#so kicking them out was perfectly reasonable I might add

[sokkas-therapist]

A little idea I had for my Zukka single father’s au! (the one where Senna and Izumi parent trap their dads so they can be sisters, which I may or may not have posted about on here before?? At least not a ton, lmk if you guys would be interested in seeing more of this au)

Anyway, thinking about them having an evening-out-on-the-town date planned, but when Zuko comes to pick Sokka up he can tell how exhausted Sokka is, and can see that he doesn’t really feel like going out anymore.

even though Sokka insists on keeping his word and going out like they planned, Zuko gets him to stay in and they curl up on the couch and have a movie night instead. They make popcorn, get lots of blankets, kick the girls out and tell them to ‘go bonding together’, and maybe Zuko massages the tension out of Sokka’s shoulders before he falls asleep.

They have a better night together than if they’d forced themselves to go do things, and find the beauty in allowing yourself some time to recharge with those you love <3

[hemipenal-system]

tongue anon here! thinking about saliva that can numb or paralyze again <3 it’s good for aftercare, but i’d imagine its evolutionary benefit would be to keep prey docile while they’re being devoured.

maybe this is a snakelike creature that can’t take large bites, it’s more adapted to swallowing its prey whole, and it’s MUCH easier to do so when they’re not struggling. maybe its throat is soft and easily damaged, and it’s not as easy for it to forcefully push prey down if they’re fighting back- they have to make them willing.

the mild toxins in the saliva can be absorbed through the skin, so a few soft licks will be enough to make the prey drowsy and compliant. bonus points if it’s absorbed through the softer oral tissue, or if the prey is forced to swallow the saliva.

^^^ for obvious reasons, these creatures would benefit from being able to seduce their prey. and, well, they’re good at it! the promise of getting tonguefucked by a snakegirl…….. there are plenty of those who would EASILY fall for this trap, only to be made into her next meal.

the toxins don’t act immediately- they hunt like a komodo dragon, waiting for their mark to collapse on their own. that snakegirl you made out with in the bathroom? she’s been keeping an eye on you the rest of the night. when you eventually get too tired to walk, and your muscles seize up, she’s there behind you.

you’re perfectly willing as she takes you out back and begins to lick down your thighs and calves (she’s making sure you won’t kick or fight back as your legs slide down her throat, but of course you don’t know this. you have no idea what’s going on <3). as she begins to push you down her gullet, her long throat expanding and contracting pleasantly around you, warm and wet, even more saliva is absorbed into your skin- you’re unconscious before you reach the lower esophagus.

monsterfuckers should watch out for crafty snakegirls in shady bars. don’t stare, don’t watch her lick her lips- she’s watching for prey. you might not be able to resist.

hijacking this just slightly and making it a naga, because the snake tail just adds some je ne sais quoi yk (i do not speak a word of french)

naga girl who sits down next to you at the bar after you make eye contact with her, wrapping her tail around the barstool to hold herself in place as she talks your ear off but never really says anything

naga girl who keeps pointing at the sports game on the tv, waiting for you to look so she can gather her saliva up and spit in your drink while you’re not watching her so her toxins will make you ✨ pliable ✨

naga girl who runs her fingers down your smooth skinned legs, saying humans fascinate her and she’d love to see the rest of you as she pulls you by the arm into a bathroom

naga girl who coils around you lovingly as her long forked tongue flicks across your skin, enjoying your scent as it leaves a trail of tingling warmth in its wake before kissing you, pushing her tongue under yours so you absorb more of her toxins sublingually

naga girl who helps you into her car, saying she’ll drive you home because you’re drunk (on her spit) and she doesn’t trust you to get home safe

…

naga girl who stops the car in the woods, using her coils to pull you from the vehicle, squeezing painfully tight around you as her nimble tongue caresses all over your legs, causing you to lose all feeling in them except for that tingling warmth as she repeats her damp touches all across your body. you can’t scream or cry out because her repeated kisses make your tongue so numb. she loves you, she says. let me take care of you, she says as you get more and more tired, her toxins sapping your energy and her coils crushing away your air

naga girl who can feel your faint pulse as she swallows you, muscular throat pulling you down into her bit by bit, tongue continually flicking against your skin, her hands playing with your hair as her jaw unhinges around you, enjoying her still, quiet prey…

naga girl who curls up in her bed, gently rubbing her fingers over her stretched scales, falling asleep to the way you move inside her. maybe she’ll let you out tomorrow, maybe she won’t. good night, morsel, she says.

[okimsimp2023]

Ok, I decided to create a mini-column for this blog, namely the personal cry of the soul of the simp, or "This character is my wife, and I'll explain why!".

That's right, I will heartily write in posts about why I like this or that character so much! And hardly anyone will shut me up, because this world needs more posts with positive reviews about the Persians. And the first wife who will become my first post will be Jon Arbuckle from the animated series "Garfield and Friends"! I want to talk specifically about Jon from this cartoon, because he appeared in it much more often and showed a character, and I'm afraid to watch 3d animated series based on Garfield. Well, I'll also warn you that the post was created on emotions, so I'll be dumb at times.

Well, I definitely know that the simps will gather under this post… Hello people, I know you are unlikely to pass by this post, because I will lick the character. If anything, you can write your impressions about the character under this post. Maybe you want to add new things or just share your opinion.

He's cute.

Like… Both in appearance and character. He is funny, awkward, clumsy, and most importantly, he is quite a good guy. Yes, he does all sorts of shit or any nonsense, but that's what Jon is all about, half of Garfield's humor is almost based on this, that he's a loser and a hopeless romantic, and I'm not surprised anymore. But in fact, he does this job perfectly, I really love him with flaws than without them, otherwise I would not be perceived by me as a person with flaws and strange hobbies. Sometimes you look at him and think, "fuck, man, how do I understand you…". And yes, to some extent I like pathetic and nervous men, who are sometimes capable of doing crazy things (and he can also whimper).

2. Attitude towards pets.

dilf dilf dilf dlif dlif dlif dilf dilf dilf dlif dlif dlif dilf dilf dilf dlif dlif dlif-

All right, jokes aside, AHEM. But there is some truth in every joke, so he still DIL-

I like that in this cartoon he sometimes appears to Garfield and other pets as a parental figure (although unsurprisingly, Garfield in some cases behaves like a typical troubled teenager, but without whining, and I also find this charming). True, he is not perfect at all, but still he takes care of his dear boys, and in no other way! And he probably has almost the strongest patience with Garfield, lol. Because if I had such a cat, I might not have been able to stand it and would have gone to a mental hospital myself.- But okay, it's too loud about the latter.

3. Voice.

I don't know if I should mention it, but of course I will. For me personally, his voice is like that... Gentle and pleasant.

4. An apron makes a man 20% more attractive!

I don't know why, but I like that when cooking food, he puts on this little apron lol. But that's not the only reason I've highlighted this item, because I also want to highlight his culinary abilities. Because… Dude, he can cook! Forget about those words that he doesn't know how to cook, it's a complete fucking lie. Jon can cook many dishes at once! And this is just for the sake of feeding the cat.

So if you suddenly work late and come home, then you obviously won't stay hungry, because the same tired Jon managed to cook dinner (and most importantly, make it to dinner, otherwise Garfield will finish before you lol).

5. Dancing

I think it's not worth talking about it, everyone has known about this dance for a long time. BUT HEY, I'LL SAY IT. HE WAS FUCKING AWESOME.

His plastic body, smug face, movements, and this shot of him opening his jacket and a tie with his pet on his chest… The dude literally revealed his whole wonderful essence. I mean it… I am an insecure person myself. I would never go out dancing in front of people, because I can't dance and it sucks. BUT THIS LOSER MAN DID IT, AND HE GETS A KICK OUT OF IT! HE DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT PEOPLE, HE JUST DANCED. THIS IS MY HOT WIFE EEEEEEEEE-

And that's why this character is my wife. The End.

And I'm sorry that this post came out… It was enough for the little ones, although I could paint everything down to all sorts of little things like interests and other things, but I wrote everything I wanted. For me, Jon seems to have become a comfortable character, and I still don't fully understand why this is so (or is it my hyperfixation). But as long as he makes me happy, I dare not object to anything. And I lived up to the name of this blog, lol.

[justlymine]

ok, as requested, here's my new and improved topper.

key features:

removable by just lifting up (for the every-other-month full cleaning)

bottom edge has a lip to keep it from sliding off of tank sideways

tall enough to fit wheels

and most important, wide front panel is hinged so i can easily reach in and wipe out wheels and scoop sand baths and change water every day

it is made out of beechwood branches (gerbil safe) because i couldnt afford to buy more poplar wood. the other random wood boards that you see are all exterior only, so the gerbils cant get to them.

the screen is 20 gauge 1/2" hardware mesh. (heads up you might want to use 1/4" as when they kick up bedding it goes right through the 1/2" mesh, argh)

basically, it looks works like this:

and the corners are held together with brackets like this:

(if you are worried about chewing you can wrap the hardware mesh around and over the inside wood, as shown by the purple arrow in picture.)

so, as you see in the above picture you can add the hardware mesh sandwiched between parts of the frame. i did not do this; instead i built the frame and then wrapped the mesh around the outside. either will work.

here's what the bracket looks like on mine:

if you need to secure the mesh to the frame with more screws, use washers, like so (i didnt have washers that were wide enough while also having a small enough hole, so i stacked a small one over a big one)

then i added thin strips of wood to the outer lower edge, that hung down over the top lip of the tank (this keeps the topper from sliding off the tank if i bump it) i added these strips to 3 sides. i didnt need to add them to the front because i made the front door flap long enough to overlap the tank lip.

now for the front door panel.

basically, you just make 2 rectangles of wood that cover the front opening, sandwich wire mesh between them, screw it all together, and add hinges at the top. (here's the two layers)

(i also added a strip of wood to the branch making the top front of the cage, to make a more even and level surface to attach the hinges to.)

i wanted hinges that would open more than 180 degrees, so i could fold the front panel up and over to rest on the top of the cage (this didnt end up an option for me as the branch i used on the top wasnt perfectly straight, so it blocked the front panel from folding back all the way. if you use regular lumber this wont be a problem.

it can be hard to find hinges like that, as they all come packaged in plastic now for some reason, so you cant test them. i found some called "fast fix hinges" that worked. they looked like this

then i added these latches to hold the door closed. they are called "hasp and staple." the wood block is just to raise the staple to the same level as the hasp on the door.

to keep them shut you can stick anything in the hole of the staple that wont fall through, or put a sturdy clip on it. whatever. (im actually using plastic forks haha)

and that's it!

a few more pictures, (im proud of using natural bends of the branches to make some cross braces to make it stronger) and another of the final project

[all-pacas]

I'm in love with the "and i am my father's son" fic of yours - enough for me to stop rolling my eyes at the "sister retcon" (I used to think "Why give him a baby sibling? The backstory we have was more than enough. The fact that the other details given in S8 were perfectly coherent with the ones given in S1 made the whole thing even more frustrating). The Rowan/Robert and Danielle/Victoria (just making up a name for the mom) are the best part(everyone in this family is so fucked up).

Is it me,or there was a hint of envy in Robert's outburst while talking with his sister? I mean,she seemed to feel supported by their dad in a way Chase never felt. Of course,there was fear and resentment. However,money never appeared to be enough for his problems(irresponsible alcoholic mom,absent dad,a baby sister with no one to care for her). Whereas Danielle was clearly having a good time in the clinic - and even making friends(a great asset when it comes to handling addiction). That might even be a parallel with Rowan himself - it might be mere speculation,but I feel that him being an immigrant from a country that has faced serious hardships during most of the 20th century while his children are a couple of "sunny rich brats" in a peaceful,stable country didn't come without any kind of difficult emotions,to say the least. Therefore,whenever Robert and/or Danielle were being particularly "unpleasant," Rowan noped out of there. Okay,I know him being from Central Europe is something that only happened because the writers couldn't be bothered to hire an actual Aussie instead of picking some random old white guy with a shit Australian accent and then tossing in some random nationality to excuse the accent, but they still did it.

Anyways,I love the fic. Now deal with the word vomit 🤡

ahhhhhhh oh my goodness thank you! And yeah, at first the Sister Retcon seemed so blatant and pointless, but the way it just makes history repeat is just ! Chase literally does the same thing to her as their dad did to them, it's so fucked up, it's so good. It adds so much. And honestly, his backstory was fucked enough without adding the trauma of raising his sister. I love it, because on the one hand it's totally understandable. A child shouldn't be put in that position. It is perfectly reasonable that Chase would cut and run. On the other hand, it's absolutely not fair to 'Danielle.' It's cruel, it makes things worse. It's just. It's so good.

Is it me,or there was a hint of envy in Robert's outburst while talking with his sister? I mean,she seemed to feel supported by their dad in a way Chase never felt.

That's what I was going for, yes! :) He sees Danielle doing exactly what their mother did, and he's sort of lashing out and panicking. He just immediately assumes history has repeated and he's about to be stuck taking care of her and watching her die. On the other hand, Danielle… fff it's so weird because it's headcanons for my fic, but. I feel like she and Rowan actually got along okay. Rowan did seem to regret how Chase had to deal with everything when he left; it's been a decade or so; he's… still not parent of the year, but he takes Danielle in after 'Victoria' dies. He's paying to send her to rehab. He's… trying.

And Chase never got that support, he never got Rowan trying to parent. He can't imagine it's real, he fully believes dad is going to maybe try for a week or two and then kick Danielle to the curb, or that if Danielle relapses once then it'll be on him to take care of her. He just doesn't trust or believe that Rowan can change, is capable of being a parent, and thinks Danielle is naive and stupid for it. But he's jealous, too.

