#sorry for the inaccuracies!

[beloveds-embrace]

Idgaf abt how military works sorry yall but imagine the 141 gang having to do mandatory charity and no, not even Ghost can opt out of it regardless of how he says he’s honest to god not fucking fit to be visiting sick patients. But alas.

But they end up meeting you- frail, fragile, and sick you, no visitors around you. Though you look at them with curiosity and admiration, you keep yourself away, almost as if you don’t want to bother them.

You can’t help looking at them, though. You’ve been sick all your life- born to a mother who left you on the doorsteps of an overcrowded orphanage, left alone often and long for your body to just… fail you. You don’t think you’ve seen outside the orphanage walls and then these hospital grounds since your birth. You would be dead now if it weren’t for the CEO of the hospital taking pity on you after you turned eighteen and the orphanage cleaned their hands off you.

And so, you can’t help but envy them just a little. Strong, agile people in the military, bodies fit and healthy. Despite knowing they are always putting themselves on the line, constantly in danger, you can’t help the longing you feel. Longing you don’t realize is clear as day in your eyes.

The one to approach you first is the man you thought one of the prettiest men you’ve ever seen. He introduces himself as Kyle, and despite your silence- your interactions with others that are not doctors or nurses are far and few, and you are painfully shy- but he is nice. Gentle. Easily keeps the conversation going despite. He is so easy-going he has you grinning and laughing in no time. It catches the attention of a the Scot with a mohawk, who joins in by sharing even wilder stories. And then the man with the scary ghost mask, so often in their stories, comes to your little crowd. He is big, scary if the nurses’ reactions are anything to go by, and yet the only thing you’ve ever truly been afraid of is dying with a life not truly lived. So you don’t flinch or cower from him, merely ask if he has anything interesting to share with you.

The last you speak with is John Price. Captain John Price. If there is a man that can embody a bear, it has to be him. You are sure of it. Especially when you witness him smacking the back of Kyle’s head lightly after a teasing comment.

Maybe your chances of a long, fulfilling life are slim but today, just for today, you allow yourself to envision a life with them. Such a strange desire, a useless and wistful one.

“Thank you, for today.” You tell them quietly, when it’s nearing time to leave. Your hands are held in Kyle and Johnny’s, frail and weak compared to theirs. You smile at them, squeezing lightly. “I think this is the most happy and content I’ve been all my life. I won’t forget today.”

And in return? Neither will they. How could they ever forget you, the sweetheart in the hospital bed, your sickness keeping you away from the joyful life you deserve?

The won’t forget you. Not at all. And when you start receiving gifts, polaroids and letters and texts, you already know who is sending them to you.

It makes things just a little easier- your life just a little brighter.

Other works + help me choose a title for this!

[operakings]

andreil commission for a friend

[no1onepiecefan]

asl brothers as wealth, fame and power is something i find so interesting. it’s them but it’s opposite, it’s all wrong. ace & fame, something he was unwillingly cursed with due to his lineage and something he hid from until his anonymity was ripped from him against his will. sabo & wealth, former rich kid turned revolutionary who strives to dismantle the world’s leading authorities; their wealth hoarding and corrupt luxury. luffy & power, the boy who’s dream is solely fuelled by the idea of ultimate freedom despite the inherent power behind what he strives for. ‘the king of the pirates’ who scoffs at the idea of superiority or control over anyone. asl brothers as wealth, fame and power but it’s everything they’re not, and everything they hope to never be

[citrusici]

saw something abt miniroth meeting the remnants a little while ago and my hand slipped

[roe-oo]

🏹💗…

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

What do emotions drink? Coffee? Tea? No. Brain chemicals.

My headcanon is that they drink whichever chemicals are necessary for their particular emotion, which are then retained within the emotion's particles. Within contact of the console, said chemicals are then transferred over from their body to Riley, causing a reaction.

Obviously, each emotions don't have a specific set of chemicals that trigger them, since a single neurotransmitting chemical can produce a lot of different reactions depending on where in the brain it happens, and how much of it... BUT, for the sake of the joke- let's just pretend <3

Fear: cortisol, noradrenaline (norepinephrine)

Anxiety: epinephrine

Anger: epinephrine, noradrenaline (norepinephrine)

Joy: dopamine, serotonin, endorphin, oxytocin

Sadness: dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine (noradrenaline)

Ennui: boredom is a lower level of dopamine, so maybe she does the opposite? Like, she absorbs the dopamine from the console or smth? Idk

Embarrassment, Envy, and Disgust: ???

[halfmoonstruck]

im late to the party..!!!

[petrawood]

I saw someone post a tweet about how a lot of people in the Inquisition must have suspected that something was off about Solas, and out of all of them Bull knew that there was something fishy going on for SURE but the scope of the whole thing was just too big for him to have guessed exactly what was going on.

So, that made me think how the whole reveal must have been like if it actually happened in our world and oh my god it's SO ridiculous.

Btw, this is obviously OOC, but it's just. Solas makes SUCH a character oh my god.

