#randler

[atlafan]

THEY COULDVE BEEN SOMEBODY!

[myshipsmyotpmylifeistrash]

I don’t know who needs to hear this but UPDATE PLEASE UPDATE WE’RE DYING TO KNKW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. PLEASE UPDATE

[destielblamscilesinfinity]

Randler song of the day.

[jannelle-o]

Happy Holidays, I hope it's as relaxing and comforting as possible! Sending lots of love to all of you~ 🥰💙💜✨

[prudeau]

[linksbitch]

Thought I would post my newest tattoo!! I’m in love.

[kaluwa-del-conte]

🎄✨I made a GMM Christmas theme coloring page~✨🎄

For anyone that would love to color, please do!!~🎨

If you do, please tag me so I can see!!

Here’s my colored version~😊

Happy Holidays all!!~

[ratatoskryggdrasil]

Ted Randler, Night Swimmers, 2023

[missinglinksblog]

Ted Randler (b.1959) Stamford, Connecticut.

"Last Night He Dreamt of Rousseau In The Moonlight", 2020.

[stuffandwonder]

Lol I was literally thinking they should make Mythical blind boxes for a society collectable or something and then Rhett went and said that. Great minds think alike!

[thetotallyrealpepsicola]

How did anybody find out? I thought we were subtle-?

- @the-randler

I thought we were too- I guess not.. 😅

[destielblamscilesinfinity]

Randler song of the day.

[jannelle-o]

My winter header~ ⛄

[buttercreamdicks]

I keep thinking about the best friend haul, and Rhett saying it was "found near a creek in 1984," and the supernatural Link theme, and it's giving me Bridge to Terabithia vibes like what if instead of meeting in first grade Rhett actually went wandering in the woods at age seven and found this shaggy-haired boy-thing by a creek and ran back home and brought it his old sneakers and clothes, and showed it his wrestling action figures, and taught it to speak. Its name is Link. Imagine the first time he introduced it to bubblegum, and fresh popped popcorn, and Twinkies. It lives almost exclusively on a diet of Reese's peanut butter cups. Imagine the first time Rhett gives it a haircut, and brushes its hair back from its face, and its proud little smile when Rhett says it looks handsome. Rhett brings it a coloring book full of mythical beasts from school, and somehow it already knows all the animals. There are things that live in the forest that it is afraid of. Rhett has never seen them, doesn't even know if they're real, but it draws their pictures over and over. To make them seem less scary, Rhett names them The Randler -- for R and L, Rhett and Link, he shows Link when he's teaching him how to write.

Everyone thinks Rhett has an imaginary friend till he's way older than he should, till Rhett actually starts bringing Link around, telling people he's from a different town, he goes to a different school. Link always says something weird, doesn't really get the whole people thing at first, but Rhett covers for him. They spend every day together. The boy grows almost as tall as he does.

It almost kills Rhett when he graduates high school and realizes he's going to have to move away from the boy in the woods. Freshman year, at least the days he can't sneak Link into the dorm, is hell. So he comes up with a plan: They'll get an apartment. They'll get Link a job. Link starts doing Rhett's homework with him, and it turns out Link is brilliant. He can play a bunch of instruments -- the trumpet, the shruti box, he even makes the recorder sound good. There is a pit of guilt in Rhett's stomach that he never thought about Link needing to go to school.

So he makes up a fake diploma, some fake credentials, and he gets Link enrolled in college with him. They go to a frat party for the first time together, shotgun their first beers. Link is a total lightweight, he falls in love when he's tipsy and cries when he's drunk. Rhett has to wrap him up tight in his comforter when they get home. Their apartment comes with a battered old set of pots and pans left behind by the last roommates, and Rhett learns to cook while Link watches. Link mostly learns to use the microwave. Link can take twice the courseload, finishes in half the time, so they can graduate together. They make a plan to move to a bigger city. They go on double-dates together, and Link even starts to like a girl. Rhett feels a pit of something else in his stomach he doesn't know how to name.

Everything is going great, Rhett thinks, everything is going according to plan. But some nights he wakes up and peeks into Link's room and Link isn't there. The first times it happens, Rhett calls his name in a whisper, looks around the whole apartment and turns on all the lights, but he can't find him. In the morning Link is back in the kitchen eating cereal, where he should be.