Quoting myself here:

"You'll be fine," Robbie says. When their mum finally died, their dad had taken her in, given her a bedroom done up in pinks and frills. Not Robbie. She'd only been four; he'd been seventeen and eyeing flights out of the country, across the world.

…Like, part of this is that she's four years old, Rowan can't just toss her on the streets. Meanwhile Chase is old enough that he can rebel, that he trots off to England for seminary. I think he resents Rowan for not taking him in, but also hypocritically doesn't think about the fact he skipped town, you know?

Okay,I know him being from Central Europe is something that only happened because the writers couldn't be bothered to hire an actual Aussie

The weirdest part to me — I looked this up once. The actor they hired is Belgian. Why did they make him Czech? Clearly, being European was a choice, being Czech was more of a choice, they could have made him be a Belgian immigrant, but…??

But yeah. Rowan… honestly seems like a fascinating dude in and of himself. He grew up in Central Europe! Assuming he's the same age as his actor, he was born in 1938, so he got to live through German occupation, Soviet occupation… it doesn't excuse him being a shit parent, but I can absolutely see how all that would make him simply incapable of being anything but deeply repressed and miserable. He throws money at his children because he can't connect with them on any level. He couldn't cope with his wife's alcoholism and addictions and traumas, because he absolutely is the type who doesn't really think mental illness exists; you should just suck it up and cope. And to have this emotional wife, this emotional son, this much younger daughter (I headcanon that 'Victoria' got pregnant on purpose to 'save the marriage.' It did not work. Danielle was not a wanted child by anyone.)… like, he's still the worst. But it's just a perfect storm.

Anyway. I had an idea of writing a fanfic set much later on — Cameron finding out Danielle exists and deciding to Force Reconcile the siblings. I have a… lot of thoughts about all of it. I can go into it if you'd like!

[eventheodds]

things you said with clenched fists

The longer she stays here, the more Meryl is convinced she’s walked into some fever dream.

Even the room she’d been given feels like it’s part of this dream and it’ll be any second now that she’ll actually wake up and find herself in some motel on her way back to Headquarters or en route to another assignment. The quiet moments of the farm in the morning before activity resumes adds to the surreal.

The way her muscles ache from the previous days helping out with chores, like she’s here to earn her keep, is a stark reminder that this is, indeed, all real. This morning proves to be no different as she kicks off the covers and instantly regrets it when she feels the soreness return upon movement. Meryl spends a few minutes in this bed, groaning softly as a dull pain courses through her until she has enough energy to get up and swing her legs over the bed.

No doubt once she’s dressed and heading downstairs, she’ll find Knives outside, perhaps catching up with what had been missed from the previous day—on account of her still not fully believing that this is real.

Meryl reminds herself that the only reason she’s still here is because Knives said Vash would be on his way. She doesn’t know if Vash is aware she’s here, but she wants to see him and, if it’s any indication, she knows that Vash will find a way to seek out his brother. It doesn’t fully sit well with her that she’s here like some kind of bait, but she’s far enough that lying to Headquarters about her location is easy enough to do without them suspecting anything.

If the News Agency knew that both Vash and Knives were still alive, this place would be swarming.

And the last thing anyone would need is whatever remains of Patrol to be surrounding the area.

Just as she predicted, Knives is outside. Her appetite isn’t what it once was, even when presented with delectable food.

She thinks he’ll expect her to resume helping with chores around the farm, picking up where she left off, and to continue on thinking none of this is odd or strange. There’s another bed of seedlings that need to be watered and the watering can is so perfectly positioned that she wouldn’t be able to miss it.

“Why am I even here?!”

She’s not gone to pick up the watering can, rather choosing to stand before it with her arms pinned to her sides and her hands clenched in frustration, anger, fear and maybe a tinge of hope that Vash is coming. It might not be in her best interest to listen to Knives, but she’s been looking for so long that it feels desperate at this point.

“Don’t think I forgot what you did, with your knives and what you did to Vash!”

There’s red splotches appearing on her cheeks as her voice tapers off just as quickly as it had risen, and Meryl physically takes a step back because there is a genuine fear that this could get a rise out of him. She expects to hear the whistling of many blades being summoned at once, but all remains calm.

Meryl releases a breath she’d been holding finally picking up the watering can and walking towards the source of water that will fill it up. She’s giving herself another few days, and hopes that Knives isn’t counting down either.

[kirric-the-fan]

Otona precure theory: Thoughts about power of hope precure and the endgame direction it's going regarding the cures:

Under the cut

So we know the flowers are bad news. This week Nozomi is facing some of the first serious side-effects of using her powers, and we know that whatever is happening to the flowers might be progressing regardless of how much they're using their powers (the fact that Nozomi worsened and her petal fell when she wasn't using them).

Which kinda makes sense

cus y'know, flowers die eventually.

(In fact, I was wondering if that was what actually happened to their rose garden powers in the end. The curemo's disappeared because the flowers naturally died. They just didn't notice because they weren't using their powers at the time.)

So:

One of the things I was thinking might happen is that the cures, or Nozomi in particular, might have to lose, or entirely forget their cure powers altogether to be saved from the time flowers.

Reason? The ending. I know the outro is a callback to the older outros, BUT I think that first section coming after a 'shit, Nozomi has to forget all her cure stuff' finale, is perfectly placed to kick us in the heart. The waking up. The tears. The song. It's almost worryingly in place for that to happen.

The only reason I've discounted it as a theory so far is that I didn't think Toei would want to eliminate any cures from their roster, even on an adult show. Why would they? They get more money from having more cures out there, and, we know from the existence of otona precure at all, that they want to keep cashing in.

So I didn't think it'd be a direction they'd take.

Until I remembered that the Rose Garden forms aren't the only cure forms these girls have.

And where did they get their other powers? The indebted Palmier Kingdom, who definitely has a king with an invested interest in protecting Nozomi and co.

Even Saki and Mai have alternative cure forms they could fall back on (although I would be a bit annoyed to lose Bloom and Egret).

(and hey, it gives the bank a chance to push more merch out for the two variants)

So I wonder if that's something there.

Thoughts?

(edit to add: I just realised that the other adult precure season we are waiting on also involves cures with multiple cure forms. Coincidence? Cash grab? Or something else?)

[childotkw]

Hi! I love all of your works, especially when they keep me up at night. Anyway, about the Lucemond Mafia AU I wanted to ask, is Harwin still alive? Because I don't think he would take well having his son taken away as much as Rhaenyra. And why would Aemond bring Aegon with him to question Luke.

Thanks!

I’m tossing up on whether Harwin should be alive or not - because on one hand, it’d add to the drama and there’s no way this mafia version of Harwin would like having his son kidnapped. The relationship between Rhaenyra, Laenor and Harwin would have been interesting, with everyone knowing Harwin was the boys father, but Laenor being the only one acknowledged as such because of politics. So the betrayal of Laenor would cut deep.

But I also wanted Daemon and Rhaenyra to get together after Laenor flew the coop with Luke; and I don’t see Daemon tolerating Rhaenyra’s lover for long. So perhaps it’s best if he had been killed in some way beforehand. Perhaps protecting the boys from an attack (and that’s yet another reason that Laenor wants to get out of the lifestyle, because someone targeted his sons?)

It’s a bit mean to fridge Harwin, I know, but this has the potential to be a pretty dark AU, so it might be the nicest way to handle him 😂

As for Aemond bringing Aegon with him - Aemond needed approval before making the move to grab Luke. Aegon, as his older brother, is in charge of their branch of the Family.

He’d need to agree before Aemond could do anything, only he wasn’t deciding fast enough so Aemond finally just dragged his brother to Luke so he could see firsthand that this was their long-lost nephew. Once Aegon’s seen him and spoken to him, he’s on board and gives the go-ahead after Luke kicked them out of the clinic.

Aegon and Jace are close in this AU, and he knows how much losing Luke hurt him, so he’s perfectly happy to let Aemond bundle up their nephew through whatever means are necessary, and bring him back into the fold.

[weatherman667]

Rewriting Girlfriend, Girlfriend

Girlfriend, Girlfriend is the story of one high school guy, and the four girlfriends that move into his house. Which the anime seems confused about. You see, the anime tries to focus on one high school guy and his two girlfriends that move into his house, but then adds two more characters for the full run of the story that are also in love for him. The intro makes it extremely obvious that these two are future haremettes. The main goal of the story is the four becoming a harem together, which means that the primary antagonists should be the ones that stop this from happening.

But the primary conflict from the story is from wanting to be an mff story while writting an mffff story. They skip straight passed the parents objecting, and explicitly have the latter 2 haremettes falling in love with the protagonist, along with the protagonist falling in love with them.

So, what does Girlfriend, Girlfriend decide to do? Subvert expectations by having the primary antagonist be one of the haremettes. And it's not enemies to lovers, but her literally falling for him like an anvil, and trying to break up his relationship so she can be his girlfriend. And since this is the only real conflict that lasts in the story, she becomes more and more psychopathic about it, to the point she literally, repeatedly drugs and kidnaps him. She even tranq'ed her little sister. And this is like Family Guy, where if you keep the same joke about abuse, it just stops being funny. It stopped being funny after her showed up. Not because of him, but because after this she became more and more unhinged.

So, the easy answer is to NOT skip passed the parents.

Saki literally lives next to the protagonist, and once they started going out, her mother just started seeing wedding bells. So, her response to them moving in together is "Finally!" followed by "Grandbabies!" Of course, it doesn't have her dealing with the fact that Naoya moved in with his two girlfriends.

But then, all of the other parents are against this relationship. Which is reasonable. The anime deals with it fleetingly, and then... doesn't have any real conflict for the story. It also frames it as being bad to oppose their daughters trying to get with someone who was already two-timing.

Let's start with Minase, because she was the first one to move in. If you daughter disappeared, and you discovered she was living with a man AND his live in girlfriend, he'd be lucky she didn't call the cops. This is Japan, which is still quite happily Patriarchal. You can't do that to the parents until she's 20. So, have Naoya talk to her mother, and then talk to her father. The father is busy at work, so this could be drawn out for quite a long time.

Then Mrs. Saki, (she named her daughter Saki Saki), having to deal with the fact her daughter's one-true-love turned into a threesome. At least one good episode out of this. She eventually convinces her husband it's a good idea to let them try. Folly of youth. She also knows that Naoya's relationship with Saki is ironclad and won't fail, so the most that might happen is the third gets kicked out.

Then who do we introduce first? Shino is already in love with him. I understand why they have Rika be the first one introduced, but doing this also seriously drags out. If we have Rika first, thence have Shino, and have them parallel arcs that end with Shino convincing Rika to stop acting like a super villain, (long before we go to the drugging part).

And then you have two more families to deal with.

And then Naoya's future school finds out, and it puts the whole thing in jeopardy.

But wait, kept mistresses are perfectly legal. If the old men in charge are a little jealous about how openly they can do it. So, he has to choose which one will be the true wife. He then convinces them that he won't treat the others as lesser than the wife.

And they all lived happily ever after.

One of the reasons I've so harsh is that I love all of the characters, and there are some absolutely fantastic elements of it. Until Rika starts acting like a super villain, which then lasts for the rest of the show.

[mylifeincinema]

My Week(s) in Reviews: December 17, 2023

I have a Christmas party I have to get ready for, so I'm gonna keep these short.

Godzilla Minus One (Takashi Yamazaki, 2023)

Wow. I really could just leave it at that. I don't think I've seen a Godzilla movie that nails both the human aspect and the monster mayhem quite as deftly as this one. It's an exciting and emotionally rich piece of monster cinema, and very well could be one of the very best films of the year. - 8.5/10

The Holdovers (Alexander Payne, 2023)

Genuinely hilarious and sneakily heartfelt. The tender moments play out so naturally that they pack an emotional wallop, then the brilliant Paul Giamatti or Da'Vine Joy Randolph lets out a perfectly delivered line that'll absolutely floor you. And I just love the look of it, every single piece of this film looks and feels like it's straight out of the '70s. So good. This might be my favorite Payne? - 9/10

May December (Todd Haynes, 2023)

The three stellar central performances drive this weird film about the line between fact and fiction, about the areas of grey in the fact that are stranger than fiction. Portman nails the impossible to read actress, Melton wows with his stunted victim-turned-father-turned-husband, and Moore is sneakily fantastic as the woman who has them both wrapped around her manipulatively disturbed finger. Haynes nails the tone, here. - 8/10

Eileen (William Oldroyd, 2023)

Thomasin McKenzie is wonderful, embodies the titular Eileen wholly, making every movement and decision feel completely organic. She's the reason the beats of the final scenes work despite the underwritten screenplay. Anne Hathaway is absolutely fascinating, here, just magnetic and dangerous and one step ahead of all of us. I wanted more of her, so bad. It's also a great looking film. Oldroyd fills these scenes so effectively, keeping us on our toes along the way. But still, something was missing. I blame that underwritten screenplay. Some authors shouldn't adapt themselves. - 7.5/10

The Equalizer 3 (Antoine Fuqua, 2023)

It's okay. When Denzel kicks as, he kicks ass. But there's not a lot going on, here, and what is here feels incredibly anti-climactic. Everything that happens in this movie kinda just happens. Whatever. - 4/10

Blue Beetle (Angel Manuel Soto, 2023)

I remember exactly 1% of this movie. Well, fine, 1% in addition to whatever percentage George Lopez's character adds up to, because holy shit that was an awful, annoying, unnecessarily over-the-top 'performance'. Yikes. - 2/10

Le Mans (Lee H. Katzin, 1971)

Some egos shouldn't be stroked without question, and McQueen's was clearly a major one. This whole movie was just an attempt to get him to race Le Mans. I thought I'd seen this movie, but I think I only ever actually saw the doc about the making of this movie. The racing footage is great, but everything else is either a total mess or a total bore. Except the music... that's pretty great, too. - 4/10

Enjoy!