---

Imagine you are an Interpol agent that joins the CIA for this one very important and very specific mission. Everyone knows that you work for another organization and you are a trained and highly competent agent, but the situation is so dire that the CIA is basically hiring everyone who could help.

So, there is this one very weird guy.

He wears an old hoodie and yoga pants. When asked where he came from, he tells you that he is into outdoor living, so just "outside, you know, somewhere". He has no qualifications apart from being a skilled hacker and really really really good at navigating the Deep Web. In fact, he's an expert at it, to the point of being the Deep Web specialist of the team. He walks around BAREFOOT.

He is a WEIRDO.

You assume he is just some guy probably over his head, pretty helpful but that's kinda it. You are going to keep an eye on him anyway, as you keep an eye on most people.

And suddenly, things start no adding up.

You ask him how he learned to hack into the deep web and he answers that he just likes sleeping under bridges and there is very good internet connection there, so he ended up learning. He doesn't elaborate.

For a guy that spends all his time sleeping on the floor and hunched over a computer, you notice that he is actually BUILT. You cannot tell over the oversized hoodie, but that guy has muscle. Once it comes up, he looks you in the eyes and tells you that that's just normal when you live in the outside like him.

You need somebody to pilot an helicopter. He knows how to pilot an helicopter. "Oh, I just watched a video tutorial. You know, in the Deep Web".

You need to steal some nuclear codes. "Oh I know how to cancel those nuclear codes. I found a lot of documents explaining how to do it. You know, in the Deep Web".

You need to plan a coup. "Oh yeah I know all about backstabbing politics. I found a list of all the relevant politicians and the country's corrupt history. You know, in the deep web"

You are in the middle of said backstabbing and he's slightly tipsy looking fondly at the whole thing like "oh how I missed the vibe of a nepotist state. No one throws a party like corrupted politicians- Not that I've been in one before, of course. I've only seen videos. You know, in the deep web"

He drives the other two expert hackers out of their minds. "I don't know how you managed to get this position, you don't even have a Doctorate" "Doctorates are overrated, I think you all would do better if you came to vibe under a bridge like me"

He actually is OBSESSED with overthrowing institutions.

The hackers tear him a new one because they find his Hacker Drip lacking (fair). And he smells like Cheetos.

"I made a lot of friends on the Deep Web forums"

At this point you are convinced that this guy HAS to have something else going on. There is simply NO way someone would know so many things from his deep web premium access under a bridge.

Your best bet has to be that he's another secret agent, a very highly trained one at that, right? Or maybe a highcore antifa member? He either has inside information of the CIA or he's looking for it. But he has been ridiculous helpful so far, so you just can't tell what he's hiding and why.

And then one day guy, this FUCKING guy.

He shows up and tells your Boss that he's actually the ancient god Loki from the Nordic pantheon. That he created death, but is sorry so he's actually going to join the Earth with Heaven and Hell. A lot of people would die because of the Demons and you know, Earth as it is not existing anymore, but that's a sacrifice he's willing to make.

Now tell me, how the FUCK were you supposed to guess THAT.

[lovlidollie]

these pics are just the epitome of frat!rafe. he’s constantly manspreading whenever he’s seated, douchey cap either pulled low on his head or flipped backwards. you can always find him wearing a white wifebeater or a tom ford polo, rollie proudly displayed on his wrist. he knows he’s hot and he knows how to use it to his advantage ! he’s such a slut !!! literally ran through lmao there’s not one girl he hasn’t messed with.

he’s got one of three hairstyles; a buzz, an undercut with greasy bangs, or a mullet. and you best believe he pulls all three of them off. frat!rafe is one of those jerks that shows up at sorority bikini carwash fundraisers so he can wolf-whistle at them and wink as he signals them to call him.

vocab consists of diff variations of “bro,” “dude,” “my guy,” “word,” “yo,” and he most definitely overuses the word “like.” he’s the type of guy to call professors by their first name, disrupt the class, and then beg for better grades in the middle of said disrupted class.

prolific snapchat user. snapscore is atrocious and he has streaks going with at least 7 girls at any given time. sends out a ‘u up?’ text at least twice a week. sometimes he’ll leave a girl on delivered for hours - sometimes days - just because he can. when he finally replies it’s usually a blurry snap of his face or a shameless thirst trap with a “mb was busy”.

when a girl finally realises that he’s playing her, he just laughs it off. if they’re upset he says, “i was just messing around,” or “you knew what you were getting into.” he doesn’t take responsibility for any emotional damage because in his head, he never promised anyone anything.

his ig captions .. are something. obviously there’s the infamous ‘grind never stops,’ and a ‘#blessed’. posts gym mirror selfies where he’s flexing his abs, pecs or biceps in a way that seems casual, but in reality he’s spent 20 minutes trying to find the perfect angle and lighting. captions them with things like ‘gains,’ or ‘rest days are for pussies’.

rides around in his obnoxiously loud truck, revving constantly and disturbing everyone in the area. he’s always blasting rap music at full volume, and of course he’s modified the vehicle. the truck’s lifted, with big off-road wheels, a custom exhaust, and a tint that borders on illegal. frat!rafe takes pride in parking it across 2 spots, and he’s always talking about its specs; “blah blah this much horsepower blah blah v8 engine blah blah”. it’s a sore sight at all the parties with the bed of the truck more often than not being used to perform keg stands.

