)

A mature(ish) Tooru?? I love works that show Tooru growing and living happily in Argentina and this one is just beautiful. (Plus! Plus, Skai did a piece on it as well and I love ALL their work so you can visualize everything). Love it. 

Argentina is stretching out before him, an opportunity, a challenge. He is reminded of his losses, his insecurities, his disappointments; sees them form a tall, tall wall blocking his path to success. He takes a deep breath and knows he is going to shatter it.

In which Oikawa's whole life is spent longing for the horizon — in the form of a dream, a home, and a boy.

 i breathe easily in your arms, by orphan_account (2k. M. canonverse)

Soft, soft sex

When, after completing their high school graduation ceremony and heading home to enjoy their freedom, Oikawa had pulled him into his room and pressed his lips hesitantly against Iwaizumi’s own, it seemed an inevitable development in the unfolding narrative of their shared existence.

Despite years of having a bed to himself, the sensation of another body taking up space in his sheets, curling against his chest, creating warmth, feels natural in much the same way.

 old and new, by Mysecretfanmoments (5k. T. canon divergence)

Finally a fic where they don't freak out on confession and it's sweet. 

“You seem—sad.” Was that the right word? Others sprang to mind: desperate, lonely, anxious.

Tooru looked away. “Are you going to make me say it?”

“Say what?”

Tooru folded his arms, sighed. “I missed you, of course.”

Hajime swallowed.

“No need to look that way. I told you, I’m not one of your macho man buddies. I’m allowed to say stuff like that without being embarrassed—”

“You’re being ridiculous,” Hajime complained. “No need to be so defensive. I’ve missed you too.”

“Oh?” Tooru seemed to get a little of his own back, leaning forward on his elbows. “What about me did you miss?”

((Going to separate universities, Hajime and Tooru learn the true meaning of "distance makes the heart grow fonder"))

 all i wanted was you, by spaceburgers (6k. E. college/fwb au)

This was more emotional than I thought a 6k friends with benefits fic could be, okay? Okay. 

Wherein Hajime and Tooru are fuck buddies, Hajime curses his treacherous heart, and Tooru is bad with feelings. 

 we shine like diamonds, by whitemiists (26k. T. canon divergence)

I couldn't not include this work. It deals with internalized homophobia so well and I really resonate with it. 

In all seriousness, I’m very lucky to live in a country where my sexuality is widely accepted and my heart goes out the LGBTQIA+ peoples who are forced to hide themselves. You are loved and your sexuality and gender-identity are not wrong and never will be.  

Oikawa is nine when he first hears the word. The boys on the playground whisper it like it's dirty, like the way they daringly mutter the word fuck and then look over their shoulders to check their parents hadn't heard.

"You know Abe-kun from class?" they snicker, hands cupped around their mouths like they're passing along a filthy secret. "I hear his older brother is... gay."

 Look For Him, by Leryline (18k. E. canonverse)

A collection of kisses. I love Hajime’s grandmother. 

She laughs gently. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so heartbroken before, Hajime.”

Iwaizumi sighs and prods at the mackerel with a chopstick. “Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s just different, you know? Like Oikawa pissed me off so much that now he’s not here I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“But you weren’t always annoyed with him, were you?” his grandmother smiles serenely and takes a sip of her tea. “My, my, Hajime, old women see everything. I saw you out there with my finches, when you were kissing Tooru’s nose. Your mother and father used to do the very same thing, you know, when they were younger. And look how long they’ve lasted. I hope you and Tooru last, Hajime. He’s very good for you.”

-

Oikawa has kissed Iwaizumi more times than either of them can count; it’s a constant thing, their lips never really leaving the other’s skin. There are, however, times when they’ve kissed that are burned into their memories. Eight of them, to be precise.

 film reel life, arsenicjay (8k. T. canon divergence)

Such a unique and creative idea! Reading from the eyes of a camera, so beautiful!

The only person Iwaizumi is lying to is himself, when he insists: I am not in love with Oikawa Tooru. 

 how to let your planets align, by tether (tothemoon) (15k. T. end of the world au)

This is the only remotely non-happy ending fic I will be including on here, and it's purely because it's a gorgeous read. And yes, I ached. Your lips, my lips, apocalypse. 

It is the last day on earth, December 2nd, 1985, when you realize you're in love with him.

[bunnyswriting]

A Sweet Tradition

Pairing: Milo x Reader

Content: just some pure fluff

Notes: So I did that Applin sidequest in order to evolve my Applin into an Appletun and now I’m using that little tradition to make a drabble for Milo lol. Hopefully y’all enjoy it

Masterlist

Though the field of botany didn’t seem too interesting to those not invested, it did grant you the privilege of being able to work and live in places you would’ve never dreamed of.

You’d spent the last six months in the region Kalos studying a species of pokemon called Flabébé and it’s two evolutions. They had been fascinating to you as you’d never seen a grass based pokemon before that could be found in various colors, but Flabébé had five different variants!

The countryside of Kalos had become your home as you did your work, waking up everyday to the sight of sprawling grass fields. The house you lived in became a small zoo of Flabébé, Floette, and Florges which you’d been caring for and breeding. 

Six months was more than enough to finish your studies on the specific evolutionary line, but honestly you just enjoyed the peaceful living your work came from.

Now you were moving onto the next region, though. Before you left you gave away all the pokemon you’d raised, giving them to aspiring trainers. All except one, a Florges you’d named Rosemary who was the first Flabébé you’d found and raised when you arrived.

Though you knew you’d miss your temporary home in Kalos, you expected Galar to be just as inviting. You’d be living in what looked like the countryside again since you were renting a small cottage in the town of Turffield. 

All the pictures you’d seen of Turffield reassured you that the place was absolutely gorgeous; vibrant green hills and fields of wheat, it seemed like the perfect place to raise a troupe of grass types.

It also, coincidentally, happened to be the home of Galar’s grass type gym.

You mused over meeting the gym leader during your overseas flight. You hadn’t looked into them yet, you didn’t even know their name, but you were sure that if there was anyone who you anything about the local pokemon it would be them.

After landing in Wyndon and getting a rather exciting ride in a flying taxi (“How innovative! This Corviknight is gorgeous, why there was nothing like this in Kalos.”), you’d arrived in Turffield.

The roads were and pathways were all dirt, adding to the countryside feel, and when you took in a deep breath the fresh air was more than enough to get you settled into what would be your new home.

You take a brief moment to check your phone to find the address of the cottage, mentally noting that it’s in the west side of the town.

You grab your rolling luggage and sling your book bag over your shoulder, smiling when you feel the excited jiggle of the pokeball on your belt. “Don’t worry Rosemary, I’ll let you out as soon as I find the new house, then we can explore the town together,” you let her know with a smile, patting the pokeball gently.

Then you set off, walking down the road with a happy skip in your step. The atmosphere of the little town just radiates peace, with the distant sound of a flock of Wooloo playing in the fields, and just ahead you could see two Yampers playing tag with one another. It felt almost too perfect-

“Wooloo, no- watch out!”

The voice calling out makes you jump a bit, and you turn to find the source. But before you’re able to fully turn, a sudden voice hits your back and knocks you right over, and all you can see is white.

You momentarily struggle and try to sit up, and blink curiously when you end up face to face with a… Wooloo.

“Hey there, little fella,” you say with a laugh, getting a loud ‘baah’ in return.

“Are you alright? I’m so sorry, this little one has an awful lot of energy.”

It’s the same voice from earlier. You manage to get the Wooloo off of you and look up, your eyes meeting those of a stout looking man. 

“Oh it’s no problem, really, I’m not hurt or anything-” you try and assure him, but you’re cut off once more by the jiggling of Rosemary’s pokeball and a bright light.

Your Florges is out of her ball, flittering about nervously, clearly worried about you.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m fine,” you murmur gently, reaching out a hand to try and calm her. She lets out a little chitter, holding onto your hand looking up at the stranger warily. 

When you look back up at him, though, you can see that he’s fascinated by Rosemary.

“What species of pokemon is this? She’s gorgeous,” he says in awe, bending down a bit to get a better look at her.

It’s rather endearing that this stranger has such a genuine interest in your pokemon, it reminds you of your own fascination with plant and pokemon life. The curiosity in his green eyes was a bit childlike, and you immediately found him rather cute.

And it seemed that Rosemary had also taken a liking to him after hearing his compliments, since she moved to fluff her flowery mane and bat her eyes at him. Oh yea, she was loving the attention.

“Oh, this is Rosemary, she’s a Florges- they’re native to the Kalos region,” you explain, happy to discuss one of your favorite pokemon for as long as he wanted.

“Fascinating, are you from Kalos?” he asks, turning his attention back to you.

You shake your head, “Gosh, no. I wish, but no. I’m from Unova, actually, but I was in Kalos for six months studying it’s grass types, specifically Florges and it’s pre-evolutions.”

His eyes seem to light up at this.

“Grass types? What a coincidence, I’m the gym leader at Turffield stadium, and grass-types are actually my speciality. My name’s Milo, by the way” he says with a cheery smile.

A gym leader? Well now that you were getting a better look at him it made sense, he sported the Galar gym challenge’s uniform in a variety of greens with a grass type logo splayed over his chest.

“Oh that’s perfect! You were actually just the person I was looking for, I assumed that if you specialize in grass types you could probably tell me all about the ones native to Galar for my research,” you exclaim, finally getting up and off of the ground and dusting the dirt off of you, “I’m cataloging the unique grass types in every region, so you’d be a great help- if you want to help me, of course, I can’t force you to do anything.”

The look of excitement on his face is a bit infectious, and the smile he gives highlights the cute freckles on his nose on cheeks. “I’d absolutely love to help, I can give you your first introduction to one of our grass types right now,” he replies, grabbing one of the pokeballs from his waist and tossing it up.

There’s a flash of light and small of cry of joy as a pokemon you’d never seen before floats before you. It’s body and face are small and cute, but on the back of its head is a big, cottony ball of fluff with seeds scattered about, similar to a dandelion in bloom. Immediately you’re taken, finding this new pokemon adorable.

“Oh my, who is this sweet little thing?” you ask curiously as the little grass type floats up to look at you.

“This is an Eldegoss,” Milo quickly replies, clearly pleased by your interest, “They evolve from the Flowering pokemon Gossifleur. They’re a pure grass type, incredibly sweet, and just a joy to have on the team.”

You smile as you lift a hand and pet the Eldegoss gently, your hand practically sinking into it’s cotton fluff. “She’s lovely. I’d hate to be a bother, but I have two more requests. Can you show me more grass types, and can you take me to this address?” you ask with a shy smile, showing him your phone with the cottage’s location.

The sweet smile he gives you makes you melt a bit, and soon enough the two of you are walking side by side into Turffield, chatting back and forth and slowly getting to know one another better.

---

It’d been about a month now.

You and Milo had become fast friends, hitting things off quickly and bonding over your love of grass type pokemon.

He was indeed a great help to your botany work, more than happy to show and tell you all about the unique grass types of the Galar region, and even some from other regions that you hadn’t seen while in Kalos.

There was something else that had been blooming while you worked alongside Milo, and it wasn’t all the flowers that the gym leader tended to.

You found yourself nursing some feelings for the sweet gym leader, feeling which seemed to surpass your friendship. He was just so kind to you, he always seemed happy to talk and see you. He’d pay you visits at the little college and bring food, usually Galar specialties you’d never had before, and then he’d watch you work on your grass type catalog while asking all sorts of questions, just as passionate about the project s you were.

And it wasn’t even just his personality that endeared him to you, his looks were just as cute. You weren’t sure how he was so physically fit and built yet had a soft and adorable face at the same time, but the contrast seemed to work for him. His laugh was dorky and when you said goodbye he’d pull you into a strong hug which you never wanted to leave, and his eyes… oh, you thought you could stare into those green eyes for hours on end.

Currently you were sat in the backyard of the cottage; a sort of garden area with a picnic table, a small pond, and a couple of blooming flower beds. The sun was setting as you flipped through some notes, jotting down a few notes about Eldegoss’ moveset. There was a little chatter and a splash of water, and you look up to see the Grookey you were currently watching over dancing around in the pond. At the same time you had two Gossifleurs nestled into the flower beds, and Rosemary was out and about as well, eating a pecha berry in the corner of the garden.

“Care for some company?” a familiar voice asks.

A smile immediately makes its way to your lips and you glance over to see Milo standing behind the fence gate. “Sure, you know you’re always welcome,” you reply happily, setting down your pencil as he unlocks the gate.

He walks over and sits beside you at the picnic table, and you’re quick to notice that he seems a bit more reserved than normal, casting his gaze to the ground rather than looking at you directly like normal.

“What’s with the surprise visit, big guy?” you ask him, bringing up the tongue-and-cheek nickname you’d given him weeks ago.

“Well,” he begins, sitting up straight, “I’ve shown and taught you a lot about our Galar pokemon, but there’s one line of pokemon I haven’t introduced you to yet.”

This piques your interest. “Oh? What is it?” you ask eagerly, always excited to learn.

Milo seems to smile at your enthusiasm and pulls out a pokeball- a love ball, specifically. You watch curious as he clicks the button and there’s a flash of light, and next thing you know there’s an… apple? In your lap?

An apple pokemon.

Gently lift a hand and tap the top of the apple, and the two ‘leaves’ atop it open open and blink up at you, revealing that they’re the eyes of the little creature.

You giggle and hold the little pokemon in your hands before looking back up at Milo, “what species is this?”

You’re confused when you see the faint blush dusting his cheeks. “This is an Applin, there’s a sort of… tradition involving Applins in Galar,” he answers, a shy smile on his face.

“And are you going to tell me the tradition?” you ask with a cheeky grin, lifting the Applin and letting him hop around atop the picnic table.

He nods his head and clears his throat, looking out into the distance at the setting sun. “It is said… that... when you gift an Applin to the one you like most, that you will stay together no matter the distance,” he explains, the blush on his cheeks growing even darker as he speaks.

You’re almost starstruck as you gaze up at him, mouth agape. You would’ve never imagined he felt the same way for you, perhaps you were just oblivious but you assumed your feelings would just be unrequited for your entire stay.

He glances over at you and seems to misinterpret your expression since he starts nervously backtracking, “I-I understand that it probably want the best way to confess- it’s probably not what you’re used to and… Arceus, this was a bad idea, I just thought it might be nice since I don’t know how much longer you’d be in Galar for and it could just be a little token of affection, and-” he rambled, and though he was flustered you found it pretty adorable.

You decide to cut him off and grasp his hand gingerly, before leaning up and kissing him sweetly.

The kiss was brief but did it’s job by getting the message across: you liked him too.

When you pull back you see that his face is the reddest you’ve ever seen it, and he stammers trying to find the words.

“Hmm, you’re cute,” you murmur gently, and this sends him over the edge as he pulls his straw hat down to hide his flustered expression.

You giggle at this and try to lift the hat, but he keeps it firmly held down, “oh c’mon, Milo! You’re even cuter when you’re blushing like this,” you tease, finally managing to pull it up.

Now that his face is unobscured you’re able to look up at him, and his eyes soften as he gazes down at you. You feel one of his strong arms wrap around you and gently pull you closer. “So… what do you say?” he asks, sounding hopeful.

“I think… I’ll be staying in Galar for a very long time.”

[honeyrose-tea]

all the risky and really asks. -🌙

ok you asked for it, but be prepared, I'm hella boring lol

1. “@” people you want to be friends with

I know this is lame but I don't really have anyone? maybe on my old blog, but on this one I mostly just have old mutuals who I already consider myself friends with.

2. screenshot the tabs you have open

I won't do that to my camera roll bc there are at least 30 BUT I'll give you the highlights:

a hilarious music video by a boy from school, filmed in our dorm (and no, there's no context, he just made this for fun): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qaqk3PmQv20

this ring I want (which I can't afford lmao): https://www.dior.com/en_us/products/couture-JROC95024_0000-rose-dior-pre-catelan-ring-small-model-in-18k-pink-gold-and-amethyst

this wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%22niggardly%22

multiple articles about sharks (I'm obsessed with sharks)

a lot of me searching for memes or vines which I just forgot to close lol

recipes for berry crisp (Dan's fav dessert), watermelon sorbet (one of dad's fav desserts), and creme brulee (something I wanna make)

reddit nosleeep

me trying (and failing) to find a free pdf of the DSM (manual for diagnosing mental disorders)

me trying to identify a bird from my backyard

the coca cola freestyle machine locator (I'm addicted to creme soda with peach flavoring)

this article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theodysseyonline.com/10-chris-evans-movies-ranked-by-hotness.ampe

and finally, a tab of me searching for where to buy the unedited version of Anne Frank's diary (she was bi!!!)

3. the last text you sent to someone?

"lol" to my mom... srry I'm not more fun

4. do you have a nsfw blog?

I do not

5. i dare you to _____ 

can you give me a truth instead? lmao

6. screenshot the first page of your search history

I use an incognito browser...

7. tell an embarrassing memory or story

one time I walked into the mens room behind my dad bc I was so zoned out I forgot I couldn't follow him everywhere

8. how often do you take showers?

depends. if I've worked outside or something then I definitely take one right after. but on a daily basis? probably once a day or every other day, if I'm home. if I'm at school I try to take one at home on Sunday, one at school midweek (possibly two), and then one as soon as I get back on Friday. I hate showering at school bc we have community bathrooms and you have to wear flip flops. it's gross

9.  what was your first blog URL?

I honestly don't remember my first one but I know at one point toward the beginning I was called "frozenfloralpolaroids"

10. if you draw or write, show some of your really old work

I don't draw and I don't write recreationally, the only things I can think of are some pieces I wrote for school projects, which I probably don't have on hand. once again sorry I'm lame lol

1. if you had to hug anyone who would you hug

uhhhhh probably my sweet internet friend who we'll call M. he needs a hug and I feel like he would give good ones:)

2. whats your favorite flavor of ice cream?

depends on the mood! if I'm feeling fruity I'll go for like a cherry cordial or a strawberry milkshake or maybe even a fruit sorbet! but if it's like a rich desserty mood I like anything with peanut butter or caramel or chocolate (or all three!). tldr; if you give me ice cream I will eat it

3. whats your favorite color?

idk? being LGBTQ+ I feel like I have some license to just say "the rainbow" but. for the sake of answering, I guess purple. I like purple a lot.

4. if you have pets, what are their names?

my dog that passed a year or so ago was named Haley, after Haley's comet. we called her a beagle/hound mix but she was really just a mutt. I loved her a lot:(

my other dog (still living) is my best friend. her name is Izzy and she's a golden retriever, though I'm convinced she's actually an angel

I have 18 chickens! here are the five who are still remaining from our first flock:

Annalise/Anna, a buff orpington (golden colored) who's big and floofy. she's Loud and likes to let us know she's laid an egg by singing an "egg song", which basically means clucking loud enough that we can hear her inside our house

Rosie/Rosalinda/Rosa, a rhode island red (a dark auburn color) who is debatably the alpha. she's a people-lover, and the best one to let kids hold as she's very calm. she'll fall asleep in my arms. but don't let that trick you, she's still bossy with the other chickens and aggressive when it comes to food (but aren't we all?)

Marsha, a black chicken (can't think of the breed rn) who is hearty and medium-sized. she's calm and demure and she has pretty brown eyes:)

Elsie and Stella, easter egg chickens (smaller breed that lays pastel green eggs) who are named after my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. their names fit the way their namesakes were- Elsie is a lighter brown color and quite shy and sweet, Stella is skinny and darker and mean. not mean, really, but she has taken to bullying our new chickens which we've been trying to get her to stop doing

now for the new babies! (who are almost adults now!)

