#these two are traveling the whole country in a shitty van

[inklessletter]

Hey,

do you know when you're working in a particular piece and evokes such a specific vibe of a single song and you listen to it in repeat while shaping what's on your mind?

Yeah?

(god I hope I'm not the only one)

Anyway, my last two pieces of Eddie and Steve has such incredible vibes of

[johnslittlespoon]

I want all of your WIPs, but if I have to choose one… Sunset Garage has peaked my interest 😊

aaa this one is OLD, pre–MOTA old actually, started writing it for another pairing while i was traveling around utah but lost interest and then decided to revisit it for mota because i really liked the concept! two snippets bc not sure when i'll get around to finishing it lol

to summarize– john's driving across the country living out of his van, but the van breaks down in the middle of nowhere and he manages to get it to a mechanic shop that gale happens to be the owner of. but john's flat broke, running away from a shitty home life, doesn't have the money to spend on the necessary fixes, so gale takes pity on him and lets him pay it off by giving him work around the shop. he lets john take the spare room in his place above the shop while they wait for replacement parts for his van (takes a good long while, being out in the desert and all), and he quickly discovers he and john are complete opposites, but he likes the way john turns his whole life upside down.

eventually john goads gale into being impulsive, "live a little, buck!" and gale leaves his shop in the hands of his capable coworkers for the first time in his life and embarks on a roadtrip with a man he barely knows. :-) def would be a chaptered fic if i ever do get around to it, so it's on the backburner for now! x

[wip game post]

[thirstystarkey]

PARIS W/ DREW STARKEY

requested by @so-freaking-tired

(so I had this idea hear me out guys, I want to do a headcanon type of series where you chose a country and I write about it with the character/actor you want, let me know if someone is interested)

Drew would bring it up on a hot sunday late night. You would be sitting between his legs while he was against the headboard of the bed. At first you taught it was a joke or just a sleepy thought of your boyfriend but soon you realize he was dead serious.

“I mean it Y/N, lets go to Paris!” He laughed when you turned quickly to face him. “The city of lovers, just the two of us in a shitty hotel roaming around and eating tons of good food...plus sex in another country!”

So the two of you would stay up all night planing the trip and booking flights/hotel room

Drew definitely would try to join the mile high club

And he’ll succeed

Fucking you in the plane bathroom, your legs wrapped around his waist and his hand over your mouth to silence every moan. ‘I love you so much baby- oh fuckk’ (and i oop)

Literally you are the only one who could speak french so Drew would just watch you asking for directions and ordering food, probably getting turned on by your voice.

Visiting museums together and taking a lot of pictures. You being mesmerized by everything and Drew looking at you so in love.

I feel like Drew is the type of boyfriend to make cheesy jokes so when he catches you distracted looking at some painting he would hug you from behind and kiss the top of your head, whispering in your ear “in a room full of art I’d still stare at you.” And “she thought the view as pretty by I thought she was prettier”

The first day in Paris felt so unreal, you truly felt like a princess. Drew captured everything posting it on his instragram stories, from cute selfies of you two to videos of you feeding the ducks at a park. The cast probably replying they also wanted to go and teasing him for being soooo in love (Rudy accusing him of simping)

Back at the hotel after you both showered you would chill for a bit at the balcony and when you came back you’d catch Drew on his phone trying to learn French, you thought it was the most precious thing ever.

Him learning pet names in french such as: Mon amour, mon ange, ma chéri, milady and mon canard that means my duck

The second day was a hot sunny day so a sundress and some sunglasses with a pair of vans would be your go to outfit, Drew loved when you wore dresses so the all day he would be very touchy and needy. You realizing your horny boyfriend and deciding to tease the shit out of him the whole day.

Him surprising you with a romantic date night at The Hall of Mirrors

That night when you were back Drew was all over you, and even though he was the more dominant one you loved soft Drew and that night was about love.

After getting the chance to straddle him you pulled him by his unbuttoned shirt to kiss him. Drew grabbing your hips making you grind harder on him.

“How do you say fuck me in french my love?” Drew asked leaving love marks all over you neck and chest. “Baise mon”

Him repeating after you. “Baise mon, mon amour”

Cuddling in robes at the balcony after.

Him being so in love with you he decides to talk about having kids and marrying you.

“I want a beach wedding.” You say. “And a house near the beach with a dog and maybe a baby down the road.”

Drew laughing and agreeing with you.

Eating loads of good food.

Let me just say that croissants in France hit different!

Receiving a ton of comments, all of them really supportive. Everyone living for the traveling content.

I went to Marseille on new year’s and it was awesome!! So writing this was really really nice, I miss traveling now 🥺

[rpf-bat]

Celebrate The End Of Things With Cheap Champagne

Pairing: Frank Iero x Reader

Genre: Angst 

Summary: @sirloin-steaks requested a Frank story based on the song “New Year’s Day” by Taylor Swift. 

It’s December 31st, 2006, and My Chemical Romance are ringing in the New Year, performing live in Times Square. Frank invites you to come out, and see the show. But, an after-party at the band’s hotel, takes a turn, that nobody saw coming.

Trigger warning for substance abuse. 

You stood on the deck of the ferry boat, watching the bright lights of New York City draw closer and closer. You used to take this ferry every day, from your hometown in New Jersey, to your job in Manhattan. But, that seemed like so long ago now. 

Once upon a time, your friend and former coworker, Gerard, would catch the morning ferry with you. But, after the September 11th attacks, he’d quit his job at your company, and started a band. His decision had puzzled you at first. But, the first time you saw My Chemical Romance perform live, you had understood. 

That was also the night that you met Frank. His guitar playing was electric, and you told him as much, after the band finished their set. It had been at some shitty dive bar - the only venues that would take them at the time. But, he’d told you that night, that he, and Gee, and the guys, were going to make it to the big time. You’d admired his ambition, and the two of you became fast friends. And he’d been right. 

Now, four years later, My Chemical Romance was one of the biggest bands in the country. Their album, The Black Parade, had just dropped two months ago, debuting at #2 on the Billboard charts. They had gotten popular enough, to receive a prestigious offer. Ryan Seacrest had asked them to play New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, tonight, in Times Square! 

Millions of Americans tuned in every New Year’s Eve, to see the concert broadcast, and watch the ball drop at midnight. It was crazy to you, that your dorky friends from back home in New Jersey, had gotten “big” enough to perform alongside glitzy pop stars, like Christina Aguilera.

You were so psyched for them. It would also be the first time you had seen them in a while. Frank was the only one of the guys who still technically lived in New Jersey. When he was home, and off the road, he would come over to your house all the time, to watch movies, or play video games, just like in the old days. But, the last time that had happened, had been months ago. He, and the rest of the band, had been traveling around nonstop, doing radio and TV interviews, to promote the new album. In February, they were supposed to embark on a world tour. 

“But after tonight’s show, we’ll have a little bit of time off, before the tour starts,” Frank had told you excitedly on the phone, yesterday afternoon, when he’d invited you to the gig. “I really hope we get to spend more time together, Y/N. I missed you.” 

You had missed him, too - more than words could describe. Your heart ached whenever you drove past his house, knowing that he wasn’t in it. You had things you wanted to say to him tonight - things you’d been waiting to tell him for a long time. 

Your heart hammered as you stepped off the ferry, and began walking towards Time Square. The streets were packed with people, all rushing towards the same place you were. You knew some New Yorkers had started camping out at three o’clock in the afternoon, to get the best seats. If Frank hadn’t sent you a VIP pass in the mail, you’d surely have ended up in the way back of the crowd, nowhere close to the stage. 

You showed your pass to the security personnel, who were looking through peoples’ bags at a checkpoint, near the entrance to the Square. They waved you through to a special designated area, in the front row, for friends and family of the performers. You were pretty sure the kid on your left was the fourth Jonas Brother. You felt remarkably out of place. 

But, then your phone beeped, alerting you that you had a text. A smile crossed your face, when you realized it was from Frank. 

We r about 2 head onstage, he said. I will see you after our set, I promise! There’s nobody I’d rather ring in 2007 with :)

You heard the crowd start screaming, and your head whipped around, as you watched the announcer stroll onto the stage. 

“Please welcome our next musical guest - My! Chemical! Romaaaaance!” 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Their performance was amazing. They were one of a dozen artists performing tonight, so they only got to do three songs, before they had to get offstage and make room for the next act (Gwen Stefani, apparently). But, they put their whole hearts into those three tracks. Frank was jumping around like a maniac with his guitar, despite the freezing cold. Ray even had a pair of “2007” sunglasses on. 

You screamed for them, like every other girl in the crowd. At this point, you thought with a frown, there’s probably ten thousand people, with a crush on the same man, that I’ve been pining for since 2002. 

...Then again, you considered, the ten thousand other girls, don’t have backstage passes. 

Your frown disappeared, when you walked backstage, and a pair of arms immediately circled you. 

“Y/N!” Frank grinned. “Thank you so much for coming out and seeing us tonight!”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” you grinned, hugging your friend back. “You were amazing.” 

“Thank you,” Frank said sincerely, releasing you from his grip. “Are you ready to get out of this cold?”

“Where are we going?” you asked. 

“Back to the hotel,” he explained. “Ray’s not feeling so good.” 

“Oh, no,” you frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“Hi, Y/N!” Ray greeted, waving at you with one hand, while he pulled a tissue from his pocket, with the other. He blew his nose loudly. “....Sorry,” he muttered. “How are you?”

“It’s okay!” you assured him. “I’m fine...I’m sorry you’re not doing so well, though. You sound awful.” 

“It’s this East Coast weather,” he shrugged, throwing the tissue in a nearby wastebasket. “I hate doing outdoor shows, in the wintertime.” 

“You sounded great onstage,” you reassured him. “Nobody could even tell you were sick.” 

“The dorky sunglasses conceal how puffy his eyes are,” Frank confessed. “Poor guy didn’t sleep at all last night.” 

“Well, hopefully, I’ll sleep better tonight,” Ray chucked. “We’ve got two rooms at the Knickerbocker Hotel - one for me and Mikey, and one for Frank and Gerard.”

“Speaking of which,” you asked, “where is Gerard?” 

“Here I am!” chuckled a voice behind you, and you turned and saw your old friend Gerard, beaming at you. “Sorry, I was busy calling our cab. It’s so good to see you, Y/N! Thank you for coming.” 

“Thank you for inviting me!” you smiled back. “I’m really proud of you guys, getting to be part of such a major event.” 

“Oh, it’s surreal,” Gerard confessed. “I used to come up here with my mom and dad, and Mikey, every New Year’s Eve, to watch the show live.  I never thought I’d be in the show.” 

“We’re really lucky,” Mikey smiled, appearing beside Gerard, with a glass of champagne in his hand. 

“Ooh, where’d you get that?” Frank asked. 

“They’re giving them out to all the VIPs,” Mikey explained. “Would you like one, Y/N?” 

“I don’t think I qualify as a Very Important Person,” you confessed. 

“Nonsense,” Frank shook his head. “You’re very important to me.” 

“Yeah,” Mikey nodded. “You’ve been good friends with all of us for a long time. You can have whatever you want.” 

“No time for that,” Gerard shook his head. “Our cab’s here.” 

“C’mon,” Frank said, lacing his fingers with yours. “We have to go out through a secret exit, so that the fans don’t mob us.” 

“Oh, shit, really?” you chuckled. “I feel like a secret agent.” 

“Our lives have gotten so weird, honestly,” Gerard confessed. “I’m kinda glad that we’re gonna put some distance, between us and these crowds.” 

“Yeah, it’ll just be five of us, once we get to the hotel,” Mikey nodded. “Well...four. Ray is gonna go to sleep in our room, as soon we get there. But, the rest of us can party in Frankie and Gee’s room til midnight.” 

“Or later,” Frank grinned mischievously.

You smiled at your four oldest friends. “I can’t wait.” 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

“Ok, question,” you asked uncertainly, staring at the yellow cab in front of you. “How are we gonna fit five people in there?”

“It’s gonna be a tight squeeze,” Frank chuckled. 

“Well, hey, we’ve managed to fit in smaller places before, right?” Gerard pointed out. 

“True,” Ray laughed. “Remember when we were traveling around New Jersey, in our shitty little van?”

“We were all practically right on top of each other,” Mikey recalled. 

When the band had first started, you had gone with them, on weekend trips, to play a gig, in the next town over. You’d squished between the boys, somehow, and helped them carry their equipment into the venue. Watching them rock the faces off the local kids, had been so much fun. 

But, as time went on, they started getting offers to play at clubs across state lines. Day trips turned into months-long tours. You couldn’t commit to that - unlike Gerard, you still had a day job. And so, you started seeing the guys less and less. Then they’d gotten a record deal - and everything had gotten even more complicated. 

“That was….a long time ago,” you frowned. 

“Yeah,” Frank said wistfully. “I wish we had the chance to do that again.” 

“Well, now, most of the time, we don’t have to squish,” Ray pointed out. “We have a nice, roomy tour bus, with bunks and everything.” 

“You’ve come a long way,” you smiled weakly. 

You were quiet as you piled into the car. As the taxi started driving down the street, you stared out at the night sky, and the city lights flying by. Suddenly, Frank gently touched your hand, making you turn, and face him. 

“Hey,” he said quietly, giving your hand a squeeze, “are you alright, Y/N?” 

“Yeah,” you shrugged. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.” 

“Tonight’s supposed to be a party, remember?” he teased. “So, try and smile for me, okay?” 

“I’ll try,” you promised. It was far easier to smile, with him around. 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

You could tell as soon as you walked into the lobby, that this was a five star hotel. A crystal chandelier, cast a soft glow over the pristine decor. 

“We already got our room keys earlier,” Gerard explained. “So, we can go ahead up.” 

You nodded, and followed him and the guys to the elevator. 

“I think I’m gonna crash as soon as we get upstairs,” Ray confessed, sniffling into his tissue again. 

“I don’t blame you,” you said sympathetically. The elevator dinged, as you arrived at your floor. 

“Since I won’t see you guys until tomorrow,” Ray sighed, “Happy New Year, alright?”

“Happy New Year, Ray,” you waved, as you watched him unlock his hotel room door, and head inside. “Feel better soon!”

“Thanks, Y/N,” Ray wheezed, closing the door behind him. 

“Alright, let’s head into our room,” Frank grinned, opening the door to the adjoining room. “What do you want to do first?” 

“Let’s turn the TV on,” Mikey suggested, immediately looking for the remote. “I wanna see the other performances. They’re still broadcasting live right now.” 

“Oh, true,” you nodded. “We can still watch the ball drop tonight, on this flat screen!” 

“I wanna look at the room service menu,” Gerard grinned. “Y/N, you can have anything you want. Just let me know.” 

“Thanks, Gee,” you grinned. “Should we get champagne to toast with, at midnight?” 

“I’ll get it for you three,” Gerard shrugged. “For me? I guess I’ll order a club soda. If they put it in a fancy glass, I can still clink it with yours when the clock strikes twelve.” 

“Yeah, that works,” Frank agreed. “Looks almost the same.”

You frowned. That’s right, you remembered. Gerard is about two and a half years sober now. 

You remembered going to see them, at their Englishtown show, during Warped Tour ‘04. Gerard had been a mess. You hadn’t seen him in two or three months, and you were shocked how much he’d deteriorated. You’d felt helpless. If you’d had more time, maybe you could have talked some sense into him. But, the very next day, he had to get back on his bus, and head to another gig, in Pennsylvania. 

Frank had called you on the phone, maybe a week later, and told you Gerard had decided to get clean, on his own. You didn’t know how, or why. You didn’t know fifty percent, of what went on in your friends’ heads anymore. 

“.....Y/N?” Frank called, his voice stunning you out of your thoughts. 

“Sorry,” you blinked. “Did you say something?” 

“Yeah, I said I’m going out to the balcony, to have a smoke,” Frank replied. “I asked you if you wanted to come with me?”

“Oh….yeah, sure,” you nodded, and followed him out. “Got a light?” 

“Here,” Frank said, pulling a lighter out of his pocket, and handing it to you. 

You took a pack of Marlboros out of your purse, and lit one. “Thanks,” you said, handing it back. 

Frank lit his own cigarette, and took a drag. You glanced over at him as you inhaled the nicotine, watching how the cool night breeze tousled his hair. 

“I thought you said on the phone, that  you were trying to quit,” Frank raised an eyebrow. 

“I should,” you sighed, exhaling smoke. “I know it’s bad for me.”

“Sorry for being a bad influence,” Frank laughed. “I know I got no room to talk.”

“It’s not your fault,” you shrugged, taking another puff. “I guess I’m just stressed tonight.” 

“About what?” Frank asked, looking at you curiously. 

“It’s stupid,” you mumbled. 

“Tell me,” Frank insisted, taking his free hand in yours again. Your heart raced at his casual touch. 

“I just…,” you sighed, unsure how to begin. “I never see you guys anymore.” 

“I’m sorry,” Frank frowned. 

“No, don’t be,” you shook your head. “I’m being selfish. I should be happy for you, right? It’s a good thing, that the band has gotten so successful, that you have fans in practically every city in the world, that want to see you.” 

“Yeah, they get to see me,” Frank groaned. “But, I don’t get to see my friends, or family - any of the people I love most - for months at a time.” 

The people he loves most. Your face reddened. Did you really fit into that category? 

“After tonight,” you asked, “how long will you be in town?” 

“The first night of the tour is February 22nd,” Frank explained. “The gig’s in New Hampshire, so we’ll be flying out the night before.” 

“So we have….slightly less than two months, to spend time together,” you calculated. “And after that, the next time you’ll be in my neck of the woods is…?” 

“Bamboozle Festival,” Frank replied. “That’s in May.” 

“Wow,” you frowned. “Are you playing all three days of the festival, or…?”

