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[intheroomblog]

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[shewroteaworld]

I'll Hold Your Weight When You Can't

Premise: Brilliant sunshine!reader gets heat stroke on a case. Your best friend, Spencer Reid, is predictably worried about you. What he doesn't expect is to be forced to come to terms with his feelings for you.

Word count: approx. 3,200

TW: Brief mention of vomit and, perhaps, hospitals

(Y/N/N): Your nickname

Author's Note: Super excited to introduce brilliant sunshine!reader (aka, super smart sunshine!reader) onto my fanfic writing scene! Definitely willing to write more of her in the future if anyone is interested. Hope you enjoy!

“Does anybody have more water?”

“Where is the damn ambulance?”

Perhaps your job classically conditioned you to respond to Hotch’s “I’m seriously not fucking around” tone because your eyes crack open. 

Someone put weights on your eyelids and cranked the sun to extra-bright. The harsh rays burned your retinas and washed everything in a white blur. Did someone set off a flash bang?

“(Y/N)? Can you hear me?” Miraculously, out of the screeching white, you made out JJ’s halo of blonde hair. 

“JJ?” You groaned. Even though you could barely see, it felt like the whole world was spinning, 

“Hotch, she’s coming around!” You recognized Morgan’s voice. “Welcome back to the world of the living, honey. We’re happy to see you.”

Your heart rate spiked. You never died. Did you die? 

“Yes, we still need a medic!” Hotch barked. 

You winced. “Wha?” Suddenly, your mouth couldn’t handle a one-syllable world. Even more alarming, your brain, the same brain that kept up with Emily Prentiss and Spencer Reid,  couldn’t understand what the hell was going on.

 “What I do?” You whined. 

“He’s not yelling at you, honey,” JJ said like a kindergarten teacher. “You’re just a little out of it right now.”

“Is she conscious?” Another voice entered. Your head spun. “I brought more water.” 

You moaned to suppress a gag. Your eyelids drooped, and you relished in the break from the light.

“Hey, smarty pants, stay with us.” Morgan pat your cheek. “Let Emily get some water in you.” You couldn’t force your eyes open more if you tried.

Your friend Emily. That’s who the voice belonged to. 

Suddenly, JJ pulled your hair from your face, Morgan lifted your head, and Emily forced a water bottle to your lips simultaneously.  The blinding glare seared your eyes and your head spun. You wanted to sob and maybe vomit.

Your chest hitched with a shallow inhale. “Stop.” You whined.

“(Y/N), it’s okay. Take a deep breath.” JJ said.

“No!” You exclaimed.

“Honey–” Morgan tried.��

You thrashed against his hold, but your exhausted muscles couldn’t throw Morgan’s gentlest grip. 

“Maybe we should let her go.” Emily said.

“She needs water.” JJ countered.

“She’s disoriented.” Hotch cut in. “Let her get her bearings first, but don’t let her close her eyes.”

Gingerly, Morgan lay your body back on the grass. Your head swam, and your vision rippled as if you could see the heat waves in the California air. You tried to take a deep breath but choked.  

You sputtered. Every inhale led to a series of dry coughs. In your delirium, you thought of Spencer. Your Spencer. Where the hell was he? Did he not love you anymore?

Suddenly, Hotch loomed over you. His tall frame blocked out the brutality of the sun’s glare, which eased your headache and nausea but not your cough. His eyebrows were so deeply furrowed they formed a trench of wrinkles across his forehead. “Check her airway.” 

Suddenly, you stared into JJ’s blue eyes. Other hands tried to manipulate your body. You jerked.

“(Y/N), relax.”

“Honey, please–”

“Turn her on her side!” Morgan’s cut off by Reid, his voice sharper than you’d ever heard. 

***

Spencer Reid has survived many traumatic situations. 

He's cared for his schizophrenic mother. He’s been kidnapped. He recovered from a drug addiction. And those are just a few items from his dissertation-length “PTSD-Causing Experiences” list. 

But many of his worst traumas were a by-product of being a profiler– a job which allowed him to utilize his intellect to help others. He was willing to accrue trauma like Pokemon cards in exchange for applying his genetic gifts to create a safer world. 

Reid could have framed your heat exhaustion as another scare in the line of duty. But when Reid saw you, his brilliant girl, on the ground, his heart fell through his feet.

Then, he saw how his the team responded to your medical emergency.

When he witnessed you coughing and writhing on your back as the team leered over with water, he thought he might explode.

You could be asphyxiating, and the team could be letting you choke while forcing more fluid down your throat. 

He shivered as he sprinted down the steps of the local precinct and onto the grassy field where you lay. 

“Turn her on her side!” He yelled as diagnoses and courses of action fled through his mind on hyperspeed.

“We’re trying, she—”

“Spence?” You choked out through a coughing fit. He’s surprised his ears caught it.

Reid knelt next to you. “Let’s get you into recovery position.” He said, his voice suddenly soft as clouds. Reid gingerly pushed you onto your left side. “Off your back, there we go.” He bent your right leg and slid it in front of your body to prevent you from rolling onto your stomach if you lost consciousness. 

“Did she faint?” Reid asked the team. He couldn’t take his eyes from your face. 

“We think so. She was dizzy, so she laid on the ground. Then she was unresponsive for at least 40 seconds,” Emily said. 

Spencer pressed the back of his hand to your forehead. Predictably, you were feverishly hot. “She’s burning up. Has someone called an ambulance?”

“Allegedly.” Hotch said, an edge to his voice. 

“We have, sir. They’re on their way.” A local police officer responded, exasperated.

Spencer’s eye twitched. “How long has she been down?” You whined, and he stroked your cheekbone with his thumb.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” He whispered. 

“In total, 15 minutes.” Hotch supplied. “Emily, pour some more water on her.”

“This was for her to drink.”

“Use one bottle to pour on her face and neck.” Spencer said. “I ran and got Gatorade. She should start with sips of that when she can swallow. Heat stroke can also be caused by salt depletion.” 

Spencer was conversing with a local officer over the safety protocols in the area when a pair of policemen walked into the precinct, gossiping about the FBI agent who “folded fast in the southern Cali heat.”

Spencer’s jaw had clenched. Maybe one of his team members was ill since they put in most of the grunt work to catch the unsub. He would’ve been more annoyed if not for the worry gnawing at his brain. What if they were talking about (Y/N)? She looked a little shaky right after her chase with the unsub, but Spencer didn’t get a chance to ask his friend if she was alright. And, stupidly enough, he forgot to text her to check if she drank any water post-case. Quickly, Reid excused himself, grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge, and rushed to the field where your limp body trembled on the grass. 

“I’m going to pour some water on you, honey," Emily said. You flinched as the frigid water hit your hairline. 

“Breathe, relax.” Spencer said, shielding your nose. The last thing you needed was some accidental waterboarding.

Seconds after the water drenched your forehead, your whole body relaxed into the grass. “That felt good.” You smiled weakly. 

Spencer stroked your arm. “Let’s sit you up in a minute, okay? You should try some Gatorade before the EMTs get here.”

“EMTs? I’m fine.” You whined.

Spencer didn’t think it was possible for his eyebrows to crease further. 

“You’re not fine.” Gentler, he said, “and it’s okay not to be fine, sunlight.”

“But, I’m alive.” You tried to roll onto your stomach, but your bent leg kept you safe on your back.

Some on the team members chuckled, but Spencer didn’t find your delirium humorous. “I know you’re alive, sweetie. But you’re way too hot. I think you’re a little confused right now.”

“I’m just…” You winced. “I’m alive.”

The knot in Spencer’s chest tightened ten-fold. This could be heat stroke. At the very least, you had heat exhaustion. You were dehydrated. You were delirious. 

Best case scenario: you were ill for a few days. Worst case scenario: You had vital organ damage.

Just as he’s about to call 911 himself, JJ interrupted him. “Look–ambulance lights. Help is on the way, honey.”

“You hear that, (Y/N)? You’re gonna be fine.” Morgan said. If only Spencer felt that confident. 

“Spence…” You blocked your eyes from the light with your limp right hand. “I’m scared. I don’t feel well.” 

“Oh, (Y/N), I know.” He cupped your shoulder and hoped you could feel his love for you through his palm. That sent a jolt down his spine. He wasn’t supposed to comfortably think those thoughts about you.

You were sick. This wasn’t the time. He leaned over your body. He gave you plenty of breathing room, but his torso was  parallel to your hip so his eyes could meet your watering ones. “Hey, take a breath for me, Smartie.” 

Your nickname for him slipped from his tongue so easily it spooked him. Suddenly, he noticed his thumb stroking over your cotton t-shirt. He should stop. The whole team was watching. He was being was too intimate; he'd face stupid quips from Morgan for days. He kept stroking anyway.

He observed your chest rise and fall. Your breaths were shaky but deeper. He relaxed a tad. Vital oxygen was reaching your bloodstream.

“(Y/N), can we try something?” Spencer asked.

“Yes. Maybe. What is it?”

The knot in his chest loosened. You responded immediately and with more than two words; you were becoming more lucid. 

“Can you sit up and have some sips of Gatorade? I got your favorite flavor. At least, if your favorite flavor hasn’t changed from three years ago.” It most likely hadn’t. Once your opinion settled, it was frustratingly hard to erode your verdict. 

“I can’t…I don’t know.”

“I know sitting up is hard. I’ll help you. And I’ll prop you against my chest. I’ll hold your weight when you can’t.”

“KK, Spence.” Your childlike tone tugged at his heart strings.

Spencer and Morgan lifted your limp body from the ground. They manhandled you into a sitting position with your head propped on Spencer’s shoulder and your body tucked between his thighs. 