Rory and Lorelai, barred rocks (black and white striped) who are named after the Gilmore Girls characters

Violet and Iris, lavender orpingtons (gray with a hint of purple) who are both very sweet and named after their color, of course

Molly and Edith, two more easter egg chickens who are named after two more of my ancestors!

Clarice and Clover, buff orpingtons (like Anna) who are both super shy and precious (unlike Anna)

Ora and Georgetta. Ora is a golden-laced wyandotte while Georgetta is silver-laced (basically, they're dark-colored except for the ends of their feathers, which have a colored detailing. also come in blue and red varieties). they're named after two of the old ladies at our former church

Josephine/Josie and Penelope/Penny, new hampshire reds (a little lighter than Rosie but same idea) who are both so cute. they have a bit of black in their tail feathers and are just so so pretty:)))

finally, our special girl Buttercup! Buttercup was an extra because we ordered our babies as hatchlings from an online store, and they said we could have an extra for free! Buttercup is pure white and she is such a chracter. she likes roosting up really high and has fun doing things she knows she's Not Supposed To Do. she's funny and I love her

5. do you like a warm bed or a cold bed?

cold! I lovvvve sleeping in the cold. I like having the room super cold and then cuddling up under my blankets bc........... I'm baby

6. whats a really good memory you have?

strangely, the first thing that popped into my head was sitting on a rooftop with T on a really nice night. I'm not sure why, as I don't think about him that often, but I guess that goes to show that you can still love the memories even if you don't love the person anymore

7. favorite song you cant stop listening to?

Sweet Life by Frank Ocean, and the entire EP "This Thing Called Living" by Eloise

8. do you drink water with or without ice in it?

with ice, unless it's a bottle from the fridge. I love cold water though, and will very rarely drink room temp

9. do you like to use correct grammar when you type or just type all lowercase?

both? I don't capitalize the beginnings of sentences, but I do capitalize proper nouns and use correct punctuation and all that. I just feel like it looks too stuffy when there's all those capital letters

10. whats something thats made you laugh recently?

I was at a restaurant tonight where the servers sing throughout the night (they're all trying to make it on Broadway) and one guy sang a love song directly to this girl and threw confetti on her, which was funny. other than that probably just like. memes

[roaringdandelions]

When I hear “My First Pet”...

Okay. I’m a grown woman and don’t need to throw my hat in the ring on this one. Everybody has an opinion on this stuff pack, and wherever you fall on this, you can’t deny that it’s got a lot of people talking about it. So, let’s (nicely) talk about it.

(This is gonna be long, y’all, so hold on tight)

Having played the Sims series since Sims 2 and falling in love with every single expansion that came to that game, then Sims 3 has its additions that I seriously enjoyed (i. Want. HORSES.), we now seen that Sims 4 is something... different than we’ve seen in the past. Some call it revolutionary, some call it a constant money-grab (I highly recommend you watch Lazy Game Reviews on YouTube if you can have a sense of humor about someone reviewing a pack that you might personally like; he’s genuinely hilarious). No matter where you stand, somebody’s happy or upset about something.

Somebody left a comment on Deligracy’s trailer reaction video on YouTube that this is “the Katy Perry’s Sweet Treats stuff pack of 2018”. And, from what I’ve seen so far, I’m not going to disagree.

However, given the hostility that this pack has received, inevitably EA’s response will be something similar to the skin tone issues we experienced not too long ago: “we needed more references, please give us ideas”, et cetera.

So, okay, EA. Your customers hear you. Your Research & Development Teams are on hiatus and can’t help you get the information you need? Your market research told you that *everybody* across your international market has a hamster as their first pet?

We got you, sweetie. Have a seat at the table, and listen to your customers create their dream stuff pack.

REBLOG WITH YOUR IDEAS IN ADDITION TO MY LIST. Let’s help EA with their apparent R&D issues going forward. Read below for my list, then add the hashtag #TS4 My Real First Pet to show them how it’s done. Because let’s be honest: to the apologists who say “oh, it’s just a stuff pack, they only have so much room”, I say: that’s fair. And 75% of this pack has nothing to do with the concept of “my First Pet”. It has everything to do with what should have been an update to Cats & Dogs. So, there would be room for more actual items to fit the theme if you separate out the items that do not.

Remember when toddlers just showed up one day, fully playable and outfitted with CAS items, Build & Buy items, and fully integrated into the game *on a free and unannounced update*? There’s room to make it work, people. Let’s show them how.

When I hear “My First Pet”, here’s what I think of...

-Hamsters & Gerbils, and all of their cage accessories; running on the wheel, hiding in their little igloo houses, leaving bite marks on small children... y’know, what was in the game trailer today. Also, breeding because holy Jesus those little fur balls could not keep away from each other!

Here’s everything else I think of:

-Bunnies. Adorable, fluffy, hoppy bunnies that also live in cages and hide in little igloos! The produce mechanism in-game is perfect for them - you can grow carrots or other veggies and feed them with that (great for starter families), or buy them at produce stands like in San Myshuno if you own City Living. Introduce new harvestables like hay for their snacks, give them the ability to hop around the house free-range, or go on walks like cats & dogs can (which *does* happen!).

-Parakeets. A small bird option, as opposed to a large bird like a macaw or a parrot, and very easy to maintain for children. Their language skills could be a skill building tool for children, their small size makes them perfect walking-about buddies (a la dragons in Sims 3: Dragon Valley). Their cage size could be 1x2 squares, miniaturized from the Sims 3 model for large birds in fun and neutral colors. Again, certain harvestables could be chosen to feed them, and the toys would be *so* cute. The wind chime accessory in Backyard Stuff Pack could be altered to create a ringing noise toy for them. Also, decorating the cages could be a Build&Buy within the game itself - holy Meta, Batman! Slot those suckers and give the birdies something fun!

-Frogs & Snakes. While we already catch frogs in TS4, it’s important to note that they aren’t functional at this time. Well, cut the strings and let Pinocchio dance! Their terrariums could be cloned versions of the aquariums, or something altogether new; their mini tabletop terrariums could be given more interactive ability. Buy them flies and mice to eat, or catch them in the wild! Watch them molt out of their snakeskin. Watch the frogs swim in the water. Find the snake in the kitchen hunting for more mice!

-Sea Monkeys & Ant Farms. While not a big, fun animal to play with, these Science-projects-waiting-to-happen would be a wonderful addition to the game, especially for children not exactly ready to commit to a bigger animal but bored by fish (Parenthood skills could play a *big* part in a child’s “pet readiness”. Just saying.) Also, you could make some amazing fail states out of the ants escaping, or the sea monkeys doing tricks in the background while you are playing your family, and never on command; the possibilities for hilarious moodlets are endless.

-Ferrets. Because, ferrets. Similar to hamsters, with even more playability options! The possibilities for ferret hyjinks are hysterically funny and also endless! (See also rats and domesticated mice)

-Most importantly, A PET STORE WHERE YOU CAN GO AND CHOOSE YOUR FIRST PET WITH YOUR PARENT(S). Create a downloadable lot on the Gallery, with the newest items in it, and let the Sim kids of the world light up with joy as soon as they step through the doors. Make small pet food purchase-able like produce or books, add decor items to change moodlets *of the pet*, and maybe even have a grooming salon where you can bring your bunnies or hamsters or parakeets to get clipped/trimmed/de-flight-feathered. Set a price and check the kid’s Responsibility and Emotional Control (Parenthood) before allowing a purchase.

<takes deep breath>

So. What do you think of when you hear “My First Pet”?

[acehotel]

INTERVIEW: Justin Strauss with Lenny Kaye

Lenny Kaye is a gentle force. One of the most influential people in rock history, he's helped usher punk in as guitarist of Patti Smith Group. He’s been called a punk pioneer and The Godfather of Garage Rock. He’s our heroes’ hero, and he’s an eloquent and brilliant wordsmith, humble and with an intuitive wisdom that manifests in conversation that reads like poetry. Here, Ace friend and DJ legend Justin Strauss sits down with Lenny Kaye to wax poetic on his current projects, the necessity of a future sound and the mystery of the Magic Mushrooms. Follow closely. 

Justin Strauss: Lenny Kaye, where did you grow up?

Lenny Kaye: I grew up in New York City. I'm a native-born New Yorker. I was born up by the George Washington Bridge and when I was a year old my folks moved to Jamaica, Queens. When I was eight or nine, we moved to Brooklyn, Flatbush, and then out to New Jersey. Then back to New York as soon as I could.

Justin: When did you realize that music would be something you'd be doing, something you'd want to do for your the rest of your life?

Lenny Kaye: I still don't realize it. It's a miracle and a blessing every day — I wake up and realize that my job is to think about music, play music, find a record in my collection and participate in the wonderful world of music. I didn't really decide. It’s the thing that happens as you get drawn closer to something. I always loved to collect records as a teenager and I had, what would later be known as a garageband, in the 60s. And I just kept being lucky.

Justin: Was there an artist or a record that you heard that made you say, "Oh, wow"?

And I haven’t really looked back since.

Justin: I remember watching The Beatles when I was seven...and that was it. I just knew it.

Lenny Kaye: It was a great role model. In New York, there weren't a lot of bands because it was mostly singing groups. You couldn’t just look and see rockabilly on the corner. It was more like harmony groups. But to see a band playing, especially a band like The Beatles which was really a band of equals — it was really one for all and all for one — it was inspirational and about nine months later (I guess the actual gestation period of a baby) I had my first gig with The Vandals.

Justin: Did that band ever record?

Lenny Kaye: No, no. It was purely a party band. Four sets a night, played for a fraternity. Everything from “What’d I Say” with all the risque lyrics like, "see that girl from Trenton State, that's where they teach you to masturbate. What'd I say?" And covering some of the English Invasion and Four Tops. I don't like to think of it, but when I went to college I actually learned my future.

Justin: You went to Rutgers?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah, Rutgers. I was an American History major so I learned cultural history and that's always helped me in my writing. And I was playing in bands. Those are the two poles in which I function these days.

Justin: Did New York City play a role in your rock n roll foundations?

Lenny Kaye: Yes, it was the capital of the universe, especially at that moment in time. There also was a real explosion of band interest then. At the beginning of the 70s there was no local rock bands at all. It's impossible to imagine this, but really it's true. And until the New York Dolls poster went up on the wall at Village Oldies record store where I was working, there was no local band scene at all. And slowly, slowly it grew. Then out of the New York Dolls and the associated groups like The Harlots of 42nd Street and Street Punk, it took root at CBGB, which became an actual breeding ground for New York rock, and a great moment in time.

Justin: Were you going to clubs and seeing bands in the late 60s before the New York Dolls?

Lenny Kaye: I did.

Justin: The Young Rascals ?

Lenny Kaye: I did see the Rascals at The Telephone Booth on the East Side. They were one of the greatest bands I’d ever seen. I actually placed bass behind a folk singer named John Braden during the summer of 69. We were the house folk singers at Ungano’s, we opened for Junior Wells and the Amboy Dukes. One week the MC5...that's kind of amazing to think of. But it wasn't really. I liked to go see them and, at that time, I just about started writing about rock n roll which gave me another entrance into seeing bands and getting involved in the inner workings of music.

Justin: Did you go to the Electric Circus club on St. Marks Place?

Lenny Kaye: I did. I saw Tim Buckley open The Mothers of Invention at the Electric Circus. I remember that one. I mean, a lot of it I was still driving in from New Jersey, so it wasn't as available as it might have been a year later. And then when I moved to New York, the Fillmore had opened and you could go down there every week and see the most amazing triple bills ever.

Justin: What did you start writing about when you started writing about rock n roll? Where were you writing about it at school?

Lenny Kaye: I did a little bit for the school paper at Rutgers, just trying it out, pretending I was writing for Crawdaddy. But when I got here, my main gig before I knew anybody was at Jazz & Pop — a friend of mine was the boyfriend of the editor there, Patricia Kennealy (later to marry Jim Morrison in a Wicca ceremony. So now she's Patricia Morrison). But yeah, I did my first record reviews there. I think my very first review was a review of The Small Faces’ Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, a great record still.

I'd get free records and maybe $25 and kind of started to see that this would be great. I wrote a review of The Stooges’ first album for Boston's Fusion Magazine and Danny Fields (who signed the Stooges to Elektra Records) called me up out of the blue and he said, "Who are you? Why don't you come to a press party," and literally discovered me — like he has so many others. I went to the press party and I met the circle of rock writers that were in New York at the time.

Justin: Who were the big rock writers of the time in New York?

Lenny Kaye: I would say Richard Meltzer. Lester Bangs was more west coast. It was mostly Richard Meltzer. I was kind of in the wake of Richard, Sandy Pearlman, John Landau and Paul Williams, all the Crawdaddy writers. I was a little bit in the second generation, even though it seems like splitting hairs now.

Justin: I might have seen those reviews as a kid. I don't think you can stress how important magazines were to someone who was interested in music because this was the time of no internet, nothing. And that was the lifeline.

Lenny Kaye: That's how you found out about stuff.

Justin: That and reading liner notes on albums was how I learned everything I know, basically, about music.

Lenny Kaye: You had to dig for it, which is good. By digging for it I remember, especially being a record collector, you had no information on who was in bands. When I put together the first Nuggets album I really had to do a lot of research into who's who. I just couldn't click on something and find out the personnel and where they're from. And I still don't know who The Magic Mushrooms are.

Justin: That was when I first became aware of you, when I got a copy of Nuggets album. And then I got a record by The Sidewinders that you produced. I was obviously a record freak, too.

Lenny Kaye: Power Pop, yeah. It’s all making sense now.

Justin: The Nuggets record didn't leave my turntable when I was a teenager for years and just turned me onto so much music. I guess it opened up a Pandora's box of music.

Lenny Kaye: A Pandora's record 45s box.

Justin: The Nuggets things just went on and on. Many compilations came after.

Lenny Kaye: That's pretty much why I get all the credit for it. But I didn't discover that music, and for me, I think one of the things that made Nuggets so popular is that it's not just about garage rock. It's about great records that are garage rock. Any of those records are just superb pieces of three minute great songs, or six minute, or whatever they were. They were very communicable. It wasn't like you hear something and you have to work to get into it. These were songs, some of them were actually semi-hits. But I never really thought Nuggets would come out.

Justin: What was the story behind it?

Lenny Kaye: I was hired by Elektra Records. Jac Holzman, the president, liked rock critics because he had an intelligent label and he liked when people wrote intelligently about them. He came upon me and he asked if I wanted to be an independent talent scout for Elektra. And I said, "Oh, sure." But I never really found any bands that they appreciated. I know I tried to get them to keep The Stooges on the label for their third album, which didn't happen. But one of the ideas he had was an album called Nuggets which would get the songs off of albums that had one good song. My theory about it is this: he got one of the first cassette players and wanted to clean out his record collection.

But he gave it to me, and in my willfulness and hubris, I got together all my favorite records and presented him with a list and kept asking for the moon. “A double album, let's do a double album” and “You know, I don't like that cover. Let's get this cover.” And the best thing about Jac — he had that mark of being a great record company president — once he trusted you, he’d want to see where you would go with your instincts. He wasn't trying to say, "Well, you know, we need more hits or we need less hits." He just went with it, which actually in retrospect seems unbelievable.

Justin: In this day and age.

Lenny Kaye: I can't believe I got away with it. And I only lasted at Elektra for about three months and I'd given him this list over that time. About six months after I left the company they called me up and they said, "We have all the rights to X number of songs. What are we doing with them?" And I thought, "Wow. This project is still going on. I can't believe it." So it got completed and now it's 45 years later and it's still buying me beers. I'll go to some weird city in the middle of Europe and there'll be a Nuggets fan there who’ll say, "You changed my life," and I say, "No. Nuggets changed my life, really."

Lenny and Patti Smith at CBGB

Justin: Did they get all the songs you wanted?

Lenny Kaye: Oh, no. Some of them have shown up on later projects. Like when Rhino did the box set, they had the list of what I wanted for the second volume...had there been a second volume. But I always wanted “96 Tears” by Question Mark and the Mysterians on it. I thought that should be there. I wanted “I See the Light” by The Five Americans. I couldn't get the rights to that. I couldn't get the rights to “Talk Talk” by The Music Machine, even though I still think it's on there for some reason, on my original one. A lot of weird records. And of course as soon as I did it, people started flooding me with their suggestions. And their suggestions, Blackout of Gretely by the Gonn, I mean that’s an insane, crazy record. Question of Temperature by The Balloon Farm. The Sonics from Washington, great, great records. I knew that was going to happen because as soon as you open a genre, people start digging.

I noticed this with the new series of albums that have just started coming out called Brown Acid. Songs from the American Come Down which gathers early 70s proto prog metal, these weird little singles by groups in the midwest. They all sound somewhat like Grand Funk, somewhat like Deep Purple and somewhat like Black Sabbath, but they were all crazy. And I realized this is a genre I never conceived of. It's what Detroit would have gone to if the MC5 could have stayed together. There's something really elemental about it, and now there's five volumes of it.

Justin: I think the internet has changed the whole way of people finding records.

Lenny Kaye: But a lot of them you can't find and that's what makes people go out and dig. I'm sure you're on Instagram. There's so many crazy vinyl people showing off albums, showing off their equipment, getting out there and digging and keeping everybody in communication.

Justin: I mean, it's a great thing. As great as it was to be digging in a dirty record store and finding that record that no one ever heard of. Nowadays you just type it in and you can pretty much find a lot of stuff.

Lenny Kaye: And you can drunk bid on it on eBay. “Oh, I don't know, what's another few dollars?” And then you wake up the next morning —

Justin: “What did I do?!”

Lenny Kaye: “Oh, my God!”

Justin: How did you go from writing to being in the studio with the Sidewinders and start producing things?

Lenny Kaye: Well, I think when you write about stuff it's kind of like Jean Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut. You want to start trying your hand at it, especially if you have a hand to try it. I always thought about being a producer. You need the opportunities, of course, and my friend Richard Robinson was working at RCA at the time and we found the Sidewinders and gave it a shot. It seems like a natural progression from writing and analyzing and looking at bands from the inside out to seeing what makes them tick and trying to help them make their record by being essentially their best friend in the studio. Sometimes the better you are as a producer, the less people know you're there, which is a tricky balance wheel. But I kind of like it. I always think producing is where the right and left halves of my brain come together. I have the analytical writerly side and then I have the musicianly side, which is pretty much all intuition. I don't read music, I hear it deep in my head and try to feel it. And I think producing is probably the combination of those two worlds.

Justin: I mean, there's producers like Phil Spector.

Lenny Kaye: Who is their artist.

Justin: Right.

Lenny Kaye: I mean, they're the artist and the group is there to serve them. As a producer, I was very lucky that I wasn't the artist. I worked with really quirky, strange, idiosyncratic artists, Suzanne Vega, Soul Asylum, Allen Ginsberg, Pussy Riot. I got to work with people where you're just trying to make sure they can make the best record they can. And whatever their next record will be, you find the groundwork within this record to give them a lot of expansive power, enhance the vibe, let the creativity flow.

Justin: More of the George Martin approach, or Rick Rubin.

Lenny Kaye: Absolutely.

Lenny Kaye: Try to find the right settings and give advice. I always think that if I make a suggestion and we're in the same ballpark, and you don't like it, well you're telling me who you want to be. If you don't like anything I say, I'm going to let you do it yourself, or find someone who's more empathetic.

Justin: When you were doing the first one, did you know your way around the studio?

Lenny Kaye: With the Sidewinders?

Justin: Yeah.