“Nah, just one,” Frank said sheepishly. “We’ll be in Jersey for a night….the very next day, we’ll be playing a gig in fuckin’ Maine.”

“The fun never stops, I guess,” you deadpanned. 

“I mean, it is fun,” Frank admitted. “I love being a musician. Playing my guitar, onstage, is all I’ve wanted to do, my entire life.” 

“Yeah, it’s your dream,” you said quickly, “that’s why I should just shut up, and let you…”

“You don’t have to shut up,” Frank interrupted. “Y/N, I want you to tell me how you feel.” 

“How do I feel, Frank?” you repeated, your emotions starting to get the best of you. “I feel like I don’t even know my friends at all anymore! I don’t want you to turn into a stranger, whose laugh I could recognize anywhere. I’m still working the same dead end job I had the day I met you….but your life has completely changed. You’re gone 80% of the year, and yeah, I know you text or call me whenever you can, but when I’m not there face to face, I still miss so much of your life! You used to be just….a guy next door, that I could listen to records and smoke with. Now you’re some….millionaire rock star. That coat you’ve got on right now is probably worth more than my first car, and you’ve probably got girls in every town, throwing their panties at you…” 

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t look twice at any of those girls,” Frank said, looking you in the eye, “if a certain someone, told me, that she wanted me to be hers, and hers alone.”

A certain someone….? you gasped. Did he mean…?

“Hey!” a voice interrupted, and you jumped, as the sliding glass door slid open, and Gerard stepped onto the balcony. “There you guys are!” 

“H-hey,” you stammered, taken aback. 

“Everything alright?” Gerard asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow. 

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s cool,” Frank mumbled, not looking at you at all, as he stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “What did you need?”

“We’ve got about five minutes til midnight,” Gerard smiled. “Figured you guys would want to come back inside, so we can count down the last seconds of 2006 together.” 

“Oh, right, of course,” you blinked. “Did room service already bring up the champagne flutes?”

“Yeah, they’re ready to go,” Gerard nodded. “....Wait. Where’s Mikey?” 

“We thought he was with you,” Frank said, looking confused. 

“No,” Gerard shook his head. “I went to the bathroom, and when I came back out, he was gone. If he’s not on the balcony with you guys, where did he go?” 

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “Maybe he went to his and Ray’s room?” 

“Oh, yeah, that would make sense,” Gerard nodded. “Let’s go get him.” 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Gerard knocked loudly on the hotel room door. 

“Come on, Mikey!” he called. “We got three minutes til midnight, you’re gonna miss the ball drop, dude!” 

The door swung open, but instead of Mikey, a sleepy-looking Ray answered. 

“Mikey’s not in here,” Ray said with a yawn. “It’s just me.”

“Oh, sorry for waking you up, man,” Gerard apologized. 

“Wait,” Frank realized. “If he’s not in either hotel room, then, where is he?” 

“Maybe he went to go get ice?” Ray suggested. 

“Or maybe he went downstairs, to ask the front desk guy something,” you guessed. 

“Let’s split up,” Frank suggested. “You guys go down the hall and see if he’s by the ice machine. Y/N and I will look for him downstairs.” 

“Yeah, we can do that,” Gerard agreed. “Hopefully we’ll find him before the end of the year!” 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

“This elevator’s taking too long to get up here,” Frank said impatiently, hitting the down-arrow button a second time. 

“Wanna just take the stairs?” you suggested. 

“Works for me,” Frank shrugged. 

You followed him into the stairwell, your heart still pounding from the conversation on the balcony. What would have happened, you wondered, if Gerard hadn’t walked in when he did? 

Frank kept his eyes on the flight of stairs in front of you, not saying a word, as you walked past the sign, indicating that you were now on the second floor. 

“Maybe he didn’t go this wa...oh, fuck,” Frank gasped, coming to a sudden stop.  

Your blood froze, when you saw what he was looking at. Mikey’s unconscious body, lay sprawled across the bottom steps. He was face down….he didn’t even look like he was breathing. 

“Mikey, oh my god!” You ran to his side, flipping him over, so that you could see his face. “Frank, we have to help him!” 

The bassist looked deathly pale, and his lips had turned a horrifying shade of blue. You felt for a pulse. It was there, but it was disturbingly weak.

“Come on, Mikey, wake up!” you pleaded, shaking his shoulders. “Oh my god, what’s wrong with him?!” 

“I think he’s overdosing,” Frank realized, kneeling by your side. 

“On what?!” you gasped. 

“On whatever he went downstairs, to pick up from his dealer,” Frank growled. “Goddamnit! We need to call 911.” 

“Mikey!” a familiar voice called, and Gerard and Ray burst into the stairwell. 

“Oh, god!” Gerard gasped, when he saw his brother, lying eerily still in your arms. 

“I’m trying to wake him up!” you explained. “It’s not working...fuck, what do I do?” 

“He needs a doctor,” Ray realized, whipping out his cell phone. “....Hello? Yes, we’re having an emergency…...the Knickerbocker Hotel….umm, Six Times Square….please hurry….my friend isn’t breathing…” 

You shook Mikey’s shoulders again. His eyes fluttered open, but his pupils were like pinpricks. He gasped and choked, like he couldn’t get air into his lungs. 

“Come on, Mikey, hang in there!” you begged. Oh god, what if he died?!

You could see the headlines now. World Tour Canceled After Bassist’s Hospitalization. You’d wanted more time with Frank….but not like this, damnit! 

Since when did your oldest friend’s kid brother do smack?! 

I really don’t know anything about them anymore, you realized, tears clouding your vision as you listened to him wheeze. Minutes felt like hours. 

“Out of the way!” called an unfamiliar voice, and you gaped as two paramedics dragged a stretcher down the stairs. 

“Ma’am, we need to move him,” a uniformed woman barked. “Time is of the essence.” 

You let the EMT scoop Mikey up, and load him onto the gurney. 

“What did he take?” the second paramedic asked. 

“I….I don’t know,” you stammered. “We just found him like this.” 

“Ma’am,” the man pressed, “we’re not here to judge anybody. But, any information you have, can help us figure out what antidote he needs…”

“Here,” Frank said. “I found this next to his body.” 

He handed the paramedic a needle. Oh, god. 

“I see,” the paramedic nodded grimly. “Judith! Get this man two milligrams of naloxone, stat!” 

“Is….is he gonna be okay?!” Gerard gasped, tears in his eyes. “That’s my baby brother….”

“We’re going to try our best to save him, sir,” the female paramedic (Judith) promised. “We need to move him to the hospital, as soon as possible.” 

“We’re only going to be able to fit two extra people in the ambulance,” the male paramedic warned. “Who’s going?” 

“Me,” Gerard said immediately. “He’s my family!” 

“Who else?” the paramedic demanded. “We don’t have time to waste.” 

Mikey gasped for air on the gurney, his face growing bluer by the minute. 

“I’ll go,” Ray decided. “Frank, you stay here with Y/N, okay?” 

“O-okay,” Frank stammered. You clung to him,shaking, as you watched the paramedics drag your friend out of the hallway, to the ambulance waiting outside. 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

“.....Happy New Year!” the oblivious voice of Ryan Seacrest rang out from the television screen, as you walked back into the hotel room, wiping your eyes on your sleeve. 

Confetti was falling in Times Square, as the credits rolled. You’d missed the countdown. There had been no toast, no midnight kiss (although perhaps, the latter had been foolish to even hope for.) 

“This wasn’t how 2007 was supposed to start,” Frank sobbed, sinking down onto the bed. “Fuck!” 

“H-he’s gonna be okay,” you stammered. “The doctors are gonna save his life…”

“You don’t know that!” Frank cried, kicking a bottle of Dom Perignon off the coffee table. It shattered, sending broken glass and alcohol all over the floor. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry, Y/N,” Frank apologized, kneeling to pick up the shards. “I shouldn’t have done that…”

“Ssh, stop, you’re gonna cut yourself,” you warned, grabbing his hands. “We can clean that up later, okay? I understand that you’re only lashing out, because you’re scared…” 

“Of course I’m scared,” Frank wept, burying his head in your shoulder. “That’s one of my best friends.” 

“He’s my friend, too,” you said softly, stroking Frank’s hair. “I’m scared, too, but there’s nothing we can do now, but pray.” 

You sat down on the bed, and Frank sat with you, still sobbing into your shirt. You were choking back tears yourself. 

“I….I didn’t know he was doing that stuff,” you said guiltily. “I’m never around you guys anymore….I….”

“I didn’t realize the extent of the problem, either,” Frank confessed. “And I’m with the kid almost every day. I should’ve noticed, but I was too self absorbed, doing my own dumb shit…” 

“Ssh, it’s not your fault, Frankie,” you soothed. “We got him, to the people that can help him. That’s all we can do.” 

“It doesn’t feel like enough,” Frank sniffed, still clinging to you tightly. 

“No,” you agreed, your heart aching, “it doesn’t.” 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

You woke the next morning, to the feeling of warmth against your side. Your eyes fluttered open, and you realized that Frank was sleeping next to you. What?!

Your cheeks reddened as you stared at his sleeping face, so close to your own. “...Frank? Why are you…?”

Reality filtered back into your head, slowly, as you recalled the events of the previous night. Oh god….Mikey! 

Was he okay? You still didn’t know. You and Frank had sat beside each other on the hotel room bed, crying, clinging to each other for comfort. You supposed you had fallen asleep like that. 

“.....Huh?” Frank groaned sleepily. “Y/N…?” 

He shot up, jerking away from you, almost as soon as he realized, that your bodies were touching. “I...I’m sorry!”

“N-no, it’s fine…” you stammered. 

“Fuck….I need to check my messages,” Frank realized, groping for his cell phone on the bedside table. He sat up,and put his feet on the floor. “Owww!”

“What’s wrong?” you gasped. 

“I just stepped on a shard of the bottle I broke last night...fuck!” Frank swore. 

“Oh no,” you winced. “Is it bleeding?” 

“No, it’s just cut a little,” Frank shook his head. 

“Do you want me to call the front desk,” you offered, “and see if they can bring up some Band-Aids?”

“No, it’s not that serious,” Frank insisted, opening his flip phone. His eyes widened, as he clicked through his inbox. “Oh….oh, thank god…” 

“What?” you demanded. 

“Ray texted me, around like two in the morning,” Frank explained. “He said Mikey’s gonna make it. The doctors were able to reverse the overdose in time, and he’s gonna make a full recovery.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” you cried, tearing up from sheer relief. You had been so scared, that Ray’s text, would say that Mikey hadn’t survived. He’s gonna be okay. He’s alive. 

Frank, however, didn’t share your grateful smile. 

“What’s wrong?” you asked. 

“I’m sorry that you had to see that, last night,” Frank frowned. “We ruined your New Year’s Eve.” 

“It’s not your fault,” you shook your head. “I’m glad I was there, to help you find him. I wouldn’t have wanted you to go through this alone.” 

“I hate to ask you for even more help,” Frank grimaced, “but, we need to clean this shit up.”

“You’re right,” you nodded, leaning down to help him pick up the glass shards. “It wouldn’t be fair, to leave it for the hotel staff to pick up.” 

“Some bands dig trashing hotel rooms,” Frank sighed, grabbing a towel from the bathroom, to mop up the puddle of champagne. “Not me, though. I feel bad, making a mess, that some housekeeper is gonna have to deal with.” 

He’s a kind person, you thought to yourself, as you carefully placed the pieces of bottle into a waste basket. Not everyone would take the time to do this, after the night we had. 

“Shit, look at this,” Frank sighed, pointing down at the hardwood floor. “Nobody blew out the stupid scented candle, that Housekeeping lit before we checked in, to make the place smell pretty. Now, there’s dried wax all over the floorboards.” 

“You had bigger things to worry about last night,” you reminded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even notice the candle was still burning, with everything else going on. I would’ve reminded you to put it out.” 

“That’s not your job,” Frank said, pulling a guitar pick from his pocket. He tried to use it to scrape some of the wax up, but it didn’t seem to want to budge. “None of this is your job.” 

“What do you mean?” you blinked. 

“You said last night, that you don’t see us for months at a time,” Frank reasoned, scraping harder with his pick. “And then...last night, you finally see us again, and this happens.”  

“You couldn’t have predicted something like that,” you assured him. 

“We complicate your life, Y/N,” Frank frowned. “I complicate your life. You don’t need this fucking drama. The best thing I could for you, is probably just leave you alone. Stop inviting you to see us when we’re in town. I’ve grown apart from a lot of friends since I left New Jersey. Why can’t I just let this relationship go, too?” 

“I don’t want you to do that!” you protested. “Frank, our friendship is really important to me. I would be miserable if you suddenly stopped inviting me to hang out.” 

“I don’t just want to hang out with you,” Frank mumbled. “I want more than that.” 

“....Huh?” you cocked your head. 

“But it’s not fair, for me to ask you for that,” Frank signed. “Not when I know damn well, that I’m about to spend the majority of 2007, hundreds of miles away from you.” 

“Ask me for what?” you demanded. You suddenly remembered the words, he had spoken to you on the balcony, before your night had gone straight to hell. 

“I wouldn’t look twice, at any of those girls, if  a certain someone, told me, that she wanted me to be hers, and hers alone.”

“Nothing,” Frank murmured, picking fruitlessly at the wax on the floor again. “It’s stupid. Ignore me.”

“I won’t ignore it,” you insisted. “Frank, what were you going to ask me?” 

Frank looked at his shoes. 

You sat down on the floor next to him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “....Frank?” 

“I was going to ask you...to be mine,” Frank confessed. 

You gasped, audibly. No way….he really felt the same way about you, that you did about him?!

“But, it’s not right, for me to ask you, to make that commitment to me!” Frank said miserably. “Not when I’m just gonna disappear on you again. And...you saw, last night, what my life has turned into. What my band has turned into. I’m a mess….why would you want to be with someone like me?” 

“Frankie, I love you,” you said plainly. Now that you knew he returned your feelings, there was no point in hiding it anymore. “I’ve loved you for years.” 

He raised his head to look at you. His hazel eyes, swimming with tears again, stared into yours. “You….you mean that?” 

“Yes,” you said emotionally. “I’ve been in love with you for so long….but, you’re a famous rock star now. I’m still just an art school dropout. You can do so much better than me.” 

“Funny,” Frank chuckled bitterly, “I was about to say the same thing, about you.”

“Frank, there isn’t anybody better than you,” you sighed, and grabbed him by the collar, pulling him into a searing kiss. 

His lips met yours, hesitant at first, but then suddenly you were toppling to the floor, as he pressed himself against you, with four years worth of buried desire. 

Life was so short. You realized that now. 

His hands tangled into your hair as he kissed you over and over. “Be mine,” he gasped, coming up for air. “Please be mine, Y/N….even if it fucks up everything…” 

“Frankie, it’s okay,” you assured him, as you gazed up at him tenderly. “I don’t care if you’re gone a hundred nights. You’re worth waiting for. Just promise me, that when you do finally come home, I can….have you.” 

“Oh, you can have me any way you want me,” Frank breathed, leaning down to kiss you passionately again. “I won’t touch anyone else while I’m away on tour….nobody else is as beautiful as you. You’re the only one that I want.”

“You’re the only one that I want, too, Frankie,” you promised him, claiming his mouth once again. “I want you every day. Not just when you’re the toast of the town. Not just when times are good. I want to be there with you, through the bad times, too. I want to help you when you’re scared, or even when something fucked up happens, like last night... because I love you. I’ll stay with you, no matter what….even when it’s hard, or it’s wrong, or you’re making mistakes. I don’t care. I just want to be with you.” 

“I want to be with you, too, Y/N,” Frank vowed, kissing your eyes, your nose, your mouth. It was like he couldn’t get enough. “You’re the woman I choose….because, hey, there might be lots of women who’d love to be my New Year’s Eve kiss. But, you’re the only woman I know, who would stick by my side, helping me clean up bottles on New Year’s Day.”

[aaallliiieee]

Hi friends, here are some goals I have for my life: ☀️🌱🌻

- be skinny and tan and blonde, but in a casual down to earth hippie girl kind of way (no makeup, loose clothes, still looks pretty)

- have a capsule wardrobe full of sustainable, lightweight, earth tone basic clothing, either handmade or bought second hand, and a variety of scarves/jewelry/accessories; only wear comfy clothes but make it look stylish and put together, not slobby (no bras!! but tastefully)

- buy a van and drive it around the country, going to various national parks and natural landscapes etc, hiking/camping/biking/kayaking, exploring the country and making videos and recording music and writing poems/stories/essays and making art and selling handmade goods at festivals and farmers markets; first van just needs a bed and some basics, maybe a tapestry on the ceiling and some hooks to hang things from the ceilings/walls, but no need for the whole fancy ~camper build~ etc... after a few years I'll probably come up with my optimal layout design, and I'll start saving money to buy an electric van and do the whole thing, and then take M on adventures with me for a more comfortable camping experience lol

- eventually when I'm ready to settle down I want to buy land out in the country (I'll scope out the perfect spot on my travels) and start a homestead, solar panels/recycled water/earthship/off grid type stuff; two versions of this future, one is to start an entire community with a permaculture farm and artist residencies/hosting guests for ecotourism etc, the other is to just have my own little cabin out in the mountains somewhere where I can have a garden and chickens and cats and raise our kids and write books/make art and maybe have a little store in the small downtown area of the nearest cute lil town/city, but just in general the goal is to live in nature without social pressure

- also considering the possibility of being an ayahuasca guide, incorporating that into the homestead concept in some way (potentially growing the ayahuasca plants in a greenhouse??)