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[n30n-le0n]

❤️💚💜

❤️- A happy memory that makes them smile

Ugh. It had been such a long day of training. And he hadn't even managed to get a hit in on Donnie once, and he felt like his stupid egghead of a brother had just been standing there and rubbing it in his face--

Leo dropped into the kitchen chair with a groan, slumping and rubbing at his eyes. What was he doing wrong? He was perfectly predicting every single one of Donnie's moves. He was moving to block and parry and thrust and go through the motions. So why was it still not good enough--

"Leo!"

The familiar chirp made him pick his head up, a minute before a plate was shoved in his face. "ACK--Mikey. What's up?"

"Can you try these an' see if they have enough sugar in them? I might need to add a little more, it's a new recipe!" Mikey stood before him with his little tail wagging, brandishing a plate of what looked like freshly made peanut butter cookies.

"Mikey, you already know they're gonna be great. You're, like, a kitchen wizard."

"Yyyyyeah, but! That's not important! I want you to try one and see what you think!"

Relenting with a friendly roll of his eyes, Leo popped one into his mouth, immediately feeling his eyes widen and a happy hum building in his throat at just how good the cookie tasted. It was the perfect blend of sugar and peanut butter and flour, dancing on his tongue, and he couldn't help but take a bigger bite as he sat there, all of his anger melting away within an instant. "Wow, Mikey, this is really good for your first time!"

"You mean it?" Mikey bounced on the pads of his feet slightly, leaning in closer. "It's good?"

"Yeah! Really good. I can't even think of a single thing wrong with it. Well. I don't know. Maybe a little more butter or something? Other than that, for your first try it's-"

"Mmhmm. Just like it's your first time really going up against Donnie, right?"

"Right, I---hey, wait a second--"

"So you shouldn't feel bad for not getting it right right away. Riiiight?" Oh, boy. He knew that look. The "I will stop being Dr. Feelings and go straight to Dr. Delicate Touch if you don't get your shit together" scowl.

"....Yeah. Right. Sorry. 'S been a long day."

"....did the cookies cheer you up, at least?"

"Heh. Maybe they did. I don't know. Someone decided to be a tricky little sneak about giving them to me-"

"ACK! LEO! LEO, STOP, NOT THE NOOGIES, NOOOOO-"

And as Mikey sprinted away from Leo as fast as his tiny legs could carry him, the sound of Leo's joyful laughter followed him all the way through the lair.

💚- A memory that makes them feel guilty

It had been some childish argument. He'd been upset that Donnie was spending more time with his nose buried in a book than hanging out with his brothers, and he'd gone to throw a mud ball at his twin's head. But it had missed and gotten all over the pages of the book instead, and Donnie had gotten upset for whatever reason and attacked him, and then he was pulling himself free and having to be held back by Mikey and he'd always hated being yelled at, especially by his twin, so when Donnie's words had come-

“And you RUINED it and you didn’t LISTEN to me and now I—”

He'd snapped back in turn, before he could stop himself.

“Oh, really? I’m the one that ruins everything? What about you? With your….your dumb-dumb shell that we always gotta watch out for and the way we gotta treat you like something that’ll break and now you’re being a big stupid idiot over some dumb book instead of trying to hang out with your own brothers like some kind of weirdo—”

Raph had stopped them, then. He didn't remember the rest of the conversation. But he did remember the look on Donnie's face after he'd said it. Like someone had taken his twin and kicked him right in the solar plexus.

And when it had come out that Donnie was actually different from the rest of them, that he had an official diagnosis, it had filled Leo wit more guilt than he possibly could have described.

I didn't mean it, he'd whispered jaggedly to Donnie later, curling into his twin as Donnie tried to comfort him. I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, I was just angry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry--

And Donnie had said he forgave him. But Leo would never, for as long as he lived, stop feeling guilty about implying that his better half was abnormal.

💜- A memory about one of their loved ones, happy or sad

It had been a thunderstorm in the city. A loud, violent one, with the sound reverberating off of the metal walls of the sewers when it came through the vents and grates. Leo had been curled up in his bed, hands childishly clamped over his ears to drown out the noise, shuddering and shaking and wishing that the sky would just stop being so loud--

And then Donnie had popped up in front of him, wearing those comically large glasses that Dad had gotten for him because his eyesight had been absolute shit when he was younger. "Leo? What's wrong?"

It felt....baby-ish, to admit that he was scared of the weather. But he couldn't help it. Swiping a hand across his eyes to keep them from tearing up, Leo mumbled into the blankets, face scrunching up out of embarrassment. "Sky's bein' loud."

"Oh, that? It's just thunder. Fear not, Leo!" And when he raised his head again, Donnie was making that adorable scrunched-up face that he did sometimes, where he was trying to remember a word but couldn't quite get its pronunciation down. "It is just the air....mol-ee-cools....exploding! When they get heated! It's nothing that can hurt you. I promise."

Sputtering out a shaky little laugh, Leo scooted over, patting the spot next to him on the bed. "Can you stay with me? Just in case it tries to hurt me?"

"Mmmmm. I guess I could." Donnie relented after a moment, squeezing in next to him. "You know nothing's wrong, right? You said it yourself. Nothing can-"

"-stop the Disaster Twins!" Leo crowed, pumping one tiny fist exuberantly before holding it out. "Do the thing, do the handshake!"

"NO. It's demeaning."

"C'mooooooon, Donnie. I'll let you have the last dinosaur chicken nugget."

His twin rolled his eyes but relented after a moment, bumping their fists together before spreading his fingers out and finger-gunning as Leo went through the motions as well.

"Explosion of the DEATH STAR. Pew pew pew pew!"

And as their respective laughter filled their shared room, Leo found that he suddenly didn't feel quite so afraid anymore.

As long as Donnie was there with him, he could beat anything.

[violet-phoenix-nebula]

Being 16 when Dear John came out, feeling and understanding, reflecting on the lyrics in such a deep, profound way but still too young to even understand the weight and the full meaning behind them...

Looking back on it now, not only do I know why I identified with them so strongly but I also understand the full weight of the meaning behind them and what they imply.

Counting my footsteps

Praying the floor won't fall through again

This lyric captures the feeling of walking on eggshells so perfectly. I never knew when I was gonna step on a trigger and get screamed at for something that didn't matter 18 hours before.

You paint me a blue sky

And go back and turn it to rain

Always afraid to look forward to good or fun things, because if I showed any sliver of excitement or happiness about something, it was only a matter of time before it ended up on the chopping block.

I remember being afraid of being happy...

And I lived in your chess game

But you changed the rules every day

Manipulation, gaslighting.... Just... you can't ever win with a person whose goal is to kick you and keep you on the ground. You can't win a game that's designed to crush you. It's like holding your hand in a fire and hoping it won't get burned. It's inevitable, because the goal was to destroy you all along.

Wonderin' which version of you I might get on the phone tonight

Unless you've been the target of someone's manipulation and mind fuckery, you'll never understand how terrifying it is to live with or be around a person when just existing in the same world as them is a game of Russian Roulette.

Well, maybe it's me

And my blind optimism to blame

Always hoping it will get better, it will get easier or thinking that 'hey, I think today is gonna be a good day' and then feeling stupid for thinking it later on when it inevitably doesn't go that way.

Or maybe it's you and your sick need

To give love then take it away

I remember feeling so.... in limbo. If I did something right (rarely) I would get praise. Usually backhanded praise, but praise nonetheless. And even when it's backhanded or insulting you still want so badly to be good enough and to be loved and wanted, to please them and do everything right. But that just isn't possible with an abuser. If you get close to the finish line or you do something right and you get encouragement, its always just a matter of time before you're torn down a hundred times harder than you were encouraged. It's a system designed to make you feel like you aren't ever good enough, that there's something wrong with you.

And you'll add my name

To your long list of traitors

Who don't understand

It fucks with your head when they're so good at painting you as the unreasonable one who's overreacting and blowing things out of proportion. When you're told you're too stupid to understand or need to "quit playing fucking mind games [my name], I can't read your fucking mind". Or the ultimate sin, when my former step mom and I ended up at a "cunt pound" as he called them.

And I look back in regret

How I ignored when they said

"Run as fast as you can."

My mom did everything she could for years to protect me, to make me understand why she left and why she didn't want me to live there. She tried so fucking hard to protect me and I threw all of that in her face because my 13 year old self understood him so much better than my mom who had been married to him. God, I wonder where I would be sometimes.

You are an expert at "Sorry"

And keeping lines blurry

Never impressed by me acing your tests

Always moving the goalposts, pretending to care what it's doing to you when you back them into a corner. Making you feel awful when they give you that manipulative, quiet "sorry" with downcast eyes and "Well I'll never do [insert completely normal and reasonable thing here] again then".

[the-dream-beyond]

Episode 21: Redefining Wealth: An Experientially Rich Life With Joe Huff

Nik Tarascio 

I was actually curious in the study. Was there anything that surprised you? Was there anything in there? They were like, I did not see that coming.

Joe Huff 

Yeah, the biggest one was how many people listed as their most important experience of their life, a negative experience.

Nik Tarascio 

Imagine this next breath that you're taking is your last breath. I think back to everything you've done in your life, think of all the things you wished you did. All the things you were really happy you did. And ask the question, why didn't you do more of the stuff that you wished you had? What were all the reasons that got in the way? I think this next speaker really touches on that as it's not too late. How do we cultivate that sense of urgency, and then go and make that life of our dreams. That's pretty much what the show is about. So I really hope you enjoy this next conversation. That may be the kick in the ass you need to just make make your life exactly what you want it to be. Add more of those incredible experiences that make it perfectly rich for you. Hope you enjoy.

Welcome to the dream beyond. I'm your host, Nik Tarascio. I'm a CEO, musician and overall seeker of Truth, inspiration, and simply put, how to live the most fulfilling life possible. Growing up surrounded by extremely wealthy and successful people gave me unique and unfiltered perspectives of those who have seemingly made it through on the dream beyond, we're letting you in on what it really takes to achieve your dreams. What happens when it turns out your destination isn't the promised land you are expecting and how to process the lessons from your past while mapping of course to true fulfillment. Let's get started.

Hey, guys, how's it going? I'm here with an old friend, who's an entrepreneur for more than three decades brings a wealth of experience as a founder and owner he's led multiple eight figure businesses and achieve successful exits. He's also the co author of the upcoming book experiential billionaire, build a life rich and experiences and die with no regrets. And in that book, he delves into the world of experiential living, which I'm really curious to learn more about. I've not touched her book yet. I figured I get it right from the source. And his quest for experiential richness has taken him across 50 plus countries, all 50 states and diverse cultures. And he gets to share this wisdom as a keynote speaker at major events worldwide. Please welcome Joe Huff, everybody. Thanks for being here, Joe.

Joe Huff 

Thanks for having me, Nik. And great to reconnect.

Nik Tarascio 

Yeah, man, I think where did we first connect? Was it WAS IT Summit? It was also in Sedona? Yeah, I

Joe Huff 

think it might have been Sedona first. I'm not actually sure which one happened first, but Sedona was definitely where the the deeper connection happened, for sure. So that's

Nik Tarascio 

right. That's right. Shout out to Andrea lake for that for bringing some really great people together. And it's super cool. It's like, you know, people come into your life, and then you don't know what happened for a bit. And then something awesome happens, and you just collide back into there. So thank you for allowing this collision today.

Joe Huff 

Yeah, you know, it's funny, we actually talked about that in the book about those types of, you know, the importance of those relationships, because it's really experiences create deep, meaningful relationships. And then those deep meaningful relationships, create more opportunities for experiences by you know, those people that you forge those bonds with, because like, even if it's a decade later, when you if you whether you bump into them or you see their name pop up on your phone, or they come up in conversation, you just get this feeling because you remember, like this moment that you shared together some really cool experience that like bonded you forever. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah, no, on the other side to like, the whole, like, don't

Nik Tarascio 

be an asshole policy, it proves really true. And you're like, you never know, when you're gonna run into someone later in your life. You never know when they know someone and it just feels really good. Like you said, you just see something you're like, I don't even know what we spoke about 10 years ago, exactly. But I know that I feel really good around you. And I'm lit up when I see you. So really love that. And I'd love to start at a place that is kind of my favorite opening question is when you were little What did you dream you'd be when, when you grew up? What was the thing that that you were really excited about?

Joe Huff 

Oh, definitely. By, like, the adolescent years, definitely rock star. It was definitely music was a big part of my life. And I definitely thought, you know, wow, what an incredible opportunity to to be able to be like a worldwide global type of rock star. They seem to have a pretty good life. Of course, like the the lifespan wasn't so great for a lot of investors. It seemed like a pretty fun ride while I was there. So you know, it's funny, we talk about this stuff in again, like that's, that's something that I think people should spend more time thinking about. I love that question that you asked that right now. Because as we get older, we suppress all that stuff, right? We just decide that, you know, those were dreams when we were kids. And we put it aside and we said maybe someday and even like I see all like big guitars on the wall behind you.

They're people that were musicians and like, oh, I want to play in the band. And I'll do that someday. And then that someday just goes into the someday. Outlander This is a great abyss, you know, we call it someday syndrome, and then it just doesn't happen. But there's really not a great reason for it not happening. You don't have to become like the rock star, right. But you can follow that dream and get quite a lot of joy out of just, you know whether you get up on stage in front of your friends, or whether it's at a cafe or something. So. So I think that the big part of what we preach is that finding your dreams is part of it, but also rediscovering the dreams you had that you forgot about is a really huge part of it.

