#there was in fact no ricky involved at all

[iridescentis]

I had a dream last night about the choir but all I remember from it is the end where everyone including myself was convinced that Ricky had suffocated to death in an empty bottle of hand soap despite not being able to see him in there and having no explanation how he could have gotten that small and managed to be trapped there

[revelboo]

hello, wishing you a happy belated birthday ~! 🎂🎁🎈

I do have a question for you, would you consider writing something regarding Knock Out ? It is perfectly alright if not, I still wanted to wish you a happy birthday either way!

Thanks! I have wrote him before, but here’s part 2.

My Favorite Accident Pt 2

TFP Knockout x Reader

• Venting as he pulls alongside that ugly abomination of yours, he transforms as you climb out of your car. “You cheated,” he growls without any real heat as he stretches out a kink. Knows you’re not cheating, but still enjoys watching those angry eyes flash with indignation and your helmet covered head snaps up to stare at him.

• Taking your time pulling your helmet off, you bite back a smile. Because you can’t exactly tell the guy who literally becomes a sports car that you’re just a better driver than he is. Not and live long after with that fragile ego of his, anyway. And, truth be told, you don’t want to make him angry. You actually like these little impromptu races. No money involved, but just cutting loose. Learning exactly how much you can push him without it being too much. “I cheated? Me?” You snap back, falling into the persona you’ve adopted for the races. Because if any of the other racers actually realize you’re terrified of them? That you’re all alone and afraid? It’d be over, so attitude’s become your armor. Balancing your helmet on a hip, you huff. “Guess you’re blind and slow.”

• “Slow?” Bending he carefully catches you to lift you onto the roof of your car so he doesn’t have to bend so far to get in your face. Tries not to think about how insubstantial you feel in his hand. “You barely won that last time.” Because he’s learning from you, copying your unorthodox techniques. And enjoying the challenge you pose, the lazy arguing. Seeing headlight on the road above the culvert, he swallows a growl. Eases you back down onto the ground, aware of your little hands warm on his servos. “Humans,” he vents as he falls forward into his alt mode, but lingers because he’s not done with you just yet. Not ready to return to the Nemesis and just wants this to last a bit longer.

• Fingers gripping your helmet, you turn to track the other car. And they are headed down the access road. During the summer, the huge drainage canals are mostly empty aside from whatever garbage accumulated during the rains and that made them perfect for illegal racing. Sure, they’d been nearly caught a few times, but the local PD mostly just chases them off without any real effort to catch them. Probably just happy they didn’t race in the street, you guess.

• The black sports car with a laughing skull on the hood that pulls up is one he recognizes from the races. A particularly loud human who always comes in behind you both, and Knockout watches you hook a thumb in your back pocket. Stance relaxed, but he’s been around you long enough to know about the knife you keep there. Always keeping a hand near that pocket when dealing with the other racers. “Ricky,” you call out, tone flat despite the tight smile as the man steps out of his car.

• Fantastic. Deep breath in and out, you remind yourself. Play the part like you don’t care. “You two working together? Hustling everyone else?” He asks, smile taking on a mean edge as he stalks around Knockout to send anxiety needling through you. All he sees is you and two empty cars. He surfs a palm over Knockout’s fender like he wants to touch the car, but doesn’t. But when his head lifts, that look crashes through you, reminding you that you are in fact scared of him.

• No snarky comeback? Knockout shifts on his tires as he picks up on your tension. You don’t move as the man walks over, still smiling. “So where is your partner? Leave you out here alone?” And then he’s lunging, fingers closing on your wrist when you lash out with that little knife of yours. Making a little noise of pain as he squeezes your wrist until you drop your weapon. “We could be friends, too.”

• Heart racing, you try to hit him with your helmet and he shoves you down, no longer smiling. It’s the sound that cuts through your blind panic, though. That almost musical sound of Knockout transforming. Looking like a demon with those glowing optics as he actually snarls. And then Ricky is running away from Knockout and his car both as Knockout lifts his arm a weapon aimed at the fleeing man’s back and your heart stops. “Don’t,” you gasp, flinching when he stares down at you. “He’s not worth it.”

• Fury singing through him, he crouches to offer you a servo and you cling to him, letting him pull you back to your feet. Annoyed that you don’t want him to permanently remove this problem, because he wants to. Wants the human to suffer for touching you. “Can I at least destroy that ugly car of his?” He growls, baring his denta in a grin when you solemnly nod.

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[cpvnksabm]

@ rtc fic writers

you really do have to research neuromuscular disabilities if ricky significantly appears in your fics. few to no exceptions. sorry.

ricky potts is important disability representation and, more specifically, he has a rare degenerative neuromuscular disease. this specific representation is important and therefore it's important to depict his neuromuscular disorder accurately. all disabilities are different and it's a huge problem when people, not understanding and/or not wanting to research neuromuscular disorders specifically, just give him any disability while erasing the one he canonically has, and think it's fine just because "well he's still disabled isn't he?".

i think canon (as in 2015-2018 scripts) is a good starting reference point for depicting ricky accurately because again, the specific disability he has in canon is important to represent. but canon also only seriously depicts him as disabled very briefly on-stage and spends most of the musical doing singing and dancing that he wouldn't be physically capable of if he was alive. if you're depicting ricky realistically for longer than canon does then you will have to do outside research to see how his disability would likely impact him, because you're definitely not getting a full picture from him using crutches for 2 minutes onstage.

i think sometimes people assume they don't have to worry about researching to write ricky, because they don't think he's a major enough character for his disability to become relevant - or, more upsettingly, i think sometimes people make ricky a more minor character so that his disability won't become relevant, because that way they don't have to do research.

unfortunately there's one big issue here, which is that if you haven't done the research, how can you know when his disability will be relevant?

ricky has a complex disability that would realistically affect his whole life in varying ways and what we see in canon is only a surface level view. let's say you're writing a fic where you don't need to bother researching for ricky because his only appearance is going out for lunch with the choir - did you know that neuromuscular disorders, especially ones that cause difficulty speaking or an inability to speak (which ricky has!), often cause difficulty swallowing? this would affect his diet and in fact potentially imply that he uses a feeding tube (which is also implied by one of ocean's lines in WTWN), making it very relevant when getting lunch with the choir!

of course that lunch idea is just a hypothetical example, and it's just one example. what i'm saying here is that there are many activities that seem simple, that you wouldn't even think twice about in relation to ricky, that would realistically be complicated by his disability.

of course not every fic has to tackle disability in detail, or even has time to do so, but it's noticeable when something happens where ricky's disability would impact him and it just isn't mentioned. it's something that can accidentally slide into disability erasure, which is a problem, and it also just makes it really obvious when the writer wasn't aware of something or didn't think very hard about it. heck this post is mainly directed at fic writers but i've even seen headcanon posts where it's been obvious the OP needed to do a little more research.

so basically, when i say you need to research to write ricky accurately & understand his disability, i don't just mean that if you're planning on writing a fic that significantly involves his disability you should research for that fic specifically. i think that you should do some basic research before you plan on writing anything, just to make sure you understand his disability when you're active in the fandom. and then if his disability becomes more relevant in a fic - which you will be able to recognise due to the basic research you've already done - you can do more research as needed.

besides, even if it turns out you never write anything where this is relevant, there's no harm in learning more about neuromuscular disease and disability in general! it might become useful information in real life at some point, or it might just be good to know.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

OFMD is extremely historically inaccurate and that's part of why it works so well, but as a certified Pirate Historian I like looking at what they take from real life! There's very few things they try to keep from real life so it makes it even more interesting when they do.

Some of my favorite things OFMD does that at least rhyme with historical fact:

The idea that the irl Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard were actually romantically involved is not new. Blackbeard and Bonnet sailed together for a while and by all accounts enjoyed each other's company and, Occam's razor, they probably just liked each other. We'll never know what happened, obviously, but Blackbeard really did steal Bonnet's ship and maroon his crew after they split. There's some decent evidence that rumors they had a romantic or sexual relationship existed at the time, too - primary sources tend to really harp on Bonnet's "discomfort in a married state," and in his trial Bonnet goes out of his way to blame Blackbeard as much as possible. His defense basically boiled down to "I didn't do it, and if I did it it was because Blackbeard was there." We'll never know what caused all the bad blood there but it's certainly interesting.

The irl Ned Low was known for being among the most sadistic pirates out there. He really did have a reputation for torturing prisoners before he killed them.

The story Prince Ricky mentions about a "deranged Captain Kidd" who "hung people up by their thumbs" refers to real rumors! Captian Kidd walked that weird line between pirate and privateer, and he was a pirate hunter for a while. That was one of the things he allegedly did to captured pirates.

Pirates did not, generally speaking, make people walk the plank. One of the very, very few pirates who might have actually done that was indeed Stede Bonnet.

The irl Stede Bonnet really did try to fake his death (only he did that to attempt to escape persecution from his crimes). It worked about as well as in the show and he was recognized fucking immediately, except that had bigger consequences than Ricky being annoying at him for a few minutes

[mariacallous]

It’s telling that both Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais decided to end 2023 by releasing specials in which their comedy pivots to poking fun at the disabled. Could they be more obvious about finding new ways to punch down than targeting people physically unable to fight back?

In a false promise near the opening of his brand-new special and seventh for Netflix, The Dreamer, Chappelle boasts: “Tonight, I’m doing all handicapped jokes,” because “well, they’re not as organized as the gays, and I love punching down.”

Similarly, Gervais decides to have a bit of fun at how we’ve decided as a society to say “disabled” instead of “handicapped” and what that says about us, and suggests further in his special Armageddon, released on Christmas Day, that he’d mock Make-A-Wish kids if given the chance to make videos for them.

And, of course, both men take yet more cracks at the trans community.

Early in The Dreamer, Chappelle tells the audience trans people make him feel like he has to go along with them pretending, as if they’re method acting like Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman: “If you came here to this show tonight thinking that I’m gonna make fun of those people again, you’ve come to the wrong show,” only to keep going back on his word.

He says he hoped to “repair” his relationship with the LGTBQ+ community – by writing a play for them in which a black trans woman only identifies as the N-word to trip up liberals. He also jokes that if he went to jail in California, he’d identify as a woman so he could tell the other inmates to “suck my lady dick.”

But it’s all just jokes, right? Can’t we just take a joke? Have we lost our sense of humor? Or have they?

Earlier this month, we lost two pillars not just of the comedy community but of our American community writ, as Norman Lear and Tommy Smothers stood taller than most anyone and everyone else in television, standing up to the establishment and protesting the powers that be for the sake of civil rights and humanity.

Now we’re left with Chappelle and Gervais—two titans in terms of Netflix ratings and paychecks—who are fighting for… the right to utter slurs onstage and tell already marginalized people that their existence is a joke for reasons that are nearly impossible to divine. Especially when there’s so much in the world to talk about right now, that they’ve chosen anti-trans rights as their comedy cause célèbre is dispiriting. As Mae Martin said in their 2023 Netflix special, Sap: “Big multimillionaire comedians in their stand-up specials are, like, taking shots and punching down at a time when trans rights are so tenuous and slipping backwards.”

Lear and Smothers used their clout on TV to speak truth to power about America’s involvement in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, the hypocrisy of religion, racism, abortion, homosexuality and civil rights. While great trans comedians such as River Butcher and Jaye McBride resorted to releasing their stand-up specials straight to YouTube this year, which famous straight comedians can you recall sticking up for the rights of trans people in America?

It feels so frustrating to sit and watch comedians with the stature of Chappelle and Gervais devote so much of their time and energy to bullying the LGBTQ+ community when they could be doing anything else on stage. And then they have the temerity to question us, the audience, for not laughing with them.

For his part, Gervais willingly misdefines and misuses “woke” by suggesting, “if woke now means being a puritanical, authoritarian bully who gets people fired for an honest opinion or even a fact, then no, I’m not woke. Fuck that.” Is Nazism or transphobia an honest opinion that shouldn’t get you fired? He then claims in his closing bit that “all laughter’s good,” a concept that would be news to 2005-era Chappelle when he cut ties with Comedy Central precisely because he could hear racism in the laughs during a taping of Chappelle’s Show.

In his Grammy-nominated lecture to students at his alma mater, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, What’s In A Name?, Chappelle claimed: “The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it. It has nothing to do with what you’re saying I can’t say. It has everything to do with my right and my freedom of artistic expression.”

But that’s not comedy, either—much like Gervais’ admission in his special that as a university student, his idea of a joke was calling his mother and pranking her by saying he was hospitalized and potentially blind. Gervais said her mom could’ve had a heart attack, but in his mind, he remembers it now as “they could take a fucking joke, right?”

At least Sam Jay, in her 2023 HBO special Salute Me Or Shoot Me, wrestles with her conscience and moral compass over the use of certain words in her act and concludes that having empathy for others is key. “How do the rest of us get here? I don’t know… I’m not going to pretend that I have the answers,” Jay says, adding: “So we’re doing things like we’re policing words, but we’re not policing behavior.”

Anthony Jeselnik, who has built his comedy career on brandishing himself as an offensive caricature of a comedian, told fellow comedian and podcaster Theo Von earlier this year that too many stand-ups would rather get into trouble by saying the wrong thing instead of focusing on their job and saying funny things.

“People think — oh, as a comic your job is to get in trouble. But they don’t want to get yelled at. It’s like, it’s OK to make people mad, but they don’t want any push back. And I think that’s wrong,” Jeselnik said. “As a comedian, you want to make people laugh. This is a quote attributed to Andy Warhol that I love: ‘Art is getting away with it.’ You know, if you put out a special and everyone’s pissed, like, you didn’t get away with it. You know. You need to make everyone laugh that they’re like, ‘Yeah, he talked about some fucked up stuff, but we’re all happy.’ That’s art. Otherwise, you’re just a troll.”

Kliph Nesteroff, a comedy historian whose newest book is Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars, similarly told me last month that some while comedians see themselves sometimes as “philosophers” he believes they are “betraying their job description because you’re supposed to make people laugh, and philosophers are supposed to philosophize.”

Comedians may claim they can’t joke about anything anymore, but they joke about more now than ever before. The real problem with stand-up today is that too many comedians would rather kick people when they’re down, then lecture us on how we’re too sensitive for not laughing about it.

When Chappelle, Gervais or their acolytes have to incessantly explain that their jokes are just jokes, then they cease to be great comedians—or even comedians at all.

