#the architecture around was so pretty and the sky was clear so u got to see all the nice stars and stuff. yeah

[pirrha]

listens to the rifleman theme on repeat like its some sort of self care

[thewidowsghost]

The Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 5

(Y/n)'s POV

I have weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, but what I hear and see makes no sense, so I just pass out again. I remember lying in a soft bed and spoon-fed something that tasted like (Favorite/Food), only it's like pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovers over me, smirking as she scrapes drips off my chin with the spoon.

When she sees my eyes open, she asks, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

"What?" I manage to croak.

She looks around, as is afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," I slur, "I don't . . ."

Somebody knocks on the door, and the girl quickly fills my mouth with the pudding.

. . .

The next time I wake up, the girl is gone.

A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stands in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He has blue eyes - at least a dozen of them - on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

When I come around for good, there is nothing weird about my surroundings, except they are nicer than I am used to. I am sitting in a deck chair next to Percy - who was looking at me with concern - on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smells like strawberries. There is a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that is great, but my mouth feels like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue is dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me is a tall drink. It looks like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol sticks through a maraschino cherry.

My hand is so weak I almost drop the glass once I get my fingers around it.

"Careful," says a voice.

Grover is leaning against the porch railing, looking as though he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradles a shoebox. He is wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops, and a bright orange t-shirt that says CAMP HALF-BLOOD.

"You two saved my life," Grover says. "I...well, the least I could do...I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he places the shoebox in Percy's lap.

Inside is a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood.

It hadn't been a nightmare. My mother was gone.

"The Minotaur," Percy asks.

"Um, Percy, it isn't a good idea -" Grover gets cut off.

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" Percy demands. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."

Grover shifts uncomfortably. "You two have been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"Mom," I say softly. "Is she really . . ."

Grover looks down.

I stare across the meadow. There is a grove of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley is surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, is the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looks beautiful in the sunlight.

My mother is gone . . .

Nothing should look beautiful. The whole world should be black and cold.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffs. "I'm a failure. I'm - I'm the worst satyr in the world." He groans, stomping his food so hard it comes off. I mean, the Converse hi-top comes off. The inside is filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole. "Oh, Styx!" he mumbles.

Thunder rolls across the clear sky.

Mom had really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

Percy and I are alone. Orphans. We would have to live with . . . Smelly Gabe? No. I'd live on the streets first.

Grover is still sniffling.

Percy says, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."

"Did our mother ask you to protect me?"

"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least . . . I was."

"But why . . ." Percy begins and I suddenly feel dizzy, my vision swimming.

"Don't strain yourself," Grover says. "Here."

He helps me hold my glass and puts the straw to my lips.

I recoil at the taste because I was expecting apple juice. It isn't that at all. It's chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. But not just any cookies - Mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body feels warm and good, full of energy. My grief doesn't go away, but I feel as if Mom had just brushed her hand lovingly against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was upset and told me everything was going to be okay.

Before I know it, I'd drained the glass. I stare into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Grover asks.

I nod.

"What did it taste like?"

"Chocolate-chip cookies," I reply and Percy looks at me knowingly. "Mom's. Homemade."

He takes the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it's dynamite, and sets it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting.

3rd Person POV

The porch wraps all the way around the farmhouse.

Percy's legs feel wobbly, trying to walk that far, and (Y/n), though her legs feel like Jello, had moved to support her brother. Grover offers to carry the Minotaur horn, but Percy holds onto it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I'm not going to let it go.

As the trio comes around the opposite end of the house, (Y/n) catches her breath.

Percy's POV

We must be on the north shore of Long Island because on this side of the house, the valley marches all the way up to the water, which glitters about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply can't process everything I'm seeing. The landscape is dotted with buildings that look like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all look brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school–age kids and satyrs play volleyball. Canoes glide across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's are chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shoot targets at an archery range. Others ride horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I'm hallucinating, some of their horses have wings.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sit across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoonfed (Y/n) is leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing me is small, but porky. He has a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it's almost poker. He looks like those painting of baby angles - cherubs. He looks like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He is wearing a tiger-patterned Hawaiian shirt, and he would fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I get the feeling that this guy could out-gamble even my step-father.

"That's Mr. D," Grover mutters to me and (Y/n). "He's the camp director. Be polite. That girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron . . . "

He points at the guy whose back is to me.

First, I realize he's sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognize the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, and the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cry.

The Latin teacher turns and smiles at me, then looks curiously at (Y/n), who is still supporting some of my weight. His eyes have that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulls a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.

"Ah, good, Percy," he says. "Now we have four for pinochle."

He offers me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looks at me, then (Y/n), who is leaning against my chair, with bloodshot eyes, and heaves a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to the glad to see you."

"Percy, why don't you introduce me?" Mr. Burnner says, sending a soft smile towards (Y/n).

"Oh, this is my twin sister, (Y/n)," Percy says.

(Y/n)'s POV

I smile and wave shyly.

"It's nice to meet you, sir," I say. "Percy's told me a lot about you. Even said you were his favorite teacher."

A warmer smile spreads across Mr. Brunner's face and then he turns. "Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner calls to the blond girl.