Lenny Kaye: No. I still wish I would have turned the dial on the reverb a little bit more. I was pretty conservative.

Justin: You were working with an engineer, I assume.

Lenny Kaye: Working with an engineer who says, the first time I walk in, "What kind of mic do you want me to put on the bass drum?" I still don't know, to be honest. But that's why I like engineers.

I think when you listen to a record you each have your role. When an engineer listens to a record, he looks at the frequency responses. I don't do that. I listen to the feel, parts and performance, that's my thing. I once went to Greg Calbi, the great mastering engineer at Sterling, with two mixes of a song that I had  been going back and forth on. One of the snares was a little louder, I just didn't know which one. So I said, "Greg, what do you think?" And he says, "You know, I don't listen to records like that. I can tell you whether it needs a rounder bottom, but I can't tell you which is the more effective mix as a listening experience." He said, "That's your job." And I thought, "Hmm."

Justin: I've produced stuff too, and people ask me to describe what a record producer does. In some instances I liken it to a director of a movie who sees the big picture and works with  other people who are great at their jobs. I mean, some people do it all themselves. Some work with a great team of engineers, editors, programmers or whatever. But the vision at the end of the day is between the artist and the producer.

Lenny Kaye: I think it's like being a mirror. The artist looks at you, at your sense of aesthetic taste, and they want to know if their hair is in the right place. “How do I look? Does that hat make me look better or not? How about if we try this?” It’s the old, "What do you think?"

Sometimes people want you to tell them exactly what you think, if you can be honest. And sometimes a producer has to be a cheerleader. “You're great! Aaaand I think this next take could be a hair greater.”

Justin: It's part psychiatrist.

Lenny Kaye: Oh, yeah.

Justin: There's a lot of psychology involved.

Lenny Kaye: It's a psychodrama in there. Especially younger artists or artists that are making their first or second records. There's a lot of paranoia. I've had so many discussions, "Let's over-dub this part or let's double this." "Well, I don't know if that's taking away from the artistic integrity." But my feeling is that a record is an illusion. It's not live. Groups always come to me and say, "We want to record live and take the best track," and I say, "Well, you can do that and you can sit there and choose the best track. I'm not exactly sure what I would do." Because record making is not like playing something in a club to a number of people who are freaking out in front of you and you're on 10, you got the atmosphere, you got the inebriations. That's not a record you're probably listening to at home far removed from a live show. So you have to create the illusion of live performance.

Justin: I remember when my band Milk 'N' Cookies got signed to Island Records and we were put in the studio with Muff Winwood to produce it, and we were playing him all these records we loved, all the glam records, which had a very specific sound. He kind of took a different approach. As much as we would push him, he kept it more organic and more straightforward. And at the end of the day — although at the time we were very upset about it — he was right, because it's lasted. It wasn't a gimmicky sound or something that was a fad.

Lenny Kaye: Exactly.

Justin: It was something that people, kids today still relate to. I think it was a testament to his no-nonsense approach.

Lenny Kaye: You guys are one of the founders of power pop.

Justin: Sometimes you need to listen to people.

Lenny Kaye: And sometimes you don't need to listen to people.

Justin: We did push him in, "Listen to these drums," or whatever. There were little battles.

Lenny Kaye: Sometimes even in conflict, when people have different ideas, like John Cale...we thought when he came in to do Horses he’d be all about the art and the spontaneity. And no, he was into his Beach Boys period. He wanted to layer this and layer that, and we wanted to go out there and look for improvised, live moments. And betwixt and between, that record got battered out. You're all in the same band. A producer joins the band for that album and he can be the frustrating bass player or he can be the genius orchestrator. Everything is different now.

Justin: Are you still producing?

Lenny Kaye: Very little. Actually I did a beautiful record this year that took me quite a long time to do with Jessi Colter, Waylon Jennings’ wife. It's called The Psalms, and it is what it is. When I was working on Waylon's book, I came into the living room one day and there's Jessi — who is a very spiritual person — with the bible open in front of her, singing away. Just putting her hands on chords, letting the melodies flow where they go. And I just thought, "Man, this is about as beautiful and illuminating experience as I've ever had." And so one day after Waylon's passing I was speaking to her and I said, "You know, Jess, there's a record I would like to hear, which is you singing the Psalms like I did in your living room." She came to New York, just about 10 years ago, and I got a studio with a nice piano and met her up there. We had no rehearsal, no discussion. We chose a psalm, set the bible on the piano, and she would sing it. One take, two takes, sometimes I went out there and we played together. It was very spontaneous. And at the end of the two afternoons, I had seven in the can.

Justin: Wow.

Lenny Kaye: She came a year later and we did another five just like that, no rehearsal or anything, and I had the other five, including the hit psalm, the 23rd. And over the years I tried to differentiate them a little bit texturally. I got Al Kooper to play on a few tracks, Bulgarian singers on another one, Jenni Muldaur, and Bobby Previte drums on a few. I tried to retain the intimacy, but make them a little… In one track she's just warming up, singing, and she plays four minutes of this beautiful thing. I was able to get a double bass on there and a harp. It's just a beautiful, beautiful record and SONY Legacy put it out this past March.

Justin: Congrats.

Lenny Kaye: I got to say, it's one of the most beautiful records I've ever been part of.

Justin: Now I need to listen.

Lenny Kaye: Oh, you really got to, especially during the holidays. Her voice is beautiful. Her interpretations on these sacred poems are so great. I tried to keep it non-denominational, to kind of take away the church part and move it toward the light. And yeah, it’s just a gorgeous record.

So I guess I still produce.

Justin: Good. You mentioned the New York Dolls. For Milk 'N' Cookies, that was the band that made it seem like, "Hey, we can do this."

Lenny Kaye: Totally.

Justin: It always seemed like The Beatles or Rolling Stones was too far away. It didn't seem like it could be possible. When I stumbled upon the New York Dolls my life changed.

Lenny Kaye: Oh my god. That must have been a great moment.

Justin: It was quite something. You were involved with this magazine called Rock Scene. It was like the bible of that whole scene.

Lenny Kaye: I wouldn't call it the bible. I would call it the high school yearbook.

Justin: High school yearbook or bible, it was informing everyone about all the New York bands. We were lucky we lived in New York, but for some kid out in OshKosh or wherever, it was a way for him to find out about things he could never have dreamed.

Lenny Kaye: To see what life was like backstage at CBGB. Now when you look at an issue it's got to seem really weird and historical. I wish we had a Rock Scene for when the bebop scene happened over at 52nd Street. Like Bebop Scene. I would have been great to see Charlie Parker in a rare pensive moment.

Justin: It was very, very candid shots. You did it with Lisa Robinson.

Lenny Kaye: And Richard Robinson.

Justin: What was the inspiration behind it?

Lenny Kaye: It really stemmed from Richard. When I first met him in the 60s, he was doing five magazines. He was doing Hit Parader or he was doing Go Magazine. He was a real media generator and got me and Lisa into that thing where “yeah, we're newspapery. Here's what's happening, let's have some fun with it.” Richard had the contact with this guy who had worked at Hit Parader and spun off and did Rock Scene. And Rock Scene lasted six, seven years. It's amazing. I don't think it ever broke into the black.

Lenny Kaye outside CBGB

Justin: I think there's 50-something issues.

Lenny Kaye: Yeah, it's quite amazing.

Justin: Bowie was on the first one, if I remember.

Lenny Kaye: Yes, that's right. Good memory.

Justin: No one put the New York Dolls on a magazine before you guys did. Do you remember seeing The Dolls the first time?

Lenny Kaye: Yes, I remember going over to the Mercer Street Art Center out of curiosity and seeing The Dolls, just thinking they were so great, and dancing to “Bad Girl” with Miss Elvis and Miss Ohio, wherever they are today. It was a great scene. There couldn't have been more than 20 people there to start, but it grew exponentially because there was a need for it. And then once that grew, there also came places to play, even though there was a real shortage until Max's restarted and CBGB started. I remember Patti Smith and I mostly opened up for weird folk singers in folk clubs on West 4th Street when we could get a gig because we never could break into the Club 82.

Justin: I remember seeing The Dolls at Club 82 and Wayne County and The Fast.

Lenny Kaye: Just Another Pretty Face, I remember them. They were great.

Justin: I saw Iggy and the Stooges do Raw Power at Max’s Kansas City. Mind blowing.

Lenny Kaye: Oh, yes. I remember that's the one where he cut himself.

Justin: That was a life changing experience, being three feet away from that.

Lenny Kaye: It was very small scale.

Justin: Everything was very intimate.

Lenny Kaye: It didn't seem so, but it was very private and I think that allowed all the New York bands enough space and time to get to where they wanted to. I must have seen Television dozens of times and it took them a year or two to play in-tune. Of course, this was before tuners, and I suffered from that, too.

Justin: Was this before CBGB?

Lenny Kaye: No, it was kind of contiguous. I think it was kind of end of 74, so CBGB was definitely happening.

Justin: And Television, were they the first band to play CBGB?

Lenny Kaye: I've heard that Eric Emerson was first. It's a little bit shrouded. Everybody claims to be first, but certainly by spring of 74 it was underway because I remember going with Patti. We went to see the movie Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones up at the Ziegfeld Theater uptown. After that we went down in a cab to CBGB because she had been invited by Richard Hell, and I'd been invited by Richard Lloyd who I knew under the name of Crossfire (that was the name of his earlier band). We went to CBGB and hey, saw the beginnings of what would become the central gathering spot of the New York scene.

Debbie Harry in The Stilettos, 1974.

Justin: And Television was playing that night?

Lenny Kaye: Television was there that night. If there was a Sunday night, they just would play. I think before The Ramones ever played there. Maybe Blondie had played there under the name The Stilettos. It's so nice. It's nice when these little loci become a touchstone for the universe. It's hard to believe, and when they're growing you don't really think of it because it's just your local scene. It's just a place you go to. I spent more time at CBGB out on the sidewalk chatting someone up than watching The Ramones inside.

David Johansen, Lenny Kaye, Dee Dee Ramone & Andy Paley, NYC 1977. Photo by Bob Gruen. 

Justin: I remember going to see The Ramones. And when did you and Patti Smith decide to play there as a band?

Lenny Kaye: It just happened organically, we never set out to be a band. What we were doing was out of the mainstream. We didn’t have a drummer.

Justin: Were you already doing things pre-CBGB?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah. We did our little poetry reading in February 71, and then we didn't do anything again because it was meant to be a one night happening. But then we started again. She had a piano player. She was singing standards and she'd do her poems, and I'd come up and play something like “Annie Had A Baby.”

Justin: Was she playing with keyboardist Richard Sohl then?

Lenny Kaye: It was before Richard. There was a guy named Bill and then we had a different piano player every gig until we got Richard. Richard came in March of 74 and we started really cohering as a band. Originally, I would just come up and do things and then she'd do something with the piano, and pretty soon I'd be on the stage the whole time and she'd do a poem. Then we'd segue into a song like “Gloria.” You know, a little poem thing and then we'd go into “Gloria” or “Land of 1,000 Dances.” We improvised and we didn't know quite what we were having. At each show we could feel, "Okay. We've gone as far as we can as this weird little trio. We need another bass/guitar player." And then we got Ivan Kral. When we went to CBGB to play with Television for seven straight weeks, we were just about a band. And that's where we met JD. He became our drummer and the rest is history.

Justin: How did that go from playing in CBGB to getting signed by Clive Davis to Arista Records?

Lenny Kaye: Well, he came down to see us because Patti is an incredible performer and we generated a lot of interest.

Justin: Seymour Stein of Sire Records was signing Ramones, Dead Boys, Talking Heads.

Lenny Kaye: I think this was before. It was really just us and Television as I remember. If we could play for seven straight weeks, four nights a week, it probably meant there were no other bands there.

Justin: Two shows a night?

Lenny Kaye: Two shows a night, and we would switch off with Television Thursday through Sunday. You know, it was pretty great, and then the ball started rolling and it became a scene. I mean, the English Papers and NME and Melody Maker would write about it, and all of a sudden people started coming down to check it out. And Clive came down. I think he might have even known Patti from Blue Oyster Cult...

He signed us and allowed us to do whatever it is we did, which was probably the point. I think we got an offer from him and an offer from ESP-Disk. Sometimes I regret not being on the same label as Albert Ayler or Sun Ra.

Justin: Is she still recording for Arista?

Lenny Kaye: She records for Columbia now. We shifted to Columbia. I don't even know if Arista still exists. I think we're on Columbia at least for the last three records.

Justin: The first album was 1975?

Lenny Kaye: 1975, amazing. Just about this time of year we were on tour with it for the first time.

Justin: And never could you have imagined that you would still be doing it?

Lenny Kaye: I can't imagine that still, you know? It really is remarkable that the work you do keeps on circling around and paying you back. I know a lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a very unique leader. Patti is so frontal on so many different levels, artistically, different mediums, and is such an incredible performer. A lot of that has to do with our longevity and the fact that we're not really pigeonholed as any kind of music. We're associated with the punk scene, but a lot of our stuff has as little to do with punk rock as anything else. We're as much a progressive jazz band sometimes. We have a lot of long songs and a lot of involved poetry. We're all over the place, and sometimes that's good if you can't be classified. I mean, lord I love The Ramones, but they had a very specific one-note sound. I think Patti's always been hard to categorize. It's kept us at a good level in the musical world. We're not playing arenas and we're not playing dumps. We're playing nice theaters, and that's always a good thing.

Justin: Do you think something like that is ever possible again in New York? A scene where something came out of nothing?

Lenny Kaye: Well, I don't know what's happening out in the wiles of Bushwick. I'm sure somewhere there's a collection of people who are doing what they need to do in this universe.

Justin: Because people are always saying, "Oh, New York's dead. It's not like it was.”

Lenny Kaye: Well, it's not like it was, but it wasn't like it was when it was. I mean, I got sheet music from the 1930s that says, "New York's not the place it used to be," bemoaning the fact that the lobster place in Times Square or Rector's isn't there. I mean, things change and I'm all for change.

I don't even think it should be “New York.” In my book I traced the evolution of these scenes, as I call it, from Memphis in 54 through New Orleans in 57, Philly in 59, Liverpool 62, San Francisco 67, New York 75 and on and on. It's interesting to see them all gather the energy. Whether this is possible in the age of instant communication, that's a question I think the 21st century will answer. I know one of my favorite places that I desired to go to see bands was San Francisco in 67. I had that Fillmore poster with The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service on my wall, waiting to get in the car so I could actually hear what they sounded like. I had no idea. I had no idea what Big Brother and The Holding Company sounded like, and I couldn't hit a button and just go.

Justin: There weren't records out?

Lenny Kaye: They hadn't put records out but you were hearing about them in the "underground press" and you just want to hear them.

Justin: Did you take that drive?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah. 1967, me and my buddy Larry got in a 56 Ford with $80 and just kept going. And we arrived there and I got to see The Grateful Dead in Golden Gate Park, Big Brother at The Avalon. They're just amazing.

The desire to be where it's at. Like how a lot of people migrated to New York when they heard about CBGB. Whether they need to do that now, I don't know. I haven't heard of a place that everybody wants to move to all of a sudden. Maybe the internet has made it too easy to get your message to somebody. You form a band and two days later your video is on YouTube, everybody could see it. That's a different path to people's consciousness. I don't know. All I know is that I really like when geography, time and space meet.

Justin: Milk 'N' Cookies was living in LA around 76, 77 when the whole UK punk thing exploded and the Sex Pistols played their last show at Winterland. And we all got in a van from LA with a couple of the Go-Gos and Brett Smiley and Legs McNeil and went to see the Sex Pistols for what turned out to be their last show ever.

Lenny Kaye: That's amazing.

Lenny Kaye: Maybe it's happening somewhere that I don't know about, and more power to it. I'm sure all those bebop jazz guys from 52nd street, when they heard about CBGB, would think, "What are those kids doing? They don't know a Flatted 5th if it fell on them." I like musical progression, and I think we're now getting distant enough from rock n roll that it’s almost like rock n roll is enclosed in its own parentheses. And I'm sure people will be playing guitars from now until kingdom come. But at this point, just about everything that you can do with a guitar has been done and maybe it's time to make room for the next type of music to take over.

Justin: Have you seen any newer bands that you think are exciting or inspiring?

Lenny Kaye: I actually just go see my friends play, I got to say. I'm going back home to continue writing. I'm trying not to do anything because I have a really bad deadline that I've blown already. Just happy to get this interview done with you.

Justin: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Lenny Kaye: Just enjoy it because we've been friends for way too long.

Justin: You were high on my list when I started this thing, and I know between touring and my DJ stuff it's been hard to make it happen.

Lenny Kaye: There's no wine before its time.

Justin: But it's great to sit down with you because, like I said, when Nuggets came out it was one of the records that was so inspiring to me, just finding all those songs. I knew some of them of course...

Lenny Kaye: Some of them were weird. You know what, we love music. I still find myself buying records and adding to my increasing piles.

Justin: You still dig for vinyl?

Lenny Kaye: Yeah! I just got a vintage Marantz receiver so I've been getting my records out and enjoying how great they sound. I just love music. It's really fun to be able to justify being immersed in it. I feel very whole in my consciousness, which is a great blessing in my golden years.

Justin: It's a beautiful thing when you get to do something you love.

Lenny Kaye: And you're able to keep doing it. I'll do anything within the world of it. If I'm not playing and I get a chance to take my records to DJ somewhere — actually enjoy listening to them as well as seeing people get wild out there — that's a great thing. It's great to play the music. It's great to write about it. It's great to look for whatever that next record is going to be. And we don't know yet, do we?

[ushijimaenthusiast]

@ushioi-week prompt day 2: firsts

the ushijima in here is inspired by @aniaroa's boy next door ushijima and I hope I did it justice ;-;

[read here or ao3]

The first time he sees his new neighbor, it’s 5:30 in the morning and he’s out jogging. His neighbor, that is. Tooru is shuffling up his walkway, his feet heavy and clothes reeking of smoke and alcohol. He barely gets a glimpse of his neighbor’s face as they pass by one another, the taller man’s focus completely on the task at hand. All Tooru has time to register is the fact that his neighbor is ripped and that it’s too goddamn early to be out running.

He makes his way inside and collapses into bed fifteen minutes later, all thoughts of his new neighbor vanishing.

Some time in the afternoon when Tooru is able to drag himself out of bed and shower, finally washing away the smell of the bar, he grabs leftovers from the fridge and makes his way outside to eat on his patio. It’s nothing special, just a slab of concrete stretching into his backyard with a couple chairs and a small table, but it’s quiet, and he likes watching his wildflowers sway in the afternoon breeze.

Except. His wildflowers aren’t there.

Tooru’s mouth falls open as he takes in the pile of dirt that’s been dug up. His flowers are strewn around carelessly and have already started to wilt.

He’s on his feet in seconds and dashing over to properly take in the damage. But even from a distance he could see that his flowers were beyond saving. They lay limp and brown in the sun, and Tooru has to wonder how long it’s been since they’ve been dug up.

But that’s silly. There’s no dogs around here. Dogs are too wild and loud for this peaceful neighborhood. Unless it’s a stray. Is Tooru going to have to call animal control? Tell them that a wild beast is on the loose and is wreaking havoc on his flowers?

Hm, he knows they’d never go for that, unfortunately. A few dug up flowers is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Tooru sighs, then goes about picking up his flowers, carefully cradling them as he inspects each one in the hopes they might be saved. But of course he’s not that lucky, and he spends the remainder of his morning filling in the hole and mourning his lost plants.

Two days later there’s a knock on his door, and he opens it to find his new neighbor standing before him, a dead flower held between them.