[cookiesupplier]

Every Rose Has Its Thorns - Part Forty-Nine

pairing: Ricky Olson x ofc x Chris 'Motionless' Cerulli

warnings/tropes: slow burn, soulmates, strangers to enemies to lovers, betrayal, angst, fluff, smut, language, online bullying, panic attacks, stalking, mental health issues, conspiracy theories.

summary: In a world where soulmates inexplicably receive a tattoo that will match that of their soulmate the moment they turn eighteen years old, being famous and covered in very visible tattoos can make finding your true soulmate a questionable fate. For everyone involved.

author’s note: Looks like Rick was first!

To read from the beginning, check out the Masterlist Here!

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@anameunmusical

Chris didn’t know why Ricky had moved back to his own house some days, okay, that was a lie, he knew exactly why he had. They both needed their own space sometimes, and he knew Ricky sometimes felt like he was imposing being here for so long. While they could live together, Ricky’s house had all of his own gear, his own equipment, and everything about their relationship with Talia was so new, and bringing up moving in together would probably scare the life out of her. The fact that she seemed to be dancing around the idea of moving in with either one of them told Chris that much. It did make him wonder what her thought would be if the option was living with the both of them instead of having to choose between them. 

But no, right now, they had their separate houses, and yet, Ricky was currently sitting on the couch in Chris’ little studio, with his laptop perching on his folded knee typing away. Chris, however, was working some music for the new album. Neither of them were talking, they were just existing in the same space. So Chris, today, had no clue why Ricky had moved back to his own house if he was going to keep coming back over to his for no other reason than just to be. 

Not that he was complaining. He enjoyed the company, he did, it just sometimes could have confusing elements, especially when there were moments that it made working on music just a touch more difficult hearing him typing away sitting on the couch to the side. He didn’t want to tell him to leave though, not for one second, he would be the first to admit, he was struggling with this particular song long before Ricky had walked in and sat down.

Rick was waiting for one of the other two to figure it out. Admittedly, it had taken him time to work it out himself. He wasn’t sure when it had happened, if it had had happened slowly, if there had been something that had triggered it, or it had happened gradually, but he’d just noticed one day. Their tattoos had stopped going crazy every time they were stimulated, let alone even touched one another. Ricky, he was almost certain it had been gradual, considering at first, for him, he’d be the first to admit his tattoo had almost constantly affected him when they stated dating. Once he gave in to how he felt for them… he didn’t want to stop. Even now, why should he want to resist how he felt for either of them? He didn’t just mean physically, either. Just being near them made him feel so much more secure. A brush of a hand, nudge of a shoulder, quick kiss, a knowing glance with a thought, it was the small things that helped him in ways he couldn’t really put words to.

Ricky looked up from his laptop, his fingers stilling for a moment as he paused from editing the chapter he was working on. He had been dabbling on this book for a while now, and working on it, he wasn’t sure how long it was going to take him. However, honestly, it hadn’t been the purpose when he brought his laptop over to Chris’ house today. No, he was just using it as something to do as a task while he spent as much time around Chris and Talia the last few days as possible, sat working while they did what they wanted. He wanted to be around both of them, waiting, watching, he wanted to see which of them would get it first. 

Yes, he could just tell them. He could. However, that would be too easy. This was more fun. When Chris glanced over to him, studying him, seeming to looking at him expectantly for a second. For a moment he thought there was something in his gaze, Rick raised an eyebrow at him, waiting to see if he would actually get it. 

“What is it?”

When Chris just shook his head and returned to his work, Rick couldn’t help but smirk slightly, nope, come on Chris, come on. Alright, they were both really just not going to wise on to this any time soon without a little bit of a nudge now, were they? Closing his laptop, slowly, Chris didn’t even react when he did either, not at first anyway. Setting his laptop aside on the couch, he stood up and moved stepped over to where Chris was sitting, standing behind him. Hands moving to his shoulders, one purposely slipping under his collar, so his fingers could stroke at his skin, directly over his tattoo slowly.

“How is the song going?”

They both worked on plenty of the album, this one Chris had been doing most of the work on, and Ricky had been giving comments here and there, but for the most part, it had been Chris on this one. When Chris got in this kind of mood, he would offer, but not press, because he knew Chris could get focus and would only shrug him off. 

“Fine, I just, no, slow, hitting a wall- I-”

Hearing Chris sigh, Ricky smiled, letting his hands squeezed at his shoulders a bit,

“Maybe a bit of a massage will help. Then you can relax, and then when you’ve finally relaxed babe, you can get back to it, how about that? You’ve been focused on nothing else the last couple of days, it's about time you took a break anyway.”

Chris groaned low as Ricky went ahead just as he said he would, and was massaging his shoulders slowly, one hand over his shirt, while the other still under the collar. His fingertips stroking, circling around the leaves of the rose tattoo, their soulmate tattoo, the same gesture that would have had the mark going completely insane just weeks ago, and right then it was silent. While his other hand stilled, Ricky’s fingers continued to trace over their soulmate tattoo on Chris’ shoulder, letting his nails slowly scrap over the tattoo to draw his attention to it all the more. Smirking at the way he caught the sharp intake of Chris breath the more he dragged his nails across his skin.

Sure, he said he was giving Chris a massage, but he knew that wasn’t really his purpose, and whether Chris figure him out and called him on it, remained to be seen. Now either way, he wanted him to relax, but-

“That massage is getting a bit one-sided there…”

Ricky couldn’t help but grin at the way Chris said that, and the fact that Chris seemed to have a telling way, made him think he had finally gotten the point… please…

“Makes me think you are trying to tell me something.”

“Oh really, and what might that be?”

Had he figured it out, had he gotten the hint yet, Ricky waited with nothing short of excited anticipation. He’d felt this tingle ever since he’d realised. Not the same kind of tingle from his tattoo, but just the same, he just, wanted to shout it out, but even more, wanting to see which of his soulmates would figure it out next. If they both had and just weren’t telling him, he was going to- no, no, they weren’t that good at keeping secrets, they weren’t, not from him, they just weren’t.

“That you’re horny.”

Groaning, Ricky couldn’t help but tip his head back okay, he could see where Chris got his wires crossed but really, would he be that blatantly obvious?

“Dammit, Chris, we both know if I was that horny, I’d have no problem with sticking my tongue down your throat and just stripping your pants off. Try again..”

This time, Ricky was more blatant, walking around the chair facing Chris, staring him in the eyes as he pulled the shoulder of his shirt off his arm. Only then did he tear his gaze away so he could lean over and bring his lips to Chris shoulder blade over his tattoo, kissing at his skin, and swirl his tongue over the now fully shaded black rose petals. There was no mistaking the soulmate tattoo as the same one Ricky and Talia wore on their necks now. Chris gasped at the feel of Ricky’s mouth on his skin, and then, then…

“Wait.. Rick, our tattoo-

Smiling, lifting his head, now he was getting it, Ricky was already undoing Chris’ belt even as he was exclaiming.

“Oh, I know, I’ve been waiting to see which of you would figure it out next, now be a good boy and relax so you can finish your song, okay?”

Chris didn’t get to say much before Ricky was sinking down to his knees between his, pulling his pants open so he could get his cock out, tattooed fingers already working to stroke him to full hardness. Not that it was that difficult to do with the fact that he’d hard his hands and mouth on him just now, Chris had started to chub up already. As he massed his fingers up the length of Chris’ cock for a moment and rubbing his thumb over his head to smear some of the fluid of his pre-cum over his skin, teasing him. Groaning, Chris should know it was stupid to ask him anything right now when he was just getting started, really, but there he was, looking down at him, his lips parted, panting.

“How long since you figured it out?”

Ricky smirked up at him, his hand stroking along his cock again, the other holding onto his thigh firmly as he knelt between them. Licking at the head of Chris cock now teasingly at the fact he had to stop to answer, he’d just about to take him into his mouth too, just perfect timing there Chris.

“About a week, now, are you going to keep asking questions, or will you let me suck you off and help you relax so you can finish your song? Because one.. I am horny, and two, you won’t be relaxed quite enough to let me fuck you until after you’ve stopped thinking about it..”

Chris had been talking about how close he’d been to finishing it for days... The way Ricky kept stroking his cock just a little faster as he spoke, urging Chris on, there was no way he was going to last very long by the time Ricky got his mouth on him.

“Shit, Ricky, Please!”

His hands were gripping the arms of the chair for dear life as his head dipped back against the chair, he couldn’t look down at him again. He could cum just at the sight of him between his knees like that. The way he heard Ricky chuckle low at him wasn’t helping at all. A squeeze of his fingers at the base of his cock was followed by the feel of his warm wet mouth wrapped around his cock finally, followed with a long slow suck. 

Chris let out a drawn out moan at the feel of his tongue swirling around the head of his cock, before Rick started taking more of his length into his mouth with each bob of his head. Groaning around him, letting vibrations run through Chris, until he was giving in with the slightest twitch of his hips. One of Chris hands were threading his fingers into Ricky’s hair, gripping his head slightly, not to control him, just to hold onto him as he continued to move. Rick didn’t stop, he kept going, until Chris was hitting the back of his throat, and now Chris was watching him, he couldn’t help it, watching as his cock was pushing in and out of Rick’s mouth. Seeing as he was pushing past his lips as Rick was fucking himself on his cock was absolutely driving him insane, and he had no doubt that was exactly what he wanted as he pushed him like this. Ricky was always a little shit when he gave him head, he either teased him mercilessly, or went at him full tilt so he had no choice but to cum so hard down his throat.

Today was the latter, it would seem, and he had a feeling he knew exactly what he could look forward to later as well. It was as he was thinking about Ricky fucking him with abandon, hard into the mattress, until he could barely walk, that he was cumming down his throat.

“Fuck, Rick!”

Pulling him back, so he could lean down, no hesitation at all to bring his lips to his, tasting himself as Ricky gasped against his mouth with a moan. Oh, he knew exactly how he was going to finish that song now.

[ill-say-anything-i-hafta]

Rocky Horror Picture Show Newsies AU

Hi, I realized today that all the characters from newsies have to be in a production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and literally came out of retirement to write this down. Here’s the deal.

This is a college production with a shadow cast: shows are the last two weekends before Christmas break. Jack and Katharine are seniors and have been involved since they were freshmen. This time, they are reprising their roles as Brad and Janet, but their friend Medda, who always played Frank-N-Furter, just graduated and won’t be in the production this year.

Sarah is Magenta. Her brother David is only a sophomore and a rocky horror virgin (and the other kind too; in fact, he has never been kissed.) He decided it would be fun to try out for the criminologist, but he got cast as Frank instead, much to everyone’s surprise. He was horrified at first and thought about refusing the role, but ended up getting really into it. In his platform heels, he is about 7 feet tall and he looks amazing in lipstick and rubber gloves!

Racetrack plays Columbia and Spot plays Eddie. (Race is a trans guy and Spot is a cis girl; it is deliberately gender-bent casting.) Morris Delancey plays Riff Raff. He and Sarah really don’t like each other, which gives all their scenes together a special frisson. He doesn’t know any of his lines (true, he doesn’t have to say them, he just mouths them along with the actors on screen, but still!) and keeps messing up his cues, which offends Sarah’s sensibilities. His brother Oscar thinks the whole thing is stupid, but has been putting in lots of hours helping Morris practice.

You might think Crutchie would be stuck being the Crim because of the wheelchair, but no! He is Rocky. He performs totally naked except for a little gold loincloth. Elmer, who is in charge of props, helped Crutchie paint his crutches gold using paint they thought was water soluble. Turns out it is permanent, oops. Finch is the one who ended up being the Crim, which really suits his personality. He was set on the idea of having a fake mustache, even though the Crim doesn’t even have a mustache in the film. Elmer was like, sure, whatever, go nuts.

Buttons is doing costumes. He loaned Spot a leather jacket with shoulder pads from his personal wardrobe, which he will definitely never see again after the show wraps.

Darcy is the director; she is a theater major and is way too serious about everything. The cast tends to just ignore her, like Charlie Brown directing the pageant in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Seitz does tech for the show. Specs is that guy who says he has stage fight, but he sits in the front row at every rehearsal and performance and yells at all the callbacks, even the really weird ones that refer to things that none of them have ever heard of. (I might do a part two of this post which is all of Specs’ favorite callbacks, which of course is really just my favorite callbacks.)

Albert sells little prop bags of playing cards and party hats and toast at the door. They are also the one who asks attendees if they have seen Ricky Horror before. If anyone says no, Albert marks that person’s forehead with a red v of lipstick and later, they pull all the virgins up on stage during the preshow for public embarrassment. They are way too into this task. The preshow consists of Romeo and Jojo in wigs and teddies and fishnets, dancing to the original Eartha Kitt “Santa Baby,” mugging and shaking their hips and pushing each other violently off of Santa’s lap. Bill Hearst plays Santa.

Jack and Katherine have been dating for years, by the way, but Katherine has a crush on Darcy and maybe also on Oscar Delancey. Jack is ostensibly straight, but he and Crutchie made out once on the roof of the Life Sciences building after pulling an all-nighter. And Jack really, really likes David. Really likes him. Yeah.

Tommy Boy and Hannah and Henry and Mush and anyone elseI forgot are all Transylvanians. Practically the whole cast were already friends with each other except for David, like I said, and Spot, who showed up to the auditions out of nowhere and has an amazing alto and scares the shit out of everyone. She is the star forward on their school’s winning soccer team. Spot didn’t tell her teammates she was doing the show. She keeps missing practice to go to rehearsal or missing rehearsal to go to practice. Race, who always thought he was 100% gay, is fascinated by her.

Weisel is the head of the campus Buildings and Grounds department. He keeps accidentally-on-purpose forgetting to unlock the classroom where they rehearse. And Joe Pulitzer is the assistant dean who tells them they are not allowed to throw toast or other food at the screen in the auditorium because it could attract vermin.

What will happen when he tries to shut down the show? What will happen when the girls from the soccer team follow Spot to the dress rehearsal? What will happen when David is struck by debilitating stage fright, right before the curtain goes up on opening night? Who will make out at the off-campus cast party????

[steveinscarlet]

Another vintage Kerrang article for your delectation. This one is loooong. Text below the cut...

