#town motto contest

[brevetchronicle]

Brevet is going to the dog

Brevet has faced a lot of challenges. That means Mayor Harrell Wilty’s has too. It started with Brevet’s stagnant growth in our tax base. This fact was met with the sudden resignation of Deputy Mayor, Earnestine Tidalbaum, which according to our sources, caused a virtual shut down in the Mayor’s office. Then the pandemic hit. But Mayor Wilty is optimistic. One could say that he needs to be. He faces a tough challenger in his “former mentee” Tidalbaum [his phrase not ours]. Mayor Wilty believes he can turn Brevet’s hard times around with man’s best friend. A town mascot to be precise, by a very recognizable name.

We caught up with Mayor Wilty to ask why he chose Finni the Westie as the town’s mascot. 

Immediate identification and relationship. Everyone knows Finni. He was the brother of our town’s unofficial mascot Henri the Labrador (DECD.) Finni embodies our town! He’s cute all the time. When the Shelton-Walczak’s finally get around to having him groomed, he’s down-right show dog material. Brevet is competition worthy too (despite what Country Living has got to say about it!). He’s also got an edge to him. Just like Brevet again! We’re edgy. Did you know he once just started biting the shoe of a valet just because he was there? He had never done that before! It makes me laugh every time I hear that story and think about that valet looking down and seeing the Fancy Feast dog trying to gnaw through his leather with each bite. We know in this town people have the ability to bite also, despite our reputation for being Minnesota “nice.

We asked Mayor Wilty what he thought an official town mascot would do for Brevet?

Finni is something all Brevetarians can bond with and rally around. Finni also has great editorial presence and appeal. Once we pair him with the perfect town motto our brand will be set. We’ll be ready to market for the tourism we so desperately need. 

We asked Mayor Wilty when he would release the town motto entries and when we would know the process of how the town motto would be chosen . 

Your generation always wants to know about process. When I was growing up, we trusted our leaders to make the right decisons for us. Where has our collective trust gone? You should ask yourself that, instead of implying that I have something to hide. Because that is what you are doing. Frankly, it’s insulting!

We could tell that we were going to get no where with this current line of questioning so we asked about how big a role tourism will play in November’s election. 

I don’t know. But what I do know is that I have been working on my thirty-five point tourism plan well before Earnestine [Tidalbaum] decided to Judas and run against me. It would not surprise me if she took her campaign “ideas” to increase tourism from me, since she was privy to my plan when she was deputy mayor. That reminds me. I need  IP protection on that.

Wow. There still remains no love lost between the Mayor and his opponent Earnestine Tidalbaum. What do you all think about Finni being the town’s mascot? What do you think about the non-democratic way Finni was chosen? Let us know on Twitter at BrevetChronicle. 

[flautistsandpeonies]

AITA For Sticking Up For My Mother Against My Father and Foster Sibling?

Alternative title: The Grandmaster of Assholes

You can also read this on my Wordpress.

Tags: Not For JC Fans, JC Canon Characteristics, JC Canon Homophobia, JC Canon Misogyny, Not For Madam Yu Fans, Madam Yu Canon Characteristics, Alternate Universe: Modern AU, a slight attempt at humor for me

Word Length: 2,757

Time to Read: 16 Minutes

Chapter Summary: Jiang Cheng posts on the AITA Reddit

Right, so last week I (22M) got into a fist fight with my foster sibling (22M) after my father (52M) called him and told him to come back to our house. The bastard ended up breaking my arm, and now I have to wear a cast for an entire month. My mother (52F) and father are now arguing about my mom taking legal action against him.

Some context:

My foster brother has always been an annoying and tedious ass. He always loves causing trouble and trying to show me up cause he was born into a poor, nomadic family and I was born quite wealthy. My dad brought him into our home thirteen years ago after his parents died in some car crash or something, I don’t care to remember, and his parents had my father as a guardian on his papers since they were both orphans.

My dad has never loved me, and has always favored my foster brother. He spent more time with my brother when we were young, taking him to what he claimed was physical therapy but I knew he just wanted to spend some alone time with him. On the contrast, my father rarely even looks at me, and if we are near each other he’s scolding me over something I have no control over- like being like my mother or not doing everything “like the family motto”.

My father has also never loved my mother. They got together in an arranged marriage (I don’t want any comments about how “traditional” and “old school” it was, mind your damn business) and my father has never given my mother the time of day. Despite having two kids with her (I have an sister (25F), they don’t even sleep in the same wing of the mansion and don’t spend any time together.

Anyway, my mom threw my foster brother out when we were seventeen after he stole first place in a contest from me. It was a special event held by our mutual family vocations and I was the only heir to not get a prize; he just had to show me up in front of everybody, again!

The son of a bitch was so full of himself that instead of waiting until my father got home that night to let him inside, he took a bus a few towns over to go stay with his friend (Wen Ping or something). Serves him right though, cause my mom had the locks changed the next day.

After that, my dad got so angry with my mom, saying that one of his colleagues, who we’ll call WRH threatened to go to the media about our family abusing 🙄🙄🙄 my foster brother if my dad didn’t sign guardianship over to him. My parents fought for such a long time over that, it was even worse than the normal fights my brother caused. It got so bad that my sister left the house to stay with her fiance’s family.

In the end, my father did end up signing guardianship over to WRH, and you would think that my life would get better after that, but no, it got worse!

When my foster brother started living with WRH he started to show up everywhere in our family’s social circles for academic rewards and flute recitals. It was like WRH had adopted him as his son or some shit; it was ridiculous.

My mom was so angry cause my foster brother was clearly trying to show me up again, cause my father wouldn’t dare showcase my achievements like that and he knew it.

Back to the present. My father claimed that he called my foster brother here after all these years to get his shit that my father refused to allow my mother to throw away- seriously, his trash has just been sitting in a room all these years collecting dust- now that he was getting married to his fiance and moving in with him. (I had no idea the man was gay, ugh.)

I know that had to be a lie though cause I have a big event coming up that I prepared a speech for, and my foster brother is going to be present as his fiance’s plus one. (Blergh). My father had read over my speech, and told me it was “too confrontational and lacking regard for the other familys’ beliefs and history”. (I told you he never approved of me.)

Anyway, my mom and I caught them red-handed after we came back from shopping for new suits for the event. My foster brother was on the front lawn with a woman we’ll call WQ and Wen Ping loading his trash into a moving van. My dad was handing him a file box, and I knew it had to have all my speeches and work plans in it.

My mom knew too and started arguing with my father about trying to sabotage me again. My father, as usual, denied it, and even raised his voice at her. She started going in on my foster brother as well. However, my foster brother had learned to disrespect my mother from somewhere (I’m betting it was WRH) and was talking back to her saying that she “had no power over him anymore.” and “wasn’t worth his time”.

I fucking lost it and tackled him then and there. We ended up tussling all the way into the front yard’s fountain and he broke my arm over the statue. I remember almost fucking drowning while that son of a bitch took everything and left.

My mom was so fucking pissed she’s going to take him to court for robbery and assault. I’d like to see WRH get him out of that.

So, that’s all that happened. I’m having my room’s maid type this for me as it is, but I really need her to get back to work. I don’t really care about comments; I already know I was in the right in this situation, I just needed somewhere to vent really.

...

Comments:

That-One-Lizard: Wait, so your mom threw your foster brother out of the house when he was 17? For winning a competition??? -Original Poster: He wasn’t supposed to win. It should have been my trophy, but he got in the way. Weren’t you paying attention? --That-One-Lizard: Dude.....he was 17...... ---Original Poster: And? I mean he was honestly lucky she didn’t beat him with the family’s discipline whip; that’s what she normally does when he shows me up. She was just tired after a long night and didn’t want to deal with him. ----That-One-Lizard: .........No comment......... ----Angel-Food-Cake: What the fuck...... ----Chicken-Elizabeth-Nugget: What the fuck is a discipline whip? Do I even want to know? -----Original Poster: Are you two stupid or something? A discipline whip is exactly what it’s called, a whip for disciplining unruly and traitorous people. ------Angel-Food-Cake: WRH shouldn’t have gone to the media, he should have gone to the police. What the absolute fuck, no wonder he didn’t come back home! Your mother’s a crazy fucking bitch, who does that to a child??!! -------Original Poster: Fuck you!!! How dare you insult my mother!!! --------Chicken-Elizabeth-Nugget : I realize now why your father doesn’t like her. (Click here to continue thread)

Broccoli-Bandit: Gonna need a little bit more context about the foster brother before I can decide. -Original Poster: What more do you need to know?? He ruined my life!!! Broccoli-Bandit: You said he liked causing trouble? --Original Poster: He loves to act like he’s so charitable and shit, like he wasn’t using my family’s money. One time, he even gave his entire allowance away to a beggar woman on the streets and my dad dipped into his own monthly budget to give him more. My parents fought for three days. ---Broccoli-Bandit: ........What the fuck? So he’s a normal human being?? ----Original Poster: What’s normal about wasting money? Also, he was always getting into fights with other men trying to get with women, just so he could be some knight type of character. (Click here to continue thread)

All-Around-Me: You are definitely the asshole for your homophobia alone. -Original Poster: Are you fucking serious? That shit is not normal; what normal person wants to have sex with another man? --All-Around-Me: You’re disgusting. ---Original Poster: Disgusting my ass! My foster brother’s the one that disgusting; it’s like he got possessed or something. I swear he’s not so much as looked at another man in my presence. ----All-Around-Me: Probably cause you’re a homophobic piece of shit??? (Click here to continue thread)

ChaoChao: NTA, that street rat should have known better than to come into better people’s homes and steal fathers’ affection from the blood children. I can’t imagine what the two sons of WRH went through in his household after he came there. -Original Poster: How do you know WRH has two sons? --ChaoChao: None of your fucking business, just take my opinion.

Bi-the-Bi: I feel like the sections about the foster brother are intentionally vague. -Original Poster: What the fuck do you mean vague? I told you everything you need to know! --Bi-the-Bi: You’re just constantly calling him an asshole, and claiming to know all his intentions? The only thing he’s done that we know of is leave after your mom kicked him out (nice mom by the way *sarcasm*) and defended himself after you attacked him. ---Original Poster: I told you he was trying to steal my work. And don’t you dare insult my mother!!! ---- Bi-the-Bi : No, you said you “knew”, which doesn’t immediately mean you were right. That could have been his birth certificate or something, awards from school since you say he was so smart. (Click here to continue thread)

Load More Comments (256)

...

Edit:

Okay, since some people brains can’t seem to function properly I guess I have to give you my entire life story for you to understand “the whole story”.

I (22M) was born to JFM (52M) and YZY (52F). They had JYL (25F) three years before me. My parents were arranged to marry by my mother’s request. Even then my father couldn’t recognize what a woman my mother was and did his best not to marry her, however my grandfathers banded together to make the marriage happen.

My father always made family life hard even before my foster brother got there. He never gave me or my mother attention, claiming that because my mother refused to take on the duties as the house’s madam he had to run both his position and her’s. Instead of supporting my mother’s endeavors, he spoke against her and my mother started going out of the house even more than usual to the point where I only see her for a couple of weeks a month.

Things got even worse when my foster brother (22M) got there. Like I said, his parents died and my father picked him up. My father started spending a lot of time with him. “Doctor appointments” for his legs after the accident, my father claimed, but my mother always showed me the receipts for the hunan restaurants he always took him to on those days.

My foster brother always loved to show me up. He did everything he could to have better grades than me, look better than me, have more friends than me, anything he could think of, he did it. Everyone always fell for his good-boy shtick; everyone, except for me and my mother.

My mother knew that my foster brother was likely my half-brother. His mother was apparently a real whore and got around with a lot of men before she married my dad’s butler and took off. My mother thinks that since my foster brother is only five days older than me, she must’ve snuck back into our home to sleep with my dad when my mom was out one day. My father once got a paternity test, but he paid the doctor off to skew the results to hide the truth.

My father denies that my foster brother is actually my half-brother, but he shows it in how he treats us. He hates my mother, so he hates me, but he loved his mother, so he loves him. Whatever I do can never seem to please him, but my brother can apparently paint a banner with our families crest and motto and my father hangs it up for all to see.

My mother does not tolerate my brother. Whenever he does something foolish or other deserving of punishment, she deals with him the only way she knows how. She has to use physical punish so he’ll learn, and she makes him sleep outside so he’ll remember his place- a half breed will never be allowed to inherit.

Anyway, things came to a head at one of our mutual family conference five years ago. Now that I think about it was WRH’s conference; I bet he set it up for my foster brother to get ahead of me! My foster brother/half-brother stole my trophy from me in front of our entire social circle and embarrassed me in in front of all of my peers.

My father had to stay behind to sort out some matter, and my mother, sister, and I went home. My mom threw my brother out for what he did to me and I took back my trophy from him while he picked himself up out of the lotus pond. We locked the door after that and went to bed. The next morning, my father was looking for him (figures), but we couldn’t find him.

A week later my father up getting a call from WRH’s secretary. My foster/half brother apparently went to his niece’s WQ house and was staying there for the time being. He wanted my father to sign over guardianship of my foster/half brother lest “our reputation be damaged”. My father blamed my mother for everything and they fought again.

My father ended up signing the guardianship over, and that should have been it. My life should have gotten better without him there to ruin it. But, as he was determined to make my life a living hell, he did all he could to put his name out there. I can’t imagine how much money WRH wasted on him. I spent five years continuing to live in his shadow.

It came to a head again just last week. Like I said before, my father was trying to sabotage my speech, giving my foster/half brother a heads up. I knew that if he read my speech he would probably say something to one up me at the conference. My mother knew it too, that’s why she said something. How could I have just stood there while my father and that bastard disrespected her in her own home? I did what I had to do and that son of a bitch broke my arm, so now I’ll see him in court.

Now that I’ve laid the story out more plainly for you will you people stop acting like my foster/half brother is some sort of helpless victim?

...

Comments:

I-Hate-Sabers: ....I’m going to ruin your life. I’m going to ruin your mother’s life. You two are going to wish she never left Meishan. -Original Poster: Who the fuck do you think you are? -Original Poster: Answer me you son of a bitch! -Original Poster: Probably another pussy who’s all talk over the computer but pisses themselves when ordering food.

Emperor-of-the-Smile: Definitely The Asshole. I don’t know what’s funnier: the fact that this piece of shit thinks he’s in the right or the fact that he thinks if he talks more about how he and his mother treated his foster brother like shit we’ll start agreeing with him. -All-Around-Me: I think it’s that he thinks he’s in the right. -Chicken-Elizabeth-Nugget: I think it’s how he’s so far up his own ass he can’t see or smell anything but himself. --Original Poster: Fuck all of you. I put this on here to vent about my frustrations, but you’re making shit up about me that’s not true. (Click here to continue thread)

ChaoChao: Still NTA, am I supposed to feel sympathy for some slutty woman’s orphan son. I mean look at all the trouble he cause people in his life! -First-Born-Sun: Chao-er, shut the fuck up.The only person in our household who doesn’t like Ying-er is you. --ChaoChao: I thought you said reddit was beneath you? ---First-Born-Sun: Not when someone I actually like and respect is mentioned. ----ChaoChao: You just like him cause you want to fuck him!!! -----First-Born-Sun: And? ------Original Poster: Who are you people?!

Plum-Soup: Definitely the Asshole. I don’t know who I feel for more. The father trapped in this abusive arranged marriage, or the foster brother who went from one traumatic situation to the next. -Original Poster: Why should you feel for them at all? My mother and I are the victims here!!! --Plum-Soup: Get help, asshole. (Click here to continue thread)

Lady-Mai: The asshole. Homophobic? Check. Misogynistic? Check. Abusive as all fuck? There’s not enough paper in the world to check this off. -Original Poster: Go fuck yourself!

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Author’s Notes:

Hope you all enjoyed. I’ve never actually been on reddit before and the only posts I’ve seen from it are on tumblr. Hope I did a good job!