One of his arms stabilized you while the other raised a cold bottle of orange Gatorade to your lips.

After nine sips of Gatorade, you spoke again. 

“Orange.” You took another sip. "My favorite.”

He smiled into your hair. “When have I ever lied to you, (Y/N/N)?”

***

Spencer nearly created a crater in the linoleum floor of the ER waiting room with his bouncing heel by the time the doctor came back with an update. 

“She had a mild case of heat stroke. We currently have her on fluids, and she’ll need lots of rest for at least the next week.” Doctor Bahamani concluded. 

“No signs of metabolic dysfunction? Any respiratory distress?” Reid checked. 

Doctor Bahamani smiled knowingly. “She’s going to be just fine, Doctor Reid.”

“Can I see her?” Spencer asked. 

“Yes. Only two at a time, please.” 

Spencer didn’t care who volunteered with him. He moved without thinking. An outpouring of gratitude for his eidetic memory flooded him. Through the thickest brain fog, he could trust his recollection of the hospital to bring him to the correct hospital room.

The security staff practically had to drag him away from your bedside after the ambulance ride. They might have thrown him out of the ER if not for the flash of his FBI badge.

Something nagged at him as he sped past the nursing station. 

You were going to be fine. The ER doctor confirmed it. Yet his heart was still pounding and he could barely refrain from running. Even more odd, he wasn’t ashamed of his irrational behavior. 

So what if a doctor deemed you were okay? It was you. And he saw you groggier and more out of it than you'd ever been. And who knows how thorough the doctors were with their examination? It was completely reasonable to worry for one of his closest friends. 

He just couldn't believe you were alright until he checked you over with his own hands and his own eyes.

***

When you grinned at him from your cot, Spencer wasn’t sure whether to smile or cry.

Tears glazed your eyes. But, your gorgeous smile was back. 

“Spencer?” You asked, brow raised and head cocked. 

He’d been staring too long. He looked like an idiot, lamely standing in the doorway as if he were the one with heat stroke.

“Straighten your head. Your neck is probably tight.”

You smiled, but this time it was tight-lipped and painful-looking. “You’re too worried.”

He watched saline drip down your IV. “Of course I’m worried, (Y/N). You got heat stroke.” With a deep breath as a shot of courage, he sat in the chair by the head of your bed.

There was nothing odd about sitting with his best friend at the hospital. 

His chest twisted at “best friend” and his resolve collapsed. He couldn’t deny it anymore. 

He liked you. He really, really liked you. He actually might even–

“Luckily, I got out pretty unscathed.” You snapped Spencer out of his spiral. “A little dehydrated. Achy. Might feel sick for a few days.”

“Or weeks.” Spencer corrected.

“Trying to look on the bright side here, Doctor.” You smirked and Spencer swore his right ventricle tightened.

Then, your nose scrunched and Spencer's wiped clean of any concern about his cardiac health. 

“What hurts?”

“Just a little achy, Spencer. I’m alright.” 

He shot you a look. He knew all your excuses. He knew you went to self-harming lengths to not worry people. 

“You’re not alright.” He reached for the red nurse-call button. 

Your eyes widened in surprise. “Okay…my body aches, Spence. And the IV burns. But they’ve already told me that’s normal. No need to take nurses away from an emergency.”

The nurses at the station desk didn’t appear to be rushing around for anyone, but Spencer feared this wouldn’t behoove his case. 

“They can give you pain medication, if you want.”

You hesitated, and immediately Spencer pressed the button. When you smiled weakly instead of bickering, his worry grew tenfold but not without a rush of heat flooding his entire body. 

In Morgan's words, he’s down bad. 

“How are you doing, sunshine?” As if he’d been summoned, Morgan appeared in the doorway. 

Spencer stepped back from your cot. The part of him riled from Morgan’s “sunshine” moniker wants to shove his hand into yours. Spencer thought he hid his annoyance well, but something about Morgan's smirk told him otherwise.

“Um…”

Morgan’s smirk fell. “You feel that bad, huh?”

You chuckled sadly. “Do I look that shitty or am I an open book today?”

“You never look shitty,” Spencer said. A tsunami of blood rushed to his face.

“Anyway,” Morgan said, “Do you want anything, Beauty Queen? I can grab you some jello.” 

“Jello sounds nice.” You said, and something in your voice was so vulnerable and naive Spencer wanted to wrap you in his arms as tight as he could. Which was illogical. That would only hurt you further. 

He shook his head as if that would remove the thoughts from his mind. “I’m gonna see if I can check up on your labs at the nurse’s station. I’ll make sure they’re giving you the good drugs.” He smiled.

You laughed– a genuine laugh– and Spencer’s heart soared. “Thanks, Spence.”

“I’ll go grab your jello,” Morgan said.

“Hold on, you should stay with her just in case she needs anything," Spencer said.

“I’ll be fine, Spence.” You said, but Spencer was not prepared to take "no" for an answer.

“If you boys wants to run her some errands, I’ll stay.” Emily stood in the doorway. “JJ is coming soon too– she just got a phone call from a very frantic Penelope.”

Your nose crinkled. “Oh no.” You groaned, but you were smiling. 

“Oh, yes. Be prepared for some mother henning," Emily said.

“Garcia can’t be any more mother henning than Reid," Morgan said. 

Before his face could turn redder than a baboon’s bottom, Spencer fled.

He’s only two yards from the nursing station when Morgan intercepted him at the end of the hall. 

“So, you’re going to make your move, right?”

Spencer's body temperature plummeted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He tried to shoulder past Morgan, but he was no match for his grip strength. “Reid, c’mon. You like (Y/N).”

Part of him wanted to laugh. “Like” seemed too simple of a word to describe the symphony of feelings (Y/N) started in him. “It’s…” He’s too tongue-tied to lie. “It’s complicated.”

You’re brilliant. You’re beautiful. You’re brimming with empathy. You’re everything Spencer could want. And it scared the shit out of him. Because that meant there’s even more to lose. And if he lost you, there would be no one to blame but himself. It was better for his psyche to not go there with you– to step back from the line rather than risk what would happen if he failed to make it work in the end. 

And what if you got hurt? What is you fell in the line of duty? Or worse, what if someone targeted you because of your romantic tie to him? Spencer's already experienced the pain of losing a soulmate-- a concept he wasn't even sure he believed in-- once. He wasn't not sure if he could survive it a second time.

There was too much unpredictability in his life. He chose a dangerous profession. He was gifted a ticking time-bomb of dangerous genes. He’d never forgive himself if he inflicted onto you the pain he’s been through; losing loved ones, whether through death or mental illness. 

Morgan's expression turned sympathetic. “Reid, you should give it a shot. Our lives our hectic. And if anyone deserves to be happy, it’s you.”

Spencer blinked to block tears from welling. “I just want her to be happy, too.”

“And who says you don't make her happy?”

“His idiotic genius brain.” Rossi appeared from around the corner.

Spencer froze. “You heard?” His face flushed yet again.

“Just the tail end. But Reid…” He trailed off.

Morgan took the hint. “I’m going to get (Y/N) some jello. With my charm, I could negotiate for some whipped cream.” 

“Don’t get whipped cream on it. She’s lactose sensitive,” Spencer said.

Morgan's stupid smirk reappeared. “Gotcha, Reid.”

Rossi took Morgan's place. Once Morgan was out of sight, he began his speech. “You love her. Don’t get in your own way.” Rossi put his hand on Reid’s shoulder. “And (Y/N) is an incredibly intelligent woman. Don’t insult her intelligence by thinking she can’t decide who is or is not worth taking a risk. And for what it’s worth…a man like you is worth the risk.” 

Rossi left Reid staring at his back. 

For the longest time, Reid convinced himself he refrained from asking you out to protect you from himself and his hefty baggage. And that’s not completely untrue. 

But suddenly, he realized he was primarily trying to protect himself from exposing his vulnerabilities to you this whole time. There’s never been a person whose opinion affected him like yours. There's never been a life he's wanted to protect more except perhaps...Maeve.

But just like it’s up to you to decide who’s worth the risk, it’s up to him to decide as well.

And if today taught him anything, shit happens. And if you slip through his fingers, he doesn't want it to because he wasn't brave enough to make a first move.

And being your person was more than worth the risk of rejection.

Author's Note: Thank you to so much to everyone who stuck around through my hiatus! I appreciate every single one of you! You're super cool :)

Happy to be back! Inbox is open to chat about writing and take requests! Please check pinned "Blurb Requests" post before requesting! (Will update the post as my boundaries update!)

Have an awesome day or night, wherever you are in this crazy world. I am incredibly thankful you spent part of your precious life reading something I penned.

Forever grateful,

shewroteaworld

[limeade-l3sbian]

Who was Kagney Linn Necessary?

(the gofundme for her memorial/funeral will be at the end.)

Kagney Linn Necessary was born in Harris County, Texas in 1987, and raised in St. Joseph, Missouri and in Ridgway, Pennsylvania. [x]

In her early years, she moved to California with ambitions of becoming an actress and a singer but entered work as an exotic dancer before signing with LA Direct Models, a pornographic agency. Karter entered the adult film industry in September 2008.[x]

But that wasn't the entirety of who Kagney was. At face value, the only information I could find with a quick search was the basic information above from Wikipedia. All anyone seemed to know about her was who she was when she was in the "industry." I wanted to see what I could find about her, the person. Not Kagney Linn Karter, but Kagney Linn Necessary.

I raked through interviews she had, her personal social media accounts, and any other articles that I could find just to find any little facts about her that I could.

I thought about omitting her time within the porn industry to focus solely on everything else except that. But I feel it would be tasteless to keep it out. I think it needs to be mentioned. I think it is important to show that women pulled into the porn industry are not these separate beings from any other woman with dreams. This was a 36 year old woman who was just like any other woman who was preyed upon.

