#then when we got home they started smashing the plastic eggs .

[c0rpsedemon]

at my aunt (mother's half sister)'s house and all her Other nieces and nephews are here (through her other half siblings) and they are Trashing The Place . it genuinely looks like a crime scene in here

[javelinbk]

The Beatles in Australia/NZ part 9 (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 part 7, part 8)

The boys arrive in New Zealand, John tells the best dad-joke of all time, and Paul loves big things

Bob: Now you're in New Zealand, what are you looking forward to seeing? George: I don't know... have a look at a couple of Maoris I s'pose! Bob: Anybody told you about these tikis that you have souvenirs of? George: Yeah, well we saw some in Tahiti, the tiki gods. And I don't know if these are gonna be the same... actually John and I ordered two six-foot-high tiki gods made out of wood... two each Bob: How are you going to get them home? George: Well, we ordered them in Tahiti and asked some fella to post them! Bob: John, you looking forward to seeing your Aunt Mimi again? John: Ah yes, I don't know whether I'll see her on this trip, because the place she's staying at she said is miles away Bob: Will she be going back with you? John: I don't think from this trip, no we're joining her at Sydney, you know... or Eric, or Dave, somewhere like that Bob: John, what's your reaction to the Australian trip? John: It was marvellous, well worth the trip, and we hope to come back! Right? Bob: Correct. What about the circular stage at Sydney stadium? John: Well, it was a bit off-putting the first half of the first night, you know, you don't know what's happening, you keep going one way and then going the other, but you get used to it after a couple of days Bob: Ringo, we see that Jimmie Nicol's had a lucky break back home, what do you think of that? Ringo: Well, he's having quite a few lucky breaks - all the best to him, good old Jimmie Bob: So what do you think of this kiwi that's been given to you? Ringo: What kiwi? John: That thing they gave you when we got on the plane! Ringo: That big monster? Marvellous! Bob: That's a kiwi! That's a nearly extinct New Zealand bird John: Are they that big? Ringo: Well... they're not that big really are they? Bob: No, they're about ten inches tall John: Ah well... Ringo: Well, this was about three foot! John: I knew it was a kiwi because it started polishing me shoes! (Paul sings in background) Bob: That's Paul singing in back Ringo: Yeah, that's Paul singing at the back Bob: And well, you know about tikis, these traditional symbols? Ringo: Yeah, we've got one actually, but they're a dirty load of cheats, 'cause they're only made of plastic, I want a real one! Bob: Are you going to buy one? Ringo: Well, I suppose so, if no-one gives me one Bob: What do you think of the beautiful scenery of New Zealand? Ringo: Mountains look alright (Paul keeps singing - possibly O Sole Mio) John: It looks like the moon! Bob: What's that, John? John: It looks like the moon from here! Bob: Hey, listen - what about the egg throwing at Sydney stadium? John: Well, nobody threw any at us, I don't think... oh yeah... Ringo: I wish they'd fried them first! John: Yeah... one night somebody threw one at us, we didn't know actually till we got off there was a bit of egg on my trousers, but they'd stopped throwing them by the time we got on... anyway we had people posted so as soon as they threw them we were going to get them dragged on stage and smash eggs all over the place, all over 'em! Bob: Now Paul, you were given a kiwi, a very large one - how do you feel about it? Paul: Was it a kiwi or an emu or what? Bob: It was a kiwi, that was what you wanted to see! Paul: Yes! True, well I've seen it now... we're gonna take it round with us, you know in New Zealand. I love those big things. Bob: What about the tiki, you see... they told you all about tikis? Paul: Yeah, some little gods, aren't they? Very nice. Not as good as that kangaroo you gave me though. Bob: Thank you. What about Sydney? Did you like the reception? Paul: I loved it. Knocked out completely.

More about the plastic tikis here - Beatles tiki tour – How John Lennon's plastic tiki became a Kiwi family heirloom

[hains-mae]

Flowers

(Damian x Reader) Soulmate AU

Rating: T

Ages: Damian and you are 16, everyone’s ages follow after.

Summary: Soulmate AU where the wounds on your soulmate turns into a flower tattoo on your skin, if it heals with no scars the tattoo goes away, if it heals with a scar then the tattoo stays. You are just an ordinary girl, with an ordinary life, so one might think it only makes sense that your soulmate is just as ordinary as you. But that isn’t the case. Especially not when your body is constantly littered with flowers. Some of them fade over time, some stay, but one thing is for certain – your soulmate seems to get hurt. A lot.

Notes: Hey there you guys. Recently I’ve been caught up in a Batman fever, and I can’t do anything about it. I ended up creating a challenge for my friend @mrevaunit42​ which was an “Character x Reader” Soulmate AU. Seriously, it was all in the name of fun.

And then I got caught up in it, perhaps a little too much – and created this. I’ve never written a soulmate au before, though I really wanted to. (Now I have! Yay~) So please forgive my writing since I’m a little rusty, and I hope you enjoy.

Stay safe everyone.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC. If I did, I wouldn’t make it as confusing as it is now.

I woke up to a burning sensation on my lower ribs in the middle of night. Hissing in pain I slowly pushed my feet out of the warm covers and turned on the lamp beside my bed. Pulling up my shirt I assessed the damage.

It was purple lilacs this time, stretched across the middle of my torso going horizontally to my side. I winced as the tattoo completed itself and just as the heat came, a cold chill ran through it and down my spine. Somehow it soothed the burn.

God, another one? I frowned at the beautiful flower and sighed. It worried me that my soulmate was prone to getting hurt. Sometimes the injuries made sense, like when I found them on my knees, I could easily chalk it up to falling and scraping – but injuries like these were more difficult to decipher.

How does someone normal get hurt this way?

They don’t.

“Unless they’re a criminal.” One of my friends stated dryly days ago.

“Or a hero!” Another said quickly.

Needless to say, I wasn’t in a rush to find out. Whoever this person was, I knew from the start that they were trouble.

The next time I woke, it was to the early morning rays that escaped my curtains and played a fiery dance on my eye lids. I groaned and pulled the covers up wishing I could sleep in for a couple more minutes, but I knew I couldn’t.

A few weeks ago my school, Gotham Academy, announced that they were holding their annual science fair at a convention centre as opposed to the regular school gymnasium, because surprisingly enough, Wayne Enterprise offered to fund the event.

It was no secret that Gotham’s economy was hitting below the desired margin. Many people don’t have jobs which resulted in an influx of crime in the past years. And so Wayne Enterprise collaborated with Gotham’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to raise awareness and encourage young minds to strive for a better, innovative future. They shouldered the expenses needed and created an international affair, to top it off; Wayne Ent. also offered scholarships to future college goers and internships in all their branches.

Which was why I couldn’t sleep in today. I had project to work on. In line with our team of sponsors, I decided to invent a weapon that could help the GPD when catching criminals. A gun that projects thin plastic case marbles filled with a chemical concoction that erupts into a quick hardening foam upon impact. The foam itself is not toxic, but it works with catching and detaining. It turns as hard as stone but there was another type of compound that I was in the process of creating to counter act it as a measure of safety.

I got up and started my day.

“Good morning sweetheart.” My mom greeted as I entered the kitchen. She smiled warmly at me as she placed a plate of eggs and bacon on the table.

I couldn’t help but return the gesture, walking up to her and placing a kiss on her cheek. “Morning Mom, are you working tonight?”

“I have to, but don’t worry I’ll be leaving something in the fridge for dinner.”

I thanked her and took my plate into the living room. Turning on the T.V., I easily found the news channel and watched the latest reports on Gotham’s activities.

Mom sometimes had to work on weekends just to make ends meet, which was one reason why I was so hard to get that scholarship and hopefully the internship as well. The other reason was…

A family picture caught my eye in the middle of the news and I bit back a sigh. My dad, my mom, and me. We all were smiling at the camera.

Dad was part of the Police force and died during a heist. Reports stated he was running after the criminals and got shot before he could capture them. That was another reason I chose this as my project. Dad always wanted to fight for justice, hopefully this invention could help.

I finished up my breakfast and helped my mom with chores before I slipped into science mode and continued tinkering with the project. The projectiles were complete and I was able to make 3 in total, which I stored in a small box encased with extra padding.

It was around evening after my mom left that I got another burn. I dropped the screwdriver I was holding and bit my lip. Gasping for breath I pulled my sleeve and watched another flower blossom on my forearm.

The pain was gone in an instant and the cold tickled the skin that was branded. I sighed and slowly straightened my poster. This person, after all these injuries, they better not die before I meet them. I grumbled to myself when I realised I was short on supplies. Poor planning on my part.

I grabbed my bag and locked the front door before I headed out to the nearest hardware store, careful to keep my marks hidden from view. I’ve lived in Gotham my whole life, and I knew that standing out, even in the smallest way, would lead into trouble.

The walk to the store was short and uneventful, thankfully. There were only a few customers. I manoeuvred my way between the isles and picked up what I needed. After paying at the counter I hauled my goods and ducked back into the streets. I almost wished I didn’t stop when I heard that woman cry out for help. I was unarmed, unprepared, and every cell in my body screamed at me to walk – no – run away from the scene that was unfolding before my eyes.

But she was helpless. Clad in a trench coat and rain boots, she didn’t look like much but her bag was definitely designer. The thieves in question had a knife pointed at her face. There were 6 of them. All were towering and bulky next to her petite frame. Their menacing stares struck a cold shiver in me and my hand involuntarily clutched the projectiles I was working on in my pocket. I had a feeling it would be safer with me than it would be at home, however this was not how I imagined I’d first be using them.

The woman screamed again and I clenched my palm.

I sucked in some air and got ready to shout at the perpetrators – until I felt the wind rush past my ear.

In a flash someone had swooped into the scene and kicked the man holding the knife to the ground. The sound of blades being drawn stole my attention. It was Robin. He took a stance between the woman and the men.

“Run. Now.” He told the lady.

She whimpered and scrambled up to her feet dashing towards me, towards the entrance of the alley. She zipped past and didn’t stop running till she turned the corner. I should be running too. But my eyes were fixed on the fight that was about to happen.

Robin seemed no older than me. In reality there was no way he could win against 6 huge men. But then again, this was Robin. No normal teenager.

“6 against 1.” He mused, the grip on his katana tightened. “That hardly seems fair.”

The one who held the knife, possibly the leader of the gang, growled thickly. “Get‘im boys.”

They all rushed towards him at the same time, hands in the air and weapons ready. Robin whipped his blade and easily knocked two knives down, the remaining used their strength and threw punches that looked like it would strike anyone straight to next week. The masked boy effortlessly dodged all their hits. Crouching, jumping, twisting, exactly when needed and not a second too late. His movements were precise; a quick jab below the rib striking the kidney with the handle of the sword, a sharp slam of his elbow to the chin, and to close the deal with a blunt blow force to the side of the neck. The goon fell like a tree that’s been cut down.

I gaped in awe.

The others rushed to avenge their fallen comrade, but Robin was quicker and used his blade to disable them. He kicked one of them into the brick wall, a sickening crunch echoed as the goons’ head smashed into it, then a howl of pain when Robin sliced his back. I cringed at the sight of the blood. It was a superficial wound, at least from my vantage point. The cut was deep enough to hurt and draw red, but not enough to kill.

The next lunged himself and grabbed Robin’s wrist, the boy growled and kicked him the face, forcing to free himself. He couldn’t see the other one running towards them from behind, the weapon aiming straight for Robin’s back.

“Robin!” I found my voice and screamed. “Behind you!”

He did a roundhouse kick and slammed the head of the one holding his wrist, then using the momentum back flipped and kicked the one who was behind.

I sighed in relief.

“What are you doing just standing there?!” He shouted at me as he readied himself again. “I said run!”

That got all the men’s attention. The ones that fell got back up and huffed angrily.

“Get the girl!” The leader shouted. “We can use her.” His leer sent bile rushing up my throat.

I squeaked as 3 of them started to chase me. Finally my legs listened and I dashed across the street onto the other pavement.

They were too fast though, their thundering footsteps grew closer towards me. My lungs burned as I tried to inhale some much needed oxygen, physical sports like running really weren’t my thing. I nearly tripped on an uneven tile as a scream rippled out of my throat. I braced myself for impact but it never came. Instead I felt a rush of wind across my face and a lightness below me. The ground was getting further and further away.

I realised I was being carried. Looking up, I was face to face with Red Robin.

“God thing I saw you when I did or you’d be dead meat.” He said dryly as we landed on a roof.

“Th-thank you.” I breathed, trying to gulp in as much needed air as I could. “Robin – he –“ But I didn’t know how to articulate. The adrenaline rush was messing with my head, and I could barely think straight.

Yet Red Robin nodded, understanding. He jumped off the roof and shot his grappling hook. I peered down and saw the fight started to move, from the alley to the side walk. The goons cornered Robin into a store front and were relentless as they threw punch after punch. The other 3 that were chasing me were already fighting Red just below the building that he deposited me on.

I watched in horror as the glass shattered everywhere around them. They weren’t just normal gangs I discerned, they knew how to fight. And unlike the birds and bat, they didn’t mind taking a life.

Clutching the projectiles again in my pocket, I brought them up with trembling hands.

“I hope this works.” I whispered to myself and pulled out my elastic hair tie.

Hooking one of the orbs onto the elastic, I aimed for the goons attacking Robin, and pulled as far as the band could go. Willing my hand to stop shaking, I said a silent prayer and released my hold.

Time seemed to go into slow motion as it flew across the air. I held my breath.

It hit the ground between two goons and burst into a big foamy cloud of vibrant cobalt, instantly seizing the men and solidified their prison as the concoction cooled.

Both fights stopped for a split second, as they watched the chemical reaction, which now looking back was a mistake on all parties.

I gasped and thanked whoever was listening.

The leader roared and pulled a pistol. I felt my throat tighten as the gun set a bullet free.

Robin and I cried out in pain as the bullet dug into him. Tears threatened to roll down my cheek as I clutched my burning shoulder.

A birdarang zipped towards the leader, catching his wrist and making him let go of the weapon. With a grunt, Robin kicked him hard across the chest stealing the perpetrators breath and with a quick turn, smashed his foot onto the mans jaw, cracking it before letting him fall with a loud thud.

The fight continued and Robin easily subdued his last opponent. Then he ran across the street to finish up with Red. Both of them moved in fluid motions like well trained dancers as they fought while protecting each others weak spots. They took down the last 3 goons and tied them up just as the police sirens blared within the distance.

I jumped up from my spot and turned to run but stopped when I saw the two Robins in my path.

“You.” The younger one started. “You were the one who shot the…”

I nodded wordlessly, still feeling the adrenaline coursing through my body. A nasty red splotch caught my attention and I believe they both noticed as I glanced at it. My own hand went up and clutched my shoulder unconsciously, a cold sensation rippled through where the bullet was.

“Oh my god.”

---

to be continued...

Part 2, 3, 4, 5 (end)

[kumeko]

A/N: For the @bat-famzine Bats and Birds zine! I wanted to write my fav trio, Stephanie, Tim, and Cassandra.

…

…

…

…

“Yep. Doing it here was the right choice,” Stephanie Brown confirmed, crossing her arms and nodding her head slowly as she surveyed the living room. A wide, expansive area, it was as big as the first floor of her house. Hell, the TV mounted on the wall was bigger than all the screens in her house combined. “No, it was the onlychoice.”

“Over-dramatic much?” Tim rolled his eyes, but the smile on his face said otherwise. Sitting in front of the TV in a mess of wires, he started connecting several game consoles to the TV. “Your house would have been fine.”

“It would have been only fine. Wayne Manor? Now that’s great.” With a snort, she gingerly picked up a free HDMI cord. “And you have what, five different consoles for us to play? In one night? And I’m the over dramatic one?”

“We could switch games part way,” Tim argued, untangling a controller. His tongue was stuck to the side, his brow furrowed as he concentrated on unravelling the messy pile in front of him. “I knew I shouldn’t have let Jason use these.”

“Is it possible to use…” Perched awkwardly on one of Bruce’s leather couches, Cassandra paused as she struggled to find the right word. Correcting herself, she continued, “to playa game in a night?”

“Depends on the game!” Delighted by the question, Tim immediately looked over his shoulder. “With the party type games—”

“Less talking, more doing!” Stephanie interrupted, before a huge spiel about time could occur. At the rate he talked, it’d be morning before they could play and Gotham probably couldn’t survive them taking two nights in a row off.

“Yes, yes,” Tim grumbled, puffing his cheeks as he hurried with set up.

Stephanie chuckled. Honestly, he was so ridiculous sometimes. Turning back to Cassandra, she winced. Cassandra didn’t look like she knew how to sit on a comfy couch, let alone relax, and maybe they should have done this earlier. She couldn’t even remember the last time Cassandra took time off. At the rate she was going, she’d turn into a mini-Batman. And they already had enough of that with Damian running around.

“What are you doing?”

Speak of the devil. Forcing a smile on her face, Stephanie turned around. “Heya, Damian.”

Damian gave her a pointed stare and she tried not to shiver. Sure, he was only ten, but in demon years, he’d be like sixty. Or was that dog years? At least there wasn’t bloodlust in his eyes. Or a weapon in his hands. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Not tonight.” Stephanie grinned, hand on her hip. “We’re having a sleepover.”

