#there was a copy of moby dick which I didn’t end up getting but it was from a library and was checked out in 1977 by FROG it was all drawn

[monsterbroth]

I went to the local landfill shop (I don’t know what the proper name for those are) with my dad, he’s really into bikes so we were looking at those but I got a bunch of really cool books that I’m excited about, like an old diy thing and some recipe books and a surgery book and one on the history of a bunch of board games. also a cool bird themed card game it was great

[arielxlazarus]

I almost forgot about that fanfic appreciation week, but I wanted to at least do something for it! So here's a rec list for some of my favorite fics in the one piece fandom!

This list is not at all exhaustive btw (there's still loads of other fics in the fandom that I love), so please don't feel bad if you weren't included! Also if anyone wants more recommendations from me, you can check out my bookmarks on my ao3!

Who Knows (what could happen) by Chromi

Rating: T

Pairing: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: For as long as he could remember, he had wanted to set out to sea as an adventurer. His father, unfortunately, dictated that he was to follow the family tradition and become a doctor instead.

Following a lifetime of hurt and sorrow at the hands of his family, he eventually breaks free and takes to the sea alone - determined to keep it that way. Fate has other ideas in store for him; fate crosses his path with Portgas D. Ace's, a brand new pirate.

And what does he hate more than pirates?

Nothing.

Or: from Sixis to the Moby Dick - the lives of the Spade pirates.

First Time by Chromi

Rating: E

Pairing: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: "Because it is Ace, and it will only ever be Ace, that he wants to see like this, and he wants to be responsible for unravelling him down to his core and loving him to his very center."

In which Ace and Deuce go all the way for the first time.

@chromiwrites

Seabound by AnkhPosts

Rating: T

Pairing: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Ace is a selkie, making one of his periodic stops on land to catch a breather and get some ridiculously tasty human food, maybe see some sights if there are any. His pelt is safely hidden, he'll stay a day or two at most and be on his way.

Deuce is a mer, alone on the sea and traveling as he pleases for the first time in his life, and while he might not be terribly interested in actually interacting with humans it's hard not to see them as fascinating.

Ace meets Deuce. Deuce meets Ace. Neither knows the other isn't human.

@ankhposts

Death is only the beginning by Chizyk

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: “Ankhreshet?” he whipped his head round at the sound of a raspy voice so fast he almost got whiplash. He could feel his body going completely cold as he saw the mummy’s empty eye sockets staring right at him.

@chizyk

I'm Still Here (part of a series) by theprodigypenguin

Rating: M

Pairing: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace (also Izou/Sabo later in the series)

Summary: "When I do die, don't bother burying me in that empty grave. Put my body in a boat and set me out to sea. Let me sleep eternal on the ocean that my father loved so much; because before everything else in this world, I am a child of the sea, and when I die, I want to return to it. Put me in a boat and set it aflame so I can go down in the same fire I lived."

Forget-Me-Not Fall by theprodigypenguin

Rating: M

Pairing: Izou/Sabo

Summary: “Most of the nobles I’ve met tonight look meticulously put together. They look like they were built to portray a certain image paralleled a hundred times over. People who were copied and pasted. Flawless clothes, flawless faces, flawless makeup, flawless hair.”

“Not me though,” Sabo stated, and Izou hummed.

“It’s comforting.”

“Huh?”

Izou met Sabo’s eye. “Everyone else in this place hides their worst attributes with a mask they modified to fit their faces. They don’t seem to comprehend that those perfect masks only make their worst characteristics more pronounced and defined.” His expression was terribly gentle as his eyes wandered across Sabo’s face. “It’s comforting to be approached by someone not trying to be something else.”

Sabo tilted his head. “How do you know I’m not manipulating you like some common Goa aristocrat?”

Izou smiled. “There are a few reasons.”

@theprodigypenguin

A Light To Guide You Home by TheSkyIsMyHome

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: In a world that despises mutants, Ace lives purely to protect his little brother.

Until the flames inside him find their perfect match and opposite, and he doesn't know what to feel anymore.

The Phoenix's Mate by TheSkyIsMyHome

Rating: E

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Marco is a handsome man. Ace really can't be blamed for being attracted to him. Nobody minds, either.

But Marco isn't always a man. Ace still loves him regardless, and his sexual urges are catching up to that fact.

Marco indulges him, but he might just find himself enjoying it more than he thought he would.

@evvazi

ASL in Red (series) by Kereea

Rating: G-T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace, Monkey D. Luffy/Trafalgar D. Water Law (both asexual), Koala/Sabo, Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks/Benn Beckman, Donquixote "Corazon" Rosinante/Aokiji | Kuzan, Roronoa Zoro/Sanji, and several other minor ones

Summary: In an alternate universe, forces conspired to put Ace, Sabo, and Luffy in the care of the Red Hair pirates as children.

The Grand Line would never know what hit it.

Mates (part of a series) by Deubatty

Rating: E

Pairing: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Deuce just wanted to go searching for plants! A nice walk in the woods. Except, he ends up becoming the mate to a very persistent naga

His First Mate The Mermaid (part of a series) by Deubatty

Rating: T

Pairing: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Instead of finding another person on Sixis, Ace finds a mermaid

@masked-writer

Being Human by MaiKusakabe

Rating: E (no smut)

Pairing: None (heavy focus on the platonic relationships between Marco, Whitebeard, and the rest of the crew as they form)

Summary: The line that differentiates human from object appears to be clear, but sometimes it blurs to the point where it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The Unknown Devil by MaiKusakabe

Rating: E

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Ace hadn’t expected his last week of imprisonment before his execution to be any different from all the years preceding it. Then again, he hadn’t expected to have Marco the Phoenix as a cellmate for that week, or that Marco’s presence would shake his bleak world so much.

Ripple Effect by MaiKusakabe

Rating: E

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: After the incident with Shanks, Garp didn't take Luffy to Dadan's, unaware of how much that would change the life of his other grandson.

@maisstories

To Build a Home by endlessblankpages

Rating: G

Pairing: None (heavy focus on the platonic relationships between the ASL bros and the Whitebeard Pirates)

Summary: The ASL pirates are used to being accused of crimes they didn't commit. But when they're accused of destroying a small village in the New World, it sends them hurtling toward a deadly confrontation with the strongest man in the world, Whitebeard. The results are not what they were expecting.

Persistence & The Impossible (part of a series) by dragonsfall

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: In order to keep himself from losing his job, Ace takes on an impossible story. Get an interview with the ever-elusive Phoenix. Guess he might as well kiss his job goodbye.

Self Discovery (part of a series) by dragonsfall

Rating: E

Pairing: Izou/Sabo (sort of, it's technically masturbation)

Summary: Sabo has been waiting for a day like this for a while but it doesn’t go quite how he planned it.

@clockworkpanic

A Breach of Intention by Depths

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: It was unspoken, but some pirate crews and mermaids had an unspoken solidarity. Pirates throw their enemies overboard, and the merfolk will take care of them.

mer!ace au

@leviathiane

Running on All Sixes by lunarshores

Rating: E

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace, minor Izou/Thatch

Summary: The Whitebeard gang might be one of the most influential in the city, but to Marco they're just his family. Though he sometimes wishes they'd just leave him alone, especially when Izo's playing matchmaker, and Ace is his usual oblivious self. When a brother betrays them, they'll have to fight to show why no one ever messes with their family.

nothing is impossible with you by lunarshores

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Five times Ace and Marco accidentally mixed their flames on accident and one time that was entirely on purpose.

@lunarshores

I Want You to Look at Me by shockandlock

Rating: E

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: One night, Marco is missing from dinner, so Ace decides to bring dinner to him. He's surprised to see Marco wearing glasses and now he can't stop thinking about the way he looks. Now with additional chapter(s) including more miscellaneous MarcoAce PWP!

To My Dear Fire (part of a series) by shockandlock

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Living in the city is a new thing for Ace. After being raised near a cozy coastal mountain town through his childhood, it's definitely a change of pace, but it doesn't help when he loses his new job after an unfortunate encounter with actor Marco Newgate. He just wants to live-- and meet his long time pen pal, Phoenix.

Marco knows that being an actor is hard, so he takes the little things when he can: writing his pen pal (and honestly one of his best friends) Fire Fist, flirting with the cute new waiter at his favorite café-- not that he has a chance after a disaster on social media. But maybe fate really does give him a second chance when Ace shows up at Four Emperor Studios...

@shockandlock

Uncharted Territory by silverwolf_fox

Rating: E

Pairing: Masked Deuce/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: This was by far one of Ace's most ridiculous ideas.

When Deuce keeps getting flustered everytime he tries to dominate Ace, they created an opportunity where he didn't have to be afraid of messing up.

Now he's free to do and try whatever he wants...

...so long as Ace doesn't wake up.

Watching the Sunrise (part of a series) by silverwolf_fox

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Many years have passed since Rouge gave up her life for her son’s...except she didn’t die, but she thinks Ace did. Living her life on Baterilla, she’s mourned each and every day until the morning she receives his bounty poster. She sets off immediately to find him, but finds their meeting isn’t as easy as she’d imagined.

@the-devil-fruit-tree

never shall i forget, how you climbed out of a dream by siojo

Rating: T

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: “Kaido,” Ace smirks, flames burning around his feet as he shifts in preparation for Kaido’s next attack, already trying to decide what he’s going to do in response. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You’ve seemed to have been enjoying yourself here.”

“I thought you would be smarter than this, Portgas. You’ve never tried to fight another Yonko before, your bounty won’t matter much when you lose.”

Ace barks a laugh, his teeth bared in a facsimile of a grin, “You must have missed out on the brawl I had with Big Mom after she sent two of her daughters and a son for me to consider marrying. This is a bit more personal than that.”

@wordsdrippinginink

Reborn in Fire by aerle

Rating: M

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Fireman Marco has earned the nickname 'the Phoenix' by saving numerous people from a certain death. After an accident however, he has to relearn to walk and gets a new job as arson inspector at a different fire station. There he gets confronted with a boy from his past, now all grown up and gorgeous.

Three's a Crowd, Four's a Double Date by aerle

Rating: M

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace (main), Izou/Thatch (secondary)

Summary: "We're not dating," Marco said definitively. "That we're sharing a bed tonight is a total coincidence."

@aerle

Universal Dive by EmpressKira

Rating: M

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Ace had been making his way through the city to go to one of his favorite cafes. Well, that was until this hole ripped in the sky and some pirate fell out with the flaming bird guy following. Getting targeted, he is dragged into a different world with pirates and everything defying the reality he is used to. Will he make it home? Will he go back when the time comes?

@empresskira

Blue moon (series) by de_Winter

Rating: T-M

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Urban fantasy AU, werewolf Marco and witch Ace

Red Velvet by de_Winter

Rating: E

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: Ace already knew their routine by heart, just from observing them for a couple of mornings when he had early delivery, and from Izou’s daily long winded—and probably sexually frustrated—rants. Big Blond would come out of the bakery wearing a shirt too tight for him and too thin for the weather as soon as he was done setting up the tables inside the storefront, holding a take out cup and a small box in his big hands. They looked really, pleasantly big from where Ace was standing, and he honestly wished he wasn't standing that far away.

@dee-de-winter

We'll Look Back and Laugh at Ourselves by JuHuaTai

Rating: M

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace, minor Gol D. Roger/Portgas D. Rouge

Summary: Between his new boyfriend and his workaholic boss, Marco felt like he was surrounded by family issues of the father and son dispute variety. Maybe it was just a coincidence.

Or maybe he should've listened to the office gossip more. Maybe then he'd figure it out sooner.

Gratitude of the Phoenix (part of a series) by JuHuaTai

Rating: M

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: [Based on 'The Crane Wife' Folklore]

One day, he saved a bird from freezing to death in a trap. Then, a stranger saved him from suffering the same fate, and a request to stay for one night turned into having someone to fill the void left in the small cottage and in his heart ever since his brothers left.

These two incident doesn’t seem to be related to one another, but they both changed Ace’s life in ways he could never have imagined.

Watashitachi wa Roger kaizoku desu (we still stand proud) by stereden

Rating: T

Pairing: None (heavy focus on Buggy, Shanks, and Crocus)

Summary: The Roger Pirates disappeared after their Captain's death, and were happy enough to let the Marines forget about them.

Until the Marines decide to execute their Captain's son, that is.

@stereden

This Bites! by Xomniac

Rating: M

Pairing: None (heavy focus on a main character oc and the strawhat pirates)

Summary: Sea Kings, sea-sickness, sunburns, a 95% genocidal Navy and more than a million and one other assorted ways to die. It's official: Being inserted into an anime sucks ass... Buuut I guess it could be worse. I mean, look on the bright side: At least I'm sailing with the future king of the pirates.

A Fortune that Never Grows Old by imperialmint

Rating: E

Pairing: Marco the Phoenix/Portgas D. Ace

Summary: It's one thing to get butterflies in your stomach when you seen an attractive person but it's another thing entirely for Marco to want to stomp out a courtship ritual and lay foundations for a nest when he meets the navy's new (hot) secret weapon.

@imperialmint

Most of the authors on this list have many other excellent one piece fics I'd definitely suggest checking out! Enjoy your reading and try to show them all some love if you can!

[voidix]

So my dear friend @kittytudor and I were discussing some takes the fandom has on Dazai and especially his interactions with Mori and I thought I’d share

I really hate the train of thought that goes like “they’re super smart so they know life has no meaning and nothing matters” like that’s cynical for no reason whatsoever and just nihilistic

Yea when you are intelligent you see all the bad in the world and feel like you’re powerless to stop it a lot of times but the things is

You know scientists see beauty in everything geologist will get excited about literal dirt a marine biologist about a gold fish. When you’re intelligent you see all the bad but also all the good

However it’s easier to see the bad and often times it clouds your view but part of the healing process is starting to see beauty and happiness in the smallest things and I think that’s a journey Dazai is slowly going on.

So I really don’t think intelligence is the issue here and I’m gonna assume you’re an edgy bastard if you say so

I feel like Dazai’s issue is more the environment than anything and the lack of meaningful relationships. I know we clown the scene where he says actually living is okay now 1 day after meeting Chuuya but here is the thing. This might have been the first time he had someone his age who wanted to hang out with him or even less just someone his age who tolerated him. I personally know nothing about his life pre mafia but you can assume it wasn’t a good life if at age 14 you decide the bloody mafia is preferable to wherever you’re at at the moment

In my opinion Mori didn’t encourage it per se but he didn’t try to stop it either I really think that for him he did not expect Dazai would go through with it (again) and /or as cruel as it sounds if he actually did it which Mori didn’t think was likely he had one less rival to worry about but I really think that’s Mori’s reasoning for staying “neutral” for lack of a better word on this issue

That being said I’m sure being surrounded by death and suffering did not do any good for an already depressed 14/15yo

Which leads me to the second point. I really don’t think Mori expected Dazai to leave or tried to make him leave. For Mori Dazai was a powerful asset because of his ability and because of his intelligence that y’all are obsessed with. So why would you want to push that person away and it’s not like he was encouraging him to suicide here which would make much more sense than wanting him to leave.

And I have evidence

I’m gonna start it with: Oda did not die to set an example I don’t think so no. In his conversation with Chuuya he said something like “being a leader means making sacrifices for the well being of the group” or something like that and that’s what he did here.

He sacrifices Oda to get the permit.

The strange thing is I do think Mori meant what he said to Chuuya that he is a leader but also a servant to the mafia he wants the mafia to gain more power and that’s why he did what he did to get the permit.

I do think it could be a lesson to Dazai but not in the “if you cross me this is gonna happen to you” because Oda didn’t cross him Oda didn’t want power he is the last person who was interested in that. I think if anything it was more a lesson as in “when you take over this is something you’ll have to do and I’m showing you how it’s done”

Evidence for that is he was chuckling when he mentioned that possibility that Dazai would kill him and take one someday. And I agree that Mori

Wouldn’t mind if that was better for the Mafia. Like he wouldn’t make it easy for him and he wouldn’t give up but if he is defeated he wouldn’t be angry or annoyed because like I mentioned above I do think he was genuine when he said he is also a servant to the Mafia

My other piece of evidence is that when he showed Dazai the permit he seemed proud of what he’s done. The way he presented it and the entire scenario he seemed proud more than smug. If he really wanted Dazai out I feel like he would’ve been more smug about the whole thing and we know he can do that well.

And obviously there is also the fact he offered him not once but twice to come back. And what’s interesting is that the first time the offer was secret like he sent Gin and Higuchi and it was in a shady ass tunnel

Now the other time is where it gets interesting because it was very public in front of Dazai’s colleagues the black lizard and Fukuzawa.

Now Mori is a smart guy but also he has a sense of pride as we learned so I really don’t think he would risk being humiliated in front of Fukuzawa of all people just to mess with Dazai and he seemed genuinely surprised when Dazai said “you kicked me” and he didn’t offer him to just come back no he offered to be back as an executive and having Dazai decline and clown him in front of Fukuzawa like that I don’t think he would risk that if he was just playing

The thing is Mori is smart but he has tunnel vision in my opinion. He was so focused on getting the permit he forgot that this plan has consequences that aren’t just “we get the permit”

And also one of Mori’s issues is that he never takes into consideration people’s emotions. You can predict human Behavior to a certain degree a lot of times you can know what to

Say or what to do to get a certain result but the thing is humans aren’t algorithms they don’t always operate on logic they have emotions. And these emotions can be so strong that they override any crumb of logic left which is something I think Mori fails to understand. That’s why he didn’t expect Dazai to leave he forgot about the emotional factor.

That’s what Mori lacks but Dazai has and my evidence for this is a scenario we laughed at because it was presented in a funny way but I think that’s something that shows that Dazai is better at this 4D chess game than Mori.

On the Moby Dick he knew that Akutagawa would abandon everything to talk to him. If Dazai only operates by thinking about logical Behavior he wouldn’t have told Atsushi to do this but he realises that the emotional factor is one of the strongest drives humans have.

And you know I think Mori knows that when it comes to 4D chess Dazai would defeat him but he doesn’t mind that he isn’t scared of that. In dead Apple he couldn’t have possibly known the whole business with the pill but he told Chuuya to interfere. Mori has a strange sense of trust towards Dazai even now that they’re part of different sides.