[starlinkz]

What if I wrote a Desert Duo AU set in TCD. Surely people won't be able to tell who my favorite hermits are then

[manticorecure]

lifestealer (and one hermit, by request) designs

+ ashzam because i miss them

[speedwayy]

Can you explain more about dean martin and Jerry lewis? I dont go here but my interest has been peaked

okay i don’t know what to say so i’ll try to give you the rundown off my dome. bear with me it might get hefty.

Martin and Lewis were a comedy duo that lasted for 10 years to the day from July 25, 1946 to July 25, 1956.

Jerry was a teen dad trying to make it in the show biz world to impress his vaudevillian parents, Dean was an easygoing drifter without a care in the world, not even his wife who was living in her parents house with two kids and another on the way. It was a match made in heaven.

Jerry, as I mentioned, was the child of two vaudevillian parents, Daniel “Danny” and Rachel “Rae” Levitch. His identity crisis can be traced back to the day he was born, seeing as even he doesn’t seem to know if he was named Joseph or Jerome. As an only child with parents who were constantly on the road, Jerry lived a solitary life, being passed around the homes of various family members. He recounts as a child aged six or seven, he wandered the streets alone looking for his mother, only to find her entertaining a saloon of noisy drunks. On another particularly egregious occasion, Danny and Rae neglected their son’s Bar Mitzvah.

“Here’s a famous one from when he was a kid.”

His favorite childhood memories more than often were of his grandmother, who cared for him when his parents would not. She became the ideal woman he would search for in all others, the immaculate maternal figure, which he would soon find in his more experienced wife, Patti Palmer. But the spectre of his life was his father, Danny, who had abandoned him as a child, needled his talents as an adolescent, then jealously leeched off his famous name as an adult. He was the one whom Jerry always strove to emulate and impress, and whom he resented and did all to avoid becoming like him.

“In some incomprehensible way I felt guilty, as if everything I had become only made [my father’s] life more painful, much harder to bear.”

Only a few years after he left school at 15 for the allure of the stage his parents couldn’t resist, Jerry would meet the man his biographer, Shawn Levy, dubbed “Danny’s evil twin”: the handsome, lady-loving, baritone club singer Dean Martin.

Danny and Rae Levitch; a young, pre-rhinoplasty Dean Martin. I’ll let you decide if there’s any resemblance.

Whatever Jerry Lewis was, Dean Martin was not. Dino was born and raised in Steubenville, Ohio, the second son to more humble parents of Italian origin, Gaetano “Guy” and Angela Crocetti. Where Jerry knew he was born to be a star, Dino never seemed particularly ambitious one way or the other. And while Jerry was singing his little nine-year-old heart out to Al Jolson tunes, Dino was filling his time with various jobs from boxer (of his twelve fights: “I won all but eleven.”), to steel mill worker, to illegal casino dealer, pocketing money from the house. Singing might not have been his great passion, but he liked it, and he knew he had a pretty enough voice, and so did others, and sooner or later, he ended up singing in bands all the way up to Cleveland. When he was 24, he married pretty and athletic Elizabeth Anne McDonald, and soon enough, Dino was an up-and-coming singer with a new name, an agent, and enough bookings to move his steadily growing family up north.

When they finally met performing in the same club in Atlantic City, circumstances weren’t exactly great for Dean or Jerry. Jerry was floundering with his act that consisted of him putting on outfits and lip-syncing goofily to records (not sure why anyone hired him to do this tbh), and he had to do what he felt was stooping: becoming an MC like his dad to make ends meet while his wife was pregnant. Dean was married too, and already had a couple kids of his own, but was feeling the pressures of fatherhood a little less than Jerry. Dean wasn’t made for marriage. Dean lived his life Dean-style, which consisted mainly of girls, midday naps, gambling, and Saturdays with the boys. Already, Betty was becoming troubled with her husband, and hated her life living between her parents in Philadelphia and the New York apartment Dean was leeching off a friend.

“Suddenly, at Broadway and Fifty-fourth, Sonny spotted someone across the street: a tall, dark, and incredibly handsome man in a camel’s hair coat. His name, Sonny said, was Dean Martin. Just looking at him intimidated me: How does anybody get that handsome?”

They would meet a few other times after crossing on the street that one day. Playing the same clubs, hanging out with friends of friends. They weren’t officially friends yet, and Dean likely gave the scrawny 19-year-old little mind, but Jerry was in love from the moment he set eyes on him. He was nine years older than Jerry, incredibly attractive, charming, cool, “worldly”, as Jerry would say.

