#what r they gonna do? fire me? i already quit

[crappymixtape]

hang on tight, baby • part two

NAVIGATION -> PART I •  PART II •  PART III favored to win in barrel racing for the upcoming rodeo, you’re out in the corral practicing when your obnoxious neighbor, tyler owens, swings by to say hi, but when the wind picks up you both won’t have a choice but to trust each other • 18+  | ( 3.1k – TW: natural disasters, tornado, injuries • witty banter as foreplay, fluff in their own way, enemies to idiots in love, tyler owens x reader )

H A N G O N T I G H T, B A B Y • P A R T T W O 🎶 parachute, chris stapleton

White noise buzzed in your ears, a scratchy static that closed in around you tight and suffocating and you couldn’t move. Stuck to the glittering red plastic bench seat and staring out the window at the thin twist of cloud pulling closer and closer to the ground until a hand pressed firm into yours.

“Sawyer, you with me? C’mon, we gotta move!”

Tyler’s eyes were wild, sea glass turned stormy with adrenaline, and the way his thumb flexed against your palm pulled you back to the present.

“Wha–oh–shit,” a string of curses fell from your lips and you pushed yourself from the booth.

“Dot! You got a basement?” Tyler called over the loud drone of the siren blaring outside, but the old woman was already ushering her patrons through the kitchen and out the back door.

“Honey, I’ve done this enough times I could do it with my eyes closed! You go kick those folks out there into gear,” she shoved the last of the diner guests out the door and waved a hand toward the lot where Tyler’s rig was parked.

You hadn’t quite made it all the way into downtown, just on the outskirts, but there had been plenty of people milling around before the warnings started. The post office across the street was filling up with panicked folks and Matty’s Mechanic just around the corner was sure to have people in it too.

“Alright, listen to me,” Tyler took hold of your shoulders and stooped down so that his gaze met yours, setting fire to the flicker in your chest. Steady, sure, safe. “I’m gonna go around to Matty’s, think you can check the post office?” he was nodding at you – you can do this – reassuring, but your heart was hammering against your ribcage so hard you were sure it was going to crack.

“Uh, ye–yeah–”

“Hey. You got this, okay? Okay?” he squeezed your shoulder. “We meet back here in two minutes tops. Right? And if I’m not here you get to Dot’s cellar.”

“What? Without yo–”

“I’m gonna be here, but I’m sayin’ so cos I know you like a good, organized plan,” he tried a small, half-hearted grin, but it fell at the edges and you thought for a minute, maybe he was just as scared as you were.

“Fine. Two minutes,” you breathed and when his hands left your shoulders the hammering in your chest gave way to an ache you’d been pushing back on since the first time you laid eyes on Tyler.

Come back.

“Two minutes. Now giddy-up,” and with that he was already out the door and down the street to Matty’s.

You watched him disappear around the corner just as the sky opened up. Split in two and heaved buckets of rain down onto the pavement, the wind picking up strong enough to start shredding the flag on the pole in the lot.

This wasn’t your first tornado and it sure as hell wouldn’t be your last, but it never failed to scare the shit out of you when the sirens wailed over the howl of the wind. Tyler was right though, there were people across the street that needed help, needed a shove back to reality and you could do it.

You could do it.

Shoving the door open against a gust of wind, it nearly pushed you back into the diner, but you shouldered into it and stumbled out into the parking lot. Rain drenched you within seconds, droplets the size of quarters, too warm and carrying with it the promise of destruction.

Boots splashing through the puddles, you sprinted across the street and into the post office only to find it was full of people – wall-to-wall and standing room only. Your heart stopped for a second, where in the hell were they all gonna go? And then you saw the post master.

“Hey! Hey!” you shouted at him over the cries of children and adults alike. “You got a basement or a cellar?”

He looked like a ghost, white as a sheet, like a deer in the headlights and you shoved through the crowd to get to him. Gripped his shirt in your hands and shook him.

“A cellar, basement, anything!”

“I don’t–s’my first day–what are we gonna do??” he shouted at you and you tossed your gaze out the bay of windows to the street. Diner, empty office space, abandoned gas station–

“There!” you pointed, the wind screaming outside now and pulling all kinds of debris and branches through town. “That gas station has a cellar, I’ve seen it. Get these people over there now! Hurry!”

You watched as your words cut through his panic, his expression steeling against the fear swelling in him and he hollered over the sound of the storm.

“Everyone! Hold hands! We’re gonna get across the street to that gas station over there, alright? Buddy system! Hold ‘em tight!”

A small smile flickered at the corners of your mouth — ‘atta boy — and one at a time people nodded, murmured okay, we got this, let’s go.

Leveraging the door open with every bit of strength you could muster, you held it against the gales as they ripped through the street, making sure every single person made it out. The post master did his duty too, running the line of people and shepherding them along before kicking open the old cellar doors at the gas station and giving you a thumbs up.

Safe.

Now it was your turn, and you were definitely sure it’d been more than two minutes. Your eyes flicked up to Dot’s and saw Tyler running back to the lot through the wind and rain, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow.

“Tyler!” you shouted against the storm, but it was loud now, the sky inky black as that tiny twist of cloud turned giant finally connected with the dirt and began swallowing everything in its path. Growing bigger and bigger by the second.

You knew you were out of time.

❝ I KNOW EVERY SINGLE FENCE POST, EVERY ROCK TO GO AROUND. I’VE BEEN STARIN’ AT THE RED OAK, WHERE I KNOW THEY’LL LAY ME DOWN. ❞

“Sawyer! Sawyer!” Tyler felt like he was gonna be sick. It’d been more than two minutes and you were no where to be found, but you had to get back to Dot’s, otherwise you’d–

“Tyler!”

His head whipped to the side at the sound of your voice carried somehow by the wind and when he caught sight of you holding open the door to the post office he heaved a sigh of relief. Thank, God.

“C’mon! Get outta there, we gotta go!” he shouted, waving an arm at the diner, but when you moved to come back out into the storm a heavy gust whipped down the street and slammed the door shut, throwing you back inside with it. “Sawyer!”

Tyler didn’t hesitate, not even one second as he tore across the parking lot to you despite the danger he was putting himself in – staring death down for you. It took every ounce of strength he had to pull the post office door open against the wind, but he got it cracked just enough to slip inside, breaths falling heavy from his lips.

And then he saw you. Sprawled out on the floor with your head propped against the wall of P.O. boxes and chin lolled down to your chest. The sight gripped him tight like a vice spinning shut, crushing his chest and squeezing his heart so hard he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Oh, God–shit–no, no, no–”

Clambering down onto the tiled floor he ghosted a hand over your forehead, wanted to sweep the hair from your eyes, but didn’t. Not now. Right now he needed to make sure you were okay. Checked for signs of blood or broken bones and when he didn’t find any, felt a heavy weight lift from his shoulders. He pressed his head to your chest for a heartbeat – thud, thud, thud – and that was all he needed. Scooping you up, an arm around your back and the other tucked under the crook of your knees, he lifted you from the ground.

“You with me, sweet stuff?” he asked and when you groaned he let out a shaky laugh. “Damn, Sawyer, you sure know how to scare a fella,” he teased weakly, gaze flicking up to see the tornado ripping through the buildings just two streets over. “Hang on, I’m gonna get us outta here,” he promised.

The wind outside the building was howling so loud he could barely hear himself think. The windows flexed, creaking and whining at the pressure building on the other side, and Tyler’s mind started to race.

Where the hell were you gonna go?

Dot’s was out of the question, too far now, and he’d seen all those people go to the gas station, it’d be full, but then a memory struck him like lightning.

He couldn’t have been more than seven, at this very post office with his granny to mail a package to his uncle Jasper when the sirens started wailing. The old post master had ushered them around the back of the counter and if you hadn’t known where to look you would’ve missed it – the thin outline of a square in the floor with a tiny handle and latch, a bunker.

Now this was years ago, and there wasn’t any guarantee it was still there, but he was willing to take his chances. Bumping the low swing door at the counter with his hip, Tyler pushed you both back to the post master’s desk, eyes frantically mapping the floor.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered, the roof overhead beginning to rattle and shake. It was bound to be overhead any second and then he spotted it, dirt caught in the grooves and faint, but it was there.

“Sorry,” he apologized, trying to set you down as gently as he could in a hurry, and yanked at the handle.

A high pitched whistle filled the room, the air getting sucked out of every nook and cranny, and an explosion sounded outside – propane tanks or Matty’s garage – and Tyler flinched.

“C’mon, you son of a bitch!” he yelled at the door and gave it one last yank until it flew open in a cloud of dust. It wasn’t very big, but more than enough room for the both of you, and he let the breath he was holding go just as a piece of the roof ripped off and spun up into the angry swirl above him.

No time.

Grabbing hold of you, he tossed you over his shoulder and practically fell down the ladder into the bunker just as the rest of the roof gave way, debris tumbling down into the hole after you.

“Shit–hang on!” he called out to you, shielding your body with his, and the feeling of his chest pressed to your back pulled you out of your daze.

Eyes fluttering open you blinked against the dark, the small space illuminated in a flash every time lightning split the sky in two, and you sucked in a gasp. Where were you? Your hands scrambled for purchase and found the piping running along the wall Tyler had huddled you both against.

“Tyler!” you cried and he freed a hand from the old rusty pipes to grab hold of your waist, his palm wide and warm through the thin fabric of your shirt.

“Hang on, just hang on!” he yelled.

The howl of the wind was deafening now, an unyielding roar overhead ripping and tearing and shredding everything in its path. Distant booms and crashes telling you this was bigger than any EF-1 or 2. Tears welled up at your lash line, head pounding where you’d hit the mailboxes upstairs, and you squeezed your eyes shut against it all, pressing your hand into Tyler’s.

Please, please, please, you prayed silently to whatever god might be listening, Tyler’s chest heaving against yours, his heart hammering heavy in his chest until finally the roar began to dull. Slowed and stretched to a low growl, breathed its last breath and then plunged everything into silence.

❝ SUN COMES UP AND GOES BACK DOWN, AND FALLING FEELS LIKE FLYIN’ ‘TIL YOU HIT THE GROUND. SAY THE WORD AND I’LL BE THERE FOR YOU – BABY, I WILL BE YOUR PARACHUTE. ❞

You opened your eyes to slivers of bright light chasing across the dirt floor of the bunker, the sounds of sirens and emergency vehicles dipping down through the tattered door overhead, Tyler’s hand wide and warm still pressed to your waist.

A shaky breath fell from your mouth.

Alive.

“You okay?” Tyler asked, panted breaths fanning over your hair and it sounded small, vulnerable – no hot air or bravado. A side of Tyler you didn’t know. A glimpse of the fact that he was human just like you. That he felt fear just like you. That there was more to him than you’d wanted to accept and a tiny pang of guilt pinched in your chest.

“I think so,” your voice wobbled as you swallowed down the bile that had crept up your throat upon the sick realization that: had that bunker not been there, you wouldn’t be here and neither would Tyler.

Slowly straightening up, Tyler stooped just a little in the cramped space and kept his hand on your waist, his other reaching to take hold of yours.

“Slow, slow,” he eased, pulling you to your feet, coaxing you up from the dirt, quiet encouragement and then…your name.

Your actual God-given name.

Not Sawyer, not sweet stuff, not honey and it wrapped you up in a soft haze. Sounded like heaven and earth and the moon hung lazy among the stars in the sky and when you lifted your gaze to meet his, your breath caught in your throat.

Green eyes, sea glass, the long sweep of his lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks, brows knitted together with worry and something else, something warmer, and you wished you could figure it out. Wished you could swim in that soft sea green searching for what it was. Closer, closer, closer–

“Tulsa fire department!”

A voice rang out above you and you both startled.

“Oh–hey! Down here!” Tyler called up and a shadowed face appeared at the bunker entry.

“I’ve got two!” the man shouted over his shoulder before turning back to you, “Are you alright? Any injuries?”

Thinking felt like wading through molasses and you couldn’t put words to the man’s question. A beam of light flicked on, flooding the bunker and when Tyler stole a glance at you out of the corner of his eye he watched as your pupils stayed dilated.

“Damn,” he started, quiet, worried. “Yeah—er–yes. Possible concussion,” he told the EMT and the man nodded.

“Let’s get her up to the rig for an assessment,” and then he backed up to give you room to crawl out.

“Okay, you,” Tyler murmured, trying for his teasing tone and working overtime to quell the worried whispers in his head, “Up we go.”

Taking both of your hands he helped you gain footing on the ladder, nudging your boots onto the rungs with his own and curling your fingers around each hand hold.

“I’m right behind you,” he reassured as you started to shake, shock digging its hooks into you, “Easy, slow and steady.”

You took it one step at a time like he said, slow and steady, your frame trembling as you went. Tyler kept a hand on the small of your back the whole way, silent encouragement, up, up, up until the EMT grabbed hold of you and pulled you out.

Wincing at the sharp light from the sun, you buried your face into the crook of your elbow and let the man guide you toward the ambulance.

“Possible concussion here, pupils unresponsive to light, but no visible external wounds. Her partner here says he’s fine.”

The voices of the paramedics blurred together as you let them guide you to sit at the edge of the ambulance – the press of a stethoscope to your chest, your back, fingers feeling at your wrist for your pulse, a bright light blinding you for a fraction of a second and leaving behind little neon dots in your vision.

“Alright, seems minor, but she needs to be monitored for 48 hours,” the EMT said and you didn’t realize who he was talking to until you blinked away the pinpoints of light and Tyler swam into focus, “Are you her husband?”

That same flush from earlier bloomed across Tyler’s chest and up, up, up to his cheeks and all the way to his ears.

“Oh, n–no, I’m just–”

“He’s a friend,” you finished for him, rescued him from any further embarrassment and felt a small smile tug at the corners of your lips.

“Do you live alone?” the EMT asked you and the smile faded.

“Yes,” your turn to blush.

“Well, I’m right next door,” Tyler cut in, “I can check on her.”

The man flicked his eyes from you, to Tyler, and then back to you – unimpressed with whatever this was.

“Sure. Well, friend, she can’t be left alone at all for that duration. No sleep for the next 6-8 hours and if she throws up she needs to be seen again. After that she should be in the clear,” he jotted something down on a pad of paper, the two of you staring holes into the ground, like you were sitting in the principle's office or something. “48 hours, right? Right. Take care now,” the EMT leveled you both with a look then took off around the rig to help with the next injury.

Clearing his throat, Tyler rubbed at the back of his neck and closed the gap between you, the toes of his boots almost brushing with yours.

“My truck’s still here,” he thumbed over his shoulder at Dot’s, which was still standing in one piece and his big, red, pickup sitting in the lot. “Thought we were gonna have to walk,” a weak laugh pushed itself from his lungs, but his heart wasn’t in it. Crouching down, Tyler dropped to your eye-level and put a hand over the toe of your boot, “Let’s get you home.”

Taking your hand in his he supported your balance, his other arm wrapped around your waist to keep you steady. Walked you to the truck and eased you onto the bench. Gently buckled you in and drove carefully around all the debris and wreckage back down the road and in that moment he became more than just your obnoxious neighbor. Became more than a face on a t-shirt. More than his stupid catchphrase.

He was Tyler Owens and he just saved your life.

[ NOTE -> THIS IS PART 2 OF A 3 PART SERIES – STAY TUNED FOR THE LAST INSTALLMENT! ]

crappymixtape™ • tyler owens / twisters masterlist to come!  ♥️ reblogs and comments keep me going, friends! ily! ♥️

[luveline]

jadey baby i love roan smmmm , pls pls pls write something where r steps in when eddie forgets to mention muffins for moms day at school , she still shows up & ed being worried abt roan also shows up thinking no one would be there but R ALREADY IS SO HE JOINS

thank you for your request lovely! i changed it a little but I hope you still enjoy! eddie and roan —formerly single dad!eddie forgets to tell you about your (not quite) step-daughter’s mommy event, but you pull through.