She comes forward and Mr. Brunner introduces us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, (Y/n). Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy and (Y/n)'s bunks? We'll be putting them in Cabin Eleven for now."

"Sure, Chiron," Annabeth replies.

She's probably about my age, maybe an inch or two taller, and a whole more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she is almost exactly when I think a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruin the image. They are startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she's analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

She glances down at the Minotaur horn in Percy's hands then looks back up at me. She says, "You drool when you sleep." My cheeks take on a slight red tinge as she sprints off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

"So," Percy says, looking anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"

"Not Mr. Brunner," not Mr. Brunner says. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"Okay," Percy says, looking totally confused, then looking at the director. "And Mr. D . . . does that stand for something?"

Mr. D stops shuffling the cars. He looks at Percy like he'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason.

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Percy," Chiron - Brunner breaks in, "I'm glad to see you alive, and the chance to meet your sister. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?" I ask, interested.

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct Percy. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met him. He sensed he was something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to...ah, take a leave of absence."

"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" Percy asks.

Chiron nods. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood, and then we learned of Miss (Y/n), here." He nods to me. "But you still had so much to learn, Percy. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"Grover," Mr. D says impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

Percy's POV

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembles as he takes the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyes me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I answer.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he corrects.

"Sir," I repeat, liking the camp director less and less.

"Well," he tells me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules"

"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron says.

"Please," I plead, "what is this place? What are we doing here? Mr. Brun— Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

Mr. D snorts. "I asked the same question."

The camp director deals the cards; Grover flinches every time one lands in his pile.

Chiron smiles at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

"Percy," Chiron prompts. "Did your mother tell you nothing?"

"She said . . ." (Y/n) begins and I remember her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told us she was afraid to send us here, even though our father had wanted her to. She said that once we were here, we probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep us close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D says. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I ask.

He explains, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron says. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient.

"Orientation film?" (Y/n) asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"No," Chiron decides. "Well, Percy, (Y/n). You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know -" he points to the horn in the shoebox - "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either. What you may not know is that the great powers are at work. Gods - the forces you call the Greek gods - are very much alive."

I stare at the others around the table.

I wait for somebody to yell, Not! but all I get is Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackles as he tallies up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asks timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bites a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chews it.

"Wait," I tell Chiron as (Y/n) sits down on the edge of my chair. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Chiron says. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"

"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?"

"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class.

"Zeus," I say. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."

And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Young man," says Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around if I were you."

"But they're stories," I say. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. D scoff. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"—I flinch when he says my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continues. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."

"Percy," Chiron says, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," (Y/n) says.

"Exactly," Chiron agrees. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you Perseus and (Y/n) Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how children can get over losing their mothers."

My heart pounds. He's trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I say, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmurs. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Grover pleads, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbles, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe!" He waves his hand and a goblet appears on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet fills itself with red wine.

"You're Dionysus," (Y/n) says and Mr. D looks at her. "The god of wine."

Mr. D nods then stares at me as I say, "You're a god."

"Yes, child."

"A god. You."

He turns to look at me straight on, and I see a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man is only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I see visions of grapevines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turn to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I know that if I push him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a straitjacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he says quietly.

"No. No, sir."

The fire dies a little; he turns back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron says. He sets down a straight, tallies the points, and says, "The game goes to me."

I think Mr. D is going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighs through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He gets up, and Grover rises, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D says. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face beads with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners." He sweeps into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" I ask Chiron.

Chiron nods, though he looks a little troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been . . . ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Mount Olympus," I say. "You're telling me there is really a palace there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like...in America?"

"The what?"

"Western civilization?" (Y/n) guesses and Chiron nods for her to continue. "It started in Greece, then spread to Rome, right?"

"That's correct, Miss (Y/n)," Chiron says.

"And then they died?" I ask, looking between my Latin teacher and my sister.

"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course, they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either —America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

"Who are you, Chiron? Who . . . who am I? Who . . . who are we?"

Chiron smiles. He shifts his weight as if he was going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I know that was impossible. He's paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who are you?" he muses. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he does rise from his wheelchair. But there's something odd about the way he did it. His blanket falls away from his legs, but the legs don't move. His waist keeps getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I think he's was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he keeps rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realize that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair isn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg comes out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

I stare at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"You're a centaur!" (Y/n) says in awe, and Chiron's eyes sparkle with amusement as he nods.

"What a relief," the centaur says. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy and (Y/n) Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."

Word Count: 3702 words

[boggirlsummer]

Wet Hot American Summer

August 18 Zoey and I thought we fixed the leak in my tent but we were wrong. I spent the early morning inching away from a puddle that finally pushed me out around 8 am - time to get up anyway. Too rainy to cook or make coffee and I left camp aimlessly. I could barely see anything through the smoke and clouds which threw a wrench in my non-plan to drive around and take photos out the car window. Grand Tetons and Montana and Wyoming were up there on my teenage bucket list (lmao, dream big!), mostly for the landscapes and western vibes and maybe a few cathartic renditions of Wide Open Spaces. I just hiked all summer so I feel like I earned a few days of all-american automobile tourism.