The next few times Link disappears, Rhett goes further than the apartment, out into the dark, walking around their neighborhood with a flashlight at first, and then with no light at all, still whisper-calling Link's name. Link always comes back by the morning. Rhett starts to notice that on the nights when Link doesn't disappear, he doesn't really sleep either. Rhett sometimes stands by his bedroom door to hear him tossing and turning, humming songs to himself. Rhett learns to navigate their streets by moonlight, stops whispering Link's name into the empty humid night air, just walks in the quiet darkness between the street lights, trying not trip over the uneven pavement cracks, looking for his friend.

He tries to imagine what Link is doing, sometimes, while he walks. At first he thinks maybe out with a girl that he doesn't want to tell Rhett about, but then that seems unlikely, Link seems as devoted to his girlfriend as ever. Then he thinks maybe getting into trouble, out at some bar or bent over some pool table, some group of assholes goading him to snort a line or to bet on the corner pocket, all the people who might take advantage of someone like Link, who still doesn't really understand people, still doesn't really understand what it means not to be entirely honest. But mostly Rhett pictures Link wandering the neighborhood just like he is, sweating on warm nights and wrapping his arms around himself on cold, under the dark black sky. It's blanker than the sky where they grew up, the orange lights along the big-town streets block out all the stars.

In fact he imagines when he finally finds Link, one of these nights, he'll grab him by the shoulders and say "What are you doing, man?" and then walk him home, and that'll be the end of it.

But what actually happens is one night he makes a left turn, and takes a walk through the park. Or at least, their little city calls it a park -- really it's nothing more than a playground and a glorified patch of unkempt trees, the last refuge of suburban deer. Rhett walks past the swingset and the slide, onto the little path into the wooded area, idly dragging his hands along the overhanging branches and leaves. And then he sees him. Link, in his little nest of soft grass and dirt, sleeping soundly.

Rhett gulps down some feeling, swallows it hard, and turns to walk quickly back home.

But he goes back the next few nights, just to watch. Link sleeps at the bases of trees, curled up in the roots, a little smile on his face. Rhett starts to notice how many fallen leaves he tracks into the apartment. The chunks of dirt that fall powder dry off his shoes when he stomps his feet at the door. How when they're out in the city, his hands are shaky. He startles back at every close-passing car. At night, asleep in his own private forest, the moonlight glitters off of his dark hair, which he's been growing long again.

Rhett remembers that first haircut, the way Link looked with his hair swept back from his forehead, clipped uneven by Rhett's mom's stolen kitchen scissors. The way Link delighted in food with crinkling cellophane wrappers. How happy he seemed not to be alone anymore in the woods, where the Randlers could get him. When Rhett brought his sleeping bag and called it "camping" to his brother and spent the night, Link curled against Rhett's side, putting Rhett's body between him and the quiet empty night. A funny thing was, over the years, Link had learned to cut Rhett's hair too, and their friends', he really enjoyed it. He had hands that fluttered gently around Rhett's face, soft fingertips that brushed the little bits of hair from the back of Rhett's neck. He always stood Rhett in front of the bathroom mirror afterward, to make sure Rhett liked it, and Rhett always looked at the reflection of Link's hopeful, happy face behind him. That first haircut, Rhett had snuck a shaving mirror from his parents' house too, and stashed it in his backpack. He remembered how proud Link looked when he saw his own face. But he also remembered afterward, Link's hands coming up out of habit to tug at the hair, now gone. Rhett had always pushed his hands down, told him, "Stop doing that, it makes you look weird."

Now he sits and watches Link, asleep in the grass and the rustling leaves. It's getting late into the fall, and here in the park, Rhett notices for the first time, away from the lights, up through the baring branches, you can see more of the stars. Asleep like this, Link's face is boyish and peaceful. His hair is a mess, there are twigs in it, the shaggy back of his head all ruffled from sleep. It makes little wings where it curls down over his ears. That was the first thing Rhett with his kitchen scissors had clipped away. And Rhett thinks to himself: What have I done?

[linksbitch]

Rhett pointed out my Randler tattoo without me saying anything and said he liked it 😭 also i told Link if he was active on Twitter still he would’ve seen that i tagged him in it and the violent eye roll I received makes me wanna die. They were so fucking kind and funny and I literally hugged them??? I’m pretty sure I’ve just dreamt the whole thing.

[real-ponyboy]

IM NOT EATONG A DICK YOU ARE YOU LITTLE SHITHEAF

- @the-randler

Yeah! Stay away from my brother!! 🤬🤬