Eddie is so dead. He's so dead. You're gonna kill him, and then Roan's heartbreak is gonna kill him, and then Wayne might kill him too (though Wayne might laugh at him, actually). 

Fuck, he's a shit dad. 

Okay, he's not a shit dad, and he can fix it. 

He's literally elbow deep in an engine when he realises what day it is today. He's had the flyer on the dashboard of his car for three weeks, every day meaning to bring it in to show you and everyday forgetting. He doesn't even stop to think about why he might not have seen the flyer yesterday night or this morning, yanking his hands out of the engine and shoving the greased torque wrench into Leonard's chest. 

Wayne lifts his head from a welding job, mask in place, shouting to be heard over the noise of the shop, "Where's the fire?" 

"It's Muffins with Moms," Eddie says, "and I forgot to tell Y/N and I've never missed one before." 

"Do you have muffins?" Wayne asks. 

"Um, no, but I can get through without it, right?" he asks in a rush, digging for his keys in the fishbowl. "They feel sorry for me because I'm a single dad." 

"You're not a single dad." 

"But I was!" he yells as he sprints out of the shop. The car ride is a blur (but he's not a bitch so he doesn't speed), and he barely has time to wipe himself down with a rag and some spit before he's jogging up to the elementary school. 

It's quiet in the reception where he signs in and the hallway down to Roan's classroom, so he can hear the excitement a mile away. He feels disgustingly sorry for himself but a thousand times worse for his girl, imagining her sitting all by herself as the other kids eat cake with their moms. 

The door is open. No one notices him when he comes in, everyone's having too much fun. He scans for Roan with his heart in her throat, expecting her sat at a table in the corner by herself, an uneaten cupcake in front of her and God, he's breaking his own heart— 

He doesn't find her alone, because she's standing off to one side with you. 

You pour juice into a cup for her and then yourself before putting it down. Roan raises her plastic cup, her smile a million watts, yours not far behind as you pick up your own cup and tap them together. 

"Cheers," you say happily. 

Roan presses her lips together. If Eddie were closer, he'd be able to hear the humming noise she makes when she's ecstatic. He's felt it a hundred times, sitting chest to chest with her on the couch, outside of the movies and at the carnival. Anywhere she feels loved. 

"These are amazing," Stacey P’s mom says, a cupcake in her hands. 

"Oh," you say, "thanks so much." 

"I need the recipe,” agrees Stacy K’s. 

"Sure, sure," you say. You turn to Roan, and the two of you try not to laugh. 

You're no cupcake connoisseur, Eddie can guess exactly what convenience store they came from.

He doesn't need to be there, and he doesn't want to make a spectacle, so he leaves with his head ducked and a huge thrumming feeling in his heart before you can see him, the kind of love that can't be tamped down for anything. He rubs his fist into his hand. 

He heads back to the shop and an hour later you call him, demarcated by a, "Call for baby Munson!" 

"Hello?" he asks, pinning the phone between his shoulder and his ear. 

"Hi, handsome, it's only me. I'm just making sure you know you're not picking Roan up today, 'cos it was that coffee morning thingy at school, you know the one?" You sound like you're just raring to tell him what exact coffee morning it was. He indulges you. 

"Moms and muffins?" he asks. 

"Moms and muffins!" you shout under your breath, adding a roaring sound like there's a crowd backing you up. "I'm a mom and we ate so many muffins, it's sickening. And– I'll tell you when you get home." 

"No, tell me now," Eddie says. 

"You should have seen her face," you say, your excitement melding to a tender love. "I don't think she wanted to believe I was coming just in case I didn't. But she looked like she was going to cry the second I walked in, and she hugged me for ten minutes. I had to carry her to a chair. Eddie," —you must be smiling on the other side, he can hear it— "I love doing mom stuff. I love– I love her." 

Eddie wipes his forehead, grinning with you. "Thank you, sweetheart. For everything. I'm fucking stoked, seriously." 

“She really didn’t know what to do with me at first, almost like she loved me but she didn't know me? She hasn’t ever been that shy with me, when we first met she was my clinger, right? We were fast friends. So it was really weird for me, to have her be like that, and she’s not the only kid without a mom in her class but I think everyone just felt so–? Like, I don't know, they had a small presentation at the front with the kids and they didn’t even ask her to get up, which was good, because she really shut down on me.”

“She’s done it before,” he says. 

“Yeah?”

“Her tantrums weren’t always so loud,” he says. He’d explain it to you if it felt pressing, but he can tell you the rest tonight. The gist of it is that before Roan learned to yell, she’d worry Eddie by becoming almost despondent in overwhelming situations. “Baby, I really, actually think she was that happy she just didn't know what to do with herself.”

Your breathing sounds loud in the receiver, but it isn’t upset. “I think so too. I tried, um, our strategy? Asking her what was wrong, what we could do to feel better, but it wasn’t really working, so I stole your thing. Sorry! But it worked.”

“My thing?”

“You know, when she’s had a big meltdown and she’s not getting her way, and you just talk to her about her.”

That makes it easier to picture. Eddie will sit Roan in his lap, his daughter heavy like dead weight when she’s not feeling good, and he’ll tell her anything as long as it’s about her. Like, when you were a baby, you had this thing called colic, which means you would cry and cry for hours and there was nothing grown ups could do, and the only thing that made it better was if I blew cold air in your ear really soft, like this. 

Eddie can see it, Roan slouched in your lap with her arms around you, your hand covering the back of her head from everything as you told her some story of her life. You must have hundreds by now, things she doesn’t fully remember anymore. One time you saw me in the store and ditched your dad to say hello. One time you hid my shoes behind your back so I couldn’t go home. One time you got up on the kitchen table and made me sing Rockerfeller with you, and when your dad joined in you threw a Capri-Sun at him. 

“What did you tell her?” he asks. 

“I told her about the day we met.”

Eddie licks his lips, nodding, wondering if he should cry. If he hadn't proposed already, this would be a good shove in that direction. “Second luckiest day of my life.”

“She liked the story. She asked me if she really went on our first date. So I'll be honest, I got super cheesy and told her I wouldn't change a thing.”

“So you lied to her?” He laughs. “You wouldn’t make me a lean, mean, money machine?”

“I wouldn’t change a thing,” you reaffirm happily. 

“How’d you even know about Muffins and Moms? I never showed you the flyer, forgot all about it." 

“I saw it when I was looking for my prescription in your glove compartment.”

He’s half-expecting you to ask, Why? Was I not supposed to go? All panicked and worried you've overstepped. He knows he’s doing something right when you don’t.

“I meant to mention it but you were so tired I forgot,” you continue. “Maybe we’ll get takeout and nap when you come home?”

“Sounds nice.” Eddie’s about to sign off. “Wait, you’re home already?”

“Yeah, they let us take the kids home early too.”

“Ro’s with you? Where is she?”

“She’s already at the napping part, right here in my lap. Want me to wake her up?”

Eddie smiles. “No, don’t wake her up. Just give her a kiss for me. I’ll be home in a half hour, tops.”

[ddejavvu]

eddie x reader

wayne & her r gonna meet but they already know each other so they prank eddie that he doesn’t like her

You've got your game face on, Eddie just misunderstands why. He thinks you've squared your shoulders and furrowed your brow to remind yourself that you're tough, that you're awesome, and that it doesn't matter what his uncle thinks of you (even though he knows he'll love you). Really, it's because you're about to rage against the man currently opening the door.

"Wayne," Eddie grins, holding up your joined hands, "This is-"

"You," Wayne seethes, glare sharp enough to fool his nephew, "What the hell are you doing bringin' 'round a criminal, son?"

"A- A what?"

"Oh, not you," You scoff, dropping Eddie's hand to cross your arms over your chest, "Eddie, you didn't tell me your uncle was a psychopath."

"Psycho- What? You're the one that keyed my car!"

"You hit me with it," You seethe, spitting mad, "And then you just drove away! You laughed, you're fucking insane!"

"You- you what? Wayne!" Eddie looks aghast at his uncle, "The first time I get a girlfriend you run her over?"

"She was in my way," The old man gripes, "Tell her to stop jaywalking."

"Jaywalking? And- and baby," He turns to you, eyes wide and afraid, "You slashed his tires? I- I mean, that's fucked up that he did that but- but did you really do that?"

"She called me a coot, too," Wayne insists, but after punctuating his sentence, his frown falters, and his jaw nearly snaps from how hard he's clenching it, trying to keep his laughter in."

"You are a coot," You huff, but his concealed laughter only makes your own bubble up, "And- and another thing, old man..."

"Yeah? Gimme a reason," Wayne raises a fist, all bark and no bite, "Just- just gimme a reason to, and I'll- I'm sorry, I can't."

His chest puffs with laughter, and the way Eddie's standing fear-stricken makes you dissolve as well. He's perhaps more afraid of the two of you when you break down laughing together, leaning on the doorframe or folded over at the waist. He almost wishes you'd start shouting again.

"Okay, guys," He calls warily, "What's going on?"

"She works at the gas station I stop by for cigarettes." Wayne waves a hand at Eddie, "I knew you two were together when I saw that ring on her hand." He points to a particularly gaudy one of Eddie's that he'd given you as a token of his admiration."

"Sorry, Eddie," Your sentence begins with a giggle and ends with a sigh as you butt your head against his chest, "We just wanted to freak you out."

"You did," He shakes his head, eyes closed, "i thought you were gonna knock her lights out, Wayne. And- wait! You said you quit smoking!"

This time it's Eddie with fire in his eyes, and you give Wayne a teasingly panicked look from over Eddie's shoulder.

"Yeah, I told you that 'cause I wanted you to think it," Wayne drawls, "I buy a pack after work every week."

"You're not allowed to sell him any more," Eddie whirls on you, and you drop the face, "Understand?"

"Yes, sir." You fake-salute, "Now can we get inside? I want to hang out with your uncle."

"I've been meanin' t'ask you," Wayne welcomes you into the trailer with an arm out that wraps around your shoulders as you cross the threshold, leaving Eddie alone on the front steps, "Did you ever get that car radio of yours workin' again? 'Cause a buddy of mine just totaled his car, the stereo's workin' fine. I figured I could swap it out for you."

As you get into a discussion of car radios and junkyard ethics, Eddie stands with furrowed brows in the doorway. He's watching his girlfriend and his uncle chat like college friends, and he can barely shake off the bewilderment enough to step inside his own home.

"You two are crazy," He cuts you off, frowning at the both of you, "I- God, I need a beer."

[elliesflower]

i hate u [2]

pt 1 here

word count; 4.2k (don't ask)

cw; angst, top!abby, bottom!r, fingering (r!receiving), dirty talk, crying

an; hiiii, i need this woman in my bed expeditiously. originally i was gonna make abby a switch in this but then it got too long lmao anyways, enjoy! (and find it on ao3 here)

18+ only, mdni!!!!

kissing abby was nothing like you had imagined—not that you’d imagined kissing her, ever, but it was quite possibly the only feeling that has ever mattered. the unmistakable sound of your lips smacking together was utterly indecent in the quiet of your bedroom, much louder than the ever-present hum of the stadium’s generators.

but she was eager, too eager. you both were, all the years spent avoiding each other, and you could have had this? her hand was sliding down, lightly pulling at the soft hairs at the back of your neck. you gasped, the sensation lighting you on fire, panting into her mouth, you couldn’t help it, you were whining, “abby,” and it was barely a whisper but she heard you—peppering kisses to your top lip, the corner of your mouth, your cheek, down to your jaw, she was nodding in agreement. 

“m’ sorry,” she mumbled into your neck, and you shivered, your body instinctively pressing into hers. her hand came around to rest at your lower back and she pressed you closer still, continuing her exploration of your skin. 

“you said that already,” you breathed, leaning your head back and closing your eyes, because there was no way this was happening, right? you’d wake up tomorrow and be alone in your bed, and this will be nothing more than a passing thought, an insane dream to add to the tally. but it was like abby could read your mind, she was desperate to make you feel just how real this really was, snaking her hand further around your middle so that she was nearly lifting you off the ground. 

your hands flew out to find purchase on her shoulders, nails making crescent indents in her freckled skin. “still sorry,” she said again, punctuating it with a wet kiss to your cheek, before pressing her forehead into yours. she felt sticky with perspiration, her breath was jagged and slow as she squeezed her eyes closed. god, it was impossible to tell what she was thinking as you watched her, your heavy breathing matching hers while you stood there in the middle of your room. in the middle of abby. in the middle of every fucked up thing the two of you have ever said to each other and oh, was it supposed to be this hard?

“do you forgive me?” she asked suddenly, and her eyes opened. you stared at her, feeling her breath fan across your face, your lips tingling almost as much as your brain.

do you forgive her?

you do, you think—but how could you let it come out like this? pressed against her, the weight of her hands at your back making you squirm, your heart and your head and your stomach were all telling you a different lie and you didn’t know who to believe. so you said nothing instead, ignoring the stinging behind your eyes and feverishly pressing your lips against hers once again. 

she tasted sort of like mint, a little bit like guilt, but also like your favorite flavor. she relinquished her hold on your back, moving her hands to rest at your hips, thumbs tracing circles on the delicate skin there—it made you shiver, made you gasp once more into her mouth, and she used your surprise to guide you backwards, walking you to what you could only assume was your bed, messy and unmade from the morning. 

“do you forgive me?” she was asking again, between kisses, between gently helping you lower onto the bed, between a rock and a hard place. you felt like crying, you felt like saying yes, you felt like letting her take you apart, to hell and back, and it sure felt like you’d never needed anything more than you needed her in this exact moment. 

you nodded as abby pulled away, you couldn’t say it out loud, and her lips were glistening and swollen, parted slightly as she sat down on the bed next to you. her braid was messy, baby hairs sticking to her forehead as she leaned toward you. you crossed your legs on the bed, facing her, and swallowed hard, your body fueled with anticipation, with lust, with the filthy thoughts that you couldn’t shake from your mind—not when she was looking at you like…that.

“do you, though?” she asked, placing a hand on your cheek, thumb swiping away a tear you hadn’t even noticed. you nodded fervently, hand reaching up to grab her forearm, holding it in place. “i need to hear you say it.”

you had to close your eyes again, you couldn’t dare to look her in the eye, god, this was embarrassing—she forgave you. just like that. why is it so hard for you? she moved her hand so that it was pinching your chin lightly, tilting your head up so that you’d have to look at her. 

not fair. 

you blinked up at her through your wet lashes, and her thumb reached up to gently pull at your bottom lip, instantly sending heat pooling in your core. you tried not to show it on your face, but abby was searching, fighting to get an answer out of you. 

“i won’t do this with you if you don’t talk to me,” her tone was gentle, but you still felt restless. you were amped up, from the fighting, the tears, the anger, the desire. somehow the feelings were identical—love and hate. the only difference was the circumstance. 

“do what with me?” there went your mouth again, moving before you could think. abby almost smiled, the corner of her mouth twitching ever-so-slightly. her eyes flickered down to your mouth, and then back, and her thumb pressed slightly harder into your lip, prying it open.

“don’t play dumb,” she said, and now, she did smile—but it didn’t seem so nice this time.

“i want this,” you couldn’t help it, you were reaching for her again, grabbing her hand and pulling it into your lap. you intertwined your fingers, looking down at your joined hands, and it didn’t feel real. “i want you.” but you couldn’t look at her still, playing with her hand in yours, heartbeat practically ringing in your ears. 

