#okay maybe it’s not that bad but I miss my podcast wife every day

[potato-lord-but-not]

last night i dreamt i was listening to the new episode of malevolent and there was a sex scene and then i woke up to discover that there is in fact a new episode of malevolent and now im scared to listen to it

I wish there was a sex scene

[rosy-cheekx]

Heard you were looking for prompts :) 1 of 2 - From favorite tropes: Blind date set up by mutual friends! And maybe combined with "I'm speechless you're so beautiful" from the fluff & kisses (and other stuff) prompts. Go wild with it!

This will go to AO3 soon, but it was a lot of fun to write and a nice distraction from any hypothetical realities the TMA fandom may be experiencing. 

Double-Blind: 5K

Martin smelled like espresso. He wrinkled his nose and dusted his hands on his apron uselessly, as if doing so would rid himself of the months of coffee, cinnamon, and hazelnut baked into his skin.  It wasn’t all that bad, he supposed, except what was the point in using cologne if it was going to be immediately overpowered?

The bell above the door jingled and Martin jumped, pulled from his thoughts on cologne and what he would like to smell like, given the opportunity. Sandalwood, maybe? Tobacco and vanilla? The musky-sweet smells are nice, they have a nice mix of feminine and masculine to them, almost—

“Ahem.” An exaggerated clearing of the throat, once again whisking him from his distractions. Martin locked eyes on the woman across the counter from him, grinning mischievously. “Welcome back to Earth, Martin.”

“Oh! Oh. It’s just you. Hi, Georgie.” Georgie Barker, a regular customer, moderately well-known podcast host, and most importantly, one of Martin’s favorite people to see at the tiny coffee shop he spent more time in than his own flat.

“Just me? Excuse me.” Georgie pouted and crossed her arms, coily hair bouncing around her face as she shook her head. “I’ll have you know you should be grateful to see me this fine afternoon, Martin Koffee Blackwood!”

Martin grinned and dropped the act. “I always am, Georgie. But I told you, there’s not a—”

“Like I said, you should be happy to see me.” Georgie barreled on. “I have good news.” She cocked her head and pondered the chalk-covered board behind the counter. “Two chai lattes, please. And make one of them extra spicy?”

Martin rang up the order and passed two cups down to Rosie, all the while checking the door surreptitiously, ensuring a little chat wouldn’t hold anyone up. “Okay? Spill.”

Georgie’s phone was in her hand, and she waved it at Martin like it contained the secrets of the universe. “D’you remember my roommate, Melanie?”

Martin nodded, pursing his lips. “Vaguely. I thought you guys were dating.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to elaborate.

Georgie waved a hand dismissively, rolling her eyes. “Not the point. Anyways, she has a friend of a friend-“ Georgie frowned for a moment, “…of a friend who is looking to get back into dating. Mel says he’s short and nerdy and prickly until you get to know him. Apparently a real pain to work with according to the friend.” Georgie smirked and pulled a sticky note from her back pocket. “Thought maybe you’d want his number.”

Martin grimaced at the blue piece of paper as she smoothed it to the counter with a firm motion. “Wow, George. Really selling it.” It was his fault; they had bonded over being queer back in July when Martin had worn his gay and trans pride buttons and Georgie was proudly sporting her own pansexual patch firmly affixed to her laptop case. One lunch break discussing quirky exes later, their friendship had been sealed. Mentioning offhandedly that he was on dating apps and hating every minute of it seemed to have rooted itself in Georgie’s mind and had grown like weeds until she had taken it upon herself to become his personal wing woman.

“Do you even know his name?” Martin asked, regarding the string of numbers on the piece of paper in front of him.

Georgie blushed, shrugging apologetically. “Friend of a friend of a friend. Sorry mate. Melanie said he likes cats, documentaries, and-” she made air quotes with her fingers, “-being uptight.”

“Wow.” Martin chuckled in disbelief. “Really selling it here.”

Rosie sidled by Martin and set down Georgie’s lattes, who shrugged and picked them up after dropping a few coins in the tip jar. “You have his number. Just think about it, Blackwood. Melanie’s friend doesn’t spread the word about someone unless they’re something special.” She blew a kiss (clumsily, considering the cups requiring the attention of each of her hands) and made her way to the door.

“I just want you to be happy!” She called out as the January winds pulled her out the door and into the grey afternoon.

Martin chewed on his lip as he considered. January was always a tough month for him, and he had been feeling a little lonely recently. He really didn’t see anyone besides his coworkers, customers, and his mother. As much as he enjoyed his job, he wouldn’t call anyone there a romantic interest. He folded the sticky note and stuck it in his pocket as his next customer approached the counter. He did like cats, after all. Maybe that would be a good starting conversation.

--

Jonathan Sims groaned and shifted the stack of books in his hand as he inspected the knee-high table that was buried amongst the fiction books. He hated working the children’s section of the library. Although no food or drink was allowed, there always seemed to be crumbs everywhere. He was starting to wonder if children just manifested them. He made a mental note to come back with disinfectant wipes after putting the stack of child-suitable biographies away and turned, nearly walking straight into the chest of one Timothy Stoker.

“A-ah!” Jon jumped instinctively backward, clutching the books closer to his chest in an attempt to keep from dropping them. “Tim! Good lord, there’s really no need to be sneaking up on me like that.”

Tim grinned wryly and shrugged, taking half of the books from Jon’s arms. “Sorry boss, thought you heard me.” He gestured for Jon to lead the way through the half-sized bookshelves; an unnecessary act seeing as Tim worked the children’s library much more frequently than Jon did.

“I’m not your-” Jon sighed, deciding this wasn’t the hill he wanted to die on today. He made his way through the shelves, sliding books into their correct placements with practiced hands. “Do you need something?”

“Actually,” Tim checked a Dewey code and slid a book into a shelf a few rows down. “I don’t. But you do.”

Jon stared blankly, uncomprehending. Tim chuckled and gestured with a cock of his head towards the research section. “Melanie said she has a friend who has a friend she wants to set up on a date. And while normally, I’d jump at the chance-” he waved his left hand, the silver ring inset with tiny diamonds flashing in the fluorescents, “I’ve been wifed up and I don’t think my dear Sash would appreciate my going on a blind date with a stranger.”

Jon frowned, setting his stack of books down and eyeing Tim. “What, so I have to?”

Tim shook his head, a patient smile on his face. “No, no one is forcing you. I just think—well. It’s been a while since your last relationship and you’ve been a little…testy, recently.” The look on Tim’s face dared Jon to contradict. “Melanie says he’s apparently a really good guy, very kind and sweet and patient. I think his name is Melvin? I kinda tuned out after she wrote down the number she got from her friend.”

Jon scoffed, pushing his glasses up his face as if that would help him comprehend the absolute ridiculousness of what Tim was saying. “Y-You want me to go on a date with this guy, Melvin? Because I’ve been…grumpy? That doesn’t seem very kind to this mysterious date.”

Tim pursed his lips. “I just think you could benefit from seeing someone who doesn’t work here. I mean, we love you Jon, but god, you need to get a social life. I’m practically begging you.” Tim’s purse elongated into a pout, eyes going big and starry. Jon inwardly groaned. Tim was his oldest friend here at the library and he really never learned how to resist that face. Maybe he should ask Sasha.

“One date,” Jon promised. “I’ll do one date. And then you never set me up again.”

Tim grabbed the rest of the books Jon had set down and added them to his stack before whisking himself away down the aisles. “If we’re lucky, I’ll never have to!” He called down the aisles, grinning madly. Jon sighed and grabbed a small pink sticky note that had been stuck to the countertop, running his eyes over the numbers before slipping it into his pocket. He’ll call later.

--

Martin stared resolutely at the numbers on the blue sticky note, running his thumb over the curled edge of the paper, slightly stained from some sort of milk during the shift. Even his apron pockets weren’t foolproof. The underground was busy and he was jammed between an older woman who smelled weirdly like salmon and a man who seemed utterly too well-dressed to be on the tube. Elbows crammed into his side to keep from nudging anyone, he pulled out his phone and stared at the messaging app for what felt like several minutes. He typed the numbers into the message bar and watched his cursor blip in the body of the message.

Hey whats up?

No, that would be so weird.

Hiya, this is martin!

Georgie never said the man’s name, would this mysterious date know his?

Hey I think the alphabet is missing I and U together.

Gross. Just gross. Martin grimaced inwardly and chewed on his lip, thinking carefully before typing.

Hi! My name is martin. my friend gave me your number, hope thats okay. she said you were really nice and recommended we try a blind date. if this is too weird, I get ignoring it. but if youre game, I am! :)

As he finished typing, he heard the familiar robotic voice of the tube announcing his stop. Quickly, Martin shoved the phone in his pocket and carefully forced his way through the crowd and onto the platform, mind cast to what he had accessible for dinner.

----

It took Jon a few days, until Saturday, to remember to call the phone number they had been given. They could text, they supposed, but they always appreciated hearing someone’s intonation a little better. Especially a stranger, ugh, they shuddered at the idea of not being able to decipher the tone of this Melvin. It was half-past 11 when they decided to call, hoping this would be late enough in the morning to not wake him up.

The phone rang momentarily before a surprisingly feminine voice answered the phone. “Hello. This is Rosie. You’ve reached Swirl Café and Bakery.”

Well shit. This was not what Jon expected. They stumbled over their rehearsed speech, trying to scramble words together in a way that made sense. “Uh-sorry, I must have the wrong number. I-I was trying to speak to Melvin?”

“Mmm, sorry. No Melvin works here. We have a Martin, but he’s off the clock. Would you like to speak to our manager?” Rosie’s voice was clipped and courteous, but Jon could hear the bustle of voices in the background. It must be their weekend rush.

“Ah-uh, no, no thank you.” Jon shook their head into the phone, before remembering that did not translate aurally. “It’s alright. Thank you anyways.”

“Sorry, mate. Thanks for calling!” The dial tone droned on for a moment before Jon hung up, sighing and pressing the heels of their hands into their eyes. That was a waste. Melanie must have been playing them; Jon knew they generally didn’t get along, but they didn’t realize she would stoop so low. Honestly, shame on themself for getting excited about a date.

Later that evening, Jon was cooking and listening to music through the speaker that balanced precariously on a shelf next to their stove. The music was low, with a variety of orchestral instruments and sultry, smooth voices. Jon’s eyes were half closed as they stirred the curry in the pan in front of them, letting the music and heat of the kitchen entangle them in a sleepy feeling relaxing their whole body. As the cello in the song dipped low and resonant, Jon stood still, letting the music sweep them away—

They jumped as the ringer alerted them through the speaker that they had received a text, glaringly electronic compared to the rich notes of cello and viola that had been so rudely interrupted. Sleepy feeling gone as adrenaline washed through their body, Jon sighed and retrieved their phone, checking for the message.

An unknown number flicked across the screen:

Hi! my name is martin. my friend gave me your number, hope thats okay. she said you were really nice and recommended we try a blind date. if this is too weird, i get ignoring it. but if youre game, I am! :)

i meant to send this a few days ago but I never hit send. sorry ab that! rosie said someone called the café asking ab me and i assumed that was you bc i wasnt expecting anyone else and no one involved in the blind date thing ever asked for my mobile number.

if it wasn’t you, oops! either way it reminded me that i had never texted you. :)

Jon squinted at the screen as they read the messages a few times over. That was…a lot of words. So his name was Martin. It was certainly nicer than Melvin. Jon agonized over their words as they typed out a response.

Hello Martin. That was me who called the café…I hope it didn’t cause problems for you. Blind dates aren’t usually my thing, but my coworkers think I need to get out more. I’d be happy to meet you for dinner or coffee. Even if we don’t get along, we can say we’ve done it.

Unless, of course, you’re rather sick of coffee. I prefer tea anyways.

…not “done it” done it. Just. Had the blind date.

Jon winced at their follow up texts. God, that was embarrassing. Martin probably didn’t even take it that way until they bothered to clarify. They shook their head, warding away the growing anxiety in their chest and tucked their phone in their pocket as they turned their attention back to the simmering curry. Jon had embarrassed themselves enough for one night.

----

Martin chuckled at the texts that came through; one slow and the two follow-ups rapid. He could feel the awkwardness through the messages, desperately trying to give a good impression. He chuckled to himself as he set down his dinner plate.

dinner sounds perfect. but same about the tea! and about the coworkers tbh, my friends think im making friends with the espresso machine. which, i am, but only bc its good company haha.

btw i never got your name?

Martin’s phone was silent the rest of the night, as he plodded his way through a mediocre dinner and shower before settling into his armchair, desperate to work on his poetry. Words came slowly to him recently, thoughts about the world and darkness and the intersection of fall and winter. He really should up and move to somewhere warmer, he thought to himself, before laughing the notion away aloud. Yeah, right. He rolled his eyes and tried to focus on the poetry prompts book he had found at the charity shop. “Use noncolor words to describe a color.” Great. Martin settled back and tried to focus, but kept finding himself checking his phone impulsively, the foamed latte art he’d photographed, one of a cat he was particularly proud of, stared back at him judgmentally.

As he drew his evening to a close, Martin almost missed the buzz of his phone, now plugged in by his bed, as he brushed his teeth.

Congrats on the espresso machine. And my name is Jon. Anywhere you want to go for dinner?

________________________________________________________________

Jon hesitated, thumb hovering over the icon that would open a video chat with Tim. He didn’t want to come off nervous, but… he was.

Texting had been going well. Martin was good at keeping the conversation going and genuinely seemed to enjoy the long texts Jon had sent regarding his irritations with the research he was conducting as a part of his master’s in literature, asking him questions about details Jon had added for context. Martin was easy to talk to, too, he always seemed to have an opinion on subjects but always ones Jon was happy to hear, even if he was objectively wrong about spiders and oolong tea. Martin had sent an awkward text, letting Jon know he was trans and that if that was a dealbreaker he should tell him now, one Jon had blushed over and responded that he was nonbinary himself, and that it certainly wasn’t. The “okay fantastic! :))) remind me of your pronouns? he/him for me.” that followed it up had made Jon’s heart sing.

They had agreed to meet at an Italian place, equidistant between their flats and not too fancy. Martin had commented about getting ice cream after, but Jon wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, since it had also been a jab about Jon’s preference for rum raisin. Thus, he was staring at his wardrobe, paralyzed with indecision. Tim had offered to help, which Jon had initially rejected since he’s “not a child Tim, I’ve dated before. And I know how to dress myself.” But lord if he wasn’t wishing for someone to lay out his clothes and tell him to behave. He grimaced and jabbed the video chat button, bracing for the onslaught of teasing to come.

----

Martin adjusted his collar for what must have been the twelfth time, sucking on his lip as he waited at the reserved table. He hadn’t been there long, no more than five minutes, but his anxiety had been building up all day and a part of him was absolutely certain Jon wasn’t going to come. Neither of them knew what the other looked like; what if Jon saw him and had dipped out immediately? He was wearing mint green, as he had promised, so Jon would recognize him, and brought a bouquet of daisies, mostly because it felt weird not to bring anything, but he didn’t want to be too romantic. Not roses or anything. Besides, Jon said he liked daisies, said they reminded him of an old friend. Martin hoped it wasn’t too weird. He brushed his auburn curls out of the way of his eyes, part of him regretting not having gotten a haircut first, but he tucked those thoughts aside as he surveyed the restaurant from his vantage point.

He blinked in confusion as he watched long curls make their way towards him. Dark black hair, streaked with white, half bunned up in the back and rest left to hang loose, skimming purple-covered elbows. Martin wasn’t sure if they were wearing flowy grey pants or a skirt, but either way, the faint black pattern to them was stunning and Martin couldn’t help but watch the swoosh of the hemlines. As the person got closer, Martin realized they were tiny, stylized eyes.

“Ah-you’re Martin, right?” It took Martin a second to realize this absolutely beautiful person was talking to him.

“hmm—Oh! Yes! You must be Jon.” Martin stood, unsure whether he should shake Jon’s hand or hug him or? But Jon solved the problem himself by sitting, and so Martin did as well. “It’s nice to finally meet you…in person, that is,” he added, grinning shyly. “You look lovely, by the way.”

Jon blushed. “Ah, thank you. Y-You too. O-or handsome, whichever you prefer.” He sipped his water and fidgeted with his hands, eyes flicking around the room nervously before coming around to rest on Martin.

Martin shrugged. “A compliment is a compliment, they all work. Speaking of—what pronouns are you feeling today? I remember you saying it varies.”

Jon shook his head slightly. “I’m not going to pitch a fit either way, but ‘he’ is just fine.” It was nice to be asked. The library respected his pronouns, of course, but something about Martin going out of his way to make sure he was on the same page was… It made Jon’s heart thud deep in his chest.

They made small talk about the travel, the weather, Italian food preferences until the waiter came and relieved the tension. Martin felt his shoulders relax after they both ordered; it felt more real somehow.

“So,” Martin asked, sipping his water demurely, a smile tinged on his lips. “Melvin, huh?”

Jon choked on air for a moment. His mouth gaped open and shut again and Martin couldn’t help the grin overtook him. Jon’s embarrassment was sweet; his cheeks flushed and he bowed his head slightly. It was a lovely look on him. “For the record, that’s what I was told by my coworker, Tim.” Jon made air quotes with his fingers. “‘Melvin or something.’ Who was I to question your name?”

“Right, and I’m glad you respect names ‘n’ all. But Melvin?” Martin chuckled to himself, shaking his head. “I’m not the decimal system guy.”

“Nn-mmm,” Jon shook his head, nose wrinkled in a way Martin found particularly cute. “That’s Melville. Melville Dewey.” Jon emphasized, back straightening. “Distinctly different. I’m a librarian, actually.”

“Oh!” Martin blinked. “That makes sense. You work with Melanie, then, I assume?”

Jon grimaced again. “Unfortunately.”

“She’s not that bad!” Martin insisted. “I’ve met her once or twice and she’s been very polite.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “For someone who’s getting a degree in parapsychology, she seems very judgmental.”

“Oh? And what are you studying again?”

“English Lit-hey!”

Martin grinned behind his glass of water. “Just saying, I haven’t met an English Lit student who wasn’t obscenely pretentious.”

Jon faltered for a second and slumped his shoulders in defeat, though his voice still seemed to carry humor, albeit dry. “Unfortunately, I am no exception.”

“Well, I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

Dinner arrived smoothly, shrimp scampi for Jon and eggplant parmesan for Martin. They ate slowly, chatting more about Jon’s graduate degree, Martin’s affinity for fiction and poetry, and their shared interest in tea.

“So, are you vegetarian?” Jon gestured to the eggplant on Martin’s plate. Martin wobbled his head slightly, not quite a negatory shake of the head.

“It’s complicated. My mother has—had—a sensitive stomach so we didn’t eat meat growing up. I think that turned me off the taste. And there’s something about the texture,” he shuddered. “Weirds me out.”

Jon’s eyes were sharp, boring holes into Martin’s in a way he should have found alarming, but instead found soothing. “Mine, too.” His tone—softer, almost reverent, clued Martin in: he wasn’t talking about being vegetarian.

Martin nodded, and gently placed a hand on Jon’s, the one that hovered near his drinking glass. “I’m sorry.”

They were quiet for a moment, Jon’s hand was small and warm under his, and Martin could feel a thin silver bracelet clinging to his wrist. Martin was amazed by how perfectly his fingers rested over Jon’s, how nice it must feel to hold hands with him on a walk or side by side against the world. Jon cleared his throat suddenly and reached for his glass, gulping down water while staring steadfastly at his plate.

Martin felt his own blush rise through his cheeks and pushed a stray noodle around his plate. “So, here’s a question,” he began, eager to clear the tension. “You said earlier your friend Tim gave you the number to Swirl, right? I don’t know a Tim. So how did he know me?”

Jon frowned, cocking his head. “Technically, I got the number from Tim but that was via Melanie. She said her roommate was friends with…well, friends with you.”

“Mmhmm, that makes sense. I know Georgie from the coffee shop.” He was about to continue when he saw absolutely paralyzed look on Jon’s face. “You…you alright?”

Jon was stock still, pausing the forkful of shrimp that was en route to his mouth. “Sorry, Melanie’s roommate is Georgie?”

Martin nodded slowly. “Yeah, Georgie Barker, that podcaster. She gets her an extra-spicy chai latte from Swirl most days and that’s about the most I know of the relationship. Why, you know her?”

Jon put the fork down, shrimp forgotten, and sighed, running his thumbs along the bridge of his nose, pushing his thin-rimmed glasses up to his eyebrows. “Y-yes, she’s kind of…my ex.”

It was Martin’s turn to freeze. “Sorry?”

“Mmm, yeah, we decided we were better as friends. It was back in Oxford. But I don’t exactly see her often much anymore.” Jon winced at his own words, as if he knew how bad they sounded.

Martin sat back in disbelief, chuckling to himself. “Y’know, she said you were a ‘friend of a friend of a friend.’ D’you think she even knew it was you?”

Jon cocked his head in thought. “I guess not. I mean, I think the whole library staff has been gunning for me to relieve some tension. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been looking for a blind date for me for months now.”

Martin grinned, eyes sparkling. “Well, no matter. It was lucky for me.” Lucky again, was Martin, when he was rewarded with Jon’s warm blush.

----

The bill had been a painful affair, with both Jon and Martin vying for the privilege of paying. Martin struck a deal: he’d pay for the dinner, and Jon would pay for ice cream. Jon knew the differences would widely outweigh when it came to cost but he relented, and the self-satisfied smirk that blossomed over Jon’s face was payment enough.

Martin pointed out the ice cream parlor was a few blocks away and, though it was January, they decided to walk. The fresh snow on the ground glinted against the orange street lamps, and Jon laughed under his breath at the way Martin took great care to step on any unusually large clumps of snow, like he had a personal vendetta. When Jon’s chuckle had made it past the scarf he had wound round his neck and mouth, Martin had glanced over, embarrassed.

“I like the sound of it,” he mumbled, suddenly very meek for a man his stature. It was, regretfully, endearing. Martin was tall, but he was big too, and it was obvious underneath the layer of soft cashmere and chub, there was rigid muscle, and beneath that still, a gentle heart. Jon was struck by him, in more ways he had prepared himself for, and it felt second nature to slide his gloved hand into Martin’s and give it a solid squeeze of acknowledgement.

“Do you think it’s too cold to get ice cream?” Jon asked, watching a cloud of breath float by his lips.

Martin shrugged. “Technically? Yes. But who’s going to tell on us?” Jon swung their entwined hands a little. “Unless…you don’t want to?” Martin added, eyes locking on Jon’s before his head followed.

Jon shook his head. “No, I want to. I believe we have a debt to settle and I have a personal score involving rum raisin.” Martin beamed, clearly pleased, and Jon was certain the snow around him melted right off with the warmth of his smile. Jon leant into Martin’s side a little, and they continued in silence until they reached the ice cream parlor, the entrance to which glowed with pink and white LEDs.

Jon smugly ordered a scoop of rum raisin and was delighted to find Martin “didn’t hate it,” though he insisted his mint chip was better. That was genuinely the best Jon could hope for; not even Georgie in all her unusual tastes enjoyed his rum raisin sensibility. “My grandmother loved it when I was a kid,” he explained between bites, stirring the ice cream with his spoon. “It was the only flavor she kept around the house.”

“Not even vanilla?” Martin gasped in mock disbelief. “Any sensible person would say you’ve been tricked into enjoying it.” Jon chuckled and elbowed Martin mildly.

Jon found himself lingering over the bowl, realizing that the end of their dessert meant an end to the date. Martin seemed to be acting similarly, putting his spoon down between bites and taking more and more thoughtful swallows between their bouts of conversation.

“You-you took the tube here, right?” Jon asked, setting his finally-empty bowl off to the side. At Martin’s confirmation, Jon clenched his fist below the table. “Do you want to walk to the station together?”

Martin’s eyes lit up, nodding eagerly. “I had meant to ask, actually! I wanted to make sure you got there safe.” Jon winced at the blush that overtook his cheeks, though it was easy to blame it on the chill of the ice cream and the frigid night.

The walk to the tube was longer and the pair, heavily sated by pasta and dairy, were quiet, making soft comments about the snow or the odd remaining Christmas decorations, hands clasped tightly and shoulders pressing into the other. The fluorescents of the underground shone brightly, normally a beacon calling travelers home in the night, but to Jon it felt like a dreadful curse. He truly hadn’t expected to enjoy his evening with Martin so much, but they had just clicked. It felt like a shame to let it go.

Swiping their cards, Jon and Martin passed through their respective turnstiles and stood at the bisecting tunnels through which the various lines waited to take them home. They faced each other in silence, hands still interlocked, unsure of how to begin.

“If you’d like to,” Jon murmured, eyes shifting focus to Martin’s curls, plastered to his forehead from the snow; his collar, peeking through his coat; the way the shell of his ear seemed to have a nick missing (was it from a childhood accident? Just the way it was grown?). “I’d like to go out again.”

Martin squeezed Jon’s hand, and Jon’s eyes flitted back to Martin’s own; they were grey-blue and reminded Jon of his childhood sea. “Mmhmm, yeah.” Martin rolled his eyes at his own words and tried again. “Yes, Jon, I’d love that.” Martin moved to hug Jon, a gesture Jon eagerly accepted, relishing the warm arms encircling him and the feel of Martin’s chin resting on the crown of his head. As they pulled away, Martin’s eyes flitted across Jon’s face and the hand around his back moved, cautiously, to rest on the side of Jon’s neck.

“I…I don’t want to presume,” Martin said quietly, and Jon was distinctly aware of how empty, how big, the station was. “Is it okay if I kiss your cheek?”

Jon blinked rapidly, nodding wordlessly, before clearing his throat. “Ah, um, yes. Please.”

Martin’s smile was soft as he pressed his lips to the apex of Jon’s cheekbone, almost into his hairline. Jon was sure the blush that rose across his face this time certainly couldn’t be explained away by the snow, but he honestly wasn’t really sure he cared.

[pronouncingitwang]

jon, melanie, and georgie friendship | 1.5K words | basically just. how jon finds out melanie’s bi | for the @jonsimsbipride prompt “solidarity”

“Martin? Are you still there?” Georgie calls from the couch at a volume that makes Jon wince.

Martin’s fallen asleep on the loveseat, his face smushed into the arm of the chair as he snores. For the last few minutes, Jon has been looking at the rise and fall of his chest with something resembling awe. Even a year after the world began again, Jon finds it difficult to believe that they’re safe, that he can just watch Martin without needing to watch over him.

“Pretty sure those are his snores I’m hearing right now,” says Melanie, and Georgie whispers a quick apology.

Recovery has been hard, but being roommates with the Qing-Barkers helps, at least sometimes. Georgie described their shared living situation as “living in group therapy” on more than one occasion, which is true on hard days. Melanie described it as “being back in uni again, but mostly in a good way?” which is true on better days. Martin maintains that it’s worth it for The Admiral and Melanie’s service dog, Mothman, alone, which is true on every day.

Today is a good day. There’s been a lot of laughter, from when Georgie and Melanie had met him and Martin at the airport to telling them honeymoon stories over dinner to now, when they’re all lying around doing nothing, and jet lag has rendered Jon too tired to drag himself to bed.

“Come and cuddle with us instead, Jon,” Melanie stage-whispers from beside Georgie. After checking that Martin is comfortable one more time, Jon agrees.

Melanie is snuggled under a blanket with a pink, purple, and blue yarn mix. Martin had gifted the blanket to Georgie for her birthday, even though Jon, I swear everyone gives their friends pride stuff when they don’t know what else to get them; are you sure it’s not obvious that I didn’t have a better idea? It's warm and soft, and by now, practically a household staple.

Jon sits down on the couch and, after checking that she’s okay with it, rests his cheek against Melanie’s shoulder. At first contact, Melanie lets out a small noise of surprise. “You shaved,” she says. “Georgie, you’re supposed to tell me about major life changes like this! How stupid does he look?”

Georgie hums. “Not too bad. I’d say… no more stupid than usual?”

“Damn,” Melanie says. “Why the smooth face, Jon?”

Georgie opens her mouth, but stops herself to let Jon explain.

“Oh,” he shrugs, “I just tend to shave whenever I have to deal with airport security. Less likely to be stopped for suspected terrorism and all.”

“Ah.” Melanie clicks her tongue. “Makes sense. Sucks, though.” She shifts, resting her head on top of Jon’s. “I guess it’s a good thing that Big Heathrow”—Georgie giggles from the other side of the couch—“doesn’t know how the apocalypse came about, then.”

Jon laughs. The part of his mind that wonders if going along with this particular joke about the apocalypse is a sign of developing emotional distance or just a coping mechanism perks its ears up, but he ignores it. “No, I’d imagine the Daily Mail would have a field day with that one.”