Read the Next Chapter

Read My Other Prompts and WIPs [Here]

[kdrama-mental]

I'm realizing that Hometown Cha Cha Cha has some very deep characters.

First is Hye-Jin with her motto: “don't meddle in other people's business and just focus on yourself”. (Something that she clearly doesn't do xd). However, she continues to convince herself that she is still guided by that motto, that she doesn't meddle in the business or care for others; and builds a cold wall around herself. From the beginning we see that she doesn't have much interest in bonding to others, she only acts with the necessary manners and continues on her own path. Still, she recommends the patient a better clinic that will give her a good treatment; she agrees to take care of the children's hedgehog; she listens to Oh Yoon-Jae's album and talks to him about how she liked a song. She visits ahjumma Gam-ri genuinely concerned for her health. She let Juri spend the night at her house. Furthermore, she even danced in the contest so Juri can win! I think she's amazing.

On the other hand, we have our charming Chief Hong. Who, unlike Hye-jin, appears to be an open book (although in reality he's not). He helps left and right to everybody. If he has to walk all day to notify the village elders about a problem that is happening, he does it without being asked. If he has to sell fish, he does it; if he has to make coffee, he does it. He even makes soap for the ahjummas of the town, for God's sake. Chief Hong is known and appreciated by everyone in town; he is a friend, a son, an uncle, and even a grandson to the others. Even Oh Yoon-Jae told him about this, that he always carried other's burdens and problems, but who carried his?

I think this is a kind of protective armour for him. The more he cares about the problems of others, the more he avoids thinking about his own. The more tasks that fill his schedule, the less time he will have alone with himself and his thoughts. I wouldn't rate Chief Hong as the classic character who just does everything fine because he's perfect. For me, there is a more compelling reason behind his behaviour.

That's why I say that I love the depth of these characters. What do you think?

[vannrichmond-archive]

when → june 2022 (idk day man)  where → some shitty expo center the next town over 

He wasn’t sure how almost all of the major events of his life had ended up like this, a hold my beer, and watch this sort of moment, and yet they all were. It wasn’t even that anyone had dared him. He couldn’t even place the situation that got him here, but he had a used wither strap and a used pair of chaps he’d gotten from a pawn shop and he was leaning on the fence watching the team ropers rope, psyching himself up. A little three event special jackpot, team roping bull riding and bareback broncs. Baseball cap on instead of what he’d usually wear, pulled down a little too low so no one could catch a look at his face. He might have been out of this life for a minute, but god was he familiar with it. 

About an hour passed with him watching the slack in the roping before he had enough grit built up to go to the office. The woman in the box was pleasant as ever, “what can I do ya for?” She asked and Vann smiled, “Bareback jackpot?” He questioned, feeling like he was going to be found out, but she was none the wiser and nodded jotting down a number on the entry form and giving it to him, “name?” She asked, “Chris Watson.” He said easily and she believed him just as easy as the words came out of his mouth. He gave her the money, $75 dollars for this particular event, and she gave him a back number. Vann smiled at her and went his way. His lie worked and he was feeling more confident, the dust in his air from the event settling in his lungs, and while that should have made him uncomfortable, it was comforting. Calf ropers went longer than usual, which meant, he had time to just exist. Exist in an environment, as a contestant that he’d forgotten fueled his soul as much as it did, but when you did what he did, and completely check out of life, you sort of forgot all the things that made you you, and this was one of those things for him. 

“Chris?” Someone asked, but Vann wasn’t paying attention until the guy was right in his face and only then did it register, “new guy pulls first.” He said, and Vann nodded, “that’s fine.” He said following him to chute where the guy with the hat was. He didn’t care if he pulled first, he didn’t care if he got the rankest horse there. After all, his motto had always been, ‘no one remembers an 80-point ride.’ And for the most part, that was all he cared about. Now, maybe not so much, this was supposed to be a confidence boost, to see if he was still Velcro like he used to be. But hand in the hat, he swirled the papers around a bit before grabbing out one, number 7. “Ooo dude, sorry about that. That’s a hard first one.” Vann sighed, putting on the show, “hopefully it’ll be fine.” He said with a smile and a laugh “maybe tell ‘em to say a little prayer for me.” He said before walking off to find the seven horse. It wasn’t long on the catwalk above the holding pens before he found the horse standing in pen 7. Preacher 287. A weight was lifted from the man’s body. He’d ridden this one before, even if no one here knew that, he did. He did and he’d marked a 91 on it. He couldn’t of asked for a better horse to come back on. Was he hard yes, but did Vann know how he liked to explode out of the chute? Yes. Did he know how the horse liked to jump? Also, yes. This one was as push button for him as it got when it came to broncs. 

Back in the dressing room, he was working the pawn shop chaps. They weren’t custom fit to his legs like his others had been, and they weren’t good quality leather like his others had been, but that wasn’t really the vibe he was going for right now. He just didn’t want his thighs to be fucked like the would be without them. They were tight in some places, loose in others but they would work. Spurs strapped to his boots, a second-hand chest protector and a baseball cap. He looked like someone that was new, and that was the goal. 

It wasn’t twenty minutes later and he was back on the back of the chutes, cutting up, waiting for his turn. It felt like time was going in slow motion. First ride went, a year of time passed, the second ride passed, another year, so and on so forth before it was inevitably his turn. It was with laser focus that he watched the ground team tie his used wither strap to the horse. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them, it was just that he had to watch. A second later, he was standing on the top bar of the chute, trying to remember the last time he did this. The last he’d done this it didn’t end well. But the thought didn’t last too long because he was lowering himself onto the horse, and unlike the other one, this one stayed down. That was a plus. So he started going through the routine. His gloved hand running down the rope, making it a little stickier only to wrap it around his hand in the handle. Vann scooted up until he was almost sitting on his hand. He then laid back, right hand in the air. Everything around him went silent. His thoughts, the noise of the crowd, nothing. He could have heard a pin drop in the moment between him laying back and giving the gate man the nod. 

Preacher 287 exploded as Vann had expected him too. Every muscle in his tightened as the horse leaped out from under him, but his body stayed put, like it was back on the bicycle. The horse went left, his body went left, the horse went right, his body went right. With every kick up of the horse’s flank his back curved up and slammed back down as it always did, his neck getting the brunt of the load, but before he could even think about how to change that, the buzzer went off, and there was a flash of release over his body as his fingers opened and let go of the rope, doing a tuck and roll as he tried to avoid hooves. But it was successful as he popped up, hands going up as they did when he knew he had a successful ride. The rush coming back as he ran back to the chutes, jumping in the back as they announcer called his score, “and pulling into the lead with the high score of the night, Chris Watson with a score of 89.5 points” The crowd could have been deafening, he wouldn’t have noticed. 

The high was like no other. Pulling a good ride, riding it well, then being rewarded for it. It was then that he realized just how out of shape he was. It usually didn’t take that much physical energy to get a good ride out, but right now, he was exhausted. Looking at him however, if you didn’t know him you wouldn’t know, and no one here knew who he was. For all they knew, he was a baseball hat wearing fool with gear that didn’t fit. The polar opposite of who he really was. But as soon as he was out of the back, and leaning against the fence watching the rides, letting the high roll through him as it did, This moment would have been the one he called June, or the one she’d be at the back meeting him. However she was who knew where and there was someone else there, leaning on the fence next to him. Like they always did. “Nice ride.” She said, and he nodded, “thanks.” He said casually, “wasn’t as hard as people say it is.” Keeping up the rouse, the girl could only laugh. This was classically how he picked up women. The rush of adrenaline, the high. He was more turned on in these moments than he was in most. But even still, there was something that pulled at him, and told him to not. So he navigated this conversation a little differently. “There’s a party later.” She said, like he was new. Vann knew what happened later, he just—wasn’t ready to partake. Not yet. Maybe next time. “Where at?” He asked. He wasn’t going to bluntly just turn her down, that wasn’t nice, and well, wasn’t his style anyways. She told him the name of the bar, and he said he might be there. He wouldn’t. When he said he might it was always a no, but she didn’t need to know that. She gave him a nod and he did the same as he went back to the office. The bull riding had started which meant the bronc riding was over. 

Caught in conversation, he missed the scores of the riders that followed. It wasn’t a lot, broncs didn’t bring the same buzz that bulls did at smaller events, but still a 20 rider field was pretty good. In the office, he gave the lady his number and she smiled at him, “it’s always exciting when the new guy wins his first out.” Vann laughed at that, “hey, we can all get lucky sometimes.” He smiled, genuinely happy, like he hadn’t felt in years. “Eight Hundred and ninety five dollars is the payout for the broncs tonight.” She smiled, “handing him the cash and a buckle.” He looked down at it, and a warm feeling flushed over him. This was nice. He missed this; he missed his entire life. Vann took the hardware and cash from the lady and told her thanks as turned to walk away. Out of the office he had a few guys yelling, “dude come to the afterparty, that was sick.” He nodded, and gave them a wave, this was who he was. He could easily morph back into the life of the party. People liked to be around him, he was magnetic, and to know that that was still true, that hit a different part of him. His usually angry exterior erased for a moment and he was who he used to be. He didn’t have a care in the world, and he was himself. 

Back to his truck, he placed the buckle and the money in the console, used chaps and chest protector chunked in the back. He stood in the door, the light from the cab being open illuminating his face as he pulled his phone from his pocket. This was first time in years that he’d felt an urge to call her. Strong enough that if he’d of been drunk he would have done it without a thought. Phone in hand he scrolled to his voicemail, the one she’d left on his birthday and stared at her number for a long time, it was foreign to him. Ten minutes of thoughts, what was the worst she was going to do? Not answer? That’d suck but it’d get the feeling out of his gut. The one that always prompted him to share his life with her. He hadn’t had anything that he thought was good enough to share in ages but this? God, this felt big and like something he wanted to tell her. Thumb almost pressing call, when a different familiar name popped on the caller ID. Trace. A name he hadn’t heard not talked to in months. Vann answered, the timing was just too coincidental.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Classic man speak.

“Can you tell me something, Vann?” He asked, Vann extremely confused, “yeah? Maybe?” He didn’t know what Trace was on about. 

“Vann Christopher.” 

There it was. He knew. How the fuck did he know. It’d happened less than an hour ago, and he already knew. 

“How?” Vann asked, mildly confused, but not really. 

“Picture this.” The man started and Vann rolled his eyes, “I have a bull fighting friend just starting, and does these little jackpot gigs on the side. They’re in the broncs and he’s not really caring, but someone drew Preacher, and that’s always a show so he videos. Turns out the dude is good? But not just good, really good. Thing is, the dude is wearing the ugliest get up he’s ever seen but the new kids never know what’s happening. He sends it to me, thinking he’s just discovered the next big thing, and I watch that video, and guess who the fuck is riding Preacher to an 89?” 

“89.5, excuse the fuck out of me.” Vann interrupted. 

“Right, 89.5. None other than Chris Watson.” He heard the man snort. It’d been years since he’d heard Trace laugh so hard, he snorted, but Vann let him go. “And I think to myself, thats the dumbest name I have ever heard. So I watch it two more times, and its none other than my friend Vann Christopher, thinkin’ he’s fuckin’ sly. He ain’t sly, he’s a full idiot.”

“I am sly.” He started, “ain’t no one there had a damn clue, I play Chris so good, I shoulda got an Emmy, instead I got 800 bucks and a buckle, but I guess that’s a close second.” He shrugged, ignoring the last name he chose, nothing else came to mind at the time, and if he was going to cling to her one last time this would be it. And it’d be a sweet send off.

“I hate you.” Trace started again. 

“Why now?” 

“I would have flown across the country to see you ride for the first time in person. I know of at least 20 people, a television network and four brands that would have flown across the country to see you ride again.” At that Vann felt mildly guilty, but Trace continued, “instead you decided to rob all of us of that for a shitty redneck jackpot with people who don’t know who they’re looking at? You should be ashamed.” He could tell the man was upset, but Vann didn’t want that. He didn’t want people watching in case it was bad. What if he was flung off into the fence and died? What If he was stomped on again? What if he never actually got into the chute? It was easier to ride for strangers than it was for a crowd of people who knew who he was. The expectation was too high.

“Yeah, I know, but this was for me, not for all of y’all.” He started, “I can’t even fuckin’ talk about it still. I wasn’t about to have this go that way.” Vann said simply. Because it was. He didn’t care if it robbed other people. This wasn’t about other people; it was about him. 

“Well fine.” Trace said in defeat, “I’m proud of Chris, he did a bang-up job. But fuckin’ Preacher needs to be retired if he can ride him to an 89 after three years off, I swear.” 

Vann couldn’t help but laugh at that, “89.5″ He corrected again, “but so fuckin’ true. Chris is fat and out of shape.” 

The both laughed and said their goodbyes. It was nice, not having to report to someone, someone knowing without him telling them, not having to ask. He missed that. He missed everything that had surrounded him in that life.

Getting in his truck, he turned it on, only to look at the buckle once more, it wasn’t anything special, but it hit him. It hit him in a place that had long since been dormant, and whether he would ever admit to anyone or not, it felt good. This felt good. Did he need to go to the gym and actually get fit to ride one that wasn’t one foot in the grave? Yes. But did he have the motivation he’d been lacking? Also, yes. It was fucking time. Finally, time—he’d been waiting long enough. Now he just had to get his shit back from Colt, because fuck if he was going back out in pawn shop chaps.

[whywishesarehorses]

Inside the Famous—and Deadly—Omak Stampede

This article was written by Allison Williams, published in the August 2017 issue of Seattle Met, and reformatted here for your enjoyment.

This one is text heavy and long, so it is hidden under a read more.

Thursday

Eighteen horses form an imperfect line on a hot August night, their 18 jockeys clad in jeans. Here on a sandy bluff in the small town of Omak, four hours east of Seattle and several worlds away, riders and spectators alike move with nervous energy, anxious for the race to start. One jockey wears a helmet topped with a pink mohawk, another with a GoPro camera. One horse, sponsored by a local marijuana dispensary, sports painted pot leaves on its rump. Wispy white eagle feathers hang from others, emblems of the Native American heritage the men share.

A summer carnival glows below, neon outlines of rides called the Orbiter and the Fireball, metal towers that came into town on tractor trailers. Farther into the Okanogan Highlands, a casino twinkles alone on Indian Reservation land. It’s August 11, 2016, and even an hour past sunset the air holds onto most of the heat from the 90-degree day.

A “whoooop!” erupts from the gathered crowd as the animals sidestep and bob their heads behind the chalk starting line. His race number bright across his chest, 18-year-old Scott Abrahamson eyes the sandy dirt in front of the line, groomed like a golf course sand trap. His long bubblegum-pink sleeves mean he’s easy to spot even in the shadows where floodlights don’t reach, and his helmet blinks with battery-operated toy devil horns. He’s surrounded by both champions—Loren Marchand with seven titles, Tyler Peasley with three—and nervous high schoolers in their first race.

At the crack of a gun, the horses charge. Their riders lean forward as hooves pound the sandy flat, at least for the first hundred feet. The crowd cheers as soon as the pistol sounds, cries and hoots blossoming into the dark.

Then 18 horses go off a cliff.

The riders shift in their saddles as their mounts fly down an incline steeper than a ski jump. The best jockeys, the veterans, barely lean back coming off the hill, reins clasped in the left hand and riding crops in the right. Others grasp a bar they’ve rigged on the back of their saddles they call the “oh shit handle.”

The spectators’ cries reach full pitch when the pack is halfway to the waterway at the base of the hill, a thick ribbon of black that flows left to right. The horses plunge into the inky Okanogan River en masse, hooves hitting the shallow bottom, and all but one charge across to the opposite bank. The stadium on the far side is lit up like a Friday-night football game, floodlights bright atop red, white, and blue bleachers, and Scott and his hot-pink sleeves emerge first in the dirt oval, just 45 seconds into the race. As they cross the finish line, Peasley is right on his tail.