THEY'RE ALL concerned and they all want answers. Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, hauling ass down Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, in a sparkling silver Corvette, certainly does. So does Blackfoot mainspring Ricky Medlocke, a recent unexpected apparition within the Marquee's glistening vaults. So does just about everyone I've met in the course of recent field-trips. They're all wearing that 'there but for the grace of God' look and they all want to know. So do I...

"Every time you speak to Rick on the phone you come away with a big grin on your face because he's in such good spirits. He's handling it better than I thought he would. He's matured 10 years overnight. He's totally accepted the fact that he's only got one arm and he's being very realistic about coming back into Def Leppard. He's mad to go for it, though, and we're mad to let him try."

That drummer Rick Allen will try, however, isn't in doubt. He's adamant about it and Leppard vocalist Joe Elliott is equally adamant that the band will give him their unrestrained support. As they've said all along, the decision is totally his "We aren't trying to show off or get sympathy," spells out Joe, "it's just the way we are. Def Leppard is simply five lads - we could have been a football team, we could have been international bank robbers. Rick's a mate, and just because he's had an accident doesn't mean he can't still be in the band. If he physically can't do it then obviously there's going to be problems, but with the technology available today I don't see why he can't play snare drum with his left foot, say. And if he can do that, and maybe have tom tom fills already recorded on a trigger, then the kit would look exactly the same. "Bill Ludwig, who builds Rick's kits, actually got in touch with him as soon as it happened, and it seems that there's a lot of one-arm drummers, guys who came back from Vietnam, y'know. The thing is, they tend to play Holiday Inns and places that like that; it's a different approach to drumming. Rick has a very John Bonhamish style - I mean, the quy doesn't need monitors, he's ridiculously loud! - and he'd never be able to do with one hand what he did with two for an hour and three quarters. It would kill him! So he's gonna need the technology. It's just down to whether he can accept the fact that there are gonna be people in the crowd trying to peer through the cymbals to see a plastic arm. He'll have to wear a shirt now, whereas before he'd always go bare-topped..."

THE DETAILS of the car crash that removed 21- year-old Rick (temporarily at least) from the Leppard ranks have been pretty well documented, grabbing column inches in the Nationals and beyond. The bare facts seem plain enough: at 12.50pm on New Year's Eve, while driving his Corvette along the A57 from Sheffield to his parents home in Dronfield (Derbyshire), Rick was involved in an incident which sent his car spinning out of control, turning over several times, injuring his female passenger and removing his left arm in the process. He remembers what happened vividly, and really can count himself fortunate to be alive. When the debris from the accident was examined it was found that the top half of the steering wheel had been bent back, Rick's particular power clearly preventing the steering column and dashboard from crushing against his chest. But why did it happen?

Picking through the events with Elliott it soon becomes obvious that the whole story is a little more complex than yer typical life-in-the-fast-lane pile up. Think about it...

When you're young and successful, with a streamlined US car and a female companion to match, it can sometimes sting the nasal membrane of the folks you've abandoned to a dole queue existence in your humdrum hometown rut. People have been known to glow green with jealousy, and on New Year's Eve people have been known to take a drink. Sometimes even a life...

"Yeah," says Joe quietly. "There was another car involved in the accident."

Mucking Rick around, you mean?

"That's right. But the people have denied it and there's nothing we can do. The coppers have interviewed them but it's no good I'd love to go round and kill 'em!"

Joe takes a moment to collect his thoughts, then continues... "The arm was placed in a bucket of ice gathered from all the houses nearby and Rick was in hospital (the Royal Hallamshire) within 19 minutes, which is unbelievable. He underwent an 11-hour operation; his arm was back on by ten to one the following morning, but infection set in and after three days they had to take it off.

"His nerves are still alive, though. They've got them wrapped up like spaghetti, and it's possible to have them connected up in a way that can give movement to a prosthetic arm. So the Steve Austin 'Six Million Dollar Man' thing is not beyond the realms of possibility one day. Rick still feels his arm because of the nerves."

When did you hear what had happened?

"I heard at about ten to four the same afternoon and I couldn't believe it. I cried like a baby for about three hours - my face was hurting. Peter (Mensch, manager) rang and said, 'Rick's had an accident, his arm's off, but they've sown it back on'. I've heard of that working before but unfortunately it was torn off, not cut off, so everything snapped and stretched in different places, which made it more difficult."

How soon after the accident did you visit Rick in hospital?

"I saw him two days after it happened... it was the worst experience I've ever had... but he was walking a week earlier than expected and telling the nurses to f**k off after three days because he was fed up having his bandages changed. He sounds in fine form now and wants to get back; drumming's all he's ever done, and he's done it very well."

"It's just up to him if he can stand the strain. I mean, he's going to go through some crap. He's not had it yet, but he's gonna suffer from depression; bad depression. He's being very realistic about it, though. He said to me, 'When it comes, it comes.' He wants to come out here to Holland but he knows he can't."

Presumably he won't be ready to play a part on the forthcoming tour?

"No, and he knows that. Somebody will guest with us until we know the result of Rick's convalescence." Would you consider using two drummers on any subsequent tours?

"Possibly, yeah, and Rick could do specific bits. We've definitely thought about that, but he's got a lot to learn first. I mean, there's certain things that are now a fact of life. If Rick wants to wear baseball boots, for example, he's gonna have to wear Velcro ones. And he's probably gonna need press-stud trousers. He's got to learn to bath himself even..."

"The thing is, at the moment his right arm doesn't work. The ball is smashed so they've had to pin it. He's got a six inch pin as big as a poker in there. Imagine if your elbow was sown to your hip; well that's all the movement he's got. I guess he's a bit of a mess, though mentally he's the best he's ever been."

What would happen if Rick returned to the band yet clearly wasn't cutting it? Would you have to tell him? "No, because he'd know himself. He's said that to me on the phone. He's being realistic- if he can't do it he can't, but he's definitely gonna try. There'll come a time when Rick will say, I'm ready, and we'll get together in a rehearsal room for a month and see what he does. He'll either turn round and go

'Yes!' and we'll go 'Yes!', or else he'll say 'Sorry, I'm not coping with it.'

"The important thing is that he tries, otherwise he'll never know, and that would be awful. I know he'd rather fail than not try at all. Besides, it's no big secret that we use drum machines on the records so, whatever happens, he could still be involved on that side. We would just take a session drummer out on the road."

"At the moment, we're trying not to get too depressed about the whole situation, but we were mega-depressed at first. I was in a real state, like a zombie for five hours, and for quite a time after I just didn't want to get into a car. I know it's daft, but it's true

A BONHAM of the biscuit tins, a Titan of the tupperware, since the age of 11 Rick Allen has thought of little outside of drums and drumming. At the moment he's at home, probably watching Cheech & Chong videos on the new system bought for him by Phonogram Records. But chances are that his thoughts are elsewhere, no doubt wafting with the music around the booths and corridors of Wisseloord Studios near Amsterdam, Holland, where Leppard are recording their fourth, as yet untitled, LP. As always, he's with his colleagues 110 per cent (for now it can be in spirit only), a continued commitment that should spur him on through the tough weeks and numerous hospital visits ahead.

Prior to the accident, he'd laid the groundwork for eight backing tracks, and the remaining two songs on the album were always destined to feature a less human touch, the band specifically wanting a more clinical punch, so there's no problem on that front. As for his work on backing vocals, well, Elliott can easily deputise in that department, leaving Rick free to concentrate on the speediest recovery possible and, as Elliott puts it, "Learn to live again. He's having all these drums built and a special car designed, all sorts of stuff..."

All things considered, '84 certainly wasn't an easy year for Def Leppard, a rude awakening for an almost unbroken streak of good fortune. First longstanding associate 'Mutt' Lange proved unable to produce the new LP, likewise his replacement Jim Steinman (though for different reasons - read on!), and then came The Accident, which instantly eclipsed all previous hassles, reducing apparent mountains of doom and dismay to easily skirted molehills. But, if anything, adversity has caused the four active members of the Leppard clan to virtually graft respective beaks to the grindstone in a collective consummate effort to make their next album their best.

The band's first LP, 'On Through The Night', produced by (Colonel) Tom Allom, took a mere 18 days to record and remains something of an embarrassment in Elliott's eyes (someday he'd like to remix it and touch up a few of the vocal parts), while the second, 'High 'N' Dry', with Lange now at the helm, was laid down in three and a half months, including a month's pre-production, bang, bang, bang, 'Mutt' clearly wanting to capture the excitement generated by these 21-year-old 'let's go for its'. But 'Pyromania' now that was a different story, with band and producer (Lange again) making a conscious decision at the outset to pin back the ears of a generation with something of genuine lasting quality; an attempt to update the glories of Queen's 'Sheer Heart Attack' and 'Night At The Opera' LPs...

They went for it in a big way and 10 months later came up trumps, creating a slice of history that many have doubted they'll be able to top; an album that left the whole of the music industry wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and caused bands both big and small to almost instantly re-assess their directions and aims. A (hard) labour of love still selling around a thousand a week, it broke taboos and set fresh standards right down the line.

"Hopefully, it'll be an Heavy Metal 'Sergeant Pepper...'," says Elliott, "who knows, but we've got to do more. It'd be tragic if our best album was our third and we end up doing 17 LPs."

Whatever the next album sounds like, however, Joe's convinced that it's gonna be slated by the press. He's resigned himself to the fact (not having heard the record beyond a few notes ricocheting out of the studio doors, I really can't comment), but, along with bassist Rick Savage and guitarists Steve Clark/Phil Collen, he's ploughing on regardless, helping to create something different to 'Pyromania' in content yet as good, if not better, overall.

"Since 'Pyromania' we're two years on technically," he explains. "The Fairlights are better, the keyboards are better and the microphones are better. And we're two years more experienced, of course. Actually, we keep putting on 'Pyromania' and listening to it back-to-back with what we've done; you have to imagine it without the mix, but it's definitely up there to my ears."

JOE ELLIOTT leans forward in the chair, tucks a fold of his rather battered dressing gown tight against private parts and pours himself another glass of one cal Coke. This for the moment is home, and has been since the middle of August: a simple hotel room in Holland ten minutes drive from the studio complex. Originally, the band were due to play the 'Mick Wall Festival' in Rio, but they eventually decided against it on grounds of not wanting to interrupt recording. So while certain jammy so-and-so's were sunning themselves on the Copacabana sands (maaaan!!), Elliott and co, tax exiles all, were trudging across frozen lakes, wrapped up tight against temperatures of 25° below! Still, there's always next year And if nothing else, in their present position the four are conveniently cut off from all domestic distractions. Through the hotel room window I can see Dirk, Elliott's treasured Renault 12 (and centrespread star of Kerrang! 79), basking quietly in the hazy sunlight, the central motif on an idyllic pastel canvas shaded only by the distant foghorn fuming of an adrenalised Peter Mensch. Somewhere, behind closed doors, he's informing an unfortunate Halfin that a five-piece outfit close to the latter's wallet have been 'stiffing' horribly in the South, and he doesn't mean Torquay! Let's just say he's on form...

Later, on the flight back to London, having persuaded Mensch to fund my purchase of a duty free Sony Walkman in tasteful pink, I tentatively suggest that the forthcoming Leppard biography should be titled 'Me & My Whine'...

"OH, YEAH, DAAAN-TAY!!" he snaps, blood vessels popping like balloons, "AND HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO THINK THAT ONE UP???"

Back to business...

"We've always upheld the theory," theorises Joe as things quieten down, "that we don't want to put out a record every nine months. We'd much rather put out a record every two to three years that's of real good quality

"When we started this album 'Mutt' was involved; we did pre-production with him in Dublin, Ireland, which is why we've put him down again on the songwriting credits. It's an honesty thing with us. He doesn't write anything as such; the six of us just sit round a table with a piece of paper in front of us and guitars turned down really low, then whoever chucks in an idea - be it Rick or 'Sav' or me or 'Mutt' - we play with it."

"Steve, for example, will come up with an idea and 'Mutt' will say, 'Change that round', 'Use this', 'Do it in another key', ' or whatever. It just creases me up to think that there are some people out there who look at us and say, 'Ha! They can't write their own songs', which isn't true at all. And even if it was, I'd much rather be involved with an album that sold six million copies co-written with a producer than one that sold 200,000 copies that wasn't."

Surely helping with the arrangements and so on is part of a producer's job, though "Yeah, right, but it's almost as if it's some kind of crime to let your producer be involved. That's what a producer's there for - to kick you up the arse and bring out the best that you can do. We encourage 'Mutt' to be involved and we repay him by sticking his name on the songwriting credits. Who cares! It's only a bloody song anyway..."

Isn't it true, though, that a lot of producers are really just glorified engineers and can't make the extra step up to that level of involvement?

"Yes, that is true, but 'Mutt's an exception anway because the guy's a musician, he's been an engineer since he left school - he's been doing it for 17 years and he's only in his early thirties now and he's also a brilliant singer and great songwriter, so you've got everything going for you! Whereas an engineer will be able to tell you if something's out of tune, 'Mutt' can go further than that and say, 'It doesn't feel right' or 'Sing it this way, shape your mouth like this, let's alter the phrasing'. "With most engineers, if it's in tune and it's what you want then it's a take, and that's all their job is, because if it's that way round it's normally the band who are producing, the way we are with this album. I noticed in Kerrang! it implied that Nigel Green is now producing – he's not, we are. Nigel's assisting." "Actually, he's worked with us on our last two albums, though not as main engineer. Mike Shipley was always our main engineer. Nigel's as good as Mike, it's just that at the time he was involved in other projects; so when Mike took a holiday or went to the dentist Nigel would come in. We've never worked with him on a long term basis before but we do know him."

What happened with 'Mutt' Lange, though? As I understand it, he originally agreed to produce the album as well as help out on pre-production...

"Yeah. In fact, he was still going to do it last February. We started with pre-production, as you've mentioned, but it soon became obvious that 'Mutt' was in no state to see the whole thing through. The Cars' album ('Heartbeat City') nearly killed him; our last album nearly killed him, and the Foreigner record ('IV') the same. I think he's just reached the stage now where to attain certain standards you're talking about grafting for a long time."

