#these were an hour and a half long and captions have been provided by her community

[assumptionprime]

Whooooo! This is a lot more than normal. If I do another of these in a year it’s not gonna be this long.

(More thoughts and a transcript below the cut.)

Also, I was tempted to hurt everyone (including me) by making the title a RENT reference. You're all welcome.

Have a bulleted list of other thoughts that I couldn't fit into the comic:

Everything in here is about my experiences specifically. My medications, my doses, my injection cycle, everything is specific to me and my body. Your body might handle a lot of these things differently! Nothing in here is medical advice. Please talk to a healthcare provider if it’s at all possible for you.

Moreover, obsessing over other trans people’s doses and hormone levels and results is never helpful. My first few months, any time I read something online about doses or results that differed from mine I’d fall into a rabbit hole of unnecessary anxiety, furiously googling for half an hour until I found something that reassured me that yes, I’m fine, and I’m going to get a good grade in HRT, something is both normal to want and possible to achieve.

Yes, the Spiro makes me pee a lot. It didn’t at first, but it turns out I was just not drinking enough water and was a bit dehydrated all the time. Whoops!

Yes, I sometimes get cramps that resemble period cramps. It’s weird, and sucks, but is not nearly as intense or frequent as people with uteruses deal with. (No stolen valor here)

Therapy can be really good, actually. The fact that so many doctors or governments require therapy before one can start hormones is bullshit, but if you can get a good therapist, it can be really helpful to unpack and process your feelings while transitioning, even if you don’t need a stupid letter where you live.

And perhaps most importantly: transition, medical or otherwise, isn’t a cure-all for depression. It’s helped me immensely, but that’s me. You’re not broken or failing your transition if going on hormones or changing your presentation doesn’t solve your depression. It only means you need to find what does help you. And there is something that can help.

Transcript/Description:

Comic, 7 Panels Panel 1: Robin leaning out from behind a panel "So! I've been on feminizing HRT for one year now. How'd that happen? How's it going?" Panel 2: A PDF file on its Table of Contents. Caption: I found my doctor through a local LGBTQ+ group's "Trans Best" list. It's a listing of local doctors and businesses that were recommended by other local trans people as trans friendly. Panel 3: A piece of paper that reads "she trans fr tho." Caption: I gave her a gender dysphoria diagnosis letter from my therapist, but I don't know that she needed it? We never talked about it, I just assumed it was necessary since many doctors need one. Panel 4: 2021 Robin, with the eggiest hair you've ever seen, talking with her doctor. Caption: We talked about what I wanted from transition, and if I had any specific medication questions. I said I wanted shots, she said if I was willing to do shots, she was willing to give them to me. Panel 5: 2021 Robin holding a prescription sheet. Caption: I had my prescription in hand! Panel 6: A neighborhood with snow dumped all over it. Caption: Then it snowed harder than it ever has since I started living here in Memphis, shipping was held up, and I had to wait another two weeks to get the meds! Panel 7: An irate Robin fumes, "...fucking inconvenience powder."

Comic, 1(?) Panel Robin hanging upside down from the top of the image says "Now, what do I actually take?"

(little pictures of medications beside their listings)

100mg Spironolactone daily (started at 50mg, upped to 100 after 2 months) - Anti-androgen, Blocks testosterone receptors; can lower testosterone production.

100mg Progesterone daily (added at 2 months) - Sort of a helper for estrogen in promoting physical changes; can lower testosterone production.

5mg Finasteride daily (added at 2 months) - Another anti-androgen, specifically promotes thinning of body hair, and stops or can partially reverse hair loss

5% Minoxidil foam once daily - It’s Rogaine. Yeah. My hair was Not Good.

2ml of 5mg/mL Depo-Estradiol injected intramuscularly every 10 days (started at 1 mL every 14 days, increased to 2mL at 2 months, increased to every ten days at 4 months) - The most important bit. Performs the more vital bodily functions that all that blocked testosterone is no longer doing, but more importantly, induces physical changes to feminize the body

Robin, now laying at the bottom of the image, speaks, "Remember, this is just my regimen. Your provider might prescribe different medications in different amounts, or start you on fewer types and add more over time. Talk with them about what you are and aren’t being prescribed and why."

Comic, 9 Panels Panel 1: Physical Changes (Or: the part everyone's here to read about) Robin in a cheerful pose, with little notations drawn on various parts of her. Panel 2: Skin. Robin poking her face. Caption: Softer and less oily. Minor, but nice! I didn't get much acne before, but I almost never get it now. Panel 3: Body Hair. A hairy forearm, next to a much, much less hairy one. Caption: It's thinner and much slower growing. I'm also getting laser hair removal, but this is still wonderful. Panel 4: A disappointed Robin rubbing her face, she mutters "Still scratchy..." Caption: It hasn't had the same effect on my facial hair, I'm sorry to say. Panel 5: Chest. Robin gesturing vaguely at her upper torso. Panel 6: Robin trying and failing to be nonchalant, says "It's... I mean... There's a little going on there, but it's not a huge change." Panel 7: Robin looking down at her chest, continues "I know it's supposed to take a while. And I have lost weight these past few months, which doesn't help, but..." Panel 8: Robin keeps looking down at her chest. Panel 9: Robin starts nudging her chest, and says "C'mon... Do Something..."

Comic, 8 Panels Panel 1: Fat Placement. Robin, hands on her waist, speaks, "But! Between the weight loss and hormones, I kind of have a waist now?" Panel 2: Past Robin lifting her shirt up slightly, and marvelling with starry eyes at her slightly curved waist. Caption: My spouse pointed it out to me one day and I was like: "Ohhhh! I do!" Panel 3: Muscle Mass. Robin waving her wiggly, weak arms shouting "ARMS! LIKE! NOODLES!" Panel 4: Robin huddled in a blanket. Caption: I get SO much colder now. I used to be a walking furnace, now if it gets below 70 in the house i need a blanket and long socks. Panel 5: Hair. Robin combing her hair. Panel 6: Pre-transition Robin examining the thinning hairline. Caption: Before hormones, my hair was falling out. It sucked. But I also though there was nothing I could do about it. Panel 7: Current Robin holding a bottle of medication and gesturing to her hair, speaks "But actually! I totally can do something about it, and I am, and it works!" Panel 8: Robin laying on her bed, smiling and kicking her feet, talking to herself "Yes yes yes!" Caption: When I first noticed the difference, I couldn't stop smiling for days.

Comic, 7 Panels Panel 1: Mood and Emotions. A joyful Robin surrounded by various hearts with faces and different emotions. (Yeah, a Super Princess Peach reference in 2022, only the best from me) Panel 2: A smiling robin leaning back in her Gamer Chair(tm) and holding a tablet pen thoughtfully to her cheek. Caption: After a while, my mood started to shift. I generally just... happier. Panel 3: Caption: I have bad days, sure. I'm not immune to falling into a slump. But my baseline for what "normal" feels like is so much higher than it used to be. "How are you doing?" A pretransition Robin face, with a somewhat down expression "I'm okay." a current Robin face with a little smile "I'm okay." Panel 4: Robin looking down into the lower half of the panel where pretransition Robin sits, looking annoyed/angry. "It's certainly a combo of HRT, therapy, and being happier with myself. But I'm not... frustrated all the time anymore. Panel 5: Robin steps in front of the previous panel, which is grayed out and paused like a VHS so I really show that I'm old. "Quick side note: There's this attitude among some transfems that testosterone makes you a zombie whose only emotion is anger, but I don't think that's the case. Panel 6: Robin continues, "I think that's the way a lot of depressed and repressed transfems feel and it fades as they transition, so they equate the two." Panel 7: Robin holds a vial of Estradiol to her cheek, gesturing to it as she speaks. "Tons of cis men and transmascs like the way testosterone makes them feel. And good for them! My precious estradiol makes them feel like shit! It's about what's right for you."

Comic, 7 Panels Panel 1: Caption: Anyway, before transition I still had other feelings, but I felt less... connected to them? I would feel happy when good things happened, but even on my best day as the old me, I never got so happy that I cried. An arrow labelled "Just married the love of my life" pointing to a pretransition Robin in a three-piece suit, smiling and looking pleased. An arrow labelled "Got a really sweet greeting card" pointing to a current Robin holding said card and wiping away tears with a big wobbly smile on her face. Panel 2: Robin gesturing sheepishly while speaking "And yeah, a lot of that sounds like it's because I'm no longer really depressed. And... true. But I do think having my right hormones is definitely playing a part in it. Panel 3: two big numbers, 14 and 10, Robin is pointing at the 10 while saying "You might have noticed back when I listed my medications that after a few months I moved from injections every 14 days to every 10 days." Panel 4: Past Robin laying down, looking anxious and upset. Caption: I had noticed that every now and then I'd have a run of crummy days out of nowhere. I just felt worse and would lie around and anxiously spiral. Panel 5: A calendar, with E vials on alternating Sundays. The Wednesdays through Saturdays before each vial are labelled "Feel Shitty" Caption: Took a look at a calendar and whaddaya know! It was always in the 3-4 days before my next injection. Panel 6: Caption: I brought this up with my doc and she said: (Doctor, speaking) "Let's move yo to injecting every 10 days, then. Panel 7: Robin holding the calendar, with no more red "feel shitty" zones on it, speaks "And poof! No more cycle of feeling shitty for half of every other week!

Comic, 8 panels: Panel 1: Robin speaking "The most important thing I've learned from a year of transitioning is this: It's not "all or nothing."" Panel 2: Gesturing more emphatically Robin continues: For a long time, I was stuck in this idea that transition is does a ton of work-" Panel 3: Closer to frame, she spreads her arms, looking worried. "That may not have the results I want-" Panel 4: Closer, looking more serious, "And after several years-" Panel 5: Closer, gesturing desperately, "And a lot of money-" Panel 6: Closer still, the panel edges are breaking, as she looks intense "If it's all gone perfectly-" Panel 7: Almost against the screen, panel cracked and jagged, pleadingly, desperately "Then I can maybe start being happy." Panel 8: Wide shot, Robin smiling and arms out shouts "But that's not what it is at all!"

Comic, cascade of no panel dialogue Robin, relieved and happy, speaks "Almost every step I’ve taken in my transition has made me feel better now, made me happier now. Some a little, some a lot." A list of various steps in transition from the past year with little smiley faces of different levels. Come out to friends, medium smile, Start hormones, big smile, New clothes! medium smile, Name change, big smile Robin gestures to herself, "And don't get me wrong, I definitely have goals for my transition. There's still a lot I want to do, and I have my worries." Robin gripping her upper arm and speaking, "But that paralyzing fear of reaching some "endpoint" of transition only to realize it was a "failure" was nothing but hurtful." Robin looking up toward the reader, holding up two fingers and smiling, "And I'm better of without it. All it did was keep me from discovering all that transition could do for me along the way. Here's to year two!"

[thefanficmonster]

Phone Call Anxiety

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: None

Genre: FLUFF, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: When wanting to make quality merch, one needs a quality team there to produce and work on quality ideas. Great minds think alike. Great eyes see alike and great hands make alike - the three keys to the formula of creating a clothing line that will be fashionable and up to his brand. Luckily, Corpse knows just who to call.

Requested by Anon. Hi hun! Thank you so much for your wonderful request, I absolutely loved the idea! Sorry you’ve had to wait for it to be turned into a fic for so long, but I still hope you come across it and give it a read in which case I hope you enjoy it! Love, Vy ❤

He’s not a fan of phone calls. Anyone who knows him even remotely is very well informed on Corpse’s distaste for phone calls and upholding a conversation over the phone. He’d even go as far as to say talking to a person face to face is less stressful for him than that previous option.

But still, seeing as how the person he’s trying to reach lives in a different state and is rather busy all the time, arranging an IRL meeting is basically impossible at the moment, and sending her a text results in running the risk of having the text overlooked or completely lost in the sea of notifications she probably gets on the daily.

Therefore, a phone call was his only proper way of reaching her. And it’s what’s got him pacing the room with his nervousness peaking.  He doesn’t know anything about this girl, nothing concrete at least. He was referred to her by Jack who brought her up in their passing conversation when Corpse mentioned how paranoid he was regarding his upcoming merch project. He specifically stated he doesn’t want anything basic and he wants the clothes to be fashionable, suitable for anyone no matter the age or gender and to be endurable. With all the love he has for his fans, he doesn’t want to give them anything less than what they deserve - the best.

“My friend’s the person you’re looking for.“ Jack said enthusiastically and confidently, “She helped me design the latest merch line I put out and I’ve never been more satisfied with my own merch. I’m planning on offering her a position in Cloak for her birthday. Make sure not to let that one slip out if you give her a call though.“ He warned half-jokingly. 

Bottom line, with that kind of intro, Corpse couldn’t help but let his interest be piqued. And so, he asked for this girl - Y/N’s contact info from Jack before he went to surf through her social media where she thankfully posted plenty of pictures of her creations, never failing to mention specifications in the caption of each picture so the viewers would get the perfect and most detailed idea of how high the standard for her work is.

And so he’s finally managed to talk himself into dialing her number that’s been sitting in his phone for weeks now. As he paces his living room, his nerves chewing him out like a dog would with a toy, listening to the ear piercing ring of the dial waiting to get picked up by the girl he’s trying to reach. 

Just then, Corpse’s head turns so that his eyes meet the glowing red numbers on his digital clock on his desk and he damn near hangs up the call right away - it’s half an hour past midnight. Fast as lightning, he removes the phone from his ear, his thumb flying over to press the red ‘end call’ button. Just then, a faint ‘hello’ reaches his ears, coming from the phone’s speaker. She’s answered the call.

He hurries to put the phone back up to his ear.

“Hey, sorry for taking so long to pick up, I ought to clean my desk eventually cause my phone was literally BURIED under a pile of papers.“ A cheerful sing-song voice rattles his stale and sleep deprived consciousness, as if awakening him from a half-dream state. “You’re either a wrong number caller or a last minute client, aren’t you? Need something done urgently?“

Corpse is taken the hell aback by her strong and downright awing first impression. Not to mention her energy at an hour unsuitable for calls. Lord knows he wouldn’t have picked up if her were in her spot. With the intention of not wasting any more of her time than necessary, he hurries to explain his situation. “Y/N, right? Um no, I’m neither actually. I was told about you by a friend, he said you were a real miracle-doer with fashion design.” He trails off for a second, not completely sure of how to hold this conversation, “Uh, sorry for the odd timed call, I lost track of time. I’ve been meaning to call you for hours now but I...I was nervous.” He cringes the second the word leaves his lips, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. He doesn’t know why he wants to leave her with a great, better than realistic impression of himself but he does and as of now he deems his attempts as ultimate failures.

He hears her giggle from her end, rifling through what sounds to be papers, “Yeah, I’m her. And boy is it refreshing to get someone who’s calling with an actual purpose.” She sighs as if a weight’s been lifted off her shoulders, “And don’t worry about the phone call anxiety. Makes two of us, to be honest.”

This catches him off-guard. The last thing he’d expect is for this girl to have phone call anxiety. In fact, she appears to be a natural, God-given talent at carrying conversations and upholding chit-chat with people. Maybe he’s a little too quick to judge - probably, considering he’s ‘known’ her for less than five minutes and knows nothing but her occupation, her name and the state she lives in - but that bubbly persona she greeted him with gave off the impression that it’s immune to any and all kinds of social anxiety - or anxiety in general. To hear such an honest and counter-to-assumptions confession on her part rattles him a tiny bit. In a good way though.

“How does that work for you? Isn’t your whole job depending on your phone conversational skills?“ He doesn’t mind that he didn’t phrase that too perfectly or that he straight up blurted it out. He knows he’ll be understood. She’s obviously a person who understands. Not just something specific, but everything. She simply understands. How he drew this conclusion and how accurate it is, he may not know until further notice.

“Well...“ she sighs as if genuinely looking to give him a proper answer, “You see, after doing it for so long and having been caught off guard quite a few times with some absolutely absurd orders, I’ve grown prepared of literally ANYTHING and I have a line prepared for anything the caller has to say. I just no longer let them catch me off guard and it’s fine. Helps avoid any possible awkward silences.“

Corpse’s eyebrows shoot up, her explanation only raising more questions rather than providing answers. But he’s not gonna be the annoying dumbass asking those questions at close to 1AM and bugging her. After all, if she agrees to this partnership, they’ll be hearing and potentially seeing a lot more of each other soon. “Impressive, honestly. You’re gonna need to teach me sometime.“ He’s unaware he’s smiling until he catches his reflection in the window. However, he doesn’t bother hiding it. This conversation is actually making him feel good, serving as a reminder that he’s not the only one who periodically goes through turmoil over small things. 

She giggles again, this time the sound manages to draw a blush out of him, coating his cheeks, “I’d typically stray for revealing my secrets to professional success, but I’m willing to make an exception for you...” she pauses for a second as though she’s just now remembered something, “Oh shoot, I don’t even know your name.”

He wheezes out a nervous laugh, realizing he never introduced him, “Oh yeah, sorry, that’s my bad. My name’s Corpse, nice to meet ya.”

“Nice to meet you too, Corpse.“ Y/N replies, sounding pleased but teasing simultaneously, “Now tell me, you didn’t call me about my phone call secrets, did you? What may be the real purpose of your call?“

Oh shoot, he himself almost forgot what he was calling for. Luckily, the reference designs displayed on his computer screen remind him. “Right, well, I’ve been thinking of launching a new merch line either this month or the next, depending on how long the procedure will take, and I needed someone great on my team to make some merch actually worth the money people are paying for it. And, as I said, I was told you were in that ‘someone great’ category.”

“Told by who, if you don’t mind me asking?“ She briefly cuts him off, her voice now giving away the fact that she’s half-absent-minded in this conversation, added evidence be the ruffling of more papers on her end.

“Jack. I mean, Sean. You know, Jacksepticeye.“ Corpse explains, contemplating whether he should’ve ratted Jack out like that. Hearing the sound of delight Y/N lets out eases his worries ASAP though.

“Oh Gosh, I haven’t seen that cutie in so long! He’s like a brother to me so a friend of Jack’s is a friend of min-“ this time she cuts herself off so abruptly Corpse thought the line was cut or she hung up on him. She doesn’t let him wonder for long though, “Wait, wait, wait....Merch? And you’re friends with Jack?“ She pauses for a second once again, once again not a long enough second for Corpse to speak up. “You’re a famous YouTuber, aren’t you?“

He was completely unaware of the fact Y/N hadn’t realized he was someone famous yet. In fact, he didn’t think of it because he thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to her considering she’s friends with Jack-fucking-septiceye! In his mind, his ranking is far lower than Jack’s - despite that mindset being absurd - so the last thing he expected was for her to have some sort of impressed reaction to have been talking to him on the phone this whole time. Hell, she doesn’t even know his full YouTube name or what kind of content he produces.

“WAIT!“ She shouts urgently, startling him a tiny bit, “You’re Corpse Husband, aren’t you? Oh my God, yes you are, how didn’t I put it together sooner? Ah crap, I really need more coffee for this.“

“No! No, you need more sleep.“ Corpse hurries to correct her but is very clearly ignored or overlapped with the many sounds that are coming from her end, “What are you doing?“

“You’re getting the first rough sketch of a design by tomorrow morning.“ She says, taking a sip of whatever beverage she’s acquired for the purpose of keeping her awake, “You go ahead and get some sleep, I know exactly what I’m doing. Don’t worry about it.“

“I’m not worried about the design.“ He hurries to say before she, God forbid, hangs up on him, “It’s 1AM, woman, you need sleep! I don’t need those designs done by tomorrow. Hell, I don’t even need them this week!“

“You don’t, but I do.“ Y/N says, sounding almost breathless because of what seems to be overwhelming excitement, “You don’t get it - I’m designing merch for Corpse fucking Husband! You have any idea how crazy that is?“

“I personally would say it’s underwhelming. I mean, I’m no Pewdiepie, after all.“ He says, now sat at his desk with his free hand rubbing his temple as he stares at the designs he’s pulled up on his screen, ones he probably won’t need given that he’s now working with a professional.

“Oh, shut it.“ She chuckles, “Shut it and get some sleep, ok? I’ll talk to you in the morning.“

“Noooo...“ He leisurely stretches the word, “Tell me, Y/N, do you have Discord?” She clicks her tongue instantly, giving him a signal that the question he’s asked is bordering into the territory of ridiculous. He playfully rolls his eyes, “Alright then, lemme find you. If we’re partnering up on this, we’re both staying up.”

“You know you can just straight up tell me you don’t fully trust me with this? Like, I won’t be offended, I get it.“ She murmurs in-thought, the sound of clicking evident on her end. 

“You know you can just straight up tell me you don’t want me bothering you and want me to leave you alone?“ He mimics her statement, smirking to himself as he pulls up Discord, knowing he’s already won.

She huffs and tells him her Discord info, quickly adding a small comment, “...but only because great minds think alike. I know we’ll be getting along on this design pretty nicely.”

“Yeah, yeah, right, sure, whatever you say.“ He laughs, “Accept my friend request and let’s drop this phone call.“

“Hey! - um, before we do that, I just wanna say a quick thank you.“ Y/N murmurs quietly, as if half-hoping he doesn’t hear her.

“For what?“ Corpse asks, his brows furrowing, unsure if they’re on the same page about this gratitude.

“For never once triggering my phone call anxiety.“ She admits, “I mean, I know I said I have lines prepared for every conversation scenario possible, but you totally caught me off-guard.“ She giggles a tiny bit, now sounding dangerously close to nervous, “But, not in a bad way, if that makes sense. Sorry if it doesn’t, I need more coffee.“

“No, no, it does!“ He hurries to reassure her, “It really does. And thank you too. Thank you for, you know, tolerating my BS at this hour. God knows I would’ve ignored your call if our roles were reversed.“

He hears her scoff and can’t help but laugh, “Huh ok, I see.“ She says, sounding greatly triggered and mock-pissed at his confession, “I’ll make sure to think of that next time you call me after midnight. Or at all, ever.“

Laughing his butt off, the only thing Corpse can think of in this moment is:

Damn, this girl and I are gonna get along

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[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

Whisky Secrets (sequel)

Here's something different. Before I ever thought about posting fanfic here, I used to write things inspired by fanfic I found by some of the incredible writers I found on tumblr. I've never posted any of them but I've really felt like writing something for Aleister Black/ Tommy End lately.

So I reached out to one of my original favourites on this site, @ghostofviperwrites and asked her if she'd mind if I published this sequel I wrote to her story Whisky Secrets. She gave me the ok (for which I thank her very much).

You absolutely have to read her piece first or this won't make any sense. It picks up literally at the point where hers leaves off and the entire premise is based on what she wrote. I think this goes in a very different direction than what she had in mind, though.

Since this is an old story, some of the characters are very different than they are now. It was set at around the time I wrote it. Based on events in the story, it's pretty clear when that was.

It's a bit dated but I hope you enjoy.

Pairing: Aleister Black x OFC (hints of Roman Reigns x OFC)

Word count: 7,031

Content advisory: graphic sexual content, language, incidental roughness that some might find stressful

You rested on the sofa for too long, knowing that you had to get to work, that you were already behind on an assignment that was due that afternoon. As much as you desperately wanted to cling to the scent and the feeling of him being there with you and the idea that he might someday want to be there with you for longer, you knew that you were only wasting time by indulging in a fantasy. Once again, you reminded yourself, he saw you as a friend, a landing pad after he was finished his adventures. And so you dragged yourself to the computer and tried to focus.

It was a fluff piece you’d been hired to write: places for new residents of Orlando to meet people. You’d accepted it because the pay was good and it had seemed easy. But what the hell did you know about meeting people? You’d barely met anyone and the only ones that you’d call friends were the ones you met when you’d done an in-depth profile on the WWE and their development territory NXT. Of those, only Aleister had remained close and even then, you couldn’t say that the two of you had ever properly opened up to each other. Nevertheless, you’d stayed in touch with a number of them, occasionally meeting for coffee or drinks. None of this was in any way useful when it came to recommending locations to connect with strangers.

You’d tried to start the article the day before but now when you opened the file, you discovered that you’d only come up with a half a dozen corny titles and one word of text:

When?

The word was too painfully appropriate.

When were you going to run out of luck and be unable to find further work as a journalist?

When were you going to admit that what kept you here, rather than moving to another state and pursuing more secure work, was the fact that you were in love with a man who was only interested in your capacity as a friend and caregiver?

When was your hopeless love going to break you beyond repair?

Annoyed with yourself, you deleted the word and tried to start again. You could meet people at the gym classes that were ubiquitous in this city. You could meet people at get-togethers for shared hobbies like hiking or pottery or basically anything. No one had to meet people by getting thrown into their orbit and being unable to extricate themselves.

About half an hour into your resentful hammering on the keyboard, you were startled by your doorbell. For one sweet instant, you imagined that it was Aleister dropping by to pass some time with you. Then you realized that he never came to you without an invitation unless it was dead drunk in the middle of the night. Even when you invited him, it was only every fourth or fifth time that you asked that he agreed to come over and watch a movie or go for a walk in the nearby park. There was no way it was him at your door at eleven o’clock in the morning.

In fact, the person at your door was Bayley, chipper and warm as always, returning the spare laptop you’d lent her a few weeks before.

“Thank you so much,” she beamed, thrusting the computer into your hands. “You are a lifesaver. I’d have lost my goddamn mind if I hadn’t had this while mine was in the shop.”

“It was nothing,” you insist, smiling at her unconstrained warmth even though you didn’t feel very positive about your life at that moment. “Do you want to come in for a minute?”