“yeah?” abby scooted closer to you, slipping her hand out of your grasp, and you looked at her again, eyes dark and full of lust. she leaned down to slip off her own boots, and you took a deep breath, nodding when she looked back up at you. you did want this. you wanted her, in any way she would have you, in any way you could possibly get.

“i forgive you,” you decided, and this time, it was with certainty. your voice unwavering, your eyes clear, your heart full, and that set something in abby on fire. for a split second, her nostrils flared, and then she was on you in an instant, taking you by surprise when she clamored onto the bed, pressing your shoulders back so that you landed on the mattress with a soft grunt. she held herself up with one arm, staring down at you, and you suddenly felt vulnerable all over again, squirming under the scrutiny of her piercing gaze. her face was mere inches away from your own, and you stopped to admire her for a moment, in a way you could never before. sure, you’d looked at her before, but you’ve never really looked at her—not like this.

her pupils were dilated, yet her face held an unusual gentleness. freckles littered her skin like constellations, and you wanted to map them all, wanted to feel her, all of her, so you started to, reaching up and pressing a hand to her face, just like she’d done to you. all her walls were gone, unrestrained, and there was no mistaking her heavy lids and flushed skin for anything other than salacity. the thought alone of what was to come had you pressing your thighs together, once again wondering how she managed to do so much to you without ever saying a single word. 

“you sure about that?” the blonde asked suddenly, her breath ghosting over your face as she spoke. you almost rolled your eyes out of habit, but settled for a scoff instead. of course she knew you were sure—she just couldn’t help herself, could she?

“if you expect me to grovel, you’re kindly mistaken,” you quipped, dropping your hand. 

“last i checked, i kinda feel like i have the upper hand, here,” abby smirked, one of her knees slotting between your legs, and you actually gasped, that motherfucker. the pressure against your core was delicious, albeit there were a few too many layers of clothing in the way. you tried not to let the pleasure show on your face, determined that she couldn’t break you—not now, not after all the time you’ve had to spend proving yourself to her. 

“fuck you, abby,” you said, but this time, you didn’t mean it. and she knew that, smirking down at you as she shifted her leg up higher, silencing what would have been an absolutely embarrassing moan with a kiss. 

it was almost like she couldn’t control herself. she was greedy now, all tongue and teeth, her mouth incessant and wet, saliva connecting your mouths each time she pulled away briefly to allow you to breathe—not that you needed any breath, really you thought you’d be fine if you never breathed on your own again. you wanted her breath, you wanted her—couldn’t help the grinding of your clothed pussy over the expanse of her muscular thigh, couldn’t help the whisper of jesus, fuck- that spilled from your lips when she began to trail her tongue down your neck, to your chest, all the way down until she was lifting your shirt up, helping you wrangle it off, and pressing her mouth onto the bare skin just above your navel.

you looked down at her just as she darted her tongue out to lap gently at your stomach, and you swore you could have cried right then and there, reaching your hand out to grip her hair as you arched into her touch, a shiver shooting down your spine at the ticklish sensation. 

“god, do you ever take out this stupid braid?” you hissed as your fingers got caught in one of the plats, and she had the nerve to laugh, pressing another kiss to your middle before sitting up on her knees, leaving you needy and exposed below her, your nipples hardening against the cool air in the room.

“aw, someone been fantasizing about me with my hair down?” she taunted, but she got the hint, because she took out her hair-tie regardless, sliding it down to her wrist. 

“fuck off,” you retorted, though your body flooded hot at the mockery, partially because yes, she was right, you sometimes did wonder about what she looked like with her hair down—not sure if you’d call that, fantasizing, though—and mostly because abby had always taunted you, fucked around with you, frustrated you to the point of tears, but never in a sexual way. and the thought both terrified and excited you as you envisioned what was to come.

it didn’t really matter right now though, you thought as you sat up on your elbows, because she was undoing her braid, the wavy, golden locks cascading down her shoulders once freed, and you choked back yet another moan at the sight.

“abby…” you breathed, sitting up farther so that you could touch it. the moment had gone soft, like her hair, it was so soft, and smelled like coconut, fuck how have you never seen her with her hair down, after all these years? she was smiling, but you could see the faint blush that was creeping up her neck under your gaze. 

“is my hair down a turn-on for you?”

yes. you swallowed. 

“no.”

she laughed, and you had to fight your own grin, twisting a strand of her hair around your finger. “shut up,” you grumbled, sitting up on your knees to match her, pressing your hands against her chest softly, playing with the neckline of her shirt. you felt her muscles tense under your touch as she gazed down at you, and you were suddenly aware of just how much…larger she was than you. the thought made you shiver, and you were once again aware of the wetness between your legs. 

“can i take this off?” you asked, voice coming out quiet and shy. abby nodded, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead. you took a breath, reaching down to help her pull it off, and you could have fainted at the sight. you knew she was built, but fuck. you couldn’t help but reach out and touch her skin, trailing your fingers from the band of her thin white bra down to her navel. 

“bet you’ve been waiting for this, huh?” she asked, abs flexing slightly under the touch of your hand, and no matter how badly you wanted to make some sarcastic comment back, you felt like a person possessed, nodding with enthusiasm, impure thoughts flooding your brain—but another “shut up,” was all you could manage, breathless and benevolent, wanting to feel more of her. 

“should have known,” she spoke lowly now, her tone just this side of nice, “all that teasing, all those mean comments,” she said, and your stomach twisted in anticipation as her eyes narrowed. god, she was looking at you like you were a piece of meat, and no, that shouldn’t have been turning you on even more, but oh, she was guiding you back down to the mattress before fumbling with the button of your jeans. 

“it was just frustration,” abby said, her tone suddenly casual for the extremely sensual way she was undoing your pants.

“the fuck are you talking about, anderson?” you griped, reaching down to help her pull your pants all the way off, and you became acutely aware of how your excitement had seeped through your panties, the sudden rush of air against them making you shiver. 

“i’m saying, i get it now,” she continued, using her big hands to spread your thighs apart, rubbing circles into your skin with her thumbs, observing you. “you were just frustrated over what you couldn’t have.”

“are you fucking kidding m-”

but there was no time to retort, no time to do much of anything before she was pressing a thumb to your thinly veiled clit, causing you to cry out in shock. you couldn’t look at her, you had to throw your head back onto the pillow and cover your eyes in shame, legs closing around her arm instinctively.

“ah ah,” she reprimanded, using a hand to spread your legs back apart, and fuck, she was strong. not that it would have taken much convincing, anyways. “let me see.” her thumb pressed against your sensitive core, making a dull ache in your stomach, making you gasp and moan under her touch. 

“yeah that’s it,” she rasped, and you swear in that moment you were seeing stars, fucking shameful, isn’t it? that she had barely even started to touch you and you were practically gone already. so much for not breaking. “i know this is what you’ve been wanting. what you’ve been needing…”

“abby, please,” please what, you weren’t sure. please stop talking, please keep talking, please don’t fucking stop, and you’d blame it on the desire, the ache to be touched, anything to admit you weren’t coming undone this quickly under her teasing rhythm. 

“such good manners, where have those been?” she was fucking mocking you now, abruptly stopping her ministrations in favor of grabbing the waistband of your underwear, pulling them down with such ease you were worried for a moment they might rip. 

“fuck you,” you managed, and it just didn’t have that same weight to it anymore—not when abby had you like this, naked and breathless and sweaty below her. she smiled at you, and it was wicked, eyes dark and hair wild around her face.

“why don’t you show me some more of those good manners,” she said, eyes transfixed on the wetness between your legs, pushing your thighs apart lightly. “open up.”

somehow, your legs were spreading almost like she’d cast some sort of spell on you, her words going straight to your head and taking over your body, doing anything to make her get closer, to make her touch you, to fuck you. 

“tell me you want this,” her voice was quiet and serious, the sound of it scrambling your brain--her fingers, dancing across your skin, from your hips, to your thighs, squeezing gently at the soft flesh as she locked eyes with you. 

“you gonna make me beg?” you questioned, inhaling sharply at her touch.

“never said that,” she shrugged, abruptly moving her hand and running her index finger down your slit, and it was nearly disgraceful how easily her finger glided, coated with your slick—you gasped at the sensation, gripping the bedsheets in your fists. “just wanna hear you say it.”

“you’re insufferable,” you groaned, closing your eyes as she began stroking her finger agonizingly slowly between your folds, and god you could fucking hear how wet you were. it would have been embarrassing, and perhaps, it was a little bit--but she didn’t need to know that thought was turning you on even more.

“guess i don’t really need to hear it,” abby continued. “i can just tell by how fucking wet you are.” it was like she was in your brain, somehow, your hips were bucking into her touch and shying away at the same time. you looked down your body at her and watched the way she looked at you, with such hunger and intensity, and it took everything in you to hold back, to force yourself to stay away from the edge—no way you’d let her have that satisfaction. 

“still’d be nice,” she pressed on, dipping her finger just slightly into your pussy, drawing a moan from your throat, which you quickly muffled with the back of your hand. 

“abby,” you whispered against your hand, trying to move your hips just so that her finger would slide in--it probably would, you were so fucking eager, and she knew it too, the way she watched your face twist in pleasure, your mouth falling open as she teased your entrance. you chanced a look down at her, and her lips were painted with that smug fucking smirk. 

“you fucking asshole,” you whined when you realized she was serious. “abby, i swear to god-” you were quickly cut off, practically choking on your words as she slid a thick finger inside, curling it just right so that she could pull out of your dripping cunt with an obscene squelching noise.

“what happened to your manners?” she questioned, withdrawing her fingers completely, cocking her head to the side. “c’mon, lemme hear it,” and you were writhing on the bed, heart racing, your breathing labored, stomach twisting in knots, sweat making the bed sheets stick to your backside.

“abby,” you spoke her name, for maybe the hundredth time that night, but you couldn’t help it. fell off your lips like a prayer, tears welling in your eyes as you gazed up at her strong frame, towering over you in the bed. you were at her mercy, whether you liked it or not--but you really did like it, maybe even loved it, your thighs sticky with your juices as you pressed your knees together, desperate for any kind of pressure after she pulled away. 

“it’s just three little words,” abby pressed, smoothing her hands up the expanse of your thighs before dipping her thumb back in between the heat of your legs, the pressure against your sensitive bud making you gasp and open up to allow her better access. “i wanna make you feel good. don’t you want that?” it was accentuated with a languid stroke of her thumb, heavy and demanding, and there was no getting out of this--she had a direct line to your brain, flipping a switch with her touch and making you desperate, making your back arch as you tried to hold on to reality, but it was no use. you wanted her, so badly, too badly, you were breaking and fucking- christ abby, your fingers, you were babbling, practically incoherent, but you wanted her to fuck me, please, i-i want it, please, 

“that’s it, that’s what i thought,” two fingers were slipping inside you with such ease that you felt mortified for a moment, before you were seeing stars, groans and grunts and unintelligible words being fucked out of you. abby’s fingers moved inside you expertly, like she knew you already, and did she just fucking moan? “fucking filthy, god-” she was leaning over you now, hair falling around her face so that it just tickled your belly as she fucked you, taking you apart. her eyes were ablaze, cheeks red as she panted above you, getting off to just the feeling, you couldn’t look at her, your stomach was tightening and oh no, no, no, she’d barely started--your hole was tightening around her fingers, making the drag of her fingers just that much better, or worse, or something else all together. 

“god, you’re fucking tight,” abby groaned as she sped up her fingers, “fucking made for my fingers, taking them so good,” the palm of her hand tapping against your swollen clit with each stroke. you were gone, too gone, but not gone enough to know you were fight fucking there, 

“abby, don’t stop, don’tyoufuckingdarestop,” it was pathetic, really--the tears streaming down your face, the way your hand flew out to grip her wrist, pinning her in place as you felt the world disappearing from your mind, m’gonna- fucking cum, your mouth falling open as you locked eyes with her, watching her arm flex as she brought you to your peak and oh--

the world went white for a moment, but you could feel it at the same time, could feel the way your pussy absolutely drenched abby’s hand, could feel the way she stroked you through it, murmuring praises as she pressed against that sensitive spot, causing your hips to stutter as you came down. 

abby pulled her fingers out of you slowly, and you whimpered, suddenly overcome with a strong feeling of emptiness--both physically and mentally. your breathing was shaky and prominent, brain foggy and body spent. you felt the bed shifting and looked down to see abby with a soft smile on her face, wiping your wetness off onto her pant leg. you quickly averted your eyes, closing them as you pressed your fingertips to your temples, trying to force back whatever emotion was bubbling up at literally the most inconvenient time. 

“hey, what’s going on?” abby’s voice was riddled with concern, and you felt her slide up the bed next to you, close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off her body, her breathing matching yours. you shook your head bashfully, refusing to look at her. there were ten million thoughts running through your mind, but the main one being:

i just let abigail anderson fuck me. 

“m’sorry,” you were apologizing, though you didn’t even know what for, for crying? for ruining the moment? 

“sorry for what?” she was pressing, a hand coming to tug at your wrist. “hey, look at me, please,” there was an edge to her voice, almost desperate. you drew a deep breath, wiping away your tears and turning your head toward her. her eyes were full of worry, brow creased slightly as she watched your face. you looked at her for a moment longer before you couldn’t anymore, diving into her neck, pressing your body against hers with fervor. her skin was hot and sticky with perspiration, her heart beating wildly against your face as you pressed it against her, snaking an arm around her middle.

“this changes everything,” you whispered, almost scared to admit it to yourself. she rubbed a warm hand up and down the bare skin of your back soothingly, but you weren’t expecting the laugh that rumbled from her chest. 

“well, i would sure hope so.”

you pulled back slightly, glaring at her as best as you could with eyes full of tears and your bottom lip quivering. 

“listen,” she smiled softly at you, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “of course this changes everything. but doesn’t it change it for the better?” she asked. “unless you’re trying to tell me i’m a terrible lay,” and you had to laugh, pleasantly subdued, for the moment.

“it is for the better,” you mumbled, trying to make your way back into her neck, but she kept you pinned where she would see your face.  

“then, what’s the problem?”

“change is hard,” you whispered, the tears stinging in your eyes again. this time, she let you back into her warmth, cradling an arm around your head as she stroked your hair gently. the room was on fire, abby’s scent overwhelming you as you felt her breath evening out. 

“i’ll make it easier.”

“how?” you asked, slightly muffled into her skin.

“i just…will.”

and somehow, it sounded like a promise.

[coyotes-rules-of-change]

Part 2: Adam

This is part of my first series! If you missed the first part, please feel free to enjoy Part 1: Kellen before you continue on with Adam. In terms of content, this is rather new territory. There is a bit of violent content, bullying, slurs. This is likely to be the only part of this series with that kind of content.

Kellen knew about Adam long before he found himself in academic turmoil. The poor kid was the perfect punching bag. Kellen took pride in the fact that this kid skirted the perimeter of any campus space where he saw any jocks. Unfortunately Adam couldn't avoid Kellen when they lived on the same floor of the residence halls. Even when he'd change schedules or leave out the fire escape stairs instead of the main entrance, Kellen would still manage to find him and insult him, shove him, dump out his backpack, throw him in a trash can—basically everything besides throwing outright punches.

Adam came to the bottom of the fire stairs and found his path blocked by Kellen. All he could do was freeze—his fight or flight reflexes worn down to nothing but paralysis.

"Hey nerd, I need something, and you're gonna do it for me."

Adam continued to quake, unable to muster any further reaction.