I think Mori is has always been aware that although he says he does Dazai doesn’t actually want to die and I think the scene with the hyper and hypo tension medication in 15 shows this. If you actually want to die why would you Mix medicine with effects that cancel out each other and Mori is a doctor he knows this. That’s why I think he didn’t expect Dazai to commit and that he believes Dazai actually wants to live and because of that he will try and preserve himself and by extension Yokohama which is why he told Chuuya to go in dead apple, which is why he let Akutagawa go on the Moby Dick in season 2 because he realized Dazai wanted him to go there and he trusts Dazai to a certain degree .

I really feel like his underestimated the emotional factor and this will ultimately lead to his downfall. Like he didn’t expect Dazai to leave he wouldn’t expect anyone to react super emotional to god knows what he’ll do and thereby underestimate their response to that which will make him meet his end.

I don’t think the “you kicked me” is Dazai in denial he acted ok emotions or at least that’s not the whole thing. I think that Dazai’s reasoning for saying that is this:

Oda died so Mori can get more power which was part of Mori’s plan all along so looking at the bigger picture it was Mori’s plan and actions who drove me out of the Mafia so he basically “kicked me out”

Also I wanna add that I feel like Mori because he underestimates the emotional factor he doesn’t understand to this day why Dazai left like he knows it’s related to oda he can follow that train of events but in his mind it doesn’t make logical sense why Dazai would do that which is why he didn’t manage to win Dazai over back to The Mafia because in his mind be doesn’t know the logical reason why Dazai left which is also another reason why he was so surprised when Dazai said he kicked him

Also I’d like to add that I really don’t think he felt threatened or wanted to just get rid of him

Dazai was already suicidal so if it would very easy to make it look like that. And like I mentioned before if it was the best choice for the Mafia I really don’t think Mori would be that bothered about being replaced by Dazai.

I also don’t think he thought Dazai would be more useful on the outside because once again why lose a valuable addition like that

And it’s not like

He wanted to use him

As a spy or anything we know that would’ve been arranged differently see Ango

So Mori the logical guy he is wouldn’t want his enemies to have someone with Dazai’s ability because that’s a pain in the ass and also

He wouldn’t want an insider like Dazai to join his enemies and spill all his secrets. Dazai had a very high rank and like I said I don’t think Mori expected him to leave so he had no reason to hide things from

him so even without his ability he would be a very strong asset to the Mafias enemies so there is no way Mori would think he is more useful on the outside since

1. we already said mori has tunnel vision he couldn’t possibly predict that much that he thinks Dazai is better out

2. We established that he isn’t afraid of him

3. He wouldn’t want the ability and the information to fall into his enemies’ hands

4. If he was actually scared and wanted to get rid of him making it seem like suicide or actually driving him to suicide would be much easier especially since mori is a doctor

So yeah this is long thanks if you read until the end it was super fun to write this id love to know what others think I’m sorry if it’s a bit unorganised it’s copied from my notes app

[choralmeres]

Walking ‘Cross the Campus

msr. high school au. pg. 937 words.

Compared to most other high schools, the high school that Fox Mulder attended was much larger. The campus seemed to stretch on for miles and miles- which could either be a very good or bad thing. 

One of the better things for most people would either be the amount of exercise that one would get walking all the way from one side of the campus to the next, and the fact that the large campus was basically made for a minefield of excuses; the most popular one being the fact that they could not walk in time to class in five minutes. Even though they were clearly in the restroom for four minutes touching up on their makeup. And the excuses and statements would persist- even when people found all sorts of shortcuts through the school.

But when other people were trying to either find shortcuts to class or find terrible excuses that got progressively worse throughout the school year, there were also people who didn’t mind walking the long way to class. 

People like Fox Mulder, who went by just Mulder most of the time.

Mulder seemed to be one of the luckier ones: in all four years of high school, his classes were always somewhat closely grouped together. However, he almost always walked the longer way to class. At least starting from the second year of high school. 

It began with a red-haired girl named Dana Scully that transferred at the beginning of the school year. She was new to the district- and everyone, especially the boys, wanted to ‘give her a tour’ and ‘introduce her to people’. And Mulder wasn’t stupid, he knew that the people just wanted to be her friend- or ahem, boyfriend. 

Apparently, Dana Scully’s favorite subject was physics, which she shared with her best friend Ellen. She brought a sandwich to school everyday- something that looked like peanut butter. But she’d always switch up whatever was in her sandwich; usually to some type of jam in the middle of the week. And she liked to pour over old books in the school library; once, she had been seen carrying a particularly old copy of Moby Dick. And her father was in the Navy.

Mulder knew these things because he observed her from afar. He had also asked the Lone Gunmen, a group that consisted of Byers, Langly and Frohike-which were considered his only friends. They were good at hacking into systems and finding out information about other people. 

The Lone Gunmen had offered to give more information about Scully to him, but he refused, not wanting to seem like a stalker. 

However, he did end up asking for her schedule.

And so every single day, between every single class, Mulder would walk past the classrooms that she had just been in or the ones that she was walking to, hoping to catch a good few glimpses of her. 

That continued for the rest of the school year. 

In the third year of high school, he’d decided that he needed to up his game- or someone would eventually become her boyfriend. Mulder had heard rumors about a guy named Ethan Minette- he hoped they weren’t true. 

So, he mustered up his courage during lunch and walked over to her table, where she was sitting with Ellen and another student that he didn’t know the name of. 

“Hi Scully,” he remembered saying. “Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?” 

He didn’t exactly know why that was the first question he asked- most people would have said a simple ‘could I sit next to you?’. But his sister Samantha had just disappeared a few years ago, and all he could think about was whether extraterrestrials had abducted her or not.

“Logically, I would have to say no.” She had said. “Why Scully?”

He nodded, as if he was expecting the response and said, “It just sounds better- like we’re in the FBI or something. But if you don’t like it, I can call you Dana.”

“Huh. Well, Scully’s fine, I suppose.” Scully said, before explaining to Mulder about the distances needed to travel from the reaches of space and the energy requirements exceeding spacecraft capabilities. 

As Mulder and Scully became the best of friends- an odd match, considering the fact that they had completely different ideas, Mulder would continue bringing different UFO theories that he had found from the Lone Gunmen; and Scully would continue attempting to debunk each and every one of them.

“Mulder, you’re in love with her.” Byers said one day as he was recalling Scully’s talk about vampires not existing and her funny expression. Both Frohike and Langly nodded in agreement.

“No, I’m not.” 

But he was. And for the whole third year of high school, he would continue walking across the large campus just so he could catch a glimpse of Scully heading to her next class. Even though he saw her every lunch and break. 

Other people joked that Scully and him were often gazing at each other. That they’d be the next big couple at the high school. 

But he didn’t gaze at her, did he?

Finally, the last year of high school came around, and to no one’s surprise, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were dating. And Mulder would continue to walk past Scully as she headed to her next class, despite her shaking her head and claiming that he shouldn’t be walking across the campus wasting his time instead of going the faster way to class. 

Because walking across the campus just to see Scully wasn’t wasted time. 

And it would never be. 

-

tagging @today-in-fic ty!

[arywizm]

Book Tag because life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man I'm bored:

How many books are too many books in a series?

the more the better as long as it makes sense from the perspective of the story. For example, I haven't read everything from the ender's saga (at this point I don't even know how many books there are) but I thought everything after the first book including Xenocide and Children of the Mind was a solid addition and a good book on it's own. But then take, say, Vicious, and while V. E. Schwab isn't quite the writer Orson Scott Card is (I'm going to get lynched aren't I) , Vicious is an enjoyable read on it's own. And then there is the sequel whose only function is providing the reader with additional 300 pages before giving them the ending that should have been in the first book.

To put it simply, you can never have too many good books.

Also go read vicious because it's a lot of fun and despite my snobbish remarks I think about it daily.

How do you feel about cliffhangers?

I haven't read a book ending on a proper cliffhanger in years but I don't mind them, in fact getting emotionally abused by books is one of my favourite pass times

Hardback or paperback?

It makes no difference to me tbh, my favourite copies that I own are the most 'damaged' ones. my collection of shakespeares isn't old or nice even, but it's positively falling apart, and I love it.

Least favorite book?

probably not the worst book I have ever read, but even thinking about Moby Dick makes me feel like stabbing a whale. the thought that might be what Melville would have wanted is even worse.

Love triangles, yes or no?

my go to response is a hard no, however, sometimes I will read a book and absolutely love it only to have my friend point out that I always talk how much I hate love triangles and then I'm all "ThAt WAsN't a LoVe tRIanGle".

in conclusion, I don't think I know what a love triangle is.

The most recent book you just couldn’t finish?

the most recent one would probably be Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp, I didn't even get far enough to be able to say what I disliked, the tone just wasn't for me.

this happens really rarely though, because if I'm going to rage about how much I hated it I'm going to Do It Right.

A book you’re currently reading?

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, love it so far which is alarming considering that the series isn't finished and it looks like it won't be in the foreseeable future.

and because I'm a heathen who reads several books at the same time, I'm also reading The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, and I'm enjoying it so far, it's tonally lighter than Rothfuss' first person everyone-is-gruesomely-dying- around-around-me-oh-and-also-I'm-twelve fantasy but the story is equally sinister.

Last book you recommended to someone?

not so much recommended as coerced my sister to read If We Were Villains, she was reading Save Me (?) or something like that and was talking a lot about a james, so I took it upon myself to introduce her to The James. I'm proud to announce she loved it.

Oldest book you’ve read?

I don't feel like checking that so I'll just say Antigone and pretend it counts

Newest book you’ve read?

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever and GOOD LORD THIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL. I'm going to get my hands on a physical copy of this one even if it costs me a kidney

Favorite Author?

this is a very ungentlemanly thing to ask and therefore I will not deign it with a reply.

Buying books or borrowing books?

buying because, as we already established, I inflict irreversible damage on them.

8/10 books I buy are ebooks though, turns out I need some money to buy food, go figure

A book you dislike that everyone else seems to love?

The Alchemist, don't even get me started on this one. [I yelled about it here]

Bookmarks or dog-ears?

bookmarkfortheprogressdogearsforquotes *runs from the angry mob*

A book you can always reread?

you probably figured out by now that fantasy and SF are a dirty pleasure of mine, so I'm always up for a reread of my favourites. Namely the lord of the ice garden Pan Lodowego Ogrodu which sadly hasn't been tranlated into English (a tragedy), it's just a really solid SF with a fantasy twist (or the other way around??) + it's full of top notch dark humour

and obviously The Silmarillion because there's no way in hell I will ever comprehend this one.

Can you read while listening to music?

I think I spent 90% of lunch breaks in primary school reading, so I can read absolutely everywhere, no amount of noise, harmonised or not, will stop me.

One POV or multiple POVs?

I don't really know, this isn't really something that I consider when choosing the next book to read.

Do you read a book in one sitting or over multiple days?

nowadays I don't really have the time to inhale 500 pages in one sitting but I generally prefer it. Realistically, I just bite off what I can every chance I get.

Who do you tag?

since I showed up at this party uninvited, and several months late no less, I will just sort of throw invitations in the air with a flair for anyone to catch to cover up the fact that I don't know anyone on this side of tumblr

[stuckonvenus]

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 » Ellie & Becca

 Ｊｕｌｙ ３１ｓｔ， １９９８

The saying goes as such: the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb... or whatever. Honestly I have only ever applied this proverb to my relationship with my sister whenever we weren’t in mortal peril. While I have plenty of friends and acquaintances who I’ve shared battlefields with (i.e. the morning after a party), that never made me any closer to them in a real crisis. I would say about seventy-five percent of the time that the blood is thicker than the water, and the remaining twenty-five percent is when the water isn’t necessarily thicker, but more pressurized. That’s the only time in our lives when we’ve ever come together as sisters.

Well, this is the twenty five percent, and never has the feeling of being sucked and trapped against a fissure at the bottom of the Challenger Deep been more realized than now. It doesn’t help that my bladder is about to implode and leak the citrus-flavored toxic waste I’ve consumed in rapid succession over the past half hour into my visceral fat and contaminate all my vital organs. 

I waddle awkwardly through the narrow doorway of Page One and slam my tiny palm onto the countertop. A bookkeeper who I can recognize as my lab partner from sophomore year chemistry pokes his nose out from the novel he’s immersed in. Moby Dick. Jesus, who reads school assigned books after graduation?

“Hey, Drew-Drew,” I greet him, a lopsided grin fitted on my lips as he brushes his hair out of his eyes and offers me a smile in return. He has a lot more charisma than I remember. I think his eyes have gotten bigger and bluer, too. It reminds me of the water’s surface I’m staring up at from the very bottom of the ocean. “Where’s Becky at?”

Drew dog-ears his page — which is kind of disgusting to me, do they not sell bookmarks in this busted ass joint? — and he points toward the graphic novel section. “Over there, we just got Spider-Man #76, she’s stocking up.”

“... Didn’t #76 come out in January? Of last year?” I ask him. He opens his mouth so he can answer but I stop him with a raised hand. “No time. You’re lookin’ good, Drew-Drew, considerably less like a delicious pepperoni pizza. Keep it up with the Oxy Pads.” I say before pushing away from the counter and venturing off to my destination.

Indeed, my older sister is crouched down and rustling with a display, slightly disgruntled by the symmetry of the copies of Spider-Man she’s stocking. I don’t really have any witty remarks as a smooth enough introduction, so I settle with, “Need help?”

She whips around and I can almost hear the crack in her spinal cord from the velocity. “Lily?” she half-whispers. I forget that I haven’t seen her since late May, and also that I swore I’d never see her again.

“In the flesh,” I confirm and do a curtsey, which threatens my full bladder. I really need to piss soon or else I’ll die a terribly death in the shittiest bookstore on the eastern seaboard. “Do you have a sec? It’s 9-1-1.”

Becca’s expression shifts from awe and minor annoyance to something resembling concern as she pushes herself off her knees. “What is it?” she asks me, crossing her arms over her chest as a last resort defense mechanism. 

I don’t hesitate to hold up the plastic Walgreens bag I’ve carted with me for two blocks. She recognizes the items inside and her eyes go all moony and her jaw slacks a bit. I jerk my brows up expectantly and she assumes the position of utter bewilderment.

“Do you have a place I can empty the biohazardous contents of my bladder? It’s about to necrotize,” I hiss at her. She reaches down, digs in her pocket, unearths a bronze key and walks ahead of me at full speed. I have to waddle after her like a newly hatched penguin chick. It would be more humiliating if over half the population of Eden were literate, but alas...

Becca jams the keys into the lock and just about bodychecks the door so we can enter the rectangular bathroom. It’s cramped and the lighting resembles something out of a Hitchcock film, but who the fuck am I to be picky about where I take the most important whizz of my life?

I place the bag on the counter and take out the three empty full-sized cans of Surge I used to fuel my bladder before picking up the grossest thing I have ever held: a pregnancy test. I keep it in my grasp for a few passing beats, nearly crushing the box underneath my iron-tight grip before man-handling it open and tearing out the plastic stick that will determine my fate.

“This is by far the most unholy fortune telling experience ever,” I decide to joke as I witness my sister cower in the corner. You’d think by the looks of it she were the one whose life was about to change forever. “You think if I shake it a genie will come out and grant me three wishes?”

“... Only if it’s negative, as a gift,” Becca chimes in at last. “Otherwise not even God can save you.”

I let out an involuntary snort, because while my reflexes register this as a funny joke, I am actually scared shitless.

I stare at the porcelain toilet bowl. I feel sicker now looking at it than when I’ve genuinely been at risk for vomiting up my lunch. I could still do that, I’ve been puking like a bulimic for weeks now. The thought is almost comforting. Almost. I bite the bullet instead and yank my pants down, my boy pants, which I normally wear as a boy when I’ve got slightly wider hips and more junk to hide and taller legs to protect with denim fabric. Fuck me.

“I just... Hold it and piss, right?” I ask her, as if she’s gone through this before. I know for a fact she hasn’t, or else this wouldn’t be our first time. I’m surprised it’s our first time, actually, thinking that karma would’ve caught up with me a long time ago. 

“Just don’t get any on your hand.” Becca replies. Very helpful, I think, but rather than respond verbally I give a sigh of defeat and do what needs to be done. When my bladder is emptied an eternity later, I pull up my oversized pants and briefly grieve my dick before I place the test on the counter.

I glance over my shoulder at Becca, “It’s seasoned. Just gotta let it marinate.”

“Gross.” she says with a scrunched up nose.

I turn around and slide down the wall, an action she mimics a couple seconds later. I stare ahead, up at the light that’s screwed into a 70s pendant-shaped fixture, and pass the silence by making them flicker. I do this as a distraction from the materializing tension between us. Normally, this doesn’t happen, but then again our peril has only involved either extreme intoxication, pedos on AOL (during high school), or something about her and Gabriel’s arguments, which felt like walking through Reactor 4 in Chernobyl.

She’s the first one to say something.

“Whose is it? ... If it’s a thing,” she wonders, and as I look over at her I notice that her eyebrows are knitted together and her mouth is fixed downward. “... Please don’t tell me Topher’s.”

I chuckle at the idea. “I think if it were a thing and Topher’s, it’d have grown like a xenomorph baby and ripped itself out of my stomach by now,” I tell her. “I’d deserve that kind of karma for getting knocked up by him.”

“Xenomorph?” she says, and I open my mouth to offer an explanation before she finishes, “Alien. Right.”

“... Yeah, exactly,” I nod along. How in the hell did she remember that? We only ever sat through Alien and Aliens once, and I could’ve sworn she was too preoccupied reading a magazine to actually notice what was happening on screen. 

I also notice that she’s wearing my favorite striped turtleneck. Stone cold bitch.

Some things never change, huh?

Shit, I think I might cry.

This is why we’re siblings, I think, so I can hate her for wearing my favorite turtleneck while sitting by her side as we await Satan’s final decision on the state of my cursed uterus.

Tears prickle my vision but I blink them away. 

“Whose is it, then?” she wonders again. I visibly tense. This is probably where our unspoken, once-in-a-blue-moon loyalties end. How do you tell your sister that her ex-boyfriend is the reason you’re sitting in the dingy bathroom of her workplace with a piss-riddled stick inches away?