“Following Danny around burlie houses and Borscht Belt rec rooms was all Jerry ever wanted out of his childhood; now, following Dean as he catted and sang around New York looked like a marvelous career. Just as he’d wanted to marry every girl singer who’d paid him attention, Jerry was smitten with Dean for deigning to spend time with him. That Dean possessed so many of Danny’s attributes—dark good looks, sexual confidence, a great voice—only made the attraction that much stronger.”

Forever after that, Jerry would use Dean as a fulfillment for his ultimate fantasy: to have an older brother, someone who could be his companion, to love him unconditionally, to care for him and understand him. Years later, Jerry would still reminisce about his “big brother” that “[he] had always longed for”.

Dean, a youngest child himself, was probably not so eager for a new member of the family, but even he knew Jerry was an asset that couldn’t be lost.

I’m convinced that there’s no way to describe in words Martin and Lewis’s act that makes it sound funny. It’s a “you had to be there” thing. Hearing a singer shout at a guy spilling water all over patrons for an hour isn’t my idea of a good night out, but it must’ve been something, because people loved Dean and Jerry even before they were Martin and Lewis. Their days of crossing paths evolved into a casual friendship where they would heckle each other and do little bits in the middle of their respective acts. Jerry lived to get laughs and attention from the crowd and his beloved big brother, and Dean’s lazy, unaffected exterior made the perfect foil to his outrageous shenanigans. Then came the fateful day in July.

“He smiled, and it was like the sun coming out on the rest of my life.”

Long story short, a club Jerry had booked had an empty spot needing a singer, and Jerry, having realized very early on he wanted to be with him forever and always, suggested Dean. Somehow, it worked. And everything from there kept on working.

For the first time, they were billed together as Martin and Lewis, contrary to the normal convention of billing in alphabetical order. In no time at all, Martin and Lewis would be appearing above every club in America, and sooner, on magazine covers and movie theater marquees.

The formula was stupidly simple. Dean was the playboy and Jerry was the Idiot. Dean looked perfect as is, Jerry perfected his signature high-pitched whine and had his hair buzzed into an overgrown crew cut to appear closer to an eight-year-old.

“It was like watching the two halves of a personality you wished you could have: insane and unrepressed on the one hand, smoothly poised and confident on the other. And serendipitously enough, they actually enhanced one another, sanding away each other’s brittle edges.”

Throughout their 10 year run, there was very little variation on this dichotomy. There was very little originality in their jokes too, of which they had approximately five of. But it worked. Maybe Jerry was right when he said that people liked to see two men in love (fujoshi ally).

In those years, Martin and Lewis managed a radio show, regular spots hosting variety show, The Colgate Comedy Hour, 16 feature films, endless T.V. appearances, live tours, 12 combined children, and a stinking amount of fame and money. They were the hottest couple in Hollywood. Everyone knew you couldn’t have Dean without Jerry or Jerry without Dean. The names “Damon and Pythias” would quickly become one of Jerry’s favorite ways to describe them.

And they were close, genuinely. When Dean’s marriage imploded, Jerry was the best man at his wedding to his affair partner, Jeanne Biegger. He accompanied him on his honeymoon, and he was just as eager to let Dean a room in his house when the two fought. Jerry found the companionship and security he always longed for in his “big brother” (whom he affectionately called Paul, his middle name), who got physical with anyone who said a word against Jerry, and tearfully accompanied him in the ambulance after a pratfall gone wrong.

Such was it that Jerry felt he was the only person in the world who understood Dean, and vice versa. He would refer to them as twins separated at birth, or like one person. Another was that they had a telepathic bond and felt pain and illness at the same time (I honestly believe it. Explain the Jerry getting sick while filming The Bellboy at the same time as Dean’s Ocean’s 11 cancer scare, and their shared Percodan addiction. Little Charlie voice “Do you believe in telepathy?”)

“My fantasy big brother.”

Their act was more risqué than how Jerry recalls them in the “innocent ‘50s”, between Jerry’s exaggeratedly effeminate affectations and the amount of innuendo they manage to cram into those 100 minute family pictures (see: Jerry spraying Dean’s face with milk and Dean forcing Jerry to lick and eat a cigar— in the same movie! Where Jerry is pretending to be a 12 year old boy, nonetheless!) And most sketches on Colgate involve the two in bed together, or kissing, or groping one another, etc etc. Honestly don’t think they could pull off the bits where Dean plays Jerry’s dad and they end up on top of each other in 2025. Mostly because those are advocating for beating your kid. Idk.

“There was an edge of cruelty to Dean—especially on screen, where he was always cast as a conniver who at the last minute turned good—while Jerry was more like a puppy dog that kept wagging its tail even when it was being kicked. It was a new concept in comedy, and it was widely imitated: A case can be made for their being the models for Gelsomina and Zampanò, the innocent clown and the egoistic brute of Federico Fellini’s La Strada[.]”

While the audience became so accustomed to Martin and Lewis that they struggled to extricate their comedic personas from their real identities, so too, it seemed, did Jerry.