- other activities I want to do: work at a ski resort, be a white water rafting guide; be a guide for backcountry camping/hiking/general outdoor recreation/park ranger activities; artist residencies at national parks; go to meditation retreats, yoga retreats, wholehearted gatherings etc; visit monasteries (Buddhist, Benedictine) and nudist camps; continue modeling for artists; learn to surf and do a handstand/backbend; rollerblade; teach workshops for creative expression/art techniques/improvisational dance/functional movement training; write about philosophy and cultural criticism; write poems and stories; make art/music/crafts; get a master's degree and teach at colleges; publish books and submit to journals/contests; have a garden and a library and a room for making things;

- idk this list goes on and on the point is I keep getting hung up on points 1&2 (and also I'm addicted to weed so I've been avoiding everything for the past 5 years) but for whatever reason I'm always like "ok first we'll get skinny and beautiful and then do everything else" but no I'm 24 and realistically I'm at the peak of my physical condition here in this lifetime so just exercise and meditate and go outside every day and you'll be fine lol take care of everything else and when you stop feeling so shitty inside you'll automatically start glowing from the outside ~~

🍃🌼

[terreisa]

Love Down the Line: Chapter 7

The last thing Indie musician Emma Swan needs is a gigantic wrench thrown in the workings of her biggest tour to date weeks before its launch.  When her backing guitarist that caused the problem says she has the perfect solution Emma is skeptical but left with little choice but to accept.  Unfortunately she isn’t really prepared for said solution to be former Rock Star and leading man of Emma’s teenage fantasies, Killian Jones.  With no other options and a month of performing across the country ahead of her Emma just hopes she doesn’t come to regret letting Killian onto her stage and into her life.

Ch 1, Ch 2, Ch 3, Ch 4, Ch 5, Ch 6, AO3

~*CS*~

On the road between Dallas and Houston, May 18th

“Alright, Scarlet, it’s come down to this.  What’s your move?”

Emma kept her face impassive as Will scrutinized her closely.  She nearly gave herself away when he leaned forward with a smug grin.

“All in, luv,” he said with confidence as he pushed his chips into the center of the table.

“Mistake,” Tink called out from the chair she was perched on towards the front of the bus.

“Shut it,” he growled, rolling his eyes.  Tapping his cards he nodded, “All in.” 

She looked at her cards before making a show of looking over the cards that were face up in front of Will’s pile of chips.  With just the right amount of hesitation she returned his nod.

“So am I.”

Pushing her chips in she became aware of someone looking over her shoulder.  Knowing it could only be Killian she ignored him, or at least tried to.  Ever since she’d half kissed him in Chicago she’d become almost jumpy whenever he was around.  She was beyond relieved that he hadn’t wanted to play poker with her and Will because there would have been no way for her to stay calm and collected with him nearby.  As it was her hands felt unsteady and she was suddenly a little too warm.

“Let’s see ‘em,” she said with the slightest shake in her voice.

Will grinned widely, turning over his cards with a flourish, “Three of a kind with my mates Jack, Jack, and would you look at that?  Jack.  I’ll be takin’ the pot now-”

“Will you though?” She hummed.

Killian snorted a laugh from behind her while Tink muttered an ‘I told you so’ from the front.

“Bloody fuck-” Will’s smile dropped to a grimace, “You’re a cheat you know.”

“Or I’m just that good,” she said smugly, flipping over her cards, “Full house and it seems a couple of your mates have dropped by for the party.  Do you think they could loan you the money you now owe me?”

“Sod off,” he growled, tossing his cards at her with a glare.  His eyes flicked over her shoulder, “Beware of this one, mate, she’ll bleed ya dry and do it with a smile.”

He pushed away from the table while Killian and Tink laughed, stalking towards the back of the bus.  Emma shook her head as she organized the mess of chips, calculating just how much of Will’s money she’d won over the course of the tour so far.  It wasn’t much, they’d agreed early on in their friendship to only play for coins, but Will was a sore loser and she was a smug winner.  Every cent would count when they got to Vancouver and she’d take what he owed her.

“He’s totally going to pay you in pennies again, you know,” Tink said, sounding slightly bored but still amused.

“I still can’t figure out where the hell he got six thousand three hundred pennies and who he paid to help him,” she said hotly.  She turned to Killian who had moved to their kitchenette, “We played the final hand only an hour before our last show and the stupid things were piled up at the side of the stage before the encore.  Even Belle doesn’t know!”

“Oh, she knows,” Tink said, peering around the back of her chair, “We all do.  We’ve just decided not to tell you.”

Killian snickered and she scowled at him, “Do you know too?”

“On my honor, I do not,” he said solemnly, his hand raised like he was swearing an oath though his eyes were glittering with amusement.

“Liar,” she scoffed, getting back to setting her chips into manageable piles, “Whatever, I still end up getting the money from him and that’s all that matters.”

“I never knew you were so competitive, love,” Killian remarked, his voice lilting with a laugh.

“Only in poker.  I’m pretty laid back when it comes to other stuff,” she said with a shrug.

“Not true-” Tink’s face popped up over the top of her chair, her eyes narrowed, “Should I tell him about the Scrabble debacle?”

“Scrabble debacle?” Killian echoed as he set a mug of hot cocoa, complete with whipped cream and cinnamon, at her elbow.  She felt herself blushing at the gesture as he slid in across from her with a cup of tea for himself, “I feel this is a tale I should know.”

Tink bounced out of her chair and over towards them, pushing her aside as she slid into the booth.  Emma rolled her eyes but scooted over to make room for her.

“So this happened on our first tour together-”

“You say tour, I say a month of hell roaming around the eastern seaboard,” Emma grumbled, taking a sip of her cocoa.

“Okay, true,” TInk conceded.  She gave Killian a shrug, “We were playing a gig almost every night and travelling around in a van that also had all our equipment-”

“Don’t forget all four of us were sharing the same shitty motel room and we’d all just met each other.”

“Do you want to tell it?” Tink asked with a raised brow.

“Nope,” she said with a grimace, “It’s bad enough I’m being forced to relive it.”

“Anyway,” Tink said pointedly, “Ruby thought it’d be a good idea to play Scrabble to get us to be friends and not just people that played music together.  Any down time we had the board came out and we played until one of us was needed somewhere.”

“We did the same with Boggle,” Killian said with a smile, “Robin had nicked the game from a pub we’d played at one night.  Liam hated how we got it but never seemed to complain when he won a round.”

“A man after Emma’s own heart,” Tink said sweetly, winking at Killian while kicking Emma under the table.  Emma scowled at her but otherwise ignored her, “See the rest of us thought we were playing for fun, getting to know each other through some nice, quality time together.  Then this one decided to keep a running tab of everyone’s scores.  When we found out the friendly games went out the window.”

“I’m not the one who started betting money on the games,” Emma huffed.

“No, but you bloody well took some of us to the cleaners regardless,” Will’s muffled yell sounded from his bunk.

“She also got the four guys we had on the road crew in on it.  Set up a tournament with a twenty five dollar buy in and two hundred dollars going to the winner-” Tink shook her head but she was grinning.

“And who, may I ask, won the tournament?” Killian asked, turning to her with a raised brow and a knowing look in his eye.

Emma squirmed in her seat, fiddling with the handle of her mug.  It had been years but she still wasn’t over the whole thing.

“Anton,” she muttered.

Killian rocked back slightly, as though her answer caught him by surprise, “Anton?  The man currently behind the wheel of this bus, Anton?”

Tink was laughing and she wheezed as she answered him, “After organizing the stupid thing she was knocked out in the first round by yours truly.  Anton surprised everyone with his win.  Turns out he’s part of some big online Scrabble league.  Said it was like shooting fish in a barrel!”

Almost as soon as the words were said Emma heard a muffled bang.  At the same moment the bus started shaking violently, scattering the poker chips she’d put into meticulous piles and spilling her and Killian’s drinks causing them both to move quickly out of the way of the hot liquids.  Over the sounds of Will’s cursing, the rattling of everything that wasn’t nailed down, and a quick, rhythmic thumping from somewhere beneath her she could barely hear Anton trying to tell them something.  Crawling over Tink, who had ducked halfway under the table, she tried to stand but couldn’t keep her balance from the way that the bus was swaying.  Then a warm hand grasped her elbow and steadied her.

“It’s a blown tire, love,” Killian half yelled over the noise, still seated, “Anton will want us to remain where we are until he pulls over.”

“Okay,” she yelled back, though the racket was lessening as the bus slowed noticeably.

She debated shoving Tink aside so she could be a little safer and sit when Killian tugged on her arm.

“C’mon, Swan, best be seated-” he pulled her down to sit next to him, tucking her into his side with his arm wrapped around her waist, “I’d move over but the seat’s covered in tea.”

“It’s alright,” she croaked, her throat suddenly dry.

All too soon the bus came to a shuddering stop.  Reluctantly she pried herself from his warm embrace and stood back up, trying not to seem too disappointed to do so.  Luckily Will came stumbling towards them swearing up a storm and hopefully distracting Kilian from her slight frown.  Tink, on the other hand, was watching her with knowing eyes.

“What in the blue fuck was that?” Will said shakily, running his hands over his head and down his face.

“We’ve had a tire blowout, folks.  Everyone okay?”

Anton was lumbering his way back towards them, a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead.  He was a giant of a man who scowled at anyone he didn’t know but once Emma had cracked his shell he was the sweetest man she’d ever met.  He was also the most easy going, having no problem making an unscheduled stop so she could get junk food or do a little cheesy sight seeing at a tourist trap.  She liked him so much she’d even gone so far as to put it in her touring contracts that he would always be the one behind the wheel, driving her from city to city.  The fact that he routinely kicked her ass at Words With Friends in his downtime was her only complaint against him.

“A little shaken up-” Emma grinned at Anton while Will and Tink groaned, “but no one’s hurt.  You okay?”

“Might have soiled myself a little but that’s the extent of it for me.  The rig is another story, though,” Anton sighed. “I’ve got a replacement but I’ll need to find a shop that can handle the big girl and a way to get her there.  I can almost guarantee it’ll be a few hours before I can get her back on the road.”

Emma looked at her watch and did the math, “Okay, we have five hours until sound check.  How far away are we from Dallas?”

“I know what you’re thinking but it’ll be cutting it too close and I’d like to keep my job,” Anton said with a rueful smile. “Luckily the tire blew when we happened to be passing through a good sized town.  I’ll call it in and hopefully you’ll be set up with a rental to get you the rest of the way there.”

“Oh, Regina’s gonna love this,” Tink muttered under her breath.

“Maybe we’ll get a proper manager out of it,” Will said hopefully. “Ain’t bloody right she only shows up for half the shows and bullies us at all of them.”

“It’ll be less than half this time.  She’s only gracing us with her presence in the cities she actually likes,” Emma said distractedly, looking out the windows and smiling at what she saw, “So, how long do you think we’ll have to wait for that rental car?”

“Emma-” there was a note of warning in Anton’s voice, “Please don’t get me fired.”

“Swan?” Killian asked in the same tone.

“I won’t-” she turned back to them with an exaggerated look of innocence and held up the first three fingers of her right hand, “Scout’s honor.”

“As if you were a bloody scout,” Will snorted.

She stuck her tongue out at him before turning to Anton with a grin, “Look, you’ve got calls to make and then Regina’s gonna have calls to make and I’m sure those people will have calls to make too.  That gives us at least an hour before there’s even a chance at getting that rental, right?”

Anton shook his head with a sigh, “Right.”

“And you probably won’t run the bus to keep the air going or want us hanging around annoying you while you try and get things sorted, right?”

“You’ve made your point, so make your point,” Anton said with an exasperated smile.

“There’s a convenient little strip mall over there and that big barn looking thing across from it,” she said, pointing west out the window and across the highway. “We’ll get out of your hair and stay somewhat close at the same time.  Win-win.”

Anton pinched his nose between his fingers.  Will and Tink followed her finger, looking curiously out the window but Killian was watching her.  She narrowed her eyes at him but he just smiled.

“As if you need my permission” Anton said with a snort. “Just don’t get arrested or anything.  I only want to have to listen to Regina yelling at me once today.”

“Great-” Emma gave him a wide grin, “Want me to bring you back something?”

“The biggest goddamn coffee you can find.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, mate, this is Texas after all,” Will joked, elbowing Anton in the side.

“Get out of here before I throw you out,” Anton growled but without heat.

Less than five minutes later the four of them were walking under the highway overpass with Will and Tink complaining about the heat of the day and the circumstances that lead them there.  Emma, on the other hand, saw it as a blessing in disguise.  It was rare that she was able to get time to herself on the days she had a show.  Granted it would only be a little over an hour and she wasn’t exactly alone but it was better than sitting cooped up on the bus while everything got sorted out.

Will and Tink pulled ahead, their complaints spurring them on as Killian hung back.  Emma tried in vain to keep her pleased smile in check.

“What’s that smile for, Swan?” He asked, bending a little so he could catch her eye from under the brim of an Astros hat.

“How’d you know we’d blown a tire?” She shot back, not wanting him think he was the reason she was smiling even though he totally was.

“Had it happen a couple of times back in the day,” he said with a shrug, “The worst was when it happened once to the van Robin was driving.  We were lucky.  That day.”

A cloud passed over his face as his eyes focused somewhere ahead of them.  Wanting to kick herself for somehow sticking her foot in it again she kept her mouth shut instead.  After a few moments he tentatively touched the back of her hand.  When she looked up at him he gave her an apologetic smile.

“Sorry for the melancholy, love, can’t be helped sometimes.”

“Not your fault I’m an idiot that seems to bring it up constantly,” she said bitterly, kicking at a pebble on the ground, “I’m surprised you keep wanting to talk to me.”

He gave her a look of surprise but before he could say anything Will was shouting at them.

“Do I have to hang around with you lot or…?”

Emma quickened her steps to catch up to them, catching onto Killian’s hand at the last second to drag him with her.  When they came to a stop she let him go, even as he gave her a shy grin that she was helpless to return.  Tink cleared her throat and Emma snapped her gaze to her, feeling heat crawl up her neck at the knowing look she was giving her.

“You have your phone don’t you?” Emma asked Will pointedly, hoping that none of them made any kind of comment about anything.

“Perfect,” he said instead of answering, bouncing on his toes, “I’ll be expectin’ your call then.”

He tipped an imaginary hat at them and sauntered off in the direction of the large barn she’d seen from the bus.  She was not only surprised to see that it was an antiques mall but that that was where Will seemed to be headed.  Then she remembered that Belle’s birthday was coming up and he took great pride in finding unique and ridiculously romantic gifts for her.  It also reminded her that David’s birthday was only a couple of weeks away and it couldn’t hurt to take a look around the mall herself.

“Wait up, I’m coming with!” She called after him.

“And I spy a used book store over there so that’s where I’m headed,” Tink trilled.  She linked her arm through Killian’s, giving Emma an all too innocent grin, “Coming with Killian?  Since you were just complaining about finishing the last of the books you packed and refuse to read any of mine and all.”

“Oh, er-” he scratched behind his ear and gave her a searching look, “If that’s alright with you, Swan.”

“I’m not your babysitter,” she said with a forced laugh, glaring at Tink when Killian looked towards the strip mall where the used bookstore was, “I guess I’ll let you know when we need to go back to the bus.”

“Great!  See you in a bit!”

Emma watched as they crossed the four lane street, Tink’s arm still threaded through Killian’s.  As much as she knew Tink was doing it to annoy her she couldn’t help the stab of jealousy she felt.  With a huff at how ridiculous she was being she once again caught up with Will, who was tapping an imaginary watch as she approached.

“As if you’re ever anywhere on time,” she scoffed.

“I’m never late, everyone else is just early,” he said as he fell into step with her.

She gaped at him, “Did you- please tell me you didn’t just quote Princess Diaries.”

“Iconic film, luv,” he said sagely, “Queen Clarisse is a royal worth bendin’ the knee for.”

“You’re full of surprises, Scarlet,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Seems you are too-” he hip checked her and tipped his head in the direction Tink and Killian had gone, “Gettin’ cosy with the rock star and all.”

“No!  Nothing’s- I’m not getting cosy,” she spluttered, heat crawling up the back of her neck. “And even if I was it’s not any of your business.”

“He likes you too,” Will chuckled. “Didn’t get so defensive ‘bout it but turned about as red as you are right now.”

She stopped in her tracks, staring wide eyed and mouth open at his back as he kept walking.  He didn’t even pause to see why she was no longer at his side, merely turned on his heel and walked backwards, giving her a shit-eating grin.

“You two aren’t nearly as subtle as you think.”

By the time she scraped her jaw off the sidewalk and chased after him he’d disappeared inside the refurbished barn.  She had half a mind to hunt him down and make him explain what he meant.  Unfortunately the sheer size of the place and the dozens of aisles she could see from just inside the door had her second guessing that idea.  Figuring there would be plenty of opportunities to corner and torture him for information later she headed to her left and began perusing the vast sea of antiques before her. 

Nearly forty minutes and hundreds, if not thousands, of items later Emma found herself sitting on the floor of a promising booth.  Whoever had rented the spot was clearly a fan of music.  The temporary walls were covered with vintage tour posters for artists dating back to the forties and fifties, some of which were signed.  Most of the booth was taken up by a large locked display case that housed signed photos, early fan club collectables from bands that had become global phenomenons, and other highly coveted paraphernalia.  What had caught Emma’s eye, however, were the dozens of boxes of records and she had promptly sat herself down and began sifting through them.

She was adding a record to the small pile she’d set aside, some meant for David’s gift and some for herself, when a familiar pair of beat up converse stepped up beside her.  Not quite able to temper the giddiness she felt at Killian seeking her out she looked up at him with a grin.  It quickly faded when she saw that he was looking at something in the booth as though he’d seen a ghost.  When she craned her neck to see what he was staring at she gasped and immediately scrambled to her feet.

How she hadn’t noticed the Realm of Jewels’ tour poster was a mystery to her.  While it wasn’t front and center it was framed, having been signed by the entire band.  To make matters worse it was from their final, unfinished tour.

