#we were gonna get to the meaningless minute stuff eventually

[knightwhoisni]

day ??? of trying to be normal while waiting for 1999: thinking way too hard about how the avatar and username of our character are gonna work during instant messaging (thinking about it at all)

[vexfulfolly]

The Fondest Memories

hi @cosmicpines I was your gifter for @codesecretsanta!!! I hope you enjoy!

It seemed like a great idea, bringing Aelita into the real world and enrolling her at their school. It wasn’t like they didn’t have time to plan things out— to make sure her transition was as smooth as possible— because they had plenty of time to do so. Whether or not that time was spent agonizing over details that were practically meaningless until confronted later. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there was their daily motto for almost an entire year. 

So they weren’t exactly thinking it all the way through when they created Aelita’s new identity. At a glance, it was watertight. No one would dare to look too deep into anyone associated with the de la Robbias. Looking at Odd’s records was an absolute mess, so why even bother with Aelita’s? 

It was a quick way to get her in the door and out of deep scrutiny, but that in and of itself presented problems. Like right now. It was a month before winter break and each warrior’s family was making plans to bring their children home for the holidays. Except Aelita. 

As it stood, there were only two viable options; someone had to take Aelita home with them (which would be the markedly tougher option), or someone would have to stay behind with her. Despite being somewhat acclimated to Earth, she was still wobbling on fawn-like legs during social situations. Or most situations, granted she was unsupervised. 

Which was what brought everyone together on a crisp afternoon in early November, piled into Jérémie’s room and in deep discussion.

“I hate to say it, but I can’t stay,” Jérémie sighed. “My parents have already booked a flight for me. They thought having a tropical Christmas would be a good idea for some reason.” 

To add insult to injury, he sounded truly apologetic. 

“I’ll be around the corner, but granted I don’t stay at the dorms anyway, my parents definitely won’t take well to me “sneaking off” during family time,” Yumi grimaced, making sure her displeasure over the last few words was clear. 

If the rest of the conversation went as positively as this first two minutes had, they were all screwed. The only two people that remained were Odd and Ulrich— the two people most likely to want to stay at Kadic through the break. 

Odd snorted. “My parents won’t even notice if I’m here or there, but they did book train tickets. If I never showed, they wouldn’t care. So, what say you, good buddy? Am I staying behind or have you already worked it out?” 

Every eye fell on Ulrich in anticipation. 

“I’m staying,” he said simply. 

He was met with several sighs of relief, and one disappointed Odd. “You’re really gonna make me go?” He pouted, though it sounded more like a demand. 

“Yeah, otherwise Jim will get suspicious of too many of us staying behind. Besides, you’ll be able to let Kiwi play in the snow without worrying about getting caught.” 

The resulting whine from the blonde was a cross between exasperation and resignation, and Ulrich had never heard a sound so sweet. Aelita decided she’d make presence known at that point, carefully patting the blonde on the back as he grumbled. “Well, what do you even do over a break? Especially the winter one?” She asked. 

Ulrich shrugged. “Winter stuff.” 

The topic was dropped. 

The first day of the winter break was reserved exclusively for seeing the gang off. Most kids were heading home, though a teeny-tiny minority stayed behind. Ulrich and Aelita were now a part of that minority. 

By the time everyone had left the school, and the halls no longer buzzed with sound, dinner was ending and it was almost curfew. Aelita and Ulrich had spaghetti and meatballs together— much to Odd’s vocal displeasure when he saw it on that evening’s menu— and parted once they reached the dorms. 

“What will we be doing tomorrow?” Aelita asked. 

Ever the over-communicator, Ulrich glanced out the window at the blanket of snow that never seemed to stop growing. “I’ll introduce you to normal winter stuff. Dress warm, we’ll be outside,” he said before waving. “Good night.” 

The next morning found Ulrich walking Aelita through the woods. They wound through thickets and tall snow banks, truly getting to experience what winter had to offer. It was a quiet walk (though, at this point, it was more of a hike than a walk). As they approached the tree line, Aelita’s emerald eyes caught sight of the factory from between the bare trunks. 

“The factory?” She blinked, like it was the last place she’d expect to see. “Why are we here?”

“We’re not here for the factory,” Ulrich started. The duo broke through the edge of the forest and basked in the midday sun. It was then that Aelita noticed that the water that acted like a moat was frozen. 

“We’re here for the lake.” 

Suffice to say, without ice skates, music, and other skaters, the duo were nothing but inelegant. Ulrich taught Aelita how to slide about on the ice, how to skid into something resembling a stop, and getting her to glide backwards. Eventually their ice skating devolved into races around the factory, and to hockey— which they played with two tree branches and a pine cone. 

By the time they started heading back to the school, the sky was dimming. Aelita’s cheeks were cherry red and her breath was coming in short puffs of exhaustion, but the grin on her lips was the most genuine thing. Ulrich even found his own lips tilting upward at the sound of her elated laughter. 

“Oh, that was wonderful, Ulrich!” She beamed, bouncing to and fro through the snow banks. “Can we do this again tomorrow?”

He fought off a chuckle. “Sure. I can show you the other stuff later.” 

Though her curiosity was piqued, she didn’t inquire further about the “other stuff”. Ulrich was coming to realize that she liked surprises. 

Aelita hummed happily the entire walk back to Kadic. The thought made Ulrich warm. When they stumbled back indoors, the fiery sensation of needles on bare skin told the duo they’d been out a bit too long. The back of Ulrich’s thighs were on fire, and Aelita’s fingers cried out in pain. 

She was wincing and nervously shifting her weight from foot to foot when Ulrich pulled her out of her head. 

“There’s only one cure to freezer burn,” he started leading her to the cafeteria, though dinner wasn’t going to be served for hours. “C’mon, I’ll show you how to make it.” 

When they made it into the cafeteria, Ulrich made straight for the kitchen doors, which gave Aelita pause. Students weren’t allowed in the kitchen on a good day— what made Ulrich think trying to get in there over winter break would be a better idea? Even then, one of the lunch ladies was probably in there starting on dinner. They’d be caught in no time, so what was Ulrich planning? 

“You coming, Princess?” 

Aelita had been so deep in thought that she’d completely stopped walking, and was staring intently at Ulrich’s relaxed form. 

“Are you sure that—“

“We’ll be fine. Trust me.” 

With Ulrich acting as cocksure and confident as Odd, Aelita could do nothing more than follow behind him and hope for the best. The moment the door swished shut behind her, Ulrich was greeting Glenda with a nod before heading to the opposite side of the kitchen. He flitted in and out of cupboards and pantry doors before placing a shallow pot on the stove. 

He was still gathering things here and there when Aelita asked, “Why aren’t we getting in trouble?”

Ulrich placed two mugs side by side on the counter. “Odd and I have had our fair share of early mornings and late evenings. Glenda’s always the first one in and the last to leave. Let’s just say, she’s fine with us being here so long as the other students don’t know and we pick up after ourselves.”

Aelita didn’t know why she was so surprised by that fact. Of course, every warrior had their fair share of trauma from Xana. If Odd and Ulrich suffered from nightmares or insomnia, Aelita was no one to judge. Shaking herself from her thoughts, she watched as Ulrich melted a good amount of chocolate in the pot before mixing in some milk. He stirred it lightly for a few minutes more before splitting the contents of the pan between the two mugs. He added a tad extra milk to each one before passing the pinkette a plastic spoon. 

Ulrich tilted his mug in her direction, as if to toast. “To winter break?” He asked. 

“To winter break,” she replied. 

Their cups clinked together, and the second day of winter break came to a close. 

“Since when did you know how to cook?” Aelita asked later that evening. “I didn’t take you as one to— not to offend— be knowledgeable about it.”

Ulrich chuckled lightly. “I’m a terrible cook, I just know how to make hot chocolate. My mother taught me when I was younger. Every year we��d play hockey in brook behind the house, and when we came back we’d make hot chocolate to warm us up.”

Ulrich hasn’t said that many words directly to Aelita for almost as long as they’ve known each other. 

Aelita smiles tentatively. “That’s… really nice.”

Ulrich hums warmly before waving good night to the girl. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early,” he says. 

And Aelita can’t stymie the excited laugh that bubbles up from within. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!” 

Even as they walk their separate ways, Aelita likes to think she sees a ghost of a smile on his lips in the reflection on the windows. 

By the time winter break is over, Aelita has been officially inducted into the exclusive group of students given kitchen rights. Four days after starting classes once again, Aelita finds herself standing in the kitchen at half past the witching hour, wondering why her world weary body brought her here. When Glenda sees the girl half asleep in her cup of cocoa, she simply gives the girl a nudge and pushes her out. “Wait! I didn’t get to do the dishes!” She tries to argue. 

“Get some sleep before classes start, and I might forgive ‘ya,” Glenda tuts, and Aelita knows that the lunch lady has won this round. 

When Aelita curls up in her bed, anxieties and nightmares long forgotten, she takes in the lingering scene of hot chocolate in the air and thinks about Ulrich and the week of shrieking laughter and restrained joy they shared. 

Aelita sleeps through the first three classes and shuffles down for lunch looking like death warmed over, but Glenda serves her the best part of the lasagna with a knowing look, and the young girl dines with her friends. 

She feels more like a living, breathing human at that moment than during any other. 

To her, the most human emotion isn’t rage or something as simple as love, she thinks it’s the gleeful innocence of playing in the snow on a cold day, and the creature comfort that is fuzzy socks and diamond snow. 

She no longer feels in binary and thinks in CSS. 

The girl that is Aelita Stones is born on a cloudy day in December, and she is utterly grateful to the boy who pushed her into the wild and wonderful world she now resides in (even if he pushed her into a snowbank to do it).

[pinktwingirl]

Loki Series Rewrite (AKA Loki Series but with Squirrel Girl) Ep 5

INT. TVA COURTROOM - DAY

Sylvie is threatening Ravonna.

SYLVIE

This is it, isn't it? This is where you dragged me after you stole my life. A fitting place, then, to take yours.

Suddenly, Doreen rushes in, carrying several prune sticks.

DOREEN

Here! We're gonna need these.

(She tosses one to Sylvie, then freezes when she sees Loki isn't there.)

Where's Loki?

(At Sylvie's silence, her eyes widen in horror, and she drops the other prune sticks.)

No...

(She rushes over and grabs Ravonna.)

What did you do to him?!

RAVONNA

What if I said the other Loki wasn't dead? Not yet, anyway.

SYLVIE

I'd say you were lying.

RAVONNA

Maybe. Or maybe we want the same thing.

DOREEN

How could he still be alive? You... pruned him!

SYLVIE

More importantly, how will saving him get us closer to who's really behind the TVA?

RAVONNA

It's complicated.

DOREEN

Then un-complicate it.

INT. TVA COURTROOM - DAY

Sylvie and Ravonna are discussing the end of time while Doreen keeps a prune stick trained on Ravonna.

SYLVIE

So how do we get past the void?

RAVONNA

It's impossible. There's nothing for the tem-pad to lock onto. No destination.

SYLVIE

Then we go through it.

Ravonna scoffs.

RAVONNA

That's suicide.

SYLVIE

Then I guess my need for you has passed.

She gets her own prune stick ready as Ravonna's eyes widen in horror.

MISS MINUTES

W-Wait! What about the void spacecraft?

RAVONNA

Y-Yes! The prototype!

MISS MINUTES

Right... I'll get the file...

DOREEN

What's the "void spacecraft"?

RAVONNA

I-It's a spaceship designed to withstand the temporal void. It could conceivably take us to the end of time.

SYLVIE

Find Loki.

RAVONNA

Find the man behind the curtain.

SYLVIE

And kill him.

RAVONNA

Together.

They shake hands. Ravonna tries to pull hers away, but Sylvie keeps her grip firm.

SYLVIE

Miss Minutes, where are the files on this "time craft"?

MISS MINUTES

Uh... Still lookin' hun...

Sylvie raises an eyebrow.

SYLVIE

Nothing?

MISS MINUTES

Th-They're... pretty deep...

RAVONNA

I-It's highly restricted; I might not even have clearance...

SYLVIE

Oh no, I think you would. If it's real.

Ravonna nervously glances at Miss Minutes.

RAVONNA

How long?

MISS MINUTES

Any second now...

Just then, we hear agents bursting in through the door. Doreen grabs Sylvie and they jump behind a desk.

AGENT

(to Ravonna)

Are you hurt?

RAVONNA

I'm fine. But she took my tem-pad.

(She turns to the desk.)

Sylvie? You're not thinking of going on the run, are you? We know where you hide... Sooner or later, we'll catch you.

DOREEN

(whispering to Sylvie)

What do we do?

RAVONNA

It must be so exhausting...

SYLVIE

I'll admit, you had me fooled there for a minute... Or did you get a little real? Did Judge Renslayer really feel betrayed by her beloved TVA?

RAVONNA

Why don't you come back out and we can... talk about it?

SYLVIE

Sure! Just tell everyone else to piss off and we can settle this between us.

Doreen raises an eyebrow at Sylvie.

RAVONNA

Works for me...

The agents close in on the desk.

SYLVIE

What happened to finding the man behind the curtain?

RAVONNA

Tell you what, you come out with your hands up, and I'll put you in a time loop. Something not so bad. You can live out your days in a good memory. 

(Beat)

Do you have any good memories?

After a pause, Sylvie grabs Doreen and stands them both up, causing Doreen to gasp in surprise. Sylvie points the prune stick at the agents, then suddenly prunes Doreen and herself.

INT. VOID HIDEOUT - DAY

Loki is speaking with the other Loki variants in their hideout.

LOKI

No. I'm the same. I'm the same as all of you.

(Beat)

Have any of you met a variant that primarily uses her female form?

CLASSIC LOKI

There are plenty of those. You'll have to be more specific.

LOKI

Um... Short hair... Blonde... Goes by "Sylvie"?

CLASSIC LOKI

Oh, yes, her. She's terrifying.

LOKI

She is! But that's what's great about her! She needs us! All of us!

EXT. VOID - DAY

Sylvie is lying unconscious on the ground. Doreen shakes her.

DOREEN

Sylvie! Sylvie, wake up! Sylvie, can you hear me?

Sylvie's eyes widen and she sits up.

SYLVIE

Where are we?

DOREEN

Uh... At the end of time, I guess. It's... kind of a shithole.

Sylvie stands up.

SYLVIE

Let's go. We need to find Loki.

They begin walking. Doreen takes out her Loki locket and tries to turn it on, but the hologram is blank.

DOREEN

Huh... I guess this won't work in a void where time and space is meaningless.

SYLVIE

What is that thing, anyway?

DOREEN

I made it for Loki. We each have one. I gave it to him so I could see where he was if he was ever in trouble, but... I kind of ended up being the one calling him for help...

(Beat)

SYLVIE

You really care about Loki, don't you?

Doreen blushes.

DOREEN

U-Um... I mean... Yeah, I guess. He's... a good friend.

SYLVIE

Oh, don't try to hide it. Loki may be oblivious to it, but I'm not. It's plain as day on your face.

Doreen looks away, embarrassed.

SYLVIE

It's a shame your life is so fleeting, then. You would be quite the catch, I'll admit. You're a clever girl.

Doreen's face flushes red.

SYLVIE

But you know that whatever you have with him can't last, right? You're a mortal. Trying to pursue a relationship with him... it wouldn't be fair to do that to him.

Doreen looks down sadly.

DOREEN

I know. I just... can't help it, I guess.

SYLVIE

Hmm. Well, I suppose he'll get over it eventually once you're gone. We never stick to one thing - always moving on to the next. That's the best way to adapt and survive.

(Off Doreen's sadness.)

Oh, don't take it personally, dear. That's just how we are. You could say it's... in our nature.

Suddenly, they see ALIOTH spreading behind them.

DOREEN

That... doesn't look good.

Alioth starts to creep closer, demolishing everything in its path.

SYLVIE

Run!

They both start to run, with Doreen nearly tripping over her dress.

DOREEN

Okay, running in this dress is getting really annoying! Do you think you could magic my normal clothes back onto me?!

In a flash of green, Doreen's dress shifts into her old outfit.

DOREEN

Thank you!

They suddenly see a pizza delivery car racing towards them.

DOREEN

Is that Mobius?!

They jump in the car, and Mobius speeds away.

DOREEN

Moby! You're alive!

MOBIUS

Can you shut the door? We still got a little bit of a situation here...

Sylvie slams the door shut. As they drive, a cloud of black magic smoke approaches them.

SYLVIE

Watch out!

MOBIUS

I see it! I see it!

SYLVIE

Really?! Because you're driving right towards it!

MOBIUS

God, you really are one of you... Hang on!

EXT. VOID - DAY

Mobius continues to drive, with Sylvie and Doreen in the back.

MOBIUS

All that time, I really believed we were the good guys...

SYLVIE

Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls... Classic hero stuff.

MOBIUS

Well, I guess when you think the ends justify the means, there's nothing you won't do. By the way, you did some annihilating, too.

SYLVIE

I did what I had to do.

MOBIUS

Yeah. So did I.

SYLVIE

You hunted me like a dog.

DOREEN

Um, okay, we've all made mistakes, can we maybe save this conversation for when we're not all about to die?

SYLVIE

I thought we could find Loki down here... But that storm... that thing's likely already got him.

MOBIUS

You really believe that?

SYLVIE

It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters now is getting out of here and finding out who's behind all of this.

MOBIUS

Great. How do we do that?

SYLVIE

We turn around.

DOREEN

Uhh... Sorry, what?

MOBIUS

You wanna go back to the angry cloud?

SYLVIE

Yeah. I think it might be the answer. We're going back to it.

EXT. VOID - DAY

Mobius drives up to the Loki variants. Loki's eyes widen when he sees them.

LOKI

Sylvie?!

He rushes over to them.

SYLVIE

You're alive...

Mobius and Doreen step out of the car. Doreen rushes up to Loki and hugs him.

LOKI

Doreen! Mobius!

DOREEN

I was so worried... Are you okay?

LOKI

I'm fine. How did you...?

SYLVIE

We thought you could do with some backup.

Loki smiles. The other Lokis approach them, putting the others on edge.

LOKI

No, no, no, wait, wait, wait! These are my... friends. Ah... Well, they're um... how best to put this? Uh... Us as a child, us in the future, and us as a... uh... an alligator.

Sylvie raises an eyebrow.

LOKI

It's... best not to question it.

Doreen gasps.

DOREEN

There's a Baby Loki???

KID LOKI

Don't call me that.

DOREEN

Okay, Baby Loki!

Kid Loki scowls at her.

EXT. VOID - DAY

Mobius is chatting with Doreen as Loki and Sylvie talk.

DOREEN

So... I guess we're... going after the giant cloud thingy. No idea how we're supposed to do that, but okay.

MOBIUS

I don't know, don't you usually command a giant army of squirrels?

DOREEN

Yeah, normally, but I only brought these three along with me.

(She points to Tippy-Toe, Monkey Joe, and Mr. Lieberman.)

Taking down a giant magical monster might require a little more than that...

Mobius glances at a chipmunk bounding past them.

MOBIUS

There's a squirrel.

Doreen raises an eyebrow.

DOREEN

That's not a squirrel; that's a chipmunk.

Mobius shrugs.

MOBIUS

They're the same thing.

DOREEN

Excuse me?! They are not the same thing! They're completely different!

We cut to Loki sitting with Sylvie.

SYLVIE

Mobius isn't so bad. And Doreen is... well, Doreen. I can see why you keep her around.

Loki raises an eyebrow.

LOKI

Don't tell me you've just been flirting with her this whole time?

SYLVIE

I'm sorry, I thought you said she was just an acquaintance?

LOKI

Oh, shut up.

Sylvie smirks. After a pause, her smile fades.

SYLVIE

It must be nice... to have friends. 

They glance over at Doreen and Mobius, who are still arguing over the difference between a squirrel and a chipmunk. Loki laughs.

SYLVIE

I don't have any...

(Beat)

I don't have... anyone.

Loki smiles.

LOKI

Well, you and I are the same. My friends are your friends now.

Sylvie smiles.

EXT. VOID - DAY

Mobius is saying goodbye.

MOBIUS

Sylvie... I need to apologize... for everything the TVA's done to you. And Loki... I'm sorry, too. It wasn't fair of us to put you through what we did. And it wasn't fair of me to judge you for your past. Not when you're trying to be a better person now.

He extends his hand to Loki. Instead of shaking it, Loki hugs him.

LOKI

Goodbye, my friend.

MOBIUS

(whispering to Sylvie)

You're my favorite.

Sylvie grins. Doreen hugs him as well.

DOREEN

You go get that jet ski, you hear?

MOBIUS

Sure will. Well, see you later!