“I wonder how they’d spin your evil boss’s involvement,” Georgie, who steadfastly refuses to use Elias’s name, muses. “Innocent bystander? Secret lover?”

Melanie makes a retching sound, which Jon makes back at her. Melanie repeats it at a slightly higher pitch. This continues for at least a minute, before they lapse back into laughter. It really is like uni again.

“Hey, Jon,” Georgie ventures after a spot of silence, mischief coloring her voice, “Kiss, marry, kill: Big Heathrow, Daily Mail, evil boss.”

“Georgina.” It’s difficult to have a staring contest with Georgie’s body pillow in the way, but Jon manages to aim his glare right at the space between Georgie’s eyes. Georgie doesn’t back down, just smiles sweetly and raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, Jonathan?”

“Fine,” he sighs, resting his head back down onto Melanie’s shoulder. “Fine. Kill Elias again. Marry… marry Heathrow? I think it would have a tolerable personality. Which leaves…” he sighs again, “kissing the Daily Mail. Christ.”

“Bad choice,” Melanie says. “They’re basically the definition of kiss and tell. Imagine the scandal!”

“Alright, fine.” Jon says, not awake enough to debate but curious enough to challenge. “Same options. What would you pick?”

“Easy,” Melanie says. “First, obviously, I’m stabbing Elias to death. Second, I’m pretty sure Heathrow sells toothpaste, so it would be the least unpleasant to kiss. Third, and most importantly, I’m going to use my marriage to the Daily Mail to edit the articles it publishes and slowly radicalize the old white women of the UK.”

Georgie gives a few snaps of approval, and even Jon has to admit she has some points.

“There aren’t many situations where I’d divorce you willingly, Melanie,” Georgie says, “but if it was for this, I would understand.”

Melanie laughs. “I appreciate your support, babe. Your turn.”

Georgie deliberates for a while, then winces. “Sorry, Melanie. I’m going to have to go with Jon on this one.”

“Ha!” Jon says.

“I just don’t think I could deal with being married to the Daily Mail.”

“Cowards, both of you!” Melanie exclaims loudly, but is quickly shushed by both Jon and Georgie with a “Martin!” She continues in a quieter voice, “And before you say anything, Georgie, I know that’s not actually possible for you, but I’m sticking by my words.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe this. The heartbreak. The betrayal. From my own wife, and right after she said she would willingly divorce me…”

“Stop taking my words out of context!”

“Can’t, my new spouse Mx. Mail is a bad influence”(—“Which is exactly why it's better to marry Heathrow instead,” Georgie interjects—)“but at least it’d side with me against Jon.”

Jon grins. “It’s the biromanticism, Melanie. It gives me and Georgie the same taste.”

At this, Melanie sputters. “Nuh-uh. No way. Absolutely no way. Your bad choices are the results of your own bad opinions. Don’t bring me into it.”

Melanie continues to speak, but Jon is no longer listening. He feels, suddenly, like he’s missing something important. “What?” he asks, causing Melanie to pause. “How have I brought you into it?”

“Well… you said being bi makes you choose the worse option,” Melanie says, which just confuses Jon more. Then, “Wait, Jon, you do know I’m bisexual, right?”

Ah. That would do it.

“Not… not quite.”

“Oh my god,” Georgie says. “Seriously?”

“You—I’ve only ever heard you call yourself gay!” Jon cries, giving Melanie and Georgie the chance to shush him with “Martin!”

Melanie shakes her head mournfully. “I’ve been your friend—okay, not quite that, but I’ve known you—for years!”

“I was trying to save the world during most of those years!”

“You also had spooky all-knowing powers,” Georgie adds.

Jon feels his leg begin to bounce. “Well, yes, but I was actively trying not to use them on people. Checking someone’s sexuality would be a gross violation of—”

“It’s okay, Jon,” Melanie says soothingly, “I know you wouldn’t do that.” There is quiet for a few seconds as Jon takes a few deep breaths. Then, Melanie says in a wryer tone, “Jon. One of my sets of prosthetic eyes is literally the bi pride flag. I know I don’t wear it that often, but…”

“I’ve only seen it once, in bad lighting, and… I don't know, I thought maybe you were just being supportive!”

“Oh my god,” Georgie says again, her voice muffled by the pillow she’s buried her face in. Jon feels like burying his face into a pillow himself.

“This is awful,” Jon groans.

“Stop being biphobic, Jon,” Melanie says.

“Stop being bi-aced, Jon,” Georgie says, which is unfortunately quite good.

“Fine,” Jon says. “This isn’t awful. It is, instead, wonderful.” He means the last sentence to come out begrudging, but it sounds more sincere than anything else. Jon blames his emotions. Now that the initial surprise has worn off, warmth is beginning to replace it. It’s not that he’s particularly starved for bi friends, but it’s nice, having one more thing that ties him and Melanie together.

“Thank you.” Melanie gives Jon a haughty sniff, but she smiles as she does it.

Jon’s neck is beginning to strain, but Melanie is still resting her head on top of his, and he doesn’t want to bother her. He closes his eyes and tries to focus his attention elsewhere. He can take a few minutes more.

“I just realized something,” Melanie says. “Jon, I’m literally under a bi pride blanket right now.” Georgie starts to giggle again.

“I’m asleep,” says Jon.

“Yeah, under a bi pride blanket that I, too, am currently under. Because I’m bi.”

“I’m double asleep,” says Jon.

“And I’m bi,” says Melanie.

“I know it’s useless to ask, but is there any chance we can forget about this and pretend I’ve known all along?”

“No,” Melanie and Georgie say in unison.

“Great,” Jon replies, and hides his smile in his bisexual friend’s shoulder.

[aeori-o]

Farewell 2021

“What a year huh?” said me, last year in my 2020 post, probably with some hope that this pandemic would be over before the new year rolled around again. The new variant is just tearing through the population where I am. It doesn’t seem as deadly but it’s wild that almost two years into this pandemic the virus is now closer to home than it’s ever felt (and I realize I’m very lucky to be able to say that). But wow, no wonder the flu remains a killer, we seem incapable of taking this type of virus seriously.

Anyway, onto the usual stuff.

So I finally set my goal far short of 100 books and I’m glad I did. Normally I aim to do an hour of reading per day (and allow myself catch-up days because: Life) but this year I aimed for half an hour. Due to my love of the library I still read past my goal (of 30) and spent perhaps more time reading than I intended but I’ll never be sad about time spent reading.

147% isn’t bad! And I managed to read half an hour every day (with catch up days*) and then some! It’s not nearly as many books as I’ve read in years past but I still think it’s a good number! Last year I very much enjoyed filling in my calendar on the computer (I used to scan them) so I’ve done it again, the blue squares are the days I met my goal and the white numbers are days I finished books (asterisks denote days I finished more than one book).

I finished 5 books this year on the 24th day of the month (May, June, July, October, and November) and I think that’s really amusing. It makes me want to see if I can somehow manage to make a streak of finishing a book on the same day each month.

*I keep mentioning the catch-up days because I feel like that’s important. A big reason I want to hit my 100 books goal in a year, someday, is because it’s possible to do--there are book-people on the internet (youtube, podcasts, authors, etc.) who mention they often read at least a hundred books per year. Which for the longest time I took to mean: 100 novels. Stories with 300+ pages. But these people (rightfully) include graphic novels/comics, novellas, picture books, and so on in that count. So I just want to manage expectations of anyone else reading this: If your goal is also to read a little every day it’s totally okay to miss days, and if you want to make up for it later you can, but you don’t have to.

Will I ever change my icon on goodreads? Probably not.

The only graphic novel I put on goodreads this year was Wolvendaughter (it’s very good, I’d recommend, it’s pictured above) but I read 6 others in addition to that which would bring my total books read up to 50. I’m tempted to make a second goodreads for graphic novels. It’s not that I don’t count them as reading, but they feel like a different medium and I don’t like counting them together. That’s literally just for me though, I am plenty happy seeing other people count them together.

Maybe it’s because I read less but my rating average this year is UP.

I went back and checked and my average rating is usually three-point-something. Once it was as low as 2.8. I’ve never had my average rating this high. Am I reading better books overall? (I hope so.) Am I maybe weighting some of my star-ratings to try and boost the rating of a book? (I am perhaps guilty of this.) But overall I don’t think I read anything that was an outrageous stinker this year.

Of what I read this year I would recommend:

The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey If you’re looking for a book about a very intelligent, reticent woman having to deal with a huge mess her ex-husband makes when he tries to make himself a perfect wife.

Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir If you’re looking for for sci-fi-fantasy lonely space lesbian dealing with other hostile necromancers, a heaping pile of mystery, and eldritch beings. Naturally you should probably read Gideon the Ninth first.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers If you’ve read some of her earlier work it is incredibly pleasing to see she finally figured out they/them pronouns. It’s a short, meditative book about life and purpose explored through a human in a solar-punk-esq society who runs into a wild robot as they attempt to retreat from the world and refocus on their ‘purpose.’ It had an incredibly memorable exchange that I am very glad to have read.

Jade City, by Fonda Lee I’m in the middle of reading the second book (which has been slow going due to the holidays) and with any big, chunky fantasy novel it takes a little time to get going, but once it does it goes. If you’re looking for a semi-modern gangster book where the gangsters have magical powers and are warring for supremacy with other gangster clans while juggling national and international politics as well as interpersonal politics and feelings then check this series out. and the last one I’ll really highlight is...

The Other Merlin, by Robyn Schneider If you grew up really loving Disney’s animated Mulan, and as you grew up came to appreciate General Li Shang’s bisexual confusion and part of you is really desperate for some good, fun bisexual confusion in the same light, easy way: Check this one out. In general I have a soft spot for the girl-has-to-pretend-to-be-boy-to-get-shit-done-in-shitty-patriarichal-society trope but these days find a lot of those stories hard to swallow. This one was good fun and delivered something I didn’t realize how badly I wanted.

There’s other good books in here, of course, but I’m not even sure if anybody reads my yearly updates and even takes recommendations from them so I don’t want to sit here all day recommending things but there’s other good things in there (and some not so great books, but nothing horrific though a big shout out goes to The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle for having the most insanely fatphobic section I’ve ever read in a book, ever. That book would have been an easy recommendation if it weren’t for how hideous the fatphobia was. Like this book is pretty new, it’s only a few years old. How was it that bad in regards to fat people.)

Honourable mention goes to Terciel & Elinor, though, which wasn’t amazing but it was comforting. It makes me want to read all of the Abhorsen books, Clariel to Goldenhand. Maybe I will someday. Also I love that they’ve returned to the older-style of cover instead of the charter mark covers (though I do have to wonder my Elinor is so pale when she is clearly described otherwise).

Anyway I think I’ll keep my goal the same for next year. 30 books. Half an hour a day. It’s very doable and I don’t feel any pressing need to up my count. Other than my ever-growing, never shrinking (thanks library) pile of to be read books in my home. As of writing this I have 13 books out from the library. With five more on hold.

Oh! And I got back into reading some terrible books this year and writing in them. With the intention of passing them around to friends to read and write in, as well, so we can have a little collection of Collective-Suffering reads! It’s been really fun so far.

Anyway, recorded watching 41 movies/TV Shows (sometimes I forget to write stuff in, though) and just looking back through my list we had some real good shows happen this year! Squid Game was incredible. Arcane was shockingly good (everyone is attractive and I’m gay). I haven’t finished The Witcher season 2 yet but I am enjoying it thus far. We got a new Evangelion movie which... I’m not sure I liked it all that much but I loved rewatching the others. And I think the most surprising show, because my step-mom loves it and we don’t exactly have the same tastes, was Ted Lasso. Surprisingly fun, and wholesome yet nuanced. And Dune I really liked but how well it holds up will depend entirely on the sequel(s), it felt kind of like watching the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Usually if there’s a lot of things I enjoyed watching in a year it’s mostly older media I’ve rewatched and enjoyed, because I already liked them, but this year had some real hits for me! And they didn’t come out this year but I finally watched Train to Busan, Parasite, and The Handmaiden which were all incredible. It was a real Korean-cinema year for me, I guess, between those three and Squid Game. (Which I realize is four out of forty, not a huge percentage but a big leap from watching zero Korean cinema.)

I’m going to slap a little mash-up of some of those titles in here because I find looking at my previous year posts a little intimidating when it just turns into a giant wall of text when I get done with my book stuff. It also makes it easier to do at-a-glance year in review stuff. Like “Oh shit this was the year [thing] came out? Remember that?”

And then games! I did not play as many games this year--or maybe I did? See Nintendo didn’t used to send a yearly recap, but it seems like almost any platform you’re on these days does some sort of yearly recap. And my recap from Nintendo, about my Switch usage, was hilarious but also nice to see.

Just thought it was neat to see when I got my switch on here, but we start out and it seems not so bad:

That’s almost the same amount of games!

And then: Whoops. I didn’t even play a days worth of games (on my switch) this year but last year I played the equivalent of over 23 days. There’s a reason for this though.

Before December 2020 the computer I had (her name was Munificent) was kind of mid-tier when I bought it... in 2008. And that’s mid-tier ranking computers in general (at the time) which is a far cry from the clear division between business and gaming PCs that exist now. It could passably run some smaller indie titles, it could run Bastion by Supergiant Games but not Transistor, for instance. So the switch, with its portability putting it above my PS4 for preference-to-play, became my main device for gaming as well as connecting with friends through multiplayer games. (Plus ACNH came out in 2020 and who wasn’t sinking hundreds of hours into that? Plus Hades hit the switch and I was desperate to play it.)

But this year, this year I had CurseBreaker.

I mentioned her briefly in my New Years post last year, I think, but she turned a year old on the 21st of December and she’s utterly ruined me for using computers anywhere else. She is so dang speedy I cannot stand having to troubleshoot problems on other people’s computers now and trying to do basic tasks like open Microsoft Excel on a work computer is torturous now. She’s not even high-end for a gaming PC but she hasn’t sweated at anything I’ve thrown at her (she can’t do ray tracing, though). The only thing that’s upset her so far was before I was given new monitors trying to force things through DP into DVI did not make her happy.

When it comes to gaming I’ve done basically all of it on her this year, mostly been playing classics. I started twelve games this year but finished five (sort of). See I don’t mark a game as finished until I am done with it, so I’ve been replaying Dishonored with @auyamx and we haven’t finished all the DLC on high and low chaos yet. And I played Prey and I’m not sure if I want to 100% that game and going into Prey: Mooncrash I was kind of burnt out on it so we’ll see if I get back to it. I also started Resident Evil Village with a friend but between COVID and some other things happening I haven’t gotten much further than the wonderful Lady Dimitrescu. I started replaying Resident Evil 5 with a friend and we haven’t had a chance to finish it--the gameplay remains fun but Woof this game wasn’t great when it came out and has aged horrifically (but the Wesker... the Wesker is so iconic in 5). And then of course I started Pokemon Snap N64 and Pokemon Snap Switch and have beaten neither of them. And finally, I started Tell Me Why which I’m enjoying so far but just have not had a chance to play. I’m hoping to make some time for it once I whittle down my stack of books from the library.

I also still want to return to Hades and Animal Crossing: New Horizons as well, but I didn’t really play those this year. I’m finally starting to tackle my ever present to-be-played pile as well but I’m just not beating anything. Oh well!

So what’re the five games I did beat?

I played Resident Evil 4 which is awful on PC, do not play it on PC if you have a choice. For me the definitive edition is still on the Wii. Nothing beats point and shoot--so maybe RE4 on VR will also be good? But it was a delightful return to that game, I still love Leon and Ashley is a lot more fun than I remember her being.

We also finally beat Fatal Frame II which was a lot of fun. Those games are fantastic, it’s a shame the early ones aren’t widely available. I beat Later Alligator which was very charming, it’s a cute little game I’d recommend checking it out! We played and beat Heavy Rain which is a comedy masterpiece and, for the first time ever, we experienced the PS3 exclusive DLC (which was a headache to purchase because all of the “add to cart” buttons on my PS3 are invisible).

And I played Devotion twice, I didn’t count it twice, though. Devotion is an incredible game and if your computer can run it (and you like horror) I would strongly recommend checking it out. 

Because I absolutely refuse to get my shit together to DM me and some friends get together once a week to (mostly) watch me stream games instead. @monsterranchersteph even streamed Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for us this year which was a lot of fun! They just flew through that game. But I suspect a lot of games I wind up beating are going to be because we’re doing this. I just started Disco Elysium last week and it’s been very fun with friends so far.

I don’t know if it was spurred on by having built CurseBreaker or if it was spurred by the lack of availability of the ACNH joycons (it probably was a little of both) but I picked up a new hobby this year: Fixing and/or re-shelling controllers. I also fixed two PS4s and cleaned a third (none were mine). Very satisfying. Here’s some of the controllers I re-shelled (for myself or others) and some joycons I replaced the analogue sticks on because the drift was Heinous for a friend. I also got to tear apart a PS5 controller because the buttons were sticky where someone had spilled coffee on it (those controllers have a lot more in them than previous generation controllers do it’s wild).

Joycons are tricky to do because of how itty bitty they are, you’re juggling a bunch of pieces and the tiniest little ribbon cables. The clear joycons above actually had one of the trigger buttons stop working so at the same time we did the shell we replaced that button and ribbon cable and they were tiny it felt like I was breaking it to fold it into place. (I don’t have photos of this, my hands were too occupied for photos and my friend didn’t want to get in my way.)

And the controller in the bottom left... Just. Sony Why. Sony has about five billion different versions of the PS4 controller that are almost the same on the inside but not quite and hopefully they’ve stopped changing them since the PS5 came out but usually it’s the opposite of cost effective to change a controller and yet they kept doing it. The bottom left controller I had to dremmel stuff out of to make the trigger buttons even fit and I could only change the faceplate because finding a shell for the same back version literally doesn’t exist. And, actually, if you look closely at the orange and navy one above (both it and the one to the right, the green and white, are fake-versions of limited run PS4 controllers) you’ll see the ‘Options’ and ‘Share’ buttons beside the touchpad are gray, not navy. This is because Sony apparently changed the controller again and now those buttons are fused to the central plate on the inside and the shell-kit I had had the buttons loose in the old style. Absurd Sony, absurd.

I would genuinely love to know why Sony changed those constantly. The only external difference was when they changed from the original back-only light source to the lightbar appearing on the touchpad. Everything else was internal only. Did they have to change factories approximately a billion times? Was remaking moulds and manufacturing lines somehow cheaper than just keeping everything the same? I am so mystified by this.

Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed making controllers prettier. If anyone knows me irl and wants me to change or fix your controllers hit me up. I love doing this and I’ve run out of controllers to do this with. Please let me make controllers pretty.

Moving on. While I didn’t write or draw this year, either, where I sat down and just did stuff on my own, once again my RPs with @auyamx​ are out of control. At last count we’re at 315,935 words written between the two of us. Maybe not as prolific as last year (considering we did two thirds of that in four months last year) that’s still a hell of a lot to write, taking up 800+ pages. We’ve always been mildly obsessed with the characters of ours that gel well and last year it was the human versions of Anir and Lelia and now it’s the god/furry versions of Anir and Lelia. We’re thriving. And have been blessed with so much good art.

(Lower left and upper right by @monsterranchersteph​; Majority of left side is by @phantomeus​; bottom right is by @auyamx​)

We’ll never not love our boys (who are fighting in this particular iteration of rp), and we’re still obsessed with the other versions of these two, but this version has definitely taken up the majority of our creative brain space this year (and I’ve loved every second of it).

So overall a good year, there is one big downer which I’m going to mention right at the end under the photo of the cat so if you don’t want a downer, don’t read it. I don’t want to end on a bring-the-mood-down but I like to look back at these and it’s a good way to remember things, for me.

Again I’m not going to set any crazy goals for the upcoming year. 30 books in total, which I’m sure I’ll hit no problem, half an hour reading a day. That’s doable and not very stressful for me. Ideally I’d like to be in a better financial place, or at least with better prospects this time next year, but I won’t make that a ‘goal’ because I don’t want to set myself up for failure in that way, but it’s something I want to keep in mind. (Though isn’t that the mood for everyone? I’m lucky to be safely afloat, and thankful that I am, but it would be nice to be able to afford living more comfortably.)

So with that! Goodbye 2021, hello 2022, I hope this is a better year for the world and for all of you. If you also make a year-round-up post please tag me in it or somehow link me to it! I’m not on tumblr super consistently so I miss a lot but I’d love to read how your years have been!

My bummer news is that my beautiful boy, Socrates, passed away this year on February 10th. It’s weird because it feels like it’s been way longer than a year since he’s been gone. Almost everyone on our street and in our immediate community knew him by name, including people on the book of faces (which I’m not even on, but my step-mom would tell me about people talking about him) and people would stop us to ask him where he was after he passed. He was a super affectionate and intelligent cat and he left us way too soon. He had a sudden onset of saddle thrombus (mentioning in case future me forgets, don’t feel the need to look this up) and there’s not much that can be done for that. I had to go to an unfamiliar vet in the middle of the night for him and bless my vet, because when I asked her later if putting him down was the right call she affirmed it was--I don’t have the knowledge on it to know if she said that because he was already gone so there was no point making me despair over my decision or if there really was nothing that could be done, but it was nice to hear regardless.

I’m no longer extremely emotional over the loss, and I still have my other cat (who is a naughty little boy) but I think it’s important to remember. Especially with how distorted time has been since the pandemic happened.

[cloveroctobers]

ELLADINE SARABI

IG info/bio: @/ellasardineabi | 18.5k followers | Artist | i was born with glass bones and paper skin♡

25 years old

Born & raised in Cardiff, Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Father was in the n*vy and moved his family around a few times until he and his wife came to a agreement that it would be best for the family to grow up in one solid place

whereas he would leave for months at a time living elsewhere

Which was hard on the family at times since he is viewed as the rock of the family

He eventually left the n*vy after serving 20 years & was so thankful to, he hated it and how it messed with him mentally

He’s also of Iranian heritage

Her mother is of German heritage

Has her own restaurant that serves authentic German food

Both of her parents instilled hard work, discipline, generosity, and how to be practical in their children

Elladine is the middle child

Has a brother that is ten years older than her and then a younger sister who is seven years behind her

Canon: there is currently a discussion going on if they are going to bring their (maternal) nan/mam-gu home since the nursing home isn’t providing the proper care their nan needs

Her mother has a rocky relationship with her mother that she doesn’t like to discuss with her children but her husband knows all about it

Her nan has Alzheimer's and is becoming violent

it has become difficult seeing her most days

Elladine came into glassblowing after being involved in many classes in secondary such as workshop class

which became her fav since she was able to manipulate many materials such as metal, wood, and glass

She also took a auto body class which was interesting but she wasn’t too thrilled about it. Got away with a B- but knew she could do better if she really wanted to but she didn’t need the class to graduate so allow it

Currently works in a glass studio where her work is displayed/sold and she’s one of the main ones that makes great profit

has bought her own space for her own studio and is slowly making it to her liking with her assistant, yes she’s got one!

Hopes to be in that space within the next 6 months...it would have been a little sooner if we weren’t dealing with a global p*ndemic!!! but ya know life f*cking sucks sometimes!!!1!!:) especially if people don’t gaf

Moved back in with her parents so that she could not only help with her nan but get her studio ready, her parents approved since she was working towards something and realized her talent

I definitely see elladine going through a grunge phase and it probably still slips out every now and then lol

Her childhood room is still in shades of raspberry, gray, and a deep purple

always been plus-sized/fuller than the rest but it’s literally hereditary since her mom is built the same way who got it from her dad

Her family never made her feel ashamed as they shouldn’t and none of her true friends made her feel different since they were all of different sizes!!! besides who’s really friends with someone because of their bodies? Ur really ugly if that’s how u roll js

Always a respectful student and not too afraid to spark up a convo with you but can be a little nervous if the person is more of a “I have to warm up to you first” since she’ll feel like she’s annoying you if she carries the convo at first

Takes her time in relationships because she’s scared of getting hurt, cause breakups are not fun! Especially if theyre your friend on top of that

Although Friendship breakups are much worse let’s be honest here!!!

Has noticed that a few of her exes like to bring up that she’s controlling or too bossy in relationships and that makes her a little insecure since she doesn’t view it that way??

She knows what she wants and likes things a certain way, and she can see how it can kinda come off that way based on how she approaches/says things and tries to be better at toning it down and not being offensive to her significant others

Always has a plan and likes to follow it, she definitely keeps to-do lists on a daily

Takes trips to see Nicky often and vice-versa, every moment they spend together feels like it’s meant to be, even when it’s them just simply chilling in each other’s spaces, he’s truly one of her best friends and he feels like the missing part of her life

He offered for her to move in with him but elladine didn’t accept it since she wanted to be there to help with her nan and in fact—she wanted to be the one to ask HIM to move in with her

but if they make it long enough, they’ll go house hunting together...maybe

I get Shawn/Angela relationship vibes from them (boy meets world for those who aren’t aware of this couple and I’m not just saying this because they’re interracial as well lol) did I say this already about someone else? Brain fart lol

everyone relationship has their flaws so when they hit a bump in the road...elladine immediately wants to fix it but it comes off as more critiquing, moodiness/blaming the other

while Nicky can be defensive/argumentive/a little condescending on his end

To get through it, they normally go on a walk together in complete silence until they’re ready to speak again or they take a break from each other

I think words of affirmation is her love language

Taurus sun + Virgo moon + Capricorn rising?

“The girl on the motorcycle” is one of her fav films — no this is not metaphoric to her love life

Loves watching things with captions on since she always finds herself doing something else while watching anything (which irks Nicky a little bit but that’s just the way elladine is and he loves her so he deals with it)

Will rewind something if she missed it too

Canon: never had morning sex before

but can now say she has ;) & understands the pros people say about it and it outweighs the cons in her book

Will start the whole song over too if she missed her fav part in it

She also enjoys billiards since her brother used to work in a pool hall and when he had to watch her because she was “too young” in her words to stay home by herself he would take her there even tho technically she wasn’t supposed to be there but he was screwing his boss’s daughter so it was quite fine

her sister has a crush on Gary & ships elladine with him, which they joke about every now and then + he doesn’t follow her back, which is okay! Not a big deal but her sister keeps sliding in his dms (he’s now single)

She NEVER thought she would be on THE love island and wasn’t that confident that she’d find a real love that carried on outside of the show but Nicky has proven her wrong 🥲

She’s 5’5–5’6

Probably shops at Zara & top shop and has no issue picking pieces that flatter her “pear” figure, she loves all that is of her body: the pudge, love handles, cellulite and all (she’s very confident and won’t let anyone see her moments of doubt when it comes to her frame)

Loves mythology but will tell bill stfu if he comes near her trying to argue about anything in that subject

Very competitive and will rush through certain things, leaving one to think that she’ll fail somewhere but rarely does

If she’s not near or away from the mountains or the sea for long period of time she gets very moody!!! Guess that’s the Welsh in her huh?

Loves fireplaces, they’re super cozy and very romantic if you catch ella’s drift 😏

Probably smells like jasmine & pink pepper idk

Wants to travel to Iceland one day

Knows her way around a car but dreads having to get it fixed or fixing it herself?

Loves driving until her road rage kicks in? Oh you’re gonna go around her to get in front of her? Never that. She’ll always be in front of you and will break check you if you try her “Drewgi” she mutters

Early riser and goes to bed early too lol

She’s the crying drunk lmao

Automatically vieve has become one of her best friends from the villa but it deff didn’t feel forced like it normally would have just because their bfs have a podcast together, they talk about everything together. EVERYTHING! It feels like she’s the big sister she never had, yet they’re only a year apart lol

They have ft sleepovers and man is it fun!

Forgave lily but at the same time can’t fully see herself being friends with her like vieve tried to encourage before they went on the yacht...sorry everything can’t be Kumbaya over here sis

It sucks to say but it was easier? She doesn’t know if that’s the right term or not... for her to forgive rafi than it was lily and it’s fucked up but that’s the way it is. It’s not like she contacts him on seperate messages or anything like that! She’ll talk to him via group chat and that’s pretty much it. She knows it was all part of the show and production’s bs for ratings but that doesn’t mean it still didn’t hurt

Wishes him success on his shows/movies but doesn’t engage/watch them

What does she post? I feel like she posts maybe three times a month and a lot are outfit pics but tends to go live more so to chat with the people! She’ll also show all what glassblowing entails while chatting away! She loves that part and is pretty open about things but knows how to keep some things private

Personally wasn’t the biggest fan of season 1 but admits she wishes she had mc’s balls in terms of what she would have done if she was in elladine’s place when lily picked Nicky, “ugh! I wish I had her strength rising through my veins in that moment. Absolute riot. Adore her.”