“Killian?” She said softly, reaching out for his hand but hesitating at the last second.

He remained unmoving, growing paler by the second.  Quickly looking around her she noticed there were several people that were wandering the aisle towards them.  She also noticed a door that was slightly ajar that looked like it led outside.  Slowly she stepped in front of him, reaching up and gently cupped his face in her hands.  After a long moment his eyes dropped to hers and his gaze was haunted.

“C’mon,” she whispered.

Sliding her hands down until her fingers wrapped around his, she waited patiently from some kind of indication that he’d heard her.  Finally he nodded, closing his eyes and taking a shuddering breath.  Not waiting another second she dropped one of his hands but kept a firm grip on the other as she guided him out the door.  As soon as she was certain that there was no one around to see them she pulled him into her arms and held him tight.  Almost immediately he reciprocated, his arms like steel bands across her back but even then she could feel him begin to shake.

Emma wasn’t sure how long they stood there, wrapped up in each other.  She would have been happy to help Killian hold himself together for however long he needed.  Slowly he calmed, his grip loosened until he was merely hugging her and his breathing evened out and remained steady.  Finally he pulled back but not away and even though she knew he hadn’t actually shed a tear his eyes were red rimmed and glassy.  She was pretty sure she looked about the same.

“I’m sor-”

“You don’t need to apologize,” she stressed, gripping the shirt at his sides in her hands, “Never about that.”

He let out an unsteady breath and gave her a short nod.  Releasing his shirt she slid her arms around him again, trying for comfort instead of sharing the burden of his pain.  Seeming to realize this he returned her hug with a gentle sigh, resting his cheek against her hair.

“Liam was the one driving,” he murmured after a moment, tightening his hold on her slightly before letting go and stepping away.  He tilted his head back and let out a harsh breath, “It was after our second show in LA and we’d been invited to some lavish party in the hills.  It was hosted by someone who had the money to keep the booze and drugs flowing and the influence to keep the police from showing up.  We’d gone to dozens of parties like that before without consequence, we had no reason to believe that night would be any different.

“We’d all partaken in the various substances that were offered and when it came time to leave we realized we were in a bit of a bind.  Liam insisted that he’d only been drinking and was sober enough to drive.  The ass even said the alphabet backwards and walked a straight line to prove it,” he scoffed, scowling. “I didn’t even question it, not really, merely put up a half hearted protest and then poured myself into the car without further thought.  Liam in the driver’s, Robin up front with me behind him and Milah behind Liam.”

Killian sighed and it sounded as though he was releasing a breath he’d been holding for over ten years.  Emma didn’t hesitate as she reached for him, relieved when his hand slid easily into hers.  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed deeply and closed his eyes.

“We were nearly back at the hotel, only a few blocks away really-” his voice wavered and she held his hand tighter, “I had picked a fight with Liam over one of the songs that was to be on our next album.  The last thing I remember was seeing his eyes in the rear mirror, giving me the annoyed glare I’d seen all my life.  That’s when… when...”

Emma watched helplessly as he pressed his lips together and looked up and away from her, as if he was trying to stave off the tears that hadn’t fallen before.  She didn’t need him to tell her the rest, she already knew.  Liam had run a red light and their rental sedan had been hit on the driver’s side by a truck going nearly fifty.  Milah had been killed on impact but Liam had lived long enough to make it to the hospital but not an operating room.  Robin and Killian had survived with a few broken bones and superficial cuts but it was clear to her that Killian was still healing.

“Never thought I’d see that poster again-” he said gruffly, half turning back towards the building, “let alone covered with our signatures.  Did you know that Liam spent hours working on his?  Claimed he wanted to be able to quickly do the autographs for fans but I suspect it was to practice his flourishes.  Always took up half the posters, the ponce.”

When he looked back at her he tried to give her a smile but it faded quickly.  She let her thumb caress the back of his hand, even though she wanted to pull him back into a hug and never let him go.

He looked down at their joined hands and gave a small huff, his grip tightening, “You’re the first person I’ve told the whole story to aside from my therapist.  The first person I’ve wanted to tell, really.”

She didn’t know what to say to that but she didn’t need to.  Killian’s eyes flickered to hers for a moment before he bent his head and brought their joined hands to his lips.  Goosebumps erupted down her arm despite the Texas heat and she couldn’t help the small gasp that escaped.  His gaze snapped back to hers and he straightened slowly, moving a step closer as he did.

For an impossibly long moment too many thoughts raced through her head, questioning what she hoped was about to happen.  The only thing that steadied her was somehow seeing the same hesitation, the same tempered desire, in Killian’s too blue eyes.  That more than anything had her reaching up with her free hand to caress his cheek before pressing up on her toes to press her lips to his.

There was no hesitation as Killian sighed into her.  His mouth was warm against hers but his hand was warmer as it slid from her hip to her lower back, pulling her close.  The surprised noise she made was lost to his groan as he deepened the kiss.  It was a sound she decided she would gladly work hard at getting him to repeat.

As she happily let herself get lost in the heady sensation of his touch she vaguely noted how he was able to make her feel as though she was vibrating.  It was another few moments before she realized that it was her phone and not just his considerable skill that was making her skin tingle. She pulled back, gasping, but kept the grip she had on his shoulder as she reached behind her.  He didn’t seem to realize what she was doing.  Instead he focused his ministrations on her neck, forcing a moan from her throat as she pulled her phone free and tapped it against the hand that was only inches from the back pocket it’d been in.

“Phone,” she protested breathlessly, even as she tilted her head to give him better access, “Killian, I gotta-”

He lifted his head and looked at her with hooded eyes that cleared marginally as he nodded.  She nearly tossed her phone to the ground when his gaze flickered to her lips and he licked his own.  The insistent buzzing in her hand was the only thing that stopped her.

Glancing at the screen she felt as though a bucket of cold water was dumped over her head at the sight of Regina’s name.  She stepped away from Killian as she swiped to answer, turning in the direction she thought their broken down bus was sitting.

“Uh, hi?”

“You and your band have ten minutes to get back to that bus.  The rental is in your name so you will be the only one driving it.  Go straight to the venue, no pit stops and no going to the hotel first.  You have three hours to sound check.”

Emma scowled at nothing as the call disconnected, annoyed that Regina hadn’t even acknowledged her in any way.  She checked the time on her phone and saw that Anton had tried to warn her with texts she’d been too wrapped up in Killian to notice.  Turning back to him her frown deepened at the sight of him rubbing his hand across the back of his neck, looking nervous.

He cleared his throat before gesturing between them, “That was...”

“A one time thing?” She asked, hating how uncertain she sounded.

“No!” He burst out, surprising her as he leapt forward and grabbed her hand.  His other hand cupped her cheek, “At least I hope not.  No, I was merely going to say that it wasn’t my intention for things to escalate as they did.  I don’t regret it, though, not one moment.”

“Me either,” she said with a smile.  He mirrored her but as he began to lean forward she stopped him with a hand on his chest, “Woah there, tiger, we’re gonna have to wait.  Regina says we need to get back to the bus.”

He lightly pressed his lips to her hairline and sighed, “That’s perhaps for the best, love, we might have scandalized the locals out in the open like this.”

She snorted a laugh and because she could she pressed a quick kiss to his lips before backing away.  He stared at her with a dazed look in his eye, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.  She let her own smile unfurl as she sent a quick text to Will and Tink to get them back to the bus.

“Come on-” she grabbed his hand and headed in the direction of the road, “I really don’t want to get on Regina’s bad side by being late to sound check.”

“Swan, wait-” he tugged on her hand, pulling her to a stop, “Didn’t you have things set aside for purchase in there?”

“Nothing important,” she said with a shrug.  He narrowed his eyes at her and she rolled hers back at him, “I promise.  Just some random records I thought might be interesting.  We don’t have time to go back and figure out where to pay for them anyway.  I was serious about Regina.”

“If you’re certain…”

“Yep, so let’s go.  We still have to get Anton’s giant coffee.”

Killian gave her another skeptical look but she ignored it, leading him back the way they’d come.

Later that night, when she dragged herself onto the repaired bus after their show, she was only mildly surprised to see the pile of records she’d left behind at the antique mall sitting on her bunk.  What was a surprise was the long stemmed red rose laying across the top of them.  Biting her lip against the grin that threatened to split her face in two she realized she couldn’t wait until the next time she would be able to get Killian alone again.

[crystalirises]

The Final Answer (36 Questions AU 8/13)

Eight part.

A BETTER VERSION

“I’m sorry you had a shitty childhood, Dream. I couldn't even imagine what it was like with... I hoped when he came here, he never found out who you were.” They both had settled onto Dream’s seat, Fundy perched on the edge as he stared down at Dream. His ears were pressed to the top of his head, his tail curled around the blonde as if to give him some semblance of comfort. He didn’t know what to say, his mouth opening and closing as he wondered what he could possibly do to change the situation. Dream murmured a string of incoherent words beneath his breath, words that Fundy couldn't understand. He leaned closer, wishing he could do something, anything to assure the blonde of... Fundy didn't know what. He just knew Dream needed him, needed a moment of his compassion and sympathy. For just this moment, Fundy let his anger ebb away. He understood where Dream was coming from. Sometimes parents manage to fuck up their kids in some form or another.

“Well, it didn’t matter when we moved to the Essempy. I haven’t thought about my first life in ages. Even when he came for the elections. He died never knowing who I was. I haven't let myself remember my old life. It’s been a while.” Dream held onto Fundy’s tail, petting it as if to cement himself to their current reality. He could feel Fundy at his side, his piercing gaze at the back of his head. His green eyes were glazed and vacant, lost to memories he thought he’d long forgotten. He recalls his father's laugh, the sound sending shivers down his spine. His father had a terrifying laugh, even if he was laughing at a miniscule joke it always came out as if he was losing it with every second that passed. He hated the sound, hated it ever since he was a kid. To hear it again... He trembled, the memory of his father's laughter all too recent. “It didn’t matter until... I didn't want it to matter but then… Then he... I tried to avoid the conflict, but it was only a matter of time before I was dragged into another war. For the record, I didn’t switch sides for whatever reason you might be thinking right now. Trust me on that, please.”

“I wouldn’t blame you for that, Dream… even if it was the answer.” Fundy couldn’t shake Dream’s answer, the details of a life far away from where they were now. He reached down, placing a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. He smiled as Dream turned towards him, his mouth agape as if he was waking up from a nightmare. Fundy moved closer, nearly falling into the blonde’s lap. He let out an awkward laugh, fixing his position on the chair they were both on. “So… you died before? That means you have two lives left…”

“The first time was painful… If I tried hard enough, I can still hear the crack of bones as my body fell against the unforgiving ground.” Dream shivered, tugging Fundy’s bushy tail towards his chest like a lifeline. He leaned his against Fundy’s back, feeling Fundy’s warmth as he tried to keep himself cemented to reality. He let his eyes fall shut, embracing the small moment that the two of them were currently sharing. “You can see why Wilbur’s insistence on the drug van caused me to panic.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah.” Dream nuzzled deeper into the back of Fundy’s shirt, all too aware that he himself was still wearing one of Fundy’s orange sweaters. “But I know that doesn’t change the way I reacted.”

“You blew L’Manburg up twice.”

“I know.” He let out a tired sigh, the sound muffled by the shirt. “It was a horrible mess that devolved terribly over these past few years… Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had just let it go.”

“Do you think we would have met on better terms?” Fundy glanced down, his hands occupying themselves by pulling at a loose string on his shirt. His ears strained to hear Dream’s reply, barely catching the small ‘I don’t know’ that the man muttered underneath his breath. He let out an empty laugh, wondering if they would have ever met at all. “It’s weird to think about… a world where we never knew each other. A world where we never met. You wouldn’t have needed me… and I wouldn’t have needed you. Never fell in love.”

“I’m not sure I would like that world.” Dream snorted, wheezing a bit as he pulled away from Fundy’s shirt. He shook his head, choosing to lean his head on the back of the seat instead. Fundy’s tail was wagging a bit, not quite happy but at least it wasn’t raised as if he planned to run at any given moment. He hummed underneath his breath, content to spend a few more seconds with his husband like this. But they needed to finish the questions. He cleared his throat, “What’s your answer to the question?”

“The question… The question.” Fundy grinned, leaning against the back of the chair. He placed an arm to support his head, laughing as he thought about his own answer. “Well, the question really should be what wouldn’t I wish to change? I wish my mom didn’t swim off into fuck knows where. I wish my dad didn’t go crazy and blow up the country I was raised in. I wish the ghost of my dad didn’t cling to my every damn fucking second. There’s a lot I wish I could change, Dream. Guess both of our lives suck.”

“No wonder we got along.”

“That’s not very positive of you, Dream. We didn’t fall for each other’s trauma.” Fundy snickered, trying to shake off the hollow feeling in his chest at the mention of his father. “If I could change everything, I would ask to be born in a family that actually cared. A mother that didn’t run away. A father that didn’t prioritize everything but me. An uncle who isn’t exiled and another uncle who didn’t look at me as if he wanted to murder me.” Dream froze at the word ‘exiled’. Fundy didn’t quite hold that issue against him.

“I’m not going to apologize for that. He burnt George’s house to the ground, during a ceasefire.” He didn’t mean for it to come out as harshly as it had, but he couldn’t take it back the moment it escaped his lips. Fundy blinked, a startled look crossing his face before it quickly disappeared. Dream could only thank the deities that Fundy didn’t back away from him immediately. Dream swallowed down the need to defend himself. He had nothing to defend himself. He did what was right. “Do you hold that against me?”

“Dream…” Fundy pursed his lips together, wincing at how he could begin to answer the question. He’d never had the best relationship with Tommy, his uncle who was younger than he was. He couldn’t bring himself to admit the slight sliver of satisfaction he had felt when he heard Tubbo banish Tommy from New L’Manburg. He hated himself for feeling it, but he couldn’t help it. Not that it mattered since his father disappeared just as quickly as Tommy had. Of course. “We should move on to the next question.”

“Of course.” Dream quickly nodded, thinking back towards the list of questions Fundy had asked him on the first date. He groaned, recognizing what the next question was. Well, it wasn’t exactly a question but a command. Fundy straightened up, realizing at the same time what the next question was. A question where Dream’s previous answer would differ from the answer he would be saying now. “Question 11. ‘Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.’”

Fundy shook his head, turning his nose up in slight disappointment. He hated these questions. “You know everything about me, Dream. I mean, you’ve had a front seat to the ‘Miserable Life of Fundy’ ever since the first war began.” His life beforehand was insignificant, a horrible jumble of memories of the times where Wilbur would carry him from place to place. Wilbur could never bring himself to stay in one area for too long. He probably shouldn’t have settled down because the one time he did, he ended up dying.

“I’d love to hear it again…” Dream internally flinched at his own reply, hoping that Fundy didn’t take that personally― He sputtered, a fluff of fur smacking him on the face. He blinked, realizing that Fundy just… slapped him with his tail. He felt Fundy quivering next to him, a low snicker rising from the fox hybrid. His face must look ridiculously funny right now. Dream scowled halfheartedly, trying not to laugh at his husband’s strange antic. Deities he missed this. “Wha... What was that for?”

“I could see you regretting your words in your eyes, Dream. Pfft…” Fundy shook his head, his sharp teeth showing underneath the grin he wore. “I don’t mind telling it again. I’ve added a new chapter, after all.”

“A new chapter?”

“These past few weeks have been hectic.” They both laughed at that understatement. Fundy breathed in. He could do this again. He could talk about his life again, couldn’t he?

“Where to begin… My earliest memory was a cold wintry day, my arms wrapped around my father’s neck as he scoured through a desolate land of ice and snow. My second memory was of a dark forest filled with all sorts of… aggressive creatures.” Fundy cleared his thoughts, wishing he didn’t have to remember those glowing purple eyes that hunted him and his father down relentlessly. “My father was a traveler and my mother ran off… at least that’s what my father told me… Well, actually he told me fucked a salmon…”

He could almost hear the snap in Dream’s neck as the blonde turned to look at him. Yeah, he may not have added that part in his first answer. “ANYWAY, um… My father and I eventually found our way here to the Essempy where my uncle, Tommy, lived. I then lived in a drug van for a while before the whole war began. Somehow, I managed to get my father’s approval to join the war… not that he ever gave me my own uniform. Then, that thing with Eret and the duel… where you shot Tommy for a bunch of flimsy discs.”

He gave Dream a pointed glare at that, a show of anger on behalf of his uncle. “Then… we met. Had our first date. We started seeing each other in secret. Then the elections came and we made that promise about how our politics would never get in the way of what we had. Yeah, that lasted for a while. Then my father got exiled and I had to play spy for… years? I’ve forgotten how long Schlatt was president for… All I know is, we got married at some point before the recent war. Then… Then… Then…”

He took another breath to calm himself. He could do this. He tried to ignore the way Dream looked at him, as if he would shatter at any moment. “Then… The explosion where I had to watch my home get destroyed before my very eyes. I also had to watch my own dad get killed by the grandfather I didn’t know I had.”

He felt Dream’s hand on his tail, petting it as if to soothe him.

“Then as if the deities wanted to mock me, my dad came back as an amnesiac ghost who refuses to take responsibility for anything he’s done.” Fundy rolled his eyes at that, resentment rising in his chest.

“I’m sorry, Fundy.”

Fundy shook his head, “We began construction on New L’Manburg, hoping that this time nothing goes wrong, but it seems L’manburg is cursed or some shit because guess what happened next?”

Dream gulped, knowing that this was where he came in for the recent time in the story of Fundy’s life. “Imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning, enjoying my walk towards New L’Manburg, only to see an obsidian wall surrounding the country.” Dream didn’t react as Fundy’s tail slapped him on the face again. “One meeting later, my husband declares to the entire land that he only ever cared about a child’s discs. Five days later, my uncle was exiled out of the country he had fought for. Then it all went to shit.”