She nodded cheerily and stepped across the foyer. You never really knew how you fit in with the women of WWE, even though you’d spoken to many of them in depth. Bayley stood out because she was determined to be your friend despite your introvert’s reluctance. And, indeed, she was irresistible. Much like her in-ring character, she cast sunshine wherever she went and her glow was contagious, even in your darkest and lowest moments.

You motioned her into the kitchen, offering her a choice of lemonade, iced tea or water. Her eyes immediately fell on the empty whiskey bottle you’d left on the counter, her expression growing more serious as she focused on it.

“Getting started early?” she cajoled.

“A friend left that here,” you replied guiltily.

She narrowed her dark eyes as she looked at you. Sweet and optimistic as she was, Bayley was not naïve. She knew exactly what friend had left the bottle behind and she knew how you felt about him.

“I’ll have a glass of lemonade,” she said, the smile slowly returning to her face.

You joined her and the two of you jokingly touched glasses before drinking.

“So, a few of us are getting together tonight,” she said hesitantly. “I thought you might like to join us.”

Your first instinct was to ask if Aleister would be there, but you thought better of it. Instead, you responded, “Well, I have an article I need to finish.”

Of course, your article was due by the end of the afternoon, which meant that your evening was free regardless, but part of you wanted to be at home in case Aleister came staggering over again.

Bayley’s jaw set in a determined expression you’d only seen from her in the ring. “We’re having a party for Roman, to celebrate him going into remission.”

Well now you felt like a bit of a bitch for making excuses and didn’t know what to say.

“It won’t just be wrestlers there. Some other journalists are even coming. And I know that it would mean a lot to him if you were there.”

When you’d done your article on the WWE, you’d interviewed Roman Reigns and he’d been incredibly generous with his time. He’d even contacted you after your interviews to confirm that you had all the detail you needed. He was the face of the company and had done everything possible to make sure that the company had provided what you required. He’d clearly wanted to make sure they’d left a good impression and you couldn’t help but be impressed by his PR skills. Although you knew it wasn’t true that it “would mean a lot to him”, you were touched by the idea that he remembered you and might like you to be there to celebrate his great news. At the same time… you needed to be there for Aleister.

“Look,” Bayley insisted, “I’m going to text you the details for the bar where we’ll be. It’s not a big deal, just a bunch of us getting together to be happy for our friend.”

There was no way that you could refuse that, so you shyly thanked her as she gulped the rest of her lemonade and made for the door.

“I’m serious,” she said as she departed. “You work so damn hard you deserve a night off. Finish what you’re doing and come have fun with us.”

As soon as she’d left, you once again sat down at your computer. Before you could return your attention to your work, however, you couldn’t resist checking Instagram.

Someone had tagged Aleister in a photo on Instagram.

Yes, you were that pathetic that you always checked.

With trepidation, you clicked the link to look at what was there. As it too often did, the notification came from an airbrushed-looking woman, her collagen-enhanced lips pressed against his. She looked arrogant and proud, while he looked smug and inebriated.

“Guess who I got to hang with last night?” the caption gloated.

You knew damn well what “hang” was a euphemism for. He never cared that the Barbie dolls he hooked up with advertised their conquest on social media. He was single and hot. Why should he care if people knew that he always scored with the sort of women other men lusted after? Why should he care that it ripped your heart to shreds every time you saw him with another woman so unlike you in every way?

The woman had posted a few other photos of the two of them together, embracing. Every part of her magazine-ready body was on display, save those parts that would have gotten her in trouble. Her artificially perfect breasts were spilling out of a tiny tube top while her endless legs were shown in their full glory between the edge of a skirt that likely required her to trim her pubic hair and the sky high heels that raised her enough to press her lips to his without having to stretch herself awkwardly. She was nothing like you, with your unkempt hair and loose, bohemian dresses, your comfortable ballet flats and blandly natural face. She had all the glamour that you lacked and he ate it up.

The images of the two of them cut into you like a laser and, for once, all you desired was to break free from the pain of feeling. A few minutes later, when Bayley sent the text she’d promised with the details of where you could find the party tonight, you immediately responded.

“I’ll be there. I promise.”

To hell with Aleister and the designer women he adored, you told yourself as you returned to your article with a vengeance. Tonight you were going to do whatever it took to break the spell he had cast over you.

*

It was just after nine when you found yourself teetering to the entrance of the bar where the party was taking place. It was marked only by a subtle sign, no words, just a stylized anchor, and it was hidden away on a tiny street that was hardly more than an alley. In your fit of pique, you’d finished your article two hours before your deadline and then, having examined the options in your closet and found them wanting, headed out and spent entirely too much money on a new dress that clung perfectly to your breasts before flaring out to highlight the movements of your body, while covering just the bare minimum to maintain decency. You’d also picked up a stylish pair of ankle boots with heels higher than you were used to and that posed a legitimate threat as you made your way down the roughly paved road to the speakeasy-style bar.

A little further down the alley, you see a couple leaning against a car, taking turns swigging from a liquor bottle. The woman is one of those glamorous animals that makes you so insecure, laughing in drunken delight in a way that only confident people can. In one quick movement the man spins her around and bends her over the hood of the car. He immediately takes out his cock, stroking it a couple of times before he thrusts into her, one hand on her back while the other holds the bottle that he continues drinking from. And it’s a moment before you realize that it’s Aleister, fucking away at a woman whose name he won’t remember in a few hours.

The sight makes you want to curl up and die, makes you want to say that you’ve made a mistake and run along home so you can bawl your eyes out while you wait for his inevitable drunken arrival. But, if nothing else, the damage that you’ve done to your credit card in order to make yourself look just a bit more sexy and edgy than usual, as well as the glasses of wine you had already consumed to fortify your courage, push you forward. This is a test. In order to pass, you need to be able to ignore the man whose indifference is killing you and enter the world of others, where someone who wasn’t up to the standards of the rarified model girls might be willing to give you a second look.

Aleister doesn’t even glance up as you enter the bar a few feet away from him, can’t feel the dark weight of your eyes on him or the force with which you tear them away as you step through the door.

As soon as you do, you are once again frozen with the idea that you’ve made a mistake. When Bayley characterized this as a “get-together”, you’d assumed it meant a group of people spread out around a few tables chatting away and toasting Roman’s health. Instead, what greets you is a basement club full of people with a dance floor alive with writhing bodies. You recognize a few journalists but for the most part, the space is taken up with every WWE and NXT star you’ve ever heard of. It’s a convention of beautiful people and you can’t help but feel dowdy even in your overpriced finery.

You slowly descend the stairs, fully intending to look around, say hello to a few familiar faces and then bolt for the exit, but you’re immediately greeted by a familiar voice that fairly shrieks. “Oh my god woman, just look at you!”

It’s Sasha Banks, standing at the edge of the stairs with Bayley, who gives you an exaggerated round of applause.

“Miranda, you look amazing,” Sasha continues breathlessly. “Seriously, you’re putting everyone to shame.”

You don’t feel like you’re putting anyone to shame, least of all Sasha in her body suit that hugs every curve of her perfect little hourglass, but you blush at the compliment.

“Come on,” Bayley gushes, “we need shots to celebrate your hotness!”

She pulls both of you through the crowd to the bar and somehow is able to get the bartender’s attention almost immediately, ordering two rounds of tequila shots because, she tells you and Sasha, there’s no point in getting just one round when you know you’re going back for seconds. The three of you toast and toss down the shots and then immediately do so again and you have to admit that you’re feeling the warm glow already. Sasha, apparently feeling something herself, wraps her arms around you and once again reassures you that you are devastatingly beautiful.

Another shot is thrust into your hand, this time by Dash Wilder, who’s arrived with his Revival partner Scott Dawson. Wilder has always been attractive to you, so you give him as radiant a smile as you can manage and you swear he blushes a little just before he downs his shot. Dawson is hugging Sasha and Bayley close to him, allowing Dash to edge a little closer to you and you’re feeling a little high on yourself when another voice cuts through your circle.

“Miranda? Holy fuck I can’t believe you’re here!”

Roman Reigns pushes right through the bodies close to the bar and grabs you firmly by the shoulders, his eyes gradually focusing on yours. He’s grinning with an intensity that clearly comes from his being a little past feeling no pain but it doesn’t hamper the thrill it gives you when he wraps his arms around you and nearly crushes you in a hug.

“I mean, shit, I don’t think I’ve even talked to you since you did that interview,” he pouts. “Thank you so much for coming.”

You smile as another shot is pushed into your hand, biting your lip self-consciously. You down about half the shot before Roman grabs it from you and finishes it, breaking up with laughter. He signals the bartender for another round, keeping an arm around your back until the tray of shots arrives. You’re all toasting each other and you wonder why you ever questioned yourself for coming here because this is exactly what you needed.

“Come dance with me,” Roman chuckles, grabbing your wrist and pulling you towards the dance floor. He’s clearly floating on a sea of drunken bliss, goofing around and happy to have someone to have fun with, someone he didn’t expect to be there. Even if you wanted to resist his offer, you couldn’t because, while he isn’t doing anything that might hurt you, his grip is strong enough and the rest of him powerful enough to compel you forward.

The two of you deliberately dance like complete nerds in high school, awkward movements and ironic posturing until you’re both laughing so hard you can barely stand. It’s then that you realize that you’ve become the focus of some attention; Roman goddamn Reigns, the face of the company, the locker room leader, the man who everyone has come to celebrate, is dancing with you. Most of the people here have no idea who you are but because you’re with Roman, you are somebody. Basking in the subtle attention and envy, you close your eyes and allow yourself to get lost in the music, swaying to the beat until you feel a large pair of hands on your hips.

You open your eyes to see Roman pulling you closer to him with a devilish grin before spinning you around and pulling your back against his massive chest. You continue to move but at a slower pace, your movements limited by how close he’s holding you and the sensual way in which his body moves against yours. Keeping one arm loosely around you, he lets his other hand fall against your thigh, lightly playing with the hem of your dress. It makes you gasp.

“You never responded to any of my texts,” he murmurs gruffly in your ear.

You remember at least half a dozen messages asking if he could clarify anything or if you needed any additional material for your article. You hadn’t needed anything else but you suddenly feel terribly rude for not answering.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, “you were very professional and I should have at least told you that I had what I needed.”

His voice drops even lower as he speaks. “I didn’t mean to be professional about them. And I was hoping that you didn’t have everything you needed.”

He pulls you up and firmly against him and for the first time you can feel his hardening cock through his pants. You can’t help but thrust your hips into him, barely able to process what’s happening to you. The two of you are still ostensibly dancing, although it’s more like a rhythmic grinding to the music as he reaches down and pulls the hem of your dress up, rubbing your thigh and then your ass as he presses his lips into your neck. His hands are everywhere on you and you’re aware that your entire lower body is basically on display for anyone who cares to look but you don’t care because it feels like you’ve won the lottery. You moan at the feeling of his growing excitement against your flesh, both his large hands grazing up the front of your thighs and for a moment you think that you’re ready to beg him to take you right there when you’re violently spun away from your dance partner, a bruising grip on your arm.

It’s Aleister, eyes incandescent with rage as he tells Roman, “I need to speak to her for a minute.”

Roman looks confused and tries to speak to you but Aleister drags you away and a gaggle of women immediately descend on Roman, desperate to take your place.

Aleister flings you against the wall, glaring at you with an intensity that you’ve never seen outside the ring.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he growls.

“I was dancing before you interfered,” you snap back at him, rubbing your arm.

“Dancing?” he repeats with derision. “That’s what you call that?”

“I was having fun.”

“What the hell are you wearing?”

For the first time since you saw him with his woman of choice outside, you feel ridiculous, like a girl trying to look glamorous by donning her mother’s clothes.

“I wanted something a little different.”

“A little?” he hisses back. “Do you realize what you look like? You’re all tarted up and letting some guy grab at you and get you half naked in front of a bar full of people.”

“What I look like?”

“Everyone could see practically your whole goddamned body. They could see what you were letting him do to you.”

“You mean to say I look like a whore.”

Aleister crosses his arms and glances away, refusing to confirm what you’ve said.

“So what, Aleister? So what if I’m letting a man touch me and show me that he wants me? Who cares who else sees? Maybe that’s what I want!”

“Are you so stupid that you think he wants you for anything other than a one night stand?”

The accusation stabs at your heart and your confidence but you’re determined not to let him see that.

“Again, so what? Maybe I’m happy to have this big, gorgeous man want me. Maybe I’m fine bringing him back to my place for a few hours of fun because at least it means someone is thinking of me as a sexual being for a change.” You pause, knowing the danger of what you’re about to say but unable to stop yourself. “Maybe I’d be fine if he just took me outside and fucked me over the hood of a car.”

For a second, you think that Aleister is going to strangle you. The look on his face is like the moment before the sky erupts in thunder and lightning. Truthfully, you expect that he’ll turn on his heel and walk away from you and never come back, and perhaps that’s what you need him to do so that you can get over him.

Instead, he grabs you, pinning you to the side of his body and pulling you towards the door. His movements make you stumble, and the more you try to resist him, the more ungainly you look.

“She’s dead drunk,” you hear him assure a few people, “I’m going to make sure she gets home.”

And while it’s true that you are drunk, you’re not nearly as drunk as he’s making you out to be. The second he has you outside, you try to twist away from him and go back, only for him to wind you closer, pulling you off balance so that you look even more inebriated.

You hear him whisper to Seth Rollins, who’s observing the spectacle through the corner of his eyes. “Look, tell Roman that she’s falling down drunk and I just had to get her home. No disrespect meant.”

Seth has a confused expression on his face but nods and tells him, “Sure thing.”

Realizing what Aleister is doing, you once again try to rush past him, but he blocks you, gripping your arm and pulling you after him so that you really do appear pathetically unable to take care of yourself.

“Why the fuck are you doing this to me?” you shout at him, figuring that there’s no reason to worry about who might hear you, there being no further you can sink in their estimation. “Why can’t you just let me enjoy myself?”

“Jesus, Miranda, you’re loaded. You can barely stand up.” He emphasizes this by jerking your arm forward, which almost causes you to keel over onto your face. “You’re just embarrassing yourself.”

“No,” you insist, pulling yourself to a halt. “I knew what I was doing. I knew what I wanted. Sure I’m a bit tipsy but-“

“You don’t want that,” Alesiter snaps, threading his arm through yours and continuing down the street. “You don’t just want to whore yourself out for a night because you think it might help your self-esteem.”

“You don’t get to decide what I want, Aleister.” You’re crushed against his side and he’s moving so quickly that your feet only graze the ground every third or fourth step. “Let me go. I’m sick of playing the surrogate mother for someone who’s incapable of seeing me as a real woman. I want to go back there. I want to have someone make a show of wanting me. I want to get fucked so hard I can’t walk tomorrow.”

Aleister shakes his head like a parent frustrated with a misbehaving child. “Stop it. You’re being ridiculous.”

“So let me be ridiculous!” you yell back, trying unsuccessfully to extricate yourself from his grip. “What the hell is it to you? Are you worried that for once I’m not going to be there when you need a place to collapse at four in the morning?”

The two of you reach the corner where the alley meets the street and he swings you to face him, glowering at you with a terrifying expression, gripping your biceps so hard you know you’ll be bruised in the morning. He says nothing but stares at you until he whips his arm out and hails a taxi seemingly out of nowhere.

He launches you, there’s no other word for it, into the back seat of the car and snarls your address to the driver as your tears start to fall. The cabbie is noticeably uncomfortable with your quiet whimpering and seems confused by the fact that Aleister does nothing to comfort or engage you. He sits with his arms folded, scowling, until you arrive at your building. Reflexively, you reach for your purse only to have Aleister swat your hand away and pay the driver himself. You try to keep pace as he yanks you towards the door, but stumble because of your unsure footing in these strange heels and because your vision is glazed by the tears you’re fighting to hold in.

When Aleister pins you against the door and rummages through your purse to find your keys, it somehow feels more invasive than Roman gripping your ass for an entire bar full of people to see. You feel, for a moment, that he is looking at you with tenderness. But when the door opens, he simply guides you through it. As you hear it click shut, the last of your strength, physical and emotional, gives out and you drop to your knees, finally allowing the tears to fall. It’s a full-on ugly cry, punctuated by guttural, anguished sounds you’d never allow anyone else to hear. Despite everything, you desperately want to hear the door open again behind you and to hear him say that he’s realized he loves you.

But no, in the end, he’s just found it gross that the woman he sees as his caregiver might have another side. He found you pathetic in your overpriced dress and shoes. He knew that you were desperately trying to act like something you could never be: like someone who could compete with the perfected Instagram beauties he fucks every night. You could never be that. He knew that you were just a sad little woman decked out in a gaudy outfit. You’d never be that sexy, desirable person who stopped men dead in their tracks, no matter what your dance with Roman had temporarily led you to believe.

You’re on your knees for what seems like hours, choking on tears and snot and trying to restrain yourself from howling. Just as the sound overpowers you and a low wail escapes your lips, you’re startled by a pair of arms, familiar, tattooed arms wrapping around your waist from behind.

“Shh. There’s no need for any of that,” he grunts into your hair.

And while you’re shocked and thrilled that he actually stayed behind to make sure that you were ok, it’s also even more humiliating that he’s seen you fall apart so spectacularly. Your body feels limp with defeat and unable to react at all as he gathers you up and carries you into your bedroom, setting you gently on the edge of the bed. He rests his hand on yours for a moment and you’re able to stem the flow of tears until he stands up and heads back towards the door. This time, you’re determined to hold in the worst of your misery until you’re sure he’s gone, even though you can’t stop the tears from running down your face.

But after a few minutes of straining to hear the door close, you see Aleister return, a damp washcloth in hand, and he sits once again beside you on the edge of the bed. He presses the cloth, cool and soothing, against your cheeks and then holds your chin as he delicately wipes it across your face. It takes you some minutes to realize that he’s removing your smeared makeup, cleaning you off so that you look good as new, so that you look more like the plain girl who lets him into her home in the middle of the night, his touch filled with a tenderness that you never imagined him capable of. When he’s satisfied with his work, he tosses the cloth aside and wraps an arm around you, pulling you close against him. The sweetness of his friendly gesture makes you want to cry all over again but you choke it back, knowing that you’ll have plenty of time for that when he’s gone.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he whispers, the sound of his voice making you feel weak.

You nod and roughly pull back from him, unsure of your ability to stop yourself from throwing yourself at him and begging him to wreck you. You fumble with the zipper of your boots until Aleister slides off the bed and onto his knees and removes it for you. He glides his hand along your calf, up to your thigh and then moves to your other boot. As he slides it off, he presses his head against the side of your knee, giving the skin a light kiss before rocking back on his haunches. You know he’s being gentle with you because he feels sorry for you. He finds you pitiful, which is even worse than finding you asexual.

The feelings are too much for you to take and all you can think of is that you want to get into bed where you’ll be safe and where you can sleep off the nightmare your evening out has become. You clumsily shed your dress, stockings, bra and panties without thinking much of the fact that you have an audience. Why should it bother him seeing you naked, after all? Normally, you put on some nightclothes but you don’t even have the strength to bother. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see that Aleister has turned his head towards the door. He’s embarrassed for you, the way you would be if a parent or sibling was undressing around you.

You crawl under the covers with a grumbled “good night” and immediately start to feel yourself drift off. You’re jolted back to wakefulness when Aleister climbs in beside you. In all the time you’ve known him, as many nights as he’s come and collapsed on your sofa, you don’t think he’s ever seen your bedroom. Now, having seen it, he’s apparently happy not to leave it, indulging in the comfort of your bed without even asking permission. It makes you a little self-conscious that you’re nude but it’s hardly the most humiliating thing to happen to you tonight, so you let yourself ignore it. If you can just fall asleep, this night will be over and you can begin the process of trying to forget it.

It’s only a matter of seconds, though, until you feel his body pressed against yours from behind, one hand coming to rest flat on your stomach and pushing you back against him so that you are acutely aware that you are not the only person naked in the bed. The hand on your stomach flutters downward until his fingers are moving lightly over your pussy, like he’s plucking the strings of a harp. His other arm wraps around your shoulders and keeps you flush against him, close enough that you can’t mistake the feeling of his erection against your back.

He presses his lips and tongue against your neck, making you whimper as you try to keep your heart rate stable. Your little noises seem to motivate him further, his touch becoming more insistent and one of his legs snaking over yours, pulling it back to give his hand greater access.

“Such a little fool,” he murmurs, his fingers stroking insistently along your fleshy folds. “Thinking I don’t see you as a sexual being.”

He sinks his teeth into your shoulder, making you cry out- more from the shock than the pain. His mouth continues to move around your neck and shoulders, nipping and sucking on the skin there, his grip on you tightening until it’s nearly painful.

“What are you doing?” you manage to ask.

“Leaving marks,” he says matter-of-factly.

You’re at a loss for what to say, but are saved from having to answer as he pushes two fingers inside you, his thumb rubbing slow circles over your clit. You’re embarrassed that he must have felt how wet you were just from being in his presence but he says nothing, quickening his pace and giving satisfied little growls when his touch elicits gasps and cries of pleasure from you.

It’s pity, you remind yourself; what he’s doing to you, he’s doing it because he feels sorry for you and because he’s drunk and horny despite his encounter earlier in the evening. But the thought gets whisked away as he brings you closer and closer to what you’ve desperately needed from him for so long. You let out a little shriek when he removes his hand, unable to believe he’s so cruel as to bring you to the precipice and then deny you. But he simply flips you onto your back before pressing his fingers inside you once more, watching your reactions to be sure he’s hitting just the right spot before burying his face between your legs. His tongue, lips and fingers work together like an orchestra. Your knuckles are white from the force of clenching on the sheets and you’re biting down so hard on your lip to muffle the sounds you’re making that you’re worried your teeth will end up permanently embedded. He unexpectedly raises his head and stills the movement of his hand inside you and the shock is almost enough to make you start crying again. You look down at him, his eyes sparkling in the low light with an expression you can’t read.

“Why won’t you let me hear you?”

Because you don’t want him to know how good his merciful little gesture is making you feel. Because you don’t want to admit to yourself that it’s better than you’d imagined. Truthfully, whenever you’ve thought about the mechanics of sex with Aleister, you imagined that it would be fast and rough and hedonistic, much like his other sexual encounters seem to be. But he’s chosen this moment to take his time, to focus on his partner, rather than go for a quick, dirty fuck in a darkened corner.

You don’t tell him any of this, instead croaking out, “I’m shy.”

He raises himself up and over your body with the effortless grace of a serpent, pressing his head close to yours and kissing along your jawline.

“What do I have to do to make you not be shy?”

“I don’t know… I just… am.” You wriggle a little under him, turning your face away when he looks directly into your eyes.

He cups your face in one hand and runs the other, still wet with your juices, over your breast, teasing the nipple and making you shudder involuntarily.

“Am I moving too fast?”

You shake your head, not quite trusting your voice.

“Is there something that you’d enjoy more? Something you want me to do for you?”

You give him another little shake of the head.

“You don’t have to be shy with me. Whatever you want, I want you to tell me so I can give it to you. Anything.”

For the first time, he kisses you on the lips, his tongue, that still tastes of you, slides against yours and the hand at the side of your face slides to hold your neck, cradling your head so that you don’t have to tense any muscles to stay in that position. Your body has nothing it needs to do but experience the sensations he’s creating. Of course, you still answer his kiss, hungrily flashing your tongue against his, reveling in the light scrape of his lip ring against your lips. His hand glides back down between your legs, and even the proximity is enough to draw a couple of little mewls of pleasure. You feel him smile a little against your lips at the noises and he pulls away from the kiss.

“Am I making you feel good?”

You nod as he starts to work his fingers around your entrance once again.

“Do you want my mouth down there again?”

You nod even more vigorously than the first time but he shakes his head.

“Tell me. Say it out loud.”

You open your mouth to do so and he immediately thrusts his long fingers into your g-spot and your clit at once, making you yelp in pleasure. It’s almost enough to make you cum on its own but he eases the pressure before you reach that peak.

“Yes?” he asks again.

“Yes, fuck, yes!”

“Then let me hear you. Please.”

He returns his attention to your core and has you making all manner of unholy noises in short order. He expertly teases you and then holds back, so many times that when he does finally take you over the edge, you feel like you might pass out from the intensity of it. Your gasps for breath sound cavernous in the quiet room.

He keeps the palm of his hand firmly against you as he leans forward and presses his lips into your neck, letting out a satisfied purr every time an aftershock rolls through your body.

When he’s satisfied that you’ve fully come down, he raises himself up on his arms, giving just the hint of a smile when you grab onto his biceps to steady yourself.

He’s so rigid that he doesn’t even need a hand to guide himself into you. He simply presses forward in one slow but sure moment, his eyes closed as if it’s a kind of religious experience, not opening them until he’s fully seated inside you. It’s been long enough since you’ve been with anyone that the feeling of being stretched draws a little whimper from your throat. He remains still, his eyes open and bearing down on you with a delirious kind of excitement, aching prick twitching inside you, desperate to proceed but waiting for a signal that he can.

And it’s at that moment that you allow yourself to think that this isn’t pity or a drunken mistake, that he’s as hungry for you as you have been for him and that what’s happened tonight has just served to connect a circuit. The fiercely possessive look in his eyes as he watches you, the fury when he thought someone else was claiming you, the need to mark you to make you his, the flush of pure lust on his face and chest… it is just a little frightening, something you suspected was in him but never that it was focused on you. But you’ve always known you could handle his darkness if he let you in. So you thrust your hips a little and wrap your legs loosely around his waist to show him that he can continue. Just as he starts to move, he cups your face and presses his mouth to your ear.