‘“Licky” is a ugly ass ship name anyways so who’s really winning here?!’

Celeb crushes? Iwan Rheon, Henry Zaga, Anthony Welsh, jason derulo, & LaRoyce Hawkins

Listens to: soleima, Marisa Maino, Ava Max, poppy, Caroline polachek, Donny Hathaway, Phil Good, & SAINt JHN

Anthem — M.I.A. “Bad Girls”

[missnxthingg]

𝕗𝕝𝕒𝕨𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤 • 𝕥𝕖𝕟

SUMMARY: Tom’s still debating rather he tells (Y/N) that night they got drunk at the club, and she has a very successful dinner with Harvard’s important people.

Based on my one-shot, Flawless.

PAIRING: Rich!Tom Holland x Rich!Reader (Best Friends to Lovers AU)

WORDS: 8.6K

WARNINGS: TW ABUSE AND USE OF SUBSTANCES. Swearing, alcohol, mentions of sex.

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                             𝕥𝕖𝕟 • 𝕒𝕤 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕒𝕤 𝕚'𝕞 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖

"Thank you for the dinner, Josephine and Vincent.” One of Harvard’s directors said. He was friends with (Y/N)’s dad and was very close to him. “I’ll love to see you at our University next semester, (Y/N).”

“Thank you so much, sir.” (Y/N) shook his hand with a big smile on her face. “I will love to be there.”

Everyone said their goodbyes, and when the elevator finally closed and went down with their guests, (Y/N) started to jump excitedly to celebrate the huge success that dinner was. Everyone was polite - including Josephine and Vincent who didn’t have a single fight all night - and had a good time together over nice food. (Y/N) caused a good impression and they sure loved her, so everything was fantastic.

“Congratulations, sweetie.” Vincent hugged her daughter and kissed her forehead. “Harvard can’t wait for you. I’m so proud!”

“I’m proud too!” Josephine said with a big smile on her face as she lit up her first cigarette of the night. She didn’t want to cause a bad impression with their guests. “But there’s still time to go to Paris and major in fashion…”

“No, she’s gonna be an awesome lawyer.” Vincent nudged her, who giggled.

“Oh my God, stop fighting over my life.” She said mid-laugh. “I’ll become a lawyer for the fashion world.”

“My girl.” Josie winked as she kissed her cheek. “I think it’s time to go to bed, right?”

“Right. Thank you for hosting everything in here.” Vincent thanked his ex-wife with a small smile.

Even after all this time, all the fights and after both being in stable relationships, Josephine and Vincent still liked each other very much. Both cared a lot about what they had and what they constructed together, but it didn’t work out in the end. After a while, they found someone they loved, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t love each other.

“Good night to you both.” (Y/N) gave them a tight hug before running to her bedroom.

She removed everything, from clothes to makeup, before lying back in bed, listening to the soft sound coming from the TV while she texted Tom. He was probably still out partying with Harrison, so calling him was not an option; even though she was dying to do so.

“Brunch tomorrow? Same place, same hour. I have some good news! XO” She typed on her phone, and it was read immediately. Soon he was replying.

Tom: “Of course. You better tell me everything tomorrow. Have a good night, I love you.”

“I love you too. See ya’ tomorrow, good night lovey.”

(Y/N) went to sleep with a big smile on her face and woke up renewed, a little earlier than usual. The sun was shining a little brighter outside, making the usual grey New York sky look a little prettier and cheerful. Her good mood made her jump out of bed and rush to start her day.

Her life was a bit dreamy at the moment. She had a good relationship with her mother, she made up with her long-term best friend, and her dream college wanted her. It was everything she wanted for her whole life, and she wanted that to last for a very long time. It was good not to cry for bad things, and now she could finally breathe.

Taking care of yourself is good, and (Y/N) loved when she woke up in a good mood and started her beauty routine carefully. Taking a good hot bubble bath with a cup of coffee, watching the New York City skyline as the sun rose, and listening to some of her favourite fashion podcasts were some of the highest points of her day. Her skin looked flawless after her morning skincare routine, and she looked alright after not having plenty of nights of sleep.

But when she was done with everything, it was still early. Even if she wanted to meet with Tom and ramble on about everything that happened last night, he would kill her if she woke him up this early. But little did she know that while she had her best night of sleep, Tom spent the whole time awake, talking to Harry and Sam about his feelings.

He rarely talked about it, especially with his brothers. Normally, he would talk to Harrison about it. But right now, his best friend is unavailable and he needed to vent. The moment he entered the apartment in tears again, Harry - who had just gotten home from a date - knew his brother wasn’t alright. Two nights in a row coming home crying wasn’t a good sign. Sam did not know why his big brother was crying, but Tom rarely cried. He only cries for one reason, and she wore Prada shoes as if they were flip floss.

“What happened?” Harry asked and Tom shrugged.

“I just realized I can’t keep on with the meaningless hookups when I know the perfect girl is right next to me.” Tom wiped some tears before sitting down. “Fuck, I love her.”

“Yeah, you do mate.” Sam tapped his brother's knees with a chuckle.

“How do you cope with being in love?” Tom asked his brother and he shrugged.

“I guess when you meet the right girl, everything is just easy.” Sam shrugged.

“So I haven’t met the right girl yet.”

“No, there’s only one thing missing.” Tom frowned at Sam’s words. “Right timing.”

“And you should stop messing around with Harrison.” Harry commented. “There’s no way she’ll want you if you keep hooking up with everything that moves.”

“I guess you’re both right. I’m gonna become the person she’ll want in her life.”  Tom nodded with a smile.

And he spent the whole night awake thinking about her. How he was supposed to make her fall in love with him? Should he tell her about the kiss and the confession? Maybe she knows it already. Every single thing running through his mind kept him awake all night, and he only got a little sleep when he saw the sun rising in the horizon. Still, it wasn’t enough for him to rest and he knew it the moment he opened his eyes with the sound of a text coming into his phone.

(Y/N): “Already out, and doing some shopping. Text me when you leave home.”

Yeah, maybe seeing her today would make him feel a bit better. Even though she was the reason he was awake the whole night, she knew how to make him be okay just by being there and she didn’t even have to try it. But getting out of bed was hard. Taking a shower and getting dressed was even harder, but Tom still managed to do it. Soon he was walking out of his car to find (Y/N) waiting for him on the sidewalk full of shopping bags.

“Wow, you bought the whole story.”

“It’s just a couple of things I thought were pretty. And look, I got you something!” She searched for a bag between many of them. Tom opened it to find the prettiest leather jacket, one that would fit him perfectly.

“It’s perfect! Thank you so much.” He pulled her into a hug, which made her smile a little.

“Put it on so we can match.” She showed her own leather jacket and made him chuckle before putting it on.

“This is ridiculous.” He laughed harder and she tagged along.

“Come on, we look cute. Let’s take a picture of our matching outfits!”

After many pictures on the sidewalk, with lots of kisses in the face and smiles, they decided they were very hungry and food couldn’t wait for their photoshoot to be over. (Y/N) talked about her dinner night as she shared some food with Tom, not excluding any tiny detail from her words. She was so excited about it that brought the purest joy to Tom’s heart. His girl was happy and that’s all that matters. While she talked, he held her hand over the table and rubbed circles on the back. And as he paid attention to every single word she was saying, he couldn’t contain his big smile when he saw how big hers was.  

“And one of the deans said he would be happy to have me there next semester.” She finished with the biggest smile on her face. “I’m just… over the moon right now.”

“I’m happy for you. I truly am.” He smiled wider and she switched sides of the table to sit next to him and hug her best friend. His arms were always the best place to be. “You’re gonna be amazing!”

“You too.” She nudged his nose. “Thank you for supporting me.”

“I’ll always support you.” He entwined their fingers and kissed the back of her hand. 

“Now, tell me about your night. How was the party?”

“I got very drunk and it was fun at first, but I left early.”

“Why? Did you have some girl with you?” She teased him, making him chuckle a little.

“I did, but I wasn’t in the mood.” He shrugged. “Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about those meaningless hookups. I don’t want them anymore, I wanna settle down.”

“You? Settle down?” She laughed hard and her belly almost hurt.

“Why are you laughing?” Tom asked, a little offended.

“Because you said so yourself that you’ve never liked a girl before. And now you’re talking about settling down? Did someone change your mind?”

“Maybe.” He fought the urge to smile again. “I feel like I’m getting old and even though I’m having fun, I’m wasting my time here. So I want to find someone to share my life with.”

(Y/N) wanted more than anything to ask if she could be that person. She loved him with all of her heart and the thought of him being with someone else might kill her. She wanted to be the one he always goes to; the one who’s there for him, through thick and thin; the one he loves. But isn’t she already?

She wanted all of those things, but she couldn’t get herself to say it. Instead the words that came out of her mouth were:

“If that’s what you want, I’ll always support you too. That’s what best friends are for.”

Best friends. Tom was sick of calling them best friends. After the kiss they had on Christmas, and then the other one they shared that week, he just couldn’t stand that title anymore. Of course, being her best friend wasn’t a problem, but he wanted to be more than that. Tom wanted to be her best friend and the love of her life, just like she is to him.

She was tired too. Tired of feeling like she was wasting her time here, loving someone who doesn’t love her the same way; one that she’s leaving soon to pursue her lifelong dream of being a lawyer graduated by Harvard. But neither of them did anything to change that at all. It was best to have each other as best friends rather than not having each other at all.

The week that followed that afternoon was weird. Tom and (Y/N) were avoiding each other because of what he said that morning. It wasn’t like they weren’t talking, but they were avoiding spending all of their time talking because they just couldn’t take not being together anymore. Until they met on Friday after school since he was taking her home.

“I’m so sorry, I forgot about our sleepover.”

Liar. They’ve been talking about that sleepover since the last one a month ago. Until a week before that, they were very excited about that sleepover and were already planning on what to do that time. They wanted to have fun with all of the Hollands, and some fun alone too. So it was very weird when (Y/N) forgot it.

“What? Come on, (Y/N)!” Tom whined. “We’ve been talking about this for weeks now. I thought you were looking forward to it.”

“I was, I really was. But Courtney suggested going clubbing to celebrate my successful dinner.”

That wasn’t a lie at all. Ever since (Y/N) started being friends with Courtney again, they’ve been talking about hanging out a lot more. When Court heard the good news, she just planned the whole thing herself. On Friday, they would go out clubbing and have a good time. (Y/N) thought she actually needed some distraction. If Tom could go out and hook up with many girls, so could she, even if she was in love. She used to not care about hooking up with a lot of guys, but ever since she realised her feelings for Tom were stronger than she thought, she stopped. Maybe now it was time to go back to being herself.

“I thought you wanted to hang out with me.”

“I do, Tommy. I really do! But I haven’t hung out with her since forever and I miss her.” She whined. “Can’t we have our sleepover tomorrow?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Tom shrugged, a little pissed. It wasn’t a bad thing that she was hanging with Courtney, he was just upset she forgot about their plans. But she made everything better with the comfiest hug of all time.

“Don’t be mad, please.” She pouted.

“I could never be mad at you, sunny.” He wrapped his arms around her and relaxed.

“Thank you.” She sprinkled kisses all over his face and made him smile. It’s been a week since they started avoiding each other, and they missed all that intimate contact. It was crazy how much they missed the other, and it was stupid to avoid their feelings. Eventually, they are going to pop up.

But not tonight. (Y/N) looked stunning in the mini dress she chose for the night. She wanted to impress and she wanted to feel gorgeous. No one’s opinion would matter if she was happy and she was ready to have fun with the girls, being young and stupid. That’s why when the time to meet the girls at the club went, she was very excited.

“Mom, I’m going out.” (Y/N) finished some touches on the living room mirror. 

“Going out with that idiot again?” Josie rolled her eyes and (Y/N) took a deep breath to not snap at her and ruin her night.

“No, I’m going out with Courtney and the girls. We’re going to a club and I’ll probably sleep at Court’s.”

“Oh, thank God you’re talking to Courtney again. She’s much better than Tom.”

“Mom, stop it! Let’s not make it about Tom, please.”

“Alright. I’m going out with Gary, so I’ll not be back until tomorrow. But call me when you get to Courtney’s.”

“Will do. Bye, mom!” 

The club was full that night. Courtney gathered some of her cheerleader girl friends, even if they were always kissing (Y/N)’s ass. At least they tried to be nice to her, and after a couple of drinks, they will all start to look decent. And (Y/N) took her old self out of the closet to party that night.

She kissed many guys - and two girls at some point -, danced to every song that night and got drunk by drinking everything she could that night. Courtney suggested doing some shots to start the party, and that was the first of many. (Y/N) didn’t think about Tom for a second while she was in the club.

“Oh my God, thank you so much for bringing me out tonight.” (Y/N) shouted through the loud song so Courtney could hear it.

“It’s nothing, babes. Are you having a good time?” Court asked as she danced to the pop music playing in the background.

“The best!” (Y/N)’s smile was big and she was loose because of the many drinks she had that night. 

“Cheers for Harvard’s new lawyer!” Courtney shouted a little louder and they celebrated it with a tequila shot.

(Y/N) danced some more and had a good time with the girls, until her eyes lied on a beautiful boy by the bar. He was very tall with long ginger hair and had a playful smile on his face. He was alone sipping on a drink, and making eye contact with (Y/N). If she was looking for someone to go home with, that was him, she just knew that.

He called her with a sign in his hand and she pointed to her own chest, giving into his play. He nodded with a small smirk and she approached him quickly, already playing with her flirting cards as she walked swaying her hips side to side, a move she knew anyone would go insane.

“Hello, gorgeous.” The guy said as he stood a hand in the air. “I’m Cameron.”

“I’m (Y/N).”

“Oh, I know.” He chuckled. “I worked with your mother a long time ago. You were just a little kid, I was a bit older though.”

“So you were a model?” He nodded and she nodded back. “Cool. Sorry to not recognize you.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I’m famous or something.” He shrugged. “I’ve always thought you were beautiful, but I only knew you from afar and from your pictures. But now that I’m seeing you with my own eyes, I just… fuck.”

“Thank you so much. You’re pretty too.” She winked and quickly, he rested a hand on her hips, rubbing circles with his thumb right there.

“Can I get you anything to drink?”

“A gin tonic please.” He nodded and turned to the bartender, who went to get the drinks with a wink.

Cameron seemed nice and he was very handsome. He started the conversation easily and they downed a few drinks as they talked. The party was still going on in the background, and they didn’t care about it. (Y/N) was tired of dancing and Cameron seemed like a good distraction; maybe he was everything she needed tonight. Soon Courtney approached saying she was too tired to stay any longer. 

“You can go home, babes. I have somewhere to stay tonight.” (Y/N) winked and Courtney frowned, pulling her to the side.

“What about Tom?”

“What about him?” (Y/N) sipped her drink and Court frowned even more.

“I thought you were a thing.”

“You thought wrong. And don’t worry, Cameron is a good guy.” (Y/N) glanced back to him, who was too distracted by ordering them new drinks.

“Are you sure about going home with him?”

“I am. He’s cute and he’s very polite. I think that’s exactly what I need tonight. Plus, I think we’re gonna get one more drink and bail.”

“Okay. Call me if you change your mind.”

“Thank you, Court. I loved hanging out with you tonight.” (Y/N) wrapped her arms around her friend and they shared a long hug.

“Me too.” Courtney finished the hug with a playful smack on her friend's ass and a wink. “Go get ‘em, tiger!”

When (Y/N) went back to Cameron, he already had two cups waiting over the counter, but she was too drunk to even think twice before taking her last drink. He was now strangely quiet, and to be honest, she was having a hard time to listen to what anyone was saying. She was completely fine two minutes ago, but now she feels like she lost control of her own body.

“Do you wanna go back to mine, babe?” Cameron asked in her ear and she had almost no control over her actions anymore. But Cameron took the slow blink as a yes, and helped her get on her feet.

“I-I… I just have to use the restroom, real quick.”

She stood one finger in the air and tried to steady her feet on the floor to start walking. Her vision was starting to get blurry and the world around her seemed to be going in slow motion. She knew something was off, and thank God she got to arrive in the restroom. Even though it was all a mess, she managed to get into a cabin and find her phone inside her purse. She just knew who she needed to call.

(...)

Meanwhile, Tom was having an awful night with Harrison and the twins. They were home, playing board games and talking about random stuff all night. He wanted to go out with Haz and get wasted again, because he knew that was what (Y/N) was doing. But he promised himself that he wouldn’t do that anymore, so he prefered to stay home.

But the thought that she was out there with someone else was killing him. He wasn’t the jealous type at all, and he hoped she wasn’t either, because both of them were players and could make the other jealous easily. But tonight, he felt something was off. He wouldn’t ease for even a second, even declined a beer Harrison offered on buying.

“You’re acting weird tonight.” Harrison said when the twins left to get their pizza downstairs. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know. I feel like something is wrong with (Y/N) and I’m not feeling okay.”

“Don’t worry, mate. She’s completely fine. You’re just feeling like this because she’s out there with other guys.”

“Wow, you helped me a lot.” Harrison laughed and shook his head.

“You should tell her about the kiss.” He suggested, taking another gulp of his soda. Tom chuckled and shook his head.

“She’s going to murder me if she finds out I’ve kept it from her.”

“But this might actually be the way you get together.” Harrison said. Tom shrugged and went to find his phone, which was now ringing somewhere. He frowned when he saw the name on the screen.

“(Y/N), is everything okay?” He asked when he picked up the phone.

“Tom, something’s wrong with me. I’m in the club close to your apartment, you know which one. I think someone drugged me.” Her voice was weak and slow, almost like she was thinking too hard to put those words out. “In the girls’ restroom. P-please…” Her voice faded and Tom’s eyes went wide.

“(Y/N)? Please sunny, say something.” Tom pleaded, already getting his jacket and his car keys. “(Y/N), please!”

“What’s wrong, Tom?” Harrison asked, now aware that something was very wrong.

“Someone drugged her. She needs my help.”

“Come on, I’ll drive.”

Harrison never drove so fast in his life, which was a very difficult task to do in New York City with all of those cars. Tom instructed where to take them, while still in line with her, who was not responding to anything. Only the noises of a full girl’s restroom could be heard. At least no one found her yet, no one evil.

He was wearing sweatpants and an old denim jacket, but he got inside quickly and rushed to the said restroom. He heard some complaints from girls, but it was actually easy to find where (Y/N) was hidden. She wasn’t replying to him anymore, but she still had some flashes of sanity, although she had no control of her body anymore. Tom didn’t know how he managed to get inside that cabin, but he soon wrapped his arms around (Y/N). She only had the strength to use her fingers to press his body under her touch. She moaned in pain and groaned in annoyance. 

“It’s okay. I’m here and I’m going to take care of you.” Tom kissed the top of her head and pulled her closer. “I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?”

She only nodded and felt her best friend picking her up to carry her through the club. Tom didn’t care if he was not dressed properly or if everyone’s eyes were on him carrying the girl, he only cared about (Y/N). She had a few flashes of sobriety and at some point, she pointed to a ginger guy by the bar, texting on his phone.

“He did this to me.” She whispered in Tom’s ear, and he just knew what to do. Harrison was confused and looking for any sight of his best friends, but he relaxed a little when he saw Tom carrying (Y/N) in his arms. She was half passed out when Tom carefully placed her in Harrison’s arms.

“Take her to the car, I have to take care of some things.” Tom said, his jaw clenched in anger. Harrison only nodded and did as his friend told so.

Tom was pissed and angry. He probably could kill this guy in a second for what he did to her girl. That’s why he didn’t think twice before hitting several punches in his face. If Cameron was a model, he wouldn’t be anymore after all of this. Tom only stopped when security separated them once the guy was on the ground, blood spilling from his nose.

“You don’t need to drag me. I’m not staying here any longer. But he drugged my friend! And he probably already has drugged other girls.” Tom said to the security, who nodded and signed someone else to carry the other guy out.

Tom found Harrison with (Y/N) in the car, close to a pool of vomit on the sidewalk. She looked better, but now she was crying while holding onto Harrison with all of her strength. Tom’s heart crushed when he saw her like that, so he quickly rushed to her, who let go of Harrison and wrapped her arms around Tom.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered in his ears. He shook his head and held her tighter.

“It’s not your fault.” Tom looked at Harrison to ask how she got better by using only his eyes.

“I helped her throw up.” Tom nodded and fully focused on the girl now.

“I’m scared, Tommy.”

“As long as I’m here, no one can hurt you.” He whispered in her ear. “I’m gonna take you back to my place.”

Tom sat in the backseat and placed her over his lap. He held onto her as if when he did let her go, she would disappear. He couldn’t help but let some tears fall on their way home when Harrison was driving to get there as fast as he could, but slow enough to not make her sick. It all came down to him and crushed his heart into smithereens. The avoiding, the unspoken truth… Tom couldn’t help but think this was all his fault. Nothing would've happened if he just went with her to that club and took care of her all night.

When he arrived, the twins were confused but understood when they saw (Y/N) in Tom’s arms. The older brother didn’t even talk to anyone else, going straight up to his bedroom with her place on his arms to take care of her. Harrison stood behind to fill the twins with everything that happened. Tom decided that she needed a shower and she needed to sober up.

“Love, can I give you a shower? I promise I won’t be too invasive.” He asked and she groaned.

“I think I can take a shower alone.” She said. “But stay close so I can call you if I don’t feel so good.”

“Okay.” He helped her get everything to shower, such as towels, her so loved products and anything else she asked, like a toothbrush.

He closed the door but still left it a little opened, in case she called him. Meanwhile he made his bed so they could lie down and sleep after such a stressful night. Tom was now feeling everything ten times worse at the silence of his bedroom and couldn’t help but let the tears fall from his eyes. It was all too much for him. Just the thought of having something happening to the girl he loves makes him feel weak and small.

He got one of his sweatpants, a t-shirt, clean boxers and socks, thinking that she would be comfortable in those. (Y/N) would hate him forever to make her wear those, but he didn’t have anything else to offer her. She didn’t take long in there, coming out wrapped around a towel and her eyes red from crying. Tom looked the same, but he tried to hide it, not successfully. 

“I got you some clothes so you can sleep in.” 

“Tommy, you know I don’t wear sweats.” She whined and he chuckled low.

“Come on, sunny. Just today.”

“Okay.” She was almost sleepwalking, but she noticed the drying tears falling from his face. “Why were you crying?”

“It’s just too much for me, baby. I think I need some sleep.” She nodded and gathered the clothes to put it on.

Tom turned around to give her some privacy while changing, but she soon was fully dressed and lying on his bed. His heart was completely broken to see her so weak and vulnerable. Usually (Y/N) was so full of life and always taking control of her decisions. But right now, she wasn’t herself and he felt lost whenever she was too. All he could do is hold her and pray that everything would be alright.

And Tom prayed. He stood awake all night holding her tightly and praying to anyone who could help him that she would be alright, and trying to give his heart some comfort. (Y/N) didn’t even say good night, or said anything at all. She just fell asleep holding onto the fabric of his pajama and soon was snoring on his chest. Praying was helping, but knowing she was safe and the soft sound of her snoring lulled him to sleep.

(Y/N) woke up the next morning with the worst headache in her life. At first, she was a little confused and it took a while to recognize where she was. But she relaxed when she turned around and found Tom deep in his sleep, with his arm thrown over her body and keeping her close. She couldn’t help but think that was the prettiest she’d ever seen him and it made her smile. His curls messily fell on the pillow and his expression was so serene. She would love to wake up to that everyday. But as much as she was enjoying the view, she really needed to use the bathroom.

She easily got out of his grip and ran to the bathroom to do her necessities. After she was done, she took the time to wash her teeth, clean her face and take a good look in the mirror. Her face was horrible, like she hadn’t slept in years. And she groaned a little when she saw what she was wearing, but it kind of smelled like Tom and she felt really comfortable in those. Maybe wearing sweats wasn’t so bad.

But what she needed the most was something to eat and painkillers to relieve the pain from her head. So she slowly and quietly made her way to the kitchen, thinking that everyone was still asleep, but she was terribly mistaken. Harrison was stirring a cup of tea when she arrived rubbing her eyes.

“Morning, Haz.”

“Morning, (Y/N). You feeling better?” He frowned and she shrugged.

“I don’t even know how to answer this question.” She groaned. “I want to pretend last night never happened because my head’s spinning and aching.”

“Here, take this.” He passed her the cup of tea, which she gladly accepted.

“Thank you.” She took a great gulp of the tea and it helped almost instantly.

“You know… If you wanna talk about what’s on your mind, I’m here to listen.”

“It’s just… last week I avoided Tom because I realised that I liked him a little more than I thought I did and I’m scared of how much I might love him.”

“Wow.” Harrison was speechless. She literally just confessed her feelings towards his best friend.

“But you know, it was killing me. And last night I was so stupid because I just wanted to forget everything that actually led me to the worst situation possible just because I’m scared of a feeling.” She tried to keep the tears from falling and it worked. 

“(Y/N), I’m gonna tell you something that Tom will kill me for doing that.” They both chuckled, but (Y/N) nodded for him to continue. “I don’t know why you are afraid of your own feelings, but I think you shouldn’t be. People might think you’re just a spoiled rich girl, that has life figured out and everyone on their feet. But you’re so much more than that; you’re kind and such a good person. Tom saw that on you and he fell for it. He’s so in love with you it’s pitiful.”

“He really is?” Her eyes were shining, wishing every single word he was saying was true.

“Of course he is. You seriously never noticed that? Tom’s been in love with you since the first time he laid his eyes on you in the middle of the street.” He chuckled. “But he never will admit this to anyone, not even to me, or to himself. So I guess that’s the reason he never told you. He’s also afraid of his feelings.” He sat next to her before continuing. “And I know for a fact that you’re in love with him too, even though you’re confused. So please just talk about it and be together! Because I’m tired of seeing you two not together.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s time for us to have a talk.” She nodded. “I don’t know if I’m ready though.”

“You’ll never be ready if you keep postponing it.” 

And Harrison left the room with that thought. He was right, at least that was what (Y/N) thought. She’s been postponing these feelings ever since Christmas, and time was passing by and she was wasting time without speaking up about those feelings. Everything was making her head hurt even more and she needed some time to vent and think about what to say.

But Tom was faster. He woke up when he didn’t feel her next to him anymore, but her clothes were still lying over the chair, so she didn’t leave yet. He took his time to do his morning routine and rushed downstairs to find her sitting on the couch all alone with a cup of tea on her hands and some tears streaming down her face. He silently sat next to her and almost instantly, she rested her head over his shoulder.

“What’s wrong, sunny?” Tom asked as he started to caress her hair and she sobbed on his shoulder.

“I can’t believe what happened last night.” She admitted. “If it weren’t for you, I might’ve been killed.”

“Shhh, it’s okay. You’re okay now.” He pulled her into a bone crushing hug that immediately made her feel better.

“I feel stupid.”

“You’re not stupid, (Y/N). That guy was horrible and he was going to hurt you. But you have nothing to do with that, it’s not your fault.” He kissed the top of her head. “You’re here now. You’re safe and I’ll keep it that way until my last breath.”

(Y/N) looked up and noticed some tears pooling in his eyes, which made her crumble completely. He was just as messed up as she was. So she wiped them away and rubbed his cheek in order to give him and herself some comfort. She might be feeling horrible, but she was the reason he was crying.

“Don’t cry because of me.”

“I can’t help but think this is my fault too.” Tom said, keeping his voice low. “I should’ve been there to take care 

of you. No one should’ve touched a finger on you.”

“Tom, it’s okay. It’s not your fault too. Please, don’t cry.” She cried harder as she glued their foreheads.

“(Y/N), I love you. If anything serious happens to you, I will never forgive myself.”

And that was everything she needed to hear to make Harrison’s words come back to her. If what he said was true, Tom is in love with her. And so, she got the smallest courage to speak up about her feelings. It was small, but it was enough to make her confess.

“Tom, do you know why I don’t mind wearing these sweats?” He shook his head no and didn’t break eye contact with her. “Because it makes me feel like home.”

“You know you can be yourself right here and no one will ever judge you. This is your home too.”

“No, Tom. It feels like home because it smells like you, and you are my home.”

“You’re mine too.” He kissed the tip of her nose and made her smile. “I can do anything to protect you. And I wish I broke more of his face last night.”

She glanced down to his hands and noticed the bruises on his knuckles. She traced her fingers along with the bruises and brought his hand up to kiss it better. Both of their hearts were racing at that moment. That was probably their most intimate moment and it was the very first time they weren’t confused about their feelings. For the first time, it felt real and reciprocated.