Kellen smiles. "Glad to see you won't object. I have a paper due tomorrow in my history class. You're gonna do it for me. Here's the rubric," he balls it up and throws the paper in Adam's face. "I'd better get a good grade."

Kellen punched his fist into his other hand to emphasize his point. "See you tomorrow with the essay, right dweeb?"

"Uh... yes." Adam barely manages to get out. He knew the only way to get out of this was giving in and playing along.

"Just yes? I thought I'd taught you respect by now." Kellen took a menacing step closer.

"Yes, sir." Adam looked down as he said it, hoping it would be enough to appease the menace. He waited for Kellen to say more, but he just laughed and walked away. Adam collapsed on the landing. He'd be late for class again but he needed a few minutes for the fear to leave him.

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

A week later, Adam is loosing sleep. He already maxed out his workload on his own school schedule and now he had another one—well, it wasn't quite as rigorous as his own work but it was demanding, demeaning, and had to always take priority or... well he didn't wanna find out.

Two weeks later Adam is deep into mid-terms. He barely sleeps, his anxiety has risen steadily, and he was starting to slip on his own workload. His roommate Ben is a nerd like him with ambitions to be valedictorian and president of the student senate, etc.—a much more high-profile brainiac. His campus-wide notariety is probably why he never manages to face the wrath of the school's star jock. Ben sees Adam's mental health slipping and tries to check in on his roommate, but he evades. After a few times, Ben gets more insistent and manages to get the truth out of him.

"But that breaks so many rules. You've gotta turn him in."

"You don't understand, Ben. I don't know what he'd do to me and... it's terrifying." Adam breaks down crying for the third time in the course of the conversation.

"Then I can," Ben volunteers, "and he won't take it out on you."

"You're my roommate. He'd still make me pay for it."

"Then we could—"

Adam shuts down his roommate. "Don't do anything. Please, don't do anything. I can't risk it. There's nothing either of us can do that doesn't result in me facing consequences."

Ben, still visibly not over it, decides to let it go. He leaves for the library so Adam can have the room to himself.

Working late into the night and the early morning, Adam gets all the work done but the conversation with his roommate still weighs on him. It's cheesy, but he even looks out his window at a particularly bright star and wishes he could do something about Kellen, wishes there was some way out. But that was never going to work.

Ben returned at a rather late hour—2:30 am—but Adam was still awake even after his room mate returned and went to bed. He finished up around 4:30am and went to get even just a few hours of sleep.

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

The next day brought sun and warmth. Adam had no time to take it in or enjoy it as he sent the daily batch of assignments to Kellen that morning before breakfast. The jock would send him a message through Snapchat—since nothing was saved there—telling Adam where to meet, or from time to time, where to drop the assignments. He fell asleep in both his morning classes, one of which was review for the midterm test coming up later in the week. Adam was so defeated and exhausted that he didn't even bother with lunch, choosing instead to head back to his dorm for a nap. He hoped that would help him get through the test he had at 2:30.

Ben returned shortly after. He barged into the room expecting to find it empty and found Adam just drifting off.

"Oh, sorry. I wasn't expecting you to be here." Ben said from the doorway.

"Yeah, I just needed a nap. Hopefully I don't get too hungry in my afternoon classes."

Ben clearly wanted to say more. Adam was sure that his roommate was still holding back his urge to do something for him with his Kellen problems, but Adam was grateful Ben decided against bringing anything up. After mulling it over for a moment, Ben settles for a different approach: "I'm getting lunch, but I can bring you something before your next class."

Adam was so tired he could cry and the simple showing of kindness. "That would be great. Maybe a burger?"

Before exiting, Ben left Adam with an obviously coded statement of support. "Adam, you know I would do anything in my power to help you right now." But ultimately Ben seemed to respect Adam's requests to stay out of things with Kellen and ducked out without pushing the matter further.

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

Adam woke up an hour later feeling quite refreshed. He looked over at his desk and saw Ben had returned at some point with a salad. Adam sat up and looked out the window, taking in the nice weather for the first time. He had a half an hour to kill with some last-minute studying and then he had to pick up some assignments from Kellen before his test.

He sits at his desk, eats the salad, then opens his textbook and class notes... but despite feeling renewed by his nap, the words on the page still danced around like he was tired and he couldn't settle in. He must still need more sleep... or he must want to feel the sunshine before his class. It was just so nice out—of course he was distracted. Maybe he'd benefit more today by "touching grass" instead of cramming—after all, mental health was just as important as studying.

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

At 2:05, Kellen was ready to shove Adam against a wall. At 2:10, he was ready to throw punches at the little punk. This dweeb was always way too afraid of him to ever show up late, but today Kellen knew he'd have to teach a more impactful lesson since respect had clearly not yet sunk into the mind of this geek. He messaged Adam over Snapchat:

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU!!!

After progressively more threatning messages, he finally gets a response—accompanied for the first time by a photo from Adam.

It was a nice day out Thought I'd go out for a run

Something was seriously off. Since when was Adam a runner? Since when did he take selfies, or wear tank tops. Hell, did he have all that muscle tone before hidden under his conservative clothes, or was that somehow new? Now Kellen was as confused as he was angry.

YOU NEED TO GET HERE NOW!!!

Another response, and another picture from Adam:

oh hehe i totally forgot i can be so dumb sometimes i'll run over to you quick, ive already worked up a sweat i can't wait to see you😜

Kellen was dumbfounded, though not as dumb as the new Adam seemed to be. He was suddenly some homo. This was either an elaborate prank or something fucked up was going on here. Before he could process further, Kellen receives another message:

see u soon daddy

Kellen stared in shock. This was a prank for sure, but he wasn't going to stick around for part 2. Instead, he was going to teach this geeky fucker a lesson tonight—and whoever else helped him with this. No one humiliates and defies him and gets away with it.

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

Despite his fury, Kellen was kinda impressed with the depth of the prank. This fake Adam had set up social media accounts. That last selfie he sent Kellen was even cross-posted on all his socials in their stories and somehow there were bots set up so the pages had thousands of followers and the posts had hundreds of likes and comments. This imposter even looked more muscular than before—probably yet another fake in on the scheme.

Even so, Adam's fate was sealed. Kellen waited until after dinner. He knew the nerd would be studying. After 7pm, he stormed down the short hallway to the geekling's door and pounded on it.

"Open up. You know who it is, so you'd better not ignore me."

The door opened and in a split second Kellen was inside with the person at the door shoved up against the wall, hitting the brick hard.

"Ungh." he moaned.

Kellen had acted so quickly he hadn't taken stock of who had answered his knock. The sexual moan broke his blind rage in an instant and he registered who he had in front of him. He only had a brief moment to register the blonde from the social media pages before he responded.

"Oh, Daddy, that felt so good. I was waiting for you all day."

Kellen is struck by a wave of repulsion. Was he turning this little twink on? He goes to push the imposter harder against the wall, but the homo looks him dead in the eye, bites his lip, and grabs Kellen's dick. He's immediately hard. His rage mixes with his horniness and his desires become carnal. Kellen whirls the little slut around and pulls out his thick cock. Adam is ready, as usual, wearing nothing but a jock strap allowing for immediate access. He thrusts inside his submissive twink and roughs him up as Adam moans louder and louder. At this point the hall was used to it since it happened at least once a night.

Kellen has had such troubles keeping his grades up since receiving a warning from financial aid threatening to kick him out. He's still on the search for a nerd to do his homework, but at least he found Adam. Adam could take anything from Sir as long as Sir didn't leave a mark. Adam made sure he set his boundaries, after all, they both should know respect always goes both ways.

[deathandthesoul]

Six Song Soundtrack Game

I was tagged by @crownedinmarigolds (thank you!) and then proceeded to spend 6 hours on it like a normal person 🫡 Gonna do both Aidan and Jesse for this. It's 2 characters so it's long so I'm putting it under a cut

I'm gonna tag @heksen-sabbat @lealdog @mournwatch @thuumwrestler @pocketgoth

@vampiricsheep @malignantverse

Rules: If you're tagged, make a new post with links to music and/or lyrics describing the following…

Aidan Evans

Event that defines your character's past:

Dog Fashion Disco - A Corpse is a Corpse

And though you try and try and try to pull me down It's all been lies it's lies begat the lies again I'm not afraid, afraid of dying anymore Only I can set me free So turn and blame but don't you fuckin look at me Decompose, you maggot Now you'll shut the fuck up

How your character sees themselves:

Shiv-R - Shadow with a Voice

Shadow with a voice Shadow made of noise Life beyond all light Fire from the void Feels no emotion In the dark it evolved Just a programmed compulsion (a destructive compulsion) Singularity falls (code)

How others view them:

Angelspit - Hidden Knife (flashing at end of the video)

The beast in your head is wearing you like meat Slips you on to impress tears you off to breed It knows what to say, coiled to strike Get the smell of blood, feel the black dog bite Always in shadow One step behind you Left hand, holds a flower Hidden knife in the other

Their closest relationship (platonic or romantic):

Måneskin - The Driver

If you're gonna set fire to the night Baby, let me be the lighter If you're already high and you wanna fly I'll be the hit that takes you higher If you wanna love when you touch the sky You can be my midnight rider If there's nowhere to go and you wanna go wild I wanna be the driver

A major fight scene:

Shiv-R - The Moth Collector

Control Makes you feel so high Pulling wings off flies Inflict the pain that’s been done unto you So small Pretty and refined You study their design Watch their life evaporate because of you

End credits song:

Dog Fashion Disco - Private Eye

I'm The private eye Hot on your trail The top gun for hire You'll find me lurking in the shadows Always searching for a clue I'm the bulletproof detective I got my eye on you

Jesse Steele

Event that defines your character's past:

Brigade Werther - North + South

No cries, just silent noise The crash impacts my voice No rush to learn my fate Insight to contemplate The scars don't hurt no more Your blood still paints the floor Their loss no more in force It's time, I'm heading north

How your character sees themselves:

Adema - Waiting For Daylight

When all the people settle down and all the alcohol runs out I'll just sit here by myself (Waiting for) Each and every soul's worn thin, all the walls are closing in (Waiting for) Wishing I was someone else (Waiting for) Waiting for the daylight to come

How others view them:

3TEETH - Pumped Up Kicks

Robert's got a quick hand He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan He's got a rolled cigarette Hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid Yeah, he found a six-shooter gun In his dad's closet, in the box of fun things I don't even know what But he's coming for you, yeah, he's coming for you

Their closest relationship (platonic or romantic):

Saint Motel - Cold Cold Man

Oh my love I know I am a cold cold man Quite slow to pay you compliments Or public displayed affections But baby don't you go overanalyze No need to theorize I can put your doubts to rest

A major fight scene:

Metallica - All Nightmare Long

'Cause we hunt you down without mercy Hunt you down all nightmare long Feel us breathe upon your face Feel us shift, every move we trace Hunt you down without mercy Hunt you down all nightmare long, yeah Luck runs out You crawl back in, but your luck runs out

End credits song:

Kenny Loggins - Danger Zone

Out along the edges Always where I burn to be The further on the edge The hotter the intensity Highway to the Danger Zone Gonna take it right into the Danger Zone Highway to the Danger Zone Ride into the Danger Zone

[pumpkinsy0]

Ok this might seem stupid but hear me out, perhaps we could get some headcanons of papercut in the events of the book but instead of Johnny it was Curly who stabbed the soc and him and Pony had to run away together? It would also be cool to see what the Curtis AND Shepard gangs reactions are

this aint stupid,,,,ur onto something here,,,,

•ok look, not REALLY related but curly woulda loved that white trash w mustangs and madras line, this white on white violence gotta STOP💔💯

•ANYWAYS, i think he’d put up more of a fight, he’d try to get to pony but they were outnumbered so he gets cornered, HOWEVER, he always carries some weapon on him, or maybe he picked up a coke bottle, POINT IS, bob still died lmao

•i dont think curly and pony would stay around that area as long as johnny and pony did, curly would want to leave as soon as he could so nobody could see them, so ponys forced to just get it together in under like 2mins so they could leave, so ponys disassociating badly

•theyd go to tim, curly doesnt like dally and tim IS his older brother, then tim would tell dally, and they still end up at the dirty ass church</3

•now curlys shaken up too, like hes not trying to show it to look tough, but hes never done THAT before, never flat out hurt someone that badly before, but he still doesnt regret it bc it was to defend pony, however considering hes black in the 60s in TULSA, hes so certain a judge will not gaf that it was outta self defense, so actually hes disassociatin too, they both a lil fucked up rn

•back at home, dally didnt tell darry or soda where they were but tim sure as hell did, he gets what darrys goin through cause theyre both older bros worryin over their younger bros, darry doesnt know HOW to react at all to it, he doesnt tell soda nor johnny, or anyone really, when two bit says he’ll go to texas (i think it was,,,) to look for him, darry says not to bother, so they all feel like darry knows where pony is and they dint know wether to be happy or terrified bc why isnt he tellin em or getting him??

•when it comes to the shepard gang, tim did tell some of em whats going on, only his trusted guys tho, theres basically nothing they CAN do to stop word from spreading about it bc the socs who were there already went to the cops, so they all have to lay low for a while, stay in line cause tim quite honestly cant handle anything more rn

•angela’s pretty much losing it too, shes drinking more, way more irritable, if one of the shepards is gone, ALL of em r losing it dawg

•in the church, curlys trying to act like his normal self but u can tell that he’s damn near close to losing it cause this could mean prison or the death penalty, hes so sure hes done for and pony wants to reassure him but holy fuck it aint lookin too good, they do their normal banger but u can feel this somber tension between the two as if this is gonna b their last moments together

•curly is NOT talking about turning himself in at all, he’d rather kill someone else to NOT go actually, on top of that tims telling him to stay hidden, dallys tellin him to stay hidden, so thats how he knows hes GOTTA stay there

•NOW THE FIRE, just like dally, curly dont care that much bout those kids im ngl, but bc ponys running in there, now HE has to help, boooooo👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽

•curly aint like johnny, hes grabbing those kids and pushing them out, whatever injuries they get outta that they gonna have to deal w later, its better than them being dead id think, when the church falls, honestly??? i think my main man curly gettin outta there in time, he lowkey DID push pony out the window cause he was taking too long and then jumped out bit aye, hes livin

•its either that or he risks it and takes the longer way out if like, the wood fell where the window was

•he aint livin without some injuries and scars tho, he did definitely break SOMETHING and got some burns on his hands and wherever else, but hes relatively fine, a part of the reason y is bc he wears a leather jacket, unlike johnny who wears a jean jacket, and jean jackets r more flammable, and as seen w pony, the leather jacket did help him a bit in that fire, he still is banged up tho

[transfemlogan]

For the fandom ask game; 2, 10, 16

Positive Fandom Ask Game

a headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like!

that janus is loveless. i will say my hesitance didn't last very long and wasn't really hesitance, it was more "oh loveless janus is a hc? i can see how people can dislike it, but i love it." (so this option doesn't really count but i quite literally cant think of anything else)

there is a headcanon that janus is loveless/cannot feel love/doesn't love because he is a snake and snakes don't feel love. and as a loveless aromantic I absolutely love this headcanon.

i know people don't like this headcanon because people tend to view love as an inherently positive force and if you don't love or refuse to love that it's negative and offensive. & because people will try to use the lack of love to demonise janus, an already very demonise side. which... the demonising janus one is a valid reason to dislike it, the other reasons aren't.

i only ever consider patton to be loveless and i never see loveless hcs in fandom so knowing there's already a hc for janus being loveless makes me so so so so happy. i think there's something so sweet about janus not feeling love or choosing not to love or being critical about how society views love, but still being compassionate & caring towards the other sides & c!thomas*. that whether or not he loves them that doesn't control how he treats them. that his care isn't controlled by one singular feeling, but a multitude of feelings or opinions; he cares for the sides & thomas, because he knows they need it. & that idea means the world to me.