Necessary released an EP, The Crossover, in 2018. In 2022, Karter released her debut album, titled The Take Over. [x] She would post clips of her singing covers of songs as well as songs from her upcoming EP on her Instagram.

In 2022, she began learning how to play the piano, even posting a video of her progress.

Necessary was also a recovering addict. In 2021, she posted about the things that helped her stay clean and how she was pleased at having a second chance at life. In an interview, she was intentionally vague about the substances she used, only referring to them as "candy" and "a little bit of everything." But with no insurance or money for rehab, she opted to detox herself at her parents home, working at their tanning salon for free in exchange for "produce."

She moved from Los Angeles to Ohio in 2019 and got involved with pole dancing fitness studios before being involved the opening of one in Akron, called Alchemy Pole Fitness. She posted many videos of herself having fun and practicing new/old moves.

In November 2023, she was posting pictures of her new house and how well it was coming together,

[their website leads to a website called Alchemy Space Studios and says that it was founded and run by a separate woman. But upon looking up the LLC for the business, Kagney is named as the registrant and she is named as the owner of the space in two separate articles.]

In 2015, Carter claimed musician Chris Brown paid her $2,500 to be his escort. She reportedly tweeted things like 'I WILL NEVER F*** A WOMAN BEATER EW DISGUSTING' and 'HE IS PURE EVIL' about Brown.

I just felt like adding that because what a queen.

From her students from the studio and friends, she was known to love animals, including her dog, Murphy, and had a deep devotion to the community she was cultivating in Ohio. She was known to be fearless and empathetic, creating her studio as a place for people to feel safe and accepted.

These were the things I could find of her from her personal accounts and the people who loved her. She wasn't an object that will be missed for what "uses" it had. She was a woman who had dreams, who had a community who love her, who had a husband who loves her, dogs she cared for and loved who loved her, and a mother who loves her. I didn't want her story to be another reblog of a lost life.

I know this post is sporadic and clunky, but I wanted to just grab any information I could without crossing boundaries (ex. contacting the family or something tasteless like that). I just wanted to share what she had already shared with the world.

Her friend, Megan Lee, has posted a gofundme that has already surpassed their goal. But I would still suggest donating if you are able. Rest in peace, Kagney Linn Necessary. 💜

[thedickcavettshow]

Can you tell us a little more about Joan Baez's girlfriend Kimmie? I'm curious about who she was and you seem to be the expert

Hiiii sorry this took so long to answer lol. Turns out I have a lot to say on this subject. Kimmie is a fascinating person and has lived a pretty wild life.

I'll just preface this by saying firstly I'm not an expert, I've just done a lot of research out of curiosity. Secondly, there is an absolute TON of misinformation out there about Kimmie, so everything that I'll tell you is stuff I learned from quotes directly from Joan, Kimmie, and other people they knew. The majority of this information is coming from Joan's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (1987) and Kimmie's interviews in the book Pearl: The Obsessions and Passions of Janis Joplin by Ellis Amburn (1992).

Joan Baez met Kim Chappell in the early 60s, when Kim was 17 years old and just freshly graduated from high school. Kim was a California surfer girl and Joan describes her by saying she "blew in, fresh, tan, skittery, ragged, shy, rebellious" and describes having sex with her as being "superb and utterly natural".

in 1962 Joan bought Kim a motorcycle and they rented a house together and they both adopted Doberman pinscher puppies. They often appeared in public together pretending to just be platonic friends, and Joan brought Kim along with her on tour, and Kim served as Joan's assistant and took care of her records. Kim also wrote some songs for her. They broke up after Kim trashed their bedroom because she got jealous of Joan's interest in a man she met on tour, but they remained friends after breaking up and Kim continued to work as Joan's assistant for a while. The time they spent together was positive, definitely one of the most pleasant of Joan's relationships, and Joan has said that being together taught her a lot about herself and about love and sex. Kim said of Joan in 1992 "Joan Baez was my first lover and brought me out and I still haven't recovered from that woman".

In the mid 60s, Kim became a heavy drug user, and in 1965 at a party with Jerry Garcia she took a little too much acid and climbed to the roof with an axe and began chopping the roof apart, then got onto her motorcycle (the one Joan bought her) and drove 120 mph to Joan’s house, climbed in through a window, and passed out in the middle of Joan’s living room. Joan called Kim's mother and they brought Kim to the hospital, and unfortunately that event pretty much ended their friendship.

While in the hospital, Kim was introduced to heroin, and immediately became very addicted. After being released from the hospital, Kim met a woman named Peggy Casetra (a name that is probably familiar/infamous to anyone who knows a bit about Janis Joplin) and they fell very much in love with each other. Peggy owned a boutique in San Francisco called Mnasidika (Sappho reference) and was also a heavy drug user.

Kim met Janis Joplin backstage at a show at the very beginning of Janis' career, and Janis was instantly attracted to her and pursued her. Since Kim and Peggy were not monogamous, Kim accepted her advances, although she felt that Janis would get along better with Peggy and decided to introduce them the next day. Both Kim and Peggy became close friends with Janis, and Janis was extremely enamored with them specifically because of Kim's relationship with Joan Baez. Janis and Peggy became lovers, and Janis’ friend Sunshine Nichols says "When Janis described Peggy to me, the first thing she said was, 'Well, Peggy's lover was involved with Joan Baez.'" The fact that she dated Joan was one of the first things Kim had told Janis when they first met. Apparently she got a kick out of telling people about it. Peggy and Kim were still together during the entire time that Peggy was seeing Janis, which at first Kim was fine with, but Janis eventually came to wanting Peggy to leave Kim for her and that soured the friendship between Kim and Janis slightly.

Kim and Peggy did not break up, even though they had a lot of issues with their relationship, which were not all caused by Janis. Kim was apparently a terrible driver, which really angered Peggy and they fought about driving which frequently escaladed into full-on fistfights. Kim was always driving way too fast and at one point she drove straight through a brand new $1500 fence. The fact that they were both extremely addicted to heroin obviously didn't help. They both did a lot of stupid stuff while high. This is a quote from Kim about a time she broke several of her ribs in the late 60s because she was trying to go to the bathroom late at night but was so high that she ended up on the second floor balcony instead: "I sat down on what I thought was the toilet, but it was thin air and I fell off the second-story porch, landing in a forked sapling. It was easily a ten- or twelve-foot drop. I lay there in the tree, stone naked, and I remember seeing stars and saying to myself, 'Oh, what a beautiful night!' Then I passed out."

Even though they had their issues Kim and Peggy were very openly and proudly a lesbian couple, so everyone around them knew about it. They spoke about being gay pretty openly, and they had a classic butch/femme dynamic (Kim was butch) that they made no attempt to conceal. The members of Janis' band and the other people she worked with strongly disapproved of them, and Albert Grossman, Janis’ manager (and Bob Dylan’s), tried very hard to keep the two of them away from Janis, because he felt that they were a bad influence on her and didn’t want her to get involved with “the gay thing”. Obviously he was not successful with this. Unfortunately their openness about being gay had a pretty negative effect on the two of them after Janis’ death.

After Janis' death, a lot of the people Kim and Peggy knew blamed them because they already had negative feelings about them and they were a pretty easy target. This was exacerbated in 1973 when Going Down With Janis, a "biography" about Janis' life written by a ghostwriter named Dan Knapp under Peggy's name was published. Peggy had agreed to let Knapp write a biography about Janis and had told him many stories about their time together, but Knapp took those stories and twisted them into something unrecognizable that just existed to shock and scandalize readers. Going Down With Janis did garner a bit of a cult following for being notoriously depraved and shocking, but unfortunately it's mostly made up. The book was essentially just Knapp's degrading sex fantasies about Janis written as though they were true facts and written from Peggy’s perspective. When the book was released, Peggy was horrified by its contents because she loved Janis and had only told Knapp positive stories about their time together. The book painted Peggy and Kim as Janis’ abusers and implicitly blamed them for Janis’ death.

After the book was published, Kim and Peggy faced enormous backlash from pretty much everyone they knew which led to Kim almost being murdered in an attempt at revenge. One night in the mid 70s while Kim, Peggy, and some friends were at a lesbian bar in Los Angeles called Bacchanal-70, Janis' former heroin dealer assaulted Kim in the alley behind the bar and stabbed her three times in the chest, puncturing both her lungs, and then left her there to die. Luckily, Kim was able to make it back inside the bar and she was rushed to the hospital. She was in critical condition but she managed to pull through and made a full recovery. She and Peggy split up for good after that.

By the 1990s, Kim managed to get sober after a very long and debilitating addiction that almost killed her many times. She said in 1992, "I finally managed to get clean; though I still enjoy marijuana and a glass of wine with a meal, I'm careful not to abuse."

This is the most recent picture of her that exists in the public, taken in the early 90s. There isn't any information about her since then.

[kwebtv]

Andre Keith Braugher (/ˈbraʊ.ər/; July 1, 1962 – December 11, 2023) Stage, film and television actor best known for his roles as Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC police drama series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) and Captain Raymond Holt in the Fox/NBC police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–2021). Over his career, Braugher received two Primetime Emmy Awards, as well as two Golden Globe Award nominations.

Braugher started his career acting in numerous productions in The Public Theatre's Shakespeare in the Park. He transitioned his career into television gaining roles in Kojak (1989–1990), The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990), and The Tuskegee Airmen (1995), followed by leading roles in the ABC medical series Gideon's Crossing (2000–2001), the CBS crime series Hack (2002–2004) and the TNT comedy series Men of a Certain Age (2009–2011). He  also appeared in numerous series such as Thief, The Good Fight, House, New Girl and BoJack Horseman.