“You deserve so much better.”

“Stop trying to make those decisions for me,” you moan, feeling your insides flutter with his movements.

“I’ve never felt anything like that jealousy.” He’s staring into your eyes as he confesses. He lifts one of your legs over his shoulder pressing deeper inside you and gasping at the feeling. “Knowing that everyone could see how sexy and beautiful you are… And I’m an idiot for waiting for that to happen before I did anything, I just…”

He grimaces and slows his pace a little, obviously trying to prolong the sensation.

“You mean it?” You have to ask because you still can’t quite believe that this has been on his mind for all this time when he’s shown no sign of it to you.

“God yes,” he answers through gritted teeth, once again allowing himself to move faster and more urgently.

You can’t completely banish your fears that he’s going to regret this in the morning and just shut you out again but every second with him is pushing them further away. You lace your fingers through his hair, nipping at the shell of his ear as he lets out his own stream of desperate, lusty noises, running your nails gently down his back as he approaches his crescendo.

His head drops to your chest and he cries out as he releases inside you.

“Fuck I love you, fuck I love you, fuck I love you.” He repeats it like a mantra that brings him back down from his high, saying it a final time as he looks into your eyes.

Slowly, he rolls onto his side, gathering you close to him like he thinks an errant breeze might carry you away.

“I have…” he begins quietly, “… there’s a lot that goes on in my head… Bad things, I guess. I thought you’d run away. Or that I’d pull you down with me. I still don’t know that won’t happen.”

He looks so vulnerable that it makes your heart hurt but at the same time you have to stifle a smile.

“Well I’d rather you let me try to deal with it. I’m a lot tougher than you give me credit for being.”

His expression grows a little guilty and he nods. He wraps his arms tighter around you and you do the same until the two of you are lying in your bed, wound around each other.

[doverly]

For a Soul

A young soul-eater comes across what it thinks is a perfect target. After a bit of observation it decides that the time has come to make a deal.

~3k

After school Ria liked to decompress, I learned that quickly. Taking off her shoes, lying on her bed still all dolled up and just taking a moment to exist. Her parents thought that she was just procrastinating on starting her homework, but I could see that for Ria it was a necessary process. 

The day I made contact with her she was doing just that. Lying in bed, backpack out of sight, out of mind under her bed, just scrolling through Instagram. And while she was technically unwinding, Ria was anything but relaxed. It was the jealousy, that burning envy that made Ria fume that afternoon. Every girl or guy she followed seemed hotter, happier, more skilled, more successful. That was the reason she followed them after all, because they seemed so much better than her. So unreachably amazing that she just couldn’t take her eyes off of them. One post especially got Ria’s blood boiling. A woman, a black woman just like her, standing in front of a store. She owned it, she had just opened her own business.

“Of course,” Ria scoffed to herself, she didn’t really like letting anyone in her bedroom, “Look at her, pretty, well connected, I bet she’s fucking ivy league. Black girl magic? Fuck her, if I had everything she had I could do that too.”

Ria hearted the post and continued scrolling, each posting evoking this kind of response from her. Eventually she turned her phone off and got out her backpack, finally getting to her homework. It was crunch time, as her dad called it. She put her blonde wig up into a bun and sat down at her desk. Five minutes choosing what song to listen to and then she actually got started. A shaky start sure but it was a start. If someone knocked on her door now she would have to stop for the day, her concentration broken. Ria secretly hoped someone would. 

But no one did, her mom wasn’t back from work yet and her older brother was probably practicing for the chess tournament that weekend. Her dad was sleeping, he worked nights so he had to get his sleep. Ria wondered as she was filling out graphs for math, what would happen if she woke him up. He would probably yell at her and that would be another excuse not to do her homework. She didn’t though, dinner was already going to be hard so why would she make it harder. 

Dinner eventually came, it was nothing special just leftover pasta from the previous day. Ria’s mom came back from work, her dad woke up to have his before work meal, and her and her brother left their rooms. Ria was done with math and science, but she hadn’t even begun to tackle her history yet. Picking out a new playlist to listen to had taken up a lot of time so by the time dinner was ready Ria wasn’t even close to done. 

The dining table was crammed into the entryway between the stairs and the front door, somewhere more for guests than for the Bryan family. There was a table in the kitchen that they usually ate at but Ria’s mom had been on a family unity kick, that’s why they were even having dinner together in the first place. Ria hoped that her mom moved onto something else soon, maybe that anti-sugar thing that took over her mind every couple of months, because she hated sitting around the table. They all barely had anything in common so it was silent most of the time.

Ria ate her pasta quickly, school lunch was terrible so she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. The pasta was good, red sauce that wasn’t spicy, box pasta that wasn’t overcooked. But the green cushions on the chairs were cold and the atmosphere at the table awkward in a suffocating way. Ria definitely wasn’t getting seconds.

“Do you need a ride to the tournament on Saturday?” Ria’s dad asked her brother.

“No,” Samuel responded, “Lin and I are doing a carpool, she’s picking everyone up.”

Their dad nodded and everyone continued eating their meal in silence. Their dad because he was thinking of work, their mom because she was tired from work, Samuel because he was thinking of the tournament, and Ria because she just didn’t have anything to say.

“Have y’all finished your homework?” their mom asked?

Samuel responded yes immediately, like it was an insult to ask him. While Ria took another forkful of pasta and realized that she had never in her life said ya'll. 

“Have you?” her mom asked again.

Ria thought about how to phrase it, “I just have history left.”

Her mom shook her head, “You need to be more proactive, you can’t do extra credit if you don’t do all your homework. If you work harder this semester you can get all As, colleges will be looking at your grades Ria.”

Her dad joined in but Ria wasn’t listening, she had become a master at tuning out lectures. In middle school it had been get better grades, join the debate team, join the soccer team, you need to prepare for college. And now in highschool it’s been get better grades, do more volunteer work, join an honor society, prepare for college. When the lecture ended, with Samuel saying nothing, Ria nodded and said that she would work harder. She finished dinner, not too fast, she didn’t want them to think she was mad at them, and then went upstairs. Her parents thought that she was going to do the rest of her homework, but she had already resolved to do it in the morning. Her parents berating her had already provided her the perfect excuse not to do her homework.

Instead she plopped down on her bed and started scrolling through Instagram. I got to see the pattern in who she was following then. Models, students, hiking pages, along with a lot of flower arrangers. That made a lot of sense, Ria cared a lot about her appearance and even though she hated doing her homework she wished that she was a better student. And while she wasn’t on instagram she was hiking through the woods behind her house, looking for flowers she thought was neat. 

Between the study inspo and the delicate vases of flowers Ria came upon one of her favorite influencers. A girl, a senior in highschool in fact, living in New York City. She was holding up a college acceptance letter, several in fact. Columbia, Harvard, Yale, this girl was definitely Ivy League. “Guess my hard work is paying off lol, don’t worry with a little dedication I’ll see you guys there soon!”

This caption put Ria over the edge. She didn’t throw her phone across the room, her parents wouldn’t pay if she broke it, but she closed the app and put it down slowly. Head on her knees she started laughing, those angry, jealous, emotional tears were running down her face.

“Hard work?” Ria yelled just quiet enough that her family wouldn’t hear her, “Hard work? Bitch your parents are engineers, you live in New York City and you’re skinny as fuck. Hard work? Give me a fucking break! If I could just, if I just had....”

Ria was crying too much to rage anymore, her envy at the Instagram girl and her anger at her own poor performance spilling over into just pure emotion. 

I had been keeping track of her for a while and I had decided that it was time for us to make our deal. She was bunched up on her bed so I manifested a form I thought she would like and came up behind her, brushing her shoulders in a way that I hoped was reassuring. Ria turned around quickly, as anyone might turn around when someone touched them when they thought they were alone. 

Finding no one behind her, Ria just faced forward again and was about to continue crying. And she almost did, until she saw me. Ria didn’t cry out immediately, I had a calming effect on people by design, instead while I studied her up close she studied me. Watching people on the metaphysical plane was nice but it tended to blur out some of the color, some of the details of looking at people with eyes. Now that I was actually standing in front of her I could see that her long curly wig was dirty blonde, and her eyeliner was running. She sniffled and tried to clean up her smudged lip-gloss, taking all of me in. My form was a bunch of Instagram models that Ria had seen with skin darker than hers and short curly black hair. Ria started playing with her hair, and I laughed. It was adorable that she found me attractive. 

I sat down on the foot of her bed and smiled, “What if you could.”

The mixture of her attraction to me and my natural calming factor was working wonders, “Could what?”

“If you could have that, if you could do that, if you could be that?” I asked her, “What would you do then?”

Ria sniffled but I think she got it, “I would relax.”

Relax, she wanted to relax. I resisted the urge to smirk. If she wished to relax then there would be a lot of room to play around with that. Have her sleep forever, in a coma that is, like sleeping beauty? Or maybe I could just kill her and take her soul that way. After all death is eternal rest. 

“I can give you that, you’ll be able to relax as long as you want.” 

Ria thought for a second then shook her head, “I don’t want to just relax, I want to be able to relax. To not have to work hard, to just be able to relax and still excel in life. I don’t want to have to break myself in order to succeed.”

I cocked my head a bit, “But working hard gets you what you want in life, you need to work hard in order to succeed.”

“Do you think half the millionaires in this world worked hard!?” Ria exploded, “Why do they get to relax and have everything while I need to. I need to work 10 times as hard in order to just get a fraction of what they have! Mom works 50 hours a week and I never see Dad during the day.” Ria’s tears were hot and free flowing by this point. I scooted closer to her and rubbed her back a bit, “Samuel never has time to hike with me anymore, he says he needs to constantly be practicing in order to be captain of the chess team. And the only thing Jonathan can say about law school is how little he sleeps nowadays.”

I could infer that Jonathan was her oldest brother, already in law school while his little siblings were still in highschool. I wondered what the story was about that. Ria dissolved into tears, tears for her family that didn’t have time for her anymore, tears for her parents that were working hard for a daughter that didn’t want to, and tears for her siblings that were missing out on life.

She leaned into my chest, she must have been really sad. From what I understood the targets normally didn’t let their guards down that much.

“I can’t do it, I can’t do it,” she whispered, “I wish I could but I can’t. Mom always tells me to work hard and Dad is already suggesting majors to me. I don’t want to be the disappointment, that’s why I still get As, but I can’t keep doing this.”

“Tell me what you want, Ria.” I whispered into her ear, I was fully hugging her at this point, “Tell me and I can give it to you.”

She broke away from me at this point, her cheeks were wet but the black shirt I was wearing wasn’t. This I think tipped her off, but still somehow she wasn’t panicking. 

“Who are you?” she said softly, I think all of the crying had worn away at her voice.

I petted her head, listing what I was could be scary and I wanted to keep her relaxed in my presence. 

“I am the eyes you know are in the darkness, the teeth in the shadows, the one watching you from the starless sky.” I said softly, and she didn’t seem to panic, “I am the thing in the darkness and I know you.”

“How do you know me,” her dark brown eyes looked into mine. In that moment I put something behind the infinite darkness of my eyes. I wondered if she would ever stare long enough to find out what it was.

I laughed a bit, trying to get her to think I was a little embarrassed, “I’ve been watching you for about a week now Ria, I noticed that you have something that you really wanted in life and I wanted to give that to you.”

She pulled on her hair, it seems like she really was embarrassed, “You didn’t need to do that, you could have just asked me a week ago.”

I brushed her face with my hand, it was still wet and a little sticky but she had stopped crying at least, “I wanted to get to know you Ria. And now I do. What do you want, tell me and I can give it to you.”

She thought for a second, it was more like she was thinking about how to phrase it. Ria already knew what she wanted, she just didn’t know how to wish for it. 

While she was thinking her mom came upstairs, wanted to ask her if she had finished her homework. With just a thought I put some darkness around the door, nothing big, just enough to deter any normal human being from approaching it. I wished that I could control her mind, manipulate her limbs, or make her just disappear. But at this point I was still a young soul-eater, Ria would be my first soul. Once I had eaten her soul I would get more power, and it seemed like I was almost there.

“I want to be irresistible and for everything I make or put effort into be irresistible as well.” I smiled, she had really put some thought into it, “I want everything to give me what I want and think of me positively. This goes especially for job and college applications as well, no matter what I always want to be accepted.”

That sounded like hell, how would you know if you are actually good at something or if it was just the wish? I didn’t even need to put a negative spin on Ria’s wish, give it three months and she would be begging me to take away her soul. An amazing deal for a brand new-soul eater. I had worked hard to become who I was, and I knew that without hard work, without that feeling of accomplishment life would be nothing.

“Alright,” I said, “I can give you that. But I do need one thing from you.”

“What is it?”

This was where I could lose her, “It's really the promise that I need. The energy of you promising something important to me is what will give me the energy to grant your wish. Don’t think too hard about the sticker price, think instead about what you will be getting.”

She nodded, “What do you need me to promise you for it to work?”

Again I petted her hair and the look she gave me was so trusting. I guess an attractive wish granter promising the world, promising everything she knew could never happen, would put anyone in a state of complete bliss.

Technically what I told her was true, the energy from her promise would power the wish. But what I didn’t tell her was that I needed to eventually get her soul. The potential energy needed to be converted to kinetic energy for it all to work. I would need to get her soul. She hadn’t thought enough about her wish, I could almost feel the slippery, sunlit energy of her soul.

“I need your soul, Ria.”

I must have done a good job talking to her, she didn’t jump away from me just looked a little concerned. Like she had cracked her phone screen and was worried about the price.

“But what will I do without a soul?” she asked.

I shook my head and for good measure laughed, “It's just a promise remember. Like how even though Audible could take away your books for any reason it doesn’t. Think of it like signing a contract, it's just paper. Don’t worry, just think about how great your life will be. No need to work for anything, you’ll have the space to relax.”

This seemed to bolster her confidence, “Alright, you can have my soul-”

She stopped and for a second I thought she had rethought everything, “Actually what’s your name?”

I knew that some of the older soul-eaters had names, names that would send shivers down your spine, names that would blind you just for thinking of them, names that would make you melt. But when Ria asked me that I didn’t have anything to say to her.

“Call me whatever you wish, Ria.” I smiled.

“Alright,” she said, but she didn’t even suggest any names, “I’m ready to promise me your soul.”

As much as I wanted her soul I was shocked and intrigued at how little she was thinking of this. What was she thinking? Was I missing something? It was my first deal I didn’t want to get tricked.

“Would you really promise your soul just so you don’t have to work hard?” I asked her, then, pushing the boundaries a bit I cupped her face, “You’re smart, you’re pretty, you could get far in life if you worked hard. Is this promise worth it for you?”

She laughed bitterly, her sadness having seamlessly converted to anger, “Nathaniel’s in law school now. He doesn’t have friends, he has connections, he’s studying 12 hours a day after his 5 hours of classes, he has like two side hustles. And I know that he thinks it's worth it, but I don’t. I don’t want to be exhausted when I grow up, I want to live, not just hustle.”

Even if she didn’t want to be exhausted I thought that she was underestimating how much the satisfaction of hard work played in her life. She was angry, just thinking about what she didn’t want instead of what she actually wanted her life to be. I could have talked her down, could have reminded her how amazing life could be with that satisfaction. But I wasn’t there to be her therapist, I was there to get her soul.

“Alright, how long do you want the wish to last?” I asked her, in order for it to work every promise would need to have a time limit. Some predestined date where all of the potential energy would start to convert. 

“Forever,” Ria responded.

I laughed, “Nothing can last forever, Ria.” And then seeing that she was getting apprehensive again I decided to go for a compromise, “But things can last a lifetime, things can last ten years, however long you wish Ria.”

She nodded, “Alright I want it to last the rest of my life.”

I had the promise, the time frame, and what she wanted. It was ready, I could almost taste her soul. Before Ria had any more time to think I grabbed her face, sinking my fingers into her cheeks. I looked deep into her eyes, deeper than any human could. Her retinas, her optic nerve, I saw her brain. When I could see the lighting jumping between her neurons the deal was sealed and I disappeared.

Ria was left lying on her bed, feet dangling over the edge, with a light buzzing in her head. She got up to do her homework, wondering if it had all been real.

I recently read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and it kind of inspired this story. I’m trying to put more emotion into my stories. Please tell me if Ria’s character felt believable or if I got her emotions across. Have an amazing weekend! 

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #218: Born Again (And Again and Again...)

April, 1982

Avengers fill-in issues are so weird. Beast isn’t even here and things are weird as heck.

And geez this is an unsubtle cover. And for once, not a lie.

Although Yellowjacket being in the roster rectangle is one.

I do like that the And Again... And Again... wraps off the edge of the page.

Y’know, I don’t know that this is a fill-in. It says Jim Shooter co-plotted. Then again, there’s a regular creative team box instead of an essay. So co-plotted probably means Shooter offered some adjustments to the plot but mostly let J.M. DeMatteis get on with it.

This feels like a weird time for it, honestly? The fall of Yellowjacket arc is kind of humming along leisurely already. With setup in 212, the fall in 213, fallout in 214, then a pause in 215 and 216 for the Molecule Man plot, and finally picking back up with Hank in 217 to see him fall further. And then there’s going to be a stretch of issues before we pick up again.

But it is what it is and what it is is a weird fill-in.

The issue starts where a young boy just walks right up to the door of Avengers Mansion and rings the doorbell.

Somewhere, Henry Peter Gyrich is shaking his fist. Where are the door tentacles? He fought for those door tentacles!

The young boy is here to see the Avengers and won’t take a “the Avengers are quite busy today” for an answer.

This boy: “This is a matter of life and death!!”

He remains quite insistent that he see the Avengers.

Luckily, Wasp (who I guess is not quite busy today?) shows up and decides to let this boy in for the best reason of all.

Wasp: “Turn away an adorable well-spoken little boy like you? Never! I know you were just doing your job, Jarvis -- but I’m a sucker for a pretty face! I think I’ll give him the grand tour.”

Wasp, pls.

But what Wasp says goes, so Jarvis just shrugs and goes back to the chocolate mousse cake that he was making.

Leaving Wasp to deal with this unruly child.

Wasp: “What’s your name, sweetie?”

This boy: “Sweetie?! Madam -- I am not your ‘sweetie!’ As I explained to your butler, this is a matter of gravest importance! Now take me to Captain America and the others!”

Wasp: “Just one minute, young man! I know you’re excited about being here -- but that is no excuse for rudeness! I think you ought to --”

This boy: “Madam -- SHUT UP!!”

And then he shoves her and runs off.

Pretty sure he shoves her in the boob too. You can’t fool me by changing some letters, SFX that says BOONT.

Anyway, very rude, this boy.

Meanwhile, in the Avenger’s lab we get to see what the Avengers are so quite busy with.

Thor is holding up an incredibly heavy piece of machinery while Iron Man does some welding on the bottom of it.

Thor is also complaining about holding up an incredibly heavy piece of machinery because Iron Man has been at it for about an hour. Do they not have a jack or something that can do the job instead?

Also, the big thing is apparently an “inter-spatial monitor.” I assume it watches the space between spaces.

Cap is also here, being quite busy leaning against the wall and also complaining about how long this is taking.

He’s already worked out for three hours today and he wants to get on with the Avengers meeting.

And then This Boy runs into the room exclaiming “Avengers! I’ve got to talk to you!!” startling Iron Man just when he was finishing up the welding.

Startled Iron Man accidentally blasts Thor’s foot causing the God of Thunder to lose his grip on the inter-spatial monitor out of surprise.

Cap realizes Iron Man could get crushed underneath it and springs into action, tackling Iron Man out from under the monitor. The choreography almost makes sense.

Iron Man: “Thanks, Cap -- but I could have handled that myself, you know!”

Captain America: “I know, old friend -- but I didn’t want to... take any chances!”

And then they shake hands in a display of what good friends they are. Ha ha this is ironic in hindsight. But also: is DeMattias trying to ship them? This feels like a very shippable moment.

Look at Cap’s little smile.

Anyway.

Thor scoops up This Boy and scolds him for scurrying around and distracting thunder gods.

Thor: “Whoe’ver thou art -- Thor hath half a mind to give thee a sound spanking!”

This Boy: “I... don’t think I’d live through it!”

Hah.

Thor: “Worry not, child -- Thor shall not strike thee!”

So then Wasp shows up so the gang is all here for this boy to explain why he wanted to talk to the Avengers so badly.

This Boy: “Listen to me -- all of you! I am not a child! I am a man cursed with eternal life! I am a man who cannot die -- and I need your help!”

Iron Man: “Easy, son -- why don’t you tell us your name so that we can get in touch with your parents. I’m sure they’d like to know where you are...”

This boy: “My parents?! Fool! I was afraid this would be your reaction! But I must make you understand!”

And then he pulls out a gun.

Points it at his own head, like on the cover. And shoots himself.

Good grief.

It all happens way too quickly for the Avengers to react. Or maybe the audacity just stunned them.

HEY I THOUGHT THE AVENGERS’ SECURITY SYSTEM SCANNED FOR WEAPONS.

God, Gyrich would be rolling in his grave, if he were dead.

Anyway, as Wasp is crying into Cap’s star that a child just died, Cap goes hey look something weird is happening with the child corpse.

The child corpse just disintegrates into ash and fades away. Thus clearing the Avengers from having to explain this to anyone.

And more bizarrely, where the ash was-

I... I guess the way to explain it is that a fetus just sort of develops into a baby and then back into this boy right in front of the Avengers’ eyes.

Why is this happening

I do like the “Now do you believe me?” “They do...” caption.

Thor: “Methinks it be time for an explanation!”

YES. EXACTLY RIGHT.

This boy finally introduces himself as Morgan MacNeil Hardy.

So. This guy. Is an established character. He was established first in Spider-Woman #33 where he was Turner D. Century’s foster dad. Turner D. Century is a guy who just super loves the early 1900s because Morgan MacNeil Hardy raised him only in the values of that time period for some reason.

I’m getting off track, really. But this is a rabbit hole.

So. Even though Hardy seemed to die in Spider-Woman #33, he came back in Captain America #264. He invented something called the psi-augmentor to alter reality and make America moral again.

He did this by plugging four people into his machine, two of which I’m decently sure were a racist and a Nazi.

Cap intervened because some of the changes to reality were causing racism and Nazi stuff to happen and then when Hardy tried to wipe Captain America out of existence, he almost wiped out America instead. Because Cap is the symbol of America. Or maybe the machine missed the Captain part. Either or.

But Hardy was too patriotic to allow America to be retgonned so he drew the energy back and then died.

SHIELD came and mopped up the mess Cap left and buried the dead Hardy. But then three days later the man rose from the dead as this boy.

And in fact, the jolt from the reality altering machine freed Hardy’s repressed memories of all the lives he has lived.

Hardy: “I have lived innumerable lives, died innumerable deaths, yet time and again by body has somehow regenerated itself -- grown back to this youthful form! But, until my current incarnations, I’d believed every lifetime to be the first! Each identity to be the only identity! Hear me: since the dawn of time I have seen life as no other man has ever seen it -- as no other man should have to see it! And I am tired... infinitely tired. All I want now -- is the peace of death.”

Shot in the dark but you may be a Time Lord, Hardy.

Anyway, as dark as an infinitely regenerating suicidal child is, it gets worse. The psi-augmentor also dicked up whatever process makes Hardy regenerate. It took him three days to regenerate after the psi-augmentor incident. Now he’s back up in minutes.

Hardy: “I can’t bear much more of this! I can’t! That’s why you’ve got to help me! You’re all so wise -- so strong! You’ve the greatest super-scientific devices in the world at your disposal! Surely you can find out why this is happening to me!”

The Avengers are blown away by this story and Wasp speaks for all of them when she promises that the Avengers will do everything in their power to help him.

So the Avengers spend several days doing assorted science at a child. Or at least Iron Man does while Wasp watches in interest and Thor and Captain America watch in disinterest.

They’ve only got the one smart guy right now.

But after using all those big science machines and gazing at science glassware full of science chemicals, Iron Man finally sciences a science science.

Science.

Iron Man: “It seems our young friend is a true anomaly... a freak of nature... perhaps the first mutant the world ever knew. Simply put: his own lifecycle is somehow tied in with the lifecycle of the Earth itself! It’s as if the man and the planet -- were one soul... as long as the planet exists -- he will exist.”

How... how do you test for that?! What science chemicals told you that this boy’s soul was one with the Earth??

Also, another hat thrown into Actually the First Mutant contest. Get fucked, Namor.

Anyway, a distraught Hardy questions whether this means he’ll have to live forever but Iron Man says that now that he understands the problem, he can start working on a solution.

Which leads to a bit of a disagreement among the Avengers.

Iron Man sees a SCIENCE! problem to be scienced at. But he’s the only one.

Wasp: “Wait a minute! A solution? I know that this... boy has been through a lot -- but who are we to provide him with a means of suicide?”

And Cap agrees with Wasp. But for more different reasons.

Cap: “Captain America has always stood for the preservation of life! With all he’s been through -- all he’s learned -- this... Forever Man could help humanity immeasurably!”

Geez. Are you really standing for the preservation of life if you then follow it up suggesting that Forever Man should be (beneficially) exploited for everyone else?

And Thor just doesn’t see the problem at all. And maybe isn’t even sure what the Avengers have been bothering over for the past couple days.