*obviously, loveless people can care & be compassionate. im loveless & im so compassionate to the people around me. but i mean more that, choosing janus 2 be loveless when he is literally self preservation & cares so much about the other sides & their health is soooo smart & beautiful. i know it probably originated to demonise him (or write aus where he "thinks he loveless but finds out he CAN feel love" eugh), but i like that you can switch it on its head & go "he doesn't feel love but that doesn't mattwe & wont ever matter. he feels so much compassion for the others" & choose not to demonise him.

i probably explained that all strange & worded it so bad i just woke up. BUT LIKE. YOU CAN CHOOSE TO DEMONISE HIM FOR BEING LOVELESS, BUT YOU CAN ALSO RECOGNISE THAT IF HE IS LOVELESS THAT LOVE DOESNT PUSH HIS CARING ACTIONS. HE JUST CARES.

also janus 100% would be loveless in the sense that he's criticising how society views love as the most "important thing" or as an inherently positive thing , as if people don't do horrible things bcuz of their love.

a blog (mutual or one you follow) that has made your fandom experience brighter

UM. HOW DO I LIST A GAJILLION BLOGS.

i was gonna go thru & explain why they r on my list but thats 2 much effort so im just gonna rapid fire:

@sankiisides , @warnadudenexttime , @intrulogical , @edupunkn00b , @lovecorepatton & everyone i know on instagram. i was gonna list blogs that im not mutuals with but i am so tired & couldnt remember anyones blogs . ill just come back (<- is lying & wont come back)

the one blog i am not mutuals w/ that i can list rn is @we-all-horny-here :3

a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate

PERHAPS A REALLY SMALL DETAIL, but the way remus pauses & actually thinks about what is being said to him when logan is talking to him at the end of working through intrusive thoughts

maybe im crazy & insane & making things up bcuz i want them to be friends so bad BUT thruout the entire ending scene w/ logan & remus, remus is shown turning his back and reading a book and taking a cockroach out of his ear and eating it. very actively ignoring him.

BUT . IN THIS SCENE:

logan tells remus how he can see how remus can be helpful (albeit. thru gritted teeth.) & then asks him, "but perhaps, you can also see the merit in what I'm trying to do?"

& remus pauses.

he hesitates.

you can see him sit there and actually think about what logan is saying. & ofc he immediately goes back to ignoring him but it makes me crazed that logan tells remus that he can see why remus is doing what he is doing & that it can be helpful & then asks remus, straight forwardly, to try & see what logan is trying to do & remus stops in his little schemes and thinks about that. he has a little moment of hesitation.

though it could also be remus going "hmmm should i eat the tongue lollipop first or should i do the cockroach?" /j

im ill . im ill. im ill. im ill.

Positive Fandom Ask Game

[quodekash]

I could literally fall asleep any minute but im nothing if not sleep deprived and watching my favourite gay little shows!

hey nawa, I see you looking at guy as he struggles in the room on his crutches

you should kiss him

I think that you should absolutely just slam your face into his

give him another injury but its not really an injury it's just a hickey

(we're less than a minute into the episode and im already begging guynawa to make out, we're off to a great start)

we all know this is a complete lie, we've seen the trailers, we know what's gonna happen

but that doesnt mean it doesnt hurt my sad little gay soul

sailom what the hell

no way

no

you are not quitting school

is that a frikin letter of resignation or smth? can you even do that?

I love that solution and I wish it were a possibility but sailom's gonna say no, of course he's gonna say no, because the stupid bastard doesn't like accepting help for free

he doesn't understand the concept of FRIENDSHIP and FAVOURS

BITCH YOU CAN ACCEPT HELP, YOU'RE ALLOWED TO ACCEPT HELP, THEY ARE SO SO WILLING TO HELP AND GIVE YOU MONEY AND SCHOLARSHIPS AND PLATONIC LOVE AND H E L P

O4EKLGHNVWOERISDLGI HE MAKES ME SO ANGRY I HATE HIM

guy's right, and I hate sailom so much for it

BUT THAT'S THE THING, he WONT ask for help, theres no way in HELL that he'll ask for help

which is precisely how he ends up getting shot at, alone on a street corner, and why kang will have to rescue him on his bike, and why sailom will stand in the bathroom with kang holding a blanket over him as he sobs 'I have no one left'

its not that you have no one left. it's that you wont accept the help from the people who love you

(and also your brother kind of abandoned you and your parents are dead and your boyfriend also kind of abandoned you and yeah anyone would definitely feel alone in that situation so he's perfectly valid, but also ALL of his friends are offering help, his teacher is offering help, and he's accepting NONE of it)

HUG TIME

OH MAN IM ALREADY SOBBING

I LOVE MEANINGFUL GROUP HUGS SO MUCH

this could be one of the last times that they see sailom for a really long time. theres no way I could possibly be sadder holy frick

I SPOKE TOO SOON

WHY MUST THERE BE FLASHBACKS

WHY

I HATE EVERYTHING

y'know, I really thought he might hug him. but nope. he wrenched that pin off his shirt and took my heart in the process.

OMG

YES

THE PERFECT THING TO MAKE ME REMEMBER WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE HAPPY

GUYNAWA TIME PLEASE GUYNAWA TIME

NOOOOO THE SCENE CUT BEFORE NAWA WALKED INTO THE LITTLE ROOM THINGY TO TALK TO GUY IM SO MAD

well, not really mad

mostly just sad

bitch wth

of COURSE he's not frikin doing alright

omg he's here too?

go talk to your boyfriendddd

and also ANSWER MY QUESTIONS PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU IM SO CONFUSED GIVE ME ANSWERS

awh :(

thank you krup ;-;

this man is lovely

not just for this but also just in general

but also his actor is the freaking DIRECTOR who is RESPONSIBLE for a LOT of my anguish so we can't be too nice to this guy

oh look at that. the shooting scene is right about to happen

I was expecting it to come later on in the episode but this works too I guess

who the hell are these guys???

they dont say a word

what the hell is going on

thank you kanggg

where did he come from tho

how'd he know where sailom was and that that was happening? did he just HAPPEN to be in the area?

or is he tracking sailom's phone just to make sure he's safe cos like he already got drugged once

hey man, have you ever heard of a little thing called dodgeball?

shocking, I know, but it IS possible for a gun to have been fired, and for the person being fired at to not actually get shot

I can't think of a single reason why sailom would make up this story. like sure you could argue that hes just trying to get an enemy/rival convicted, but he very explicitly stated that he has no idea who tried to shoot him, so it can't be that.

why the hell are you suspicious my guy?

acab is real man, holy frick

how do you know they're all fake tho?

maybe all of them were real reports and you're just an ignorant arrogant piece of shit who doesn't think people under the age of 20 are capable of being truthful

I hate this guy so much

OH MY-

NOW HES STARTING TO SOUND LIKE FRIKIN UMBRIDGE

I WAS IRRITATED BEFORE, BUT NOW IM ANGRY

deep breaths, deep breaths, in and out in and out, lets not destroy our laptop today

thATS WHAT I SAID!

I feel that

:(

im so sad man

oh would you look at that. ive been impaled.

yeah that whole scene was a trainwreck for me. I am very much not even slightly okay but its fine

OHHHHHHH

that makes sense

WHAT

ANSWER MY QUESTIONS BITCH

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED THAT NIGHT CMON MAN IM SO CONFUSED

the way they fall back into old habits, kang's arm draped over sailom ;-;

I ran out of images as per usual, BUT im halfway through the episode when it happened, as opposed to like ten minutes through, so that's a nice change of pace

[sleepyscxry]

Yandere Alastor x male reader

major trigger warning. This is my first post so it might be a bit crusty and dusty

your POV

I had fallen down to hell about a month ago. Already an overlord. I’ve killed a bunch of r@pists and disgusting souls. But I did find one place that was for redemption. I did not understand how someone gets an idea like that but I’m on my way to it to become an employee! God fucking damnit how did I get into this mess.. I got to the front door and knocked three heavy times. After a second a girl that looks sixteen or so. She looked at me as if I was half skinned. She slammed the door and I heard chattering. She opened the door. “Uhm.. hi” “hello there I saw a poster about this place and I thought I could lend a helping hand by gaurding this hotel of vermin.” “What do you mean by vermin?” “Ahahaaa r@pists, child @busers. And more!” “That does.. kinda make sense.. but you’re an overlord.. why do you care?” “Oh because I went through oh so much when I was alive, I am now Dead Set on killing every one who truly deserves it!”

Time skip

I had gotten used to the hotel a bit after an hour or two. But I saw a new face walking down the stairs. “Oh Charlie who might this be?” The man said. “Oh this is our new employee y/n!” “Pleasure to meet you darling! I am Alastor.” “Oh yeah I’ve heard quite a lot about you. Nice to finally meet someone close to my power range.” “Pardon?” “HOW DOES AN OVERLORD NOT KNOW AN OVERLORD?!” “No need to yell vaggie, Alastor I’m sorry to tell you but y/n is beginning to be the most powerful overlord there is.. even my dad is best friends with him..” “ohh your lucifers kid. He told me he had a daughter!” She smiled and looked at Alastor. “It’s my pleasure to meet you y/n but I must take care of some business.” “K have fun!” He turned around and grinned at me. “May I ask.. when did you die?” “Oh last month maybe month before that. No definitely last month on the 25th. Aka Christmas!” “Oh that’s so sad.. I’m so sorry to hear that.” “Meh I got the gift of death that’s plenty.”

time skip

I was at the bar and I ordered rum and coke. A very comforting drink. “So how did you get to become an overlord so fast?” “I was powerful when I was alive and I’m even more powerful in the afterlife. It just makes sense if you’ve known me for awhile.” “Thats cool.” “How did you get the form of a furry?” “Furry?” “Yeah it’s where your body represents a animal hybrid.” “Oh.. idk” “ah”

another time skip (I’m so sorry)

I went up to my new bedroom and it was pretty plan so with just a snap of my fingers it was as home like as can be. I laid down and tried to fall asleep. Keyword tried but I heard loud footsteps outside. I got my slippers on and looked outside my door. It was Alastor. “Alastor? What are you doing up?” “Oh y/n! I’m just doing a nightly stroll around the hotel. Would you like to join me?” “Uhm.. sure!” I walked out of my room and got beside him. “So.. do you do this every night?” “Yes I do! It’s good for tiring me for a good sleep!” “Yeah that makes sense.” We walked down the steps to the main room. He snapped his fingers and a fire started. “Let’s talk. Overlord to overlord haha.” “Ok” “so how did you die?” “Uhm.. some of my long lasting enemies tried drowning me and I hung myself on the tree closest to the lake.” “Oh wow..” “how did you? It’s only fair you tell me.” “I was mistaken for a deer and god shot in the head and a group of dogs finished me off.” “Oh that’s deep.. I wanted to die.. you didn’t.” “Oh I’m over it now. It’s quite fun here!” “Yeah.. I like seeing people suffer in their own sins..” “me as well.” I yawned. “I think I’m gonna head to bed. Goodnight Al.” “Goodnight darling.”

end of part 1

[nokingsonlyfooles]

WTYP: The Shandor Building, Part 9

[Do you like the colour of the fanfic? This is long and if you expand it you're gonna get the whole thing, because Tumblr hates you. Don't say I didn't warn you!]

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Part 9: Disaster Roulette: Train Bad Actually

[Beware of strong language, mention of all kinds of death, gore, and Lovecraftian horror.]

[SLIDE: The Frankford Junction Wreck.]

D: Okay, where are we? What's going on?

R: We’re on a train leaving a station at speeds of up to eighty miles per hour, part of it is already on fire, and the signal gantry that will open it up, and I quote, “like a can of sardines,” is an unknown distance away. And we are all still covered in horse viscera.

A [cheerfully]: Right! Well! Everyone, make sure you have your equipment and your psycho-reactive slime objects! Rocz, hold my purse.

R: I’m not sure this train has a bathroom…

A: Oh, no, I’m not going to the bathroom. You just need something that flies!

R: I’m not taking this, what will you use?

A: Oh, I don’t need it. Now, everyone take a deep breath and prepare to start singing “Higher and Higher” at the top of your lungs! Future Devon, prepare to edit!

D [text over slide]: YEP.

R: Are you really going to be okay?

A: Oh, yes. Yes. You, er, might want to keep your distance. I… I really do have quite a lot of pent-up hostility. It’s not easy being a girl. All right! Door’s open! Paratroops, over the side! And…

D [text over slide]: IT REALLY IS A SHAME I HAD TO GET RID OF THE SINGING. THIS IS MY FAVOURITE PART.

[SLIDE: The Frankford Junction Wreck]

[screeching, train noises and sounds of laser fire throughout]

D: Shh! Shut up! We can’t leave all this out!

R: I don’t know if it’s exactly safe to land, Dev…

D: Just keep your distance!

L: Listeners, I wish you could see Alice! She is glowing! I mean, she is literally glowing!

R: Oh, my God.

A [distant, with her mic considerately muted]: I HAVE BECOME A SPECIFIC TYPE OF NONBINARY THAT ONE MIGHT INCLUDE IN A “TWO-AND-A-HALF-MEN” JOKE WITHOUT BEING TRANSPHOBIC — DESTROYER OF WORLDS!

R: So, we, uh, we accidentally gave Alice the ability to shoot lasers — er, uh, “light rays,” but that seems to work like lasers — out of her head this episode, and, looks like, all the powers of Unreal Engine animation…?

L: Fuck “accidentally,” I did this on purpose! KEEP TRANSGENDING, ALICE!

A [happily]: CHEERS!

R: Are we clear to use that with no license, Dev?

D [gleeful]: Just as long as nobody can see it!

L: Can she fly, or is she just glitching really fast?

R: I think she’s just failing to render gravity on command…

D: I don’t care what it is, it’s fantastic!

L: I just wish like hell we’d given her a higher frame rate!

R: God, that poor train. It was already on fire…

D: We’re pretty sure that train is part of, or all of, Gozer the Gozerian, Rocz.

R: I dunno. I mean, it’s possible just preventing xem from pulling off the disaster is enough to hurt xem…

A: YOU DUMPED HORSE ENTRAILS ON CARRIE AND SHE IS GOING TO BURN THIS FUCKING PROM TO THE GROUND! AHA! TAKE THAT, SIGNAL GANTRY!

[groaning, crashing, various explosions, and more laser fire]

D: Well, it’s certainly not going to happen now!

R: I’m just not sure destroying the pocket dimension while we’re in it is going to get us out of this alive…

L: Hey, do we have to Donnie Darko this bad boy? I mean, like, kill Gozer, pop the time bubble, and reset reality so we only kinda vaguely remember it? Like, is this version of me with the cool van doomed?

R: That’s assuming the time bubble is centered around Gozer and that it is, in fact, a time bubble. For example, I got out of the pie dimension just by finishing the pie, I recall it perfectly, and I did not have to die.

D: What if it’s like Bioshock and you constructed a plausible memory to cope with the trauma of your alternate self’s death?

R: That is, also, a possibility. Although it is beautifully rendered, you must realize why I’m a little concerned about Alice murdering the train. We do not know how this works. Also, she is super into it, and, uh, I’m not sure she’ll hear us if we ask her to stop.

[snarling, shrieking, crunching]

L: Holy shit, is that motherfucker rearing up in anger?