In his 20s, he was still a child desperate for validation, with a paralyzing fear of being abandoned. I suppose most comedians must be like that, but Jerry was truly a severe case. Like a child, he swung from sensitive and cloying to selfish and cruel. But children are only like that because they’re only children and still figuring out people also have feelings and needs and shit. Jerry never seemed to reach that stage.

He loved Dean, but was petty and jealous when it came to him. Whenever Dean would come up with an ad-lib that got a particular amount of laughs, Jerry would coincidentally wind up with a terrible stomachache that required the attentions of everyone in the room. It’s embarrassingly immature to the point where you can’t even get mad about it.

More sinister, he told David Letterman that one time he dosed Dean with Seconal then went on stage alone.

“Each person is really two people.”

You may be wondering, what’s Dean’s feelings about all this?

Listen,

I don’t know.

He’s just too enigmatic. Maybe Jerry was right in saying he was the only one who really knew him. Maybe Dean was right in saying no one knew him.

I think maybe Mack Grey had it figured out, but he’s for a different post.

Anyways. Jerry is too simple. It’s all Psych 101. But what does Dean have going on? It’s either genuinely nothing, or inside he’s more fucked up than anyone can possibly imagine. Jerry would chalk it up to simple repression. Dean’s parents told him having feelings was for fags so he resolved never to have one again. I. Don’t. Know.

Surely, he must’ve felt some type of way about Jerry. At times, he was referring to their relationship in the terms of a marriage (“Till death to us part,” and sorta weirdly, “We’ll be together until Jerry dies.”) at other times, he seemed more or less indifferent. He clearly loved and was affectionate towards Jerry, but I wonder how much he considered the actual depth of Jerry’s feelings. His son, Ricci, wrote that a motivator for the break-up was that Dean didn’t want to father Jerry, and that the latter “seemed to want more warmth and compassion than [Dean] provided.”

The truth may be that Dean was a tulpa manifested by Jerry’s overwhelming desire to have a brother to freak on. The truth may be that Dean was destined to die in a horrific steel mill accident, but he somehow evaded his fate and was living as a half-zombie. The truth… we shall never know.

"Those close to him could sense it: He was there, but he was not really there; a part of them, but apart from them as well. The glint in his eye was disarming, so captivating and so chilling at once, like lantern-light gleaming on nighttime sea: the tiny soft twinkling so gaily inviting, belying for an instant, then illuminating, a vast unseen cold blackness beneath and beyond. The secret in its depth seemed to be the most horrible secret of all: that there was no secret, no mystery other than that which resides, not as a puzzle to be solved or a revelation to be discovered, but as blank immanence, in emptiness itself."

The real reason for breakup, in my opinion, was kind of simple. They were burnt out on each other. Jerry had ambitions of making films on his own, just like his idol, Charlie Chaplin, and Dean was sort of a pleb who didn’t think movies were real art. Plus, his tolerance for Jerry’s antics was hitting its threshold, and he was fed up with the roles he was getting in their movies (asshole, asshole but he’s a gangster, asshole but he’s super rapey, list goes on) and Jerry undermining him to the public. Dean was lazy, Jerry was controlling. Dean was unsympathetic, Jerry was needy. They feuded, but made up, for the most part. It was likely easier for Dean, who treated the rest of the world like water off a duck’s back, than for Jerry, who spent his entire adulthood thus far attached to Dean. By 1954, their fighting hit its peak on the set of 3 Ring Circus, but they had two more years to tough out. It was very easy to send Jerry to the hospital by stressing him out. Times were hard.

“My partner was drifting away from me. Or had he drifted away already? The uncertainty tapped into my childhood fear of being deserted. An icy look from Dean would turn me into a scared nine-year-old.”

Still, they would make up, and continue their going around in circles. It lead to some memorable moments: Dean kicking and stomping on Jerry’s bicycle after an argument, Jerry knocking Dean’s head around during his performance of That’s Amore, Dean maybe breaking Jerry’s toe, Dean waterboarding him in a giant tank. And of course, Dean’s infamous “You can talk about love all you want, you’re nothing to me but a fucking dollar sign.”

There were four more movies after 3 Ring Circus. Actually very impressive. Jerry did a lot of public crying about how Dean didn’t love him. Dean, who had a valid enough reason to hate Jerry, might’ve actually kept the partnership together despite it all, worried that he’d flounder without Jerry and that public opinion was already against him. But for Jerry, the world he had built around Dean Martin was gone forever and there was no coming back. Anyways, he needed the freedom to make the greatest comedy film of all time: City Lights Part Two: Return of the Tramp.

Their last show was played at the Copacabana, exactly 10 years after their debut. They ended with the title number from their second to last film, Pardners (Hollywood or Bust wouldn’t be released until after the breakup). “When other friendships fail / We’ll still be on that long, long trail…”

It is said that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

And when the show was over, the only thing that made everyone feel safe that Jerry didn’t hang himself was the three hours of wailing coming from his dressing room…

“We had some good times, didn’t we, Paul?” “There’ll be more.”