Nik Tarascio 

Yeah, and I do think I remember that probably 10 years ago, we connected on that, because that was my dream, too. I was like, I want to be a rock star. It's interesting, I still desire much of that aspect of the dream. But not the same reason why underneath I think, like when I first wanted it as a teenager, I wanted to be worthy of love. And I was like, if a million people love me, maybe then I'll know that I'm worthy of it. I just want to have that, you know, that kind of experience. But now it's more like How cool would it be to impact a million people with your words? Right, which you get to do on stage as well. I imagine that in many ways, the things you do now, are still related to some aspects of that dream. And I'd love to hear that. Like how, how has that informed your journey? How has that ended up with even where you are now?

Joe Huff 

Oh, man, that's that's the whole thing. That's really, and it's, again, really insightful way to put it. You know, when you're when you're young, you know, you're thinking about impressing other people, because you want to make friends you want to find your significant other, there's a lot of reasons that you feel like that. But as you get older, and you start to realize that the real truth is you get so much joy out of making the world better and making people's lives better connecting with with people in a way that's meaningful to them. And it's the, you know, like the idea, music, right? That's a great example, again, because so many people get a feeling from it, you know, it's such a, it's a great positive feeling.

I think I think it's a Rick Rubin quote that says something like, the goal isn't to create, you know, perfect art, the goal is to basically create something that people knew existed but couldn't touch or couldn't feel or didn't know how to attend to connect with that. And then you just show them that. And that's really what I feel like we're doing where, you know, when you tell people that your experiences are the greatest thing in your lives, and the most important thing and the most valuable thing in your lives. Everybody knows it. It's like, if you asked everybody that, especially as they get older, they will Oh, yeah. But at the same time, that's a harder one act. It's like we have this glitch, you know, in our in our system, but it's those connections, those proof points where you actually do something and you affect somebody, and it starts to, you know, come back to you oh, wait a minute, you know, that's just they're still awake, that all that stuff for me, even now, it's funny with the journey of writing the book, which is like a really crazy, crazy, difficult journey. Little tiny things along the way. Were so impactful.

Like, for instance, like having a proofreader read, like the first draft, and then come back and say, you know, yeah, I made some edits. And here's some things I think that, you know, doesn't make sense grammatically. Also, by the way, this inspired me to move to California, like I always said I was going to do and I wound up living in Michigan for 10 years instead, because I got sidetracked. And your book just completely reminded me that I just suppressed my goals and forgot what I really wanted to do. And Baba, I've, we've heard this story like 100 times now just in the process, book writing process with the handful of folks that have like, read it. So that's been really cool. And then on the broader stage, like when you actually get out in front of a bunch of people. The overwhelming response is just wow, yeah, you know, everybody's like, it's this kind of like, tapping back into something that we all know deeply that we just suppress, because we get really busy with life. And it's very normal. So

Nik Tarascio 

you know, what, and what is that feeling from the stage for you, is like to be up there. Like when you're up there, when you're up there speaking to a bunch of people and sharing from your heart sharing your story. I'm wondering what that feels like for you and your body.

Joe Huff 

Yeah, you know, that's interesting that you say that. Also, it's a great question, because I used to actually have a lot of stage fright. I used to be, you know, afraid of public speaking like most people, it's called claustrophobia. It's like effects like it's like, considered to be I think the number one fear in modern societies, public speaking. And I reframed that because I really felt like this message was something I had to get out.

And as I started reframing that in my head of like, this is so important, and this is something I need to share. And I started really turning that kind of fear into this isn't your this is I'm excited to tell this story. It became way more personal and when I'm on stage, and I'm talking when I'm delivering this message. I definitely feel like I'm in my at a bar full of close friends, and I'm trying to just kind of share something that is really deeply meaningful to me. And that connects really well and makes me feel like I'm yeah, it just feels really good to know that I'm able to connect like that, because I do feel like, you know, the delivery system has the chance to, you know, we've all been preached at, we've all been told things, this position of like authority, and nobody wants that, you know, I definitely don't want to give people that. I try to actually, in general, when I'm on like a one on one kind of conversation, ask way more questions than tell that people kind of come to the answers on their own. But, but yeah, I feel like, I just feel like I'm in, I'm in a place that I'm meant to be in, and it just feels really, really good.

Nik Tarascio 

So kind of, I'm gonna stay with the music theme for a second, because I think we've kind of touched on something that has showed up in a lot of parts of my life. And probably for a lot of people that don't see themselves as creatives or artists, but realize their work. Their work is their art, right, whatever that thing is, it isn't just the medium of being a rock star. I think of your book, in many ways, like writing a perfect song, right?

Everyone's after, like, I just want to write the perfect song, I want to write the song that takes off on its own. It has a life of its own, it actually goes beyond me. I think Rick Rubin talks about that, too, of like, there's a certain point where you realize you were just the conduit, and it's the song belongs to everybody else. And what was the moment? What was the moment where you were like, wow, this is my song. Like, this is the song that I need to go put out there. I need to produce it, I need to get it all done and put it out into the world. And how did you know?

Joe Huff 

I mean, that's what's been the culmination of of a lot, I had been telling a lot of my close, close friends and my wife and people that I feel like right now. I am, everything I've gone through in my life has prepared me and, and guided me to this moment, I really feel like, that's where I'm at. And so I think I'm actually just coming to that moment you're talking about, I feel like this is my song. This is what it's meant to be. And I can kind of give you the backstory in a somewhat short version, and like to probably make a little more sense for the audience. But yeah, this whole life journey for me started, when I was really young, my parents met on an assembly line making brake pads in the Midwest.

So you know, my closest experience to a trust fund was trusting that my parents would fund the occasional trip to an ice cream truck. I was trying to figure out, you know, the whole rock star and Blackstone sounded pretty good, but it was pretty far fetched lifestyle for me. And I had a rough childhood in a lot of ways. I overcame some some things that were self inflicted, etc. And I made it somehow through high school and right as I was graduating high school, I came downstairs rip for my 18th birthday and, and my dad called my dad slumped over the kitchen table. And he was pails, you know, just white as a sheet and drenched in sweat. And, and we rushed into the hospital, he was 48 years old. And he had worked his whole life and had I'm sure this great grand plan for retirement. And it turned out that wasn't just a heart attack, we got to the hospital, and they said that his heart was failing, he had cardiomyopathy. And it was a really advanced stage. And it was standing right that not in the future at some distant point.

And they added him to the top of the transplant list and told us he Eberly low at survival. And, you know, we were like pacing this hospital, I'll show you and walk into another halls looking in these other rooms, seeing these other people in these situations. And it just, it just felt so wrong to feel like this is how people live, you know, they're postponing their goals in their life now for this future that just might not exist. And, you know, I kept thinking about other things my dad wanted to do so but had it and, and the more I just kept turning that over, I was just like, this is this is bullshit. This is all wrong, something's wrong with this plan.

But um, you know, that moment gave me this really great gift. It gave me this gift of urgency. And I basically my dad, by the way, it was very lucky. He was one of the lucky ones he got a transplant and wasted we got a second chance at life, which was also extremely, extremely impactful on my life watching that happen. But it made me aware that I might not have time for my dreams and my goals. So that sent me off on this just crazy urgent journey in life where I was determined to try to do stuff that you know, come hell or high water, I was gonna figure out ways to do things. I didn't have much money or, you know, resources. But I was like, I'm just gonna figure out what I could do.

And that led me on this. You know, I had a bunch of terrible jobs. They did a bunch of different things, but I met a lot of people got a lot of new experiences and it just kept building from those little steps again, actually led me to one of my friends started a small T Shirt Company that then somehow accidentally turned into a warehousing business that we somehow accidentally built into a pretty big warehousing business over a decade. And, you know, that was that was like, none of that would have happened had I not just been gifted this gift of like urgency, I would have probably just been sitting where I grew up in the same town doing the same thing. But because of that, I made all those changes.

And then something else happened with my dad, which was he actually got cancer, which happens from the type of drugs that you do you do from a immunotherapy. And I brought him home for hospice care. And I was able to watch the second end of life for him kind of, and that gave me this really great clarity of just like, what's going to matter? What are we thinking about for the end of our lives, and they began to get that gift at a young age, relatively speaking, that that just sent me off again, like another the urgency I had had kind of like, plateaued, and that just kicked it back into gear again.

And I, I had always thought, you know, I, I'd love to be a philanthropist and do something, you know, in a positive way to impact the world. But I'm not rich, I'm not Bill Gates, I don't have any money, your time. And then I thought that's all an excuse for a reason. And these are all the kinds of things we talk about in the book a lot is like, you know, how do we just overcome those, those excuses and those reasons? And yeah, so So what happened this I, I left the company and started doing a bunch of other stuff. And that, that led me to my business partner, Bridgette, who saw me doing charity work with other companies.

And we started, listen, and we started giving hearing aids to people around the world. And that turned into us traveling around the world for a decade and giving over 50,000 people hearing aids, which was like the most remarkable life changing experience ever. And then along that route along that road, people kept coming up to us. And this this actually ties right back to the actual concept of the book and how I found my saw, people kept coming up to us and going wow, you guys must be rich, you guys must be killing it. You know, you're traveling all over the world, we saw beats sold the app $3 billion, you guys are about to buy your own private jet or something. We're like, I'm actually we're pretty broke. We're what's on paper is not the same as what's in the bank account.

But we're having all these incredible experiences. So we like to consider ourselves experiential billionaires. So we would tell people that as a way to kind of laugh off the fact that we were giving all of our money to charity, and doing all this stuff. And, and then this was still a really great lifestyle for us, because we were, the fulfillment level was like, you know, we were at the brim. And then 2020 happens, you know, everything shuts down, we can't do the missions, we started the company to actually give hearing aids and came up with the speakers and headphones as a as a tool. So suddenly, we were just selling speakers and headphones, because there were no more mass, you know, we couldn't get together and give people hearing it.

And we we really actually just did a deep dive and asked our friends and our mentors and our network and said, What's the value that you see us giving to the world? And what could we do that would be the most impactful or positive thing. And everybody kept coming back into saying, your stories about how you've done all these things like that's, that's the message now you guys should really share that because it's really inspiring, because, you know, we, we came from like, unassuming beginnings, you know, a humble beginning to like turn somehow into like giving millions and millions of dollars away and traveling the world and checking off all these things in our lives, where we help other people check things up on their list kind of thing. And yeah, that was like, how it all kind of just coalesced into writing the book.

And And one last note on it, we started writing the book about just this, you know, the science and research behind how important it is to invest in, in experiences, because, you know, all the data shows that that is the number one regret people have. And then so we actually ran our own survey of over 20,000 people to see, you know, what are the number one regrets you have in your life? What are the things you most want to do? Still, why haven't you done them yet? You know, we started collecting all this data. And as we started writing the book, though, it turned more and more into our life stories with all of these, you know, messages in them and exercises and the research data points and all that. And it just became this like, really, you know, this is the most personal thing I've ever done by far. And it's like, you know, really, like, I guess that's when it became like, this is my song. This is what I'm, I'm standing firm on this is like this is this is what I believe and I hope I really truly believe this can transform people's lives that they if they follow this kind of path. So yeah,

Nik Tarascio 

well, congrats and thank you Let's, you answered a bunch of my questions, which was really going to be touching on, you know, the relationship to regret. And going into the study. I was actually curious in the study. Was there anything that surprised you? Was there anything that you were like, I did not see that coming?

Joe Huff 

Yeah, the biggest one was how many people listed as their most important experience of their life, a negative experience. So many people actually said, you know, this, this thing happened, you know, where, whether it was like a divorce or a loss. And even like, in my case, you know, that's an example where, you know, losing someone made somebody aware of something or they changed, or, you know, they got fired from a job, and then they actually wound up going into the thing they had wanted to do. And that was really interesting to see that it took some outside negative force.

And this is part of that, you know, the hero's journey, stuff that we all we all know, where it's like that everyday, ordinary person, some crazy obstacle happens, and they overcome it and become this better, bigger thing. And, you know, that was really, really powerful. The other thing I would say that was really surprising and alarming is, and this is something that I really think speaks to, you know, your audience. There's so many people that we just all fake, we have more time, right? So there's so many things on our list. And if we really hone down the list and like make that actual plan, you know, once we get the urgency, we got to visualize, there's so many things that are so achievable, that we just don't do, because we just assumed, like, so many people put things like, I regret never having taken my wife to go see where I grew up in the next state over, you know, and now she's gone, or I regret, you know, never taking learning Japanese because my parents spoke it.

And I always wanted to be able to learn more about our culture history, and I didn't, you know, things that were very, very achievable and doable in this day and age, especially with, you know, the access to some most of it wasn't expensive, there's a lot of things, obviously, people, some people put stuff like, I always wanted to go to, you know, Italy or something. But a lot of the stuff was very, very, very attainable. They just slipped by, because they just didn't get it on their calendar didn't make an effort to do it. So. So that's the kind of stuff that I think people can avoid, you know, with my daddy, I like to like, kind of phrase it like that. And with most people, we always hear the story right of somebody that has a near death experience, or loses someone close to them, and then they go out and run that marathon or climb that mountain or do that thing that they always wanted to do. The thing that's really crazy is like, you know, with my dad, for instance, like that the health situation wasn't avoidable, probably.

But the regret that he would have had had he passed that first time around was, you know, because he had just been putting off all those things. So we're trying to give people that urgency, without the near death experience.