He heads out the portal and leaves.

@drawntothedarkside

[chickensarentcheap]

Never Gonna Be Alone- Chapter 21

Title: Juxtaposition

Warnings: none

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @alievans007, @miss-smutty, @tragiclyhip​

It goes better than expected.

The older kids handle the reunion remarkably well; fake yet believable smiles plastered upon their faces, accepting kisses on the cheek and praises and compliments regarding how big and beautiful they’ve gotten, and returning enthusiastic embraces with tense and awkward one arm hugs. They’re polite and mildly pleasant; sticking together in a small, tight group as they thank their grandparents for the gifts and answers questions about school and their favourite extra curricular activities and life in Australia as opposed to the U.S. And Esme notices the look of disappointment that comes across her mother’s face when it's obvious just how much the kids prefer ‘the land down under’; gushing about the house and the acres of property it sits on and the close proximity of the ocean. She knows her mother had long held out hope that the kids actually hate being where they are; thousands of miles away from any extended family and never getting to experience the true wonder of four different seasons. But they hold firm even when Michelle tries pushing them to commit to visiting Colorado; adamant that they're perfectly content where they are and have no desire to ever go back to THAT part of their lives. Australia is home; the sand and the surf and the kangaroos and koalas and the smell of the salt of the ocean and the feel of blazing hot pavement under bare feet.

Esme both understands and feels the same way. It’s where they belong and where they feel they can be exactly who they’re meant to be; not held towards ridiculous standards and allowed to freely explore and express themselves in every way they possibly can. There’s no judgement there; mom and dad encouraging them to be themselves and not bend to limits and labels put on them by others. Even twelve and half years ago Australia had been where she’d discovered herself; finding levels of freedom, comfort, and peace that she never even knew existed. The old Esme had been left behind; either perishing on that bridge in Dhaka or left in Bangladesh to wander aimlessly. She had ceased to exist the moment she chose to try and save Tyler’s life over her own well being; mere minutes away from safety yet refusing to leave him there to meet a likely extremely painful and gruesome end. That had been her choice; a chance at a new life with him as opposed to returning to an empty and meaningless existence.

The smaller children have a harder time accepting the sudden appearance of their grandparents; Brooklyn harshly firing off invasive questions while refusing all offers of affection, Takota tucking himself behind his mother’s legs and occasionally peeking out from behind and offering small, tense smiles, and Addie nervously and frightfully clinging to her father. Refusing to allow him to put her down; whining and pouting at the mere suggestion and then tightening her hold around his neck and digging her heels into his ribs. It takes nearly half an hour of Sarge attempting quiet and calm small talk before she relaxes; loosening her hold on Tyler’s neck and allowing him to finally sit down, but adamantly refusing to let him dispose of her entirely. She eventually begins to settle entirely; put at ease by Sarge’s deep and soothing voice and gentle disposition. The way he sits beside them, yet doesn’t infringe on her personal space, the soft smiles and the compliments on her ‘pretty clothes’ and being ‘beautiful just like her mommy’ and having the cutest little nose and freckles. It begins with her hold around Tyler’s neck going from two arms to one, followed by none; simply leaning back against his chest with her head tucked under his chin. It then proceeds to her slipping in between the two men and then finally ending up on Sarge’s lap. No fanfare or big deal made out of her brave move; just smiles exchanged as she settles in and begins chatting endlessly and amicably about her bedroom back home and the goats, chickens, and pigs, and Charlie the Joey that comes for peanut butter sandwiches.

While Brooklyn and the older kids eventually grow tired of socializing and head up to their rooms, Addie and Takota linger; the former now in her grandfather’s loving and protective embrace as they stand in front of the Christmas tree as she points out ‘special’ ornaments and the stories behind them. And after spending the majority of the ‘meet and greet’ hiding behind his mother’s legs and venturing a peek between her thighs every so often, he takes the opportunity left behind by his sister’s departure. Scurrying from one parent to the other and hurriedly climbing into Tyler’s lap; throwing both arms around his neck and curling his legs around his waist.

He grimaces when a heel comes in contact with the scar at the small of his back. It’s been five years and direct pressure still hurts; a burning sensation that originates at the site of the bullet wound and then travels straight down the back of his leg. “Really ‘Kota? Really?”

“Really, daddy. Really.”

“Here…” he slides a forearm behind Takota’s knees and shifts his position. Sideways with tiny legs draped across his lap; both arms wrapped around his son’s petite frame and hands locked together and resting on the four year old’s hip. “...sit there. Other way’s hurting my back.”

Takota pops a thumb into his mouth. “Where the bad guy shot you.”

“Yup.”

“Daddy kills bad people,” the four year old informs his grandmother, as she sits in the nearby recliner.

“Takota…” Tyler’s voice bears a scolding tone. “...what did I tell you? About talking about that?”

“We don’t. Talk about it.”

“Then why are you?”

He shrugs. “Making conversation.”

“Well make conversation about something else. And this…” he wraps his fingers around his son’s wrist and pulls; effectively plucking the thumb from his mouth. “...does not belong in there. You’re not a baby.”

“Says who?”

“Me. And mommy. You want me to get you a bottle? A soother? Put you in a diaper?”

Takota pouts. “No.”

“Then the thumb stays out of the mouth.”

Giving a whimper in protest, he curls an arm around his dad’s neck and rests the side of his head against his chest.

Tyler drops a kiss on Takota’s head. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. But there will be in a few minutes if you don’t smarten up. What’s going on? Why you being like this?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs.

“Tired? Wanna have a nap?”

“Nope.”

“What if I do? What if I want a nap?”

“You have one. I don’t wanna nap.”

“You’re just being shy?”

Takota nods. “Don’t want to get my brain eaten.”

“I already told you, no one is getting their brain eaten. There’s no such thing as zombies.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I DO know that. All the bad people I’ve come across? Not one of them has been a zombie. Out of all the millions and millions.”

“That many? That many bad people?”

“That many,” he confirms. “And not one of those bad people were zombies.”

“How do you know?”

“Trust me, I’d know. Zombies aren’t real. They don’t exist. That’s just stuff TJ and Millie talk about to scare you guys. There’s no zombies and no one is going to eat your brain.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. I won’t let anyone steal you and eat your brain. Or any part of you for that matter. So why don’t you get down and socialize and…”

“No!” Takota cries, and frantically scrambles up onto his knees, throwing both arms around Tyler’s neck and tightly pressing his much smaller, lighter body against his broad, solid chest. “No, daddy! I wanna stay with you!”

“I can’t hold you forever. I eventually have to put you down. What if I have to take a leak?”

“Take me with you. I don’t wanna get down. I wanna stay with you.”

“Why don’t you go and see mummy?” Tyler suggests, as Esme returns with fresh pots of tea and coffee; filling everyone’s respective drinks before setting the carafes on the cluttered coffee table and dropping heavily down onto the cushion beside him. “Mummy LOVES cuddles.”

“No,” Takota remains steadfast. “Mummy’s not comfy.”

“Excuse you,” Esme frowns. “I carry you inside of me for nine months, get all fat and gross and that’s how you thank me? By saying I’m not comfy? That’s some nerve, kid.”

“You’re beautiful, mummy. But daddy’s more comfy. He’s got bigger arms. So he gives better hugs. Your hugs are good, but they’re not daddy good.”

“I know who to NOT put my will now,” she teases, and tucks her feet under her and sips leisurely at her tea.

She watches them together; father and son. The trust and the adoration in Takota’s brilliant blue eyes as enormous hands -with their multitude of scars and calluses and misshapen knuckles- tenderly cradling the back of his head as he’s laid along his father’s thighs; palms slipping down to the little one’s back as he dangles upside down between slightly parted legs. His t-shirt sliding up and revealing slightly tanned skin and the adorable pudginess that often comes with four year old tummies. A high pitch screech followed by his musical little giggles filling the living room when the tip of a nose and the roughness of a beard tickle tender flesh. Lips coming to rest over that slightly outward positioned belly button; blowing a loud ‘raspberry’; accompanied by Tyler’s rich, deep chuckle as he carefully pulls Takota back up and once more settles him on his lap.

The smile on her husband’s face is real; reaching his eyes and making them sparkle and crinkling the corners. So genuine and beautiful; a man who has seen so much horror and inflicted so much brutality on others -and had it inflicted on him in return- still able to smile like that. Reserved for the people that are closest and most dear to him; his wife and children often the only ones who get to witness it. And it’s a juxtaposition; how gentle and attentive and caring he can be considering all of things he’s had to witness and do to stay alive. It still haunts him; mistakes of the past and having to kill people as a means of survival. He has a lot of blood on his hands; toes he’s stepped on and bridges that he’s burned. And if anyone should be cold and callous considering everything he’s done and has been done to him, it SHOULD be Tyler. But he’s become the opposite. He’s patient and loving and caring; hands that are capable of such damage remarkably soft and tender. Strong and burly; intimidating when need be. But possessing a heart that’s even bigger than his body.

“I really think you should get down,” Tyler says, and drops a kiss on the top of his son’s head. “So I can actually drink my coffee this time.”

“No,” Takota buries his face in the warm, safe place between his father’s neck and shoulder. “I want to stay with you. My tummy hurts.”

“Something tells me it doesn’t. Something tells me you’re making that up.”

“My teeth hurt,” Takota tries again.

“Your teeth hurt? Why? Got cavities?”

“No. They just hurt.”

“You got some loose ones in there? Let me take a peek. Let daddy look.” Tyler places one hand on the middle of the little one’s back, slightly tipping him backwards as the other rests on the top of Takota’s head. “Open up. Let me see.”

Takota obliges; bridge of his nose crinkling and the corners of his eyes scrunching as large yet surprisingly gentle fingers search his mouth for anything amiss.

“There’s nothing loose. Want me to yank them all out just in case?”

“No!” He speaks around the thumb and forefinger tightly grasping one of his top front teeth. “Daddy no! No yanking!”

“Why not? They’re baby teeth. You’ll get your adult ones. You won’t be toothless forever.”

“No!” Takota frantically wriggles in an attempt to get away. “No daddy! Don’t pull my teeth out! Mummy! Don’t let him yank ‘em!”

“Daddy is not going to yank your teeth out,” Esme assures him, and scowls at her husband and slaps him on the thigh. “Daddy, don’t. You’re tormenting him. He’s going to have nightmares.”

“I don’t know, mummy. It would save us dentist bills. Yank them all out now, worry about it when the big ones come in.”

“No!” Takota yells, and then shrieks when the fingers that were in his mouth find the sensitive spot just below his chin; savagely tickling until he’s giggling hysterically. “Daddy stop! You’re going to make me pee my pants!”

“Don’t get him so riled up,” Esme scolds. “It’s almost n-a-p time and you’re going to get him all worked up and it will never happen.”

“Mummy’s a party pooper,” Tyler says, and gathers Takota in his arms and settles him against his chest; lips finding his temple, palm coming to rest on the side of his head. The four year old gives a content sigh; arms once more curling around his dad’s neck, cheek pressed against the cotton of his henley shirt. “Tired?”

“No.”

“I think you’re lying. I think you ARE tired. Wanna go for a nap? I think you should go for a nap. Naps are good. You’ll love naps when you’re older.”

“Not tired. No nap.”

“How about if I lie down with you? Have my own little sleep? Would you nap then?”

“Maybe,” Takota singsongs.

“Let’s go and find out. Let’s at least try, yeah? Daddy could use a nap.”

“Daddy’s escaping,” Esme grumbles. “Daddy thinks he’s clever.”

“Daddy knows he’s clever,” he retorts, sliding a forearm under Takota’s bum and then standing up; wincing and muttering a barely ‘audible’ fuck as he’s assailed by pain in both the small of his back and his right knee. It’s a bitch of a thing; forty seven years old, getting yourself into what SHOULD be the best shape of your life, and having days where you feel like you’re ninety. It isn’t as bad as before; no longer chronic and debilitating. But there are moments of weakness where he longs for the relief brought on by the mixture of oxy and booze.

“You alright?” Esme’s face is lined with worry; hand resting on his hip as he leans down to kiss her. It’s hard for her to turn off; the worry -and even the fear- that comes with the vivid recollection of the damage that had been inflicted upon him. She’d seen it with her own two eyes; TWICE. And she’d been the one accompanying him to painful and gruelling physiotherapy sessions; the person entrusted to manage his pain meds, the only one he let himself be vulnerable with and would cry to when it all got to be too much to bear. “You can take more meds. The day’s still young and you’re nowhere near your limit.”

“If it gets worse I’ll take some,” he assures her, then presses a kiss to her forehead. “I promise.”

“Don’t let yourself suffer,” she whispers. “ There’s no need for that. Just take the meds. Don’t do that to yourself, okay? I don’t want you suffering.”

“I’m fine right now. If it gets worse, I’ll grab some. Takota, give mummy a kiss. She needs a kiss.”

“Love you mumma,” the four year old says, as he dangles over her and he lands a peck on her lips.

“I love you. Both of you. Sleep well. Just a little nap, okay? You don’t sleep tonight, Santa won’t come.”

“Just a little sleep,” Takota promises. “Daddy’s tired.”

“That’s because daddy's old and his body is falling apart,” Tyler says, and then slings his son over his shoulder; fingers hooked around one of the belt loops on Takota’s jeans, effectively and safely keeping him in place.

Esme watches as they go; Takota’s giggles and his pleads of ‘don’t drop me, daddy!’ and her husband’s constant reassurances and promise. His long and purposeful gait familiar; the slight hitch of the hip and the limp that becomes more pronounced when he’s tired or the nerve issues are bothering him or the arthritis is acting up. But none of that matters; the dents and the blemishes and the damages done. He’s beautiful no matter what; surviving the worst possible circumstances and surpassing all the odds that had been stacked against him. Fighting battles with his own mind every day; forcing himself to open his eyes and pull himself out of bed for the sake of his wife and children. And THAT’S what makes him truly brave; the ongoing war against his own brain and somehow managing to keep going and put one foot in front of the other.

*****

She checks on them an hour later; father and son fast asleep on a twin bed riddled with wrinkled sheets and stuffed animals. A long and muscular body looking even more so in such a small confined space; impossibly long legs stretching the length of the mattress, feet dangling over the edge. Tyler rests on his back with Takota on top of him; a flushed cheek pressed against a broad chest, strong, tattooed arms wrapped tightly around a tiny body, and a large hand protectively placed in the middle of a slowly rising and falling back. Both snoring lightly; lips slightly parted and their eyelids flickering as they dream, hair already mussed and slightly damp from sweat. She pauses at the side of the bed; running fingers through thick tresses and pressing kisses to foreheads; eyes closed as she breathes in the familiar scents that cling to both of their bodies. The biggest and the smallest men in her life; both so beautiful and perfect. Takota with his meek and mild disposition; shy to a fault and profoundly sensitive. Tyler with his enormous body and the scars and blemishes serving as reminders of a hard life; his heart so big and proud and loving with so much power and fierceness. It’s a side not many get to see; knowing him solely as a ‘tough guy’ with a checkered past and blood on his hands. But to know him...TRULY know him...is an honour bestowed on a select view; privy to what makes him laugh and what brings out that smile that reaches his eyes and what touches his heart and brings out that softer, more vulnerable side.

She had been one of the lucky ones; giving him an understanding and non judgmental ear and a safe place to land even from day one. He’d opened up easily and effortlessly. The first night in Dhaka -as they lay in a mess of tangled sheets and naked, sweaty limbs- confiding in her about the loss of his son and how the terrible choice he’d made at led him to the job; his drinking problem getting him kicked out of SASR, war injuries sustained leading to an addiction pain medication, the extent of his guilt, regret, and grief driving him to choose a dangerous yet fairly lucrative career. He DID have a death wish; he didn’t deny it and had confessed that he’d been too scared to do the deed himself and that with every job he took, he hoped and prayed a sniper’s bullet would finally hit its mark. He couldn’t understand WHY it hadn’t happened yet; why was he allowed to keep living when he abandoned his own child while he was suffering so badly? Was it punishment? Was he destined to live a life on the edge yet never meet his demise? Was that the plan? Make him suffer as much as possible -mentally and physically- but not actually kill him? It was the first time a man had ever been that open and honest with her; Mark was extremely closed off and strayed far away from sharing feelings and showing emotion. And her ex-boyfriends had been high school classmates; young and immature and with relatively clean slates.

Tyler had been different. She’d recognized it the moment she met him; his hands surprisingly soft and gentle despite the calluses on his palms and the damaged, misshapen knuckles. He had beautiful eyes; brilliant blue yet possessing a staggering amount of sadness, his smile never reaching them. He was a man with deep, profound secrets and a lot of pain; both physical AND emotional. It had been less than half an hour; from the time she’d stepped onto his front porch and their gaze had met through the open door to when she’d left to join Nik and Yaz on the flight to Fitzroy Crossing. Yet she’d found him intriguing. His simple way of life in that ramshackle house; built by hand and poorly maintained yet obviously giving him a sense of home and security. The tattoos and the scars and the strong, powerful build and a shockingly handsome face. A man that came with quite the reputation; skilled and savage and seemingly fearless. Someone with a dark, dangerous and mysterious past yet the kindest hands and one of the softest -if not entirely genuine- smiles she’d ever come across. And she’d liked that smile; the way he would tuck his chin into his chest and give a small chuckle and the corners of his mouth would just ever so slightly lift. And despite those humble surroundings and his simple attire, he’d smelled so good; a mixture of fresh air and salt water and the slightest tinges of coconut and whiskey.

The attraction had been there; right from that first handshake. She can remember thinking how it wouldn’t be so bad to just give in to primal urges; indulge in nothing more than mindless, no strings attached sex. To just surrender to physical and sexual attraction; allowing herself nothing more than being pleasured and pleasuring someone in return. After all, there was no chance anything COULD come of it; the job was no place to find a romantic partner and with thousands of miles between their homes, there was no possibility of ever really getting the chance to connect and get to know one another. A second marriage and children had never been in her wheelhouse; Mark destroying her and breaking her and stripping her down to a weakened and more vulnerable version of herself. She wouldn’t go through that again; give her heart and all her trust and faithfulness to one man, only to have them betray and hurt her. And that’s all she’d really wanted it to be; sex with an incredibly attractive man with a dark and dangerous reputation. She didn’t have the time or tolerance for anything BUT that; enjoying being single and independent and not feeling as if she had to answer to anyone.

In the blink of an eye, it all changed. That first night in Dhaka turning out to be much more than she ever expected or bargained for. Seeing him in a way he didn’t let anyone else see him; trusting her and confiding in her and being as raw and honest and vulnerable as he could possibly be. And she’d turned around and done the same; talking about the loss of her father and her abusive marriage and the loss of her identity and her journey to find it again. Mindless, no strings attached sex quickly became something so much more; the deep and intense conversations, the way he’d smile -genuinely smile- when she’d tease him about his accent or about how tall he was or how big his feet were. The way those big, strong arms felt when they wrapped around her and drew her tightly into him. And it was the exchange of long and soft kisses even though she’d told herself she wouldn’t do THAT; kissing way too personal and leading to the development of feelings. Which were way too dangerous.

She’d gone into it expecting something purely physical and came out with so much more. A best friend. A confidant. A protector. A lover that turned into a husband and who had helped her make seven beautiful, incredible little human beings. Someone so wounded and damaged that loves so profoundly; a man that worships her and loves her with everything he is and everything he has. Who will protect her at all costs. Who has proven time and time again that he has her back no matter what; willing to suffer and die for her if need be.

It’s overwhelming. To be loved THAT much. It brings tears to her eyes even now as she stands at the side of the bed and watches him sleep; his face and body relaxed and peaceful. She pushes her fingers through his hair and brushes it away from his forehead; lips meeting smooth, warm skin. And when she goes to step away, he reaches for her; fingers capturing her hand and bringing it to his face; his eyes never opening as soft, warm lips press against her palm.

*****

“Nugget?” Esme raps her knuckles against the wooden barn door that closes the bottom bunk off to the rest of the room. “Are you awake in there?”

TJ and Declan have long departed; holed up in the family room with Millie and Alannah as the four quietly and civilly play a board game. Tanner had a hard time; seeing grandma again after so many years had been a difficult and nerve wracking moment for him. But he’d done his best despite the lingering trauma her treatment of him and the things she’d said have left behind; politely answering questions and thanking her for the Christmas gift, but refusing to show or accept any form of affection. Sometimes it’s all he can do to hold it together long enough for the simplest of greetings, and he’d done exceptionally given the troubled past with his grandmother. But he’d fled when she’d tried to get too close; screaming ‘no!’ in her face and pushing her away and then dissolving into tears as he fled the room and rushed upstairs to his safe place.