"The way we worked on 'Pyromania', for example, we were doing 20 hour days and the guy was sleeping on the couch in the control room. You just can't do that forever, so for the sake of his health he made a wise decision not to do our album. At the time, we were panicking; we thought, 'Oh, Christ!', cos things had all been planned. It wasn't a case of us being afraid of what the album would sound like if 'Mutt' wasn't there, it was simply the availability of other producers that we were concerned about. With top people like Ted Templeman, Mike Stone or Trevor Horn, you've got to book 'em years in advance, you can't just get in touch two weeks before you want to start..."

"Actually, we did approach Templeman just to see how much he wanted, and I don't think he was too keen to do it; he put in such a ridiculous money offer that no band in the world would have accepted it! But then we really wanted somebody a bit different, anyhow. We were interested in the people I've already mentioned initially because we thought, well, these are the names that we've listened to, Bob Ezrin, y'know. But then we started to think about people like Alex Sadkin, who we found was doing the new Foreigner album ('Agent Provocateur'). Trevor Horn would have worked with us in England, but Chris Thomas (Roxy Music, Procol Harum) turned us down flat - he obviously doesn't like us. We actually tried to get Phil Collins, who was interested but tied up with the latest Clapton LP ('Behind The Sun')."

So you were looking at people outside the world of heavy rock...

"Yeah, we were looking at up and coming producers like Terry Manning, who's engineered for ZZ Top, and Steve Lillywhite, who's yet to do a hard rock album but possibly could do a good one. Some of us were interested in him, some of us weren't. I like the fullness of Simple Minds' 'Sparkle In The Rain' LP, it's brill, but sounds are really no problem for us now, we can get good sounds; the thing we always like to have is musical input, and that's where we thought Steinman would come into his own. I mean, the guy's a good songwriter and he's had a hell of a lot of success with what he does."

He worked on the last Billy Squier album, 'Signs Of Life', with Tony Platt, didn't he?

"Yeah, well, he 'navigated' it is what Squier says. We thought, OK, we'll get the sounds and let him do the producing, but it turned out that Jim wasn't really what any of us thought he would be. In fact, I wonder how he's ever got a production credit on anything - especially with Squier, the kind of ego he's got. I can't understand why he even let Steinman's name appear on his album cos we're not putting it on ours."

What was the problem with Steinman then?

"Ahh... I wouldn't be lying if I said that you could have done it as well. I mean that. The guy just sat there reading 'Country Life' all day and going, 'Yeah, yeah, that sounds good', when it plainly wasn't. He's simply not used to recording the way we record. When we said, 'Listen, this is the way we work, you'd better get used to it', he tried and he couldn't. He just could not hear if something was wrong."

Were your standards too exacting for him, do you think?

"Possibly, yeah. It sounds strange to say that, though, cos to me those standards are normal. Doing 'Pyromania' was like going to college; I've grown up listening to things a certain way. As far as I'm concerned, getting the timing, the tuning and the feel spot on is the usual way to work, but Jim Steinman for all his reputation - could not hear it."

"After a while, we just thought, well, this is silly, we're wasting our time and money and wasting his time, though we weren't too bothered about that cos he wasn't too bothered about the project. I honestly don't think he was doing it for any reason other than credibility in the States. "We'd say, 'Right, we start at 12', and he'd wander in at 3.30. We'd stay till 12 or one in the morning, then he'd go back to his hotel and start writing songs for his own future projects, and he'd be up till nine o'clock doing that. So when he finally got round to us, he'd only had five hours sleep. he wasn't there half the time. I mean, he was there in body but not in mind. We found more and more that we were doing the work, which was fine, we didn't mind doing it, we just thought, why the hell should we be giving this guy so many points and so many dollars to sit there reading 'Country Life'!"

So how much did you manage to accomplish with Steinman?

"We did about eight backing tracks and scrapped them; almost everything has been done again. And even the things that went down were our decision Steinman never overruled us on anything. If he said a certain take was good and we said it was bad, we'd do it again."

Who was actually getting the sounds at this stage?

"Us and Neil Dorfsman, Steinman's engineer. He was good, actually, cos he was doing all the work. Jim was the ears of the partnership, but the ears were plugged up, I think..."

"Y'know, it annoys me intensely when a producer walks into a control room and says, "This carpet has got to go!' Sod the desk, that's not important. An SSL desk, 150,000 quid's worth of equipment, and the carpet's got to go! He even had the carpet changed in his hotel room. The guy was living in a suite while we were happy in rooms with a fridge and a cooker. Obviously, we paid for it all..."

"And the food! He went out to the North of Holland and had a 12 course meal! Which is fine, that's his personality, but when somebody walks into a studio and says the carpet has got to go... if I'd been there I'd have decked him. Seriously. Who gives a flying s**t what the carpet looks like!"

How long did Steinman last, then?

"Oh, we dumped Jim about November, we gave him a fair chance. We thought, well, alright, we're doing the spadework, what he might consider the boring side of the album, let's see what he's like on vocals, maybe that's his strongpoint. He did tell us that he spent something like five weeks trying to get Meat Loaf to sing one line, so we thought, OK, the guy's definitely got stamina."

"But when it came to doing vocals with me, it was exactly the same situation as with the backing tracks - everything was my decision. He'd say, 'Yeah, that's good', and I'd go, 'Jim, it's f**king useless!' I'd run out of breath at the end of a line cos I wasn't quite familiar with what I was singing, and he'd say, 'It's got a bit of feel'. Isn't that pathetic?!"

"I mean, Steve and Phil wanted to get rid of him two weeks after he was here. But I just kept saying, 'Give the guy a chance, blah, blah, blah' made meself look a right arsehole. But it was only fair to let him get to the vocal stage of things."

"Anyway, when Steinman went we all sat down and asked Mensch to sort out which other producers were available. We put down everybody we thought might be good. Mike Shipley couldn't do it cos he was off co-producing the new Loverboy album, so we just suggested Nigel. We were doing a better job than Steinman, so we thought, well, what's the point getting in another producer? We send 'Mutt' the odd tape now and then and he sends it back saying, 'It sounds brilliant to me', which shows that we can do it, so we are."

Has having Phil Collen involved from the start of this album (he became a Leppard member during the recording of 'Pyromania', replacing guitarist Pete Willis) made things different in any way?

"Yeah, it means that the songwriting's changed a little; Phil's input is better than Pete's ever was. Steve will always be the major songwriter, I think, but he's really encouraged Phil a lot. He doesn't just sit down and say, 'I want to write all the songs', stuff like that. In fact, everything that Steve's written, he's written with Phil in the same room... Phil's probably involved in eight of the 10 songs on the album."

And what about 'Sav'? He writes too, doesn't he?

"Yeah, but 'Sav's weird; I can't get to grips with him sometimes. More than anyone else in this band he likes your Journeys and your Bryan Adams, occasionally even the odd Duran Duran song, yet he was the one who came up with 'Stagefright' and 'No No No'. And on this new album he's got a number called 'Ring Of Fire' - not a cover of the famous Johnny Cash song! which is an uptempo, thrash, crash, Metal job. He just never writes like the people he listens to."

Will Steve and Phil be sharing the guitar breaks on the new LP?

"Oh yeah, 50/50, right down the middle. Actually, they argue about who's gonna do 'em; not in the sense of, 'I wanna do this', but Phil's telling Steve that he should do a certain solo and Steve's saying, 'No you do it, it's more up your street'. I remember hearing stories about KK (Downing) and Glenn (Tipton) from Priest not talking to each other for four months at a time, but it's the other way round with Steve and Phil. The only thing they argue about is who's gonna buy the drinks!"

What about you, though? You play a bit of guitar...

"Badly!"

...have you written anything on the new record?

"Er... I did come up with some stuff but I don't think it got used. I wrote little bits on the last album, but my main worry is obviously melodies, lyrics and vocals."

"Sometimes, though, we'll have a vocal line and work the backing around that. We've got this one new song, 'Armageddon It', which is Piltdown, just two chords all the way through; it's based around a tongue-in-cheek vocal thing."

Is it a 'Rock Of Ages' type number?

"I suppose it is a bit, yeah. The vocals come out from all over the place once it gets going. It's just a totally stupid lyric... like 'Rock Of Ages', just a piss-take of ourselves, though not mocking the fans in any way."

"And then there's 'Ring Of Fire', which I've already mentioned. It's actually about an Indian meal, the day after, but nobody would ever know that... well, they will now!"

When you're writing lyrics, do you ever think about how the song will work live?

"Not really, no. Obviously, a number like 'Rock Till You Drop' is a stage song, and the same with 'Stagefright', but I've never consciously sat down and thought, well, I'd better come up with two songs about 'Rock This Place To The Ground', or whatever, and one meaningful one about Vietnam, and another about a vigilante in New York. They just turn out that way. You do it in moods. I was probably watching something about Vietnam on TV and 'Die Hard The Hunter' (from the 'Pyromania' LP) came out, and I'd probably been to see 'Deathwish' when I wrote 'Billy's Got A Gun' (also on 'Pyromania'). I can't remember, I just do it."

"I actually wrote 'Photograph' (ditto) while I was sitting on the bog. I was stuck for a chorus and I had a picture of Marilyn Monroe staring me in the face... Bob's your uncle!"

When you made the decision to go for something extra with the 'Pyromania' album, were you confident that you could pull it off?

"We were confident, yeah, very confident, because 'Mutt' was producing. We just had so much faith in the guy and in return he had total confidence in what we were doing. We didn't see how we could go wrong, though Mensch was tearing his hair out when we were nearly a million pounds in debt and the record company were drumming their fingers waiting. I think we had to sell 1.2 million copies of 'Pyromania' to break even, we were in a real big mess..."

"I mean, I nearly had a nervous breakdown, I just couldn't handle it. I was going through so much crap towards the end - do it again, do it again... I got what a lot of singers get, 'Lastitis', which comes from the pressure of finishing. We went through a lot of hell on that record..."

Including, of course, the slightly wobbly exit of young Mr Willis...

"Yeah, but in all honesty I think that did us more good than anything. The thing is, you sometimes take situations for granted and then all of a sudden something like that happens and it's like, wow, it's different, there's only four of us, he's gone, really gone. I mean, Phil joined the day after, but then he almost joined back in '81."

"I tried to get him cos we were having trouble with Willis in America. I rang Phil up and said, 'Can you learn 16 songs in two days?' He said, 'I'll try', but that was just totally out of desperation, there's no way he could have done it. However, when Pete started to act in the studio like he did on tour, which was making Keith Moon look like a bloody vicar, it was time for him to go."

Why doesn't he get some help?

"Well, I think he's beyond help, to tell the truth. He doesn't even realise he needs it, he doesn't accept he's got a problem, though the guy's been in hospital twice as a result of drink and drugs. He had a collapsed liver or something, and epileptic fits, God knows what."

That hasn't happened to the rest of you, though, and you're all the same age, you've all worked your way up together...

"No, it's just him. Pete's always had something to prove, y'see, probably because he's a midget. The guy thought he was 10 feet tall when he was pissed and he'd be taking on people as big as you it didn't work. He was like a gigantic ball and chain around our ankles..."

THE LATEST whisper on Willis is that he's currently swanning around the environs of Sheffield, complete with Rolls Royce and minder, recounting tales of some hush-hush supergroup he might be throwing in his frets with. Elliott finds it hard to take the whole thing seriously, and I think it's fair to say that the recording of album number four is proceeding all the smoother for the wee man's absence.

Already, a number of lead vocals are complete, and the band (employing two studios simultaneously) are steadily piecing together their ten new songs, ready to convince a waiting world that Life After 'Pyromania' does exist.

So what's on the boil? Well, in no particular order, there's 'Armageddon It' and 'Ring Of Fire', already mentioned, 'Excitable', 'Gods Of War', 'Fractured Love', 'Don't Shoot The Shotgun' (Stonesy, I'm assured), 'Animal', 'Love Bites' (a ballad), 'Run Riot' and the enticingly handled 'Women', all proudly produced by the Leppard members themselves, who, without the invaluable 'Mutt' Marten to administer the prods, are taking great and serious pleasure in booting each other up the bum! "Actually, I never envisaged us producing ourselves," admits Joe, "I thought it might be the one thing that would lead to us falling out. It's always been dead important to us that Leppard is a friends situation; we want to keep the element of why we started. Five mates who can still go into the same bar and look each other in the face after seven years. Happily, that's the way it's remained, and producing ourselves is working really well..."

The new album, which now looks set to be mixed by Lange in the UK, an added bonus, should be available by August, after which the band plan to tear up the tarmac on a world tour of, well... y'know. The idea, it seems, is to blow away the studio cobwebs with about eight shows in Ireland, some in smaller places, then steer a course for the UK, perhaps for a September stint (the British dates have already been put back four times!) of 20 or so gigs. A headline appearance at Wembley Arena isn't too far off for the boys, according to Queen's Brian May, a staunch Leppard supporter, but this time around I reckon they'll settle for something a little more cosy.

Next tour, though Europe too seems odds on to cop a visit, particularly as 'Pyromania' has now shifted over 100,000 copies in France and is making a late burst for the tape in Scandinavia as well. Business in Germany, however, remains a little slow, and as for Holland... well, now we're talking about a massive 639 units shifted. Still, at least it means the band don't have to worry about being recognised. Def what?!

By December Leppard should be into America, after which it's likely they'll travel to Japan, though probably not Australia, that stage of the tour having lost them around 60 grand last Feb. Indeed, all in all, their schedule will be less arduous than last time, including more days off to recover and recharge. The band should certainly feel healthier as a result, but then with the Rick Allen episode having shocked the Leppard camp into a highly body-conscious state, that's the way things are heading anyway "I don't want to waste away and vegetate," explains Joe. "I'm 25, I'm supposed to be at the peak of my fitness; I'm supposed to be Glenn Hoddle but I wasn't. I'd run a mile and be out of breath. Now I can run a six minute mile, no trouble, and I do half an hour's worth of exercises every day. 'Sav', Phil and myself all go jogging too - we take less for granted now than we did before..."

[nat-the-rat326]

Bonus Story: The Nightmare

(There probably like 4 or 5 in this by the way)

Kit kept twisting and turning in her sleep. The nightmare kept plaguing her mind and she started to get covered in a cold sweat. After a while the dream allowed her to wake up. She sat bolt upright and looked out the window. The dark black sky was illuminated by the moon, indicating that it was still the witching hour.

She looked around the room at the others. Ron was asleep to her left, Zanya to her right, and the other 5 children were scattered in beds across the room. She started to remember the dream, how scary it was and how it involved her mother, and the tragedy that came upon her not too long ago.