Nik Tarascio 

Yeah, I appreciate that. I really appreciate the what you said, you know, people find that the negative experience is often the blessing, right? It's often the thing that's like, let me kick my ass into gear. That was the meaningful turning books I know. Especially like New York, the Western world, a lot of our life is avoiding the negative, right? It's like, I don't want to face the shadow. I don't want to deal with the darkness. I want to press buttons and everything show up. So I never have to feel any form of discomfort. And it's interesting to see it's on some point it almost as if maybe the gift of health is sometimes look if you're not going to listen to all the signs that are telling you you're not on the right course. We'll just take it off from you. And some of us are lucky enough to catch it right before right catch right before and say I didn't have to lose everything to really get my life in I appreciate that story.

Joe Huff 

Yeah, I It's funny. In my talk, I always like to start off with I tell a story about how even when I was 27, I actually I had to file for bankruptcy. And I it was really, really difficult time in my life. It was this really terrible situation. But at the time, I had also decided I was going to do stand up comedy for the last few years I've been trying it off and I was actually younger. And instead of like dwelling on it actually it turned out to be a really great joke in my stand up comedy because when I went to file for bankruptcy, they told me that it costs $2,500 to file for bankruptcy. So I had to go around telling people I'd like to be bankrupt, but I just can't afford it. This just became like a It's all framing things. You may turn it into a joke and be canceled. If you don't laugh, you'll cry kind of thing. So yeah.

Nik Tarascio 

Beautiful. I'd love to go a little bit deeper into as you were speaking and touching on the urgency. And again, I think this I've had a similar experience of watching my grandmother die when I was really young and she spent a lot of time in a hospital really struggled with health issues. And it was my urgency in many ways watching that happen was I also had a lot of health issues when I was a teenager and again, these were the blessings of like everyone else's like we've got infinite time I was 17. And I'm like, I could die tomorrow. So, you know, that wasn't true, necessarily, but that's what it felt like. I'm curious, how do people balance? Or how do they know if they're running from death? Versus running towards life? Right? Because I think that that is one of the things that can happen when we experience death at an early age or lose someone that we really care about, or watch just the suffering of that.

Joe Huff 

Yeah, you know, there's, to me, I think the Western world in particular, you know, we're really good at avoiding the conversation of death. So if there's one, you know, for sure thing that we all know that everybody's gonna die. I think that if you dwell on it, and you know, it could become obviously a morbid and be create, like a fear induced reaction, which isn't really what I think is healthy at all, I think that it's contemplating its, you know, thinking of like, this is going to happen, and you know, we use the momentum warrior, you know, that has what's right in the card deck, it's in the book. But in America, right now, it's 76 is the average lifespan. It's actually 74 for men and 78. For for women.

So it's just a box set, it's a chart of 76 boxes, and you can just fill out how many you've lived so far by year and see how much time you have left on average. And that again, that's not to create, like fear, it's to create reality. So you can look at the math and go, Okay, I got, hopefully, if I'm average, or above average, I've got, you know, 20 boxes left, I said, I want to go to all the states or I want to visit these 12 places or whatever, like if I'm going to do one of those a year, I gotta start planning, you know, just gives you like, as a template map of like, okay, this is how much time because if you don't do that, you won't, but if you start looking at it, you know, from Oh, my God, I've got to do everything like next week, you could probably start making some on healthy habits. You don't want to like chase things down as though like we say, like you want to. It's kind of like the Gandhi approach of you know, you want to live as if you'll die tomorrow learn is that you'll live forever.

So you want to have long term goals, still you want it you couldn't plan a family or you know, a long term career, any of those things, if you actually act as though you're going to live tomorrow, you're going to be pretty self destructive, because you're not going to think that the repercussions are going to last. So it's really more of a contemplating it. So you can form a plan, there's, there's a lot of really great ways to like use that math, like, you know, if you think you're going to, versus if your parents are like in their 70s already, you know, maybe you know, they're doing well, maybe they're not maybe the last 20 years, and we'll have five but if you just use the average and you go, okay, they've got like, on average, four or five boxes left, and I see them once a year, that means I'm only going to see my parents five more times, well, maybe I should make some changes to my travel schedule and my plan, my kids, you know, with me, I've got two small kids, you know, one and a half and three and a half. And this time is flying by so if I want to take them to the amusement park or the zoo or on a road trip or camping or you know, you got to plan those things, because it's going to just slip right by all the sudden it's like, oh, I didn't ever take that road trip or did that one thing? And then you're gonna have that that's the kind of regret that's avoidable. But yeah.

Nik Tarascio 

Yeah, that's a great perspective. Was that clear? Yeah, it doesn't, you know, I think the, the place that I go to with that is, starting with that reality seems like a really great way to see it. Right. It's like, I think that that Denial of Death would be someone that doesn't want to look at the fact that like, there is a chance that this as long as I'm gonna go on average, right? The or at least most of the people in my life, on average, that people my life, we're gonna probably go around that age. So I do really like that as an approach of start with the reality of what's there. And then the case that like, I'm sure you've spoken to so many people about this, I imagine. Have you spoken to people that couldn't face the reality that you've experienced them? Like, almost like, this is not something I want to think about?

Joe Huff 

Oh, gosh, I mean, I mean, and yeah, I would say the majority of people probably like they're very much like, I don't want to think about or talk about that. Because it's scary. You know, a lot of people look at it, like, it's scary. They don't they can't reframe it into, okay, you know, this is finite, but which is it's weird, right? Because it's, it's avoiding, it doesn't make it go away. Right. It's not like it's like sticking your head in the sand. Yeah, so, um, but there's definitely a lot of people that, that need that kind of push.

And that's why I think getting into again, the book I think does a really good job of like a building of showing people you know, how to start thinking like that, you know, we do a really cool exercise called the treasure map right in the beginning that you know, you actually you pretend that you got that call from your doctor that you only have 30 days left to live what are you gonna do? You know, then you're using that as kind of like, you know, there's a it's a longer exercise than that but using That kind of as a base, you know how many of those things are on your list now and why not, you know, and then we kind of build into that, like, here's all the things that other people said, you know, these things sound familiar.

And this is, if they probably do, and this is ways to start, like, removing those kind of regrets by doing those things, and putting those things on your calendar and taking steps to do them. And then, as you do that stuff, you start to see that fear of the specter of your mortality kind of go away, because suddenly your life feels full and purposeful. And I think the fear that people experience is the fear of getting to the end and not feeling like they had that life story. They want it you know, I'm gonna take that verse eulogy, where if you, if you picture your eulogy being said today, if something happened to you, today, would it be the eulogy that you want for your life? Would it be, you know, Nik, he did this and this and this and how he affected people.

And if it's not that now, you got to change it right? And you can, it's super easy to start taking the steps to just start working towards what you want that to be, I have a very, very powerful proof point of how, how well this works, unfortunately. So my wife and I, we met a decade ago, and my wife lives halfway around the world. And our relationship was founded in like us traveling to meet when we could and spending a lot of time all over. And we were really intentional about like, where we met and what we did. And her friends were all around the world and mine were around the world, we got married and Indonesia and Bali.

And you know, we we wound up doing all these really cool experiences together. And then we planned, we did the work, like I'm telling you in the book, you know, we figured out our treasure map what we want to do how we want to try to maximize our time here. And we finished the first draft of the book. And we literally read before the end of the second draft, my wife got diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. This is just a year ago. And she was It was literally like, the weekend of her 34th birthday. So it was a wild wild journey. And she did five months of chemotherapy and then a double mastectomy. And then she had radiation and a full year of immunotherapy.

And it works, the treatments worked. There was you know, obviously about eight months of of being unsure if that was going on what was happening was working or not, but but we're out we're just now on the other the other side of it, but the reason I share that story is first of all, my wife is just a badass, and she just handled this, like, you know, as a mother of two young kids, it's I can't even begin to explain how much respect I have and how it I think as a lot of guys probably think I'm tough like she she made the tough like into a thing I can't even imagine, you know, she's like a superhero. But the reason that I think it's so important to us that stories, at the end of it, as we found out that it worked in her pathology came back negative and the tumors were gone.

We didn't have a bunch of changes in our future. You know, like with my dad, he had to change his whole life. He literally moved to Mexico and started doing all these adventures and things he had never done. My wife and I our plans the same. And that was so powerful to me. Because when we sat down and started thinking about what we were going to do, there wasn't like, we got to make all these changes, we got to we've been going to living for other people, we've been doing the wrong thing.

We actually were like, we're on our path. And this was just a crazy, crazy obstacle that she just broke through. But the path was the same and that was really powerful. Because like obviously we would be in still, you know, the idea of something happening and losing her it'd be completely devastating. But the regret part, you know of how she's been living her life isn't there. She's been living her life on her terms the way she wanted and intentionally. So that's a powerful

Nik Tarascio 

what's an incredible it's an incredible story. And again, sorry you went through that and congratulations for coming on the other side of it with a positive outcome. I wonder for you is there is there a regret you look back on in your life as someone who's had to think about that so much. Is there something specifically like that is the number one regret I had?

Joe Huff 

Oh, you know what, man, I mean, and hotshot more regrets than I can imagine. But I don't have it's funny because I guess that's the difference when you start talking about this kind of a life right where it's most people's biggest regrets are the things they didn't do not the things they did that went wrong. So my regrets for things I did are things like that was you know, that was dumb. I could have done that better, et cetera on but the bigger regrets probably not starting I feel like even like, like this whole idea of what your song is that use that musical metaphor. I feel like if I had actually done the more personal work, I probably would have been doing this sooner I had a lot of fear, I was actually very afraid of, you know, basically telling people this message or this story or trying to, you know, influence people, I felt like maybe that would be maybe I'm a fraud, maybe I'm not worthy of sharing that etc.

And, and I feel like, took me a long time to get past that. And so I would say I probably just regret not starting sooner. And I think that's the overall message that most of the regrets in the 20,000 Plus person survey. It's all stuff like, I wish I started my business sooner. I wish I had traveled more sooner. I wish I did. It's all stuff that people wish they did, or started sooner than they did some.

Nik Tarascio 

Have you done the eulogy exercise for yourself?

Joe Huff 

Yeah, you know, we actually went deeper than that Bridget and I did a little fake funeral concert a few years back, the people do this in that and saw and it's, it's quite popular. And I think probably in other parts of the world. It's even been a comical release. But yeah, that it was an episode of Larry David. And we did it like, you know, joking. Way, definitely. But it's powerful. Still, I gotta say, you know, when you ask your friends, like, you know what they would say? I was surprised at how many people you know, talked about how I inspired them to start a business or, you know, do something that they hadn't thought they could do, because I did it.

And I think that that's something that in society we take for granted, we don't realize that our actions are really what speaks the loudest. So you know, like you having this podcast. And there's definitely folks that are listening and watching going, You know what, that that Nick can do it? I could do, you're giving people permission, right to like, live their dreams, and especially if it's like, well, you know, Nick didn't come from some family of broadcasters or history of entertainers, or blah, blah, blah, and it's like it, it connects people in a way they're like, that's that he's like me, I could do that, because he did it.

And that was really powerful. It was really, really powerful to hear how many little things I didn't realize that I had done that affected people without even knowing that I did that. So it's worth doing. I think people, I think people would enjoy that experience. And I think he got it takes a little bit of the that negative like you want to, let's make it a little less serious, the whole deaf topic and make it a little more lighthearted.

Nik Tarascio 

Ya know, I love my 43rd birthday is coming up in two weeks, and I was trying to figure out what to do, I think I'm actually going to do it as funeral. That's great. Because I have some of my closest friends coming over to back, let's have some fun. Let's hear what you guys have to say about it. And like touching on the you know, you talk about stand up comedy, which is something I also pursued for whatever reason you and I have a very, very similar path. And I very much appreciate that. We're also in like, the black T shirt club. But yeah, I think that there's something really beautiful about the idea of comedy is tragedy plus time, right? Like, if you've ever heard that equation, right? And it's like, for most people, it's like, oh, man, things are so heavy and dark. And it's like, just give it some time. Give it some time, we can find the levity in it. And we can laugh about it. Because if we can't laugh about it, then man, it's a hard ride if we can't see the humor in at all.

Joe Huff 

Yeah, we there's a whole chapter in the book, literally turning negatives into positives, because it is and so much of it is that you know, and even that's why the idea of, you know, going out and trying to have an experience, even the stuff that at the time, like, for instance, we all know like for me, I protect the kids. It's hard to travel with kids, but I do it. And in the moment, there's definitely times where I've got like, you know, two very uncomfortable kids or they're driving me a little bit crazy, or, you know, we're whatever you're trying to do whether you're setting up a campsite, or trying to get six hours to a hotel, or, you know, there's maybe projectile vomit or her she knows what with kids.

There's a lot of things happening afterwards. Like right now I'm laughing about it. Yeah, those are the things that you laugh about. Because it's so ridiculous. And that's why like, if you're in an experience with some friends and things like completely sideways, those are the best stories. Those are the ones that you want to tell nobody wants to hear the story about. Yeah, we went on this day trip and everything went absolutely perfectly. And it was very easy. No, no controversy happened. Nobody cares about that story.

Nik Tarascio 

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I recently was telling someone that my other like, what, what does life mean to you. And I said, life to me is just, you have a certain number of containers of moments. And you try to fill them with with as much experience as you can. And then you have a bunch of connective tissue of like the other stuff that happens in life. And, man, this is I love the way you framed it again, it's like anything, it's like you could take a guitar and you could sing over it. But sometimes when people do it, it moves you in a way that other people can't. And I just love the way you've you've really framed it. Thanks.

Joe Huff 

You know, it's funny when when we started this, you know, writing this and sharing this content but it's not new. I definitely think that lots and lots of people, you know, throughout history have preached this message. And, but it's the time and the messenger. And we hope I hope that I can connect with people that just this hasn't struck, you know, this this concept. And yeah, the whole idea of moments, you know, that's the end to be clear, by the way, you know, this isn't about experiences versus money, I think that people confuse that and they think, well, great, have a bunch of experiences, I've got to work, I've got to pay my bills, absolutely, totally agree, it's about experiences being the most important thing to invest in.