In the end, I don’t have to say anything at all. We look at each other simultaneously and she reads my expression with ease. Her features soften and I can see a glint of hurt in her eyes, and I expect ripples of betrayal to make themselves known across the rest of her body soon enough. But those ripples never come. The water I thought was loosening from around me doesn’t make a goddamn move. 

I’m still at the bottom of the Deep, but she’s with me now.

Her hand grips mine. Tight. I can feel our pulses match up in our paralleling wrists.

“I think it’s been enough time.” I say eventually. She doesn’t release my hand. Our shared warmth creates a comfortable friction between us. “... Will you hate me after this?”

Becca squeezes my hand. A heart beat jumps out from her touch to mine. “I think I’ve hated you enough for one summer.”

A smile flickers on the corner of my lips and I slowly depart my hand from hers. My palm is slick with sweat but I don’t mind. I stand up and feel my equilibrium struggle to steady itself before I’m ready to approach the counter. The test is still there, so I know this wasn’t an abstract fever dream I’ve had after discovering so much eerily similar history.

I’m not a fucking coward. I’m looking this shit straight on, no matter what. Do you think I’m afraid of a sign? Totally not. I lean over and stare down, my gaze idling at the base before finally fixating on the panel.

+

Holy shitstickers.

“... Becca?” I call out, my voice half gone from unknown forces. She perks up and I see her reflection in the mirror with widened eyes. “Do you have five bucks? I’m gonna need more Surge.”

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, obsessedbutonline!

For @obsessedbutonline, who listed fluff, angst, and ‘Derek giving Stiles gift’ as a few ‘Likes’. I hope I did those items justice. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Friend!

Read On AO3

*****

The Gift

The gift. He supposed it all started with the gift. Or maybe Star Trek. Derek wasn’t sure. It was Stiles, after all. One day, the younger man had been debating the cuddle rating of a Tribble, before diving into an analysis of The Voyage Home being one of the worst movies in franchise history (except for the whales, of course), and the next thing Derek knew, he’d found himself discussing how Moby Dick was one of his favorite books. The random jumps from one topic to another hadn’t been anything new for Stiles, but that had also been the year they’d legitimately gotten ‘together’ after their contentious circling of each other’s orbits, so when Derek had opened an inelegantly wrapped early edition of the novel on that first Christmas as a couple, he’d been rendered speechless.

He couldn’t remember how long he’d stared at the leather-bound copy exactly, but he did recall feeling a bout of inadequacy. He thought he’d hid it well though. “Stiles – “ he’d started. “I wasn’t expecting…This is too much.”

Stiles had shrugged like it hadn’t been a big deal, an eager grin on his face. “Nah, it wasn’t too bad. A classmate mentioned a prof who needed an assistant to help translate some Latin verses, and I thought I’d check it out. When I went, I noticed a copy of Moby Dick in his office, and you’d mentioned it was one of your favorites, so I offered my translation services for free if he would sell the book for a discounted price.”

Of course, Stiles had remembered that weird detail from a throwaway conversation. And of course, he’d been resourceful in procuring it. That was just who Stiles was. Now, Derek, on the other hand… well, he’d felt completely out of his league when he’d pulled out the gift card he’d picked up a day earlier from a comic book store. He hadn’t even known if that was a store Stiles ever visited. He really sucked at gift-giving. “Sorry, I didn’t …”

Stiles had yanked it out of his hands before he’d even finished. “I love it. Thanks, Derek!” The younger man had beamed excitedly, clutching that cheap piece of plastic in his hands as if he’d just received some personal heirloom. There had been no uptick in the man’s heartrate, so there’d been no lie in those words, but that hadn’t stop Derek from feeling bad.

And it was then that he had resolved to do better, that he would be thoughtful and meticulous in his gift selection the next time Christmas rolled around. Stiles deserved as much.

But he’d mentioned he was bad at gift-giving, right? As in, monumentally bad. Because the next Christmas, when they’d settled down on his couch after an intimate holiday dinner he’d prepared for the two of them, Stiles had presented him with a charmingly wrinkled gift bag. And when he’d pulled out a lovingly restored and framed photograph of his family from before the fire, he’d not only felt a slight lump in his throat at the sentiment, he’d also felt remarkably small and completely lacking in comparison. It was a good thing they’d come to a mutual understanding that their birthdays would be a no-gift zone, because Derek wasn’t sure he could’ve handled double the inferiority complex this time of year.

“I found a copy of the photo from the digital archives of the town newspaper. It was for some fundraiser committee your mom chaired, I think. I saved a copy, and googled around for some pointers on how to increase the resolution so I could print out a decent version of it,” Stiles had explained.

Derek had nodded absently, his fingers lightly tracing the curve of his mother’s face under the cool glass. His whole family had stared back at him, carefree and unburdened in the moment that photo had been taken, eyes all shiny from a sunny afternoon picnic. “Yeah, I remember. It was a Pets in the Park fundraiser for the local animal shelter.” There had been an ache in the pit of his stomach at the reminder of everything he’d lost, but it wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. Now, it had been dulled by time, and tempered by the meaningful relationships he’d found, foremost of which was the one with the man beside him. “Thank you,” he’d said slowly, slightly surprised that his voice hadn’t cracked at the pool of emotion swirling within him.

“Anytime, big guy.” Stiles had leaned in, his weight and warmth freely offered as a source of silent strength.

But when he’d pulled out his gift for Stiles, he had had that sinking feeling of failing an important test. He hadn’t even had time to wrap it properly, opting to place a haphazard bow on it instead. “Sorry, I didn’t know …”

Stiles had grabbed the cellophane-covered box with a puzzled expression. “A bath set?” he’d asked slowly. “Is this your way of telling me I stink?”

There had been amusement in the younger man’s tone, devoid of upset or disappointment, but that hadn’t stopped Derek from feeling upset and disappointed in himself. After Stiles had gone through all the trouble of giving him such a personal and meaningful gift, he’d reciprocated with … soap. “Remember when you were on break during Thanksgiving,” he’d started to explain. “That necromancer problem we had?”

“Oh, damn, do I ever! We spent the whole night trying to wash zombie goo out of bodily crevices I never knew I had!” Then, realization had set in as those rich brown eyes widened. “This is perfect, Derek! Thank you!” And just like that, Stiles had fallen on him with his usual gracelessness, and proceeded to express his ‘gratitude’ properly.

That had been last year. But this time around, right before Stiles had returned to campus for his final two semesters of college, Derek had stumbled upon the ideal Christmas gift, while they were cleaning, of all things. They’d been packing up and storing some of Stiles’ stuff before the younger man headed back to school when they’d gotten diverted by some dusty, old boxes in the Sheriff’s attic. Somehow, in the way of procrastination, they’d ended up flipping through old photo albums when Stiles had paused to tell him about a picture of his mother.

“Oh, there’s the locket my dad helped me buy for Mother’s Day when I was eight,” Stiles had said as he’d pointed to a picture of Claudia Stilinski, vivacious and beaming brightly at the camera. Anyone could see where Stiles had gotten his smile. “I didn’t have the greatest taste in jewelry, so it doesn’t look like much, but she was so excited when she got it. She wore it all the time.”

“It’s nice that you have a memento to remember her by,” Derek had supplied.

Stiles’ shoulders had slumped a little at the comment. “Yeah, I think we accidentally sold it during a garage sale not long after she died. Dad wasn’t exactly in the best place, and he just wanted to get rid of the memories because they hurt so much back then. Lots of regret now. Who knows? It might’ve found another home, or it might be in a garbage dump somewhere.”

And that comment had led him down the winding, convoluted path to where he was now: standing in front of a teenage girl with bright blue hair and an eclectic ensemble of a loose plaid shirt, artfully ripped leggings, and combat boots.

“A hundred bucks,” the girl re-stated, her tone indicating that this wasn’t a negotiation.

“One hundred? The pawn shop owner said you only paid five dollars for it.” He could be stubborn too, though deep down, he knew he wasn’t really in a position of power in this situation, much as that rankled him.

Ms. Blue-hair shrugged. “So? If you want it that bad, then you should be willing to pay for it.”

She had him there. Three months of diligently interviewing the Stilinski neighbors, and following a trail of multiple goodwill and pawn shops had led him to that very locket hanging from the girl’s neck, that very locket Stiles had shown him in that old photo of his mother. He gave the teen what Stiles had laughingly termed his ‘murder-brow’ look and pulled out his wallet. Of course, he would pay, especially after all the work he’d put into tracking it down, and because this was for Stiles. He didn’t have to like being swindled like this though.

“That’s a nice jacket, by the way.”

Derek looked up from pulling out the cash and froze. He glared at the girl, hoping the intensity of his stare would deter whatever she was about to insinuate. It didn’t work.

“No,” he said flatly as she watched him expectantly.

“Okay, I guess we’re done here then. Nice meeting you.” And with that, she turned and started to walk away.

Derek ground his teeth together to keep from outright growling and fought hard to not wolf out. He hated being bested like this. Life would’ve been so much simpler if he could just take the damned piece of jewelry by force and run off with it. Stupid morals.

“Fine,” he conceded with a clenched jaw after she’d managed to walk several feet away.

She turned with a triumphant smile as he started to shrug off his leather jacket. When he held it out with the wad of cash, she unclasped the chain without any further objections and handed it over. “Pleasure doing business with you, sir.”

(***)

Stiles’ name flashed on his lock screen just as he was pulling up to his loft.

“Hey, you back already?” he answered as he shifted his car into park. His regular visits to Stanford notwithstanding, he’d been anticipating Stiles’ winter break for a while, and the timing couldn’t have worked out any better with him finding the locket when he had. “I was going to pick you up tonight after you’ve had a few hours with your dad.”

Several seconds of heavy breathing greeted his words, and almost instantly, he was on alert, muscles tensing and heartrate increasing. “Stiles?”

“Yeah, Derek, I’m here,” a familiar voice sounded through the phone. “Sorry, just had to get around Scott to check something out. But no, I’m not home yet. Got sidetracked on my way into town. Can you come to the preserve right now? The trail just off Parsons. We’ve got, um, a problem.”

Since his return to Beacon Hills, the supernatural activity in the area had decreased significantly, especially with a solid pack established in the area now, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t the occasional run-in with creatures bringing in death and mayhem. This sounded like one of those times. Shifting gears into reverse, he responded without hesitation, “On my way.”

The trip to the preserve was quick, the route having been travelled so many times that he could probably drive it eyes closed. After parking in the lot off Parsons, he picked up Stiles’ scent almost immediately, along with a few others of the pack, and had no problems tracking the source down a few hundred feet off a popular running path.

Not surprisingly, Scott noticed him first, looking up from a patch of tall grass and nodding in greeting as Derek silently approached. Stiles stood more out in the open, back turned and head down as he tapped busily on his phone. Once upon a time, his quiet ‘stalking’ would’ve caused a flailing of limbs and a high-pitched yelp from the younger man, but of the familiarity borne from the years of closeness, Stiles simply turned, smiled, and greeted him with a warm ‘hey’ as if he’d known he was there the whole time. And all things considered, he probably had.

They’d never been a couple for overt displays of affection, but the way Stiles unconsciously leaned toward him, trusting and open, worked just as well in telling Derek how the other man felt. He usually did the same, subtly breathing in the scent of his boyfriend and feeling more settled in his presence. They hadn’t seen each for a couple of weeks, and he’d missed having Stiles near.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking around for the rest of the pack. Their scents were fainter, which meant they had been here recently, but had likely wandered off or left altogether.

“It’s Christmastime in Beacon Hills, so the usual. Y’know, carolers, Santa parades, sleigh rides, tidings of comfort and joy, and oh yeah, witches.”

Derek had never been bothered by Stiles’ sarcasm, though he wouldn’t openly admit that if asked about their first encounters with each other, but now, he found the trait rather endearing. “So, we’re dealing with a witch. How bad?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I was driving back into town when I saw a kid running across the road. Freaked me out, and barely stopped in time. When I went to check on him, he was crying and said an old woman had tried to take him. At first, I thought it was an attempted kidnapping, but then, he said that there was a lot of screaming coming from her big bag, and he was scared of getting stuffed in there with all the other kid. For this town, that triggered alarm bells. Stuffing kids into bags and lugging them around is not your regular run-of-the-mill kidnapper MO. I called my dad, and he came out here with a few units, but is running interference on the supernatural front. He’d mentioned that this was the third attempted kidnapping this month, so the deputies are on high alert. They still think it’s a regular human predator, so they’re canvassing the other side of the preserve right now, which means we can do our own investigation here. I called Scott, and the others are now fanned out, doing a search to see if we can catch a scent.”

“No luck yet,” Scott added as he strode over to join them. “Just a whole bunch of the usual smells, and with the people that use the running trails, it’s hard to pinpoint a specific one. We’re not exactly sure what we’re looking for.”

“I think I have a lead though.” Stiles held out his phone to show an etching of a stooped crone with a large sack. “We might have an Icelandic witch in the area, one that kidnaps and eats children, but I’m not a hundred percent. I hope I’m not right because … well, children! But she’s supposed to be active around Christmas. I need to double-check some books at my house to make sure though.”

Derek nodded, not surprised that Stiles had pretty much figured it out already. As human as Stiles was, he was arguably one of the pack’s most valuable assets, and truth be told, Derek felt quite proud of the other man’s quick wit and life-saving accomplishments. “So, you need to go home then?”

Stiles made a sound of agreement as he tucked his phone away and gave him an apologetic look. No words were needed to communicate how sorry he was that their reunion wasn’t what they’d planned.

“Okay, call us with any info,” Scott chimed in. “Derek and I will probably be more useful if we keep scouting the area. This is children we’re talking about. I don’t want anymore of them put in danger.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Alpha leader, sir,” Stiles replied jokingly, giving his friend a mock salute.

The years had matured Scott somewhat, enough that the erstwhile werewolf took his role and responsibilities somewhat seriously now. And for this, Derek was grateful.

Scott gave Stiles a shove to get him on his way, before shaking his head with a laugh and started to move back to the tall grass he’d been searching through earlier. “Go, you idiot.”

Stiles responded with the very mature gesture of sticking out his tongue. Then, Derek felt the younger man’s arm wrap lightly around his waist and pull him close for a quick kiss. The motion was casual, natural, and one that Derek returned without thought. “Sorry, not what we’d planned when I got back, huh? Let’s catch this witch fast so we can start our Christmas cuddle session, ‘kay?”

Derek raised an eyebrow at the comment. His boyfriend sure did have a way with words sometimes. “Christmas cuddle?”

“Hey, it is what it is.” Stiles shrugged innocently as he started to move away.

“I’m not calling it that.”

“Suit yourself, Sourwolf, but I’ve officially labelled it, and you can’t take that away from me,” Stiles said as he walked backwards toward the nearby trail. Derek half-expected him to trip on some invisible rock in the next few seconds. “Gonna say it all I want!”

He rolled his eyes as the younger man’s antics. “Go.”

“Christmas cuddle! Oh, and far be it for me to complain about seeing you in that t-shirt, but you do know it’s winter, right? We may live in California, and you may have some super-awesome internal wolfy furnace going, but I’m cold just looking at you. Where’s your jacket?”

“Go!” While he didn’t feel the chill as acutely, he didn’t need to be reminded about his fleecing by a greedy, blue-haired teenager.

After Stiles wave his acknowledgement and jogged out of sight, Derek turned back to join Scott. Their relationship may have started out roughly, but they’d fallen into a companionable pattern over the last few years. It was likely because of everything Scott had been through and his maturation, but Derek guessed part of it may have been out of respect for both their relationships with Stiles. Without much preamble, they quickly sectioned off their respective search zones, and fanned out into the thicker parts of the preserve. Derek had grown up here, had run and played amongst the trees and foliage so often that walking through it now stirred a sense of homecoming. Still, sometimes, there were things here that could still surprise him. Like the odd whiff of fear and panic he caught a few minutes after he’d split off from Scott. It was faint, probably non-existent for the newer wolves, but it was there, so out of place with the earthy scent of moss and soil. He started to follow it, his senses sharpening as he homed in on the potential prey. He hadn’t made much progress before he heard a howl off in the distance, and his entire body tensed, ready for action.

They’d found something!

Once he pinpointed the source, he was off, dashing through branches and over roots with a surety of stride that had been acquired from a lifetime of running these woods. He didn’t get very far though. He heard it first, a loud symphony of disembodied laughter all around him. Before he could stop and confront whatever it was, he caught a flutter of movement in his periphery, and then, he was flying, thrown through the air by an impact harder than anything in recent memory. He was out cold before he even landed.

(***)

He wasn’t unconscious for long. At least, he didn’t think he was, given that generations of werewolf evolution had refined his healing abilities to the point where he shouldn’t be. But however long it was, it was enough to find himself strapped to a board – or a crude table, perhaps – staring up at the flickering shadows of a stone ceiling. Or a cave? He honestly hated losing time like this and waking up in unexpected places, which, given who he was and where he lived, was an actual occupational hazard.

A whimper somewhere to his left drew his attention just then, and he tilted his head at an uncomfortable angle to take better stock of where he was, and with whom. Just within his field of vision, he could barely make out a small figure sat huddled inside a primitively constructed cage no higher than his hip. A wood fire burned beneath a big vat just a few feet away, thoroughly heating up whatever was inside if the bubbling sound was any indication.

“Hey,” he said quietly, if a little hoarsely, hoping the hunched figure would shift enough into the firelight for him to make out who it was.

The figure shuffled over, and Derek could see the tear-streaked face of a boy, probably no more than eight or nine years old. Stiles had said there’d been attempted kidnappings. It looked like one had succeeded.

“H-hello? You’re awake.”

“Yeah, I am.” He wasn’t good with children, barring the few cousins he’d played with when he was younger, yet that had been different. They’d been family. He knew this kid was scared, could hear it in the tremor of his voice and smell it in the dankness of the air, but he wasn’t sure what he could say to help with that. “I’m Derek. What’s your name?”

“A-Andy.”

“Well, Andy, if you give me a minute, we can get out of here and I’ll take you back to your parents.” He tried to sound reassuring, though he wasn’t sure it worked as well as he’d intended when he was tugging and testing the thick ropes tied around his chest, waist, and legs. They were tight, but he managed to slide a hand free enough to shift and start slicing away at the restraints with his claw.