“Tommy, I love you.” 

“I love you too, sunny.”

And with that, she glued their lips and made Tom surprised. She wasn’t under any influence at all; not underneath a mistletoe; not with three gin-tonics up her head. She was doing that because she wanted to. Tom took a couple of seconds to realise what was happening, but soon melted into the kiss and moved his lips so gently against hers. It wasn’t simple like the one they shared on Christmas and it wasn’t as hot as the one they shared on that drunk night. No, this one was like a confession to each other.

They confessed every single one of their feelings in the slowest kiss in the world. Every movement, every touch, it meant so much more. And they were actually enjoying it, more than any other moment together. But it didn’t last much longer, because they were dying to blurt out what they were feeling.

“I have something to confess to you.” Tom said against her lips, and she nodded. “That night you threw up and I got you home, we kissed and I confessed my feelings to you, but you didn’t remember. I thought that was the universe giving me a second chance to not screw things up and didn’t tell you.”

“You should have. Because I would’ve confessed my feelings for you too.”

“I was scared of losing you.” He admitted.

“Tom, you would never lose me. I’m forever, bitch. You’re stuck with me.” They laughed together.

“Thank God.” Tom pulled her for another quick kiss. “I love you so much, you have no idea.”

“Oh, I have. Because I love you so so so so much.” She pecked his lips again and pulled him to lie down. Both had the biggest smiles on their faces and were beyond happy for what was happening. “I can’t imagine my life without you Tom.”

“I can’t imagine mine without you, either.” 

“But soon we might have to.” She instantly felt down, but Tom made everything better by pressing soft kisses all over her face. “If we’re doing this, we have to start knowing we’ll have to do long distance in the near future.”

“I would do anything for you, even wait if you want to.” He assured. “(Y/N), you know I’ve never fallen in love with a girl and that’s why these feelings are strange to me. But when I met you, everything felt so right that I couldn’t help but fall a little deeper for you every second. I love everything about you; your dramas; your family issues; your good sense of humour. Everything that makes you be yourself is the reason why I’m in love with you.”

“Tom, I don’t even have words for what you just said to me.” She was crying again, this time out of pure joy. “You are just… you. That’s the reason why I love you. And I’m so grateful to have you in my life. Someone to make me feel loved and needed, in a moment when I felt like no one cared about me. You changed my life and I’ll owe you forever.”

“I don’t care if we’re gonna part ways when high school is done. I just wanna be with you.”

“Me too.” 

She glued their lips together again, but what started as an innocent kiss ended up in a heated makeout on the couch. Tom used his hands to keep himself steady over her, while she used her to pull him down and deepen the kiss. They didn’t hold anything back and explored each other’s bodies until they were sure they knew every single curve. They could stay like that forever, but Nikki woke up and when she went down to prepare her breakfast, she met the most awkward scene in the world.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She blurted out and rushed to the kitchen. Tom jumped out of (Y/N) and his eyes widened.

“Mom, I’m so sorry.” He started in the living room. (Y/N) followed him with the heaviest blush on her face.

“It’s okay. I’m just glad you finally kissed.” Nikki smirked and it made the blush even more. Tom searched for (Y/N)’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “So, this means you’re finally together?”

“I think so.” Tom looked at her for reassurance and she nodded with a smile.

“I want to if you want to.”

“That’s how you’re gonna ask me to be your boyfriend? How romantic!” Tom rolled his eyes and (Y/N) nudged him before pulling him back for a hug.

“You love me.” She whispered in his ear.

“I really do.” He kissed her neck and composed himself back to finish his conversation with his mother.

“I’m just glad you finally sorted everything out. I was getting tired of seeing you two being just best friends. But please, don’t make out on our couch at eight in the morning. By the way, why are you here at eight, (Y/N)?”

“Well, Nikki. Something happened last night…”

They told her the whole story because Tom never kept anything from her. But even though it was a bad night, it turned out to be just fine. Tom and (Y/N) were over the moon and it couldn’t get any better than this. They loved each other, just like that, and nothing would change it. Nikki was horrified with the story and asked (Y/N) to take more care of herself.

“I will, and now I have extra help.” (Y/N) looked at Tom with the biggest smile on her face and smiled back.

“I’m gonna take care of her, mom.” 

She nodded and started to make them all some breakfast. They never would’ve thought that after such a disturbed night, it would all end up just fine in the morning. Soon the whole family started to come down for breakfast, but they didn’t know anything about it. Harrison was the only one who got the clue when he saw Tom and (Y/N)’s wide smiles.

“You two are together, right?” Harrison smirked and (Y/N) nodded.

“We are.” She nodded and the twins’ mouth dropped.

“You are?” They said in unison.

“Thank God. I was getting tired of you two not being together.” Dom teased.

“Yeah, we talked it through this morning and it just happened.” Tom continued. “Took too long, uhm?”

“Way too long.” She pecked his lips so gently and quickly, but they already heard sick noises.

“You are gross.” Paddy groaned and the whole family laughed. “But I’m happy that (Y/N) is part of the family now.”

“Aren’t you jealous, Paddy?” Sam asked and his little brother shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess there’s no reason to be. She likes Tom anyway.” They all laughed again, but this time (Y/N) pressed a kiss on Paddy’s cheek, making him blush.

“Now you’re my brother too. Isn’t that cool?”

“Yeah, it is.” He smiled. “Welcome to the Hollands, (Y/N).”

“Thank you, Padster.”

Being part of the Hollands was special. They were the kind of family that cared about each other and that was exactly what (Y/N) needed in her life, a family that cared. Nikki was worried about her when she told what happened the previous night; Dom was glad she was okay; the twins took care of her just like she was their own sister, and Paddy just wanted to see her happy. That was the concept of a family she always wanted for herself, and even that Tom gave to her.

After the longest day with her new family and cuddling with her new boyfriend and best friend, (Y/N) decided it was time to go home. As much as she was enjoying being surrounded by comfort and happiness, she knew she had to go back to her mother. So many happened from the previous night to this very moment that (Y/N) didn’t even remember that anything else existed but Tom, and that’s the reason when she got home she was greeted with a furious Josephine.

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N), where were you last night?”

“Fuck, I forgot about texting you.”

“Yeah, you did!” Josephine gritted. “You said you were gonna crash at Courtney’s, but I ran into her mother on breakfast and she said not even Courtney came home last night. You lied to me and you spent the evening with this fucking idiot.” She pointed to Tom and it made (Y/N) angry.

“First of all, leave Tom out of this. He wasn’t even there last night and he’s the reason why I’m safe.” (Y/N) told her mother the full story from the previous night, which Josephine listened to carefully. “And I didn’t answer my phone today because I left it uncharged on my purse since last night.”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“I know, and I’m truly sorry.” (Y/N) said and Josie rolled her eyes.

“That’s the kind of influence that boy gives to you. Out partying, getting drunk, hooking up with random people. Nothing would’ve happened if you hadn't met him in the first place.”

“Mother, Tom has nothing to do with what happened last night. He saved me and you should be thanking him.”

Tom remained silent, not wanting to get into their fight. He didn’t have a place to speak up, even though it involved his now girlfriend. Family issues must be solved between the family, even though he was dying to stand up for his girl. 

“I will never thank him. You know I don’t like him.” “So you better start liking him, because he’s my boyfriend now.” A shot on Josie’s stomach would’ve been less harmful than this.

“He’s your what now?”

“My boyfriend.” Josie rolled her eyes and pointed to the door.

“I will never accept this. Get out of my house and I don’t want you to see my daughter ever again.” Tom was being dragged to the door, but (Y/N) got on the way.

“You don’t get to choose this.”

“Well, I don’t approve your relationship with him.”

“I don’t approve yours with that dirty boyfriend either. But you still haven’t expelled him.”

“I don’t care. You’re leaving.” Josephine called the elevator and (Y/N) gathered all of her stuff.

“I’m leaving too. I’m sick of you doing this to me. I’m moving with dad.” Josephine stopped what she was doing and noticed the tears in her daughter's eyes. “I can’t stand to see my mother against my happiness.”

“(Y/N)...” Josie spoke softly.

“No! Shut up!” She pulled Tom into the elevator and didn’t even wave goodbye before leaving.

When the elevator door closed, (Y/N) wrapped her arms around Tom and cried as her whole life depended on it. She was tired of leaving her apartment crying, and she was tired of its reason being her mother getting between her relationship with Tom. But she swore that was the last time she was going to leave like this.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you. I didn’t want to get between you and your mother.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She had her face buried on the crook of his neck so he wouldn’t see her face.

“Are you okay?”

“No, but I’m gonna be. I have you.” She leaned back and he rubbed her cheek with his thumb.

“What do you wanna do now?” He looked right into her eyes, wanting more than anything to know what she was thinking about for real. She knew she couldn’t hide much from Tom and that’s why she shrugged, because she didn’t know what to do.

“Can you take me to my father’s and stay with me there tonight? I wanna be surrounded by people I love.”

“Of course.” He kissed the top of her head and held her tightly. “We’re gonna get through this.”

“I know we will.”

To say the day started perfectly and ended up badly was an understatement. In less than 24 hours they were introduced to what they were gonna have to get through together if they wanted to be together. But as they already knew, their love was stronger than anything.

That’s why Tom took her to her father’s place and helped her tell him everything. They ruined Vincent’s and his girlfriend’s dinner night, but they didn’t seem to mind. Instead, they decided to stay home and take care of (Y/N), who had decided about moving in with her father, who gladly accepted her.

“I’m sorry for being a burden to you, dad.”

“(Y/N), you’re my daughter. You’ll never be a burden. And if you want to live with me until you go to college, or for the rest of your life, the doors will always be opened for you.”

“Thank you so much.” She hugged him very tightly and Vincent watched Tom let out a relief sigh when they did it. 

“And just so you two know, I’m glad you finally got together. I really like and trust you, Tom.” Vincent said and Tom nodded.

“Thank you, Mr (Y/L/N). I promise to not let you down and that I’ll take care of her.”

“I know you will, kid.” Vincent nodded. “Why don’t you go take a good shower and we’ll order some food to have dinner together.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” She pecked Tom’s lips quickly and left for the bathroom. When she left, her father spoke up.

“I always knew you were perfect for my girl, from the very first moment I met you. And I know she ain’t the easiest person to deal with, but I know that she loves you will all of her heart.”

“I love her too. Like I’ve never loved anybody else.”

“I know.” Vincent smiled. “Don’t let her go so easily, boy. She’s special and you know it.”

“I won’t, I promise.” Tom smiled back.

And with the ultimate blessing for their relationship, Tom knew that even though they might face some problems, they would be alright because that’s how love works. As long as they had each other, no one can hurt them.

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[blkmxrvel]

i miss you.

Pairing: Scarlett Johansson x fem!reader

Words: 2k [2,179]

Request:Number 39 and Scarlett Johansson x fem!reader please :) thanks

Summary: Y/N is pregnant and misses her wife, and Scarlett has to give her girl whatever she wants. 

Warnings: angst (if you count being lonely and sad)

A/N: this is ass, and once again, a fluke. but. maybe?? i’ll back. idk, i didn’t a lot of requests that didn’t spark anything in them. so. yeah. anyways enjoy, catch u later. 

Being married to Scarlett, Y/N had gotten used to the nights her wife couldn’t make it home. Nights where she had to bundle up in an extra blanket to replace the warmth that she took when she’d leave. Y/N was plenty accustomed to the mornings she’d woken up and Scarlett wasn’t there. Where her side of the bed was cold and untouched, but at the same time burning a hole into her longing heart. It was just she

Usually, shw could handle it pretty well. She was able to keep herself busy and occupied; work her days away until Scarrlet came home. 

However, the pain always hit worse when Scarlett was filming out of town. Y/N took it hard when she had to facetime her before she slept because she had just gotten off set and she couldn’t kiss Y/N goodnight. She put a pillow through a hoodie that smelled like her and cuddled with it. She tried to imagine that Scarlett was right there with her. She usually had everything under control.

Except for now. 

Y/N was on her bed, cuddling the Scarlett pillow. She sobbed into it while she looked at the time. Scarlett had been away filming Black Widow, which meant she couldn’t be with you right now. That hurt you more than you knew it should’ve. 

Y/n was beating herself over her emotions right now. I mean, she was the one who urged Scarlett to go. Her wife was reluctant, Y/N was six months pregnant and was very apprehensive about leaving for so many months. Scarlett didn’t want to miss the doctors appointments, and the weird cravings at 2am. Y/N understood her wife’s worries, but still told Scarlett to go. 

“I’ll be fine, Scar.” Y/N wrapped her arms around Scar;ett’s shoulders. “Me and the baby will both be dandy. We’ll miss you, but we’ll be fine.”

Scarlett pouted as she looked into her wife’s eyes. “But it’s so long, and what if something happens? What if you go into early labor or the baby doesn’t kick or-”

Scarlett’s words were stopped when Y/N put her lips on hers. “Those are extreme cases, baby. And if anything goes wrong, you’ll be the first person to call.”

“B-” Y/N gave Scarlett a look and she knew to not continue. “Okay.”

“Thank you.” Y/N pressed her lips to Scarlett’s for the last time. “I love you. See you in a minute.” 

Needless to say, Y/N was regretting her words. 

Scarlett had only been gone for a month and Y/N had been losing her mind. Everything reminded her of Scarlett’s absence, and everything made her resolved crumbled more and more. She got that her wife was an actress, and sometimes filmed out of state. She’s been out of town before, sometimes for months on end. They facetimed to sleep like they usually did, and had been texting each other as much as possible during the day. 

This time though, the loneliness was hitting Y/N pretty hard. 

Y/N got tired of hearing her voice echo off the walls. She hated how no matter how loud she played her music, how much she watched TV or listened to podcasts, nothing was able to fill her heart like hearing her wife did. Her laugh when Y/N waddled over into the kitchen, or her screams when Y/N chased her around the house for eating her last pint of ice cream. The silence got too much for her. 

It had been two days since she heard from Scarlett, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. She wasn’t sure if it was because of her pregnancy, her hormones skyrocketing, or because she just really wanted Scarlett by her side like had been for these past few months. Either way, she just wanted her wife. Every second that Scarlett wasn’t next to Y/N was one more second that her heart broke. 

Y/N sent multiple texts to Scarlett throughout the day, knowing that she wouldn’t hear a reply back anytime soon. She soon gave up when the clock hit midnight.

Going back to her old methods of relief, Y/N sits on the couch. With a pint of ice cream in one hand, and the TV remote in the there, and a plate of apple pie on her lap, she decided to distract herself with Brooklyn 99. 

That didn’t work for too long though, because once she saw the dynamic is Amy and Jake, how they always made fun of each other, but love each other more, she began to think of Scarlett. She thought of how she missed Scarlett making fun of her, clowning her and teasing her throughout the day. She missed the way her face began to heat up, and her heart beat faster. She missed Scarlett. 

Y/N didn’t even realize she was crying until a sob went through her body. She put her food on the coffee table and curled into herself, sobbing into her knees. She was so lost in her thoughts, her vibrating phone breaking her out of them. 

When Y/N saw that it was Scarlett, her heart nearly exploded. She answered the facetime call, not forgetting to wipe her face beforehand. She doesn’t even have a chance to get a word in because as soon as Scarlett sees her wife’s puffy eyes and red nose, she’s worried and babbling everywhere. 

“Princess? Are you okay? What’s wrong? Is it the baby, is she okay? God, you’ve been calling me all day and I couldn’t answer. I’m so sorry, what’s going on?”

More tears trickle down from Y/N eyes when she thinks about her situation. She’s ashamed, embarrassed and sad, but she really misses her wife.

She sniffled a little before she responded.  

“I- I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m not usually like this. But I- I can’t take it anymore, Scarlett.” The tears were flowing freely from Y/N’s eyes. “Please come home. I miss you, so so much. I know I told you to go,I didn’t wanna be that selfish wife, but I need you here. I just miss waking up next to you and in your arms, please.” 

Scarlett’s heart completely shatters when she sees what kind of condition Y/N is in. She knew she shouldn’t have left, or took Y/N with her. This is all her fault and she feels completely terrible over it. 

“You know that I would if I could, baby. I miss you too, and I’m gonna be done pretty soon okay? Just a few more weeks and then I’ll be right next to you.” Y/N nods her head and continuous to wipe the tears that are running from her eyes. 

“Okay. I’m sorry, though. I wish I could blame it on the hormones but I can’t. I really, really, really miss you. Can just like… Act faster?” Y/N pouts and Scarlett just chuckles. Y/N feels her heart swell, she missed Scarlett’s laugh, more than anything. 

“I will try my hardest. I love you and our little girl so much. Don’t apologize though, everything’s okay.”

Y/N nods her head and slouches down onto the couch. She props the phone up on the coffee table and gets comfortable. She listens to Scarlett talk about her day, and all the action packed scenes she filmed. She even slipped in a few things she messed up on and prided herself on the way Y/N giggled. 

Y/N was fighting the struggle to keep her eyes open when Scarlett spoke up again. “I’m gonna go now, okay?” Y/N let out a big whine, her pout increasing. 

“It’s getting late, baby? You need to sleep. I’ll talk to you first thing tomorrow morning, okay? That’s my off day.” 

“No! Can you… Can we just stay on facetime? Please? I don’t think I can handle another night without hearing your voice. Or another morning without seeing your face.” Y/N pouts again and Scarlett just knows that she’s going to lose this battle. “You don’t even gotta talk! I just want ur presence, please?” 

“Well how can I say no to that?” Scarlett chuckles as she stands up from her bed, going into the bathroom and grabbing her toothbrush. Y/N tells Scarlett about her day as she brushes her teeth, how stupid work was and how she can’t wait to go on maternity leave. Scarlett answers when the situation allows, and by the time she steps into the shower Y/N’s words are slurring. It’s silent between the two of them, Y/N being lulled to sleep by the sound of the shower. 

When Scarlett steps out of the shower, Y/N is fast asleep. A fond smile on her face as she looks at her wife. She (obviously) takes a screenshot, before sending her wife a text. 

Sleep tight, baby. I love you and I miss you both.

While Scarlett is moisturizing and putting on her pajamas, she thinks about Y/N’s words. She did leave rather abruptly, she had only found out 2 days prior that she had to be flown out to film. And, even before she left, she hadn’t been able to spend that much time with Y/N. Press tours and meetings had been taking up all of her schedule. The only time she really got to spend with Y/N was when she got home, and by then Y/N was already asleep. There was always food in the microwave for her though. Scarlett appreciated it, but she was just only now realizing how much of a toll that had to take on her wife. 

No wonder Y/N had been so distraught. Scarlett had been practically neglecting her for weeks. She felt bad, and she knew Y/N couldn’t wait another 6 weeks for her to be home again. Scarlett doesn’t hang up the call, but she sends a group text to her director, manager and producer saying that she needs a day off. 

She’s gotta go home, her baby needs her. 

--

3 days have passed since that night Y/N broke down, and she’s been doing better, or at least she’s trying to. She still hates how vulnerable she was, how she let something that she was so used to her get under her skin. 

 Her and Scarlett have been talking as usual ever since, and that’s help Y/N put her loneliness a bit at bay. Y/N spent her day sulking around. She went to work, eating, coming home and going through the motions. The best part of her day though is when she gets home, and calls Scarlett. She tells her about the day, especially the doctors appointment. Y/N gushes over how healthy their baby is, and how she can’t wait to meet her, and name her. 

“Hold on, baby. I gotta get something from downstairs.” Scarlett said after a minute of planning the nursery.  Y/N nods and goes back to her pasta, groaning when there’s a knock at her door. 

She had no idea who it could be, she hadn’t ordered any food, thought she thought it was a good idea, and she wasn’t expecting anyone. 

Grunting, Y/N waddles over to the door, and once she opens the door she could’ve sworn she went into labor. (She didn’t, though). 

“Scarlett? What the hell are you doing here?” 

“Last time I checked we were married, and I live here. I wasn’t gone too long was I?” A smug smile was on her face and Y/N wanted to smack it off, but she wanted to hug her even more. She shakes her head and blinks her eyes, wanting to make sure it wasn’t a dream. That was ruled out when Scarlett was still standing there.

Y/N burst into tears, standing in place and her body is shaken with tears. She couldn’t believe it. Scarlett tosses her bags inside, wrapping her arms around Y/N. Y/N squeezes as hard as she possibly could, her tears wetting Scarlett’s shirt. She feels like home, and Y/N absolutely melts in it. 

They waddle together inside, and fall back onto the couch, Y/N not daring to let go just yet. Scarlett doesn’t mind it, though. She rubs her wife’s back as she calms down. 

“Hi, baby.” Scarlett says after it’s been silent for a few seconds. 

“Hi.”

“Miss me?” Y/N scoffs. 

“No, I don’t want you here. Of course I missed you, dingus. We both did.” Scarlett hums happily, letting her wife shift onto her side and shove her head into her neck. Scarlett takes her hand and rubs it over her wife’s belly, humming softly.

“I missed you both way more.” 

Y/N snorts and hugs Scarlett closer. “I doubt it.” Y/N’s voice gets sleepier, and Scarlett plays with her hair and lets her drift off, glad that her girls can finally get some proper rest.

[regrettablewritings]

Podcasts, Youtubes, and TV Shows to Distract Yourself With Because Why Not, and Also Because I Wanna Blab About Some of These

Since I can’t go to work and horrify my coworkers/make them realize I’m a mess and/or nerd by telling them about the type of media I’m into, I’m foisting my recommendations on all of y’all who choose to read this. I frankly do not care how many people have actually heard of these things because I’m also sure there’s plenty of people who, like me, are very slow and oblivious to entertainment, or who have heard of the property but were never that convinced.

Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts

Type: TV series

200 years after a mysterious yet earth-shattering event, much of humanity has taken to living beneath the surface in communities called burrows, wherein life goes on, if effected somewhat by the bizarre fauna that exists above them (referred to as “mutes”, short for “mutant”). One burrow girl, Kipo, founds her world turned almost literally inside-out when she finds herself not only separated from her father and the only world she’s ever known, but on the surface, no less. What ensues is her trying to find her way back home with the help of a stony-faced little girl with a massive chip on her shoulder; a music enthusiast and his literal gadfly friend; and some . . . unusual allies that only an oblivious optimist like Kipo could make. All to a kickass soundtrack, a beautiful backdrop of art, and a world where animals have basically evolved into gangs under a looming threat known as Scarlemagne. If you can’t already tell, I love this series to bits and now is the perfect time for people to get into it and encourage another season of it. Just . . . don’t think too hard that whatever happened to cause the Event in the show happened in October 2020 . . .

Available on: Netflix

My Dad Wrote a Porno

Type: Podcast

This should go without saying, but this podcast is definitely meant for more mature audiences. Or somebody with a strong stomach. Not that it’ll always be easy to tell with the type of content this series gives. When Jamie Morton’s father handed him his manuscripts for his self-published books, he had no idea he was being given a pinnacle of a polished turd: It was erotica. Really, really, really bad erotica. But the ear’s trash is the heart’s pleasure with this bad girl, as Jamie enlists the company of friends Alice and James to provide commentary on “Rocky Flintstone”’s series Belinda Blinked, a drama chronicling the sexcapades of Belinda Blumenthal as she climbs the ladders (and men and women) both in and out of the cut-throat world of pots and pans sales. What follows is a goldmine of awkward metaphors, strange bedmates, and just an overall stampede of whiplashing events that somehow exceed expectations. Listen in if you dare . . . And make sure you’re in good company for it. Fun Fact, though: Daisy Ridley, Ben Barnes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Michael Sheen, Mara Wilson, Elijah Wood are but a few well-known fans of this series! Nobody is safe . . .

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

Lore

Type: Podcast

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. And what better way to be reminded of that, then to have the dulcet tones of Aaron Mahnke tell you about the lighthouse incident that the 2016 movie The Lighthouse was loosely inspired by? Suffice to say, this podcast could also be interpreted with some advised discretion, but definitely in a way that’s different from My Dad Wrote a Porno. In the centuries humankind has existed, we’ve managed to create a menagerie of beasts, both fictional and in ourselves. Lore explores all the many different kinds of events and persons and creatures we have to offer. In any given episode, we could be talking about anything from the bizarre story of a lady who convinced 18th century physicians that she was giving birth to rabbits, to something more disturbing like the life of H.H. Holmes. Or something as relatively innocuous as the relationship between gremlins and flight. Regardless of the subject, however, you’ll definitely walk away knowing something new, if bizarre. And perhaps slightly terrifying.

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

The Amelia Project

Type: Podcast

Congratulations: You have been made aware of The Amelia Project. If you’re not interested in this, exit the page. Now. If you continue, there’s no unhearing it. Good choice! A new interest awaits. If you don’t enjoy it, please consider the whole thing a hoax. Okay but in all seriousness, there’s no way to do The Amelia Project justice in just a simple description. The plot sounds quite simple, really: People want to disappear and start a new life, The Amelia Project is there to help – with a price. And that’s if you can actually get a hold of them! What really makes the show, however, are the people and the writing, and I’m not just talking about the almost childlike Interviewer with an obsession for hot cocoa. I’m talking about the clientele: I’m talking about the macabre-obsessed theme park owner who’s out for revenge; the cult leader who’s in way over his head; a Santa impersonator stuck in a miserable marriage with his own manager; an actual podcast character trying to outrun his creators. And obviously this would all be nowhere without the spectacular writing! I really can explain this series without blabbing on and potentially spoiling things; The Amelia Project is an experience!

Available on: Wherever podcasts can be found

LegalEagle

Type: Youtube channel

To be frank, I just like learning for the sake of learning, even if I may not always necessarily understand the topic or have any plans to use it in the foreseeable future. The big difference here being that at least this channel makes learning about the law fun and breaks it down. Headed by a certified lawyer (because what an age we live in, where professionals actually take time out of their lives to teach us common folk), there’s a multitude of series D.J. Stone uses to help break down the complex world of law, from reviewing the realism of procedural favorites (Law & Order, The Good Wife, HTGAWM, etc), to analyzing real-life situations, to even watching childhood media that has nothing to do with the law and determining how much money, say, Willy Wonka would owe in a lawsuit. In short, it is one of my worst subjects done in one of my favorite ways to learn! Plus, Stone hates business students and is perfectly willing to poke fun at law students so it’s all fun, frankly.

Available on: Youtube

Nando v Movies

Type: Youtube channel

Sometimes, movies are bad. Sometimes, they’re good. And sometimes, they could use a few adjustments in hindsight. Especially the nerdier movies where the directors may or may not have tried way too hard or way too little. And that’s where Nando comes in: Whether it’s explaining why a different villain might have worked better for a hero’s origin story movie, or analyzing how one seemingly small adjustment could’ve potentially made more sense in explaining characterization, this channel is always providing a new perspective on a movie or show you’ve probably seen and maybe weren’t necessarily too pleased with. (Or maybe you were – I enjoyed Justice League okay but I love the version he rewrote more.) Oh, yeah: Sometimes he does rewrites of movies or even series. So if you’re anything like me and you’re way into that, this is a channel you don’t want to miss out on.

Available on: Youtube

DEATH BATTLE!

Type: Youtube channel

Does anyone remember Deadliest Warrior? No? . . . How about that one time during lunch where you and your friend got into it over who would win in a death match between Superman and Goku? Good news: A buncha geeks did the math for you and have come out with the results! Specifically, hosts Wiz and Boomstick have analyzed the weapons, armor, and skills of each combatant in every episode, resulting in an ongoing series of absolute nonsense and satiation of bloodshed. The description is admittedly nothing crazy, but the amount of detail applied is honestly where it’s at: From calculating how loud Black Canary’s screams are to approximating Scrooge McDuck’s speed (I’m not kidding you), there’s actual thought put into the characters being assembled and how they might fair with their respective combatant. And it all comes together for an actual fight, often animated but always amazing. So if you’ve ever wondered if Thor could beat Wonder Woman, or if McGruff the Crime Dog stands a chance against Smokey the Bear (I’m…I’m being honest), then this is the show for you!

Available on: Youtube

Sideways

Type: Youtube channel

If there is music in that movie or show, it will be analyzed to a degree that, unless you’ve been trained in music, you would’ve probably never thought about. There isn’t necessarily much rhyme or reason to Sideways’ videos in terms of themes beyond music, but really, must they? Is it not enough that this man is screaming to the internet these wack and awesome trends he’s noticed in certain pieces associated with movies and musicals and the genius behind them? Could life not just be him explaining the symbolism of the instruments associated with the Crystal Gems of Steven Universe, or breaking down the cultures explored by way of the Black Panther soundtrack? Also, here’s a fun drinking game: Take a shot every time he mentions leitmotifs or the Dies Irae.