Thor: “Thor hath yet to see if a problem doth e’en exist! Immortality be not a fate fit for mourning -- ‘tis a blessing that -- till now -- only the gods have known!”

And Hardy. Hardy is pissed at the way the conversation is going and all this not putting him out of his misery.

Hardy: “You sanctimonious morons! You can’t even begin to comprehend what I’ve been through! I haven’t had a god’s life, Thor -- I’ve had the pathetic life of a man! I’ve seen the death, the suffering, the loves lost, the hopes denied! Forget what the movies tell you about the immortals who’ve walked with Methuselah, Moses, Jesus! I’ve known no great me and, with the exception of Hardy, I’ve been no great men!”

Iron Man cuts him off to go why not go to bed kiddo while the adults talk things out.

I mean, not exactly, but the spirit is there.

And maybe not the right tack to take because upon being sent to his room, more or less, Hardy decides well fuck this. Inspired by an article he sees in a newspaper, he runs away from home/Avengers Mansion, hitches a ride on a train, and threatens with a gun some vagrants who I’m pretty sure are Laurel and Hardy.

Morgan MacNeil Hardy rides the rails all the way to Cape Canaveral.

Upon which he lies his way onto the base by pretending to be the lost grandson of the base’s general, sneaks off, and then sneaks into a rocket that is being prepared to launch.

“He stands, dwarfed by the mammoth spacecraft, gazing up at it the way some men would gaze up at the face of God. For this NASA probe -- ‘Star Core Three’ -- is a god of sorts. A god that will carry him to the heart of the Sun; a Sun that, he hopes, will succeed where he has failed... a Sun that will consume him... and grant him the peace of final death.”

Damn, Hardy.

You sure are serious about this death thing if you’re willing to go so far out of your way to throw yourself into the Sun.

Did you even consider just throwing yourself into a volcano? Its less of a trip!

The rocket is Star Core Three and is going to orbit the Sun and get all kinds of SCIENCE data.

It also wasn’t meant to have passengers so Hardy dies and dies and dies again from the lack of oxygen and the cold. Just death and rebirth for the weeks it takes the rocket to travel to the Sun.

This story is pretty messed up, if you think about it.

Anyway, during those “brief, agonized moments of life” Hardy reprograms Star Core Three’s guidance system.

So that when the probe arrives at the sun, it plunges into it instead of orbiting it.

Cool. You just sabotaged a millions dollar space probe to try to kill yourself in the Sun, Hardy. You dick.

After the probe’s destruction, General Nelson calls the Avengers and asks if they know of any cosmic nonsense or anything else that could have caused Star Core Three’s guidance systems to shit the bed.

He’s also asked the Fantastic Four so really he’s just checking the Avengers off a list just in case.

Wasp asks if anything weird happened on the day of the launch and Peter Parker looking General Nelson says that there was a small boy intruder but that’s about it.

Wasp is like gasp! We’ve misplaced a small boy! Is it possible, nay even probable that Hardy launched himself into the fucking sun in a grand suicide attempt??

Iron Man decides that’s far fetched.

“Far-fetched, Iron Man... and true!”

“But, if it is death the ageless child has come to the sun seeking... it is something far more horrible that he has found! For, as he is swallowed by the staggering energies of the sun; as he dies, screaming, ten thousand times in ten thousand seconds... an awful change occurs!”

“Whatever the creature is that rises in the boy’s place, it is not human. It is a thing of plasma and pain; a pain that, the creature senses, has been its lot for centuries.”

“It knows it must end that pain -- at any cost! And so it arcs out towards space, toward home... toward Earth!”

So. Yeah. Yeahhhhh. Yeah.

Hardy dunked himself into the Sun and found a fate worse than the fate worse than death he was suffering.

Pro-tip to all immortals out there? Looking at you, Lestat. Unless you’re absolutely sure that dunking into the Sun really will kill you and not consign you to an even more hellish existence, maybe don’t?

Anyway, an undisclosed amount of time later, Jarvis runs into the Avengers meeting room (which once again has a decently sized table - although the chairs look a little cramped) and tells the Avengers that he was watching the news on his tea break and saw a bulletin about a fire creature on the loose.

I do make fun of it a lot but the Avengers sure do rely on the news to keep on the ball, huh?

Also, is it just me or have the Avengers been fighting a lot of fire monsters? Not in a short time span but still. They fought that Inferno guy in a two-parter. Pyron when Wasp was the cool hero. And now a child who swan dived into the Sun and became a monster.

Anyway, Fire Hardy is menacing Midtown because he vaguely remembers failing to die here once.

The police and even the army are failing to do much to stop Fire Hardy’s rampage. And some are getting discouraged because of it.

A police officer: “Why are we even doing this? The blasted monster’s unstoppable! Why don’t we just give up and let it kill us?”

Iron Man: “Take it easy, officer -- the situation can’t be that bad!”

So the Avengers tell the army and police to armscray because this looks like a job for the AVENGERS.

Fire Hardy sees the Avengers and their gaudy costumes stirs a vague memory, perhaps of them being unhelpful, and he AROOOOs angrily, like Futurama Nixon.

Cap also claims that Fire Hardy is like a living sun, generating heat that is almost unbearable.

But, Cap, c’mon. C’mon. Really? C’mon. Look, you can’t do the Pyron story where the Avengers all had to wear heat resistant suits and Jocasta started melting and expect me to take any fire threat as seriously if you’re confronting it in your red, white, and blues.

Wasp takes initiative. I was wondering whether, since this smacked of filler, it would remember that she’s the leader of the team. But at least she gets to go first.

She shears a lamp-post with one of her sting blasts and has it fall on Fire Hardy.

It doesn’t work. The lamp-post just catches fire and melts on contact. But, hey, blasting a lamp-post in half in one go is a good showing for Wasp’s vaguely powered pew pew.

Wasp goes uh Iron Man, you’re up.

And Iron Man has a good idea.

He borrows the shovel from a steam shovel and uses it to dig a hole.

Then they can trip the monster so it falls into the hole and uhh look its a good first step. They’ll figure it out as they go.

Thor: “If only thy words couldst make it so, Iron Man! But methinks the creature hath other plans!”

And Fire Hardy melts the asphalt ground molten with a touch and allows it to fill in the pit.

The monster is clearly more intelligent than the 8 whole panels before this one have led the Avengers to believe.

Now its Thor’s turn. Because I guess they’re just going one at a time.

Good teamwork, Avengers!

Anyway, Thor’s plan, unsurprisingly, is to do Thor things. Which as you might recall, isn’t limited to just hitting things really hard.

Thor: “Let this lumbering sun-beast brace itself! -- For it is about to face -- THOR, god of thunder! I now call down the living lightning that be mine to command -- the roaring gale -- the full, unfettered fury of the storm! May the floodtides of heaven surround yon walking star -- and drown its fires in life-giving water...”

And Thor brings the storm and the thunder. But. Remember when Cap (laughably) claimed that Fire Hardy was as hot as the Sun?

Do you know what the evaporation point of water is? A lot lower than the heat of the sun, probably??

So Thor’s storm just evaporates from the heat before even touching Fire Hardy.

So another dud.

Cap’s up!

Not sure what he can do that Thor couldn’t do. Lets be honest. They kind of spent their biggest gun already. What’s Cap gonna do?

Did you guess... run up and throw his shield at the problem? Good guess.

Cap: “We’re facing one of the most dangerous menaces we’ve ever faced! Unchecked, it could wipe out every man, woman, and child in this city -- perhaps in the world! But I have no intention of letting that happen!”

I’ll give him credit for stubbornness and a Corellian-esque hatred of knowing the odds.

But throwing his shield actually does do a thing.

It elicits a NOOOOOO from the monster.

The voice sounds familiar to Iron Man but before he can ponder it, he tackles Cap to stop him from burning his hands off.

Iron Man: “Despite the fact that your shield’s made of some strange, powerful alloy, Cap -- it still gets mighty hot when you toss it into a mini-sun!”

Cap: “That’s one I owe you, Shell-Head!”

Sometimes I suspect that Cap may be a beautiful idiot. Who specifically doesn’t know how thermodynamics work.

Although to be fair, the shield was in Fire Hardy for a couple seconds at most. That’s an impressive heat transfer coefficient.

Anyway Fire Hardy has more to say such as FOOLS! AT LAST -- I REMEMBER!

And Cap realizes what Iron Man suspected just a five lines ago. That the fire monster sounds like Hardy.

Cap puts 2 and 2 together and realizes that Wasp was right that Hardy threw himself into the Sun and realizes that obviously because of science, he must have mutated into a fire monster.

Of course. That’s just science.

The Avengers try to reason with Fire Hardy but Fire Hardy claims HARDY IS GONE! ONLY HIS PAIN AND RAGE REMAIN!

So the Avengers shrug and go back to doing what they do best. Fight scenes that resolve in eyebrow raising ways.

Cap figures that hey his shield had seemed to hurt Fire Hardy before so why not do that again but better. And he throws his mighty shield so hard that it lodges in Fire Hardy.

Uh. What is it.... lodged in? Fire Hardy is made of fire. Which is not known for its tangibility.

But with the mighty shield lodged in his gut somehow, Fire Hardy goes NOOOOOOO

Iron Man figures that something in the shield’s unique molecular structure is janking up Fire Hardy and decides ‘hey lets all concentrate on the shield!’

This makes as much sense as anything else.

So Iron Man blasts the shield, Wasp blasts the shield, and Thor throws Mjolnir through Fire Hardy.

Wasp worries that they may be killing Hardy but Thor argues ‘hey he said he wasn’t Hardy! We’re free and clear, morally speaking!’

More seriously:

Thor: “And tell me -- can we truly slay a thing that ne’er hath died?”

Good point, Thor, good point.

Problem is that either Fire Hardy has had enough of these shenanigans or they’ve hit the weak point for massive damage too well.

Because Fire Hardy starts glowing white hot, almost as if he’s going to explode.

And with the heat that he’s allegedly putting out, its an explosion that could destroy the entire western hemisphere!

Or Iron Man says so anyway!

He asks Thor to make a vortex with Mjolnir.

And Thor is like ‘oh right that is a thing I can do’

So he spins Mjolnir around and around and around so fast that it creates a tornado that picks Fire Hardy up and shoots him into space.

Where he explodes.

“At last, a wildly-spinning vortex forms about the brilliantly-glowing sun-thing... sucking it up, up, up -- out of the Earth’s atmosphere... into the dappled heavens... where, with a soundless, scintillant explosion... the threat of the man who lived forever... ends! Or does it?”

Wild.

Even though the blast was all up in space and contained by the vortex, it still shakes the Avengers off their feet. AND CREATES A NOT-WIDE BUT PRETTY DEEP CRATER!

Cap: “If I had any questions about Hardy’s living through that -- they’re gone now.”

Wasp: “Then -- he’s finally found the peace he was looking for.”

Thor: “Aye, Wasp -- but at what cost?”

Iron Man: “Uh... I hate to be the one to put the damper on this impromptu memorial service -- but considering we’re talking about a guy who’s survived since the dawn of time -- don’t you think we ought to check?”

Pfft.

I love that exchange.

So the Avengers jump down into the crater and find two ludicrous things.

Cap is talking about how he lost his shield in this nonsense and would like to look for it.

Thor: “Captain -- art thou daft? Thy shield hadst no more chance of remaining intact in that inferno than--”

-Cap’s shield perfectly intact-

Iron Man: “... you were saying, Thor?”

Thor: “Heimdall’s beard! Surely thy weapon must be as enchanted as mine uru mallet!”

And then Cap just picks his shield up.

Not by the metal, obviously. That’d be silly! It’d be way too hot to hold!

No, he picks it up by the straps! The presumably leather or cloth straps which are perfectly intact after being at the center of an explosion that reached all the way from space!

Good lord, what is that presumably leather from? The legendary tarrasque??

Even if the leather straps were indestructible, wouldn’t they still be very hot?

Anyway, that was just ludicrous thing number one.

Ludicrous thing number two is that Not-Fire Hardy regrows to his child form at the bottom of the crater.

And he has AMNESIA!

-soap opera sting-

Because. Of course.

Thor and Wasp immediately accept that this is a thing which has happened because of course.

But Cap is more doubtful. About that and about this whole misadventure.

Cap: “Despite the fact that he’s managed to resurrect himself -- we killed a living being today!”

Iron Man: “But -- is it really killing when the being you’ve slain... doesn’t stay dead?”

Cap: “That’s something we’ll all have to wonder about -- for the rest of our days.”

And then the Avengers fly out of the crater. With Cap riding on Thor’s back.

God, I love this comic sometimes.

And Hardy being wrapped in Thor’s cape and held in Wasp’s arms while Iron Man holds the both of them.

But Iron Man is wondering a thing himself.

“What if the boy’s amnesia isn’t legitimate: what if it’s an act, meant to lull them into a false sense of security. What then? Indeed... WHAT THEN...?”

And given Hardy’s little smirk at the end, yeah, its implied that he’s faking amnesia to get away with having tried to kill the Avengers as a monster of solar fire.

Does anything come of this?

HECK NO!

Nothing is done with the character after this! You’d think that an alleged First Mutant would be more important but I’m not attached enough to this character concept to want to argue for that.

Especially not for man who builds psychic device to bring back traditional values.

I kind of wonder whether this whole exercise was to sort of take his death in Captain America #264 off Cap’s hands by having him come back to life.

Anyway... yeah. Very fill-in. Reading it feels like a speedbump. We’ve got the Hank Pym thing spinning its wheels in the background and we gotta deal with this for a month.

I don’t mind one-offs but aside from sheer lunacy (solarcy?) this doesn’t have much to recommend it.

Next time, at least, the Shootering continues with our old friend.... workplace acquaintance? Yeah that sounds better. Our old workplace acquaintance, Moondragon.

She’s the worst. Which makes her the best.

You should follow @essential-avengers because I cover the Avengers issues that nobody else will because they have better things to do. I assume. Also, like and reblog so I feel appreciated.

[multishipperlove]

Perc’ahlia Catfish AU

Vex and Percy meet online and immediately hit it off well. They start chatting more frequently, a loose friendship quickly turning into more as they spend hours everyday texting each other, even talking on the phone now and then. 

But there are a few things that make Vex suspicious. 

He rarely sends any photos of himself, and if he does his face is often half hidden or turned away from the camera completely. They have never video chatted either, and the few times they wanted to meet up in person he always claimed that something got in the way last second. 

And one other thing. She only knows his first name. For the first few weeks he was hiding behind the online pseud Orthax, and it took her a while to coax the name ‘Percy’ out of him. 

Vax, quickly growing fed up with his sister’s pining, and also completely convinced that the guy is a lying asshole who’s playing with her, finally convinces her to do some research on her own. 

They start with a reverse picture search, getting nothing at first. Only one picture gets a result, and it leads them to the insta account of a certain Whitney de Rolo. 

It’s a shot of Percy from behind, but he’s looking over his shoulder at the person behind the camera, a tired smile on his face. Underneath, the caption reads “Not gonna miss the wedding. On my way with big brother #2.” The tags are what catch their attention though.

#deRoloChildren #royalwedding #JuliusWe’reCommingForYou 

Another quick search reveals that the guy in the picture is Percival de Rolo, third in line for the throne of Whitestone, memeber of a royal family they have barely heard of. 

Vex is crushed, and Vax for once doesn’t feel like rubbing in that he was right. They’re both sure, there’s no way this is actually the guy she has been talking to for the last few months. 

So Vax does the only thing he can as a big brother. He tells her to forget about the guy, lines up a few of her favorite movies, and they spend the rest of the evening eating more pizza and ice cream than two people should be capable off. 

Vex is still pretty down for the next few days, but tries to follow her brother’s advice and just stops replying to ‘Percy’ alltogether. It’s quiet on his side for a while as well, which only upsets her even more, but after four days he finally writes her again, asking if everything’s alright. 

She tells him that no, nothing is alright, and confronts him with the picture they found. Because really, stealing pictures and presenting them as his own would have been bad enough, but from a royal family? How stupid does he think she is?

It takes more than an hour for Orthax to respond again after that. All he writes is “I’m sorry you found out like this, I think we need to talk. Let’s meet up. I will be there this time, promise.” 

At first she wants to tell him that he can fuck off. But then again, she’s angry enough to want answers, and if this is the only way to get them so be it. She does insist on a public space though, and tells him she’ll bring her brother along. If she’s going to meet up with a lying creep from the internet, she’s going to do it safely at least. 

To her surprise, he doesn’t object to either, only insists on picking out the spot where they will meet up. It ends up being some terribly expensive establishment in the Cloudtop District, and she starts to question the whole thing again, but he promises her that the reservation will be under his name and she’s got nothing to lose. 

So despite her better judgement, and despite her brother’s complaining, a week later they’re both there, wondering how much of the cuttlery they would have to swipe to cover their rent for a month. Probably not a lot. 

There’s even a god forsaken reception desk, and when they ask for a reservation under the name ‘Percival’ they are lead to a table without a question. Menu cards and drinks are provided, and then they’re left alone again. 

They sit there for a while, trying not to call too much attention to themselves and Vax trying to ease his sister’s nervousness with stupid jokes, when Vex gets a message from ‘Percy’. “So sorry I won’t make it in time, give me twenty minutes and order anything you want.” 

She shares the message with Vax, and they both shake their heads over it. They stay though, on her insistence. Twenty minutes and nothing more, she tells him, and they don’t oder anything in fear of being stuck with a bill. Hell, Vax is already planning an escape route for when the prick doesn’t show up and they need to avoid the waiters while sneaking out. Surely a place like this doesn’t just let you leave without dropping some serious money. 

Half an hour later they’re still alone, and Vex is trying very hard not to cry in public. She’s mad at the guy, whoever he is, who’s been stringign her along for months. But even more than that, she’s angry at herself, for being so god damn stupid and falling for it. 

Vax finally convinces her to leave, that giving the guy a chance to talk was way more than she ever had to do and she doesn’t owe him anything. Especially not her time, not like this. He takes her hand, tugs her to her feet, and they’re on their way out when...

they’re pretty much run over by two other people in the entrance hall. All four of them go down, and by the time the twins are back on their feet, along with one of the strangers, the white haired guy is still on the ground rubbing his head. And sure, she’s only seen him on pictures, which were either taken at official events or hiding his face, but Vex is absolutely sure that this man, who just ran into them, is Lord de Rolo. 

The other person, a half even woman with long red hair, helps him to his feet again, while the twins can do nothing but stare. 

Vax is the first to find his voice again, stammering out an apology as he takes another step towards the door. He tugs on Vex’ arm, trying to get her to move as well, but she’s not budging. 

And as the other woman is finally done fussing over the prince of Withestone and he can get a clear look at her, his pained face breaks into a wide smile.

“Oh, what a blessing. I think I was looking for you, Vex’ahlia.”

[the-woman-in-the-writing]

“When the Moon Walked Among Us” a short fiction

Rating: PG Word Count: 3,164

Author’s note: I’ve always been good at remembering my dreams, and that seemed like a useless talent until I dreamed the world ended. I wrote this story as a way of preserving how vivid and realistic (yet a bit weird) my dream was, though please take note that I am not the narrator (in my stories, the narrator is never me). I didn’t revise, add, or deleted any scene or part in this dream-story. Everything you’re about to read was purely dreamed by yours truly. 

 Maybe it was the end of the world. Maybe it wasn’t. They never knew for sure what it was and why it happened. Only one thing was clear: nothing was ever the same again. Not after everything…

No.

 I.

People came together all over the world to watch the Super Moon. They packed their tents and barbecues, set up camp in wherever there was a clear field and open sky, turned off their lights, and waited. Families, friends, lovers, and strangers. We all came to watch the Super Moon that was said to last for a whole day. People chatted with one another, talking about their families or whoever they came with, over burgers and beer. The children made new friends and played by the sunset with their flashlights and food wrapper paper planes.

Everyone waited for the Super Moon.

They said it will be the most beautiful thing you’ll ever see. And it was. Despite everything that happened after, it really was.

When the evening came and everyone had piled up beside their tents and prepared their telescopes or binoculars, the Super Moon came into view: beautiful, big, round, and luminous, tinged and glowing with a creamy orange light that everyone marveled at. We were wolves staring at the moon, waiting to be transformed into something greater and stronger. It was so close that you could almost see every spot and crater in great detail even without a telescope or binoculars.

Then we went home, talked about it on the drive, posted pictures of it on the internet with stupid captions and hashtags, and showed it on the news. But as the world spun around this captivating piece of heaven, we all took turns, the people of the world. Of viewing. Of taking photos. Of making art. Of writing poetry. At one point you could say everyone was looking at the same thing as you could never miss it, this beautiful thing.

Later, people will believe that the Super Moon brought the world together for one tiny yet impactful moment in history. Not everyone will think so, but most will.

But we would all agree that this was the beginning.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” - Romans 8:18

 II.

No one could sleep.

When it started, no one knew why. Everyone in the world shifted in their beds and wondered why it was 2am and they couldn’t sleep. Though we all woke up on time, in sync with our 7am alarm, the atmosphere felt like noon: hot and awake. At work or at school we all exchanged, I couldn’t sleep last night’s and me too’s, and two hours after we all ate our lunches the sun was already setting. We were all confused. That night, no one got a good night’s sleep.

We asked the scientists, but some of them kept silent. Some of them said it was normal. We didn’t know what to think; we just wanted to sleep.

After a while, people started getting sick or getting into accidents. Most of us developed insomnia and loss of appetite. Those who started falling asleep again began while they were driving on their way to work. By the end of the month, most of the headlines yelled CRASH, DEAD, and INJURED. Children cried out of fear, wondering why they couldn’t avoid the darkness of the night by sleeping. Their parents grumbled, tired and sleepless as well.

Our days shortened. Life felt fast with our 16-hour days, but we’re humans. Of course, we found a way to adjust to it eventually. We stayed up all night partying, reading, drinking, texting, praying, and wandering; we opened and closed our stores much later; we extended our Late, Late Shows; and we made clocks that had shorter hours.

That didn’t mean we slept well and regularly again. Sometimes we would still shift in our beds and turn our pillows over and under our heads. The digits of 8 midnight would seem to blink endlessly by our bedside table. And if sleep was hopeless, we all stared at the moon, which was closer than it was three months ago.

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed…” - 1 Corinthians 15:51

 III.

It was all over the news: a lion with a school of dead fish washed up ashore on a beach in India. No one knew where the lion came from or how it made it all the way there, but people were speculating it had something to do with the moon and how it traveled a hundred thousand kilometers closer to us in just five months.

Again, we asked the scientists. And again, they either kept silent or said it was normal.

It’s part of the earth’s natural process.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

It’s nothing to worry about.

From 384, 400 kilometers to 274, 575, we knew that was something to worry about, but we didn’t know everything. The how’s and the why’s. So, we relied on the scientists, because in science we trust and in God we doubt.

No one lived by the beaches anymore, even fishermen. By day, beaches would get so dry that you could walk for three hours and see nothing but land still. You’d step on a dead baby crab once in a while and by the time you’re looking back to where you came from, your legs would be gift-wrapped with seaweed and glittered with sand. At first, we couldn’t figure out the best way to fish and go on cruises because by night the water would get so high that it would swallow up any structure within fifty kilometers. In Ireland they say you’d be able to climb half of a sea cliff during the night.

After a while, the ecosystem went crazy and we went hungry. Partly because we’d just been adjusting to the 16-hour days, but mainly because the animals had a harder time getting used to it. Most of the fishes we caught were dead, and no one dared to fish in the middle of the night as weather became more unpredictable. Crops were no exception. Half of them died along with the marine life.

But then again, we were humans. We found a way to survive.

Almost everything we ate were manufactured in a shape of a cylinder or cube. We wrote recipe books that said, “101 Ways to Cook Canned Food” or “Canned You Cook This?” And we hid almost every vegetable we had left in fear of someone stealing it. Then by moonlight, if we felt having something that reminded us of how the world used to be, we would eat our roasted genetically modified chickens and our children would say, “Daddy, daddy, the moon is the size of my fist!”

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.” - 2 Timothy 3:1

 IV.

Our days shortened to 14 hours and depending on which part of the world you lived in, you either bathed in the sun or crept in the dark for more than half a day. The lands were cracked eggshells in Southern Asia and Africa, just like their skin. News reporters, missionaries, and tourists who travelled from the cold, dark North cried at swimming pools and parks because they missed the heat, and sometimes children would mistake them for ghosts or banshees.

Earth’s tilt was at 45-degrees and up in the North, where it almost snowed all year-round with only a month to melt almost half of the ice. People who didn’t die to lack of sleep or hunger died in the cold; in the South, they dried up like beef jerky. And before even Christmas arrived there were already no feeding programs or charity cases anymore, because all the beggars were dead and buried under our snow.

One time, a friend said, “My daughter came home from school and gave me her drawing. Their teacher had asked them to draw and color different kinds of people from all over the world and you know what? Even the Asian is black now!” We laughed for a second or so, but we stopped for a lot of reasons. 

“You know, you could draw the moon and the sky and still use the same crayons.”

He replied, “The moon will take half of the paper though”

“And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” - Mark 13:20

 V.

Big, bold letters sprawled across every outlet store, every shopping center, and every thrift shop, and they all spelled the same thing: WINTER CLOTHES FOR SALE. We scavenged the last of our animals that could provide us warmth and security because nothing says, “We will survive this deadly winter” like wool jackets made from our frozen sheep and a pair of leather gloves, freshly skinned from our endangered cows.

