#so I started a whole new piece after getting your info on Sunday

[midnight-leaf]

@pk-freezer-burnt I am your @mlsecretsanta backup gifter!

This is my first time participating in the event, I hope you like this Marichat piece! It was so great to draw something cute and fun, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed working on it.

Thanks for waiting, happy Valentine’s Day!

[sublimecatgalaxy]

Read It and Weep- Part 2

Pairing: NFL!Player!Rafe Cameron x Journalist!Reader

Summary: After a week of chaos, the Reader goes to interview their team during practice, chatting with them all about their win and their hopes for the next few Playoff games. But when the team sees how Rafe and Y/n interact, they decide to mess around a bit.

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Violence, swearing, flirting, sexual tension.

Song: 'Bubbly' by Colbie Caillat

A/n: I'm so excited for this part. I love their interaction and I love writing their flirty moments. It's gonna get steamier from here on in so hold on! @tee-swizzle, here's your babydaddy.

I got so many messages following Sunday’s game.

Instagram, snapchat, twitter, my email was even blowing up along with text messages rumbling in from nearly every single person that I know along with people that I had never met before. 

There was this sudden interest in my life. People who really never wanted anything to do with me in high school now want everything to do with me, tickets to games, behind the scenes info, all the things that I would give them if we were actually friends but we’re not. Old family members that I didn’t talk to anymore except for birthdays and holidays were suddenly so interested in my job, wanting to read everything I’ve ever published. 

There were even tweets left by other football players on my most recent tweet that I posted, addressing the loads of questions about my state and about whether I’m okay or not. I just simply stated that I’m okay and don’t need any medical interventions and that Rafe was a gentleman for helping me up. I only made the post in the first place because half of the people that commented or reached out were concerned that Rafe had actually hurt me when he took me down when indeed, it was just my pride. Had I known that by posting that, I’d be getting interaction from every football player out there, I wouldn’t have posted it to begin with, especially with the incessant jokes they’ve left on my page- jokes that have attracted news stations in our area along with NFL commentators.

Rafe Cameron’s new woman?

Was the run in between sports journalist Y/n Y/L/N and Rafe Cameron planned to act as  a sort of ‘hard launch’?

Does Y/L/N have it out for Rafe Cameron’s wide receiver paycheck? 

The jokes started with Rafe’s own team, the team who’s known me as their faithful journalist, all turning against me to make jokes at my expense about how I ‘fell for Cameron’ and even made jokes about making our ‘ship name’ on shirts and hats for the whole team to wear. 

Given their track record, I assumed that they’d do it. 

But it did bother me, to see people all of a sudden equate my worth to one incident with a person that I barely know, chalking up our ten minutes of conversation into this huge love story where I’m the desperate damsel and he’s this loverboy giving me the chance of a lifetime, a chance to ‘be with him’, even though neither him nor I have talked to each other since the whole incident.

I got people asking me for interviews left and right, newscasters begging me to come on their shows and podcasts to speak about my opinion of the Rafe Cameron. I even got a call from my own manager asking if I would write a piece on Rafe and I almost agreed but then I wondered how weird it would be for him to read an article written by the girl that he flirted with during a whole entire conference and also toppled over when winning one of the most important games of the season. 

I came up with the alternative that I would go and interview all of the players as a whole during their at home practice before we all hop on a plane and go to Boston for a playoff game. My boss was on board and claimed it would bring in enough publicity, especially since half the country is looking forward to hearing Rafe and I interact, pining after us like we’re some fictional romance or as if I’m a contestant on a TLC dating show. 

My heels click against the concrete of the tunnel and my stomach only hurts more and more the closer I get to the literal light at the end of the tunnel. I can hear the men yelling and running around and I can already picture the bright smiles on all of their faces, knowing how excited they get for interviews. They’ll do anything for a break. 

I’m going to be honest, the amount of effort that went into my outfit, make up and hair was probably a little bit excessive but there’s a part of me that wants to do what everyone’s been talking about all over social media; knock Rafe off his feet. It was such a confidence boost to see Rafe completely and utterly enthralled in my very presence at the conference and I’d be stupid to ignore the follow request in my instagram right now, from him. 

When I stepped out into the sun, I’m immediately caught off guard by a bunch of whistles sung into the air, my neck craning to look at the bench with a teasing look, watching the huge men lining the bench wave sweetly at me with feigned affection. I give them an awkward wave in return as they all begin to shout individually; 

“Hey Cameron! Your girlfriends here!”

“Rafe, your girl’s here to see you.”

“Your baby mama's here, Rafe!”

“Baby mama- what?” I giggle breathlessly and under my breath, watching Rafe slip his helmet off and he jogs towards me. Before he can reach me, I take a step back, holding a teasing hand up to his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath my fingers. “Don’t want you taking me down again.” He looks shocked for a moment before he laughs sheepishly, eyes rolling at my obvious taunting and he takes a step back with his arms raised in surrender. 

“Jesus, it was one time.” He scoffs, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck, a gentle blush sweeping across his cheeks cutely. “I’m never gonna get past that am I?” My head shakes rapidly at him with a huge, proud grin, reaching out to pat his shoulder, feeling sparks beneath my fingers. 

“Never, nope. Not when the whole internet is talking about it.” A look of realization passes across his face and I can see the images of the tweets and articles pass through his eyes and I imagine the same, picturing all of the snapshots that the cameramen managed to take of us and, to be honest, it took everything in me to not save them to my phone and send them to my dad who still refuses to believe that Rafe and I actually talked, even after hearing the post-conference conversation and the actual tackle in the first place. 

“Correction, talking about us.” He grins, swaying gently on his feet while pointing a finger between the two of us and I tilt my head at him with a dumb smile.

“What us?”

“Ouch Cameron, she’s got you wrapped around her little, talented finger.” Greg approaches us quickly and without warning, swooping an arm around Rafe’s shoulder as he gives me a handsome smile and a wink. Rafe’s soft expression drops almost immediately and it doesn’t go without noticing the way his shoulders tense the minute Greg appears, his hungry eyes staring at me like a predator would look at its prey.

“Hi Greg.” I smile politely, ignoring the way that Rafe takes a step closer to me, glazing over at me as I pull my notepad out, prepared to give Greg my typical interview questions but he speaks before I can ask any questions.

“Hey, sweetcheeks. Are you here to interview us? Coach said something about it.” Greg asks, turning to look at Rafe with a shit eating grin and Rafe sighs, shoving his friend away from him and taking another protective step towards me, arm brushing against mine and it sends goosebumps down my spine.

“Yeah, I wanted to chat with some of you during practice, get some lines about the playoffs and winning last week's game.”

“Oh you mean the game where you won a buddy-boy's heart?” Greg winks at Rafe and Rafe clears his throat awkwardly, looking down at his feet with a tired smile. I pick up on the tension that’s between them, as if something’s happened in the last week that I’ve seen them. They’ve been fine all season, all buddy-buddy, a cute bromance, but today I can see the discomfort practically oozing out of Rafe as he stands so closely beside me. 

“Get the fuck out of here, Greg. You’re the fucking quarterback, you need practice more than any of us.” Rafe shoves him away and turns to me, ignoring the questioning look that his friend gives him and I make a mental note to write down the ‘tension’ that appears to be wracking through the team as the playoffs come and go.

“Ouch, baby needs a nap.” Greg sends me a wink and a pervish smile, shoving Rafe towards me as he stumbles and I reach out to steady him, hands gripping his strong shoulders. 

“Sorry about him. He’s a pain.” Rafe mutters, returning to his normal position across from me, still standing closer than before but keeping an honest distance between us, something my mom would call ‘leaving room for Jesus’ and, I’ll be honest, the closeness, the protectiveness, is extremely attractive and refreshing to see, especially from Rafe who’s already so strong and protective as is. And incredibly hot if I might add, not much room for Jesus here.

“Oh really? Couldn’t tell.” I laugh, reaching out to pat his shoulder in an attempt to console him and his shoulders roll in an attempt to loosen up a bit, jaw slacking. He laughs sheepishly at me with a soft smile, hooded eyes sweeping to look down at the ground and I can just make out the blush on his cheeks as he turns to look back at the team that’s still practicing.

“You’re funny. And stunning. You look different than your typical get-up.” His eyes shift to look over me once more, this time ten times more obvious than he did when he first approached me but not nearly as obvious as Greg’s eyes on my boobs.

“You know what my typical getup is?” I ask with an honest tilt of my head, teasing him but at the same time, it makes me wonder if he’s truly been paying attention to me longer than last week. The thought makes me think back to every single outfit I’ve ever worn in front of him, remembering the one time I wore a pretty embarrassing spongebob shirt to practice one day after I had woken up, completely and utterly hungover.

“I pay attention.” He shrugs with a coy smile.

“To a random journalist?”

“To a random beautiful woman? Yes.” His flirting is incessant but I have to give him credit because he is possibly one of the most sweet talking, charming people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He seems to know just what I want to hear and just what will have my heart racing. “Most distracting thing on the field.” He bumps me with his shoulder and I grin vividly, hands reaching up to rest on my cheeks to conceal the heat coming from them. “Did you get my follow request?”

“We should talk about the game.” I laugh awkwardly, suddenly feeling so comfortably claustrophobic in his shadow and I’m so close to him that I could just lean into him and fit my body into his. I bet his body would fit against mine like Cinderella's slipper. 

Isn’t that what they’re calling us? A match made in heaven?

“Fine, fine. I’ll reel it in a bit.” 

We fall into a comfortable silence, both of us turning to watch the players on the field, tossing the ball back and forth and running drills- but what gets my attention is the noises coming from the bench and I turn my head to see four of the players making faces at Rafe and I and clutching their chests in cute affection.

“Don’t look now but they’re making kissy faces at us.” I whisper to Rafe and he scoffs, giving them a simple look out of the corner of his eyes before he leans down to me, whispering against the shell of my ear and it has me gulping in breaths of air.

“Ignore them. They’re pussy-sober which makes them sad and stupid.” I giggle, shoving him away from me with wide, playful eyes.

“Oh and you’re not?” His lips part in a look of shock but a pleasant shock as his dropped jaw slowly turns into a bright smile, his head once more lulling forward as he avoids looking at me out of pure embarrassment. 

“Ouch, Y/l/n.” He whispers, reaching up to pat his chest with a pout. “You wound me.”

“And you literally wounded me.” Folding my arms across my chest he pouts with furrowed brows, hands reaching out to rest on my shoulders as he gives me another once over, almost as if he’s looking for injuries though I think the real reason is to just have another reason to look at me.

“Fuck, I asked if you were hurt, you said you were fine. Are you okay? Do you need to get checked out, I’ll pay-” He starts but I reach up to place a hand on his chest, cutting his words off and instead he’s now tuned in on the fact that I’m touching him, his heart rate speeding up beneath my touch.

“Rafe, it’s a big bruise on my hip. I’ll live.”  

The coach calls Rafe over almost immediately before Rafe can ask to see the wound on my hip and I’m glad that he did because the last thing I wanted was for him to see how big the bruise is and how big of a baby I actually am. How he was already so ready to take care of me, help me pay for medical care- I’m beginning to wonder if he’s just like this or if he’s just like this with me.

It’s fun to watch him play, watch him sprint across the field and catch the ball effortlessly, nine times out of ten falling dramatically to the ground after catching it and looking back at me with wide, excited eyes, almost asking ‘did you see that?’ It makes me appreciate his roots, the fact that at one time, he was just a little boy playing flag football and winning high school games and now he’s with the big boys, making all of his dreams come true. It’s quite the tearjerker. 

“Hey, Y/n!” Rafe calls out suddenly, startling me from my note taking and I spot him running towards me with a ball. “Wanna learn how to throw?” He asks, tossing me the ball and I grin down at it, feeling the worn leather beneath my hands as Rafe’s pupils dilate a bit watching me, his hands moving to grip at the neckline of his jersey.

“Is this a part of the interview?” I ask teasingly, tossing the ball back in his direction and he rolls his eyes dramatically. “You don’t throw the ball, Rafe-”

 “You can just say ‘I was shown exactly how Rafe and Greg do what they do and look great while doing it.” He winks and I scoff at him, turning my head just to hide the shit eating grin on my lips that seems to be a permanent thing around him. “C’mon.” He reaches out to take my hand gently in his as he begins to walk backwards, taking me further onto the field with every step I take. “Please?” He pleads, thumb brushing against my hand as I ponder for a moment, weighing the pros and cons but when I come up with nothing, I give him a simple shrug, taking the ball from him with a grin. 

“Why not?”

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Series Tags: @onedayatatime6 @hysteriahall @littlefirefly08 @hanniebee33 @imsorare @acatwriteshere

[unoriginalmess]

Untitled Feralnette Fic Ch. 1

Hiya there anyone who happens upon this first chapter of this fic. I would like to start out by saying that this is my first fanfic ever. I've been wanting to write a fic for the miraculous fandom for a while but I haven't had any inspiration until I stumbled upon this glorious AU created by @bigfatbreak. I highly suggest checking out all of their posts about this au because they are hilarious and genius and about 100 other amazing adjectives that could be used to describe them and their posts. Anyways enough with my rant and let's get on with the fic. ⚠️Slight angst⚠️ ⚠️Swearing⚠️

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When Marinette got home after her and Luka's breakup, all she could do was cry. She wanted to be with him, but her Ladybug duties came first. If lying is a deal breaker for him, then maybe it was best that they ended it now while their relationship was still in its early stages. Still, she couldn't help but feel the loss of her first relationship. She ended up crying for a whole entire day. She just hoped that Hawkmoth(or Shadowmoth or whatever the fuck he wanted to be referred to as this week) wasn't feeling particularly akuma-y today, because she didn't know if she could bottle up all these feelings, even though the world is relying on her ability to do so.

Ugggghhh!! It has been exhausting having to be "happy and perfect Marinette" and "happy and perfect Ladybug" All. The. Time. She's also pretty sure that Hawkmoth had discovered the similarities in her personality as Marinette to Ladybug, and that's why she's been targeted by multiple akumas lately. She has had to have her emotions under control even more than usual. If only there was a way to get Hawkmoth to stop targeting her. Maybe she should just not give a fuck anymore. Haha as if! It couldn't be that easy! Could it?

The more she thinks about it the more it starts to make sense. If she just let herself go completely crazy as Marinette, she would be killing like 10 birds with one stone. She would get hawkmoth off of her trail, she wouldn't have to deal with having to hide her emotions all of the time, she wouldn't have to deal with the added stress of maintaining her perfect persona, she wouldn't have to deal with the stress of Lila's lies taking her friends away if she didn't have friends in the first place, and so much more stress would be taken off of her plate! It was perfect! It might hurt a little at first, but it's for the best in the end. She spent that night planning out her outfit for tomorrow, doing her homework, and going to sleep knowing that, in the morning, François Dupont isn't gonna know what hit them.

....

Adrien Agreste had been having a rough week. He had been abandoned on patrol by ladybug, been broken up with by his girlfriend, and was feeling completely and utterly alone. He knows that his lady has been feeling overwhelmed by her guardian duties lately, and that he 100% deserved that verbal lasting that kagami had given him but he couldn't help but feel this way. He was also feeling guilty about lying to kagami and leading her on for so long. After she broke up with him he took some time to assess his feelings for her and realized that he had more of an admiration for her than an infatuation. He definitely didn't feel the same way about her that she felt about him. She told him that she LOVED HIM, and he was so distracted (blinded) by ladybug that he didn't even process her confession. So, he was looking forward to Sunday morning. He cleared his schedule and on that beautiful Sunday morning, he did what he is only allowed to do on very rare occasions: sleep in. Or at least... thats what he had planned on doing.

When Nathalie had knocked on his door that morning Adrien was not in a good mood. He vaguely heard her say something about father wanting him downstairs in some amount of time for something involving a business partners child and some other robotic sounding words that his half asleep brain couldn't process completely.

"I have a cleared schedule this morning, Nathalie. What could father possibly want me for that is more important than my precious sleep?" He asked snappily.

"Your father wants you downstairs to welcome the new guest that will be living in the house for the rest of the school year. You have 15 minutes to make yourself look presentable and I suggest leaving the attitude upstairs," she half informed/half reprimanded him. As she walked away, Adrien reluctantly rose from his nice warm bed and went to go get ready with only one thought racing through his mind: Who could possibly be staying with them?

....

Felix Culpa was not looking forward to living at the Agreste mansion for the rest of the school year, but for their parents' sake they would do what they had to. It wasn't all for their parents either, they were also concerned about the strange "dissapearance" of Emilie (who was his aunt in all ways except blood relation) and about the treatment of Adrien since said "disappearance".

You see, Felix Culpa is the heir to the Culpa Fabric Empire. The Culpas have been the sole fabric supplier of the Agreste brand since the very beginning. Felix's mom Diana was best friends with Emilie since their college days. Diana and Emilie made the deal with the two brands because as best friends who are both involved in the same industry, it just made sense to have a business relationship with each other. Diana never really cared for Gabriel as a person, but she could tell that he loved Emilie more than anyone else in the world so she could tolerate him for the sake of her best friend.

When Emilie went missing, Diana was absolutely devastated and tried anything she could to find her. She invested in missing person ads as large as billboards, organized search teams, tried to aid the police in their search for her in any way she could, but there was no leads, no legitimate calls to the number on the billboards, and the search team came up empty handed. While she was doing all of this to try to find her, she couldn't help but be furious over the fact that Gabriel was doing nothing to help in the search. All he did was hole himself up in his oversized mansion and call it a day.

The last straw for Diana was when Gabriel tried to use the "grieving my wife" excuse to try to abuse their business arrangement. That day, she told him that the Culpa brand would no longer be associated with the Agreste brand and that after the new collection is released, he would need to find a new fabric supplier. She knew that the Agreste brand would take a huge hit from having sub-par fabric, but she never thought that Gabriel would try to make up for that fact by using Adrien as a walking mannequin and locking him up in the desolate prison that he calls a home. As soon as she realized that he was doing this she scrambled to find a solution.

That is how Felix ended up here, standing in front of the mansion they would be living in for the next 9 months in exchange for Gabriel getting back into the Culpa brand's good graces. Don't get them wrong, they were excited about being able to be in Paris, home of the most innovative fashion pieces in the world, and about being able to see their honorary cousin Adrien (who wasn't half bad to be around despite him having no backbone whatsoever when it came to anything involving his father) but dealing with Mr. Agreste was definitely one of the low points of this arrangement.

They decided to just get it over with and knocked on the door. It was opened by the man that their cousin affectionately referred to as Gorilla. They nodded a thank you to the man, remembering that he was a man of few words, and proceeded to the bottom of the staircase. Mr. Agreste stood at the top with a very tired looking Adrien a few steps down. Felix wasn't even slightly surprised that this is where he chooses to welcome his guests, looking down on people must give him some sort of power trip or something. It's almost as if he heard the phrase "It's over, Anakin, I have the high ground," and made that his own personal motto. Whatever, let him have the feeling of false power if he wanted it, Felix knows that they have all the power in this situation and they're sure that Gabriel knows it as well.

"Hello Felix," Mr. Agreste greeted them with the same amount of warmth in his voice as liquid nitrogen, "while you are staying in this house you will abide by my rules. Adrien will inform you of them and show you to your room. You will attend school with him in the morning and I'm sure that you already know that you must represent not only the Culpa brand, but also the Agreste as well. I will be in my office working, do not disturb me. Contact Nathalie with any questions that cannot be answered by Adrien." He finished his spiel and left to what Felix assumed was his office space.

"Hello Felix!" Adrien greeted him with as much enthusiasm as he could muster in his sleepy state. "Come with me and I'll show you to your room."

Adrien led Felix to their room and listed all of the rules of the household that they were expected to follow. And... wow. Felix could not believe that their cousin had to live like this. The only social interaction this kid gets is at school and fencing? Pre-approved outings only with people determined socially acceptable by Gabriel? And if he gets even one "B" he isn't even going to be allowed to go to school at all? Felix knew that the living situation was bad for Adrien but know the only question running through their head was: What did they get themselves into??

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And... thats it for chapter 1! Mostly background info at this point, but next chapter will be the class' reaction to feralnette and felinette meeting for the first time. I just want to say thanks again to @bigfatbreak for giving me the inspiration to write a fic for the first time ever. Feel free to leave constructive criticism, I'm always looking to improve, especially at writing since this is my first time posting anything I've written online, so I want to get better so that I can make better content for you guys, gals, and non-binary pals. If anyone wants to be tagged just let me know and I'll make a tag list for ya. :)

[jobean12-blog]

Two Good Dogs

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader (Veterinarian AU) 

Word Count: 1,222

Summary: You meet Steve at the dog park :)

Author’s Note: This is for the HBC’s @the-ce-horniest-book-club​ continuation of drunk drabbles and the prompt below from the lovely @this-kitten-is-smitten​ as well as the 24 hour surprise drabble challenge with the theme of AU’s! I picked veterinarian because OMG STEVE WITH ALL THE ANIMALS! hehe Hope you enjoy it and thank you all for reading! Much love always ❤❤❤

Warnings: Lots of fluffy fluff love and sweetness, soft flirting and CUTE DOGGOS! :) 

The dog park is empty when you arrive, the morning air still cool from last night and the grass wet with dew. You open the gate, letting your dog off her leash to run. She takes off and starts doing laps with her ears flying behind her. Placing your bag on the bench you take out her ball and call her over.

The two of you are so engrossed in your game of fetch that you haven’t noticed the newcomers. But the clink of the gate catches your attention and Sadie takes off to greet her new friends. Before you know it, the dogs are running circles around each other, jumping and playing and completely oblivious to all else.

You’re still laughing and smiling at the pair when you hear a deep voice, “hey.” You quickly turn to the stranger, the reply getting stuck in your throat when you get a look at him. With a shake of your head you regain your composure, “hi, cute dog!” He chuckles under his hat and sits down. “Thanks, yours too.” You can feel your cheeks warm under his gaze.  

He holds out his hand, “I’m Steve and that’s Dodger.” He calls his dog over with a whistle and commands him to sit. “Nice to meet you both. I’m y/n. This is Sadie.” Dodger squeezes his butt between your legs silently asking for scratches. You happily oblige and start rubbing him all over. You try to focus on Dodger, but your eyes keep drifting over to Steve. His tee shirt is pulled tight over his chest and his full beard looks so soft.  “You’re so handsome Dodger! Just like your dad huh?”

You’re already so in love with Dodger you don’t even realize what you’ve said. Sadie finally has enough and nudges you to throw her ball. They both take off after it in a frenzy of twirling tails and wagging tongues. “So, you think I’m handsome?” His question catches you off guard and you shoot him a confused look.

“I what?” His blue eyes are bright with mirth as a grin grows under his beard. The last 2 minutes come flooding back to you and your mouth hangs open, feeling so completely embarrassed you don’t know what to say. “I said Dodger was handsome like his dad, didn’t I?” Steve shakes his head yes, his eyes crinkling at the sides as he tries to hold back his laughter.

“If it makes you feel any better, I think you and Sadie are beautiful.” Your mouth snaps shut, and you drop your head, trying desperately to hide your blush. “Thanks, that’s sweet.” Fortunately, the dogs come back to the bench and distract you for the moment. Steve stands and you it gives you a chance to admire how nicely his ass fills out the pants he’s wearing.  “You two want to go for a walk with us? I know a really nice path around here.”

Clearing your throat, and hopefully your shameless thoughts, you stand and grab Sadie’s leash with a smile, “we’d love to.” The four of you walk for most of the morning talking and laughing and just enjoying each other’s company. It’s almost lunch time when you make it back to the car. “I had a really nice morning. Can I get your number, I’d love to see you again?”

Steve winks and gives you a hopeful look. “Sure. That would be great.” You exchange info and say goodbye with the promise of talking soon. The rest of your Saturday is uneventful and the next morning you head back to the dog park in the hopes of spotting Steve. You hang out for over and hour, but he doesn’t show up.