Fundy had been heartbroken. It wasn’t a random decision he’d done one day. Ever since that declaration… “New L’Manburg continued on, but the only semblance of normalcy in my life began to wilt. My husband stopped coming home, stopped talking to me, stopped looking at me, and the one time I tried to talk to him… he said, ‘Not now, Fundy. Just trust me, okay?’ Ya, like that was supposed to be assuring. Like I didn’t spend my nights on our bed wondering if I’ll catch him coming back home at some point in the night.”

He took in a shaky breath, “The next time I confronted him, he got mad. Telling me that my fears were illogical, that he didn’t mean it literally when he said ‘that’s the only thing I care about’ when talking about the discs. He told me I was being crazy. That I should trust him. Then he left. Just like that. As if he expected me to still be in our cabin when he came back.” Fundy tried to keep the hurt out of his voice but he didn’t think he succeeded, “So before you accuse me of running away, know that you left me first.”

“Fundy…” Dream felt his throat constrict, unable to breathe at the overwhelming guilt he felt. He felt sick, knowing that despite the righteous anger Fundy felt, the fox hybrid didn’t try to move away. His tail was still in Dream’s arms. “I was wrong.”

“You were. You were wrong to leave me at the cabin like that. You were wrong to think I wouldn’t want a single hint that you actually cared for me.” Fundy sighed, too exhausted to move away from the man who had broken his heart too many times. “I just wanted one hint that you cared for me, Dream. I’ve seen you lie before. I’ve seen your hold on everyone here. I didn’t want to be another pawn in your game.”

“You were never a pawn in the game, Fundy.” Dream frowned… maybe before… maybe when he didn’t know the fox hybrid all that well. “You are not a pawn, Fundy. You’re your own man. I’m… sorry… I didn’t expect you to run away because of that.”

“I didn’t expect myself to run away either.” Fundy shook his head, eyes shutting close as he remembered the tears on his cheeks as he ran as far away as he could from the Essempy. At some point, he stopped at the Badlands, a thought entering his mind as he looked upon the desolate desert.

“I’m… also sorry for… threatening Ranboo into telling me where you were.” Dream felt the heat of Fundy’s glare at that admission. Though he can’t say he truly felt guilty for doing it. That action led him to Fundy, didn’t it? “I should probably start with my answer, huh?” Dream knew Fundy wanted to ask him about what he’d done to Ranboo, but he quickly interjected before the fox hybrid could inquire further.

“Well, I grew up an only kid to two loving yet distant parents. You know how my dad was, you worked for him after all. My mom wasn’t around so I spent a lot of time by myself. Ran away after a while. Got into a bit of trouble when I grew older. Met Sapnap and George that way when they thought they could try and hunt me down for some reward.” Dream nearly screamed as Fundy toppled onto him, both of them screeching as Fundy tried to go back to his previous position. “Fundy?!”

“You’re a wanted man?” Fundy blinked, an incredulous look on his face as he managed to clamber back to the way he was sitting before. He knew Dream was a war criminal on a rampage but he didn’t think he was actually wanted somewhere else. Dream wheezed at the question, nodding his head in actual confirmation. Fundy couldn’t help the small noise of surprise that emitted from the back of his throat. “I married a criminal!”

“I married a fox hybrid, Fundy. I’ve gotten furry jokes from George and Sapnap.” They both laughed at that. “I stayed with Sapnap and George after, then I died. We ended up moving to the Essempy and… you know what happened next… but I wouldn’t count any of that as my life. It doesn’t feel like my life.” Dream could feel Fundy’s stare at the back of his head. He patted Fundy’s tail, wishing his voice didn’t strain or crack the moment Fundy asked him to explain.

“What do you mean, Dream?” Fundy winced at how quiet his voice sounded, the small tremble at the end of his voice.

Dream smiled, a bittersweet smile that pulled at Fundy’s heartstrings no matter how much he wished it didn’t. Dream settled back into his seat, cuddling close to Fundy’s tail. He could do this. He needed to do this. For both their sakes.

“My life started when I went for a jog and spotted you in the path…” Dream found a smile climbing to his lips. It had been a sunny day, radiant golden light splashing the world with color. George and Sapnap were busy and he had chosen to head towards L’Manburg, a spring in his step as he ran down the path of Church Prime. His mind was abuzz with memories, pausing as he caught an orange blur clambering up the stairs. His first proper meeting with Fundy. “…walking with a fox. So, I stopped and asked, ‘Can I pet your fox?’”

He didn’t understand what made him stop. Perhaps it was the comedic sight. A fox hybrid tugging a struggling fox behind him. Dream didn’t know why, but he stopped. It was the best choice he’d ever made. “And so there we were, me and this adorable fox, basking in the abundance of sun our land provides. And suddenly, you blurted out ‘This isn't my fox, actually.’” He watches as Fundy’s eyes crease with agony at the memory. At the memory of…, “’It's my friend's fox, Fungi. I'm taking care of him while she's away.’”

Fundy had curled into his arms the day Fungi died, screaming incoherently until he fainted. Dream had yelled at Sapnap, his anger rising with every confused gesture Sapnap had shown him. “’He's a bit of a nuisance, ya know?’ And I laughed, and you laughed.” Fundy had tried to hide the red in his cheeks, flustered. Dream expected fear, he expected anger. He didn’t expect… Fundy… didn’t expect the joy in his eyes. “Saying you didn't wanna be found out when you asked me to a date, that there was no fox.”

He shook his head at what came after, “I said yes and you said, ‘I’m Fundy. And you?’”

It had been a joke. They both knew who the other was, having met countless times on the battlefield. Despite it, Dream had paused. A realization coming into mind of what could be, “Yet I heard the perfect opportunity to be someone else entirely.” A chance to begin anew. A chance to try again. At least for one night. He didn’t see what he could possibly lose from saying yes, but he had everything to gain from that one simple word. “Free from my history. For one single night of a date…”

It had been a foolproof plan at the time. A break from the war they had both gone through. “I would be someone else. Obviously, that's not how it went down. One single date night turned into two days at your house, three more dates and staying up to watch the stars ‘til the morning comes. Too late to backpedal. Too good not to keep going.” He never meant to fall in love… but he did. And he couldn’t let go. He loved what they had. “It felt like my life, but a better version. With you in my life, I was a better person.”

He held onto Fundy’s tail. He missed them. He missed what they had. He felt his throat close up, choking out his words, “I heard music in the words you were saying. Melodies with no band playing.” He glanced up, catching the tears in Fundy’s eyes before Fundy turned to look away. It stung… but Dream knew why. It didn’t change the way he felt. It didn’t change the way he felt about Fundy. He wished that Fundy could see that, could look at him, “For the first time, I was in love, and I loved who I was with you.”

He remembered their short-lived days of peace. The trips they would take as they headed down into uncharted caves. The walks they’d take in the middle of the night when no one was looking. “All the mundane shit I used to hate, like mining for iron and walking every day.” He remembered the sweet life they used to live together, “Making breakfast, paying tax, watering the plants on our window sill…”

Fundy brightened his monochrome world, “…was invigorated with your sense of wonder. Pillow talk, midnight walks.” He missed the secret little walks they took. The risk they took. “Holding hands on the wooden path of the Church Prime. Dealing with inevitable misfortunes that were barely manageable.”

He laughed to himself, “Like that time I accidentally hit your dad with my sword.”

The air turned cold, Fundy turning to look at him with an incredulous look. “That was an unfortunate anecdote. Do you know what I mean?” Dream winced, changing the topic before Fundy could yell at him again. “It felt like my life, but a better version. With you in my life, I was a better person.”

He drew closer, reaching out to hold both Fundy’s hands. They were warm, red scorch marks stained his fingertips. “I heard music in the words you were saying. Melodies with no band playing.” He looked up, and this time Fundy didn’t look away. Their eyes gazed into one another’s. Fundy’s face was devoid of emotion, but a flicker of light danced within his eyes. Dream took a deep breath, willing Fundy to see the truth. His truth. “For the first time I was in love, and I loved who I was with you.”

He had begged every deity for the conflict to be resolved immediately, then Schlatt made him a deal he couldn’t refuse. “But then the war started to grow worse because your L’Manburg has a bad curse.” He tried to keep the panic out of his voice. He couldn’t possibly show the horror he had felt when he realized they’d be on opposite sides. The sleepless nights he endured at the thought of his husband losing a life to a war that should never have happened. “We both changed our sides. You and me, different sides.”

He had forced himself to watch as his husband was ridiculed, unable to step in unless he wanted to set everyone off into thinking Fundy was the traitor. “I only hoped we didn’t fight. Then the world exploded.” He curled into himself, his hands shaking in Fundy’s hold as he remembered the heat of the explosion. Fundy’s eyes widened, a terrified look crossing his face. Dream nodded, confirming his fears. “They say before you die, your whole life flashes before your very eyes.”

He wanted to keep it secret, “Well, it didn't the first time. But this time I heard each and every lie.” Everything changed that day. “I'd ever told you. I tried to cling to the life I'd made together with you.”

He couldn’t let it end like that, “So, I did the only thing I knew how to…”

He remembered the argument they had, “…I denied everything, because I wanted to keep my life.” He told Fundy he wasn’t the villain. But he was. He still is. “But the better version. Your Dream, your husband.”

He sniffled quietly, a bitter smile on his lips. He missed the way he used to be, before everything went to hell. Before he let it all crumble down. “He was a better person. I memorized your voice.” They had fought the day Fundy left. Their usual morning routine was disrupted by furious screaming. He struggled to keep from drowning in his own tears, “And how you say goodbye, but you never said goodbye.”

He felt his hands move to grasp at Fundy’ collar, “You never said goodbye.”

Fundy watched as Dream broke down a second time, “And I held on to our life.”

Their faces were too close, “And who I was with you.”

Fundy couldn’t help himself… “Who I was with you.” He leaned closer.

“Who I was with you.”

Dream felt lips press onto his own.

And for just a moment.

He let himself fall.

----------------

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[sometimesalwaysmusic]

SURRENDER

Surrender is a duo of Dave Williams (DW) and Scott, veterans of the Ottawa music scene. They are set to release their debut album soon; in the meantime, give their first single, Hold On, a spin, and read on about their vast experiences in music, top albums, and thoughts on the Ottawa music scene. (Photo: Rémi Thériault)

VITALS

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/surrendersounds

Bandcamp: https://surrendersounds.bandcamp.com/releases 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/surrendersounds/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/davemonomania (Dave)

Upcoming shows:  Stay tuned!

SA: How did Surrender come to be as a band? DW: Scott (Surrender vocalist) and I had been playing in the band Crusades for the past ten years, and in early 2018 we all quite amicably realized that the band had run its course. We did a final tour in the UK/Europe, one hometown show, and played our final two sets at The Fest in Florida. Toward the end of all that, with things winding to their conclusion, Scott and I began discussing working on something new together - something outside of the punk/hardcore scene that we’d been deeply involved in for the previous twenty-plus years. We’re both hugely into pop music, and of the synth-driven variety specifically. I had inherited a Roland Juno 106 when my best friend’s father passed away a few years earlier - it was a fixture in the home studio that I initially learned how to record in - and I sorta longed to make something with it. So, I started writing some songs on it at home, sent them to Scott, he sent some vocal ideas, and we were off. SA: What bands or musicians would you cite as the biggest influences on your sound? DW: Whew. I’ll do my best to keep this as brief as possible. There are some obvious touchstones: Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, all of Vince Clarke’s 80s output - Erasure’s The Innocents is a big one, Eurythmics, OMD, Cyndi Lauper, The Cure... essentially the more ‘serious’ side of 80s synth-driven pop music. Later 80s/early 90s stuff like Björk/Sugarcubes, New Order and the ‘Madchester’ scene, Jesus Jones, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and the other Grebo bands. I probably can’t overstate the impact of the quintessential 80s soundtracks: The Lost Boys, Footloose - Kenny Loggins’ “I’m Free” might be my favourite pop song of the decade. I’m a sucker for some of the big producers of that era too. Desmond Child was unstoppable for a while - Cher’s Heart of Stone is another BIG one. As for more modern stuff, I’m pretty obsessed with a lot of the Norwegian pop scene. Cold Mailman is a HUGE influence, as is Hanne Kolstø, Pyke, the new Misty Coast record, there’s a ton of amazing stuff coming out of that country. Some straight-up dance stuff too: Toulouse, Robyn, Pet Shop Boys, ABBA obviously. And of course, the still relatively-new Synthwave scene has some amazing artists: Kristine, FM-84, Michael Oakley, the whole culture of nostalgia surrounding the NewRetroWave world - music, movies, fashion - certainly runs parallel to what we’re doing, and I really dig a lot of it. SA: Thus far in your career, what has been your biggest success? DW: Hm. It’s safe to say that there are MANY variations on how one might measure artistic ‘success’. Coming up in a community where monetary success was never the goal (or at all likely), I’d say that getting to travel all over the map multiple times with my closest friends, meet and befriend people we’d have otherwise never crossed paths with, and see things most folks don’t get to see - all because we wrote some pretty cool songs - is probably my greatest personal success.   SA: On the other hand, what is the biggest challenge you have faced, and how have you dealt with it? DW: I think, for me anyway, the biggest challenge has been balancing my creative life with my personal one. I’m married with three small kids - 7, 4 and 2 - and that can obviously present a different set of priorities than simply hitting the road for most of the year and really pushing a project to its fullest potential. Admittedly I’ve been envious of friends and peers who just throw their gear and clothes in the van and make it happen ‘the old-fashioned way’. But that’s just not the life that I set up for myself, nor is it for Scott or the other folks we’ve played with - and I’m far from resentful of that - it just means we need to take a different approach. Amassing a substantial following or getting the attention of a bigger label isn’t terribly easy when you can’t be doing the literal legwork that other bands can. But I do my best to stay close to the people I’ve worked with all along, to show my gratitude and appreciation, and I work endlessly (to some peoples’ chagrin) on the music we make.   SA: How do you guys approach the song-writing process? DW: Since it’s just the two of us, it’s pretty easy to just bounce things back and forth before we actually get together in a room. Basically, I’ll come up with some chord progressions, leads, arpeggios, whatever on my Juno or my wide array of Arturia soft synths, then I’ll record the rhythm section tracks, typically writing most, if not all, of an instrumental song. I’ll send that to Scott and he’ll come up with vocal melodies and record a demo to send back to me. Then I’ll kind of edit the parts around his vocal ideas until we’re happy with the dynamics and how the song sorta lives and breathes. Then we’ll get together at Scott’s with a selection of wine and beer and a pizza, usually with extensive notes on harmonies and how to punch-up the existing vocal parts. We’ll track that stuff, I might do a few more edits at home, and then we send it to the wildly talented Alex Gamble at The Hive in Toronto for mixing, producing, extra instrumental layers, added drum machine stuff, whatever he hears. That’s pretty much how this first LP has gone, and it’s been an absolute pleasure.   SA: What are your thoughts on the Ottawa music scene? DW: I imagine like anyone who’s spent twenty-plus years in a community, subculture, what have you, I’ve got a lot of thoughts and feelings about the Ottawa music scene. My personal involvement tends to ebb and flow as new waves of participants arrive and others exit - years will go by where it feels like home and then there might be a few where I’m not quite as active - but it’s always very near and dear to me. There’s certainly never a lack of quality artists in this sleepy city. I started going to punk shows when I was thirteen - Punchbuggy (featuring a young Jim Bryson) at the Greely Legion was my first show ever - and twenty-five years later there are still a ton of the same faces mixed in with a ton of different ones. That’s a pretty special thing.   SA: As I understand it, you guys have been active in other bands of quite different genres in the past. Why SURRENDER, and why now? DW: As I mentioned, Crusades finished our ten-year run this past October. Black Tower, the sorta traditional heavy metal band I play drums in - with Scott on bass and his partner Erin on guitar and vocals - also decided to take it easy for a while, and although I still kinda ‘moonlight’ with The Steve Adamyk Band, that wasn’t happening at the time. Scott had also just wrapped up the “album cycle” with his band The Creeps and didn’t have much on the horizon there. I briefly played in a hardcore band called Power of Fear that did a few shows, but the current hardcore scene is very... let’s say... ‘youthful’, and it became apparent pretty quickly that it wasn’t something I wanted to stick with. Mostly I just wanted to make music with Scott, and based on our mutual love for 80s/90s pop music (and Scott’s equally toned down schedule), we decided to take a crack at doing something closer to the music we listen to the most. And honestly, I’d been writing and playing fast and/or aggressive music for so long, I really just wanted to make something upbeat and positive that people could dance to.   SA: A question for fun: your three desert island albums. What would they be and why? DW: Alright, this isn’t gonna be easy. Or brief. Note: these aren’t necessarily my favourite albums of all time (certainly they’re in the Top Ten), but if I’m gonna be listening to these on whatever hi-fi system this hypothetical island has until I wither away, here’s what I’d hope washed ashore with me (also, I’m gonna cheat using a nostalgia loophole):

1. Alice Cooper - Love It to Death / Killer (my Dad’s old dubbed cassette version) These two albums, both released in 1971, were my first love. They were on a single cassette in my Dad’s collection and really still exist as a single entity to me. I always cite my discovery of these two albums, probably at 4-5 years old, as the foundation for my entire musical life to come. Not only were they mysterious and rather frightening, but there was an eclecticism in this batch of songs that made everything I fell in love with afterward - metal, punk, prog, pop, garage, etc. - seem somehow part of the same cloth. Alice and that original band showed me very early on that there’s no need to limit oneself to the confines of a style, sound, genre, whatever. Most important records that ever happened to me.