“Um. I believe this is yours.”

Tooru looks from the dead flower to his neighbor, shoulders straightening immediately at noticing the height, at the man’s impressive build. He can’t help but admit to himself how stunning the other man is, but for some reason, it just fuels his anger.

“So I’m guessing the mutt who dug up my plants belongs to you?” Tooru finds himself sneering.

The man’s face shifts from confusion to a protective anger as he frowns. “She’s young. She got excited. We just moved here the other day and she’s not used to the area.”

“So are you saying you let her roam around without a leash?”

“Animals shouldn’t be restricted.”

“When they’re causing property damage they do.”

The man huffs, then after a moment reaches forward to grab Tooru’s hand to deposit the flower into it.

“We are both sorry for what she’s done. It won’t happen again.”

Tooru watches as the man spins on his heel and storms off, his long stride carrying him easily down the walkway, the sidewalk, and up his own walkway one house down. Tooru doesn’t understand why he didn’t just walk across the grass, but he shrugs it off. Maybe the man was trying to be a little more kinder to Tooru’s yard.

He ends up throwing the flower away, just like the rest.

 The first time he sees the dog, it’s taking a dump in his yard.

He squawks and runs after it, yelling and waving his arms about to chase it off. It isn’t until it rises from its crouch that he realizes just how big it is. He stutters to a stop a few feet away, and his mind quickly supplies itself with the breed. It’s a Doberman, he’s pretty sure. Something he’s seen in movies where they’re junkyard dogs that like to eat trespassers.

Suddenly nervous, Tooru gives a shaky laugh, body frozen and arms still held out in front of him as if that’ll ward the dog away. But obviously it doesn’t work because the dog starts to step towards him, head tilted into the air as if sniffing him out.

He’s seen too many funny and cute videos of dogs to be truly afraid of them, but looking at this stray, sleek black beast that comes up to his hips, Tooru might be shaking, just a little. He starts to take a step back, eyes trained on the dog while he tries to calculate how fast he’ll have to run if he wants to make it to his house before the dog could get him.

He’s just tensed up and is ready to bolt when there’s a loud whistle from the yard next to his. The dog’s ears perk up and it darts off with a bark, not even sparing a second glance at Tooru. He huffs as he watches it run to his neighbor’s house, his eyes narrowing as he sees the dog jump in excitement at its owner.

Tooru won’t dare admit how beautiful the man looks when smiling.

Instead, he sucks in a lungful of air, points at the mess and shouts, “You better clean up the shit your dog left in my yard!”

He waits for confirmation of his neighbor hearing him before he goes back inside, thoughts on looking up fencing options already brewing.

 The first time he learns his neighbor’s name, it’s when the man is hosting a BBQ and one of the people invited shouts it for the whole neighborhood to hear.

Tooru tries to deny that his mouth mumbles the words after hearing it, as if testing it out for himself. The name sounds familiar, but Tooru doesn’t know where he might have heard it.

He tries to pretend like the party next door doesn’t bother him, like he’s not jealous that his increasingly--annoyingly--attractive neighbor has friends over and never thought to invite Tooru. Who cares if it’s a housewarming party? It’s been two months, the house is plenty warm.

The last time any of Tooru’s friends were over was after a particularly nasty night at the bar when Tooru had gotten drunk and started a fight with a regular, and he’d needed someone to take him home and patch up his knuckles. The only reason he kept the job is because his brother owns the place.

He pretends that it doesn’t hurt that Ushijima has a crowd of people around him, and Tooru has no one.

So he sits out on his patio, his lunch beside him as he pretends to read a gossip magazine, eyes hidden behind a pair of shades. He’s positioned in a way he could shrug it off as sunbathing if asked, because how was he supposed to spy on the party if he had to constantly look over his shoulder?

The most eye catching in the crowd is a loud man with shockingly bright red hair--his voice carries so well that Tooru can almost hear every word he says--and he never lets Ushijima too far out of arm’s reach. Tooru would call him clingy if he was actually hanging onto Ushijima, but he does manage to keep some space between them.

There’s another man who appears younger, but just as excited to be around Ushijima. He reminds Tooru of the dog whenever it's around Ushijima, all wagging tail and happy yips.

Tooru hasn't found any more surprises in his yard, and he's begrudgingly happy about that.

The rest of the party goers don't stand out to Tooru, but he does notice they're all fairly tall and muscular, just like Ushijima. He wonders if they work together, or have been friends for years. Tooru tries to hold his jealousy in check.

After an hour, Tooru loses interest and flips himself over on his stomach to continue sunbathing, not intent on getting caught watching the party, no matter how good the food smells.

He's halfway asleep when a shadow falls over him, and the clearing of a throat has him jumping awake, shades slipping down as he takes the sight in front of him.

"You shouldn't fall asleep in the sun," the voice says, "you could get sunburned."

Ushijima Wakatoshi towers above him, skin-tight shirt hugging everything. His shorts are also a little on the tight side, and Tooru has to quickly look away before he's able to make out anything.

Then the words catch up, and Tooru clears his own throat, pushing his shades back up his face. "Who said I was falling asleep? And maybe I've already put on sunscreen."

Ushijima's eyebrows raise, then he points at Tooru. "You're skin is turning red. I thought I should tell you before it gets any worse."

Tooru huffs and throws a glance over his shoulder to check the color of his skin.

It takes everything in him to not cry when he sees the ugly tomato color blooming across his back.

Instead, he frowns and forces himself to stand from his chair. The pain hasn't settled in yet, so he's able to grab his things with minimal discomfort and walk away with maximum dignity.

"I don't know what you're talking about. It's always like this."

Later that evening, he calls a friend to ask about sunburn remedies.

 The first time he sees Ushijima outside of their neighborhood, he's pulling up a stool in front of Tooru, his face twisted in a frown as he stares down at the grimy countertop.

Tooru has to resist rolling his eyes or hiding in the back, but then Ushijima is catching his eye, his face morphing into confusion before his lips tilt into his version of a smile.

Tooru swears his stomach does not flip at the sight.

"What can I get for you?" he asks instead, playing nonchalant and like he doesn't know who Ushijima is.

He keeps his gaze averted as he wipes down the countertop, making sure to get up all the sticky spots, but he doesn't miss the way Ushijima continues to stare at him.

"I'll just have a beer."

He knows he does a poor job at hiding his scowl when he hears Ushijima huff out a laugh, but really, beer? He would have pegged Ushijima as a whiskey drinker. Or maybe tequila. Or maybe Tooru is just projecting because really, he could use a drink right now. Tonight has been too long and Ushijima showing up to this hole-in-the-wall bar is not something he ever expected to see.

Somehow though, the two get to talking. Tooru finally notices the gold hoops in Ushijima’s right ear and points them out, and tries not to fidget when Ushijima subtly says they’re not his only piercings. Tooru has to wonder where the rest are at, and if there’s ever a chance of him seeing them.

It’s also how he finally learns where he’s heard Ushijima’s name before, and it has him pounding a fist against the countertop while he laughs.

“An underwear model? Seriously?”

Ushijima just takes a sip of his beer, eyes narrowed and lips curved at the edges. Tooru has to gulp at the heated ook.

“It pays well,” Ushijima says when he lowers his glass, “and I quite like it. It’s a very… flexible job.”

If anyone asked, Tooru did not leave work early to go make out with Ushijima in the alley behind the bar. He suddenly wasn’t feeling well and Ushijima was kind enough to take him home. And spend the rest of the night blowing his mind with how flexible he is.

 Their first fight is brutal.

Tooru is tired and sore, his nose running and eyes burning as he tries to calm himself. It’s been hours since it happened, since he lost her, and now Wakatoshi is yelling at him, calling him words like irresponsible and untrustworthy. He tries to explain what happened, tries to tell Wakatoshi what was about to happen, but he can’t get a word in.

The insults Wakatoshi throws at him feel like slaps, and each one stings harsher than the last. Seeing Wakatoshi get so livid over a missing dog, something that’s replaceable and a dime a dozen, makes Tooru feel worthless.

It’s clear Wakatoshi doesn’t care about him, so Tooru shuts his mouth and forgets about trying to explain himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says again in the silence following Wakatoshi’s outbursts, “but I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

He lets himself out without another word, quietly closing the door behind him.

He manages to make it to his bedroom before the gasps and sobs catch up with him. He has to force himself to turn on all the lights before crawling into bed, not wanting the room to be shrouded in darkness. He used to never be afraid of the dark, or knives or strangers lurking in alleys. He doesn’t even know why this event shook him up so badly. He’s been in bar fights before! He’s broken his knuckles on other men’s faces, has had bottles broken over his head. Why should this time be any different?

Because he’s never been pinned down before. Never had a knife pressed against his throat, while horrible words are whispered in his ear and filthy hands pat him down.

He’s never had something protect him before.

Calling Wakatoshi’s dog replaceable was careless of him. If not for her, Tooru’s not sure what would have happened to him.

Wakatoshi knocks on his door the next morning, dark circles under his red eyes and hair mussed into a mess that’s beyond shrugging off as bedhead. Behind him sits his dog, her tongue lolling as she pants happily, big black eyes jumping from Tooru to Wakatoshi.

A rock lodges itself in Tooru’s throat when he hears the gruffness in Wakatoshi’s voice.

“The police found her attacking a man. He confessed to trying to mug the dog’s owner, but the dog chased him away. He had your wallet on him.”

Wakatoshi holds out Tooru’s wallet, his fingers shaking. In his haze, he forgot about it being taken, didn’t even care when his boyfriend’s dog was missing.

“I am so sorry, Tooru,” Wakatoshi whispers. The dog stands and squeezes past her owner so she can get to Tooru, her face bright as she tries to lick his hands. He lets her, the urge to hug her overwhelming him.

She’s a little dirty, more brown than black, but otherwise she looks perfectly fine.

Wakatoshi’s hands rest on his cheeks, thumbs brushing away his tears. When did he start crying?

“I’m so sorry,” he says again, his guilt palpable. “Can you forgive me?”

Tooru just wraps his arms around Wakatoshi, hugging him tight.

 Tooru first realizes he’s in love with Wakatoshi when he finds himself curled up on the couch with his head in Wakatoshi’s lap and the dog resting at their feet. Fingers are carding through his hair and there’s some nature documentary on the TV that neither of them are paying attention to. What he is paying attention to is the vase of flowers set on the coffee table just below Tooru’s line of sight.

Wakatoshi surprised him with them this morning. An exact replica of the flowers he used to have in his yard all those months ago. He was sure Wakatoshi had forgotten, or at least wasn’t sure of the types. Tooru doesn’t even know their names, honestly, but the vibrant yellows and blues he could never forget. He’d fingered the petals to feel their softness and to check that they were real, and Wakatoshi had apologized once again at what the dog had done. Had apologized about how their first meeting had gone. Tooru had waved him off with words like “It’s all in the past” and “Honestly I forgot about that” even though they both knew he hadn’t. Wakatoshi simple smiled and kissed him on the cheek.

He knows his feelings are a jumbled mess, but just lying here with Wakatoshi, the one thing Tooru knows is that he’s happy. He’s never felt so happy before, never felt so content and peaceful and warm. He’s beyond thrilled at the relationship they’ve managed to develop, how they’ve moved past petty indifference to quick fucks in the bar to this, all within a few months. It hasn’t even been a year yet and their relationship has been a whirlwind of emotions and activity.

There’s a part of Tooru that thinks they’re moving too fast, that maybe his feelings have developed too quickly and all of this will crash and burn around him in moments.

But he’s sure of himself. In this moment, curled up against his boyfriend, he knows he loves Wakatoshi. Nothing will change that.

When the fingers stop carding through his hair and move to pick up the remote, Tooru has to wonder if Wakatoshi feels the same.

 Wakatoshi is the first to say it.

Tooru almost doesn’t hear him, doesn’t even realize what he’s saying, until Wakatoshi’s hands cup his cheeks and his head is being tilted up. That soft smile is back, and his eyes are hidden behind his glasses--Tooru laughed for ages when he first saw Wakatoshi wearing them, then was the one to blush and stutter when he pulled out his own pair and Wakatoshi kissed him senseless--and the fingers against his skin are softer than his own and dammit Tooru just wants to be kissed already.

He gets his wish.

Soft lips gently press against the tip of his nose before Wakatoshi is pulling away again.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and Tooru would be lying if he said his knees didn’t shake at the softness in his boyfriend’s tone.

Tooru’s lips split into a smirk and he throws his arms around Wakatoshi’s neck, pulling him down for another kiss, a deeper kiss, that has Wakatoshi moaning.

“‘Bout time.”

[evenstevensranked]

#34: Season 3, Episode 7 - “Raiders of the Lost Sausage”

Louis accidentally discovers that there might very well be buried treasure under his house and he’s determined to retrieve it. An Indiana Jones parody ensues. Meanwhile, Ren and Larry are literally tied together by the school guidance counselor in an attempt to end their rivalry. It’s quality content.

The very first minute of this episode lets you know right away that you’ve hit good’ol zany as hell Season 3. It opens with an emu being delivered to the Stevens house. Yes, an emu. Louis ordered one on a whim one day. We get a flashback to when he ordered it, which is pretty great. He called the totally legit and not completely asinine sounding company “Emu For You” and started awkwardly dancing to the jazzy elevator hold music. 

Steve is the one who has to accept the emu delivery and is obviously furious. The bird immediately starts eating a family photo and I love how even in a professional, dressy portrait -- Louis is still wearing a Hawaiian shirt. 

I want a relationship with someone as strong as the bond between Louis Stevens and Hawaiian shirts. 

Louis is currently in the basement with Twitty and Tom, “bowling” with a frozen turkey and some soda bottles (the usual) -- when suddenly the frozen turkey goes flying through the wall, revealing a suspicious small tunnel. 

Steve confronts Louis about the emu and Louis pulls some lame excuse out of his butt for ordering it. He says they should start breeding emus. Steve is all “Breed emus.... With one bird...” pointing out that lil flaw in Louis’ idea. That’s pretty funny. There’s a bit here where Eileen finds a giant emu egg and interrupts their conversation through the basement window, and gets attacked by the bird. You don’t actually see it happening though, all you see are feathers flying everywhere. Steve goes to help her and he too gets attacked. I always cringe at this, tbh. It’s just one of those wacky Season 3 gags. Anyway... Louis, Twitty and Tom agree to meet up the next day and investigate the tunnel. 

Now, onto the subplot! We see Ren and Larry in Principal Wexler’s office, in trouble for accidentally pieing him in the face. They had the responsibility of choosing a new dessert for the cafeteria and couldn’t agree on one. They were goiiiing to pie each other, but Wexler walked between them that exact second. Of course. They’re still fervently arguing in front of Wexler so he decides that their rivalry has gone too far and they need to work it out with the school guidance counselor.

This photo makes me relate to the “....now kiss!” meme. 

Louis does some hardcore research on what that tunnel in the house might lead to and comes to an... interesting conclusion. He discovers that a man named Grover Frazee, creator of Frazee Sausages, owned the property their house is built on. He became super rich off of the company and Louis believes that he most likely buried his fortune at the end of the tunnel. Something interesting: take a look at the opening credits for the episode...

Written by SCOTT FRAZEE! Dude legit named this sausage guy character after himself, lol. I always thought that was cute. I’ve said many times before that the writers are always throwing personal things in. I love it. Check out Grover’s bio though... yikes. 

I’m not sure I’d be proud of that legacy. Also, he died at 43 years old... Pretty young. Maybe he ate a contaminated sausage and croaked. Also, all this talk of sausages feels like another innuendo. This show has no chill. 

Louis put so much effort into his analysis, though. He treated it like a freaking college research project. Again, if he put this much effort into actual school assignments, he’d give Ren a run for her scholastic money. Tom is pretty great here. He starts singing the “We bet, you’ll go crazy... for that great, taste of Frazeeeee” jingle. It’s fantastic. 

Ms. Shannon, the guidance counselor, decides to try an experimental exercise with Ren and Larry: Physically tying them together for 5 school days. As much as I looove this subplot, this always bothered me. Mainly because, how the heck does Ms. Shannon expect that to work? What if they have different classes, or need to be at different places at the same time, etc? We get a montage showing how they struggle with stuff like this throughout the day. The only issue is that the length of the leash dramatically changes depending on the scene. It’s so frustrating!  

They clearly kept changing the length just so certain ideas could work. It bothers me so much, lol. I’m also 100% positive that’s not even where Ren’s locker is. 

Louis, Twitty and Tom get to work shoveling out the tunnel. They bring in Beans to be their “dirt moving specialist” which is so annoying. He carries dirt in his pants from the basement to their laundry room like an idiot. They literally spend a minute showing him walking back and forth past Steve. It takes so long for Steve to catch on, it’s... ugh. 

Why is he standing on the top of the little mound like that? lol. He says he’s putting the dirt in the laundry room because “there’s a big, scary bird in the backyard!” 

Steve obviously goes down to the basement and catches them in the shoveling act. Twitty asks Louis what he’s going to do with his share of the money and Louis says “You know I’ve always wanted to travel. Help out the folks. Might even buy the old man a nice toupee, ahh?!” -- Unfortunately, Twitty is gone and replaced by Steve. We get a legendary Louis Scream. Can we talk about how Louis has always wanted to travel, though??? I suddenly want to see a happy Louis Stevens backpacking across the country later in life... oh wait. THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Shia LaBeouf is Louis Stevens, y’all. The similarities never end. 

Steve is piiiissssed. Louis tries to explain that he’s done his research and there’s definitely... probably... buried treasure there. But, since Louis is always goofing off, Steve is convinced it’s another one of his crazy “half-baked schemes.” “NO! IT’S NOT HALF-BAKED! IT’S FULLY BAKED!!!” Louis insists. Steve basically temporarily grounds him. There’s a great bit with Donnie eating an emu egg that Eileen cooked for him. They’re delicious apparently, so she starts to see the bright side to having the bird around. “When life gives you lemons!” she says. And Donnie’s all “.......no, mom. They’re eggs.” What an underrated character. Steve walks in and starts complaining about Louis. Donnie pulls a 180 and tells him “You don’t have to believe in what Louis is doing. Just believe in Louis.” Dang, Donnie coming through with the proverbs. Steve takes this to heart and starts looking into Louis’ research. 

Louis is so smart when he wants to be. Steve appreciates this.

They make this scene into a trippy sequence with eerie tinkering piano in the background as Steve remembers Donnie’s reverberating words of wisdom. I’ve always really liked this. We think he’s hearing Donnie’s voice in his head, but it’s actually Donnie creeping from around the corner saying the sentence repeatedly. “I heard you the first time, finish your eggs!” Steve says. This is hilarious. Immediately after that, they make the hands on a clock spin out of control, making it seem like hours and hours are passing by while Steve looks into Louis’ research. But then Steve just walks up to it and says “...I gotta fix that clock.” I always thought this was so freaking funny but to this day my mom doesn’t understand the joke and it drives me craaaaaazy! Louis comes downstairs to apologize, and to his surprise... Steve is on his side now! They team up and start diggin’ for that treasure! While they’re digging we get two of the greatest lines in the entire series:

Steve: “Louis.... why aren’t you at school?”

Louis: “...Why aren’t you at work?” 

THIS IS SO PERFECT! I was going to point out that Louis, Twitty, Tom and Beans all should’ve been at school the whole time... but I was waiting until now to bring it up. TV shows always mess up timelines like that. This was such a hilarious way for the writers to acknowledge their mistake. So good. Mr. Scott Frazee and Co aren’t totally out of the woods, though. Louis and Steve are in the same clothes for basically the entire episode. But Larry and Ren’s subplot tells us that at least two days have gone by. Either Louis and Steve didn’t shower or change clothes for 2 days...... or they messed up. Oops. 