Available on: Youtube

Craig of the Creek

Type: TV show

In the woods of suburban Maryland, there exists a kid’s utopia: A place where horse girls are free to roam the fields, where a boy can be a king of garbage, and where children travel the sewers completely unsupervised. That is, until the dinner horn rings; then they have to go home until the next time they can return to The Creek. The show focuses on one specific trio (Craig, JP, and Kelsey) as every day, The Creek (and their own childish naivete) brings them new hijinks to experience. There’s a blissful lightheartedness to the show, in addition to a lot of creativity that feels like it was ripped straight out of your own imagination as a child (robots made from cardboard boxes, building portals using lights, etc). But beneath it all, there’s something just plain wild brewing. I don’t want to spoil anything, but CotC has some G-rated GOT shit going on the further along the series goes and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds!

Available on: CN app, wcostream.com

And that’s probably enough for now, I think. Lemme know if you want any other suggestions, or how you’re findin’ ‘em if you take any of them up! Stay safe, stay healthy my dudes!

[desperationandgin]

Outlander 5x01: Top Five

If you’ve been following me since before my Outlander days, then you maybe know that I used to host this podcast called Once Upon a Podcast, and our format was to discuss 5 things we loved and 5 things we didn’t. The goal was this: Not everyone likes or dislikes the same things, so let's make a list and compare, then discuss. And we did! I found myself missing that so I went for it on twitter for this episode.

Here’s the link to the original thread of tweets (feel free to follow me there!) and I’ll put them under a read more, here. I can also elaborate a little bit better, so everything is going under a Read More. So, the tl;dr version is on twitter, here’s the longer version. OBVIOUSLY, spoilers for the first episode of season 5!

TOP FIVE FAVORITE THINGS:

5. Fergus and Marsali, which obviously encompasses both of them individually as well. I love that they got drunk at their sister’s wedding. I love that Marsali is pregnant. I love that they chose to ignore Fergus being unable to join the militia due to disability. Jamie specifically calling out to him, son of my heart made me absolutely lose my mind. I love Fergus and Marsali Fraser. I’m excited to see more of both of them, especially Marsali and Claire if things go the way I suspect they will.

4. Bree. I know for some reason not a lot of people like Sophie as Brianna, but I thought her choice to play Bree happy yet muted was correct. Amplifying it after being trigged of course, made it more obvious. I've always loved Bree, so I know this is a hot take. I have more to elaborate on though, that’s not my favorite regarding Bree, so I’ll do that part there. Here, I just wanted to celebrate that I enjoy Sophie Skelton and where there are shortcomings, I see opportunities for her to keep growing as an actress.

3. The music. Oh my God, Bear McCreary, just. First of all, I love the new intro. A good a capella choir will give me goosebumps every time. The 'Fraser's Ridge' remix was DELIGHTFUL and of course, so was 'Je Suis Prest.' I teared up, I'm in love.

2. Sam Heughan. UHHHHHHH why doesn't he have awards? I'm specifically talking about the end, of course. Sam's so great at getting that tone inflection just right, at casting his eyes down, clenching his jaw - all at the exact perfect moment. THEN THE CRYING was the gut punch. And earlier, when he was staring at the chest with those things inside that meant so much, I could very much imagine every single thought going through Jamie’s man. Sam played that out using only his face and I’m just. I’M OVERWHELMED.

1. The montage. Look, I know it was over Roger singing, and I know at the end we were punished with having to watch our children have sex, but using 'L-O-V-E' was SO CUTE and I'm so glad 'try to have sex with a sleeping infant in the house' is something J/C didn't miss out on, lol. To elaborate on my limited tweet it works because there are fans of all 3 ships and it was a way to get all 3 in without having to do extended scenes for all of them. THAT SAID, there were parts of it that didn’t work and I’ll get to that here in a little bit. But over-all, I didn’t mind it. I think if I were making this list from scratch today I would probably swap my 1 and 2, but IT IS WHAT IT IS.

TOP 5 LEAST FAVORITE THINGS:

5. Roger. I didn’t elaborate well on this on twitter so here we go:

He has done NOTHING to earn the respect the writers are trying to get me to give him. Jamie’s thoughts are my thoughts but dial mine up to an aggressive 100. That STUPID line about ‘some of us like to think before we act’ or whatever, was RIDICULOUS. You had to think so long and so hard about whether or not you wanted to love Bree regardless of her situation that you were DAYS behind Jamie and Claire? Okay, sure Jan.

And already talking about ‘when we go back.’ WHY DIDN’T YOU TALK ABOUT THIS BEFORE GETTING MARRIED? She didn’t ask you to come to begin with, Roger. In fact, she EXPRESSLY ASKED YOU TO STAY AWAY. But the real icing on the cake is issue #1 with the montage even though fundamentally I enjoyed the montage: When your wife is VISIBLY shaken, when she consistently looks like she’s holding back tears, MAYBE read the room? It’s just aggressively frustrating because Jamie Fraser would never, and it makes me feel like Roger doesn’t KNOW Bree at all.

4. Jocasta and Murtagh. The second part of the montage that didn’t work. I'll actually reserve a lot of my judgment for a few episodes from now, but I don't care enough? I feel for them individually, but their relationship hasn't been built up enough for me to be emotional. We'll see what happens. Them being included in the montage felt unearned; who are the people so deeply invested already that they needed to be included? Here’s the last thing I’ll say about what that montage could have been: Jamie and Claire having a full love scene juxtaposed with Roger realizing his wife is having a hard time and simply comforting her. Jocasta and Murtagh not needed. When they go their separate ways, when she realizes Murtagh can’t marry her, I felt bad for HER but...the relationship didn’t do anything for me. Don’t need it.

3. That fake baby standing in for Jem looked DEAD you know what shot I'm talking about. Took me right the hell out of it for a second lmao. BUT WHILE WE’RE HERE, let’s talk about how convenient it was for Jem to look SUPER BLONDE LIKE BONNET directly before and after Brianna being triggered, and then going back to a darker hair color the rest of the episode. LMAO.

2. Could have used more J/C kisses. This is more something that didn’t happen that I do WISH happened. I loved the Jamie in a kilt scene but if we could have gotten a Prestonpans-esque scorching kiss, it would have been the CHERRY ON TOP. Missed opportunities. On twitter people only saw ‘Jamie in a kilt’ and didn’t read the rest so LET’S AVOID THAT HERE. I LOVED the kilt scene, just so we’re all clear and on the same page. I just wanted some tongue action. I’m greedy.

1. The pacing. I know there was a lot to get in and GOD BLESS THEM for being able to condense what DG could not, but it still felt patched together. It felt rushed at times and the cuts were sometimes odd choices. The dialogue felt sloppy, especially the pre-wedding bits. The whole episode semi-felt like a montage of ‘conversations that must happen along with things we HAVE to allude to for future plot.’ It was pretty jarring, and I can’t remember a premiere that felt this....jam-packed with content. It felt the way Once Upon a Time forced info down our throats rather than showing ANY of it, and it super sucked, so. Let’s not make that a trend, Outlander.

There! All my thoughts that no one asked for :)

[xazz]

- Patreon - AO3 -

Worship 

Summery: Malik is in southern Turkey researching the former practice of white smithing, a now dead practice involving "magic" white rock. He's got a lead and more than he could hope for in there being a still intact white rock forge that's since been forgotten and neglected over the generations as the world moved away from magic.

Then he finds an old sword in the decrepit forge and brings it back home with him.

Chapter 1: The White Rock Forge

Malik had been in Dörtyol for three weeks so far. A small city all things considered with a great view of the Mediterranean in the west and Taurus Mountains in the east. It was a nice place, not as crowded as somewhere like Istanbul or Adana where he’d flown in. There were beautiful mosques older than anything back home dotted around every neighborhood and he was still getting used to waking up at the crack of dawn to go to them with his homestay family. At the very least he knew that the little storefront half a block away from the mosque they visited made such a strong cup of coffee it could strip paint. Malik had one of those every morning and he was set for the day. That woke him up to go to prayer and then go back home for breakfast before he went to work.

He was in Dörtyol as part of his anthropology research. His focus was on ‘dying’ metalworking practices in the Middle East. It was his second research trip and homestay out here but last time he’d been on the other side of the mountains in Aleppo. Now he was in Turkey for this trip.

He'd found the Tazim family by just surfing the internet and finding them on a happy accident. Well he’d found the younger son and through him had found his father, one of the last whitesmiths in the Middle East. Whitesmithing was mostly a dying art. Many people confused them with silver smiths but the two weren't anything alike.

White smithing had been around before the rise of Islam but after Islam it slowly grew out of favor. The white rock whitesmiths used was difficult to use and almost impossible to find unless you were very rich or had a so-called ‘stone caller’. But the last of the stone callers were said to have died out with the final sacking of Rome in the fifth century so they'd had to rely on what resources and veins of white rock that had been found up until then. But with the rise of Islam, the magical properties attributed to white rock (none of which were ever confirmed) didn't mesh well with the rise of the new religion.

It had taken about three dozen emails for Malik to get into proper phone contact with Ubaid Tazim, the aging whitesmith, and five weeks to set up the homestay. Which was how Malik landed here, in Dörtyol, learning what the old man knew for the duration of his homestay which was seven weeks.

There was no smithy at the Tazim’s. Malik knew well enough white rock didn't need to be heated and molded like metal. He kept asking Ubaid to show him how he did whitesmithing but the old man never did. The only reason Malik didn't think Ubaid wasn't pulling his leg was because of the amount of white rock artifacts all over their home.

Like the one shaped like a delicate flower that hung over Malik’s guest bed he was obsessed with. He was looking up at it while a Turkish podcast played in his ears. The white rock shimmered even in the dull light from the setting sun outside. He'd love to know how it was made and it certainly wasn't carved. Every ounce of research he made on whitesmithing showed that white rock was never carved but the exact way it was made was something no one could quite agree on.

He started when someone knocked on his door. “Malik,” Yusuf called, “dinner is ready.”

“Yes, coming,” Malik called back and got off his bed. He put his phone on the bedside table and went to go wash his hands.

Jawna, Ubaid’s wife, had made another lovely meal when he sat at the table with them. She didn't look at Malik even after two weeks but she'd talk to him when spoken to and answer his questions. Malik liked her very much and she was very kind and gentle. Yusuf was their youngest son and Malik’s age. He'd come home from Adana after some interpersonal relationship had fallen through after he’d finished school. Malik didn't ask about that. Their other three children all had left home, had their own families and lives.

Jawna asked Yusuf about his day and he was chipper as he talked to Jawna about his job down at the seaport. Yusuf was the most cheerful guy Malik knew. It was nice.

After dinner he, Yusuf, and Ubaid watched TV on the old tube TV they still had. Football was on and Yusuf and Ubaid were very invested in the game against Egypt. Malik didn't understand football. He didn't understand American football either for that matter. But he was glad they had fun and cheered along when there was a score. Which there was one score the entire game, from Turkey.

After the football game Yusuf excused himself for the night. Malik was alone with Ubaid in the living room while the news was on. “Ubaid,” he said, “I've been very patient so far since I came here. You said you'd actually show me how whitesmithing worked since you can, you know, do it. I really would like to see. If I don't have anything to show for my trip out here it’ll be a lot harder for me to get grant money in the future.”

Ubaid sighed and stroked his beard with troubled thoughtfulness. “I know,” he said.

“So you’ll show me?” Malik asked hopefully.

Ubaid’s face pulled down. “There is no more white rock, Malik,” he said, meeting Malik’s eyes. “You’ve been such a nice addition here I didn't want to upset you and tell you there isn't any.”

Malik frowned. “But— but there’s a forge, right?” he prodded, desperate.

“There is,” Ubaid nodded slowly.

“You… do know how to whitesmith, don't you?”

“In theory I suppose. My father told me the way it was supposed to be done but even when he was young there was no more white rock in our forge,” Ubaid said apologetically.

Malik tried not to be sour. But he felt like he'd been had. Sure he was here on a grant but he felt like he'd wasted his time! He could have spent the time he’d been trying to contact the Tazims looking for another whitesmith who maybe did have white rock still.

But still. A forge. That was more than his last research venture. That had ended early because the whitesmith hadn't been a whitesmith at all but a keeper of white rock and the translation into Urdu had been bad. They'd had items of all sorts made of white rock but no notes, no books, nothing that said how it was made or the practices behind it. They'd at least given Malik a piece of unrefined white rock for his trouble and apology for wasting his time. At least the Tazims had a forge. He'd take a forge over the rock any day.

“Can I still see it?” he asked.

Ubaid nodded, “Yes. Yes of course. It’s a drive out of the city but I can take you.”

“I wish you had told me earlier,” he tried not to be angry but it was hard. He felt so slighted by Ubaid who he thought was a good man with a nice family.

“I know. It was difficult to explain over the phone when you were just very enthusiastic about meeting a whitesmith and I didn't want to disappoint you.”

Malik felt some of his anger dissipate. It was hard to be angry when Ubaid sounded so genuinely apologetic. “It’s okay. I can get a bit over-enthused about things. But we will go tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Thank you so much, Ubaid, this is really important to me.”

“I know. That's why I've been reluctant to show you. I hope it lives up to your expectations.”

“Anything is better than nothing. The last ‘whitesmith’ I spoke to didn't even have a forge anymore. But there is one?”

“There is a forge, yes,” Ubaid nodded.

“Okay. Great. I’m going to get to bed then. I’ll see you in the morning Ubaid,” he said respectfully and got up.

He returned to his bedroom and changed into his sleep clothes. He brushed his teeth, washed his face, and set up his lap desk on the bed to do some work before he went to sleep. Just a bit of journaling about the day and his excitement about what was happening tomorrow. It was more field notes and less a journal about his thoughts but it was important to document everything as a scientist.

Once he'd finished his notes he closed his laptop, put away the lap desk and laid down. It was warm this time of year, even with the old window unit grinding on the other side of the room. He slept without even a sheet. As he closed his eyes the white rock rose twinkled in the yellow light of the streetlamp outside.

—

Malik was up early as usual. As he was getting dressed there was a soft knock on the door. He opened it and saw Ubaid and Yusuf in sturdy clothing for hiking. “Uh, everything alright?” he asked.

“Yes. It is a long drive out to the forge. We’re leaving now,” Ubaid said.

Malik blinked, “Before prayer?”

“Yes. The road only goes so high so bring some boots. We’re leaving as soon as you’re ready,” Ubaid said.

“R-right. Okay, give me a second,” and he closed the door to change his clothes. Thankfully he did have boots with him and hopped around his room on one foot to get them tied up. He stuffed his camera, two journals, some charcoal for etchings, and his phone all into a satchel before leaving the guest room.

Jawna had made coffee and a light breakfast for them before they left. A modest affair of some bread, cheese, and sucuk all just barely warmed. Malik gulped it all down with his coffee and the three men left the house and piled into the old sedan the Tazims owned. Yusuf usually drove a moped around the city but he could drive a car too.

“You sure it’s alright we skip morning prayer? I wouldn't want you to do anything against your beliefs for me,” Malik said from the backseat as they drove down the quiet morning roads. It was still dark out but getting lighter. Lights were on in most of the homes they passed.

“Allah won’t be angry if we miss a prayer or two,” Yusuf said brightly. “And you shouldn’t pray if you have trouble doing so or if something physically prevents you. Allah knows we will be back.”

“Oh. I see. Have you been to the forge before Yusuf?”

“Eh, once or twice when I was little,” his blue eyes looked back at Malik in the rearview mirror as he spoke.

“How long is the drive? Are we going into the mountains?”

“It is a ways,” Ubaid said, “And yes.”

Yusuf turned on some music and the three of them sat in a comfortable silence for the most part. They drove all morning out of the city and up into the winding mountain roads, most of which were dirt and looked like they saw very little car traffic.

Then Yusuf seemed to pull off to the side at random and parked the car. “Alright, we're here,” he said.

“We are?” Malik asked, looking out the window, all he saw was trees.

“Well, we're at the furthest the roads go. Now it’s a hike and we should go before it gets too hot,” Yusuf got out of the car and Malik quickly followed suit. He made sure he had his satchel as he followed Yusuf to what looked like a deer trail.

“How often do you come here?” Malik asked Ubaid. He had a walking stick with him to help him move around but he wasn't so old that he couldn’t keep up a good pace with them.

“Not often.”

“How far is the hike?”

“About an hour.”

“Really? So far away from the city?”

“My father said his grandfather told him there used to be a town up in these areas. But it was gone before my great grandfather was born too. All that remains are these animal trains and the white rock forge. It doesn't make sense to maintain it anymore all the way up here.”

“I see,” Malik nodded and took out his phone to at least get the GPS coordinates for the area. That was the only part of his phone that worked at the moment too. He had no service out here. They were out in the wilderness.

Malik wasn't in the best shape and he wished he was. He was exhausted quickly from climbing and was glad Ubaid needed to stop every few minutes to catch his breath. Malik wasn't fat but he wasn't in shape either. He resolved to be better if he wanted to come out here more.

It took over an hour to get to a dilapidated building nestled against naked stone on the mountain. “Here we are,” Yusuf said. Prick was winded but not about to die like Malik was and he was carrying a heavy backpack with their water and lunch in it. If Yusuf wasn't so nice Malik would hate him. He put the backpack down and unzipped it, handing a fresh bottle of water to his father and then to Malik. Malik chugged it. He was sweating through his clothes in the growing heat of the day and felt awful. “Let’s go sit inside where there’s some shade,” Yusuf said and ushered them both inside. Malik didn't argue, some shade sounded fantastic.

Inside the building he saw it was a facade. The face of the building led to a large carved room. Malik looked as he sat and rested his calves. The walls were covered in some sort of hieroglyphs and what wasn't were heavily decorated frescos. Parts of the fresco plaster had fallen over the centuries but he could still see images. He wanted a closer look for sure.

Once he felt better he got up and took out his camera and went to investigate the frescos. One side depicted the mountains; men holding white rock, and a woman with a glowing aura with white rock floating around her. Parts had fallen and crumbled away with time but they were so beautiful. On the other side was what looked like an ancient whitesmith tale Malik had read about in several cultures who had whitesmiths. The binding of white rock to metal to infuse it with magic and the metal shaped into weapons. The weapons were used as sacrificial items and bathed in blood.

Malik started when Yusuf came up behind him and turned on his flashlight, bathing the rest of the room in light. There were old tables and stone benches in the big room, scraps of wood from crates and various human detritus and animal waste and beyond a black doorway into another room. “The forge is through there,” Yusuf said, motioning with the beam of light. He chuckled when Malik practically ran in.

Whatever Malik was expecting it wasn't what he saw.

The new room had a pit in the middle filled with white rock dust that glittered from the flashlight illuminating it. Against one wall was some strange looking brick oven with no chimney. Next to the oven was a shattered crate. The walls were covered in the same hieroglyphs as the entrance. “This is it?” Malik asked as Ubaid came into the back room.

“Yes. This is how it looked when my father showed it to me. He said that when he was younger it had a bench and table in it and a strange anvil. Then one day he came up here and the anvil was gone.”

Malik looked around in dismay. “This is… really all there is?”

“I’m afraid so. This is why I didn’t want to show you the forge. I knew you'd be disappointed.”

Malik was too. He was so disappointed and not a little heartbroken. He'd been so excited to see the forge but seeing it now… there was nothing here. It was empty and had been looted over the generations.

He tried to look on the bright side. There was still all the hieroglyphs! And there were the frescos and the oven. He still had plenty to look at here. “Did your father ever see the forge used?” Malik asked, turning to Ubaid.

“No,” Ubaid shook his head.

“So do you know how it works?”

“Sort of,” Ubaid said. “You put the white rock into the pit and add a catalyst to it. The catalyst has something to do with the oven. That reduces the white rock into a workable shape and you can work it from there. You needed special tools infused with white rock to work the white rock, or so I was told.”

“Which makes no sense. You’d need the tools to make the tools,” Malik said.

“That is just what I was told. And you would work it on the anvil. Though what the tools were I can't remember anymore,” he frowned.

“Do you remember what your father said about the anvil?”

Ubaid was quiet in thought. “He said his grandfather hit it with a hammer and it sang.”

“It was hollow?” How odd.

“Yes.”

“Hmmm. Well, regardless of anything else this is still the most intact white rock forge we’ve seen in a long while. Only the one in Alexandria is more intact. So if nothing else the site will be worth it,” he said, trying to be upbeat. But still, he knew nothing of the forge really.

“I’m glad we could have been of some help,” Ubaid said solemnly.

“I’m going to take a bunch of pictures. Yusuf, can I borrow the flashlight? You two don't have to hang out back here if you don't want.”

“Sure, bud,” and Yusuf handed it to him. “We’ll be in the entrance room. I brought some cards, dad, want to play?”

“That sounds like a fine idea,” and the father and son left Malik alone in the forge room.

Once they were gone Malik felt like he could really show as depressed and disheartened as he felt. He sighed looking around. He put the flashlight on the oven aimed at the ceiling to better illuminate everything and started taking pictures. After carefully documenting the walls he poked around the oven. It looked a lot like a classic brick pizza oven but there was no chimney. There was a white residue inside and it was powdery when he touched it. He took about ten thousand pictures of the oven too. The crate remains next to it were nothing of great interest either. Just wood splinters.

That just left the pit to poke around next. But before he could Yusuf called him out to the entrance for lunch, more bread, and cheese but this time with lamb and a cold cucumber salad from a lunch box Yusuf pulled out of his pack.

“Have you found anything in there?” Yusuf asked.

“No. But its still very interesting,” Malik said. “I’ve seen some of the same symbols on other whitesmith forges we've found and I’ll be eager to go home and do some cross-referencing.”

“Great. How much longer do you need?”

“Today? Another hour or so probably. I’d like to come back in a few days, take some more pictures, bring some more equipment.”

“I think we can accommodate that,” Yusuf nodded eagerly.

Malik finished off his lunch, “Alright. Time to get back to it,” he wiped his hands on his shorts and got up, going back into the forge. He still needed to investigate that pit.

The pit itself was a bowl shape made of stone edged in what looked like metal. The metal rim had more hieroglyphs around it. He stepped down into it and yelped when he found the white rock dust was a lot deeper than he expected.

“Everything alright, Malik?” Yusuf called from the entrance room.

“Yes! I’m fine, just startled myself,” he called back reassuringly. Yusuf didn't respond.

He leaned down and picked up some of the white rock dust. It was as fine as dried clay dust and sparkled like glitter in his hand. It was about four inches deep at the bottom of the pit. White rock dust wasn't useful for anything since it couldn't be fused or melted down into itself again. But there was quite a bit here. Far more white rock than Malik had ever seen outside of a museum or a whitesmithing family home. He dug around in the pit just for giggles and was surprised when he found something.

He stood up, pulling out an old sword still in its scabbard. It was covered in dirt with a fine coating of white rock all over it. Well, that was unexpected. With a grunt he tried to take the blade out of the scabbard. He managed to wrench it out a few inches. The blade was rusted to hell and back but not in the same way ancient swords were. Meaning this was probably a contemporary sword that had been left here. Or maybe the white rock had preserved it. Malik was going to go with it being contemporary. He could make out dark iron colored colors through the dirt and grime like it was covered in blood. A century or two old murder weapon left in an unused whitesmith forge. You were guaranteed to never find it. Except Malik had found it.

Malik hefted it and climbed out of the pit. He put it in the oven before going back and looking for anything else in the pit, finding nothing he climbed back out and took a bunch of pictures of the pit and the area surrounding it. He squatted and took out a notebook to make about three pages of notes. Then he took some rubbings of the hieroglyphs on the rim of the pit and the walls.

He could have easily spent another six hours here getting rubbings and taking more photos but he recognized that it was a hike back to the car and another few hours drive back to the city and other than last night Ubaid tended to go to sleep pretty early. He was sure Yusuf didn’t want to carry his father either down the trail or even from the car to the house.

He checked the time on his phone. It was three. The worst of the days' heat and sun were over now. It would still be an awful hike back to the car but at least it was downhill.

Before going back out to the Tazims he went back over to the oven and picked up the old sword. Because of his last name Malik found himself into swords. It definitely had helped him get into history by being obsessed with swords as a kid. Especially because his name literally meant ‘king of the sword’ which even at his age he thought was pretty tight. It looked a lot like a mameluke because of the less defined curve you'd see on a scimitar. But the design looked maybe 18th or 19th century. So it was old sure but it wasn't an old sword. Might be worth a few hundred bucks back home but nothing especially special about the piece really.

Yusuf was playing on his phone and Ubaid was taking a nap when he came out of the forge with the sword and flashlight. “Okay, I think I'm done for the day,” he said.

“Really? Great,” Yusuf groaned as he stood up and stretched. “Next time I'll make sure to download some movies or something.”

Malik chuckled. “Yeah, its pretty boring waiting. Sorry,” Malik said.

“Ah, it's no worries,” and Yusuf slapped Ubaid’s knee. “Hey, old man, wake up, we're going.”

Ubaid woke with a start, grumbled but got up. “Also, I found this in the pit,” Malik motioned with the sword once Ubaid was awake.

Ubaid rubbed an eye, “Oh? A sword? Is it special?”

“Doesn't look like it. Might be a mid 19th or even 20th century mameluke… erm, saber, scimitar thing,” he said to over explain. “Probably isn’t worth anything.”

“Ah. A shame. For a moment I thought you had found some ancient relic to make up for the state of the forge,” Ubaid said with a slightly pained smile.

Malik shook his head with a slight smile. “Yeah, not this time unfortunately. But is it cool if I have it? I’m kinda into swords.”

“With the name al-Sayf I’d hope,” Yusuf teased him.

“No that’s literally why I like swords,” Malik said plain-faced and they both laughed. “See if I can't clean it up a bit. Make a good souvenir from Dörtyol if nothing else.”

“Of course you can have it,” Ubaid said.

“Great,” Malik said.

“Alright, everyone have some water and then let’s get back to the car,” Yusuf handed them both water bottles. Malik drank gratefully. Once everyone was hydrated and they made sure they left no garbage behind they headed back down the mountain trail to the sedan.

[klymilark]

Sore: Chapter 1

CW: Swearing

Word Count: 2007

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

“Shit, that was a long drive” Kaye says, as she closes the door to the box truck she rented.  Her waist length reddish-brown hair is braided off to the side.  

“Yeah.  I remember when I made it a few years back.  15 hours, if memory serves?” Don replies.  It looks like he’s finally shaved his head.  He’s been balding since he was 20, well before Kaye met him, but she’s seen the pictures.  He looked almost like he could’ve been a teacher in his graduation photo.

“19.  I spent 19 hours behind the wheel of that thing.  Only stopped to sleep.  Why is this country so big, anyway?” Kaye responded, standing up straight after cracking what feels like every joint in her body, her chin coming up to the bottom of the window of the truck.

“Eminent domain.  Wait, only to sle-” Don starts

“Yep.  Only to sleep. Packed enough food for the trip, so I didn’t need to stop for that.”  Kaye says, cutting him off.

“But what did you do about the ba-”  Don starts, once again.  Kaye really hasn’t changed much since they last spoke in person.

“Drank it.  Wanna stop in for some coffee?”  Kaye asks.

She really hasn’t changed.  Don can never tell if she’s joking, and sometimes he just doesn’t want to know.  This is definitely one of those times.

They walk into the coffee shop, and Kaye orders a breakfast sandwich with tea.  Don’s already eaten, since he kind of forgot until Kaye texted him 30 minutes ago, so he just gets coffee.  They sit down, and Kaye groans in pleasure from sitting down in a decent chair for the first time in what feels like years.  Kaye stuffs the sandwich into her face, downs the tea, then gets a refill.  She’s been living off of bologna sandwiches, soda, energy drinks, and a single sports drink for the past two days. A hot meal was much appreciated, given the circumstances.

“So,” Don asks, “how was the trip?”

“Well, I finally caught up on the podcasts I’ve been putting off listening to for far too long.  Besides that, I stared at asphalt for 19 hours.  I’m kind of bored.” Kaye responds, like Don should have already known.

Don chuckles, “I see you still haven’t learned that people mostly want to hear ‘Good’ in response to that question.”

“No, I have.  I always have.  I’ve just never cared.”  She says, putting emphasis on the word cared.

“Right.  I forgot that social norms have never been your thing” Don responds with a smile.