2. Misfits - Walk Among Us / Earth A.D. / Legacy of Brutality (also a homemade cassette version c/o my friend Judd’s older sister, fully decorated with black Sharpie and White-Out) If early Alice Cooper set me on the weirdo path as a youngster, it was a single afternoon taping CDs in my friend Judd’s bedroom that locked me into the punk rock subculture forever. We’d been Guns N Roses turned Pantera turned Sepultura fans like many a shitty kid of the 80s/90s, and Danzig’s ‘Mother’ was in heavy rotation everywhere at the time, so we were no stranger to that beautiful beast’s howl. When Judd’s sister borrowed a stack of Misfits CDs from a pal at school and explained to us that this was Glenn Danzig’s old band (of course we recognized the name and logo from Rockabilia ads and Cliff Burton photos), we dove in assuming we knew what was coming. We most certainly did not. The Misfits became my favourite band that day and have been for every day since.

3. Peter Gabriel - So Every time I listen to this incredible record, I discover new things I love about it. A perpetual go-to and a true monument to the possibilities within pop music (shout out to Daniel Lanois there too). I was going to choose his Shaking the Tree compilation because it contains my favourite PG track - the piano version of “Here Comes the Flood” - but I figure I’d cheated enough with the first two answers. ...also Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, The Hellacopters’ High Visibility, Cold Mailman’s Everything Aflutter, Cave In’s Jupiter, and The Lemonheads’ It’s A Shame About Ray. This is an unfair question.   SA: Finally, what comes next for Surrender moving into 2019 and beyond? Best of luck! DW: First on the agenda is to find an ideal home for the LP. We’d kinda like to step out from beneath the umbrella of labels we’ve worked with in the past, but there are no specific plans thus far. Just release the second single, hope the feedback is good and see if anyone wants to partner up for the long haul. As far as any live performances go, that’s a big question mark. It’s been so great doing this with just the two of us, it’s hard to imagine inviting anyone else into the fold. That said, it’s even harder to picture just the two of us on stage like Yazoo on “Top of The Pops,” so who knows? Thanks so much!

[dolcissima-diva-blog]

New Year, Better Me

✨Every year I say, no, rather pray, that this next year will be my year. The stereotypical “new year, new me.” But this year I want to redirecting my thinking. I don’t have to be new, or different, than who I am. I just need to be a better version of the person that I already am. 2016 and 2017 were the absolute worst years of my life. 2018 was 50/50, but it’s progress and on the uphill climb. I’ve been negative my whole life, dealing with depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder. And I know no one can just “think” themselves happier. But this year I really want to work on reframing my thoughts and emotions. 

To start off, instead of focusing on how shitty 2018 was, I will start with a list of all the positive things that happened.

*Got live auditions at all the schools I applied to for my DMA

*Traveled by plane for the first time

*Took public transportation for the first time

*Got accepted to all the schools I applied to for my DMA

*Finished getting two years of teaching experience

*Performed the role of Lucy Van Pelt in You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown

*Moved out of my home state, 14 hours away, for the first time

*Began my doctoral degree at James Madison University

*Made some amazing new friends in a new state

*Went to Washington D.C. and Maryland for the first time

*Got to work with Composer Libby Larsen in a Masterclass

*Got accepted to present a lecture recital at the Music By Women conference in March

*Performed a leading role in the opera production of Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie, and got to have a skype interview with Jake Heggie and Sister Helen Prejean, whom the story is about

*Got my first adjunct college teaching position at Washington and Lee University

*Got a job directing a church choir and a new church family

*Earned a 4.0 for my first semester of my Doctorate.

While most of these are career oriented, they are wonderful achievements and I am very proud of them all. Some of my goals for this year are less extravagant, but will aid in making me love myself more.

*Give a great performance at the Concerto-Aria Competition, Opera Showcase, Music by Women Conference, and my first DMA recital

*Begin learning German

*Work to be a better teacher to my students at W&L

*Attend a summer professional development program of some sort

*Pay off all medical bills

*Work out at least 3 times a week

*Work on lowering by heart rate

*Get medical attention on chronic pain

*Make better choices with food and eat out less

*Decide my  dissertation topic

*Continue making straight As in school

*Plan a trip out of the country for 2020

*Be more organized

*Spend less money, stick to a budget, downsize material things

*Take my dog on more walks

*Read 3 books just for fun

*Make 3 new friends

So yeah, I know they aren’t much, but they are things I would like to accomplish. Overall, I want to learn how to love myself a little more and maybe eventually find happiness.

[countrygrlswrld]

New Zealand: Then and Now

“Only the mountains know where they have come from and where they are going and what will happen when we are gone.” —Brian Turner, “Listening to the Mountain” (1985) as seen at the Sir Edmund Hilary Mountaineering Museum

The electric blue waters are still electric blue. The peaks still tower above. The rolling green hills still conjure images of hobbits and orcs, but a lot has changed in New Zealand since Spanky and I first visited a decade ago on our inaugural trip around the world and then again just five years ago when we spent two months of the South Island alone. We returned this time for six weeks on the South and were both comforted by the sameness and shocked by some of the major changes over the years.

So, what’s changed?

Bigger vans, less freedom camping

Ten years ago you’d be hard pressed to find anything other than one of those rapey-looking Wicked campervans (made rapey-er still by sayings such as “Let’s take off our pants and cuddle”). Now, the van rentals are taller, longer, have a more sterile, hospital appearance and usually come with a Mercedes-Benz logo on the front. The hippie backpackers are still around, but as is the case in so many places in the world, the gap seems to be widening—and the travel climate is a perfect metaphor. You’ve got the rich, gray-haired travelers with their $10,000-per-month Maui and Britz vans juxtaposed by the dirt poor, 20-something Euro backpackers who bought some shitty, no-name van for $3,000 and will sell it back after their visa runs out in a year for $2,000. They’re the ones dropping trou in the parking lot to change out of the harem pants they’ve been wearing for the past 17 days; you know ‘em when you smell ‘em, I mean, see ‘em. The in-betweeners like Spank and I are becoming a rare breed, though mid-range Jucy vans like the one we rented for $2,500 for six weeks are pretty common (renting one also comes with the very serious duty of waving happily and flashing your lights every time you pass another bright green and purple van on the road #jucytribeforlife). Still, there aren’t a whole lot of 30-somethings out on the road, which is exactly why we excitedly accepted the offer of Jaeger shots from a pack of four American guys in Queenstown—uh, only someone who hit their drinking prime in the early 2000s orders Jaeger shots; it’s basically a telltale sign of someone well on his or her way toward a midlife crisis. That and getting way too amped when 50 Cents “In Da Club” comes on at the pub.

Aside from the upgrade in van sizes, New Zealand has cracked down a bit on freedom camping. We went back to some of our old off-the-road parking spots and they now have “No overnight camping” signs in where we once set up our picnic table and chairs. It’s sad, but I understand that they don’t want tourist dumps all over the place. I don’t blame them one bit, especially considering most tourists are from the city and don’t know how to properly dispose of their dumps. I mean, hello, have you ever been to San Francisco? If not, this is your courtesy warning: Watch your step; that wasn’t Fluffy.

Better beer

No, we didn’t just drink Jaeger shots and Sauvignon Blanc on this NZ trip. We also dabbled in hops, and what we found were IPAs and APAs and, heaven forbid, Sour Gose! That’s right, New Zealand has arrived on the beer scene. Just five years ago you were lucky to find anything other than a pilsner or lager—think Bud and Coors. Not only are their beers more varied now, but they’ve got the whole locale down. In Wanaka we stumbled on the brewery Rhyme & Reason bumping 90s gangsta rap and sandwiched next to a CrossFit gym in the industrial part of town. Wait, are we in America??

More rich people—more people, in general

With the campervan shift comes a shift in the demographic. Not only are there more travelers, but there are just more people in New Zealand than when Spank and I first visited a decade ago. It’s one of those heartbreaking realities when your special little spot is discovered by the masses. Thanks a lot Frodo. I blame you and your hairy, hobbit feet. You just had to go tramping all over Aeotera pretending it was Middle Earth and showing everyone how raw and unique it was. “Frodo!” (*In the voice of Jerry Seinfeld cursing his nemesis Newman.)

There aren’t just more people; there are more people with coin to throw down. They put a Louis Vuitton on the Queenstown waterfront overlooking Lake Wakatipu for sobbing out loud. Bleh. And, the housing market has followed suit. There are new houses and condos being built by the Chinese tourist busloads, which is to say there are a lot and they just keep coming. And, we heard a Kiwi throw out a figure like “the average Kiwi makes $40,000 and the average house is $1 million.” There went our dreams of buying a house in New Zealand—it’s as bad, or worse, than the California housing market right now. Plus, the Kiwis apparently passed legislation to keep us outsiders from buying property. Again, I can’ blame them. They are struggling dearly to keep their Kiwiness in tact, and having one hell of a time doing it.

It’s lost a little luster

All this to say that New Zealand will always have a special place in our hearts, but it has lost a little of its luster. It probably didn’t help that we hiked in the Himalayas and Chile’s Torres del Paine then drove the Canadian Rockies to Alaska and back two years ago; those sights didn’t totally trump the natural gems of NZ, but they did give it a good run for its money.

One more thing: There are still sandflies...and I still hate them.

Still, a lot has remained the same...

Natural beauty and Kiwis ideas of conservation

People love to idealize Kiwi concepts of conservation without really understanding them. Sure, they want to preserve their native species, but the ones that aren’t native? You dead. I mean, they mow down red deer, tahr, opossum and stoat with extreme prejudice. Good for them. Kiwis realize which critters were here and which ones were brought over later on, and they don’t try to protect the ones they knowingly brought over. They could care less about those, really. Plus, they aren’t too proud to say, “Yeah, we screwed up when we were trying to play God.” Americans, however, tend to want to protect everything—native or non-native. In every hut along the Routeburn Track we heard about the nuisance of the stoat and the traps set out for them. The hut wardens were unapologetic about snapping their little stoat necks to save the precious native birds; I admired their transparency and lack of political correctness.

Kiwis also treat timber as a renewable resource, a crop that is cut down and replanted. Drive around and you’ll see neatly lined rows of Douglas Fir all the same height ready for harvest one day. It’s like one giant tree farm. Again, we want to save, save, save to the point that a fire comes along and happily gobbles up the whole lot that has not been thinned or taken care of, and boom, it’s gone just like that, but that’s another soap box for another time. Don’t worry, I won’t even touch immigration or gun control with a 10-foot pole right now.

Of course, what I love the most about New Zealand is the natural beauty, and though the throngs of people ruin that for me a bit, you can still escape and get off the beaten path and away from the masses. It’s all about choosing places that aren’t listed on every tourist site (i.e. the Hooker Valley Track at Mt. Cook that was just overrun with people) and choosing longer hikes (the longer the hike the fewer people up for the challenge, which means more high-altitude sights all to yourself!)

Incredible amount of access to the outdoors

Despite the restrictions on some freedom camping, there is still so much access to the outdoors. You can’t throw a stone and not hit one of those little yellow and green Department of Conservation signs. You see them wherever you go, and they signify a track or conservation camping area but most of them mark out tracks aka hiking trails. New Zealand just recently opened a nearly 2,000-mile thru-hiking trail from the North to the South Island on top of the huge amount of trails they already have. They continue to add new Great Walks, all of which have fantastic hut systems for overnighting backpackers. In total, New Zealand has nearly 1,000 huts so people can explore and enjoy the outdoors.

Kindness of Kiwis

I hope they never lose this, but as countries “progress” toward consumerism and what ultimately just feels like the almighty goal of Americanness and thus sameness, people seem to care less for each other and more about getting ahead. I still didn’t feel that overwhelmingly in New Zealand, but it’s a slow fade. It sneaks in. Plus, we spent next to no time in the larger cities, where I tend to feel that fade the most. All in all, we still sense that Kiwi hospitality. Backpackers still hitchhike without fear of being abducted or mugged and they still open their homes to perfect strangers, as we experienced with the gracious Kiwi couple from Nelson that we met at the Hokitika Wild Food Fetival amongst another group of friendly Kiwis. Even in Queenstown, where there are very few born-and-raised Kiwis, we met a group of timber guys (i.e. loggers) from NZ and hit it off right away. Before even speaking they were buying us a favorite spirit and cozying up next to the fire with us for a chat about politics, which went rather well, considering we shared many of the same views. I just hope these Kiwis can withstand the change of time and not end up on the endangered list like their national bird.

[pixiealtaira]

Take to the Trees

Hummel Holidays prompt 8 2016: nature/trees

pairing: Kurt and Elliot friendship, not Blaine friendly even though technically still Kurt/Blaine relationship. 

Note: my goal for the 2016 prompts was all Kurt/Adam...and then this popped up as the first go, so i wrote it and then wrote the Kurt/Adam story. So everyone can have an extra!

Kurt Hummel couldn’t claim to be an outdoorsy type of person, really.  It wasn’t his favorite activity choice.  He’d rather go to the theater or shopping. He was fond of hotels and room service.

That said, Kurt Hummel also was not a stranger to the outdoors in the grand scheme of things. His dad had dragged him off camping every summer of his life until his dad got involved with Carole and was too busy to go.  His dad dragged him off hunting three times in the fall.  They went bow hunting, they went bird hunting and they went deer hunting with guns.  Kurt did his level best to never hit anything and his dad and whoever they were with let him avoid field dressing anything.

There was one season he liked it outside, though.  Kurt Hummel liked winter.

He liked coats and hats and gloves and scarves.  He liked boots.  He liked crisp feel of the air.  He liked the sound of leaves and then snow as he walked through them.

He liked ice skating and sledding. He spent time at those activities rarely in his high school years.

Throughout high school he sometimes wondered if he should invite others to do outside things with him…go ice skating or sledding or hiking in the snow.  But most of the New Directions hated the snowy winter outside stuff so he never did.

It turned out a good thing.

If he’d thought the first Christmas in New York was bad, the second was one step away from being an utter nightmare and it started in October!

First, as much as Kurt liked winter and snow…he did not like slush and wet nasty streets.  He did not like power outages and he absolutely hated whining about any of it.

Blaine didn’t like winter…or maybe he did but didn’t like it in New York?  Kurt wasn’t sure. He just knew that Blaine hadn’t stopped complaining about the cold and his hair gel working badly in the freezing temperatures since it started.  Sam wasn’t too fond of the cold either.  Apparently the air mattress he was sleeping on didn’t keep him far enough away from the cold floor and the living room area was too drafty at night and Sam kept getting chilly.  Blaine took to sleeping next to Sam Mid October so he wouldn’t get too cold…instead of with Kurt.  However, even though Blaine wasn’t generally sleeping with Kurt, Kurt was NOT allowed to change the sheets to Kurt’s favorite wintertime sheets…flannel…because Blaine ONLY slept on cotton sheets, or satin or silk.

The second issue was…Blaine’s family started decorating their house for Christmas the first of November.  Blaine talked Rachel and Sam into decorating the loft…starting in mid-October.  Before Kurt was consulted, let alone given a chance to nix the idea, tinsel garlands and snowman and Santas had overrun the loft. Rachel talked Blaine into a Baby Blue fake tree, which they had covered in pink and gold ornaments. Kurt wanted to throw-up every time he entered the loft.  Blaine also liked singing stuffed things….the kind that started singing when anything around them moved.  Kurt couldn’t walk from the bedroom to the kitchen without setting off at least six.

The third issue was gift lists.  Rachel posted hers up in October and told everyone that since she had had such a hard year, everyone owed her at least five items from it.  Not a single item on it was under a hundred bucks.  Blaine, Sam and Santana took Rachel’s posting of her list as a signal to post their own and each reminded the others over the course of the next several weeks that they had had just as shitty of a year so deserved multiple items.  Kurt decided to post a list of his own, but his list always went missing within a day of being posted.  He never made any comment on them buying more than one item…he figured if the years previous were anything to go by he’d be lucky if any of them bought him anything.

Finally there were the travelling plans. It started with Rachel’s dads calling to cancel their family vacation but offering to send her on a cruise just herself.  Rachel didn’t want to go alone so she invited Santana…to make further peace, so to speak. So Santana and Rachel were off on a cruise to Mexico for a full week and then they both headed to Lima for another week. Then Sam’s family said they wished he could come home for Christmas…and Blaine decided to make that happen. Since Blaine was spending the money to help him get home, Sam invited Blaine to go with him…and Blaine accepted and invited Sam to go with him and his family on their family vacation to Disneyland.

Kurt’s parents decided that they would spend Christmas with Carole’s family…they were all going to Texas. Kurt wasn’t invited.

Fine and Dandy, Kurt figured after he found out Blaine lied to Kurt’s parents and said he was going with Blaine and Sam to Disneyland, so his dad and Carole didn’t even feel the least bit badly.

(“Of course I told Carole I was bringing you, too.  She would have thought it weird if I only brought Sam and then she would have fussed and I’d have felt bad and it would have ruined my whole vacation. They will never believe you didn’t go, so you should just remember to be silent about not being there….make shit up if they ask.” Blaine had insisted when Kurt asked him about why Carole and his dad thought he was off to California.)

Kurt called Elliot and asked if he knew of any place that was relaxing and far away from it all.

Elliot helped him book two weeks at the Yoga Retreat being held at a spa in the woods of Vermont, where Elliot was already slated to attend.

Kurt wasn’t sure what he expected, but the spa was centered around hot pools, which had been fixed up for year round use.  People stayed in small cabins which seemed more window than wall but due to massive fireplaces and thermal heat were always warm.  He and Elliot shared a cabin.

Mornings were spent doing yoga and on meditation exercises and swimming laps. Lunch was always sandwiches and soups, but in the two weeks there were there it was never the same soup, although Kurt had the same sandwich option a few times since the meat options weren’t as varied as the vegetarian.