Trying not to get yourself down you and Sadie keep yourselves busy with laundry and preparations for the work week. It isn’t until the middle of the night Sunday that things get worse. Sadie wakes you with a whimper and you notice she keeps licking her front paw. You turn on the light and do your best to inspect it but can’t seem to find any problems. Cleaning it off and bringing her onto the bed you try to get some sleep, knowing tomorrow you’ll be taking her to the new emergency vet clinic near you.

The receptionist is so friendly and tells you to come in before they open so Dr. Rogers can see you first. You’re eternally grateful and quickly shower and get dressed before helping Sadie into the car. You arrive right on time, thanking everyone over and over before sitting in the waiting room.

You’ve only been there 5 minutes when the tech calls your name and shows you to a room. “Dr. Rogers will be right in.” A soft knock sounds and the door opens. You lock eyes with the same baby blues from Saturday, his surprise mirroring your own. Sadie tries to go to him, but she whimpers and limps and you both rush to her side. “Oh no, what’s wrong with my beautiful girl. Here, I’m just going to pick her up and put her on the table.”

Steve carefully lifts her, his eyes finding yours again as he gently pets and calms her. “Hi again.” You smile softly, rubbing Sadie behind the ears, “hi Steve. I guess this is one way to make sure the handsome guy from the dog park doesn’t forget me.” The tech comes in before Steve can answer, asking what he needs. After a quick conversation Steve’s attention is back on you.

“First of all, you called me handsome again.” Fighting your blush, you decide to flirt back. “I know! It just slipped out,” you tease, and what’s the second thing?” This time he doesn’t hold back. “There was no way I could forget you. In fact, I would have been at the dog park yesterday had I not been working, which I imagine is where you were because Sadie has one of those damn cedar pieces stuck in her paw.”

The whole time you two had been talking he was examining her, having found the small piece of wood. “Oh no! I don’t understand why they use that stuff!” Steve calls for the tech and they quickly remove the piece and clean her up. “I know. We get so many dogs in here with those damn things stuck somewhere.”

Once Sadie is all taken care of and you’re done checking out, Steve walks you to your car. “So, there was one more thing I wanted to tell you…” he says, trailing off. Sadie sits down between the two of you and you absentmindedly pet her. “What’s that Dr. Rogers?” He rubs the back of his neck, suddenly acting shy. “I’d really like to take you out. Somewhere nicer than the dog park or my office.”

Sadie barks and you both laugh, Steve’s eyes sparkling in the sun. “I think that was Sadie’s way of saying yes for me.” Steve kneels to scratch her butt and she twists around to give him a big wet kiss. “Definitely a yes! I’ll text you tonight so we can figure out when.” You take Sadie’s leash and move her from the spot between you, leaning up and kissing his cheek. “Sounds great, I’ll talk to you tonight. And tell Dodger we said hi.”

@aesthetical-bucky​ @auro-ora​ @bugsbucky​ @book-dragon-13​ @buckys-broody-muffin​ @buckys-henley​ @buckys-minty-breath​ @bucky-on-my-mind​ @breezy1415​ @eurynome827​ @emilylyoness​ @hiddles-rose​ @donutloverxo​ @hawksmagnolia​ @hailmary-yramliah​ @ikaris-whore​ @itsunclebucky​ @imgaril-lindru​ @jhangelface0523​ @jewels2876​ @kaosera​ @loricameback​ @littledarlinhavefaithinme​ @littleredstarfish​ @lorilane33​ @mushyjellybeans​ @marvelandotherfandomimagines​ @marvelgirl7​ @nano--raptor​ @pinkdiamond1016​ @randomfandompenguin​ @sallycanwait68​ @tales-of-spring​ @tuiccim​ @the-wayward-robot​ @yansi1923​ @survivor-reborn​ @hopefuldreamers-world​ @lokilvrr​

[team-zoey-has-two-hands]

writing max richman as jewish: a beginner’s guide

hey y’all! as a jewish person, i haven’t really seen much content in this small but still growing fandom we have that depicts max as jewish other than an offhand mention, and while that’s also essentially what we have in canon, i thought it would be nice for goyim (non jewish individuals) to know how to write him in accordance to judaism.

let’s begin!

a bit about denominations

there are multiple branches of judaism, just like christianity. the most notable branches include:

orthodox (traditional judaism, these are your people going by the old law and believe that old laws hold true and don’t change)

reform judaism (your people that believe that judaism Has to change and evolve with the times)

there are other branches such as conservative and reconstructionist that are kind of in the middle of these two, but reform and orthodox are definitely the largest and they’re essentially the furthest to each ‘side’ of judaism (conservative errs a bit more to the orthodox side, and reconstructionist to the reform side).

the creator of the show, austin winsberg, grew up a reform jew, so one could assume that max, too, is reform.

one more thing about denominations: messianic judaism is NOT a form of judaism. messianic judaism is both a way to forcibly convert jews to christianity and for goys to appropriate our culture by slapping jesus on our culture and holidays with little care or kindness. do NOT have max as a messianic jew, and remember that they are NOT actual jews.

a bit about holidays

hanukkah (also spelled chanukah) is not, contrary to popular belief by goyim, the largest and most important jewish holiday. basically, it is not jewish christmas, nothing is jewish christmas. hanukkah is actually a rather small holiday in the grand scheme of things. do NOT, however, make max celebrate christmas, no matter how small hanukkah actually is. he and zoey can have joint hanukkah & christmas celebrations if they want, but under no circumstances does he celebrate christmas.

the largest and most important jewish holidays are the high holidays, rosh hashanah and yom kippur . rosh hashanah is the jewish new year (judaism has a different calendar, at the time of writing this in july 2020 it’s 5780, but jewish people use the secular calendar. the jewish calendar is used mostly for ceremonial purposes, such as determining holidays, torah portions, and the like). yom kippur is the holiest day of the year, and it’s when jewish people atone for their sins in the old year and start fresh for the new year.

the high holidays fall usually in september, and last three days. most jewish people, even those who don’t usually go to temple, will go to temple for these holidays. a thing you’ll see jewish people doing on these holidays is tashlikh, where we symbolically cast away our sins by throwing bread crumbs or rice into a body of water, which is a thing max could mention doing. another thing is that yom kippur is a day with a 25 hour fast, usually spent almost entirely in temple (yes, the entire day). after the fast, there’s a huge feast.

every saturday is shabbat, which is technically jewish sabbath, but it takes place from sundown friday to sundown Saturday. while christians can use electricity and even work on the sabbath, there are a whole list of things that you are not supposed to do on shabbat that qualify as working (called the 39 melachot), including using electricity and cooking. however, some modern jews have made allowances for using cars to get to shabbat services, since many people do not live within walking distance of a temple.

max says that he goes to temple, but we can probably assume that he’s not the most hardcore practicing jew, and you do not have to say that he’s not doing anything on saturday because of shabbat. many jews do not observe shabbat due to practical reasons, because we live in a secular world, where once it was very easy to practice shabbat, it is not now. many events in america are scheduled on saturday for christians who go to church on sunday, so keep that in mind.

another jewish holiday, passover, has a tradition of a ritual feast, called a seder, max could specifically invite zoey to his family’s seder. for more info on seders & other jewish holidays you’d like me to talk on, send me an ask!

a word on stereotypes

there is no law saying that you cannot portray a jewish character as a stereotype. but that doesn’t mean you won’t hurt people by doing that, especially if it’s a particularly harmful stereotype.

if your jewish character is dirty rich and horribly greedy with money and has no redeeming traits, that is not okay. that doesn’t mean that your jewish character cannot be rich. the DIFFERENCE is that you need to not portray things in a harmful way. so that greedy jew could be rich, but it would mean a lot, if you are a goy writing a jew, not making the character greedy. if your character HAS to be greedy and HAS to be jewish, something is wrong.

you can give max a jewish mother as a goy if you don’t go too over the top with it (take pointers from jewish writers, im glad to help you with this, myself), but please don’t give him a JAP sister if you can help it. also, don’t describe any family members as having hooked noses or droopy eyes or, god forbid, horns, and don’t have them constantly saying mazel tov.

something you CAN do: go ahead and use oy vey, if you’d like. you may also say oy vey gevalt, which is an oy vey telling of impending doom, and oy vey ist mir, which is just the non-shortened version of oy vey. it is also a YIDDISH saying, not hebrew, please keep that in mind.

religious texts

the torah is NOT the same thing as the bible. the torah itself only includes the Old Testament, but the torah is not the only bit of religious text.

the jewish bible is known as the tanakh, and it has three parts: the pentateuch (torah), the prophets (nevi'im) and the writings (ketuvim). the torah is the most important piece, however, and torah portions are read at temple every saturday from a priceless torah scroll, usually very old and always very very sacred. the other most important piece of jewish religious texts is the talmud, which is basically a bunch of books interpreting and explaining the tanakh. we love our religious texts so much, that we even have a whole holiday celebrating our religious texts where we take the torah scrolls out of a special case and parade them around with pride.

in conclusion:

if you have Any questions, any questions at all on how to write max (or any other character) as jewish, feel free to dm me or shoot me an ask! i would love to answer your questions, and no question is stupid. this is just the beginner’s guide, judaism is very complex and very rich and honestly amazing, and i do love to talk about it.

[1zashreena1]

Diego Requests an Audience -1

18+, m/f, technically OCxDiego Jimenez [Power]

Summary: Princess gets the rich bad boy equivalent of a call the next day from what she thought was a fairy tale of a one night stand.

WARNINGS: Ridiculous descriptions and 'the code is more like guidelines' outlook on grammar. Is it OOC if the character was given essentially zero development in canon???

Mentions of drugs/alcohol use, no actual smut in this one but references to multiple forms of sexual activity with m/f dynamics, plus size woman+fit man, early stage sugar daddy vibes, bad boys with too much money and not enough impulse control, secondary OCs, excessive swearing (???), illegal business dealings... I mean, its DIEGO

A/N: Princess took on a life of her own and has essentially become an OC. There are infrequent mentions of her description (specifically as plus size) and her actual name in later pieces (its Bicki). She started as self-insert so she looks like me. If that is not your thing, I totally understand. And do not feel obligated to read this, I will not be offended!

I'm not a fan of "plot" so be aware that most of this series is just meandering through their relationship, angst-fluff-smut whiplash style. But with dick jokes.

Constructive criticism is always welcome. I'm an old timer at Fandom but a baby content creator.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read @chelsfic Princess pieces first, that is the beginning.

https://chelsfic.tumblr.com/post/613340476058304512/princess-for-1zashreena1-diego-jimenez-x

https://chelsfic.tumblr.com/post/618297838815920128/princess-awakes-diego-jim%C3%A9nez-x-reader-ficlet

Last thing before Murder Panther, I promise!

Huge, tremendous, throbbing THANK YOU to @chelsfic​ !  My fanfic creator mommy, I could not and would not have done this without you or your devious reverse psychology  You're gonna have to thwack me super duper hard with a rolled up newspaper to get rid of me because ily.

Massive shoutouts to @symbiont13​ @rosee-sensuelle​ @bunnykjm​ @mandoplease​ @nicke0115​ (y’all know what you did)

You're sitting in your car on your lunch break listening to the same song for the seventh time in a row because that is a thing that you do. When you like something, you like it. The song has pounding bass, if you close your eyes you can almost imagine being in a club. You never did get to do much of that, your twenties were spent working two jobs and sleeping in your car sometimes, so your just passed birthday weekend escapade was really something else. You've never done anything like that before and it was-

Ding-DING

Your phone chirps with a text message from an unknown number. You peer at the screen with a furrowed brow, I don't know anyone in California, must be a wrong number. You open the message cautiously, who knows what kind of weirdness it might be. 

Good morning Princess

What. No. There is no way. Absolutely not possible. Un uhh. Nope.

You should come back to NYC. I want to have you again.

Holy fucking shit. Its really him. It's Diego. Its Diego of the big brown eyes, even bigger hands, and absolutely the biggest cock you have ever seen. Diego viciously-gorgeous stupefyingly-rich incredibly-dangerous exhaustingly-insatiable Jimenez. 

Whom you most definitely did not Google upon your return home only to discover that he is an international criminal. Yeah, he's criminally hot.

You really do wish that little voice in the back of your mind was helpful. 

Yes, but he was nice to you. Really not helpful. How many times did you even come that night? There was the bed, the floor, over the back of the sofa, the kitchen counter (which he referred to as 'snack time' because he ate, and wasn't that adorable), and then that kiss/invasion of your oral cavity before you left. After he made you breakfast. And gave you a pair of Ugg boots that were magically in your size because it was cold out. Okay, so he was REALLY nice.

Wait. I didn't give him my number, what the fuck.

Hi Diego

And you hit send before you can stop yourself. What in the actual fuck am I doing?

I knew you remembered me. 😉Come up here this weekend. I want you

He wants you. He said it himself. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Like, want-want? He saw you naked in broad daylight so he definitely knows what you look like. I want you, your mind just keeps repeating it. Hold up, is an international drug lord, cartel boss, top ten FBI most wanted man texting you with emojis???

I hadn't really budgeted on another trip so soon

Is that too much? Are you revealing your pathetic poor-ness and he definitely will not be into that?

Please🤚 Do you want to come?

Oh lordy, but he knows exactly how to word things. 

… I mean, yeah. Preferably repeatedly

Okay, yes, you've always been a pervert but something about this man only encourages you. Surely it wasn't how he laughed every time you made an innuendo. 

Then I've got you 💵😙 Princess👑

Do you want a hotel or stay with me?

Harrisburg is your nearest airport, yes?

Never before in your life have you had cause to use the word 'Baller' but here you are. Is he seriously going to fly me to him? Am I seriously going to go? What level of booty call is this?

Penthouse. Spoil me 😏

And yes Harrisburg. What are you going to do, fly me up there?? Lol

At this point you might as well see how far you can milk this. Also, apparently he knows where you live?

...yes. I have a private jet. I'll text you the info. We're going to have fun little girl😈

Well damn. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You send the entire conversation to Lisa in three screenshots. She calls you at 4:37 while she knows you're still in the car and you spend the entire drive home screaming together as best friends do. 

"I can't believe him! A private jet? Oh my god girl, you better bring home some stacks!"

"I know! Like, what the fuuuuuuuuuck! Lisa, Lisa, oh my god, Lis, what the hell should I pack?! Oh no, oh shit, I don't have any sexy pajamas!" Your high is coming crashing down. Its Tuesday, so you have two whole days to figure this out.

Her laughter is so loud it makes your speakers crackle. "After what you told me from that first night it sounds like you better pack a case of lube and an ice pack!" She dissolves into hysterics.

Well, she's not wrong. "Dude! I was so sore, I couldn't walk for days. This shit is BYOIP: Bring Your Own Ice Pack!" Lisa shrieks while you howl with laughter. 

"Okay, okay. Meet me at Macaroni Grill and we'll formulate a strategic plan of attack over carbs. We have to go to the Frederick's of Hollywood outlet." Lisa is already crafting a plan. 

"See, this is why you're my BFF!" You proclaim before you whip across three lanes of traffic to change course. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You take way more clothing than you could possibly need for a weekend but better safe than sorry. The private jet looks like it came straight out of a music video, you're afraid to even think about how much this costs. Hell, he even paid to have your car valet parked in the only locked and guarded parking garage at this tiny regional airport. There are all kinds of snacks and drinks on the plane, there's even a tiny galley and what looks like a daybed. Noted for later.

The driver who picks you up at the airstrip in New York is Bastian and he is pleasantly surprised that you talk to him. You're pleasantly surprised at how nice Escalades are on the inside. The last time you were in this vehicle you were a little, ahem, distracted.

Diego is extraordinarily pleased to see you wearing the Ugg boots he gave you. The man is all growly innuendo and (mostly) gentlemanly manners, the contrasts are mind-meltingly hot. The weekend passes in a blur of a good time; orgasms, a stroll through some really expensive stores, more orgasms, two clubs on Saturday night, another set of orgasms (Did I really let him finger me in a VIP booth??), your first time trying weed, a sleepy orgasm in a jacuzzi tub (Wet Diego, so gorgeous), the best brunch of your life, another first by having orgasms while on top of a man, and, just before you leave on Sunday evening, a very nice Brahmin purse that you gawked at in one of the stores on Saturday. 