In 2006, Braugher starred as Nick Atwater in the mini-series Thief for FX Networks, winning a second Emmy for his performance. He appeared on the TV series House, M.D. as Dr. Darryl Nolan, a psychiatrist who helps House recover from his addiction to Vicodin.

Braugher had a recurring role as defense attorney Bayard Ellis on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from 2011–2015, and starred as the lead character, Capt. Marcus Chaplin, in ABC's 2012 military drama TV series Last Resort. In 2017, Braugher had a recurring role in season 4 of the Netflix animated series BoJack Horseman as California Gov. Woodchuck Coodchuck-Berkowitz. From 2013–2021, he starred in the Golden Globe-winning TV series Brooklyn Nine-Nine as the precinct captain, Raymond Holt. For his performance in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, he was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. (Wikipedia)

IMDb Listing

[crmsnmth]

Hello

Version 5.5

Introductions Are stupid.

Hey. How goes it?

I'm 36. Male, most of the time. Goth-punk misery poet. I live in a small-town of 2000 people right in the center of the drunken state of Wisconsin. It is not even close to as fun as that sounds, and it doesn't sound all that fun to begin with. For work, I am a kitchen manager at one place and a line cook at another. I work seven days a week, because I've really got nothing better to do. Forces me out of the house. Makes me be social. And I actually really like what I do. I've been working in the industry for twenty odd years.

I listen to all music, and I'm not just saying that. I actually do. You can go through my main playlist, and you'll find everything from Slayer to Britney Spears to Alan Jackson to The Casualties to Katy Perry etc.… My favorite band of all time is the Descendents. But standing tall in second place is Amigo the Devil and Frank Turner rounding out my top 3. But you should tell me your favorites song, or one that means something to you, I need new music to memorize.

I'm mentally screwed and quite medicated. I have come to peace with this fact. I've been as stable as I can get for a good four years now. So that's neat. I am a raging cynic. I am a recovering addict, long-term. 8 Years. I am sober a little over two. I am a major cinephile, especially when it comes to the glory of the 80's slasher movie. I absolutely adore weird movies. The last film I watched that I really liked was Kinds of Kindness. I thought it was brilliant. My favorite movie of all time is Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece "The Room." I mean that 100%. That movie is the best thing to ever be put on film and I will fight and die upon this hill. I write more than any sane and healthy person should write, but I'm far from sane and I'm far from healthy. I post at least once a day, but sometimes I can post over ten. My notes app on my phone is scary looking.

I do not write for anyone's actual approval. Not even my own really. I do this because it's the only addiction I have that isn't actively trying to kill me and is actually trying to better me as a person and get in touch with unresolved feelings and places that will never have closure.

I will always love constructive criticism. But please, for the love of all the love in the world, don't just tell me I suck. I get that. It's a massive part of my whole gig. Please, give me a reason why I suck, what I'm doing wrong in your eyes. Help me to better this craft I play with. Seriously, I love it. But if you can't give me a reason, maybe it's best you keep that food-hole shut, and stop trying to be a dick, dick.

So since, I write some much, what topics to a tap dance to the grave with? I'm pretty predictable. So, this stuff: The Girl with the Ocean Blue Eyes, Kid, The Broken Mirror Girl, My Junkie Angel, The Girl from California, The Best Friend, The Drunk*, love, lost lovers, hopelessness, isolation, drug addiction, alcoholism, depression, forgotten acquaintances, mental illnesses, rage, hate, rejection, joy, insignificant moments, slices of life, laughter, beauty, self and self-reflection, self-hate, art, other writers, panic, infatuations, obsession, therapy, group homes, rehab, jail, grace, nature, loss, hope, fear, grief, anguish, philosophy, anarchism, nihilism, religion, god, the devil, ugliness, politics, serial killers, cults, suicide, death, destruction, chaos, music, validation, closure, memory, enemies, friends, rock bottom, sex, violence, rock and roll, sin, self-exploration, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, pain, self-destruction much more.

Consider this little spot your trigger warning.

I make music as well as the writing gig. Go tell me I suck at it.

I know about the typos. I am very aware. You don't need to tell me, because I'm probably not going to fix them anyway. Besides, you can figure it out.

There's bare bones about me and what I'm about and where I stand. If there is anything else you'd want to know for some godforsaken reason, go ahead and message me. I may not be real good at it, I do enjoy having fifteen second conversations.

*NOT REAL NAMES

[multifandomff]

ALL FOR THE GAME

>100k Words

The Odds Are Never In Our Favor by MalikShah

M / 259k / Andrew Minyard/Neil Josten

“A truly exciting development here in District 12. Let’s see who will be the other brave tribute traveling to the Capitol this year.” She simply grabbed the first slip she encountered and walked back to the podium.

Neil didn’t even have time to wish for his own safety when she read the name.

“Neil Josten.”

A simple The Hunger Games AU because apparently the Foxes haven't suffered enough already.

playing on by wilsherejack

M / 142k / Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau

"Who knew California Golden Boy Jeremy Knox could play dirty?”

Jeremy grins. “Best kept secret on the west coast. Told you there was a western division striker who could dispossess you.”

“On a practice court, maybe," Jean says. "Try to get it away from me during a game.”

Jeremy leans back, bracing himself on gloved hands. “Luckily, I won't ever have to.”

No Mourners, No Funerals by gluupor

M / 146k / Andrew Minyard/Neil Josten

In Ketterdam’s pleasure district you can find anyone. A wayward son trying to escape his past. A pampered noblewoman who chose a different life. A recovering addict who can’t turn down a bet. A stranded pirate in need of a boat. A deserter who is looking for a place to belong. A Grisha assassin who wants to be a better person. A convict looking to regain her life. A runaway who has become a killer. A survivor who has become something worse.

These fractured isolationists must cooperate and trust each other to achieve their goals. An impossible heist with a big payout. A revenge scheme years in the making. A high stakes con that could start a war if it goes wrong. They probably deserve better, but if they got what they deserved then they wouldn’t be Foxes.

a switchblade is my preferred weapon by badacts

M / 150k / Andrew Minyard/Neil Josten

The Foxes take on an injured Kevin Day, and get a Raven-trained backliner with a point to prove into the bargain.

[simpsonanddelilah]

OcxCanon Discussion: Lacey and Snake

Hello, I used to write long posts like this for my Minecraft account. I figured doing something similar on this account would be helpful to understand my ocs more, since they mean a lot to me. This is very much almost AU territory. My ocs exist in their own universe that has it's own canon. Most things are the same, whenever they differ, I will be sure to state it. Open the keep reading to hear about them!

For the first one of these posts, we'll look into My oc Lacey D'Amico-Ortiz and Snake Jailbird.

Assuming you all know about Snake, in my canon, hes a Butch lesbian and uses he/him pronouns. He's about 29 yrs old. 6'1". Mexican-American.

Here is a small backstory I've written about him:

Snake's real name is Jonesy Sisneros, doesn't know his father, barely knew his mother before she died when he was barely a teen. Grew up by himself and a few nuns in Southern California. Troublemaker to his core and wound up in a gang. To escape the violence he moved to Springfield and gained a pretty alright life there. Continued crime spree but refuses to work with anyone. He decides to go clean after a little while with encouragement from his family back home as well as some religious influence in Springfield. He manages to get a PHD in Archeology and is successful; the Moe stealing scandal happens only a few years into his career and he fully turns to a life of crime. As things got more hectic in his life, he pushed forward and ended up on death row. Despite this, he had drawn in the attention from Fat Tony and the rest of the mob circuit. Impressed with his thievery and expertise, they convinced the judge to lower his sentence and keep Snake alive, so long as he put his talents to use for the mob. Snake betrayed their trust and quickly went into hiding from the mafia, keeping a low profile for a few months before returning to his crime spree.

I'm sure you understand why Snake is iffy with the Mafia in my canon now. He's wanted and has had truces for common enemies, but still manages to get on the mob's bad side despite what happens there. He's selfish, crude, and violent.

Here's a snippet of Lacey's Backstory in order to help illustrate their first meeting.

Around her 25th birthday, she met Snake Jailbird, attempting to steal from their warehouse. She quickly and instantly became infatuated with him. She let him go in exchange for a date. Snake, willing to do anything, agreed and they went on multiple joyrides and crime sprees. Although Lacey was very much obsessed, Snake grew scared of her, yet intrigued and aroused by her manic actions. Since then, they’ve had a dangerous and addictive relationship.

They met in a very spur of the moment kinda deal. Lacey became obsessive very easily. She's acted this way with women multiple times as well. She often times ends up killing them or they end up being found out by Fat Tony. (important to mention, the Fit-Fat Tony switch doesn't happen in my canon. Fat Tony suffers a heart attack, but does not die. Lacey takes over while he is recovering) Lacey is very troubled, here is the rest of her backstory:

Lacey was born to the daughter of the infamous Amarillo Drug Cartel and a cousin of the powerful D’Amico Crime Family. Tensions were high on both sides of the family, and unfortunately, after Lacey’s 1st birthday party, the Castellaneta family shot up the venue. Both of Lacey’s parents passed on, and Fat Tony took it upon himself to take care of Lacey since his cousin was so close to him. The Amarillo Cartel was able to provide money and more business and help for the raising of Lacey and assigned more guards for her at any given time, fearing the worst for her. Due to all of this, Lacey grew up to be incredibly spoiled and drunk with power, to the point of her becoming very obsessive and desperate to get whatever she wants.

Lacey was told many times about her parents dying, it was such a difficult grievous time for the Families. She grew to hate men besides those she trusted (Legs, Louie, and Fat Tony. She doesn't trust Johnny Tightlips). She grew to want things, to want love, to want power, to never feel unsafe. Fat Tony ensures she gets what she wants.