Afternoons, though, were free after the single class offered after lunch.  Kurt went to several of them…there was one on finding the proper clothing options for yoga that was interesting and one on maintaining peace in your life that left him writing a thank-you note to the instructor, he had needed it so badly.

The spa offered spa packages, like other spas…massages and manicures and pedicures and the like, but they also offered outdoor activities.

Elliot liked the outdoor options as much as Kurt did.  One afternoon was a sleigh ride and another an informative walk through a syrup grove where they learned about tapping syrup. They went on a wine tasting tour and a historical building tour. They went on the local small art shop tour and Christmas shopping tour.  They got cross country skiing lessons and went ice skating. Several afternoons were spent in the hot pools and just relaxing and playing card games or chatting. And one afternoon was spent getting the spa’s full package treatment. Kurt loved it, but he was just as pleased with all the other offers.

Dinners were often hosted at different restaurants in the area. The spa sent a van out someplace different each night.  Kurt and Elliot went sometimes, but more than half the time they stayed at the spa. The main lodge’s restaurant had excellent meals, mostly vegetarian, but with a meat option each night and if you didn’t want to eat up at the restaurant, rooms service would deliver to the cabins.

The whole get-a-way was relaxing and delightful and energizing to Kurt’s body, soul, and mind.

They got home the day before anyone else did. Kurt washed all his stuff and spent the evening having band practice with Elliot and Dani.  The day all the rest got back, he went to work and went shopping for school supplies and groceries.  He wrapped gifts and sent those needing to be mailed off.  He set up for another band practice and made diner.

His loft mates all arrived at the same time…having all ended up on the same flight out of Columbus.

As Blaine and Rachel spilled in with their excess of luggage and Santana and Sam came in right behind, Kurt smiled and welcomed them home and told them diner would be ready in a half hour an Elliot and Dani would be over for band practice in two hours.

He listened to the whine about band practice and then listened as the all spoke about their vacations…right over the top of each other so he couldn’t really hear any of it well.

“How about you Kurt?” Blaine said. “Did you go out of your mind with boredom while we were gone?”

Kurt smiled. “No, I had a relaxing time. Did some yoga and shopping. Not much else though.”

With that, they rushed to the packages left out for them and babbled about what he got them.  Rachel of course also whined he didn’t get the exact items off her list, but what he got her would do.  Blaine asked why he didn’t have tons more, since he was Kurt’s fiancé. (Blaine hadn’t got him anything…he forgot.)  Only Sam asked where Kurt had actually bought the items from. Kurt just smiled and said he got them from a small art shop.

Kurt’s dad called before the band got to the loft and Kurt managed to talk about his vacation without lying at all.

And if Santana gave him an odd look when the band got there and they had a more in depth discussion on yoga and vegetarian foods that she thought he should be able to have…well, she liked her gifts too much to mention it.

[kyrstin]

howdy ho and good afternoon to everyone, @ana-matopoeia tagged me in this (and you’re right, ana, i not only tolerate these things but they’re basically my lifeblood and have been since myspace was a thing) (shit i should totally write an academic paper about surveys and their history and uses) (anyhoo) i tag @lethifolde and @frigidprimates​ if ur not too busy tara and anyone else who is reading this and feels like doing it feel free to use me as your excuse and tag me (why must we wait for people to tag us in these anyway. it’s a free country do what you want)

5 things you’ll find in my bag - water bottle - wallet - sunglasses at this time of year - my ipod - my keys

5 things you’ll find in my bedroom - a bunch of posters including three old-timey travel posters, a van gogh sunflowers print, and the classic ‘i want to believe’ that you can see in every single one of my selfies - my bed - my shitty small tv that i bought when my ex moved out and took the good one. it does that thing where the screen darkens when you look at it from the wrong angle?? and i’m always looking at the wrong angle from my bed - books that aren’t good enough for the main shelf in the living room - probably a cat or two at any given time

5 things i want to do - start my phd program already i mean summer’s half over today but i don’t want to do a whole other half - go visit my fam in ontario this week - reread the pjo and hoo series - meet some new people who aren’t the same 5-7 people i hang out with all the time - finish my novel wow i can’t believe i forgot that til number 5

5 things that make me happy - my cats - my family and friends - money - chocolate-covered nuts - people telling me i’m good and attention in general

5 things i’m currently into - the whole riordanverse i’m right back in all that - i’ve been listening to tswift a lot lately, specifically red bc i listened to “state of grace” the other day bc that album was new when i first got into pjo and SOG is obv a jason grace song and then i just kinda kept listening to the whole album and now i’m listening to “the moment i knew” atm - this piece of cold pizza from last night that i’m eating for lunch from this place near stacey’s that she took me to that’s cheap and honestly some good fuckin pizza, better than domino’s, great cheese - more reading and writing less being on this website - playing agar.io again bc i’m a useless human being (i just won my game a few mins ago tho so)

5 things on my to-do list - today, plan scene 22 (!!!!!!) of my novel, then i think my friends are coming over later - need to do laundry before i leave - my mom’s making me use the skills i learned in college to do some online shit for her business - go to the volunteer meeting on monday - buy plates for this bbq we’re having on tuesday

[shrubforhire]

All 65 questions

65 Questions You Aren't Used To

Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? No, I believe ppl when they tell me they exist

On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? 2

The person you would never want to meet? Trump

What is your favorite word? Flustered

If you were a type of tree, what would you be? Cherry tree

When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? Yikes thats me

What shirt are you wearing? An adventure time shirt lmao someone else gave it to me i swear

What do you label yourself as? 3.99

Bright room or dark room? Bright room,, i need the free vitamin D

What were you doing at midnight last night? Probably playing exploding kittens lmao look it up its fun

Favorite age you’ve been so far? Being 11 was probably pretty solid, I would say 4 but I think thats cheating bc i dont remember it

Who told you they loved you last? My mom hell yea

Your worst enemy? God

What is your current desktop picture? Grunkle Stan’s floating “I eat kids” blimp across a scenic landscape

Do you like someone? Eh, not really

The last song you listened to? Dissolve by Absofacto

You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? I guess Jeff Bezos but I might as well just write [insert billionaire]

Who would you really like to just punch in the face? Isaac for sending me this

If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? Jeff Bezos, I would have him redistribute his wealth

What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional) Ppl usually say my hair

If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? I’d probably look like a fuckin manlet if I were 5 foot. But this question implies I get to choose what I look like, in which case I would be 5′7″ and buff as shit and I would spend all day hitting on straight girls

Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? I can make my eyes shake lmao

What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? Sometimes when I open the toilet im like ooh i hope no ones in there

You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. salami mustard and cucumber on baguette dont fuck with me

You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? Guitar!!!!!

You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? NY babeyyyy

An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be? I dnt even care abt the brand, just hard cider

You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? Be nice 2 me

What is your favorite expletive? fuck

Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? My bass bc im borrowing it so id be fucked lol

You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? My dad being alive rofl

You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! hawaii,,, infinite vitamin D

The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? My moms dad, he seemed like he’d be chill and she misses him a lot

What was your last dream about? I don’t remember lol

Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]? Im not a good anything

Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? Yea

Have you ever built a snowman? Ive built a shitty pile of show garbage, but i’ll say yes

What is the color of your socks? Pink n gray!

What type of music do you like? Folky poppy musical theatre pop rock synth guitars

Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? Sunrises

What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Choccy milk

What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer) I support the right to choose (for football)

Do you have any scars? I got 1 on my cheek

What do you want to be when you graduate? Happy

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Give myself 17 years of dance training so I’d be a god

Are you reliable? I think so

If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? Did you figure it out?

Do you hold grudges? oooooh it depends. yes and no. i hold grudges in v specific situations and i give a 4 year rule where u get a second chance 

If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? puppy plus bird. sofd.

What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? all of them. ive had multiple conversations w different ppl abt what it would be like if a guy wore a strap on for sex and he had 2 dicks but he used the strap anyways lol

Are you a good liar? not at all

How long could you go without talking? i am so bad at it, i can barely go on vocal rest bc i dont shut the fuck up

What has been you worst haircut/style? I’ve had almost the same hair my whole life and its all been pretty tame. Im gonna say when i half sprayed my hair pink in middle school when i tried to cosplay fluttershy bc that was HORRID

Have you ever baked your own cake? hell yea, i baked a 3 layer cake once

Can you do any accents other than your own? I “do” southern, british, russian, jersey. whether i do them well is another question

What do you like on your toast? Avocado babeyyyyyy

What is the last thing you drew a picture of? I think it was a cat

What would be you dream car? A BIG ASS VAN THAT FITS LIKE 13,000 PEOPLE

Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. Yes. Define unusual ;))))) just kidding lmao

Do you believe in aliens? Idk, it doesnt rly keep me up at night. if i saw some aliens id be like lit

Do you often read your horoscope? v rarely

What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? idk fuckin Q i guess

Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? Dragons. something spicier abt them

What do you think about babies? What do they think about me? Have they been talking about me??

Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of. haha idiot u forgot to add an end question oh wait you guys dont read these you just ask all of them blindly fuck u guys

[adambstingus]

5 Directors That Should’ve Stopped After One Movie

Some filmmakers are like marathon winners; they stay consistently strong and fast for an inconceivable amount of time, and when they finish, you are left inspired by their existence. And some directors have careers like my performance in my second grade’s three-legged race. I fell at the start, busted my nose open, and writhed on the ground for a while as my partner walked away from me. The following five directors did similar things in their own metaphorical three-legged races. What began as a burst of glorious potential devolved into something hideous and often embarrassing.

5

Zack Snyder With Dawn Of The Dead

Zack Snyder has always been the Mountain Dew Code Red to Christopher Nolan’s iced coffee. They both direct grand adventure movies, but while Nolan’s philosophy is that of the kid in the back of the freshman year writing class with the scarf, Snyder’s is frat bro existentialism. Snyder is pretty great at examining the darkness that lurks in the hearts of men, but only when those men are grunting at each other, “HOLD ME BACK BEFORE I LAY THIS MOTHERFUCKER OUT, DUDE”-style. In any other case, it’s a toss-up. For example, in Watchmen, he totally got the plight of radioactive superman Dr. Manhattan. But the only female on the team, Silk Spectre, was shot like she was in an impromptu Axe Body Spray commercial.

Read Next

5 Superhero Movies That Are Only Worth It For One Scene

The only movie that Snyder has done that’s consistent throughout is his first, the 2004 Dawn Of The Dead remake. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a bunch of people being eaten by zombies at the mall. It’s also fantastic in a way that few remakes actually are, mainly because it does not seek to replicate or expand upon the original. A lot of times in horror remakes, directors try to cram in “answers” to questions that they think viewers have, which totally robs the movies of their potency. We’re scared of the things we don’t know. When we say “Oh, man. He uses a chainsaw? What the hell?” we don’t want the director to respond with, “Well, he got his chainsaw from the old slaughterhouse he used to work at.” There’s nothing terrifying about learning where Freddy Krueger shops for his sweaters.

Instead of that route, Snyder actually chops off any of the rough edges of the source material. The original ends with a bunch of bikers attacking the mall that the heroes are in, which leads to a lot of cool gore effects, but bites the face off of the movie’s sense of pacing. It robs us of the intimate climax that Dawn Of The Dead could’ve built to. Snyder’s version doesn’t have that problem, as it’s a horror/action film from the very beginning. Sure, it’s not as satirical as the original, but it doesn’t need to be. Snyder is not interested in creating a horror film that’s also an allegory. The zombies don’t have to represent anything. They can get by when they’re just being spooky zombies. Constantly reminding me that “The real villain … is man” is the best way to get me to hate both zombies and English teachers.

Sadly, Zack Snyder’s next project would be 300, which had cool action scenes but was the movie equivalent of a guy whispering motivational quotes to himself in the mirror at the gym. And since then, all of his films have either been bloated epics or that thing about warrior owls. It’s a shame. Because when Snyder makes films that aren’t really about anything other than what’s on screen, he shines.

4

Terrence Malick With Badlands

Terrence Malick is the #1 “Well, I appreciate his work” director in the world. “Well, I appreciate his work” directors are a rare breed, as they’re usually either obsessively loved or “appreciated.” And by “appreciated,” I mean “I know a lot of time probably went into putting all of those pretty colors on screen, so I can’t hate this one too much.” I truly appreciate Terrence Malick, even though his films feel like staring matches with an old computer’s screen saver.

His first film, though, is a refreshing take on a genre that needs all of the fresh takes that it can get. Badlands is a serial killer movie, and the biggest problem with the serial killer subgenre is that very rarely do such films actually make us disgusted with a serial killer. Instead, we marvel as the killer says awesome quips and performs super sweet serial killer melee moves. Silence Of The Lambs is a great movie, but it’s hard to feel bad about a guy who eats other guys when he’s Jason Bourne-ing his way out of police custody. Yeah, the hero should be the person who hasn’t wantonly killed multiple innocent people, but I saw the killer do a double backflip off the diving board once, so my vote is set.

Badlands makes serial killing look really awful. Like, “Dude in front of you doesn’t know how to work the self-checkout lane” awful. It’s the story of a 15-year-old girl who becomes enamored of a 25-year-old man, and then gets swept up in a life of theft, violence, and cross-country travel when he decides to start murdering South Dakota. So we see the killer through her eyes, and as her opinion of him grows sour, any chance that we have of admiring Martin Sheen’s sweet bangs slowly evaporates too. Sheen is a shitty dude in this one. Like, “Friend who doesn’t put your Blu-ray back in its case and instead just lays it bottom-side-down on the floor” shitty.

3

Roland Emmerich With Universal Soldier

From the mid ’90s to the present, Roland Emmerich has been a constant source of the loud and mediocre (Independence Day, White House Down, Stargate), the loud and dull (Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012), and the loud and very, very historically inaccurate (The Patriot, 10,000 BC, Anonymous, Stonewall). He is the “Hold my beer” to Michael Bay, and no matter what trends are popular in Hollywood or how financially successful his previous film was, we can always count on Emmerich to deliver something that somehow damages the intellectual standard of the explosion.

Emmerich started as a filmmaker in Germany, and most of the films that he made there are either impossible to find in America or were released years later and just on video. His first American film to receive a theatrical release was Universal Soldier, which features Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme as soldiers who get resurrected to become … universal soldiers? I’m not sure what the “universal” thing means, but I guess it’s because, now that they’ve been brought back to life, they’re not limited by the earthly definition of “kicking ass.” They can now kick all the ass in the universe. Side note: This theory is remarkably unconfirmed.

For Emmerich, Universal Soldier is amazingly subtle. And that’s not just because Van Damme is given the emotional range of a yam in this film. It’s mostly a big chase movie, and not just the typical Emmerich “Leave nothing in this major American metropolis un-fireballed” fare. Van Damme and his reporter girlfriend stop in a town, Lundgren catches up to them and shouts, Van Damme escapes, and Lundgren responds with more heavily accented shouting. Compared to Emmerich’s other stuff, Universal Soldier is Driving Miss Daisy.

I don’t know if “limiting the scale” is the key to fixing Emmerich, as he doesn’t have much luck in crafting personal tales. So maybe the key is Dolph Lundgren. Maybe Emmerich made a movie that was one big combustion, but Lundgren absorbed it all, and then released that energy by yelling. I’m no professor, but I think the science works out.

2

Seth MacFarlane With Ted

Seth MacFarlane is a comedy titan. Not satisfied with ruling Fox’s TV animation division, he’s also branched out into movies. And he’s made three so far: Ted, A Million Ways To Die In The West, and Ted 2. Guess how many of those were pretty solid? A hint is hidden in the title of this column.

Ted, the story of Mark Wahlberg and a talking stuffed bear, has some heart in it. There are plenty of movies about dude friends who have problems with each other whenever one of them gets in a serious relationship. They want to drink beer and fart out their dicks, but SHE likes organizing the apartment! Whatever will they do? Ted is still crass, but in centering the conflict around Wahlberg not wanting to abandon a literal stuffed bear, it truly nails home how infantile the whole “bros before respectable type-A females” struggle is. You can still have a fun life and chill with your bear, even if you’re married. And those who don’t understand that are the true dick-farters.

After Ted, MacFarlane made A Million Ways To Die In The West, which most closely resembles those Leslie Nielsen jokes-every-ten-seconds comedies, with the problem being that MacFarlane doesn’t have the warm presence of Nielsen. Nielsen was the comedy genre’s beloved uncle, while as an actor, MacFarlane is still its odd half-cousin. Ted 2 is about teddy bear rights, which expands a few jokes into a two-hour movie. It never ends up being as funny or likable as Ted, and feels like it was made not because MacFarlane wanted to make it, but because a Hollywood executive decided that Ted 2 was their only means of finally getting a third Jacuzzi installed.

1

Eli Roth With Cabin Fever

I’m always hesitant whenever a horror director says they’re making a homage to a certain era of horror films. This is usually because they let the homage aspects outweigh the actually-being-a-good-movie aspects. “But it’s a homage to ’80s slasher films! It’s not supposed to be a masterpiece!” Yeah, but it’s supposed to be competent and somewhat exciting, instead of a 90-minute declaration that you’ve seen Sleepaway Camp multiple times.

One of the only really good ’80s homages is Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever, which is sort of styled after The Evil Dead, but mostly does its own thing. Now, Cabin Fever isn’t perfect. Eli Roth’s writing would actually peak with Hostel Part II, which is a statement that no man should be forced to make. But Cabin Fever feels less like a guy trying to remind you of how great 1983 was, and more like a guy who’s trying really, really hard to make a fun, gory horror flick. Plus, it manages to pull off some gross-out moments that are sincerely shocking. Even in the age of things like The Human Centipede trilogy, which is edgy middle-schooler humor brought to life, Cabin Fever can still make you feel weird.