Back at school, Larry and Ren are tangled around a tree (again, the leash was like, a foot long when they were trying to get at their “lockers” -- but now it’s conveniently long enough for them to get tangled around a tree.) They’re stuck and talk about how this experiment has only made them resent each other more. 

But the longer they hate each other, the longer they’re tied together. So they both immediately get the idea to become fake fast friends so that Ms. Shannon will remove the leash. After frantically untangling themselves, they return to Ms. Shannon’s office and act all cuddly -- gushing over how well they get along after only two days! They say things in unison and Larry even calls Ren “silly soulmate.” Omg. Ms. Shannon agrees to untie them. 

They leave the office giggling and laughing at how they successfully tricked her, without realizing that the experiment worked, lol. They’re actually getting along and it’s beautiful ok...

I had to include this overabundance of screenshots because look how precious!! This episode always manages to remind me how SALTY I AM over the fact that they never got together. What a power couple they could’ve been. A giant missed opportunity for a big series finale plot twist, if you ask me. They slowly realize that they’re getting along and are freaked out. They start yelling the same exact sentences at each other.... in unison..... because they’re silly soulmates. That’s the end of the subplot. 

Back at the Stevens house, Louis and Steve have made it to the end of the tunnel. *dun dun dunnnn.* They reach a tiny door and use an extravagant key conveniently left under a little welcome mat before crawling inside the cave -- where a giant golden sausage is prominently displayed. 

This is another one of those moments where I notice how much Shia LaBeouf and Tom Virtue actually look like father and son. Also... as a critically thinking child, I always thought “how the hell does this cave even exist? It’s not like it’s under the basement. The layout literally makes it just another room next to the basement. So that entire cave, with a ridiculously tall ceiling, would need to fit under a section of their house. Improbable.” It sucks not being able to suspend reality sometimes. 

They approach the sausage and realize it might be booby-trapped. So they end up pulling an Indiana Jones. They even have Louis say, “I saw this in a movie once... You know what we need? A counterweight or something!” Slick. 

But also like the famous Indy scene, the cave starts to collapse. Steve says “.......is that an.... ominous rumble?” which I love. For whatever reason, Steve runs away but Louis stays still for a ridiculous amount of time. In fact, just long enough for the ground to break and leave a giant gap between them. Louis makes an (iconic) jump for it: 

Unfortunately, he drops the sausage once he reaches the other side and it falls down the gap into the great unknown. This makes me so incredibly frustrated every time, lol. But, they couldn’t exactly let the Stevens family become millionaires right? 

And that’s it!! The main plot of this episode was never one of my personal favorites, but it definitely gets a whole lot of iconic points. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a zany Season 3 plot, which have always been a lil difficult for me to get into. But there’s no denying that Louis’ jump is hilarious and the whole idea for this episode, including the title, is golden (no pun intended.) Not to mention this is yet another episode that eerily predicted Shia LaBeouf’s future. We all know he went on to star in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Say what you will about that movie.. but... He was in it. Which marks another strange parallel between Louis and Shia tbh.

And of course, I absolutely adore the Ren/Larry subplot. It’s like, THE episode to convince you that a romance between the two of them should’ve happened. It’s just great honestly. 

Thanks for reading! Do you have any thoughts on this super memorable episode? Sound off below please! (Seriously, getting one little comment on here makes my day and reassures me that I’m not talking to myself lol) 

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[jflashandclash]

Attrition of Peace

Twenty-Two: Alabaster

A Prophecy’s Surprise Encounter… or Two

 Warning: Sexually suggestive commentary and themes. Less weasels than one might expect, though that is completely unrelated to the former comment. Regardless, enjoy!

The next fifteen minutes progressed exactly as Alabaster expected they would. He’d locked his room up, resigned from restructuring his spell book for the night, and shut the light off. That’s when he heard the jiggling of his doorknob.

Alabaster tried to ignore it and the ache of nostalgia he felt. He didn’t have the time or energy to renew the flame incantation that he’d used earlier. Although he’d positioned his sheets precisely as he preferred them, he shoved them and the comforter down in irritation.

           He’d guess it would take about three seconds before—

           Someone yipped as the secondary hex on the lock shocked the picklock user.

           Despite the ward, the door opened. There was no noise between that, a breath of darkness, and the weight at the edge of Alabaster’s mattress shifting down.

           Alabaster thought about rolling away or summoning Claymore, but he couldn’t bring himself to do either. He’d thought… he’d thought Ajax was dead for too long to kick him out immediately. And… Alabaster thought he, himself, would be isolated and exiled from his family forever, that he’d never have an assistant helping him craft his spells, that he’d be chased by his demonic sister until she wore him down with exhaustion and taunts, that he’d die purposeless with the guilt of his siblings’ deaths shattering his sleep every night.

           Pax’s lips brushed Alabaster’s ear as he whispered, “I had this horrible dream about a boar with a bowtie. Can I examine your PJs so I know not everyone has such boorish taste in night gear?”

           Alabaster wanted to punch him in the face.

           “You actually had a dream about a boar with a bowtie?” Alabaster asked, staring at the blackness of the ceiling. Neither of them wanted to talk about their shared nightmare. What would make Axel murder his brother? In Alabaster’s dream, assuming all their dreams were the same, Pax didn’t have a real chance to fight back, not that Pax would ever fight against Axel.

The thought threatened a stronger sense of dread. Alabaster had just gotten these two back.

           Pax hesitated. “Yea. That was the one with Phobetor. He and Atë have interrupted my nightmares a few times. She… she gave me two more dreams tonight. Aphrodite occasionally kidnaps Axel on little forced dates to get him out of his nightmares, though I’m not sure how that’ll work with the whole ‘Reyna’ thing now.”

               Alabaster felt like Pax had just said Percy Jackson was the best hero alive. He tensed, tightening his fingers into fists, making him swallow any sentimentality. “So, Axel really is sinking to the level of Roman scum for that witch.”

               “A: irony alert on hearing you call someone a witch, B: don’t discourage Axel. We need him to breed his awesome genes with someone, and C: I’m pretty sure they broke up after he set her room on fire. Though you never know, they flirt weird.” Although Alabaster couldn’t see him, he could envision Pax shrugging. “How’s that saying go? Love always finds away even if it wrecks people emotionally and physically.”

               “You would know,” Alabaster snapped. He bit his lip. That was harsher than he meant it to be.

               Pax paused. Then he slipped into the sheets beside him, nuzzling into Alabaster’s neck, tickling his skin. “I know a lot more about love than I did last time you read a book to me in bed.”

               Alabaster did not like his tone. “I did that because you were an illiterate child,” he said.

               “I’m still illiterate. Though… I’m not a little kid anymore.”

               He wasn’t. This had been less complicated when Pax’s emotions could be chalked up to a childish infatuation. And when Alabaster had a solid reason for rejecting him. Other than, “I’m straight,” since Pax had crunched that away with a bite from one of his mother’s morph apples. “I kinda wish you were,” Alabaster muttered, wondering how long before Pax crossed the line. He gave him 5 seconds.

               Pax laughed and slipped a hand around Alabaster’s waistline, gracing the strap of his pajama pants. None of this was helping Alabaster relax. “Perv…” Pax whispered, “I missed you. At least I’m old enough now that it isn’t creepy when I hit on you.”

               “It’ll always be creepy. You’re not guilting me into anything.”

               “Not even cuddling?”

               “No,” Alabaster said. He focused on the calculated calm Claymore always retained in uncomfortable situations. “It’ll set the precedent for future interactions, making you think I’ll just forgive you for everything because of external circumstances. I’m still mad at you. We’ll talk about everything in the morning, with everyone around.”

               Pax sniffled. Alabaster was about to snarl at him not to fake crying, when Pax whispered, “I don’t want what happened with Dad and Uncle Frasco to happen to Axel and me.”

               Alabaster wanted to curse. He remembered how scared Pax had been when he first got to Camp Othrys, and how suspicious Axel had been of everyone. They’d just seen their father beat their uncle and aunt out of existence.

               For an instant, Alabaster wanted to pull Pax into a hug. They’d both suffered a lot. Most likely, neither of them had properly mourned the deaths from the war. From their story, the Pax boys had lost the rest of their siblings, Hiro and Lapis, to Eris. Pax’s family was crumbling.

Then Alabaster remembered everything with Lamia and how Pax joined Camp Half-Blood.

He pinched Pax’s hand and removed it from his waistline. Alabaster sat up, not caring how Pax hiccupped and said, “W-witch Boy, I’m not gonna pull anything. I just needed to talk—”

“We’ll talk tomorrow. Go to sleep,” Alabaster commanded. He got out of bed and snatched his spell book off the nightstand. Ignoring Pax as best he could, Alabaster made his way around the dark room, shutting the door behind him.

He sighed in relief when he didn’t hear Pax shuffling in the room to get up.

There was no way he could sleep now. He needed fresh air and something to make his head stop spinning.

Despite the cold, he made his way downstairs, past the helmets hung in the living room, past Hanapu, Xbalanque, and Nietzsche curled by the roaring fireplace, to the back door.

The air was freezing when he stepped outside.

He was surprised to see someone on the back porch. Kally sat on the top step, hunched over a notebook. She stared up at the cloudless sky, at the brilliant moon, like she was waiting for Artemis to high five her.[1]

Before everyone settled down, he’d offered them a change of clothing to sleep in. He frowned to see Kally wore his oversized Mist sweater that one of his siblings made him. He knew it read Hecate’s Babes on the front and Witches and Bitches on the back. He couldn’t remember which siblings gave it to him, but did remember them swearing that Pax had nothing to do with the construction.

Had she not glanced back at him, he would have headed back inside. When she startled, he exhaled, watching his breath steam out in the silvery light. “Did Ajax try to break into your room?” he guessed.

She hesitated. “Um… I’m not sure… well… yes, he did. Someone tried to come in and stepped on Euna. You really don’t want to step on Euna when she’s sleeping.”

Alabaster wondered if Pax was limping when he crept into his room. Alabaster stepped closer to Kally, wishing he’d put on some shoes instead of just socks. From what he could see, Kally’s feet and legs were wrapped in one of the Triple A sleeping bags: his.[2]  

Something about seeing Kally in his sweater and sleeping bag made Alabaster pause. She wore glasses, the ones he saw inside her messenger bag when he went through everything.

“Do you mind if I…” he gestured beside her.

Kally lifted up the edge of the sleeping bag to offer the material where Morpheus signed his name. Alabaster had only meant to sit down, not to share the sleeping bag, but the mischievous, twinkling grin on the fabric reminded him of how warm it was.

Alabaster sat beside Kally, wrapping the other half of the sleep bag around his feet.

She blushed and stared down at her notebook. “You looked cold.”  

���Thank you,” he said. Then Alabaster realized he’d done something horrifying: he’d sat within a foot of someone he didn’t know without any conversation prompt beyond sharing a kinda-sorta-not-ex-boyfriend. At Camp Othrys, he was always working on some project that he could talk about, but he doubted she’d know anything about how concealment incantations cast during REM sleep might affect lucid dreaming.  

The moonlight made her skin glow in contrast with her hair. She must have let it down to sleep. Alabaster hadn’t noticed how long it was when it was in that messy bun. She still reminded him of something.

He hated the idea of talking about Pax, but he wanted to know. “What did Ajax do to you?” he asked, assuming she wouldn’t need any clarification if she really was one of Pax’s not-relationships.

Kally inhaled shakily. She stared at the grass of the backyard. The house backed up to the woods—not as nice a fortification as his last house on a cliff, but an acceptable replacement.

“He messed around with Praetor Zhang to steal a ‘mysteriously important stick.’ He twists the truth a lot. He and Axel threatened me when I first found out about Backbiter… and I—I think he and Axel only saved me originally to get into Camp Half-Blood.”[3]

The last part was quieter than the rest. Her knuckles were white as they gripped her notebook. “You?” she asked.

Alabaster hadn’t talked to anyone about it. That would have meant admitting to relations with Ajax. Despite that, he swallowed. “He cheated on me with my sister, Lamia, a monster. He claimed he was trying to ‘make things better’ in proper Pax fashion.”

“Oh…” she whispered.

“Yea… that and his hyper invasive, disrespectful attitude. At least he’s calmed down now.”

Kally smiled. “Calmed down? You’ve gotta be joking. What—did he send Baller to spy on you?”

“He doesn’t for you?”

Alabaster hadn’t meant it as a joke. He was startled when she laughed.

They quieted down and Kally seemed to relax while staring at the sky.

He glanced at her journal, feeling uneasy. He wondered if she realized where the note came from. “I’m sorry I read what you wrote,” he said.

Normally, privacy was all-important to Alabaster. He didn’t know who was traveling with Axel and Ajax—curiosity had consumed him. The Pax brothers weren’t the type to keep logs. When the van showed up, he would have accepted any form of information about them, or anyone who lived through the Battle of Manhattan or Slaughter of Mount Othrys.

“It’s…” she hesitated. Her shoulder slumped.

“I’m sorry you and your mother’s first interaction with the Olympians was so thuggish,” he said, struggling to contain his bitterness. Axel and Pax had always been better at easing ignorant demigods into the truth. All Alabaster wanted to say was, at least you won’t be deluded later.

“You mentioned we were Olympic sympathizers… and you made it sound like you wanted Camp Half-Blood destroyed…” Kally paused. She looked nervous. She exhaled and made eye contact with him, her face grave. “Wanting to save Camp Half-Blood has nothing to do with the Olympians. Even if Apollo did… rape my mother and even if I am the product of a mistake, I’d still want to stop Eris from whatever she’s doing.”

“Why?” Alabaster asked in bewilderment. That sounded self-defeating and stupid.

“Because, my personal anger is pointless here,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Even if Axel and Pax kidnapped Rachel as a set up to gain the camp’s trust, and even if she’s Apollo’s favorite and I hate that narcissistic womanizer and—uh—mananizer, I’d still save Rachel from Python again. She’s still a person exterior to all of that, just like the campers are still people.”

“Those ‘people’ you’re referring to are Olympia’s soldiers. You need to kill off soldiers to immobilize a leader,” he snapped.

Kally flinched but kept her lips in a firm line. “We’re not talking about that war here. We’re talking about my half-siblings, and your half-siblings dying because the Goddess of Strife is bored.”    

Alabaster tensed. He wanted to slap Kally.

“Besides…” she sighed and pulled her knees up to lean her chin on them. “Maybe, after we save Camp Half-Blood, we can make another camp. Not one for war, just somewhere people can go that don’t belong in Camp Jupiter or Camp Half-Blood. Axel and Pax can’t go back. I… I don’t think I’ll want to go back. And I don’t think Euna will want to.”

Alabaster glared. “The other two camps would attack us and wipe us out.” He didn’t mean to say us. The word slipped out. He’d thought about restarting a camp, but Zeus would never allow that.

“Maybe…” She frowned. “But, maybe not if we have someone like Merry or Nico to act as a convoy between camps. Then we could have visitations for games or something. Didn’t they do something like that in Ancient Greece? Even cities that didn’t like each other could get along for festivals and stuff?”

“They’re called poleis,” Alabaster corrected. He stared off to collect his thoughts. He and Claymore wanted to bring the children of Hecate to peace. Then he lost his position as their leader and he found Jack. If they had someone on neutral terms with the Greeks and Romans, could they start a new home for more than just the three of them?

He shook his head. It was too late for them to having this conversation. He was too rattled about Axel and Pax being alive, about finding out his nightmares were coming true, and that Pax and Axel were having the same final nightmare he was. Plus, the way she’d pulled her knees up let cold air into the sleeping bag.

“Can I try something on you?” Kally asked suddenly.

When he glanced back at her, she blushed. “Oh that sounded—um—it’s nothing ba—it’s a healing technique Merry and Will were experimenting with that’s supposed to help Pollux with his bro—I don’t even know if it’ll work…” she trailed off and looked away.

A daughter of Dionysus and a child of Apollo teaming up for a healing technique? The idea was interesting. Alabaster’s mind spun at the possibilities for psychology. He wasn’t stupid enough to think he didn’t need help. Both he and Jack had been seeing Dr. Cenote under Claymore’s orders. Without Merry around though, could Kally do anything?

“Can you sing quietly enough for Jack not to hear you?” he asked.

She nodded, though still wouldn’t look at him. “He gives me the creeps.”

“He should. He doesn’t get along well with his siblings,” Alabaster said absently. If they could make song magic heal psychological wounds, maybe it could help Jack. He narrowed his eyes. “So you know, children of Hecate can sense when people try to alter memories or erase them. And my defensive runes will set off if you try to give me an illness.”

Kally stared at him. “Are you this suspicious of everyone? I don’t even know how to do what you said.”

“I—I’m sorry. It’s been a long day,” Alabaster admitted. Jack’s paranoia must have been wearing off on him. He’d forgotten she was on the run from Camp Jupiter as well, and a friend of Axel and Pax.

Kally hesitated. “Um…” she said and angled herself towards him, putting her legs back on the top step. Her notebook started to slip down the sleeping bag. Alabaster caught it before the journal could tumble off the porch. When he glanced back up, Kally hovered her hands an inch away from either side of his temple, like she was about to smack him cartoon style with invisible cymbals.

Before she sang, Alabaster thought about how impractical it would be to kill someone like that, unless you were Hercules.

“You’re a mess, tangled with your confidence.

You think you haven’t sinned.

Well, you’re unstoppable,

Your walls are impassible.”

Her voice was lovely, as would be expected from a daughter of Apollo. But he couldn’t focus on that. As the notes whispered out, Alabaster felt his eyes flutter closed.

The Battle of Manhattan played in fast forward—the soldiers that were washed away when Percy collapsed the Williamsburg Bridge, the soldiers engulfed in flames when they had to split ranks around the reservoirs, Hades and Nico’s indestructible undead army cutting off any retreat for a full platoon, the mindless skeletons massacring monsters and demigods alike, with no regard to those who dropped their weapons in surrender, because the skeletons couldn’t tell the difference and didn’t care.

The half-charred, half-drowned, and diced siblings he couldn’t heal, because Ethan Nakamura convinced Kronos to leave their best healer, Jack, at Mount Othrys, saying the Silver Tongued Snake, the Leonis Caput, and the Scourge of Rome were in conspiracy with the spy and were allowing Luke too much control over his body.

The bitterness and anger threatened to overtake Alabaster. Did Percy even know how many died in that war? Did he even care? And after all his conniving, Ethan Nakamura himself betrayed them?

But something gave. A tightness in Alabaster’s stomach eased. The deaths were too numerous to conceptualize, and he remembered the smiles on each of his siblings faces’ during the games and concerts Ajax and Jack organized to keep up the army’s moral. He remembered the time Matthias painted Kronos’s chariot pink, and the way Krios and Prometheus tried not to crack up in front of Kronos’s face. The way Mercedes would laugh when Axel dragged her into one of their festival dances. How their tiny toddler Charlie would climb giants as a jungle gym.

When Alabaster gained awareness of his current surroundings, he could feel his chest heaving. He could smell eucalyptus and mint as he inhaled sharply through sobs. Alabaster thought crying was useless, despite everything Dr. Cenote said, and was furious this was the second time in a day he’d let himself go.

Kally’s voice was trembling as she sang:

“I know you lay in bed,

Contemplating all of your dead,

And you look at what you’ve done,

Please, don’t forget the sun.”[4]

Her forehead had pressed into his. There were tears streaking down her cheeks. Had she seen all of it too? Could a child of Apollo do that? He knew they could heal any physical damage but… was she trying to accelerate healing his mind?