“Just Mom,” the boy said quietly. “Dad left.”

“Okay, we’re going to find your mom then. I’m sure she’s really missing you right now.” He figured that keeping a calm tone and easy conversation going was as good a plan as any while he worked on the ropes.

Andy shuffled a little in his cage, his face dipping down again into the shadows cast by the nearby fire. “She’s working. She’s always working. She promised I’d get to see Dad, but she couldn’t take me, so I went to find him myself.”

Which might explain why the boy hadn’t been reported missing yet. There was some give to the rope by his right hip, so he tilted his head and tried to look over at the boy and hoped he properly projected the sincerity of his words. “That doesn’t mean she’s not missing you, Andy. I know she’s probably very worried. She – “

The stench assaulted him first, sour and rancid, before he felt the whole space shake with a reverberating thud. Andy quickly scooted back into the corner of his cage with a scared squeak, leaving Derek to turn and search out the source in the dim light. An old woman came into view near the foot of his table, posture bent and face haggard, each of her steps sending tiny shockwaves through the cave. Her long, gray hair hung in a greasy, unkempt mess, framing a crooked nose and a gap-toothed, mirthless grin. She resembled the picture Stiles had shown him on his phone, but the younger man had neglected to mention one thing. She was a fucking giant!

The whole cave suddenly felt cramped, and her looming presence caused his heartrate to spike. He worked faster on his ropes.

“Good dog. You’re too old and gristly for my liking, but if my lads want a pet, a pet they will get,” she said in a voice deeper than he’d expected. She patted his stomach dismissively as she passed, and he fought hard not cry out at the jarring, painful contact. “Now, where’s my little snack? Little boy for a little snack. Little boy snack.” She cackled at her own wit.

He heard Andy whimper again as the old, giant crone ambled her way over to the cage, and he wanted to tell the boy to be brave, to hold on because he was almost through his rope. Yet, as he was about to do just that, he caught the scent of metal and electricity in the air. It cut through the myriad of other unpleasant smells like an olfactory beacon, clear and crisp and a harbinger of something – or someone – familiar. He couldn’t help but smile a little at the arrival of the calvary, even as Andy shrieked when the witch pulled him roughly from the cage and shuffled over to the boiling pot.

Then, several things happened at once. First, voices that sounded like the disembodied laughter he’d heard earlier came from somewhere outside. This time, however, they were shouting out in distress, intermingled with the familiar voices of his pack. The cries gave the witch pause for a split second, just as he cut through the last of his restraints and pulled free. After that, he was up and leaping through the air, aiming to get Andy free of the old woman’s clutches and away from the fire. And he managed just that, wrapping his arms around the boy as he clawed at the large hand that held him. But he underestimated the reaction speed of the crone, and barely managed to turn his body to shield Andy before her other hand swatted his side. He landed with bone-cracking impact against the boiling pot, adrenalin enhancing his movements as he rolled quickly to avoid landing on the fire or getting splattered by the hot liquid in the toppling vat. He was pretty sure he’d probably cracked a few ribs, but they were already healing. Andy seemed none the worse for wear when he looked down, unhurt and safe in his arms still.

“My boys! What are they doing to my boys?” the witch wailed.

Derek tensed briefly, thinking the giantess would take her surprise and anger out on him. He readied himself for a fight, but instead, she turned and marched the other way, he and Andy seemingly forgotten. He eased himself up with a barely suppressed groan, and let the small body pressed against his chest slide down to his lap. He could hear the pack outside, the growls of the wolves and the foreign-sounding chants from Stiles, and he knew that they had it handled.

“You okay?” he asked as he gave Andy a good once-over.

The boy simply nodded, his whole body still trembling. Then, without a word, he leaned forward and hugged Derek as if his life depended on it. Not sure how else to respond, Derek hugged the child back.

That was how Stiles found them a few minutes later when he stumbled clumsily into the cave. After some coaxing, they both managed to talk Andy into finally letting go. Scott took it from there, coming in to take the boy away to find the Sheriff, who had been called to the area when Stiles had triangulated Derek’s location. Stiles waited a moment after Scott had left before he turned and threw himself into Derek’s arms.

“Oh, thank every deity I just prayed to you’re okay. Had me worried.”

Derek squeezed the warm, lithe body clinging to him like an octopus, and bent down to briefly nuzzle his partner’s neck. He breathed in the fortifying scent that was simply Stiles and used it to ground himself after the crazy events that had just happened. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m fine.”

“I know. You’re one tough son of a bitch, but the uncertainty always gets me.” Stiles pulled away and gave him a look with those ridiculously wide Bambi-like eyes that made Derek’s insides go warm. “And of course, you would go all superhero and save a child while we saved you. With the way the boy was holding on to you, I thought you’d replaced me with a cuter, newer model.”

Derek quirked up his lip into a lopsided, half-smile. “Never,” he returned easily. “If I did, I would at least try to get a good trade-in price for you.”

“Smartass.” As his comeback, Stiles smacked his arm with the back of his hand. He then slipped said hand into Derek’s, intertwined their fingers, and started walking out of the cave. “See if I ever send baddies back through an intercontinental gate for you again.”

“So, she wasn’t a witch?” Derek asked as he followed Stiles’ lead out of the cave

“Oh, no, she was a witch. The giantess witch, Gryla, and her sons, the Yule Lads. I don’t know how they got here, but I was working off of some quick and dirty research, so the best I could do was track down caves in the area, which is what the literature says she tends to favor, and find a spell to send her back to her native Iceland.”

Derek silently listened as Stiles explained what had happened, both grateful and proud – and not for the first or last time either – at the quick wit and resourcefulness of the guy he got to call his. They eventually emerged from the cave, and he immediately felt lighter the moment he could smell the fresh earth and foliage again. The sun was beginning to set, creating lengthening shadows of the redwoods and the oaks that stood like sentinels around them. And with that came a distinct chill in the air. He felt Stiles shiver at the lower temperature, and wished he’d had his jacket around to offer the other man. The jacket that he’d exchanged for …

With his free hand, he reached into his jeans pocket where he’d tucked the locket earlier, and –

Shit!

Without another thought, he turned and sprinted back into the cave. He quickly scanned the area and did not see the locket anywhere. His eyes then fell on the overturned pot and the still-burning embers of the woodfire. A dash of panic began to taint his actions, but he didn’t stop to quell it. Instead, he rushed over to the dying fire and started digging through the ashes. His hands burned and healed almost simultaneously as he dug desperately through the charred wood, an odd combination of frustration and helplessness clouding his judgement.

“Derek?”

He heard Stiles, but didn’t answer, mainly because his fingers wrapped around a clump of metal just then. He looked down at what used to be Stiles’ mother’s locket, the piece now misshapen by the heat and bearing no resemblance to what it used to be. He dropped the thing, both dejected and angry. This was supposed to be the year. This was supposed to be the Christmas where he would show Stiles how much the younger man meant to him by putting the care and thought into his gift that Stiles had always put into his. But everything… everything had been for nothing.

“Derek? What’s wrong? You okay?” Stiles approached and knelt beside him, looking ready to join him in whatever he was searching for.

He brushed the soot and ash off his hands, shook his head, and stood up. “Nothing. I’m good. Just thought I dropped something but I was wrong. C’mon, let’s go home.”

Puzzled, Stiles stood too, though he didn’t pry, and together, they made their way out of the cave once more, but not before Derek threw one last, longing glance at the pile of ashes.

(***)

“Oh, my god, I’m so stuffed,” Stiles said as he plopped down on the couch and rubbed his belly. “I might have to be rolled off to bed later because there’s no way I’m standing up.”

Derek smiled softly at the younger man’s dramatics, and joined him on the sofa. Christmas dinner had been an intimate one again between just the two of them, with Derek doing most of the preparation, while Stiles had ‘helped’. He didn’t mind though. He enjoyed their time together. The way they fit together, their ease with each other … it had all been hard-won, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything. The younger man had chatted animatedly throughout the meal and Derek had let him go on, wanting to prolong the whole thing because, if he was being honest, he was dreading what would happen afterwards: their gift exchange.

“Merry Christmas, Derek,” Stiles said, as if reading his thoughts. He reached over to the end table and grabbed an unevenly wrapped gift.

Derek stared at the thing for a moment, just knowing deep down it would be a typical Stiles present, all special and personal. Why did Stiles even stay with him? He must come across as an unthoughtful, unappreciative jerk. Slowly, he unwrapped the gift, and revealed a collage of artfully arranged photographs. There were trees and flowers and butterflies dancing on sunbeams across open trails. They were beautiful, more so in that Derek recognized where they had been taken: the preserve.

“You sometimes talk about how you grew up in the preserve,” Stiles explained. “How it’s a second home to you, and how you have all those memories with your family there. I know the memories are special, so I went and took some pictures during summer break. I hope these help you remember all those good times.”

Derek blinked away the prickling he felt in his eyes. Stiles may have assumed he was touched by the gift, which was fine. He didn’t need to know what Derek was really feeling. He didn’t need to know that in that moment, he thought Stiles really deserved so much better than him.

“Thank you. It’s perfect,” he choked out. “I – “ He didn’t know how to continue. What else could he say? “My present isn’t –“

He stopped. Stiles looked at him expectantly. Not finding the right words, he leaned over to the coffee table and grabbed the last-minute gift bag he’d filled the day before. “Here.”

He looked away while Stiles eagerly dug into the bag. He knew what was in there, and he didn’t need to see the lackluster reaction the younger man would have at the assortment of Reese’s candies he’d find.

“Oh, this is awesome, Derek!” Stiles exclaimed excitedly. “Holy shit, there’s a half pound peanut butter cup in here! Hello, Heaven!”

Derek felt Stiles’ arms wrap around him in gratitude, but he couldn’t find it in himself to return the gesture. The younger man seemed to notice and pulled back. “Derek?”

He turned and took in Stiles’ questioning gaze. He couldn’t do this. They complemented each other so well in everything, but somehow, in this, they were completely mismatched. “Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked in earnest.

“What?”

“My gifts. Doesn’t it bother you that my gifts are so … so bad. Yours are always so … so perfect.” It felt good to get that off his chest.

Stiles gawked at him as if he was speaking a foreign language. “Huh? But I think your gifts are perfect. And that’s not a lie. You can tell, right?”

True, Derek hadn’t heard any change in the other man’s heartrate to indicate otherwise, but no one could like his choice of gifts that much. “I just ... I wanted to show you how much I appreciate you, how much I care about you, the same way to do for me, especially with the gifts you give me. But I can’t seem to do that.” This was uncharted territory for him, this admission. He wasn’t used to revealing his insecurities like this. Yet, this was Stiles he was talking to, he reminded himself. Stiles, who never had any shame in revealing his every failure and weakness, and who gave his trust without fear of being hurt. Derek owed him the same. “I found your mother’s locket,” he finally said. “The one from the album you showed me. I found it, and was going to give it to you, but I lost it when we fought that witch last week. I’m sorry.”

He stared at the coffee table. He stared at the discard wrapping paper of the collage he’d just received. He started at everything but Stiles.

And then, “That’s what you were worried about? Not being able to show me you loved me?” Stiles’ tone was incredulous, and it was enough for Derek to turn his attention to the younger man again. “You’re an idiot, Derek,” Stiles continued. “For the record, your presents are awesome. But that’s not the point. You drive three hours each way to visit me on campus every other weekend. You cook Christmas dinner for us every year. You help me pack for college each fall. You drop everything and meet me in a forest, no questions asked, when I call. You even spent all night picking zombie guts out of my hair. If that doesn’t say ‘love’, I don’t know what does!”

To put an exclamation to his point, Stiles pulled him in for a long, lingering kiss. “I love you, Derek Hale, and I know you love me. You don’t need to give me things to show me that. You show me every day in the things you do. And that’s more than enough.”

Derek looked at the man sitting beside him, stunned and at a loss. “I –“

“It’s more than enough,” Stiles re-stated firmly. “Now, stop your self-flagellation, and show me how much you appreciate my gift by kissing me.”

Stiles pulled him in again, and this time, Derek did put everything he had into that kiss because the weight of those heartfelt words were slowly sinking in. He loved Stiles. And Stiles … Stiles knew that. He groaned in appreciation at the true gift he’d been given as he pushed the younger man down onto his back, bracing his weight on his arms as he ground their hips together. Fuck it, he felt like he’d really won the lottery in finding Stiles … because Stiles was right, he realized as he deepened their kiss, tasting and teasing the smart, sarcastic, and silly man beneath him.

This … This was more than enough.

[bonscottintheimpala]

Can I make a request if it’s still open?💖what about something like y/n wants to seduce jimmy in the most effective way but she’s lost and asks other members of Led Zeppelin to give her tips and carry them out?😂 the result could be anything, like, some in vein others did great jobs, or he finds the attempts adorable, or he gets jealous or anything.

I think I did this already, so I'll copy and paste. 🙂

-

Moby Dick Is A Wonderful Song

(Word count: 1,567) EXPLICIT

-

You're with the band at the venue in Inglewood. It's March 27, the night of the band's final concert of the ‘75 tour. Tensions are pretty high in their dressing room; you can almost feel the anxiety and simultaneous excitement thick in the air. But, sitting on a sofa in the middle of the dressing room, you're distracted from the loud voice of Peter Grant shouting the time left before the show starts and Bonzo clashing on a tabletop by one very specific thing in the room.

Jimmy had come in slightly late, already wearing his dragon suit bottoms but not the top. And, of course, he had decided to put the intricately embroidered jacket on after you came into the room with Robert ten minutes earlier. You can't take your eyes off of the lean muscles moving over his shoulders as he takes off his shirt, tensing and relaxing when he replaces it with the dragon suit top. You jump when someone bumps your shoulder, and turn to find Robert giving you a knowing smirk.

"You aren't being very vague about that, (Y/N),” he teases, “If he was looking over here he'd tell that you were checking him out.”

You roll your eyes and smack him on the arm. “Shut up, Rob. If he was looking over here, I wouldn't be watching his back and dying about it. And besides, he doesn't really give off the air of being interested.”

“I've known him for a while. Trust me, (Y/N), he can look like he isn't interested even if he's just itching to get with someone.”

You sigh and turn back to Jimmy. He's sitting in a chair in the far left corner of the dressing room with his Les Paul in hand, tuning the strings carefully as not to break one. You notice his eyes flicker up to look at you for a fraction of a second, then he's back to his guitar. You know that Robert's right. You've only really known the band for two years, and Percy has been around Jimmy for a little over six. You're pretty sure the singer knows his bandmate well enough by now to understand how the guitarist works. Robert nudges you again to get your attention. The smirk is back on his face.

"I have an idea to see if he's into you. We try to be really cuddly and all that shit around him. Hopefully it annoys him enough to get him to do something.”

You raise an eyebrow, questioning the proposition. “Won't he think that I like you that way, though?”

Percy waggles his finger at you. “Yet another thing to tell you. If he wants someone and they don't seem interested, he'll end up letting them know that he's the interested one. Again, (Y/N), I've known him for a while.”

Yet another point well made. “Okay, then. How do we go about this? Just pretend that you're saying something risque to me and I laugh like a fucking idiot?”

"Exactly. Then at Moby Dick, you come back here and best case scenario he follows you, too.”

The plan seems to be working perfectly, because after a few moments of exchanging stories to make you laugh and Robert puts an arm around you, he brings his mouth closer to your ear. “Don't look now, but Jimmy just stared at me like he wanted to kill me. So safe to say it’s going very well.”

You nod. “So I’ll come back here right before Moby Dick?”

"It’d be a good idea to go back earlier. Maybe when he starts his solo during Trampled Underfoot. I'll tell him where you'll be and I'm sure he's going to come straight here.”

The two of you just knowingly smile at each other. Jimmy is actually into you.

-

It feels like ages until the solo of Trampled Underfoot finally starts. You and Robert had secretly decided on a signal for you to go back to the dressing room; he'd do his usual hair flip, but follow it instantly with a spin. Which, of course, was not exactly a major surprise. You've been watching the singer since there song started, hardly even blinking. Once he gives the signal, you practically run for the dressing room, but not before you just catch Jimmy looking at you as you do.

The wailing of Jimmy's guitar slowly fades when you get closer to the room, and it's completely silent once the door is closed behind you. It's kind of eerie; the lack of people and no hint of music gives you goosebumps that make you shiver. It's either that, or the anticipation of Jimmy hopefully joining you, but it's almost impossible to tell which. You lounge on the sofa where you had been sitting with Robert at least an hour and a half -maybe even two hours- earlier. Staring up at the ceiling is all you can really think of doing other than just pacing around.

If I'm just walking everywhere looking at things like I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, I'll look like a dumbass, you think to yourself as you keep your ears trained on the hallway outside, listening for any hint of footsteps that could be coming close. And then, after what seems like hours have passed, you can faintly hear the sound of someone almost sprinting down towards the dressing room door. Your heart starts to pound in your chest the louder they get, and it all comes to a stop when the door opens. Standing there, his long black hair sticking to his sweat soaked face, is James Patrick fucking Page.

Neither of you say anything for a minute, just stare at each other with wide eyes. Jimmy’s the first to talk.

“So…. Percy told me you’d be back here.”

"And did he say why?”

The guitarist steps forward so he can close the door behind him, still watching you. “He did. You two were pretty fucking sly about all that.” You stand up and can’t keep your breath from shaking as he gets closer and stands in front of you. “He didn’t, however, say exactly what the reason was for you to be back here.”

"I guess he thought it’d be nice to give us some time together. To just confirm if you actually do like me.”

"Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t? And after all,” he adds, his voice now slipping into a smooth and sweet tone that makes your breath hitch, “You know exactly what Bonzo’s drum solo gives time for. And which is why Rob will come here to let us know when it’s getting time for me to go back so I don’t miss anything.”

You nod before you start to move the dragon suit top from his shoulders with shaking hands. He notices because he asks, “Are you really sure you want to do this, (Y/N)?”

You laugh. “You have no idea how much. I'm mostly shaking because I'm so surprised you even came here.”

Jimmy holds your face. “We’ve taken up five minutes.” Your stomach goes light and your head seems to be an incoherent mess of thousands of words when Jimmy presses his lips to yours. The contrasting textures between his fingers is just as intense; the rough calluses on the fingertips of right hand tingle your skin as they trail up your spine under your shirt, while the opposite smooth of his left hand slide gently along your lower back.