This obsessiveness for comfort and love, mixed with the pain of living a very violent and gruesome life turned her into a beyond compulsive, impulsive and dangerous person. She finds joy in pain and loves hurting others.

When her and Snake began to fit into their relationship, Snake was sure to take all the proper precautions to make sure the mob would never find out about him. Lacey often sneaks away to meet him, they wear helmets when driving around, they make sure no one can see them together and if they do, they understand Lacey can 'take care' of them at any time. Lacey often finds herself clinging to Snake, leaving markings like hickeys, bites, or bruises on him, she enjoys messing with him about her family, she likes making him panicked. His pain is her pleasure. Though, Snake fully enjoys this cat and mouse, constant switching sides dynamic of their relationship. They both know the other is fully capable with getting the other arrested or worse, but they love teasing and being so gruesome towards each other.

Of course this isn't without it's softer sides. Snake feels loved knowing someone is always around, always being there fro him, will always be safe and happy when around him. He likes knowing he's making her so happy. He feels safe, sleeping in motels and hotels instead of alleys and his car, he likes having a full stomach instead of looking for scraps. Lacey is happy to give him money and support.

Snake is also very kind to Lacey. She finally feels loved in the same way she shows affection. It's lovely, she cares for him and she feels like finally someone understands who she is a person, how her mind works, how she thinks. It was so scary being all alone. Especially since she wanted romance in her life. No one would ever want to be with her because of her family but here's someone unafraid, someone who cares for her as a person, That's beyond lovely. One thing he's very patient with, is missing her parents. Especially during Christmas time, because I think Snake feels the same around that time too. I like to think they just watch the lights and the snow while they cuddle.

That's a dive into Lacey and Snake's relationship! If you have more questions or anything I'd love to hear them. I'm happy to explain anything.

[deancasbigbang]

Title: The Things We Leave behind

Author: Briston

Artist: Merv (fruitmixtape)

Rating: Mature

Pairings: Dean/Cas

Length: 52000

Warnings: minor character death, discussion of historical child abuse, substance use disorder.

Tags: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Divorce Arc, Bad Parent John Winchester, Alcohol Abuse, Rehab, Discussion of Cheating, Alcoholic Dean Winchester, Recovering Alcoholic Dean Winchester

Posting Date: October 31, 2023

Summary: Cas has been getting progressively worried about Dean’s drinking for a while but mentioning it only causes tension in their marriage. The sudden death of Dean’s father brings everything to the breaking point. After a particularly bad fight, his husband seeks solace in whiskey and flirty women in the aftermath. When Cas finds out, he decides he’s had his fill, packs his bags, and leaves. Sam lives in California and has built a career as a well respected addictions counselor. When Cas calls to tell him that Dean is missing on a bender and their marriage is likely over, he drops everything to come to Kansas to find his brother. Dean clearly needs help. Sam convinces him to go with him to California and go through a rehab program. Dean only agrees because Cas refuses to have anything to do with him unless he stops drinking permanently. If he can't, their marriage is finished. Along the way, Sam and Dean discover that their father left them with more than just painful memories of a traumatic childhood. Their half-brother Adam might be exactly who they need to help pull all the fractured pieces together. Cas is giving Dean one last chance to turn things around. Nothing is easy, but maybe it’s still worth fighting for.

Excerpt: “You know the only difference that would have made was that you would be as miserable as he was.” Cas grabbed both of their toothbrushes and toothpaste from the ensuite bathroom, tossing Dean’s his way. “I could’ve tried harder to get him to quit, go to rehab or something.” The toiletries went in the bag with some deodorant, a flannel, and some denim. He shot Cas a dirty look when he heard him huff in exasperation. “How many times did you ask him to quit? Remember when Sam flew in for an intervention? He’s a professional addictions counselor and the only thing that happened was that Sam flew home with a black eye and a refusal to ever come back.” “That’s just because they’re too much alike and can’t stop themselves from fighting.” Dean was starting to raise his voice. Cas wasn’t having any of it. “No,” he knew he sounded snarky as shit but was so very tired of having the same argument about John Winchester’s parenting skills. “It’s because your father is a narcissistic asshole with undiagnosed mental health issues that he self-medicates with whiskey.” Dean walked around the bed to where Cas was and grabbed his arm. The grip wasn’t rough but it wasn’t gentle either. His green eyes were anguished and pleading.   “Don’t say that, he could be dying right now.” Somewhere deep down Cas knew he should be feeling guilty about just how little empathy he had for John right then. He’d feel more compassion for a complete stranger than he did for the man who had hurt Dean again and again, both as a child and as an adult. He felt a small flash of resentment at having to defend Dean from his own negative thinking. “It was always going to be this way with him, Dean. Every counselor you’ve ever had has told you the same thing for years. You are not responsible for fixing him. Don’t kill yourself trying to be accepted by someone who doesn’t even deserve you.”

DCBB 2023 Posting Schedule

[goodluckclove]

Tell me about your suffering is art stance. I wish to know. Please and thank you. <3

Man you know I never thought I would openly talk about this part of my life because it was a nosedive that took me literal YEARS to recover from. But I'm seeing a close friend of mine go down the same path despite watching me almost sink into the void, so apparently this isn't universal information.

Storytime, dear ones. And it starts here. TW for mania, derealization, substance abuse, kind of parental abuse, and ultimately suicide related stuff.

This is an issue of Content magazine from 2016. It's a popular arts magazine from the Bay Area of California. Flip through it, it's neat! The arts scene in San Jose and around that area is small, but very dedicated.

Now go to page 56-57. The headline for the interview is "Miranda and the Young Outlaws". I did not choose the headline. I did not decide to have my photo be the only one in color. I was, at one point, Miranda, and at the time of that photo I am 19 years old.

I've been a novelist since 12, but at 16 I got into playwriting. It was instant validation. People thought I was good at it, and I was - though good in a way I don't believe applies anymore. Google my full dead name and you'll see some short plays of mine. Some short stories. I don't really mind putting my full dead name out there, mostly because I worked hard for all of that and would rather not let it die forever. So have at it.

If you read this interview you'd probably be impressed. Maybe envious at the depiction of independent creativity being validated at such a young age. A few notes from my present self:

- when Miranda referenced the rehearsal on the street outside the coffee shop, she neglected to include how once her actors finished the final scene, she laid down on the dirty sidewalk with no warning and began to weep from exhaustion. The cast, her friends from high school, most of them still IN highschool, gathered around her and struggled to calm her down.

- when she describes her "house of recovery" she doesn't mention that her "recovering addict" parents got her hooked on medical cannabis to stop her nightly, hyperventilating panic attacks. Not everyone who smokes weed is addicted. Miranda was for three years.

- "when you're young and you find an art form you're really passionate about it helps you emotionally..." The reporter misquoted Miranda here. It HURTS you. That's what she said. It. Hurts. You.

- I considered the other people in that group photo the most important people in my life. None of them talk to me anymore. I get it, though.

The Young Outlaws was my legacy at the time. We did The Muses, and it was one of the most profound experiences of my life. Then after that I had a complete, screaming mental breakdown the night before our Halloween show.

I was working five jobs at the time. I dropped out of school to focus on theater. I didn't eat much, and every other weekend I wrote a new full-length script in the span of less than two days. I was insane and miserable constantly, but that's what an artist is, isn't it? Someone who suffers? Isn't that what it means to put in effort?

It's crazy, but that brainwashing runs so strong that as I write this it's hard not to think that I was somehow STRONGER back then.

I didn't stop so my body stopped for me. I shut everything down over a video on the Facebook group for my troupe that I filmed while lying on the couch, and then I just kept lying on the couch for days. Then weeks. I have a memory of lying on the patio at dusk, looking up at the clouds pass and wishing desperately that I had enough energy to kill myself.

I didn't write. I didn't write for a long time.

But that's what an artist is...right?

It got better when I stopped smoking weed. As I kept going to therapy and adjusted my medication. Then my foundation broke again and I walked out of the show in Santa Cruz I was emceeing for and made an attempt that landed me in the psych ward for a week.

I did write a play there in the notebook they gave us. A friend I made in the unit gave me the title. If I ever make a Patreon or something I'll put it up there because it's good but it's too painful to ever hear aloud.

Listen. Please listen. Lean in close like we're children sharing a secret.

Suffering isn't cool. It is not helpful. It. Will. Not. Help. You. Not in relationships, not in life, especially not in art. Do not make an identity out of pain that you can get ease or erase entirely. If you are an artist with ANY sort of neurodivergence, you do not have the luxury to be the picture of the Tortured Artist.

Mania shows through artistic pursuit. Same with depression. Same with anger and delusion. But people expect artists to be weird and a little unstable and edgy, so what's the problem?

The problem is I'm dying. The problem is that I could've died. The problem is that so many other artists have.

Writing can still be hard. You can write something that's painful. But if your writing is always hard, always painful, always lonely and doubtful and you never walk away feeling proud of yourself - something is wrong. You need to reframe the way you think about yourself in relationship to your art. This is not an option. The alternatives are that you either don't make art, or you make a few works that some people might find so amazing that they talk about how much of a shame it was that you died early.

A few brave people have shared their writing with me and I've been thrilled and impressed. I'm seeing things that should be on bookshelves. I'm looking up short story journals and practically begging them to submit. To them, to you, to me, and to Miranda, I say this:

Your craft is your heart. It can feel, but it doesn't have to break to be worthy. People don't study the tragic greats because they were drunk and high and mean, they study them because they had a beautiful heart and it is an immense loss that it was shattered so soon. Please don't become another tragedy. Please find a way to listen to your craft and your body with sympathy and tenderness.