“I mean, given my life, why would they be?” She responds

They spend another hour or so catching up.  She asks how he and his wife are doing, and everything’s fine on his front.  A couple of waves here and there, especially since the move.  They miss their families, and it’s kind of a strain, but it’s nothing they can’t work through.  The usual thing for a couple that’s getting into their thirties.  He’s made new friends, got a promotion at work, and has his own life now.  Kaye says she’s happy for him, and they go over to his place so she can crash for the night.

This is the first time Kaye’s seen his place in person.  It’s a rather duplex in a decent part of town.  Very much a red brick home in the middle of town that the right type of person would say is to die for.  Kaye’s not that right type of person, but she can definitely appreciate the look of it.  Don walks in while Kaye is grabbing her overnight bag.

Kaye walks in, and is assaulted by family pictures on the wall.  Definitely a traditional family home; all white walls, popcorn ceilings, a computer off to the right hand side next to the dining room, but still in the living room.  She plops her bag down on the gray sofa up against the front picture window, and waltzes into the kitchen where Don is chatting with his wife.

“Kaye. Carmela. Barker! How have you been?!”  Amie says immediately after noticing her high school buddy at her front door.

“Amie.  Cornelia. Simmons.  I’ve been great!” Kaye responds, very sarcastically. Amie’s been one of her better supporters during the past year or so.  It’s been abysmal, but Kaye’s been able to keep her head up, largely thanks to this lady right here.

“Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you.  The years have definitely done you well.” Amie says, commenting on the appearance she knows Kaye is rather sensitive towards.  It’s very much appreciated.

“Thanks!  I really like your style now.  Makes me feel bad that I’m just standing here in my sweats, and a worn out t-shirt.”  Kaye responds with a chuckle.

“Oh, sure, now your social instincts kick in.  Now that my wife is in the room.  Why can’t you be that way wi-” Don starts

“Because fuck you is why.” Kaye responds. Amie can barely contain a laugh at the sudden shift in tone.

“Ouch.  That stung.” Don responds with a very overly dramatic hurt tone to his voice.

“You’ll live.  You’re a strong independent man, don’t need no woman, after all”

“Gee, thanks.  Guess I’ll just leave, then,” Amie says.

“Suppose that makes two of us,” Kaye responds.

“Shall we?” Amie says as she motions to the door.

“Let’s.” Kaye says, and they both head towards the door.

“Hey!  No fair!” Don says from the couch.

Amie turns around, and smiles slyly.  As she walks to the couch, a look of concern and excitement comes onto Don’s face.  She straddles him, her legs either side of his, and puts her hands on the side of his neck.  As she does, she leans in, and kisses him directly on the lips, the left cheek, then the right.  She then clamps her teeth down onto the right side of his neck.

“We’ll finish this later,” she whispers, just loud enough for Kaye to catch what she says, “Kaye and I have some catching up to do, and we’d like some privacy.”

“Okay, sweetheart.  Take your time,” he says, then snaps his teeth.

Amie giggles, and climbs off of the couch.  They walk to the master bedroom, Don sitting on the couch.

“Things never really change, do they,” Kaye asks with a smile, plopping down onto the bed.

“Not really.  Now, tell me, how much do you have in terms of clothes?” Amie asks.

“Well, I have a few hoodies, some pants, an-” Kaye starts.

“You know full well what I meant.” Amie finishes.

“Oh.  Right.  That.” Kaye says, realizing that this was going to be a less than comfortable conversation, “I have a couple of night shirts, and some underwear.  That’s about all I could keep usefully.  I didn’t see much use in buying ultra-femme clothing I wouldn’t be able to wear.”

“I’m sorry to hear, but we’re going to fix that.” Amie says, smiling like a kid in a candy store, “What style did you want to go for?”

“I was thinking more butc-” Kaye starts.

“No.  What style do you want to go for?” Amie interjects, correcting a misunderstanding.

Kaye sits on the bed, staring into the full-length mirror that Amie has set up in her room. She turns on the bed to look at herself directly.  She imagines herself in a black mid-calf dress with ruffles on the sleeves.  No, that’s not quite it.  She imagines herself full butch, and while the thought is appealing, it’s only so because of comfort.  She racks her brain trying to think of how she wants to look.

“I don’t know!” She says, rather loudly, as she bursts into tears.

Crying has never been her strong suit, and speaking while doing it was even less so.  Amie sits on the bed next to Kaye, lays down, and pulls her down.  They lay there like that for a while, just like they did when they were in high school.  Amie just sort of had an instinct on calming her down, and Kaye definitely appreciated that.  After ten, fifteen, maybe thirty minutes, Amie speaks up.

“Are you alright now?” She asks, a slight concern in her voice.

“I think so,” Kaye responds, still slightly sniffling.

“Good.  I know this is a sensitive time for you, but let’s get you in some clothes that fit.” Amie says.

“Thank you,” Kaye says as she sits up.

“That’s what I’m here for” She responds, standing to grab a dress.

It’s a black dress with orange flowers printed everywhere on it.  The dress has been fashioned out of 8 pieces of fabric, and is rather stretchy.  The skirt looks like it would stop just past Kaye’s finger tips when she stood upright.  She marveled at it; she hadn’t been able to try something on that looked so right in a long time.

“Do you have a bra on you?” Amie asks.

“Yeah.  It’s in my bag.”  She responds, reaching for the bag.

Kaye unzips her overnight bag, which had a few essentials in it.  Toothbrush, hair brush, comb, and the bra that Amie said to bring in when she came over for the night.  She pulls it out, and it’s a rather basic thing; underwire, lace wings on the back, slightly padded cups, and it fit about as well as she wanted to shop for, given the anxiety.

“Good.  Now, put the dress on.” Amie says.

“Okay.” Kaye responds nervously.

Kaye takes her shirt off, and puts her bra on.  Amie’s seen a lot of her, so it’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.  Kaye then removes her sweatpants, revealing legs which look like they’ve never been shaved.  At least her leg hair is light.  Kaye sits there, staring at the dress.  Her brain is screaming at her to put it on, that she’ll be happier, but her body is doing nothing but disagreeing.  Now that what she wants is well within her grasp, she can’t even move her arms.

“Come on, Kaye.  It’s not the first time you’ve done this.  Remember when we were kids?” Amie says, patiently.

“Yeah, I do, but it’s been a while.  I haven’t worn a dress since well before you moved here.” Kaye responds.

“I know, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there for you like I used to these past few years.  But, now that you’re here, I can be here for you just like I was before.” Amie says, smiling.

Kaye chuckles, “Thank you.  Everything you’ve done is very much appreciated.” Kaye says, smiling back.

“Now, would it help if I put the dress on for you, or do you want to do it yourself?” Amie asks.

“I’ll do it myself, it’ll just take me a minute.” Kaye responds, while moving to sit on the bed.

“Alright.” Amie says, sitting beside her.

Kaye grabs the dress, and pulls it to her lap.  As she feels the material, she realizes she likes it.  It’s a very soft, knit material.  She picks it up, opens the bottom, and puts it on.  She adjusts the front seam so it’s straight down the front, and as she looks down, it feels odd.  Odd in the good way, though; a feeling of joy she hasn’t felt in years sinks in.  She stands up, and twists around so Amie can see.

“You’re so pretty!” Amie says, standing up, and holding her arms out for a hug.

Kaye, barely being able to stand at this point, just collapses in her arms.  Amie leaned back onto the bed, where they laid for a few minutes.

“Let’s go in the living room.” Amie says

“If you insist” Kaye responds.

They walk into the living room, and Don comments on the dress.  Kaye gives a simple thanks before collapsing on the couch, more exhausted than she’s ever been.  Amie joins, sitting between Don and Kaye.  After a short time of watching TV, and cuddling, Kaye passes out, and the other two head for the room to call it a night.

Chapter 2

Search sbbl on my blog to find the rest of the chapters, as well!

[current-mcr-news]

Casual Interactions #9: Full Transcription

John: Welcome back to the Casual Interactions podcast. We are still answering your questions.

Frank: Questions #3. This is the third episode of questions?

J: This is the third episode of questions.

Shaun: That's all we're gonna do now.

F: That's a lot, yeah. I think that's good for a while, right? Maybe we'll do every seven episodes, we'll do three episodes of questions. There's a lot of questions though! I'm shocked.

J: Well, you know what? There was about 200 questions, give or take. And I left it open for a week. I told them when there was no more questions, people still sent questions anyway.

F: Aw, late comers.

J: But it's okay because, you know, people like to break rules and I'm not mad at it.

F: Okay.

J: Sam wants to know, from Kansas, if we've ever had any supernatural encounters.

F: Wow, this is the second-

S: Supernatural.

J: People wanna know about ghosts.

F: Alright. I'm curious, man. Do we have a large ghost crowd, huh? Interesting.

S: Lot of ghosts out there, Frank.

F: Very interesting.

S: There's a lot of ghosts in here.

F: What if these questions are being sent...

S: By?

F: Canadians.

S: Oh man.

F: Wait, what was the question?

J: Have we ever had any supernatural encounters?

F: Oh. Alright, I- yeah. I think I recently talked about this on another podcast. I cheated on you guys with another podcast that was about supernatural Canadian things.

J: You weren't too good at keeping that a secret.

F: I was a venue once that was supposedly haunted and I heard some chatter, sounded like kids running around and laughing.

S: And then they probably weren't real kids.

F: They probably weren't real kids. They were fake kids.

S: Ghost children.

F: Ghost children, yes.

J: There you go.

F: That's possible. Or could have been actual kids, I don't know.

S: I would agree with Frank on that.

F: What, that they could have been- you agree that they could've been kids?

S: Yes.

F: Easily explained. Maybe they were kids.

J: I agree.

F: Hm, not so super. Have you ever had a supernatural experience, Shaun.

S: No.

F: Do you want one?

S: I think having one through you might be enough for me.

F: Really? Alright. That's all you can handle.

J: Listen. You're supernatural experience was more than enough for me. The closest thing I've had recently was one of my goddaughter's toys that lights up and plays music, I think the battery was dying and it just kinda went off on its own. And it scared the fucking shit out of me. It scared me so bad!

S: There was a story and it was my wife's grandmother, someone had died, and she was sleeping on the couch. And then she started hearing this person talking to her.

F: Your wife's sleeping-

S: No, my wife's grandmother.

F: Your wife's grandmother is sleeping.

S: Yeah. And someone had recently died and then she started hearing this person talking to her, like calling her- saying her name and stuff like that, and maybe asking if she was there. And it kept happening over and over again. She started to get freaked out. So what it ended up being was the fucking cat kept hitting the answering machine and it was a message from this person that kept playing over and over!

F: No way!

J: Holy shit!

F: But wait! But what if the cat was possessed by that spirit to hit the button?

S: Oh!

F: That's what you're missing.

J: That's a vindictive spirit, man.

F: That's the thing, yeah.

S: I mean, probably not, but.

F: I like how they still didn't listen to the message though. "No seriously, the message is very important."

J: From my grandmother, my family, I've been told, is psychically attuned.

F: Oh, to what?

J: To everything. It's a lot. So, my mom years ago gave me this jade Buddha with this little red fringe is hanging off it. It's actually hanging off my front door right now. She's like, "This will keep your house safe." And so, it's like a ward of protection I keep on my front door. Now, my mom's paranoia and anxiety has, you know, since rubbed off on me. And then plus my OCD, it's just, every night before I go to bed, I'm like, you know, touching the burners to make sure they're off, I'm rubbing the jade Buddha, making sure the door is locked like three times before I get into bed. Then I get into bed, and I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I come out of the bathroom and I'm like, "Fuck, hold on," so I take the flashlight out on my phone and I shine it on the other side of the bed, make sure there's no one on the other side of my bed on the floor waiting to murder me. So that's kinda where I live now.

F: First off, here- wait. What have you done in your life that there's someone that's looking to murder you?

J: I don't know.

F: And that secretly.

J: Nothing! But that's the kind of, what's going on up top sometimes, you know?

F: But here's the thing. If they were to break in that door, you can't- there's no escaping. I've seen your apartment.

J: There's a window in there.

F: You're gonna get out that window?

J: I'm not that fat, Frank.

F: No, I'm just saying!

J: It's a small window.

F: That's what you would do? If you heard a break in, you would go out the window?

J: I'd have to try, I don't know. I don't know what I would do.

S: You should have a plan for that.

J: I do, I have like, several plans for it actually.

F: You don't have a weapon hidden?

J: I have a knife in the drawer.

F: What kind of knife?

J: Oh no, I took that out, it's in the car now. Shit!

F: Now what are you gonna do?

J: Now what am I gonna do?

F: You would have to jump out the window, go to the car, come back in-

J: I'm gonna hope I've got a good shot.

S: Then stab them.

J: I'm gonna start hurdling the remote control to my TV, the PlayStation controller.

S: You should keep coconuts by your bed.

J: Shaun, you're a genius!

S: There you go.

F: Shitballs. So you check the side of the bed.

J: Yes.

F: Because-

J: Because I have this crazy mania in my brain that thinks that someone's gonna try to murder me in my sleep.

S: I feel like, if anybody, you'd be the last person someone would want to murder.

F: I would think so too.

J: I would hope- thank you! I would hope so, but no, my little crazy brain is like, sometimes it works a little overtime.

F: Why do you think that they would break in and wait for you to go back to sleep to murder you?

J: See, I don't know.

S: So he can go to the bathroom.

J: And that's where we're getting crazy.

S: They'll let him pee first.

F: Well, you'd wanna get that out.

J: I've had many talks with myself, like, getting done taking a piss, getting in my bedroom, knowing rationally as I lock the door to my bedroom, there's double locks.

F: No!

J: Oh yeah. I have to. I have to lock the door to my room. Every place I've ever lived, the door gets locked.

F: You're kidding me!

J: Oh yeah. And so I'm about to get into bed and I have that moment, that real rational moment where it's just like, "Okay, honestly, no one's broken into your house, no one's coming to try to murder you, no one is that good of a murderer that they would've gotten in to the house through the front door that's locked, slipped past the bathroom as you're taking a piss."

F: Stealthy.

J: "Because you're not pissing that loudly, and made it into your room, and didn't bump their knees on the bed that's at the very edge of the door, and then not bumped themselves into-" because it's pitch black in there.

F: Pitch black, and then they have to lie in wait again.

J: And then they have to lie in wait again, and hold their breath until I get done, because maybe it's a poo, like I don't know. I've been out of the room for a while. So there's no way that it all would've been able to go down, but yet, I'm just like, "But if I don't check, then I'm gonna get into bed and I'm gonna- my brain's gonna run and be like, 'Well maybe you should've checked,' and I'm not gonna be able to go to sleep. So then I just check and then it's the path of least resistance.

F: They're sitting there going like, "Please go to sleep."

J: It's the path of least resistance for me.

F: "So I can murder you."

J: Yeah.

F: "I've been waiting here for 20 minutes, you didn't check, and you're still not sleeping. I can hear you're not sleeping. I've been waiting here to murder you."

J: Now, oddly enough, when I'm dating somebody and they're sleeping in the bed-

F: Do you lock the door?

J: I lock the door.

F: No!

J: I do! I lock the door, but I don't check because I feel like I would've heard them getting murdered. If that happened, then I'm cool! Like, I just lock the door.

F: It's like having a canary in the mine!

J: Exactly!

F: Holy shit! So wait, what does the person do? Like, this, you know, say it's the first night that they've slept over. This nice young lady, ample bosom, I'm sure.

J: God willing.

F: Gothy, probably has some things that she sells on Etsy.

J: Jesus Christ! You hang out with George Bungalow one time, Frank! You've already got jokes. Well no, I just sit there-

F: They wake up and the door has been locked!

J: I get it out up front and I just say, "Listen, you know, if you need to turn the light on-"

F: You should say, just once for me, just say, "Now you can't leave."

J: No! No, I would never say that to somebody! I tell them the name of the room to say to Alexa, turn the light on. And I say, "Hey, I lock the door because I have OCD about a lot of things, but you're good. Just let yourself out."

F: Oh wow!

J: Yeah.

F: I didn't know that about you.

J: You're learning new things everyday.

F: Holy shit.

J: Yeah. Apparently that was-

F: I can't wait to break in and hide behind the side of your bed later!

J: That was a really great question.

F: Holy shit.

J: Yeah. So uh, there we are. Sam from Kansas, great question. Jan wants to know, do we have a favorite meme of ourselves?

F: Yes! I found-

J: Did you really?

F: Someone sent one to me the other day.

J: Maybe it was Jan.

F: It might've been Jan.

J: That's a long way to set this one up, Jan.

S: What is it?

F: Holy shit, long con. It's fucking fantastic. I don't know who made this, or why. I don't know if it's referencing a private joke that they might have about me, but just know that it was sent to me, maybe by the person that made it, maybe not. But the private joke is so funny that it made me laugh out loud for about 20 minutes, and then I sent it to everyone I know.

S: We didn't see it.

F: Really?

J: No, you didn't send it to us.

F: That's crazy. Okay, well I saved it, and I just gotta find it.

S: You sent us the chicken nugget fucking maker.

F: What? The chicken nugget maker?

S: Yeah, isn't that what it was?

J: That's how the nuggets get made, yeah. That's what that was. That wasn't ice cream. That was terrible.

F: Oh right. Oh man. Okay. So no, this is- it's close. Where is it? Goddamnit. I wanna show it to you before I mention it, because I think it's funnier if you see it yourself. Aw man. How do you find something like that? Um...

J: Google.

S: If you sent it to someone, wouldn't it be-

F: Oh that's right, yeah. But this is like, you know-

J: Yeah but if you're on your phone, click the little i.

S: Yeah.

F: Oh yeah! Oh that's right, I could probably do that, huh? Okay, so wait, let me see. Ah, here it is. Just pass that around. It's fucking genius! I don't know why it was ever made. I know, it's so good. I mean, I do see a lot of weird things that are made with my fucking weird mug on them. This one caught me so off guard and made me laugh so hard. This is a picture of me from fucking 2001 or something, looking scraggly as fuck, in what I imagine is a supermarket or CVS feminine hygiene aisle, and the caption or the text says, "Aight babe, I'm in the pad aisle, what pussy size do you wear?"

J: Wow!

S: That's such a strange thing.

F: It's so weird!

J: It's so weird and jarring, but it's just funny.

F: It caught me really off guard.

J: So how long did it take for you to realize it was you in the picture?

F: Oh no, it was sent to me on Twitter.

S: But it's the way it's framed.

J: Someone sent it to you on Twitter?

F: It was sent to me on Twitter!

J: From a rando?

F: Yeah! Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I was like, tagged in a conversation between two other people or something like that, but I saw this fucking thing with my face on it, and I was like, "Oh jeez, what's this?" Sometimes I'll click on the @s, you know? Like, @ me, and then I'll just kinda fucking swipe it and let it just- almost like Price is Right wheel.

S: And see what it lands on.

F: And then stop it and like, look at one.

J: So I mean, you're always so great about taking pictures with fans and stuff, but maybe you don't wanna take it in the feminine hygiene aisle, so if you catch him, maybe move over to, I don't know, the school supplies or something like that.

F: I just wanna ask somebody now, "What size-," never mind, I'm never gonna say that.

S: The way that was framed was fucking hilarious.

J: My lord. Oh god, uh, Damia- I'm just reading it as as it's written, wants to know if there are any jealousy or bad vibes between any of our friends when a member left or moved?

F: Of like a band or something?

J: Yeah, means like got fired or something.

F: Oh man. You're human so sometimes that happens and it's hard to see down the line, that ultimately it's not gonna be that big a deal, but when you're in a band and you're in your teenage years or your early 20s, something like that, and you dedicate your life to something, and someone kinda like, just says, "I'm out," that's fucking earth shattering, you know? When you put all your eggs in that basket. So, sometimes you'll have some hard feelings about it but I think eventually, it dissipates.

J: Yeah, I mean, you get older, you don't care about so much stuff that felt as earth shattering in the moment.

F: Oh yeah.

J: It was just kinda like, "Why were we even mad about that?"

F: Right.

J: So, Rain from Michigan asked four questions.

F: Oh Jesus.

J: We're going to answer one.

F: Okay.

J: And the question that I'm gonna ask of Rain's four questions is, and thank god it was an easy name to pronounce this time for me, um, "If you guys could change-"

F: Is it Reign?

J: No no, it's Rain. "If you guys could change your names, what would you change them to?"

F: Oh, easy. Steve.

J: Steve. What about you, Shaun?

S: Really?! Why Steve?

F: I don't know. That's my go to alias. If I order food or if I go to a coffee shop and they ask me my name, I say Steve all the time.

J: There you go. How about you, Shaun?

S: Charles Easter.

F: I like it.

J: That's great. Dracula.

S: Dracula?

J: I just think it would be great just to go into Starbucks and they have to call me Dracula. They would wonder for days if I was fucking with them or not.

F: Do you do it?

J: No I don't do it.

F: Why not? What's holding you back?

J: I don't know. I thought about it. It works. I think I could pull off Dracula.

F: Dr. Acula.

J: Dr. Acula. Yeah.

F: Is that a band?

J: Yeah it's good. Maybe. We might be changing our name to Dracula.

F: I think you should, man. Your mom would be pissed.

J: Oh, my mom would be so mad.

F: But you would have to make her call you that too. I make my kids call me Doctor Father. Yeah, I've been trying it.

J: Which one did that land with? Who does it?

F: None of them believe that they have to call me that.

J: Really?

F: I'll say, "You should start calling me with my full actual, like you know, title." And they are like, "What?" And I'm like, "Doctor Father." They get like, "Really?" Like, I don't know if they've figured out that I'm fucking with them totally yet, or if they're like, "I think you're fucking with me, but... really?"

J: What about Miles? Has Miles gone for it?

F: He will sometimes. If I tickle him enough, he'll call me it.

J: That's his safe word, Doctor Father.

F: "Doctor Father!"

J: Jade from Texas wants to know how we deal with our daily struggles with anxiety and depression.

F: Oh god.

J: It's a heavy question, it's a good one.

S: Shake those dice, Frank.

J: You know what, it could go either way because we are recording in my apartment today, so there are mason jars filled with dice, or they could be anti-anxiety medication. Who could tell?

F: Why are there so many dice?

J: I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons.

S: Do you need-

F: I know but at the same time?

J: So for those listening at home, I have four mason jars filled with polyhedral dice for Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games.

F: Right.

J: Why I have so many. Well, I do collect dice. I have some really sweet dice. I have the dice made of a 10,000 year old tusk of a woolly mammoth, I have a dice made of titanium, a dice made of jet.

F: When you went into the purchase of the woolly mammoth bones-

J: Oh, I was very single. I was very single and had a lot of disposable income. It was like 250 bucks.

F: How did you know that they weren't just selling you like, I don't know, gravel?

J: Oh, I got a certificate of authenticity.

S: And shouldn't a woolly mammoth bone be in a fucking museum and not made into a-

F: Yeah! Who has access to all these bones that they're making dice out of them?

J: Well, it was a company called Artisan Dice from Texas and they make a lot of specialty dice made of a lot of weird and cool material. After the fact, after I'd spent the money and I'd ordered the dice, it's a really sweet dice, but I was like, "Yeah man, maybe this tusk should've been in a museum." But hey, too late now, I already own it. So yeah, I have some cool dice that I use regularly. My mom loves to get me Christmas presents. She does love getting me Christmas presents, and for a while, I was like, "I don't know what the hell I'd have my mom get. I don't need anything." So every year, I'd make her buy me like a pound of dice and then I would just give them away to people.

S: A pound? You can get them in pounds?

J: You can get it by the pound, yeah. Chessex makes this great pound of dice and, in the middle, they give you one complete set. Otherwise, it's all random mixed up dice. And so I kind of just- my mom had all these mason jars. Also, I dated a lot of crafty women, so there was plenty of mason jars lying around. And so I just filled them up, and it's a nice decoration.

F: "So I can keep my own urine."

J: Yeah, keeping my own piss in a jar. That's what the other mason jars are for.

F: That's awesome though. Do you know how many you have?

J: No, I have no idea because I give them away to people. Like if someone forgets some dice, here's some dice. I run a monthly Dungeons and Dragons night at this bar called Pet Shop in Jersey City.

F: I love that bar.

J: Yeah, it's awesome. Great vegetarian food. I highly recommend you try the buffalo cauliflower.

F: Fucking amazing.

J: Amazing.

F: You wanna fart all night.

J: All night, forget it, yeah. It's not date food, for sure. So yeah, I put packs of dice together and I just give them away to players, people come up trying DnD for the first time, I just give them a set of dice.

F: That's so cool. How many dice do you need to run one game?

J: So, playing 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons rules, you wanna have two 20 sided dice, because you could either roll with advantage or disadvantage. And then you essentially just need one full set of dice, which is seven dice, plus an extra 20 sided die, and you're good to go. And you don't even need that extra 20 sided die, it's just more fun to roll multiple dice at the same time. It's easy and, you know, for people who-

F: So you need seven?

J: Seven dice. Most dice sets that you get come with seven dice. You get a 20 sided die, you get an 8 sided die, a 10 sided die, another 10 sided die that acts as a percentile so combined with the 10 sided die, it creates of a D100. You get a 6 sided die and you get a 12 sided die and a 4 sided die.

F: Holy shit.  

J: Yeah. And it's cool because you can get a set of dice for like, 5 or 6 bucks depending on where you get it. And then you can get them in all different colors. I'm about to back a Kickstarter of a guy who made ice cream dice. So they're all flavors of ice cream, but they're polyhedral dice, so he's got a Neapolitan, he's got an orange Creamsicle. It's fun stuff. I love dice, I collect a lot of dice, but yeah, I don't need five pounds of them, but you know, mom likes to get me presents and I don't like to say no.

F: Who are you to deny her?

J: Who am I to deny my mother buying me wonderful presents with love from her heart?

F: Made from dead woolly mammoths.

J: No, that cost me about 250 bucks, and yeah. You know, sometimes I roll it and I go, "Should've been in a museum."

F: "I shouldn't roll this."

J: I roll it anyway.

F: Where is it? Do you have it here? Is it in a special safe?

J: No, it's actually under the Yoda puppet. There is a box by a company called Wormwood.

F: I see it!

J: And in that box there is my totally sweet dice.

F: I love that Yoda has real hair.

J: That's an actual vintage puppet from the Empire Strikes Back. Not used in the movie, of course. Yeah, watch out, it's magnetic.

F: Oh Jesus.

S: Wait, it's this one?

J: Yeah, the white one. That's actually made from the tusk of a woolly mammoth.

S: This is a bone?

J: That's a bone.

S: I think they fucked you, man. That feels like plastic to me.

J: Tusks are hollow, man. It's not, it's actual. Smell it.

F: Wait, is it really? Taste it.

S: Lick it, Frank.

J: Smell it.

F: Wait, is it cracked?

J: No, that's just the grain of it.

F: Oh, it smells like mammoth to me.

S: Can you Jurassic Park that thing and make a real one?

J: Ooh, maybe.

F: You might be, I don't know.

J: Yeah.

F: It's an actual woolly mammoth bone? Genuine?

J: The tusk of a 10,000 year old woolly mammoth, yeah.

F: If you found out it was only a thousand year old woolly mammoth, would you be upset?

J: I still would've paid for it, yeah.

S: Is this one a rock? What is this one?

J: That is made from the bone of a velociraptor.

F: What?! Jesus Christ, dude!

S: Get the fuck out, really?!

J: Yeah man.

S: What are you doing? You're going to have fucking-

F: I love that! I don't have any dice, but this is the one I would have though.

S: How are you getting fucking-

F: This is small!

J: Yeah well, I mean it's-

F: Can you even use this?

J: Yeah, you can but you need to use it under light because you can hardly see the numbers on it.

F: Holy fuck, I'm too old to even read this.

J: Yeah, definitely need to wear my glasses.

F: Oh my god, this is a velociraptor’s what?

J: The bone of a velociraptor. I don't know. It was a very nondescript bone.

S: That's so crazy.

J: That is titanium, the one you're holding in your hand, Shaun.

S: I didn't know that they would sell bones like that for public consumption.

J: Yeah, I'm sure someone had to pay someone off for it.

S: I like- this one's cool. It's got some weight to it.

J: Yeah, it's made of titanium.

S: Yeah.

J: So yeah, to answer your-

S: It's made of adamantium.

J: Oh god, I wish. Forget it. Imagine trying to cut adamantium into a 20 sided die.

F: Do you feel like any of these give you better luck?

J: Oh the one you're holding right now, the titanium one, is my main one. It rolls high always. Because you wanna roll high in DnD, you always wanna put up some numbers, especially you wanna try to shoot for a natural 20. So that one always rolls pretty high. The dinosaur bone one rolls pretty good as well. The jet one, which is the black one that's in there, that rolls pretty well.