It isn’t long until everything gets heavier. Your clothes are strewn on the rug covered concrete floor below the sofa, while Jimmy is on top of you with his hand between your legs. It’s obvious that he’s extremely skilled in the art of fingering, and you’re convinced without a doubt that it’s because of how much he’s played guitar.

He’s drawing out loud cries of his name from your mouth and has your legs shaking from the flow of sharp vibrations down from somewhere deep in your core that make the muscles below your stomach pulsate at a steadily faster pace.

And then everything is surging in strong waves out from the spot his fingers are inside of you and through your entire body.

The trembling that follows each flow of energy through you eases down to just intermittent aftershocks and then completely breathless relaxation that leaves your head light and eyes closed. You can’t help but only smile and sigh as Jimmy kisses you again with a sweet softness which makes your heart flutter. The guitarist turns his head towards the door as a knock echoes from the other side.

“Bonzo’s gonna be done in probably five minutes, Pagey, you should get in order and backstage as quick as possible.”

"Okay, Percy, I’ll be out in a bit.”

You open your eyes to look back up at him. “I think I’m actually calmed down enough to tell you that you’re very good with your fingers. Absolutely fucking incredible, I couldn’t even think straight for I don’t even know how long.”

Jimmy kisses your forehead before getting off of you and starting to redress. “And you’re quite loud, (Y/N). I’m glad I could satisfy so well.”

You sit up and pick your clothes up off the floor and begin to get somewhat presentable. “Would it be possible to continue after the concert back at the hotel?”

Jimmy shrugs the dragon suit top back on. “I think that’s a great idea that I will agree with. Now let’s get back to everyone else. And make sure to stay calm until we’re at the hotel.”

[folkgirlhero]

Soooo Chapter 3 of Traditions I Can Trace is now the length of chapters 1 and 2 combined, which is why it won't be done until this weekend BUT here is the first scene to enjoy if anyone out there is waiting!

What Gerry liked best, if he was in the mood to be brutally honest with himself, was when he could get his hands on Mike. He didn’t need much provocation, these last few months, to twist his fingers up in one of Mike’s stuffy collared shirts and shake him or to pin him up against a wall and tower over him, looking down at his smug mouth and the glint in his dark eyes. After the incident with the Buried Leitner, it was all heated kisses and even more heated fights between them, often with one interrupting the other.

“You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men,” Mike singsonged once, calling him on the habit when Gerry had wrestled him to the ground over something at an estate sale that had turned out to be a (very uncursed) copy of Moby Dick. Gerry had watched Mike pay for his prize and then sneak up to the upper level of the mansion, where he’d presumably gone to look for more books.

And now Gerry had Mike pinned down on the floor of what looked like a library, with a knee on his chest, arms above his head with both wrists clasped in one of Gerry’s hands. They were both breathing heavily and Mike was watching him with that tilted-head, appraising-look thing he did. Asshole.

“Are you really “no homo”-ing me right now?”

“It’s Barbara Kruger; please. Take an art history course, you pleb.” Mike considered a moment. “But also, yes, a bit.”

Gerry pressed his knee harder into Mike’s chest, pushing the air out of his lungs. Mike struggled beneath him, hips thrashing between Gerry’s legs, where he was pinning them down, and Gerry didn’t bother to pretend he didn’t enjoy it. Mike stopped squirming (unfortunately) to narrow his eyes at him. Gerry leaned in close, so their faces were inches apart, letting his voice come out low and husky.

“And deprive you the pleasure of lording your fancy university education over me? Wouldn’t dream of it, babes.” He couldn’t help adding a wink. There was just something about fighting Mike that brought it out in him.

Mike’s lips curled into a smile like a pampered cat stretching out in a shaft of sunlight. And then his fist caught Gerry hard in the ear and Gerry rolled off him with an “oof!”

Mike jumped up and followed the punch with a shift kick in the ribs that knocked Gerry flat with another groan.

“C’mon Crew, you got the book already. You can keep it even; it’s useless.”

“A man can have his fun, can’t he?” Mike’s self-satisfied voice bubbled like popped champagne.

Fair enough, Gerry thought, and pretended to struggle to his feet. He figured Mike wouldn’t resist the chance to get in another hit, and he was right. Mike lunged forward and Gerry dropped to one knee, sweeping the other leg out to knock Mike’s feet out from under him and sending him crashing back to the ground.

Gerry quickly scrambled up and brought his foot down on Mike’s throat, pressing down enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to hurt. Yet.

“Well?” croaked Mike. “What’s it going to be, petal? Are you going to choke me out or not?”

Gerry could see Mike’s neck working underneath the pressure of his boot, but chose to absolutely not think about it and be very cool and collected instead. He reached out, pulling a decanter off the bar cart positioned on Mike’s other side. He pulled out the stopper and took a sniff: scotch. He tipped his head back more than necessary to drink from it, letting his hair fall down his back and working his throat around a sizable gulp.

Mike rolled his eyes heaven-ward, as if praying for patience. Drama queen.

“You want some?” Gerry asked, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth and giving the decanter a pleasant swirl.

“Gerard Keay, if you fucking pour that on my face, so help m—”

Gerry poured it on his face.

Mike sputtered on it, then roared and clawed at Gerry’s leg, digging his fingers under the cuff of Gerry’s jeans to draw blood. Gerry swore he kept his nails sharp for this exact purpose. Gerry pressed his boot down harder against Mike’s neck and Mike glared at him, looking like a half-drowned cat. It was hilarious.

Then his expression shifted. He tilted his head and arched his body up, infinitesimally, towards Gerry.

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing here?” he wheezed. Gerard lifted his boot a centimeter.

“Oh, please, tell me,” Gerry scoffed. “What am I doing here?”

“Living out one of your fantasies, of course. You love seeing me like this. Humiliated. Wet. Getting stepped on by those big fuck me boots of yours.”

Gerry thought really hard about keeping the blush out of his face, but Mike’s leer told him it’d been pointless.

“Oh yeah, well—” Gerry started and then broke off in a yell, when Mike grabbed the heel and toe of his boot with each hand, gave a hard press up, and then rolled, taking Gerry’s foot with him. Gerry crashed back to the ground, half on top of Mike.

A clumsy wrestling match ensued. Gerry pulled Mike’s hair so sharply he got a howl out of him, Mike jabbed Gerry in the eye, Gerry got Mike’s arm in a twist he’d been sure would dislocate his shoulder, Mike punched Gerry’s nose so hard he thought it was probably broken again. The whole time it was all hot breath on each other’s faces and bodies twisting against one another and the thrill of adrenaline thrumming swift and heavy through their veins. Gerry knew it was fucked up, but he didn’t have it in him to hate it.

It ended, somehow, with Gerry lying face down, with Mike straddling his back, pinning his hands behind his neck.

Mike let out a low, luxurious chuckle and stuck his hand in Gerry’s pocket, quick as anything, to fish out his cigarettes.

“You know these things’ll kill you, right?”

Gerry groaned, letting his forehead drop to the ground. “You are the most obnoxious person I have ever met.”

“Gerard. I’m touched.”

Gerry was staring at an eyeful of ugly carpet, but he could picture the theatrical hand gesture Mike was most definitely doing: wrist delicately broken, fingertips grazing his own chest, eyes cast upward.

He figured that would be Mike’s exit line and dutifully played his part by lying resigned on the ground, but then he felt a shooting pain as his arm was twisted up his back.

“What the fuck??” he yelled, but his shout was cut off by Mike’s mouth covering his own, followed by Mike’s fingers scraping Gerry’s hair off his face and tugging it back hard, giving Mike room to deepen the kiss.

Gerry let out a very different groan as his stomach gave a wild swoop and Mike licked into his mouth. Gerry’s eyes darted wildly, body trapped beneath Mike’s hips and his twisted arm and pulled hair and, more than anything else, Mike’s mouth, sticking him in place like a moth pinned to a board. Another few seconds of Mike’s hot breath and sharp teeth and another stinging pull of Gerry’s hair, and then Mike was gone, his echoing laughter bouncing down the hallway.

Gerry let his head fall face back down into the hideous carpet, with a ragged exhale blowing his hair up in a poof.

So. Yeah. It was a lot of that. Had been for months now.

And it wasn’t that Gerry felt differently about Mike, exactly. He still thought he was an idiot and reckless and dangerous. But he was also unreasonably sexy about it, and Gerry was sick of pretending he wasn’t.

What’s more (and worse, Gerry constantly reminded himself), he kept going back to that scene in Mike’s flat. The one with the Buried, that is (not that he hadn’t spent plenty of time reliving the events that came after it in private).

The fear he felt at the sight of Mike lying on the floor, unconscious and helpless, at the mercy of a terrifying creature that the mere mention of sent Mike into a flurry of rage… he couldn’t stop thinking about it. And, yeah, sure, he cared about people. Mary had made it clear what a flaw that was his whole life, and so he’d clung to it, desperately, like he did with any clear dichotomy between the two of them. So maybe it was just that, a general desire for another human to be safe, to be free from the influence of the Entities.

Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. For all that their fights could be playful and flirtatious at times, sometimes Mike got such a look of desperation, of fear, that Gerry was taken aback. He had never stopped seeing himself in Mike, never stopped viewing him as trapped, running from something.

Gerry sighed. He knew it was all in his head. Just a need for connection, for understanding. He needed to get over it. It was going to be the death of him one of these days.

[the-golden-ghost]

for the book thing: uh moby dick?

OH BOY

Okay this one’s gonna be messy cause I fully admit I don’t remember like 75% of the book (it’s been more than a year since I read it) and I don’t own a copy so I can’t look it up. Also it’s Moby Dick and the whole plot makes no sense

BUT HERE WE GO:

Meet Ishmael. We’re told to call him that. Heck if we know what his birth name is

Ishmael enjoys walking around, going to sea, complaining, spouting off inaccurate whale facts, talking about his childhood traumas, and that’s kinda it

Meet Queequeg. He’s a prince from a Polynesian island. He’s got tattoos and is an amazing harpooner. He’s also a cannibal and I guess worships a wooden idol. But Ishamel doesn’t judge, because Live and Let Live <3

(Except he does judge at first when the innkeeper says “sorry lads, only one bed, you either gotta sleep with Queequeg or on the bench”)

“I choose the bench” says Ishmael

Ishmael eventually decides fuck it and sleeps with Queequeg

After one (1) night of domesticity and watching Queequeg put his boots on in the early morning they apparently decide “fuck it, let’s get married” and get married

Then they spoon a whole bunch and the book describes this in depth

THEN Ishmael goes to church and complains about how he hates church

Then he goes and gets a job seafaring. He gets put on the Peaquod which is a whaling ship captained by a crazy guy named Ahab. “Fuck! That’s a Biblical name!” says Ishmael, whose name also comes from the Bible

By the way like everyone’s name in this comes from the Bible it’s ridiculous

Anyway Ahab has like... a wife and son? But the son might be his stepson I don’t remember anyway they talked about this like it was weird at the beginning and then never mentioned it again

I honestly don’t remember what happens after this. But at some point Ishmael and Queequeg go aboard the Peaquod, and then we meet the rest of the crew.

The Rest of the Crew:

Starbuck: First Mate. Quaker. From Massachusetts. Has a wife named Mary and a son named Boy (that or he just forgot his son’s name lmao) he loves them very much. Does not appreciate Shenanigans. Usually the one member of the crew with the brain cell but no one listens to him. (and yes, the coffee chain is indeed named after him)

Stubb: Second Mate. A real shady piece of work who has never taken personal responsibility for anything, ever, in his life. Basically doesn’t give a damn in hell.

Flask: Third Mate. I don’t remember anything about him other than that he was an idiot

Pip: Cabin boy. A black kid. He’s the Cute and Small member of the crew. He ends up getting screwed over by the narrative though and also every time he’s mentioned Ishmael decides to be racist about it

Tashtego: An “Indian” but whether than means he’s from India or is a Native American, search me. My guess would be the latter. He’s a harpooner and he’s snarky.

Daggoo: A harpooner from Africa. He’s just pretty chill.

Fedallah: Apparently he just appeared out of nowhere one day and is the personification of the Devil. Or Ishmael was high for the first leg of the trip which wouldn’t shock me. He’s from somewhere in Asia...? I think...?

Anyway Ahab stays in his cabin all the time and no one sees him and the crew don’t like each other and most of the plot is now taken with Ishmael writing weird play-by-plays of the crew banter in between talking excessively about whales and the parts of the ship and what they’re for.

And also some superstitious stuff.

Ahab eventually comes out of his cabin and he has a scar shaped like a lightning bolt on his face and he’s missing a leg and he doesn’t like Moby Dick cause Moby Dick ate his leg so now Vengeance I guess

Anyway they go around hunting whales and getting on each other’s nerves

I cannot for the life of me recall the proper sequence of events, but here’s some stuff I remember happening:

They Run Into A Few Ships And Ask Where Moby Dick Is, Never Getting A Decent Reply

Starbuck Sees A Giant Squid And Thinks It Is An Omen Of Evil

Pip Falls Off The Boat And Ends Up Going Mad From The Isolation (it was only like fifteen minutes but heck)

Ishmael Touches Some Sperm And Really Enjoys It

Ishmael Complains About Albatrosses

Queequeg Almost Dies Of A Fever, Doesn’t, And Then Sleeps In His Own Coffin For Fun

Ahab Becomes Gay For Starbuck For Some Reason

They Go Ashore And Don’t Advance The Narrative Any

The Trip Just Keeps Getting Longer And Ahab Will Not Turn The Damn Boat Around

Starbuck Genuinely Considers Murdering Ahab And Doing A Mutiny

I’m sure other stuff happened but I don’t remember it. Anyway the finale is when they spot Moby Dick, Ahab goes to harpoon him, ends up getting wrapped up in his harpoon rope and dragged down, and the ship sinks in the ensuing fight with Ishmael being the sole survivor because he clung to Queequeg’s coffin, which floated in the wreckage

The end

Anyway the whole thing reads like Ishmael was high and drunk at the same time so that’s kinda why the plot didn’t fit together in any reasonable fashion

If you’re reading this thinking “wow this doesn’t sound like a very good book” IT ISN’T

It’s actually the literary version of a really awful shitpost. Just terrible. Two stars only because of the sheer amount of gay subtext and the invention of the “only one bed” trope.

[j-elaine-hyde]

The Kiss

-Part One-

He watched her walk into the bar. Actually he and every other man in the joint. She breezed through the door, head held high, and took a seat at the end of the bar. Her long wavy raven black hair shining as she shook it out gently, arching her back as she did. She licked her cherry red lips as the bartender approached to take her order. He adjusted his belt as she slowly moved her gaze to his face. He swallowed hard and rushed off quickly to get her drink.

Henry sat there watching her from the opposite side of the bar. He knew it was only a matter of time before the hapless schmoes would start sauntering up to her and offering to buy her next round. Doing their best to win her attention with a cheesy played out pick up line with zero hope of landing her. She was something else and he along with every other man was captivated.

Sure enough the first contender took his shot. He was a tall well built guy, who clearly worked construction. Tanned and scruffy, he was the epitome of rugged masculinity. He bellied up to the bar next to her and slid her a beer.

“Strike one.” Thought Henry. He didn’t even offer her the same drink she currently had. Clearly this woman who was drinking a vodka drink wasn’t going to accept a domestic beer from the table of this guy.

She finally acknowledged his presence, turning to face him, narrowing her eyes. Silently she pushed the bottle back towards him with a single, perfectly manicured, red polished finger. She turned her attention elsewhere, rebuffing his weak advance. He walked away, beer in hand, back to his table. His buddies were razzing him as he shrugged and chugged his beer.

She was halfway through her drink when the next guy approached.

“He thinks he’s smooth...” Henry silently chuckled to himself.

He sauntered up to her, leaning on his elbow against the bar. Giving a superior glance back at the first guy. He nodded and gestured to the bartender for another round for her. He was bolder. He leaned in closer to her and whispered into her ear. She raised an eyebrow in response to whatever this self proclaimed Casanova was lamenting. Without a word she locked eyes with him. He stood up straight, as if under some kind of trance. She made two slow “no” head shakes and off he went.

“Strike two.” Henry smirked as he continued sipping his drink, enjoying watching these men strike out.

The bartender delivered another drink to her as she finished the first. He awkwardly placed it in front of her before backing away, unable to look her in the eye.

“Here comes strike three...” this one was the least promising, at least in Henry’s mind.

He was young. Cocky. Undoubtedly, a frat boy from the nearby university, his Greek lettered shirt and backwards baseball cap giving him away. He “sup” nodded to her as he approached. Clearly violating her personal space as he brushed her hair over her shoulder and stepped in closer still. She held up a single finger and then waved him away without even looking at him. His head jerked back in disgust. Clearly no one had ever rejected him as sharply as she had. His face contorted and he muttered ‘bitch’ as he walked away. This only made her smirk.

Every man tried to hide the fact that they were staring. She was oblivious and impervious to all of it. After a seductively slow sip of her drink she locked eyes on Henry. A steamy gaze and a lip bite was all it took. She held his stare for what seemed like forever, she never wavered. It was a game of psychological chicken, and she was winning. Without even realizing it, he was walking towards her, never dropping her stare. He stood next to her, sliding his hand on the back of her chair, and the other on the bar, claiming her as his, blocking her from everyone else’s view.

She smiled at him, tilted her head and took a sip of her drink. “Hi there.”

Her voice was sultry, she spoke slowly, hypnotizing him. Her confidence was giving him goosebumps. He wasn’t used to women being calm and unaffected by him. For once he was the one feeling giddy and off his game.

“Can I -“

“I’m leaving.” She interrupted.

Completely caught off guard he took a step back. She slid a $50 onto the bar and slid off her barstool, standing even closer to him. She blinked slowly and licked her lips before turning for the door. He stood there baffled and unsure of what had just happened. He hadn’t expected to strike out like the others.

She stopped halfway out the door, locking eyes with him and nodded for him to follow. Like a puppy on a leash, he bound towards her.

She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him against her. In one swift motion her hand was around the back of his neck and she was intensely kissing him.