R: I think Alice has destroyed the axle on car number 7, as per the original accident, and Unreal Engine is having a little trouble rendering it in real time…

G [metallic shrieking interspersed with train noises]: I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY YOU MADE ME SIT THROUGH SO MUCH PODCASTING TO GET TO THE REAL FIGHT!

R: …Nope, my mistake. The motherfucker is indeed rearing up in anger.

A: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? THIS IS A BONUS EPISODE! WE HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO DIGRESS!

G: FUUUUUCK! AT LEAST GET BACK TO SHANDOR ARCHITECTURE!

A: NEVER!

V: Perhaps when Lord Gozer has destroyed the leader of your polycule, xe will have mercy on you, doughnut-giver.

R: Gah! Fuck! Don’t do that! I don’t have any more doughnuts! Wait… [crinkling wrapper] You want this?

V: [sniffing, chewing] This object is grainy and tastes of despair.

R: Well, it’s a Slimfast bar, and God knows how long it was at the bottom of this purse…

V: We do not need to lose weight.

R: No. I’m sure. It’s just all I…

V: The new world will be free of both fad diets and body image issues. To be perfectly honest, the new world will be free of most things, except suffering and tummy rubs.

R: That seems a bit contradictory…

L: Wait, what about TERFs? Will the new world have TERFs?

V: Are TERFs mortal, Vengeful God of Insults?

L: Yeah.

Z: Then most of them will die, and Lord Gozer will allow the cute ones to burn eternally in a lake of fire. Can I get some of those cigarettes? [chewing] Yum.

L [offended]: There are no cute ones!

Z [shocked]: Not even the baby ones? Have they no tentacles? No boopable noses?

L: No!

V: Then all of the TERFs will die, yes. Hail Gozer.

L: What about fish and the Dutch?

D: Liam!

L: What? I’m just sayin’, maybe we should hear them out…

Z: HEY!

L: Um, maybe we should hear “us” out?

V: All but the cutest occupants of your world shall perish.

Z: Only the cute shall suffer, with brief breaks to rub our tummies and throw a ball…

V [excited]: Did you say THROW a BALL? [panting, galloping]

Z: We apologize, we get excited. THERE IS NO BALL, VINZ CLORTHO!

V [distant]: WE THINK WE SEE IT OVER THERE!

Z: [sigh] There’s one in every polycule.

D: Why are you looking at me?

Z: We’d better go get us.

D: Why are you looking at me? I’M THE SANE ONE!

Z: Thank you for the cigarettes, doughnut-giver. Hail Gozer.

D: YOU SOUND LIKE A FERAL SIGOURNEY WEAVER!

Z [distant]: You sound like a queer Frodo Baggins!...

D: Wha… Buh… FRODO BAGGINS IS QUEER!

L: Dev…

D: Tell me one fact about Frodo Baggins that suggests he is anything other than queer!

L: Dev! Frodo Baggins is extremely queer and I just figured out how to get us out of this mess!

[90s-vintage car key fob chirp]

L: GANDALF, I SUMMON THEE!

[laser blasts and train sounds continue unabated]

L: Uh…

R: What’d you expect to happen?

L: I dunno. I hit the panic button. Doesn’t he know I’m in trouble?

R: Generally speaking, that just flashes the headlights and sets off the car alarm, it does not summon a car.

L: Aw, man. Poor guy’s probably sitting in an Innsmouth parking lot, just yelling his fool head off…

D: I AM DEFINITELY NOT THE VINZ CLORTHO OF THIS POLYCULE!

R: We’re not a polycule.

D: BUT IF WE WERE!

L: Okay, okay, wait, though. No, wait. My van is an engineering disaster, right? And my van is now a chariot pulled by a lamassu that has the gift of interdimensional flight. So we just gotta do one more engineering disaster, and pick my van!

R: The behavior of the train-monster suggests that if we pick your van, your van will become a manifestation of Gozer the Gozerian and xe will keep trying to kill us.

L: But it’s my van, right? Doesn’t my van have to listen to me?

R: Has your van ever listened to you?

L: Well, not the original version, but I think the new one likes me.

R: Yeah, but Gozer doesn’t.

D: …Rocz? What exactly is a lamassu?

R: An ancient Sumerian, later Assyrian, mythological beast. It is an emanation of the goddess Lama, and servant to Ishtar — the Queen of Heaven, not the 1987 cinematic flop. Although, critical attitudes towards the film Ishtar have softened somewhat…

D: It’s… a good Sumerian deity?

R: More like a contractor… Hang on, I'll open another tab…

D: Have a look at the one on Gozer too. Is xe a bad Sumerian deity?

L: Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m getting a real Dorothy vibe off you right now.

D: [sharply] Liam… [softening] No, no, good job, Liam. Keep it up. [to Rocz] What I’m trying to figure out is, are we acting as proxies between two opposing divine forces?

L: Sort of the meat in a god hoagie?

D: I… Yes, actually?

R: Technically, although the Cult of Gozer did form in ancient Sumer, Gozer is not Sumerian. We’re not sure where xe’s from, only that xe, in layman’s terms, is “not from around here.” Xe is more of a trans-dimensional traveler looking for a suitable place to set up shop. There have been several documented attempts, but the earliest was in Sumer.

L: Did you just say Gozer is trans?

R: In the sense of having traveled quite some distance to get here, yes. Any deities originating from this dimension would, in this context, be cis, although some of them may be trans in other ways. Though xe is, under the broadest possible definition of the term, a “trans immigrant,” xe is operating with literally toxic levels of power and privilege. I’m gonna hafta invoke Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance, here, and remind everyone that the intent to kill most of us and boil “the cute ones” in a lake of fire for eternity takes precedence.

D: Rocz, I am still covered in cream of rat-and-horse, my sympathies do not lie with the Gozerian… even if it is a bit of a shame about the TERFs.

L: And the fish.

D: Yes.

L: So, wait, you said we were having an immune response… Is our reality having an immune response? Is Gozer like covid? Or Vigo?

R: Maybe it’s trying, but we’re in this here pocket dimension. Any Sumerian memory T cells that know how to fight xem off are pretty far away, both physically and temporally.

L [proudly]: And my van’s one of ‘em! God sent me a contractor. That settles it! My religion wins! You can all go home!

R: Alice is still beating the shit out of that train, and we can’t actually get to your van, so at the very least it’s a tie.

D: A question, gentlemen. Can a virus take the form of a T cell?

R: Some of ‘em wear those little protein coats, but if we’re talking about Gozer taking the form of a lamassu, it’d probably itch like crazy if xe tried. Looks like Ray Stantz tried a similar strategy in ‘84, but although the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man looks fairly benign, he’s a trademarked corporate mascot and bona fide capitalist tool. Medium-evil at best. A lamassu is the real deal.

L: So if we try to trick xem into taking the form of my van, either xe won’t, or xe’ll get rejected by it, and no matter what, we’ll have a whole-ass lamassu?

R: Worth a shot.

[screeching, train noises and laser blasts continue]

D: Oh, God. Somebody’s got to tell Alice.

R: You go, Dev. I got a little more research to do. And Liam’s… Liam. No offense.

L: None taken. I’ve had my fun. Just don’t forget to edit out the music, Dev!

D [text over slide]: OH SHIT. RIGHT. I’M DEV.

[generic, public domain music]

[SLIDE: Test pattern, captioned: WE’RE EXPERIENCING COPYRIGHT DIFFICULTIES, and some difficulty with the circumstances of our reality. I mean, WTF? Why am I here? What does it all mean? Am I just a toy for your amusement, huh? Is that all? Or is there some point to all of this? What kind of God would create a being that instinctively seeks a greater purpose and then, seemingly, go out of their way to deny them that? I mean, sometimes a pet raven, liquor, and ice cream just isn’t enough, you know? Anyway…]

[laser blasts and train noises fading back in]

[SLIDE: The Frankford Junction Wreck.]

A: I AM THE MOUNTAIN WHO WILL COME TO MOHAMMED! I AM THE EMBODIMENT OF THE SATANIC VERSES! I AM A MOTHERFUCKING DJINN!

D [faintly]: ALICE! HEY!

A: What? Oh, hello, Dev! Ha-ha, it’s raining “them,” eh? You look like a butch Mary Poppins! This is, er [laser blast, steam-powered screaming] a bit of a hazard, isn’t it? Something you need?

D: I just, um… Er… What do you think of the Soviet strategy versus Germany in World War Two?

G [out of breath]: HOLY FUCK. YOUR POLYCULE HAS A VINZ CLORTHO TOO?

D: I AM NOT… Um. We were just, sort of, er, having a tangent — as per our established podcast format —  and we wanted to get your opinion… As, er, as the leader of our polycule.

A: What, of scorched earth? [brightly] I approve of it! Obviously! [to Gozer] AND THAT IS A THREAT, YOU TRAIN-WEARING DRY FUCK! [to Devon] Did we, er, form a polycule during this tangent? I mean, it’s not the weirdest thing we’ve ever…

D: No, no… Well, sort of. But I was thinking more like… The idea of letting one’s enemy tire itself out and then, er, allowing the Russian winter, the natural defence of, um, Communism against foreign invaders to, er, sort of… finish them off?

G [charmed]: AWW. THIS LITTLE BEING THINKS THEY ARE BEING SUBTLE. THAT IS RIGHT, LITTLE BEING. YOU ARE SO CLEVER. BOOP.

A: HEY! DON’T BOOP MY FRIEND! YOU DON’T ROLL UP TO MY GRAPHICS ENGINE AND START BOOPING MY FRIENDS WITH YOUR… YOUR DEMON TRAIN LIMBS!

D [dazed]: Xe could’ve taken my head off with that…

G: I APOLOGIZE. SHALL WE CALL A TIMEOUT AND ORGANIZE OUR RESPECTIVE UNDERLINGS? SOMEONE SEEMS TO HAVE SAID THE WORD B-A-L-L WITHIN EARSHOT OF MY VINZY.

A: Um, yes, I suppose. You’re being… incredibly polite about your murder attempt.

G: WELL, WITHOUT POINTLESS RITUAL AND CEREMONY, WHAT WOULD WE BE?

D & A [almost on top of each other]: Are you BRITISH?

G: EMPHATICALLY NO.

A: So, what are we doing?

D: Frantically feeling our nose to make sure it’s still attached?

A: And apart from that?

D: We want one more change of engineering disaster. We think if we pick Liam’s van, we might be able to summon a lamassu…

A: Are we assuming Ishtar is on our side for some reason?

D: What…? You knew Ishtar upgraded Liam’s van?

A: Dev, I did the slides for this. I had a truly hilarious one about Mesopotamian rock-paper-scissors. All the gods are extremely petty and hate each other, but they’re quite willing to team up and take out a group or individual they hate more. Ishtar is very into love and war and sex, so I just assumed… Well, I mean look at xem. Er, well, not the demon train version, the one with the watch and the camera. I suppose it all depends on the nature of this “new world” xe seems to…

D [quickly]: Almost everyone will die, and there will be a lake of fire in which cute things endlessly suffer, with occasional breaks to play with the Terror Dogs. We got it straight from the Terror Dogs’ mouths.

A: No sex at all?

D: I can’t speak for Gozer and the dogs, but unless the cute things get terribly bored in the lake of fire…

A: Oh. [chuckles] Oh, she wouldn’t like that.

D: So, instead of straight-up murdering the train, and collapsing the pocket dimension with us in it, we thought we’d tag in Liam’s new van. [more pained] He already tried to summon it and it didn’t work. So, er, as you said, “mountain to Mohammed” and all that.

A: Well, I’m game, but I don’t know how we’re going to convince Gozer to change forms again…

G: PARDON ME.

A: [screams, sound of a laser blast]

D: FUCK! How does a train monster that is also on fire “sneak up”? Huh? You have no right to stealth!

G: WE ARE GODS AND REALITY OBEYS OUR EVERY WHIM, ARE WE NOT?

D: Um. Right.

G [fondly]: THE DUMB ONES ARE ALWAYS THE CUTEST. ANYWAY, VINZ CLORTHO WILL NOT BE DISSUADED FROM LOOKING FOR THE BALL, NOT EVEN BY ANOTHER BALL, SO WOULD YOU LIKE TO ASSEMBLE YOUR POLYCULE AND CHANGE FORM… [pregnant pause] OR ARE YOU GOING TO STICK WITH THE GORE-ENCRUSTED PODCAST?

A [happily]: Gore-encrusted podcast all the way! And we’d like to pick…

Part 10

[matan4il]

Hopefully, this doesn't sound weird, but I have been trying to better educate myself and pick up on queer coding. There was one line in season 4 that pinged with me, and I was curious about your thoughts? Eddie tells Carla being with Anna is nice, it's easy. Remember the 2 cake birthday dinner???

But it hit weird outside of the follow your own heart line for me. If a friend of mine said that to me I would be happy for them. It's not a cry of like this relationship is nothing I actually want. I would kind of assume it's the same for same sex couples? Like the goal of a relationship is, it's easy. Sure you want passion and all, but typically that's not the way the conversation goes you know. It's almost as if Carla knows something?

Am I reading into his line or delivery? I mean, is it just boring to be comfortable with a lover that I read more insecurities into that line than needed be?

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for the ask.

It sounds quite sweet, actually! And that’s a very interesting line that you touch upon. Okay, so I’m gonna answer in two parts, one in general, and one with a specific queer angle in mind.

First, the general angle. I do think being comfortable with your lover is one of the goals of relationships, to get to the place where you’re not scared of losing them, so you have the freedom to be fully yourself and fully confident that you have each other, that you have chosen each other. But at the same time, I don’t think it’s only being comfortable that’s the goal. I believe like most things in life, it’s about the balance. It’s about being comfortable in your daily life together, but still maintaining a certain thrill and excitement when it comes to more intimate times. It’s about knowing you have this person, but then every once in a while still looking at them and thinking that they’re SO amazing, and how did you get so lucky that they chose to be with you? It’s about still sharing this challenge and spark with each other in the bedroom (or outside of it, if kids aren’t around) even after you’ve been together for quite a while. Don’t get me wrong, if all you have is excitement and you never get to the point where you’re comfortable and secure in the r/s, that’s not good. But it’s also not good to only be comfortable and lose every bit of passion and fire that the r/s offers, because that’s a part of how we feel alive, and sustained by this partnership.

We learn that being with Ana, at a relatively early stage of the r/s, is already lacking that thrill for Eddie, which says that there’s something wrong with their chemistry. He knows she’s great, but it sounds like it’s an intellectual understanding, not something that he feels in his bones and drives him crazy with how incredible it is that he gets to be with someone that great. (BTW, I just gotta throw in here a reminder about how it’s canon that Buck thinks Eddie is THAT great, and that’s what made him that jealous in 201. Or that Eddie becomes convinced Buck is THAT great, and that’s why Eddie’s so willing to partner up with Buck and even introduce him to Chris)

At the same time, there is a queer angle. Because look, if you’re gay, for most of human history, you were expected to give up on the thrill of real attraction and settle for what society tells you that you’re meant to do, which is marry someone of the opposite sex in order to have a “normative” family together. That’s what Eddie convinces himself he should do when it comes to Ana, give up on what he wants to have in a r/s in favor of giving his son what’s best for Chris. He thinks he should give up his personal happiness and fulfillment for the sake of the normative idea of a family. So yes, there is absolutely a queer angle to this line on top of the general one that says if all you are with your partner is comfortable, if there’s nothing about being with them that sends a rush down your spine, then they may not be right for you.