Yet again, Diego corners you by the elevator and attempts to climb down your throat before you're allowed to leave. You have no complaints.

~~~~~~~~~~

The very next Monday you get an extremely sweet text very early in the morning thanking you for coming (all puns intended). Wednesday brings a cookie bouquet to your front door with a note stating that you don't seem like a flowers kind of girl. Incredibly early on Saturday morning is another text, he sounds like he might be a little drunk, confessing that he wants to do it again. 

You forward the message to Lisa with your own addition:

Look, all I'm saying is I'm gonna take this top shelf dick and all the gifts that come with it for as long as he wants to give it to me

It only progresses from there.

[jq37]

[obligatory recap ask]

**spoilers for subway skirmish and borough of dreams**

@kickmuncher3 and @galfast: ty for your asks, I’ll use them for the next two recaps. this is probably the least efficient way for me to handle this but I want to keep all of these visually consistent dammit. 

One of the funniest things about this season of D20 is most if not all of the cast has lived in NYC which manifests as very specific references and in character complaints that you just know come from a place of truth and experience. Which is to say we got a lot of that in these episodes.  

Also, this has nothing to do with anything but living in NY update: On Sunday, I saw a man hanging upside-down from a tree--by his feet--and playing the flute. And barely anyone registered it at all. So I really cannot stress enough how much New York is Like That.

Pete opening the fight by blasting a fireball and then telepathically calling out Kingston is--como se dice--a Power Move.

Brennan *immediately* channels the opposite of whatever energy Emily's on and goes right for Ricky's dog to the horror of everyone at the table and his absolute delight. Like, it's a spectral dog but still. Bro. Dog. 

Kingston taking the heat metal damage to get Epona to drop him is so raw. But then, for the rest of the fight, he doesn't say a single thing except for his Command spells which is a very different kind of raw. 

Question: Is Riz's mom the only good cop that exists in D20?

I know this was an RP ep and I know they knew it was gonna be an RP ep but I wonder what would have happened if they had pretended to cooperate with Epona to get more info. Probably just an extended RP ep that would have segued into this same fight eventually. But I'm curious about what information they let get eaten by a swarm of rats.

Misty's Irresistible Dance spell is very clutch. 

The gators from the last fight are back in the form of Kug's summons and one of them still has a grudge against Misty. Misty is all, "send me your resume!" because she appreciates the spunk. I was starting a sentence about what the hell play this sentient gator is going to be in but as soon as I hypothetically asked it my brain was like, "Peter Pan. Next question."

Y'all, this really was Kug's fight. Between calling the roaches, crocs, and gators, channeling Moonshine to call lightning, and killing Epona within 40 mins of the ep, he truly was on fire. Good for him. He also turns into a bear but specifically a bear that would have escaped from the zoo. It's the little details that make this show great. 

Brennan putting his foot down on tying rats together not being acrobatics is the eternal DM mood. 

Back to Epona for a second, do we think she was working for Robert directly? Someone connected to him? Something else? When her shadow split after Ricky's attack was that meaningful or just flavor? Where did that badge come from? Has it always existed? What does destroying it mean? It didn't seem to help. The bad cop ghosts were still around, just no one could control them at that point. If they had yoinked that badge, could they have had a summoning item that hey could use? Or is it bad karma to use something like that? Is it still bad if you're forcing the bad cops to do good stuff? Did Brennan anticipate this or is the Coach Daybreak 2: Electric Boogaloo? Lots of questions.

Misty's cutting words to the cop (saving Ricky) making the Law and Order "DUN DUN" noise is great. 

Emily ends up not needing to roll to make rat nunchucks because her health goes low enough that her magic ring activates but I feel like she low key wanted rat nunchucks. 

Wild that Kingston went down for just long enough for it to be cinematic before being revived by Misty ("Get up, old man,")

Also wild that this whole fight only took about 45 seconds of in game time. It makes sense if you think about it the way you would a movie and that's how most D&D fights are but that's so much play time for so little game time and it hit me this ep because I was actually keeping track of rounds. 

Anyway, I have not mentioned up until this point that the whole crux of this fight is to last long enough for Alejandro to roll high enough to summon the train to Nod but, long story short, Pizza Rat shows up to save the day. Does that make more sense in context? Marginally. 

I like that the train to Nod shows up on the wrong side of the tracks. Like I said, man. Details. 

Oh and to my above point about the cast making comments about NY as people who have lived in NY, I loved Brennan looking directly at the camera when he was going off on people who just stand at the door like idiots while you're trying to get in and then Siobhan pokes like half her head into frame so she can also stare directly into the camera. Mood.

When Ally said Pete shoots Kingston I half believed it for a good couple of seconds. I was right there with Lou. 

OK, so I don't know how many of you have watched Sharkboy and Lavagirl (and, if you haven't feel free to skip this bullet) but no movie has brought me more enjoyment overall than SB&LG. Not because it's good because it's not. But it's so insane that it's amazing. It's right in the sweet spot. I always say, if it was any better, it would be Spy Kids 3 and, therefore, unwatchable (SK 1 + 2 are dope as hell though, for the record). I bring it up because the way Brennan describes Nod reminds me a lot of Drool in SB&LG. Like, the rollercoaster subway car def could be in the same universe as the Train of Thought. This is all to say that I think Brennan could have written a version of SB&LG that was better without being worse. Idk if that comes across as complimentary, but it is, and to both parties actually. 

From the way Nod (the kid) is being framed (in this ep and the next) I know we're not supposed to mistrust him but, put in that situation, there is no way I would trust the gray faced, black eyed, creepily gliding dream child. 

Post fight, Kingston wants to offer an apology for what he said about Pete and Nod wants to apologize for putting Pete in his current situation. Also, the group decides to be more open in general. Kug, as most of us guessed, got beauty and the beasted for white collar crime by his business partner (Gabby) who is Esther's mom and a witch (also, Ricky thinks his crush on Esther is a secret which is just adorable and completely incorrect).  

Brennan cuts sharing time off because this is the combat episode dammit! Save it for next session. But, because I'm behind, next session is now! Let's get into The Borough of Dreams.

Misty, as a faerie, is instinctively mistrustful of vising other magical worlds and eating the food or taking things at face value. I love that she's playing a character where she can ask these questions and not be meta-gaming because I had some of the same concerns. 

Wildly, WALLY walks out of the train as he just happened to be on it (as conductor) at the time. Kug bursts out with the fact that he's his dad and Wally takes this to mean that Rat Jesus is his bio dad but, even after being left alone for so many years, he claims Bruce as his real dad. He's wrong but he's sweet. 

"I thought you were mad at me." Brennan, you didn't have to do that.

Murph clearly trying to not accidentally call Wally a piece of shit because that's his go to Kug way to describe things is so funny.

"We could turn me into a rat." WALLY

Kingston and Misty looking at each other like, "These absolute children," while Pete and Soph are making Brittney Spears references. 

So we find out what all of the magic stuff they picked up does. Misty's mirror can see invisibility. Pete's grill helps with persuasion. The thousand hour energy makes you immune to sleep for 42 days(!) The bagel can be used for divination or to essentially kill a person but spread their essence throughout the universe  (which low key sounds like a sacrifice someone might make to help cancel the spread of say an undead presence or a money virus). 

I want Ricky and Wally to be friends forever. 

Kingston's lack of connection to the dream world is so sad. Like, he's no nonsense but he's like NO NONSENSE. Like no nonsense possible. So he's just walking around like Eddie Valiant in Toontown. 

And, at the same time, the rest of the party is doing the MOST nonsense. Mary Poppins-ing into the sky. Misty is making out with the moon. Wild. 

SOBER SALAD

Ally drops the ketamine on the tomatoes line and Brennan fully breaks

Very sweet for Pete to bring Kingston a salad, even though that's such a random food to just have in your pocket(???). Why does salad keep coming up on this show? One more time and it's officially a motif.

So the dream world basically works on Sharkboy and Lavagirl/Xanth/Phantom Tollbooth/Wonderland/Toontown logic. If you've seen/read any of those, you basically have it down. 

"Only people with Sprint have service."/"Oh, amazing!" Brennan threw that softball out for anyone who wanted it and Emily, as usual, hit it out of the park.

Brennan very clearly knows his NY history. The mob boss (lucky Luciano, no not that one) that he mentioned during the sleeping with the fishes bit is a real dude and basically the dude who brought organized crime to the US (in the form we know it now). 

Ricky and the mints. Lord.

Anyway, the one item I didn't mention earlier is the holy grail detergent which can literally clean souls. Which sounds mighty interesting considering some of the other stuff that's come up this campaign. 

(Also, I wonder if you could use the bagel as spell components since it contains everything in the universe in microcosm).

I can't believe Pete was the one saying, "At least eat before you shotgun that 1000 hour energy." By the by, the 42 hour span of the energy drink makes me suspicious. Is that just for humor (and accurate math) or it this a Chekov's Gun kind of an item indicating some kind of time jump at some point? Ricky drinks it later in this ep so, if there's a clock attached to that, it's ticking. I'm prob reading into this but I assume if you're still reading these, this is what you're here for. 

Ally making sawing motions before being told an egg creme has nothing to do with eggs and is in fact a drink.

Pete! OK, so Pete has made some good steps in this ep, starting with promising to start reining in the drug usage. Later he works on his magic and also gets over Priya. This is the most endeared I've been to him all season. Especially his, "I try to do a good job," line. I felt that. 

"It's still open to you." Aw.

Brennan clearly saw the chance for a lore drop this ep and boy did it drop. Let's run through the highlights.

Nod dumped all this on Pete the way they did because it's super super hard to contact a Vox Phantasmus beforehand due the the natural, waking world inclination to brush off dreams. You have to have the job before you can talk to the boss. Cruddy system but that's how it goes. 

When Sophie said the thing about Robert Moses creating spaces that can't be accessed she meant by magic but it's an interesting way to phrase it because the irl Robert Moses is known for (allegedly, but like, it tracks) trying to keep black people out of certain spaces. 

Robert Moses sold his soul to Hell and Faerie which is why he's still alive it seems. No one wants to collect on his soul and anger the other party.

Whoever predicted that the golden door for Emma Laz's poem was the rectangle from episode one, collect your prize because it's confirmed in this ep. 

We learn about the ephemeral axiom which basically says, a dream can be all things but once it manifests, it's a single thing. (you might even say, "it is what it is".)

So another big thing we learn is that if a dream gets so big that manifesting them in the real world would break the game, it's called a Paragon. There are four total: Heaven, Hell, Faerie, and The American Dream. (Wild that The American Dream is the only country specific one that exists. Like, I rep my home team of course but the U.S. is a pretty latecomer to the country party. You'd think someone else might have gotten Paragon status at some point.)

"Was one of them the Grand Canyon?"

Anyway, dragging the American Dream into the waking world would fix the American Dream to mean one thing--I assume making tons of money if Robert Moses has his way. I'll admit, I was a  little fuzzy on the mechanics of this on my first watch-through because pulling the American Dream into the real world sounds like it should be a good thing. But I think, at the most basic level, it's a matter of you shouldn't put magic that shouldn't be in a box in a box. I'm still wondering about the exact implications for the waking world if he succeeds though. Like, how would that manifest? Would everyone suddenly become money hungry (lol, how would you tell)? Would people still want what they want but the American Dream would just be understood to mean making stacks and none of the good Superman-y stuff?

"It's not Protestant work ethic is it?"

Robert Moses is undead and can't get into Nod, so those are good things to note. 

I was so ready for Wally is get dispelled and for him to be a figment of Kug’s imagination or a dream or something. I braced myself so much. I was ready to set up a firing squad for Brennan for doing that to Kug.  

Who tipped the bugsters off to where Pete was gonna be? As far as I can tell, the only people that knew were the gang plus Alejandro and Esther. Maybe someone was scrying on them and that’s what the roll Zac failed during the wedding ep was. 

As soon as Brennan mentions locking the door, Ally immediately makes the connection and goes, "Key to the city." Nod "locks" the American Dream and gets rid of the lock which seems to mean the American Dream is temporarily unavailable. Which seems not good and like it's gonna have collateral damage for sure but I guess you bad is a matter of degrees and Robert getting in would be worse. But still, imagine your immigration papers get declined because some random kid decided to close down the American Dream for a couple of days. 

So, we get some backstory of Misty. She apparently just was straight up not having a good time in Faerie so she stole Titania's shoes (allowing her to be in iron-filled NYC without triggering her fairy vulnerability) and peaced out. 

"She's gonna kill you."/"Only if she can get here and I have her Goddamn shoes." (**A million airhorns in the distance**)

I love that Emily is still on the souls thing. Emily doesn't believe in Occam's Razor. In fact, I'd like to propose a corollary called the Axford Axiom: The coolest path between two points probably isn't the correct one, but it should be! I want her to run a campaign so bad so I can see her be in a game where her crazy endgame is what's going on because she's the one who wrote it. 

Misty: Let's go to hell!

So much like a videogame, the map has opened up and we have three places to check out. The former locations in the dream world of Faerie (Carnagie Hall), Heaven (JFK airport), and Hell (where do you think? Hell's Kitchen). The gang splits up to look for clues (and drinks, in Misty's case). Actually, make that four places: Pete goes to the Met Museum of Memories to basically Avatar mind meld with the other Voxes and get a handle on his magic to a degree (thank God--Nod?). We'll take these in order of appearance, which means we're off to Hell with Kug and Ricky (plus Ox and Wally).

(Focus on the Pizza, baby!)

At first I wanted Ricky, the good boy, to go to Heaven, but the idea of a firefighter in Hell also has appeal. 

Re The rat holding his guts: Gross. 

Ricky holding his axe like a cell phone.

So we and Kug learn that the rat-spell that was cast on him wasn't actually a rat-spell. It was a spell that would make his outsides reflect his insides and his insides happened to suck. I'm wondering if that means that it's a static spell that reflects his outsides at the time it was cast and it would need to be recast to reflect any moral progress made or if it will just revert him once he's made enough progress. 

I'm also wondering (partially bc one of my players asked to do this last session) can a Druid wildshape into a person? I feel like no, but like, did any of you ever read Animorphs? You know how in book 1 Tobias gets stuck as a red-tailed-hawk but then later her gets his morphing ability back and then he can turn back into his human form for 2 hours at a time? What if Kug just started doing that? Just being a rat who is sometimes a dude. 

They also go to the statue of liberty (which has a French accent, natch) who shows them that there's, like, a money/greed virus infecting the Dreaming and the American Dream. Ricky smells undeath again. They think vampires. That's plausible but I'm not sure. 

OK, Heaven. 

WHOOOO, strap in y'all

(Sidenote: I wonder what would have happened if Soph hadn't chose to go to heaven. I feel like she could have easily run into you know who in hell had she chose to go there, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Brennan actually tries to lead Emily into the thinking about Dale mindset but Emily, having reached a note of closure in Soph's character arc, pushes back on that.

honeyougotastormcoming.gif

Brennan,about to wreck her entire life: Cool.

I and the cast keep saying heaven a lot but it's like an all roads lead to Rome situation. It's heaven, Valhalla, Elysium, nirvana. Like, whatever Good Place you believe in. It's the Good Place. 

Sophie, upon being told that if she jumps into the fight at the Pearly Gates she knows nothing about, she might literally die: And what about it?

Emily's face when Brennan says, "And you see Dale," is so much. You can see the entire range of human emotion in her eyes in that moment.

Sidenote: I wonder how much of her backstory Emily planned and how much Brennan dropped on her. Like, she knew Isabella was part of her backstory obv. Did Brennan come up with all of this whole-cloth or did she say she wanted there to be something supernatural and and let him fill in the details. Very curious about the collaborative process.  

 When Dale's character art comes up, it says "Sophie's Angel" for Dale's descriptor so where I thought we were going was that Dale was Sophie's Guardian Angel who wasn't supposed to be romantically involved with her and the reason he was gone is that he was forcibly brought back to heaven. But that may be because I recently watched this.

Dale, is upsettingly sweet with Sophie, calls her "sweetie" the entire time they're together, fights a ton of angels to get to her, and says he got her text message. Emily is about to cry. *I'm* about to cry. I'm sure the only reason Brennan isn't fistpumping is because he needs to stay in character. 

Dale gives this cryptic piece of advice before he is dragged off by angel guards: When you get to the top, I know what it'll seem like, but there is someone there.

Emily, of course: I fight the angels.

The angels, hilariously, don't take it personally that she's fighting them--and very well, but not well enough to beat a nat 20. Sometimes the dice are spooky in tune with the story.

"He's got a job to do here. Who's gonna watch the deer?"

Dale also tells Soph to tell Jackson he said hi which is interesting to say the least. 

Emily gets two very dope lines in a row:

"Let me hold your hand through this Alejandro."

"I'm gonna kill her. And I don't think she's going to the great big airport in Brooklyn."

That's it for her for now, but let's put a pin in that for now and come back to it after we check in with the others. 

Siobhan and Kingston are at the former spot of Faerie, the Glamour Bar.

Zac jokingly (I think) guessing Dr. Doolittle as the thing Siobhan can't remember when she says Eliza Doolittle is so funny. 

Also, her terrible cockney British accent on top of her actual British accent is great.

I love that the two actual Real Adults are the ones who go and get wasted mid-mission. 

Brennan introduces "Bobby Goodfellow" and it takes Siobhan exactly four seconds after Brennan finishes the word "Goodfellow" to be like, "It's Puck." She knew and she knew her character would know it and she hardcore pounced.  

I meant to mention this before but it's super funny that Kingston has been around the magical block but there's still so much he doesn't know. He was surprised by a bunch of stuff in this ep that I'd think he would know about (like the Midsummer's faeries being real) but nah. He's like, "This is my specific brand of magic nonsense. That's what I know about. I don't mess around with any of *that* stuff. I stay in my lane. I stay in my city."

Ty Brennan for teaching me how to pronounce sláinte. This is the first time I'm hearing it out loud. 

I love his Puck voice. Like, the little British street urchin voice.  

No big surprise, Puck sent the mirror on the order of Oberon and Titania (who are not back together but are knocking boots according to him). 

Puck warns Misty, "The world of mortals is not long for this world," and follows it up with a seemingly sincere, "Come home. We miss you," which is an interesting thing to say after announcing that Titania is gunning for her. Who is this we, Puck? Your boss wants to bodyslam her!

Also, what do the faeries know that they're not saying? All of them in the bar seemed to know something was off but none of them said anything and Puck didn't elaborate. 

I've always liked the trope of the person from the otherworldly, magical or super advanced being like, "Idk what you're talking about. Humans are great!" because it's the opposite of the snooty elf/vulcan/whatever trope that I really can't stand. Misty showed shades of that in this conversation but I feel like there's still so much that we're missing in her backstory and I wanna know what it is.  

(Also, this is prob just me being a little pepe silvia but I would be very unsurprised if Misty got an opportunity to betray the party at some point. Don't @ me. It's just something I could see myself offering to a player for the drama of it all). 

Anyway, Kingston is extremely uncomfortable in the bar and makes a hasty exit so let's go to the museum with Pete and Nod.

Ally jumps onto the, "Suggested donations are for suckers" train w/ Siobhan. 

Turns out, Pete f'd up Robert up so much that he has kind of a brain link with him. I wonder how long that's gonna last. 

Pete gets proficiency in arcana and a choice between lesseing wild magic surges or gaining some control over them (2 wild magic rolls on a fail and ally gets to choose which effect takes place). Obv the second one is more fun rp-wise so that's what Ally picks.

It's a memory museum so OF COURSE he gets a chance to look at the memories of the rest of the party. But it's getting late so he only has a chance to check on one person's memories. He, naturally, picks Kingston. Makes perfect sense from an RP perspective but out of character I feel like Misty is the most closed book of the party. 

Pete sees Kingston's life from his childhood to the present (Brennan puts Lou on the spot to do some improv...I mean beyond the improv they're already doing) and it's about what you would expect based on what we know about Kingston but it's very beautifully described (sidenote: did any of y'all ever watch the life and times of juniper lee? where she can't leave the city bc she's like the buffy of that world? I really felt shades of that, except more self imposed).

During that montage, a character is like, "You could make hundreds of millions of dollars--I mean, I'm exaggerating," (s/t like that) and I'm not gonna go back and check but I feel like Brennan (or maybe Lou) made almost exactly the same comment in the first ep of this season in a very similar context.

Oh, also, Kingston gets dubbed Vox Populi by a dragon on Bleecker Street in case you were wondering about logistics. 

Again, Nod says that inviting Liz into his life was basically dooming Liz to be stuck dealing with the Unsleeping City but I feel like unless you have a Vox position or something similar you should be able to, like, opt out. So what you need to ignore some weird stuff day to day? May I direct you to my earlier anecdote about the flute dude in the tree. New Yorkers are good at that. And if she moved away, would it even be an issue?

Actually, that raises another question. Is NY the only place where magic is happening? It can't be because Santa is doing his thing at the North Pole. And NY has the Umbral Arcana which shields magic from muggles. Does that mean that elsewhere, magic just isn't hidden? I'm guessing that works because the bulk of magical happenings are happening in NY. Which, again, if so, couldn't Liz just move if she really wanted to? Or is she actually being *kept* there? 

Ahhhhh, that argument scene with Kingston and Liz. Ow. 

Robert's subconscious is heckling Kingston's memories the entire time. 

The party gets back together, Pete immediately lets Kingston know he was memory spying on him and hugs him (while Misty is drunk a singing over him). Their rift literally caused a kind of rift in NYC which is now healed (which causes Sophie to see the Unsleeping City/Dreaming Yin-Yang sign over their heads).

 Ricky drinks the 1000 hr energy so start the clock I guess. 

Misty, upon hearing that Dale is dead basically does that John Mulaney bit: Hey, do you want me to kill that guy for you? Because it sounds like [s]he sucks and I will totally kill that guy for you. 

It's the day of Priya's art show which I totally forgot was happening. Before that, Sophie finally goes to see her brother and we can return back to that pin I mentioned earlier.

(Also, it’s the 20th which means we’re getting really close to Christmas)

He says that their family got mixed up with the Confettis and they've been helping to launder magical items that Confetti is paying some rep from Hell (an associate of Robert's).

And by, "Some rep from hell," I mean Isabella Infierno specifically.

Emily, hilariously riffs for a while about how small it was of her to call Isabella a succubus even though she clearly knows at this point that Isabella is some kind of demon. I mean...Infierno. Come on. 

Sidenote: Which demon actually trying to be subtle would pick the last name Infierno? You wanna blow your cover for the aesthetic that bad?

Emily goes, "Oh my (beat) Nod," which I think is the exact way she dropped the first, "Oh Melora," in one of the first eps of Naddpod. 

Anyway, it turns out that Soph's family knew that Isabella was gunning for Dale (he was getting close to realizing something shady was going on) and, while they didn't call the shot, they let it happen.

Oh! He also says Dale was a chosen one from "some monastery" which, of course, fits in with Dale's comment about saying hi to Jackson. Now I'm wondering if his other comment--about there seeming like there's nothing at the top--is about whatever chosen one test he had to take to get the position to begin with. And maybe he was giving a clue to Sophie so that when she takes it, she'll for sure pass and get whatever dope powers or weapons or privileges come with the position. 

"The only reason I'm not going to go after you right now is because I'm not organized enough to give you the fucking revenge you deserve." Soph is cold as ice after hearing about what her family did. 

"Maybe you should have said that to Isabella before she went after me." Another mic drop line from Emily. This really was her episode. You can really see Emily channeling hr genuine emotional reactions into her character.  

La Gran Gata shows up to let Soph know she has her back to hunt down Isabella. The only other warlocks really seen played are Fjord on CritRole and Leiland on Bloodkeep so it's wild to see a character with such a chill relationship with their patron.

So, Priya's art show. They show up (to a distressingly unsafe building from Ricky's perspective) and it turns out, not only is it performance art (the worst kind) Pete *is* the art.

"I present to all of you: cruelty, a exploration of a relationship. Peter, take my hand."

major barf.

Pete goes OFF

Kingston: Picasso is art, this is bullshit!

Siobhan: Her last name is Danger? I hate this bitch.

Pete gets over Priya instantly which totally tracks because, like I said, barf. 

Sophie stealing Ricky's thing and rooftop jumping. Zac narrows his eyes when she says that.

I love Isabella's title card. It says, "Literal Succubus". It reminds me of the funniest scene in Bedazzled when the Devil (Liz Hurley) gives Brendan Frasier her business card and it just says, "The Devil".

But she's here and she's here to fight! I'm so excited for this one y'all! Unsafe building. Lots of civilians. Sophie (and Emily) going totally feral. I haven’t looked forward to a fight this much since Adaine went for Aelwen. Let's gooooo!

[raendown]

Shout-out to you-know-who-you-are for reminding me to post this because I honestly didn’t even realize it was Sunday. Whoops!

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4088 Chapter: 14/? Summary: Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Some are fought at the conference table, with whispers in the shadows, or even in the bedroom.

In a world where the Senju and Uchiha traditional lands were too far apart to have ever made them enemies, Butsuma and Tajima are the ones who come together and sign a treaty of peace. Madara isn’t happy to have his life signed away for him in a political marriage to strengthen the bond between their clans. He is even less happy to have Tobirama make assumptions of him from their very first night together. What follows from there is a journey of healing, of learning, and finding the places to belong in the places least expected.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

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Chapter 14