So even if you, you know, have this huge, big idea of like, I want to go on a vacation to you know, travel Europe, and whatever, you put that on your calendar for a year from now. And in the meantime, do what you can do, you know, start filling up your days and stop losing the time that is getting stolen from you every day with stuff that doesn't add value to your life, because that's what you can control, there's a lot of little everyday moments that you fill in around all the bigger picture things. So besides doing the big picture stuff, you got to get those little moments in, because the moments as you put it, you know, those are, that's your experiential, you know, wealth. And the wealth equation that we've been taught forever is that your money equals happiness, and the more money you have, the more happiness and everybody that's successful, that worked their ass off to get successful, but sacrificed everything else in their life. A lot of them are, you know, eating a very on tasty sandwich, right? Because they're just like, this isn't what I thought, right?

I sacrificed my family live, I sacrificed my 20s or my 30s, or whatever, and I didn't do anything. And I didn't put those moments in what the real equation is our experiences times a lot equals happiness, you know, if you can get that whoever gets the most experience is that it's a contest, but those are the people that feel good. And again, back to like the bankruptcy story. You don't lose them, right? You know, what your experiences good or bad years forever, you invest in them. And they also make you more valuable, generally speaking, because everybody you know, you're, you're so specialized, you can be replaced in a job, you can be less interesting in the social environment, etc. But the person that's, you know, done more things has more to talk about as more give us more perspective has more value as a person, both in their personal life and their social life and, and in their, their work life. So it's a it's a mind shift, I think it's suddenly a mind shift that people just once they see it. Oh, yeah, I knew that. But I'm glad I got reminded.

Nik Tarascio 

Phenomenal. And interestingly, my last question is somewhat answered by one of your processes. So I always ask people, what's their dream beyond? And I really think that's the treasure map question. Yeah. So for you what is what is the dream beyond what's the treasure map, this book, it's

Joe Huff 

funny this week, crazy as that might sound, this feels like my wife's very last immunotherapy was like two weeks ago, the books coming out in two weeks. And this feels like the beginning of, for lack of a better word, the rest of my life. This feels like my legacy kind of work. So for me, the dream is to build experiential billionaire as a message and as a brand and as a movement. Just over the course of the rest of my life, where I show my kids that you can do the things you want in life, you can write a book, you can inspire other people, you can make a positive change. And it's something that I think I can do forever because as I did, you know, physically less active, which sadly, I'm relatively sure happens, she can alter those are things that I can still I can hopefully still speak to people and share this message and share my stories and, and create a positive change. That's, that's my, my big dream is to try to affect as many people as possible.

Nik Tarascio 

Beautiful and sounds like that's a dream that's gonna come true in a big way. And we've only been speaking for 43 minutes and I'm so inspired by everything he said. So thank you for doing it, man. Thank you for sharing that.

Joe Huff 

I'm very very thankful to be I have a question for you though. So what what's if you what's on your your list on your treasure map? What are you What are you trying to achieve?

Nik Tarascio 

Great. I love a good turnaround by the way, I always know when I have a good guest and they're like, Wait, we're not done here. So yeah, I got a man to

Joe Huff 

help you achieve whatever your experiences are. We can do one together.

Nik Tarascio 

Yeah, that would be a lovely man. Oh, man. There's a lot of things that have come to me lately. i It sounds really reductive, but I want to give myself permission to be fully expressed and any medium I want to play in. And I think what that's really driven me to is I want to help people cultivate creativity.

Joe Huff 

That's awesome. I love it. And how would you see yourself doing that like creating tools or giving like actual direct standing,

Nik Tarascio 

I'm standing on that cliff right now of I don't know exactly what the media medium is. So I've been working with people on like, parts work and different modalities of healing. I do sound healing now in sound therapy. So I don't know what it is. But I know like in the next three months, I can feel that it's going to reveal itself as what the medium is I play in and I'm, I'm just putting that out there that if anyone has tools or practices for cultivating creativity within my dream has always been to write the perfect song and the perfect song is actually not me. It's it's without any distortion, allowing that source, that creativity, that muse to come through me. And knowing that it just, it happened in front of me, I want to be in a front row seat to letting that through. So that's been the dream is to spend the rest of my life moving. The ego, the distortions, the fear, what you just said, it's like, can you have the courage to actually speak what you know to be true without the fear of like, someone's gonna stab you and your most sensitive area when you're like, but this is what I believe. Don't say no, don't criticize don't troll me. Can I cultivate that confidence to be able to just to speak what feels true within me?

Joe Huff 

Oh, yeah, I think you can I think you're going to that's a really just thinking about it. That's the first step. You're already there. Right? So yeah, I mean, I know for a fact, people are going to come out and attack the book and the message and you know, there's going to be people, but I already know that people are going to it's going to resonate and change some lives. That's what matters, right? It matters, that you're doing that. So by just what you just shared, if you just start doing that. It only takes you know, the winds for you to forget about all the losses and maybe the song you'll come to realize the end is like the song has been all the songs that you've ever written all

Nik Tarascio 

that stuff. It's, it's my Bohemian Rhapsody, I gets that that's what it's like, the song is not chorus, you know, a chorus verse, chorus verse, it's more like it's just this crazy movement of all these different things that that is the dream. I don't think I ever wanted to have just the repeating pattern. So thank you for asking that. It's probably the first time I've verbalized it, and put it into words of like, yeah, that is what it is. It's about cultivating that source creativity and getting out of the way and seeing what comes through. Well, I

Joe Huff 

love it, man. It's beautiful. That's really cool. Thank

Nik Tarascio 

you. Thank you. This has been phenomenal. And I am excited to follow your journey. It is beautiful to reconnect. And thanks for sharing so much from your heart and doing what you do. And for anybody that is curious to stay on the journey with Joe as you could check out experiential billionaire.com or his personal website Joe huff.com. He's got some info on his keynotes and everything on there. And of course, go get the book experiential billionaire build a life rich and experiences and die with no regrets that's on his websites and Amazon as well. And if you want to get playful, which this may be a birthday gift to myself or the treasure maps Man that sounds super cool to car deck that can inspire you to do some really cool things with your life and, and just add more experiences to them. And you could get those again on Amazon or his website. So Joe, thank you so much for being here, man.

Joe Huff 

Thank you. It was really great to reconnect man. I'm looking forward to the next round.

Nik Tarascio 

Absolutely. Thank you for listening to the dream beyond. I hope that you receive whatever message or inspiration you were meant to get from today's episode. I had a great time recording it for you. If you love the show, please take 30 seconds to subscribe rate and review it that really helps get the word out. And if you want to connect with me, you can find me at

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[homoerectusindeed]

Hi again! I'm afraid that it is :( Hamsters, regardless of species, require a lot of space to thrive. Here's a master list of things you'll need to consider for your little buddy:

Cage:

Hamsters require at least 100x50x50* cm of constant, unbroken floor space to be able to move and burrow comfortably. This means that two 50 cm cages cannot be connected with tubes to make a 100 cm cage. * 39.37 x 19.69 inches Vertical spaces like those shown on the 'no' side are bad for multiple reasons. 1. Hamsters are borrowers, not climbers like rats. 2. The fall risk is immense 3. Those tubes shown are unsafe as the hamster may get stuck (especially true for Syrians, like the one you have) I have added a barred cage on the acceptable side, but personally, I would not recommend it for three particular reasons;

Some hamsters tend to chew on the metal bars, which is bad for their teeth. They may also climb if they get bored or stressed, which is dangerous. Hamsters have poor eyesight and are rather bad at determining distance, which leaves them prone to letting go and falling at unsafe distances. They can also get stuck.

It can be difficult to fit enough bedding (20-25 cm at least) without it overflowing. Hamsters burrow, and when they do they might kick out a lot of the bedding. It's a whole mess. You can, of course, solve this by adding cardboard to the sides.

Food

A common misconception about hamsters is that they are herbivores. They are not - in fact, they are omnivores! In the wild, hamsters' diet consists mostly of seeds, nuts, and bugs! Yup! Like crickets and worms! They need protein in their diet, and they tend to love dried mealworms. I would not recommend a 100% vegetarian diet A water bowl is usually the better choice. A bowl allows the hamster to drink at a more natural angle, just make sure that the bowl isn't too deep.

Hamsters are not social animals!

Hamsters, unlike rats and mice, are strictly solitary animals and should not under any circumstances be placed in pairs. This is especially true for Syrian hamsters, who are particularly territorial. This also means that your hamster is not as dependent on you for socialization. Many hamsters living in proper conditions may become 'ghost hamsters', hamsters that desire no contact with humans whatsoever. It is perfectly natural.

Hamsters need their beauty sleep

Pretty simple; try to avoid waking your sleeping hamster. It can mess with their circadian rhythm, and it can stress them out. Like, a lot.

Hamsters aren't minimalists.

Hamsters require a certain amount of clutter in their cage to feel safe. As prey animals, they have a certain instinct to avoid open spaces. This is to avoid predators - and to them, you are a predator. Adding hideouts and various pieces of clutter is beneficial for their health.

Some examples! :)

Potty and bath

Hamsters, just like chinchillas, 'bathe' in sand. Sooo, you'll need a sand bath! Or two, because some hamsters like to pee in their sandbath. That's up to you. Never actually bathe a hamster with water, though, that can kill them.

Wheel!

Did you know that hamsters can run up to 9 km* every night? That's a lot for a little hamster, which is why a wheel is necessary. Syrians need a wheel that is at least 28 cm in diameter to avoid hurting their backs.

I might have forgotten some stuff bc i wrote this late at night and i want to sleep so i may or may not come back to add some stuff later.

good luck with your hamster!

The lady who sold me my hamster said that he was a bit of a rare color (light brown) but his hind end is golden‐colored. There were three other hamsters - two were siblings that I didn't want to split up and the last nipped the hand of the lady, while this guy seemed a little shy. So I picked him because kindred spirits and all that.

[friendlyneighborhoodcapricorn]

MCU!Peter Parker x Enemy!Reader

Synopsis: reader and Peter have been dating for a handful of years. Neither of them had expected, however, to be on opposite sides of a battle.

A/N: Just because tasm!Peter is my fave, doesn't mean I don't write for mcu!Peter :) I feel like I should clear that up lol.

Tags: None as of yet, but if you'd like to be tagged in any future works involving mcu!Peter, just let me know and I'll make sure to add you then :)

Warnings: lots of angst, swearing, canon-typical violence, but nothing too bad.

And also, reader is not American in this. I imagine they're from some sort of fictional country in the Marvel universe, but I left it open for interpretation. Could be Sokovia, could be Canada... It's up to you lol.

You held your breath as you watched your opponents line up. These used to be your allies: you had fought alongside these people on numerous occasions, even went to space to kick an alien's ass with them.

When you were fourteen and suddenly gained the ability to control the weather, it was the Avengers who had taken you under their wing. Clint had practically adopted you, while Nat was like an older sister or aunt to you. You were closest to them, although you did love the others as well.

But Clint and Nat were the only ones of the original team to be standing by your side right now. Thor was off doing whatever it was he did when he wasn't trying to stop his brother from total word-domination, and you weren't sure where Bruce was, but Tony and Steve were on the opposite side of this conflict.

You couldn't help but find it ironic: not too long ago, it had been them having a fight like this. Only recently the whole team had somewhat reconciled, and now you were already tearing them apart again.

But this was on them.

You were the only one who knew perfectly well how absolutely fucked up the government of your country was, and you were the only one who knew perfectly well how hated the Avengers were in your country. It was why you didn't live there anymore.

When the Avengers had learned about some secret weapons program that might have ties to HYDRA, they had decided to strike hard and fast before it could become more than it already was.

You warned them not to do it, begged them, but Tony and Steve -who, you supposed, were the unofficial leaders of the Avengers- decided your opinion didn't matter because you were too young. They were arrogant enough to believe your country wouldn't strike back against them.

That they wouldn't use HYDRA's faulty weapons to fend off the invasion -because that was what it was, there was no way around it.

That the weapons wouldn't blow up half the country, and your family with it.

Steve and Tony's ego was the reason your family was dead.

You couldn't be blamed for wanting to hold them accountable. You couldn't be blamed for wanting revenge. You had tried to stop them, you knew what it was like in your country, and they ignored you because you were barely eighteen and had no idea how HYDRA worked.

So you threatened to go to the press to make their actions public and start a lawsuit going against the Avengers who had participated in the attack.

Who were, apparently, willing to battle it out with you for refusing to back down.

They murdered half a country, and yet you were the bad guy.

You knew now how Wanda had always felt.

She was on your side as well, still not a fan of a Stark, but also immensely understanding of your situation. And Vision would follow Wanda to the ends of the earth, so he was with you as well. The ant guy, Scott, had shown up as well. You had no idea who had called him, but it didn’t matter: you were grateful for his support.

Steve and Tony had Sam and Rhodey on their side, but save for Cap, they all relied on mechanical suits. Suits that could very easily be thrown out the air by sudden gusts of wind and bolts of lightning.

And then there was your boyfriend, Peter, who was trying to stay out of this. You couldn’t blame him, not really. You were important to him, yes, but so was Tony. Tony was practically a father figure to him. You understood he didn’t want to get caught up in this mess.

“You don’t have to do this, (Y/N),” Steve called across the open space between you.

“No,” you said softly, letting the wind carry your voice to them. “But you didn’t have to invade my country either.”

You saw Tony roll his eyes, knew he was about to pull the HYDRA card. “They were working with HYDRA-“

“Were they?” you cut him off. “The hundreds of thousands of people you killed?”