Damian crossed his arms, raising an unimpressed brow. “So you’re slacking off.”

Part of her wondered if Bruce was rubbing off on him or vice versa. Her smile strained as she tried not to frown. “No, we’re taking a well-deserved break.”

“He doesn’t understand what that is,” Tim snipped, setting down the Switch. Finished untangling, he turned on the system and flipped on the T.V. When the screen stayed black, he frowned and fiddled with the controller. “Talk to him like you’d talk to a five-year-old.”

“I suppose she would have a lot of experience, dealing with you.” Damian casually strolled over to Tim.

Tim opened his mouth to argue, but there really was no going around that burn. It was almost impossible to get the last word with Damian; she would know. No, there was only one way this could end. Tim’s hand was already curled around a controller, his weapon of choice, and while Damian looked unarmed, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had at least ten knives hidden in his dress pants. Eyes darting from one boy to the other, Stephanie wasn’t sure if she should separate them before they stained the carpet with blood or run to the kitchen to get popcorn.

Damian pressed a button on the side of the screen and it flickered on. Lips curling into a smirk, he sneered, “Can’t even manage this much, Drake?” And just as suddenly as he had entered the room, he left.

“I hate that kid,” Tim muttered grumpily.

Stephanie patted his back consolingly. “I know. I know.”

-x-

“Jump!” Stephanie yelled, pressed up against Cassandra’s left side. When her friend gave her an owlish blink, she shouted, “X. HIT X.”

“Right.” Cassandra quickly pressed the right button, bouncing on her seat slightly. On the screen, Mario jumped to safety as a black bullet smashed into the wall beneath him. A narrow escape. Too narrow.

“Safe,” Stephanie sighed, slumping over and resting her head on Cassandra’s shoulder. Man, it was more stressful than she’d expected, watching Cassandra play. For someone who picked up every way to kill a man just by watching it once, she was an unexpectedly slow study on video game controls.

On Cassandra’s other side, Tim gave her a curious look. “Are there too many buttons to remember?”

“No, not that…” Cassandra stared at the little controller in her hands, her fingers lightly brushing over the various buttons. The tracking pad. Mario shuffled in spot, waiting to move. “I just want to do it myself.”

Stephanie looked up, eyebrow raised. “You mean, run through the forest fighting off bullets and bombs and weird turtle guys?”

“Yes.” Cassandra paused, then shook her head. “No. I want to…I want to jump. To run. To do that action. When you say ‘dodge’, I want to dodge.”

“Oh!” Tim hit his fist on his open palm, realization dawning on his face. “Is that why you keep bouncing in your seat?”

“Yes.” Cassandra nodded. “I tried to…keep it still.”

“Doing a terrible job of it.” Sitting up, Stephanie stroked her chin. “Oh, is it like when I play foosball and just want to tear out the sticks and force the guys to hit the ball?”

“Kinda.” Tim shot her a deadpan stare. “But that’s mainly because you’re bad at it.”

“…them’s fighting words.” Plucking the controller out of Cassandra’s hands, she brought up the home menu. Opening Smash, she turned to Tim with a challenging smirk. “Ready for a beat down?”

“Don’t go home crying,” Tim retorted, picking up the second controller. He pushed his hair back, out of his eyes, turning on his serious mode. “What was our score? 40 to 17?”

Gritting her teeth, she swiped a finger across her neck, execution-style.

-x-

“I’m sorry.” Cassandra wrung her hands apologetically, her cheeks red with embarrassment. She hung her head shamefully, her back hunched as they headed toward the kitchen.

“It’s fine!” Tim reassured quickly, patting her back awkwardly. “We can always get new controllers.”

Arms crossed behind her head, Stephanie looked over her shoulder at the pair. “I didn’t think you could break them like that.”

“It could happen to anyone.” Tim shot her a shut-up glare.

Stephanie had never taken a hint before and she wasn’t about to start now. “No, seriously. What kinda workout do you give your fingers? Those buttons look like they were hammeredin.”

Still a little flustered, Cassandra curled her fingers in and out. “Push ups. Finger bands. I use a lot of. Uh. Methods.”

Push-ups. Stephanie cocked her head, remembering their work-outs together. Remembering Cassandra’s finger push ups. An entire human body supported by a single finger. Her mouth made an ‘o’ shape. “Riiigghhht. Got it.”

“I could teach you,” Cassandra offered, looking more enthusiastic now. She curled her hand into a fist, punching the air ahead of them. “Just like before.”

“Uhhh….” Stephanie suppressed a shudder, remembering how their first time around as teacher-student had gone. Vomiting. Bruises. Bones that felt like they should have been broken but were miraculously not. Sure, she was better now: faster, quicker, stronger, all of that jazz. Part of her feared that would make Cassandra’s spartan training even worse, that she’ll kick it up a notch thinking she didn’t have to hold back now. “I’ll…think about it.”

“Chicken!” Tim teased, chuckling.

Cassandra turned to Tim hopefully. “To make up for the controller.”

He froze mid-laugh. Like a deer in the headlights, he was only able to blink and nod.

“Fraidy cat,” Stephanie muttered, rolling her eyes. Falling back to walk apace with Cassandra, she bumped shoulders with her. “Honestly, with the allowance you guys get, I bet Tim won’t even notice the controllers.” As they entered the kitchen, she leaned forward, shooting him a questioning look. “How much do you guys get again?”

“Finished with your games, are you?” A formal, clipped tone interrupted their discussion. Alfred Pennyworth stood in front of the counter, whisking briskly in a plastic bowl. “I am afraid you will have to wait a little longer for the waffles.”

“Alfred! You remembered!” Stephanie gave Alfred a side hug. He was even wearing the frilly apron she gave him last year. “It’s been so long since I had one of your waffles!” Excited, Stephanie pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat on it backwards. Resting her chin on the chair’s back, she grinned cheerfully. “Best food ever. This is why we had to do this here.”

“The curtain’s why we have to do this here,” Tim mocked, rolling his eyes as he sat next to her.

“Didn’t you ask for the waffles?” Cassandra asked. She stood next to Alfred, watching curiously as he stirred. “For Steph.”

Tim coloured at that, turning away when Stephanie gave him a questioning look. “Cass! You weren’t supposed to say that!”

“Ooohh?” Stephanie grinned, looping an arm around his shoulders. He covered his face, but she could see his ears and they were as red as a tomato. “Did someone miss me?”

“Vey much so, Miss Stephanie.” Alfred smiled kindly, cracking an egg and adding it to the batter. “I dare say the house had been too quiet with you gone. It is good to have you back.”

“Aww, Alfred.” Stephanie could feel her own face flushing now, her skin warm, and she blew him a kiss. “I missed you too.”

“I have to apologize, though, for the state your waffles are in.” Alfred wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, before folding it neatly and returning it to his pocket. “I had created a batch with blueberries earlier but Master Damian consumed them.”

“He ate them,” Stephanie replied flatly. Her hand curled into a fist and she looked up at the ceiling, in the direction of Damian’s room. That little punk. There was no way he wanted those waffles—they weren’t ‘elite’ enough for him. She narrowed her eyes. “He’s just messing with me.”

“That’s just…” Thinking about it a little more, Tim rubbed his neck. “He is. He definitely is.”

-x-

“We should do the party game,” Stephanie suggested, scrolling through Tim’s game list. It was simple enough—throwing a die and hoping to land on the right tile. Just like Monopoly! Most importantly, it sounded like something she could win. “Pure luck.”

“You’ll still lose.” Tim picked up an old Gamecube case. “Maybe Starfox. Or Sonic.”

“You trash talking me?” Stephanie glared at him. “I beat you before and I’ll beat you again.”

“That’s like one out of—Cass?” They watched as Cassandra re-entered the living room, calmly walking over to her bag. She gave them a short nod as she reached in and pulled out a rope. “Uh…what’s that for?”

“Damian,” Cassandra replied, her voice eerily flat. She coiled the rope around her arm and headed to the door.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Stephanie dropped the Switch and a frantic Tim dived to catch it. Quickly, she ran in front of Cassandra, her arms spread wide. “What are you doing?”

“Catching Damian,” Cassandra explained, as though it was the most natural thing.

“With a rope?” She tugged the rope, trying to pry it free. “What’d he do?”

Setting the Switch down carefully, Tim stood back and crossed his arms. “Did he attack you?”

“No.” Cassandra paused, an uncharacteristic frown on her face. “He…complimented me.”

“Huh? Damian Wayne? Mr. Snobby Brat himself?’ Stephanie tried and failed to keep her jaw from dropping. Sure, she highly suspected Damian would like Cassandra; with her assassin-like skills and taciturn behaviour, she was almost everything Damian wanted to be. It was still another thing to hear it. “Then why’re so angry?”

“…he insulted you.” Cassandra walked around her, pushing open the door.

They watched her leave, Tim giving a low whistle. “Three strikes, and he’s out.”

“Do you think we should, uh, follow?” Stephanie bit her cheek when it was clear Cassandra wasn’t coming back. “It might get...bloody.”

“Oh definitely.” Tim grinned, practically skipping out the door. “I only wish I had popcorn.”

-x-

“You know, it’s too bad Damian didn’t want to join us,” Stephanie sighed, selecting her car for the race. It was a hard choice between something purple and semi-good, and something ridiculous. She went with ridiculous. Baby Daisy in a Flame Ride.

“MMMFFFFF.”

Tim snickered, pressing start. “I know. I can almost hear him now, begging to join us.”

“MMMMMNNNNNFFFF.”

“I think he is cursing us.” Cassandra looked over her shoulder curiously at the strung-up Damian. Strung upside down like a turkey, his face was red as he continued to shout. Or tried to shout. The cloth muffled most of his words. Squinting, Cassandra tried to read his body language but even with her skills, it was an impossible task. “I think he is…angry.”

“I’m sure he is.” Stephanie nodded sagely, before gently turning Cassandra’s face toward the TV. It was just like her to miss the point; they were supposed to be ignoring the jerk. “We’re also in the middle of a race.”

Doubt colouring her expression, she looked uncertainly over her shoulder at Damian’s struggling form. He swung side to side, outraged. “Should we take him down?”

“That’s what got him there in the first place,” Tim quipped. He laughed when Damian growled. “I never knew how much I needed to hear that.”

“Me neither.” Stephanie sighed blissfully. “Should have done that ages ago.” Watching as Cassandra hesitantly selected Mario, she raised a brow. “Really? Him? He’s like, the most stereotypical choice.”

Cassandra stared at her like she was crazy. “How can the others drive? They do not have thumbs. Or a license.”

“It’s…part of the game.” Well, when it was put like that, Stephanie couldn’t really argue. Giant gorillas, toads, and babies; none of them made sense as drivers. “They’re not actually—well, they are actually gorillas but…um…cartoon gorillas? Real life doesn’t really mean anything to them.” When Cassandra still looked at her questioningly, she moaned and pressed ‘x’. “Look, let’s just start the game, okay? It’ll make sense later.”

Three matches later, Stephanie wasn’t sure if it made any more sense, but it certainly hadn’t stopped Cassandra from branching out and becoming a flower monster, an elf, and a turtle. Lying on the floor, she turned her hands left and right with her car, as though she were speeding down the track with it. Not that Stephanie was much better—honestly, there was just something about a racing game that made you want to veer with it. Sitting on Cassandra’s back, she gritted her teeth as Princess Peach slammed into a tunnel wall. “That’s cheating, Tim!”

“It’s in the rules, Steph!” Tim growled back, his hip bumping into her arm as he tried to keep Link on the tracks.

“Interference!” she shouted, hitting buttons wildly. One of them would make her go faster. Or shoot down Tim. Or burn down the racetrack. “You hit my arm.”

“And you spilled my drink!”

“MMMMMHHHHH.”

“See? Damian’s on my side!”

-x-

“Ah, Miss Stephanie.” Alfred exited the kitchen, a tray in his hands. Three glasses of pop sat on them, looking far more expensive than the coke she found in the supermarket. Even the chips she brought looked elevated in a ceramic bowl, and she wasn’t sure if that was Alfred’s magic or if it was just how expensive everything else was. “I was just bringing snacks.”

“You’re the best, Alfred.” Stephanie tried to take the tray from him but he smoothly stepped out of her reach. “Alfred?”

“Allow me to perform my duties.” Alfred smiled, lowering the tray in front of her. “Drink?”

“…alright, but I’ll bring the dishes back, ok?” With a grumble, she took a glass. “My mom would kill me if she found out I did nothing.”

“I’m sure we can find something for you to do.” Alfred approached the living room, peaking in. His eyebrow raised at the sight before him. “Is that Master Damian?”

“Yeah…” Stephanie admitted sheepishly. “We’ll untie him soon. Promise.”

“When you do, I would advise Master Timothy to hide his games. I do not imagine this has made Master Damian any fonder of them.” Alfred’s smile didn’t drop, amusement colouring face. “I am surprised you managed to catch him.”

“Cass, it was all her.” Stephanie shivered, not sure what would have happened if she hadn’t been around. Death. That was probably it.

“That would explain it.” Alfred chuckled softly, turning to her. He smiled fondly. “Truly, it is good to have you back.”

Something about how he said it made it all feel official. That she was finally home, after everything. Giving him a one-armed hug, she smiled. “Me too.”

[wordydelights]

hannibal lecter and clarice starling fanfic

The air smelled of freshly brewed, dark roasted coffee and crisp, steamy flesh sizzling on the stovetop. Clarice’s eyes slightly fluttered open as she breathed in the nostalgic aromas, it brought her back to childhood memories of waking up to the smell of bacon and eggs. It was a good scent, it meant her father had the day off and got to spend it with her. Her little feet would jump out of her comfortable bed and dart into the kitchen to find her dad, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a skillet in the other. “Morning' sweetie,” he’d say with a smile. She woke up out of her daze suddenly, her eyes opening in sync with the beat of her heart. 

She glanced around, the edges of her vision blurred by morning weariness. She rubbed her eyes. As she gained awareness, her mind began to wake up with the rest of her body. She then quickly realized this time was distinctly different from her memories. 1) She was located far away from home in a four star hotel located on the east side of northern Lithuania. 2) The smell was most definitely not coming from bacon, she could recognize the signature scent of burnt skin in the middle of a barbecue, after having the misfortune of inhaling its nauseating aroma in the past. She remembered reading about it in a forensics textbook. Burning muscle tissue creates a smell similar to beef in a frying pan and the fat smells like fatty pork on the grill. You never quite get the scent of death out of your nostrils entirely, no matter how much time has passed. 

She heard a creak coming from the kitchen floorboards and jolted awake now certainly knowing she was no longer alone. Attempting to not make a single sound, she reached for her pistol lying on the wooden bedside dresser to her right. Beside it she snatched a small hunting knife, she carried for good luck and slid it in her left sock. She took a step out of the bed, the floorboards groaned slightly and she quickly changed her footing, attempting to feel out the hollow areas that lay underneath to avoid making any noise. She found her fluffy bunny slippers tucked away beneath the metal bed frame and slid her toes into its cushioned soles, muffling the pattering of her steps. Clicking the gun’s safety off slowly, she crept through the doorway keeping her body close to the wall as she peered over into the kitchen. She brought her extended arms close to her chest, the pistol now few inches away from her chin, pointed at the ceiling. She couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her breathing and the occasional pops of oil from the frying pan on the stove. 

“Good Morning Clarice,” an all too familiar voice rang within her ears, breaking the unsettling silence. “You can come out now.” 

Clarice Starling emerged from the bedroom, her gun pointed directly in line with the back of Dr. Lecter. He was sitting in a chair at the mahogany dining table, his back to Clarice, he faced the opened doors to the balcony outside, his legs were crossed nonchalantly as he read the black and white newspaper in his hands. Clarice didn’t hesitate and pulled the trigger. Click. Click. Click.

“Tsk Tsk. Naughty girl,” Dr. Lecter teased without looking back. “Why don’t you have a seat? Don’t want your breakfast getting cold.” 

She rushed to his seat, swinging the unloaded pistol at his skull. Lecter grasped her wrist tightly with his right and only hand, the pistol about an inch from smashing into his head. His eyes remained glued to the newspapers contents even as he snapped her clenched fist open and flung the gun onto the table. “You’re very predictable Starling. Do you intend on making this more difficult than it needs to be?”

Slowly she made her way to the empty seat across from him. A plate consisting of two sausages, an egg and buttered toast laid in front of her. Clarice kept her unwavering gaze steady with Lecter’s. “What do I owe the delight of your presence, Doctor Lecter? I haven’t heard from you since our previous encounter. No calls or even a letter, unusual for you.” “Writing was a luxury I unfortunately had to leave behind with my dominant hand. The right gets the job done, but the penmanship will never quite equate to the elegance before.  I was sure you of all people wouldn’t need to be reminded of such details,” Lecter smiled as he lifted the black leather glove over his prosthetic to expose it’s plastic skin. Clarice remained silent, her eyes in a deadlock with his.

“I also couldn’t bear to give you the satisfaction of answering any questions I’m sure have been floating about in that charming head of yours. It wouldn’t do any justice to a more intimate confrontation. I was originally planning on leaving your mind to be in constant torment and wonder just for my personal pleasure, but when I overheard that you came all this way to pay me a visit I simply couldn’t resist your cries for my attention,” He paused, glancing down at the plate in front of her. “Please do eat, I assure you it is up to your standards.” 