“I’m not sure why you’re so worried about solving the problem right this second.” Touka examined her fried squid with a little too much interest to be genuine before delicately catching a piece between her teeth and nibbling it away from the stick. Her apparent disinvestment in their conversation did not fool him for a moment.

“They’re brothers, closer maybe than Hashirama and I.”

“Doesn’t take much,” Touka interrupted with a scoff, her words muffle around the mouthful of squid.

Tobirama ignored her. “Izuna means a lot to Madara and having a wedge like this between the brother he loves and the husband he’s contractually stuck with, it’s got him in knots. He’s moping. But you didn’t hear me say that because every time I use the word moping he gets prissy and starts yelling about the difference between moping and thoughtful silences.”

Pausing to let an older couple pass in front of them in the busy marketplace, he shared a secret look with his favorite cousin.

“Does he get that squinty look? The really hot one where he starts puffing his chest out?”

“Every time,” Tobirama answered.

Touka laughed as she pulled the last of her squid off its stick, popping the morsel in her mouth and tossing the stick in a public trash bin when they passed one. “Shame he’s so mouthy, really. You got lucky in the looks department but he’s too loud for my tastes.”

“I kind of like him the way he is.” Sensing her eyes drilling in to the side of his head, Tobirama huffed. “Yes, I know. Don’t bother saying it. This is supposed to happen in a marriage but – and I never thought I would have to say this about myself – getting attached like this probably isn’t really the best idea.” Knuckles brushing against his own was Touka’s way of expressing sympathy out here where so many strangers could see them.

“Be careful,” was all she said, simple words that carried a depth of meaning very few would be able to discern.

“No promises,” Tobirama shot back. She rolled her eyes at him but let the subject drop.

When they turned the next corner they were treated to the sight of the afternoon sunlight laying a golden crown around the tower that made the center of their village. After getting caught up in a meeting with the Sanitation Committee about why burying their garbage right next to a residential area wasn’t a great solution such a vision was more than welcome, reminding him of the few reasons he did think this village was a good idea. He had missed his usual lunch hour before of the meeting and so ended up taking a late break with Touka as she came off patrol. Now that they were done eating he would have to go back to the drone of paperwork.

Sometimes he really missed risking his life on missions. At least it was never boring.

He had planned to part ways with Touka after she saw him back to his office but they never made it that far, stopped in the hallway by a large crowd of people and immediately drawn by the same curiosity as everyone else had been: raised voices. Both of the shouting voices were unfortunately quite familiar. It wasn’t the first time that Tajima and Butsuma had argued in public, something that had been growing more and more common since the first time after Tajima caught Butsuma yelling at one of his sons, and the only reason Tobirama hadn’t made any attempts to rein his father in was the fact that it didn’t seem to be affecting how well the rest of their clans worked together.

From what he could understand of their yelling it didn’t appear that Tajima had gotten the message on that. It seemed like the longer they worked together and the more people joined this venture they had pioneered the more paranoid he grew about everything that went on around him. Tobirama wished he could say that Butsuma balanced him out with level-headed responses but unfortunately much the opposite was true.

“He is my son, not your own! It should not be for you to say where he goes and when!” Tajima’s voice sounded livid and his face, when they finally fought their way through the crowd, was red with anger. Not an unfamiliar sight.

“This mission requires a certain skill set and Izuna matches that perfectly. Should I pretend the entirety of the Uchiha clan does not exist when assigning teams for each mission?” Butsuma’s face was hardly faring any better and his body language was just as aggressive, much to Tobirama’s tired irritation.

“You do as much whenever it pleases you from what I can tell!”

“I beg your pardon?” Butsuma’s eyes narrowed. Tajima did not take the warning.

Stepping forward almost threateningly, he made wide gestures to match his accusations. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how often my clan members get sent away and pushed to the side while you keep your own children close and pair them with the Hyuga.”

“Are you trying to say something about my administrative choices?”

“I think you understand what I’m trying to say,” Tajima snarled. “You and the head of the Hyuga clan have been getting a little too close for me to ignore it any longer.”

“There is nothing for you to ignore. It isn’t my fault if you choose to jump at shadows and secret plots that don’t exist. I stand by my decision. Your son Izuna was chosen for this mission because he is well equipped for it and Tobirama has been assigned to the land expansion project for the same reasons. That this project happens to work closely with the Hyuga has nothing to do with you!” Unlike his counterpart, Butsuma did not bull his way forward but rather settled his legs in to a firmer stance and stubbornly crossed his arms.

Across the room Tobirama lifted his eyebrows. This was the first he had heard of being assigned to any new projects. Sure he was good with numbers and had a knack for thinking of things in long term views, something that coming up with budgets for future expansions would need, but he was hardly the only person with a head for arithmetic in the whole village. Plenty of other people could take his place crunching these particular numbers.

Clearly Tajima seemed to think so as well, although his issue didn’t seem to be with Tobirama’s placement but more with the other people working on the expansion plans. The red covering his face deepened another shade as he clenched his fists with rage.

“Lies! Do not lie to me! You have the nerve to send my son away on a mission to risk his life while keeping your own safe at home and oh! What a coincidence! Working closely with the Hyuga!”

“What exactly do you imagine is happening that has not already been covered in our very public meetings?” Butsuma demanded, clearly tiring of this argument.

“You are undermining me and my clan! Have you forgotten that this village was only made possible by my clan’s equal contribution? You did not build this empire alone and it is not for you to rule by yourself! I refuse to sit idly by while you replace us with an inferior clan just because you think you can control them better!”

“Be careful what you say to me, Uchiha.” Drawing himself up a little taller, Butsuma at least made a good impression of a man insulted.

Tobirama was contemplating the pros and cons of hiding under a rock for the rest of his life when he heard Touka sigh to his left. When he looked over her face was drawn in to an expression that practically dripped with exasperation, body language screaming her desire to call both of the men before them six kinds of idiots. Pretty much her usual reaction to any sort of interaction with either of their two founders.

“Do you think they know how stupid they look?” she murmured under her breath.

“Hmph.” Tobirama leaned closer to murmur back. “Do you think they realize what a poor image they make of themselves every time they do this in public? What a terrible example to follow.” To make such fools of themselves or to insult another prominent clan so brazenly, he wasn’t sure which was stupider but he did know the answer to his own question. Neither man probably realized how badly the people in the room were judging them.

“So? Do something about it then.”

“What, and solve all their problems for them? They’re going to have to grow up some time.” Tobirama sniffed haughtily like he had no idea what she was talking about and Touka snickered. She tried to swat his arm for being cheeky but he dodged easily, moving as little as possible as in an effort not to draw his father’s eye yet.

There was no escaping her pointed look however.

“Fine, alright. I’m leaving my administrative duties to you, I hope you know. Enjoy covering my paperwork.” She groaned but, amazingly, didn’t fight him on it.

Saying he would do it and actually forcing himself to step forward to interrupt the stupid measuring contest going on between the pair in front of him were two different matters, though. It was hard to find a place to insert himself without screaming over top of them to get their attention, something he was quite sure would only get him in more trouble than it would solve. His opportunity came in the form of another dig from Tajima.

“How are the people meant to trust the man who leads them if that man will send their children away to die while his own sit safe at home?”

“It is the nature of shinobi to die,” Butsuma retorted in a cold voice. The blankness of his voice, a brief reappearance of the typical Senju control over their emotions, was enough to shock Tajima in to silence and give Tobirama a moment to make himself heard.

“Rather than make a spectacle of ourselves,” he stepped in with a mildly reprimanding tone, “I have a solution if you would both hear it. There are several of the Nara I can list off the top of my head who would be more than capable of taking my place on the land expansion project if I accompany Izuna on his mission. Father, I agree with you that Izuna’s skill set is particularly well suited for this task but Tajima-sama does also have a point. He should have back up. Allow me to go with him; it will make a good show of unity.”

Both of them stared at him with matching expressions of shock. Now a step behind him, Touka turned aside to hide her amusement. It took effort to hide his own exasperation at two grown adults who couldn’t make themselves behave like civilized humans until they were handed a perfectly obvious solution by someone more than twenty years their junior.

“That would be acceptable,” Tajima admitted gruffly, the first to shake himself out of his stupor. Not to be outdone, Butsuma cleared his throat and nodded, visibly ashamed of allowing himself to get dragged in to such a public display.

“Agreed,” was all he said but to anyone who knew him well there were entire layers of embarrassment and resentment buried in that one word.

Nodding back to them, Tobirama very carefully did not sigh. “Excellent. I will find Izuna and have him relay the details of the mission to me. Might I recommend Nara Shikou as my replacement? He displays excellent attention to detail each time I have worked with him.”

Without waiting for an answer Tobirama dismissed himself by turning on his heel and striding forward as though entirely unaware of the large crowd that had gathered to watch the altercation play out. People scrambled to dodge out of his path but he kept his eyes forward, continuing down the hall until he was alone with only Touka’s chakra trailing along at his heels like a small cloud of contained laughter. She followed him until he was just around the corner from Izuna’s office and then stopped him before he could go on.

“Good luck cousin,” she said. “Try not to let him smother you in your sleep.”

“Thanks,” he told her dryly.

She left with a wave and Tobirama took a deep breath before approaching Izuna’s door and waiting until his knock was answered with a curt “Enter.” He wasn’t surprised to be met with a glare or to discover that he had interrupted some sort of meeting, probably instructions for filling in while he was gone. The two women Izuna was speaking to took one look between them and bolted without waiting for permission to leave.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I’ve been consigned to accompany you when you leave for the capitol so I’ll need you to catch me up on the details of the assignment.” To his absolute lack of surprise, the irritation of Izuna’s face slipped down in to outright distaste.

“Are you serious? For fuck’s sake. I don’t need a babysitter – and I don’t need help! Especially not from you!” His entire face pinched in a sour look.

Tobirama watched the other man throw up his hands and mutter darkly to himself, questioning for a moment why he had bothered to do this. A brief but well-timed flare of chakra from the floor above them was all it took to reminded him of why. Madara, whatever he was doing, was apparently having a bad day. Hopefully the news that his husband and his brother would be spending some ‘quality time’ together might help improve his mood and clear the dark little cloud that had been hanging over his head lately.

Drawing the length of his ponytail forward over his shoulder and tugging fitfully at the end, Izuna gave vent to a deep sigh of defeat. “I can’t get out of this?”

“Both of our fathers agreed on it.” And he would not be the one to mention that it had been his own idea.

“Ugh. I seriously do not need your help! I can do this on my own!”

“I am sure you are more than capable. For the purposes of this mission you may consider me an emergency exit strategy and an extra pair of eyes.”

“Hmph.” Izuna glared at him. “That’s about all you’re good for, I’ll bet.”

Really it wasn’t worth letting him start a fight over something so petty. Tobirama refused to rise to the bait. Instead he sidestepped the insult and tried to steer the conversation back to business.

“Do tell me if I’ve missed any details but as it stands what I know of the mission is that we are going to the capital to escort the Daimyo’s niece as she travels in secret. To be honest I didn’t look too hard at that request since I didn’t think I was being assigned to it.” He shrugged, pleased to see even Izuna couldn’t find anything wrong with that. At least he wasn’t sticking his nose in everyone else’s business.

“That’s close but not really it. Apparently the Daimyo’s niece has been travelling to a secret location several times a week and won’t speak about where she’s going. He wants us to tail her and stay completely out of sight. If she’s in trouble he wants us to take out whoever might be hurting her. If she’s colluding with his enemies he wants us to gather as much information as possible and bring him evidence of her crimes.” For a moment he looked up to the ceiling as though running through his memories to check if he missed anything. “Anyway, we’re supposed to keep a low profile on our way to the capital and meet with his representative in the market district, at the Red Dog Tavern. They’ll tell us where she leaves town and when to wait for her. We can’t be seen.”

“Nothing too complicated,” Tobirama murmured. Stealth missions weren’t his favorite, he usually found them quite boring even if he did have the patience of a rock when it was necessary to get that all important paycheck.

Izuna leaned towards the window to check the position of the sun. “I was just giving my assistants a few last minute instructions and then I meant to head out. Don’t suppose you’re all ready to go?”

“Give me half an hour.”

“Fine. Meet at the north gate in thirty minutes. If you’re not there – well, you’re a sensor aren’t you? I’m sure you can find me and catch up.”

Tobirama held his tongue and turned for the door. Thirty minutes was more than enough time for him to make it home and grab the mission pack he still kept ready at all times even though he hadn’t found much time for anything other than paperwork since moving here. But there was something else he needed to do before leaving.

Out in the hallway people appeared to be returning to work and a quick scan for their chakra signatures showed that Butsuma and Tajima had ended their fight in one manner or another, now heading in opposite directions. He could only assume to cool off after embarrassing themselves so thoroughly. With so many people in his way it took a minute or two longer than expected for Tobirama to make it up to the next floor and poke his head in to an office he hadn’t actually spent much time in, both despite and because of who was inside.

Hashirama looked up with a big smile when he entered and Tobirama nodded in return, flicking his eyes over in Madara's direction.

“Could you give us a few minutes?” he asked. His brother stared.

“Like, alone?”

“Yes, you idiot, I would like a few minutes alone with my husband if that isn’t too much trouble.”

“So cute!” Hashirama was up out of his chair in a flash and shoving his way out the door. “Maybe I’ll nip down and visit Mito! Oh this is fun!”

He was gone almost before he was finished speaking and Tobirama was shaking his head as he stepped inside and closed the door behind himself. Madara watched him curiously with a hint of trepidation that he entirely understood. ‘We need to talk’ wasn’t usually the sort of conversation opener that implied anything positive was about to come.  

“It’s not anything bad,” he hurried to say when it looked like Madara was starting to brace himself. “I just didn’t want to leave without saying anything to you.”

“Leave?”

“After this conversation, yes. I’m being sent along with Izuna on his mission.”

Madara rocked back in his seat, eyes wide with surprise. “Kami save us all.” His response startled Tobirama in to a wide eyed expression of his own.

“I…thought that would please you.”

“Sending you both off alone and unsupervised? If neither one of you kills the other I will be greatly surprised.” With a low groan he ran a hand through his hair. “You two don’t exactly have a great track record for getting along so far.”

Tobirama scrunched his nose. He deserved that. “Regardless, we’ll need to make at least some sort of effort. I’m not certain how long this should take, hopefully no more than a week all told even with complications, but I wanted to let you know where I was going before I disappeared without warning.”

“I appreciate that,” Madara told him quietly.

“Right.” His message delivered, Tobirama wasn’t really sure what else to say. Yet strangely he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave yet either. He did ask for a half hour and if he wanted to waste chakra on a body flicker it would take less than a minute to flash home, retrieve his kit, and reappear at the meeting point.

“You’ll be careful?”

“I- yes?” The question threw him a little. He couldn’t remember the last time someone asked him to be careful on a mission. Usually it was just implied.

“Good.” Madara cleared his throat and valiantly strove to maintain eye contact. “I’m too young to be a widower so neither one of you are allowed to actually die, understood? A little maiming at most if you absolutely can’t control yourselves.”

Not bothering to fight the sudden smile, Tobirama nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

He hovered for a few another minutes, unsure of what to say and almost hoping Madara would ask him something else, but the moment was made awkward by neither of them quite knowing how to handle it. This was the first time since they were bonded that they would be separated for longer than a day or two and of course it came now that neither of them laid awake at night wishing for a way to escape from the other.

Eventually Tobirama decided that there was little point in standing around staring at each other and he murmured his goodbyes. Madara's gaze burned hot on his back as he let himself out of the room. Their conversation hadn’t lasted very long so he still had quite a bit of time; he used it to walk home at a leisurely pace and take in the sights of the village for no other reason than it pleased him to do so. It truly was amazing what all these clans had accomplished together, the peace that they had built and maintained after so many years of warring senselessly against each other.

Once he had his things he set off again for the north gate at the same easy speed. He could have used his time to say goodbye to Hashirama but surely Madara would mention where he had gone and it likely would have taken longer than the thirty minute time frame to remove himself from his brother’s clutches. Hashirama’s goodbyes had never been quick.

When he arrived at the gates he still had several minutes to spare but he found Izuna already waiting with impatience stamped across his face. He took one look at Tobirama, huffed, and turned away to set off down the path without so much as a word of greeting. It didn’t surprise him, really. That was probably the sort of behavior he had to look forward to for most of their journey – but he had chosen this for himself so he could hardly complain. If not a chance to make friends or make peace this could at least be a chance to come to some sort of agreement. Even if that agreement was simply not to argue too much in front of Madara.

They both cared for the same man and wanted him to be happy and so they would both need a plan to work towards that goal. If Tobirama could find nothing in Izuna not to hate then he would do his best to find something tolerable in the man and focus his attention on those qualities. Or maybe he would just drag them out to the sparring fields so they could beat on each other without fear of worrying anyone else or causing undue offense.

Actually that was a decent idea. He would need to keep that option in mind should this venture prove a complete failure.

Several long steps brought him up to walk at Izuna’s side where his brother-in-law gave him an evil look most people would save for a particularly disgusting piece of garbage or an enemy that had haunted them for years gone by.

“Just don’t get in my way, Senju,” he growled.

“Let’s talk exit strategies,” Tobirama deflected. Talking about the mission was probably a lot safer than giving voice to any of the several responses that leapt to mind.

Thankfully Izuna allowed the change in subject, though he contributed only begrudgingly and continued to make himself as difficult to work with as possible. It took everything Tobirama had not to snap at him before they had traded a dozen sentences back and forth but he held on to his temper with a white knuckle grip and told himself that if he could just make it through this one mission, if he could just prove to Izuna that they could live with each other in some way, the rest of his life would be a lot more peaceful.

And Madara would be a lot more happy.

[writeradamanteve]

Fic Files 2

Here, Jughead meets Chic for the first time. At this point, he is already attending school at Southside High and Betty, with Kevin, pays him a visit at lunch.

The night before, Jughead had told Betty that he had to watch a man getting beaten half to death by the Serpents he was riding with because the man couldn’t come up with the money owed to them. Jughead had to watch, pretend he didn’t care, then later, secretly called for help.

Also, in this story, Alice abusively cut off half of Betty’s hair. Might be a familiar background for those who read Drive.

And yes, there is jealous Juggie in this clip.

**************

Jughead was a little surprised that Kevin joined Betty again but became less surprised when Richie sat with him at another table.

Betty winked at him, which made Jughead laugh.

They were at the lunch tables outside, and as Kevin and Richie talked intimately two tables away, Jughead and Betty sat as close to one another as a picnic table could get them. He sat facing the Southside crowd, leaning back with his elbow on the table top. Betty sat beside, facing him, and he had one arm around her waist.

“I missed you last night,” he said, looking at her lips as she twirled a twizzler between them. She would taste like sweet strawberries and he could barely contain his need to kiss her.

She grinned. “I did, too. Did you finish your paper?”

“I did.”

“Is it full of semi-colons?”

He gave her a pointed look. “I do not overuse them.”

She giggled and gave him that mind blowing kiss he craved that was slow, had tongue, and a very soft moan from her that only he could hear. And yes, she did taste like strawberries.

“Yes, you do,” she breathed when they separated.

At that point, she can make him agree to anything.

He loved this “emerging” Betty. It was his new obsession. The short hair and tweaked wardrobe was one thing--he meant it when he said she would look good in anything--but the whole attitude she had brought with it was invigorating. On the surface, she really wasn't that much different. She was still a straight A, extra-curricular avenger, still polite as hell and still so eager to help, but he knew her nuances. He knew her cues. She was letting go of the minutiae, thinking a lot less about what her mother would say and doing a lot more of what she wanted to do. She was being less particular about her language and she was beginning to realize that she didn’t have to smile if she didn’t feel like it.

“So you were going to tell me about your visit to the station,” he said.

She nodded, beginning to unwrap a sandwich, which she gave to him. “It was okay. Sheriff Keller was cranky at first, but I pushed on, and then he was introducing me to a fed assigned to head up the drug case.”

Jughead arched an eyebrow. “Narco agent?”

“Apparently,” Betty said. “So I gave him the packet.”

“You trust him?”

Betty shrugged. “He seemed okay, but we’ll see. If he proves useful, we’ll keep feeding him info. He gave me his card and all.”

Jughead frowned, feeling his stomach tighten with anxiety. “Is that safe? Having you contacting him all the time?”

“Hopefully it’s not all the time.”

Jughead eyed her suspiciously and she began to distract him with the food she brought. He was easy enough in that respect. Food was pretty sacred to him since he had known food insecurity for most of his life.

So when she popped grapes or chips in his mouth, he never resisted. It seemed to please her that he was eating off her hands. God knows, she had him right where she wanted him.

She was just teasing a piece of strawberry between her teeth, which meant he would have to take it with his mouth, when her mouth dropped and the strawberry went tumbling.

He tried to catch it, laughing, but a silence had descended upon the yard and he realized she wasn’t paying attention to him.

Her eyes had fallen on a man approaching them. He was in a suit, and he had the face of seriously good looking angel. His blonde hair glinted in the sun and he had big green eyes.

He came up to them and when Jughead turned to Betty, she looked pissed.

“What part about ‘Don’t go to Jughead directly’ did you not understand?” she demanded of this Greek God in a fierce whisper.

That she knew him was kind of a surprise, and then the questions came. Where did she meet him? How? Did she think him as devastatingly good looking as Jughead thought he was?

The guy put his hands up, unbothered by her tone. “Relax. This is all part of an investigation for something that happened Sunday night. Look around you--there are agents everywhere.”

Jughead scanned the schoolyard with his eyes and saw some of his classmates, most of them jacketed with the Serpent crest, being approached by a fed.

“A man was badly beaten in Wayville the other night,” the agent explained, digging into his pocket and pulling out a badge to show them. He tucked it back into his coat before Jughead can see his name. “The official story is that witnesses singled out a Serpent youth as being present. My lead is a bit more substantial, however.” He pulled out his phone, clicked on the apps, then started to play a message on speaker.

“I’d like to report an assault that occurred on Vance street, east, in Wayville. Hurry… the guy looks like he needs help fast…”

The call ended, but Jughead already knew that. His voice sounded odd on the phone. Deeper, less like a 16 year old kid.

He felt a twitch on his side where Betty’s hand rested on his torso. Instinctively, he took her hand in his own, quieting the anxieties that were probably burgeoning her at the moment.

“Was that you, Mr. Jones?” the agent asked.

Jughead didn’t reply, averting his eyes from the agent rebelliously. It was funny how his juvi habits came to the fore so easily when he felt jammed back in a situation he didn’t want to be in.

“Do you recognize this voice, Betty?”

Betty? Jughead glared at him.

She frowned and shrugged. “Don’t think so.”

Jughead rubbed her back affectionately. Appreciating her support. She was essentially lying for him and she did it without hesitation. It was twisted, but he distrusted this guy so Betty didn’t push him to.

The agent practically rolled his eyes at them, but he put his phone away and took out a pack of gum, taking one for himself and popping it in his mouth.

He offered some first to Betty, who shook her head, then to him. He said nothing. The agent shrugged and put it away.

“You might want to know,” the agent continued, “that the guy made it. They lost him twice at the hospital, but they got him back. If the ambulance hadn’t gotten to him on time, he would’ve died on that street. That was the only call that came in for him that night. He was in a neighborhood full of people and nobody reported it. That call saved his life. And he is a big lead in this investigation.”

Jughead looked up at his face. Though his words brought Jughead a lot of relief, he had never been an easy customer. “You hadn’t introduced yourself properly. I don’t know who the fuck you are.”

The agent arched an eyebrow. “Fair. Special Agent Charles Murray. I work for the FBI narcotics division. We’re investigating an undisclosed amount of heroin that was found on the Blossom property.”

“And how do you know Betty?” he asked, the question coming unbidden. He refused to be sorry for it, however. He got this way when he got jealous. Rude. Straightforward. His fucks going from 60 to zero in a heartbeat. That was just fact.

The agent seemed mildly amused. “At the station. She brought me information, which quite frankly is opening up leads for us.”

Betty did mention an agent. And how he seemed okay. She didn’t tell him he fucking looked like Brad Pitt, though. Not that that was her fault. It would’ve been weird, after all, if she had said something like that. This should’ve been Kevin’s job, right? To give him details like this? He had been at the station when this meet-cute went down.

Jughead nodded, rubbing the back of Betty’s hand with his thumb. “And now here you are. Are you going to arrest me?”

Betty tensed, shifting closer. “He can’t do that.”