He felt the kiss down to his toes. His whole body felt electric. Her kiss coursed through him like poison.

She slowly slid down his body, placing her feet back on the pavement. A smirk crossed her face as she looked at the excited frazzled look on his face. He was breathless.

“Wha- Who are you?” He stammered, having never stammered before in his life.

She silently gave a laugh, his awkwardness clearly pleasing her.

“I’ll see you around.” She stuck out her hand to shake his, clasping her small hand in his giant mitt, before bringing it to her lips, kissing the inside of his wrist. It left a perfect kiss mark in bright cherry red lipstick. He stared down at it and then wide eyed back at her as she climbed into her black Mercedes.

He stood there, unable to move, completely entranced as he watched her drive away. He hadn’t even noticed Chris pull up in his Jeep from the opposite direction. With a befuddled look on his face, Chris tried getting Henry’s attention.

“Dude. Supe. Hey. Henry!” Chris stood there his hands out waving.

Henry stood there, completely oblivious.

Chris patted him on the arm and waved his hand in front of his face. “Hen. Dude. What the fuck?”

Henry shook his head, shaking off the trance she had placed him under. “Hey man.”

“Dude what are you doing? Why are you just standing here? How long have you been out here?” Chris couldn’t figure out why his friend was acting so strangely. “Dude, lets go inside and get some food. I’m starving.”

“Yea.... ok... let’s go.” Henry was slowly coming around. Still lost in thought about the beautiful stranger who had just blown his mind with a kiss, and clouded his brain so heavily.

Chris was leery, “You ok man?”

“You just missed the most amazing woman I’ve ever seen. She kissed me. I think I’m in love with her.” His own words confused him.

“Ok... well let’s go inside and talk about it over some food.” Chris was exaggeratedly gesturing his friend into the bar.

-

Four days had passed since the mysterious woman had kissed him in the bar parking lot. He couldn’t get her out of his head. He saw her every time he closed his eyes. He had vivid dreams about her in which she was seducing him, but was always just out of reach. It drove him crazy, waking up sweaty and out of breath.

He shuffled out onto the deck of Chris’s beach house. Rubbing his head he craved coffee. Joining Chris for breakfast he plopped into a chair, reaching for a mug.

“Dude... what’s that on your wrist?” Chris motioned with his head.

Henry looked down at his wrist, the kiss was as solid and vibrant as the moment she planted it. He couldn’t figure it out. He had showered and scrubbed. But nothing was removing the cherry red proof.

“It’s from that woman at the bar...it won’t come off.”

Chris furrowed his brow, giving Henry a skeptical look. “That’s weird man. How many days has it been? Four?”

“Yea. Dude I don’t know what she did to me. But I’ve dreamt about her every night since then. I can’t get her out of my head. I need to find her. I have to see her again.”

“Maybe ask the bartender. Maybe he knows who she is.” Chris shrugged and chomped on a piece of bacon.

-

Chris was perusing the stacks of the local library. He secretly loved hiding away in the rows of books. He had been there for an hour, and had made his way to a long forgotten corner. A worn ancient copy of Moby Dick tucked under his arm, he was reading spines unaware of someone watching him from other side of the shelf.

Her dark eyes flashed when she saw his face. He was next. She climbed the rack ladder and knocked a few books on the floor setting her trap. He heard the clamor and rushed around the corner. There she was. A vision of physical perfection. Her lean leg haphazardly balancing on a the step as the other was extended for balance. Her skirt just short enough to stir his manhood and send his imagination into overdrive.

That’s when he lunged. Call it a 6th sense. At that very moment she teetered and lost her balance, falling into the arms of Captain America himself.

“You saved me.” She mewed in her slow seductive tone, even lower now as a whisper.

Their faces were inches apart. Her arms wrapped around him, he cradled her against his chest.

“Hi.” He attempted to give her that Chris Evans smolder, but got lost in her eyes.

As they stood there, eyes locked, that seductive smirk crossed her face. He couldn’t stand it. He leaned in, colliding his lips with hers. Without her feet touching the floor they managed to readjust. Her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, he held her tightly against his body.

Their kiss intensified as his hand slid into her hair, padding her head from the wall of books as he pushed her back against it. The intense passion of their kiss continued to build. He couldn’t control himself. He’d never felt this way before. The charge running through his body made every fiber of his being crave her.

She reached down between her legs and worked to undo his pants. She watched him as he kissed her. His eyes tightly shut, feverishly kissing her. Without hesitation he undid his pants, positioning himself inside her as he began thrusting deeper and deeper, pounding into her against the wall of books.

She whimpered between heavy breaths as Chris groaned and grunted in hushed tones. He couldn’t stop kissing her as he buried himself deep inside of her, frantically getting closer and closer to completion. She watched him as he buried his face into her chest as his hips jerked and jolted. His body tensing as he climaxed. Finally with a deep sigh he leaned back, seeing a satisfied smile on her face, her eyes dark and intense. He stood there hypnotized, still inside of her.

She kissed him sweetly planting a firm cherry red kiss right below his collarbone as she unwrapped one of her legs from his waist. He shifted, pulling out as she continued to kiss him. Sliding down to her feet.

“Pants.” She said standing there, his jeans around his knees.

“Oh shit. Yea.” He clamored to pull them up, unable to take his eyes off of her.

Once dressed and put back together, he took her hands in his and stared.

“You’re mine.” He said in a deep low voice, his blue eyes intense.

She smirked, brushed down her skirt and walked away without a word. He stood there watching her leave, unable to move or speak.

He didn’t know how long he had been standing there, but his phone ringing pulled him out of his daze.

“Hello?” He rubbed his forehead as he answered.

“Hey Cap. I’m gonna run to that bar to ask about that woman. Wanna grab a drink?” Henry innocently asked with determination in his voice.

A low snarl escaped Chris’s lips. A fire lit inside of him fueling a possessive rage. He gritted his teeth as he seethed, “sure.”

“Cool. Meet you there in 10?” Henry sensed something was off, but decided not to pry.

“Sounds good, bud.” Chris’s response was monotone and hostile as he hung up.

-

Chris was distracted, swerving to maintain his lane. He was obsessed. All he could see was her face, her hushed moans still rang in his ears as he pulled into the parking lot.

He walked in and sat down at the bar. No sign of her. He hoped she wouldn’t show and that the bartender was none the wiser and just as mystified and curious as they were. He couldn’t let Henry find her.

While Chris sat spellbound at the bar, Henry had stopped for gas. As he was about to turn left out of the gas station he saw the blacked out Mercedes speed passed.

He flew into the road, cutting off a Honda Civic, determined to chase her down. He followed the speeding black car all the way to a large solid steel gate. The tall concrete walls blocked out any chance of a view. The car slid inside the narrow opening as it began closing behind her. He pulled his car over to the side of the street and parked. Peering around he tried to see beyond the wall when a very large man dressed all in black knocked on his window. Not wanting any trouble he rolled down his window.

“I’m sorry Sir, but you can’t park here. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Sure thing. Not a problem.” Henry nodded and waved as he put his car in reverse.

He had found her, but lost her at the same time. He had no idea what this building was, but he was going to find out. He turned the car around and headed to meet Chris at the bar.

To Be Continued...

[hihoneyimdead]

a dissection of anime nathaniel hawthorne in relation to the scarlet letter

In Which I’m Bored and Want to Talk About Anime Nathaniel Hawthorne and Why He’s More Interesting Than the Fandom Wants to Admit, and Also About Arthur Dimmesdale And Shit

This is going to be long. Fuck. 

(spoilers through the manga, which i have not read all the way through, so take everything i say with a grain of salt. same goes for the scarlet letter, which i haven’t read in nearly four years. ripperoni bro)

Above is the topic of today’s procrastination, Anime Nathaniel Hawthorne from Bungo Stray Dogs. He is a member of an American organization called the Guild, he’s a preacher, and he has a superpower/ability called The Scarlet Letter that allows him to manipulate his own blood into scripture that can either harm or defend via spears and shit and then shields and shit. 

He’s also a simp for Anime Margaret Mitchell, but I’ll be getting into that in a moment. 

Anyway, here’s a better picture of our lovely reverend, this time with his ability:

Funny, right? But that’s what I’m gonna talk about today simply because I’m bored and I should be writing but I’m currently not and I really have a soft spot for this bitch of a preacher. Hawthorne here has a lot more to his character than a lot of people give him credit for, which makes sense because he is a relatively-minor character and all he’s been doing recently is getting cucked by Anime Fyodor Dostoevsky, and while he may currently be Comrade Assassin, he’s still a complex character if you look past what our favorite Russian pimp has been up to. 

So a bit more about Hawthorne before I crack open my copy of his most famous book:

He is a preacher, not a priest, as shown by his choice in clothing. Priests don’t wear that, take it from a former Catholic. His clothes resemble the robes worn by classic Puritan preachers (such as the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, but we’ll get to him in a minute.) Whether that was on purpose or not I don’t know, but I’m aiming for a yes because Margaret Mitchell, his partner, wears a Southern belle-style outfit that Scarlett O’Hara (the main character of Mitchell’s most famous work, Gone With the Wind) wears, and John Steinbeck wears clothes reminiscent of Tom Joad (the main character of Steinbeck’s most famous work, The Grapes of Wrath.) It’s kind of a thing with the Guild. Edgar Allan Poe wears clothes that a goth around the time of Poe’s life would’ve worn. Same goes for Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and H. P. Lovecraft. Meanwhile characters such as Lucy Maud Montgomery, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Herman Melville wear clothes that their characters (Anne from Anne of Green Gables, Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, and whoever the fuck was in Moby Dick, respectively.) Hawthorne fits in with that last set of characters, which is funny considering the real life Hawthorne’s works.

In reality, Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American author in the early-to-mid-1800s who wrote many short stories, novels, and poems and shit, usually Romantic in nature. He started off, though, as a big member of the Transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism, if you don’t know, is kind of like the 1800s equivalent of hippies. They were pretty anti-government and anti-religion, usually specifically anti-Christianity. These institutions corrupted the basis of mankind. Hawthorne himself helped form a utopian commune up in New England (it didn’t last long, don’t worry.) As he grew older, he grew out of that kind of writing and lifestyle and into the works we know him for today, such as his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. It, like many of his other works, contains allusions to religion and exists as a sort of criticism on it. 

The Scarlet Letter is set in the middle of the 1600s in Puritan New England. The Puritans were known for being Super Christian. They did not pass the vibe check. The main character is Hester Prynne, a young woman convicted of adultery with an unknown father. After being “released” from prison after the birth of her daughter, Pearl, Hester is allowed to move around outside of prison. But to signify her “evilness”, she must have a red letter ‘A’ on the front of her dress at all times (the eponymous and extremely metaphoric scarlet letter.) Besides Hester and Peal, main characters include Roger Chillingsworth, a doctor and Hester’s ex-husband from England who has vowed to track down the father and have him punished as well, and the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who is sick All of the Time For No Apparent reason. By the end of the novel it’s revealed that Dimmesdale’s illness is actually a manifestation of his guilt because he was Pearl’s father despite him being a reverend and all and Hester being an unmarried woman. He ends up dying in the end after professing his guilt and showing the town the red letter ‘A’ that God supposedly engraved upon the skin on his chest. 

So let’s start here with a brief summary of Dimmesdale’s actions in the book as recalled by someone who hasn’t read it in four years but who is looking at the Wikipedia article right now. 

We first meet him when he and another minister, John Wilson, question Hester as to who the father of her child was. She doesn’t answer. The next time we see him in person is when Hester goes to the governor to ask if she can keep Pearl. She pleads with Dimmesdale and Wilson (who is there too for some reason), and he manages to persuade the governor to let her keep her child. At some point soon after, his health really begins to decline, and Chillingsworth moves in as a physician. Chillingsworth discovers a weird symbol of guilt on Dimmesdale’s chest while the poor guy sleeps after suspecting that the preacher’s illness is a manifestation of an unknown guilt. Dimmesdale, filled with guilt, goes to the town square in the middle of the night one day and screams his guilt to the heavens, but he can’t make himself do it during the day. Hester, shocked by the poor guy’s whole deal, decides to break her vow of silence. She calls Dimmesdale outside of town and tells him that they’re going to move to Europe together and start a new life with Pearl. He agrees and seems reinvigorated. They go back to town, and all’s fine until he gives a really good sermon on Election Day. After that, he professes his guilt and dies in Hester’s arms. People there claim to see a “stigma” in the shape of a letter ‘A’ on his chest, though others say there’s nothing there. 

Dimmesdale is a man consumed by his guilt. He physically and mentally declines because of his guilt and his unwillingness to expose himself for the sinner he really is, though, through it all, he supports Hester and Pearl as best he can considering his station as the town minister. He’s supposed to be the beacon of mortality, the person everyone should look up to and respect and learn from. And here he is, an adulterer, and a liar. And when he finally grows past his guilt and decides to let it out in favor of leaving and starting life anew, he dies, consumed, supposedly, by the wrath of God. He “falls” as a sinner, struck down by the very flames of Hell themselves. Or, more likely, a regular heart attack. He died of shock, poor guy. 

Compare that to Anime Nathaniel Hawthorne. He starts out as a member of a secret association who, according to its leader, Fitzgerald, doesn’t do good, but does what needs to be done. That’s probably why Hawthorne joined it in the first place. While his main goal has always been eradicating sinners from the face of the Earth, he probably started out as a regular old minister. Eradicating doesn’t always mean killing, and this is shown as he only attacks those who threaten his work, his partner (wink), and himself. This changes after the woman he loves throws herself in the way of an attack and nearly gets herself killed saving him. In canon, she’s still in a coma. In canon, he gave himself completely into sin because of his guilt and love for her. And that’s where the similarities between Hawthorne and Dimmesdale really start.

Let’s start with the obvious guilt complex. This goes along with what I believe Dostoevsky’s ability, Crime and Punishment, does. I believe it feeds off of an individual’s guilt, manipulating it and their mind in the process. We see this with Karma, a young man Dostoevsky kills. Karma, in his last moments, goes through all he went wrong with in his life (you know, or as much as a manga page or two can have) and dies knowing that he’ll never achieve his dream. That’s a more extreme example, I think, and not one I should really be using as evidence for anything considering it’s the only example of this really happening. Every other person that Dostoevsky kills with his ability just drops dead without the audience seeing into their thoughts. He’s got an insta-kill ability, but my theory builds off the idea that he can control living or dying. Hawthorne came to Dostoevsky to work for Dostoevsky’s organization, the Rats in the House of the Dead, in exchange for Mitchell getting “revived”. He might look cool on the outside, but he left the Guild, his friends, because Mitchell got hurt. He loves her, and he says as much in the manga (the anime didn’t say so, but left it unsaid and obvious to those looking.) The next time we see Hawthorne, he’s a mindless assassin who really only remembers Mitchell from his past, and the assassin who nearly killed her. His guilt twisted him into someone completely different from how he was before, even looking physically leaner and as different a brief appearance in a manga and anime can make someone look. He’s even lost his glasses, and any normal look in his eye. It’s kinda like the main character of Crime and Punishment from what I can tell, but I also haven’t read that book so take what I say on that with a gain of salt.) He’s consumed by his guilt (thanks, Fyodor.) Guilt is a big part of his character (as much of a character as he has currently, anyway.) The same can be said for Dimmesdale, who, as I’ve said before was consumed by his own guilt and sin until his death. 

I hope that Hawthorne doesn’t end up as dead as Dimmesdale did when he reunites with his supposed love interest (love interests aren’t really a thing in this series, which makes Hawthorne and Mitchell even more interesting to me.) I hope he gets a happy ending, but... that probably won’t happen unless Dostoevsky dies, which seems like an end-game thing to me. He’s a bad dude with slight plot armor. 

Anyway, past the guilt, their relationship with the respective women in their lives is another important and interesting parallel. Dimmesdale, even through Hester’s punishment, more or less treats her as he would’ve before Pearl. I believe that he did truly love her in his own pitiful way, though not as much as he loved his relationship with God, as seen by his continued guilt and shit. But it’s important to note that he seemed to admit his own love for Hester by agreeing to run away to Europe with her, and he did so in little ways throughout the story by helping her keep Pearl and by really just giving her a lighter sentence than a lot of women would’ve gotten. Puritan ministers were up there with government officials in the law (look at the witch trials, for example), so he would’ve definitely had input on her punishment. Most women would’ve been stoned or banished from the town or colony. Hester, notably, was let off relatively easy with just the emblem and the vague banishment to living in a house outside of town alone with her daughter. Hawthorne’s partner was Margaret Mitchell, and from the very beginning until the assassin skewered them, the two of them argued. Honestly, they bickered a lot like an old married couple. It was kinda cute in a weird way. Neither of them would obviously admit their feelings for each other. Both are proud people, Mitchell coming from a disgraced rich family and Hawthorne being a man of God. But his concern for her becomes evident the moment she gets stabbed clean through and impaled a dozen feet above the ground. That’s when he really gets on the offensive, and when she’s destroyed (image below), he calls her by her first name for the first, and only, time, looking completely destroyed (image also below.) He nearly manages to kill the assassin. And when he wakes up and sees that she isn’t going to wake up, he leaves those he cares about to fix his mistake of letting her get this hurt.

When we see Hawthorne next, he is willing to do anything to redeem himself for his mistake. When we meet him as an assassin for the first time, in the manga he says something along the lines of “I, for the revival of the one I love, will fulfill the contract of death”. Which is... not normal, I’ll admit. Poor guy. In the anime, he says something different that I don’t remember, but that was similar if not slightly different (again, the anime isn’t as explicit with their relationship as the manga.) Meanwhile she’s in a coma and is likely not to be revived by those Hawthorne pledged his allegiance to, but those he left behind. 

The two ministers here follow generally the same path of sin. They start out as the badass ministers they really are, men of God. Then, one way or another, they fall deeper and deeper into sin as they go. For Dimmesdale, that was boning Hester Prynne and hiding it from the town and corrupting himself with his guilt. For Hawthorne, that was ‘allowing’ his partner to ‘die’ and surrendering himself to a higher power to try and get her back, losing himself in the process. In the end, both men are shells of their former selves. Dimmesdale dies sick. Hawthorne is a brainwashed assassin. Dimmesdale’s higher power, God, is ultimately what killed him, and his devotion is what really did him in. Hawthorne is probably gonna die or get otherwise written out, I have a feeling (several villains in this show have, just look at Pushkin and Mark Twain and even Mitchell herself.) If he is, it’ll be Dostoevsky or one of his weird Russian friends doing him in or taking him out of the picture. He’ll likely never see Mitchell again and he will die due to his newfound devotion to a “god” who is willing to punish him for going to far. 