Jerry would go on to become one of the most polarizing figures in film with works like The Bellboy and The Ladies Man. His most popular film, The Nutty Professor, is really also his most psychological. But really it’s my least favorite… Anyways, some people would tell you that Buddy Love, the evil bisexual that Jerry turns into after drinking his potion, is supposed to be a parody of Dean, which I don’t really see. Jerry conflates himself, Dean, and his father a lot, and I think that’s what The Nutty Professor is about. There’s not enough time now to go into it.

Dean, as everyone predicted, flopped a little at first. But it was a very minor bump, and soon he started palling around with Frank Sinatra (an obsessive, lonely, only child from New Jersey in his own right) which made him into the Dean Martin we all know today. Though, Dean would lapse into some familiar old ways, getting laughs out of a crowd by heckling Sinatra while he crooned, or pretending to be a busboy and getting in the way of his show. But Frank Sinatra was really no Dean Martin (not intended as hate because I love Frank like a sonboyfriend).

In the immediate aftermath of the “divorce”, as they all referred to it, they had their run going at each other in the press. Dean got bitter and snide, blaming Jerry’s immaturity and accusing him of being jealous of his wife (which was true, as Jerry would be the first to say, but he didn’t have to say it.) A weird one was when he got really heated about Jerry removing all photographs of Dean from his home. He was going on about how Jerry was an asshole for that since he was still genial enough to leave up a picture of Jerry in his kids’ bedroom (which is true. On an Architectural Digest style program where he gives a house tour, the only decor on his children’s walls are a wooden crucifix and a picture of him and Jerry.)

Jerry was wandering the moors and shit. He wrote columns about how Dean broke his soul and held him back as an artists and about how he had to go to therapy and his therapist told him to stop looking at Dean as his father and instead rely on the maternal support of his wife. Good ol’ 1950s style psychoanalysis.

"Everybody likes to hear ‘I like you.’ Now because of Dean's personality and the way he was with his bravado, yet, I think, scared of his innermost feelings, I'd have to rush these things. That's a terrible frustration. That's like loving a girl or boy for years and years, and waiting for them to tell you that they love you too, and just at the exact moment when they are getting ready to say it, being yanked back into the real world only to realize that your happiness was a flimsy dream that didn't come true. That's what it has been like for me."

In 1966, Jerry picked up his 24 hour Muscular Dystrophy Association telethons. Martin and Lewis had been associated with the charity, but Dean wasn’t ever into that kind of thing. It was on this Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, September the first, 1976, 20 years after their break up, that Dean and Jerry had their great reunion.

“I got a friend who loves what you do every year…”

It wasn’t really that great. Thanks Frank Sinatra.

To clear a few things up: Jerry and the rest of the world want to have you convinced they really hadn’t spoken for 20 years. This is not true. They had varying degrees of contact from the late fifties to early sixties, and had mini-reunions performing short bits if they happened to be in the same club. Dean had even expressed that he wanted to be friends again, but with the implicit understanding that the relationship would now be on his terms. For Jerry, it was incestuous roleplay codependent marriage or bust.

The next thing is, Jerry told an extremely easily disprovable lie that he and Dean became close friends after this moment and spoke every day. Idk why he said that it’s actually sad. He tried sending a heartfelt note to Dean, but he never responded. Just one time, did Jerry confess that he was on pills at the time and he didn’t actually remember that Dean had come on.

They wouldn’t speak again until 1987, after the death of Dean Paul Jr., Dean’s fifth child and the first from his second marriage, in an Air Force training accident. Since Jerry had telephoned his sincere condolences, they rekindled a long-distance friendship. They were never to achieve the intimacy they once had, and that Jerry had once dreamed of them having when they were both older and more mature, but Dean, who already seemed septuagenarian since his youth, was now matching that physically, and he liked Jerry best two or three arms’ lengths away. He had divorced Jeanne years before for a short-lived marriage to 26-year-old receptionist Catherine Hawn, and after that, he never remarried. He had also met the fate that all members of Frank Sinatra’s inner circle suffered sooner or later: he got booted, or rather he quit, in the middle of the Rat Pack’s 1988 Together Again tour. His spot was filled by Liza Minnelli.

By all accounts, Dean spent most of the later years of his life eating alone in his favorite restaurant. To Jerry, who had divorced his wife of nearly 40 years and was re-wed to SanDee Pitnick, and was still puttering along with films (notably, King of Comedy and his last directorial effort, Cracking Up/Smorgasbord) and MDA work, this listless existence seemed miserable. But Dean always took things as they came.

They would meet again face-to-face in 1989, when Jerry surprised Dean on his 72nd birthday while he was playing Bally’s Hotel in Las Vegas. They embraced, Dean was nostalgically warm: “I love you and I mean it.”

“I gotta kiss you on the lips.”

On Christmas day in 1995, Dean passed away.