Please? For me?

[the-hinky-panda]

The Medic Series: Part I

Title: The Medic Series

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Johnny Coco Cruz x OFC (Morgan "Stitches" Fox)

Summary: Morgan Fox is a nurse who is looking for a fresh start. She leaves La Jolla the night before her wedding for a fresh start in Santo Padre.

Author's Note: This series takes place in the same universe as @bullet-prooflove's Community Series.

Everyone had warned her about taking the job at the Santo Padre Clinic. 

Morgan Fox had graduated at the top of her nursing class. She went through her Emergency Room training in East LA at one of the busiest trauma centers in the state of California. She could treat a gunshot wound blindfolded, find and administer narcan in under five seconds, and she’s enough of a scrapper to hold her own with violent junkies. 

She liked working in LA. She felt like she was actually making a difference when she sat with a prostitute who had a botched abortion and held her hand until the tears stopped. When she was the only nurse that would buy and stash electric blankets for addicts that were going through detox and wracked with chills. When a gang member was killed, she would sit with their family members and assure mothers that there was nothing more they could have done for their children. 

Her father, the CFO for Wells Fargo West Coast branches, had a heart attack and her mother needed help with his recovery so she returned to La Jolla. Unfortunately, survival was not in the cards for her father and a month later he died of a brain aneurysm. Her sister was already married to a megachurch pastor so it was just Morgan and her mother alone in the seaside mansion. The work in the La Jolla hospital was less than satisfying. Women recovering from plastic surgery and malnutrition from starving themselves to fit into expensive gowns for charity events didn’t bring much satisfaction. 

The only thing that kept her in La Jolla was the arrival of a new heart surgeon. He had been doing his fellowship with the cardiac surgeon that operated on her father. Shortly after her father’s passing, Dr. Jasper Wilcox was placed as the on-call heart surgeon and was spending his breaks down by the ER nurse’s station where Morgan worked. He would bring her terrible cups of coffee to hold her over until he could take her out to a five star restaurant. He came from old money and was not opposed to spending it. Morgan’s mother loved him so after six months of dating, a Christmas wedding was being planned. 

Then her world fell apart. She caught Jasper with another nurse in the locker room showers. That was when the rumor mill finally reached her, that Jasper had banged just about every nurse in the hospital. When she went to her mother with the revelation, her mother told her to look the other way. And if that didn’t work, look at his bank account and investment portfolio. But Morgan started looking elsewhere: another LA, another place in need of compassion. That was how she ended up getting the job offer at Santo Padre Clinic. 

It was Christmas Eve when she called the Santo Padre Clinic to let them know she was accepting the nurse position. She waited until her bachelorette party was over before packing her car with clothes and a couple boxes of belongings, and leaving under the cover of night. She left a note for her mother and Jasper, short, sweet and to the point about wanting something more than money and a sham of a marriage. 

She arrives in the bordertown Christmas morning, feeling very much like the refugee family of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus: scared and alone. However, there is room at the town motel and Morgan spends her Christmas day looking for an apartment online and ignoring the texts and calls that are blowing up her phone. She drinks a bottle of expensive champagne and watching re-runs of “The Christmas Story” on the TV. By six am the next morning, she’s dressed in her scrubs and sitting on the cracked concrete steps of the clinic. At 6:30, another woman arrives in faded scrubs, graying hair, and a tired face. 

“Are you Fox?” 

Morgan jumps to her feet. “Yes, ma’am.” 

She scoffs and unlocks the door. “You can drop the ma’am. We don’t stand on much ceremony here. I’m Fernanda. Most people call me Nan.” 

Morgan follows her into the building and helps turn on lights. Nan gives her the tour of the workplace. It’s small, outdated, and falling apart. Their supplies are minimal, the equipment barely functioning. Nan watches her with a skeptical eye. 

“So what do you think, Nurse Barbie?” 

“I think it’s perfect.” 

Nan laughs shortly. “I give you two weeks before you’re back in La Jolla.” 

[ceekbee]

(An editorial I wrote on the Trump election for Policy Magazine)

Orwell Redux: 1984 has Arrived, Just a Little Late

It took 40 years, but 1984 has finally arrived, with red MAGA hats replacing Orwell’s drab, totalitarian grey. But make no mistake, Donald Trump’s massive win was a Triumph of Orwellian slogans over democratic engagement. It was driven by an apparent longing for manipulative simplicity in the face of complex global realities.

Having grown up in the 1980s, I thought I knew something about Orwell’s 1984 vision of a future of mass surveillance and strongman control. But Big Tech promised to liberate us from this nightmare future. What was clear on election night, however, is that Big Tech money and technology toxified democratic engagement and drove the agenda of a faux-populist grifter.

Are you old enough to remember that night in January, 1984, when a small-time California computer company called Apple went all-in with a Super Bowl ad directed by Ridley Scott? The ad brilliantly played on our 1984 fears with a crowd of shorn cyberslaves mesmerized by Big Brother brainwashing them on a jumbotron. The defining moment comes when a female athlete appears in vivid colour and hurls a sledgehammer at the screen, shutting down the propaganda feed amid a shower of sparks.

And then the punch line, “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”

We were sold. I know I was. The dystopian future could be beaten. Silicon Valley promised a future of connectivity, individual autonomy and freedom. All we had to do was buy the gadgets.

And then more gadgets. And then more.

In the 80s, 90s and for good parts of the 2000s I was one of the many believers in the premise that if people had the power to do their own research, create networks of increasingly large groups who only knew each other through their digital IP address it would inevitably lead to spreading creativity and democracy. How could it not make people smarter and more engaged?

The Silicon Valley pioneers presented themselves as idealistic mavericks willing to move fast and break the stodgy political, economic structures holding us back. But that wasn’t the real story of the Big Tech revolution. It was born as a project of the US military. And from the beginning, the digital revolution was driven by a culture of toxic alpha-male libertarianism. By the time it exploded onto the world stage in the mid 1980s, author Max Fisher writes in The Chaos Machine that it was deeply rooted, in “the unashamed capitalism of the Reagan ’80s.” These “mavericks” believed that they had the right to arbitrarily rewire democracy and society.

What could possibly go wrong?

The 1984 Mac ad promised individual autonomy in the face of looming mass conformity and state surveillance. What we failed to grasp is the cost that came from allowing a few tech giants to rewire everything from democracy to our personal relationships. We paid little attention as our every online move was tracked by ever more-powerful machine-driven AI. Few noticed when our online “experiences” were siloed into increasingly isolated chambers of information. And only the tech giants knew that the secret sauce of the digital revolution was that disinformation and rage was the most powerful driver to keep our eyes locked on our screens.

I write this as a recovering digital utopian. Our global economies have been rewired to the benefit of libertarian capitalists and our addiction to gadgets has led to measurable breakdowns in social trust and rising online hate.

My Facebook feed has become a swamp of ugly and vicious memes generated by AI and Bot farms attacking the prime minister, climate action and “woke” individuals who dare express concern for environment or minority rights. As an elected official who has dealt with relentless harassment, I just recently received my first AI-generated death threat. It is such a far cry from those idealistic, Google “Don’t be evil” days when we believed internet interactions would inevitably build community, not tear them down. For a few years, it worked.

We looked to defy an Orwellian future defined by lies. But what we learned is that in a 140 (or even 280)-character world, slogans move quicker than truth. And what has driven the right-wing power of Trump, Bolsanaro and other propaganda actors is the exploitation of the immediacy and seduction of the internet to weaponize thought in the form of slogans that tap into a proud, defiant, terrified vulnerability.

How does democracy compete with that?

The connection between Trump and Silicon Valley goes deeper than how the Steve Bannons of the world broke the political code on rage algorithms. Huge amounts of money were used to ensure Trump’s election because right-wing tech billionaires understood the irresistible connection between the rise of AI, profits and undemocratic government power. Ben Tarnoff, writing in the New York Review of Books, states that Silicon Valley venture capitalists see Trump as key to the “linkages between the public and private sectors…in which tech companies would partner with the state to strengthen its coercive capacities at home and abroad.”

It took four decades, but 1984 finally arrived. It isn’t the grey world of military strongmen but an ugly marriage of toxic AI, billionaire capitalists and grifter politicians. What is perhaps the most dystopian factor of all, is just how cynical and mean it is.

I know that there are other lessons from the 80s to show us a better way. They are the pre-millennial memories that can help unwire our lives into a more sustainable future.

Policy Contributing Writer Charlie Angus is the MP for Timmins-James Bay and frontman for the band Grievous Angels. His new book Dangerous Memory Coming of Age in the Decade of Greed is published by House of Anansi Press

[meridaslonglost-twin]

I•N•T•R•O•D•U•C•T•I•O•N

>> Roy in this Roleplay universe is 25-26. He has Lian in this AU! He is pretty much just a single dad. I slightly followed the young justice line on Jade not wanting to be a negative influence on Lian so she leaves them both for their safety. However I tweaked it just a little where Jade with occasionally pop in to see Lia and check in on Roy. They both live in Star City, California in a little apartment. Lian just started kindergarten and it makes Roy feel so so old. When he isn’t doing his usual arsenal nonsense, he’s typically working at a mechanic shop. He enjoys engineering and getting to mess with the different vehicles that come through the shop. It also helps as an outlet, especially on bad days when he feels like relapsing.