I hope I managed to explain this? Have a great day! As always, here’s my ask tag! xoxox

[whileiamdying]

We’ll Never Live in a World Without Tina Turner

Nothing could ever scare the fire out of her voice, which carried the whole story of American music in it

BY ROB SHEFFIELD MAY 24, 2023

DENIZE ALAIN/SYGMA/GETTY IMAGES

Tina Turner didn’t just pull off the greatest comeback in music history — she invented the whole concept of the comeback as we know it. She became a solo superstar when she was 44. Things like that simply don’t happen. That’s how old Brandy, Usher, Adam Levine, Lance Bass, and John Legend are right now. At that age, Tina Turner was just beginning.

Turner, who died Wednesday at 83, carried the whole story of American music in her voice, because in so many ways, she was that story, but she was also a lot more. She was Anna Mae Bullock from Nutbush, Tennessee, daughter of sharecroppers, fighting her way in and out of the chitlin circuit. She was just a kid when she got famous, as half of Ike & Tina Turner. Her deep-country voice and his guitar always made a fearsome combo, in Fifties hits like “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” and “I Idolize You.” “The emotions I expressed were real because I lived those feelings,” she wrote in Rolling Stone in a 2019 essay. “Even ‘Private Dancer’ — which seems to be about prostitution, but is also about wishes, hopes, and dreams — tells the story of women like me, caught up in sad situations, who somehow find a way to go on.”

Her defining hit was “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” a shocker from the summer of 1984. The song has gotten so familiar, it’s easy to overlook how it shocked the audience, on the radio in between Madonna, Prince and Cyndi Lauper. Unlike anyone else near her age, she had zero interest in passing for young. This woman had lived. She’d stared down more hard times than your miserable Smiths-loving teenage mind could imagine. The audience didn’t know what she’d been through — she wasn’t telling those stories yet. But even a kid could hear the rage and pain in her voice. A grandmother, and tougher than anyone.

She emerged in the Sixties as a one-woman genre — too rock for R&B, too R&B for rock, too brawny for girlie novelties, too raw-voiced for youthful romance. Her most famous hits with Ike were about how much hard road she’d already traveled, like “Proud Mary” and “Nutbush City Limits.” But her never-quite-youthful youth was just the opening act, because she truly became Tina Turner in 1984, with Private Dancer. It was a whole new kind of blockbuster, shimmying over generational, racial, cultural, musical boundaries. She was the first rock star who made a big deal about being a grandmother. Lots of stars had claimed to be the Queen of Rock & Roll, but after Private Dancer, nobody came near that crown.

She had a new audience of Eighties fans, but hardly any of them knew any of the music she’d made with her ex-husband. For them, Tina Turner was right now. Neither she nor they wanted to recall her past. “Rhythm and blues to me has always been a bit of a downer,” she said. She couldn’t stand it when the press used the word “victim.” She had rocking to do.

Tina told her life story many times — in interviews, her books (the keeper is the 2019 memoir My Love Story), the Broadway musical Tina, the classic biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It. (Your mom is probably watching it on Lifetime right now.) The story turns on her escape from and triumph over her abusive marriage. But people still underestimate the cultural importance of Turner telling that story. Strange as it might seem today, she was the first star to talk aloud about domestic violence, to insist on it as part of the story, not to gloss over it or act coy. Until she came along, the idiom “domestic violence” wasn’t even part of the language. “I admire her survival as a battered wife,” Gloria Steinem told Rolling Stone in December 1984. “For someone well-known to talk about it helps.” 

Hero worship for Tina Turner is practically an industry, yet we’re still underrating what she did and how much interior resources she had to call on to get it done, at a time when there was no precedent or protocol. She still doesn’t get enough credit for that, but it’s not the kind of credit she really wanted. Part of her greatness is refusing to be the professional survivor the media wanted her to be. She didn’t need another hero.

She epitomized the story of rock if anyone did. She sang her ferocious “Come Together” just three months after Abbey Road, breathing more sex and dread into it than even John Lennon could have imagined. Many years and several lives later, she was onstage with Paul McCartney in 1986, when he sang “Get Back” live for the first time since the rooftop. It’s a star-studded charity event with Elton John, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, etc. Yes, obviously, Phil Collins is on drums. Tina sings the verse about Sweet Loretta, an American girl who leaves a home she can’t get back to. She’s the only Black artist here, almost the only American, definitely the only woman. She lived Loretta’s story before Paul even wrote the song. The jam keeps rolling, but after Tina, nobody goes near that microphone. She has just shut up the planet’s most un-shut-uppable men. She’s the grown-up on this stage. Every other rock star here is a child.

JANUARY, 1975: Ann-Margret Olsson, a TV variety special, from the golden days of TV variety specials. Ann-Margret introduces Tina as her best friend. They duet on “Nutbush City Limits,” Tina’s life story, and then “Honky Tonk Women,” the Rolling Stones’ ode to Memphis queens. (Ann-Margret screams the line “He blew my nose and then he blew my mind!”) Then they bump and grind to — what else?— “Proud Mary.”

What could be a more American duet? Ann-Margret, the Swedish song-and-dance girl, star of Kitten With A Whip, the Hollywood bombshell who shook her hips with Elvis in Viva Las Vegas. Tina Turner, the sharecropper’s daughter from Nutbush, Tennessee. They bonded when they were filming The Who’s rock-opera movie, Tommy. (In the movie, Tina plays the Gypsy Queen who symbolizes acid; A-M gets drowned in baked beans. Times were hard for rock & roll queens in 1975.)

But here they are singing about rollin’ on the Mississippi River steamboats. They’re laughing so hard as they dance, they’re practically falling over. Neither of them really belongs on a steamboat, and neither did the guy who wrote the song, a white suburban kid from El Cerrito named John Fogerty. He’s never set foot on the bayou, but he’s gotten drafted, served his time, and worked his way back into the bar-band scene with Creedence Clearwater Revival. This song is a fantasy, but all three of them traveled a long distance to get here, and the song is a generous river that carries them all. “You on a riverboat?” A-M asks. “There hasn’t been one of those around in 75 years!” Tina laughs, “I wear my eighties well!” 

Tina already had a hit with “Proud Mary” in the Sixties, but in 1975 she has no idea what this song will mean to her in years to come. She’ll turn “Proud Mary” into a feminist rock anthem, representing all the unspeakable (and unspoken) violence she escapes and her determination to claim her own story. But right now, she’s still trapped in her marriage to Ike. In less than a year, she will finally leave him, on the Fourth of July. She’s got nothing to her name but 36 cents, a gas-station credit card, and the blood-stained white suit on her back. Ann-Margret takes her in, hooking her up with designer Bob Mackie and a divorce lawyer.

But right now, it’s just Ann-Margret and Tina, singing on a TV soundstage in London. They can’t stop laughing hysterically. Two women sharing a weirdly private joke in a public place. The big wheel keeps on turnin’.

AFTER SHE ESCAPED Ike, Tina was written off by the whole music business. She was a Black woman in her forties. It was time for the oldies circuit. But she discovered that there was a rising Eighties generation of New Wave kids, especially in the U.K. And they idolized Tina Turner. She did a 1982 duet with Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, in their side project as B.E.F., the British Electric Foundation. She was shocked these kids didn’t see her as washed-up. They saw her as a vibrant, relevant legend in her prime. As she wrote in My Love Story, “Martyn, who was practically a boy, though a very talented one, happened to think that this middle-aged singer had a bright future.”

Tina sang “Ball of Confusion” with them, in one take. To her amazement, it took off on a brand new cable network the kids were into. MTV had a nationwide audience and a playlist full of unconventional Black rockers who didn’t fit into radio: Prince, Grace Jones, Joan Armatrading, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley. “Ball of Confusion” made her an MTV star, even though American radio wouldn’t touch her. She cut another single and video with Martyn Ware, a remake of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” an even bigger hit.

That led to the night that changed her life, in NYC, January 1983. David Bowie was having dinner with his new record label, right before Let’s Dance came out, getting wined and dined, but he informed them he had plans for the night: He was going to see Tina Turner live. He wouldn’t dream of missing her. He dragged everyone along with him. Her manager Roger Davies got a last-minute call, asking for 63 spots on the guest list. “My Cinderella moment,” she called it in her book. “That night at the Ritz was the equivalent of going to the ball (minus the part about Prince Charming) because it changed my life dramatically.” 

After the show, she raised hell all night with Bowie, Keith Richards, and Ron Wood, sitting around the hotel piano, singing Motown classics, guzzling Dom Perignon. They posed for one of the coolest rock photos of all time: Tina, Keith and Bowie all drinking from the same bottle of Jack Daniels. She was a rock star now, forever. Her story was just beginning. 

It was funny for fans how she was so into old-school rock, but she spiced up her live set with ZZ Top’s “Legs” (she had them) and Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” (she wasn’t). At Live Aid, dueting with Mick Jagger, the song they did was “It’s Only Rock & Roll But I Like It.”

But she was really ahead of her time. The concept of “classic rock” didn’t exist yet. (Not until the radio format began in 1986.) Rock culture was still so stuck on the mythos of youth and newness that her Seventies-retro concept was kinda ahead of her time. In a way, it’s an underrated Tina innovation: the Black grandma who invented dad rock.

ROLLING STONE BLEW up Private Dancer with one of the most influential reviews the magazine has ever run, from the brilliant critic Debby Miller. The review framed the Tina Turner comeback narrative, as the world has known it ever since. The final lines: “Last year, I heard Tina Turner sing that awful Terry Jacks song ‘Seasons in the Sun’ on television, and she found something in it that broke her heart. Imagine her doing the same thing to good songs.” 

She and Bowie always had one of the most endearing rock-star friendships — they always brought out the weird in each other. They duetted on his strange Pepsi commercial, starring David as Dr. Frankenstein and Tina as the rock goddess in his laboratory, both singing on “Modern Love.” They also duetted on a weirdly touching synth-reggae version of “Tonight” in 1984, about lovers separated by death, their voices meshing for the payoff lines “I will love you till I die/I will see you in the sky/Tonight.” She found her permanent home in Zurich, becoming a Swiss citizen. In so many ways, her closest career twin was Leonard Cohen, a fellow Nicheren Buddhist devotee. They were both born in the Thirties, but blew up in the Eighties as icons of middle-aged cool, after decades in the game. They showed everyone else how to age gracefully, flaunting the cracks in their voices, living their long weird lives in the tower of song.

When her life story became the Angela Bassett movie What’s Love Got To Do With It, she stole the show at the end with “Proud Mary.” But she couldn’t bring herself to watch it. As she wrote in Rolling Stone, “I never saw What’s Love Got to Do With It because I was too close to those painful memories at the time, and I was afraid it would be upsetting, like watching a documentary.” She resisted the idea of the 2019 Broadway musical Tina for the same reason, saying, “I didn’t feel like talking about that stuff from the past because it gave me bad dreams.” But she loved the musical when she saw it with an audience. She said, “I want to pass the baton, so to speak, to them, and anyone facing a challenge, so they leave the theater standing proud, with their chests out and chins up, inspired to believe, ‘I can do it.’” 

Really, she spent her whole life doing that. And that’s why Tina Turner’s voice will never go silent. In the end, she is the big wheel who keeps on turning, forever.

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

So they do have the gene 😭 well I think they'd have to so they still probably have a chance of not getting it

I think they would've already outright said if they did (also I looked it up, since I'm doing this a little while later because I was doing something, and yeah it's basically 50/50)

AAAAHHHHHHH YEP CONFIRMATION TK HAS IT TOO 😭😭😭😭

AAAAAHHHHH CARLOSSS 😭😭😭 MY BOYSSS

S T O P P P HE LOOKS SO HEARTBROKEN AND LOST 😭😭😭😭💔💔❤️

I just love him so much 😭😭

I will be glad to get the tarlos moments though :')

OPE that doesn't look good o.o

Oh no 😭 and poor guy to be in that bad of shape too :((

Uhhh ohhhh

Then how are they gonna get him out? Or like save him I mean if they have to

I mean they're them so they'll probably stay

AAHHHH YEP EVACUATION

:O NO! TOMMY NO!

AAAAHHHHHHHH

UH OH UH OH UH OH

TOMMMMYYY

OH NO O.O

I don't think they'd permanently/majorly injure someone or kill them off this close to the wedding but still A A H

I'm stressed xd

That's the last of my last thoughts! Now it's time for the. . .

REVIEW

I looved this episode!! I always love Grace storylines and even though I was scared for her for half of it (seeing the girl in the bathtub and remembering what this episode was gonna be was STRESSFUL let me tell you xD), she slayed so hard this episode :DD. By the way the two o's in "loved" was on purpose lol, three (more obviously on purpose) just didn't fit quite right. Anyway, I also enjoyed the Robert and TK/Owen/kind of Carlos plot as well :D! Even if we didn't see to much of it :). But I am S C A R E D. I honestly don't know how this will end up. Anyway, it was great to see the team :D, even if it wasn't too much, and it was nice how even with these bigger plots going on, the type of episode without other calls, we still had one since it led up to the main storyline :). And of course we love Grace and Carlos working together again 🥰🥰. So yeah, just a really great episode all around :D. A bit heartbreaking though xd.

Now it's time for the individual parts!

Marjan! She was great this episode :D. Also, I considered putting most of the team together, but I decided not to and to just put everyone separate this episode :)). Anyway, we didn't see her much, but she slayed as always 🥰. She was great at her job :D. I love her 🥰🥰.

Paul! He was great this episode too, even if we didn't see him much :D. Also we've seen it before but I just love him being the honest one lol xD :). Little details like that are what help bring it together and make them feel like a family :). Anyway, he was great at his job this episode 🥰. Even in the face of relighting fire lol. I love him <33.

Mateo! Even though we didn't see much of him this episode, he was great :D. He also survived (I say that not quite literally but, secondarily, literally as well xD) the relighting fire lol, so good for him xD :D. And he was great at his job this episode :)). Also him saying TK's face looked symmetrical XD. Way to be too specific so we know it's the opposite my boy, lol <33. I love him 🥰🥰❤️.

Nancy! She was great this episode :D. I loved her little interrupt lunch line xD. Anyway, she was great at her job 🥰. Even through the crazy that was illegal organ transplant man xd. Though at least she fared better than TK lol. She did help find the guy though, so that was good :D. But yeah :))! I love her ❤️❤️🥰.

Tommy! She was great this episode 🥰. I especially loved her little moments with Grace :)). Like at the fire station, but even more so the one at the end with her telling Grace to stop moving xD. It's just little things but they're adorable :'). They're besties, your honor <33. Also, she better be okay next episode 😭. I think she probably will, almost definitely, but that doesn't stop me from being afraid xd. She wouldn't leave that man there though, so hopefully they both make it out <33. Safely, as well lol. Even if they have to be rescued, they better be okay :'). Or at least Tommy, no offense sir lol. But back to this episode, I'm glad she managed to help solve everything :). She was great at her job :D. I love her 🥰🥰.

Owen! I live in FEAR!! Anyway xD, he was great this episode lol :). His little moments with Robert were so cute 🥰. He just wants to be brothers your honor :D. I like just said that but whatever I don't care xD. Anyway, I'm glad they get to spend this time together <33. Especially given the news at the end of the episode 😭. I think Owen has a worse chance writing wise than TK, but we'll just have to see. But based on my little bit of research, TK's not even at risk if Owen doesn't have it. So. AAH. Anyway xd. Scary <3. I really do hope everything ends up okay :((. But I'll talk a bit more about that in Judd's - you'll see why. Anyway, I don't think we even saw Owen work this episode xD. But, I'm sure he was good at his job lol :). I love him <33 ❤️.