“I’m awake.” The little voice is shaky and higher pitched than usual; the remnants of tears and his meltdown noticeable.

“I thought I’d come and check on you. Are you okay? How are you doing in there?”

“I’m okay.” He sniffles noisily. “I’m fine.”

“I brought you a snack. One of those wraps that daddy makes; peanut butter with banana and chocolate syrup and coconut shavings. That’s your favourite, right?”

“Right.”

“Daddy didn’t make it, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’ve been taking lessons from him; on how to make it EXACTLY how you like it. It comes with a glass of chocolate milk. If that makes my meal preparations any easier to stomach.”

Tanner manages a small laugh. “You’re not THAT bad at cooking, mummy. You’ve gotten a lot better. Daddy and I are teaching you pretty good.”

Esme chuckles. “You really are. Do you want it? Your snack?”

“Not right this second, but thank you. Can you put it close by? Where I can reach it easy?”

“I’ll put it right beside your bed,” she says, and then sets the items on the ground and fetches the chair from his desk; setting it beside the bottom bunk and then carefully placing the treats on the seat. “Daddy’s taking a nap, but when he gets up, we’re going to do gingerbread houses. I know how much you always enjoy that. Will you join us?”

“Will grandma be there?”

“She’s not into that kind of thing. I’m sure she’ll just hang out in the living room with grandpa. You don’t have to worry about her, okay? You just stick real close to daddy. He’ll keep you safe and sound. He always does, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to do your thing. Your snack is waiting for you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll be downstairs, alright?”

“Mumma?” A faint of rustling of sheets and then the click of the lock; a little face appearing as the door slides open. “Do you really have to go?”

“I don’t have to go anywhere. I just wanted to give you your space. But no. I don’t have to go.”

“Will you snuggle with me for a bit? We haven’t snuggled in a while. I miss it; mummy snuggles.”

Smiling, she toes off her slippers and climbs into the bottom bunk; Tanner sliding his smaller body over towards the wall and giving her ample space.

“You can be the big spoon,” he offers, and rolls onto his side and presses his back into her front. “You never get to the big spoon, I bet.”

“Not once in the last twelve and a half years,” she says, and drapes a leg over his and curls an arm around his waist. “Daddy is NOT fond of being the little spoon. He’s much more comfortable being the big spoon.”

“That’s because of toxic masculinity.”

“Something tells me you’re right.” She settles the side of her face against his pillow and stretches her arm out along the mattress; fingers repeatedly brushing through his hair. Pressing a kiss to the back of his head when she feels him lace his fingers through hers and then tightly squeezes her hand.

“Mumma?”

“Nugget?”

“I don’t like grandma.”

‘I know you don’t. And you don’t have to. I understand why you feel the way you do. And you have every right to feel it. She’s done a lot of bad things. And SAID a lot of bad things.”

“About daddy.” His voice quivers once again.

“About daddy,” Esme confirms, and tightens her hold on him. “But you know what? Nothing she says matters. Because we know it’s not true. We know that he’s a really good man. A really good daddy.”

“The best daddy ever. If I could pick daddies, I’d pick him. A million times over. Why does she hate him? Why does she say mean things about him?”

“I don’t know, baby boy. I wish I did. I wish I had the answers. I know it hurts; to hear people say horrible things about him. It hurts me too.”

“She said daddy was going to hell. Because you and him made Millie before you were married. Is that true?”

“No, baby. It’s not true. Daddy is NOT going to hell.”

“And she said she wished daddy would just die already,” Tanner bursts into tears; body shaking with the ferocity of his sobs. “That we’d be better off without him. That it would be better if he died. It wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t be better AT ALL.”

“Nugget...come here…” She waits until he rolls onto his side to gather her into her arms. Pressing a series of kisses to the side of his head and his temple and his cheek; fingers buried in his hair as she holds him close. “...I am so sorry. That you had to hear those things. I am so, so, SO sorry.”

“Why would she say that? Why would she want daddy to die? Doesn’t she know we’d miss him? How sad we’d be? Does she hate him THAT much? Does she hate US? Is that why she doesn’t care if we’d be sad?”

“Tanner, I don’t know. I don’t know why she says the things she does. But she doesn’t hate you. She just wasn’t thinking; when she said the things she did. And I really am sorry. That she said those things about daddy. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you say something? When did this happen?”

“When you and daddy were in Ireland. And grandma came to help Ovi with us. Right before Ovi took us away. Grandma got mad because we were being bad. We were fighting and causing lots of noise and she got upset and that’s when she said it. She said that she wished you never met daddy. And that he was nothing but trouble and that we’d all be better off if he died already. If someone did us a favour and killed him.”

“Oh my God, Tanner. You’ve been holding onto that all this time?”

He nods.

“Baby boy…” She fights back against her own tears; a mixture of heartache and rage; hands shaking as her fingertips clear away the tears on her son’s cheeks. “...you should have told mommy. You should have called me and told me.”

“I didn’t want to upset you. And I didn’t want you telling daddy. I was worried if you told him, he’d get mad and you’d get into a fight and then he’d leave again. He’d move out like he did last time, only he wouldn’t come back. Ever.”

“Tanner, that never would have happened. Daddy and I never would have fought over that. And he never would have left us. What happened way back then? When he did leave and was gone for a while? Things were bad between us. Really bad. Remember?”

He nods.

“But daddy never would have gotten mad at you if you told him what grandma said. He would have been angry at her, but not at you. Or me. He would've done whatever he could to protect you from her. Daddy loves you so much. More than he loves himself. He would never, EVER, get mad at you for something like that.”

“I don’t want him to know. Don’t tell him, mummy. Please don't tell him. I don’t want it to hurt his brain. I don’t want it to make his brain sad.”

“Tanner, you have to…”

“No,” he insists. “I won’t tell him. And you won’t either. Please promise, mummy. Promise me you won’t tell him.”

Esme relents. “I won’t tell him. That’s your secret to tell. And you will one day. When you’re ready. When you think daddy is ready to hear it.”

“I don’t want him to die,” Tanner sobs. “I don’t want daddy to die.”

“He’s not going to die, Nugget. He’s here and he’s safe and sound. With us. He’s in the next room; napping with Takota.”

He sniffles. “Yeah?”

“Yup. I was just in there. They’re fast asleep, snoring away. Daddy is safe. He’s with us. He’s not going anywhere.”

“I don’t want him to go away ever again. It’s scary when he leaves. I’m always afraid he’s not going to come back.”

“So am I,” she admits. “I worry about the exact same thing.”

“Tell him he can’t leave anymore. Tell him that he has to stay. With us. That he’s not allowed to go. Tell him, mumma. Please tell him.”

“I will,” she promises, and cradles his face in her hands and presses a kiss to his forehead. “I am so sorry, Nugget. That you ever had to hear that. I know how much you love daddy. And believe me, he loves you just as much. Remember what I told you? About how he stayed with you in the hospital when you were born? When you were sick? And he didn’t want you to be alone?”

He nods. “And he picked my name.”

“He did. He loved the name Tanner. We wanted two T names, and that’s the one he picked right away and that’s the one he stuck with. That’s pretty cool, huh? That you’re the one daddy named?”

“It’s really cool. I like that; that he picked my name. It’s really special. Knowing he did.”

“Well you’re very special. You always have been. Right from the very beginning. You were so tiny when you were born; you fit right in the palm of daddy’s hand and your toes didn’t reach his wrist.”

“That IS tiny!”

“It is. You were super tiny. And daddy wouldn’t leave your side. He stayed in the special nursery with you and he slept in a chair beside your bed and he made sure you got the best care and the best nurses. He wasn’t leaving you alone. He knew that you needed him. And you know what? He needed YOU too.”

“He did?”

“He did. He needed that time with you. You and your brother were the first boys after Austin. That’s a pretty big deal. Daddy never thought he’d have any kids again, never mind a boy He got two! At the same time. That was pretty special for him. Getting not just one son, but two.”

“Did he cry?”

“He did. He cried when he got to hold TJ and he cried when he got to hold you. He was the only one who got to hold you right away. Because you needed help and they sent you to the special nursery to be looked after. And he went with you and never left. Not until I was able to come and see you.”

“That’s proof, you know. That daddy loves me.”

“He loves you so much, Tanner. More than he could ever tell you. You have no idea how much he loves you. How proud he is of you. And he’s pretty good, right? As a daddy?”

“He’s an awesome daddy. All the kids at school are jealous. ‘Cause he’s big and has muscles and cool tattoos. None of their dads have those things. Just mine. Their dads are lame. My dad’s cool.” He rubs his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. “If you met daddy a different way, would you have still fallen in love with him?”

“I imagine I would have. I can’t see why not. He’d still be daddy; he’d still look the same. And it’s kind of hard NOT to love him.”

“How would you have met him? If you guys didn't do the same job?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I would have gone to Australia on a trip and met him that way. Or maybe he would have come to Colorado and we would have bumped into each other somewhere. What do you think?”

“A singles cruise.”

“A singles cruise?” Esme laughs. “Why a singles cruise? And how do you even know about those?”

“I saw a commercial on tv. And then I googled it. I bet you and daddy would have met on a singles cruise.”

“I don’t know about that, Nugget. Daddy isn’t really the cruise kind of guy.”

“Maybe you would have met at the supermarket. On your trip to Australia. Maybe he would have been in line in front of you when you were waiting to pay for your groceries. Or maybe he would have been behind you and when you didn’t have enough money, he’d give you some. Or pay for your stuff. Daddy would do that; pay for a pretty girl’s stuff.”

“I kind of like that idea. Meeting my knight in shining armour at the grocery store. Him coming to my rescue right when I needed it.”

“You still would have liked him? If you met him that way?”

“I definitely would have. A handsome guy doing something like THAT? How could I not?”

“And he’d still look like daddy. He’d have the blue eyes and the cool hair and the big muscles. And the nice butt.”

Esme laughs. “Yeah, he would. I would have for sure noticed all of that.”

“You would have went out with him if he asked you on a date?”

“I definitely would have. I probably would have even let him kiss me.”

Tanner’s eyes widen. “On the first date? Mummy, that’s scandalous!”

“Hey, when you know, you know. And I knew. Pretty quick. That your daddy was the one for me.”

“Did he know too? That you were the one for him?”

“I don’t know. I THINK he did. He won’t admit it, though.”

“I’m going to ask him. If he knew right away you were the one for him. He’ll tell me. I know he will.”

“Well good luck with that. Are we good here? Are you calm now? Are you glad you told me what you did?”

Tanner nods. “I feel a hundred pounds lighter. That was a lot to carry around. Especially for so long. You’re not going to tell daddy, right?”

“I promised I wouldn't. But I really think YOU should.”

“I will when I’m ready. I swear I will.”

“Okay,” she agrees, then smooths his hair away from his face and presses a kiss to his brow. “I love you. So much.”

“I love you too. Thank you for being my mum.”

“Thank you FOR picking me to be your mom.”

“And thanks for having sex with daddy. If you didn’t, none of us would be here.”

She laughs at that. “You know what, it was a difficult thing to do, but I managed. And I’ll lethim know that you appreciate his participation. And his cooperation.”

“You know…” Tanner flops onto his back, hands behind his head. “...you and daddy make a weird couple. Not weird in a bad way. Just a different way.”

Esme props herself up on her elbow, cheek resting in her upturned palm. “How so?”

“You’re so tiny and he’s so big. It’s funny when you stand side by side or when you walk down the street together. Because it’s SO noticeable; how tall he is and how short you are. And it’s really sweet; when he goes to kiss you and you stand on the top of his feet AND on your tiptoes and he STILL has to bend down.”

“Well what can I say? Your dad is freakishly tall.”

“And you’re freakishly tiny.”

“Hey!” She reaches out to tickle his tummy; smiling at the way his eyes scrunch shut and he giggles. “Don’t you start taking after him when it comes to trash talking my height!”

“Daddy’s right, mum. You ARE small enough for him to pick you up and put in his pocket. And that’s cute. REALLY cute.”

“YOU’RE cute,” she says, and places a kiss on his cheek. “I’m going to go and get daddy up and get him started on setting up all the stuff for gingerbread houses. You going to join us?”

“In a while. I want to have my snack first.”

She tousles his hair and pecks his lips before sliding off the bunk. “I’ve got it ready and waiting, good sir. I’ll see you in a bit, okay? Do you want things closed back up?”

“No. I’m okay now. Thanks, mum.”

“See you soon,” she says, and presses a kiss to two of her fingertips and then reaches out and places them against the tip of his nose. “Bring the dirty dishes downstairs, okay?”

“Okay,” Tanner agrees. “Mumma?”

Esme pauses in the doorway.

“Thank you. For loving me like you do.”

Smiling through the threatening flood of tears, she swallows noisily around the lump of emotion sitting square in her throat. “You make it very easy, Nugget.”

[kilojulietsierra]

Seis Dias - Day Three (Frankie Morales x OFC)

They survived the wreck, but now what?

Need to catch up?

Prologue/Day One

Day Two

Day Three

The morning was cold and grey, the air filled with mist from last nights storm. Jo sat huddled under a tree in a borrowed, waterproof jacket, listening as Frankie tried to reach someone on the radio. Eventually he joined her again. Dragging the rest of his gear and her bags with him.

"it's no good." He set the packs down in front of her and joined her under the tree. "Radio is fried. What isn't fried got sheered off in the crash." He stared forlornly at the wreckage of his plane. "I think the transponder is fried too."

Jo pulled his rain jacket tighter around her, "What does that mean?"

He looked at her, moisture dripping off the bill of his cap, his shirt soaked through from being out in the damp, "It means that... when they send out a search, they won't have a signal to hone in on. They'll just have to... fly around and look out the window..." He shook his head, upset with himself.

"And hope they get lucky." Jo added.

Frankie nodded, "And hope we get lucky." After a moment he sat up straighter and grabbed for an Army green backpack he had brought with him. "Here." He pulled out a heavy metal bottle. "Sip. It's the only fresh water I have at the moment."

She nodded and looked around her, eyes wide and thoughts foggy, "What are we gonna do? I mean..." She didn't finish her thought.

"For now we wait. Best case scenario, someone heard our mayday, second best is your people call when you don't show and they send out a search and they find us on their first pass." He sounded falsely optimistic.

"Worst case?"

He took a deep breath and looked from her to the somewhat clear, jungle valley around them, "Worst case; we're on our own."

Joanna didn't know what to say so she unscrewed the bottles lid and took a sip. "I'd kill for a cup of black coffee right now." She coughed out a dry chuckle.

Frankie looked back to her, a small quirk at the side of his mouth, "The good, stout, bitter kind you could clean battery cables with."

"Mhmm." She handed him the bottle and reached for her camera bag, scared at what she might find.

Thousands of dollars worth of lenses cracked or shattered, one of her telescopic lenses had even snapped in half in the landing. She was on the verge of tears until she pulled out her camera. It had survived, battery charged and all.

"Is it okay?" Frankie was looking over her shoulder.

With a small nod Jo began digging out her memory chip pouch and extra battery. Shoving them into her regular back pack before slouching back against the tree, cradling her beloved Nikon. She powered it up and aimed it at the wreckage in front of them. A sharp shutter sound snapped through the silence and she leaned back from the viewfinder to look at the display.

Frankie looked at the photo she had taken. The plane a indistinguishable heap in the foreground and the sharp, green ridge they had barely made it over last night in the background, obscured by a layer of tropical fog a few hundred feet up and draped in an eerie grey mist. It twisted something in his gut to see the photo, somehow even more haunting than the reality in front of them. "Wow." She didn't say anything, just stared at the screen, rubbing a thumb back and forth over the edge. "I'm glad it's okay."

That got her to look up, a dozen emotions in her eyes, half of them twisting the knife Frankie already felt in his chest for what had happened to them.

"So, what do we do."

Taking her clear plea for something to lean on Frankie focused. "Let's take another few minutes, collect our thoughts. Then we'll go through our gear and sort out the essentials. That'll give your people time to notice you didn't make it and call in S and R. The chance of them finding us with out a transponder are slim and they get slimmer after the first 24 hours. If nobody has shown up by tomorrow morning... we take the gear we can carry and hike out."

"Hike out? You've got to be fucking crazy!" Joanna turned to face him wide eyed, and pale. This isn't Yellowstone, you don't just hike out of the fucking rainforest!"

If only she knew, Frankie thought. "I'm open to other suggestions if you have one but Joanna listen to me, if they do not find us today, walking out is about our only option."

"This can't be happening." Without warning she shoved to her feet and walked out into the clearing.

Frankie stood and stepped after her but thought better of it, letting her go as long as she stayed where he could see her. So, while he let her have the space she needed, he began to dig more thoroughly through the wreckage and sort though his gear.

He had everything pulled from the plane by the time she joined him again. "I don't think I can do this Frankie."

Standing up straight he stretched his back and turned to face her, "I think you can Jo."

In silence they stood there, in the wild, looking each other in the eye, neither breaking the gaze until Jo nods.

~~~

The sun had burnt away the clouds and the drizzle that had clung to the ridges and now the air was overheated and muggy. Their shirts were soaked with sweat and their jeans covered in mud as they sat in the shade, each with their pack of essentials next to them. Ready to go. MREs, a fire starter kit, zippo lighter, the water bottle and water filtration kit, a first aid kit, wet gear, cold weather gear, a K-BAR knife, two flashlights, Joanna's camera with its SD cards and spare battery, a couple changes of clothes, as many dry socks as they had and their personal identification in watertight pouches, a machete and one flare gun with one flare in it. This was distributed between their two packs and that in addition to the clothes on their back is what they would take with them if they made that decision.

What gear they didn't plan to take they stowed back into the damaged fuselage of the plane, a perhaps meaningless attempt to leave as little mess as possible.

Jo spent the afternoon keeping herself occupied the only way she knew how.

Frankie watched her from the shade as she circled the crash site taking pictures, occasionally she would turn away and snap a picture of something else that caught her eye.

They hadn't spoken much since their minor disagreement. So when she sat next to him and held the camera out to him with the LCD screen displaying the pictures, and said as dry and matter of fact as a person could, "For your insurance, in case they ask." Frankie could not help but laugh out loud. A deep, honest, cheek burning laugh that soon took her along with him. Until they were both covered in sweat and mud and laughing hysterically on the jungle floor. Waiting for a rescue that they both knew now, would not be coming.

~~~

The sun had set and Frankie had started a small fire, mostly to see by and dry out their clothes.

"How long would it take?"

In front of him Frankie had a map and compass, "Depending on the pace we can keep; three days. There's lots of little villages on the rivers down by the coast. Just got to find the water and follow it out."

"That's actually really smart." Jo murmured, impressed.

"I have my moments." Frankie folded the map to stow it back in his bag, "If we are where I think we are, we should be able to find a river tomorrow. That will be the hard part, from there it's relatively easy." He paused as if unsure what to say next, "Have you ever done this type of stuff before?" Before she could hit him with the sarcastic comment about her lack of plane crash experience he saw coming he elaborated, "Do you camp, hike, hunt... anything like that?"

Uneasy Jo shrugged, "I used to camp and stuff but... more when I was younger and... it's been..." She did the math in her head, easy math, "A few years. Nothing this extreme."

"Some experience is better than none. At least I won't have to piggy back you out of here." Frankie chuckled.

"How about you?"

"What?"

"You seem like you have some experience with... this." She gestured at the wreck and the wilderness surrounding them.

He didn't say anything at first, just scratched at the patch of beard on his cheek. "Some yeah."

Taking the vague answer for the hint that it was, Jo asked the only question she had left to ask, "We're doing this aren't we?"

Neither of them slept much that night. They just sat across the fire from each other and watched the flames die out.

---

Day Four - Read it now!

[baseballbitch116]

At All Costs - part 2

Pairing: Shane Walsh x reader

Setting: Takes place in S2E5 “Chupacabra” flashback scene on the highway before the napalm - the apocalypse is beginning 

Word Count: 2063

Warnings: Offensive language, graphic violence & death

Masterlist | Fandoms | Submit A Request

[gif does not belong to me]

By noon you guys managed to get out, finding yourselves stuck on the highway in a horrible traffic jam. You couldn’t have moved more than a mile in the first hour that you were stuck before it eventually stopped moving at all. You got out and switched seats with Liam so that he was in the back again. You held Shane’s hand as he checked through the radio stations. After fifteen minutes without moving, at 1:15, he decided to just shut the car off to conserve gas. Nobody was moving anytime soon, although you had no idea what was going on up ahead.

You saw people starting to get out of their cars up ahead, some pulling out foldable chairs, some going up ahead, presumably to see what was holding everything up. There wasn’t much on the radios - no music, only one news broadcaster from some town outside of Atlanta... It was all baffling. Where was the military? Was this happening all across the country?