Fifteen horses follow, minus the one that tumbled in the river. A crew attends to the downed horse from the deck of a small drift boat; while the stadium roars, a veterinarian surveys the animal and notes that it’s already gone, likely drowned.

Back atop the hill, Colville tribal elders watch through binoculars before one spots something in the sandy dirt, an eagle feather dislodged by the chaos. They circle the downed quill, addressing the spirit it represents, the eagle that travels in both worlds, before one of the elders lifts the feather to return it to its owner.

This is the World Famous Suicide Race.

There will be four races total during Omak Stampede, always the second weekend in August. Each race awards five points to the first-place finisher, four to the second, and so on; the overall winner clinches the King of the Hill title on Sunday, and $40,000 in prize money is distributed. It’s the highlight of this Central Washington town’s year, a tradition that draws thousands of spectators—and animal-rights protesters.

Omak straddles the border of the Colville Reservation, home of almost every racer, horse owner, and trainer. The contest is a rite of passage, they say, a proving ground for men—and even a few women—coming of age more than a century after actual horseback warfare. Beyond the turgid flow of the Okanogan River through town, the reservation sprawls over 1.4 million acres of highlands, brittle with brown grass in late summer. There the Native American communities are plagued by poverty and unemployment.

If the Suicide Race was a small-town Friday-night football game, teenaged Scott Abrahamson would be its star quarterback. He’s an ace student, focused and polite, with technical internships and honor rolls to his name, but this weekend he’s a jockey with a King of the Hill title to defend. All eyes are on him.

Friday

He gets sick before every big race. “Everything hits me and my body,” Scott says. “I can barely walk.” His cousin calls it good luck; Scotty puking means they’re going to do well.

In the hours before Friday’s race, the second of four, Scott’s prepping in the triangular Owners and Jockey’s paddock in the middle of the fairgrounds. By 5pm, Omak veterinarian Jai Tuttle holds court at one end of the dusty enclosure, near standing fans that muster a little manufactured breeze. As they wait to parade their horses for Doc Tuttle, owners angle water hoses over the animals’ backs.

Everyone older than Scott calls him Scotty. This year’s printed program, in the roster of winners dating back to 1935, calls him that. After he won in 2015, he became small-town famous, no longer just the good kid who excelled at basketball and wrestling. People holler, “Go Scotty” at him all weekend.

His father was famous too. That’s what happens when you win the Suicide Race; Leroy Abrahamson took the title in 2002, but was best known for his prowess in the Indian Relay, a more widespread style of racing where one jockey hops from horse to horse. Leroy, Scott has heard, would flit from one mount to the next with only a single foot brushing the ground.

Scott doesn’t remember his first time in a saddle but assumes it was before he could walk, though he largely gave it up in elementary school, when his parents split. His father was the horse guy; his mother was all about school. So he became a standout student in Coulee Dam, a reservation town in the shadow of the 50-story hydroelectric giant. When his father died in 2009, he was drawn back to horses.

“I’m sorta doing all this for him,” Scott says, hesitant. His mother wasn’t wild about the racing, but he didn’t falter at school, scoring an engineering internship with the Bureau of Reclamation. Slight and muscular, his five-foot-nine stature is too tall for a throughbred jockey but about average for this race. His hair is short and straight, spiking around his head like a halo, and he likes to hide his eyes behind sunglasses.

The summer he was 16, after his sophomore year of high school, Scott entered his first Suicide Race. Atop a small gelding named Kinky, he fell as they crested the top of the hill on the Thursday race, flipping over the horse’s shoulder. On Friday the pair wrecked in the water.

“I flipped over and everybody ran me over,” he says. “Everyone says it happens so fast, but when I was in it, it was like slow motion.” Finally, on Saturday, they made it through the entire race, galloping past the finish line in the stadium. Then Sunday the pair wrecked again.

A new horse was in order. His trainer, George Marchand, is a giant within the Suicide Race world and holder of three titles. He’d lost his own father at 14 and rode against Leroy Abrahamson 15 years ago, so he guided Scott, this time to a nighttime ride on a quarter horse–thoroughbred mix named Eagle Boy. The butterscotch-colored gelding was only about five years younger than the rider.

“It was pitch black and dusty,” remembers Scott. The hills of the reservation are dotted with brush and ponderosa pine, but he could make out little from his saddle. They were on top of a hill, he knew that, and that George had taken off.

He gave Eagle Boy his head as they sped over the uneven terrain. “We were jumping trees and dodging trees,” recalls Scott, but they moved as a unit. “I was like dang—he trusts me.” Matching horse to rider is alchemy.

In 2015, in his second year racing and only 17 years old, Scott on Eagle Boy tied for first overall with six-time victor Loren Marchand, George’s nephew. With a wide grin stretched across his face, the rising high school senior played rock-paper-scissors with his cochamp for a King of the Hill prize bridle.

The name World Famous Suicide Race might be a bit of hyperbole, but the race is nothing if not infamous. It emerged in scrappy Omak where a Great Depression population boom—all the way to 2,500 souls—launched an annual rodeo in 1933. As publicity chairman, furniture store owner Claire Pentz proposed a dramatic steeplechase to draw spectators, inspired by mountain races across the reservation at Keller, where riders charged a dry channel in the Sanpoil River. He knew how to sell it: He gave his 1935 creation a catchy name.

The World Famous Suicide Race ran every summer, the marquee event at the four-day Omak Stampede rodeo. Dynasties were born when the inaugural race’s third-place finisher, Alex Dick, won regularly through 1965. There have been seven Marchand riders over the years, six Abrahamsons, nearly a dozen named Pakootas. The unofficial motto, one that appears on winners’ belt buckles, is “Wimps Need Not Apply.”

The 210-foot hill, most say, is a 62-degree slope. Or it’s 54.7 degrees, as measured by a race official in 1993. Others say it’s more like 30. Regardless, it’s terrifying. From the top, the hill feels as steep as a hard ski run; a black diamond, but not a double black. Scrambling up on foot, you might use your hands.

The stampede and race remain intertwined, but in 1999 the Colville Tribes boycotted to protest a change to their camping space on the fairgrounds. The Stampede lost attendance and revenue, and the following year a deal was struck: The tribes got more control over the race organization, and the encampment got its park space.

Family ties bind many of the owners, trainers, and jockeys, and while a few aren’t Native American at all, they’re the exception. This is the biggest sporting event in the region, the Super Bowl of north-central Washington. “This is the only time we get to play cowboys and Indians,” jokes one organizer, Ernie Williams.

Doc Tuttle is fairly new to the race gig, but between her ease with fidgety horses and no-nonsense demeanor, the veterinarian exudes authority. One by one she clears the horses for Friday’s race, directing owners to walk each thousand-pound animal in a figure eight as her eyes stay trained on forelegs and haunches, scrutinizing for swollen tendons or joints.

No one can pretend the Suicide Race isn’t controversial. As early as 1939, the protests started; Humane Society president Glen McLeod succeeded in canceling a mountain race in nearby Hunters, then traveled to Omak and Keller hoping to do the same. “Why, even the riders call it a ‘suicide race,’ ” McLeod told The Seattle Daily Times before a similar trip in 1941.

Animal rights groups started keeping a tally of dead horses in 1983, with one count now at 22. “The reality is that the race is viewed as part of the Omak Stampede rodeo, and rodeos are protected under state law,” says Seattle Humane Society spokesman Dan Paul, but points out that rapid shifts in public sentiment swiftly made SeaWorld orca shows and circus elephant acts extinct.

People for Ethical Treatment of Animals has run letter-writing campaigns. In 1993, the Northwest’s PAWS, or Progressive Animal Welfare Society, tried a more robust tactic, filing a lawsuit that alleged organizers harm horses for profit, but a Superior Court judge threw out the case. In 1996, a PAWS member sued the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office and the rodeo for roughing him up when he videotaped a horse being euthanized; the suit settled for $64,500.

For the organizers, the response is simple: The race is merely an extension of their horse-infused culture. Every rider points out that they ride similar hills during wild-horse roundups and cattle work.

Horses have to pass three checks before they’re allowed entry into the race: the vet examination, a swim test, and what’s called a hill test, where horses must round the top of Suicide Hill without hesitation.

Tuttle isn’t from the reservation; she isn’t originally from Omak. But even as an outsider, the one who has to put horses down if they’re hurt, she doesn’t think it’s inhumane.

“These guys use horses that love it,” she says; the horses are bred to it and run steep hills regularly on the remote corners of the reservation. She rarely has to disqualify a horse because owners who spot lameness usually scratch. “It does hold a real special place in the Native culture. It does.” And that horse Thursday night that likely drowned? She considers it. “He was doing what he loved and he had a quick and honorable death.”

Friday night’s race is classic and clean; no bad wrecks. As always, the riders reach the starting line by crossing the river on the Highway 97 bridge, closed to traffic. Hooves clomp on the asphalt as the parade passes a road sign that reads, “Tribal Code Laws Apply.” There are no rules to apply in the Suicide Race once the gun is fired; riders can whip each other, pull each other’s reins. No helmets required. No wimps.

The results echo the previous night: Scott Abrahamson and Eagle Boy come in first, Tyler Peasley on Spade in second. When Scott wins, he raises his right hand above his head, palm out, fingers outstretched. His father’s gesture.

Scott was only four when Leroy won the Suicide Race. “Everyone said he was one of the greats,” he says. “It’s kinda hard to fill his shoes.” Instead he fills his horns. He wears Leroy’s blinking red devil headpiece, the kind of bauble most 18-year-olds would don at a Halloween party.

Scott’s idols were the riders who won in the late 2000s, including the 30-year-old three-time champion who came in second to him during this weekend’s first two races. As a kid he’d run down hills playing at Suicide Race, imaginary whip flying, yelling, “I’m Tyler Peasley!” After his 2015 win, Scott noticed something: “The kids run around saying they’re me.”

It’s after 10pm when the racehorses have completed their cooldown laps and have been loaded into trailers for the ride home. Scott accompanies George Marchand to Omak Lake, 15 miles out of town, to let Eagle Boy soak before bed.

Saturday

Saturday night’s Suicide Race is the biggest. The 7,700-seat arena is packed, and lines form at every fun house and stomach-destroying ride in the carnival outside. Booths hawk curly fries, cotton candy, and foot-longs, though the longest lines are reliably at a taco truck.

But that’s not the whole Omak Stampede. On the east side of the arena, a mirror festival, maybe even larger: the Indian Encampment. Rows of teepees surround a round pavilion for dancing and drum performances, with RVs and tents beyond that. Spectators bring their own camp chairs to supplement the few bleachers. Booths sell jewelry, T-shirts, and dream catchers, and while some of the food is the same—nothing is as universal as curly fries—more signs are handwritten, and many vend Indian tacos and huckleberry lemonade.

Before the rodeo begins, the arena’s industrial speakers blast pop country songs over every acre. The festivities begin with a series of anthems and processions, recognizing the neighboring nations of Canada and the Colville Tribes. During the ride-in, dozens of rodeo queens from around the West shoot into the center oval on horseback, one by one, decked in every shade of sparkle.

The announcer introduces each event, then banters with the rodeo clown when things get slow or a bull rider needs a moment to limp off the dirt. The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association produces the classic rodeo events, ones with more white riders than Native: bull riding, steer wrestling, team roping, barrel racing. Specialty acts bridge the competitive sports: trick riders and one blonde woman who does a kind of partner dance with an unbridled palomino horse to the blaring sounds of a country song called “Free.” It ends with the horse placing its blond head in her lap.

The Suicide Race is the final blockbuster event. Spectators wade up to their knees into the Okanogan River just upstream of the race crossing, bare feet on slimy rocks. Signs still note that video recording is prohibited, but they’re roundly ignored in the age of cell phones.

Despite the shocking name, the only rider death since anyone’s kept close records was one who drowned on his way to the starting line—though there are plenty of close calls. In 2002, the year Leroy Abrahamson took home the title, racer Naomie Peasley took a tumble so bad she fractured her skull. She recovered, but not before flatlining twice in the medic helicopter.

In its anti–Suicide Race materials, PAWS airs a common criticism of the race: its authenticity. “Organizers currently contend that the Suicide Race has roots in Native American tradition but, in fact, an Anglo conceived the race as a publicity stunt,” reads its statement. Detractors hang on that detail, its origins with furniture salesman Claire Pentz.

To riders and trainers, though, Pentz is irrelevant, and they point to the deep roots of horse culture. For Scott, the point of the race is clear: “Showing that a young man is becoming a warrior, becoming a man.”

The race, the encampment—it’s the tribes’ biggest invitation into their world. “There’s more that people don’t see behind these walls, about Indian life...sweat lodges, medicine,” adds Aaron Carden, a retired racer who now teaches Native language on the reservation. Of the borders around that world, he says, “It’s not our fence to keep people out. It’s the fence white men built to keep us out of the area they took.”

The race wasn’t the only thing “created” by a white man; the very invention of a Colville Tribes unit is recent. Long before that, before statehood, before Manifest Destiny, before Lewis and Clark white-privileged their way across the American West, the Okanogan Highlands tribes lived nomadic lives, picking berries and drawing salmon from the massive Columbia River. And racing horses.

First came the incorporation of Washington Territory, then a series of executive orders begun by president Ulysses S. Grant that roped several tribes into three million acres between the Methow Valley and the Columbia River. Others were elbowed into the reservation, linking bands that once stretched from the dusty plains of Washington to the mountains of British Columbia. One chief invited a famous Indian leader, Chief Joseph, and his Nez Perce followers in 1885. With his band, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation—a patchwork assembly that had no single language or traditional commonality—reached their current 12-tribe size.

Over 125 years the tribes faced what so many other American Indians did—children forced into boarding schools, languages squashed. The federal government forced a cheap buyback of 1.5 million acres, lands still lamented as the lost “North Half.” The Grand Coulee Dam, erected in 1942, blocked spawning salmon with its 550-foot concrete walls; Colville tribal members mourned the loss of Kettle Falls, a historic fishing spot, with a Ceremony of Tears before it was submerged by the dam’s backup.

In the 1960s, the tribes toyed with termination, dissolving the reservation altogether and splitting the lands among its 5,000 members. Reservations had been terminated by the government before, but the Colvilles were the only ones to dare seriously consider it themselves, an unprecedented move of self-governance. Congressional hearings were held but the measure never passed, so the Colville Reservation endured.

The Suicide Race is a separate world from suicide itself, a public health crisis for the Colvilles. Whether spurred by pervasive poverty—reservation unemployment topped 50 percent in 2010—or rampant substance abuse, the suicide rate ballooned to 20 times the national average in 2006. “After that we were in a panic on what we need to do and could do,” says tribal staffer Olivia Wynecoop. Tribal leadership declared a state of emergency, and Wynecoop helped secure grants for education and designating “natural helpers” to be on call for suicide emergencies.

Scott positions Eagle Boy at the western end of the starting line for the Saturday-night race. This isn’t like the starting gate at the Kentucky Derby; horses pace and turn, and the antsy palomino next to him does a sideways prance before the starter pistol goes off. Scott is angry, though later he says he can’t remember why. Trash talk and psych-outs are regular along the starting line, older jockeys trying to ruffle the young ones still gathering their courage.

But three years and one win into the Suicide Race, Scott can ignore the chatter. He and Eagle Boy are still until the gun sounds, then fast to the crest of the hill. Aaron Carden still remembers the feeling 25 years after his first win: “You’re actually flying in the sky. Nobody can take that away from you.”

There’s a commotion, a cloud of dust to Scott’s left, but he’s well in front of the pack as they hit the water. Two strides into the dark water, Eagle Boy stumbles, flinging Scott into the river. His blinking red devil horns disappear under the white churn created by horses on either side. They’re both okay but don’t log a finish.

What Scott couldn’t see was what happened on the top of the hill, to the very first rider off the break. Tyler Peasley, whom Scott idolized as a kid, and who’d placed at Scott’s heels the past two nights, darted off the top of the hill like a raptor after its prey. Peasley’s a little taller than Scott, broader shouldered, and he rides to win. His mount, Spade, got so much air he tucked his back legs underneath him and simply sailed for the first 30 feet of the downward slope.