Cozy

Decision fatigue is a ball buster on solo trips (and in life) and sometimes I refuse to change course even when it’s clear that a plan isn’t going to work out. I drove around Tetons alternately listening to the directions and making random navigational decisions, so Google kept yelling at me to make a u-turn. Eventually I got annoyed with both of us and stopped for snacks at the general store. I’ve been making my way through all the kettle chip flavors and so far honey dijon is the best and korean bbq is the worst.

Drove straight through to Yellowstone hoping the storm would let up, but by the time I got there it was 50 degrees with rain expected all afternoon. I thought it would be SUMMER once I left the Bay Area, so all my sweaters and warm jackets are in vacuum sealed bags that I don’t have the space in my car to open. I wasn’t loving the idea of being wet and cold in Yellowstone all night so I talked the campground lady into refunding my site reservation and headed for Big Sky, Montana.

I felt bad leaving without seeing any of the Yellowstone sights so I stopped at Old Faithful on my way out. I knew laughably little about what I was looking at and when a bunch of people started gathering I thought to myself, is this thing gonna explode or something?? And ya turns out that’s the entire point, it shoots a bunch of water and steam into the air every few minutes. I bought a cup of coffee and watched halfheartedly. The only other attraction I know about is the rainbow glory hole and there was so much traffic to park in the lot I said screw it and went on to Montana.

No LTE between Yellowstone and Big Sky and I was without a place to sleep - luckily my sister was available to do some emergency concierge work for me. I eventually found a nice campground near town but the obscene number of bear country warning signs freaked me out. I backtracked to Big Sky to buy a $50 can of bear spray, what a rip. Feeling beat today so I made it up to myself with a bowl of chicken curry ramen and a Sapporo. It was no nugget curry, but it did the job ☺️

Reading the bear spray instructions before bed - you’re supposed to use it once a charging bear is two to three seconds from reaching you. Wtf. I can’t do anything in two seconds. Finished Year of the Monkey at last. Almost fell asleep with a candy wrapper in my pocket, instant death. Also I got my period and I’m worried this is going to attract the bears.

August 19 I broke my own rule. I drove to Bozeman this morning and had a chicken fried steak at the Western Cafe, “The Last Best Cafe.” I had a nice chat with two old guys at the bar, initiated by ME! We talked about my trip so far and books (I was reading Walden Two and one of the guys had Woman in the Window with him, and we agreed that both authors are pretty nuts). Good time all around and then one of them secretly bought my breakfast 🥰 I’ve only ever had creepy men buy me drinks at bars so free CFS with no strings attached was a revelation. My smile lit up the cold dark streets of Bozeman.

Too early for hostel check-in so I killed some time hanging out in a coffee shop and wandering around Main Street. When I’m alone in a new city I usually get on the apps, it’s fun to hang out with a real LOCAL and have an AUTHENTIC experience. I did this on my first night in Sydney last year and my date won $7,000 at a bar raffle he’d been going to every week for three years and then bought us a night’s worth of top shelf shots, bad coke, and dumplings. Obviously I was his good luck charm so I should’ve gotten a cut of that $$$ but whatever… Eventually we went back to his depressing loft outside of the city. It was barely furnished and full of his shitty art and luckily he didn’t have any condoms so I was able to decline sex without feeling guilty (I had condoms of course but didn’t disclose). He tried to fuck me again around 4 am and I was so confused I thought he must have found a condom while I was briefly sleeping. He had not. I snuck out at 6 am and caught the bus back to the city. Not the most restful night but nice to get away from the hostel for a little while. But ya I updated my Hinge location to Bozeman and got hella conservative men swiping on me 🥴 My profile isn’t anything crazy but I don’t think I’m giving off Megyn Kelly vibes. Are they playing some sort of sexual bingo? Are they out to stealth me? Seems sus.

If you are a man on Hinge with a naked photo on your profile I WILL screenshot it and I WILL make a collage of my collection once I have enough material and I WILL sell it as a NFT and I WILL make $0 cuz y’all are freaks. This is the tamest one I’ve got, text me if you want a photo of a naked man covering his junk with a pineapple.

Ooooieee hostel is grungy and subterranean and not the kinda place you want to spend many conscious hours in. I took myself to the movies to escape - another thing I really missed last year. I saw The Night House, which I would describe as an architectural horror? I’ve been thinking about architecture a lot lately, this cool site Zoey sent me has some interesting interviews and stuff. In the movies I ate an entire bag of sour gummy worms and a box of junior mints.

Had a freaky bookstore experience earlier today, not the first time this summer. I originally wrote a longgg paragraph about synchronicity here but I got self conscious and started wondering if hearing other people’s stories about synchronicity is like listening to them talk about their dreams. I personally love talking about dreams (call me and tell me about your crazy dreams!!) but things definitely get lost in translation and sometimes they’re straight boring (like when my old coworkers and I used to dream in Excel, fucckkk). So I get why people find it annoying and here at Bog Girl Summer we can’t afford to alienate any of our readers. All I will say is that I walked into a bookstore today with synchronicity very much on my mind, went to the psychology section to buy a baby Jung text, and there saw a literal sign that said “Staff Pick, Introductory Jung: Synchronicity.” So yes, I bought it. Don’t forget y’all - I have a psychology degree so please don’t come after me about confirmation bias and all that lol. It’s very possible that in this summer of upheaval I’m desperate for some kinda sign that I’m on the right path. Let me have this one 😘

I also bought this postcard which spoke to me because most days I feel like I’m trying to drink out of a firehose

[nullset2]

Why New 3D Mario Games Suck

Before I go to bed I want to write a quick article about my opinions of Mario games. Ah, Mario games... I will never tire of you. Crisp and clean, to the point and joyfully so. Just jump, mofocka. Games that revel in the concept of moving around, making it inherently fun. Is there more noble of a proposition in gaming? Has there ever been more lucid game design?