He had never dreamed of fame, rather it was “thrust upon him by ambitious friends”, as Shawn Levy puts it in Rat Pack Confidential. But today, Dean Martin is remembered as a symbol of the good ol’ days, when men were men and Vegas was run by the mob. His songs are ubiquitous, his sleazing drunk character beloved by oldheads globally. Life has a funny way of working out.

A New York Times article published in 2002 (for the release of the made for T.V. biopic, Martin and Lewis) described the two as America’s Catherine and Heathcliff. And so it was, for Jerry who had dreams of Dean after his passing. He penned his 2005 memoir, Dean & Me (A Love Story), he played the clip of the two reuniting in 1976 at his shows, mentioning Dean's name in interviews was an easy way to get the old man in a bittersweet, reminiscent mood. Until the day he died (in the year of Dean's centennial, coincidentally), Jerry remembered Dean as the greatest love of his life, the singular person who was more important to him than his parents, his wife, his children.

“I always wanted to do good for him. I wanted him to be proud of me, my big brother.”

"I happen to love the kid like a brother."

"He was my hero. He was my father, my brother, my friend."

There's still so much gone unsaid. There was the time Dean bought Jerry a scooter and he fell off and hit his head and had to go the hospital. There was the time he wrote a love song for Jerry's birthday. There was the time they were reported to the FBI for being on a list of known homosexuals. There was the time Jerry misread Dirk Bogarde's name as Dick Bogarde. There was the time they were at the same Judy Garland show in 1958, but Jerry was also making out with Frank Sinatra. There was the time they owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS and Jerry had to get them out of it without letting Dean know because in his 78 years of living, he never seemed to fully understand the concept of money. There was the time Atom Egoyan made an erotic thriller that was very obviously based off of them, written by the guy who wrote the piña colada song and starring Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth, and Colin Firth, who’s the Dean of the situation, tries to stick his dick inside Kevin Bacon during a threesome and then kills himself. There was Martin Scorsese and there was Rainer Werner Fassbinder. There was Wiseguy and there was The Sopranos. There were tears of sorrow and tears of joy. And most of all... There was Amore.

(If you made it this far, thank you, and you are entitled to a free shirt at the door.)

[formosusiniquis]

for @thefreakandthehair and inspired by this. Everyone enjoy some bee keeper!Eddie saving the day so Steve can play some baseball

Eddie picked up beekeeping the way he picked up most things in his life: accidentally and by virtue of following a crumb of serotonin straight down the rabbit hole of obsession. It isn't what he expected to do for a living, and at this point he does have to admit that when it accounted for 91% of his taxable income last year it is what he does for a living, but he likes that he gets to work outside and set his own hours. He likes that the regular customers he has who buy his honey are nice, and likes getting to advise people about things like flavor profiles and what they taste best with, it was the thing he liked best about his position at the dispensary that was now more of a side gig. And then there's his contract with city animal control that gets him called out to parts of the city he didn't even know existed to relocate hives a lot more often than he thought would happen.

It's a good life, and he likes that he's made it himself.

But it's the kind of life that gets him calls from people late at night when trying to finish binging Fallout before the internet can spoil it for him. He has a rule to always answer when Chrissy calls though, he isn't going to miss helping her if it's an emergency.

“I need a favor,” she says before he's even finished answering.

“Anything for you,” he agrees.

“You might regret saying that.”

Chrissy Cunningham turned a full ride scholarship for cheerleading into a business and marketing degree and she turned that into a fancy job with the White Sox that he didn’t fully understand but totally supported. He wore the free cap she gave him, and was endlessly glad that as a white guy he didn’t get gatekept the way girls like Chrissy did, since he couldn’t name a single player on the team.

And it was that endless support that had him in his full gear at the White Sox stadium with his smoker and bee vac.

Chrissy meets him at the front with a harried expression and a warm hug, “I’d say I owe you one but if everything goes right we’ll be totally square before the first inning.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, repeating it louder when all she gives him is an enigmatic smile. 

The only answer he truly gets is being shoved into a little green cart that she drives with a frightening speed. She drives them through the stadium through a route he has no hope of remembering on his own until they reach an opening that leads straight out to the field. Eddie always had a dream, as a kid, of being a rockstar, driving out onto the diamond to a sudden and uproarious cheer is the closest he thinks he’s ever come to truly experiencing what it would be like to be famous on stage.

He hams it up of course. Waves his arms to try to get them to cheer louder as Chrissy stears them toward the lifter that he’s going to have to go up to get to the swarm. And they do, the cheers becoming an enthusiastic roar, a sound so loud he thinks he could climb them up to the bees without the lifter. 

“Focus will you, you’re on national television right now.” Chrissy says, with a subtle elbow to his side.

“Yeah but how many people are watching a delayed baseball game?”

Never one to just take his smartass comments, he’s sure that Chrissy says something super witty and sarcastic back. Only Eddie made the mistake of turning his head and catching sight of the most glorious ass in the snuggest pair of pinstriped white baseball pants and lost the ability to hear. A second elbow in his side reminds his brain full of metaphorical bees that he’s on television and he doesn’t have his veil on, he isn’t about to get caught drooling on television.