Baby, he can.

“I’m not here to arrest you,” said Agent Murray. “I staged this whole inquiry for you, though. I wanted to talk to you directly, but Betty over here said in no uncertain terms that it would be too dangerous for you. I get it, and I just need you guys to trust me. What you two are doing--you can’t do it alone. You gotta let me help you. The kind of sting operation you’re conducting takes months of planning at the agency. You two just threw a Scooby plan together--”

“Why does everyone keep calling it that?” Betty demanded irritably.

“Because you’re teenagers,” Agent Murray replied. “Sorry, princess, but that’s just the way it is.”

Princess?

Betty took a deep breath. “Chic, I’m warning you. Stop calling me that.”

Chic?

This was just getting better and better.

Chic cocked a grin at her. “Sorry, it just works. I know you guys are going to do what you want, but I’m telling you, with my help, you can get to the truth faster. We can communicate by burner, and if you have to give me physical evidence, you can pass stuff to me through Betty. Also, I’ll need to talk to--” he paused, as if searching for the right word “--your parents, Betty.”

Weird.

Jughead frowned, his temper boiling over. “Why so intent on getting private time with Betty?”

Chic looked startled by that. “Private time?” Only then did it seem to dawn on him what Jughead was implying. “God, no. For eff’s sake,it’s not like that. That’s wrong on so many levels. You have no idea.”

“I kinda do,” Jughead said before he could stop himself. “She’s only 16, dude.”

“Juggie!” Betty gasped.

“I’m just saying,” Jughead cried, heatedly.

Chic put up his hands. “Alright, stop. Break. Everyone take a deep breath. This is getting--well, uncomfortable, frankly. Jughead, are you going to let me help you or not? This is important, for your safety and hers. I urge you to go at this with a clear head. Think. I know you’re a really smart kid. All those teachers I asked when I did a check on you said so.”

Jughead threw him a sidelong glare. “Really, dude? Flattery?”

“I do what I have to do.”

Jughead sighed, looking at Betty’s upturned face. Her brows were creased with worry. She might not know it, but her eyes, so beautiful and green, were staring into his soul, pleadingly. It was painful, what he was about to do.

He looked Chic in the eyes. “If I do this with you, I can’t take the stand for you. That would be snitching and my actions would follow my father. I can’t dishonor the one thing in his life he’s committed to.”

Chic sighed. “Jughead, how do you think this works?”

“I’ll do what you want me to do. Hell, I’ll even let you put a wire on me, but I can’t take the stand. You’ll have to get someone else to do that for you. Besides, if I do that, I’ll have to go into witness protection, and then what? I’ll leave everyone behind and--and I can’t. I won’t.” He looked at Betty.

“Jug,” she said, shaking him gently. “I’ll go with you--”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Chic interjected, patting Betty’s shoulder lightly. “You may never have to do that. But I hear your terms, and they’re fair. We’ll work something out. I can’t promise that I won’t pressure you to take the stand, but let’s take it a day at a time. Cool?”

Jughead thought briefly on it then nodded. “Cool.”

He could feel the tension leaving Betty’s body.

“So what now, Chic?” Jughead asked.

“You just do what you’re doing for now. I’ll let you know through Betty what you have to do next if there’s anything immediate, but I’ll send a burner phone over for you to use, so that we don’t have to keep making Betty pass notes between us. We good?”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Jones.” With that, Chic left, going to one of the agents talking to another Serpent.

Betty turned to him. “I think we can trust him.”

Jughead laughed softly. “Oh, do you, now? He is kind of an angel face.”

Betty looked him in the eyes. “Jughead Jones. Are you jealous?”

He felt his face warming, even as the corners of his lips threatened to turn up. “And so what? I can be jealous, right, princess?”

“Juggie,” she said in a gently chiding tone. “Do I really have to tell you how ridiculous you’re being?”

He shrugged and leaned closer. “I’m an insecure kid and he’s an Abercrombie model in a suit. My ego needs constant stroking.”

“Mmm, ego? Is that what the kids call it now?”

He grinned. “Betty, I would never! Get your mind out of the gutter.”

She leaned over and he felt her lips feather his ear. Her warm breath sent tingles down his body. “How about I stroke that ego after work?”

And there she was again. Emerging Betty.

He threw his head back slightly and groaned. “After work. That’s hours away. Oh, the pain.”

She chuckled, moving even closer. “We have responsibilities, you know. Important things.”

“Oh, yeah, super important,” he mumbled, already pressing his lips on hers. She responded immediately, and it felt so good that he didn’t even care that the whole Southside High was probably enjoying the show.

“Excuse me, couple of things.”

Betty gave a gasp of surprise and Jughead looked over his shoulder behind him, incredulous.

Chic. It was Chic interrupting them.

“Are you fucking kidding me, man?” Jughead demanded.

Chic ignored his question, pointing a finger at Jughead. “First, don’t leave town. Two, don’t freak out if you feel like someone’s shadowing you sometimes. Those are my guys, under my orders, watching out for you both intermittently. Many agents are already stationed around town, anyway, and three--like, cool it with the public displays of affection, okay? Show some respect.”

“To whom?!” Jughead asked. “And that’s three things, you know. Don’t say ‘a couple’ if you mean three.”

Chic looked at him pointedly. “Don’t be a smartass, Forsythe Pendleton III.” Then he left.

He looked at Betty in disbelief.

“Weird,” she said, but he could tell that she was trying not to laugh.

Jughead wilted into a sardonic smile. “Oh, you find this funny?”

She giggled. “A little. He’s such a hall monitor type, isn’t he? The exact opposite of you. And you’re so un-intimidated by him. I find it sexy.”

“He called me Forsythe,” Jughead grumbled.

“He did,” she cooed, playing with some locks of his hair with her fingers. “What a terrible person. Of all the things he could’ve done… haul you away for questioning, slapping made up charges on you, cuffing you for antagonizing him, this is the ultimate offense.”

“I’m sensing sarcasm.”

“I love how smart you are, too, Forsythe.”

He made a face, which she laughed at.

He heard a scramble of limbs behind him, and of course it was Kevin and Richie.

“Wasn’t that a hot dish, Richie?” Kevin was saying.

Richie wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “Arresting!”

“Good one! So, Betty? What did he want? Did he identify himself and flash his badge?”

Jughead’s eyebrow arched, and it occurred to him that Kevin was pretending, for Richie’s benefit, that this was the first time Betty had met Chic.

Betty didn’t miss a beat. “He had some questions about whether we knew of any Serpent talk of beating up a guy. Maybe some kid bragging about it or something.” She rolled her eyes. “Like really, as if anyone would tell them the truth if they knew.”

“I think I may tell him anything if my fed looked like that,” Kevin said, draping an arm around Richie.

Jughead also realized that Kevin had gotten this way because he’d been burned before. He had absolutely no reason to believe that Richie wasn’t a plant. Not after what Joaquin was made to do.

He caught Betty’s eyes and they exchanged knowing glances.

Yeah. Betty knew it, too.

[soundsandnoises]

Slam Dunk Festival 2019: SOUTH, Hatfield Park (26/05/2019)

I was extremely anxious about this one. I was usually going to the one in Midlands, knew the site inside out. Knew how to get to the festival, where to stay, etc. Made it easier to focus on music. This year I worried about so many things, like if I bought right ticket to right Hatfield (can't count the amount of times I actually checked maps, infos and trains, still wasn't enough). I'm not a fan of big train stations and King's Cross ain't a small nor easy for first, second and third timers. It can be quite overwhelming, but what's the fun in it when it's simple, right? Then there was a question of – what gate leads to festival site. Or where to buy a coffee - that one was left unanswered, Sunday morning and relatively small train station (for a change) didn't help.

And then there was... waiting. Before the main gate opens, before the actual festival site opens... Longest three hours full of wondering, while people gathered in a constant flow in space between wristband exchange and gates, green grass was replaced by black blur of people.

But, but... As soon as it opened and I could start realizing my plan: get to the chosen stage, see the first artist, enjoy. I could relax. And that was the leit motiv of this day (maybe except the part where I felt like thirst in Sprite commercial during Busted intense and punk as fuck set when I was fighting for survival, but to be fair, even then I felt so alive and... happy).

I was in for a treat after all and it started perfectly with William Ryan Key opening on Marshall Stage. I would love to hear his material, but I understand his choice to play Yellowcard's songs. Fans surely appreciated the acoustic nostalgia floating through surprisingly sunny morning/midday. There was a bit of a technical hiccup at the beginning, but other than that things ran smoothly.

Milk Teeth took over on the adjacent Dickies Stage. Faster. Louder. Wake up Slam Dunk. Sunny day or not a mix of moody grunge and raw punk energy should do that to you. Make the crowd sit down just to make them ask “Why the fuck are we sitting down?!” seconds later. It's a rock show! But clearly Milk Teeth captivated the audience enough to pull pranks like this.

Hot Milk didn't have easy on The Club Key Stage, 'cause people started to gather for Busted and tent was packed, yet their Left side was in for a fun gig and soon enough young rockers won hearts over with their 'non compromise, everyone's invited attitude'. They were all in, mixing pop, punk and lacing it with electronic samples – nothing better to make you bounce, dance and have a good time.

Quite right warm up for Busted on the Right side of the The Key Club Stage. The tension, the anticipation was hanging thick and heavy over people's heads. The excitement exploded with joyous scream when boys appeared onstage. Boy, I didn't expect the madness. My body wasn't mine for most of the gig, pushed and shoved in random directions as the crowd waved under the tide of moshing, crowdsurfing and bouncing quite randomly. But it was strangely beautiful, the mad joy of people screaming out the lyrics. This was absolutely fabulous surprise act (clearly the cat was out of the bag on Saturday when it turned out that mysterious Y3K was in fact Busted). Slam Dunk did slam.

Then I've had a bit of a change of the scenery with As It Is on the main stage (Monster Energy Stage). I understand the appeal, 'cause it was truly engaging performance. Powerful speeches, truly humble spirit and very positive attitude (they even turned smashing an acoustic guitar into a good deed; after the hardcore version of the song, instead of acoustic one as they teased before guitar was obliterated, Patty [Walters, singer] explained that they'd donate the pieces for a charitable cause). Oh, and show worth a slot at the main stage – emotional, catchy, monumental at times, intimate.

Waterparks brought the green (backdrop, Awsten's hair, security outerwear) and crazy (emanating from both band and extremely devoted fans). Crazy in the best kind of way, the one you lose yourself in the music, the one that makes you happy, the one that courses through every inch of your body. Add funny banters and Awsten's cheeky charisma. The response from green clothed fans was overwhelming to say the least. Strong unison singing every word, mad screams and constant wave of crowdsurfers. What a show.

Simple Plan took over the refreshing and pop rock vibe taking the crowd to the beach and sunny holidays with their beach balls flying over the crowd and summer hits' tunes. Canadian rockers made people jump, yell shamelessly 'dick', sing along. Nostalgic mood mixed with excited screams, they wouldn't be themselves if they didn't joke around (basically rock and comedy show in a price of one). Their youthful approach was and is always something that moves mountains and brings fans to them.

Neck Deep didn't waste a second to establish their rule over the Monster Energy Stage after Simple Plan. Faster, louder, reach to the punk rock roots, start that mosh pit, oh but hold that thought here's Natalia Imbruglia's 'Torn' cover for you, let's feel like it's 90s again and if you don't know it, you lived under a rock. But basically keep the energy flowing, keep it up, keep in coming.

But rock music has so many names, so Hellogoodbye (back in Marshall Stage) was a interesting change of gear, leaning towards indie, electropop and all the weird and beautiful things between them. Oh, how I danced, danced like no one was watching, my face with stupidly wide grin from the sparkling, positive energy I was coated in. Audience was advised to drink pure distilled water, distilled from potatoes (wink, wink). Basically it was a party. Or maybe the party? Well, I was glad I stumbled upon it and stayed.

Touché Amore on Dickies Stage tore the air with growl which seemed to be an appropriate reaction for heavy rain that came down. But their music must have had some magic in it, 'cause soon clouds separated and sun started lurking through them. Or maybe they just had the sunshine with them all this time and brought some from L.A.. Heavy was the music, hardcore stage presence and singer's presence, front barrier seemed to be more appropriate place to scream words than small stage that frankly couldn't contain their energy.

I wasn't even close and I could hear Lights' powerful voice echoing through The Club Key Stage. Tiny figure with flame coloured hair was ruling the stage, voice clear, loud and soulful. Her music taking the best bits from rock, pop and electronic genres was a catchy blend to dance. Her vocals are phenomenal.

One of the band's I was really looking forward to see was Plain White T's (yes, yes, they played 'Hey There Delilah', 'course the did) and I loved every minute of their show [on Marshall Stage]. Indie pop/ indie rock with bits of samples was exactly what I needed, it was my kind of show no matter the time of the day. I could enjoy the music and not worry about being hit by half empty cup with beer (although it was funny to hear the story of crowd starting the biggest moshpit to 'Hey There Delilah', 'cause the band was on stage before Metallica, to be honest it's no the first time when I hear or experience the audience going absolutely bananas to the slowest song, so the story is even funnier), move to the beat. New staff had these nice, not too much electronic touch and was pulsing with energy. But of course the older goodies hit people's hearts harder.

I've managed to catch half of the set of IDKHow on The Key Club Stage Left I'm glad I did, 'cause boys sassiness must be legendary by now. The cheek, the charisma, the silliness acted out with serious faces, the instant bond with adoring crowd makes it all so special. Rhythm section and samples, bit of 80s synth tone, bit of 90s pop and sharp lyrics make their show something to talk about. Just like the acoustic set they played on the top of The Fearless Arms (bar), I'd assume sometime around their time in signing tent and because why not. Got to enjoy that one from the distance, the kind of surprise you could compare to sugar rush every kid gets when eating a candy floss.

From sweet tunes I switched to heavy metal brought by Bullet for My Valentine. Jägermeister Stage's tent was coming off the seams with gathered crowd, when it seemed it was loaded to its ends more people were getting in and immersing in roaring guitars and drums going faster and faster. Crowd gathered there was in for a wild ride.

NOFX headlining on Punk in Drublic Stage and bringing whole bunch of punk rock bands that they’re on tour with) were the living proof that punk's not dead and it's not going anywhere. Talking about snots, cum, walking on the thin line and reigniting the punk rock spirit with each song they were hosting a celebration, party mood was lit up. Punk and ska and a setting sun.

Big surprise, very good surprise was All Time Low's show to me (Monster Energy Stage). There were these jokes, on the borderline of pervert (oh, I've heard so many stories them boys were so inappropriate, but to be fair they never said they were playing songs for children), but the vibe - oh it was magnificent. It was great pop punk, pop rock show and people were literally invited, so it became a dance off onstage. The band was grateful for their fans, entertaining, connecting with their fans and gave fantastic show. Also, brand new song had its debut at Slam Dunk's stage – 'Getaway Green'. What a night.

[faejilly]

i am for you (8/?)

updates for three whole weeks in a row! that hasn’t happened on anything I’ve written in awhile. ANYWAYS. pls enjoy some Hedge Ridiculousness and Malec’s lack of chill and forgive me a small note of melancholy for my favorite blonde lady. 

AO3 -- series tag on tumblr

SUNDAY 

*** *** ***

[alec]: I hope me leaving so abruptly didn't ruin the rest of your brunch with your friends

[magnus]: of course not. We've had much more dramatic days. This one was even all good news! It's a nice change. [magnus]: I'll admit I'm a touch surprised to hear from you so quickly though?

[alec]: I'm waiting to finish getting ready... Shared bathroom remember

[magnus]: oh yes that. Ugh. [magnus]: we'll have to make sure you have a change of clothes so you can shower over hear from now on [magnus]: *here

[alec]: that's still sharing a bathroom 😉

[magnus]: as if you didn't enjoy "sharing" my bathroom

[alec]: you just want an excuse to shower with me again, don't you?

[magnus]: hopefully daily

[alec]: I don't think your water heater would survive that [alec]: not sure i'd survive either, but what a way to go

[magnus]: they have industrial water heaters for the whole building. I've never run out of hot water

[alec]: hot damn I love you [alec]: I mean. I do. But I haven't managed a long hot shower (before last night) in at least a month. [alec]: so I think I also love your plumbing

[magnus]: you're welcome to start a torrid affair with my plumbing any time you'd like [magnus]: as long as I'm also invited [magnus]: because I love you too

[alec]: I could just... wait, my bathroom's free, so I better get in there while the getting's good

[magnus]: could just? You know you can ask me anything. When you get a chance, of course. (Hope the hedge doesn't give you too hard a time at your book signing.)

*** *** ***

[alec]: Did you know that your friend Dot works with a guy who was Clary's Mom's best friend before she died and apparently Uncle Elliot just asked Clary if she knew an Alec or Alexander?

[magnus]: no [magnus]: so much. I don't even know what else to say to anything in that sentence [magnus]: How. She's on the wrong COAST right now!

[alec]: Clary didn't tell him anything, which Elliot should have very well known she wouldn't. But we're going to have to think of some way to soothe the hedge this week, as they've all gone into "protect Clary" mode. [alec]: Except for Clary herself, she thinks it's hilarious and was laughing so much she had trouble telling Elliot off for being pushy. [alec]: You should probably give Dot my number so she can interrogate me directly without provoking my siblings again.

[magnus]: hell no, that was out of line, I'm going to yell at her [magnus]: but she will probably interrogate you next weekend regardless of anything I say

[alec]: can't really blame her

[magnus]: yes I can. She will get no mimosas for at least a month. Or dancing! No more dancing.

[alec]: oh so harsh. Whatever will she do with her fancy dancing shoes?

[magnus]: I can't believe you're joking about this, she's invading your privacy.

[alec]: She just wanted to know who swept you off your feet. No telling what she's heard from brunch

[magnus]: she was being unbearably nosy, probably trying to see if she can find you online or something

[alec]: She might, unfortunately. [alec]: but I don't know what's still likely to show up in the results

[magnus]: I don't think she'll be invited to brunch at all for awhile

[alec]: I don't think that's necessary. She just wants to be sure you're safe. [alec]: Besides, you met the hedge. Don't think I'd recognize this so-called privacy if I had it.

[magnus]: just because your siblings are a bit much doesn't make her behavior acceptable

[alec]: it's fine, I get where she's coming from. You're worth protecting. [alec]: Elliot didn't mean any harm, Clary's not upset, and the rest of them will recover. [alec]: Besides, my siblings and I are co-dependent dysfunctional fiends, it's ok, you can say that outloud. [alec]: type it outloud? That doesn't sound right. Look right?

[magnus]: you're not supposed to distract me from my righteous fury by being adorable

[alec]: why not? You're so beautiful you distract me from everything and anything else

[magnus]: stop making me blush and go back to work. That is why you had to leave me this morning, make it worth it

[alec]: nothing's worth leaving you

[magnus]: you're not stopping! [magnus]: I'm going to come over there and throw you over my shoulder and take you back to my bedroom and never let you go again

[alec]: that's more a reward than a threat [alec]: but all right I'll pretend to be responsible and do what I said I'd do. For now. I'll see you later

[magnus]: of course

*** *** ***

[magnus]: so apparently your step-father is also still in touch with Elliot and asked him about Dot and then me. I know this because Dot apologized before I even managed to yell at her since she hadn't meant to escalate quite that far [magnus]: your hedge is terrifying

[alec]: yours started it? [alec]: but yes, they are. I did warn you

[magnus]: I think I was more concerned about the excessive number of siblings than the parents. Silly of me, I guess

[alec]: No, that was where I was worried too. At least until we drag you to family dinner night. [alec]: and then I was still more worried about Mom. She tends to be a bit... intense. Luke's usually much more easy-going. Going sideways with his questions like that seems a bit extreme from him, but I suppose he wanted an opinion that wasn't one of my siblings' first impressions? Or possibly he was mad at Elliot for the digging, considering... [alec]: I suppose it's my turn to go asking my family what-the-fuck they think they're doing. Thanks for the tag?

[magnus]: You're welcome.

[alec]: I should probably not interrupt the poor author's reading, just in case [alec]: I'm not sure if waiting all the way 'til dinner (or so?) would be better or if I should catch him right after the store closes

[magnus]: I'm sure you'll figure it out. And I'm sure your author appreciates your consideration, though I hope it's not that bad

[alec]: probably won't be, but you can never quite be sure

[magnus]: Dot wasn't. She apparently just wasn't thinking beyond confirming you were part of the Garroway horde, maybe getting enough info to look you up in the student directory. [magnus]: I told her that thanks to her accidental drama she was going to have to wait until next week for any information or contact. She said that was fair.

[alec]: why does your hedge sound more reasonable than mine?

[magnus]: smaller? I've never been the responsible one?

[alec]: I don't believe that, you obviously take great care of them

[magnus]: thank you. They take care of me back. [magnus]: You've always been their big brother more than their friend, haven't you?

[alec]: I suppose

[magnus]: they weren't the ones who picked up the pieces for you when you were in the hospital, or afterwards

[alec]: of course not. Hadn't even met most of them, and Jace was in a new school for his senior year, and Izzy was only fifteen.

[magnus]: I'm not saying you should have let them, I agree, they were mostly all still children then. But that changes the dynamic, I think [magnus]: my hedge has cleaned me up more times than I'd like to admit

[alec]: I'm glad they were there for you

[magnus]: yours would be happy to help you if you needed them

[alec]: I know

[magnus]: good [magnus]: I should probably let you get going, sorry for interrupting

[alec]: oh, our event's started, they just needed me for setting up, and then cleaning up afterwards. And possibly to stand in the background and look scary if anyone gets too rude during the actual signing at the end. [alec]: I'm mostly free for the next hour or two during the reading and Q&A, I'd say.

[magnus]: how free is free? 😈

[alec]: that question makes me nervous

[magnus]: 😇

[alec]: that didn't help

[magnus] wasn't supposed to [magnus]: and you never answered me

[alec]: I'm in the break-room [alec]: so I can talk but if you're going to suggest something *interesting* may I remind you that my siblings or parents could decide to wander by at any moment

[magnus]: some day I am going to have to ask exactly what you meant by *interesting* [magnus]: but for now... Can I call? I'll share every embarrassing Dot story I can think of so you're prepared for next weekend [magnus]: and you can help me figure out what your hedge would like in the dramatic apology gift basket that Dot's going to be getting Clary.

[alec]: sounds perfect

*** *** ***

[alec]: so. Uh. Luke apologized for adding to the extra drama, he was just annoyed at Elliot for throwing his question at Clary, considering the whole *name changing running away from abusive father* thing could make intrusive family questions a very bad thing [alec]: also Mom has invited you to family dinner next week [alec]: I'd say I hope that's not too soon but if my instantaneous disaster-marriage-proposal didn't scare you off I'm mostly sure my Mom can't. I think

[magnus]: you say such nice things about your mother most of the time, but then you also sound kind of terrified

[alec]: she means well but doesn't always give the best first impression

[magnus]: I must admit that did not make me less nervous

[alec]: oh, if you want terrifying mothers, wait until Aline gets back. [alec]: Jia Penhallow is something else. Though she is how we ended up in Alicante when we left NYC, so she's not all bad. Just intimidating.

[magnus]: wait. That sounds familiar? Penhallow?

[alec]: she's Head Surgeon or something fancy like that at Alicante General. She and Mom have been friends since college. She'd apparently been talking about the upgrades to the psych admittance policies or something, which was why Mom thought to come here when she knew she wanted to get us away from Robert.

[magnus]: OH. DOCTOR Penhallow. Cat's mentioned her! Small world. [magnus]: Pretty sure Cat also called her terrifying, and Cat's hard to rattle. [magnus]: So maybe we'll avoid meeting your cousin Aline's mother for awhile yet

[alec]: sounds like a plan. [alec]: Aline's not going to be back 'til fall, she and Helen are doing a summer in Europe kind of thing when their semester's over, so I think we're safe for now

[magnus]: only for now?

[alec]: I've known Aline since shortly after she was born, they're gonna be at the wedding. You definitely want to meet Aunt Jia before that, she's got this /formal event face/ that could probably kill a man at 100yds if she wanted

[magnus]: so you're trying to make me less nervous about meeting your mother by outright terrifying me about meeting your aunt? [magnus]: I'm not sure that's the best long-term plan

[alec]: uh. Because it wasn't a plan at all. Sorry.

[magnus]: it's a good thing you're cute

[alec]: only cute? That feels like a downgrade somehow

[magnus]: you did just try and scare me AWAY from your family, which is a terrible trait in a fiance

[alec]: wouldn't it be worse NOT to warn you before you face the... everything? [alec]: besides, I can't have scared you too much if you're still willing to marry me

[magnus]: don't think anything could scare me that much

[alec]: goddamn you're amazing [alec]: ... [alec]: did you mean it about the daily showers?

[magnus]: I've meant everything I've said to you. 😘 [magnus]: So yes.

[alec]: does that mean you want me to move in? [alec]: because I am just self-aware enough to recognize that that's probably even crazier than the engagement and family dinner after a week, but not sensible enough not to want to [alec]: if you want me to [alec]: oh hell that looks even crazier in black and white than it did in my head [alec]: ... [alec]: Magnus?

[magnus]: Ragnor, believe it or not, owns an actual pick-up truck [magnus]: which I can borrow on... [magnus]: Wednesday [magnus]: We can pack you up tomorrow or Tues?

[alec]: did you just ask him about his truck before even telling me you didn't think I'd finally crossed the too-crazy line? Thanks for that.

[magnus]: oops?

[alec]: how much lecturing are we gonna get from him about it?

[magnus]: oh, all of the lecturing for forever

[alec]: good thing you're gorgeous [alec]: and that I know a bookstore that always has a stack of sturdy boxes ready to be put back together [alec]: Tues would be perfect

[magnus]: Tues will be perfect [magnus]: I'm sure of it

[alec]: I'm sure of us, too

*** *** ***

MONDAY

*** *** ***

[magnus]: your lovely sister said you 'generally' refuse to dance [magnus]: what does GENERALLY mean? [magnus]: do I have to get you drunk?

[alec]: I think the singular time my sister saw me dance was at Lydia's engagement party. Her— John dared me, and it was his night, so I felt I couldn't refuse. [alec]: And I was DD for the hedge so no, drunk is not required

[magnus]: well that's even more intriguing [magnus]: why don't you usually dance? [magnus]: considering how you move your hips I can't imagine you're terrible at it

[alec]: oh god I snorted out loud and got glared at by the people studying at the next table over, you're dangerous

[magnus]: I am, aren't I?

[alec]: and I dance, just not for the hedge [alec]: I'll dance with you whenever you'd like

[magnus]: I almost dropped my phone, you're more dangerous than I am [magnus]: is now good? Are you done? With... whatever?

[alec]: How about post-move-in celebration dancing?

[magnus]: Is right now good for moving? [magnus]: oh wait no. professoring. Damn.