Then the world figured out how to get what it wants. The North began to ask the South for animals: chickens, pigs, cows – every farm animal you can find in a children’s story book. Because no animal we could eat could survive the winter that long and we don’t know where the fishes went. On the other hand, the South asked for vegetables and lots of ice. And finally, we were able to travel conveniently again when we’ve figured out where to put all the ice, and the people of the South were happy as long as they got fresh vegetables on their plates and ice to keep them hydrated and cool. It didn’t matter that their forests and crops burned up and that their rivers were nothing but empty veins, because it was enough that they ate and drank.

It wasn’t easy, of course. We all complained. We all asked the scientists.

“How do we survive?”

We no longer asked if we were going to be okay or if they were lying about half of the world being frozen and the other half burning as something normal, and that we will be finishing the year earlier than expected. The scientists said there was nothing to worry about. We had to take their word for it, because what could we do if even they can’t do something about it?

So, no one just talked about the moon that watched over us, except maybe for the Internet that made jokes and funny pictures about it.

What’s important was that we made it out of this alive.

So, our scientists – all kinds – genetically modified our animals and manipulated our crops; they reproduced fishes in their laboratories; they made special facilities for storing water; they invented brand new foods with whatever was left to help get us all the nutrients we need; and they gave us technology and guides to help us do all of this at home.

If the sky was clear, we would find ourselves looking at the moon and its craters and spots, with our faces painted with moonlight. We were still wolves waiting to be transformed into something greater and stronger. Something that could survive all this.

We prayed.

Even though in science we trust and in God we doubt.

“Pray that it may not happen in winter. For in those days there will be such tribulations as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be.” - Mark 13:19

 VI.

What follows is a series of tragedies: tragedies we know of; tragedies we named; tragedies that weren’t 14-hour days, mass animal endangerment, world famine, or a half-frozen, half melting world – tragedies that we were used to.

Earthquakes and the tsunamis that followed sunk islands as we welcomed a new year. All the small countries that lived on islands no longer resurfaced; their people would’ve been declared extinct if it weren’t for migration. If somebody were to make a world map at that time, you’ll no longer find Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Fiji, Cuba, or any of the islands as small as them on the map. Half of Japan and Indonesia sunk, and only a quarter of the Philippines resurfaced.

We lost seven percent of the world population. That’s half a billion people crushed by debris and drowned with the resources they traded all over the world. All their memories of their childhoods, first loves, and heartbreaks were reduced to nothing but rocks in the ocean to be covered by algae or barnacles. They were Atlantis, and a story come true have never felt so tragic.

People were devastated, of course. But we were all very hungry too. Those who weren’t affected by the earthquakes refused to help. There were incoming hurricanes and we all thought,

The dead will remain dead.

Half a billion people don’t need food, shelter, or medicine anymore.

There was no use in sharing resources with the few hundreds of survivors when more than a billion need it to stay alive.

Some people thought it was cruel and selfish, but by then we weren’t humans anymore. We were savages scraping what was left of the world we destroyed. And as much as we hate to eat and drink what should’ve been shared to the survivors of the Great Sink, we still did. We were all so hungry. God, we were hungry.

Then the hurricanes came along with their floods, landslides, and tornadoes, and they killed us and our animals. Homes were destroyed. Families were separated. Children were orphaned. There were about five billion people left in the world.

This must be a bad dream, we thought.

A sick joke.

That’s what this is.

“There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.” - Luke 21:11

 VII.

People found evidence of advanced technology being developed and used by scientists, the same ones who told us that the world was not ending. (Or so we believed.)

There was a mass production of high-tech projectors and weather instruments that were launched into space to control what we saw on the horizon and what we didn’t. (Or so they say.)

The media was accused and persecuted for false news and being paid of hush-money to keep the so-called truth a secret. (Or so we wanted.)

Hundreds of data was discovered to contain information about a world-wide human experiment determining the effects of a global catastrophe and series of disasters on human behavior. (Or so they say.)

We imprisoned CEOs, scientists, and news reporters. We raided their homes, stole their food and clothes, and hurt their loved ones. We killed them in our dreams every night and ripped them limb by limb in the sleepless ones as we lay on the floors of our wrecked home, covered in snow or in sweat, and still staring at the moon that isn’t back to its rightful, safe distance. (And so we did.)

Everything will be back to normal once we shut down all those projectors and controllers. We will learn to live again and be humans.

And the world was not ending after all.

(And that’s what we wanted to believe.)

“And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” - Matthew 24:10-12

 VIII.

People came together all over the world to watch the world end. They held their children or whoever they had left, gathered food and shared them with others as a last act of kindness, set up camp in wherever there was a field with no debris or remnant of a human being, and waited. Families, friends, lovers, and strangers. We all came to witness The Day that was said to last a lifetime. People chatted with one another, talking about their families or whoever they lost, over empty stomachs and chapped lips. The children stayed with the adults and clung onto them with unending fear and the memory of a lost childhood.

Everyone waited for The Day.

They said it will be the most dreadful thing you’ll ever see. And it was. Despite everything that happened before, it really was.

When the hour came and everyone had piled up beside the broken homes or fallen trees, the moon stared right us as always: terrifying, big, round, luminous, and waiting to collide with our fallen earth. We were wolves staring at the moon, waiting to be transformed into something greater and stronger. It was so close that you could almost see every calamity and loss you’ve endured the past year in great detail even without a telescope, binoculars, or a washed-up family album or baby shoes.

We stayed and faced our inevitable fate. Some still managed to post pictures of it on the internet with stupid captions and hashtags. There were even people who showed it on the news. But as the world spun around this frightening piece of heaven, we all took turns, the people of the world. Of viewing. Of taking photos. Of crying. Of hugging and kissing one last time. Everyone was living the Day as you could never miss it, even if you wanted to.

And we all believed that the moon will crash into us and wipe us out for old times’ sake, but it wasn’t much later that we heard the most chilling, bone shattering sound we ever got to hear: the sound of the moon cracking, like a breaking iceberg, echoing into our souls, and resonating as weeping and almost hushed screams.

Some people swore they saw Christ come out of the moon, accompanied by angels. Not everyone believes so.

But we all agreed that when we saw pieces of the moon falling down on us in slow motion, helpless and blazing, that it was disturbingly beautiful.

It was then that I kissed my wife for the last time.

“But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven; and the powers of heaven will be shaken.” - Mark 13:24-25

E P I L O G U E

There were survivors and they were less than a hundred. They spent the last days on earth, freezing, weeping, and gnashing their teeth in the dark. The sun died. The moon is gone. There is only but loneliness living and walking among the few humans who had gathered up the will to keep on breathing.

They couldn’t accept that that was the end of the world. If it was, there shouldn’t have been anyone left. But there was, and it was them.

Soon, they realized there was nothing left to do but wait.

[tippitv]

TippiTV recap: SPN 15.01 “Back and to the Future”

First a quick note on the format of this recap: I'm dealing with some neck/back/shoulder pain so I'm not going to make a bunch of captioned screen shots and diagrams and other visual aids like I usually do. That stuff, while hugely fun to do, is time-consuming even under ideal conditions. I will instead attempt to provide you with mental images of graphics I would have made.

Now, let's get on with things.

Welcome to the 15th and final season of Supernatural, everyone! If the show were a person we could give it a Quinceañera.

[Graphic: The Impala in a beautiful taffeta gown and tiara and like... satin mudflaps instead of gloves.]

It's been 5140 days since the show premiered. That's 123,360 hours. Our solar system travels around the center of the galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour. This means we have moved through 6.04464e10 miles of space since this show premiered. I don't even know what that means. Once numbers start getting letters in them, I'm lost. But it's got to be nearly as many miles as are on the Impala's odometer.

[graphic of our solar system and the Chevy Impala zooming through space together, perhaps in friendly competition]

The road so far: Man, I do not remember a lot of this. Relevant to this episode is God throwing a hissy fit, killing Jack, and releasing all the souls and/or demons from Hell.

Currently: Jack's eyeless corpse is lying around as corpses are wont to do. The surviving members of Team Free Will are fighting a lot of freshly risen dead bodies that were possessed by the released souls. If it were me just out of Hell, I wouldn't waste time in a rotted corpse. I'd just fuck off as quickly as possible and possess someone who's eating a deep-dish cheese pizza.

The risen dead are polite enough to mostly attack the Winchesters one or two at a time, so they get to grab Jack's corpse and run into a mausoleum for shelter. Okay I understand why the souls can't get through the iron doors but what's stopping the disembodied ones from just going through a window? Or through a stone wall, for that matter?

Sam asks Castiel if he can bring Jack back but he sounds like he already knows the answer. A mid-level angel without all his original powers isn't gonna be able to undo what God's done unless the plot requires it.

[Graphic of Sam's incredibly sad face as he says or thinks "maybe the plot will require it later?"]

Everyone tries to figure out what they're going to do next. Dean snarkily wonders if they're going to starve to death. I mean, no, because the ambulatory corpses will break in before long. Failing that, they'd die of thirst unless Castiel has like a TARDIS bladder that holds Dasani, and then they could eat Jack. Mmm nephilim jerky....

Proving my point for me, a resident of the mausoleum or perhaps a neighbor tries to bust through some of the loose stones just as Sam starts chipping away at them in search of an escape route. Castiel smashes its head with a big rock, causing the ghost to flee? I guess? Whatever it is looks like a glowy skeleton and ghosts usually look like their living selves for the most part.

"What the hell are we gonna do now?" Sam asks.

Ol' Eyeless Jack pops up and says in a friendly tone of voice, "Hello!" Nobody's super shocked by this turn of events.

[Graphic of Jo and Ellen saying "nobody stays dead on this show except us"]

It's just Jack's bod with a demon in it, though. Was he the one that looked like a glowy skeleton? Whatever. He happens upon some budget sunglasses on the floor nearby. No seriously they're sunglasses to save the budget because it wouldn't be cheap or timely to have to CGI empty eyes for the whole episode.

He introduces himself. "My name is Belvegar." The fuck? That sounds like a horrible portmanteau for shipping Mr. Belvedere with Garfield the cat.

[Graphic of Buckleming: "We'd write that!"]

I suppose I should check IMDB to see how that's spelled...

BELPHEGOR???

Oh okay apparently Belph is a prince of hell and "Lord of the Gap," which is like half a step up from being Lord of Old Navy. I'm looking this up on regular Wikipedia not Supernatural Wiki so the show didn't just make him up. It says here he seduces people by suggesting inventions that will make them wealthy. One time I came up with an idea for pills that would turn people's urine into toilet cleaner. I was going to call it Vita-Wiz. And that's why I've never been able to seduce anyone with my inventions.

Anyway Castiel shoves Belph up against a wall, as is customary on this show, and demands he leave Jack's bod. But Belph says he has some mojo that will get rid of all the hellish souls and demons currently trying to get into the mausoleum. Much like how Vita-Wiz gets rid of hard water stains and leaves your toilet with a minty fresh scent!

[Graphic: a colorfully jaunty ad for Vita-Wiz with Sam's endorsement a la the "Changing Channels" Herpexia ad. "I've got powerfully clean urine."]

Belph knows all about the Winchesters but is slightly surprised this latest fuckery is God's fault. He makes himself out to be a low-level demon so either he's lying or the show's not going with the prince of hell backstory. Judging by his delivery and mannerisms he thinks he's auditioning to be in Goodfellas: The High School Years.

[Graphic: High School Musical promo poster but make it mobster]

He goes on to say that, like the Winchesters, he wants all the souls back in Hell where they belong and he can get back to torturing them. "I like my job!" Unrelatable. He can't fix the main shitsplosion that's going on but says he can get them all out of the cemetery safely.

Using some "graveyard dirt" from the floor and angel blood from Convenienstiel, he works a little spell that turns all the risen dead back into just... dead. Unoccupied corpses litter the ground by the dozens. Man, what a mess. You know who isn't gonna like their job in the morning? The groundskeeper.

Also, that sure is a useful spell. I wonder if it will ever come up again...

"Where are all the ghosts?" Dean wonders.

Cut to two teenage girls somewhere else acting like teenage girls Dabb has seen in Troom Troom videos. One of the girls sees herself as a ghost in the mirror and claws her face clean off. Man, that ghost's wig is terrible. Is she Bloody Mary? I don't remember her wig being this bad. I can't believe they couldn't afford a better one even with the Budget Sunglasses.

Back to Three Men and a Belphy. Riding home in the Impala, Sam checks the news. So far, no mention of any kind of worldwide Ghostpocalypse. It seems like you're mostly safe in this universe as long as you don't live in middle America. Belph suggests they may be able to contain the ghosts before things get too out of hand and he just happens to know the right magic.

"Imagine a salt circle a mile wide," he says. Castiel points out that Harlan, Kansas is less than a mile from the cemetery so Dean hatches a plan to get everyone out so as to not trap them inside with the ghosts and demons. Is it gonna be a lame plan that would never work in reality?

But first they stop for a wrecked car on the side of the road. There's blood on the inside of the windshield but no body. "This look familiar to you?" Dean asks Sam. It looks like a lot of wrecks where someone got wanged on the head and wandered off in a daze, but they figure it's the Woman in White. "If she's back then they're all back," Dean goes on. "Every last one that we ever killed."

Okay shout out to everyone who answered my post where I asked if ghosts used to be obliterated rather than going to Hell. The consensus seems to be that the Winchesters didn't really know one way or the other early on and were guessing.

Cut to a woman running through a house with her young daughter in her arms. The aftermath of a destroyed birthday party can be seen. How late in the day were they throwing this kid's party?? To make a long story short, the ghost of John Wayne Gacy is chasing them. I'll just reiterate my hatred of this character, not because Gacy is a serial killer obv, but because it lacks internal logic! Why is he dressed like a clown?? He wasn't executed in his old clown outfit!

Suddenly it's daytime. It's like Bugs all over again. Sam, in a jacket with an FBI decal on it approaches what must be the dumbassiest dumbass sheriff in three states. He convinces the sheriff to evacuate the whole town because of a benzene leak and the sheriff just... takes his word for it. Like, he's never heard of a benzene pipeline in his hometown but doop de doop this handsome giraffe in a cheap jacket said to evacuate so it must be true!

Also why isn't the sheriff down at the cemetery?? Someone would've called that in by now! You know what I don't really care.

Meanwhile, Dean is in the car and tells Castiel to take Belph to go get supplies for the spell. Cas says he can't do it, he can't even bear to look at him. And Dean! Rolls! His! Eyes! Like, Jack's the closest thing Cas will probably ever have to a child. He was with Kelly through her pregnancy. It's only been like eight hours since the kid died horrifically. Don't roll your dang eyes!

Cas leaves and Dean puts the Equalizer gun in the glove compartment along with a copy of The Complete Works of Anton Chekhov.

Belph notices that everyone walking down the street is good-looking. Yeah, that's casting agencies for ya. He says back in his ancient penis-worshiping days, people were uglier. Belph appears to be an equal-opportunity ogler. He turns to Dean. "I mean look at you. You're gorgeous!"

[Graphic: Belphegor replacing his penis-shaped rock altar with that Skittles poster of Jensen Ackles.]

"So who was he anyway?" Belph asks, referring to his meatsuit. "He was our kid, kinda," Dean says. The show manages to resist making a Gay Dads joke that I feel like it would've given into in an earlier season. So, yay progress I guess?

Sam and Castiel split up to check every house for ghosts. That seems super time-consuming. How many Reapers are left besides Billie? I feel like they should get one on the horn unless they're all dead. Anyway, Cas's house is where the Troom Troom girls were killed. The ghost's wig looks even worse in daylight. Do they get their wigs from the Hobby Lobby doll crafting aisle or something?

Sam's house, meanwhile, is where John Wayne Ghosty went on a sartorially illogical rampage. Somehow the mother and daughter are still alive. Dumbass ghosts can't see behind a shelving unit, I guess. The instant Sam gets them safely down, Ass-Clown immediately slices him across the belly. Castiel shows up to blast the ghost with rock salt.

Meanwhile, Belph is fanboying over Dean's torturing skills. Gasp! The show remembered Dean was in Hell. It'd be nice if they were consistent about it but whatever. Belph casually mentions that all the doors in Hell opened and Dean realizes this means the cage, too.

[Graphic: That dancing gif of the actor who played Adam that says "Still in Hell" but now it says "Maybe not in Hell."]

Castiel heals Sam's wound and the fabric of his jacket! The mother and daughter are still standing there seeing all this. Cas is like, "Whatevs, I'm an angel of the Lord & Taylor." The mom is pretty flabbergasted, and even more so when Sam mentions the wound he sustained after shooting God. Castiel can't heal that one, though, because it's probably gonna be a recurring plot point judging by the flash of Evil Sam we see.

The sheriff is making a final sweep through town when he happens upon the Woman in White. The sun looks to be setting, which means it's probably been 16 hours since all the souls and demons escaped, but they're still basically within a mile of the cemetery? Even I, burdened with an easily exhausted flesh body with shitty joints could have gotten farther than that.

Anyway, Belph needs a fresh human heart for his spell so it's pretty handy of the sheriff to die! That way none of the mains need to do the morally objectionable thing of murdering someone.

Dean senses a sudden drop in temperature. "Winnie the Pooh, right now!"

WHAT THE FUUUUCK??

Hold on. I'm watching this at 1.2x speed. Let me rewatch it at 1x.

Okay he says "we need to move, right now."  My apologies to Mr. Pooh for thinking you could ever be a part of this.

[Graphic: Winnie the Pooh chipper as anything. "I CRAVE THE BLEAK ABIDING COMFORT OF DEATH AND HUNNY."]

At the same time, Sam and Castiel are walking the two survivors through town. The little girl pauses at a badly placed fish pond because she sees a woman in it. Is it Bloody Mary? What's she doing in a pond? Seriously though putting a pond right on the street corner is just asking for trouble even without spectral shenannigans. How many people have driven over the curb and right into that thing?

Okay I gotta stop getting hung up on landscaping issues. Even if they are HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND NONSENSICAL.

Dean is attacked by the Woman in White. Ass Clown goes after Sam and the others, and is soon joined by... a tall ghost and... Lizzie Borden? Sam accidentally shoots Cas full of rock salt when Lizzie vanishes, which is pretty funny although move ya pretty self out of the way, Cas. When she pops up behind him, she tries to choke him with the ax handle. It reminds me of that lesser known poem about Miss Borden.

Lizzie Borden had an ax Gave her mother 40 whacks Tried to choke the angel Cas 'Cause axing would've been too fast

In the ensuing fisticuffs, everyone has time to throw punches while Belph performs the spell. All he does is put the heart on a little pile of salt and chant some Latin. Is like the thing Ruby 1.0 did with that poor virgin girl's heart a million years ago?

Oh sweet Jeebus the sight of these ghosts chasing everyone on foot is... bad and funny. Y'all are ghosts! You can just blip in and out of wherever you want to go! One of the only upsides to being dead has got to be not having to do cardio anymore and here you are running the hundred yard dash like it's 6th grade PE class. They come screeching to a halt where the spell has created an invisible boundary. This might be worse than Hell.

[Graphic: Parisian street mimes trying to escape an invisible box]

But wait... Why wasn't Belphegor affected by this spell? Did he write in an exception clause? Or is it only for ghosts and not demons?

The Good Guys plus Belph bring the mom and daughter to the high school down the road where all the evacuees are sheltering. With no sheriff to coordinate things, isn't it all just gonna... fall to pieces now? How are they gonna convince everyone to stay away from their homes? What if someone needs their prescriptions? ("Oh no my Herpexia!") They can't get rid of the ghosts as long as Hell isn't in business anymore, right? This is a mess. Dean seems to know it.

Dang why are Castiel and Dean on such icy terms? Why do I not remember last season?

Now that they have a five second breather before the shit hits the fan, Dean wants to see Sam's godly bullet wound. It looks a little crusty but not too bad except... "There's no exit wound," Dean notes. He gives it a swipe with some alcohol which will surely kill whatever supernatural E. coli is in there.

"So when Chuck said this was the end I guess this is what he meant," Sam says. Yes being trapped in a high school with my neighbors seems like end times to me, too. Tonally, things seemed a lot more dire in All Hell Breaks Loose 2.

Dean's feeling a bit embittered about discovering they didn't have as much free will as they'd thought, that everything was part of Chuck's personal lab experiment. "What did it all mean?" he wonders. "It meant a lot," Sam says. "We still saved people."

But what even are people, man? I'm going to have an existential crisis and I can't drink as much as Dean because I have that "Asian flush" gene thing. One drink and I turn super red and hot and queasy and then I pass out.

Sam thinks God has fucked off to who knows where because he hasn't seen the promos for episode 2 yet. "He gets bored and starts another story." Ah yes like me and my WiPs. Relatable. Overall, Sam is feeling much more optimistic. "Once we win this, God is gone... and it's just us. We're free."

Dean catches his optimism cooties. "I like those odds," he says of fighting billions of evil souls. You know what that means? We got work to do. Quick intercut of Baby Winchesters with Middle-Aged Winchesters saying the same thing and closing the trunk of the Impala.

[Graphic: Impala with the solar system again. This time the Impala is pulling ahead. "ONE MORE TIME AROUND, SONS O' BITCHES"]

So there we are at the first episode of the final season. Reblog or reply with what you thought of the episode and thanks for reading!

One final note:

You can read more about my writing and general life situation and GoFundMe here: https://tippitv.tumblr.com/post/188224749207/supernatural-final-season-recaps-and-assorted

If you enjoyed the recap and are able, please visit my virtual tip jar: paypal.me/TippiBlevins or https://ko-fi.com/A4017DA

Henry Hound and I could use the financial help!

See you next week.

[something-tofightfor]

Neon Lights - Epilogue (part 1)

Pairing: Ryan Brenner x Reader

Word Count: 6275

Rating: M (language)

Summary: The months following your chance encounter in Vegas change both of your lives.... but how?

Parts 1-11 can be found on my 500 follower event masterlist (at the bottom of my main Masterlist page). Thank you for reading. Please enjoy.

I’m not even going to apologize for the length of this, because I’m not sorry. There was still story to tell for these two. 

Tagging: @ooo-barff-ooo @agent-bossypants @likethetailofacomet

POV - Ryan

  He smiled at his phone, slipping it into the pocket of his jacket and pulling his scarf up over his mouth and nose. You’d texted him a picture of your most recent assignment: photographing some ruins in Peru along with a caption ‘I’m wearing sunscreen this time’ and he’d felt his spirits lift immediately, even as he sent back a reply ‘good. Gotta protect that face and those shoulders.’. Though the two of you had kept in touch after Vegas, it was often difficult to find a good time to talk, so your communication had been mostly through text messages with an occasional phone call thrown in for good measure when you needed to hear each other’s voices. Ryan wouldn’t ever tell you this, but there were days when hearing your voice or seeing your words popping up on his screen had given him the will to sit down and play, provided the motivation for him to write new music - had simply encouraged him to survive.

 He’d gone to Colorado as he’d told you he would, spending two and a half weeks hanging out with James, a friend he’d made a few years prior during a stint in the south, and then had moved further north, back into Utah. He’d stayed in Salt Lake City for only a few days before deciding that he didn’t want to be there, since he was constantly looking over his shoulder, afraid of seeing a familiar blonde head in the crowd, one that he had no interest in seeing again. Though he’d reached out to Virginia, she hadn’t wanted to see him, preferring to raise her son completely away from the lifestyle she’d used to live, which Ryan understood all too well even though it hurt.

 From Utah, he’d headed to Seattle, which had taken just over three days on the train, meaning that by the time he’d arrived, Ryan was ready to settle in for a bit. Georgie was there, staying with more friends, and Ryan had been able to relax for three weeks, making good money and saving a good portion of it, too, earned from busking and working a few hours a week in the kitchen of a diner.

 Ryan hadn’t thought about recording in a studio again, but on the trip between Utah and Seattle, he’d decided that he needed to buy a cheap recorder. Not only would that give him the opportunity to try out different things lyrically, but it would give him a frame of reference for the notes he played and the ideas that came to him. Rather than wasting his time trying to find something small and portable used, he’d gone into a Best Buy, told one of the employees what he was looking for and had handed over the cash - the $50 you’d slipped into his case the first night he’d met you comprising the bulk of it - for a digital voice recorder and a spare memory card, even though the employee had told him that the internal memory would be more than enough space for whatever he needed. Maybe for someone with constant access to a computer. Not for me.

 Ryan had sent you a text to let you know about his purchase the day he’d made it and that had resulted in a phone call from you - you were somewhere in California, having flown straight there from New Orleans, and that meant that you were in the same time zone. “That’s incredible, Ryan.” Your voice had caused his cheeks to turn pink, teeth digging into his lower lip. “You can keep track of everything now. Make sure when you play for people, you’re recording. That way, you’ll hear what you sounded like to them.” You’d paused. “I mi… I hope you’re doing well.” I miss you too, he’d thought, but had said he was great, that he was excited to learn the device, and that when he figured out how to use it, he’d be sure to record something special so that you could hear it.