Kit felt tears forming in her eyes. She tried to stop herself from crying, since she knew she would get in trouble. Ricky always punished the kids that were awake or roaming around at night. She couldn't hold in her tears and started to sob into her pillow.

Ron started to stir at the sound. He sat up groggily and looked around the bedroom, his eyes stopping when he saw Kit. He immediately went more alert and whispered to her "Hey Kit, what's wrong, why are you crying?" Kit looked up from her pillow and immediately climbed into Ron's bed.

Ron was surprised at first, but soon laid down next to her, running his fingers through her hair as a way to calm her down. "I had that bad dream again" Kit said as she tried to talk through her tears. Ron nodded, knowing what dream she's referring to. He pulled her closer and pulled the thin blanket over the both of them.

"I know, I miss my mommy too, but hey, we got each other now." Ron replied, just trying his best to calm his best friend down. Kit started to relax as Ron patted her head and cuddled her close. "And if any other nightmares come back, I'll protect you" Ron said, in a joking but equally serious tone. "How" Kit replied, tilting her head slightly.

Ron smiled and kissed her forehead. "There, now there's a magical spell over you, one that keeps all bad dreams away." Kit felt her forehead a little, before smiling softly. "Thanks Ronny." She replied as she yawned and eventually fell back asleep, still cuddled towards Ron.

Ron smiled at her sleeping form. He was about to fall back asleep when he noticed Zanya, awake at smirking at him. "You like her~." She said in a rather teasing tone. Ron felt his face flush a little as he rapidly shook his head. "What? Ew no, I don't like her!" He said, trying to deny the fact that yes, he did have a crush on her.

[fbfh]

https://www.tumblr.com/fbfh/751183998393450496/got-an-ask-and-now-im-scheming-plotting-even-i?source=share

need to know more about this please

Idea for a series that may or may not happen at some point in the future but I am happy to discuss. until then here's some tea.

So Ricky and Nini graduated high school years ago. Nini went to california determined to be a singer and launch her music career, while Ricky stayed home. He ended up performing regularly in various community theatres and enjoys it a lot. He got a part time job at Slices with Red and started teaching guitar to kids as a side gig, and he's actually doing very well for himself.

Regardless of how you and Ricky met, he's no completely obsessed with you. Yk the season 1 obsessive Ricky?? well unbeknownst to you you took his virginity and now obsessive Ricky is back. Ricky's not telling anyone that you two are sexually active because he lives in Utah for god's sake. Megachurches outnumber starbucks here. things with Ricky are going great. until they're not. one way or another you and ricky get into a fight and he sort of hooks up with Nini or almost hooks up with nini but not really, maybe there's a hot tub involved or something. point is he doesn't go through with it, but enough happened or he was drunk enough for Nini to fake a pregnancy. she's convinced you're all wrong for Ricky and that if she can just get him to have sex with her (she lost her virginity in california but he doesn't know that and she doesn't plan on telling him) then she actually CAN get pregnant and it'll be like she never lied at all, right?

but Ricky doesn't want Nini. he wants you. he wants you enough to poke some holes in his condoms (like a lot of holes) and rush over to your place and beg you to take him back. he's on his knees. he's kissing your stomach. he's eating you out until you can't think straight "to show you how sorry he is" and "show you how much he loves you". you're so fucked out that you don't even notice the rips in the condom, or the little bit of creamy goo inside you when he pulls out after staying in as long as he can.

now the three of you are in a very light vs L from death note situation: Nini wants ricky to THINK she's pregnant, nini knows she's not ACTUALLY pregnant, ricky knows he got you pregnant, ricky doesn't want YOU to know he got you pregnant, ricky doesn't want you to think nini is pregnant, you actually are pregnant, ricky needs to wait for you to tell him you're pregnant first so you don't find out he knew, you are completely oblivious to the fact that you're pregnant, you are determined to find a recipe for scones that aren't too dry or too dense. these are the biggest problems in your lives right now.

[amuseoffyre]

I was rewatching S1 the other day and remembered how much of it had struck me as "huh, that seems a very… specific thing to focus on" and my foreshadowing spidey-senses started tingling back when it first aired. And then more turned up while I was watching S2.

Ones that have come to fruition:

The nose jar It got a lot of focus for a one-scene moment. Why specify that someone causing trouble would get a nose cut off and then not show someone getting punished with their nose getting cut off? Chekov's nose-jar was used in 2x01 and is a trigger point for the entire villain arc for the second season.

The recurring threats to Lucius's life Honestly, the amount of times he was threatened and harangued and nearly killed by Jim. It really would have been bad for the vibe around there, so when they 'killed' him at the end, Naaaaaaah. Didn't believe it for a moment. (Speaking of, Izzy has a similar run of near-deaths all through S2, so HMMMMMMM)

"Captain Hornigold! There's a blast from the past!" The second they brought up his name, I was ears pricked up and staring and going oooooooo, because there's no way you mention a significant figure from both pirate history and Ed's department of backstory when we know he's Captain of the good ship Daddy Issues without having a plan for one of the major male influences in his life, especially knowing the history that Hornigold takes the act and turns hunter and is instrumental in tracking down Blackbeard.

The wait staff exchange in 2x06 It seemed like lot of dialogue to not be leading somewhere. Behold, the Revenge crew as Wait staff in 2x01:D

The escalation of the British enmity We started out with Captain Badminton and levelled up to Admiral Badminton with the British as recurring villains all through the season and the thread of royal influence popping up here and there, which got me thinking next stop would be either their elder brother or someone even further up the social pecking order. Enter Ricky.

Secret passages built into the ship So I, like many others, assumed Lucius would be the dead man hiding in the walls. We were halfway right XD There was a dead man hidden in there. Twice.

We'll go to China Was left with a "why China?" vibe from that and it wouldn't stop niggling me that there was some specific reason that the writers would have chosen China of all place. Turns out if you can't go to China with your boyfriend, China will come to you and kick your ass.

Still to come:

"You saved the clippings so we can make fake heads and escape" I maintain this is the big one for S3. We have no less than 10 separate references to heads/faces being removed and fake heads. Stede even uses three different fake heads as props (rowing boat, the skull in the fuckery and the corpse head in the triple-fuckery of his death) and given Blackbeard's death famously involves his head being strung from the mast of the ship, it feels prescient.

"I thought that when I did marry, it would be for love" "Peasants marry for love" Not. Subtle :D Our man has already made himself a peasant and has his boyfriend, so he's part of the way there.

"I always hated you" Ed saying this to imaginary Hornigold has me absolutely foaming at the mouth for what the real Hornigold is like and absolutely 100% certain this is the plan for S3. As mentioned earlier Hornigold became a pirate hunter but also it would tie in with the S1 foreshadowing as well - we've had him mentioned, we've seen what he looks like, we know what he's done so the second he shows up in S3, we need no introduction. Plus Ed's processing his history so having his history roll up to hunt him down? *chefkiss* YES. And if (as I'm convinced) Stede was in the Gravy Basket like Ed in 1x04, then based on how Mary and Father Teach behaved, the way Hornigold is acting in the Gravy Basket is completely out of character, which would track since he's being pally and nice and taking care of Ed at different points. The few facts we do know from Jack and Ed's recollections include stabbing them, beating them down, treating them like dogs, the Felix story and him threatening to flay Ed's skin off and feed it to him. This means that outside of the basket he's gonna be SO. MUCH. WORSE.

Crossing the Darien Gap We got the glimpse of Zheng's crews bringing ships through the jungles across the Darien Gap and saw the queue of ships lined up on the Pacific side on the map. Ricky may have taken out the ships that were in the Republic, but that wasn't all of Zheng's fleet and he has no idea more are on the way because everyone knows no one can cross the Darien Gap. He'll never see it coming ;)

A Royal Hostage Given how petty a little bitch Ricky is, I get powerful vibes that he would be the one to specifically unleash Hornigold on Stede and Ed. Stede especially, since he's the one who recommended taking him as a hostage, and he already blames Stede for leading him a) to the Republic and b) for his nose getting the chop. Him using Daddy's fortune to settle a vendetta by privately commission a famous pirate hunter doesn't seem like a stretch.

Our spirit will outlast your whole fucking empire Izzy's definitely not gone for good. He's gonna be back and he's going to be a glorious little bitch about it :D (Supporting foreshadowy evidence: shot in the left side, indestructible little fucker who has been shot-and-believed-dead twice before, existence of the gravy basket, canonical resurrections, a known seawitch with ties to purgatory at the grave)

There are some more, but it's getting late and I am sleeby, so will post 'em another day.

[themostforgottengirlintownn]

since I'm doing facts for all of my choir members might as well just make another one, I'm bored

Noel Francis Issac Gruber, Uranium City's Poet, The Most Romantic Boy In Town.

Catchphrase: "Being the only gay man in a small rural high school is kind of like having a laptop in the stone age. I mean, sure, you can have one, but there's nowhere to plug it in!"

Yearbook Quote: "Hell is other people."

Age: 17

Date Of Birth: March 5th, 1979

Date Of Death: September 14th, 1996

Zodiac Sign: Pisces, Sign of Passion

Skin Color: Pale, Vitiligo

Hair Color: Blonde

Eye Color: Brown

Nationality: Italian (idk if it's nationality, shut up if it's not)

Pronouns: He They She

Sexuality: Gay, Genderfluid

Voice Claim: Wyatt Hatfield

Singing Claim: Kholby Wardell mixed with Wyatt

Actor: Wyatt Hatfield

Involvement: The Choir, Sewing club, Poetry club

Role Model: Jean Genet

Crush: Lola Lola.

Favorite Color: Black

Favorite Ride: The Farris Wheel

Songs: Noel's Lament

Noel was more sad in his monologue, as he was insecure. (He's a very insecure person)

He screamed "No" at karnak when he tells him to explain the Taco Bell situation.

For "Noel's Lament" he gets a black sparkly sheer dress, black high heels, a boa and one of those headbands with the feather on it

He screamed "No" at karnak when he tells him to explain the Taco Bell situation.

For "Noel's Lament" he gets a black sparkly sheer dress, black high heels, a boa and one of those headbands with the feather on it

During "Noel's Lament" he gets more desperate as he plays Monique, showing that he is desperate to be Monique and desperate to live the life he wanted and craved.

He pulls a cigarette out of his "bra"

Mischa came up at the "i have no idea where to find him officer" part and noel snapped his neck at the "Ten times in his back" part

Ricky held noel when he said "my child is there any final words to the lord you'd like to say?"

After "Noel's Lament" when Jane claps he walks over to her and puts his boa around her neck and gives her his rose then he hesitantly hugged her, he was the only one to hug her. (Besides Ricky)

When Mischa said it was natural for two men to kiss Noel looked disappointed

He was the only one who held Jane's doll since no one else cared to do so.

Facts When Alive;

Noel is a natural blonde but he hated his natural hair so he dyed it a dark red

Noel would tie Mischa's tie every morning since Mischa didn't know how to, no one ever showed him.

[cookies-and-mirrors]

Chapter Thirty-Nine

This is a collaborative fic between @cookiesupplier, @faceless-mirror & @comforting-madness

Dividers by @samspenandsword @cafekitsune @saradika-graphics

Authors Note: A serious conversation needs to be had. Something happens that surprises no one.

Pairings: Multi-Pairings, Everybody x Everybody.

Bands Included: Motionless In White, Bad Omens, Bring Me The Horizon, Ice Nine Kills (to be added as characters join, no spoilers)

Triggerlist: transphobia, homophobia, abuse, SA, dubcon, religious trauma, past suicide attempts, mental health issues, grief, death, violence, kidnapping, suicidal ideation, torture, racism/speciesism, (To be added to)

Christopher, Justin, and Ryan are members of the Gargoyle Order, soldiers fighting in the angels war against the demonic supernatural evils of the world to protect human kind. Through the years they lost comrades and now just the three of them remain in their little town.

Now, Ricky and Vinny are moving into their church, stirring up old and new feelings, along with the past, posing the challenge of navigating this new chapter in their lives.

Can they all navigate this path successfully and break free of the prisons that is their lives of both stone and flesh, or will they all be trapped forever in a world that could prove to be a constant misery?

MASTERLIST HERE

Taglist: @miamore0570 @21-century-tae @dragon-chica @shilohrosechicken @comforting-madness

@missduffsblog @witchyweeb34 @spicywhenspeaking @lacktoesandtoddlerants @blackveilomens

@bngurngheart @dominuslunae @collapsedglasshouses @emmmm127 @sunsshinesunny

@latenightmusiclover @dontdiganothergravetoday @high-wire @awkwardalex

(please comment/like/reblog/message to be added to taglist)

Chapter Thirty Nine

Gwynn was calmer now after spending more time with Ryan. But now… they had to talk to Chris about the elephant in the catacombs. They limped, not as badly as before, but still aching. They leaned on the doorway, knocking. “Chris- I should like to borrow you. Your loving mate needs a moment, I’m sure. Considering, I can tell she needs to rehydrate.” Gwynn offered with a chuckle, fond of how Chris has always valued his babies and the making of them. They knew that firsthand. They had always been impressed with how Chris went from professional to seductive gargoyle in the blink of the eye, not that they supposed many knew anymore.

Chris was wrapped up with Chenza, very little of the last few days had been spent out of their bedroom, mostly to do just as Gwynn was suggesting, rehydrate and nourish themselves… Along with a shower when they wanted now and then, and even those tended to involve being entangled in each other. Why waste a moment when they both wanted the same thing? There was also the fact that Chris trying to insist that they take a breather, usually lead to his darling mate wrapped around him, pleading, begging to be filled again…

She was resting now, and he was pressing a kiss to her temple with a quiet promise. “I’ll be back soon, BabyGirl, rest, I’ll bring back food.” Climbing out of bed, he grabbed his pants and, pulling them on, he made his way to the door. Soon as he had it open, he smiled, “Don’t look at me for this, I’m the one insisting on breaks.” Not that he was complaining, he admitted, breeding as a gargoyle, was a lot less complicated, but, he couldn’t say it wasn’t entirely enjoyable… He probably should feel a tiny bit guilty, none of the others had come to him to make him patrol in the last few days, though.