Yet, I think that modern Mario games suck.

Like everyone and their grandmother (and if your grandmother plays Mario send her my regards, she's cool as hell, dude) I've been playing Mario 3D All Stars to have me a nice time. However it does reinforce this idea that I've always had, that Mario games, even though they may share the same broad aesthetic values and mechanics, are different from each other by nature. In this article, I propose that this change over time has actually been for the worse, leading to a loss of complexity in platforming game design with each successive iteration which is being traded away in favor of more cinematics and bombastics.

First things first, we have the beautiful Mario 64. A timeless classic and most of us' first foray into 3D games (yes, this was the very first game I ever played where the notion of the third dimension actually mattered. I had already played Star Fox but in Star Fox you don't really move in three dimensions, you're just in a plane going on rails and you cannot move completely freely). I played this before I even touched Doom or other first person games of the sort.

Minor parentheses by the way: did you know that Star Fox was inspired on the Inari Taisha temple? The beautiful, big long mountain shrine in Kyoto full of orange gates?

Fox translates to Inari and its creator, Dylan Cuthberth, who loved Japan a lot, got inspiration from it which he applied to his new bizarre fucking mind bending 3D tech which he then pitched and sold to nintendo and then became the basis for the Ultra 64, which was to come, and thus one of the main pillars of all modern 3D gaming as a whole? Holy shit, right? In Star Fox you cross gates to gain powerups and to make it fun to maneuver around with your Airwing... How come that I had never seen the connection?

But anyway. Back to Mario 64.

It is commonly told that Mario 64 was created by Miyamoto parting from the concept of a "secret garden". Most of the development time initially, it is said, was spent on Miyamoto and Tezuka, Mario creators, fine tuning the movement system in an isolated garden map without any enemies or hazards.

The purpose of the secret garden was threefold: first, the team was used to designing Mario games as 2d platformers and they were uncertain about how to take Mario games into the 3D era (a literal, flat-out equivalent conversion of classic mario, think Super Mario World, powerups and all, was considered at a certain point in development, creating linear, obstacle course stages with a beginning and a goal, the remnants of which still linger in the final game as the bowser stages, an idea which was finally fleshed out with the Mario 3D series on the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, 20 years later (!)), so they needed a way to hash out ideas about how to design this new installment.

Second, Miyamoto took as one of the goals of the project to design Mario's movement with a supreme level of fidelity, so he'd use this area to test and test and test all of Mario's acrobatics, to make them feel smooth, convincing and entertaining to play. He'd say that as long as a move didn't feel right in the garden, it couldn't be used in the final game, creating in the end as something that feels a little bit like ninja acrobatics on rollerskates or ice skating.

Third, the team eventually realized that, since 3D content was incredibly expensive to create back in 1995, when commonplace computer 3D animation and design was still quite in its infancy, they needed to develop the skill to design little sandboxes which were good enough to run around in over and over without getting tired of them (think of it as if constructing a highly detailed, complex diorama, an idea fleshed out finally in Captain Toad from Super Mario 3D world, again, 20 years later (!)). This was to create more content for the game while reusing the same architecture and geometry for the levels, since resource usage had to be maximized. The remnants of the garden are still present in the final game, as the Castle Grounds.

So, do you see the level of SOUL invested here? The level of care, the amount of love placed into each and everyone of Mario's moves in Super Mario 64? And the results show it: the game allows the player to tackle all objectives at their own pace, in their own terms, however way they can. The game forces nothing down your throat: blast to the island in the sky? Well, maybe just long jump to it if you're gutsy enough, no need to wait until you unlock cannons. Or get the 8 red coins first if you want. Or just fuck it, and go and release the chain chomp first because he looks very cool and this is probably the first power star that all people who play the game get first. Or just, fuck it, you can skip that objective all together if you want, just collect enough stars for the next door unlock.

Jump, double jump, triple jump, dive, dive from jump, punch, breakdance kick, backflip, turn and backflip, long jump, wall jump, grab objects and throw, jump-shortkick, slide down, ground pound, fly from triple jump, swim, crouch... and even crawl. I count a total of 20 possible interactions with the environment, maybe even more I'm missing. All movements completely available to you from the start to mix and match the way you best see fit (except for flying, which is unlocked like 15 minutes into the game). The world is yours and you're free, go nuts son. The only variable is your skill at the movement system.

So you can probably see why this is delicious design. There's never a single way to clear most power stars in the game, instead the decision is left to the player, which the game trusts is smart enough to figure out solutions to problems on their own. Wanna jump for it? Sure, if you can. Want to wait unil you got the powerup? That's cool too. Want to go play another level? Sure thing! OR FUCK IT! JUST RACE THE KOOPA IF YOU WANT!