“This is ridiculous,” You mutter under your breath as you watch people. There’s a lot of loud beeping somewhere behind you - as if that’ll help anything. “Where are we going?” You lean over the center console to ask Shane, keeping your voice low so that the children don’t hear.

“Refugee Center,” Shane responds, rubbing a hand over his chin as he continues scrolling through channels. He glances over at you for a moment, doing a double-take when he spots the look on your face. He lifts his hand from the radio and places it over your’s, giving it a squeeze. “Hey, hey. We’re gonna be okay.” He mutters, leaning in closer to you and looking into your eyes. You don’t see a shadow of doubt in his expression, as if what he was saying was a fact.

You nod your head at your husband and blink away the tears threatening to fall before your children can see them. You look up and spot an older woman with a young girl and a man - probably a family - getting out of their car in front of yours. “Maybe somebody else knows what’s going on?” You suggest, eager to get more information.

“Doubt it,” Shane responds, but unbuckles his belt and opens his door to get out anyway. You follow his lead and step out, the sun beating down on your skin. You open the backseat door and help Liam get out so that you can let Lori and Carl out to stretch. “Stay against our car.” You instruct Liam as you pull back his seat, offering your hand to Carl. The two of them stretch and look around as you push the seat back into place and lean over to check on Annie. “Mommy I’m bored.” She complains, wiggling in her car seat.

A sigh escapes your lips as you realize that the kids are going to be restless for however long this lasts.

“I’m hungry,” Sam mutters from his spot beside his sister. You see the expression on his face and your heart sinks. Your middle child tended to be shyer and reserved than his other siblings, typically keeping his thoughts to himself and trying to put on a brave face - despite being emotional. You were very protective of all of your children, but sometimes Sam more than the other two. “Let me see what I can do, hun.” You respond. “C’mon, let’s get out and stretch. Don’t know how much longer we’ll be in the car.” You say as you start to unbuckle Annie from her car seat. You spot Shane standing in the front of your car, a hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked around.

You help your daughter out of the car and watch Sam as he gets out on his side, immediately walking around to join you on your side. You leave the door open and walk around to the trunk, digging around for one of the bags of food you packed. You made sure to mostly grab canned goods and stuff that didn’t need to be cooked - but it wasn’t going to be pleasant. You continued digging around, seeing Lori approach Shane in the corner of your eye. Annie walks around to join you and peeks up into the trunk. “Can I have Bubby?” She asks, referring to her favorite stuffed bear.

Panic sets in as you question whether you remembered to pack her favorite doll. As meaningless as it was, she could not sleep without him under any circumstances. If you did not have that doll, you were about to be in serious trouble.

“I gotta look for him, hun. There’s a lot of stuff back here.” You respond, handing her a chocolate Rice Krispy Treat. You grab the entire box full, which was only a twelve-pack, and shut the trunk behind yourself. “C’mon.” You mutter, putting your free hand on her back guiding her back to the side of the car. You glance ahead when you spot Shane walking around to this side of the car. “Here guys,” You mutter as you hand each of the children a Rice Krispy.

“Is there plain?” Liam asks when you hand him a chocolate one. You hold in the tired sigh that wants to escape, taking the chocolate back and handing him the plain. You know that they’re just being children - you’re just stressed. “Carl, what kind do you want?” You ask, offering him to look inside the box. He pulls out one and gives you a half-smile. You feel horrible for him. He just lost his father and his home in one day. Who knows when you’ll be able to go back... “Lori? Rice Krispy?” You offer when she joins the rest of you on this side. She shakes her head and crosses her bare arms, looking around.

You feel your stomach growl but decide not to eat one. There isn’t much food and you don’t know how much you’re going to need - better to save it for the kids. “See anything?” You ask Shane when he follows you back to the trunk where you put the box away, half-heartedly searching for Bubby.

“Just a sea of cars. We gotta get off the road.” He responds with a low tone, leaning his tall figure over you as he speaks with his back to the others. You nod at him and let out a sigh of relief when you spot your daughter’s toy. “Thank God.” You mutter, spotting the sad smile on Shane’s face when he sees what you found.

“Would’ve had a mess on our hands if we forgot that.” He jokes, throwing his arm over your shoulder as you go back to rejoin the kids again.

The night drug on slowly, everyone becoming restless very quickly. You had resorted to trying to talk to people in cars neighboring you, looking for answers or even just conversation. You made conversation with the older woman from the car in front of yours and to the left. Her name was Carol, and she had a daughter Liam and Carl’s age named Sophia. Her husband wasn’t very friendly, keeping to himself as he smoked a cigarette. The sun had begun to set and you still had not moved from the same spot you had been in hours ago.

The kids were bored out of their minds and honestly you were too. Lori stood over at Carol’s car while Carl and Sophia played checkers in her trunk, and Shane sat in your driver’s seat going through the radio stations again. Annie was laying in the backseat pretending to put on a show with her doll while Sam and Liam sat on the hood of the car trying to look at constellations in the sky. You leaned on the open driver door and studied Shane as he continued. “Anything?” You ask. He shakes his head, running a hand through his black locks, slumping back into the seat.

“There’s nothin,” He mutters, meeting your eye for a moment before looking up ahead. You hear loud helicopters flying overhead, making you look up to try to spot them momentarily before drawing your attention back to him.

“Not surprising.” You mumble, standing up from where you leaned on the door. Shane shuts off the radio and gets out of the car.

“No, I mean there’s, there’s nothin... Emergency broadcasts system stopped - the recording bout the refugee center...” He grumbles as he shuts the door behind himself. “It’s all gone.” He starts walking ahead for a moment before turning around to face you. “Ima go up the road, see what I can see.” He says, tugging at his belt for a moment as he glances over at his boys.

“I’ll come with you.” You say, making your way over to Lori at Carol’s car. “Would you mind keeping an eye on them for a minute?” You ask her, looking between herself and Carol. They both nod at you, Lori walking back over to your car with you, only a few feet away from where Carl sat. You tap Liam on the shoulder to get his attention and both the boys look at you. “Dad and I are gonna look ahead a little bit and see if we can figure out what’s going on.” You inform them, running a hand through Sam’s messy hair.

“I wanna come with you,” Liam asks, moving to get off the hood but you shake your head.

“Uh uh, Lori’s gonna stay with you guys. We’ll only be a minute.” You start.

“We’ll be back before you know it, okay man. Hm?” Shane says, giving Liam an affection tap on the shoulder before starting up the road, you following after - before turning to shout over your shoulder. “Keep an eye on your sister!”

You follow Shane down the crowded road, blocking out all of the talking that was muffling together from all the people. More helicopters fly overhead, not very high above given how loud they are. “Why would they stop broadcasting about the refugee center?” You ask as you walk briskly behind him, letting Shane lead the way down the road through the tightly compacted cars.

“I’on know.”

“You think they’re turning people away?”

“They’re gonna have a riot on their hands if they try.” He responds, glancing around your surroundings. A loud bang sounds somewhere in the distance, possibly an explosion, startling you as you follow him. You hear some people start hollering and a fight break out off to the side somewhere. Shane grabs your arm and keeps you against his side as he guides you ahead. “What do we do?” You ask, panic setting back in.

“We’re gonna get the hell outta here.” He mutters. More helicopters sound overhead as they fly by, stopping you guys in your spot as you watch where they go. The commotion around you is growing as people start getting more anxious. You hear more bangs in the distance, similarly sounding to thunder. “That’s not lightning...” You mutter as you see light over the trees in the distance.

“You stay with me now, c’mon.” He mutters, starting to jog ahead to see where the helicopters are going. He leads you into the woods, a handful of people gathered by trees as they watch the city down below. The helicopters grow louder and you spot them flying in a line straight for the city - clearly military. You can barely see them in the darkness, only their lights helping you watch them. The city is pitch dark, with no street lights or anything - an abandoned atmosphere.

Shane gives you his hand to help you down a steep part and you stand beside him, your heart dropping when you hear bangs erupt. The city starts lighting up on fire as the helicopters bomb the streets of your home. “They’re dropping napalm in the streets...” Shane mutters as he lifts his hands above his head, stunned. The military would never do that unless it was last resort to contain something...

“Shane...” You mumble, your vision blurred by tears as you watch your home become engulfed in flames. You were just there hours ago... What if you hadn’t left? There are probably still people there... Like Rick... They just bombed a city without evacuating it...

Shane grabs you, enveloping you into his arms and shielding your face in his chest. You sob into his chest as the sounds of the bombs dropping and people screaming echo around you. He rests his chin on the top of your head as he cradles you, watching in horror as the city lights up.

---

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[universe-n-3276]

Carrying the Moon

Chapter 10

Notes: There is a little soft smut part at the beginning, but you can skip it. Also I wanted to thank you for all the suggestions I got for this chapter. They really helped my creative process. Thank you @cleocc who came up with the idea behind this. Lastly I wanted to tell you that all the love I’m getting from you guys is really making my days. I’m so grateful!

It was Sunday, the last day of the best weekend Robbe and Sander had spent in months. It was strange how those months apart had appeared so long to both of them, but now that they were together again, it seemed like not a day had passed. They hadn’t forgotten each other’s habits. How they liked to sleep, how much sugar they wanted in their coffee, who was the big spoon, who’s the little.

After putting Hero to sleep, they decided to take a bath, together, of course, because since their reunion on Friday night, they hadn’t been able to stay away from one another, not even for a few seconds. So, while Sander finished washing the dishes in the kitchen, Robbe started to run a bath. He filled the bathtub and made sure to put enough soap to form some bubbles. He took off his clothes and was about to slip into the water, when Sander walked in the bathroom and hugged him from behind, pressing his lips to his neck, making him shiver.

“Hi."

Robbe smiled, enjoying that soft contact. He tilted his head a little, and Sander took it as an invitation to continue what he had just started.

"Are you happy to see me or is there something in your pocket?"

Sander stifled a laugh against his boyfriend's skin.

"I don't have pockets."

They made love there, in the bathroom. Robbe was slightly bent forward while holding the sink with his hands. The sounds he was making, Sander thought he had never heard anything more beautiful, more arousing. They were his favorite thing in the world.

After that, they both got into the tub. Sander was sitting between Robbe's legs. His head resting on his boyfriend's shoulder, eyes closed, while Robbe played with his hair, kissing his face sweetly and delicately, in total contrast to what had happened a few minutes earlier. It was beautiful, comforting, familiar.

"How long it will take for him to start to see me as his parent?"

"I don't think he knows what a parent is."

"But he knows you are his papa."

"Because everyone keeps referring me as “papa” in front of him."

"Hmhm."

Sander knew Robbe would have started asking questions like that eventually, and he felt guilty for denying him his relationship with Hero for so long, but he was also sure that ultimately, those eight months, for Hero, had been meaningless, in the bigger picture.

"Look, I haven't read books about babies, but in my experience, I think he feels safer with me because I'm the one who spends more time with him. But I swear, I’ll do everything I can to make him feel safe with you as well. At that point, he will see you as his dad."

"So you're papa and I'm dad?"

“Yeah, of course. Come here."

He turned his face and pressed his lips to his boyfriend's, slipping a hand through his hair and cupping his head, to make him come closer. They kept going like that, kissing languidly for a while. Neither of them had yet made the slightest attempt to grab soap or shampoo to wash themselves, and the water was now starting to get cold.

"I have to go back to my flatshare tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Because I live there and I can’t go to classes wearing your clothes."

"I thought you wanted to do this parenting thing with me."

"I do."

"So stay. Move in with me here."

There were still so many things to discuss, and they both knew it, but they had made sure to put all the talks aside and take that weekend just to heal their relationship and love each other, without a single worry in their mind.

"And your mom?"

“My mom lives with her boyfriend and comes here when I need some help with Hero. It will be only the two of us and our little one, of course. Please say yes. There’s no rent to pay and my parents take care of the financial stuff since they didn’t want me to leave uni to look after the baby."

Sander knew how to make something sound good, but that proposal would have been tempting even if it was just him and Hero on the plate.

"I want to say yes."

"Look, baby, it won’t be easy as it was before, because dealing with Hero can be stressful, but I promise I will take care of him when you have to study, or you just don’t wanna him around. And there’s a spare room if you need your space. "

“I would never let you take care of him alone. We're in thins together now. Remember? "

“Yeah, I do. So is that a yes? "

"Yes."

Robbe managed to make his way into Hero and Sander's routine. It wasn't always easy, sometimes Hero would cry in the middle of the night when Robbe had to wake up early for a class in the morning. When he had to study for an exam, he felt guilty leaving Sander to take care of the baby alone, but, at the end of the day, the happiness he was feeling, outweighed those moments of despair. He started to think how stupid he had been, for letting all those months pass, before coming back to the love of his life and their son.

For once, Robbe didn't feel guilty about accepting the help of Sander's parents, and whenever he could call a babysitter for Hero, he felt very lucky.

Growing fond of Hero hadn't been difficult. After the first few days together, the joyful, warm, and radiant manners of the baby had managed to break through Robbe’s heart, who often found himself wishing he could be with his baby, when he had to be the whole day at university instead. He couldn't wait to go home and spend time together.

The chemistry with Sander came back automatically. From the first moment, it was like picking up exactly where they left off. Sander knew exactly how to read Robbe and it was mutual. It was like sharing emotions and thoughts. Robbe felt the need to give all of himself for their relationship and promised himself never to take the other for granted. Not after realizing how precious the way Sander loved him was.

It had been over a month since Robbe had moved in with Sander, and they had started their life together again. By now, he knew Hero, and that morning there was something wrong with him. He had lost the happiness that distinguished him, he was nervous and whiny.

"He doesn't want to eat, I even tried to give him a bottle of formula but he pushed that away too."

The two boys looked into each other's eyes, both were very worried. Sander took Hero from Robbe's arms and placed his cheek against his forehead.

“I think he has a fever. Can you take the baby thermometer?"

They took Hero's temperature and when they found out that it was indeed way above the norm, Sander started to panic.

“We should have known sooner. We have to take him to the hospital right away."

“Baby, calm down. I’ll call his doctor while you try to make him drink some water, okay?"

Sander took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to regain some of the rationality he had lost. Robbe knew that at times like that, he had to take the lead and give him a list of tasks to do so that he could focus on the present moment. He went into the kitchen, cuddling the baby, trying to carry out the instructions he had received from his boyfriend.

After a few minutes, Robbe joined them again and gently stroked Hero's back, who was leaning against Sander's chest, pouting with his eyes full of tears.

“The doctor said we should try to take him under the shower with one of us for at least 15 minutes. He said we should use lukewarm water, and added that he will probably cry and scream a lot."

"Shoot. Is that the only option?"

"Not really. We could give him paracetamol, but the doctor said we should try the shower first since he's so little."

Robbe kissed Sander's cheek and rested his forehead on his shoulder, wrapping his arms around his waist.

"It's gonna be fine, Sander."

"I hate this situation. I just want him to feel better."

“I know, baby. I’ll shower with him if it’s too much for you."

"No, I think he’d feel safer with me."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same."

"Okay, let's do it."

As the doctor told them, Hero started to scream as soon as he felt the first drops of water roll down on him. Sander kept his shirt on and Hero had his little romper on as well because Sander feared he would otherwise slip out of his hands. The child was crying, screaming, and struggling, so much more than the two boys had expected. It seemed they were torturing him, but they both knew that the hospital would be even more traumatic. Sander and Hero both looked in pain, and the baby kept trying to reach for Robbe every minute. When his boyfriend bowed his head, Robbe knew he was close to the tears.

"Baby, don't cry, it's for his best."

"I know but seeing him in this way just breaks my heart."

"Two more minutes and it’s over, c’mon."

He wanted to get in the shower and hug them both but they had a plan and according to it, he couldn’t get wet.

When the timer they set up warned them that the time was finally up, Robbe grabbed a big fluffy towel and took Hero from Sander’s arms, trying to comfort him, showering him with all the kisses.

Sander turned off the water and got rid of his soaked clothes, wrapping himself in his bathrobe.

"He's gonna hate me for the rest of his life."

"That’s not true, and you know it. At least now that he wants to stay with me, you can get some rest."

"Yeah, I definitely could use it."

Robbe took Hero into the nursery and kept cuddling him, whispering sweet words to him.

"You're such a brave boy. Let's dry you up and put on some clean pajamas, alright?"

The baby was so exhausted from screaming and crying so much in the shower, that he fell asleep while Robbe was dressing him. He sat down on the rocking chair that was in the nursery and kept holding him against his chest until Hero's breathing became more regular.

He did not know at what point he had fallen asleep, but when he reopened his eyes, the room was dark, and the only light in it, came from the small lightning bolt-shaped lamp that Sander had hung on the wall. He felt a hand caressing his cheek, realizing that his boyfriend was at his side and that he was whispering something.

"What?"

"I said hi, baby."

"Hi."

He smiled, and kissed Sander's lips, feeling so much calmer than before.

"I think he's better."

"Yeah, he woke up a couple of times, he took some milk with crumbled biscuits in it, and then fell asleep again."

"And his temperature?"

"It was back to normal so the shower worked."

"I'm so happy to hear it. Wanna switch?"

"No, that's okay. I love feeling him sleeping so peacefully on my chest."

"At least come to our bed, or you won't be able to stand up tomorrow."

Sander helped him to his feet and guided him to their room. Robbe felt so tired he barely understood what he was doing, so he was happy to be able to count on his boyfriend. Sander arranged some pillows so that Robbe could stay seated to keep Hero on his chest. Shortly after getting into the right position, he closed his eyes again and went back into a deep sleep.

When he regained consciousness, it was late morning, and the room was bathed in daylight again. He turned his face and saw his boyfriend's eyes staring at him, a stupid smile on his lips that didn't quite match the way he was feeling at that moment. Every inch of his skin hurt and his head was about to explode. He wondered if Hero had felt the same way.

"Good morning, beautiful."

"Hmm, I feel like shit."

"Ow. Let me just..."

Sander pressed his lips to his forehead, and Robbe fought the urge to push him away. When he was sick he just wanted to be left alone.

“Yeah. You're burning."

"Fuck. Everything hurts. Where's Hero? "

"He's in the other room with my mom, and he's great!"

"I'm happy to hear it. Now go away."

"Why? You're the worst patient."

"Shut up, you took a cold shower and I get a fever? I hate you."

He pulled the blanket over his head to hide and slid onto the mattress, curling up. Obviously, Sander didn’t let him go, in fact, he felt his boyfriend come closer and try to hug him as he could, leaving little kisses on the blanket.

"You're kissing my butt."

“You know I love it. And so do you!"

Robbe uncovered himself again, coming face to face with his boyfriend, giving him a death glare.

"I want to punch that stupid expression out off your face."

Sander laughed out loud and Robbe's head began to throb even more. He closed his eyes and remained silent, trying to calm down, when someone knocked on the door.

"Yes, come on in, mom."

Sander's mom walked into their room, holding Hero in her arms. He looked better, and Robbe was a little relieved. He had gotten sick, but at least it was worth it, and he would have done it again thousands of times, just to get the same outcome.

"Guys, guess who ate all his food?"

"Hi, Alice!"

"Hi, sweetheart!"

"Robbe’s a fever."

“Ow, no! Poor thing!"

Hero saw his dads and stretched out his little hands to reach them, but Alice kissed his cheek and smiled quietly.

"No, baby Hero, you can't go with them. Your daddy is sick."

"But I wanna hold him."

"You need some more rest, baby. Mom, can you help me make some soup for Robbe."

“Sure! Say nighty night to your daddy, Hero! "

Alice waved her hand to Robbe and Hero did the same. Sander gave his boyfriend a kiss on his forehead and the three of them left, so the boy was finally able to rest. Robbe closed his eyes, turning on his side. It was the first time that Hero got sick and there would be many more. When he saw the baby cry and suffer so much, he just wanted with all his heart to take his pain away and make him feel better. For the first time, perhaps, he understood what being a parent meant.

[previous] / [next]

[bladekindeyewear]

Bloggin’ thru new Homestuck^2 bonus, The Influencers part 2.  Kinda got my gears ground during part 1, but that largely wasn’t this sideplot’s fault, so I should still be able to enjoy it.

Reminder, bonus update blogging is always light on detail because I don’t wanna spoil all the paid content, but I’ll give the gist of my reactions and go into anything plot or character related that helps understand the main story, as well as giving you a real top-down view of “what happens” so you know what it’s about and whether or not to invest in looking yourself.  (And I don’t necessarily have to give you anything that isn’t main-plot-relevant.)