“You’re being unreasonable,” Steve tried to reason, but you saw Sam and Rhodey exchange an uncomfortable look. “Your government was working with HYDRA, we had to do something to stop them.”

“I told you not to do it,” you said. “I told you what would happen if you did. And you ignored me, even though I was the only one who had any idea how they’d react. My country doesn’t care for it’s people-“

“Name one country that does,” Tony muttered, but you ignored him.

“-but I thought you guys would. I was wrong.”

“We do care, (Y/N),” Steve argued, always the diplomatic one. “But we had to stop HYDRA.”

“Stop trying to make this about HYDRA!” you snapped, and the wind picked up around you. “This is about how you fucked up.”

“How is it our fault that your country decided to try and blow us up?” Tony retorted.

“Because I told you that would happen! I warned you over and over again, and you still went!”

“We didn’t know the weapons were going to malfunction,” Steve tried.

“No, but you knew they were going to use them. I told you they would. And you. Didn’t. Listen.” You smiled bitterly. “Because I’m just a kid, right? What would I know of how the world works?”

“(Y/N) has a point,” Wanda said, putting a hand on your shoulder.

You weren’t aware of how tense you were until you felt yourself relax a little at her touch. You weren’t sure if she was using her powers, but you didn’t particularly care either. Wanda’s magic had never scared you.

“You never listen,” she continued, her flowery dress billowing around her legs in the strong winds. “You never consider that someone might know anything better than you.”

“This isn’t about our egos, Wanda,” Tony said, clearly exasperated, but Wanda wasn’t done yet.

“Isn’t it? Because from what I recall, this isn’t the first time your ego has gotten people killed. Maybe you have the luxury of forgetting about Ultron, but I don’t. Because he’s the reason my brother is dead. And you know what the worst part is? I saw how sorry you were, and I forgave you. And then you turned around and did it again.”

You saw Tony falter, but Steve sighed. “It looks like we’re not going to be able to solve this by talking.”

“What are you going to do, Cap?” you asked. “Kill us all so we can’t start that lawsuit? I mean, what’s five more people, right?”

“Speaking of five,” Clint started, sounding a little smug. “You do realise you’re outnumbered, right?”

There was a moment of silence, no sounds but the howling winds your anger had caused.

“Actually, they’re not.”

You didn’t want to turn around. You knew who you’d see if you did, and it already took all of your control to keep from striking him with lightning. Seeing his face wouldn’t help.

“Really?” you heard Clint ask. “I thought you were better than this.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Barton,” Peter said, sounding closer as he pushed through your little group, and you closed your eyes.

“I’m not the one you should be apologising to, kid.”

“I know.” You felt someone grab your arms. “(Y/N), will you look at me?”

“If I do, it’s only to blast you into a million little pieces,” you said, but you opened your eyes anyway.

Peter looked torn. “(Y/N), I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-“

“You didn’t mean what?” you cut him off. “You didn’t mean to betray me? You didn’t mean to condone the murder of several thousands of people? What, Peter? What the fuck do you think you can say that makes this shit okay?”

“It’s not like that, I swear, I just- I…”

He fell silent, which was enough of an explanation. The worst part was that you weren’t nearly as angry as you could’ve been. Peter was forced to choose between his mentor and father figure, and his significant other. And after his luck with father figures, you weren’t upset with him for picking Tony’s side.

You were, however, pissed that he had lied to you about it.

“I thought you said you were gonna stay out of this,” you reminded him.

He had the nerve to look hurt. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are,” you muttered.

“But you don’t have to do this.”

You stepped back. “I do. You’ve made your choice, now respect mine.”

Wanda touched your arm again, a silent sign of support, and you looked past Peter, who was still hesitantly standing in the middle of what would soon be a battlefield, to Tony and Steve.

“Are we gonna do this or not?”

“I’d rather not have to,” Steve replied. “But you’re not giving me a choice.”

“You have plenty of choices. You just have a tendency to make the wrong ones.”

You didn’t give anyone the opportunity to protest. If you know there’s gonna be a fight, make sure you throw the first punch was what Nat always said. She didn’t have to say it now for you to know she was thinking it.

You raised your hands and called down hail the size of basketballs, going straight for Steve. It wouldn’t knock him out, he could withstand this, but it would at least slow down any attack he came up with.

From the corner of your eyes you saw one of Peter’s webs flying your way, but you threw out your arm and a gust of wind threw it of course.

Meanwhile, Nat was busying herself with Steve. Looked like Steve was getting fried today. Oh well, he chose to do this.

Scott was now several feet taller and attempting to bat Sam out of the there while Wanda went for Rhodey. Clint was trying to disable Tony’s suit without accidentally killing Tony.

You ignored everything that was going on around you and focused on Peter, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“(Y/N), please,” he pleaded.

You were tempted to bring a hailstorm down on him, or make a blizzard and let his issues with thermoregulation take care of it.

“I already told you: we’ve both made our choices.”

You tried to knock him off his feet with a gust of wind, but he dodged it easily, knowing the movements of your hands by heart from years of fighting together.

“They’re sorry about what happened to your family, (Y/N),” he tried desperately, still dodging every gust of wind you sent his way.

“That’s not what this is about,” you snapped, your anger rising -and with it, the pressing heat in the air as well. “You know it isn’t.”

Peter, for his part, made a few valiant attempts to tie your hands together with his webs, but was mostly too busy dodging whatever you went his way.

“I know you’re hurting-“

“Damn right I am!” you spat. “I’m hurting, these assholes think everything they do is justified, and you- you think not disappointing your mentor is more important than doing the right thing!”

It happened almost without you realising it. One moment you were snapping at him, the next you were watching as a steady stream of purple-white lightning come down from the sky and hitting Peter square in the chest.

This was the strongest lightning you had ever summoned, and it took all your strength to keep it from getting out of hand and laying waste to everything in its path.

You were barely managing, when someone made the mistake of grabbing your shoulder and yanking you back. You stumbled and lost the control over the lightning you had summoned.

You heard a strange buzzing noise, and then the world exploded into that same purple-white light.

You squeezed your eyes shut to prevent being blinded, and threw your arms up to shield your face. You didn’t dare look up until that buzzing noise had died down.

The second you opened your eyes, you wished you hadn’t. The concrete was scorched black in intricate patterns. No one was left standing. Not even Peter or Steve, who both had superhuman endurance. Everyone was sprawled on the ground, passed out -or worse.

You staggered back. This was your fault. Your powers had caused this. You could’ve killed them -fuck, you might have. You were too scared about the answer to try and find out.

All you knew was that you had to get away from here, as far as you could possibly get.

[scuttling]

(Not So) Casual Friday

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 4,456 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Dad Bod Hotch (it's not a main component but he very much has the tummy here), Pining, Accidentally admitting attraction, Embarrassment, A little angst, Oral sex, Protected sex Summary: Your best friend Derek finds out about your feelings for Hotch and teases you mercilessly. You can manage it, though, until the first ever Casual Friday, when Hotch shows up to work in a black polo and jeans and you kind of ruin everything. Or maybe you don't? *Requested by anon Link to A03 or read below! “Okay, girlie, today’s the day,” Derek says when you set your bag and coffee cup on your desk on Monday morning. You shoot your best friend a tired smile and wonder for the—you’ve worked at the BAU for almost two years, so it’s probably the 500th time—for the 500th time why he has to be such a morning person when you would prefer not to have a conversation until at least 10 AM.

“Today’s the day for what?” you sigh, asking out of obligation, because it’s obvious that’s what he’s waiting for; he smiles, picks up your coffee and hands it to you, which must mean you sound bitchy. You take a grateful sip, close your eyes and exhale through your nose.

“For you to admit to me that you’re in love with Hotch.”

You spit out your coffee—only all over yourself, which is great, wouldn’t want to inconvenience Derek at all—and then cough so hard he has to thump on your back to help clear your airway.

It draws some attention; Hotch comes out of his office, takes a look at the two of you and probably regrets hiring the both of you, then walks down the stairs to make sure you’re okay.

“What happened? You’re wet,” he says a bit gruffly, looking at the coffee all over your chest and sleeves. You glare over at Derek, who’s clearly trying not to laugh.

“Derek made me spill my coffee.” You grab a handful of tissues off your desk and pat at the wet spot, trying to soak up the worst of it, but it’s not salvageable. You’ll have to change your shirt.

“And then you… choked on it?” Hotch asks, to clarify. Derek does laugh at that; the things Hotch is saying happen to have dual meanings, slightly sexual, and now that Derek knows—thinks he knows—about your thing for Hotch, it’s clear he finds it all so hilarious. He’s a twelve year old boy in a grown man’s body.

“Okay, I didn’t spill, I spit,” you correct, looking up at them, and Derek makes an exaggerated face of disapproval.

“Should have swallowed,” he says, trying to sound serious, and you shoot him an irritated look and reach out to slap him in the chest. Asshole.

“Do you need help getting cleaned up?” Hotch’s expression is kind, sweet, but you’d sooner die than have him blot coffee off of your boobs. It would be mortifying, especially in front of Derek.

“No, no, I think I’m okay. Thanks,” you add with a soft smile, and then you reach up and pull your sweater over your head, unzip your go bag, and search for another top.

For some reason, Hotch has a coughing fit scarily similar to the one you just had, and you turn to pat his back like Derek did for you.

“Are you alright?” you ask, looking up into his face, and he nods despite his watering eyes.

“Fine,” he croaks, and he leaves as quickly as he came. You sigh, because it’s not even nine and your day has already been so weird.

You’re wearing a tank top, and thankfully the coffee didn’t get through to that layer, so it’s quick and easy to throw another lightweight sweater over top of it; you ball up the wet one, shove it in the dirty clothes portion of your bag, zip it up and stash it under your desk. Derek looks like he’s having the best day of his life.

“You realize you just undressed in front of Hotch,” he says with a tone you don’t appreciate. You roll your eyes.

“I did not. I had a tank top on underneath.” You almost always wear an undershirt, because you’ve been a cop long enough to know that sometimes your clothes get torn or messed up in the line of duty, and you’re not trying to offer a free show while taking down an unsub. Derek wiggles his eyebrows, points at your chest.

“Yeah, one that put those little boobies on display. His eyes bulged out of his head like a cartoon character.” This time, you punch him in the arm, hard. It’s too goddamn early for this.

“Can you please shut up already? I don’t have a thing for Hotch.”

“Ah, I didn’t say you had a thing, I said you’re in love with him. And I have evidence; lots of it.” You tip your head back, groan, wondering what you did to deserve a best friend who is also such a pain in the ass, and it’s that moment that Hotch chooses to rejoin you; he looks a little flushed, probably from the coughing earlier.

“Uh. We have a case; I know not everyone is here yet, but you can head up to the briefing room, I’ll grab the others when they arrive.”

“Sure thing, sir,” you say easily, grabbing your tablet and what’s left of your coffee; you gesture for Derek and he follows, laughing and shaking his head. “Okay, what is it now? I’m so glad you find me entertaining today.”

“‘Sure thing, sir,’” he says with a high, breathy voice you assume is supposed to mimic yours. “You want his dick so bad.” You narrow your eyes at him as you head upstairs.

“Uh, because I was being respectful? I know that’s a foreign concept for you, the world’s biggest asshole, but you don’t have to read anything into it.” You take your usual seats at the table, pull up the note-taking app on your tablet, and Derek sits back, crosses his arms behind his head.

“Well you’re not calling me ‘sir’, and I’m the sexiest piece in the office, so it’s hard not to read into it.” You look over at him, elbow on the table, chin in the palm of your hand.

“Sexy is subjective, and you don’t do it for me, sorry to break it to you.” He scoffs, laughs, and you laugh too because you both know you see each other as brother and sister, buddies, and fellow former cops, and absolutely nothing else.

“Yeah, I get it, only Hotch does it for you; he’s not my type, but I can see how a young lady like yourself could be drawn to his brooding exterior.”

“I’m not drawn to his exterior!” you practically growl, and then you’re joined by Spencer and JJ.

“Good morning. What’s going on with you two?” JJ asks, loading up the monitors for the debriefing, her eyebrows raised.

“She’s in love with Hotch,” Derek says completely nonchalantly, and you rest your head on the table, on top of your forearms, and sigh.

“She’s what?” JJ’s whole face lights up, and you seriously regret everything.

“I’m not in love with anybody!” you mumble against your arms, and then you sit up, because you’re clearly going to have to defend yourself. “And I’d appreciate it if you quit saying that I am.”

“I told you I have evidence,” Derek reminds you, leaning back in his chair a little. One swift kick would have him toppling ass over tea kettle, but you’re too nice, even when he’s actively trying to ruin your life. “Shall I go over it while we wait?”

“I’ll be an objective third party,” Spencer says with a brief smile, and you sigh, wave your hand toward Derek.

“Alright, let’s hear it. I’m sure I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever evidence you might think you have.” He grins like this is the moment he’s been waiting for, and you feel a little stupid for encouraging this.

“For one, you always look at him. When I’m delivering a profile, I notice you watching the locals, making sure they understand what we’re going over, since you're the queen of analyzing the micro expressions. But when Hotch is delivering a profile, your eyes are on him the whole time. Same goes for discussing theories on the jet; anyone else, and you’ve got your face in your tablet, scribbling notes, but you always look at him when he speaks.”

Your cheeks get hot. He’s a captivating speaker, is all, with that deep, velvety voice, and you can learn a lot from him, so you pay attention. That’s just being smart.

“Second, you tense when he gets close to you: not like you don’t want him to touch you, but like you’re halfway to jumping him already and trying to control it. I could probably put my hand in your pocket and you wouldn't even flinch, but if he leans over you to point at something you look like you’re about to cream your pants.”