F: What's that one made of?

J: Jet.

F: Made of jet? Like, the magazine?

J: Yeah, like the magazine.

F: You ever roll Cee-lo with these?

J: No, I don't think you can roll Cee-lo with a 20 sided die.

F: You could try.

J: You could try, yeah.

S: Oh my god.

F: I got a dollar. What's that green one?

J: The green one is made from the plastic-

S: Jade.

J: -that they make the canopies for jet fighters from.

F: Jesus Christ, man!

S: Wow.

F: That's awesome!

S: What about this one? Is this wood?

J: That's wood.

S: Just plain wood? Nothing cool?

J: Just plain old wood.

S: Oh.

J: Yeah.

S: Alright.

F: Shaun's unimpressed with that one.

J: He saved the worst for last.

S: No, it's cool, man.

J: Uh, to answer your question, Jade from Texas. "Do you suffer from anxiety and depression? How do I deal with it?" I try to eat right, I try to exercise, I prioritize sleep, I talk to my therapist, and I try to make time to spend with my friends and family doing fun things like Dungeons and Dragons.

F: I like that, that's a good plan. Here's the thing. If you're, yeah, if you're doing things that make you happy, it's hard not to feel better about things, but depression's a fucker. So it'll creep in sometimes, even when you're supposed to be happy. And that's when you might need to, you know, seek the help of somebody that knows a little bit better than you do.

J: Yeah.

F: And sometimes, you know, medication is helpful. I've had good reactions and terrible fucking reactions, so you gotta do that shit with the utmost care.

J: Professionals.

F: Seriously.

J: That's why they get paid the big bucks.

F: Hey, so here's a question from Frank in New Jersey. So alright, we've talked about the ghost thing twice, right? Because not everyone gets to be a ghost, right? What necessitates that and could animals be ghosts? Are there caveman ghosts? Are there velociraptor? Like, do you think that maybe you'll be haunted by a 5,000 year old woolly mammoth for his fucking bone die, that you've taken and you have? He doesn't feel complete somewhere.

J: Great question, Frank from New Jersey. So I think that a lot of it has to do with, you need to be a sentient being. You need to have some kind of like... Like, I love animals but I don't know that an animal is going to have that moment where he or she feels like they left something undone in the world. Like, they need to stick around until they find that bone that they buried somewhere. I think that ghosts and the paranormal is really tied into deep emotion, whether it's like a joyful emotion, or an emotion that, like, real trauma. And that's why you have malevolent spirits or you know, just your friendly ghosts that are just kinda doofing around because they just wanna hang out still.

F: Alright. Do you feel like, say like, you know, at what point in evolution did that occur? So like, cavemen? Cro-Magnon?

J: I think once you got past the Cro-Magnon times, I think once people started having motivations for things other than just-

F: Survival.

J: Making fire and survival. Like, when there was things that could be left undone rather than just, "Oh, gotta invent the wheel today." I think that's kinda where we're at.

F: So, when people got selfish and started- Like, when do you think the first, like I guess, murder took place? Because I feel like that, the motivation behind jealousy and things of that, start to kinda tie in with the realization of things other than just survival, or you know, wanting things that you can't have, or wanting other people that you can't have, and things of that nature, like, kind of playing into.

J: So I'm gonna go with, because I think that's great, I'm gonna go with I think when it hits the point where you can be consciously committing any of what we consider the seven deadly sins. If you were just kind of, something just happened, like it is what it is. Like, you know, you're killing someone to survive, but when you're like, "Okay."

F: Animal based.

J: When things go from animal based to premeditated, then I think that's kinda when OG ghosts would happen.

F: Okay. So, what is the oldest ghost ever reported? Do we know?

J: I don't know.

F: Is it probably Victorian, or something like that?

S: Mhm.

F: Mmmhm.

J: I think if you're gonna go Biblical, it would probably be like Cain and Abel.

S: Oh, right.

F: Mhm.

S: Bible ghosts.

F: Bible ghosts! I like that.

J: Yeah. I mean, I think if you're looking at Cain and Abel's premeditated murder, so I would probably say something along those lines. That's as far back as I can think.

F: Alright.

J: For those listening at home, I'm like 14 seasons into Supernatural, so I've got some thoughts.

F: Please report in the oldest known ghost.

J: Yeah, if you're listening to this and you can figure out what would be the original ghost sighting, definitely tweet it out to us, because we are now very curious about this. But we're not gonna actually do any work or research on our own.

F: No, yeah, definitely not doing that.

J: No, we don't like homework. Alright so, we got one more question before we wrap this episode up. And I think- I'm gonna slaughter this name. Citlali.

F: That was good. I think that's how you do it.

J: They actually put it in here phonetically for me, and it said, "Lolly pop, I know it's weird." From Nevada wants to know, "Frank, what is your favorite line from one of your songs?"

F: Oh Jesus. Oh man.

S: I could tell you my favorite part of one of Frank's songs.

J: Do it.

F: Oh please.

S: The end of... Crap, what's the name of that fucking- hold on. I'm not gonna ask you even though you're right here.

F: Okay. I won't tell you either.

S: Oh, the second song, Veins on-

F: Oh!

S: The end of that song where it's just like that driving. I'm always like, "Why isn't there more of that?" You know what I mean?

F: Yeah. Just give a little bit, now you have to play it again.

S: A little more, yeah. No, I think that's one of my favorite parts of one of Frank's songs.

F: Oh, I like that part too. Thank you. That's cool. There are song lines in that that I think are killer. I feel like sometimes you'll write things and you'll be like, "Oh, that shit's snarky." I like that a lot. I like when shit stings a bit, you know?

J: Yeah, I agree.

F: I don't know. There's some too, there's some killer lines from the Pencey record that Hambone wrote that I like a lot. Like, "See you around sometime on the 6th of never." That line always got to me, I like that line a lot. I think the whole thing of 8th Grade.

J: Yeah, because that was emotional for me. That was like-

F: That was a cool song.

J: You know, that was, you know, about being bullied and stuff. I like, so for me, the best lyrics I think I wrote, I wrote when I was doing Brine and Bastards. I mean, I like Prayer For A Homesick Sailor, I like the lyrics I wrote for Last Call, and for Fear and Loathing in New Jersey. It was something I came up with, stuff that I came up with. I think for me the best lyrics that I wrote were the most personal stuff that I wrote, even though I don't know that the time I think I was writing personal stuff. Because I mean, Brine and Bastards are dressed up like pirates. So I was thinking I'm writing about being a pirate, but you know, I'm writing about being a bar fly and my favorite bar's closing. So there was that. Of your songs, Frank, I love She's the Prettiest Girl at the Party With a Mean Right Hook.

F: Oh.

J: I think that's one of the best songs you've ever written.

F: Thanks, man.

J: You know, soup to nuts it's like, perfectly arranged, perfect lyrics, they're great.

F: Thanks, man. That's a fun one because it's like, I like how every chorus you get another line. It's almost like a slow reveal on that song. And that was a song that I thought I hadn't really heard before, of like being in love in a troubled romance. Sometimes people write these love songs about these things that are like, "Oh, everything's perfect, everything's great," because you know, you make each other feel really great and all these things, but sometimes there's troubling things about relationships and the way that sometimes, you're in a relationship with somebody that doesn't always say things that make you feel good, you know what I mean? But that doesn't discount the realness or the gravity of the relationship.

J: Yeah.

F: So I think that was like a song where I was like, "Oh well I've never really heard a song like this about a non-conventional relationship."

J: Yeah, it's awesome and I love it and I look forward to more Frank Iero music.

F: Oh man.

J: Oh, look at that.

F: Dude, 14 songs coming soon.

S: When is that coming out? By the time this episode airs, it should be out, right?

F: I guess so, right? Yeah. End of May.

J: Alright so, by the time this episode drops, Frank's new album Barriers will be in stores, it will be online. Go out and buy this album. It is the best thing he's ever done. And with that said, Frank is also gonna be on tour so if he's coming to your area, definitely go check out Frank Iero and the Future Violents. You are not gonna regret it and you're not gonna wanna miss this show. Now, all that said, this is gonna end up being the season finale of Casual Interactions. Shaun, Frank, and I all have crazy summers ahead of us and it's gonna be very hard for us to get together and record some new episodes, so that's kinda the bad news. The good news is that we're gonna be back in the fall with new episodes, some new segments, and some surprises that you're all gonna love a whole lot. So thank you all so very much for tuning in. We really appreciate all the feedback that we get, we appreciate all the tweets, we appreciated all the questions. And we're gonna leave you with one last question. We saved the best for last. Here we go. So it's a three part question, actually, and I think it's worth it because it starts off. It's Savvy from Tennessee.

F: Savvy.

S: Ooh.

F: I like that.

J: "How many of you have tattoos?" I can answer all of us. "What are your favorite tattoos?"  which is something we should answer, then, "Any crazy tattoo stories?"

S: Oh god.

F: Oh man! We talked about this before.

S: Yeah, we just talked about it.

F: Alright, go ahead.

J: Do you have a favorite tattoo, Frank?

F: I mean, I have ones that mean a lot. Like I have portraits of my grandmothers that have passed away, and my grandfather. So those are some of my favorites. I feel like even the ones that maybe I look at and I'm like, "Oof, that's not done really well," still mean a lot and still have, because like, I remember the moment in time when I got it, or where I got it, or who I was with, or who did it. And I feel like, you know like, I don't have many regrets about getting tattooed. I think, I don't know if I have a hierarchy of which ones I like the best or anything like that. I think if I could go back in time, I would maybe worry about placement more.

J: Right.

F: Just because I'm slowly but surely running out of space.

J: You are almost out of space.

S: Yeah.

F: Yeah, I'm running out of convenient space. Nothing feels good anymore.

J: No.

F: So, um, yeah. That's a rough thing, but there's definitely artists out there that I really would love to get tattooed by. I feel like now, it's gotten to this point where it's like a collection of different art and artists out there, different tattoo artists that I really love.

J: How about you, Shaun? You have a favorite tattoo?

S: I think mine is probably the big fucking buffalo head.

F: I like that a lot. That's Shawn Dillon, right?

S: His name is Esteban.

F: Oh, very nice.

J: So you name the buffalo but not the coconut.

S: I named the coconut.

F: Yeah, Shitball.

S: I name everything.

F: Where were you?

J: I was laughing too hard. Yeah, the buffalo looks great. My favorite tattoo is a Shawn Dillon tattoo he did on my forearm. It is based off an old Bastille Halloween decoration. The decoration was two skeletons playing instruments. This one is just a skeleton playing a bass guitar with some bats and a very orange moon, which I love.

F: You held that color really well.

J: I don't go out in the sun very much. That's my secret. Don't go in the sun.

F: Get the sun tattooed but don't go in it.

J: Don't go in it, yeah. So my crazy tattoo story is that when I was 22, 23?

F: No, really?

J: Yeah, I was probably 22 or 23. We were still doing Pencey so I was probably 22, 23. I was a dinner with a guy I knew and the girl he was dating, and her friend was there, and she was a tattoo artist. And we started joking around about getting tattoos and he was like, "You know what you should do, Hambone?" Because Jenna Jameson was big at the time, she was an adult film actress from many many moons ago. He was like, "You should get the same tattoo she has on her ass that says Heartbreaker with two broken hearts." And we were fully in the bag at this point. Don't make decisions like this when you're drunk, folks.

F: Oh no, definitely do.

J: Don't do it. And I'm like, "Yeah of course I'll do it, I'll do it." So the one girl I was at the table with was like, "I'm a tattoo artist, I'm an apprentice, sometimes I get the shop to myself. If you come down, I'll just do it for you for free." And I was like, "Yeah sure, I'll do anything... once, whatever."

S: "I'll do anything."

J: Is it free? Fuck it, let's do it. So, months go by and I get a phone call from this gal and she's like, "Oh hey, the tattoo shop, I have it to myself. You wanna come down and get the Heartbreaker on your ass?" And I was just like, "Alright, it's too funny not to." So I call Frank and Shaun, and I'm like, "Hey guys," told them the story, "do you guys wanna come?"

F: "Definitely."

J: "This could be funny." So we get down there and this gal has got the whole tattoo shop to herself and we go into the back room. And the way the tattoo shop is set up, the front of the shop has the cases with all the piercing jewelry and whatever, and some flash, and the back is where all the tattoos happen. And there was like this little Western door.

F: Saloon door.

J: Saloon doors that go from the front to the back. So we go through the saloon door, you hear the familiar click clack click clack click clack of the saloon doors. Similar to the kind of saloon doors that they would have in West Coast Video in the porno section so they'd always know if someone went back there and was looking at the porno.

F: Oh, is that what they're there for?

J: I kinda figured that's what it was. I sussed it out later. I'm like, "Of all the doors you could've put, why would you do that?"

F: You could have beads.

J: They could've have beads. But beads don't make that sound that just inspires shame.

F: I feel like if you got beads, you're ashamed. You should be ashamed if you've got beads.

J: So we go in the back and she gets all set up, and Frank and Shaun are there, and I'm there. We're all just trying to control our laughter because I'm about to get Heartbreaker tattooed on my right ass cheek. And either Frank or Shaun, I can't remember which one.

F: I can't remember either.

S: I don't know.

J: But someone was like, "No, you need to get Hambreaker because your nickname is Hambone. It'll be funnier." So of course I went with it.

F: It's definitely funnier.

J: It still holds up. It still holds up because you know, I have to get face down on the tattoo table, we take my pants down, and she's like shaking it. She has to shave the area so she's gotta shave my ass, and she's like, "I don't know about this."

F: I feel like you don't have a hairy ass, really.

J: I didn't, but you still have to shave the area anyway.

F: Oh yes, yes you do.

J: So Shaun steps up and takes the razor. Shaun shaved my right ass cheek.

S: I don't remember that.

J: That's what friends are for.

F: I don't remember that either.

J: And so she puts the stencil down and she starts tattooing, and as she starts tattooing, she starts giggling a little bit. I'm like, "What?" And she's like, "I've never done letters before!" And here she is tattooing letters on my ass, and I'm like, "Oh my god. What did I get myself into?" And as she's going, I'm like, "Oh, you have the place to yourself," and she's like, "Yeah yeah. My boss lets me give tattoos because I'm an apprentice. He trusts me to do it." And all the sudden he comes walking through the door, and he is this gigantic, burly biker dude. He's wearing leather chaps and he's got a cowboy hat on and a leather vest and a polo tie. And I mean, I know it specifically because I looked up and it's first thing I saw. Him come walking in, I hear the click clack click clack click clack of-

F: Maybe that's why there's saloon doors.

J: The saloon doors. No, but they were there, and he comes walking through and he goes, "Ugh, I've seen this before." And he turns around and he walks away, and I'm like, "What does he mean?" She's like, "Oh, he's been to prison," I'm like, "Oh my god." Then she's giggling again and I'm like, "What is it?" She's like, "I'm doing color for the first time!" And I'm like, "Oh my god." I mean, this is almost 20 years ago. This gal has turned into a world class tattoo artist, so you never know who's tattooing you, who they're gonna turn into one day. At that point, it was the first time she had done letters and had done color, and to the day, I still have the word Hambreaker with two broken hearts tattooed on my right ass cheek.

F: Did it hold up though?

J: It's faded a little bit. I might go back and have her touch it up for my 40th birthday, and also get your name put on the other cheek.

S: And that's where we end it.

J: Yeah, I think that's a good point to go home. So yeah.

F: That is a good one.

J: That's my crazy tattoo story. Make sure you're smart before you get tattoos and you find the right artist, and also think about it, because it's gonna be on your ass or you arm for a very long time. So for Frank and Shaun, I'm John "Hambone" McGuire.-

F: You're gonna have that ass forever.

J: Until we meet again, hold on to your friends.

[caranfindel]

Recap/review 14.19: “Jack in the Box”

THEN: Eh, you know all this. Oh, wait, here's something interesting - a reminder that Naomi was overcome by the Empty slime. Which reminds me of my theory that Naomi and/or Duma might actually be the Empty Entity. Hmmm. Oh, and also, all the Jack stuff.

NOW: There's a bunch of hunters in the bunker, drining beer and looking at pictures of Mary and her stuff on the map table. Including the picture Sam burned. Well, I'm glad it wasn't the only copy. And whatever these rings and calipers are that are always on the map table, apparently they're permanent, because they weren't removed for this little memorial display. Also, John's journal is part of the display, and I know they gave it to Mary to read, but still, it's John's. This bothers me.

So, are these surviving AU hunters? If not, that means the Winchesters have opened the bunker up to every hunter they know (and revealed its location to everyone they know), which is... not what I would have done. TFW makes an entrance (why were they not in there with their guests) and Dean thanks them for coming and makes a little speech but I'm finding it real hard to concentrate on Dean right now because LOOK AT SAM'S SHIRT. LOOK AT IT. It's CLOSE-FITTING and it's NOT PLAID and whatever awful things this episode does (and my completely unspoiled prediction is that IT WILL DO AWFUL THINGS), we at least got this.

I strongly suspect this is actually Jared's shirt.

Dean informs the gathered that they missed the pyre, sorry. And he mentions that some of them fought Michael with her in the other world so they ARE AU hunters! Or at least some of them! Well, that's good to know. Sam doesn't have to feel personally responsible for killing everyone who came over, just a handful. Including the only one who had a name, and probably that guy who called him Chief (sob), but some of them remain. Anyway. Dean gives his eulogy (and Sam's not the only worth a second look in this scene, because Dean looks pretty amazing as well) and they drink beer and then an AXE FLIES IN OUT OF NOWHERE, SLOWLY AND AWKWARDLY SPIRALING INTO A HUNTER'S HEAD. People seem surprised, but it's the mild kind of surprise you'd get if he threw his beer at somebody, not if an axe suddenly appeared embedded in his head. The thrower of the axe walks in - it's New Bobby. WELL.

Title card! Bobby informs me that it was a hatchet, not an axe, and he wants it back. (Sidebar: It literally never occurred to me to think about the difference between a hatchet and an axe until earlier this week when I was listening to a murder podcast that specified someone was killed with one, not the other.) He also tell us that the "hunter" was actually a wraith "from a nest your mom and I busted up" and SEE, GUYS? This is why you don't invite people to the bunker. Now a bunch of wraiths probably know where it is. And we know the warding is a joke. Cas thinks Mary would have appreciated a monster at her memorial. I don't think Cas knows Mary very well but whatever.

Bobby asks Sam how he and "the other one" are doing, and we watch Dean pack up Mary's belongings (including John's journal? that's going away?) and Sam says he "seems to be doing okay" which is, of course, how they operate. No one asks how Bobby's doing, even though he had a relationship with Mary too (and over the course of her life probably spent as much time with her as Sam did, when you come right down to it), but Bobby says he's not into public displays of grief anyway, and Dean is probably the same (which is true, except for when it's very very not true).

Sam suggests they drink the scotch Ketch left (and I wonder if this means Ketch came for the memorial, and left some scotch, or if he's referring to a bottle from a previous season that somehow remained through all those events that really would have called for some serious scotch-drinking) and talk about Mom. Dean points out that they have been talking about Mom and stalks out and leaves Sam sad.

Sam and Bobby and Cas settle for beer instead, and Dean walks in just as Bobby asks "what exactly happened to her, cause I'm hearing, the kid." Oh, that's interesting that they wouldn't have given him the whole story. Or maybe it's not. Maybe it makes sense that they'd keep things vague, tell everyone she "died on a hunt." Dean needs a drink, but not in the bunker. Sam tells him they need to talk about Jack, and he says "we will" and quickly makes his escape. Bobby and Cas have this funny exchange.

I liked the kid. We fought together. But there's only way this ends.

Bobby's right. We have to find Jack and help him.

What?

Hee! Cas feels Jack might not realize what he did was wrong, and Bobby astutely points out that if he didn't realize it was wrong, that's kind of a big problem, because if Kelly's influence has been burned away, that means Lucifer is all that's left. Bobby means to hunt him down. "An unstoppable monster who don't know right from wrong gets put down." Um, Bobby, let's consider the unstoppable part of that declaration. (Also, should someone point out to Bobby that Jack accidentally killed someone even back when he did have a soul? Probably not.)

Cut to Jack, who is still? again? at an abandoned warehouse or factory or something. He's remembering what he did, and wishing his mother was there to tell him what to do. Oh, she's not here, but Hallucidad is. He tells Jack that the Winchesters don't care about him, he was just a pet and a weapon, and again, it hurts knowing that this is Jack's subconscious saying these things. Jack thinks he can explain and apologize, and if that's so, Jack, then why didn't you do that when they caught you raising Mary's not-corpse? No, says Hallucifer, they hate you.

Cut to Dean, sitting outside somewhere in the dark, crying.

This is not okay. I mean, it is, but it's not.

Heaven. (yawn.) Cas again tells Duma that he wants to see Naomi, and again she denies him. It turns out Naomi is in "a very small cell" because Heaven was invaded under her watch. I didn't think they had enough spare angels around to lock one up just because they don't think she's a good leader. She might be a great follower. (Yeah, probably not.) Cas tells her he needs help looking for Jack, who has burned through his soul and is no longer being protected by the Winchesters. Hmmm, she says, this is very useful information to have. Internally. Out loud, she tells Cas she'll see what she can do, which he of course takes as an offer to help. Oh, Cas.

Bunker. Sam's working at his computer when Dean comes back. Sam's wearing a different shirt. I don't know if that means it's the next day, or just that he changed out of his nice funeral shirt. He asks Dean how he's doing, but Dean ignores that and asks what Sam's doing.

Trying to find Jack. We've gotta find him before Bobby and his crew, because if they find him first -

He's gonna kill them all.

... I don't know.

Oh, Sam, you DO know. You are obviously concerned about Bobby et al killing Jack, not the other way around. And it breaks my heart. Sam also wants to talk about Mary and the fact that they don't have to rely on faith to know Mary's in Heaven, because they personally know Heaven and angels are real. Dicks, but real. He says Mary's in a great place, with John, because again we're forgetting or denying what we know about Heaven. Dean, the eternal ray of sunshine, points out that there wasn't enough of Mary left to bring back to life even if they wanted to.

Back to Jack, who has a surprise visitor. It's Duma! Oh, cool, she's helping Cas find him, just like she said she would! Ha ha ha nope. (Sidebar: How did Duma find him, and why doesn't Cas have the same ability? Discuss.) He remembers her from his trip to Heaven that one time he died. She tells him Mary's death wasn't his fault, and he deserves redemption after his mistake, because he has "a glorious destiny." She tells him Heaven has fallen apart since God left, and no one gives them the respect they deserve, but Jack, YOU can save Heaven and make the world better and wouldn't that make Sam and Dean happy? Their first stop on the Make The World Better Tour is to turn a famous God denier into a pillar of salt. Oh, irony. (Also, he's safe from ghosts now, so. Bonus?)

Bunker. Cas is telling the Winchesters that Heaven promised to "make every effort" to find Jack. Which 1) isn't exactly what we saw happening, unless you're naive enough to think "I'll see what I can do" means "I'll make every effort", and b) even if that is what Duma said, as Dean points out, "Oh, Heaven promised? Great, well we should take that to the bank." But Cas thinks Heaven has as much reason to want to find Jack as they do. Which is true. But doesn't mean they're going to turn him over to you, Cassie.

Coincidentally, Sam has just read about Professor Pillar of Salt. "Why does that sound familiar?" Dean asks. You know, I don't know the Bible very well. If a particular event didn't show up in "Jesus Christ Superstar" or "The Ten Commandments," I'm not likely to be familiar with it. And yet I know about Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt. And I've never been to Heaven or met an angel. So.

Cas explains the story and says no ordinary angel could turn a human into salt. Sam reads another story about a dishonest televangelist (yeah, I know, that's redundant) who had a crevice open in the ground under her and swallow her up, and again Dean's not familiar with the story, but this time I'm not either. But Cas knows it's from the book of Numbers. Allegedly, only Jack or Chuck himself could perform these acts.

Heaven. Duma tells Jack he's doing excellent work, and he can help bring Heaven back to its previous glory.

Sam and Dean will like that?

Words can't begin to express how Sam and Dean will feel.

Hee!

So let's talk about what's going on here. I appreciate that they're framing this as Jack trying to get back into Sam and Dean's good graces. In fact, I'm a little hopeful at this point. If Jack-who-is-being-used-by-Heaven is the Big Bad, doesn't that mean stopping the Big Bad could just mean they rescue him from Duma's manipulation? Maybe? (Yeah, I know. But a girl can dream.)

Anyway. Duma's next task for Jack is to create more angels. She tells him he can't make them out of thin air, but if a human is "predisposed" to it, he might be able to forge them into an angel. Oooooh, this opens up some chilling possibilities about who could be turned into an angel. But it turns out he's not going after anybody named Winchester. He's just sitting on the throne "where your grandfather received prayers" (and where your father sat) and listening to prayers. (Sidebar: Why hasn't Sam tried to communicate with Jack by praying to him? Discuss.)

For whatever reason, he hones in on one particular group of worshippers who are about to discuss the book of Samuel (hee!) with Pastor Ames. Jack zaps into the room, asks if they meant it when they said they wanted to go to Heaven, and shows them his wings. Sold! Pastor Ames missing that demonstration, so when he comes in and calls Jack a liar, Jack hits him with another Biblical curse: "he was eaten by worms and breathed his last." Pastor Ames falls to the ground with worms popping out of him everywhere, and Jack and his future angels disappear.

Hospital. Guys, look at the suits! Have they ever worn such narrow pants? What is going on here? Someone new in the wardrobe department?

Mama like.

Agents Kilmister, Clark, and Taylor (hee) are visiting bandaged-up Pastor Ames, who identifies a photo of Jack. They leave, and Cas recites the relevant verse and Sam says, surprised, "so you think this is another Bible thing?" AS IF THAT WASN'T WHY THEY'RE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, and as they leave, we see that Pastor Ames is not over his worm infestation after all.

Back at the bunker, Dean tells Sam that he didn't want it to come to this, but they have no choice. Come to what? What's behind the door in room 5B? It's the thing we all knew was coming - the box! (And if you didn't see it coming, the title of this episode clearly gave it away, which is why I consider titles of unaired episodes to be spoilers.) Sam, who is clearly not behind this plan in any way shape or form, points out that they don't have the ability to force Jack into the box, and he won't go in there of his own free will.

But he might. He might if he only has to stay in there long enough for us to finish the spell to fix his soul.

Spell? What spell? There is no spell.

*We* know that.

Oh, no, this is not good, and Sam already hates it.

... So, you want to lie to him.

No, I mean, I *want* Zeppelin to get back together. But what I *need*, what *we* need, is to stop Jack. Big difference. But here's the deal; we both gotta sign off on it. This might be our only shot, and if he even catches a whiff that this is a scam, he's off into the wind.

Exactly. Now, how do you think he's not gonna know something's up?

Because you're gonna be so damn sincere -

Me? Why me?

Because you've always been in his corner. You're his go-to guy. Sam, if you reach out, he'll come. If I do it, after what happened to Mom, I could lose him. I *will* lose him.

Oh no, no, no, Sam is SO not on board with this plan. Because the worst thing that could happen is that it doesn't work, and the second worst thing is that it does work. Dean is so calmly insistent, and Sam is so unhappy, and his FACE when Dean tells him HE will be sincere is just killing me, and no matter what I think about this episode or or this entire story arc, I love what the guys are doing with this scene.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding a silver lining here.

Sam sits down at the library table and begins praying to Jack, which doesn't answer my question of why they haven't already tried communicating with him that way. In fact, it makes me ask it harder. He tells him that they're family, and bad things happen in families but they want to get through it, they want to be like they were before. Jack hears Sam's prayer as he assembles his future angels. Meanwhile, Cas has barged his way into Heaven to rescue Jack, having figured out that Heaven has no mercy and angels do bad things, and Cas? How is this POSSIBLY news to you? Duma threatens to end Mary and John's happy little afterlife together (Is this confirmation that they really are sharing a Heaven, even though his name isn't on the door? Maybe. Do I accept it? Not necessarily) so Cas stabs her. Well. We're down to, what, ten angels now? He calls for Jack, but Jack's already gone, having just appeared in the bunker.

Jack tells Sam and Dean he's been working with Heaven, and "if it helps, I regret it... the accident."

Again, the guys do a beautiful job with this scene. Even if it's an awful, awful scene, they're acting the hell out of it. Sam is as anxious as he was when he was trapped in a cell with Jack the day he was born, the way his hands twitch when he gets up from the table and circles behind Dean, and then carefully places himself between Dean and Jack, and how he physically reacts when Jack steps closer, and they're both keeping their distance and moving so carefully, and then there's the way Dean is practically unblinking and is very obviously working SO HARD not to spontaneously combust, staying practically motionless and keeping his voice even, although anyone could tell he's absolutely BOILING under the surface from the look on his face and his tone of voice every time he says the accident. All of this is amazing.