So you can probably see why I loathe the fact that the sequel was based exclusively on giving people a dumbed down version of the same shit, with a fucking dumb water pack.

Come 2002 and under pressure to perform, the team releases Super Mario Sunshine and it's the most bland, dumbed down sequel ever (though, could anyone really live up to such a predecessor's prowess?). In an attempt to make the game accessible to more players (tm), the game is stripped out of its complexity. Mario no longer moves as a gracious, roller skating gazelle that can navigate the world in the most agile and beautiful way ever. Instead you screech down to a halt the second you stop pushing the direction stick instead of providing people with that most delicious sense of momentum and friction SM64 had. Boo Hoo! Baby think 3D platforming is too hard? BABY CANNOT HANDLE PING PING WAHOO ON THE N64? Then we give babby a water nozzle which will allow them to correct any miscalculated jump ever (it's insulting that this is the best solution they managed to come up with) HOORAY!

But hey! Sunshine has good things about it! Uh... the water is pretty! (that's probably where all the development time and resources probably went anyway).

SAY WHAT? WE GOT TO RELEASE THIS YEAR? AND THEY WANT US TO INCLUDE 120 STARS AGAIN? FUCK! WE RAN OUT OF TIME; JUST ADD BLUE COINS, DUDE! YEAH WHATEVER! SHIP IT! THIS IS THE GAME! I'M GONNA GO LIE DOWN AND HAVE A BEER! FUCK IT!

Mario Sunshine is not a bad game, but it's not a bold, groundbreaking game like its predecessor was. It detests and rejects the fact that you are a competent platforming game player. It nerfs everything down. It makes it almost impossible to lose. It plays things too safe and too easy, replacing action game design with flashing lights, prettier graphics, and an easier experience; it has its moments but it's an inferior game mechanically: jump, double jump, triple jump, hover, rocket jump, turbo run (why), walk on tightropes (why), spin in air (why), spin from ground into high jump, turn and backflip, swim, spray water, spray water and dive, wall jump, ground pound. It's only 16 moves -- less than its predecessor --, and they have less complexity and are easier to execute.

Not only that but you're no longer free to tackle objectives the way you see fit. The world is now a container for several course-clears, and no longer allowing for the freedom of open world games. If you pick Shine 1, you WILL clear shine 1 in that run of the level. If the game wants you to watch a cutscene (of which there were none in SM64), you WILL watch the fucking cutscene. Wash rinse repeat until you get enough shines to clear the lamest end boss in video game history.

Again, it's not a bad game but it reeks of suits getting involved in the process and demanding shit to be made easier because otherwise it wouldn't sell. It reeks of misplaced priorities. It's a pretty game and it's nice for an afternoon, but after that you just have blue coins left and hooooooooooooo weeeeeee I'm not touching that shit. The most asinine side quest I've ever seen in a video game: to find blue coins hidden in random spots, usually by cleaning a spot of graffitti, and exchange 10 of them for a single shine, the collection of which cannot be stacked and forces you to watch a cutscene every time. Reeks of laziness.

Then Mario Galaxy comes out and Jesus Christ. It's like they don't give a shit at this point. Open-world, acrobatics-centric 3D Mario is just fucking gone. This is probably the point where it became cheap enough to make 3D content en-masse that they just started copying the classic Mario formula in 3D to churn out content.

The bad thing, is that at a certain point it feels as if the games play themselves and I've always been against it and will always be against it because I'm into games due to the fact that they're something which engages my brain. I don't like games which just keep me there, passively looking at the screen, reacting to quick time events. I want to be immersed, engrossed and I want to feel that nice sense of exploration and fun experimentation that you only get with open world games.

The games are back to linear now: even though, in Sunshine, they made an effort to at least make things seem open world, they don't care anymore in this one. It's all just linear levels happening in planetoids which you visit in a sequence, to, yet again, remove all hazards and all notion of challenge and complexity, even more than before. And you have to shake the wii remote to spin to top it off, and this gives you a free save if you miscalculate a jump. The galaxy games were extrapolated through the 3D series: Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World (strong candidates for most bizarre title to a video game ever), to form which is called the "course clear" vein of 3D mario games, starting from the Galaxy games.

See, nintendo themselves differentiate between "Course-clear" 3D Mario and "Open World" 3D Mario. Once Super Mario Oddysey got announced, they came out with this interesting infographic about their classification for 3D Mario games:

Don't get me wrong again, there's nothing inherently bad about these types of Mario game, and Galaxy 2 and Mario 3D World are both some of the best video games ever created, but I think that something got lost in transition when compared to the sublime finesse of the movement system in Mario 64. The way it respects your intelligence, the way it drops you in an open world and gives you freedom, the way that its worlds are built, I think that all of this has never been paralleled, not even by nintendo themselves for some reason, and I think the reason why this happened is that, maybe the excellence of Mario 64, quirks and all, was a product of its time and the limitations in production ability for 3d content and graphics that surrounded its creation at the time.