[alec]: I do have a shift at the SC tonight, and tomorrow I've got to finish some readings as well as packing, so even IF we had a truck already, I think we'd still be stuck on Wed.

[magnus]: ah well. It was a nice thought for a moment there [magnus]: though. by dance do you mean DANCE or /dance/ [magnus]: do I need to get a pair of tear-away pants for my sex box?

[alec]: your wait what now? (no. maybe? If you want to?)

[magnus]: the box. Of stuff. Under the bed. Fun stuff! We should go through the box. [magnus]: after dancing, so we're both impatient for Wed surprises [magnus]: don't you have a sex box?

[alec]: running away from home. Roommates. Student housing. Eldest of so many siblings. I have a drawer next to the bed. It has condoms, lube, and a sleep mask and earplugs which have been used for afternoon naps when I'm too sleep-deprived to last another hour [alec]: not sex. [alec]: Though. That has promise doesn't it, not able to see or hear what's going to happen, having to wait until you feel it?

[magnus]: we maybe don't have to wait 'til Wed for that one

[alec]: wow I really don't want to go to work now. Damn it. [alec]: but yeah. My drawer is sad. I need you to save me. Show me your box.

[magnus]: our box now

*** *** ***

[maryse]: Hello, Magnus? This is Maryse, Alec's mother

[magnus]: hello, yes. Alec said you wanted to ask me something?

[maryse]: I wanted to make sure you knew family dinner is completely optional. No one wants to pressure you, or will think less of you if you don't want to just yet. I'm aware we're rather a lot, and I know you and Alec just met.

[magnus]: that's very thoughtful of you [magnus]: Now I know where Alec gets it. He said much the same thing before Simon's gig, and again for dinner. I can assure you that I am looking forward to meeting you and your husband. [magnus]: and am only a reasonable amount of nervous.

[maryse]: we're very much looking forward to meeting you, too [maryse]: and in the interests of keeping everything as comfortable as possible, do you have any requests for dinner? Any allergies? Preferences? Anything you definitely don't want?

[magnus]: no allergies, no. Thank you. And I've never met a home-cooked meal I wasn't delighted to receive, so feel free to make your own favorites

[maryse]: oh, don't ever say that to Izzy! She cannot cook to save her life, but she'd be honored to try, for someone Alec likes. (And then we'd have to get something delivered.) [maryse]: And make sure you check on Alec if he ever cooks for you. He has a lovely light touch for baking, and if he knows a dish he can always repeat it [maryse]: but he'll follow the worst recipe in the world without a second thought just because *they wrote it down that way for a reason*

[magnus]: oh no, I'm going to need to hear more about that [maryse]: it will be my pleasure. I believe I may even have some photographic evidence. I'll see what I can find for Sunday

[magnus]: why thank you.

[maryse]: no need to thank me, it will be my very great pleasure. I seldom get the chance to reminisce about Alec, he always slips in the background and lets his siblings take center stage.

[magnus]: I'm afraid I won't help that tendency, I am fond of and usually found in the spotlight, myself

[maryse]: and he wouldn't have it any other way, I'm sure. It's not a bad thing, just an observation. [maryse]: I do like the chance to shake things up a little though.

[magnus]: I can definitely help with that one

[maryse]: perfect. I can't wait.

[magnus]: me neither

*** *** ***

[magnus]: I'll have you know, your mother gives an excellent first impression

[alec]: well, that's good. She did call you then?

[magnus]: texted, actually.

[alec]: really? I don't think she's ever texted me in my life [alec]: I think she's trying to tone it down for you [alec]: maybe she felt bad about the Elliot/Luke/Dot/Clary thing

[magnus]: well that's unnecessary, she didn't have a hand in any of that

[alec]: where do you think I got my over-developed sense of personal responsibility?

[magnus]: is she where you got the height and eyes too?

[alec]: No, those are from her Dad. Skipped a generation. She can be blamed for the dark hair and cheekbones though. [alec]: She and Izzy look a lot alike actually. Though maybe don't mention that to either of them? They... don't always like to admit how similar they are.

[magnus]: Can your mother at least cook better than Isabelle? Because I did get a warning about your sister's food

[alec]: oh hell, yeah. Mom's a great cook, so's Robert actually. But Izzy's liable to give you food poisoning. Or make you wish she had, so you could puke it all up and pretend it never happened.

[magnus]: that's... extreme

[alec]: well. Brotherly exaggeration? It is usually edible but it's never *good*. I don't know why, she's brilliant, got into med school and aced all her chem classes and that's all much harder than following a recipe so there shouldn't be such a difference in results, but somehow there is.

[magnus]: I've always felt cooking was as much art as science

[alec]: she's good at that too though? She got into cosplay when she got out of rehab, something to distract her hands and thoughts I think, and now she designs and makes prop weapons for people as a hobby. Sometimes costume jewelry too. She and Clary have even got an etsy shop, and some textile one too that I can't remember the name of... spoon something? Flowers? I'll have to check. Clary does the fabric designs. [alec]: Oh, you should ask to see their workshop, they took over Luke's garage completely, don't think he's ever getting it back.

[magnus]: oh [magnus]: OH. DO YOU THINK I COULD GET THEM TO COME TALK TO THE THEATRE STUDENTS? Props and costumes and set designs... it'd be amazing

[alec]: they neither of them have a lot of time during the school year, but they'd probably love to help out with the summer camps you guys do

[magnus]: you know about the summer camps?

[alec]: I know lots of things [alec]: also Jace helps out with the music camp [alec]: his Dad taught him piano, and he kept it up after he came to live with us. Reclaimed it, really, his Dad was the worst. [alec]: I think Jace missed Robert's grand piano almost as much as he missed Max, right after we moved and everything was a mess

[magnus]: we work with the music dept ALL THE TIME. Including a one act musical every summer [magnus]: how have we not met before this? [magnus]: Ragnor and Jace and Dot and Elliot, and even Cat at the hospital, we've been just a step or two apart for years now

[alec]: maybe we weren't ready [alec]: it took me a long time to stop wondering if maybe Robert was a little bit right about me [alec]: and you've never had it easy

[magnus]: are you saying you believe in destiny?

[alec]: kind of hard not to, considering how I felt when I got your first email, and my first sight of you bore a more than passing resemblance to getting hit upside the head with a 2x4. But in a good way. [alec]: that maybe didn't come out right

[magnus]: maybe, but I know what you meant [magnus]: it felt the same for me, both times

[alec]: see? Fate

[magnus]: you make a compelling argument [magnus]: I think I must agree

[alec]: that bodes well for my future career, I think 😉

[magnus]: it does, doesn't it? 😘

*** *** ***

TUESDAY

*** *** ***

[ragnor]: you never struck me as the impetuous sort, Mr. Lightwood

[alec]: I think if you're going to be questioning me about Magnus, which is where I'm assuming this is going, you might as well call me Alec

[ragnor]: are you going to be able to call me Ragnor?

[alec]: not quite yet? Hopefully tomorrow. Or next week

[ragnor]: you can attempt it when I come pick up my truck Thur morning from *yours and Magnus'* apartment, yes?

[alec]: you seem much less concerned than I expected

[ragnor]: it is quite inexplicable, isn't it? I should be quite horrified [ragnor]: and yet

[alec]: I'll take that as a compliment

[ragnor]: that's probably what it is [ragnor]: either that or I'm going senile

[alec]: you're one of the sharpest men I've ever met

[ragnor]: you almost put a sir at the end of that sentence didn't you

[alec]: I didn't hit send before I took it out, it doesn't count

[ragnor]: I do like you [ragnor]: but this is really all very sudden, and Catarina does know how to kill a man so it looks like natural causes, and you know I have a vehicle big enough to haul a body [ragnor]: Magnus has been known to have poor taste in romantic partners, and we have refrained from murder before [ragnor]: I don't think we'll be making that mistake again

[alec]: good to know

[ragnor]: I believe you mean that

[alec]: I try to only say what I mean

[ragnor]: I've noticed that [ragnor]: It's very promising [ragnor]: if slightly unusual coming from a law student

[alec]: thank you?

[ragnor]: red-eye?

[alec]: I, what?

[ragnor]: Coffee. Thursday morning. That is your drink, yes?

[alec]: several times a day, honestly. [alec]: thank you

[ragnor]: you're welcome [ragnor]: oh, and Dot is apparently in trouble, and not allowed your phone number yet, but she did want me to pass along her apologies, for. Whatever it was. [ragnor]: don't tell me [ragnor]: I expect I'm too old for that story

[alec]: mostly just miscommunication, but tell her not to worry about it, I'm not the one who needs an apology, and

[ragnor]: I asked you not to tell me

[alec]: right. Sorry. I'll stop.

[ragnor]: you and Raphael are the only people that has ever worked on [ragnor]: thank all the gods, someone who can keep their mouth shut [ragnor]: Do try not to dent my truck

[alec]: I'll do my best

[ragnor]: I expect nothing less

*** *** ***

[alec]: Ragnor's almost scarier as your friend than he was as my professor or boss

[magnus]: You shouldn't worry. He's secretly a big softie. All bark, no bite.

[alec]: I'm not sure. He's very sharp-tongued, and then he's very kind once you get past the exasperation and sarcasm, but under that I think maybe he's scary again.

[magnus]: not many people notice that [magnus]: I knew you were remarkable [magnus]: wait, why are you coming to this conclusion now? Was he giving you a hard time about moving in?

[alec]: actually no, he just pointed out that he *could* if he needed to later [alec]: and then told me he'd bring coffee Thur morning when he comes to get his truck

[magnus]: See! Big softie. [magnus]: Speaking of! However does he remember your Lydia? It's unusual he knows the names of the students who aren't majoring in Classics or History.

[alec]: oh [alec]: so uh. The short story is just... [alec]: Lydia and I took Prof Fell's etymology courses together. We're apparently memorable when we're in the same class as we tend to uh. Over-do it a little. Maybe. It was supposed to be sort of a break from the pre-law stress. But not really, since latin is still a thing in legal codes and we both liked the idea of learning how to figure it out rather than just memorizing the legal phrases as they showed up.  [alec]: we're both of us bad at doing things that aren't, you know, part of The Plan™

[magnus]: I don't think I was part of your Plan™ and you're very good at doing me

[alec]: holyshitmagnus

[alec]: I almost killed my phone, I should no better than to drink while you're typing [alec]: *know [alec]: and thank you, you're amazing [alec]: in bed and out of it

[magnus]: In the shower, against the wall... [magnus]: we still haven't christened the kitchen though

[alec]: don't suppose you have a long lunch break today? Because I do.

[magnus]: I do actually. Would you care to be my lunch, Alexander?

[alec]: Any chance I get

[magnus]: 12:30 good?

[alec]: perfect

*** *** ***

[magnus]: you know. I interrupted your Lydia story earlier

[alec]: I hope you're not apologizing, considering how you interrupted my Lydia story

[magnus]: Of course not! [magnus]: but considering all the overlap that is likely to happen with our assorted hedges as time goes by [magnus]: I feel I perhaps ought to ask [magnus]: about Lydia and her—about what Ragnor helped you both with? [magnus]: if you're comfortable

[alec]: John Monteverde was the first person I met here (he was working at the registrars the summer before I started) and we hit it off [alec]: he could tell I was worried about housing... freshman are required to room in the dorms, and here I was a year older than most with reasons to be nervous about how I'd handle a stranger as a roommate and while I might have managed an exception I would have had to talk to the Dean about my mental health and my year off and that sounded terrifying

[magnus]: the Deans are sort of a mixed bag, I don't blame you

[alec]: He saved me from the freshman dorms by requesting me as his roommate [alec]: and then there was this brilliant bull-headed blonde in most of my classes, so we studied together, a lot, and I introduced my study-partner to my roommate, and they just... [alec]: the three of us got a cheap two bedroom off campus the next year

[magnus]: he sounds lovely

[alec]: he's the one who talked me out of trying to graduate in three years [alec]: everyone was saying that I should take care of myself, that there was no reason I had to rush it, that I didn't have to "catch up" or anything [alec]: but I still felt like I needed to make up for that year, somehow

[magnus]: oh, Alexander

[alec]: even while I was trying to plan it I knew it was wrong but I couldn't seem to *stop* [alec]: until he told me to knock it off because Lydia and I were both pre-law, both pushing for Dean's list, both competing for... everything, really, mostly the same classes, same extracurriculars, and if I only did three years she'd probably end up only doing three years and be studying so much he'd never get to kiss his own girlfriend and *only I could save him from that tragedy*

[magnus]: that's delightful.

[alec]: just ridiculous enough it worked. I knew she could make her own mind up whether she wanted to accelerate her program or not, but realizing I didn't want her to feel she *had* to make that choice to keep up with me and John made it... somehow easier?

[magnus]: you'll always be better at taking care of other people rather than yourself

[alec]: pot, kettle?

[magnus]: probably why I recognize it so well

[alec]: they officially got engaged half-way through his senior year, mine and Lydia's junior year [alec]: they'd decided not to get married until after she'd made it through law school and they'd figured out where they were going next, but he wanted... [alec]: she wanted him forever, and he wanted the world to know it [alec]: and a few weeks later he was hit by a car

[magnus]: no. oh no.

[alec]: he lingered for awhile, but he never woke up, she never got to say good-bye properly

[magnus]: poor Lydia

[alec]: Yeah. [alec]: And then we found out that the bereavement policy for the school is only for immediate family. Parent, siblings, spouses. Not fiances. She couldn't withdraw without getting a slew of incompletes and failing grades on her transcripts. She had to get permission in writing from every class, was going to have to tell all those people, over and over, that she was heart-broken.

[alec]: and they were all going to say yes, she had good instructors, but still. It hurt her, reliving that just to *beg for mercy*, I think she called it. She managed one, and it almost broke her.

[magnus]: so you did the rest of them for her

[alec]: Pr—Ragnor helped, got me in touch with the one I didn't know personally. [alec]: Lydia went and stayed with John's parents for the next few months, but she was back next fall. [alec]: did an independent study and an online class or two over the summer, took a heavy load her senior year. Buried herself in work, half to get what she needed done, half as her way of dealing, being too busy to think, but she pulled it off. Graduated with me, right on time. Got into the Law Program with me too. [alec]: I don't actually remember the weekend after we graduated, there was a lot of alcohol involved even for normal college students, never mind the two of us, who almost never drink

[magnus]: but you both made it

[alec]: we did [alec]: five weeks and we'll have made it again [alec]: it's kind of unbelievable

[magnus]: I find it easy to believe in the both of you

[alec]: thank you

[magnus]: always

[alec]: love you

[magnus]: love you too. [magnus]: that also gets an always, just so you know

[alec]: I do know that

[magnus]: good

[alec]: you know [alec]: John's been gone for longer than either of us knew him when he was alive, but there's still... I still. [alec]: I don't think either of us would have made it without him, I don't think we'll either of us stop missing him, though for different reasons, obviously, there's just. There's a gap, and the rest of the world shifts around it until it's not such a deep aching chasm, but it's never really gone, never going to be refilled

[magnus] no, it never does. You never stop loving someone just because they died

[alec]: Lydia's never dated again. And I never asked, never pushed, but sometimes I wondered, if maybe she should? How else do you deal with meeting the love of your life at 18 and losing him at 21?

[magnus]: I don't know. Maybe you never do. Maybe you build a different life than the one you would have had, and fill that one up with different sorts of love instead

[alec]: I haven't even known you a month, and half of that time I'd never even seen you, but if ever... [alec]: there's no going back to who I was before I met you

[magnus]: I wouldn't want to go back to who I was before I met you [magnus]: even if ever...

[alec]: I'm sorry

[magnus]: for what?

[alec]: bringing the mood down?

[magnus]: I asked. And I'd rather you tell me anything, everything, rather than think that you shouldn't because it might be hard, or sad

[alec]: I don't always remember to say things, or know how to start even if I want to. I'm glad you asked

[magnus]: then I am too

[halekingsourwolf]

Inspired by today’s eclipse and for @sterekwritingroom‘s flash event.

–––––––

The first group of weres pass through Beacon Hills on a Thursday. Stiles probably wouldn’t notice except that he’s spent the past year and a half hanging out almost exclusively with supernatural beings and that… well, ok, these guys aren’t exactly subtle. They tilt their heads almost in sync as he passes by them –– heading in to pay cash at the gas station while they pile back into their packed SUV. Noses flare, stances shift, and Stiles has about point five seconds to plan a bolt back to the Jeep before one of them’s announcing “Don’t trouble your Alpha; we’re just passing north for the event.” And then they’re back in the SUV and gone.

So… yeah, not to diminish Stiles’ awesome deductive skills here but… not subtle.

The second sighting happens before school on Friday, when Stiles ducks into the Dunkin’ Donuts for some much needed coffee and practically trips over a trio of sugar-high toddlers. One of them, wearing what looks like a home-painted t-shirt, decorated with a slightly uneven yellow circle, is midway through whining “Momma, we’re gonna miss the––“ when she stops in her tracks to stare up at him.

Stiles blinks down at her, the door perched against his elbow.

“Say ‘scuse me,” the boy next to her murmurs. It’s too early for this, brain crawling the sludge-slow of non-coffee through his system, and Stiles isn’t sure which of them he’s talking to.

“Excuse me,” he says and all three immediately shuffle, staring wide enough it makes Stiles’ eyes ache for them. He starts past, scrubbing a hand across his jaw self-consciously, wondering if he’d missed sleep drool or a sock in his hair or something on his mad rush out the door but, two steps past, the youngest kid snuffles and speaks up, soft: “Are you gonna come see the moon with us?”

It takes another step for Stiles to register that she’s talking to him, but by the time he blinks back the boy’s already tutting at her.

“No Lucy. He’ll go with his own pack.”

The little girl’s mouth opens in a wide, understanding O, while her older sister tugs proudly on her yellow circle shirt. It’s painted a messy black in the middle, inside the bright golden edge, and Stiles kind of forgets coffee for a minute in the face of actual werewolf children and then there’s a woman stepping up behind them, coffee and a box of munchkins in hand, dropping a fond hand to ruffle the boy’s hair as she gives Stiles an apologetic smile.

“Sorry about that, they’ve never been through another pack’s territory before. We’ve been driving since Arizona –– long trip for the little ones. But I couldn’t miss the chance for them to experience this. Best sighting until totality in 2017!”

“I’ll be ten,” says the boy, in the tone of one who’s done the math very carefully a dozen times over.

Stiles nods, a little lost because werewolf toddlers, and manages “well that’s… good.”

“I’m two,” the youngest puts in proudly, vaguely missing the thread of the conversation but eager to take part, and Stiles smiles back, wishing he had a little more coffee in his system because it’s not like he’s oblivious about what’s going on in the world this weekend, but he’s starting to feel a little dense for not connecting all kinds of dots sooner.

Then again, there’s another person who probably could’ve connected them for him.

“They don’t know how lucky they are,” the woman adds, beaming down. “I had to wait years for my first one and I’ll never forget the experience. Of course, you won’t feel it the same way as us,” her tone going apologetic, “but I’m sure your pack can’t wait to take part.”

And then she’s ushering the kids out the door with promises of donuts in the car, and Stiles is tugging out his phone, pulling up Derek Hale’s number.

READ MORE

.-

“Why didn’t you mention that the eclipse is a thing for you guys?”

Derek gives him a look from where he stands against the loft’s windows, like he’d been expecting the question and isn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t backflipped twelve floors to the street to avoid it.

Whatever, serves him right for not answering the string of texts Stiles had sent throughout the day. And, speaking of:

“Your phone broken, dude? I know you’re not big with the words in general, but you know how texting works.” He knows from months of slowly breaking Derek into it, from grudging messages about research last summer to the scattered casual texts during his trip through South America with Cora, into the more regular conversations during his second vacation before he’d come back to Beacon Hills permanently a month back. Stiles still has a hard time accepting the fact that Derek’s back with them sometimes –– after two months lost to Kate’s capture, the short intense chaos of the Benefactor, and Derek’s three month trip to clear his head after his “evolution” Stiles had started wondering if he’d ever see the guy settled back here again.

It had kind of thrown him, how much he’d thought about it. How natural it feels to show up at the loft now, dropping his backpack next to the couch, keys on the table, filling up the space like he belongs there.

Or like he wants to make sure he’s got a foothold in it, in case it ever decides to go drifting again.

But point is, he knows Derek knows how to text. Which makes the pointed silence answering Stiles’ dozen texts for the past eight hours particularly unsettling.

“It’s the whole country’s thing,” Derek says finally, unhelpfully. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”

Which, yes, Stiles has. The world’s been pretty caught up in solar eclipse frenzy for the past couple weeks, broadcasting best viewing spots, promoting safe viewing tips, advertising eclipse viewing glasses at your local retailer for thirty bucks a pop. May 20th, 2012 will be the first solar eclipse viewable in the US since 1994 and the country’s acting like it’s the kick-off to a new millennium or something.

Which is so far beside the point.

“Yeah, but weres are the only ones who can feel it.” Stiles is aiming an unimpressed look at Derek, which is why he’s able to catch the flinch when it happens. It’s small, just a quick bite of jaw and taut shoulders before smoothing out again. It makes Stiles pause, rethink things for a beat because maybe the whole ‘feel the eclipse’ thing isn’t actually a positive experience… but Stiles kind of doubts a mom would drag her kids up from Arizona to Northern California to experience something anywhere less than awesome. Besides, Stiles has been thinking about this all day, and he’s got a feeling that––

“It… makes you stronger, right? I mean, a lunar eclipse makes you guys weak so a solar eclipse is like a power boost?”

Maybe that’s why Derek’s trying to avoid thinking about it. With the kind of luck he has and the amount of shit he’s gone through, he might not love the idea of hanging around a bunch of super-powered weres, even if he’d get a boost from the moon too. Guy’s lived the kind of life that has you looking for threats while other people paint eclipse t-shirts with their toddlers, and that thought’s kind of enough to punch an empathetic ache directly through Stiles’ chest.

But Derek’s sighing, rolling out his shoulders and aiming a tired look at the horizon.

“Not… exactly.” And then silence again. Stiles bites his tongue over the urge to question, shoving his hands in his pockets and pacing closer instead. A year ago he’d be demanding answers, spouting his own theories impatiently while he waited. Now he knows Derek well enough to see the effort it’s taking to dredge his own words up. “It’s… we don’t get stronger, really, but… our bond with our wolf does. The lunar eclipse is less about physical weakness and more about that bond weakening. We can’t call on our wolf to give us strength, to help us heal, that bond’s weakened and that part of us is… lost for the duration. The solar eclipse is the opposite. It’s supposed to leave us pure and connected, make us… whole in a way we only ever skim close to.” He shrugs, like he’s at a loss for how else to describe it. He hasn’t looked toward Stiles yet; his tone and profile are carefully unreadable. “Werewolves spend years planning for solar eclipses.”

There’s something missing from the story, some obvious puzzle piece Derek’s hiding in his lightly curled fist because “Dude,” the word falls out awed and follows up with a smack to Derek’s elbow. “Exactly no part of that sounds not awesome. Why didn’t we know about this, we’re like an hour and a half south of the main path.”

He ignores the too-slow look Derek aims down to the point of contact, his phone out and road trip Sunday sent off to Scott before he turns his focus back to the man in front of him.

“Seriously though, I know you and Deaton like giving each other a run for your money on the vague with the vital info department but a heads up could’ve been cool. I had to learn about all this from a trio of hyped up toddlers.”

“Toddlers?” Finally Derek reacts, just a little, a pique of interest pushing past the outdated gruffness.

“Werewolf toddlers,” Stiles agrees, lips twitching faintly. “Super cute. I think they wanted to induct me into their pack.”

“They’d throw you back once they got to know you.”

“Hey!” A rush of mock outrage and flailing limbs. “I’ll have you know I’m awesome with kids.”

“They finally found someone on their level?” Derek shoots back, and some of that indecipherable tension has eased out of his shoulders. Stiles smirks at him for a beat while Derek’s eyes glint, teasing, back. Then they drop and, through the room’s easy silence:

“We were all going to see this one together.” The puzzle piece slots a heartbeat before Derek says it. “My family… even a decade back we were talking about it. Peter flew to South Africa to experience a total eclipse in 2002 and acted like it changed his life. We were all…” He smiles, faint and self-deprecating. “so jealous. So my parents sat us down to plan out a trip for the next local one. Ten years away.” His shoulders roll, the shrug deceptively easy. “It felt so long then.”

Stiles hasn’t moved, hasn’t breathed, since the word family hit air. He recognizes the pain in Derek’s voice, the too light shrugs to mask the weight of old losses. Disrupted plans, shattered dreams. The minefield of everyday life, where mundane tasks turn into minefields and celebrations dig up long-buried tragedies. How it almost feels safer to hide your head in the sand until they sweep past you.

The air feels thick when Stiles finally drags in breath, lips parched as he clumsily wets over them.

“We’re heading out at twelve on Sunday,” he says, and waits until Derek’s eyes flit over to him to add. “I’ll pick you up then.”

.-

Stiles almost expects the loft to be empty when he pulls up on Sunday. It’ll make for a long ride that way –– Scott having decided to drive with Kira who decided to drive with Lydia. They’d asked him to come along in her car but Stiles had vetoed on the grounds of not letting his Jeep miss this rare celestial event. And when Derek elbows off the wall of the building, hands shoved deep into the pockets of the old leather jacket wrapped around his shoulders like a security blanket, Stiles knows he’d made the right call.

Derek slides in next to him, aiming a look that’s too knowing and too grateful toward the empty back seat. Stiles bites down on a smile, a flush of warmth spreading up from his chest toward the back of his neck as he steers them out of the lot.

“So, ready to howl at the moon and feel whole, sourwolf?”

There’s a huffed breath –– amusement, anticipation, nerves.

“Guess we’ll see.”

The eclipse is waiting.

They head north.

[ouroboroscycleshenanigans]

SassCon 2018

https://www.facebook.com/events/2003178756636298/

June 1-3 2018

New Haven, CT, USA

https://www.newhavenct.gov/

Free to attend

Guys, pick a hotel from here and all book together. It will be cheaper. goo.gl/beCVPg

Do bring an umbrella and camera. For fans of G. D. Falksen's "The Ouroboros Cycle" book series. All the info on the book series and where to get the book is here:

Book one goo.gl/UCVmc0 

Book two goo.gl/kPq6xA 

Book three goo.gl/H9bnYQ

 Book four goo.gl/ndoY9o 

Book five goo.gl/nCWhHn

What is SassCon? It is a weekend long series of events open to everyone who would like to come. Things you have to look forward to:

*Free tour of Historic Downtown New Haven

*Free tour of Yale campus

*Free trip to The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library  http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/

*Free trip to historic Grove Street Cemetery  http://www.grovestreetcemetery.org/