They were serene in that moment, flying, until Spade’s hooves finally hit the tilted ground again; Peasley pitched over Spade’s front left shoulder before the horse executed a tight somersault. The jockey disappeared under the hooves of the horses behind him and the crowd made a collective, guttural gasp. Peasley’s body didn’t come to a stop until he reached the bottom of the hill.

Sunday

The final race is also the only daytime race of the weekend; for the first time since the trials and runoff races held before the stampede, they’ll be rushing the hill in full daylight.

The mood in the O&J paddock is subdued, but word is going around that Peasley is stable at a nearby hospital. News will later spread that his injuries included a broken pelvis, hip, and ribs, and the racing community fundraises to support his care and gas money for his family to visit him.

Remarkably, Tyler’s horse, Spade, is unhurt from the tumble, ready to race again. His owner lights a bundle of sage and says a few words over the horse before a new jockey takes the saddle.

For the final time in 2016, Scott follows the parade to the top of Suicide Hill. His jeans have a gaping hole in the knee—real wear from hard riding, not a fashion statement—and his wraparound sunglasses are ’80s big. No devil horns for the daytime race, but, as ever, his name is the one most shouted by the crowds: “Come on Scotty,” over and over.

With 10 points already earned, Scott only needs to place to secure the title. Owner and trainer Marchand tells him not to go all out, and when the gun fires, he doesn’t. He holds back his whip, lets Eagle Boy run the race without extra urging. It’s the smart move, the calculated move, no doubt informed by the disastrous night before. But Scott comes to regret holding back.

Not because it doesn’t work. Scott and Eagle Boy place second, netting four more points and easily clinching his first solo all-around title. But for Scott, the kind of driven athlete who hates to give a single inch, playing it safe feels wrong. Now with two titles to his name, only three years in, he says he’ll ride “until I get broken down and can’t do it no more.”

Three days later, Scott will depart his Coulee Dam home and drive five hours to start his freshman year at Washington State University. As an engineering student he will pull a 3.8 GPA his first semester and a 3.9 the second; he’s lined up two years of scholarships so far and hopes he’ll be able to extend to the full undergrad four.

Scott won’t brag about his Suicide win at college, but he’ll drive home every fall weekend for Indian Relay races, another sport that mixes horsemanship with a touch of anarchy. Around the reservation, he doesn’t have to brag about being King of the Hill; everyone already knows. “He’s the Steph Curry of the Suicide Race,” one tribal member says. “Loren and Tyler are the Lebrons.”

The second weekend of August 2017 is already on everyone’s calendar. Scott will be back on Eagle Boy, who he now half owns with George Marchand—a 49 percent share. He now has a streak to defend. By early June, high winter snows have melted to fill the Okanogan River, and ecologists are warning of water flows two or three times normal. Scott guesses that, with the river this high, it’ll be too deep for the horses to simply wade across during the Suicide Race; they’ll have to swim for the first time since, he believes, 2002. The year his father won it all.

But on Sunday night in August 2016, after the King of the Hill awards and the pictures, he’s just a high school kid again. He wanders the Indian Encampment with friends, waits in line for fry bread.

Under the pavilion, dancers spin and step, decked in elaborate feathered headdresses and beaded robes. Some have numbers pinned to their costumes, like marathon runners, to compete. In a drum tent, the songs are a steady thrum of chants and cries, indecipherable to the visitors who stand awkwardly outside the rows of seated tribal members who are at once both audience and participant.

Picture this: a quiet mountain lake, bordered by rocky hills dotted with ponderosa pine. In daytime Omak Lake is seven miles of brilliant turquoise, but now, at night, it’s a black mirror. Two men drive a horse trailer to its shore, unloading an unsaddled Eagle Boy.

It’s one of George Marchand’s secrets to success; the lake minerals soothe the bumps and scrapes along the horse’s legs. In the midst of the annual Perseid meteor shower, the uncloudy Okanogan skies are perfect for spotting streaks of celestial light, but the men don’t look up as they dissect the day’s race.

Scott holds Eagle Boy’s halter from a dock while the horse wades into the water, breaking the lake’s calm. The water hasn’t yet cooled from baking under another 90-plus degree day, and the hills that round the lake keep the night air still. They’ve survived another madcap contest together, earned another W. They’re back on the reservation, back home. In the silence the only sound is the lapping of the lake water against a horse.

[satoshi-mochida]

Nippon Ichi Software has released first information and screenshots for Yoru, Tomosu, its newly announced horror visual novel due out for PlayStation 4 and Switch on July 30 in Japan.

Get the details below.

■ Key Visual

■ Summary

Nippon Ichi Software will release Yoru, Tomosu for PlayStation 4 and Switch on July 30, 2020 in Japan.

This title is a text adventure game set in a historic girls’ high school that depicts the story of five girls involved in a strange incident.

■ Prologue

Taisho era.

This is the story of a boarding school for young ladies that stands quietly on the outskirts of town. The students there are “caged birds,” restricted from leaving the school grounds even on days off.

The girls shared everything, from their loneliness and joy to their teenage melancholy. Eventually they created the “Psuedo Sisters” system—a special relationship in which two girls would exchange each other’s most valued possessions and form a sister contract until graduation.

But one day, two girls who formed a contract to become “Psuedo Sisters” committed a double suicide. The two died holding the “valued possessions” said to be a symbol of the bond between them, but the teachers returned those “symbols” to their original owners and died in an accident.

If we die, we can stay together forever. The wishes of these two girls who committed suicide were trampled so easily.

■ Main Characters

Suzu Izayoi (voiced by Yuki Nagano)

A girl who lost her parents at a young age and is now living with her grandmother. She is the ace of the koto music club at Kagurahara Girls Academy and next in line to be its president. She has a cheerful personality and can get along with anyone. On the first day of summer vacation—the day everyone shared ghost stories—she started having strange dreams of herself and a “sister.”

Yuuka Sumeragi (voiced by Mai Mochizuki)

A transfer student who joined the koto music club. Because her home was once a school that boasted the largest number top disciples in the koto music world, her own skills are second to none. As emotional support, he cherishes a diary about Kagurahara Girls Academy that she found when she was young. She is the spitting image of the “sister” that appears in Suzu’s dreams.

Maya Aoyagi (voiced by Hiyori Kono)

Suzu’s childhood friend who is usually reliable, but occasionally messes up. She loves Suzu and cherishes her above all else. Not only did she go attend this school because of Suzu, she also started playing koto music because of her. She is good at making sweets, but is also very timid and easily gets scared.

Rui Maihara (voiced by Chiyo Tomaru)

A cheerful and energetic girl who for better or worse can be quick-tempered. She was once the rising star of the track and field club, but retired after she injured her leg and joined the koto music club. She loves the club president that welcomed her in.

Reiko Takusari (voiced by Yuka Ootsubo)

A girl who does things calmly and at her own pace. Despite that, she is a realiable older sister-type who watches over everyone. Her grandmother is the school president.

■ Other Characters

Tae Kanno (voiced by Rika Kinugawa)

The adviser for the koto music club that oversees the students. Also known as Taechan-sensei.

Marino Takezawa (voiced by Hazuki Senda)

The current president of the koto music club, who runs it under the motto, “Music is to Enjoy.” She is a dependable senpai who believes one should enjoy playing music above all, and even taught music novice Rui how to play from scratch.

■ Story

In preparation for the contest to be held after summer vacation, Suzu, Maya, Rui, and Reiko began their summer practice.

Just as summer vacation began, Suzu had a dream in which she saw an unknown “sister.” While she did not pay much mind to it, one day a girl named Yuuka Sumeragi—the spitting image of the “sister” in her dream—transfers to her school.

Yuuka cherishes an old notebook—an old diary about the school.

Yuuka is also from a family once famous in the koto music world, and plans to participate herself in the contest to be held after summer vacation. However, Yuuka listens to Suzu and company’s performance and calls it “an insult to music,” having no intention to slow into step with them.

Suzu puzzled things over with the club president regarding Yuuka, who quickly isolated herself from the club, but at a certain point, she discovered note in her cupboard that read, “I want to talk at the old school building – Sumeragi.” Suzu saw off the president, who was excited about her “chance to talk together” with Yuuka, but what would later be discovered is the bloody body of the president who had fallen from the old school building’s second floor.

■ Kagurahara Girls Academy

A historic school for young ladies that has been around since the Taisho era. In addition to the new school building where Suzu and company attend class, there is an old school building that is now off-limits, and among the students there are rumors that “the old school building is haunted.”

View the screenshots at the gallery.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

And if you say to me tomorrow, Oh what fun it all would be

...Then what’s to stop us, pretty baby,

But what is and what should never be...

Yes, this is from the lyrics of the Led Zeppelin song What Is And What Should Never Be, because I’m a nerd like that, and this is a post about Dean and Djinns.

I consider 15x07 a Djinn episode for all intents and purposes: the Marid, in pre-islamic and islamic lore, is a type of Djinn, associated to the sea and the ocean (that can’t be a coincidence given all the imagery related to water and ocean around Dean and specifically, recently, the Michael possession arc, and 15x07 is ripe with references to Michael’s possession of Dean...), and described as the most powerful but rebellious kind of Djinn, and able to make humans’ wishes true but after being fought and subdued and imprisoned, like Lee has done.

But of course, more than what the Marid is, it’s the themes of the episode that bring us right in Djinn land: there’s 14x05 Nightmare Logic in this episode, there’s 2x20, 8x20, there’s even 6x01 in a game of mirrors. There’s the theme of how past trauma affects the present (in 6x01 Dean’s past catches up to him in the suburbs as a clear metaphor for trauma, 14x05 is textually about past trauma, 2x20 plays with past and present), of the line between the hunting life and the civilian life, of the concept of normalcy, all steeped in the great theme of reality that Dabb has picked as the main theme of his run as showrunner. (Not a Djinn, but his masterpiece Dark Side Of The Moon doesn’t play with 2x20 as a coincidence - it’s Dabb’s old manifesto.)

Like in Nightmare Logic, the monster feeds off the blood of its victims; then it was a metaphor for how the trauma in your past will drain you unless you learn to let it go, a theme that tied to to Charlie’s experience in 8x20, and now... it’s the same, except that Lee decides that it will be other people to pay the price of his trauma, and Dean experiences it himself and frees himself and kills the monster, symbolically severing his connection to the person who fondly reminisced about the good ol’ times with John which were not good ol’ times at all, for either of the two of them (the horrors from the hunting life changed Lee, a parallel for how Dean’s life with John wasn’t as rosy as it would seem).

So, in 15x07 we are in a Djinn episode, and Djinn episodes are about Dean’s psyche and morality.

Listen to yourself. “We are owed”, “we deserve”. Come on, man.

All of them. Everyone that you saved, everyone Sammy and I saved. They’re all dead. And there’s this woman, that’s haunting me. I don’t know why. I don’t know what the connection is, not yet anyway. It’s like my old life is--is coming after me or something. Like it like it doesn’t want me to be happy. Course I know what you’d say. Well, not the you that played softball but... “So go hunt the Djinn. He put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those people’s lives, no contest. Right?” But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us, huh? What, Mom’s not supposed to live her life, Sammy’s not supposed to get married? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad? It’s... Yeah...

One of the most striking features of Dean, in my opinion, is that he doesn’t think that he’s owed something for what he does. The sacrifices, the horror he puts himself through on a daily basis to make sure that other people stay comfortable and safe in their bubble of ignorance of the supernatural.

It’s something Sam struggles with more than Dean does, as highlighted by their recent conversation when they work the vampire case in the little town:

Well, local police are freaked. Never seen anything like this. They got no idea how to deal. Of course not. That’s our job. We keep them from dealing with the truth, with what’s out there, and we carry the weight. It’s great. Meanwhile, they get to go back to living in their white picket fence bubbles. You know, ever since you were a kid, you wanted to live in a town like this. Lame, normal… Yeah, we don’t get normal. And these towns, everything’s the end of the world. You’re late for work, your kid doesn’t get into the right school… whatever. They don’t… They have no idea what’s out there.

Sam, deep down, is jealous of the people who get to live in the normalcy that was denied to him since forever. In season 1, while Sam desperately tries to stay clutched to the life he tried to have and was taken away from him with Jess’ death, Dean outright states that normalcy is just not for him, that the idea of living a white picket fence life in the suburbs freaked him out. The queer subtext obviously was wild in season 1 (oh, wait, it just was wild all the time), with the juxtaposition of Sam’s inability to be normal because of a supernatural interference in his life, and Dean’s inability to be normal because he as a person felt inherently out of place in a scheme of normality.

But back to the point. Dean doesn’t feel jealous of the people who live a monster-free, horror-free life. He said it to the girl that turned out to be Lilith: he likes his life, he likes his job, because he saves lives, because he makes a difference. He genuinely wouldn’t change it. He was tempted for a minute in 2x20 but he didn’t fall for the trick, and now he just has more horror and trauma on his shoulders but also more a difference made. (Curiously, while Sam considers them “the guys who save the world”, Dean consider himself more as a person who “looks out after the little guy”, who saves individual people.)

It’s been a rough decade, Dean tells Lee, but Dean hasn’t let all the horror turn him into a jaded, disillusioned shell of his self, because he doesn’t think he’s owed something for what he does, but does it because he’s just genuinely a good person who enjoys doing good and saving people. (Again, much has been written about the famous “saving people, hunting things” motto and how right from the beginning of season 1 Dean’s priority is saving people, while hunting things is just the means to that end, while John and Sam are more focused on the hunting things part.) It’s no coincidence he evokes the ghost sickness, where he gave that speech to Sam about their lives sucking and him deciding to quit the hunting life (“I mean, who wants this life, Sam? Huh? Seriously?”), as the situation made Dean act pointedly unlike himself.

Dean doesn’t put himself first in general, but especially doesn’t put himself first when it means harming others; but also he doesn’t see his good actions as a collection of good-person points he can use to get a prize later. Hunting is not something ugly you do and if you’re lucky you survive long enough to get out of it, hunting is something he likes to do because it’s the most efficient way for him to help people. He wants people to live in the bubble.

In fact, while Sam never really experienced “normal”, and even before learning the truth about monsters his life was different than other kids’, Dean knows what a life in the bubble is like. Sam pretended that he could choose to go live inside the bubble, but he knew what was out there. Dean experienced normal, but instead of being jealous of others who haven’t gotten their bubble bursted, he is happy in maintaining the bubble for them.

Of course there’s the temptation, because there’s no proving morality without temptation. The Djinn-induced dream in 2x20, Michael’s possession dream, Lee’s “living the dream” life, all pieces of the big picture of the great peace-versus-freedom dilemma, the temptation of picking paradise. Of course 6x01, another Djinn episode, fits into the pattern, because life at Lisa’s is the little paradise after the botched apocalypse and it doesn’t ultimately work. It’s interesting to compare the various “dream lives” offered to Dean across these episodes, and also the actual memories lived in Dean’s memory in Dark Side Of The Moon, heaven being literal paradise.

I want to focus on 2x20 and 15x07 here, though. In the first Djinn episode, Dean’s cue that something was wrong was the other victim of the Djinn “haunting” his dream. Now, we have the girl who gets kidnapped and her friend who talk about her disappearance, but in a way Dean is also the woman who haunts Lee’s dream, the “ghost” that ties him to his past life.

Dean is, indeed, the ghost from Lee’s past that burst the illusion, that makes Lee face the consequences of his choice to dwell in a dream that costs people their blood and life. There’s a sort of reversal, because when he’s introduced you think that he is the ghost from Dean’s past, even evoking the ghost of John Winchester, but Dean, despite the temptation, doesn’t really consider the option of following in Lee’s footsteps, even before learning about the secret monster. Dean’s past is well on the way of getting free of ghosts, or at least the ones from the life with John. Like the gag of the old picture on the badge reminded us, Dean is grown, and old ghosts can’t haunt him now. Of course, there’s the negative space, what Lee doesn’t bring up, what Dean doesn’t mention, but some ghosts have no power to haunt him now, he can overpower them.