Alabaster pressed a hand up to her lips, so she’d stop singing. He wanted to tell her to stop, but his mouth was already producing words he hadn’t registered until that moment,  “—why? It all feels so pointless. Everything we worked for—everything—” He caught himself. He didn’t know this girl. There was no reason for him to be babbling this off to her. Normally, he wouldn’t even talk to Claymore.

Slower, without the hiccup of sobs, he whispered, “Th—thank you. Th—that was a good experiment. But that’s—this is too much, right now—”

Kally leaned forward and hugged him.

Alabaster let her. After a moment, he hugged her back. They sat on the porch, Kally trembling with her own tears. She had seen. He was glad she didn’t say she understood or tried to give a stupid apology. Just the warmth of a touch.

Although Alabaster felt dismal, something was… calmer. A tension eased in his chest. He focused on the chill of the air and the way the sleeping bag winked.

Kally withdrew her face from his shoulder and disentangled her hands to wipe away her tears. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get your sweater gross with tears and snot—”

Alabaster tried not to give a half-hearted laugh, but only managed to choke it off. That’s what she was apologizing for. He should have apologized for being so suspicious earlier.

When she took off her glasses to wipe her eyes—

“A Livemont Art Nouveau poster,” Alabaster realized, “That’s what you remind me of.”

“Excuse me?” Kally asked. The comment surprised her out of the tears.

Alabaster shrugged, trying to calm his trembles. He picked her notebook off the ground—it fell when he hugged her. “When my father was studying at Columbia, they made him take an art appreciation class during his undergraduate. As much as he hated it, Mother said that’s when he started hanging Livemont posters of beautiful women all over the house. He even commissioned one of her...”

The lack of sleep and memory overload must have been getting to Alabaster. He didn’t understand why Kally was blushing in the silvery lighting until his mind sluggishly made the connection by transitive property of equality: Kally=Art Nouveau poster. Art Nouveau poster=beautiful women. Therefore, Kally=beautiful.

“I didn’t mean to say—” Alabaster cut himself off from ending that train wreck of a sentence. He had meant it, it was just… “I’m sorry. I’ve exclusively been talking to Jack and Claymore recently. I’m not used to having other company.”

The warmth of her knee pressed into his became agonizingly prominent.

Kally pushed her glasses back onto her face. “Does Jack look like an Art Nouveau poster?” she asked, sniffling the remains of her tears.

“Gods no,” Alabaster hissed.

She laughed softly. “We just have soccer trophies, family portraits and pictures of Jesus on our walls. I don’t think we have artwork to compare people to.”

An actual home with a full family. Alabaster frowned. He hadn’t had one of those since his father died. These houses only ever lasted a few years before something went wrong, though Camp Othrys had come close to being a solid home.

He wondered, now, if Kally thought about Apollo attacking her mother every time she thought about home. From the hesitation in her voice, he thought she might.

Maybe he could repay some of her attempted kindness.

“Do you miss any of it?” he asked.

“Yea… a lot. Whenever I was having trouble in chemistry or other stuff at school, my older brother, John, would sit on the back porch with me—kinda like this—and talk about it,” she said the last part in a voice too light. Kally didn’t want him recognizing her worry.

“Problems with chemistry?” Alabaster asked in confusion. “It’s a lot like the formulas I need for potions and spells. If we see each other after tomorrow, I can give you some pointers. Now, describe your backyard,” he said.

As she gave the details, Alabaster felt a tug in his gut. He reached out to the Mist lingering around them and twisted it to mimic her memory. Alabaster knew her mind would need to fill in the holes he couldn’t create, but that’s what everyone always did—they liked to see what they wanted to see, regardless of reality.

But as he crafted, something shifted behind them. Kally and Alabaster jumped, glancing at the door to the back porch. No one was there.

Alabaster felt uneasy. Neither of them was armed for a sudden attack. He’d have to withdraw his Mist sword and he thought Kally’s weapon was in her bag, inside. Though, the magical barrier around his house should guard them from sight as long as no one stepped out.

They should be alright.

He exhaled and turned back to Kally. “Continue,” he requested, “But close your eyes this time. When you open them, imagine you’re in your backyard. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  Thanks for reading guys! As per usual, I hope you enjoyed. Also, good luck to everyone with their first few weeks of school!

  Footnotes:

[1] Betanote from Mel, a paragraph before this: “I’m going to be so low key mad if he meets Kally outside because I still ship Pax x Kally and also Pax X Alabaster, but also low key shipping Kally x Alabaster and cheering the meet. The struggle for a multishipper is becoming real.”

[2] Another Beta Note from Mel: “OH MY FUCKING GOSH. JACK. HAVE YOU BEEN SECRETLY SHIPPING THESE TWO SINCE THE BEGINNING??? IMMA BE SO MAD AT YOU BUT ALSO HIGH FIVING YOU DAMNIT.”

[3] Beta Note from Mel: “WE’RE GOING TO LEAVE OUT THE NICO THING” Note from Jack: Yep. If I were her, I would absolutely never want to explain that one to someone I might like.

[4] These are altered lyrics from Don’t you Dare forget the Sun by Get Scared.

[mtwy]

Philadelphia Daily News

USA February 28th 1985

Women in Rock Madonna: ‘BOY TOY’ IMAGE

by JONATHAN TAKIFF

Many people are as entranced by Madonna’s tawdry look and brazen ‘come hither’ body movements as they are by her pinched, girlish vocals and percolating disco pop music. Maybe even more intrgued by the physical distractions.

This should not really come as a surprise. Fashion now rules a large hunk of pop culture - in music, art, film, clothing - and artful substance has become a secondary consideration. And whenever cheap thrills are what really matters to the average teenage record buyer, then a girl with ratty hair, naughty clothes, loud jewelry and an enticing exposed belly button is certainly going to create more of a stir than a subtle songstress who dresses conservatively, like everyone else.

But will they love Madonna tomorrow? Can she outlive her “Boy Toy” image, her penchant for posing in lacey undergarments (preferably on a messed up bed), and her musical catalog stressing close encounters of the sexual kind?

Or will she eventually be rejected as a cheap hussy - the kind of girl that boys love to grapple with after the high school dance, but never take home to meet mom?

It’s certainly significant that the nominations committee for this year’s Grammy Awards ignored Madonna completely, even though her debut album, “Madonna,” and follow-up LP, “Like a Virgin,” have clung tenaciously to the top of the charts for an entire year (Making her second only to Prince in importance at Warner Brothers Records). Ordinarily, the Grammys are a celebration and endorsement of just such success.

Could it be something this damsel wore in her R-rated videos - all those crucifixes dangling from her ears and between her legs, perhaps - that put off the Grammy crowd? Blasphemous stuff!

Or maybe they’ve misread the message of, ah, pure romance inherent in her lyrics: “They can beg and they can plead/But they can’t see the light, that’s right/’Cause the boy with the cold hard cash/Is always Mister Right.” 

And let’s not overlook her recent No.1 celebration of, um, reborn innocence: “I was beat/Incomplete/I’d been had, I was sad and blue/But you made me feel/Yeah, you made me feel/Shiny and new/Like a virgin/Touched for the very first time/Like a Virgin/When your heart beats next to mine.”

What kind of temperament breeds such a talent?

“From the start I was a very bad girl,” brags 24-year-old Madonna Louise Ciccone, the eldest daughter in a family of six. “I was always in touch with my sexual side.”

Born on Detroit’s tough West Side, Madonna was all of 6 when her mother (also named Madonna) died of cancer, forcing the little girl to grow up fast. “I really felt like I was the main female of the house. There was no woman between my father and me, no mother,” she recalls.

Life turned even weirder when Madonna was 8 and her father, a Chrysler engineer, announced that he was going to marry the family’s housekeeper. “It was hard to accept her as an authority figure and also accept her as being the new No.1 female in my father’s life. My father wanted us to call her mom, not her first name. I remember it being really hard for me to get the word ‘mother’ out of my mouth. It was really painful. I hated the fact that my mother was taken away and I’m sure I took a lot of that out on my stepmother.”

Madonna says she gew loud and aggressive to get attention among all her brothers and sisters, and always had “this thing” about nuns and crucifixes. “I went to three Catholic schools as a child with uniforms and nuns hitting you over the back with staplers. I lived in a real intergrated neighborhood. We were one of the only white families there.” Later, Madonna’s large family moved to Pontiac, Mich., where she lived next to Bob Seger and attended Pontiac Catholic High School.

Her father didn’t believe in leisure time: he always wanted her to be doing homework or reading the Bible. Madonna rebelled by throwing herself into the world of the fantastic. In eighth grade, she appeared in her first movie, a Super 8 project directed by a classmate, in which an egg was fried on her stomach. (That belly was obviously hot stuff, even then!) She acted in plays, studied piano, loved movies, danced to Motown hits in backyards, and finally let dance become the central focus of her adolescent life. She’d take all her school classes early so she could take dance classes in the afternoon. Then at night her ballet teacher served as her “introduction” to glamour and sophistication. “He used to take me to all the gay discotheques in downtown Detroit. Men were doing poppers and going crazy. They were all dressed really well and were more free about themselves than all the blockhead football players I met in high school.”

Madonna won a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan, then quit after a year to take on the real world. “I moved to New York in ‘78. I was only 17, I had $35 in my pocket and knew no one. I told the taxi driver to take me to the middle of everything. I was let off in Times Square.”

Madonna won a work-study scholarship with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s third troupe - the farm team. “Still, I thought I was in a production of ‘Fame’,” she recalls with a laugh. “Everyone was Hispanic or black, and everyone wanted to be a star.”

But they couldn’t keep this ambitious girl down on the farm for long. Through Ailey, Madonna met Pearl Lange, long the lead soloist for the famed Martha Graham troupe, who taught her the modern Graham technique. Madonna later worked as a Lange’s assistant. “It was interesting work. The style is very archiac, angular and dramatic. Painful, dark and guilt-ridden; very Catholic.....I was always an outcast in my ballet classes, the freak. I didn’t have long hair pulled back in a bun. Mine was short, and I used to dye it different colors.

“I would rip my leotards all the way up to my chest and then safety-pin them all the way down. I couldn’t stand all those horrible little ballerinas who hadn’t seen anything of the world except for their dance classes. They came from really rich families and bored me.”

Not willing to wait for her big break in serious dance, Madonna started going to musical theatre auditions. Catching the attention of French disco singer Patrick Hernandez’s management, she was asked to join his show, and was promised she could be a star, too, with a little guidance. “They took me to Paris and gave me everything: a vocal coach, a dance teacher, an apartment and a chauffuer. They were like the French mafia, very wealthy and had come into even more money through Patrick. They knew I was talented but had no idea what to do with me.”

Eventually tiring of this scene, too, Madonna returned to New York and decided to devote herself to music. Befriended by a rock group called The Breakfast Club, she shared a loft with them in an old Queens Synagogue and, when they went off to work, she taught herself to play instruments using their small home studio. When they needed a drummer, she was ready.

Later came her own band called Emmy (from her nickname). That one broke up over a dispute with her manager, who saw Madonna as a Pat Benatar-like rock belter. She had other ideas.

“I’m proud of the fact that I started out as a rhythm-and-blues-oriented disco singer. It gave me more of an identity. I feel that the pop charts are finally opening up to urban contemporary sounds like Herbie Hancock and all those other people who are making great street records. Detroit has always been hip to it but finally mid-America is hearing it for the first time.”

On her first album, songs like “Borderline,” “Lucky Star” and “Holiday” moved Madonna from disco play to R&B radio and then to Top 40 and MTV. Her second album, produced by Nile Rodgers of Chic, and featuring the same musicians who’ve lately been backing up David Bowie, also has broken her through to rock radio. “It’s more pop-oriented than my first record, more accessible and it shows my growth as an artist and a vocalist,” she assesses.

But can Madonna’s paper-thin vocal sound cut it live, a situation in which voice-thickening echo chamber devices stand out much more obviously, and even the sexiest body moves don’t look like much from 100 yards away? We’ll see this Spring, as Madonna embarks on her first concert tour, featuring equally trendy British gay/political rock group Bronski Beat as special support act.

An acting career is her next burning ambition to fulfill. In 1979, Madonna played the part of a punk in a cheap, psuedo-French art flick. “A Certain Sacrifice.” The film is belatedly going to be released, to cash in on her name recognition, and the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine describes Madonna’s part in the film as “a quasi-dominatrix who has three sex slaves.” But Video Insider editor Steve Apple, who recently screened it, says that “any suggestion this is a porno movie is a lie. There’s a violent scene in which she’s raped, and there’s a half second of frontal, upper torso nudity, but that’s it. The producer of the movie was hoping Madonna’s management would come up with some money to bury the movie, but they won’t even give him a kill fee.”

With her clothes on (sort of), Madonna is currently on view as a nightclub singer in “Visionquest” and soon will be seen in a featured part in the much hyped “Desperately Seeking Susan.”

[carasueachterberg]

Happy New Year, friends! With the puppies launched and Bell in the process of being launched, I’ve got a little breathing room to focus on a few upcoming projects for 2020.

The first of those projects is one I’ve mentioned on the blog and been hinting about for the last few months. It’s a nonprofit initiative of Operation Paws for Homes called, Who Will Let the Dogs Out. Photographer Nancy Slattery and I created it so we could formally fundraise and work to raise awareness and resources for shelters and rescues in our rural south in the hopes of ending the senseless killing of so many good dogs.

The idea first began to take shape as I sat on a patch of gravel with a terrified pitbull named Hazel outside a South Carolina shelter last spring. We’d just escaped the deafening noise of the shelter—a metal pole building where the pounding sound of over one hundred dogs frantic with fear and excitement erupted with every visitor, employee, or new dog. Basically, all day and night.

Hazel was shaking as I coaxed her outside. I’d intended to take her for a walk or throw a ball with her in the playyard, but it had taken so long just to get outside, that instead we sat in the sunshine. She wouldn’t meet my eye or lie down, but she sat tentatively on the gravel and stared at the building as I petted her and talked to her.

I’d seen the statistics of that shelter, had interviewed the director, and knew that the odds for this terrified, shut-down dog were not good. It was likely Hazel would eventually be euthanized after suffering for weeks in the windowless, noisy building, lying on a concrete floor with no bedding or toys or comfort of any kind. There was nothing I could do and that fact simply ate at me. It motivated me to return to the shelters two more times last year, each time the conviction that I had to do something grew.

So many of the shelters I visited on my trips were doing all they could to save animals, but the need was endless. There was never enough time, help, or money, and certainly not enough adopters. Rescues made a huge difference, but I know now that we cannot rescue our way out of this problem. If we could, we would have– the people I know in rescue are some of the most convicted, determined, passionate people. They want to save dogs, but no matter how many they do, the desperate need continues.

We have to find local solutions, change attitudes, create smart laws, and support the people doing the real work at shelters and rescues, not just in the cities or at the well-funded county shelters, but in the tiny towns, down the forgotten roads where the local shelter might be in someone’s backyard or a shack inside the municipal dump.

One thing I know is that if I want to help, I’ve got to get off my little hill here in Pennsylvania and travel south. Listen to the people who are living this and then tell their stories, share what I learn, and find ways to connect the knowledge, resources, ideas, and people with the shelters and rescues that need them. I can’t simply take their dogs and move them north, yes this saves lives and yes it is critical but all it does is put a bandaid on a gaping wound that is endlessly oozing lives. We have to find a way to heal that wound.

I know that if you were sitting with Hazel on that sunny patch of gravel, if you’d seen what I saw down the dirt roads and behind chainlink fences ringed with barbed wire, you too would want to do something. It’s easy to forget where they came from when I’m cuddling puppies in my mudroom or throwing a ball for my latest foster at the dogpark. It’s easy to feel good that I’ve done something and to push aside the fact that there are so many more still suffering, so many that won’t be so lucky. And while, yes, our country has come a long way, it is not far enough. I won’t settle for better. Better certainly didn’t help Hazel.

So Who Will Let the Dogs Out intends to do just that – find a way to let the dogs out. I don’t have the solution and don’t believe there is a single solution. But I do know this is fixable.

We’ve visited shelters with tiny budgets that were bright, cheerful places where dogs lounged on raised beds and chewed filled kong toys between multiple daily walks and visits from volunteers while they awaited rescue or adoption. I met directors who work hard to connect with their community, helping to teach them the value of an animal. Where they partner with people to educate and equip them to care for their animals, having them spayed or neutered, microchipped, and give them preventatives and vaccines. I’ve encountered Humane Societies or Associations where they are working to change regulations, nurture partnerships, and create progressive facilities. Places where the tide is slowly turning.

But we’ve visited too many places where they are drowning. Where the shelter director or animal control officer or volunteers simply cannot keep up. They spend their days in an unending shell game moving dogs and shuffling cats, trying to keep as many as they can alive. There is no time or money or people to do much more than clean the kennels and fill the food bowls, and some can’t even do that. Dogs suffering? At least they’re alive. But what kind of life is it spent for months or even years in a cement kennel, bombarded with noise and neglect?

The first step to any kind of change is awareness. So that’s where we have to begin. By traveling south, Nancy and I, along with any other volunteers we take south, will start by sharing the stories. We’ll help people to know about Hazel and all the other dogs waiting and wishing, and we’ll introduce them to the heroes who work every day to save them. We’ll do our best to try to understand the problems–those unique to an individual shelter or rescue and those universal throughout the rural south. It’s not possible to fix a problem you don’t understand. (That was always my problem with geometry.)

Our next trip in March will take us to western Tennessee to the rural dog pounds and private rescues that have cropped up in the absence of county shelters, and then down to Mississippi to meet our OPH partners and other rescues. If you’d like to support us, you can do so in many, many ways.

Because undoubtedly I’ll have a new foster dog to write about soon on this blog, most of what we’re up to can be found on the blog, Who Will Let the Dogs Out, and on our Facebook page or Instagram by the same name. I hope you’ll subscribe to the blog and follow us on social media, but what I really hope is that you’ll share the posts far and wide to help us reach as large an audience as we can.

Nancy and I are more than willing to travel (a reasonable distance) to give presentations on the situation in our southern shelters. If you know of a group who would like to hear our stories and see the pictures, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I am desperately in search of a bigger microphone to share this message.

If you’d like to support us financially, there are lots of ways. The fundraiser for our trip is up and running on our Facebook page—all donations are tax-deductible. You can also send a check to OPH or donate through the website, just be sure to designate it for ‘Who Will Let the Dogs Out’ so it finds its way to us.

We still have Another Good Dog PA Pups calendars available for sale. Email me (cara.achterberg@rocketmail.com) to get yours. They are $20 ($25 with shipping) and feature the beautiful photography of Nancy Slattery, all the dog holidays noted, and the last page tells the story of the PA Pups;; best of all, the proceeds go to Who Will Let the Dogs Out (Waldo for short).

The last way you can help is by dropping off donations for the shelters. We will take everything donated with us to hand out on our travels. Most needed: high quality dog and puppy food (dry and canned), treats, tough-chewer toys, collars/harnesses/slip leads, flea/tick preventatives, dewormers, and Amazon, Chewy, or Tractor Supply gift cards. I updated our Who Will Let the Dogs Out amazon wishlist which makes it easy to send donations for the trip.  Otherwise, email me for address and to set up a time to drop off (carasueachterberg@gmail.com)

Bell has been enjoying her last weeks with us. She is getting healthy and strong and will soon be spayed so that her new life can begin. I’ll tell you all about that next week!