So where are they going to follow the main party?  They shouldn’t need to record the funeral I’d assume, because that already would have been televised (and awful for Jane’s PR)...  *click*

9/28/2020 - The Influencers, Part 2

TEACHER: Time’s a-ticking. TEACHER: The next plot point is yours to change, if you want it. Don’t you feel it calling to you?

Yeah, just hanging a lampshade on this whole parallel sideplot I guess.

> (==>)

Whatever it is, Imode feels it. A tiny string of relevance spooling out from their belly. They want to follow it.

That’s pretty Lighty and/or Seery.  I’ve used that terminology to describe the pull of Light and its “relevance” connotations even since the only fanfic I’ve ever written, back in 2011 during Homestuck’s run, and it’s obvious enough terminology that I think Rose later mentioned it somewhere like in the Epilogues.  Are these three kids perhaps going to get a fourth, and become their own session by the end of this like Harry, Vrissy, Tavros and Yiffy might?

They can’t stop picturing their friend, Harry Anderson, arrested or tortured or worse. They’re not sure what there is to be done to stop this chain of events, but they’re sure as shit gonna find out.

(”They” is almost certainly referring to Imode here, not all three, since Imode uses they/them.)

Alright, self-aggrandizing used for good.  Show off the sort of thing that Vriska could have accomplished if she actually used her talents for her team for once.  (Besides, like, the similar thing she did just recently by making a scene.)

> (==>)

Imode is the first to choose pursuing this path over bootlicking, and the others are sure to follow.

> (==>)

Yup, Avril and Silas follow.  (Had to be reminded of ALL of their names, it’s been months since their single named appearance.)

> (==>)

Crockercopters overhead but none taking note yet, just ominous setdressing

> (==>)

IMODE: lemme take a ⏱️ to 😮‍💨 before we figure out where to go next. AVRIL: wait don't you know? IMODE: Huh? AVRIL: we were following YOU this whole time.

Oh, that answers the first question I asked.  They have NO clue where they’re going.  Let’s see if they luck out and find the clock tower.

IMODE: You 👂 what he said about the next step 📞 to us, same as i did. Don't you feel it pulling at you?

Literal pull? Powers? Future player?  --All baseless speculation of course.

SILAS: Woah are you seein’ this.

Vriska’s probably putting on her very public display now.  (This is a bonus so I’m skipping lots of banter and arguing.)

> (==>)

Oh, they just saw John flying up to the clock tower in his outfit.  And catching sight of him fly is rare celebrity gossip stuff so of course it’d stand out to them, apparently.  (Only one of them is athletic apparently, the other two are groaning at the prospect of more running.)

> (==>)

Avril always enjoys running, but there’s something else thumping along to the rhythm of the thuds of his feet and beat of his heart. He’d thought Imode was nuts for feeling it just a minute prior, but now he’s realized he isn’t deadweight, that he hasn’t fucked up someone’s life irrevocably, and it pushes him faster and faster as he tears ass toward the belltower.

(Did we know Avril was he/him before this?  Probably but if so I forgot.)

Okay, since we’re getting glimpses into each of their headspaces narratively that BOTH have had some oblique aspect references, I have to at least OPERATE on a guessy assumption that there’s a sort of classpect-for-each-of-them thing going here.

I’ve quoted both those whole paragraphs here... so what do I see?  This is going to be a bit tougher because I don’t care as much to remember these characters...

Imode had some Lighty-or-Seery language, and then could not stop picturing bad things happening to Harry, wanting to avert that chain of events.  So something of a Seer or Mage would make sense.  But given how easily Lighty stuff and the Understanding classes (or at least what we think those are) can be conflated, Mage of Light seems a bit of a premature jump.  Heck, I’m only saying Mage because a Seer of Light already occupies a starring role, and because her first act on that feeling was to jump after it herself and tell the others:

IMODE: Stay here and 👢👅 your way into fame if that's what you really want. IMODE: I’m ✈️. Follow me if you’re not 🐔💩.

--leading by example rather than directing the others into battle.  Only half-caring if they followed, willing to pursue it herself if necessary.  So, potentially more “Active”.

As for Avril... the word “heart” is mentioned there, sure, but the full context is “there’s something else thumping along to the rhythm of the thuds of his feet and beat of his heart”.  I’m inclined to think that the rhythm/beat references, especially the even footsteps and heartbeats hitting like a metronome, might be more tied to Time?  But if so, I don’t see anything class-related.  (Could also be Blood, and him thinking of what he owes in the last sentences could be reinforcing that?  Big question marks for now.)

> (==>)

Door to the belltower’s locked.  The kids figure John’s forgotten that his son can’t fly.

AVRIL: this is it, this is the thing we can help with! #feelinit #vibes IMODE: OK I'm excited that you believe me now, but what are you gonna even do? IMODE: use your big all-star 💪 to break down the 🚪?

--so they think they can “resolve a missing plot point” by getting the way into the clock tower open?  Is this going to be a theme or running joke of the Influencers sideplot, showing plotholes resolved in bonus content like how we finally saw how Gamzee’s body was relocated last time?  When I was explicitly mad about that?  (This seems like a much smaller one though.)

Apparently in HS^2 proper they remarked that the door SHOULD be locked, but Vriska just opened it anyway and wasn’t surprised it was unlocked, which she would’ve ascribed to her luck -- how the universe just makes way for her.  (And we’re literally seeing HOW the “universe” “made way” for her this way, through these Influencer kids.  Even though Vriska could have broken down the door in a second and it’s practically meaningless.)

> (==>)

Avril just has the key!

AVRIL: so like my photoshoots are like, #modernfashion #myworkout #urbexp IMODE: Yea, your 📸 are why we’re all in this mess. We know. Get to it. AVRIL: fair. ok well this is the urban exploration part. AVRIL: a lot of the public infrastructure buildings in the kingdom have the same weird, shitty deadbolts on them. AVRIL: its like they were mass-produced for ease of access or something. AVRIL: none of the deep crockergov stuff, but a lot of the kingdom maintenance buildings. AVRIL: so once you swipe one key, you got access to it all. AVRIL: that’s how i get a lot of my hard-to-get shots #tradesecrets #tellnoone

Hhhmmmmm.  So what does this tell us about his potential role?  Getting places you’re not supposed to is associated with the Thief, Rogue, Bard, and sometimes Knight classes... as well as the Time/Space aspects, or the Void and Breath aspects.  A Thief or Rogue of Time could do the trick, and fit with the rhythm paragraph earlier... whereas Space doesn’t have the same rhythm associations even if it is “places” he’s getting into for these shots.  And photography, snapshots still in time, is something Dave was also explicitly into.  Plus, this exploit he’s showcasing is specifically for older buildings, playing into history/archaeology from an urban perspective.

So, Time is looking like a safer and safer bet for him.

> (==>)

lock click

> (==>)

long-hair swoop, cheer

SILAS: Yeah, I’m tickled a near-disproportionate amount by the unlockin’ of a door, so I’m inclined to believe you were onto somethin��.

Still no real hints about Silas, yet.

AVRIL: ok so. we did it, right? #missioncomplete AVRIL: feels a little anticlimactic #tbh IMODE: idk, I think so? whatever I was feeling doesn't seem so immediate anymore. IMODE: I wonder if-

Okay, that’s some near-confirmation that Imode was LITERALLY FEELING the plot or some such.  We’ll probably end the Influencers sidestory eventually with at least solid GUESSES blatantly obvious for their potential Hero Roles or the like.

> (==>)

Ah, Vriska and the kids are coming-- and we get the Silas paragraph(s)!  Silas is green-themed with green text, and a session with a Time player has a good chance of having a Space player too, so let’s see if...

Silas doesn’t know what being spotted by the other kids might mean, metaphysically or logistically or legally. She’s not particularly pressed by that sort of thing. But this is a day that’s come with more introspecting than she’s used to having to endure in a year, so she's ready to get moving before it becomes an issue.

As Harry Anderson, Vrissy, Vriska, and Tavros proceed to have this conversation, Silas pushes to catch up with Avril’s pace. She’s not sure where they’re headed, and has no clue what all this means for her. She knows the step she’s taken isn’t one she’ll be able to backtrack from, but she’ll figure that out tomorrow. For now, one foot in front of the other.

That...

I mean there’s a lot of talk of time-FRAMES, from a lazy perspective, but just-pushing-forward-in-the-here-and-now is reasonably Spacey? ...hm.  I was excited for the Silas paragraph(s) but I don’t see any immediately-apparent pattern meant for us to discern classpect info here.  Maybe a female Page example (since we could use one), propelled along by events without knowing what’s going on at first, too early in her journey to have taken more than her first step up the gradual incline of her long-term potential?

I really don’t know I guess.

Anyway, that’s the end of the bonus upd8!  See ya in a while.

[hockeytrashgoblin]

Just One Date? ~ Part 3

A/N: Hi yall! What’s that? uploading on part at like 3 am and then another the next day? Yes. Because I never sleep because I only get inspiration in the middle of the night or when I have something important to do. Anyway this one is super fluffy and cute because I’m still on my lonely cute shit. so enjoy lol because the next one is all smut oops

Planning a date good enough for a professional hockey player was harder than I anticipated. Everything I thought of sounded stupid. It didn’t help that the boys were not as helpful to me as they were to Alex. Apparently I was really easy to figure out what I could like and Alex was harder. Arguing that they’ve known him for a long time absolutely still did not help me so I just decided to go with something I had really wanted to do for a while that would be cool for pictures after. A fun crafty thing. Hopefully he’d find it fun.

Another thing I wasn’t anticipating was that Alex posted some of the pictures he took of me when we were riding horses on his instagram. The hate I was getting..my god. And the teasing from the boys was borderline unbearable. Another reason why they were not so helpful was that they just wanted to tease me about how happy I looked to be hanging out with Alex. I told them I was happy about the horse but they didn’t buy it. I told Alex to delete them so he wouldn’t have to look at so much negativity on his social media but he refused because he liked them.

“But Alex, those girls are so mad.”

“Yeah so? They couldn’t expect me to stay alone forever.”

“But,”

“Babe I’m not bothered.”

“They keep guessing and trying to piece shit together though.”

“Let them. I told you before, I like you. They were bound to all find out about you eventually.”

“It doesn’t bother you at all?”

“It bothers me that some are saying mean things about you but I don’t care at all about what they say about me. I deal with this shit every day so I don’t really care to be completely honest. It’s all just meaningless words that no one would ever say to your face (y/n).” 

“I guess so.”

“And if they do say it to your face rock their shit.” I could hear the smile through the phone and it was contagious.

“They wouldn’t even know what hit em.”

“They’d get destroyed before they even knew to be scared of you. Feisty little thing you are.”

It was a couple days since then and even sportsnet had covered the story. Which was ridiculous. What on earth did I have to do with the sport? Not a single thing but everyone was claiming I was just some dumb gold digger. It was annoying but I knew it wasn’t true. Alex was right that it was all just stupid but I still was determined to make sure that this date was good even though it would have to be more on the cheap side. I was standing in the middle of a Michael’s craft store when I pulled my phone out to call Alex.

“Hey babe.”

“Hi Tuchy.”

“You’re not calling to cancel are you?”

“What? No? Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, it’s just not like you to actually call me if you’re going to see me later.”

“Oh well I need to know what size you are.”

“My size in what?”

“Jean jacket and shirt.”

“Okay well I’d say large for both probably why do you ask?”

“Just wanted to know how fat you are.” I said putting the correct sizes in my cart.

“Rude.” he said, making me giggle and him laugh. “For real though why?”

“You’re just going to have to wait and see. Oh yeah! Wear either black clothes or old clothes you don’t care about wrecking.”

“What the fuck are we doing today?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“If you’re doing this to get back at me just know that it’s working and I am worried and slightly annoyed.”

“Good.” I said with a laugh. “I gotta go, I’ll see you in a couple hours yeah?”

“Yeah I should be there around 1.”

“Do you want food or will you eat before?”

“Do you have something planned for food?”

“No but I can plan if you want food here.”

“Don’t worry about it then. Shea is making some food, I’ll just take some of his before I come over. See you soon.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Bye beautiful.”

I hung up the phone and went over the the checkout, paying for all the things I needed. Once I was done with that I went to a grocery store to get some snacks as well as some healthier food. I was thinking of just asking him to stay over so I got stuff to make a healthy dinner for him too. Now I know what you’re thinking and no it wasn’t because I wanted to sleep with him. Even though I did. Don’t get that mixed up I definitely wanted to but not necessarily yet. I just really liked being cuddled up with him when there was nothing else we had to do. 

I made one more stop on the way home which was to the dollar store so I could get a few things that didn’t need to be quite so expensive. Once I had everything I went back to my place and started setting things up in the backyard. I lost track of time and it was only a few minutes until alex was supposed to get there and I still wasn’t changed. I ran into the house and put on a pair of baggy shorts that didn’t really fit me anymore with an old black shirt I used for hair dye. I was fighting to put my hair up in a ponytail that looked good when I heard the a knock on the door and just gave up. I highly doubted he was going to really care what my hair looked like and if he did then I don’t know I’d just punch him or something. Just kidding I would never punch Alex.

“Hi gorgeous.” he said when I opened the door. He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek before looking me up and down. “Looking cute.”

“Shut up.” I said blushing.

“Never.” he walked into the house and I locked the door behind us. 

I took the time to look at him. He was wearing black gym shorts and a plain black t-shirt. Simple but he looked really good. The shirt tight on his arms and his shorts really making his butt look good. I knew I was staring but I couldn’t help it. 

“If you took a picture it would last longer.” he said winking at me making me blush even more.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” he came over hugging me and giving me a soft kiss. “I don’t mind if you want to look.”

“You just look really good.” I said giving him another kiss.

“Thank you baby, I appreciate it.” We just stood there hugging for a minute before he spoke up again. “Okay so what are we doing today that had so many weird and vague instructions for me?”

“Come this way!” I said dragging him to the backyard.

“What’s all this?”

“We’re gonna tie dye some stuff! That’s why I needed to know what size you were, to get a shirt and jacket. I thought it would be a fun thing to do together.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be any good at it but it looks fun! I’ve never done it before.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be good at it either. I haven’t done it since I was like 10.” I said smiling at him. “I’m sorry it’s not big or fancy. I’ll have to save up money for that kind of stuff.”

“Don’t be sorry. I don’t mind having a lowkey date where we do something like this. Come on show me how to do this?”

“Okay so I set everything up already but I didn’t do the elastics because I didn’t know what kind of pattern you wanted or anything.”

“I think I’ll just go with the classic for my shirt. The swirly pattern.”

“Okay then come here.” I said kneeling on the ground in front of the shirts. He kneeled on the other side of it and held his shirt. “So what we’re gonna do for that is lay it down, pinch it in the middle and start twisting it like this. You do it though.”

“Just like this? What about the extra parts on the side?”

“Just tuck them in like this.”

“Now what?”

“Just put some elastic bands all over it to hold it together.”

“Why?”

“That’s the tie part babe. Plus it’ll keep little parts of the shirt white. So like if you did 4 elastics let’s say, there would probably be four white lines on the design.”

“Okay but what should I do?”

“Whatever you want Alex. That’s the fun of it.”

“If you say so.”

He started to put on elastics while I got to work on mine. I decided to do a crumple design and see if I could make that work. I scrunched up the shirt and then started putting elastics too. Alex was already done and I noticed him holding his phone up.

“Alex are you taking pictures again?”

“Maybe.” he said smiling which made me roll my eyes but smile too.

“You gonna post em?”

“Maaaybe.” he said smiling wider.

“Get back over here you ween it’s time to tie dye.” I said giving him finger guns, making him laugh. 

“I can’t believe I got that on a video. You’re hilarious, beautiful.”

“What colours are you gonna do?”

“I think for this one I’m going to do a bunch of the colours. Just throw them all on there and see what happens.”

“Yeah fair. Sounds cool.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’m planning on doing some yellow and purple I think on this one. Maybe add some green too if it needs it.”

“That sounds like it’s gonna be really neat babe.”

“Yeah I hope so.” I said, giving him a smile. 

We spent a while dyeing the shirts. Or at least I did. I spent more time because I wanted to make it perfect. Alex took more pictures which made me groan. I told him I looked like a mess and to not but he said I looked beautiful and to stop being negative so I did. Once we were done with the shirts we wrapped them in seran wrap and set them aside to dry before starting on the jean jackets. He decided to do his in a bullseye pattern but with multiple bullseyes and do it in black and blue. I took some pictures and videos of him doing it so he could have some of him as well. I decided to try and get fancy with mine, doing a stripe pattern on the sleeves in two tones of blue and then the middle as a spiral in orange and yellow. We put those in seran wrap too and started cleaning up the mess. It was almost 5 by the time we were done everything. My back patio was a little dyed but hopefully the rain would wash that out eventually.

“Do you want some food? I can make us something.”

“You don’t have to (y/n). Besides you probably don’t have the right stuff for me anyway.”

“Uh actually I do.” I said getting nervous.

“How come?”

“I asked the boys.”

“Why?”

“I was uh..um..I was going to ask you if you wanted to uh..stay over tonight maybe. If you wanted to. Maybe.” 

“I’d love to stay over cutiepie.” he said coming over and kissing the blush off my cheeks. “Thank you for thinking of me food-wise. A lot of people don’t.”

“I’m always thinking about you.” I said quickly before mentally smacking myself in the face. “I mean uh I guess I think about you sometimes. Like definitely only a normal amount and not all the time.”

“Wow so smooth.” he said after he got his laughing under control.

“To be honest half the time I can’t figure out why I open my mouth in the first place.”

“Hey, I think about you all the time too ya know.” he said bumping his knuckles against mine on the counter.

“Did you just basically fist bump me for thinking about you a lot?”

“I thought we were being cool about it. Being bros. Totally normal amount of thinking.” he said mocking me.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.” he said coming over and putting his hands on my waist. I instinctively put my arms around his neck.

“No I don’t.” I brought my lips to his in a lingering kiss. “So do you want food now or later?”

“I could eat now.”

“Okay then I’ll make something.” 

I started getting everything out to cook and it didn’t take super long but I was surprised that Alex stayed in the kitchen and talked to me while I cooked. I thought he would go watch tv or play on his phone or something but he just kept his undivided attention on me which was appreciated. 

Once everything was done we sat outside on the porch swing to eat since it was such a beautiful evening. When we were done he put our plates on the ground and pulled my legs over his. I laid my head on his shoulder and he wrapped one arm around me while the other stayed on my leg. I’d be hard pressed to tell you how long we just sat there for. It felt like forever but not long enough at the same time. It started to get dark and we were still sitting there together swinging gently, wrapped up in each other.

“I loved this.” he said, kissing my forehead.

“Did you for real? Like you’re not just saying that?”

“Of course for real. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be any good at the tie dye thing and it wasn’t going to be fun but I ended up having so much fun.”

“You’re not upset it wasn’t an expensive, leaving the house, kind of date?”

“Absolutely not. Just hanging out with you is super fun. I want to be around you, it doesn’t matter to me what we’re doing really.”

“Good, I’m glad. I just want to spend time with you too. I mean I know we hangout all the time between work and hanging out with all the boys but like just you and me I like.” I said rambling a little. “I really wanted this to be good but every idea I came up with just seemed really dumb compared to yours so I kind of just settled on something I’d been wanting to do for a long time and didn’t want to do alone. Kind of selfish but.”

“Well I thought it was great. I really enjoyed getting to spend time with you doing something you really like.” he gave me a really sincere smile that had me blushing like crazy. “Why are you so red babe?”

“I don’t know I’m just glad you didn’t hate it I guess.”

“I don’t think there’s anything you could do or drag me to that I wouldn’t have fun.”

“That’s such a lie come on.”

“I really just enjoy being with you, I don’t care what we’re doing.” 

We were quiet for a while, just sitting together cuddled up. Every so often I’d feel his lips somewhere on my body. My cheek, my forehead, my neck, my shoulder. Anywhere he could find available skin really. Just a nice, quiet reminder that he was there, keeping me grounded in the moment with him without letting my mind wander too far in on itself. It didn’t really stop me from thinking though. Mostly I just thought of how dumb I was to be so nervous as to deny myself this feeling I get with Alex. I was so afraid that he was lying to me that I missed out on this happiness for months.

I decided I was done wasting time and turned my head to kiss him. Hoping that what I couldn’t really make sense of outloud could be shown to him through the kiss. It started off as a nice, soft kiss but it got a little more intense than any of our previous ones had. I pulled his hair to try to get the point across to him that I wanted him to deepen the kiss and he got the message thankfully slipping his tongue into my mouth. It was a new sensation. Not kissing with tongue, but kissing Alex with tongue. I don’t know what about it was so different than anyone else but it felt so much better with him for some reason I couldn’t exactly pinpoint. He was the one to break the kiss, giving me a few small kisses after, before leaning his forehead against mine and letting out a breathless laugh. It was comforting to know he was as affected by this as I was.