Dean can laugh about the ghost sickness, and soon he will be able to laugh about his fears.

[scotianostra]

On January 17th 1795 Duddingston Curling Society became formally organised, one of the earliest in the history of curling - though Kilsyth lays claim to a date of 1716.

It is likely that curling has its origins in Scotland, in the early part of the sixteenth century, as a primitive game of quoits on ice. Major events such as the introduction of rounded stones, of artificial ice, of playing four-aside, and the discovery of the "curl' or the 'twist', can be chronicled in Scottish curling records. But how, and where, did it all start? Research continues to turn up major discoveries about curling's origins to stimulate fresh interest and controversy. In 1976 hand written documents written in latin were unearthed by the Scottish Records Office the translation read,

"February 6, 1540-41, Sclater went to the ice which was between the orchard and the late Abbot's room and there threw a stone along the ice three times, asserting that he was ready to carry out what had been promised on the first day of Gavin's arrival concerning a contest of throwing this sort of stone over the ice ... Hamilton, ashort while later, responded by intimating to Sclater that he would go to the ice in the appointed place and that they would there have a contest with stones thrown over the ice"

There is no word of the match itself and the only other mention of curling in the years that followed was twice in a poem in dedicated to James Gall, had died of tuberculosis, the poem mentioned "curling" as one of the dead mans accomplishments.

Fast forward to 1773 and the first description of a game of curling is in a poem by James Graeme.

Fretted to atoms by the poignant air, Frigid and Hyperborean flies the snow, In many a vortex of monades, wind-wing'd, Hostile to naked noses, dripping oft A crystal humour, which as oft is wip'd From the blue lip wide-gash'd: the hanging sleeve That covers all the wrist, uncover'd else, The peasant's only handkerchief, I wot, Is glaz'd with blue-brown ice. But reckless still Of cold, or drifted snow, that might appal The city coxcomb, arm'd with besoms, pour The village youngsters forth, jocund and loud, And cover all the loch: With many a tug, The pond'rous stone, that all the Summer lay Unoccupy'd along its oozy side, Now to the mud fast frozen, scarcely yields The wish'd-for vict'ry to the brawny youth, Who, braggart of his strength, a circling crowd Has drawn around him, to avouch the feat: Short is his triumph, fortune so decrees; Applause is chang'd to ridicule, at once The loosen'd stone gives way, supine he falls, And prints his members on the pliant snow. The goals are marked out; the centre each Of a large random circle; distance scores Are drawn between, the dread of weakly arms. Firm on his cramp-bits stands the steady youth, Who leads the game: Low o'er the weighty stone He bends incumbent, and with nicest eye Surveys the further goal, and in his mind Measures the distance; careful to bestow Just force enough: then, balanc'd in his hand, He flings it on direct; it glides along Hoarse murmuring, while, plying hard before, Fail many a besom sweeps away the snow, Or inicle, that might obstruct its course. But cease, my muse! what numbers can describe The various game? Say, canst thou paint the blush Impurpled deep, that veils the stripling's cheek, When, wand'ring wide, the stone neglects the rank , And hops midway? — His opponent is glad, Yet fears a sim'lar fate, while ev'ry mouth Cries, off the hog , and T INTO joins the cry. Or couldst thou follow the experienc'd play'r Thro' all the myst'ries of his art? or teach The undisciplin'd how to wick , to guard , Or ride full out the stone that blocks the pass? The bonspeel o'er, hungry and cold, they hie To the next ale-house; where the game is play'd Again, and yet again, over the jug; Until some hoary hero, haply he Whose sage direction won the doubtful day, To his attentive juniors tedious talks Of former times; — of many a bonspeel gain'd, Against opposing parishes; and shots , To human likelihood secure, yet storm'd: With liquor on the table, he pourtrays The situation of each stone. Convinc'd Of their superior skill, all join, and hail Their grandsires steadier, and of surer hand.Rate this poem:

The 18th century saw curling become more popular, it is said to have been played on the Nor Loch, which is now Princes Street Gardens, but with the ever expanding New Town and the Nor Loch being drained, Duddingston a new curling venue became necessary. In 1795 a group of gentlemen formed the Duddingston Curling Society, and erected a small building on the edge of the loch to house their stones.

Other towns claim to be the oldest, Kilsyth Curling Club say they were established in 1715, Kinross Curling Club, claim 1668 as their formation and a curling club from Muthill say they were established in 1739.

I think that the Duddingston claim lays with the fact that they first rules and regulations were set down. Dates differ all over the place in the history of curling around the net don't shoot the messenger, the main thing about the Duddingston claim is there is a definite date unlike the other claims, hence I have gone for this date. 

The first picture shows the medal prize for a competition the Duddingston Curling Society had in 1802, the earliest known prize presented to the winner. I love the patriotic motto in Latin it reads ......'SIC SCOTI; ALII NON AEQUE FELICES' which roughly translates to.....'this is the way the Scots play: the rest of mankind isn’t equally lucky'.

Check out the Curling History blog here for more info http://curlinghistory.blogspot.com/

[nothopefulhart]

Adventure is out there. Or at least, that’s what Maya tried to tell herself as they pulled into yet another town for yet another rodeo show. Her motto came from one of her favorite movies and she held onto it when going through the routine of her life. Sure, the rodeo could be exciting. People fell off bulls, new contestants trying to show off a slew of no actual talent, drunken brawls. Those all used to make Maya grin ear to ear, but since Josh died... Her travel companions were lucky to get much more than an eyebrow raise and a huff. If they got both, they considered it a good day.

The only living thing that Maya let close was Moose. Her trusty, goofball, dog. He went everywhere with her. She didn’t move a foot without him. They’d been together for two years now. Maya had gotten him, after burying Josh, knowing she would need something to keep her wanting to live. Now she doesn’t go a day without him. More than happy to the lonely grumpy dog mom of the rodeo. 

Her day starts out normal enough. She helps with all the chores like: setting up barricades, feeding and grooming the animals, setting up vendor booths, checking safety equipment, watching the practice runs to make sure no one ever got hurt... again. Maya was a bit like a mother here, keeping the men in line and handling the relationships with the fairgrounds. Once everything is set up and double checked, she goes back to her hotel room to prepare for opening night. 

Boots on snug and Moose fed, Maya headed back to be there to open the gates. Most everything goes off without a hitch. She’s not surprised when she has a run in with a drunken ‘cowboy’. What surprises her is that he thinks there aren’t any repercussions. Especially as he grabs her ass and tries to corner her. She may not look tough but she knew how to hold her own. With grace and rage, the blonde crushes the man’s foot beneath her heel before head butting him and breaking his nose. 

At this point, the man is howling in pain as Moose is growling and ready to pounce as well. Every man that knows Maya, knows to quickly dispose of the drunkard at her feet before she changes her mind on mercy. Something she’s grateful for as she smooths out her shirt and runs a hand through her hair. She thinks she’s alone at this point until she hears foot steps approach and a thick voice behind her. “Say that again for me darlin’. Adrenaline’s pumping in my ears, I didn’t hear ya.” 

( @mjolnirchosen ~ )

[brevetchronicle]

No Town Motto but a Shot Heard Around Brevet

Things have come to a grinding halt in Mayor Wilty’s Town Motto Challenge, ever since Deputy Mayor Earnestine Tidalbaum resigned and announced her candidacy for Mayor elect this November. If you recall, all motto entries were to be directed at the now resigned Deputy Mayor, who was in charge of organizing said entries for review. But Earnestine Tidalbaum’s sudden departure is not the only thing that plagues Mayor Wilty’s contest. Our sources in City Hall tell us that a dearth of entries has left the Mayor with little if anything to consider, forcing him to come up with mottos himself to save face. Our contact has also told us there’s a large amount of wailing emanating from the Mayor’s office after hours. We reached out to the Mayor of an interview, which he declined. But he did pass along this statement:

“I have plenty to creative mottos to review. Brevetarians have definitely risen to the Town Motto Challenge that was placed in front of them. I’ve attached an entrant’s slogan which I fully expect to be published. Ms. Tidalbaum’s departure, on the other hand, has not affected; me, this office, nor the town’s vision, mission and values in any negative way. I can’t stress that enough. If anything Ms. Tidalbaum has shown herself to be an unreliable candidate for Mayor lacking the steadfastness needed for such an important position. As the kids say, ‘She’s a bailer.’” 

Mayor Wilty’s statement struck us as the first strike across the bow. We wondered if personal attacks were going to be the tone for this election season. To gain further insight we reached out to mayoral candidate Tidalbaum and asked for a comment on Mayor’s Wilty’s statement. She had this to say. 

I know what Michelle Obama said, ‘When they go low we go high.’ Nice words. But Hilary ultimately lost the election. We’ve learned a great deal from that...to fight fire with fire. Mayor Wilty is a blow hard. I should know, I’ve worked with him for two terms. And the people of Brevet know it too. That’s why they should elect me for Mayor in November. ‘Let’s bring intelligence and common sense back into the Mayor’s office.’ 

There’s your answer folks. We’re in for a battle royal for mayor. Is it appropriate? We’re living in a culture of extreme divisiveness. The hallmark of Brevet is that we’ve never been like our neighbors or the rest of the country. Should we be expecting more civility from our wannabe and elected officials? Let us know what you think on Twitter at @BrevetChronicle. 

The Slogan Mayor Wilty was referring to was this: 

Come for the Company Stay for the Rides!

Huh???

[purplesurveys]

771

Have you ever known anyone who was homeless? I don’t think so. Families here are always willing to take in their less fortunate relatives, and being homeless is usually the case for only the poorest of the poorest of the poor. I don’t think I know anyone from that sector.

Do you watch movies with the subtitles on? Yes. I have to, I’m horrible at following any foreign accent. Some English speakers will sometimes speak too fast or mumble their words, which can be such an inconvenience for me sometimes. Did you have a treehouse when you were younger? I didn’t. Most trees here have red ants and have never really been treehouse-friendly, sadly. Sports: Would you rather watch them or play them? Watch. Feels so nice to watch and cheer for your favorites with people who like the sport as much as you do. If you were a journalist, what types of stories would you want to cover? Finally a survey question that directly concerns my degree, hahaha. I loved doing situationers more than anything, meaning to say I never liked the fieldwork part of journalism but I enjoyed the hell out of doing research. Situationers are basically research-heavy outputs that will bring readers up to speed on a current hot topic - it can be anything from an extensive timeline, an in-depth analysis, a data-centric explainer, etc.

But if we’re strictly talking stories, I would love to cover marginalized groups and give them a voice. I once had to cover an informal settlement that was in danger of displacement after a corporation bought their land to build a casino/mall complex. That was my favorite story to write, and I would love to cover similar bases like labor issues, plight of the LGBTs, indigenous people, etc. if given the chance.

Do you think American Idol is rigged? They had some super unfair eliminations in the past that made me think it was rigged, yeah. I remember reading a bit from wrestler Chris Jericho’s memoir where he says he got eliminated from a dance show he once got to be in because the producers felt that there were too many male contestants, and the they simply picked him to be eliminated even though he had been doing  well. After reading that, I started thinking most competition shows do the same practice.

Have you ever participated in any type of medical study? No. Psychological studies, yes; but I don’t think I’ve joined anything medical in nature. Do you believe humans should have the option to be euthanized? Sure, though I think it should only be kept as an option for ultimate cases, like if someone with a terminal illness was due to pass any day. It shouldn’t be like an appointment that can be very easily fixed up for anyone. Have you ever taken a road trip with no destination in mind? No. Gas is too expensive for that privilege lmao. Do you give good directions? Not at all. Use Waze, man. I get confused when I’m at campus and someone rolls down their windows to ask me how to get to a certain building like...everything is Waze-able now dude... What do you think of when I say the word 'lumberjack'? Lumberjack matches in pro wrestling. Have you ever lied about your weight? Why? I don’t think so. I never really had to. Do you know how to do the Macarena? I know some steps but I wouldn’t be able to do the entire sequence. Have you ever tripped over one of your pets? Yessssss Kimi is scattered everywhere all the time lol. It doesn’t help that our floor is white and he is white. He’s always a good sport about it though. Have you ever been stuffed into your locker? No. Our lockers aren’t the tall, vertical type; they look more like cubbyholes, so it’ll be impossible to put a person in one of them. Can you make another person blush easily? Just my girlfriend. I’m not interested in making others blush. What would you change about the way your parents raised you? Like, if I myself got to be a parent? I’d definitely be more invested with my own kid - read to them before bed, have mom-kid days with them where the two of us would have dinner or do something else to bond together, be all ears when they tell me something they’re excited about, or support them when they find a new talent or hobby. I’d want to make my kid feel super loved and that they matter. My parents weren’t bad ones; they just didn’t form an emotional connection with me which in reality is just as important as being able to provide. Do you have to look perfect before you go out to the store? I don’t always have to be perfect; just acceptable. What is your state's motto? The motto has the city’s name in it, so no thanks. Are there any holidays that you feel are completely pointless? I was never a fan of the holidays that exclusively celebrate family members, like Mother’s Day. There are toxic moms or dads or grandparents that get completely overlooked during holidays like those and I feel like it’s unfair to those who have to live with those toxic relatives. Then again, maybe I just feel this way because I have an abusive mom and Mother’s Day is always hell on earth for me. Also why wait a year to celebrate the good ones? Do it everyday. Have you ever gone to work with one or both of your parents? Yes. There were a few times when my mom brought us to her workplace. What is the funnest sport that you got to play in P.E. class? Other than table tennis which I already play, futsal was fun. It was during that quarter I discovered that my foot-eye coordination wasn’t bad at all. Have you mastered the plastic guitar yet (Rock Band, Guitar Hero)? Never. I can never get my fingers to work properly in games like those. What is one cause you know you'll ALWAYS support? LGBT rights. What animals creep you out? Cockroaches. Have you ever done a walk/run for a charity or similar cause? I haven’t. It’d be fun to join at least one sometime, though! Do you like the smell of gasoline? I'm not addicted but like I wouldn’t be bothered if my window was down and I was able to smell it. When was the last time you had a piggyback ride? A couple of years ago. Have you ever owned or used a telescope? Yeah I got to use one to look at the moon at our Grade 7 stargazing activity. Do you have to see or witness certain phenomenons to believe them? Bingo. Do you know/remember what Shrinky-Dinks are? I am literally only hearing about them now. We didn’t have that here. Do you talk to store clerks like you know them? Noooooo and I really prefer they don’t talk to me or follow me around. In your town, are a lot of stores closed on Sundays? No. In fact pop-up stalls or bazaars are active on Sundays since that’s the day most families go out. Do you dislike song remixes? Yes. When was the last time you hula-hooped? January at Rita’s place, because they have a hula hoop. Have you ever played Magic: The Gathering? Nope. What are your thoughts on role playing games? Not a fan. But then again that’s me with most video games in general lol. Do you get an adrenaline rush just from watching videos of roller coasters? No, I get sick to my stomach and have to face away from the screen haha. Do you like watching shows that deal with forensics? If they’re documentaries, yes. But I don’t watch shows like Bones or CSI. Do you want to have a bachelor/bachelorette party before you get married? I’m whatever about it. If I have one or if my friends plan one for me, I wouldn’t want anything too wild. Ever been texted by mistake and played along & acted like you knew them? No, I tell them immediately it’s a wrong number so that they stop bothering me. Would you ever get a name tattooed on you? Initials, yes. Not a full name. If you could have unnatural colored eyes, what color(s) would you choose? Does green count? It’s unnatural in Filipino/Asian terms lol. It’d be nice to have olive eyes. Do you always remember your dreams? No. If I wanted to remember them, I’d have to log them down somewhere. Who is your favorite late night talk show host? Jimmy Fallon only because he keeps inviting Robert Irwin back on his show and he’s the best talk show guest ever. Do your parents dress like they're years younger? Does it gross you out? My dad does. It’s nothing to shame a parent about. Do you know who Seth MacFarlane is? Yes. Do you try on clothes in dressing rooms and take pictures? No. I feel weird about wearing something for fun and just returning it haha as a bit of a germaphobe. If I go inside a fitting room it has to be because I’m interested in possibly buying a piece of clothing. What is a band you can't stop listening to right now? Not really listening to bands these days. I have been listening to Hayley Williams a great deal, though.