“Oh really?” Clarice started, gesturing over at the oven. “Then how do you explain that?”

“I cannot make the same promise regarding my meal,” Lecter eerily grinned. 

Starling took a bite of her eggs, the yolk ran like spilled blood throughout her plate leaving a dark yellow pool around the crisp toast. Lecter watched her throat move up and back into place as she swallowed. He leaned back satisfied. “Remind you of the way daddy made them?” he chirped.

“They’re lacking on the pepper and he never used rosemary.” 

“My mistake.” He rose from the chair and attended to the sizzling flesh on the frying pan. 

Clarice scanned the room looking for any objects that could be used as a weapon, despite the other half of her brain telling her it’s useless and he’ll simply see it coming. For the meantime she deemed it to be best to go along with his game. “Why are you here Doctor?”

“I could ask you the same Clarice.”

“Doing my job, hunting you down,” she shot back, her eyes flared like hot charcoal on a grill.

“I’m flattered, but spare the theatrics because we both know this hardly has anything to do with work,” he flipped the long chunks of fat to their opposing side with a spatula.

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“Because you are here. Because you are not a part of the Lithuanian law enforcement. Because the bureau would never send their agents overseas to investigate a criminal who's been off the radar for over three years without concrete proof of my whereabouts, which I know for a fact that I have not provided.”

“People you have had personal connections to throughout your childhood, in your hometown suddenly show up murdered, matching your profile exactly, I would say that’s a dead give away Doctor.”

“You’ve been doing your research I see.”

“Of course, how else would I have found you?”

“Tell me Clarice, are you here for business or pleasure?” His tongue flicked against the backs of his teeth.

“For justice.” “Who sent you? And do not insult my intelligence with anything shroud of the truth because I will know.” Using the metal spatula he set the meat down on his plate next to his two poached eggs. He impaled the fattiest piece with his fork, bringing it to his nose, inhaled then took a slight nibble and savored the flavor in his tongue. 

Starling took a heavy breath, her eyes dropped from his gaze. “No one sent me,” she half-muttered. “Stop me if I’m wrong Clarice but I have a feeling I haven’t left your mind since the night of our last dinner together. I know your biggest question may be; why? Why would a monster such as myself sacrifice a part of my body for you? That question ate at you inside, festering like an aged wound and grew until it consumed you, you told yourself you needed to put an end to my antics for good, and knowing just how personal it had become you made it your mission to hunt me down and lock me back in a cage. But we both know the truth don’t we? No it was never about justice...it was about not being able to deal with your reciprocated emotions. It was creating an excuse to see me once again.” Clarice kept her head facing the ground, her face was stone and expressionless, but Hannibal did not stop. Leaving the kitchen’s marble island he began to approach Starling slowly. 

“You knew I would never come back, that I would leave you alone for the remainder of your life.” He was looming over her now, his shadow darkening her features. “You knew that if we were ever to have another encounter that you would have to seek me out this time.” In that moment Clairce felt a true sense of inferiority, a feeling she was not accustomed to. His body was inches from hers, her head at level with his upper waist. She breathed in his presence, it was a pure, primal masculine aroma. He digressed and sat down at the table, his demeanor changing from sensually intimidating and virile to a common mortal in a split second. 

“Maybe you never realized these feelings until you truly began your research into my past. When you learned I suffered the same pain you felt at a young age. I assume you discovered the details regarding the death of my family?” “Yes. They were killed in a bombing.”

“Yes, everyone died except my sister Mischa and myself. We were held captive in a lodge by Nazi forces when a group of Lithuanian Hilfwillige stormed and looted the lodge. They searched the premises for food but found nothing.” He took a sip from his cup of coffee and moved his gaze to the balcony looking off into the dark clouded skies and continued.

“The blistering chill of winter combined with an empty stomach, it does something to men, brings out the savage within. Mischa and I became the menu options. I put up a fight, but Mischa...she was weak, starving herself, ill from the cold, she was an easy kill. They sodomized her corpse first before slicing her body in bite sized portions and roasting it above a fire pit.”

Clarice watched his eyes as he recalled the events. She could almost swear she saw the reflection of his memory playing like a film in the glare of his pupils. Despite no tears being shed, she felt the immacable amount of pain in the slight trembles of his voice. 

At a loss for words to speak, “I’m sorry,” was all she could let out.

“You see Clarice, monsters like myself are not born into this world with faulty wiring, we are made through suffering.” He turned back towards her, circling the metal spoon inside the coffee cup, hitting it’s ceramic edges with every rotation.

“Is that how you justify your actions Dr. Lecter?”

“I admit there are some sins I have committed I cannot truly justify; however, most of the unspeakable acts I commit I can assure you are in fact poetic justice at it’s finest.” 

Clarice dropped her eyes to her socks, where the pocket knife rubbed against her perspire, she considered her course of action, but only for a second, until she was interrupted by the rattle of the wooden chair she was sitting in. Dr. Lecter gripped the chair’s arms like he expected it to run from his grasp, and leaned close to Starling’s ear. 

“Tell me, do I excite you Clarice? Do you find me in your dreams late in the evening? I imagine I used to appear as a grotesque monster but now perhaps a lover? And when you wake up do you find yourself horrified with yourself for these thoughts you simply cannot control?” She could feel the slight prickle of his facial air as his lips grazed against her earlobe. 

“I never believed you to be a monster Doctor,” she softly spoke. 

“Is that all you have to refute?” She lifted her head and let herself drift for a moment in his pale blue eyes.“I used to wonder if you were capable of love. That night, when you spared me from pain, I found out you were. But may I ask, why me? Was it just because I was one of the first women you had spoken to in years? Because I shared some personal information no one else would dare give to you?” She positioned her left hand further to the edge of her seat and brought her corresponding foot closer in reach. “Is that really what you think of me? So desperate for the touch of a woman I fall for the first to give me any attention in years? I see goodness in you Starling. When I look at you I see the same glimmer of loss within your eyes that I see in mine. You are an unfaltering flame, always burning with a righteous desire. Your character never fails to intrigue me, the way your mind ticks, your witty remarks, your composure in the face of death. No I’ve never quite found one like you.” His thumb fell from the top of her cheekbones to the very underlying rosy purse of her bottom lip. Her breathing was fluttered, rapidly picking up in pace with every passing second, for a second she felt as though she may lose consciousness altogether.

Overcome with emotion, she pulled out the blade from her sock and held it against his throat, knocking the chair down with the commotion. 

“Do it. I won’t stop you.”

“You have to understand how crazy this is. I can’t give up my life for one of FBI’s most wanted. I’d be throwing away everything I worked so hard to achieve. This needs to end. There is nothing between us.” “Then this should make things much easier for you. Don’t hesitate Clarice.”

“I don’t want to kill you.” “I won’t be put behind bars again, you either kill me now or I disappear from the world for good.” 

Clarice let a tear roll down her cheek, pushing Hannibal against the wall behind them. The cold steel pressed Lecter’s adams apple higher up into his esophagus. He never dropped his gaze with her even as tiny beads of blood began to break through the barriers of his skin’s surface. 

She stared into his eyes, his pupils seeming to pulsate as they stared back into her. 

“I can’t,” she whispered.

 “And why is that?”

“The same reason you can’t kill me.”

“And what may that reason be Clarice?” “Don’t make me say it.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, feeling the dips of her collar bones and the rhythmic thumping of her heart. He slowly moved his caress up to her neck and locked his hands around her throat.

“I want you to tell me Clarice. I want to hear the words come out of your mouth.”

She remained silent, nervous trembles running through her body.

He began to squeeze. “Say it,” he hissed. 

She gagged for air while shaking her head no.

“Say it!” his scream echoed throughout the floor of the hotel.

With a rasped voice and tears streaming down her cheeks she whimpered, “I love you.”

With his hands still firmly gripped around her neck, he whipped her around. The walls rattled as her back slammed against them. In a midst of desire he aggressively pressed his lips against hers, his hands still squeezing tightly as she returned his embrace. The warmth of his breath was hot like smoke. He released his grasp as she began to gasp for oxygen. Black fuzziness clouded her vision as she slid down the wall to the floor. 

In that moment it all clicked in her head. A fleeting memory pushed through the adrenaline coursing through her veins and in an instant the dots regarding Lecter were somehow aligned. 

“What was your mother like?” she managed to make out in between heavy breaths. 

Puzzled by the randomness of her inquiry, Lecter responded hesitantly with a curious smile, “I feel as though she truly loved her children but was simply a very emotionally detached person.” 

Clarice’s eyes narrowed, “Did she nurse you as a child Dr. Lecter?”

“Yes.”

Clarice lowered the thin straps of her black satin nighty, her clavicle further exposed, glistening with faint beads of sweat. She took a breath in through her nose and exhaled slowly.

“Did you ever compete with Mischa for the breast?”

“I don’t remember Clarice…,” Lecter began not quite sure where she was going with the question. “If there was a competition I would’ve given it up willingly.” He found the enigma of her quivering lip excessively compelling.

She raised herself to his eye level, her glare burning like firey embers, she leaned her back against the floral wallpaper, “You will not have to compete for mine.”

Her nighty swiftly slid off her shoulders and fell to her ankles as if she manifested it to reality. Lecter’s eyes moved up and down her curves absorbing the image into the most precious capsules of his mind. Pulling him close to her chest, he bent down, inhaling the warmth resonating off her skin, his hands caressing the small of her back while his tongue followed the thin trail of swelter to her breast.

[eskaries]

hoarders by Kate Durbin

LINDA WASHINGTON, D.C.

My name is Linda, and I love cooking rotting food

My kitchen has all kinds of wonderful molds for salmon mousse, bombe mold, Mongolian firepot, got that bag of sugar with mice in it

Food is like creativity and possibilities in life jar of old nuts with bugs

But I don’t have a working refrigerator black sludge

When I buy food, I hang it from the chandelier in order to keep the rats from getting intoSafeway bag slowly rotating with moldy hummus, CVS bag with stale Special K, Yes Organic Market bag with blackened corn, Safeway bag with shriveled lettuce, CVS bag with stale Fruit Loops, Yes Organic Market bag with puckered granny apples, Safeway bag with budding onions, CVS bag with stale Cheerios, Yes Organic Market bag with old organic indecipherable

It’s as if somebody took a municipal garbage dump and just dumped it into kitchen cabinets streaked with brown goo

Or a swamp thing growing a new life form in the basement tub of old chicken bones, sweating

Or an evil witch from a fairy tale rotting peach

Or Texas Chainsaw Massacre dead squirrel in a butter dish

My daughter threatens me that everything could be condemned, that the house could fall in upside down egg carton with a postcard of the sky on it

Because I’m not doing enough to maintain kitchen sink piled with years old dirty dishes

This is a million dollar neighborhood and the neighbors are not happy, so they’ve called the zoning board smashed Starbucks cup with X2 2M N WE M handwritten on it, and rat poop on it

I’ve been living in this house about thirty years, but it was much different before 25-year-old blackened candy

It was spotless on the kitchen mantle, a figurine of an Italian villa wrapped in plastic

My husband was an abusive sociopath fossilized rat

It was like living with Jim Jones dirty unmarked bottles of black liquids

It was constantly up and down—very good, and very bad 20-year-old hot sauce that belonged to her husband that she doesn’t even like

I love you, I love you, I love you, move out, I can’t stand you apple, apple, apple, that thing in the peanut butter jar isn’t peanut butter

Even though I kept a beautiful home, he convinced me I was maggot larva

He didn’t like me to do any artwork or any crafts, so that’s why I channeled my creativity toward The Taste of Mexico, The Jewish Cookbook, Flavors of Portugal, From Hearth to Cookstove, Vegetarian Times, Scandinavian Cooking, First Ladies’ Cookbook, Julia Child’s Kitchen Wisdom

My daughter tried to convince me that the food I cooked was weird apple pie with raw chicken hearts

What’s weird about dried mealworm bodies ground up to make nice cookies oven window black with mold

She encouraged me to give up cooking and do more painting Linda made of herself looking into a hand mirror with harrowed eyes; surrounding the mirror in the painting are perfume bottles and flowers

I save old soda cans because the tin snips can be used as flowers dried orange peels Linda put on the radiator so when it turns on the house smells of oranges and rot

My husband tried to keep me from going to the doctor because I would have found out he’d given me venereal disease, so it got worse and worse flies buzzing room to room

He left me when I was sick and then I started to lose my grip on the house over the kitchen window, a cloth with cut fruit on it

I had gone through so much, I had cried so much, and I’d gone into a frozen state old ice chest piled with oozing Breyers ice cream, popsicle sticks smothered in goo, dirty ceramic snowman, First Alert smoke alarm box, burlap Jesus, Marcus Aurelius bust wearing sunglasses

One day I might make make another mistake and eat cracked pineapple jar with something black inside

[bondsmagii]

(over the last month or so, I’ve been working on a small project for Halloween. I’ve long since been fascinated by the paranormal experiences that occur in childhood -- it seems everyone has at least one incident that occurred when they were younger that they can’t explain now. I have many, of course, but I started thinking about the children I grew up with. what were my childhood friends experiencing at the same age as I was, when we were in class together; hung around together? I managed to get in touch with several old friends I had from the ages of 8-11, and asked them to share that one incident they couldn’t explain. I have recreated the stories here, with my own narrative supported by excerpts from their letters -- and it’s a pretty impressive bunch of stories.)

FINLEY

Finley shared an interesting story with me, about a place close to where we grew up in rural Ireland. As a bit of background information, this village was typical of such rural places – very small, with most people knowing everyone else, and with a lot of surrounding farmhouses in scattered locations around the village. One of these isolated houses is the focus of Finley’s story.

One Halloween, when Finely was ten or eleven years old, he was trick-or-treating with some of his friends and his younger brother Aaron, who was about eight. They’d already got a pretty decent haul from their street and a few of the other nearby ones, and they were discussing where they should go next when they were approached by another group of kids heading the opposite way. After a brief comparison of sweets, Finley noticed that these kids had some seriously impressive stuff: full-size chocolate bars, entire packets of chewy sweets, etc.

“Where did you get that from?” he asked, and the other group had a brief debate over whether or not to tell them, before figuring hey, it’s almost the end of the night, so it probably didn’t matter too much if they knew.

“You know the Commander’s house?” one of the kids asked. “If you go all the way to the front door and knock, you get the really good stuff.”

Of course Finley knew about the Commander’s house. Every kid in the village did, because it was something of a local mystery. It was nicknamed such because of one of the many rumours surrounding it that attempted to answer its strange origins; it was large and on the outskirts of the village, with a lot of land, but it didn’t belong to a farming family. Most people had therefore decided that its owner was Commander, though what he commanded depended on who you asked. Some people thought he was the regional Commander of the British Army, then still occupying the area due to decades of civil unrest; others thought he was the regional Commander of one of the country’s many paramilitary organisations, which really couldn’t be more different from the first option. Still, everyone agreed on one thing: whoever lived there was very important, and therefore very intimidating.

Something else to consider was the fact that it was widely believed that the Commander did not like to be bothered by trick-or-treaters. This was backed up by the fact that he left a bowl of treats at the end of his (very long) driveway, with a strict sign advising everyone to please take only one each; it was further backed up by the testimony of those who had failed to see the small bowl and ventured up the drive anyway, where many children and their parents had reported the Commander’s choice of Halloween decorations to be inappropriately scary. This much I can confirm myself – I remember hearing my mother’s friend complaining that her son and daughter had been left traumatised by the decorations and special effects. It was quite clear that the Commander didn’t encourage visitors to his door, but at the same time, who else in the small village could afford to be handing out full-size treats? Finley was all for trying his luck, figuring that maybe all the scary effects were to ensure that only the bravest children got the rewards.

Finley’s friends were reluctant, but not out of any fear. They pointed out the fact that it was getting late, and the Commander’s house was a decent distance outside the village. By the time they had walked there and back, it would be time to head home. In the same amount of time, they could probably get through an entire other street. In the end, Finley’s friends decided to stay and do the next street, and Finley and Aaron decided to take a chance. They all split ways, and Finley and Aaron headed for the village outskirts.

The Commander’s house couldn’t be seen from the road. It was set back up a long driveway, and surrounded by fields and trees. The walk to the house would have been fairly boring, and Finley admitted wondering if he had made the right choice. Instead of gathering up extra treats, he and Aaron were trudging up a long country road in the dark and the cold – without the buildings to keep the wind at bay, it was freezing. By the time they reached the entrance to the Commander’s drive, both brothers were shivering and a little fed up.

They couldn’t see any bowl at the end of the driveway, and they had a brief debate over whether they should risk going up there. Eventually they decided to, because they figured the Commander might have retrieved the bowl because of the fact it was getting late and any more trick-or-treaters would be unlikely; they also just didn’t want to waste the journey. They set off up the long drive.

The driveway was certainly very creepy. The trees either side were large evergreens, and they blocked out what little light there might be from the moon when it appeared between the drifting clouds. The brothers joked around at first, but the further they got from the safety of the road, the less funny everything seemed to be. All the rumours came back to them: the Commander had put real bodies on the driveway one year; another year there had been a burning car visible at the drive’s end, with horrible screams sounding from it. Aaron began insisting he could see shadowy figures moving between the trees; Finley told him to shut up, but he could see the same thing too. They seemed to flicker constantly, moving among the trees and vanishing up into the branches. Several times Finley saw a tree different from the others, one that should have lost its leaves but was dark against the sky anyway, the branches covered by a shifting mass that Finley didn’t dare look at for too long.