And guys, Hawthorne’s ability is literally the titular scarlet letter. What else can I say?

Honestly, I’m not sure what this post was, only that I killed a good three hours writing it and that it gave me yet again a newfound appreciation for something I used to hate. It was Anime Hawthorne, but before that it was IRL Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter. Thank you American public school system. 

[crepuscular-gloom]

Poptropica Island Ratings

okay I saw a post on here a while ago and someone rated the Poptropica islands. I remember agreeing with a lot of them, but they only went so far so a lot of the newer islands were missed out. I came across it again recently and got hit by a wave of nostalgia so I’m gonna do my own now. Unoriginal content very good. i’ll put a keep reading link to stop it from taking up too much space

Early Poptropica - mega nostalgia but kinda boring. I like the original Poptropicans being pixely and there is a goth gf in the sewers however the giant green spider scared the shit out of me as a kid and the idea of an aircraft graveyard made me sad so 6/10

Shark Tooth Island - also nostalgic but I didn’t complete it for a long time for some reason.. very short. it has a story but its there is nasty shark and people stuck on an island so make a calming potion. the medicine man looks like he is from viva pinata so 6/10

Time Tangled Island - VERY GOOD AND FUN AND HISTORICAL FUCK THAT AZTEC THO DICKHEAD. quite lengthy for an island but this is good because that means more time periods to explore. it’s also educational but i just care about restoring time. very legendary the iconic just jumped out - 10/10

24 Carrot Island - stupid pun point taken off. introduces Dr Hare and people are THIRSTY. you can dye your hair with milkshakes. i thought it was creepy as a kid honestly. i think its mind control or something. but i like it, it still has nostalgia value 8/10

Super Power Island - very legend like. i loooove the antagonists, especially copy cat but i think i had to look up a guide to beat her because i was dumb af. you need a licence to be a superhero but you are a superhero!!! very fun i like this one a lot 10/10

Spy Island - i remember sucking at this one as well as a kid.  i think it fucks with peoples hair and i only remember because my character looks fresh 100% of the time and this island fucked it up i think. i don't really remember it tho. 5/10

Nabooti Island - it’s based on a Choose Your Own Adventure book so good premise. go around the world is also good. you have to get jewels i think. ngl i didn’t finish this one because i sucked at it so i’m just going off the wiki and how far i got into it. fuck the animal puzzle 7/10

Big Nate Island - who the fuck is Big Nate. i only remember the school climbing frame and a stink bomb. fuck you big nate we don’t have your comics in England 1/10

Astro-Knights Island - medieval knights.... IN SPACE?!?! COUNT ME IN. crazy jester bard guy antagonist. people are thirsty for him too. i’m pretty sure you end up in another dimension or something. cyborgs and shit 9/10

Counterfeit Island - bruh i loved this island. pretty sure antagonist is also making people thirsty. you have to go back to Early Poptropica Island to complete it, very cool. investigating crime is cool idea it’s l.a. noire in poptropica. the wiki says there is a glitch called anti-social clown and i have to say relatable 9/10

Reality TV Island - i think i completed this like twice and i remember jackshit. you get to see past characters tho so very good. it’s just doing challenges. 4/10

Mythology Island - VERY GOOD. LEARN ABOUT MYTHOLOGY. you can fight hydra and other creatures, you meet Zeus you meet Hades, Aphrodite is a bitch. 9/10

Skullduggery Island - pirates are always good no matter what. apparently it is one of the hardest islands which explains why i never completed it but you fight other pirates and sea monsters for doubloons or some shit sounds cool to me 8/10

Steamworks Island - steampunk is good. i remember completing this and thinking it was interesting and weird to look at. i think the atmosphere is was lonely tho. there’s a boss battle against a plant i think. otherwise i don’t fuckin remember 7/10

Great Pumpkin Island - it’s Peanuts so it’s nice. very nice and simple. it’s just about the great pumpkin except you’re there. 6/10

Cryptids Island - GOD TIER. CRYPTIDS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA. some of it is scary tho. the jersey devil just fucking staring at you from the window was a shit the bed moment for a kids game. also before the islands got rebooted, it was one of the only islands to have sound effects, i.e. when the chupacabra bursts out the box. honestly because of the balls on this kids game to scare children and also being good island 10/10

Wild West Island - the only thing better than pirates is cowboys. i don’t really remember it but you do go against an outlaw gang. i like cowboys 10/10

Wimpy Wonderland Island - Jeff I know you made doawk and poptropica but did you have to show it. ngl i liked it because i like doawk. but it’s kinda... creatively bankrupt i guess. 3/10 2 points because Rodrick is there

Red Dragon Island - i think more time travel but just to old Japan. you have to save a girl. that’s all i remember. also i think there is a nasty samurai guy. but also evil dragon. i can’t remember because for the longest time this was a premium account only island so i never got to finish it for the longest time. that was a dick move 7/10 for that alone.

Shrink Ray Island - cool premise but this island expects me to learn morse code 3/10

Mystery Train Island - detectives? on a train? very nice. basically murder on the orient express except no murder and thomas edison is there and also various other 1700/1800 nerds

Game Show Island - basically Reality TV except it’s to save the world from robots. 5/10

Ghost Story Island - wow iconic. this is the only island with voice acting and it’s to fucking jumpscare you i shat myself.  ghost hunting, very cool 10/10

S.O.S Island - it’s basically Titanic mixed with Moby Dick. it’s ok 6/10

Vampire’s Curse Island - i reaaaally like this one. i like vampires. it has a vampire daddy in it so. he kidnaps a teenage girl tho because he thinks its the love of his life who is dead. kinda weird. he does stop being insane at the end tho and says sorry and dies. the girls bf is a dickhead tho. 9/10

Twisted Thicket Island - i think you’re saving a forest from becoming housing. i really like it because it introduces various folkloric creatures like the nokken. i only remember the nokken because i went on akinator to see if he knew what it was and i don’t think he did so i added it and it’s photo to his database. or maybe it was just his photo but i remember uploading something to akinator. 8/10

Poptropolis Games Island - i don’t think i liked this one 3/10

Wimpy Boardwalk Island - Jeff. 2/10 1 point added because Rodrick is also there

Lunar Colony Island - space is good. do i remember this island tho? no. i think theres aliens tho. 5/10 because i like space and aliens.

Super Villain Island - it brings back the most memorable villains like binary bard and black widow. you find out why they are evil. pretty chill 8/10

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory Island - what do you expect 5/10

Zomberry Island - the last of us except i think people are just eating nasty berries really. i like it it’s spooky 7/10

Night Watch Island - Paul Blart Mall Cop 6/10

Back Lot Island - you make a film. i can’t remeber it like at all. 6/10 because it sounds ok

Poptropolis Games Island Part 2 - fuck off 2/10

Virus Hunter Island - i don’t think i completed this one either. however it is one of those inside the human body things which is always cool if cliche. 8/10

Mocktropica Island - very satirical what if about if poptropica was run by assholes. ironic since a bunch of islands were made premium only for a while. pretty sure the bonus missions still are too which is why i’m not mentioning them. funny tho 7/10

Monster Carnival Island - spooky yes. people thirst over the ringmaster raven guy too. theres a spooky clown on the ferris wheel. i don’t remember much other than i liked it because it was about monsters in a theme park. 9/10 i remember it was surprisingly short tho

Survival Island - castaway except it’s you. i don’t remember it either lmao. i got out of touch with old poptropica real bad by this time so my next ratings might be unfair sorry. pretty sure it also becomes the most dangerous game tho and some guy wants to actually fucking kill you. ballsy. 7/10 because it sounds ok i should maybe play it.

Mission Atlantis Island - i like atlantis but i didn’t play this one either. you see deepsea creatures which are spooky so extra points 8/10

PoptropiCon Island - poptropica’s answer to comicon. now i did play this one for some reason but i don’t remember it too well either. i was 14 when it came out so. sounds like yu-gi-oh so good. 7/10

Arabian Nights Island - didn’t play it i think it’s just telling the story. it’s a cool story so 7/10

Galactic Hotdogs Island - what the fuck 1/10

Mystery of The Map Island - vikings are cool. island seems very short tho. 5/10

Timmy Failure Island - who the fuck. this would be more impactful if i read these fucking things but i don’t. who the fuck are you timmy. i guess it’s called failure for a reason. (that was mean sorry) 1/10

Escape from Pelican Rock Island - prison break, nice idea. you have like a twin in this one. seems a bit repetitive sometimes tho. theres like 7 days of doing similar things. 6/10

Monkey Wrench Island - it was created to be the new tutorial, i.e. an actual tutorial rather than Early Poptropica. very fast and boring, especially if you already know everything. 2/10

Crisis Caverns Island - i know nothing about this. even the wiki is incomplete. maybe that means its shit then. 1/10 the wiki doesn’t even care too much about this one.

Greek Sea Odyssey - more ancient greece is always good. you get to beat the shit out of zeus this time 8/10

Snagglemast Island - all you do is collect coins. another tutorial one. 1/10.

bonus: home island. legit just a hub. points added because you can do a lot of customisation here and pick up a pet that doesn’t cost credits. 4/10

DOUBLE BONUS: the little haunted house mini thing. very good because spooky costumes, spooky house fun little monster party. 10/10

[aslanjadecarlyle]

new addition (Barlyle)

Prompt 22: Retail

title: new addition

rating: G

——

Their first day back at the circus, Phillip was told by Phineas to go on home without him.

“I’ll be home within an hour or two,” Phineas promised, “but I’ve got an... errand to run first.”

Did Phillip trust him?

Not at all.

Did Phineas persuade him to go home anyway?

Somehow, the bastard did.

Ellie greeted him as she always did, but she whined and seemed confused about why Phineas wasn’t home. Phillip wasn’t as good with dogs as Phineas was — Ellie, especially, wasn’t used to his touch, which was much colder than Phineas’s — but he scratched behind her ears and attempted to soothe her. Phillip didn’t allow Ellie in his lap the way Phineas did, but she laid at his feet as he stroked her back.

If Phineas ever caught him talking to Ellie as he would a toddler, Phillip would never hear the end of it. 

Finally, an hour or so after coming home himself, Phillip heard movement from outdoors. It was dark, he couldn’t much see out of the window, but he’d know that whistle anywhere.

He was up to greet Phineas when the front door swung open, but, much to his surprise, the ringmaster took a startled step back upon seeing him.

“Phillip! I... thought you’d be upstairs by now.”

“I was waiting for you,” Phillip responded. His copy of Moby Dick laid in his place on the couch. “I—“

Ellie barked, startling them both, and clambered for her master. However, instead of getting down on his knees to greet her as he normally would, Phineas took a few more startled steps backward.

“Grab her, quick!”

“Phineas?” Phillip spluttered in confusion as he made a grab for Ellie’s collar. She whined, strained against his hold, but, after a moment, seemed to settle and sit at his feet.

That was when Phillip noticed the small crate Phineas held at his side.

Heard the soft meow that came from it.

Eyes widening, he looked up at Phineas.

The ringmaster’s face grew pink. “I was, ah, hoping for another moment or two to better prepare myself—“

“Phineas, what—“

“A local breeder had a litter of kittens a couple months ago, and when I last inquired, they had one feline left. He’s a couple months old, a little bigger than a newborn kitten, but... well, I know how much you like cats, Phil, even though I don’t much care for them, but since I have Ellie, I thought you might like—“

“Phineas, did you—“

Phineas grinned and rose the carrier up. Two hesitant light-colored eyes stared out at Phillip.

“Surprise, Phil, I bought us a cat.”

——

i’m not much of a cat person either, but our lil feline friend is a creation of the askbarnum and askcarlyle blogs on Tumblr!

Read the rest of my FanFicFeb prompts here!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17624345/chapters/42229400

[avanneman]

Carriage House Days

Just off the corner of Connecticut and N Streets in Washington, DC is a reasonably imposing red-brick urban mini-mansion, which, a small plaque informs you, once belonged to General Henry Robert, who, you probably don’t know, wrote Robert’s Rules of Order. But back in 1975 when I worked there as a file clerk, we called it “the Carriage House,” because of the large room in the basement which indeed had once been a carriage house.

Like everyone else in the Carriage House, I worked on the “White & Case Case” for the law firm of Arnold & Porter, started in the late forties by two New Deal alumni, Thurman Arnold and Abe Fortas, who were then joined by another New Dealer, Paul Porter. Fortas was appointed to the Supreme Court by his very good friend Lyndon Johnson, who ultimately but inadvertently all but ruined Fortas’ life by seeking to elevate him to Chief Justice, leading to a number of scandals that both prevented Fortas from getting the job and, later, forced him to resign from the Court altogether, which might not have happened if Fortas hadn’t been Jewish, and would have been the nation’s first Jewish Chief Justice.

This was all ancient history by the time my association with the firm—mute, inglorious, and brief—began. Thurman and Abe’s original idea, it seems, was to found an early version of a “boutique” law firm, handling just a few “interesting” cases. Unsurprisingly, that strategy fell by the wayside as Washington boomed. The firm was originally housed in a number of the row houses on N Street, most spectacularly by an impressive mansion on the corner of N and 19th that had been owned by Teddy Roosevelt when he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the McKinley Administration. However, by the time I arrived at the Carriage House, most of the senior staff were housed in the I.A.M Building, a Washington, DC sized “skyscraper” on the corner of N and Connecticut, owned by the International Association of Machinists, whose president, William “Wimpy” Wimpisinger, was regarded by some as the most “dangerous” labor leader in America, though if Wimpy ever did anything dangerous, I never heard about it.

Most of the people in the Carriage House were young women, either paralegals or secretaries, which left me doubly the odd man out, or even trebly so, because I was quite possibly the oldest person there—of the regulars, at least—though a fortunately youthful appearance kept my presence and position there from looking as dubious as in fact it was.

I spent most of my time copying and collating documents. The enormous Xerox machines of the time could only copy a single page at a time—no automatic feeds and, of course, no automatic collating. I once spent three days assembling 50 copies of a 300-page document. Occasionally, I would read through transcripts of depositions and circle the names of "important" people whenever they appeared. One of the attorneys at many of these depositions would introduce himself at the start of each session in the following manner: "My name is Bobby Lawyer and I am an attorney."

I lived on Q Street, just a few blocks away from the Carriage House, in an efficiency I rented for $175 a month, furnished largely from what I scavenged from the street. I slept on a $50 mattress and listened to a $1200 stereo, both spread out on the floor. I sat in a worn wicker chair and ate from a worn card table, kept my books in a worn bookcase and my 100-odd jazz albums in a cardboard box.

The young women in the Carriage House who were single would often go to a bar they called “the Airplane”, located nearby on 19th St., but I was far too shy to do that. I would not have wanted to go to a “pick up” bar of any sort, and most certainly would not have wanted to go to a pick up bar frequented by women I knew at work.

However, there was a jazz club located in the basement of the town house right next to the Carriage House, “Harold’s Rogue and Jar”. I never found out what the name meant. I would go there occasionally and sit at the bar without talking to anyone. I would order a bacon cheeseburger with steak fries and a diet Coke. I can’t remember any of the names who appeared at the club, but it was serious jazz—nothing like the terrible “cool jazz” of today. The house drummer was a woman named Dottie Dodgione, who I think was the club manager as well. She was in her fifties, I would guess, with a stiff bouffant hairdo who wore pant suits, and ended each number with a furious solo. Sometimes, despite the jazz, the stress of being around so many people would get to me, and I would take my meal home, wrapped in heavy aluminum foil, and I would sit in my wicker chair and eat my rich bar food in peace and quiet and solitude.

After eight months at Arnold & Porter, I was fired, something anyone with the slightest percipience could have foreseen. Somewhere in Moby Dick Herman Melville warns sea captains not to hire “Platonists”—those with their eyes fixed only on invisible horizons—and he could have offered the same advice to law firms. But my time at the A&P was far from a complete loss. A month before I was fired, I was feeling so flush that I shopped for furniture, at Woodward & Lothrop, then DC’s largest department store. I chose a $400 sleeper sofa, blue and white plaid, a $150 butcher block table, and two Breuer chairs, which I had first seen in an optometrist’s shop and had thought were very classy. I didn’t have a credit card and didn’t know if Woodie’s would take a check, so I paid with $800 in cash, in the form of 16 fifties I had withdrawn from the bank the previous day. It was an investment that, though it might have seemed ill-timed, was in fact very much the reverse. Shortly after being fired, I started dating a young woman who would change my life significantly, a young woman who, I think, would not have dated a man who slept on a mattress on the floor and ate from a card table and a worn wicker chair.

Afterwords The rear windows of the Carriage House faced on the alley behind N Street. A “celebrity” hair dresser, whose name I never learned, parked one of three classic cars that he drove to work each day in that alley—a funereal-looking green and black pre-war Rolls Royce, a post-war Rolls that was cream with red pinstriping, and, surely the pièce de résistance, a midnight-blue coffin-nosed Cord convertible with a tan roof, its chrome supercharger exhaust pipes gleaming in the sun. I wonder how many people would drive such cars in rush-hour traffic today.

The top floor of the IAM building had both offices for Arnold & Porter and the Machinists’ Union. The A&P had lots of attractive, stylish young women who worked as secretaries and receptionists. One of them who sat at the front desk of the top floor told me how difficult it was to keep a straight face when the Machinists’ big shots came swanking in in their horrible 70s-era polyester leisure suits—mint green with white piping and matching white shoes, or what smirky journalists liked to call a “full Cleveland”, white suit, white shirt, and white shoes.

Shortly after I left the A&P, the Carriage House was commandeered by Carolyn Agger, a senior partner and Abe Fortas’ wife. Carolyn, who had been housed in the IAM building, was afraid of elevators, and wanted an office in a building with a nice staircase.