[theorangedeath]

Some webcomic recs

Webcomics are as underrated as they are varied. I mostly read printed comics now, but there’s no way I’d have gotten there had I not found webcomics before - believe me, I tried, but this damn hobby is super inaccessible to a beginner, not to mention expensive. Webcomics are like fanfics in that regard - hell, some of them are fan comics - in that there’s something for everyone, all within your reach, but in order to find something you like you have to either 1. Get very, VERY lucky, 2. Be prepared to read a lot of bad stuff in order to get to the good stuff, or 3. Hear about them from people you trust. 

I was a 2 - i would read anything, back in the day - and while i’m not as unconditionally enthusiastic as i was, there are still some gems I wish got the same appreciation as some talents in the industry. I’ll spare you the rest of the article (dm me for comic rants though), let’s get to it! 

note: all the comics are numbered as “1″ because tumblr messed up the google docs formatting 

Comics i still follow as they update because either tumblr starts posting about them right away or they’re on tapas

Check Please! 

https://omgcheckplease.tumblr.com/

I’m probably not the one introducing you to Check Please, as it’s one of the most popular webcomics out there, thank god. The parts of the fandom i’m familiar with are cool and wholesome, just like the work itself. It’s about a southern gay kid, Eric Bittle, who joins the hockey team in his college. It’s impossible not to love every single character there, the sports drama elements are great, and the format is like solidarity put into panels. The Samwell Men’s Hockey team’s motto is “we’ve got each other’s backs”, and there isn’t a single part of the comic that doesn’t 100% incorporate that. 

Heartstopper

https://tapas.io/series/Heartstopper

The 2000s so far have been a rough contest for the title of “sweetest ya romance” but guys, we found it, we can stop now. Nick and Charlie are in highschool, Charlie is gay and out (not by will), Nick plays rugby because apparently that’s what british jocks do. Can i make it any more obvious? It took me a while to fall in love with the artstyle but when i did i fell HARD - the creator is re-drawing some of the older chapters, though, so your experience might be different. The story’s captivating right away, and you want everyone there to be happy from pretty much page 1. The creator also writes ya prose, and some of her books are about other characters from the same school. I love all of them, but Radio Silence is my personal favorite. She also has two novellas about Nick and Charlie themselves, available as e-books. 

Charity Case 

https://tapas.io/series/Charity-Case

I rarely start new webcomics anymore, but boy, this one got me FAST. and that was even before I realized it’s a polyam love story, which i love but is surprisingly rare in webcomics - at least the ones i know. Julien, an irresponsible young musician, resorts to sharing an apartment with two roomates who are a couple. I fell for the unique, gorgeous artstyle first, and by the time i realized i’m also super invested in the story and characters, it’s already become one of my favorites. Plus, Julien’s hair looks so soft! 

The Property of Hate 

http://thepropertyofhate.com/TPoH/

THIS is what comics should be. There’s so much passion here, not just for the story but for the storytelling as well - and the two aren’t as separated as you might think. A young girl is recruited by a TV man to be a hero. The world they enter seems nonsensical and arbitrary at first, but as they travel she discovers its logic, stories and secrets. She will also, as her title suggests, need to save it. There’s so much i love about this comic that i don’t know where to start, so i’ll just say this: it’s absolutely inspiring, in every sense of the word. Also, read the creator’s duck comics, they’ll make you feel things. 

Webcomics i occasionally remember to catch up on, get blown away all over again by how good they are, vow to check them regularly for updates then forget. And repeat 

Wilde Life

https://wildelifecomic.com/

I think this is the first ever webcomic i read that had a plot? I got on the wagon at around chapter 1 or 2 and it’s hard to believe it but it only gets better with time, even though it already starts at 100%. Oscar moves to a new town and immediately makes friends with a ghost and a grumpy teen werewolf. It has both monster-of-the-week type problems and overarching plots, and reading it feels nostalgic and brand new at the same time. The fantasy world has this special feel to it, that makes me miss growing up in the american wilderness even though i, well, didn’t. Plus, the creator is cool as hell. I knit her a hat in high school in exchange for a commission. 

Sfeer Theory

https://sfeertheory.com/

This comic got me through a hard time and i’ll forever be grateful for that. Also, it’s really, really good. This is another case of a comic where you fall in love with the art right away and before long you find yourself caring very much about the characters and the story. You might also find yourself growing out your hair to style it like Luca’s. If you’re me it’ll be a lost cause, so, uh, keep that in mind. Luca works as a technician at the prestigious Uitspan university. A mysterious, powerful man is looking to change that. While the comic’s biggest strength is probably the gorgeous, fascinating worldbuilding - and Luca’s hair - the characters are also ridiculously easy to relate to, even if we don’t know anything about them. Even the most meaningless extras are somehow compelling thanks to the dynamic, rich art style. And did i mention the hair? If you like it, you won’t be disappointed by everything else Little Foolery makes. 

How To Be a Werewolf

http://www.howtobeawerewolf.com/

I almost didn’t read this one! My brain has decided i don’t like werewolves and i don’t know how to reverse that. But then i saw Elias’ body language and it was extremely fun and friendly, and so was the rest of the comic, and the rest is history. Malaya knows she’s a werewolf, but seeing as she doesn’t know any other werewolves, dealing with that is hard. That is until Elias discovers her and decides to help, along with the rest of his pack. It’s filled with family and solidarity feelings, some dark mysteries and themes, and the art is beautiful and expressive. 

Monsterkind 

http://monsterkind.enenkay.com/

Another case of read-everything-this-creator-makes-it’s-all-amazing! Wallace, a social worker, moves - or rather, is moved - to District C, which is mostly populated by monsters. His heart’s in the right place, and apparently so is his apartment, because his neighbors are cool as heck and agree, some of them reluctantly, to help him get his bearings. There’s a mystery to uncover, some monsters to help and a dashing tea octopus to woo - for Kip to woo, anyway - and it’s all a delight to read. Every single character brings their own lovable-ness to the table, and even with the darker parts, reading this comic kinda feels like being hugged. 

Comics that no longer update

The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal - finished 

http://tjandamal.com/

Guys. guys! I’m pretty sure this is my all time favorite comic, web OR printed. I have the printed version, i still read it online occasionally, a lot of the songs mentioned in it are now saved on my spotify, i had it as my phone background for a good couple of years, the whole package. Amal comes out to his family and it ends with him having to drive to his sister’s graduation in Providence. There’s a guy in his kitchen who just so happens to need a lift there, and he’s willing to pay, and Amal’s too hungover to argue. What follows is the best roadtrip story ever. I’m seriously considering getting my license just to recreate that route. I just really love this story, okay? Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, the creator’s music taste is GOOD. 

Prague Race - to be continued in text 

https://www.praguerace.com/

The fantasy aesthetic to end all fantasy aesthetics. And the characters are good and interesting. And the world is well built and leaves you wanting more. AND there’s a cat. And it looks so good! Leona is irresponsible and spontaneous and gets her friends in some weird shit that leaves them trapped in a strange world, dealing with several curses, trying to survive and make sense of it all. I could spend a lifetime looking at the art and die happy. 

Shoot around - finished 

https://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/shoot-around/list?title_no=399&page=1

A girl’s basketball team and its coach, Jeff, deal with a zombie apocalypse. They make the most of the post apocalyptic world. There’s drama, friendship, found family, love and hope - it’s basically everything a zombie apocalypse narrative should be. And i love how the creator plays with the colors from chapter to chapter! 

Rock and Riot - finished 

https://tapas.io/series/Rock-and-Riot 

It’s cute! It’s fun! It’s a 1950’s queer ensamble cast high school drama! It’s what Grease would’ve been like in a better timeline, except we still got it in this timeline. The artstyle fits perfectly with the story and characters, but if you want to see what’s the creator capable of now, read their newest comic, Project Nought. It’s a cool sci fi story and just like in Rock and Riot, it’s super easy to connect to every character there. 

Alright there’s a lot more but i somehow wrote 4 google docs pages of webcomic recs in one sitting (this is what i’m able to focus on? Really, brain?) and i think that’s enough for now. Like i said, please dm me if you want to talk about anything here, rec some of your own, listen to my rants or tell me i’m a nerd. Or all of the above. I might make a similar post with print comic, but right now i have some dogs to pet. Keep being cool! 

[thoughtswithoutatheme]

The Butcher

First few pages of a story I’ve been working on

Jennifer Davies had never even see what the inside of a dead pig looked like, let alone how to carefully prepare it for sale. The closest she'd ever been to a pig of any kind was either ham sandwiches or the stuffed toy of a piglet she had as a child. Knowing a real, greasy, slimy, slippery, fleshy hog inside and out had been more enlightening than a whole term at university. You don't really question or even think about life and death, your place in the world, religion and how fleeting out lives are until you elbow deep into a large supply of vital organs, blood and pus. The smell will definitely make you question the existence of god.

She had worked at her Uncle Roger's mortuary during the previous summer and she had no real problems with it. She was responsible for make-up and tidying up corpses before the big day and found the work fine, though all the dirty work had been performed before she got a hold of the bodies. She sometimes worried about the family of the people she made up, thought about what the person had been like, and always felt some despair when working on someone close to her own age. It was a simple job and allowed her to work in peace.

She assumed working at a butchers shop would be similar, just a bit more messy and with less attachment. Unfortunately, there were much more guts, blood, entrails and goo that she couldn't even begin to describe. Messy had been an understatement. That didn't even cover how everything in the shop looked dangerous. Knives, cleavers, skewers, grinders, hooks, sharp pieces of bone, saws and a few other tools she couldn't even describe.

Working at a butchers shop wasn't something she had really wanted but it was time Christmas and she had to step up. The season always brings stress, debt and work but it's all (probably) worth it in the end. She had three younger brothers, a little sister, a mother and father, all four grandparents, many uncles and aunties who were very close, several cousins she saw regularly, and a great auntie in Australia. Not to mention a bevy of friends, from both childhood and current day, dorm mates, people she sat near in her lectures, her lecturers and maybe even the nice porter at her dorm. She liked all of them and wanted to get them all something nice for Christmas and a student loan isn't going to cover it.

She had limited work experience and being half way through a philosophy course wasn't going to put any money in the bank any time soon. Her Uncle suggested he could take her on again but she wanted to work somewhere close by, avoiding the train then bus journey to the mortuary. Luckily, she saw the advertisement for the butcher's assistant post in the local newspaper, showed up the next day and was covered in blood by noon.

Her family better be grateful after what she's going through. A part time job in the local butchers seemed simple but she was excepting to be working more on the front side of the shop. Jennifer foresaw taking orders, serving customers, putting carefully cut and sealed pieces of meat in carrier bags and then giving the customer a happy smile and wishing them a nice day. Much of her first day alone, however, consisted mostly of learning how much force was needed to smoothly remove the limbs off a cow.

This would be all worth it in the end, she supposed. She was actually earning the extra money needed to buy presents and cards for those she loved. Her parents had reminded her constantly that she was missed while at university, so she could cheer them up with some great presents. The job itself was also providing a skill and you can't put a price on that, but you can spend an evening getting blood out of your shoes. She was also developing an iron stomach and that would be useful for any future Saturday wine night binges.

Two weeks in and things were going well. The pus and viscera was starting to get stale (figuratively) and the nightmares of the ghosts of every farmyard inhabit haunting her (even in an odd instance, the farmer himself) were fading. Being surrounded by sharp objects never really lost its edge though. She was getting better at the job and soon found herself to be enjoying it, on a small level at least, thanks to her boss.

The butcher was Mr. Baker and he was a friendly chap. He'd been a butcher (and a Baker) his whole thirty-eight years and was the seventh generation of Bakers to be in the profession. He grew up around the carcasses of dead animals and consumed from them the necessary nutrients to grow strong enough to remove a calf's head with one heavy thwack of a knife. He was good at his art and was more than happy to do it his whole life. He had a lovely wife and his son would eventually become the eighth Baker to become a butcher. They all lived together above the shop. He regularly saw his father and they discussed their trade until the cows came home, which were then cut up and ready to be served. He was stout and strong, as per the job requirements, with a round, friendly face.

Mr. Baker understood the process to a great level, being able to identify any cut of meat, tell you which animal it came from, the best way to slice and prepare it, and he can weigh it in his mind that gave the best deal for both him and the consumer. He had worked with many people both his senior and junior in his time and loved imparting generations worth of knowledge on potential new butchers. He eagerly awaited for when his son was old enough to take up the trade and he first Baker to give tips of the trade to none Bakers. Mr. Baker felt that his family secrets were not to be kept amongst the family bloodline but to be shared. Their motto was “A Better World, Made by the Butcher” and it adorned their family crest, a red banner complete with a sheep, a cow and a winking pig on the top. Needless to say, the pig didn't have a body.

When he advertised for a part time worker to help him through the holiday season, he hadn't expected a skinny, pale woman who looked like she'd already seen the inside of a sheep's stomach, but he wasn't going to turn down the only applicant. Things had been slow but Jennifer took to the job faster than anyone he'd ever met. He had even bragged to his father about her. She truly was an honorary Baker.

The job was only for a six week period from early November to mid-December, but in that time both butcher and apprentice had got to know each other well. Jennifer had discovered that Mr. Baker was a fan of sixties/seventies rock music and was once in a band, that he collected vintage plates, that he met his wife at a butcher competition and she'd left the butcher from Allanson for him, that the Baker family remained fit and spritely well into their eighties, that he could recite Pi to 15 digits and he almost lost a finger the first time his father let him hold a butcher knife. Jennifer had opened up to his new boss, telling him about her dreams to travel, how she was allergic to cinnamon, that she once won a town wide children's singing contest when she was five, that she has a strong and unexplained dislike of rubber bands and that she collected ceramic horse figurines.

What they learned wasn't just things about each other. Obviously, Jennifer was acquiring the knowledge of the butcher trade from Mr. Baker but he was also imparting many more life skills. He told her the best place to get a car loan, thought her how to tie and untie multiple types of knots, the right way to clean a smartphone, where to find fresh nuts, how to stroke a dog just right and the easiest way of getting a seat on a crowded train. Jennifer told him how to colour code clothes, who are the best current rock bands, how to move through a crowd, how to make space on his phone, how to find a bargain in a market and why olives are superior to grapes.

Despite being supportive, many had worried Jennifer's decision to study philosophy. She had been questioned (repeatedly) by friends, immediate family and even distant family on why she chose to study it of all things. They said she should look into becoming a nurse or career, that business studies pays for itself, joinery is a skill set for life, why not just try an IT degree and just get an office job, you'll thank me later. Uncle Roger was ready to get her a name plaque to put on her desk at the mortuary. Her parents were always confident and trusted their daughter but they worried about her future employability.

It was only Mr. Baker that supported her Philosophy degree. During her time working with him they had discussed Descartes, pondered Plato and considered Kant, all while making sure the dead animals were ready for their audience. Jennifer spent too much of her time thinking. She would meditate her decisions and those of others, stress over what was the best solution or the worst outcome and so decided to do something with this. She would either get a better understanding or herself and the world around her, or at least maybe focus her errant thoughts. Mr. Baker was always happy to listen.

No no ever called her Jenny, except Mr. Baker. Normally she disliked the nickname, but felt affection when called it by her boss. She had built a vault of trust with him, so much so she even left her spare house keys at the shop. Maybe he'd show up and surprise her with some ham sandwiches one day. He'd say it's important to have an abundance of trust someone in a job with so many dangerous items around. He described how working together like this is exactly what he wanted with his son when he's old enough, if he wanted to become a butcher of course.