 The phone calls and texts had continued for months as summer turned into fall and fall turned to winter. He was making his way toward the Midwest, knowing that even though it would be much colder there than on the west coast, he had more people to stay with, more opportunities to busk, and he was moving ever closer to the east coast, his ultimate destination, and where he figured he’d spend most of his spring. He’d called you on Christmas, from the living room of one of Georgie’s friends in Chicago, and you’d cried as he’d wished you a merry one, whispering the same back to him in a hushed and choked voice. “I’m with my aunt in Virginia” you’d explained. “But she doesn’t celebrate. She doesn’t think… thank you, Ryan.” His heart had broken for you, throat tightening as you’d told him you were in his home state for the holiday, but you’d quickly recovered, changing the subject and cheering loudly for him when he’d played you one of his new songs, and he’d known that you recorded it somehow on your end. “This is the best present ever, Ryan.” He had been astounded at how sincere your voice was, but  recovered quickly, his heart pounding. Tell her. As you’d prepared to hang up, still not saying goodbye - the two of you never did - he’d taken a deep breath.

 “I miss you.” He cleared his throat and you were silent for long moments.

 “Yeah,” you’d choked out. “Yeah, Ryan. I miss you, too.”

 He was in Indianapolis, two weeks after Christmas, and he was waiting for a train that would take him to St. Louis. There, he planned on staying with his friends Maria and Kenny, who had said that they had a job for him - a weekly gig that paid well. He figured he’d stay there for as long as they’d have him, play the gigs, write some music, busk on the side and put more money into his savings account.

 Though he didn’t like being unable to access his available cash, Ryan had opened a bank account while in Seattle, depositing a large portion of his money into it, and had actually felt safer once it had been out of the hidden compartment in his guitar’s hard case. It wasn’t much, but it was a safety net - and it felt good for him to have it, to know that if he needed or wanted it, it was there. He’d maintained his excited tone of voice when he talked to you about where he’d been and what he’d seen, kept the texts light, even though they weren’t always the whole truth. He’d started asking himself tough questions in Seattle, and had repeated them in every subsequent city - Could I stay here? Could I be happy? And each time, the answer was a resounding no, but not because of the location… because something, someone was missing. There was something different about the cities and the people he saw, something off about the way that the felt each time he got onto or off of one of the trains. I gotta figure out what… and why.

 Ryan waited patiently in the train yard for his ride to St. Louis, shivering as wet snowflakes landed on his face. He’d let Maria and Kenny know that he was on his way, to be looking for him the following morning, and Ryan took a deep breath, patting his pocket again to make sure that his phone was there before he made his way toward the tracks, crouching down. The trains were moving now, slowly picking up speed as he searched for an empty car, and when he found the right one, Ryan quickly slid his bag into it along with his guitar, moving at a slow jog as he prepared to heft himself up into the car with his things. Just as he flexed to jump, his boot hit a patch of ice and Ryan slipped, crashing to the ground. He put his hands out to catch himself, hearing a sickening crack as his right hand hit the gravel and he cried out in pain. “Fuck!” He yelled the word, allowing himself only a moment to collect his thoughts as he pushed himself up with his left hand and ran after the train, focused only on getting into the car with his bag and guitar.

 It was difficult with one hand but he managed, pulling himself off of the ground and into the train with a grunt, rolling across the floor and onto his back, his left hand cradling his right forearm. Maybe I just jammed it. After catching his breath, Ryan sat up, scooting back so that he could lean against the interior wall of the train car and gingerly prodded his wrist with the fingers of his left hand while attempting to bend the right ones. “Motherfucker.” He hissed out the word, wincing again. That’s my strumming hand, if it’s broken, I can’t… Ryan’s eyes flew open, looking down at his lap and then he reached into his pocket, intending to pull his phone out and call you, to ask you what he should do, but his hand met only empty space. He scrambled to his knees, eyes searching the shadows for any sign of his phone, but it wasn’t there. “No. No. No.” He was frantic and he was in pain, and Ryan was, for the first time in his travels, completely cut off from everyone, traveling alone through the darkness.

 Slumping back into the seated position against the wall, Ryan drew his knees up to his chest, carefully resting his injured arm between his thighs and waist and put his other elbow against one knee, forehead on his palm and fingers gripping his hair. Eight hours or so til St. Louis. You can do this, Ryan. He took a deep breath, opening his eyes and finding that they were filled with fresh tears - but not from the pain in his throbbing (and already swelling) arm. His wrist, even if broken, would heal, but by losing his phone, he’d also lost you.

 ---

 POV - You

  The new year was meant to bring new and exciting things, but it was only the middle of January, and you’d been faced with so much disappointment already that you couldn’t stand it. Ryan had kept you sane throughout your trips following Vegas, and you looked forward to your interactions with him, no matter how brief. A text here, a call every now and then, the reminder that he’d been writing and playing and thriving - these were all things that you anxiously looked forward to.

 It didn’t matter what he said or where you were, you always made time for Ryan. You wanted to hear about his time in Colorado, his brief trip back to Utah, again without going to see her, the time he spent in Seattle, his weeks in Montana and Chicago. Ryan had been busy, but he’d also seemed to be taking longer in each city, doing more to explore and discover what each had to offer. He seemed happy, seemed almost settled at times, in the sense that it wasn’t just about jumping ship whenever he got the urge - that there was value in staying, too. He was looking beneath the surface of each place he visited, searching for something. You, on the other hand, were experiencing a great deal of unrest, no matter where you went.

 Your trips had included New Orleans and San Diego, a quick trip to Texas to cover a company expansion as a favor to a friend, a short trip home to Philadelphia for Amy’s wedding in October, which was awkward as hell. You’d spent much of the night texting Ryan, who was in Texas at that point, playing two nights a week in a college town for decent money. You’d sent him a picture of yourself in your bridesmaid’s dress, nose wrinkled and tongue sticking out slightly and his reply had been the only time you smiled genuinely all night - ‘wish I could tell you to save me a dance. You look beautiful’.

 After the wedding, where Amy’s mother had suggested that you go home again, do something about the house you’d grown up in, you’d informed Ryan that you’d be out of touch for a few days and not to worry. You’d gone against your better judgement, hopping on a plane and taking off for Europe. The ‘few day’ trip had turned into a six week period during which you’d spoken to no one that you actually knew except Ryan, the texts flying back and forth between you as trains carried you across the borders of different countries despite the fact that you’d never told him why you left the States in the first place. You kept this secret because you knew that he’d tell you she was right, that you needed to deal with it instead of running, needed to take time and process things… and he’d be right, too.

 When you decided that it was time to get back to your real life, you’d flown home a few days before Christmas, heading to your aunt’s for the holiday. And it was during that holiday, after hearing Ryan’s newest song and him telling you that he missed you that you’d realized that you loved him, that a few days in Vegas six months earlier had irrevocably changed your life, and it didn’t matter because you’d likely never see him in person again. You hadn’t told him, of course, had instead jumped back on a plane to Peru a few days later and focused your attention on taking pictures of the jungle and the ruins, all the while looking for - and knowing that you weren’t going to see - Ryan’s dark hair and eyes looking for you, too. You had no way of knowing it, but he’d been looking for you in every city he went to, too - searching for your face every time someone passed by.

 You hadn’t heard from him in two weeks, since you’d sent him a picture on your second day in South America and he’d responded with a joke, and even though it sometimes took a few days to respond, weeks was another story. The fact that he still wasn’t responding to the texts you were sending had started to worry you - not because you thought he was ignoring you, but because you thought that something wasn’t right. Finally deciding to call Ryan, you pressed his contact button, listening with a dull ache in the pit of your stomach. After four rings, a female picked up. “Hello?”

 “Who is this?” She didn’t have an accent, and you didn’t recognize the voice. Maybe he left it at a friend’s house while he’s out.

 “I’m… I’m looking for Ryan.” The woman on the other end of the line had snorted, letting you know that there was no one named Ryan there. “Ryan Brenner? Young guy? Dark hair? This is his phone number. He’s - ” Your heart was pounding as you waited for a response.

 “This is my phone number. This is my phone. I got it two weeks ago.” The woman coughed. “You’re not the first person that’s called for this Ryan guy, but this ain’t his phone anymore. I don’t know who he is. I found it, and its mine now.” You felt sick to your stomach. Found it? His phone? Why doesn’t he have his phone? “Don’t call me again.” The woman hung up before you could ask her anything else, leaving you clutching your phone in your hand in the middle of your hotel room, the sun shining brightly outside, the ocean lapping at the beach only a few feet away. Is he OK? He has to be OK.

 You began pacing the room, realizing that the woman had no reason to lie to you, that Ryan simply didn’t have his phone anymore. You had no way of contacting him, had no way of knowing that he was OK, had no way of finding him. “No. No, no.” You dropped down onto the bed, burying your face in your hands and felt the tears dripping down your cheeks. He wouldn’t have lost the phone. He wouldn’t be ignoring me. Something happened. Something bad. Without thinking, you stood, beginning to throw clothing and your other items back into your bag, stopping only to change into your favorite t-shirt, which just happened to be the deep green one that had once been Ryan’s.

 Unbeknownst to you, when you’d gone back into the bathroom to brush your teeth on the morning you left Vegas, he had put it into your bag, folding it and slipping it beneath the dress you’d been wearing the first night you’d met him so that you’d notice it only when you unpacked. It was the only article of clothing that you took with you everywhere you went, and you found yourself putting it on when you were having a bad day, even long after his scent had worn off from the thin fabric. You took comfort in knowing that he’d once worn it too, in the same way that you’d found comfort by his side in Vegas for those short hours.

 Feeling a little better than you had previously, you took a deep breath and looked around the room, fingers absently stroking the hem of your shirt. You’d lost your parents, and they weren’t coming back, which was something that you had to deal with, something you’d been putting off for eighteen months. Now, you’d effectively lost Ryan too, and unless something happened to change that - unless he contacted you, unless you found him again, even though you had no idea how to do that, it was something that you’d also have to deal with. Eventually.

 You thought of Ryan’s smile, thought of the way his lips had felt on the back of your hand as he’d kissed it for the first time. You thought of the look in his eyes when he’d seen you on the plaza, thought of the way that you felt when you’d heard him sing - really sing for the first time. You remembered of the moment that you’d felt his mouth on yours for the first time, tasting like mint chocolate. You remembered what he smelled like, remembered what he looked like, leaning over you as you laid in bed, staring up at him.

 You remembered how you felt the moment you’d realized what you felt for him, sitting alone in a dark room in your Aunt’s home, and then you decided that you couldn’t think about him anymore, you couldn’t dwell on the fact that you loved him and you were likely never going to know what had happened to him. Taking a deep breath, you stood up, hoisting your bag over your shoulder and heading out of the room to see about changing your flight.

  It was time for you to go home like he’d suggested. At least dealing with an empty house and all of your parents’ stuff would keep your mind off of the sudden disappearance of Ryan Brenner from your life. I hope.

  ---

 When you’d arrived back in Philadelphia, it had taken you two days to work up the nerve to even unlock the front door of the house, and then another two to take a step inside of it. The moment you’d entered the front hall, you’d broken down, falling to your knees in the entryway and staying there until your body had given out on you and you’d collapsed to the floor, drawing your knees up to your chest and crying silent, dry tears, your entire body shaking as you thought about the giant, empty places in your life. Mom. Dad. Mom. Dad. Mom. Dad. Ryan.

 The emptiness of the house was unsettling but once you’d gotten over the initial emotional reaction to being back, you’d taken your time in moving through the place, fingers trailing over picture frames and furniture, sitting at the kitchen table, re-entering your room. Luckily - or unluckily, however you wanted to think of it - the intruders hadn’t killed your parents inside, instead dragging both of them out into the garage before ending their lives, and so being inside of the house got easier as the days passed, though you didn’t step foot out the door from the kitchen into the garage.

 You started by slowly going through your parents’ things. Though you had a few issues where you lost focus and needed to take breaks, you had their bedroom cleaned out within a week, stripped down to the furniture. Their clothing had all been donated, separated into different boxes and bags before taking it to local shelters and charities. From there, you moved on to the other rooms of the house - the kitchen, the bathrooms, the living room and dining room. We had too much stuff. None of this shit matters. By the fifth week in the house, you were completely done with the upper floor, except for your bedroom, and had most of the main level of the house organized, too.

 You chose to keep a few things, packing them into storage totes and placing them in a spare bedroom - photo albums, some of your mother’s old vinyl records family heirlooms… including some of the jewelry that the thieves had stolen in the first place. Your aunt - the one from Virginia - had been the one dealing with the police and the trial, which you hadn’t attended because the thought of looking those men in the eye had been unthinkable for you, and she’d gotten back the missing items, returning them to the home for you, ready and waiting.  

   At the beginning of month two in your childhood home, just as the first few days of spring were breaking, you stepped down into the basement for the first time. The room had always been your favorite in the house - built into the side of a small hill, which meant that the majority of the far wall was made of glass, looking out into your back yard. The room was bright and airy, and you slid the glass door open before stepping through the room, eyes on your father’s books and your mother’s knicknacks. None of them would be kept - you simply had nowhere to store them, and while it made you sad, they were just things, and you had the memories that went along with them. But the guitar in the corner was a different story. It was another thing that you couldn’t begin to think about getting rid of, but even touching that had been difficult for you.

  You picked it up, holding it by the neck, and as your fingers curled around the smooth wood, you felt a wave of sadness wash over you. You play? You look good with a guitar in your hands. Sinking down onto your dad’s comfortable stool, you hugged the guitar to your chest. Ryan had been right - you needed to get back to the house and to deal with the loss of your parents, needed to make peace with the fact that the house wouldn’t ever feel like home again - say goodbye to them in a more meaningful way than speaking at the service…but you should have done it sooner.

 Taking your time and going through things had been therapeutic, and you’d had many conversations with your parents as you’d cleaned out the house, but the person that you found yourself thinking of most had been Ryan. He still hadn’t contacted you, still hadn’t been answering his phone, hadn’t shown up on TV or on the radio… and you didn’t know what to do, even going so far as to search for him on the Internet with no results.

 There was nothing that you could do, really, except worry about him, and letting yourself fall down that rabbit hole would have derailed the entire process and significance of going through the house… so you opted to push your worry for him out of your thoughts, at least until you’d made significant progress on the rest of the task at hand.

 That didn’t keep you from talking to him, though, and you found yourself humming or singing his songs out loud often, mentally keeping a list of things that you wanted to show him or tell him, no matter how silly or insignificant. Even though he wasn’t physically with you, your silent (and sometimes out loud) conversations with Ryan helped you get through the days of packing and throwing things away, motivated you to get out of bed and continue. Wish I could tell you, Ryan Brenner. I wish you knew.

 You strummed a few chords, looking out the glass door and felt your throat tightening as you allowed yourself to really think of Ryan again - of his kind eyes, easy smile and his thick, deep voice. You wondered where he was - if he was still alive - what he was doing, and you were worried. You were worried because you hated the unknown when it came to those you loved - and you loved Ryan, still and totally, and even if you never heard from him again, there would always be a place for him in your heart.

 I’m keeping this guitar. No matter where I go, it goes with me. That was the night you moved the guitar stand up to your room, and after that, you spent at least a few minutes each day strumming it, trying to make your fingers cooperate. It was a slow process, but it was something, and it kept you connected to Ryan in a way. Not only that, but you used the time to begin planning another project for yourself - organizing a gallery show for some of your favorite photos, and started sending your portfolio to local studios. He wanted to see my work, why wouldn’t others?

 Thirteen weeks after you went home, you finished cleaning out the house. Though all of the furniture was still in it, the house was a shell of itself, most of your family’s personal items long gone and the others placed into storage, and as you wandered through the main floor, you decided what you needed to do. You had no desire to live in Philadelphia, no desire to remain in the house - and so it was time to sell it. There was no one else that you had to convince of the decision, and so you’d reached out to Amy’s mother, asking her for the name of a reputable realtor.

 Since it was late spring, you’d been warned that once the house was up, it would likely sell quickly. That was fine with you, and so you had gone through all of the required steps to get the house inspected, to get it appraised, to get it listed for sale. Four months to the day that you’d returned to the house, you officially put it on the market - on the same day that you’d been contacted by the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, who wanted to feature your work as a guest exhibition. It would be the first time a collection of your work was visible in a public space and not on the pages of a magazine or on the Internet, and you were terrified and thrilled at the same time.

  Celebrating with a bottle of wine and the guitar on your back porch, you’d toasted to your family, toasted to yourself - toasted to the memory of Ryan. “I did it, Ry. I dealt with it, just like you told me I needed to.. and I put myself out there, too.” You laughed, shaking your head and clutching the neck of the instrument that was sitting on your lap. “You’d be proud of me, I think.” The tears filled your eyes, but they weren’t as painful as they had been previously; you could think of him with only fondness and a faint pang of sadness. The ache was still there, but if there was anything you’d learned during your travels, it was that you couldn’t dwell on the things that you couldn’t control - and you couldn’t control Ryan’s absence in your life.

  He was gone from it just as quickly as he’d entered it, and though you missed him fiercely, it was something that you couldn’t change. “I hope you’re happy, wherever you are.” Lifting your glass toward the sky, you took a long drink and then set it down on the patio next to you before settling the instrument on your lap and arranging your hands properly. You were still learning, but were able to clumsily pick out some of the chords of the song he’d played you on Christmas, and it was a comfort to you.

 Three weeks after the house had been put on the market, you accepted an offer on it. The realtor had tried to convince you to wait, to haggle on the price, to get the best deal that you possibly could, but you were ready for it to be done, ready to devote your focus to the gallery and to whatever came next. You were itching to leave the city, itching to get back on the road, and without the house, you had nothing tying you down. You decided to accept an offer from a young family, even though it wasn’t the highest that you’d received, and after meeting with the gallery representatives to finalize details for the opening of your exhibit only a few days later, you’d simply walked across the street to the real estate office, officially signing the property away and approving the offer.

 Though the close date wouldn’t be until the third week of June, which was almost a month away, it gave you time to plan, time to decide what came next - and time to enjoy the fact that you would officially be free of all obligations.

 You’d decided to take a walk through Rittenhouse Square after meeting with both of the people that you needed to, and as you walked slowly beneath the trees, you found yourself smiling and enjoying the warmth of the air. Though Philadelphia’s days as your official “home” were numbered, you were happier than you had been in a long time. As you made your way toward the center of the park and the fountain, you heard someone playing guitar, the soft notes reaching your ears even over the noise from the city’s traffic and the conversations of the other people in the park. It’s the perfect day for it. You kept smiling and walked toward the sound, knowing that many of the college kids played in the park, but your smile faltered as you saw the figure perched on a crate beneath one of the tall trees, a hard case open near his feet. No way.

 Your heart was pounding as you walked closer, pausing at the back end of the fountain and reaching out with one hand to steady yourself against the concrete block as you swayed on your feet. It can’t be. It’s not possible. You swallowed, blinking and took a few more steps toward the guitar player, shaking your head back and forth. Ryan? You felt your eyes well up and a quiet gasp left your throat as he continued playing, his voice getting louder with each note - stronger, too, even though you saw the obvious effort it was taking him to play the chosen song while keeping his composure.

 …But baby I've been here before I've seen this room and I've walked this floor You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya And I've seen your flag on the marble arch And love is not a victory march It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah…

 You moved, finally, joining the small crowd of people that was watching him play, but you weren’t focused on them - you were only focused on Ryan, on the fact that after five months of wondering and waiting and hoping that he was OK, he was sitting in front of you - in the city that you’d called home, guitar in hand. He’s wearing my shirt. You stared at him without shame as he played, eyes raking over his body from his feet to his neck, not daring to look at his face because you knew that if you did, you’d immediately run to him. I can’t do that. He’s not mine. You blinked, bit your lip and then blinked again, feeling as if you were entranced as he played, each word full of meaning, each word a relief as it hit your ears. You’re here. You’re here. You’re OK. You realized that the song was ending and stepped closer to Ryan, still about ten feet away, a few people between you. You didn’t know what you were going to say or do - but your body was operating on its own, feet carrying you ever closer to Ryan even as he sung the final notes and strummed the final chords.

 His head was tilted toward the ground as he played, you finally saw, because he had the recorder set up next to him in the lid of the guitar case. Still recording himself. Good. As the song ended and you stepped forward with two other people, he finally looked up, to his left, in the opposite direction from where you were standing, speaking to a young man that had also stepped forward to talk to him. Ryan had the same look on his face that he’d had in Vegas after playing in front of Paris - proud and surprised and genuine and you spoke without thinking, your voice trembling. “You’re really good.” Ryan froze mid sentence, his fingers tightening around the neck of his guitar. “Your voice is incredible.”

 He turned his head slowly toward you, and you watched as his eyes widened and his lips parted, his gaze focused on your face. He glanced down quickly, shifting and setting the guitar in the case before he stood, taking a single step toward you and then stopping. This is it. You swallowed, taking a breath and stepped toward him too, your next words coming out quietly as you felt the moisture in your eyes finally spilling over and you reached a hand out to him. “Do you know any Robert Johnson, Ryan?”

 ---

[class-wom]

Katherine Helmond, the seven-time Emmy-nominated Texas actress who played the feisty, man-crazy mother Mona Robinson on the long-running ABC sitcom Who’s the Boss?, has died. She was 89.

Helmond, who earlier starred as the wide-eyed socialite sister Jessica Tate on another popular ABC comedy, Susan Harris’ daytime-serial spoof Soap, died Saturday of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at her home in Los Angeles, her talent agency, APA, announced.

The shapely, blue-eyed Helmond also portrayed Doris Sherman, the widowed owner of the fictional NFL team the Orlando Breakers, on ABC’s Coach, and she was Lois Whelan, the upper-class mother of Patricia Heaton’s character, on CBS’ Everybody Loves Raymond.

On the big screen, Helmond appeared in three Terry Gilliam movies — as the seafaring cannibal Mrs. Ogre in Time Bandits (1981), as Jonathan Pryce’s rich, cosmetic surgery-addicted mother in Brazil (1985) and as a hotel clerk in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). And she provided the voice of Lizzie, a 1923 Ford Model T, in the three Cars movies.

More recently, she appeared on True Blood.

Helmond received Emmy noms for lead actress in a comedy for playing Jessica in every season of Soap, which aired from 1977-81. She was nominated again for Who’s the Boss? in 1988 and 1989 and for Everybody Loves Raymond in 2002. And she won two Golden Globes, one for each show.

The 5-foot-2-inch Helmond also showed off her glorious cheekbones when she earned a Tony nom in 1973 for best featured actress in a play for her work in Eugene O’Neill’s The Great God Brown. She often said that the theater was her first love.

After Helmond toiled for years in small, dramatic parts on television, her agent thought it was time that the actress did some comedy.

"I was married to drunks, I got knocked around and battered and beaten and taken advantage of,” she said of her first TV roles in a 2008 interview with the Archive of American Television. “That’s one of the reasons I got switched to comedic roles. My agent said, ‘I just can’t bear to see you knocked around on television any more. … We’re going to try for a sitcom.’”

When she auditioned for Soap, Helmond said that Harris sat very seriously, never laughing, but by the time the actress had arrived home from their first meeting, she learned that she had gotten the part.

Soap, as described in the opening, was “the story of two sisters — Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell.” The wealthy Jessica had a philandering husband (Robert Mandan) and a sarcastic servant named Benson (Robert Guillaume); Mary’s (Cathryn Damon) family, meanwhile, was blue-collar.

Helmond said that Jessica “floated through life; it was like music playing all the time. [Harris] said that I had captured that, that I was very loving and wide-eyed about life, more child-like than stupid.”

On Who’s the Boss?, which aired for eight seasons from 1984-92, Helmond’s sexually active Mona dated all manner of men. She played the mother of a divorced advertising executive Angela (Judith Light), who employs a retired St. Louis Cardinals second baseman (Tony Danza) as a live-in housekeeper in Fairfield, Connecticut. His daughter (Alyssa Milano) and Angela's son (Danny Pintauro) also live there.

Mona was a widow who moved on from her husband's death by "throwing caution to the wind, doing whatever comes up, thinking my own thoughts, being a little more risque," Helmond said. She heard from viewers who benefited from that characterization, she noted.

"If life dealt you some unfortunate blow, you would still be able to go out into the world, find new friends, find new jobs, find a new way of living if you knew who you were," she said. "I felt like I was giving a free lesson to a lot of people who are in that position … I got wonderful letters from people."

Helmond noted that ABC filmed a pilot for a Mona spinoff, but it was not picked up.

Milano paid tribute to Helmond on Friday, captioning a series photos of her co-star with the words, "My beautiful, kind, funny, gracious, compassionate, rock. You were an instrumental part of my life. You taught me to hold my head above the marsh! You taught me to do anything for a laugh! What an example you were! Rest In Peace, Katherine."

Light called Helmond "a remarkable human being and an extraordinary artist; generous, gracious, charming and profoundly funny. She taught me so much about life and inspired me indelibly by watching her work. Katherine was a gift to our business and to the world."

An only child, Katherine Marie Helmond was born on Galveston Island in Texas on July 5, 1929. Her father was a fireman and her mother a housewife, and she was the oldest of three daughters.

After attending Ball High School, she pursued acting in Houston and Dallas, then moved to New York with a handful of friends. When they had trouble finding work, they bought a theater in upstate New York and put on plays there. She said she did 10 years of summer stock.

She spent seven years with the Hartford Stage Company in Connecticut and the Trinity Repertory Theater in Providence, Rhode Island. After winning the Drama Critics Award for her off-Broadway performance in John Guare's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The House of Blue Leaves, Helmond followed the production to Los Angeles and quickly landed a guest-starring spot on Gunsmoke in 1972.

Helmond had a role in Arthur Hiller’s The Hospital (1971), and in Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot (1976), her character kicks over a headstone in a graveyard.

Gilliam originally cast Ruth Gordon for Time Bandits, but she broke her leg on a Clint Eastwood movie, so Helmond got the part. For Brazil, the filmmaker phoned her and said, "I have a part for you, but you're not going to look very good in it," she recalled.