A year or so after I left, Arnold & Porter deserted N Street entirely, building the “Thurmond Arnold Building” at the corner of New Hampshire and M, but they didn’t stay there long. The firm has now merged with a New York law firm, Kaye Scholer, becoming Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, with offices all around the world. The DC office is on Massachusetts Avenue, just southeast of Mt. Vernon Square, a stretch of road that constitutes one of several “lobbyist lanes” radiating from the Capitol.

During the McCarthy years, Arnold, Fortas, & Porter defended many people accused of communism. Fortas in particular was a frequent opponent of Joe McCarthy, but the opposition to his appointment as chief justice seemed to come mostly from southern Democrats, who often saw integration as a Jewish/communist plot. When Jesse Helms (R-NC) was elected to the Senate in 1972, one of his goals was to “get” the Jews. He was a furious opponent of Israel until the Reagan years, when it was finally explained to him that you couldn’t make it to the very top in DC unless you learned to play ball with AIPAC.

The White & Case Case involved another law firm, in New York. One of its senior partners, a Mr. Eply, was facing criminal charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, accusing him of criminal behavior based on the advice he gave to a White & Case client, Cortez Randell, a sixties wheeler and dealer who ended up doing time, though, I’m pretty sure, Eply did not. The SEC’s case against Eply was one of first impression, and naturally White & Case was willing to move heaven and earth to protect both Eply and other attorneys who might find themselves in legal peril merely for trying to turn an honest buck or two.

The story of Cortez Randell and his company, National Student Marketing, had been spectacular enough to be the subject of a book, out in paperback while the White & Case Case was still gaining momentum, called The Funny Money Game, by Andrew Tobias, perhaps not the first and certainly not the last up and coming Harvard graduate to make a name for himself by writing a book about his experiences on Wall Street under the tutelage of Mammon.

The way National Student Marketing “worked”—the reason why Cortez Randell got so rich so quickly and then imploded—was that Randell had either discovered or invented “synergy”. This meant buying out firms that provided goods or services complementary to whatever it was NSM was already selling—“better together”, one might say. But the “real” secret was that NSM didn’t buy other companies with money; it used NSM stock instead, which was better than money, because it increased in value every year.

There are lots of things wrong with this model—NSM was going to run out of “complementary” firms to buy, NSM stock was going up because the economy was expanding and all stocks were going up, not because NSM was so fabulous—but the biggest and simplest reason of all is that any financial instrument that can be better than money can also be worse than money, setting a pattern that has repeated itself a number of times since, on a scale far more spectacular than NSM’s. Someone comes up with a brilliant idea, a better mousetrap, and makes a lot of money, and creates a financial instrument based on that idea—be it a simple share of stock, a mortgage-backed security, a collateralized debt obligation, or whatever—that is “better” than money, and a lot of people get rich on that financial instrument. Eventually, however, the better mousetrap, whatever it is, stops being better, and becomes the new normal. It’s lost its edge. But the people who have gotten rich off their “better than money” gimmick can’t believe that, or won’t believe that. The line that went around among the Wall Street geniuses who almost sank the world’s economy back in 2008 was that you don’t stop playing “Musical Chairs” until the music stops, even if you see the chairs disappearing. However, when the music had stopped, they started singing—and telling lies—until there were no chairs left, leaving the government to pay for all the furniture they’d destroyed.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Fear 4x13: BlackJack - Analysis

Who watched Fear last night? Once again, I saw a lot of important symbols. Lots of parallels to Beth and Daryl’s story that were then confirmed on TTD.

***As always, spoilers abound for FTWD 4x13, Blackjack. Don't read until you've watched!***

I noticed fridge in the opening credits was floating in water. I still haven't posted the coolant theory, and probably won’t for a few weeks yet. Fear puts little hints about what the episode will be about in the opening credits. The most obvious thing here is the big lake John and Strand are trying to get across. Out of any character in Fear, John is the most like Beth. In the coolant theory, the refrigerator probably represents Beth, and we saw it floating in the lake. And in the episode, at one point, John is stranded in a small boat in the middle of the lake. More on that in a second.

Morgan’s Group:

We start out with Morgan's group, looking for Quinn, who we know Filthy Lady killed last episode. June said, "We should keep looking." This is a direct call back to 5x16. Daryl wanted to keep looking for Red Poncho Guy, but Aaron convinced him to go into the cannery instead, where they accidentally triggered the Wolf trap. It's not a coincidence they're coming back to this, especially since it was Morgan who saved them from the trap. Now they want to keep looking for people in Fear.

As it turns out, Filthy Lady is also somewhat Lizzie-like. She said she let Quinn “become what he was meant to be,” which in her mind is a walker.

Morgan buries walker they found. (Once again, even random walkers get burials, but not Beth.)

Remember that the owner of the truck Sarah and Wendell stole calls himself Polar Bear. We also find out this episode that he kept journals. Between the bear symbolism and Polaris (North Star and part of the dog/Sirius symbolism) obviously both those things equal Beth. Now we find he also kept journals. Like Beth

While in front of mile marker 74, Sarah says, “this is a frog/scorpion situation.” She’s basically justifying stealing Polar Bear’s truck. We’ve see frog symbolism before, specifically in Them. 

Remember that frogs are major transformation/resurrection symbolism. So basically the symbols of frogs, Polaris and bears are all being used to represent the same guy here. They guy who keeps journals and believes in helping people. He’s leaving them water (a callback to Aaron leaving TF water in 5x10) and other items in the boxes. Is this screaming Beth to you yet?

Then, Sarah says the frog left his KEYS in his truck. (Key theory).

The story made me realize something. We’ve harped on the key theory before, but more specifically there’s a theme of keys being left behind in a car. The first thing that came to mind is when Rick and Daryl met Jesus in 6x10. He got out of the truck he stole from them to change a tire. They tied him up and when they got back in the truck, the keys were in there. In 5x02, when Carol found the car on the side of the road, the keys were in there too. If you go back to Them, 5x10, Maggie found keys inside the car, which she used to open the trunk. More recently, we saw an iteration of this in Red Machete with one of the Saviors, which with they even paralleled shots of him looking through the car to how Maggie did it in 5x10. 

At the end, Morgan is in the truck, which is attacked by Filthy Lady. I was kind of surprised how many groups came together in this episode. Granted, we only got three episodes left, but I kind of figured they wouldn't all come together until the very last one. I suppose they’re not really altogether. John and Strand still haven't reconnected with the group at all. 

Alicia and Charlie did reconnect, but only via the walkie. They haven't actually met up with the group yet. Still, it's getting the group together very quickly. That's probably because they have to deal with Filthy Lady. She's obviously doing her best to cause them trouble.

John and Strand:

John and Strand are definitely a retelling of Beth and Daryl here. Even on TTD, Colman Domingo (Strang) said this was a battle of faith. John Dorie, as ever, is the positive, faithful one. Just like Beth was. Meanwhile, Strand is the negative hopeless one. Like Daryl.

Lots of little symbols in their story. We see a black grackle, which is heavily emphasized and often mentioned. I looked it up and there’s a lot of interesting symbolism around black grackles. I won’t go into all of it here except to say that it works well for John and Strand’s story. There are things that obviously apply to what each characters is going through here.

In terms of Beth, I think it could apply in two specific ways. (I’m sure there are more, but this post is already long, so I’ll keep this particular angle short.) The first thing that came to mind is the Black and White theme around Beth and Daryl. The bird is black, which would represent Daryl. We didn’t see live white animals, but right after it first shows the bird, Strand picks up a copy of Moby Dick. 

The cover is mostly just water, but also shows the tail fin of the whale. Guess what color it is? White. (Cuz the whale in Moby Dick is white anyway.) So we have the black and white theme, and the white one (which has always represented Beth) is an ocean creature. Just saying.

In terms of grackle symbolism, one thing that leapt out at me is that the crackle usually perches and caws either just BEFORE DAWN or just after sunset. It’s the before dawn that caught my attention because we believe Beth will appear with a sunrise. Sirius the dog star also reappears before sunrise. And in this episode, it was obviously first thing in the morning that the bird was seen, because Strand was still asleep and it woke him.

Also, at one point, John says it’s odd that the grackle is alone. They always fly in groups or herds and he’s never seen just one on its own before. I think it’s a theme about the bird being separated from its family/loved ones. Which works well for this episode, since the group (especially John and June, who mirror Beth and Daryl) are separated from one another.

They draw attention to the bird by saying "the early bird kills the dead." We also know that will be birds in TWD S9. One of the promo pics include Rick, Michonne, and Judith watching a flock of birds. This is obviously an ongoing symbol and theme.

Other symbols we saw include water bottles and canned food, including a lot of green on the cans, 

a fire extinguisher,

and binoculars.

Back Moby Dick. I'm not entirely sure what the Moby Dick connection is yet. The most obvious thing in this episode is the body of water. In Strand and John's case, it’s an alligator rather than a whale, but the alligator did attack the boat they’re in. I’ll admit the reference doesn't bode particularly well for the characters, as Ahab doesn't survive in Moby Dick. But it could also be symbolic. Strand’s faith was kind of “killed” in the alligator attack and he gave up.

Strand said he lost his stomach for boating. That's obviously meant to be a humorous callback to Fear S2, where the characters spent a good chunk of the season on a boat, but it's also an ocean/sailor/boating reference.

At one point, John says the water is moving "slower than a one-legged dog." Wow. Not only is that a dog reference, but a reference to an injured dog. Granted, Sirius is a one-eyed dog, not a one-legged dog, but it brings up a similar image. We could also compare this to the Lost Shoe/Foot symbolism around Beth.

We see several road signs underwater, including a 30-mph sign. We’ve seen that a lot in the show. 

John sees a walker going into the river just before the crocodile gets it. The walker going into the river as it did, looked exactly like what we saw in 4x08. Lily saw a walker move into the river and be swept away by the current. Just saying.

John says, "There ain't no happy endings, but we gotta fight every day... Or we are no different than the passed." Just sounds like something Beth would say. Very much her philosophy. It also occurred to me that it applies to Beth and Daryl. They didn't get to have their happy ending. I think they still will, it will be a matter of them fighting to get back together, not simply “getting” a happy ending. It’s very similar to Carol saying in Consumed that they “don’t get to save people anymore.” They always try, of course, but it doesn’t really work that way in this world. Those people have to save themselves. Have to fight to live. So once again, this was heavy on themes we saw heavily emphasized around Beth in S5.

We also had a major theme of people being trapped in the front seats of cars. I’ll talk more about this when I talk about Luciana, but John also found a walker trapped in the front of the truck. He wants the truck’s shell to cross the lake, but it was the walker that caught my attention. It was trapped in the front seat…with a bottle of booze. Just saying.

When Strand tries to get the bottle, he gets pulled into the front seat and nearly killed himself. It just seems a bit suspicious that he tried to get some booze and ended up in the water. It's something we might relate to Beth.

Strand also says, "I drink to forget that I don't have anyone to drink with anymore." They mentioned how sad this line was on TTD. It's Strand’s way of saying he misses Madison and all the other people he's lost. But (naturally ;D) I can't help but think of Beth and Daryl. They drank together, and remember that both were offered booze after separating and refused it. Dawn offered it to Beth and she refused. Denise offered it to Daryl in 6x14 and he refused as well. Now, of course we did see him drinking it when burying her, but that was both to honor her, because he was suddenly super-depresed, and, symbolically, to parallel her death with Beth’s. And even though Carol was there, he was still drinking alone. The point is that both Beth and Daryl refused other drinking buddies after the two of them drank together at the moonshine shack.

John and Strand use the battery from the truck and a car horn as a distraction for the alligator. Obviously, Battery Bheory, especially because it runs out of juice halfway through. The horn, of course, also reminded me of 6x02 when the Wolves arrived and blew the horn. Just things we’ve see tied up in Beth symbolism a lot. At one point, Strand says to John, "Well, I didn't think it survive a bullet to the gut, but here we are." To which John replies, "You just gotta believe. Fight for one more day."

Remember that when John got shot, that was a huge retelling of Beth and Coda. So, it's important that someone says they didn't think John would survive, but here we are. And his line, “You just gotta believe,” is almost identical to Beth saying, "Would it kill you to have a little faith?"

When the battery dies and they lose their distraction, John says "That's a pickle." So, St. Nicholas and pickle story. But really think about that. Obviously the “death” of the battery here represents literal death. The Battery Theory was first thought up because of how many batteries we saw being brought back to life. (TWD episodes 4x04, Daryl at gas station. 5x02, Carol and car on side of the road. Even 5x11 with the RV batteries.)

The St. Nicholas/Pickle story is about 3 resurrections. So we see the death of a battery here, and there’s an immediate resurrection symbol that follows it. Said by John, who has a billion—yes, a billion!—parallels to Beth. Just saying.

At this point, the two men are stranded in the water with the gator. Not entirely sure how to interpret the symbolism yet, but I'm sure it's important. It feels like something that might be an analogy of what happened to Beth. In her case, I think she was stranded in a sea of walkers rather than water. Trapped that way. But we’ve seen water be used to symbolize her a lot as well. I'm sure it will make sense once we get her whole story.

I also couldn’t help but think of 7x08 when Rick and Daryl got the supplies from the houseboat. They had some really obvious Beth symbolism in that scene. In that case, there is no alligator, but there were walkers in the water and the boat started taking on water, just as John and Strand’s did here.

So it's a theme of being on the water and besieged by some sort of predator (walkers/alligator) while their boat is sinking. They have to fight to live. I'm wondering if Beth will find herself in a similar situation at some point. In this case, it was sad because John Dorie didn't make it across the lake. He kept saying, "We could make it.” Nearly identical to Beth saying in Still, "We made it." John went back with Strand and was obviously depressed that he hadn't pushed forward. But he’s still alive, and obviously will just have to fight a little harder to get back to June.

On TTD, they described the, the relationship between John and Strand. They said they really were like an angel and a devil. Colman talked about how their arguments work very intimate emotionally. That's exactly how they described Beth and Daryl on TTD after Still. They said Bethyl being in the trunk together was a metaphor for the overall situation. They’re forced into this very intimate situation, just the two of them, but they’re surrounded by danger.

In a way, you could see John and Strand’s situation similarly. As I said at the beginning, John = Beth and Strand = Daryl. Rather than being caught in the trunk of the car and surrounded by walkers, there stuck in a tiny boat that's filling with water and there's an alligator out there waiting to eat them. Everyone seeing the parallels?

Luciana:

Lucian’s arc, in many ways, is the one that hit me the hardest with the symbolism.

While looking for Charlie, Luciana goes to a library. I won’t go into library details here, but this isn’t, by far the first time we’ve seen a library (think where Morgan took Carol in 6x16 after she was shot) or even the first time we’ve seen it in Fear.

Outside the library, she finds a man in a car. This is the second instance of a man trapped in the front seat of the car. Unlike John Dorie’s case, this man is still alive. He crashed his car into a pole during the storm and his injuries are critical.

His name is Clayton, and later in the episode, we learn he drove the truck Sarah and Wendell stole. So Clayton is Polar Bear. The man Morgan is looking for.  

Here's where it gets crazy, guys. Polar bear =’s Beth right? The man who calls himself Polar Bear is found injured and trapped in the front seat of a car. Not to mention, what does he ask Luciana for? To go find him some beer. Just like Beth and Daryl in Still, Luciana goes looking for a drink.

She's in paralleled more with Daryl than Beth here, though. Even though Beth was the one who first went looking for a drink, all she found was peach schnapps. After that, Daryl went looking for alcohol for her. Luciana is more like Daryl because she's not looking for her drink for herself. She's looking for drink for someone else who's requested it. And then there's the fact that Polar Bears/Clayton equals Beth. Therefore Luciana must equal Daryl.

There were little symbols around Luciana, too. There were some black-and-white racecar flags in the background. 

She looked into a fridge. She saw a car with a hole in the hood, which looked like the engine been removed. (That scene was juxtaposed with John Dorie taken the engine out of the car he found using it to build his boat. So. it was kind of a theme about cars with missing engines.)

Lucy finds root beer with the green lid. It also struck me that Lucy was having a hard time finding the alcohol she was looking for. Strand found alcohol he wasn't looking for at all. I don't know if there's anything to that. (The things that make you go, “Hmm.”) The girl who drank the alcohol in S4 is missing, and if the alcohol represents her in the front seat of car, Strand found her when he wasn't looking for her. Chances are the same will be true of Daryl finding Beth.

Clayton told Luciana that in the old world, he ran away from the people he loved by being a truck driver. He was hiding from them and when world ended, he realized it was a huge mistake. That's why he began helping people. I don't know exactly how to relate that to Beth and Daryl, but it feels like something that should be.

When Lucy brings Clayton the beer, he surprised it's cold. She says she found an ice pack in the first aid kit. Just feels like more of the coolant theme. He also gives Luciana all his notebooks and journals.

And what do you know? When Clayton dies, Luciana buries him. We don't get a very good shot of the grave, but we see the headstone and she leaves the beer bottle on top. 

Once again, this is something TWD does. Anyone at all important to the story get burial. And often mementos are left behind. They nailed Patrick's classes to his headstone in S4. They left Tyreese’s beanie on his headstone in S5. Now Luciana left the beer bottle on Clayton's headstone here. We did not see what happened to Beth's body. She did not get burial. She did not get headstone. She did not get a momento left behind. Nope, nada, zilch, nothing.

I guess I can’t end without touching on the title. Blackjack refers to the candy John is carrying around. 

There really is a black licorice taffy candy called Blackjack, and he knows June likes it. So he’s kind of carried it as a symbol of his hope for reuniting with her. It was sad here because at the end, he’s very sad and eats the candy, as if to show that he’s losing his hope.

I’m sure we could get into the particulars of Blackjack (also called 21) and see the ways in which it relates to John and June’s story, and even to Beth’s. It’s very much about gambling and beating the odds. It’s all about chance and luck. Of course there are strategies for beating the dealer as well. But this post is hella long and I won’t go into all of that.

The thing it reminds me most of is the 4 poker queens, of which Beth is one. Let’s put it this way. They could have used any candy they wanted to symbolize June and John’s hope of finding her. Anything at all would have worked as long as they related it to the story. They chose to use something that invokes poker suites and symbols we’ve seen in regular TWD. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think that's all I have. I'm still loving this season of Fear and can't wait for next week's episode. Anyone else see anything I missed?