“I have seen that, actually,” JJ offers, and you look over at her, betrayed. Sure, you get a whiff of his clean, crisp cologne, or feel the heat of him at your back, and your body reacts, reminds you that this is your boss and you’re at work and you can’t get turned on by the way he smells, but that’s actually a good thing, not an indicator of feelings or anything.

“Third, there’s something up with you and the gray suits. I can literally tell that he’s wearing one before I even see him, all because of the look on your face. It’s like you’re drunk on the gray suit.”

“Okay, that’s not true,” you say with a roll of your eyes—the gray suits are god tier, but there’s no way you’re that obvious—but it’s Spencer who speaks up, this time.

“You know, I have noticed that. Your pupils tend to be more dilated when his suit is gray or blue than when it’s black.” Fuck. You sigh.

“He barely ever wears the blue. It looks so good on him,” you murmur, and then you snap your eyes shut, cover your face with your hands. “Fuck. This is so embarrassing.”

“To be fair, we are profilers,” Derek says, leaning in to pat your back. “But also to be fair, he’s been a profiler longer than any of us, so if we know, he definitely knows.”

“Not helping, Derek,” you grind out, and then you’re joined by the rest of the team. Penelope takes the seat next to you, leans in with a worried tone of voice.

“Is everything okay?”

“She’s having a small crisis, but she’ll be fine,” JJ says with a smile, and you don’t miss the way Hotch looks you over when she says it, concern in his eyes. “Alright, so we’re headed to Arkansas…”

Later that morning, when you’ve been given your instructions—yours are heading to the crime scene with Emily and Derek—Hotch pulls you out into the hall, rests a gentle hand on your arm.

“Are you alright? JJ mentioned you were having a crisis earlier. This is the first time I’ve been able to get you alone, and I wanted to check on you.” You take a deep breath, look up at him, so handsome in a black suit, white shirt, green tie—he almost never wears a green tie, and you absently think it brings out the more golden tones of his eyes—and smile softly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s really nothing. Personal stuff, and I’m dealing with it.” If by ‘dealing with it’ you mean you’ve been repressing it, shoving it down day in and day out until your feelings are choking you, then yeah, you’re dealing with it. “Thanks for checking, though, that’s kind of you.”

“Of course. I’m here to help in any way I can, if you need me.” Good god, do you need him, emotionally, physically, but that’s fantasy, and this, what he’s offering, is rooted in reality. Good things do happen, but not to you.

“Thanks.” Your voice is weak to your own ears, and he swallows, nods; you see Derek hovering by the door, waiting for you, and you pull away to join him, plastering a smile on your face. You don’t talk about it again until Friday, and at that point it’s extremely unavoidable.

It’s Casual Friday, newly implemented by the bureau as a way to boost morale, and while it doesn’t really excite you, because you’re fairly casual anyway, others take full advantage of it. Others, including Hotch.

He shows up to work wearing a black polo and dark jeans, his usual watch. It’s easily the most simplistic, basic outfit a man could decide to wear on Casual Friday, but this isn’t just a man, it’s Aaron fucking Hotchner, and so naturally, you lose your damn mind.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the damn polo didn’t fit him perfectly, tight across his shoulders and chest and the little tummy he has that makes you want to be under him so badly, your stomachs pressed together while he thrusts inside you, holding you tightly, his strong thighs working against yours…

“Hello, are you alive in there?” Emily asks, waving her hand in front of your face; the two of you, along with Derek, are in Penelope’s office for lunch while Rossi, Reid, and JJ are out of the office for a seminar. You blink, shake away your thoughts and hope and pray they don’t come back—but they’ll come back, they always do.

“She’s just short circuiting because of Hotch’s Casual Friday look,” Morgan says with a wink, sitting backward in his seat. “She’s been drooling so much I’ve had to follow her around with a mop to clean up after her.” You push your wheeled chair away from them with a groan, needing space and air and, potentially, a brain transplant. You’ve gotten nothing done all day long.

“Can you blame me? The man comes in here everyday, buttoned up tight, looking incredible in a suit and tie, and then he shows up in that black polo, all snug and hot and delicious, and you expect me not to freak out? You guys are lucky I didn’t pass out.” You’re met with silence, and you blink, confused, at your friends, but they’re all just kind of staring with looks of barely concealed humor. “What? It’s not like it’s a secret that I want to climb him like a tree.”

“Pretty sure it was a secret to him,” Penelope says, looking shocked, and you whip around in your chair to see Hotch standing in the doorway, wide-eyed and a little flushed.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I, uh—” He raises a hand, waves you off.

“It’s okay. No harm done; thank you, for the, uh. Compliment.” He steps forward, hands a manila folder to Penelope. “Thanks for taking care of these,” he says softly, and then, unsurprisingly, he gets the hell out of there. You wish you could disappear off the face of the Earth.

“Fuck, holy fuck,” you mutter when he’s gone, leaning forward with your head in your hands. “That’s it, I’m quitting. It’s been nice knowing you guys.”

“Okay, don’t be dramatic,” Derek says, and you look up to glare at him; he’s the one that started all this in the first place. You were fine, feelings tamped down and suppressed, until he brought it up and then told everyone you know.

“Don’t tell me not to be dramatic, Derek! This is all your fault. You never respect my boundaries, you never know when to just let me be, you always have to pick and pick until you wear me down. Maybe I had a reason for wanting to keep my feelings private, did you ever think of that?”

“I know you're upset,” Emily begins softly, because there’s some pretty thick tension between you and Derek now, but you stand up, push your chair across the room, and shake your head.

“I’m not upset, I’m fucking humiliated. I’m going home; let him know I’m sick, will you?” You exhale deeply, storm upstairs and grab your stuff and drive home with tears in your eyes. You’ve never been so embarrassed in your life, and add that to the absolute heartbreak you’re feeling? You’re just happy you make it to your apartment, so you can break down with cheesecake and a sappy, romantic comedy with a happy ending: those perfect, fictional worlds are pretty much the only place one is guaranteed. You are, as planned, hunkered down on the sofa in your softest pajamas, watching You’ve Got Mail and eating the center out of an entire cheesecake with a spoon when there’s a knock at your door. You groan, pick up your cheesecake tin, and walk over to it, fully expecting it to be Derek come to beg for forgiveness for ruining your life, so it’s no surprise you drop your dessert on the floor when it’s actually Hotch on the other side.

He looks down at the tin, then up at your face, cracks the barest hint of a smile.

“I thought you were sick; I brought soup,” he says, holding up a paper bag, and your heart thumps in your chest. You wipe a hand over your face, because you haven’t been exactly neat in your heartache cheesecake consumption, and then you kick the tin across the floor and invite him in, closing the door behind him.

“I thought it was obvious that I wasn’t actually sick, just… really embarrassed,” you say when he turns back to look at you. “I can’t believe you heard all that stuff I said… I’m really sorry I made you uncomfortable.” You take the bag from his hand and invite him to follow you into the kitchen, where you set it on the counter, lean against it. He comes close, but not so close you can’t function, which is good; your comfy pajamas are shorts and a loose tank top, so you feel a little exposed already.

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” he says softly, and you frown, must have heard him wrong. He presses his fingertips against the counter, as if for support. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable. It was… unexpected,” he explains, “very unexpected, but I’m not uncomfortable.”

You flush hot, and you can feel the bad decision part of your brain switching on, warning bells ringing in your head.

Whatever you do next has the potential to be extremely stupid, and you would like to avoid that at all costs; you love your job, after all, despite how physically and emotionally exhausting it can be, and you love your team. Time to think with your upstairs brain only.

“That makes me feel a little better,” you say truthfully, and despite the pep talk you just gave yourself, you move closer to him like there’s an invisible magnetic force between you; you would imagine a guy like Hotch would step back, keep his distance, but he only cranes his neck a little so he can look down at you more easily.

God, he’s tall. And he smells good, and his face is perfect, and that goddamn polo...

“Good, I’m glad. I don’t want you to feel bad about this. I’m not uncomfortable, it’s not… it’s not unwanted.” You swallow audibly, looking up at him, wondering if he knows what he’s saying, what it sounds like.

“It’s not?” you ask, and it comes out breathy; he takes a small step closer to you, brushes his fingers over your arm, peers into your eyes.

“No, it’s not. I’ve been thinking of you, too; I know you know you’re beautiful, but you’re also so smart, and strong-willed, and a force to be reckoned with. I’m proud to have you on my team, and I’d be proud… to have you climb me like a tree.” He smiles again, just the barest hint of one, and you put your arms around him and pull him closer for a kiss.

One long, slow, perfect kiss turns into another, then another, and he presses your back against the counter, his hands on your face and your hands on his thick waist; you hum into the kiss, revel in the feel of his lips on yours, his tongue sweeping past them, and when you pull back for air it feels like there’s only one question that needs to be asked.

“Bedroom?” you breathe, and he nods, and you take his hand and pull him in that direction, pausing to kiss him several times before you get there. “You don’t happen to have a condom, do you?” you ask, breathless, guiding him to the bed, and he frowns, shakes his head.

“I didn’t want to seem presumptuous.” You grin at that, lean forward and kiss him, your fingers in his hair.

“I find it so hot that you even say presumptuous. I might have one here somewhere.” You open your nightstand, move around books and toys until you find a couple; you flip them over, checking to see if they’re expired, and offer him a couple options. “They’re still good, surprisingly. You can, uh. Choose the one that would work best.”

He looks them over, picks one and hands back the rest, and you throw them back in the drawer and slide into his lap, wrap your arms around his shoulders.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he says, holding your waist as you look down at him, completely in awe that this is happening. “But I want to clarify: if you’re looking for something casual, I don’t think we should go any further.” You inhale softly, surprised by his straightforwardness, and you lean in, kiss him slowly.

“I don’t want casual. I want to be with you.” His eyes are so brilliant, dark in the dim light of your bedroom, and he nods, presses his lips to yours and slides his hands beneath your top, guides it over your head. Then they move to your shorts, slipping them gently off your hips, and you stand so he can push them to the ground.

You’re both breathing heavily, a little rough, and you step between his legs, kiss him again, run your hands down his chest, closing your eyes with a sigh because you finally get to feel him after a year of just imagining what it would be like. After a beat, you open your eyes, look into his, smile.

“Really grateful for Casual Friday,” you whisper. “Otherwise you might never have found out I’m kind of in love with you.” You ease the polo over his head, drop it on the ground and encourage him to stand so you can take off his pants; he does, but before you can drop to your knees as planned, he takes your face in his hands, presses one soft kiss against your mouth.

“I’m more than kind of in love with you.” Oh, if that isn’t the greatest sentence your ears have ever heard… You wrap your arms around his neck, kiss a little more, forgetting that you planned to finish undressing him; when you remember, you make quick work of it, then have him lay back against the bed and settle between his legs.

You put your mouth on him because you want to, more than anything, and his hand drops to your hair, caressing you while you suck slowly, deeply, holding him with one hand and pressing against his stomach with the other. His moans are soft and gorgeous, his body tense beneath your hand, and you’d do this all night, but he murmurs your name, coaxes you up, puts his hands on your back as you settle against him.

“You’re so incredible. I never would have imagined I’d get this, get you,” he breathes, skimming his hands over your sides and hips, and you kiss softly, steamy and sweet.

“Me neither.” You lean up, make space for him to roll on the condom, and then press him inside; your breath hitches, and so does his, and you lay on top of him, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, arms around each other tightly while you move. “Hmm. Aaron,” you sigh, hair falling around him, and he groans, digs his fingertips into your hips.

“Sounds so perfect coming out of your mouth.” You smile, but it slips away when he surges up to kiss you, leans up so he’s sitting with you in his lap. He slides a broad hand up your back, wraps it around the nape of your neck, and pumps his hips up as you sink down, eliciting a series of soft, eager moans from the both of you.

“Feels like I’ve waited so long; I’ve never wanted someone as badly as I wanted you,” you tell him, chest heaving, and he brings you to him for a kiss, something a little rougher, less refined. He’s getting close.

“Never. You make me feel so much.” You reach back against his leg for support, work harder to bring him off, and when he comes he crushes his mouth against yours, delicious and more uncontrolled than you’ve ever seen him. He chants your name, so soft and sweet rolling off of his tongue, and then gets you on your back so he can press deeply inside.

You feel so incredibly full, panting beneath him, your hands on his waist and your feet on the backs of his thighs; his perfect face is inches from yours, all shallow breaths and decadent, passionate kisses, and when you climax you pull him closer, sigh, unravel completely in his embrace.

Maybe good things do happen after all. You hold each other and talk for a while, after a quick pitstop to the restroom, and then your stomach growls—understandably, since the only thing to fill it since lunch was that stupid cheesecake—and Hotch orders takeout on his phone from bed; god bless technology.

There’s a knock at the door twenty minutes later, and you know that’s quick for your favorite Thai place, but you’re not complaining because you’re officially starving. He offers to grab it, throws on his boxers and heads for the living room; after a few minutes, you wonder what’s taking so long, pull on your robe and go to check on him.

Hotch is talking to Derek, who is standing in your living room with a piece of cheesecake and a shit eating grin.

“I came with a peace offering, but now I think I’ll wait for a, ‘Thank you, Derek,’” he says, and you roll your eyes, stalk over and take the cheesecake out of his hands. You give it to Hotch, lean up to kiss Derek on the cheek, and push him toward the door.

“Thank you, Derek. Go away, Derek,” you say with a smile of your own, and he raises his palms and retreats down the hall, laughing as he goes.

This is just one more thing he’ll tease you mercilessly about, but this time the benefits outweigh the costs. Taglist ❤️: @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul @ssamorganhotchner