Helmond said that she had a rubber mask glued to her face at 5 a.m. each day during production and wore it for 10 hours at a time. She developed blisters that needed medical attention, yet even during that time, she found "great joy in acting."

"I felt I blossomed as a person when I got a chance to act," she said. "Through all the many years now, I’ve never fallen out of love. It’s been like an incredible marriage that really worked. I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Survivors include her half-sister, Alice, and her husband of 57 years, David Christian. She met him at The Hampton Playhouse Summer Stock Theater, where he was the set designer and she the leading lady.

"She was the love of my life," Christian said. "We spent 57 beautiful, wonderful, loving years together, which I will treasure forever. I've been with Katherine since I was 19 years old. The night she died, I saw that the moon was exactly half-full, just as I am now … half of what I’ve been my entire adult life."

A memorial for family and friends is being planned.

[cksmart-world]

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

GOP BREAKTHROUGH: EARTH NOT FLAT AFTER ALL

What? Utah Congressman John Curtis has just said Republicans really do care about climate change. Subversive and traitorous talk like that could get him hanged in West Virginia or Wyoming because Real President Trump said it's all a big a hoax. So what's up with Curtis, who just launched the Conservative Climate Caucus. “Republicans do care about this Earth... We, too, want to leave this Earth better than we found it,” he said. But there is, of course, a catch: Caucus members will press for private-sector solutions and labeled as sacrilege cutting back on fossil fuels. Why kill the economy just to save the planet? The caucus already has round-filed President Biden's goal to cut emission levels in half by 2030, because it's just un-American. Republicans, Curtis said, “will show the need to depart from the shaming-culture found in today’s climate dialogue... ” Yeah, no more coal-shaming and no more tie-die Earth Day B.S. Still, it is PROGRESS because until now any Republican uttering the words, “climate change,” would have their image photo-shopped onto Nancy Pelosi Christmas cards and mailed to constituents with the caption, “Climate change is real and Earth is not flat.” God rest their souls.

SUPREME COURT: F-YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON

It's official, kids can now tell their teachers and principals to F-off on Snapchat. (We are not making this up.) The case in question involves a 14-year-old girl who posted this after failing to make the varsity cheerleading squad: “F — school. F — softball. F— cheer(leading). F— everything.” Bad went to worse when school officials yanked her off the JV cheerleading squad as punishment. But wait, what about free speech? Her parents filed suit in federal court, arguing that school officials can't impede free speech outside school. The Supreme Court agreed, citing the First Amendment. So the staff here at Smart Bomb decided to consult our F-bomb experts, Wilson and the band. Nobody told them the First Amendment protected the F-word back in the dinosaur days when they were in high school. When Wilson dropped the F-bomb, he was punished with endless hours in study detention making paper airplanes, because back in the day it was not in common usage — only hardened criminals and cowboys in bars fired off the F-bomb. Times have changed and now 14-year-olds throw it around like jellyrolls. Soon, F-you will lose all of its obscene sting and phrases like: “F-you and the horse you rode in on,” will be like, “Gee good to see you and your nice pony.”

JAN. 6 — FORGET WHITE SUPREMACISTS, IT WAS THE FBI

Ah hah, the truth comes out. The Jan. 6 insurrection was planned, orchestrated and carried out by the FBI. We know this because Tucker Carlson got the legal papers that say exactly that. The charging documents for some 500 rioters refer to “un-indicted co-conspirators” and everyone knows that is government speak for Federal Bureau of Investigations. Now, about Antifa and Black Lives Matter — of course they were involved, it's just that only white people show up in the videos because those black rascals were in disguise. Next, them people are coming to take away your house, Rudy Giuliani said on Laura Ingraham's Fox News show. And now New York has suspended Rudy's law license because, they say, and we quote: “He lied his ass off about Trump winning the election.” Anybody can see what is happening here — the Deep State is taking over the government and stealing our freedom to lie our ass off. And that's not all, as Ingraham explained it: the military is trying to root out conservative Evangelicals in its ranks. This is nothing short of a grand scheme called “critical race theory” to get rid of all caucasians. White People Matter and they're tired of being trampled on by minorities — it's not fair. White people want their freedom back.

Post script — Well, pickleball fans, that about does it for another rousing week here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of overgrown frat boy Tucker Carlson's drivel so you don't have to. (e.g. Gen. Mark Milley, is a stupid pig.) Carlson has perhaps the most watched “cable news” show among the 25-54 age group, drawing well over 3 million viewers. Breaking News: The Manhattan D.A. may charge the Trump Organization with fraud felonies that could shut down the whole fraudulent enchilada. Funny thing, Carlson hasn't mentioned it. Fortunately, The Donald still has his day job as Real President in Exile, which does provide a tidy income as long as all the “Trump Won” crazies keep donating. Meantime Jared and Ivanka are on a slow boat to China or hiding in Monaco — totally under the radar. Even they think that daddy is bonkers and don't want to catch that virus. Hey, wasn't your dad the guy who kept saying he was president? Too late to put that genie back in the bottle. Yep, he's going down in history as the Walter Mitty of Mar-A-Lago. Still, who knows, if Republican legislatures across the land can screw with voting restrictions enough, maybe he could steal Bill Clinton's moniker as The Comeback Kid.

Don't worry Wilson, that probably won't happen. Anyway, we've got other pressing things to worry about, like hot hot heat. Do you and the guys in the band have a chilling number for that:

Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn't it a pity? Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head But at night it's a different world Go out and find a girl Come on, come on and dance all night Despite the heat it'll be all right And babe, don't you know it's a pity That the days can't be like the nights In the summer, in the city In the summer, in the city (Summer In The City — Lovin' Spoonful)

[wanderinguterus1]

Plan C

Three days after finishing the medication, I lay naked from the waist down on the paper sheet -  legs in stirrups and cold, metal wand moving around in my uterus - looking at the ultrasound screen.

“Well, your body likes the Clomid. I see the eggs… see them, right there?”

I didn’t really need to see my eggs; I just wanted confirmation the medication worked. I would happily take the doctor’s word for it if he would take that wand out of me and let me put my pants back on.  I nodded, and the nurse smiled at me.

“You could be getting knocked up today!” she laughed.

I attempted a chuckle. The cruel thing about Clomid is the side effects: it makes you more fertile by increasing the hormones needed to create a “mature egg,” but the side effects include irritation, aggression, and moodiness -  all which make for great foreplay, naturally.

A few minutes later, I was standing, pants down again, while the same nurse stuck a needle in my right butt cheek.

“All done!” she exclaimed. She looked and sounded around twenty-five years old; she was about a foot shorter than me, but muscular – like she may have been a gymnast in the past. Compared to her, I felt huge and old, like a giant grandmother. “Now it’s time for the fun part! After this, I hope we will never see you again!”

“Thank you,” I said, smiling, her enthusiasm rubbing off on me a little.

The enthusiasm lasted six days, until I woke up one morning to a slight twinge in my abdomen: the same feeling I had been having once a month, for about twenty-six years.  

“I’m starting my period,” I said to Luis.

“Really?” he said, rolling over to look me in the eyes.

At six years younger than me, Luis never seemed too devastated over a failed baby-making attempt. Rather, he would say things like, “I’m sorry,” and “Are you ok?” I hated this response. I wanted him to share my anger: to leave the room and slam the door, punch a wall, refuse to talk to me for the rest of the day. At least then I could feel justified in my own rage.

He tried to hug me, but I quickly got out of bed and started getting dressed for work.  

The next week, I was back at the doctor’s office.

“I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve been taking folic acid, I haven’t had coffee or alcohol in months, I do yoga, I’ve spent a fortune on acupuncture, and I even tried visualization exercises! Why isn’t anything working?”

I knew the answer, even though the doctor was nice enough not to say it. “You’re too old to have a baby” – the unspoken words hung in the air.

He passed me a tissue. “We can try Clomid again; sometimes it takes more than once,” he responded patiently. I didn’t tell him that I had already tried Clomid twice last year, with my first fertility doctor.

I noticed a picture of his family in a gold frame sitting on his desk. He and his wife stood in front of a sign for Yellowstone National Park, each with a blonde child on their hip. One boy and one girl. I tried to suppress my jealousy, but their family looked so perfect. I reminded myself that to a man sitting in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, my life looked perfect too. I often played these mind games, trying to convince myself to be happier. Hey, you could be addicted to drugs and living under a bridge. So you can’t have a kid, big deal.

“Let me prescribe another round of Clomid. First, I am going to need you to pee for me.”

                                                          *

While I waited for Dr. Edwards to return, I scrolled through Facebook. As usual, one of the posts was a picture of a newborn.  It belonged to a former student, and the caption read: “The best thing I ever did.” I scrolled past quickly, without liking, remembering ten years ago when I was her English teacher. She used to eat lunch in my room and tell me about the drama in her friend group: “Katie’s mad at Olivia because Olivia’s boyfriend was rude to her. Olivia wouldn’t say anything to him about it, so now they’re not talking. It’s crazy.”

Soon, that same girl would be wrapping her newborn in one of those soft blue and white striped blankets, learning to change diapers, snapping the little buttons together at the bottom of a onesie, and figuring out how car seat straps work. I closed my phone and looked around the room. A poster about in vitro fertilization hung on the back of the door. Unsurprisingly, the poster neglected to advertise the cost. As if that wasn’t a factor.                                                     

Dr. Edwards walked through the door with a pregnancy test in his hand and a smirk on his face. “Shelly, you’re pregnant.”

“What?”

He showed me the two red lines. “Yeah, look for yourself. These are bold lines.”

“I can’t be. I’m on my period.”

“Sometimes women bleed in the beginning of a pregnancy. Come back on Monday and we’ll see if your hCG levels go up.”

At home, I told my husband tentatively, “I got a positive pregnancy test at the doctor’s office today, but I really don’t understand how. I’ve been bleeding for the past week.”

Luis enveloped me in a hug but knew better than to get excited. “Well, let’s hope for some kind of miracle.”

A miracle did not occur. On Monday, the test showed my hCG levels had decreased, proving that the pregnancy didn’t “stick.” I learned that this was called a chemical pregnancy – a “miscarriage” shortly after implantation - and I would go on to have two more.

                                                        *

After the emotional roller coaster ride of three very short-lived pregnancies, I finally convinced Luis to do foster care classes.

We had heard many pieces of advice about this: “Just adopt through the foster system; it’s free.”

“My sister got a baby as soon as she signed up to be a foster mom.”

“As soon as you adopt and stop trying, that’s when you’ll get pregnant naturally.”

Although Luis was hesitant, he agreed to try - after I promised him we would only accept babies who were up for adoption (I had formerly convinced myself that was an actual think you could do).

Our classes require us to log into Zoom on Tuesday and Thursday nights for six weeks to listen to lectures from health care providers, social workers, and criminal investigators. Our teacher is an animated, African-American lesbian named Clensy who calls us her babies and reminds us every step of the way that she would “tell it like it is” - no sugarcoating in her classes.

The first lecture starts with this admonition: “Do not go into this if your plan is to adopt. Our number one goal is reunification with the biological family. This is not an adoption agency. To foster means to care for temporarily! Say it with me, babies! Tem- por- ar- y!”

I nod at the computer screen, as if this is no surprise, but feel Luis exhale.

After class, his first question is, “Why are we doing this if the goal is reunification?”

“Well, they say that, of course, but lots of people have adopted this way,” I close my laptop and start walking towards our bedroom. It’s late and I have school the next day. Besides, I’m not interested in this conversation.

Luis follows me, “This seems like a lot of work - meetings with biological parents, meetings with social workers, therapy appointments - do we even have time for this?”

I retrieve pajamas from my dresser and make my way towards the bathroom. “I am tired of waiting, Luis. I’m 42. I want to feel like we are getting somewhere. Even if we never foster, at least we are doing something. I’m tired of waiting around for a pregnancy that will probably never happen.”

Before getting married, if I decided I wanted to change my life in some big way, the only person I had to consult was myself (and my bank account). When I got sick of a job, I quit. When I was offered a new position, I weighed the pros and cons. When I decided to move abroad, I had to be brave enough to get on the plane, but I didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission. Marriage, however, means no more autonomy; even if it’s something I have desperately wanted for a long time, I have to consult Luis. And sometimes, there is no compromise. We can’t foster half of a child.

Despite many similar-sounding arguments, Luis agrees to finish the course. His decision has everything to do with how much he loves me and nothing to do with actually wanting to foster. I realize that his reluctance poses a real problem, but the idea that we are moving in the direction of becoming a family of three is enough for now. Future Me could deal with the ramifications of dragging Luis - kicking and screaming - through this process.

The next night, we learn how to detect child abuse.

Clensy warns us, “Ok, tonight’s going to be hard. You are going to have to look at some pictures of kids who have been hurt by adults.

She shares her screen with us, and the first picture that pops up is of a baby - a baby - with three dark blue lines across his little face.

“This child has been slapped. Hard. The lines you are seeing is from an adult hand.”

I looked away, feeling that familiar anger towards God creeping in again. This is why I don’t believe that “everything happens for a reason.”

The next picture is of a child who has been burned with a cigarette. I put myself on mute and ask Luis, “Why do we need to see these?”

He shrugs, as if he doesn’t know why we are doing any of this.

                                                       *

A social worker named Nora sat across from me and Luis in our living room. After 40 hours of foster care classes, she had come to inspect our house – to make sure we had a fire extinguisher and smoke alarms, that all alcohol and medications were locked up, that we owned a first aid kit, and that we didn’t live within a certain radius of an ungated body of water.            

“Ok, we just need to go through some of this paperwork now,” she said, after taking pictures of every room in the house. She looked about 40 and was dressed surprisingly unprofessional, in sweatpants, a hoodie, and sneakers. “First, I will ask you about possible placements. You have to answer ‘yes, no, or will consider.’”

She opened her spiral notebook, licked her pointer finger and located the right page.  

“Fire starter?”  

 I looked at Luis, trying to make this situation as normal as possible. His eyes, however, said, “Why would anyone say yes to housing a fire starter?”

 I answered gently, “Probably not.” Besides, we had asked for a child under the age of two. The image of a two-year-old fire starter frightened me.

“What about an opioid addict?” Nora inquired, as if she were asking us what kind of haircut we preferred.

 Luis said nothing.

 “Um, does that mean a baby who is born addicted?” I asked, trying to appear unfazed.

 “Yes, usually. There are some situations where the parent has been injecting the child even after birth, but that’s not as common.”

 I looked at Luis, who again, said nothing.

 “No?” I asked.

 He shrugged, as if to say, “This was your idea, not mine.”  I hoped Nora couldn’t read his thoughts.

 I shook my head, and Nora continued. “Ok, what about a child who is destructive to property?”

I wanted to say no to all of these, but I sensed that every “no” lessened our chances of getting a call. As if wanting a “normal” kid precluded us from being good people.

“Destructive to animals?” Nora didn’t even look up from the paper, as if this was something we could answer quickly, without contemplation.

I felt the need to say yes to something. “Well, we don’t have any pets,” I offered.

 “You have to think about your neighbors’ pets,” Nora warned.

 “Oh, so… no.”

Luis still hadn’t spoken. I wanted to shake him and say, “Please, at least pretend like you want to do this.” I wasn’t even considering if this was something I could do – what in the world would I say to a kid who went around the neighborhood looking for animals to hurt?

After finishing the list of possible placements, Nora passed us a business card which read: Thompson and Gaines, Family Attorneys. “Keep this in case you need legal representation.”

The confused look on my face prompted further explanation: “Just in case a child accuses you of anything. Sometimes a child might be upset about being taken from their home, and they might make allegations of abuse against you. Sometimes the bio parent might see a bruise on their child and make an allegation. We often deal with desperate people. The best thing to do is just take a picture if your child gets injured. Send the picture to us, so we’re aware of the situation.”

After Nora’s departure, I retreat to our room and collapse into bed. Staring at the ceiling, I wonder what it would be like to take care of a severely traumatized kid. To actually have to defend myself in court - prove I’m not a child abuser.

Luis joins me, neither of us speaking for a few minutes.“Are we trying to hard to make something happen that just isn’t in the cards for us?” I ask.

He took my hand; we stare at the ceiling fan as it moves in circles.“I don’t know,” he finally says. “Life is just so strange. There are people getting exactly what we want so badly, but railing at God over it. I bet right now, there’s probably a teenager crying over a positive pregnancy test.”

“Someone’s probably dropping off a baby at the fire department as we speak.”

“And some woman’s losing her mind because she just found out she’s having twins.”

“Some guy’s getting snipped because he hates his children and doesn’t want to risk having more.”

Somehow, thinking of these scenarios bring us comfort, and we laugh together, for the first time in weeks.

[perfectirishgifts]

Grimes, Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow Talk AI, Ventures And Pivots At Web Summit 2020

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/grimes-serena-williams-gwyneth-paltrow-talk-ai-ventures-and-pivots-at-web-summit-2020/

Grimes, Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow Talk AI, Ventures And Pivots At Web Summit 2020

Tech investor Serena Williams with Away cofounder Jen Rubio

AI was top of mind at Web Summit 2020 held last week as celebrity founders and funders took to the small screen to discuss digital twins, autonomous weapons and how to govern Mars.

Over 100,000 viewers tuned into the virtual conference, up 300% from the airing of its sister show Collision From Home held earlier this year, and up 30,000 attendees from 2019 when the event was last physically held in Portugal, according to the show’s producers. A production so flawless that unicorn maker, Garry Tan, predicted the platform would be worth a billion dollars if they ever chose to spin it out.

But what really made Web Summit a standout was its clever mix of programming. No other tech show has yet to cast Hollywood’s most famous meth dealers, Contagion’s patient zero, the Princess Bride and Captain America discussing pivots from end times. Netflix and Amazon should take note – Web Summit was by far the best streaming entertainment of the week.

Some great insights were shared on the promise and perils of AI by Mark Cuban, Deepak Chopra, Ronnie Chieng, Alexa’s boss, Grimes, Ridley Scott, Palmer Luckey, Elad Gil, Garry Tan, Nicole Quinn, Gwyneth Paltrow, Serena Williams, Jen Rubio, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. Here are the highlights.

My Digital Twin

Shark Tank host Mark Cuban

“I wish someone would invent an AI model of the human body that could be individualized,” Mark Cuban said. A mini me of sorts with a copy of all bodily functions where simulations could be run to tell you, “Your throat isn’t sore, you ate something that’s bothering your esophagus which can be cured by A, B, C or D in seven days.”

Journalist Emily Ragobeer in conversation with Deepak Chopra and Lars Buttler

Deepak Chopra then introduced his own version of a mini me, Digital Deepak, a wellness guide for sleep, stress management, yoga, breathing, exercise, emotional resilience, nutrition, balancing circadian rhythms and self awareness. The best selling author only half-joked that he uploaded his consciousness to the AI Foundation to provide users with valuable insights from his 91 books. Although its not clear how biometrics will be tracked on the app, AI Foundation cofounder and CEO Lars Buttler gave assurances that everyone will be able to train their own Personal AI soon and that safeguards were being taken to prevent deepfakes made on the platform.

But can your AI take a joke?

“AI can get a well known joke or play on words because it knows when it understands something. If its confidence interval is narrow and it doesn’t know what’s going on, it will say I don’t know this yet, let me learn more about this,” Buttler explained.

Daily Show’s Ronny Chieng answering audience questions, “Will AI ever be as funny as you?”

“Will AI ever be as funny as Ronnie Chieng?”

“AI funny as me?! I hope not, I’ll be out of a job,” Daily Show’s Ronnie Chieng said as he responded to audience questions, “Right now I can’t even get Alexa to set a timer without selling me an ad. If it’s going to be as funny as me, it probably will sell more ads, so maybe?”

He then mimicked about how chatty Alexa has become.

“Hey Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes.”

“Okay Ronnie, your timer is 15 minutes, by the way, would you like to buy a clock?”

“No, I don’t want to buy anything, I just want you to do your job!” he replied.

The Atlantic’s Nicholas Thompson with Amazon’s Dave Limp

Alexa’s boss, Amazon’s Head of Hardware and Devices, Dave Limp explained they’re working on improving Alexa’s hunches.

“We’re at a point where one out of five interactions with Alexa are not instigated by the customer.” This means 20% of the time Alexa is doing something on your behalf, like playing news after you hit snooze to subtly wake you up.

“We’re trying to make this a delightful experience. What’s super important about being proactive is that you have to be right, a lot. As soon as you start getting proactive and incorrect, it gets annoying very quickly.”

TechnoUtopia v Dystopia

Grimes

Alt pop superstar Grimes, girlfriend to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and mother to the Elven spelling of AI, talked about the role technology is playing in her life.

“I feel like iPhone should turn off an hour before bed. It’s been giving me sleep problems. It’s technology we haven’t factored into our biology.” She added, “But we shouldn’t forget technology makes our lives better. We need more utopianism in sci fi.”

Having recently collaborated with Endel, the algorithmic music startup, on an AI lullaby she observed, “Everyday I thank the overlords of Ableton for cleaning up my tracks but I do worry though that AI will outpace us and make musicians obsolete. It’s inevitable. We have the beautiful advantage of knowing super intelligence is coming. We ought to make those rules now and not wait until its too late. We’re giving birth to AI. We can teach it and point it in the right direction, but where it goes from there as it becomes more powerful as this ghost in our data and ultimately its own being is anyone’s guess. Maybe it will become like Dune, where thinking machines get banned on Earth and we send AI out into the universe to spread the light of consciousness so information is wherever you go, and then Earth becomes this boutiquey thing like organic vegetables where when human music is heard people will be like, oh, this was made by a woman, not a robot.”

As to whether this will turn into a dystopian nightmare of our own making, Grimes concluded, “Every tool has the potential to be dangerous. Where we are headed depends upon what we do with the technology. We’re on the knife’s edge right now but we have solved insane problems like our faces being beamed through space and time so we can be together in the same place right now despite physically being all over the world. That’s some crazy wizardry happening right here. There is a solution, we just shouldn’t make failure an option.”

Exiting The Anthropocene

Sir Ridley Scott

Blade Runner director Ridley Scott delivered his own dire warning with the premiere of his Digital With A Purpose film urging innovators to find way to meet Paris Accord Climate 2030 goals. “The luxury of science fiction is that it’s fantasy. We’re dealing with reality. We’re being way too polite about where we are. We are at the threshold of an abyss of disaster.”

Palmer Lucky, cofounder Oculus and Anduril, making the case for the tech industry to work on … [] autonomous weapons

Which begs the question, if the age of autonomous weapons is upon us, who do you trust more with it, enemy nations or billionaire Oculus founder Palmer Luckey? That’s what Luckey asked in making the case for the tech giants to re-engage with the U.S. Department of Defense on working on national security solutions.

“AI is this very powerful and useful technology but its not very good at making life and death decisions and is totally capable of running autonomous weapon systems. We need to assume it develops as fast as the most optimistic people assume and set rules now,” Luckey said, “We shouldn’t be outsourcing accountability to a machine. You can’t lock up a machine in prison for war crimes.” Anduril AI analyzes data to help humans pull the trigger, with safeguards to prevent abuses, he said. He criticized Google and Apple for not doing more.

“Big Tech companies are not only not working on national security problems, but they’re killing the work of companies that are. This happened with Boston Dynamics. That’s because there are financial and PR incentives to stay out of military work. China has done an incredible job of blocking access to their markets as a tool to get the culture of Western democracies to subvert itself to China. Meanwhile, China is making huge strides in autonomy and AI. China is going to be a superpower, bigger than the United States.”

Why Silicon Valley Will Always Be Home To AI

Elad Gil

Elad Gil, investor in Anduril, AirBnb, Cardiogram, Instacart, Pinterest, Square, Stripe, Unbabel and Wish, gave his perspective on the Work From Anywhere diaspora from Silicon Valley.

“For those of you in the audience thinking about starting a company, I want to tell you the water is fine. San Francisco is still a great place to come to. I encourage you to meet us here. Markets are bigger than they’ve ever been. If you ask yourself where is all the tech market cap aggregating, of the 187 unicorns that have been created in the last 15 months, half were in the U.S. and a quarter in Silicon Valley. I do believe we’re going to continue to have a cluster in the Bay Area because of strong network effects that accelerate companies and people working in those industries. I don’t think that behavior goes away after Covid.”

It’s 2020, Computers Can Now See, Hear And Socialize

Initialized Capital Garry Tan

As to where he’s placing his AI bets for the new year, Initialized Capital’s Garry Tan said, “We remain very long on computer vision. We were the first investors in Cruise Automation which broke open the self-driving car space and now there is a lot of practical automation that was never possible before.”

An investor in Standard Cognition, he talked about its camera-only cashierless retail experience that enables you to walk into a store, pick up whatever you need and walkout, in stark contrast to Amazon Go which relies on shelf sensors.

“Down the road we think practical robotics are just around the corner with sub $1,000 real time SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) computer vision, for use industrially and in the home.” Tan is also invested in Ava.me which applies on the fly machine learning to voice recognition and live captioning on Zoom.

Lightspeed Venture Partners Nicole Quinn

Lightspeed Venture Partners’ Nicole Quinn is also bullish on AI. She sees online social experiences remaining sticky for the foreseeable future. She’s invested in Lunchclub, an AI concierge that serves up Zoom coffees for meaningful professional networking, and Cameo, an AI booking agent for celebrities that will chat or send birthday greetings for a fee.