>>With that being said this Roleplay universe of Roy is a recovering addict from his heroine addiction when he was younger. He’s come a long way but there are times when he has moments of weakness. He finds ways to cope when he has those moments and needs the itch under his skin scratched. At first he used alcohol but the first time that happened around Lian had been the last when he’d gotten a bit too drunk and had lost her. She had just hidden in his closet but it had scared him half to death at how quickly the toddler could have disappeared and gotten hurt or worse just because he wasn’t aware. He turned to smoking, albeit not exactly as healthy but it isn’t as extreme as other options. He avoids as many substances as he can, which can be a struggle when injured but he would rather be put through pain than to take something and get stuck on it. Especially at the expense of it getting Lian hurt. He isn’t perfect by any means but gods he is trying for his little girl. She deserves the world and he will give her nothing but.

O•O•C N•O•T•E•S

>> This is a Roy Harper roleplay account! Apologies if anything is slightly ooc. I am happy to interact and am welcoming to really anything as long as it is respectful and not proshipping! If you’d like to do a ship dm me and I’ll take a look! I am a multishipper but if there’s anything I’m not a fan of obviously I’ll tell you! If you’d like to rp or chat just send in a question or a submission prompt and I’ll respond! I am open to romance, angst, fluff, and just silliness! Pg-13/mildly suggestive roleplay and questions is fine but nothing explicit, as I am not comfortable with that.

(image of the apartment layout, please excuse my not so great penmanship, I got annoyed, given it was like my fourth time drawing it 😭.)

[ninja-muse]

As you might know if you saw my review the other day, my December felt very slumpy even though I read a lot of good books. I suspect this is because of book hangovers and working a busy Christmas retail season. (I also didn't write much because I kept coming home too wiped to think.)

But it was a good month! I managed to get to a couple new releases that I really wanted to, and I knocked a lot of books off my physical TBR because none of my ARCs looking interesting. I did have a DNF again, though, of a book that I was really hoping would be great. Isn't that always the way?

I also had two rereads! One because sometimes when you're at a loss to read, you pick up Pratchett, and one because I'd promised myself I'd get to it this year and dash it, I was going to! Weirdos of the Universe, Unite! was one of the most seminal books of my childhood, and it wasn't until I reread it that I realized just how much it was. I saw a lot of my personal attitude to life in Maddy, it was probably my first true urban fantasy even though there's a whole act on a spaceship, Baba Yaga is there as a very cranky but practical sort of witch…

As for my book haul, I just want to say that it was Christmas and I didn't actually buy anything? My parents came through with some really oddball picks, as I'd expected, my sister gifted me one of her favourite reads of the year, and friends helped feed my T. Kingfisher addiction. (More on that in my yearly wrap-up.)

But the book I'm most excited to have gotten is Hogfather, and not because of the pretty cover though that's a bonus. It is, in fact, the most astounding misprint I've ever seen and I couldn't pass up a chance at a free copy. I mean, how many times do you find a beloved book in which the entire thing is bound backwards?! Thank goodness the publisher didn't want it back, is all I'm saying.

And that's probably about it! I have no idea what book I'm going to start 2024 with, because I sort of read 200+ pages of Persepolis Rising last night so I could knock it off my list and now I'm recovering from the binge.

And now without further ado, in order of enjoyment…

A Power Unbound - Freya Marske

Jack, Alan, and their friends must find a hidden artifact and foil a plot. This would go better if Jack and Alan got along.

8/10

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (gay, bi man), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (gay, bi woman, lesbian, genderfluid) 🏳️‍🌈 author

All the Hidden Paths - Foz Meadows

Velasin and Caethari are still feeling out their relationship when they’re summoned to the capital and almost immediately find themselves targeted again..

7.5/10

🏳️‍🌈 main characters (mlm), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (mlm), mute secondary character, cast of colour, 🏳️‍🌈 author warning: anxiety, aftermath of trauma, dubious consent

Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams with Mark Carwadine

A bumbling science fiction author travels the world in search of endangered animals.

7/10

Illuminations - T. Kingfisher

Rosa wants to help her artist-magician family, but instead she accidentally releases a creature bent on destroying them!

8/10

Lovecraft Country - Matt Ruff

Two Chicago families in the 1950s become caught up in a world of cults, ghosts, monsters, and magical danger. Fortunately, they’ve had lots of practice at mistrusting white folks.

7.5/10

primarily Black cast

warning: depicts Jim Crow-era racism, including slurs; also abusive family dynamics

Persepolis Rising - James S.A. Corey

Thirty years on, the system has achieved a new normal. So of course one of the colony planets decides it’s time to shake things up.

7.5/10

very racially diverse cast

Remarkably Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt

A cleaner at an aquarium mourns her losses. A young California man seeks his absentee father. The resident octopus tries to bring them together.

7.5/10

Jamaican secondary character, Korean-American secondary character

Ragnarok - A.S. Byatt

A child in wartime discovers Norse mythology, and the ways myths and the world reflect each other.

7.5/10

warning: animal cruelty and injury

While Idaho Slept - J. Reuben Appelman

Four students are murdered in a single night, and what came before and after.

7/10

warning: violent murders

Monstress, Volume 3 - Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (illustrator)

Maika finds temporary refuge from the people chasing her, but the local leaders want a favour in return.

7/10

one-armed protagonist, cast of colour, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic), Taiwanese-American author and Japanese-American illustrator

Reread

Weirdos of the Universe, Unite! - Pamela F. Service

Mandy and Owen get assigned a mythology paper, but then the characters they pick start coming to life and insisting they have a great purpose.

Black secondary character, Indigenous secondary character, Chinese secondary character

warning: somewhat lazy depictions of Indigenous and Chinese people

The Unadulterated Cat - Terry Pratchett with Gray Jolliffe (illustrator)

A humourous celebration of all things cat.

DNF

The Undetectables - Courtney Smyth

Someone’s committing Occult murders and a crack team of Occult investigators has been called in. Or, they’re totally going to be the crack team someday, at least.

main character with fibromyalgia, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (lesbian), fat secondary character, Chinese-British secondary character, 🏳️‍🌈 author

Currently reading:

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories

major disabled character

warning: racism, colonialism

Stats

Monthly total: 11+1 Yearly total: 128/140 Queer books: 2 Authors of colour: 1 Books by women: 6 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 7 Rereads: 2 Books hauled: 8 ARCs acquired: 2 ARCs unhauled: 2 DNFs: 1

January February March April May June July August September October November

[aishnico]

#𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙄𝙀 𝙑𝙀𝘿𝘿𝙀𝙍: 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘭 (𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙩 𝟮)

» summary: you were an architect in seattle, and one of the things kept you sane was your rockstar friends. one day, they found a new singer to their new band and you went to listen to them.

» word count: 2.4k

» warnings: fluff, some angst, grammar issues

» inspired by sarah jio’s always novel.

» part 1

— october, 1990

"fuck, fuck, fuck... fuck!" you yelled at yourself when the file you've been working for 7 hours closed without saving it. you didn't forget to save it, your computer just froze for a couple of minutes. you were waiting patiently, but suddenly, your computer shut down.

you suddenly heard someone knocking on the wall. "hey! can't you be quiet?" it was your next-door neighbor stone. you sighed and grabbed your things, wore a coat and left the home. he heard that you were leaving and he opened to door.

"hey, sorry for yelling. is everything alright?" he asked gently.

"no, my project's gone forever. i have to start from the beginning. and my ass hurts from sitting straight. guess i'm going out for a walk now."

"hey, stop by on the way home, and bring some snacks!" you heard jeff's excited voice and you couldn't help but chuckle.

"damn, you really need a new computer." he said playfully.

"yeah, you don't need to remind me." you rolled your eyes and waved at him then left the building. it wasn't raining to your surprise, but the weather still was cold. you moved here 6 years ago but still couldn't get used to the atmosphere of the city. you missed hot california days.

you were walking with heavy steps. thinking about which excuse you should try on your boss tomorrow. you weren't like this. you were actually pretty punctual and disciplined at your work. but your ancient computer started to make things worse for you. and your current goal was buying a new computer.

you entered a market and bought some snacks for you and the boys. after about 25 minutes you were in front of their door. your cheeks were red as tomato. stone would sure make fun of it while jeff would say you look cute. and that's what happened.

"cut it out, stone. i went for forgetting about my problems but you yourself creating a problem for me" you said playfully while lying on their couch.

"did you go for finding excuses for your boss but realized that you used them all on him?" he smirked at you. damn, he really knew you well.

he was the first person you met in the city. you would just say good morning and good night when you encountered. it was until you were coming home with a large cardboard for your project. he was behind you and it fell on him accidently. you apologized continuously but he offered to help you with your project instead. that's how you became close.

one day a band named green river asked him to play guitar at their band. and that's how you met with jeff after. after two years he established a band called mother love bone. they were amazing and sure they had a huge impact on the grunge scene. everything was great until a couple of months ago, until andy's death. it hit all of you pretty hard, especially chris and love bone guys. you all knew that he was addicted but none of you saw it coming.

it took a while to guys recover. stone and jeff got into music again. they got together with stone's friend from high school, mike and matt from soundgarden. but matt couldn't fully commit to this new band due to playing with his band. after the audition, the guys asked to dave play with them. he agreed and they were looking for a singer now. all the guys who auditioned tried to sound like andy, but nobody could sound like him and they were looking for something unique.

you three were chilling and watching some TV currently. it helped you forget about your problems a little, it was until mike came with a tape.

"i have good news for you!" he cheered after jeff opened the door for him. "what is it?" stone asked mike.

"so i talked with jack, and he gave our demo to his friend, eddie. and he wrote lyrics for three songs. i got excited and listened to it alone and i'm telling you, we have to hire that guy!"

"woah woah, slow down there. let us listen to it first. hey, what time is it by the way?" stone asked.

"it's almost 6 pm" jeff answered and you gasped. "oh my, i won't make it through..." you whined. "what is it?" mike asked.

"i was working on my new project and my computer suddenly shut down, i'm so done with it but i have no choice but to continue with it." you answered.