Eventually they made it to the house, and they were both stunned by how ordinary it looked. It was an impressively large house but in no way scary; several of the downstairs lights were on and were casting a warm glow onto the ground outside. Emboldened and all the more convinced that the Commander was packing up for the night and they had made it just in time, Finley and Aaron ran up the steps to the front door and knocked.

They had to wait a while before the door opened, and they had been on the verge of giving up when it did. The person who answered their enthusiastic “trick or treat!” didn’t exactly look thrilled to see them, Finley remembered, but he wasn’t rude either, and the woman with him – they assumed his wife – at least complimented their costumes on her way past the door. Finley noticed that inside, at least in the small area he could see, was very empty and dusty, with the walls and floors completely bare.

“You should have come by earlier,” the Commander said gruffly, grabbing a bowl from somewhere out of sight behind the door. “It’s too late now. Happy Halloween.”

He dropped something into each of their bags and closed the door.

Needless to say, Finley and Aaron were less than pleased with their reception and even less so when they saw what they had been given: a small plastic box, about an inch square, containing within it a gummy sweet shaped and coloured like a cheeseburger. Finley was especially annoyed, not being a fan of such kinds of sweet, and the brothers complained openly on their way back down the drive. Finley still noticed the strange shadowy movements, but was too annoyed to be scared.

By the time they reached the village, they had decided revenge was in order. They met back up with their friends, who had much more to show for the last hour than they did, and relayed the story. All that time wasted for one single gross sweet was not acceptable, they unanimously decided. They agreed that they would go back the next evening and egg the house because, in Finley’s words, it seemed like a totally rational and non-dickish response to the issue.

The next evening they dutifully made their way back to the house. They were only armed with one six-pack of eggs, but it was enough of a confidence boost – together with the larger group and the slightly clearer night – that they made their way up the drive quickly and fearlessly. They quietened their joking as they approached the house, but as soon as they sighted it, all their confidence vanished. A stunned silence ensured, all of them transfixed by the sight in front of them. Finley describes it best in his letter to me: 

The house was a ruin. Not a recent one, either – obviously at that age I had yet to develop my urban exploring habit but even then I knew the decay was far too advanced to be more recent than maybe twenty years. Thinking about it now, the place had to have been exposed to wind and weather for about forty years – it was comparable to some places I’ve since explored that were about that old. The roof had totally collapsed and from the ground, the night sky was visible through the glassless windows on the third floor. Water lines streaked with mould covered the building’s front. The windows Aaron and I had seen lit up just the night before were bricked up and the stairs we had climbed were cracked and covered in weeds. The whole house seemed to sag to one side, like it might collapse at any moment. Every remaining window was smashed.

The group made their way quickly out of there, unnerved and silent. By the time they reached the main road, questions and accusations were flying. None of them knew that the house had been abandoned and it certainly had never been mentioned in the village before (strongly suggesting that nobody knew), and Finley’s friends repeatedly accused him of lying about going to the house the previous night, claiming that he and Aaron had gotten scared and bailed. A heated argument ensued, at the end of which it was decided that if Finely and Aaron could produce the small burger-shaped gummies – of which none of their friends or classmates could remember receiving from any other house in the village – they would believe them.

Back at Finley and Aaron’s house, the burger gummies were quickly found and presented. What was more, in the light of the kitchen they didn’t look so great, appearing to be dry and cracked. Finley’s friends examined them and reluctantly agreed that they believed the brothers, but their reluctance turned to unease when one of Finley’s friends turned the package over to reveal the barely decipherable stamp on the bottom: a faded expiry date for January, 1971.

[paintingwithdarkness]

Can you do the 80~ is your seatbelt on with bluepulse and maybe Bart complaining that where ever there are going he can get faster? Love your stuff❤❤❤

“Is your seatbelt on?”

“Hey, Amorcito,” Jaime said as he passed through the kitchen in his and Bart’s house. His husband was standing at the counter, chopping lettuce for a salad he was making. Jaime kissed his cheek as he continued on his way towards the front door. “I’m going to the grocery store. We’re out of milk again. Is there anything else you want me to pick up?” Jaime turned back from the front door, expectantly awaiting Bart’s answer.

“Oh! I’ll come with you!” Bart dumped the knife and cutting board he’d been using into the sink, covered his salad bowl in plastic wrap, placed it in the fridge, and managed to change outfits, all in less than thirty seconds.

Jaime smiled. “Okay.” He grabbed his keys and wallet and opened the front door while Bart hopped into his shoes.

They made the walk down the driveway to where Jaime’s blue Honda Civic was parked, and then got into the car, Jaime in the driver’s seat and Bart in the passenger’s.

Jaime slammed his door shut, buckled his seatbelt and then put the keys into the ignition, starting the car. After he heard Bart’s door close as well, he turned towards his husband and asked, “Is your seatbelt on?”

Bart groaned. “I could totally just run us there faster. Do we have to drive? The car is so slow.” He tossed his head back against the heatrest, exaggerating his point.

Jaime sighed. “I know you can get there faster, Amor, but I like just being able to be normal for once. No powers, no superhero responsibilities, no saving the world; just normal civilians. Just you and me.” He placed his hand on Bart’s knee, looking over at him with soft eyes.

Bart caved immediately. “Fine, but only if I can pick the music.” He leaned to the side to cross the small gap between them, swallowing Jaime’s giggles as their lips met in a short kiss.

“Seatbelt,” Jaime reminded when they pulled away from one another. Bart groaned, but clicked the buckle into place nonetheless.

Jaime put the car into reverse and pulled down the driveway. Before they were at the end of the street, Bart was already bopping along to a song on the radio. While Jaime himself was more of an Indie Rock fan, Bart tended to go for the newer Pop songs, only half of which Jaime knew the words to. He did get great amusement out of watching his husband trying to dance along to the beat in his seat though.

About halfway to the store Bart voiced the expected, “Are we there yet?” to which Jaime replied, “No, Cariño. You have to be patient.” It only earned a groan from the younger man, in response.

Bart slumped down in his seat and began playing with the window, rolling it up and down repetitively until Jaime put the childlocks on, ruining his fun. Bart glared at him through the rear view mirror.

“Sorry Amor,” Jaime said, checking his side mirror as he changed lanes, “you were driving me crazy.”

“No,” Bart protested, “you’re driving me crazy. Literally. How much longer until we get there?”

Jaime turned on his blinker as he pulled into the parking lot of the store. “We’re here now,” Jaime said, a small smile creeping onto his lips as he noticed the look of relief on his husband’s face. As soon as the little blue Civic was parked, Bart leaped out of the car, and after checking to make sure no one in the parking lot was paying attention, did a quick lap around the car.

Jaime chuckled at the expected, but endearing antics. “I appreciate you coming with me, Cariño, but you didn’t have to if you were going to be bored.”

Bart came to a stop beside the older man. “I like spending time with you.” He cast his green eyes down to the pavement shyly, scuffing the toe of his sneaker into the asphalt.

Jaime felt a warm sensation bloom in his chest. He leaned down to kiss Bart’s temple. “That’s sweet, Amorcito.” Bart smiled back up at him and grabbed his hand.

The couple crossed the parking lot, and when they got to the door, Jaime grabbed a shopping cart from the pen. Almost immediately, Bart’s inner child made an appearance, and the auburn-haired man leaped onto the end of the cart, nearly dumping the wheeled basket over in the process.

“Bart!” Jaime hissed, cheeks flaming with embarrassment. “You’re too old for me to push you.” When he glanced around, he noticed that the other patrons were already giving them strange looks. “Get down.”

Bart pouted out his lower lip and gave Jaime his best impression of puppy eyes. Jaime shook his head. “Aww,” Bart whined. He got down off the end of the cart and walked around to Jaime’s side to stand next to him with his shoulders slumped.

Jaime rolled his eyes. He told a hold of his husband’s hands and then placed both of them on the handle of the shopping cart. “You push,” he commanded.

Jaime took off the dairy aisle, Bart following morosely behind him with the cart. When they got to the milk, Jaime placed a quart into the cart, and then turned towards the ice cream. “See anything good?” he asked Bart.

The speedster smiled. Despite his husband having ruined his fun in the car with the window, and again with refusing his ride on the shopping cart, Jaime still knew the right ways to make it up to him. He scanned the cartons lining the freezer and then pointed to a carton filled with key lime. Both he and Jaime liked the flavor, so he knew he wouldn’t be refused. Jaime nodded, and Bart fished out the ice cream to place in the cart.

“Alright,” Jaime said, “We have milk and ice cream. We could probably use some more jelly, ‘cause I think we’re almost out, and the eggs in the fridge went bad yesterday, so we need more of those too. Is there anything else you can think of, Cariño?” Jaime turned to look at the younger man.

Bart nodded and disappeared faster than Jaime could blink. An exasperated sigh escaped his lips. He hated having to remind Bart not to use his powers out of costume.

When his spouse returned, Jaime’s jaw dropped to the ground in shock. Bart had an entire armful of Chicken Whizees bags, and boxes of snack cakes, candy bars and a 12-pack of sodas tucked under the other. Jaime shook his head.

“Cariño, none of this has any nutritional value. Put it back.”

Bart’s posture fell. “All of it?” he asked, much like a child trying to urge their parents into buying them a new toy.

Jaime let out a breath through his nose. He grabbed the sodas and two packets of Chicken Whizees from Bart and placed them into the basket. “Go put the rest back. We still need jelly and eggs.”

Bart smiled and gave the older man the best salute he could manage with his arms so full. Jaime rolled his eyes, but Bart could tell he was amused. When he met his husband back at the cart again, it was decided that Bart would go to pick out the jelly while Jaime retrieved the eggs in a split division of labor.

Jaime took the shopping cart with him and carefully placed the eggs in so that they would not get smashed. He met Bart up by the checkout lines, where he was standing by the self checkout. The younger man tossed a squeezable bottle of strawberry jam into the cart. Despite it being chocked full of sugar, Jaime allowed it. He could tell Bart was getting antsy after being in the store for so long, and he wanted to get home himself.

When a checkout machine opened up, Jaime dragged the cart over and began scanning his and Bart’s groceries. Meanwhile, Bart worked on placing the items into the plastic bags provided to make everything easier to carry. Jaime swiped his credit card at the end of the transaction, and then helped Bart gather up the bags so that they could leave. On the way out, Bart returned the cart back to the pen before he and Jaime walked to the car.

The couple worked together to load their purchases into the truck, and then went around to the front of the Honda Civic to get in.

“Can I drive?” Bart asked, reaching his hand out for the keys.

Jaime frowned. “We still haven’t paid off the speeding ticket from last time, Cariño. I think it’s safer for us financially if I just drive us home.”

Bart sighed and flung open his car door, flopping into the passenger’s seat. Jaime climbed into the driver’s. They both closed their doors behind them, and Jaime reached up to buckle himself in, before twisting the keys into the ignition.

“Is your seatbelt on?” he turned to his husband and asked.

Bart groaned out a “yeah,” and reached out a hand to twist the tuning dial on the radio. Once he found a song he apparently liked, he sat back in his seat again. “Is your seatbelt on, Babe?” he asked Jaime.

The older man smiled. “Sí.”

“Alright then, let’s hurry up and get home. I was in the middle of making food, and I am hungry!”

Here you go @crash-the-mode! Thanks for the request and the compliment! They’re both appreciated. I love writing domestic bluepulse, and this was the perfect prompt for it! Hopefully you like it!

[hellzyeahwebwieldingreviews]

Untold Tales of Spider-Man 04: Better Looting Through Modern Chemistry – by John Garcia and Pierce Askegren

Surprisingly pretty good!

Peter Parker is in line at the ChemCo chemical supply house on a Friday afternoon. A man who looks vaguely familiar is in front of him. The man orders two helium cartridges but the price has gone up and he only has enough money for one. The ChemCo clerk is unsympathetic, not accepting a check or any other form of payment but cash. The man is forced to only buy one cartridge. Peter is sympathetic but can do nothing to help. He is buying plastic polymer to make web fluid, since his supply is dangerously low. But the price of the polymer has also gone up and Peter doesn't have the money to pay for it.

Back at Empire State University, Peter literally runs into Gwen Stacy. Since this story takes place "a few weeks after Amazing Spider-Man #36, May 1966", Gwen is still in her ice-queen phase concerning Pete; disdainful but trying to draw him out. She invites him to join the gang at a demonstration by sports star Johnny "The Ray" Ramos. Pete wants to go but he has to get money for his web fluid. He goes to the Daily Bugle to ask J. Jonah Jameson for an advance. It seems that JJJ is stuck without a photographer for a reception he is holding to premiere a new Bugle section on emerging technologies. He tells Peter he can get an advance at 4:30 PM if he agrees to join Jonah to photograph the reception.

At 4:30, Norton G. Fester, the man Peter saw at ChemCo, enters the Neville K. Trelayne Memorial Mineral Museum, knocks out the guard and cracks open a meteor just like the one from which he got his super-strength. He inhales the gas within and gains extra strength which he shows off by tossing a motorcycle into a fuel tanker causing a massive explosion.

Pete shows up at 4:45 to pick up his check, having spent too long in a camera shop. He gets the cash and prepares to hurry to ChemCo, which closes at 5:30. But Aunt May calls the Bugle and he wastes time talking to her as she asks him to buy eggs so she can make cookies.

At 5:00 Fester, now in his Looter costume, destroys an electrical substation with his bare hands. At 5:35 Peter shows up at ChemCo only to be told by the clerk that he's too late and must wait until Monday. Peter briefly considers using his spider-powers to break in and steal the polymer but he knows he won't do that. Just then Sally Green shows up and asks if he'd walk with her to Chesney's "a local soda fountain". Peter agrees.

Meanwhile, the Looter continues his vandalism, smashing any fire hydrants he encounters and going into subway stations and tearing up the tracks. Peter ends up at the soda fountain with Sally having a grand time. But just as he is about to invite her to join him at the Bugle reception, Flash Thompson, Harry Osborn, and Gwen show up and ruin his timing. (Aren't they supposed to be at Johnny "Ray" Ramos' demonstration?) When he hears a news report over the soda jerk's radio announcing blackouts, disastrous traffic jams, and a major fire on the Upper East Side, Peter knows Spider-Man needs to investigate. He begs off, saying he must run an errand for his Aunt but Sally thinks he is running from Flash Thompson and she loses interest in him.

On his way Uptown, Spidey runs out of web fluid so he hitches a ride from a Newscopter. The Looter, soaring through the air on his built-in helium balloon watches him. Fester muses over the fact that he was released on bail after his loss to Spidey. Knowing that he will be convicted in his upcoming trial, he has devised a plan to steal enough money so that he can skip town. As Spidey deals with the burning fuel truck and the cops are busy with the other disasters, the Looter robs Cassidy's Fine Jewels. Coming upon the ruined power station, Spidey rescues the security guard who then tells him that the "costumed lunatic" who did this wore a "purple and white costume, had a backpack and a tool belt." Spidey recognizes that description. It also makes him realize who was in line in front of him at ChemCo. Then he remembers "a leaflet...casually tossed at him by J. Jonah Jameson" and he realizes where the Looter is going. (The leaflet was a list of exhibits apparently trucked in for the reception and one of them is... well, guess what?)

Sure enough, Fester crashes the Bugle reception. Having finished his crime spree, the Looter now prepares to breathe in the gas from yet another meteor, this one "nearly the size of a telephone booth." (How many of these dang meteors are there?!) Spider-Man shows up before Norton can puncture the meteor and he is forced to flee. Spidey gives chase and hangs on as Norton sails away on his balloon. Fester manages to knock Spidey off but the struggle puts a hole in the balloon. He lands and patches the balloon but in the meantime, Spidey has rescued himself as well. But Norton gets to his car (somehow) where all his loot is. Trouble is the word has gone out and the authorities are watching all of the routes off of Manhattan Island. Fester knows his only chance is to get the balloon up and running again so he goes back to ChemCo to steal a helium canister. But Spidey has deduced this and, hitching a ride with the news chopper again, gets there a head of Fester. He grabs a polymer compound and a "reagent jug with attached hose" which he combines and sprays on the Looter's feet, anchoring him to the floor. "It's not webbing, but it'll have to do" says Spidey.

Of course, Spidey takes pictures of the Looter's defeat and he hopes this will be enough to mollify JJJ for his no-show at the reception. He also grabs the bottle of liquid polymer he needs for webbing and puts the money on the counter. Tonight he's going to make some more webbing but first he has a long walk home. He wonders where he can stop to buy some eggs for Aunt May. Then it starts raining on him. "Some days, it just didn't pay to get out of bed."

I was pleasantly surprised by this tale.

The Looter is at best a C-list Spidey villain at that. Most people forget he exists and the people who do probably forget Ditko himself created him.

The fact is aside from a kind of cool mask he’s just not all that great of a bad guy which is why the people who do actually like him tend to gravitate towards the more comedic style stories with him, perhaps the classic examples being those found in the Dezago/Wieringo Sensational Spidey run.