Roth’s next film, Hostel, desperately wanted to be like one of the graphic Asian horror films that Roth is a fan of. The biggest difference is that stuff like Takashi Miike’s Audition and Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw The Devil manage to place interesting stories and dynamic characters around their torture setpieces. Roth’s characters are a couple of dumb guys, which is meant to say something about how young American adults kind of treat other countries like playgrounds that they can fuck in, but it mostly comes off as Roth needing characters who explicitly won’t grow or change, because an arc doesn’t really vibe with a drill to the chest.

Roth would later make The Green Inferno, a movie that I saw on opening day because I can’t be trusted with my own money or schedule, and his next movie is a Death Wish remake. Remember that series, the one about Charles Bronson putting bullets in crime and crime-related activities? I don’t know whose idea it was to give that movie to the guy whose most famous scene involves cutting someone’s Achilles tendons, but I feel like it might have been a bad call.

Daniel has a Twitter. Go to it. Enjoy yourself. Kick your boots off and stay for a while.

Watch Independence Day right here if you’re a true American, and get one of the cool aliens in adorable Funko form and pity Daniel Dockery for hating everything amazing in the world.

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Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. A young woman from the trailer park and her very smelly cat. Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, a new novel about futuristic shit, by David Wong.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-directors-that-shouldve-stopped-after-one-movie/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/177815193117

[samanthasroberts]

5 Directors That Should’ve Stopped After One Movie

Some filmmakers are like marathon winners; they stay consistently strong and fast for an inconceivable amount of time, and when they finish, you are left inspired by their existence. And some directors have careers like my performance in my second grade’s three-legged race. I fell at the start, busted my nose open, and writhed on the ground for a while as my partner walked away from me. The following five directors did similar things in their own metaphorical three-legged races. What began as a burst of glorious potential devolved into something hideous and often embarrassing.

5

Zack Snyder With Dawn Of The Dead

Zack Snyder has always been the Mountain Dew Code Red to Christopher Nolan’s iced coffee. They both direct grand adventure movies, but while Nolan’s philosophy is that of the kid in the back of the freshman year writing class with the scarf, Snyder’s is frat bro existentialism. Snyder is pretty great at examining the darkness that lurks in the hearts of men, but only when those men are grunting at each other, “HOLD ME BACK BEFORE I LAY THIS MOTHERFUCKER OUT, DUDE”-style. In any other case, it’s a toss-up. For example, in Watchmen, he totally got the plight of radioactive superman Dr. Manhattan. But the only female on the team, Silk Spectre, was shot like she was in an impromptu Axe Body Spray commercial.

Read Next

5 Superhero Movies That Are Only Worth It For One Scene

The only movie that Snyder has done that’s consistent throughout is his first, the 2004 Dawn Of The Dead remake. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a bunch of people being eaten by zombies at the mall. It’s also fantastic in a way that few remakes actually are, mainly because it does not seek to replicate or expand upon the original. A lot of times in horror remakes, directors try to cram in “answers” to questions that they think viewers have, which totally robs the movies of their potency. We’re scared of the things we don’t know. When we say “Oh, man. He uses a chainsaw? What the hell?” we don’t want the director to respond with, “Well, he got his chainsaw from the old slaughterhouse he used to work at.” There’s nothing terrifying about learning where Freddy Krueger shops for his sweaters.

Instead of that route, Snyder actually chops off any of the rough edges of the source material. The original ends with a bunch of bikers attacking the mall that the heroes are in, which leads to a lot of cool gore effects, but bites the face off of the movie’s sense of pacing. It robs us of the intimate climax that Dawn Of The Dead could’ve built to. Snyder’s version doesn’t have that problem, as it’s a horror/action film from the very beginning. Sure, it’s not as satirical as the original, but it doesn’t need to be. Snyder is not interested in creating a horror film that’s also an allegory. The zombies don’t have to represent anything. They can get by when they’re just being spooky zombies. Constantly reminding me that “The real villain … is man” is the best way to get me to hate both zombies and English teachers.

Sadly, Zack Snyder’s next project would be 300, which had cool action scenes but was the movie equivalent of a guy whispering motivational quotes to himself in the mirror at the gym. And since then, all of his films have either been bloated epics or that thing about warrior owls. It’s a shame. Because when Snyder makes films that aren’t really about anything other than what’s on screen, he shines.

4

Terrence Malick With Badlands

Terrence Malick is the #1 “Well, I appreciate his work” director in the world. “Well, I appreciate his work” directors are a rare breed, as they’re usually either obsessively loved or “appreciated.” And by “appreciated,” I mean “I know a lot of time probably went into putting all of those pretty colors on screen, so I can’t hate this one too much.” I truly appreciate Terrence Malick, even though his films feel like staring matches with an old computer’s screen saver.

His first film, though, is a refreshing take on a genre that needs all of the fresh takes that it can get. Badlands is a serial killer movie, and the biggest problem with the serial killer subgenre is that very rarely do such films actually make us disgusted with a serial killer. Instead, we marvel as the killer says awesome quips and performs super sweet serial killer melee moves. Silence Of The Lambs is a great movie, but it’s hard to feel bad about a guy who eats other guys when he’s Jason Bourne-ing his way out of police custody. Yeah, the hero should be the person who hasn’t wantonly killed multiple innocent people, but I saw the killer do a double backflip off the diving board once, so my vote is set.

Badlands makes serial killing look really awful. Like, “Dude in front of you doesn’t know how to work the self-checkout lane” awful. It’s the story of a 15-year-old girl who becomes enamored of a 25-year-old man, and then gets swept up in a life of theft, violence, and cross-country travel when he decides to start murdering South Dakota. So we see the killer through her eyes, and as her opinion of him grows sour, any chance that we have of admiring Martin Sheen’s sweet bangs slowly evaporates too. Sheen is a shitty dude in this one. Like, “Friend who doesn’t put your Blu-ray back in its case and instead just lays it bottom-side-down on the floor” shitty.

3

Roland Emmerich With Universal Soldier

From the mid ’90s to the present, Roland Emmerich has been a constant source of the loud and mediocre (Independence Day, White House Down, Stargate), the loud and dull (Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012), and the loud and very, very historically inaccurate (The Patriot, 10,000 BC, Anonymous, Stonewall). He is the “Hold my beer” to Michael Bay, and no matter what trends are popular in Hollywood or how financially successful his previous film was, we can always count on Emmerich to deliver something that somehow damages the intellectual standard of the explosion.

Emmerich started as a filmmaker in Germany, and most of the films that he made there are either impossible to find in America or were released years later and just on video. His first American film to receive a theatrical release was Universal Soldier, which features Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme as soldiers who get resurrected to become … universal soldiers? I’m not sure what the “universal” thing means, but I guess it’s because, now that they’ve been brought back to life, they’re not limited by the earthly definition of “kicking ass.” They can now kick all the ass in the universe. Side note: This theory is remarkably unconfirmed.

For Emmerich, Universal Soldier is amazingly subtle. And that’s not just because Van Damme is given the emotional range of a yam in this film. It’s mostly a big chase movie, and not just the typical Emmerich “Leave nothing in this major American metropolis un-fireballed” fare. Van Damme and his reporter girlfriend stop in a town, Lundgren catches up to them and shouts, Van Damme escapes, and Lundgren responds with more heavily accented shouting. Compared to Emmerich’s other stuff, Universal Soldier is Driving Miss Daisy.

I don’t know if “limiting the scale” is the key to fixing Emmerich, as he doesn’t have much luck in crafting personal tales. So maybe the key is Dolph Lundgren. Maybe Emmerich made a movie that was one big combustion, but Lundgren absorbed it all, and then released that energy by yelling. I’m no professor, but I think the science works out.

2

Seth MacFarlane With Ted

Seth MacFarlane is a comedy titan. Not satisfied with ruling Fox’s TV animation division, he’s also branched out into movies. And he’s made three so far: Ted, A Million Ways To Die In The West, and Ted 2. Guess how many of those were pretty solid? A hint is hidden in the title of this column.

Ted, the story of Mark Wahlberg and a talking stuffed bear, has some heart in it. There are plenty of movies about dude friends who have problems with each other whenever one of them gets in a serious relationship. They want to drink beer and fart out their dicks, but SHE likes organizing the apartment! Whatever will they do? Ted is still crass, but in centering the conflict around Wahlberg not wanting to abandon a literal stuffed bear, it truly nails home how infantile the whole “bros before respectable type-A females” struggle is. You can still have a fun life and chill with your bear, even if you’re married. And those who don’t understand that are the true dick-farters.

After Ted, MacFarlane made A Million Ways To Die In The West, which most closely resembles those Leslie Nielsen jokes-every-ten-seconds comedies, with the problem being that MacFarlane doesn’t have the warm presence of Nielsen. Nielsen was the comedy genre’s beloved uncle, while as an actor, MacFarlane is still its odd half-cousin. Ted 2 is about teddy bear rights, which expands a few jokes into a two-hour movie. It never ends up being as funny or likable as Ted, and feels like it was made not because MacFarlane wanted to make it, but because a Hollywood executive decided that Ted 2 was their only means of finally getting a third Jacuzzi installed.

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Eli Roth With Cabin Fever

I’m always hesitant whenever a horror director says they’re making a homage to a certain era of horror films. This is usually because they let the homage aspects outweigh the actually-being-a-good-movie aspects. “But it’s a homage to ’80s slasher films! It’s not supposed to be a masterpiece!” Yeah, but it’s supposed to be competent and somewhat exciting, instead of a 90-minute declaration that you’ve seen Sleepaway Camp multiple times.

One of the only really good ’80s homages is Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever, which is sort of styled after The Evil Dead, but mostly does its own thing. Now, Cabin Fever isn’t perfect. Eli Roth’s writing would actually peak with Hostel Part II, which is a statement that no man should be forced to make. But Cabin Fever feels less like a guy trying to remind you of how great 1983 was, and more like a guy who’s trying really, really hard to make a fun, gory horror flick. Plus, it manages to pull off some gross-out moments that are sincerely shocking. Even in the age of things like The Human Centipede trilogy, which is edgy middle-schooler humor brought to life, Cabin Fever can still make you feel weird.

Roth’s next film, Hostel, desperately wanted to be like one of the graphic Asian horror films that Roth is a fan of. The biggest difference is that stuff like Takashi Miike’s Audition and Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw The Devil manage to place interesting stories and dynamic characters around their torture setpieces. Roth’s characters are a couple of dumb guys, which is meant to say something about how young American adults kind of treat other countries like playgrounds that they can fuck in, but it mostly comes off as Roth needing characters who explicitly won’t grow or change, because an arc doesn’t really vibe with a drill to the chest.

Roth would later make The Green Inferno, a movie that I saw on opening day because I can’t be trusted with my own money or schedule, and his next movie is a Death Wish remake. Remember that series, the one about Charles Bronson putting bullets in crime and crime-related activities? I don’t know whose idea it was to give that movie to the guy whose most famous scene involves cutting someone’s Achilles tendons, but I feel like it might have been a bad call.

Daniel has a Twitter. Go to it. Enjoy yourself. Kick your boots off and stay for a while.

Watch Independence Day right here if you’re a true American, and get one of the cool aliens in adorable Funko form and pity Daniel Dockery for hating everything amazing in the world.

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Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. A young woman from the trailer park and her very smelly cat. Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, a new novel about futuristic shit, by David Wong.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-directors-that-shouldve-stopped-after-one-movie/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/5-directors-that-shouldve-stopped-after-one-movie/

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Day Three - Beijing

   We took a train to Beijing from Shanghai, and then had a cab driver in a large enough van to carry us and our belongings around escort us to the Great Wall of China.     At the base of the pass we were visiting, I grabbed a coffee and a Snickers bar. It was maybe 7:00AM and after the show and the second time shift in our travels, I was not ready for much activity. The barista drew a smiley face in the foam of my coffee. I sipped and snacked and followed our bundled group out to the base of the stairs that led over the mountainous form of the Great Wall.    

   Juyongguan Pass is one of the three most famous passes of the Great Wall. There are a dozen or so ‘outpost’ like structures along the million-stair path that you can enter and climb. The vantage was breathtaking. The distance between each stair was never the same. Their heights were inconsistent. It made traveling up them even more tiring. Coupled with the fact that it was entirely freezing, it was not an easy hike. I took hundreds of photos, had a handful taken of myself, and Dave, Jeremy, and I reminisced on the history of the band and tried to wrap our heads around how the hell we got here. Carmen, Cody, and Will decided to make a full loop of the pass, and I opted to hang at the 500-some stair level. In hindsight, why the hell didn’t I just keep going?    

   Not too far above where I had decided was the farthest I needed to venture, we perused a souvenir shop built into the Great Wall. I grabbed a bunch of things here. Christmas, after all, was only a month away. I was starting to feel the pinch in my wallet and in the space of my roller-duffel and didn’t end up getting myself anything in particular to remember this moment. I also started to wonder how long the loop was that my friends had embarked on.     We made our way down to the parking lot again and waited for the gang to arrive. They showed up, climbing up some unrelated wall and onto the road in front of the visitor center. Cody and Carmen had snagged actual pieces of the wall or some outpost to bring home with them. Dumb American tourists, all of us.     Some time later, we got into town. Another 7 Days Inn awaited us. We somehow avoided Mark for a significant period of time and made our way down a series of streets to find a place to eat that we had seen on the way in - Satin’s Pizza. To this day, I’m not sure if they intended for it to be Satin or Satan, but either way, they had incredible pizza. It came in a skillet, personal pan-size, and it was nearly the best food I’d tasted in weeks. Of course, I tried my best to enjoy the culture and the cuisine of Japan and China, but no mystery dumpling could satisfy the cravings for creature comfort. I think we pledged to not tell Mark we had gone there if he asked, so that we wouldn’t insult his choice in restaurants.

   In Beijing, we were billed much more appropriately than at the Shanghai show. There were more locals, and more importantly, a crowd. The venue had to have had about 200 people in it, and it was right down the street from our hotel. Scrawled across the wall of the green room was the logo for the band “ISSUES” in thick sharpie, who I can only presume had had the pleasure of playing this venue at some point in their career. I tried to order myself a beer, but I learned that I had no idea how to pronounce Tsingtao. Fortunately, through some finger pointing and nodding, I ended up successful. For the uninitiated, Tsingtao is pronounced something like “shing-dow,” not “sing-tau” as I originally presumed.     I don’t know if there were just no bathrooms at the venue, or very poor ones, but I ended up walking to a public bathroom to take a piss after filling my bladder with the shitty beer. The aroma in that building was pungent, thick, and disgusting. The toilets were trowels in the floor, meant for squatting, and they were not, by any means, clean. It was a particularly disgusting experience. I decided I’d walk back to the hotel next time instead.     Back at the show, my eye was caught. There was a caucasian girl there. Bright blonde hair, lipstick, dressed like she was headed for Warped Tour. My heart raced. Finally, someone who I haven’t shared a vehicle with for two weeks who I can speak in conversational English with. She was talking to someone who I thought looked like they were playing in one of the bands that night in Chinese, so I waited and then sprung my question upon her.     “What brings you to China?”     She looked confused.  She responded, but I have no idea what she said. She replied to me in French. All I could muster was something like “oh! I thought you were American, too.” We did not keep this awkward interaction going. Defeated, I sauntered away to speak english with my friends again. Upstairs in the green room, Carmen was fiddling with a guitar strap that a local had let him borrow. For the life of him, he could not get it to stay on his guitar. We were all so used to straplocks and the assorted ways to keep our guitars attached to our bodies, but they were 3500 miles away. We’d just have to make do.     The show itself was incredible. We had an awesome response from the crowd, who almost seemed to know what we were playing. They were so gracious, and even kept us out for an encore. On stage, though, trouble was brewing, as Carmen’s borrowed gear was not holding up. When we finished the last song in our set and started to hear the calls for another song, or encore, or however the hell you say it in Chinese, Carmen stormed off stage and retreated to the green room.

   What the fuck? I thought it, maybe even out loud I said it. On stage, we were stunned. We made it look like we were going off stage for a quick huddle, but we booked it upstairs to console Carmen and get him to come out. This was the show we had been waiting for in China! Let’s go, man! Alas, Carmen refused to come back out on stage. We looked like stuck-up pricks when the chants for another song died without us returning to the stage, and instead heading to merch, where we could have minimal talks with the showgoers due to our obvious language barrier. Even as a translator in this case, Mark was decent, but not great.     We did, however, meet someone who had been following the band since the first album - the one that we had agreed to remove from digital circulation after signing with CI - and who wanted to buy a copy of it. This was the single most awesome moment of the tour in China, and maybe even Asia as a whole for me. Speak Frantic, a 10-song full-length recorded and released in 2010 digitally, was the piece de resistance of my Carousel Kings career. Here, in Beijing, China, a country with virtually no free access to the internet, someone had found that album, purchased or stole it, listened, and managed to follow the band through the years and then see them come play some four years later at the Mao Livehouse. We took a picture, loaded him with merch, signed anything and everything he wanted, and were elated to have ever met him. Thanks, Speak Frantic China Guy. You fucking rule.

    Did we go out later this night? I don’t know. I know the public bathrooms by the hotel stank to high heaven. The hotel itself, however, continued the trend of being as weird as everything else in China. I’d later find it to be the standard, but the bathroom in the hotel was not constructed with drywall, plaster, or concrete. The walls of the bathroom instead were a fuzzy glass, like you might expect on a shower door. That was weird enough, but when you walked in to the bathroom, you quickly realized that there was no separation whatsoever of the basic bathroom functions. First, a sink, attached to the wall. A toilet next to it. Above three feet beyond that, and six feet off the tile floor, was the shower head. No curtains, tubs, retention methods in the floor. Nothing. You could walk into the shower while you brushed your teeth, and guess what? Your roommate could all but watch. Not exactly what I picture as the pinnacle of privacy, but it was a step above the public disaster looming a block or so away. At least we had western-style toilets now.