“What was that for?” he asked quietly.

“I dunno. Just felt like it I guess.” I said shrugging and blushing. He chuckled and wrapped me in his arms tighter. We were quiet for a long time before he broke the silence again.

“Is a month in too soon to ask you to be my girlfriend?” he mumbled into my hair.

“Do you want me to be your girlfriend?” I asked sitting up more to look at him.

“Yeah. I want you to be mine.” he smiled lightly and brushed my hair back leaving his hand cupping the side of my face.

“Truth be told I’ve been yours for a long time Tuch.”

“Oh really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, grinning. “I knew you always liked me.”

“Well I wasn’t exactly secretive about it.” I rolled my eyes at him with a laugh.

“If it makes you feel any better I was in the same boat. I couldn’t look at people that way. I just wanted to be with you.”

“That does make me feel a little better.”

“What do you say gorgeous? Be mine? Like for real, officially mine?”

“Yeah I’d like that a lot.” I said smiling at the huge grin that broke across his face.

“Thank God.” he said surging forward to catch my lips again. It didn’t work well because I was laughing and he was smiling so big but it was sweet all the same.

[blarrghe]

I got tagged by @oediebees​, thanks, these are fun! and I’ll tag umm @lavellanhunter​ @serphena​ @midnightprelude​ if y’all feel like it

1. What is the color of your hairbrush?

curly hair don’t care (I don’t brush my hair I comb it in the shower sometimes...the comb is blue) 

2. A food you never eat?

Meat, dairy.... a bunch of things that hurt my tummy (except I eat them anyway oops)

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold?

I run pretty cold. Poor circulation lyfeeee

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Hangin with the bae learning about ancient history because we are nerds. 

5. What is your favorite candy bar?

like chocolate bar? I can’t eat chocolate and it makes me sad. I bought a vegan white chocolate bar at the health food store a while ago for like 5$ it was good but like. it was also five whole dollars. 

6. Have you ever been to a professional sporting event?

NHL game once. There was a fight on the ice and then in the stands XD

7. What was the last thing you said out loud?

“Love you, bee” yes we are very cute thank

8. What is your favorite ice cream?

Stop asking me about things I’m not allowed to eat waah. I bought vegan icecream and it made me sick also lol so literally just. let’s go with rainbow sherbert. (it used to be cookie dough ice cream stop doing this to me)

9. What was the last thing you had to drink?

Water

10. Do you like your wallet?

My best friend and I bought matching star wars wallets a couple years ago and we both still use them so yeah. it’s got the millennium falcon on it and it came with a keychain that I eventually gave to a kid at work.

11. What was the last thing you ate?

Leftover veggie stir fry with black beans! I made it yesterday and it was pretty good if I say so myself. 

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?

I haven’t bought any new clothes since like, October? 

13. The last sporting event you watched?

uhhhhhhhhh does walking by a soccer game in the park count

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

I make it with salt and nutritional yeast! and sometimes garlic too. Highly recommend. 

15. Who was the last person you sent a text message to?

Actual text? Coworker. 

16. Ever go camping?

As much as I can! Went every summer as a kid, and last summer went on a month long cross-country camping roadtrip. Probably won’t get to go again for a while though. 

17. Do you take vitamins?

I buy them and then forget does that count

18. Do you go to church every Sunday?

I can count on one hand the number of times I have gone to a church service. And if you discount funerals then I’m pretty sure it’s...2? (and if you wanna do the thing and make it synagogue then still only for the holidays and not in years and years) 

19. Do you have a tan?

Pretty sure I am actually incapable of having a tan. 

20. Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza?

I probably shouldn’t be eating either. Homemade pizza with flatbread and vegan cheese is pretty good tho. 

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw?

Not usually 

22. What color socks do you usually wear?

I just have a large collection of various cute patterened socks with like, cats and stuff on em. Current faves are the ones that make my feets look like sharks =]

23. Ever drive above the speed limit?

speed of traffic but also, I don’t have a car so. 

24. What terrifies you?

ummm the feeling you get when you’re stuck under water and think your gonna drown isn’t very fun. 

25. Look to your left what do you see?

pillows, cart thing with books on it, closet. 

26. What chore do you hate?

changing the cat litter kinda sucks 

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent?

Uh. Australia, I guess? 

28. What is your favorite soda?

I’m a big fan of buying random overpriced weird flavoured drinks so probably like, the blue jones soda or something. But realistically, cream soda and gingerale. 

29. Do you go into a fast food place or just hit the drive through?

I don’t have a car so. I also don’t get fast food much tho. 

30. Who was the last person you talked to?

The boy!

31. Favorite cut of beef?

Literally no idea haven’t eaten it in over ten years 

32. Last song you listened to?

Currently listening to “If The World Was Ending” by Gracie and Rachel, I don’t even know if I like it yet it just came on my spotify release radar thing. 

...

yeah it’s aight. 

33. Last book you read?

Last book I finished was the Silmarillion. Currently working my way through Jewel’s autobiography, some book on mindfulness, and Unfinished Tales. 

34. Favorite day of the week?

Honestly I’m a big fan of Sundays. They’re my bread day.

35. Can you say the alphabet backwards?

Probably. Let’s not find out. 

36. How do you like your coffee?

Cappuccinos are my fave but usually just strong with oatmilk and a little sugar. 

37. Favorite pair of shoes?

The knee-high boots I have that lace up the back, especially since I got undue flak for em once and the spite makes it better. 

38. At what time do you usually go to bed?

Time is meaningless.

39. At what time do you normally get up?

See above. 

40. What do you prefer - sunrises or sunsets?

Both are nice!

41. How many blankets are on your bed?

Currently just two small soft throw blankets because it’s been hot af. One is a spiderweb one I bought in the halloween section and the other is star wars lmao. 

42. Describe your kitchen plates?

Like, four matching ones that we never use, two matching ones of a different pattern, one random blue one, and a bunch of takeout container things I reuse. 

43. Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage?

Nah depends on the mood. Wine is good, ciders are good, some beers are good, and I used to bartend so making fancy cocktails is also sometimes good. 

44. Do you play cards?

Only when camping and it rains. 

45. Can you change a tire?

On my bike sure. Someone taught me how to change a car tire once but I wouldn’t test it. 

46. What is your favorite province?

Probably British Columbia.

47. Favorite job you ever had?

The one I have now! Teaching/counselling at an elementary/jr. high school :) 

48. How did you get your biggest scar?

Don’t really have any big scars. I do have a small one on my face from a kid at my old job. 

49. What did you do today that made someone happy?

Had some quality hangs earlier, watched a movie, cuddled, etc. 

[exildesanges]

Picture Me Perfect

Prompt: one year with Jooheon and Changkyun through Jooheon's Instagram.

i had this idea when i saw an jookyun edit on instagram and i HAD to.. it took me a whole day and night to make all these edits so i hope y'all gonna enjoy this shitty idea,,,

(i literally made an instagram account for this, yes @joohtography exist)

✧･ﾟ: * january ✧･ﾟ: *

“Hyung, you bought new lenses?” Changkyun asked, watching his boyfriend struggle finding a nice angle for his selfie from the bed he was currently lying on.

Jooheon turned his head. A smirk clearly visible on his lips.

“Yeah do you like them?” Jooheon replied, his arm still in the air, selfie ready.

“You look really good” the younger whispered, his face in the blanket he’s hugging.

“Your fingers are tiny,” Jooheon commented, his hand covering Changkyun’s one.

“Shut up,” a blush creeped on the younger’s face, his gaze not leaving their hands.

Jooheon insisted for him and Changkyun to have matching rings, it wasn’t engagement rings, not yet, it was more like promise rings. Changkyun wasn’t against it, frankly he found it cute.

He would never admit it but he actually loved wearing matching outfits or accessories with Jooheon. It’s cheesy yes, but he couldn’t help the tiny butterflies in his stomach when they’re wearing matching stuff.

✧･ﾟ: * february ✧･ﾟ: *

“For the love of god Kyunnie stop moving,” Jooheon sighed, camera in his hands desperately trying to take a good picture of his robe wearing boyfriend.

“Yah, i’ve been posing for thirty minutes, it’s not my fault you can’t take good pictures,” the younger teased, sticking his tongue out like the child that he is.

“If you stop moving so much, i’ll promise we’ll cuddle afterwards, but first, smile for me,” Jooheon laughed while pinching Changkyun’s cheeks.

“Let me drink my beer in peace Honey,” Changkyun complained, his almost empty drink in his hand. He didn’t actually mind Jooheon tendency to take pictures of him almost everytime he did something, no, he found it adorable how Jooheon’s brows would furrow in concentration when he needed to find the perfect angle and lightening for his random picture he was taking at the moment.

“Maybe you should stop looking this cute then, i think my camera is attracted to you, it can’t stop taking pictures of you,” Jooheon teased while taking his fiftieth picture, god knows how many pictures he took but the younger guess, a lot.

Changkyun groaned, beer still in his hands, he pulled his hoodie up to cover his face but that didn’t stop Jooheon, nothing stops him really.

✧･ﾟ: * march ✧･ﾟ: *

“Wait wait, the lighting is so good let me pull out my camera don’t move Kyunnie!” Jooheon exclaimed, rushing to get up from the floor to get his camera. He came back shortly after retrieving it from their bedroom.

“How should I pose? You know I’m not good at that,” the younger mumbled timidly, still not used to being Jooheon’s model, he didn’t find himself that appealing, sure he was cute but he wasn’t at a Hyungwon level of breathtaking beauty. Even if people told him he was hot, he still felt like they were joking so i didn’t take them seriously, eventually, he began to take these compliments seriously especially coming from Jooheon. The older made him feel good about being himself, that’s part of the things that made Changkyun fall head over heels for him.

“Just stay natural, don’t move your head,” he quickly snapped some pictures, complimenting Changkyun at the same time because damn, he looked so good.

It’s been awhile since Jooheon touched his polaroid camera, he usually used his digital camera because it was quicker and easier but he won’t lie, he love the feeling of taking a picture and seeing it being “printed” immediately, he also enjoy the aesthetic of it, he never knew how the pictures are going to end up looking like but if was an exciting feeling.

He recently bought new film for his camera and coincidentally, his friends showed up at his and Changkyun’s house the same day. An idea sparked in his head almost immediately so he took his camera in hand and began taking pictures of his friends, they all posed for him without asking questions, they were used to it.

Some of the pictures ended up blurry and others too dark but he was content in the end, they all had a wonderful night were they laughed, took hundred pictures and watched some movies. He felt warm inside, a genuine smile plastered on his face. He loved them so much.

✧･ﾟ: * april ✧･ﾟ: *

One thing Jooheon loved more than anything was when Changkyun had his messy hair, no makeup apart from some concealer on his face, when his skin glowed and had that nice caramel like colour, lips pink without lip tint. 

Changkyun looked so small and innocent it always made the older’s heart beat rapidly in his chest, sure Changkyun looked always pretty, but he was breathtaking like this. The younger’s jacket was literally eating him, it was too big for him, his hands were hidden by the long sleeves of the black jacket.

Jooheon was literally melting in front of his adorable boyfriend. He was so whipped that if Changkyun looked at him and told him to go rob a bank, his stupid self would run to the nearest bank.

Changkyun was clingy, that’s a fact, he liked long and warm hugs, forehead and kisses on the cheeks, he love being a little spoon and feeling Jooheon’s arms wrapped around him while they were having small discussion on their bed. 

The younger really loved skinship and his friends knows it so they let him sit on their laps or let him jump on their back so he could hug them tightly. One thing he loved the most was when he could sit on his boyfriend’s lap and feel his arms sneaking around his waist. He let himself relax and wrapped his arms around Jooheon’s shoulders to take his face in his hands.

“Ew, people being in love,” Minhyuk fake gagged, smiling at them, he pulled out his phone to take a picture. They looked cute, he’s not going to lie.

  ✧･ﾟ: * may ✧･ﾟ: *

Okay, Jooheon didn’t really hate Hyungwon but right now he sent him deadly glares from the chair he was seated on in the crappy coffee shop they were currently in because apparently Hyungwon would die if he didn’t have his iced americano right now. Sipping his hot chocolate, he took his phone to snap some pictures of his friend, he wasn’t really mad at him of course, he isn’t the type to be mad for little things like this, his friend knows it, no hard feelings.

“Now! Throw the glitters!,” Jooheon exclaimed, finger on the shutter button ready to snap the perfect picture. They’ve been trying for one hour straight to take this damn picture but luck wasn’t with them, the wind was messing with Changkyun’s hair and the glitter.

Finally after some struggle they managed to take a good picture that Jooheon immediately posted on Instagram. Changkyun looked too good not to share with people.

✧･ﾟ: * june ✧･ﾟ: *

Minhyuk was certainly his favourite model, his features were sharp and defined. He looked ethereal and it was always a blessing to take pictures of him giving that Minhyuk knew what he did and didn’t need help posing, he was a natural and that showed when they looked back at the pictures he took that day. 

He needed to clean up their appartement and to sort out the knick-knacks he kept in three big boxes inside their closet, they needed space and Jooheon had to much things he didn’t used anymore. So cleaning was a good idea.

He was rummaging in the second box when he spotted a little photo album of old polaroids he kept through the times. He carefully picked up and opened it, turning the pages when he found a picture of him and Changkyun when they were still freshly together.

He obviously kept it to show it to his boyfriend and took a quick picture to post it.

✧･ﾟ: * july ✧･ﾟ: *

Jooheon was whipped, literally.

“Hyung! Hyung! Look at this cat he’s so cute! Or she? I don’t know. I want to pet it, he’s looking at me oh my god look at him! Do you think he belongs to someone? Can we take it home? Hyung?” Changkyun chirped rapidly, he lowered himself to pet the stray cat, cooing when the tiny cat head-butted his hand signaling him to continue scratching his head.

Jooheon was watching the scene in front of him fondly, a warm smile present on his face, damn he was really in love.

“You still didn’t found a boyfriend? You want help? I know some frie-,” 

“Stop, I don’t need a boyfriend Jooheon,” Kihyun sighed at Jooheon antics, passing his hand in his fade purple hair.

“Suuuure, that’s not what you’re gonna say when you’ll see Hyunwoo tho,”

“Who? Is he.. is he cute?” he timidly asked, okay, maybe he needed a boyfriend but don’t tell Jooheon that he’s right.

“Oh boy, cute is meaningless when you talk about him, that man is breathtaking, and his the sweetest person you’ll ever encounter, he might look all big and cold but he’s just a big teddy bear ready to give love to anyone. Maybe I should post a picture of you on my account so he can see it? I know you won’t talk to him first so why not?” Jooheon suggested happily, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea and honestly he could see Kihyun and Hyunwoo together. 

“Yeah whatever,” the older mumbled, posing quickly with peace signs.

✧･ﾟ: * august ✧･ﾟ: *

“Seriously, you didn’t find better for the caption?” 

“No, it’s cute, like you Kyunnie,” he blew a kiss at Changkyun who mumbled something he didn’t really catch but his boyfriend’s rosy cheeks were enough for him to understand that he actually liked the caption.

His head outside of the window, he watched quietly the birds flying and the sky, he liked when it was calm even if he had an out-going personality. He took a picture that he immediately sent to Changkyun with a little “wish u were here, do u finish soon? i miss u” message.

✧･ﾟ: * september ✧･ﾟ: *

They were outside doing some shopping, it wasn’t really cold, the weather was actually nice. Changkyun had a white mask covering his mouth and he still looked beautiful.

Without him knowing he quickly took a picture like a paparazzi, sure the picture wasn’t the best and well centered but it still showed Changkyun’s beauty, that would do.

Late night rides and dates were a common thing between them, they loved it, it was their thing. So obviously when Jooheon proposed to go out buy some food and ice creams in the nearest convenience store, Changkyun didn’t say no. Who would say no to food and a night outside with your boyfriend?

✧･ﾟ: * october ✧･ﾟ: *

“Can I do your makeup today?”

“Sure, go ahead but I want to paint your nails after, I bought a new black nail polish, yours was too old,” he said calmly, putting a headband on his head to block his bangs.

Changkyun let out a happy noise and rushed to find his makeup bag, Jooheon closed his eyes and let him work his magic while telling him about the previous photoshoot he had.

“This is so stupid hyung look at them they can’t walk properly!”

“Leave my kids alone they look adorable you’re just jealous that they’re more stylish than you are,” he teased while playing with his cats.

“Not true..,” Changkyun pouted, crossing his arms on his chest like a kid.

✧･ﾟ: * november ✧･ﾟ: *

“You kinda look alike, it’s funny you are twins, wait let me take a picture,” Hyunwoo said before taking a pretty good picture of his friend in front of him.

Jooheon was happy, he finally got the chance to take awesome photos of his friends, he wanted to do this shoot for awhile now. He was content with the result and his friends were too so it’s kinda like he won a big prize. 

“Can’t wait to show this to Kyun,”

✧･ﾟ: * december ✧･ﾟ: *

They finally finished to decorate the Christmas tree, Changkyun was ecstatic with the final result, they took an entire day because they couldn’t stop bickering playfully. Some fake snow fight after, they finished and took a look at their creation. They were pretty pleased with what they ended up with, they quickly cleaned up the mess on the floor and lighted up some candles, Jooheon took a pretty picture, obviously.

They ended up drinking hot chocolate and cuddling under a soft blanket on their couch.

Jooheon was happy, he felt a warm sensation in his chest looking at all of his friends currently sprawled on his tiny couch, he couldn’t help the smile on his face. He’s lucky, he know that, to be surrounded by all of these people. 

“Honey? Come sit too!,” his boyfriend exclaimed, patting the seat next to him with a toothy smile on his face, god Jooheon loved his smile. He felt his heart skip a beat and nodded, walking towards Changkyun to sit next to him, taking his hand in his and giving him a little kiss on his cheeks.

His head in the crook of the younger’s neck, he realised that he wouldn’t change his life for anything.

[riderofthewind]

So I just finished reading Mortal Engines

And I needed to rant a bit about differences between the book and movie and why they were poor choices. I’m going to try and avoid generic ‘It’s different so it’s bad’ arguments because those suck, good movie adaptations of books that don’t massively diverge from the book itself are rare, it’s an essential part of making something great in most cases but in this case...oh god maybe they should have just done a shot for shot copy of the book.

This is gonna be a long one, but please join me on this nitpicky angry journey (and let me know the shit you liked/hated about the movie.)

OH GOD THIS MOVIE WAS SO TERRIBLE BUT THIS BOOK IS RATHER GOOD.

Warning: This will be nitpicky but I just...need to.

I'm a firm believer that a movie adaptation does not need to be faithful to the book it is based on to be a great movie. I love The Shining (I actually like the movie a lot more than the book but that's a rant for another day) however Mortal Engines manages to fail both at being a good movie and a good adaptation.

THE BEGINNING

The first like 30 minutes of the movie are almost shot for shot from the intro of the book and it's genuinely very good in both instances. London eats a small town, Hester boards, she tries to stab Valentine (in the movie she succeeds but he's fine. It's a change that I don't really understand because it doesn't actually change anything) and is chased off of London by Tom who is booted off by Valentine to cover his tracks. Tom and Hester group up because Hester is injured, they get picked up by another town who pretend to be nice and then are going to be sold as slaves.

I'm not going to go shot for shot through the changes the movie makes from the book because that'd be pointless. But I specifically wanted to recap this intro section because it's so close to the book and because where it diverges is mostly meaningless (and awful product placement.) However the part where it splits from the book is not just signposted, the script writer literally wrote into the script criticism of the book at this point in the movie. In the book, Hester and Tom remove a floor plating from their room and jump out, escaping before being sold as slaves. In the movie, they attempt this but Hester is too injured to make the jump out of the room and instead they are rescued by Anna Fang moments later. This makes sense and is a change that on the face of it I kinda like because yeah, it makes sense. Hester could barely walk at that point how did she make that jump? But the script in the film is so fucking bad that Hester may as well at this point go "I can't make the jump, i'm too injured" then turn to the camera and wink.

After this point the movie diverges in a lot of ways from the book, although it still follows mostly the same plot it just cuts out a bunch of stuff and ruins every single character then turns into Star Wars at the end because reasons.