*Free tour of the Yale University Art Gallery https://artgallery.yale.edu/

*Free tour of the Yale Center for British Art

https://britishart.yale.edu/

*Sass Picnic on the historic green of New Haven https://www.nps.gov/places/new-haven-green.htm

*Sunday Ivy Wok Dinner with G. D. Falksen      https://www.yelp.com/biz/ivy-wok-new-haven

*Clothing swap

*Book signing

*Tea swap

*Tattoo party

*Sushi with G. D. Falksen at Sushi Palace  http://www.sushipalace.us/menu/menu.htm (This place is all you can eat or a la carte. They have tons of non-sushi type food as well.)

*Room parties

*Free Sasscon 2018 patches for all who come

*Fun madness that can only happen when a group of people who know one another from online meet

Look back often for updates, including the address and info on where and when you can join us. You can do everything with us or a la carte (where you come and do a few things with us and then go off and do your own thing). The choice is yours. G. D. Falksen http://www.gdfalksen.com/ will be able to come with us on most of the trips so that will be fun. Note that every spot we are meeting at and doing things at can be gotten to via car or bus https://www.cttransit.com/schedules ^This is the website for all the info on how to get around on the bus, which is amazing, cheap, and easy. Parking help in New Haven https://parknewhaven.com/deal/dine-downtown-park-free/ https://parknewhaven.com/ https://www.bestparking.com/new-haven-parking/ https://en.parkopedia.com/ If you need maps go here https://www.google.com/maps The hashtag to use on all social media (such as twitter and instagram) for the weekend is #Sasscon . This can be super useful on things like twitter if you are trying to find the group or other people you might not have their phone number or email. Do during the weekend check that hashtag for updates and where the roving group is. This is the type of event where we are going to move around the sights and museums a lot and if you come later you will be able to find us. We need you all to work out what is the best hotel for you. You do not have to all stay at the same place but it can make life easier and more fun. The New Haven area has a ton of hotels at all different price ranges and do not forget the towns around the city also have hotels and are a super fast drive into the city thanks to the major highways. Use this event page to sort out the hotel you will want to stay at and hopefully roomshare and all that fun. If you need someone to room with jump on the group https://www.facebook.com/groups/OuroborosCycleGroup/ and start talking to people about room shares and carpools. Things you can do https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g33851-Activities-New_Haven_Connecticut.html Things also in CT https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g28928-Connecticut-Vacations.html Thursday May 31st, 2018 Anyone early meets up and has fun once a hotel is settled on. More detail about what can be done in the area will be put here. Friday June 1, 2018 This is how you get around if you do not have a car or someone to carpool with https://www.cttransit.com/schedules

*2pm to 2:30pm: Meet up at the New Haven Green by the fountain https://www.nps.gov/places/new-haven-green.htm

*2:30pm to 4:00pm: Free tour of the https://artgallery.yale.edu/hours-and-directions Yale University Art Gallery

*4pm to 5:30pm: Free walking tour of downtown New Have

*6pm to 9:30pm: Dinner with G. D. Falksen At Sushi Palace 1473 Dixwell Ave, Hamden, CT  http://www.sushipalace.us/menu/menu.htm

This place is amazing. It has all you can eat or you can order from the menu meals and a la carte items. So you can eat tons of fresh great sushi or have teriyaki steak. This is their regular menu. I highly suggest carpooling to this as it's not in New Haven but about a 10 minute drive into Hamden. But it is worth it and so good.

*10pm to ?: Clothing swap and Shenanigans at the hotel. Have clothing you do not want anymore? Bring it along for the swap. Rules for the clothing swap. Bring clothing and put it down in the pile of other clothing. However many pieces of clothing you brought for the swap is the number you can pick up. People who brought stuff go first. Then once they have their new stuff, everyone can grab from the pile. Give someone that thing in the closet you're not wearing and get something sweet.

Saturday June 2, 2018

*12pm: Lunch at Louis’ Lunch http://louislunch.com/ This is the place that invented the hamburger. They have not changes the way it has been made in over 100 years. The hamburgers are amazing. It's worth going to and getting one to experience the history, and also get a great lunch. They always have a line so I suggest showing up a littler early but really do try to get a burger from here. It's super good and you are getting to eat history.

1pm to 3:30pm: At 1pm meet at the Egyptian gates of THE GROVE STREET CEMETERY http://www.grovestreetcemetery.org/  This is one of the oldest cemeteries in the country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grove_Street_Cemetery  It is full of all sorts of famous dead people. It's also right across from the skull and bones so we can see that after.

3:30pm to 4:30: Free Tour of the The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library  http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/

*4:30pm to 6pm: Free Walking tour of the historic Yale campus https://www.yale.edu/  Bring a camera. It is super pretty and huge. Everything is an easy walk one after the other. We might not get to everything, but this is the order. Do check the #Sasscon hash tag to find us.

*Tattoo party. Talk about people wanting to get a tattoo. Use this event page to set that up. Here is a list of the places in New Haven. Talk with Nikki https://www.facebook.com/NikkiALyka?fref=ufi as she is setting this up. Most people are getting the logo of the book series as a tattoo but you can get whatever you like if you would like to get something. Nikki is the one setting the whole thing up.

Use the Twitter hashtag to find out where we are #Sasscon if you come later or want to pop in and out.

*8pm to ?: Dinner. Where we should all eat is still up in the air. People, make suggestions. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurants-g33851-New_Haven_Connecticut.html New Haven has a ton of great places to eat.

*10:00pm to?: Shenanigans at the hotel room. Number to be announced later.

Sunday June 3rd, 2018

*1:00pm to 2:00pm: Sass Picnic with G. D. Falksen plus Tea Swap on the New Haven Green https://www.nps.gov/places/new-haven-green.htm

. Pack a picnic basket and lunch with everyone on the historic New Haven Green. Bring along packaged tea to take part in the swap. Give something to get something and acquire more loved tea if you wish.

2:pm to 4:30pm: Free tour of the Yale Center for British Art  https://britishart.yale.edu/

5:pm to 7pm: Dinner at the Ivy Wok, 316 Elm St New Haven, CT 06511 https://www.yelp.com/biz/ivy-wok-new-haven This is a staple of New Haven eating. Good noodles at good prices.

8pm Saying good bye ;-(                                                                            To anyone staying over at the hotel Sunday night, bonus hotel shenanigans.

Keep looking back for updates and other helpful things that will make your weekend easy and fun.

We will do it in 2019 once more.

[heartsofstrangers]

Aaron, what has been one of the most challenging things that you’ve experienced or are currently experiencing?

“One of the most challenging things I am going through right now has actually been ongoing. I came out about two years ago as gay, and the reaction from my family has been strange. It started with my sister asking me and I told her—she asked me why I didn’t say anything before, and I said, ‘Obviously, you know why: because out family would not approve.’ And, of course, they didn’t, as it moved down the line. For some odd reason my aunt told my entire family without my permission. She said they took it well, but I didn’t know what that meant. Then Mom found out and she was heartbroken. She said things in the house were going to change. I said, as opposed to what? The family is still adamant in their beliefs. Pretty Jamaican, Christian home, so it’s somewhat aggressive, very emotional but not very understanding of certain ideals—I guess I am more progressive.

“It’s been a struggle of identity, because I want to be outgoing and fun and friendly, just happen to be gay as well, but I feel like I can’t do that within my own home, I can’t do that around my family, I can’t do that when I am around members of my own community. I was especially worried that if it hit my church, my original church home, then I would probably be crucified or excommunicated or something, because they are very anti-gay. I wanted to walk in that truth, as would say. Well my mom probably said something like that, or Oprah, I don’t know, but something along the lines of ‘walking in your truth.’

“And I wanted to do that, but I felt like there were so many outside factors thrown at me. Even social media played into that, because I befriended many gay archetypes on Facebook, you know ‘club kings,’ ‘party arrangers,’ models and artists, and all these people who happen to be part of the LGBT community. I feel like I got some sort of family going on with them, even though it’s electronically based. I get kind of jealous when I see them doing big things, getting published in magazines, having big parties, meeting celebrities, getting photographed. There’s a bit of jealousy there because it’s like, ‘Oh, why can’t I be doing that? Why can’t I be free enough to express myself like that, or do what they are doing?’ Meanwhile, I’m stuck over here, trying to get through school and this job and looking after my sister every single day. It almost feels like you’re kind of trapped. I feel like, if I hadn’t come out right now, if I hadn’t come out two years ago, I probably would be suicidal or probably in a situation that I don’t want to put myself in, like probably with a girl, breaking her heart or something, you know. I didn’t want to ever put anyone through that, but the main struggle of being gay is that a lot of people see that first and nothing else. Being gay is not the entirety of my identity and I didn’t want it to become that, I don’t think it has. I guess the main thing that has been keeping me from really enjoying myself and being myself is what my family thinks of me and what my church would think of me, because they are all I’ve had from the very beginning. If they turned on me, as much as I feel like, that shouldn’t matter too much, it’s tugging at my heart and telling me I’m nothing without them. That’s the thing that stops me in my tracks most of time.”

What are some of the obstacles that sharing, that piece of yourself with your family or friends with—Have you shared it with you church, at all?

“I have not shared it with my church. I have not attended in a couple of years because of my former job. Thankfully, that was one of the benefits of it, I worked Sundays so I wouldn’t have to go. Granted, I’ve been dragged there every week from day one, so faith has never been something for me to kind of enjoy. It’s been something enforced and latched onto me from day one. Granted, it’s literally my mom’s middle name, so it’s kind of important to our family, but honestly I saw it more as a parenting tool than as a spiritual resource. It was just something to be there and ingratiate me while Mom went off and did her thing in the church, or whatever, but that’s something else.

“I have trouble sharing this with my family and my church, because they don’t see eye-to-eye with me. Mom even told me when I came out, ‘I think you need to seek mental health help. I think you hate women. I think you have some problems going on. I think you need to get fixed. There’s something really wrong with you.’ I knew there was something wrong with me—not that being gay was it—but I just knew that I was very anxious and depressed when I was younger, about middle school, starting end of elementary school into the present day, and a lot of it was because I had to keep this in. I was very anti-gay from fifth grade on. Fifth grade was when I found out in myself, but from that point on, I said, ‘Okay, you need to keep it low-key. You know about this, but you can’t do or say anything, otherwise’—I was ten or eleven at the time, so I am like, ‘I could get kicked out of my house, my mom could like spank me or beat me,’ and I didn’t want that issue. I didn’t want any rifts in the family, any rifts in my house, and I just endured it for a long time. And in that time I kind-of joined them, just to stay safe: I gay bashed, I stayed away from it, I name-called, I tried to do anything to distance myself, to save my own behind. I feel bad that I did that, but at the same time I couldn’t relate myself with that being a good thing, with me being a part of that, or else I would suffer consequences from all sides. Mind you, back then even in school, back in late 2000s, it was not very hip to be gay; you were still a social pariah in that sense, you still got bullied, there were kids killing themselves. I remember seeing them on Ellen. There were kids killing themselves over being bullied, over being harassed, over being cyber-bullied, and I didn’t want to be one of them. I felt awful, but I did not want to be that. As much as I want to explain myself, I’m constantly met with the argument from my family that sin is not supposed to make sense, so they don’t try to understand or figure out or anything like that. There is no retort, there is no conversation. A lot of it is also just frowned upon in the black community as well, to be honest. Like being black and gay don’t go together at all. They are two separate things that aren’t supposed to mesh. And, of course, there is hyper-masculinity, toxic masculinity, and all that other junk I have to deal with. I don’t know how I slid by that when I was younger, but, as you see today, I’m this amalgam of emotions and gayness. For my family and my church, it was always one and the same, to be honest, because they took on that same kind of authoritative spiritual figure. So that was kind-of this weird—I felt like if I was talking to my family, I was also talking to my church, so it was just—nothing was sacred, nothing was safe, ironically nothing’s sacred. I felt like I couldn’t tell them anything, because I was, I like to call myself the white sheep of my family, because it was just a little—it was a little scary releasing that info, and I was always the weird kid. I was always that one they asked, ‘Why aren’t you like the other kids?’ I’m would say, ‘Because I am not. I wish I was, but I don’t know how.’ That translated into, ‘He’s just going to be that weird kid. He’ll probably grow out of it. He’ll be normal one of these days.’ Then I laid this bombshell on them and they’re like, ‘Umm, okay then. We are just not going to talk about that.’ Two years ago, that Thanksgiving and Christmas was, like you could feel the wall, there was no communication from family other than a hello or hi, and I just sat there. Even when we went around the table saying what we were thankful for, everyone was agreeing with each other and it was nice, but when I went up to speak, there was silence. You could hear a pin drop. It kind of hurt. I even asked Mom about it later on that day. I said, ‘Why was the family so averse to me talking?’ She was like, ‘Aaron, look at you. Do you know what you’ve become? Do you know what you are?’ I didn’t know I changed into another creature or anything like that, but it was kind of heartbreaking to look at your family and have them look at you and see you as something else, like you weren’t the same person you were before. I feel like this whole thing makes me separate from everyone honestly, it doesn’t make you black, it doesn’t make you a man, it doesn’t make you part of God’s kingdom, it doesn’t make you a human being. They say they love me, they say they still care about me, it’s just this one major detail that kind-of gets in the way of things. So it’s a little bit strained, and I’ve never really talked to my family much, not so much for this reason, but I have never really been able to relate to them because I was that white sheep of family. I didn’t necessarily separate myself, but it was hard to get into any of that, because a lot of the topics were things that I was averse to, like sports, politics, the gay agenda—that was literally what they would talk about every Sunday dinner, after church.

“It would be a serial thing and I am just sitting on the side, you know what, I am just not going to say anything, because I don’t want to start anything, I don’t want to have a controversial opinion and then be ostracized for it, but it all came to a head that day my sister talked to me and outed me and—well, she didn’t out me, but I told her, after that, when the family found out it was just like—it was as if almost nothing changed, to be honest, because I was not that close to them before, still not that close with them now, but this just gave them a reason too. I have been trying to go with it for a long time. So far, I haven’t hurt anyone and I have made a few new friends, there’s a plus, but otherwise it’s been—it’s a very personal issue that you can only deal with yourself, you can’t really tell anyone about it.”

What impact has this had on how you feel about yourself and how you interact with others?

“In a sense, I feel like this has freed me a little, like I don’t have to hide anymore, though I still feel a little bit separate. Sure, family and church aside, you start going into the world, and you start viewing life outside of that bubble. You start to meet friends, you start to see people, and it feels like I’m like one of the only gay guys within a five- or fifteen-mile radius from my space, so you feel a little alone and you get that electronic relationship through your fancy glowing rectangle, but you don’t get to see guys or contact guys or really get involved with anybody else that’s male and understands where you’re coming from, i.e. gay. It’s slightly empowering to me, to be honest, I mean a few good opportunities have come out of this. A friend of mine got me involved with the Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus. I met him at the Pride Rally when they legalized marriage equality that day. I was a keynote speaker at the One Big Event in downtown Hartford last year, totally didn’t expect that, but it was an honor and a privilege. That was like an apex to my declaration. To be honest, that was kind of bizarre, when I look back on it. I didn’t think it was a big deal when I did it, but looking back now it’s like, wow! I did that, that’s a little weird. I am trying to assert myself with this identity that, I am still Aaron but a little newer and improved and also gay too, but I want to express that through my outward actions rather than just internally, because the idea is there, the execution isn’t, and I don’t necessarily feel like the look is either. I really want to change my entire life. I want to fix up whatever anxiety and depressions are getting me down, I want to change my wardrobe, get my life in order. It sounds a little bit superficial to fix the outside too, but I know that the heart and the brain are so under construction and they are going to be under construction, but I just want closure, you know. I want to go off and do something.”

Do you feel like the need or the want to change things externally is because you have been doing work internally for so long that now you want the outside to represent what you have done internally?

“Yes. The reason this is such an easy story for me to tell is that I have been harboring this forever, really. Because when you don’t have much of anything else—I go to work, I go to school, I look after my sister, there’s not much extracurricular activity going on, except the chorus. I don’t watch TV, I don’t have cable or anything, so I can’t binge-watch or—that’s another thing too, I can’t relate to anybody in my own generation, that is the weird part, like twenty-somethings, they just don’t get me at all, I vibe a lot—a few friends of mine are in my age range, but I just vibe with mainly older guys, and I have been okay with that. It hasn’t really had any negative impact at all. I feel like you are kind of out there to your family and your church and then you are out there to the rest of the world except this little, not a little niche group, but this other kind of group and it’s—I’m not sure how to take it most of the time because there’s being liked for who you are and then there’s being fetishized. And, I realized that as soon as I came out as well, when some guys would try to come up to me they kind of only want you for one thing and they turn you into a fetish, they turn you into an object, and it was kind of demeaning to me. I really didn’t like it. There are also multiple times where I would overlook it because I never really cared that much about myself to say, you know what, maybe that’s not right, rather it was maybe I deserve that. I’ve done that multiple times with getting insulted, getting hurt, either placing myself in a situation of my own devising or of a situation outside of my control, I just kind of think to myself, you know what, I probably deserved that, it wasn’t a big deal, I was just kind-of, I wasn’t doing the right thing anyway, that’s fine, somebody else can get that or whatever. I kind-of dealt with life lackadaisically and I don’t want to do that. I want to take control and I want to assert myself and have a more aggressive attitude, but I’ve always seen that as kind of cocky and arrogant, and I didn’t want to look like someone I’m not either. There’s a fine line—there are extremities and there’s the middle ground, and I didn’t want to have any vices getting in the way. I just wanted to be normal, I guess, that’s my main concern. I wanted to be normal to everyone, and I’m the farthest thing from that, but I’m okay with it.”

What is your idea of normal? What does that look like to you?

“I want to be kind of a straight male, just one of the dude bros who go around and, you know, I guess, it is a little different than that because I would be kind of a gentleman I guess. If I were to want a woman, I would go after her respectfully and I would treat her nicely. I would be that weird guy who’s into all those other things that regular straight guys aren’t. The more and more I have thought about that, I am like ‘Wait, my idea of normal, is gay.’ I’d be all romantic and everything, and I’m like maybe there wouldn’t be any sex involved if I were a little bit—oh no, no, no, no that would not be the case. I wanted to be someone who was palatable, I wanted to make sure I didn’t rock the boat with anybody, that there were no confrontations, no anger, no misunderstandings. I just wanted to be somebody everyone liked and loved and didn’t have any issues with. And, I tend to be that kind of person. I mean, I will be the one where if mutual friends are in a conflict, one will come up to me with their story, the other will come up to me with their story, while they fight ,and I am just sitting in the back. I am kind of the shoulder to cry on, I’m kind of the voice of reason in a lot of places, so in a way I am kind of a mainstay. But I just don’t want to be the reason for the discord. I don’t want to be the reason for the chaos. I don’t want to make myself out to be a problem for people, so that involved a lot of self-sacrifice and forsaking my own needs for another. I mean, I look after my sister all the time. As I probably told you, she’s my twin. She’s autistic and I’ve been doing this for about a decade or more. I am hoping that one of these days Mom will find something for her that’s more stable, but she goes to her little day program in the morning, which is great, but once I get out of college and eventually move out, what’s going to happen to her? I can’t be looking after her all the time. Mom kind of sees me as—well I finally got the chance, I finally had the realization that I am seen as having a familial obligation rather than being a volunteer, and I didn’t like that. That’s actually the main reason my older sister, who I came out to first, moved out first. She and Mom were having problems, and she didn’t want to deal with it, so she moved out and she is doing great now. They are even repairing their broken relationship that they had as a result of that, but I didn’t want that separation to be the same way between me and Mom. Because she and I are very close.

“Even on my birthday a couple of weeks ago, she called me her only-begotten son, and I am like ‘Oh, dear lord,’ this is—she’s like having a real faith complex going on and it’s made life uncomfortable. That’s another thing: I was never able to see life through an unfiltered lens, because everything was seen through the eyes of religion, through the eyes of faith, so nothing was ever pure, nothing was ever nice, nothing was ever palatable, nothing was ever acceptable, and you get held back from a lot of stuff. I was sheltered, I had no idea that I was being sheltered though. That was one thing I realized a couple of years ago, when I first went to college and guys and girls were around me and they just looked at me and went, ‘Dude, you were pretty sheltered, aren’t you?’ I’m like ‘What? No. What does that even mean?’ ‘You didn’t live much, did you?’ I was like ‘No.’ ‘Have you even been anywhere?’ ‘No, I never left New England. Why?’ ‘Oh, lord.’

“A lot of people knew I was gay before I said anything. Even when I did a little bit of radio, I heard my voice for the first time, on the radio, and I was like ‘Oh my god, how did they not know? I’m literally spouting rainbows out of my mouth, I sound so cringe-worthy.’ But that’s one thing that’s held me back a little bit too. There is a slight issue of transparency with me. When people say, ‘What was your idea of normal?’ I wanted to be the mysterious guy, they guy who people admired, but didn’t really know about. They know of him, but they don’t know who he really is. I felt like that for a little while because of how distant I was from everyone, but coming into my realization and after watching, there was show on last night or the night before called ‘Bull’, with a jury selector who psychoanalyzes everyone so he has the right jury for the right case, and it made me think of all the psych majors I’ve met, all the philosophy majors I’ve met, and a few random friends I’ve met who can read me like a book. Without me even saying anything or doing anything they get a basic idea of who I am, and they can see right through me, and I’ve hated that. It’s a very painful thing for me when someone can see right through me, because I feel inadequate, I feel like I’m having an inaccurate description of who I am based on an outward or an inward thing, like body language or whatever, I feel like people are mis-registering something that isn’t true. ‘Yeah, I’m awkward and shy and skittish at first, but please give me a minute. I swear, the objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.’

“I know I can’t control people’s perception of me, but first impressions are everything, so if I leave with a bad one and then I all of a sudden start acting like someone else, then I might seem two-faced or something like that. I really do want to have the best look for everyone else. I never thought about having a look just for the sake of you looking like something, because I never cared about it. I guess I relate that to all the problems going on in my life—this whole gay thing, and work and school and all that other stuff, I just attributed that to, ‘Well, you got all this going on for you, so might as well put your time and energy into that instead of caring about your appearance, your opinion, how you look, how you relate to others and all that stuff, you don’t really’—I don’t look at myself in the mirror very often. I try to take a little note of my appearance every now and then, but for the longest time I never really liked looking at the mirror. I never really liked seeing myself and seeing myself in relation to other people. A few people have told me if you want to know more about yourself, put yourself in the third person, like ‘Oh god, I could never do that,’ because I always saw everything I did as cringe-worthy or awkward or just kind of too ‘other’ for everyone else, kind of socially unacceptable. And, I guess that translated into my current mindset my routines of not so much caring about how I look or how I view others or how others view me, how others thought I looked. Mom always said I was the man of the house, which was probably a bald-faced lie, but I never really felt like a man. It was just kind-of this—because I thought it was a visual thing and also an action thing, and I never seemed to exude that or perform that, so I just felt less of a guy, less of a person and never really—that’s one thing, I always felt like there was something every other guy on the planet had that I didn’t, and I still didn’t know what that is, but I keep feeling like if I have that then maybe, just maybe, I got a shot in this world. I know it’s all in the head. I want to make sure that I can exude that and maybe help somebody else see that in themselves or something. I don’t know. I want to see that in myself first, whatever it is.”

Tell me about the relationship you have with yourself. It sounds like you are at a crossroads of wanting to improve yourself to be received by others but also wanting to improve yourself just because you recognize that you’re worth it. That’s the place many people could identify with.