Celebrity Pivots

Gwyneth Paltrow on turning Goop’s first profit

Quinn then took to the screen with her portfolio client, Gwyneth Paltrow who shared news of Goop turning its first profit.

In March, “When the lockdowns happened and commerce seemed to completely stop, I set our marketing budgets to zero, pulled down our social media spend, and returned to our content roots to get back into the hearts and minds of our readers. Soon after engagement metrics went up and transactions followed, but our events and ads business had gone to zero overnight and our retail business were down from plan. I knew I had to get to profitability as quickly as possible. The hardest part was having to take such a stringent look at the P&L, close stores and let go of people we loved,” Paltrow said.

“We tell our companies, to win you got to be around. You need to have at least 24 months runway at all times,” said Quinn, applauding Paltrow actions.

Then Paltrow, an Academy award winning actress, landed a Netflix series, Goop Lab, which just got renewed for Season 2. “We got a lot of new customers from the show. I feel like a lot of brands are very reliant on Facebook, but when you live in the intersection of content and commerce, founders need to think of ways to organically reach customers. I’ll never buy another customer off Facebook again.”

Paltrow added, “I’m not that bullish on 2021. I think we’re still in for a lot of instability. We’re looking at creative ways to monetize content and find sustainable growth from within our own channels as opposed to spending money to prospect. We’re looking at doing something in food which is a strong pillar for us and not intensive from a capital expenditure standpoint.”

Serena Williams

Tennis legend Serena Williams is a prominent AI investor. Her portfolio includes Tonal, Noom, Zipline, Masterclass, Gobble, Billie and Daily Harvest, which she backed along with Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Quinn and Paris Hilton. Before the pandemic, she was an extensive traveler and launched an Away x Serena Williams luggage line. She went on screen with Away cofounder Jen Rubio to discuss their collaboration and the challenges the brand has been facing this year.

“Being at the intersection of travel and retail was pretty much the worst place to be. We stopped everything and took a hard look at should we be marketing at all. Approaching it very authentically and transparently with our customers allowed us to keep the brand going when it didn’t make any sense to travel,” Rubio said, sharing how fans have been supporting the brand by posting memes of Away suitcases posed as standing desks and work out benches. The company has since been able to pivot with travel goods for socially distanced road trips, digital nomading and pandemic puppies.

Cheers to 2021!

Forbes Zack O’Malley Greenburg Breaking Bad with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul

Let’s all raise a glass to the end of 2020.

“It’s been a difficult year for the entire world but the one thing that’s gotten us through is knowing we’re all going through it together. I miss travel but I’m finding happy moments at home. It’s really cool to be in one place with my family,” said Williams. 

Then Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul mixed up cocktails to promote their Dos Hombres Mezcal and did virtual shots from their sunny Los Feliz homes in locked down L.A. To next year in Lisbon!

Making Dos Hombres cocktails with Breaking Bad Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul

From AI in Perfectirishgifts

[marychronicles]

My Breastfeeding Journey

If you’ve read “Chanel no. 1” on this blog (my about me page) you’d know that I’m a breastfeeding mum to a beautiful & healthy baby bombshell, Samantha. Well, I never thought I’d write my own experience this year because I wasn’t able to write my birthing story, so it’s kind of a surprise that I am actually writing about this journey and not the birthing story. But anyway, I know most of you are younger than me; maybe some are 10 years younger haha but you know, it’s not a bad idea to share this right? Who knows, some of you might have tips & tricks from this entry... 😉

My Instagram feed is filled of milky posts this year, most of them have like, long ass captions. Even though I fully know that nobody would bother to read them, for me, I just really wanted to share my experience about breastfeeding. So let me take you to that time when I was about 3 months pregnant, well, I got pregnant last year; 2016 was such a big year for most famous women I know and for a few friends of mine cos we all got pregnant at the same time & year. I’ve been at the end of my first trimester, which was a relief because I dealt with so much pregnancy issues like: morning sickness (the worst part for me, yikes!! It even last up until the evening) & the never ending back pains. Now, I fully know that after giving birth, I have to breastfeed my baby girl. I remembered my husband asking me, “are you going to breastfeed?” and my answer was, “hmmm I don’t think so cos my boobs will look ugly & saggy!” Sorry but that was really selfish yeah? I know. But come my 8th month of pregnancy, I’ve experienced having this sensation on my breasts that I couldn’t explain, there were nights that my nipple was super itchy and all that stuff. That’s when I knew that my body was getting ready for my milk production. When I gave birth, an hour and a half later, I was surprised to be breastfeeding my first born on her first night. The midwife told me that it was amazing because my milk started to come in on the first night.

So it went, I breastfed & pumped even if I’m sleep deprived, my nipples & boobs were sore from all the latching, I was so inspired by my fellow breastfeeding mommies anyway, I even joined a group exclusively for nursing mums on Facebook & I must say that their tips were very helpful especially during the time that I needed to increase my milk supply. I worried so much because I don’t know if I’m producing enough for my baby.

My journey wasn’t rainbows & unicorns, babies, I had a pretty goddamn ups & downs too. I’ve tried so many lactation aids known to every nursing mums, like, “moringga” or “malunggay” capsules, fenugreek capsules, lactation teas, milo, malunggay hot chocolate, oats, oatmeal cookies and the list goes on. Fortunately, I have a very decent milk supply after taking all those stuff. I’ve burned through 2 Medela electric breastpumps, 1 Spectra pump & an unbranded electric pump. Been up almost every night just to pump & for night feedings. But I couldn’t complain because I know I’m providing the best milk there is. As I end my breastfeeding & pumping journey, I’m only using my first pump, which is a manual pump. It’s been my bestie ever since. I wouldn’t know how my breastfeeding would look like if I don’t have it.

It’s been so hard on my half because this whole journey had been one of the many things that I really am proud of. Like, you know, can you do something consistently for 13 months? Well I did, it’s something to bragged about cos not everyone could do this. I’ve been blessed with my milk supply to keep up all the way through. I’m so emotional to be honest, I just thought that writing about this would make me feel lighter, well kind of but not entirely. Right now, I feel like something has been taken away from me in just a snap. I should feel over the rainbow happy cos I will be able to wear whatever the hell I want without my conscience telling me, “you can’t wear that cos you have to breastfeed remember??” or that I will be able to sleep on my tummy after a year, well those are the many things that I should be happy about but really, I’m sad. Even though some of my friends had told me that I really did a great job on breastfeeding my girl for 13 months, there’s always the sad part because on top of all of this I wanted to breastfeed & pump for 2 years. Well I may have not hit my breastfeeding goal, but I did reach the one year mark. I think that’s amazing. I really am so proud of myself, for being selfless & for doing the best I can for my daughter. Motherhood isn’t just about breastfeeding right? I feel a little blue about ending this beautiful journey but I think it’s the hormones kicking in & stressing me out. Haha! Ugh. I will miss everything about it. I can’t hardly believe that I’m free from the 3AM feedings or that I will be able to drink my favorite beer now.

I hope some of you have learned something from this entry. Nothing’s ever easy, but in the end, it’s all worth it. Everything that I’ve done for 13 months of breastfeeding, is worth more than a million. ✨

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Coronavirus: Beauty salons and tattooists in Wales reopen

Reveal copyright Jules Lee

Reveal caption Louise Pritchard arrived at Jules Tattoos in the dull of night in characterize to make a choice up a half-completed form executed

Magnificence salons and tattooists in Wales are allowed to reopen for the main time since lockdown.

The Welsh Authorities’s most smartly-liked easing of restrictions design nail bars, spas, and tanning outlets can originate again on Monday.

But of us will want to wait longer for facials and to make a choice up their eyebrows and eyelashes done, with pointers warning the treatments are “too high menace”.

One salon owner in Vale of Glamorgan acknowledged she had neglected out on trade all the design through her busiest time of yr.

And a tattooist in Gwynedd opened in the dull of night to enact off a girl’s tattoo she had started earlier than lockdown.

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Media captionExistence is “imperfect” with out his fillers and Botox, Iwan Steffan says

Welsh Authorities guidance has outlined which companies can originate on Monday, and measures they must soundless set apart in situation, alongside side:

Magnificence salons, alongside side nail bars and tanning outlets, can reopen, but facial treatments are no longer suggested

Spas can resume enterprise, but handiest for magnificence treatments and no longer for saunas and swimming pools

Tattooists can resume, but stroll-in appointments are no longer allowed

Businesses providing piercing, electrolysis and acupuncture accept as true with also given the golf green gentle to reopen

Hairdressers accept as true with been ready to originate since 13 July.

However the Welsh Authorities guidance has “strongly suggested” beauticians no longer to manufacture facial treatments, as a result of high menace of of us being face-to-face for long sessions of time.

This entails eyebrow tinting, waxing and threading, fillers, eyelash treatments, dermaplaning and microblading treatments and makeup.

If beauticians purchase to manufacture treatments on clients’ faces, they need to wear a fluid resistant surgical face masks, goggles, disposable gloves and an apron, and be fully trained in using private protective equipment (PPE) safely, the pointers tell.

The Welsh Authorities acknowledged it had “worked with public smartly being experts and the magnificence industry to create the guidance and accomplish it’s as particular as that you just would possibly maybe well maybe maybe also imagine for an industry that covers a astronomical vary of different procedures all the design in which through a massive diversity of settings”.

The dedication to restrict facial treatments relies on Public Health Wales guidance, it added.

Magnificence salons

Reveal copyright Jayne Goodings

Reveal caption Jayne Goodings, owner of Lemon Tree Nails and Magnificence Salon, says she has neglected out on most of her busiest time of yr

The owner of a magnificence salon acknowledged companies would be attempting to carry out up for a massive lack of earnings, but predicted some would be unable to originate directly because of receiving the guidance at such short peep.

“Our busiest time of the yr is from April to September as soon as we buy perhaps more than 50% of our annual takings so for us it has been a massive hit on our enterprise,” acknowledged Jayne Goodings, owner of Lemon Tree Nails and Magnificence Salon, in Cowbridge.

“The guidance became as soon as issued [Friday] and we’re because of originate on Monday.

“I’m lucky that I’ve obtained the measures in situation but there generally is terribly a few salons that have not and are now attempting to supply PPE in readiness for Monday.”

Ms Goodings added: “It has been refined. Sourcing PPE in itself has been a marathon to insist the least.”

Reveal caption Sarah Bruton acknowledged magnificence therapists were already smartly trained in limiting immoral-infection

Sarah Bruton of Captiva Spa and Lounge in Caerphilly says she will be able to now originate seven days per week to take care of set apart a question to and allow workers to work the identical hours but with more position round them.

She has launched perspex monitors, hand-sanitising stations and temperature assessments, and eradicated issues take care of fluffy towels and robes.

Sarah acknowledged: “We now accept as true with changed a few of our working processes so we create treatments in a a microscopic bit different formulation and now we accept as true with procured heaps of PPE, so issues take care of aprons, visors and gloves and masks, to carry out our working practices as proper as that you just would possibly maybe well maybe maybe also imagine.”

She added: “We’re trained to create issues take care of restrict immoral-infection and stop contamination, so we’re already very smartly positioned to be ready to provide protection to of us against Covid.”

The tattooist

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Media captionJules Lee acknowledged tattooists were already “one amongst the cleanest locations”

Jules Lee opened her tattoo shop in Bangor in the dull of night. Her first client became as soon as a girl whose tattoo became as soon as left incomplete when lockdown became as soon as announced.

Thanks to the strict hygiene guidelines governing tattoo outlets earlier than the pandemic, Ms Lee acknowledged Covid-19 requirements must soundless no longer be too unparalleled.

“Tattooists are one amongst the cleanest locations you would possibly maybe well maybe maybe also even be,” she acknowledged.

“There would possibly maybe be a need for more PPE – we were already using PPE anyway, but now we want to make exhaust of more now.”

Reveal copyright Jules Lee

Reveal caption Ms Lee completed a tattoo of a rose, inspired by the Disney movie Magnificence and the Beast, on Louise Pritchard’s leg

Louise Pritchard, Ms Lee’s first buyer after reopening, acknowledged: “I accept as true with waited for this since Jules needed to terminate, [it] feels take care of perpetually. It feels take care of a lifetime ago.

“I agreed to near in the dull of night on yarn of I’ve been watching for ages and I became as soon as genuinely taking a peep forward to it.

“I take care of my ink. I create no longer take care of issues being half completed and Jules has been gargantuan fitting me in, and it’s genuinely therapeutic.”

Ms Lee acknowledged the tattoo, on Ms Pritchard’s decrease leg, became as soon as inspired by the movie Magnificence and the Beast and became as soon as section of a wider part.

“Louise is a Disney mega fan,” she acknowledged. “We’re engaged on a Disney-themed leg sleeve for her.

“She’s a very proper client that I’ve been tattooing for months and he or she became as soon as very moving to make a choice up more ink as quickly as.”

Reveal copyright Jules Lee

Reveal caption Unusual PPE requirements are the largest trade, Ms Lee says

Ms Lee acknowledged clients desired to e-book upfront and need to no longer flip up more than five minutes earlier than their appointment or loiter round afterwards.

Hand sanitiser would possibly maybe be offered for clients and he or she will be able to leave an hour between appointments to permit her time to “deep intellectual”.

After a “caring” time with out income, Ms Lee acknowledged she would possibly maybe perhaps maybe also no longer wait to reopen.

“I’m so angry – I true worship my job,” she added.

What else is altering on Monday?

Reveal copyright Getty Photos

Reveal caption The housing market can fully reopen on Monday

The housing market can fully reopen to consist of viewings of occupied properties

Cinemas, museums, amusement arcades, galleries and archives would possibly maybe be ready to originate their doors. But whether or no longer they invent or no longer will depend on the venues themselves. The cinema industry has warned “few, if any” cinemas will reopen on Monday

Driving classes can restart – classes started again England earlier in the month, on 4 July

Face coverings would possibly maybe perhaps even become crucial on all public transport, alongside side taxis.

What’s next to reopen?

Reveal copyright PA Media

Reveal caption Pubs in England reopened indoors on 4 July

Pubs, cafes and restaurants in Wales accept as true with been given a doubtless date of 3 August by the Welsh Authorities for after they can originate indoors – even supposing they’ve already been allowed to create so outdoors since 13 July.

But regardless of the easing of many restrictions, some sectors remain shut with no plans to restart.

They consist of indoor gyms and leisure products and services, reminiscent of swimming swimming pools, as smartly as theatres and song venues.

What has already reopened or restarted?

Reveal caption Hairdressers reopened earlier this month

The principle locations to reopen in Wales were recycling centres, libraries and some garden centres on 11 Also can – the identical day the main minister allowed of us to command outdoors more than as soon as a day.

Non-crucial outlets and colleges for all pupils were allowed to reopen final month whereas small marriage ceremonies and outdoors sports were also allowed to originate again.

Then, self-contained lodging with out shared products and services reopened on 11 July.

On Saturday, it became as soon as expanded to consist of lodging that does share products and services, alongside side campsites and all resorts, and underground sights can resume trading.

Hairdressers, church buildings, church halls, playgrounds, outdoors gyms and funfairs accept as true with already reopened whereas companions are now allowed to abet antenatal appointments .

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[onceuponamirror]

Bughead, 9

9. meeting online au

(also had an anon send me this one so y’all really wanted it!) (also, this one got long, whoops)

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He never set out to be a Reddit guy. The connotations there were just too fraught—maybe five years ago, the description could just bring to mind shitposts and recycled memes, but it’s 2017 and he’s trying his actual, genuine hardest to not be an edgelord. 

Unfortunately, he thinks he has the predisposition for it, so he has to be careful. Especially considering what a snowflake standard he held himself to in high school. But in the same way undergrad taught him he’d never fully be a woke white dude and to fight his instincts to alt-control-delete his emotions, he’s avoided being an Internet Guy. 

There’s a sense of irony with the fact that most of his interests lie in the nostalgic, anyway. He likes Kubrick films. He dresses like he personally raided Kurt Cobain’s closet. He listens to a lot of David Byrne. 

But he still came of age in the aughts, so there’s a level of inevitability about his dependency to technology—particularly during the month he inherits his father’s motorcycle. 

“I’m getting to old for this thing, Jug, and you’ve gotta get around town,” his father had said, tugging a plastic blue tarp off. He supposes what was underneath it could be construed as a motorcycle, but only in that it had two wheels. 

“I think I’m better off with the bus,” Jughead said gloomily, his eyebrows knotted in the general direction of the bike. 

“Come on, son. It just needs a little elbow grease. I’ll help you fix it up,” his father had offered, though Jughead knew better than to rely on that. 

His dad has come a long way with his rehabilitation and was there when he really needed to be, but it was the times that things weren’t a life-or-death necessity that he didn’t always show up. 

Still, while Providence, Rhode Island is technically a city, it’s also got a bus system designed by a four year old with a crayon. 

And he’s far too principled for ride-shares, so it might not be so bad to have an alternate form of transportation. So he says fine, Dad and he takes the bike, and on second thought, takes another helmet too, though he has no idea why. What, is he going to wear one on top of the other? 

Still. The thing looks like it’ll dismantle itself at a slight breeze.

However, a couple hours into the manual he’s checked out from the Brown University Library, he realizes he’s in way over his head. The only part of the book he understands is the chapter that makes him realize they’re not even describing the type of motorcycle he has. Great.

From across the living room, Archie says he should google it, to which he replies, golly, no one’s ever suggested that before, and in response gets a pencil thrown at his head, followed by a request to throw the pencil back so he can finish his work. 

Rolling his eyes and tossing the pencil back—he doesn’t aim for it to land a foot away from Archie, but is pleased when it does—Jughead pulls his computer forward. His fingers hesitate over the keys, realizing he actually has no idea what kind of bike it is. It’s small, that’s all he knows. 

He shoots his dad a text asking him, but a glance at the time tells him his father is halfway through a shift at the construction site, and he’ll be lucky to hear back by nightfall. 

He peruses the internet with a half-hearted attempt to figure it out, but unsurprisingly, google searches titled small motorcycle and small bike with one headlight and what the fuck is this thing do not help. 

He has a few photos on his phone of the motorcycle, so the only things he knows about it is that it’s got a slight build and the brand is Honda.

Eventually, he finds himself on a Reddit thread for mechanics and classic car enthusiasts, and decides that’s a good place to start, because the only other thing he knows about the bike is that it’s old. 

Jughead makes an account and uploads his photos with the caption - uh, i know this sounds pretty stupid, but i inherited this bike and i’m trying to get it up and running but realized i have no idea what it is or where to start. any tips would be greatly appreciated. 

He closes his laptop, deciding he’ll use the interim time to work on this thesis. Between his work as a TA, the overall sufferings of being a grad student, now this stupid motorcycle which was supposed to help more than hinder, and the fact that he’s caught himself spacing out over the pretty blonde in his writing seminar twice—which is just—he isn’t thirteen, he should be beyond this—well, he’s a bit behind. 

After a couple hours, he checks the thread. There’s a response underneath his post, from a one MiniCoop59, informing him that they’re not totally sure, but thinks he owns a Honda GB500 cafe racer. 

He googles it, and that appears to be exactly the one sitting in the garage, so he goes back to the Reddit tab. 

yeah, this is it! thanks! now i just need to find the right manual this time lol, he comments back. 

And he expects that to be the end of it. But when he checks his email fifteen minutes later, there’s a notification from Reddit, and MiniCoop59. 

No problem! They’ve typed back. I wasn’t sure, my area of interest is more old cars. But glad I could help. 

He clicks on their username, curious to see what else they’ve posted, for no real reason other than utter and complete procrastination from his thesis. 

As he expected, Jughead finds a couple posts about engines, advice about fixing up an old Volkswagen van with a wry additional comment asking if they’re planning on following around the Grateful Dead for a while. It makes him snort. There’s also, more surprisingly, a post on a thread about anxiety where they talk about the pressures of deciding if graduate school is worth it or a waste of money. 

He raises his eyebrows, not only because he admires their response to dealing with anxiety and being frank about the way it manifests so that it doesn’t control you—and also because of the part about grad school. That’s definitely a question he’s asked himself, even halfway through his own second degree. 

Jughead returns to the original thread. 

it was, he writes. thanks again. also, hey, i’m bored and procrastinating, so i looked at your profile. ever figure out if grad school was a waste of money? been asking myself that and have no real answer. 

The response doesn’t take long. 

Haha! No, never figured it out. But too late now, I’m already enrolled. 

same. guess that’s how they get us.

Big time. Especially the Ivies, they trick you into thinking it’s so worth it! Like, if you got in *there*, you have to take that opportunity!

same again. Brown should be called Green for all the cash they’ve sapped from me. 

After that, MiniCoop59 stops answering. Jughead considers this reasonable, given that it’s almost dinner time, and if they’re at an Ivy league school like him, they’re somewhere on the east coast and thus in the same time zone.

However, they also don’t reply the next day, or the day after. It doesn’t matter, because his dad has gotten back to him, with a voicemail that confirms MiniCoop59′s answer. (His dad is still terrible at texting.)

Eventually, Jughead forgets all about Reddit, including the bike in the garage, especially the deeper into the semester he gets. He’s too busy, and he’s not going to ride the thing around in the dead of New England winter, anyway, so he stops trying to rush it. 

However, as leaves start to appear on trees and he’s no longer wearing all five of his layers at once to stave off the cold, Jughead thinks about the motorcycle again, and decides it’s finally time to fix up the thing. 

He checks the thread once more for the brand MiniCoop59 has given him, and heads to the campus library, his eyes flicking over the snow drop flowers peeking out of the soil. Spring is almost here. 

He recognizes the woman behind the circulation desk as the pretty blonde from his fall semester writing seminar, and his throat runs a little dry. He’s done his best not to create a fantasy around someone he doesn’t know, but he hasn’t been able to get past the one time they were in a group together and she critiqued his essay so perfectly that he actually almost got turned on. 

He’s pretty sure he remembers her name is Betty, because it’s such an odd name for a millennial he doubts he’d make that up. But the class was so big and they were only in the same group that one time, that he can’t be positive. 

But. Well, he’s always had a thing for nostalgia, so it’s just the kind of name he’d accidentally think was the name of his crush.  

“Hey,” he says, his fingers around the edge of the circulation counter. “Looking for some help finding a book.” 

She glances up from her novel, her big green eyes roving over him. “Sure,” she says, her neck tilted slightly, as if perhaps trying to decide if she remembers him too, or if that’s just his imagination. She closes the book and pushes it aside, rolling slightly in her chair to face the library computer. “Do you know the author?”

“Uh, I’m actually looking for a manual,” he says, scratching behind his ear. “On motorcycles? I have the model and make, if that helps.”

She smiles, though her head is fully angled now, looking at him curiously. “It will. Let’s head over to the section and see if we can find what you’re looking for. I’m Betty, by the way.”

“I know,” he says, and immediately squeezes his eyes shut with a cringe. “I mean, we were in a writing seminar together.”

“Oh!” Betty says, standing from her chair. “I thought that was you! You’re…Jughead, right? Hard to forget that name.”

He snorts, shaking his head. “Yeah. I get that a lot. It’s still better than the alternative, though.”

As she leads him across the library, the look she passes him is a little wry. They pull to a stop in front of a shelf that has been categorized by the label MANUALS and the further sublabel of MOTORCYCLES. 

Jughead pulls out his phone and finds MiniCoop59′s description. “So I was told I have a Honda GB500. Oh, cafe racer,” he says, and when he lowers his phone from his face, Betty is gaping at him.

“Oh my god, wait, are you HotDogHotDogHotDog?” 

His face burns bright red as the gears turn in his head, and he stares at her right back. “I…what? You’re MiniCoop?” 

She giggles, hiding her snickering behind a polite hand. “Don’t give me that look, when your username had the word hot dog in it three times.”

“That was…my dog’s name,” he says lamely, still too shocked and embarrassed to say anything else. He huffs. “Look, okay, I was not planning on using that profile ever again. It was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Obviously,” she replies, still giggling. 

He groans, scrubbing a hand down his face. When he looks at her again, her expression has turned slightly rueful as she nibbles on her lip. “Um—listen, I didn’t reply because when you said you went to Brown too, and you’d read my post about anxiety, I just…I didn’t want you to be someone who knew me. Didn’t want to be judged.”

He’d honestly forgotten she’d stopped replying, and is surprised that she has any guilt over it. But at the wide look in her eye, he’s realizing that just might be her personality; perennially worried she’s upset anyone. 

“It’s really okay,” he says. “I get that. I mean, I didn’t know who you were. But even if I did, I definitely wouldn’t judge you. I actually…admired it. What you talked about.”

It’s true; if anything, this just endears her to him more, her honesty and the self-care she talked about. Her lips press together thoughtfully, but she pivots quickly, her attention moving to scan the bookshelf. “Well. I think this is what you’re looking for,” she says, offering him a weathered manual. 

“Thanks,” he says, after a moment. He swallows, trying to gather his courage, because this is the girl he’s been thinking about since October, and she looks especially beautiful against the light filtered through the stacks. “Uh, listen. “Would you want to…um. Hang out sometime? I mean, like, while I work on the bike?” He rushes to add. “Since I know you have an interest in mechanics, and, well—”

“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” She interrupts, her lips tipped up in amusement. 

He blows out a breath, not sure if she means about his haphazard attempt to ask her out, or the motorcycle. “No. None.” 

Betty’s grin is nearly shy as she nods. “In that case, I would love to,” she replies, and Jughead decides he’ll have to thank his dad for the motorcycle one more time.

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