Yet, Lo and Behold! 2017 is here and Super Mario Oddyssey is in the horizon and it promises to be the Next Big Thing (tm) since sliced bread. A TRUE and HONEST return to form, to the Glory Days of Mario 64! And the game is way too enthsiastic with its embracing of Super Mario 64 nostalgia: there's literally a whole level inspired after the Mario 64 castle grounds in Mario Oddysey and the whole notion of absolute freedom from Mario 64 (somewhat) returns (but not completely because you still are subject to doing a main big event per level, after which the rest of the level unlocks; once you clear the game, the second half of the game unlocks even). And the emphasis is back into acrobatics again, which is a good thing: playing with your hat can get you places if you're handy with it.

But my biggest gripe with Super Mario Oddysey is that it's not completely honest as it claims to be. It's a course-clear game hidden under a coat of paint of an open world-game. It's literally Zelda Breath of the Wild's half-assed design all over again: big empty world full of collectibles, with tiny "levels" to be found. Once you find a game, it's time to do a thing --wash rinse repeat. In Mario Oddysey you explore around until you find a pipe or a door or a character and you get plunked into a Super Mario 3D World style course-clear game with additional collectibles. So it's not really the game which it was told to be. The levels don't feel like beautiful dioramas, and the acrobatics, even if nice, are nowhere near as rich as the SM64 acrobatics. There's infinite lives this time around, so there's no real feeling of risk. The game rehashes its own content, you make a tower of goombas, cool. Then you make it again, twice as long. Then you make it again, in the water. Then you make it again, in the beach level. Then you make it again, in the ice level. Then you make it again. Then you make it again, then you make it again...

You could argue that they were onto something with the capture system, because it's an attempt to enhance the movement system while at the same time it's trying to keep things interesting, but the bad thing is that this is really not the case. Captures are contextual, and you're expected to capture an enemy, do something with it, then leave it behind, so it's not a skillset that you build up on, it's yet another course-clear level in a disguise.

So even though it's a good game, it's not the game that it set out to be, I'm sad to say. The Brilliance of Super Mario 64 is yet to be rivaled, and Nintendo should feel ashamed of it. It's been 20 years, man. Where has your mind been all along?

Alright Nintendo, to conclude, here's a freebie for you. This is how you design your next Mario game so it fucking kicks ass: you bring back the SM64 movement system and ADD ONTO IT. Do NOT take away from it, just ADD. Complexity is good in games. All of your fans are fucking 30 year olds, they can handle a complex game.

Next, you develop a vast, broad, massive open world. Think GTA-size. You set up 1200 stars and you place them all over the world in ways where it is EXCITING by itself to explore the world. Make it so people can collect stars at their own pace, ANY WAY THEY WANT, and expand the world accordingly. Keep the Super Mario Oddyssey persistence, where once you capture a moon you don't have to go back to a menu screen, that was a good addition. Embrace the diorama mentality and go nuts with the world. Fill it with waterfalls, caves, chasms, canyons, and provide the player nothing but their acrobatics to clear everything in the world. Avoid pre-scripted sequences (they can still be good for some things like bosses). And make the world seamless, none of this island in the sky thing anymore. Moving around and getting stars should be their own reward, not "getting to find a course clear level".

[barenjunges]

lonely bottles - infamous

infamous  2289 words third person limited pov present tense content warnings under cut

It’s what he sees before he closes his eyes to sleep at night, and that moment of twilight before he drifts off is his favorite time of day - he loves that sleepy feeling, and knowing that his worries can wait until tomorrow. 

content warnings: mentions of physical parental abuse, trans male issues

author’s notes: this is, like, pre-whump. the whump is upcoming. whumpcoming. um, i’m still creating with these ocs on the fly so you’re definitely witnessing something chaotic here. i make stuff up as i go along which is really unlike my usual style, so i’m going to screw up, it’s an inevitability, but i do have a page of notes to refer back to so hopefully it’ll be few and far between. anyway, this is pretty tame but i’m expecting these two to get pretty unhealthy later on so if that’ll bother you, steer clear!

ETA- my formatting isn’t transferring over correctly. i’ll. have to fix that.

The reason this particular meetcute is so important to Schuylar is because they usually happen when he’s wasted, late on a Thursday night, in a stranger’s home. He’s always sort of been the type to read his horoscope, hoping it’ll give him some hint as to when he’ll find his soulmate. He knows 20 is young technically, but these days it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and he’s starting to worry it’ll never happen. He’s worried he won’t find the love of his life while he’s sweaty and moving his hips erratically, as is his form of “dancing.” He won’t be making vows on his wedding day to the person who found him hunched over a toilet or letting his head sway while seated on a couch. He’ll never sweep anyone away - or be swept away himself - knowing they introduced themselves to each other twice, once at eleven p.m., and once at eleven a.m. the next morning because they couldn’t remember doing it the night before. 

Yeah. This is not that. 

This is a Starbucks, on campus, while he’s doing homework. He’s wearing a hoodie and sweatpants, worrying the straw of his iced coffee and staring at a notebook page full of notes he can’t make anything of. He wrote these. They should make sense to him. But there’s something about Etruscan architecture that evades him. He can’t wrap his head around the concepts he’s supposed to have absorbed. The exam isn’t for another two weeks but that’s why he’s making flash cards now, not that he’s actually crafted one yet. His stack of index cards are sitting next to him and he’s about to start swiping through the photos on his phone that he took of the slides his 68-year-old professor showed to the class. She doesn’t allow computers during lecture so he can’t search for these images while actually taking notes. He has to sneak his phone out every few minutes to take a picture and then match them to his notes. 