Gwynn smiled and motioned for him to follow. “To think little ones will be here…  It makes me happy…” they admitted. “To a vacant alcove… you know what we need to discuss, I'm sure you noticed a few days back.” They said vaguely, “we still need to address a situation before those little feet come out.”

Chris followed along dutifully with Gwynn, smiling softly, they would at the very least had Justin and Ricky’s little ones very soon. As to how long it might be before any other little ones joined them, time would tell, but to have young ones again, would be such a blessing. “I’ve noticed a few things, of varying degrees, some more concerning than others.” As they came to the alcove, though, “the highest of which, is realizing that for all his taunts, Jerahmiel might have succeeded in some of his corruptions. Tell me, how is Ryan coping since you removed his agony rune?”

The angel sighed and closed the door after they got in the alcove, pressing a rune over the door. “He’s… trying. He’s trying, that’s all I can admit… He doesn’t trust himself. But I’m sure he just needs time… I… won’t be letting him train Noah. I think Noah and Atsuko would be better. Atsuko seems to be very close to him…” they murmured softly, thinking back to seeing them share food the past few days. “Which brings us to another concern… The catacombs.”

Cringing at the mention of Ryan not trusting himself, that was what he was afraid of, that was evidence of the corruption right then and there, even if not the most obvious. The gargoyle with the virtue of Trust, not even being able to trust himself? Chris has always been able to Trust Ryan, always, but then to hear he had gone and pushed Noah off the roof? While in his heart, Chris, Chris believed there was something in Ryan that had a purpose for doing as he did, there was such a disconnect in his action. So much so, that it harmed any trust the young man could have had in the elder. How did Chris explain to Noah that Ryan wasn’t as dangerous as he might consider, when Noah had also been told that he was malnourished, and now he was eating better, was visibly starting to heal stronger as well? Chris hoped Noah would accept all of them at some point, they were his troupe, his family, just as much as Noah was his kin, his blood… He knew it would take time… Just as it would to help Ryan come back from what he was going through.

If that was possible.

Chris had never known a gargoyle to come back from corruption before.

“Yes, the catacombs. Every time I was down there, I didn’t venture very far when I went to find Chenza’s ashes before. So I never questioned not coming across the zombies. We trapped them in the depths for a reason.” Chris, as one of the original gargoyles, was one of the troupe that had been sent to round up the zombies for the catacombs. When one escaped, he was more likely one of those to head out to return it because he knew how to handle them. “I was surprised to find them empty, though we didn’t venture quite all the way, he met us half way, it does make me wonder how he, survived.” It made him feel, ill, that he questioned another gargoyle's capability, but there would have been hoards in the catacombs.

“Did you not notice the bone dust the deeper we went…? How much of it there was…. That horde wasn’t supposed to turn to dust for another five hundred years…” they murmured, swallowing, “Chris. He killed them. All of them.” Their voice broke. “We need… to figure out a plan for rehabilitating him. With Ryan… what I ask is that you give him tasks and tell him that you trust him to accomplish them. Like with how he’s handled patrolling while you were tending to your mate. He just needs to hear that he is trusted in small doses…” They whispered, “I’m working with him… but this will be a steady process.” 

They sighed, thinking about Atsuko. He… needed to get to know people… and humans again… that had to be it. Develop those bonds again.

Oh, Chris had noticed, there had been a reason he had offered to go into the catacombs with Gwynn in the first place, the catacombs were not a place that any of them should venture into lightly. He had hoped that Atsuko was not the reason for the bone dust. The gargoyle would have much rather that the zombies had eventually attacked each other, that had been a hypothesis, not that it had come to pass… but he had hoped as they ventured deeper.

Gwynn’s plan for Ryan was the same as what he and Justin had ventured with a century ago when Jerahmiel first abandoned them and Ryan had first struggled with his emotional stability. Chris had been less worried about his virtue then, but he had been worried about him, when they’d had to rely on each other more than ever before. Now that Jerahmiel had returned and reminded the other gargoyle of his control over him, it felt like Ryan had a relapse in his trauma, at least that was Chris theory. “Of course, it will be a struggle with Ryan, he won’t want to hear it, I’ll tell you that now, he never did with Justin or me. Especially when I know Noah might openly likely not trust him after what happened.”

Chris sighed softly, now when it came to Atsuko, he was going to probably be even more difficult. He was one that didn’t actually leave the Church as often as the rest of them. He didn’t socialize as frequently with humans as most of them, which, now, looking back, would have made it easier for him to kill those zombies despite sensing the lingering humans spirits. Oh, by the angel, this was as much their fault as it was Jerahmiel’s… they’d made it easier for him to corrupt him. “As for Atsuko, potentially, slowly, we could introduce him through the café around humans, the bar if that doesn’t work… It would be a more controlled environment than taking him out of the Church.”

“Agreed. He will always need someone with him for safety… we have to do better with him… and Ryan… we just… need to try.”

Contemplating the entire situation as Gwynn spoke, Christopher had to wonder how this had all come to pass, why Jerahmiel had targeted Ryan, Atsuko. He knew both had been weakened by the loss of their mates, as had… The ashes. Chris swallowed before a shudder ran down his spine. He’d given Chris Chenza’s ashes when she died, when he murdered her, knowing what they would do to him. If they had not gone missing, he could have become just as corrupted as the other pair… Who knows what he could have become with his virtue as it is. The three of them had barely held themselves together before the arrival of Vinny, of Ricky, in their lives. 

“As long as we are there for them both. When it came to Ryan, when we thought he was slipping the other times… and I’m sure every time he thought I was…” Chris was sure there were many… he fell quiet, he knew he had more than a few break-downs since Chenza had passed. Times when he’d begged the other two to just let him… “We just support them, no matter what.”

“Chris… you're not telling me something…” they noted. “What's going on in that pretty head of yours…?” They asked gently, taking his hand, warmth, and comfort radiating to Chris to soothe his nerves.

Gwynn was right, Chris glanced away from the angel, he was reluctant to admit that he had been so easily tempted by his grief. Reluctant to admit that he had been so easily tempted by the path of corruption that he knew had gripped him now. How much longer would he have lasted had the ashes not gone missing? He knew, he had felt something akin to obsession with having her close, needing to still feel her presence in his life. To know that she was still with him in some manner, to have her there. It had felt like it given him purpose at the time. After he lost the ashes, he knew how closely Ryan and Justin had watched over him, how wary they had been of what he might do… all he had left was her rune on his skin. 

Taking in a deep breath, “I was just wondering why Jerahmiel targeted Ryan, Atsuko.” Sighing as he brought his attention back to Gwynn, “and considering that he likely used the loss of their mates against them, I-”

Gwynn sighed, “He… found it to be an easy place to exploit… I'm sure. The only reason Justin was safe… he didn't have a mate.”

Chris sighed, thankful that Gwynn was allowing him not to continue, that he didn’t have to explain any further. He didn’t have to express how close he had come to his own personal corruption, or admit to his failing as their commander by allowing himself to give in to debasing their culture as he had. Taking in a breath, he was sure, defiling holy ground by keeping the ashes of a gargoyle, would not be so easily forgiven. 

Still, Justin wasn’t always safe though, that boy was torn apart emotionally and made to feel like he was nothing, and to hear them saying he was safe, was painful, but Chris said nothing. Justin had never known a life when he could actually be free, when he actually could breathe without the boot of Jerahmiel on his neck. Chris remembered that pure joy in Justin’s eyes at times when he let the youngest of them actually roam, not that he had let him go far, they had their edicts, but he had never demeaned him as Jerahmiel had. 

Chris blood went cold with a thought, with something Chenza had said. “He has a mate now, and Jerahmiel intends to return for Ricky’s birth…” 

Gwynn nodded, “He intends on corrupting all of you.” They whispered, squeezing the gargoyle's hand. “We can’t allow that… I know it’s not ideal… but… I think on the day of the birth… Atsuko, Vinny, and Ricky should go into the depths of the catacombs, where Jerahmiel won't be able to fight with his abilities. It would protect them.”

Trying not to tense further with that plan, Chris’ mind was reeling with the possibilities. He’d already lost his mate once, the thought of losing her again, and Gwynn was suggesting that he send the one gargoyle that was confirmed willing to kill a human spirit, in hoards, down into the catacombs with her. Yes, they would be with Ricky, however, at the rate Ricky was progressing, they had potentially a month, possibly less, it was difficult to tell, and he would be in no shape to defend himself either. The catacombs had protection from magic, yes, but it would have no protection from Atsuko. “The vampires, they are neutral, correct? While they would usually sleep during the day to my knowledge, they don’t require it, do they? So, if we ask them, perhaps, they could also accompany them into the catacombs to assist? As… backup, should something arise.”

The angel nodded, “I agree. We need to speak with them and Shade… I don't want to leave Ricky and Vinny unprotected in a vulnerable moment.” They agreed calmly. “I don't want to lose anymore.”

While Shade would be preferred with the gargoyles should Jerahmiel arrive as he promised, Chris did not trust the man to arrive at the Church on his own, especially considering that beast of a hellhound he’d brought last time. Should this happen during the day, he did not know Shade’s limitations during the daylight hours as a gargoyle vampire. It would be up to Shade, where he would be during the birth, Chris would have to trust he knew where he would be best to help them. As it was, they didn’t know what was going to happen. 

“No. No more losing. Besides, this time, we know he is coming, and while we may not know what he is bringing with him, considering that beast by his side, I intend to prepare for the worst that I can manage.” Which was why he planned to hope to begin some form of training for Noah immediately. He would speak to Atsuko about it, he might be keeping to himself, but perhaps training Noah would help his socialization as much as the café. Not to mention, aside from himself, and Ryan, who was not an option any longer, he knew Atsuko had experience training young gargoyles. Noah already seemed to gravitate towards Atsuko, Chris hoped that would bode well. 

Gwynn nodded, “We need to get moving air down there for Ricky and Vinny. And a place set up for birth… would you work with Atsuko to get it done? I think a team project might be good for him and clear out some bone dust…” He sighed. There was so much to do and account for…

Chris hummed for a moment, “Perhaps, that could be a task you could put to Ryan alternatively? I was hoping to encourage Atsuko to start training Noah, perhaps that would assist with his socialization from there. I am sure I could suggest to Noah the café might be a good spot for breaks if he needs one, I doubt he will be opposed to the free food either.” Smiling softly, he certainly hadn’t been before. 

The angel nodded, “understandable. We need to allocate where they're most benefited. I was seeing it only from our advantage…” they whispered, “so Atsuko with Noah. You and Ryan and most likely Justin finding a spot and clear out bone dust. Vinny and I will handle getting fans, lanterns, and mattresses.” They commented softly. "Riyah and Shade along with the vampires can stand guard here at night in case…”

While this plan was sound, this entirely situation was starting to make Chris feel… uneasy. Chris knew he had frequented the catacombs once, and he knew, he knew now, just how disastrous that was, just how close he had come to his own personal corruption he had been in doing so. The catacombs were sacred for gargoyles, they were forbidden. The last time he had been permitted in them was long before Gwynn’s loss, and that had been when he had helped capture one of the last of the zombies that they had discovered in the city. The catacombs under the Church houses honored dead, and for that, the gargoyles were supposed to protect it. 

“Gwynn,” Chris spoke oh so carefully, he didn’t intend to upset them, nor did he want to cross boundaries… “How far into the catacombs are you intending for them to venture? Surely, not far enough for the bone dust to be of that much concern? The depths would be an adventurous walk for Vinny, but Ricky, full term?” Not touching on all that sacred territory… yes there was bone dust there but, Chris felt there was something off about sanitizing the catacombs after what was done to it already. Had the dead not been disturbed enough?

Gwynn looked up at Chris, swallowing. “As far as Justin needs to consider his mate will be safe. The bone dust will be placed in urns, that way it's not stepped on… We need to still honor them… We can’t honor them by walking on them.”

Chris just blinked at Gwynn for a moment, he wasn’t sure he was hearing this. From Gwynn of all people. Jerahmiel maybe, however, Gwynn, maybe he was feeling a certain way after the realization of his potential corruption, and the desire not to risk any of the others, however… “Of course, I shall leave it up to Justin how far he wishes to trample on one of our most sacred of traditions. It’s difficult enough for myself, knowing how close I came to corruption at the hands of Jerahmiel, and yet despite his machinations, I never ventured to the level of the catacombs you are suggesting, Gwynn… However, you are the one suggesting that Loyalty might want to, for his mate. Who is using mates against a gargoyle now?” 

Chris didn’t wait for an answer, he was struggling enough, and he had promised Vinny he wouldn’t be long, turning to go. “I apologize, I need to get Vinny something to hydrate.” 

The angel sighed. “You’re right to be upset, but at the same time this isn’t a normal case… I’m sorry, Chris. Take your time.” They said, guilt eating at them from the pit of their stomach. They had gotten so detached from the gargoyles and had been insensitive… they slid down the wall, leaning their head back, eyes closed.

Chris was facing the door, his whole body wound like a coiled snake, ready to strike, but he didn’t, this was Gwynn, this was Gwynn. Gwynn, whom he cared for deeply, and had for as long as he had been alive. One moment couldn’t take away hundreds of years of trust… however, after over a thousand years of another needling at them, it was easy to be worn. It was easy to feel, weary of the world and what it could mean. “You’re right.”

Turning on them then, “This is not a normal case, but then again, neither was the night my mate was murdered. I would say, it wasn’t a normal case the night that Niko was murdered either… Then there was the night that Shade and Riyah’s troupe was decimated… huh… I’m starting to wonder if anything is normal anymore.” Funny that, now, wasn’t it?

“If we play by their rules, and push the limits against our own nature, our own beliefs. What makes us who we are, who we have always been as gargoyles… Then how does that make us any better than what the angels in Heaven think of us when they attack us, and destroy us… do whatever they want, whenever they want, Gwynn?” The fact he was talking as if Gwynn wasn't one of them... But Chris had never considered them like Heaven's angels, and he was trying like Hell not to now...