Indeed it is one of the weaknesses of this issue that it takes the Looter rather too seriously, especially when we consider that the latter mentioned run was actually fairly recent at the time of this book’s publication.

It’s not that the Looter is bad exactly, but you do raise an eyebrow over a Spider-Man villain who literally travels via balloon. I feel like the author actually took Looter more seriously than maybe any writer before or since (including perhaps Ditko himself) because he actually puts effort into emphasizing the Looter’s smarts in regards to his equipment along with how dangerous fighting a super strong opponent can be. He’s a loser villain to Spidey, but to a civilian he’s actually quite intimidating.

I actually can’t recall off the top of my head if his motivation in this story really lines up with established canon. A lot of what he does here is basically get super strength from chemicals in meteors, his ultimate target being one from Wakanda (although weirdly vibranium is never mentioned). Again, I might be forgetting this but I could’ve sworn that’s not how his powers work. IIRC he did indeed gain super strength from the gasses of a meteor but it was a one time deal and permanent. He doesn’t need to constantly top up his power from other meteors and nor could he as they wouldn’t necessarily have the same chemicals anyway.

As for the story over all this was perhaps the best story thus far to capture the approach that the comic book UToSM took back in the day. This is rather ironic considering this is also the first story that takes place after high school which the comic series never got around to.

The comic book series rooted itself in the Ditko run and then delicately modernized the dialogue and over all writing style. I say delicately because it still felt a lot like the 1960s stuff there was just a bit more polish to the pacing, dialogue and plotting.

Whilst the second story by DeFalco sort of did that too, it was ultimately a lot heavier and a lot more emotionally engaging than Ditko/Lee’s stuff used to be. That isn’t to say it was bad or that Ditko/Lee’s stuff was bad, it’s just a matter of style. Busiek and Garcia/Askegren Garcia/Askegren’s stories’ though feel like they could be read inbetween the Ditko era material and feel fairly cohesive (obviously if this story was drawn).

Moreover this story not only feels tonally like a Busiek comic story but the plot itself could absolutely have been an issue of UToSM had the series ever hit college.

That’s it’s strength and it’s weakness though.

It is it’s weakness because just like a comic book story there is a fair chunk of action, more as the story unfolds in fact. And as I’ve said before prose is not ideally suited for comic book super hero action. This one was better  than the last story by leagues and the action wasn’t hard to follow, but I did drift off a bit during it I must admit.

Furthermore nothing really significant happens in Peter’s life in this story. Obviously I’m not expecting a tale where he gets married or something, but DeFalco’s story for example was impactful. This one isn’t, but in a way that is appropriate.

The nature of untold tales is such that you tread a fine line between doing something dramatic, but not too dramatic because readers would wonder why Spidey never brought this event up in earlier stories?

This story is perhaps the most effective one yet in this regard. It’s a fairly standard day in the life story for Peter Parker at a certain point in his life. Its nothing special but it’s good fun. A dash of normal life soap operatics mixed in with super hero action makes for a perfectly serviceable Spidey yarn.

And were this a comic I feel it would’ve been appreciated amidst the turmoil of the Clone Saga and post-Clone Saga era. Something short, simple and sweet.

However there is a little bit more to the story than that.

I feel that this story pretty much confirms a theory that’s been brewing in me about this book. Each story is in some way a representation of an aspect of Spidey lore. The first was about Spidey’s place amidst the wider Marvel universe and the uneasy relationship he has with fellow heroes. The second was about Peter’s sense of responsibility. The third was about his sibling rivalry dynamic with the Torch. And this one seems to be about the Parker Luck as almost everything that can go wrong does go wrong for Pete in this tale.*

However it isn’t overwrought or Satanically cruel like far too many attempts at depicting the Parker Luck are. The bad luck is indeed bad, but it’s reserved. It’s stuff like being in the wrong place at the wrong time or the clouds opening up when you really don’t need it.

The underlying element of bad luck is Spider-Man’s lack of web-fluid.

Obviously there are plenty of stories where Spidey runs out of webbing, but there actually aren’t a whole load where he is totally devoid of them. And this yarn is perhaps the first (and only) that practically makes that the central conceit of the story.

It’s interesting because it blends together Peter’s scientific intellect with his everyman status. He’s smart enough to make the webbing (and we learn a little bit of what goes into that process) but he still needs to pick up the raw materials from the store like everyone else would and if he’s cash strapped he ain’t swinging anywhere. Brilliantly Garcia/Askegren reflects this situation with the Looter as he too is a scientist and requires chemicals to fuel his super powered activities. Garcia/Askegren bookeneds this by having Peter and Fester literally in the same line to purchase their respective chemicals and then those same chemicals proving vital plot points in the climax.

For Fester, the loss of his helium grounds him and for Spidey he essentially improvises unrefined web fluid to subdue the Looter when all is said and done.**

Between the opening and ending of the story though, Spidey’s lack of webbing puts him on the backfoot as he can’t even travel easily from place to place. In fact Garcia/Askegren uses this fact for another plot point as Spidey hitches a ride with a news copter and this winds up scooping Jameson. The whole situation is an eloquent way of evening the odds between the Spidey and a villain who typically wouldn’t be in Spidey’s league.

The central plot just all clicks together, it all works neatly. Sometimes you don’t need a story to kick ass like DeFalco’s did, you can just enjoy it ticking along properly.

That being said the subplot is where the tale really shines. It’s tiny, practically cuttable, but it’s beautiful in it’s own way.

I am of course referring to the stuff involving Gwen and Sally Green.

The fanboy in me simply loves the fact that Garcia/Askegren like a mad man pulled one of the single most obscure characters in Spider-Man history out of the woodwork at all. This is a character who last I checked had her first and final appearance in ASM #36 and was never even mentioned again; in fact this whole issue is something of a sequel to ASM #36. The choice of using her at all then is rather clever as she’s mostly a blank slate and Garcia/Askegren doesn’t have to worry too much about what he does with her because it won’t fuck up canon.

What amazes me is that Garcia/Askegren doesn’t contradict Sally’s established personality, even though she was in just ONE issue! Her involvement in the story amounts to her bumping into Peter by chance and taking a second stab at flirting with him, which goes sort of more successfully. In ASM #36 she was sincerely interested in him and invited him to hang out because of that. But when she complimented him on his intellect in comparison to the ‘brawny athletic types’ Peter lost interest, he didn’t want to be viewed as just an egghead. Chalk it up to years of bullying or dodgy silver age writing, the point is Peter rebuffed her and Sally walked away with a negative view of Peter. Kudos to her I suppose because she tried again. Garcia/Askegren seem to have noticed the weirdness in Peter’s rejection of Sally and opted to lightly explain it away as a result of Peter’s bullying and rejection in his younger days.

Their depiction of Sally’s interest in Peter (she genuinely seems to find his brains attractive) and their brief romantic encounter is short and subtely sweet. It believably captures the innocence of youthful romance. Of course the Parker luck intervenes and the moment is ruined. Even if you were to argue that this is a cliché within Spider-Man, I still found the moment wonderfully realistic. How many in times in life have any of us been with someone, liked them, the chemistry is working and then the moment is gone and not to be recovered.

Don’t get it twisted. I’m not here to suggest to you Peter and Sally had a Miracle Romance brewing or that she was the greatest Spider-Man love interest we never had. I’m just saying this story, however briefly, captured a realistic slice of life in regards to romance. And Spider-Man is after all intended to be a reflection of real life.

Gwen is also handled interestingly here. She isn’t as over the top and basically a bully the way she was often in Ditko’s run. But she is still a harder edged Gwen Stacy who’s neither Spidey’s Virgin princess martyr nor the weeping Silver Age girlfriend she’d be later. She isn’t even the fairly bland MJ-rip-off of Romita’s early run. She’s a young woman who’s attracted to Peter and frustrated that he doesn’t reciprocate that attraction in spite of the opportunities presented to him. And yet she can tell there is something there so his lack of reciprocation is something she can’t figure out but wants to, which just compounds her frustrations. Immaturely she deals with that frustration by kind of punching down on Peter.

The scene where she and Sally are in the room together are gloriously soap opera laden but doesn’t over stay it’s welcome or become trashy. There is just a lot of passive aggressive energy in the air.

Even DeSantos’ ill suited narration and performance doesn’t do much to damper this moment or the story in general.

Over all I really, really liked this one and would both check it out again and recommend others to read/listen to it too!

*I think this idea of touching upon broad tentpoles of Spidey lore in a chronological way (the first story being set in the early High school era, the second more towards the middle, the third towards the back end and this one in the early college days) is more the remit for the book over all. It’s not really supposed to perfectly fit in with actual canon more a sort of generalized IDEA of Spider-Man canon.

**That scene also has a great Spidey line wherein he says he needed to think like the Looter and struggled when it came to thinking like an idiot.

[jessiewre]

Day 52

Tues 25th Feb

#prawnsforBarry 🍤🍤🍤

We sat at breakfast excited to have our, sorry Phil’s, new mustard accompaniment. We even managed to convince Wendy the waitress to try it. She said she liked it, but it was hard to tell if she was just being polite or not!

As had become a daily occurrence, we began to discuss when we should leave Watamu and move on. When we would actually start travelling again. Whenever we had this conversation, we seemed to add on a day - and so far we’d done this at least 4 times. We had somehow ended up on holiday while on holiday.

With Phil’s run on the Sunday, we knew we had to move and agreed we should arrive in Moshi (Tanzania) by Friday at the latest. So when Philly Tours discovered there was a daily direct bus from Mombasa to Moshi, it was decided - we would go to Mombasa on the Weds to get the 7am bus the next day. Or the Thurs. Ok probably the Thursday.

Ok well with that plan in place, we went to see my little tailor mate to order more clothes didn’t we! They were so nice and cheap, it made sense to use this opportunity to replace the pair I lost while flailing about in the Nile. So Phil ordered an extra pair of shorts and I asked for two pairs, plus a pair of culottes style trousers. I personally wanted to get the same sizing Phil had for his birthday shorts, as they were soooo comfy, but Phil said they were a little too baggy and ill fitting. He had a point to be fair, so the man measured me up but I tried hard to make it clear that I didn’t want the clothes to be too tight and uncomfortable. Watch this space.

After that, we went to the pool and as we approached, I could see that Barry was lay on the far side. He had his shades on and hadn’t noticed us yet.

‘Barry’s over there Phil’ I whispered.

‘I know’ he said ‘But I can’t be arsed right now, I’ll chat with him later’.

But the attraction of Phil was too much for Barry and he could smell him for sure. Within 30 seconds, Barry was out of his lounger and on his way over. Oh we could see that he wasn’t happy from his walk. And he didn’t need to be asked why, so he saved us a job and launched right into it.

‘I was meant to go on that boat trip today weren’t I.’

We nodded along.

‘They pissed me off so I sacked it off’.

Oh shitt. There’d been some drama in Barrytown. Well we were in by this point, so we couldn’t help but dig for more. Not that we needed to ask, we would have definitely found out either way.

‘Oh dear, what happened??’

‘Well...’

Barry took a deep breath.

‘Some bloke met me at the front of the hotel, but there was no tuc tuc, so I said Where’s my tuc tuc? And he pointed to the beach and said Boat here. So we walked to the beach and there was no boat so I said Where’s the boat mate?? and THEN he pointed to the end of the bay. He was saying I had to walk to the other bay! So that pissed me off. That pissed me right off. I told him, I said, I don’t like walkin’. Ya know?So we eventually got to the other bay and there was a load of Italians sat about waiting for the boats and I’m looking at these boats thinkin’...I don’t fancy that. They were not even that big these boats and I thought Ya know what, I can’t be arsed with this. So I got up and walked back. Fuk it. Only lost $20, I don’t even care’

And that was Barry’s boat trip.

Being the great friend that he is, Phil got into the pool with angry Barry to cool him down and comfort him with kind words and a quick head rub.

Kiddddinnnnnnggg

They just chilled in the pool and actually had a lovely chat about food, Barry telling Phil about the food available at his local in Cyprus.

‘You’ve got your Pork chops, Lamb, Olive oil, Salt, pepper - its gotta be dun’ mate’

Yes Barry, quite.

Despite the inspiring meat chat, we had a cheap and simple VEGETARIAN lunch at our hotel consisting of rice, lentil Dahl, spinach and chapati and actually got ourselves organised enough to do an activity. Unheard of! I swear, the longer we had stayed in Watamu, the lazier we’d become, and an excursion out was a much needed rarity. We arrived to the Turtle Ocean Conservation and everywhere you looked were recycled items lovingly used to ingeniously build and decorate. The gardens were lined with glass bottles as flower bed edging and there were sculptures of animals & big displays made from plastic waste. It was one of those places that had a special feel about it, like it was made out of pure love and good vibes. Real wholesome like 🤓

Ruth, a passionate & knowledgeable environmentalist, showed us around the small centre and explained the many problems they (the turtles & sea life) were facing on a daily basis - pollution, lack of education, plastic waste, over-fishing, poaching - to name but a few. They had one resident turtle in at that moment. She’d been found in a fisherman’s net and was struggling with various health problems. They hoped to nurse her back to health and eventually release her back into the ocean. Luckily turtles never formed bonds or any attachement with their human carers, so once they were healthy, the release was easy - they swam straight off without looking back. It was even more important to get them better if they were a female turtle as they had the potential to reproduce. It could take months or even years before she was better - one turtle was in for 6 years before its release!

Female turtles can have over 2000 eggs in a lifetime, but due to all the obstacles they now face, it’s likely that only 1 or 2 of those eggs will go on to have their own eggs. People often think that turtles are doing really well as they see lots of pictures of them and they have so many eggs in their lives, but its a misconception. The population is rapidly decreasing.

We ended the tour passing past an entrance to a garden area and I asked Ruth if we could go in. She said yes, but she didn’t seem to think it was really worth a look. I don’t know why, as there were some amazing art sculptures in there. There was a huge jellyfish made from plastic bags and a massive turtle made of bottle tops, plus there was a sort of turtle graveyard with all the shells they’d collected from the poaching. The whole area was like a sort of secret garden, with winding paths and hidden corners and it was clear to me that this garden could be utilised and made more of a feature for the centre. It would be far more engaging by adding a challenge or treasure hunt type activity. I discussed it with Ruth and explained my idea, saying they could have a simple paper sheet with tasks & questions to answer. They could sell for like $1, and then kids could go round the garden finding the answers by using fact boards placed around the garden. SICK IDEA RIGHT!?
Well she thought so too, and said she was definitely going to make it happen when the next volunteers arrived! WOOP WOOP 🙌. Shame we were leaving Watamu and couldn’t stay to help. I would have smashed that. I decided I’d drop her an email afterwards to check up on the idea and see if she needed any help with it. And get a cut of the profits obvs.

The whole centre runs purely from donations and running their tours, so if you would like to donate to help the turtles, every little helps. I will post a link up after this post.

Phil had already planned to use our trip out as an opportunity to do a run and so donned on all his gear and headed off while I waited for a tuc tuc. The driver and I then overtook Phil halfway back and even the driver said Phil was ‘very fast’. I smiled proudly and agreed with him. I waited for him to finish that sentence with. ‘...for a muzungu’ but he didn’t. Wow it was a proper compliment.

We went for another late afternoon dip in the sea accompanied by a beach bar beer, and Barry the stalker appeared in the bar next to ours - it was the same bar he went to every evening to be fair. A man of habit was our Barry.

No point sitting on different tables though Barry eh...so he followed his hearts desire and came over to sit with Phil. I was there obviously, but we all know by now Barry only has eyes for Phil.

‘Someone’s sat in my seat tonight’ he said, nodding towards ‘his’ bar as he arrived.

Nightmare. Barry had rocked up to his bar and someone had sat in his favourite seat. What an absolute joke.

Phil and Barry discussed many things, one being Barry’s marriage and subsequent divorce. Why didn’t it work out I wondered? No doubt there were various reasons, but maybe Barry going to the pub 3 or 4 nights a week didn’t help. Just a thought. But for Barry it was ‘necessary’ to have his pub time. Essential. I asked whether his wife (sorry, ex-wife) ever went out, or was she just at home with their child, while he was at the pub and he said ‘I gave her every opportunity to go out with her friends’. I choked on my drink laughing as it reminded me of something Phil says sarcastically on a regular basis - ‘Thank you for the opportunity Jess’.

But my favourite topic of the evening was Barry’s ‘banter’ chat.

‘Phil, do you have banter with your mates?’

He didn’t wait for a reply

‘Cos I do.’

I interjected at this point to mention that we both enjoyed dabbling in a spot of banter from time to time, but Barry was a mans man and I’m not sure he heard me. Boys will be boys right.

‘Me and my mates used to go to this one pub a couple of nights a week and bloody hell the banter was ‘ilarious. One time, my mate went to the loo and we barricaded the door. Completely blocked it, he couldn’t get out! Oh we had sucha laugh. Another time, this guy started a fight with my mate, over nuffing, and we all jumped on, then the barman - he was a big lad - he just picked the fella up and THREW him out the door! Honestly it was HILARIOUS. Oh ha and once, we got a painting that was on the wall, took it off, and we screwed it to the ceiling. Oh god, the landlord didn’t find it for weeks! Honestly Phil, so funny mate....’