It’s an absolutely ludicrous system. But he hates feeling overwhelmed right before a test. And flashcards are helping him in the other classes - though they’re easier to make, given that he can just copy an image of fucking Starry Night and paste it right into his notes when his professors let him type them - so he’s determined to make them for this class, too. 

Anyway. That’s when he meets Thomas. 

Thomas is large. Pretty tall and very muscular, like he goes to the gym regularly, which is something that would do Schuylar some good. Xavier and Henry have an open invitation for him when they go but he’s too lazy and that’s all there is to it. But Thomas clearly enjoys himself to some protein shakes. He’s very tan-skinned and wearing a bright blue Polo when he approaches, which is a good thing because if he’d been covering up just how big his arms are, Schuylar might’ve brushed him off. Then again, the first thing he does is smile, and anyone who wasn’t already done in by those arms definitely would have folded from that smile. 

He’s that kind of cis guy that makes Schuylar madly envious; he wishes so badly sometimes he’d been born with that body. Not because Thomas is sexy - which he is - but because he’s Schuylar’s definition of man. So Schuylar was doomed from the beginning. Not only does he want Thomas’s body, but he wants Thomas’s body, and that’s a dangerous combination. 

He gives Schuylar a simple, “Hi,” and Schuylar doesn’t really move. His lips open up, dropping his straw back into its cup, but he’s sort of blinded by the handsomeness and sits there like a lump, staring. Thomas doesn’t seem to realize Schuylar is so enraptured. 

“Sorry to bother you,” he says. “I just noticed you were struggling with your homework.”

Schuylar, weirdly, hasn’t referred to his studying as “homework” for two years now. He feels like he’s back in high school, though that isn’t really a good thing. 

“No,” he says finally, sitting up straight and pulling his hoodie down. He was sort of slouching, nearly drooling over his laptop and didn’t notice. “I mean - I’m doing fine.”

“I didn’t mean to be a weirdo,” he says. “I’m Thomas.” So that’s when he actually learns his name. “I’m a tutor. So I’m sort of trained to spot these things and just wanted to offer to help. But if you don’t need it, I’ll leave you alone.”

By this point, Schuylar has realized exactly how hot Thomas is and scrambles desperately to get him to stick around. 

“Actually,” he says, putting his hand on the table awkwardly, “I know what I’m doing but I am having some trouble. Just scatterbrained right now.”

That’s when Schuylar has to remind himself that Thomas probably isn’t gay, and if he’s straight, he’s reading him as female. Neither of which are ideal, but there’s really no in between. Most of the time he passes, but every now and then -

But Thomas takes a seat next to him and cuts off that train of thought. 

“What have you got?”

So that’s how Schuylar meets Thomas. That’s how Schuylar’s most infamous meetcute goes down. In the record books, it’ll say, “Location: Starbucks, Time: Tuesday evening, Wearing: stained hoodie and baggy sweatpants.” He wasn’t expecting it; he really thought he’d meet his soulmate at a college party and it would be magical when their eyes met, celestial when they brushed each other’s bands. But no, it was at a four-by-four table in a major coffee shop chain - that’s how he meets him. 

That’s how Schuylar meets the man who ruins his life. 

xxx

He’s incredibly helpful. He doesn’t know art history specifically but he’s great at streamlining the flashcard making process and has amazing handwriting, too. Schuylar tells him to write them all because it’s far more legible than his own and Thomas pulls a calligraphy pen out of his bag and writes Schuylar’s name on an index card, sliding it over to him with a childlike grin. Schuylar hands it back. 

“That’s spelled wrong.”

“No way!” Thomas exclaims. “I was so excited.”

“It’s okay,” Schuylar tells him. “My family is old money. They spell it weird.”

“Alright,” he says, crumpling up the failed index card and grabbing another. “How do you spell it.”

“S-C-H-U-Y-L-A-R.”

Thomas looks down at the index card, then up at Schuylar. 

“And it’s pronounced Sky-ler?”

“It’s old money,” he repeats with a smile. “Dutch. Like, first settlers. The pilgrims who killed Native Americans. For some reason my family is confused why I’m not very proud of that.”

“You a rich boy?”

Schuylar’s heart skips a beat. He reads him as male, so that’s good, but unless he’s bisexual, this still won’t work out. Not that Thomas wants anything but to help him out with schoolwork. Schuylar pretty much thinks about three things: studying, sex, and alcohol. 

“Yep,” he nods. “And that,” he says, pointing at the discarded card, “is spelled wrong.”

Thomas grabs a normal pen and uncrumples the index card. 

“Spell it again.”

Schuylar does, and this time Thomas writes it down in regular ink first. Then he studies it for a moment and Schuylar sits in silence as he tries again. When he presents it to him, Schuylar smiles demurely. 

“So where’d you learn calligraphy?”

“I know a lot of things,” he says. “I was one of those kids who were so smart I got bored in school and had to start teaching myself other things.”

“And you chose calligraphy?”