The fattest ass in the stadium turns around and Eddie thinks he’s been stung. He has to be going into anaphylaxis with the way he suddenly can’t catch his breath. The guy in front of him, with a hand on his hip and his eyes trained unwaveringly on Eddie is tongue-swellingly hot. And he just keeps getting closer as Chrissy doesn’t stop driving forward.

“Steve, you’re not supposed to get this close, you're our starting pitcher you can’t get stung.” Chrissy chides.

“I just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t going to kill the bees.” The guy, Steve, says.

“He’s not.”

“I’m not,” Eddie says, shaking his head as fast as he can, like that will make things more convincing for the hot baseball guy. But he’s got an eyebrow raised giving Eddie an up and down like he still doesn’t believe him.

“Look,” he pulls out his equipment so Steve can see. “I’ll smoke them with this, that’ll make them calm so they don’t freak out when I vacuum them up with this.”

“And running them through a vacuum isn’t going to kill them?”

“It’s a gentle suck,” he says, immediately filled with a burning mortification. “It’s just enough to move them into the tank where I can relocate them.”

Hot baseball Steve has his big brown eyes open even wider, there’s a twitch at his mouth like he’s about to say something else and Eddie actually can’t have that. “Chris can we get me strapped into this thing, we want to get this big ballgame going right?”

Steve takes a couple steps back, hands raised up in a placating gesture. Whether it’s for him or for Chrissy because he didn’t listen, Eddie’s too busy putting a neon yellow safety buckle on to think about it.

He takes his time, this is basically free marketing so he’s not about to rush through or do a half-assed job. But in just a few minutes he has a vac full of bees and the game is ready to be played. The lifter gently lowers Eddie back to the ground with another round of cheers. He unclips from the safety harness and takes a shallow bow for the crowd.

Then Steve is jogging over, Eddie stands up straighter than he ever has in his life. Nervous for what is about to happen.

“You saved the game, man!” Steve has the nicest smile that Eddie has ever seen, wide and toothy. He is but a man and thus falls a little bit in love immediately.

“It was nothing, really, just part of the job, y’know.”

“Well, here’s something you probably haven’t done on the job. You have to throw the first pitch.”

“No, no, I absolutely will not be doing that.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, a mischief lights up in Steve’s eyes. He jerks his chin up at Chrissy who says something Eddie is too far away to hear into a walkie talkie. He thinks he has a guess though when the loudspeaker begins to drawl, “Laaadies and Gentlemen, our game is about to begin. Tonight’s first pitch will be thrown by our bee rescuer, Eddie Munson!”

The crowd begins to scream again, but the sound is almost like the hive's steady drone when Steve leans close enough to whisper, “It’s just ceremonial, all you’ve got to do is throw it. I’ll even play catcher for you.” And Eddie’s helpless to do anything but nod.

There’s actually a lot that has to happen before they’re ready for him to throw his sad attempt at a pitch. But that gives him the time to settle his equipment out of the way and scream at Chrissy. Still it’s sooner than he’d like before she’s shuffling him over to a big mound of dirt in the center of everything. She pushes his hat and veil back and it feels a little proud father of the bride right until she pats him on the top of his head and whispers, “Don’t fuck it up, nerd.”

His palms are sweaty, they feel too slick to get a good grip on the small, white ball. He thinks he might throw up, only across from him Steve is there. A glove on one hand he sends Eddie an encouraging little finger wave with the other. 

He can do this. 

He takes a deep breath and throws.

It’s awful. Too high and a little off center, but Steve snags it in that large, ungloved palm and the crowd cheers again like he’s done something fantastic. He’s starting to think they’re just happy to be here.

He starts to walk off the field, toward Chrissy where he knows he’s safe. But he can’t help noticing that Steve is jogging his way too; the ball that Eddie just threw in one hand, a sharpie in the other, his glove tucked tight under his arm. “Eddie, hey, you gotta take this with you, dude.”

Steve lobs it at him in a soft underhand, and Eddie still fumbles the catch, “Thanks, man, but really, I don’t-” the rest of his response dies in his mouth when he realizes just what Steve has scribbled across the ball.

“Give me a call if you’re interested,” Steve says, walking backward toward the mound Eddie just left, “I can show you my gentle suck.” He laughs at his own shitty pickup line, which is somehow more attractive than his whole hot jock thing.

Eddie thinks he must be blushing up to his hairline by the time he makes it back to Chrissy and his things. She looks too smug for it to be any other way. “Told you we’d be even before the end of the night.”

“Chris, if this goes well I might owe you a favor. Now we gotta go, I’ve got bees to relocate.”

[transranpoe]

touch-up

[virusmeds]

what did she mean by that in the anniversary event huhhh whatt 🧐🧐🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

[kittysawat]

if you cant get an organic s2 wedding, then store bought is just fine!!!!!!!!