"jeez, why don't you ask to borrow ours? the program you use is already on the computer. and i'm pretty sure ours's better than yours." stone suggested with sass. you rolled your eyes at him and watched him give you his computer and charger of it. "thanks, i'll return it in the early morning. bye, y'all!" you went to the door but mike called you from behind.

"wait, aren't you gonna listen to him?" showing the tape, you shook your head and gave an apologetic smile to them. "i already lost so much time, and i'm willing more to listen to him on live. it's like a surprise to me, yeah?"

after leaving their apartment you entered yours and got to work again.

after minutes, you swore you heard a familiar voice from the walls. "it must be their new singer..." you wandered to yourself.

a couple of weeks passed and this night, they were gonna play their first show with eddie. you wondered how he looked and sounded like. you loved making little surprises for yourself. you needed them for not to drown in this city.

after another exhausting day, you went to your home and took a quick shower then got ready for their show and left. when you were at the place, you saw soundgarden guys and went next to them. matt was smiling at you. "he has a great voice, don't you think so?" he asked. you shrugged, "i've never listened him, i refused. that's gonna be a surprise for me, you know?" he rolled his eyes at you playfully. then the show started. and oh,

oh...

that sure was a surprise to you, a big surprise.

you totally weren't expecting to see the love of your life on the stage. you recognized him immediately. your heart clenched watching him. he was looking gorgeous like he used to look 6 years ago. and his baritone voice... you remembered how he would play songs on an acoustic guitar and sing to you with his unique voice.

you missed him, you missed him so much. you couldn't get him out of your head, you didn't want to. you wanted everything to stay inside your head. you suddenly wondered if he was still remembering you. maybe he thought that he meant nothing to you so he got you out of his head. you hoped he didn't. but you didn't know how to face him. you knew you had to, he was in your friends' band now, after all.

your eyes met suddenly. your heart was beating like crazy. and you felt that your palms were sweating. he then looked away. you lowered your head.

did he remember you or he was just mad at you? you couldn't help but caress your locket. he was probably mad and found someone else.

when their show ended, you were smiling at them and clapping loudly like everyone else. they all were looking compatible together. you were happy for stone and jeff, and you knew they were going to be an impactful band.

instead of going backstage, you went outside. you could meet eddie tomorrow or another day. you just wanted to calm your clenching heart.

so you went to the exit without attracting attention. but when you looked at the stage for the last time, you saw eddie looking at you. you gulped and went outside.

after about twenty minutes, you were ready to go home, take a hot shower, wear your comfy pyjamas, and then sleep. but your plans fell through when you saw stone was dragging eddie to where you were standing.

"[name], this is our new singer, eddie." he turned his face to him. "and eddie, this is my next-door neighbor, [name]. but i suppose you already know each other. time to break the ice between you two!" he then left you two alone.

he knew, he god damn knew that eddie was your ex (you didn't know honestly what you two are). you would show him your photos with him and cry on his shoulder and telling him how much you missed him. of course he knew he was your ex when he first time saw him live. he probably wanted you two to meet again and break the ice.

"you were amazing at there." you started the conversation. he answered with a simple thanks. and you two went silent. an uncomfortable one.

"how did you find seattle?"

"not good, i guess. i used to live in sunny weather. i already missed old, hot, california days."

you smiled to yourself. "yeah, and i miss old chicago days." when you mentioned chicago, his face got serious. maybe because he had bad memories from there. the memories he wishes he could forget about.

"i don't care about chicago anymore." you were kinda hurt by his words but what could you say?

"eddie..."

"don't, don't start." he shut his eyes. your face dropped at his move. "look, you're just a great friend of my friends. that's what you are to me, nothing more." he coldly said and he turned his direction at the door.

"you don't even wanna listen the story from my point of view and that's not even fair!" you suddenly yelled at him. and made him look at you.

"after our first date, i thought i gave you my number. but instead, i actually gave you my house's number. and guess what? my family moved to michigan after i started college, and of course, they changed their number. i always wondered why you weren't calling me. i got furious and hurt. but then i realized that i gave you the wrong number.

after i finished the second semester, the first thing i've done was go to chicago and look for you. i asked some surfer guys about you, i asked musicians at the various bars, i looked for you. and finally learned that you went to south california not much after i left. i felt hopeless, but i never stopped loving you eddie, never. i don't know if it's even possible but i fell in love with you more."

you showed your locket and carefully opened inside. and his facial expression got soft when he saw the green seashell he gifted to you. "i never got you out of my head, i never got you out of my neck too." you then closed it and looked at him again. "i love you eddie, i've never stopped."

you saw his eyes watered and he just pressed his lips hard against each other. "i thought, i thought i was your little toy."

you shaked your head and smiled at him. "like i said, you're more than a summer love to me." he looked at you. you could see regret from things he told you just now and longing. oh how much he wanted to hold you tightly and cry on your shoulder.

so he did, and you hugged him back. he was mumbling "i'm sorry, you know i actually care about chicago. it's the place we met after all. and you know you're more than a friend's friend to me. i love you, i never stopped loving you either. i thought you lied to me. i was furious but still continued to love you. i couldn't help it. i love you so much."

you were caressing his back gently. after he calmed down, you connected your foreheads. "i'm here and you're here from now on. we're here together." you whispered. he smiled, "and we will make new good memories together here." he responded. you rolled your eyes playfully. "this city isn't the best, but i believe we can make everything look good."

he nodded and looked at your lips. he wanted to kiss you so bad. but before you let him do so, you connected your lips instead. the kiss was full of longing and love.

after a couple of seconds, you heard someone's whistle at the back. when you two faced them they were clapping. of course, they were your friends. "don't you have to do something better?!" you yelled at them irritated.

"let's go inside." he smiled at you and intertwined your hands together.

— 2005

"so that's how me and daddy started dating again." you finished your story. your daughter's eyes got watered and you looked at her worriedly. "baby, what's wrong?" you quickly wiped her tears away.

"i-i'm just thinking *sob* what if daddy never actually recorded those demos? what if uncle stone never hired him? *sob* what would happen?"

"oh baby," you stood up from your chair and let her hug you from behind. not wanting to hurt her little brother, andy. you caressed her hair and kneeled carefully for planting a kiss on her forehead.

"we would find each other, no matter when. i promise, we're destined to be together forever. and you're destined to be our firstborn. i promise nothing would change."

you then heard someone opening the door. it was your husband. he put the groceries down and looked at you. "I'm home!" he cheered. your daughter ran to him quickly and wrapped her arms around his legs. he then kneeled to hold her up.

"what's wrong, princess?" he asked worriedly and then looked at you. you just smiled and went next to him, lying your head on his shoulder. his one arm was holding your daughter while his other hand was wrapped around your waist.

"i-i just love you so much, daddy. i love mommy so much too. i'm happy that i was born as your daughter." he laughed and kissed her cheek. "we love you so much too, princess. and don't ever think that we're gonna love andy more. we'll love you both equally. and our love for you two will never change."

[splattergai]

Hello! We'd like to make a request for a headmate template!

There's a species one of our headmates remembers from their timeline - it's called a starsinger, and it's an alien whose consciousness originates in outer space but is drawn towards planets that have music on them and takes a form based on a song. We'd like one of "Moonlight Drive" by the Doors! (Although if you know any other songs by the Doors, please feel free to incorporate inspirations from those too! As well as any knowledge or vibes you have about psychedelic rock.)

I imagine them as having had a timeline where they came to Earth (specifically California) in 1968 (the year after the song came out) and got involved with music, either playing in bands and/or as a music reviewer/journalist. We would also like if they'd had period-typical addictions but recovered from them and now has a system role that has to do with managing addiction recovery, since that applies to us in this life.

They'd be an age slider whose youngest age is 21 (the age that starsingers are when they take form on Earth) and whose oldest age is the age someone who was young in the 60s/70s would be now. Other roles we'd like them to have include interest holder (for classic rock/music in general - they like older music the best but want to learn about all music) and socializer (or at least have them be pretty social; we go to concerts and karaoke a lot and I think an alter like this would enjoy that).

Feel free to give them non-binary genders/neopronouns, interests/aesthetics that fit the time period, and some connection to space (including the moon, I'm sure they loved seeing the moon landing). For orientation, we'd like them to be asexual and not romantically interested in binary women, ideally some kind of aro-spec. Also objectum for musical instruments and/or music itself!

Thank you for your time!

Name(s): Apollo, Ranger

Age: Age Slider (21-55)

Species: Starsinger

Kin(s): Musickin (general)

Pronouns: they/them, ne/nymph, rock/rocks, stone/stones, dream/dreams, moon/moons, luna/lunas, star/stars

Gender(s): Bassguitagender, endversic, moonguardilyrical

Orientation: Asexual polyromantic aliquaromantic, soundrum, music box objectum, guitarum

Other: Harmonic Attraction, electric guitar soundstelic

Role(s): Interest Holder, Musicnaut, Addiction Manager

Likes: looking at NASA photos, stargazing, concerts, singing, karaoke, space

Dislikes: Complete silence (the kind where absolutely no noise is going on, including ambient noise)

Sign-Off: 🌓🎸

Description: Often will attend social music related events such as karaoke, open mic nights, and concerts and engage with the people there. Really enjoys talking to other people about their music tastes and learning about the history behind each genre. Has a very diverse music taste, but prefers classic rock and stuff from their time period. Their style often includes dark blues and purples, sometimes also using brighter colors as accessories in order to intimidate space. They're very kind and understanding to others. Uses their experience from their addiction recovery experience to help the rest of the system manage current addiction recovery. Rants to others regarding facts about space, and keeps up with astronomy news.