Reports are that the puppies are growing fast and settling into their new homes. There have been quite a few updates on the Another Good Dog facebook group, if you want to see for yourself.

Thanks for your support!

Cara

If you’d like regular updates all my foster dogs past and present, plus regular videos of the PA pups, be sure to join the Facebook group, Another Good Dog.

For information on me, my writing, and my upcoming book, One Hundred Dogs and Counting: One  Woman, Ten Thousand Miles, and a Journey into the Heart of Shelters and Rescues, visit CaraWrites.com.

Our family fosters through the all-breed rescue, Operation Paws for Homes, a network of foster homes in Virginia, Maryland, D.C., and south-central PA.

Recently released from Pegasus Books and available anywhere books are sold: Another Good Dog: One Family and Fifty Foster Dogs.

I love to hear from readers and dog-hearted people! Email me at carasueachterberg@gmail.com.

  It's time to bring it - awareness equal change. #nomoregooddogsdying #whowillletthedogsout #bethechange Happy New Year, friends! With the puppies launched and Bell in the process of being launched, I’ve got a little breathing room to focus on a few upcoming projects for 2020.

[josephkitchen0]

Spit in the Wind Sheep Farm

By Alan Harman

On a perfect Michigan spring day under clear blue skies you can’t miss them — Polypay lambs running around tree-lined lush green fields, or bleating for their mothers.

They’re located about seven miles outside Alpena, a pretty little city in the northeast corner of the state, 250 miles north of Detroit and perched on the banks of Lake Huron.

Here Jim and Claudia Chapman have for the last 36 years run the 80-acre Spit In The Wind Farm, first with sheep, then cattle and back to sheep.

The farm’s distinctive name?  Claudia Chapman explains: “When we first had our farm, Jim called it Shipshape Sheep Farm. But we sold all our sheep and did cattle.”  When we got back into sheep, Jim said, ‘Oh, this place is like spitting in the wind.’

“It seemed like so often that would happen to us; we would do something, and it blew up in our face. So, we named it Spit in the Wind.”

Earlier this year, the gregarious couple was named the Michigan Sheep Producer Association’s Commercial Producers of the Year.

Jim Chapman, 72, has been around sheep all his life.

He and Claudia Chapman were born in Howell, Mich., a regional city 260 miles to the south, where his father raised sheep — he remembers Tunis and Suffolk. His wife’s family operated a cattle farm.

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About the Farm & Sheep

“When we moved to this farm we wanted to continue that,” Jim Chapman says.  “We got sheep right after we moved here, Suffolk, because our two daughters wanted to show sheep for 4H at the Alpena County Fair. We raised the sheep for quite a few years. In the 1980s we sold them and had mainly beef cattle with a few sheep for about 20 years.”

The Polypays arrived at Spit In The Wind in 2006.

That year Claudia Chapman retired after a teaching career and wanted a few sheep.

“I talked to a number of people and came up with Polypays,” she says. “We bought six ewes from Eric and Penny Wallis in Rudyard in the UP — Michigan’s storied Upper Peninsula—and we now have between 90 and 100.”

The farm is 85 acres, with 60 acres under grass and the rest left as natural woodland.

They rent 150 acres from neighboring farms to produce hay, most of it for their own use.

The lambs are marketed for their meat, the way Polypay creators intended.

The breed was developed at the U.S. Sheep Experimentation Station in Dubois, Idaho.

It has its origins in the Finnsheep, with their high prolificacy, early puberty and short gestation; also Rambouillet, with their adaptability, hardiness, productivity and quality fleeces; in addition, Targhee, with their large body size, long breeding season and quality fleeces and too, the Dorset with their superior mothering ability, carcass quality, early puberty and long breeding season.

The name Polypay came about in 1975 from poly, meaning multiple, and pay, meaning return on labor and investment. The breed’s motto is said to be “Tomorrow’s Sheep Today.”

Polypays were chosen for their high birth rates, a long breeding season, acceptable growth rates on grass and good mothering instincts. In addition, they have reasonable carcass conformation and desirable wool

Business Details

The Chapmans sell most of their lamb crop to United Producers Inc., which has its main sheep business in Manchester, MI, 255 miles south of Alpena.

“We work with a fellow by the name of Doug Brooks who has a lamb pool where people from the northern part of Michigan bring their sheep to West Branch, 100 miles southwest of here, in November and sell there,” Jim Chapman says.

“We’ve had a good crop of lambs this year,” he says. “We have some nice lambs,” noting his lambing percentage fluctuates.

“I would like to have a good lambing percentage,” he says. “A lambing percentage from birth to sale of 150 to 170 percent would be great as far as I am concerned. That is what I shoot for.

“We do have some ewes producing singles. If they’re not giving us twins we will eventually cull them. We give them a couple of chances — maybe more chances than we should.”

This year the Chapmans lambed out 70 ewes and produced 101 live lambs for a 144 percent result.

“We’re lambing in late April and first part of May,” Jim Chapman says. “It’s a little bit warmer weather. “We have a pole barn that we’re lambing in. If they lamb outside, we bring them in.”

The lambs will average in the 70-pound range, with some up to 90 pounds, when they are sold in November.

“We keep them out on grass as long as we can, and we grain them a bit and hay at the end, but there will be 80-pounders, some 90-pounders.

“We’re not getting any younger, but there are times we’d like to have more lambs to sell,” says Jim Chapman, who has an off-farm job at the Alpena Community College.  He laughs, “It would be nice to actually make some money off this project, (but) maybe I would just lose more.”

“We really like the Polypay,” Jim Chapman says. “They seem to be good mothers and they do well on grass, which is what we want to do. Wool prices have been bad the last couple of years. We have tried to sell some wool but haven’t been very successful.”

Claudia Chapman says the shearer usually buys the wool, but other times it’s gone to Mid-States Wool Growers Cooperative Association.

It’s hard keeping ahead of the grass with just 80 to 90 ewes. “We need more sheep,” says Jim Chapman.”

Parasites & Predators

The Chapmans’ biggest challenge is internal parasites. “We used to drench on more of a schedule,” Jim Chapman says. “Now we do it as needed. We used to drench with one product, but the last year or two we have been using two different products. We may be going to three here real soon.”

They acted when they saw resistance developing.

“We do both mob and target drenching,” Jim Chapman says. “When we lamb, we drench all the ewes before they get out on grass. Then the rest of the time we look at them and see if somebody’s not doing well and not drench everybody every time.”

They also are careful to use intensive grazing, moving the sheep onto new grass every few days.

“We go to a new paddock, so we have taller grass,” Jim says. “Hopefully there won’t be parasites getting on them if we don’t let them chew down too low.”

Predators too, have them rethinking their operation.

“We’d run sheep for a long time and we never had a coyote problem,” Jim Chapman says. “We would hear them barking on a nightly basis. For years we heard them. Then, a couple of years ago, we had a coyote problem. One summer, we had a couple of attacks and we lost at least six ewes and a number of lambs.”

The coyotes stopped attacking just as suddenly, but there’s a new threat from the air.

“Our latest thing, and I can show you one today, is ravens,” he says.

“I don’t really know if the lamb dies first. We’ve had ravens inside the barn. They fly in the open door. They just come in and we find lamb and ewes with their eyes picked out.”

Jim Chapman has heard a couple of other farmers talk about the raven threat.

“I don’t know if anybody else has had the problem, we just happen to live where we do. There are ravens in the woods surrounding us.”

Hunting ravens is illegal. They are a protected and sacred species.

“Some people have said they have guard dogs that will run at the ravens,” Jim Chapman says. “We haven’t used guard dogs up to now, but it is as consideration.”

Claudia Chapman says ravens are pretty smart birds.

“I think if one is dead and they see it, they may not hang around,” she says.

Other Challenges & Solutions

They keep the Polypay fleeces viably clean during the hay-feeding season by using hay feeders. They get some burrs every once in a while, if they don’t cut the weeds down.

“We have a bale unroller that we use,” Jim Chapman says. “The hay is lying on the ground and they can graze it without any chaff falling down on them.”

The farm, with its own grass and hay, is near self-sufficient with feed.

“But you have to have a tractor and a bailer and it all costs,” Jim Chapman says. “We do use a little bit of grain. We buy a few tons at a time. It lasts us quite a while because we don’t have a big flock.”

The sheep have a barn for shelter during winter, but usually don’t use it.

  “Often we keep them on a pasture with a little Quonset hut,” Jim Chapman says. “Some may go inside but they stay right outside most of the time.”

The farm is about 12 miles from Lake Huron and does get some lake effect snow.

Michigan weather is always chancy and with climate change is getting chancier.

“Our springs are getting longer, and winter gets longer going into spring,” Jim Chapman says, “This year we had storms in April with snow. We had just sheared our sheep. We lost a couple of ewes because they piled into the barn trying to stay warm and suffocated.”

Spit In The Wind has a self-replacing ewe flock with rams brought in to keep the genetics fresh.

“We buy rams,” Jim Chapman says. “We like to keep four rams and we’re constantly changing a ram. Every two years, sometimes every year, somebody new is coming in.

“We want to keep that Polypay baseline, but we have other rams.

“We just bought a Texel ram, the first time we had one of that breed. We had a South African Meat Merino (SAMM) for a while. We have an Isle-de-France (that has some other breeds in there that I don’t know what they are), but it is a nice big ram.”

Then they have a Dorset ram, whose days are numbered.  Claudia can’t wait to see him rotated off the farm.

“He’s going this year because he is a mean son of a gun,” she says.

“He throws the best lambs. My gosh they are nice lambs. We tolerated him for two years — we’ve had him for three or four. But this year is it.”

There are also two, friendlier, Polypay rams.

“We get our Polypay rams from Brett and Debbie Pharo in Rapid City.”

The Chapmans are active members of the state sheep association, including hosting 4H groups that meet at Spit In The Wind to observe the farm at work.

“We go to meetings and try to stay as up on things as we possibly can,” Jim Chapman says.

“We’ve learned how to be good grass producers,” Claudia Chapman adds. Husband Jim says this spring the farm is being overrun with grass.

“We can’t keep up with it — we need more sheep,” he says.

  Originally published in the November/December 2018 issue of sheep!.

Spit in the Wind Sheep Farm was originally posted by All About Chickens

[thomasreedtn]

Garden, Groundhog, and Writing Updates

You may have noticed me blogging less this month, and that has a bit to do with increased groundhog patrol and much to do with working to finish my Lyme disease book. The garden took a turn towards Autumn with new mum’s and the tall sedum starting to put on its show:

That back area near the shed and sedum is a major groundhog zone, and we’re “enjoying” groundhogs four and five of the season. I put enjoying in quotes, because I’m really not enjoying these greedy munchers, but David has all manner of fun watching and listening to me try to patrol them. Lucy the Starchild groundhog created a mighty mess in our shed and then got hit by a car. We miss her dreamy yet sloppy ways. Some as yet unknown neighbor poisoned the next resident groundhog, and then a third groundhog cannibalized that one and died, too. Totally gross and quite sad. Our next door neighbor put the third one out of its misery once we deduced what happened. We didn’t want #3 to suffer like #2. Still no word on who or what poisoned them, but it made me appreciate people sharing about the much kinder Havahart relocation traps.

We had two blissful weeks of no groundhogs, and then Big Fat Mama brought Rascal Jr. to our shed. “Here’s a nice spot for you, Junior. Look, cosmos!” Big Fat Mama lives on and under the “natural buffer zone” across the street. She visits Junior for dinner once per week when the cosmos start to recover, just in time for a tasty treat. The thing about Rascal Jr. is he’s a “special” groundhog. A savant. Other neighbors loaned me their Havahart trap and offered to relocate him to a more groundhog receptive area in the country. Rascal Jr., aka “R.J.,” loves entering that trap for the groundhog buffet, but not once has he ever triggered the mechanism. I even tried a different — guaranteed to work in minutes — relocation trap, but he’s got those things down.

Unlike all the other groundhogs, R.J. appears to have an impaired sense of smell. For months I used Expel spray on the front garden, and with the exception of me, no mammals came near it. I find the scent of Expel tolerable, but its minty rosemary overpowers the more sensitive noses of hungry critters. Well, not R.J.! He gobbled up the Expel sprayed chard, lettuce, parsley and pansies, leaving Skeletor stems and barely bothering to run away when I chased him out of the garden. He’s got that teenager rebel vibe in addition to his savant qualities.

The Rule is: groundhogs can live and let live in the backyard (within reason), but never, ever, EVER go into the front yard garden! Destroying the front yard garden turns the Biggest Faery into a Fire Faery in no time flat.

Well, I couldn’t spend all my time chasing Rascal Jr. and intending he never breeds to pass on his funky gene pool, so I picked up some Repels All spray from the local garden store. It repels me almost as much as R.J., but it does seem to work. If I miss an area of a preferred plant, he eats it, so I’ve begun to double up the deterrent by sprinkling hot pepper flakes all over the front yard munchies. For the most part, that works, and the pepper flakes look like confetti.

I moved a potted tomato plant from way up front to the backyard when some squirrels or possibly two-legged’s swiped two Roma tomatoes just as they began to ripen. I replaced it with a hardy red rose bush, which makes me happy, but the tomato relocation made Big Fat Mama very happy. I swear those groundhogs are psychic, because she just knew it was back there and visited Junior even before the cosmos had greens again. Unlike most critters, she started inhaling the nightshade leaves, which launched me to Repels All the backyard, too, while David stood inside laughing at me.

I was so determined to show Big Fat Mama who’s boss that I pumped the spray before opening the nozzle so that when I did open the nozzle, my hand got drenched. I then doused the tomato plant, and Big Fat Mama took the hint. Just sixteen hand washings later, I was almost able to sleep with that hand near my face. I spent the evening researching metal cloches and figuring out how to build a concrete block floor, hardware cloth fenced Garden Tower cage next year, while also pondering if I just want to turn the front garden into a garden of entirely rodent and deer repellent plants that draw hummingbirds, butterflies, birds and pollinators. I still have mint and many herbs up front, which, other than the parsley, seem distasteful to most critters, including R.J. Fortunately, he doesn’t like cosmos, and Big Fat Mama hates repellant, so I have one pretty cosmo plant up front:

In Spring, I surrounded my lettuce with garlic and onions in the front raised beds, and that worked well. Of course, that was pre-Rascal Jr., who’s really a full fledged rascal with a wicked fast metabolism. Between the groundhog buffet and all his other treats, he must not have inherited Big Fat Mama’s obesity gene. Only her pushiness. I don’t want the front yard garden to become one of those multi-generational groundhog pathways, but I do still have an abundance of edibles there, including various kales, chard, beets, herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, hot peppers, and flowers. I love me some fresh picked produce, even if it now takes me five minutes to clean it with Veggie Wash!

Anyway … it’s a project. These groundhogs can totally hear me. They look right at me whenever I communicate with them; they just don’t care. The faeries laugh at me as much as David and the groundhogs do. I could call in last year’s very effective cat patrol, but I do love all the birds this year, which I always needed to warn away when I called in the cats. If I opt for the Garden Tower out back next year, I’ll need to have it on lock down. I’m actually getting back the first generation Garden Tower I gave our friend Tim in 2016. His daughter offered a full circle return, and we accepted. We’ll see how it all plays out. I do love all the pretties, and fresh produce feels so alive when just picked. It would be nice not to need any vigilance and to still have abundant harvests, so the Garden Tower 2 in our shed may return to use next year now that I know what goes where in the yard.

And now … the Writing Update:

The Metaphysics of Lyme Disease now has over 94,000 words and counting. Although it sounds like I spend all my time chasing groundhogs, I really spend most of the day in phone sessions and writing this book. I still hope and plan to release it this year. I love all the contributors’ sections, and my own writing feels like a Russian doll. Every chapter I write begets another, somewhat similar, but necessary one. Adding astrology into the mix has expanded the project but also gives me a kind of shorthand to describe energetic patterns I’ve noticed in 14+ years of supporting people with Chronic Lyme. I don’t want to jinx my writing process by sharing too much here. Let’s just say, it’s coming along even better than expected, and the detour this Spring was well worth the time exchanged for more focused content.

Other Quick Updates:

Tania and I still have a couple spots left in the Fall Equinox in Tahoe workshop, “Living a More Magickal Life with Laura Bruno and Tania Marie.” You can find details and sign up here. This is the first and only workshop we’re co-teaching together, because Tania won’t be teaching at all after this September. I’ve also backed off teaching in order to focus more on writing. There’s a chance I may still teach some Reiki classes in 2019, but this workshop with Tania will be my first and last class taught in quite awhile.

You can find August Specials here. The Lugh’s Clues Special is quite popular, and I LOVE doing those sessions! What great ideas you have! It’s such an honor to support people wanting to pay it forward.

In sidewalk news … our hard work appears to be paying off. The Assistant Director of Public Works let us know that he rewrote our Township’s definition of “Complete Streets” in such a way that exempts our neighborhood from the 15-feet-into-our-yards, destroy our trees sidewalk requirement. Progress. He presents his new proposal to the Township Board tonight but feels they will accept his amendments. Fingers, toes and wings crossed for that. Between R.J., AT&T, and the Township Board, our front yard has sure been a hot commodity in 2018. Hopefully liberator Uranus in Taurus will continue to put the kibosh on usurpers and tyrants!

That’s all for now … wishing you and yours a lovely week!

from Thomas Reed https://laurabruno.wordpress.com/2018/08/14/garden-groundhog-and-writing-updates/

[thewalkingdeaxter]

The Exotic Animals Of Australia

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[lovingzombiechaos]

The Price We Pay-Chapter 4

Summary: Negan continues his rounds of terror. Word Count: 4500

NAYNA

Nayna poked a finger between the bars of the cage. “Shh, shh. It’s okay.”

While Negan and his men taunted and teased Rick, Nayna had gone to check the trap. Somewhere between her checking the trap and coming back, Daryl had loaded the truck up with a broken hutch and some chicken wire. Of course, now that she actually had the rabbits, he was nowhere in sight.

She felt a flare of annoyance. Why would he put them in the truck instead of in the damned yard? Now she would have to drag them and the bunnies to the backyard and pray neither one escaped.

Her eyes shifted back to Negan and she snorted to herself. Since he seemed so fucking smitten with her, maybe he would move the shit for her. Meh, not likely in any event. Whatever, she didn’t need Negan anyway.

Nayna set the cage down on the tailgate and clicked her tongue at the terrified creatures. The two rabbits had backed themselves into the corner of the cage, shaking and chittering at each other. Nayna clucked at them as she stuffed pieces of shredded lettuce between the bars. They wore the same look of bewildered fear that the Alexandrian’s had around Negan.

Behind her she could hear the scuffing of boots along the asphalt. By the looks of the people hurrying around her, she figured it was Negan.

And she was not disappointed.

“Hubba, hubba,” he said.

She squinted at Negan over her shoulder, wondering if he was out of his mind. Here she was, a hot, red-faced, sweaty mess with her hair falling out of her braid, covered in dirt and god-knew what else. Also, she noticed the scent wafting from her armpits was far from pleasant. Then again, why should she even care how she looked or smelled for that bastard?

Negan looked as sexy as ever in his tight white t-shirt, leather jacket and that half smirk, taunting her. She clamped her mouth shut to keep from drooling at his hands. As  much as she enjoyed the hard muscles of a man, there was something about a man’s hands that told her a lot. Negan’s were no different. His left hand was bare and swung back and forth with purpose as he strode towards her, while he wore a single leather glove on the hand wrapped around Lucille’s handle.

She really had to stop referring to the bat by name.