It was the 17th December and Christmas was all paid for. Everyone who shared even a similar drop of blood to her had a present literally with their name on it. All of her school and uni friends, and even her old penfriend in France, were all in store for a nice surprise. The last gift she bought was for Mr. Baker. He'd done so much for her and they had become close, so it seemed appropriate. She struggled at first but realised that a a vinyl copy of Black Sabbath's War Pigs would be perfect.

Wrapping all the presents had been easy, especially thanks to her new knot tying skills. Each one was adjourned with a bow. Wrapping up these gifts was infinitely easier than packaging cuts of meat and a lot less slimy, so she was able to enjoy the long hours it took to gradually complete the task. Jennifer had to be thankful for the bonus Mr. Baker had given her though, as the cost of all the paper, string and whatnot added up quickly. It may have worked out cheaper to rent a forest and make the packaging herself.

All of the gifts had been delivered and were under their recipients' trees and there were a fair number for her under the family tree. She, her siblings and her parents had decorated the house thoroughly and Christmas films were being watched. Christmas music was already getting to the point of being overplayed. Her family were happy to have her around for all of this, making it a true family Christmas. It wasn't snowing but it was dull and freezing. Scarves and woolly hats had become essential, and Mrs Davies was adamant everyone wrapped up.

Jennifer was done with university for the term and her time with Mr. Baker had finished, she had to ask herself what came next. Did she continue working at the butcher shop while balancing her time at university? It would be annoying to keep going back and forth, but she'd get to see her family more often and they always say they miss her when she's gone. She could simply say goodbye and focus on her studies (and heavy drinking, which almost goes without saying). It'd be less money, but simpler. While debating these ideas with herself as her own Symposium, a new problem was waiting on her doorstep.

She had just been into town to do some general shopping and buy some extra wine, as you can never have enough at Christmas time. The bottles didn't even make it into the house though, as the bag hit the floor and broke, wine spilling on the concrete. It flowed down the sloped paving stones to the plastic snowman holding a 'Santa Stop Here!' sign, which now stood next to a pig's head.

It wasn't carefully cut or prepared like the animal heads Jennifer grown used to seeing. The remains of its neck were not even or crisp, instead it was raw and jagged, with nicks found around the cranium and ears. Blood was leaking from underneath it and had slowly crept towards the gate before freezing solid, some had started to mix with the wine. One of its eyelids was open, resulting in a morbid wink. Jennifer's nose was too blocked up to smell anything, for which she was eternally thankful.

She took a moment to compose herself and tried tried to think of what to do. Her brothers and sister were at school and her parents were out for the day, so she had some time to figure this out before they returned home. She took a deep breath, carefully placed the bag of now empty wine bottles to the side and left the garden, making sure the gate was properly shut. As she ran down the street, the pig head continued to wink at nobody.

She arrived at Mr. Baker's butchers about fifteen minutes later. She had ran as fast as she could, but stopping at ice patches had slowed her down. Mr. Baker was in the process of cutting chunk of ham using the largest cleaver she'd ever seen.

'There's a pig's head.'

'Yes, in the window. I know.' replied Mr. Baker.

'No. At my house. On the step.'

'Taking your work home with you, are you?' Mr. Baker chuckled.

'No.'

Mr. Baker immediately stopped what he was doing and sat her down on a stool near the door. Jennifer explained the whole visitation, including details about the wine she'd bought. This was partly out of her total confusion and also because she'd got such a good deal on them she wanted to brag. Mr. Baker was silent throughout, simply nodding and making understanding noises until she finished.

'Deary me, that's strange.'

'Did anyone buy a pig's head from you at all in the last few days?'

'No.'

'Have any gone missing?'

'Now you need to relax, young Jenny. While this certainly is a stage situation, we don't want to start speculating.'

'Then where did it come from?'

'I think we can safely ascertain that somewhere a pig is messing it's head. Now come on. ' Mr. Baker helped her to her feet. 'Let's go and get rid of it.'

The whole mess was sorted within the hour. Mr. Baker, completely unfazed by the sight of the head, still winking, still in it's frozen pool of blood. He had it cleared it away in minutes. He bagged it up, then put that bag into a bag, and in another and so on. They both cleaned away any slime it left. Hot water and the drain took care of the icy blood and wine. They put down some disinfectant and hoped the lingering smell would leave of its own accord. Mr. Baker left with a faint smile, taking the evidence with him. Jennifer was finally able to sit down inside, heating turned way up, as she contemplated the day so far and what she would do next. She abstained from any wine and stuck with tea. Staying on at the butchers was now an even more confusing prospect, but she expected she was going to see more of Mr. Baker in the coming days.

Her parents were home later that afternoon. Marsha and Brian were in their fifties and still very much in love. They had been doing some last minute shopping and then taken lunch. They were laughing when they entered the door and surprised to see Jennifer sprawled out on the settee, her eyes deadly focused on nothing.

'Hard day?' asked her mother.

'Hnnn.'

'Oh, dear. I'll put some tea on.'

Jennifer barely moved for the rest of the night. Even as her brothers (Mark, Andrew, Liam) and her sister (Elizabeth) arrived home from school, bouncing off the walls at the excitement that they'd finished for Christmas. Their happiness wasn't as infectious as Jennifer had hoped though, as she never really snapped out of her mood. She ate, she watched the evening quiz shows and soaps, but she couldn't get the winking pig out of her head. Who could have put it there? Why would anyone put it there? Was it some sort of initiation rite by Mr. Baker? No, it couldn't be. He wouldn't do anything like that. He also seemed surprised and concerned by the whole thing. If it wasn't him though, then who?

Jennifer stopped going around in thought circles eventfully and went to bed. She was surprised she fell asleep so easily. Very little of her dreams involved pig heads, but the one time it did caused her to be wide awake at 4am. It took half an hour to get back to sleep and nightmares resumed.

When she got up in the morning, her mum had breakfast (cereal, toast, orange juice) in front of her within seconds. It was eaten just as quickly. Mrs. Davies was glad her daughter was home for Christmas and wished she hadn't moved to halls closer to university so she could keep an eye on her. She knew something was wrong with her daughter, but she also knew better than to pry. A similar thing had occurred when Jennifer was fifteen. Jennifer had gone into herself and Marsha Davies had bothered her daughter and constantly asked if she was okay, if she wanted to talk and so on. This led to Jennifer becoming more detached. Mrs. Davies would discover what had happened over social media, as it turned out Derrick, Jennifer's boyfriend, had cheated on her with Melissa. Melissa was supposed to be going out with Dave, but she'd been with Alan the week before, so she can't be trusted, yeah? But Derrick claims he was and so on. After a few days, her daughter opened up again and went back to normal.

When Jennifer failed her exam to get into university, she did the same thing. The Davies parents decided to wait and and trust their daughter. Within the week she'd explained everything to them and they were able help her get a retest. Marsha Davies knew her daughter and whatever was wrong, she'd come to her eventually. Either that or forget and instead focus on Christmas. Only six days to go! I best finish the wrapping, she thought.

The next few days grew easier for Jennifer. Nothing of note happened, other than her uncle Roger brining the family over for a few hours. He was eager to talk about recent mortuary goings on. Jennifer caught up, laughed and talked about TV with her siblings and nephews and even found herself video gaming with them. Chocolate, cake and biscuits were aplenty, so her mood began to lift. She had been thinking about the head less and less, instead she just felt a perpetual tinge of dread and unease. She even had a glass of wine.

She managed to visit Mr. Baker on Christmas Eve and give him his present. He was busy slicing us sirloin but appreciative of the gift. He indicated that there was something for her behind the till. She took the square box, about a foot long with her and put it under the tree, which at this point was lifted off the ground because of the swell of gifts. She was definitely curious as to what it was, but it wasn't head shaped, didn't smell of decay and no blood was dripping from it, so she felt it would be something good.

After a night of laughter and fun, she went to bed on Christmas Eve and slept peacefully. The event was starting to feel like something that happened to someone else. It was best to forget about it. It was probably someone crazy person doing something random. It's not her business. It's over.

[dailytomlinson]

Louis Tomlinson may be one-fifth of one of the biggest boybands in the world, but there's so much more to know about the singer than the fact he was in One Direction. Now that he's getting on with his solo music career - AND just dropped his amazing new single 'Two Of Us', Louis is a major household name across the world.

Here's everything you need to know about Louis Tomlinson:

1) Louis’s middle name is William.

2) Louis Tomlinson was born on Christmas Eve in 1991.

3) Louis is the oldest member of One Direction. He’s 13 months older than second eldest Zayn Malik.

Check out One Direction through the years: View Gallery 11 photos 1 / 11 One Direction © Shutterstock One Direction auditioning on The X Factor One Direction formed on The X Factor in 2010. All five members auditioned as individual contestants and were put together as a group by Simon Cowell.

4) Louis Tomlinson's star sign is Capricorn. Apparently, typical Capricorns live by the motto, ‘Slow, steady and win the race.’

5) Louis was brought up in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Other famous people who hail from the town include Jeremy Clarkson, Kevin Keegan and Brian Blessed!

Jeremy Clarkson JEREMY CLARKSON AND BRIAN BLESSED © SHUTTERSTOCK 6) Louis once said that he is a big fan of girls who eat carrots!

7) If Louis had a superpower, he would be able to fly.

8) Louis’s favourite band is The Fray.

9) Louis’s favourite song of all time is ‘Look After You’ by The Fray.

10) Louis’s celebrity crush is Natalie Portman and his man crush is Robbie Williams - who he recently sat next to on The X Factor judging panel.

11) He also once said that Robbie is his biggest role model, telling Metro Radio "I’ve got a massive musical icon and that’s Robbie Williams. We actually got to sing with him on The X Factor and it was absolutely amazing."

X Factor ROBBIE WILLIAMS, AYDA FIELD, LOUIS TOMLINSON AND SIMON COWELL © SHUTTERSTOCK 12) Louis has approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds of solos on ‘Up All Night’ – the second least behind Niall Horan.

13) Louis auditioned on The X Factor by singing a version of Plain White T’s ‘Hey There Delilah’. He got a clean sweep of yeses from the judges.

14) Louis's parents are Johannah Deakin and Troy Austin. They split up when Louis was young, and he eventually took on his stepfather Mark Tomlinson’s surname. Johannah sadly passed away in 2016, Louis paid tribute to his mum on the anniversary of her passing.

15) Louis has five younger half-sisters - one on his father's side (Georgia), and four on his mother's side (Charlotte, Félicité, and twins Daisy and Phoebe).

16) When he was just 11-years-old, Louis had a role as an extra on ITV drama_**_ Fat Friends. His newborn sisters Daisy and Phoebe starred as babies on the show.

17) Spurred on by his appearance on Fat Friends, Louis attended acting school in his spare time and eventually had small parts in 2006 ITV drama If I Had You! and Waterloo Road.

18) When he first auditioned for The X Factor, Louis was a sixth form student at Hall Cross School in Doncaster.

19) Louis also attended The Hayfield School in Doncaster, but dropped out when he failed his first year of A-levels.

20) Louis had a number of part-time jobs before The X Factor, including working at a local cinema and as a hospitality waiter at Doncaster Rovers Football Club.

21) As a student, Louis played the lead role of Danny Zuko in a high school production of Grease. He says playing the part gave him the confidence to audition for The X Factor.

22) When he was younger, Louis wanted to work on a farm.

23) Louis would love to copy Michael Jackson and have a pet monkey. He said, "I'd like to adopt a chimpanzee and build an eternal friendship, that would be amazing."

24) Louis’s favourite colour is dark red.

25) Louis is a big fan of Las Vegas rockers The Killers. After seeing them perform at V Festival, he tweeted, "Watching Mr Brightside live last night was unbelievable. LOVED The Killers!!"

Louis Tomlinson ✔ @Louis_Tomlinson Watching Mr Brightside live last night was unbelievable. LOVED The Killers !!

22.8K 6:09 PM - Aug 20, 2012 Twitter Ads info and privacy 30.4K people are talking about this 26) Louis suffers from a ringing noise in his right ear. Although yet to be officially diagnosed it’s thought it could be tinnitus which can lead to deafness if untreated. He once said, "I am going slightly deaf in my right ear. It’s tinnitus, something like that," before joking that it was because of screaming fans.

27) According to his bandmates, Louis has the smelliest feet in One Direction! Niall once said, "Louis wears plimsolls with no socks so his feet get very sweaty and the sweat is captured. If we are on a bus or something and he takes them off we all pretty much start gagging."

28) Louis was given a telling off by police when filming the ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ video Los Angeles in July 2011 for his erratic driving. Afterwards, he explained, "I got pulled over by the US police. They thought I was all over the place. The officer goes, 'Listen, man, I can shut this thing down if you carry on driving like this. You're driving like a maniac.' And I was like, 'Man, put the gun down. I don't want no trouble.'"

WATCH: One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful (Official Video)

29) Louis says that he and his 1D bandmates are like brothers. Admitting that they occasionally bicker, Louis told Digital Spy, "Because we're around each other so often it's like arguing with your siblings. You fall out with them, go away and have a bit of a paddy, then come back and get over it."

30) Just like Zayn and Harry Styles, Louis supports Manchester United Football Club.

31) Louis’s favourite track on ‘Up All Night’ is the Ed Sheeran-penned track ‘Moments’. The track appears on the deluxe version of the record.

32) If Louis could give anyone a tip when auditioning for The X Factor it would be "just be yourself and really try and get your personality through in your song choice and interview."

33) Louis once owned a Porsche Boxster and sold it on eBay in 2012 for £30,000.

34) When Zayn’s ex-girlfriend Rebecca Ferguson took to Twitter to complain about being overworked by her management, Louis had very little sympathy! He wrote in a now-deleted tweet, '@RebeccaFMusic Success is impossible without proper hard work.'

Rebecca Ferguson REBECCA FERGUSON © SHUTTERSTOCK 35) Louis loves to party! He once told TOTP magazine, "To be honest, I’m sure the majority of 20-year-olds go out and party. I’m not going to feel oppressed."

36) Louis is a giver and not a taker. In fact, there’s nothing he enjoys more than giving his friends and family presents. His late mum Johannah once told Sugarscape, "He’s not a materialistic person himself, but he likes to give people things. He spoils me and the girls and he's happiest doing that."

37) Louis once said that he likes snuggling up in bed with one of the One Directioners... HARRY! He said, "A few weeks ago I made a cup of tea, then went and got in bed with Harry and we watched a show called something like The Top 50 Boybands Of All Time." Nice!

38) Apparently, Louis has revealed that his least favourite food is baked beans.

39) Louis once said his favourite country is France.

40) Louis is an avid fan of surfing. In fact, he loves the beach so much he says he’d like to get married on one.

41) It takes over 30 minutes for Louis to get his hair ready in the morning.

42) Louis admits he’s a really bad cook. Despite this, he appeared alongside Harry in a cooking segment on This Morning in September 2011.

Louis Tomlinson HARRY AND LOUIS WITH THIS MORNING PRESENTER RUTH LANGSFORD IN 2011 © 

43) One of Louis's favourite mottos is, "Live life for the moment because everything else is uncertain."

44) The two traits Louis looks for in a girl are confidence and a good sense of humour.

45) In 2011, his mum Johannah and stepdad Mark split up. Speaking about his mum, Louis said, "It must be so much harder for her because I’m living this fantastic life and being so busy every day whereas she’s still in the old life I was in but without me... It must be really difficult for her not to get upset."

46) Louis’s pet hate is when people chew their food too loudly.

47) Louis has size 10 feet.

48) A man who works in the music industry once tried to have a snog with Louis! "It was a press guy.... he just started going in for a kiss!" said Louis.

49) Louis loves Marmite and has big dollops of it on his toast.

50) Louis admits that he’s a messy person. In fact, he hasn’t met anyone who’s messier than him!