SO

WHY THE MOVIE SUCKS

Okay, i'm going to get really nitpicky about specific changes that were for the worse that helped ruin this movie but to start with let me just summary and say. The movie sucks primarily because it's written terribly. Almost every character is reduced to shitty one liners after the intro, worst of all being Anna Fang, Valentine is reduced into generic villain, but even the characters who are similar to their book versions are just written so poorly that what worked in the book doesn't work on screen. Also Shrike's name sound so much like "Shrek" when being said out loud that it's hilarious. But overall it does stay surprisingly close to the book in plot up until the end, redacting a lot of stuff but rarely adding additional fluff. The way I'd break it down would be First act: Most similar to the book, overall very good. If the whole movie as this good it'd be a great movie.

Second act: Starts to diverge from the book to shorten it down for the length of a film. The writing is generally very very bad here, primarily because this section focusses on Shrike and Anna Fang. The former of which is reduced to saying "Kill Hester" over and over and the latter of whom is reduced to saying shitty one liners.

Third act: It's Star Wars but bad and has almost nothing to do with the book other than the location.

Also, I'm going to focus on story and characters here but keep in your mind that after the first act the cinematography gets terrible. Like genuinely it feels like a different movie also in terms of how poorly shot and edited the whole movie was after Act 1.

THADDEUS VALENTINE

Portrayed by Hugo Weaving in the film (doing his best Sean Bean impression) and uh yeah, the changes to him are central to the changes to the whole plot and basically what makes the movie so bad.

To begin with, Valentine is somewhat mysterious to start with. We know he's the Mayor's right hand man, he boots Tom off London after he hears Hester claim Valentine killed her parents but otherwise is charismatic and generally comes off as a very affable and likeable person. He is outspoken about the class divides in London having risen up from being a scavenger to the upper echelons of society himself. Both the movie and the book do this, it's great, he's a great character.

Valentine murdered Hester Shaw's parents long before the start of the book to take a piece of a weapon called MEDUSA back to London, which is used to rebuild the weapon which they intend to use to murder lots of people and basically make London an unstoppable monster. The big change the movie makes to Valentine's character is that this is his plan. Valentine does this in secret somehow, murders the mayor, stages a coup and takes London off course towards Asia to start firing off Medusa willy nilly and kill everyone and "save London" because they'll have so much to consume.

In the book this is the Mayor's plan and Valentine is being blackmailed into doing it because he wants his daughter to grow up in high society and have a better life. This is much better for a variety of reasons but the main one being that book doesn't reveal this until much later (in fact Valentine isn't even in most of the book) and it is foreshadowed by an earlier encounter with a bunch of pirates which didn't make it into the movie (which is fine because it's rather superfluous other than this foreshadowing.)

These changes aren't inherently bad but the way they are handled in the movie it basically just results in Valentine being an incredibly charismatic but evil villain the whole way through with absolutely no depth to his character outside of that. In the book what he did to get where he is puts strain on him and his daughter's relationship in a way that builds and results in his eventual suicide by refusing to escape with Hester and Tom, despite Hester's somewhat forgiveness of him seeing how hard he is trying to save his innocent daughter.

LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER

It's heavily implied in the book that Valentine is Hester's father and not her mother's husband. But this only comes up like once in a conversation between Valentine and his daughter, Hester never learns about it and it's kind of a non-thing. It's only really there to show that Valentine was willing to kill someone who might be his daughter in order to build this life for his definite daughter.

In the movie, this revelation is made during the climactic battle between Hester and Valentine on the back of a ship during a fucking dogfight and oh god everything about it is the worst. He literally picks her up and dangles her over the edge of the ship and almost line for line repeats the Darth Vader father revelation from Star Wars. It's insane and goddamn I hate it.

SPEAKING OF STAR WARS

The movie changes the whole final sequence so that instead of it being a struggle for survival for each of the characters and the big climactic defeat of the villain being caused by the fact he was literally meddling with powers he didn't understand (in this case, old tech than they haphazardly rebuilt and didn't know how to fix when it broke) to being a generic big budget action sequence that copies more and more stuff from Star Wars. There's literally a sequence where a bunch of fighters are taking out guns so that someone can do a trench run. The action cumulates in Tom flying into the heart of London and blowing up the engines. It's just bad and generic and literally just Star Wars. It's boring as hell. As mentioned earlier, it's also just not shot well at all and it's a mess. They do these weird awful zoom ins every time a scene takes place inside MEDUSA and it's hideous and I have no idea why it's the way it is.

Other stuff:

ANNA FANG

I've mentioned a few times in this rant that Anna Fang only speaks in one liners in the movie but I can't get across exactly how shitty it is. She's damn cool in the book and the way they translated that to the movie was basically "she has a snarky one liner for every situation."

She does look cool though.

VALENTINE'S DAUGHTER

Katherine I think is her name? I literally just finished this book an hour ago and I don't remember. One of my complaints about the movie at the time was that she is a nothing character who does basically nothing. In the book she is a nothing character who does basically nothing but she also has a pet wolf. She exists solely to give Valentine a reason for being blackmailed, which in the movie isn't even a thing so she may as well have been cut out of it entirely. She sucks in both though so whatever.

HESTER SHAW

She is constantly described as ugly and deformed after what Valentine did to her. In the movie she has a kinda cute scar but that's it. This sucks but again, whatever. It's a movie, that's how this shit rolls unfortunately. It's hard to market your movie when the protagonist looks like Two Face in TDK.

All in all, I'm glad I went on this journey of reading the book after seeing and hating the movie. It was fun in its own weird way. I definitely enjoyed it more than being excited for an adaptation of a book I liked only for it to suck at least. That movie was bad but it led me to reading a good book so it did something of worth.

[newdougg]

Just a bit of a personal problem

I’m procrastinating so hard on finishing this one shot I’ve been writing for a while so instead of working on that I’m gonna tell you about this guy and this might get long but I have a lot of ~feelings~ right now that I wanna talk about and maybe no one cares but I just wanna get it out

For context, I have a seasonal in a haunted house that’s run out of a historic site in the middle of a big city. I’m NOT an actor; I’m part of the historical tours that you can pay more to go through before the haunted house. Basically what I do is walk behind the tour as the the guide is giving it, making sure everyone is staying together and following the rules. This section I work in has only 5 people including myself in it so we’re all really close. And we’re all straight girls. So every season, we pick out a haunt crush. It’s stupid, but fun. None of us really act on it anyway. (Except my one friend who is now dating her crush!!!! The dream!!!!!)

Anyway last year I had an okcupid and got matched up with someone who worked there year round. It was a 98% match!!!! In reality that is a meaningless number but like at the time it felt like a big deal. And he was super chill, we had stuff in common, and it turns out he’s from my hometown so it seemed like a good deal, right? Well I’m a very shy and awkward person especially with someone I’m attracted to so it didn’t go anywhere. I tried inviting him out for drinks after work and stuff but he always said no, which was so fucking frustrating. And then this season, I found out he asked out another girl, so that ship has done sailed. Whatever.

So during one of our training days, I have to go back to the costume department to get ponchos for my team because we’re on radio and they can’t get wet. The hall outside the costume area is very narrow, and there’s a few people in front of me and a bunch of people passing through so everyone is trying to stay out of everyone else’s way. Just before it’s my turn to ask for the ponchos, the guy in front of me gets whatever he needed, takes a step back practically into me, and as he turns, his hand brushes all the fuckin way across my chest. Like it was slightly obscene, and 100% accidental. But he’s fucking FINE. So I didn’t care because it was clearly an accident but he apologized a LOT. And I thought that was the last of it.

It wasn’t.

That night for training, we had to give the actors tours of the site. And guess who’s on my tour???????????? Like I said, I have to stand at the back of the tour the whole time, and while he was there he was ALWAYS at the back, not very far from me. But we don’t say a word to each other. 

From here on out I’m gonna refer to this guy as Haunt Crush.

Then, a few days later, it’s our haunt field trip. Every year the whole cast goes to another haunted house nearby and it’s always a good time. So the first attraction my friends and I are waiting for is taking forever. And we start to get bored. So my one friend starts talking to the guys behind us, and one of them is Haunt Crush. And she knows about the boob touching incident because of course I told her. And of course I pointed him out discreetly as the boob toucher. So she gets his name, and says he can hang out with us for the night. And on the inside I was just !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So we get tired of waiting for that attraction, and move onto a different one. For this one you have to take like an unnecessary 5 minute bus ride for the Effect™. So I sit in one seat, and he sits in the one in front of me. And we talk a little bit. And it was actually fine. When we get to the actual attraction, my one friend says to him about me, “She gets really scared (sidebar: yeah I work in a haunted house but like they still freak me out especially when it’s one where my friends aren’t the actors) so I’ll go first and you go behind her, she might grab onto you jsyk” and I kinda wanna kill her but Haunt Crush says “That’s totally fine” and I almost died on the SPOT.

As we’re going through the attraction, which was super long btw, I was predictably freaking out, but also too nervous to actually grab onto him, despite him giving me the green light. 

But he for sure grabbed onto me.

Haunt Crush was like checking in, making sure I was ok and stuff, and I was, but like it was nice. We went through two other attractions before we had to leave and sadly we couldn’t sit on the bus back together because we had to sit on the same bus we were on the way there. But he did say he would get a drink with my friends and I when we got back. I fell asleep on the bus because it was late and I was still really tired when we got so I just wanted to go home. But when I got off the bus, I was kinda looking for him to say bye. But when I finally saw Haunt Crush, he was hugging another girl and then walked right past me and left. I mean, he probably didn’t see me and just because he’s hugging some other girl doesn’t mean anything but still

So then one day of training is the mock run of the haunt, which is when the operations team (which I am a part of) go through the haunt and all the actors are in costume but no make up. So we’re going through and we finally get to Haunt Crush’s section and he scares me but also is like “Hey it’s you!” and I said hi but had to keep moving. So when we get out of the haunt, we’re just waiting around the exit but my one friend and I left for some reason I can’t remember, and then came back like 10 minutes later. My other friend said she saw Haunt Crush and asked if he wanted to go the bar with us after, and he said yes

So for the rest of the work night I was freaking out because I’m the type of person who needs to mentally prepare for going out and with the added factor of someone I’m into being there???? Yeah I was pretty fucking nervous. So nervous that the only thing that I could do to calm down was drink many drinks. My friends and I were there for a while waiting because it takes actors a while to get out of make up and it goes in order what zone you’re in and he’s in one of the last ones OF COURSE. And the whole time we’re waiting my friends are giving me a pep talk and trying to calm me down but I just drink more. I kept looking across the street to see if he was coming it was pathetic. 

And when he finally shows up, I was pretty buzzed. We were sitting at the bar and my friends were sitting with us but of course one by one they excused themselves from the convo until it was just the two of us and tbh we had a pretty good time! And he bought me a drink! But I bought him like two... I can’t really remember what we talked about though because like I said I was drunk. Eventually we both left and my friend, who is also the manager of the whole haunt, gave me a ride home.

I had work again the next day, and I see my friend who drove me home. She asks me about Haunt Crush. She isn’t supposed to know that’s a thing. She told me that she was sitting across from us the whole night and it was so obvious and he seemed into it too and I want to fucking die everytime I think about that.

BTW, if anyone is still reading at this point, wow. Thanks, and you’re a trooper.

Anyways, that day was the full dress rehearsal. So people from the neighborhood can go through the haunt and so can the operations team. So my friends and I go through again. See, at our haunt, we let the guests have the option of letting the actors touch you. Basically, you wear a glow necklace and that means the actors can grab you and even temporarily separate you from your group; you can go through secret tunnels, down slides, etc. (Not all haunts give you the option though and they just touch you no matter what but that’s a whole discourse for another time) So I get the glow necklace. And when we finally get to Haunt Crush’s zone I was PUMPED because like what if he makes a move because I got the glow necklace?????????? But sadly he didn’t. I mean, he really went in to scare me though, not that it’s hard. 

So after work that night, there’s a big kick off party at the bar across the street. Again, my friends are giving me a pep talk. Because here’s the thing: I’ve never been in a relationship. Ever. Never even kissed a boy. I have so many complexes and hang ups and insecurities it’s really fucked me up. So even just talking to someone I’m interested in is a big deal to me. hence the drinking. So everyone from the haunt, like almost 300 people, show up so the bar is packed. And i don’t see him at first but he eventually finds our table and we talk but again I was drunk so I can’t remember everything we were talking about at this point. I do remember him saying that he was surprised I got the glow necklace, and he wanted to give me space because he knew how scared I would get. I almost flipped the table when he said that. Like bro, THAT WAS SUCH A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY WASTED WTF????????

But my one friend is asking him under the pretense that she’s crushing on someone what guys like in girls. He says stuff but I blank out. Probably because alcohol and because I’m so nervous and uncomfortable.

And that’s when she shows up.

He excuses himself to go outside and he’s talking to the girl he hugged after the haunt trip. And she’s like all over him. No shame. And she’s young too, and he’s not. So that was extremely discouraging. And i just wanted to leave. But my friends made me stay, and said I had to be more aggressive because that’s what he likes in girls apparently. Like, I am the least aggressive person when it comes to shit like this??????? I’m fucked.

So I go to the bar because I need a drink, and my one friend comes with me and I almost have a breakdown right there. Because of course the one guy who maybe kind of sort of showed a little interest in me has this other way more attractive girl after him. It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did and yet I was holding back tears. P A T H E T I C.

Buuuuuuut then he came over to the bar. And I was dumb and bought him a shot. I also got myself one. My wallet is still recovering. He did offer to buy me a drink but I don’t know why I didn’t let him. So we sit outside with my other friend who I’ve known forever, because by this point my friends who I went there with were leaving. And then this bitch comes over and sits right fucking next to him. And she’s even more drunk than I was. She’s being so extra, trying to get his attention and shit. She falls off her chair and as she gets up she makes sure to basically put her ass in his face. I went back again to the bar, and got some shots, and I put one down right in front of him while looking her in the eye. I don’t know what came over me.

Anyways she eventually leaves, thank god, and it’s just me, Haunt Crush, and my friend. We talk, mostly stuff about where we grew, how my friend and I knew each other, past haunt stories, etc. And it’s late, like almost 3 am, so it’s time to go. And when I say I’m leaving, he wants to go too. So we say our goodbyes to whoever is still there, and Haunt Crush, my friend and I start walking to our homes. He walks with us for a couple blocks before he has to head in the other direction. And he hugs me goodbye and I wanted to melt.

That was like a week ago, and I haven’t seen him since. A couple nights later I didn’t go out after work, but he did. My friend said he didn’t stay long though. I went out the night after that but he didn’t. That night though, I got drunk again (surprise) and I sent him a friend request and I didn’t remember that I did until I saw he accepted it the next morning. But I was scared that he was only hanging out with me because I bought him drinks. So my friends told me that he followed me to the bar twice, when that girl was all over him he kept pushing her away, and the one time I was at the bar, Haunt Crush was asking my friend about me. So there’s that

Idk man. Typing all this out and really going through all of it again kind of makes me think I’m reading too much into it. My friend saw him tonight and said we were planning on going out tomorrow. He said he would but also asked why we weren’t going out tonight. It’s because I’ve been sick all week and feel like shit rn. I hope he’s there tomorrow though. 

If you read all this, and have advice or thoughts or just want to tell me I’m being dumb, let me know. Because I hate how I can’t handle this at all and I feel so stupid and thanks for reading.

[writingtostaysane]

The first part of Chapter 1. I have writers block so I couldn’t get past this point, but I hope you like it.

Taglist (tell me if you wanna be added or removed): @flyingsassysaddles @ask-the-new-columbian-colonies @oukimuni

Criticism and feedback is always welcome! Now for the story.

—

7 years later...

Annie was asleep, blissfully aware to the world outside already awake and going about their day. She was dreaming sweet dreams and really didn’t want to get up. Her people needed her! If she didn’t complete the quest and slay the dragon, all hope would be lost. She approached the beast carefully, sword in hand and shield in the other. This creature was a smart one, so it would be hard to outwit it. But just as soon as she raised her sword to attach, the dragon let out a ferocious roar!

BEEP BEEP BEEP

She shot up in bed, looking around confused. That wasn’t what dragons sound like. And where was she? This wasn’t the dragon’s cave…

No. It wasn’t. This was her apartment and it was time for her to get up. She groaned and flopped back down onto the bed and blindly reached around for the snooze button on her alarm clock to silence the loud sound. Once the beeping stopped, she sat up once again and stretched her arms. Time to start the day.

Annie made quick work of her morning routine. In succession, she brushed her teeth, got dressed for work, and took a look in the mirror. She was wearing her uniform for work, a black shirt and skirt combo with a tan apron, but her eyes drifted to the mess that was her hair. Her curly hair looked more like a rat’s nest than anything. She fixed it up and managed to tame it, but it took a while. Finally, she grabbed a bagel for breakfast.

Munching on the bagel, she checked her phone for any notifications. She had 2 new texts from Cameron and one from Davis. She opened them and scanned them quickly. Cameron was screaming about some concert tickets they won and Davis was reminding her to call him later. Normal stuff. Checking the time, she did a double take. 9:42?? I’m gonna be late for my shift!

Hurriedly grabbing her bag and keys, Annie ran out the door and out onto the sidewalk. Turning to the left, she sprinted down the street, weaving in and out of people, trying not to bump into anybody. Eventually she slowed down to a jog, allowing her to catch her breath. She couldn’t show up to work all disheveled, which is what would happen if she ran all the way to the coffee shop she worked at.

Finally arriving at The Caffeine Corner, she pushed the door open, causing a little jingle to play, and walked in. It wasn’t very crowded with most of the regular customers already being at work. There was some light music playing in the background along with light chatter of people having breakfast. One of her coworkers, Jackson, called out to her.

“Annie! You’re finally here. You just missed the first wave of coffee-loving zombies trying to get to work. Such a shame, there were some funny conversations that I heard,” said Jackson, who was currently managing the cashier.

She smiled a little. It was daily entertainment for the two of them to try and find the most ridiculous conversations they heard while manning the cashier and while moving around the cafe. Some of the best ones happened early in the morning, when people were sleep deprived and trying to get to work on time. Annie herself usually missed that time due to her shift being a bit later in the morning, but Jackson made sure to regale her with the tales of whatever stupidity he had heard coming out of customers’ mouths.

As fun as it was talking about the meaningless jumble of words that came out of people’s mouths, they had work to do. To ‘maximize work time and increase efficiency’ or whatever their boss Karen was always going on about, the two workers split up the tasks. Jackson would continue manning the cash register, while Annie would take orders to and from customers and just do general waitressy things.

While serving some of the regular patrons, she noticed a commotion happening at the back of the cafe. She could hear yelling that was slowly getting louder. She sighed. She didn’t want to deal with this today. Angry customers were an unfortunate side effect of waitressing, even on a normal day Annie had no patience for them. But she still had to go over to assess the problem and see what she could do. Not like she could do much. Jackson was better with dealing with these types of situations, it was why he manned the register most days.

Putting her tray down on an empty table and walked over to the offending party. The commotion seemed to be caused by a middle aged woman. She was a regular and was known for having a bit of a temper, according to Jackson.

“Bit of a temper” my ass. She has a kilos worth of a temper, Annie mused to herself.

Forcing a customer service smile on, she cleared her throat, gaining the attention of the fighting customers. The middle aged woman’s face twisted into a smug grin, much to the chagrin of her companion.

“See? An employee has come to deal with your bullshit!” she exclaimed.

The person she had been fighting with, a young girl who looked like she might be the lady’s daughter, leveled Annie with an unimpressed look.

“What bullshit? The only bullshit I see is whatever you’re spewing,” she shot back.

This continued on for a few good minutes, both parties completely ignoring Annie in favor of badly insulting each other. Once they had started breaking out what looked like personal jabs at each other, her patience wore thin.

“Ladies, ladies. Can we please stop fighting? It’s disturbing the other customers who are trying to eat lunch.”

That got their attention. They both turned to face her, visibly annoyed at her stopping their cat fight.

“Good. You’ve stopped. Now what seems to be the problem?”

The older woman spoke first.

“This brat here is saying she won’t go to see that one movie about the fish with me, even though I asked her TEN times!” she screeched.

The younger woman sighed, “Mom. I already saw that movie with you like seven times. I’m not seeing it again.”

“But it’s a masterpiece!”

“I don’t care! I don’t want to go see it only for you to cry about an animated fish for 2 hours.”

The mom huffed and crossed her arms. It seemed they had gone back to the core of the argument, one of the pair didn’t want to go to a thing the other wanted to go to, so now they were fighting like children. Ridiculous. Is this really what she had to come over to settle? Annie was currently done with this woman’s shit.

“Well if you’re done screaming about a fish, could you go back to your table? I have other customers to get to and you’re causing a disturbance.”

This seemed to offend the woman in some way, causing her to adopt a disgusted look on her face and march out of the cafe in a huff, her daughter following behind her with a huge grin on her face.