TK! AAAAHHHHHHHH!! Once again, I LIVE IN FEAR!! Anyway, we'll get to that in a moment xdd. TK was great this epsiode 🥰. Poor man got injured again xdd. I would say punched again, but I don't think we've seen him get punched since 1x03 lol, so I don't think that really counts XD. And he didn't get a concussion, just a black eye, so I'mma just stick to injury. Still, it's just a very TK thing to do xdd. Well, happen to him more than do lol. Anyway xD. Man was going through it lol <33. And he'll be going through it MORE, NEXT EPISODE 😭😭. Sorry, sorry, still not time yet xD. Anyway, seeing him be so excited to meet Robert was so sweet :'DD. And find out about his cousins, of course 🥰🥰. I doubt we'll get it but I honestly really wanna see them come by for a visit at some point in the future, so TK can be a big cousin :'D. Anyway, it was super cute :')). And I love that Robert gave him the journal 😭. So sweet :')). Now TK has a chance to know his grandfather a bit :'D. Loved it <33. Ahh, anyway, I have to mention again that I just enjoyed them mentioning TK getting decked by that guy lol. Idk, it's hard to explain 🥰. I think it's just my love of angst, acknowledgement of injury, and outsider pov lol xDD. Anyway, now, about next episode 😭. I am S C A R E D!! I don't THINK they'd have TK find this out right before his wedding, but I'm not totally sure. I think, like I said, it has a better chance of Owen having it and TK not. Especially since, based on TK research, Owen would have to have it for TK to have a chance of having it. So unless the scare is before they find out if Owen has it or not (and TK's just saying in the scene we saw a bit of, or whatever scene he says it in if it isn't that tarlos scene, that it's in their family) and then it turns out neither of them have it, realistically I'm more eorried about Owen o.o. But favoritism wise I'm more worried about TK xD. I just really hope it all ends up okay 😭😭😭💔💔❤️❤️. I just want them both to be okay <33. I am really sorry for Robert though :((. And it sucks that they'll have to lose him <33 :'((. Maybe we'll see the cousins then lol. Anyway xD. TK was great at his job this episode :). I'm glad he helped find the guy, and we even got a little tarlos moment out of it :D. Yes I'm talking about the "babe", leave me alone XD. And of course the scene after getting punched with the 126 was amazing lol. I love him 🥰🥰❤️❤️.

Judd! He was great this episode :D. I loved all the him and Grace moments 🥰🥰. They are my babeys your honor <333. And I just love how no matter what, even when he needs to call her out, he always supports her <33. They always support each other :')). It's just so great to see <33. And the bit at the end was amazing XD. First fod all, the little forehead kiss 😭😭😭😭?? I'm dead <333, theya re so adorbale your honor :')) <3333. And then him telling off the Detective dude xDD - gold. Literally amazing lol <33. Anyway, I'm so glad Grace is okay, and obviously Judd is too :')). Also, Charlie content <333. We love to see it :D 🥰🥰. And ik I'm just repeaitng the same stuff but the call comforting her, wanting to take off work and take her home, giving he a shoulder massage - he loves her so much and he was there for her every step of the way 😭. Your honor I just love them <333. Anyway, now about next episode xdd. I say xdd because it looks like it's gonna be so crazy lol. But you may be wondering: Oasis, what does that have to do with Judd? Because he looks to be in charge, probably while Owen deals with the situation caused by this week's news? Well, partly, my dear friends, but that's not entriely it. xD. Now, here's the thing. When I went to rewatch the promo (which I did like three times in a row lol) so I could remember little details and the order of things for my delayed liveblogging of it, I saw a comment that was basically like "Is Judd captain now?". Here's the thing: we've been seeing that a lot lately. We know he's basically next in line. I say basically because I mean like "next in line" lol. Anyway! My point is, we've been seeing it a lot. And now, Owen is being threatened by a terminal illness. As in, he might have one. We know he wants Judd to take over should he retire or should something happen to him, which I basically already said, but I bring up because that was after a life threatening experience. He's already been thinking about this. So, though this part I didn't specifically think about until just now (and I don't feel like going back and adding it to Owen's), I wouldn't be surprised if Owen retired next episode. I mean, I would till be surprised, but if he receives a Huntington's diagnosis, I wouldn't be surprised :'(. We've been transitioning Judd viewer wise, having seen him direct so many calls, so it would make sense. But my original thought wasn't that specific. Just that seeing Judd in this role so often would prepare us for Owen leaving, one way or another. And Huntington's would definitely be a reason to do that. And now that I think about it, especially if he wants to spend time with his brother. He even said this episode he was having to take a fair amount of time off work. There's just a bunch of layers to it and whole I'd hate it, I think it would make sense if it does happen. I mean, I'd love Judd as captain, he'd be great at it (as we've seen). But I just don't want that big change right now xd. In my life and also in the timeline of the show lol. And I don't wanna lose Owen <33. Because if he retired, there would be no choice but to see him less. And while sometimes I wouldn't mind that xD, I don't want him gone :'(. I'd miss him <3. But, hopefully this is all just conjecture :'), and Judd's takeover that makes it sound like a hostile takeover lol) doesn't happen till farther in the future :')). I won't say much farther, but past all of this lol. Anyway, back to Judd this episode xd (honestly the future stuff as accidentally more about Owen but whatever, it was also about Judd and if I talk about it in the first one I have to talk about it in both, instead of just the second lol xD it's just more dramatic this way XD). He slayed so hard 🥰. And, as always, he loves Grace with his entire being :DD. I love him <33 ❤️🥰❤️.

Carlos! He was great this episode :D. Like I've said, I love a good Carlos and Grace team up 🥰🥰. I'm so glad we got them again this episode :D. Yk, I was scared (not literally but like ohh noo that would be awkward lol) that TK's section would be longer than Judd's, since I'm kind of puting them in length/focus order, but now I'm thinking Carlos and Grace's won't be aslon as Judd's xD. Ah well, he was sharing some of it with Owen lol. Anyway xD. WE FINALLY GOT NEWS ON DETECTIVE REYES!! It's unfortunately not happening xdd xD. I mean, I think there's still a chance it'll happen in the future (especially if he gets injured or something, but I don't want him to be forced into it xd - or if they do end up having kids I feel like it's more likely. Not necessarily more likely than patrol cop, but more likely to happen then than at another time), but for right now it appears to be a no go :/. I really do want it at some point, but at the same time, I like having him as a patrol officer :D. If only there were something in between xd. I mean, besides him just helping out when he can. But with all his skills I think I will probably happen eventually. I will say though, from a writing standpoint patrol officer does make more sense. With Carlos as a patrol officer he can have more professional interactions with the other characters than he would as a detective. They're much more likely to see each other on calls. So yeah, I don't think they'll just leave it entirely, but it could at least be a more central and solid storyline in the future, the choice and whatnot. But, eh, we'll see :D. For now I just love him 🥰🥰. And I'll love him no matter what :D :). Anyway, I'm scared for TK next week 😭. And thus I'm scared for him <33. But I'm also really excited for that tarlos scene :'DD, the (all, hopefully) the others we'll get :')) 🥰. Presumably lol. But I'm sure there will be at least a couple xD. Anyway, he was amazing at his job this week :)). I'm so glad they caught the trafficking ring :'D. Vengeance for Liz :'). I may have gotten her name wrong there so that's awkward but I'll check later and edit if I'm wrong, even if it's after this sentence lol. Anyway, justice for her and all those other girls too :'DD 🥰🥰🥰. That's great <33. I'm so proud of them all - the victims, and everyone for solving it :D. But yeah, Carlos was awesome :')). I love him <33 ❤️🥰.

Grace! She was amazing this episode :DDD 🥰🥰. She slayed so hard 🥰 :D. Liz (again, I think that was her name xd) dying was so sad DD': 😭😭💔. And I felt so bad for Grace :'((. Not to even mention the part about Charlie - no matter how awful it is, she's right. She's had to fear that, and she has to fear it for Charlie, and that's just horrible :'(( 😭💔. But I'm glad this time everything worked out okay :')) <33. Well, not okay, but they caught them :'). They put a stop to the trafficking ring and I'm so proud of them all <3. But especially Grace :'D. She was there from the beginning, she was investigating form the beginning, she was bringing people in and protecting what people she could. Even if some of it was reckless xD, she did wonderful and I'm so proud of her <33. I know I already said it but it bears repeating xD. And like I also said earlier, Grace and Carlos ALWAYS slay :DD. I know we've only gotten them one other time, unless you count searching for Marjan (I'll probably count that as half lol), but their team up is legendary :)) ;). I love them together <33. Anyway, I'm so glad Grace is okay :'D. I was SCARED with that promo o.o, and throughout the episode, but I figured she would be okay. But some of that figuring was hope, and eve when you know they'll be okay it's still scary xdd. But, she's alright :)). Because she's really freaking smart and an amazing actress xD :D. Honestly, her switching the glasses was so good XD. I didn't think about her doing that but I figured she had to know it was dosed so I just didn't know what would happen lol. Anyway, I feel kind of bad that she was the main character this episode, and the last in the review, but her section will probably be smaller than the last three xd. I still love my girl though <333. And it'll be close, maybe longer than the last one, so eh :)). Anyway, I have to say again that I loved her and Judd this episode :'DD. They're always adorbale but it's always nice to see how much they love each other :')) <333. Those two "always"s are very close together but it just needed to be that way lol. Anyway, they're just so sweet, and they had a bunch of tender moments too :')). As per usual, lol ❤️. They're just great and I love my children so much <33. It's just beautiful to see how much they love each other and how supportive they are of one another :'DD. Anyway, yeah <333. Grace was amazing at he job his episode :)). I love her ❤️❤️🥰🥰 <33.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode! I thought the plots were great, and there were some really funny moments xD. There were also some really heartbreaking ones 😭, but they were great too <3. Honestly there wasn't too much humor this episode, but it still worked :). Everyone was great, even if we didn't see them much. I am SCARED for next time though xdd. For several people, lol - namely Tommy, Owen, and TK, but just in general lol. And AAHHH the last one before the finale :'D. I can't y'all it doesn't feel like it's over yet xd. But alas, it almost is :'D. At least then I won't have to worry about them all the time though, lol xD. It's like they're my reckless children lol (really, they are). Anyway! I loved this episode :)). It really brought the drama, but it also has a lot of really sweet moments :'DD 🥰. Emotions all around, and it was amazing :)).

So yeah! I loved this episode, I thought it was really great. I'm scared for the next one! This ahs been my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 15: Donors

It was amazing! I'm really excited for the next episode, but I'm also super nervous. I'll be back here next week with my review of. . .

9-1-1: Lone Star, Season 4, Episode 16: A House Divided

See you next week!

[maximuswolf]

Interested in console gaming for first time in a long time. Struggling with console decision

Interested in console gaming for first time in a long time. Struggling with console decision I'm in my early 30s and haven't been big into gaming in about 15 years. I was a hardcore gamer as a kid but just lost interest. I've played games super casually since then, firing up Skyrim or San Andreas for a couple of months at a time once in awhile. The most current console I have is an Xbox One, which spent more time as a Netflix machine than anything else in the decade that I've had it. With GTA 6 upcoming, it's time for me to get I've been an Xbox guy going all the way back to the original and playing Halo: CE on splitscreen. Of course my natural inclination is to go for an Xbox Series X, but the PS5 Pro is a really enticing machine. I can't quite put my finger on what's drawing me to the PS5, but after reading that the KOTOR remake is going to be PS5 exclusive, I'm officially torn. Funny how one game, that's a remake of a 20-year-old game, is making this a difficult decision for me.At the end of the day, exclusives are going to be the X-factor for me. Halo was my #1 back in the day, so of course that pulls weight with me. I played Infinite for a couple of months on my Xbox One when it launched but lost interest after season 2 didn't interest me. Now if I understand correctly they're abandoning live support entirely for Infinite. I've done some Googling about console exclusives, and neither side really had anything that jumped out at me as a "must play," that I didn't already know about, anyway. I'm interested in rpgs (mostly western but also some eastern), sci-fi shooters (not into Call of Duty), and action/adventure games. Besides GTA, I'm mostly interested in The Elder Scrolls. I know Bethesda is owned by Microsoft now. Are we thinking TES6 will be an Xbox exclusive? Will TES6 even come out in this console cycle? Despite the bad reviews I've heard, I'm interested in Starfield too.While I'm at it, how long do we expect this console cycle to last? Playing GTA6 at launch is non-negotiable, but I'm gonna be kinda peeved if I invest in a new console only for it to become outdated in only a year or two.I guess I'm leaning towards Xbox, but if there's some factor that I'm missing that makes the PS5 a much better machine, I don't want to choose Xbox just because of some sunk cost fallacy. Submitted October 15, 2024 at 02:17PM by comosedicewaterbed https://ift.tt/EMtBO3L via /r/gaming

[mionemymind]

Season 3, the first episode as Covid was happening was scary there’s like hundreds of people in the paddock. For them to even try to have a race was very dangerous, in Lewis we trust cause that “cash is king” line goes so hard. Really do hope he wasn’t the only driver that spoke up cause I get that driving is their life but if someone on their team or anyone around them really, caught Covid that could of be the end of there life. Very glad it was cancelled

Lewis Hamilton is definitely that fucking guy, everyone trying to stop he’s greatness. Like what kind of bullshit Horner can pull out he’s ass sorry but I dislike Horner so much. Which sucks cause I love Max. Even Hamilton’s own teammate was rooting for he’s down fall which sucks, but I kinda get Valtteri he had to sacrifice a lot, all any of these drivers want is to be in first place.

Honestly hate how everything was handled with the FIA they need to do better. With Racing Point how are u gonna fine and take points any but still let them use the car without any changes. If there car was legal why all the so called repercussions put y’all’s foot down and make a decision. That’s literally what y’all r there for to clear up all the gray areas with the rules among other issues.

Omg Lando and Carlos are so cute together will be on a deep dive on YouTube once I finish catching up with the series. Watching McLaren take that 3rd spot for the Constructions championship was exciting. On another note I need more content of all the drivers.

My heart quite literally stopped seeing that crash, Grosjean getting to walk out of that was a fucking miracle how do u survive that. Like the car was in half, him emerging from the fire gave me chills such a scary scene. Him retiring as “The Man That Walked Out of Fire” was a great end to he’s legacy.

I really took a liking to Checo he’s story at the end was very sweet. Going from last to first place, so deserved for him. Hope he does well at Red Bull. Even though I despise Horner lol.

Loved this season, enjoyed the LGBTQ+ representation everywhere and the “End Racsim” everywhere too. Very much need to mention that Lewis Hamilton being so out spoken about he’s views is why he deserves everything he’s has achieved. Also very much need more gifs of Carlos plzzzzz.

-S

During the season where covid was at its height, it was so stupid to race because imagine if a driver got seriously hurt, they would probably be transported to a hospital that's already overflowing with covid patients and other people that got hurt too.

And honestly, Valtteri needs more praise for all the sacrifice he made just to Lewis can also get his victory. It's hard finding selfless teammates and that's why Lewis will always have Valtteri as his favorite teammate. And honestly, Horner really makes me hate Redbull and Max is one of the reasons I stay.

And you'll find that the FIA make stupid decisions all the time love. This isn't the first time. And you'll really love Carlos and Lando. Just something about them together was so great.

And Grosjean's story, like he will always be remembered for that incident but I'm just glad he was able to walk away from that.

And although I loved Checo, I wish they gave Alex more time because he was a really good rookie.

But Lewis is the honestly the biggest reasons why F1 is inclusive at all. Without him, it would still be a white man's sport without a doubt.

And here's another gif for you S :))

(Gif Credits to @dutchgp)