His hands were large, stocky, befitting his stature. From the few times she’d seen him, they’d never been idle. Like the man who wielded them, they were loud and boisterous, blustering their way through life. And yet, she’d seen them so incredibly gentle when cradling Lucille. She imagined it would be the same if he were cradling her head, his lips covering hers.

“Doll?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts as he snapped his sturdy hand in her face.

She blinked and turned back to the rabbits to hide her face. The bunnies were busy tearing into the lettuce and eyeing her and Negan warily.

He cleared his throat and she squeezed her eyes shut, praying for patience and for the fire in her blood to die down. “What is it?”

“I said, don’t you look mighty fine today.”

With that, Nayna turned back to him, hands on her hips. “Are you blind?”

“Fuck no, I know a hot woman when I see one,” he said, gesturing at her with Lucille.

“Don’t point that thing at me,” she said, taking a step back.

“Thing? Fuck you, doll. This is Lucille. She is a lady and she needs some motherfucking respect…I think you should come give her a fucking kiss.”

Nayna raised a brow. “I think you should kiss my fucking ass, but I doubt that will happen, so it looks like we’re at a bit of a crossroads here.  My lips aren’t getting anywhere near that thing.”

Negan shook the bat at her, shaking his head, though he never lost that expression of mirth on his face. “I’ll kiss your ass if you ask me veeeery nicely, doll.”

Of course, Negan could turn anything sexual. “Well, you’ve already seen me today.  I haven’t run away in the hour you’ve been here, so go frolic somewhere else.”

He snorted and rested Lucille in the bed of the truck beside the cage. “What the fuck is this?”

She cut her eyes between him and the bunnies. “They’re rabbits.”

“Well, no fucking shit Sherlock. The fuck are you doing with rabbits?”

Nayna peeled off more bits of lettuce and shoved it in the cage. “Breeding them. It’s uh…my pet project.”

He chortled and wriggled a thick finger between the bars, stroking the soft fur of the female rabbit. “I see what you fucking did there, doll.”

Nayna half-smiled at him and wrapped her arms about herself. “What do you want, Negan?”

He glanced up at her and once again his eyes ran over her body. “Entertainment.”

“Then maybe you should find someone else to play with, I’m kinda busy,” she said, hoisting herself up the tailgate, only partially ignoring Negan’s gaze following her.

“The fuck are you doing that can’t wait a few hours?”

She gestured to the chicken wire and the broken wooden hutch. “I want to get them settled in before tonight. If I wait too long I won’t have time to finish. That cage is too fucking small for them as it is.”

He leaned against the truck and peered up at her through sinfully long lashes. “Beg off for a few hours, come on, let’s see who has a fucking pool table or ping-pong table or something, doll.”

She shook her head. “Pass. I’ve got shit to do.”

He sighed as she turned back towards the crap in the back of the truck. She could feel his eyes on her ass as she bent down to put on the thick, fabric gloves. Nayna gingerly stepped over Lucille. The last thing she needed was to trip and fall and break her ass on that fucking bat…The fucking bat that would ultimately be her demise.  She shuddered, suddenly cold.

“Hand me the fucking shit and I’ll help you fucking unload,” Negan said gruffly.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, raising a brow. “Beg pardon?”

“Hand that shit over and I’ll fucking help you. But if I do, you have to answer my questions.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Again, pass. You don’t need to know anything more than my name and the fact that I’m still here for my people.”

“Fucks sake, doll. A little conversation won’t fucking kill you. And if I recall correctly, from our conversation an hour ago, Nayna isn’t even your real name.”

Rolling her eyes, she turned away. “Can you just not?”

She bent down and snagged the chicken wire roll. Shit was heavy. Nayna dragged it to the edge. Before she could jump down, Negan had snapped it up and set it neatly on the ground, one black brow raised. “Come the fuck on, doll.”

“Fine, whatever. I’m not guaranteeing you’ll get any answers out of me,” she said, pushing the broken hutch to the edge of the tailgate. “Anyway, I don’t see why you even care to know anything about me. Doesn’t seem like your style, to be quite honest.”

Negan lifted the hutch with no problem and set it beside the chicken wire. “I’m fucking curious about the woman who would jump up to save others. Fucking stupid, but brave. I like that. You got balls.”

Nayna shrugged at him, sitting on the edge of the tailgate and sliding off. “You’re right, it was dumb, but I was fucking desperate. Do you blame me?”

“Blame you? Fuck no. Understand you? Also fuck no. I don’t fucking get why you’d sacrifice yourself for a bunch of assholes who wouldn’t do the same for you.”

She hoisted the cage with the rabbits onto her hip. Her eyes fell on Lucille. “You’ve never loved anyone so much you’d die for them?”

“Nope, I fucking haven’t.”

She glanced up at him. “Then I feel sorry for you.”

He burst out laughing. She made to move around him, but he caught her by the elbow. “Don’t fucking feel sorry for me. That shit is weakness.”

“How would you know if it’s weakness if you’ve never experienced it?” she asked, staring up at his hard, square jaw.

“Because I see it every fucking day. And it’s bullshit. It never fucking lasts.”

William appeared in her mind for an instant, but she pushed the memory of him away as she glanced at Lucille again. When she looked up at him, his eyes were glittering, daring her to say something else. She simply stared at him defiantly.

His gaze fell on the simple wedding band on her left hand. “You married?”

Instinctively, her fingers rubbed the warm metal of the ring. “Yes.”

“Where is the lucky man?”

Nayna sniffed, eyes glued to the pavement. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t fucking know?”

She swallowed. “He’s probably dead.”

Negan dropped her arm. “I’m sorry.”

She raised her brow up at him as she shifted the cage higher on her hip. “That’s big of you.”

“Hey, I’m a mighty fine, stand up kinda guy, doll.”

William was the last person she wanted to think about right then, so she moved around Negan. She was surprised to find him following her into the backyard.

“The fuck do you want this shit?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, setting the cage down on one of the tables Daryl had left her.

He nodded and set the stuff down next to the table. She picked at invisible lint on her shirt, trying to still her pounding heart. Negan’s touch left her insides squished and liquefied.  When she looked up, she was alarmed to find him coming closer to her. He stepped closer and closer, backing her up to the fence. It wasn’t fear that made her retreat, but the pull she felt towards him as he stalked her way, his heady gaze making her feel drunk. He trapped her between his arms and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

She turned her head in his direction and her nose brushed his. All the smells and signs of spring disappeared as the Negan took over all her senses. They were so close that if either one even twitched, their mouths would touch. And Nayna wanted that so bad.

She put her hands up in self-defense and they came to rest against his chest. “What do you want?”

He flashed those white, white teeth at her. “I think you know what I want.”

With her heart pounding in her ears, she found it hard to speak, hard to think. It didn’t help that him being so close felt so wonderful. Years of physical neglect, of emotional turbulence led her to fucking ache for Negan. Her brain knew better, but her heart and body both had other things in mind. Nayna opened her mouth, but she was cut off by a loud, ringing shot that echoed around the walls.

Negan’s eyes went from soft, sexy and lustful to hard, pissed and determined. His entire face was a mask of something more than angry. Whatever it was, it turned her blood to ice and she shivered under the frost of his stare.

His voice was low when he spoke, a sharp contrast to his usual loud bravado. “You better fucking hope to whatever god you pray to that was an accident.”

He wrapped his gloved hand around her wrist and pulled her along behind him. She stumbled along as he dragged her down the alleyway and into the main road where the other Saviors and Alexandrians were looking around in alarm.

The lone female Savior stepped forward. “It came from the infirmary.”

He nodded and pulled Nayna along, yanking Lucille up from the back of the truck as they passed. As much as she wanted to struggle against him, she thought better of it. No use in angering him any further. She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes met Rick’s. He gave a slight nod and followed them into the infirmary.

“Hold this,” Negan said, and thrust Lucille into Rick’s hands before tugging Nayna inside.

Nayna blinked several times, blinded from abruptly switching from the glaring sun outside to the shadowy darkness of the house. Negan, on the other hand, didn’t seem to have such problems.

“The fuck is going on here?!”

When her eyes had adjusted, she saw Carl pointing his gun at three Saviors. One of them held a black plastic milk crate filled to the brim with medicine. “They said half! They’re talking it all!”

Rick raised his hand, approaching his son the same way he would approach a suspect. “Carl…Carl, put the gun down.”

Everyone in the room tensed as Carl turned his gun to Negan. Nayna sucked in a breath to say something when Negan’s laugh cut her off.

“Hmm, really?” Negan said, pushing Nayna ahead of him and sliding his arm around her so that his hand rested on her chest, right over her heart. All her dirty, dirty mind could think of was that his hand was mere inches away from her breast. It took every measure of self-control she possessed not to arch into his hand.

Carl tightened his grip on the gun and turned to look at Negan with one steely eye. “You should go. Before you find out how dangerous we all are.”

She stiffened as Negan  pressed his front into her back. While the sensation wasn’t uncomfortable, the public nature of the gesture made it so. Of course, it was Negan, who had no such reservations as he rocked her from side to side.

Negan chortled in her ear, but his attention was fully focused on Carl. “Well, excuse me, and pardon the goddamn shit outta my fucking French, but are you threatening me? Look, I get threatening Davie here, but I can’t have it. Not him, not me, not—”

“—Carl, just put it—” Rick cut in, but Negan lifted the hand that was not otherwise occupied by Nayna.

“—don’t be fucking rude Rick, we’re in the middle of a conversation…Now, boy, where were we? Oh, yeah, your giant man-sized balls. Where’d ya get them from, cuz I know you didn’t fucking get them from your daddy there. Did you give him some balls, doll?” he said, shaking her.

She didn’t speak. Instead she glared at Carl, jerking her head at him. Carl’s gaze flitted between Nayna and Rick, but he still held it steady.

Nayna squirmed involuntarily when Negan drummed on her chest. “Speak when you’re spoken to, doll.”

“I don’t know,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Any-fucking-way, no threatening us. Listen, I like you. So I don’t wanna go hard proving a point here. You don’t want that. I said half your shit and half is what I say it is. I’m serious. Do you want me to fucking prove how serious I am?”

Negan’s fingers trailed up her chest and traced a line up and down her throat as he stared Carl down. Nayna’s eyes shot to Rick standing there, silently pleading with both of them. Everything felt frozen in time except the rapid bump of her heart, which Negan could surely feel under his bare fingertips.

Carl’s nostrils flared, but Nayna shook her head at him. He lowered the gun, his gaze lowering with it. Finally he looked up at them, his eye blazing as he shuffled past them and handed the gun to Rick.

“Ah ah ah,” Negan said, lifting his finger from her throat to shake it at them. He gestured at the gun in Rick’s hand. Rick handed it over without a word, glaring at Negan.

“Careful how you’re looking at me, Rick. This whole thing reminds me…You fuckers have a lot of guns. There is a fuckton you took from my outpost when you fuckers wasted all my fucking people with a shitton of your own guns and I’m bettin’ there is even more. Which adds up to an absolute assload of guns and as this little emotional fuckin’ outburst has made crystal clear I simply cannot fucking allow that. They’re all mine now. Pony the fuck up.”

Negan cocked his head towards one of the Saviors who held out his hand to Rick. However, Nayna didn’t get to see the transaction as Negan steered her back outside. Once again the light blinded her and she would have stumbled had he not had a firm grip on her.

She was still wearing her Sig strapped to her waist.

He bent down and whispered in her ear. “Where are my guns?”

She picked up Negan’s hand like a dirty tissue and dropped it from her chest. “This way.”

He snickered. “Don’t like it when I touch you?”

She surveyed him. “I don’t like being touched, period.”

“Why?” he asked, falling in line with her.

She gave him a side-long glance and shrugged. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“Even when Rick does it?”

Nayna felt her cheeks grow hot. She squared her jaw, determined not to look at him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten under her skin.

Negan snorted. “Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought.”

They walked in relative silence to the pantry, where Olivia stood with her clipboard. Negan smirked and cocked his head at her. “Lead the fucking way, dear.”

Olivia glanced at Nayna who nodded. Several of the Saviors followed Olivia deeper into the armory.

“We’re not taking a fucking scrap of your fucking food. Just letting you know how fuckin generous I am, though I can’t fucking help but notice that you got the fat lady in charge of the food,” he said, grinning down at her.

She stared up at him unimpressed. “That’s cruel.”

“Oh, don’t be so fucking sensitive. I also can’t help but notice how much some of these people look at you for fucking guidance. Everyone lost faith in Rick as a leader.”

“No, it’s always been that way,” Nayna called over her shoulder, stepping back into the sun.

And it had been, ever since Rick’s breakdown at the prison she’d taken up the slack because no one else would and no one else seemed to know what to do. Then, they put her as head of the committee while Rick was getting himself back together. After that they’d shared the burden all the way to Alexandria.

Negan stopped beside her, leaning on the iron fencing of one house. “So how much of that fucking attack on my outpost was your fucking idea, doll?”

She shrugged again, not wanting to betray Rick. “Doesn’t fucking matter. I took part in it, we all did.”

His shoulders began to shake as he put his hand to his face. “Jesus, doll. Could you be any more fucking obvious about it?”

She crossed her arms under her breasts, noticing his interested gaze flicker down and then back up. “Obvious about what?”

He opened his mouth to say something and then something behind her caught his interest. Nayna glanced behind her as Rick ambled up and placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned back to Negan who was looking between the two of them with vested interest.

“Obvious,” he said shaking his head.

“What?” Rick asked.

“Nothing,” she said tersely before Negan could say anything else.

There was a scuffle from inside the pantry and the female Savior came out, dragging Olivia along and then shoving her in front of Negan. She clutched the purple composition book under her arm, and Nayna’s heart began to thump in her ears.

Olivia looked at Nayna pleadingly, but she shook her head reassuringly.

“Hey, Arat, you don’t do that unless they’ve done something to deserve it,” Negan said, shaking a gloved finger at the female Savior.

“Yeah, we checked the inventory with the guns in there and the ones on the wall. They’re missing three. Glock 9mm, a .22 Bobcat and a Sig Saur P229, 9mm,” Arat said, handing over the book to Negan.

Nayna furrowed her brow. The Sig was her service weapon and sitting at her hip as usual, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing either of the other two guns in the inventory at any point. Olivia was covertly trying to catch her eye, but Nayna looked away.

How did she fucking miss that? Olivia wouldn’t have known better, but Nayna did. Nayna had been the last one in the armory…

Negan cut into her thoughts. “Now, is this true?”

Olivia shivered under Negan’s gaze. “T-t-t-the inventory is c-c-correct.”

Rick stepped forward. “We had some people leave town. The guns might have gone with them.”

“So, you’re saying Olivia fuckin sucks at her job?” Negan laughed, wrinkling his nose as he pointed at Rick with the inventory book. Nayna’s heart felt frozen as she whizzed through the inventory and the secondary inventory in her head.

Rick shook his head. “No. I am not saying that..”

“Then there should be a fucking full accounting of the guns, shouldn’t there?”

Nayna reached into her holster and sighed. “I have the Sig. It’s accounted for.”

Negan turned to her with interest, watching as she slid the clip out of place and handed it over to Arat without another word. Handing over her service weapon was like handing over a piece of her body, a piece of her soul. Something she’d had since before it all started. She looked up, meeting Negan’s gaze, and he smiled at her.

“Good job, doll. See, she’s on board. Now, where are my guns?”

“I’ve never seen those two in the armory at any point, either. And aside from Olivia, I know that inventory from top to bottom.”

And the other one too. She licked her lips and stared boldly at Negan.

He tossed his head to the side. “Well, you’re two handguns short, regardless.” He turned to Olivia and tilted his head. “Do you have them?”

Olivia trembled and shook her head. “N-n-no..I-I-I…”

Negan looked at Rick. “You know, that’s disappointing. I thought we had an understanding.”

His eyes fell on Nayna. “I thought we all had an understanding….But this…this shows someone is not fuckin on board and I can’t fucking have that, now can I?”

Stepping forward, he put a hand under Nayna’s chin. “You know, Rick…I don’t enjoy killing women. I can waste men all the live long…But this…this was Olivia’s responsibility at the end of the day. So now what the fuck am I supposed to do? Waste Nayna because Olivia sucks at her job? Or waste Olivia because she sucks at her job and spare Nayna, which means I’m going back on my word?”

“Look, we can work this out,” Rick started, but Negan held up his other hand.

“Oh yes, we can. And I fucking am going to. Right the fuck now.”

His hand dropped to her throat and he laughed. “Don’t be fucking nervous, doll.”

“I’m not nervous,” she lied.

“Really? Because I can fucking feel your heart pounding in your throat.”

Again, her face went red, but she glared at him. “Stop touching me.”

He dropped his hand. “Sure thing, dollface…So which one of you should I kill? Olivia? You or her?”

Olivia whimpered in response, and looked between Negan and Nayna who held up her hand.

“How about we concentrate on finding the guns first and decide later?” Nayna asked through gritted teeth.

Negan’s eyes were like steel, but he inclined his head. “You fuckers have two hours to procure those guns.”

“Thank you,” Nayna said stiffly, stepping back and grabbing Rick’s sleeve.

He followed her away from Negan and they stopped in front of their house. “I’m going to gather everyone at the church…”

She caught both his eyes and his train of thought. “…and I’ll start searching the houses.”

He smiled at her and kissed her on the forehead, sending stupid butterflies flapping around her tummy. “Thank you, Nayna. I can always count on you.”

A bitter bile rose in her stomach as she watched him walk away. He could count on her, always. She just wished she could say the same.

In the end it was Rick and Father Gabriel who found the guns, stuffed in Spencer’s heating vent. Livid did not even begin to express the feeling on Rick’s face as he handed the guns over to Negan. Olivia whimpered in relief and Nayna ticked her head to the side allowing Olivia to flee.

Negan rolled his eyes and watched her go. “It’s fucking amazing what you can accomplish when you light a fire under someone’s ass, isn’t it?

“Well, it looks like we’ve worn out our fucking welcome here, boys! Let’s get a fuckin move on. Now, before I go,” Negan said, gripping her arm and pulling her away from the group. “Let me make something abundantly clear. All of you work for me now. That includes you, dollface. All of you need to show me some motherfucking respect. Especially you. Now, I don’t mind your sarcasm, our witty rapport, but I sure as fuck mind it if you question me in front of my men. Don’t you ever fucking do that again or it won’t be you who dies. Got it?”

Nayna watched him in silence. She wasn’t scared of the coldness in his eyes, no, she was scared of how fast his dancing eyes turned into hard ice.

“Speak when you’re fucking spoken to,” he said, shaking her slightly.

“Yes, Negan, I understand,” she said automatically in the most robotic voice she could muster.

“That’s fan-fucking-tastic, doll. I’m glad we’re on the same fuckin page about something.”

Negan leaned down, once again close enough to kiss, but he only smiled at her before swiping a finger over the tip of her nose and turning back to Rick.

“You don’t think I’d fucking forget Lucille, now do ya?” he said, reaching for the damnable bat. Rick was biting his tongue as he handed it over.

Negan’s fingers wrapped around the bat as he drew Rick in closer, speaking low enough for only Nayna and Rick to hear. “I just slipped my dick down your throat…And you thanked me for it.”

As much as Nayna wanted to reach out and comfort Rick, whose face was red and whose veins were popping out of his neck, she couldn’t help but think of Negan picking up on her feelings. Instead, she stood there, half-dejected and fully angry.

“Welcome to a brand new beginning you sorry ass fucks! Toodles and ta ta.” He saluted them before turning back to his men. “Let’s get the fucking fuck outta here.”

Once they were gone she looked at Rick and leaned into him. “Surviving is fighting.”