Annie let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She hated dealing with customers who thought they were always right. She hated that saying as well. It should really be ‘The Customer Is Only Sometimes Right, Like Any Normal Person’.

Walking back over to counter, she walked behind it to get started on some orders for other customers, who were all waiting patiently to her delight, and noticed Jackson talking to some of their coworkers who had just walked in. It seemed he was about to go on break and was informing Luka, one of the other people who manned the cash register most often, about the customers that might cause her a problem. Annie grabbed a platter and loaded it with plates. The lunch rush was about to start, and she wanted to have as much of a headstart on serving customers as she could. Grabbing the edge of the platter with one hand, she went around and gave people their food. One or two customers yelled at her for getting their order wrong or something like that. But most of the people that came in were quite polite and didn’t give her any trouble.

Soon enough, the rush was over and her break time was almost here. Her arms were sore from the sheer amount of coffees she had to make in rapid succession. Yeah, they were usually busy, but it seemed like today the world had it out for her. Only a few more customers to serve and then she could go on break. She allowed her mind to entertain the thought of the glory that is break time a bit longer, until a voice broke her out of her daydream.

“Hey. You there? Can I order now?”

Annie focused on the source of the voice, a young woman with long black hair, sporting an amused smile.

“Oh! Of course, sorry. I must have zoned off. Sorry you had to break me out of my trance, usually my coworker would have done it by now, but I guess he zoned off as well,” Annie replied, attempting at some humor to not have the customer mad at her, “Now what would you like to order?”

“A medium coffee and a croissant, please.”

“Okay. And can I get a name for that order?”

“Cana.”

Annie smiled. The name fit her. And the girl seemed very nice, and thankfully not mad at her for being distracted.

“Ok. I’ll bring you the coffee and croissant in a bit. You can go find a seat.”

“Thank you.” Cana said to her with a smile.

Annie watched as the girl went to sit down at a table before focusing her attention on the next customer. She had wrote down the orders of around 3 more people when Jackson called to her that Cana’s order was ready. He had come off break and was now preparing orders. Taking over the cash register, he handed her the food and started ringing up the other customers.

Now all she had to do was remember where Cana’s table was. This was probably the thing she was the worst at. There were so many people and instead of them coming up to get there food, the staff doubled as waiters and waitresses, bringing them their food so that they didn’t have to stop if they were working or doing homework. The cafe was very popular with students from the local university, so the practice got them a lot of good reviews. --something about finding a table here--

If I remember correctly, she had gone to sit in the back, over in the corner. Annie thought to herself.

It seemed her suspicions were correct, as when she looked over at the back corner, she spotted that long black hair she remembered. There she was. Walking over, she noticed that Cana seemed to be in the middle of sketching something in a small notebook. Not wanting to startle her, she decided to call out so she knew Annie was there.

“Cana?”

She looked up from her notebook and smiled when she saw Annie and the food.

“Here’s your food,” she said, placing it down on the table, “If you want to order anything else, just come up to the counter.”

“Thank you.”

Annie just smiled and turned around, walking back to the front of the cafe. Though, as she walked away, she swore she could feel Cana’s gaze lingering on her back.

---

[closetofanxiety]

Nitromare: My God, We’re Really Doing This

Joe has returned to the Land of the Rising Sun, but Mark and I for some reason are committed to watching every Nitro of the Vince Russo Era, when WCW went beyond the point of no return in the battle against the WWF. Tonight we’re on the second week of the first Russo reign: October 25, 1999, from Phoenix, Arizona. Let’s soak up the horror!

We open with Sting, in street clothes, coming out to the ring to demand the presence of JJ Dillon, the kayfabe commissioner. Sting lost to Goldberg last night at Halloween Havoc, but says that match wasn’t for the title, and so Goldberg should not be the champ. Dillon says there’s going to be a tournament to determine the champ, so Sting beats up Dillon. Goldberg runs out to make the save, and in the scrum, Sting’s t-shirt remains impressively tucked into his jeans. Why are they trying to make Sting into a whiny, shitty bad guy? The most natural babyface in the company since Ricky Steamboat. People want to cheer for Sting. 

The first match of the tournament is Norman Smiley vs. Bam Bam Bigelow. It’s over in about five minutes, with Norman winning. I think it was a hardcore match?

Now the Filthy Animals come out to show video footage of them taking Ric Flair out into a desert at night and dumping water on him. I’m not sure why you’d film yourself committing a crime, but the 1990s were a different time. You know who Billy Kidman looks like? The singer for Missing Foundation. It’s uncanny. There’s footage on YouTube of that guy, Peter Missing, setting himself on fire at a show in Boston. 

Rey Misterio says the Filthy Animals are going to “hump” Harlem Heat “like the dogs we are.” OK? Dean Malenko and Perry Saturn are apparently outraged, perhaps on behalf of dogs, and they run out and start beating on the Animals with lead pipes. Shane Douglas and Asya come out and kidnap Torrie Wilson. 

Now we’re backstage with Mike Tenay and Curt Hennig. Is there any American wrestler whose career was more a story of thwarted promise than Mr. Perfect? He was so good at everything, but never really got the breakthrough, either because of injuries or working for the wrong company at the wrong time, or both. 

Kevin Nash and Scott Hall are hanging around backstage. Somewhat grimly considering what we know now, they’re drinking beer from a cooler. 

The next match in the championship tournament is Hennig versus Lash Laroux, a truly forgotten figure from the WCW era. His gimmick was that he was a Cajun. That was pretty much it, mes amis. While the match is going on, Disco Inferno comes out to do commentary with Tony Schiavone and The Brain. For some reason. Hennig gets DQ’d for hitting Laroux with a chair. Disco Inferno comes in to help Laroux, and gets beat up with the chair. The match lasts maybe three minutes. 

We’re back in the ring after a commercial break with Kim Page and Mean Gene talking about the Nitro Girl competition. This was a contest to find a new Nitro Girl that I think Stacy Keibler eventually won. We meet two more finalists, both local, and watch footage of them dancing as Disco Inferno looks on. Was he the judge? His whole gimmick was that he was a bad dancer. 

The Nitro Girls thing is interrupted by DOUBLE J himself, Jeff Jarrett, recently arrived from the WWF. He immediately says the championship tournament is “a big work,” which I’m sure sounded like a good idea if you were on cocaine. Jarrett is still wrestling today; he’s currently a titleholder in AAA. He’s had one of the most remarkable careers of any American wrestler, yet I’ve never really enjoyed him.

Another match in the It’s A Big Work Tournament. Perry Saturn vs. Eddie Guerrero, which in theory should be a great match. So far each match in this tournament has featured one wrestler who is no longer alive. There are empty seats on the hard camera side; Mark notes that the revamped WCW logo reminds him of the final flag of a soon-to-be-vanquished country.

The match is not great. A few decent spots, but then David Flair runs in and hits Eddie Guerrero with a lead pipe, allowing Saturn to get the win via the Rings of Saturn. It last six minutes. 

We’re backstage, and the Revolution have Torrie Wilson imprisoned in a backstage area. “This is a great hiding place; they’ll never find us!” exults Shane Douglas, in front of a camera crew. Chris Benoit arrives and locks most of the Revolution inside a caged area, allowing him to beat on Dean Malenko. Everyone is wearing what would today be classified as Mom Jeans. Wasn’t Benoit part of the Revolution? Eventually he’d jump to the WWF along with Saturn, Malenko, and Guerrero, as the Radicalz. You could tell they were extreme, because they scorned the letter ‘S.’

Hall and Nash walk out, wearing street clothes. “It seems these new bosses we got from up North can’t have a wrestling show without the Outsiders,” Hall says, in a reference to Russo and Ferrara that 99 percent of the audience wouldn’t understand. Nash is wearing a FUBU jersey. His meandering promo is interrupted by Goldberg, who is standing in the crowd, wearing his gear and holding a microphone. As one does. “You’re both next!” Goldberg says. Technically, they can’t BOTH be next, Bill.

Macho Man and Gorgeous George come out. I don’t know why her wrestling name was Gorgeous George, but she wasn’t the worst person to wear the mantle created by George Wagner. There were so many terrible Gorgeous Georges. Even in the twilight of his career, Savage is still a compelling, charismatic performer. “Don’t hunt what ya can’t kill, cuz ya can’t kill The Madness!” he cautions, adding “I ain’t no punk bitch!” He takes some shots at Hogan and Flair. Gorgeous George is chewing gum and looking a bit lost. “I got too much money in the bank to get punked out by punks like you!” Savage yells, although it’s still unclear to whom he’s referring. Then he says he and Gorgeous George are leaving. OK. 

The Filthy Animals are searching for Torrie backstage. How did they find Shane Douglas’ great hiding place?? But the Revolution have moved off to another backstage space to complain about how Chris Benoit beat Malenko’s ass. 

Next WCW title tournament match: Madusa vs. Meng. Oh God. Madusa looks legitimately unwell. Everyone who knows Meng is terrified of Meng. He’s like nuclear war. This is not a pioneering intergender matchup: none of Madusa’s offense is effective, while Meng just stands around and growls like an animal. Madusa wrestled Bull Nakano a lot, so this probably wasn’t the scariest opponent she’d faced. Meng wins in about four minutes with the Tongan Death Grip. Remember when it was a big deal that Madusa jumped to WCW with the WWF women’s belt? Boy, they sure made the most of that, didn’t they?

Evan Karagias comes out to help Madusa. “Isn’t he gallant,” Brain sneers, and for some reason he pronounces it “guh-launt” and it makes me laugh out loud. That’s how I’m pronouncing it from now on. 

Nothing stands still. Malenko comes out and challenges Benoit and then leaves. Russo’s WCW feels like experimental theater, right down to the destruction of the fourth wall and acknowledgement of artifice. 

Mark describes Hall and Nash as “two retirees going around, causing trouble,” and this is a perfect description of what they’re doing at this point. I’m omitting about half the backstage segments, because they all last about 45 seconds and seem meaningless. 

Lex Luger and Miss Elizabeth come out, everything we know about what would happen later making it very hard to enjoy any of this. I think this is a match in the title tournament? The WCW commentary team does not do nearly as much recapping as today’s WWE announcers, and it’s kind of baffling.

It’s Luger vs. Rick Steiner, and a shirtless Jeff Jarrett comes out to join in on commentary. “We saw your shtick in the WWF, we know you’d hit a woman,” Schiavone says. “This is not the WWF, this is the WCW, and I am the Chosen One!” Jarrett replies. Jarrett is upset that he is being blamed for hitting Liz last week. Jarrett tries to hit Luger with a guitar and gets Steiner instead. Jarrett runs off and Steiner follows him. The crowd seems bored and angry. Luger wins via count. The match was maybe three minutes long. 

Kidman and Konnan are backstage. Konnan calls the Revolution “mark busters.” I can’t look at Kidman without seeing Peter Missing. Have you ever heard Missing Foundation? It’s really challenging stuff. What a group they were.

Another title tournament match, this time between Kidman and Konnan, fellow Filthy Animals. There’s a ref bump 45 seconds into the match. Harlem Heat comes out and beat up Konnan and Kidman. Who’s getting humped now, gentlemen, hmmmm? Now Rey and Eddie come out to fight Harlem Heat. In the ring, Kidman gets the pin on an out-cold Konnan. The match lasted two minutes at most. The secret of Vince Russo is that Vince Russo is not a wrestling fan. 

Buff Bagwell’s in the ring and vowing to break all the rules. “I’m going to take every little thing that’s ever been sacred in this business and I’m gonna relieve myself all over it.” Then he says, “I’m not doin’ a J-O-B, a job, for nobody ever again!” He calls out “the two idiots in the back writing this crap,” which, Jesus. Two giant bald guys in suits com out who say “We represent the two idiots in the back writing this crap,” and then proceed to beat the stuffing out of Buffing. 

We’re back from commercial, and Chris Benoit is going to wrestle Dean Malenko in a Mom Jeans Beatdown. No, it’s a last man standing match, but they’re both wearing mom jeans, without belts. That really bothers me for some reason. This is a really good match, the only good one of the night so far. Not entirely surprising. There’s no way to reflect on Chris Benoit without the shadow of his hideous crimes hanging over everything, but for whatever it’s worth, he was one of the best wrestlers of his generation. He had a graceful ferocity and total commitment to what he did that very few wrestlers have ever matched. Benoit wins.

The Filthy Animals run out to beat on Malenko, then Shane Douglas and Asya come out with Torrie Wilson. Torrie Wilson is notably taller than her captor, Asya. They should’ve got Nicole Bass to be their Chyna-alike. Douglas kind of sucked, didn’t he?

Jimmy Hart comes out with Hugh Morrus and Knobs from the Nasty Boys. Was there a new Nasty Boys with Morrus in place of Sags? Or was Knobs moonlighting? I’ll tell you what: the Nasty Boys put together a surprising number of extremely fun matches. This is not one of them: Sting comes out with a baseball bat, beats down Knobs, and gets the pin. I guess this was a no DQ match?

One thing to remember in the Nitromare: nothing has to make sense.

We’re backstage with Tenay and Bret Hart, who has what I think is a storyline ankle injury. Bret interviews like an earnest hockey player, which was part of his appeal. He didn’t have to scream or act like a lunatic to sell you on a match.

Now there’s a tag match between Konnan and Kidman and the defending champs, Harlem Heat. Konnan is also wearing FUBU; were they a sponsor? 

I’m flummoxed that they’d allow so many empty seats facing the hard camera. Why not send people in higher sections down to take those seats? This is AWA-at-the-end level inattention to detail.

Meanwhile, in the match, Harlem Heat are beating the shit out of the Filthy Animals in a mostly uninteresting fashion. It’s a slog. There’s an inexplicable screw job finish that has Schiavone asking “Who won?,” which is always a good sign. The answer: the Filthy Animals won because ... Kidman bridged out of a pin? 

Nitromare: Nothing Has to Make Sense

DDP and Kimberly come out. My God, Kimberly was attractive. And Page was insanely over with WCW fans; it’s galling how badly he was mishandled by the WWF. Did you know Page sued Jay Z over the Diamond Cutter hand gesture? They settled out of court, so we still don’t have settled legal precedent on whether you can trademark a hand gesture.

David Flair comes out. DDP is mad at Flair because Flair’s dad slept with Kimberly. Flair pulls out a crowbar and cheap-shots DDP, then starts whaling on him. David Flair looks like the character in a movie about rural 19th century America who’s described as “a bit touched.” Like a character who accidentally kills or injures a major character and then commits suicide in helpless despair. It’s not ... a great look for a pro wrestler.

DDP gets kayfabe stretchered out. Well, I believe he’s the winner by disqualification, so there is that. 

Back from commercial. Hall and Nash, in street clothes, are in the ring. Their opponents appear to be local strippers. They’re not given an introduction, so we don’t know for sure. One of them motorboats Scott Hall. The crowd enjoys it, because wrestling fans in the 1990s were not very sophisticated. The other stripper is tagged in. “This is what it’s all about,” Tony says. Nash comes in. “The hot tag! The big save,” Tony says. One of the rare moments when I feel like Lou Thesz. A third stripper with balloon-sized fake breasts comes into the ring. The Outsiders lay down and get pinned. Who says Kevin Nash wouldn’t do jobs in WCW? 

Goldberg mercifully runs into the ring and spears them both. The crowd likes it, but is also horny and mad that the woman with the huge fake breasts didn’t take her shirt off. The replay is brought to us by the Air Force, which at the time was using the slogan “Aim High.” Not a lot of that in Nitromare, I’m afraid.

I think it’s main event time. God, I hope it is. I’m so weary. Bret Hart hobbles out to the ring. He’s wrestling Goldberg, who has one of the all-time great entrances in pro wrestling history. 

Tony says Bret’s shin is hurt, when earlier we were told it was his ankle. Later, Tony says it’s Bret’s ankle. Razor sharp. 

Goldberg was not a great wrestler, and with Bret selling a broken ankle, it was hard to carry the big dude to a credible match. The story here is Bret’s insane pride and resilience, and it’s going well initially: the crowd rallying behind him as he tries to fight back against the onslaught from Goldberg. Goldberg does a good job of looking conflicted about wrestling a guy who’s less than 100 percent, which adds to the story. Goldberg finally starts working on the injured leg and then breaks the hold, hoping the ref will stop the match. Hey, this is actually not bad! 

Bret fights out of a corner and applies the sleeper, which leads to, merciful God in heaven above, a ref bump. The Outsiders and Sid Vicious run out to take out Goldberg. Nash hits the most spectacular move in his arsenal, the sidewalk slam. Goldberg is out and Bret covers him for the win. This sucked.

Grade: D

Signs in the Crowd: WCW = Where Chumps Wrestle; Everyone Hates Rey, Man (so Nineties); Ryan Gill is Gay (also very Nineties, in a bad way); IM SINGLE; Goldberg Kicks Ass; Big Sexy in the House NWO 4 Life; Hall = Ratings; Filthy Animals = Circle Jerk; Can’t Stand Me No Fruit Booties; Buff is the Stuff; WWW. Rantsylvania . Com (still active! It’s Scott Keith’s blog); WCW Monday Maestro (was there really a person who liked the Maestro enough to make a sign?); Joe B is a Candy Ass; I Pimp Pimps; Russo Where’s the Gambler? 

[kpophoeposts]

No one wants to hear about my date but I wanna talk about it so I’m gonna.

I met this boy on tinder; I shouldn’t be on tinder in the first place because I know damn well that I have a lot of intimacy issues but I was sad about being single and really enjoying the meaningless attention because I wasn’t getting validation anywhere else. Anyways I met this boy on tinder and we were talking for a few days and he seemed like an absolute sweetheart. So he asked to hang out and I asked if he was getting covid tested every week because in order to attend school we have to and he said that he’s been getting tested so I was like cool and we arranged to hang out at an outdoor mall so that we’d still be cautious. Last night and this morning it was raining but it stopped a couple hours before we were gonna meet up so I was like sweet we’re good but by the time we got there it was raining again. However he’s like my ideal height because I’m short as fuck but he’s not super tall either so we were sharing my umbrella and I could like look up at him a little without it being super weird and him looking down at me wasn’t like intimidating- idk he’s really attractive and I guess I was dumb enough to be like “I feel safe with him”. (That sounds like I’m trying to foreshadow that he did something bad he didn’t) so we walked around a little and grabbed some food but that mall is kinda confusing so when we had kinda went in a circle we were both over the rain and shit so I was like “my bus stop is this way” and he walked me to my bus but it didn’t leave for a few minutes so he left and then texted me like “actually can I come over to your place” and I asked my roommate she said yeah so he rode the bus with me home and walked with me. That bus ride was weird because for a while we were the only passengers so we were kinda just staring at each other. My roommate said hi and stuff and left to do whatever then I turned on some bullshit documentary thing on Netflix because we were just gonna keep talking and it didn’t matter. At that point we’re sitting shoulder to shoulder (not necessarily being touchy but we were touching it that makes sense) and he had taken his mask off but I was still wearing mine and I can feel him looking at me. So I ask like what? why are you looking at me? And he asks if he can kiss me so I had to take my mask off which was kinda awkward but whatever. So then he leans in and grabs my cheek- super gently and sweet like my heart went !!!!!!!!!!!!- but as soon as our lips touched I pulled back and laughed in the poor boys face because I was so embarassed. Obviously I apologized and I told him like “I’m really sorry I just don’t really date or anything so it’s like embarassing idk” but I saw his face change when I said the word date and I was like oh shit so I start going on like “sorry I don’t mean to like imply that this is anything serious I just mean I’m kinda shy with this stuff” and he goes “oh I was hoping this could be more of a friends with benefits thing” and I’m like “I genuinely can’t like I’m sorry but I’m not comfortable with that kind of stuff” and then he apologizes for making me uncomfortable and asks if he should leave and my dumbass is like “it’s whatever you want” and his dumbass goes “well I had no other plans today so I guess I’ll finish watching this with you” so then we both kinda just blankly stare at the documentary that neither of us wanted to watch meanwhile I’m internally like “he’s super hot and I want to kiss him again and I wish I had the confidence to fuck him but I genuinely cant bring myself to do it” I do feel like it probably would’ve been nice because he’s super sweet and whatever I just can’t handle it. Also I’m sure he was there like “shit this was a waste of time” Meanwhile we’re still sitting super close to each other but now it’s uncomfy but if I move he’ll think it’s because he did something wrong but he didnt. Eventually he’s like “I should go I know you’re uncomfortable” and I was like “yeah it’s probably for the best sorry that this didn’t work out the way you wanted it to but get home safe” and as soon as he left I knew I was never gonna see him again.

But before all this I said that the worst case scenario is we never speak again and I’m back where I started so I’m fine. I am a little embarassed though.