Gwynn listened intently, nodding, “I'm sorry I lost sight…” he whispered, “We should come up with another location to house Vinny and Ricky during the birth instead of going deep into the catacombs. The war hasn't been normal. Nothing has been. I'm sorry for my weakness I allowed to slip in… as for your own journey… I'm sorry that I was insensitive.” They looked up at him, “When you're ready to discuss this more… find me. Vinny is waiting on you. But I want your input…”

Quiet as he looked at Gwynn, his breath leaving him like a heavy weight just swept out of his body. Chris nodded, thankful that they actually listened instead of dismissing what he had to say. The worst part, in terms of hiding from angel magic, the catacombs were perfect; however, it went against their very traditions. Some would assume, that was why they were forbidden from them, though Chris didn’t like to see it that way, the dead, they were sacred. Just as the human soul, the human spirit was. 

His input… “Before I leave, I would consider one of the mausoleums, many are open for families to visit their loved ones and can be warded and potentially made to be quite defensible.” Also separate from the Church. Hopefully, Jerahmiel wouldn’t suspect it. “I apologize if I over stepped, you are not weak, we all have to face our demons, only now have I realized just how close I came to mine.”

The angel smiled softly, looking up at him, eyes gentle, “I’ll take a look at the mausoleums, I recall there are a few larger old ones… we could utilize that.” they assured, and hearing his apology, they shook their head, “Chris… it's okay. I… I’m well aware that I’m not where I used to be… and I fear my judgement might be clouded with fear… I’m sorry.” They got to their feet, walking closer to him, and gently took his hand. “I missed you…”

Chris' breath caught, he didn’t want this for them. He didn’t want this fear for them, any more than he wanted to deal with the thought of the horrifying moment when he’d considered the thought of comparing their plan with Jerahmiel’s corruptions. It wasn’t right, on either side, Gwynn deserved so much better than having to deal with this. His fingers wrapped around theirs, and he squeezed gently, he’d told them he’d missed them, they might not have had the same relationship that they had with Ryan, they might not be as close… of course, they were Ryan’s mate. However, Chris always had such a reverence for Gwynn. “We will take care of Ryan, and Atsuko, I swear to you. I won’t let you down.” That was the last thing he wanted.

They nodded, and stepped closer, standing on their tiptoes to kiss Chris’s lips softly, “You never have, Christopher Cerulli. You have never once disappointed me. I’m proud of you.” Gwynn assured, “And I value your honesty with me and with the troupe. You know this.” Gwynn added, petting the back of his hand with their thumb.

The kiss caught him off guard, but his lips brushed back against theirs gently as his cheeks flushed ever so slightly with warmth at the kindness in their soft words. Sighing against their lips, with the slightest lick of his lips, his mouth suddenly dry, he’d never kissed an angel, in his life, Chris had never dared… Let alone Gwynn. They had always been Ryan’s… He brushed a return, soft, sweet kiss to their lips before pulling back… “Thank you.” His eyes, that molten golden brown.

The angel chuckled and pet his cheek. “You’re welcome. Now go back to your mate. She needs you. I’ll be okay. I’ve been feeling much better.” they commented sweetly, silvery blue eyes looking into his, still not breaking contact. They had always been drawn to him, and this was the first time they had allowed themself to indulge in the gargoyle culture, “I… hope that wasn’t too forward or offensive… it’s been a while… but… I felt like it was fitting. I had been resisting our culture for years… and… I don’t see the point in resisting any longer.” they confessed.

Of all that they had said, two words stood out and said more to him than anything else, and made him smile. Two words that might have been a slip of the tongue, but he was willing to take it, and accept them completely. 

Our culture.

Not gargoyles, or angels. Ours. 

Without thinking, Chris leaned in and pressed another soft kiss to their lips, letting them know without a word, that it was perfectly fine, perfectly fine. As he leaned back, though, “I’ll see you later, Gwynn.” 

Smiling this time as his fingers slipped from theirs, and he turned back to the door to let himself out.

They smiled at the kiss relaxing. They would need to tell Ryan, rebuilding that trust as well. But… it was soothing in a way. Calming to be there… they no longer cared what the angels thought of them. This was their true family and where they were meant to be.

Vinny was cuddled into the sheets purring softly, eyes fluttering hearing the door open and sat up slowly, looking over to see Chris, and smiled, curls a mess and green eyes shimmering. “Hey, how'd it go with Gwynn?” She asked, smiling, noticing how pink his cheeks were, “Oh did Gwynn finally kiss you?” Chenza gasped, smiling wider. Everyone had seen how Gwynn loved the gargoyles, Ryan was their mate, but they were close with all of them but never crossing the line.

Chenza wasn't blind to seeing how close Gwynn and Chris were. It was a wonder things hadn't progressed before Ryan had arrived. Seeing the pair fight side by side, it had been a force… Responsibility and Justice hand in hand.

Chris has stopped by the kitchen in the apartment on the way back to their bedroom, fetching some refreshments for them both. Gwynn had been right about that, it was time for them to eat, to rehydrate. Bringing the food to their room, he found her still laying comfortably, wrapped up in bed, chuckling at the sight of her. “It went fine.” Setting the tray down to the side, but before he could state the obvious about bringing her something to eat, she had almost exclaimed with the question… which felt almost like something she just… knew.

“I- yes. I also kissed Gwynn.” Smiling softly back, he’d always held back from moving towards any thought of what he might feel towards Gwynn, even before Ryan came into their life, before Chenza was in his life. His respect for the angels, the edicts, he had never felt like it was his place to cross that line, it wasn’t to be then anyway. “Are you okay with it, BabyGirl?” It was just a kiss, but he still had to ask, she was his mate, and Gwynn, they were important to both of them.

“Are you kidding? Of course, I'm fine with it! Ryan owes me a bottle of wine now! He bet that you would kiss Gwynn first. Ha! So glad I don't have to get the scotch, so expensive." She cackled before grabbing at him and pulling him down, already snacking on the food in his arms and opening a water bottle with a whine.

Chris joined Vinny on the bed, sitting on the side, he knew he needed to talk to her about Ryan, about Atsuko, about how they needed to help them. This was going to be a family operation, the whole troupe would have to work together if they were truly going to bring them back from their corruption. However, the way she was laughing, he took a bite of food himself, until she settled, that was not a conversation to have. 

“Ryan is ridiculous, I would never have kissed Gwynn first, they are my handler. That is on him.” Smirking as he reached for a bottle of water himself, and leaning to kiss his mate this time, for good measure.

“I know right? Like… you wouldn't just kiss Gwynn from nowhere! Gwynn would start it. Everyone but Ryan could tell. It just took forever for you guys to kiss.” She rambled, pressing her lips to Chris's sweetly. “Took you guys long enough.”

She popped a grape into her mouth and grinned. “So- what was the talk about?”

It made him wonder just when they have actually made the bet really, now, or back then… Back then, or made it anew now. It was just all over the place. Still, it really didn’t matter, what done was done, and his face was finally settling just as he rested back against the pillows as he took a drink of water. Sighing at the question of the talk, it had been a rather, rambunctious talk. A difficult one, even if hopeful in the end.

“Ryan and Atsuko, we think they’ve been, corrupted, at least, to some level. We were discussing how to help them… We were… also discussing options on how to handle the day of Ricky’s birth, should the possibility of his father present himself.” Which was where the true problems had arisen.

Vinny nodded, looking at him seriously. “I'm happy I'm not the only one who noticed Ryan's behaviour… but Atsuko? What makes you think Atsuko is corrupted?” She asked timidly for once, Chenza’s voice soft, full of concern. “We'll talk birth plan in a minute, but…” she straightened. “Atsuko.”

Sighing, “the catacombs, he was commanded to stay out of sight, and he did, very well. However, to accomplish that, it seemed he hunted and killed the other occupants inside the depths of the catacombs, the zombies. The pathways were littered with bone dust when we went to retrieve him. We fear that his reactions to humans now will not be as, amiable. Would he be as willing to kill a living human as he is willing to the dead?” As horrible as it was to consider, and it was written all over his face, Chris had to consider it, protecting humans was their priority, it was the purpose of their creation. 

She swallowed, mouth dry. “Okay. So… what’s the plan for him, I’m sure with Ryan it’s including him in important things.” she commented, “But… socializing him? How are we doing that?” she asked, holding Chris’s hand gently, offering moral support for him. He wasn’t her commander anymore… but he was still her mate and she was just as involved.

Nodding, Chenza was right about Ryan, Chris was thankful that she caught on so easily. “Well, first, I think realizing that it has been as much our fault as it has been Jerahmiel’s will be the best place to start… we held him back from interacting with humans. We kept him at the Church so often because we were afraid of what he would say, and yes, it will always be a worry about how honest he’ll be, but that is what he needs, to be around people. The idea is to start him training Noah, and slowly introduce him around people in the Church again, the café on their breaks, maybe the bar later in time. Encourage him to be around humans again, get to know them as people, worth knowing, and protecting.”

She nodded firmly, “We can do that. I can even set up a quiet zone so we don’t risk someone provoking him, so he can start by observing rather than interaction. I think you’re right, though. We failed him as much as Jerahmiel corrupted him. We can help… we can help… right?” she asked gently.

“Absolutely, I know he went feral baby, but the fact he already brought himself back, tells me that he hasn’t gone too far.” It gave Chris hope. Sure, attacking humans was a different element to his mating issue with Niko, and Chris didn’t know what was happening there. He knew that the reincarnated gargoyle turned werewolf’s talk with his mate had not been so fruitful a few days ago, but the relationships that they held, were delicate. “Do you know if anyone has heard from Folio since he left?” 

“I… haven’t heard much and my messages to Riyah have been ignored, so… I think he’s with Folio… I… I don’t know what to think of it…” she sighed softly, guilt edging her words making her eyes water, “Chris- I messed up. I think I messed up really bad with Folio and Riyah.” she admitted. A true rarity was when she admitted to messing up. 

Chris set his food aside to wrap his arms around his mate, to cuddle her gently, sooth her, “Oh BabyGirl, whatever has happened, they’ll work it out, I’m sure it’ll all will. Once they figure themselves out, and want to talk, Folio needs time, he learned a lot the other night, both about himself, his past… how he died. I don’t think your talk is the only problem.” Pressing a light kiss to her temple. He also knew how much she missed her friend, how much she’d been good friends with Niko, getting up to all kinds of mischief. 

She nodded slowly, hiding her face against him, crying softly, “I miss Riyah.” she whispered to him meekly, nuzzling him as she clung to him. “I miss Niko… all of them…” she whispered, fingers buried in his hair as she nuzzled his shoulder.

Just holding her, comforting her, knowing that this couldn’t be easy with how close she was to both of them. He wished he could bring both the males back here in this instant and get them talking so they could work it out, at least between the three of them, even if it would take longer between the mates. Friends and siblings talking at least. Chris had a feeling Riyah was just attempting to support Folio, after being the one that Folio had been around for decades now before being thrust back into the gargoyle world… despite unknowingly already being a part of it. “I know, BabyGirl, I know. Boys are frustrating, I say this knowing I am just as frustrating.” 

“Boys are stupid…” she grumbled, huffing softly against his chest. “Why are boys dumb-” she grumbled before hearing the phone ring, and she picked up seeing it was Riyah, “What?” she snapped, sniffling.

“Fuck you too,” he hissed, albeit slightly panicked, “I haven't seen Folio for a while– do you know where he is?”

Chris pulled back as Chenza reached for her phone on the bedside table when he heard the ring, he didn’t see who was ringing. No, but he did hear the voice on the other end of the line through the speaker end enough to know, Riyah. Folio was gone. Wasn’t it the full moon, wouldn’t they keep better track of a werewolf on the full moon? Oh boy- wait. “Oh, I think I know, nowhere we want to be, trust me.” Even if Folio didn’t remember who he was, being near Niko and Atsuko when they got involved, was crazy. Throw in full moon werewolf insanity, Chris wanted nothing to do with it, thanks.

“W…oh. Oh. Riyah, he's probably here if you wanna come over…” she said, wiping her eyes, “Sorry… I was… frustrated. I'm sorry for lashing out…” she whispered. Riyah was silent on the other end of the line and he set his jaw. Of course… “Yeah… I'm not even sure that's a good idea, but thanks.”  Did that mean he was with Atsuko? With a furrowed brow as he heard his sister apologize, he just huffed without a word and hung up. Running a hand over his face, it still doesn't feel any better, even knowing where he was.

[ncisfranchise-source]

You probably know that Mark Harmon is an actor. You may even know that he's a director.

But did you know that he's a writer too?

While Harmon shies away from saying he's an author, that's exactly what he is. He and co-writer Leon Carroll, Jr., who is a retired Special Agent in the real NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) as well as the technical director for the TV series "NCIS" for 21 years, have released their second book, "Ghosts of Panama," available now.

If it's anything like the duo's first book "Ghosts of Honolulu," which landed them on the New York Times Best Sellers list, this one will be a hit.

"I like that people are enjoying the read, and they're buying the book. That's the gratification — that someone else finds this interesting," says Harmon, 73. "I like my partnership with Leon, and we're having a good time doing this."

"They've lived their whole lives doing this difficult job all over the world, and no one's ever asked about it because they couldn't talk about it."

Both of their books are non-fiction, telling actual stories from real cases. That's what the TV series did, at first, as well. But as more characters became part of the show, they needed to veer from actual cases so that each actor was included in the story.

Their first book required a lot of research, as it covered a case from World War II. With this new one, though, they interviewed people who had worked for the NIS/NCIS (Naval Investigative Service/Naval Criminal Investigative Services) and were directly involved in the investigation.

'Operation Just Cause'

"Ghosts of Panama" takes place just after a young U.S. Marine was killed in December 1989 at a checkpoint in Panama City while General Manuel Noriega's regime was in power. Under the code name "Operation Just Cause," NIS deployed agents to investigate.

"In this second book, Leon was there. All of these people we talked to are his contacts," says Harmon. "They've lived their whole lives doing this difficult job all over the world, and no one's ever asked about it because they couldn't talk about it. You might have lived next door to a special agent and not known it. But they're so pleased to be asked and have an opportunity to tell their version of a very personal part of their lives."

Harmon's Surprising Start

Just because Harmon is working on books doesn't mean that he's let acting go by the wayside. In fact, in the new show "NCIS Origins," he's served as the narrator.

After earning a degree in Communications from UCLA, Harmon was working as a shoe salesman. His late sister, Kristin, who had married Ricky Nelson, was the daughter-in-law of icon Ozzie Nelson. Mark knew him, but not through Kris.

"So I drove over to the studio, and Ozzie put me in a full gorilla suit."

Harmon had been a lifeguard at Laguna Beach and says that Ozzie was a long-distance swimmer.