But yeah, it is also an awful scene. Because Jack isn't guilty or apologetic at all. He's actually kind of smug about working with Heaven and making angels, and very condescending about regretting "the accident," and I just don't think he would be there. I think he would tell them how sorry he was, and that he tried to fix it, and basically everything he said to Hallucifer. He wouldn't say "I knew you'd understand" when they tell him they forgive him. His blind self-assurance would make sense if it came at the end of a 2- or 3-episode arc, where Duma had spent more than a day telling him how awesome he was. So while I love Sam and Dean in this scene, love them to pieces, Jack is just... ugh. Beyond OOC. Moving on. Dean tells Jack they're working on a way to fix his soul, and they want to keep him safe (from having another ACCIDENT) in the meanwhile. Sam oh-so-tentatively puts a hand on Jack's shoulder and dear GOD he is so afraid and I LOVE IT.

Again, quite a silver lining to this dark little raincloud.

They take him to the room with the magic box, which Dean claims is "actually pretty comfortable." Dean stays still and Sam fidgets and Jack says "okay" and climbs into the box. "How long before I can come out?" he asks. Sam is more and more fidgety as he says "not too long," and Dean is like stretched rubber band about to snap as he holds himself back from slamming the lid down. "Jack, we got this," Sam lies. "Okay," Jack says again, and he lies down and they didn't even put a pillow in the damn box, why does he think this is okay, why does he think they're working in his best interest if they didn't even give him a damn pillow? Dean shuts the lid and rushes to close the locks and Sam hates this, hates it so much.

Shhh. Don't even listen. Just turn the sound down and enjoy the pretty, pretty angst.

Alone in the box, Jack calls to the Winchesters, but they're already shutting the door to room 5B. They move to the kitchen to finish off Ketch's scotch and talk about the future.

So what do we do now? Just go on, with Jack locked up in there forever?

We have to.

I don't know if I can do that.

Dean ignores Sam's shaky voice and decides to talk about the scotch and sure, we all recognize this is Dean's way of coping. Pretend it's not happening, pretend it doesn't bother him. Because I have to think that, no matter how much he wants revenge against Jack, he understands that being locked in that box forever is still a horrible fate. (A fate Dean was willing to accept, but still.) Sam, meanwhile, needs to talk, just like he needed to talk about Mary.

You know, I never thought it would end like this, with Jack.

Sammy, we knew from the beginning it was a long shot with him.

Yeah. Yeah. But, long shots are kind of our thing.

So let's talk about Sam's guilt. His beautiful, beautiful guilt. Not only over tricking someone he loves into being locked up in a box forever, but for bringing Jack into their lives in the first place. And yet. Jack has always been unstoppable, hasn't he? So if Sam hadn't opened his humongous heart and taken him in, he would have been out there alone. No one teaching him how to use and control his powers, no one keeping him away from Lucifer. He would have been an unstoppable enemy instead of an unpredictable ally. Sam did the right thing, even though it ended bad. Because it was always going to end bad.

Have I mentioned that I could watch an entire episode that was just Dean drinking?

Back in room 5B, Jack's starting to panic, and still calling for Sam and Dean. They don't show up, but Hallucifer does (oh god, I want to see Sam find out he basically locked Jack in that box with Lucifer) and informs Jack he's been played.

In the kitchen, Cas arrives with the news that Duma has been manipulating Jack, and they really need to find him. The guys are all, oh, whoops, forgot to call you, he's here, locked in the box.

Jack gets glowy eyes and tries to break out of the box, but nothing happens.

Cas is horrified that the guys still plan to keep Jack in the box, even knowing his latest acts were due to being manipulated. Sam says "That's the problem. If he's that easily manipulated, he's too dangerous to be out of the box." Oh, no he doesn't. Instead, Dean says "He agreed to it." Yes, in much the same way Sam agreed to be Gadreel's vessel. You keep telling yourself that, Dean. In fact, Dean is trying to claim that deep down, Jack knows it's best. Oh, no, no you don't. Cas points out that Dean manipulated Jack as much as Duma did.

(Sidebar: I'm convinced that Sam would be able to forgive Jack. Because of his endless capacity for forgiveness, and because he sees himself as being in Jack's shoes at a different point in his life. Dean, on the other hand, would not. Because Dean is a normal human being when it comes to forgiveness, and because Dean puts loyalty to family above everything else.)

Box. Jack tries harder. Lucifer laughs. The box glows.

Kitchen. The arguing is interrupted by an earth-shattering kaboom. Things fall off shelves. The red emergency lights and klaxon come on. TFW leaps up and runs to room 5B. The room is a smoke-filled wreck and a figure with glowing gold eyes is walking out of the red-tinged smoke. "Jack," Sam gasps.

Duh duh duuuuuhhhh! Next week, Cas makes Dean write I knew a nephilim was more powerful than its angel parent but I assumed the box would be stronger than Jack anyway 100 times on the blackboard.

Okay, the bad happened, as we all figured it would. But let's talk about the good. Jack's not locked in the box forever. That's a relief - it would have been a very unsatisfactory conclusion. And the guys looked extraordinary. And there was so much emotion, both the tightly-controlled type, and the worn-on-his-sleeve type, and I love them both. Honestly, considering what happened in this one, and who wrote it, it was a lot better than I expected. A lot better than it could have been. (Will I go read your reactions now and see that every single one of you disagrees with me? Quite possibly.)

Next week is the next-to-last "Carry On Wayward Son."

Please help me stay unspoiled, thanks!

[honestgrins]

NikMik: my cousin & i are always talking about celeb entertainment. that's what this podcast ep felt like. i was fangirling when candice told her story about AJ (Team BSB!). i could relate to kayla about not being into pop culture when she was younger. growing up, i wasn't either. i got into it when i was a little older. but i don't think there's anything wrong with that. sometimes ppl will say "you weren't into --- growing up?" & i just shrug cause it's not a big deal. life still goes on (pt1)

I was definitely more like Kayla growing up (pretty sheltered), and I definitely wouldn’t have been allowed to hang out with a Candice. Watching MTV and going to teeny bopper concerts??? Nooooo. Although the slumber party DRAMA was real, and I do not miss those days for anything.

I think BSB was my first foray into pop music, we were raised on golden oldies and country music radio. Funnily enough, my brother was the first one to play me any BSB (and he does his damnedest to continue that music education to this day), and his wife still thinks they only went to the BSB/NKOTB concert for her.

But yeah, the Spice Girls craze? Way over my head except for the Barbie collection (I WANTED). I did not have my SG Renaissance until college, unfortunately. My “borrow that power” music was always Queen (Bohemian Rhapsody and Another One Bites the Dust) and ABBA (Dancing Queen nonstop), then eventually Broadway tunes (Wickeeeeed!). I regret nothing.

NikMik: in contrast to last week where i talked about nostalgia & wasting time wishing i could go back to the “good old days”, kayla said we should look back on who we were, learn from it & be a better version of that. i really felt candice’s point about being excited when you were younger to grow into who you were supposed to be & now that we’re older…feeling like we have to have it all together. but it’s okay to not have it all figured out! (pt2)

I thought that was a really nice tie-in, and it plays into the “supposed to be” not necessarily being what’s best for us. As my mom would say, things happen for a reason (both as a coping mechanism and a bolstering hope for what comes next). 

NikMik: i also really related to candice always wondering if she was being an annoying friend. but i didn’t quite agree with kayla saying “your friends will love you anyway.” i think it depends on what the behavior is. to sum up this episode…own who you are. (pt 3).

Agreed, I’m definitely the annoying one in my office and I hate it. It’s so upsetting to second guess every interaction, then grade myself poorly as a result. My constant goal is to shut up and listen a bit more, but that strategy has yet to come to fruition. And absolutely, some behavior can’t and shouldn’t be tolerated. I think there’s a line between being supportive (“I’m sorry the guy you like isn’t texting you back, that really sucks”) and enabling (“I’m sorry the guy you like - who has already told you he’s not interested in a relationship and continues to dick around with your feelings - isn’t texting you back - after you told him to block you so you get some space and perspective on the nonrelationship where you’re being used - that really sucks - for me, because I’m sick and tired of hearing this for the hundredth time and the third bad relationship you’ve fallen into, headfirst”). With some friends in some situations, tough love is the only way to go, and I’m not here to waste my time with constant and repeated poor decisions. Mean? Maybe. But they know that…and still love me. Go figure.

NikMik: also a question they asked during the podcast - do you journal?

I do! It’s a little obsessive at this point, but I love Erin Condren products. I keep a daily diary (mainly yelling at myself or general whining), a gratitude journal (something positive from the day), a wellness log (healthy eating and activity progress), and a writing tracker (I’m doing pretty well with my 444 word goal each day, but there’s always room for improvement). Reflection is something I take seriously, even if it’s to acknowledge where I can do better. 

What I find interesting is that I don’t think my voice has changed over the years that I’ve kept a journal. Candice talked about her younger self with fondness, but noted how she’s grown. I’m still just as self-absorbed and dramatic in tone, I just think I’ve grown to appreciate that aspect of my personality and have even gotten better at keeping it in perspective. Or I’m wallowing in a bubble of my own making, none the wiser. 

Let’s not decide which is true, we’ll just keep the mystery alive.

What about you??? Do you journal/has your voice changed over the years? Was BSB your power-borrowing phase? Do you have any idols that you’ve outgrown/collected as you’ve grown (I’ll admit, I couldn’t think of any)?

I also loved this episode, I think it touched on a lot of fun topics and flowed really well.

[metalandmagi]

August Media Madness

Well, August may have sucked for me personally, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t keep track of all the media I consumed this month! And spoiler alert, I watched a lot of movies involving adorable talking bears. Although, I have a feeling that as soon as the fall television premieres start, I’ll be watching a lot less movies.

July’s media

Movies!

Dear Evan Hansen

Thank you bootlegs. This isn’t a movie, but I didn’t want to make a separate category for plays when I’ve only seen one this month. Anyway, if you haven’t heard of it, Dear Evan Hansen involves an incredibly anxious teenage boy who is tasked by his therapist to write motivational letters to himself. Unfortunately, Connor Murphy, an angsty boy who goes to Evan’s school sees one of the letters, takes it, and promptly decides to kill himself, with the letter still on his person. Everyone ends up thinking he and Evan were friends and that this letter was a suicide note that Connor wrote to Evan...and a beautiful fake gay relationship friendship was born. Call me basic as hell, but I’ve watched this show twice now, and listened to the soundtrack more times than I can count, and it’s turning into my favorite musical. There are so many important messages in it, and it takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. Every character does good and bad things, and no one is blameless or innocent...except maybe Zoe Murphy. If anything just listen to the soundtrack. 10/10

Night on the Galactic Railroad

Cats...on a mystical train...This seems like the kind of movie they would show you in film school. Very dull plot and characters with the themes being the main takeaway. What even is the plot of this movie? Darker, grittier, furry version of the Polar Express? Incredibly boring slightly more religious version of Over the Garden Wall? I just kept watching it because the main character looks like a cat version of Kagayama Tobio in middle school...cat-gayama. 4/10

Paddington

An adorable bear from South America travels to London and gets into all sorts of trouble with an English family. It’s very charming and sweet, and the aesthetic in this movie is on point, like Wes Anderson directed a children’s movie. This is one of those movies you hear about where everyone loves it, and you think it can’t possibly be that good, but then you watch it and you were wrong! So wrong! 10/10

Paddington 2

Naturally. This time an adorable South American bear goes to prison, and his family tries to clear his name. Again, A+ aesthetic and imagery, but I think I preferred the plot of the first movie a little more because everyone was all together. 9/10

Christopher Robin

Do you like Winnie the Pooh? Do you like jaded adults finding happiness in their lives again? Do you think the movie Hook had a good premise but was extremely long and kinda boring and could have been a better movie with a little tweaking? Well this is the movie for you! Christopher Robin has grown into an overworked adult, and his old friend Winnie the Pooh inadvertently helps him reconnect with his wife and daughter (and also his inner child) just by being the sweet, clumsy, dry humored bear we all know and love. I was so skeptical of this movie at first, and I was absolutely blown away by how funny and meaningful it was. 100/10

The Road to El Dorado

Two lovable Spanish con men named Miguel and Tulio are accidentally swept away on a journey to the fabled city of El Dorado, where everything is made of gold. Once they reach the city, the locals believe they’re gods due to an (un)fortunate series of coincidences, and the con men try to keep up the charade with the help of the best character in the movie, Chel (who I’m pretty sure caused an entire generation of lesbians’ sexual awakening). This is one of my favorite animated movies of all time and one of the reasons I wish Dreamworks would go back to their 2D animation days, where the visuals and music were just as stunning as 3D movies are now. This movie is a classic, and I desperately want a sequel! 10/10

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

When Lara Jean thinks it’s a good idea to write 5 secret love letters to 5 boys that she’s had crushes on over the years, everything is fine until her little sister mails the letters to all the boys (because even a 6th grader knows Lara Jean is lonely and emotionally stunted as fuck). This is a Netflix original movie that was adapted from the book by Jenny Han...which I haven’t read, but now I really want to. Overall, this was super cute, but I wasn’t really crazy about the boys. They weren’t horrible people or anything, and they never pressured Lara Jean or made fun of her for being “innocent”, but they were just kind of bland. I’m much more interested in the other boys we didn’t see in the movie! But the family relationships were so heartfelt, Lara Jean’s fashion sense is AMAZING, and the acting/casting was awesome. 8/10

Summer Wars

I...don’t even know how to describe the plot of this one. A teenage boy named Kenji goes on a country holiday and pretends to date an acquaintance of his in order to impress her enormous family...but it’s really about an AI that becomes sentient and wants to mess up the world through this universal internet program called OZ that’s kind of like a mashup of Facebook and Second Life...but actually no it’s about family sticking together and using a Japanese card game to save the world…but apparently it’s got the same plot as the Digimon movie because they’re both directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Yeah...

Guys, I have a confession to make...this has always been my favorite Mamoru Hosoda movie. Everyone falls all over themselves saying Wolf Children is the best Mamoru Hosoda movie, and that’s great for them but it doesn’t even come in second for me. Summer Wars means a lot more to me personally because I come from a big extended family, and when I first saw this movie, I was blown away by how accurate the family dynamic was. There are so many characters, but everyone has their own personality. Not to mention the music makes the summer atmosphere so on point. And I’m not going to lie...I bawled like a fucking baby the first time I saw this movie. So anyway, I like Summer Wars more than Wolf Children, thanks for coming to my TED talk. 10/10

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Unappreciated researcher Milo Thatch goes on an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis.

Okay, there are two kinds of Disney fans in this world: Treasure Planet fans, and Atlantis fans. And I will support Treasure Planet as the best underrated vaguely steampunk inspired Disney movie until you can pry my 15 year old dvd copy away from my cold dead hands. But Atlantis is pretty good too. I could write essays comparing the two and why both of them should be successful but weren’t. My main problem with it is that the characters are great, but I feel like we don’t see enough of them, and as a kid a lot of the humor went by so fast that I completely missed it. Also the glowing eyes and spirits taking over the Atlantian princess’s body freaked me the fuck out as a child. NEVERTHELESS! This really is a great movie, with extremely well developed lore and well designed characters that chills me to this day. 8/10

Deadpool 2

The merc with a mouth is back, and man there’s so much going on in this movie I won’t even try to explain the plot. I literally had to go back and add this in because I was so into this movie when I was watching it that I forgot to write it down! Even though I really liked this sequel, I think I liked the first one better, just based on how much I laughed. There was so much going on plot wise, but it really seemed to work for this movie. There were also a lot of great new characters (Domino is my favorite character of the franchise now), but since there was so much stuff going on, a lot of jokes and plot lines were sort of hit and miss. Anyway, I’m sure everyone’s seen this one by now but just in case, I highly recommend it. 9/10

Books!

The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel: Here There be Gerblins by Clint McElroy (technically all the McElboys) and Carey Pietsch

Yeah yeah, for anyone who doesn’t know I’m Adventure Zone trash okay. TAZ is a DnD podcast where 3 brothers and their father create one of the most famous campaigns in history involving three idiot adventurers going on a quest to find a missing person and getting sucked into a much larger grand plan to protect the world. This graphic novel is a visualization of the first arc. I don’t even really like Here There be Gerblins all that much, and yet here I am. Oh well, the art was amazing, and of course I already knew the story. But it was kind of hilarious to see the name changes they had to make to some of the characters and places. I was a little disappointed that the ending was so rushed, and we don’t really spend time around the moon base before The Director is in our face changing the Lunar Interlude parts but whatever. 10 dead gerblins/10

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

When a disease that only affects children kills off nearly all the kids on the planet, the survivors are left with supernatural powers and are taken away to concentration camps in order to “protect” the public. I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time, and since the movie just came out I thought it was the perfect time. This is one of those books that some people adore and some people hate. I thought it was just okay. For everything that I didn’t like, there was something to make up for it. Personally, I felt that Bracken focused on the wrong part of the story. Everything takes place years after this disease has come, and I think it would have been more interesting to see everything from the children’s points of view when this disease was first starting. I would focus on each different character as a child and how they wound up in their respective camps. Oh well, there’s way too many pros and cons  that I could delve into, but you like the YA dystopian genre then I say go for it. I didn’t like it enough to read the other two books (not yet anyway). 7/10

TV Shows!

Camp Camp

You know how there are summer camps that specialize in science, or acting, or space, or whatever? Yeah Camp Camp is about a summer camp that throws literally everything you can think of into one summer camp. If you don’t believe me, just listen to the theme song. Seriously though this is one of the best shows I’ve watched all year, but boy howdy this is not one for young children. It’s like Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty had a baby! Anyway, the characters are both surprising and hilarious. David the camp counselor (voiced by Miles Luna) is genuinely likable when you think he’d be the most annoying person on the planet, and the kids are so accurate it’s scary. Also Yuri Lowenthal is in it. And Griffin McElroy has a recurring role where he plays A GHOST! I’ve never been into Rooster Teeth stuff, but they have a winner with this one. 10/10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

After her husband leaves her, Midge Maisel gets super drunk, goes on stage, and gives a hilarious rant about her relationship at a small comedy/talent club and somehow gets sucked into becoming a rising comedian as a woman in the 1950s. It’s good. Great acting pretty funny, but Midge and her agent/manager Susie are the only likable characters. Everyone else just kind of...sucks 8/10

Voltron Season 7 (spoilers)

Okay, I know everyone had mixed feelings about this season, but I did come out liking a lot of it. It had a lot of flaws (I really thought it would be Shiro’s season, and man was I wrong), but this is the sort of thing we can’t really judge until the last episode of the series is finished. I like to think of the positives: the action was amazing as usual, HUNK IS GETTING MORE AND MORE DEVELOPMENT EVERY SEASON, I refuse to believe the team introduced Adam just to have him killed off immediately so he’s still alive in my mind, we get to see everyone’s reunions with their families, the lost in space episode was cool, and say what you want about the game show episode, but I loved it! There were a lot of good things so it was easier for me to look past the...not so great aspects of the season. 7/10

Galavant

A musical comedy mini series involving a renowned medieval hero named Galavant on a quest to rescue his ex girlfriend from her “evil” husband King Richard. But maybe she doesn’t want to be rescued. Well, that’s just the first season. It’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. I remember liking it when it first came out, and it’s still pretty cute...but sometimes I feel like it’s trying too hard. A lot of the music isn’t really...memorable, but the characters are likable so it’s still worth the watch. 8/10

Disenchantment

Speaking of medieval comedies...Princess Bean doesn’t want to get married, mystical elf Elfo doesn’t want to live in an enchanted forest where everyone is happy all the time, and Bean’s personal demon Luci just wants to watch people suffer. Honestly, I wasn’t very into this show at first, but something compelled me to just keep watching, and by the end I was totally into it! This is one of those shows where you think there isn’t going to be a plot, but then the last few episodes come up and smack you in the face! 7.5/10

Round Planet

A documentary parody...mockumentary...satire...That’s really not a great way to describe it. It’s a nature documentary with funny commentary. I like nature shots and animals so I liked it, but there’s a lot of tangents and running jokes and British references that sometimes don’t land. Oh well, if you like unconventional documentaries, just watch it. 8/10

Honorable Mentions

DnDnD: I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this podcast before, but there’s a DnD podcast made by Practical Folks (aka the Drunk Disney youtube channel). It’s pretty good! I want an Adventure Zone crossover now!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Every time I think I’m out, it pulls me back in. I finally got the DLC and spent most of this month playing this freaking game AGAIN!

The Heathers soundtrack: I finally listened to the Heathers musical soundtrack...and I didn’t love it. There are some good songs in it, but overall I’m unimpressed. And I never could really get into the plot, I’ve always thought it was really weird and over dramatic.

Legendary by Stephanie Garber: I’m about halfway through this book, which is the second in the Caraval series. And it’s pretty good! More on that next month.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

11 podcasts to listen to if you want to laugh your ass off

Life is hard. The news is stressful. And sometimes you just need a break from *gestures broadly at everything happening in the world right now.* .

Fortunately for anyone looking for a bit of escapism of the madness of everyday life, we have two words for you: comedy podcasts.

While there are heavy-hitter comedy shows like The Nerdist, Comedy Bang Bang, and WTF With Marc Maron, there are also a plethora of other podcasts that will help you digest what's happening in the world, expose the absurdity what's happening in the news and pop culture, and ultimately leave you in fits of laughter.

SEE ALSO: Here are 5 unrealistic things that happen in every romantic comedy

Some of these shows cover current events and some of them will give you (extremely dubious) advice, but no matter what, these 11 podcasts that will make you laugh your ass off.

1. My Dad Wrote A Porno

My Dad Wrote A Porno has a purely descriptive title: host Jaime Morton discovered that his dad had a secret hobby of writing erotica. So Morton did what any person would do: read it out loud and broadcast it to the world.

In addition to reading from his dad's book, Morton is joined by two friends — James Cooper and Alice Levine — who deconstruct what happens in each chapter, switching between hysterically laughing at some of the more absurd sections of the book to deadpan analysis of our protagonist Belinda Blumenthal and her adventures.

Tl;dr, it's very awkward and very NSFW podcast about what happens when you discover the sexual fantasy of your parents. How can you not laugh at that?!

(Author's note: This podcast literally had me cackling in the street while listening. Sorry to the Brooklynites that I scared with my sudden outbursts.)

Episode to start with: "The Job Interview"

2. Keep It

Crooked Media may have launched with a slew of politics shows, most notably Pod Save America, but if you're not listening to the network's pop culture show Keep It, you're truly missing out.

Hosted by journalist Ira Madison III, who is often joined by Kara Brown and Louis Virtel, the show is a weekly discussion podcast that breaks down what's happening in the entertainment world.

The title comes from Madison's Twitter catchphrase "keep it," which is the two-word clap back Madison uses to shut down the trash news that comes through his Twitter feed. But what makes the show especially good is the extreme amount of chemistry between the panelists as they provide pop culture analysis that's simultaneously thoughtful, brutal, and hilarious.

Episode to start with: They Cancel Roseannes, Don't They?

3. Baby-Sitters Club Club

Aaaaahhh remember the Baby-Sitters Club, that classic '80s and '90s children's book series about a group of babysitters who are just trying to earn a buck while also dealing with the challenges of growing up. Well, have you read those books again recently, as an adult?

Hosts Jack Sheppard and Tanner Greenring have, and wow, those books are nothing like you remember. 

Each week in The Baby-Sitters Club Club, Shepherd and Greenring read one of Ann M. Martin's classic novels, and deconstruct it. But what makes the show so hilarious are the many theories that Shepherd and Greenring generate about what's actually going on in the town of Stoneybrook. Is the Baby-Sitters Club marxist? And are the characters secretly in a parallel universe that's actually a beehive? Who knows, but after listening to this podcast, you won't be able to read The Baby-Sitters Club the same way again.

Episode to start with: Kristy's Great Idea

4. Judge John Hodgman

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and you just need a little bit of advice. And that's where Judge John Hodgman comes in.

In the podcast, comedian John Hodgman (who you may know as PC from those early aughts Mac vs. PC commercials) arbitrates the petty grievances that crop of in our day to day lives.

Whether he's deciding if a wife should be freed of her lifelong agreement to let her husband order the toppings of the pizzas they order or whether it's okay to meditate at work, Hodgman delivers very serious rulings to very absurd debates that'll leave you in stitches.

Episode to start with: Pizza Parley

5. Lovett or Leave It

Sometimes the best way to deal with news is to laugh at it, and for anyone who wants to poke fun at current events, there's Lovett or Leave It. Each week, host Jon Lovett is joined by comedians, journalists, and more to "deal with whatever bullshit came flying over the transom in our broken, insane political nightmare factory."

Episodes are recorded live in front of an audience and include a mixture of discussions, pop quizzes, and games, which means you'll be just as informed as you are entertained.

Episode to start with: Rudy Giuliani, Esquire

6. The Read

You know those conversations with your best friend that get crazy because you hold absolutely nothing back. That's exactly what The Read is.

The show is a pop culture podcast hosted by friends Kid Fury and Crissle. Each episode is composed of a few segments: "black excellence" (where the hosts shout out good news that's happening to the black community), "hot topics" (which is a discussion of what's happening in the pop culture), "listener letters" (where Kid Fury and Crissle give advice to people who write in), and the titular segment "the read" (where the hosts each rant about something that's weighing on their hearts).

But what makes the podcast so funny is that Kid Fury and Crissle will drag literally anything and everything. Passionate and irreverent, listening to The Read feels like hanging out with your friends.

 Episode to start with: Beychella

7. How Did This Get Made

Have you ever watched a movie that's so bad that you asked yourself "how the hell is this even real?!" If so, you're not alone because that is the exact subject of How Did This Get Made.

Each week, actors Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas watch movies that are so bad they're amazing and talk about it. And you know that feeling you get when you watch an objectively bad movie and just spend the entire time making fun of it with your friends. That's exactly what this podcast is, for 189 episodes and counting.

Episode to start with: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

8. All Fantasy Everything

You've heard of fantasy football. Maybe even fantasy The Bachelor and fantasy RuPaul's Drag Race. But have you heard about a fantasy breakfast food draft? Or a fantasy "Mike" draft (you know, who's the best person named Mike). 

Enter All Fantasy Everything. As the name implies, the show makes a fantasy drafts out of, well, everything. Then, host Ian Karmel along with a rotating cast of guests debate each topic until a champion is crowned.

Episodes are ridiculous, unexpected, and sure to make you laugh.

Episode to start with: Fictional Detectives

9. 2 Dope Queens

If you've ever wanted to see a comedy show but don't have the time to go in person, we have three words for you: 2 Dope Queens.

The show is part standup set, part discussion podcast hosted by comedians Phoebe Robinson and Jessica Williams. In each episode the duo talk about everything from online dating to the tiny house trend, which means conversations are always fun and varied. Additionally, episodes are recorded live, giving each discussion a performative flair that'll make you feel like you're carrying around a comedy club in your pocket as you listen. 

Episode to start with: Sitting Too Close to Queen Latifah

10. Dear Hank and John

If you're a human on the internet, you probably know John Green and Hank Green, the brother duo that helped shape the YouTube world with their vlog series The Vlog Brothers. And then by launching VidCon. And then with John's hit novels The Fault In Our Stars, Turtles All The Way Down, Looking For Alaska, and more.

But did you know that the duo also has a podcast too? And it's freaking hilarious.

Dear Hank and John is an advice podcast where Hank and John attempt to answer your most absurd questions, like "what are the rules of doctor-patient small talk" and "what do I do with 23 plastic molds of my teeth." In addition those bigger advice segments, the show is chock-full of jokes hiding everywhere from their intro where they announce "the elephant in the room" to phrase of the week where each brother is challenged to sneak a phrase recommended by a listener into their conversation without the other brother noticing, which means whether you're a new listener or an old fan, you'll still find something fresh and new in each episode.

Episode to start with: Eleven Peas

11. Thirst Aid Kit

Listen, we all thirst. It's human. It's natural. And it's the topic of writer Bim Adewunmi and Nicole Perkins' show Thirst Aid Kit. 

Thirst Aid Kit is a weekly about your love, sex, and your favorite celebrity boo thangs. The podcast is unapologetically filthy, as the hosts talk about your crushes, read fan-fiction, and in general, share the thirst that we all know and feel.

Episode to start with: We Learned to Spell Jake Gyllenhaal

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