“Well, I’d already learned three languages,” he says. “I was getting bored of linguistics.”

“So you chose art.”

“Looks like you’re into art yourself,” he says, pointing at the laptop screen. Schuylar looks at it for a moment and then sighs. 

“Yeah, I’m an art major,” he says. “Not very good, though. I just pass classes because I work hard and they feel bad for me but I don’t have the… capacity to be a tortured artist. Some of these kids… they never do the homework but then they make these amazing paintings in forty minutes and explain them and it’s like, how are humans capable of this?”

“And you’re not like that?”

“Nah,” Schuylar says. “I’m just trying to graduate. I need something to do before my trust fund kicks in.”

“Oh,” Thomas says slyly, “never gonna work a day in your life, huh?”

“No, I am,” he frowns. “I just don’t know what I wanna do yet.”

“So art is just your stalling tactic?”

“I’d like to be good at art,” he shrugs. “I’m hoping I can just be a docent or something.”

“Let me see something.”

“What?”

“Let me see your art.”

“I don’t have any. My portfolio’s at home.”

“You don’t have any photos?”

“Ugh, fine,” Schuylar says, drawing a grin from Thomas. He goes to his desktop then to a folder buried deep within the confines of his hard drive. He’s been really into textiles lately but he doesn’t have much to show for it, so he just searches for his best work. A painting from sophomore year. “Here.”

Thomas leans in. 

“Oh, shit,” he says. He studies it for a few moments. It’s just a still life. A corner of his room he sees from his bed, when he’s laying in the middle of it, clutching his back, crying. The blurriness just seems stylistic to everyone else - even his professor. But Xavier understood on a visceral level and it only took Henry a few moments to gather what it was, too. And when it clicked for him, he winced as if he belt had struck his back instead. 

“It’s just a still life.”

That’s what Schuylar tells people. It’s just a still life. And people believe him because what else are they supposed to think? In his afterword, he wrote that it’s what he sees before he closes his eyes to sleep at night, and that moment of twilight before he drifts off is his favorite time of day - he loves that sleepy feeling, and knowing that his worries can wait until tomorrow. “Very relatable,” his professor had said. He’d beamed at the praise until he remembered it was a lie. 

“It’s good though,” Thomas says. “Stylistically, but also in terms of… space. You probably do really good realism.”

“I mostly focus on color,” Schuylar shrugs. “I took a test once that said I see color better than ninety percent of the population.”

“How do they measure that?”

“They give you four squares and you have to pick the color that’s not like the other. Then they give you six squares and the colors are a little bit more similar and you do the same thing. You do it until you can’t tell the different color anymore.”

“How many boxes did you get to?”

“A hundred and forty.”

“What?!” Thomas exclaims. “And I was gonna brag about being one level away from Mensa.”

“What?” you say. “Isn’t Mensa like, the top two percent of the population?”

“Yeah, I’m in the top ten of people who have taken the test.”

“Jesus, that’s way more impressive than fucking knowing the difference between lavender and lilac.”

“Well, I’m color blind,” Thomas says. “I think I’d prefer to see color than be a genius.”

Schuylar doesn’t say anything but when he thinks about it, he does too. 

Thomas helps him finish his flashcards and then writes his number down on one. Schuylar takes it shyly and stares at it for a few moments. Most straight guys get weirded out when he tells them he identifies as male. A lot of gay guys are disappointed when he says he has a pussy. So there’s really no good way to do this, and Schuylar has never been one for tact. 

“Are you giving me your number to call for tutoring?” he asks. “Or is this a social index card?”

“Social,” he says. Which is nice, but now comes the hard part. “You can even think of it as a flirting index card if you want. But if you don’t, that’s okay, too.”

Schuylar smiles. God, this always sucks so much. 

“Are you gay?”

“Yeah,” Thomas says. “You’re straight?”

“I’m bi,” he tells him, “but… I’m trans.”

Thomas doesn’t respond, but he certainly seems put out. . 

“So… I mean, we can still hang out. But if you want, you know… dick.”

“Oh, wait,” Thomas says. “You’re a trans… guy.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, okay,” he nods. “Sorry. I thought you meant you were a chick.”

“I’m - I am a chick. Under my clothes.”

“I know, I mean… you’re a dude though, yeah?”

“I identify as one.”

“Then you’re a dude,” Thomas smiles. It’s so warm and Schuylar’s face heats up. “I’m pretty exclusively into guys.”

“So it’s okay that I have a pussy?”

Thomas laughs. 

“It’s not my place to say your body isn’t okay.”

“But you’re still interested?”

“Yeah.”

“So this is still a flirting index card?”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “It’s the last flash card in your deck. Here.”

He takes it back. He uncaps his pen and writes something on the other side, then slides it over to you once more. It says, “The phone number of the most handsome guy I’ve ever met,” and Schuylar rolls his eyes, but his big, doofy grin betrays him. 

“Study it,” he says. “If you don’t want to text me, you don’t have to. But I’ll be disappointed.”

Schuylar puts it with the rest of his flashcards before wrapping a rubber band around them. 

“I’ll text you.”

When Thomas smiles, it’s like looking into the sun - it makes Schuylar feel warm now, but man, is it gonna hurt later.