“My relationship with myself is kind of love-hate, it’s kind of 70/30, 80/20, 90/10, no, it can be mostly defeatist. I will have some days when I can look in the mirror and go ‘hey,’ but otherwise it’s a lot of ‘oh, you again.’ I guess that has carried over into everything I do: my studies, my social interaction, how I deal with my family, because I never really gave a hoot about myself. I don’t know why, to be honest. I guess I got a few comments from family when I was younger, like my sister, my older sister used to call me ugly a lot, and she was joking, but I kind of felt it and my family would definitely give me the whole ‘Oh, guys don’t. Guys aren’t supposed to do that. Be a man. Act like a man. Why are you into that stuff? Don’t do that.��� It was the shaping and all of that, making me into a malleable personality rather than just being myself. I feel like I have the freedom to do that now, but I need to give myself permission to do that. I keep not giving myself permission because I am worried about, what my family is going to say, what’s your church going to say, what are they going to say. I’ve become so wrapped up in what other people think that I haven’t really developed my own opinion about myself, and that’s carried on into a ton of other things. I don’t even have an opinion on faith anymore or a higher power, or dating too. That’s another thing. I have never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and a question that I got a lot of the time before I came out, especially from church too, was ‘When are you going to get a girlfriend? Oh, I just bet they’re just knocking down your door, Janeen! They are just going to be all over him.’ Every time I heard that I cringed internally. After coming out that wasn’t a big issue with those immediately around me, but with my new friends now it’s like, ‘So when are you getting a boyfriend? What are you going to do? When are you going get with someone?’ I’m just like, ‘Ahhhmmm.’ I’ll take unknown answer for $200, Alex, and it was just—you can’t escape that whole cycle of ‘so when are you going to get with someone?’ I’m trying to get right with me first. I know that I’m not going to be a complete and total ready-made person to say, ‘Okay, now I’m ready to go out and get someone.’ That’s should be fun, right? It’s not that someone out there is going to be my other half either, because everyone is a whole person. I’m not fully at terms with myself yet, but I feel like I am getting there. But I also know that if I am looking to go out and meet people and maybe get a potential partner, then I need to have some things in mind, whatever those are, and I need to not be so afraid of love, because I am terrified of love. I guess it is the whole thing, the commitment, the caring, the thinking about someone, the caring about someone—I am terrified of it, because I have not really even cared for myself or looked after myself, so why are you out there trying to do it for somebody else when you don’t even know the first thing about taking care of yourself? And that’s made me wonder if I am even going to make it. Am I going to move out? Am I going to do the things that all my friends are doing, or am I just going to sit here and turn into a depressed lump?”

You mentioned the word depression and experiencing anxiety and awkwardness. Tell me about some of those experiences, and how you cope with those feeling of depression, anxiety (and you mention also becoming suicidal). Had you not come out when you did, had you actually experienced thoughts of suicide before that?

“There was one time when it was a very serious thought, but I never took any action into it. I guess that was when faith did step in, because suicide was a sin or whatever, and it was also—Mom told me that’s no way to try to fix anything. And I never considered it; like the thought came up every now and then, but it was just ‘No, that’s just not a good idea, I probably shouldn’t do that.’ But a few times that was a result of depression, and usually depression, sometimes it was a mood, sometimes it was my whole condition, never really clinically assessed or anything like that, but it was medically assessed. It was something that came about when I did something—I slighted someone in a minor way, or I forgot to do something, or there was a miscommunication, and it would hover for the rest of the day. I guess I was kind of triggered by a lot of little things, because my emotional fortitude isn’t what it is supposed to be. I coped with it, basically, by ruminating and sulking, and sometimes I’ll listen to music too, but it was either facing it by getting sad or distracting myself with music or art or something. It was just sometimes that I thought, once again, maybe I deserve this, maybe I just need to get sad for a little bit and not deal with it. It was constant and even stuff from years ago, like little faults I’ve done to people or in school or at a church or at work or anything, and someone scolded me for it, or anything, I’d still think back on that awkward moment and get all cringed up again. It’s kind-of crippling, because you feel it and it affects how you go about your day, and I want to stop that too. I want to say, ‘Dude, it was a little thing. Just get over it. It’s not even important anymore. It happened ages ago. Why are you still thinking about it?’ but I can’t stop, like it just sits in there and now any time I was feeling all right my memory bank could just flip through its little Rolodex and say, ‘Hey, remember this?’ The cycle would start up again. Same with the anxiety—that was usually brought about all of a sudden by, again, minor situations, probably like talking to someone important or if someone told me, ‘Aaron, can I talk to you for a minute?’ All of a sudden I get a little on guard, because I always felt like I did something wrong and that I was going to get punished for something and it was kind of something that carries on until after the fact that I deal with it or I realize, ‘Okay, maybe it was less of a deal than I thought, so I come down from that,’ but the anxiety comes socially too. If I’m with a bunch of people I don’t know, if I see somebody I like or admire a lot and I start talking to them, I start to get a little freaked out and, you know, with family, with my church, definitely too because I never wanted to—it was like walking on a tightrope or walking on eggshells with certain people, just so I don’t say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. It might just leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, and I guess I felt like I had to micro-manage everything so that I don’t, you know, get anxious or get depressed or set the other person off in some way, shape, or form.

“I had a time when I was just really good at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, like I didn’t even mean it either, but I said something that I probably shouldn’t have even, though I thought it was the right thing to say, and it just ends up offending or slighting someone, and I just kind-of recoil and get into that whole mood again.

“I guess I never really have coped with anxiety. I just let it pass until it comes up again. I want to learn to chill, to relax, you know, let things pass, but a few friends have told me, ‘Aaron, all you really need is some weed. You’re getting all worked up over this. Just smoke a blunt and you’ll be fine.’ I’m like, ‘No, no, no, I don’t want to take any of those routes,’ because I’m the kind of guy who’s kind of an all or nothing. If I can’t get everything done at once, then I won’t do it, and it’s super-perfectionistic and it’s very superficial and I know it’s unhealthy, but I haven’t been able to bust out of that. It has been kind of ruining me in some sense—academically it’s been straining, socially it’s been straining, and just mentally too, because it’s like, do this or you’ll let them down, but if you do this you’ll let yourself down, if you do this you’ll end up letting both people down, and you and that other person down. It’s a balancing act, making sure this person is happy, make sure you are doing the right thing, make sure that nothing goes wrong, or else. I don’t know what that ‘or else’ was, but it was just do this right or nothing matters.”

Do you think it’s possible that trying to please other people and not create any conflicts and please yourself, you still may be hurting yourself or hurting someone else or upsetting someone? Perhaps a path you may want to choose at some point is to follow your heart and learn to accept that being who you are and moving forward on your journey may upset people. Some people may not understand it, but ultimately it’s your life, it’s your path, and to be able to accept that, may make some people uncomfortable and some people might not be a part of that journey, and to be okay with that. Sounds like it’s very draining and exhausting to try to manage things that are out of your control, essentially. You don’t have control over how people react or respond. You only have control over the actions that you take and the way that you respond to the way people react to you, or respond to you. Does that make sense?

“Yeah, it does. It’s just this constant feeling of inadequacy, I don’t know where it came from but it is just, I guess I got a lot of ‘you should be doing X, Y and Z by now.’

“So, I’ve always found it a little hypocritical but I still go through it, how others, family will tell me, Oh, you’re supposed to be doing this, or you should be graduating by now, you should be having a career by now,’ like ‘Why aren’t you doing this, why aren’t you getting somewhere, why are you still in my house?’ like it was a lot of that, but at the same time I keep getting the ‘you’re not going to be young forever, you need to go out and do stuff, you need to go out and live, have a life, go do something already.’

“I can’t necessarily do that when I’m here looking after my sister all the time and going to work and school. I can’t have a life. A lot of people are also saying, ‘Oh, you’re young, you’ll have your whole life to do stuff,’ then why are you making me feel like my life is already over?

“You don’t understand what you’re doing to me when you tell me all this junk. I already don’t have much direction in life, and then you’re just giving me a sign, you’re giving me two signs in the opposite direction that are telling me one-way, so I don’t know what you want from me. And, I don’t even know what I want from myself.

“So you kind of have to stay still, you can’t move, otherwise you’ll risk hurting yourself or ruining everything, making a mistake and having the world judge you for it and you not caring about it.

“That’s miraculously how I just gotten through life so far. It’s just been a series of, I made a mistake and deserved it and I’m probably going to make another one. It’s not healthy. I know it’s not healthy.”

Yeah, some things come to mind as I’m listening to you. One of them is to practice forgiveness, forgiving yourself, and that mistakes are signs that you are trying new things. It sounds like the fear of hurting yourself or making mistakes, or making someone else disappointed in you, or not meeting your expectations of what they think you should be doing or how you should be doing it, has immobilized you to the point where you’ve delayed progress in areas that you would like to see more progress in. But it sounds like your awareness of this may bring about more change and hopefully some more confidence in who you are, your potential, and your capabilities. Being gay myself, I’m going to make a reference to a very popular gay film, ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ There’s the moment in the movie when the Good Witch Glinda says to Dorothy, ‘You had the power all along,’ and that’s something I think many of us struggle with. We think that some outside force is going to come and tap us on the shoulder and say ‘here you go,’ or ‘this is the way,’ when really we have ability always, within us, at any point to determine what direction we are going to go in and how we are going to get there.

We talked about the relationship you have with yourself, we talked a little bit about the relationship with your church and the fear you have with that and with your family, and you’ve mentioned your sister, you’ve mentioned your mother and your older sister, but I have not heard you mention your father. What is the relationship with your father?

“Okay, here’s the wild story about my father. When we were born he had a condition called Randolph Syndrome. It’s not that rare; actually, it’s pretty common. Basically, when me and my twin sister were born he ‘Rand’off.’”

Haahaahaaa.

“I know it’s my little dark joke for the situation, but I handle it well. He was never present, until my late teenage years, he started to make a motion towards me through cards, through pictures. I met him on Facebook, I met my half-sister and I met my paternal grandmother. He started to tell me, ‘I want to know about your life, what you’re doing, what you’re up to. I love you. You’re my son. I hope you grow up to be just like me.’ Just like who? Just like who, to be honest. Aside from that, I took it for what it was, and I’m like, ‘You know what, at least he’s trying, so I’ll give him that, whatever.’ Then I talked to him on the phone one time, for the first time, and that was freaky because there’s nothing like talking on the phone and hearing yourself. It’s very jarring, but we talked about life and whatever, it was pretty relaxed, there was no ill will from me towards him. I never had any, but a lot of it came from my mom and my family, because mom always thought he was a scumbag. I even asked her a few years before he made contact with me, ‘Mom, why hasn’t my father talked to me? Do you think I should try to look for him, or something?’ ‘Woah, woah, woah, Aaron,’ she told me, ‘if he cared he would look for you, so don’t get it twisted.’ I’m like okay, all right, fine, just hope he can do that sometime, then a few years later that happens.

“It was still kind of strained because whenever Mom heard from my paternal grandmother or him it was just kind-of—we were on good terms with my paternal grandmother, that was great, but from him it was just animosity and probably border-line hatred coming from them. But the big thing happened three years ago, because, by the way, he had no sense of tact, he kind-of said whatever, whenever. One day he was telling me about, throughout our conversations, he told me he had cancer, but it had in remission, so he’s been pretty clean from it for a while and that’s good. He also was a religion hopper. According to my mom, one day he’s Muslim, one day he’s Christian, one day he’s atheist, it just went around and around, so he was never really stable in that sense. Then three years ago, the big thing happened. I get a message on Facebook from my paternal aunt, his sister, said, ‘Hi, Aaron. I’m your aunt, Jeffrey’s sister. I want to let you know that your father is in the hospital. His non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma came out of remission. He is halfway in a coma and this could be it.’ I said, ‘Oh my god.’ So, after my class was over, I got out, I ran out of the building. I call up the hospital and I get on the phone to his room, his current wife picks up (mind you, he has four different families, and I have about nine half brothers and sisters, but what can I say: ‘Papa was a rolling stone’)—but that’s not important, I get on the phone with his current wife and say, ‘Hey, can I speak to him? This is his son.’ She put the phone up to his ear—I know this sounds so much like a soap opera, but this what went down—I get on the phone with him and I say, ‘Look, Dad,’ and I’ve never called him dad before, but I thought to myself, ‘This is it, so why, why, why harbor anything, why try to make it what it isn’t?’ so I said, ‘Look, Dad, I just want to let you know that I love you, I care about you, and I forgive you for not being there, for doing whatever you had to do for this other family,’ with a special needs daughter, mind you, ‘I just wanted to let you know, I harbor no ill will again you, I don’t want any animosity between you and me,’ not that there ever was, ‘but I just want to let you know that I care about you very much, I hope that you’ve gotten your house in order, I hope you realized—I hope you got all your ducks in a row, and tied every knot, I hope you’re secure and you’re safe and if this is it, goodbye.’ His wife told me he nodded an acknowledgment, I said, Okay, thank you, goodbye.’ Hung up the phone, told Mom what happened that day and she was shocked, because she didn’t think, she’s known this dude for a while too, she’s just like, oh, he’s in the hospital, oh my god, that’s pretty serious. Mind you, that day that happened was the day before Thanksgiving vacation, so Thursday, mind you, this is three years ago, and two years ago I came out, so this is back when the family was on decently good terms with me. We were going around the table saying what were thankful for, and I said, ‘I’m thankful for my father,’ and my family was like, huh? I proceed to tell them the story, and they are all just sitting there with their jaws on the floor, because they all to a degree had some kind-of animosity towards him, and I’d imagine a family would, after something like that. That’s understandable to me, but I didn’t harbor it, and they just looked at me and thought, ‘Oh my god, Aaron. How did you do that? How are you able to do that to someone who hurt you? How are you able to just kind-of just brush it off?’ I told them it was because I didn’t feel anything, I didn’t feel any hurt, I didn’t feel any pain, he was just—sure, he was absent, but I didn’t hold any animosity, for the longest time I actually held him in high regard because I thought, okay maybe he can be the daddy that I wanted, maybe he could do something for me—maybe he could come back and do something like that, I always kind-of held that hope out, and I realized a little time before, way before he died, I’m like maybe he won’t, but that’s okay. At least he made an effort now or whatever and he’s just doing whatever he needs to do, I guess.

“My older sister heard the story and cried because she comes from a different father and she never met him, so she got a little emotional at that point and I comforted her too. My family just told me, Aaron, you just broke a generational curse, you just like cleared all that air. All the junk that we had against him you just kind of threw aside and said, ‘were good.’ I’m like, there was nothing hard about it. It just seemed like the right thing to do. What sense is there to just harping on. The man is at death’s door, basically, it looks like. He could go into remission again, but we don’t know that. The family was very proud of me from that point. We got together again the next day, on black Friday, for leftovers and schmoozing, that day I found out that he passed. I managed to clear the table with him, say goodbye and get closure before that man even died.

“I still didn’t think it was a big deal until my family came up and told me about it because they’re like, ‘Aaron, don’t you realize, not many people get the chance to do that, not many people get to send somebody off like that, no one gets to have that last degree of separation with someone, like that’s just—you clinched it, you really kind-of, you hit it and that was it.’ I was like, well this was a man I never even met, never even got to see face-to-face who apparently fathered me. It just seemed like the right thing to do. In the few weeks after he passed I felt very strange. I had some serious bouts of depression, more so than usual, because a few emotions where coming up. I was like, ‘Okay, why wasn’t he more involved in my life while he was here? Why did he have to go and do that?’ because now that kind of stuff was kind-of coming up in me a little bit. I didn’t act on it, but it was there and it just tore me up inside a little. A lot of it, I felt like I was waving goodbye to a ghost when he died, because it was like—who am I saying goodbye to, who—I still don’t know who you are, you’re supposed to be my father, you’re supposed to be this man and I don’t even know who you are, so it was a very strange feeling of anger, depression, sadness, and regret, to a degree. I kept saying, ‘I wish I got to know him,’ but really, I wish that he got to know me. It was a little heartbreaking because it did affect me in a few areas, but then one day it kind-of cleared up and I was like, ‘Okay, I guess I’m good,’ but that filtering of emotion was definitely what I needed during the time, because I don’t know what was with me, it was just strange, granted my twin sister’s autistic, she doesn’t even know I’m gay, she doesn’t even know our father exists, like she doesn’t have to deal with that.

“My sister has her own battles that she deals with, but otherwise this was something that I was dealing with for myself, and Mom saw I was going through it, and didn’t do much about it, she’s just like, ‘I don’t know why you’re acting like this.’ So I guess there was some degree of animosity even in the death, but still it was something that I felt I had to personally wrestle with myself because this is my father and you guys have no specific connection to him, so this is something that I had to deal with myself, and I’m glad I did. It would have been nice to meet him but Mom always told me no, in the spirit of animosity, of course, that if I, if he were involved in my life, if I met him or gotten some influences from him, I wouldn’t be who I am today. So that’s Jeffrey.

“Are you okay, by the way?”

Yeah. Of course, I just naturally get emotional hearing things like this, because I can empathize and I feel it, and everything has to come out and it comes out in my eyes.

Through some of these experiences, fear of being who you are, and taking control of your life and the issue with your church and religion and faith and your mother and your father and taking care of your sister and just feeling delayed from being where you want to be—what have you learned about yourself? What are some gifts you’ve uncovered in all this?

“I have learned that I can be pretty resilient. In spite of everything that has been going on I can—even in the spirit of, oh well, next time, there’s a degree of perseverance there’s some—I’ve always retained hope that things would get better. I don’t know what that hope was or what that hope was in, but it was there and I always thought, okay, maybe one of these days you’ll get to where you want to be and you’ll have what you’ll need and you’ll make a life for yourself and you’ll be over that hill and things will turn around. I’ve also realized from the job I just left, from two years, it’s been two years that I have worked there, up until this point. I would have been there today, had it not been for me resigning, but I have a very good personality, I’ve realized. I make people smile, I make people laugh, I try to brighten their day whenever they approach me, so it’s not so much a cover for the depression and anxiety but it’s just been the best option there is. It’s helped so many people, because a lot of the time people would come into the place and say, ‘Well, Aaron, the food’s sub-par and your bosses are whatever, but the main reason we come is, honestly, to see you. You’re the only smiling face in the place.’ It’s like, someone has to be. Ironically, I can’t go through life being all mopey and depressed, like everybody around me. I guess that’s one thing that, kind of, it’s like an extrovertedly happy introvertedly blah mood thing. If everyone around me is kind of depressed I try not to be that, and try to bring myself to be that happy person when everyone else is kind of down, and it can spread, it can definitely spread. When I see people who come in who are happy to see me, it’s a very good feeling and I know that they are here to see me, they’re here for me and it’s something, it makes you feel important, it makes you feel like you are doing something right.

“Even before I came out there were people who came up to me and said, ‘Aaron, you know, you’ve got this thing about you,’ I don’t know if they would describe it as je ne sais quoi, but they said there’s this thing about you that I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got it and I like it a lot and I don’t, I can’t put my finger on it. I think someone told me that ‘Aaron, it’s definitely your heart, it is definitely your heart, because not a lot of people possess the attitude that you have or the degree of kindness and niceness from you that you have, you need to share that, and you need to never’—like one guy over there, he’s like eighty years old, he told ‘don’t ever change, Aaron, don’t ever, EVER, ever change. There are not many people like you in the world and they need people like you.’ That did make me feel like I was doing something right, even if internally there was a battle but, externally there’s a smile.

“It’s not so much fake it till you make it, that’s in other areas. But it’s that someone has to be the nice guy, some has to be altruistic, someone has to be an agent of change, an agent of good, you know, someone has to be that, so why not me?”

I love that line, ‘Why not me?’ Is there a cool piece of advice, a song lyric, or something that resonates with you, that you would like to share?

“Yes. A biblical verse that Mom always told me whenever things were going weird in school or at work or a lot of people were bullying me or being nasty to me. I kind-of took it, because I was just that kind of guy. I’d think to myself, ‘I’m okay. Throw it on. I deserve this.’ She told me, first of all, don’t take that, but second of all, the verse was ‘Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.’ Even in the non-biblical sense I’ve heard it from many other people: ‘Let your light shine, dude. They’ll see who you really are and that will give them the permission to shine theirs.’ People will see that, people will be attracted to it, people will be led by it, and it can do a lot, if you let it shine, so I guess I have.”

Why does that resonate with you?

“It showed up when I left my old job. I had been there two years, and it had given people time to warm up to me and really enjoy my presence there. When I told them I was leaving, they suddenly started to get a little emotional, telling me, ‘Oh my god, Aaron, I wish you the best. Thank you for all you have done for us over the two years, even if it’s just giving us breakfast in the morning. You are so happy, you’re so joyful, and we need that. It’s hard to find anybody with it, but you’ve been so nice, and that doesn’t go unnoticed there. We want you to know that, and please come back sometime.’ I’m like, ‘I’ll visit. I’ll be around. I’m not leaving the country.’ It’s good that there a lot of people who can recognize your niceness, recognize your good works and, I guess, give you some credit for it, give you some sort of approval. I don’t necessarily need approval, but it was nice. I figured being nice was enough and they saw it and recognized in anyway, but I didn’t need somebody telling me that I was doing well. It definitely helps, but I guess I didn’t need that. It’s like, have you ever seen ‘The Devil Wears Prada?’ You know that end scene where Anne Hathaway is on the train or the cab and she’s just smiling to herself because she is like, ’Oh god, I got everything done, I didn’t mess up, this is great,’ and meanwhile you see Meryl Streep in her cab smiling for the first time throughout the entire film. It was that scene that made me think, ‘Wow! She did all this and she was fine without any of her bosses’ recognition or a smile or saying you did a good job, thank you. She knew she was doing a good job and she didn’t need that, even though her boss approved of everything that was going on, she didn’t see that, but she didn’t need to see it. I feel that’s kind of what I get most of the time. I feel like, behind the scenes some people are like, wow that was really cool, thanks, Aaron—it’s pretty interesting to see what people are, what people think of you. In a good sense, anyway, because I already think about me as is, but when I see a good outcome from that, it’s like ‘wow, okay, that’s good.’ It’s very relieving and it’s very comforting.”

What advice would you offer to your ten or eleven year old self, having been through what you’ve been through to this day and what you’ve learned?

“Do what you need to, be who you are, don’t sweat the small stuff. Relax, pretty much relax. I was always so tense because I had to watch what I did in front of everyone to keep myself from being perceived as something that I am not, but now I definitely say relax and just be yourself, honestly. Because I always felt like no one liked me for myself. A lot of it was true at the time, I was anxious and awkward and annoying—and thank god I changed over the time—but I was always wishing I was better than myself, that I wasn’t myself, that I wasn’t this or wasn’t that. Now it’s like eventually you’re going to be the best, but right now don’t worry about it.”

Are you doing the best you can with what you have and where you are?

“I am tapping into that, yes.”

I think it’s fair to say that you’re the best, the best you are right now in this moment. Fair enough?

“Thank you.”

More than enough. How has it felt to share these experiences and feelings with me today?

“It felt very good. I’ve always had this story on my heart and I was honestly just waiting for the right person to tell it to, and then you came along. So I am very thankful and grateful for this privilege. I do want others to hear about this too, because it articulates it in a way that may just telling someone upfront wouldn’t understand. I feel like this is the most absolute truth that I can give, without being misconstrued, and if people can see that and take it for what it’s worth and understand me to a degree, then that’s all I really want. It’s like what Oprah said, ‘The three main things people want in life are: do you see me? do you hear me? and does what I am saying make sense to you?’”

Three things that I think are most important in being human and sort of the platform for what Hearts of Strangers is, is ‘I see you, I hear you, and I value you.’ So, it’s very similar to what you just said about Oprah. Do you think it’s possible that by someone else who reads your story may understand themselves a little bit better and know that they are not alone and that there is hope?

“Yes, indeed. That’s another thing I have done throughout my emotional rollercoaster journey: I’ve always come to people when I’ve been that shoulder to cry on, when I’ve been that person to talk to. I always try to boost, I try to bring somebody up, I always try to give them a piece of advice or make them laugh, or try to uplift them in some way, shape, or form. Even though I couldn’t do it for myself, I figured someone else could use this. Rather than remedy my own situation, I always try to remedy else’s situation. I should try that on myself, most likely, but I’ve always been one to inspire or boost another person, so I really hope that seeing my life story will bring about, heck, maybe an epiphany for someone.”

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