"He would swim by my beach late in the afternoon way out there, and I learned that he wasn't in trouble. He would come back after his swim, and he'd sit under my tower and we would talk," recalls Harmon.

One day, Nelson called Harmon and said, "I have a walk-on part on the show. (It was "Ozzie's Girls," a spinoff of "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" that lasted for just one season.) This person was supposed to do it and he just called in sick. I'm asking if you can come do it."

"He meant like right now!" says Harmon, while laughing.

He would be paid non-union scale, which was a little more than $300 in 1973. Harmon says, "I would have done just about anything for $300. So I drove over to the studio and Ozzie put me in a full gorilla suit."

[cookiesupplier]

Every Rose Has Its Thorns - Part Thirty-One

pairing: Ricky Olson x ofc x Chris 'Motionless' Cerulli

warnings/tropes: slow burn, soulmates, strangers to enemies to lovers, betrayal, angst, fluff, smut, language, online bullying, panic attacks, stalking, mental health issues.

summary: In a world where soulmates inexplicably receive a tattoo that will match that of their soulmate the moment they turn eighteen years old, being famous and covered in very visible tattoos can make finding your true soulmate a questionable fate. For everyone involved.

author’s note: Unbeta'd, readers beware as always lol.

tags: @tearfallpixie @cncohshit @jordynyingling0219 @faceless-mirror @nyxthedestroyerofworlds @wild-child-7747 @witchyweeb34 @black-damask1999 @jilliemiw86 @ilovesamkiszka @lyschko666 @lacktoesandtoddlerants @bngurngheart @collapsedglasshouses @laurpartyprogram @sunsshinesunny @malerieee @talialovesmiw @shilohrosechicken @thatchickwiththecamera @tamtam-elizabeth

Tag List is Open, please let me know if you would like to be added to it or in general.

“Chris, it’s changing shape too.”

Hearing Ricky say that, first it was changing colour, and now it was changing shape, and Chris, Chris couldn’t breathe, he just he could.. No. no, he just.. There was just too, too much..

“Rick, Ricky move-”

Chris wasn’t paying attention to Talia pushing Ricky out of the way from where he was half in front of Chris as she pulled him to face her as she knelt on the couch. He was struggling to suck air into his lungs in a daze as she reached up, and pressed her palms to his cheeks to take his face in her hands, his eyes meeting hers as he struggled.

“I, Jelly-”

“Hi, Spookie, yea, I’m here, just breath with me okay?”

Chris felt her move to press one of her hands to his chest over his displaced shirt, avoiding his exposed soulmate tattoo. Maybe because it would bring his mind right back to what was causing his panic, maybe not, but it didn’t matter. She was just drawing his focus to her, completely to her. Her hand pressed against where his heart was beating so hard in his chest, and how her thumb was brushing so tenderly across his cheek.

He listened as she talked him through the five things. Five things he could see, four, he could feel, three he could hear, two he could smell, and one he could taste.. By the time they got down to the one, and Chris realised his mouth actually was all dry like cotton wool, Ricky offered up a piece of gum from sitting half crouching next to him on the floor.

“Don’t worry, it’s vegan, I checked.”

The fact that he checked before offering had Chris sighing and leaning against him a little as Ricky stood up from the floor again, his arm wrapping around his shoulder,

“Better, Chris?”

Chris smiled softly over to Talia, thankful she was here, thankful in so many ways for her, for Ricky, for both of them..

“Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know what’s happening.. There are no theories on this one. When it comes to passed soulmate tattoos, they just, are.”

So the fact something was happening to his, was beyond him. “Chris-”

He looked at Talia as she sighed,

“I’m not asking for your tattoo, I’m asking for you, I’m worried about you, are you okay?”

He relaxed, marginally, anyway, but nodded. It wasn’t enough, though. Not nearly enough. Talia might only be worried about him, but he needed to know, he needed more.

“I need to know though, Talia, I need to understand.” He’d already lost his soulmate, he couldn’t go through this if something was happening that involved Ricky and Talia that could risk, something with them too. “I left a message asking if anyone had heard of people feeling strange sensations on the message board from their tattoos after a soulmate passed, but all I got was a smart arse remark from what I suspect was a dumb ass kid.”

He groaned slightly,

“What use is the verification process if stupid kids can still get on the board.”

Glancing over to Ricky as he scoffed at this only to hear Talia giggle slightly as well, in his frustration he was obviously missing something,

“Chris,”

Talia starting softly,

“Just because someone is over eighteen, doesn’t mean they aren’t a dumb ass kid.”

Then Ricky just had to chime in,

“Yea, think about who we were at eighteen.. Hell, go online and watch old motionless videos, and we were older than eighteen Chris.. Me know, I would have called us dumb ass kids.”

“Okay, okay, point taken.”

Talia sighed,

“Now, back to Chris thinking his tattoo is reacting to Rick, but Rick thinking it’s reacting to me..”

She looked over at Chris, Talia had heard what Ricky said about Chris having problems with his shoulder while she was having her breakdown, and they were looking after her. Really, it just sounded all kinds of flimsy to her, but wasn’t all of this with the tattoos? It was all about interpretation, and it was confusing, at best.

“What makes you think it's reacting to Ricky, though, Chris?”

At that, she noticed the way he paused, the way he glanced at her, wait, was that hesitation, why was he so hesitant? Was it bad?

“Spookie?”

It was Rick that spoke up though,

“I kissed him.”

When she looked over at him in surprise, oh. Oh. She hadn’t realised their friendship might be like that, cross those boundaries. Though, he was the one that had joked about her and Ava. The surprise must have said something to him, however, for him to want to clarify when he quickly added,

“Comfort kiss, it was just a peck, just a peck.”

Was he worried she’d be upset at him kissing Chris? They weren’t together, and she wasn’t about to go postal on him, was she? She didn’t think she was? But then why did her tattoo suddenly twinge like that when he started defending himself, blinking quickly. She knew Ricky had felt it between them with the way he was looking at her now. A gasp from Chris had them both looking over at him, shit… He felt it too, she was jealous.. But she didn’t feel jealous? Did she? That, why was the tattoo reacting when she wasn’t even jealous, they weren’t together! They, they.. He said..

“This is insane.”

Talia stood up quickly from the couch, but then as soon as she did, she stopped, not sure what she was doing where she was going, Ricky suddenly standing up too, 

“Rick..”

She glanced to Chris, his tone slightly warning.. And that was when she realised, Ricky hadn’t been alone with her since the kitchen, only with Chris, right, because Chris knew, Chris had been, Talia chuckled.. Chris was there to keep them apart.. Oh that was perfect.. He was their chaperone, that was just perfect. Now he was tangled up in this mess too..

“You laugh.. But it gets better.. I think you should kiss Chris.”

Her gaze fell back on Ricky for a second, look at him like he’d grown a second head, he was telling her to kiss Chris. Just like that and instantly her tattoo was reacting, which was, embarrassing. She couldn’t even hide the fact that she’d thought about it, and oh, had she’d thought about it, thought about how if she wasn’t Ricky’s soulmate. Oh. My. God. That wasn’t fair, they could both feel it now, too. 

“This is ridiculous, it’s complicated enough… isn’t it?”

Ricky just stared at her..

“Okay, hear me okay.. I thought before.. My tattoo was ripping through me every time I thought about you and Chris because I was jealous, but I think, the problem with these tattoos is that, well, it's all open for interpretation isn’t it?”

Talia swallowed as she looked to Ricky as he talked, he looked from her to Chris, and then back to her. Listening as he spoke about his tattoo affecting him concerning her friendship with Chris, so he’d known, that was news to her..  Even more so, why, why did she have butterflies in her stomach just listening to him talk like this.. She hadn’t felt like this since, since the night she almost met him in line for VIP.. so excited, so thrilled that she was on the verge of meeting her soulmate for the first time.

It was almost like, for the first time in years, she finally felt alive again.. Looking between Ricky, and then Chris.

“I don’t think I was jealous you were with Chris, I think,”

Ricky paused, this was going to be a leap, because, it was, it was a massive leap right now, but from how he felt ever since he’d invited Chris over and the three of them had spent time together. Sure it had been painful moments, but, there had been funny moments, moments when they could laugh and comfort each other..

“What, Rick?”

Glancing over towards Chris,

“I think I wanted to be there with you. I was so terrified of my soulmate tattoo, and dealing with Grace, and everything with Grace is still shit.. She’s deleted everything and it, it feels worse than ever, because now I don’t know where she is, what she’s doing.. She could be right outside this door and I wouldn’t know.”

He swallowed and sighed when Chris shook his head,

“Nope, that's the one place we know she isn’t, the security system would have gone off, I swear.. You want me to bring up the cameras, she might have figured out yours, but I guarantee she hasn’t mine.”

Rick felt a flush of warmth of affection for both of them when Chris said that, and the way Talia muttered Bitch under her breath.. Talia, JellyBean, too sweet for words Talia, and she was, now they were both looking at her when she said that..

“What? You want to know what Ava calls her? You want to know?”

The chuckle that came from Chris had Ricky smiling, for such a serious issue, only these two could make him smile,

“Okay, now I have to know, JellyBean.”

“Ava calls her the soulmate stealing hussy. I swear, right before we walked into the greenroom, that was how she cheered me up.”

“Oh, my god.”

Ricky couldn’t help but mutter as he laughed along with Chris. Both of them absolutely applaud and yet amused beyond belief by Ava’s antics, well, now they were, they probably wouldn’t have been at the time considering. At the time, they had both thought that Grace really was Ricky’s soulmate and Talia was the interloper. Now, though, they knew better.

“Calling her a bitch, is nothing.”

Yeah, now it was nothing. Ricky nodded slightly.

“So, back to this, Sweetheart.. The fact that your tattoo reacted to my suggestion of kissing Chris makes me think you’ve thought about it already.”

Raising an eyebrow to her, and there was no way he was going to judge her, seeing the way her face flushed he smirked a little, right, 

“Sweetheart, I’ve already kissed him, you know that, I’m going to me perfectly honest, not just once. That peck, was probably was one of the more innocent kisses.. Right Chris?”

His smirk grew at the surprise on her face, looking over to Chris,

“Right, make me explain.. It was, years, years, ago.. Just some fun, nothing serious, just making out..”

Seeing Talia shake her head slightly,

“And here I thought all your stage antics were just for fun.”

Ricky couldn’t help the laugh there at the teasing remark Talia directed towards Chris, she wasn’t wrong either, the shit he used to pull towards him on stage, sending the fans completely wild, had been hilarious.

“Admittedly, then Julia came along, then Grace, and our lives changed. It was just a bit of fun, we knew it wasn’t real, we weren’t soulmates, so like I said, fun.”

“We.. weren’t.”

Ricky added as he glanced at the changing mark on Chris shoulder that he’d covered up by fixing his shirt since he’d sat in the chair after calming down.. The colour changing, the image shifting, who knows what was happening right now. He had a theory, one that he didn’t need a message board for, and any scientist to tell him, just a wild stab in the dark he supposed, which was why he wanted Talia to kiss, Chris.

“No wonder you thought I hooked up with Ava.”

Talia smiled at him, “I was joking!” She laughed at him as he tried to defend himself. At the same time, he didn’t have a leg to stand on with the fact he had just admitted to having made out with his best friend knowing they weren’t soulmates years ago.. True enough.. She’d shared tiny moments with Ava, nothing more than drunken flirty kisses while laughing their asses off over drinking games. “My idea is still there, Talia.. If the kiss makes the tattoo react, I think.. I think something more is going on here, something bigger than just the bond between you and me.”

Looking at Ricky, Talia turned to Chris, who had been silent on the matter so far,

“Spookie, you haven’t said anything, I mean, would you even want to kiss me anyway?”

She wasn’t going to kiss him just for the tattoo if he didn’t want to have anything to do with her like that! Just because they were friends, and getting closer, didn’t mean she wanted to assume anything.

Chris paused, was, was she really asking him if he wanted to kiss her? This gorgeous women who he would kiss in a fucking heart beat the moment he saw her if he thought for one moment she’d give him a second thought? Oh, Chris remembered the night of VIP with such clarity, long before they’d discovered Ava was Vinny’s soulmate, he’d noticed Talia when she was still in line. There’d just been something about her, she’d been different when he’d glanced towards her a few times before she’d gotten to the front of the line to meet them. If he’d not known for years that his soulmate was gone and nearly every person he met wouldn’t be bothered with him, he’d have asked her out immediately. Well, maybe not, asking fans was a slippery slope, they all knew it. Then of course, realising who she actually was, sending their entirely fucking world, Ricky’s world, on its head? Fuck, she was asking him that?

Knowing that her tattoo had reacted just from thinking about kissing him, that she’d thought about kissing him herself…

“JellyBean..”

Taking in a breath.. How could she think he didn’t want..

“Baby..”

Nope.. he leaned closer to her, a hand coming up to cup her cheek, and his lips were capturing hers in a kiss that was as far from just a peck on the lips as possible compared to the kiss Ricky had planted on him just the day before. The moment his lips touch hers, all three of their tattoos, including Chris’ strange grey, half formed tattoo, flared to life and had Chris gasping against Talia’s mouth with the softest groan.. Oh, fuck.

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

[the-uraniumverse]

some fun facts abt veras little sister before i fully drop her into the uraniumverse...

-her full name is kieran rae cassidy, first name meaning 'little dark one'

-she is 8 years old and attends the saint cassian elementary school

-she is a sucker for all things involving clowns, mimes, etc and ADORES all kinds of fairs, carnivals, amusement parks, etc

-the smartest little girl you'll ever meet. can she tie her own shoes? no! could she tell you in precise detail the entire timeline of both world war 1 & 2 ? yes, yes she could

-vera taught her how to read people like open books. she uses this developing skill to feed vera new gossip and blackmail on certain families (which vera fact checks, naturally, since kids lie an awful lot)

-she has arfid + audhd

+1 extra fact about vera!

-despite only being in the choir for an easy credit, vera actually enjoys being there for one simple reason! ricky potts! as the most observant girl in town, she was naturally drawn to him as he too was observant, only never able to truly express it. before the cyclone accident, she was one of the only people who truly befriended him. theyre both weird and they both know a little too much about anyone and anything, and vera naturally knows all of the zolar lore.

gossip sisters

i love them so much omg