 

Listening to Barry’s bountiful banter tales of mischief and man fun was thoroughly entertaining (gosh imagine the thrills of it. I can’t wait to get home and do the painting on the ceiling trick at my, sorry, Mum and Dads house) but I decided to leave them to it and walk up to my tailor bloke to collect the items before he closed.

My plan was to try the new items on and give feedback if necessary. But by the time I walked down the beach and then the pitch black beach road at high speed, I was sweating so profusely that I wasn’t thinking straight. I lost approximately 3 litres of sweat trying on the various shorts and trousers only to discover they were FAR too tight for me - but the boss guy wasn’t even there and I was SO hot that I just paid up and ran out of the shack. As I walked back along the beach, I already decided I would have to go back the next morning to get the trousers changed at the very least.

By the time I got back to the lads, Barry and Phil had settled in for the night and had even got themselves double stacked chairs to sit on for additional support (Barry was not a small chap). My plan to eat at a nice restaurant I’d spotted was rapidly fading away and in a desperate attempt to entice me to warm to the idea of a romantic meal for 3 on the beach, Phil announced he wanted prawns for dinner.

Now let me tell you - Phil has never, EVER, in his life ordered prawns. He has occasionally eaten prawns off my plate, and ONLY when I have thoroughly de-shelled and prepped them as though he was a baby (or Roy McCusker). So I could hardly say No could I, and to be honest, I was impressed by his boldness and also intrigued to see how the hell he was going to handle de-shelling prawns for the first time in his life. All with an audience (ok, just Barry). This was going to be a sight to see.

After we ordered the food though, Phil decided to announce he was going for a quick shower, so Barry and I finally got some time to ourselves. Great. It’s what we’d both been craving.

I stuck with what I know and chatted about different countries etc and ended up showing Barry some pictures of Mexico on my phone. Easy win. But suddenly a WhatsApp message popped up on the screen and it was a video of Phil singing as he got into the shower. I VERY quickly swiped it away and thought PHEW, I’ve just about got away with that one. I continued to show pictures of Mexican cenotes when another message appeared. This one was something like this

🤪🥰😍

Ok well this one was also cringe, so I quickly shifted the phone away to turn it onto airplane mode.

And thank god I did, as the next message Phil sent me popped up on the screen just as I moved it from Barry’s view:

#prawnsforBarry

Ok so at this point, I told Barry the phone was no longer working.

Phil returned (THANK GOD FOR THAT) wearing the newly altered mustard shirt, but Barry pointed that the pocket was still on the wonk. Dammit he was right as well. During the hour wait for these prawns, the topic I’d of how we met was bought up. I happily told Barry we met in a gay club and that we both had best friends who were gay. That’s right Barry. GAY. Oooh how was this going to go down I wondered...

We started off ok. Barry said he used to know a guy at work and he invited him to some of his dinner parties a few times. How nice of you Barry.

Lovely. But where’s the ‘but’...?

Ah ha, here it is

‘I don’t have a problem with it...’

Yes Barry, go on...

‘I don’t have a problem with it...but...’ (there it was) ‘...but when it comes up on TV and there’s two blokes kissing, I mean, ya know I don’t wana see that’. Barry pulled a face of disgust.

It was my turn to jump in

‘But I suppose two girls kissing is ok to see?’

Barry raised his eyebrows and avoided eye contact.

‘Well...you don’t see so much of that do you, its always blokes’

‘Apart from in porn right? Lots of men don’t mind gay kissing when its women doing it and its for their gratification. Kind of ironic really isn’t it!’ I said.

What I also wanted to say was:

I hate to break it to you Barry but you DO have a problem with it.

People are allowed to be uncomfortable with it, that is their right, but they need to understand that therefore they DO have a problem with it. And if that’s the case, then it would be better for everyone if those people kept their prejudice and judgement on the matter completely to themselves. It is homophobic to say ‘I don’t wana see that’ and talking like that is not helpful to anyone.

But what I actually explained to Barry was that of course he was not alone in his discomfort and many men and some women of his generation, and other generations too, would feel uncomfortable. This was likely due to the fact they had not been bought up to see gay culture and had been surrounded by homophobic language, media and culture in their life. If they were conscious and aware about why they felt the way they did, they might feel more comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I’m not sure how much of it he took in. Things went rapidly downhill after this when I mentioned the plastic straw issue to the waiter and Barry forgot he’d already told Phil about his Greta Thunberg joke meme (he definitely didn’t know it was a meme, but it was a meme). I managed to hear properly this time. Are you ready? Apologies in advance for this.

He described it as a picture of Greta Thunberg and at the top of it, it said ‘F**k the climate’ and at the bottom it said ‘I’ve discovered c**k’..

Not only was it a bizarre and offensive, it was not funny.

What IS funny is how a 70 year old man was so uncomfortable with two men kissing, but completely comfortable making a gross sexual joke about an autistic child.

Phil spoke up in response this time and said ‘Wow I mean, its pretty rude and its not really very funny. Anything she does for the climate is fantastic really’, while I said something like ‘Wow, isn’t she like 15 years old??’. To which Barry awkwardly said he thought she was 16. COOL WELL THAT MAKES IT OK THEN MATE.

So anyway - #prawnsforBarry - Phil somehow dealt with the prawns completely independent of my help which was actually unbelievable and I glowed with pride. The pace at which he was able to consume his dinner was far slower than he would have liked due to the amount of prep work required, but he got on with it like a trooper. His achievements of combating prawns alongside not being a sexist homophobe really shone that night and we went back to the hotel agreeing that we’d have dinner just us two the next day.

[muggle-writes]

Stretch Thursday

Prompt: "In front of the protagonist, the grocery store clerk just packed several large glass bottles on top of the eggs. The protagonist hears them crack."

Constraint: write in first person

(I vaguely knew how this was going to end, but everything between the first paragraph and the actual prompted moment, and then most of what came after, surprised me on its way out of my fingers.)

Gods above, could this checkout line move any slower, I wondered. Sure, there were only two people in front of me, but the haughty swaggering lump of a human being in front was questioning everything, in search of a nonexistent bargain:

(readmore should be right here but it's not hey tumblr please build a functional app ever maybe?)

Why didn't you accept this week-out-of-date coupon? Why did that coupon only apply to one package of frog eyes, not four. Are you sure this naga skin rucksack isn't on sale? I'm pretty sure the sign said it was on sale. (the leather shoulder bag in a similar size was on sale.)

The poor clerk - Ashley, their nametag said, a pin on the lanyard instructing people to use She or They pronouns - was the only person on checkout duty in the early afternoon. She seemed flustered, but answered every single question in the same patient, even tone of voice.

I wouldn't be able to do that. Actually, when I worked in retail, I got fired from three different jobs for intimidating customers when they started acting like that. Like just because they cleared out a nest of giant rats on the outskirts of town or prevented a band of goblins from establishing a camp in the caves just across the river, that they're entitled to luxury and hero worship, or at least special privileges, from the rest of us. Thank goodness I finally got a job with the local theater, my talents in projecting illusions finally celebrated for dressing the actors up with "no effort" (on the part of the makeup team, not that I don't stretch my magic as far as it can go and then some every night at rehearsal and for hours at a time eight days straight when our shows are open to the public, to turn the bright-but-plain frocks into resplendent ball gowns and every other bit of nonsense that was asked of me). And that's so much better than when I was viewed with suspicion by peers and teachers alike because apparently creating tiny intangible dragons or silent fireworks and lying about my character are the exact same thing, who knew?

I reeled that train of thought back in. There was no need to be bitter about high school bullies considering I'm now living the (pre)Broadstreet dream, and most of them... Well, even the "successful" ones still work ten hour days at tedious office jobs to keep the heat on and the wards up.

The one thing that bitter spiral was good for was that by the time I forced it out of my head, Ashley was calling "have a nice day, Sir" in the same perfectly-bland tone at Mr Cheapskate as he stalked off, carrying three bags on each arm and leaving his cart half-blocking the checkout lane.

He nearly got blown off his feet as he stepped from the store's heat and calm across the ward line, a generous two feet outside the door, into the frigid wind the meteorologists were calling a sneak peek into the blizzard that should hit this weekend. Good riddance.

I met Ashley's eyes as they tapped the rune to pull the items on the conveyor belt forward. I rolled my eyes sympathetically at her forced smile and dead-exhausted eyes. (Not literally dead! Apparently my brain was stuck in high school again because I could almost hear Mrs Primfoot growling about teens and their inability to describe things accurately. Come on. The zombie revolts in Rhodesia were fifteen years ago, and hyperbole is hilarious. Do people just lose all sense of humor when they turn 30?)

Ashley didn't roll their eyes back, she probably worried about losing her job over disrespecting customers in front of other customers, but their lips twitched and their smile seemed a little less stiff.

"Just these two things?" Ashley asked, with professionally-faked curiosity, picking up a large carton of eggs to scan them. "Eggs and milk to wait out the blizzard?" Eighteen goose eggs was a bit much for waiting out a two day storm, even for a bigger family, but some people liked to overprepare. Gods knew I'd seen weirder purchases when I had to check people out. I'd seen weirder people too. This woman, with her sapphire blue, floor-length dress and gray roots belying her dark brown hair, appeared absolutely normal, even with her curls adding at least two inches in height, making her appear barely shorter than me.

"Those are golden goose eggs," the woman corrected her in a syrupy sweet tone that sent a shiver down my spine. Ashley's eyes widened - probably in recognition because they'd been too professional for anything else, but I wouldn't have blamed her for expressing horror. The only customers worse than the adventurers who thought they were better than everyone else, were the governor's many cousins, who were obscenely rich through none of their own effort and not only thought they were better than everyone else but that we were all too naive to understand that.

"For my sweet niece's fourth birthday," the woman continued as though it were obvious.

I couldn't hold back a snort and immediately faked a coughing fit so she wouldn't turn and lecture me in that same patronizing tone.

Even if a dozen golden eggs wouldn't cost me over a month's wages, the yolks, with the flakes of gold leaf suspended throughout, gave them an awful texture no matter how you prepared the eggs, and they inevitably tasted metallic. No toddler would appreciate that, not even if she was already spoiled so rotten as to only accept the priciest of gifts. Well, if the kid was allowed to smash the eggs raw and then go "panning for gold" she would probably have a blast, but something about this woman's perfectly symmetric makeup, smooth, manicured nails, and shockingly hairless arms told me that she would accept nothing less than the most picture perfect cuisine, which meant she was likely to boil the golden eggs so she could present them, polished to the classic shine.

Regular egg yolks turn chalky and disgusting when you boil them, boiled golden eggs are infinitely worse.

Ashley didn't respond beyond a mild "ah, of course" as they efficiently double-bagged the eggs and set them aside.

The woman made a vague disgruntled noise in the back of her throat, but didn't say anything.

Ashley reached for the next item, the package of six tall carafes that I was now sure were something other than plain milk. Sure enough, when Ashley picked up the package, their hand moved in an arc, as though the carafes weighed less than they expected. The additional height caused the yellow light from the enchanted ceiling to dance across the bottles, drawing my eyes to the anti-theft runes stamped on each one.

Suddenly I recognized them. If I were going to blow an entire paycheck on luxuries, I certainly wouldn't buy the two or three golden eggs I could afford with that amount, but I might splurge on a set of these corruption-identifying bottles. They were supposed to be equally good for home canning, for jams and pickles and the like, and for potions. the not-quite-clear, milky white glass promised to turn sickly green if the contents of each bottle went bad, or if poison was added, intentionally or otherwise, or if the properties of the potion inside changed even if it was still safe to drink.

As Ashley was starting to tuck the bottles into a new bag, the woman cleared her throat. "Dearie, I'm sure those will fit in with the eggs. No need to waste another bag."

Ashley hesitated. "Ma'am, it's Magemart policy to bag fragile items separately and"

"It's fine, it's fine," the woman interrupted. "There's only two items, and I don't need all this extra plastic.

"Of course, Ma'am," Ashley agreed, monotone. They opened the top of the bag of eggs, which had folded itself shut.

As Ashley tucked the bottles into the bag with the eggs, I thought I heard a sharp clink, like glass on glass. Odd, but whatever. maybe one of the bottles is loose in the package. and ran into another.

"This is your total," Ashley said, straightening up and indicating the display. Either the lack of reading the final price was another breach of policy or there was a clause in the policy about not reading numbers with more than four digits aloud. I don't remember exactly, my own job at the Magemart closest to my apartment lasted barely three days, the shortest of any of my retail jobs.

The woman swiped her credit card, and was just tucking it back away into her wallet when one of the carafes exploded with a tinkling crash that seemed to echo for ages. I flinched at the sudden noise, and Ashley jumped back with a yelp, unflappable facade forgotten.

We all looked at the fluorescent green shards for a moment. I couldn't quite believe my eyes - either I'd badly misunderstood how CI bottles were supposed to work or there was something really horrendously wrong with those eggs. Besides just being golden goose eggs I mean. All of the other bottles had dangerous green cracks spreading throughout, and another looked like it might fall apart into thousands of shards like its fellow at the slightest provocation.

Almost before I had processed what I was seeing, the woman had rallied enough to shout in Ashley's face, leaning over the counter. "What the devil did you do?"

Ashley cowered, silent tears building at the corners of her eyes. They still looked stunned, frozen in place.

"Hey!" I shouted, feigning confidence and trying to get in this woman's face to protect a fellow cashier. She ignored me. "You were the one who told them to put everything in one bag!"

That got her attention. It wasn't quite what I meant to say, but I was having trouble figuring out what I meant to say, and that slipped out in the meantime.

"And you want to defend her for what? Selling me defective goods?" the woman demanded, equally happy to yell in my face. At least I'd kind of gotten into this knowingly. "CI bottles don't work like that! Or if this is some new function, then that means these golden goose eggs are poisoned or spoilt and they shouldn't be selling them to me!" she insisted.

"What do you expect her to do?" I asked, meeting her continued shouting with a tone that I would call 'panicked' but that Sierra once called 'dangerously quiet'. "How should she have known? Is she supposed to spend her shift finding any magical item that might interact with other things, and taking it around to set it on every other item it might possibly be bagged with, to make sure there's no unexpected interaction? Should they be doing that instead of checking people out, while they're on the clock?" I tried to make the scenario obviously illogical but I think I rambled too much to get the point across.

The woman only squinted at me for a long moment before putting her nose half an inch from mine and shouting even louder than before, "I! Want! A! Manager!"

I wiped spittle off my face, and she stamped her foot, which seemed to be the impulse needed for the second and third bottles to shatter, with another echoing crash.

Someone in line behind me muttered about a manager, before rushing off. ...Probably. I didn't exactly turn to look, with the woman still glowering in my face. Hopefully they ran off to get a manager who would take this belligerent lady out of my and Ashley's faces.

Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. A manager showed up to talk to the woman right around the time she started making threats, and Ashley and the line of people waiting to check out shuffled over to a new register without glass shards everywhere.

We all kept our positions in line, so it was finally my turn to check out. My heart was still pounding from the confrontation as I handed Ashley the bag of moonstone chips to scan.

They offered me a weak smile. "Illusion magic? Isn't that really hard to learn?" Ashley asked, with a tiny but genuine spark of interest in her eyes.

I nodded before I fully processed the second question, already fumbling for my company credit card. "I work hard at it," I said, stretching the truth a little. I certainly didn't have the usual trouble developing the basics, but I push my limits near-daily at the theater and stumbling out of my comfort zone proves to me that I can do more.

"Will that be all," Ashley asked, but tapped the appropriate button on the register before I could reply, my card already poised over the place to swipe it being answer enough. "Your total is 10.53," she said, the next line in the cashiers' script that I still unfortunately have memorized.

They skipped the part of the script asking me if I wanted a receipt, just grabbed it when it printed and scribbled a quick message on the back of it, before finally presenting it to me, holding it out with the handle of the plastic bag with my moonstone inside. "Here is your receipt Ma'am."

I grabbed both, gently, and before I could pull my hand back to look at the message, she flipped her hand over to grab mine.

"Hey.... Thanks," they murmured, then let go.

I flashed her what was either a reassuring to smile or a pained grimace. Hard to tell from inside my own face. "Cashiers ought to be allowed to yell back at people like that," I said. "I'm glad I could get her attention off you."

Ashley opened their mouth to respond but the person behind me in line cleared his throat, and she turned to him, professionally flat expression back in place.

I flipped the receipt over to read what Ashley had written. It was her phone number and the message

I get off at 5. May I treat you to coffee?

I pulled out my phone to text her a yes, and fumbled putting the basket back into the stack for future customers twice before I paused typing long enough to focus on putting the basket away.

I wasn't really bothered by my klutziness. For once my hot head earned me a hot date instead of a hot mess.

[blind3dbylight]

Adventures in pest control: BATTLE ONE

So those of you who’ve been following me a long time know that I work in pest control, and have been for roughly 3.5 years. During this time I’ve racked up a few horror stories, from rodents, to roaches, to bed bugs.

I’m gonna share a few of em under the readmore. Tagged #insects for the squeamish.

First up: Light vs. German Roaches

Light vs. German Roaches: ROUND ONE

This was a couple years ago, not long after I got hired on full time.