51) Louis is pretty decent on the piano and he loves to play ‘Mr Brightside’ by The Killers.

52) Louis says he’ll "never get used to" the adoration he receives from fans. He once said, "At the end of the day we’re doing something that we really love and to be appreciated for that is really nice."

53) Louis’s favourite TV shows are Misfits and One Tree Hill.

54) If Louis wasn’t a multi-million selling pop megastar, he reckons he’d be training to be a drama teacher.

55) If Louis could visit any planet it would be... Narnia. Erm, it’s a fictional place Louis!!

56) Louis hates rumours, especially when they involve Harry and himself. In a Tumblr interview he explained, "Me and Harry are best friends, people look into our every move. It is actually affecting the way me and Harry are in public, We want to joke around but there seems to be a different rumour every time we do anything."

Louis Tomlinson LOUIS AND HARRY SINGING TOGETHER IN 2015 

57) Louis is prone to sleepwalking and once tried to get into Niall’s bed!

58) Louis once said that if a movie was made about his life, he’d like Leonardo DiCaprio to play him.

59) The first time Louis ever spoke to Harry was in the toilet at The X Factor auditions in Manchester.

60) Louis is a big fan of silly string! He’s sprayed it on stage at gigs, press conferences and even at a security guard who refused to let him speak to fans.

61) When he was 14, Louis played lead guitar in a band called The Rogue with his schoolmates.

62) When One Direction formed, Louis’s big ambition was to go "straight to the top." Proof that dreams come true!

63) In August 2012, Tulisa prank called Louis during a live webchat. When Louis answered she spoke to him in a Donald Duck voice in front of thousands of viewers. The N-Dubz star tweeted afterwards, 'soz babe we had 2 get ya! Thanks 4 being a laugh n entertaining us!'

Tulisa ✔ @officialtulisa @Louis_Tomlinson soz babe we had 2 get ya! Thanks 4 being a laugh n entertaining us!

266 8:23 PM - Aug 5, 2012 Twitter Ads info and privacy 579 people are talking about this 64) Louis was fined £80 for speeding on the way to V Festival in 2012. It’s reported that he was going 48mph in a 40mph zone. He’ll also get three points on his licence. Ouch!

65) Despite having smelly feet, Louis is a big fan of shoes! His favourite types are chinos and Toms.

66) Another of his favourite mottos is "live fast, have fun & be a bit mischievous."

67) If Louis was Simon Cowell for the day, he says he’d go on a date with Susan Boyle.

After his successful stint on last year's The X Factor, Louis delighted his fans in March when he dropped his amazing new single 'Two Of Us'.

The song, which is adored by fans, is a tribute to Louis' late mum Johannah Deakin. Johannah left behind seven children, including Louis, at the end of 2016, when she lost her battle with an aggressive form of leukaemia at the age of just 42.

Louis' track 'Two Of Us' features the lyrics, "I know you'll be looking down, swear I'm gonna make you proud. I'll be living one life for the two of us."

The article was followed by a tweet:

[alittlebitluna]

The Old, The True, The Brave

Battle of the Seven Kingdoms Round II

Thank you so much for first place in Round I!

:: The Set :: {x} Your house sigil in the set {x} 3+ aesthetic pictures to do with the geography {x} 2+ pictures of what your House is famous four {x} Have your house name in the set {x} Have a picture of a castle 30::30

:: The Description :: {x} What is the name of your house? Velaryon

{x} What is their motto? The Old, The True, The Brave

{x} What is their sigil? A silver sea-horse on a sea-green field

{X} Where is your house located? Driftmark, an Island in Blackwater Bay

{X} Tag the mod: @natasha-maree13 {X} Include the hashtag: #botskround02 20::20

:: The Story :: {x} Fill this out: |house name ✦ Velaryon

|founded ✦ prior to 114 BC in Old Valyria

|geography ✦ Driftmark is an island in Blackwater Bay, west of Dragonstone, it has a long point. It is damp and dreary like it's neighbouring Dragonstone, but not on an active volcano. The island houses two castles, the seat of House Velaryon, Driftmark, and High Tide, built by Corlys Velaryon some point before 106AC. It was later burned during the dance of the dragons and is currently in ruins. Driftmark (the island) is also home to the towns of Hull and Spicetown. Spicetown was also destroyed in the Dance of the Dragons and has not been rebuilt since.  

|sacred weapon ✦ none

|religion ✦ Faith of the Seven

|blood ✦ blood of the dragon

|current head ✦ Viserys Velaryon

|current heir ✦ Jaecaerys Velaryon

|allies ✦ Greyjoy, Targaryen (historically, I've yet to get around to plotting with the present day ones), Estermont (strained)

|enemies ✦ Mormont

|best known for: ✦ Naval prowess (supplanted Ironborn naval supremacy when they arrived from Valyria, it's been more even since) ✦ Dragons

|house history {try and add some detail please} ✦ House Velaryon are an ancient and proud house of Old Valyria. They came to Westeros some time before their close Valyrian allies, House Targaryen, and were amongst the first to pledge fealty to the conquerors without any protest. In fact (canonically), the mother of the Conquerors; Visenya, Aegon, and Rhaenys Targaryen, was Valaena Velaryon. A number of Velaryon's served on Aegon's council, and their close relationship and inter-marriages continued over the three centuries of Targaryen rule. A number of Velaryon Queen's have sat next to the Iron Throne, and the Velaryon's were Dragonlords like their fellow valyrians in Westeros. Amongst their known dragonriders were Ser Laenor Velaryon and Ser Addam Velaryon, who both rode the Dragon; Seasmoke and Lady Laena Velaryon rode Vhagar, a dragon which originally belonged to Visenya Targaryen, sister-wife and Queen of Aegon the Conqueror. During the War of Shadows, they sided with House Targaryen, but bent the knee when their side lost. 40::40

:: Bonus :: {x} Have a picture of a member of your house not the heir or the current head {x} Use your house words as the title for your set 10::10

:: Total :: 100::100

:: Group Link :: https://www.polyvore.com/battle_seven_kingdoms/group.show?id=214877

:: Contest Link :: https://www.polyvore.com/cgi/contest.show?id=677686

[ceruleanmusings]

5 and 15 which could possibly be written together - weather and state of undress.

It’s official, I can’t write anything “short” to save my life. Also, I kinda of cheated with this because the beginning part was already written since it was a potential intro to a fic further in my Blackbird series that I had scrapped. It was just serendipitous that you chose the two themes I was going to use anyway so it made it a tad bit easier. This takes place the summer before season 3 when Erica and Boyd are missing. One of these days I’ll write something from Isaac’s POV.

Pair: Isaac Lahey / Melanie Crowe (Melisaac)Fandom: Teen WolfPrompt: 5 and 10, First time they got caught in bad weather with (just) each other) and first time they saw one another in a state of undress?Send me an OTP prompt

“Mel!” Isaac’s voice sounded over the rushing wind as it battered the trees around them. Another boom of thunder cracked in the sky which was quickly followed by a bolt of lightning. She jumped; whether it was at his sudden appearance or the thunder, she didn’t know. “Did you get anything?”

She shook her head. “No!” she shouted in frustration. “I felt…something! And I had—I had a connection, but it wasn’t that strong.” She pushed a hand through her hair and then shook out her hands. “Let me try again.”

“What’s the point? It’s the seventh time and you just get the same result,” Isaac said.

Melanie’s nostrils flared. That very well may be the case but at least she was trying. That was a lot more than she could say for some other people. People she once thought that she could rely on. “Well, what about a scent? Can you catch one?”

“I’ve tried. It’s faint. And it doesn’t last too long.” Isaac’s hand on her shoulder tightened. “You know that.”

She rolled her shoulder, successfully shrugging his hand off her. “Well, it’s better than nothing! There has to be another direction we haven’t tried.”

“We’ve searched all over this place. I’m not sure there’s another direction to go but up. And you’re the only one who can fly, so…” He crossed his arms and licked his lower lip. “We’re wasting time.”

She tensed. Shook her head. He was wrong. So wrong. “No, we’re not! This is where they went missing! It’s the only place we have to find them.”

“And we haven’t been able to find them! What makes today any different?”

“Can you please quit being so negative for once?”

“Can you quit being so freakishly optimistic?” Lightning flashed across the sky, momentarily cutting in between their staring contest. The two immediately looked upwards, shifting their focus up to the now darkened sky. A whisper of a breeze passed between them. A single droplet of rain fell from the sky and landed smack on Melanie’s face, beneath her eyelid. It dripped down the curve of her cheek, rolled along the angle of her jaw and barely dripped off her face when the sky opened up.

Within seconds the pouring rain matted down their hair and clothes, soaking through the fabric in no time. The steady pitter-patter of rainfall on the leaves beneath their feet surrounded them. Melanie brushed droplets of water that dripped off her nose but to no avail. The rain continued to fall in its heavy, steady pattern. Dampening more than just the forest floor.

Isaac turned his eyes to her, round with worry. “The scent—”

“I know,” Melanie all but hissed. He didn’t have to say it. She knew. She knew deep down in her bones what this meant, and it only made her heart squeeze in the frustratingly familiar way it did when their leads dried up. This was the seventh time. The seventh time and she was so sure this one would yield results. And yet here she stood with Isaac, once again, with nothing to show for it. Erica, where are you?

She sniffed, inhaling the pungent scent of wet earth. Her attempt to catch a scent was feeble she knew, especially comparing her siren abilities to Isaac’s werewolf ones, but still she had to try. And she could use that as a cover for the crushing waves of anguish slamming around inside her.

She sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, allowing her father’s motto to ring through her head: Chin up, fly high. She set her jaw. Right, that’s it then. She had to dust herself off and try again. For Erica and Boyd’s sake.

“We should get going.” She looked up at Isaac; his hair lay flat, matted against his forehead and droplets of rain hung off his long lashes. “If it masked their scent it can mask ours too,” he continued, “And I don’t know about you, but these woods are extra creepy right now.”

All at once it was like a cloud had lifted and she remembered exactly where she was and who she was with and who exactly was out there looking for people like them. Creatures like them.

The Alpha Pack.

Her shoulders slumped, taking her stomach down with it. “Yeah. Okay.” She cast one more glance around the woods, like she did six times before, and nodded at him. “…Let’s go.”

The rain pelted them as they ran through the preserve, back to the parking lot where her truck waited. The doors opened with an elongated creak and they nearly collided heads when they dove in on either side.

“Well—” Isaac said.

“If you finish that sentence with ‘that went well’, I’m…I’m gonna…” Emitting a long sigh, she slumped in the driver’s seat, crossing her arms. Her mouth scrunched up followed by a wrinkle of her nose. Isaac’s incredulous gaze burned the side of her face. She refused to look at him.

“…You’re gonna pout at me?”

She cracked a smile. Damn him. Always finding a way to make her laugh when she wanted to stew in their defeat a little while longer. “Don’t make fun. It’s very effective.”

“On getting you extra dessert?”

“Scoff now but you don’t know the sweet satisfaction of having two pieces of chocolate cake instead of one.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it. The only satisfaction I got was a night where my dad forgot I existed for an hour.”

Her smile disappeared. She wasn’t sure which was worse: the ease at which he shared his comment, in such a blasé way, or that she knew without a doubt that he was telling the truth. Twisting her mouth to the side, she moved to say something only for her attention to be ripped away at the sound of thunder.

She leaned closer to the steering wheel, peering up at the sky through the windshield. Grimacing at a flash of lightning, she leaned back in her seat. Counting Mississippis in her head, her fingers drummed against the steering wheel.

“You don’t like storms.” Melanie whipped her head around, pulling an apologetic face when droplets of rain hit Isaac in the face. He didn’t flinch, merely stared at her. She felt it all the way down in her toes. Her heart thrummed beneath his gaze and she cleared her throat.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But I like Erica and Boyd.” She tucked some hair behind her ear. “What happens if we don’t find them when schools starts?”

“We get Scott to help?”

She sneered. “Because he’s doing such a good job helping now.”

“Well, it’s better than this isn’t it? We can only turn over the same rock so many times.”

She pressed her lips together. He had a point. He always did; he was the reality to her fantasy. Maybe sometimes she woke up too many times thinking today’s the day! and that they would find Erica and Boyd only to retrace the same steps, tread the same ground. But at least she woke up with hope. She still had that.

The heavy rain eased to a gentle tapping on her truck’s roof. The dark clouds smeared to a bright gray before beams of sunlight peppered through. The ensuing heat became trapped within the front cabin of her truck. The light ring of rainwater around her shirt collar warmed, leaving a muggy, sticky swatch on her skin. “Either way, we need to report back to Derek,” Melanie finally said.

Turning, she slid open the sliding window and heaved herself through it, kicking her legs and wiggling until she managed through all the way. Kneeling, she grabbed a back nearby and pulled it towards herself.

“What’s that?” Isaac asked, looking in through the window.

“We’ve spent so many nights running around town, I figured at some point some backup clothes would come in handy,” she explained, pulling some items out. She glanced at the size on a tag of a shirt and held it out to him. “Here, change your shirt before you catch a cold.”

Isaac snorted. “I don’t get sick anymore, remember?”

“Humor me.”

Slowly, as if being pulled by an invisible string, a half-smile, a bit lopsided, formed on his face, curling upwards into a smirk at the corner. The look in his eyes, a burning focus, stilled her. Head cocked to the side, he asked, “Are you trying to check me out?” The smile never wavered.

The heat trapped around her collar burned, and she tugged at her collar. And then she felt like an idiot for doing something so cliché over a dumb comment. It was Isaac after all. He’d recently taken to joking around with her, keeping her spirits up and working to put a smile back on her face. It’s what he did. And this was the same. Just a joke.  Now if only her reddening cheeks would catch up on the memo. He really needed to stop smiling at her like that.

“Well…see, you’re talking like there’s something for me to look at,” she managed to reply. Sticking out her tongue at his expression—half surprise, half amusement—she shoved the shirt through the open window.

Gathering up her hair in her hands, she twisted and squeezed the ends until water cascaded off, creating a small puddle. She wiped the excess water off onto her damp shorts and rummaged through the bag. She pulled a suitable shirt from the bag, looking over the graphic design on the front, and laid it on her lap.

Paused. Her head titled, eyes squinted, at the dome light coming on overhead. Leaning to the side, she glanced out the window…and stiffened. And watched as Isaac, sitting with his back towards the driver’s door, reached behind his head and pulled on the collar of his soaked shirt.

Her breath eased out all at once as her eyes trailed over the expanse of his back, starting at the base where symmetrical dimples popped on either side of his spine, ping-ponging from the sparse moles that dotted his skin, taking time to watch his muscles stretch and contract. The usual rounding of his shoulders, the hunch that brought them up to his ears was replaced by a lowered, sure, strong hold.

“I can feel you looking at me.”

With a jerk, Melanie blinked and let out a little sputter, dropping her eyes back down to her lap. “I’m not…I wasn’t looking at you,” she insisted, cheeks burning. And, with a feverish haste, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and shed it off to yank the clean and dry one on in a few seconds flat. Quickly peeking to ensure he was dressed this time, she crawled back through the window and scooted closer to the driver door as Isaac got back in. “I wasn’t looking at you,” she repeated, “I was trying to look out the window but you were in my way.

He hummed, a sparkle in his eye. “Sure.”

“You’re a giant, that’s hardly my fault. Why?” She paused in putting on her seatbelt, making herself look him in the eye. “Did you want me to look?”

“Maybe.”

A strange, choke-like noise sounded in her throat. Her eye twitched in the corner and her lips formed into a line. his blunt manner was really going to be the death of her some day. All she could utter was a feeble “shut up, Isaac” before snapping her seatbelt in, turning on the truck, and peeling out of the parking lot.

And as long as she didn’t pay attention to the fact that now the cabin of her truck felt two times smaller than usual, and that Isaac sat up straighter in the passenger seat rather than sitting curled inwards like usual, they’d get there one piece.