It was a middle school in a town I’d like to forget (reasons why later). They were already a regular monthly client, but they’d developed an issue with German roaches. These little brown bastards can be brought into a home or business on cardboard or improperly packaged products. They’re known to be one of the more difficult cases to get rid of. They typically hang out around food and water sources and breed like crazy. You’ll know they are there if you see their egg capsules (called an ootheca) or pepper-like droppings around.

I get in there and am directed to the kitchens--both the main kitchen and the home ec kitchen. I catch several of them running free--not a good look for a school--and start gel baiting the hell out of every crack and crevice around I find one near. 

I had to go back there several times, even my service manager (direct superior) had to go as well (if we have to go to a certain number of callbacks, the SM has to get involved directly). It took about a month, but I finally stopped them.

Light vs. German Roaches: ROUND TWO

This was somewhat recent, though someone else handles this account now. Roughly a year ago. Some woman owned the house, but I never met her in person.

It was a residential account, and immediately upon entering, I notice this place is fucking filthy. Dishes in the sink full of old food debris, greasy, etc. The guy that was there spoke little English, if any, and gestured me towards the kitchen. I pull the stove out to get behind it and roaches are just running rampant back there. I went nuts on them with aerosol crack-and-crevice, smashed every roach that was out in the open, and it STILL wasn’t enough. The guy, and I assume any other residents, clearly did not seem (or even really WANT) to understand that the sad condition they kept the house in was part of what was keeping them around--so all I could do at that point was bait the shit out of it and hope for the best. I haven’t been back and I hope the tech who came in behind me found my effort helpful.

Light vs. German Roaches: FINAL ROUND

This one is quite recent and I’m actually going there tomorrow.

This place is one of those cheap-o Chinese buffet places. Before I even went, I got an email from my current general manager to speak with him and my current SM about it before the end of the day. When I got back to the shop, I went in and asked GM about it and what was so urgent about it.

First words out of his mouth were, “It’s filthy and full of roaches.” I laughed a little at first but then I realized he was serious.

He really wasn’t kidding. When I walked into the place for the first time, I immediately noticed the open dumpsters right next to the back loading dock, full of haphazardly thrown away food waste. Seriously, they didn’t even bag it or anything. The kitchen was equally disgusting: the floor was greasy, there was food debris under everything--even out in the fucking dining area. I was already regretting ever walking in here, and knew it was going to be a long term battle.

I start looking through the previous notes and reports on my work phone (we have this Samsung Galaxy S7 we use as an all-in-one device--GPS, phone, equipment scanner), noting both GM and the sales guy that sold the account had been there recently, basically holding their hand and telling them this shit has got to get cleaned up, this is why you have roaches.

Then I see the name on the account.

It was dead-ass the same person as the house I had gone to in Round Two. I immediately understood everything--that house was just as bad as this place. What the fuck, lady?

I started popping open our little plastic monitors--these have a glue board inside of them and it helps us gauge activity levels and hot-spots of frequent pest travel. Most had a good number of roaches in them, yes, even the ones hidden around the dining area. That should give you an idea of how bad this place was about sanitation, and I’m still trying to figure out how they haven’t been shut down.

Then I get to one in the kitchen.

As soon as I pick it up, numerous roach nymphs start running out of it. I actually get it open, and hundreds of roaches start bolting out of it, all trying to get away from me. It was all I could do not to yell “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST” and bitch out the management then and there about letting it get this bad. Seriously, how did they not get shut down for this?

But I kept my composure and destroyed any roach I could catch. I’d learned a new trick--a liquid concentrate I carried in my truck had a note in its label that it could be tank mixed with another appropriate product. I mixed up about a gallon of this stuff in my hand sprayer, and combined it with an insect growth regulator (IGR) that also had that label note, and just went to fucking town on every stupid little crack, crevice, and void the little bastards were possibly hiding in. I then wrote a rather harsh, yet professional, report basically telling them to clean it the fuck up in there or they’ll never get rid of them.

NEXT TIME: Light vs. The World (or, Light vs. Rodents)

[aurorastardust13]

I am SO happy

So about 4 days ago my brother was working in the yard and he was getting rid of this big old plastic pot we had that was already falling apart. To fit it in the garbage bag he had to smash it into smaller pieces with a shovel.

But when he dumped out the dirt....

...eggs. Ten little eggs.

My mom brought them in to show me. Not knowing what they were or if they were dangerous or not, she asked me if I wanted to take one and open it up outside to make sure it wasn’t full of baby bugs or something. I told her that they were definitely reptile eggs but she was still giving them the ‘I-still-don’t-trust-that-they-aren’t-bugs’ look.

I knew there was no way it was full of bugs and I wouldn’t be able to get it off my mind if we cut one out and killed it. But then I remembered candling.

If you don’t know what candling is, it’s when you put a flashlight under an egg to check if it’s fertile or not.

So I told her to hold on and I ran to get a flashlight.

Lo and behold they were not bugs.

It was our first time ever candling anything so we weren’t exactly sure what to look for. The only videos I had ever seen for candling an egg was a video talking about how some geckos lay eggs without a mate but there is a rare chance they could be fertile anyway; the eggs in the video were always empty though. So we checked all the eggs and they were all alive and responsive. I managed to convince my family that I was 99% sure they were lizards of some kind.

Since we kind of accidentally destroyed their nest and a storm was coming we set out to give them somewhere safe to hatch.

 We got a pot and filled it with damp dirt like the one we found them in but smaller. After candling each egg, we made a divot in the dirt and placed each egg half in and half off, careful not to turn them too much and damage them.

My mom did some research and found that the eggs needed to be kept somewhere with good humidity so we got a plastic book crate, drilled some holes in it, and filled the bottom with wet paper towels.

The mystery eggs were put in the garage where it was just as hot as outside but safe from the huge thunderstorm.

Day 2 of eggs and nothing happened. We didn’t think anything would happen just yet but we were all a little worried that we were doing the wrong thing. It was my day to go finish up cleaning up the dirt and shards from the broken pot in the yard when I found another egg.

I picked it up and it wasn’t as firm as the others. In fact it was leaking. I called my mom and candled the little guy. He was just as alive as the others were. There wasn’t much room in the new incubator with the other eggs so we got a tiny beta fish tank we haven’t used in years and fixed it up for the egg. We put it in the garage next to the others.

Now this egg had me worried. He had been out in the storm with a damaged egg. I would go out and check on him throughout the day. Not a thing happened and I was starting to worry that he didn’t make it.

Day 3 of eggs was interesting. I went out to check again on little egg 11 with my mom. She asked how the others were doing and wanted to see. It was fogged up on the inside so I shone a light through and saw it. A head! A little baby lizard head poking out of the egg! 

The incubator was taken inside and everyone was gathered around the table. We would all switch from watching the eggs, to someone doing research, to checking the eggs, to setting up the empty tank we had, to checking the eggs again.

All together 4 little lizards were hatching. They’d kick for a bit in their eggs but then fall asleep because it was so tiring. 

After a while my mom got concerned about one that hadn’t opened its eyes in ages. It wasn’t moving. I picked up the egg and put it in my hand. I rubbed the shell and gently gave it little tugs. Then out the baby came!

This little guy came out healthy and fast. After a brief look-around he ran out of my hand and back into the pot. Then over the edge of the pot to explore the hides we fit in. 

After 4 of the babies fully hatched and we figured out what we were going to do, we put the incubators in the spare tank we had so we could keep an eye on them. At that point it was a little past 1:00am and a 5th egg started to hatch.

Day 4 of eggs and lizards we went to the local pet store to get something that these super small babies could eat. Luckily, Petco carries super small crickets and meal worms. We loaded up on reptile supplies: bus, vitamin dust, hides, heat lamps, you name it we probably bought it.

Upon getting home my mother and I readied the tank.

At that point all but two eggs had hatched. One we thought wasn’t going to make it because it didn’t react when I candled it, and the other was number 11 who was found a day late and broken. We decided to move the two into one incubator instead of two while we moved 9 of the lizards into their temporary home.

When we look for them they were hiding in the incubator all curled up together under a plant we had put in. They actually seem to do that everywhere they decide to hide which is kind of surprising to me. I thought they were going to all be really territorial with each other. But they seem to like each other more than I thought they would.

After a few hours, number 11 hatched and he was just as healthy and fast as the others despite being through the storm earlier. Not too long after that, the last egg hatched. He was much smaller than the others but equally as fast. We added them both to the tank with the others and they hid as quick as a ninja.

Day 5 of lizards was mostly setting up heat lamps and lights and worrying if they were okay. They stayed hidden under rocks and brush. We never saw them eat so we went back to researching.

Day 6 of lizards and they are alive and well! They’ve taken a liking to the new heat lamp and have been scuttling around there all day. I even saw one eat a cricket! 

Even the smallest of the bunch was enjoying himself in the warmth :)

I will continue to take care of them until it comes time to release them back to their natural habitat. I’ll keep you all updated. It’s such a strange and wonderful learning experience :) 

[thisislizheather]

March Magic 2021

Above Photo: Cherry Blossoms are in bloom at the University of Washington right now - Photo By Kai Wang

Am I alone in thinking that was the longest March of all time? It truly felt like it would never end. Usually I love my birthday month, but with everything still the way it’s been for the past year, there really didn’t feel like much of a reason to celebrate. Also, Nathan got COVID. It was awful and scary and I was worried about how he’d be, but all is well and he just got his vaccine this past weekend, which is incredible. So a real roller coaster type of month, but thank god it’s over.

Here’s everything that went down last month.

I recapped how my winter list of things to do went.

Forever an optimist, I made a list of spring things that I’d like to do. One of my favourite things to do is get a pedicure on the first day of a season. I don’t get them very often at all, so it’s a nice way to usher in some new weather.

I finished watching Superstore, which is such a great show. I would’ve never watched it on my own, so this is why you have to listen to your best friend’s recommendations sometimes. They know more than you. Also, it was weird as hell to hear the Smashing Pumpkins song Today in one episode. Just seemed like a strange pairing, them and this show. Or any show, really. But I mean they did lend a song to that Apple ad, so I guess the old days of Billy Corgan complaining about everything are over.

I read and reviewed Joan Rivers’ book Enter Talking.

I made my way back to Lilia with Irene to devour their seasonal leek focaccia & green salted butter, which is always heaven on a plate. (Me and focaccia have had a pretty strong love affair going on for some time now. I plan on making it at home soon, but I can’t decide on the flavouring I’ll want to add to it. There are too many possibilities.) We also shared two pastas: the corzetti with pine nuts, marjoram & parmigiano reggiano as well as the sheep’s milk cheese agnolotti with saffron, dried tomato & honey. Always a good meal here. Might benefit from some new pastas, though.

Above Photo: My sweet baby girl, leek focaccia & her green salted butter

Above Photo: Stunning Irene & pasta

Above Photo: I’m very excited for bread

I got my first Moderna shot! I usually have tons of anxiety around needles, but somehow it wasn’t a problem this time (maybe because I had the kindest nurse on the planet). It sounds so simple, but she told me to look away, to take a deep breath and while I was taking that breath she put the needle in and THAT WAS IT. So grateful for that advice. Must remember that for life now. I have my next shot on April 8th! (I did get COVID arm, but it went away in 24 hours so it really wasn’t a big deal.) Also, I’ll definitely ask a medical professional, but if it’s allowed then I’m definitely getting my card laminated for free.

There’s this great, cute new store called Gift Box on Broadway in Astoria. It’s very similar to Lockwood, only better. Lots of cards, gifts, beauty products, candles, that kind of thing.

It’s green garlic season and we must all celebrate! I’ve also decided that I might devote my life to compound butters. Making them, eating them, giving them away as gifts potentially. Maybe this is what’s been missing.

Google image search the vagar faroe islands and let’s go.

I can’t stop putting this Esti vegan feta on everything, it tastes exactly like regular feta only slightly less salty.

Everything from the brand Umbra is gorgeous.

These are officially (and my niece Layla can attest to it) the greatest socks on the planet. Not too tight, not too short or high, and soft as a cloud.

Best kale caesar dressing I’ve had in months. And I love the idea of using breadcrumbs instead of croutons to liven things up a bit.

I made this roasted winter citrus and wow was it hot fruit. It should be a crime to make something look this good, but taste average as hell.

I started using the app Google Keep to organize all of my lists and tasks and I love it. It’s so much better than using Notes.

HOW have I never even HEARD of Shake Shack’s Innovation Kitchen?! AND HOW HAVE I NEVER BEEN. It’s moved to the top of my current Must Visit list.

I may or may not have fallen down a rabbit hole of incredible Melissa Clark recipes. Love this woman.

If you live in Englewood, New Jersey, how do you not just LIVE at this bakery? My god. Every item. In my mouth. Now.

And listen, I’m no scientist, but this seems like huge news…?

If you find yourself anxious or unsettled, this video of lasagna being made from scratch is the most soothing thing I’ve come across in months.

Target sells candles?! I’m the last person on earth who learned this. $4 for an actually great mini candle is wild.

Tried a slice of the red velvet cake from Milk Bar and it was unexpectedly good. I don’t usually care about red velvet (because it’s a scam?), but honestly their cakes always find a way to taste amazing.

I made this cajun linguine and it was so lackluster, I hate when a pasta recipe doesn’t work out. It’s so upsetting. Also, cajun seasoning can blow me.

They’re opening a Sonic in Manhattan, which I’ve never been to before, is it worth going?

I know Eataly is for tourists, but once in awhile I like to stop in to peruse. I tried one of their prepackaged foods (the eggplant parmesan) and it was a hard pass. Just no flavouring at all. The only thing that saved the day were their individual little Italian chocolates. Always amazing. I do want to eventually try their dried pasta Afeltra since I’ve heard such good things about it.

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not ready to watch documentaries about the pandemic yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever want to. I mean… we’re still IN IT, for christ’s sake. HBO needs to just sit down.

Tell me that you know the song Sea of Love.

You had me at “cheese-oozing focaccia.”

Great piece on diet culture by Julia Turshen.

When I was in Seattle in April a few years ago, I wandered onto the University of Washington’s campus and was blown away by their gorgeous cherry blossoms. They have a livestream of them right now, if you’d like to take a look.

With plastic bags officially banned now, I desperately need a basket bag to take when I go to the farmer’s market. So f-ing lovely. Everyone will think I’m Belle or some shit.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a fresh Jamaican patty in my life, so I’m definitely going here the next time I’m in Mississauga.

I love this chickpea salad, especially after adding basil.

Some of these are actually really great tips.

How on earth have I never heard of the restaurants Dell’anima or Anfora?! They’re both under the Joe Campanale umbrella (of L’Artusi fame)! I’m so excited to go. Just look at those menus.

Speaking of, I can’t go for too long without eating the wagyu steak tartare at L’Artusi. It’s a problem. (It also makes me want to buy a really great finishing olive oil, so I’m looking into that. I’m thinking either Monini or Frantoia.)

Above Photo: Wagyu steak tartare at L’Artusi

One thing I’ve started to do that you should too: buy good butter. I stopped buying margarine many years ago and thought I was a better person for buying regular grocery store butter. But sweetie, you can do more. The butter (specifically European butter) in specialty shops or some bakeries or markets is EONS better than the run-of-the-mill basic grocery butter. And it enhances literally everything that you use it in. Right now, the butter in my fridge is beurre de baratte butter and it’s ridiculously good. Obviously I’m not going to use this butter when I’m baking because I’m not a millionaire, but when I’m making something savory for dinner? Or a compound butter? Or on top of asparagus? On some bread as a snack? It’s unreal.

Speaking of food advice: don’t buy your parmesan at the grocery store either. I’ve never had amazing parmesan from there. It’s always the same, even the expensive stuff. Get your ass to a cheese shop. Enough already, you’re an adult.

I tried a CBD chocolate and just as I thought: it’s a scam. Just like red velvet. It did nothing for nobody.

I bought this tea tree toner on a whim from The Body Shop and I might keep buying it for the rest of time. I use it on my face right when I get out of a hot shower and it’s kept my face feeling incredible lately.

A new coffee shop opened up in my neighbourhood called Coffee Avenue and I can’t recommend it enough. The macadamia milk hot chocolate blew my face off.

I finally ate at Bar Primi in the city and it was spectacular. We had the ricotta crostino with hazelnuts & truffle honey (which is almost like a dessert, it’s so good), the linguine with 4 cloves of garlic & breadcrumbs as well as the penne ragu alla bolognese with ricotta which was the very best. Can’t wait to go again. Loved the atmosphere of the place, too.

The seasonal candle is out at Trader Joe’s and it’s grapefruit, which smells perfect. I’ve finally stopped hoarding their candles and have started burning them. Only took me a year of lockdown to realize I should try to enjoy my life.

Lemon Kit-Kats exist and all is right with the world. Delicious.

I don’t go very often, but I’ll always love The Dutch. Perfect cornbread. Perfect tartare. You can’t go wrong.

Above Photo: Housemade scallion-chipotle cornbread with whipped butter

Above Photo: Wagyu steak tartare, capers, bearnaise aioli

*Note: if it seems like I eat a lot of steak tartare - I do. Good observation. It’s incredible.

Controversial opinion but the Dove chocolate peanut butter eggs are one millions times better than Reese’s peanut butter cups. I couldn’t believe it either.

This leads me to another declaration: Easter candy might be better than Halloween candy. Hear me out. Halloween candy is almost chaotic when you think of the candy options, it’s overwhelming and more often than not, disappointing. Easter candy, however, is usually always new and fresh each season. They’ve got to work harder to get you to notice Easter candy, so infact you’re getting a more well thought out product, which usually tastes better. Anyway, can you tell I’m depressed…?

I went to the new Ulta location in NYC in Herald Square and it’s great, it seems bigger than the UWS one and it’s way more convenient to visit. Must remember. Oh! But speaking of Ulta, remember how last year they had such great birthday gifts? They really dropped the ball this year. They’re trying to give a $5 Mario Badescu facial spray as the March gift?! Are you fucking serious?! That’s the worst. Literally the worst gift of all the months. Fighting every urge in my body to write them a strongly-worded letter about this. Just insanity. I didn’t even go claim it. Keep your damn gift, no spray can calm me down from this.

New love: macadamia milk in my iced coffee in the morning. Just heavenly.

I rewatched Wall-E and what a great movie. For all ages. Too perfect.

Love the song Team by Lorde.

I watched the Woody Allen & Mia Farrow documentary on HBO and it’s obviously a must watch. So many things I didn’t know about that story were shown, this man needs to be stopped.

If you ever get a new phone and you want to transfer over all of your WhatsApp messages to your new phone (and you’ve never backed them up), you can pay $40 and use this site to do it.

The new Super Mario World in Japan looks incredible.

Do not judge me, but I ordered (and returned) a SKIMS bralette. I was swayed by a few photos of women wearing it and wanted to see for myself what it felt like. Verdict: crap. Sure, the material is soft but only because it’s so poorly made and unsupportive. An immediate return. The beautiful colours of the bras are what sells the product, in my opinion. It’s so hard to find well made, beautiful browns and neutrals in undergarments.

Speaking of what’s her name, I also ordered this KKW mini lip liner set that I’m unfortunately in love with. I use it as a lip liner and filler, and each fucking one is gorgeous. I’m going to do a post to show you. You’ll see what I mean.

I came across this wonderful stationary store in Chelsea, City Papery. I could spend hours roaming the aisles in there. Made a mental note to go back to get some really beautiful envelopes (why on earth am I still buying the basic-ass white envelopes at CVS??), such a great store.

I’m proofreading a book right now about the idea of living with intention and I’ll post a link to it as soon as it’s released later this year. It’s honestly one of the best self help things I’ve read in a long time.

I’ve had a Pinterest account forever and I recently organized a lot of the recipes into seasonal categories, which has inspired me to make so many new meals this season. Check it. Also, I haven’t tried these yet, but these spring recipes (below) sound delicious.

Blueberry Ricotta Cake with Lavender Glaze

Banana Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Lemon Almond Pudding Cake

Asparagus Quiche with Hash Brown Crust

Apricot Shortbread Bars

Buttermilk Lavender Scones

Carrot Cake Bread with Nutella Cream Cheese Frosting

Lemon Olive Oil Cake with Lavender Mascarpone

I’ve mentioned my filmmaker friend Dusty before (his film Violation was at Sundance this year), well his movie is a Critic’s Pick in the The New York Times this month, which is amazing and so well deserved. Truly could not happen to a better person.

I have eaten approximately five pounds of asparagus since spring began and I can’t see myself stopping anytime soon. It’s so fucking good. One grievance: that huge, fat asparagus. Why’s it so big like that?? Unnatural as hell. Give me that thin, beautiful asparagus that’s increasingly so hard to find any day. And to anyone who’s like, “Don’t you hate how it makes your pee smell?” - why you gotta go smell your pee? Be normal, weirdo.

I did Nathan’s podcast and we talked about how it’s been so beneficial to get some intentional offline time each Sunday.

Here were the best tweets of the month.

Some things that I’m looking forward to this month: I’m trying so hard to find a way to stream the last three episodes of Stanley Tucci’s Searching For Italy which has been impossible to find, will definitely go check out Little Island, excited to maybe go to the Kusama exhibit, I’d really like to make the Carbone garlic bread, I want to locate and try milk bread, my brother Robbie told me to mix balsamic vinegar & mayo and put it on a burger so I’ll try that soon, I bought some dried Rao’s pasta so I can’t wait to make it, I’m so excited that movie theatres are opening on the 2nd here (I’ll be fully vaccinated very soon so this is great), and I’m adding a resolution: I’d like to do one new thing on the first of every month (examples: buy stock in something, eat ramen, etc.).

If you’ve got any interest in reading last month’s roundup, you can see what went down in February over here.

[thethespacecoyote]

“Fixing Christmas”

Day 9 of Requestmas! @skybloodfox wanted Rhys and Jack’s first Christmas! Modern AU. 

Featuring ornament hanging (and breaking, and fixing) shenanigans with the boys :)

Jack didn’t know that tree decorating was such a big deal to Rhys.

He’d figured that they were more or less done when he’d bought the tree and had it lugged to the mansion and installed right in front of the tall, sparkling window looking out over the lawn. Throw a couple of garlands and some stock ornaments on it, string some lights, and put up a pretty little star, and be done with it all.

But Rhys had something quite different in mind. He’d sat down with Jack one evening, with a huge stack of boxes that he must’ve been hiding somewhere that escaped Jack noticed, despite the fact that it was his own house and all.

The boxes were almost bursting with decorations that it looked Rhys had been collected for the past decade. Some were made of wood, others of plastic, and even more made of different types of glass ranging from light as spun sugar to heavy enough that Jack was pretty sure he could kill someone with them.

On top of it all, Rhys had a story behind almost every single ornament, a story he practically insisted on telling Jack as either one of them hung up each ornament. Jack nodded and hummed along, only half listening as he slid the decorations onto the branches, though more often than not where he put them didn’t satisfy Rhys, who nudged him aside and replaced the ornaments a couple inches up or down or sideways from its original position.

Jack was starting to get a crick in his spine when they, blessedly, finally came to the last box. It was long and bright red and golden with a fancy gold border around the edges. Rhys was practically giddy as he bent down besides the box, a thin layer of dusting floating from underneath the lid as he lifted it up and set it aside.

Settled in a cushion of deep red velvet were twelve ornaments, lined up in a row one after another. They were a lot bigger than the ones they had previously hung up, delicately painted and sculpted with intricate, glittery details. There was a partridge in a pear tree, four calling birds, seven swans a swilling—hell, it was all the Twelve Days of Christmas. In ornament form.

Rhys was so, so corny.

“These better be the last ones, pumpkin,” Jack warned as Rhys lifted the first out of the package, as carefully as if he were holding a faberge egg.

“These are the last ones, I promise.” Rhys smiled as he approached the tree, standing up on his tip-toes as he hung the fat glassy little partridge as high as he could reach.

“All right, now you grab the six maids a’ milking—“

“Six? Aren’t we going in order?”

“Mmm, I have like, a pattern in which I like to hang them up…saving the best for last, you know?” Rhys grinned brightly, gesturing to the box. Jack sighed, bending down to pick up the brazen sculpt of the maids tugging on cows’ udders. Real classy for Christmas.

They hung up all the ornaments, alternating the duty between them, until there was only one left. A delicately blown, glittering tower of golden rings that was by far the most appealing out of the set.

Rhys lifted the ornament carefully, before handing it to Jack, a little shy smile playing on his lips.

“I…usually…if I’m doing it with someone else….someone I really care about…I let them hang this one up. It’s the coolest one.”

Jack took the ornament in hand, glancing skeptically at it. The gold was cool, but other than that it looked the same as all the other ones. But whatever. He put on a smile for the kid, and turned around to put it on the tree.

Sadly, whatever Christmas god out there had decided that Jack had been too naughty or grouchy this year and needed his comeuppance, decided to strike right then and there. Jack’s overstepped and his foot slide slightly against the ground, causing him to lose him balance—and lose hold of the ornament.

There was no saving it. From the moment it tipped off of Jack’s fingers, he’d known there was no way saving it. Still, he tried, lashing out and trying to grab the spinning ornament, only to knock it further away from the tree where it finally smashed against the hardwood floor. Jack winced, feeling the shattering glass deep in his bones.

Rhys gaped at the remains of the ornament, struggling to comprehend what had happened. Jack stole a glance at him, Rhys’ stunned face not exactly making him feel better.

“Crap, kiddo….Rhysie-pumpkin, I’m so sorry…”

“You….you broke it…”

“Hey! I said I was sorry kiddo! It’s not like I meant to do it!”

“I—I know you didn’t mean to, but that’s not…ugh! Jack!” Rhys cried, voice rising with anger. Jack could even see tears starting to sparkle in the corners of his eyes, which took him by surprise. He…he was crying over ornaments?

Jack’s bewilderment must have shown in his face, because Rhys let out a terse sigh, rubbing furiously at his eyes as they fell back towards the shattered ornament on the ground.

“I….it’s fine. It’s fine. I’ll….I’ll clean it up…” he said miserably, before brushing past Jack and tramping over to the broom closet, leaving the CEO feeling both confused and dejected at the sudden turn of events. He frowned down at the smashed glass on the floor, scintillating sadly in the flashing lights decorating the tree. The little sniffles he could

Crap. He had to do something.

Christmas Eve, like it always did, came much quicker than Rhys had thought.

It was always a bit of a shame how fast the month of December seemed to pass. Rhys supposed too much goodness and fun would make it less special, but surely time could have the courtesy to let them enjoy the holiday fun a little bit longer?

Still, he was excited for the plans they had that evening. Jack had booked them a fancy dinner at Rhys’ favorite restaurant, and had even agreed to wear that nice formal suit that Rhys had got him fitted for for his birthday.

Jack was a little late coming home from work, which Rhys had expected. What he hadn’t expected, however, was the small box in his hands—tenderly and somewhat messily wrapped, which quickly told Rhys that his boyfriend had done it himself.

“Jack, I thought we agreed, no gifts until Christmas morning!” Rhys chuckled, trying to take the present from Jack’s hand and place it under the tree, where it belonged for another night more, but Jack’s fingers rested gently atop his hand. The softness took Rhys by surprise—Jack had his moments, but he was usually a little more hard edges and jokes and rough sex than anything else.

“I know, I know, Rhysie, but this is…special. Real special. And I know you’re gonna wanna open it now. Enjoy it for as long as you can.” Rhys raised his eyebrow. His boyfriend was being weirdly cryptic, which made him curious. He took the present in both hands as Jack handed it over, picking at the sloppy bow and ragged, taped-down edges. He shook it a little in jest, but it made little noise.

Interested, he tore the wrapping paper off to find—a box from Amazon. Rhys snorted through his nose, expecting little more than a dildo or maybe a new phone charger or something from Jack as he turned the box over in his palm, finally getting it open and pulling out the layers of bubblewrap.

The coy little smile on his face dropped as he stared, eyes wide, at what lay inside the package. Jack beamed, smile brilliant white and triumphant as Rhys reached inside, letting the box fall to the floor as he cradled the sparkly, five golden rings ornament in his hand.

“I…I….Jack….how did you…?” Rhys gaped, turning it over reverently in both hands. He could feel his heart leaping in his throat, tears starting to gather at the edge of his eyes.

“T-That was an exclusive set made over a year ago, they don’t even sell it in stores anymore, and that…that’s the rarest one…”

“Yeah, you’re telling me…” Jack snickered. “Cost me a real pretty penny. More than anyone should ever rationally pay for some bauble.”

His large hands gently cupped Rhys’, expression oddly sweet despite the snark.

“But it’s worth it. To make you happy.”

The tears that had been building in Rhys’ eyes finally spilled over, happiness nearly clouding his vision as he leaned forward into his boyfriend’s waiting hug. Jack chuckled softly, rubbing and patting Rhys’ back as he blubbered into his down jacket.

“I swear, you’re crying worse than when I broke the damn thing…” Rhys nudged him softly with his chin, a little laugh of his own breaking through the happy tears. Finally, Rhys straightened up, rubbing his eyes as he smiled.

“Though…this time…I’m putting it on the tree.”

[alanaparliament]

Well it looks like I’m blogging again. Who knows who reads this, but I’m doing it because I realized yesterday that it comes in handy! I met some girls who asked advice on Cambodia and I couldn’t remember where I had stayed. Then I was like oh! I’ll check the old blog and was able to give them some good info from reading it. So here I am! This time - Philippines 2019 🤪

My bro Adam and I arrived in Manila after a LONG 14 hour haul from Vancouver. It was 4:30am and we cabbed straight to Malate Pensionne house. Our room was a little box - but at least it had AC. After sleeping for the morning we ventured outside. I think Adam was in culture shock at first since Manila is just another dirty busy Asian city - like Bangkok or Hanoi. He was so set on going to a gym and we searched and searched for one but kept ending up no where. Finally we decided to go for lunch instead. We had all you can eat Korean BBQ where you cook the food on the hot grill in front of you. It was really good, until I saw a giant black rat run across the floor. Haha - good thing AP2 had already gone back to the room when I saw it. After lunch I went for a cheap massage. It was unreal. Adam ended up finding a gym. We were both content, yet ready to leave the city.

The following day we had a flight to Busuanga (Coron!). It was a little delayed and just another travel day, but it was so nice to arrive on an island rather than being in the city. We caught a van to our hostel in Coron Town called “HUB Backpackers”. Adam’s first experience in a hostel. We had to walk past roosters to get up to our 8 person dorm. At least we arrived in time for free rum o’clock. We met a ton of cool people that night and booked a tour with everyone for the next day. Then that night rum o’clock turned into Reggae Bar till 1am. You can imagine how everyone felt the next morning...

We all managed to get to our tour on time the next day... and what a day it was! There were about 20 of us on the boat, and we went across to Coron Island. We saw the most beautiful rock formations and landscapes and crystal clear water. We hiked up to Kayangan Lake, swam in the Green Lagoon + Twin Lagoon. We snorkelled at Siete Picados and Coral Garden. Then ended our day with a few boat beers at Cyc beach. The tour was such a great way to see those beautiful places. When we got back to the hostel I was sooo exhausted. I booked diving for the following day and went straight to bed.

So I was up at 6:30am and at the dock by 6:45 to dive! There were 5 of us in total. We had the most perfectly calm water for our ride out to our first site. We did 3 wreck dives in total for the day. A number of Japanese WW2 ships were sunk by the Americans during the war, and now they are all snorkel and dive sites. Bad for the Japanese, lucky for me. It felt soooo good to be diving again. We got to swim around and inside the ships - it was so f*king cool. Spending the day out on the water and in the ocean gives life to my soul. We came back around 3:30pm, and I met up with Adam. We had a couple drinks at sunset and then went back to the HUB hostel for rum. We met a whole new crew of people and went for Thai dinner and back to Reggae Bar. Adam ended up ordering an entire bucket of rum, so you can guess how the night went!

Yesterday we had a good sleep in. Adam went to the gym in the morning and I went for breaky and did a bit of research on what to do for our last day on Coron. Welllll.... the activity I took us on turned out to be a big mistake!! We went down to the area where the boats leave for day trips and decided to rent kayaks. Well for starters Adam has never kayaked before and secondly the kayak was a little piece of floating plastic and thirdly the place I wanted to kayak to was pretty much 5km across an open bay. We got in (almost tipped before we even started), and headed straight out towards barracuda lake. We made it about 1/3 of the way across the open water when it started to rain and become choppy. AP2 and I were like screw this let’s go back.... it’s dangerous, far, and let’s face it - he was doing most of the paddling since my little arms aren’t strong. So we went back, looked at eachother and said “omg I hate kayaking”. That wasn’t a fair representation of how fun kayaking can be though. Anyway, we got back and I asked if we could have some sort of refund since we were supposed to be out for the day. After arguing with some people for a while and them not budging on giving us any money back we left and cut our losses. Instead we decided to go to Bali Beach and chill for an hour (a much better decision). After that we wanted a snack - actually soup (a terrible decision). We found a little authentic home restaurant and ordered what looked like was going to be soup. When it came out it was absolutely AWFUL. The funny thing was both me and Adam had one bite and were like “mm it’s good....”. But like we both straight up lied. The soup was like eating pig slop. That’s the new name of the soup. Pig slop. I also like to call it soup goop. The noodles were overdone and there was some kind of slime in there and like floating eggs. Again, we paid, cut our losses and got the heck out of there. We went to McDonald’s to get the soup goop flavour out of our mouths. We were both kinda beat from the day and chilled in the room. Adam did pick up a couple beers and brought them back to our place. I poured a large beer into two cups and literally one second later the bottle slipped out of my hand and smashed on the concrete floor. So much beer, and even more tiny shards of glass flew everywhere. Obviously I cleaned it up, but it wasn’t ideal. If I had to rate the worst experiences of the day in order it would be: 1. Pig slop soup. 2. Kayaking. 3. Glass bottle beer clean up. And if I could rate the best part of the day: babyyyyy puppies are our home stay 😍

Today we woke up early and went to the dock to get on our boat to El Nido! Thank god I’m an experienced sea sick i individual and decided to take 2 gravol before departure. That ride was CHOPPY. And some kid was puking right behind me. I swear if I didn’t take those pills I would have thrown up. I was definitely ready to. Anyways, 4 hours later we made it to El Nido :) We found a place to stay and took a tuk tuk to Las Cabañas beach. This beach is paradise. Soft white sand,blue water, a bucket of beers, and a happy heart. Cheers to El Nido!

AP xo